Posted 6:27 PM by Gene

And the ASSPress runs a press release for a Thai tourism stunt, one more example upon the mountains of examples that inspire our scorn.

Posted 5:29 PM by Gene

In a pawn shop on South Street I regularly visit to pay homage to the electronics of the past I came across a remarkable document from SUMNER: The CBS Evening News Report. Yes, it's a "report" about the "news." You'd figure a TV news show should speak for itself; why does it need a PR handout? And this one it got, handed out on trains, I presume, by the local SUMNER station, to explain what Lucy Van Pelt does every evening, aside from being perky at 50. These bromides could laze comfortably in Reader's Digest, stories that assure us their well-paid newsfaces report important stuff every evening. Lucy spends two pages saying what a swell guy Michael J. Fox is. No doubt he is. But why should Lucy tell me what a swell guy he is when she ought to be doing more with her 22 minutes of air time? And here, in a nutshell, is why the evening news serves no useful purpose. It's merely a platform for faces and denture-cleaner ads. And it's also something worse. On the back cover is a picture of SUMNER's two local anchorpoops, who came from Minnesota or Nevada or wherever, lucky for their faces and voices, who could be replaced next year or next week, and no one would care. ("We love this city", says the heading, without a hint of irony. The lady wears an ankle tattoo, which in the local-news world is enough to make her "different", we guess.) But they, like their fellow pearly teeth, have a dream. I am now convinced one reason the nightly news is living through such a long senescence is because of the job our Mr. If-It-Bleeds-It-Leads has done as a lead-in not only for the late Peter Jennings but for Wink Martindale and then for Alex Trebek and Pat Sajak following; they owe their jobs in no small measure to him. The notion of the 'dos as carnival barkers has helped destroy the news biz' credibility while building up its godforsaken profits. (Note that this Sony functionary is devising a second syndicated-hour block of game shows for next year, an admission that the current three may someday retire after all, if they aren't carted out on gurneys.)

Later at a soon-to-be Rong-Aid I came across the latest Philadelphia advertorial -- er, magazine, with a cover come-on about all the wonderful rich people in the area. One could write a pungent and devastating story about how we're turning into a city of the superrich and the superpoor, to gain tax revenues from the former and federal aid for the latter. At the least it should pique a writer's conscience. But this pulp pile didn't become a repository of ads for condos and jewelry and expensive spas by telling the truth, and from that glib city-rag style you know the author probably buried whatever conscience he had and mostly wrote it from no further than two inches from his desk. When Henry Luce hired his legions of lockstep organization men to parrot his prejudices he started a slow-motion death for magazines because one could no longer vouch for their honesty, and forty years after his death his shadow shows no sign of receding.

One thing's clear: Never have media been more hustle-and-bustle -- and never has their product been in such a COMA.

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

And speaking of the TWXSTERS, again they have it both ways:

In the wake of her death, DVD sales for Anna Nicole's reality show are skyrocketing. Since Thursday, its ranking on Amazon.com has soared an amazing 180,000 percent, moving from number 27,014 to 15.

The next day they wake up in a strange bedroom with a terrific headache.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

And continuing with The Paper of Re-CORD, West Coast Style:



WHAT song?

Posted 1:25 PM by Gene

OH oh, Ub Iger may have overpaid for The Lord God Steve's animation kingdom.

NOW they find out?

Posted 1:15 PM by Gene

Another one-fingered typist justifies the TWXSTERS' immensely successful PR stunt:

Adult Swim launched nine days before the attack on the twin towers and has risen to its position of strength in a time of endless war and a global climate crisis that has already passed the tipping point. It's a humorous reflection of the impossibility of meaningful action at the end of the world, when there is nothing to say, or worth saying.

Here is Space Ghost interviewing the musician Moby.

Space Ghost: Listen, I can't worry about every little snafu. I have celebrities to talk to! Like Moby!

Moby: Celebrities, huh? So celebrities are more important than the safety and well-being of …

Space Ghost: Nobody cares, Moby. (Pause) Nobody cares. (Pause) No one.

You've got to laugh.

No I don't -- it's not funny, and it's not even funny to imagine a dithering scribbler wanting so desperately to be in with the in crowd that he'd find it funny, as it's beyond satire. And I especially don't laugh when a NEWS HACK tells me to. Indeed the more I reflect on this the angrier I get, because these same people who want oh so desperately to be HIP almost exclusively ran their Anna obits with pictures of her at the Nine Fingers, which was its own kind of falsehood. Being HIP is another, as the way the idiot hacks frame it it's a cover for a lack of talent and a surfeit of PUBLICITY.

And Timmy Rutten scratches his head, furrows his brow, and hasn't a clue.

Posted 11:24 AM by Gene

Belly Kisser encourages international understanding:

U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., asked why Russia had helped Iran develop ballistic missiles in the 1990s that are capable of hitting Israel and Europe. "Russia has nothing to do with that," he said. [NoooooOOOOOooooo!!!!!]

