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™

#55: Ben Affleck

Those eyes. That hair. Those muscles. That chin dimple. Why can't I see what everyone else sees? Why must the mere sight of B-fleck make me want to step all over an ant colony? Why must I endure one more uncontrollable urge to take a baseball bat to someone's Precious Moments collection? Is it because of his creepy mouth thing? Is it his attempts at philosophy? Is it his all-around dickishness?

I don't know what it is, but surely I can't be the only one who looks at a picture of Ben Affleck and feels like lighting a bunch of firecrackers and throwing them over a bridge into the backs of flatbed trucks.

Can I?!?

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: El Debarge Behind Bars

TMZ says that Short Circuit title song crooner El Debarge is currently in prison on a domestic assault charge (which apparently has now been dropped), so that means I get to post the video for "Who's Johnny?" again! And hey, it takes place in a courtroom! Tiree should be happy to see yet another 80s-movie-theme-song-video-in-a-courtroom!

• El Debarge in El Slammer [TMZ]

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Chocolate Rain

Okay, I know I'm insanely late in posting something about this, and I never would have even seen it had Michael Knight not pointed it out to me yesterday. I would imagine you've probably all heard about this already so I won't bore you with any attempts to explain or contextualize this. I honestly don't find it all that funny (other than the caption to explain why he turns his head to the side); this is internet stardom based on cruelty -- people don't actually think this is a good song, they're laughing at him and his freakishly low voice, and most people probably haven't really tried to figure out the lyrics, which are simultaneously cryptic/not cryptic tirades against institutionalized racism. They just think he sounds like a freak and can't grasp any music that isn't structured verse/chorus/bridge/verse/chorus/chorus, and somehow it's struck a chord and they think it's hilarious to laugh at him. It's the Star Wars kid all over again. It gets a little old after awhile.

But let me get to the real issue here. I just read this MTV.com interview with him, and it contained this quote:

"This reminds me of an interview with William Shatner that I found online," he said. "It's two or three hours long, and you're watching it and you think, 'OK, he's Captain Kirk, let's hear about that.' But then you realize Bill Shatner has had quite a life outside 'Star Trek' and you didn't know all about that."

Okay, he's 25, he's a grad student, and it's taken him this long to grasp the concept that celebrities who get typecast actually have careers outside of the one thing they're really known for? Obviously he's not a media studies major. But kudos for giving The One True Shatner some lip service.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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FILMPHLEGM™: "The Ten" Is Ninety-Three Minutes Too Long

Please don't see The Ten. I beg you. If any more people see it, then the people who made it might get the chance to make another equally shitty movie. For the love of God, please don't let that happen. I honestly can't remember a film that claimed to be a comedy which didn't at least at some point cause me to crack a smile. Not The Ten; I was stone-faced the entire time. It's like somebody wrote a script when they were 18 and decided to stuff it full of their own personal slang ("pec juice", "it was a goof!", "vvvvvvvagina"), make references to other, better movies (all the Broadway Danny Rose stuff and using the name "Dianne Wiest" as a punchline which never goes away), and wrap it all in a conceit (using the Ten Commandments as the structure for ten short stories) probably dreamt up during fifth period Theology class. The Ten feels like a movie that was originally written on the back of a Trapper Keeper at an all-boys Jesuit high school, and no one ever bothered to rewrite it once they'd grown up, gotten it greenlit, and actually, you know, lived a little. Here's a newsflash: five straight minutes of saying the word "rape" might be funny when you're still taking gym class and wishing there were real live girls around for you to ask to the homecoming dance, but once you've actually interacted with a woman beyond staring at her from across your local Chess King store, it kinda ceases to be at all funny.

I stayed until the end only because I thought it might actually be working up to something that might at least make me crack a smile, but no such luck: all it did was end with a big group song, much like the end of The 40 Year-Old Virgin except NOT FUNNY. Oooh, did Gretchen Mol just sing her own name? HOLY SHIT THAT'S FUNNY!!

Oh wait, no it's not.

