Archive for October 16th, 2009

The Truth About Balloon Boy (Now With Televised Vomit!)

16th October
2009
written by jed

Anything happen since last I spoke at you? A boy was trapped in a balloon, you say? The nation held its breath, praying that the boy would somehow miraculously rescued? And when it was discovered that he wasn’t in the balloon, people feared he feel out? And then we learned he was never in the balloon? And his family is made up of publicity-hungry weirdos who have already been featured on the news as “hurricane chasers”?

And on the dignity graveyard that ABC calls Wife Swap? Prepare yourself for the speech-impedimentiest clip ever!

Could the Heene patriarch be a bigger asshole? Actually… yes.

The whole family went on Larry King Live to discuss what horrors they went through during Falcon’s disappearance. And when Falcon was asked by his father why he didn’t come out when he heard his folks calling his name… here’s the clip.

I wonder, if Larry King was playing the part of Larry King last night instead of Wolf Blitzer, if he would’ve said, “Wait. Did he just say ‘you guys said that we did this for a show’? Did I hear that right?” instead of the clumsy subject changing Wolf did.

Luckily real journalism fans have… Meredith Vieira? Yup. She asks the father that very question and he offers a remarkably complicated answer, during which time Falcon vomits. Repeatedly.

Bonus points: Check out Dad’s face while his son is puking. He couldn’t find his kid more repulsive. Wince-tastic!

People of Earth: Ignore this family. All of them. From now on. Please. Or they will never ever go away.

Also, special thanks to Liz Varner for introducing me to Letters of Note. What a great website.

(the South Park memo has made the internet rounds many times over the years, but I still laughed out loud while re-reading it)

The last 24 hours of weather has been remarkably awful and less than ideal for baseball (or humanity in general). If you add to that the fact that the heat in our palatial estate has been off for the last 2 days, you’ll understand why I am wearing flannel monkey pajamas under my regular clothes (actually, as I am usually sipping coffee in boxers at this time of day, the fact that I am wearing “regular clothes” at all is a red flag) and shaking my fist at the sky.

Luckily, our landlord and a plumber stopped by today to figure out the problem and the heat is back on… but now there is steam filling up the basement (the landlord’s, not ours) and smoke alarms keep going off. Never a dull moment on Prospect Park Southwest.

Since it was warmer outside than in my bedroom (a mild exaggeration, I went to Target when Teresa went to work. I cannot recommend this enough. Not only was I one of roughly 10 customers in the entire 2-story store, but I found a miniature Joker figure for under $1.60. Of course, I didn’t find any of the things I actually went there looking for, but I didn’t have to wait on line and no one pushed me (except for one unapologetic and morbidly fat employee as I tried to maneuver around him to enter the elevator [he was standing directly in front of the door as it was about to close, so I tried to go behind him and he stepped backwards into my right shoulder]). Still, if you can hit Target while most of Obnoxious America is still watching Balloon Boy vomit, it’s extremely worth it.

Since I’ve already covered the Heene family more than anyone has a right to, I’ll ignore the HIGH JINKS! cover story (bonus points for making the front page photo a TV-screen grab with prominent Fox News Channel logo; double super bonus points for positioning Derek Jeter [there's a 20-page ALCS section today] in such a way that he appears to be staring at that photo) and start with the page 2 story about Paterson’s new budget-balancing proposal — $113,000,000 less from the $3,900,000,000 already promised to the MTA (I foresee a lot more subway-less weekends in store for the Mrs. and me), $287,000,000 less (statewide) to Medicare (so a Black man is trying to kill our grandparents, Sarah; I never should have doubted you!) and plenty more, adding up to a total of $350,000,000 that NYC will see cut (out of $3,000,000,000 cuts for this year and $2,000,000,000 next year for all of New York state).

No tax hikes, no layoffs. Paterson says we’ll be bankrupt by December if the Legislature doesn’t approve his proposal. The MTA’s credit rating will (possibly) endangered by the proposed cut (really? there’s a credit rating below “grossly negligent and remarkably incompetent”?).

Yesterday I predicted that the Post, having praised Paterson on their editorial page, would follow it up with criticism (thus proving that all Fox media is “fair and balanced”). Was I right? The answer is on page 28.

Are the two guys that are neck and neck in New Jersey’s gubernatorial actually spending all of their time talking about each others’ weight? Or is the Post just a terrible paper?

Or both?

Tonight is supposed to be 41 degrees with a 50% chance of rain. Wait… why did I think it was 60%?

(turns to back cover of paper)

Tonight is supposed to be 41 degrees with a 60% chance of rain.

Page 3 says 50%, the sports pages say 60%. Who do I trust?

