The World Needs A Stronger Blog...: May 2007

21 June 2007

By Popular Demand: More Joey Porsche®

We Back: Jesca Hoop

From Stereogum: A couple of things worth noting about Jesca Hoop: That dude Stewart Copeland bangs his drums on one track, she'll be opening some dates for the Polyphonic Spree, she's got a slightly left-of-center take on hummable pop, and she took care of Tom Waits's kids. Bloggable by any stretch, that.

During her stint as the Waits clan's nanny, she converted Tom into a fan, getting him to say (we assume under extreme duress and/or at gunpoint), "Jesca Hoop's music is like a four-sided coin. She is an old soul, like a black pearl, a good witch or a red moon. Her music is like going swimming in a lake at night."

Waits passed her demos on to Nic Harcourt (the starmaker from KCRW) who spun 'em incessantly, and now she's hanging with The Police and touring the country with DeLaughter's newly-black-clad cult. Kismet's as good a name for her debut as any. And hey, her tunes ain't bad, either! "Intellgentactile" (which isn't a word) is perfect for the Triple-A set with enough quirks to keep it fresh, and enough charm in Jesca's vox to sound like a four-sided coin (OK we have no idea what that means either, but Tom said it so it's gotta be true).

Listen: Jesca Hoop - "Intelligentactile 101" (MP3)

15-Year-Old Boy Performs Surgery in India

The 15-year-old son of two doctors successfully performed a filmed Caesarean section birth under his parents' watch in southern India in an apparent attempt to set a record as the youngest surgeon. Instead, the boy's father could be stripped of his licenses and may face criminal charges. Nice one, pop.

What's Eating Bridget Jones??

I'm glad someone else finally noticed this ish!!

Actress Renee Zellweger is wasting away and has been for quite some time... For a while I thought Renee had died and they'd replaced her with some doppelgänger.

Her apparent obsession with being part of the size 0 club, along with fellow actress, Sex in the City star Sarah Jessica Parker, has seen her lose all her good times. What happened to the curvy and voluptuous Renee in Bridget Jones?!?

The evolution of Zellweger's barcode silhouette is reported to be a result of daily 2-hour workouts and 12-mile hikes in the Hollywood Hills. F that noise.

WHERE'S THE BEEF ??

Zellweger's painfully thin look is a dramatic about-turn for the star who famously had to gain two stone for role in Bridget Jone's Diary and the 2004 sequel The Edge of Reason.

In fact, at the time she'd said: "One donut does not do a thing. You've got to eat 20 a day for at least five weeks to get results." HOLLA! Now that's my girl !

This is London talks more about it.

God, this dude must think he's the nazz

You just know this hack thought he was so f@cking sublime. I bet he thought he'd have to beat all the Mensa chicks off with a cattleprod after getting this sick tat. It screams: "I love to read which I know is normally nerdy but I'm a f#cking wild man because I got a tattoo which is not just the mark of a true rebel but boldly declares to the world just how much I love to read!". Sorry, bro... ain't gonna happen. You're gonna have to learn how to play guitar too, maybe get a motorcycle or a cool car, a decent job and get that ish covered up with a dragon killing a shark or something. But, hey, you gotta start somewhere, right? Check back with us soon!

To celebrate their new office building, The Times takes a quick stroll down memory lane.

Long Island Dognapping Biz Busted

A couple discovered their missing dog for sale on a website which led police to a Medford, Long Island home where more than 50 dogs were living in deplorable conditions.

Police said the so-called rescuers were scammers running an illegal dognapping operation. Some of the dogs had tags and collars and some even have computer tracking chips in them.

The cops arrested 3 people who claimed they were animal rescuers and had 54 dogs in a 700 square-foot home. They ran an agency/website called "Lucky Fund". This fly-by-night operation was stealing dogs from their rightful owners and selling them online for profit. Read the full story here.

Holy bias in journalism, Batman! Are the inmates running the asylum?

Who the F can you trust to deliver the news unbiased and plain, sans slant or agenda?

Can we even trust the self-acclaimed transparency seekers and I.A.D.-esque journalists who act as the whistle blowers? Are they even free from vendettas and agendas?

MSNBC checked the Federal Election Commission records from January 2004 through the first quarter of 2007 and attempted to contact each journalist... but can we trust MSNBC to be guileless and impartial?

MSNBC's Bill "dispassionate and neutral" Dedman compiled a list of 144 journalists who made campaign contributions.

MSNBC limited its search to:

Federal candidates, PACs and parties, not state or local campaigns.
Donors in news jobs, not corporate executives or publishers, who are allowed by nearly every news organization to donate.
Not on the list are more than 20 who bought tickets to the "Vote for Change" concerts put on by Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam and others in 2004 to raise money to defeat President Bush. Unless those donors made other contributions, they get the benefit of the doubt that their intention was solely to hear the music. An MSNBC producer for The Today Show is in that group and in the interest of transparency is included on the list. Hmmmm.

(Here is the list.)

Businessman Rampage In Hotel Lobby

This is ~~most likely~~ totally fake but still I find it quite amusing.

Businessman Rampage In Hotel Lobby - Watch more free videos

Gawker is designing a new shirt and they want your help. Some of the proposed slogans actually made me chortle. Submit your own or vote on the ones already there.
Researchers at Purdue University released a simulation of a plane crashing into World Trade Center, which shows that fireproofing material was stripped from the building as the planes crashed into them. You can see a video here researchers used Google Earth to provide city context and it's pretty disturbing.
In what may be the first crack in bloggerazzi douchenozzle Perez Hilton's pirated empire, his main webhost has dropped Perezhilton.com. After many warnings against Hilton's a.k.a. Mario Lavandeira's use of copyrighted celebrity images, the Oz-based webhost co. Crucial Paradigm took his site off line; it was dark for a number of hours yesterday before it returned to the interwebnetscapesphere with a different host. Hilton is currently named in 4 lawsuits involving 8 photo agencies for his alleged theft of photographs that appear on his site. Read more from Variety.
Yo that sh*t ain't landin' today, son... Space shuttle Atlantis skipped its landing opportunities today because of showers and clouds at Kennedy Space Center. The shuttle has 5 more landing opportunities over the next 3 days. Oh boy, here we go.
For those of you who follow NY radio out there and are familiar with Opie & Anthony, the deconstruction of FreeFM and the flip back to K-Rock, here's an email John Mainelli (ex-NY Post writer/FreeFM program director) sent to Opie (in confidence), posthumously critiquing a few things about the show. Read it here.
From Drivl: An Idiot's Guide to Presidential Primaries
Jimmy Kimmel had an emergency appendectomy last night. He's doing OK now.

I just took a drug test

I just got back from my first drug test in many moons. I had to write down everything I'd eaten and any drugs I'd taken in the past 12 hours... haha... Nurse, I think I'm gonna need some more paper...

Coincidentally, I'd done some celebrating last night so the manifest of what I'd put into my system over the past 12 hours read like an autopsy of a drunken sailor on a one night furlough, a suicidal socialite or a bipolar author on a cry-for-help binge - only because, as you'll learn, I end my hedonistic night of Asti, ice cream and sausage with some vitamins. Oh, how utterly 90's of me!

Filling out their form detailing what was in my system, I sort of felt like Richard Dreyfuss making a list of what he'd found in Jaws' belly, except I hadn't eaten any license plates or surfboards.

There was lots and lots of coffee, some Häagen-Dazs, some faux-sausage and peppers (the peppers were real), there was a bottle of Asti... Oh, and I also had to write down all the drugs and vitamins I take or have taken which was a litany of paranoia: multivitamins, detox-oxygen pills, herbal remedies, green tea capsules and of course, psychotropics.

