Posted 5:30 PM by Gene

We all knew it had to happen someday, but we see The Bionic Game Show Host is calling it quits. Fifty years on TV will do something to a man. Oh well, we salute you, Bob Barker, and we hope your retirement is long enough for a medically-induced encore.

P. S. It is more than a little revolting to realize that when Bob started his current run Bill Paley and Frank Stanton still headed CBS -- they'd just invented VIACON and would soon spin it off to appease the FEDS -- and Mark Goodson and Bill Todman were still his bosses. He's gone through (by our calculations) five management changes at the network and four at the producer. (Does anyone believe his show was once co-produced by The Econowiz' publisher? Sheesh.)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

Kofi may think he's doing something good by pointing out a problem before it happens -- in this case in the Horn of Africa. But after the League of Nations' inaction (or worse, in action) on so many disasters who will listen?

Meantime Hezbollah's leader (remember them?) says the League won't disarm his forces, which we'll take as the last word. Further:

The U.S. has "no future" in the region, Nasrallah said. "They will leave the Mideast, Arab and Islamic worlds just as they left Vietnam, and I advise those who are counting on them to draw conclusion from the Vietnam experience."

Do he and SEN. HEIN-TZZZZZZZZZZZZ share a speechwriter?

Posted 5:21 PM by Gene

I suppose Arbitron going from paper-and-pencil diaries to the Web to compile radio ratings is a step forward, but how many miles would Arbitron have to go to assure they're accurate?

And what especially galls is that these ratings are behind the rise of CHEAP CHANNEL and three formats.

In other late-breaking industry news, this site announces that Roger was wrong -- EINSTEIN will live to see another day. Quick thinking!

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Why do the networks continue with soap operas? They were an anachronism even in the old days, The Perils of Pauline dragged from the railroad tracks into the radio age. Now they're largely unwatched due to their kitschiness and the target audience having abandoned the couch for the workplace. SUMNER has made much of this synergistic shtick with Marvel Entertainment but it won't work for either party; more adults will not want to consume more comic books OR soaps.

Posted 5:01 PM by Gene

Which is worst about Stale.com: its non-knee-jerk knee-jerk politics, its ironic snideness, or its insistent devil's-advocate contrarianism?

And what do being an economist and viewing porn have in common?

Posted 1:42 PM by Gene

"The negatives aren't working as well and so campaigns are turning up the volume in their ads."

This, as I said before, is where we desperately need the new Nielsen ratings for commercials. If they can prove -- as I suspect they would -- that people tune out political TV ads more than any other type it might introduce reform in our politics the SLOBS have been unwilling to do.

Posted 1:32 PM by Gene

STAY IN SCHOOL OR YOU'LL GET STUCK IN IRAQ!

AND I'M PROUD OF THE SOLDIERS WHO ARE STUCK THERE!

Posted 11:22 AM by Gene

Some time ago we said we should make it a habit to enter "player arrested" in Google News. We haven't done it in awhile, but prodded by nostalgia we had to type it in, and we got back these rewarding stories:

A University Of Iowa football player faces problems off the field today. Starting linebacker, Ed Miles, was arrested early yesterday for an assault at an Iowa City bar.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Former University of Wisconsin football player Levonne Rowan was arrested on Saturday night following an alleged disturbance on the UW campus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A running back for the Eastern Arizona College Gila Monsters football team was arrested Oct. 15 soon after admitting on camera to having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Mustang football player was arrested Thursday evening following an incident outside the fieldhouse on the high school campus.

John Washington, 18, is charged with third-degree assault and engaging in violent criminal group activity after an off-duty officer reportedly saw him hitting another student in the head while two others held the victim.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Off-field issues continue to plague the UConn football team.

Senior Donald Thomas, a backup offensive lineman from West Haven, was suspended two games Tuesday by coach Randy Edsall for what school officials called a "violation of team rules." Thomas was arrested Sunday by UConn police after a fight at Wings Over Storrs, a restaurant near the campus.

And so on. And so on and so on. And so on and so on and so on.

FUN in America's SKOOLS!

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

Why news hacks can't lose their circulation fast enough: Yahoo! highlights this press release from the people who've given us so much laughter through BabelFish. They won't tell us how tall this ugly building in Dubai will be. Someone must know! You could find out. Heck if your friends in America can reveal all sorts of state secrets the LEAST you can do is find out how tall this ugly building will be. But we know you won't find out because a news hack's favorite hobby is -- well, we'd rather not say.

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Mogul's Friend does ANOTHER favor:

When I ask Eastwood where he keeps his Oscars — the showbiz equivalent of Bradley's wartime medal [Nice touch there, Mogul -- likening the ACADEMY AWARD® to the Navy Cross -- scintillating! What a capital-A ASS!] — he points to a corner of the room. "There's a couple behind my desk over there. They're just sitting where they were put after the event." He shrugs, already a little uncomfortable talking about his achievements. "I appreciate the honor, but the question is — how far do you want to carry it?"

As far as you can, Greatest Director of All Time. Just makes sure Mogul's Friend doesn't steal them and sell them on eBay.

(Via the usual ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

The new Little Petey Rozelle is lucky he doesn't have a stadium murder on his hands.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

Wal-Mart has become a political football. To the right it is the savior of mankind (and enables them to chuckle at all the menial retards who can't advance within the company); to the left it's a force of undiluted EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL and an excuse for endless posturing. A company of its girth makes a convenient target; nonetheless Wal-Mart has no one to blame for its mess but itself; by being the GM of retailing and doing GM-like things (like destroying thousands of small businesses and towns, much as GM bulldozed public transit) it has richly earned its scorn, but for reasons knee-jerks of either stripe could never understand.

One good thing: the more it turns to consultants and PR types the more it screws itself up.

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

Why is it when things go wrong the Pentagon's brass asses MUST turn to PR?

You do not counter dishonesty with dishonesty.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

How many people are now mad that they can't infringe copyrights on YouTube?

Good idea, Larry and Sergey!

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The cable conspiracy, the reemerging phone monopoly, the cellphone nuisance biz and the Bugmeister are engaged in an arms race to nuke our checkbooks, and somebody's got to go broke first.

Posted 7:00 AM by Gene

Black Democrats support Steele

Who says con-SER-va-tive news hacks can't campaign too?

Posted 6:58 AM by Gene

The Divorce of the Century gets messier -- and costlier!

We do like to see these things. Why shouldn't people who earn more in one day than most people earn in their whole lives get a little grief?

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

We wonder what's behind the ASSociated Press referring to China's "legislature" (ah, nomenclature), but said body is said to have "approved" a new method of reviewing death penalties, meaning (we presume) the government can merely torture and kill indiscriminately with a higher level of approval.

This "reform" resulted from several sensational miscarriages of justice, which will happen in a nation butchering its own people.

Posted 9:24 PM by Gene

We see the world's friendliest oil company has accepted the blame for a horrific blast last year in Texas. BP 's the sort of outfit that can "take full responsibility" but somehow can never be responsible.

Posted 9:18 PM by Gene

More enervating news from the White House:

President Bush has tapped Emilio Estefan Jr., the Grammy-winning producer and husband of singer Gloria Estefan, to serve on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts board of trustees, the White House said Monday.

A Cuban refugee, Estefan has worked on albums for Latin music's most significant crossover artists, including Shakira, Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez. He is already member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.

The board of trustees is headed by the current and former first ladies and has members from Congress, the government of the District of Columbia and those picked by the president, among others.

Bush also nominated billionaire casino mogul Steve Wynn and former Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta to serve as board members. Wynn opened a $2.7 billion resort and casino in Las Vegas last year and in September opened a $1 billion hotel-casino in Macau, a Chinese territory.

Mineta, the only Democrat to serve in Bush's Cabinet, stepped down in July. His six years as secretary made him the longest-serving head of the department since it was formed in 1967.

Bush also selected investor Elliott Broidy, AOL founding executive James Kimsey and real estate developer Sheldon Kamins.

In September, Broidy hosted a fundraiser with Bush at his Beverly Hills home. The event was expected to raise $1.3 million for the Republican National Committee.

So -- he chooses a pop star's husband, a zillionaire, a few other Richie Riches, and a man who defined PC. The Bush Administration marches down.

Posted 6:00 PM by Gene

A cowboy walks into a bar and orders a whisky. As the barman's pouring it the cowboy looks about him.

'Where is everybody?' he says.

'Gone to the hanging,' says the barman.

'Hanging?' says the cowboy. 'Who they hanging?'

