Celebrity Wife Swap Recap: Gary Busey and Ted Haggard

Hey hey, Gasmii.  Let me begin by saying, holy shit did you know that you can infuse gummy bears with vodka simply by soaking them in the fridge?  They taste amazing, look mostly innocuous if you’re walking around eating them, and I have been shoveling them down my gullet for the past four days.  There is nothing more fun than a random grown-up night at the skating rink with a bunch of friends and a bag of vodka gummies.  I hurt like hell today, but that’s why god made MORE vodka gummies.

And Themiki was pleased…

Oh yeah, and there’s a show to recap.  ABC decided to be dicks and hit me with two episodes this week with zero warning, so I apologize for the delay in getting this up.  I know the paragraph above makes it sound like my life is all fun and games (and vodka) but I actually do run on a pretty tight schedule (it’s just that the things that keep me busy are things I can drink while doing), and I only had one night carved out for recapping last week. I think this may be totally worth having to fuck up my calendar for the week though, because tonight we’re swapping out Gary “I will rip your endocrine system out of your body” Busey with Ted “Jesus hates the gays which is why I do blow off their cocks” Haggard.

Seen here being creepy as all fuck

Are you guys ready?  Got your drinks?  Whipped cream flavored vodka and/or alcoholic childhood candy?  Let’s bring on the cray-cray!

 

So first off, Gary isn’t even married.  He’s engaged to a woman who calls herself The Busey Whisperer, and who thinks that his whole near-death motorcycle experience has blessed him with knowledge of the hereafter.  I’m more prone to thinking he’s been blessed with oxygen deprivation related brain damage, but the last time I hung out with a “psychic” she accused me of crushing her soul, so what do I know?

No really, tell me again about my aura is littered with negativity. I’m totally listening.

Gary talks about balls which are actually angels, and I giggle, cause “balls.”

Gary demonstrates the proper technique for cupping angel balls

Gary’s fiance is a hypnotherapist who talks about reincarnation.  Apparently she and Gary are on their 32nd lives together, and they were the parents of Emperor Constantine.  Yay, a whole house full of cray-cray.  Oh, and they have a little boy with a blessedly normal name, and he’s super cute.

Can I keep it?

Over in Colorado, we meet the Haggard family, father Ted tells us about his “Moral failure” in 2006, which led to the loss of his Evangelical ministry.  After hiding out for a few years, Ted is back in the preaching business, leading St James Church with his wife, who inexplicably decided to stand by her gay, meth-addict husband.  She tells us that she stayed because Jesus taught her to love and forgive.  I’m sorry, but there’s no way.  There’s just no way.  And this is coming from a girl who dated a sociopath for 18 months, but there are lines, okay?  There are lines, and one of those lines is DOING LINES off a gay hooker’s ass.  His wife is either frigid and terrified of sex and secretly stoked to be with a guy that never wants it, or she’s a lesbian and they’ve both been functioning as each others’ beards so they could pretend to be good little bible humpers.

We don’t use profanity or double negatives here at True Directions 

The Haggards have a buttload of children, and they want a chance to show the world who they really are, since they’re mostly famous for the meth and the hookers.

We also procreate irresponsibly…

So the show is called Wife Swap, which means the non celebrity wives be doing the swap and the celebrity husbands will be home greeting the new wives. There’s the general footage of the wives hugging their families goodbye and riding in cars and stuff, and then the moment of truth as they walk into their big, new, empty houses.  Gary’s fiance immediately notices an abundance of Christian paraphernalia, while Mrs Haggard looks terrified at the Jewish decor in part of the Busey house.  Don’t worry, Mrs Haggard, only one of their people killed Jesus.  The super crazy one is a good Christian like you.

The wives find the family pictures and realize whose homes they’re in.  Mrs Haggard expresses her concerns over having seen Gary on some TV show where everyone was mad at him, while the soon-to-be Mrs Busey says, “Oh, Ted Haggard.  Wasn’t he accused of gay prostitution and buying drugs?”

I pledge allegiance to hypocrisy…

500 page manual time!  Anyone curious as to how many pages actually have writing on them?  My money is on 2.

