Posted 8:30 PM by Gene

Oh well, 7,000,000 other people couldn't resist -- since Thursday -- so....

(Via VULTURE!)

Posted 1:52 PM by Gene

I wonder how many hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Bloomy terminal customers went to finance this astounding 575-word bit of biznews:

Zillow With a Z Will Break NYSE’s Monopoly on Single-Letter Stock Tickers

Posted 1:13 PM by Gene

Former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been fined $34m (£20m) for cutting off communications services during the uprising that ousted him.

Which should make its way to the Muslim Brotherhood before it's fined nothing for censoring the Web too.

(Via NEWSER!)

Posted 11:29 AM by Gene

Today THE WORLD'S LEADING WEB NEWS SITE (BLEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!!!!) scratched its head over why so many female teachers are seducing boys, and as befitting the site that gave us Cheryl it had to clank and wheeze its way to an obvious reason: the women aren't stable. Those priests surely weren't stable either -- and they seduced boys too.



Somewhat reluctantly we must post this picture of one of the women (a mug shot!) because as my three readers will know a number of the most notorious cases of statutory rape have involved lookers, which compounds the tragedies. I doubt the woman could act but with just a little makeup tweaking (i.e., the slightly-off-center eyebrows) such a face is ready for Hollywood and far superior to most of those ac-TORS' we've seen -- certainly better than another Jennifer's; I cannot get it out of my head. There but for the grace of God.... (For what it's worth, however, in other pictures her hair isn't streaked and she isn't anywhere near this good-looking.)

Posted 10:51 AM by Gene

An apt tribute to a once-powerful politician:

For the last time, San Francisco students filed through the doors of Willie Brown Jr. College Preparatory Academy on Friday morning and past a banner that declared the public school a place "where students' dreams come true."

The Bayview district campus never really lived up to that promise. The fourth- through eighth-grade school fell consistently among the worst of the worst schools statewide on standardized test scores. The school was so old that lead-filled pipes made the drinking water unsafe.

Willie Brown Prep closed for good Friday. The building is scheduled for demolition, and its 160 students have been assigned to schools across the district for the fall.

Posted 12:06 AM by Gene

We don't know how typical this anecdote is, but historic and cultural ignorance hold hands, and our national skolars have led them successfully to the altar.

Posted 11:14 PM by Gene

JPOD had to rave a work of genius, using a title from Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and I had to respond electronically, saying his fellow POST typist hated it (to the resounding dissenting duuuuuhhhhh of commenters), and such art can't be genius and stupid at the same time; and of course JPOD did not say in any detail why it was genius, the mark of a man striving to be not entirely honest; and I said this was exactly why people questioned his appointment as Commentary editor as he's ever the pop-culture marshmallow; and so I sent my comment off, the practical equivalent of spitting in the wind.

Posted 8:24 PM by Gene

Another pinheaded fight in BIGMEDIA:

Bloomberg, Comcast Argue About Channel Placement

You have to think these companies do such things on purpose to distract themselves from the inconvenience of having to serve the public.

Posted 7:33 PM by Gene

That zillionaire geek typist who found a scintillating new use for iPhones is being sicced with the deadliest charge of all: the conflict of interest. The whole purpose of the PR (i.e., "news") biz is rooted in the greatest conflict of interest of all: placing your sources first, whether over a political grudge or for selling an epochal new movie. If we're going to prosecute conflicts of interest virtually the whole biz is guilty as charged.

[T]he Times’ ethics policy, within a section called “keeping our detachment,” states that while “Romantic involvement with a news source would create the appearance and probably the reality of partiality,” it’s up to the writer to disclose it to his or her editor, as Pogue did, and that “in some cases, no further action may be needed”....

If we could solve our problems like news hacks....

Posted 7:22 PM by Gene

The Tone-Deaf Hed of the Year from the Bloomy:

Tony Hayward Gets His Life Back

When do the people get their GULF back?

Posted 1:35 PM by Gene

Speaking of BAWWWWWLMER's putative boss, would someone please tell the editors of The Econowiz His Incompetence is NOT the president of Europe, however much he may wish it?

