Circle The Wagons

The show said it pulled the story "out of respect for Heath Ledger's family," but in reality, "Entertainment Tonight" got neutered by some actors and PR firms.

"Entertainment Tonight" was hardly the lone news organization to broach the topic of potential drug abuse by the star, but the video it acquired, reportedly taken two years ago at a party at the Chateau Marmont, drew the fiercest attention. The syndicated magazine's sister show, "The Insider," aired a preview of the story that it had planned to run that actually showed several segments of the video. Following the Hollywood protest, "The Insider" yanked the segment from the West Coast version of its telecast.

In the video, Ledger is seen standing in the doorway of a room where the party was taking place, swigging from a beer bottle. The actor is heard saying that he was "going to get serious shit from my girlfriend" for being at the party. The show made clear that there was nothing on the video showing Ledger taking any drug. At one point, however, the actor said he "used to smoke five joints a day." Later, with Ledger in the background, an unidentified man, his face blurred, seems to snort cocaine from a table.

After seeing a promotion for the show Wednesday, a publicist at ID, Ledger's public relations firm, called "Entertainment Tonight" and asked that the segment be pulled. The request was refused. ID then composed a three-paragraph protest letter that it distributed to some 30 other public relations firms around Hollywood, asking them to tell their clients about what was about to happen. The circle included powerhouse publicists like PMK-HBH, 42 West and BWR. The letter said "ET" had paid a large sum of money for the video to stir up an exploitive story about Ledger.

"For the sake of his grieving family and friends, his child and common decency, we hope to pressure `Entertainment Tonight' and `The Insider' to do the right thing and pull the spot," the letter said. "This is not journalism, it is sensationalism. It is a shameful exploitation of the lowest kind, to a talented and gentle soul, undeserving of such treatment."

Stars, studio executives and PR firms all called "ET" to register protests. The star-studded roster of ID alone includes Robin Williams, Sean Penn, Tobey Maguire, Mike Myers, Jennifer Hudson, Katie Holmes, Ellen DeGeneres, and Ledger's "Brokeback" co-star Jake Gyllenhaal. "I think we have all heard from members of the media and members of the public that it's too much. Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are the top news stories when Darfur should be," said the CEO of ID, who clearly doesn't rep either of the two media hungry celebutants.

No boycott was threatened, but executives at "Entertainment Tonight" refused to talk publicly about the retreat. There was no reason given why that particular show was singled out when many other publications and TV outlets were talking about the same thing, and he party video is likely to be seen soon in England, and is already available over the Internet.

It is no secret that PR firms are just scummy bullshit artists in expensive designer clothing, and actors are just waiters who spend 22 minutes on your television rather than at your table. Biting the hand that feeds them is dangerous, and Hollywood has finally bought into it's own hype that it's more important than the news. Granted, "Entertainment Tonight" is news like McDonalds is healthy cuisine, but the fucking video exists - you can't bury the embarrasing and incriminating parts of the past just to make the dead more noble. If Brit Brit takes a dirt nap, nobody is going to step in "out of respect" and try to get the junk yanked.

But now Hollywood's beloved departed and his dirt has become their Alamo of dirty laundry. Yeah, blah blah blah they care, but who's next? Now they're going to start calling in the veiled threats to kill what they don't want to get out...even when it's true. They don't want the world to pay attention to foreign genocide, unless it's part of a film they're promoting. The victory goes to Hollywood, but it's pyrrhic. Watch your back Tinsletown, and bury those videos now before they turn up somewhere...

To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before

The "Closer" video by Nine Inch Nails filtered through Star Trek? Here you go then...

Manstank.com

Somebody call Joey T for confirmation...

Apparently Matthew McConaughey doesn’t wear anything to inhibits his natural smell.

No cologne. No deodorant. Just delicious man musk. And he hasn’t worn anything for 20 years.

While on the set of the awful Fool’s Gold, actress Kate Hudson begged her co-star to scrap his long-standing anti-deodorant policy. McConaughey insists that the ladies dig it, saying, “The women in my life, including my mother, have all said, ‘Hey, your natural smell smells, one, like a man, and, two, smells like you.’”

Thanks to Yeeeah! here's a list of ten of the stinkiest celebs...and what they smell like:

10. Paris Hilton — Jizz. Straight up jizz.

9. Tara Reid — Vodka, with a hint soggy cigarette butts and lube.

8. Kirstie Alley — Kung pao chicken and Krispy Kreme donuts.

7. Jared Leto — Always brand maxipads.

6. Rumer Willis — Potatoes.

5. Andy Dick — Jizz and nasal drip coke breath.

4. Courtney Love — Cheap whiskey and vomit.

3. Amy Winehouse — Tear-streaked mascara and three-day gin bender sweat.

2. Fergie — Piss and synthetic estrogen.

1. Britney Spears — Acne medication, toejam, Cheetos, and Marlboro Lights.

The Boys From Brazil

Oh, to be in Rio De Janeiro for this year's Carnaval...

