Posted 10:47 PM by Gene

Only THE WAX would call an excruciatingly heavily advertised movie a "SLEEPER!!!!!" hit.

Posted 5:00 PM by Gene

Today on my South Street sojourn on a hot humid day, part of me missed the duck boats, and part of me didn't. I suspect EDDIE!!!! misses them -- our de facto mayor's probably been on the phone 500 times the last week imploring the owners and their "overseers" to get the dinghies back on the water. "WE NEED THE TOURISTS! TOURISTS ARE THE CITY'S LIFE BLOOD! TOURISTS PAY FOR ALL THE WAITERS AND JANITORS AND BELLHOPS WE NEED FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY ECONOMY!!!!!" Any city whose sole revenue streams are tourism and LAW FIRMS doesn't deserve it.

AT CHEAP CHANNEL JR.'s auditorium I saw HEINEKEN® doling out "Respect." Volunteers or somebody were telling the big and mostly black crowd to file in one line for men and one for women. I didn't see the guys in the black suits with the black shirts and the black ties but it sure smelled of Him. Maybe it wasn't but I can see some MadAve type urging it, and telling the client to keep it coincidentally quiet -- and the client being coincidentally European would happily oblige. Also no mention on the marquee. (P. S. I see the company runs a former brewery in Amsterdam as a tourist trap. How apt -- how RENDELLIAN!)

At the Wawa and spying BARRON'S!!!!! I saw the Holy Sign of Mountain View -- which could mean only one thing:

GOOGLE COULD GO UP 10,000 PERCENT IN A YEAR!!!!!!!!!!

So I grabbed it and was disappointed it said:

GOOGLE COULD GO UP 35 PERCENT! [Or something. Yes, they did use an exclamation point!]

BP a SCREAMING BUY -- CHEAP CHANNEL JR. a SCREAMING BUY -- SLIME! Put Your WHOLE EMPIRE BEHIND A WALL!

But remember -- KAPLAN, INC.!

Posted 10:27 PM by Gene

In the old days Doris Day played Ruth Etting. These days our rank age's poor substitute gets to play a screaming drug-infested maniac.

Bring back the old days!

Posted 9:59 PM by Gene

A day in the life of The Windy City, AKA The Home of America's Permanent Mayor:

"Transformers 3," which began its three-day shoot around the Michigan Avenue Bridge on Friday morning, is leaving burned cars, chunks of dirt and movie stars all over Michigan and Pioneer Court. [Home-page squib]

TRANSLATION: 1. The locals at least clean up. 2. The locals will clean up on THEIR DIME.

Posted 9:57 PM by Gene

Some politicians, retired or not, should wear chastity belts.

Posted 9:30 PM by Gene

Don't these two look like a comedy team?

The should -- given all the laughs they've gotten on US.

(I was about to say the late Harvey Korman and Tim Conway, but that would besmirch them. Besides, these two comedians had friends in the BUSINESS.)

Posted 9:12 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



If Albert Speer were a STARCHITECT...



...he'd have known better than to have "designed" something like this.

Posted 8:56 PM by Gene

“The last thing Congress needs to do right now is start a new episode of ‘above the law.’”

What do you mean? That show's run a lot longer than Gunsmoke!

Posted 8:47 PM by Gene

Even PC can't save a bishop from incompetence over sexual abuse.

(Via TINA!!!!!)

Posted 8:37 PM by Gene

OoooooOOOOOoooooh, somebody's MAD!!!!!

We should rename our blog "Broken Record" -- would this have been such a CATASTROPHE if NEWS HACKS hadn't handed THE LORD GOD STEVE the world on a platter?

So we can no more believe the hacks now in their iconoclastic mode than the hacks before in their worshipful mode. Why should we believe them at ANY TIME?

Steve Jobs' Ayn Rand Moment

GOD IS CONSERVATIVE!!!!!!!!!!

BONO! LITTLE MALCOLM! The wall! THE WALL!!!!!

Posted 9:40 AM by Gene

LALA weighs in on the struggling arena..."MUSIC" biz:

"You go back 25 years, the big shows were on the weekends," Tollett said. "Now you could have three shows on a Monday that are good. That's hard for the consumer. There's just so much to choose from."

SO! The problem isn't the music STINKS, it's that it's so GOOD! There's SO MUCH GOOD MUSIC the folks can't make up their minds how many of a thousand ways to be gouged up to their increasingly deaf ears!

