Ever since Barack Obama was elected, a lot of pundits have asked: who will run against him in 2012? They do that because they’re paid to of course, but as the election draws nearer perhaps we should take the matter a little more seriously. Here, therefore is an E-Z cut out n’keep list of possible Republican candidates for next year’s presidential race. [Read more →]
I have known some stinky, sweaty, rude, intolerable, brutish, self-absorbed, pimple-faced, neurosis-addled musicians in my time and out of all of those cats, not one of them ever had a problem getting a date. Why? Because they are musicians. Because they close their eyes and soar over a fretboard and pour their souls into microphones. Because they do what everyone else in the room wishes they could do. (It works for girls, too, but my gentlemanly mien prohibits such arguably critical assessments, lest my readers begin suspect me of being both judgmental and rude.) [Read more →]
Summer is finally upon us! After a winter full of shoveling snow, freezing my ass off, and cursing Al Gore, the warm weather and good times are here. To me, summer is all about barbecuing, going to the beach, getting sunburned, swimming, and according to Will “The Fresh Prince” Smith, it’s about hustling to the mall to get a short set. (Even though I still don’t know what the hell a short set is) But my favorite summer event is a good summer concert. There are few things I love more than packing up a car with beer and barbecue gear, tailgating with my friends, and seeing a good show on a warm summer night. But I am sad to say that this summer’s lineup is a massive disappointment. [Read more →]
The foundations are shaking in the land of the Buckeyes. The Ohio State football program, which has dominated the Big Ten and been a regular member of the top ten rankings over the last decade, is facing an uncertain future. Jim Tressel, head coach at the school since 2001, has resigned his position, effective immediately, after the tattoo scandal he certainly hoped was behind him continued to make news in new and fascinating ways. Sports Illustrated had a story that came out on Monday that revealed that the issues went far deeper than had been previously believed. [Read more →]
10. Your play about General Schwarzkopf is called The Book of Norman
9. At least twice a week, another Spidey stuntman is maimed or killed
8. Trying to cash in on jukebox musicals like Mamma Mia and Movin’ Out, your new musical is called Ice Ice Baby
7. The marquee reads “Pauly Shore Is Jean Valjean”
6. Your Feydeau farce features Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss-Kahn chasing the French maid
5. No matter how good it is, your fifth-grade production of Death of a Salesman is not eligible
4. Instead of “Author! Author!” audience shouts “Boo! Kill!”
3. All the dialogue has been translated into Portuguese, because it loses something in the original
2. Your choreographer is straight
1. Your one-man show dealt mainly with your tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
While people are scrambling and plotting about how to pay for their children’s education, PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel has offered up a different idea: He is offering 24 people $100,000 not to go to college.
The sending of photos of one’s genitalia to the object of your affection is a beautiful expression of love, desire, and trust. By exposing yourself, you are opening yourself completely to another person. There is nothing so gratifying. There is nothing so perilous. “Here I am, in all my glory,” you are saying. “Accept me, please.”
It takes strength, courage, and genuine affection to express yourself so forthrightly. [Read more →]
How do you transfer a comedy routine to the printed page? It’s not easy and it is bound to lose something in the translation. For some comedians, the joke is in their body language, or their facial expressions. Or their voice.
In the case of Rubber Balls and Liquor
(Check out the end of this review for a chance to win an autographed copy of the book.)
In discussions about art, we babble constantly about “quality” as if it is the determining factor in terms of what is “good” or “bad”. Some say that, for instance, Mozart was a better composer than John Williams could ever be. Or, we might dismiss Norman Rockwell (a mere illustrator) in comparison to, say, a VanGogh. We read a novel, and we nit-pick, saying: Steinbeck is sentimental; Dickens’s plots are too neat. A ballet choreographer might look at kids dancing for change on the street and he might say, “Unsophisticated. That’s not art. It’s ‘pop’ dancing.” But, in the end, what does all of this mean? As I have suggested lots of times, isn’t the measure of art in the way it directly affects us? How important is the “quality” of the work? One can (and I certainly do sometimes) marvel at an artist’s craft, but is great skill necessary for great art? Is skill necessary at all? [Read more →]
I think the best thing that has ever been said on the subject of prayer was said by the medieval mystic known as Meister Eckhart: “If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.”
