Naked Cowboy plugs the mothership
Taste of Cincinnati is all sorts of fun. Even New York City's naked cowboy shows up (native of Cincinnati I believe).
Labels: Cincinnati, random
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Pirates of The Caribbean... Meh
I could write a review of the summer blockbuster, but I think this one has it covered.
Highlights:
As I was reading through some of the reviews this morning (after seeing it last night), one thing is baffling me...
From Hollywood.com:
Anyone that's seen this movie knows they left us with more than a "whiff of possibility to a fourth one." Much like the end of the second, they practically used the conclusion to start the next film. For some reason, more than one critic missed the VERY heavy handed foretelling of another sequeal.
Highlights:
Despite its bum-numbing running time, Pirates 3 can barely keep up with the cast of characters we're supposedly rooting for - the upside of which is that Orlando Bloom is relegated to the bit-part status he deserves.
That just leaves Depp to stop the ship sinking. Only he doesn't. Within minutes it becomes horrifyingly apparent that two films was more than enough of Johnny's Cap'n Jack shtick. And, while he does provide a smattering of humorous lines, more often than not he's just plain irritating, especially when they have him chuntering away to his imaginary selves.
As I was reading through some of the reviews this morning (after seeing it last night), one thing is baffling me...
From Hollywood.com:
The movie’s long but definitely worth its weight in gold doubloons, giving just a whiff of possibility to a fourth one.
Anyone that's seen this movie knows they left us with more than a "whiff of possibility to a fourth one." Much like the end of the second, they practically used the conclusion to start the next film. For some reason, more than one critic missed the VERY heavy handed foretelling of another sequeal.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Texas Toast
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Tom Green's Triumphant Return
I may be the last person to hear about this (as it started last year), but Tom Green is broadcasting a live show through the internet.
The reason I just heard about it is because MySpace is pushing his show big time.
This caught my interest for two reasons. First, I was a big Tom Green fan back in his hay day and it's good to see him back. Second, it's one of the first big name celebrities that have gone to the internet as an alternative (and not just a supplement) to other media.
If Tom Green's success continues to grow, then the formula will certainly be emulated. It's something to pay attention to.
Check out the show and the sweet set-up at TomGreen.com.
The reason I just heard about it is because MySpace is pushing his show big time.
This caught my interest for two reasons. First, I was a big Tom Green fan back in his hay day and it's good to see him back. Second, it's one of the first big name celebrities that have gone to the internet as an alternative (and not just a supplement) to other media.
If Tom Green's success continues to grow, then the formula will certainly be emulated. It's something to pay attention to.
Check out the show and the sweet set-up at TomGreen.com.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Broken internet
My internet's broken until tomorrow or longer. If comments take longer to get approved, or posts are slow, it's because of Cincinnati Bell. Hopefully things will get taken care of by tomorrow and we'll be back on track.
Until then, I'll be working from my Blackberry or from other locations. Thanks for the patience.
Until then, I'll be working from my Blackberry or from other locations. Thanks for the patience.
Labels: random
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Strippers gone wild at the Statehouse
It's a dubious honor to be the defender of strip clubs and adult entertainment – just ask Cincinnatian's about Larry Flynt and you'll get what I'm talking about.
But someone's got to do it.
So now that the always prude and anal-retentive Phil Burress is trying to crush Ohio's strip-club industry, the beautiful strippers are up in arms.
Burress is on a mission to convince Ohioans that strip clubs cause more crime and depreciate property value. But if you know anything about his organization, Citizens for Community Values, you know their real concern is morality. After all, their biggest claim to fame is banning gay marriage in Ohio. I'm sure that wasn't to reduce crime or protect the community from any non-moral threat.
It's a travesty that this is being discussed and is bound to make Ohio (and Cincinnati) more laughed at then it already is.
The truth is, strip clubs are good for the economy and unlike other barroom restrictions (smoking) naked people don't hurt anybody.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has both sides of the story
Pros of strip clubs:
Money quote from The Enquirer:
CCV's justification of the legislation:
CCV is lame. If two adults want to show some nakedness together, why not?
I might have to take up Larry Flynt's old cause and open up a strip club in the Nati... Smoke free of course. Wouldn't want to cause any harm to anyone.
But someone's got to do it.
So now that the always prude and anal-retentive Phil Burress is trying to crush Ohio's strip-club industry, the beautiful strippers are up in arms.
