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Millie Jackson is amazing

 

I'm a little late to this one, but I'd be remiss if I didn't touch on my favorite person on TV this week, soul singer Millie Jackson. Her life story took up an hour of TV One's Unsung (basically my favorite show on TV now – did you see last week's Full Force episode?!?). And what a story it was! She got her break by shit-talking some woman that was onstage at a concert she attended. She described her marriage to a bass player like this: "He was a decent cat, but he thought we were going to be Ike and Tina, and the record company didn't sign Ike, it only signed Tina." She gave Roxanne Shanté these words of advice: "You'll be successful a lot longer for the nasty things that come out of your mouth than the nasty things you put in it." She made fun of her own music, lamented her inability to pawn gold records and showed that at age 67, she's still quite flexible (you can see that in the video above).

My favorite thing about her crazy-old-lady-ness is that she's in complete control of it – she knows exactly how funny she is. There's no guilt or irony involved in appreciating this woman. A brilliant singer and storyteller (her Caught Up album, which contains her signature song, "If Lovin' You Is Wrong (I Don't Want To Be Right)" splits its time between the point of view of a woman cheating with a married man and the point of view of his wife – Millie plays both roles), she is the definition of unsung and I really hope that her series-stealing appearance boosts her visibility. I would love to see more of Millie. This senior citizen would be a breath of fresh air to pop culture. Reality show, please.

Some gifs of her wild stage shows and a few still shots are below the jump:  

Some kid!

 

There was an episode of Made that premiered last week that, as far as I can tell, got ZERO play despite it being UTTERLY AMAZING. It featured the kinda awkward, kinda sickly awesome high school student Jason, who has some kind of degenerative disease that will soon paralyze him (I missed the first three minutes, but the only reference to what is ailing him that I could tell came when he said he was hypermobile, although that just means double-jointed, so WHAT?). He wanted to be a rocker to get "chicks," but then once the cameras did that job for him, he kind of lost interest but still had to stick it out for his hunky Made coach Eoin Harrington (who's "like pie"). For some reason this episode isn't even online, nor is it airing again in the near future (as per a cursory survey of upcoming episodes on my cable box). So here's seven of Jason's best minutes, which are as cringey and hilarious as teenagehood itself.

Down with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

 

I cut this up from the VHS source Not Just Fun and Games. In it a Canadian Christian panel eviscerates all that was harming pop culture in the '90s like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and their damn teething biscuits, which I'm pretty sure didn't actually exist), The Simpsons, Vanilla Ice and M.C. Hammer. You know, everyone who ended up bringing down the civilization that I miss as I type this from a burning ember that used to be a computer.

Enjoy. I know I do. Hell is great!

A supposedly rewarding thing I'll never do again

In the middle of 2011, I spent a week doing what is posted below: An edit test for a publication that sought me out but then didn't hire me. From what I was told, I didn't get the job because they couldn't afford me (that I never discussed salary makes me wonder if they were just letting me down easy -- regardless, I never got confirmation that this edit test was so much as glanced at). I'm not bitter (or...not any more bitter than usual), but putting about a week's worth of after-work activities on hold to prove myself when I had proven enough of myself in the first place to be asked to do so and furthermore have spent the past six and a half years proving my abilities (I'm not trying to say, "Google me," but Google me) was a total waste of time. And if I have a New Year's resolution that can be said aloud it's: Waste less time. Perhaps pulling this out of a void and actually doing something with it (even if that something is tossing it into the world without so much as rereading it -- I can't, but maybe you will want to ) is making up for lost time. Maybe it's a waste of even more time. At the very least, you may want to scroll to the bottom for the Basketball Wives video I did. But I understand if you don't, and furthermore won't hire me. I'm used to it.

(Keep in mind that these 4,000 words followed what was requested: Three short pieces and two long ones. There was some additional programming-type short form stuff that I'm not including because it would just be tedious to read, but know that it was time-consuming, too.)

(Also, I did this because I really wanted the job. I understand that rejection is a risk that comes with applying, but all the understanding in the world won't get me that time back.)

Here's to exorcism...

Merry Jack-mas!

 

This may be one for the amuses-only-me file, but I've long wanted to replace the music from Poetic Justice's "I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" scene with something more absurd. So I did. Very TV Carnage move, but I talked to TV Carnage's Derrick Beckles about it this weekend, and I think he's fine with it.

(Spoiler alert! Using this song has nothing to do with Janet Jackson's childhood nickname of "Dunk." At least, not consciously.)

Innocence lost

 

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.

Paz in slo mo

 

Over a week ago, Paz de la Huerta appeared on VH1's talk show Big Morning Buzz and she was, in a word, halting. I think it was just early for her, really, but maybe a little diva-ish as well (she was still drinking water when it came time to answer the first question and then she took even more time actually saying something). It was, at the very least, Soup-worthy. I don't watch The Soup (not on purpose, though -- I just never get around to it!) so I don't know if they did this, but my cursory check of all the web pages suggests that no one took the obvious next step to squeeze all the absurdity out of this by slowing Paz down even further. So I did. Always count on me to do the obvious and then bitch (in my head) about always having to do everything. HERE!

So you bought yourself a Flowbee!

...but your (obviously used) set didn't come with the instructional tape and you're a bit confused by Flowbee (only the best people refer to it without an article, like it's a person)? This video re-edit I did should clear everything up!

 

Hapy all-one-length cutting!

Friends with witnesses

 

Here is a cut I did of a Jehovah's witness propaganda VHS called How Can I Make Real Friends? Spoiler: The actual video is as incoherent as my trash compactor (a term coined by Cinefamily that I learned at Everything Is Festival -- it describes videos that take crap and show the best of it without any of the aspirations of comprehensiveness or critique found in supercuts). Spoiler No. 2: The first, dubbed French girl is a lot more gangster than you are, I BET YOU A MILLION DOLLARS.

Unrelated to the video, but not entirely to the headline: Here's my review of Friends with Benefits. Two words: Hated it. Two more: Flash mobs.

The performance of Jennifer Lopez's career?

I put together this reel (for work) of Jennifer Lopez being slightly squirmy but mostly composed whenever Marc Anthony was mentioned during her July 4 weekend appearance on HSN. In retrospect, it's pretty obvious that they had already split and it was just a matter of announcing it, but I do appreciate her poise and relative sincerity. Also, it is funny when celebrities are put on the spot and have to exhibit grace on live television. I'm telling you, home-shopping networks are the final frontier of celebrity honesty since they don't have the human safety nets that are publicists holding their hands and they have to talk and talk and talk sometimes for hours on end. That is why my commitment to sifting through it remains unyielding.

Also, she wants to be a cat.