Zero Dark 30 Rock

Today's Daily Banter column expands on yesterday's admittedly pissed-off piece taking aim at NBC's decision to go with an interview with Jerry Sandusky that it didn't even shoot.

Here's the opening shot:

"It probably seems like I write quite a bit about NBC and its problems. In fact, I do, and there’s a reason for this. I spent a good portion of my career in television news working for NBC, at both the national and local level, and that time with the network always represented one of the proudest accomplishments of my life in the business. It’s easy to pick on, say, Fox News over and over again; with the exception of my good friend and former coworker Shep Smith, the place is generally a wasteland of lunacy and nonsense. But I expect more from NBC and always have. I know what the network is capable of, what its reputation has meant, and what those who worked under its banner years ago expected of themselves and the product they created. NBC, as far as I’m concerned — and I know there are plenty of others who feel the same way and would tell you the same thing — used to be the top of the heap in broadcasting and to work there was an unqualified honor. That was then, anyway. Now? Now I have no idea what the hell is going on at the network. It’s nothing short of shameful to see how far NBC has fallen — how far it’s been allowed to fall by those whose job it is to steward its good name."

Read the Rest Here

Bend Over

A special Sunday column for the Daily Banter takes aim at NBC's inexcusable decision to air an interview with Jerry Sandusky on tomorrow morning's Today show. An interview like this would normally be questionable, but the details of this particular interview make it completely outrageous for a responsible news organization to get anywhere near.

Here's the opening shot:

"I was going to save this for tomorrow’s column and actually may still have something to say about it after the segment in question airs in the morning. But in the desperate hope that somebody at NBC News might listen and put the brakes on what could very well be the biggest betrayal of its journalistic integrity since its repugnant and indefensible decision to air the Virginia Tech Killer’s posthumous manifesto, I figure it’s worth at least getting this into the ether.

You can’t do this, NBC. You just can’t do this."

Read the Rest Here

To the Matt-resses

Today's Daily Banter column takes a look at how Matt Lauer is blaming NBC for the colossal Ann Curry fuck-up -- and how the network is letting him do it.

Here's the opening shot:

"Jesus, how desperate is NBC to save the Today show? Desperate enough to let Matt Lauer publicly scold them for screwing up the firing of Ann Curry.

It was just four months ago that then-Today executive producer Jim Bell essentially pleaded with the public not to blame Lauer for the ugly debacle that was Ann Curry’s dismissal. At the time, the hope was that by taking the bullet for both the host and the network Bell would stave off the relentless negative publicity that was being heaped on Lauer and the show, publicity which had gotten so awful that Lauer, the once-beloved Today show host, was being confronted on the street and yelled at by average people for being a smug, imperious prick. Today’s ratings plummeted and Lauer was suddenly a cultural pariah."

Read the Rest Here

Panic Womb

No sooner had I promised to essentially vanish for the week than I turned on the TV to find Nickelodeon for Inara and who did I happen to come across on NBC's Today show? The Duggars. All 106 of them. On the show for a -- wait for it -- "big announcement." Yes, one of Jim Bob and Michelle's sons, Josh, is having a baby with his wife, the apparently insane Anna. This is their third. The Duggars have now spawned so many children that their bloodline is guaranteed to be Today show fodder well into the next millennium. I can't help but figure that Michelle Duggar's vagina is so irreparably wasted by this point that she's now forced to outsource the baby-making to her kids and grandkids, kind of the way that Adam Richman had to inevitably turn Man vs. Food into Man vs. Food Nation, where he pawned the face-stuffing off to other hapless idiots because his stomach had finally just given out on him.

Speaking of reality shows, the Duggars also pushed the fact that theirs will be coming back to TLC. (Catch it right between Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and the show about the two-headed woman!) The new season will kick off later this week with the entire family taking their lunatic Christian "Quiverfull" beliefs on the road to Asia. They said the first thing that shocked them about places like Japan is that everyone has only one child. In the world of the Duggars this is what's known as crazy. To everyone else, particularly in places like Japan and China, it's called being responsible -- or being forced to work so many hours because you don't have a reality show gravy train that you just don't have the time or resources to spend all your time on your back cranking out babies like chocolates coming down a conveyor belt.