Russia has provided Iran with missiles that provide a limited defensive capability, he said. "We don't want Iran to feel cornered," Putin said. "They should understand that they have some friends that they trust."

I suppose the Devil has his friends too -- and a few of them came from Russia.

Posted 11:10 AM by Gene

John Simon has been writing for too long:

``Follies'' is the amazing expanding show: With every decent new production it gets bigger and bigger. The last time I saw it, it struck me as one of the top three or four musicals. Seeing it now at Encores!, at Manhattan's City Center, I think it may be the best of all.

This is Exhibit A in why no one takes reviewers seriously anymore -- and we regret to say it because John Simon deserved to be taken very seriously. They have their (we've said this before) enthusiasms -- for Mr. Taxi Driver, for THE GREATEST POP-CULTURE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY, for Herr Doktor -- and they wonder why so few people like their pet favorites. When ad-blurbists write of their obsessions and especially with their hoity-toity style they should expect no one to believe them. Certainly the Branson East crowd never has; THE BEST MUSICAL OF ALL has not been successfully revived since its HISTORIC production 36 years ago -- and that was a money-loser. Perhaps these morons think the culture can survive on the cheering of a tiny crowd of cri-TICs and fans for CULT properties, but its woeful state reflects in no small way on their enthusiasms, and their thorough abandonment of sense.

P. S. Of course the larger audience must share the blame -- especially those who must laugh at a female impersonator in a fat suit.

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

Giuliani Shifts Abortion Speech Gently to Right

Somebody's running for president!

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

Advertisers will NOT think, as is their most sacred privilege. Here they financed SUMNER's music channel sight unseen for years (another privilege they most fervently protect), and now that it's hit a speed bump, He's laying off 500, possibly:

According to the sources, there will be no sacred cows in the next round of cuts and some long-tenured MTV senior vice presidents and executive vice presidents are likely to be sacrificed.

"MTV's management in general is very top-heavy," said a source.

This needn't have happened, of course -- if P&G and Coke and J&J and the like had closed THEIR obese advertising departments. Sales would not have noticed.

Posted 5:47 PM by Gene

Hahvahd Mutual Fund has picked a Dr. Faust to be its next CEO, and if we know HYER EHDYUKAYSHUN she has made a PC bargain with a meek and mild devil.

(Via The Plank via PaperofRecord.com)

Posted 5:25 PM by Gene

GREG! wants to us to remember this soldier who died in Iraq so he can patronize people he'd otherwise detest in the name of opposing an EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL war, but we should remember that our soldiers sacrifice their lives. All our martyress of the moment sacrificed was boy toys.

We also found another piece of typing from the TWXSTERS, perhaps to make up for the depradations of TMZ. Couldn't there be a WRITING MORATORIUM for a week, or something?

Posted 2:57 PM by Gene

The idiot guerilla marketing stunt claimed a scapegoat, but a company as big as PEOPLE WARNER is not so easily cleansed of its malice.

Posted 11:56 AM by Gene

Mitt Romney: 'I Am What I Am' as a Conservative



NO COMMENT.

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Web reaction swift and brutal to Anna Nicole death

"Anna Nicole Smith's condition downgraded to dead," one writer on news commentary site Fark.com coldly noted.

Wrong -- but this surely anticipated the FATUOUS GOODBYES of the ASSPRESS and MARC.

Posted 11:37 AM by Gene

Rev. Charles Peters celebrates:

Peters basked in the attention of his proteges at his 80th birthday party. But true to form, he had a rain dance, too. Journalists should stop being such elitists. Rather than grumbling about how hard it is to make ends meet on $100,000 and envying the people who make $1 million, they should identify with the American middle class and its struggles. Good journalism, in the Peters version, is still about making powerful people uncomfortable. And about saving your soul. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMEN! [Last word added]

And how many of his proteges have trouble making ends meet on their six-digit salaries -- and how many of them have learned to stop envying others?

(Do I use Romy too much?)

Posted 11:34 AM by Gene

Gibson says MSM even more important in the Internet age

That's what worries us.

Posted 11:31 AM by Gene

OH oh:

The U.S. envoy to the North Korean nuclear talks says negotiators agreed on "fundamental issues" but disputes remain over small points.

And what does THIS mean?

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

I had hoped not to write again on this subject, for it is one of those news equivalents of a Moebius strip, but dammit some ASSPress hack had to put Anna on the pedestal for persevering. A lot of people persevere who don't have breast implants. They toil every day in schools, police stations, firehouses, hospitals, rescue missions, you name it, doing the good and necessary work of society, and getting too little pay and no credit -- and often scorn -- and here some typist insists this floozy and golddigger was an inspiration to the human race. Inspiring, all right -- to ridicule.

To paraphrase THE MASTER -- and with no figurative pun intended -- the hacks will milk this story until it's dry, and then they'll have to milk the BULL.

