Call it The Great New Jersey-New York Governor Skank-Off. It's the fiercest and lewdest battle yet between the Garden and Empire States. Yes, history is being written - in hot oil.
The first shot across the Hudson was fired in 1979, when 70-year-old ex-Governor Nelson Rockefeller died under mysterious, but undeniably sexy, circumstances in the presence of his 26-year-old secretary Megan Marshak.
The message was clear: New York's Governorship was stronger and hotter. (Yes, he died. But give the guy credit: Megan was 44 years younger.) Poor New Jersey was just dirty. And not sexy Christina Aguilera Dirrty. (The sultry songstress was in fact born in Staten Island, teasingly close to NJ.)
Cut to August 2004 and spitfire NJ Gov. Jim McGreevey throws it down for the Garden State by declaring himself not only "a gay American," but hot enough to have turned his homeland security adviser Golan Cipel. Cipel was a member of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in McGreevey's words "the best in the world." Nothing is supposed to distract these guys from their mission. Helen of Troy? Think McGreevey of Trenton.
New York was reeling. Did NJ's Governor really have wilder sex?
Then over the skies of Albany appeared a crusader, someone willing to get right in there: sexual dive bomber Eliot Spitzer. Even though he had an Anne Archer-smoking hot wife, he was eager to risk it all (career and clap) to save the reputation of NY's governorship. The Emperors Club VIP put the Empire State back on top. (The top part is unconfirmed.)
But New York will not go down without making it clear that it goes down!! Indeed what could be more adventurous than the nation's first blind governor strolling into a Manhattan hotel to get it on with lady staffers not his wife? How sexually adventurous is New York Governor David Paterson? He and his wife are happy to report that they both had affairs. You don't need an abacus to count a four-way in there somewhere.
Three out of eleven. Think about it. Nearly 30% of the remaining American Idol contestants were born in countries outside The United States.
Carly Smithson was born in Ireland. Michael Johns was born in Australia. Ramiele Malubay was born in Saudi Arabia.
Never has an American Idol top eleven included this many foreign-born contestants. And people are talking.
"I'm sorry but I think it's weird. It's American Idol," says Idol Watcher and pundit Will Bressman, quick to add: "Look, I'm not prejudiced. I just know that these other countries have their own singing competitions."
Let me be clear: This discussion is not an invitation to xenophobic ranting. Readers of this blog know that I am a full-throated champion of the contributions that singers from abroad have brought to our pop music scene. Furthermore I am nuts about foreign travel. (Right now I'd chuck everything for a trip to Sydney!)
But with immigration such a front-burner issue, it is essential that we address head on the question of the rights of foreign-born American Idol contestants. To Will's point: Idol has competitions in over 40 countries, from Armenia to Vietnam. (This includes Australia, Johns' home country.)
For weeks I've been entranced by the Liberty Mutual Ads, specifically the 30 second spot that begins with a mysterious and stunning black woman saving a slacker pizza guy from a truck. (There's a 60 second spot - a bloated and extravagant director's cut stuffed with over-the-top scenes in a laundromat and by a parking meter, altogether adding nothing to the story. Reminiscent of the bank-busting movie musicals of the late '60s that signaled the end of the studio system's heyday.)
Here is the lean, crowd-pleasing version:
Who is this woman at the beginning and end? She's clearly sophisticated, a woman who rarely, if ever, raises her voice. She doesn't need to. I believe that her name is Nadine. She is fromCôte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), in French-speaking West Africa. Naturally Nadine speaks both French and English. After receiving her B.A. from McGill, she took a job at an Import-Export Bank in an American city. (I'm not quite sure in which city. My vision is still hazy on this count.)
Nadine sets the chain of good deeds in motion. It's a moving sequence, set to Indie folk-rock band Hem's hit song "The Part Where You Let Go."
But after watching this commercial 67 times, three questions loom:
Over the last few days I've been felled by a nasty, vicious, EVIL flu. Aching, throbbing and in a state of delirium I switched on the TV this morning at about 8am. What I saw was an ad that both thrilled and revolted me. To make sure I wasn't dreaming it all, I recorded it. The ad isn't available for embedding, so I've copied it off my DVR for you:
The ad for the Ped Egg had me at the start. My heart went out to the second woman (the one with the polka-dotted duvet) who looks up from her embarrassing feet and finds a camera crew in her bedroom. I would've flung more than a pillow!
