"If it wouldn't gross you out, I would eat right out of this shovel."
May 8, 2016 11:40 AM   Subscribe

Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker wants to sell you buckets of bulk food for the End Times. And save those buckets, because after you eat, what are you going to do...with the doo-doo? [Gross food/eating alert.]
posted by Room 641-A (74 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't believe it's not a parody.
posted by putzface_dickman at 11:45 AM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


yeah cuz people who buy into this are surely going to be feeding that many other folks. Cuz they're so charitable. Yuh huh.
posted by Smibbo at 11:51 AM on May 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


Wow. So good.
posted by cj_ at 11:54 AM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


That glance at 3:06.
posted by migurski at 12:00 PM on May 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


I'm watching these two videos in a kind of stunned amazement. I don't. What? How. Uh.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 12:01 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]




Thanks! I will spend the rest of my day wondering what I am going to do... with the doo-doo.

probably Pampers
posted by phooky at 12:03 PM on May 8, 2016


So instead of selling yearly three-night stays at Heritage USA (for a $1,000 "prayer gift"), now he's selling end-of-the-world survival food (for a suggested $2,500 "donation")?

The man hasn't changed a bit. And he still owes $6-million in taxes, too.
posted by easily confused at 12:04 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Come the endtimes I'll probably just eat those people. They sure as fuck aren't getting raptured.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 12:04 PM on May 8, 2016 [24 favorites]


They won't get raptured, but I'll bet they're rancid and they taste bad.
posted by easily confused at 12:11 PM on May 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


That adds a whole new meaning to "stir and dump" cuisine.
posted by Smart Dalek at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2016


They won't get raptured, but I'll bet they're rancid and they taste bad.

Sure, but anything's good with enough ketchup.
posted by me & my monkey at 12:12 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Vic Berger is amazing, but I also feel bad for him for having to watch all of this over and over to be able to piece it together in the scariest way.

Seriously, though, I can't even. I can't stop laughing. This is all so absurd.

What do you do with the doo doo?
posted by deadaluspark at 12:16 PM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


Wow. Just wow. I. wow.
posted by parki at 12:16 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


I haven't seen Jim Baker since the Tammy Fay (RIPR) days. I did not recognize him for the first 3 minutes. That is one of those things that can't be unseen yet I will spend the rest of the day trying to forget it. That looks worse than the food he must have eaten when in jail for 4 years.
posted by AugustWest at 12:24 PM on May 8, 2016 [6 favorites]


This is an amazing piece of footage that should be enjoyed by generations. Agree with AugustWest, I still don't believe it's him.
posted by user92371 at 12:25 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Is it wrong that I want that unfeasibly large bucket of pancake batter? A stack that could truly touch the face of God.

Eh, I'll snap out of it once I've had breakfast.
posted by NordyneDefenceDynamics at 12:29 PM on May 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


My in-laws once belonged to an evangelical church that preached preparation for the end times. Their garage was full of dried foods, grains, water, and other such stuff. They finally came to their senses but, for awhile, that were just a wee bit scary.
posted by Thorzdad at 12:35 PM on May 8, 2016


Wait, who's the target market for this? I thought the whole point of the Rapture is that the faithful get sucked up a pneumatic tube to heaven, while the riff-raff fight it out on earth.

Ah, apparently only the pre-tribulationists are represented by sassy bumper stickers.

Man, I used to get panic attacks about this sort of stuff when I was little. Now it just makes me angrysad. Not least because I feel like they've really desecrated the idea of the church pancake breakfast. By their pancakes ye shall know them. Yes indeed.
posted by Fantods at 12:35 PM on May 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


The more he says that it's "real broccoli!" the less I am convinced it is. More like pressed broccoli sweepings.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 12:43 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Oh. Shit.
posted by valkane at 12:47 PM on May 8, 2016


Jim and Laurie Baker? I am pretty sure that's David Cross and Bruce McCullough.
posted by snofoam at 12:49 PM on May 8, 2016 [26 favorites]


Oh shit!
posted by valkane at 12:49 PM on May 8, 2016


That is idiotic. The gold standard in doomsday prep is the Mormons. Everybody else with 1/2 brain just do Exactly The Same Thing They Do.
posted by bukvich at 1:03 PM on May 8, 2016 [11 favorites]


"Here at SACK-O-FOOD, we will sell you a bag containing food. It will be at least 3 lb, and it will be something describable food, but we make no other promises."

