Music Video of the Day: Vistosso Bosses, "Delirious"

The outfits, the greenscreened images, the Soulja Boy intro, the dancing, the sickly-sweet adolescent romantic theme-mongering, the chorus, which has colonized my brain -- all of it make this video the best. Happy new year, bitches. See you in '010.

Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon Are Over, But This Picture Lives Forever

Hey, E, sorry I bummed you out with my last post. Let me make it up to you--and everyone else. May all your other sordid fantasies come true this Christmas, as E's have with the picture above.

A Very Special Hollywood Christmas

In Hollywood, nothing is sacred. You should know that by now. Silly you, thinking these two would make it, what with their love and idealism and graceful aging and being model citizens and all.

superfluous and belated movie review of the month (and probably year): (500) days of summer

i fully expected to hate this movie and i highly doubt i would've even bothered to watch it were it not showing on my flight. so i suppose you have to take some of my positive impressions with a grain of salt, since i tend to have irrationally exuberant feelings about any movie watched on a plane. except the pianist--don't ever watch a movie about the holocaust before a vacation. it's a downer.

(500) days of summer begins with a despondent joseph gordon-levitt (aka that kid from 3rd rock from the sun), lamenting to his friends about the demise of his relationship with zooey deschanel. not exactly a spoiler to disclose that, i don't think. then the movie backtracks to follow--rather jaggedly--the arc of their relationship. i enjoyed this movie--it was light, very entertaining and just clever/gimmicky enough. the "falling in love" montage was one of the better i've seen in, urgh, a romantic comedy. the movie does justice to the absurd highs and equally ridonculous lows of infatuation and the mental shuffle we all engage in postmortem.

a few reviewers complained about how thinly drawn zooey deschanel's character was and how she barely seemed worthy of all this devotion. but isn't that always the case in movies? like who knows why lloyd dobler was so obsessed with diane court, aside from the fact that she's the valedictorian "trapped in the body of a game show hostess?" she didn't have much of a personality, as far as anyone could tell. i didn't know anyone like diane court, but i definitely knew girls like summer--irrepressibly cute, looks good in wide-legged and high-waisted pants (a lethal combo for most anyone over 100 lbs), just hot enough to draw guys in and just cold enough to keep them wanting more, emotionally detached, inscrutable, etc. in other words, every emaciated hipster dude's dream girl.

in summary, if this movie happens to be offered on your flight somewhere and you have 90 minutes to kill (which you presumably do if you're flying), i recommend you watch it. you won't regret it!

[will try to post a photo laterz...]

The Sopranos' Lost Ending

Courtesy of my boy 'Ziz...Cold ass shit, this. Also, One Tree Hill, where have you been all my life?

Great Powers, Great Responsibilities -- Part II

I killed Estele Getty. I caused Morgan Freeman's car accident. And now I've arrested Brittany Murphy's heart. On Monday, I made a passing reference to one of Tai's great lines from Clueless and wondered aloud why we have a Brittany Murphy tag on this blog.

By Sunday Brittany Murphy was dead.

There are no words.

We can argue about fate, about a little read blog's murderous powers, or we can watch the above video wherein which Rue McLanahan parodies Brittany Murphy's character Tai from Clueless.

What the fuck is happening, people??

Also, sorry, Rue McLanahan. I cannot control what will befall you now. You deserve better. Forgive me.

let's rap about brownies

in the alternative:


how did alicia keys keep a straight face? hilarious.

American Politics, the Last 48 Hours

Today, John McCain pitched reviving the Glass-Steagall Act, which would separate commercial and investment banking and lead to the break up of the megabanks, and which Obama and his economic advisers oppose; and today the White House admonished Howard Dean for saying the Senate Health Care Bill should be scrapped and reconciliation should be explored so that we might get a semblance of a public option/Medicare Buy-in; and yesterday, the White House refused to say one word about Joe Lieberman's unprincipled murder of Medicare Buy-in; also, yesterday, Obama's DOJ reiterated its Bush-era position re an expansive and unprecedented States Secret Privilege in asking the 9th Circuit to overturn its ruling in the Jeppesen rendition case.

I know I am supposed to talk about politicians only in terms of how they depress or inspire me, or how imbued with evil or goodness they are, but cold, hard facts are confusing me. Quick, somebody please send me pictures of how cute the Obama kids are or yell at me for questioning our fearless leader, whom we should all love without condition and with complete disregard to the things he actually apparently stands for.

When the only thing that we ask of our President is that he not be as much of an asshole as the last guy -- or at least draw on pretty words, not his Jesusy whims, when he decides to be exactly as much of an asshole as the last guy (on national security issues)-- then we ask nothing of him. And nothing, apparently, shall we receive.