But in a flash my indignation turned to enchantment. The Ped Egg is simply gorgeous. A lovely egg-shaped cheese grater that offers affordable and non-violent means towards "smooth, beautiful feet." The design of the Ped Egg is obviously inspired by Ying and Yang, a visual reminder of the unity of opposites that characterize any discussion of feet: attraction and revulsion.
Revulsion, in fact, might be too soft a word for my next reaction when, 30 seconds into the ad, one Ped Egg user (face concealed understandably) blithely dumps her foot "filings" into what looks like a saucepan. This is depraved. The woman is emptying her unwanted flesh as casually as she cleans out her pencil sharpener!
Do some people get off on this? Are there really that many necro-pedo-freaks in the world? I'm afriad I know the answer. Just take a gander at this Ped Egg Porn (a soon to be booming sub-genre) I found on YouTube:
Notice how the ladies fetishistically pour their filed flesh onto the black velvet. Obviously this stuff is worth more than zirconium, we're meant to think. I'm surprised they don't draw a line with it and snort it.
So what do you think? Do you believe that the Ped Egg can change feet so sweepingly? Or are some feet beyond helping?
Full disclosure: I'm going to call and order the Ped Egg. I just can't turn down that 2-for-1 offer. Rest assured, I'll be giving one of my Ped Eggs (the unused one) away during our next contest.
Imagine Hillary capturing her party's nomination, then choosing her husband Bill for the number two slot on the ticket. It may not be as far-fetched or foolish as it sounds.
Ever since Hillary got caucus-blocked by Barack Obama in Iowa, Bill has been unleashed and the Clintons have essentially run as co-presidential candidates. This probably helped in New Hampshire, where Hillary came from behind in the polls to pull out a win. But the strategy most certainly hurt in South Carolina, where the Clintons were seen as bullying and race-baiting. (Barack-sploitation politics?) Now polls show that Democrats think that Bill is hurting as much as he's helping Hillary.
Yet Bill Clinton remains a hero among rank-and-file Democrats. What bothers a good half of Democrats is Bill playing such a prominent role in an unofficial capacity. It's more than unfair. It's unsettling: it makes a whole lot of people nervous about what role he'd play in a Hillary Clinton administration. Hillary-backers want her to take advantage of her husband's experience - some are even voting for her to get him back in the White House - but they (and all Americans, if she's elected) will want to know what advice he's giving, what decisions he's making. After seven and a half years of Bush executive power-mongering and secrecy - and Hillary's own problem with secrecy (the health care debacle of '93-'94 is just one example) - Americans want transparency.
But Hillary could preempt a lot of these questions - and win points for brute honesty - by making her husband her running mate. It's an admission that he's going to play a big role. More importantly it puts everything (well most everything) Bill will do in Hillary's administration on the record. From the shadows of the East Wing he can manipulate and obfuscate - and drive the press corps crazy playing guessing games; in the West Wing, he's on the clock. (No funny business this time around. He'll be sharing that galley kitchen with his wife.)
As everyone knows, Bill can't run for a third term, but there's nothing in the text of 22nd amendment that prohibits Bill from serving as Vice President. (Of course, thanks to Cheney, the vice presidency is more powerful than the presidency. So maybe the Supreme Court would have to weigh in...)
So what do you think? Should Hillary, if nominated, choose Bill as her running mate?
Is it just me, or do other people find the moniker "Tsunami Tuesday" - to describe February 5th's elections in 24 states - a little jarring? At first I just heard it on MSNBC, cable news' bratty kid brother. But a simple Google search shows that a bunch of other news organizations (Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post's David Broder) have started riding the same wave.
My opinion: MSNB-illin'. When someone says "Tsunami," I can only think of the wave that took out 230,000 people the day after Christmas 2004.
Sure, it can be tough to grab the attention of American voters during primary season. And we all know that disasters man-made and natural bring in big audiences. But someone at MSNBC should have had the wherewithal to shout, "Too soon!" 9/11 actually happened on a Tuesday, three years before the Tsunami. Yet can you imagine the outcry if the network had gone with "Terrorist Attack Tuesday"? (If someone from MSNBC is reading, please don't use that.)
If they had to go with a disaster that involves mass killing, why not something less real, like "Deep Impact Tuesday" or "Cloverfield Tuesday"? Or something farther removed like "Hindenburg Tuesday," "Super Duper Antietam Tuesday," or "Mount Vesuvius Blow-Out Tuesday"?