'Brownpaper Pete,' replies the barman.

'Brownpaper Pete? Why do they call him that?'

'Well,' says the barman. 'His hat's made of brown paper, his shirt's made of brown paper, his jacket's made of brown paper and his trousers are made of brown paper.'

'Really?' says the cowboy. 'What they hanging him for?'

'Rustling.'

I think I'll stick with blogging. It's funnier.

(Also via ArtsJournal)

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

GREAT: Mitt may pick Jeb as his veep.

Isn't TWO Bushes enough?

Posted 3:51 PM by Gene

The good news is what's done in television could do in Web video -- COMMERCIALS. I reluctantly tried to play one on Yahoo! and got a 30-second ad from Toyota. I clicked OFF. I know this sort of thing is common but it still has MR. WARNER BROS.'S grimy paws all over it. If He and other Web gods think they can use the TV MODEL on the Web they'll be lucky if their stocks move sideways.

Posted 1:05 PM by Gene

Alas, PINCH's Boston edition has avoided a strike, but it cannot avoid declining circulation.

Posted 12:00 PM by Gene

We're for anything that proves SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS are no better than JEFF GREENFIELD.

(Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

Rep. Hunter Exploring Presidential Run

Don't quit your day job!

Posted 9:58 AM by Gene

So -- you're saying for us to get all this brilliant NEW MUSIC in this SUPERMEGAPLATINUM AGE OF CULTURE, we have "to comb through lots of really bad stuff"?

Why must entertainment be a CHORE?

(Also via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

ROGER SAYS EINSTEIN'S ABOUT TO BE CANCELED!!!!!

Smart thinking!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

“Unfortunately, I don’t think the public really cares. It can get word out, but it can’t get people to want to see your film. People just yawn. And sometimes it reeks of desperation, too.”

It is to soon to write off the orgy of contempt for the public that is publicity, but perhaps it explains why so much of our superiors' product can't sell anymore.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 8:39 AM by Gene

The more "RISK" in TV, the more likely reporters will quote Fred Allen saying "imitation is the sincerest form of television."

And another plus to serial TV: if you get any viewers hooked and you cancel after three episodes they'll swear never to watch your network again!

This Villanova student has it right: "You can’t spend your life watching television." That would NEVER occur to TV ad-blurbists.

And maybe in the end that's why serial TV failed: Perhaps the viewers sensed that all these superexpensive, superproduced, superacted, superwritten and superdirected masterpieces were just another clever way of getting their no-longer-gullible selves to stay for the ADS.

(Second link via ArtsJournal. Why doesn't Bill Carter become an exec himself? He has the PERFECT mentality. I wonder -- is he Carter of Sitcomdom?)

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

WHO IS CARTER OF SITCOMDOM?

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

If it's BAD it's in AD...AGE: Unilever talks itself into thinking it got zillions of hits and tons of spin for a "viral video" (that term is quickly working up the ladder of irritating buzzwords like METROSEXUAL) for Dove and some "Self-Esteem Fund." (P. T. BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR-NUM!) Says some "VP-marketing shared services", "Because we're out to influence pop culture, you see our brands taking very distinctive points of view. ... Dove has taken a stand that real beauty comes in all sizes, shapes and colors, that real beauty can be very stunning, and that there are a lot of beauty myths out there that perpetuate low self-esteem."

And we wonder why business is full of KennyBoys.

Posted 6:59 AM by Gene

Maybe the cakewalk into Congress won't be that easy: the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is smoking.

Shouldn't she be tossed from the party?

Posted 6:53 AM by Gene

How much of the money St. Louisians will pay for decades to ensure their teams win unimportant sports like baseball could have gone to making their city safer?

Posted 6:43 AM by Gene

You know how anytime anything bad (read good) happens in Iraq or Afghanistan the hacks cart out the magic word "GRIM"? Well, GREG must have been banging his head over the weekend because one of his help used the word to define NEWSPAPER CIRCULATION. Now of course GREG wouldn't see any connection, but we say, the more you smile when you say GRIM the more you may NOT have reason to smile.

Posted 4:24 PM by Gene

This is the kind of ironic-jokey thing news hacks insist on writing, and which helps explain why most news writing reeks; nonetheless I discern an elegiacal spirit to this Baywatch tribute. Popular TV shows always had strong ensemble casts, from I Love Lucy on. But the ensemble is difficult machinery to assemble, and with modern TV the gears lie all over the place. Baywatch could not have clicked in syndication without its uniformly (and sometimes risibly) telegenic cast. No one would call it art, but eye candy does have its place. The problem is entertainment doesn't know how to deliver the simple pleasure anymore; it must give us EINSTEIN -- or filth.

Posted 2:17 PM by Gene

Okay, why did this year's Series earn a well-deserved record-low TV audience? Possibly because the game is dull, for starters. Who wants to watch three hours of pitchers spitting and grabbing their crotches and fondling rosin bags and mopping their brows and catchers crouching and fiddling with their signs and coaches fiddling with their signs and runners trying not to be picked off and umpires dusting home plate and outfielders just standing there? And sure Bill, maybe Bud's the best thing to happen to baseball, but he also invented the SeligSign™, and who wants to watch a three-hour infomercial behind the batter's box on top of all the boredom?

Most to the point, like other institutions that became TV-crazed, baseball has lost its soul. Miss America is the classic example, having gone from a certain kitschy larger-than-life melodrama to robotics. America's Former Pastime may be, as Zelig's always telling us, healthier than ever; but much of its health comes from RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and the rest comes from Brian Robber and the cable conspiracy, not to mention the hack pols giving our tax dollars away. Take away that health and you've got a ghostly creature living in the past.

There might be one other reason: most people just don't care.

Note too the heading, and the URL. They say it all.

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

House Majority Leader John Boehner says he might have taken matters into his own hands if he or any GOP leader had known about ex-Rep. Mark Foley's sexually explicit instant messages to former pages.

Look BEHIND you, King Denny!

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Environment Secretary David Miliband has drawn up a wide-ranging package of green taxes designed to change people's behaviour in a bid to offset global warming.

His proposals, in a leaked letter to Gordon Brown, include hikes on fuel and air passenger duty as well as increased road tax for drivers of the most polluting vehicles.

Here's something the Democrats can campaign on!

Posted 10:26 AM by Gene

AmSpec is in an uproar because "Michael Savage" gave money to Mr. Moonbeam.

How soon they forgot Morton Downey Jr. You have to wonder how many others of the loudmouths are fakes. We wouldn't be surprised if someday Tarzana announces she's a closet liberal. If we can't trust the hacks we have less reason to trust these professional sulfur emitters.

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

The saintly MODERATE former president of Iran would condone torture?

Ayatollahs forfend!

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Yesterday appeared a story by the StinkyInky's resident Real-TOR® (whose last name MUST be Heavens) saying how Center City's BETTER THAN EVER!!!!! thanks to all those $20 million condos still going up. And its population is SOARING -- to 88,000!!!!! Which, if the Census Bureau is correct, means 1,380,000 Philthydelphians DON'T live in Center City, and most of them DON'T live in condos. And the city's population's STILL declining. With stories like this the newsman tries to flatter his reader (not to mention the ad dollars going elsewhere). This reader resisted the flattery in part because he fears he'll never afford another downtown apartment again. To add to the misery the inaptly named Heavens quotes this spokespoop named Levy who has become to Philthydelphia what PAUL DRECK is to the movie business, providing snappy, optimistic, irritating sound bites. Such damnable press releases (among other reasons) are why I hope the upcoming strike against StinkyInky Publishing Co. will be a long, bitter and costly one, and that so many people will be so happy about not bothering with a daily newspaper they'll never read the StinkyInky or its stub tabloid edition again.

Posted 8:28 AM by Gene

I've been using Bugmeister's NEW! IMPROVED!! IE7 for over a week now, and can say it is at least slightly better than 6. Viewing tabbed windows and the zoom and print functions are neat-o. There are a few glitches, though, most having to do with my FAVORITE blogging service: when you want to use the link button Bill pops up in blue asking permission (one of those ActiveX thingies), and when you're on the Edit Posts page you can't click on the body of each entry to see the contents. I guess Larry and Sergey were too busy carting more senescent machines into their server barns to notice. I'd bet it will be weeks before they're fixed, if ever.

I'm still very much thinking of moving my blog, but lately I've gotten ten hits a day instead of eight, and I don't like the notion of starting from scratch.

