Archive for January 8th, 2010

B’also!

8th January
2010
written by jed

Goddamnit. I jumped to the Obama stuff and forgot to restart on page 2.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reportedly asked Mayor Bloomberg not to back Harold Ford, Jr. in his run for the Senate (against Kirsten Gillibrand).

This not only guarantees Bloomberg’s involvement, it pretty much cements Ford’s victory.

Did Google name their new super-phone (Nexus One) after the Nexus-6 androids (the phone runs on the operating system “Android”) in Philip K. Dick’s novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (which became the movie Blade Runner)? Dick’s heirs seem to think so.

It should be noted that Google paid George Lucas a tidy sum of money to use “Droid” in their ads and sitch.

Let me see if I get this straight:

At this point in 2008, NBC was averaging 7,600,000 viewers in their 10:00 p.m. Monday -Friday slot.

In September of this year, they averaged 7,900,000 (thanks to the 18,500,000 who watched the premiere). In October, it was 5,300,000. In November, it fell to 4,800,000. December brought it back up to 5,100,000 (yay!), which is only 2,500,000 less people than would normally be watching (or 49% of the current audience).

So what’s a shitty network to do? Why, give Jay his old 11:30 slot again! Right?

And here’s the beauty: Conan has (allegedly) been given an option — if he’s willing to move to 12:05-1:05, then Jay will get 11:35 – 12:05 OR Conan can fuck off and Jay will re-take is old Tonight Show slot in its entirety.

Also allegedly, I found out about this not long after Conan did. Which speaks volumes about the good folks at NBC. Which is also why I predict that Conan will turn down NBC’s shitty offer. I say he goes to Fox.

Just you wait and see.

Plaxico Burress, your request for a work-release furlough has been DENIED.

Back in your cell. Try not to shoot yourself (again).

At 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday, a man decided to jog naked near “the green space south of the White House.”

His jaunt lasted “less than a minute” and the Secret Service took him to a hospital “for a mental evaluation.”

We live in very interesting times.

TEQUILA’S SHOT AT CASEY KIN has more hot and tasty Twitter tweets from the grieving “widow”:

“Her family abandoned her for 5 years, her friends never called her, ONLY I DID and I HAVE PROOF IN ALL MY TEXT MESSAGES & BBM 2 PPL!!!!”

“Now that she’s gone her family and so called ‘FRIENDS’ pop up at my house, stealing our stuff & acting like they care? BULLSHIT! Money doesn’t buy you class.”

(Agreed, Exhibit A!)

“Who was there for her? I WAS! I took care of EVERYTHING! While her ‘friends’ used her.”

“Sorry I tried 2 keep my mouth shut as long as I could but I’m tired of these RICH ppl who pretend like they are better just cuz they have $$.”

“Some ppl think just cuz they’re rich that they can stomp all over other ppl. Even if that means taking away their daughters happiness!”

“My wife hated [her family]. Just wait til I tell everyone the truth I have proof, and the family is a piece of shit. No wonder she wanted to marry me.”

(Agreed! Only someone that truly hates their family would ask you to join it!)

She is also reportedly “in negotiations” to appear on Larry King Live.

(“Chlamydia, hello!”)

And what does Tila say todayon her blog about the woman who Casey Johnson allegedly robbed last year (and whose lawyers sent Tila a cease and desist letter because of all of the names Tila has been calling her on her blog)? “Prostitute,” “bitch,” drug addict” and “con artist.”

And if you’d like to see a fame whore pretend that she wants the paparazzi to leave her alone so that she can grieve (before posing for them and giggling and talking about her upcoming projects), click here (and then get tested).

OK. Now I’m done. G’night!

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Dailies

The Living End(oscopy).

8th January
2010
written by jed

What are you doing Tuesday morning? Are you planning on being sedated and having someone shove a camera down your throat to take a gander at your guttyworks? Well, I am.