Posted 1:29 PM by Gene

Count on SLIME's secret admirer WOLFFMAN!!!!! to plug a new celebrity blog or whatever that on first blush looks absolutely vapid -- but for some reason women like vapid blogs and Web sites. Certainly the SLIMES and SUMNERS who run such sites do.

Posted 11:48 AM by Gene

Why, after eleven years of tantrums and a stock going nowhere, why NOW are people demanding BAWWWWWLMER's head?

Posted 11:32 AM by Gene

The tragedy is even if a work is truly meritorious it can't escape the overpowering stench of news-hack hype that surrounds all show-biz. We must also remember the curse of the CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED, of which this is in spades with its Palme d'Or, and the deadly notion that movees must be consumed like medicine. When someone like the fillum critic at NRO tells us something is superb we cannot trust him. We know we are supremely closed-minded in dismissing things like this, but think of how many recent works of genius were rebuked when a clearer-thinking public came to know better.

Posted 11:16 AM by Gene

The editorial director of Billboard (and, from the sounds of it, a former rock music critic) launches into an incomprehensible 1,508-word defense of his rag's stats, which reminds us that even after decades no one's been able to quite fathom The Paper of Re-CORD's Book Revue's, and this diatribe hints that even with the latest statistical tools -- and the Bill's may be more trustworthy than most -- there is still no completely reliable way of gathering who buys what in show-biz, which will never prevent the public-relations specialists from writing press releases full of words like "record".

Speaking of stats, its site boasts that a certain PC politically-incorrect wuhk has busted into its 200 chart with 13,000 COPIES SOLD!!!!! The stat is even less flattering seeing how many people still buy, oh, say, daily newspapers, and magazines, and other such dying things. Well, as we said before, somebody named Paul Whiteman sold 214,575 copies of a whatisit called "Whispering" featuring a slide whistle. The trendy will always be with us.

P. S. at 11:51 p. m. In counting words we missed this:

Who's to say that in three years or three months or even three weeks that the accepted value of an album won't be .99 cents? I realize that's an alarming (and unlikely, at least in weeks or months) thought for many of you, dear readers. But the decline in the perceived value of recorded music is not exactly a secret in 2011.

Keep declining!

Posted 6:29 PM by Gene

The SUPERMANNING OF AMERICA continues as five thousand people all but engage in fistfights booking "musical" acts for the late-night plugfests.

OR:

Sullivan had a keen understanding of what various demographic segments of his audience desired to see. As an impresario for the highbrow, he debuted ballerina Margot Fonteyn in 1958 and later teamed her with Rudolf Nureyev in 1965; saluted Van Cliburn after his upset victory in the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow; and welcomed many neighbors from the nearby Metropolitan Opera, including Roberta Peters, who appeared 41 times, and the rarely seen Maria Callas, who performed a fully staged scene from Tosca. As the cultural eyes and ears for middle America, he introduced movie and Broadway legends into the collective living room, including Pearl Bailey, who appeared 23 times; Richard Burton and Julie Andrews in a scene from the 1961 Camelot; Sammy Davis Jr. with the Golden Boy cast; former CBS stage manager Yul Brynner in The King and I; Henry Fonda reading Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; and the rising star Barbra Streisand singing "Color Him Gone" in her 1962 debut. Occasionally, he devoted an entire telecast to one theme or biography: "The Cole Porter Story," "The Walt Disney Story," "The MGM Story," and "A Night at Sophie Tucker's House."

The Civil Wars, Foo Fighters, Janelle Monae, Lady Gaga, TV on the Radio, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, Animal Collective, Prince, Kesha, Mana, Mindless Behavior, Far East Movement, David Guetta, Fitz & The Tantrums, Freddie Gibbs, Charles Bradley, Gang Gang Dance, Gogol Bordello, Cake -- yes, I'd say that's a pretty fair trade.

Posted 5:43 PM by Gene

Seeing John Edwards brought into court may satisfy a public that rightly thinks him deserving of some rough justice for the way he treated his wife. But however despicable he may be, putting him through the wringer for campaign finance violations is no triumph for American jurisprudence.

TRANSLATION: Spending zillions running for president is not a crime -- and can't possibly cause one!