Anyway, you know the drill by now. Every time there's a new Duggar announcement on Today -- and I know about it -- this piece comes back. The only saving grace this time is that Today's ratings are in the toilet these days, at least in comparison to a few years ago. I like to believe that their slavish, pathetic obsession with the Duggars is part of the reason why.

Birth Defects: An Open Letter To The American Media (Originally Published, 12.22.08)

Dear Media,

I'm writing today to issue a plea on behalf of the sane, reasonably well-adjusted people all across this country of ours. It's admittedly a move borne out of desperation and spawned from the mind of someone who's been pushed to the brink of madness, but I would only hope that this fact underscores the anguish being felt by the American people and therefore the seriousness of what I'm about to say.

Please, in the name of all that's decent, stop, stop, stop treating the Duggars like they're celebrities.

This morning, like clockwork, the Duggar family -- Jim Bob, Michelle, her clown car vagina, and the 18 kids whose names all inexplicably begin with the letter "J" -- made their traditional appearance on NBC's Today to show off the latest addition to their constantly expanding litter. As always, they basked in the glow of the national media spotlight, were treated to oodles of warm encomia, and took the opportunity to joyfully drop the name of the Lord every few seconds like there was some kind of Skinner Box treat in it for them.

The Today show has become something akin to the official press secretariat of the Duggars -- excitedly fawning over each birth and the fresh pregnancy announcement that invariably, immediately follows it as if this information were something that actually mattered to anyone. But, obviously, Today isn't alone in its cultural elevation of the Duggars from crazy homemade cult to all-American heroes.

And make no mistake -- these people are indeed crazy.

Completely out of their fucking minds.

You know something, though? That's okay. They're entitled to live their lives however the hell they want; as long as none of their kids -- born an average of one a year since 1988 -- ends up on welfare and we the taxpayers have to foot the bill for little Jolene or Jonah. I honestly couldn't care less that there's an insane family living in Arkansas cranking out children because God says so. The problem is that you, the media -- NBC, ABC, TLC, etc. -- keep giving these people face time, thereby convincing them that everyone in this country not crazier than a shithouse rat actually loves hearing the latest news about Michelle Duggar's de-elasticized cervix. I'm not suggesting that you're encouraging them -- since you couldn't, as they take their cues from a supposedly higher authority -- but you are giving them the chance to hawk their books, TV show and the assorted other crap that allows them to afford to continue spitting out kids like chocolates coming down a conveyor belt. These people shouldn't be cast in a positive light. They shouldn't be cast in any light at all. If they want to keep trying to single-handedly overpopulate the Earth for Jesus, they should have to pay for it without the help of your unwarranted free publicity, media.

Let's see how long they'd last once the gravy train you guys happily play conductor of dries up.

Like Paris Hilton, whose career you're also guilty of perpetuating and foisting on an exhausted public, the Duggars are famous only for their unusual sexual habits.

And like Paris Hilton, they've never deserved the wealth of attention you've lavished on them. They're religious zealots who won't stop having babies. That's it. Nothing more.

So once again, knock it the hell off. Stop shoving this family down our collective throat.

If the Duggars one day make the announcement that they've decided to start using contraception, or if one of their kids comes out with horns or something, feel free to give them a couple minutes of airtime. Until then, remember that you're the mainstream media -- not Procreation Quarterly and not a carnival barker.

Leave the freakshow to the circus folk, okay?

Thanks and Happy Holidays,

Chez

Flipping the Bird

Today's column for the Daily Banter deals with a recent story from the Associated Press that details how the Today show is losing viewers in droves. My take: the exodus is the long-overdue comeuppance for a network that's relentlessly pummeled its talent and audience over the past few years, believing it could always get away with it.

Here's an excerpt:

"I admit that there were several times that I truly thought NBC would suffer immediate audience blowback for its sins, but strangely it never really did; yes, there was some bad press from the likes of me and other more prominent media critics, but in the end business went on as usual for the peacock. And I think ultimately that’s what emboldened the executive assholes at NBC: Each time they did something inexcusable and didn’t face the instant wrath of the viewing public — the kind of outrage that threatened their bottom line — they simply smirked and moved on, believing they were bulletproof and that nothing they did could permanently damage the NBC brand."