I. Can’t. Wait.

In a story that’s more related than you might at first think, here’s “America’s Mare” Rudy 9iu11ani on Good Morning America. Just when you thought he couldn’t be more of a lisping douchebag…

Click here for link to video.

Before I delve into the Post (which is brimming with awful today), I must give special attention to the all-time worst film critic — Mr. Armond White. Ever one to buck convention (and popular opinion), Armond released no Best of 2009 List. Instead, he put together the “Better-Than List 2009.”

So instead of seeing, say, 10 movies you might consider seeing, Armond gives you 16 movies that are better than 16 other movies (the only exception: Everlasting Moments > Every other movie of 2009). Of the other 15, I can’t comment on most (Is Of Time and the City > Crude or Bandslam > Nine or This Is It > Me and Orson Welles? If and when I see (any of) them, I’ll let you know.), but a few actually made me laugh out loud.

I haven’t seen Gentlemen Broncos. What I’ve read has been wholly unkind (with a few polite pats on the back for the actors). Armond says “It is the 2001 of 2009.” And then he declares that it’s better than Inglourious Basterds (which I predict will net 6 Oscar nominations). He also declares that both Crank 2: High Voltage (a fun movie) and Gamer (a painfully awful movie) are better than the “insipid escapism” of Avatar. He criticizes Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell (another fun movie) for being “lowbrow, low-down and unedifying” in comparison to Ricky (a French family film about a flying baby, which I have yet to see), which is kind of like saying Amelie > The Final Destination (true, b’also a stupid argument to make). But, Armond being Armond, there was one comparison that trumped all the others: Next Day Air > Up in the Air.

“Benny Boom disinfects The Wire’s pathology into an August Wilson-rich comedy about what greed does to the working class; it has truth and beauty where Jason Reitman told white-collar lies about labor, vocation and lack of community.”

Even without seeing Up in the Air (a DVD of which I just got in the mail — consider my vote bought, guys!), I can tell you that this is bullshit. And to speak ill of The Wire in any way, shape or form (especially in comparison to something like Next Day Air) reveals an ignorance that borders on retardation.

Armond White (< Pete Hammond), ladies and gentlemen.

The New York Post has a headline that’s made up of dots. I used my pen to connect them and it revealed THEY WANT TO KILL US and I panicked (is this like that Bazooka Joe comic I once got that had “Help! I’m being held prisoner in a bubblegum factory!” written on it?). But then I saw the sub-head (President finally connects the dots) and I was able to see what they did there. “O, now he gets it. President Obama yesterday finally showed the nation that he knows the Christmas Day underwear bomber was acting for one reason — because al Qaeda thugs desperately want to kill us.” They forget to say “for our freedoms” at the end!

Pages 6, 7, 8 and 9 are all a continuation (each with OBAMA CONNECTS THE DOTS at the top, in the hopes of creating yet another asinine talking point for Tea Partiers and Palindrones [I just made that up -- patent pending!]) of the spurious argument that Obama is weak on terror and that (despite his taking half the time Bush did to comment on the shoe bomber) he waited to long to comment on Jim Carrey-on (and you just know that if he had held a press conference on Christmas Day, the Post would call it proof that he doesn’t respect the sanctity of Christmas). First up is Charles “Can You Guess My Partisan Agenda?” Hurt’s full-page Hilary was right! O fails the ‘3 a.m. phone’ test. Here’s Churlie’s take on what Clinton was saying in her infamous campaign commercial:

“If — in a national security crisis — the ‘red phone’ rang at 3 a.m., the ad intoned, Obama would not hear it. Or he would fail to answer it. Or he would be on vacation.

In any case, an Obama White House would so diminish the threat of terrorism that the government’s focus would shift away from the harsh and determined tactics used to protect the homeland. Instead, Obama would turn his attention to becoming more popular in the world and stress negotiations over hardball tactics. This attitude from the commander in chief would trickle down to every corner of the federal government responsible for national security.”

And, Churlie exasperatedly kvetches, she was right! That’s totally what happened! Obama is such a pompous asshole! Where’s the president who I could have a beer with while he destroyed our nation’s economy?

