Apparently, when defamed Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich claimed he had considered Oprah Winfrey for Barack Obama's Senate seat, it was part of a three-way fantasy involving himself, the talk-show queen and her "best friend" Gayle King. Because on a radio show this morning, Winfrey said had she seen his proclamation on Good Morning America, she would have fallen off her treadmill.
And if that had happened, we all likely would have felt the ripple effects.
Certainly, had the Blagonator helped usher in the Big O to Congress before his likely impeachment, that would have been the hastiest pre-exit maneuver since George Bush pardoned Scooter Libby before departing the Oval Office.
Lots of Big Os to take in here actually. Maybe that obscure semantics synchronicity is actually what the disgraced state leader was going for.
Well, ladies and gents, we can now move ahead toward a time of economic prosperity and racial harmony, because Barack Obama has been sworn into office. What's that? You're still unemployed and your boss keeps referring to you by prejudiced terminology? Oh, bummer. Guess one man can't change everything.
But even if you haven't been swept up in Obama-as-Messiah fever (ironic given his presidency signals an end to high government as guise for holier-than-thou demagoguery), we can all agree it was pretty sweet to see George W. Bush (and don't call him Prez) sent off on that helicopter one last time.
Not as sweet as seeing the likes of Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz get sliced and diced by the Razzies of course. So without any last-minute presidential pardoning, here are the top 5 things we learned this week.
5. Katy Perry may pretend she likes to kiss girls and is preciously cute when calling other people gay, but apparently she'll settle for nothing but the straight dish when tabloids report on her sex life, or lack thereof.
4. Britney Spears is somehow being raked over the coals for the suggestive phonetic pronunciation of her new single. Meanwhile, no one raised an ounce of cain over Van Halen's non-too-subliminal epithet placement within the titular acronym of their 1991 album. Guess parents were less afraid of Sammy Hagar gettin' their teenage tots in a heated lather.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
Beltway insiders seem to approach getting dressed as a way to: A. avoid indecency charges and B. To protect themselves from the elements. A "quirky" D.C. gal may be seen traipsing through Capitol Hill clad in a purple pinstripe suit from Anthropologie with some swingin' sky-high Prada pumps, instead of the de rigueur gray pinstripe suit from Ann Taylor Loft paired with Easy Spirit flats, much to the consternation, stifled envy and shock on the parts of the less stalwart.
But change is coming to Washington, along with (we hope) a new epoch for fashion forwardness. President Barack Hussein Obama's inauguration seemed to signal, among other weightier things, a much easier era for the eyes. Here's the eight fashion highlights from Tuesday's ceremonies.
8. Laura Bush The former First Lady's outfit epitomized what we all hope we'll be saying "farewell" to: frumpy grey pantsuits and boring heels; drab grey political horizons and boring heels (of the human variety).
7. Jill Biden After so recently thrusting her well-shod foot into her mouth on Oprah (Biden claimed that Obama had offered her husband a choice of jobs as either Veep or Secretary oO State, forcing his staff to go into spin mode), I expected Biden to slip on something decidedly understated. In stark contrast to everyone else's relatively muted swearing-in duds, she opted for a fiery orange-red jacket paired and a pair of hot-stepping black leather boots. It looks like we will be able to expect all manner of exciting fireworks from Biden. And just think: It was her husband everyone was worried about. Go, Jill, go: This administration has to give Saturday Night Live something to work with.
6. Aretha Franklin The Queen of Soul's rendition of "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" was almost as thrilling as the farcically bad, but oh so delectably good, massive, yodeling, rhinestone-studded bow plopped on top of a chirping church mouse of little grey hat. Sing it, lady!
5. Senator Ted Kennedy The senator, who has managed to continue his duties in recent months despite his bout with brain cancer, collapsed at the Capitol after suffering a seizure on the day of the inauguration. He's reportedly on the mend, and we hope as optimistic, jubilant and celebratory as he appeared to be at the inauguration in his jaunty fedora and dapper sky-blue silk scarf.
Yes, this is my life: Scouring the wires for stories about adolescent celebrities because I missed the boat on formerly teenaged Hollywood elite getting busted for assault, like loathsome Kelly Osbourne.
But alas, aren't those preciously lucky daughters of Barack Obama, Malia and Sasha, the luckiest little twosome on earth? Because while their mother, Michelle, was giving daddy his first presidential knob-polisher, they were having their hormones manipulated via a visit from The Jonas Brothers last night.
Unbelievable. I get within 100 feet of the White House fence and am considered a threat to national security, but slap on a tux and single a few Disney-friendly ditties and you're ushered in like Secret Service to make an inaugural bid for the hearts of the two most powerful pre-teen girls in the world.
During today's inaugural luncheon for President Barack Obama, Senator Ted Kennedy apparently suffered a seizure and was removed from the premises.
No further details about the incident or his condition are known at this time, but the venerable Congressman and health-care-reform warrior was, of course, diagnosed with cancer last May.
It's an auspicious beginning to Obama's tenure in the White House, but well wishes go out to Kennedy and his family.
January 20. Every four to eight years, depending on whether there's a second term, it becomes the day that a new
president is sworn in. And today, Barack Obama, the 44th (and first
black) president will be the focus of the whole world's attention. It
also happens to be my birthday.
It always seemed like people who were
born on Christmas had it bad. They have to share their
b-day with Jesus, and frankly who are you compared to the son of God?
But let me tell ya, it's nothing compared to sharing yours
with the biggest historical event of our lives.
Quick news flash, in case this small detail has escaped your attention, despite its corresponding event poignantly taking place the day after Martin Luther King Day. And, oh, regardless of it coming on the heels of domestic economic collapse and international diplomatic uncertainty that stems almost exclusively from the errors of George Bush's administration.
But, just in case you spent the last two-plus months stuck in a water-logged airplane floating atop the Hudson River's surface, Barack Obama is being sworn in as our President tomorrow. And Bush will spend his remaining days in a manic, Richard Nixon-like stooper of self-doubt and bullish, unapologetic self-assuredness.
I could overstate the siginficance of the precipice we're currently perched upon, but I'm just going to use the final pre-Obama NCDSUV post to let us all take a deep, collective breath and soak that in.
Ohhhhh yeah. It's like taking a bubble bath in a tub of Democracy, ain't it? Just make sure to keep it out of your eyes. That shit burns.
Welcome to one of NCDSUV's favorite daily features, where we acknowledge another turn of the calendar for a member of Hollywood land, even if it's a celebrity who often goes overlooked by the rest of the blogosphere, and regardless of whether we have a huge affinity for their body of work.
On Friday, we raised a spike-bedazzled leather birthday fist for glam-punker David Johansen. Today, we raise a leather fist armed with a spike for a horrible man whom we can all agree to despise, proving we have something in common after all.
Ah, the innocent days of 2008. When recession, war and high-profile celebrity deaths became the glue to bond us together like societal Siamese siblings. But now it's 2009, a whole new era, a whole new ballgame. And not just for Washington, who will call Barack Obama their overlord, or the New York Yankees, who will take the field with C.C. Sabathia and Mark Texeira and still manage to lose the pennant to smaller-budgeted organizations.
It is the final stand for celebrity land in a decade that has alternately enthralled and repulsed us. It is a time for Hollywood to make its mark on culture and the planet at large, and really give 'em the good stuff we all cream for in the tabloids.
And we got off to an intermittently intriguing start, thanks largely to the birth of what could have been the First Granddaughter-in-waiting, and a certain wayward actress' parent who may love his share of his daughter's spotlight more than the woman herself. So without any pregnant pauses, here's the top 5 things NCDSUV learned this week.
4. Paul McCartney may have had to navigate Heather Mills' body sexually despite her prosthetic leg, but at least he didn't have to stick around till midnight to ritualistically spray-tan the thing.
