Petra Nemcova: the Next Tyra Banks?

America’s Next Top Model made it through 9 cycles of ridiculous photo shoots--“murdered models” being among the most memorable--before falling victim to the inevitable piracy of reality television and spawning TLC’s A Model Life, hosted by Petra Nemcova. Fans of Top Model are likely to be skeptical; Nemcova may boast a sexy accent and be decidedly easy on the eyes, but how can she rival all the fiery fierceness that is Tyra Banks? Contestants on UPN’s hit show certainly tend to be on the loony side, but viewers are just as likely to tune in to hear Tyra’s words of wisdom (“Smile with your eyes….like THIS!”) and view her wardrobe choices (which reached a sartorial peak last season, in which she displayed an undeniable propensity for gypsy costumes) as they are to watch a group of photogenic twentysomethings throw tantrums. Nemcova gets props for surviving a tsunami, but does she have enough oomph to sustain an entire reality series? After all, everyone knows the essential ingredient for reality television success: a good host. Imagine American Idol without Simon Cowell, and you get the picture.

Until a trailer surfaces for A Model Life, here’s proof that Petra Nemcova is not an ugly person.

A Musical Phantasmagoria

There's something deeply wistful about Tara Busch's "Tag," resting somewhere between the realm of nostalgia and nightmare. This song is such that it simply can't be listened to without also watching the music video; they both compliment each other so perfectly. The birds hypnotically swirling together like a great wave in the sky, like an ominous harbinger of disaster straight from a dated horror film -- it's all so strangely familiar and alien. It's a dreamy lilting tribute to an innocent world long since past, naive and menacing in its unfulfilled possibility.

HIM Continues to Confuse

Ah HIM, you and your bizarre use of the English language. Sure, it comes across as "deep" but it's actual quite nonsensical. "Passion's Killing Floor"? Are you kidding me? That doesn't even qualify as a metaphor.

Nonetheless, though the lyrics may be wanting, the music is absolutely beautiful. HIM's "love metal" really does stand apart as a genre of its own, and this song even managed to win over my cynical death-metal loving heart. While HIM's particular brand of hormone-dripping laconic melancholy can sometimes cloy, "Passion's Killing Floor" is just heavy enough to keep one from switching to mute. The video below is a fan's mashup of prior HIM videos as an official music video is yet to come. However, if their musical improvement is any indication of the band's general direction, I'm sure the coming audiovisual experience will be completely jaw-dropping.

Hey Paula

Paula Abdul’s long awaited reality show, aptly titled “Hey Paula” aired tonight on Bravo with two episodes for the price of one. Upon partaking in the blessed event, we’ve come to the conclusion that recent media speculation about her potential substance abuse as an explanation for bizarre behaviors is in fact off-base…it’s simply sleep deprivation driving her to insanity. We genuinely mean that. The show itself was entertaining and Paula is everything you thought she was…most notably emotionally fragile, demanding and difficult – but also funny! She has the occasional sparkling one-liner…that she inevitably ruins for us upon laughing at her own brilliance in way that is reminiscent of Ursula the Sea Witch. But hey, we appreciate the fact that “the funny” is in her nonetheless.
http://www.bravotv.com/Hey_Paula/index.php

Twin-Size Bed of Love

Vama's "Bed of Love" plays like an arthouse romance, chronicling a day in the life of an exceptionally good-looking couple. The life in this love affair has apparently run its course, and the muted color scheme of this video perfectly reflects that. What happens when love ceases to be passionate and exciting -- when love ceases to be "love?" Vama would have us believe that ending it (preferably amicably) would be the best solution.

From the conservative jammies, the separate cereal boxes, and the playfully platonic exchanges to the final "break-up" scene, this is the tale of love gone gray. Love gone gray in the most beautiful way possible, but gray nonetheless.

Promise to Stay Conscious

Gillian Welch’s decision to tour with Bright Eyes further mellows her already tamed musical career. Welch’s album Soul Journey lacked the spark of the earlier Time (The Revelator) and Bright Eyes have never had much spark, churning out lyrics and musical arrangements that could pass for slightly risqué lullabies. In the tour’s recent Toronto stop, Welch and Oberst performed Lua together. Welch sings the lines “I've got a flask inside my pocket/ We can share it on the train/and if you promise to stay conscious/ I will try and do the same” with a force that intensifies the otherwise anti-climactic performance. But her solo still lacks the biting tenderness that characterized Welch’s My First Lover or Revelator.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hn4kIkFxN8

Hello?

More music from across the ocean, this time in the form of Namie Amuro's "Hello."

Well, even when the Japanese aren't being original, at least they're consistent. This video is very consistent in theme (cellphones), color scheme (washed out black and white with lots of maroon), hairstyle (long and wavy, long and wavy, and...long and wavy), and unoriginality (jiggling chicks in tiny outfits). In all though, the video's actually rather entertaining. The music's good and the visuals are attention-grabbing -- in particular, there's this one scene where she's surrounded by floating cellphones. Perhaps this is an audiovisual commentary on how society has become so dependent on technology as to have become completely disconnected. What seems like a typical musical confection is actually an intellectual study of modern pop culture!

Then again, maybe not. Whatever it is, it has a cute chick in it.

GTA IV (what else is there to say?)

Wow, the graphics are bomb, the acting is top-notch, you can blow the TIRES, and there's an AWESOME electronica soundtrack. Well, at least for the trailer: dananana, buh duh duh duh dhan, and so on. The pedestrians now actually EAT SNACKS -- how awesome is that?! Hopefully the improved AI also means they now know not to jump in front of my speeding vehicle, but one can't hope for miracles.

Apparently the story follows Niko Bellic, an Eastern European immigrant (note the accent), as he does typical Grand Theft Auto things in his pursuit of the American dream. If you don't already have an Xbox 360 (for shame), go down to Target, pick up a console, then run on over to the nearest game store and get your name on the waiting list for the waiting list for the waiting list. Ooh, the trailer's enough to send shivers of delight down one's thighs. The game will probably render sex completely obsolete.

His Saturday Night

Picture the scene (and feel free to change the genders). Saturday night. She gets dressed up for a night on the town and goes out dancing. She's got plenty of options for a soundtrack all about the club. He's waiting around, maybe driving, relaxing. Song of choice? More laid-back than Dan Bern, but a little more lively than Pete Yorn, The Orchids' "Another Saturday Night" fits the bill. If the video's merry-go-round and young boys in a band can occasionally seem cloying, with lyrics like "To the grit in your eyes and the wind in your hair," and the earnestness is endearing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hxkrUz0k88

Run for your life!

There's something so deliciously entertaining about J-pop, especially from the perspective of American pop culture. In contrast to our cynicism, gangsta materialism, and irony, Japanese musical idols are unapologetically cavity-inducing. There's no sense of self-conscious satire or parody; this is bouncy, effervescent, and bubblegum fun.

The latest PV (that stands for "promotional video," another indication of its complete commercialism) by Japanese pop sensation Koda Kumi, this little ditty follows Kumi's "sexy" and "cutie" alter-egos as they galivant through a pastel colored comic book world. Even her attempts at sexiness come across as only rated PG -- and she's supposed to be the Britney Spears of the rising sun. Speech bubbles and adorable attempts at Engrish abound.