I can't believe it's not a parody.

The video is presented by internet art collective and favored finders of bizarre video Everything Is Terrible, which blurs the lines a bit. A tiny bit, in this case.

I haven't seen Jim Baker since the Tammy Fay (RIPR) days.

While Jim always had a bit of the huckster in him., Tammy seemed to genuinely love people, especially in the later years where she embraced the queer community and co-hosted a show with Jim J. Bullock. There's a great half-comic, half-respectful documentary out there, The Eyes of Tammy Faye, that covers most of her career.

It is worth noting that this woman appeared on Larry King, in makeup and her old clothes, hours before she died. She's lucid, but she looks the part; I find the video kind of hard to watch.

From the Wikipedia page on her:
Despite her background in Christian fundamentalism, Tammy Faye became a gay icon after her parting from PTL, appearing in Gay Pride marches with such figures as Lady Bunny and Bruce Vilanch. Messner reached out to support gay Americans with HIV/AIDS when it was still a much feared and unknown disease. She was benevolently referred to as "the ultimate drag queen," and said in her last interview with Larry King that, "When I went — when we lost everything, it was the gay people that came to my rescue, and I will always love them for that."
Jim and Laurie Baker? I am pretty sure that's David Cross and Bruce McCullough.

Cross (but more Bob Odenkirk, it seems) and his Mr. Show cronies did some great televangelist sketches: Swear to God, Burton Quim of OVERCOME and of course the brilliant Hail Satan Network.
posted by JHarris at 1:07 PM on May 8, 2016 [17 favorites]


I know pissing on preppers is cool, but limited degree preparedness is a good thing to do. I always have a couple gallons of distilled water, rice, beans, some meals that can be made on a single burner, a camp lantern and a butane burner with a few tanks in the basement. I also keep some very basic supplies in my car (mostly water, fire sources and toilet paper).

It's not going to take me through the Apocalypse but if there's a flood or a long term water/electic shortage at least I have something to make life manageable.

Laughing at dummies who think they'll survive a fallout-esque situation is all well and good, but damn people having some shit ready in case you have a disaster as minor as an ice storm is not terrible.
posted by Ferreous at 1:23 PM on May 8, 2016 [33 favorites]


This just solidifies my plan that when the Apocalypse hits, I become one of the rampaging Anarchist zombies ASAP. Won't have to worry about this mess then.
posted by spinifex23 at 1:27 PM on May 8, 2016


I buy in bulk generally from Costco, so depending on the time of the end of all things, I may have 25 lbs of flour, rice and sugar, many cans of rotel and beans. But if it happens when we are almost out of everything, I'm screwed.

Oh well, I got now things to worry about.
posted by AlexiaSky at 1:50 PM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


I remember as a kid visiting the "cellars" of my Mormon relatives in Utah. I don't remember everything that was in there, except that's where you went to get the Kraft mac & cheese (which was banned in my house).
posted by Brocktoon at 1:50 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


[Insert gif comparing Bakker snarfing fistful of rice and Gollum snarfing soft, juicy fisheseseses]
posted by CKmtl at 1:55 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


My parents have a dear friend who bought into Bakker's horseshit. Moved into his little compound out in Branson.

This is a beautiful, funny, smart, gentle man. Gay, so probably a lot of them sneer behind his back, but his money spends just fine, so here's your condo, sir.

He's one of the last people on earth I would have ever predicted would fall for this snake-oil-peddling shitweasel, but from what I hear, the thing is, he's lonely. Desperately lonely. And they offered him a place to belong. An important thing to belong to. So he's giving them all of his money and agency and independence. Here is my life, just love me and tell me I'm part of a plan.

I'm sorry if this makes me "goat cancer" guy, but goddamn the blinding rage I have to wade through every time I think about how many poor, frightened, lonely people they're bilking as a business model. I am not one for violent solutions or retribution, but men like Bakker stretch that value of mine until I can read newspaper through it.