“It is certainly not the first piece of evidence that Obama would rather be liked in the world than pursue the tactics proven to beat this evil and unceasing enemy.

Never will be forgotten Obama’s trip to Cairo last year to address the Muslim world, when he said that he believes it is ‘part of my responsibility as president of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.’

Forget for a moment that such folly appears nowhere in the American president’s job description.

If you have time for such nonsense, then you are not spending enough time thinking about how to thwart this enemy.”

You know how that one time, Glenn Beck had someone wear a Nancy Pelosi mask and he served her poisoned wine? To illustrate his distaste for her politics, while adhering to the strict Rules of the Magic Underpants? If I were a Mormon, I might say that I want to force-feed Churlie a drum of jet engine fuel as a firebreather simultaneously performs the ol’ rusty trombone on him (if you know what I mean, o great and benevolent undergarments). But, as an agnostic, I have to make decisions for myself (without the safety net of eternal paradise) and I don’t think that kind of over-the-top borderline hate speech has any place in civil discourse, regardless of what any prophets purportedly said.

Instead, I’ll just point out that the last guy in charge started two wars (finishing neither) and was on vacation more than any other POTUS ever. Obama isn’t expected to even tie him at this rate. Bush had seven years to find the folks responsible for 9/11 (which, someone please remind 9iu11ani, happened during the Bush administration). One could argue that Bush didn’t spend enough time thinking how to thwart our enemies. If one was stupid enough to think that the job of the POTUS is primarily thinking of ways to thwart our enemies.

Of course, the Post doesn’t want to seem too partisan [insert Edna Krabapple laugh here], so page 7 is a kinder assessment of Obama’s speech (PREZ FIGURES IT OUT: THIS IS WAR).

“President Obama finally connected the dots and delivered a tough speech yesterday, vowing to fight the ’small men intent on killing innocent men, women and children’ through terror schemes like the botched Christmas crotch-bomb attack.

‘We are at war. We are at war against al Qaeda,’ he said in one of his strongest and most direct speeches about the threat to the United States. ‘We will do whatever it takes to defeat them.’”

Of course, the rest of this 4-page slog through finger-pointing and slander offers corrections (if you look hard enough) to many of the “facts” that the Post has offered over the last week and change. Things like the fact that Jim Carrey-on did have a US visa (so much for the repeated cries of “how does someone without a US visa even get on that plane, Mr. Obama the Softie!?”) and his plane ticket was a round-trip ticket (so much for the repeated cries of “how do you miss a gigantic red flag like a guy with no US visa buying a one-way ticket, Mr. Softie Soft-pants Arrogant Black Man Who Wants To Kill My Grandmother!?”).

Sigh.

What is it with killing Playboy models and mutilating them? Is it that the killers used to break apart their sisters’ Barbie dolls and it’s merely force of habit?

Paula Sladewski, 26, was found “burned beyond recognition in a Dumpster in Miami” and her boyfriend (Kevin Klym, 34) is a “person of interest” (Paula once texted her stepfather “He’s trying to kill me.”). Between this, that lady in the suitcase (killed by her VH1-fixture boyfriend), and those new magazine spreads with the chubby ladies, it’s just not worth it to be a supermodel any more.

Ironically, Sladewski’s turn-offs included “insincerity, war, chewing with your mouth open, and being found burned beyond recognition in a Dumpster in Miami.”

A judge ordered Ronald Perelman to make good on his promise to fund Ellen Barkin’s production company — to the tune of $3,400,000 (plus the interest since the agreement was made in 2006, for a total of $4,300,000).

Perelman’s spokesperson said, “The decision will be vigorously appealed.”

At a cost of far more than $4,300,000.

Look, children, this is how those ugly people flirt with each other.

All states that allow gay marriage, step forward. Not so fast, New Jersey.

Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont, thank you. And thanks to Portugal, as well.

