Have A Blast This Weekend

One to pump and one to pull the trigger.

The Vader Project

In the art underground, Dunny is out and the dark lord of the Sith is in as the object d'choice for graphic freestyling.

The Vader Project was part of the big 30th anniversary Star Wars convention in LA at the end of May. Where these masks are now is anyone's guess...

+2 cred points because my amigo and former co-worker Joe Ledbetter is amongst the group.

VH None

There was a time that calling yourself a music video channel meant that you actually played music. I must have been taking a nap, but I woke up the other day and realized that VH1 has become the same as MTV -- music themed television.

Now, I'm not in preparation for hari-kari over it, but it does irk me that what constitutes programing is a slew of soft-reality shows based around C-list talent and nostalgic has-beens. The marketing aces over there call it their CelebReality block. I call it torture.

Spiralling downhill from the kitchy Surreal Life, where a houseful of celebrities from the past live together, the channel is a carnival-like collection of where-are-they-now types trying to find romance (Flavor Of Love, I Love New York), find help (Celebrity Fit Club, Breaking Bonaduce), or just plain find a few more minutes for their career (My Fair Brady, Hogan Knows Best). The latest, appalling programing is a double fisted beatdown of lameness -- Rock Of Love and Scott Baio Is 45 ... And Single!, both which premier this weekend.

Rock Of Love asks the long burning question, "Can 25 skanks culled from a cattle call of applicants be narrowed down to one candidate to receive two decades of road borne STDs?". Bret Michael's penis hopes so. The Poison singer sets of on his epic quest with the assistance of his tour manager and head of security, Big John -- I'm guessing that nickname is due to is size, not some kind of high test scoring, IQ basis.

"Characters", as the support snatch is being called, all seem to have been born by namesake to be contestants on a matchmaking show for a rocker in his 40s. Krista, Kristia, Lacey, Jessica, Jes, Tawny, Tiffany, Brandi C., and Brandi M. lead the cliche pack. As you could already figure out, an over-the-hill commodity such as Bret Michaels commands only the finest ladies from American metropolises like Newman, GA, Beckley, WV, Naperville, IL (who was kind enough to offer two of it's daughters), and Bountiful, UT. Here's a small sampling of some vital info these kind young ladies were willing to share:

- likes to be naked and wants to be in Playboy
- favorite garment: her Lynyrd Skynrd panties
- received "Boobs" as birthday gift from her parents
- can fit her fist in her mouth
- back is double jointed
- has 6 tattoos / has 4 tattoos and 9 piercings / has a lip piercing / a musical note tattooed on her lower back / has 8 piercings / has a heart tattoo on her shoulder / has too many tattoos to count
- sometimes wears a cowboy hat in bed
- bad at settling down and commitment
- has a 7 yr old son (naturally)
- has been in several catfights because women are always jealous of her
- was a dancer at Scores Las Vegas / was Miss Hooters of Illinois 2002 / currently a Go Go Dancer / is a waitress at Hooters / at a strip club for a month
- grew up in small farm town with 900 people and corn in her backyard
- could not survive if she couldn't shop

Maybe Bret would be better off jamming his dick into an electric pencil sharpener. Nah, these folks deserve each other

Scott Baio Is 45...And Single! doesn't sound like so much of a show as it is just a statement of fact. Beyond a turn as Bob Loblaw on Arrested Development (courtesy of Ron Howard, who also hooked up faded star Henry Winkler for several episodes), beyond being Chachi In Charge, Baio has been the modern day sexual Ellis Island for B-movie actresses and D-cup ladies. As this generation of young ladies hardly know who he is (and therefore won't fuck him), Baio embarks on a midlife crisis of awesome proportion. His first stop -- the VH1 program development offices.

Sometime afterward, they sent him to the highly regarded (by casting agents and focus groups) life coach Ali. For eight weeks, her mission will be to force him to confront a laundry list of his "most substantial and combustible" old flames. As they claim, it is in order to hopefully get to the heart of his lonely heart condition, but as I claim, it is to hear about what a phillandering dickbag he was from aging starlets. In either case, I am willing to put money that he'll cry once by the 4th episode.