The Immigration Debate on Acid

In watching some average Joe’s youtube commentary on the Senate’s defeat of the immigration bill, I was not surprised by the person’s lack of rigorous and cogent analysis. I was surprised by the person choosing to visually alter his personage in such a way as to make himself look like the lovechild of David Blaine and Albert Einstein. Try to pay attention to the substance of the video (what little there is), rather than staring in wonder into the artificially green eyes of the vaguely menacing man.
As for the substance, I do agree with the man that opponents of the immigration bill tend to be simplistic in their proposed “solutions”. But one should be reticent to accuse others of simplicity when offering a 44 second commentary on a 600+ piece of legislation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYfhFE7ahcM

The Fantasy that's not so Final.

Have you played the original Final Fantasy a zillion times? How about its Game Boy Colour or Playstation remake? Well, time to play it a zillion more times. Final Fantasy is being re-released yet again for the Sony PSP.

Final Fantasy and its thirteen sequels suffer a lot of obvious irony jokes, but the original still holds up pretty well. Better, some fans contend, than the newer games. There’s no complex plot to follow, no mini-games, no twelve-hour monster summoning graphical displays. It’s just you, a warrior, a thief, a fighter and some mages. If you’re not sick of remakes already, go forth on the PSP. The graphics are sharp.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/21082.html

A Tribute To "Old Gil"

Sad sack Gilbert Gunderson is one of the most endearing of the many wonderful characters that The Simpsons has introduced us to through the years. Gil is also one of television’s most loveable losers, a guy that never catches a break but always picks himself up after the fall, dusts himself off and looks to “seize the day.” Always hoping to catch a break, Gil has gone through a literal meatgrinder of disastrous situations, including failed careers in real estate, computer sales, even working on a used car lot. This loving tribute to Gil recaps his storied, if tragic life by presenting some of his best bits from the show, providing plenty of laughs and maybe a tear or two from the viewer for “Old Gil.”

William Gibson's Idoru

For his ground-breaking 1996 science-fiction novel Idoru, cyberpunk author William Gibson created the concept of the “Idoru” or “cyber-idol,” a computer-generated young woman that was so beautiful and so realistic that people actually fell in love with her. Based on Japanese culture, Gibson was unusually prescient even by the standards of his visionary work – just three years later, the Horipro Entertainment Co. of Tokyo introduced the first Idoru to Asian culture in the form of Kyoko Date. The work of 50 computer animators that took 18 months to give birth, Kyoko Date became a pop culture sensation in Japan, scoring several hit records.

When her singing career gave way to other fleeting trends, her handlers re-imagined the cyber pop star into “Diki,” the first Japanese singer to release a CD in Korea. Kyoko Date wasn’t entirely a virtual fantasy, however…her vocals were sung by an unnamed female (human) vocalist. Not so with MNJP, the first completely digitally-generated Idoru. Even her vocals are created by the computer bringing, perhaps, Gibson’s original concept full-circle. Oddly enough, MNJP’s voice is eerily beautiful and quite enchanting, making one wonder what direction music and culture will be headed in the future….

Fear Of The Dark

Every man and woman with a cell phone in their pocket believes themselves to be a professional lensman (or woman). Folks, putting the democratization of technology aside for a moment, let’s just settle this right now, shall we? Just because you CAN do it doesn’t mean that you SHOULD do it – three minutes of grainy footage shot above the heads of your fellow concert-goers doesn’t put you in the running for documentary filmmaker of the year. Stop flooding the online video channels with your “content” until you bone up on the basics of videography. That minor complaint aside, this three-minute video of Iron Maiden, shot on…ahem…somebody’s cell phone, works on several odd and disturbing levels. Yeah, so the images and lighting look like a kindergarten watercolor, and the sound is distorted to just about anybody’s threshold of pain. But the band’s performance kicks serious tail and all the blurry imagery, bright colors, visual explosions and over-amped sound recreates the experience of standing there in the front row. Now if some drunken fanboy would just spill a beer on me, I’d think that I had died and gone to heavy metal nirvana….

Memory Of A Colour

One doesn’t have to be a translator to grasp the meaning of the song “White Out,” which is sung in both Japanese and heavily-accented English. A stark, sad video painted in gray tones and a somber vibe, the song and direction are perfectly matched with Japanese singer Tetsu (formerly Tetsu69) delivering an artful portrayal of a romantic spurned. Clad in urban distresswear, the singer paces uneasily throughout the canyons of some large city (Tokyo? Paris? London?), pining for his lady-love. Three-and-a-half minutes into the song, Tetsu breaks into a heartbreaking guitar solo that serves as a coda to the bittersweet betrayal that he’s feeling. The story ends tragically, perhaps, for the song’s protagonist, but not so for Tetsu. An international idol with an enormous fan base in SE Asia and most of Europe, the United States is the only world left to conquer for this talented musician. Perhaps it’s time that we had an Asian rock star in the U.S., eh?

Clothes Make the Very Rich, Tall Young Men

With there being no suspense about who the number one and number two NBA draft picks would be, the only question left was this: What would Mr. Oden and Mr. Durant wear? See, when you take a nineteen or twenty year old guy, give him a huge chunk of change and introduce him to a high end tailor, the result can be fashion high comedy (good example: Jalen Rose's classic mobster pinstripe done in technicolor red instead of the usual charcoal. He looked like he rushed over to the draft after finishing his turn as Sky Masterson in a production of Guys and Dolls).

Alas, Messrs Oden and Durant were annoyingly tasteful in their wardrobe picks. Check out the videos below where they walk onstage, shake hands with David Stern (who I think whispers to them something like, "I don't care how much money you're going to make son, I'm in charge of this league and don't ever forget it." He is the true Godfather.), then do a sitdown with Stuart Scott, who continues his streak of not ever asking an interesting question.

http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/nbacom/draft/2007_oden_g_1.asx

http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.php?content=video&url=http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/nba/nbacom/draft/2007_oden_g_1.asx

In other draft news, the Sonics trade Ray Allen to the Celtics for their #5 pick (Georgetown's Jeff Green), along with Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak. So Ray Allen, who thought he was going to have the opportunity to play alongside budding superstar Durant now finds himself on his way to Boston, where he'll have the opportunity to, well, suck. Meanwhile, upon finding out that's he's been traded to hot-for-Durant-Seattle, Szczerbiak excitedly applauds and promptly dislocates both shoulders. He has been impressively almost Pavano-esque in his ability to get injured. Almost. No one tops the Carl when it comes to the inexplicable season ender.

New Noah Baumbach

The First 500 Hundred Are the Hardest

Frank Thomas, a dude who I personally would not pick a fight with, joins the 500 HR club...and gets tossed out of the game. Heavens to Murgatroyd, isn't that like getting thrown out of your own birthday party?

P.S. The Big Hurt must be glad that he hit the Big Five Oh Oh in Minnesota instead of Toronto, 'cause I guess up there it would only have been worth .94 of one U.S. home run.

Here's the recap.

http://broadband.espn.go.com/ivp/splash2?id=2919888

Shits and Giggles

Michael Showalter was once the most promising cast member on MTV's The State. I think. I was twelve and I thought he was the cutest. Or the least threatening. Whatever. The point is that it seems Mr. Showalter has fallen on some hard times: he has been relegated to producing an original show for collegehumor.com. The good news is that the show is hilarious, combining a stiff talk show format with "real" backstage footage. Here Michael Showalter exposes the truth about director Jean-Luc Godard: the only film of his that anyone has heard of is Breathless.

Also there is a lot of talk about friend and frequent collaborator David Wain's explosive shits.

Paint it Black, Mario

Remember Mario Paint for the Super Nintendo? It was essentially MS Paint on crack. The “game” came with a mouse, which you could use to create your own 24-colour masterpieces, including crude animations (“crude” as in minimal, though the descriptor probably works in the other context as well given the target audience).

