Well I am back home again, home being another word for “where my stuff, and more importantly Natalie the Laptop, is.” I can’t say that I have become accustomed to having Delaware be my home quite yet. I haven’t even felt quite at home in my new apartment. I blame the hardwood floors. While they are really sweet and make the place look great it doesn’t have that homey feel of having fluffy carpet underneath your bare feet. Instead I feel like I’m on a gym floor with the coach getting ready to yell at me for wearing the wrong shoes.
It has been a fun few days as I have flown from Philly to Chicago on Wednesday (easiest flight with empty seats), back to Philly on Saturday (full plane but still on time), then off to Indianapolis on Sunday (full plane, several hours delayed, no beverage service and the unnerving realization that one is willingly going to Indiana) and then finally back to Philly today. It is not a surprise that given all of this travelling and the fact that I hung around with my eight nieces and nephews that I am now dealing with a seriously nasty head cold. This happens after every Thanksgiving. I should just immediately write off the next week because I know that I will have a cold. Too many people on planes with no fresh air.
Switching gears, since I was stuck in a hotel this morning I ended up watching the morning news. Apparently Brittney Spears’ birthday is an official news event as it was covered on every channel I turned to. I know that she has a new album and all, and that there is always a measurable probability that she will spontaneously combust, but I’m really at a loss as to how this counts as news. Sure, she performed in a circus tent in New York (no word on whether she was a) shot from a cannon, b) performed on a trapeze, or c) had to do that bit with the spinning plates that they always gave the least talented person on Circus of the Stars) but I really don’t think we need to cover it. There is a slight chance that if we stopped paying attention she would go away.
(Plus, unless My Beloved Lindsay gets equal time I must protest on general principle.)
Changing gears once again: Did they turn the lights on again in Kansas City? Just want to make sure that was done in my absence. Actually, in my five years in Kansas City I never saw the Plaza lighting or went to the St. Patrick’s Day parade. The first was because I always went home for Thanksgiving and the latter was because, well, I lived closer to bars than the parade route so I never quite made it there.
This brings me back to the start of the post. How long it takes me to feel at home. As much as I knew from the start that Kansas City was just a stopping point it did turn into home for me near the end. I do find myself missing things, or at least the convenience the town had. I certainly miss the bars, which really matched my style, and the music scene. I fit in pretty well there. It wasn’t a perfect fit but maybe I give it a little too much grief than I should.
Best of 120 Minutes: Since I didn’t post on Sunday I thought that I would make it up here. Consider it more of your Alternative Nation moment for the day. In honor of the election cycle here is everyone’s favorite socialist Billy Bragg. Watch for the cameos by Michael Stipe and Peter Buck of R.E.M. and, if I remember correctly, the house is Bill Berry’s. So this is really an R.E.M. video without the guy with the glasses.
Showing posts with label Britney Spears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Britney Spears. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Monday, January 14, 2008
There are no second acts...
Note # 1 to people who deal with me in real life: After much cajoling I have finally put together a Facebook page. Or at least I’ve started one, it will take me a little time to flesh out the profile and the multimedia components. Oh, and get friends. I should probably work on that. Right now it shows that I have one friend. Kind of sad, really (but thanks Ann). Anyway, let me know if you’re on and we’ll become friends or allies or people who sit at the same lunch table in an attempt to look like people tolerate our company.
Note # 2 to people who deal with me in real life: Fair warning, I am in complete organization mode right now. This happens every six months or so when I decide that all that is keeping me from complete satisfaction is sufficient numbers of manila folders. This is always dangerous as I end up creating excel spreadsheets scheduling my life in fifteen minute increments. Also, I design to do lists so intricately detailed that “have dinner” is its own line item. So if I seem even more calculating than usual, or if you hear me discussing that I spent the evening filing my old credit card statements by month, you know why.
(The fact that I do this doesn’t frighten me. It’s the realization that if I wasn’t creative and if I wasn’t a writer I would be so far off the scale that standard deviations would no longer apply. Imagine if all I cared about really were numbers. Actually, don’t imagine that. It’s not a very pleasant thought.)
On to a topic that has been bothering me the past week or so. I was thinking about the Brittney Spears situation trying to figure out where the story will end. It dawned on me that we have reached the point where people will only be happy when it ends tragically. I’m completely serious here; I truly feel that our culture not only expects this to end badly but is actively hoping that it does. I can only compare it to a description I heard once about Altamont where someone said that the only way the night was going to end was with blood.
American culture loves nothing more than to build up an icon only to tear it down. That way we can marvel in the splendor while relishing in the schadenfreude. Typically though once they have had their tragic downfall we forget about them. It’s not as if anyone cares about Pee Wee Herman or Mike Tyson or any of the other fallen celebrities. They are an old punch line, reserved for appearances on decade retrospectives or The Surreal Life. The cameras disappear once they have hit bottom. This hasn’t been the case with Brittney. In fact, the attention has only gotten worse.
What are we watching for right now? We’ve already seen her marriage collapse and her kids taken away. We’ve seen her mentally breakdown to the point that she shaved her head. We’ve seen her set off to rehab and collapse in her comeback effort. Hell, I could tell you what she was wearing when she went out to get coffee last week. What are we hoping to see? Why are the cameras still there?
The only conclusion that I can make is that this is where we see the truly dark nature of our voyeuristic society. Because the only reason to watch is to hope that she falls even further and I don’t know where else she can take this other than tragedy. All the while we sit idly by, discussing the latest updates as if it was our favorite television series. There’s no acknowledgement that there is a human being on the other end of the lens. They’re not human, they’re celebrities.
This bothers me, especially given how much I write about celebrity gossip. When the story ends we’ll talk about how it was such a tragic waste of talent. It will be one of those Hollywood legends retold again and again. No one will bother to mention that we were too busy watching Access Hollywood to do anything about it.
Note # 2 to people who deal with me in real life: Fair warning, I am in complete organization mode right now. This happens every six months or so when I decide that all that is keeping me from complete satisfaction is sufficient numbers of manila folders. This is always dangerous as I end up creating excel spreadsheets scheduling my life in fifteen minute increments. Also, I design to do lists so intricately detailed that “have dinner” is its own line item. So if I seem even more calculating than usual, or if you hear me discussing that I spent the evening filing my old credit card statements by month, you know why.
(The fact that I do this doesn’t frighten me. It’s the realization that if I wasn’t creative and if I wasn’t a writer I would be so far off the scale that standard deviations would no longer apply. Imagine if all I cared about really were numbers. Actually, don’t imagine that. It’s not a very pleasant thought.)
On to a topic that has been bothering me the past week or so. I was thinking about the Brittney Spears situation trying to figure out where the story will end. It dawned on me that we have reached the point where people will only be happy when it ends tragically. I’m completely serious here; I truly feel that our culture not only expects this to end badly but is actively hoping that it does. I can only compare it to a description I heard once about Altamont where someone said that the only way the night was going to end was with blood.
American culture loves nothing more than to build up an icon only to tear it down. That way we can marvel in the splendor while relishing in the schadenfreude. Typically though once they have had their tragic downfall we forget about them. It’s not as if anyone cares about Pee Wee Herman or Mike Tyson or any of the other fallen celebrities. They are an old punch line, reserved for appearances on decade retrospectives or The Surreal Life. The cameras disappear once they have hit bottom. This hasn’t been the case with Brittney. In fact, the attention has only gotten worse.
What are we watching for right now? We’ve already seen her marriage collapse and her kids taken away. We’ve seen her mentally breakdown to the point that she shaved her head. We’ve seen her set off to rehab and collapse in her comeback effort. Hell, I could tell you what she was wearing when she went out to get coffee last week. What are we hoping to see? Why are the cameras still there?
The only conclusion that I can make is that this is where we see the truly dark nature of our voyeuristic society. Because the only reason to watch is to hope that she falls even further and I don’t know where else she can take this other than tragedy. All the while we sit idly by, discussing the latest updates as if it was our favorite television series. There’s no acknowledgement that there is a human being on the other end of the lens. They’re not human, they’re celebrities.
