With apologies in advance to Uncle Grambo‘s best buddies, Nummer and H-Bomb, we at low culture were impatiently scouring the basement of Rockefeller Center this afternoon, trying to decide between Pret à Manger and Hale & Hearty for lunch, when we settled upon this top-secret nugget of gold on NBC stationery: a series of notes regarding SNL writers’ proposed skits for this week’s episode, and guest host Al Sharpton’s responses to them. Not promising.
1. “Al as President of Hair Club For Men-‘I’m not just a client, I’m the President'” [This could work. Maybe.–Rev. A.S.]
2. “Shattered Glizz-ass: Finesse as Jayson Blair, and Sharpton as Times managing editor Gerald Boyd” [First, that Snoop language is so done, and second, journalistic navel-gazing is worse than Rudolph doing Versace–Rev. A.S.]
3. “Sharpton as Baptist Minister-turned-informercial pitchman” [Infomercial? Can’t we make fun of something contemporary–Rev. A.S.]
4. “Outkast: Sharpton as Big Boi, and Finesse as Andre 3000” [I’m aligned with Russell Simmons, not L.A. Reid–Rev. A.S.]
5. “Sharpton as Tony Soprano” [David Chase is so 2000. I’m all about 2004–Rev. A.S.]
6. “Sharpton as hotdog vendor outside Republican convention in 2004” [No go: Black folks don’t sell hotdogs–Rev. A.S.]
7. “Sharpton picks Ol’ Dirty Bastard as his VP candidate in 2004” [NO WAY. And it’s Dirt McGirt, you idiots. And you can’t have someone who’s been arrested on your ticket. Or maybe you can.–Rev. A.S.]
8. “Sharpton made over by Queer Eye guys!” [People. You. Are. Getting. Desperate. – Rev. A.S.]
9. “The Ghetto Life: celebrity politician Sharpton visits the urban terrain of NYC” [You have how many wealthy white writers on staff?–Rev. A.S.]
10. “Jimmy’s stoned dorm room character interviews Al on his web cam” [Hello? The digital divide, ever hear of it?–Rev. A.S.]
11. “Al Sharpton meets Mango!” [Mango isn’t even on the show anymore: c’mon, people! Try at least. We’ve got issues like healthcare, education, defense spending, and civil rights to worry about here, not me interacting with some little guy in hot pants. Funny? No. Advancing the issues to shape the Democratic Party platform in 2004? No. Does anyone know if MAD TV brings on guest hosts?–Rev. A.S.]
Month: December 2003
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From the Dumbing-It-Down Desk
Tired of slogging through Elvis’ baroque metaphors simply to find out what you should think about The Last Samurai? Don’t have the time to read all of A.O.’s musings on Honey?
Worry no more. low culture’s Dumbing-It-Down desk is here to, well, dumb-it-down for you. In the interest of bringing ourselves that much closer to the depths of Entertainment Weekly we’ve scientifically assigned the traditional star ratings to all of today’s Times movie reviews. (Please note that these synopsis reviews do not reflect the opinions of low culture, they reflect the opinions of The New York Times.)
The Last Samurai
Honey
Monsieur Ibrahim
What Alice Found
Forget Baghdad
Al(fred) Sharpton Presents?
[Thanks Chloe!]
Yesterday’s announcement by record company Murder Inc. that it is changing its name to The Inc. has had far-reaching implications in the entertainment industry. As Island Def Jam Chairman and The Inc.’s corporate head, Russell Simmons told reporters, the change was designed to “get you all off [Irv Gotti’s] ass.”
A similar name change met Death Row Records when label head Marion ‘Suge’ Knight was released from jail and reopened Tha Row earlier this year.
