Listening Post

Look, let's face it -- if you're folding your arms across your chest and sneering disapprovingly at Justin Timberlake at this point you're probably just a contrarian asshole. Over the past several years the kid has proven himself to be, without question, one of the most impressive talents of his generation. He killed this past weekend on Saturday Night Live, hosting for a fifth time; he's about to kick off a summer stadium tour with Jay-Z; and this song, the first single from his new album, is the definition of irresistible. It's blue-eyed soul at its finest, with more infectious swagger than, say, Mayer Hawthorne but the same sense of devotion to the greatness of the source material.

Plus, the video is directed by David Fincher.

Here's Suit & Tie.

Brain Humor

There may be hope for Saturday Night Live after all.

Presumably in an effort to fill in all that laugh-free blank space between the Digital Shorts, SNL has hired Onion News Network/Funny or Die writer Chris Kelly for next season.

The Huffington Post has put up some of Kelly's best work over the past couple of years -- and these two clips had me just about on the floor.

Sexual Juxtaposition

Remember, it's not gay -- and if it is, Marcus Bachmann can cure it.

Why Do You Think They Call It a "Network?"

Let's play another game of Six Degrees of Corporate Media Synergy.

Right now Dateline is interviewing Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudoph; they star in the new movie Bridesmaids; Bridesmaids was produced by Universal Studios; NBC Universal is the parent of NBC, which airs Saturday Night Live; Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph happen to be castmembers on Saturday Night Live; NBC Universal is also the parent of NBC News, which is essentially promoting both Bridesmaids and Saturday Night Live by doing a story on Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph.

And I'm watching the whole thing on Comcast cable.

But hey, now I just switched over to "The Alzheimer's Epidemic: A Larry King Special" on CNN -- and everything's all better.

The Fame Monster

I can't even begin to tell you how absolutely satisfying this is. It's damn well about time somebody just ripped this despicable woman to pieces. I mean, somebody besides me.

"Burn the Witch" (Originally Published, 4.15.08)

I'll make this quick.

I may spew a little venom here and there on this site, but believe it or not there are scant few people in this world I truly despise. I'm not talking about the kind of people who annoy or mildly irritate; I'm talking about the ones whose mere existence just infuriates the shit out of me; whose lack of any discernible contribution to humanity makes me want to take a fucking hostage; whose voice alone can shatter my spine like glass.

Among this highly specialized group of horrid, worthless shitbags, I'm not sure anyone is more thoroughly contemptible or patently offensive than Gloria Allred.

Cut from the same cloth as Nancy Grace, another unscrupulous troll who treats the legal profession like her own personal litter-box-cum-slot-machine, Allred can typically be found wherever TV cameras are present. She's the alien queen of the ambulance-chasing high-profile lawyer set -- the sort of loathsome caricature that could only thrive in a place as morally bankrupt as Los Angeles. Over the course of her diabolically lengthy career, she's represented such celebs-via-circumstance as Amber Frey, Paula Jones, Nicole Brown Simpson, Melanie "Scary Spice" Brown and Britney Spears's bodyguard -- all the while representing, in reality, only one person: Gloria Fucking Allred. She's inserted herself into the surreal debacle that was the Michael Jackson trial. She's manipulated an all-too-willing media into doing her bidding, which always involves beaming her gruesome, opportunistic ass into every home in America in what would seem to be a concerted effort to turn us all to stone.

What Al Sharpton is to race relations in this country, Gloria Allred is to its legal system.

And now -- of course -- she's representing Rob Lowe's nanny.

This morning, Allred appeared with 24-year-old Jessica Gibson on NBC's Today show to do her copyrighted "Angry Mom Whose Innocent Daughter has Just Been Violated" routine. For those of you lucky enough to have not heard a peep about this case, Rob Lowe says Gibson is a trash-talker who exploited his family's goodwill; Gibson says Lowe sexually harassed her while she was caring for his kids. Honestly, who gives a crap either way?

Gloria Allred, of course.

Her performance this morning was pure theater -- pure Gloria. She held Gibson's hand like a supportive best friend; contorted her face into a steely grimace while shrilly heaping irresponsible invective at Lowe; wouldn't let anyone else get a word in that might counter her carefully rehearsed indignation; looked like she was always one involuntary impulse away from digging into Gibson's neck to drink her sweet, young blood. The only thing missing was a fucking trapeze act.