This bothers me, especially given how much I write about celebrity gossip. When the story ends we’ll talk about how it was such a tragic waste of talent. It will be one of those Hollywood legends retold again and again. No one will bother to mention that we were too busy watching Access Hollywood to do anything about it.
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
We really need a Spears Family Christmas Special
One of the horrible things about the writers’ strike is that it greatly reduces the number of topics I have to write about. No new How I Met Your Mother episodes (by the way, if the series does not resume the creators have informed me that the mother is the coat check girl) and The Big Bang Theory is in indefinite reruns. What in the world could possibly happen that I might be able to write about? I mean, it’s not like the younger sister of a troubled starlet is going to get pregnant or anything…
Oops…I did it again.
(Yes it is a horrible pun but do you know how many headlines are going to have a variation of that in the morning.)
For those of you who have missed the big news, Brit’s little sister and star of the hit Nickelodeon series Zoey 101, Jamie Lynn Spears is preggers. Now when you read Nickelodeon star and preggers that leads to one simple question with an obvious answer; Jamie Lynn is 16 years old. I think I speak for most of North America when I say that is seriously f-ed up.
I mean, being pregnant at sixteen is messed up to begin with. Last night I made fun of people with the Clapper having kids but at least they are adults. At sixteen you should barely be allowed to drive at night much less be involved in raising a child. Now on top of that, imagine having something like this play out in the national media. Does anyone ever dream of being the poster child for unwed teenage mothers?
Now add this to the banner year that the Spears family has been having already. Brit’s a complete mess and can’t even be bothered to make the court dates to argue for custody of her own two children. That’s the sad part of that whole state of affairs; she’s so screwed up that she can’t even be bothered to get out of bed to see if she can gain custody. Brit claims illness but let’s be honest, most mothers would come to court with their leg in a bear trap if it meant a better chance at seeing their kids. Maybe it is understandable that her little sister gets pregnant. It might be the only attention she has gotten all year.
You really have to look at their parents throughout all of this and wonder just what the hell they were thinking. Remember that both girls were raised to be superstars and not kids. This is like one of those beauty pageant moms gone berserk. The idea was to groom the girls into pop superstardom and as a result I don’t know if they have any grounding in reality. One can’t purchase fame and while you can manufacture infamy it just isn’t the same. Now Brit is a tired joke and Jamie Lynn will be handing her kid off to a nanny while wondering how to resurrect her career at 18. What a strange world.
(Switching gears, one story from the weekend that I need to share here. I had a dream that I was in How I Met Your Mother over the weekend. As in I was Ted or Ted was me or since the character is based on me I am me. Either way, I was literally in a bar with Barney and was able to successfully steal a girl away from him. That might be my biggest accomplishment of the past month and it wasn’t even real.)
Oops…I did it again.
(Yes it is a horrible pun but do you know how many headlines are going to have a variation of that in the morning.)
For those of you who have missed the big news, Brit’s little sister and star of the hit Nickelodeon series Zoey 101, Jamie Lynn Spears is preggers. Now when you read Nickelodeon star and preggers that leads to one simple question with an obvious answer; Jamie Lynn is 16 years old. I think I speak for most of North America when I say that is seriously f-ed up.
I mean, being pregnant at sixteen is messed up to begin with. Last night I made fun of people with the Clapper having kids but at least they are adults. At sixteen you should barely be allowed to drive at night much less be involved in raising a child. Now on top of that, imagine having something like this play out in the national media. Does anyone ever dream of being the poster child for unwed teenage mothers?
Now add this to the banner year that the Spears family has been having already. Brit’s a complete mess and can’t even be bothered to make the court dates to argue for custody of her own two children. That’s the sad part of that whole state of affairs; she’s so screwed up that she can’t even be bothered to get out of bed to see if she can gain custody. Brit claims illness but let’s be honest, most mothers would come to court with their leg in a bear trap if it meant a better chance at seeing their kids. Maybe it is understandable that her little sister gets pregnant. It might be the only attention she has gotten all year.
You really have to look at their parents throughout all of this and wonder just what the hell they were thinking. Remember that both girls were raised to be superstars and not kids. This is like one of those beauty pageant moms gone berserk. The idea was to groom the girls into pop superstardom and as a result I don’t know if they have any grounding in reality. One can’t purchase fame and while you can manufacture infamy it just isn’t the same. Now Brit is a tired joke and Jamie Lynn will be handing her kid off to a nanny while wondering how to resurrect her career at 18. What a strange world.
(Switching gears, one story from the weekend that I need to share here. I had a dream that I was in How I Met Your Mother over the weekend. As in I was Ted or Ted was me or since the character is based on me I am me. Either way, I was literally in a bar with Barney and was able to successfully steal a girl away from him. That might be my biggest accomplishment of the past month and it wasn’t even real.)
Monday, October 01, 2007
K-Fed: Father of the Year
I saw what can only be described as an odd sight on the way to work today. As part of the Think Pink campaign, Kansas City has colored its fountains pink. Now I have absolutely zero problem with the cause and I hope that this raises awareness and funds. However, coloring the water pink gives a still groggy commuter on a Monday morning the disturbing impression that the fountains have started spewing blood. Given the state of Kansas City’s sewer system that actually wouldn’t surprise me.
I have to say that this was a second straight week of a weak How I Met Your Mother episode. It never really got going with three storylines being one too many. Robin pulling a gun on the people crashing in her apartment and yelling “I’m a Canadian” was surprisingly funny as was Ted’s rant about being from New York, which is really funny if you remember that he is actually from Ohio. Still, I expect a lot more from the show.
Big Bang Theory wasn’t hitting on all cylinders either. It seems to be a show with a premise and not much else. Sure, there is a lot of humor surrounding geeks trying to impress a beautiful woman but I’m not sure where they are going with it. I also don’t know why you need four geeks in the story. Two of them have no backstory at all and only seem to exist to fill in lulls in the conversation. Like I said last week, I dig any show that discusses the physics of Superman but that doesn’t get a show renewed.
(Ok, the sarcasm sign was funny.)
Obviously the big news is that Britney Spears is going to lose custody of her sons: Sean Preston and whatever the name of the other one is. Here is sign number one that your life is completely screwed up: when a court of law determines that Kevin Federline is a better parent than you are. Actually, let’s give K-Fed some credit here as he is actively seeking custody and showing some interest in the well being of his kids. I honestly did not expect that from him. Sure, he is still a douchebag but at least he is a considerate douchebag.
But wow, talking about falling so far so fast. I’m not saying that Britney was talented or anything, she was well produced and vaguely attractive though I never quite got what the big deal was. But she was undoubtedly one of the biggest stars on the planet for a time and now she is just a walking punchline. Or more like a stumbling punchline. I think this is what happens to child stars who never bother to have even a modicum of a normal existence. They have no idea what the real world is actually like and have no idea of life outside of a trailer on set (or in Britney’s case, trailers in general). It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Natalie Portman, she’s been a movie star since she was thirteen but she took time to go to the Ivy League and get centered in life. Sometimes it is best to not be in the spotlight.
On the plus side, at least now my beloved Lindsay is no longer the biggest screw up on the planet.
I have to say that this was a second straight week of a weak How I Met Your Mother episode. It never really got going with three storylines being one too many. Robin pulling a gun on the people crashing in her apartment and yelling “I’m a Canadian” was surprisingly funny as was Ted’s rant about being from New York, which is really funny if you remember that he is actually from Ohio. Still, I expect a lot more from the show.
Big Bang Theory wasn’t hitting on all cylinders either. It seems to be a show with a premise and not much else. Sure, there is a lot of humor surrounding geeks trying to impress a beautiful woman but I’m not sure where they are going with it. I also don’t know why you need four geeks in the story. Two of them have no backstory at all and only seem to exist to fill in lulls in the conversation. Like I said last week, I dig any show that discusses the physics of Superman but that doesn’t get a show renewed.
(Ok, the sarcasm sign was funny.)
Obviously the big news is that Britney Spears is going to lose custody of her sons: Sean Preston and whatever the name of the other one is. Here is sign number one that your life is completely screwed up: when a court of law determines that Kevin Federline is a better parent than you are. Actually, let’s give K-Fed some credit here as he is actively seeking custody and showing some interest in the well being of his kids. I honestly did not expect that from him. Sure, he is still a douchebag but at least he is a considerate douchebag.
