Bad comedian! Bad!

Newsweek considers that The Colbert Report may be bad for democracy -- at the same time, taking the theoretical underpinnings of his humor as a serious critique (which, you know, it really is, ultimately). Right now, I think the state of American "democracy" is bad for democracy, not the people who point that out.

And, Mr. Newsweek Journalist, you're shocked that the makers of policy may be scripting their actions according to a narrative? At first, I thought you were being indignant over news being scripted as entertainment, and I had three words for you (William Randolph Hearst), but then I realized you were incensed that it was the policy-makers who were engaging in a little fiction. In which case, I am inclined to go back to my original three words and veer a little to: Teddy Roosevelt, dude, whose career was made by the narrative of his actions in the Spanish-American war, a war manufactured by WRH. So, I wasn't that far off, after all. Are you just insensed that the comparison was so apt?

The article also pegs the whole thing as a flash-in-the-pan fueled only by ire for Bush. Yes, because the need to laugh at the contemporary world is going to be so over in 2008.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9767517/site/newsweek/

And the pool boy, Jorge. Or so I hear on the Internets.

Kenny Chesney says the music is helping him recover from the breakup.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9849970/

Year 2020: Romeo and Juliet Hollywood-Style

Kept apart by their warring familes, Papaya Cruise and Chris Henchy, Jr., have to keep their love a secret.

Papaya: Oh, Chris, you're so real. You're nothing like those underdiagnosed automatons my dad makes me hang around with at the Scientology Center.

Chris: I feel the same way about you, Papaya. You're nothing like those well-adjusted, antidepressant-popping girls my mom keeps introducing me to.

Papaya: Kiss me.

Chris: Darling!

Papaya: What was that noise?

Chris: Dear God, the Scientologists have found us! I must flee Verona. I love you, Papaya, but I love my meds more!

Papaya: Stay, my love, and we shall overdose on your lithium!

Chris: Can you do that?

Papaya: I don't know. I've been raised without so much as children's aspirin.

Chris: Okay. Let's give it a shot. (Raising the vial of poison high.) To eternity!

Papaya: To love everlasting! Hold me, my love. Mmm, they taste kind of minty.

Chris: Yes, it's children's litihium, darling.

Papaya: Mmm, minty.

And scene.

Year 2005: Brooke Shields, pregnant again and planning her pharmacological recovery as we speak. Go, Brooke!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9855311/

Oh, so that's what they meant when they said Sulu was "from San Francisco"

Sulu, gay.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9845944/

Cynic Alert (Read no further if you want to embrace in an unjaded way the coming out of the actor behind an iconic American character, which really is a good thing, it is.):

Sulu, gay, and managing to promote a play nobody would have heard about otherwise. Is there anybody left in Hollywood not willing to pimp their sexuality for a little marketing?

So oddly true

Over at www.ultratart.typepad.com, the author realizes BOTH Joey Potter and Jen Lindley are preggers, one being "oh, that's great for her" and the other "for the love of all that is good and holy, what are you thinking?!"

Please watch Futurama...in 2008

One of the smartest shows is coming to a future near you.

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C98271%7C1%7C,00.html

More scripted dialogue

Katie and Tom really need to fire their speechwriter: "exciting"? "Dream come true"? Can we say trite? But hey, at least the girl said something--or had her speechwriter script something for her:

http://www.tvguide.com/news/entertainment/

Also, finally a picture where Tom looks a little less like a gremlin and a little more like a human. (Notice I said "little," not a "lot." To quote Husband, "Katie makes Tom fugly.")

Bonus material in link just in case you needed something to cleanse your brain after reading about Katie and Tom.

