I don't think it's better than Life Aquatic (which for me came surprisingly - but still distantly - close to Rushmore) Wes Anderson's American Express commercial is pretty badass. Definitely better than that M. Night Shabadoo one.

(via 9rules)

Nothing like a cold, rainy day to lay on the couch, teach yourself Illustrator, watch Veronica Mars, and eat a humongous block of fudge.

Yeah, I know, I'm being slothful and unproductive as fuck, but cut me some slack. Last week I got swindled by a hobo, and I'm still recovering.

I still don't get it.

This is rich:

A Spanish rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" is causing a growing chorus of controversy. [...]

While some Americans are embracing the song. For others, the song is striking a sour note, among them President Bush.

During a Rose Garden question-and-answer session today Bush responded to the controversy saying, "I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And, I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English."

Thankfully, people who want to run this country are only required to learn mushmouth.

Oh, and if he really thinks people who want to be American citizens should learn English, to whom were all his Spanish-language campaign ads addressed?

I ceased watching Gilmore Girls pretty much right after this season started, writing it off as officially too annoying to be watched unmuted. Hearing the news from a couple weeks ago that show creators/runners Amy and Daniel Palladino won't be back in fall was, I thought, the final nail in the coffin. But learning about the guy that's too replace them, I don't know. The final season could be really, really good.

Rosenthal had in fact written a play called "Love" about his quest to get supermodel Heidi Klum to have sex with him. Reviews of the play, which apparently contained so many profanities that it rated an NC-17, were not kind. The New York Times called Rosenthal's play "not only offensive but incompetent" and said that the way that Rosenthal talked about Klum--whom he had met during a guest stint on Rosenthal's show Spin City--was "as cruel and disgusting as actual stalking."

The New York Times reviewer wasn't the only one perturbed by Rosenthal's play. Rosenthal had sent copies to his then agents at Endeavor--Ari Emanuel and Richard Weitz--who promptly dropped him as a client. His rabbi father, after reading the play, had Rosenthal briefly committed at UCLA Medical Center.

It's almost as good as when they got Charles Manson to write an episode of Maude.

(via Defamer)

Remember in that previous post when I said I'd post pictures of the whirlwind weekend Joy and I spent in Duluth...unless I was too lazy? Well, guess what. Not one picture got taken up there. There were some pretty views, to be sure, I guess just nothing that warranted getting the Canon out of Joy's purse. It would have been nice to snap a few shots at the Sedaris reading, but unfortunately, photography was banned. What a diva.

Speaking of the Sedaris event, it was pretty badass. He read some classics and some stuff I'd never heard/seen before, recommended a book he liked, and, if I'm not mistaken, engaged in some product placement: close to when he finished up, Sedaris pulled out some sort of throat drops and said they were great for freshening your breath and keeping your voice. Joy argued that he was just explaining what he had been pouring into his mouth, assuring the audience that it wasn't booze. But I prefer to be cynical.

Before the show Joy bought Holidays on Ice and we got it signed, and I once again proved how terrible I am at any sort of small talk. He asked where we were from, and exclaimed at the distance when we answered Minneapolis. I tried to make a joke about how his reading probably wouldn't be worth driving up for, but that we were making a weeekend out of it. It came out all wrong, and I think he either didn't get it or was genuinely insulted. Then he asked where we were staying and we said the Radisson (by the way, don't ever stay at the Duluth Radisson) and I mentioned that it had a rotating restaurant (FYI, it's nauseating) and he made an odd face and went, "Ooh hoo hoo!" And then we were done.

The next day we went and had an awesome breakfast at this place called the Amazing Grace Cafe. Then we hit up a few antique stores, walked a little by Lake Superior, and bought some fudge. All this actually managed to tire us out, so went back to our room for a nap...and actually managed to over sleep the Al Franken speech. By the time we got down to where the street festival was taking place, there were just a few people milling about, and the act on stage appeared to be some sort of stripping grandma. The only vendor left was selling bongs.

That night we had a decent dinner (though they brought Joy something different than what she ordered, and some good wine - we're still debating how far gone Joy was after the glass she drank.

Overall, Duluth is a fine town, and the weekend was a lot of fun; but I don't think I'll be in any hurry to go back. As it is, many of the restaurants and stores up there already exist in Minneapolis.

Let it be known that I'm *this* close to having what it takes to become a teen heartthrob.

