January 2011
59 posts
The House GOP's Plan To Redefine Rape →
If you haven’t seen the report in the above link, I’ll summarize: 173 Congresspeople — mostly, but not all, Republicans — are co-sponsoring a bill that would change the “except in the case of rape/incest” provision that allows for taxpayer-funded abortion in certain circumstances. Right now, a woman who is planning to have an abortion can’t pay for it with...
“Usually I find the State of the Union address boring. President (of either...”
– — Only Matt Taibbi can make his optimistic notes so damn depressing.
“In Hollywood, though, not all quadrants are created equal. If you, for instance,...”
– Another one from that Mark Harris GQ article.
“Inception was not a brand, which is why nobody with a marketing background is...”
– Mark Harris has an outstanding article in the current issue of GQ about why Hollywood is just as fucked as journalism or the airlines today, thanks mostly to the proliferation of what my former AV Club editor Sean O’Neal refers to as the There, There: Mommy Hugs You For Ninety Straight...
“[Jay Cutler] certainly looks the part of a classic dick, and this may be why you...”
– — Spencer Hall at SBNation mounts defense of Jay Cutler from yesterday’s NFC Championship Game, and a scathing condemnation of both his critics and the tough it out culture that leads players to lifelong, debilitating injuries for fear of being branded a sissy.
I’ll admit, I was...
Contemporary Snobbery: Best Since Birth... Albums →
Some friends of mine started a blog called Contemporary Snobbery that I’ll be contributing to. The first theme was for everyone to make a list of one album from each year they’ve been alive. Mine includes more Prince (3), Greg Dulli (2), and Billy Joel (1) than anyone else’s, so far.
contemporarysnobbery:
By Dan Solomon
Editor’s Note: Dan didn’t write an intro paragraph...
Is It Time for the United States to Break Into Two... →
So, sometimes I have these ideas, right, and I’m all, “This is a super good idea! I should hold this one in reserve, for a day when I’m like, ‘I need a great idea to pitch today, because I have people to impress!’” And I’d tucked this one away until my editor at Asylum asked me if I had any stories I’d been sitting on that I wanted to see run before...
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"Who the hell even thought of doing this? This is... →
I got mainpaged on AOL.com over the weekend for my NFL hip-hop tributes piece on Asylum. That means I got COMMENTS. Lots and lots of comments from people who think that I am very stupid.
That’s happened just about every time I’ve had a story run on the AOL.com welcome screen, in fact — the Internet is full of angry, annoying people, but the ones who decide to comment on stories...
Today’s song: “Victory” (Nine...
“A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River...”
– I know it’s a serious disaster and everything, but still. Hee hee hee.
Also: (“‘The fate of the inflatable dolls is unknown,’ said Senior Constable Wilson.”)
The Football Albums: American Conference →
My friend Jessica responded to the Asylum post about football rap songs and told me about Peter Hughes’ NFL records. I hadn’t heard of them before, but they’re great. I think the Ravens song that imagines Jim Kelly coming out of retirement to lead the team in 1998 is my favorite so far. This is reminder number two in a recent series that I was being really dumb to dismiss the...
Which NFL Team Has The Best Fan Tribute Song? →
This’ll be one of my very last stories for Asylum, but I’m glad I got it in there. A couple of weeks ago, I discovered the phenomenon of rappers recording tributes to their favorite football team, and I really started to love it. Most of them are pretty boilerplate — lots of boasts about how their team is the best, how Defensive Star will clobber your quarterback, while Offensive...
Today’s song: “Come With Me”,...
Toothpick-Launcher
amberdemure:
I just discovered AmberDemure’s Tumblr comics last week, when she posted one about the cedar fever that has been totally devastating my sinuses that a friend of mine reblogged. I took the time to read more of her comics today, and I really love them, especially the way she uses a page — some of the post-it note/notebook paper collages are especially cool. Check...
WatchI love Phoenix Jones, like everyone does. He has the best superhero costume and refers to himself in the third person. He is charming and quirky, a bit of spirited whimsy in the world. Perhaps someday he will die in a heated exchange with a wrongdoer who will shoot him in the mask, and we will mourn. But until that day, you know, I’m happy that he exists and is out there. I find the...
“Yesterday, it finally happened. I was listening to 1250-AM WSSP’s “The Big Show”...”
– — My colleague Jason Albert of the AV Club talks about the “folk hero” popularity of Green Bay Packers running back John Kuhn, and how the fact that he’s a white guy playing a position that white guys almost never play is both A) a part of why he’s so beloved throughout...
Fringe, crazy people and violent rhetoric.
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I have to say, if anything, regarding the assassination attempt on Gabrielle Giffords. Chris Bird, over at Mightygodking.com, gets a few important things right, and I was going to just link to his post at first — but there are a few things still missing.
1. The word “assassination” is important to use. That’s what this was. She...
The Distant One: Universal Human Things →
thedistantone:
I think there are very few “universal truths”, but I do feel comfortable making this pronouncement.
By nature, Homo sapiens sapiens:
Will eat high fat and high sugar foods whenever possible.
Need sexual satisfaction on a regular basis (from an age we might not be comfortable with, as a culture).
Will do as little as possible (provided boredom is avoided), given the...
Nicolas Cage Movies: His Ten Best And Worst →
“When a comedy intended to take on race relations, starring Nicolas Cage and Samuel L. Jackson is released with the title ‘Amos & Andrew,’ one thing is fairly likely: at some point in the picture, Nic Cage is going to be in blackface.”
Here’s a thing I wrote for MovieFone in honor of Nicolas Cage’s birthday.
“Social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party....”
– Douglas Rushkoff brings some insight into the Facebook / Goldman Sachs deal. It certainly sounds a lot more realistic than Facebook actually being worth $50 billion dollars.
Hunger Games Movie Stuff
starfishncoffeeinsunnydale:
‘Hunger Games’ exclusive: Why Gary Ross got the coveted job, and who suggested Megan Fox for the lead role
I swear. If Rue (and her family) aren’t cast as Black, because *clearly she is*, and/or Katniss is cast as Megan Fox or some other twit to appeal to teenage and pre-teen boys, I’m gonna start my own personal crusade to discredit these films. These books are...
Top 10 things I got to do because of Asylum.com
In honor of the soon-to-be-defunct Asylum, here’s a top-ten list (lists = Internet gold, I learned during my time writing for them) of things that I got to learn, see, and do because of the site.
10. Be one of the first people to give a shit about the all-girl Rage Against the Machine tribute band “Take The Power Back”. This is something I can still do, sometimes, through The...
Thoughts on Asylum.
So, the news finally broke that AOL is shutting down Asylum.com. I’ve been waiting to post anything about it until I saw it somewhere else, because I didn’t want to inadvertently be the guy who announced it via a scarcely-read Tumblr blog.
Anyway, this is a personal bummer for me, because I’ve been working for Asylum for the past year and a half. Until I started with the site,...
Today’s song: “Kwon and...
“I don’t know why it took this long for me to play a knight in a movie, but...”
– — Nicolas Cage, of course. Why did it take him so long to play a knight, guys? Anybody?
WatchOffered without comment.
What if NFL players walked out now? →
Kevin Seifert at ESPN, who almost never writes about the politics of sports (but who, when he does, tends to be more thoughtful than most), posits a way that the players could seize the upper hand in their labor negotiation.
As per usual, the comments are bad, but it certainly reinforces something that my friend Josh posted yesterday in response to the Favre/harassment post — about how...
WatchHere, have some Hannibal Buress.