Of course, episode after episode of reliving sex with Scott Baio by way of Heather Locklear and Nicolette Sheridan is hardly viewable, so his long-time pals have been enlisted to help sift through the wreckage of his past. I don't know who's lined up here, but I'm expecting Adam Rich and counting on Willie Ames. Baio wil also have to "endure an assortment of life-altering activities", which the clever devils at VH1 factor abstinence in as. Abstinence is just a fancy word for being unwilling to just settle for fucking anyone. Ultimately, we're supposed to believe that after all this, Baio will "earn the chance at actually maintaining a meaningful, stable, healthy relationship". Methinks he's earning a chance to comeback next season for more of the same.

I'm not psychic, but I am telling you not to get on these trainwrecks. I just saved your life. Twice.

Run, Idiot, Run

It's that time of year again in Pamplona!

The Spanish government reported 13 injuries on the 6th day of the famously dangerous and stupid running of the bulls portion of the San Fermin festival. Many were trampled, but the highlight for me were the seven gorings.

As you can expect, the gore victims are in serious condition and most have had surgery. This was for their wounds, and not to fix whatever brain damage they had initially that made them think deliberately running with six 1,300-pound bulls was a good idea.

Since record-keeping began in 1924, 13 people have been killed during the runs, with the most recent in 1995, which is too long ago if you ask me. Strangely, there is no annual "Swim Australia In A Meat Swimsuit" or "Get Between A Mother And Her Cub" event, because I'd like to hear the casualty reports from those.

Live by the stupid, die by the stupid.

UPDATE: The latest story coming out of Spain is that two of the gored runners were American brothers, who not only got gored at the same time, but were photographed as it happened. Really, it was all over the Spanish papers...see below.

"I think my brother and I underestimated the speed and danger of it," Lawrence Lenahan said, making the understatement of the fucking year.

"I started yelling at my brother to show him I was bleeding everywhere but he showed me he was bleeding everywhere," Lenahan added. He was gored in the buttocks, while younger brother Michael was injured in his leg. What a touching moment of fraternal bonding.

Lenahan confided, "We will definitely be back again. My brother will never run (in the festival) again, but he would like to come back to celebrate."

The elder Lenahan, in addition to being a fucking genius, is also charged with the task of defending our nation from evil-doers and villains, having inexplicably risen to the rank of captain in the US Air Force. It's no wonder we're losing the war overseas -- that is the caliber of retard protecting our liberties. He couldn't defend himself or his brother from a bull, what good is he going to be to America against an invading force?

Mr. and Mrs. Lenahan, I regret to inform you that you sired two absolutely fucking idiotic boys who spared themselves injury at the processing plant or drunk driving in their pick up truck by heading over to Spain. Nonetheless, Darwinism caught up with them, and next time it won't be so forgiving. I hope you're proud of your shining little angels. And to think, that could have been a couple of blow jobs.

I think your nomination for parents of the year is in the mail.

It takes a village to raise a child. This village failed twice.

Friday The 13th

Every year there's one or two, and people completely freak the fuck out. Don't worry, Jason isn't real and he's not coming to kill you...but just in case, don't go camping tonight by Crystal Lake. I think he's got a mad-on for sleeping bags.

Where Funny Lives

I may have found my Halloween costume, and you are now able to wipe away lingering memories of Robin Williams. Hell yeah, nightzout!

Where Funny Goes To Die

A spot-on article from Radar Online. Click it or read onward...

Once, Robin Williams was considered the comedic genius of his generation. Through the '70s he rose to fame as the sitcom alien Mork, and in the '80s he thrilled audiences with spastic, mostly improvisational stand-up routines, culminating in his legendary 1987 performance at New York's Metropolitan Opera house.

But it's no secret that the man we see now, the man who this summer brings us License to Wed, is a shell of the comedian we once knew.