A couple months back, NCDSUV began broadcasting a new feature known as Just Because, highlighting something inane, obscurely amazing or just plain jaw-dropping from the outlines of pop culture and viral content.
These differ from, say, insanely retarded local ads, or eccentric YouTube karaoke performers,
which can be grouped into their own self-referencing regular
spotlights. Nor do they need to be burdened by standards of timeliness
or having been as-yet-unearthed.
They are the standalone wonders of the cybersphere that made us all
get a computer in the first place, and occasionally need to be inserted
into a day of normal online programming. Just because.
So while the last installment of Just Because celebrated the late Estelle Getty's giddy inhabitation of wiseass Golden Girls matriarch Sophia Petrillo, today we hop in our pop-culture time machine to 1994, and in recognition of Barack Obama's impending inauguration, revisit an unforgettable moment in political-office swearing-in history, and its 14th anniversary.
They say Levi Johnston, soon-to-be-husband of Bristol Palin, son of recent drug-ring arrestee Sherry Johnston and future-son-in law of Alaskan Governor/never-would-have-been-VP candidate Sarah Palin, is an apprentice electrician. Sounds more to me like the only apprenticeship he'll never graduate from is being indentured in the Palin family for all the rest of his eternally damned days.
As you likely heard through the apple-blossom-vine, the Palin/Johnston child-bearing tandem gave birth this past Sunday to Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. Which means their son has two options: Become a stately senator who spawns generations of same-named kin, or a racecar driver. But the only one behind the wheel of poor Levi's life is his socially Satanic (er, I mean conservative) surrogate mom, Sarah, especially now that Levi's matriarch somehow trumps her in hypocritical irresponsibility.
In a s statement, Sarah and her husband Todd referred to Levi rather coldly as "the young man," and remarked that he and Bristol are "going to realize very quickly the difficulties of raising a child."
Which is code for, "You fucked up and impregnated our underage daughter with your demon dick, and because of our puritanical value system and misguided run for major governmental candidacy, you're stuck owning up to that decision by raising this kid when you're barely old enough to have voted for me and John McCain, and then marrying Bristol and sacrificing all your individual hopes and dreams."
Sucks to be you kid. Well, both Levi and Tripp that is.
Welcome to NCDSUV's splenetic, embittered new weekly feature, Overdressed & Underclassed, which with each installment will dissect a different aspect of celebrity fashion with the enthusiasm and exactitude of a taxidermist suffering from the second clinical phase of rabies (caution: We have reached the contagious stage).
This week we address the worst fashion moments of the year. Fashion faux pas are like a particularly virulent breed of bronchitis; a disgusting, unpleasant fact of life that certain celebrities catch once and toss off without missing a well-heeled step, while others seem to be permanently felled by a chronic case that sends bystanders scurrying for cover for fear of contracting the dread disease. Here's our votes for an octagon of the '08's most offensive.
8. Agyness Deyn It's chronic. There are flashes of delicious, savory brilliance in Agyness' fashion fruit n' nut grab bag. And yet, Agyness' insistence on cultivating a bleached, neglected, teased and abused Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia-Pet-style 'do, coupled with her penchant for dressing like Billy Idol circa 1983, an unreasonable devotion to bandanas and questionably tailored pants (that look uncomfortably tight in the crotch area) outnumber her waltzes with aesthetic resplendence. She's more fashion idiot than savant.
7. Blake Lively Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning. You're right, Blake: Fashion is all about fantasy. That's great, honey, because you embrace that concept. Especially when wearing short, sparkly postage stamps on the red carpet or fluttery white dresses and cowboy boots while flitting about Manhattan and flashing that toothy grin at the stalkerazzi. They love you, we love you, it's all good. But leave the more "conceptual" clothes to the darker, smarter, sassier indie crowd. No one wants to see you in a shiny, baggy pondscum-green, wrinkled jumpsuit and high heels. I know you were going for the insouciant sophisticate thing, but this makes you look like you belong in the pit at NASCAR, wiping the sweat from your fair brow and tinkering with a miter saw and mini-torch while muttering about "that durn Cletus. Tol' him ta plug that leak durn it anyway."
6. Sarah Jessica Parker It's (rather) chronic. Much like her alter-ego Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah definitely likes to take sartorial risks that would make less temerarious women blanch. And while she's more than likely to pass the Anna Wintour sniff test, Sarah's flops are unsurpassable. Like the time she decided to wear a green pillbox hat that resembles a large breast (nipple included!) and sprout a Brobdingnagian floral arrangement to the Sex And The City movie premiere (reminds me of the hideous bird Carrie strapped to her head to wear for her ill-fated fictional nuptials).
5. Anna Wintour Take a hot bath and consult your stylist in the morning. Willful idiosyncrasy, clothing as wearable sculpture and high-brow reflections of the current social/economic/cultural climate are all expected, even necessary, components of haute couture. And few people people's names are as synonymous with couture as Anna's. So heads understandably turned when Nuclear Wintour showed up to the Met Costume Gala (her gala, the fashion gala to end all fashion galas) in an actively odd Karl Lagerfeld dress that appeared designed to make the already serpentine editrix resemble a horned lizard dipped in mercury. While I don't agree with Time about it being the biggest fashion faux pas of the year, considering Wintour's pedigree, it's certainly up there.
Ah, the last week before the Christmas-time blitz of abusive commercialism and schmaltzy, ceremonial sentimentality. A time for celebrities to get one last headline blast before the world pretends to care about religion and family more than the dogma of tabloid culture for a few days.
Fortunately for us, there was no shortage of boob-flashing, divorce scuttlebutt and rehab-hyjinks. So without further prolonged pause, here are the top five things we here at NCDSUV (and we hope you as well) have learned this week:
4. Tara Reid, not to be outdone by her more youthful underlings Lindsay Lohan et al, finally went into rehab for undisclosed reasons. We're guessing it's because she's been chronically addicted to an illicit co-dependent substance, but what the heckfire do we know?
Pop quiz: What's more gratifying? Finding out that Levi Johnston's mother, Sherry Johnston, was arrested on six (!) counts of felony, narcotics-related misconduct, or reading about on FOX News' website? Trick question. They're equally heeeelarious.
So wait, you're surprised that the mother of an underaged Alaskan teenager who tattooed Bristol Palin's name on his ring finger would be white trash enough to get embroiled in a massive drug stakeout? I mean, with the hundreds of thousands of dollars his mother-in-law-to-be, Sarah Palin, spent on classing up her wardrobe and, by proxy, the reputation of her Hills Have Eyes-worthy extended family, this was no doubt a shock to several unsuspecting citizens.
Man, oh man, if only this news emerged during the election. Would have been pretty fascinating to see the conservative spinmeisters turn this into further evidence for Palin's persistence in the face of constant personal turmoil.
Ugh, I just got post-election hangover douchechills.
Oh Republicans: out of power, in the wilderness, adrift at sea, cast
away, lost. Where will you go? Who will you turn to? Our suggestion?
The cast of Lost. See, while the Democrats have managed to out-strategize,
out-fundraise and out-spend them, there's one area where Republicans
still hold an advantage, and that's turning bad actors into successful
politicians.
Even while the Dems
pull the celebrity endorsements, celebrity money and celebrity votes,
it's the Republicans who've proven that they can run a celebrity
candidate, and the worse the actor, the more successful the politician
he becomes.
Think about it. Clint Eastwood: talented actor, didn't make it past
Mayor Of Carmel. Ronald Reagan: co-starred with a chimp in Bedtime For Bonzo
and became President Of The United States. What's better is that,
unlike a winning on-the-ground organization or intellectual
infrastructure, the Democrats can't seem to co-opt this strategy. Even
Al Franken,
who not only starred in, but co-wrote, Stewart Saves His Family, is
barely squeaking by in the Minnesota Senate recount.