Posted 8:38 AM by Gene

Figures: Ah-NULT may have had a little help with his extracurricular activities.

Posted 10:34 PM by Gene

The public relations experts called news hacks have all but stopped up their ears to the personal catastrophes that idiot Christian-radio mogul caused. What else could we expect? The outlet running this story specializes in idiocies.

A lawsuit is probably hopeless, but at least it could have a cleansing effect -- or would, without those damned PR minions.

Posted 7:43 PM by Gene

Stop the presses!

Tribune has paid $157 million to bankruptcy lawyers, advisers

They're lucky they didn't.

Posted 7:29 PM by Gene

Well whadya know: a state's Gaming Control Board looking out for its client casinos!

I'd never have expected this in Pennsylvania!

EDDIE, take a bow! You are proof one can be corrupt though unindicted.

Posted 7:22 PM by Gene

The Swiss, in something of a repeat of what the Spaniards did seven years ago in electing a feckless and incompetent government because Osama said so, have been scared by the Fukushima disaster into disowning nuclear power. Thankfully the off-line dates for its current plants are vague and meaninglessly into the future -- plenty of time for a real energy crisis to start, and for the Swiss to rush around like the CHICKENS of Spain with their head-cut-off useless alternatives.

OR:

The nation currently relies on these plants for 40 percent of its energy needs and becomes, as the Journal noted, the second European nation (after Germany) to ditch nuclear energy for now.

In the words of ED MURROW I, good night -- and good luck!

Posted 5:56 PM by Gene

In solemn remembrance of the dearly departed, I now join with the readers of NYMag.com in bowing my head, making the sign of the cross, clearing my throat, and declaring with deep understanding and humility:

All RIGHT, already! GOODBYE, OPRAH!!!!!

Posted 5:12 PM by Gene

Apple to issue Mac update to halt malware attacks

Remember -- Macs don't need security software! Pfffffffffffffffft!

"Mac OS X is no more secure than any other operating system. It has vulnerabilities, and it will let you download and run malware," Miller told Ars. "The difference is that there simply isn't that much malware written for it. The bad guys have focused all their energies at Windows, which makes up the vast majority of the computers out there. However, as market share for Macs continues to inch up, that equation is going to change and bad guys will begin to focus in on Macs, if that hasn't already started to happen. And as I mentioned above, Macs are no more inherently secure than Windows, so when the bad guys decide to go after them with gusto, it'll get ugly fast."

James agreed. "Dismissing this by saying people are crying wolf is extremely short-sighted. Macs are attacked less often, but it seems this is one of the first truly sophisticated malware apps for the Mac. It's not over."

Y-y-you m-mean St-St-St-Steve is a-a-a F-F-FALSE GOD?!?!?

P. S. at 10:57 p. m.

I know a lot of Apple users who breathed a sigh of relief yesterday, thinking that Apple’s belated response finally means that the problem is over. As any computer security researcher will tell you, this arms war is just getting started.

Apple appears to be treating this outbreak as if it were a single incident that won’t be repeated. They seriously underestimate the bad guys, who are not idiots. Peter James, an Intego spokeperson, told me his company’s analysts were “impressed by the quality of the original version.” The quick response to Apple’s move suggests they are capable of churning out new releases at Internet speeds, adapting their software and their tactics as their target—Apple—tries to put up new roadblocks.

If Apple plans to play Whack-a-Mole with these guys, they’re in for months of misery.

You kidding? No problem! MACS DON'T NEED SECURITY SOFTWARE!

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Posted 1:12 PM by Gene

If MICKEY STARBUCKS is so hotHOTHOT!!!!! why do its ketchup packs say "©1986"?

Posted 10:38 AM by Gene

Mark Haines, who judging from the comments at HENRY HONEST!'s was the only person at the Big C to ever ask tough questions, has died. We liked him too. RIP.

Posted 9:24 AM by Gene

WHY do we have this sneaky suspicion Kim accepted the proposal so it could run as an "exclusive" in People?

Posted 9:19 AM by Gene

THE DONALD might run as the candidate of THE BIG UGLY COMBOVER PARTY!

