Thursday, May 31, 2007

DJ DIJON'S YOUTUBE MIXX-A-LOTT™: Phat Experimental Beatz

WASSUP!!! DJ Dijon's back in da house to pimp my radio gig this Sunday night, fillin' in for The Cheese Kurd on his radio show, and since it's on from 10pm to 2am you just KNOW I'm gonna be spinnin tha HOTT WAXX. Y'allz should listen online cuz I'm like SO DOPE and you know you ain't got nothin' else going on at that time. Well, except maybe sleeping. Or reading a book. Or playing video games. Or watching paint dry.

Anyway, here's a few videos of some of the people I might be playing, along with something I probably won't -- but The Cheese Kurd has declared it "The Milkshake of the Summer of 2007" so it's my job to help spread the hype. Holla!

Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet - Gavin Bryars & Tom Waits
Live prepared guitar - Keith Rowe
Caecilia - Fennesz
Walking On Ice - Frank Bretschneider
Lip Gloss - Lil Mama


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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#69: Elijah Wood

When I walked out of the theater after watching The Fellowship of the Ring, I felt like driving a cement mixer through a densely-populated public playground -- and it wasn't because I thought the movie sucked. It was Elijah Wood's f*cking eyebrows!! Jesus H. Christmas, can that guy make any other facial expression other than "furrowed brow"? I never saw the other two LOTR movies, and you wanna know why? Because the thought of having to look at Elijah Wood worrying for another seventeen hours or whatever made me want to thrust a hot poker into my own chest!! And then this weekend I go see Paris, je t'aime and right smack dab in the middle I get five minutes of ELIJAH WOOD'S F*CKING WORRYWART EYEBROWS and I'm all like "Damn, I need to go hit a nun with a sledgehammer!!"

Is that so wrong?


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Tuesday, May 29, 2007

ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Billy Squier Vs. Bono


"Among The Rich, A New Dispute Over Air Rights"
[New York Times, registration required]

It's Billy Squier vs. Bono in a condo dispute. Mitch Miller's on Bono's side. What more can you ask for?

(tipped by The Cheese Kurd)


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Monday, May 28, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Memorial Day Featuring The Osmonds, Bubb Rubb & Lil Sis

It's Memorial Day! What better occasion could there be for taking two, yes two trips down memory lane that have absolutely nothing to do with the armed forces! Our first stop is 1972, those halcyon days when an undersexed family of Mormons dominated the U.S. hit parade and made an ill-fated attempt at glamming their sound up...Crazy Horses (tipped by The Cheese Kurd) finds The Osmonds, with their impeccably white teeth and sweet-ass synth hooks, singing about a pack of wild stallions while flailing around like...like...a family of undersexed Mormons! Stick a fork in me, I'm DONE!

And let's also take some time to remember more recent history...in this case, something I'd like to refer to as an "internet dusty": a viral video from the pre-YouTube days of the Internet, back when you actually had to download videos before watching them! It's the Internet equivalent of the phonograph, and here was one of the greatest hits of those heady times. Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis were Internet superstars while most of y'all were still in short pants! So let's honor their memory today by giving those whistle tips one more run through a stop sign for old times' sake. WOO WOO!

Truly, these videos are why God created YouTube.


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Sunday, May 27, 2007

FOUND OBJECT SHOWCASE™

Untitled (photograph 1)
Provenance: The Internet
2007


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Thursday, May 24, 2007

THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#70: Wentworth Miller

Honestly, do I really need to explain this one? My reasons are many and varied. Currently one of the world's most-debated "is he or isn't he?" absolutely totally non-gay celebrities, my desire to throw bricks through the windows of churches whenever I see a picture of him has nothing whatsoever to do with this burning question. Rather, it has everything to do with the fact that, for one, dude's name is Wentworth. Okay? And for two, it's also because before he got his big Prison Break, he looked more than a little bit like Vanilla Ice. And for three, it has to do with the fact that every goddam time somebody sticks a camera in front of his face, he insists on squinting like he's either stumped by a math problem or having a bowel movement. So does it make a little more sense now?

Well, does it?