P. S. The TWXSTERS issue a THREAT:

TMZ WILL BE FOLLOWING THIS STORY ALL DAY LONG WITH CONSTANT UPDATES...

P. P. S. And evidently this typist wasn't the first -- some pop-cultyure edi-TOR at AMERICA'S LEA -- well, that zeitgeisty newsrag wrote a similar story; indeed he was apparently all set for a gushing Warren Harding-style sendoff, complete with USAOKAY!!!!! "WE", largely because this was about POP-CULTYURE, and as we all know, nothing has ever been BETTER than POP-CULTYURE, but goshdarnit if the peculiar facts didn't get in the way of his eulogy. Before long we'll be hearing hundreds of mea-culpas from hacks like Howie Hairshirt asking why they paid so much attention. NEWS HACKS HAVE IT BOTH WAYS!

(First link replaced 7/4/2008)

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

More humanity in LALALand:

A paraplegic man wearing a soiled hospital gown and a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in a gutter in skid row in Los Angeles on Thursday after allegedly being dumped in the street by a Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center van, police said....

Witnesses shouted at the female driver of the van, "Where's his wheelchair, where's his walker?"

Gary Lett, an employee at Gladys Park, near where the incident occurred, said the woman driving the van didn't reply, but proceeded to apply makeup and perfume before driving off.

Posted 8:15 AM by Gene

A question that answers itself:

The Gaza Palestinians celebrated the Hamas-Fatah ceasefire with rifle fire for over an hour. Can these people do anything without gunshots?

Posted 6:57 AM by Gene

We figured Dubya would say, oh what the hell, I don't care, we're gonna lose in 2008 anyway, let Air Pelosi fly.

Meantime the same Republicans who never met a big businessman they didn't like are talking "pollution" and "carbon footprints", an exhaust of hot air to increase global warming.

Posted 6:54 AM by Gene

FOUR SCORE AND is running!

Oh wait, those are Joe Biden's words.

From that "non-political résumé" biz I'd say we're doing a little PR favor here too.

Posted 6:50 AM by Gene

We wish we could know how often USAOKAY!!!!! does these extended treatises on the significance of NASCAR. Now it's 1,745 WORDS on the JAPANESE INVASION -- and even OKAY!!!!! has to admit that Dodge is owned by a CHEHRMAN firm. Meantime we seem to have lost our appetite for probing into the deep, dark secrets of our government. That's the good thing about running PR -- your subjects aren't inclined to talk back.

Posted 6:46 AM by Gene

Evidently SLIME's still interested.

Posted 6:44 AM by Gene

BRANSON EAST is in a conundrum with an upcoming tourist trap -- just which demographic should it appeal to? "The bubble-gum set"? The bubble-gum set's parents? "Gay groups"? Well just so long as it's bad -- and PROFITABLE.

Posted 5:59 PM by Gene

"This is a material negative surprise for HSBC," said John-Paul Crutchley, an analyst at Merrill Lynch.

I like that Wall Street talk. A material negative surprise when a bank lusts after customers for sub-prime mortgages and it gets burned by the implosion in the home-building biz?

And some "loan producer" we never heard of got similarly walloped. And Toll Brothers keeps talking of upticks. Hey guys, I think you and your fellow McMANSIONERS upticked your way into a bubble.

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

I suppose the hacks are busy comparing Anna to MM. The comparisons should stop now. MM had beauty and brains; more to the point she had a long and memorable acting career. It was hard not to think of Anna without deprecating terms -- certainly golddigger comes to mind, and airhead appeared too often (we regret to using it ourselves) -- and maybe all that deprecation signed her death warrant, but her rep might owe less to her than to our sordid age. She was famous for being famous, and had nothing to fall back on except the rep. That her publicist was "not surprised" points to some sort of overdose. Oh well, she was still the stuff of dreams, if only the debased pornographic dreams of the age of Slick, and we hope she has finally found the peace that seems to have eluded her in recent years, especially after the death of her son.

P. S. I notice many news Web sites are using pictures from her Nine Fingers gig. That was not typical. I suspect the hacks will be overwhelmed by the story while overwhelming us with its trivia -- not least by having to maintain a fake decorum covering a self-proclaimed party girl, which is why those pictures don't seem right.

Then again, it was one of the few times she didn't flash her teeth and her boobs, and her somber mode is fitting, and human.

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

We should have known Little Jeffy wouldn't sell. We'd guess He views Goodthings Entertainment as a way to schmooze with His biggest customers. Certainly it isn't a means of pleasing the public. That's probably why He's gung-ho for Money Honey®. (If that doesn't make her head swell....) But then He made this dangerous observation:

Asked about New York magazine's report that former GE chief Jack Welch said he would have fired Jeff Zucker by now -- the same Mr. Zucker named CEO of NBC Universal on Tuesday -- Mr. Immelt basically shrugged. "I've talked to Jack since the New York article," he said. "He says he didn't say it. Even if he did say it, I don't really care. He's been gone five years."

