February 2004 Archives

Run, 50 Cent, run! Run for elected office, that is.

On a personal level, a run would allow Jackson to erase some of the moral degradation he has perpetuated. His lyrics, which mainly heap praise on violence and sexuality, consistently offend women and homosexuals. According to The Elements, he plans to star in a pornographic film while contemplating a council run. Tentatively called "Groupie Luv," the documentary will chronicle the sexual exploits of his rap group as it tours the country, the Web site said. Viewers of the DVD production will be able to pick groupies for members of 50 Cent’s group to have sex with, it said.

I hope he runs and makes the documentary. Wouldn't you watch something called "Groupie Luv"? You know you would. And you know the campaign rallies would be so awesome: barely dressed hos gyrating at the back of the stage while he raps about public policy.

I like how in this AP interview Norah Jones says she's nervous about appearing on "The Daily Show" to chat with Jon Stewart because "[she's] afraid I'm going to say something stupid" and then a few paragraphs later says, "'I've always loved to read, but sometimes I go for a year without reading a book because I forget to, or I don't have a book that I can get into easily."

Hey, where's her Celebrity READ poster for the ALA? If she's having trouble picking books out, maybe she can borrow something to read from Britney...

From David Gibson's "What Did Jesus Look Like?":

Whatever arguments there may be about the verisimilitude of Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of the Christ," one thing is certain: this Jesus is a Hollywood hunk who probably bears little resemblance to what the Jesus of history looked like.

The title role is played by Jim Caviezel, a dark-haired, blue-eyed star whose brooding good looks have been compared to those of Montgomery Clift. He doesn't exactly fit the archaeological evidence that the average man of Jesus' day was about 5 feet 3 inches tall and a bantamlike 110 pounds. Given the harsh conditions, especially for working stiffs like the members of Jesus' family, combined with Jesus' ascetic lifestyle, which included walking everywhere, scholars agree that he was most likely a rather sinewy peasant, as tough as a root and about as appealing.

Interesting reading, even if (or maybe especially if) like me you don't believe Jesus probably ever even existed.

Anyway, surely I can't be the only person who took one look at the NYT-commissioned portrait of a first-century Semitic man and thought, "Hey, that looks just like Dave Attell!"?

You can see "Insomniac with Dave Attell" on Comedy Central most late nights, get The Best of Insomniac Uncensored Volumes 1 and 2 on DVD or read The Onion A.V. Club's interview with him from February 2003. You can see Mel Gibson's new movie in theaters now—but why bother?

The Morning News points out that yesterday was the fifteenth anniversary of when "Pete Martell discovered the nude body of homecoming queen Laura Palmer 'wra-a-a-pped in plastic.'"

This makes me feel almost as old as the time I realized during my last semester of college that every other student in my duckpin bowling class was younger than the t-shirt I was wearing.

In case you've been wondering what Pamela Anderson's been up to lately, here's the news straight from the horse's mouth:

[She's] working on two books to be published by Atria, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. The first—titled "From the Waist Up"—will be released this summer, she said.

"Small-town girl comes to California, falls into a lot of different traps here and there, shoots for a very sexy magazine, meets powerful men. It's fiction!" she said, laughing.

Okay, I think Anderson is much smarter than people give her credit for—and you'd agree, if you'd ever seen "V.I.P."—but the next Carrie Fisher? I think not.

In the future, many, many years of hard work by highly-paid reproductive scientists finally make it possible for a gay man and a post-menopausal diva to finally reproduce. Only the strange, strange product of their strange, strange love was unhappy growing up in the shadow of his strange, strange parents and wanted to live, if not a normal life, then one where he could at least make something of himself without always having "the son of" appended to his name, but it seemed to be an impossible dream.

He knew from the photos scattered around his family home that the scarred recluse who lived in their pool house was once a very famous man who ruined his life having surgery after failed surgery in the attempt to make himself over in the glamorous image of his mother. He always pitied this poor, broken thing, until he realized just how exploiting his own resemblance to his mother could change his life. Until the day he realized the only place he could ever be anything other than "the son of" was... the past. *cue dramatic music*

Long story short, he murdered his parents to get his inheritance a little earlier, used the money to fund time travel research and escaped to 1986 as soon as he could, to murder their house guest while he was still successful and take his life over. This explains both Michael Jackson's horrendous visage of recent years (not so much the result of misguided plastic surgery as attempts to save him from the ugly side effects of experimental time travel) and why Bad wasn't quite as good as Thriller.

And no, I'm not doing drugs. No, really.

I read about the crazy ass David Gest/Diana Ross rumor on Gawker and watched this unfold in my dreams Thursday night. So it's all Choire's fault.

Also, my favorite comment so far about this rumor is from this page, by Doom Nation:

Naw lady, everybody dosen't know Ms Ross is strictly dickly. Do you really know? We do know that she's dramatically drunkally. She's been out there in Hollywood. Who's knows if she's had girlz under her hood. She could be into experimentation. Maybe this Gest guy is swinging big time wood. Don't let looks decieve you. I've read that Gest is a revitalizer of has beens. Maybe Ms Ross is trying to make a comeback. I could see this; Ms Ross sings the national anthem at the Master's and Gest walks by and pulls off her bra exposing silicon enchanced tities. Sorry folks but Ms Ross is doomed

update: Brad points out Best Week Ever also arrived at the formula—but not the accompanying story. That particular craziness is mine, all mine.

lia: the sex & the city finale was corny and predictable except for miranda's storyline
lia: but what the hell, i cried anyway.
mollie: Oh I want to know, but I don't! I think if it doesn't end like I want it to, I won't be able to watch the last season.
lia: it probably will. i think it probably ends the way most everyone wants it to end.
lia: unless you wanted it to end with much bloodshed and zombies, like resident evil, in which case you are out of luck. sorry, johnny 13!