There was also a music-maker which allowed conventional notes to be replaced by little Nintendo noise-makers—Game Boy beeps and the like. Technically the idea was to combine Nintendo and music to trick kids into learning, but if anything the multiple sound effects available only added to the confusion. So kids made a lot of noise with Mario Paint’s music bit, but not much else.

Thanks to the magic of Youtube, the few individuals who were capable of actually making (somewhat) gorgeous Mario music can now share their efforts. Here’s a rendition of the infamous Chicken Dance.

Fetal Celebrity Syndrome

Oh, is nothing sacred anymore? Not even the womb of one of America’s most overexposed celebrities, it seems. But why not? If Nicole Richie indeed is preggers, Paris Hilton’s equally media-starved gal pal no doubt would, if she could, try to exploit her unborn child just as she’s milked every other part of her so-called life. Taking a sonogram and intercutting it with subliminally quick images of an anorexic-looking Nicole, of Paris, of some dweeb said not to be the father, this acerbically sarcastic and bitterly amusing prank, as voiced by the little fetus himself, has such a nasty tone, it almost sounds as if it were written by one of Nicole’s less-than-potent ex-boyfriends.

http://grouper.com/video/MediaDetails.aspx?id=1929387&ml=fx%3d

American Death Metal Idol

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Silver Surfing—Not!

Droll and low-key don’t usually translate all that well on web videos. They do, though, when you’ve got the right performer. Whoever this Silver Surfer dude is, he’s comfy poking fun at his own chubby self even as he takes the air out of the antagonist of one of summer’s umpteen overbloated comics-derived megapix (in this case, FF2). Jack Black he’s not, but he and the filmmakers take a tiny sketch-comedy premise (the Silver Surfer going for an actual surf on the beach) and ride it out without overriding it.

http://www.dumpspud.com/index.php?module=item&action=show_item_decr&item_id=1302

Phantom of the Hourglass

The Legend of Zelda series of video games is as ancient as the Nintendo Entertainment System. The hero of the electronic epic, a green-garbed warrior named Link, is one of a very few characters who can be relied on to deliver hours of consistent fun and adventure.

The latest Zelda game, The Phantom Hourglass has been released in Japan to a near-perfect review score in the popular game magazine Famitsu. Hourglass picks up where The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker concluded some years ago on the Gamecube. Link sailed off to find new adventure, and if this introduction for Hourglass is any indication, he’s still sailing and is pretty damn pleased about the matter.

The US translation of Phantom Hourglass will be out for the Nintendo DS this winter.

More than meets the eye?

One of the minuscule failings in the upcoming Transformers is that the Decepticons don't have any distinctive coloring to let you know who they are. How are we supposed to tell that that's Starscream? By the fact that he has a "simian body shape" and "small bird-like feet"? Gee, thanks Wikipedia.

In any case, the videogame looks kind of mediocre (as movie videogames are wont to be). The gameplay's very been-there-done-that, and the whole thing just doesn't look very exciting. It's more of a movie advertisement than anything. On that note, watching it however is guaranteed to whet your appetite for the coming movie.

Thug 4 Life $eeks Ladies 2 Chill in His Bafroom

Ah yes, exactly the shining young fellow that all the ladies want. Fresh out of lockup and ready to toss up, he comes with authentic jailhouse ink, and "yoke" sculpted from yard iron and prison grade meat. This is the man that dreams are made on, no um sane?

"Skoogy1" claps repeatedly (as if a man of his caliber needed help keeping our attention), and takes the time to point out his naturally shiny patina in front of a wondrous astrological shower curtain; at the snatchworthy age of 19, our man may broadcast from his toilet, but he's reaching for the stars.

No Need for Brain Cells

Some kind soul apparently thought it'd be a sublime idea to mash together Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" in 8 different languages. This person couldn't be troubled to actually edit the songs together, so we're instead treated to a repetitive bombardment of the same verse over and over and over again. Still, it's great ammunition in those "what's wrong with pop culture today..." conversations/debates/spittle-swapping-fiery-exchanges-of-the-non-sexual-sort. Who knew this song could suck in so many languages?

Japanese People are Weird

In case there is any doubt as to the previous statement, let me provide the following video. No, it isn't hentai.

So in this game, aptly/strangely named The iDOLM@STER, you the player are charged with producing nine prospective pop idols ranging from the ages of 12 to 20. It's innocent and cute, which is why it's all so very creepy. From their little girl voices to their small, rape-able bodies, the whole thing veers a bit too much towards the realm of pedophilia. Maybe it's just me, maybe I've been exposed to too many hentai games that had underage "love interests" with little girl voices and small, rape-able bodies. Still, this seems more like wanking material for those who found the Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball girls a bit too "mature" than an actual videogame experience. It might just be me, or maybe -- just maybe -- Japanese people are weird.

Sell It Like Beckham

David Beckham is going to be a huge star in America. Really. It's not like he's coming here to dwindle out his career in a fifth-rate league no one pays attention too. Now that the rest of the world is justifiably sick of him, the Beckham media blitz is gearing up to go full force on America. While our world-class attention span guarantees we'll be sick of him in a matter of minutes, this new video of Becks playing around with Reggie Bush is actually pretty funny. The contrasting football stars take a turn at each other's sports and if nothing else, Becks can try out for a career kicking extra points if the whole Hollywood thing doesn't work out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfpm7FrdQyI

Rock on, all ye Guitar Heroes, rock on!

IGN has had the opportunity to preview and review the upcoming Guitar Hero III, and it looks/sounds/feels/tastes like this will be the best videogame in the history of man. From a new multiplayer mode (there's a broken string feature, how awesome is that?!) to refreshingly authentic venues (DIVE BARS!!!), this next installment in the Guitar Hero series takes the game from interactive air guitar to your own rockstar legend. Let us raise our goblets of rock and heap praises upon the pagan gods of depravity and awesomeness.

No, But How Old Are You in Spice Years?

What exactly is so enduring/endearing about a true pop act? Their meteoric careers are always so well-documented to the point of overexposure that this media ubiquity offers a convenient time line against which to measure the passage of time in our very own lives. One can inadvertently date events in their own life and navigate the past through certain indelible episodes of pop stardom. Consider the Beatles-Ed Sullivan-Sgt. Pepper’s-Summer of Love axis through the grunge-Kurt Cobain-Marilyn Manson-Columbine era and the parallel cultural shifts simultaneous throughout those years.
So the re-emergence of a super-manufactured, multi-cultural, girl-positive female pop group whose global supremacy once elicited disbelief some 11 years ago makes one ponder what has gone on since their first time around. What paradigm shift has transpired in the pop world and what has occurred in our techno-social-geo-political landscape? That’s what makes The Spice Girls reunion seem so underwhelming. Do our lives and their careers appear so different?

Meet the Vets, Meet the Vets

Cabbage Patch dolls in major league baseball uniforms? What a great idea! What little girl or, um, boy wouldn't want to have a Cabbage Patch Doll dressed up and ready to play for her or his favorite team? Gosh, this must have been a huuuuuuuge seller for all those baseball and doll and, well, cabbage fans.