There was enough good times in my gut to throw a decent party or at least a few good chapters of a Bret Easton Ellis novel, and I wouldn't wish to live my life any other way.

Before I left I asked, "What do I do now? Just hope I don't hear from you?" and the nurse smiled and replied, "Yes" to which I said "OK then, talk to you soon!" but she didn't get it.

Peace out.

How To Design The Perfect Nap a.k.a. How To Sleep Like A Wolf

So I was reading a Farley Mowat book recently where he lived with wolves in the Arctic and had to adapt to their habits in order to co-exist; this included Farley adjusting to their insane sleep habits which took him quite some time to figure out. It seemed to him as if the wolves were always awake but somehow never tired. Eventually he'd realise the wolves never actually stretched out, turned out their little glow-in-the-dark night-light and went to sleep, they actually caught a bunch of short naps throughout the day and that's all they needed.

Which brings us to the concept of polyphasic sleep also known as Uberman's Sleep Schedule where instead of sleeping straight through the night in a big chunk of hours, polyphasic sleep spreads out the long night sleep into short naps of 20-40 minutes throughout the day.

The Uberman sleep schedule is a method of organising your sleeping time to maximise your REM sleep and minimise your non-REM sleep. The goal of the sleep cycle is that you are actively in REM sleep within a couple of minutes of falling asleep and remain in that state until you awaken.

There are praises and criticism on this sleep pattern but little scientific research behind this, probably because them scientists always be sleepin'.

Read more about your boy Uberman's sleep schedule.

A related article on How To Design The Perfect Nap.

Goodnight.

Video interview a dying 9/11 first responder

Mike Ryan, a former detective and first responder on 9/11 discusses his experiences after the attack, the toxic dust that engulfed New York, surveys his own medical treatment and the similar conditions amongst thousands of other first responders.

Watch the video here

I woke this morning to 1010 WINS' John Montone giving an exclusive report from... Bay Ridge?! I guess a "masked man" attacked an off-duty cop last night. Police said the intruder broke into her apartment on 69th Street (near Bliss Terrace) around 7:30 p.m. and raped her at knife point. The officer managed to escape and made her way to Lutheran Hosptial were she was treated and released. Teams of officers combed Bay Ridge last night looking for the attacker, who is described only as a white man, on foot, with dogs and up in helicopters. Hmmm. I'm going to refrain from commenting at this time but I don't... well, I smell a rat. I would like to give a warm welcome to all the NY TV press swarming 69th street off Colonial Road this morning. Welcome Lads! We had Good Day New York there, CBS-2 stopped by and I spied NY1's Gary Anthony Ramsay looking up and down Bay Ridge Ave très confused. I guess NBC-4 was having trouble finding parking.
My boy Sammy Sosa joins a very elite club hitting his 600th homerun last night! I've always loved this guy.
Wes Craven, director of "A Nightmare on Elm Street", is suing his neighbour Pauly "Chillin' with the.................wea-sel" Shore. I guess water from Pauly Shore's crib is seeping down creating a virtual landslide into Wes' humble abode. Oh, the rich and their landslides.
The other day we reported on a dude from Sweden who was receiving checks from Uncle Sven because his obsession with heavy metal had been declared a medical condition. Well now we're hearing the American Medical Association will soon vote on whether an "internet/video-game addiction" can be considered a medical condition. Read more.
Global warming: truth or propaganda? Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, argues in the Financial Times that ambitious environmentalism is the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity. Mr. Klaus writes that “global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem” and the issue “is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.” Preach on my brother, preach on.
OK, so now that we've decided global warming hasn't been a threat since 1998, now let's all join hands and panic for......... GLOBAL COOLING!! Agghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
OH, NOW WE GOT BEEF... Ralph Nader says he is seriously considering running for president in 2008 because he foresees another "Tweedledum-Tweedledee election" that offers little real choice to voters. He also said Hillary is a "political coward". FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!
From Curbed: A new chapter has been written in the tale of Coney Island's redevelopment—the epic saga of our times not involving Frank Gehry. Up until now, everyone has been operating under the assumption that this summer would be the last for Astroland as we know it. Not so fast! After teasing us by hinting at an 11th-hour deal that would keep the amusement park around a bit longer, the Post drops the knowledge that Astroland will be in operation next summer as well. Holla! I guess?
Starting next month the The Times will cost you $1.25. Or you could just by five New York Posts.

Crime Scene from Atlanta

Hahahaha I think these guys just upped the ante for tough guy bands and their videos. Unreal.

Ladies and gents... Introducing... Joey Porsche

My good friend Matt schooled me to world of Joey Porsche.

Y'all aren't ready for Joey Porsche so I'm gonna give it to you slow... bit by bit... ease you into it. We're gonna make Joey a star.

Here's the first installment. Enjoy!

Vases in Volkswagens: Uncorking the Mystery

Well, apparently it isn't that much of a mystery at all, it's just a corny Beetle accessory from way back and I'm easily intrigued.

A friend of mine has a classic restored Beetle and he's got the flower vase in there, that's where I first noticed it... then I started noticing them everywhere I looked on the new VW Bugs. I thought maybe it was some shiny happy people cult so I rained on their parade by writing an article about how Hitler basically invented the Beetle.

A simple Google search clued me in real fast. It's not a cult, though it might be, and it's not some sort of secret symbolism, though it could be, it's simply an offered interior accessory; the dash-mounted flower vase...

Though apparently it IS a throwback thing... "the flower vase, a nostalgic accessory from the Beetle era" is how one site puts it... while another describes it as a "quirky delight"... Geez, I guess VW owners are easy to please.

Another website rhetorically asks, "Really, how many automobiles come with an integrated dashboard flower vase?" Well, none, but who the F wants that anyway? "It is equipped with the flower vase so the car becomes a more pleasant place" hahahaha this is just silly now. People are absolutely bonkers for this dashboard vase, sorry, this integrated dashboard flower vase.

"VW Beetle's signature flower vase next to the steering wheel..."

"Replacement bud vases are available in three colors to hold your favorite flower..."

"...quality in a more light-hearted and fun package and ... In case you hadn't heard, Beetles are fitted with a dash-mounted flower vase"

Yes, we've heard, we've heard; we've alllll heard it. OK?

I'll keep my flowers and my vases in my apartment. I like to be able to distinctly differentiate betwixt my house and my car and putting a vase on my dashboard with some lilies in there just won't happen; not on my watch hahaha.

What's next the new 2008 Chevy Malibu with a working fireplace and hand-painted wall sconces?! Or how about the new 2008 Ford Focus with exposed brick and an EIK?

Either way, I don't think der Führer would've been too into all this happiness and lighthearted glee being associated with his Opus magnum.

Man in Texas bursts into flames after being shot by taser

OK, so I've seen this headline for a few days now and it just didn't interest me enough to share with you. Finally, I was bored enough to click on it... and here's the deal:

Police in Texas are investigating the fiery death of a man who burst into flames after dousing himself in petrol and then being shot with a taser gun.

Officers used the gun after the man had poured gasoline over himself.

Hmmmm. What exactly are the boys investigating? Sounds like an open and shut case to me, fellas.

"We don't know what ignited the fire," police said.

Hahahaha you don't know what ignited the fire!??!?!!!

The dude poured gasoline over his head and then you blasted him with a 50,000-volt electrical charge. Yes, I would assume he would then go up in flames. I think we can call off the investigation. Tell the forensic plumbers and caterers they can also go home.

There is no charge for my services, please, don't insult me... it's a labour of love.