But wow, talking about falling so far so fast. I’m not saying that Britney was talented or anything, she was well produced and vaguely attractive though I never quite got what the big deal was. But she was undoubtedly one of the biggest stars on the planet for a time and now she is just a walking punchline. Or more like a stumbling punchline. I think this is what happens to child stars who never bother to have even a modicum of a normal existence. They have no idea what the real world is actually like and have no idea of life outside of a trailer on set (or in Britney’s case, trailers in general). It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at Natalie Portman, she’s been a movie star since she was thirteen but she took time to go to the Ivy League and get centered in life. Sometimes it is best to not be in the spotlight.
On the plus side, at least now my beloved Lindsay is no longer the biggest screw up on the planet.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Don't call it a comeback...
Despite the fact that the season seems to be a complete loss I am having an inordinate amount of fun with the Notre Dame football team this year. Specifically, the NCAA Football 2008 version of the team, whose starting quarterback defaults to that dude who was thrown off the team over the summer. As a result, I have decided to rechristen Notre Dame’s starting quarterback “Doctor Wang” or D Wang for short. I swear to God, tonight I was able to get Brad Nessler to say “Wang down with a sack” during tonight’s game against Missouri (which I lost thanks to Travis Thomas fumbling on the goal line in overtime). It might be childish but right now it’s more enjoyable than my typical Saturday afternoons.
Anyway, though I’m a little late to the blogsphere party I guess that it is my duty as a fifth tier pop culture analyst to talk about Britney’s appearance at the VMA’s. First off, while I didn’t watch the show directly I have on strong authority that John Norris hosted the pre-award show. If you’re my age you are going “That John Norris? The dude who was like the sixth best VJ in 1990?” Yep, he still apparently has a job at MTV. I’m not sure why, maybe he didn’t rat out Kurt Loder to the cops and is kept on the way they do in the mob. I can’t see what he would do day to day at the MTV offices other than hang out by the coffee and talk about how he hit on Cindy Crawford to nineteen year old interns who have no idea who he is talking about. And a nineteen year old would legitimately not know who Cindy Crawford is, if you think about it.
On to Britney. I will go on the record that I am not going to make any comments as to whether Brit is fat or not. If she’s fat then it’s no doubt as to why women have such mind screwing body image issues. Plus, I can’t call anyone out on a little softness around the midsection. That said, her wearing the matching bra and panties set as her comeback outfit was not a very good call. It really did not work to her advantage.
Neither did showing up to the VMAs drunk and not rehearsing. If you’ve seen the footage, which I’ve now watched twice for six minutes of my life that I will regret wasting when the ice cream truck runs me down in the middle of the road, you know it is a train wreck of incredible performances. It’s all lip synched, of course, though it makes you wonder why they even bothered with the rather ungainly microphone battery pack stuck to her backside. But worse than being lip synched it is horribly lip synched, which is odd given that the song pretty much consists of her singing “Gimme More” over and over again. It’s not like she has to memorize a Sufjan Stevens lyric or anything.
The performance was…how shall I put this? Ok, the song is not going to be a radio hit or even a dance club hit. It will probably be a hit at a place named Vixxxen where dancers named after either minerals or cocktails will embrace it. Britney’s performance would be what you would therefore expect from a dancer named Talc who you tip just to get her to go away (or so I’ve been told.) She had no rhythm and barely moved. When she did move she was out of step and often moving in the opposite direction of everyone on stage. She had no energy, no life and seemed to be someone who had no desire to be up there in front of a crowd. She basically looked like the punch line to a joke and even in her vaguely wasted state she was slowly figuring out that she was the joke.
It’s this last bit that I’m struggling through. While we all may question her sanity, sobriety and talent this is still someone who has an opportunity to rebound and salvage her image and she pretty much ruined it in one fell swoop. This is rather incredible as both Michael Jackson and Pee Wee Herman were able to use the VMAs for image rehab. I can’t believe either her or her handlers thinking on this. You have only one opportunity to make a comeback and nail a first impression. You want to have every single second orchestrated and planned so that nothing could possibly go wrong. Hell, I wouldn’t even do it on live television if I could avoid it. Instead we have this fiasco. So I must go with the rest of the nation now turning its eyes to Kevin Federline for guidance. He may be our only hope.
(Oh, and MTV gave out awards for videos that they don’t show. Really, the VMAs have been pretty much meaningless ever since they got rid of Arsenio Hall.)
Anyway, though I’m a little late to the blogsphere party I guess that it is my duty as a fifth tier pop culture analyst to talk about Britney’s appearance at the VMA’s. First off, while I didn’t watch the show directly I have on strong authority that John Norris hosted the pre-award show. If you’re my age you are going “That John Norris? The dude who was like the sixth best VJ in 1990?” Yep, he still apparently has a job at MTV. I’m not sure why, maybe he didn’t rat out Kurt Loder to the cops and is kept on the way they do in the mob. I can’t see what he would do day to day at the MTV offices other than hang out by the coffee and talk about how he hit on Cindy Crawford to nineteen year old interns who have no idea who he is talking about. And a nineteen year old would legitimately not know who Cindy Crawford is, if you think about it.
On to Britney. I will go on the record that I am not going to make any comments as to whether Brit is fat or not. If she’s fat then it’s no doubt as to why women have such mind screwing body image issues. Plus, I can’t call anyone out on a little softness around the midsection. That said, her wearing the matching bra and panties set as her comeback outfit was not a very good call. It really did not work to her advantage.
Neither did showing up to the VMAs drunk and not rehearsing. If you’ve seen the footage, which I’ve now watched twice for six minutes of my life that I will regret wasting when the ice cream truck runs me down in the middle of the road, you know it is a train wreck of incredible performances. It’s all lip synched, of course, though it makes you wonder why they even bothered with the rather ungainly microphone battery pack stuck to her backside. But worse than being lip synched it is horribly lip synched, which is odd given that the song pretty much consists of her singing “Gimme More” over and over again. It’s not like she has to memorize a Sufjan Stevens lyric or anything.
The performance was…how shall I put this? Ok, the song is not going to be a radio hit or even a dance club hit. It will probably be a hit at a place named Vixxxen where dancers named after either minerals or cocktails will embrace it. Britney’s performance would be what you would therefore expect from a dancer named Talc who you tip just to get her to go away (or so I’ve been told.) She had no rhythm and barely moved. When she did move she was out of step and often moving in the opposite direction of everyone on stage. She had no energy, no life and seemed to be someone who had no desire to be up there in front of a crowd. She basically looked like the punch line to a joke and even in her vaguely wasted state she was slowly figuring out that she was the joke.
It’s this last bit that I’m struggling through. While we all may question her sanity, sobriety and talent this is still someone who has an opportunity to rebound and salvage her image and she pretty much ruined it in one fell swoop. This is rather incredible as both Michael Jackson and Pee Wee Herman were able to use the VMAs for image rehab. I can’t believe either her or her handlers thinking on this. You have only one opportunity to make a comeback and nail a first impression. You want to have every single second orchestrated and planned so that nothing could possibly go wrong. Hell, I wouldn’t even do it on live television if I could avoid it. Instead we have this fiasco. So I must go with the rest of the nation now turning its eyes to Kevin Federline for guidance. He may be our only hope.
(Oh, and MTV gave out awards for videos that they don’t show. Really, the VMAs have been pretty much meaningless ever since they got rid of Arsenio Hall.)
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
I suddenly yearn for the calming influence of Courtney Love
Well, after a couple of very late nights I did finish the Harry Potter book last night. I’ll wait a couple of more days to discuss it to ensure that everyone will have a chance to finish it. Then this blog will essentially turn into spoiler theater as I dissect the book, the ending and which characters I would have killed off if I was the writer. There were some interesting choices to be made there. And I’ll give my usual rant that as a Ravenclaw my house always get short thrift in these books. Freaking Griffendors think the world revolves around them.