I've got several buckets I'd like to send to Bakker and his staff.
posted by middleclasstool at 1:55 PM on May 8, 2016 [45 favorites]


Also, any Mormon worth their salt will be buying food they normally consume for food storage and just rotate it out as they use it. This has the benefit of making sure that your food storage is comprised of a) real food that b) you know how to use/cook with.
posted by Aleyn at 1:57 PM on May 8, 2016 [26 favorites]


"Girls need napkins."
posted by trip and a half at 1:59 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


I have never failed to be impressed by the religious right's ability to commercially apply the logic of "If you are foolish enough to believe x then you are also foolish enough to believe y".
posted by srboisvert at 2:21 PM on May 8, 2016 [15 favorites]


I haven't seen Jim Baker since the Tammy Fay (RIPR) days. I did not recognize him for the first 3 minutes.

HOLY FUCK. I've half-watched this garbage before, and always assumed it was the Jim Bakker JR show and that the burly young fellow was Jay Bakker drawn to the dark side, using his dad's name as a front for the creepy little huckster with the beard and nike cap to peddle that gunky food. Holy shit. Amazing what a beard and exercise can do to change one's appearance, and also how our brains fill in gaps and create narratives when we don't understand something. Wow.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:40 PM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]




A tiny bit, in this case.

That's the remarkable thing. It can really stand all on its own. In a not-too-distant alternate universe this is a Cinco commercial starring Bob Odenkirk.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:50 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I always sort of wondered how the ranking went for snake oil salesmen. Jim's been thrown out of the God business, so he's gone over to hawking soylent green. Guess survivalists are a few rungs under evangelists then, which is surprising, to me at least.
posted by Mooski at 3:01 PM on May 8, 2016


I know pissing on preppers is cool, but limited degree preparedness is a good thing to do

I live in earthquake country. I understand being prepared. I appreciate being over-prepared. I even love MRE pound cake. I can also marvel and cringe at the surreal and revolting (surrevolting?) nature of these video clips.
posted by Room 641-A at 3:19 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


This just solidifies my plan that when the Apocalypse hits, I become one of the rampaging Anarchist zombies ASAP. Won't have to worry about this mess then.

The hubris of it all gets me a bit: "Welp, God wants to wipe out humanity; but I can outsmart him by laying in enough freeze-dried food."
posted by sebastienbailard at 3:22 PM on May 8, 2016 [10 favorites]


If you read fantod's link about this kind of rapture theology, you will get a righteous headache.
posted by kozad at 3:22 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


limited degree preparedness is a good thing to do

agreed - I have been through one hurricane and a couple of ice storms in the last 20 years and it's nice to have a baseline of survival rations for civil emergencies that go on for a week
posted by thelonius at 3:23 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


I know he's a con man, and I get that it tastes bad, but if it won't flat out kill me, six months worth of food for $225 is a heck of a price. I think I just balanced my budget.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 3:31 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Watch your sodium intake; supplementing with some fresh vegetables would help.
posted by Mitheral at 3:36 PM on May 8, 2016 [4 favorites]


As linked previously in the recent MRE thread.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 3:46 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Jim Bakker was my first web design "client" (I was a dumb college student with a hobby) ~12 years ago. We connected thru my father, who at the time was selling him $20k in (chinese) custom-made "Swords of the Apocalypse" to be resold via his show/site as "love gifts". Back then the Bakker tv studio was situated in a retrofitted western restaurant in lovely Branson, MO.

I only had a few conversations with Jim, the most memorable of which took place in his office with my father. When we walked in for our meeting, Jim was ENGROSSED in what looked to be an art table book. Pops told him I was building him a fancy new website for FREE! (aka I was getting an emachine(!) under the table). After ten minutes of speaking at length about how great the site was going to be without Jim looking up once, Dad asked "well, what do you think?"

Jim looked up from his book, completely giddy. "Did you know SEARS used to build HOUSES?!" Totally shocked, we just kind of smiled and nodded as Jim showed us the pictures in his book. We then just.. kind of showed ourselves out. Work on the site started the next day with a team of people that included his mother-in-law Char and his adopted former gang member son Mondo, but that's another story.

What struck me most of all was that Jim on camera was a total 180 from Jim behind the scenes. Super timid vs 100% confident. Maybe that's a common thing with entertainers, but it was really surprising.