Why, at this point, you would still want to read the full story is beyond me, but who am I to deny you that right? Click here

The Times Is A Changin'

Have you ever tried reading The Times on the subway, in an express bus seat or even lounging on your Poltrona Frau sofa? Yeah, me neither. It's like wrestling a goddamn octopus and I don't have a Poltrona Frau.

Well say goodbye to the days of cephalopod-wraslin' because August 6 The Times will be downsized.

In production jargon, The Times will be moving from a 54-inch web -- the width of 4 pages -- to a 48-inch web. That means pages will be 1 1/2 inches narrower than the current size. Maybe it'll be more like The Observer then? The Wall Street Journal moved to a 48-inch web back in January. So go look at todays ish of the WSJ and that's how big the new Times will be.

Downsizing the paper will obviously entail a massive redesign and revamping of the paper, they can't simply just shrink everything, so it'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

Here, go read a memo from New York Times executive editor Bill Keller discussing the shrinkage. And see what Gawker is saying. They always have their nose nestled in The Times' bunghole.

Hitler and the Volkswagen: An Exclusive

I wanted to do a story on why everyone who has a Beetle/Bug often puts a flower in a vase on the dash. Is there a special spot to hold the vase? I don't get it. What's the origin of this tradition? I've seen enough times to suspect something is up that I'm not privy to; and something being up that I'm not aware of is just no good.

So had I done a story on people putting flowers in vases in their VW's, that would be where it would've ended.

Instead I've decided to shed some light on your boy Hitler and a little known fact: Hitler basically invented the VW Bug... on a napkin, at a table in a Munich cafe in the summer of 1932. Not unlike Spinal Tap concocted the elaborate props for their Stonehenge stage set on napkins at that diner.

Sitting at a restaurant table in Munich in the summer of 1932, Hitler designed (read: sketched on a napkin) the prototype for what would become the immensely successful Beetle design for Volkswagen (from German literally, the "car of the people").

In an era where only the most economic elite possessed cars, Hitler believed that all people should be able to own a car and additionally thought that a smart design could allow for reliability, enjoyment, and vacation travel.

Hitler gave his design to the head of Daimler-Benz, Jakob Werlin, and stressed its importance. "Take it with you and speak with people who understand more about it than I do. But don't forget it.
I want to hear from you soon, about the technical details."

Later Hitler would meet with automotive designer Ferdinand Porsche in 1933 and charge Porsche with creating the new car. Adolf required that the Volkswagen carry 2 adults and 3 children, go up to 60 miles per hour, get at least 33 miles per gallon, and cost only 1,000 reichsmarks. Hitler may also have named the car the Beetle.

In 1938, Hitler had the KdF Wagen factory built to produce the cars designed by Porsche. The name Kraft durch Freude or the KdF-Wagen, literally meant "strength through joy - car".

But by the time the factory was complete, Hitler was busy invading Czechoslovakia and Poland. The factory was dedicated to building military vehicles, and the people's car fell by the wayside during World War II.

After the war, the factory ended up in the British section of occupied Germany. The British military re-opened the factory, renamed it Volkswagen, and finally gave control of the company to the German government.

After 1948, Volkswagen introduced new models across Europe. By 1955, over 1 million cars had been built. The VW beetle started selling in the U.S., and in 1972 the people's car overtook the Ford Model T to become the most popular car ever made.

Here's some more links on the topic. I can't speak for or assume the personal political beliefs of the authors of some of these articles, but they do discuss the topic at hand. Enjoy... what is a somewhat intriguing fun fact the next time you wanna bum out your fun lovin' flower vase on the dash friend with the VW.

Power Rangers Mob Swarms Japanese Man

Power Rangers Mob Swarms Japanese Man - Watch more free videos

Tiffany & Company, which got its start in lower Manhattan 170 years ago, is going back home. They're opening a Wall Street store in October and will join several other luxury shops opening new stores in the reborn financial district. Tiffany held a news conference at its flagship Fifth Avenue store today to announce $3 million in grants to 3 groups that work to preserve and restore the environment in downtown Manhattan. BMW and Hermes, which is opening a store near the New York Stock Exchange this week, say they want to take part in the post-September 11 renewal of lower Manhattan. According to a survey released this month by the Alliance for Downtown New York, the growth in residential development since September 11 has added 17,800 residents to the area below Chambers Street, and the median annual household income in the neighborhood is a hefty $242,000. Tiffany, which moved to its Fifth Avenue store in midtown in 1940, was founded on lower Broadway in 1837.
In other news, porn princess Jenna Jameson traded in her Bentley for one of these; a $360,000 Rollys Royce Phantom. Holla.

Japan Changes Name of Iwo Jima to Iwo Jima

Japan has changed the name of the Pacific island of Iwo Jima, site of the famous World War II battle immortalised by the legendary photograph by Joe Rosenthal of The Associated Press of U.S. Marines raising the American flag on the islet's Mount Suribachi.

The new name in Japanese looks and means the same as Iwo Jima - or Sulfur Island - but sounds different, said a dude at the Japanese Geographical Survey Institute... The what?!

Wait, it gets even weirder... Believe it or not, Clint Eastwood is the main reason why Japan decided to change the name of the famous island.

Still confused? Yeah, me too. Click here.

Bloomberg is the tops

I really hate politics and talking about politics so I'll try to be as simple as I can with all of this ish. Y'know me and Bloomberg have a very tumultuous thing going, it's a love/hate thing. Today, I love him. I think Bloomberg deciding to donate his 6-year-old Republican peacoat for an unaffiliated one is great. It speaks volumes. It may F things up down the line if he (and we know he's gonna) does finally decide to run for prez (the same way Nader always F's things up) but for 2007 unaffiliated is the only way to go; I've always felt that's where the truth lies; somewhere betwixt Michael Savage and Michael Moore; somewhere between John McCain and JFK; take some from this side and some from that side, take it all with a life-sized grain of salt and that's where you'll find the absolute troofs. Nothing is ever going to truly change if politicians are just playing games adhering to an ideology because they have to. Just as I remarked at dinner with mum last night, politics are just like sports; something for people to follow; something for people to believe in and argue about and be passionate about; right now, its really not much more than that. However, if all these bloated bastards would FINALLY shed their stubborn allegiances and let their real ambitions and ideas shine no matter what, maybe THEN we'd see some light in this here world. And sure enough, it takes a businessman and NOT a politician, it takes a man with money on his mind to make some sense. Isn't it time to stop giving an F about labels and parties and sticking to the tradition of some old blowfarts when its 2007 and we've got new modern day problems?

Anyway, here's what my boy had to say:

"I have filed papers with the New York City Board of Elections to change my status as a voter and register as unaffiliated with any political party. Although my plans for the future haven’t changed, I believe this brings my affiliation into alignment with how I have led and will continue to lead our City.

“A nonpartisan approach has worked wonders in New York: we’ve balanced budgets, grown our economy, improved public health, reformed the school system and made the nation’s safest city even safer.

“We have achieved real progress by overcoming the partisanship that too often puts narrow interests above the common good. As a political independent, I will continue to work with those in all political parties to find common ground, to put partisanship aside and to achieve real solutions to the challenges we face.

“Any successful elected executive knows that real results are more important than partisan battles and that good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology. Working together, there’s no limit to what we can do.”

OK so my boy gets a little corny at the last line there but what he's saying is totally right on. Especially the part I put in bold italics which should indicate to you that I think it's totally right on haha

So today Bloomberg is my man again, back on my list and to that I say it look goooood onya!