You know, Little Jeffy, someday, after You retire (or are forced out if Your stock continues at $35) Your successor may say the same thing about You.

Posted 12:20 PM by Gene

More than sanctions or threats of military retribution, China's integration into the global economy would impose standards and discipline on the recalcitrant bureaucracy. International investors and institutions such as the World Trade Organization are far more subversive, as they would demand the prerequisites of a democratic society -- transparency, the rule of law and decentralization -- as a price for their commerce.

All I had to do was change two words to make this appeal meaningless.

Posted 10:57 AM by Gene

Hey Barry! Great to see you! Well you don't have to worry about us Democrats, Barry -- we're in your pocket! Yeah, forget all this sex-and-violence talk. That's just to appease the retards. Confidentially, Barry -- what can WE do about piracy?

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

The railroad industry is hiring relatives of Capitol Hill lawmakers and staff members as it faces tighter federal safety legislation, employing a tactic untouched by the Democrats' new ethics proposals: lobbying by congressional family members.

So the next time there's a big derailment that causes an explosion or a cloud of poison gas, we'll know to say, thanks, son!

Posted 9:28 AM by Gene

Dubya further burnishes his reputation:

Bush Wants Funding Jump for Anti-Drug Ads Rated as Useless

P. S.

Ryan Grim, who wrote today's story on the anti-drug campaign program of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), previously worked for the Marijuana Policy Project, which lobbies to legalize marijuana.

OH.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 9:20 AM by Gene

Well WHO would have THOUGHT? A blogger is caught being -- a POLITICIAN! A blogger is caught being -- LESS THAN HONEST! A blogger is caught -- "TARNISHING HER CREDIBILITY"!

And we thought bloggers were the new heralds of truth and honesty! How one is disillusioned!

Marcotte referred all interview requests to her new bosses, who declined to let the once prolific talker speak for herself.

How the mighty TRUTH TELLERS do fall.

Posted 9:08 AM by Gene

Shucks, Air Pelosi's going to be a commuter line.

There goes that co-presidency.

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

What if Israel attacked Iran preemtively? A TNR Debate, Day 3

Do some Web sites rely too heavily on their interns?

Posted 8:58 AM by Gene

JUXTAPOSITION OF THE DAY on BloomyLite's home page:

Glaxo Profit Rises 5.4 Percent, Led by Sales of Avandia Diabetes Treatment

PepsiCo Profit Rises 61 Percent on Demand for Frito-Lay Snacks, Tax Gain

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

A woman's work is never done:

Ellen DeGeneres must be going for some sort of Iron Woman title.

That's because the day after she hosts the Academy Awards, the world's biggest entertainment show, she'll do her own daily show live and then appear on Oprah Winfrey's.

Gosh! How will she take it? All that -- talking!

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

Jo-NAH says:

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! COMMIE SAID HE WOULDN'T TAKE DA BET! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

All the principals in this dispute are the reason for the words OH, SHUT and UP.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 8:35 AM by Gene

Elsewhere in the site that gives us the BIZ:

Warner Music Group 1Q net income drops

GOOD!

Better: downloads aren't helping.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

HP has a win-win situation. It wins by charging more for its printer cartridges; it wins because the off-brands stink. Only the public loses.

Posted 6:18 PM by Gene

NBC's Russert Takes Stand

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"I AM the truth!"

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

I find stories on child porn to be extremely exasperating because it's the last taboo, because the hacks helped make it the last taboo, because there's little to prevent them from making it non-taboo (HIP, anyone?), because they allow them to indulge in fake populism for a cause that would merit their superior Mencken-to-the-yahoos snickering if it were something else, and because this well-practiced hand-wringing will not protect one child so long as we turn the other cheek at the taboos that aren't.

Posted 5:26 PM by Gene

The artistic hacks whose principal aim these days is to dream up blueprints of eyesores and hope DONALDs stamp their names on the penthouses with gold leaf have issued an idiotic PR-poll (90% of parents LOVE movie ratings! Britney is the WORST dog owner!) in which the PEE-pul rate their favorite buildings. This is social-science quackery again playing mischief with our taste. Some of the choices are unimpeachable: the Lincoln Memorial, The Golden Gate Bridge, the Chrysler Building; some of it is match the building with the picture (are the White House and the Washington Monument that great?), some of it is name-dropping (how many people are truly aware of Fallingwater and Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpieces?), some of it is uneducation (Lever House among others is conspicuously missing) and some of it is sheer stupidity -- the RELIANT Astrodome? Wanamaker's [SIC!!!!!] Department Store in Philadelphia? The BELLAGIO?!? THE WORLD TRADE CENTER?!?!? Oh, so the hacks' organization is celebrating a birthday. Why did it have to blow out the candles so hard it got the icing all over us?

