Music has always been a very big part of my life. I grew up in a house where music was on in every room. Standards like The Beatles, The Bee Gees, The Carpenters, Simon and Garfunkel, and yeah there was some Neil Diamond in the mix too were a part of our daily routine. I’m not gonna lie, I knew all the words to America. Go ahead and laugh. [Read more →]
When I first heard about the new Melrose Place… wait, let me rewind back a year. When I first heard about the new 90210 last year, I partly rolled my eyes and partly got very excited. Finding out that The CW was recreating the best show ever wasn’t the best news ever, but then I thought about the potential of a new OC-ish show entering my life with the possibility of cameos from the 90’s original cast and I began to change my mind. Excitement grew… and then the show started. [Read more →]
Philadelphia is a town whose sports legends include Charles Barkley, Pete Rose, Chuck Bednarik, Wilt Chamberlain, and Steve Carlton, who in addition to being Hall of Fame-level talents in their respective sports also found the time to throw folks through windows, be convicted for tax evasion, joke about nearly crippling people, pleasure many ladies, and offer ideas that are at best “colorful” and at worst “anti-Semitic.” Philly itself is the town that cheered when Michael Irvin had a dangerous neck injury (in fairness, Irvin did play for the Cowboys). Now former Atlanta Falcons quarterback/ one-time Don King of dogfighting Michael Vick’s arrived. Wow. [Read more →]
August 7, 2009
I dream that I see in the mirror a lump the size of a cheeseburger on my left jowl. I tell Gail I must go to the hospital immediately because there is something wrong with my face. Gail says, “There is nothing wrong with your face.” I say, “Look at my ear.” My ear is diminished in size and hanging lower than usual.
Imagine yourself wandering lost on the high plains of Nebraska and South Dakota with no companions and nothing but your wits to sustain you. Your only provisions are whatever you can kill or gather, and though you have a rifle to hunt game, you have no more than a few bullets. How long would you survive? What would you do to survive? Worse, what if the year were 1804, long before the advent of highways, gas stations, and nationwide cellular phone coverage?
My answers would probably be something along the lines of, “Not long”, “I have no idea”, and “What? No cell phone?”
Chima is a big, f*ckin’ brat. How many people would kill to be on Big Brother? I’m pretty sure I would. Jeff used his wizard power and overturned Chima’s HOH nominations so she decided to act like a spoiled, bratty sore loser and break all of the Big Bro rules. Awww, your power was taken away, boo hoo. And can we discuss how she looks exactly like a Bratz doll? [Read more →]
“Just what America needs, another quirky comedy,” says Michael Cera to Charlyne Yi when he hears about her new documentary. Part documentary, part mockumentary, part performance art and wholly enjoyable, Paper Heart is quirky and original, and very different from the slew of romantic comedies dropped on America this summer. [Read more →]
Eating broccoli regularly (more than once a week) has countless health benefits; It reduces the risk (by up to 45 %) of bladder, ovarian, lung, colon, breast, and prostate cancer, it helps correct sun damage to the skin, it helps prevent cataracts, it contributes to building strong bones, it fights birth defects in pregnant women, and it boosts the immune system. I feel healthier already just thinking about it!
Grilled Chicken Rigatoni with broccoli: Serves 4 [Read more →]
This is the last, great beach read of the summer.
Let’s Get It On is the rather fanciful tale of LaShaWanda P. Marshall and her friends, Lydia Beaucoup and Acey Allen. They are the owners of a successful “full-service spa” (in other words: a brothel) for women in Reno, and they are opening their first franchise, on a yacht off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard. These entrepreneurs are hoping to find a host of wealthy black women on the island who are willing to pay for the company of virile young men, if only the government will stay out of their way! [Read more →]
“I have sinned.”
