Entries from November 2005 ↓

Louie C.K., the man who responsible for Pottie Tang and some funny, funny shit on The Chris Rock Show among other his other credits, is the subject of a very excellent cover the of Boston Globe Magazine.
Seems Louie’s been preoccupied blowing away the sitcom conventions for HBO.

After decades of being the staple of network television, the sitcom is dying. Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond exist only in the world of reruns now, and this season, only one sitcom – CBS’s warmed-over Two and a Half Men – is among the top 20 in the ratings. The networks blame the sitcom’s struggles on the format itself, suggesting younger viewers have no use for the telegraphed setups and wacky mix-ups that have grabbed laughs since Ralph Kramden first clenched his fist at Alice. With Lucky Louie, HBO is hoping to send a different message: The only thing dead about the traditional sitcom is the traditional networks’ execution of it.

Can’t wait—can’t wait to see the results. Sounds hilarious.

Also, a really great new interview with another favorite comedian of mine, Patton Oswalt.

A special thanks to lindsayism.com for pointing me in the direction of the Patton Oswalt interview. A few years back, paging through an issue of Chunklet, Oswalt’s wicked, no bullshit approach, as well as the intelligence and true geek spirit really turned me on to his comedy. Buy Feelin’ Kinda Patton! Comedy gold!

A brush with evil: Serial killer’s painting brings bad luck, owner says
By Laurel J. Sweet
Sunday, November 20, 2005

A Malden man’s guilty pleasure of investing in murderabilia has come back to haunt him thanks to a “cursed” clown painting by serial killer John Wayne Gacy, which the collector claims turned his life into a three-ring circus.
“I just want to get rid of it,” said musician Nikki Stone about the late Gacy’s signed self-portrait of his terrifying alter ego, “Pogo the Clown.”
Since he plunked down $3,000 in 2001 to buy the framed oil from national murderabilia merchant Arthur Rosenblatt, Stone said his beloved dog has died and his mother found out she had cancer.
When a friend offered to store the painting at his house, the friend’s neighbor was killed in a car crash. A second friend who kept the painting for Stone attempted suicide, Stone said.
“I’ve never even hung it,” said Stone, who hopes a less superstitious buyer will at least cover the $3,000 he blew – even if only to burn the true-crime artifact.
The creepy conversation piece is now in the care of Stone’s pal Shawn McCarron, a consignment art dealer and owner of Kaleidoscope Tattoo & Art in Cambridge.
McCarron has had his own share of bad luck: His mother, Maureen, 58, was murdered in Malden in 1999.
“I’m not afraid of it,” McCarron said of the painting. “I don’t believe in the hocus-pocus and the bad mojo that comes with it.”
And if McCarron should pocket a buck or two from the oil’s sale, as he sees it, “Every murderer in the world should be rolled into one. They all owe me.”
McCarron keeps the Gacy under wraps, but said, “People do ask to see it. They get a chill through their body. I’ve had people say, ‘Oh my God, put that back in the box.’ ”
John “Killer Clown” Gacy, a suburban Chicago contractor and former shoe salesman, was executed in 1994 at age 52 for the torture and murders of 33 boys and men. Gacy, who also performed as Pogo the Clown at children’s parties, would kill his victims while raping them, then bury the bodies in a crawl space in his home.
Stone admits he once thought it would be “super cool” to own a Gacy original. “It’s the most evil of bastards who are most in demand,” he reasoned at the time.
And after all, actor Johnny Depp invested in a Gacy clown painting. Then again, Depp reportedly became so weirded out by the piece that he developed a pathological fear of clowns and unloaded the artwork.

It’s been well over a year since Elliott Smith died under mysterious circumstances. While there are no new answers there is a memorial site in place. Smith’s music has been constant in my life since first hearing it and no amount of scouring cd bins will bring him back.

However, a recent search did find this: Basement II Demos.
While it’s become second nature to download stuff without much though, it would be nice if after doing so in this case if anyone who visits this link makes a small donation to some sort of charitable cause. Buy a bum a muffin and some coffee, give a friend in need some cash, donate something to an organization, whatever. Just maybe do something nice in Elliott Smith’s name.

It’s a small price to pay for some really great music.

Yesterday, the Philadephia Eagles exorcism of the ego known as Terrell Owens, stirred much debate amongst talking heads.
Did the Eagles do the right thing? Should the team forgive and forget?
And, just how badly would a team want a to win to bring the T.O. circus to their franchise?
This is a question Packer fans are especially mulling over while crying in their beers after another loss last weekend.

Drew Olson and Dan Needles were debating the merits of bringing T.O. the “Great North” today on the D-List (ESPN Milwaukee AM1510) and the topic of asshole athletes that they’ve both dealt with on their respected beats soon brought about what they christened the “Turd Hall Of Fame”. Near the top of their list: B.J. Surhoff (cussing them out during a kids charity basketball game), Todd Day, Gary Sheffield (purposely overthrowing balls into the crowd, Milwaukee still hates him) and of course—Sterling Sharpe.

Likewise, Lindsay at Lindsayism.com has waged a war against all who love Jared Leto based on her encounters with the douche.

