How to Succeed in the News Business Without Not Driving Into a Police Horse

Full disclosure: I actually don't know how one would do that.

You know who else doesn't? Fox WNYW reporter (and former police officer) Mike Sheehan.

Cinematic Illiterate to Publish Word Books

Only the most astute of cinephiles would have watched films as emotionally complex and thought-provoking as Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3 and realized that the director behind them was merely using motion pictures as a canvas upon which to cry out for his true passion, his destiny, his muse: the written word.

At long last, Brett Ratner is a book publisher. The question of his reading comprehension skills is moot; all that matters is that he made a X-Man movie and he knows Robert Evans.

[via Gawker]

Retired Baseball Player Turns Out Not to Have Been Retired, Retires

Although Curt Schilling was technically a member of the Boston Red Sox last season, considering that he did not appear in a single game, I had assumed that his contract was more or less an eight-million-dollar "thanks for your participation in the 2004 World Series victory" going-away present.

But Curt Schilling ain't going out like that!

Instead, he opted to go out like this, on his blog.

Awkward.

Still, though--I, like all Red Sox fans, will always very much appreciate that business in 2004. (The other stuff, like the loving George W. Bush and the never shutting up? Not so much.)

WARNING: This Video Contains Offensive Pantomiming

DoSomething.org does many different things:

Some good, such as raising awareness of dating abuse...

Some well-intentioned-but-questionable, such as exploiting the Rihanna/Chris Brown incident in their efforts...

And some balls-in-your-Corn Flakes insensitive, such as recreating said incident through ham-fisted acting accompanied by a narration of the actual police report.

In the last case, they probably should have Done Something Else.

Special O'Fiction

The White House is pooping its pants about it; Fox News is emitting a comparatively much more enjoyable discharge about it; Keith Olbermann is probably regretting allowing Craig Ferguson to promote CBS about it.

All of these people (and many others) are taking issue with the fact that President Obama, while appearing on "The Tonight Show" on Thursday, compared his bowling skills to those commonly displayed at the Special Olympics...but they're doing it for the wrong reason.

This is not a sensitivity issue: Barack Obama--who is neither mentally nor physically disabled--did not disparage Special Olympics participants by equating them to himself; on the contrary, he complimented Special Olympics participants by equating them to the freaking President of the United States (deliberately, it should be noted, which is a key distinction from the last guy). He was wrong to do so, however, based on factuality: Barack Obama has gone on record (as seen in the above video) that his best bowling score is 129; by comparison, the highest bowling score of note at a recent Special Olympics event was 39--which would have given Obama a ninety-point edge.

"Special Olympics", my ass, Mr. President. You would own that shit.

Lou Dobbs: Retro Racist

Growing up as an American of Irish heritage, I was often jealous of people of real (read: non-white) ethnicities for all the attention they got in the form of full-scale bigotry, something the Irish in America haven't faced since Ellis Island was operational.

So it was real nice of cartoonish hatemonger Lou Dobbs to celebrate St. Patrick's Day by throwing a little crazy our way (as well as the way of, oh...just about every other culture on Earth).

Sláinte, mac 'an diabhoil!

Look Upon Your Hero, Yankee Fans

If you're still a fan of Alex Rodriguez after the steroid scandal and his recent Details photoshoot (not to mention his general douchebaggery) and you're not interested in him sexually, you are absolutely lying about one of those two things.

[via Deadspin]

Send Some Good Karma Natasha Richardson's Way

According to IrishCentral.com, the actress and philanthropist (and wife of Liam Neeson) was involved in a skiing accident in Canada and suffered a brain injury. That kind of trauma can turn out any which way, so you've got to hope for the best.

UPDATE (3/18): Richardson died Wednesday at age 45, which is just absolutely horrible.

'Orphan': Like 'Annie' but with Less Singing and More Murder

This movie is going to scare the crap out of Brad Pitt.

Deliverance

If you liberal city folk who voted for Barack Obama thought that you were happy on November 4th, there's no way in hell that you were as happy as Republican-vice-presidential-candidate's-daughter-impregnator Levi Johnston, who knew then that it was it only a matter of time before he would be freed from the McCain campaign-orchestrated charade of pretending to want to marry that girl he knocked up. And now his chains have been broken.

The Republican lesson? Family values only apply to families of people who win elections.

If Two Jokes Fall on a Utah Rec Center, Do They Make Us Laugh?

The middling hook of Newsweek's article on the recent, one-night-only Vanilla Ice/MC Hammer concert in Utah is the author's framing of obvious questions--why would MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice put on a show together? why in Utah? why would anyone pay to see it?--as philosophical mind-benders. This approach was destined to be briefly amusing yet entirely forgettable, much like the subject matter...were it not for the staggering irony (one lost on reporter Joshua Alston and his employer) that the article's mere existence creates a host of quandaries so layered as to confuse even Confucius:

If you've been lame for nearly two decades before Newsweek gets around to calling you lame, does that not make your lameness lame and therefore yourself less lame?

Does Joshua Alston truly believe that a second-grader playing a stalk of broccoli is a useful parallel in understanding Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer's behaviors, or was his misstep born of a deep resentment about a vividly specific incident from his childhood? (Or does he just really like broccoli?)

