The Grouchy Editor

Life’s Little Irritants

We all hate commercials, but there is one species of advertising that is especially insidious:  the jingle commercial.

I can easily tune out most TV ads.  Some familiar pitch will show up on the screen, and I’ll go back to reading my newspaper.  But ignoring the jingle commercial is next to impossible.  You can be out in the garage, or enjoying a constitutional in the john, and suddenly the hair-raising strains of Neil Patrick Harris crooning “like an angel” for Xfinity will set your ears on fire.  You might be outside mowing the lawn when the gag-inducing “Nationwide is on your side” will drift out the window and infuse you with a desire to disassemble the blades from your mower and use them to slit your own throat.

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Showtime had a free preview, so I tuned in.  With a few exceptions, including The Big C, Showtime has the same problem today that it had 20 years ago, back when I was a subscriber:  Crappy programs.  There are simply way, way too many straight-to-video-caliber movies.

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I’m sorry, but American audiences are like trained seals.  Why on earth do we feel compelled to applaud:  1) the chorus-line kick; 2) people who reach old age; and 3) couples who have been married a long time?

The Rockettes’ high kick doesn’t look particularly challenging.  For all you know, that old geezer you’re applauding could be a lifelong child molester.  The married couple might have endured 50 miserable years together.  But like those trained seals, give us our cue and we’ll applaud.

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Funny guys who strike me as funny only when I channel my inner 12-year-old — and sometimes not even then:  Zach Galifianakis, Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Tim Allen, and most of the cast of Saturday Night Live.

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Life’s Little Joys

If you blog long enough, eventually some sort-of-celebrity will leave you a visitor comment.  I have had two such comments at the “Weekly Review,” one of them complimentary, and the other … not so much.  But thank you, Liz Sklar (above left) and Debi Sue Voorhees (above right).

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I don’t know.  I think police might have screwed up when they arrested this guy.  Seriously, does he look like the type who would shoot at an airplane?

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Institutional Fails

The Press

Years ago, a tabloid published a picture of Arnold Schwarzenegger groping an obviously underage Asian girl.  The future governor of California was standing behind the girl, grinning as he reached around her and fondled her breasts with his two gigantic paws. The girl’s eyes said, “I can’t believe he’s doing this.”

Yesterday, I did a Web search for the picture but couldn’t find it, which seemed odd because it was on the Internet in the past.  What’s even stranger is the absolute failure of the press to cover Arnold’s decades-long sexual shenanigans.  The L.A. Times did publish an expose in 2003.  There was also an article in Premiere in 2001.  Somehow, most of this stuff has vanished from the public eye.

The Court System

Lindsay Lohan gets sentenced to two weeks of house arrest.  Poor thing.  Next time I get arrested, I want to be sentenced to a stay in a palatial estate, too.  No wonder so many people have no respect for our criminal justice system.

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Things I managed to (mostly) avoid this week:  Oprah, American Idol, the Casey Anthony trial.

But it’s hard to overlook the pictures of accused child-killer Anthony that are circulating on the Web, so here’s another look.

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This, uh, “guy” has been making the talk-show rounds, promoting his/her book, Transition.  I didn’t quite know what to expect from the former daughter of Sonny and Cher, but now I do:  Chaz Bono (pictured here with girlfriend Jennifer Elia) seems to be one of the most well-adjusted, affable, funny, and intelligent blokes you might ever have the pleasure of meeting.

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THE END OF

THE WORLD 

The world ends today, so don’t feel obligated to read this post.  Have a beer, instead — if you have time.

I had a feeling something like this was going to happen because the other night I watched an obscure 1960s movie called Twisted Nerve, and in it Hayley Mills sees a man’s penis in the woods.  The moment I saw that scene, I knew the world must be ending.  I mean … Pollyanna?

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Crazy Chicks Edition

“Yes, it improved the way I look, but this surgery was necessary for medical reasons.” — role model Bristol Palin, 20, explaining the plastic surgery that gave her a new face.  Right, Bristol.  Your surgery had nothing to do with your new career as a reality TV star.  Did you learn how to lie from your mother?

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The older I get, the less crazy that Shirley MacLaine seems to me.  Shirley is now promoting her new book, I’m Over All That, but I’m going to read the book that initially crowned her Queen of the Flakes back in the ’80s, Out on a Limb.  Reincarnation?  UFOs?  Hey, you got any better ideas?