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Wednesday, May 23, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Adam Ant/Grace Jones Honda Scooter Commercial

I just couldn't let the Adam Ant reference I put in Monday's post go by without including some actual Adam Ant content this week -- so here continueth my "Legends of Honda Scooter Commercials" series: the complete Adam Ant/Grace Jones Honda Scooters ad, complete with the SHOCKING ear nibble at the end (which was eventually edited out for being too risqué, apparently -- or maybe it's because no one was all that thrilled by the OTT take during the freeze frame ending...).

Honestly though, what's more shocking to me about this ad than the ear nibble is the fact that Adam Ant isn't wearing a frilly shirt. But that's just me.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.


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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

ADVENTURES IN THE DESIGN WORLD™: Bald Guyz™ Refreshing Head Wipes

On the way out of the local CVS pharmacy this weekend, Anonymous A's eagle eye spotted the above head-care product amongst the shampoos and conditioners. Of course, I had to get a photo, and upon further research I discovered that the Bald Guyz™ marketing team have taken a decidedly "Girls Gone Wild" approach to promoting their products -- in the above example, baby wipes repackaged as specially-formulated skin care for the discerning bald head.

However, it isn't the attempts at assigning bald men amped-up testosterone that really interests me here (although, let's face it, what bald man doesn't ooze pheromones like they were going out of style?), it's the personalized touch of including the names and occupations of the bald men who have been drafted in to pose for the pictures that pimp the products. I mean sure, we all know that firemen are super-sexxxy, and ergo experts at how to properly maintain one's bald pate so as to attract the honies. But will the fact that I know Shawn Wilson is a "researcher" actually influence whether or not I as a bald man choose to purchase this product? What does he "research"? Does he research proper bald head skin care, or is he just leading a study on how to properly get one's swerve on? Can I see some credentials, please?


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Monday, May 21, 2007

FILMPHLEGM™: Brand Upon The Brain! Live in Chicago

Saturday night it was off to the Music Box for one of the live performances of the new Guy Maddin film Brand Upon The Brain!, a silent movie with a soundtrack by live musicians, foley artists, a Canadian castrano, and narrator (or "interlocutor" for all you fact-checking academics out there) Crispin Glover. It was sold out, which meant having to stand in line even though we already had will call tickets, so one of us had to stand in line to get the will call tickets while the other one stood in the long line to get in, because once you got your will call tickets they wouldn't just let you into the theater, you had to then go stand in the same line as everybody who was buying tickets at the door -- because the will call ticket person was (I guess) physically unable to rip your ticket in half. Genius!

Once we were in the theater we were treated to a dazzling array of characters who were there to see the performance. First there was The Neck Massage Couple sitting a few rows in front of us; the man in the couple had his arm up on the seats invading the personal space of the people behind him, and was violently massaging the neck of his ladyfriend who sat quietly while receiving a very public rolfing. Directly in front of us sat The Hot And Cold Germans, a couple with thick German accents who alternately told people the seats next to them were being saved or not being saved depending upon whether or not they liked the cut of the enquirer's jib. Crispin GloverLover was a young man of about 21 years of age who was obviously there because he eats, sleeps and breathes Crispin Hellion Glover's particular brand of affected weirdness. Rocking small round wireframed glasses, long hair greased back into an oily mullet and "if this were the 80s I'd really be into Adam Ant instead of just occasionally noticing him on VH1 Classic" dandy clothes, he went to great pains to make eye contact with everyone within twenty feet of him in order to more effectively announce to the world "I am unique because I enjoy Crispin Glover's eccentricity more than you do!" Then there was The Unpleasant Old Woman In Sweat Pants whose frantic, overly-pushy cries of "Are these seats open?" prompted several responses of "Not for YOU!" in my brain. And although I could go on and on, finally Exasperated Middle-Aged Hands On Hips Man wore a black short-sleeved collared shirt tucked into his pleated black slacks, sighed and put his hands on his hips every time he was made to stand up to let other people enter or exit the row he was sitting in.

Any goodwill I had built up during the film (which was good, but not as good as The Saddest Music In The World) was instantly shattered when, as the performers were taking their bows, Crispin Glover chose to crassly scream over the warm accolades of the audience, "I'll be back in November with my own movie!" before rushing off to the autograph table to make his cab fare back to the hotel by autographing Crispin GloverLover's frilly shirt.