The good news is that by allowing herself to be preyed on by this wicked witch -- by accepting the shiny red apple of a big money settlement that was no doubt offered so seductively -- Jessica Gibson has all but ensured that she'll lose in court. Sure, she'll get a lot of free press, but in the end, thanks to Allred's unholy puppetry, she'll get a few bucks from posing for Playboy and eventually be known as 2008's Darva Conger.

Remember her?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Good job there, Gloria.

Sarahndipity

There just aren't words to describe how much I love Tina Fey.

Quote(s) of the Day

"It's not rain, it's just God crying for NBC."

-- Tina Fey at last night's Golden Globes

"Let's get on with it before NBC replaces me with Jay Leno."

-- Ricky Gervais at last night's Golden Globes

"This week you didn't need Cinemax to see someone get screwed on TV. So how did NBC let it come to this? Well, I think I can explain it. Let's say you're married and it's the number one marriage in the country, but then you meet someone else who sweeps you off your feet, so you say to her, "I want to marry you, in five years," and she says, "Yes, I will wait five years to marry you." So then you go home and you tell your current wife, "Honey, in five years we're getting a divorce." Now you might think your current wife would be super cool with that and thank you for being honest, but it turns out she's actually super mad and as the five years pass she gets in really good shape. So when the time comes for the divorce, she's looking better than ever. She looks so good that you see other people looking at her and you get jealous, so you come up with an awesome plan: you'll still marry the second person, but you'll also stay married to the first. So you tell the new wife, "Good news! We're totally married, but every night when I get home I'm gonna spend a half hour with my first wife first -- but then I'm all yours." And before you even see how she feels about it, you hold a big press conference and tell people you've changed the future of marriage. Now if you think the new wife is cool with this plan, she's not. She's super mad. And the first wife is also acting weird because, you know, you have two wives. But then, just when you think you're stuck, you come up with a perfect plan to solve all your problems: You kill your second wife."

-- Seth Meyers on Saturday Night Live

Screw what NBC is saying publicly right now. There's no way the company's people at the top (or the bigshots at Comcast for that matter) are enjoying the constant barrage of abuse they're taking on their own network. For God's sake, last night the Governor of California took a shot at NBC live on NBC's air. I was honestly expecting that by the end of the Golden Globes show they'd lower little Jeff Zucker down into the middle of the ballroom like a pinata and give everybody baseball bats.

Does Anybody Remember Laughter?

Don't ask me why, but for some reason I went looking for this and was damn happy to find it online.

It's a classic bit from Saturday Night Live that reminds you A) how unbelievably funny that show used to be, B) how unbelievably funny Eddie Murphy used to be, and C) how prescient this entire sketch from 1983 was when it came to skewering the news media.

The Assassination of Buckwheat by the Coward John David Stutts

Quote of the Week(end)

"Can you not read how mad people are at you? When most people saw the headline 'Goldman Sachs Gets Swine Flu Vaccine' they were super happy until they read the word 'vaccine.'"

-- Amy Poehler on last night's Saturday Night Live, commenting on the news that Wall Street banks have already secured thousands of doses of the H1N1 vaccine while many at-risk Americans are forced to wait; Goldman Sachs alone has received 200 doses of the Swine Flu vaccine -- as much as New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital

Funny Business

Cesca makes a really good point over at his blog right now that I want to expand on a little.

Over the weekend, Saturday Night Live ran a sketch that took aim at Barack Obama and basically sent him up for supposedly not getting anything done since taking office. It wasn't especially funny -- which should come as no surprise -- but it's obviously SNL's prerogative to lampoon whomever they want politically and there's no crime in being even-handed.

The problem is the way MSNBC is now playing the sketch -- and when I say "playing," I don't just mean playing the actual clip over and over (which they are); I mean the way they're playing it as some sort of controversy for the Obama administration to now have to overcome. It's a ridiculous conceit -- albeit one that says plenty about the media's addiction to contrived conflict -- to say that because a sketch comedy show rips on a political figure that the figure in question has to answer for it. I laughed when Tina Fey mercilessly ripped Sarah Palin, but I certainly didn't think that Palin needed to respond to it. The Fey impression, regardless, had the benefit of novelty. The media took to it because it represented a kind of planetary alignment of political-comedic destiny. Everyone's already seen Armisen's Obama impression; this time around it was the material he was doing that acted as a dog whistle for the frothy-mouthed press.

But not the whole press, mind you. On cable, it's mostly MSNBC that's beating this "story" to death. And that's where the real issue becomes obvious -- and things get dicey.