Whether it's the
good hair, straightforward diction, or child-like emotional simplicity, the fact is, Republican voters love to pull the lever
for really shitty performers. So while the mainstream media argues
over whether Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal
are the next conservative standard bearers, we look back on the top bad-actors-turned-successful-Republican- politicians, and give you a sneak
peak at some current Hollywood stars the Grand Old Party should get
busy recruiting.
8. Alan Autry
You might remember Fresno Mayor Alan Autry as Captain Bubba Skinner
from the popular(ish) TV show In The Heat Of The Night, in which case
you might have too much time on your hands. Still, Autry shares a lot
in common with some of his more famous compatriots on this list; he's
beefy with weird hair and just a little bit of stupid around the eyes.
With In The Heat's cancellation, Autry was able to parlay his role as
a Southern cop learning racial tolerance in the new south to it's next
logical step: an outspoken opponent of gay rights in the State Of
California. Most Likely Hollywood Political Successor: Vin Diesel. He's got those stupid eyes.
7.George Lloyd Murphy George
Lloyd Murphy is the granddaddy of them all. When this 1930s B-movie
star won his California Senate seat he proved that the jump from
unremarkable actor to elected official wasn't quite as far as any
correct thinking individual would have hoped. In fact, Reagan once
called Murphy his John the Baptist, because Reagan thought he was
Jesus, even before he had Alzheimer's. Aside from paving the way for
Reagan and just about everyone else on this list, Murphy is famous for
having said in defense of the laws governing migrant workers that
Mexicans were genetically suited to farm labor;
because they were "built lower to the ground," which of course made it
"easier for them to stoop." Most Likely Hollywood Political Successor: Ronald Reagan. Duh.
6. Jesse "The Body" Ventura OK,
he's an Independent, and not technically a Republican, but he's an
Independent Libertarian which, if you ask Ron Paul, is the same thing.
Plus, he's got everything a Republican wrestler-turned actor-turned
politician could want, he likes to point his finger in people's chests
and yell, he's brawny, smokes cigars and was in the cast of The Predator(along with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sonny Landham
who unsuccessfully ran for Governor of Kentucky in 2002 and who isn't
on this list cause he was actually a worse politician than he was an
actor). He doesn't have good hair, but on the bright side, he also
wasn't a good actor, and when he shaves his head he looks kind of like
a penis, which makes him look virile, which voters love. Most Likely Hollywood Political Successor: I'm tempted to go with 2000 Republican Convention speaker The Rock,
cause you know they're both wrestlers and stuff, but I'm gonna go with
Jason Statham since he's also bald, has a propensity for poking people in the chest and an uncanny ability to
play the same character in every movie he's ever been in.
5. Shirley Temple Black
And now it's time for the ladies! Well, lady. But what a lady! She
lived the fairy tale. Child star grows up, marries a handsome man just
out of the army, divorces him, then goes on to marry an older plutocrat
and run unsuccessfully for Congress on a strongly pro-Vietnam platform.
She dared us all to dream. Still, despite the unsuccessful Congressional run, she had quite the political career as an official diplomat
under Richard Nixon, because although she didn't have the rugged good looks
and/or penis required to win an election as a Republican at the time,
she sure had crazy hair. Most Likely Hollywood Political Successor: The future Mrs. Dakota Fanning Murdoch.
Plato is often blamed for getting Western civilization started on the whole extreme rationalism kick we've been on for the past few millennia. You know, where every human is seen as a self-interested, rational actor with no ties to other people. This is of course the elitist view of the world, or as I like to call it, "What assholes who know dick about shit think."
Whether it's fair to hold some dead skeleton accountable for all the ills of Western life is questionable, but there is one think we can call Plato's rotting ass out on: his hatred of entertainment. Yes, folks, if Plato had his way, our cities would be ruled by a cadre of Philosopher-Kings, and all the poets and writers would have been kicked to the curb, assuming the curb is the city limits. And daily conversations would go something like this:
Andy: Ahoy there, Callicles, wherefore art thou headed on such an elastic morn?
Callicles: Why are you talking like a Shakespearean actor having a seizure?
Andy: Uh...
Callicles: I was headed over to the Agora to get some Skittles. You want anything? Some stew?
Andy: No, I'm ok. I had stew last week. However, I was wondering if I could ask you something?
Callicles: Why did you ask that like a question? Shouldn't it be a statement? "I was wondering if I could ask you something." Anyway, what?
Andy: If you see Plato, can you tell him that I'm going to do a
dramatic reading of Homer's Illiad tomorrow and see if he wants to go?
Callicles:
That prick? You do not want to invite him to a poetry recital. He
fucking hates poetry. Poets, playwrights, reality TV...
Bill Maher: King Straw Man and blowhard, setting up easy marks to bust through like the Kool-Aid Man breaking up a brick wall. However, where the latter doles out sugar water to turn our children into obese pieces of feces, all Maher churns out are half-assed specious arguments that, like mad cow disease, turn our brains into Swiss.
Now, as far as whether his butthole-iness is engendered by his libertarian beliefs, we'll leave that to future historians writing their dissertation on schmucks who lived right before the world fell apart into blodclots. However... wait a second... straw man? Blowhard? Both describing Maher? I guess you could say he blows himself! The height of wit!!!
Let's look at Maher's new up-bore-eous documentary Religulous, a portmanteau of "religious" and "ridiculous." In the same spirit, we can say "Maher" is a portmanteau of "malice" and "hernia," both for the ill-intended spite he spits like a foul-mouthed cobra and also for the fact that he is a pain in the groin. A horrendous, bulging pain that you cannot treat because you have no health insurance. (That insult was incredibly tortured. I'd be indicted if people actually were punished for gross violations of U.S. and international law.)
Yes, the title of this post looks like its teasing the most terrifying porn film ever made, let alone a sequel. But as NCDSUV readers know, we, like much of the nation developed a post-concession spot for John McCain that was softer than the flesh beneath his elbow. And after his appearance on The Tonight Show on Tuesday night, we are merely marveling at the brilliant PR coup that is the once-disgraced Presidential nominee's redemption.
Immediately telling Jay Leno that since the election he's been "sleeping like a baby: Sleep two hours, wake up and cry, sleep two hours, wake up and cry," McCain engaged in an odd mixture of canned quips and unrehearsed mutterings. Sometimes, the two even collided in a moment of pure septugenarian bliss, like when he responded to Leno's questions about Palin by retorting back, "Did you expect mavericks to stay on message?" but then trailing off into a near, non-coy admission that his VP candidate needed a bit more media training.
Yes, that's right. We're going to take one last chance to exploit the recent months' political fervor to bring some eyeballs to the NCDSUV annals. So sue us. Actually, don't do that, because we're already surviving on Ramen and working off converted Commodore 64s as it is.
But we'll tell ya one thing: The law of the land has taken a turn toward the left in the last five days, dominating the news and conquering cultural discourse. So while it's hard to believe that a week ago at this time we were still waiting to turn our clocks back and hoping John McCain and Sarah Palin wouldn't prevent Barack Obama from moving the nation forward, a new era has dawned on America. And on that entirely too poignant note, here's the top five things we learned this week, presidentially speaking:
5. There's a reason Sarah Palin wasn't running beside the election's black candidate. If she didn't realize Africa was a continent, lord only knows what her perception of Israel's geographical determination is.
4. Michelle Obama's dress may have resembled the exterior of a black widow spider on Election Night, but it's abundantly clear she's going to resurrect the notion of an empowered and individualistic First Lady.
3. The major news networks have officially faded themselves into a desperate irrelevance, as exemplified by hologram/digital-studio-nonsense that, oddly enough, mirrored the distracting gimmickry McCain tried to deploy (i.e. his VP nominee) during his transparently inferior campaign.