Through the beauty of hindsight (and considerable help from imdb) NEWS.com.au has compiled a list of movies that might have turned out quite differently had the original stars that were cast for the roles not passed on them. For instance, Bruce Willis turned down the role of Sam Wheat in Ghost, Nick Nolte turned down the role of Indiana Jones, which eventually went to Harrison Ford however Steven Spielberg originally wanted Tom Selleck to play Indy, Producers wanted Edward Norton to play Patrick Bateman in American Psycho, Leonardo Di Caprio was set to star, but had to drop it due to scheduling conflicts and Christian Bale wound up getting the role. Coppola suggested Warren Beatty, Alain Delon and Burt Reynolds to play the role of Michael Corleone which ultimately went to Al Pacino. Bruce Willis made Die Hard his own but not before Richard Gere, Sly Stallone, Burt Reynolds and Arnold Schwarzenegger had all passed on the role. You can read the rest of the list here.
So someone hipped Hillary to do a spoof on the Sopranos finale to tease her super big important announcement that she's decided on a campaign song. This is whats important these days?! So anyway, she picked Celine Dion's "You And I". Yes, Celine is awful but even more awful is that she's Canadian so I'm sure Hill will eventually catch some ish for having a Canadian anthem behind her campaign. Obama should point that out. Holla Obama!
Say it ain't so... Chachi, seen here with pal Jason Hervey a.k.a. Wayne from "The Wonder Years", is now joining the rank ranks of Flava Flav and Bret Michaels on VH1 to search for a soulmate. BARF. The show will follow Baio as he tries to find himself while enduring a mid-life crisis, wondering why he's still single and unable to settle down. Baio has agreed to fully surrender the next 8 weeks of his life to exhaustive introspection with a life coach named "Dr. Ali." Doc Ali will try to get to the core of his problem, and Scott will be forced to revisit some ex-girlfriends and take a vow of celibacy?! Let's make him eat bugs and snakes, too! Oh, by the way, Baio has a GF right now. What's up with that ish?!
I love you, baby. Keep your head up. One.
Elisabeth Hasselbeck did an interview with one of those Access Enterntainment Blowhard whatever-the-F shows and basically told Rosie to suck one the hard way. My girl Hasselbeck said she and Rosie did have a true friendship despite their divergent politics but that Rosie killed it when she talked ish about Hasselbeck on her stupid videoblog. Hasselbeck said she wanted to save what was left of the friendship but decided Rosie was a twazzole and closed the door. Peace, Rosie.
Speaking of Brosie, everyone be talking about her getting the job as the new host of The Price is Right. Shudder to think... Brosie says she'd love to have the gig but thinks CBS wants zany weatherman doofball Dave Price to take the reigns. What a f*cking mess.
We’ve gotten independent confirmation of rumours circulating yesterday that discussions between Fox and Yahoo, where Yahoo would effectively buy MySpace for 25% of the stock in the combined entity, have occured. If the transaction were to happen, that would value MySpace at a cool $12 billion based on the current value of Yahoo. That’s a not bad return on Fox’s initial investment of $580 million in the site which they bought only 2 years ago. And it will certainly signal that other social networks, particularly Facebook, are worth far more than most people currently estimate. Just last year Yahoo only valued Facebook at about $1.5 billion which is chumpc hange when industry analysts are pegging MySpace stock at north of $10 billion. I need a coffee.
Sewage flows down aisles of trans-Atlantic flight... passengers on a Continental Airlines flight had to hold their noses for SEVEN HOURS as sewage overflowed from toilets while they were high over the Atlantic. Roughly two hours into the flight from Amsterdam to Newark, the passengers were told the lavatories were out of commission... then they started overflowing, spewing sewage down the aisles. Wow.
More airline beef: 400 passengers were stranded aboard a Cathay Pacific Airways jet for more than seven hours Tuesday at San Francisco International Airport, adding yet another planeload of angry consumers to a growing industry backlash... meanwhile, another planeload of passengers spend five hours on the runway at LaGuardia.
Nissan studying possibility of launching $3,000-class car in India. I bet it'll look just as good as your Infiniti.

Berlin hotel recreates East Germany communist chic

This just might be the best thing ever. Usually you'll stumble across these places in Eastern Europe, frozen in time and they are always amazing. But this hotel is doing it on purpose and I think I'm gonna need to go back there ASAP.

The four clocks behind the reception desk of Berlin's new budget Ostel Hotel show the hour in Moscow, Berlin, Havana, and Beijing. Time, however, appears to have stopped here sometime before 1989, when communism was still entrenched in all four capitals. Hells yeah! Bad time for the common folk, good time for fashion and interior design. Holla!

The Ostel offers a renewed whiff of life in the former German Democratic Republic, welcoming travelers with portraits of communist leaders adorning the walls. The furnishings — except for mattresses, bed linens, sinks and toilets — are the real thing, dug up by founders Daniel Helbig and Guido Sand from flea markets, friends, family and eBay.

But Helbig made clear it was not about pining for a return to the police-state. "We had the idea of preserving a bit of GDR culture ... but we are not crying for the East German regime," said Helbig, who grew up in East Berlin and experienced its restrictions on freedom of expression and movement first hand.

The Ostel, which opened on May Day — the traditional worker's holiday under communism — represents a broader phenomenon known as Ostalgie, or fascination with life in the former East Germany. Ostalgie, like Ostel, is a play on the German word for east — ost. I never knew there was a word for this communist chic obsession! How cool!

There are rooms that replicate bedrooms from typical East German apartments, from about $50 a night. At the other end of the scale, $12-per-bed Pioneer Camp dorm rooms feature two bunk beds and spartan living conditions evocative of the summer camps of the Free German Youth, the party youth organization. I've definitely stayed in hostels that look just like this.

Check out the hotel's website where you can view all the rooms and read the full article here.

Tuesday PM

Lincoln Center wants you to linger longer... they've made the entire plaza a WiFi hotspot. So after Maazel conducting Mahler's 7th or Swan Lake lets out, you can sit near by the Reflecting Pool and blog it up or update your MySpace with clever Tchaikovsky witticisms.
Ooooh the new North 6th is almost ready, its now the Music Hall of Williamsburg and will open September 4th with Patti Smith and her band.
Amydoll made Mick look fat performing the Temptations ''Ain't Too Proud To Beg" on the last day of the Isle of Wight Festival.
Gawker: No Weddings For New York Homos This Year "While the state assembly may be prepared to vote in gay marriage for New York, the measure has no chance of passing—or even reaching—the state Senate. Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno (R-Shadydealsburg) announced at a news conference today that "We're not doing gay marriage by Thursday; that's for sure, or this year. We're not going to take a vote; we have too many other issues. We're not going to spend hours debating an issue that, you know, is not going to be of consequence." What could possibly account for such antipathy to what, by now, must be seen as a basic human right? The Times' Danny Hakim may have put his finger on it." And of course Gawker has summarised it because, well, that's what they do, summarise the NY Times...
TMZ.com has obtained a copy of the infamous manuscript by O.J. Simpson where he outlines IF he had killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, HOW it woulda went down. It's quite disturbing and I think seals his fate as a total nut.
The now 44-year-old Poison frotnman Bret Michaels has been tapped to play Flavor Flav on a new VH1 show called "Rock of Love with Bret Michaels". Bret will weed out a bevvy of blondes to find his true love. The show premiers in July. Um... yeah.
Mint Releases More 'Godless' Dollars! HOLLA... New dollar coins featuring John Adams are missing edge inscriptions including "In God We Trust".... Ooooh, its a sign!!