P.S. Notice that the players wear blue and orange "Vets" uniforms while the doll is dressed in a Met uniform. The Vets? What kind of Vets? Are they returning servicemen? Or are they qualified to give your cat a feline distemper shot? And while you're studying the unis, don't miss out on those spandex tight, pre-hip-hop '80s uniforms. Compared to uniforms now, these could be worn by the chorus of a production of Damn Yankees as produced at La Cage Aux Folles. Yikes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80uVrKKN3gI

Everybody Loves Kevin

News has leaked out that the Portland Trailblazers will indeed do the only thing that makes sense and draft Ohio State's Greg Oden as the top pick tonight. Fair enough, Oden looks like a pretty solid bet to become a franchise player. But there should be no doubt the guy sponsors, media and the NBA have a crush on is Kevin Durant. This witty new Adidias commercial with Gilbert Arenas makes it clear why the D.C. native has attracted fawning press coverage all over the place. He's charming, funny and ready for the limelight. Oden may make the bigger impact his rookie year, but the Seattle-bound Durant is about to become a huge star.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVaLX0wi5pY

Trapped In The Clueset

Can't wait for July 24 when chapters 13-22 of Trapped In The Closet drop? Enjoy this gleefully executed tribute to the first 12 chapters of R. Kelly's masterpiece. The filmmakers have chosen to ask themselves the question, "What if we combined Trapped with the 1985 movie Clue?" What follows is an R & B romp featuring the likes of Mr. Green, Ms. Scarlet and Mrs. White, all summoned mysteriously to a dinner party and all mysteriously singing about it.

While the singer in this video does not have R. Kelly's musical chops (who does?), he has perfected two of the Kellster's favorite tricks: the art of singing sound effects and of rhyming words with themselves because you can't think of another rhyme.

Chasing Ghosts like so many Pac-Men

When you walk into an arcade today, what do you see? First off, you’re lucky to find an arcade in the first place. They’re becoming rarer than unicorns, outside of amusement facilities like Dave and Busters or maybe as a cool, dark attraction for kids to duck into during the hottest part of a visit to a theme park.

A few old-school arcades still cling stubbornly to existence. They’re usually dusty-smelling holes in the wall with dead hobos gone stiff beside DDR machines covered with baked spit. It seems like it’s been centuries since the arcade was king.

The upcoming movie “Chasing Ghosts: Beyond the Arcade” is a look back at an era when people lined up out the door to play “Asteroids”, “Defender” and the gorilla King of Kings, “Donkey Kong.” The film will feature testimonials from arcade-crazy individuals who spent a small fortune acquiring high scores.

Have your parents been going on about the worthlessness of the current electronic-crazy generation? "Chasing Ghosts" will be the perfect rebuttal.

The Day the Music Died Pt. II

Yesterday, a substantial portion of the Internet radio stations operating in the U.S. muted their broadcast and observed a day of silence in a symbolic act of solidarity and protest against an unfair increase in royalty rates levied against them. A new schedule of fees to be applied in two weeks increases the amount owed for mechanical royalty payments by a factor of ten or more. This act will essentially bankrupt the majority of all Internet radio providers, at least those truly independent entities operating without funds from a large parent-company.
How did we find ourselves here? Major record labels (the primary lobby behind the new law) desperate to prop up their out of date business models that bring in less and less every year through traditional record sales, now resort to extortion, exacting unfair and unrealistic royalty payments from people that simply can’t afford them. But there is hope! The Internet Radio Equality Act is a simple, logical solution to this issue. This proposed legislation scales royalty rates according to the size of the broadcast entity. Everyone gets paid, radio diversity remains intact!

Keep it on the Down-Lowe's

On the moral spectrum, which is worse – the john who picks up a hooker in his company’s delivery truck, or the guy who stalks the john with a video camera on his own free time, and tries to go all “To Catch a Predator” on him and get the john arrested? That’s exactly the question we wrestle with in this video shot by “Video Vigilante”, Brian Bates; who is frustrated by the johns lurking in his neighborhood and the “whores” who service them. After busting in on the happy couple in the back of a Lowe’s truck, things get into a very weird area as Bates chastises the john for paying $100 on a hooker when he could have purchased a ring for his wife from a pawn shop instead. But the real hilarity ensues when Bates calls the cops, who seem a little more than annoyed by the whole thing. (Perhaps 911 shouldn’t have been the first option here, Brian.)

iPhone Schadenfreude

Okay, so we're all officially sick of the iPhone. Here's a little rundown about what's wrong with it so you won't feel so bad that you don't own one of these virtually useless pieces of junk.

http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=58330&videoChannel=6

Jumpstyle

Jumpstyle is a dance craze that’s sweeping…well…somewhere. It’s a European thing I believe. This particular video was made in France and it’s not the only one. The web is peppered with young men, jumping and kicking in tune to some song or other. I don’t get it but then again I don’t get most of these new dance crazes. Hey you think if I did this for 20 minutes a day I could drop those 20lbs I’ve been trying to lose?

50 Cent Not Quite Keeping It Real

When singers get caught lip-synching during live performances they can blame it on laryngitis or misplayed back-up tracks. But can a rapper retain any credibility when caught faking it? 50 Cent had an embarrassing moment at the BET awards last night during his supposedly live performance, when it seems his lips kept moving but the vocal track stopped playing, even though his mic was clearly still working. 50 takes it all in stride, going for a stroll through the crowd, killing time while he waits for the vocals to start playing again. After the show, the sound guy entered the witness protection program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIulzpN1G34

Shakira

Alright. I decided I'd throw a bone to the men out there. I'll readily admit I have a bit of a girl crush on Shakira. Let's face it, she is hot, can sing, and who wouldn't want to be able to shake their hips like that? Well if this video is any evidence, she has a huge fan out there with too much time on his/her hands. Fellas, you own me for this one. Enjoy.

Interview With a Zombie

If you’ve ever watched an episode of The Simpsons, then you’re probably familiar with Ralph Wiggum’s tendency to blurt out statements that are irrelevant, and yet touching in their childlike simplicity (“My cat’s breath smells like cat food!”) Check out what happens in this short clip when a reporter stumbles upon a young boy named Jonathan who has just had his face painted to look like a zombie. Let’s just say that his answer moves her – literally – as she quickly pats him on the back and moves on.

Good times at the Waterfront Village, indeed!

Clark and Michael

Much like Arrested Development, the show he starred in, it took a few episodes to get into Michael Cera. At first he seemed simply quiet and nice. But the more you watched, the more you realized that Cera's quiet asides were hilarious jokes that you either caught or missed entirely.

Now Cera is teaming up with Clark Duke to bring his understated baby-faced comedic presence to a weekly web series. The two play best friends and roommates trying to make it in Hollywood. Enjoy this weeks episode of the hilarious mockumentary and then watch all five previous episodes!

Dr. Frankenstein

Having a rough day with the kids? Ever wonder if you’ve created a monster? Well rest easy. Things could always be worse. Just think of Dr. Frankenstein and the monster he created. So as your child has the umpteenth temper tantrum of the day, throws down their class of milk and yells, “No. I ain’t eating no stinking peas,” relax, watch this video, enjoy Evanescence playing in the background and just be grateful that your little monster is no where near as bad as Dr. Frankenstein's.

Remember those Magic Eye tricks?

Well, this isn't quite Magic Eye, but take a look and see if you can pass the test. The object is to count how many passes the white-shirted people make. Keep a close eye on everything going on in the image. Chances are, you'll probably miss thanks to "inattentional blindness;" in other words, concentrating too closely. Magicians often use this in their shows to perform their illusions.

glumbert.com

Meltdown

Crying and excuses are to be expected from Top Models when they're exposed on TV as unable to read, walk, or...look pretty. But on Top Chef, histrionics aren't usually the reason to watch. Micah's exit changes things a little. She's not a natural "cohabitator," and she's not used to being in the fast-paced restaurant world and oh-its-just-so-hard! Besides, she was forced to make American meatloaf, and she's from South Africa! Er, was that Massachusetts? Televisionwithoutpity.com has a better synopsis of this episode, number 3 of season 3 than bravotv does, so be sure to take a look if you've missed it. And Micah, don't despair. No one likes meatloaf anyway, and maybe Top Caterer will come out soon.