A Rio samba group built a Carnival float piled with naked mannequins meant to look like Holocaust victims. Ahhh, the spirit of celebration! The group of douchebags, Viradouro, reportedly also planned for the float to be topped with one or more dancers in Hitler costume. Well, that would be bad...but at least they're dancing!

After the Jewish Federation of Rio de Janeiro filed a lawsuit, a judge issued an injunction banning the float as it is now from the parade. What a waste of the theme: "It Gives you Goose Bumps."

Har har.

Viradouro would neither confirm nor deny those plans, but a judge said the group would face fines of $113,000 if it ignores her order by parading without removing the mannequins, and $28,000 for each dancer dressed as Hitler. Viradouro is scheduled to present its carnival parade early Monday morning at Rio's Sambadrome stadium...let's see if they have their checkbook handy.

Behind Blue Eyes

Somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago the first milkman was questioned by a suspicious husband.

A team of scientists believe they have tracked the genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes, pointing to that period of as thier first appearance.

The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin. The genetic switch that gets flipped is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2, but rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.

Before then, the scientist say everybody had brown eyes.

For more scientific discourse, Crystal Gayle weighs in on the topic:

Never Forget 01/31/07

Learn why today is important.

• Deconstructing the Great ATHF Freak Out of 2007

• Mooninite on the Haunted Mansion

• Hoaxdevices.com

• Stickers: This is engineering, not bomb-making

• State of Massachusetts insists on calling ATHF ads "hoax devices"

• Boston LED terror scare: a message to the media

• Mark on ABC news about Mooninite devices

• Fake pipe bombs found in Boston

• Video of Mooninite menaces

• Boston Mooninite installer arrested

• Boston Channel photoshops Mooninite LED signs

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the Bomb T-Shirts

• LED ad campaign ignites terrorism scare in Boston

UPDATE: Boston is paid tribute one year later

2 Days In Paris

I just finished watching 2 Days In Paris and must recommend you put this on your queue (or go down to the video store if you're archaic like that).

Julie Delphy, who was terrific as the titular femme in Killing Zoe, and Adam "The Hebrew Hammer" Goldberg are a couple on the last leg of their European vacation, and besides not speaking the language, Jack has to deal with a parade of Marion's exes and her family. Delphy, who wrote and directed the film, fills their interaction with laughs and clever banter, and creates an escalating set of alienating events as their relationship is tested. The beauty of the humor is truly in the discomfort Jack has trying to navigate as an outsider culturally and verbally, and his reaction and responses to Marion as she tries to bridge those gaps.

The film is smart, and while a romantic comedy, it does not ooze crappiness like some typical Kate Hudson / Drew Barrymore schlock. There is no silly attempt to reduce love or relationships into formulaic situations, and looks at the problems a couple has to deal with the to illustrate the the terms of their commitment to each other. The realistic intersect of communication and emotional turmoil sell the story, but never overpower it.

Even with the tension and underpinnings of trouble, the movie is upbeat and humorous throughout. It's one of those flicks that's subtile surprise and exactly the type of thing you'd like to watch cuddled up on the sofa with your significant other (or call girl that you have a casual friendship with). So instead of wasting a moment on celluliod shit like Fool's Gold, this will satisfy and make the notion of watching romantic comedies wasier to handle...as long as they're done as cleverly.

Some Dudes Like To Dress Up

Apparently Eva Longoria made a movie called Over Her Dead Body, and the premiere was last night. Of course it will suck, but I bring this up because after looking at the pictures from the event I realized there's an actress named Lake Bell in the film. Her information says she was in the programs Boston Legal and Surfacing. I just wonder if you have a sexually ambiguous name, does that somehow make you become a tranny? Because this dude's got one hell of a fella's mug - and also looks like Caroline Kennedy.

Fail

A two-for-one!

John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani are both dropping out of the the presidential mishagas. How fortunate that I was planning to link The Fail Blog.

Cookie Party

Let me just say that I think this is total bullshit, but the AP ran the story, so I feel it is my duty to share it with you...

With food prices rising, Haiti's poorest can't afford even a daily plate of rice - but they can still chow down on cookies made of dried yellow dirt!

