Pop culture ephemera

While I was so studiously not blogging, I was also engaged in soaking up all manner of popular culture. A sample of the sights and sounds of the casa de wobs:

• ms. wobs and I recently finished watching Band of Brothers. I am, admittedly, a sucker for a well-made WWII flick and had been keen on watching this series for years now, and I'm happy to say I wasn't disappointed. It's a well-crafted epic, both narratively and visually. More importantly, there's a fine line between telling the truly incredible stories of those who were there and myth-making, and I think the series tacks towards the former the vast majority of the time. The filmmakers also manage to keep the film apolitical (save the obvious narratives about the justness of WWII and a general "war really is hell" sentiment) while not flinching from the political and moral ambiguities that were inherent in the conflict.
  
  A special shout-out to goes to Donnie Wahlberg as Sgt. Lipton. When you see a former New Kid on the Block in the cast, you tend to be a little dubious, but Wahlberg plays Lipton with an understated dignity that's perfect for the role, even if he's less than convincing as a West Virginian.
  
  The only serious misstep in the series was casting David Schwimmer in a small but important role. It's really hard to get into the episode when all you can think is, "You're such a fucking douchebag, Ross!" Aside from Schwimmer and the obligatory awkwardly paced exposition of the first episode and the less-than-satisfying (emotionally, at least) denoument of the last, Band of Brothers is breathtaking to watch, especially the emotional heart of the series centered around episodes based on the Battle of the Bulge. It really is some extraordinary visual storytelling.


• We also managed to watch Thank You for Smoking and Idiocracy. They're both funny - I wouldn't necessarily watch them over and over, but they're definitely worth a spot in your Netflix queue. They're both over-the-top in their moralizing (though Mike Judge uses the outlandishness to far better effect, especially in a meta sense) but have plenty of gags to make them more palatable. I'll especially recommend Idiocracy for the visual gags that are Judge's vision of a distant future ruled by morons. The "House of Representin'" alone is worth the rental price. Or check it out free from your public library.


• I thought I was done with REM. The only new album I've bought since Automatic for the People was Up, and only really for the first six songs. So when I heard some good things about Accelerate, I at least paid attention. Then I read that someone heard a track on a college radio station, and that pushed me over the edge. It's good! Peter Buck rediscovered his distortion pedal, Mike Mills rediscovered those sweet counter-melodies backing up Michael Stipe, and the whole band rediscovered the whole jangly* rock thing that made us love them back in the 80s. There's a few tracks on there that sound like they could've been outtakes from Life's Rich Pageant or Green. The music itself is enough to put a nostalgic smile on your face, but the sly self-referential lyrics definitely seal the deal. This new album makes an old fan happy.
  
  * A little known section of law stipulates that media discussing REM with more than 50 words must use some variation of "jangle" within their work. It's true. Look it up.


• The best dKos diary I've read in a long, long time.

Signs o' the times

How stone-chillingly apocalyptic is this story?

LONGYEARBYEN, Norway -- Norway opened a frozen "doomsday" vault Tuesday deep within an Arctic mountain where millions of seeds will be stored to safeguard against wars or natural disasters wiping out food crops around the globe.

Beyond that, the story gets a little more mundane (but remarkable, nonetheless), but does the lede not sound like the beginning of a Mad Max style adventure? Looking for the "Doomsday Vault", hidden somewhere in the lush mountain jungles of Norway because global warming totally fucked shit up...

There's nothing like the total annihilation of the food supply to put oneself in a nice Malthusian funk.

Now this is the kind of Hollywood cattiness I go for

While I'm resolutely Not Oscar blogging, I will indulge in a little meta-Oscar blogging. For example, did you know that Oscar's conservative... ahem competition has a trash-talking live blog of the show? The Liberty Film Festival blog is offering constantly updated witticisms like this:

7:24 — Renee Zellwegger. A sandwich, stat. She makes me want to be gay. I can think of three, no four guys, I’d.. You know… Look at her. That pinched face. A body like a twelve-year-old boy. I’d feel like a child molester.

For the record, Renee Zellwegger will not turn a man teh gay. Daniel Day Lewis, on the other hand... do the fellas know what I'm talking about here?

And honestly, given the last couple of years, don't you figure right-wingers would be just a little more careful about copping to feeling like a child molester? Just sayin'.

