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media creaturism

June 02, 2006

 

jerry lee lewis' hometown blues

Someone I work with, who is originally from Mississippi, has a cousin who runs a bank down there, in the same town that Jerry Lee Lewis lives in. When this friend of mine mentioned to his cousin, "Wow, Jerry Lee Lewis lives there!" his cousin replied, "That old cracker is a miserable bastard." When asked why, his cousin replied that his bank hired Jerry Lee to perform at a function at the...
Posted by xtop at 08:45 AM | Comments (9)
 


May 02, 2006

 

sometimes i learn stuff at work

"The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement and distribution of anxiety." Eric Sevareid, American news commentator (1912-1992)....
Posted by xtop at 01:17 PM | Comments (0)
 


April 13, 2006

 

now go out there and do the ironic thing

Dr. Laura's intro music (cause I like to catch 5 minute bursts to reassure myself that we are still outnumbered by the stupid) for the 1 o'clock hour was Garbage's "Stupid Girl." Which so perfectly sums up Dr. Laura's philosophy of women (all idiots, all need men, all must take care of those men or, if men not possible, children, all must be berated, cut off, told they're total screw-ups and then...
Posted by xtop at 01:55 PM | Comments (0)
 


March 12, 2006

 

space war!

I've spent years searching for an unnamed, hand-drawn piece of animation I saw on an episode of Cartoon Sushi a long time ago, a cartoon that encompassed everything great and small, from crab-men to god as a spaceship head inhabited by screaming creatures. Maybe the best part is towards the end, where two robots fondle each other before tripping a unicorn and flying off to safety. Anyhow, now that I know...
Posted by xtop at 06:02 PM | Comments (1)
 


March 09, 2006

 

let the shat take the wheel

Subscribers to the William Shatner DVD Club will be open to experience Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy films in their purest form, appreciate the visions of filmmakers who take risks, and enjoy movies that truly represent the genre. With the help of my team of expert film critics, I will fill your library with the titles movie lovers need to own. I have assembled a series of films that run the gamut...
Posted by xtop at 06:34 PM | Comments (4)
 


February 06, 2006

 

ira glass' tivo testimonial

"Married people always want you to get married, people with kids always think you'll be happier with kids, and TiVo owners always believe your life won't truly begin until the day you get TiVo. God knows I believe that. I love TiVo. We actually have two TiVo boxes in my house, hooked up to our one TV. TiVo is based on an idea that doesn't sound so radically life-transforming when you first...
Posted by xtop at 11:08 AM | Comments (0)
 


February 05, 2006

 

fall, roman empire, fall

The point's been made so often, I guess I shouldn't even be posting this, but, seriously, what the hell is this that people are paying money so they don't have to lift their dog up on to the couch? Have all our needs been so sated that now we have to move onto the great 'how do i get the dog on the couch' dilemma?...
Posted by xtop at 01:32 PM | Comments (6)
 


 

the 4am comedy roundup

From the Sundance short film segment, Bob Odenkirk's "The Pity Card" (with special appearance by Zach Galafianakis), which asks the question, "Is the best place for a first date really the Holocaust Museum?" This is awesome. Gary, of Chucky Lou and a really great story about Bo Svenson, directed this short film. He showed it before an AV Club feature and it was tremendously great, even greater than Night Warnings, which may...
Posted by xtop at 04:34 AM | Comments (0)
 


February 04, 2006

 

the poor man's trump

Sorry to be redundant with the "have you ever seen?" nonsequiturs post fodder, but has anyone seen, just starting in the last week or so, the Trump infomercial? The airwaves have been bombarded with these poorly produced hour-long infomercials featuring Donald Trump sitting in front of a bad projection of the Manhattan skyline with a plastic infomercial female spokesrobot, discussing his financial seminars and doing what Donald Trump does, name dropping...
Posted by xtop at 11:07 AM | Comments (0)
 


January 31, 2006

 