Emeryville, Ca. to Chicago

California Zephyr from Manan Desai on Vimeo.


Hey, look. Blog reader Manan -- who may or may not comment on this blog under an alias which I will decline to reveal -- did a neat-o video of his train trip from Emeryville, Ca. to Chicago. He was out here visiting 'Pockets and me for a couple of months, scouring Berkeley archives, crushing it on Wii, and eating all my fruit snacks. Now he's back in A2. Sad. 

I'm Not Going to Spend My Life Being a Color

E, You're feeling down today, since Lloyd Blankfein, your ertwhile hero and future husband, turns out is not the stand-up dude we thought him to be. I want to cheer you up. If I knew how to Photoshop, I'd put your face in place of this girl's--although I don't know that I have ever seen you with as pained an expression as hers. It's like the photographer captured the very moment her appendix burst. Still the picture is saved by our boy M Sizzle. You crazy for this one, RNC! Urban suburban hip communities be my jam!

ps -- I really wanted to put a still from the Michael Jackson "Black or White" video next to this picture. You know the still I mean. The one where after the rap interlude, MJ and Macauley strike the same timeless, hoppity hip shoulder blade to blade, arms-crossed pose. But all I could find was this.

it's funny cuz we're assholes

why did john mack, dick (harhar insert obvious joke here) parsons and lloyd blankfein fail to make it to DC to see the president today? inclement weather! uh ok, so there was fog in DC or something, but what, no amtrak? as wunderkind andrew ross sorkin points out, these dudes made it to DC with less than 24 hours notice to collect their TARP funds last year...these guys have like negative short-term memory.

on the other hand, this could be a net positive for us all. y'know, maybe we are finally at the end of the recession, since i don't think these jerks will blow off the president unless they were pretty damn sure they won't have to return to DC with their hats in their hands any time soon.

right? time to stop being depressed, santa!

Rolling Wid Da Homeez (Clueless Reference, a film from 1995)

Haha. I am the best at doing occasional non-posts. But what can I say -- this picture makes me so happy, I have to share it with the world and cover it in gold dust and post it on my ceiling and look at it every night before I go to bed. Not like ironically happy -- I mean kittens napping with babies on a bed of world peace, for-realsies happy.

ps -- E, wtf do we have a Brittany Murphy tag? Oh, yes, because we're awesome. Sorry, forgot for a second.

everybody knows

omg do you remember this movie? one of the best examples of teenage angst/alienation pretty much ever. and yes kids, i learned about leonard cohen through a christian slater movie and not my parents' record collection or a floppy-haired high school boyfriend. ooh that gravelly baritone...

i loved this movie for its nerdy premise, that an isolated new kid on the block can connect to the masses through his shortwave radio. it even made me like christian slater a little bit, although i could never understand his appeal and he was clearly way beyond his teens by this point. and oh samantha mathis, where have you gone? remember when you were the next ingenue and now you're less memorable than gretchen mol?

anyway, if you haven't checked it out in a while, it's worth watching again.

yakov's nubian bling explosion

i happened upon this interview with donald glover (who, my mistake, is apparently not related to danny glover. is that racist, assuming that two black people in the entertainment industry with first initial D last name glover are related? his response to this question, "Most people think I'm Danny Glover's son when they meet me. So when they ask, I say 'No, I'm Crispin Glover's son.' Then we stare at each other for a long time."). even though he is only 26 he's already been a writer on 30 rock. yeah, i know, that was like his stepping stone.

[pause for moment of crippling envy]

anyway, he had this to say about tracy morgan:

The first day I met him, I had a small Afro, and he was like, “You know, if you want to get dreads, you should get your girl pregnant and put the placenta in your hair.” And I was like, “What the fuck … are you talking about?” But from that point on, I thought, Any brain that can make that up needs to be studied.

so, c4ts, as penance for not attending his reading of i am the new black, i offer these:

best terry gross interview ever

only reason why twitter should exist

EGOT

thanksgiving

totally related to nothing, but a friend of mine yesterday mentioned how her law student friend's facebook feed solely revolves around law school. can you imagine the dullardity? aren't you shuddering and yawning simultaneously? indeed.

anyway, then we realized how grateful we were that facebook wasn't as popular and twatter was just a figment in some idiot's mind in 2003-2006. as if we already didn't know everything about everyone. just think of all of the exciting status updates...

"outlining!"

"re-outlining!"

"16 callbacks!"

"i have a job and you don't!"

aren't you so relieved? happy belated thanksgiving y'all!