Posted 9:01 AM by Gene

There's been a snit in the high-end literary biz as someone withdrew from some prize panel because it rewarded Philip "Portnoy" Roth. We haven't read his novels and don't intend to -- we've encountered enough excerpts from his opus maximus in "humor" anthologies -- but controversies like this are often tied up in extraneous considerations (and this one is, mostly feministic), which only further show awards are often about politics of one form or another when they're not about politicking, and that's why most deserve not to be taken seriously.

(Via the usual AHTSJournal)

Posted 10:49 PM by Gene

Exclusive: Zynga About to File for IPO

(Via HENRY HONEST!)

Posted 10:30 PM by Gene

Benny Netanyahu may have made a great speech, but a Nobel laureate is still president, and the bomb makers are still in their workshops.

Posted 10:10 PM by Gene

INJURY: Crappy movies.

INSULT: Many movie theaters don't project the crappy movies properly, using picture-dimming 3D lenses for 2D -- and most theater chains don't care.

Then again....

Digital is the future — the Common plans to be all-digital by July — if only because it saves studios millions of dollars a year on processing film prints. Why, then, did Regal and AMC sign contracts in early 2009 — and National Amusements in June 2010 — with Sony, the one manufacturer whose projectors feature the external 3-D lens that’s too expensive and difficult to easily remove for 2-D showings?

The reason appears to be a basic business quid pro quo. Sony provides projectors to the chains for free in exchange for the theaters dedicating part of their preshow ads to Sony products. Unfortunately, the 3-D boom took off in late 2009 and Sony had to come up with a retrofitted solution. Said the Phantom Projectionist, “To me it feels like they’re serving people pigeon burgers and telling them its grade-A beef.’’

But what if audiences don’t notice or don’t care that they’re eating pigeon burgers? When queried by a reporter, moviegoers exiting showings at the Common recently were hard-pressed to pinpoint problems with what they’d just seen.

An older couple leaving the under-illuminated 7:15 “Win Win’’ showing thought the film looked fine; another patron praised its “creative lighting.’’ Walking out of the 7:05 showing of “Source Code,’’ Gerry Jurrens, 62, of Kingston, N.J., admitted that “in some places it seemed a little grainy, but it still looks better than what I’ve got at home.’’

Educating audiences and overcoming this inertia can be difficult.

TRANSLATION: Bad movies need blind viewers.

(Via Cartoon Brew)

Posted 11:51 AM by Gene

Speaking of ESPNCORP, if this review is accurate that "book" will most likely be as we expected: another best-selling doorstop.

Posted 11:47 AM by Gene

That hidden Kermit gag may be cute, but one wonders if ESPNCORP may actually be mocking Its customers by suggesting they want a charming, inoffensive romantic comedy, the sort of thing the industry will NOT give them -- and by using said gag to obscure a most-likely-mediocre Muppet movie, a given without Jim Henson's fervid inspiration.

Posted 11:41 AM by Gene

Oooooooooooooops: PBS wants to run commercials -- promos during its shows, and the public must be e-mailing, and a spokespoop issued a sorta-kinda clarification, meaning PBS is running the ads -- promos, meaning there's less reason than ever for it to stay "noncommercial".

Posted 11:18 AM by Gene

More GE-NIUS in FILLUM:

Looking alternately freeze-dried and pop-eyed, Portman tries very hard to mimic high emotion in “Black Swan.” She can also be so still in her movies that she comes across as an oil painting....

It’s probably not fair to judge her for her role as Padme in three “Star Wars” prequels since her conical hairpiece made her resemble a snail awaiting liftoff. But couldn’t she at least have cracked a smile?

Another exasperating thing about pop-cult writing: too many of the negatives come after the fact. Better after the fact, though, than none, the increasing inclination.

Posted 11:00 AM by Gene

U.S. buying 101 Chevy Volts, will install gov't charging stations

Glad to see someone's buyin' 'em!

Posted 9:06 AM by Gene

And in another hot-off-the-press release from America's premiere public-relations firm, the ASSPress:

Alley has lost 38 inches since `Dancing' debut

Posted 8:59 AM by Gene

Nestlé is buying a company that "specialises in diagnostics and in-licensed specialty pharmaceuticals in gastroenterology and oncology", which says something approaching Soylent Green is in its future.

