Now and then some clever Youtube users actually produce an intentionally funny political video. Case in point, "McCake," which came out this weekend. It explores just what kind of a birthday cake would be baked by a bitter, short-fused, intemperate lifetime politician who bristles violently at even the suggestion of criticism and who just knows that it's his turn to be the President, goddamit! Clip after the jump.
So about 50,000 artsy-lefty, sexed-up, chanting, New Aged nutsos got together in Nevada's Black Rock Desert to do all sorts non-traditional spiritual stuff, and the Lord took notice. He (She? It?) smote 'em Old School with a massive sandstorm yesterday that sent many of the occultists running for shelter before they could close the festivities with the traditional burning of some man.
Just in time for the CW's revamped 90210 the Times has gathered together simmering drifty-eyed beauty Shannen Doherty and whoever else was on that show with her to discuss the good old days of the incredibly important 1990s soap opera. What do they remember? Well, Aaron Spelling was a classic Hollywood boozehound with the shaggiest shag carpet since 70s porn, and Shannen was a total bitch! Some selections after the jump.
Today has been rather grim. Everything in the news is politics and disaster. And the last weekend of the summer is supposed to be fun! So, here is the broadest One More Thing theme ever: Funny. Just post funny things from movies-any movie from anytime ever. Please, please, please let's crack each other up and forget about all the tedious and ominous crap for a while? I will start us off.
So what if Hurricane Gustav displaces thousands, destroys their homes, and further devastates an already devastated region of these United States? Filmmaker Michael Moore sees a silver lining around the eerily quiet eye of the disastrous storm: It will screw-up the Republican National Convention. Already, John McCain is saying his party might have to postpone the Convention. And Moore couldn't be more tickled. He told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, "I was just thinking, this Gustav is proof that there is a God in heaven. To just have it planned at the same time, that it would actually be on its way to New Orleans for Day One of the Republican convention, up in the Twin Cities, at the top of the Mississippi River."
You knew that Lindsay Lohan would drop DJ Samantha Ronson and her fedora for a man as sooner or later. You also knew that man-shark hybrid and 14-time Olympic gold medal-er Michael Phelps would dump America for one or many Hollywood starlets as soon as he got the hell out of China. But no one ever thought he'd run out on us for Lindsay freaking Lohan! But he will! She has magical powers!
Realizing that no Federal or local agency will be able to do much of anything when Hurricane Gustav reaches New Orleans, Mayor Ray Nagin has initiated the mandatory evacuation of half the city's coastal parishes today. And he when he says get out, he means it. There will be no emergency centers and the Superdome will not be a scene of mass chaos and tragedy this time around-because it's going to be closed. More on the evacuation, and video of Nagin's scary-ass warning, after the jump.
John McCain's first mistake was trying to seem "hip" and "with it" by blasting Van Halen's atrocious song "Right Now" at a stump stop in Ohio. His second mistake was not getting permission to play the treacly Sammy Hagar track from the band, the members of which are not so old that they actually support the grim candidate. The band's publicist says, "Permission was not sought or granted nor would it have been given." It's like the time when Reagan's campaigners totally misunderstood "Born in the USA" and tried to use it as their theme song until Bruce Springsteen told them to cut the crap. Except that "Right Now" can't be misunderstood because it doesn't mean anything, it's just a lot of hopeful noise and... Ohhhh... [Wired]
So what do you do when the curmudgeonly old Republican you're running against for President throws you a curveball and selects a pretty young-ish woman as his running mate? Point out that she's a pro-life nutbunny chosen to win over the Christian Fundamentalists whose overwhelming political influence has most of the country quite fed the hell up already? Nah, just keep focusing on the old man and the fact that he's spent the last eight years living in the small intestine of the worst President in American history. That's just what Senator Barack "Hope" Obama is doing with his first television ad reacting to the Sarah Palin nomination-it doesn't even name her! Watch it after the jump.
You think you've got it rough with gas prices through the roof? Hell, all you have to worry about is driving to work, forgoing vacations, and watching your family freeze this winter. Meanwhile, hip-hop entrepreneur Sean "P. Diddy" Combs can't even fly his private jet to L.A. these days to further his "acting career." Seriously, the man has been reduced to flying first class and posting videos about this frightening turn of events. "As you know, I do have my own jet, but I've been having to fly back and forth to L.A. pursuing my acting career," he says. "Now, if I'm flying back and forth twice a month, that's like $200,000, $250,00 round trip. I'm back on American Airlines." His sad, sad video blog post-in which he whines, "Give a shout out to all my Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters and all the brothers and sisters in all the countries that have oil... if you could please send me some oil for my jet, I would truly appreciate it."-is after the jump.
With thousands of "Family Values"-type conservatives descending on St. Paul, Minnesota, for the Republican National convention, area locals-who are largely Democratic, progressive and, yes, gay-are being asked to do their best to make the visiting Right Wingers feel more at home in a series of fun commercials which urge, "The Republicans Are Coming... Make An Effort." One example after the jump.
Happy weekend! Let's forget all about crummy things and have fun! For instance, after a 26-year feud, stoner heroes Tommy Chong and Cheech Marin are getting back together for an historic comedy tour. Yay! It also coincides nicely with the release of Chong's book Cheech and Chong: The Unauthorized Biography. The counterculture icon sat for a nice Q&A on the topic, including the fact that he wrote the book while he was still pissed at Cheech, and didn't edit out any of the unpleasant bits once he and his former partner patched things up.