How could not one of the concertgoers documented have made it clear that he or she was enjoying the event ironically? Did Alston deliberately ignore those people (perhaps due to his broccoli-based hangup), or do they not exist? And if they do not exist...do I not exist?

Please Hammer don't hurt my brain anymore. I need it to hold my hair, which I like to feel the breeze in while driving around in my Mustang convertible.

A Dog that Does Stuff Is a Thing; Naturally, that Thing Is a Movie Now

Can you believe, in the 800 years of its existence, that no one has had the creative wherewithal to turn Marmaduke--a life-shorteningly unfunny comic panel hinging on the premise that a large dog is absolutely fucking hilarious for no other reason than that it is large--into a movie?

Heresy averted!

Dial-A-Buse

No one could have imagined that a media outlet as classy and respectable as "Extra" would ever be responsible for a thoughtless error, especially not in regards to such a delicate story as that of Chris Brown beating up Rihanna.

And yet...there they went, publishing the personal phone numbers of those involved.

Take that, reading and thinking and stupid whatever stuff! Celebrity things HOORAY!

(Brangelina!)

[Gawker]

Who's Watching the Watchmen? Small Children.

Grown-ups who refer to picture books as "novels" have long clung to Watchmen as some sort of proof that just because they live in their mothers' basements (literally or merely emotionally), that doesn't mean that their favorite medium is entirely juvenile.

Presumably, Harry Partridge of Newgrounds is a fan of Watchmen--as the intention of his video seems to be to humorously illuminate the disparity between the ostensible badassery of the source material and the childish tomfoolery of the nonexistent "Saturday Morning Watchmen"--but his intention fails to undermine the plausibility of such an animated program. Rather, it actually increases it.

(Same goes for anyone who dresses up in a fucking costume to go see the movie this weekend.)

[I Watch Stuff]

Mumbles McSquirmy Wants to Babysit Your Nightmares

The name of Michael Jackson's upcoming tour is "This Is It".

It damn well better be.

Metroville's Movie Corner: Sociopathic Cult-Fueled Garbage Showdown

QUESTION 1: Did you go to the movies last weekend? (If 'Yes', proceed to Question 2.)

QUESTION 2: Did you go because you wanted to be genuinely entertained? (If 'Yes', you are a liar--it was February--but proceed to Question 3 anyway.)

QUESTION 3: Did you see Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail? (If 'Yes', congratulations--your sociopathic cult won and you are blessed to proceed in your unquestioning worship of He Who Is Absolutely Not Gay! If 'No', proceed to Shameful Denouement.)

SHAMEFUL DENOUEMENT: And you call yourself a Jonas Brothers fan? I don't care how many times you had your mom bring you to see The Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience over the weekend--it wasn't enough. They hate you now and not even the ugliest one will ever marry you. Turn in your purity ring and begin making preparations to die alone.

Hate You Can Believe In

Despite the fact that Barack Obama is far and away the coolest mothertrucker to have ever inhabited the Oval Office (deal with it, Fillmore fans) and despite the fact even the whitey-est white people regard him with a slackjawed awe previously reserved for guests on "Inside the Actors Studio", in no way did his ascension to the U.S. Presidency take a substantial bite out of racism (one need look no further than the Comeuppance-Borked News Channel for proof). Though its obviousness may infinitely recede, color (and religion and gender and sexual preference)-coded bigotry will survive, to some degree, until the very last human being takes his or her very last breath. Sad but true.

You know who I didn't think had any legs, though? Cartoon-y racists: those bedsheet-wearing, cross-burning, sister-humping hillbillies so tragically outmoded that even Harold and Kumar have gotten around to making fun of them (not in a particularly funny way, of course--then again, maybe you just don't get it, Sergeant Bac-O-Bits). Prior to the existence of Harry Potter (and the Possessive Noun/Adjective-Noun Pairing), the only subculture besides the Ku Klux Klan to recognize "Wizard" as an official title was Cookie Crisp--and they cut that shit out almost twenty-five years ago. As far as the general public was concerned, the Ku Klux Klan died an unofficial but ignominious death sometime around 1998, when Future Do-Over Hulk and Future Christian Bale united to portray hatemongers who asserted that the KKK was worthless because its members didn't shave their heads or sufficiently whale on their delts (in the end, Future Christian Bale--in a bit of fiction that would prove to be an eerie parallel to his real-life career--got murdered in a toilet, ultimately allowing for Present Christian Bale to become an internet sensation).

"The south shall rise again", as those who live there (and are ignorant--willfully or otherwise--to the phrase's historical implications) like to say. To those who enjoy that slogan other than as a threat for Civil War II, I say you'd better get your asses in gear, because the American South's less-than-finest representative element, the Ku Klux Klan, is on the comeback trail along with a bunch of other hate groups.

As for everyone else, don't bother yourself with the question of how I know this (SPOILER ALERT: it's the punchline link coming up) or lamenting that such a thing could happen in this day and age or worrying about its implications for your children's' futures; I am here to inform you that the relative resurgence of the KKK is actually a good thing...because Barack Obama made it so.

That's how much the American President--who also happens to be black--cares about turning around the economy.

Good luck pretending to enjoy your slightly-increased profile, racists of America, in light of whence it came. (Also, good luck looking up "whence".)