Posted 8:24 AM by Gene

EMI Music Publishing, with over 1 million songs in its catalog, has quietly begun amassing equity positions in Broadway musicals featuring its songs, The Post has learned.

Oh, NO! MORE JUKEBOX MUSICALS!!!!!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Despite the vast assortment of fruits and nuts the Democrats could prove a palliative in the House. On the other hand, if they're like the Republicans before them, they could get mad and get even, and given some of their shy retiring types we should expect that. Then the Republicans come back to office, and it's shaft the public all over again.

Posted 8:05 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Shucks, if only I could have let Dick know, we could have bid on this.

Posted 7:57 AM by Gene

"We're losing, but all isn't lost." Glad to hear you say that, LittleJon. We know your first instinct would have been to omit those last four words, but if we do that we look like the ossified superliberal nose-in-the-airs everyone knows we are, not that we care if people complain -- heck, Mr. Mark still thinks the Koran-in-the-toilet story was okay; hell, we could justify the HITLER DIARIES -- and, as we've said before, thank God (meaning ST. WARREN) for coffee tables. The problem is, LittleJon, with such stories there's a fine line between realism and hoping. We gave up thinking your profession is realistic a long time ago, and we sense that, deep down inside, it's hoping.

So if an Iraqi force of -- INSURGENTS blows up a dirty bomb in one of our cities, your biz won't entirely be able not to take credit.

At least you used ONE cover this time, by the way. After the flag in the trash can and ANNIE we're paying PERMANENT ATTENTION.

Posted 9:10 PM by Gene

Noam Chomsky is DANCIN', DANCIN': his hero Fidel's up and at 'em and ready to be mankind's savior for another seventy-five years!

I wonder -- did the CIA ever try exploding birthday candles?

Posted 9:08 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS come up with a BRILLIANT idea: sell AOL to MR. WARNER BROS.!

That may not be as brilliant an idea as selling AOL to the TWXSTERS, but it's getting there.

Posted 7:04 PM by Gene

One thing or another has ruined every big holiday. That Maryland's authorities must urge sex offenders to keep their porch lights off on Halloween says that, whatever the whizbang wonders of our age, we've lost something tangible -- like decency and trust.

(Via USAOKAY.com)

Posted 6:19 PM by Gene

I wish I knew what could willingly get me to stand in line for hours. Today some scruffians stood outside that rickety old TLA theater on South Street awaiting standing-room seats (shades of -- Great White?) for The Dresden Dolls, a "critically-acclaimed" second-string pseudo-Cabaret punk act, and my first thought was, who was the last pop star to sell more than 10 million units of an album? I'm guessing Alanis Morissette -- and her career went down in whirring-vibrato-like flames with DE-Lovely. Who speaks of her anymore? And the name got me to thinking of Pussycat Dolls and their alleged "burlesque" turns (from this dispatch they sound like mere no-talents who dress too skimpily); will they be around in ten years? And then I thought, what would get ME to stand in happy anticipation for hours? Al Jolson at the Winter Garden? The Four Marx Brothers at the Walnut Street for I'll Say She Is? Mickey and Judy at the Capitol? The opening of South Pacific? Duke and the band at Newport? And then I think, America has almost three times the population of show-biz' golden age. Where's all the talent now? Who in his right mind would line up for -- The Dresden Dolls?

Although it goes without saying most of today's "music" fans don't have a mind.

Posted 3:51 PM by Gene

Coaching -- and a defense:

“My concern is that some Democrats will [SIC] learn the wrong lessons from our victory,” Senator Joe Biden of Delaware said.

Noting the number of conservative Democratic challengers this fall, he said that voters are seeking “a bipartisan consensus” about how to leave more than chaos and instability in Iraq. “A pullout is not a plan,” Mr. Biden said, “it is a reaction.” What sealed the Democrats’ image after Vietnam, historians say, was not just Mr. McGovern’s campaign but also their reaction as public opinion turned on the war. After 1968, Democrats in Congress began pressing to curtail the war or cut off its financing. And their efforts reached a peak after the post-Watergate midterm election of 1974, when many Democrats interpreted their landslide gains as a mandate to cut back on national defense.

TRANSLATION: There has to be a plan -- to make us look pro-American.

Posted 3:43 PM by Gene

There will be a problem with stories like this: just as the news hacks are conditioned to go KLUMPH! KLUMPH! KLUMPH!, now we have become conditioned to look for the traits that mark sneaky reporting: the use of "some", the careful hiding of important information, and with stories like this, the singing of the PATRIOTIC RAG in the FIRST GRAFS. These IDIOTS are not paying the slightest attention to their circulations, their ratings, their reputations -- and that appears to be fine with them.

Posted 12:05 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Another friend of the hacks gets to leak things THEY want to hear, and bask in the warm glow of their adjectives.

How many idiots in Washington are motivated by reading their names in the papers? And how many truly selfless beings inhabit the Beltway? Perhaps DR. Zelikow is one of the latter. Then again, maybe he's just another GENERAL.

And why is it increasingly when we peruse the hacks we feel we're being had -- even if we aren't?

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

One of Stale.com's partisans says PILLHEAD has a "psychosis."

We're increasingly of a mind that if we could zap every last tantrum-throwing partisan of either persuasion to another universe we'd all be better off. PILLHEAD breaks wind with his mouth. So liberals must respond by breaking wind with theirs. Every outrageous comment by one side must be answered by an equally outrageous remark by the other side. Both sides would believe the politics of their enemies constitutes a mental illness; both sides, if given the chance, would build them concentration camps. It is not enough these frauds must fill us with bile to our gills; they must turn the world into a sea of bile, from which we can never see high land.

P. S. Clever that ST. WARREN'S BOYS don't use the word. At what point does one synergistic division's dishonesty cease to be another's? You can't be synergistic and disclaim its "advantages."

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

Meantime Condi says Hezbollah must disarm!

If I didn't know better I'd say this is a change in policy. But that's okay; Foggy Bottom changes its policy every week.

Posted 11:21 AM by Gene

Lenny's stooge says he has a solution for the war!

What is it?

Posted 9:15 AM by Gene

I realize we're supposed to chuckle knowingly over someone having the Sesame Street crowd staging Mr. Taxi Driver's masterpieces, but the gag's been done before, and besides, it's more arteriosclerosis of the Web, more instantly dead instant culture, more needless material accreting, more confusion and exasperation. The Tower of Babel is nothing compared to this infinite monument of nothing we're putting up.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

Another Democrat helps Sen. Morals!

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

This Time, Ballot Issues Could Rally Liberal Base

Lenny says, "THE CONSERVATIVES HAVE THE MOONIES' TOILET PAPER! THE HELL WITH CONSERVATIVES!"

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Well, at least there were no nail-biters -- and no rioting.

An extra-added bonus: the owners get to shake down taxpayers for more "development"!

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Bill O'Reilly to Oprah: I Hate The Media

You ARE the media.

BONEHEAD.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: "OI wish OI'D HAED DAT SHEEO ounn FX!"

How 'bout them M-----S!

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

We'll find out on election day whether all that money wins races. Why am I doubtful?

Posted 4:56 PM by Gene

A TV writer and former magazine editor I know, for instance, once told me he cancelled his L.A. Times subscription to get USA Today instead, which really seems pretty crazy. He added that he just wants the following three questions answered when he reads his morning paper: 1) How are the Dodgers doing? 2) Rain today? 3) What’s on TV?

“Those are the only three answers I want from American journalism,” he noted. “USA Today is perfect.”

1. You don't need a newspaper for those. 2. If this is all people read newspapers for they're doomed.

(Via Romy, strange)

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Picket signs are being printed here in Philthydelphia!

Two likeliest outcomes: 1. Our papers get DUMMER; 2. The bigshots like the ones who work most of the time in BRISTOL won't be touched, as they're PROFIT CENTERS.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:49 AM by Gene

OMG, did RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! pay too much for MySpace after all?

(As a rule we'd rather not link to Wall Street Journals stories, even "free" ones, and we will actively try not to link to Wall Street Journals stories until Philips Phree Phridays happen SEVEN DAYS A WEEK.)

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

LARRY AND SERGEY ARE IN THE AUTOMOTIVE BIZ!

If it's anything like those jokes about Bugmeister Bill making cars this should be something.