Cool Runnings

The sport of parkour, for the uninitiated, is essentially urban running: the idea is to sprint through a challenging medium – for instance, a construction site – in impressive fashion. Players leap from rooftop to rooftop, or slide across horizontal I-beams, or otherwise endanger life and limb in awesome ways. The obscure sport received exposure last winter when it made an appearance in James Bond, and parkour videos briefly proliferated.

Parkour has failed to achieve mainstream acceptance, however, due partly to its lack of a real objective: there are no goals, or bases, or time limits. Participants run around like extremely athletic chickens with their heads cut off until either they get tired or break a femur. Perhaps in an attempt to render their pastime familiar to Western palettes, then, the St. Petersburg Parkour Association presents Parkour Ball, the bastard child of soccer and gymnastics. If you didn’t value your health, you might be tempted to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EAxQbJTSdY

Is it getting drafty in here?

Gosh, is it already NBA draft day? Seems like the playoffs were just ending--what? You missed the NBA playoffs? Let me recap: The San Anton... zzzzzzzzzzz...I'm sorry, the San Antonio Spurs are so boring I can't stay awake long enough to tell you what happened. They won. Those who watched suffered. Let that be enough.

There is no doubt that the offseason has been much better for the NBA than the regular season or playoffs. First, you do have a draft with two likely megastars, Greg Oden and Kevin Durant. Then you had the Kobe trade me/keep me controversy, the Kevin Garnett trade rumors, the wondering about which team will give us all that big "They picked who?" moment (I'm betting on the Hawks--they have two first round picks which gives them multiple opportunities pick the wrong player or make a mind-numbing trade. Plus they're the Atlanta Hawks).

Sports drafts--they give you hope, they give you despair, and sometimes they just give us all a collective, "Huh what?" If you're late to the party, here's a little primer from ESPN to catch you up on the rumors and all that:

http://broadband.espn.go.com/ivp/splash2?id=2919054

Stephen's Imaginary iPhone

For months now Stephen Colbert has been dropping not-so-subtle hints about the iPhone on his TV show The Colbert Report. He wants one, and he has made no secret about it. Well the iPhone is out now, and Stephen does not have one. Watch his frustration come to a delicious boil as he is forced to review an imaginary iPhone, and identify with his plight, for you are a mere mortal and will never be able to afford the tantalizingly beautiful iPhone.

Mmmm...ear...

It's been a long time since boxing was a mainstream sport, but was it only ten years ago that Mike Tyson was a mainstream star? Big parties, Tyson was there. Awards ceremonies, Tyson was a presenter. Movie premieres, Tyson was on the red carpet. How beloved was Mike Tyson as an American sports hero? Let me put it this way--he was a guest voice on the Simpsons. Enough said. But ten years ago today he crossed the line from tough guy, more than a little thuggish, championship boxer to just plain weirdo. Yup, it's the decade anniversary of the "biting Evander Holyfield's ear off," fight.

ESPN put together this little piece about the event, and you know, we may not be able to produce great boxers anymore, but boxing commentators sure can still hack it with the best of them. One Boston writer describes Tyson's state of mind this way: "Dogs bite when they're scared, not because they're aggressive." Michael Wilbon throws in a still incredulous, "...the ear just went flying across the ring!" And Teddy Atlas sums up Holyfield's victory over Tyson in terms reminiscent of the Keyser Soze speech in the Usual Suspects. A little long (4-5 minutes), but interesting stuff nonetheless.

http://broadband.espn.go.com/ivp/splash2?id=2919092

Stumbling on Colbert

Here's a guy Colbert didn't even have to nail. Daniel Gilbert, talking about his book Stumbling on Happiness, does the work himself. The book is about how difficult it is to predict what will make us happy. It won't teach us to be happy, it will just let us know why all of our efforts are...bzzz...wrong. This clip will also explain how having children is similar to noticing a refrigerator light and give a glimpse of Colbert as a dedicated dad.

Less Scary Than The Real Laguna Beach

One of MTV's gems is a little show called Laguna Beach, which features rich teenagers dating and shopping a lot. The girls also steal each other's boyfriends and talk a lot of smack about one another, as in, "That girl has the personality of a wet rat." The boys also encourage each other into various acts of chicanery with such gems as, "Dude, she's not your girlfriend, you don't owe her anything."

Once I was watching a Laguna Beach marathon on my wonderful Jet Blue TV, when the man next to me, also watching the marathon, turned to me and said, "These children are horrible, and they're about to be unleashed upon the world!" With that in mind, the remarkable thing about the following clip is not that it is such a clever spoof, but that the creatures fit so seamlessly into the drama. If you ignore the webbed hands and green faces, it is exactly like a real episode of Laguna Beach.

Kool-Aid: Breaking Down Barriers for Over 20 Years

So apparently, Kool-Aid man has been rudely busting through walls without consequence for some time now; as evident in this commercial from 20+ years ago. Not much has changed since then; he’s still damaging property and causing chaos to the delight of kids who don’t seem one bit frightened that his breaks might give out, causing him to steam-roll right over them. Adults still watch passively in the wings as he destroys drywall and fences – then sugars-up their kids. Some things never change! Except maybe one thing – and we can all agree this is positive: at least nowadays, Kool-Aid man wears pants.

Anderson and Larry Talk Paris

Anderson Cooper agonizingly discusses the Paris Hilton/Larry King interview with Larry last night on his show. Both men seem to not understand the phenomenon of Paris - join the party, boys. According to the interview, Larry says that Paris has never been drunk or done illegal drugs before. Yeah, okay. Paris says the problem is the public's negative perception of her and not the fact that she uses the "n word" in public or made a sex tape. This confuses Anderson, as others should be.

The real winner of this interview comes in at the end of the video. Larry pwns her during the "What's your favorite Bible passage?" question. Guess her publicist didn't prepare her for that question.

Larry 1 - Paris 0

The following video should not be funny

A true-life tale involving Vietnamese children who escaped child abuse and fled to America should not be funny – even if it is delivered by an evangelical Christian woman in a fringed cowboy outfit. It shouldn’t be funny...but it so is – and here’s why: the story somehow also involves pirates and hidden gold. But the ultimate hilarity comes around 1:45, when we get to see how these children have transformed their pain into praise. Don’t “skip” it.

Dragonforce Speaks!

Dragonforce may well be the “next big thing” in the heavy metal world but, truth is, these British battering rams are no overnight sensations. They’ve been headbanging away at the back door of success for nigh unto a decade now, demanding a hearing with blistering assaults on yer eardrums like 2006’s Inhuman Rampage album. This brief Metal Hammer magazine interview with Dragonforce guitarists Sam Totman and Herman Li does little to dispel the image of rock musicians as dunderheads with cheese for brains. The nonsensical questions asked of the pair include gems like “what would your superhero name be” or “how are your man skills?” Li is the more articulate of the two, pontificating at greater lengths at every query, but what stands out the most is the playful banter between the two expert shredders. BTW, Li’s superhero name? “The Annoying Bastard.” It figures….