Meet Charlene, 16 and the mother of a one-month old, who shares a two-room house with her five siblings and two unemployed parents. Cookies made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal:

"When my mother does not cook anything, I have to eat them three times a day," Charlene said. Though she likes their buttery, salty taste, Charlene said the cookies also give her stomach pains. "When I nurse, the baby sometimes seems colicky too," she said.

Food prices around the world have spiked because of higher oil prices, needed for fertilizer, irrigation and transportation. Prices for basic ingredients such as corn and wheat are also up sharply, and the increasing global demand for biofuels is pressuring food markets as well. At the market in the slum, two cups of rice now sell for 60 cents, up 10 cents from December and 50 percent from a year ago. Beans, condensed milk and fruit have gone up at a similar rate, and even the price of the edible clay has risen over the past year by almost $1.50. Dirt to make 100 cookies now costs $5, the cookie makers say. At about 5 cents apiece, the cookies are a bargain compared to food staples. About 80% of people in Haiti live on less than $2 a day.

Carrying buckets of dirt and water up ladders to the roof of the former prison for which the slum is named, they strain out rocks and clumps on a sheet, and stir in shortening and salt. Then they pat the mixture into mud cookies and leave them to dry under the scorching sun. The finished cookies are carried in buckets to markets or sold on the streets.

I have an idea - dump some birth control into the earth so these dirt eaters don't have seven siblings and cleverly get knocked up before the age a teen would normally get a license. That'll make the money go further. This sounds a lot like the old recipe for stone soup, where a simple stone is boiled, but all tasty trimmings are added to give the soup it's flavor. Someone forgot to tell them to take the dirt out before adding all the salt and shortening though. Haiti is now the official most ass-backwards place on the planet. Even those in Africa who are staving don't eat dirt - you got pwned by Africa, Haiti!

Harshing Your Mellow

Note to self: getting stoned in New Zealand may be a bummer.

Smoking a joint is equivalent to 20 cigarettes in terms of lung cancer risk, scientists there have found, warning of an epidemic of lung cancers that could be linked to cannabis.

Past studies have demonstrated that cannabis can cause cancer, but few have established a strong link between cannabis use and the actual incidence of lung cancer.

In an recent article, the scientists said cannabis could be expected to harm the airways as its smoke contained twice the level of carcinogens than tobacco cigarettes. The method of smoking also increases the risk, since joints are typically smoked without a proper filter and almost to the very tip, which increases the amount of smoke inhaled. The cannabis smoker inhales more deeply and for longer, facilitating the deposition of carcinogens in the airways.

The researchers interviewed 79 lung cancer patients and sought to identify the main risk factors for the disease, such as smoking, family history and cannabis consumption. In this high-exposure group, lung cancer risk rose by almost 600% for patients who smoked more than a joint a day for 10 years, or two joints a day for 5 years.

For those who toke, I suggest you bong it up, and switch to a higher grade dope so you can take less hits and still get baked. And for those smoking the herb to combat chemo effects, well, don't sweat this - you've already got cancer.

Stop, Drop, And Rock N' Roll

I throw more power into my voice, and now the flame is extinguished," wrote Irish scientist John Tyndall about his experiments with sound and fire in 1857. If only he had Black Sabbath to experiment with...

Students at the University of West Georgia are testing his theories over 150 years later to see whether sound waves can douse fires. Such a system might prove useful on Earth for putting out fires in locations whose contents could be water-damaged by sprinkler systems (such as museums or centers with data servers), or even in space.

They placed a candle in a large topless chamber with three bass speakers attached to the walls. The candle was lit and the Canadian rock band Nickelback's "How You Remind Me" was pumped through the subwoofers. Within roughly 10 seconds, once the song hit a low note, the flame was out. I'll be honest, that shitty song would snuff my flame out if I had to hear it.

How's that work (other than the flame retreating from bad music)? Sound travels in waves, which are simply variations of pressure in a medium—whether solid, liquid or gas. The energy from vibrating objects, such as speaker membranes, moves from particle to particle in the air in a repeating pattern of high- and low-pressure zones that we perceive as sound. According to the ideal gas law, temperature, pressure and volume are related; therefore, a decrease in pressure can lead to a corresponding decrease in temperature, which may explain how sound can extinguish a flame. More testing is forthcoming.

"There's some special frequency at which a candle flame extinguishes," the students noted - and that was between 40 and 50 hertz. That's at the edge of the audible low frequencies for humans. Perhaps the reaction is just a just a protective measure by music to keep albums from being burned...although it would be daunting to know that Nickelback albums were harder to destroy.

Not To Be Outdone...

Upstagecd by a Mormon? Not the Greek Orthodox church!

Archbishop Christodoulos, the leader of Greece's powerful religious institution died at 69.

