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Shallow Versus

Woolf in Fred Segal’s Clothing

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From left to right, Nicole Kidman and her Oscar-winning prosthetic nose, and the egregiously untalented Ashlee Simpson. Poor, poor girl. Check her pockets for rocks before she goes to the MTV Beach House.

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Grave

And just like that, donations to his campaign stopped pouring in from Hollywood and Madison Avenue

From President Bush’s speech in Turkey on June 29th, in which he defended democratic ideals:

“In some parts of the world, especially in the Middle East, there is wariness toward democracy, often based on misunderstanding. Some people in Muslim cultures identify democracy with the worst of Western popular culture, and want no part of it. And I assure them, when I speak about the blessings of liberty, coarse videos and crass commercialism are not what I have in mind. There is nothing incompatible between democratic values and high standards of decency.”

Categories
Grave Satirical

Am I Veep Or Not? Vol. 2

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For weeks, the media has been breathlessly scouring internal reports leaked from the Democratic camp, trying to winnow down a hypothetical list of presumptive 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s picks for his vice-presidential candidate.
This just in! You heard it here first! Based on preliminary analysis of the above wire service photo, it looks like the 2004 Democratic vice-presidential nominee is…let’s see…Senator Paul Sarbanes from Maryland!
Wait, who the fuck is that? Wow, this really comes a surprise. We’d been lead to believe that Kerry would go with someone who could bring him some very key electoral votes or inaccessible voting blocs in the so-called swing states, such as Bill Richardson in New Mexico, or Bob Graham in Florida, or even perennial runner-up Dick Gephardt from Iowa.
Well, to be sure, though Sen. Sarbanes may seem to be somewhat of a surprise pick, the Kerry camp must be confident that…hold on, wait, a correction. We’ve been so breathless from all this expectant websurfing and newsreading that we failed to notice that the photo was accompanied by a caption reading, “Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry, left, is introduced by Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md., at a fund-raiser in Baltimore on Monday, June 28, 2004.”
Shit, are we embarrassed. Well, it’s back to the Edwards Watch for us!

Categories
Grave Unintentionally Hilarious

Unintentionally Hilarious Photo of the Moment, vol. 25

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Categories
Shallow

The book was written by Yale University’s honorary “Christopher Pike Professor of English”

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From the case’s promotional copy for the current DVD (re-)release of Disney’s 1993 film A Far Off Place, which is noteworthy only in that it stars a younger, pre-Election, Reese Witherspoon:
“A classic adventure in the literary tradition of Holes

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Shallow

Ray Charles, in turn, clearly inspired underground hip-hop artists such as Louis Logic and Prince Po

An actual letter to the editor which appeared in The Nation‘s July 12, 2004 issue, amidst readers’ comments on the magazine’s “tribute” to the many under-reported negative aspects of Reagan’s presidency:

Boston – You omitted one salient fact: Ronald Reagan was responsible for creating the best marijuana in the world! When Reagan initiated his “war on drugs,” the marijuana growers were hard pressed to beat the Feds. They had to re-engineer their plant, and they did so in one of the greatest breeding undertakings ever–no recombinant DNA, just conventional breeding technology. In a few years the marijuana plant was a dwarf plant that lacked the typical acrid odor, thereby allowing it to be grown indoors. Along with these changes came additional benefits–the best and most potent sinsemilla marijuana in the world. Bravo, Mr. President.
STEVEN ACKERMAN

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Grave

Wait, aren’t the French supposed to be rude, and the Irish merely drunk?

Five highlighted responses by President Bush from his interview with the Irish press during his trip abroad this weekend (culled from “Interview of the President by Radio and Television Ireland”, June 24, 2004):

1. “Let me finish. Let me finish. May I finish?”
2. “Let me finish. Let me finish, please. Please. You ask the questions and I’ll answer them, if you don’t mind.”
3. “Let me finish, please. Please. Let me finish, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”
4. “Let me finish.”
5. “Please. Please. Please, for a minute, okay. It’ll be better if you let me finish my answers, and then you can follow up, if you don’t mind.”

Categories
Grave

On a Positive Note, the Hot Dog Vendor on the Corner of 38th and Broadway Will Likely Double His Sales

As a benefit to residents of the city of New York, as well as fans of urban planning and economic development in general, we at low culture are providing this quick-and-easy tear sheet/scorecard entitled, “Holding the 2004 GOP Convention in New York City.”

PROS

Source: the New York Post, May 29, 2004

    A positive economic benefit of $184 million to the city of New York.

CONS

Source: the New York Times, June 25, 2004

    “The transportation plan calls for one lane of avenues directly outside Madison Square Garden to remain open to motorists, except during the approximately 13 hours the convention will be in session…
    It also imposes parking restrictions and reroutes bus service…
    Streets bordering the convention to the north and south would be closed for several blocks…
    A restricted area around the arena will be controlled by checkpoints, where police will demand identification from anyone seeking entry…
    Cars entering the area, including those carrying delegates and dignitaries, will be screened for explosives and other contraband by devices that provide real-time video images of their undercarriages…
    Between 6,000 to 10,000 officers have been assigned to patrol the streets and subways around the convention…
    [Penn Station] riders could face delays, but no shutdowns, officials said…
    Preliminary plans call for state and city police officers — armed with bomb-sniffing dogs and hand-held chemical detection devices — to board commuter and subway trains one stop before they reach Penn Station during the hours of the convention. The trains will be swept for suspicious packages and terror suspects before being allowed to continue into the station, officials said…
    The Lincoln Tunnel, just to the west of the convention site, and the city’s other tunnels and bridges will be heavily guarded, but open to usual traffic, authorities said.”