This, of course, is precisely the most difficult prayer to utter when you are not feeling at all reverent …and yet it would seem the one most necessary at precisely such a time. [Read more →]
As mentioned in last quarter’s column, there have been a lot of “life-as-illusion” themed movies coming out lately. While I suspect that the success of Avatar and Lost are partly responsible for this trend, I think people’s fascination with 2012, drastic world changes, and a surge in our search for meaning are also fueling the recent string of films about alternate realities and simulated worlds. When airplanes are crashing into buildings, cities are submerged underwater, the Middle East is revolting, and the world economy is collapsing, real life almost seems more fantastical than our dreams. Jon Stewart summed it up perfectly at the 2008 Academy Awards: “Normally, when you see a black man or a woman president, an asteroid is about to hit the Statue of Liberty.” Yes, we are now officially living in the future, and we all know what kind of stuff happens in the future—exactly the kind of stuff that’s happening right now. But at least, thanks to Hollywood, we’ve been warned. And Hollywood’s heads up may even go much deeper than prophesies of events to come. They may help explain the reality we all find ourselves in. [Read more →]
I work at a very fine institution of higher education in the Philadelphia area. I cannot stress how much I love working in the college atmosphere, so much so that I am pursuing my Master’s In Higher Education so I can support and advance my career in the college world. I feel like every day is exciting, and its always invigorating to walk onto a college campus. I think it even keeps me young, although I still haven’t learned how to properly “Dougie”, can’t figure out why kids like this rapper Drake, and (for humanity’s sake) I would never dare attempt to wear skinny jeans [Read more →]
Some people just like to hear themselves talk. I have been accused of this myself on occasion, and I can’t say that it has never been the truth. With this column, I at least try to make sure that I have something of value to impart to anyone who chooses to read my weekly missive. In the world of sports, particularly in this era, when there are so many outlets for just about everyone to make his or her opinion known, this problem seems to be particularly prevalent. This week’s example comes from the mouth of Scottie Pippen, the former NBA star who won a bunch of titles alongside Michael Jordan with the Chicago Bulls in the nineties. While appearing on the Mike & Mike show on ESPN radio on Friday, Pippen made the statement that Lebron James might be the best player to ever play the game of basketball, rather than his former teammate Jordan, who is widely considered to hold that title. [Read more →]
10. He delivers his speech without moving his lips, thanks to his little ventriloquist’s dummy ‘Muammar’
9. Her first name is Snooki
8. His speech is laced with crude double entendres and Polish jokes
7. He can’t emphasize enough the many incredible advantages of buying a ShamWow!
6. His claim to fame: He played Epstein on Welcome Back, Kotter
5. She goes on and on about how Barack Obama’s birth certificate has to be a forgery
4. Before he goes on, he asks the principal if he wants a little ‘nose candy’
3. He claims to have deciphered the “secret language of kitty cats”
2. He begins his speech, “If life hands you lemons, you should squeeze the juice directly into the wounds of your enemies.”
1. He spends an entire hour blathering on about his tiger’s blood, Adonis DNA, and fire-breathing fists
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.
Rapture is postponed. Good thing. Not that I was going anywhere, but I assume a good fraction of the tough guys who make the toilets flush and the internets flow would have been gathered at the Final Call. They’re here. We’re queer. Let’s get started.
Fresh Air…. what an insipid and presumptuous bit of condescencion that logism contains. You know these skunks; their position in so-called Public Broadcasting and Murphy’s Law assures that, wherever you drive, the subsidized voices of liberal salvation will always come through the radio clearer than anything but the spanish stations. These cats are defininitely Left Behind under any recognized scenario. They are as adamantly against rapturees as they are for perfectly modulated saccharine tumbling out of their oh-so-well compensated pie holes.
The doof on the pyre today is the unlikely named Dave Davies, although really, he is of little consequence except as an exemplar. And his fulfillment of that duty pales compared to the object of his recent interest; a pair of Registered Genii, financial reporters for the New York Times no less. They have written a book, well titled Reckless Endangerment that explains the hows and whys of our financial meltdown.
Let’s go to the audio. [Read more →]
Back in 2005, while attending a live Bob Dylan show, I encountered the country stylings of his opening act, Merle Haggard. This artist’s simple songs of soil people touched me in a surprising way, and I was glad I didn’t follow my first instinct, which was to skip his act altogether. Later, I actually purchased his box set, “Down Every Road,” which features a number of his classic songs, among them the haunting lament, “I Can’t Hold Myself in Line.” This song was written in 1968, but its expression of melancholia in a world that gives humans too many choices for his own good could easily be torn from the diary — or, if you prefer, blog — of any Four Loko-drinking, Big Mac-eating, Sport Utility Vehicle-driving, Camel-smoking iPad-user today.
Hey, my weakness is stronger than I am
Guess I’ve always been the losin’ kind
Now I’m full speed ahead down the wrong road of life
And I can’t hold myself in line
I don’t know why I get so annoyed by clichés. Maybe it is my fiction-writing background. Maybe I’m just an early-onset curmudgeon. But one time, at a party, someone referenced the idea that you can’t play the blues well unless you lived the blues — whatever the hell that means. Does he mean you need to be short of cash for the rent? A heavy drinker? Does he mean you have to be from a certain town? Do you have to be African-American? If that is what he means, I think he is simply buying-in to a tired cliché. Worse, he may be treading on prejudiced racial ground, just when he thinks he is being complimentary. [Read more →]
The end of the world was supposed to happen on Saturday, it didn’t, but rapture jokes replaced Charlie Sheen jokes in the social media stratosphere. I am glad to know we weren’t all sucked into the ground from an earthquake, and happy that Jesus is waiting to make his second coming. I kindly pray that he at least hold off until I break the high score on the Ms. Pac-Man machine at my local pizza shop. However, my community got some very bad news about the end of a very special place in many hearts- St. Mary’s school in Gloucester City, New Jersey is going to be shutting its doors after this school year. [Read more →]
The skies are looking ominous for cycling champion Lance Armstrong. One of the world’s best known athletes, Armstrong has long been dogged by accusations of doping during a career that produced seven victories in the Tour de France, cycling’s most prestigious event. He has firmly denied any wrongdoing, and has never failed a legitimate drug test. For some reason, I have always been inclined to believe his denials, even going as far as to defend him here when his disgraced former teammate Floyd Landis spoke out against him a year ago. Now, though, several more of Armstrong’s former teammates have claimed that he not only used performance-enhancing drugs, but that he encouraged them to do so as well. [Read more →]