A bag's a bag...or is it

This is for our Gilmore Girls fans:

This week, Logan presented Rory with her very own Birkin bag, which inspired envy and awe in Emily. "Imagine, a 21-year-old girl with a Birkin and me a grown woman without one." Imagine, indeed! I like to watch GG not just for the snappy dialogue or the nuanced acting of Lauren Graham or even the amazing chemistry between Graham and Kelly Bishop (who in my mind are the real Gilmore Girls with Rory as a pale shadow) but because I like to feel superior and snobby, esp. when GG messes up their East Coast cultural references. For example, the "Life and Death Brigade"? As a Seven Sister alumna who's dated men from Ivy League universities, let me tell you, boys like Logan, Finn and their other pseudo-British friends would be laughed out of frosh orientation, no matter how much money they had. When I saw the Birkin bag last week, I wasn't surprised to see GG mess up again. I laughed aloud and said, "That's a Hermes bag, not a Birkin!"

Alas, this time the joke's on me. Birkin is not its own designer label. Birkin is a type of Hermes bag, the very style that I've actually been coveting myself ever since I saw it hanging smartly from my mother's right arm.

http://www.rte.ie/tv/offtherails/20041027section1.html

Drats!

Flashback Blog!: 2003*

How is it that the cast of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy manages to maintain the love, the harmony, the peace amid the hairspray and the plaster dust? No, not the paychecks, silly. They make it work, because they're a family.

Ted is the dad. Don't you want him to give you a hug and the car keys?

Carson's the mom. He's so the mom -- he's the PTA president.

Kyan's the older sister who spends too much time in the bathroom in the mornings.

Tom is the middle child. If I said more about him, he wouldn't have a reason to feel underappreciated.

And, of course, Jai's the baby. He was kind of -- well, we won't say "accidental," we'll just say "unplanned."

Trust me. It explains a lot.

http://www.bravotv.com/Queer_Eye_for_the_Straight_Guy/

* Two years ago, when M&C Inc. was still holding our shareholders meetings in the Tea Shop over grilled cheese sandwiches and corn fries (mmmm, corn fries), this "blog" would have taken the form of an aside to my co-founder. We bring it to you in crazy "What If We'd Been Blogging Then?" format, because avant-garde as we are, we've been pretend-blogging in our heads since before there was real blogging. We just waited for the technology to catch up to us.

Unsentimental nonsense -- and fart jokes

There's a lot of popular culture out there. Some of it appalls; some of it amuses. Some of it does both. Sometimes, once in a rare while, a movie or a book or a TV show makes you recognize yourself and the life you've lived. It more than makes you remember; it makes you feel it all again, the good and the bad. Your body holds itself in the awkward poses of adolescence. You care for a few breath-holding moments about the things you cared about when you were a kid.

For me, one of those shows is South Park.

Maybe it's all the Mormons. Or the fart jokes. Or the snow. But run this together with a showing of that documentary, Freaks and Geeks, and it's as good as going through my school yearbooks.

And it's back for another season.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9744344/

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/19/arts/television/19park.html?th&emc=th

Real-life Dude doesn't dissappoint, man

Anonymous AP interviewer? Props to you, sir or madam. You have clearly spent many days drinking white russians and quoting a little Lebowski.

AP: Do you indeed have a rug that really ties the room together?
Dowd: Absolutely.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9696918/

Noth-ing amiss here

I have no real snark-motive in posting this. This is a mostly drool-related post, because before Mr. Big (yeah, whoever), there was Detective Logan, and now he's back.

Love!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/15/arts/television/15noth.html?pagewanted=1&8hpib

Proud to be an American

Chewy maintains dual citizenship:

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17584,00.html?tnews

When your work life follows you home

We've all had the troublesome problem of bringing work home with us, but poor Sawyer from "Lost":

http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17570,00.html?fdnews

Josh Holloway and his wife Yessica were robbed in their home. If I were Josh, I'd be really sick of guns right about now (his alter ego has been recently also held at gunpoint, shot in the arm, and smacked upside the head with the butt of a pistol).

Also, Apple signed some sort of deal with ABC...I think that should translate into new computers or iPods for their employees, don't you think? :)

Shameless

Guest blogger Tea has this to say:

It's the beginning of the end for Miss Katie.

Katie Now "Shame"-lesshttp://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/eo/20051013/112926078000.html

Okay...uh, OUCH!