THIS IS A PLATINUM AGE OF MUSIC!!!!!

Posted 5:58 PM by Gene

The program "was not intended as a bailout for Wall Street," said Warren, who also is a professor at Harvard Law School. "It was intended to support ... homeownership, retirement savings and banks across the country."

The best-laid plans of MICE....

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Hewlett-Packard Partners With China's Communist Youth League

As we said....

Posted 5:36 PM by Gene

So the rich have gotten richer destroying everyone else, and they celebrate with zillion-dollar bad-taste middle fingers in the Hamptons. So what?

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 5:28 PM by Gene

Today GEKKO KUDLOW and his co-conspirators on the Big C must have been screaming, BP IS A GREAT COMPANY!!!!!

Well, perhaps it is. It can blow up a refinery, help pay to free a terrorist, blow up an oil rig and get away with it. That must be a kind of greatness. We will pay for BP's sins; its accountants must be working quadruple shifts. The stock will be back to where it was by the end of the year. GEKKO will be happy. The story will be over.

One thing, though: BP must GET RID OF THE FLOWER! Even now with the story over it's a visual insult, a four-letter word in green and yellow. Bring back the shield, or the torch you stole from Amoco. GET RID OF THAT @#$%&* FLOWER!!!!!

Posted 3:53 PM by Gene

WHOOPEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BP'S TROUBLES ARE OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 8:16 AM by Gene

Reporter's lawsuit against Plain Dealer, Cleveland Symphony Orchestra [SIC!!!!!] goes to trial [ROMY LINK!]

Given our post the other day this confirms news hacks as PHILISTINES. And oddly enough Romy got the name RIGHT in the SQUIB.

Posted 8:08 AM by Gene

I was on vacation when the story broke that 11 Russians had been charged as sleeper agents planted in America by Moscow’s spy agency to gather intelligence on the United States and to recruit moles who could gain access to our top secrets. [FIRST SENTENCE]

My GOD Thomas, how did the business get along without you and your MILLIONS?

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

And speaking of what used to be called the THEATAH, MORE EXCITING -- NEWS:

New Musical Robin and the 7 Hoods Begins Old Globe Run July 14

Posted 5:13 PM by Gene

This WILL be our last mention of Him but why are the hacks in such a sunken grief over THE BOSS? That He lived in THE CENTER OF ALL KNOWN UNIVERSES didn't hurt. Perhaps also because He was their ideal; beneath His bluster he was basically a snob, like they. Also He was a BIGMEDIA guy (and we're sure the grief-stricken have taken great pains not to tell the peons He produced for Branson East; aptly His last show was named for a hero -- Legs Diamond). And He, like THEY, always got His way. We suspect in His twilight years He asked why He couldn't take it with him, and ultimately He couldn't beat that rap. In short, He was the guy who could STICK IT IN OUR FACES. Unlike THE BOSS, however, hacks have learned -- well, several of them have -- that few of us can be Walter Mitty outside a daydream. And more than likely wherever He is He's learning that in the end only in FORBESLIST does it pay to be phantasmagorically greedy.

Posted 5:09 PM by Gene

It could take five to six years before the U.S. economy is fully healed from the Great Recession of 2008, officials at the Federal Reserve said Wednesday.

More years of high unemployment. More years of skirting with deflation. More years of ultra-low interest rates, and more years of deleveraging.

More years of DOW 100,000!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 2:20 PM by Gene

We don't know who William Underhill is but we do know if hacks did their job full-time (instead of moonlighting full-time for their CLIENTS) we wouldn't be talking about WONDERFUL REPS ABROAD and HORRIBLE REPS AT HOME -- and we didn't like Tony long before we first heard of William Underhill, which was TODAY.

Posted 2:09 PM by Gene

Look, I wanna make myself clear now that we know he's a crummy president: I DIDN'T HELP WRITE HIS SPEECH -- I merely CONTRIBUTED!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 1:56 PM by Gene

Lacey, we know you'd be EXTREMELY happy to help another would-be close show-biz friend, but does it occur to you people may be tiring of interview shows -- not just the dolt LARRY KING!!!!!?