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Correction:  It appears we committed a grievous error in the March 13 edition of the “Weekly Review.”  Apparently we misidentified Kate Middleton’s royal rump.  It now appears that the bikinied bottom we reproduced belongs to Middleton’s wild-and-crazy sister Pippa.  We apologize to Kate’s arse, and to Pippa’s arse, which is rising in popularity now that it has its own Twitter account:

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Hilary Swank is a movie star who, let’s face it, is not blessed with movie-star looks.  But L.A. radio host Kim Masters was a bit harsh when she told Swank, “[Meryl Streep] is not a pretty girl, and you’re not either.”  Swank took the insult in good humor.  Good on Swank, bad on Masters.

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Media Bullshit of the Week:  David Letterman (age 64), Chris Matthews (age 65) and other TV knuckleheads have been calling the late Osama bin Laden “old.”  Bin Laden was born in 1957.  It is scientifically, socially, and journalistically not possible for anyone born in 1957 to be “old.”

Now get off my lawn.

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Is there anyone more physically repulsive than the American politician?  Someone, I forget who, once said that the average politico is an egotist too homely to go into acting, so he (or she) pursues public service instead.  Anything for attention.

What makes the politician even more repellent is his vanity — these guys, cringe-inducing as they are, actually believe that they are attractive.  This is made possible because they have power.  People will overlook a pile of feces in the street if there’s money buried beneath it.

I am ranting about this because I just watched a politician named “Dutch” Ruppersberger on the news, and I didn’t hear a thing he was saying because I was too distracted by the ridiculous toupee on his ancient pate.  Is no one in this guy’s inner circle courageous enough to tell him he’s making an ass of himself?

To me, the hands-down winner of any Ugly on a Stick competition has to be Newt Gingrich:  fat, smarmy, scrunch-faced, slit-eyed and with an attitude that says, “Tom Cruise, eat your heart out!”  Would the nation ever recover from a president this ugly?

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We can’t conclude this week’s “Review” on such an ugly note, so let’s forget about politicians and instead remember Yvette Vickers, the Playboy Playmate who, sadly, was discovered dead and mummified in her California home last week.  Here is Yvette back in her 1950s Playboy glory days:

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Cheers & Jeers

Cheers to South Park — Your season-opening spoof of Steve Jobs and The Human Centipede was pure genius.

Jeers to Catholics — You are telling the world that John Paul II, a sick puppy who presided over years of pedophile cover-ups, is worthy of sainthood?

Cheers to “high” gas prices — They aren’t really that high (ask Europeans).  Americans are whining because it costs too much to fill up their SUVs, trucks and minivans — vehicles they don’t “need,” but selfishly “want.”

Jeers to Beyoncé — She debuts “God Bless the USA” on Piers Morgan’s show.  Gosh, is she really all that patriotic?  Or could this be image rehab after word leaked about her million-dollar show for Gaddafi?

Cheers to the blowback on Donald Trump — This pompous ass, who owes everything he’s got to a rich daddy, proves he can dish it out but wilts like a pansy when anyone pushes back.

Jeers to gay marriage — This is all about money, folks.  Gays want the same tax breaks and other advantages that hetero couples enjoy.  So do I.  But until the gay community stands up for singles — straight and gay — I have no reason to support their push for a bigger piece of the economic pie.

Cheers to The Dirty Dozen — Women who scratch their heads over that scene in Sleepless in Seattle — you know, when Tom Hanks and that other guy wax nostalgic about The Dirty Dozen — might have a clue now, thanks to the bin Laden raid.

Jeers to Charles Schwab commercials, especially the one featuring that “vineyard” jerk.  Angry white men whining like two-year-olds — just stop it.

Jeers to me, an angry white man whining like a two-year-old. 

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The British Are Coming — Again!

I have mixed feelings about the Brits.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, gave the world better theater (Shakespeare), music (The Beatles), movies (Hitchcock), and literature (too many to mention).  But the sun has set on the empire, and the English seem to be having difficulty coping with that fact.   For example:

The Royal Wedding

I got up early on Friday to take in the pomp and circumstance.  It was worth it.  I felt like I was watching a movie — Excalibur comes to mind.  Westminster Abbey was breathtaking — and normally I use that adjective only before nouns like “female” and “buttocks.”  The music was dramatic, there was genuine tension in the air (would Prince Harry hit on Kate’s cute sister?), and it was great fun to see ancient poops like Queen Elizabeth, Prince Philip, and of course Elton John.

