rangelife

Weekend Head Cheese

Three questions that George Stephanopolous forgot to ask at Wednesday night's debate:

• Do you think that Disney should already be writing High School Musical 4, when part 3 is still in production?
• Should the NFL have taken harsher punishment against the New England Patriots for Spygate?
• Does anyone really think I should be moderating this critical debate when I owe the entirety of my career to one of your spouses?

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I spotted this multimedia collage across the street from the Mint. I call it 1944.

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Karl Lagerfeld appears in GTA4. And Ricky Gervais, too. I have this game on pre-order, mofos. It may be the last thing I ever buy. Highest possible review score from OXM.

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Speaking of reviews, the new Pacino thrilla 88 Minutes is scoring a 12/100 on Metacritic. That ranks it lower than Tom Green's Freddy Got Fingered.

Christ, what was Pacino's last good movie? The Insider? I keep expecting Pacino and DeNiro to reunite for a movie adaptation of Falcon Crest or some Laser Cats thing.

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John Edwards was phenomenal on Colbert last night. Jet skis for everyone!

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"It's the incorrect context, stupid."

OK, let's fix this once and for all. From Reuters this morning:

It's still 'the economy, stupid' in Pennsylvania

In 1992, Bill Clinton used the phrase "it's the economy, stupid" to win the White House amid a recession. Sixteen years later, his wife Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are fighting for the Democratic presidential nomination by promising relief from more hard times.

No no no no no. I'm going to kill myself if I ever read this again.

"It's the economy, stupid" was not a Clinton campaign slogan. The phrase was one of James Carville's tenets for keeping the campaign on message, as seen in the documentary The War Room. Pinned to the wall was:

Change vs. more of the same
It's the economy, stupid
Don't forget healthcare

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Here's how Carville would write those for the Hillary '08 campaign:

More of the same vs. more of the other same
It's my turn, assholes
Please forget Hillarycare

And for McCain:

Sunnis vs. Al Qaeda (what?)
Five years in captivity, stupid
Don't forget Bush hates me

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Punks and Rockabillies vs. Emos. With violence. Mexico-style.

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A picture of a package on the package? That's the Droste Effect, my friend.

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And praise to you. Have a happy matzo-filled weekend.

My Advice to Criminals: Stay the F*** Away from Weng Weng

Weng Weng Rap

I can't stop watching this. Anybody got any Weng Weng on VHS?

Fight This Generation

60 Minutes, a show produced by and for World War I veterans, has instructed us 30-somethings to get the fuck out the way.

This pleases me dramatically. You see, the Boomers and their ancestors enjoyed defining our entire generation as cynical slackers, their primary evidence being two movies that grossed about $21M combined, or about 1/6 as much as The Flintstones movie. But Gen X's decade is done. Now the Millennials are in for a good reaming.

"Millenials put themselves first, like to be pampered, and aren't sorry for it." They also apparently all look like Comic Book Guy. ("Is there a word in Klingon for loneliness?") And even their moniker is a real bitch to spell. Is it one "n" or two?

Also, according to the 60 Minutes piece:

While this generation has extraordinary technical skills, childhoods filled with trophies and adulation didn't prepare them for the cold realities of work.

"You now have a generation coming into the workplace that has grown up with the expectation that they will automatically win, and they'll always be rewarded, even for just showing up," Crane says.

Praised throughout their no-failure childhoods, surgically attached to their iPods and mobiles and assorted gadgetry, the Millen(n)ials wander through their coddled lives making demands and expecting attention. Mommy got them into college, and Daddy wrote their resumes. If you don't praise them like little babies, they'll ditch you for another boss. Or as an ad exec puts it:

"If you don't want me, Mr. Employer, I'll go sell myself down the street. I'll probably get more money. I'll definitely get a better experience. And by the way, they'll adore me. You only like me."

Of course, what the 60 Minutes report totally misses is that the primary difference between this gen and the last isn't the self esteem or the iPods: It's the job market, stupid.