But then do people who aren't superrich really want cars from micromanufacturers? What if one breaks? Do you take it to a factory a thousand miles away? And we're told how sexy these cars are. So why does the DeLorean look so boxy and cheap nowadays?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

There's only one way for the newspaper biz to save itself, it won't happen, and it wouldn't work: It must issue a series of high-visibility ads admitting in the humblest terms to the biz' bias, mistakes, bad writing and superiority complex, and offering to immediately cut newsstand and home delivery prices. It won't happen because the biz makes those 25% margins, but more to the point, it won't happen because the hacks could turn this into a labor negotiating ploy, and besides, no one tells the greatest men on the planet what to do. Even if they miraculously agreed the Web has proved you don't have to get nothing for something.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

And in one of the GREAT INJUSTICES of ALL TIME, Twyla Tharp has DESTROYED the AHT of WILLIAM ZIMMERMAN SHAKESPEARE.

Here's what gets us about His personality cult: it's based on a notion that informs so many of the scribblers, that somehow rock is superior to all that came before it, therefore excusing you for your philistinism. Thus did a Man who issued some silly rhymes about flowers and times a-changin' become THE VOICE OF HISTORY. Attack the Man and you attack news hacks and all they stand for. No wonder "Greatest Musical" Ben takes it so -- personally.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

TRUTH-TELLING DAVID LETTERMAN AUDITIONS FOR MSNBC!

1. We don't know what it is about these zillionaire blowhards that compels them to start PR feuds. 2. "Bonehead" may describe many people in your biz, O Noble Truth Teller. 3. Why did the Truth-Telling Bonehead invite him -- and why did the NO-SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN ZONE accept? Or do I smell PROFESSIONAL WRESTLING?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 7:05 AM by Gene

And just how bad is it in the news biz? We suspect when it comes to this overpublicized historical artifact the movie ad-blurbists are engaging in the most evil sin of all: SELF-CENSORSHIP. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. If they rave this masterwork they sound as though they're vicariously living their daydreams; if they don't they're being insincere. Such conundrums force one to hope the news biz gets the worst, knowing all along those who deserve to lose their jobs will get raises, and vice versa.

Hey frauds! If your daydream came true we'd have PRESIDENT BIG OIL! How would you like THAT practical joke? Or do you have ANOTHER daydream besides?

Elsewhere Claudia Pig -- PUIG shakes her head vigorously, and gives us another reason newspapers should NOT run movie reviews.

P. S. When a tantrum thrower like HARVEY WHINER uses the word "un-American", remember how many people he's blackballed. What in God's name do our superiors have against us? (Via IWantMedia)

Posted 11:23 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Indian cities are changing their names for PC.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

"WE ARE LEFT TO CONCLUDE THAT THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE OF A THREAT TO AMERICAN SECURITY!!!!!" Curley told mediabistro.com in an email. "IT IS AN OVERT EFFORT TO STIFLE A FREE PRESS!!!!!!!!!!" [Overemphasis added.]

I don't think CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) should have made his COURAGEOUS DEFENSE of his TRUTHTELLER after CNN'S FAVOR. Nor do we think his executive editor should have boasted that he "committed" journalism. THAT'S the problem.

We wonder, CURLEY (Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!) -- have you met the president about this? You're a powerful man. You have that option. Or are you merely POSTURING?

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

TOM FRESTON FOR PRESIDENT!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

"If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside ... without cover, and the cats come to eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat's?"

"The uncovered meat is the problem!! If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred!!!!!" [Overemphasis added.]

Ah, the scrumptious morals of I---m.

Posted 8:57 AM by Gene

Timmy thinks he's being cute by saying PILLHEAD is stupid and isn't stupid.

That's the thing about Stale.com: it's always playing mind games with its readers. Let's be blunt: PILLHEAD IS stupid, and his mouth and luck are geniuses.

Posted 8:33 AM by Gene

All this means is that these "independent" labels will have to sell more of their noise on the Web. If they can't it merely means the public can only support so many full-line no-talents.

(Via Yahoo! News)

Posted 8:29 AM by Gene

Good news for con-SER-va-tives:

Exxon Mobil [sic] Corp. says its profit rose to $10.49 billion in the third quarter, making it the second largest quarterly profit ever for a publicly traded U.S. company.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

It seems odd the WaPost should worship an "atheist evangelist" when we're 18-percent owned by GOD. It's even weirder when you consider news hacks are Gods. I guess it depends on what hero you're worshipping.

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

The only difference between NFL players in the pile and Neanderthals is that the Neanderthals didn't get paid.

Posted 3:18 PM by Gene

Repeat after me: TOO MUCH PUBLICITY...

"Our research showed it was soft in awareness," said Bruce Snyder, Fox's distribution chief.

So where did those tons of mind-numbing publicity go? Did they vanish into the air? We're they carted off to landfills? Or did people STOP UP THEIR EARS?

(Via ShowBizData)

Posted 1:57 PM by Gene

Jane Pauley is suing The Paper of Re-CORD for putting her in an ad supplement and lying about it.

Jane Pauley, top-secret programs, what's the diff? The Paper of Re-CORD knows better.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

The BIG C, remembering the days it ran more infomercials than any other channel (or seemed to), floats a hothothot rumor that CHEAP CHANNEL may go PRIVATE!

As the author of this story notes, there's only one problem: it's still in the RADIO biz (or as we say, the annoy-them-with-loud-car-dealer-ads biz).

Posted 1:39 PM by Gene

Little Malcolm's lists are a double-nuisance because not only does he get to make up numbers regarding his subjects, he flogs them as ways to get advertising into his magazine. He's upped the nuisance quotient by forcing his Web surfers to click through endless photo galleries. If Forbes spent a third as much time on good solid reporting as it does on promoting itself, it would be the world's best magazine.

Posted 12:07 PM by Gene

The Post hypes its circulation

And DA NOOZ spins that DA POST!!!!!!!!! hypes its circulation. "1,582,053 copies"!!!!! WOW!!!!!!!!!! That's a LOT!!!!! Until you consider it's "6,303 extra copies for each weekday - nearly 1% of its total circulation" (it sez here) -- which, when you come down to it, isn't that much, unless you're Bugmeister Bill counting your pocket change.

Speaking of plagues, both RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and Mort Zuck lose big money pouring their fortunes down Big Apple ratholes that seem to be getting bigger and rattier. As with the networks, it isn't who comes first -- it's who avoids being LAST.

Posted 11:53 AM by Gene

Conservatives defend PILLHEAD, the WaPost CAMPAIGNS...

A PLAGUE O' BOTH YOUR HOUSES!

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

We hope those of you looking vainly on my blog for info on Formosan termites might find other things worthy of your perusal.

Posted 11:45 AM by Gene

Oh, NO! LEGENDARY WELCH is part of a group that wants to bid on the Globe!

Everyone jump out the windows!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:42 AM by Gene

Dick Clark is giving a ton of his memorabilia hoard away for a (largely) charity auction, and given how pop-culturalists are at the top of the GET-A-LIFE! crowd this could be the screwiest thing since people paid half-a-million or whatever for Andy Warhol's cookie jars. Well, it is for (largely) charity.

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

The CLOWNS who run America's rags are justifiably fretful: they do the same shtick as their newspaper brethren -- putting out a bad product, thinking they can correct it with buzzwords -- and wonder why their readers are screaming out of their rooms. There's hardly a decent magazine these days because everyone's in the business of schmoozing advertisers and condescendingly flattering the readers. And there's no way out of it because every periodical makes a practice of being indifferently written at best.

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 8:32 AM by Gene

A meltdown threatens in Boston!

Did some people have dreams of world domination?

Posted 8:30 AM by Gene

I've been getting weird referrals lately. First people hit on my blog with searches for "carter of sitcomdom", and now it's Formosan termites. Well, I'll take my hits however I can, but I do wish there were rhyme and reason to them.

Posted 8:26 AM by Gene

PILLHEAD said somethin' stupid, and now the hacks and their stooge "bloggers" are laughingly all over him -- not because he said something stupid, but because he's CONSERVATIVE -- therefore we can play the hypocrite safely.

This is why I loathe politics: we attack someone not because he's an ass, but because he's a CONSERVATIVE ass, or a LIBERAL ass. An ass is an ass, and PILLHEAD's one of the biggest -- and he HAPPENS to be a conservative one.

Posted 8:22 AM by Gene

Putin says he won't run for 3rd term

Will he have to?

Posted 8:18 AM by Gene

Does anyone really have to remind us Gray-DOHN and Kurt are schmucks?

Posted 5:06 PM by Gene

Senate Republicans with enormous campaign war chests are refusing to transfer significant amounts of money to help fellow Republicans who are cash-strapped and face defeat in the final weeks of the campaign.

