...for obligatory "Best Of" lists. Were I a more ambitious, skilled writer, I'd try to cover the whole decade. Or this year. Or this week. But I'm not. So just let me muse a while.
I didn't even realize it was the end of a decade til a week or so ago. It's amazing to think of the amount of pop culture trends the Oughts have encompassed. The Boy Band Craze was still in full effect at the turn of the decade/millennium. God, that gives N Sync a bit more credibility, right? "Which band was #1 at the beginning of the Third Millennium of the Common Era?" And at the end of the decade, "No Strings" is still the best-selling album. Because everyone stopped paying for music somewhere around 2003.
It was quite a decade for me personally. I became a man in the truest sense of the word, which for my people means drinking the blood of your enemy. I should mention my people live in Bartertown and compete regularly in the Thunderdome. I started the decade a man-child, and finished it a married man-child.
This was the decade of Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and that adorable Anakin Skywalker with his bestest buddy sidekick, Uncle Jar Jar Tom. Comic book movies, Xbox, and Halo. At the end of the decade that truly solidified my tastes as 100% Geek, it's hard to imagine a better collection of movies and cultural phenomena in the future. Fortunately that future ends abruptly in two years.
This was also the decade of Reality. Which is unfortunate, considering that the reality of the decade was so depressing. Television ceased providing the escape that it has provided for us for over 50 years, and instead served as a crushing reminder of what man becomes when he has everything he wants. He becomes Bret Michaels. He becomes Flava Flav. Speidi. Omarosa. The naked guy from Survivor. What has this trend taught me? Within our heart of hearts resides a power-hungry stripper who loves money and doesn't understand that character is a finite resource, nor that fame is a shimmering, translucent, double-edged sword.
We've been so knee-deep in batshit crazy these last couple months, it's hard to get perspective over that molehill to see the decade behind us. We finally turned the corner away from the Heenes only to be met with the professional do-nothing Salahis asking us to take a picture of them with the Pope and Elizabeth II. We ducked into the nearest doorway and there was Tiger Woods, busy becoming the Wilt Chamberlain of golf (or if the body count keeps rising, the Wilt Chamberlain of Wilt Chamberlains).
What a strange and wonderful journey it's been. Have a great summer and keep in touch*!
Apparently the military actions (or "wars," if you like) in which the US has been engaged have been resolved, the economy has stabilized, and everyone has totally free health insurance, because the two news stories dominating my world are Tiger Woods forgetting how to drive a car and two very privileged people complaining their lives have been ruined because they achieved their goal of infamy after crashing a White House dinner.
Tiger Woods celebrated the Thanksgiving weekend by banging up his SUV in front of his house at 2:30 in the morning, then hiding in his bedroom for a few days hoping everyone would forget about it. This guy's been a total Boy Scout in the many years he's been a superstar, so I have to assume the worst here. He and his wife got hopped up on meth and accidentally killed the 12-year old Thai hooker they ordered, and he flipped out trying to ditch the body. Or, you know, he had his first Zima and tried to satsify a Cheetos craving. Either way, he'll be fine.
Tareq and Michaele (pronunciation? anyone?) Salahi, on the other hand, are rapidly approaching the Heenes on the patented Gosselin scale of oh-my-god-go-away. They crashed a dinner at the White House in honor of India's Prime Minister. Or, according to them, "no we didn't." Were they on the guest list? No? Then "yes they did." So they committed the minorest of minor Secret Service security breaches. They ate samosas. No one got hurt. OK. Cool.
But what's this? They say their lives have been "destroyed." Really? You lost all your money? No? Got fired? No? Someone took your house away? No? Threats of physical harm? No? Oh, a lot of people are taking pictures of you in advance of your media circuit? I see. Yes, yes, that certainly could qualify as having your life "destroyed," if you've never heard the word "destroyed" before. From CNN:
"We will begin doing press and media next week providing exclusive interviews and press junkets," Jones said in an e-mail to CNN on Thursday. "If you would like to be considered in our media circuit we request that you hold your proposed published profile until then."
I'm thinking, just maybe, if you're not crazy about having people inquire into your lives and follow you around and whatnot, you do your best to keep from crashing public dinners at the house of the most famous man in the world. I don't know. Just spitballing here.
Sorry about the Russian version. I swear this is in English all over the NYC subway system, yet inexplicably there is no English jpeg of it.
And by the way, they were shooting this movie like two years ago in the city. Protip: a two-year delay in releasing a film with little to no post requirements (no special effects, etc) is a bad, bad sign.
That's the only message I'm gathering from the new ad campaign from Wonderful Pistachios. What else could possibly motivate them to cast such fresh faces as Levi Johnston, that developmentally disabled preposition-happy beauty queen from South Carolina, a big guy who was probably on "The Sopranos," a dominatrix, and, um, Dara Torres (why Dara why)? And the campaign presents a wonderful thought experiment. What's worse? Being lashed open with a whip, or touched by Levi Johnston*?
Perhaps the ad exec's mother was killed by a mutant pistachio, and he's been biding his time until he could exact complete vengeance upon the industry. And what better vengeance than forever attaching the wonderful nut to people whose 15 minutes ran out in 5? No longer do I associate the pistachio with good ice cream, or the unfortunate color palette of the 70s. No, no, now when I crack one open I'm thinking of a satellite celebrity with strong seed, or places like the Iraq such as wheretofore. Clearly the pistachio people were too busy trying to get that red dye off their fingers to approve the ad, and here we are.
And how is it that someone can appear so awkward, Mr. Johnston, when all that's required of him is to walk forward, stop, and open a pistachio? Let's keep in mind that your shoot took no less than eight hours, and what we're seeing is the absolute best thing that happened in that eight hours. Take a look, and note the awesome NASCAR-font tattoo of his own last name on his forearm (for when he's that shitfaced):
Well done sir. From obscurity to notoriety to pistachios to Playgirl, all in less than a year. It's like the life cycle of a monarch butterfly. So mysterious. So fragile. So douchey.