Shaggy hair? Check.
Dreamy eyes? Yup.
Celebrity friends? I know cartoon writers, men-about-town, naked truckers. I'm attached, but that never hurt J-Tim or ChaMiMu.
Multi-talented? Actor-singer-writer-dancer-temp.
Dancer? See above.
Fashion sense? Tss.
Physical & Athletic? 6'0". 160 lbs. You do the math.
Interesting name? It means 'white bread'.
Good memory? Great storyteller? I'm like an elephant times Hemingway.
Poseur? I have the power to make you swoon.
Clean-cut? The list of standard adult experiences I've never had is unending. I'm like a baby after a bris: totally clean, totally cut.

So when do I get my recording contract and spread in Tiger Beat?

While walking around Barnes and Noble with a druuunk Joy (more on that later), I came across the funniest book I've seen in a long time.

Joy and I are in Duluth this weekend. Tonight's David Sedaris, the rest of the weekend is...open. There's some sort of democracy street festival tomorrow, Al Franken's going to be there. Hopefully we'll get to see that some. Plus there's a big aquarium. If I'm not too lazy, look for pictures of all this next week.

Oh, before I go, yesterday I went to this thing at Shinders with Jeffrey Brown and Nick Harmer (the bass player from Death Cab For Cutie). They were primarily there to sign this new Death Cab DVD which I guess has an animated short by Mr. Brown. I got one, and a copy of JB's new book. Haven't really gone over either too closely, but you know anything he does has got to be good.

Anyway, when I got there the artist was chatting with someone else, so I started up some small talk with the bassist, mentioning how I'd met him at ComicCon a couple of years ago through GR's Martin. He said he remembered, which I don't believe; but I admire his kindness in handling the situation.

Sad news...Arthur Lee has leukemia. I hope he pulls through, and that these benefits go on and help him pay for everything...but we'll always have Forever Changes, which remains hands down one of the greatest albums of all time (despite my mom's insistence that it's only worth listening to while high).

I went to Weird War's site to see if they had anything up about this (their predecessor, best-band-ever mAKE-UP, had "Free Arthur Lee" and a FC-inspired logo). They didn't, but I did discover that 1) guitar virtuoso Alex Minoff has groomed a bangin' new moustache, and 2) they are into some wild shit.

And then, looking for stuff on Minoff, I found that Golden, the best most underrated band in the world, has a new album coming out! Sort of...check it out, it looks pretty cool. And by pretty cool I meant absolutely incredible.

Now wait...there are actual people at the Associated Press whose job it is to write synopses of TV episodes?

Saddam trial update: while the big news is of course that Hussein wore a "grey suit and white shirt" to court, running a distant second is that

The chief judge in the trial of Saddam Hussein has ruled that signatures linking the ousted Iraqi leader to a massacre in the 1980s were "authentic."

Having gotten hold of a copy of the document in question, I gotta say: the signer has to be Hussein. Check it out:

Though I don't think it's as bad as the daily drive in Los Angeles:

Rebecca Huston, 32, was last heard from last Wednesday evening. Friends and family began searching for her after she failed to show up for work at a veterinary clinic in Richland.

A landfill employee at the Ukiah Transfer Station in Ukiah, Calif., about 100 miles north of San Francisco on Highway 101, saw Huston's feet sticking out from a garbage pile Tuesday morning. [...]

Huston told sheriff's deputies in Mendocino County, Calif., that she was driving to work Thursday morning when a man wearing a ski mask and carrying a gun climbed into her car, demanding that she drive south. The next four nights, she told deputies, they drove through Washington, Oregon and California. They stopped occasionally at rest stops and service stations.

She told police the man forced her into a trash bin Monday night and told her not to get out. The container was emptied into a county garbage truck and the trash was transported to the landfill. [...]

[Kennewick Detective Sgt. Randy] Maynard said it wasn't clear if Huston was knocked unconscious or had fallen asleep when she went into the trash bin. There was no indication she had been assaulted.

I hate to make light of what happened to this poor woman - it must have been truly terrifying - but doesn't the whole thing strike you as slightly cartoonish? A carjacker makes a woman get into a trash bin? And she stays there as it's lifted into a garbage truck? And a landfill worker just sees two feet sticking out of a big pile of trash? And the woman's friend's reaction is one of those things where you know what she means, but unparsed it sounds sort of strange:

"I'm pretty overwhelmed emotionally," Tere Page, Huston's friend and former co-worker, said of her discovery. "This is the best news I've had in years."