Gen X joined the economy at a lousy time. As globalization and recession hollowed out the middle class, the new adults of the early '90s had no sense of their place in the future. In 1994, there were no stock options, no Web 2.0 startups, just dead-end McJobs and territorial Boomer bosses with mortgages. For some it created a sense of cynicism. For others it created a sense of focus. For too many, it created a path to law school.

But today's new college grad was 9 or 10 years old when Netscape IPO'd. With the exception of a minor slowdown that started right around Dubya's first inauguration, the Millennials have only known boom times. As our dollar-depressed, housing bubble-busted economy drags downward, so will a young whippersnapper's ability to job-hop their way to Nirvana.

So move over, Gen X. There's a new generation to stereotype and abuse. And they'll have to miss that 2pm meeting. They have yoga.

Corporate America Takes Out Don Imus, Then Murders a Cokehead Employee with a Trident

I'm always surprised when people are surprised that I've failed to opine on some Great Topic.  And so to those who want to know what I think about the firing of Don Imus, now that this story is a century old, here it is. And because it was Corporate America who claimed Imus's scalp, I'll present my feelings in bulletpoints.

• Don Imus called a team of college-educated, disciplined women "whores with ugly black hair." It was an indisputable insult to all black people that has no place on national media.
• Who cares if the Rutgers women's team weren't listening to the show? The point is that when Imus can mock role models like them as just another group of dirty black whores, then it becomes okay for his audience to talk and think like that, too.
• The Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, while distracting to conservatives, are irrelevant to the situation. Imus got fired because Corporate America -- starting with NBC (part of GE) and then spreading to advertisers -- got queasy about associating themselves with this kind of hate. Yay Corporate America!
• While white conservatives see America's residual race problem as The Politically Correct Sharptons vs. Our Confused Post-Racial Society, America's strongest organizations all depend on respect for differences to win customers and stakeholders. Those who use terms like "nappy-headed" or "hos" typically get excised from these organizations, as if they were cancer. Again, yay Corporate America!
• Yes, this is a "free speech" issue, but not because Imus was somehow censored. Media companies and advertisers have the right to associate their programming and spending on whomever's voice they choose. Imus was always just a commodity to these programmers and spenders, and when he lost value, they had every right to ditch him.
• But what about the rappers? Yes, 50 Cent is guilty, too. The national radio corporations think they're being conscientious by bleeping "bitch" and "ho" from rap tracks, but bleeping doesn't change the context, and it's the context that does its damage. It would be just super if Clear Channel and Infinity and the other radio programmers decided that they just weren't going to feature artists who are violent or degrading to women.
• And comedy needs to clean up its act, too. I've expressed in the past that comedy has in recent years wilfully dressed up racial stereotyping as rebellious political incorrectness. I'm not talking about funny social critics like Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock, or Sacha Baron Cohen who skillfully assess the radiation of ignorance and hate throughout American society. I'm talking about Comedy Central execs who give a garbologist like Carlos Mencia 30 minutes each week to mock nappy-headed hos, and club comics who think Holocaust and Rwanda jokes are now in-bounds because they're really about Jews and Africans.

So in the end, I'm glad Imus was fired, and I hope that this is a victory for context.

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On a lighter note, not everyone is treated so fairly by Corporate America. Here is an example of how to pull off an edgy racial joke with proper context. It's also a reminder what a treat the 12:55am sketch became in the Will Ferrell era.

Careful with that trident!

That Is Not a Hair Question

The gentlemen who were arrested for yesterday's Aqua Teen Hunger Force-related hysteria are treating the situation with every ounce of incredulous contempt it deserves.

I don't have many heroes with dreadlocks, but Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens deserve the Congressional Medal of Freedom.

(Word to SFist.)

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Dear Gavin Newsom,

Thank you, thank you, thank you for admitting you scromped your campaign manager's wife today. Awesome timing. You're the best. How does Secretary of Health & Human Services sound?