The iPhone Mash-Up

With the much-heralded and, some would say, over-hyped arrival of the Apple iPhone right around the corner, Internet pranksters (you know who you are) are having a grand old time slicing-and-dicing Apple’s ubiquitous television commercials for this week’s “must have” fashion accessory. Regardless of whether you consider the impending feeding frenzy and inevitable news reports about retail iPhone shortages to be a sign of the coming apocalypse, or you plan on being at your favorite local Apple dealer bright and early on opening day with fistfuls of ready cash, this is one damn funny video mash-up that makes a not-so-subtle, albeit clever commentary on modern consumerism. (Caution: graphic language)

Ritalin - Now With a Get Out of Jail Free Card

Faith-based social worker Paris Hilton had her post-big house sit-down with Larry King last night (because no one else wanted her). While the King doesn't get any amazing scoops, he does clear up that little issue about the health problem that convinced the sheriff to spring Paris. Apparently it wasn't herpes, anorexia, or getting her butt kicked, but just her life-long struggle with ADD. Nice. I don't mean to ridicule the cancer of my generation, but you have to give the Hiltons credit for even just having the idea that they could get her out of jail based on her faulty attention span.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwnwgZIB2v8&NR=1

Duffers Rock Over Deutschland!

One of the most interesting aspects of this thing called the Internet is the medium’s ability to rescue obscure cultural moments that would have one time been lost to the ages. Case in point: this delightfully spry performance of Nick Lowe’s “Half A Boy And Half A Man” by a band that includes John Hiatt, the Rumour’s guitarist Martin Belmont, and Squeeze’s Paul Carrack. Recorded for the Rockpalast television show in Germany, the performance dates all the way back to December 1983. It’s Hiatt’s show, but he stands back, cool and composed, and lets Lowe belt out the rollicking tune while Carrack bangs away like a kid at Christmas at his double-decker piano/keyboard combo. MTV may not play music videos any more, but ultra-cool performances like this one continue blaze across the ‘net like a shooting star to delight and entertain.

Revenge of the iPhone?

Steve Jobs’ latest electronic atrocity, the “iPhone,” goes on sale this week, and already some pundits are decrying the expensive gadget as a commercial failure. But what if Jobs’ intentions aren’t...shall we say...entirely benevolent? What if – and this is a big “IF” – the iPhone takes on a life of its own, “smartens up,” as it were? Would the results be a global catastrophe patterned after the self-aware computer network from The Terminator films? Or will it simply become the next here-today-gone-tomorrow electronics trend that ends up on a pile of recycled parts in India? Died-in-the-wool luddites will enjoy this video parody, while the rest of us will simply hold our collective breath and pray for the second coming of John Connor.

Originality is Overrated

In this ground-breaking bit of video editing, we see Beyonce copy Kylie Minogue copy Samus from Metroid Prime. These poptarts might think they're a crafty bunch, but we -- the gaming community -- sniff out plagiarism better than dogs sniff the nether regions of complete strangers.

Honestly though, if Beyonce's going to rip off the act of another artist, the least she could do is do it better. It's like one of those counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags they sell in Chinatown; it isn't a tribute, it's a blatant slap in the face. From enough electrical bells and whistles to light all of North Korea to C-3PO (AHA another rip-off!), it's a definite artistic step down. When one considers the fact that Beyawnce is supposed to be a music industry luminary, how does this reflect on pop culture as a whole?

Not well, my darling reader, not well at all...

Here Comes The Witcher

The PC adaptation of the Polish book series “The Witcher” has been a long time in coming, but October 2007 is the Big Day. In the meantime, if you do not orgasm over the latest trailer from Atari UK, you are obviously one of those killer robots in the skin of a person (Long Live the Human Resistance).

The Witcher books, written by Andrezej Sapkowski, are incredibly popular overseas. The game and the stories both star a mystical monster hunter (“Witcher”) named Geralt, a menacing dude with a big sword. CD Projekt promises Geralt will be able to interact with his environment to a degree previously unheard of in PC games. If The Witcher’s game play even touches the quality of this new cinema, October will be a month for PC gamers to jump up and down and squeal like idiots.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwCr8Ekr51g

Note From Colin - THURSDAY Exercise

Hi guys,

Thanks to all for the posts onto the experimental blog. The exercise has now ended, and I think has been a great success.

Looking at these posts, my feeling is that we can produce a provocative and absorbing read as well as linking to the best videos of the day. Once the site launches, the feel of the site will be improved by its design and navigation, which I hope to share with you in the near future. I pointed the president of Future US to the blog and he made some very enthusiastic noises, which is always a plus.

I've received some comments and questions from a few of you. One remarked that the site needs to avoid degenerating into some collection of 'hilarious' clips of people falling off things, and this was a point well made. There's nothing wrong with those vids, which we've assigned a "Stupid' section to; but this site is mostly about culture and art and news.

There was another question about the timeliness of videos, which is absolutely essential. Gloob.TV is about new videos, primarily. It is also about footage that our readers have probably not seen before, even if it's older. What it emphatically is not about are vids that have been doing the rounds for days or weeks. Nothing will ruin our credibility more than posting as new, vids that our readers have already seen.

The question is...how much good content is out there on any particular day?

I want us to find that out this coming THURSDAY.

We will run a 24 hour trial run posting videos onto the Blog that are no more than 24 hours old, at the point of posting. This exercise will begin at 6am Eastern and will continue until 6am Friday.

I'd like to hear from you if you absolutely cannot take part in this exercise; I'm hoping to have at least a dozen writers available for this.

There will be no upper limit on the number of posts you can make that day. I will probably assign some of you to particular content areas (e.g. TV, Games, Sports). I'll be interested in following up with you about your experience that day. How difficult was it to find content etc?

So please let me know if you are not available this Thursday. (If you've already told me you're not available this week, don't worry about it.)

Also, feel free to send me your comments or questions.

Just to reiterate, Gloob.TV will not have a strict 'only brand new vids' rule, but the experiment on Thursday must ONLY include videos that are no more than a day old.

Some Men Buy a Sports Car

First we had "Rocky Balboa." Many may have spent that entire movie hoping Sylvester Stallone was still in one piece (read: not turned to ash) by the time the credits rolled. Now Bruce Willis is starring in "Live Free or Die Hard", which will surely be a big hit in New Hampshire (too esoteric? Check any NH license plate). And there's another Stallone flick on the way; a trailer is circulating for an as of yet amorphous "Rambo" movie that shows some needless slaughtering and is almost laughable except for...well, the fact that it's needless slaughtering (although honestly, it's still laughable, if just for the sheer excess of gory action footage). And then there's Mr. Harrison Ford, another actor/ex-heartthrob looking to revisit his blockbusting youth in the latest Indiana Jones movie: "Indiana Jones and What Will Surely Be the Last Crusade. Seriously." However, all jokes aside, Harrison Ford is The Man, and if anyone's capable of putting the sex in sexagenarian, it's Indie. Meanwhile, watch the Rambo trailer and chuckle at how old Sly is:

Lite-Brit(e) Rock

“Lite-Brite makin’ things with Lite-Bri-ee-ite/Outtasite makin’ musical art with Lite-Brite.” Aestheticizing all that was tacky from the days of Pong to Tron (circa ’72 to ’82), this catchy Krautrock-inspired music video from F&M (three tweaked lads from Brighton), takes nothing more than the dots and dashes of dice and dominos and turns it something rather beautiful. Created by Britain’s Factory Films, the same outfit behind videos from the likes of Gwen Stefani and Gorillaz to the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand, this catchy nonsense tune visually weds Communist China poster art to Jumbotronic pixellations. Endlessly captivating.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5XVeENmLMk

Water-Balloon Ballet

No, it’s not Pixar. It’s merely a silvery metallic-looking water-filled balloon being dropped on a hard surface. Gorgeously photographed (as per the mission statement of lucidmovement, a video blog out to “display the wonder of the world through the lens of a high-speed / slow motion camera,” as a means of providing a “video reference for artists and researchers by including information on how the shot was created including specific camera settings etc.”), this sublime and sublimely simple—and soundless—spot conjures exponentially greater numbers of objects with each viewing: now it’s an eggplant, now it’s an elephant, now it’s a pear, now it’s a . . .

http://www.lmstorage.net/FreeFull/WaterBalloon1.rar

Imagine, yes?

