WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Judge Judy and Johnny Rotten
Truly, this is why God created YouTube.
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Earlier this week, Shady challenged me to find a way to work this song into one of my posts...and although it would have been nice to make it a sly reference in a post about something else, I think this video is worth a moment in the spotlight. Embarrassingly, when Shady described it to me as "that cheesy song that starts out kinda quiet and then builds up to the guy singing 'MOTORINNNNNNNN'," I couldn't immediately tell her the real name of the song OR who sang it. I mean, I remember listening to it while driving around in high school with one particular friend of mine who, somewhat stereotypically, was as clean cut as your typical Young Republican yet was totally into all the hair bands like Night Ranger (altho his all-time favorite was Bon Jovi), so it breaks my heart that I wasn't able to retrieve this data as quickly as I could, say, give you a list of every single released from No Jacket Required. I wasn't even sure of the refrain's real lyrics, but I'm proud to say I did not steer you wrong, Shady: he really is singing "What's your price for flight?" in there, which is either a stroke of non-sequiter genius, the biggest pile of lyrical gibberish this side of "mama se/mama sa/mama coo sa," or the worst attempt at poetically expressing the desire to pay an underage woman for sexual favors ever put to song.
They just won't let it go. The Head Bald Guy (or someone else in Pequannock, New Jersey who has a vested interest in the BALD GUYZ® brand) has decided it's time to post another self-defeating, needlessly defensive comment about their Head Wipez:Anonymous said...Check out my response if you find this at all entertaining. I just can't believe this thing won't die. They're giving me some great material!
Baby wipes for the head? NOT. Baby wipes leave a moisture barrier to protect the baby's bottom. Would you want a residue on your head, face? ? I don't think so. Maybe the 40 million bald heads need a specific product for them? Before you spew your stupid comments perhaps you should do some diligence and find out what you are talking about....oh I know, since you can't eat it, why bother spending time on it.

"One thing that's rarely happened at our company is firing an actor in the middle of a season. We'll just live through it and during the hiatus we just don't pick up the actor or actress, so officially it hurts the actor less. When there's a problem, the actor has ample warning. We really do try to work things out. But the old adage that one bad apple can taint the whole bushel is very true. It's also the reason we've never hired an actor named 'Apple.' Ugh, forgive me for that.
"Herve [Villechaize] used to have a sign outside his trailer [on the Fantasy Island set] that said, 'The Doctor of Sex.' When he was in his trailer, he would turn the sign around and it would say, 'The doctor is in.'"
--Aaron Spelling (as written by Jefferson Graham)
The "something" that I mentioned awhile back is finally ready to be properly pimped. TJ-HOOKER.COM, the Internet's premiere source of information about William Shatner's seminal '80s cop show (or, as I like to refer to it, "America's Greatest Cop Show") is properly back online. I started this site back in 1999 with nine html pages and a dream. By 2001, with a two-man crew consisting of myself and old pal Johnny Durrell, TJ-Hooker.com had blossomed into an online juggernaut before ISP issues forced me to take it offline. It's been hosted on a free server for awhile now, but it was a pale shadow of its former self, with no multimedia to speak of. All that's finally changed now...some of the best parts of the site, unseen for almost five years, are back, including:• The T.J. Hooker Soundtrack Album
• Sound Clips
• Online Games
• Mr. T vs. T.J. Hooker
• Fan Fiction
• An Interview with William Shatner's Stand-In
• An all-new t-shirt shop
• Three years' worth of weekly online polls
It's lucky for me that this poster only seems to be displayed on the Damen bus in Chicago, because if it was on the Brown Line or something else I use every day I probably would have torn it down and been fined by now. Lucky for me, I just get to admire its ghastliness occasionally, and consequently have grown rather fond of it. I mean, it's got so much going for it. Like how it uses at least five different fonts and type weights -- and of course, two different serif fonts (you want typographic contrast, you got it!). And its liberal use of underlining, always the mark of excellent design. Then you've got the whole centering thing -- magnifique. Oh, and the novella's worth of copy is pretty marvelous too. But obviously, my favorite part of this poster has to be this:
Yes, the aggressive, compassionate, and experienced Don must be just too busy to get himself photographed with a real live person in a wheelchair, otherwise they wouldn't have had to Photoshop him into a picture with one. I mean, come on, at least try to get the color balance right. And maybe try to keep him in proportion with the guy in the wheelchair (unless this happens to be a midget in a wheelchair). An attempt at a consistent light source might help do the trick too. Or just HAVE THE COJONES TO F*CKING POSE WITH A REAL LIVE PERSON IN A WHEELCHAIR, YOU DOLT.
