Try this.
Cartoonist Roz Chast has been a staff cartoonist for the New Yorker since 1979. She likes to list things alphabetically to help her fall asleep at night. With all the anecdotes, I’ve never heard of this one. As much as I’d like to try it out, I hope I don’t have to.
Check it out. Naked people in Australia!
You should be reading this website, or at least bookmark it or acknowledge it. It has lots of band’s information and zebra print- two things I can definitely appreciate.
Tonight on Fox the Simpsons will air their 450th episode, “The Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special: In 3-D! On Ice!” I actually just set my DV-R to it. First there is an episode that makes no big deal about it, then an hour long “documentary” -if you will- by the one and only Morgan Spurlock. You know him because he chose to eat McDonalds for an entire month proving to the world that we are shit heads in the way that we eat (please, eat better.) He says that “the world may end in 2012, but this show won’t,” Spurlock seems like just the character to make this kind of film.
Officially its the longest running show in prime-time history. It first appeared on the Tracy Ullman show in 1987, pre-my-existence, as a series of shorts. The Simpsons has won 25 Emmy Awards, we all saw The Simpsons Movie in 2007 and don’t forget that the Oxford English Dictionary included D’oh! as a word. The show has, kind of, changed the world and changed television and the way we watch (write) it. Something like this only comes along every twenty years or so.
Point being is, check it out! I love cultural phenomenons- they are my favorite thing, literally. And when something is as easy to be a part of as a television show, you can’t help but watch.
The story begins with my roommate. She spent a night in New York City celebrating her mother’s birthday this past Friday night. After an evening of dinner and a show, she stayed with her sister and her sister’s girlfriend. If her sister Molly was not feeling so ill she might have joined in on this adventure of Santa con, but instead she stayed home while Sam started to get dressed early on Saturday morning. Surprised by Sam getting dressed unusually early after a night of late night drinking. But when she emerged, Sam was dressed as Santa.
Santa con (refresh and get a new picture every time!) started in San Francisco with as an anti-commercial form of “guerrilla street theater” mixed with “pranksterism.” (Wikipedia, here.) Since its beginning in 1994, originally called “Santarchy”, it has since spawned different events and adventures in different forms all over the world. The one that Sam participated in was all throughout New York City. There were meeting points in each borough to start a massive Santa pub crawl. It was reported that 5,000 (or more?!) Santas took place.
As soon as I heard about this, I had to share it with you.
29 years ago today John Lennon was assassinated by Mark David Chapman outside of the Dakota Hotel on the upper west side of New York City. If you have not made it to Strawberry Fields, I recommend it. When my senior class in high school got the week off to go to Disney in Florida, I did the unnatural thing and stayed home. My dad and I spent one of those days in the city and seeing Strawberry Fields was one of our activities we wanted to do together. While we were there, we saw countless tourists just like ourselves, a man propose to his girlfriend and two homeless men who looked like they had experienced the full effect of the 1960s. Its a cool place to visit. Maybe next year I’ll make it on December 8th for the 30th anniversary. But I figured it would be cool to go at 40 and especially 50 years- which we will definitely see the day of.
Its a story among us Beatle fans that is kind of common sense once you reach a certain age. It is as memorable in comparison to ask ‘where were you when JFK was shot?’ Lennon and Yoko had returned from the recording studio. He was in the midst of making Double Fantasy. Released three weeks before his murder, its his best selling solo album and won him the 1981 Grammy for Record of the Year. Mark David Chapman was posing as a fan, trying to get his autograph and then he shot him. The story is unclear to me as to why MDC wanted to murder one of the most peaceful and beloved human beings. A movie was made about Chapman were Jared Leto played him and Lindsay Lohan is in it too. But that’s besides the point. The point is, don’t see this movie. I’d rather you read the Wikipedia article on him if anything.
Last weekend on the Breakfast with the Beatles show I did a feature of all John Lennon solo work and his best Beatles stuff. It was really fun, actually and very well received by my normal listeners. Although he is not my favorite Beatle (George is, of course) I still have a hard time recognizing his extreme amount of talent. After I read John by Cynthia Lennon, his first wife, I kind of lost respect for him because of how he broke Cynthia’s heart and was an absent father letting his family fall to pieces as he fell for this artist, Yoko, and continued on with life as if nothing existed before her. Cynthia even came home from a weekend away with girlfriends to find them sitting on their living room floor in their his & hers bathrobes. But every once and a while someone will remind me of why he was everyone’s everyone. This time I think it was explained the best.