Not Oscar blogging

I'm generally not a big fan of awards shows. They admittedly do have a few good moments, and they serve as a rather great excuse to have a party, but absent that, I'm kind of meh about them. Doubly so when I have no idea what's going on in that particular part of the arts universe. I don't begrudge their existence... well, except that Daniel Day Lewis shows up. I can't compete with that, ladies. Do the fellas know what I'm talking about here?

Um, yes. So I was... oh yeah, not blogging about the Oscars.

Answer me this

Really. WTF is going on with all of these Hollywood Scientologists? Why actors? Why not Presbyterianism?

Seriously, WTF is up with that?

And I for one welcome our post-modern overlords

Shorter K-Fed:

I fucked a self-destructing pop star and knocked her up... twice! And one day that is going to score me... wait, my fifteen minutes aren't done yet!

Niche markets I was unaware existed

Apparently, drunken teenage skatepunks who enjoy comic capers involving poo need to be reminded that fur ain't cool.

Mutually Assured Destruction

In Soviet Russia, sitcom laughs at you:

A drumbeat of anti-Americanism may be coming from the Kremlin these days, but across Russia people are embracing that quintessentially American genre, the television sitcom, not to mention one of its brassiest examples. And curiously enough, it is the Russian government that has effectively brought “Married With Children” to this land, which somehow made it through the latter half of the 20th century without the benefit of the laugh track.

[...]

These days, American visitors in Russia could be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled upon some bizarre realm of reruns. Adaptations of two other shows, “Who’s the Boss?” and “The Nanny,” are also popular here.

I hope arms negotiators are keeping tabs on this - we cannot get caught up in a sitcom race, and we must prevent the Reds from unleashing the awesome powers of "Growing Pains" or, god forbid, "Full House."

Please stop

It was bad enough when John Miller decided to regale with us with 50 conservative rock songs, somehow trying to persuade us that the likes of Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and the Clash were really, underneath it all, purveying music that extolled the traditional virtues and pro-America rah rah that are the bailiwick of the political right. Now I have someone telling me that rock and roll is a Catholic art form?

It's not. Please stop trying to make your religion and politics hip by making bizarre connections to pop culture. And they accuse the Left of being postmodern?

For uncle

Here's some crunk we can all get behind:

Damaged

I'll be the first to admit that I've taken some pot shots at Britney Spears - she did hire dwarves for her then-husbands birthday, a little fact which deserved to be ridiculed. And I'll even cop to being more than a little amused at her immediate post K-Fed party antics. But after awhile, it stopped being funny and began to become very painful to watch. Today, I came across this:

And multiple sources confirm Spears’ exhibitionist streak: “She’ll strip down in front of staff, nannies, whomever,” says one. “She’ll ask, ‘Do I look sexy? Do I look pretty?’ She’s extremely insecure.”

This is not an "exhibitionist streak," and it's a helluva lot more than being extremely insecure.

The narrative around Britney's spectacular meltdown is becoming one of self-destruction, the typical "I guess she can't handle the fame" shrugging of the shoulders that accompanies such public flame outs. When I look at it, especially that aforementioned quote, I see the inevitable effects of being turned into a sexualized object before the age of 17. Will we see any record executive, any PR flack, any manager, or her parents take some responsibility for letting her be some codger's schoolgirl fantasy? Will anyone step up and admit that putting her in a position where leering old men in the seedier corners of the internets were counting the days until she was legal may have been damaging to her young psyche? Did anyone think twice about making a buck off of pimping out a pretty but not-too-bright hayseed from Louisiana?

I'm not holding my breath for any mea culpas, but let it be said, the entertainment industry eats its young.

Normally, I'd be all like, "what digby sez"

But, damn!

We'll have to see if the country at large wants to take a trip to Limbaughland in the general, but if I had to guess, I'd say Rush's schtick is way tired except to the hardocre talk radio haters. To the public at large it sounds like political Hootie and the Blowfish --- a bunch of bad songs that were way overplayed and are now hideous reminders of an era that's mercifully passed.

I mean, granted, Hootie and the Blowfish suck, but their bland inoffensiveness only set rock back a couple of years. Rush and his followers' toxicity threatens to take us back to the Gilded Age.

To put it another way: the rare times I do hear "I Only Want to Be with You," I'm whisked back to a not-unpleasant memory of a drunken college makeout session with a cute but not-so-bright young woman. The rare times I listen to a Rush monologue, I'm plunged into the horrible realization that this man created the giant clusterfuck we're facing today. Game, set, and match to Hootie.

digby's point is well-taken, but those Hootie kids seem so nice - even if they were mind-numbingly boring - it just doesn't seem right to compare them to the talk radio hate parade.