Now, I assure you, I'm not suddenly becoming some kind of conservative advocate for the sake of being contrarian (for those of you recollecting my praise of John McCain's concession speech). But Ralph Nader's beginning to suck just the slightest bit.
The irony is, we just ran an item yesterday about the dearth of worthwhile TV news anchors, epitomized by a corresponding image of FOX News mouthpiece Shepard Smith. And as you likely are aware, he smugly bullied Nader around about the Green Party hero's suggestion that Barack Obama will need to avoid being an uncle Tom to corporate America (video above, in case you missed it), more or less less proving the aforementioned op-ed's point.
That being said, Nader still made the remark. But the problem, unlike what the FOX team hilariously asserted with self-righteous incredulity, wasn't the innately controversial nature of the expression. The issue was that Nader is still fixated on interrupting the inevitability of partisan politics at a time when a voter-friendly candidate for movement back toward the middle is healthier for America than futile efforts to jar us toward the extreme left.
Is there anything more obsolete than the modern-day news anchor? After closely watching the election-night shenanigans, it's apparent now more than ever that the current of model of broadcasting is about as useful as an appendix for your pinkie.
Getting your news the traditional way, with some talking head “presenting” it to you like a waiter reading items off a menu, might be nice, but reading it yourself on the Web is faster, cheaper and a lot more efficient.
Names like Walter Cronkite, Ted Koppel and even Peter Jennings used to command respect and provided an air of authority and expertise that people came to expect, bringing to the national table a level of intellectualism that most could not necessarily find on their own.
Nowadays? We’re left with the likes of Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson, names that elicit about the same amount of awe as a local affiliate team out of Omaha.
Nobody told me it was going to be a themed Election Night party, but the Family Obama dressed–most adorably–in costume reminiscent of either a Black Widow spider or Les Miserables. It’s hard to say which.
The kids and President-Elect were clean cut and simple. We were glad Barack went for a bold, red-striped necktie (instead of one of these), even though he normally doesn’t prefer to wear them.
But M’Obama, heretofore known as Michelle Obama, certainly evoked the strength and agility of a deadly spider with her black-and-red-splashed, hourglass-shaped dress, ushering in a new era in American Politics. Adios expensive pant-suited first ladies, nee former democratic frontrunners.
After exhausting my spontaneous observational blogging energy last night, I decided to experience Obama's victory, and John McCain's concession, among the masses.
And while there were a fair share of thoughtlessly reactionary, self-satisfied young lefties hurling mean-spirited insults at McCain at my designated watering hole, it was hard to obscure the tact and authentic passion with which the somewhat disgraced Arizona Senator delivered his speech.
Sure, he awkwardly tapdanced around the racial aspect, bumbling through references to Obama being "African-American" and congratulating America's minority population. Yes, the waning moments of his words were wrapped in a fair amount of naively hopeful jingoistic rhetoric.
But it was genuine, humble, thoughtful and profoundly moving, and an incredible serve to his victorious counterpart that further enabled Obama to volley back with equal grace and conviction.
OK folks. No more conjecture. No more tomfoolery. No more advantageous list features and daily commentary exploring the cultural shrapnel of the buildup to Election 2008. Consider all that the featherweight undercard to the heavyweight main event between Barack Obama and John McCain; the foreplay to the candidates' electoral tango; the peaceful Native American residency before the slaughter of Christopher Columbus and his fellow explorers; the... yeah, you get the idea.
By the end of tonight, only man will stand alive atop the steaming shitheap of economic recession and international entanglements that is the U.S. government, and the media (god bless 'em) are here to give us blow by biased, results-happy blow on the path to their poll-determined fate.
And thankfully, NCDSUV is here not so much to complement their skewed stab at proper journalistic scrutiny, but to take a magnifying glass to the larger tangential proceedings over the next four or so hours. So sit, back, enjoy, and say a prayer for democracy. Unless you're a Commie liberal. Then just count the hours till the almighty is resurrected and smites all you heathens anyway.
7:00 p.m. Testing, testing, one, two... is this thing on? Ah, excellent. One small step for blog kind.
7:01 p.m. Woah, woah, woah, let a guy get his footing. Charles Gibson's already calling Kentucky for McCain and Vermont for Obama on ABC. Which is sort of like boldly projecting a life of loneliness and despair for a high school class' biggest nerd and unwarranted success and endless casual sex for its homecoming king.
7:05 p.m. I intended to make a comment about the absurdity of NBC's regal "digital studios," but got sidetracked perusing red carpet pictures of their green-screen queen Anne Curry. Anyway, they're ridiculous.
7:11 p.m. I shall only refer to CBS analyst/former Bill Clinton Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers by her given name of Margaret Jane. At least until it's clear that any references to Margaret Jane don't translate to the readers and I undermine my larger point.
7:13 p.m. Wow, only 13 minutes in and CBS just lost audio on two of Katie Couric's correspondents. Haven't they spent the last several hours preparing to at least be solid gold right off the bat? I mean, it's not like you see me sandwiching multiple posts at once and pretending as if it's in real time because I can't keep up with the pace. Yeah, it's not like that at all.
7:19 p.m. Let the gimmickry begin! Take that, NBC's digital studios. CNN's beaming Jessica Yellin in from Chicago via a motherfucking hologram. It is, as Yellin suggested to Wolf Blitzer, very a la Princess Leia being transmitted to Luke Skywalker via R2-D2. And good thing Wolf and Jessica just wasted two minutes giggling over their nifty technology and talking about Star Wars. This is going to only get more inane per minute.
7:24 p.m. Shepard Smith (who knew he'd be anchoring MY9 in New York?) is calling a one percent lead for McCain in Indiana with nine percent of districts reporting. Yeah, that's a really relevant update. These things are like basketball games, where you may as well just tune in for the last five minutes. Also, his co-hostess (working on the name folks) just referred to these early poll results as being an "inexact science." Skeptical inexact was exactly a word, I Googled it. The sixth result was "the inexact science of penis measurement."
7:30 p.m. Interesting that both NBC and its sister network, MSNBC (its brothers and cousins were unfortunately stuck at nearby airports with weather-related delays) are furthering this whole "virtual" election coverage M.O. with tickers that almost look three-dimensionally clickable. Is this supposed to subliminally compel me to visit their websites during the evening so I can boost their page views? Mmmm, clickable.
7:34 p.m. OK. Some mystical syndication programmer (damn you, TBS!) is challenging my political diligence by showing a Season 3 episode of Seinfeld, incidentally the lone season I don't own on DVD and have ostensibly committed to memory. Hey, hey, put that remote down. If I can't watch it, neither can you.
So, here we go folks. A day that will live in infamy for some segment of the American population, and either way will signal a decline in page views for national blogs that should make the Dow dissent seem like a manageable point-dip.
NCDSUV will be on the scene (i.e. on its channel-changing couch), reporting to you live with a collection of thoughts and observations from the coverage and culture around Election Night. Because who the fuck wants another brow-beating op-ed about their preferred candidate?
But in the meanwhile, here's a wish list of five things we can only hope will happen before the cameras to make the whole several-hour mess moderately less excruciating.
5. A la the Bud Bowl's supplemental Super Bowl programming, MTV will broadcast a special edition of Celebrity Deathmatch, in which Joe The Plumber and Tito The Builder battle on two pink elephants, wielding their trade's preeminent piece of equipment.
4. Wolf Blitzer, during a particularly pregnant pause of any electoral action, has a nervous breakdown and admits to being adopted, and having recently discovered that his birth name is "Itty Bitty Little Bear Cub."