CONTEST:
Let's come up with a catchy name for this Tuesday's election. One that will rivet the public without trivializing the deaths of a quarter-million people. In fact - and I know this sounds wacky - it doesn't have to involve the death of anyone!
I'll post the top five finalists tomorrow night. Then we'll vote.
UPDATE: Okay, I'm fixated with this scene (below in two parts) from The Birds, specifically with the worried mother. Below is my original post on the scene in general. The first round of comments were great, including those pointing out that "Daddy" is a real nuisance. But I need more feedback on the worried mother's behavior. Does she have a drinking problem? Is she a victim of some kind of abuse? Or is her behavior justified? And how will her children be affected by seeing their mother slapped by Melanie?
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It has come to my attention that in my appreciation of Suzanne Pleshette and her performance as Annie Hayworth in Hitchcock's The Birds, I may have come down too hard on Mrs. Bundy, the elderly ornithologist who smugly pooh-poohs Melanie Daniels' (Tippi Hedren) fears about the murderous birds.
As my readers know, I have long resented Mrs. Bundy's "logical" evaluation of Melanie's report of the avian attack on the students of Bodega Bay School. Mrs. Bundy, in my opinion, wields her scholarship on behalf of inaction, when Bodega Bay desperately needs to mobilize.
But in my zeal to indict Mrs. Bundy, I'm afraid that I may have come off as an enemy of science, a reactionary, no better than a global warming skeptic. Let me be clear: I have the utmost respect for Mrs. Bundy's scholarship. (I should, however, correct the record: Mrs. Bundy is not an ornithologist. "Ornithology happens to be my avocation," she says, though I suspect she knows more about birds than most practicing ornithologists.)
More to the point, I'm no longer convinced that Mrs. Bundy is the biggest pain in the ass in the diner scene. Below, in two parts, is the entire diner scene.
My question for you: If you could slap one character across the face, which would you choose?
Mrs. Bundy - the elderly ornithology hobbyist
Fisherman Sebastian Sholes - one of Bodega Bay's leading lights, a man who has witnessed the cruelty of the birds but chooses to do nothing
The Doomsayer - the drunk guy who quotes scripture and keeps wailing "It's the end of the world!"
Deke Carter - the bartender who won't cut off the drunk Doomsayer
The Angry Traveling Salesman - a precursor to Travis Bickle, a man who vows to kill all the birds
The Worried Mother - Are her children really scared ... or is she just projecting fear onto them?
Sam - the stunningly uninformed kitchen cook who enters 5:50 into the first clip
It happened yesterday at 11:16.39 am ET. At that moment the campaign for the American presidency passed into the surreal.
At that second Tim Russert, host of NBC's Meet The Press, asked Republican Rudy Giuliani, a man endorsed by evangelist Pat Robertson: "Would it be appropriate for a president to provide secret service protection for his mistress?" The answer is not important. (It was hard to decipher anyway.) But the fact that this question - a reasonable one - was being asked at all of the leading candidate from the party of values was, um, wacky.
(The question comes at 3:38 in the clip below.)
The question came more than three-quarters of the way through an hour-long interview that concentrated on Rudy's business ties, Bernie Kerik's shenanigans and most salaciously the issue of taxpayer-financed protection for wife #3 Judith Nathan, when she was still just a mistress.
God bless Tim Russert. Remember all the bitching and moaning from Hillary's people after Russert grilled her during a debate last month? That should die down after the interrogation that Rudy underwent from Russert yesteday during Meet The Press. A friend of mine who's worked on MTP tells me that Russert is so intense he sweats while prepping for his interviews - not from nervousness, but from the sheer mental workout he puts himself through. He's the definition of rigor.
Every election year has them: the provocative social issues that can destroy a candidacy. In 2004 it was gay marriage that upended Kerry-Edwards in close swing states like Ohio. Earlier this year driver's licenses for illegal immigrants threw Hillary Clinton for a loop.
It's obvious what the next hot button issue is going to be. Watch below to find out...
And now for our poll (props to mo-NEEK-a on option #4):
What a difference a night makes. Last night Marie faced off against Melanie Brown (aka Scary Spice) and indy car champ Helio Castroneves.