How aptly CAPITALISTIC.

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

Associated Press photographer abducted in Gaza on Tuesday by Palestinian gunmen has been freed, Palestinian security and political sources told CNN Tuesday night. ["Breaking news" squib]

That didn't take long; someone must have told the kidnappers about Bilal.

Posted 3:24 PM by Gene

Not only is CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED becoming the kiss of death, we're approaching to the point where too much publicity may not be good publicity. We saw it with the TWXSTERS' SNAKES stunt, and now we're possibly seeing it with RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s "comedy", whose star increasingly sounds like a petulant control phreak. If morons like the man who saved the StinkyInky want to know why their publications stand to go the way of the dodo, they should check on the show-biz typists with the suction-cup lips.

But why must these articles run in ALTERNARAGS?

(Via the inevitable Romy, who seems to get half his stuff from alternarags)

Posted 1:47 PM by Gene

TNR plugs a comic roman à clef by a former aide to King Denny -- and it's still only 708,452 in Amazon.com?

The reason is obvious: Who needs a fictional farce when you have King Denny?

Posted 1:26 PM by Gene

Can a city do without its daily newspapers? We in Philthydelphia may be about to find out. While the situation at StinkyInky Publishing Co. isn't yet approaching meltdown it can't be long before someone readies the picket signs. And alas, we know the answer to the question; the Web has all but rendered newspapering obsolete. We do not want to see newspapers die, and find it hard to believe they ever really will. But the news barons and their scribblers have brought this general mess on themselves by refusing to meet their customers even a quarter of the way and insisting not only that the peons take their castor oil, but that only their castor oil is good for you. The retarded readers, however, may be tired of constant gagging.

Posted 12:25 PM by Gene

Be quick to recognize not only that there is a problem but also the magnitude of the problem; be quick to address it, not only with the outside world but also with your own colleagues; and be open-minded about what your critics are saying.

So why weren't you and Danno Blather?

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

ROME (AP) -- Pete Doherty broke a microphone stand and brandished it before fans during a Babyshambles concert at the Piper club.

He isn't even a [C]RAPPER and he's made a BRILLIANT career move!

Doherty, 27, has had a string of arrests in London for drug possession and is undergoing a court-ordered rehabilitation program. He is the on-off boyfriend of Kate Moss.

Definitely.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

Oops: A precinct sergeant in a central station of the media-police-state force says the cops are beating their reader retards a bit too hard with their Democratic-victory batons!

Are all the captains getting nervous?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:27 AM by Gene

ILLINOIS GOV. ROD BLAGOJEVICH [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
looks a little bit like actor Sean Astin. Never noticed before.

You've been raving too many movies, Ms. Travers!

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Report: Dye Turns Yellow River Red

Somewhere, Mao is smiling.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Higher sales, lower costs lift DuPont's profit

Not good enough! Still have $110 billion in market cap to reach G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

I want all those investors who don't blog with BLOGGER to justify this.

Posted 8:54 AM by Gene

Is it me or have the hacks really been giving it the old college try these last few weeks -- as in trying our patience? Their media-police-state campaigning for Democrats has reached a blood-curdling banshee-screaming pitch, most of the blood curdling and banshee screaming originating from the readers. Today USAOKAY!!!!! tries a new tack by convincing those blithering morons (as they surely call them in Arlington) that Generation Y (I HATE TERMS LIKE THAT!) is erupting in a MASSIVE WAVE OF LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC REASON!!!!! Of course winning a Pulitzer prize in advance for its courageous disclosure of our EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL secret telephone surveillance it doesn't quite say that; it merely says the young want to "get involved." Otherwise the long-suffering peons might give the customer-service types a headache. Thank God for hermetically sealed luxury news suites! No one can ever penetrate THEM.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

And in more news from the Southern California Insane Asylum, last year's slump in the biz happened because -- it happened. People decided they wanted to see fewer movies and buy fewer DVDs because a bird sang in their ears.

Amazing how slumps can happen, isn't it?

Posted 8:42 AM by Gene

See there are all these immortal masterpieces of fillum -- more proof that movies ARE better than ever -- and nobody's going to watch them because the EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL Harvey Whiner got THE CONSPIRACY to schedule them all together to create an Os-CAR® "bloodbath" and make the movie ad-blurbists mad!

Mogul's Friend, better look in the mirror the next time you smoke crack.

Posted 8:36 AM by Gene

What? Try to beat Lenny? NEVER!

Posted 7:49 PM by Gene

Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations, a newspaper reported on Sunday.

It would appear the Japanese were born yesterday, mais oui?

Posted 7:46 PM by Gene

I smile: Romy's worried that StinkyInky Publishing Co. may be in trouble. What would one expect when an amateur invests in a declining business whose first obligation is to stiff its customers?

Posted 5:48 PM by Gene

Possibly record-low ratings and a controversy over a pitcher.

I think this PLATINUM AGE of SELIGISM deserves them, don't you?

Posted 5:19 PM by Gene

Obviously not ONE investor in G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE BLOGS with BLOGGER.

As for me, I've voted with my mouse clicks: I've uninstalled Blogger for Word (which never worked that well anyway) and intend to sign up with a blog hosting outfit by the end of the week. I only regret I didn't do this several years ago. I'd rather pay $7 or $8 a month and know I can connect than get what I pay for with BLOGGER.

Posted 5:14 PM by Gene

Deep thinking at NRO:

PRIORITIES [Andy McCarthy]

Regarding Lynne Stewart's 28-month sentence last week for materially supporting terrorism, I wrote that "Valuing [terror] promotion at 28 months in prison — which is about ten percent of what corporate executives get nowadays for financial fraud — is unserious."

Former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was apparently just sentenced to 24 years and four months in prison.

OK, so I was off by a few months ...

Posted at 5:08 PM

I know con-SER-va-tives enough that their answer would be to give a Jeffrey Skilling 28 months too. I think we can call that DOUBLE unserious.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

So! That official is "sorry" for his "stupidity" comment.

Why did the whole neighborhood around Foggy Bottom rumble with the deafening sound of agreement?

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

Speaking of FRONTPAGE MAGAZINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, the Beeb is biased.

As I say a thousand times -- who knew?

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

The two-inch-high wimp who calls himself the Paper of Re-CORD's PUBLIC EDI-TOR scampered under his desk and admitted in a mouse squeak that maybe his paper was wrong about that secret banking surveillance program, but if he thought he could hide, the SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGABLOGGERS wouldn't let him.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

If it's BAD it's in AD...AGE: It's time for our annual award for running an unreadable, smarmy, popular rag bursting with tons of ADS, and this year it goes to Anna Wintour, for being like Horace Greeley. Which raises the question: when does somebody get it into her huge skull that SHE should run for president?

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

And now Yahoo! thinks it's performing a public service by subjecting us to Andy Rooney. Hey Mr. Warner Bros.! If you turn the Web into TV maybe people will start turning YOU off too.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

Who'd have guessed? Charlie Rose kisses rear ends.

He is the Larry King of PBS. Where did he get his brilliant reputation?

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:02 PM by Gene

Two-faced RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! remembers Hungary's courageous patriots of '56 -- and lets IKE and his fellow Chamberlains of the day have it:

For the West, the Uprising was a brutal lesson in hypocrisy. Nato leaders had trumpeted their commitment to fighting Soviet domination and broadcasts had urged on brave democrats beyond the Iron Curtain. But when the final, tearful plea for help came from Budapest in television appeals that were quickly cut short, the West did nothing. Preoccupied with British and French adventurism in Suez, Nato had to admit to a pragmatism that may have avoided a greater conflagration but which underlined the realities of power.

I wonder, RUPE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! -- which side would YOU have taken?

Posted 12:29 PM by Gene

LALA runs a PRESS RELEASE for the ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY. LALA runs ANOTHER PRESS RELEASE celebrating LUKE AND LAURA'S 25TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY. Meantime, something important might be happening in Los Angeles, something the locals might want to know about, but that won't get reported in their universe-leading paper because it's so busy running JUNK.

And this is why the recent NEAR-REVOLT was so noxious: because the rebel asses see nothing wrong with running JUNK so long as they can run the CW propaganda that aligns them with the FORCES of RIGHT.

There can't be too many layoffs at the LALA TIMES.

Posted 12:08 PM by Gene

Nuclear "carrot and stick" approach doomed: Iran

The Iranians know something the CHAMBERLAINS don't.

