What’s the only thing worse than an actor with musical aspirations? A pretentious arty-farty actor with musical aspirations.
Ryan Gosling, one of the better young actors of his generation, likes to also occasionally play music. So he has this band on the side called Dead Man’s Bones. The band has approximately 257 members. They like to dress up in “meaningful” costumes and pose deliberately in order to make statements. Here is a group photo:
Dead Man's Bones ... now with 10% more ART!
You can just see these guys living in a loft somewhere, their hemp backpacks slung over their shoulders, sipping herbal green tea while they shuffle around in their Birkenstocks, can’t you? So artsy!
When not posing and/or discussing the meaning of their art, they go out and actually perform live. As you might imagine, it’s a “creative” affair, filled with pointless dance moves and lots of cheap junk positioned as art. You keep waiting for a Beat poet to show up and recite something. Here’s a video of a recent performance of their song Pa Pa Power (horrible title, by the way, but so meaningful!):
Stone Temple Pilots are back out on tour and Scott Weiland is supposed to be clean. I say supposed, because I don’t think Scott Weiland has been clean for years. In fact, if I was playing in a death pool, he’d be the one I would want.
The tour itself is expected to be successful. STP have a very dedicated fan base and they want to see the guys get their shit together and succeed. There are also the people who like the music, but are only going to see what sort of trainwreck it will be.
The people at the band Cincinnati show this week, got a glimpse of the train beginning to jump the tracks. As the band performed “Crackerman”, Weiland fell off the stage. He just walked right off the stage, like he didn’t know the edge was there. The interesting thing here is that he didn’t miss a beat vocally, despite the fact that he appeared to hit his face on something on the way down. That leads to the question, is Scott Weiland singing at all? Is he lip synching to a vocal track, because he’s to fucked up to sing and remember the words.
The band sounds great there and I hope they cash in on this tour, because Scott’s not going to be able to do many more.
The Republican party must be a joke. It’s filled with religious Nazis who think the Constitution is a chapter in the Bible, homophobic loudmouths who invariably end up fucking dudes, and women who cannot comprehend the English language. It needs someone to stand up and lead them to the final distillation of their craziness. That someone is Christopher F. Young.
Young is the Mayoral candidate for Providence, Rhode Island. To promote his candidacy, Young stopped in on a local television show called The Rhode Show (clever!). Once on live television, he proceeded to disembowel himself so spectacularly that, if he happens to win, it will only be by the grace of God in order to bring about Armageddon.
Meanwhile, host Elizbeth Hopkins showed steely reserve as she somehow managed to not laugh directly into his fat face. She clearly needs a job on a major network after her performance here. Or perhaps she should run for Mayor. Not only did she keep a straight face, but she also proved to be genial under pressure when she flatly turned down his offer to come back and sing for her again later in the week! WHAT A PRO!
I think this guy should team up with Basil Marceaux to form a new party. We’ll call it the Retard Party. It’s very much like the Republican Party, except just slightly less intelligible. They’d be UNSTOPPABLE!
In the seventies, variety shows spiced up the television landscape. They were simple entertainment for a gentler, more innocent time in America. They looked a little bit like this back then:
That was, of course, the classic CAROL BURNETT SHOW, filled with massive talent and good writing. There were other variety shows that weren’t live but just as memorable, including THE SONNY AND CHER SHOW and THE MUPPET SHOW.
So, if you were to resurrect this television form for today’s audience, who would you use for a host? Someone likeable probably. Someone with a generous helping of talent also. Your list of possible hosts might include people like Jerry Seinfeld, Ellen DeGeneres, or Reba McIntyre. At the very bottom of your list, just below bloody bacterial sputum, would be Rosie O’Donnell. Yet that is just what NBC did on Wednesday night with the disastrous premiere of ROSIE LIVE.
Rosie is one of the most horrifyingly unpleasant and divisive forces in entertainment history. Her dykish screech causes spontaneous abortions, and her punched-in face makes God cut Himself in shame. I have had things surgically removed from my body that would make a better host for a variety show, but, for whatever reason, NBC gave her a live show and she did this with it:
Absolutely awful in every way. Barbara Walters must be laughing hysterically.