First the highlight of Marie's performance: Her impersonation of a live blow up doll to the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" during the freestyle competition was more than a jolt. It was a cultural moment. The image of Marie as a giant sex toy was a stunning repudiation of so many assumptions we've made about this woman for over 40 years. She's not the simpleminded good girl sitting at home crafting dolls for little old ladies and their granddaughters. She's a woman - and she's perfectly happy being manhandled by her younger partner, Jonathan. Post-feminism is back, courtesy of Marie.
As for her faith, she made it clear with this dance: She respects her religion, but her religion doesn't own her.
But while Marie's freestyle performance bordered on high art - expect to see the video of this performance playing on a loop in modern art galleries everywhere - it doesn't negate the fact that her opening Samba blew chunks. What's more, we saw the megalomaniac side of Marie when she bullied the judges for their less than sterling reviews. Haughtily proclaiming herself "one of the top doll designers in the world" did little for her much vaunted likability.
Even after her sex-drenched freestyle, she reminded viewers that she's a doll designer (WE KNOW!). The unflappable Tom Bergeron had had enough and tartly replied, "I think we all know that," before shooing her away.
Meanwhile Scary Mel fared only a little better - no thanks to her Spice Girl sisters in the front row. Her opening cha-cha was fine. But her freestyle performance was one long call girl infomercial. When the judges diplomatically pointed out that she was off the charts on the slutty scale, the Spice Girls in the audience turned into menacing soccer hooligans. Baby, Ginger and Sporty started booing and cursing. (Posh, aka Victoria Beckham, was too weak to boo, though she did manage to sit up - kind of.) Judge Carrie Ann Inaba seemed afraid that one of them might drag her onto the "pitch" and start kicking her in the stomach. Not an unreasonable fear.
Which brings us to Helio Castroneves. His opening jive (?) was exhilarating, even if the footwork was faulty. When the judges pointed this out, he accepted their criticism graciously. Then came his freestyle, a grand prix satire of race car driver bravado. The lifts were so great that judge Bruno Tonioli momentarily dropped the Roberto Benigni act (my neighbor tells me that Tonioli is actually from Jacksonville, Florida).
Helio has never performed professionally. Yet he's the best dancer - and, yes, the most likable. And probably the best role model for young competitors. He's got my vote! (Close observers also noticed that Leeza Gibbons smiled and applauded after Helio's performance. Until that moment she'd maintained strict neutrality - like a Supreme Court justice at a State of the Union address.)
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Some Marie Osmond supporters have brought it to my attention that Helio is Brazilian and, as such, has an unfair advantage when it comes to dancing. Dancing is a major part of Brazilian life. (Brazil is also known for its sugar-based ethanol fuel.)
In fact dancing in the annual Carnival parade is compulsory for all Brazilians above the age of six. Indeed I'm hard pressed to name a clumsy Brazilian. They may not exist. (If you're acquainted with any clumsy Brazilians, please let us know in the comments section!)
I've been a Marie Osmond fan ever since she tottered onto stage on The Andy Williams Show at the age of three!
I love the above clip because: A. I love quartets. B. I love Andy Williams. (His recording of MacArthur Park is operatic.) C. I love any song from The Music Man. In fact, in honor of the imminent Iowa Caucuses, I am listening to no other musical cast recordings for the next month.
As readers of this blog know, the original Osmond Brothers quartet - Alan, Wayne, Merrill and Jay - were discovered on a trip to Disneyland by Andy Williams' father. (This was a gentler time, long before people were dumping human remains at Disney theme parks.)
I'm not sure why Andy Williams' father was skulking around Disneyland alone in the middle of the day, but that's not my concern. (I don't work for Dateline.) Osmond Patriarch George had taken his boys to the park after the talent show they'd traveled from Provo to LA for had been canceled. The boys were sad and began singing their troubles away, while waiting in line for Small World. Old man Williams heard the boys and, breathless with excitement, called his son on a pay phone. Soon the boys' disappointment turned to triumph - and a dynasty was born!!
Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was published by Crown in 2004.
Mo Rocca appears on a bunch of shows, including CBS News Sunday Morning (with
the indescribably wonderful Charles Osgood), The Tonight Show on NBC, and NPR's
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! He's a sometime judge on Iron Chef and was featured
on Telemundo's Amore Descarado. Last year he starred on Broadway in the 25th
Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. His expose "All the President's Pets" was
published by Crown in 2004.