Just remember what you're really paying for, next time you open your wallet for Wonderful Pistachios.
*experts† agree this is worse. †the expert is Bristol Palin. Share
Get it? Like in the movie Carrie? Because they have the same name. But instead of her menstruating vagina, I'm talking about Carrie Prejean's mouth. See, it works on a couple levels. Because I don't like what comes out of either thing.
I'd planned on writing about Prejean's autobiography, Still Standing, and how goddamned ridiculous it is that a)she's pretending she can write, and b)she thinks she's important enough to tell her harrowing, gut-wrenching story. You know, the one where the privileged beautiful blonde-ish woman living in a first-world state in a first-world country wins contests with her beauty, has artificial body parts installed by said competitions, gets laughed at for denouncing an entire segment of the population instead of being jailed or assaulted, makes money off that statement, then thinks it's amazing that she hasn't completely given up on life after such a terrible, grueling ordeal. Worthy achievements indeed. And according to Amazon.com, she manages to fill 256 pages with the one newsworthy incident she's been involved in. Oh, and I guess part of that is taken up by Sean Hannity's fucking foreword. Douchewad.
So my plan was writing about her after finding out about her coloring book "autobiography," but she just wouldn't stop being crazy this week. After a surprisingly logical series of questions from Larry King on his show, about her motivations for mediating and settling the pageant ordeal (not the confidential details of the settlement itself), Prejean, in another studio, told him he was being inappropriate. He quite reasonably told her he wasn't asking for any confidential info, just her motivation, and eventually changed the subject by taking a call. She decided she'd had enough and took off her mic. He asked if she could hear him, to which she said "No, I can't hear you" (WTF), then threatened to leave and sat perfectly still. Congratulations, Miss Prejean. You managed to look batshit next to LARRY KING.
A word on pageants: who still buys into this? The only time it ever matters is when a winner/runner-up/whatever goes off the rails. Name me a pageant winner, and I'm guessing she's a woman who took naked photos or fell down or is now a man. The whole thing just started as a way to get beautiful, vapid girls to go to college with scholarships instead of marrying money and squirting out babies, but now that college is the new high school are pageants really necessary?
I'm not even going to get political here in terms of how wrong she was when this whole snowball started. If you're reading this, you agree with me and I don't need to convince you. I do want to point out, though, that I can't really understand her martyr complex when she's part of an overwhelming and vocal majority. Gay marriage is in no way legal in this country. Every state that passes it then immediately has it overturned in a referendum. And she keeps claiming her First Amendment rights are getting trampled on, because people keep exercising their First Amendment rights by telling her to shut up. She wasn't imprisoned for what she said. She wasn't fined. She wasn't sent to a labor camp. She got yelled at. That's part of the deal, babe. The First Amendment doesn't say no one can respond to you when you say goddamned ridiculous things. It says the government can't stop you from saying goddamned riciculous things. And it didn't. You said goddamned ridiculous things on NATIONAL TELEVISION. Then you got fired for breach of contract. So simple.
BTW, you said you base your stance on homosexuality on the Bible. I'm guessing you mean Old Testament, Leviticus, since Jesus never said anything definitive about the issue. So you're Jewish then. OK. Was your evening wear made out of two different fabrics? Sorry, we need to shun you from the community. Ever work on a Sunday? Stand still, so we may stone you to death.
And now this sex tape thing. It just keeps coming (thatswhatshesaid). I guess it's no surprise that the girl who likes to hear herself talk so much also likes to touch herself, right? How many of the ordeals she's gone through have been of her own doing? Honestly I can't blame her for speaking her own mind in the pageant, instead of saying the answer that she knew would probably get her the win. But that doesn't mean you can't expect backlash from the LOSING MINORITY. But pageant chicks don't start at 20. It's a lifelong thing. So maybe think twice if you're going to take mostly naked photos, or email a video of yourself masturbating to your boyfriend. Also, don't ever take a video of yourself masturbating. Only bad things come from that. Trust me.
I can't help but draw parallels between her and Sarah Palin. Nobody likes them, they keep getting in front of cameras, and they both show flashes of an absolute psychopath when they get going. Seriously, that's not a joke. Watch their faces. Palin kept snarling in her big convention speech. Prejean does this thing where her eyes flash wide and she shows all her teeth. Scary. I can find very little evidence that famous conservative women are sane. Barbara Bush, maybe? She's still got grit; I want to see her in the octagon against these two.
So here's to not going gently into that good night of obscurity. Palin/Prejean 2012, bitches!
By an overwhelming demand, here is my review of last Sunday's Family Guy special, a half-hour of comedy and music hosted by show creator, multivoiced Seth MacFarlane, and his friend, voice of Lois, and star of that sketch show I never watched, Alex Borstein.
I'm a big Family Guy fan. Ask the wife. Of the 20-something hours of TV we watch a week, no less than 15 are dedicated to Family Guy in any of its syndicated forms. TBS, Fox, Cartoon Network, the CW. It's comfort TV. It's the thing I turn on when I'm finished with DVR-ed stuff and Road House isn't being shown. So this'll be a weird post for me, because normally I tear stuff down here. But don't sweat it. Carrie Prejean has an autobiography coming out. More on that tomorrow. Oh, so much more.
The first thing that struck me in the show was seeing the real bodies behind the voices I'm so familiar with. Macfarlane's done enough publicity that he's a bit less off-putting, but it's very weird to hear Lois' voice coming out of something that wasn't drawn. They were kind though, and put up clips from the cartoon to accompany their singing of the show's theme song so we weren't too confused. And I always imagine voice actors to be nothing but that: voices. So it's funny to see that they can put themselves together for camera and actually have expressive faces.
I also have to take a moment to acknowledge how surprised I am that Fox was cool with this program. I don't mean content-wise, but having primetime taken up by an ambiguous "variety" show (a ratings kiss of death) hosted by two people you don't ever see in Us Weekly. Kudos to the network, actually.