Well, the back cover also informs me that there’s more Yankees news on PAGES 119-116. Funny, Rupert Murdoch doesn’t look Jewish (actually, he kinda does). And on page 120 (the Yankee coverage actually spans from 116-121), it says there’s a 60% chance of rain tonight, an 80% chance tomorrow and a 70% chance of rain on Sunday.

I just want to watch some baseball, Jeebus. Please try not to cry until, say, midnight? Is that doable?

There’s almost a full page about how Bernie Madoff’s son had a fight with his wife and ran away but then he came back and they argued more and then he ran away with his Vespa and she called the cops and then he came back having spent a night in a hotel and so now everything’s OK and I can’t believe I spent four minutes of my day reading this.

From now on, no more Madoff Family news unless it is liberally slathered in schadenfreude.

Lindsay Lohan hasn’t been serving her DUI probation quite the way she’s s’posed tuh. Seems she never got back to the folks at Right On Programs after she got a “leave of absence” to leave the state and shoot a movie (and, presumably, heroin). So they told the judge and the judge ordered Lindsay back to court to explain wha hoppen. TMZ saw Lindsay hurriedly going to the program yesterday (she has 6 weeks left to finish the entire course).

I can’t wait for her dad’s reality show. And, in three years, hers.

Cabbies are about to get a whole lot lonelier (and way quieter).

By the end of the year, the TLC will enact new rules which include a total ban on ALL“communication technology with cab in motion. No hands-free device, even if the phone is off.” And if someone is caught breaking this rule three times? License revoked, big fine.

Entering a cab in New York City: $2.50.

Each fifth of a mile: $0.40.

Not hearing a heated argument in Nigerian: priceless.

Auschwitz now has a Facebook page.

And really, who wouldn’t want to get status updates from Auschwitz?

Besides everyone?

A 23-year-old decided to jaywalk at the intersection of West 23rd St. and 10th Ave.

He was hit by an NYPD Manhattan South Task Force van. He’s in stable condition.

Tepid applause.

State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D-Queens) has been found NOT GUILTY of pretty much everything connected to his attack on his girlfriend. Cleared of the felony count, cleared of the “lesser charge of slashing [Giraldo's] face with a broken glass.”

In fact, the only thing he was found GUILTY of is misdemeanor (third-degree) assault. The judge blamed the lack of proof of what actually happened in the apartment as the reason he ruled in favor of the thuggish ex-cop. “There are two kinds of not-guilty findings. One is innocence, the other is not proven — these counts were not proven,” explained Judge William Erlbaum.

Boooooooo.

Hiram faces up to a year in prison. If he goes to prison, he loses his seat in the Senate. For all that is holy, please make this happen, Jeebus.

Fun fact: Guess how much money was spent trying to rescue that spoiled vomiting named-after-a-bird kid out of the balloon he was never in. Go on, guess.

Did you say $2,000,000? Correct!

Roman Polanski has Woody Allen on his side. Homosexuals have Joe Francis on their side. And now, Barack Obama also has someone defending him who might better serve him by staying silent. Is Jimmy Carter a bad man? Gosh, no. But whenever some pundit complains about how the Nobel committee has a history of giving the Peace Prize to people who don’t deserve it, Carter’s the example that always follows Arafat.

Love ya, Jimmy, but when you give Glenn Beck sound bites like, “[Obama] deserves it as much as anyone who’s ever gotten it for his achievement already,” you really aren’t helping your team.

Funny, Sean “Puff Daddy/P. Diddy/Diddy./Just Diddy/No, I Meant That I Removed The Period And You Should Just Call Me Diddy From Now On/Diddy From Now On/Oh, I Give Up” Combs doesn’t look Jewish.

While filming a segment with his new hip-hop group (Dirty Money) for BET’s 106 & Park, Combs threw bundles of fake money into the studio audience. But when the audience noticed that there was “$25 to $100 singles mixed in with the funny money,” the crowd, as they say, went wild. As that went on, Combs looked at his hand and realized that one of his rings (worth an estimated $20,000) was missing, he walked offstage. When the cameras cut, an announcement was made and fans started hunting on the floor. Combs’ “staff” started insisting that part of the set be dismantled so that they could look for the ring there, but were rebuffed. The rest of the show went on as planned, but when the taping was over, the entire audience was frisked and checked with a metal detecting wand.

“Ok diddy lost his ring… and now there frisking all the kids like this is rikers lite,” Twatted PWillzNYC.

“when it was over, diddy held us hostage lookin for his lost ring. dont like him no more!!!” added the seemingly fickle dbaumz.

Not to be outstupided, Combs Twatted, “The craziest shit just happened to me lol I guess its shittin on me season… Enjoy it while it lasts!!!!! lol life is crazy.”

Why does the future of communication hurt my brain (and heart and soul)?

B’also, why you so nuts over a $20,000 ring, yo? Ain’t you a big balla, son?