But the wedding was also an enormous joke.  As Jerry Seinfeld would say, this was England putting on a show, trying to convince the rest of us that these royal idiots somehow still matter.  They do not — unless you are some 18-year-old royal guardsman who foolishly called Kate “a stupid stuck-up cow” and a “posh bitch” on the Internet.

Making matters worse was CNN’s bonehead-in-chief Piers Morgan, who declared that the nuptials of His Toothiness and his Bovine Bride signaled that “the monarchy is back!”

As an American, I really shouldn’t care about any of this.  Problem is, the British were sending a message to little girls everywhere , including American girls, that it is the wedding — not the marriage — that matters most.

Harry Potter

I finally got around to watching part one of the final Harry Potter movie, and it was as sluggish and dull as I had feared.  The blame for this must go to director David Yates who, as a critic for Eclipse magazine points out, “completely sucked the magic out of this franchise.”  Since Yates took over with Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the series has turned into a very handsome but empty experience.

The King’s Speech

It seems that a lot of folks are falling for movie-studio bullshit that this film is based “on a true story.”  That’s a load of hogwarts.  The stuttering part is accurate, but the deification of King George as played by Colin Firth is a crock of crumpets.  If you need proof, it can be found in this essay that Christopher Hitchens penned for Slate.

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I’ve said it before:  There is only one current comic strip that qualifies as truly funny — Tony Carrillo’s brilliant F Minus.

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I guess this video of a train running smack-dab through the middle of a crowded market in Bangkok has been around for awhile on YouTube, but I just discovered it.  You should too.  For a sampler (there are numerous videos), click here.

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Mel Gibson’s new Jodie Foster-directed movie The Beaver premieres next week.  I have not, of course, seen the movie, but I did not let that stop me from posting a review on Rotten Tomatoes.  The response from scores of “tomato heads” was lively. Click here to read my “review” and their comments.

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I complain about American women who gush over anything and everything the Brits call “royal.”  The British monarchy and everything surrounding it belong in a museum.  However … every fall, American women are subjected to a (mostly) male ritual called the National Football League, which, if I’m objective about it, which I have a hard time being, also belongs in some museum.  So this upcoming wedding?  Knock yourself out, ladies.

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I rarely fly, so I am finding this whole air-traffic-controller flap quite entertaining.  I am also amused by screaming babies, delayed flights, and lost luggage.  LOL!

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Here is a picture of some chick and her butt.  I don’t know who she is, and I simply don’t care.

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Quote of the Week Number 1:  “I’m not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, you know, moral values while you’re diddling your secretary, while you’re giving a speech on moral values.  Come on, get off of it.” — former Sen. Alan Simpson. 

Quote of the Week Number 2:  “That’s all you need.” — Walter Breuning, at age 114 the world’s oldest man until he died Thursday, stating his belief that people should get by on just two meals a day.

Quote of the Week Number 3:  “These aren’t special people.” — comedian Jerry Seinfeld dissing British royals and the circus atmosphere of the upcoming nuptials. 

Quote of the Week Number 4:  “Life is just a game.  When we get too serious about it, we fail.” — tweet from Kirstie Alley, who has never been a struggling single mother with two part-time jobs.

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Gold Diggers of the Week, Part 1:  An appeals court ruled that Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss cannot undo their 2008 settlement with Mark Zuckerberg, which gave the twin brothers a $20 million cash payment and part-ownership of Facebook.

CNN legal analyst Sunny Hostin gushed to Brooke Baldwin — twice — that the court ruling was too bad because the Winklevoss boys are so “cute.”  To this humble reporter, the twins look more Herman Munster than cute.

Gold Diggers of the Week, Part 2:  Jenn Sterger, who decided her silence about Brett Favre and Penisgate had gone on long enough.  Who will show this former Playboy model the money?

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Whiner of the Week:  Justin Bieber tweeting about pesky photographers during a layover in Israel:  “You would think paparazzi would have some respect in holy places.  All I wanted was the chance to walk where Jesus did here in Israel.”

Justin might have been distraught after news broke that tween sensation Rebecca Black’s “Friday” reached 100 million views on YouTube.

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Asshole of the Week:  Republican Paul Ryan.  Just because.

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Headline of the Week:

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Poor Housing Choice of the Week:  Trailers.  God must really, really hate trailers.