No kudos to the laugh track in the first animated segment we got, in which the Griffins discussed which celebrity they'd have sex with. No major laughs for me here, just general amusement, while Macfarlane got to exercise his obscure-celebrity-obsession muscle. Though I did love the line in response to Meg's answer of C-3PO: "He'd cut you open like a tin can." "Maybe that's what I want!" And apparently Seth Green wasn't available to record for this show, because Chris sat in the corner and played with a DS or something. But the laugh track? Aren't we done with those? I thought that was reserved for shows like "Two and a Half Men," or whatever other pap the proles are gobbling up these days. I cannot watch shows with laugh tracks any more. I think I have Ricky Gervais to thank for that, in "The Office" and "Extras," and by extension our "Office" and "30 Rock," among others.
And now we get Macfarlane singing a song from his favorite movie. "Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music? Borstein isn't crazy about his choice because of her Jewish heritage, and here's one of my problems with Family Guy. While a relatively equal-opportunity offender, it seems to me he leans a bit heavily on Jews. There's plenty of humor to be mined in any stereotype (I particularly liked his bit on orthodox Jewish porn: two fully dressed Hasidim next to each other in a bed, and the man turns the woman on by saying he owns a lot of property), it makes me uncomfortable when he goes to the Holocaust for laughs, which he did at the end of this bit: "How many female Jewish comedians would you be competing with in Hollywood" were it not for the Holocaust? Yikes. Also a bit disturbing to watch her reaction to him continuing to sing the song before that.
Then we have a bit cribbed from SNL's Star Wars audition tapes sketch, but worthwhile anyway because it's pretty funny. I was expecting animation here too, but we get Macfarlane and Borstein in wigs and costumes imagining what it would be like if Bea Arthur auditioned for Showgirls, or Gregory Peck for Transformers. I particularly liked Peck's transforming sound effects. And I was feeling the Cowardly Lion in United 93 ("Let's roll. But first, talk me out of it!") til he hit the "I do believe in Allah!" note. Much funnier was the joke in Sunday's actual Family Guy, about how someone hiding for nine years missed when we were attacked by retarded terrorists. Cue a ground-level shot of the WTC, and a Muslim crashing a bike into it. If you're going to bring them up, make them look stupid. Mel Brooks said his entire career has been patterned on making Hitler look like a fool, because how else could he get revenge for what happened? Classy guy.
Probably the highlight of the show was the Marlee Matlin bit. First they re-enacted a gag from the show in which Marlee Matlin dials Moviefone, but it doesn't work too well for her! Then Borstein sings Lady GaGa's "Poker Face" in the same voice, with some good gags, only to be interrupted by Matlin herself! Uh oh. I've laughed at the Matlin stuff, while it does make me uncomfortable, and I think that's where Family Guy succeeds the best. Again, Borstein gets dumped on in front of the audience, and we see Macfarlane giggling like a schoolboy in the background. But having anyone come out and be part of the joke on them always makes them shoot up in anyone's regard, and it worked here too. Even OJ could have done himself a favor if he tried that. Maybe that's what his book "If I Did It" was attempting. What's that? It backfired miserably? Oh. Nevermind. By the way, funny as the song was, is it better than Christopher Walken giving the lyrics his dramatic interpretation? You tell me:
The last main thing they did was a collection of failed pilots for Fox, such as "Hill St. Jews" and "Cal Johnson." Now if you're going to make fun of a religious/ethnic group, this is the way to do it. And I have no idea what the Cal Johnson thing was parodying, if it even was, but I'm always happy to see Patrick Warburton. Have he and Bruce Campbell made anything together? My god, the brawniness in that project. I read a story on a Backstage.com message board from someone who worked as an extra on Warburton's show "Rules of Engagement." She went up and told him she's a big fan of him and "Venture Brothers" (rightly so; watch it, for reals). He was polite and thanked her, and the next day came up to her and said "Venture Brothers, right?" and gave her a signed t-shirt. Class.
They closed out the show with a montage of songs from Family Guy. Macfarlane's a heck of a singer, for an animator. But dude, seriously, fuck you for ending on "Bird is the Word." That is now in my head for the rest of the week.
Stay tuned this week for my excoriation of Carrie Prejean and her ghostwriter.
So maybe you've heard of Justin Bieber. He's a 15-year old Canadian kid who has a record coming out after being discovered by his YouTube videos. Which is great, because I've really been banging my head against the wall trying to figure out a way to get more teens and tweens to flood YouTube with garbage.
Naturally, he's the wholesome adorable type you'd find on Disney shows, Hot Pocket commercials, and bait for police stings. And sure, the kid can sing. Apparently he taught himself some instruments too. More power to him. So why is it that his existence irks me so much? "Colin," you shriek at your computer through Swiss Cake Roll bits, "you're just jealous of the moppet because with a few years' work, he's more famous and successful than you may ever be!"
First of all, swallow your food before you talk and please put some pants on. Second of all, Little Debbie before noon? Thirdly of all, no shit Sherlock. Of course jealousy's the bulk of it. But there's something else at play here. Let's take a look at some lyrics from "One Time," Bieber's first single off his album My World. It opens with:
Me plus you, I'ma tell you one time Me plus you, I'ma tell you one time Me plus you, I'ma tell you one time One time, one time
Well that's just terrible. He says he's going to tell the object of the song one time, then says that three times. And you may note by his picture up top that this is the last kid who should be saying "I'ma." He's Canadian, for god's sake. So then he goes on to sing about loving this girl and making time for her and she's #1, yada yada. Here's a later verse:
You look so deep, you know that it humbles me You're by my side, them troubles them not trouble me Many have called but the chosen is you Whatever you want shawty I'll give it to you
Ugh. I guess I'll start with the first line. "You look so deep." Not "You ARE so deep." So this girl clearly wears glasses. Maybe she's carrying an unopened Nietzsche. I don't know. But her very appearance of deepness humbles little Bieber. Which is essentially an admission of complete idiocy and shallowness. Then he goes to a line ending with "them troubles them not trouble me." One is reminded of another caucasian Canadian. Snow. Who was also a fan of Jamaican syntax. A mistake for both of these guys. "Many have called but the chosen is you." WTF? Is that Engrish? Am I playing a bad Sega game from 1992? Then "shawty." OK. This kid's idea of urban is probably the mall in Winnipeg. I'm beginning to think maybe he didn't write this song. Let's see, writing credits go to...no less than four people, none of whom seem to be Justin Bieber. Funny. You'd think the more people contribute to something, the better it'd be right? Hold that thought.
