Man, I will say this, the funniest joke I ever heard Tracy [Morgan] say during a stand-up was, ‘C’mon man, I think gay people are too sensitive. If you can take a dick, you can take a joke.’ [Cracks up laughing.] That shit was funny to me. And it’s kind of true.’ While T.I. makes clear that he supports anyone’s sexual preference, he then connects, in his opinion, a current oversensitivity among gay people with a consequential and ironic offense of the First Amendment. “They’re like,‘If you have an opinion against us, we’re gonna shut you down.’ ... That’s not American. If you’re gay you should have the right to be gay in peace, and if you’re against it you should have the right to be against it in peace.’ [Vibe]
- That five days after first reading about it, I'm still thinking about it.
I was watching the local news at my mother's house Thanksgiving night (it's a Philadelphia station) and I just happened to catch a snatch of a child who supposedly performed at Philadelphia's kind of sad, definitely janky Thanksgiving Day Parade (CeCe Peniston, for example, lip synched the original, 20-year-old version of her "song that everyone knows," "Finally" -- no remix or anything!). Except, instead of performing, this child looked like he was batting out an invisible fire that apparently had a tenacious grip on his entire body. I soon discovered that he's a Radio Disney type named Zack Montana. I don't think he's related to Hannah, as she is a fictional character, but I do think that the last name is supposed to remind you of her and/or confuse you (especially if you are old and were previously used to Montana only being a state, a steamboat and a Slim).
I would have posted the video that introduced me to this wunderkind, but the quality of the clip posted on ABC 6's site is so poor, you can barely make out what's going on. That's jank on top of jank (spread jank, it's the Philly way). Luckily, Zack's act doesn't seem to change very much between performances, so I was able to find a much sharper, slightly older version of his up-to-the-syllable interpretive dancing on YouTube. It is above. This kid's got swagger like nothing I've ever experienced. It's like a drag show, except he's impersonating not a woman, but an adult, and since he's 13, Justin Bieber soooo qualifies as a grown-up.
(Am I wrong for kind of digging the song, though?)
Over 50 different (mostly bootleg) Mogwai to choose from! I'm partial to the ones whose facial spacing makes them look like The Hills Have Mogwai. I'm not selling this hard, but these plush things are so fucked up, I don't feel like I have to.
Mariah Carey appeared on HSN last night (and will throughout today) to "celebrate" the first anniversary of her HSN debut last year. It was full of yet more moments and love. Facts were learned all around (did you know that Mariah Carey didn't know that there are 26 letters in the alphabet until last night?). But also, as you can see in the video above, there was an added layer of self-consciousness, one pronounced even for a person who won't be filmed in elevators because of the ill effects of "elevator lighting." She came to the fold referencing the fact that her appearance would be edited and put on the Internet (she had previously shouted out to Gawker for Matt Cherette's edit of her July appearance). How...disappointing.
Look, far be it from me to suggest that anyone on earth should refrain from laughing at Mariah Carey, even the woman herself. But this knowingness (the presumptuousness, even!) that people will be obsessively collecting and presenting her appearance to their liking means that it at least behooves her to act goofily. The kind of eccentricity she offers works best when there is a degree of ambiguity ("Oh no she didn't!" becomes a point of rumination), and her being in on the joke turns unintentional comedy to comedy. Truthfully, she didn't feel much less herself, but her awareness of the scrutiny makes the sport of hunting and gathering a little less exciting. I like my food to be moving.
But good on her for having a sense of humor about herself. It's undoubtedly driven by narcissism (Mariah has long been obsessed with those who are obsessed with her), but she's a good sport about such things in a way that someone like Tyra Banks isn't (the only jokes at Tyra's expense can be made by Tyra, and then they aren't jokes they're auto-cunnilingus).
So Mariah is wacky, hyper-self-conscious and better than Tyra Banks. Eh, tell me something I don't know next time.
Not to incite a stan war or anything (HAHA, I WOULD LOVE THAT), but the practice of female singers being asked to comment on their peers (or taking it upon themselves to do so) is endlessly fascinating. (Is it sexist to play women off of each other? It it bitchy for women to take the bait? Is it sexist to think that they're bitchy?) So here are a bunch of clips of divas talking about divas. I gave myself an organizational rule when assembling this: The person speaking in each clip must have been talked about in the preceding clip.
I read (and I'm not ashamed to say, enjoyed) Kourtney, Kim and Khloé Kardashian's roman à clef, Dollhouse, for work. My review is here (the headline is, obviously, all my doing) and it explains why I was seduced by its trashy charm (er, charmlessness). Also, now that everyone hates them, I kind of love them? Predictable, but there you go.
Anyway, I thought I'd present some of my favorite sentences/passages as a supplement to my praise. They're below the cut. I'm not saying that you need to run out and buy Dollhouse, but I am saying that there are far worse ways to liquefy your brain.
The beaming smile that follows the word "train wreck" indicates that either Laura is at one with her audience's taste, or that after being fed that line by whomever was interviewing her, she (finally?) got it right. Either way: cute.
Last month, I judgded a child beauty pageant that was taped for Toddlers & Tiaras. I covered this for work. You can watch video, see pictures and read my write-up here. I don't need to say that it was amazing, but it was amazing.
My narrative was actually several times the length of what's running in The Daily today, and with my editor's permission, I am posting the writer's cut below. Everything you ever wanted to know about attending 12 hours of a child beauty pageant and scoring children should be below. If it isn't, let me know because I'm sure I can tell you.
"I want my life to be an example that you can still achieve your dreams even if you keep your standards high," said Shannon. That she claimed this via the platform of America's Next Top Model immediately betrayed her claims of high standards.
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