3. Lots of preemptive declarations and manic bottom-screen tickers that remind us the networks' coverage is more of a competitive battleground for ratings than the candidates' struggle for higher office, nevermind a reasonable resource for accurate poll happenings. (Oh please, oh please, make this one happen, however unlikely and unfounded a notion it seems.)
How easily manipulated are we, really? Suddenly it seems as if everyone's talking about how Ben Affleck is so much more subversive and talented than we gave him credit for after his Alec Baldwin and Keith Olbermann impersonations on SNL. All things considered, the guy came out of last weekend's program with a more refurbished image than special guest John McCain.
Now, the fact that what I saw in Affleck's impressions was boilerplate mimicking at best is nearly beside the point. That should be a given to any loyal NCDSUV readers who share my refined sensibilities. But there's two aspects of this goodwill fest that are preeminently disconcerting.
The word “inspire,” according to the Cornflax Dictionary Of Funyun Wrappers comes from the Latin inspirare, which means “to breathe upon or into." Now, if you’re like me (and if you are, I’m sorry that you’re impotent), you’re weary of the breath those fatcats in Washington have been blowing onto us. That stale, shitty scent that whispers into our nostrils and covers our skin with sores. And very likely, that stench will soon be abated, as President Barack Obama is sworn in.
However, if we wake up tomorrow to find yet another election has been stolen through massive voter fraud, please, before you kill yourself, read this list and try to find some meaning in the occasionally more uplifting world of fictional presidents. If that doesn’t work, then kick the chair over and hang out for a while.
9. Terry Crews as President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, Idiocracy
While our society looks more and more like Idiocracy with each passing moment (and that includes a meandering plot as well as a weak third act, in addition to all that dysgenics stuff) it probably wouldn’t be too terrible with this dude in charge. He obviously knows his limitations, and he surrounds himself with the best and the brightest that society of turds has to offer. The fact that this is what the future might have to offer us should inspire everyone with an IQ above 120 to get snipped and clipped in their junk region just so that it may become an absolute reality.
8. Harrison Ford as President James Marshall, Air Force One
Last time I checked, not one single president in the history of the United States ever took care of a terrorist himself, let alone saved his fucking family from one. That’s what’s inspiring about these fictional leaders: They don’t sit around waiting for proxies to do their dirty work for them. By gum, they get out there, roll up their sleeves and do it themselves. If my wife and child and some associates are taken hostage, President Marshall has inspired me to believe I will definitely fight back. Probably. I will definitely think about it.
7. Harry Shearer as President Kang, The Simpsons
Thus spoke the immortal line: "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for all!"
Or was that Kodos? Anyway, while you may think a giant, one-eyed, tentacled space alien that uses his newfound power to enslave the human race, forcing them to create a giant ray gun, isn’t inspiring, you are dead wrong. Dead wrong. You hear what I’m saying, pal? What’s more inspiring than someone with the ability to enfetter the entire planet, especially if that someone is a democratically elected slavemaster? Haven’t we learned in the last eight years that you never contradict your Commander-In-Chief? Now work harder, or I’m going to whip your spine pain-wise.
6. Bill Pullman as President Thomas J. Whitmore, Independence Day
Of course, if aliens ruling the planet and making a mockery out of all things human burns your bunions up, this chap might perhaps be a bit more inspiring. After all, he was a military hero, and not the fakey kind that gets his daddy to swing him a sweet job. No siree! And as evidence, see him do what no other president has done since the founding fathers: murder sentient beings himself rather than just ordering others to do it.
5. Jim Backus as President/Dr. Wilbur Daffodil-11 Swain, Slapstick (Of Another Kind)
While in Slapstick, the world kind of crumbles into crap, I’ve always loved President Swain’s plan to end loneliness, and while many of the other people on this list are actually about as inspiring as a cat screaming at a driveway, Swain might truly take the cake and eat it too and eventually poop it out. Under his plan, everyone in the U.S. is randomly provided with new middle names that are a combination of a word and a number. Those with the same name are cousins and those with the same word and number are siblings. An inst-o-matic community is created for wherever one goes, and family abounds. Lonesome no more!
The majority of Americans seem to be enthusiastically awaiting the end of the George Bush administration, which has excelled in one thing: consistently sucking. We all know what hell the president, Dick Cheney et al have wrought—the war in Iraq, an inept response to the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, the virtual meltdown of capitalism. But let's not forget that with this parade of failure has come eight consistent years of ponderous, self-congratulatory "message" movies from Hollywood.
Hopefully this trend has come to an end with the release of Oliver Stones W., whose financial and critical failure surely (hopefully?) signals its demise. And taking into account that even the great political movies of the '70s—aAll The President's Men, Being There, Deer Hunter, Coming Home, etc.—came after the similarly war-monger, scandal-ridden Nixon administration's ignominious end, does this mean all we need is a little perspective? Only time will tell. But for now, we're left with Ryan Phillipe and Emilio Estevez.
10. Good Night, And Good Luck
This gorgeous-looking 2005 biopic wasn’t as heavy-handed as some of the other inclusions on this list—for instance, no one onscreen actually SAYS the movie is really about FOX News, even though it is—but it makes the cut because, well, it was boring. All the sober hand-wringing grew tiresome, even at a disciplined 93 minutes in length.
9. Bobby
Emilio Estevez’s big-screen directorial debut employed the most-beloved device of all message movies: The Robert Altman-esque interwoven narrative. Set on the day that Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, this pic rehashes all the '60s clichés you can imagine, and thensome: drugs, racism, draft-dodging, etc. Hopefully a Barack Obama administration can once and for all bring an end to would-be baby boomers’ relentless navel-gazing.
8. Stop-Loss
A critique of the Bush administration’s callous treatment of Iraq vets cleverly disguised as a sexy story about lovers on the run, Stop-Loss viewed the war through a personal lens. But even this couldn’t salvage the box office; the film barely registerd with audiences, bringing in just over $10 million. Regardless of tricky marketing, people weren't interested in seeing any war movie by 2008, no matter how sexy the leads or apolitical the plot.
7. Man Of The Year
What would happen if Jon Stewart ran for president as a joke, then won because of a voting machine glitch? That’s the supposedly hard-hitting, slightly masturbatory question asked in this Robin Williams vehicle, co-starring Serious Actress ® Laura Linney. If Williams' character was less his usual schtick and anything approaching Stewart-worthy smarts and subversiveness, it might have been easier to rally around the larger concept.
6. Charlie Wilson’s War
This Oscar-baiting film, brought to you by the chronically self-important Aaron Sorkin, is ostensibly about how a mediocre Texas congressman irrevocably shifted the course of American foreign policy in the Middle East for decades to come. However, the ads for this critical and commercial letdown prominently featured Julia Roberts clucking "Ohhhh, Chahhhhlie," in a cartoonish Southern drawl. Surely the only reason to see Wilson's War was to figure out how on earth a born-and-bred Southerner like Roberts could be so unconvincing at a her native accent. Also, her tranny hair and makeup were pretty harrowing.
Rarely have the circumstances around Halloween and Election Day's convergence been so scary. But of course, one of the things we learned this week was that political bias is for grownups, and little kids occasionally need to remind us that we can vote however we like.
So with that, and heading into one of the tensest pre-Presidential-determining few days in American history, here's a largely lighthearted look at the top five things we learned this week from pop-culture land. See ya on Monday, and y'all come back now for a week of super-packed political coverage, ya hear?
5. If the media were half as vigilant on behalf of ordinary criminal tragedies as they were fumbling for tactful ways into covering the Jennifer Hudson nightmare, we might actually be able to spread out our police forces more effectively.
We've expended a lot of energy on this site telling you what Sucks, and an equivalent amount of our blogging brainpower ruminating the many facets of the presidential election. So as our loyal (read: super awesome, attractive and intelligent) readers try to exhume the spirits of the Bush administration once and for all this Halloween weekend, we felt it was important to offer a more hopeful message.
