(CAN IT REALLY BE AUGUST ALREADY?) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
roasting the red peppers of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like all those last little pieces of pretzel
you find in the bottom of the bag. But without all that extra
salt...
• Now that we've seen and heard the lyrics to Ludacris' Politics as Usual, we can all see why Senator Breath of Fresh Air met with him to discuss "youth empowerment." Nothing says youth empowerment like calling one United States Senator a bitch and fancying the paralysis of another.
• I like to think that we could create for ourselves better media, a better political process, and even a better country, if we would just agree to never again use the terms flip-flop, race card, or poll numbers. Election coverage -- to say nothing of our political discourse -- would improve by a power of ten overnight.
• Really. It would.
• On Wednesday morning, I woke up to three Today show teases: the California earthquake's effect on the Judge Judy show, the prospect of Miley Cyrus giving up Hannah Montana for her own musical career, and what happened when a tiger was reunited in the wild with the men who raised it in captivity. And these were all AT THE TOP OF THE SHOW. Not the 8 o'clock hour. Not the 9 o'clock hour. Not the 10 o'clock hour, or whatever hour they finally end that fucking endless show these days. But the 7 o'clock hour. Those were the three big stories with which they lead off the whole morning's telecast. It's a good thing we're not at war. Or in the middle of a recession. Or trying to elect a new president. If we were doing any of those things, they might actually have to report on real news.
• But, alas, they are not alone. Consider these (absolutely real) headlines of the week: Air guitarist loses toe in stage dive | Huge shark caught with bait, hoisted | Beer marathoners run, drink, vomit | Astrologer can't predict quake | Break dress code, wear ugly jumpsuit | Jesus' face seen in kitten's swirly fur | My parents named me Indiana Jones. (I could go on and on and on. Really, I could. I could fill every note with 'em.) Wanna know where I found every last one of those scintillating nuggets of news? The CNN Home Page.
• If they had even an ounce of self-awareness -- or is that shame? -- they'd embed the theme from The Twilight Zone in the page so that whenever you read any of those kinds of headlines, you could just pretend that you were in an alternate reality. Or dreaming. Or about to die and be put out of your misery.
• For the second happy week in a row, I've had to add only one name to The Wall. And we actually went thirteen days -- from July 17 to July 30 -- between American military deaths in Iraq. That's a happy record for the now more than two years since I began listing the names, and so it must surely be for the whole damned war as well. I'm still waiting, of course, for the blessed week when I have no names to add.
• And when I can stop altogether.
• It runs out of steam at the end, but the first minute of this video is the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
• The funniest damned thing I read all week -- and, no, I didn't write it -- was this Carbolic Smoke Ball news item.
• Speaking of funny news items... Consider this observation from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Reg Henry: Many of us take pride in the fact that liberals don't dominate talk radio. Liberals don't think it's funny or clever to stereotype and bully, well, not autistic children anyway, but only certain deserving jerks. Even if you grant that the second sentence contains a joke, and even if you can appreciate the joke after wading through the inelegant set-up -- is he serious? Has he read any partisan liberal blogs lately?. I can think of a few in Pittsburgh alone that might change his mind.
• Unless, of course, by only certain deserving jerks he meant anyone who doesn't agree with us.
• I've seen the trailer for the new James Bond film about four times now, and each time I had the same reaction: instead of calling it Quantum of Solace -- which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue -- they should have just gone ahead and called it The Bond Supremacy. Or The Bond Ultimatum. Or maybe The Bond Stolen Identity.
• This week's edition of Roger Ebert's Movie Answer Man Column is the first serious mention I've seen of the possibility of a Best Picture nomination for The Dark Knight. Ebert says, in fact, that he'd be astonished if it were not nominated. I learned long ago never to underestimate the Academy's ability to ignore a brilliant genre film, but I suspect, especially in these post Lord of the Rings days, that he may be right.
• And I certainly hope that he is.
• Now that we've seen and heard the lyrics to Ludacris' Politics as Usual, we can all see why Senator Breath of Fresh Air met with him to discuss "youth empowerment." Nothing says youth empowerment like calling one United States Senator a bitch and fancying the paralysis of another.
• I like to think that we could create for ourselves better media, a better political process, and even a better country, if we would just agree to never again use the terms flip-flop, race card, or poll numbers. Election coverage -- to say nothing of our political discourse -- would improve by a power of ten overnight.
• Really. It would.
• On Wednesday morning, I woke up to three Today show teases: the California earthquake's effect on the Judge Judy show, the prospect of Miley Cyrus giving up Hannah Montana for her own musical career, and what happened when a tiger was reunited in the wild with the men who raised it in captivity. And these were all AT THE TOP OF THE SHOW. Not the 8 o'clock hour. Not the 9 o'clock hour. Not the 10 o'clock hour, or whatever hour they finally end that fucking endless show these days. But the 7 o'clock hour. Those were the three big stories with which they lead off the whole morning's telecast. It's a good thing we're not at war. Or in the middle of a recession. Or trying to elect a new president. If we were doing any of those things, they might actually have to report on real news.
• But, alas, they are not alone. Consider these (absolutely real) headlines of the week: Air guitarist loses toe in stage dive | Huge shark caught with bait, hoisted | Beer marathoners run, drink, vomit | Astrologer can't predict quake | Break dress code, wear ugly jumpsuit | Jesus' face seen in kitten's swirly fur | My parents named me Indiana Jones. (I could go on and on and on. Really, I could. I could fill every note with 'em.) Wanna know where I found every last one of those scintillating nuggets of news? The CNN Home Page.
• If they had even an ounce of self-awareness -- or is that shame? -- they'd embed the theme from The Twilight Zone in the page so that whenever you read any of those kinds of headlines, you could just pretend that you were in an alternate reality. Or dreaming. Or about to die and be put out of your misery.
• For the second happy week in a row, I've had to add only one name to The Wall. And we actually went thirteen days -- from July 17 to July 30 -- between American military deaths in Iraq. That's a happy record for the now more than two years since I began listing the names, and so it must surely be for the whole damned war as well. I'm still waiting, of course, for the blessed week when I have no names to add.
• And when I can stop altogether.
• It runs out of steam at the end, but the first minute of this video is the funniest damned thing I've seen all week.
• The funniest damned thing I read all week -- and, no, I didn't write it -- was this Carbolic Smoke Ball news item.
• Speaking of funny news items... Consider this observation from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist Reg Henry: Many of us take pride in the fact that liberals don't dominate talk radio. Liberals don't think it's funny or clever to stereotype and bully, well, not autistic children anyway, but only certain deserving jerks. Even if you grant that the second sentence contains a joke, and even if you can appreciate the joke after wading through the inelegant set-up -- is he serious? Has he read any partisan liberal blogs lately?. I can think of a few in Pittsburgh alone that might change his mind.
• Unless, of course, by only certain deserving jerks he meant anyone who doesn't agree with us.
• I've seen the trailer for the new James Bond film about four times now, and each time I had the same reaction: instead of calling it Quantum of Solace -- which doesn't exactly roll off the tongue -- they should have just gone ahead and called it The Bond Supremacy. Or The Bond Ultimatum. Or maybe The Bond Stolen Identity.
• This week's edition of Roger Ebert's Movie Answer Man Column is the first serious mention I've seen of the possibility of a Best Picture nomination for The Dark Knight. Ebert says, in fact, that he'd be astonished if it were not nominated. I learned long ago never to underestimate the Academy's ability to ignore a brilliant genre film, but I suspect, especially in these post Lord of the Rings days, that he may be right.
• And I certainly hope that he is.
Posted: Fri - August 1, 2008 at 04:51 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM