News
Attention - Alec Baldwin Absolutely, Positively Running For Office
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, May 25th, 2010 12:30 pm
Yesterday Alec Baldwin’s representative denied that the Beetlejuice star would run for office after the Working Families Party implored him to do so, but not without noting, “Who knows what will happen in the future.” Pretty cryptic, guys. The wayward actor’s political future is officially shrouded in mystery.
The writer Ian Parker profiled Baldwin for The New Yorker nearly two years ago. While Parker didn’t shed much light on his political aspirations, he created an imaginative survey of the actor’s at-times seething discontent with his tumultuous career and personal life. “To be Leo,” Baldwin lamented.
Baldwin is 52 years old. He has spent the past few years playing a popular sitcom character and taking small but impacting roles in films like The Departed. He’s also created a growing body of work on the Huffington Post that includes pop culture musings alongside left-wing dissents that give body to his political philosophy, which is both rascally and refined.
He’s going to run for office and he’ll have no trouble mobilizing East Coast liberals. But actors with political ambitions have a checkered past at best. Here’s five Baldwin should meditate on before taking the big leap: MORE »
News
David Sedaris Movie Finally Greenlighted
Stephen Blackwell :: Monday, May 24th, 2010 4:15 pm
I know what you’re thinking: How the hell has the writing of Augusten Burroughs been adapted to film while David Sedaris, our most celebrated fictional memoirist, gone without one? That’s about to change as the story “C.O.G.,” from the book Naked, is poised to come to the big screen. It’s about a stonecutter who calls himself “Child of God” who Sedaris assisted in, what else, stonecutting. Not sure how they’ll stretch it for ninety minutes, but anything will beat Running With Scissors.
News
Robert Pattinson’s Haircut More Shocking Than Metallica’s in 1995
Stephen Blackwell :: Monday, May 24th, 2010 3:45 pm
Somebody got a haircut! Robert Pattinson has sheared his gravity-defying locks for a role in a new movie, Water for Elephants. For the role, he will use substantially less pomade. I can’t verify this, but I assume he went through half a jar of “Crew” on a typical day on the Twilight set. If I’ve learned anything from Twilight it’s this: Never put anything that isn’t water soluble in your hair. Then it gets all sticky.
Fans of Eclipse star, Pattinson (every girl on earth?) are mourning the loss of “the world’s dreamiest hair,” as their opinions spread across the internet like disappointed, whiny little fires. It will grow back, ladies — Pattinson isn’t going to look like Sgt. Slaughter forever.
The polarizing effect of Pattinson “debuting” his haircut only brings one other haircut event to mind equal in acrimony and dissent: when Metallica cut their hair in 1995 before releasing the album Load. Good thing Metallica didn’t have to deal with the Internet back then. But now that they do, let’s re-live when every man in America called them pussies. MORE »
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The Existentialism of Google Pac-Man
Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, May 21st, 2010 6:00 pm
![pac man[3]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2010/05/pac-man31-150x150.jpg "pac man[3]")
If you’re one of the 118 million people who visit google.com each day, you were in for a super-nerdy treat: A playable version of Pac-Man based on the Google logo. Its Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary today, and it still sucks. MORE »
News
Bret Michaels Death Watch
Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, May 21st, 2010 3:30 pm
If a Facebook Fan Page is any measure of cultural vibrancy, the “Bret Michaels Death Watch is officially on. He’s only 47, but he’s diabetic, has a hole in his heart, and just suffered a warning stroke that landed him back in the hospital. 54 people “like” the page, which could loosely translate to 54 people actually wanting him to die (the page lists “seeing if Bret Michaels will die” as its sole personal interest). I don’t want Bret Michaels to die. But I’m ready for it. MORE »
News
Spillers
Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, May 20th, 2010 2:30 pm
In my neighborhood, it was common to start drinking at 12, if not mandatory. Forties were two dollars in 1994, and bodega owners are shockingly immoral. And they hate cops. So, in the Bronx, there’s no legal drinking age, more or less. MORE »
News
Kevin Costner’s Oil Machine
Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, May 20th, 2010 12:00 pm
If you build it, he will come. It seems that the Field of Dreams star has taken the film’s legendary aphorism to heart.
But instead of building a field full of dead people, Costner has developed a complex machine that bears a striking resemblance to Johnny 5 had you stuck hoses on his arms. The machine operates on centrifugal force — whatever that is — to extract oil from water. In case you didn’t know, there’s an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
I’ll freely admit I never imagined Kevin Costner would save the world. I thought James Cameron would. James Cameron, why are you so useless? MORE »
News
More Caffeine Than You Require: Iced Coffee on The Rise
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 5:30 pm
Six years ago, when I was a bike messenger, I began each day with a large iced coffee from Dunkin’ Donuts or Starbucks — no ice. The idea was to mainline a wealth of caffeine into my body as quickly as possible, and the ice took up way too much of the cup’s real estate. Sucking down 32 ounces of lukewarm coffee each day was a foul ordeal that desensitized my taste buds and destroyed my appetite, which wasn’t that huge of a concern at the time because I couldn’t afford food anyway. It also caused me to develop of an ego-shattering, id-reducing anxiety disorder. Though I’m sure all the pot didn’t help either. MORE »
News
You Know It’s Not a Scandal When…
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 3:15 pm
Connecticut Senatorial hopeful Richard Blumenthal made it clear at today’s press conference that he is no way mired in scandal. The whole imbroglio is just an honest mistake — by a journalist of course. MORE »
News
Richard Blumenthal in Vietnam
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 1:45 pm
Richard Blumenthal didn’t watch his buddies die face down in the mud for nothing, mainly because he would have needed to have served in Vietnam for that to have happened. And, by most accounts, that wasn’t the case, despite his public statements.
Blumenthal is not running for Senate on a veteran platform, but it’s certainly part of his pitch. Unfortunately for him, his platform doesn’t matter much anymore.
It’s not the false bolstering of public persona that’s gross or shameful, though the jeremiads are rolling in; it’s the private sentiments he must have shared throughout the years that should disturb his constituents. When you’re warming bar stools talking about ‘Nam, you probably should have been there. MORE »
News
Spies Like Us
Stephen Blackwell :: Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 12:45 pm
Prior to sitting through the two-plus hours of Ridley Scott’s meandering Robin Hood, I was subjected to ten minutes of unusually disappointing previews. A lot of people say previews are their favorite part of going to the movies. I concur, mostly because all previews are awesome. Letters to Juliet? Sex and The City 2? Not only great previews, but both profound examples of the commercial efficacy and high art of really cheesy film.
However, the guys who edited together the previews for Killers and Knight and Day should be fired. MORE »
News
Mike “Brownie” Brown: Insane or Insanely Right (As In Correct)?
Stephen Blackwell :: Wednesday, May 5th, 2010 6:30 pm
The Robert Gibbs smack down on Fox correspondent Wendell Goler is a joy to watch. Gibbs does that thing where he smiles as he yanks you apart, which is a terrible disciplinary tactic (if your dad is an asshole you’re probably pretty familiar with it), but great to watch if it’s happening to someone else.
On a recent Fox news interview, George W. Bush-era FEMA director Michael “Brownie” Brown held forth that the Obama Administration is misusing the calamitous BP oil spill to it’s political advantage, as the reversal of recent off-shore drilling decisions could be a boon to alternative energies and candidate Obama’s aim of powering 25% of America off solar, wind, and other energy sources “from heaven.” Clearly, using the calamitous BP oil spill to the administration’s political advantage makes perfect sense. So you’d have to be an idiot not to suggest it. MORE »
News
Popthatzit.com: Relive Years of Childhood Disgust
Stephen Blackwell :: Thursday, April 29th, 2010 3:00 pm
I’m a 28-year-old man but sometimes I get humongous zits on my back like a teenager in heat. I don’t even fully understand the implications of these monstruosities!
I try to not think about them but every now and then they pop up on my spine and the discomfort is just absolutely unbearable — way worse than the time I had a catheter. Other times I didn’t even know they were there — there’s just a bunch of blood on my shirt.
Still, I’ve got nothing on the freaks of nature featured on popthatzit.com. Check out the neck puss fetus. Actually check everything out.
Image via Imageshack.com
News
The Meaning of The National Stream
Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, April 23rd, 2010 1:15 pm
When I’m searching for updates on cool indie bands, the first site I normally visit is nytimes.com. It’s the premiere destination for Breaking News, World News, Multimedia & Indie Rock. Forget world-class writing on Technology, Business, Politics and Health — I want to know what guitar strings J. Mascis used on the Sweet Apple record.
Streaming an anticipated indie rock record on the New York Times instead of, say, Pitchfork, could mean two things: a) your band has commercially outgrown the youthful scene that championed you in the first place or b) you’re old. The median age of NY Times readers online is 37, meaning they were teenagers in the heyday of Van Halen. (The cradle is definitely rocking for these readers.)
Streaming your record on NYTimes could mean you killed your indie cred, or your band is simply choosing to participate in the protracted death of cred for commercial gain and publicity. That or commercial gain and publicity are cred, which could be completely true. I don’t know, I’m not in a band.
Today coolhunting took on a very different dimension. Still, streaming records seems like an odd practice to start for a web destination that will soon be putting up a paywall. But don’t sweat it indie rockers — we’ll always have USA Today.
News
What’s a Toothless Hick to do with $260 M?
Stephen Blackwell :: Friday, April 23rd, 2010 12:00 pm
Fix his goddam teeth, for starters. How do you think Chris Shaw, the 29-year-old Missouri resident who yesterday won 260-million bucks in Powerball, lost his teeth in the first place? I’d suggest he chipped them off on a bottle, but something tells me this guy makes moonshine in his basement and drinks it out of used jars of Skippy. Or did the methamphetamine rot them out? Maybe they never grew in in the first place. MORE »