(Via Seeking Alpha)

Posted 8:51 AM by Gene

Which is more blood-pressure-raising annoying: Jonathan screaming THE DEMOCRATS ARE BAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!! or con-SER-va-tives screaming GLOBAL WARMING IS A DOOMSDAY CULT!!!!!!!!!!?

Pick 'em.

Posted 8:48 AM by Gene

That news hacks have given that idiot Christian-media mogul a second shot says their organizations are now officially public-relations conduits, and we can completely blot out any piffle of a higher calling.

Posted 8:47 AM by Gene

Just what we need, Tim: More sports writing, longer sports writing, more complicated sports writing, five thousand different sites for sports writing, more bookmarks for sports writing -- and inevitably the ennui sets in when people realize you can only mine so many "insights" from one play.

Surprisingly, this typetypetyping did not emanate from Romy, that fount of jernalistic think-tank verbiage, but from MediaBistro, which can be just as addicted.

Posted 6:58 PM by Gene

That David Thomson can liken ESPNCORP's pirate FRANCHISE to Alzheimer's says not every pop-cult writer is performing oral sex on the biz. The only breakdown occurs when he vaguely imagines the Somalian pirates as romantic. Well, nobody's perfect.

Who will remember Johnny Depp in fifty years?

Posted 6:42 PM by Gene

Thanks to idiot libel laws like a vise the UK is having a rousing orgy of self-flagellation mixed with prurience over an adulterous soccer star, who invoked said laws for fear of being booed. We would say in America he needn't worry; that said it is time for the UK to join the rest of the world and stop treating the spread of gossip as the spread of state secrets.

Posted 6:38 PM by Gene

Some people are so rich they don't have to bother with the nuts and bolts of investing -- and for that reason Bernie Madoff is exactly what they deserved.

Posted 6:20 PM by Gene

Speaking of sycophancy, we'd like to know how many favors The Lord Goddess Oprah did for PEOPLE WARNER -- like how many MOVIES AND TV SHOWS AND RECORDS* AND BOOKS* she sold. This is tripe written for an audience of one -- the drooling author. He's also returning the favor -- and drooling in the reader's face.



A NEUHARTHISM OF THE MONTH AWARD TO DICK!

(*When PW was still in those businesses. Maybe Goddess didn't do THAT much good, you think?)

Posted 5:39 PM by Gene

I can't recall reading more pop-cult rave reviews than now. Their typists will rave anything and everything but they don't have the guts to say that pop-cult is better than ever. If they did they'd be laughed at to their faces. That they don't means they can write their idiot raves with impunity. It explains why some blithering NPR hack got so poutingly defensive telling the unintended truth that rock music "criticism" is "extraneous AND self-indulgent". [SIC!] Pop-cult writing is exasperating because it combines five traits I despise in news hacks: their personal intent in the worst sense of the word, which allows me to take their scribble personally in the worst way; their ignorance of show-biz history; their lack of taste couched in nose-in-the-air prose; their SYNERGY; and the fact they're looking for jobs. Any outlet that runs lots of pop-cult raves (here's looking at you, kids) very happily writes off a good chunk of its audience, and often for no better reason than that it's too old. But then any industry that has an ego bigger than Henry the K's will gladly write off an audience to bask in its own immortality. What makes it worse is that our culture was once a shining beacon to the world; those who void this constant raving malarkey think their gold-plated crap is good enough. What convinces you morons that we enjoy the non-stop puffery? This is the story of the emperor's new clothes -- SQUARED. To amplify what I said before: pop-cult ravists are a big and increasing reason our culture STINKS.



Oh, and since this post serves as a comment to this blockhead's adjectival mastery, does this woman not vaguely resemble one of the immortals the wiener so worships? You know, the one with the boobs? This is Kitty Kallen, and she sang this. And this is why I'm angry. Uh wiener, who writes Katy's, uh, songs? (By the way, wiener -- NOT pronounced "JEWEL".)

Sorry for being so intemperate but paid writers don't realize what luck they have.

P. S. on 5/28 at 12:40 a. m. An answer to that question: "Dr." Lukasz Gottwald, the Goddard Lieberson of his generation. Well, all right -- the Phil Spector. PFFFFFFFFT!!!!!