Burress is on a mission to convince Ohioans that strip clubs cause more crime and depreciate property value. But if you know anything about his organization, Citizens for Community Values, you know their real concern is morality. After all, their biggest claim to fame is banning gay marriage in Ohio. I'm sure that wasn't to reduce crime or protect the community from any non-moral threat.
It's a travesty that this is being discussed and is bound to make Ohio (and Cincinnati) more laughed at then it already is.
The truth is, strip clubs are good for the economy and unlike other barroom restrictions (smoking) naked people don't hurt anybody.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer has both sides of the story
Pros of strip clubs:
Harsh new proposed regulations on strip clubs could hit Cleveland right in the wallet by making the city less attractive to those picking convention sites, says the city's top tourism official.
"The people who make the decisions on where to bring a convention consider a wide variety of issues and offerings," Dennis Roche, president of the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland, said in an interview on Monday. "I wouldn't call it a deal maker, but I would call it a tie-breaker," he added, referring to adult entertainment such as strip bars.
Money quote from The Enquirer:
"Let's be honest: CCV doesn't want to empower local governments, it wants to close down all forms of adult entertainment and continue promoting its narrow social agenda," Liakos said.
CCV's justification of the legislation:
"If I was the mayor of a city, I wouldn't want conventioneers who wanted to go out and carouse all night long at these clubs," said Burress. "The increase in crime that comes is going to cause extra taxpayer money to keep extra police officers on the street."
We're not legislating morality," he said. "We're protecting the community from increased crime and decreased property values."
CCV is lame. If two adults want to show some nakedness together, why not?
I might have to take up Larry Flynt's old cause and open up a strip club in the Nati... Smoke free of course. Wouldn't want to cause any harm to anyone.
Labels: Cincinnati, Ohio politics, random
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Will Ferrell vs his landlord
Friday, April 06, 2007
Unfastened Coins – the truth about the Titanic conspiracy
Friday, February 09, 2007
Anna Nicole, the media and the dark side
Anna Nicole Smith was toxic to herself, but great for media outlets.
Watching Smith at the end of her rope on national TV was amusing. It was easy to call her a lush and a media whore while she was cracking under the pressure of celebrity. But we never thought the made up world of reality TV would ever be this, well, realistic.
Watching one of the "beautiful people" crash and burn is painful – something about those who have the world in the palm of their hand not finding happiness is off-putting. Knowing the warning signs were all on a TV show (a profitable one, too) and having no one step in to solve the problem mixes guilt in with the heavy dose of shock.
Media critic Tom Maurstad says everything I wanted to say in the Dallas Morning News (read the whole thing):
I don't mean to put too much emphasis on one celebrity while there is obviously so much wrong with the world. But this one should make us take a deep breath and ask us how far we are willing to push people for a laugh.
Watching Smith at the end of her rope on national TV was amusing. It was easy to call her a lush and a media whore while she was cracking under the pressure of celebrity. But we never thought the made up world of reality TV would ever be this, well, realistic.
Watching one of the "beautiful people" crash and burn is painful – something about those who have the world in the palm of their hand not finding happiness is off-putting. Knowing the warning signs were all on a TV show (a profitable one, too) and having no one step in to solve the problem mixes guilt in with the heavy dose of shock.
Media critic Tom Maurstad says everything I wanted to say in the Dallas Morning News (read the whole thing):
Were you one of viewers watching The Anna Nicole Show on E! who turned the show into one of 2002's cult favorites? If so, then you watched as a semiconscious and frequently incoherent Anna Nicole stumbled and slurred her way through a sad and silly life filled with creeps and hangers-on. She was great stand-up fodder for late-night comedians and provided endless threads of discussion for water-cooler and Internet chat groups. But this conclusion to her life is just the latest reminder that at a time when everything is grist for the reality entertainment mill, under all that entertaining fizz is cold, hard reality.
If Anna Nicole Smith had suddenly whirled to face all those cameras that were always clicking at her and set herself on fire, she couldn't have been any more obviously a person in terminal distress. As our ongoing immersion in rehab entertainment has taught us, what Ms. Smith needed was a core group of friends and family, along with the help of trained counselors (not to mention a camera crew to capture it all) to stage an intervention and get the help she so desperately needed. But judging from the parts of her private life that she broadcast to the world, she didn't have that core group, or she didn't listen to their warnings.
