“It’s All Just a Little Bit of History Repeating”
December 31, 2011 1 Comment
Listen to the lady, she knows of what she sings…
Chelsea Does Doug
December 31, 2011 Leave a comment
I have no proof, but Chelsea Peretti sounds really high on the latest Doug Loves Movies podcast. Maybe that’s just her laugh? The episode itself is about average — steadily enjoyable, not brilliant — but if you’ve ever wondered what the Parks and Rec writer might sound like stoned, check it out.
And for those of you interested in her stand-up, a video after the jump.
Sinead, Present and Past
December 31, 2011 3 Comments
In a week of endings and beginnings, Sinead O’Connor divorced Barry Herridge a scant 18 days after their wedding. The Sun now reports that Sinead searching for marijuana on their wedding night might have helped precipitate the split. Herridge is a drug counselor.
I can’t think of Sinead without remembering her 1992 appearance on Saturday Night Live, when she sang the song “War” and ripped up a picture of the Pope at the end of the set. You can hear one lone audience member start to clap before realizing that the general reaction was supposed to be aghast-and-confused.
Friday Night Video – The Chicken Dance
December 30, 2011 Leave a comment
“Chickens don’t clap! Chickens don’t clap!”
The Times, They Aren’t A-Changin’
December 30, 2011 Leave a comment
Workers for The New York Times have gone public in their fight against the Times freezing pensions for some workers while giving handsome retirement packages to the bigwigs. Now can we all stop pretending that the Times is a bastion of liberal thought and action? They often engage in excellent reporting — Paul Krugman is one of my favoritist columnists of all time — but Krugman is actually a prime example of how the liberal voices at the Times often have to sneak themselves into the system. The Times hired Krugman to write on boom economic times — yay, unregulated Capitalism! — without an inkling that he’d become a popular and eloquent critic of George Bush. My interest in reading bloggers came about once I realized that the good ones were a more reliable and thorough source of information on the Iraq war than the Times. Judith Miller was a representative of the standard, not an aberration, and the current Times management is demonstrating that the Times have not changed.
Lady Gaga’s Photoshoot with Terry Richardson
December 30, 2011 Leave a comment
Lady Gaga is compelling in part because it can be difficult to parse when she uses and when she is being used. This is another parallel she has with Madonna, who said of her “Express Yourself” video “I put those chains on myself.”
SOPA update update
December 30, 2011 Leave a comment
In the last week, Go Daddy has switched from supporting the pro-corporate big government anti-open Internet legislation SOPA, to being neutral on the pro-corporate big government anti-open Internet legislation SOPA, to now opposing the pro-corporate big government anti-open Internet legislation SOPA. The reason?
Thursday Night Music – Madeleine Peyroux
December 29, 2011 1 Comment
The woman who sings like Billie Holiday sings Bob Dylan.
Ben Breedlove’s Story
December 29, 2011 Leave a comment
Ben Breedlove died on Christmas Day from a heart condition, at the age of 18.
Ben tells his story in the following two YouTube videos. The story is told on index cards, the soundtrack is an instrumental of “Mad World,” and the smile is touching.
The Economy in Pictures
December 29, 2011 Leave a comment
The Economic Policy Institute has put up some of the best visuals of 2011 to help explain the economy. That is, they’ve got charts and graphs.
One of the most telling shows us how:
Over the last quarter-century, the vast majority (81.7 percent) of increases to wealth have gone to the wealthiest 5 percent, while those in the middle saw declines in their wealth.
60 Second Movie Review: Die Hard (1988)
December 29, 2011 1 Comment
I’ve been catching up on my holiday viewing. From 1988. (Fun fact: Die Hard is set on Christmas Eve and was released in Uruguay on Christmas Day, 1988.) And did you know it was already a sequel? Novelist Roderick Thorp had written the book, The Detective, Nothing Lasts Forever (1979), as a sequel to The Detective (1966), which was made into a 1968 film with Frank Sinatra.