It seems to me akin to this:

Police person: We found Brian, buried under a huge pile of trash.
Brian's friend: Oh thank God.

I guess I should have tried keeping up a blog for a couple weeks before I wrote to everyone I knew saying I was blogging again. Oh well. I've been busy - eating out, putting together furniture, you know how it goes. Not contributing to future successes in any way, but busy just the same. I'll try and be better this week.

Oh man...so yesterday I had the greatest of intentions, to spend my Sunday morning researching and writing some really insightful blog posts on current events. But somehow or other, the chain of news articles I read lead me to this program that helps you automatically import album art into iTunes. So what did I end up spending the whole day doing? Uh-huh, that. I guess you can take comfort in the fact that, though you have little to read here, I'm able to look at the covert art for an album for which I'm already quite familiar with the cover art while I'm listening to it.

Sadly, though, I think I've missed the boat on one of the things I was going to write about: that Seymour Hersh article about our executive branch's intentions for Iran. Unless you've been too busy watching 8th and Ocean marathons on MTV, you're probably quite familiar with the story and its current status as "wild speculation!"

Also, I've decided I'm not very happy with the design of this site. So it'll probably change again before too long.

For anyone curious, I refuse to dignify the Simpsons movie that's on the way with an actual post.

Prove me wrong, Groening, prove me wrong.

Did you hear? Jerry Lewis is going to be on Law & Order: SVU (that's the L&O that isn't the one that used to be good, or the one that got canceled, or the one on which Vincent D'Onofrio plays a ghost). He'll be portraying a hobo, but, unfortunately, not one dressed up like a clown at a concentration camp.

I still don't understand why Jerry Lewis not being funny is news. He's been not funny for decades!

Reason number infinity why Superdickery is my favorite website. If you get me this toy I'll be your friend forever.

(via Defamer)

So now John McTiernan's caught up in the only-interesting-in-LA Anthony Pellicano (whom I first read about ten years ago in a great Spy magazine piece about the National Enquirer) wiretap investigation.

McTiernan's arguably the greatest action director of our time. Not that all his films are classics. In fact, a good handful of them (Last Action Hero, The 13th Warrior, Rollerball) are real doozies. Overall, I'd say he's batted around .300. But the good ones he's done are so good: Die Hard; Hunt For Red October; and the greatest Vietnam War movie ever, Predator. Die Hard With a Vengeance, while not brilliant, might be the greatest non-Star Wars third-in-a-trilogy.

I guess I'm not really going anywhere with this. I don't plan on starting up a vigil for the guy, won't be driving the Ford Bronco for him. If he lied to the feds, there's a penalty for that. Really, the whole point of this post was just to point out how much Mr. McT (see picture at first link) looks like Henry Gibson.

Aren't you glad I'm doing this again?

Oh man. Did you hear about this Book of Judas they found? Does the whole Jesus-loving world feel like butt, or what? As it turns out, the guy we all thought ratted out the Lord might have gotten his orders from none other than…the Lord! (Just like in Bulworth.) And I thought people hated me for no reason!

Of course, it could have all been an elaborate ploy to change the mythology about Judas. If I’d done the sort of thing he’s accused of , I’d certainly try to come up with a “my side of things” story that exonerated me, and actually made me out to be something of a hero. I guess what I’m saying is that I feel like there’s a good chance this is the Bible’s I Want to Tell You.

If nothing else, though, Mel Gibson might want to consider re-re-editing The Passion to remove that scene where Judas is taken away by the demons that ate Tony Goldwyn in Ghost.

I’ve been away for a while. After keeping up, more or less, a blog for two years, I…well, I won’t say “burned out”, as if posting links to a website a handful of times a week is at all exhausting. I guess I just lost interest in it. Plus, the only people who were reading the site were people I know, and know well enough to know they keep themselves pretty well-informed of all that my posts regarded. So I took a break.

And now I’m back with this. I doubt much will be different from the last one, though I would like to make the bulk of the posts more substantial than just a link and a line. But we’ll see. Like Joy says, when it comes to blogs, I much prefer designing them to writing in them (speaking of which, let me know what you think of the design).