I've written so many times in the past about NBC Universal's obnoxious, non-stop barrage of cross-promotion between its various entities that by now these words can practically type themselves. Turn on any NBC outlet and it'll almost surely be pimping for another NBC outlet in some fashion. The Today Show welcomes the cast of Top Chef, who cook on GE appliances for the crew from Telemundo who are interviewing the star of that new Stargate Universe show on SyFy, who'll be guest hosting the Today Show next week along with one of the Real Housewives of Wherever-the-Hell. Long ago NBC decided that what it didn't have in quality it was going to make up for in seamless corporate synergy across all platforms. (Constantly pointing this out, incidentally, even through outright mockery, is part of the meta-genius that's made 30 Rock not only funny but useful to NBC.) The problem is that in an effort to promote Saturday Night Live -- which MSNBC does regularly every chance it gets like a good little corporate team player -- it behooves MSNBC to make it seem as if SNL is the kind of cultural juggernaut that has the power to spark controversy and make news. That when the show does something like, say, slam Barack Obama -- the shockwaves are felt in the highest corridors of power.

This is the definition of a conflict of interest. By MSNBC deeming that an SNL sketch has the power to make trouble for the President of the United States, and actually debating it as such -- ad nauseam -- MS is doing the NBC mothership a very big favor. NBC's news department is acting as a promotional tool for NBC programming.

There aren't strong enough words to describe how ethically questionable this is.

Although, we're talking about the same network that devoted an entire episode of Dateline, ostensibly a news magazine program, to pimping Donald Trump and The Apprentice.

At this point, I'm not sure anything NBC did would surprise me.

Immature Ejaculation

The Olbermann Weekend

I like Keith Olbermann, but it's pretty much common knowledge that he's insane.

Which is what makes this SNL sketch -- with Ben Affleck doing a laugh-out-loud parody of Olbermann at his most unhinged -- so damn brilliant.

Look for a Countdown "Special Comment" tonight that reponds in kind: "Mr. Affleck... HOW DARE YOU, SIR!"

The Meta-Metamorphosis of Sarah Palin

Remember Sarah Palin's hilarious appearance on Saturday Night Live last weekend?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

The truth is that Palin's SNL cameo was, by almost any reasonable standard, entirely uneventful -- shocking only for its complete lack of shock. I'm not sure what most people were expecting, but given her reputation for self-satisfied feistiness I think it's safe to say that Sarah Palin-as-barely-there-window-dressing probably wasn't it. Think about it: the woman who's been a weekly punching bag for a bunch of New York City wise-asses who can barely hide their disdain for her finally gets a chance to turn the tables and take a few shots of her own on national television and what does she do? Nothing. She talks to Lorne Michaels, shakes hands with Alec Baldwin, doesn't even speak to Tina Fey -- who's been personally responsible for the merciless mocking which many believe has helped to cement her image as a worldwide laughing stock -- but instead allows Fey to shoot her a look of absolute contempt, and throws her hands in the air for an "Alaska Rap" that makes MC Rove's little dance a couple of years back look like Chris Brown.

Sure, the writers likely had plenty of say in just how Palin would be used on the show -- but she's a candidate for the second highest office in the free world. Don't think for a second that she couldn't have flexed some muscle to ensure that she'd come off less like a wallflower and more like the kick-ass Vice Presidentrix holding her own in the lion's den against the snooty liberal onslaught she regularly rails against in small towns across America.

She could've done that. She had the chance -- not to be rude or vicious, but to be sharp and assertive -- and yet she didn't take it.

Why?

Simple.


Because no matter what she says to the robotic throngs of Joe Six-Packs who show up at her rallies -- no matter how strenuously she demonizes the so-called elitism of those Times-reading pseudo-intellectuals on the coasts -- make no mistake: She loved every second of being on Saturday Night Live.

Loved it.

She couldn't get enough of hearing the audience laugh.

It thrilled her to no end to shout, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!"

She got wet when Alec Baldwin stroked her hand and spoke to her in that soothing tone.

Sarah Palin was, in a word, starstruck -- both by those around her and, yes, by herself and how far she'd come. There she was, living out her Small Town TV Reporter/Miss Alaska Pageant fantasy of being on one of the biggest entertainment stages in the country, surrounded by celebrities. And she was the hottest thing there -- the belle of the ball.

We know this because according to SNL costume designer Tim Broecker, Palin was somewhat of a prima donna, upset that producers wanted her to wear the same kind of red skirt suit that Tina Fey's dead-on impression of Palin wears each week -- the kind Palin herself wore when she first hit the campaign trail. As it turns out, however, Fey's parody may not be so dead-on anymore, at least not when it comes to the way she dresses. Put simply, Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin's fashion is so September, and Palin saw no reason to go back to that frumpy look, even for a comedy bit -- not when she'd worked so hard and spent so much of the Republican National Committee's money over the past few weeks to carefully cultivate a new image as America's Next Next-to-Top Executive.