Years went by, Dad was on the show a few times, and at one point came home with a six foot painting of Jesus that ended up hanging over the mantle. For whatever reason for our nonreligious household this was the silent last straw. At some point long after I'd moved out, the divorce had been finalized and The Jim Bakker show had bilked Dad of any profits he might have seen from the various sword sales, he came to his senses.

Now it's just one of those weird family stories we tell. "That Time Dad Sold Swords to the Televangelist".

(Still wish I'd taken a picture of the Giant Jesus sitting next to the dumpster)
posted by rosary at 3:48 PM on May 8, 2016 [72 favorites]


Oh god, the fork full of food coming out of Laurie Bakker's mouth at about 2:55 in the second video. That's going to haunt my dreams. Shudder.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 5:01 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


This is Tim & Eric, right? Right?!!
posted by Bob Regular at 5:11 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: That Time Dad Sold Swords to the Televangelist.
posted by Bob Regular at 5:12 PM on May 8, 2016 [9 favorites]


I feel like the articles ragging on the taste of this garbage are missing the point. I mean, yes, it's funny that the food tastes like what you're supposed to put in the bucket when you're done eating, but tasting good was never in the design spec. I'm more interested in finding out if it'll actually be safe to eat in 2035 or if it'll go all Soylent on you way before then.

(The descriptions of the food remind me of descriptions of MREs and K-rations. Which is probably exactly what it is.)
posted by tobascodagama at 5:14 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


The name tag on the guy in the gas mask appears to read "ERIS." Is that in the original, or was it put in by the editors?
posted by gusandrews at 6:03 PM on May 8, 2016 [5 favorites]


This is Tim & Eric, right? Right?!!

Not only that, but how do you think Trump got the nomination? T&E are in charge of reality, now.
posted by JHarris at 6:25 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


It's kinda sad because I'd hoped that his prison experiences might make Jim Bakker somewhat more human than his fellow Reaganomic vampire psychopaths Falwell and Robertson, but when he started shoveling the goop it was just pathetic and funny.
posted by ovvl at 6:34 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


He says that the twenty eight buckets of food is available for a 'gift' of $2,500.00. So it's yet another not-for-profit scam.

I didn't know about the new wife.
Lori met Pastor Jim Bakker who was serving at the inner-city outreach shortly after his release from prison. After what has been described by witnesses as a “fairytale courtship,” Pastor Jim and Lori were joined in Holy marriage on September 4, 1998.

Lori Graham Bakker has chronicled the romantic adventures of this spiritual Cinderella story in her book, “More Than I Could Ever Ask,”
It is like a dream come true.
posted by readery at 6:34 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


I am kind of prepper sympathetic, after having experienced road blockages, earthquakes, and my divorced mom running out of money overnight for a few months.

But I live in a tiny apartment.

Come the rapture, big earthquake or nuclear war, I will be OK. I keep catnip and catnip seeds in the freezer.

As they say, there is only one right way to skin a cat, but more than one way to season it.
posted by Doroteo Arango II at 7:08 PM on May 8, 2016 [9 favorites]


Proto Beck
posted by Beholder at 7:21 PM on May 8, 2016


I know pissing on preppers is cool, but limited degree preparedness is a good thing to do

But the companies that specialize in emergency preparedness use fear to convince customers to buy more than they need. Once you open your pocketbook to the possibility of temporary societal collapse, it's a short jump to assault rifles, 55 gallon water drums, and wheat grinders, and these companies specialize in convincing you to make that jump.
posted by Beholder at 7:30 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
posted by Segundus at 7:35 PM on May 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


You would be surprised how well grass keeps in vacuum sealed bags.

During the aftermath of hurricane Charley it was impossible to come by for almost two weeks.

That ain't happening again. To me.
posted by notreally at 7:52 PM on May 8, 2016 [1 favorite]


Imagine they accidentally get booked into a studio at the same time with the balanced people of Cutlery Corner
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:35 PM on May 8, 2016


This is delightful!
posted by adgnyc at 9:00 PM on May 8, 2016


A 55 gallon drum of water is not a bad thing to have in your earthquake prep kit in a place like Los Angeles. Which is why I have one.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 9:18 PM on May 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


I know he's a con man, and I get that it tastes bad, but if it won't flat out kill me, six months worth of food for $225 is a heck of a price. I think I just balanced my budget.