Sincerely, Joe Biden

P.S.: Why do we need a whole month just to honor one guy?

P.P.S: From now on, I'm calling you Count Fuckula. (Ever watch Extras?)

I, Mick LaSalle, am Starting to Suspect Hollywood Is in It for the Money

So this is where our culture lies? This is the endgame? A musical based on a forgetable powderpuff of a Reese Witherspoon movie?

America has officially quit. Sure, you figured this out years ago. That makes you brighter than Mick LaSalle, who decided to review Epic Movie.

Is this an entirely cynical act, or is someone actually proud of this? This question is not really within the appropriate scope of a review,  yet "Epic Movie" is so bereft of anything resembling wit or inspiration, that the mind immediately goes to questions of motive -- as though it were a crime. What were the perpetrators, uh filmmakers, thinking?

They were thinking that the Scary Movie franchise -- an annual survey of disjointed references to whatever movies came out the week before -- is a factory-farmed golden goose on antibiotics. And that's all. You think the people behind Legally Blond: The Musical are living their lifelong creative dreams? How about Thomas Harris? How about anyone working at Spike?

Damn, Mick LaSalle, now you're making me wistful. I remember when I first had that inkling that maybe some people in show business were only in it for the money. I was eight years old, and Bo & Luke Duke suddenly disappeared, replaced overnight by despised clone-cousins Coy & Vance.

A quarter century has since passed. Oh what I would have given, Mick LaSalle, to live in your technicolor mindworld where pop culture is art produced by artists for art's sake.

But, sadly, I turned nine.

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About eight months ago, the wife saw an ad on Craigslist for marketing director at Adult Swim.

"You could totally get that job, and it would be so cool," she said.

"Maybe, but we'd have to move to Atlanta."

Well, it looks like that job's about to open up again.

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Conservatives often claim that liberals only protest wars to feel good about themselves. This time, they're right.

Second Life Avatars Against the War. Are they fucking kidding?

Keep 'Em Torched This New Year

1. Katt Williams does a hysterical joke about a certain ethnicity's relationship with baby strollers. Basically, if your kids can push themselves with their feet, they're too big for a stroller. Amen.

C'mon lady, get your daughter out of that wheelchair and help her with her college apps!

2. Speaking of college apps, Vice has a brutal enthnography of cliques at Sayreville High School in New Jersey, comparing today, the mid-to-late '90s, and the ancient pre-Clinton generation. The illustrations are especially fantastic, and, being Vice, the copy is ruthless. In 20 years, Asians will rule America and white people will be the great underclass demanding the hand-up.

3.  Speaking of the Garden State, a Rangelife vacation to Jersey in summer '05 still gets quite a bit of traffic and the occasional well-reasoned response like this one:

You ARE a fkn moron. By the way your review of NJ sounds, you must be some P.W.T idiot. Do your research... Did you know that Short Hills, NJ is home to many celebrities and is one of the highest income per capita communities in the whole country? Please do us a favor and don't ever bring your ignorant P.W.T mindset and unjustifiable ramblings to our beautiful state again. See you possibly when you are able to make enough money to live here. Stupid bitch.

I emailed NewJerseyMan to inquire about the abbreviation "P.W.T." He was kind enough to clarify "P.W.T. = Poor White Trash = you, semen." Can't argue with that.

But then today I got another surprise comment that began, "New Jersey is America's sewer - filled with ignorant, loud, rude and angry people." How did this gentleman find the post? By Googling "short hills jew bitch," for which this humble site ranks second. And soon after I click Publish... first.

4. Speaking of Google searches, as for the gentleman (or lady) searching for "preferred firearm for shooting alligators," the answer is -- something with "bunker buster" technology. Don't you know that alligators sprinkle bullets on children before swallowing them?