I made the mistake of listening to the New Jersey politicians explain why they were or weren’t voting for the bill. The arguments for were impassioned and moving. The arguments against were embarrassing. As is the result.

Anything that contradicts previous reports on the Arenas/Crittenton case? Well, yes! It’s still four (4) guns (today), but they’re back to being on a chair. And after Crittenton loaded his gun and cocked it, Arenas laughed and said, “Look at that little shiny gun.”

“The tension eventually defused with Crittenton breaking into song, while still holding his gun, according to [The Washington Post].”

Curiouser and curiouser…

Pamela Anderson will be autographing bottles of her new perfume. In Philadelphia. At two Rite-Aids. I promise I’m not making this up.

She even told People StyleWatch, “I am a drugstore whore.”

What’s great about that sentence is that you can remove pieces of words (“store”) or entire words (“drugstore” or “whore”) and Pamela maintains the same level of dignity. Signing bottles of perfume. In two different Rite-Aids. In Philadelphia.

Are they paying her in Hepatitis medicine?

Hayden Panettiere “never” dated Adrian Pasdar or Milo Ventimiglia or Kevin Connolly (aim high, Hayden!) and now she “isn’t” dating… Wladimir Klitschko?!?

Yikes.

Never again?

“I’ve always tried to stay away from playing Jews. I get like 20 Holocaust scripts a month, but I hate the genre.” — Natalie Portman in British Elle

Another salvo fired in the Service Providers vs. Cable Networks War! Cablevision asks (in a full-page ad), “Why won’t Scripps Network put Food Network and HGTV back on while we negotiate? Obviously, they don’t care about you, the viewer, as much as they claim to.”


Oh no they dih-ih!

You bess come correct, Scripps.

The first HIV-positive man to legally visit our country in over a decade arrived at Kennedy Airport.

Michael Goodwin responded by saying that “Any American that dies of AIDS from here on out is 100% Obama’s fault.” And then he ran away.

John Michael Farren, 57, a former senior attorney to then-President George W. Bush, was arraigned on attempted-murder (and other) charges after he beat and choked his wife into unconsciousness. She was “temporarily blinded after being repeatedly struck with a metal flashlight Wednesday night” by her husband. She now has “a broken nose, a broken jaw and other injuries.” Once again, the assailant is a former senior attorney to then-President George W. Bush.

Oh, I’m sorry; do politics not belong in this discussion? OK. Then please stop dragging Obama’s name into every other sentence in your stories about Peter Orszag’s love child with Claire Milonas (I found the picture [sorry it's so teeny] — try not to think of that Aphex Twin video when you look at her).

claire milonas

Another cast member of Jersey Shore got into a fist-fight? For reals? And he got arrested and whatnot? Day-um. Say it ain’t so, Ronnie Magro!

“I really don’t feel bad for the altercations that I did get into in Seaside because I’m really not a person who likes to fight.”

Altercations? What uh you, a tailuh? (high-fives idiot friends while applying AXE body spray/intelligence repellent)

I also like how it happened in September but the Post is reporting on it now because the episode that features part of the fight aired last night.

Is Fox looking to buy Viacom?

Two EMTs were on a coffee break, which is why they let pregnant 25-year-old Eutisha Rennix die in the Au Bon Pain she worked at of what now appears to be an asthma attack. Co-workers begged the EMTs to look at her, but they repeatedly insisted, “‘We’re on our break, so there’s nothing we can do,’ as they waited for their orders of Asiago cheese bagels.” They left without looking at Rennix.

That would be a great ad campaign for Au Bon Pain.

“America runs on Dunkin’ but you best not bother America when we get our Au Bon Pain Asiago Cheese Bagels, aight?”

“Get your Asiago-on-the-go and come to a halting stop!”

“I don’t care how many pregnant ladies die, it’s just that delicious!”

Jason Williams has been released on $5,000 bail (what the fuck?!?) and is now wearing a (snicker) “alcohol-monitoring bracelet.”