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: National Treasure: Book Of Secrets Looks AWESOME

I've been forced to sit through this trailer the last two times I've gone to a movie theater, and after this second time I knew I had to force the rest of you to share my pain. The first time I saw it I laughed out loud, Max Cady-style, for almost the entire duration. All of the writing and acting in it is so sub-par that it doesn't even come close to feeling like it's legit. Every single line of dialogue is like something from an SCTV sketch, and that voiceover from Harvey Keitel sounds like he's reading it off a cue card after someone just punched him in the throat -- it should be added to every actor's training as the ultimate example of "phoning it in." I actually kept thinking that it might stop abruptly and reveal itself as a commercial for something else, but apparently your worst fears have been realized: for some ungodly, inexplicable reason, National Treasure has become a franchise.

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Weng Weng Rocks A Jet Pack

Dartanjal sends us this clip of international superstar Weng Weng from his smash-hit James Bond homage film For Your Height Only. And while there may be other more popular Weng Weng videos out there, I suspect none of them can come close to causing a Dartanjal giggle-fit so much as this one.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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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™

#56: Julia Roberts

So what is it about Julia Roberts that makes me want to scrape my bare knuckles against a brick wall every time I so much as look at a picture of her? I'll tell you what: it's THE MOUTH. Man, that thing is scary. It makes me want to beat up a wino with a two-by-four with a nail sticking out of it. When Hollywood eventually gets around to doing the live-action remake of Ms. Pac-Man ("To escape the ghosts of her past...To find true love...To survive...SHE MUST FEED."), it will not be greenlit until Julia can be convinced to get onboard, since it'll save their budget millions on CGI work.

Seriously, am I the only one who looks at a picture of Julia Roberts and then experiences an almost uncontrollable urge to knock over a statue of Abraham Lincoln?

Well, AM I?

Oh wait, I probably am.

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THE JOHN EATS BOOKMOBILE™: Miles: The Autobiography

A couple weeks ago I finished reading Miles: The Autobiography and have been on a pretty big Miles Davis kick since then. It's one of the most frank memoirs I've ever read; there is absolutely no dancing around issues or opinions, and even though it's co-written (with Quincy Troupe) it consistently feels like you're alone in room having a drink (or a smoke, or a line of coke, or a shot of vitamin H) with Miles Davis. The book is extremely entertaining particularly if you're A) a jazz fan B) interested in reading about the history of popular music or C) a fan of books in which the word "fuck" appears at least three times on every page.

Oh, and you'll also want to read it if you enjoy scathing diatribes about racial tension coupled with celebrity name-dropping. Here's one of my favorite examples, from chapter 19. To set the scene, Miles and his then-wife Cicely Tyson are on their way to attend an award presentation at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., where President Reagan is about to present a lifetime achievement award to Ray Charles. And Miles is about to give somebody a much-needed what-to-for...

On the way to the dinner at the White House I rode in a limousine with Willie Mays. Me and Willie and Cicely and Fred Astaire's widow and Fred MacMurray and his wife, I think. When we got into the car one of them white women [who came along for the ride] said, "Miles, the limo driver says he likes the way you sing and he's got all of your records." Right away I was mad, so I looked at Cicely and say under my breath, "Cicely, why you bring me down here to get insulted like this?" She didn't say nothing and just looked straight ahead with that plastic grin on her face.

Billy Dee Williams was also in the car with us, so Billie, Willie, and me started having some fun by talking that black shit that black men talk, you know. But this was embarrassing Cicely. Fred MacMurray's sitting in the front of the limo and he's real sick, almost can't walk. The two white women are in the back with us, right? So one of them turns to me and says, "Miles, I know your mammy's proud of you coming down to meet the President."

Everything in the car got real quiet, real quiet. I know everybody was thinking to themselves, of all the motherfuckers to say this to, why did she say this to Miles? They were just waiting for me to go off on this old-ass broad.

I turned to her and said, "Listen, my mother ain't no motherfucking mammy, you hear what I'm telling you! That word is out of style and people don't use it anymore. My mother was more elegant and proper than you could ever be, and my father was a doctor. So don't you ever say anything like that to a black person anymore, you hear what I'm saying to you?" When I was telling her this, I never did raise my voice one time. But she knew what I was saying because I was looking her in her fucking eyes and if looks could have killed she would have been dead. She got the message and apologized. After that I was silent.