Christodoulos, who headed the church for a decade, was first hospitalized in Athens in June before being diagnosed with cancer of the liver and large intestine. After 10 weeks preparing for a liver transplant operation, it was canceled when doctors discovered the cancer had spread. He refused hospital treatment and died at his home. So there.

You can look him up if you want to know more, but I figured that anybody who looks like a general in the Freddy Mercury Army gets a brief mention for taking a dirt nap. Plus anything to draw focus away from the Martians Mormons.

RPM

The RPM Challenge begins on February 1, and I am cringing.

A musical version of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), musicians will be "encouraged" to produce an entire album in just one month. Their rules are to write and record 10 songs / 35 minutes worth of original material during the 29 days of February.

Much like the NaNoWriMo, the process emphasises speed of completion rather than quality or craftsmanship - and that's no reason to undertake the task. Write 10 songs in a month? No problem. Write 10 good songs? Yikes. Only MAGNA could crank out that many decent songs in 4 weeks, but it would require spending over 80 hours a week to do it (never mind recording it properly), and MAGNA don't write for nobody but themselves!

The Ten

I enjoy the happy coincidences in life. Take for example my desire to talk about The Ten, which recently came out on DVD. It just so happens that Mormon church president Gordon Hinckley died at the ripe old age of 97 the exact same weekend I watched the movie. Awesome! A movie about the big whammies in religion and the big whammy of what is marginally a religion happening across my radar at the same time? Religious folk would use the term providence, but things like that require ugly abstract ideas like faith. Yuck, how messy. But a biblical satire and a dead old man and his Martian beliefs, well, that's just a charming stroke of good timing...

As you can see, The Ten gives stories inspired by those core tenets, but don't expect lessons. If anything, the film pokes fun at the rules and shows that breaking them tends to be as deeply harrowing as upholding them. I wasn't too fond of the narrative structure, which was too much like a high school play, but the overlapping and reoccurring characters made the different tales more interesting. Also, as ridiculous as some of the situations were, they were played very matter-of-fact, making them even better.

Of course, it could have been The Fifteen.

Home Sick Home Weekend

Unless I physically can't make it to work, I don't let being sick keep me from enduring the pleasures of business and commerce. So now that everybody else has been infected, I figured I'd get on the bandwagon and have a little illness. My super-constitution rarely keeps me from being sidelined too long, but rather than ever being 100%, I usually hover at around 92 or so - imagine my displeasure of being in the 80s or worse. And considering the last couple of days having been in ice box-like hockey arenas and fording the rain for band practice, I may have prolonged this bug but I think I'm actually on the mend.

Again, the forecast is plenty of rain, so other than a jaunt out to Cannibal Flower on Saturday night to handle some business (yes, rad art shows mean business to me), I'm going to hole up in my warm little cave and sleep the hell out of the weekend. Not that I need an attending, but night nurses are welcome.

Faith No More - "Home Sick Home"

Get Your Eat On

How much do families spend and eat on a weekly basis around the world? H.R.M. Idle Eyes The See-Thru shares with us anywhere from $1.23 to slightly above $500. And what does that look like?

By the way, I'm hungry as hell now.

Dr. Rockzo

Here's a delicious treat...David Lee Roth's isolated vocals from "Runnin' With The Devil".

Take it to the next level and play it over this clip from Metalocalypse.

Castratikron

Sarah Jessica Beastmonster is like penis kryptonite, terrible fashion, and the stuff of nightmares rolled into one. They should show these pictures to sex offender felons who are in line to get chemical castrations. If I bothered to see the Sex In The City movie (due out this year), it would be two hours of questioning my sexuality, clothing designed by blind retards, and relationship fantasy on par with a 4th grade girl's diary.

I would rather sit through Meet The Spartans, which is unwatchable.

(I told you so)

Visiting Time

J.D. Ryznar, of Yacht Rock fame (go watch it if you don't know what I'm talking about), also keeps it up to date with some political discourse. It's his new thing, "Visits with JD Ryznar".

"Visits with JD Ryznar," a series I hope will become the greatest talk show in the history of the internet. Each episode, someone will visit me and my dog Fancy Ray at my house. We will partake in an activity, talk about life, and make a funny video or two.

Peep the premiere episode:

Leave A Good Looking Corpse

A U.S. consumer group is up in arms over the lack of strong warnings on Botox and similar injections.

Uh, what?

Anybody who willingly injects paralysis inducing toxins into their skin for vanity purposes knows full well what the risk is, and gets what they deserve.

