Entertainment & Sports: April 2004 Archives

I'm always curious as to why Democrats constantly propose bizarre conspiracy theories to explain their failures. There's Hillary's classic "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy". John Kerry's recent accidentally-on-mic comment accusing ABC of doing the RNC's work. Bush and Cheney and Halliburton and Iraq and OIIILLLL. The CIA killed President Kennedy. The environmentalists are always blaming conspiracies for everything. And so forth and so on.

I think a large part of the problem is that many liberals are so convinced they're right that when their actions don't bring about the effects they imagined they can't figure out why. There must be some shadowy conspiracy secretly working against them! It can't possibly be that their beliefs and strategies are simply wrong and irrational.

Rush Limbaugh plays a tape of Progressive Media's newly-ex-CEO Mark Walsh speaking to a "diversity in talk radio" seminar that sheds some light onto the left's paranoia. Progressive Media is the parent company of the new liberal radio network, Air America (why did they pick a name they couldn't even get the domain for?).

WALSH: Yes, the number of stations he is on is staggering. Yes, the number of hours available per day for the right-wing to shove their vitriol and bile down the throats of unsuspecting listeners continues to grow, but let me suggest to you that entertainment that is successful will overtake this wave that we missed the timing on.

RUSH: All right. First off, you all are unsuspecting. My vitriol and bile get forced down your throat every day and you don't know it's coming! You people turn in here as innocent waifs, you come in here clean as the wind driven snow and unsuspectingly get corrupted and poisoned by my vitriol and bile, and you have no idea when it's coming. They are stupid because they missed out on the timing of this wave. There was no wave. There was no timing. There was not a strategy. I'm not a political strategy. There was no big meeting, no grand design. Nobody put a finger to the pulse of the American people and said, "you know what's missing? Let's do this on the radio." This is not how this happened. They continue to illustrate they haven't the slightest idea how success happens, and that's, in all of the stories about this program or any other... Well, let me stick with mine. I'm not going to talk about anybody else. In all of the stories that I've seen in 15 1/2 years about this program, the concept of the singular achievement here is always omitted. How do we get to 600 stations, Mark? How do we get 20 million people a week? How does this happen?

Whenever movies draw great numbers at the box office or when television shows draw huge ratings, everybody talks about the talent and the achievement and the business success of all those involved in that. When it comes to talk radio, it's an accident. It's an accident resulting from your, the audience's, stupidity and the pied pipers Svengali conspiracy behind me to drive unsuspecting listeners crazy with vitriol and bile. Well, you have no idea what's coming.

So once again, if they're going to insult their potential audience and continue to do it, they have no prayer. They have no clue, and they have no hope because they don't even stop to look at this as a business or any other kind of achievement, that it's not just happenstance or fattish. It's ongoing and constantly building. Despite all the other conservative shows that are out there, we haven't cannibalized each other, we are getting bigger and bigger and bigger and they just can't figure it out. And because these are socialists in their thinking, I mean, everything gets to the people from the top down. So they think this has to have been forced on you. What they don't understand is you, the audience, get what you want, choose what you want, and therefore make those of us who are successful, successful. That's what they don't get.

The key to success it to stop making the same mistakes over and over again. Everyone makes mistakes, sometimes really bad ones, but if you're smart you'll learn from your mistakes and change your behavior.

The problem faced by the left, however, is that they don't want the type of success that emerges from a distributed, bottom-up economic and political system (capitalism, democracy). They want to be the elite rulers of a top-down power structure (socialism, oligarchy). Unfortunately for them, top-down just isn't as competitive as bottom-up, so they keep losing despite their expectations.

Some on the left eventually realize the hopelessness of their cause and switch sides, but by definition the left itself keeps plugging away. They reap occasional, intermediate successes when the right stumbles (as it will inevitably do), but the long term trend is clear.

There's no conspiracy, and there doesn't have to be -- the laws of physics and human nature undermine the left's position. They can paddle upstream as long as they like, but eventually they're going over the falls.

This gossip column about Michael Jackson and his advisors feels like a political report about a successful political coup in a small, beleaguered monarchy. The figurehead king is still on the throne, but the powers that really rule the nation vie for control based on his current whimsical demands.

I'm not generally a huge sports fan, but I enjoy the NBA playoffs as long as the Lakers are in them. I use that preface to say that, although there may be problems I just don't see, I really like Stuart Benjamin's proposal to let the top seeds pick their opponents.