Read the Rest Here

Fuck You, NBC

I'm trying to figure out how NBC could possibly become more of a joke. I'm trying, but I can't say anything's coming to me.

In case all of its well-documented failures in the past weren't enough to convince you that the network, particularly its news department, is being run by monkeys, there's this: This morning, rather than go with the 9/11 moment of silence at 8:46AM, the Today show -- seriously the biggest punchline within the larger farce that is NBC -- decided to continue airing an interview with Kris Jenner in which she discussed the new season of the case of cultural Ebola that is Keeping Up with the Kardashians and her breast implants.

And no, I'm not making any of this up.

I wish I could come up with something clever or funny to say about choosing Kris Jenner over the 9/11 moment of silence, but really all I've got is -- fuck you, NBC. Just fuck you.

The Hunger Games

Today's piece for the Daily Banter takes a look at the games going on behind the Olympic games coverage at NBC -- namely the controversy over whether Savannah Guthrie's Today show co-hosting job is already in jeopardy.

Here's the opening shot:

"I used to have a motto that I lived by when it came to the notion of job security in the TV news business -- it's one I'd pass along to the various rising stars coming up through the ranks whenever the winds of change were gathering in the corner offices of the newsroom: Management is always behind you 100% -- right up until the second they suddenly put their hand against your back and push you out the door. It pretty much goes without saying that no matter the field you work in, you can't put absolute faith in corporate's absolute faith in you, but in mainstream television news that's a fact you have to always keep in the front of your mind or risk being blindsided at the worst possible moment..."

Read the Rest Here

Quote of the Day

"We gave her a year to prove herself, and ultimately we came to the conclusion that she had played at the highest level she could. When you’re in the major leagues of our profession, you’ve got to continue to be at peak performance in order to stay there."

-- NBC News President Steve Capus on the network's decision to push Ann Curry out of the Today show after fifteen years, with less than a year on the anchor desk

Every time I think NBC in general and Capus in particular can no longer surprise me with their almost sociopathic incompetence and lack of anything approaching journalistic or business ethics, they find new depths to the proverbial barrel. It's bad enough to promote someone to a position you had to know she wasn't right for -- given that she'd been on your staff for fourteen years -- understanding that you'd be willing to embarrass yourself by letting her go quickly if she didn't in fact measure up. But to then turn around and publicly trash that person when she remains an employee within your company -- and make no mistake, that's exactly what Capus is doing here -- shows an utter lack of class and takes an astonishing amount of management hubris. I can't think of a time when it was considered acceptable, to say nothing of civilized, for an executive within a company to insult one of his or her loyal employees and to officially blame the victim when a crappy management decision blows up in everyone's face.

But we've seen this before from the near-magnificent assholes at NBC. We watched both Jeff Zucker and Dick Ebersol have the unmitigated gall to privately and publicly beat up on Conan O'Brien and blame him for the situation which led to his being ousted from The Tonight Show. And as for Capus, he was behind a journalistic decision so immoral, reprehensible and obscene that it marks an untouched low-point in network news ethics: the decision to air the final videotaped manifesto of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho.

That incident inspired one of the most viciously indignant screeds to ever appear on this site. And it's why almost nothing NBC does, no matter how stupid, irresponsible or just plain wrong, can truly shock me anymore.

"The Tapes of Wrath" (Originally Published, 4.20.07)

"The only difference between suicide and martyrdom is press coverage."

-- Chuck Palahniuk

I want my soul back.

Over the years, the television news business has made me feel many ways -- exhilarated, proud, honored, embarrassed, enlightened, trivial, angry, frustrated, even ashamed on more than one occasion. It has never, however, made me feel dirty -- until now.

This overwhelming need that I have at the moment to crawl into a shower and desperately attempt to rinse the corruption and sickness off of my skin stems from one simple fact: the images that are currently plastered all over every television network and newspaper in America -- the photos and homemade video of Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho -- should never have seen the light of day. Neither you, nor I, nor the families of the victims, nor anyone aside from FBI investigators should have ever laid eyes on any of it.