Your new diet: rapture the pounds away!

It's not six months of food in any reasonable sense. It's 548 servings, 3 servings of food a day for six months; but each serving isn't what you'd consider a meal, they range from 80 to 240 calories per serving depending on the food item. By my math*, the two 90-day buckets get you 83500 calories total, or 463 calories per day for 180 days. Better than nothing if the world ends, but it won't last for six months of everyday living.

The upside is, if you're living on 460 calories a day, there's not going to be much doo-doo to worry about.

*Nutritional info is not listed on the website, but you can see calories per serving on the labels of the foods that are offered individually in #10 cans, e.g.. For items I couldn't find I used nutritional info from Food for Health International, which this article says is one of their two suppliers, so small errors are likely. I'll memail a calorie count if anyone cares.
posted by peeedro at 10:15 PM on May 8, 2016 [7 favorites]


The hubris of it all gets me a bit: "Welp, God wants to wipe out humanity; but I can outsmart him by laying in enough freeze-dried food."

Maybe God is just testing us. If we can get past one of God's world-famous cataclysms and then survive Bakker's World-Famous Freedom Buckets, perhaps we are then worthy of His Eternal Grace.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 10:49 PM on May 8, 2016 [3 favorites]


A 55 gallon drum of water is not a bad thing to have in your earthquake prep kit in a place like Los Angeles. Which is why I have one.

I keep a 40 gallon drum in my house. I call it my hot water heater.
posted by Quonab at 1:25 AM on May 9, 2016


I look at emergency prep this way. I have an extra week of backpacking supplies.
posted by mikelieman at 3:10 AM on May 9, 2016


Bakker's hawking of this filth is just gross.

For my apocalyptic rations, I'll take gourmet emergency entrees (with a 25-year shelf life) from Marie Osmond and Wise Company Foods.
posted by Short Attention Sp at 4:54 AM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Just remembered this for some reason, and I'm going to leave it here: Crackpot conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche shared a cell with Jim Bakker in federal penitentiary.
posted by duffell at 6:05 AM on May 9, 2016 [5 favorites]


I keep a 40 gallon drum in my house. I call it my hot water heater.

Eh, that's not exactly potable water. Turns out there are a lot of things that love the combination of ample water and warmth, most of which will kill you if you ingest them.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:46 AM on May 9, 2016


You're probably more likely to die of Legionnaires' from breathing while in the shower than from drinking out of your water heater. http://www.cdc.gov/legionella/about/index.html. If you're worried about water heater water, all you have to do is boil it and you're good. Me, I don't have to worry about any of it because I have a tankless water heater, so I'll be dead once the toilet water runs out. Just that much more of that goldenrich, genuine-broccoli bakkerslurry for the rest of y'all to enjoy.
posted by Don Pepino at 8:48 AM on May 9, 2016 [3 favorites]


If you think about it, the idea that you can't eat right from the shovel is a social construction
posted by thelonius at 10:34 AM on May 9, 2016 [12 favorites]


Eh, that's not exactly potable water.

Huh, never heard that before. I've drunk water from the hot water in my house forever, and never even considered it would be an issue. So far so good :) Looking around online I see some debate on this, I guess it can be an issue but would be curious if there had ever been studies on how common problems are.
posted by thefoxgod at 1:48 PM on May 9, 2016


qcubed: " is there a reason why a Mormons store food?"

Interruptions to the food supply both short and medium term are extremely common.

Typical viewpoint.
posted by Mitheral at 2:11 PM on May 9, 2016 [1 favorite]


Speaking of Jim Bakker and food in buckets, here's a pre-scandal Bakker interviewing a still-alive-but-barely Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame. Come for the 1979 fashions and questionable take on Christianity; stay for the Colonel's preacher who is super obviously milking him for a lot of money and makes no effort at all to hide it.

(I've been wanting to post this to Metafilter since I watched it in its entirety a few months back. It's too thin for a post, but I've instead decided to just post it every time I see Bakker or KFC gets mentioned.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:01 AM on May 13, 2016 [2 favorites]


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