Prepare for the new Internet... "Chinese Style" = Big Fun

Control freaks the world over, including most recently Tony Blair (ew! how very un-Bill Clinton of him!), have called for the introduction of a Chinese style Internet, where the World Wide Web is tightly regulated and free speech stifled on the whim of a government censor. Sweet!

Say goodbye to downloading your favorite music or videos in seconds via high-speed cable or ADSL. There is no high speed broadband Internet in China. Since every website you access has to first pass through a government approved list, even the likes of Yahoo and Google lag and stumble onto your monitor, as if you're using dial-up. And if you don't live in a major city then expect your Internet connectivity to be degraded to a speed slower than dial-up.................read more if you DARE

The Communist Chinese government blocks any website that is mildly critical of the state and that even extends to mainstream foreign news outlets such as the BBC. Under the new format that Blair and others are proposing, the function of the Internet as a forum for political debate, protest and freedom of speech will simply cease to exist.

Say goodbye to video blogging - since popular personal video upload sites are notoriously hard to moderate, they too will disappear. Despite the best efforts of Google to cozy up to Red China, Google Video is blocked.

Say goodbye to e-mail as a reliable form of communication. If the person you're writing to has an account with a mail service that the government doesn't like, the mail is simply returned to you and you're informed that the recipient is an "illegal user".

Keyword logging is also employed to block out individual words - if you include them in the e-mail then you've just wasted your time in writing it because it doesn't get through.

"The Washington Post obtained a list of keywords used by a Chinese blog service provider to flag offensive material. Of 236 items on the list, 18 were obscenities. The rest were related to politics or current affairs," reported the Post in February 2006.

"Most words on this list can be posted on Chinese Web sites, but their presence quietly alerts editors to examine the messages that contain them and possibly take action. In tests, postings that included long sections of the list were allowed to remain on several sites, but quickly removed from others. One site also blocked the computer used to conduct the tests from posting anything else."

Say Goodbye to Hollywood... Billy Joel once sang.

Say goodbye to Googling away to your heart's content. If you input too many sensitive words in one go, as I did with "Bush" and "Taiwan" - google.com ceases to be accessible at all and in some cases your Internet connection is instantly terminated.

My biggest question is, will the gold diggers still be able to play World of Warcraft or will they all be out of a job?

In conclusion, the new Internet will be nothing more than an electronic police state, merely acting as a tool for the authorities to track down and incarcerate dissidents who dare question the government.

Keep in mind I found this article on a website called prisonplanet.com so they might be a bit, well, paranoid and biased. Hahahha

Get out your calculators... According to Newton, the world will end in 2060

Sir Isaac Newton, the English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, and alchemist, regarded by many as the greatest figure in the history of science; the man who described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which laid the groundwork for classical mechanics; the man who by demonstrating consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and this system, was the first to show that the motion of ALL objects on Earth were governed by the same set of natural laws... believes the end of the world will come in 2060.

Jump to read more..............

To me, Newton was the man because even though my boy was into God and studied the bible and all that ish, Newton was a rationalist who (arguably) inadvertently debunked and dispelled all those extraterrestrial myths with his measurable and mathematical findings and discoveries. His famously analytical mind worked out the laws of gravity and unravelled the motion of the planets without the biblical comic book heroes and suspension of disbelief. Therefore, I put some stock in my man Newt and his theories... even in a 303 year old letter that's spent the past 30 some odd years locked in a library in Israel.

Sir Isaac was precise and when it came to predicting the end of the world, my man was just as precise. He believed the Apocalypse would come in 2060 – exactly 1,260 years after the foundation of the Holy Roman Empire, according to the recently published letter. Luckily for modern scientists in awe of his achievements, Newton based this figure on religion rather than reasoning.

The note reveals a deeply spiritual side to a man more usually regarded as a strict rationalist. Newton, known as the founder of modern physics, secured a royal exemption from ordination in the Church of England – something normally expected of academics in his day – so he would not have to follow its teachings. But he confidently stated in the letter that the Bible proved the world would end in 2060, adding:

"It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner."

Continuing in a decidedly scornful tone, I. Newt calls out all the haters:

"This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail."

Read the rest here

Daily News exclusive interview with the cat from the Sopranos finale

From Gothamist: "The Sopranos finale is going to be talked about until the end of time, we've come to grips with that. The open-ended ending wasn't the only mysterious part of the hour long episode, though. In the process of picking apart each and every detail of the final hour, people are now asking: "what about that cat?" Or shall we say, cats...there were three playing that one role of the stray tabby. The Daily News reports that the cat (that was almost whacked by Paulie) "was, in fact, played by three cats - Timmy, Tommy and Terry - 4-year-old identical siblings who were plucked from a California field where they were abandoned as kittens." The trained ferals stole the show, and raised even more questions, as they stared at Christopher's photo. How did the cats take direction?

"In fact, in probably the show's best scene, animal trainer Tasha Zamsky used treats and hand signals, and requested the crew to leave the set, in order to get the kitty to gaze in her direction. To viewers, the cat appears to stare obsessively at Christopher's (Michael Imperioli) photo in the basement of the Bada-Bing. "Cats will stare at something, but if they hear something . . . forget it," Zamsky said..................

And when New Jersey traffic outside Satriale's butcher shop proved too loud and dangerous to shoot the funny scene where the cat's lying next to Paulie's table - Zamsky requested that they fake it with a green screen."

(Aha! I knew that scene looked sorta weird!)

David Chase is keeping his mouth shut about the finale, and any symbolism the cat had in it (Was it Christopher? Adriana? Was it there to symbolize Tony's nine lives?). The Daily News asked animal experts for their take. Amongst the cat conjectures:

"The cat in the episode stared at a photo of Tony's most evil deed - killing someone who loved him. The cat was passing judgment and as such is the poetic presentation of his mother, who often passed judgment, and to her way of thinking, was also killed by Tony."

"Nobody will look at the elephant in the room. In this case, Christopher is the elephant in the room and the cat's their unconscious."

Virgin Mobile's 'You Rule' Ads Declared A Huge Failure

By the time The Times picks up on an urban story, it's usually doomed or dead. Not unlike "Saturday Night Fever" and disco; that movie came out, summarized the era and killed it, all within 2 entertaining hours.

From Gawker: (sic)

"Now that every local blogger (us included) and even The Times has huffed and puffed about the smug, insensitive Virgin Mobile "You Rule" New York neighborhood ads (Murray Hill? No.), it's about time a smug, insensitive ad blogger blustered a bit."

Well, I didn't think they were insensitive, I think New Yorkers should have tougher skin than that, I just thought the ads were cheap and a bit hamfisted. I mean, talking about "baked ziti" in the Staten Island one or tiptoeing around the obvious in the Chelsea ad, it was just so unclever and sort of bargain basement with its lack of subtlety. Whoever designed them certainly thought they had come up with the most clever campaign ever, theres no doubt in my mind, but being smashed over the head with an anvil playing off every single tired stereotype is just so predictable and uninspired. Shame on you NYU grads!

Read on my brother, read on.........................

"Virgin Mobile's campaign—created by a North Carolina ad agency—has managed to piss off people in all five boroughs thanks to copy like this for Staten Island residents:

"Thank you for being our down-to-earth, suburban, predominantly Italian-American cousins. To show our gratitude, we've got something for you. No, not baked ziti--cell phone plans without annual contracts..."

And this, for Bedford Stuyvesant inhabitants:

"Do or Die is more than a moniker. It speaks to the fact that you don't take crap from anyone. Especially newcomers who want to change Bed-Stuy into some sort of yuppie strip mall."