I'm well aware that there are some who would consider this a dereliction of duty on my part, an abandonment of my unspoken vow to dispassionately satisfy the public's insatiable right to know, no matter the cost or consequence.

You know something? I couldn't fucking care less.

On Wednesday afternoon, NBC News made a decision that, if there's any justice in the universe whatsoever, will be remembered as the singular event that obliterated its once-hallowed reputation, got its smug, hypocritical prick of a president Steve Capus deported to a deserted island and brought 30 Rock crashing to the ground.

Through a thought process that I can't even begin to comprehend, nor would I even wish to be able to, NBC chose to give a final posthumous forum to the psychotic, self-obsessed and thoroughly delusional kid who took thirty-two innocent lives out of some ridiculously inflated sense of aggrievement for a supposed lifetime of persecution. The network's news executives put prurience ahead of prudence and in doing so rubbed the faces of the victims' families into the very dirt used to bury their loved ones; they did it by seeing to it that everywhere those families turned, they would stare into the same cold eyes that their terrified sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, husbands and wives saw the instant before they died.

Understand, as a veteran of this business I've always been of the opinion that news must be taken at face value, that the potential fallout, positive or negative, from running a legitimate story should rarely, if ever, be taken into account when deciding whether or not to go to air with that story. I've sat in meeting after meeting in which the news value of an item was weighed against its potential impact. I've listened to executive after executive rationalize the choice to run a questionable news item in the hope of hiding from others and possibly even themselves the tawdriness of their true motives. I've done it myself on more than one occasion.

I can tell you, without fear of contradiction, that this is exactly what Capus and company did on Wednesday when presented with a story, the spectacular sensationalism of which was matched only by its complete lack of any real value to the public. NBC's news department heads received a gift from the gods, via the mail, and they'd be damned if they weren't going to run with it no matter what kind of moral somersaults they might have to perform to justify the decision.

So run with it they did, splashing Seung-Hui Cho's contorted face and idiotic ramblings across the airwaves with all the subtlety of gang-bang porn.

As if on cue from the network's PR department, Steve Capus himself took to NBC's airwaves soon after to assure America that he had personally wrestled long and hard with the leviathan ethical dilemma presented by such a story before valiantly pinning his conscience to the mat and forcing it to tap out. The hysterical irony was that it marked Capus's second such appearance on one of his own networks' news programs in two weeks: the last time was when he bombastically asserted the moral authority of himself and his network by dropping Don Imus, who had merely insulted, rather than gunned down a group of college students.

Let me repeat that in simpler terms: Make a cruel comment about a bunch of kids and you're not worthy to have a forum on NBC; stalk through the halls shooting kids in cold blood and NBC will give you all the time you'd like to speak your mind.

No matter the bullshit ethical loopholes Capus continues to try to squeeze through, one need only look at the video itself for NBC's true motivation to become crystal clear. There, burned into the top left-hand corner of every frame of tape and every still image of Cho posing with his weapons of choice is the NBC News logo, complete with peacock. It's been put there as an almost juvenile -- given the subject matter -- assertion of ownership, a figurative tongue protruding in the direction of every news organization that NBC knew would fair-use the material.

It's the best and easiest form of promotion imaginable, promotion the network hopes will turn into ratings which will turn into dollars for NBC Universal shareholders and a big bonus for Capus.

And lest there be any lingering doubt that the network knew from the beginning that it was stepping over the line, Brian Williams basically admitted as much during a conversation with imbecilic talking-head Chris Matthews on MSNBC Wednesday night, saying that he was well aware that by airing even a portion of Cho's manifesto, NBC was bestowing upon the killer the martyrdom he had hoped to achieve. The reason he had killed -- the reason he had mailed the tape to a television network to begin with -- was because he wanted to be heard loud and clear and NBC was more than happy to oblige him that opportunity.