He goes on dropping "shawty's" and "I'ma's," declaring his love for this girl, repeatedly telling her, over and over, that he's going to tell her one time. End of song.
So I got it. In addition to rage-inducing jealousy, I know why I can't stand this kid. Could it really be any more transparent now that pop music is one big marionette show? What does this boy contribute other than a singing voice and a face? Aren't there computer programs that can do all that now? He's 15. If he wrote what he knew, he'd be writing about awkwardness, video games, and newfound body odors. Nobody wants that. So congratulations, puppet! You won the fame lottery! Pay my fucking student loans!
E! has displayed a death-row-worthy change of heart in an article posted this morning on their website. The basic argument is thus: Jon Gosselin says maybe he could stand to un-douche just a bit. To which E! says: Maybe that's not a bad thing. Perhaps we should "root for him." Why? Who's worth rooting for? According to E! (I'm already tired of typing that ass-lancing exclamation point), "...in the case of Jon versus Kate, they're all about 50 inches tall and under." Noble enough sentiment, though its placement as the last sentence of the article made me taste my breakfast again. I'm really regretting the tuna-bacon-gorgonzola omelette. But is E? for real?
I call bullshit.
In an article the thesis of which is "who would it hurt to root for this guy," E; refers to his "sorry mouth," mocks his dirtbike picture they chose, mocks his wardrobe, and calls him a "trainwreck." All true? Sure.
But it does make the invocation of his children as a reason to pull for the guy ring a little hollow. E} says his kids stand a chance of "emerging from tabloid hell singed, but not scarred." This is the bone of my contention. Outlets like E#, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, all address tabloids and paparazzi as if they operate in different spheres; as if one isn't completely dependent on the other in a two-snakes-eating-each-other sort of daisy chain. E~, you are that system. Granted, you're the most attractive and wealthiest member of the system, but if anything that makes you its king. So don't cry foul when these poor little rich kids start stealing Kate's Valium and crashing their dad's dirtbike. Don't act like you're above it all. You're down in the shit with the Weekly World News and Inquirers and bottom-feeding photographers, but you've proven that you can polish it and put an exclamation point after it and people won't mind so much.
So if you root for him for the kids' sake, be sure not to cover any of their DUIs or drug charges in ten years. We're watching.
As a footnote, they mention in the end of the article that other people would surely take credit if Jon turns himself around, like Kate, one of his leeches girlfriends, or Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. Let's ignore for a second that the latter sounds like a made-up Dukes of Hazzard character. Did I miss a chapter in Stanislavski's "An Actor Prepares" in which he advised anyone finding notoriety to then get into Judaism? Not that there's anything wrong with it, of course, but I just have a hard time following the chain of events that leads a relatively devout Protestant from Pennsylvania to be life-coached or whatever by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
In a continuing trend of almost being cool, like your goofy uncle, Microsoft has pulled its sponsorship of "Family Guy" creator Seth McFarlane's upcoming "Almost Live Comedy Show" on Fox. Here's the statement:
We initially chose to participate in the Seth and Alex variety show based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy,' but after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand.
So going by this statement, they have actually watched "Family Guy." Meaning they watched Stewie knowingly eat horse semen, anchor Tom Tucker refer to an Arab kid as having a "September 11-thy" name, and oh so many anti-Semitic jokes. So what could they have possibly seen in this new comedy show that made them balk? I can only assume McFarlane makes a Jew and a Palestinian fight to submission, and the loser watches the winner eat his baby. Oh, and they're all pooping. Then after the intro, the Olsen twins take part in a re-enactment of Bob Saget's version of The Aristocrats.
Or wait, maybe they haven't seen the show. Let's decode the beginning of the statement. Microsoft chose to sponsor the program "based on the audience composition and creative humor of 'Family Guy.'" So some guys in Redmond were sitting around in polos, khakis, and besocked sandaled feet.
"Hey, someone told me this 'Family Man' cartoon is killing in men aged 18-34. We need those numbers. And apparently it's edgy too. That's a good thing, right?" "Wait, is it edgy like those fun dancing iPod ads, or is it edgy like 'According to Jim?' We don't need another debacle like that on our hands." "Oh, I think it's much more like the iPod ads. Y'know, everyone's having fun, and then whoa, here comes Phil with a lampshade on his head!" "Come on Gary, it was only once. You know how those hard lemonades hit me." "They're showing a cartoon in primetime?" "Let's do it. This could be the foothold we need for the Zune."
And so on. Thus did Microsoft earn the slogan: "Microsoft. Like Apple. But for pussies."
You've seen the DirecTV campaign, right? Where they pay actors what must be an exorbitant amount to re-enact scenes from their movies while plugging satellite TV? I was surprised when they got Sigourney Weaver to do a scene from Aliens. I was REALLY surprised when they got Naomi Watts to do King Kong. I was a little creeped out when they used footage from Poltergeist with the little girl who is very much dead. Now I'm creeped out, sad, and pissed off that they're not only using Chris Farley from Tommy Boy, they managed to figure out the cost of David Spade's soul and bid $1 higher than that.
I don't know Spade. I don't know that he was bestest buddies with Farley like everyone assumes. Did Farley's estate get a nice check for this? Sure. Did Spade donate his salary to a charity, ideally one that helps out addicts? Maybe. Is there only one way to really interpret this commercial? Absolutely. David Spade is making money off his tragically dead friend. To sell TV service. And here I am trying to find something witty and scathing to write about it, but mostly it just speaks for itself.