 

Mrs Haggard does that thing that mainstream religious folks do that makes me want to choke their faces off, right off the bat.  She reads about how the Buseys have had 31 past lives together and says she doesn’t understand how anyone can believe such craziness when it’s all just a whim.  Lady, all gay hooking aside, your religion teaches about talking snakes and parting seas and zombie saviors born of virgins and sacrificed to themselves.  I believe everyone has an inherent right to believe whatever they want, and clearly I believe in the right to mock the beliefs of others, but I wish people would have a little perspective.  If you follow a faith, then you believe in crazy shit.  Thinking you’re the reincarnated parents of Emperor Constantine and are surrounded by glowing angel balls is no crazier than thinking some dude getting nailed to a cross 2,000 years ago gives you carte blanche to pay some twink to suck you off.

Repent!  Embrace his noodly appendages!

Okay, I’ll get down off this soap box now.  Please, tell us more, wives of Wife Swap…

 

The un-Mrs-Busey, whose name I just figured out was Steffanie, meets Ted and the kids as they come home.  They’re all very friendly and nice, but there is something about Ted that sets me on edge. I think it’s the constant smiling.  Not like he’s happy, but like he’s had his face cosmetically frozen into a shit-eating grin so no one would ever know when he’s sad.  It’s fucking creepy as balls.

It’s really only awkward at funerals 

Over at Casa De Busey, Gary comes home and meets Mrs. Haggard. Speaking of creepiness, Gary always looks like he’s about to kidnap someone’s puppy and either eat it, slaughter it, or tell it about the kingdom of Christ.  Gary sits down with Gail (yeah, I finally caught her name too) and tells her he’s writing a book where he takes the letters of words to make definitions for them.  Then he tells her “okay” stands for “only kidding” and then inexplicably starts talking in this squeaky chipmunk voice.  Dude, what the fucking fuck?

Meds!  You should take some!

Gary starts spouting off to Gail about why spirituality is better than religion, and he tells her that she’s probably had more than one lifetime with Ted.  Gail is surprisingly diplomatic and tells him she’s open to finding out all about it when that day comes to meet her maker, but Gary ain’t having none of that diplomacy shit in his house, and he tells her to find out today because it’s true.  He then tells her that he’s been an American Indian and that he’s been burned at the stake as a witch.  Gail thinks his religion is not Christian and that he’s just making shit up as he goes along.  Fair enough, but most Christians make shit up as they go along, they just don’t make crazy Gary Busey face while they do it, so we pay them less mind.

Please don’t eat my soul 

Stephanie has a meeting that night with Gail’s women’s group.  She has a rough time reading out loud from the bible, but Ted turns on the pastor charm and helps her out with the group.  No real drama.

The next day she sits down and reads Gail’s book, and she’s taken aback by the way Gail refers to the gay hooker as the devil.  She goes and confronts Ted to find out what his feelings are about gay people in general.  Ted says that he welcomes gay people in his church, and while he’s hesitant about using the word “marriage” due to biblical definitions, he and his family do support civil unions.

Marriage, no.  Hookers, yes.  Just like in the bible. 

Gary decides to open up Gail’s spiritual world by introducing her to his Native American friend..  His friend is a wee bit of a douche-bag though, and he immediately sets Gail on edge by calling her a lost soul and trying to cleanse her with a giant feather.  They’re a little heavy-handed with the spirituality over on the Busey farm.

I could give you a full cleansing if you just get in my windowless van…

Steffanie, meanwhile, is speaking with the Haggard children about the scandal they went through.  Elliot, the youngest in the house, tells her that he was 12 when it all happened and he was very angry for a long time.

Anyone else getting a strong Tate vibe off of little Elliot?

Steffanie thinks that he has a lot of anger still inside that he’s burying under a happy persona, and she’s probably right.  Welcome to life, though.  Shitty stuff happens and generally when it’s as shitty as your pastor father blowing a hooker, you don’t ever get all the way over that.  I don’t know a whole lot of 20 year olds who aren’t cramming some anger at their parents down so they can function at life.