When do the CHAMBERLAINS learn?

We note too the talk about North Korea has abated. Does it mean that problem's over too?

Posted 10:37 AM by Gene

Another teenage crime, and no doubt the only reason the perpetrators can think up is "duuuuuuuuuh, Idunno."

At least these teens have shown remorse, but it is only a short time before another outrage and more drones of "duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh, Idunno."

Posted 10:20 AM by Gene

A Seattle ad-blurbist goes to reverent pieces beholding -- GOD.

Alas, GOD's CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED film has not been heavenly at the B. O. We must say it again: the term "CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED" has become a kiss of death. The reader sees a prancing buffoon like Effete Edelstein rummaging a dictionary for the most preposterous adjectives, calling up every last fragment of his film-theory training, and looking for any excuse to ingratiate himself with the people who have made his job possible, stifling the notion that he sifts through mountains of dross in the process out of sheer self-preservation. In short, the ad-blurbist is an ill-educated snob and phony who forever excuses dreck, and the sad fate of EINSTEIN and other such CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED masterpieces says the public may not be as credulous as it used to be.

Posted 10:05 AM by Gene

Thanks to DA POST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we learned of a site "that has arguably supplanted Rolling Stone and Blender as the go-to place to learn about new music" -- and it's so "cool" it stiffed the BUGMEISTER. (That would seem an uncool idea if it wants to reap BILLIONS.) Having studiously scanned the site we can say it would take weeks to know all the obscure names there, and we doubt we could ever link them to all the bubbling-over musical masterworks they've no doubt produced. Here is the enigma of the Web: you can be famous and yet, for all practical purposes, obscure at the same time. And anyone who's famous to only an in-crowd may not be famous.

Then again RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or SUMNER will probably buy out the site soon for $20 BILLION, and reinforce their fame for stupidity.

Posted 9:34 AM by Gene

One thing about news hacks is they're like rubber bands: they can twist themselves into all sorts of tangles and still think they can spring back to normal even when hopelessly tangled. Tom's insistence that "Mr. and Mrs. Median" are doing okay is a sop from a rag that cares only about Mr. and Mrs. (or rather, Mistress) Moneybags, and it's clear the author has to struggle a little to believe what he's writing, and we're not sure why Little Malcolm ran it, unless he's running for president again.

And he would seem to undercut his reluctant argument by noting more mothers are working, and $46,326 a year does not seem like a lot of money to us, even with all that wonderful technology.

Here's another reason we can't stand news hacks: they live on Mt. Olympus.

Posted 9:21 AM by Gene

Which reminds us the latest Barron's says the Republicans will win the mid-terms thanks to a "predictor" related to the strength of their fundraising. When someone rubs the crystal ball like this we may see a self-serving attempt not to appear CW. We would not presume to know anything about elections, but CW has so congealed and ossified within ther MEDIA has to become a kind of state religion, so any spitting against this mammoth belch of CW wind can seem welcome.

Posted 9:10 AM by Gene

And here's another reason we can't stand the hacks: this constant self-granting of favors. We said before we were skeptical of Gregg Easterbrook's notion that TV may be linked to autism, largely as we're so skeptical of social-science number crunchers in the first place; but when a typist like Claudia calls the link "bizarre" the first thing into our peon-like heads is WHO EMPLOYS HER, and how far she can go touting the corporate line; because, for all the talk of independence, if there's one thing that carries you far in the news biz, it's TOADYING, and we can resent stories like this even if they tell the truth, because we're so used to all the SLOP-BUCKET CARRYING.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to CLAUDIA!

Posted 9:00 AM by Gene

One of USAOKAY!!!!!'s most annoying traits from early on (now largely disappeared) was its insistent use of the first person plural when describing America. What made this especially annoying is that news hacks constitutionally speak in the third person plural. News hacks aren't us; they're our superiors, part of a college-government-clique-like force so brilliant and so superior to the human race they can view their consumers as digits, as part of an angry mob, as peons to be ruled with brute force, as retards to be laughed at.

When Little Jon turns his rag into a Democratic Party campaign document he is clearly speaking in the third person plural. Yet he and other news hacks would presume to speak in the first person plural because some part of them presumes they're speaking for us, the Pygmies they'd otherwise sneer at. It's precisely this disconnect that helps explain our ever increasing hatred of media, and media's ever shrinking returns.

And somehow even Jonny "The Thinker" Alter must concede the election may not be the unalloyed triumph he and the other hacks are fervently hoping for.

Posted 9:07 AM by Gene

I have had it with blogging -- and Blogger.com. On a day I couldn't get through for hours while the damfools Larry and Sergey wallowed in a thirty-point stock jump, and further being blocked off from the permanently-Beta version, I've decided I'm switching blog services, but it doesn't help that there is no decent alternative, and that I don't know what I'm doing.

I'm also cutting down on my posting. I'm tired of electronically banging my head, and of issuing smart one-liners that nobody reads. I can't entirely give up on it -- blogging is my tenuous connection to the world -- but I am tired of the lack of attention too.

P. S. This article documents a numbing repeat of what happened LAST YEAR. Happily Larry and Sergey have lots of money. They needn't do a thing.

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

Larry Summers is going from one financial firm to another and the only difference is age of all those hotshots running about trying to get laid (pardon my French.)

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

Network error...network error...network error...let me guess...THE SALES -- ANALYSTS ARE SAYING $20,000 A SHARE!!!!!

Posted 9:43 AM by Gene

Here's another reason people have turned away from the networks, and it has nothing to do with branding. Whether they'll be pleased the same corporate behemoths control every alternative remains to be seen.

Of course con-SER-va-tives and Republicans wouldn't attend these hearings. They don't want six big media tyrannies. They want three. Or maybe two. Or one.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:30 AM by Gene

Nukeman tells a joke.

Will the League of Nations finally lose its sense of humor?

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Dana Stevens is almost ad-blurbist enough to make us want to remember Effete Edelstein: she's so good at dancing around a point you haven't the foggiest idea what the point is.

Posted 8:46 AM by Gene

This story further reminds us of our impatience with show-biz news coverage. All these two hacks can talk about is "branding." They quote from some Home Depot marketing honcho who can't wait to shred his customers' money on whatever "critically-praised" dreck he can. They bring in Fred Silverman, who thinks GOODTHINGS is doing a GREAT thing, the scribblers oblivious to the fact that he lost his final chief programming job at the old NBC precisely for his brilliant ideas. (Remember Supertrain?) In typical show-biz news-hack fashion they say people are watching less network television because of all the choice, neglecting to think (as is such hacks' wont) why people may have wanted more choice in the first place. And their editors sweeten the deal with this chart:



Notice something peculiar? This is a trick with an asterisk. Plus Brooks spends 1,306 words in another story about the GOODTHINGS' Network's alleged self-deprecation, the sign of a writer who watches too much TV. We'll have such stories until hell freezes over -- and that's when TV will improve.

P. S. RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! calls GOODTHINGS' moves "draconian." He never had a job. He also says this involves a menage a trois. Just remember guys, you hate the public, and then you'll love one another.

(Both also via MediaBistro. If Philips can, for the time being, make the Journals available on Fridays, why not have other sponsors do the same thing Mondays through Thursdays? Why do they insist on walling themselves off?)

Posted 8:14 AM by Gene

And of course all the thousands of would-be Bob Novaks and Paul Begalas have hardly a memorable word to say amongst them, and when they are memorable it's for screaming or playing the jester. And if spending half my time to cultivate silly producers is what it takes to be heard, I'll gladly take silence.

The irony is these clowns claim to want someone who breaks the partisan mold, and then they take the same old plastic mouths from the same old molds. This is why getting eight hits a day is so frustrating; I'd like to think I'm better than all these yaps, but I must not be to be getting eight hits a day.

(And why did this have to appear in the Wall Street Journals?)

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 6:39 AM by Gene

Kim's "sorry."

I'm sure he's sorry -- that he doesn't have a thousand nukes.

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

This TWXSTER who works for a "news" outfit that all but paid for access in Saddam's Iraq, that issued the most groveling disclaimer during the cartoon riots, that has employed professional asses like Larry King and Lou Dobbs and Eason Jordan, that has never stopped doing stupid things from the day the Mouth from the South had to found it, has the gall to say his outfit can tell the "unvarnished truth"?