5. Speaking of violence, The Economist year-end double issue is pretty much the best thing that happens between Thanksgiving and the NFL playoffs, and this year is no exception. Check this graf about a Pushtun man (remember them? from the Afghanistan war?) being served some Pushtunwali justice:

For 25 years he squabbled with a cousin over which of them would inherit an uncle's lands, until Mr Khan killed his cousin and his cousin's sons and grandson. Then he killed their uncle. This was excessive, Mr Khan conceded; he had committed the crime of miratha—annihilating every male in the rival camp. The jirga decreed that two of Mr Khan's houses be destroyed, and fined him 500,000 rupees (about US$8,200). He thought this harsh.

6. Saddam, unfortunately for him, is not Pushtun. We should all thank him for the comic relief he supplied to the depressing Iraq story this year. In mere hours, he'll finally get to meet his bottom.

7. Speaking of descendants of the Middle East, big ups to With Leather for promoting a video that demonstrates the power of Chanukah in the National Basketball Association:

Ricky Davis: Happy Chanukah. You guys have fun, and blow out all the candles!

Elie Seckbach: No, we don't blow them out.

Ricky Davis: Oh, well then keep 'em torched!

And that's all for 2006. Happy New Year, and keep 'em torched, Superheroes.

Fight the Secularist Hollywood Cabal for Only $9.00

We all love spam. If it weren't for spam, how would we have achieved this utopia of 11-inch wangs and universal penny stock prosperity?

But every now and then, a spam comes that transcends the missives from Nigerian royalty in exile.

Subject: Great way to stand up for Christmas

Special message from Concerned Friends For Christmas

Seamus,

The secularists and the media have once again ramped up their aggressive assault on Christmas. But even worse... The media and entertainment elites are trying to ignore the one effort from Hollywood in the past 50 years to bring the Christmas story to the theatres!

Of course, you already know about the War On Christmas, the silent assault being funded by an international cabal of Jewish financiers who hate Christianity.

The Nativity Story (now playing across the nation) marks the first time in 50 years that a Christian Bible story has been turned into a major motion picture by a major movie studio -- New Line Cinema (which gave us the Lord of the Rings trilogy).

...and also The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. Devout Christians, those New Liners.

This week, take a personal stand against the secularists and the media elite -- and more importantly, FOR the Christmas story -- by taking your family to see The Nativity Story. The Nativity Story represents a dramatic departure from Hollywood's usual despicable treatment of Bible-believing Christians.

Again -- those who want to strip any sign of Christmas from our communities do not want this movie to succeed. Please take your family to see The Nativity Story this week.

Concerned Friends For Christmas

Who are Concerned Friends for Christmas? Nobody.

And in case you can't make it to the multiplex this weekend, you can always stick it to the Hollywood Homosexua-cracy by answering the U.S. Taxpayer Census. Hint: This census reveals the shocking truth about the gay-loving AARP.

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Speaking of international Jewish financiers trying to destroy America, George Soros demands you worship his villainous and stunningly-rendered visage in Freedom In Peril: Guarding the 2nd Amendment in the 21st Century, a graphic novel commissioned by the heroes at the National Rifle Association.

Also righteously demonized -- Michael Moore, Rosie, and the all-powerful Ray Nagin.

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Dryel allows you to clean dry-clean-only clothes in your home dryer. And who could provide a theme song for such a powerful domestic consumer product? Go the Dryel website, and listen to the ad that starts running on the homepage. Hint: Sharif won't like it.

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Word up to my man Dalton for his "Hello My Name Is" project. Brooklyn never looked so good.

 

Satire, RIP

2000 was the Year of Satire. The only thing anyone remembers from the Bush-Gore debates was when Bush said "Strategery." Except Will Ferrell said it. More and more college kids discovered The Daily Show. And a poll showed that a disturbing number of American adults considered comedy and talk shows to be primary news sources.

And 2006 will be the Year Satire Died.

How do I know? Watch this man in a necktie sing a parody of U2's "One," with the lyrics changed to celebrate the merger of America's biggest bank and biggest credit card issuer:

Now, I'm not being mean to Jim DuBois, the rock star above. He's probably a decent, hard-working guy with a 529 college fund for his kids. Yes, he should have ditched the necktie, and he could have chosen a more appropriate sing to lampoon. (It's not as bad as, say, Mervyn's hammering its name into "My Sharona," but a more hopeful and celebratory song would have been less reminiscent of David Brent.)