Gnarly DUI chick and confusingly famous sister to a worthless pile of meat and bone, Stephanie Pratt, has said she'd like Ashley Tisdale to play her in the film version of the book version of the TV version of Lauren Conrad's life. It's fine. My head's melting trying to comprehend this too.
Ah, the merging of High School Musical and "The Hills." This combination literally could not be more inane. So naturally I have to spend dozens of minutes of my day picking it apart.
What intrigues me most is how distorted this telephone game of Conrad's life must eventually be. I can only imagine, in its various iterations, that her life will go from the story of a listless, passive SoCal girl trying to justify her existence to that of a fierce Dark Ages valkyrie slaying all those that stand in the way of avenging her family's death. Which, BTW, I'd totally pay $12 to see. And I think Vanessa Hudgens would do wonders for the role.
More power to Conrad for milking this phenomenon bone dry, I suppose. She's been paid lots of money to be on TV and has a novel under her name. I write blogs while temping, and I've just now made enough to see that valkyrie movie. Which is why I feel so awesome about myself. All the time.
Police in Colorado think the Balloon Boy hoax may have been a collaboration between the Heene family and a media outlet for a reality show. In a related story, I think I can finally explain Sarah Palin's campaign.
Vic Mizzy, the composer of "The Addams Family" theme, died this week at 93. When asked to comment, Morticia Addams said "Ooh, was he tortured to death? Lucky dog. What? Heart failure? Oh, that's not sexy." Gomez Addams showed little sympathy. "He called us 'ooky' in an internationally recognized song. Libeling bastard."
A Cleveland museum has discovered that an exhibit of a hair from Amelia Earhart is really just thread. So it looks like the new Earhart biopic starring Hillary Swank will be re-shot with Raggedy Ann.
A driver in Switzerland was pulled over Monday for 15 traffic violations in 11 minutes. My question is, who let Helen Keller's dead body behind the wheel, and how did she end up in Switzerland?
Amy Winehouse's father has said that England is wasting money by sending convicted addicts to rehab instead of prison, and that money should be spent on non-offending drug addicts. In a related story, Amy Winehouse's dad failed spectacularly at raising his daughter.
The Obama administration has said Fox News Channel is "not really news." They went on to say such bold statements as "Five primetime hours of Leno is a huge mistake," "America, ease up on the deep frying," and "Reality entertainment is neither real nor entertainment."
You may have heard that "Guitar Hero 5," the latest installment of the yes-tiny-plastic-guitars-ARE-awesome series, features Kurt Cobain as an unlockable avatar and led to a fun little legal rights quagmire. Sure, it's great to get to play through "Smells Like Teen Spirit" with him fronting your band, but what took his estate and friends by surprise is the fact that you can then use him to sing the Cardigans or "Push It" or some shit.
His friends & bandmates Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic have decried the situation and let everyone know they had nothing to do with it. That falls on his estate, which is controlled by widow Courtney Love. Unfortunately this is a woman who introduces herself to the person in the mirror every morning. Love scholars have deciphered her tweets (including gems like "ucking nmegafraud and youve got to show for it Kurt LUNCHBOXES CONVERESE SNEAKERS AND ACTIVISION SMUGLY BOASTING OF RAPE") and told us that she is very unhappy about the situation and never thought Activision would use Cobain's image as they have.
Of course, Kurt isn't the only icon to have his reputation dragged through video game mud.
In the Da Vinci Code tie-in game, players can unlock and use James Joyce in place of Robert Langdon. Joyce is then forced to say lines like "I need to get to a library, now!" and "I've never met a cryptogram I couldn't crack" and "Any idiot knows that Mediterranean cultures at the turn of the millenium had mastered the use of bronze as a ritual vessel, as discovered by Riehausen in 1874. That's why my best friend is really the killer, and why you're going to sleep with me, hot foreign woman."
In the 1992 Super Nintendo game "Mario Paint," players could unlock Vincent Van Gogh and force him to draw shaky, rudimentary spray-paint images of Mario having sex with Princess Peach and Yoshi.
After beating Grand Theft Auto IV, players have the option to turn every civilian into Heidi Montag. Now I literally cannot stop running down and shooting civilians. This one's actually pretty awesome.
Rescue Ink is a new show starting Sept. 25th on the National Geographic Channel, or NatGeo for those of you who stay at home on Friday night (which means I call it NatGeo). It follows a group of huge tattooed biker types cruising the greater NYC area rescuing animals and scaring the bejesus out of their abusers. Here's a description of the premiere, from the website: "Rescue Ink comes to the assistance of a U.S. war veteran and his pit bulls; the guys are called in on a wild hen (and rooster!) chase in Queens; and they confront a man accused of shooting stray cats with a pellet gun."
One can only assume how the pellet gun man meets his end at the hand of this rogue inked hog-riding unlicensed animal control squad.
Don't get me wrong. I love animals. I put their abuse somewhere in the neighborhood of pedophilia. But one can't help but think the Great Dartboard o' Reality Programming is getting a little worn, yes?
We've got two completely unrelated reality memes linked up in this show: motorcycles (see "Orange County Choppers") and animal rescue (see "Animal ER," "Milo and Otis," "The Rescuers," "Denise Richards: It's Complicated"). What other themes can we tie in? Talent competition, multiple children, cakes, terrible overprivileged people, harsh judges, STD vectors looking for "love" (read: low effort income), fat people.
I'll save the TV execs some work right now and give them the formula for the best show ever. Two sets of overweight trust fund octuplets have to bake the best pimped-car-themed cake ever for Simon Cowell and Padma Lakshmi while pairing off on exercise dates with Brett Michaels and Flava Flav. Also Gary Busey is there. Done and done. Make checks payable to Colin Fisher.