Speaking of hate, I like this 2001 interview with Kelis where she speaks about speaking about hate:

drDrew.com: What's interesting to me is that you sing "I hate you so much right now."
K: That's important, that's really important. No one ever notices that, but that's so fucking key; it's not forever. I say it all the time. It's that momentary feeling and it's a feeling of outrage. People say that hate is a really strong word and it is. "Right now" makes it so real. You can be in love with someone and at that moment you can hate them because of something that they've done or something they've said or however they've made you feel. Sometimes we don't say it because it's like, "Oh, I really love this person.' Fuck that: You've pissed me off really bad and I hate you right now. I can't say it any better.

If you've missed the reference, check out the lyrics to "Caught Out There" off her 1999 debut Kaleidoscope. Frankly that song terrifies me, although it's great to listen to when you're pissed off. Having said that, I'm not really a fan of hers although I think her current single "Milkshake" is an excellent piece of work. If you haven't seen the video for it yet, now's your chance.

"If you have not installed Microsoft Office v. X 10.1.2 Update and Microsoft Exchange Update for Entourage® X (Office v. X 10.1.4 Update), you must do so before installing Microsoft Office v. X 10.1.5 Update."

Why can't the 10.1.5 update just include all the updates that came before or come in a flavor that does, instead of forcing me to download and install each update individually? Oh Microsoft, I hate you so much right now.

I don't knit and have no interest in it—although I have lots of friends that do, even one that does it professionally—but even so I was blown away by Steriogram's new video for "Walkie Talkie Man", which is stop motion animation made entirely out of knitting. Knitting!

It was, of course, done by my favorite music video director, Michel Gondry, and is stop motion animation just like his video for The White Stripes' "Fell in Love With a Girl" only this time with everything knit instead of created with Legos. Both are great but my top five of all the music videos he's ever done are:

5. Lucas, "Lucas With the Lid Off"
4. Massive Attack, "Protection"
3. Foo Fighters, "Everlong"
2. Björk, "Bachelorette"
1. Radiohead, "Knives Out"

You can see all five of those videos and many more including the other five he's done for Björk, some short films and commercials on the double DVD The Work of Director Michel Gondry , which also comes with a 52-page book of his drawings and stories.

Jolography collects the poems which won Paolo Manalo First Prize for Poetry in English at the 2002 Palanca Awards, as well as a special B-Side: an assortment of pieces in various genres, which includes the widely-circulated essay "Being the True, the Good, the Beautiful and Definitive Meaning of 'Jologs' (or When is the Squattah Not the Othah)."

Published by the University of the Philippines Press, Jolography comes in two editions: PLAIN SUCKY PAPER (the one available from National Bookstore and Power Books) and BETTER PAPER (available at the book launching). Cover designed by Melvin de los Santos.

Jolography will be launched on February 10, 2004, 5 p.m. at Cravings Katipunan Avenue together with the short story collections of Rosario Cruz Lucero (Feast and Famine: Stories of Negros) and Romina M. Gonzalez (Welostit and Other Stories).

Dateline NBC! This Friday at 8 p.m.! David Gest talks about Liza Minnelli!

I AM SO ALL OVER THIS.

My favorite part from his press release:

Inside sources claim that "this is one show that should not be seen by children." It could have an adverse effect on children as Gest receives around 80 shots with 4-inch needles in the eyebrows, front and back of ears, forehead, head and neck in front of interviewer Stone Phillips and the Dateline staff.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm pretty sure David Gest's face is a danger to not just children but to every sighted human being.

(And that's without the 4-inch needles and, more terrifyingly, with the pounds of foundation trowelled onto it every day.)

In case you've forgetten all the tawdry details: check out David's lawsuit against Liza and Liza's countersuit. Or go even further back to happier days and view their infamous wedding photo, also starring Michael Jackson and Liz Taylor. And then of course, there's Entertainment Weekly's photo of Jack Black and Will Ferrell as David and Liza.

I know I keep saying that there will be changes on this site soon and then nothing happens but I really mean it this time. Really. Just you all wait.

And now, mainly to shamelessly pander to Jen Chung, here's a detailed transcript of a recent conversation in my apartment:

Lia: Jarvis! You are fat! I love you!
Jarvis: Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Congratulations to Gerry Kaimo of PLDT.com, who just won the four-year long court case brought against him by Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co.

Here's hoping his P50 million countersuit prospers, or at the very least causes them just as much embarassment and money as the first one has!

Hello readers of today's New York Post!

I'd like to point out that it took the photographer over thirty minutes to get a shot of me doing anything other than smiling. The article was supposed to run two weeks ago and the NY Post being the NY Post it was supposed to be very alarmist, so they wanted a shot where I looked SCARED—as in, "OMG! I have this blog! And I'm terrified of it!" but I wouldn't do it. The main reason I agreed to the photo shoot was so they would have no choice but to run my "there's a downside to leading a public life but it's worth it for me" quotes.

Having said that, I love Hep of ljdrama's last quote:

"People think just because it has the word 'journal' in the title, that [a blog] should be treated like a paper journal that you keep under their bed," she says. "But it's on the Internet! I don't have any pity for these people."

I've never understood the people who put their lives on display online and then whine about the attention they get—if you want something private then keep it to your damn self. Blogging is inherently exhibitionist and if you can't deal with the consequences, you shouldn't be doing it. If you're determined to do it anyway, then suck it up. And good luck to you!

I'd also like to note that a) I'm probably the first person to get their picture in the Post wearing a Margaret Cho t-shirt (Viva la revolucion!) and b) the blog in the photo is randomWalks, the progressive issues blog I contribute to along with a group of like-minded friends. cheesedip.com had too much white space for the photographer's purposes.