MTV’s Cribs has spawned a proliferation of parodies, but this one from the comedy team at Oldeenglish.org is by far the winner in terms of originality. Here we enter the home of Michel Gondry, director of The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. In true Cribs style, our tour is accompanied by a soundtrack of slick beats that could not be more out of synch with the charmingly off-kilter Frenchman. Gondry is known for his imaginative visual effects, and his home is an extension of his surreal movies. The video nails Gondry’s quirky sensibilities, and provides some chuckles as well.

http://www.superdeluxe.com/sd/contentDetail.do?id=D81F2344BF5AC7BB5708A754A3BC010F85D8FF1D528F2FEF

Attack of the Gridlocked Artists

Last November, I saw Joan Baez in concert and found she’d maintained her 1960s self: still obsessed with Dylan, still a Vietnam-style activist, still singing ‘Amazing Grace.’ Nonetheless, she was endearing. The same goes for Pattie Smith and Laurie Anderson, whose new collaboration begins with the words, “The histories of the universe lie in the sleeping sex of a woman.” In Attack of the 50ft Artist, Patti speaks over Laurie Anderson’s music. Their message hasn’t changed: women are oppressed even when liberated. The video plays like a history lesson, starting with Egyptians and moving to the Rimbaud’s writing, about which Patti says, “That was a hundred years ago. Get cooking.” Neither Patti nor Laurie has gotten cooking. But they’re still busy telling everyone to break from inhibition, which, like Baez’s Dylan crush, is sweet because it’s so human.


http://www.livevideo.com/video/9C42012F118D48C9BBC7998E8189ABA5/attack-of-the-50ft-artists-.aspx

If They Did It

Ever since The Simpsons became a household name, Fox has been working to spin the show off into a lucrative flim franchise. Creator Matt Groening held out, knowing Hollywood script hacks would deal a death blow to the show's one-of-a-kind creativity. Nearly two decades later, and only about a decade too late, The Simpsons movie is finally a reality. Hard-core fans have permitted themselves mild excitement, hoping against hope that the movie will actually be closer to the Conan O'Brien-fueled genius years than the recent, slapsticky mediocrity. Now, Fox has released the trailer for this summer's release and the verdict is....eh. I'm not saying it looks as bad as some of the recent seasons, but if these are the funniest parts, well, consider The Simpsons murdered.

http://www.flixya.com/video/96046/**NEW**_Simpsons_Movie_Trailer_06-21-07

America's Next Top Breakdown

Tyra Banks did not become one of America's 100 most influential people by keeping her emotions in check. The titillating talk show host has spent most of the last year ranting that she doesn't care about tabloid photogs zeroing in on her fatty undersides, and to prove how little she cares, Tyra gives an Oscar-worthy speech on her show that includes plenty of finger wagging, an apparent hunger strike threat, and an "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore" style freakout.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VJ5unYaNd3c

Deacon Does Pufnstuf

More bizarro electronica from Baltimore’s version of Thomas Dolby. Looking like a Bill Murray creation outfitted in Elton John’s Captain America glasses, Deacon, a classically trained composer with a Masters degree in electro-acoustic composition, here performs “Ohio” for Savannah, Georgia’s NBC affiliate WSAV. Notorious for his psychedelic Sid and Marty Krofft-like music videos, this cheesy morning-show TV appearance captures Deacon’s uniquely eccentric musical and personal charisma at its most raw. (Look closely, too, then tell me he’s not soccer star Landon Donovan’s doppelganger.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvoXgTEaLT8

P. Diddy, Bjork, and Pizza

“And the arms squeeze out of my shoulders/I curl my tail in words/I set my clock on the moon/Vertebrae by vertebrae”
--Bjork. Ok, her lyrics may bit a bit…strange…but Bjork is a woman with vision, so we can look past that. Still, imagining the conversations that must go on between her and her collaborators is sure to be a good time. What was said to make Medulla happen? How did she and Catherine Deneuve interact in Dancer in the Dark? Until a tell-all comes out, I’ll settle for this imagined dialogue with P. Diddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvlHN95cui4

Me Want Cookie

As anyone who has seen his 2005 masterpiece Trapped in the Closet knows that R. Kelly is a genius. Kelly himself attests to this fact in "The Champ", the first song of his new album Double Up. Kelly says, "I'm clever enough to know that the industry needs me." Kells uses his smarts to promote his new album. He knows what the people want: more R. Kelly. Thus R. Kelly TV is born. In this clip, Kells eats a cookie and proves that he is funny as well as clever. Meanwhile, the strains of "I'm a Flirt", the first single off of Double Up, play tantalizingly in the background.

Without Breasts There Is No Paradise

Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso is the story of a flat-chested teen prostitute who believes that salvation lies in plastic surgery. When the telenovela first aired in Colombia in 2006, it broke the ratings record previously held by Betty La Fea. Now that ABC has scored a critical and popular hit with Ugly Betty, NBC is at work on Without Breasts There Is No Paradise. Even without the publicity-generating complaints of some feminists and “pro-family” types, this show seems destined for success: It’s difficult to imagine anything more appealing to the American viewing public than the chance to watch an underage sex worker plying her trade week after week, and surely U.S. audiences can appreciate the desire for a nice rack as deeply as Colombian viewers. This clip is a promo for the new season of Sin Tetas. A viewer who, say, completed two years of college Spanish will have trouble following the dialogue, but it’s impossible to miss the impassioned delivery—a signature of the telenovela—and one might just catch the young heroine telling a plastic surgeon that she wants “las tetas grandes.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R6oSlGEfZM

Comparing Robots in Disguise

The upcoming Transformers movie has filled the general male populace (plus me) with bladder-bursting anticipation and dread. On one hand, the trailers have left us salivating at the prospect of an excellent adaptation. On the other, as with all cinematic adaptations there's invariably the possibility that all will go horribly wrong (i.e. Silent Hill). Only time -- and imdb.com -- will tell.

As a sort of starting course in what will be a veritable Transformers feast, here are the trailers from the 1986 and 2007 movies.

It's interesting to note that the movies' respective star power went from Eric Idle, Citizen Kane, Dr. Spock, and that guy in "Breakfast Club" to...Shia LaBeouf. But hey, Peter Cullen (a.k.a. God) is once again voicing Optimus Prime, ergo the coming movie will have to be awesome. It's the law. Such is the holy power of Cullen.

Education Ahoy!

Having been injected into the host's flesh by a gracious mosquito carrier, the botfly larva inhabits its cozy little meat cocoon until it finally grows its wings and flies away. Thus does the circle of life turn.

In this land of fructose and honey, it's difficult to comprehend the existence of these "exotic" parasites and other such perquisites of Third World life. Luckily, we may employ the internet to better educate ourselves as to how blessed we are. Unless of course, you just happen to find these morbid little videos absolutely fascinating and actively seek them out to gratify your utterly depraved mind. You sick little education junkie, you.

Hint: Keep an eye on the bottom left hole. ;)

Adorable Little Hellspawn

There's nothing quite as entertaining as watching small children emulate belligerent male adults. LoL! It's like a dogfight with puppies, only with a physical altercation instead of a dogfight and adorably clumsy toddlers instead of puppies. Had this been a fight between adults it would've simply been slightly stupid. Children however, make this otherwise unremarkable occurrence (fights and hockey go like teenage boys and bad porn) absolutely ridiculous. This video proves that you can make anything instantly hilarious just by using little children. Except for maybe pornography.