Ok, I know this one's gonna get me some hate mail because I'm like the only person on Earth who's not a card-carrying member of the Cult of Spacey, so I figure I'd better give some solid explanations as to why just looking at a picture of him makes me want to smash glass over my head. It's not that I think he's a bad actor, he just always seems to play Himself (i.e. a prick). But the real moment I finally realized he made me want to throw firecrackers at gerbils was when I accidentally stumbled across this and just couldn't stop watching -- pretty much every move he made was like nails on a fricking chalkboard to me. I got angrier and angrier with each passing second. It was supposed to be a tribute to someone else and he made it the ultimate in "Look at ME!" moments. Then came his "mysterious" "mugging" in London a few years back, which obviously wasn't a blatant lie to cover up that a certain someone probably agreed to meet another someone (and by "another someone" I mean "a young boy") in a park at 4am to do "something" and it went wrong and so he had to come up with something better (and by "better" I mean "something that shifts blame onto the young boy so he doesn't get himself arrested or outed") than the truth to tell the press, although perhaps Spacey should be commended for setting the precedent that allows celebrities to use tripping over their dogs as an all-purpose cover story.
You know, I was perfectly happy to let go of the whole Bald Guyz® thing after my original post failed to take the blogzosphere by storm. But a funny thing happened on the way to Internet obscurity. Those of you who just use your little Googletronic RSS feedbags to read this site and don't actually peruse the comments have missed what is now a quite entertaining ongoing saga, so here's a post about it to give you a headz-up.Anonymous [Shawn Wilson, Reseacher] said...
John,
Were you high when you wrote this post? Why did you get so worked up on a product for bald men? Is it because the "Head Bald Guy" didn't select you as the real bald guy for the Head Wipes? If you go to the Bald Guyz Web site you can send in your pic for a chance to be on the cover just like anyone else. Its pretty lame of you to single out "Shawn Wilson the Researcher" just because he's ten times better looking than you. A more suitable target of your anger would be your parents for procreating a few decades ago.
Suburban Wilmette, Illinois "punk" Pete Wentz wasn't even on my radar until a few months ago, but boy have things changed. The first time I saw a picture of him I desperately felt an urge to give somebody a nasty papercut, then assumed it would quickly go away. But just when I thought I'd forgotten about little Pseudo-Punk Petey, I go and stumble on this and I'm like "Damn, I need to knock over somebody's mailbox with a baseball bat" and then like months later, I run across this and I'm all like "Sonuvabitch!! I really wanna throw thumbtacks underneath the tires of random parked cars!" and then finally last night I read this and I'm like "That is IT you little faux-emo, horse-teethed, Ashlee Simpson-lovin', still-living-in-your-parents'-house beeyotch, you are ON. THE. LIST."
So I didn't go insane, but I did make a purchase.
This could very well be how I show up dressed for work come next Monday if I don't find an adequate way to protect myself from the devilish charms of the as yet unknown community of dorks some stalwart companions and I will be spending Saturday with. Wish us luck, and protection from repetitive motion syndrome. No doubt I'll be following up with a full report next week. Until then, please enjoy the following word from our sponsor.
Yeah, I know there's something wrong with me. As a college-educated, white, sorta-middle-class 30-something most people would consider "quirky", I am the demographic of This American Life. So why is it that listening (or watching) this beloved slice of heartstring-tugging Americana make me want to squeeze a goldfish until its head pops open like an overripe grape? It's because of Ira Frickin' Glass, that's why! Seriously, if anyone out there ever needs to torture me to get secret information, just lock me in a room with a tape loop of Ira Glass introducing himself from the beginning of one of his shows and I'll be singing like a bird before he says "I'm" the second time. Nails on a chalkboard, thy name is Ira Glass! I would gladly pull my own eardrums out of my head with a tweezers rather than have to listen to him ever again!! Jesus, just thinking about him is making me want to run outside and beat up bunny rabbits with a splintery two-by-four with a nail sticking out of it!!!