At some critical point Robin Williams crossed over to the dark side. We suspect it happened sometime in the mid '90s, when acclaim for his performance in Aladdin perhaps sent the wrong message and positively reinforced comedic stylings just shy of schizophrenia.

That's when America's lovably manic jester began to resemble a sad, needy clown, and his trademark schtick—rapid cycling between impersonations of Russian doctors, gay cowboys, and Jewish mamelahs in under 20 seconds—gave way to incoherent, seizure-like free-association bits, as he gradually degenerated into what he is today: the Chernobyl of comedy, discomfiting audiences and leaving a noxious cloud of groans in his wake.

But how exactly did it happen? How did Williams, not unlike cult leader David Koresh, lure audiences in with his late '80s charisma only to hold them hostage for the next 20 years with nonsensical accents, wild hand gestures, and mawkish sentimentality?

Early Symptoms
Mar 8, 1996:
Williams appears in Mike Nichols's hit The Birdcage as the butch half of a gay couple living in South Beach. At the time the New York Times hails it as one of his "most cohesive and least antic performances." Unfortunately, he's never able to rein the camp back in. Williams takes the gay persona he perfected here, beats it to death, then drags its bloody corpse through the next decade.

Aug 9, 1996:
Williams is a logical choice to play the lead in Francis Ford Coppola's sad and strange Jack, the story of a 10-year-old boy with a medical condition that makes him look like a 40-year-old man. Critics largely give him a pass. Having adopted the role of an overgrown, overbearing pre-adolescent, Williams never quite leaves it behind. A man-child is born.

Nov 26, 1997:
As an "absent minded professor" Williams invents a flying rubber, ahem, Flubber, substance that seems to be a perfect marketing device for Nickelodeon. It's also the perfect excuse for Williams to court publicity while further advertising his "never-grow-up" complex, now rivaling that of Michael Jackson.

Dec 5, 1997:
A progressively puffier Williams appears in Good Will Hunting as the shrink who breaks through to math genius Matt Damon by relaying stories about how his wife used to fart in her sleep. Though his performance skirts the boundaries of acceptable touchy-feely-ness, the Academy rewards him for dialing it down by giving him an Oscar. He does not take the implicit critique and goes on just to dial it up.

Signs of Emotional Instability
Oct 2, 1998 and Dec 25, 1998:
What Dreams May Come and Patch Adams (aka the films where shit starts to go seriously wrong). With this twofer, Williams fully reveals all that is deeply wrong with both his comedic and dramatic personas. In the visually intense and innovative Dreams he plays an ultra-loving husband with a "Humpty Dumpty grin and crinkly, moist eyes dripping with empathy" and willing to traverse heaven and hell to rescue his wife from eternal damnation. He can no longer do the same for disillusioned movie-goers. In Adams, he stars as a do-gooder doc with a thing for red clown noses. Roger Ebert put it best when he wrote, "If this guy broke into my hospital room and started tap-dancing with bedpans on his feet, I'd call the cops."

Sept 24, 1999:
If there is one place the man from Flubber should not have gone, it was into the world of Holocaust filmmaking. But he did with Jakob the Liar. So soon after Roberto Benigni's similar and superior Life is Beautiful, Jakob is a poorly executed sign of hubris and the exception to the rule that all Holocaust films will get you at least an Oscar nod. It also marks a turning point in critical and audience reactions to Williams, who now officially does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Dec 17, 1999:
Williams plays a robot with feelings (the only kind the movies make) who longs to become human and befriends a curly-headed little girl who, ironically, starred in a vastly more entertaining Pepsi commercial. Bicentennial Man is so sappy and cloying, the film inspires the BBC to say of Williams, "some believe he's a comic genius. Others think he is saccharine and irritating with a truly appalling beard. But whatever you think of Robin Williams, after watching Bicentennial Man you'll be thinking long and hard before going to see one of his movies again."

