fun

Arts & Entertainment

Geithner hates the Daily Show

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If this is true, then for good reason:

* He and Jon Stewart are gonna have words: “…the angriest he’s ever been was probably the afternoon a camera crew for Jon Stewart’s Daily Show showed up unexpectedly at his house in Larchmont, New York…Geithner’s teenage children, who were home alone at the time, had not be in on the joke. When a camera crew pulled up, they called their father at his office, terrified. ‘Ive never seen him so mad,’ one aid remembers.”

via Barefoot Contessa: Things You May Not Have Known About Tim Geithner – Dealbreaker – A Wall Street Tabloid – Business News Headlines and Financial Gossip.

Didn’t know the Daily Show did things like this. If so, they should be called on the carpet for it.

Natural-Born Storyteller: Irving G. Thalberg

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An interesting brief look into the life of Irving G. Thalberg written by my friend Matthew Rovner.

Born in 1899, Irving G. Thalberg ran Universal Pictures at 20 and co-founded MGM at 24. His life and work are shaded with irony and contradiction. Owing to a severe heart ailment, he was not expected to live past 30. He consequently spent most of his formative years in a sick room reading popular novels, classics and philosophers like Kant. Yet Thalberg did not emerge from his Proustian childhood as a budding novelist; instead, his ambitious mother, Henrietta, pushed him into the social and visual world of popular-film entertainment.
[…] As a youth, Thalberg advocated for socialism; however, as an adult he destroyed socialist author Upton Sinclair’s 1934 campaign for governor of California by producing a series of phony newsreels, implying that the candidate was disloyal to America and was a communist. Thalberg feared that if Sinclair became governor, the film business and its wealthy leaders would suffer financially.

via Natural-Born Storyteller – Forward.com – By Matthew Rovner.

Thalberg’s political propaganda films to protect corporatism by calling someone a nefarious agent for anti-American interests sound familiar? Ain’t nothing new in the political play-book of the extreme right, only time tested fear mongering to protect profits.

It is definitely time for Oprah to kick rocks

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Oprah next week will be auctioning off items from her closet. But forget that — I wanna see the auction of pieces from today’s set!

The entire set of her talk show today was edible — and made of chocolate. Chocolate seats, chocolate tables, a chocolate chess set, a chocolate grandfather clock, chocolate wall coverings, chocolate flowers in a chocolate vase … on and on. The set, created by Larry Abel, even includes a chocolate fireplace. (Warning: Do not light a real fire in there.)

via A sweet deal on Oprah’s set – The Oprah blog.

WTF.

Falling Short: Hip-Hop Parody from Dr. Niles Crane

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This parody falls flat on its face.


(h/t Gotcha Media)

It’s because he is parodying the Black Eyed Peas, who are pop stars by way of hip-hop, dance and R&B music. The BEP’s music is already catchier than most and once you see it on network TV, they have already re-tooled it for a wide audience. Remember this NBA commercial?

Once you saw the above promo, the original version “Let’s Get Retarded” was already old news.

Hip-hop, club or rock songs that are used in a marketing campaign (and jock jams are marketing campaigns) have already been used and retired by the best DJs (if they were ever the best party songs). They have been edited, re-mastered and the real lyrics have been replaced with family friendly verses that in themselves are parodies of sorts.

Here is will.i.am talking about his latest two dance hits “Boom Boom Pow” and “I Got a Feeling”.

When you are putting on a skully, a few loose shirts, and some baggy black jeans to ape the Black Eyed Peas after they just graced the Grammy’s stage dressed like street performers from some androgynous, multi-ethnic, synchronized future with uptempo, dance beats and lyrics that will be used to pump up the next Zumba class at Curves, you’re just doing it wrong.

Caffeine + Alcohol = Trouble

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Sounds bad like a night of Red Bull and Vodkas.

Perhaps it is its special caffeine-and-sweet-wine recipe, which allows overly enthusiastic consumers to be tipsy and bouncy at the same time. Perhaps it is its array of snappy nicknames, including “Wreck the Hoose Juice” — hoose being a Scottish pronunciation of house — or its exotic provenance as the product of wine-making Benedictine monks at an abbey in England.

Whatever the cause, Buckfast has emerged as a symbol of Scotland’s entrenched drinking problems at a time when it is urgently debating how to address them. “For a large section of the Scottish population, their relationship with alcohol is damaging and harmful — to individuals, families, communities and to Scotland as a nation,” the Scottish government said in a recent report.

via Coatbridge Journal – For Scots, a Scourge Unleashed by a Bottle – NYTimes.com.

Apparently it has the consistency of “sizzurp” aka”dat purple drank”aka “dat purple dat urple purple” yessirr (h/t Attackerman)

Classless Mel Gibson

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“I think I’ve done all the necessary mea culpas” – Mel Gibson to WGNTV reporter while promoting his new movie before he curtly ends the interview and calls the reporter an asshole. What pushed Gibson over the edge? The entertainment reporter had the unmitigated gall to ask if Gibson was worried that audiences may perceive him differently because of the drunk driving arrest and his subsequent anti-semitic, sexist rant directed at one of the arresting officers.

The thing is, Gibson’s is another Imus blow up. Remember when Imus’ career was “over”, no one would support Imus? Well, he got a payout on his contract, got a bigger contract with a new station and is back to Imus being Imus.

Mel has enough money and has made enough money for people that no matter what he does there will be another job in Hollywood for him. No matter what kind of case is made against accepting Gibson going forward, its already too late, money talks, b.s. walks. He’s done the Hollywood comeback 3 step: apologize to anyone who may have been offended, go to a cushy rehab, come back, return to same dickish behavior that got you in trouble in the first place while saying something like I did what you wanted me to do, now what do ya want?. It’s just funny that people always wonder how famous people proving they are jerks will affect a performer’s career.

Answer: it won’t. As long as they follow the three step.

Once we have bought into the worth of celebrity (and our society is heavily invested), you’ve already admitted you just want a fallen star to make things go back to the way they were before they publicly confirmed they were an jerk.

Kanye not headlining for Haiti

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Damn, too wild to help a country that is still suffering from aftershocks? That’s right, Clooney’s telethon didn’t invite one of the largest music acts in the world to benefit Haiti.

“After what he said on the Katrina telethon and the way he behaved at the MTV Video Music Awards, everyone agrees it’s just best that he does not participate,” says a producer. “Kanye has to make everything about himself. He will do anything to steal the spotlight and, well, this night it’s just not about him.”

via Kanye Not Allowed to Help Haiti — Vulture.

Repeated unprofessional behavior at professional events may affect your professional life..

Kanyeezy needs to do a benefit album or concert w/Wylcef and donate all his proceeds to Haiti and then he can say..”my benefit was the best benefit for Haiti, ever.”

Conan’s Divine Right

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Norm McDonald proclaims Conan the King of Late Night:

Glad to hear O’Brien secured severance for his staff. NBC late night should be fine. They still have Jimmy Fallon, Carson Daly and Poker after Dark.

Favorite Noise: “General” Larry Platt – Pants On the Ground

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I am still too pissed at the party that is supposed to control the congress and the executive branch to write about some damn politics…So instead, behold DJ Steve Porter’s remix of “General” Larry Platt’s “Pants on the Ground”

Note: Did you know “General” Larry Platt was an organizer with the SCLC during the civil rights movement? Even Brett Favre was on it. And take it A Cappella too haters.