Or at least to rely on a bunch of pre-teens to stay positive and remind us what our nation's primary tenets are theoretically all about. If you haven't seen this clip of the kids from Ron Clark Academy reinterpreting T.I.'s "You Can Have Whatever You Like" as "You Can Vote However You Like," it more or less speaks, dances and raps for itself. (Although make sure not to miss the dorky white chubster in the back, cause he's kind of hilarious.)
Grown pop stars should arguably have more of a backbone to make partisan endorsements, rather than fulfill their civic duty and merely encourage voting in some glorified PSA. But educators should absolutely be imbuing their school kids with the principles of fairness and objectivity, and imploring them to look at all situations from both sides, so that by the time they grow up and can take ownership over the political process, they make decisions out of both heart and intellect.
So kudos, Ron Clark Academy, for reminding us that Democracy doesn't suck.
Last night, Barack Obama showed up Morgan Freeman and Dennis Haysbert with his performance as the President Of The United States in the greatest infomercial ever (to not feature Ron Popeil). With production values and cinematography rivaling Hollywood’s glitziest movie trailers, all that was missing from the donkey party’s visual pitch was a voiceover from that “In a world…” guy (R.I.P. Don LaFontaine).
Although a lot of Obama’s glorified PSA was blander than the Wonder Bread made from the wheat grown in those hallowed fields of that mystical place known as the “Heartland of America” (you know, where “real” Americans live, not in those awful cesspools of sin known as “cities”) that we’ve been hearing so much about, we did learn a few things from Democratic Party’s man of the hour.
1. Tinkling Acoustic Guitars Mean Business
Just like in the movies, whenever a soft acoustic guitar starts playing in the background, you know something poignant is going on. Every time an amber wave of grain or a slow pan of a lower middle-class family came across the screen, you could be sure that some watered down, Cat Stevens-style, geetar-pickin’ was a comin’. Grab your tissues folks, you’re being told to cry and better comply. And if that doesn’t grab you, the sweeping violins and soft piano licks will.
2. Barack Obama Likes Poor People
From the housewife with those stupid stick-figure family stickers on the back of her minivan, to the various laborers and good-old fashioned, hardworking folks peppered throughout Obama’s audiovisual stump speech, the fact was hammered home over and over again: Poor people rule. It’s always amazing to observe how much power the “little people” wield during election time and how quickly that perceived power evaporates once it’s over. The give and inevitable take between presidential candidates and the poor might be the most abusive, co-dependent, hillbilly relationship of all time.
3. Barack Obama Is The Only Person Who Could Play “Barack Obama”
Straight out of central casting, Obama is so good at playing himself, it seems like no one could ever do him justice if and when the biopic comes out. What actor could possibly pull off the inimitable blend of effortless salesmanship, charisma and smoothness of delivery like the man himself? Morgan Freeman? Too old. Wesley Snipes? He’s unavailable (and going to jail). Denzel Washington? Playing Malcolm X is one thing, but even Denzel couldn’t pull this off. Looks like Barack’s gonna have to go down the Babe Ruth/Howard Stern self-performance route.
As Halloween approaches, we're constantly reminded of ghouls, witches and zombies. But the worst creatures our imaginations can conjure aren't fictional. After all, evil is an inherent part of human nature. Think about that strange old man who lives down the hall from you. You keep telling yourself he's just a kooky lost soul in need of a friend, when in reality he probably just ate a cat last night… and you’re next. Nor are maniacal, murderous impulses reserved purely for the Hitlers and bin Ladens of the world.
True evil seems to emerge when human desire is mixed with power, insanity and wanton disregard of social mores. To be sure though, it has nothing to do with the dead walking the earth to suck our blood or haunt our houses. Vampires hate mirrors, Frankenstein’s monster just wants love and Wolfman’s got nards. The living are way, way scarier then anything that bumps in the night. And here are seven truly terrifying, often overlooked figures from history that make Michael Myers look like he's merely in need of some behavioral therapy. But if you try use any of these nutjobs as inspiration for a costume idea, don't say we didn't warn you about the offended stares and vitriolic epithets.
7. James Warren "Jim" Jones
A renaissance man when it came to perversion, power, charisma and insanity, Jim Jones was a cult leader in the '60s and '70s who was able to convince 909 of his "Rainbow Family" to drink poisoned Kool-Aid as if it were in their best interests. Jones was an unbelievably creepy bastard during a remarkably scary time. Disco was king and flower power had wilted, so mass suicide seemed like a valid option. But instead of taking this truly frightening ability for mind-control on a worldwide tour, Jones put a bullet in his brain. Too bad he'd already passed out his cyanide concoction to nearly a thousand victims.
6. Josef Fritzl
From the beautiful land of the Alps and the Danube, birthplace of icons like Mozart, Freud and Schwarzenegger, comes the newest Austrian to take hold of the public’s imagination. Josef Fritzl, the world’s worst dad. How does one obtain such a lofty title? A good way to start would be imprisoning your teenage daughter for almost 25 years and then fathering seven incestuous children… with your own child. This Vincent Price-on-PCP looking motherfucker is certainly more frightful than Count Dracula. At least the Count lets you out of his cellar at night.
5. Fred Phelps
This man hates you. He does not know you, but if he could, he would stop by your house and tell you that God hates you as well. The pastor of a small Baptist church in Kansas for the last 50 years, Rev. Phelps has been spreading the word of God, or at least if God was a disgusted, hate-filled deity. And who has angered the almighty one? Everyone! Gay people? Check. Immigrants? Si. Soldiers? Roger. Swedes? Loathes them and their silly reindeers. This man is clearly insane, but his words reach an audience. He once received 30 percent of the votes for U.S. Senator of Kansas. For fun, his followers like to picket funerals and carry along signs stating that “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers." But thankfully, Phelps is old, and presumably near the end of his lynching rope. I’m sure his funeral is going to be a blast.
Oy vey, what a week. Color me pooped, verklempt and all out plotzed. Between the election still burning up to its final campaigning days, Axl Rose finally rising from the studio dead, the economy still being in the shitter and more VH1 reality spinoffs clogging up airwaves like diarrhea in a bidet, did somebody say thank god it's Shabbat?
No? Hm, yeah, I should have realized from our demographics research that NCDSUV somehow inspires a devoutly Protestant following.
Anyway, here are the top five things we learned this week, and hopefully you'll find them equally educating. Because if not, we can't refund your Web hits.
So, big fuckin' deal, the Republican National Committee has spent $150,000 on Sarah Palin's wardrobe since she signed on to the ticket. You know how much money my mom spent on my Jerzees Super Sweats at Kid 'R Us when I was a kid? OK, probably about $15 cumulative dollars.
As anyone who reads NCDSUV knows, we've taken infinite potshots at the Alaskan, oil-drilling, campaign-killer (so many so where we fear we might be contributing to her demise, which would make this website a lot less entertaining in two weeks), but now it feels like the media's just scrounging for any excuse to be incredulous at John McCain and co. and reduce the VP nominee to a cariacture of conservative sex-potism. Which she is, of course, but I think at this juncture we can hand the baton of ballot-securing over to Barack Obama.
And as for campaign contributors crying foul over unwise expenditures of their donations, your money wasn't spent foolishly on a few tit-friendly powersuits, it was wasted on the old windbag standing next to their inhabitant in the first place.
During a particularly claustrophobic night of reality TV watching last night, it dawned on me: When John McCain, the girls from Rock Of Love: Charm School and the cast of The Hills are the most visible white people in mass culture, we have officially jumped the shark.