Also, remarkably, an ad in the campaign extolling Upper West Siders and making fun of the Upper East Side was mistakenly placed in UES locations.

So, yes the ads suck. But even if the Tar Heel copywriter had magically stumbled upon the perfect words that made every Gotham resident perfectly happy, the ads would still suck. Why? Replace Virgin Mobile's logo with a Nike, Chase, Bud, Gawker, Trump or T-Mobile logo and, besides a slight copy tweak, nothing would have to be changed. The campaign lacks anything that ties it inexorably to Virgin Mobile—it could be for anybody and about anything. 'You rule! Buy this ___ to rule more.'

I questioned a couple of ad acquaintances who had seen the ads. One remembered them being for Verizon and the other couldn't remember who they were for. If I had the time and if Gawker actually paid me, I think a larger sampling would be just as telling. Nobody remembers the product. "

HilCli Spoofs 'Sopranos' finale in Web Video

The Clintons as The Sopranos

Amy Winelist

Someone got their filthy mitts on Amy's rider for an upcoming gig in Glastonbury. This makes me miss touring a bit. I've gotta dig up our rider from the last time we played Glastonbury.

Amy's backstage rider reads more like a shopping list for her liquor cabinet at home. And if she were smart, that's what she'd be doing anyway. You go, girl ! Make those promoters stock your cellar!

2 bottles of red wine (Spanish preferred)
1 large bottle of vodka
1 bottle of champagne
1 bottle of brandy
1 case of lager (NOT Stella or Carling!)
40 Marlboro Lights
chocolate
3 "good quality" HOT pizzas (the band will refuse them if they are not hot)
Among other things: a warm & well-lit backstage. 2 competent, sober local crew. No sticky wristbands (hahaha) Access to and from the outside without going through the crowd. 40 fluffy towels.

I'm a sucker for a girl with a Marilyn Dot who knows what she wants. It looks gooood onya. Holla.

Amyface will be in NYC on 12 September @ The Central Park Summerstage.

Oooh, bonus pics of Amy and Mick Jagger. 1 & 2

Keep your agenda out of my storage room

Only in NYC... A storage place with an agenda aside from simply renting out dank empty rooms to put your cardboard boxes in: Manhattan Mini Storage.

They've moved on from the wacky...

And on to the pungently pervasive...

Whats next?

A Return to Serenity; São Paulo, Brazil: The City That Said No To Advertising

I was in São Paulo a little over a year ago and before going there I had no idea what to expect; though I assumed it would be all rainforests and tucans and voluptuous mocha skin women drinking from coconuts on desolate beaches; I mean, thats just naturally what Brazil evokes, right? Well, there was all that stuff but you had to drive a few hours to it; the city of São Paulo is actually a metropolis not all that much different than NYC. It's massive. The buildings go on for miles and miles; further than your eyes can see.

São Paulo overwhelms the senses with its sheer size; with just over 11 million inhabitants, it is the world's 3rd largest city and the largest in South America. São Paulo ain't no sleepy tropical beach town, mofo. I was dead wrong. São Paulo is also known for its smog, the sheer size of its helicopter fleet, unreliable weather, and multitude of skyscrapers, holding the 7th position in the skyline ranking.

So now picture this sprawling city, picture Los Angeles basically, with NO advertisements anywhere. No Posters. No flyers. No ads on buses. No ads on trains. NOTHING. It sounds like an Adbusters editorial: an activist's dream, right? Well in São Paulo, the dream has become a reality.

In September last year, the city's populist right-wing mayor, Gilberto Kassab, passed the so-called "Clean City" laws. Fed up with the "visual pollution" caused by the city's 8,000 billboard sites, many of them erected illegally, Kassab proposed a law banning ALL outdoor advertising.

Amazing. Read more here from Businessweek

Swedish Man Gets Health Benefits For Heavy Metal Addiction

A Swedish heavy metal fan has had his musical preferences officially classified as a disability.

The results of a psychological analysis mean that the metal lover can now count on having his income supplemented by state benefits.

Roger Tullgren a 42-year-old dudebro from southern Sweden, has just got a new job as a ~~dishwasher~~ underwater ceramics technician at a local restaurant. Because heavy metal dominates so many aspects of his life, the Employment Service has agreed to pay part of Tullgren's salary. His new boss meanwhile has given him a special dispensation to play loud music at work.

"The fact that I am so into music has affected my work situation to the extent that I have had to quit some jobs," he said.

Roger Tullgren first developed an interest in heavy metal when his older brother...................... came home with a BLACK SABBATH album in 1971. Since then little else has mattered for the 42-year-old, who has long black hair, a collection of tattoos and wears skull and crossbones jewelry. Last year the ageing rocker claims to have attended almost 300 shows, often skipping work in the process. Eventually his last employer tired of his absences and Tullgren was left jobless and reliant on welfare handouts.

But a series of sessions with a psychologist soon led to a solution of sorts: Tullgren signed a piece of paper on which his heavy metal lifestyle was classified as a disability, an assessment that entitles him to a wage supplement from the job centre. The manager at his new workplace allows him to go to concerts as long as he makes up for lost time at a later point. He is also allowed to dress as he likes and listen to heavy metal while washing up. "But not too loud when there are guests," said Tullgren. hahaha

The Local spoke to an occupational psychologist in Stockolm who admitted to being baffled by the decision. "I think it's extremely strange. Unless there is an underlying diagnosis it is absolutely unbelievable that the job centre would pay pay out. "If somebody has a gambling addiction, we don't send them down to the racetrack. We try to cure the addiction, not encourage it," he said.

Tullgren currently plays bass and guitar in two rock bands and says that he tends to get a lot of positive reactions for daring to be himself. "Some might say that I should grow up and learn to listen to other types of music but I can't. Heavy metal is my lifestyle," he said.

42-year-old dishwasher? End of transmission.