This (widescreen!) American Life

"New Beginnings, Part Two: "In mid-January, Showtime made it official: we're going to produce a series for them, a television version of This American Life. We shot a pilot last year, and the full series will begin broadcasting in the fall or winter of 2006. We'll continue making the radio show while we do the TV show. Again: the radio show will stay on the air. "What we can say about the...
Posted by xtop at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)
 


January 07, 2006

 

HO(ly shit)STEL

As part of what seems to be a new Saturday afternoon ritual for me, I slipped down to the Palace to catch the first showing of Hostel, with a bag of popcorn and a coke in tow. And sonuvabitch, that movie didn't disappoint the way I was expecting it to. In fact, it may be the finest new horror movie I've seen in the theatre in, uh, well, maybe ever. As a...
Posted by xtop at 03:54 PM | Comments (4)
 


November 24, 2005

 

drudgegiving

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention how Matt Drudge celebrated the holiday:...
Posted by xtop at 07:04 PM | Comments (2)
 


November 22, 2005

 

a monster gets to put a thing on, and he gets to kill people. Pay that guy the most money!

Super in-depth interview (part 1) with Patton Oswalt, who completely resurrected my faith in stand-up comedy as viable beyond the small recorded legacies: I remember quitting a law firm I was working at because we were all in a room, and we were indexing testimony from a trial, and I had the radio on to 99.1, WHFS in Baltimore, which was like their little indie rock station, and all the other guys...
Posted by xtop at 11:39 PM | Comments (1)
 


October 28, 2005

 

john carpenter becomes his own creation

john carpenter in the onion: david lo-pan from 'big trouble in little china':...
Posted by xtop at 04:36 PM | Comments (1)
 


September 15, 2005

 

jay's journal

"The Los Angeles National Public Radio station, KCRW, broadcasts Ricky Jay's weekly essays on a variety of subjects which reflect his interests and passions. You may hear him deliver these selections every Monday 6:44 p.m. on KCRW 89.9FM, or with the audio application Real Player by clicking the corresponding headings. You may view appropriate illustrations from his collection necessarily unavailable to his radio listeners." I used to think This American Life...
Posted by xtop at 04:16 PM | Comments (0)
 


 

"Litigation is like picking up a glass of water with a prosthetic hand"

"Apparently," Waits said, "the highest compliment our culture grants nowadays is to be in an ad--ideally naked and purring on the hood of a new car. I have adamantly and repeatedly refused this dubious honor. Currently accepting in my absence is my German doppelganger. While the court can't make me active in radio, I'm asking it to make me radioactive to the advertisers."...
Posted by xtop at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
 


 

kurt vonnegut's list

LIBERAL CRAP I NEVER WANT TO HEAR AGAIN Give us this day our daily bread. Oh sure. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Nobody better trespass against me. I'll tell you that. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the merciful. You mean we can't use torture? Blessed are the peacemakers. Jane Fonda? Love your enemies - Arabs? Ye cannot serve God and Mammon. The hell I...
Posted by xtop at 10:49 AM | Comments (1)
 


August 15, 2005

 

"the end of the world is nigh, bri"

September 20th and I can finally watch this masterpiece of loutish British misanthropy again....
Posted by xtop at 09:08 PM | Comments (3)
 


July 26, 2005

 

close your eyes and it's almost like radio

From the NYT: IRA GLASS is having vision problems. This longtime public-radio producer, arguably the most visionary aural documentarian in the country, is not going blind; he is trying to bring "This American Life," his quirky and popular weekly radio hour, to the small screen. And he's worried that the bright lights of television might suck some of the power out of the show's intimate, confessional and often revelatory narratives. A director,...
Posted by xtop at 08:25 AM | Comments (6)
 