And so her life spun from one tragedy-scandal-crisis to the next, from the lawsuits over the inheritance from her oil tycoon and octogenarian husband to the birth of her daughter and the mysterious death of her son. But there's an oh-yeah moment that freezes all the flash and noise around this story: remembering that somewhere there's an infant girl who has lost her mother and hasn't yet had determined for her, in what will no doubt be a highly publicized court case, who her father is.
I don't mean to put too much emphasis on one celebrity while there is obviously so much wrong with the world. But this one should make us take a deep breath and ask us how far we are willing to push people for a laugh.
The only acceptable V-Day gift
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Dateline: To catch some bad journalism
Ever watch that show on Dateline where adults are lured to the houses of minors for some sex?
The appeal is obvious. You get to watch shady dudes squirm while Chris Hansen uses his best "gravitas" voice to put them on the spot. You get to watch the cops make a reality-tv style bust – you know, SWAT teams, yelling, and lots of guns being used against small, unarmed, and scared shitless men. Maybe parents get to feel a little safer knowing that Chris Hansen and the Dateline team are putting the bad guys away and keeping their daughter from coaxing old men into bed.
As entertaining as it may be, it's an embarrassment to journalism. More importantly, it's an embarrassment to our legal process.
Cops letting Dateline put a suspect on television before they make the arrest? Continued public interrogation after an arrest? Not to mention, the old rule against entrapment.
I don't justify the actions of men who have sex with children, but the way these attractive women (posing as teenagers) beg and plead with these men to make them come have sex is just crazy. Men never make sound decisions when they're thinking with their little head.
A surprisingly somewhat balanced report from Fox News:
To Catch a Predator is a perfect example of what we get when views, clicks, and ratings are the forces driving the news. Sure it's entertaining, but is it useful?
The news used to be information that we needed to know. Now it's just entertainment – check that. Infotainment.
The appeal is obvious. You get to watch shady dudes squirm while Chris Hansen uses his best "gravitas" voice to put them on the spot. You get to watch the cops make a reality-tv style bust – you know, SWAT teams, yelling, and lots of guns being used against small, unarmed, and scared shitless men. Maybe parents get to feel a little safer knowing that Chris Hansen and the Dateline team are putting the bad guys away and keeping their daughter from coaxing old men into bed.
As entertaining as it may be, it's an embarrassment to journalism. More importantly, it's an embarrassment to our legal process.
Cops letting Dateline put a suspect on television before they make the arrest? Continued public interrogation after an arrest? Not to mention, the old rule against entrapment.
I don't justify the actions of men who have sex with children, but the way these attractive women (posing as teenagers) beg and plead with these men to make them come have sex is just crazy. Men never make sound decisions when they're thinking with their little head.
A surprisingly somewhat balanced report from Fox News:
"Sexual predators running around, picking up children off the 'Net are not an epidemic … ["To Catch a Predator"] focuses on the equivalent of a sexual straw man, turning the stranger-predator into the 'epidemic,'" said Pierre Tristam, a columnist at the Daytona Beach News-Journal in Florida, who recently wrote a controversial article on the popular "Dateline" series and says the shows epitomize "tabloid pulp."
"[NBC's predator series] should quit borrowing from the shabby techniques of reality TV and return to the ethics and demands of journalism," Tristam said.
To Catch a Predator is a perfect example of what we get when views, clicks, and ratings are the forces driving the news. Sure it's entertaining, but is it useful?
The news used to be information that we needed to know. Now it's just entertainment – check that. Infotainment.
Got secrets can't leave Cancun?
With spring break right around the corner, it's time for students to start thinking about how to get into, and out of, vacation hot spots.
With the politicization of homeland security, we've had our passport laws tinkered with. Because of that, I had to do a little actual reporting.
Read up and get the information you need to travel easily.
With the politicization of homeland security, we've had our passport laws tinkered with. Because of that, I had to do a little actual reporting.
Read up and get the information you need to travel easily.
Labels: National Politics, random
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Last posts
- Cindy Sheehan sticks it to the Democratic Party
- I hope Ben Affleck's wrong
- A real "Law and Order" candidate
- Oh Kobe...
- Ill Poetic live from the Taste of Cincinnati
- Interview with a new council candidate
- Best food at Taste of Cincinnati
- Naked Cowboy plugs the mothership
- Tom Green memories
- You might be a redneck... if you're an 11 year old...