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Friday, May 18, 2007

ADVENTURES IN THE DESIGN WORLD™: MyJohnHancock.Net


Q: What's better than attaching an unnecessary image to every email you send?

A: Attaching an unnecessary ANIMATED image to every email you send!

Yes, the fine fella over at MyJohnHancock.net actually wants YOU to pay HIM to create a shitty animated gif to stick in your sig file along with your own high-larious "CURRENT LOCATION: ALCATRAZ (I MEAN MY OFFICE)" or whatever other little bon mots you've got in there.

But the real meat and potatoes of this site comes when you click on the "ABOUT ME" link, wherein you get to learn almost nothing about the guy other than he used to be a designer or something but doesn't use a computer much anymore and thinks BILL CLINTON is a WEENIE! HA HA HA HA!! OH, MAMA!!! WAIT, AND HE'S SKYDIVING TOO!!! HEEE HEEE HEEE!! AND LOOK, HE'S ON A MAGIC CARPET, AND HE MADE GEORGE BUSH'S EYEBROWS MOVE!!! LORDY LORDY LORDY!!! STOP IT!! STOP IT, I TELL YOU!! MY SIDES, THEY ARE SPLITTING!!!

Sorry, I kinda lost it there for a second.

(Thanks for the tip, Tiree.)


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Thursday, May 17, 2007

FIERCEFILE™: Do The Cha Cha

Well, I was able to sleep last night because the lesser of three evils won America's Next Top Model. Jaslene, better known as Cha Cha Diva, managed to overcome almost insurmountable odds: her own drag queen tendencies, Renee's backstabbing, and Natasha's secret blood pact with the judges. Once it came down to the final two there was no question Cha Cha was gonna be on top, but it took one final plot twist to get there.

Who'da thunk that Nee Nee wouldn't make the final two? Yes, it was so in the bag for her that it was just too good to be true, and sure enough she got the chop at the crucial moment. It all came down to what everyone has been saying all along, she looks TOO OLD...which of course has nothing to do with the fact that it sounds like she smokes ten packs a day. She'll be rockin the late-period Lucille Ball voice by the time she's 35.

Also, we got to witness the true nature of Nee Nee's views on parenting when, during her ad-libbed Covergirl commercial shoot, she revealed that deep down she hates her baby. "I had a baby nine months ago, and I thought that my life was over," she said, unfortunately unaccompanied by the record scratch sound effect. Way to go, Nee Nee, can't wait til your kid grows up enough to watch your ANTM stint only to get to that line and subsequently experience a self-image crisis that will lead to lifelong therapy bills.

That night, the models returned to the house and Natasha read off the final piece of Tyra Mail, which simply stated that tomorrow they would meet with the judges and only two of them would continue on in the hopes of becoming America's Next Top Model. I was crushed when that wasn't followed by Natasha's requisite "What you theenk thees Tyra Mail mean, guys?"

But of course it meant curtains for Nee Nee as the judges finally made the right decision for once and sent the husky-voiced house beeyatch back to Hawaii and her unwanted child. Natasha finally seemed to understand the gravity of a tense situation when she actually succeeded in looking shocked and surprised when TyTy announced that Renee was going home. Then Renee tried to make up for her revelation of her bitterness towards her child by pleading with Natasha to win it for "the mamas." Nice try.

Once things came down to the final runway walk, you knew Cha Cha had it sewn up. Natasha, as Renee described her, "walks like a pigeon-toed duck with a piece of poop hanging out of its butt," and Cha Cha's two strengths have been her fierce photos and walking ability since day one. So the only real surprise about the winner?

She was an angry baby.

Congratulations, Cha Cha. We look forward to you (as a Chicago native) spending many mornings to come yucking it up with the zany Kast of Kharacters on the WGN Morning News Zoo Crüe.


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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

THE TOP 75 CELEBRITIES WHOSE EXISTENCE SO OFFENDS ME THAT JUST LOOKING AT A PICTURE OF THEM MAKES ME WANT TO COMMIT RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE™

#71: Sarah Jessica Parker

What happened? I mean, really, WTF happened to make my favorite Square Peg into the same loathsome creature who can't hold down a steady job, angers entire nations, and turned Ferris Bueller into a hollow shell of a man? I don't know, but every time I look at a picture of her I want to pump at least five rounds from a sawwed-off shotgun into the side of an ice cream truck.

