Demonstrating fairly impressive comedy turnaround time, David Letterman's top ten list last night was about how Jane Fonda said "cunt" on the Today show yesterday morning. The highlight is less the list (though the Katie Couric joke is funny) than Letterman's alternately gleeful and skittish explanation of the incident (also the fact that he can't quite bring himself to say "vagina."). Clip attached, enjoy.
Emasculating insults! Swears on television! Schoolyard name-calling! Everyone's doing it these days! But why? What does it mean? Who do we blame? Was it the queers who killed civility? Or is everyone just being a pussy? LET'S INVESTIGATE!
"Matthews says his job 'is to be provocative and say things — you know, "That's crazy!" — the way you might at a party.'" That's from today's lengthy Howard Kurtz profile of the famed MSNBC shouty person, which, in typical Kurtz style, uses many words, anecdotes, and interviews to say precisely nothing about its subject. Matthews: says whatever he thinks! Matthews: enrages Democrats and Republicans! Matthews: is criticized by some for talking about women in odd and uncomfortable ways! Oh, there's insight. You just have to dig for it. (For example, here's Newsweek senior Washington correspondent Howard Fineman summing about everything useless about Howard Fineman in two sentences: "'Chris asks a question, he often answers his question, and then he asks you to comment on his answer to his question,' says Fineman. 'Which I'm perfectly happy to do.'") After the jump, a brief history of Chris Matthews terrifying his staff, demonstrating a dodgy relationship with the powerful women in his life, and cursing on air.
"David Mamet always sprays the word 'phucque' (the Gaelic spelling) throughout his dialogue. In this production, it's 27 times within the first three minutes. If Mamet ever wrote a religious play, nuns would probably be saying it, too. At the wave of laughter following the line, 'What the f - - - am I going to do with a time share in Aspen? I want to be president,' I toured the whole theater." Cindy Adams—still increasingly mad, still apparently wholly unedited—is under the odd impression that if David Mamet were to write a "religious" play (what is his Faustus adaptation, a sex farce?), it would be about nuns. Cindy! Everyone knows Mamet can't write women! [NYP]
If you wanted to hear Katie Couric say "oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit," Harry Shearer has the video for you. With the cameras sending live feed directly to Shearer's magic satellite, you are there as Katie preps for her New Hampshire primary election night coverage, bitches about the mic, repeatedly adjusts her top, announces the death of America's mayor, and says, of John McCain's wife, "she looks like a husky." Watch the whole clip below and fall in love with Katie all over again. [MyDamnChannel]
The publicity engine for lady-empowering heist flick Mad Money (Without Jim Cramer) rolled on this morning with an appearance by the lovely and talented Diane Keaton on Good Morning America. Diane Keaton spent her segment making Diane Sawyer very uncomfortable. After admitting she'd stolen belts from Bloomingdales 35 years ago (when she was already kinda famous?), Keaton spent a couple minutes expounding on how impossibly hot she finds Sawyer. If Keaton had had lips like Sawyer's, she explains, she never would've needed to work on her "fucking personality." Someone secretly switched Annie Hall with Mary Wilkie—let's see what happens!
Recently-ordained (and gnomish) Tribune boss Sam Zell sent around an email today to his "partners," alerting them to "some disturbing language" he's heard around the office, but far more importantly? To his brand-new blog! Aw. It's so cute when fuzzy-haired senior citizens try to work the Internets. Leaked email below.