Public Citizen, the group with too much time on their hands and not enough sense to find a real cause, reviewed 180 reports submitted to the FDA by manufacturers involving patients injected with Botox or Myobloc. The reports detailed cases of muscle weakness, difficulty swallowing or aspiration pneumonia, a serious condition caused by breathing a foreign material into the lungs. There were 16 cases that resulted in death, including four involving children under 18. Minors getting Botox? They deserve to die, but only after the consenting parent is stabbed 60 to 70 times in the face with a Botox syringe.

Obviously, problems can occur if botulinum toxin spreads from the injection site to the esophagus, causing partial paralysis, or other parts of the body. Maybe it's better to have to go back for that second treatment rather than shoot up all at once?

Look kids, it's 2008. If we still need warnings about these things, we're just trying to tack a few more heartbeats onto lives that will find a way to end due to their own stupidity. Why not spend the time and resources helping the smart and the living?

What Of What?

Bond is back — and he has an awful title.

Producers have revealed the title, Quantum of Solace, and some of the information about the latest secret agent film, due out later this year.

The title was chosen only a few days ago, was taken from a story by Bond creator Ian Fleming that appears in the collection "For Your Eyes Only." Craig said Fleming defined a quantum of solace — it means, roughly, a measure of comfort — as "that spark of niceness in a relationship that if you don't have, you might as well give up." Nothing says "good title" more than an explanation as to why it was chosen and what it means.

The film is a direct sequel to Casino Royale, beginning an hour after that film ends, with Bond devastated by his betrayal by true love Vesper Lynd. "He had his heart broken at the end of the last movie and that certainly is a spur for him in this one," Craig said. "I'd be lying if I said there wasn't revenge in his heart. But it's more than that. That spurs him on, but that's not what the movie is. It's not a revenge movie. It's about him figuring a few things out."

Will Bond find a quantum of solace? And will that interfere with him stopping a shadowy cabal attempting to bring down the world's economy. Perhaps if he tells the villains the name of the movie they'll be so perplexed that he'll gain the upper hand.

Ladychuckin'

Lilly McElroy is an artist who takes photographs of herself literally throwing herself at men.

I started the project by placing an ad on Craig's List looking for men who would meet me at bars blind date style and let me literally throw myself at them. This worked fairly well, but limited the # of photos I could take. Now, I go to bars with a friend/photographer and approach men who are physically larger than I am.

I ask them if I can literally throw myself at them. If they say yes, I have myself photographed doing it and buy them a drink afterwards. If it seems like they want to hang out, I'll have a drink as well. Sometimes we talk about the project and sometimes we just chat. I don't have a specific set up for the photos. I just want them to look as much like snap shots or party pics as possible.

So there you go! More of her work here.

A Ledger's Tale

Everybody was thrown for a loop when Heath Ledger died yesterday, except me.

The most complete and subversive coverage of everything can be found at What Would Tyler Durden Do?, which I'm sure will have more posts beyond what's collected here over the next couple of days.

HEATH LEDGER IS DEAD

"HIS ABILITIES ARE RARE"

LEDGER WAS NAKED, FACE DOWN

THE FINAL PICTURES

BEST BUY IS SENSITIVE

MICHELLE WILLIAMS IS DEVASTATED

HEATH LEDGER IS NOW IN HELL

1979 - 2008

LEDGERS AUTOPSY: "INCONCLUSIVE"

LEDGER WAS ON AMBIEN

If you recall, slightly more than a week ago, another young actor was found dead - that was Brad Renfro. It mattered little to me then but it's very important now. You see, both Ledger and Renfro were young, talented actors who died prematurely in connection to drugs, but they've received far different responses. Is this seemingly out-of-the-blue death really just provoking a shocked reaction or are we just showing bigger fan support?

Renfro was never as acclaimed as Ledger, or had as high a profile in Hollywood, even though he could easily lay claim to a resume of co-stars equally as impressive. Renfro came across as trashy while Ledger cut a more elegant figure, roles notwithstanding, which must play a part. Was Ledger benefiting from being more handsome? Even his name is more pleasant than Renfro's. And lest we not ignore the criminal background on Renfro that clearly charted his demise. Is this the wattage of starpower?

Whether our celebrities go suddenly (Kurt Cobain), toe the line for a while (Robert Downey Jr.), or live forever (Keith Richards) , we're all expecting their lifestyle, to some degree, to determine their deathstyle. Some are easier to predict, some are right outta left field, but celebrities die too - and in the same ways as your average person. Let us not forget that, otherwise we deify them beyond the build of their fame.

And hey, there's still Charlie Hunnam (the poor man's Heath Ledger?).

You Lied

Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong. Translation: they lied.

In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry's domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.