The beauty about John Lennon as an artist is that from the beginning when you sat him down to interview him, or just to talk whether or not it was an audience of five or five million, he always poured his heart out. He treated everyone like his brother, being honest and pleasant just, literally, trying to make the world a better place. That is what made Lennon so likable. It is what continues to make him so lovable. Despite his many, many, faults and crazy life, he was a genius. But he was also a tortured soul. People of every generation will continue to fall in love with him and his music. Lennon just wanted to tell the truth and sometimes it really pissed people off (like when he said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus Christ- who can argue with that….?!) But the truth is the best policy, maybe not all the time. But it was for him. Lennon wanted truth, peace and love. I think we can give it to him.
Also if you are interested there is an exhibit going on at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex Museum in NYC commemorating his life in New York City- his favorite part of his life and his favorite city to be in. It opened this May and I’m quite sure it goes through next month. Every time I look for an end date, I can’t seem to find one. So check it out. Also, if you have not yet seen A Hard Day’s Night- watch it. Funnier than anything: it is English comedy before Monty Python. Also, Help! is also tremendously funny.
"are you listening to me, Lennon??"
So if you haven’t yet today, play a little Lennon. Do something he would do. Happy December 8th.
Did any of you see that table in Park yesterday promoting ICTV’s new show, Almost College?
I caught these people tabling and they were also hanging up posters showcasing of all the show’s characters, an intriguing little marketing trick. I walked over and they were giving out condoms and pong balls with the show’s logo on it and drawing my attention to their upcoming premiere, tonight at 9 on ICTV, also streaming live at ictv.org
I know that a lot of us don’t care much for ICTV. We aren’t really aware of them or the content they produce. These condoms and pong balls, shameless self promotion, but what does it mean? What is this show about? Either way it pulls you in, so do those catchy posters.
Tonight at 9 on ICTV (Channel 16), or streaming live at ictv.org
All I’m saying is it caught my attention. I want to see what happens, so have others I’ve talked too. I think tonight I will be tuning in
I think you should join me.
even thouh i just saw this movie for the first time not too long ago, im still not sure what to think about it....
Once again comes a post for the prime target audience. Brought to us from Spike (TV? the TV channel? not sure?) it is the top ten movies that douche bags love. I came across this early this afternoon and laughed right out loud. It was almost a bad moment because I was surfing the web while two people behind me were having an actual conversation. [And if you know me, you know that I am one to burst out in my own fits of laughter into a computer screen.] —-
——Some of the movies on this list I love, and some are for serious great movies, while others are just for fun- I am just the messenger so don’t think I am the one pigeonholing these movies: I am simply pigeonholing these douche bags. I’d like to think that I know no one like this but I’m sure we all know someone of the brand. I can agree with a lot of these decisions and can judge based on the fact that I’ve seen six of these movies and large parts of one (decide for yourself! — always fun.) But mostly, and always, I want to spark some fun. See what you think.
I figured that the fanbase/general readership of this blog would be into this. I have read quite a few of the essays/chapters from this book- and it is QUITE a read. I highly recommend it: purely for fun, it serves no academic purpose but does have witty “smart” writing. I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell is on many college students’ bookshelves and is found in the “college humor” section (whatever that is….humor for adults perhaps? are we out to create a new genre—-YUP) written by Tucker Max- the most made up name you could ever try fictionalizing. He claims it all to be true and even though this reader hopes it is not- I’m glad it is because not only is honesty the best policy but it makes for the best reads. Enjoy.
Some of the best writing comes in the rarest of forms. And since the blog-o-sphere is overlooked by so many, I figured that I would point something out to you.
Since my home is the Op-Ed page, my main man is the Op-Ed blogs. After discovering a favorite at the end of it’s run (it was whatever an “experimental blog” is…running for only a few months.) It was called “Proof” and it was American writers who wrote about (sometimes their own) problems with alcohol and alcoholism in America ( and American writing). Fascinating to me, I was sad to see it go. But check out that link.
Happy Days is yet another favorite of mine. Out of all the blogs, I send this one to people the most. It usually has the most inspiring words of wisdom, for lack of a better phrase, and again- it proves me right. The most recent writing on this one is about comparing yourself to peers to gauge happiness. It is inspiring to read because it makes you aware of your own jealousies, wants and realities. I mean, we all do it. Comparing yourself to a peer comes with the first time a test is returned to you in grade school, to personal fitness, knowledge, family interactions, rules, clothes, money, beings, all of it. Mostly, it is something that we do without even thinking about it- a natural human occurrence. I have never read something that made me so aware of other people’s comparisons before. This piece makes me want to take a personal self action to better myself for me, not for the benefit of others.
So while you read this (and take in the almost inappropriately hilarious wit and writing) think about what this means for you.