Posted 5:22 PM by Gene

Meantime the virus of Dobbsitis (or should that be MoneyHoney®itis?) has spread to political reporting, where someone named Chuck must use business jargon to compare the Presidential candidates' chances. Chuck, it's still twenty months away, you don't know, I don't know, and still you and your friends will typetypetype your ignorance to no end.

Posted 5:03 PM by Gene

Bruce has written a Harvard Business School case study in why so much of business reporting is worthless: it's an attempt to make a trend more than to report it, and to pat the trend's creators on the back for a job well done for merely creating a trend. So much of business reporting has been the pat on the back -- what imprisoned super-CEO was without it? Moreover it meshes well with the hacks' overbearing desire to be pop-cultural arbiters, and to use the word HIP to the point of supreme annoyance with its consumers -- hey, but who are they? They merely hit up our Web pages.

A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO BRUCE!

Posted 3:23 PM by Gene

"GE WANTS OUT"!!!!!

This is the guy who said EINSTEIN would be canceled. Keep in mind, though, Little Jeffy has seen his stock go nowhere since he took over from THE LEGEND. Keep further in mind, a big company in big media in a big way has big PR problems. I still say if GE BANCORP AND REALTY were out of entertainment many outside business would regard it better -- not that that's saying much.

You wonder -- would Little Jeffy entertain offers of breaking up the Kingdom of Fairfield? As we asked before, what is GE BANCORP AND REALTY'S point anyway, other than bigness?

P. S. Hmmm -- DA POST!!!!!!!!!! is pitching this too. Is SLIME preparing a BID?

Posted 2:37 PM by Gene

In a state-of-the-industry report released in Washington Tuesday, the Motion Picture Association of America said that movie and TV businesses were responsible for contributing $60.46 billion!!!!! to the country's economy and that they were responsible for generating 1.3 million jobs!!!!! in 2005. Speaking to an MPAA symposium, MPAA Chairman Dan Glickman!!!!! said, "The creative output of the American motion picture and television industry is widely appreciated around the world, yet its contribution to the nation's economy is seldom recognized. This report ... confirms the importance of filmed entertainment production to America's economy!!!!!!!!!!" [Obvious copy-from-a-press-release overemphasis added!!!!!!!!!!]

That's 0.485 PERCENT of our 2005 GDP, and 0.9 PERCENT of our January, 2007 workforce (and that figure probably includes the Reverse Robin Hoods and a lot of customer-service types and technicians in the CABLE CONSPIRACY, not to mention the teenage slobs, er, ushers who let the floors of the popcorn restaurants accrete with Coke). You're not THAT important, SAMMY GLICKMAN -- except for the way you can HECTOR US.

Posted 12:44 PM by Gene

ASTRONAUT CASE STUNS NATION! [Home-page link; overemphasis added]

The platitudes have started.

Posted 12:40 PM by Gene

Guess it's back to two hits a day. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYBODY OUT THERE?

Posted 12:28 PM by Gene

AMADOU DIALLO DISQUALIFIES RUDY!

Jeez -- you'd think this show of temper might disqualify Hair-Scratcher.

Posted 12:02 PM by Gene

Here's the next big deal among Beltway onanists: Air Pelosi. NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! will obviously use it as the Opposition President, and for fundraising. That Dubya will probably let it go untouched is another example of how enfeebled he is.

The congressional source said Pentagon officials complained that Mr. Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, is accusing them of sexism for not immediately heeding her request.

Megan E. Grote, Mr. Murtha's press secretary, said, "Mr. Murtha absolutely never said anything about being 'sexist.' We have no further comment."

TRANSLATION: SEXIST!

P. S. Official Republican spokespoops (yes, that includes YOU, MS. TRAVERS) are using this to make partisan fun of NANCY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SIX OF ONE....

Posted 10:30 AM by Gene

An OUTRAGED LEFT, er PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT wants JO-NAH TO PAY FOR HIS WRONG PREDICTION ABOUT THE WORST WAR IN HISTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, he should pay -- when the Fighting Man for the Little Guy sells his several not-so-little homes. MILLIONAIRES AND BUMS -- AND MILLIONAIRE BUMS....

[I]T'S TIME TO HOLD MEDIA CORPORATIONS LIKE TRIBUNE RESPONSIBLE FOR ELEVATING THE GOLDBERGS AND THEIR RECKLESS PREDICTIONS -- AS THEY STRANGLE NEWSPAPERS AND SILENCE SERIOUS JOURNALISTS LIKE BOB SCHEER!!!!!!!!!! [Righteous overemphasis added]

YOU HAVE YOUR JO-NAHS TOO.

(Via the usual ROMY, who's MAD!)

Posted 10:27 AM by Gene

What are the odds the Feds will go after these clowns for deceptive advertising?

On the other hand, it's our kind of deceptive advertising.