Satisfying the motives of a murderer should've been reason enough for NBC to refuse to air such an obscenely stupid diatribe. The only argument that can ever be made -- the one mitigating factor -- in favor of giving a killer what he wants is the threat of further violence, and Cho wasn't the Zodiac; he had already seen to it that he would never kill again.

The morning after the network made its contemptibly immoral decision -- one which opened the floodgates for every other news organization in the world to follow suit, as the genie was out of the bottle by that point -- the families of two of the shooting victims canceled their scheduled appearances on the Today show, citing a very understandable level of hurt and bitter outrage. Whether that was enough to hammer home the culpability of the network in the continued emotional torture of these poor people, who knows. It would be nice to believe, though, that behind the walls of 30 Rock and its bastard stepchild MSNBC -- the nicest warehouse in Secaucus, New Jersey -- someone somewhere was considering the throwing of himself upon a sword for the unforgivable crime of dishonoring what's always been a strictly above-the-board news operation.

I knew none of the victims personally and yet I grieve for them. As someone who's always allowed myself the comfort of detached analysis, and an occasional moral relativism which is the natural by-product of it, I don't often see subjects in terms of absolutes. Things are rarely black or white, right or wrong, good or evil; there's typically an abundance of gray area in between which demands to be taken into account.

Not this time.

I feel for the families of the victims. I feel for the victims themselves, all of whom were guilty of nothing more than waking up and going to class on an otherwise typical Monday morning. I imagine their terror when confronted with their cold and methodical executioner. I place the life of Max Turner against the life of Seung-Hui Cho -- what he chose to become -- and it's not even worthy of comparison; it's innocence versus guilt, life versus death. Not one of those thirty-two people deserved to die, certainly not at the whim of a craven fucking coward who needed to lock them all in and mercilessly gun them down to achieve whatever narcissistic sense of authority he felt life was denying him. Anyone who demands respect from behind a gun is spineless to begin with; a person who demands it from an unarmed kid who's cowering on the floor in front of him, begging for his or her life -- just before shooting that terrified kid three times -- is a worthless piece of shit.

Make no mistake: I would wink at the devil and gladly accept a lifetime in hell just for the sheer, unadulterated joy of having been able to take Seung-Hui Cho's skull and smash it against the concrete floor until there was nothing left of it.

Someone should've put a fucking bullet in that kid before he ever had the chance to destroy so many innocent lives.

I don't care what his twisted reasoning was or who had beat him up back in high school, there's simply no excuse for what he did.

Just like there's no excuse for complicity in the elevation of his act to the martrydom he had hoped it would be seen as by the next sociopathic kid with a gun and a grudge.

Believe me, that kid's already out there somewhere -- and he's thinking that he can kill thirty-three.

Gone but Not Forgotten: The Reckoning

Really quickly because I'm just about finished with my project and am pretty much gun-to-head eager to get it wrapped.

Turns out the "Miami producer" who got fired by NBC for botching the Trayvon Martin 911 tape was a WTVJ reporter named Jeff Burnside -- that's according to a website that follows South Florida news closely. I did work with Burnside years ago, back when he was actually nothing more than a lowly pawn in the producer ranks; he's a decent enough guy, although I can't say that I've been a big fan of his reporting from what I've seen of it in my time back in Miami over the past few years. It's not that he does a bad job -- he's just a little dull, but in a market like South Florida there's an argument to be made that at least that's better than looking like he's planning to go directly from his live shot to the velvet rope of the Gansevoort at 1:30AM.

Apparently it was Burnside -- remember, a local news reporter -- who made the bad edit that ended up all the way in 30 Rock on the Today show. He and the actual NBC staffer who shepherded the clip to New York without checking it were both shown the door -- and I have to admit with good reason. They both screwed up big time.

Either way, just figured I'd satisfy all those who've written me over the past couple of weeks wondering if I knew who it was out of Miami who got canned over the Trayvon 911 tape debacle.

That internal investigation NBC ran to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again? Its first recommendation better have been: "Don't entrust your biggest, most delicate and potentially most inflammatory stories to some poor doof working in the ass end of the NBC TV-Stations Division."