Jen, the pastry chef from Hazelton, PA, is just on there because -- and I'm sorry to say this -- she appears somewhat developmentally disabled.
Eddie, the 28 year-old short order cook from Atlanta, is just on there because A) he's a SHORT short-order cook! Get It? B) he's got a little bit of the whole androgynous thing going on, which plays well with the FOX demographic of prudish Amerrikunfolk who can't stop obsessing about any sexuality that differs from the one their pastor tells them is correct C) he's a SHORT short-order cook!! Hot damn, that's HIGH-LARIOUS!! D) he's gonna drop something sharp that's too big for him to carry and E) he's SHORT!!! SHORT PEOPLE ARE FUNNY TO WATCH!!!
Aaron, the retirement home chef from Palos Verdes, CA is on there for a whole lotta reasons...for one, he's a retirement home chef, so everybody thinks he can only cook oatmeal or whatever. Also, he's big and fat. Oh, and he's asian. Dude, I totally forgot, he dressed like a cowboy for his first day there, so Chef Ramsay got to make a racial joke about not seeing an asian cowboy every day. OH YEAH, and he CRIED LIKE A BABY on the night of the restaurant's opening, which I'm sure will lead to any number of Brokeback jokes in today's online reviews. Not that I'm contributing one myself, I'm just pointing out that it will probably happen, because I'm above all that. Really.
So let's start with the judges, who I don't think anyone has ever heard of. You know a reality show's gonna be good when the celebrity judges are D-listers. And of course the guy in the middle is there because he himself is a veritable Rich Little -- so we can look forward to an entire season of at least one of the judges snidely out-doing the contestants at the one thing they think they know how to do: be pathetic.
But now what you've all been waiting for: the gallery of the worst contestants from the first episode. First up, everyone's favorite caucasian Texan media therapist, "Dr. Phil." His eyebrows and mustache were painted on, he needed a fat suit, and he sounded more like a John Wayne impersonator. And he did standup instead of a Dr. Phil impression. Hot dog, we have a wiener!
"James Bond" didn't look like James Bond, he looked (and sounded) like a bald, bearded Stan Lee. He was AWESOME!
The second Johnny Depp impersonator kinda looked like him (if Johnny Depp had a goiter problem). Not only did he not sound a thing like him, he couldn't even come close to acting like him. Stomach-clutchingly poor.
I think "Frank Sinatra" was just some guy they pulled in off the street and asked if he wouldn't mind making a fool of himself on a reality show. He couldn't sing, and he didn't even bother to wear a tux. He was the chairman of no one's board. Regrets?...I've had a few...not the least of which was watching this.
There were three, count 'em, THREE Michael Jackson impersonators, which is pathetic enough since there's very little left of the original to even impersonate. And altho none of them looked like him, they at least attempted to dance like him -- which is more than can be said for the woman (at least, I think it was a woman) who impersonated Janet Jackson earlier in the show. But when I came to the realization that one of the MJs might actually have been Project Runway season one's Austin Scarlett, I got kinda excited. It's almost like how they brought that one guy back for season 2 of Project Runway, except EVEN MORE PATHETIC.
"Ann-Margret": WHY??? What possible need can there be for an Ann-Margret impersonator? Especially one that looks like Terri Garr?!?
One of the only legitimately funny moments of this episode came when one of the judges told "David Letterman" that he looked exactly like David Letterman, Albert Brooks and Drew Carey had a baby. That's pretty much spot on, except he forgot to say he looked exactly like David Letterman, Albert Brooks and Drew Carey had an untalented baby.
And finally, we come to the pinnacle...the top of the list...the alpha and the omega...WHITE BILL COSBY. He looked nothing like him. He sounded like someone on acid who'd been punched in the mouth and swallowed some marbles for good measure. He made TWO references to Jell-O®.