Looks like we gots a lil' underground rap war on our hands... A suspect in the murder of Dipset rapper Stack Bundles was found shot to death execution style yesterday the same day Bundles was being laid to rest, after being ambushed and killed in Far Rockaway last week. Cops said Charles White, 20, also an aspiring rapper, who was being eyed as a suspect in the murder of Bundles, was found dead in his Queens home with a pillow over his head, two bullet wounds to the back of his head and one to the leg.
Where's all my emails at? The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of the law... Apparently your boys were deleting emails left and right while The Records Act requires presidents to assure that "the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance" of their duties are "adequately documented ... and maintained." Who knows what wound up in that recycling bin and why it was trashed. I guess we'll never know...
"This Car Climbed Mount Everest"... China will begin building a highway on Mount Qomolangma, the world's tallest peak, in southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region so as to ease the path of those bearing the Olympic torch. They say it'll take about 4 months. These guys can build a highway on the world's tallest mountain in 4 months but we can't fix the Gowanus in 4 years.
Irrelevant Ted Nugent tears into Paul McCartney for firing meat eating roadies... I tried to click the link to learn more about it and summarise it for y'all but it asked me for my blood type and my grandmothers maiden name so all you get is the headline. Sorry guys.
Gosh, I am such a prophet. I am plum excited that this global warming conspiracy is FINALLY crumbling and all these scientists are at last stepping forward and saying "Yep, it's all bullsh$t." I've gotten so tired of everyone blaming every goddamn thing on "global warming".
Poetic Paris Hilton on being in jail: "I look at the ceiling. I look at the walls"
Mötley Crüe have filed a $20 million lawsuit against their manager, claiming "greed," "extortionist tactics" and terrible career advice caused the band to lose millions of dollars in profits and tarnished the band's stellar reputation - stellar?! - RELAX. Basically, The Crüe is blaming their managers for all of Tommy Lee's bad decisions such as NBC's "Tommy Lee Goes to College" (hahahaha!) and Lee's participation on "Rock Star: Supernova". Because Lee was so busy doing reality TV, the band says he was unavailable to tour thus causing the cancelation of several key concert dates. The Crüe claims they lost $8 million in ticket and merchandise revenue because of Lee's scheduling conflicts. Oh, shut up.
On my way in this morning I was thinking about doing a story on Hitler and the Volkswagen. I need to do some more research first. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise's next movie is about "the true-life attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler."
Next week another Ramones documentary will premiere at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Remember the other day we asked for Viagra for a babyfaced beeotch with heartworms? The Little Shelter Animal Adoption Center in Huntington, thanked 1010 WINS and it's listeners for donating enough little blue pills to help Ingrid live for almost a year. Although she has these pills, she still needs more as she will need them for the rest of her life. So keep those pill donations coming and thank you, on behalf of Ingrid the babyface bitch, the shelter, and of course, all of us at Gotham City I.
Roll over Harry Potter physicist Stephen Hawking is writing an adventure novel aimed at middle-grade readers called "George's Secret Key to the Universe." No word on whether or not Hawking will narrate the audiobook :)
"No Cut Offs"... New York City public pools open 29 June, and the Parks Dept. has a borough-by-borough guide to all 51 one of them. Personally, I like to use this as a handy "Where To Not Go" guide.
Make Your Own List of NY Homes to Rob... Forbes has put out their super important list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Celebrities. Gothamist weeded out the top-ranked NY'ers. Check it.
Large teams of newly trained suicide bombers are being sent to the U.S. and Europe, according to evidence contained on a new videotape obtained ABC News. Teams assigned to carry out attacks in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Germany were introduced at an al Qaeda/Taliban training camp graduation ceremony held June 9. A Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions. I just wanna know who the valedictorian was and if at the end they all threw their masks in the air like caps.
One more reason why the UK rulez... Muslim world inflamed by Rushdie knighthood... Sir Salman Rushdie celebrates his 60th birthday today in familiar circumstances: he is once again the subject of death threats across the Islamic world. Eighteen years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on Muslims to kill the author, a government minister in Pakistan said yesterday that Rushdie’s recent knighthood justified suicide bombing. The question of blasphemy in "The Satanic Verses", Rushdie’s 1988 tale of a prophet misled by the devil, remains a deeply sensitive issue in much of the Muslim world and the author’s inclusion in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last week has inflamed anti-British sentiment. Hardliners in Iran revived calls for his murder once again yesterday. The whole story be here.

I'm a sucker for a British accent, a big-eyed girl and a good documentary

Whitney "Pop Candy" Matheson went to the Silverdocs documentary festival in DC and wrote about her favourite 10 films and for the most part we, uh, concur.

1. Big Rig. Doug Pray, director of the DJ film Scratch, delves into the realm of truck drivers in this fest favorite. Viewers get up-close and personal with all kinds of drivers -- young, old, female, one-armed, you name it -- and Pray covers just about every inch of the U.S. Check the website for a trailer.The filmmaker says: "We got out there, and this is exactly what we found," Pray said at the screening. "It went from being Convoy to being Grapes of Wrath."

2. Chicago 10 -- Brett Morgen's movie about the Chicago Seven and the protests surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention mixes archival footage with Waking Life-esque animation. I'm confident you'll be able to see it at some point -- the voices certainly provide star power, and Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter produced it.

Read on my brother, read on...................

3. Kurt Cobain: About a Son -- You don't see Cobain's face in this movie. You don't hear Nirvana songs. Director A.J. Schnack (Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns) combines Michael Azerrad's Cobain interviews with beautifully shot scenes of Aberdeen, Wash., Olympia and Seattle. The result is a unique and moving portrait of the artist as more than the suicidal singer of Smells Like Teen Spirit.The filmmaker says: "It was not an attempt to raise Kurt up. It was an attempt to show that he was just a guy," Schnack said at the screening. "To me, the stars of the film are the cities."

4. A Walk Into the Sea: Danny Williams and the Warhol Factory. I loved this examination of Williams, a face from the '60s Factory who had a close relationship with Warhol and mysteriously disappeared. Highlights include amazing, never-before-seen footage from the era and interviews with scores of surviving Factory regulars, including Brigid Berlin and Gerard Malanga.

5. The Gates. Albert and David Maysles started making this movie in 1978, when Christo and Jeanne-Claude first conceived of the ~~barf~~ art project in New York's Central Park. The result makes a good souvenir for those who saw The Gates and is almost like being there for those of us who couldn't make it.

6. Frank & Cindy. G.J. Echternkamp turns the camera on his mother and stepfather in this hilarious, horrifying and bizarre doc. You might remember Frank and Cindy from an episode of Showtime's This American Life; if so, you might be surprised to hear they're still together! Several clips are available on MySpace.

7. What Would Jesus Buy? -- Morgan Spurlock produced this documentary about the commercialization of Christmas and Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. It's presented in the similar whimsical style as Super Size Me; fans of that movie will probably like this one, too.

8. Black White + Gray: A Portrait of Sam Wagstaff and Robert Mapplethorpe -- This is a pretty straightforward, narrated doc of Wagstaff, a photography collector who developed an intimate relationship with Mapplethorpe at the same time Mapplethorpe was living with Patti Smith. Smith is interviewed about her friendship with the artists.

9. Scott Walker -- 30 Century Man. David Bowie, Brian Eno, Radiohead, Damon Albarn, Johnny Marr, Sting ... the list of Scott Walker fans is endless, though this doc about the influential and reclusive musician is more of a love letter than an in-depth examination of Walker's work. Bowie executive-produced the project.

10. Does Your Soul Have a Cold? -- Mike Mills follows Thumbsucker with an examination of depression in Japan. The visuals are arresting and you can't help but stare at the folks featured, though I found myself checking my watch a few times. It's slated to premiere on IFC in October.

Tony & Carm Soprano Yard Sale Tomorrow... No, Really!

The world wide inter-web-net-space is a-buzz with rumours of an über cryptic "Movie Company Set Dressing and Warehouse Sale" posting that turned up on Craigslist today.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Several insiders have informed me that the ish listed on Craigslist is actually a sale hawking all of the props and furnishings and scenery from The Sopranos. For realsies!

The sale starts tomorrow and is in Long Island City (which makes sense since thats where Silvercup Studios is at).

Bring lots o' cash and an affinity for nouveau Jersey mobster chic, oh and a moving van, as "plenty of furniture, lamps, rugs, antiques, books, kitchen and bathroom accesories etc." will be on sale. Holla!

I want Paulie Walnuts' toothbrush and toilet seat !

Damn, it feels good to be a banker

"Sheer Suckers": A humorous and somewhat creepy article on the naïveté of the corporate summer interns and how this dude likens his interns to a favoured pair of loafers. The comments below the dudes article and the people chiming in are even creepier.

However, the real scary thing is, this blog is probably written by some dude I work with. Oh, and I typed "corporate intern" into my trusty Google images search toolbar and this girl came up so she'll have to do.

Damn, it feels ~~good~~ weird to be a banker.

Video Game Slaves: The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer... this seriously blew my mind

I am SO incredibly out of the loop with video games. I just never had the attention span for them; I never even finished the first Mario Bros.; y'know the one that came free with the first Nintendo and it had Duck Hunt on it, too?

