Sometimes I don’t even need to make mention of the hypocritical and mind-boggling events of politics; Stephen Colbert does it beautifully, in his role as a pseudo-ignorant Bill O’Reilly clone (you can tell the difference: Colbert feigns ignorance for satire; O’Reilly feigns ignorance to pander to the far Right and be a media whore).
My friend Jeffrey sent me the link for this video yesterday. I was in a bad mood, and put it on pause during the first minute because it seemed corny and stupid.
Do me a favor: Watch past the first minute . . . it gets much, much better.
If you want to know some background about this guy, and read comments posted by some of the, um, dancers, here is his site.
I stole this from Gabriel at ModFab, who stole it from Ed and Tony, who stole it from Rambling Through Life, who stole it from earth2karen, who found it at some blog that I won’t mention or link because they spelled “feisty” wrong in their title and they link to things called “Wind In Your Vagina.” Which I’m sure is almost as good as Wind in the Willows, but I’m not interested in having the conversation. Here’s the thing I was originally talking about; I’m exhausted now:
America’s Got Talent tries aggressively to convince us that we don’t. Britain’s Got Talent has a few bright moments. The whole franchise is cheesy no matter what the continent, but I enjoyed the following:
I never had a fantasy about Santa Claus in my childhood. Instead I cultivated a belief in his black-sheep brother, Out Clause (Santa had the surname shortened to be less ethnic). Growing up in a family where there was a lot of raging and emotional unsafety (not to mention the perceived threat of the physical kind), I created very resourceful out clauses; when things among the big people would start to feel threatening, I had methods both effective and not-so-much to get myself out of the line of fire.
The problem with the childhood fixes we develop from the limited perspective — and belief systems — of extreme youth is that they seldom age well. What may have saved my ass (or seemed to) as a kid, doesn’t translate well to an adult solution. There is no more poignant example of this than the ultimate out clause: When life hits a really bad patch, suicide seems like the fix.
Can you spare a stamp, an envelope, and five minutes? I don’t usually believe in pushing back when pushed, but here is a quick and easy way to make your voice heard if you think that cult-like religious institutions shouldn’t be dictating civil law. From Mr. Sardonic:
The Salt Lake Tribune reports that California Mormons will hear a letter in church this weekend, written by LDS higher-ups, urging them to devote time and money to the ballot measure in November which would enshrine one-man-one-woman marriage in the California constitution. Trouble is, churches aren’t supposed to get involved with politics if they want to keep their tax-exempt status.
It’s fun to watch the opening group number on a results-show night, and try and figure out who choreographed it. Tonight’s Cirque du Soleil combination looked like pure Wade Robson, and I might have been able to savor the group pictures that were formed if the spastic camera had stayed in one place for more than two seconds. So I’m pretty sure it was good, but I didn’t take anti-barf medication before that particular sea cruise so I can’t be positive. And then it turned out to be done by Mia Michaels. I won’t try and psychoanalyze why a Mia dance looked like a Wade dance . . . maybe New-Bleach-Blonde-Mia is Wade-ier than her previous incarnation. It’s, like, too trippy to ponder. But I liked what I could see of the number. And, once again, Comfort was given a featured role in the proceedings. I think something’s up with that.
I may be opening up a can of worms here, but I’d be fascinated to hear from some of you shy types who haven’t posted comments. My StatCounter informs me that I’m getting visits from all over North America, South America, Europe and the U.K., and I seem to have recently gotten my first hit from Slovakia. And nothing says “I’ve arrived” like Slovak penetration. (I know that sounds inexplicably dirty . . . I wasn’t trying to be dirty.)
Anyhoo, this blog is about such an oddly broad group of subjects, and apparently reaching an oddly broad geography . . . I’d just be very curious to know how odd and/or broad some of you gracious visitors are.
Tonight the producers took 90 minutes of content and stretched it annoyingly into a 2-hour time slot. Instead of getting more dancing, which would have been welcome, we got more endless, overbearing comments from the judges (which was not so welcome).
I haven’t yet internalized the full sociological impact of the new Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Barbie. The first thing that comes to mind, though, is how bizarre and unwieldy the product title is. It makes me wish that this Barbie were also a Broadway producer, so the full title could be Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Barbie Presents The Who’s Tommy. But then I guess one of the birds attacking her would have to be playing pinball.
You can come up with your own favorite quotes from the caffeine-influenced promotional copy for the Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Barbie; my favorites are:
Me + Everything About This = I Need To Go Lie Down.