The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so. The truth though, having come clean to education groups, is that a "human error" in that survey caused it to get the number wrong.

It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.

Could the human error have been the motivation of the MPAA to make their point? Can you imagine what would happen if other facets of life were so erroneously informed?

The MPAA says that's still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing - but not at all close to their claim. Truly, this does not bode well for research firm LEK, who made the initial report. I predict a drop in their earnings this next quarter.

The MPAA can still go fuck itself, along side the RIAA, as they fabricate data and cry piracy is destroying their industry, when it's really an inferior product.

The Brokeback Joker Is Dead

Actor Heath Ledger was found dead today at 28.

He was nominated for an Oscar for Brokeback Mountain in 2005, where he met his wife, actress Michelle Williams. Ledger and Williams had had a daughter, Matilda, and split up last year. Ledger also stars as The Joker in the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight. His resume includes I'm Not There, A Knight's Tale, The Patriot, and Monster's Ball.

Details are sketchy, but a housekeeper in the Manhattan apartment believed to be his home found him dead when she went to let him know the masseuse had arrived for an appointment. Natually, drugs are being considered by the police, although the actor does not have a known history of drug use.

Wow, who'd have guessed Heath would taken a dirt nap before celebwrecks like Amy Winehouse and Britney Spears.

Here's a trailer from the Bat-film, which will no doubt be dedicated to him. Looks good.

UPDATE: According to the New York Times, Ledger was found naked and unconscious facedown at the foot of his bed with prescription sleeping pills strewn all around him...and still the NYPD claims there was "no obvious indication" Ledger had committed suicide.

Oh Navin!

The last couple of days I've been putting myself to sleep to The Jerk, and it's as funny now as it was nearly 30 years ago. Along side Mel Brooks and Woody Allen, Steve Martin is one of my favorite comedians, and there's no question of their impact on today's comedies. It's an absolutely brilliant film, so if you've never seen this gem, don't be a jerk and watch it immediately. And if you have seen it, see it again.

Economic Pussyfooting

Kids, I never lie to you, which is why I am going to cut through all the media hoopla and tell you upfront: the recession has begun.

Since the first of the year, companies have been posting their losses as the house boom of the last few years has begun to bust. Most bumminest mac Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has worked with the administration on their emergency rescue package centered on tax rebates and business tax cuts in order to halt the economic trouble. Increases in unemployment benefits and food stamps have also been bandied about.

The alarming part is the elephant is already in the room and nobody wants to admit it. Sorry, but you're not going to keep a recession at bay through denial - say it or not, here it is. When the White House says "We are not forecasting a recession...clearly there is a slowdown," you're just hearing the spin. If you don't like that, how about noting "appreciable downside risks to growth remain". Listen, when you hear the opening bars of the song, make no mistake that the crescendo will follow.

Just look at the five most recent headlines in the business section:

Dow drops 465 then gains most of it back

Fed cuts interest rate 3/4 of a point

Bank of America, Wachovia profits plunge

UAL trims 4Q loss to $53M; hurt by fuel

Ambac posts $3.26 billion quarterly loss

None of those are good. That rainy day you were saving for has arrived, and don't let them tell you it's still sunny.

MLK

A great man and a once great band - for today.

Roller Chester

From the mind behind Toothpaste For Dinner and Married To The Sea, it's Roller Chester!

#1: Dr. Synthesizer

#2: Politics With Charles

#3: MUGS

#4: Hey, I Like Your Socks

#5: Pugs, Mugs, Volcano

Butt Naked Returns!

One of Liberia's most notorious rebel commanders, known as Gen. Butt Naked, has returned to confess his role in terrorizing the nation

With the self-explanatory name given for charging into battle wearing only boots, he claims he is responsible for 20,000 deaths.

Joshua Milton Blahyi returned last week from Ghana to face his homeland's truth and reconciliation commission. Unlike his fancy name, he wore a suit and tie. No just he, but often his whole platoon would charge naked into battle. The technique, meant to terrify the enemy, may have titillated, but all the same it was a useful tactic.

Other former warlords (with such awesome names as General Murder, Rambo, Terminator, Jungle Killer, General War Boss III, General Housebreaker, No-mother-no-father, General Fuck-me-quick, Babykiller and so on) have refused to ask forgiveness, dismissing a commission many in Liberia see as toothless.

"I could be electrocuted. I could be hanged. I could be given any other punishment," he said. "But I think forgiveness and reconciliation is the right way to go. Yeah, that sounds about right. The keen mind that killed tens of thousands is the right guy to decide his own fate.

"I have been looking for an opportunity to tell the true story about my life - and every time I tell people my story, I feel relieved."