Simpsonized yet?

So this is what I'll apparently look like when I make my debut on the Simpsons. Pretty nifty, eh? And should they decide to include l'il wobs, he'd look something like this:













Can you see the resemblance?

Your turn.

We do not as of yet know if they will be midgets

Nothing will cheer up your jailbird pal like hiring her dopplegangers to party with you on your 21st birthday ("soberly," of course). I'm sure someone will find that hee-fuckin'-larious.

Wrap that shit up

Did anyone ever teach this man to use a fucking condom?

You have the power to complete my life

If you really loved me, you'd get me this for [insert special occasion here].

Flotsam and Jetsam: Rich, Famous, & Dumb edition

I haven't done any digging through the celebrity compost pile in some time, not so much because there hasn't been weird stuff, but because I like to think that you and I have a much more sophisticated standard for what consitutes truly "weird stuff." Well, today's slop bucket delivered in spades.

• What is it with celebrities and little people? Now we have Lindsay Lohan hanging out with the world's premier little Britney impersonator?
• Speaking of Lindsay Lohan, who's already pretty fame-damaged at the tender age of twenty, I imagine being named Maxim's hottest woman is only going to accelerate her tendencies towards self-immolation. And to the dingbats at Maxim - really?
• Ever wonder what it would be like to have an on-line chat with Bruce Willis? No? There's a reason for that.
  
• And to top it all off, we have the Hoff:

  While he says that Hasselhoff can be charming and kind, [British journalist Piers] Morgan claims he’s also insecure about his status since his star has fallen from his glory days. “His ego is massive, there’s no other word for it,” according to Morgan. “Barely a day’s filming goes by when he doesn’t allude to 'Baywatch' and 'Knight Rider' being ‘the biggest TV shows ever’ or to the ‘nine million albums I’ve sold in Germany.”

  The Hoff can make a case for "Baywatch," but "Knight Rider?" C'mon!
  

Politics of the network stars

Wondering who your favorite Hollywood impressario is donating to this campaign cycle? Wonder no more!

Incidentally, I'm taking back everything I said about Adam Sandler beginning to develop some range.

Take me out to the public art at the ballgame

Let's be honest: we shouldn't expect great public art at the various municipal baseball stadia that dot the major and minor population centers of our nation. These venues most appropriately host Norman Rockwell-esque paeans to Anglo-Saxon nostalgia that are popular with the septugenarian set. Take this particularly bad piece of art outside the Double-A Portland (ME) Seadogs stadium, sussed out by King Kaufman:

So it looks like Dad is trying to scalp his tickets and Junior is arguing with him, trying to persuade him to change his mind. I'm guessing Junior mouthed off one too many times. Mom, dressed in an '80s shift that looks like it came from the free box and looking heat exhausted, annoyed and put upon, patiently waits out the battle while Sissy struggles in her arms.

It looks like the national memorial for the Unknown Unhappy Family.

For my money, however, the worst public sculpture in baseball resides in Chicago, where Harry Carey lords over the tormented, wailing souls that occupy Wrigley Field (otherwise known as "Cubs fans"):

The case against an American aristocracy

Exhibit B: still at Paris Hilton's 26th birthday party, but surprisingly, only tangentially related to Hilton herself:

Oil heir, noted wordsmith, and parachute enthusiast Brandon Davis made Paris Hilton cry at her 26th birthday party, and drove Courtney Love and Paula Abdul to flee the premises.

Things were going well at Hilton’s dinner party at L.A.’s Prime Grill until 10 p.m. rolled around and Davis started acting up.

"He was hurling flowers at Paula Abdul," a guest tells the New York Daily News. "Then he began bombing her with Styrofoam flower-holders. He was shouting, 'Lick my [BLEEP], Paula!' He started mocking her ancestry by speaking gibberish in an Arabic accent.

Abdul, who was supposed to sing "Happy Birthday," made an early exit.

Davis then turned on Love.

"He lifted her up so that she was straddling his waist," says a witness. "Her Chanel dress was riding up. Brandon was saying, 'I want to squirt on you.' He was humping Courtney in front of her daughter, Frances Bean. When he put her down, Courtney grabbed Frances and they marched out of the restaurant through the kitchen."

Behold our betters. They deserve every penny they have.