Displays of Aggression
Mar 29, 2002:
In the huge flop Death to Smoochy, which earned only $8.4 million dollars, Williams takes his first turn in a bad guy role, as a fired kids' entertainer who wants to kill the next big thing in children's television, a big purple rhino. "The trouble is," in the words of Entertainment Weekly, "Williams makes everything he says sound like an impersonation; even his meant-to-be-shocking tirades come with built-in quotation marks."

May 24, 2002:
Williams plays killer mouse to Al Pacino's detective cat in Chris Nolan's Insomnia, a psychological thriller set in always sunny summer Alaska. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution praises Williams, claiming, "You can barely place that eerily familiar face, and his Mork-ish physical energy has been rechanneled into something jittery and unsettling." By starring in the equally creepy One Hour Photo, also that year, Williams shows a glimmer of self-awareness in his role choices. At this point, it's definitely much easier to accept him as a psychotic murderer than a comic with a heart of gold.

Total Implosion
April 28, 2006:
RV, his highest profile film in a long while, tanked with critics. It's not surprising. No one wants to be sequestered with Williams in a theater, let alone a camper. The Boston Globe says as the main character he "grovels, whines, sputters, shrieks, sweats, and purses his lips in that familiar expression of Williams Agonistes. His blue eyes water with the pain of castration administered on a daily basis. Is Bob mourning his trapped life or Williams his stalled career?" Why can't it be both?

Aug 9, 2006:
After 20 years of sobriety, Williams heads to rehab for alcoholism.

Oct 13, 2006:
Man of the Year attempts to capitalize on the Jon Stewart phenomenon too late, with Williams starring as Tom Dobbs, a straight-shooting talk-show host who runs for president. The candidate's act is, in the words of A.O. Scott, "the familiar rapid-fire Robin Williams free association, more silly than stinging and more likely to titillate with sexual naughtiness than to provoke with topical insight." A nation is appalled.

July 3, 2007:
Pushing the limits of credibility, a young couple willingly undergoes a marriage boot-camp overseen by Reverend Frank, aka Robin Williams, in License to Wed. The New York Post writes, "I hereby pronounce you a flop." The Minneapolis Star Tribune argues, "To say the picture isn't funny is putting it mildly. It isn't tolerable." The Daily Herald snips, "Williams deserves to have comic 'License' revoked." The L.A. Times puts the nail in the coffin, declaring: "Robin Williams's career appears to have come full circle. As a breakout comedy star 30 years ago, he and his uniquely mercurial talent were a tough fit for filmmakers looking for appropriate projects. Now, in his mid-50s, the actor is once again being miscast on a regular basis."

I couldn't agree more.

Bitch Tits And Plasticine

It may be hard to tell which is which between Ice-T and his wife-beast Coco, but I leave it to your perverse sense of imagination to figure it out.

I guess this is what pimpin' is in the 21st century.

Places To Be

The day after the MLB All Star Game is legendarily known as the slowest day in sports, but I disagree. The '07-'08 NHL schedule was announced!

If you have trouble tracking me down between October and early April, chances are I'm at Staples Center. And chances are if you're an attractive, intelligent, and single female between the ages of 25 - 31, you may be there too. Or can be now.

Do Not Draw Attention

Yes, as the photo says, Lady Bird Johnson has died.

Clearly, the 94 year old wife of a former president dying is news that must be broken with absolute haste.

It's only been three decades since they were in office.

And at least half the population thought she was already dead.

I guess you gotta jump on the big news stories, especially when Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's "gut feeling" is there's terrorist activity and attacks afoot for the summer. Wow, Chertoff eats a chili dog, and his resultant gas causes a press conference and security warnings.

"Summertime seems to be appealing to them," Chertoff also said. A season with high temperatures and excessive sun is appealing to terrorists? The same season that's pretty much year round in their home countries? Really? I hear family vacations are incredibly popular and appealing in the summer. Are you sure you're not mixing up terrorist and travellers? Who gave this fucking moron a job?

Just tell me more about Lady Bird so I can forget how stupid and embarassing our government is.

Apparently...

I guess that's respectable...even though I'm not. Figure yourself out here.