That's right, I'm back. After a long hiatus of not doing very much at all, I decided to kick the ol' blog back up. Not so much to specifically talk about the VMAs, but when such a trainwreck of pop culture happens in front of you it's hard not to talk about it. So let's get started!
I'll be honest, I enjoyed this year's show much more than recent years. I don't know why, but I more or less knew what was going on this time. Much less of the "Who's that girl? What does she do again?" than before. Madonna's tribute to Michael Jackson was weird and stilted, but this is the star of "Swept Away" we're talking about so that's no big surprise. Her perceived relevance will never cease to baffle me. Then the show immediately reached its high point of the evening, if not the decade, when Janet Jackson performed a duet with the video from "Scream." Classy, touching, and really entertaining.
I enjoy Russell Brand's style, but in this situation he makes me feel like I'm nearing the first drop of a roller coaster. I'm not sure what's coming up; it'll probably be fun, but maybe someone's going to die. His crack about the Jonas Brothers ("They have to forgive me; they're Christian") was actually really funny without being too personally aggressive. And Brand truly buys the stuff he's always spouting about love and togetherness, and you can't fault a guy for that. Given his complete lack of regard for network execs and people's opinion of him, I did hope he'd lay into Kanye for the rest of the show, but I guess he handled that alright.
By the way, Kanye West is a whining, dripping, ungrateful, fetid douchebag. And I mean that in the meanest way possible. And that's about all I've got to say about that.
Pink (or I'm sorry, is it P!nk?) had a fantastic performance, and Green Day turned what I thought was going to be a control booth-nightmare ("I want as many people on this stage as we can get right now") into a fun party moment (go back on your DVR and watch Pete Wentz run out to Billy Joe like a high school girl with a big grin on his face). A few performances reminded me of the state of the industry, though, when the fiance or I remarked that "she actually can sing" or "she's actually singing right now." No, Beyonce, we are not talking about you, so go back to being classy with Taylor Swift.
A word on Lady GaGa. Did she get her own dressing room at Radio City? Did that entail one of her people calling ahead and telling the stage manager, "Lady GaGa will be wearing no less than four batshit crazy outfits and will need space in which to store them and be wedged into them." Or did she run to the bathroom with a dry cleaning bag every fifteen minutes? Is she really sticking around? Really? We're all buying this?
So yeah. I hadn't even planned on watching the show last night, much less did I remember it was on til we flipped over there. Not a bad way to kill a Sunday night I suppose. Now back to another year of forgetting what the "M" stands for in MTV.
You know how child actors are adorable, then they learn that they're adorable and start trying to be adorable, and turn into the Olsen twins?
In a state of confusion about whether people are laughing with him, conservative commentator Glenn Beck has announced a six-city tour of a one-man show/stand-up freak hybrid. His TV show is truly hilarious, in a how-can-anyone-that-feeds-themself-take-him-seriously sort of way. Where else can you see a grown man crying while he talks about how much he loves his country, then tells people to hoard their guns so they can take it back?
He says his show is like Seinfeld meets Thomas Paine's "Common Sense."
"What's the deal with this oppressive monarchy?" Hilarious.
Yes, we live in a world where that sentence can exist.
Paramount has given JJ Abrams the green-light to produce a sequel to a film whose release is over a month away. He's already picked his writers, though according to EW "prospective storylines remain a mystery." As does the plot to the movie none of us have seen yet.
Box office analysts are already predicting a 13% underperformance of their predicted take of 53.2 million on the prequel reboot sequel's opening weekend of May 27th, 2011.
Seriously though, while I've always preferred Wars to Trek, vis-a-vis geek adventures amongst the Stars, this new movie looks really awesome.
Said heist occurred at a Verizon store in LA last week, where pens and cellphones were stolen.
Oooh, did you feel that? Goosebumps? No? Yeah, me either.
You'd think Heidi Fleiss' ex-boyfriend-abuser could do a little better, right? This is the guy who, in Saving Private Ryan, got shot in the leg, emptied his sidearm firing at the person then threw it at them. This is the guy responsible for Shooting Sizemore. I'm very let down.
Wait, something just occurred to me here. Perhaps I'm underestimating ol' Super-Sizemore. I bet he's on the cutting edge of some drug trend. Let me extrapolate here: pens and cellphones...hmm...ink...microwave radiation...got it! He's hit on some way to irradiate regular ballpoint ink with microwaves from cellphones, changing the molecular structure to something that provides an intense high when injected. Of course! And in pursuing his high, he needs more and more ink, which requires more and more radiation, far more than just one BlackBerry can provide. Hence the break-in. It all makes sense now.
Or he's just a worthless crackhead and thought he spent last week in Vegas shooting craps with Sinatra.
Because it's just too hard to tell them apart on television any more.
Because this is literally the only media outlet Ryan Seacrest hasn't made money from.
Because 12-year old girls will sell themselves into white slavery for a new image of David Archuleta.
Set for release April 21 (note to readers: close to my birthday! so don't get me these), the 138-card series will feature past and present contestants, judges, and the omnipresent Seacrest himself.
True to the show's form, the print on Randy's card will be impossible to read, Paula's will inexplicably be a copy of a Chinese menu, and Simon's card will be just a bit bigger than the others.
In an attempt to broaden their audience, the Sci Fi Channel will be changing its name to SyFy on July 7. According to Tim Brooks, who helped launch the channel, "The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular." I'm sure the current core audience really appreciates that. That's like Lifetime saying they're changing their name because they're sick of being associated with histrionic menstrual 30-somethings with no boyfriends. Great job!
Not to mention that antisocial boys in their basements are the only people willing to watch such innovative programming as Vipers, the Sci Fi original movie featuring Tara Reid and Corbin Bernsen fighting...wait for it...snakes!
To still further distance themselves from antisocial basement-dwellers, they're working on a secretive game with Trion Worldwide, which will apparently be...an MMORPG? For the uninitiated, think World of Warcraft. Which is not geeky. No. No it is not.