My man Cleo, the maintenance supervisor of the apartments around the Safehouse told me today, while I was fixing his computer that while in Vegas once happened upon Michael Jordan playing craps. He approached Jordan and asked for an autograph. Jordan said no. Cleo asked why and Jordan told him: “Because I’m the greatest. That’s why.” Cleo then, according to his story, had the presence of mind to then list off other people he deemed greater. Jordan just walked away.

My top Turds:

Sterling Sharpe—Encountered him while checking out Packer training camp while I was a kid. I watched other kids attempt to get autographs only to have his entourage chase them away yelling “Sterling doesn’t sign for anybody.” And he eats puppies. Well, he has to, who does that shit?

Chris Bosio—Standing outside for an hour after another Brewer’s loss, an eleven year old me, made way for Bosio as he held up to fingers mock cross style to keep us vampiric kid creatures from thrusting some baseball toward him to sign.

Everclear—I worked the event at UW-Oshkosh when these white trash motherfuckers breezed into town. As much fun as alcohol, underage girls, and drugs can be, cleaning up the remains blows almost as much as their music. Fuck ‘em.

So, what are the worst/most disappointing encounters you’ve had with athletes, celebrties, or entertainers of any kind?
If you have any good ones toss them in too.

Let’s have ‘em all. And, bonus points if it involves Tara Reid.

BIGGER THAN WATERGATE

By Ted Rall 1 hour, 7 minutes ago

Bush-Cheney Traitors Deserve Prison, Impeachment

URBANA, ILLINOIS—To weigh the outing of
CIA agent Valerie Plame against historical standards, consider that no leader of the Soviet Union—including that master of ruthlessness, Josef Stalin—ever arranged for the name of a KGB operative to appear in a newspaper. Adolf Hitler had countless millions murdered, yet getting at a political enemy by endangering agents of the Sicherheitsdienst, the Nazi intelligence service, didn’t cross his mind. In this respect, not even the worst tyrants have stooped to the level of George W. Bush.

Don’t let the Republicans distract you. Treasongate isn’t just about deposed vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby, who has been charged with five felony counts and faces 30 years in prison, or even deputy presidential chief of staff Karl Rove, who may soon be charged as well. The Libby charges clearly point to the real culprit:
Dick Cheney, who told Libby about Plame’s covert status in the first place. Cheney abused his security clearance to find out. “Libby understood that the vice president had learned this information from the C.I.A.,” reads page five of the indictment.

“Cheney doesn’t have a legal problem, but he has a political problem,” a White House official told the New York Times. For now.

The stink on Karl Rove rubbed off on his boss. When Treasongate first broke in 2003, Bush promised to get to the bottom of the Plame leak and fire everyone involved. Now we know that he is the bottom of the cover-up. “An angry
President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair,” reported the New York Daily News, which owns the story of this scandal, in an account the White House tacitly confirmed with a meaningful inside-the-Beltway no-comment: silence = truth. “A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President,” says the News.

An earlier News report revealed a secret White House
Iraq Group (WHIG) that “morphed into a virtual hit squad that took aim at critics who questioned its claims [that
Saddam Hussein had nuclear and biochemical weapons]” from late 2002 to mid-2003. WHIG’s members included Rove, Libby, and disgraced Times reporter/Bush stenographer Judith Miller.

“In our system,” Bush reminded, “each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial.” Unlike the thousands of people Bush tossed into prison after 9/11—without charges or access to a lawyer—Libby is a rich guy with pale skin. He gets to confront his accusers.

Democrats, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory as usual, say they’ll settle for an apology. The media is equally accommodating. “The Wilson affair is not Watergate,” wrote Todd S. Purdum in the New York Times, a paper known for its desire to be helpful to the Bush White House. He’s right. Treasongate is worse.

Much, much worse.

Watergate became the umbrella term for several scandals: “dirty tricks,” including money laundering and the burglary of Democratic headquarters, to steal the 1972 election in favor of
Richard Nixon; illegal wiretaps and break-ins used to silence and smear anti-Nixon critics like Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the
Pentagon Papers; and the cover-up symbolized by the erasure of 18 crucial minutes from a subpoenaed tape.

Together these crimes painted a portrait of a lawless president with advisers indistinguishable from gangsters. Nixon was a cheat, a thief, a liar and an all-around scuzball, and Congress was right to initiate impeachment against him. But, bad as he was, Nixon didn’t jeopardize national security for political revenge.

Treasongate includes many of the essential components of Watergate: smearing opponents of the Iraq war and their loved ones, financial shenanigans and a cover-up. Actually it was a cover-up of a cover-up; they lied about trashing Plame, who they targeted because her husband revealed their lies about Iraqi WMDs. Outing a CIA agent is the rancid cherry on top of a triple-dip blob of corruption. You can bet there’s more to come.

Trust us, they ask. We’re incompetent, not evil. That’s their defense.

“One can believe that the neocons are utterly wrong without also assuming that they are evil,” Nicholas Kristof argues in a Times op-ed. But people willing to lie their country into war and stab the people who protect it in the back—if we’re to believe them, by not bothering to check Plame’s status—are evil.

It’s like a case of vehicular homicide: Did Bush and his goons hit Plame on purpose or was it an accident? Either way, I want them off the road.