Give Rowling credit, there aren’t that many books that will make me try to race through 800 pages as quickly as I possibly can. Of course, it is written at the level of a 12 year old so it’s not like when I plowed through Ulysses but it is still a lot of words to digest. It might not be great literature but it does turn out to be a great story.
Anyway, I saw this question posed online today and I think it makes a very valid point. Can Lindsay ask for a refund from the rehab clinic? I mean, she didn’t even last two weeks after finishing treatment. Isn’t there like a thirty day money back guarantee on those things? Hopefully she at least charged it on her American Express and they’ll refund her the money. Clearly it is the rehab center’s fault and not my beloved Lindsay’s. We all know that she can do nothing wrong.
Ok, since I’m low on topics I guess I’ll write about the Britney Spears Ok! Magazine shoot disaster. If you haven’t heard about this one, trust me it puts Lindsay to shame. So, Brit agrees to do this magazine cover story and interview to help jump start her career. Given that it is with a magazine that uses an exclamation point in its title we are not talking about hard hitting journalism here. It’s basically show up, take a few nice pictures and leave. Except that none of that happened.
So here is the reports that I have read about what happened. Brit doesn’t want to use their hair and make-up people so she brings her own whom the magazine editors, and this is basically an exact quote, described as “pretty skanky looking”. She had chicken for lunch and as opposed to using a napkin wiped her hands on her several thousand dollar dress. For some reason she brought her dog with her (I don’t know, maybe it was bring your pet to work day) and being a dog surrounded by bright lights, loud noises and strange people it had an accident. Which Brit and her people would not clean up until ordered to at which point they used a Chanel dress to clean it up. Ok, that’s pretty bad. Then Brit was freaking out thinking that the ceiling was going to fall on her. To cap everything, Brit would make numerous trips to the bathroom, sometimes closing the stall door and othertimes not, and was often walking around the set, how can I put this mildly, acting as if she was a really, really big fan of The Divinyls? As if the song spoke to her in a certain way? Yeah, that’s what I read.
(Thanks to Defamer for all of this info by the way. Definitely not your standard report.)
Basically the only response to this is “Wow, what the hell was she on?” This isn’t rational behavior or even delusional behavior. This is I’m on everything but skates behavior. You know it is bad when the magazine decides to not run the pictures because they “aren’t up to their standards”. They still go with the meltdown story as that actually is the biggest news of all. It’s even words when you remember that Brit is the mother of two very small children. That’s even sadder than Lindsay. So far, Lindsay has only hurt herself. Brit is taking a couple of innocent people out with her. Who would have thought that K-Fed would be the sensible one in that relationship?
Give Rowling credit, there aren’t that many books that will make me try to race through 800 pages as quickly as I possibly can. Of course, it is written at the level of a 12 year old so it’s not like when I plowed through Ulysses but it is still a lot of words to digest. It might not be great literature but it does turn out to be a great story.
Anyway, I saw this question posed online today and I think it makes a very valid point. Can Lindsay ask for a refund from the rehab clinic? I mean, she didn’t even last two weeks after finishing treatment. Isn’t there like a thirty day money back guarantee on those things? Hopefully she at least charged it on her American Express and they’ll refund her the money. Clearly it is the rehab center’s fault and not my beloved Lindsay’s. We all know that she can do nothing wrong.
Ok, since I’m low on topics I guess I’ll write about the Britney Spears Ok! Magazine shoot disaster. If you haven’t heard about this one, trust me it puts Lindsay to shame. So, Brit agrees to do this magazine cover story and interview to help jump start her career. Given that it is with a magazine that uses an exclamation point in its title we are not talking about hard hitting journalism here. It’s basically show up, take a few nice pictures and leave. Except that none of that happened.
So here is the reports that I have read about what happened. Brit doesn’t want to use their hair and make-up people so she brings her own whom the magazine editors, and this is basically an exact quote, described as “pretty skanky looking”. She had chicken for lunch and as opposed to using a napkin wiped her hands on her several thousand dollar dress. For some reason she brought her dog with her (I don’t know, maybe it was bring your pet to work day) and being a dog surrounded by bright lights, loud noises and strange people it had an accident. Which Brit and her people would not clean up until ordered to at which point they used a Chanel dress to clean it up. Ok, that’s pretty bad. Then Brit was freaking out thinking that the ceiling was going to fall on her. To cap everything, Brit would make numerous trips to the bathroom, sometimes closing the stall door and othertimes not, and was often walking around the set, how can I put this mildly, acting as if she was a really, really big fan of The Divinyls? As if the song spoke to her in a certain way? Yeah, that’s what I read.
(Thanks to Defamer for all of this info by the way. Definitely not your standard report.)
Basically the only response to this is “Wow, what the hell was she on?” This isn’t rational behavior or even delusional behavior. This is I’m on everything but skates behavior. You know it is bad when the magazine decides to not run the pictures because they “aren’t up to their standards”. They still go with the meltdown story as that actually is the biggest news of all. It’s even words when you remember that Brit is the mother of two very small children. That’s even sadder than Lindsay. So far, Lindsay has only hurt herself. Brit is taking a couple of innocent people out with her. Who would have thought that K-Fed would be the sensible one in that relationship?
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Down Under Beauty
(Time to cover what is left on the Post-It notes that litter my laptop detailing all of my possible blog topics. At some point I’ll just start carrying a notebook around with me at all times to capture these ideas. Though pulling out pen and paper in a bar to record all of the witty bon mots probably won’t be viewed in a positive manner.)
I didn’t mention this earlier in the week but there was a story from one of the London papers that Britney went bonkers in rehab, claiming to be the anti-christ and trying to kill herself. While this is wholly unconfirmed and I certainly don’t want her to kill herself I think we should definitely take this anti-christ claim seriously. Hell, every music fan has been saying that for nearly a decade.
My VH-1 addiction is well documented. And until they finally grant me a talking head spot on Best Week Ever it will just have to be a viewer relationship. While shows like Surreal Life, Celebrity Fit Club and Hogan Knows Best all keep me entertained they have a new show that is going on the Tivo “Must Record, Never Delete, Create Additional Backup Copies” list. They are broadcasting the American premiere of “Australia’s Next Top Model.” It’s the same as America’s Next Top Model except with much cooler accents. I’m not sure if you can go wrong with a group of beautiful women wearing skimpy clothing and talking in incredibly attractive accents for an hour. It’s like the best show idea ever.
And to show the level of drama in this show the first elimination involved one model who was upbeat and enthusiastic but was not very tall going against one who the judges were notably concerned that she may have an eating disorder. Who gets sent away? The short girl. Under the logic that you could always just feed the anorexic girl a sandwich but couldn’t get the other girl to grow. It was just cruel, as the judges went “We love everything about your personality and you’re beautiful but unless you are willing to wear stilts we have to let you go.” I’m not sure if this is a competition or just a weekly hour of watching a teenager getting her dreams smashed right before your eyes.
Speaking of Australian models, I finally watched The Last Kiss this weekend. (Wow, I wrote a segue. Not sure if I’ve ever done that before.) It stars Zach Braff (the dude with the eyebrows from Scrubs) and Jacinda from Real World: London (the only Real Worlder to actually become a successful actress.) I was a bit under whelmed by the film. I heard a lot of talk that it was an extension of Garden State, showing similar characters as they are turning thirty. I see that but there is this small problem that it isn’t a very good film.
The set up is pretty simple. Zach and Jacinda are not married but expecting and Zach meets a cute girl at a wedding and ends up going out with her. Jacinda finds out and they fight for the rest of the movie until they see a ray of forgiveness open up. I just have a lot of problems with the film. First, who the hell would be dumb enough to screw up a relationship with Jacinda. You would expect the Zach character to be celebrating how lucky he is. Then there are all the friends who are all having really stereotypical early mid-life crisis. But my main problem is that they took a very real concept (being afraid that you are becoming an adult without any of the tools to be successful in that role) and never really did anything with it or sold the premise that these characters are scared. Zach didn’t look scared, he looked like a complete asshole. The fear of being adult is a great one, it’s one of the main themes of my hypothetical novel, and it really needs to be better expressed in film.