Posted 10:19 AM by Gene

How appropriate: the Philthydelphia AHT world is in a tizz because one of the insti-TU-tions that helped buybuybuy that GROSS painting now has to sell another to a PRIVATE COLLECTOR to cover its debt.

MORONS.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 9:36 AM by Gene

GOP Views Clinton As Virtually Unbeatable

Tenth graf:

The comments are striking at several levels. The flagging conservative morale about beating Clinton comes at the same time many Democrats regard the New York senator as newly vulnerable because of the competition she faces from Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and skepticism she faces from activists opposed to the Iraq war. On the Republican side, there is a disconnect between grass-roots, red-state Republicans and the mostly Washington-based operatives who surround Bush.

C'mon idiots, it's twenty months until the election. Let the PEOPLE decide, for once.

That said, the Republicans can only blame themselves with their DUBYAS and DUKES.

Posted 9:14 AM by Gene

Times May Have Changed,
But Oscars Still Suspenseful

Suspenseful! We're sitting at the edge of the rear of our seat, Andrew, busily filing our fingernails, wondering which of five arthouse properties (well four; Mr. Taxi Driver's is an HONORARY arthouse flick) will take home the coveted ACADEMY AWARD®, to do a few more millions of biz at the popcorn restaurants, and then rest in eternal slumber in the back catalog. Oh yes, Mr. Sarris, we're trembling with excitement -- at the thought that once again we can miss the Os-CARS®.

This has to be one of the most lunkheaded heds ever in The Cute Little Pink Paper. We would think Mr. Sarris is old enough to know better -- but then again, he's a MOVIE AD-BLURBIST.

Posted 9:03 AM by Gene

We have not commented on that sorrowful astronaut ménage-à-trois because there's little to say that isn't Ellen Goodman-platitudinizing. Oh yes, we could speak of how astronauts used to be noble heroes, but that pretty well ended when John Glenn entered the Senate, and NASA's always had it's Hi Mom! moments, even before the Orbiting Jalopy and its disasters. (Indeed, NASA's existence was predicated upon the greatest of Hi Mom! moments, between ourselves and the Soviet Union.) We could say this shows astronauts are only human, which is stupid as they've been human for quite a while. No, the only thing to say is for those who find adultery funny, the joke's on them.

Posted 8:56 AM by Gene

In other musical news we see the CHILD MOLESTER MISTUH GLITTUH has gotten his sentence reduced thanks to "a nationwide Lunar New Year prison amnesty", which somehow seems fitting.

In fifty years idiots will still play HIS HOOK in arenas. Well, you know, Cole Porter blahblahblah....First, Cole Porter didn't bugger kids, and second, he didn't write for arenas.

By the way, we see the hacks are ignoring Mr. Laine's death. Don't worry -- when WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE DYLAN GOES the month-long period of state-media mourning will be so intense it will make people SCREAM -- provided there's still a news biz.

Posted 6:49 AM by Gene

THE FELLOW WHO SANG "BLAZING SADDLES" HAS DIED. Well, that's what the philistine news hacks will call Frankie Laine, and he showed poor judgment and taste in that (but hey! Do those things count anymore? Hell, with the hacks that's ten bonus points!), yet in everything else he got it right. Yes, he was an emotional singer, and he wore that emotion on his sleeve, but he was a force, a fiery singer, a singer with guts. Say what you will about the guy's style, he had conviction. The fact that he sang the treacle beloved of A&R boys like the notorious Mitch Miller and became unremovably intertwined with that "YEEEEEE-HAAAAAAAH!" joke will not negate that. Listen to Rockin', a Columbia jazz album of the mid-50s, and you know you're in the presence of a musician of the first rank. He was also from all accounts a gentleman, and helped in his own small way in the fight for civil rights. Thankfully these days (as we say too often) we have MASTERWORKS now, and we can forget about these mere singers.

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

This story raises a question: will the hacks play the R card -- religion -- when the going gets tough for their candidate? It never ceases to amaze me how the same hacks who go into a hellfire fury over the word "evangelical" go soft and mushy when a friend needs help. Hill seems to share Sen. Hein-TZZZ' position, going for a religion of platitudes, of social responsibility, of nonjudgmentalism (strange especially for woman who was on the throes of judgmentalism), and though maybe perhaps possibly we don't know if there's a God, just in case, capitalize it.

Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

AP NEWS ALERT!!!!!

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says bolstering education - not erecting trade barriers - should help deal with economic inequality in the United States.

Posted 1:14 PM by Gene

Adviser: Romney will announce formal White House run next week

Okay, Mitt -- NOW's the time to make up your mind!

Posted 12:11 PM by Gene

Ford thinks it can gain back sales by renaming a car the Taurus, which may indicate the domestic biz is in deeper doo-doo than it thinks.