Above, Elliot Haggard.  Below, Tate from American Horror Story

 

You guys are seeing this freakish resemblance, right????

Oh hey, and at some steak restaurant we make the shocking discovery that Gary isn’t a very good conversational partner.  Gail listens to him yammer on and on and on and then finally asks him if he has any questions about her.  Gary sits in silence for a moment, and then asks her what athletic sports she participated in when she was younger, which is the only question he asked her when they first met (the answer is still barrel racing, btw).

I’m sorry, maybe if you tried being more interesting… 

Rule change time!  Let’s swap some wacky religious beliefs.

Gail’s new rules are called “Gail-isms” and they’re full of fortune cookie bullshit like, “Consistency builds sanity.”  Stephanie says she doesn’t think the family needs any more rules, so she’s calling her rules, “ways.”  The Haggards are going for a hike, while the Buseys will be taking a nice long walk with the boy-child every morning.  Gail plays along with Gary’s ridiculous book idea and makes a definition out of the letters in Gary’s name:  Genuinely Appreciated and Accepted (no idea why there are two a’s) Respected Yay.  Don’t quit your day job Gail.  She tells Gary she likes him just the way he is, and he tears up a little.   Awww… Crazy people have feelings too.

 

Stephanie has decided that Ted’s daughter needs more time with him, so they’ll be having a nice tea together.  Ted doesn’t realize that his kids want more of his time, and he feels like he makes plenty of time away from the church for them.  His daughter says she feels like he is very consumed by the church and the people in it, and she seems to me like she’s being friendly and non-confrontational, but that younger kid with the anger all up inside of him goes off on her for no reason about not appreciating their dad.  Yikes.  Okay, fine, you win Stephanie.  Get that kid some hypnotherapy and healing crystals and then surround him with angel balls.

This totally explains his irrational violence towards the gay couple that wouldn’t have a baby though

Time for the father/daughter tea date that Stephanie set up.  Ted says that his daughter works and goes to school and he’s incredibly happy that she wants to carve out time to spend with him.  Awww… It’s sweet.  It looks like they maybe had some trouble reconnecting for a while after the whole scandal, but they’re trying to rebuild their relationship and they really love each other, and no matter how fucked up a family (or the patriarch of it in this case) may be, I’m a sucker for that sort of understated daddy-daughter bond and it makes my insides kinda squishy.

Also, I would totally hit that.

Gail, meanwhile, is trying to get Gary to learn to listen to other people and talk about something other than himself.  I don’t care how self-centered you are, this whole gay pastor meth-head husband story is one that should be fascinating enough to shut you the fuck up for ten minutes.  I would love to hear that story one on one with the ability to ask questions.  Not that I’ll be reading her book or anything…

 

Time for the wives to head home to their families, but first, it’s the official Wife Swap meet up in the park for the couples.  This is where things get snitty and/or passive aggressive, while the wives tell the other wives all the things that are wrong with their households.

Holy teeth, Batman.

Gail and Stephanie sit and discuss their kids, and do it with minimal catty bitch-isms.  Gail says little Luke is a sweet and wonderful boy, and Steph says she was saddened by how much the scandal had affected those kids.  There’s talk about God and Jesus and callings and stuff, and it’s amusing to listen to Gary spew his extra crazy version of  Christianity at some crazy but mainstream Christians.  There’s a lot of uncomfortable smiling and nodding on the Haggard side of the table while Gary talks about being forgiven by the Easter Bunny or some such wackiness.

Not one to leave a point of conflict alone, Stephanie asks Gail what she meant in her book when she called Ted’s accuser The Devil. Ted says that the devil’s role is to accuse, but a man of God should only encourage.  Whatever that means.  Ted tells the Buseys that if they decide to get married officially that he would love to preside over the ceremony, and with that they say their goodbyes and head home.  Gary does some more scary chipmunk voice in the car, but there’s not much else of entertainment value.

 

Next week:  Dee Snider and Flava Flav.  Ha!  Where are they getting this list of celebrities?  Oh right, from my dreams.  Thanks ABC!