Anyway, this work of art posted to YouTube on Nov. 8. And then this happened last Saturday, just ten days later:

That's David Cross providing the literal read of the B-of-A/MBNA merger song. It's obviously pointless to parody a parody song, but you can ironically cover a parody song and still get your point across. And when David Cross can transform a corporate event video on YouTube into a stage performance in just one week, satire no longer becomes necessary -- a word-for-word re-creation suffices.

And isn't satire dying anyway? The Daily Show often devolves into an anti-Bush polemic and has lost its funniest correspondents (exceptions: Hodgman, Jones). There's nary a clever sketch comedy show on television anymore; even the "sketches" on Studio 60 are preachy and unamusing. The major targets for satire -- politicians, celebrities, corporations -- are so cartoonish, it's hardly of any use to make fun.

Need some more evidence that satire is on a feeding tube? Fox "News" is launching a right-leaning version of The Daily Show. Problem: Irony is like Sanskrit to conservatives. This has the same prospects for success as an action-adventure show produced by Rob Reiner. Oh, wait:

The half-hour show is executive produced by "24's" Joel Surnow and Manny Cota.

And we all know that if there's one thing that sets 24 apart, it's its sense of humor. "WHERE IS HASSAN HIDING THE NERVE GAS?!? DAMNIT!"

"It's not going to hit you over the head with partisan politics," Surnow said. "It'll hit anything that deserves to be hit."

Fair and balanced, like the rest of Fox "News."

The title "This Just In" was scrapped after producers found out the name was being used by an HBO-AOL production.

Also, it used to be the title of the second segment on The Daily Show.

At least it wouldn't take much to make the Fox version's cast more racially diverse than Comedy Central's. Now wouldn't that be ironic?

A Picture is Worth 1,000 Tons of Bullshit

What does the Israeli assault on Hizbollah in Lebanon have to do with OJ Simpson? They were guilty, and they were framed.

As with everything else surrounding the perma-conflict in the Middle East, your opinion of the recent Israel-Hizbollah war seems predetermined by the opinions you already held about Israel, Arabs, Islam, Zionism, or terrorism. So it is that the pro-Israel world jumped all over the revelations that some photographers and editors were staging and even altering pictures to make the damage in Lebanon look more severe. One of the photogs, Adnan Hajj, enhanced the smoke over Beirut (see above) in such a hackneyed way that a color-blind orangutan should have been able to spot the Photoshop chicanery. (Seriously, the Daily Show has better Photoshops than that crap.) And now the right-wingers who think the world media is universally comprised of anti-Western, pro-Islam leftists get to trot this out as evidence for their paranoia.

The fact remains that even if unscrupulously scummy photogs, journalists and editors are staging and doctoring the war's visuals, Israel still bombed the shit out of Lebanon and killed a lot of people, albeit in the pursuit of their own survival. But just as the Los Angeles DA and LAPD let OJ escape whatever justice he deserved by unethically padding an already airtight case, anti-Israel elements of the media have cast doubt on whatever case they were trying to make to the world. CBS News was guilty of this, too; the righteous scandal about false documents overshadowed the fact that President Bush still never reported for Guard duty during Vietnam. They were guilty, and they were framed.

(I'm not really comparing Israel to OJ. The analogy would only be fair if Nicole had been slipping ground glass into his oatmeal and dropping her Sony Watchman into the hot tub when he was taking a schvitz.)

Amid all the hubbub, CNET ran a wicked photo gallery of famous doctored pictures, from OJ's darkened Time cover to John Kerry's non-appearance with Hanoi Jane. But of all of them, I think this one is still my all-time favorite:

Can you guess which person on the cover of Wisconsin's 2001-2002 application booklet was not at Camp Randall that day?