These were, apparently, the last words English playwright John Osborne wrote. His wife found them scrawled on a cigarette pack beside his bed when he died in 1994. [Read more →]
I just watched Schindler’s List again. It’s a film that tutors you in subtle response. I first saw it in 2002, when I was 26; I thought it good but too discreetly brutal, not quite as blood-spattered as I’d expected. My next viewing, in 2007, was very different: I’d seen enough cinema to be stunned by Spielberg’s craft, but I must also have grown subtler in my moral reckonings: the film seemed very brutal, visceral. I wrote a post about it on my notorious blog. [Read more →]
I don’t imagine that there are too many people out there who have not heard that the Philadelphia Eagles signed Michael Vick this week. I am not sure I have ever been as surprised by a piece of sports news as I was by this. The dilemma that has been presented to me is not one with which I know how to deal. [Read more →]
10. If you plan to get sick, you must give the government at least three months notice.
9. To pay for it, taxes will be raised only on those earning more than $250 per year.
8. All cigarettes will be banned, except Newport 100s (Obama’s brand).
7. Our new Secretary of Health and Human Services: Michael Moore.
6. We will not pass the cost of this plan on to our children, or to our children’s children; it will be paid for by their children.
5. Prostate exams will be made more comfortable, via candlelight and romantic music.
4. Once healthcare rationing begins, registered Democrats get first dibs.
3. Coming soon to every mall in America: free abortion kiosks.
2. In early spring, all the elderly will be rounded up and placed on ice floes.
1. The plan won’t cover people born in foreign countries — Obama included.
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
I believe that Michael Vick deserves a second chance. I also believe that for every drop of rain that falls a flower grows. I believe that someone in the great somewhere hears every word. And only that someone can answer the question of whether Michael Vick, the puppy killer, deserves a second shot at becoming a multimillionaire on Philadelphia’s dime. How many cons walk out of prison and hook up with the modest (by NFL standards) money offered by the Philadelphia Eagles?
We will pay the puppy killer more money in a single year than you or I have earned in our entire lives. [Read more →]
So Brazilian politician and TV host Wallace Souza is suspected of having people murdered so his crime program, Canal Livre, could be first on the scene. All in the name of ratings. (Also in the name of eliminating the competition. Allegedly, Souza is a drug trafficker and the deceased were his competitors. But let’s focus on murder in the name of ratings.)
To quote “elpookie”: “Brilliant!” (The punctuation is elpookie’s.) [Read more →]
Jean Jacques Rousseau, Arthur Rimbaud, and Jean Genet are just a few canonical writers who could be seen to have questionable character. Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot were fascists or held views that could be connected to such political “philosophy.” Martin Heidegger, asshole, was a Nazi who never once renounced his views. I wonder if he ever noticed his predecessor, Friedrich Nietzsche, held opposing ideas but no tenured chair. Many, many famous writers have abused their wives and girlfriends or left them with kids and no emotional or financial support. These include half of my favorites: Sherwood Anderson, Saul Bellow, Fred Exley, Ray Carver, Richard Yates, and John Cheever. Can you write great fiction without at least a broken marriage on your transcript?
Video provides an excellent vantage point for studying the Internet phenomenon, though it is also, oddly enough, where the Internet disappears. Hackers believe “information wants to be free,” but the suits have by and large been happy to charge for it, control it, own it. Case in point is the experience of what has been called the Kafka Lego video incident. [Read more →]
Summer movies, including G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, are categorical: comedy or action (in this case action); R or PG-13 (PG-13); solid film or an incoherent pile of explosions clipped together (solid film); enjoyable or crap-tac-u-lar (enjoyable). I’ll grant you G.I. Joe isn’t great; it’s not Star Trek, but you get your ten bucks worth. I particularly like all of Dennis Quad’s Joe lines such as, “There are still a lot of Joes out there.” This is a super-short review, but I feel anyone who has read this blurb knows if they’ll like the movie, and knowing is half the battle!
Dear Ruby,
My boyfriend and I are hosting our first dinner party this weekend, and he just told me that two of the guests are vegans. This is a surprise to both of us and I’ve already bought the chicken to grill and most of the other dishes have butter or milk or cheese. I’m almost panicking! It’s not a payday weekend and I really don’t have another $50 to spend for a second meal. Please help!
The Flesh-Eating Hostess [Read more →]
OK. I’m back. Crude, obnoxious, hating you, your kids and the way you parent. Happy? Fantastic. Clearly you weren’t digging my serious blog last week as I only received two comments. TWO comments. That’s a record low for me. Pathetic. Just goes to show you guys don’t want to hear about the ugly scary truths of life, but rather the senseless judgemental rants I have to offer. I am here to happily oblige. [Read more →]