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I had to laugh at Southwest Airlines and the passengers aboard a Boeing 737 last week when a hole suddenly opened in the roof of the cabin.  The passengers, although unhurt, were terrified.  Good.  That makes me smile.  Why am I so tickled?

Because it turns out that in the old days, safety inspectors could detect “micro-cracks” in the fuselage by the appearance of nicotine stains around the cracks.  When airlines banned smoking, the stains disappeared, making the job of inspectors that much more difficult.

Gasped an incredulous Megyn Kelly on Fox News, “In a way, we were safer when people were smoking on the airplanes?” Replied a news correspondent: “In a way, we were.”

Said blogger Emile Husson on Over the Horizon: “It makes you wonder how many times second-hand smoke has saved the lives of airline passengers.”

Amen.

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Apparently, most people are more concerned about the looming NFL lockout.  At least we have our priorities in order.

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I generally admire MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, but if she wants to expand her ratings, she needs to spend less time catering to her base with pet projects like gays in the military, The Defense of Marriage Act, and other issues that, really, affect just a miniscule percent of the population.

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Good riddance, Katie Couric.  The anchor role, for better or worse, demands a certain gravitas, not this perky “look at me, mom!” cheerleader persona that Couric projects.  And in case you consider that a sexist slam at female anchors, I believe that Diane Sawyer has the right stuff over at ABC.

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Eva Longoria on David Letterman’s show:  Wow.  Now that is a sexist comment.

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This picture of Jack Nicholson in The Shining has nothing to do with anything.  We just like it.

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10 Things I Hate About Dhue.  And Drew.  And Cutesy-Cutesy Coo.

1)   Two little critics, sitting in a tree …  This is from an Associated Press review of The Kennedys:  “A cautionary note to those who may have feared (or hoped) this docudrama would engage in Kennedy-bashing:  The Kennedys is a flattering, even affectionate portrayal.”

This is from Entertainment Weekly, reviewing the same miniseries:  “It’s a cobbled-together, mean-spirited piece of work that can’t help alienating viewers, whether you venerate the Kennedys or dislike them.”

2)   Trendy, cloying new word that needs to go away  —  “ginormous”

3)   On the Whole, I’d Rather Be in Philadelphia.  I don’t understand the fuss over Colombian soccer fans who brought a corpse to a recent match.  This kind of thing is old hat.  Hollywood legend has it that Errol Flynn came home one night to find the body of the recently deceased John Barrymore propped in a living room chair, apparently ready to play cards.  And then there is Fox News, which regularly showcases a cadaver named Charles Krauthammer.

4)  Bank bullshit.  My nominee for soul-sucking, unfunny commercials of the week:  the hideous spots for Ally Bank that try to convince us that people “love” their banks.  Sure we do.  And I am in lust with my social security card.

5)   Told ya so.  Entertainment Weekly asked if voters for Best Actress might have thought twice about choosing Natalie Portman, had they been aware of her minimal dancing in Black Swan.  Said one Academy member, “It would have mattered a lot.”

6)  Refreshing celebrity quote of the week:  “I feel guilty about everything.  I carry lots of guilt.” — Rod Stewart

7)   Dhue-dah, Drew-dah.  There was more preaching on Joy Behar’s show, this time by fill-in host Laurie Dhue (above), who felt compelled to inform viewers not once, not twice, but at least four times that she is a recovering, “high-functioning” alcoholic.  Dhue then offered her expert medical analysis of Charlie Sheen, much to the nodding approval of her guest, the egotistical Drew Pinsky.  Dhue and Drew both work for CNN, which is owned by Time Warner, which is being sued by Sheen.  Conflict of interest, anyone?

8)   Grrrrr.  Anderson Cooper doesn’t seem to know the difference between gravitas and grouchiness.  I can’t watch him for more than five minutes without feeling like grandma is lecturing me about my personal hygiene.

9)   Let’s ship him overseas.  The Donald told Bill O’Reilly that there are too many government regulations.  A mere ten minutes after that, Donald informed us that he has personally witnessed many business honchos doctoring financial documents.  God forbid we keep an eye on those crooks, right Donald?

10)   Grumpy Old Man.  O’Reilly has been relentlessly hammering General Electric for not paying taxes.  He’d have more credibility on this issue if he didn’t harbor such a grudge against NBC — a GE company.

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You know you’re pussy-whipped when this is how you spend your vacation.

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