What? You don't?


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Monday, May 14, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Zips Shoes Allow Children To Delay Learning Valuable Shoe-Tying Skills


By the power of velcro!

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.


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Sunday, May 13, 2007

Steve Reich Marathon, Columbia College Chicago

[Ed. Note: This is gonna be a long one, and not a particularly funny one. It's not about pop culture, altho it's about something popular and cultural. So feel free to skip or skim to taste. You've officially been warned.]

Steve Reich is my favorite composer, so if you read this be prepared for a whole lotta bias and a smidgen of hyperbole. I've been listening to Reich for more than a decade, so when I found out that Chicago's ICE and New York's So Percussion were doing a "Steve Reich Marathon" for free at Columbia College this past Friday, I kinda had to go. I couldn't believe that the concert started out just about filled to capacity and pretty much stayed that way for the entire four hours. I mean, yeah, it was free, but there were a ton of other things going on that night, and it's not like there was any free food or anything. But the music selection was good, and the performances were pretty amazing. They split the night up into five sets with ten minute breaks between them, splitting the night up into easily digestible thematic chunks and kept things moving at a decent pace. For a concert that required constant stage rearranging and sound checks, I was amazed it lasted exactly four hours as promised -- the organization was pretty impeccable.

The first set started with Clapping Music, which was four guys on stage clapping (I really like the WYSIWYG aspect of most of Reich's titles). It probably sounds like a grade school talent show performance, but check out the original video of Reich (on the right) back in the day. Some of the clapping was a little sloppy at times, but that's really a nitpick -- performing this must be pretty brutal. They also set the precedent for the majority of the performances of the night by not using sheet music or notes of any kind, which is really amazing.


Music For Pieces of Wood was next, which I'd never seen live before. It's basically a shorter, less ornate version of Drumming (which I'll get to later) and the performance was flawless. Again no sheet music.


The first set ended with Different Trains. I showed up a little early and got to watch them do the soundcheck for this, since it's performed by a string quartet playing along to a recording of another string quartet as well as samples of speech and sound effects; the speech samples are the source of the melodies in it, so the strings echo the melodic aspects of the spoken words. There was much gnashing of teeth to get the sound mix right, and it definitely paid off; the levels on everything were just about perfect during the performance. And the cello part during the "1940/1941" transition still gets me every time.

Set two started with the Sonic Youth covered Pendulum Music, serving as the comic relief of the evening. It definitely looks and sounds kind of goofy, with microphones swinging over amps set to feed back, but it's a beautifully simple idea and the final drone when the microphones stopped swinging and just hung steadily over the amps was gorgeous.


Violin Phase was up next, and it was the first time I'd seen it performed by four players rather than a single player with a backing tape of the other parts. Watching the four players helped immensely with figuring out the separate parts, so this was actually edutainment. Bonus!


The second set ended slightly on a down note with Four Organs, which suffered from a) using MIDI keyboards instead of organs and b) a few bum notes here and there (as well as some inconsistent maraca work, but can you really blame him for that? Playing the maracas in Four Organs is basically a couple of minutes away from a permanent case of repetitive motion disorder) which made probably the most difficult piece of the evening even more difficult to listen to. It's the only piece I saw anyone walk out during, which is understandable...there's something about its sonic qualities that makes it a real test -- if you can get through Four Organs without gritting your teeth and grinding your fingernails into an armrest, you're either deaf or weird, and unfortunately I'm not deaf.

Set three wasn't a performance at all; they turned all the lights out and played the original tape pieces It's Gonna Rain and Come Out in their entirety. I've listened to both of these so many times that I thought I would be bored, but instead it turned out to be one of my favorite moments of the show. There's a huge difference between listening to these pieces on headphones or even a home stereo and listening to them in a decent-sized hall; the extra resonant space and boosted volume really emphasized the beautifully strange sonics of both pieces' phase shifting. Come Out, with its overt anti-racism message, sounded absolutely amazing. Its ending was particularly powerful, with the abrupt transition from the looped speech to the speechless reverb fadeout sounding richer than I'd ever noticed before -- which made the interruption of a person walking into the hall about fifteen seconds before it finished all the more irritating.


