Author: matt

Last week, The Onion AV Club introduced a new weekly feature called Say Something Funny, “in which comedians submit an e-mailed response to the query, ‘Make people laugh. You have 250 words.'” First unfunny victim, Mike Birbiglia.
Seems awfully similar to early-’90s hate-zine ANSWER Me!‘s Make Me Laugh, You Impish Bastard!, in which Jim and Debbie Goad (R.I.P.), the Ronald and Nancy Reagan of misanthropy called up clowns listed in the phonebook and said “I’ve heard you’re a clown. Make me laugh.” Here’s a quick (offline) sample:

Xuxa the Clown: I am a clown. That is true. Make you laugh immediately?… Wow! I’m sorry, I don’t know if I can do that. You caught me off guard. But I really know how to make the kids laugh a lot. I do a magic show, face-painting, animal balloons, and games. And I am pretty silly.

Shudder. No wonder kids hate clowns.

From this week’s New Yorker, ‘Talk of the Town’:
“The Reverend William Sloane Coffin, now seventy-nine and suffering from terminal heart disease…” The Light Of Sunday by Ben McGrath
“Tobin grew up in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and still lives there, in a four-bedroom house on a quiet tree-lined street. Seventy-nine years old, he works most days at his law firm, a few minutes away.” Times Warp by Alicia DeSantis
“Omar Sharif—Cairo Fred to his friends—has played a bandit and a Catholic priest and Khalil Gibran and Tsar Nicholas II and the British agent Cedric, who gets trash-compacted in “Top Secret!” He is seventy-one.” Cairo Fred by Dana Goodyear
Of course, this guy makes them all seem like pishers:
“Richard Walter, who is eighty-one, and his wife, Linda, who is a little younger than that (they’ve been married for thirty-five years), sleep in separate bedrooms in apartment 6D at 1016 Fifth Avenue, an elegant limestone-and-brick prewar building that faces the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along one of the most expensive strips of real estate in New York.” The Noises by Nick Paumgarten

Gregg Easterbook has found a new home for his football blog: NFL.com. Good thing, too, since it’s been a few minutes since anyone mentioned his dumb ass. Too bad Radosh is so busy changing diapers, ’cause I’m sure he has what to say on this matter.
Good luck, Gregg: I’m sure you’ll fuck this gig up, too.
Earlier thoughts on Gregg Easterbrook from low culture: What Easterbrook Could Learn from Rousseau
[via Romenesko]

On Sunday you’re photographed in The New York Times Magazine in your ‘castle in the sky,’ your “1958 eight-seater De Havilland Beaver DH-2 restored to [your] specifications.” On Monday, you’re on page A9 of the same publication with a sign that reads Will Work For Food.
Won’t you please remember the neediest and rent Hollywood Homicide this holiday weekend?
Seriously, though: despite what our ‘friends’ say, we here at low culture aren’t complete fucking assholes. Please go to CityHarvest.org and make a donation this year.

This week, New York Magazine took a break from passing the Grey Poupon and traveled uptown—way, way uptown—to write about something called rap ‘music.’
But more amazing than having the Towncar take you across 110th Street, is the fact that New York also went back in time for their headline, “Got Beef?”
“Got Beef?” Not a bad hed. Where’d they come up with that?
Hey, New York, next time try to Think Different, won’t you?
Earlier thoughts on New York Magazine from low culture: New York‘s Amazing Feet; I Call Bullshit on New York Magazine

In honor of Jonathan Ames‘ week-long diary of his trip to Club Med on McSweeneys.net, we here at low culture would like to announce our First Annual (Ever?) Jonathan Ames Write-Alike Contest.
Please use our comments area to post your entries. Extra points awarded for use of Yiddish, references to Scott Fitzgerald, detailed descriptions of bodily functions, and in-depth questioning of your sexuality. All entries not in the first-person will be automatically disqualified.
Winning entry will be printed out and hand delivered to Ames who lives two blocks away from me. (Or his mailbox: see nonexistant rules for further information.) All entries must be submitted…whenever. Must be 18 years or older to enter; only one winner per state, sorry Tennessee.

I snoozed on this all week, but this comes from Wednesday’s Times article,
Remains of Dean’s Long-Missing Brother Found by Jodi Wilgoren and Michael Slackman:
Every day on the campaign trail, Howard Dean wears an unfashionable black belt that belonged to his younger brother Charlie, a silent memorial to the man who vanished while traveling the Mekong River 29 years ago… Dr. Dean has worn the black leather belt with the large, silver-rimmed holes for at least 20 years, and counts his brother’s death as a watershed that made him more serious about his own future.
How many middle aged men can say they’ve been able to wear the same belt for 20 years? Oh, and it’s a shame about his brother, too.
[Yes, I know that the belt on the left is brown with a brass buckle.]

Being a journalist is hard work. You have to pound the pavement in search of sources, burn the candle at both ends to write engaging sentences, and worst of all, you have to read the whole blurb on the dust jacket of a book for that deep, deep background.
Ask anyone writing about super producer-turned-alleged murderer, Phil Spector. This comes the back cover blurb of Mark Ribowsky’s 1989 book He’s A Rebel: Phil Spector, Rock and Roll’s Legendary Producer: “Phil Spector created the ‘wall of sound,’ produced the Beatles’ last record, persuaded the Ramones to go ‘pop,’ made the Righteous brothers sound respectable, and was a millionaire by age 21.”
If that last part of the sentence sounds familiar, then you’ve been paying attention:
“As songwriter, guitarist and backup singer for the band, which hit the big time with To Know Him is to Love Him, he became a millionaire by the age of 21.
“‘To Know Him Is to Love Him’ and made him a millionaire by age 21.”
“By the time he was 21, Spector was a millionaire.”
“ Spector was a millionaire by age 21, and his music career exploded after he came onto the music scene as a member of the band the Teddy Bears.”
“Spector had started his career as a musician with a band called the Teddy Bears before embarking on a songwriting and production career that made him a millionaire by the age of 21.”
“Spector was only 21 years old, and he was a millionaire.”
“…the youngest record company head and a millionaire age 21, dubbed Tycoon of Teen.”
“Spector got his start in the music business in 1958 as a songwriter, guitarist and backup singer for the Los Angeles group the Teddy Bears, which had a hit single with ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’ and made him a millionaire by age 21. ”
Spector began promoting, producing and creating bands when he was in his teens, and was a millionaire by the time he was 21.”
“Phil Spector, the legendary but reclusive American producer who invented the ‘wall of sound’, hit No. 1 with his very first single and was a millionaire by 21.”
“By 21, Spector was a millionaire and a maverick dubbed the ‘teen tycoon’ by author Tom Wolfe.”
I don’t know, know, know about you, but I broke into a sweat just summarizing it.