Charlie Rangel has spent $255,000 in legal fees — over the last three months alone — stemming from the current investigations of him. His total for the year is expected to be roughly $1,000,000.

Hope it’s worth it, Raspy.

There’s a picture on Page Six (today on page 13) of Mel Gibson and the Russian lady he left his wife for.

If Jocelyn Wildenstein and Angelina Jolie had a baby, it would look like Oksana Grigorieva.

There’s also a Page Six picture (on page 14) of Roman Polanski’s wife, Emmanuelle Seigner smacking a photographer (who tried to interview her as she arrived home on her motorcycle) with her motorcycle helmet.

I wonder if the photographer’s first question was “Aren’t you a little old to be married to Roman?”

Jeff Kirby was a contestant on Jeopardy! in 1999.

Jeff Kirby was a contestant on Jeopardy! in 2009.

That’s totes against the rules. Both times, Jeff came in third — but he still managed to outsmart the game show for brainiacs.

Charles Hurt compares Barack Obama to Bernie Madoff in the unintentionally hilarious ‘Barackie Madoff’ rescue nothing but a $16B rip-off.

So it only seems fair that I compare Charles Hurt to John Wayne Gacy.

A couple in Louisiana who agreed to trade their cockatoo for two (human) children will avoid serving five years in prison by testifying against the woman who they traded with.

Between this and the story I read on Facebook about this, I have to say that Louisiana is nudging past Texas and the Carolinasfor the Most Depsicable State In America award.

Was Anna Nicole Smith having a lesbian affair with one of her enabling doctors?

Does anyone actually care?

Page 28 has three editorials: The Monserrate Stain calls for Hiram’s removal from politics, Paterson’s $3 Billion Chop claims that Paterson’s math is way off and his two years budget balancing will actually leave a $1,800,000,000 deficit when they’re over (meaning my prediction was more or less correct), and The Yanks’ Unfinished Business cheered on the Bronx Bombers as they (Jeebus willing) play the Angels tonight. The page also features 6 letters written in regarding Michael Goodwin’s last page of “Obama is a whiner about Fox” whining — and every one applauds Goodwin for “telling the truth.”

Page 28, you just made the list.

Uncle Sam’s ‘Kick Me’ Sign by Bill O’Reilly begins, “With apologies to Louis Armstrong, it’s no longer a wonderful world. Today, it’s a strange, dangerous world where fanaticism and treachery largely have replaced reason and humanity.”

“And,” he continued in my mind, “that’s just here at Fox News!”

Then Andrea Peyser started demanding his resignation (or ousting) because of his sexual harassment (not a consensual affair) of (at least) one of his employees.

Lou Lumenick’s two-star review of Where The Wild Things Are is titled (are you sitting down?) Return to Sendak. And they put a word balloon next to the kid playing Max’s mouth saying, “Wake me when it’s over!”

The last paragraph of the review: “So, fuhgeddabout Where The Wild Things Are? No, but brace yourself for a noble failure.”

“Wanna see a movie?” “Yeah. How about Where The Wild Things Are? I hear it’s a noble failure.” “Great! I’ll go get $70 out of the ATM!”

Lou also gives two stars to the movie Black Dynamite. “Though this is essentially a one-joke movie, it’s worth renting Black Dynamite when it comes out on DVD…”

I think we need to give Lou a one-star system. Either he likes it (one star) or he doesn’t (no stars).

Bye Bye Birdie sucks… in stereo!

On page 38, Michael Riedel reports that Gina Gershon is now asking other directors to help her not be terrible in the show, and on page 39, Elisabeth Vincentelli (or is it Vincent Elizabethelli?) gives the show one and a half stars (“Stamos and Gershon sure look great. Then they open their mouths.”).

I want to fix these two up on a blind date. They’re in the same industry, they work at the same editorial kindergarten, they’re both catty, he likes men, and she looks like one!

The cast for The Celebrity Apprentice 3: Can You Spot The Celebrities? has been revealed.

I have never heard of Curtis Stone (Australian celebrity chef!), Summer Sanders (Olympic swimmer!) and Maria Kanellis (a wrestler of some sort!). Bill Goldberg (another wrestler!) and Daryl Strawberry (he played baseball and did drugs — often simultaneously!) are athletes. Sharon Osbourne and Bret Michaels each have their own reality shows already. I don’t think Carol Leifer or Holly Robinson Peete have appeared on TV for over a decade. Rod Bluh-GOY-uh-vitch (nice lady) should be in prison. Which means that the actual celebrities this season are…

Cyndi Lauper and Sinbad.

All this and Donald Trump? Followed by The Jay Leno Show?

What did I ever do to you, NBC?

Let’s hope the sky clears (this morning, I could have sworn it was snowing) and that baseball can be played.

Have a super-duper weekend.

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