Author: matt

The prize for today’s Tuesday Trivia Tournament goes to Cindy, who correctly identified the phrases as the slogan for FOX’s new Joe Millionaire series kicking off next week. Congratulations, Cindy!
But, given the close ties between the G.O.P. and FOX’s parent company, News Corp., the slogan First we lied to America. Now we’re taking on the world! could just as easily be inscribed (in Latin, maybe) on Karl Rove’s stationery. I don’t know about you, but I’m not looking forward to the international fall-out from the new Joe Millionaire: we haven’t exactly been endearing ourselves to our Old European friends of late, and pulling a mean prank on their lovely daughters probably won’t make us any more popular at those Friday afternoon ice cream socials at the United Nations. How will we look Kofi Annan in the eye when we ask for more sprinkles?

The old maxim holds: if you want a friend in the blogosphere, get a dog. No one ever said posting your half-cocked opinions on matters great and small for the sixteen people who read blogs would win me any popularity contests. But I must respond to Elizabeth Spiers’ counter-attack on my ever so polite suggestion that her New York Magazine colleague David Amsden’s pants are on fire.

Good morning! Today I’m trying something new. I’m gonna call this The Tuesday Trivia Tournament (nice, right? took me an hour to come up with it). Answer the below question in the comments area and at the end of the day, I’ll tell you the answer. The winner will receive the First Annual low culture Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of… Excellence! Here goes:
The following statement appeared last week in a magazine (either in an article, headline, or advertisement). Tell me what it refers to and, if possible, who’s behind it:

First we lied to America.
Now we’re taking on the world!
Get those thinking caps on. Bonus points for creative incorrect answers.

Straight from the slangin’ mouth of Whatevs‘ Uncle Grambo comes this possibly unintentional critique of LA in the guise of a rant against trendy “white trash chic” boutique Von Dutch:
i know that VD is trendy in Los Angeles, but shouldn’t you be following the rest of the civilized world and realizing that Los Angeles fashion trends are nothing more than leftover hand-me-downs from NYC?
Yep, VD sure is trendy in Los Angeles. Even Beck says in a creepy voice, “I can smell the VD in the club tonight” on “Milk & Honey” from his LA-centric 1999 album Midnite Vultures.
Added incentive to link: Britney Spears showing off her VD

Today’s award for making very good use of an unlimited MetroCard goes to The Times‘ Lola Ogunnaike who filled this report from every part of the city:
Jae Song, who caught “Kill Bill” at the Loews 19th Street East Saturday afternoon, came expressly for the film’s much discussed brutality… Mr. Sheikh, a college student, stood outside the Loews Kips Bay Theater Saturday evening smoking a cigarette… Billy Hemmans, a self-professed samurai movie expert, stood outside the Magic Johnson Theater in Harlem Saturday evening… “It was an average action film,” said Jolynn Krystocek, an art student who saw “Kill Bill” on Saturday afternoon at the Kips Bay theater in Murray Hill… The gore bothered Kristi Tucker, who caught the film with her brother at the Loews on 42nd Street on Friday, opening night…. “I liked the music,” said Ang Phurba, a sherpa breathing from an oxygen tank outside the Regal Entertainment Theatre atop Mt. Everest…”
Okay, that last one was fake.
Gory ‘Kill Bill’ Tops Weekend Box Office by Lola Ogunnaike

Buried in today’s Times article on HEEB Magazine‘s expansion fantasies is this analogy from new editor Joshua Neuman:
I’m trying to emulate Vice in that this is more than a magazine, but a lifestyle. As Vice is to cocaine, we are to chocolate layer cake.
What’s so Jewish about chocolate layer cake? Might I suggest a more apt analogy?
As Vice is to anonymous butt-sex (warning: dirty, dirty link), we are to speed dating and settling down with a nice doctor in the suburbs in your thirties.
A Sardonic Jewish Magazine Expands Its Ambitions by Bill Werde

Comedy Central’s been calling Knee High P.I, “our pint-sized original movie.” I can think of at least one thing wrong with that phrase.




Apparently, some ideas never get old or unfunny. For Your Height Only is a 1979 James Bond parody from the Phillipines that starred Weng-Weng a small, but suave secret agent. Copies are hard to come by but Amazon has two copies on VHS and can set you up with two used on DVD. Or you can watch Knee High P.I. tonight at 9 PM EST on Comedy Central.
[Thanks to the Boing Boing brain trust for originally alerting me to Weng Weng]

Sitting through the credits of Kill Bill, I noticed one name that stood out from the rest: Perrystrong.com. Ruling out the possibility that somewhere, some parents gave their kid an URL for a name (maybe he’s a relative of The Times Jennifer 8. Lee?), I checked out the dude’s site. Here’s what I learned:
Perry was born in 197X! (Since he graduated college in 2001, I gotta assume he was actually born in 1980: he’s one of those November babies.)
Perry is 6’0″ tall!
Perry is Black, German, Jewish, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and was raised by Italians!
Perry went to Franklin D. Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn and then Hampshire College in Massachusetts!
Perry is currently looking for representation for both Directing and Acting!

Hey Hip-hop, Fashion, and Marathon fans*:
Do you want to share an intimate dinner with P-Diddy and 12-15 members of his personal entourage? Would you like a dinner companion who changes the location four times, shows up late, answers an endless succession of cell phone calls, talks about how much money he makes, drops the names of his more famous friends, doesn’t ask you so much as what you do for a living, ducks out before the check comes, and probably won’t acknowledge your existence if you should run into him again? Yeah? Then sign up for The New York Post‘s Win Dinner with P. Diddy plus autographed gear Sweepstakes. (Never the innovator, His Diddiness is merely sampling My Dinner with Andre.)
Topics to discuss: The war in Iraq; Will he wear tape on his nipples during the New York City Marathon? What he thinks of the brutality of the African diamond trade. Does he know that Gatsby was shot execution-style at the end of the book? Where the hell is Mase? Also, try not to blush when you see Farnsworth Bentley patting the edges of Diddy’s mouth with a napkin between bites.
*Also fans of really bad Flash openers on Web sites