The fourth set was the one I was least looking forward to. I've never been a big fan of Reich's Counterpoint series for some reason, so the thought of three in a row was a bit unnerving to say the least. But what I've always thought separated a good concert from a great one is its ability to make me appreciate music I've disliked before, and this was a great concert. I ended up really enjoying Vermont Counterpoint; Claire Chase, who runs ICE, pre-recorded her own backing tracks for accompaniment and her obvious enthusiasm for the piece really sold me on it for the first time. I'd never seen it live before, and never realized it required constant switching between three different flutes, which was really amazing to watch.


New York Counterpoint has always been my favorite of the Counterpoints, with its first movement including pulses reminiscent of the start of Music For 18 Musicians. Plus the whole clarinet/Gershwin thing just makes it feel so stereotypically New York, and this performance of it was really engaging.


The Pat Metheny-recorded Electric Counterpoint is one of my least-favorite Reich pieces, though I'm not quite sure why. I love Discipline-era King Crimson but I think they did "Reich on guitar" better than he did. I don't know if it's the timbre of the guitars or the style of playing, but something about it sounds New Agey to me and the concert didn't do much to change that for me. Using Pat Metheny's original recording as the backing track rather than a special re-recording like they did for Vermont Counterpoint probably didn't help. This was really the only time I got sleepy during the show, but at over three hours into it I certainly can't blame the performance for that.


The final set consisted only of part one of Reich's most heavily African influenced piece, Drumming, which I've seen live three times now (once with Reich performing). So Percussion did a great job, and it felt very similar to the other two performances I've seen; the transitions were seamless, the tempo was utterly precise and, unbelievably, I didn't hear anyone mis-strike or accidentally click their sticks (which happened at both of the others). The only accident came when one player dropped a stick, but it was at a moment when all four performers were playing and he was pretty much doubling another player's part at the time so it was just barely noticeable. It was a fantastic end to an amazing concert. I haven't listened to this much of Reich's music in one sitting since I bought the 1965-1995 box set ten years ago, and it was a much-needed reminder of why I love his music so much: its complex simplicity, its connections to African music and jazz, its rhythmic tonality, its highly philosophical concepts (both humanistic and purely abstract), and its quietly meditative qualities are pretty much everything I could ever want out of music.


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Friday, May 11, 2007

FIERCEFILE™: The Many Moods Of Dionne

Shady recently told me she thought ANTM had jumped the shark this cycle, and I vehemently defended the show since I thought it was a vast improvement on cycle 7's blandness. After this week's episode though, I'm one step closer to admitting the thrill is gone. They kept Natahsa instead of Dionne?? WTF ARE THEY THINKING?!? It can't simply be that Natasha makes for wackier television, is it? I mean, IS IT?


It can't have anything to do with the fact that Natasha does kerrr-razy things like have flat-on-her-stomach phone sex with her "husband" while in the same room as the other models...


...and it can't have anything to do with the fact that everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like a mashup of Borat, Yakoff Smirnoff and Natasha from Bullwinkle. Can it?!?


And then of course we have the issue of The Many Moods of Dionne, which the judges keep telling us consists only of scowling. Can you blame her for being a bit cheesed off that the judges harp on her about the same thing over and over again? It's like they decided this was going to be her problem, so they kept telling her about it so she kept doing it because she was thinking about it. I mean, hello she's a MODEL. She's gonna do anything you tell her to do! It's the same crap they pulled with Jaeda last cycle...why is Tyra obsessed with perpetuating the "angry black woman" myth?


And then we had Schizo Ty-Ty freak out at panel when she asked everyone (except Natasha) who should go home, and everyone said Natasha. For real, she just asked them all to pick someone to diss, they did, and she got annoyed about it! WTF?? The judges are so pro-Natasha that you gotta wonder if she's been having flat-on-her-stomach phone sex with all of them as well.

I honestly don't want any of the remaining models to win, because they all suck rocks. If Renee wins I'll probably kick my TV screen. If Natasha wins, I'll probably stab myself in the thigh with a butter knife. I guess I could tolerate a Cha Cha win, but let's face it, at this point she's not gonna win anybody over with her lack of spokesmodel skills so what's the point of even getting my hopes up?