Ok, last bit for the week. I use a Peanuts Day Planner (pretty much proving that I have the emotional maturity of a twelve year old) and this was the cartoon for the week. And I find it really fitting as I have been spending a rather unhealthy amount of time the past few weeks thinking about lost loves. Partly this is because I am working on a few essays that deal with how relationships end and the aftermaths and the curse of being a nice guy. But mainly it is because the weather is getting nicer and anniversaries that only I remember are coming up and it is the sort of thing that makes me long wistfully for moments that never occurred. Somehow, this explains it all.
Peppermint Patty: “I’m worried about you, Chuck”
Charlie Brown: “About me?”
Peppermint Patty: “Yes, I’m worried that you’re living too much in the past…you haven’t seen that little red-haired girl for over a year, and yet you keep talking about her.”
Charlie Brown: “Maybe I’m living in the future…maybe that’s what we call ‘hope’… or maybe I’m just too wishy-washy to forget her…”
Peppermint Patty: “I don’t know Chuck…I just hate to see you always living in the past…of course, I’d hate to see you only living in the future, too… Maybe, as they always say, the truth lies somewhere in-between..”
Charlie Brown: “The truth is just as wishy-washy as I am!”
Have a great weekend. Go Illini.
I didn’t mention this earlier in the week but there was a story from one of the London papers that Britney went bonkers in rehab, claiming to be the anti-christ and trying to kill herself. While this is wholly unconfirmed and I certainly don’t want her to kill herself I think we should definitely take this anti-christ claim seriously. Hell, every music fan has been saying that for nearly a decade.
My VH-1 addiction is well documented. And until they finally grant me a talking head spot on Best Week Ever it will just have to be a viewer relationship. While shows like Surreal Life, Celebrity Fit Club and Hogan Knows Best all keep me entertained they have a new show that is going on the Tivo “Must Record, Never Delete, Create Additional Backup Copies” list. They are broadcasting the American premiere of “Australia’s Next Top Model.” It’s the same as America’s Next Top Model except with much cooler accents. I’m not sure if you can go wrong with a group of beautiful women wearing skimpy clothing and talking in incredibly attractive accents for an hour. It’s like the best show idea ever.
And to show the level of drama in this show the first elimination involved one model who was upbeat and enthusiastic but was not very tall going against one who the judges were notably concerned that she may have an eating disorder. Who gets sent away? The short girl. Under the logic that you could always just feed the anorexic girl a sandwich but couldn’t get the other girl to grow. It was just cruel, as the judges went “We love everything about your personality and you’re beautiful but unless you are willing to wear stilts we have to let you go.” I’m not sure if this is a competition or just a weekly hour of watching a teenager getting her dreams smashed right before your eyes.
Speaking of Australian models, I finally watched The Last Kiss this weekend. (Wow, I wrote a segue. Not sure if I’ve ever done that before.) It stars Zach Braff (the dude with the eyebrows from Scrubs) and Jacinda from Real World: London (the only Real Worlder to actually become a successful actress.) I was a bit under whelmed by the film. I heard a lot of talk that it was an extension of Garden State, showing similar characters as they are turning thirty. I see that but there is this small problem that it isn’t a very good film.
The set up is pretty simple. Zach and Jacinda are not married but expecting and Zach meets a cute girl at a wedding and ends up going out with her. Jacinda finds out and they fight for the rest of the movie until they see a ray of forgiveness open up. I just have a lot of problems with the film. First, who the hell would be dumb enough to screw up a relationship with Jacinda. You would expect the Zach character to be celebrating how lucky he is. Then there are all the friends who are all having really stereotypical early mid-life crisis. But my main problem is that they took a very real concept (being afraid that you are becoming an adult without any of the tools to be successful in that role) and never really did anything with it or sold the premise that these characters are scared. Zach didn’t look scared, he looked like a complete asshole. The fear of being adult is a great one, it’s one of the main themes of my hypothetical novel, and it really needs to be better expressed in film.
Ok, last bit for the week. I use a Peanuts Day Planner (pretty much proving that I have the emotional maturity of a twelve year old) and this was the cartoon for the week. And I find it really fitting as I have been spending a rather unhealthy amount of time the past few weeks thinking about lost loves. Partly this is because I am working on a few essays that deal with how relationships end and the aftermaths and the curse of being a nice guy. But mainly it is because the weather is getting nicer and anniversaries that only I remember are coming up and it is the sort of thing that makes me long wistfully for moments that never occurred. Somehow, this explains it all.
Peppermint Patty: “I’m worried about you, Chuck”
Charlie Brown: “About me?”
Peppermint Patty: “Yes, I’m worried that you’re living too much in the past…you haven’t seen that little red-haired girl for over a year, and yet you keep talking about her.”
Charlie Brown: “Maybe I’m living in the future…maybe that’s what we call ‘hope’… or maybe I’m just too wishy-washy to forget her…”
Peppermint Patty: “I don’t know Chuck…I just hate to see you always living in the past…of course, I’d hate to see you only living in the future, too… Maybe, as they always say, the truth lies somewhere in-between..”
Charlie Brown: “The truth is just as wishy-washy as I am!”
Have a great weekend. Go Illini.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
House of Style
And now Brit is back in rehab. I haven’t seen the footage on YouTube yet, but I assume that there were people in LA wielding butterfly nets in an attempt to capture her and bring her back to rehab. Or maybe that is just in cartoons. However, why in the world is it that the conventional instrument used to subdue the mentally ill in cartoons is a butterfly net? It seems like a wholly ineffective methodology. I can’t imagine anyone stopping because they put a piece of gauze over their head. I know, maybe seeing someone getting tasered isn’t great for children but it has to be slightly more realistic.
(Also, the judge finally ruled that Anna Nicole’s estate (and more specifically, her body) is officially in the hands of her four month old son. I stand behind this decision as I’m pretty sure that the four month old is the sanest and smartest person in the whole thing.)
Just a heads up that since Sunday night is the Oscars I will once again be doing a live blog. While the awards don’t seem to hold as much entertainment promise as they have in years past (with the exception of Marky Mark winning and breaking out “Good Vibrations”) I’ll still give all of my usual commentary and fashion critiques. Mainly fashion critiques, which is even more interesting to read when you realize that I own t-shirts that can now apply for their own driver’s license. Yep, that Timberwolves t-shirt has passed the sixteen year mark. It also happens to be the first gift anyone gave me who wasn’t a member of my family so no effort would be sufficient to pry it from my closet.
(You see, yet another way How I Met Your Mother has stolen from my life. Except that I think that every guy holds on to things from ex-girlfriends. Partly because we are too lazy to throw anything away and partly because every guy believes, in his heart of hearts, that one day she is going to come back. There is something about the male psyche that simply does not allow rejection to be processed. If we were honest guys would respond to a girl breaking up with him by saying “How can you break up with me? I have excellent sperm. The odds of genetic mutation are quite low when compared to the rest of these morons.” Or maybe that’s just me.)
Speaking of fashion critiques and television shows, I have a strange addiction towards What Not to Wear on TLC. It’s not must-see tv but if I come across it I have to watch it for at least a few minutes. It might be the most cruel show on television as they sneak up on these poor women and tell them that they have no taste in clothes and are, to be blunt, ugly. At least on Queer Eye the guys were being embarrassed but it was with playful banter, here it is more like “We will destroy every cent of dignity you may have.” It’s kind of fascinating in an evil scientist sort of way.
The other thing that always keeps me watching is that they occasionally will choose someone who I think is cool and interesting before they do the whole makeover. Last weekend that had this woman from Seattle who was my age and who I would have gone out with in a second. Sure, she had an ultra-casual style and wore socks with sandals but it’s Seattle, I would consider that to be interesting eclecticism. Instead, they treated her like she was a disgrace to her family. Of course, she went through with the overhaul and did come out beautiful (to the point where my reaction was “she’s out of my league”) but she also ended up looking like everyone else. And that’s my problem with these shows. It’s great to not look like a slob but does that mean you also can’t look like an individual? We have enough clones walking around as it is, I’d prefer someone with a little bit of oft-kilter tastes.
(Also, the judge finally ruled that Anna Nicole’s estate (and more specifically, her body) is officially in the hands of her four month old son. I stand behind this decision as I’m pretty sure that the four month old is the sanest and smartest person in the whole thing.)