My proposal is straightforward. At the end of the last game of a given round of the playoffs (or, for the first round, the last game of the regular season), the first seed would choose which team in the bottom half of the seedings it wanted to play. The second seed would then choose among the remaining teams, and so on. This need not delay anyone’s travel plans; the selection could proceed in order (like a draft), with each team having a few minutes to make its selection. The only difference between my approach and the current one is that the best teams would have some ability to choose their opponents.

Why make this change? It truly rewards the teams with the best records, and it avoids the problem of a top team having the bad luck to be pitted against another top team while teams with fewer wins have weaker opponents. Maybe the 7th seed slumped at the end of the season or has just suffered injuries, whereas the 8th seed ended the season strongly and would have had a better record if its star had not been hurt in the beginning of the season.

My proposal would make for better matchups. Leagues like the best teams to meet deep into the playoffs, and this makes it more likely that that will happen – because the team with the best record will avoid playing the stronger teams until late in the playoffs.

More choices means more drama, more arguments, more strategy, and so forth. I like it.

It might make travel plans a lot more complicated and expensive, but by restricting top-half teams to picking bottom-half teams it wouldn't be hard to keep the same home/away calendar.

The finale of the first season of The Apprentice was pretty long and fairly boring, unfortunately. The only redeeming feature is that with Bill's win white males have triumphed again! Go team!

I've seen American Idol maybe twice, and I know the most entertaining part of the show is laughing at the losers. Fine. It's funny to see awful, untalented people parade on stage. Most of them know they're awful, and the ones that don't need to have their illusions shattered some time -- it may as well be on national TV.

But the situation with William Hung is different. He's awful, and as Candace points out those promoting (or exploiting) him are profiting off the traditional Asian-male stereotypes Mr. Hung embodies. What disgusts me more than the suppliers of this nonsense, though, are the consumers.

William Hung may act oblivious, but he's not stupid; he's one of the suppliers. He's making tons of money, and he must know that to continue his success he has to keep playing the fool. I get the impression he's gaming the system and making the most out of the twisted opportunity the entertainment industry has created for him. I also suspect his promoters and handlers know that he's in on the joke, and that they're happy to play along as long as he's willing.

I don't think William Hung is an idiot, and I don't think his promoters are racist, but they're all profiting off the lowest common denominator in our society. This is nothing new. From America's Funniest Home Videos to Jack Ass to Punk'd to The Apprentice, the audience loves seeing other people get hurt and embarrassed. That's the very foundation of the reality-TV revolution.

The 2000-year-old man once observed: "Tragedy is when I bang my thumb, comedy is when you fall down a manhole and die." Almost all comedy denigrates someone or something (that someone cares about).

When it comes to Mr. Hung, there's no doubt that part of what makes him funny is his race; the humor is inherently racist. Is it worse than the racial humor in movies like Friday or Malibu's Most Wanted? Is laughing at racist jokes worse than laughing at the 88 guys who get their arms and legs chopped off in Kill Bill?

No. What's insidious about people laughing at William Hung is that, unlike the audiences of the movies above, they aren't in on the joke. Most people don't realize Mr. Hung is acting the fool for their amusement, they think he really is a fool, and they revel in it.

So I heard Maxim Magazine came out with its "Hot 100" women of 2004, and I figured this would be a good opportunity to grab some hits from Google by dropping a bunch of names. I can't seem to find the actual list on Maxim's site, but here's an alternate that doesn't appear to have any pop-ups or indecent images.

Just to prove how disconnected I am from pop culture, I don't even recognize the names of half the women on this list. Still, even with my limited awareness, there are a bunch of choices that strike me as rather poor. It shouldn't be very difficult to find 100 beautiful women, but it's pretty clear that some of these were selected based on other criteria. Talent, fame, wealth, exposure... any of these could be the foundation for a top 100 list of its own, but if you're going for "hot" then don't get sidetracked by these other considerations.

Anyway, here's my take (at least on the ones I have strong opinions about ("strong" being a relative term)).

Overrated:
3. Christina Aguilera -- looks like an alien
10. Halle Berry
15. Janet Jackson -- crazy
27. Nicole Richie
32. Mariah Carey -- also crazy
38. Liv Tyler
40. Shania Twain
67. Christina Applegate -- used to have a crush on her... back in the late 80s.
71. Posh Spice, a.k.a. Victoria Beckham

Underrated:
9. Jessica Alba -- super hot
18. Keira Knightley
19. Kirsten Dunst
21. Elisha Cuthbert -- gorgeous, and her name reminds me Cuthbert from The Dark Tower
31. Jessica Biel
73. Mandy Moore
79. Zooey Deschanel -- super-cute in Elf, and also has a great name

How about these ladies, who weren't even mentioned:
Eliza Dushku
Amy Smart
Claire Danes -- well, maybe not, but she was great in My So-Called Life
Who else?