And he works for Anderson Cooper, a pretty face with pretensions.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

If it is any consolation the Fort Knox of Mountain View's market cap is no higher than Yahoo!'s was in its prime, and unless you work for the BIG C or are a sales -- ANALYST there is no reason to believe these clowns can't hit their glass ceiling too, someday. Every other Web company has hit one. So long as Wall Street is in a fairyland embrace with these clowns, it won't happen.

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Suprise! Surprise! Surprise!

FBI Says Threat to NFL Games Was Hoax

FBI Says Threat Made Against NFL Stadiums This Weekend is a Hoax

MILWAUKEE Oct 19, 2006 (AP)— The FBI says the threat made against NFL stadiums this weekend is a hoax. [SIC!] [SIC!] [SIC!]

Posted 4:58 PM by Gene

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL: "The religious right" will kill off YouTube!!!!! It will make it -- un-COOL!!!!!

And of course it will have nothing to do with the grainy video, or the download troubles (I couldn't see your snoozing cat -- thanks, Citizen Hearsties!), or G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE's incompetence, or rooting out COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENTS, or the inevitable boredom factor, or the fact that people can even more easily run out of things to say on video than in blogs, the rotting hulks of millions accreting on the Web.

Sometimes this Frisco paper is edited as though William Randolph came back to life intending to have even less sense than RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Posted 2:59 PM by Gene

OPRAH...OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT!

(Sorry for the NewsMAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Posted 2:54 PM by Gene

DUBYA likens Iraq to Vietnam. News hacks SMILE.

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is NOT CONSERVATIVE!

Posted 12:17 PM by Gene

The Goldmans just got $3.5 million richer -- IF this is true.

Simpson can never be retried for the murders because of double jeopardy laws, according to the Enquirer, which also claims that Simpson aims to keep any book money instead of paying it out in a civil suit judgment against him by spending it all quickly.

They'll still get $3.5 million richer because they can sue the PUBLISHER.

And who would that be? How about a toss-up between RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and SUMNER?

Posted 11:36 AM by Gene

Remnick's advice for aspiring journalists: "Goldman Sachs"

Because every overrated magazine editor needs his money managed.

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

So let's get this straight: Horny Mark has an excuse, and now Horny Mark's supposed molester has an excuse:

"I have to confess, I was going through a nervous breakdown," he said. "I was taking pills -- tranquilizers. I used to take them all the time. They affected my mind a little bit."

Is there anyone in this story who doesn't have an excuse?

Posted 11:15 AM by Gene

So let's root, root root for HANK AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-RON....

If we root for baszzzzzzzzzzzzzzeball at all, that is.

And Seligism isn't coming back to the GE BANCORP GAMES anytime soon, thanks in no small part to the man people aren't rooting for.

Posted 11:11 AM by Gene

America's HYER EHDYUKAYTERS have their undergarments in a wad because Nike dared to say what THEY know to be the truth: "FOOTBALL IS EVERYTHING."

And Nike sort-of apologized; it knows which side football factories butter their toast.

Posted 11:02 AM by Gene

Nielsen ratings are coming to VIDEO GAMES!

Hey Reverse Robin Hoods of MadAve! Do I hear you firing up ANOTHER money shredder?

(Also via MediaBistro)

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

How many Six-Sigmaed jobs could Mr. MTV finance with his severance package?

And he'd probably have enough leftover to buy them all a few beers!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 10:56 AM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s invention is used by sex offenders.

Who'da thought?

(Via Yahoo! News/AFP via IWantMedia)

Posted 9:55 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the world of shredding OUR money on junk television, SUMNER has canceled a series before it could even broadcast!

How much did You waste on this show for Your sugar daddies' vanity, SUM?

Enough to give the TWXSTERS a "black eye", evidently.

Posted 9:39 AM by Gene

Also via Ahts Journal, a Tate Britain Lecturer (whatever that is) expels at least 2,005 words trying to explain why the EDWARD R. MURROWS OF COMEDY (they apparently have a version in merrie olde England, too) are popular, and can only lecture a very wordy blank.

Maybe the reason we have the new EDS is because the news stinks, the news biz stinks, and someone wants to make money off it. Could that be?

Posted 9:35 AM by Gene

Now we're enterting a SUPERDUPERMEGAGIGALATINUM AGE in PUBLISHING!!!!!

Mr. Rosenthal said the fierce competition in the fall can be traced to the high level of store traffic that is irresistible to publishers. “It is Darwinian,” Mr. Rosenthal said. “Some books will live, and some books will die.”

That's okay, Darwin; in thirty years you couldn't remainder your best-sellers.

(Via the annoying ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:17 AM by Gene

Bush: U.S. Will Stop N. Korea Nuke Moves

How?

Posted 9:02 AM by Gene

I really do think, RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, You oughtn't to call Your girlfriend a "CELEBUTARD."

"The movie is horrific," said our source. "It is a limited release that will likely go straight to video. Paris doesn't really want to be associated with it. Her movie career is not exactly booming, and she needs to not be seen as a flop. Also, the movie has a lot of topless women in it, and she is trying to distance herself from the whole porn thing."

This looks like a job for:



By the way....

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

GOODTHINGS ENTERTAINMENT is about to SIX-SIGMA its STAFF!

We do think the Hollywood Stenographer is wrong when it says Six Sigma is about layoffs, however. Six Sigma is about pretending you can measure quality in an operation like Goodthings Entertainment. Firings are more about LEGENDARY WELCH.

P. S. WHEW! Goodthings may switch the two loudmouths Chris and HHHWWWALTER to the BIG C, where their "talents" would be highly complementary. For now, THE TRUTH IS SAFE. (Via ROMY, who's also highly relieved)

P. P. S. NBC Universal said it will stop scheduling high-priced dramas and comedies during the 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. slot.

You scheduling dead air?

P. P. P. S. at 12:10 p.m.: Alas, Goodthings is NOT turning the MESS into a tape machine, meaning the two loudmouths are stuck where they are.

P. P. P. P. S. at 2:40 p.m.: A MEDIA BUYER eructs:

Steve Sternberg, exec VP-audience analysis, Magna Global thinks concentrating on game shows and reality shows in that hour could work for NBC. "Here is why that could be positive. We've done research with Nielsen data and 80% of homes have one set during prime time. Families want to watch TV together and too often they can't because there's a lot of kids around. Reality shows have become the new family programming." He cited research that shows 10 of the top 15 shows popular with children, teens and adults are reality series.

They can't watch together because you REVERSE ROBIN HOODS are busy robbing us to finance EDGY programming -- when you aren't financing the CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED programming YOU and NO ONE ELSE WATCH.

AND:

[T]here are plans to convert CNBC.com to a paid subscription service, which could be unveiled by the end of the year.

Penny stocks, here we come!

Posted 6:47 AM by Gene

Perhaps one reason the newspaper biz is in a funk is that we've learned to skim stories so fast we don't even read them. When The Paper of Re-CORD does a story on scanty Halloween costumes and "post-post-post feminism" we KNOW (or at least we think we know) what it will say -- mostly eyeball-rolling sugary whimsical BLAH (which would curdle into the essence of sulfur at the thought of any Nazi Christian Republican) -- and it isn't worth the trouble of getting yourself riled up just to further confirm your hunches, and to wonder if you'll someday have the whole news biz so well memorized you'll stop consuming its product altogether.

At least PINCH had the temerity to print include few good pictures, however.

Posted 6:01 PM by Gene

Jo-NAH and Ms. Travers find a new way to goose hits at The Corner:

TODAY'S MOST FREQUENTLY RECEIVED E-MAIL: [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

Thanks for the Cromwell debate on The Corner today. I'm certain there must be seven, even eight people mildly interested.

I'm getting a lot of other work done.

Posted at 5:30 PM

Jo-NAH and Ms. Travers may think they're cute, but how often do they and their fellow keyboard bangers tie down their "blog" with Star Trek and "conservative" songs? We cite The Corner a bit too frequently as it's often the most risible thing of its kind.

Posted 3:09 PM by Gene

The ASSociated Press assumes the Thinker's pose again as it ponders where TV theme songs went.

We remember TV shows for their theme songs -- including lots of BAD ones. They were often the only good things in the shows. If we have no theme songs to remember, how will we remember the shows -- even from this SUPERMEGAPLATINUM AGE OF GENIUS?

The banishment of these songs (and of underscoring, it having been replaced with LICENSING) and the further disappearance of the Broadway overture points to a SUPERPLATINUM AGE OF GENIUS in commercial music too!

Posted 1:50 PM by Gene

RUPERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! is giving His bad, bad announcer SENSITIVITY TRAINING.