Maybe Shady was right after all.


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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: XTC Live in "URGH! A Music War"


I remember going to see URGH! A Music War for the first time back in college, literally in college because I saw it at the "theater" in the dorms (which consisted of a video projector and a four foot square screen). But honestly I didn't care, because I was watching a goldmine of recent music history (this was probably 1988, so altho it was footage of an amazing list of bands from 1980 it was just recent enough to still be somewhat cool and just old enough to feel like you were watching an artifact).

One of my primary motivations for seeing it was because they advertised that URGH! contained live footage of XTC, one of my favorite bands at the time, and since every XTC fan knew they'd never, ever get the chance to see them live because of Andy Partridge's stage fright, this was a must-see. And I certainly wasn't disappointed...not only did they pick one of my favorite songs of theirs to film, but I remember being blown away by the psychotic nervous energy that seemed to spew out of Andy Partidge's every pore. Well, maybe that wasn't true and it was more the pitcher of Miller Genuine Draft I'd just drank in the school's bar making me think I was seeing something I wasn't. But here's the footage for you to look at yourself, and since URGH! is criminally unavailable on DVD and very well may never be, enjoy it while you can.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.


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Monday, May 07, 2007

FILMPHLEGM™: Spider-Man 3


So since the reviews haven't been so hot, I figured let's try to make the most of it and see Spider-Man 3 at the IMAX so that at least if it sucked the pictures would be real big. And everybody knows that big = awesome, so how could we go wrong? Yeah, except the only showing that wasn't sold out was 8am on Saturday morning, which meant my usual Friday night bender was gonna have to be cut a little short. So Anonymous A and I cabbed it down to Navy Pier at like 7am and man that guy drove fast. And we got there like 45 minutes before it was supposed to start and even tho they still supposedly had tickets available there was this big-ass line to get in. And we had to wait in line to pick up our will-call tickets and the woman in line in front of us tried to use the wrong credit card to pick her tickets up and was all up in the face of the woman selling tickets and we kept looking at the other ticket line that was moving and ours wasn't and then the line to get in started moving and we were all like "oh, sh*t" and then finally the woman got her husband over and he used his credit card and then they got their tickets and then we got ours and we were all like "whew" and then we went in and the theater was like barely half-full.

So we sit down and we're like dead center in the place and then we realize the rows are super-long and we're gonna have people walking in front of us the whole time and then they didn't turn on the ventilation system and we were all like "dude, can't breathe" and then right before it was gonna start these kids sit down next to us and one of them pulls out his phone and starts texting people and then there's this woman who keeps yelling at her family about food, like, "I'm-a get you some popcorn" and then the movie starts and she's all like "you sit still, don't hit your sister" and then the guy with the phone KEEPS TEXTING PEOPLE throughout the whole damn movie and then the woman with the family stands up at one point and starts rocking one of her kids to sleep right there in the row and I'm like "WTF?" and then the scene where Spider-Man tries to kill Sandman down in the subway starts and it takes like a full minute after he notices that water is turning Sandman into mud before he sorta kills him, right, so then he starts pulling that big water pipe apart and the rivets are popping out and water's going all over the place and then right before the big sploosh of water comes out the pipe this guy behind me says "WATER!" really loud and I'm like "holy sh*t, you did NOT just say that".

Then the credits start and like AS SOON AS THEY START they turn the music off and some kid has to announce that "FOR OUR SAFETY PLEASE EXIT AT THE TOP RIGHT" and then we're sitting there and the kid with the phone stands up and just stares at us and we're like "WTF" and he just keeps standing there and like the whole row behind him is standing there and they're facing the wrong way to get out of the place and then the kid with the phone still didn't say anything and finally I'm like "Do you wanna walk in front of us?" and he's like "thanks" and I'm like "WTF?!?" and then we get out and it's only like 10:30 and it's like "well now what do we do?" so we went to brunch and had to wait like twenty minutes. That movie was like two and a half hours long!


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Friday, May 04, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Krazy Klassic Kommercialz


Hopefully these won't be proven to be fake videos (unlike yesterday's...thanks for the crappy research, Ivy, you little jerk). First up, courtesy of Dartanjal, we have a 1969 International House of Pancakes commercial. And while the consensus appears to be that it's the product of a drug-addled brain, I prefer to think it just came from someone actually eating the breakfasts depicted in the commercial and then experiencing a massive blood sugar upsurge. Either way, it's disturbingly entertaining, and it's not fake.