Just a heads up that since Sunday night is the Oscars I will once again be doing a live blog. While the awards don’t seem to hold as much entertainment promise as they have in years past (with the exception of Marky Mark winning and breaking out “Good Vibrations”) I’ll still give all of my usual commentary and fashion critiques. Mainly fashion critiques, which is even more interesting to read when you realize that I own t-shirts that can now apply for their own driver’s license. Yep, that Timberwolves t-shirt has passed the sixteen year mark. It also happens to be the first gift anyone gave me who wasn’t a member of my family so no effort would be sufficient to pry it from my closet.
(You see, yet another way How I Met Your Mother has stolen from my life. Except that I think that every guy holds on to things from ex-girlfriends. Partly because we are too lazy to throw anything away and partly because every guy believes, in his heart of hearts, that one day she is going to come back. There is something about the male psyche that simply does not allow rejection to be processed. If we were honest guys would respond to a girl breaking up with him by saying “How can you break up with me? I have excellent sperm. The odds of genetic mutation are quite low when compared to the rest of these morons.” Or maybe that’s just me.)
Speaking of fashion critiques and television shows, I have a strange addiction towards What Not to Wear on TLC. It’s not must-see tv but if I come across it I have to watch it for at least a few minutes. It might be the most cruel show on television as they sneak up on these poor women and tell them that they have no taste in clothes and are, to be blunt, ugly. At least on Queer Eye the guys were being embarrassed but it was with playful banter, here it is more like “We will destroy every cent of dignity you may have.” It’s kind of fascinating in an evil scientist sort of way.
The other thing that always keeps me watching is that they occasionally will choose someone who I think is cool and interesting before they do the whole makeover. Last weekend that had this woman from Seattle who was my age and who I would have gone out with in a second. Sure, she had an ultra-casual style and wore socks with sandals but it’s Seattle, I would consider that to be interesting eclecticism. Instead, they treated her like she was a disgrace to her family. Of course, she went through with the overhaul and did come out beautiful (to the point where my reaction was “she’s out of my league”) but she also ended up looking like everyone else. And that’s my problem with these shows. It’s great to not look like a slob but does that mean you also can’t look like an individual? We have enough clones walking around as it is, I’d prefer someone with a little bit of oft-kilter tastes.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Curiouser and Curiouser
I’m going to continue to report on the Britney Spears story, even though we have crossed the line from “unbelievably funny” to “pretty sad, really”. I’m not sure that most nervous breakdowns are played out on Entertainment Tonight (whose producers, by the way, must have made some pact with the devil to have Brit and Anna Nicole Smith all go down during Sweeps. Seriously, Congress needs to look into their involvement in this sordid mess.)
Anyway, thanks to the greatly improved efficiency of the modern rehab facility, Brit was able to check out today having been totally cured of her dependencies in less than 24 hours. (I’m still trying to figure out if rehab is for quitters what quitting rehab implies.) Right now I’ll stay positive and think that Brit’s just decided to give up all of her bad habits for Lent and thus doesn’t need rehab. More interesting is that I read two rumors about why she shaved her head. The first was from a London paper who apparently used my blog as a source in stating that she felt that her hair extensions were infested with lice. I did write that on Sunday night and if I’m right I really should play the lottery more often. The other rumor, unfounded but very interesting, is that during the divorce proceedings K-Fed mentioned getting a hair sample so they could test for what substances Brit may have been ingesting. This is fascinating as it a) explains why she would rashly cut off her hair, b) implies that K-Fed watches CSI and c) would show a level of cunning out of K-Fed that no one would ever have believed possible.
In other news, since yesterday was Mardi Gras that means that today is Ash Wednesday and the start of lent. So this marks the time of year where I eat more fish and cheese pizzas than normal and try to figure out how to be a better person. To be honest, given that I think that I’ve fallen a great deal in my quality as a person over the past few years (a post in its own right), this shouldn’t be that hard of a thing to do. The question is, what precisely should I do.
See, I’ve never been a big fan of giving up something for lent. Mainly because people will always choose something like chocolate and I don’t see that as really meaningful. Sure, you are giving up a treat and it is a bit of a sacrifice but at the end of the day I don’t think that makes you a better person. I have for years claimed that I am giving up negativity for lent, which is a wonderful concept but the toughest thing in the world for me to put into practice. By Friday I’ll end up yelling at birds for chirping and waking me up in the morning. So while I will try to be more positive, I’d rather do something than give something up.
That’s what I’ll be thinking about over the next few days. Find something that I can do that will make an impact somewhere. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, I just want to make something happen. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know, but I’d rather act this year than practice self-denial. I think that it will make the world a better place all around.
Anyway, thanks to the greatly improved efficiency of the modern rehab facility, Brit was able to check out today having been totally cured of her dependencies in less than 24 hours. (I’m still trying to figure out if rehab is for quitters what quitting rehab implies.) Right now I’ll stay positive and think that Brit’s just decided to give up all of her bad habits for Lent and thus doesn’t need rehab. More interesting is that I read two rumors about why she shaved her head. The first was from a London paper who apparently used my blog as a source in stating that she felt that her hair extensions were infested with lice. I did write that on Sunday night and if I’m right I really should play the lottery more often. The other rumor, unfounded but very interesting, is that during the divorce proceedings K-Fed mentioned getting a hair sample so they could test for what substances Brit may have been ingesting. This is fascinating as it a) explains why she would rashly cut off her hair, b) implies that K-Fed watches CSI and c) would show a level of cunning out of K-Fed that no one would ever have believed possible.
In other news, since yesterday was Mardi Gras that means that today is Ash Wednesday and the start of lent. So this marks the time of year where I eat more fish and cheese pizzas than normal and try to figure out how to be a better person. To be honest, given that I think that I’ve fallen a great deal in my quality as a person over the past few years (a post in its own right), this shouldn’t be that hard of a thing to do. The question is, what precisely should I do.
See, I’ve never been a big fan of giving up something for lent. Mainly because people will always choose something like chocolate and I don’t see that as really meaningful. Sure, you are giving up a treat and it is a bit of a sacrifice but at the end of the day I don’t think that makes you a better person. I have for years claimed that I am giving up negativity for lent, which is a wonderful concept but the toughest thing in the world for me to put into practice. By Friday I’ll end up yelling at birds for chirping and waking me up in the morning. So while I will try to be more positive, I’d rather do something than give something up.
That’s what I’ll be thinking about over the next few days. Find something that I can do that will make an impact somewhere. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, I just want to make something happen. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know, but I’d rather act this year than practice self-denial. I think that it will make the world a better place all around.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
How fat can a Tuesday get?
Lots and lots of topics tonight…
Topic # 1: So Britney has finally faced reality and checked into rehab. It still isn’t clear if this is “live on a farm for two months” rehab or the Lindsay Lohan approved “rehab where you are allowed to leave and go clubbing.” For our sake, I’m hoping that it is the former because otherwise we are just going to have an epidemic of fourteen year old girls shaving their heads to look like their idol. And Natalie Portman and Sigourney Weaver (in that Aliens film) aside, that really isn’t a good look.
All in all, this is a good thing for Brit as she is obviously dealing with a whole bunch of issues and is handling none of them well. An escape from the spotlight is well-deserved. However, I am now more and more amazed that Paris Hilton is still alive. I mean, how the hell is she still standing after all of this. Brit and Lindsay end up in rehab with their careers ruined. Nicole Ritchie is a walking skeleton. Tara Reid is missing and presumed passed out on a bar. And what the hell happened to the Olsen twins? They’re not even attractive anymore. But somehow, throughout all of this, Paris is still floating through life completely unharmed. I swear, she has to be Emperor Palpatine. I’d challenge her to a duel but her force lightning would be too powerful.
Topic # 2: I’ll say this about Kansas City, when winter ends in this town it ends. Last week was bitterly cold, to the point where you think about slicing open the Taunton and climbing inside for warmth. This week, we’re in the fifties and it feels like springtime. There really is no in between, one day you’re freezing to death and the next you are in shorts. At least this time we had an actual winter with snow that stayed on the ground and wind chills that caused your face to hurt. It felt almost, somewhat, vaguely like home. Not quite, but close.