Posted 8:52 AM by Gene

Columbia's Bollinger says journalism needs government's help [Usual Romy link]

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

Posted 6:46 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



If the Chinese wanted to build a tribute to the STONE AGE couldn't they have done it less expensively?

...the Ningbo Historic Museum designed by Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio.

NUF SAID.



THE LORD GOD STEVE is building the world's first teleporter -- OR HIS VERSION OF LENIN'S TOMB!

And of COURSE in Shanghai -- perhaps as a further memorial tribute to the workers of FOXCONN.

Not that He'd care.

Posted 5:27 PM by Gene

The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion with three months still to go in the budget year, showing the lasting impact of the recession on the government's finances.

Well that's one way of putting it, Marty.

Posted 4:15 PM by Gene

We learned today that ESPNCORP made an elaborate mea culpa over its newly closed World Cup division, saying that all the billions poured by DON THOMPSONS and other clods into South Africa won't help its poverty. We could have told the clods that ourselves, but we're not UB IGER, and we don't live in a LUXURY BOX.

Posted 2:25 PM by Gene

Created by Rob Broadhurst and Brent Black, recent products of New York University’s graduate musical theater writing program....

How did that sort of thing automatically equate to BAD?

Posted 2:21 PM by Gene

"We have always felt that the government's position on fleeting expletives was unconstitutional," the network said. "While we will continue to strive to eliminate expletives from live broadcasts, the inherent challenges broadcasters face with live television, coupled with the human element required for monitoring, must allow for the unfortunate isolated instances where inappropriate language slips through."

TRANSLATION: One of these days -- and that day is coming soon -- our SUGAR DADDIES will see things our way, and we won't have to bleep ANYTHING!

Posted 2:04 PM by Gene

At least yesterday GanNETt had the guts to put A REAL AD on the front of USAOKAY!!!!!, instead of all manner of PRETEND ADS.

(Via the usual Romy)

Posted 1:58 PM by Gene

The White House does not take this approach because it is in a position of strength.

You mean even KAPLAN, INC. believes His Omnipotence doesn't assume this ATTITUDE because He knows deep in His heart His party will WIN -- Kinsleyesque dissembling hed notwithstanding?

Posted 11:46 AM by Gene

George Steinbrenner, the Boss Tweed of baseball, who did more than his share to price the sport out of most fans' reach and shook down the taxpayers with the best of them, and thus made BOO!!!!! HISS!!!!! a part of their permanent lexicon, has died. Now he can meet up with Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, wherever they are -- and maybe even Boss Tweed himself.

P. S. at 2:19 p. m. Happily FORBESLIST looks on the bright side:

Steinbrenner Got A 33900% [SIC!] Cumulative Return On His Yankee Investment

Why couldn't IT fold?

Posted 5:49 PM by Gene

Last night perusing this not-bad-at-all blog we happened on this curious photo:



We may ask: What did she not see in him? And what did he not see in her?

Posted 5:46 PM by Gene

ARCHDaily!



Dull is the STARCHITECT's flip side of ugly. Look, if you're going to design a veterinary hospital for a zoo, can't you make it look like something cute, or animal, or something other than a wooden box where bad things can happen?

Posted 5:41 PM by Gene

Shucks, SCOTT!!!!! proves to be just another Demo...er....

Posted 5:38 PM by Gene

What can Sarko blame it on? The CUP?

Posted 5:37 PM by Gene

COMMENTARY: How Coverage of the BP Gulf Disaster Manages to be Too Soft -- and Sensationalized

Sounds about right to us.

Posted 5:35 PM by Gene

American footballers aren't the only ones prone to well-meaning platitudes.

Posted 5:34 PM by Gene

The Beaver might seem like a strange choice for a production company focused on do-gooder films. The main character suffers from depression and mental illness.

But not strange for the FORMER SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, nuf said.

Posted 10:16 AM by Gene

Canada was supposedly a model for health care. Now it's supposedly a model for our economy?!?!?

Posted 10:14 AM by Gene

If KOLLEDGES had to go through the histories of all the people who gave their buildings names they'd never stop renaming.

Posted 9:52 AM by Gene

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!!!!!!

(Via MediaBistro)

Posted 9:33 AM by Gene

TRANSLATION: The final STANK.

This kind of writing will happen when sports hacks become mo-VEE cri-TICS.

(Via TINA!!!!!)