The Nigerian civil war, which killed an estimated 250,000 people, was characterized by the eating of human hearts and soccer matches played with human skulls. Drugged fighters waltzed into battle wearing women's wigs, flowing gowns and carrying dainty purses stolen from civilians. Wow, that makes our civil war boring as fuck.

Before he led his fighters into battle, wearing only a pair of lace-up boots, Blahyi said he made a human sacrifice to the devil. The sacrifice was typically "the killing of an innocent child and plucking out the heart which was divided into pieces for us to eat."

For the record, Blahyi claimed God appeared to him as he charged naked into a battle and told him he was a slave to Satan, not the hero he considered himself to be. He then became a born-again Christian and sold cassettes of his sermons. No word on when they will be available on iTunes.

DC Weekend

No, we're not going to Washington D.C. - it's coming here!

Famous Sister and her beau are gracing LA with a long weekend courtesty of the assassination of MLK, and we're going to tear it up! Or get torn up. Something in that range.

Albums That Don't Exist

Step 1: Go to Wikipedia's random article page - The first article you get is the name of your band.

Step 2: Go to the Random Quotations page - The last four words of the last quote is the album title.

Step 3: Go to Flickr's Interesting photo page - Third picture, no matter what it is, is your album cover.

Put it all together to make your album. Either crop it to CD cover size, or just use the raw image itself...the one rule is you're only allowed to add the album title and artist title.

Lots of other folks non-existant albums here.

This was mine:

Not to be confused with Sleeveface:




UPDATE: Scartoe did one!

Dentata

Good or bad, we finally have a movie about a woman who has a set of choppers in her vaj, and surprisingly it's not about my ex. Teeth opens today.

Checkmate

The search for Bobby Fischer is over...he's dead.

The reclusive chess genius who became a Cold War hero by dethroning the Soviet world champion in 1972 and later renounced his American citizenship died at 64 from kidney failure.

An American chess champion at 14 and a grand master at 15, Fischer beat Boris Spassky in 1972 in a series of games in Iceland's capital, Reykjavik, to become the first officially recognized world champion born in the United States. The match at the height of the Cold War, took on mythic dimensions as a clash between the world's two superpowers. Fischer played — and won — an exhibition rematch against Spassky on the Yugoslav resort island of Sveti Stefan, but the game was in violation of U.S. sanctions imposed to punish then-President Slobodan Milosevic.

As a champion, he used his eccentricities to unsettle opponents, but Fischer's reputation as a genius of chess was soon eclipsed, in the eyes of many, by his idiosyncrasies. He turned up late for tournaments, walked out of matches, refused to play unless the lighting suited him and was intolerant of photographers and cartoonists. He was convinced of his own superiority and called the Soviets "Commie cheats."

Fischer lost his world title in 1975 after refusing to defend it against Anatoly Karpov. He dropped out of competitive chess and largely out of view, emerging occasionally to make erratic and often anti-Semitic comments, although his mother was Jewish. During one interview, Fischer praised the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, saying America should be "wiped out," and described Jews as "thieving, lying bastards."

In July 2004, Fischer was arrested at Japan's Narita airport for traveling on a revoked U.S. passport and was threatened with extradition to the United States to face charges of violating sanctions. He spent nine months in custody before the dispute was resolved when Iceland granted him citizenship and he moved there with his longtime companion, the Japanese chess player Miyoko Watai. In his final years, Fischer railed against the chess establishment, alleging that the outcomes of many top-level chess matches were decided in advance.

Well done Mr. Fischer! Your lunacy remains intact with your legacy, and we salute your rock star approach to chess.

Unlistenable

I always knew Sean Paul was shitty, but this proves it.

Surgeons operated on Stacey Gayle's brain to cure a rare condition known as musicogenic epilepsy. Gayle was suffering as many as 10 grand mal seizures a day despite being treated with medications designed to control them. The condition became so bad she eventually had to quit her job and leave the church choir where she sang. Bummer for you chickie.

Eighteen months ago, she began to suspect that music by reggae and hip-hop artist Sean Paul was triggering some of her seizures. She recalled being at a barbecue and collapsing when the Jamaican rapper's music started playing, and then remembered having a previous seizure when she heard his music. Her suspicions were confirmed on a visit to the Long Island medical center last February, when she played Paul's "Temperature" on her iPod for doctors. Soon after, she suffered three seizures.

During the first surgery, doctors implanted more than 100 electrodes in the right side of her brain to pinpoint the abnormal area of her brain. The surgeons followed that procedure with a second surgery to remove the electrodes, along with parts of her brain suspected of causing the seizures. Within three days, she was released from the hospital and has not experienced a seizure since.