I love The Apprentice. Last night's episode was kinda boring, and the highlight came near the bottom of the hour when Amy was cut: a huge surprise to me, and probably just about everyone else.

I think the Don was smart to drop her though, and here's why. She seemed competent, but Mr. T's advisors caught on to what was obvious to the viewing audience for a long time: she's all donut and no creme filling. Not only that, but as one of the men who interviewed her said, her loyalties weren't to Donald Trump.

One perfect example of her disloyalty took place a few weeks ago in the episode where Katrina was cut, in which the teams had to develop plans to convince gamblers to sign up for a players' club at the Trump Taj Mahal. Amy's team's plan was stupid, but that wasn't her biggest failing. About halfway through the episode -- when she realized her side was losing -- she started using a bullhorn to call gamblers who were already playing away from their machines and tried to get them to sign up with her team.

This may have helped her score, but there's no question that the tactic cost Donald Trump money. Those people were already gambling, and by calling them away Amy showed that her first loyalty was to herself, not to her boss. Donald Trump wants to make money, and any scheme run by a subordinate should further that ultimate goal. Amy was concerned with winning the competition, even if it hurt her boss' business.

No one on the show really mentioned Amy's actions, and Katrina ended up getting Fired. Not a big deal, because Amy was still more valuable than Katrina, but I knew then that she'd never make an exceptional lieutenant. Without loyalty, all the brilliance in the world is useless.

So we're left with Kwame and Bill. Based on how the final competition is going it looks like Bill is going to win, but there's no way to tell for sure. I'm pretty confident that Trump is purposefully encouraging the contestants' co-workers to cause trouble and sabotage the events, but I'm not sure if that will be revealed next week as part of the show, or if the audience will instead be allowed to think everything is going wrong on its own.

A final thought: the men ended up winning largely because, as a group, they were older and more experienced. Many of the women on the show were in their early 20s, but the men were almost all in their late 20s. Those few years make a huge difference (in a lot of ways).

I have to face my fears.

Drudge has a flash story about Alanis Morissette pretending to strip (perishable) on some pretentious, self-aggrandizing award show, and some of her comments show just how bizarrely out-of-touch celebrities can be.

Morissette strips down to blast US 'censorship'
Mon Apr 05 2004 14:14:52 ET

Not another wardrobe malfunction !! ... feisty rock singer Alanis Morissette poked fun at Janet Jackson's notorious breast-baring episode by stripping on stage to reveal cartoonish fake nipples and pubic hair.

Morissette, hosting Canada's annual music awards, said the stunt, in which she appeared in a provocative skin-hugging body-suit was intended to expose US "censorship."

The singer, renowned for her angst-ridden lyrics, told the audience at the Juno Awards in Edmonton "we live in a land where we still think the human body is beautiful and we're not afraid of the female breast."

Morissette let a dressing gown fall to the floor to reveal her "nudity" after an announcer warned : "we can't show nipples on national TV," in an obvious dig at US outrage fanned by Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" at the Superbowl.

"I am proud to be able to stand here and do this," Morissette said, to wild cheers from the audience at Sunday night's show.

Morissette then blasted US radio stations which have forced her to change the word "asshole" in one of her songs.

"They're in an era when they're scared, when there's lots of fear," she said.

END

Oh please, spare me the martyrdom. First of all, you're a coward; you didn't have the guts to really take your clothes off, so you wore a bodysuit. How absurd. (Sound familiar?)

Secondly -- assuming I'm part of the "they" who don't want naked people and cursing on the public airwaves -- what exactly do you think we're afraid of? Historically, naked people have been pretty powerless. There's never been a naked president or general; there once was an emperor with no clothes, but everyone eventually agreed that he was a fool.

It may be hard to believe, but we're not afraid of you, we just don't like you. We find your nakedness and superfluous cursing to be aesthetically unpleasing. We don't want our kids to grow up to be like you, because absent the publicity machine of the fading music industry you're a pathetic, angst-ridden loser. You've written some music some people like, and that's a nice accomplishment, but it gives you about as much moral authority to pontificate on war, censorship, and politics as Humpty (pronounced with an "umpty").

Get off your high-horse and get some perspective on life.

Update:
I just considered: this is yet another reason to encourage file-sharing! Any endeavor that will result in undercutting the political clout of loony celebrities deserves our support.

Murdoc casts the 9/11 Commission hearings as a baseball game, but misses the well-known established fact that politics is already vastly more entertaining that baseball. I'd be more impressed by an attempt to sex-up baseball by stuffing it into a metaphor of political intrigue!