By the way, now might be a good time to remind yourself of that whole Obama-Paris Hilton comparison that John McCain shamelessly pushed earlier this year and marvel at how the entire McCain campaign has become one constantly constricting Ouroboros of bald-faced hypocrisy.


Sarah Palin honestly thinks she's a star -- a pop culture icon. She now believes her own hype.

That pandering and sloganeering and droppin'-her-g's garbage? That's all a means to an end. I have no doubt that Palin actually buys into the crap she's shoveling -- that she's a True Believer in the power of Joe Six-Pack and a lockstep warrior for nonsensical neo-con values. It's just that over the past several weeks, it's become glaringly obvious that Sarah Palin's primary concern throughout this campaign has always been Sarah Palin. Like the proverbial ingenue, she was plucked from relative obscurity by a sad, aging once-great looking for that last shot at glory -- a guy convinced that her youth and vitality would be just what he needed to finally thrust him into the big time. And like the Hollywood ending that you could've seen coming a mile away, the ingenue quickly outgrew the one-time father figure and realized that he was actually nothing more than an obstacle on her own road to fame and fortune. Just like John McCain now at least partially blames Sarah Palin's shallow ignorance for his spiraling political fortunes, make no mistake that Sarah Palin -- in a breathtaking lack of gratitude -- likewise blames McCain's doddering buffoonery for hers, which is why, if you pay close attention, you can see that she's already subtly distancing herself from her running mate in what some are saying is an effort to sow the seeds of a personal run for the presidency in 2012.

As he often does, Bob Cesca cranked out a pretty entertaining piece for the Huffington Post recently in which he heralded the death of what he calls "Larry the Cable Guy Politics"; the idea being that for years Republican mainstays like George W. Bush have been playing dress-up, pretending to be just your average uneducated dumb-asses in an effort to ingratiate themselves to the real uneducated dumb-asses they rely on to keep them in power -- the same way comedian Dan Whitney has assumed the entirely fraudulent persona of "Larry the Cable Guy" because it's made him really, really rich. Cesca likens it to the meta-performance of Mark Wahlberg playing Eddie Adams playing Dirk Diggler playing Brock Landers in Boogie Nights. But now comes this little twist: that Sarah Palin, despite actually being a hockey mom and working off the premise that she's just Jane Six-Pack when trying to sell herself and her "vision" to NASCAR America, in reality doesn't think of herself as average at all. She in fact sees herself as a fashion plate, some hyper-hottie in a tight leather blazer and knee-high black boots, someone worthy of a $75,000 shopping spree at Neiman Marcus. Sarah Palin is now everything she ever dreamed of being: Sex and the City, right down to the "city" part. Sure, publicly she rebukes and ridicules those cosmopolitan urbanites in their bustling elitist hubs, but she knows damn well that she can't buy Valentino and Louis Vuitton at the Wal-Mart in Wasilla -- and if you don't think that Sarah Heath Palin has always fantasized about wearing Valentino and carrying Louis Vuitton, I've got a bridge to nowhere I want to sell you. She may still be a backwater dingbat, but she's now a very well put together backwater dingbat -- which I'm willing to bet has convinced her that she's no longer a backwater dingbat. If this is true, then it would mean that Palin has essentially ascended to the same position as George W. Bush and her GOP benefactors: she's only playing the part of the rube and is, in fact, secretly talking down to every one of those pick-up-driving Toby Keith fans who show up to her rallies -- the Dickies-clad folk not lucky enough to have won the Miss Vice Presidential pageant and been scooped up to a life of charter jets and appearances on Saturday Night Live.

But the new and improved Sarah Palin is more than just a simple case of someone taking on a part or putting on airs -- "lipstick on a pig," as it were.

I don't think Charlie Kaufman himself could've dreamed up a more Victor/Victorian mobius strip of meta-fiction than Saturday Night Live sticking the real Sarah Palin into her old red skirt suit to play Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin.

It would be enough to make your head spin were we not already talking about a woman whose willful Extreme Makeover had transformed her, ironically, into the very thing she purports to despise.

Of course, I'm not sure that -- as with everything Sarah Palin has shown us to date -- all the folksy indignation wasn't just bullshit anyway.

Saturday Might

My God, I love Tina Fey.

Laugh So You Don't Cry