The Palin Show

My latest piece for the Daily Banter is now up. It deals with NBC's recent, idiotic decision to allow Sarah Palin to host the Today show -- and how I didn't even need to see the thing to know exactly how it played out and the kind of thinking that went into it.

Please, you read, yes?

The Daily Banter: The Palin Show/4.4.12

Conflict Disinterest

I wish I had time to elaborate more on this but considering that I've devoted a good amount of copy both here and at the Huffington Post to beating the living crap out of NBC Universal for the shamelessly cross-promotional profit machine it's become, what you're about to see should come as no surprise at all.

This morning, the Today show's Meredith Vieira softballed NBC reality show star and perennial national punchline Donald Trump on both his bullshit flirtation with a run for the White House and his sudden rise to the position of King of the Birthers. She did this while trumpeting -- wait for it -- an NBC News/WSJ poll that supposedly puts Trump among the top GOP contenders for president should he choose to run once his fucking television show wraps this season.

You really have to see this circus-like nonsense to believe it -- not just because it's such an awesome display of personal and professional hubris on the part of both Trump and NBC as well as an almost unfathomable Möbius loop of meta-media self-promotion, but because it really does feel like it marks the nadir for a once-great and respected television network. Really, all that's missing is for Top Chef winner Richard Blais to be cooking for Trump on a GE stove while some guy from Comcast installs cable in the background.

Headline of the Week (Early Contender)

The Huffington Post: Meredith Vieira Polishes Colin Firth's Oscar/2.28.11

Quote of the Day

"The big question now, Matt and Meredith is, 'Where does this relationship go from here?'"

-- NBC News correspondent Jeff Rossen on the Today show following a story about the personal revelation that Oprah has a half-sister, revealed in typical full-on-media-spectacle fashion yesterday on her nationally televised show

The answer: right to the bank -- for both of them.

Tuesday Is Recycling Day

"Ladies' Worst" (Originally Published, 6.10.09)

I'm going to write a book called How to Hunt for a Wife.

It's going to tell men that they should seek out women who are average looking (less likely to cheat), younger than them (more likely to idolize), and are willing to cook and do the dishes (a matter of practicality). I'm going to dub the search for these kinds of women a "hunt" because that's a stereotypically male activity. Then I'm going to call the network morning shows and see how many of them are willing to invite me on for a friendly chat about the book -- as opposed to inviting me on to sit next to a very angry member of the National Organization for Women and defend my status as a cultural pariah.

What do you think? How many of these shows would want to see their gregarious hosts yukking it up with me on national television about the obvious merits of my marriage advice for men -- or for that matter, how many publishers do you think would be on board for the book in the first place?

Before you answer, consider this: Last weekend, Janice Lieberman, self-described "shopping expert" and objectively described Upper East Side Jewish Princess cliché, appeared on NBC's Today show to hawk her new book, How to Shop for a Husband. It features the same recommendations I just offered in my own fantasy best-seller, only aimed at women and in reference to men.

On Today, a pretentious and patronizing Lieberman didn't face anyone offended to the hilt at the jaw-dropping insipidity and shallow opportunism on display in her book; didn't have to defend herself against a couple of pissed off guys wanting to know where the hell she gets off; wasn't confronted by somebody wondering how she felt about setting the women's movement back about 60 years. Nope, all she got was an unfortunately ingratiating Jenna Wolfe, giggling like a girlfriend sitting across a table littered with empty cosmo glasses while the older, more "experienced" woman holds court.

By now it's a given that 90% of what network morning shows book as segments is frivolous crap; it's worthless at this point to specifically target Today or Jenna Wolfe (whom I happen to like and who seemed to be trying to bury the fact that, as a pretty tough woman, she was somewhat uncomfortable with the whole thing). But I'm curious as to why this particularly vile brand of sexist horseshit -- and yes, it is sexist -- is still allowed to be injected into the pop culture bloodstream undeterred and, what's more, promoted as harmless whimsy that everyone should just accept as "girls being girls." If the roles were reversed and it were supposedly just a case of "guys being guys," it would at best be relegated to the pages of some buffoonish magazine like Maxim, or at worst be held up for angry debate and indignant ridicule on the very same outlets that embrace nonsense like How to Shop for a Husband.