June 24, 2005

 

drudge insult-sequitur

From Drudge's transcript of Tom Cruise on the Today Show: MATT LAUER: So, postpartum depression to you is-- TOM CRUISE: Matt-- MATT LAUER: --kind of a-- TOM CRUISE: --don't-- MATT LAUER: --little psychological gook-- TOM CRUISE: That-- MATT LAUER: --googley-gook? TOM CRUISE: --no. No. I did not say that....
Posted by xtop at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
 


May 25, 2005

 

anton newcombe's history of rock

"People talk about Eric Clapton. What has he ever done except throw his baby off a fuckin' ledge and write a song about it?"...
Posted by xtop at 06:42 PM | Comments (4)
 


May 19, 2005

 

lost buildings

Ira Glass and cartoonist Chris Ware decided to co-report a story together. Ira does the sound. Chris does hundreds of drawings. The result is a 22-minute story, with sound and images, now on DVD for the first time. This story has never been on the radio. It was presented in pieces – as it was completed – on This American Life's May 2003 "Lost in America" tour, and at Royce Hall in...
Posted by xtop at 12:48 PM | Comments (3)
 


 

revenge of the 12:01 screening

Saw Star Wars last night at the drive-in at midnight. Which, I have to say, is probably the only place in the United States that was only half-full for a premiere screening of Episode III. Of the capacity of the Boulevard's lot, maybe 1/3 of it had cars. Waiting for more cars to show up was a pointless exercise and eventually the lights went dim, the guy who reads the Glow Pop...
Posted by xtop at 08:22 AM | Comments (7)
 


May 06, 2005

 

talk talk

Shame Week gets long-winded and creepy: For a year now, on and off, I've listened to conservative talk radio. There I said it. To tell the truth, in the last few months, ever since Terry Schiavo hit the news circuit, I've been listening to the entire line up of 710 AM here in Kansas City. Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, Alan Colmes and the one who got me started, the absolute worst of...
Posted by xtop at 11:53 PM | Comments (1)
 


May 05, 2005

 

one last time with feeling

Carry on, my Week of Shame: There was no denying I was in trouble when I brought it up at dinner last weekend, to people who obviously would never care nor understand. But brought it up I did, because I needed to talk to someone about the fact that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was over and I was not happy about it. In fact, uh, I was kinda sad. And yes, I...
Posted by xtop at 11:43 PM | Comments (14)
 


January 16, 2005

 

i have watched like 12 films since i got sick and this is the greatest fucking film ever

"You really wanna mess with whitey? I can show you how."...
Posted by xtop at 03:59 AM | Comments (1)
 


October 06, 2004

 

that is why you are called a little man by me

If you've been following the comments in the previous entry, you're either wondering what the hell is wrong with me or you're quoting along by heart the gospel of Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman. This being the holy relic that is Shut Up Little Man. Jeff told me about Shut Up Little Man first when we worked together on Michigan Avenue. "Have you heard about this? It's these two drunks living...
Posted by xtop at 11:53 PM | Comments (2)
 


August 19, 2004

 

the mad dog factor

Next to stories about abused kids, nothing pushes O'Reilly's buttons like stories about lily-livered, spineless, cowardly, anti-American lowlifes like these two deserters. He brings on a guest to "discuss" the "issue": Toronto Globe and Mail columnist Heather Mallick, who has dared to call the two deserters "fine American men." O'Reilly is not happy. And from the top of the "interview," he strikes that special note of scathing, keening contempt that might be...
Posted by xtop at 02:16 PM | Comments (0)
 


July 19, 2004

 

what's hot

Posted by xtop at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
 


July 15, 2004

 

If you are married, please close your browser

Ran across this on the Washington Post website of all places. So it's come to this? There's something so over the top about this whole thing that screams out JOKE, but, no, it's so very sadly real. Cause there's nothing worse than finding out your internet date is married, unless, I guess, you find out that they are also a convicted felon. The look on her face pretty much sums up...
Posted by xtop at 02:46 PM | Comments (2)
 


July 11, 2004

 

broomfield!