Well…for all practical purposes, it seems as though the residents of the city of New York come out roughly even in the end, there, huh?
Thanks, Republican Party, and thanks, Mayor Michael Bloomberg! And at the very least, all of this inconvenience finally gives people something to get all riled up about (in the designated protest areas, of course).

Categories
Grave Satirical

Vote for the New World Order…Vote John Kerry ’04!

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Presumptive Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry, beckoning his Illuminati and Freemason cronies to rise forth from the dead, or however the fuck that conspiracy shit works.

Categories
Satirical Shallow

It’s Must Repent TV!

In yesterday’s New York Times, the paper’s Hollywood scribe Sharon Waxman shows how the success of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ has given the former action star a newfound ability to effectively greenlight and produce a number of his own projects. (In addition to turning water into wine on cue.) Waxman writes that “Mr. Gibson’s Icon Productions will have no fewer than three prime-time television series on the networks’ fall schedule: ‘Clubhouse’ on CBS, ‘Savages’ on ABC and ‘Kevin Hill’ on UPN.”
When detailing the nature of these projects, however, Ms. Waxman, regrettably, left out specifics regarding the shows’ content, save for a few bullet points here and there.
What follows, then, is our exclusive insider guide to Icon Productions’ fall television lineup, praise be He:
gibson_batboy.jpgCLUBHOUSE
Airing this fall on CBS
Marc Donato portrays a New York teenager who becomes a batboy for the Yankees. Sounds sort of tedious and Wonder Years-ish, right? Wrong…this tale’s been Gibsonized! Herod, or “Harry”, as he’s better known in the clubhouse, first acquired fame in the New York tabloids as the product of an immaculate conception at North Central Bronx Hospital fifteen years earlier. The adolescent Harry, who now notoriously has quasi-biblical powers, comes to the attention of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who, in the series opener, is embroiled in a payroll accounting scandal, and in an effort to redeem himself in the eyes of God (and the New York media), hires young Harry to provide redemption for not just “this tired old Jew,” but the entire team of sinners, as well.
And, thankfully, things shape up for the team pretty fast under Harry’s guidance. When not providing the home plate umpire with new baseballs, or making sure Alex Rodriguez’s batting gloves are well-oiled, Harry has the opportunity to counsel Jason Giambi on the perils of ingesting “Satan’s Unnatural Poisons” in his effort to hit more home runs, and coaxing team captain Derek Jeter into giving up his womanizing ways after a nasty encounter with Satan’s Temptress, played by the enchanting Rebecca Romijn. And when the Subway Series reprises itself during sweeps week, Mets catcher (and notorious homosexual) Mike Piazza learns that a good man is, indeed, hard to find, and subsequently falls in love with Harry’s aunt, Seraphia, a former lesbian also cured by God’s love.
gibson_carradine.jpgSAVAGES
Airing this fall on ABC
Keith Carradine plays a single, working-class dad raising five sons. Pretty straightforward, huh? Well, need we remind you that this, too, has been Gibsonized? Keith plays Papa Barabbas, a former missionary in Peru, who has adopted five Incan boys as his own and now must go about raising them in the suburbs of Chicago, all alone. Diehard missionaries and men of God, after all, can’t take a wife, which wreaks havoc on his blue-collar neighborhood after Barabbas forcefully renounces the advances of special guest star Bonnie Hunt.
And on the homefront, despite Barabbas’ background in converting South Americans to Christianity, things are both difficult and hilarious for him as he tries to get his boys to stop speaking to each other in their native Quechua dialect. His sons, however, grow more and more flustered as they struggle with urban colloquialisms such as “What’s up?” and “True, dat.”
gibson_diggs.jpgKEVIN HILL
Airing this fall on UPN
Former up-and-coming actor Taye Diggs settles into the role of a high-powered lawyer forced to become a father figure overnight when his cousin tragically perishes, leaving him with custody of a baby girl. Mel Gibson, a noted misogynist, initially balked at the idea of adapting the films Mostly Martha and Raising Helen into a television series, until the newfound mini-mogul realized he could retain the central character’s ineptitude and inherent feminine dishonesty by transposing her character traits onto a whole new sort of “other,” a black male protagonist. (On-set reports indicated that the Lethal Weapon star actually had trouble distinguishing Taye from his former co-star Danny Glover, until a representative for Mr. Diggs courteously stepped in and insisted that Gibson please stop calling his lead “Danny”.)
Regardless, hilarity ensues when papa Taye, in the course of changing diapers, erroneously runs out of Pampers and has to “make do” with a copy of the Ten Commandments. God bless that baby’s bottom!