Posted 11:26 AM by Gene

The New Yorker's jazz critic Whitney Balliett has died. This is noteworthy because his career went back to the age when William Shawn edited it in a hermetically-sealed cocoon, and when James Thurber was throwing his tantrums, and E. B. White stopped to smell the flowers on his farm. His obit was written by MOZZARELLA, who can only remind us just why the magazine isn't worth reading anymore.

(Via ArtsJournal)

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

Count us surprised:

The bomb hoax bozos whose light-up devices sparked a Boston terror panic were caught on camera standing with spectators and filming the massive police response, the Herald has learned.

Just think: if the authorities weren't so ARE-SQUAY, they'd have gotten a 10,000-word profile in ADAGE!!!!!

Posted 11:08 AM by Gene

Why Be a Conservative Libertarian?

Why, indeed?

I find it a challenge trying to persuade religious conservatives to loosen the relationship between their religious beliefs and their political agenda. However, I find it even more of a challenge to deal with the Left, where their political agenda is their religion.

And isn't AYN RAND the GLIBERTARIAN'S GOD, and Her Works the BIBLE?

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

A man who wrote a novel as ANONYMOUS is hardly in a position to attack a fellow literatiste for being an opportunist, whatever the rightness of his "cause."

Posted 10:55 AM by Gene

Count on our favorite press agent Rog to get to the heart of the matter: the settlement between Apple and Apple allowed two sets of greedmeisters who vastly overcharge for their product to continue overcharging.

Posted 10:53 AM by Gene

Yet more all-the-news-you-need-to-know news from the ASSPress:

Paris Hilton Gets Ticket to Vienna Ball

What happened to all the promised exposes on our perfidy in the War on Militancy? C'mon, CURLEY! [Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!] Where's your sense of humor?

Posted 10:13 AM by Gene

And in yet more Stars-and-Stripes-Forever-inspiring flag-waving about our dollars-and-cents supremacy:

McClatchy's in a revenue slump that began last summer

Last summer -- that was when...no. NO. It COULDN'T be. Gosh almighty!

Posted 10:07 AM by Gene

And in still more patriotic news of our great nation's economic strength:

Microsoft has increased the price of telephone support for users of its Windows XP operating system and Office XP productivity applications. The changes were quietly coincident with last week's high-profile introductions of the company's new Windows Vista operating system and Office 2007 suite.

According to information posted on Microsoft's Web site, the per-incident support cost for all Windows users is now $59. Prior to January 30th, when Microsoft released the retail version of Vista, the support cost for users of Windows XP and older versions of the operating system was $39 per incident. That represents a price increase of 51%.

Similarly, phone support for Office users prior to the launch of Office 2007 -- which also debuted January 30 -- was $35.00 per incident. The price is now $49 per incident, or 40% higher, regardless of version.

Microsoft's explanation for the new plan will be more familiar to economics professors than computer users. "To more accurately reflect the value of and Microsoft's investment in the service, support incident pricing for Microsoft consumers has been designed through an analysis of competitive offerings and in reference to GDP per capita," said Microsoft, in a statement.

TRANSLATION: WE'RE A MONOPOLY. DEAL WITH IT.

Posted 9:32 AM by Gene

And in other news of Modern America's Business Might, SAMMY GLICKMAN and the GREATEST INDUSTRY KNOWN TO MAN are about to administer to our Congresspoops the equivalent of a two-by-four to a mule. This is old-fashioned barnstorming lobbying at its worst: send in the first-string offensive squad and have them pummel their way to favorable treatment that hurts the rest of us. SAMMY is deaf, dumb and blind to the contempt in which many Americans hold his beloved trade, not least in several pocketbook issues, which with this two-by-four means a healthy dose of onerous DRM pushing. It may work with the lobbyist-puppets; it may not work with their putative masters, the VOTERS.

Posted 9:11 AM by Gene

Here's another for-instance from the world's leading biznews rag: Kodak sounds as if it's come up with a neat new technology for printer ink. Problem is someone has to make the printers -- and that will probably be Hong Chong Printer Manufacturing Co. of China, just as Ching Chang Printer Company makes them for HP, and Ying Yong Technology Company makes them for Lexmark, and -- get the point? All we make is the ink, if that, and truth to tell there isn't much difference in computer printers. So how does a "struggling" firm like Kodak distinguish itself -- and how does it make fat profits? (Especially when the company intends to compete on price.) This is precisely why Motorola has struggled: anyone can make cell phones. The thing is why does it always have to be someone else?

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

You have to wonder if our auto biz' problems are signals of an inability to compete. We lead the world in shuffling assets and creating busywork and the technologies that foster busywork, but when it comes to essential industries it's as if we increasingly don't have a clue -- or a manufacturing base.

Posted 1:34 PM by Gene

The TWXSTERS pay $2 million for all that valuable free publicity.

Another reason to grimace: the guerilla marketing IDIOTS of today are the KENNYBOYS of tomorrow.