"Broomfield casually explodes the fragile construct of 'the objective' documentary in favour of a helpless absurdism totally in tune with the times. The tenets of an entire genre are implicitly mocked. He leaves in what others are trained to take out and doesn't appear to possess a traditional viewpoint — which explains why he angers liberals and conservatives alike." he's also wired different from the rest of us, totally shameless on camera...
Posted by xtop at 06:00 PM | Comments (0)
 


June 23, 2004

 

the grudge report

OH MY GOD, DRUDGE IS FUCKING INSANE...
Posted by xtop at 10:06 AM | Comments (6)
 


June 22, 2004

 

the lies of michael moore

Indeed, Moore's affected and ostentatious concern for black America is one of the most suspect ingredients of his pitch package. In a recent interview, he yelled that if the hijacked civilians of 9/11 had been black, they would have fought back, unlike the stupid and presumably cowardly white men and women (and children). Never mind for now how many black passengers were on those planes—we happen to know what Moore does not...
Posted by xtop at 06:38 PM | Comments (7)
 


June 11, 2004

 

drudgeulogy

first: then, after being briefed on the gamut of human emotional experience and the fact that, y'know, we've all had 5 FUCKING DAYS to get used to the 'tragedy,' matt decides to change his approach (though the headline-busting 1988 FLASHBACK remains): more updates as drudge's perseverations become public....
Posted by xtop at 03:37 PM | Comments (1)
 


May 14, 2004

 

yes drudge, you are very special

UPDATE: 11:52: It's a battle now....
Posted by xtop at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)
 


May 12, 2004

   


April 22, 2004

   


February 26, 2004

 

william melvin hicks

Bill Hicks Bootleg Archive (be sure to check out Filling Up the Hump, Hicks' last full, live show.) Death of a Comedian Comedian as Confidence Man Last Laugh (John Lahr's 10 years posthumous profile) The Silence of Bill Hicks (Lahr excerpt/Hicks letter on Letterman excerpt) Untangling Bill Hicks' Legacy Harvey Pekar on Hicks and Letterman...
Posted by xtop at 11:52 PM | Comments (0)
 


February 24, 2004

 

grey tuesday

Posted by xtop at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)
 


February 18, 2004

 

luck: pressed

because no matter how many times i've read it over the years, this is still one of the greatest stories ever: Inside the director's booth, a wave of fear was slowly crashing over the producers. The broadcast pace of Press Your Luck required evenly-spaced commercial breaks, timed to coincide with a player eventually hitting a Whammy. The player would go bankrupt, the action would stop, and host Peter Tomarken could take a...
Posted by xtop at 04:33 PM | Comments (2)
 


February 13, 2004

 

bongwater, brian eno, spalding gray

courtesy of Vinz' obsession with the perfect band, Bongwater. Kramer of selfsame explains the 'Too Much Sleep' album in perfect terms: During this time we did one of our first gigs, for a series called LOW CULTURE-HIGH ART at the Museum of Modern Art, that took place over several weeks at the rate of one installment per week. One week prior to our performance, I sat next to Spalding Gray in a...
Posted by xtop at 12:53 PM | Comments (0)
 


February 05, 2004

 

“Just leave us alone and we’ll destroy ourselves.”

"On Jan. 18, 2001, Adult Video News reported on the so-called 'Cambria List.' Paul Cambria, a longtime attorney for the porn industry, was involved in the list's preparation. The list is controversial within the industry and interpretations differ on how it was meant to be applied. Some in the industry say it represents guidelines for the box-covers of adult videos, not for the sex acts they depict. Nevertheless, there is wide agreement that the Cambria List shows how the adult industry is seeking to be more careful, fearing a potential crackdown on pornography by the Bush administration."
Posted by xtop at 10:47 PM
 