The general reaction to last night's Obama speech has been, uh, effusive. Republicans were left speechless. Even GOP kneecapper Alex Castellanos seemed taken aback. The criticisms? Obama was maybe too focused on a Clintonian laundry list of issues, debased himself by attacking McCain, too meat-and-potatoes and not enough soaring rhetoric. So it only makes sense that the Associated Press headline is "Analysis: Obama spares details, keeps up attacks." Wait, what? That is the opposite of everyone else's interpretation! It gets better, in a "written hours before the speech was delivered" way!
The magazine industry is facing one of "its worst beatings in years" amid the economic downturn, circulation declines and general print media weakness. The smart, aspiring media mogul heads straight for the internet rather than try to recreate Spy or some other once-esteemed dead-trees publication, as he might have 20 years ago. But that's not to say running a magazine is without its privileges, particularly for an aggressive owner like BlackBook's Ari Horowitz. Horowitz recently made the tabloids for hosting "shoots" and "casting calls" (ahem) for hot young models at his apartment. And now, says an insider, BlackBook staff snickering at Horowitz's Facebook profile were surprised to discover his shameless conquest of a 22-year-old NYU coed. Horowitz, pictured at left with his young flame, is just about 40. Does she do any work for BlackBook? And are there more pictures of her? Find out after the jump!
It was a tricky rhetorical path before Barack Obama at the close of the Democratic National Convention Thursday and he walked it artfully. The official Democratic presidential nominee bashed John McCain hard, including rather boldly on McCain's core issue of Iraq, where the Republican opponent feels strong. The tens of thousands of hard-core Democrats at Invesco Field in Denver, all worked up into a frenzy, ate it up. Then there were The Bitters watching on their non-flat-screen TVs at home in swing states, who were reminded that McCain called them all "whiners" (so much worse than "bitter!"), that McCain wants to tax their benefits for healthcare, that Obama supports corporate welfare to teach GM how to make hybrids and that Obama's not going to coddle all these illegal Mexicans "undercutting" their wages. But the heart of the performance came toward the end.
Not all reporters are created equal at Invesco Field, where Barack Obama is about to close out the Democratic National Convention. John Koblin at the Observer printed a seating chart (left) and gave a rundown on the winners and losers. It looks like the Obama campaign continues to snub the New Yorker for its controversial parody cover, sitting the magazine's correspondents in worse seats than Jezebel/Glamour (team Megan!), the Nation and the New Republic. More delightfully, the campaign totally dissed those conssumate insiders at Vanity Fair, "which is stuck in the back row in Section J" behind basically everyone except the Gotham tabloids. Ha ha, I guess the entire free world is not actually obsessed with getting into the Waverly or your damned Oscar party, Graydon Carter! After the jump, early chatter among reporters, plus a list of seating winners.
You know what's boring? Feminist outrage. But it's so easy to be strident, especially in the blogosphere. Especially when a gal writes an article like Jessica Pilot's now-infamous profile on Manhattan's so-called "Hipster Hookers" in Radar. In the piece, she profiled high-end working girls, and even met with a madam herself—although she chickened out on actually going through with a call. Fine, whatever! The members of the blogosphere—you know, when they were not busy watching porn and having casual sex—had a field day with Pilot. She's been reduced to defending herself on her Facebook page: "I AM NOT A HIPSTER WHORE."In short: Pilot wrote an article about a topic that interested her, which was obviously just a huge mistake, due to the nature of the blogosphere. She was attacked in various on-line arenas—I mean, we're all desperate for content these days. We all need to chime in with an opinion, and then commenters can have their opinion, and thus—the status quo is upheld. (The status quo—"whore!"; "Feminism: Is It Being Set Back 30 Years?"—is just so incredibly boring.) Plus, there's a bit of bitchy media-jealousy thrown in—"she only did this article to make a name for herself, etc." Yeah, so? From Pilot's Facebook page:
Bloomberg News' rather embarrassing faux pas—posting Apple chief Steve Jobs' obituary before he's actually dead—has now been chuckled at by just about everyone. It's not the sort of publicity that Bloomberg's bow-tied editorial boss Matthew Winkler, a notorious tyrant, wanker, and stickler for detail, is fond of. This is a man who threw a legendary tantrum (listen to it here!) while firing a reporter for making a far less egregious error. So the immediate reaction among those familiar with him to news of the Jobs obit was, "Heads will roll." Our question: whose heads? Email us if you have any information on the fallout. Though we personally encourage restraint and forgiveness.
American Media, the publisher of Star and the National Enquirer, has come to an agreement with its creditors to "refinance" $570 million of its more than $1 billion in total debt. That's code for going to the people you owe money to and saying, "Funniest thing—I just can't pay you. Wanna change our deal a little bit? Or would you prefer I just declare bankruptcy and we both get screwed?" As savvy financial types like to say, if you owe the bank $1 million, they own you; if you owe the bank $1 billion, you own them. Although AMI squandered millions needlessly on things like, you know, the services of Bonnie Fuller, the Enquirer's upsurge from the John Edwards scoop may be just the thing to push them back towards profitability. If they can figure out how to sell some extra ads on it, that is. AMI's ad sales were down slightly in the first half, though not as much as the rest of the industry. So chin up. Remember, down is the new flat! [WSJ]