Following The Inc. and Tha Row‘s lead, several other media and entertainment companies have altered the names of their films, books, and other properties to reflect greater sensitivity to violence. Also, it gets all of you off of Harper Lee’s ass. Here’s a sample:
Death of a Salesman becomes A Salesman
Death in Venice becomes In Venice
As I Lay Dying becomes As I Lay
Death Be Not Proud becomes Be Not Proud
Murder on the Orient Express becomes On the Orient Express
Meat is Murder becomes Meat Is
Death Race 2000 becomes Race 2000
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie becomes A Chinese Bookie
Murder in the First becomes In the First
Kill Bill vol. 1 becomes Bill vol. 1
Kill Bill vol. 2 becomes Bill vol. 2
Death to Smoochy becomes A Very Unfortunate Film That Should Not Have Been Made
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That’s Senator Dunst, to you, buddy!
It’s time for another one of low culture‘s trademark specious pop culture comparisons, the better to raise the ire (or, more likely, benumb the yawning indifference) of casual readers and insane commentators alike.
And this one has the added benefit of me not even having seen the movie in question, Mona Lisa Smile. Starring America’s Sweetheart emeritus, Julia Roberts, and a pride of her 20-something replacements–in–training, Smile tells the story of an unconventional, inspirational teacher at a staid, upper-crust school. It’s probably a lot like Dead Poets Society only… prettier.
As a Wellesley alum myself, I felt the need to point out some similarities between the film’s stars and some of the school’s most famous former students. (Seriously, no shit: I spent several summers of my formative years at this camp, playing college student while other—so called “normal”—kids attended soccer camp or simply hung around the house being bored for two months.)
Let’s check out some of the film’s stars and their sorta kinda real world analogs, shall we?
One of them went on to become a famous television anchorwoman, a legend in her field.
Another became one of the best humor writers—male or female—of her generation and then went Hollywood with a string of movies no one admits to liking but everyone can quote. (“I’ll have what she’s having.”)
The last one, well, I’m not so sure what she’s done… something pretty good, I bet.
Yes, these women didn’t all graduate the same years, it’s true. But when you make a movie, you tend to fudge over things like dates and continuity. All of these women, like the characters in the film, attended Wellesley during a time of shifting gender roles in this country and went on to become successful and famous in fields that would’ve been closed to then upon entering college. (And if we go by the old “rate a woman’s success by the man she married” formula, these ladies didn’t do half bad: a two-time Oscar winner and multiple nominee; a great journalist and an Oscar nominee; and, oh, the two-term President of the United States.)
Since Revolution Studios, the film’s production company, has shown an acute interest in prurience for prurience‘s sake, I’m wondering how they’ll manage to work in what Ron Rosenbaum has memorably dubbed “The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal”.
[Confidential to M.W.: There is no special prize for being the first one to respond to this. Might I suggest using those typing fingers for another activity?
Yes, the lion’s share of the news-reading public (all 326 of us) has seen the now-infamous video still of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with eventual Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein in 1983 as a representative of the Reagan administration. And, rather predictably, the photo of this event caused outrage amongst the anti-war left and contextual pandering by the apologetic rightwing.
This week, however, Rummy is in Afghanistan. You know, that mountainous nation run by the Taliban that we bombed in response to the attacks of 9/11, and subsequently left behind so we could continue our merry (and unrelated) bombing in Iraq. “Staying the course” in Afghanistan seemed to be out of the question, so now those lucky Afghanis have been left with a Taliban resurgence and more of that good ol’ general melee.
So, in this week’s bitter visit to our ex, Rumsfeld met with Hamid Karzai, the quasi-puppet leader installed by the United States after our supposedly overturning the Taliban’s grip on power. And, thankfully, someone took some sweet and charming photos of the awkward meetup.
However: there didn’t seem to be any photographers around when, on this very same trip, Rummy also met up with Afghani warlords who have been providing some rather thuggish “security” to the region and its residents. You know, violence, rape, robbery, extortion. Not unlike the early-eighties Saddam, come to think of it.
So, really, who can blame the U.S. government for not releasing photos of these lively meet-n-greets, when you just know, deep in your compassionate conservative heart, that the photos will come back to haunt you 20 years later?