Underlying all this is the decision of the new name itself. SyFy. Looks like Eastender slang for syphylis. Sound it out with me. IT'S THE SAME NAME. In related news, Spike will be changing its network name to Spic.
The new name will coincide with the launch of SyFy's first original show, "Warehouse 13." The title refers to a secret government installation in South Dakota which houses mysterious, sometimes supernatural artifacts. “It is a dramedy and it is set in the here and now. It’s a kind of an Indiana Jones meets ‘Moonlighting’ meets ‘The X-Files,’” Mr. Howe said. “This is a very accessible, relatable, fun show.”
So remember, when you're watching SyFy's new show "Warehouse 13," or an original movie featuring Dean Cain fighting off a prehistoric bus-sized gecko, the channel's not just for geeks any more.
Megastars Miley Cyrus and Kanye West have both taken shots at Radiohead recently. It's working about as well as Limbaugh's attack on Obama (that's right, I went political).
Cyrus went all tween-y at the Grammys and got her manager to ask if she could meet them backstage, because "they're my rock gods. These are the only people that I would cry over." You can clearly hear Radiohead's influence on Ms. Cyrus in her cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Actually, come to think of it, there is a similarity or two. When both Thom Yorke and Miley perform, I get kinda concerned and think maybe I should put my wallet in their mouths so they don't swallow their tongues.
Needless to say, Radiohead's collective response to the manager was "we don't really do that." Surprisingly some people don't like being wept all over by a babbling felony (thank you Mr. McHale). On a radio show later, Miley claimed she'll "ruin them." This is a band that gave an album away for free and still managed to make millions of dollars. Have fun with that.
Kanye's beef? Also a Grammy snub. So he very boldly sat down when they performed at the show. That'll learn em. Little does Kanye know, Thom's always got one eye on you. One lazy little eye.
Apparently the ad guys at Cartoon Network aren't too sharp on the ol' 10:30-11 PM demographic, because I saw the above commercial during King of the Hill, which is part of Adult Swim. Note to Disney and Cartoon Network: adults think things like Disney-sponsored eggs are incredibly stupid.
Now, on to my slack-jawed amazement. Really, Disney? Eggs? You've got your white-gloved mitts on foods ranging from waffles to delicious ice cream treats, but that wasn't enough, was it? Now you're laying claim to the offspring of our chickens. By simply stamping adorable little cartoon faces on the shells of these aborted fowl, you're telling our children "Hey! Mickey doesn't love you when you eat those lame store-brand eggs. You need to raise your little childhood cholesterol levels and break your parents' willpower and checkbooks by eating OUR eggs!"
What's next? Hannah Montana flour? "Stardom like this will surely implode, so learn to bake now!" Lost bacon? I'm sure Hurley would love to endorse it. (Note: that last comment was not offensive because I was making fun of an overweight fictional character, not the overweight actor who plays him (love you on the show Jorge)). (Further note: yes I am aware Lost is on ABC; it's part of the same media conglomerate as Disney).
"But Colin," you object, "the commercial says Disney eggs are FUN! Why do you hate fun?" Simple, my foolishly naive little reader. Because my faith in the shining beacon of advertising was tarnished long ago.
Coolio was arrested for possession of crack (really Coolio, you couldn't play it cool like Craig Robinson and just have some ecstasy?) and Brian Bosworth was arrested for DUI, both today.
I predict Jim J. Bullock will be arrested for statutory sometime Sunday.
Weird Al-suing Coolio and Stone Cold-starring Bosworth have clearly been employing the strategy of laying low for years and getting arrested abruptly to make a new impression on the public. I wonder if they have the same publicist as George Michael?
I blame Dr. Drew. His abilities to keep Gary Busey on television and at least somewhat relevant are sending the wrong message to C-listers. (But for real, how compelling and tragic was it to see him take Rodney King to the place where he was beaten?)
Because everything associated with the Trump name is so genuine.
The 60-year old married 36-year old Italian model Rossano Rubicondi last year. They were together for about six months.
I don't know about you guys, but having this news item drop days after The Bachelor rug was pulled out from under me just makes me want to hole up in a cave and stop bathing. Because if there's no hope for the ex-wife of The Classiest Hair Cloud in NYC, and there's no hope for reality-TV-based marriage proposals, then what hope is there for the rest of us?
Oh, that's right, it means something unexpected. So why then is everyone across America just AMAZED at the jackassery perpetrated by Jason Meznick on national television? Did they think The Bachelor was somehow above the below-sea-level bar set by other reality shows? Or that whatever couple formed would stay together anyway? Because so far the show is 0 for 12 (I'm not counting seasons 6 and 7: 6 had domestic abuse charges brought up and dropped, and I think the lesser O'Connell and his pick are staying together so they can make another show).
Let's face it. Batshit crazy is to reality television what herpes is to a small midwestern high school. Just because you don't show symptoms doesn't mean you don't have it, or will have it soon.
Honestly, I think I might have a modicum more of respect for VH1's reality pool, shallow and scummy though it may be. At least getting on one of their shows pretty much guarantees you a job for the next few years. You have three prospects on The Bachelor/ette: get booted and disappear, win so you can be dumped later, or almost win so you can go on the other show and get dumped later. Very promising. At least they don't drag their kids into it.
He's weighing in on Chris Brown. First mistake: weighing in on Chris Brown. It's Scylla and Charybdis. Nothing's been proven yet, so to villainize him could make you look like an idiot relatively soon. Probably not, but it could. To say anything remotely un-negative about it implies support of domestic abuse, no matter your intent (re: Kenan Thompson). So it's best to avoid the topic. Which isn't that difficult.
For most of us, anyway. Can you spot his second mistake?
"People make mistakes—and while I don't condone what happened that night, you know, what Chris did to her—I remember being young, 19, and at that age it seemed like everything was so over-the-top, and everyone's so passionate about things at the age."