Another answer: Max Martin, from Sweden, the country that gave us ABBA. WATERLOO!

P. P. S. on 5/28 at 1:06 a. m. from Will Friedwald:

Songwriter Jimmy Webb told me about a comment he heard from Joni Mitchell: “We used to have lyricists, we used to have composers, we used to have singers, we used to have accompanists and arrangers. Now we have one person doing all those jobs and in a half-assed way!"

Will -- that's POP GENIUS!

Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

TRANSLATION: FOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NEWS is a dysfunctional seething cauldron of dueling megalomaniacs run by a supertyrant. God, who knew?

Posted 4:03 PM by Gene

Joseph Brooks, who committed a cultural offense with "You Light Up My Life", then vastly compounded it with alleged criminal offenses against young women, has killed himself. Unfortunately, the women are still stuck with the crimes -- and we are still stuck with the song.

Posted 1:31 PM by Gene

Add PR0N to the list of topics news hacks will not report on accurately -- that is, when they bother reporting on it at all. That lack of reporting (save for an occasional tired public service announcement on child PR0N) represents industry self-interest, plus a smug determination that their side has won. How news hacks could think they've won when the very ubiquity of PR0N undercuts faith in all media puzzles us. Their selfishness has helped us sweep it under the rug. But PR0N can't be swept under a rug for too long. America could not quite keep its conscience muted on abortion, and now, nearly forty years too late, the states are instituting tougher standards. The same must someday hold true for PR0N. That odious phrase "sunlight is the best disinfectant" became a stench because so many uttering it have hidden their own secrets. But as this piece boldly says, we must disinfect PR0N as publicly as possible before it gets the better of us.

Posted 9:23 AM by Gene

Now that the world has survived for another day let us consider the two types of nonbelief demonstrated by this fraud from California (or wherever he's from; he might be from the planet BAKKER) and DR. BRAINIAC. Despite his woeful physical state DR. BRAINIAC plainly has a high opinion of himself, having put incomprehensible tomes about physics or astronomy or whatever on millions of coffee tables, so the owners can boast of their scientific literacy without even having to crack the darn thing. Possibly the Doctor is tired; possibly he's tired of living in that crippled body nobody gave him (well, if there's not a God, then nobody gave him that body), and possibly he realizes there are no more books to weigh down coffee tables with, so now's as good a time as any to talk of fairy tales.

As for the FRAUD, the best we can say for Him is He's a babe in the woods; but you don't get to steal tens of millions from the innocent by being innocent. His nonbelief consists of painting God as the sort of caricature Mark Twain had in mind when he sneered of Heaven as peopled with Victorian angels playing harps; He is John Brown, His face lathering with rage, His hair standing on end and His psychotic's flowing beard rigid as steel, forever hurling thunderbolts at His offspring for no apparent reason other than that He's perpetually angry. In the end there's no difference between these two nonbeliefs except that the BRAINIAC's is high-end and the FRAUD's is low-end, but they both come together in agreement of the worthlessness of the species some accident created. Certainly both have hoodwinked the people for profit, in different ways. (And in what must be the sole adult dispatch to come out of the FRAUD's nonbelief, His had victims.)

I will not paint myself as any deep thinker on religion -- it's the last thing I'd want to be -- but for my money THE MASTER summed up the unknowable answer neatly in speculating on the existence of ghosts: "All argument is against it; but all belief is for it." Dr. Johnson was perhaps the most powerful intellectual in history. He was also a believer.

P. S. at 3:44 p. m. We are now sorry we typed this as we have since delved into this clod from California, and we are not now certain of what he believes -- possibly he doesn't know; but we will say our supposition that he saw God as John Brown came from the notion of an ANGRY GOD, and an angry God would visit all sorts of terrors on a people subject to a predetermined schedule. We should have left well enough alone when we called this stunt "a kind of Beckist or Palinesque populist brain cramp." Given the clod's assets we reserve the right to call him a fraud, and if the stunt was not a pure expression of nonbelief it has surely led to nonbelief in those foolish enough to believe him.

From now on we will try to bone up on our subjects before supposing things.