Personally, I would leave my brain alone. If I have such an adverse reaction to that music that my brain freaks out and reboots, I think it's clear it is bad. that's why you vomit when you upset your stomach, get a fever, or have diarrhea. You body has defenses against toxic substances and fights them accordingly.

Watch these at your own risk.

A Foppish Dandy

American Idol's Clay Gaiken Aiken may be trying to tell us something. What could it be?

The Bandwidth Of Greed

Duplicitous bastards!

Time Warner Cable it is planning a trial to bill high-speed Internet subscribers based on their amount of usage rather than use the industry standard flat fee.

The second largest U.S. cable operator said it will test consumption-based billing with subscribers in Beaumont, Texas later this year as a part of a "strategy to help reduce congestion" of its network by a minority of consumers who pay the same monthly fee as light users. At least that's what they want you to think.

The company believes the billing system will impact only heavy users, who account for around 5 percent of all customers but typically use more than half of the total network bandwidth, according to a company spokesman. They claim network congestion due to downloading of large media files such as video is a growing problem and will worsen as it becomes more popular. Lies. All of it.

Imagine your interweb connection is a water pipe into your home. If you are using the water, you can use a small amount and fill up a glass of water, or you can let it rip and take a long shower. Regardless of how much you use, there is a maximum amount you can process because of the size of the pipe. On your computer, there are even more factors prohibiting usage. Hard disk size. Processor speed. RAM memory. Like the water, you can only get a fixed maximum amount, because bandwidth is bandwidth.

The companies would like to ignore this comparison, but like the idea that your web usage is like a utility that they can charge more for if you consume more. Except they forget you're not paying for content or raw resource material. You are paying for the size and speed of the connection. That's it and nothing more. If you have cable television, you pay for the width and range of channels, not for how much you watch or for how long. But that won't stop them from trying.

If they are having issues keeping up with the demand of users, they need to increase their resources, not penalize those who use more than others. If you pay a flat rate at a buffet, you can eat as much as you want and your consumption shouldn't be weighed against anyone else's. Fuck you Time Warner. I hope you lose millions when people leave your service because you're trying to squeeze them harder.

Dead-O

Richard Knerr, the co-founder of Wham-O has died at the age of 82.

Founded as a mail-order slingshot business in 1948 by childhood buddies Rich Knerr and Arthur “Spud” Melin, Wham-O was a perfect blend of California entrepreneurship, space-age optimism and postwar manufacturing methods.

The company didn’t really take off until 1957, after the partners spotted a man on the beach throwing a plastic flying saucer. They bought the idea for $1 million, changed its name from the Pluto Platter to the Frisbee and had an instant hit on their hands. A year later, inspired by a friend’s account of seeing Australian children twirling wooden hoops around their waists, Knerr and Melin made a plastic version, dubbed it the Hula Hoop, and sold 100 million in 16 months. Wham-O developed between 40 and 50 new toys a year. Some were flops, like the $119 build-your-own bomb shelter, but others, like the Superball, were incredible hits.

When Knerr and Melin sold the business to Kransco in 1982, the company crashed. It was bought by Mattel, which killed off nearly all the products except the Hacky Sack, the Hula Hoop, the Frisbee, Silly String, and the Slip ‘N Slide.

To recap: Toys. Fads. Dead.

Meme Timeline

I have long postulated that the length of time an interweb meme is actually cool is determined by how long it takes for one of those thousand of douchebag t-shirt companies to spit out a garment for it. This may have been the shortest turnaround ever.

Posted on Gorilla Mask on 01/15/08

Tee shirt from Busted Tees on 1/16/08

Uber Rodent

Uruguayan scientists say they have uncovered fossil evidence of the biggest species of rodent ever found. Meanwhile, most people in the world can not find where Uruguay is.

The giant beast of an herbivore may have been a contemporary or possibly prey of saber-toothed cats about four million years ago. Its huge skull, more than 20 inches long, suggest a monster more than 8 feetlong, weighing between 1,700 and 3,000 pounds. Although newspapers variously described it as a mouse or a rat, researchers say the animal, named Josephoartigasia monesi, was more closely related to a guinea pig or porcupine.

The fossil was found in 1987 about 65 miles west of the capital, an area where fossils have been found abundantly. An Argentine fossil collector donated the skull to Uruguay’s National History and Anthropology Museum, where it spent years hidden away in a box. The extinct rodent clearly outclassed its nearest rival, the Phoberomys, found in Venezuela and estimated to weigh between 880 and 1,500 pounds. And that's why it is extinct today - for just being too classy.

Hell Yes I Want One

Less than six months until my birthday, so start looking for this.