Category: Shallow

Presidential candidate John Kerry gracing the cover of this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, an appearance which inevitably subjected him to the magazine’s notorious cover curse
From Sen. John Kerry’s remarks at the Second Presidential Debate, Washington University, St. Louis, Friday, October 8, 2004:

Chris Reeve is a friend of mine. Chris Reeve exercises every single day to keep those muscles alive for the day when he believes he can walk again, and I want him to walk again.
I think we can save lives.

From “‘Superman’ Star Christopher Reeve Dies at 52,” The Associated Press, Monday, October 11, 2004:

Christopher Reeve, the star of the “Superman” movies whose near-fatal riding accident nine years ago turned him into a worldwide advocate for spinal cord research, died Sunday of heart failure, his publicist said. He was 52.
Reeve fell into a coma Saturday after going into cardiac arrest while at his New York home, his publicist, Wesley Combs told The Associated Press by phone from Washington, D.C., on Sunday night. His family was at his side at the time of death.

“My death, is it possible?” asked the late philosopher Jacques Derrida in his book Aporias.
As one wag put it yesterday upon hearing of Derrida’s death, “I guess that answers THAT question.” (Thanks, Sarah)

From the New York Times:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who donned a tan cowboy hat, joked that he was working on a song called “Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Mayors.”

Number of jokes made by Mayor Bloomberg about writing country songs: at least 1.

Additional number of such jokes desired by New Yorkers: 0.

Total number of such jokes desired by New Yorkers: 0.

“Fallon, who has zero screen presence, flounders around, dribbling forth what can only be improvised dialogue in the most embarrassing SNL vehicle since Pootie Tang.”
‘TAXI’ DRIVEL, by Megan Lehmann, Oct. 6, 2004

Age under which commercial composer and tea salesman Moby says every celebrity seems like a “half-wit”: 23
Year Harvard educated action figure model Natalie Portman was born: 1981

I had the pleasure of interviewing Rodney Dangerfield two years ago. He was a great guy, a little out of it, but still as funny and nasty as you could hope for.
I met Rodney in his Westwood apartment, where he lounged in a loosely held bathrobe – that night I saw more of Rodney Dangerfield than I expected, a softer, more fleshy, less circumcised side. I also met his wife, who was beautiful, blonde and half his age (placing her somewhere around fifty), but she was surprisingly sharp and impossibly nice.
Rodney was in show business for more than sixty years and worked every gig imaginable, from singing waiter to The Dean Martin Show. He discovered Kinison and Hicks and countless others. In many ways Back to School is to blame for my own sub-par performance in college. And how many times can you wring your collar and declare “No respect” before it gets tired? Never.
What follows are excerpts from the interview or the transcript.
On Overcoming Depression:
“When you’re smart,” Rodney says, “you’ve got no one to talk to. I’ve done everything for it, including forty-eight Austrians, OK? It’s not easy.”
“I have no idea what that means” is the best I can come up with.
“I keep myself dumb, I make plenty of friends that way. It’s easier to get a chick when you’re dumb.”
OK, but thers thers got to be more. Does he take anti-depressants?
“Nothing.”
What about the alcohol cure?
“No, I hardly touch it. I smoke pot,” he says, “I smoke a lot of pot.”
On Romance:
“Listen man,” he offers, “You can always find a chick with a nice ass. You find a chick who’ll actually listen to you, and you can bring yourself to listen to? That’s what you hold on to. If she has a nice ass too, that’s not so bad either.”
I like Rodney’s advice – it seems honest – but this comes only minutes after he’s said, “I told my wife she’s awful in bed. So she went out and got a second opinion. And then she got a third opinion, and a fourth opinion.”
And the inevitable follow-up, “My wife, she likes to talk during sex. The other night she called me from a motel.”

Little Jackson Pollocks, Exploring in Oil Paints
New York Times 10/4/04
Which Was Painted By a Child?
New York Times 10/3/04
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl
New York Times 9/28/04

Oy, we’re kvelling over here about how many mentions of Jews there are in today’s New York Post! Nu, it gives us such nachas to see that this city’s true paper of record is finally recognizing Jews’ valuable contribution to the city!
First, there’s an article on Jews in reality TV shows sensitively headlined Jew-Insult ‘Apprentice’ Fired Twice by Don Kaplan and Braden Keil (two nice Jewish boys, yes?). Strangely, this piece about Apprentice contestant Jennifer Crisafulli‘s anti-semitic comments (“It was those two old Jewish fat ladies!”) is not on the Post website (conspiracy?), but you can read all about it here. (Why isn’t this article online? Such a shande!)
Then the Post saw fit to run a press release article by Suzanne Kapner (a nice Jewish girl, maybe?) about a hip [sic.] Jewish clothing company called Jewcy.
From the hilarious headline (New Jewcy.com Web Site’s Offerings Are Strictly Kosher) to the article’s pitch-perfect lede (“Call it knish kitsch.”), this has to be one of the best, most spot-on pieces about Jews I’ve ever encountered! And I’ve read tons of Jewy crap!
Since the very headline was a plug for Jewcy junk, you just gotta check out their website for hilarious T-shirts emblazoned with such clever, easily accessible Yiddishisms as Yenta, Kvetch, and Meshuggenah! It’s shtetl fabulous—even for your shagetz boyfriend who gives your mother such tsuris and makes her want to plotz!
Feh, it’s enough to make you chaloshes! I just wish I could remember Jewcy‘s URL and help them make some more gelt. Oh, well, guess they get bubkis.

“This nation of ours has got a solemn duty… We have a duty to defeat this enemy. We have a duty…”
“Now, we’re doing our duty…”
“…active duty…”
“We’re being challenged like never before, and we have a duty…”
” It will help change the world. That we can look back and say we did our duty…”
“…the enemy attacked us, Jim, and I have a solemn duty…”
“…active duty…”
“I add two active-duty divisions…”