February 03, 2004

 

el hombre alto

Angus Scrimm, the villain of the Phantasm films and creepy interrogator formerly of Alias, was born Lawrence Rory Guy in Kansas and went on to be a journalist and liner note writer for Capitol records. Scrimm lived the double life of a horror cult favorite while up on the fifth floor, cranking out salaried copy for classical and jazz albums and even winning a Grammy in 1974. Here's a couple choice bits (actually the only notes I could find on the inertnet):
Posted by xtop at 01:19 AM | Comments (0)
 


January 29, 2004

 

vanishing act

Gray had openly talked before about killing himself by jumping off the Staten Island Ferry, which he rode often just to relax. On the day before he went missing, he had been observed by ferry staff placing his wallet on a bench and wandering ominously over to the railing. He was later escorted off the ferry by security guards. There had been other ostensible attempts at suicide, too, other notes. Since September...
Posted by xtop at 11:39 AM
 


January 15, 2004

 

hijacking alphaville

Alphaville could have become a socialist utopia, a grand experiment in free-market capitalism or simply a reflection of the allure and the pitfalls of any real Western city. As it was, Alphaville quickly turned into a hellhole of scam-artists, crime syndicates, mafia extortion artists and teenage girls turning tricks to make ends meet. It became a breeding ground for the very worst in human nature - a benign-sounding granny, for example, who...
Posted by xtop at 11:41 PM
 


December 18, 2003

 

schvitz!

Posted by xtop at 12:44 AM
 


November 21, 2003

   


October 30, 2003

 

fox logic

According to Groening, Fox took exception took a Simpsons' version of the Fox News rolling news ticker which parodied the channel's anti-Democrat stance, with headlines like "Do Democrats Cause Cancer?" "Fox fought against it and said they would sue the show," Groening said. "We called their bluff because we didn't think Rupert Murdoch would pay for Fox to sue itself. So, we got away with it." Other satirical Fox news bulletins featured...
Posted by xtop at 09:10 PM | Comments (11)
 


October 27, 2003

 

the family tie

Teaser for The Family Tie, Matt Glasson's newest forthcoming feature, filmed in the halcyon days of 1998. Those with pipe encouraged to click the picture, all others encouraged to click it and wait awhile. Also, that mic you see swinging into frame in the beginning? My steady steady hands at work. Also, features the psychotic barkings of the infamous Scott Greene....
Posted by xtop at 07:51 AM
 


September 06, 2003

 

ted v. mikels: workhungry

MAKING A MOVIE? LET TED V. MIKELS HELP YOU. HE IS AVAILABLE TO SHOOT, PRODUCE, DIRECT, SUPERVISE, OR WHEREVER YOU MAY WANT ASSISTANCE. WITH ALMOST ONE HUNDRED MOVIE CREDITS HIS EXPERIENCE MIGHT HELP YOU IMMENSELY. E-MAIL HIM....
Posted by xtop at 08:54 AM
 


July 24, 2003

 

uh...

In one scene J-Lo, 33, tries to seduce Affleck, 30, by laying on a bed and telling him: “It’s turkey time!” When he asks: “What?”, she replies: “Come on, gobble, gobble”....
Posted by xtop at 12:41 AM | Comments (1)
 


May 10, 2003

 

an epitaph for jayson blair

Every newspaper, like every bank and every police department, trusts its employees to uphold central principles, and the inquiry found that Mr. Blair repeatedly violated the cardinal tenet of journalism, which is simply truth. His tools of deceit were a cellphone and a laptop computer — which allowed him to blur his true whereabouts — as well as round-the-clock access to databases of news articles from which he stole. The Times inquiry...
Posted by xtop at 10:24 PM | Comments (2)
 


May 08, 2003

 

the pubic muffin

Matt Glasson's 10-years-in-the-making short "The Pubic Muffin" is in the can: "The Pubic Muffin" is a bit tricky to explain. It was influenced primarily and largely by the short films of Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel with a loving nod to the slasher genre. With that said, trust that it is a twisted and absurd ride into a hungry, disturbed mind, namely my own (though my acting is limited to a...
Posted by xtop at 02:42 PM | Comments (0)
 


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