Sure, I totally agree. Without the perspective of past experience and age, you think everything that's happening is the end-all be-all, and you feel things so strongly. I get it. I dated a girl that oftentimes made me want to see if I could put my head through a brick wall. We got into an argument once, and before I knew it we were screaming at each other in the street at 4 AM. I am not a screamer. I stifle. I push it down and sit on it. But there we were. And not once did it ever even begin to occur to me to raise a hand against her.
People do make mistakes. They make mistakes on their taxes. They forget to do the dishes. They insist on shouting out "sock!" in Pictionary, when you've clearly drawn a hiking boot. But whoever may have beaten the shit out of Rihanna did waaaay more than make a mistake. They completely destroyed their own future. And Jay-Z will most probably kill them.
"I'm not working because I'm not very good, not because I'm over the hill."
Ms. MacDowell goes on to claim that there are plenty of rich roles for slightly aged women. "We can play housewives inappropriately hitting on the attractive young male lead. We can play women desperately trying to forget how old we are during montage-laden girls-only vacation scenes. We can play women who, with decades of life experience, still define ourselves by men. So yeah. I think things are looking pretty good for the MILFs."
Sure, sure, we've all heard the story. Sean Delonas, a cartoonist for the NY Post (a bastion of fairness and sanity in the city here (no not really)), drew a cartoon of cops shooting a chimp who apparently wrote a stimulus bill. Al Sharpton got mad, etc etc. I actually don't think the racism was intended, but I think that's gotta be one of the laziest editorial cartoons I've ever seen. Just because two stories happen in the same week doesn't mean it makes any sense to put them in the same cartoon. However, it would be awesome for my life if the NY Post was never again on newsstands, so I totally support the Rev. Sharpton in his efforts.
What you may not know is the cartoon we saw was one of several drafts the now-unemployed Delonas came up with. Others include:
Chris Brown beating the crap out of a chimp giving birth to eight babies, telling the chimp "I'll show you a stimulus."
A grizzled Joaquin Phoenix staring awkwardly at a chimp under house arrest for bilking billions out of unwitting investors, until the chimp dies of boredom. After which Phoenix raps the word "stimulus" over and over.
Hugh Jackman presenting an Oscar to a chimp in a car seat. The chimp is drugged after a dentist visit, and there's a little thought bubble over him saying "Is this stimulus real?" Then the chimp randomly screams and dies.
A chimp is flying a plane with Jessica Simpson (in mom jeans) and Simon Cowell in the cockpit. The chimp is telling the tower, "I'm putting this stimulus down in the Hudson."
Amy Fisher is shooting a chimp in the face while saying "This is for Stimulus Buttafuoco."
This is the first episode of a new web comedy I'm in, Citizen's Arrest:
We also have a dedicated website that's pretty cool. And if I may toot my own horn, I wrote a lot of the content there, such as the character info, trivia, and citizen's arrest guide.
Starting March 11, American Idol will switch timeslots with Lie to Me (or whatever show has replaced it by then), bringing it head-to-head with Lost over on ABC. This is bad news for that rarest of 18-32 demographics, The Geek with Terrible Taste in Television. Thank god for DVRs, am I right?
I thought about this, and meditated, and looked inward, and drank a little. Why compete with each other, O Mighty Ratings Behemoths? Why not join forces? I think American Idol could benefit from a little JJ Abrams, and Lost could certainly use the advice of Simon Fuller to pull in more idiots, a population slice they're definitely missing. What might this merger look like?
Instead of following a specific bearing, island dwellers on Lost must sing "I Will Always Love You" just slightly off-key to escape the clutches of the island.
When contestants on Idol lose the vote, their goodbye video package is now a Dharma Initiative instructional reel explaining to them just why they weren't good enough.
Switcheroo! The island's Temple is now guarded by an amorphous Randy Jackson, while the first judge to give feedback on Idol will be a Smoke Monster wearing pimp shoes. He can't speak, but no one will notice the change.
Sayid is now the fifth judge, and a tie-breaker. If the judges are split, Sayid will force the contestant to sing Mariah Carey while he hooks a car battery to their nipples and drives bamboo under their nails. Not surprisingly, this will help them sound more like Mimi.
Joaquin Phoenix apparently not kidding about rap career. Christian Bale not kidding about his eyeline. Michael Phelps hitting a bong. Chris Brown hitting Rihanna. Miley Cyrus hating Asians. What in the hell is happening?
I don't know about you, dear readers, but I'm frightened. Could these be precursors to the impending doom of 2012? I'm talking about the Mayans, not Roland Emmerich, though from the look of it you could lump that in there as well (I just discovered there are three films coming up entitled 2012--really, people?). I don't think that's the case. I have a theory. I think there's a virus affecting only the famous, sort of like the X-Men's Legacy virus, or AIDS before those damn bisexuals messed it up for everyone. Think of everything this would explain: Mel Gibson, Britney, Lindsey Lohan (is she in remission--is there hope?), Gary Busey (nevermind, that was massive brain trauma), Tyra. You get the point.
I know exactly where it started. Who's the first superfamous celebrity to go absolutely batshit crazy at the top of their game? Michael Jackson. Sleeping in that hyperbaric chamber must have mutated a common cold or one of those other viruses we always carry around on us. Think of all the people he came into contact with in the 80's! And he knows he has it! That completely explains the ever-present surgical mask. I bet it takes a while to gestate. On Aug. 29, 2002, Britney presented Jackson with that award that he super-awkwardly thought was Artist of the Millennium. Was his mouth covered? No. Did she go batshit crazy within a couple years? Yes.
It's infected enough superstars now that its growth is exponential, which means there will be more and more waves of completely unpredictable celebrity behavior. Lil Wayne writing a postmodern metafictional novel. Ryan Seacrest dating women. Courtney Love living clean.
Years of vampire movies have taught me how to handle this. We have to kill the head psycho, and everyone he's affected will go back to normal. It's in our hands now. I'm afraid if we don't act soon, Brad might beat the crap out of Angelina. Do you want that on your hands?
