RfM poster "munchybotaz" noted, with disgust, in another thread:

" . . [W]e saw how he [Monson] really acts when the news crew caught him in the shoe shine chair. How anyone looks at him and sees anything other than a creepy con man, I don't know. He really makes my skin crawl. I don't believe a word he says."
_____


RfM poster "bu2b" responded with curiousity:

"Shoe shine chair? I'd like to see this..."
_____


To which RfM poster "Chonerhead" excitedly replied:

"[Y]eah, me too!"
_____


Followed by RfM poster "Mo Larkey," with a knowing comment:

"I figured I was the only one that caught his 'tude' to the reporters in that impromptu interview,

"When it ain't scripted he fails!!"
_____


Very well, then. Here it is again, by popular demand, the "Spit-Polished" Monson"--your food for the sole, no spoof on the hoof:

A wayward Mormon friend of mine recently brought this bit of boot-lickin' boogie to my attention.

He said he was struck by (compared to Monson's sing-songy Conference talks) how distant Monson appeared when approached during this "don't-rise-and shout, just "sit-and-shine" moment. You decide but it does look like Monson's kinda going through the motions of magnetizing with the masses. (Hey, he's on his way to dedicate another cash-cow temple. Step aside, please, and whatever you do, don't step on my brown suede shoes).

When asked by an on-scene TV reporter how often he gets his shoes primed for prime time, Monson replied, "When I don't do 'em myself." Which means probably all the time. (In this particular instance, Monson got three sets done).

The shoe shiner says that he's struck up a friendship with Monson over shoes over the years and enjoys listening to his stories, as well as hearing what's on Monson's mind. (Maybe it beats having to sit through the same teleprompted- and -polished routine at General Conference. Skip the sessions and focus on the shinin.').

Monson, by the way, was not seen washing "Elvis the Shoe Shiner's" feet. Apparently he was too busy being profit:

(Link: "Chatting With The LDS Church President Monson," at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LeM7qCD8lU)



Edited 15 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 12:01AM by steve benson.

WOW! I always wondered what the GA's real voices sounded like when they weren't at the podium trying to sound as if they care. But what's with the peace sign at the end?

I don't know why I thought he was always pleasant and sweet like he appears on conference, but I did. What a crock. He's just a cranky, dismissive old man like most old men are.

And nobody to do his makeup for him *EEEK*!

But then I never liked the guy anyhoo.

shoes shined by Mr. Mendez (Elvis) at the Marriott. I don't see anything wrong with it. Mr. Mendez used to work at Nordstrom before Crossroads was closed. He's a nice guy from a rough background, and he works his ass off. Shining shoes is how he makes his living. Without patrons like Monson, he might be on the street.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/660204664/Elvis-move-takes-shine-from-Salt-Lake-City.html?pg=1

I just wouldn't want anyone to form the impression that shining shoes is demeaning to Mr. Mendez. It's his livelihood. He needs customers.

If you believe that's what it's really all about, I've got some gold plates to sell you:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,62486,62486#msg-62486

"Without patrons like Monson . . ."

CHOKE!



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 10:48AM by steve benson.

Your analogy is completely inapposite. Unlike City Creek, Mr. Mendez is not wholly supported by the LDS Church. Also, unlike the contractors building City Creek, Mendez is not a massive corporation who can afford to take a hit here and there. I don't want people to see this video as a condemnation of going to Mendez for a shoe shine.

Monson is a corrupt POS. The money he's spending on his shoe shines was extorted from tithepayers. Agreed. But I do not like the implication that there is something demeaning in shining shoes, or something wrong in seeking out someone to perform that service.

I suppose you can argue that a "man of God" humbly would shine his own shoes. Okay. But Monson isn't a man of God. He's a fucking CEO. And there is no God.

many members of the organization he heads can't afford such luxuries, because (a) they have too many children and (b) he directs the organization to steal their money. And he knows it's being stolen, and he lives a pretty high-end life off of it while pretending to be this modest humble servant of God. That's disgusting.