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

In other news of blazing sexual pioneers Hollywood's (and HARVEY WHINER's) favorite molester Roman is "free" -- but not from the law.

Posted 8:40 AM by Gene

The cretin HEF says He's taking His Empire private, which makes us wonder why He ever took It public.

Will He be able to boast up $200 million the way He boasts of His impact on HISTORY?

P. S. at 10:16 a. m. We stand corrected -- more like $122.5 million.

Posted 8:05 PM by Gene

Speaking of Chinese (although not speaking in it), Intel threw a big monkey wrench into my plans for a new computer; it's making changes in its line-up, and one of them is to cut the price of the i7-950 CPU almost in half -- but not until late August. This poses a problem: I have to get all my parts before July 30 when Bing Cashback expires -- and then I'll have to wait for the CPU. Better to do that I guess as I'll get a supposedly better processor cheaper.

Also I've been put off from buying any refurbished i7-950 machines through eBay or HP because they have a built-in CPU markup that's no longer justified. Decisions, decisions.

Posted 7:52 PM by Gene

When a well-known preacher (in this case Rev. Schuller) hands off control of his ministry, are there provisions in the will?

We are NOT kidding.

Posted 7:25 PM by Gene

One way we try to console ourselves when our morale frequently runs low is to turn to Quantcast and look up the demos of our favorite Web sites. Consider this one:



Obviously a fairly brainy bunch reads Jennifer. And affluent! (We are surprised that so many blacks seem to read it, so maybe some races and creeds aren't that monolithic.) A lot of the sites are like this. Of course there's no telling what the graduate courses are in, and judging from the last twenty years it's taken a lot of smarts to run our country into the ground, but we're proud.

On the other hand Grate.com exposed us (no link) to an extremely popular Web site that spreads social diseases (no link), and surprise! Two thirds of its surfers are men, they tend to be poorer, and more have no college than graduate schooling. So much for finding women through the Web.

Posted 7:07 PM by Gene

If it's Sunday it must be Big Double-A-Scribble Time:

1. The Crainiacs are HUGGING themselves over the TREMENDOUS achievement of a KING. To His credit He did have the sponsorship proceeds donated to charity, it says here; but if I were the moron running, say, State Farm I wonder how many insurance policies my donation may have cost. But then we know the answer, if CEOs were ever honest enough to say it (CEOs? HONEST?): What we lose here we gain somewhere else. Translation: THE PUBLIC BE DAMNED.

2. EXCELLENT NEWS: The no-talents of the recorded...SOUND biz are having trouble getting their tone-deaf fans to pay $1,000 for a concert ticket. CHEAP CHANNEL JR.'s cohorts blame the de -- RECESSION. Of course it would NEVER occur to anyone that charity has its limits, and with the no-talents they may start fairly low.

And even BETTER news: the "concert" organizers are lopping some weight off the pound of flesh they charge for FEES -- however:

"We're training our audiences to wait for the sale that will come later," he said. "Nothing upsets consumers more than finding out they paid full price when someone else paid half of that -- especially if that person ended up with better seats."

Hmmm, maybe the answer is -- MORE FEES!

3. China's BFF Walmart can't make up Its mind how hoity-toity It wants to be. One day pallets in the aisle, the next day, Cartier. Will you Chinese bureaucrats make up your minds before the Party does?

P. S. on 7/12 at 8:30 a. m. The Crainiacs seem to have cribbed from the Wall Street Journals, who offer this note:

As aging musicians gradually exit the stage, few younger acts can consistently fill larger venues the way their predecessors could.It's [sic] not that young listeners aren't going to shows. About 8% of people aged 18 to 29 said they go to a concert once a month, more than any other age group, according to a Rasmussen survey from earlier this year. But considering how many young fans acquire and listen to music, the music seems to have less sticking power. For instance, 70% of the music obtained by 13-to-24-year-olds isn't paid for; instead, it's pulled from peer-to-peer networks, or ripped and copied from friends, according to the NPD Group. "They get so much free content, a lot of it they don't really value," says NPD entertainment analyst Russ Crupnick.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!

(Link via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 5:05 PM by Gene

Well! It may be a second-rate country with a lousy economy and a "leader" more PC and incompetent than ours, but Spain has won that infernal World Cup.

Whoopee.

Now no more talk of octopuses and noisemakers (or soc -- FUUTBALLLLL) for four years.