I swear, there are a few of us left who aren't spoiled teenagers, slutty B-level porn stars and barely breathing presidential candidates. But I have to say, non-white America at large, I would not blame you for one second if you took a good long look at the media and political landscape and said, "Hold on a fucking second, these are the people possessing a disproportionate amount of influence and privilege in our society? And they're still bemoaning the lyrical content of hip-hop?"
Yes, we know, you're all still reeling from NCDSUV finally throwing its support behind a presidential candidate, in the form of viral-superstar-in-the-making Eric Elvis. OK, maybe it was that whole Colin Powell bombshell that's had your jaws slacked. But fuck that guy. (What? It's not like if he wanted to hunt me down and kill me he'd be able to find the murder weapon. Ohhhh, snap.)
Even if by and large, the lines drawn amongst high-profile supporters are never as dramatic in the general election, there's been some genuinely weird-ass celebrity endorsements this campaign season, and here's the 10 that have surprised us the most.
10. Deepak Chopra
Threw His Weight Behind: Barack Obama Should We Have Seen This Coming? You would think that the basic tenets of capitalism would appeal to a self-help guru more than most famous folks. And as such ideologies go, Obama's damn-near a Commie. Chances He Will Swing Voters: About as likely as he and Tony Robbins squaring off for our highest office in 2012.
9. Jon Voight
Threw His Weight Behind: John McCain Should We Have Seen This Coming? There's a reason he and daughter Angelina Jolie have had their ups and downs. This guy's clearly got an air of humorlessness about him. Still, it no doubt hurts an entire generation's inner hippie to see the star of Midnight Cowboy ride off into his twilight years on an elephant with Sarah Palin's name. Then again, most of his fellow boomers have ballooned with self-interested glut in the ensuring years anyhow. Chances He Will Swing Voters: Name association with his much-coveted kin might actually create a kneejerk twinge of novelty interest in McCain, which is all the more reason for Jolie to start stumping for Obama pronto.
8. Anne Rice
Threw Her Weight Behind: Barack Obama. Should We Have Seen This Coming? One just assumed that with her proclivity for the undead, McCain would be her kinda guy. Chances She Will Swing Voters: The author may influence a segment of voters who happen to be swingers, but it's highly unlikely the Repubs will lose any blood over this one.
7. Rage Against The Machine
Threw Their Weight Behind: The Troops Should We Have Seen This Coming? Sad a commentary on our counterculture as it may be, Rage are probably commercial radio's most radical monarchs, so no one should have been bowled over by their threats to both candidates over immediate withdrawal of armed forces from Iraq. Chances They Will Swing Voters: It's highly unlikely many Rage fans have evolved beyond surface liberal sloganeering, but this is more or less a general statement for either candidate to take into consideration post-election anyway. Or else, ya know, they'll be real mad and stuff.
6. Wilfred Brimley
Threw His Considerable Girth Behind: John McCain Should We Have Seen This Coming? I have no idea, but Quaker Oats will never quite taste the same again. Chances He Will Swing Voters: Since neither candidate is really running on the incontinence platform, Brimley's effect should be drastically less culturally impacting than his moustache.
Ya know, we've been trying to stay neutral amidst an avalanche of biased journalism and unabashedly announced opinions on the presidential election. I mean, c'mon, that isn't clearly evident in balanced, tactful articles like this and this? But fine, if Mr. Important Colin Powell is going to pull a Joe Lieberman-worthy fence-hopper on Meet The Press (see clip above) and Big Shot newspapers like the New York Daily News are going to get behind Obama, I guess it's time for NCDSUV to finally let the public know who they are in favor of.
So, without further ado, we are throwing our support (and a burlap hitchhiking sack on a stick) behind... Mr. Eric Elvis. And why not? He's got as thorough a sense of American history as John McCain, the disarming sexual magnetism of Barack Obama, has slightly less robotic motor functions than the former and has a song selection liberal enough to rival the latter's widespread demographic appeal.
Oh, you probably thought we'd get behind Obama. Well, we figure the way things are going, we no longer need to be the Switzerland of the blogosphere, but can complacently conduct ourselves like the Vermont in this endorsement electorate. But no worries, the second he gets into office, we'll resume our role as kneejerk liberal frontrunners.
Check in tomorrow morning for a list of the most surprising celebrity endorsements.
Unfortunately, I didn't not get to see Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live when it aired: I was too busy actually living my life, losers. Ya know, going to the club ripped to the gills on coke, dancing with tons of crazy-hot women, folding my laundry while watching last week's True Blood and then eating a fat-free chocolate pop.
However, thanks to the magic of this device called Computer II ("now with Internet Activation"), I was able to "hone in on" NBC's "webbed-site" with the use of a Uniform Resource Locator and watch til my heart was content, which incidentally was while the video was still loading. But in the interests of journalistic duty, I then forced myself to sit there and watch the Palin sketches, employing one of those devices from A Clockwork Orange to keep my eyes pried open.
As was written about earlier on NCDS after the VP debate, Palin's media performances have fit in quite well with the reigning paradigm of awkward comedies like Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office and the granddaddy of them all, the British series Peep Show, a program that is so wince-inducing that my body seizes up grand mal-style while watching. From her catastrophic interviews to her catastrophic photo ops, each new gaffe or desperate attempt to cover up her natural incurious intellectual torpor is met by a national grasping of our kishkas as we yell, "Oy vez mir! A shondah! A shondah!" This performance was no different.
Wow, talk about a whirlwind five days. You know it's a nutty week when David Duchovny and Tea Leoni's inevitable split finally makes the front pages, but not NCDSUV's Top 5 Things We Learned This Week.
But not to worry. All that means is we had plenty of revelations from the likes of other megastar couples, multi-billion-dollar fast-food chains and, of course, our neverendingly illuminating presidential candidates. So enjoy, and hopefully you've learned as much as we have this week. And ideally lessons of greater societal import.
The best joke of the election so far occurred last night, and it wasn’t even a joke. In case you missed it, the moment came courtesy of Paul Shaffer and the CBS Orchestra on The Late Show With David Letterman when they played the Who’s “I Can’t Explain” as a humbled and totally clueless John McCain walked on stage.
The punchline was delivered sublimely by McCain himself, who beamed broadly as the song played. Little did he know he was selling the joke even harder.
Was this “meta-joke” that wasn’t really a joke pretentious and snobby? Heck yes. Was it awesome? You betcha. Of course, it’s not fair to expect that McCain should know Who songs that aren’t used as theme music for one of the CSI shows, and Barack Obama could’ve been put in the same position. However, he wasn’t because he didn’t cross Dave.
McCain did appear more relaxed on the Late Show than he has in any of the three debates, coming across as almost likeable. Yet still, here is what we get – John McCain: out of touch with the pop culture of that was his pop culture.
P.S.--Second place for the best joke of the election goes to Tina Fey using Sarah Palin’s actual words. And third place goes to Tina Fey using words Sarah Palin will eventually say. (Give her enough time.)
According to virtually every pundit on the face of the earth—from John Dickerson to to the guy at the pizza place last week who told me, rather presciently, “One more debate and then-boom!-it’s ovah!”—last night was make it or break it for John McCain. Basically, Barack Obama had to stay awake for 90 minutes, not roll his eyes and avoid laughing audibly at the suggestion that Sarah Palin is qualified to be President. None of which is easy, and all of which he did with aplomb.
On the other hand (the one angrily clutching the Sharpee), McCain had a lot more riding on the debate, and a much trickier balancing act: He had to go after Obama, yet try to appear slightly less cranky and deranged than he has in the last two debates. He got it half right, so that means this was his most successful debate so far. Too bad he still managed to look mean and ancient in the process.
Joe The Plumber. Joe. The. Plumber. Joe The Plumber, you motherfucker. Who the fuck are you that you've got the ear of not one, but TWO major party presidential nominees? What powers have you secreted within the folds of your overalls? What monies have you amassed to allow you command of such influence? What alien frequencies emanate from the antennae soldered to your skull, radio waves that paralyze the minds of all those trapped within the nefarious radius?
