10 Years Already???!!?!?!?

(originally posted in real time during the wedding)

Today is the 10-year anniversary of The Royal Wedding, ie the single greatest day of my pathetic life, so of course I'm watching the rerun on TLC right now. Somewhere out there my high school football coach is reading this, shaking his head "I knew it."

Since I'm feeling generous with you people, here's some Xmastime gems from that day (bold denotes post title if applicable):
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- On one hand, I'm miffed he's stealing my future wife. On the other, his getting married takes him off the market, therein removing my competition and returning me to my rightful place as The World's Most Eligible Bachelor. Thanks, King Dickhead!

- I look forward to the first time someone points out to me that I wasn't invited to the Royal Wedding, just so I can put on a self-knowing smile and look wistfully off into the distance before saying "oh, friend...wasn't I?" and then walk away chuckling to myself.

-  Bride's Headlights On When She  Gets Out of the Car At Westminster Abbey?

- Someone Cutting Onions in Here?
I admit it - the big overhead shot of her at the end of her walk down the aisle got me a little bit.  A little too How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria, wasn't it?  HEY - I'M NOT A ROBOT!!!

 

- William Arthur Phillip Louis

That "Louis" (pronounced "Lew-ee") sounds pretty jarring within that name, no?  Like Lord Mountbatten Von Frankie the Rat, no? 

- Kanye West being invited to the wedding and then not breaking in on Kate's brother's Bible reading with "Yo, Jimmy, I'm really happy for you and Imma let you finish, but the Bible reading at Albert and Victoria's wedding was the best of all time!" means the British aren't really as funny as we thought, doesn't it?

- There are apparently more black people at the Royal Wedding than at a Springsteen concert.

-  Has Trump demanded the bride show her virgin papers yet?

- God Save the Queen

At this moment, you KNOW there's about 100 million people across America thinking "you're damn RIGHT you better sing America the Beautiful, queers!"

- During Reading, the Bride's Brother Mentions His Album Drops Next Tuesday on iTunes? 

- Ill be honest: I'll be disappointed if "going into that most cherished, unaccessible part of Westminster Abbey to sign the wedding registry" is not a euphemism.  Can't they come out with their clothes disheveled? Camon.  Hell, I might use it myself; it's much classier than when I say I'm about to "polish off a tube of Pringles, heh heh heh."

- England flawlessly pulls off the Wedding of the Century while we're egging on a guy with the worst comb-over in the world to careen around the world "wondering" if our President is American or smart enough to go to college without white charity.  Of course.

- Sooooo...Who's Gonna Tell Him?

 

- "Harry Just Cut One!"

- "How YOU Doin'?"

- "Another New Pair of Diamond Earrings? Really?"

 

- "White? Oh, HELL No!"

 

- "Oh, Shit...Harry IS the Handsome One..."

- Ah Yes: The Single Greatest "Pull My Finger" in History

-  Is There NOTHING McDonald's Can't Get Their Mitts On?

 

- Life makes no sense. I work at a celebrity magazine.  No move from any A to F-list celebrity goes unnoticed.  There's also an entire style section.  Most of the staff is women, and I'm maybe the only straight guy there.  And yet from what I can gather, I am the only person in the office who got up at 5:30am to watch the Royal Wedding.  Wtf? 

- "I guess Xmastime isn't gonna come and save me from this after all. Damn you, free pizza day at the office!"

 

- "Weeeeell...I see the Archbishop is rather pleased to see me..."

- Another person smarter than me wants to point out the silliness of our coverage of the Royal Wedding:

As you read this, the big three morning shows -- "Good Morning America," "Today" and "The CBS Morning News" -- are continuing to re-hash, analyze and replay the ceremony on tape while going live to various correspondents and experts in England and elsewhere. The morning shows usually run two hours -- more if an affiliate takes their built-in spillover, but for the sake of argument let's just say they did two hours' worth, and add that to the overnight coverage, which ran four hours, bringing the total to six. And then let's ask ourselves this question: When's the last time the top guns of the American electronic media covered an event, any event, for six hours straight without any significant interruption, at any hour of the day or night?