Women shouldn't be let off the hook for pushing shameful sexual minstrelsy just because they're women. It's no more acceptable when they do it than when men do -- and no more painful to have to watch and listen to.

Creative Writing for TV News: Lesson #113

This morning on the Today Show, Ann Curry introduced a story about a woman whose body had been found torched in Miami. Curry referred to the victim as an "aspiring model," who was vacationing from Michigan and had disappeared from a place called Space, which is a behemoth club located in downtown Miami.

She tossed it out to veteran journalist Mark Potter who was then forced to say, with a straight face, that 26-year-old Paula Sladewski had been an "exotic dancer and aspiring model."

In other words, she was a stripper.

If you follow this logic, you can rightly call me an aspiring billionaire.

(By the way, am I the only one who finds the woman in that picture even more terrifying -- and certainly more plastic -- than sex robot Roxxxy?)

The Ploy from Brazil

Ah, Today Show -- I knew you'd figure out a way to be a national punchline one last time before the end of the year.

Not Surprising: that NBC and the Today Show essentially paid for the first interview with David Goldman, who just got his son back after an extended international custody battle.

Surprising: that Meredith Vieira didn't invite Goldman to join the Mile-High Club on the ride back from Brazil.

The Great Black and White Way

Your daily Today Show update:

The cast of the new Broadway musical Memphis just popped by to perform an unfortunately groan-inducing number in the Today studio. The show's about a white Memphis DJ who becomes enraptured with the largely verbotten sound of R&B during the 1950s and, of course, falls in love with a black singer. According to the review in the New York Times, entirely predictable hijinks ensue.

The musical was written by none other than Dave Bryan, keyboard player for Bon Jovi -- whose real name is David Rashbaum.

Because if anyone understands the tumultuous and racially charged South during the 50s -- and the soulful music that was the soundtrack to it -- it's a Jewish guy from New Jersey.

Detached from Reality

So just a few minutes ago, the Today Show started to introduce an exclusive interview with Tareq and Michaele Salahi, the White House state dinner crashing reality TV wanna-bes.

That's when I calmly took my cup of coffee, walked across the room and turned off the TV.

If you want to find out what these narcissistic, upwardly mobile bottom-feeders had to say, filtered through the lens of real reality, feel free to read on:

EW: "Our Lives Have Been Destroyed..."/12.1.09

I especially love that the author points out a not-so-insignificant fact: The reality show the Salahis are trying out for -- The Real Housewives of D.C. -- is on Bravo, which is owned by NBC. Which is very likely why the Salahis agreed to do the interview with Today.

And the Ouroboros takes another bite out of its own tail.

Today of the Dumb

So just a few minutes ago, on the always-reliable Today Show, Meredith Viera posed as an obnoxious, obstinate McDonald's clerk -- hassling anyone and everyone who pulled up to the drive-thru speaker -- as part of the show's new "Today Gets a Laugh" segment.

Right. Because there's nothing funnier than a millionaire TV star fucking with the guy who just got off a 7-dollar-an-hour shift at the Stop & Shop and wants nothing more than to get his Big Mac and go home.

Oh yeah, and that was followed by an interview with Jodi Sweetin, who admitted that A) she was satellite-high the last time she was on tour boasting about kicking drugs (but, you know, this time you can, like, trust her, since she's got a book to sell and all), and B) she was drinking and doing drugs while pregnant with her 18-month-old daughter (a revelation that was followed up with nothing more than a perfunctory, "Well, gee, that's interesting," from Matt Lauer -- as opposed to the immediate phoning of child services).

Man, every time I need a quickie topic to write about -- something to frustrate, infuriate, confuse, or otherwise leave me wanting to crawl into a bottle at 7am -- there's the Today Show, like some kind of gift from God.

Quote of the Week (Early Contender)

"I'm scared! I mean, I have a triathalon coming up -- not in Cape Cod but, you know, in the Atlantic Ocean."

-- NBC's Natalie Morales, on the Today Show, reacting to news that two great white sharks were spotted off the coast of Cape Cod