Oh, the obsequiousness on display!
After the final presidential debate last night, where Joe was not only the focus, but the main interlocutor for the nominees (to the chagrin of Bob Schieffer, who is known the world over for his neediness), I decided to put my correspondence degree in investigative journalism to work and find out just who this presumptive ne'er-do-well really was. If he is to wield so much influence over the government of the people, for the people and buy the people, should not the THE VERY PUBLIC he is to lord over not know the basic details of their master? Oh, your imminent Eminence! Prithee, thouest must not crush us lowly mortals beneath thy golden feet when thouest have ascended to the seat of omnipotence!
Ladies and gentleman, start your engines. Actually, don't do that, because you shouldn't be reading blogs while operating a vehicle. It's still questionable whether that should be done while sitting motionless on a couch.
Anyway, tonight's third and final presidential debate was full of more of the same. But just seated. And without hilarious audience interaction. John McCain still herked and jerked around like Yul Brenner in Westworld. Obama still smirked and chuckled arrogantly at some of McCain's more empassioned attacks. McCain still glossed over Obama's consistently nuanced dissections of his fiscal policy in favor of generalized accusations. And Obama occasionally peed his pants in fear when McCain looked like he was gonna snap and put him in a figure-four leg lock. And unlike his opponent, the Illinois Senator wasn't wearing Depends.
Anyhow, here are the top 25 thoughts and observations from a night that will be completely irrelevant when whoever wins is mired in all manner of domestic and international clusterfucks come 2009 (in no remotely sensible chronological or conceptual order).
25. Hey Obama, why don't we just manage chronic illnesses with the muthafuckin' chroooonic? Hm, yeah, that doesn't come across as well without being exaggerated with faux-street-slang intonation.
23. Hey McCain, fuck you and your $5,000 tax refund. The government is not your personal Publisher's Clearing House. (On that same note, how are we going to pay for the gas to go across America, and what good does it do me to have portable insurance when I've broken my leg and can't leave my neighborhood?)
22. McCain's really digging his own grave with this whole taxes thing. And Sarah Palin is standing behind the maverick to push him in. (OK, I just wanted to say your name so I could put a tag for you at the bottom of the article.)
21. Education is a civil rights issue but health insurance is a responsibility? My dear boy McCain, if only your points of view were as consistent as your bowel movements.
20. Kind of hard preaching about sex education to a guy whose whole image revolves around his missionary position. Or was that military? Sorry, I'm halfway through my Joe Six-Pack of Budweiser.
19. Every time John McCain blinks, you drink. Which means you are now all dead.
18. When McCain corrected Bob Sheefer about the climate control/climate control discrepancy, couldn't you just see the guy fuming to himself, "Oh yeah, well how are you gonna like it when I change the question to how many times you've renewed your Flomax subscription in the past year, you old, desert-loving fuck"? Eh, maybe you weren't watching it in HD.
17. Man, McCain sure looked like he wanted to abort that Roe V. Wade question.
16. Why do conservative judges need to be put in quotes? I thought they reside in special chambers with fun gavels to bang and silly black dresses.
15. Hearing these guys field the same questions three times over in different contexts is like watching two actors run through redundant sexual positions across multiple rooms of a house during a shitty fuck flick. Except in this case it seems masturbatory for the performers.
14. John McCain looks more defeated than when he was a POW. Or at least from what I gathered after watching The Faith Of My Fathers.
13. McCain actually had a good little jab when suggesting Obama should have ran four years ago if he wanted to run against President Bush. But why do that when he would have lost?
We're headed into the final stretch, America: Don't hit the wall! The longest, sprightliest, bumpiest, zaniest, stereotype-transcending, toe-tappin', forehead-slappin' presidential race in our country's history is finally winding down – and it looks like tonight's third and final debate at Hofstra University in Hemptstead, N.Y. may draw us into the final lap with a snooze-inducing cup of lemon-infused chamomile tea instead of the nut-packed PowerBar we're all craving.
What do we want? A rip-roaring catfight that reveals what the frig Barack Obama and John McCain would actually do as president about the fact that Wall Street has gone up in flames, the housing market has been shot through with a cannon and the job market has been chewed up and spit on the detritus-strewn ground like a worn-out piece of Juicy Fruit.
What a week, what a week. I'm personally all verklempt. Between the election race warming up, the economy cooling and down, and celebrities still indulgently frolicking around, it's been tough for NCDSUV to keep its panties unbunched. Or maybe that's just the fabric softener we've been using.
Well, in any case, from fetishizing the Obamas to taking a piss on your favorite movies and DirecTV scaring us with their tasteless Poltergeist ad, here's the top five things we learned this week.
I've heard enough about people wanting to tame Sarah Palin's moose knuckle. Come on! It's like shooting wolves from a helicopter. Of course you want to play "gotcha-crotch-a" with her. She was a beauty queen and she's got the hot librarian thing going for her, but I still think her butt reminds me too much of my mom.
If Palin is going to cause any men to vote with their tiny ticker I'd like to speak for the women who want to get their ballot stuffed.
We're all human, within the first five seconds of meeting someone we put them into one of two categories: People we would have sex with or people we would definitely NOT have sex with. John McCain is definitely in the NOT category. Then I saw the first presidential debates and they showed footage of him as a younger man and I realized he was actually handsome, like a young Paul Newman. Young McCain is in the first category, but I still wouldn't get busy with old McCain. But Barak Obama, he still IS the young guy.
By now we've all offered our two cents (more like 69 cents, eh? eh?) about Sarah Palin being hatefully fuckable. But what finally dawned on me during last night's debates was the powerful sexuality exuded by Michelle Obama.
It's like she has the rugged, intelligent, all-business maturity of my beloved Hannah Storm, with the visceral hormonal magnetism of Pam Grier. And, upon further observation, has an almost elegantly beautiful face.
So, while I've drawn fairly clear lines as to which presidential candidate I'll be voting for in a few weeks, I've made an even more important partisan decision this fall. If I'm going to have a strange, MILF-y compulsion toward a female that's crucial to the race, I may as well opt for the one who's value system and personal vernacular wouldn't have me bleaching my soul after a one-night tryst.
As NCDSUV readers know, we're quite fond of round deuxs, so our above-ground sequel sonars were on full alert for the thrilling oratory rematch between presidential candidates Barack "The Hope" "Obama and John "Adam Raised A" McCain.
And we were not disappointed. From the opening handshake, to the first offensive right hooks, to referee, er, moderator Tom Brokaw's bravely getting in the middle of these two fireplugs, Obama V. McCain: Round Deux was one for the ages. All ages in fact, thanks to the evolutionary-chain-length disparity between the two candidate's birth dates.
Here's a few observations about what happened between the rhetorical blows:
You know, we spend so much time on this site raking poor Sarah Palin over the coals that we occasionally forget to do our civic duty and encourage people to vote.
But why listen to NCDSUV when you can take inspiration from Diddy, Jay-Z, Mary J. Blige and some dude named Kevin Liles? (Okay, he's actually a big record exec, but seeing his name kind of lacks the same cachet, no?)
You can imagine my surprise when, right in my very own inbox this morning, there was an "Open Letter" from the four entertainers/moguls (I keep telling celebrities to stop opening my mail, but que sera), reminding me that, "If you have not registered to vote, you are disrespecting everyone that sacrificed their lives for you to have the right. You are also disrespecting your future. The time is NOW for us to use the voices with which God has blessed us."
Easy for you to say, Grammy-winning vocalist Mary J. Blige. The only voice God blessed me with was one akin to the sound of a '70s game show host.