You con-SER-va-tives STILL think He's one of YOURS?

"There isn't a racist bone in his body, not one," Piniella said of Lyons. "I know the guy personally. He was kidding with me. It was an unfortunate thing. None of it was intended, believe me.

"He's talented at what he does," Piniella said. "I recognize that after being in the booth with him."

Having not watched any SELIGISM for awhile we can't vouch for that, but we will say this: we think Lou's a good guy.

Posted 1:30 PM by Gene

A WOULD-BE ROCK-MUSIC AD BLURBIST WHINES:

I recall your INFAMOUS advertising campaign from the GREEEEEED-IS-GOOD epoch; the REAGAN ERA that we still endure with BLOOD ON OUR HANDS AND A HOLE WHERE OUR HEARTS SHOULD BE!!!!! PERCEPTION VS. REALITY, YOUR AD CAMPAIGN SCREAMED!!!!! PERCEPTION was a depiction of a HIPPIE, REALITY a YUPPIE!!!!! THAT'S when you clearly JUMPED SHIP, JANN, and defected to THE DARKNESS AND THE DUMB!!!!!!!!!! [Huff'n'Puff overpuffing added]

We would say someone who places so much faith in Jann and is angry enough to feel double-crossed by him already inhabits his own personal darkness. As to dumb, the dictionary defines it as "Unwilling to speak; taciturn", so on that score we would only be MOSTLY right.

(Via Romy. We can hear you shaking your head again!)

Posted 12:22 PM by Gene

We wonder how much crime goes on in the world of media buying. God knows how much of OUR money gets wasted on egos and their upkeep. And the extra nice thing about the story is that this fraud nearly succeeded in getting CONGRESSPOOPS like Max Baucus and Ed Royce to let him off the hook, meaning definitively those clowns are for sale to the highest bidder.

Of course hardly anybody's paid attention to this story because it's BIGMEDIA's dirty laundry.

Posted 12:10 PM by Gene

Isn't it nice when a superrichie like the LORD BEATLE PAUL can have such a messy divorce?

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Who says REALTORS® want to keep housing unaffordable? All you need with these beauties is a HUGE DOWN PAYMENT.

Posted 11:50 AM by Gene

What's the difference between the WaPost campaigning for Democrats and the WaTimes campaigning for Republicans?

For one thing, they'd both deny it.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

The STONE FACE of ANNOYING TV ADS is ANGRY:

Movies in large part are about teenage sex. Whole TV networks -- I am not going to mention any names -- are largely about teenagers and sex. Music, if you can call it music, is very, very largely about teenagers and sex, and teenagers listen to it incessantly. (I am the father of a teenager, and I promise you, it's true.)

And how many of the ADS you've starred in with that nebbishy face and whiny voice helped pay for all the teenage sex in movies, in TV, and in music?

Don't answer; you wouldn't anyway.

Posted 11:28 AM by Gene

Speaking of Little Gussie, here's something to burn money by: the TWXSTERS are spending between $40 million and $45 million a year on a league championship series. A. If they're lucky they could spend over $11 million a GAME -- meaning either Gussie can waste millions more moving another beer, or KING RICHARD can run for mayor of NOO YAWK after all.

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

We are sorry to hear the CBS radio newsman Christopher Glenn has died. He had the perfect speaking voice for the news: low-key, cultivated, a nice deep pipe-smoky baritone, which conveyed the essence of a man who did his job simply, and well.

(Via Romy)

Posted 10:47 AM by Gene

Little Gussie, he who supposedly drank a thimbleful of Busch beer when he was a day old, is trying to pay to get one of his beers mentioned in [C]RAPS, which means the guy's a regular square as MICKEY D's tried (and failed at) the same thing.

According to San Francisco consulting firm Agenda, which tracks brand mentions in song lyrics for its annual "American Brandstand" survey, no beer brands were mentioned in hip-hop lyrics during 2005, although import brand Corona did land three mentions during 2004.

And Little Gussie spent $84 million "launching" the brand. What's [C]RAPPISH for someone who's totally, like, oblivious?

Posted 10:18 AM by Gene

Some "widely read" blogger who's also a PR guy (and who posts about once a week) apologizes for his part in Wal-Mart's fake blog.

Hey I'd fake blogs too if it could get ME widely read.

Posted 8:27 AM by Gene

The bigwig Babbitts of the Big Apple are not going to turn that big apartment complex into CONDOLAND, which pretty well indicates THE BOOM is over.

I guess building on New York's biggest artificial tar pit didn't help either.

Posted 7:00 AM by Gene

THE WORLD'S LEADING FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY unleashes MONSTERS on KIDS in BRANSON EAST!

Temper, TEMPER, Lord Schlockintosh!

Posted 6:35 AM by Gene

Ah, the "lifestyles" of the rich and -- fraudulent:

The indictment details Snipes' involvement over the last six years with Eddie Ray Kahn, who founded American Rights Litigators and its successor Guiding Light of God Ministries. Kahn espouses the belief that U.S. citizens do not have to pay federal income tax. The "861 argument," referring to a section of the IRS code, is considered by experts to be a fringe interpretation....

Snipes joined the movement in 2000 and, according to the indictment, began pursuing dubious tax refunds, including a $7.4-million claim for the 1997 tax year. Snipes originally claimed an income of $19.2 million that year, authorities alleged, but in an amended return said his income was zero.

We look at it this way: thus are the chances of his ci-ne-ma vehicles earning immortality.

Posted 9:39 PM by Gene

Who'da thought? St. K lost his virginity to a bunch of businessmen.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE WEEK AWARD to JOEDY! [SIC!]

Posted 5:45 PM by Gene

Sorry, international recorded-sound conspiracy, filing all those lawsuits won't bring GOOD MUSIC BACK.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Body of Argentina's Peron to move to $1.1 million crypt

...suggesting you CAN take it with you.

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

Gasp! The INVENTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! of MySpace loses His magic touch?!?!?!?!?

Mr. Cook defended the content, saying the network wasn't any racier than anything on a daytime soap. But media buyers had cited content issues as a reason they hadn't committed more dollars to the News Corp. property.

Gasp! MEDIA BUYERS refuse to BURN OUR MONEY?!?!?!?!?

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

Veep Big Oil tells PILLHEAD the Garrulous Ossified Party might still keep Congress!

Your hands still sore from all that shaking, guys?

Posted 5:20 PM by Gene

Mr. Warner Bros. pulls a stock buyback as profits fall, which unfortunately conjures yet more visions of G000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000GLE.

Posted 5:16 PM by Gene

KennyBoy is not guilty -- in the eyes of the law.

Whether he is not guilty in the eyes of God is another matter.

Posted 5:15 PM by Gene

Violence in Iraq could end "within months" if Iran and Syria joined efforts to stabilise the country, says Iraqi President Jalal Talabani.

Drool! Drool!

Hear THAT, Fixer?

Posted 5:04 PM by Gene

We ruefully recall how television was sold as an educational miracle -- just like movies in schools. A dwindling band of morons, like the author of The Worse It Gets, the Better It Is: Why Show-Biz is Good for You and many TV ad-blurbists, still believes it. Linking autism to TV may be another form of social-science quackery, but then autism in children may be another form of TV ruining the people.

Posted 3:45 PM by Gene

Juxtaposition of the day from ROMY:

Keller: News media failed to do its job before Iraq invasion

Newspaper circulation continues to fall, says FAS-FAX report

Which came shortly after:

Great newspaper columnists think alike? You decide.
Kansas City Star New York Times
Two columns on the Amish school shootings:
Mike Hendricks in the Kansas City Star, October 6: "The shooter wanted to harm only the girls. Does it strike you as curious -- the way it did me -- that more wasn’t made of that?"
Bob Herbert in the New York Times, October 16: "In the widespread coverage that followed these crimes, very little was made of the fact that only girls were targeted."
Hendricks: "Had he singled out and shot 10 black men or 10 Jews or 10 gays or 10 of almost any other group, we’d be calling it a hate crime -- whether it fit the legal definition or not."
Herbert: "Imagine if a gunman had gone into a school, separated the kids up on the basis of race or religion, and then shot only the black kids. Or only the white kids. Or only the Jews. There would have been thunderous outrage. ...And the attack would have been seen for what it really was: a hate crime."
(I've sent Herbert an e-mail, asking if he had seen Hendricks' column.)
Posted at 10:41:16 AM
E-mail this item QuickLink this item: A112370

Is -- a PUZZLEMENT!