And since no one should be forced to read more than four paragraphs on the internet without being able to watch an embedded YouTube video immediately thereafter, here's an interview with Miles Davis from a 1982 edition of The Today Show in which esteemed television reporter and all-around assmunch Bryant Gumbel gets told several times:



And just because I feel like it, here's another video for those of you who've actually bothered to read this far. It's the song Walkin' from one of my favorite Miles Davis albums, being performed more than a decade after he first recorded it:

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: "It's The Doobie Brothers For Carpets Galore"

I have searched YouTube high and low for this gem from my childhood, and finally hit paydirt last week. As part of a much lengthier SCTV sketch about a morning "Video Jockey" named Gerry Todd, this spoof commercial for a small local business named "Carpets Galore" (sung by Rick Moranis pretending to be Michael McDonald from The Doobie Brothers) was like a goldmine of comedy to me. In the days before my parents bought their first (top-loading) VCR, my brother and I used to make audio tapes of late-night sketch shows off of the tv speaker with a crappy old Radio Shack cassette recorder, and this Gerry Todd sketch (part one is here) was pretty much my favorite of our entire collection. It made fun of so-called "yacht rock" while it was still culturally relevant, long before Michael McDonald and those of his ilk's sole purpose for existence was to be the target of post-modern irony. At the time, the thought of somebody like Michael McDonald doing a carpeting commercial was absolutely absurd. Hard to believe, I know. But these were simpler times, people.

If you keep watching after the carpet commercial, you'll get to see how Michael McDonald really recorded his backup vocals for the Christopher Cross mega-smash Ride Like the Wind as well.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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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™

#57: Courtney Love

Eyes? Meet the above picture of Courtney Love. Brain? Meet the overwhelming urge to walk into the nearest petting zoo with an electric nail gun and start "fixing" things. And I had better not get any guff from anyone about this. I mean seriously, can there be anyone out there who doesn't look at Courtney Love and suddenly feel like driving a wrecking ball into a nursing home?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: "WowWee Alive Elvis®" Will Entertain Your Parents, Haunt Your Nightmares, Possibly Eat Your Children

WATCH THIS, PLEASE.

Thirty years ago today, Elvis died for our sins. This is how we repay him, by turning him into a combination of Max Headroom and Lou Reed's "No Money Down" video.

[via Defamer]

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: "Twins" By Little Richard & Philip Bailey

Tiree strikes again with yet another music video for an '80s movie title song. This time it's the title track from the Schwarzenegger/DeVito classic Twins and I'm embarrassed to say this reveals a tremendous gap in my pop culture knowledge: I have never seen the movie, and I had no idea this song existed until this morning. But better late than never I suppose, as this video is quite a gem. First off, you've got lots of wacky scenes from the movie. Next, there's actual musician/lead actor interaction as Philip Bailey, Little Richard, Schwarzenegger and DeVito all dance around a convertible (with the white guys in white suits and the black guys in black suits -- such refined visual symbolism!). But I think my absolute favorite part of this video is the few brief glimpses we get of a Steinberger bass in the on-stage shots, which when coupled with the accompanying big hair gives the video a carbon dating of between 1986 and 1989. And sure enough -- it's from 1988.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Merv Griffin (R.I.P.) Presents Gitano, Breakdancing & Flashdancing

With the death of veteran television talk show host and game show creator Merv Griffin, the time comes for media historians to put the man's career in historical perspective. While one may be tempted to speak to the man's vast resume of hugely successful shows ranging from his own The Merv Griffin Show to Wheel of Fortune to Dance Fever, I'd prefer to focus on this one segment I dug up on YouTube where Merv featured then-new Gitano sportswear, with "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and Herbie Hancock's "Rockit" as the backdrop for a "breakdancing" and "flashdancing" fashion show. Those models may at least be trying to pop and lock, but I sure don't see any cardboard on the floor.

Rest in peace, Merv. We'll be right back.

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: Get On Your Pontiac And Ride (Ride), Pontiac Ride

I don't know whether or not to believe the YouTube comments for this video which state that it first aired during the premiere episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but I do know this: I remember this jingle (and its dual "orchestra hit" synth blasts) like as if I'd only just heard it yesterday. And the pure, over-the-top, post-Miami Vice Eighties-ness of the visuals in this clip is stunning: mullets, big hair, neon, guitars, light pastel suits -- it's got it at all and then some. And it would have actually been hip had it been 1985 and not 1988, but who's complaining? It's enough to make a guy wanna...buy a Pontiac. Thanks for the tip, Tiree.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: What It Feels Like To Find Spalding Gray's Body

