Hoarding. It’s all anyone can talk about anymore. Have you seen the show “Hoarders?” Oh my gosh. That’s what people talk about. Everyone. All people. I’m not attempting to be a Negative Nancy (Nathan) here, but I have one fundamental problem with the entire Hoarding trend: It’s just no fun. [Read more →]
What do the 2010 election results mean for comedy? In the months before Bush left the White House, people asked comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert if their jobs would be more difficult without such a gaffe-prone president. They usually said that it wouldn’t be much harder because there are always jokes to be made about issues. (In any case, the lack of material probably wouldn’t have been near the challenge for them that it would be for their writers.)
But their shows make elaborate jokes about issues. My show, FAILocracy (and YouTube in general,) is more about pointing and laughing at presidents who accidentally say “sex” during speeches. So, in the name of comedy, FAILocracy endorsed the following 15 candidates who we hoped would continue to provide us with hilarious gaffes after the election. Beneath the video is a run-down of the results.
The “Gun Mechanics Competency” award was given to Democratic Congressman Lincoln Davis.
Election outcome: WINNER
I was not born Broadway Fred. I was, however, born into a family in which the elders liked Broadway shows. After a brunch at Ratner’s- a now defunct blintz, lox, and whitefish emporium staffed by suffering waiters with Old Country accents-we met the paternal uncles and their families at Duffy Square. Emissaries from each branch waited on the TKTS line and made a quick decision and purchase. With giddy expectation, we walked past giant posters and street hustlers and fancy marquees and urban blight, found our theater and were shown to our seats. We weren’t all together, but the cousins could wave at each other from a few rows apart in the balcony.
Clint Eastwood directs Hereafter in his usual gentle and understated style. While the result is not the unqualified success of some of his other work, Hereafter has some lovely moments. [Read more →]
I had the following question (Paraphrased, the person asking this question took a hatchet to the English language when they asked it) posed to me today.
“How can the TEA Party supporters, most of whom claim to be Christian, be so full of hatred and uncharitable towards others? What happened to “Love thy neighbor”?
This led to the inevitable discussion of whether or not Jesus would have supported the welfare state. I won’t bore you with a long dissertation here, I will ask but a simple question.
When I first read that Brock Clarke’s new novel was called Exley, I felt a mixture of admiration, envy, and even a hint of betrayal. To an extent, I felt scooped for a story, but one I wasn’t certain that any one had the right to tell. How dare Clarke appropriate Frederick Exley for his own purposes? How dare any one of us stoop so low as to piggyback off the fame (even in a doubly derivative “lack there of” sort of way) of A Fan’s Notes? Indeed, I had three pages on Exley in my own new novel, and I had considered deleting these in the last revisions because it felt like theft—no, well, er, actually, because I was worried that part seemed too sentimental. (My solution, if you were wondering, was to add a paragraph to make the scene more absurd.) [Read more →]
I am sick as a dog, dear readers. How sick is she? She is sicker than a consumptive waif in a Bronte novel. She is so sick that her eyes, burning with fever, can barely see the screen upon which she types her weekly words of wisdom. She is so sick, in fact, that she will have to keep her advice very short this week. Charlie Sheen, this one’s for you: Get it. The hell. Together. [Read more →]
Some people want to be the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop that is the artistic world. They want to put down the works of others; they want to convince people there is only one way to see things or they want to throw out the rules. Many want, above all, to show as many people as possible that they can do everything better than anyone else. Like many, I hate that, but I do get it. And I feel the tug, from time to time. [Read more →]
Do not let me hear
Of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly,
Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession,
Of belonging to another, or to others, or to God.
So wrote T.S. Eliot in “East Coker,” the second of his Four Quartets. I was reminded of these lines while thinking about a conversation I had recently with a friend and former colleague. It was a couple of weeks before the recent election and had to do with Christine O’Donnell, the Republican senatorial candidate in Delaware.