A Not-So-Happy Refrain

As this video suggests, Scottish band Camera Obscura’s sound and aesthetic signal a different era. “Lloyd, I’m Ready to be Heartbroken” is the first single from their 2006 album, Let’s Get out of this Country, and it highlights singer Tracyanne Campbell’s plaintive, effortlessly lovely voice. In the video, a clean-cut couple straight out of the 50s dances through a series of colorful scenes, starting with dazzling department store interiors and evolving into a mishmash of patterns. (Check out the third mannequin at 3:07—Paris Hilton on the lamb?) Seamlessly woven in is a charming clip from Singin’ in the Rain. The 50s overtones heighten the song’s wistfulness, and it is this strain of sadness that brings depth to the band’s sweet sound.

High Art, High Balls, Girls Get in Free!

It’s a night at the museum indeed! One can only wish it was so charming and fairy-tale-like. Instead of dioramas reanimating themselves to offer a bit of adventure and timeless wisdom, it’s bloodthirsty youth superimposing a bit of empty streetwise posturing in the hallowed halls of high art. The LACMA Museum in Los Angeles holds it’s monthly late-night ‘art-party’ with bands, DJs, and a well-stocked bar.
It begs one question. Are all these monolithic, heavily-endowed museums over-compensating for their decades spent out of touch with that certain all-important demographic, wooing them now in that most shameless manner—throwing a party? It’s a dubious assumption that any event like this is anything other than a drunken melee, a party thrown in a particular big house, with the added illicit thrill that the parents (read, docents) are away. Do you think the artist intended that piece to be viewed upside-down mid-keg-stand?

What's Waits Doing Out There?

Tom Waits shams obnoxious playboy, edgy artist, and slightly obscure cultural icon. He isn’t a household name—only select people under twenty-five know of him—but he’s tried everything from folk to opera. Waits has a new project scheduled to release in 2008: Award winning Icelandic filmmaker Dagur Kari’s The Good Heart. Waits plays a bartender who suffers five heart-attacks and he won’t have trouble staggering or slurring; he did plenty of both for his 1993 role in Robert Altman’s film Short Cuts. He’s also sounded hung-over ever since he released his first album.

In anticipation of Waits’ new project, I want to revive a gem of a film that never made it on to youtube.com or itunes. Last fall, artist Matt Smithson composed an intonation piece to Waits’ “What’s He Building in There?” Smithson’s film is short, smart, and striking, keeping Waits’ guttural voice and eerie persona from becoming intolerable. I wish Kari the best of luck, but I doubt he can do as much with Waits as Smithson did in under a minute of screen time.

http://www.manvsmagnet.com/motion/waits/waits.html

Future of flight...a real snooze?

On Sunday July 8th, the Boeing Aircraft Company celebrates the rollout of the first prototype fuselage for it’s new 787 Dreamliner aircraft. This majestic jet represents Boeing’s prospect in the global commercial-aircraft industry that has shrunk to two rival firms, the European consortium Airbus, and Boeing. With Airbus sales surpassing Boeing for the first time some five years ago, substantial pride and fiscal solvency rests on the success of the next generation of airplanes marketed by each company. While visually stunning, the French firm’s behemoth A380 double-decker aircraft has run into substantial delays and cost overruns, while the Dreamliner has secured more orders than any aircraft in history. Boeing has spared absolutely no expense in touting the bells and whistles of this contender.
So what does this fantastic machine of the future look like? Well, at first glance, it’s nearly indistinguishable from most wide-body commercial aircraft manufactured in the last 50 years. Upon slightly closer inspection, we see where all the research dollars were spent. Two words: mood lighting. The Dreamliner indeed!

Beyond T.I.S.N.F.

The renaissance of 70s and 80s trends is hardly novel anymore, but is that really such a bad thing? Amid the barrage of patent leather platforms, leggings, and VH1 specials, Justice’s D.A.N.C.E. manages to capture a 1975-1985ish music scene—catch the P.Y.T. reference—with just the right touch of modern irony. Kids’ voices, jazzercise-worthy dance beats, neon on black, and pop art are all fun when they’re not taken too seriously by fashion magazines or smarmy TV special commentators.
If only for the “Internet killed the video star” T-shirt, the video’s worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo_QVq2lGMs

And for the real thing, check out this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXGMlIUiWPo

"I'm Lovin' It"

You've got to be able to afford a car while also being too cheap to actually pay for your $.99 cent burger at McDonalds for this ploy to work. Ultimately, that means this clip is probably meaningful to a very small percentage of the population... those borrowing their friends and/or parents cars? OR, you could always go the route of the guy in the second video, although we imagine that timing the interception while remaining undetected could be problematic. P.S. just don't bother attempting this on thirty nine cent Wednesdays. Somehow, staying out of trouble seems like it'd be worth more than the 39 cent payoff.

America's Next Scared Bunny

This animated parody of America’s Next Top Model skewers the series, showing that like most reality TV fare, its entertainment value lies in its absurdity and exploitation of contestants. Yes, the graphics are crude, but they suit the subject matter. The show’s regular judges are all excellently captured, which makes sense because they’re basically cartoon characters anyway. Miss Jay wears his standard puzzling ensemble and vacant expression in what can best be described as a mentally ill person’s attempt to look regal. Sweetly oppositional Twiggy makes a pronouncement that has nothing to do with her fashion industry savvy and instead reveals a bizarre fetish. The skit lampoons the show’s unrelentingly self-important tone and rejoices in its ridiculousness in a way that Tyra Banks wouldn’t tolerate.

Your election's gone flaccid

By now we’re all used to American politicians declaring “war” on anything that makes them unhappy, be it terrorism or the pencil-necked intern who knocked over their morning espresso. The “War on Drugs” is a weary battle familiar to children who grew up in the 80s and received lectures from the likes of Yogi Bear and Nancy Reagan. Isn’t a little ironic for a cartoon to come to life and speak about recreational drugs?

Drugpolicy.org, with a little help from YouTube, addresses the futility of the War on Drugs. Just remember you can go to jail for smoking a joint, so if you crave an added effect to this movie, have your doctor prescribe a whack of narcotics. Don’t forget a prescription for the medications you’ll need to lessen the side effects.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRPxN7DGy5c

Are You Not Entertained?

Some will find this clip of the band "New Wheels on the Block" offensive bordering on obscene, others are finding it hilarious, most will probably find it both simultaneously. This linking of disparate reactions, emotions, ideas, images, etc., is what the brilliant Arthur Koestler, in his book The Creative Process, labeled "bisociation." The author argued that bisociation was the engine of all creation – the linking together of two things that weren't previously thought to belong together ("You got peanut butter in my chocolate!"). Physical handicaps and the self-involved, juvenile sexuality of rock singers don't seem at first glance to belong together – but why not? According to bisocation, if one can find a way to link them together that's effective, the result should be successful. And isn't pain the basis of the humor in nearly all the great physical comedians' work? If this train of thought is followed long enough, it ends up here: to be offended by the New Wheels is to condescend to them, to feel that you know better than they do what's best for their lives. Presumably, that's to live a life of quietly meek invisibility somewhere you're not confronted with them. They know what they are doing, which is trying to become famous by making their audience laugh. They are using their physicality not as a limitation but as a gift to provoke humor, no less than Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton did. As cheap as the production is, as low-brow the subject mattter, New Wheels are funny. Brake your chair and dig it.