Woman gives birth to 16th child in 17 years...and wants MORE?!

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/parenting/10/12/sixteen.kids.ap/index.html

This reminds me of my best friend in junior high, Paula, and her ever-increasing family. Maybe it was because we went to Catholic school, but her dad was child crazy. Not in a pervert kind of way, but the "I want to procreate and cover the entire earth with my seed and adopt as many children as I can smush into my three-bedroom townhouse!" He had four children with his first wife (Paula was the oldest) and adopted the three children of his Filipina mail-order bride. (The eldest Trixie ended up in my class with me and Paula. Awkward!) Then if four girls in one room and three boys in another weren't enough, Paula's dad and stepmom went on to have two more girls...and then both Paula and Trixie got pregnant in high school with Jennifer following in their footsteps two years later. By that point, babies were sleeping in the bathtub and on the dining room table.

I think I know now what madness is.

All that Apple picking for nothing!

I received a disgruntled call from my husband yesterday about this:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/ptech/10/12/apple.video.ipod.ap/index.html

Apparently, Apple has released a new iPod that can play videos--this so soon after the birthing of the Nano which caused hordes to descend upon Best Buys, CompUSA, Apple, etc. and feast upon something that is no bigger than my credit card. It seems that the Nano is not enough for Husband, despite the fruitless calls and trips to numerous Best Buys in New Jersey. I think he's dazzled by the new iPod's ability to play videos ("Videos!" he breathed into the phone) that he's forgotten the long, long drive to central Jersey where we stood in line FOREVER beside a woman in stiletto heels with a teacup poodle in her LV bag ("He needed to get out of the house," she explained. Riiight...the mall is the first place I take my dog when he needs to get out.) to acquire a black Nano (heaven forbid it would be a white one).

Pop consumers, indeed!

A little Alannis Morissette -- stat

Cameron Diaz, sociologist, contends that groups of Brits intradate more than other nationalities or more, say, than an entire town in which everyone has dated everyone else, in which there are, say, entire shows on VH-1 and E! Entertaiment Television dedicated to tracing the intertwining branches of the courtship, marriage, and divorce among a select few.

Isn't it -- what's that word I'm looking for? I -- i-something.

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---26946,00.html

Your Moment of Zen

"I finally met someone who could teach me about love," says Survivor host, Jeff Probst, about former Survivor contestant, Julie Berry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9661157/

Charlize ties the -- NOT!

Paparazzi swarm a secret Malibu wedding, which, oops, turns out not to belong to Stuart "No, Really, I Don't Mind That I Wasn't In Lord of The Rings" Townsend and Charlize Theron, but instead belongs to Theron's mom and unspecified new spouse.

Mazel tov, Charlize's mom and unspecified new spouse!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665863/

Charlize, who had gained recently in her M&C Approval Ratings through her charming, behatted performance as Rita on Arrested Development, must sadly surrender a number of points for being one of those idiots who acts as if marriage is a bigger commitment than having kids with someone. What? I mean, what? Being legally bound is more than being ethically, morally, etc. bound via shared parenthood? Shut up.

Also, points subtracted for the Aeon Flux "remake." Is Noah Taylor in it? Enough said.

Sienna trades up!

This week has brought more Daniel Craig than I've seen since . . . ever. In fact, it is only this week that I've had really remembered that his name is Daniel Craig, not just "That Pug-Nosed, But Weirdly Hot Guy, Who Did the Really Atrocious American Accent as the Ersatz Love Interest in Tomb Raider, a Movie Which, Let's Face It, Was Really All About Noah Taylor, Who Should Be Contractually Obligated To Rescue Every Bad Hollywood Action-Adventure Flick With Nonsequiturs About How Frozen His Bum Is -- Oh, Wait, Who Was Daniel Craig, Again?"

Daniel Craig was also supposedly an excellent Ted Hughes in that Sylvia Plath movie, which I was contractually obligated to avoid because -- Paltrow.