The Cheese Kurd sent me this link a couple days ago when it was first published. At first I couldn't remember if he and I had ever talked about how I've been a big Spalding Gray fan since the '80s, but then I remembered that we talked recently about how he died three years ago and I think I said something like "Yeah, it sucks, but he did what he was supposed to do" and I think there may have been an awkward pause at that point. Anyway, I was trying to read this article at work, and usually whenever I'm there and I find something meaningful or interesting to read online I keep getting interrupted so I can't finish it in one sitting, and this was no exception. I would read a sentence, or a half-sentence, and someone would walk past my desk and say something to me. And when they could tell I was "busy," they kept talking to me. Then I'd read a half-paragraph and the phone would ring. I finally got to the last sentence and my boss walked up to me to tell me he was leaving for the day. I was getting more and more irritated as it went on, since there are always so many times during the day when I'm bored out of my mind and no one pays any attention to me and I can either work or surf to my heart's content, but not this time, not when it actually almost kinda mattered. Then I finished it and it felt like somebody punched me in the stomach and then handed me a delicious ice cream sundae.

If I ever thought it would be interesting or funny enough to blog about The Top 75 Celebrities Whose Existence So Inspires Me That Just Looking At A Picture Of Them Makes Me Want To Give Somebody A Hug, Spalding Gray would easily be in the top five. Sorry, Spalding, I can't commit to you being number one since, you know, you're dead now.

• What It Feels Like...To Find Spalding Gray's Body [Esquire]

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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™

#58: Billy Corgan

With Smashing Pumpkins un-surprisingly dragging their sorry faux-gothic "We're-OH-SO-Tortured™ So Buy Our New Album At Target®" asses back out on the road together, now seems like as good a time as any to admit that the sight of their inauspicious leader makes me want to plunge steel knitting needles into the ears of squirrels. I mean just look at the guy. Can I be the only one on God's Green Earth who looks at a picture of Billy Corgan and thinks it's finally time to pick up a brick and fling it at the pastry and salad case of the closest Starbucks? Or that the sight of this makes me want to drive a Winnebago through the barricades at a street festival and head straight for the well-populated beer garden?

It can't just be me, can it?!?

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ENTERTAINMENT DROPPINGS: Whitesnake vs. Blackbear

In the still of the night, Whitesnake's David Coverdale was forced to take it slow and easy while chasing a black bear out of his house in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. "Here I go again," Coverdale thought as he slowly but relentlessly pursued the bear with an air horn. Black bear attacks have recently become a common occurrence in the area, "but now you're gone," he said as the bear finally left the premises. Authorities have told the 55 year-old rock star that he may have to move to a new location. "I don't think I can take any more [bear attacks]," Coverdale said as he contemplated whether or not to move to a new house. He has grown attached to the mansion and its grounds, but is unsure if it is where he is meant to stay. "Is this love that I'm feeling [for this house]?" he asked, "or am I dreaming?" [original story on BBC News]

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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™

#59: Matthew McConaughey

Yeah, I just did one of these yesterday, but I just can't resist this one. And I'm sure I'm gonna get more hate mail on this one (I'm looking at YOU SummerSparrow and Hittie). But ZOMG looking at a picture of LiveStrong's boytoy Matthew McConaughey really makes me want to spread shards of broken glass on top of public benches at a playground. And if you don't agree, then check this little sucker out, courtesy of today's People.com homepage:

SONUVABITCH!! SOMEBODY STOP ME BEFORE I START SMASHING ANTIQUE TEA COZIES WITH A BALL PEIN HAMMER!!!

Please dear lord tell me this is not just me.

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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™

#60: Nicole Kidman

I have a feeling this one's gonna be pretty simple to get across to you people. I mean, there is NO WAY that I am the only person who looks at a picture of Nicole Kidman and thinks "Man, I could really do a smash-and-grab at a church donation box right now" or "Jesus H. Christ I sure wouldn't mind driving a Humvee over the top of every car parked on my block" or even "If only I hadn't gotten rid of that rusty screwdriver, I could throw it out my apartment window at the neighbor's kids' heads!" Really. Come on. It's Nicole Freaking Kidman. Surely this can not just be me.

Can it?

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WHY GOD CREATED YOUTUBE™: The Edge In Funky White Man Dance Horror

Oh my. Just watch it if you haven't.

Stolen from last month's Q magazine.

Truly, this is why God created YouTube.

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