Topic # 3: So, in preparation for putting Quo Vadimus together, a task that is looking so daunting that I might bail on it before it even starts, I am going through all of my old blog posts. This is a lot more taxing than I anticipated. There’s around 600 posts and it is tough to classify a lot of them without using the words “random stuff”. It’s interesting to see how things have changed. When I started I would at least pick a topic and stick to it, though I would also just post something from The Onion on a pretty regular basis. I’m happy I’ve stopped with the plagiarism but it wouldn’t hurt to not have every post be random thoughts. Oh, and I discovered that I make an awful, awful lot of Star Wars references. Including entire posts spent discussing the character of Boba Fett and the illogical nature of the Death Star having a trash compactor. I’m not sure if this is a good thing.
It’s why I’ve always joked about what happens when I tell someone about my blog. I like having people read this, as I hope that it is at times interesting and it shows off the creative side of my personality. On the other hand, since this is a very unfiltered view into my mind I have a feeling that people learn more about me than they would ever want to know. Hell, looking at the old posts even I was going “I can’t believe I told that story.” Some of those old posts make the Lindsay infatuation seem quaint.
Topic # 4: In rereading last night’s post I mentioned “News of the Starz” as a trivia category and realized that it would be awesome to have a category based entirely on Starzan’s life. Every question would start with the word “Dude” and reference places that had to be next to a body of water. (As always, feel free to check out the Starzan Tees link on the page. The guy is funny as all get out.)
Topic # 5: Time to go out and celebrate Mardi Gras. And to E and Super Dave, remember that it was Mardi Gras four years ago that we decided that, much like Steve Austin, I could be remade and that we had the technology. I do have to say that it has worked, maybe not in the manner that we initially intended but it did work. Still, how in the world was that four years ago? It seems like last week. Anyway, I’ll hoist a red headed slut in your honor, kind sirs.
Topic # 1: So Britney has finally faced reality and checked into rehab. It still isn’t clear if this is “live on a farm for two months” rehab or the Lindsay Lohan approved “rehab where you are allowed to leave and go clubbing.” For our sake, I’m hoping that it is the former because otherwise we are just going to have an epidemic of fourteen year old girls shaving their heads to look like their idol. And Natalie Portman and Sigourney Weaver (in that Aliens film) aside, that really isn’t a good look.
All in all, this is a good thing for Brit as she is obviously dealing with a whole bunch of issues and is handling none of them well. An escape from the spotlight is well-deserved. However, I am now more and more amazed that Paris Hilton is still alive. I mean, how the hell is she still standing after all of this. Brit and Lindsay end up in rehab with their careers ruined. Nicole Ritchie is a walking skeleton. Tara Reid is missing and presumed passed out on a bar. And what the hell happened to the Olsen twins? They’re not even attractive anymore. But somehow, throughout all of this, Paris is still floating through life completely unharmed. I swear, she has to be Emperor Palpatine. I’d challenge her to a duel but her force lightning would be too powerful.
Topic # 2: I’ll say this about Kansas City, when winter ends in this town it ends. Last week was bitterly cold, to the point where you think about slicing open the Taunton and climbing inside for warmth. This week, we’re in the fifties and it feels like springtime. There really is no in between, one day you’re freezing to death and the next you are in shorts. At least this time we had an actual winter with snow that stayed on the ground and wind chills that caused your face to hurt. It felt almost, somewhat, vaguely like home. Not quite, but close.
Topic # 3: So, in preparation for putting Quo Vadimus together, a task that is looking so daunting that I might bail on it before it even starts, I am going through all of my old blog posts. This is a lot more taxing than I anticipated. There’s around 600 posts and it is tough to classify a lot of them without using the words “random stuff”. It’s interesting to see how things have changed. When I started I would at least pick a topic and stick to it, though I would also just post something from The Onion on a pretty regular basis. I’m happy I’ve stopped with the plagiarism but it wouldn’t hurt to not have every post be random thoughts. Oh, and I discovered that I make an awful, awful lot of Star Wars references. Including entire posts spent discussing the character of Boba Fett and the illogical nature of the Death Star having a trash compactor. I’m not sure if this is a good thing.
It’s why I’ve always joked about what happens when I tell someone about my blog. I like having people read this, as I hope that it is at times interesting and it shows off the creative side of my personality. On the other hand, since this is a very unfiltered view into my mind I have a feeling that people learn more about me than they would ever want to know. Hell, looking at the old posts even I was going “I can’t believe I told that story.” Some of those old posts make the Lindsay infatuation seem quaint.
Topic # 4: In rereading last night’s post I mentioned “News of the Starz” as a trivia category and realized that it would be awesome to have a category based entirely on Starzan’s life. Every question would start with the word “Dude” and reference places that had to be next to a body of water. (As always, feel free to check out the Starzan Tees link on the page. The guy is funny as all get out.)
Topic # 5: Time to go out and celebrate Mardi Gras. And to E and Super Dave, remember that it was Mardi Gras four years ago that we decided that, much like Steve Austin, I could be remade and that we had the technology. I do have to say that it has worked, maybe not in the manner that we initially intended but it did work. Still, how in the world was that four years ago? It seems like last week. Anyway, I’ll hoist a red headed slut in your honor, kind sirs.
Monday, February 19, 2007
We can get it for you wholesale
Ok, I have a very important decision to make very quickly. What I choose is going to impact every single aspect of my life over the next several years. You know how sometimes you reach a fork in the road of life and you know that once you decide on a path your life will be forever altered? This is one of those times. So, here is my dilemma…
Do I put in a bid on eBay for Britney’s hair or for Lindsay’s appendix? I can’t afford both so it’s going to have to be one or the other.
You know, in a way I wish that I was kidding about this but you can put in a bid for Brit’s hair on eBay. I think that the salon is aiming at a million dollars, which seems awfully expensive for something that was probably a bad weave to begin with. And while Lindsay’s appendix is currently not for sale it is currently sitting in her freezer because she was afraid that it would end up on eBay. I mean, who would bid on an appendix? Especially unless you knew for certain that there was sufficient DNA to proceed with a cloning experiment. Not that I’ve, you know, thought about this or anything.
(Yeah, those last few sentences even disturbed me.)
I know that this is a little strange from someone who spent Thursday night ranting about the overkill of Anna Nicole Smith coverage but there is a difference between myself and the cable news channels. No one reads my blog in order to get a better understanding of world events. (Or at least I hope not.) This is meant to be silly with a few moments of philosophy tossed in when I’m feeling self-righteous. CNN and its ilk are meant to be news networks and I’m not kidding when I say that after writing my entry on Thursday I turned on the television and every single news channel was talking about Anna Nicole. I can understand E! covering this, everything else is just a mystery to me.
Still, Brit is working her way into the Pantheon of celebrity nervous breakdowns. This is in the Anne Heche crashing in someone’s apartment range or Martin Lawrence ranting in the middle of a street. I don’t think that we are at Margot Kidder level yet but it is pretty damn close. And, as horrible as this is to say, I feel like this just confirms one of my views on life; that life isn’t a tragedy, it’s a farce. Brit’s story really should be viewed as tragic; child star, mother of two, falls under an evil influence (Paris Hilton is getting more and more like Emperor Palpatine every day) and completely breaks down. But no one views it as a tragedy, we all consider it to be a farce. We don’t view Brit to be a real person, she’s more like a character in a Three Stooges bit. We’re all waiting for her to get hit in the head with a ladder right about now.
Maybe all of this will lead to us taking a step back from the celebrity enamored culture. We’ve pretty much torn down all of our idols in that regard. I can’t say that I would be upset if our culture moved in that direction, though it would make News of the Starz trivia categories a little tougher.
Do I put in a bid on eBay for Britney’s hair or for Lindsay’s appendix? I can’t afford both so it’s going to have to be one or the other.
You know, in a way I wish that I was kidding about this but you can put in a bid for Brit’s hair on eBay. I think that the salon is aiming at a million dollars, which seems awfully expensive for something that was probably a bad weave to begin with. And while Lindsay’s appendix is currently not for sale it is currently sitting in her freezer because she was afraid that it would end up on eBay. I mean, who would bid on an appendix? Especially unless you knew for certain that there was sufficient DNA to proceed with a cloning experiment. Not that I’ve, you know, thought about this or anything.
