Is New York City Actually "Gotham City" and Batman Therefore Real?

Batman has got to be real. Otherwise, there would be no explanation for the existence of New York gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino--whose mind-boggling hate speech could only reasonably be credited to a 'Penguin'-esque fictional supervillain.

Disagree? The next two things you'd tell me would be (1) "the first black American President has a shot at a second term" and (2) "heavily-sponsored white folk driving vroom-vroom machines in a continuous left-hand-turn 'til somebody done get smashed up and burned real good isn't recognized throughout America as a 'sport'."

Some of My Unborn Baby's Unborn Best Friends Are Black

Or they will be, anyway...just so I can stick it to Newsweek and its ridiculous allegation that white people can be racist at the age of 6 months.

News flash, Newsweek: I'm white, way older than 6 months, and my wife--who is also white and older than I am--is pregnant. Between the two of us, we personally know three black people, not including the two that are half black (just like some guy who's currently President of the United States).

(Totally off topic...if you or someone you know is pregnant with a fully black baby that's due in the spring and lives in the Los Angeles area, email me.)

End of 'The Dark Knight's' Box Office Dominance Foretold by Children

"For truly it is to be noted, that children's plays are not sports, and should be deemed as their most serious actions." - Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Neat as the above amateur trailer may be (and it is pretty neat), it is likely that those who enjoy it most--including the adult nerds who made it--are the least likely to recognize the underlying prophecy brought forth by its very existence...

Children are indeed the future--but that applies not only to the longview of humanity, but also to the short-term view of popular culture. The moment that the future embraces any aspect of the present, that aspect becomes a part of the past. Ergo, The Dark Knight's historic reign atop the box office will come to an end this weekend. Thus the children have spoken; thus Metroville guarantees it.

(Also, Tropic Thunder comes out on Wednesday; that kind of helps my fortune-telling confidence.)


[video courtesy Wizard Universe via Defamer]

Major American News Outlet Encourages Former Supermodel to Destroy Civilization

What gives, MSNBC? The news media had paid more than enough attention to the desperate attempt for self-promotion that was Tyra Banks' "imagine me as a super-hot Michelle Obama" Harper's Bazaar photo spread; there was no need for any self-respecting media outlet to take the non-story any further.

And yet, you did exactly that...in the process giving credence to nonsensical rumors that the poor man's Jerry Springer's pool cleaner has legitimate designs on becoming the First Lady of the United States of America.

People believe what you tell them, MSBNC. Therefore, what you've done is fast-tracked the potential for the death of not only America but humanity-based democracy worldwide. I hope you're happy.

Three or four years from now, when Earth is a waterless rock and its remaining inhabitants live fearfully beneath the iron fist of World President Oprah and her army of vengeful zombie polar bears, will your remaining corporate representatives think this "scoop" of yours was worth it?

I'd like to think not...but, in all likelihood, no one will give a damn. We'll all be too busy watching season 9 of "So You Think You Can Dance Without Sufficient Oxygen".

(I'm voting for the one who's pretty!)

Obama Targets McCain's Base by Gaining Senior-Citizenship

If there's one thing John McCain has on Barack Obama, it's the elder candidate's trademark elderliness. Nobody does more voting than old people (regardless of their comprehension of the process), and the more mileage a presidential hopeful has, the better his chances are among the coveted demographic.

Since emerging as the presumptive Democratic nominee, Obama made little ground in closing the superannuated-appeal gap between McCain--a septuagenarian white male who fought in a war and frowns at things--and himself--a comparative teenager whose skin tone is deeply alarming to the average Caucasian-American over the age of 60. The tide may very well turn, however, now that Obama--one day after returning from an overseas trip sealing up his bonus nomination as President of the World--has made a strong move to draw away McCain supporters by acquiring a hip injury: a.k.a. the international sign for advanced age.