I'd say the answer to that is several days up to and including two days ago, when the media shut down to follow Donald Trump around and report and analyze and re-report and re-analyze everything that came out of his mouth, which was probably only until Charlie Sheen decided to start talking again anyway.  Covering the Royal Wedding makes our media look like The Algonquin Round Table compared to how it usually looks.

- Now everybody in the office is watching the re-run, so I'm enjoying being the only one who's already seen it, smugly pointing out "oh, I remember this!" and emitting that "I dunno, things might fall apart here..." high-pitched hum at various intervals.

Hey, I have so few victories in this life, I gotta savor the flavor when I get one, playahs.

- Xmastime, For the Spare.

- I'm so depressed this wedding is over. I've been to weddings of people I've loved, and not thought twice about them afterwards.

Anyway, I'm glad I saw it happen live. All the incredible stories of Americans over there, the camaraderie et al on the streets of London, make me feel like I was a small part of it, even if only thousands of miles away via television.

- I was surprised that they included the "if anyone objects, say so now or forever hold their peace" bit in such a wedding.  I mean, that's a pretty big matzah ball to leave out there, no?

- "The Beckhams are Here? Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!"

- It's very easy for me to imagine why we're all so wrapped up in this wedding.  In our earliest days of childhood, we're told wondrous stories of kings and queens and princes and princesses, stories either of history or fairy tales.  The fairy tales were as real as the Disney characters we so closely followed at the same age, so when we get a chance to witness actual royalty doing historic, royal things that we forget exists in a modern world, it's exciting - it's as close a connection to those kings and queens of our imaginations as we could ever possibly come in real life.  And in today's day and age, with this couple in particular, it's easy for us to watch such a ceremony handed down through thousands of years of stoic, British tradition and know that there will also be a night a year from now during which these two people will be laughing at The Hangover 2 while dusting off a bag of Cheetos.

More importantly, there is a generational touchstone to such an event that will be remembered for years and years to come - I remember getting up at 4am to watch Charles and Diana's wedding, and here I am watching his son do the same thirty years later, at what turns out to be almost exactly the same age as my own father was (him that day 38 years, 7 months, and 17 days, me today at 38 years, 9 months, and 15 days.)  Throw in the world's collective memory of "I watched this boy grow up, from being born to his mother's funeral and now this morning," and it's easy to get caught up in things.  It's also why we'll probably pay attention to Harry's wedding more than we cared about Charles' brothers' weddings - when children lose their mother, their community always feels possessive and wants to help protect them.  I've been there, maybe that's why I'm so connected to these boys; meanwhile, their community just happens to be most of the planet.

Of COURSE the whole thing is kind of silly in and of itself, and NO it's not going to change your life, but if one moment can encapsulate everything in this post then that's a pretty good moment, and moments like that can add up to make us happier than we'd otherwise be.

Most days are forgettable at best, willfully forgettable at worst.  This was not one of them.

-  "The Gorton's Fisherman, Gee, We've NEVER Heard That One Before, you Fucking Twat!"

 

- My favorite h8rs are the guys that claim watching the wedding is stupid because it's people that will never know or give two shits about us, and then put on their $200 "authentic!" Giants jersey to scream their heads off for Eli Manning every week. Interesting.

- Why are wedding vows exchanged in the beginning of the ceremony?  I mean, after five minutes, they were offically married.  Then we had to sit around for another 55 minutes.  Isn't the exchange of vows the climax?  I don't start out a session of lovemaking by jizzing on a girl's tits, and THEN spend an hour slowly dripping vodka into her water drop by drop, do I?  What the hell?

Also, isn't part of the fun secretly hoping that the second before the "I do", someone will freak out and not do it?  Wouldn't it be good to at least have that to look forward to during the ceremony?  Get that out of the way so quickly, and you're basically just sitting around in a suit listening to crappy songs that nobody really cares about.