Posted 12:21 PM by Gene

Do We Really Need a Fourth Hour of Today? (USAT) [MediaBistro link]

The common-sense answer: no. The Little Jeffy-Jeff Zuck-obsessive-compulsive-bean-counter-Reverse-Robin-Hood-money-wasting-TV-reporter-scribbling answer: YES!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 11:05 AM by Gene

World without [SIC] America? [Iain Murray]
The crew at 18DoughtyStreet and BritainandAmerica.com are preparing to make a video ad about what the world would be like without America and are looking for input into the creative process. Click here for more details.
02/05 11:01 AM

We're not sure we should do that. The League of Nations has been working on it for years.

Posted 10:50 AM by Gene

"Love" and "marriage", "horse" and "carriage", "sitcom" and "obnoxious" -- why do some words seem to go together?

Posted 10:40 AM by Gene

Dubya wants to THROW money at defense and EHDYUKAYSHUN...the Synthetic 'Do wants to THROW money at health care...what's with this sudden rush of pocket picking?

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: 1. The best music is the kind you can steal; and 2. The "best" new tunes were written 39 years ago.

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

We find it hard to believe B. S. DEFENDER makes ONLY $1,000 a month from his typing. (This, of course, does not count the side benefits of all his schmoozing.) We do believe, however, that you have to have either media connections or a Type-A personality to make it big time in blogging, and that is something the Lord God failed to bequeath us.

Posted 8:41 AM by Gene

"The conscience, I suspect, is a vital organ. And when it goes, you go."

That, we may be sure, does not just apply to modern Russia.

Posted 8:23 AM by Gene

What is so great about Bob Wright that LALA has gone into mourning over his departure?

These clowns are trying to paint this as an example of corporate "ageism." I say it's an example of a guy being an executive for over twenty years and finding himself in fourth place.

By the way, I'm not sure I'd list acquiring Financial News Network as an achievement.

Posted 8:10 AM by Gene

AT PEOPLE WARNER...

In a sloppy, exciting, rainsoaked NFL title game.... [CNN.com home-page squib]

...the right hand doesn't know...

Boring. Poorly executed. Unmemorable.

...what the left hand is doing.

Posted 6:51 AM by Gene

Two ASSPress stories of note, nearly next to each other on the Mess's home page:

More children and teens are being exposed to online pornography, mostly by accidentally viewing sexually explicit Web sites while surfing the Internet, researchers say.

The next one points to a solution:

A Saudi Arabian judge sentenced 20 foreigners to receive lashes and spend several months in prison after convicting them of attending a party where alcohol was served and men and women danced, a newspaper reported Sunday.

I hear the vigorous oil-lubricated rubbing of hands....

Posted 8:18 PM by Gene

‘Utopia’ Is a Bore. There, I Said It.

So why are so many people banging down the doors to be bored?

(First link via ArtsJournal)

Posted 7:35 PM by Gene

From the blog at SUMNER's Web site for THE GAME:

2nd Quarter - 10:08
There are things I don't believe ... and one of those things is Jim Nantz telling me about Black History Month.

How exciting is it? At the FREEP's live blog they seem to be talking more about the commercials. Do you think SOB NEUHARTH may have known something when he started hard-selling the ADS?

You have to wonder sometimes if the score matters.

P. S. Given the on-the-field antics I think we can predict what hundreds of CEOs will be saying the next five months: "I WAS AT THE SUPER BOWL -- IN A LUXURY BOX -- AND STAYED DRY -- AND YOU WEREN'T!!!!!"

Posted 7:10 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Saturn's the kind of auto maker Dubya could have run -- into the ground.

Posted 6:45 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: Adam "Mozzarella" Gopnik is the ULTIMATE New Yorker writer. FURTHER TRANSLATION: He's the king of BS.

Posted 10:15 AM by Gene

The Peter Principle, defined:

Jeff Zucker to take top spot at NBC Universal

"Bob was a brilliant strategist who really built the company into what it is today," said a senior NBC Universal executive. "But now you need an operator, a manager, someone to take it to the next level."



Going DOWN!

Posted 10:12 AM by Gene

Iranian nuclear scientist ‘assassinated by Mossad’

This story we confess makes us nervous; the Israelis are doing what the Russians did to that spy-or-whatever. There is one crucial difference however; Belly-Kisser was out to silence dissent.

Posted 10:00 AM by Gene

Dubya compromises again, and yet another BAD day at AmSpec, and wherever True Believers congregate:

Bush puts 'ic' back in 'Democrat Party'

"Now look, my diction isn't all that good," Bush told the 200 lawmakers who wrapped up two days away from Washington with family and aides. "I have been accused of occasionally mangling the English language. And so I appreciate you inviting the head of the Republic Party."

That's all right, Dubya; we don't expect you politicians to know how to read.

Posted 9:57 AM by Gene

The Life of a Saint: or, the Life of One Whom We Wish Would Always Be Our Kind of Republican:

McCain’s Advisers Once Made Ads That Drew His Ire