(Yeah, those last few sentences even disturbed me.)
I know that this is a little strange from someone who spent Thursday night ranting about the overkill of Anna Nicole Smith coverage but there is a difference between myself and the cable news channels. No one reads my blog in order to get a better understanding of world events. (Or at least I hope not.) This is meant to be silly with a few moments of philosophy tossed in when I’m feeling self-righteous. CNN and its ilk are meant to be news networks and I’m not kidding when I say that after writing my entry on Thursday I turned on the television and every single news channel was talking about Anna Nicole. I can understand E! covering this, everything else is just a mystery to me.
Still, Brit is working her way into the Pantheon of celebrity nervous breakdowns. This is in the Anne Heche crashing in someone’s apartment range or Martin Lawrence ranting in the middle of a street. I don’t think that we are at Margot Kidder level yet but it is pretty damn close. And, as horrible as this is to say, I feel like this just confirms one of my views on life; that life isn’t a tragedy, it’s a farce. Brit’s story really should be viewed as tragic; child star, mother of two, falls under an evil influence (Paris Hilton is getting more and more like Emperor Palpatine every day) and completely breaks down. But no one views it as a tragedy, we all consider it to be a farce. We don’t view Brit to be a real person, she’s more like a character in a Three Stooges bit. We’re all waiting for her to get hit in the head with a ladder right about now.
Maybe all of this will lead to us taking a step back from the celebrity enamored culture. We’ve pretty much torn down all of our idols in that regard. I can’t say that I would be upset if our culture moved in that direction, though it would make News of the Starz trivia categories a little tougher.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Losing a memory
Before I get started I feel that we need to set a small but very significant point of clarification. Natalie Portman shaving her head in order to portray Evey Hammond in V for Vendetta was an artistic and surprisingly attractive move. Brittney Spears shaving her head for, uh, do we have a reason for this? Is it safe to make a completely unfounded guess that she was suffering from an extremely severe lice infestation? No matter, regardless of the reason Brit now looks like the most psycho ex-girlfriend you have ever known. I mean, she’s probably three days away from slashing K-Fed’s tires.
There are so many unbelievable aspects to this story. First of all, I’d much rather be K-Fed’s agent right now than Brittney’s. With K-Fed I could continue the wrestling gig and with some acting classes probably turn him into a comedy act where he just becomes a caricature of himself. Right now, Brit can’t even get that Playboy cover I’ve always predicted. Second, place this in the proper perspective given that Brit is a mother of two. That just makes her seem crazier. Finally, in all my years of pop culture analysis I thought that I had seen it all. Now I feel like I haven’t even started.
Anyway, someone asked for my thoughts on my alma mater retiring Chief Illiniwek. For those of you who didn’t catch the story, Illinois has decided to retire the….I’m not sure what the proper term for this is. People called the Chief a mascot but I always felt that was wrong. A mascot hangs out with the cheerleaders and does funny skits and ends up high fiving players on the sidelines and the Chief didn’t do any of that. Some people called him a symbol, which to be honest is way too generous a term. Let’s just refer to the Chief as what he is, a white guy from the suburbs of Chicago who wore a headdress and danced at halftime.
People have been wanting to get rid of the Chief since I was a student and thanks to pressure from the NCAA it is finally coming to fruition. I’ll be honest, even as an alum I am not horribly upset by this. I would be up in arms if we were forced to give up the name “Fighting Illini” since that refers to World War I soldiers but the Chief always struck me as a very odd ritual. He really was just some dude from the suburbs, performing a dance that was created as a part of a Boy Scout project, in an authentic Sioux outfit though the Sioux tribe had nothing to do with the state of Illinois. It seemed out of place in the early 90’s and is even worse now.
What bothers me more is that this really wasn’t Illinois’ decision. They were basically blackmailed by the NCAA when they were told that they wouldn’t be able to host postseason events as long as the Chief existed. I’d be fine if this meant that all imagery at all schools was removed but Florida State is fine thanks to the Seminole nation approving their mascot. Who, and let me be absolutely clear here, rides bare-chested onto the football field astride a stallion and proceeds to throw a flaming spear into the turf as a declaration of war. Somehow, that is considered to be perfectly acceptable.
So in the end, I can’t say that I’m upset about this. I mean, this is U of I that we are talking about. We never got up in arms about anything other than the lines at Kams. If my son decided that he wanted to be an electrical engineer and attend Illinois like his dad I don’t think that the lack of the Chief would hamper his college experience. Especially given a major in electrical engineering, which would prove much more of a hindrance to his social life than any halftime entertainment. Sure, it’s another thing that I can list off in my “back in my day” speech but at the end of the day I’d rather see Bruce Weber recruit like Ron Zook and Ron Zook coach like Bruce Weber. If I had that, I’d be happy.
The five random CD’s for the week:
1) Guided by Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”
2) Robbie Fulks “Let’s Kill Saturday Night”
3) Aimee Mann “Whatever”
4) My Morning Jacket “Z”
5) My Morning Jacket “Okonokos”
There are so many unbelievable aspects to this story. First of all, I’d much rather be K-Fed’s agent right now than Brittney’s. With K-Fed I could continue the wrestling gig and with some acting classes probably turn him into a comedy act where he just becomes a caricature of himself. Right now, Brit can’t even get that Playboy cover I’ve always predicted. Second, place this in the proper perspective given that Brit is a mother of two. That just makes her seem crazier. Finally, in all my years of pop culture analysis I thought that I had seen it all. Now I feel like I haven’t even started.
Anyway, someone asked for my thoughts on my alma mater retiring Chief Illiniwek. For those of you who didn’t catch the story, Illinois has decided to retire the….I’m not sure what the proper term for this is. People called the Chief a mascot but I always felt that was wrong. A mascot hangs out with the cheerleaders and does funny skits and ends up high fiving players on the sidelines and the Chief didn’t do any of that. Some people called him a symbol, which to be honest is way too generous a term. Let’s just refer to the Chief as what he is, a white guy from the suburbs of Chicago who wore a headdress and danced at halftime.
People have been wanting to get rid of the Chief since I was a student and thanks to pressure from the NCAA it is finally coming to fruition. I’ll be honest, even as an alum I am not horribly upset by this. I would be up in arms if we were forced to give up the name “Fighting Illini” since that refers to World War I soldiers but the Chief always struck me as a very odd ritual. He really was just some dude from the suburbs, performing a dance that was created as a part of a Boy Scout project, in an authentic Sioux outfit though the Sioux tribe had nothing to do with the state of Illinois. It seemed out of place in the early 90’s and is even worse now.
What bothers me more is that this really wasn’t Illinois’ decision. They were basically blackmailed by the NCAA when they were told that they wouldn’t be able to host postseason events as long as the Chief existed. I’d be fine if this meant that all imagery at all schools was removed but Florida State is fine thanks to the Seminole nation approving their mascot. Who, and let me be absolutely clear here, rides bare-chested onto the football field astride a stallion and proceeds to throw a flaming spear into the turf as a declaration of war. Somehow, that is considered to be perfectly acceptable.
So in the end, I can’t say that I’m upset about this. I mean, this is U of I that we are talking about. We never got up in arms about anything other than the lines at Kams. If my son decided that he wanted to be an electrical engineer and attend Illinois like his dad I don’t think that the lack of the Chief would hamper his college experience. Especially given a major in electrical engineering, which would prove much more of a hindrance to his social life than any halftime entertainment. Sure, it’s another thing that I can list off in my “back in my day” speech but at the end of the day I’d rather see Bruce Weber recruit like Ron Zook and Ron Zook coach like Bruce Weber. If I had that, I’d be happy.
The five random CD’s for the week:
1) Guided by Voices “Human Amusements at Hourly Rates”
2) Robbie Fulks “Let’s Kill Saturday Night”
3) Aimee Mann “Whatever”
4) My Morning Jacket “Z”
5) My Morning Jacket “Okonokos”
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