It has been a very bizarre couple of days for me. I went to a hockey game and met a hair band legend, I have mice in my house, and I drank one of the malt beverages that the media is up in arms about and facebook is all abuzz over. Ahh, the highs and lows of a 34 year old father who still thinks he is 22. [Read more →]
In the last several weeks, the NFL has made a lot of noise about penalties, fines, and suspensions for hits it considers to be violent or dangerous. Helmet-to-helmet hits, in particular, are being closely examined and are to be dealt with harshly. Many players have expressed concerns about what the new rules will do to their ability to play aggressively, and for many of them, non-aggressive play means non-successful play. A momentary hesitation when tackling can be enough to make the defensive player miss the tackle entirely. I appreciate the league’s position, as studies continue to show that the long-term effects of concussions are far worse than was previously believed. My assumption is that the players will adjust, finding ways to be aggressive and hit hard without leading with their helmets. Watching the Eagles-Colts game on Sunday afternoon, though, made me think that professional football may be genuinely damaged by this new focus. [Read more →]
10. My Misunderestimated Life
9. What’s Posterity Ever Done for Me?
8. I Always Thought It Was Spelt ‘Nucular’
7. How High, Mr. Cheney?
6. Presidenting Can Be Torturous
5. Is Our Children Learning?
4. Pretzels—America’s Silent Killer
3. Fool Me Once
2. The Audacity of Dope
1. The No-Brainer
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
As terms like grass-fed, organic, locally grown, and sustainable become household words, eco-conscious cooks and manufacturers focus on the next frontier. After you get your pasture-raised chicken home, what are you cooking it in? After dinner, how are you packaging your leftovers?
Nonstick cookware, long considered one of the great culinary advancements of the 20th century, has some major drawbacks. Last month, a study was published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine linking chemicals in nonstick pans to high cholesterol in children. This is in addition to multiple studies which have shown that at high temperatures, Teflon, the chemical used in the original nonstick pans, can be lethal to animals and cause flu-like symptoms in humans. How hot the pan needs to be to cause illness is still up for debate.
Aluminum pots and pans have been all but phased out of most home kitchens, since studies show they may be linked with Alzheimer’s disease. Yet every single chef and restaurant owner I spoke to in researching this article still used them in their restaurant.
With Veterans Day rapidly approaching, I expect to see A LOT more than the usual amount of war movies on television. Earlier today, on AMC, it was The Horse Soldiers (1959), in which a Union cavalry regiment is sent behind Confederate lines to disrupt and destroy rebel resources, communications and supply centers. The film was directed by John Ford, who has always earned high marks with me when it comes to the attention paid to authentic details in his films.
[Read more →]
Early on in my parenting travels, I was a total anti-video game guy. A staunch opponent. Of course, these feelings were not due to a lingering bitterness because growing up I was the worst Pac-Man player in my town. No, I just didn’t want my kids sitting idly for hours on end, ruled by a screen, twitching, stagnating, drooling. But then came the Wii. [Read more →]
For most of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union served as Yin and Yang, each nation opposing its righteousness to the other’s evil.
Even today, with the collapse of the Soviet Union almost twenty years behind us, multifarious hacks in the Anglo-American media remain wedded to a vision of America and her sinister doppelganger. They pine for a New Cold War. [Read more →]
“He can’t do it,” Dale said to the doctor.
“He can’t? He must!” Zarkhov said back with his barking, Czech accent and with that I seemed to have been shut out of the deliberations on the subject. “We have seen their power. They do not need our permission to do anything if they are willing to destroy us all and they seem pretty well able to find the will. We must cooperate. We must ALL cooperate. We will save our own lives and almost certainly the lives of everyone on earth. It is our only path.” [Read more →]
It is a clear indication that you are ridiculously happy when your friends post a link to Wikipedia’s definition of vomit on your facebook status updates. I wasn’t super pleased with the posting of the link itself, but I’m so happy. So happy in fact, that people can poop on my parade all they want. I will just keep smiling. Like the Orbitz gum girl. It’s raining poo, but man is there good stuff to smile about.
Of course, being who I am, and having dealt with what I have been through recently, all this smiling scares me a little. Can I really keep this up?
I think it would be beneficial to get this out of the way in the first sentence, and let me just say: Wow.
You know what? I’ll make that it’s own paragraph. I think it deserves it.
That one too. I digress.
This year’s big election night in the United States of America was different than all that had come before it. No more business as usual and no more easy answers to the hardest questions. [Read more →]
Maybe I’m demonstrating my social media savvy … or maybe it’s something not-so-great that I’m demonstrating. Either way, when I sign-off from my Twitter account, I stay in front of the computer a few minutes longer, to watch their rotator of current tweets on a variety of trending topics.
I know, I KNOW … I could be reading books and magazines, surfing the web, or even – gasp! – getting out and talking to people. But there I am, nonetheless, parked in my chair and soaking up someone else’s virtual wisdom, 140 characters at a time. Today, there’s more than a lil discussion of Lil Wayne.
[Read more →]