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A Hack in Heaven
Sometimes in a columnist’s career, there’s one story that’s like his great white whale: it’s his passion, his obsession, the thing that keeps him going. And if that columnist is lucky, that story winds up on the frontpage of the newspaper and on the evening news. Finally, all those years of obsessive toiling, of chasing down leads and cultivating sources pays off and he becomes the go-to guy on the subject, the writer other writers look to for breaking news and critical context.
Take Friedman, for instance.
No, not Pulitzer Prize winning Times op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman. I’m talking about FOXNews 411 columnist Roger Friedman. (To belabor the Friedman/Friedman comparison a minute longer, both men have branched out into movies: Thomas with Straddling the Fence, Roger with Only The Strong Survive.) While the war in the Middle East has brought Thomas his moment of glory, Roger’s got the Michael Jackson case and all the mini scandals that flow from it like tributaries from a raging, crazy river.
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“Road Map” Cartography, Geneva Diplomacy
Poor, poor Colin Powell, always caught in the middle of all sorts of political and diplomatic crossfire. After his adventures at the U.N. regarding Iraq last spring, and his negotiations with North Korea over their acquisition of “nucular” weapons, he can now look forward to this week’s compromising involvement in that proverbial fool’s errand, the Middle East peace process.
But first, some background, courtesy of Alisa Solomon at the Village Voice, on the “Geneva Accord” (whose full text is available here):
At its heart, it proposes a Palestinian state on almost all the land Israel captured in the 1967 war. (Some border modifications would enable Israel to absorb Jewish neighborhoods outside Jerusalem for which Palestinians would get a one-to-one land swap; other Jewish settlements in the West Bank would be evacuated.) The accord elaborates an internationally monitored system for sharing Jerusalem as the capital of both states and it pledges Palestinian recognition of a right of the Jewish people to statehood (and Israeli recognition of the same for Palestinians). Most groundbreaking, it lays out a formula for refugee compensation and resettlement that “provides for the permanent and complete resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem,” thus nullifying any future Palestinian claims for Israeli land or refugee rights.
Secretary of State Powell (never, by the way, has the acronym “S.O.S.” seemed more appropriate) is scheduled to meet with the Israeli and Palestinian authors of the current peace process cause du jour this upcoming Friday.
“I don’t know why I or anyone else in the U.S. government should deny ourselves the opportunity to hear from others and who have ideas with respect to peace,” Powell said at a news conference during a visit to Tunisia.
He added that the meeting “in no way undercuts our strong support” for Israel and the road map.
OK, sounds like a fairly reasonable stance, Colin. One which, however, set off alarms with rightwing Israeli politicos. And by “alarms”, I mean, “hysterical analogies”:
“It is as though the French foreign minister were to meet (American) Indian chiefs who claimed to have been dispossessed of their land, and who were now getting organized with money provided by the Cuban ruler Fidel Castro,” read an editorial in Hatzofeh, a newspaper affiliated with the National Religious Party.
Umm, yes, that’s it exactly.
If we’re comfortable with all these erroneous socio-historical analogies, let’s try some alternates: “It’s like Los Angeles mayor James Hahn meeting with the Crips to work out their feud with the Bloods, while taking campaign donations from the makers of British “BK” Knights.” Or, “You wouldn’t resolve the dispute between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar by having Gary Cherone preside over the settlement. Plus, Extreme sucked more than Arafat and Netanyahu combined.”
Realistically, however, the most effective way to put up a roadblock for any sort of “road map” would be to, say, build a gargantuan wall right across that very road. Good luck on Friday, Colin.
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Darling Nicky
That earlier post about how we weren’t going to post any more Hilton-alia? We take it back. Nicky’s gone brown!
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¡Viva los estúpidos!
For that completely historically ignorant hipublican on your holiday gift list; only $15.95. Not included: a fucking clue.
[Thanks Dave!]