In the editorial We Are at War, the Post says it again for the cheap seats; Obama is a pompous fop who wants to kiss terrorists instead of fight them and we are all in great danger because of him.


“‘It appears that this incident was not the fault of a single individual or organization, but rather a systemic failure across organizations and agencies,’ he said. That’s to say, no one is to blame.”

Exactly. Wait. Not exactly. What’s the other thing? Oh, yeah. Disingenuous.

“If Obama had lopped off a couple of heads after the Detroit fiasco — and yesterday wouldn’t have been too late — it would have sent a powerful signal: This guy means business. He didn’t.”

Are you serious? You started screaming that he was waiting too long since the day after Christmas! He could be wearing a hat and holding a sign that both say “I mean business!” while screaming “I mean business!!” on a float shaped like the words “I mean business!!!” and you’d still insist he wasn’t making it clear re: his intentions on the business front.

I wonder what some idiot in Kiev, Ukraine thinks of all this.

Ronald Marks of Kiev, Ukraine (!) writes in and (like at least one person every damned week) begins his letter praising Ralph Peters for being “spot on.”

“Obama, stop trying to talk the enemy to death.”

Ronald, stop trying to talk. B’also? From now on, those things in my underwear are roland marks.

Bill O’Reilly, you sexually-harassing nimrod. “On my TV program, I asked [Brit] Hume, a devout Christian, whether he was proselytizing. He said no and put forth that he was just offering Woods some advice he might consider. Thus, the question becomes: What is Hume’s sin?”

Bill insists that, since “Buddhism has no concept of sin,” Hume was just trying to do him a solid; what’s the hullabulloo?

Try this, Bill: Let’s say you could find a woman to mask her disgust so convincingly that you ask her to marry you and she does. You spend time together and are completely at peace. Then you go out one night and a woman approaches her and tells her that your wife’s dress makes her look fat and her hair is all wrong and, if she actually wanted to look attractive, she should get some plastic surgery. The woman insists she’s just trying to be helpful; she means no harm, it’s just that she, too, was once ugly and knows how great your wife would feel if she did what the woman did.

Now multiply that by 1,000 and shut up.

Kyle Smith gave three and a half stars to Youth In Revolt (“It’s Wes Anderson minus the angst.”), two and a half stars to Daybreakers (“Nipped in the blood”) and one and a half stars to Wonderful World (“the central message… smacks of the justly derided ‘Magical Negro’ school of filmmaking”).

V.A. Musetto gives Flooding with Love for the Kid three stars (it’s a one-man adaptation of the novel that First Blood was based on, made for $96.00).

Lou Lumenick has but a star and a half to give the new Amy Adams rom-com (“Leap Year may be the least funny Hollywood comedy to take advantage of Irish tax credits since The Honeymooners.”)

Barry Bonds’ son (Nikolai, 20) “faces charges of battery, false imprisonment, vandalism, making threats to an officer and obstructing an officer.” What do the charges stem from?

He threw a doorknob at his mother.

And VH1 will be sending over their pitch for The Family Bonds to Barry Bonds’ agent in 5… 4… 3…

The Nets has officially banned gambling on their flights.

They remain 3-32, so I’d reconsider. Maybe some of those guys need to be held at gunpoint?

Jets vs. Bengals tomorrow night?

Tickets are still available.

Can you feel the (yawn) excitement?

The Post thinks you should keep an eye on Eliza Siep this year (on American Idol)! She used to date Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance! OMG!!!

“And this time, I’m doing the whole thing as Peter Falk as Columbo. No, I’ve made up my mind. Well, if you didn’t me to, then you shouldn’t have fucked up the entire eight-episode season.“

The Kevin Pollak-hosted Our Little Genius, America’s next grating game show, has been pulled from the air (before a single episode aired) by Fox after Mark Burnett (the show’s producer) “discovered that there was an issue with how some information was relayed to contestants during pre-production.”

Um, Mark? If you discovered that during pre-production, why did you respond during way-post-production?

Fini.

Happy weekend!

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Dailies