It was a brilliant tactic by the Obama campaign, as senior citizens throughout the U.S. will now be unable to resist sympathizing with the presidential candidate that a large percentage of them had previously only known as "the black fellow". If McCain intends to counter this shot across the bow from Obama by "out-injuring" himself to an equivalent degree, his only option would be death...and that might hurt his chances in November.

Sad Woooords

Remember when "comedy" and "stupidity" weren't mutually inclusive terms?

Yeah, me neither. Fortunately, there are books available to enlighten those of us too young to have witnessed George Carlin's prime as to why the man's death on Sunday represents as significant a cultural loss as everyone is saying it does.

Not interested in reading? You're probably a Dane Cook fan, then, and were therefore a lost cause to begin with.

Oprah's Going to Find This 'Joseph Pulitzer' and Tear Him a New One

You might think that the news that Cormac McCarthy's The Road won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction Monday would please Oprah Winfrey, given that the novel was her most recent pick for her book club. Perhaps, one could suppose, Oprah feels validated by the announcement, seeing her 2003 strategic maneuver to shift her book club selections from the likes of Indistinguishable Pandering Female Empowerment Novel no. __ to more bona fide and established classics (that James Frey hiccup notwithstanding) come full circle, as she had now beaten one of the world's most prestigious literary awards to the punch. Maybe Oprah is even narcissistic enough to believe that she influenced the Pulitzer judges' decision.

While these theories are certainly reasonable (especially that last one), there is one resultant aspect of The Road winning the Pulitzer that, once it occurs to Oprah, is going to make her very angry:

As is the case with any book that wins a Pulitzer Prize (or Nobel Prize, or National Book Award, or Booker Prize, el al), Knopf--the publisher of The Road--is going to issue a new printing of the novel whose cover advertises that fact. So do you know what that means the next edition of The Road is not going to include? The Oprah's Book Club seal.

Knopf is going to have the balls to sell a book on the merits that it won some stupid 90-year-old literary award and not because Oprah told people to buy it. This is a slap in the face to the supreme bellowing adjudicator of middlebrow culture, who has done so much for the publishing industry by successfully commanding her slavishly devoted audience of housewives, the unemployed and the enfeebled to buy books that the vast majority of them never end up finishing (or perhaps even getting past the first page of) because they're too busy watching "Oprah" (and probably "Ellen", and, let's say, "Grey's Anatomy") while they eat cookie sheet after cookie sheet of nachos...and there's no way Oprah is going to take it sitting down.

Don't be surprised if by this time next year, the Pulitzer Prize has--following a sizable financial transaction--been renamed "The Oprah Winfrey Award for Clap-and-Scream Recognition", with the severely altered guidelines allowing John Travolta to win for the next three years in a row, never once for writing a book.

Oprah, Albom Renew Efforts to Eradicate Culture

If you like Oprah, that means you like whatever she tells you to like, and that means you like Mitch Albom...so have I got good news for you: Oprah is going to turn Albom's most recent bilious discharge of sanctimonious claptrap--or "book", as some choose to refer to it--For One More Day, into a TV movie!

(TV! That's where Oprah lives and everything with which you are familiar comes from and, ideally, returns to! Hooray!)

For One More Day, which tells the story of a suicidal baseball player who magically gets to spend a day with his dead mother, is a fine example of how far Albom has progressed as a writer since his first book, Tuesdays with Morrie, which tells the story of a sportswriter spending magical days with his dying mentor, or even his second book, The Five People You Meet in Heaven, which tells the story of a dead man who spends a magical journey magically meeting people he has magically touched in his magical life.

Both Heaven and Morrie were previously adapted into TV movies for ABC (on which the filmed version of Day will also air), with Oprah holding the reins on Morrie...and as long as soccer moms and the infirm continue to worship at the altar of Oprah because she's friends with celebrities, she's ostensibly sassy, and/or other people do it (and we all want to be like other people, don't we?) and keep phonies like Albom on the bestseller list (along with pretending to be interested in Steinbeck, Faulkner, et al, after actively ignoring them your whole life)...there is no end in sight.

If I'm crying, it's only because I'm so happy about this.