Then we have a commercial sent in by Tiree, a classic little slice of American advertising stereotyping/racism, The Frito Bandito. Thrill as legendary cartoon vocal maestro Mel Blanc teaches children how to steal Fritos® Corn Chips from unsuspecting victims!

Truly, these REAL commercials are why God created YouTube.


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Thursday, May 03, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Dutch Newsman Inappropriate Laugh


As tipped by Ivy -- and who else would send me something so filled with inappropriateness and awkwardness? -- watch with amazement as this Dutch television host experiences an unfortunate giggle attack as he interviews two crying guests (one of which is sitting in a wheelchair), much to the chagrin of the studio audience. Yes, Ivy, this does speak to you. And I suppose somewhere, deep down, it speaks to me too.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.


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FIERCEFILE™: Sho Long, Shtupid Brittany!

For a "go-see" episode, last night's ANTM was actually fairly uneventful. Sure, we got Brittany's ridiculous tirade upon finding out that she didn't make it back in time, but that was about all for actual entertaining highlights.

This was definitely the Night of Brittany though, and it began with Dionne's cogent analysis of Brittany's "brain stapling" excuse for her poor short-term memory when shooting the commercial two episodes ago -- which somehow didn't effect her ability to learn lines during the acting challenge three episodes ago. Just for this brilliant deduction alone, Wholahay deserves to win.

And speaking of Brown, what was the deal with them going out of their way to show how she was such a mooch at the go-sees and then not bring it up at panel? They didn't even mention what the designers thought of her or any of the other models who actually made the grade in this week's challenge. At least we got the remarkable information that not one designer would have hired Brittany, which wasn't exactly the big shock they tried to make it out to be...after her little tantrum, can you really see her being able to work a social situation that involved selling herself successfully?


But not only did we find out about Brittany's penchant for curse words in the face of adversity, we also got to see her pick up a sandwich, put it to her mouth, then place it back underneath a silver platter. She also displayed her megalomania when she boldly declared she wouldn't be in the bottom two this week because she "rocked [her] photoshoot". Uh-huh. Whatever.


The other truly entertaining moment had to be the thirty-minute analysis of this week's Tyra Mail. Yes, it was slightly more cryptic than usual. Yes, Natasha is the one who read it out loud so it didn't sound right in the first place. But good lord, it's not that hard people!!


As always it comes down to the loser, and predictably it was Brittany's turn to go bye-bye. Thank god, cuz I seriously couldn't take her obnoxious little speech impediment accent anymore (every time she uses a "sh" instead of an "s" I want to throw a brick at my television). At least Cha Cha got to win a challenge before they boot her off next week (yes, I know the preview clip makes it look like Natasha's about to get the axe, but they're not gonna be that obvious about the ending, are they?).


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Tuesday, May 01, 2007

WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: McDLT® Commercials


If you've ever spoken to me in person for more than about five minutes, you've probably heard me make reference to the McDLT®, McDonald's hamburger failure. It hasn't been until I actually sat down to write this that I finally figured out what the root of my obsession must be: the McDLT® was probably my first encounter with Conceptual Art. I mean, just look at the commercial above: you've got two sets of dancers -- one set of "urban" dancers dressed in red ("HOT"), the other set of "caucasian" dancers dressed in blue ("COOL"). You've got a jingle that's more about the packaging concept than it is about the actual enjoyment of the food ("The hot [clap clap] stays HOT!"). And the structure of the commercial is all about the education of the consumer ("Hear about McDonald's new McDLT®? It could be the best tasting hamburger EVER!"). Is there any wonder that the McDLT® has haunted my dreams since the mid 80s?


And as a bonus, please enjoy this alternate McDLT® commercial starring musical theatre enthusiast Jason Alexander, rocking pushed-up jacket sleeves and a fab toupee. But also keep your eyes peeled for the first reveal shot of the McDLT® packaging, where I swear they actually have a smoke machine pumping "steam" out of the "HOT" side of the sandwich. C'est magnifique!

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.


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