I was quite content with just playing the first few boards over and over. Then I found the warp zones which was exciting and economical, however I didn't have the necessary skill to fight my way through these higher levels I'd snuck into, so I'd quickly die and return to worlds 1 and 2 where I was happy in my arrested video game development. Ignorance is bliss, can't argue there. I just never had the patience, I'd get bored and move on to a different game and then I'd draw and then I'd go ride my bike and then I'd watch TV. I had serious problems with concentration, but it was just early signs of pure genius.

Oh, I also liked Blades of Steel, Golgo 13 and the Double Dragon II. Oh, Double Dribble was dope, too but other than that, no care. Those games were awesome because they were so simple, you put the cart in and you were ready to play; maybe sometimes you'd have to blow on them or smash them against the console to get them to work, but it was immediate gratification. Turn on, play. The few X-Box games I've seen required you to enter in all this info and pick uniforms and schedules and seasons and promotional giveaways for fans 12 and under and you had to give blood and your mothers maiden name before you even saw a goddamn park or field or rink or court ! F that noise. I ain't got time for a mutha.

But naturally, none of this has anything to do with why I'm here, posting.

I came across this insane article in The Times about dudes in China who work 12 hours a night, 7 nights a week, with only 2 or 3 nights off per month, basically mining gold on video games. What the F is this nigga talkin' about you say? Well, listen up...

I guess there is a game called World of Warcraft that people take pretty seriously; its one of those retarded elf wizards, warriors and dragon role playing games. I've been to my share of creepy net-cafes across the world where they chain smoke, eat stale chips, listen to bad foreign rap and never look up from their monitors, ever. I guess this is the ish they're all playing.

NY Times video report if you're lazy or can't read

These are like real-time games and you need money to do sh&t in the game. So people who are lazy or busy or both will pay REAL money for someone else to earn them the points or "gold" or "coins". There are dudes in China working for these companies who pay them to play for hours and hours on end killing monsters and earning gold coins. Then they sell the points to players across the world. Get it? I hope you do, because I'm still a little foggy.

Instead of some investment banker sitting online for 13 hours to amass 50,000 points on World of Warcraft he can pay some company to do it for him; the companies are in China and the employees "work" 84+ hours a week for 30 cents an hour staring at a computer monitor!!!

Can you imagine?!?!? Video game slavery!!!

Here's how the article starts: "At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him..." Gross. That sentence truly makes me feel all hot like I was out partying all night and now I'm at work, labouring through it. You know the feeling? It's nasty.

Anywho, you can read the whole article here but do it soon because The Times is mad cheap and they take down their free links after a few days.

Late Night with Conan O'Brien Jon Stewart?

We all know in 2009 Conan O'Brien is expected to replace Jay Leno on the never funny Tonight Show. Jon Stewart's deal with Comedy Central and The Daily Show ends in 2008.

We're hearing that NBC may opt to pay out O'Brien $40 million to keep Leno on the Tonight Show, which conceivably would make room for Stewart to take over Late Night.

Leno sux loins. I really hope we don't lose Conan in this power play. I think NBC will be letting the wrong guy get loose here. Stewart and O'Brien = good. Leno = bad.

Perhaps Fox will try to lure free-agent O'Brien and missing in action Craig Kilborn to start their own late night franchises?

I guess we'll see y'all.

Bryant Park tonight? Anyone?

They're showing Woody's classic Annie Hall tonight at sunset. The lawn opens at 5pm for blankets, picnicking and kvetching.

Bryant Park is behind the library in midtown, between 40th and 42nd Streets & Fifth and Sixth Avenues.

Hallelujah Hollaback.

Tony Soprano didn’t just get whacked; he practically got a funeral

I took some time off from the Sopranos speculating and returned to my normal life; y'know sleeping, eating, breathing. For a few days I ignored emails with cut & pasted essays and links to new rumours and whatever and then I came across this. Enjoy.

Awww Henri Maltese... The owner of a fledgling dog-training academy in Salisbury (great now I'm starving) has come up with a bizarre money-raising scheme. Mary Stadelbacher figured that if she could teach dogs to become service animals for the disabled, why couldn't she teach them to hold a paintbrush and swab a piece of art? Two years later, she's got a collection of abstract paintings created by her three service dogs in training. Twenty of the works are being shown this month at a gallery at Salisbury University in Maryland. One of the original works has sold for $350.
Reid Bryson, known as the father of scientific climatology, considers "global warming" a bunch of bullsh*t. Thank you. Finally. Come up with a new excuse for the worlds every problem.
How cute... Australia and the U.S. launched a massive war game today aimed at honing their ability to act together against threats to Asia-Pacific security. Will you look at the size of that goddamn monitor!?
This is f&cked... Six were killed Saturday at a drag race in Tennessee. All of the six killed were either in their teens or early 20's The accident injured at least 18 others, including a 5-year-old boy. The crash happened during an "exhibition burnout"—when drivers spin their tires to make them heat up and smoke; the smoking car skidded off the road and into the crowd when the driver lost control. There was a guard rail along part of the highway, but not along the stretch where the crash occurred.
Here's a gallery of photos of celebs eating. I have so much to say that I'm at a loss right now.
An illegal poker den frequented by AJ Soprano / Robert Iler and several yet-to-be-named NBA players was robbed laz night. I guess dudes with guns burst into the Upper East Side spot at around midnight and ordered the club's 70 or so patrons to hand over their money.
Dear Lord why is Bob Barker is endorsing Rosie O'Donnell as the new host of The Price is Right?!
Are you all happy now? I'm not... No Luxury Condos in Revised Coney Island Plan... There will be no 40-story tower and no rental apartments. The new plan calls for more of the new, edgy and outlandish rides and attractions that the resort was once known for (when back in 1930?!) The new plan continues the idea of a glass-enclosed water park, but adds three hotels, 400 time-share units, restaurants, shops, movie theaters and high-tech arcades. So this is all OK with the Brooklyn-transplant-hipster-protestors-from-Minnesota but not the condos?! I'm confused. What was so awful and blasphemous about having condos in Coney Island exactly? I can't recall. You are all so dumb.
Gianfranco Ferre, the Italian designer known as the "architect of fashion" for his structured, sculpted shapes and for his groundbreaking tenure at Christian Dior, died Sunday at a hospital in Milan after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage. Giorgio Armani, arguably the king of the "Made in Italy" world to which Ferre also belonged, said he had long admired Ferre's artistic and intellectual work. Ferre himself cut a unique figure, a big teddy bear of a man dressed impeccably in three-piece suits. Donatella Versace called Ferre a man "from another time" who helped change Italian fashion. It's a sad day for crinoline.
Ooooh speaking of Milan... I heard this story over the weekend and I loved it: An airport in Milan had to be shut down for a few hours while some 200 volunteers blew whistles and waved their arms frantically to scare away a giant tribe of wild hares and rabbits who had taken over the runways Hahahahaha! 57 hares and 4 wild rabbits were caught and all transferred to a wildlife preserve. Awwww! There isn't much I love more than a good animals being mischievous story.
30% of Cubans are overweight. Rent still due on the first. AIDS and cancer, still incurable.
A new chip could prove an important step in persuading computer makers to incorporate USB technology. A few wireless USB products are already on the U.S. market, but they send and receive signals over a frequency that isn't legal in most of the world because of potential interference with radar. Chip designer Alereon Inc. said they're releasing the first chip that uses a frequency band that is legal all over the world for wireless USB, a technology with the potential to cut the tangle of cables surrounding computers. Buy Alereon.
New York gossip columnist Claudia Cohen has died.
"Hi. I'll take a caramel frappuccino and this Sonic Youth CD, oooh and these madelines, too."

21 June 2007

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