As I posted here on this board previously (about magazine porn on sale in Marriott hotel gift shops):

"Senior Marriott Exec Shares Private Views on the Marriott Family's Curious Sense Of Morality vs. Porn"

"As has been . . . discussed on this board, a group of conservative Christians, concerned with what they regard as the Mormon Marriott family’s lack of moral decency in providing hard-core porn to its hotel room guests, is asking the Marriott Corporation to stand down and remove the movies from their hotel room--or at least to make their porno material harder to view.

"As the Associated Press reports:

“'A coalition of Christian groups are asking the Marriott hotel chain to remove adult movies from their rooms or make it more difficult for guests to access them.

“'The Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family is among the groups who made their case to Marriott International at a meeting in Washington, D.C., this week. . . . [T]he [hotel] company [has reportedly] promised to forward the groups' concerns to its franchise owners, who will respond in July.'

("Colo.-Based Group Asks Hotel Chain to Remove Porn Movies," by Colleen Locke, 9 News, Denver, Colorado, at: http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=92038)


"In the wake of the controversy, a highly-placed senior Marriott executive insider has authored an e-mail examining what this executive privately admits is the Marriott family’s rather strange views on, and application of, morality.

"The text of the email was recently made available to me from a source wishing to remain anonymous who knows the executive personally.

"Here is the Marriott insider’s view of the Marriott Corporation decison to place pornography in its hotel rooms (along with, ironically enough, copies of the Book of Mormon).

"The email in question was penned in the context of the Marriott family’s seemingly conflicted moral stands on other issues, such as alcohol/caffeine consumption and casino-style gambling on hotel premises.

"'The long-time Marriott executive concludes that the Marriott family embrace of hotel room porn is based strictly on business considerations:

“'You know this [providing of pornography] has been an issue with various interest groups with Marriott hotels since I can remember . . . . I know the idea is to make what some people consider unethical, morally reprehensible or plain unhealthy, more difficult to obtain so behavior will change. From pornography to smoking to guns.

“'The Marriotts are an interesting family. [There was] an event at their home several years ago and they did not serve alcohol or caffeine. I think they are personally strong in their faith and beliefs but are business people nevertheless, and make business decisions. Do you know that there isn't a Marriott-owned hotel that has a casino in it?

“'They will not have gambling at their hotels. Again, interesting.

“'Now if they ma[k]e [their guests] go to the front desk for [their] porn, I [will] not enjoy my business trips as much. :)'

"When it comes to the Mormon Marriott's selective application of family values, this is nothing new.

"Back in the 1980s, I had a telling conversation with a promiment Utah Mormon politician who let slip in a rather bizarre phone call to me his 'just-between-you-and-me' attitude toward the Marriott Hotels open promotion of pornography to their overnight guests in (of all places) Zion.

"That politician was former Utah Attorney General David L. Wilkinson, son of the former, now-dead head of BYU, Ernest L. Wilkinson.

"The younger Wilkinson, who I did not know and had never heard from before, telephoned me out of the blue one day to congratulate me on an editorial cartoon that I had done criticizing cable pornography (drawn back in my straight-laced, conservative Mormon days). The cartoon had been published in Salt Lake City's Mormon-owned newspaper, the "Deseret News," prompting Wilkinson's phone call of praise, support and political glad-handing.

"During our conversation, Wilkinson went to great lengths to enthusiastically inform me of his plans for purging Utah of the scourge of cable TV porn. At the time, Wilkinson was running for election and concentrating lots of campaign time on his sacred vow to clean up the state's cable TV industry for, and in behalf of, Utah's families.

"As Utah's Mormon-owned attorney general, Wilkinson eventually became embroiled in some highly-publicized anti-cable porn lawsuits (including 'Community Television, Inc. of Utah v. Wilkinson" and "Home Box Office, Inc. v. Wilkinson').