Entertainment Kryptonite

Kevin Spacey has resigned to play the villainous Lex Luthor in Superman: The Man Of Steel.

Which means there will be a sequel to Superman Returns. Which means there's no clever way for me to ask why the hell they're making a sequel one of the worst movies of last year, and certainly one of the worst superhero movies ever.

How do I spin sharp commentary out of such an awful piece of shit? The big blue boy scout is a bore, and yet Hollywood thinks another movie is going to change that. I'd rather watch a Lindsay Lohan film festival than 15 minutes of another Superman film. Yeah, Georgia Rule over the son of Jor-El.

And The Family Will Be Billed For The Bullet

China, home to a over a billion fine citizens, just thinned their ranks by a factor of 1.

In an awesome move, China executed Zheng Xiaoyu, former director of its food and drug agency for approving fake medicine in exchange for cash. Trying to step up their public image, Beijing is tackling product safety and trying to safeguard food at next summer's Olympic Games.

During Zheng Xiaoyu's tenure as head of the State Food and Drug Administration from 1997 to 2006, the agency approved six untested drugs that turned out to be fake, and some drug-makers used falsified documents to apply for approvals, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 people.

Fears abroad over Chinese-made drugs were sparked last year by the deaths of dozens of people in Panama who took medicine contaminated with diethylene glycol — a thickening agent used in antifreeze — imported from China. Chinese-made toothpaste containing diethylene glycol has been banned in North and South America and Asia, and two brands of toothpaste sold in Spain were pulled from the shelves after the substance was found. By the way, China has no guideline banning the chemical in toothpaste, which the government conveniently says is harmless in small amounts.

In the United States and Canada, pet food containing Chinese wheat gluten tainted with the chemical melamine has been blamed for the deaths of dogs and cats. Since then, U.S. authorities have turned away or recalled toxic fish, juice containing unsafe color additives and popular toy trains decorated with lead paint.

But the real story is the execution of the former government official. In case you're keeping track, China is believed to carry out more court-ordered executions than all other nations combined, which I think the most reasonable way to confront the country's poor product safety record.

Zheng, 63, was convicted of taking cash and gifts worth $832,000 when he was in charge of the food and drug agency. Recently, Cao Wenzhuang, another former director at the food and drug agency, was sentenced to death last week for accepting bribes and dereliction of duty but was given a two-year reprieve.

Meanwhile, authorities promised to investigate water purity after a newspaper reported that more than half of the water coolers in Beijing use counterfeit branded water -- either tap water or purified water from small suppliers and sealed with bogus quality standard marks.

So, in addition to dodging Chinese toothpaste and water, expect more death sentences. For a country full of peasants, they have a remarkably keen idea of justice...

Casey And His Brother

Once you hear it, you can't get it out of your head.

Casey went missing...I know where to find him.

By Default

One friends is better than none. Friend of an era.

What Comes To Mind?

I was sick all weekend and am getting jammed today at work. Meh.

Stay Cool This Weekend

It's a freakin' heatwave...oh my, I am so moist.

Strong Pesos

Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu has overtaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the richest person on the planet, as reported by Mexican financial website Sentido Comun. Web what? The slightly more reliable US-based Forbes magazine, updated its listings in April to rank Slim as the second richest individual, besting legendary US investor Warren Buffett. Forbes had pegged Slim's wealth at a $53.1 billion, compared to Gates' $56 billion fortune.

The best part of the article on this story notes that half of Mexico's population of 104 million live in poverty, which is defined as living on less than two dollars a day.

Booster

Having lost both billions of dollars and good will since Sept. 11, 2001, several senators are now trying to get the government involved in turning around the decline in foreign tourists. While the Senate Commerce Committee has approved a bill to establish a nonprofit public-private corporation to promote the United States as a tourist destination and clear up misperceptions about U.S. travel policies, I have a better idea: designate all illegal aliens tourists.

Famous M, '08.

Separated At Moustache

Orlando Bloom and John Holmes.