And now? Word is he's the next Bond -- oh, and boffing Sienna Miller, his friend Jude Law's ersatz ex.

Bond.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9662926/

Boffing.

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/story/0,1259,---26979,00.html

In case the Ghost Hunt is sold out this Halloween month. . .

Can we recommend a little Buffy?

San Francisco theatre group brings "Once More, With Feeling" to the stage.

http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,271%7C98018%7C1%7C,00.html

Winner! Most Disturbing Use of Cartoon Icons

For those of you who didn't find Clockwork Orange disturbing enough: Smurf atrocities as fund-raising pitch.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9662883/

Daily Show Deluxe

So, the White Stripes are going to be The Daily Show's first-ever musical guests.

We've never had a musical performance on the show before not because we haven't wanted one but because we were holding out for a reunited Spandau Ballet. This will have to suffice.
-- John Stewart

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=1194167

New set? I've gotten used to it.

New correspondents? I'm adjusting.

New format that may involve less Stewart and more shenanigans? Knock it off.

What is with the tinkering with the not-broken, Comedy Central?

(Though, admittedly -- White Stripes. But still.)

Workplace perils

Pamie, of TWOP and more fame, works on the same lot as the Gilmore Girls. She writes that taking shortcuts through Stars Hollow is not advisable. (Though it doesn't seem to be bother the writers -- and I'm looking at you, Amy Sherman-Palladino -- lately.)

http://www.pamie.com/archives/pamie/stars_holloween.html

Imagine how much worse it would be if RobotRory, of this season and the last, were to jump out at you from the gazebo. With like a Manhattan in one hand and a picture of Logan in the other. Now that, my friend, would be scary.

I'm your victim, not your criminal

Boy George denies that the drugs, for posession of which he was arrested, are his, because, you know, a lot of people come in and out of his house, and anyone could totally have left that bag of cocaine by his computer.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9623320/

I believe him. I'm pretty sure that's how the bag of M&Ms got next to my computer, too.

No, you can't go play with the Witherspoon-Phillipes without your flak jacket, honey

Allegedly, in addition to assaulting California Adventure employees, the paparazzo attempted to take down a five-year-old friend who was with them.

Nice.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9632084/

A little skepticism with your spooks

This article gives a little glimpse into why I love these guys on Ghost Hunters (even if they show's gotten a little repetitive and gimmicky lately).

Grant and Jason employ equal parts tact, temper, skepticism, sarcasm, and, when deserved, respect for witnesses. They'll tell you when the woman at the window asking for help was actually a guest locked out of the house next door (and they'll scold you for not helping her). They'll trick other team members into checking out a room they already know is full of bats. And they'll ask their questions and break the news with understanding and diplomacy, because they've been there. They live to debunk, and still they believe.

I’d really like to get away from the sensitives who come in and do the floppy tuna, saying, ‘Satan’s living in your closet.'
-- Jason Hawes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9623473/

It's offically two hostages now

The Scientology approach to childbirth sounds like something out of The Handmaid's Tale. (And I'm not even talking about the potential surrogacy issues here.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9620245/

This makes me so deeply angry that I'm almost at a loss for snark. I guess that, with my limited knowledge, I assumed that cult life was equally bad for men as for women. I stand corrected.

How do you end up passing off draconian misogyny as enlightenment?

And I have no words for how wacked-out their behavior toward the infant is. Is there a word for "infant hatred" and can I use "draconian" twice in the same posting? Because where I come from, your parents giving you the silent treatment is the start, not the elimination, of extensive psychotherapy.

Holy Mother of Pearl! And all the Saints of Cubic Zirconia, too!

An alarm has sounded across the M&C Network, alerting me to the fact that, yes, the Apocalypse has begun.

As if the first sign weren't that I'd been actually "working," rather than blogging. (Thanks for the heads-up, Katie and A.!)

Look out for raining frogs when you go outside, people, and stay together!

TomKat pregnant.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9601238/

Newlyweds asunder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9600529/

Lohan hospitalized for a valid injury?!?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9594554/