"With Wilkinson's support, the Utah State Legislature also passed the Cable Television Programming Decency Act. Such high-handed, moralistic efforts to dictate, regulate and formulate cable TV content against the wishes of adult consumers were eventually struck down by the federal courts for, among other reasons, being overly broad, as well as for unconstitutionallly targeting viewing audiences in homes and other environments in which there happened to be no children.

"Oh well, as they say, facts can be inconvenient things.

"During Wilkinson's unsolicited phone call to me, he also tried to elicit my support in his cable-cleansing efforts.

"Wilkinson's missionary zeal to baptize the airwaves for the remission of their transmission sins raised a question in my mind.

"I wanted to know his position regarding the availability of printed pornography in Utah.

"So I asked him what he planned to do in combating those 'soft porn' magazines which the Mormon-owned Marriott Hotel chain made available to paying patrons in its gift shops.

"Wilkinson's response was swift and blunt.

He said he would not be going after the Marriotts for porn-pedaling 'because they give so much money to the Church.'

"We all know, of course, what Church Brother Wilkinson was referring to.

"Apparently for Wilkinson, while wickedness never is happiness, porn-produced profits are.

"Yes, indeed.

"Marriotts, Mormons, money, movies and morality. Obviously, a very conveniently mixed mix."



Edited 11 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 11:19AM by steve benson.

People like Mr. Mendez are usually treated as "independent contractors" who have to fork over a significant portion of their earnings as "rent" on that 50 square feet of overpriced Marriott Hotels property he's operating on. The cost of his stock and his insurance all come out of his own pocket too (including, I'm sure, liability insurance: what if that fat bastard Monsoon were to fall off that perch? You can bet he'd sue Mendez). He probably has to pinch every penny he makes to scrape out a living.

And if he's a Mormon, then he forks out 10% more to the corporation owned by the sleazy lizard whose tasselled slip-ons he's polishing. That would be a bizarre irony, wouldn't it? Polishing the boot you paid for on the foot of the man who owns it now.

Maybe all the exMos who live in Utah should start patronizing Mr. Mendez' business and crowd out that theocratic Mr. Monsoon...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/21/60minutes/main585049.shtml

"Then there are the big hotel chains: Hilton, Marriot, Hyatt, Sheraton and Holiday Inn, which all offer adult films on in-room pay-per-view television systems. And they are purchased by a whopping 50 percent of their guests, accounting for nearly 70 percent of their in-room profits. One hotel owner said, 'We have to have it. Our guests demand it.'”

And this:

http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132370&page=3

"One major hotel chain, Omni, stopped showing adult movies in its owned-and-operated hotels in 1999, citing its commitment to 'family values.' It encourages its franchisees to do the same. The company estimated it lost $1 million in annual revenue."

Only $1 million? That's a little more than half as much as Omni's President had told the New York Times in October 2000 that they expected to lose.

I couldn't find Omni's revenues for 2000, but they were doing $500 million in 1994. Marriott does about twice that much now, so maybe they'd lose $2 million.

I think they could afford it.

http://news.marriott.com/2010/10/marriott-international-reports-third-quarter-results.html

He also has been an inveterate, clandestine drinker of Pepsi--a "secret" of his shared (using that word) by his daughter Ann with RfM poster "TLC" when they knew each other at BYU (and as "TLC" has reported here on this board).

Ann took "TLC" over to the Monson home one night and showed him stacks of wooden crates that held her dad's empty caffeinated Pepsi bottles.

Tsk, tsk, putting his heath at such risk. :)



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 11:33AM by steve benson.

I do think the man with his obvious excesses doesn't have much respect for his body. I mean, if you subscribe to the whole "our bodies are temples" line of thinking. I guess his temple isn't sacred or secret...it's just bloated!

he also seems annoyed here too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI7_GD37UpI



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/30/2010 03:47PM by Nick Humphrey.

The thing that annoys me is how he says, "Guess I better pay him" and opens up his wallet to pay to get his shoes shined. Money that is stolen by members of his "church". Members who clean church houses for free and give 10% of their money so TSM can get his shoes shined.