low culture

Pink kicks off her European tour… Wez kicks ass in Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

I’m just as surprised as you are that one of the most incisive critiques of hip hop capitalism would come from MAD Magazine, but it’s a crazy world, right?
On newsstands this month, The Lords of the Bling movie poster. I was sad that there wasn’t room for Farnsworth Bentley as Samwise Gamgee (“Mr. Diddy, look out for that giant spider!”), but it’s pretty perfect as it is.
Related: Black Book has Jay-Z on the cover of it’s special “Bourgeois” issue, also out this month. (Coincidentally, Hova’s upcoming MTV books/Pocket Books memoir is also titled Black Book.)

America, you’re gonna love the little midget!
Michael Eisner‘s month just got a little worse, but every bad comedy writers’ has just gotten better: Jeffrey Katzenberg may star in a Los Angeles-based version of The Apprentice for CBS.
That should bring some seriousness and dignity to DreamWorks after this week’s release of Euro Trip.
Two words, Jeff: Project Greenlight.
[via TV Tattle]

“Replicas of the nails used to hang Jesus on the cross have become the red-hot official merchandise linked to Mel Gibson’s controversial new movie,The Passion of the Christ.” — ‘JESUS’ NAIL SALE, by William Neuman, The New York Post, Feb. 19, 2004
Anyone remember the old Bill Hicks routine about how pissed off Jesus would be if He came back and saw all His followers wearing crucifixes? Like He wants to see one of those ever again.
This is probably the worst movie tie-in since the official Exorcist crucifixes or the Elephant Man pillowcases.
[Photo courtesy of The New York Post]

Newly chatty Billy Corgan tells all about the demise of Smashing
Pumpkins (photo Dec. 2, 2000)

Clint Howard as Balok on Star Trek (“The Corbomite Maneuver,” Nov. 1966)

‘Mister Ed’ gets a new voice

LOS ANGELES, California (Hollywood Reporter)—Sherman Hemsley of “The Jeffersons” fame is lending his voice to the title character in Fox’s updated version of “Mister Ed.”
Hemsley joins David Alan Basche, who was previously tapped to play Wilbur Post, and Sherilyn Fenn, tapped as Wilbur’s wife.
“Mister Ed” is a remake of the 1960s talking-horse sitcom. This time around, the equine title character has an urban sensibility.

How “urban” can a show about a talking horse be? Is Mr. Ed one of those inner-city horses we see all the time nowadays?
And what the hell happened to Sherilyn Fenn? First she played Pacey‘s Mrs. Robinson-esque boss/stalker on Dawson’s Creek and now she’s playing opposite a horse? What did Audrey Horn do to deserve this? I almost regret having had a crush on her when I was 14.
[via TV Tattle]

They’re in the Money: The Maloofs and Mark Cuban
This was a great weekend for wealthy, overgrown man-boys in the media. Everywhere you looked, serious, august news organizations were indulging very spoiled, very rich men who’ve built their own Xanadus the same way boys build forts out of sofa cushions and bed sheets.
First up, The New York Times Magazine, which flatteringly profiled the fun-lovin’ Maloof brothers. (The Flying Maloof Brothers by Hugo Lindgren—with photos by Tabitha Soren!) According to Lindgren:

(That ‘lad magazine’ reference inadvertently echoes Julia Chaplin’s A Night Out With: The Maloof Brothers; Boys and Their Toys from The Times ‘Style’ section last November when she said “If FHM or Maxim could invent their dream bachelor, he would no doubt be something like the Maloof brothers.”)
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? They own a casino, a hot nightclub, a sports franchise, and—boo-yah!—they’re friends with Britney Spears (despite the fact that they’re all 15 or more years older than her).
What could be more fun than being a Maloof? Why, being Mark “Cubes” Cuban, of course! Cubes was profiled by Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes this weekend. (Self-Made Maverick). Here’s the nut graph:

Now, at 45, he is living out his fantasy. And the best part of being a billionaire, he says, is shooting hoops with NBA stars in his own arena – even though a lot of people thought he was too goofy to be an NBA owner.

Too goofy? This is the man who had the brains and sensitivity to take the Kobe Bryant rape case seriously: “From a business perspective, it’s great for the NBA. It’s reality television. People love train-wreck television…” he told reporters back in August.
We like Gulfstream V-wreck television even better.
I thank god it wasn’t Ed Bradley, my favorite 60 Minutes correspondent, sent to trail around behind the screeching, fine-paying owner of the Dallas Mavericks. Luckily, it was Kroft who played wiffle ball with Cubes in his gaudy McMansion’s chandelier room (fun!), caught him mixing up the word “millions” and “dollars” (endearing!), and visited the converted industrial space that houses the Mavs operations office, which Cubes affectionately described this way: “It’s a sweatshop here and we’re proud of it… You can’t see the chains attached to their ankle[s].” (Witty!)
How disgruntled would you be if your boss said that about you just after appearing on TV in his private jet and mansion? I bet you’d think it was hilarious. (This is the most annoying segment from CBS News since Bob Simon played Waylon Smithers to Felix Dennis’s Monty Burns on 60 Minutes II back in November.)
But the thing that grated the most about Kroft’s Cuban profile was the subject’s high-pitched, smug giggle, which punctuated every statement he made like a rimshot. (Presumably even that Kobe Bryant statement above.) After the fiftieth time hearing that laugh, I finally realized why its jingle, its cymbals’ song sounded so familiar. It was the same sound heard by Nick Carraway in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby when he listened to Daisy Buchanan and concluded “Her voice is full of money.” (But were her legs pinned back ceaselessly like a Safeway chicken?)
Spending so much time with the Maloofs and Cubes—men with bank accounts in the eight digits and emotional maturity in the singles—I was reminded of another Gatsby quote, one that sums up the 21st Century’s billionaire playboys even as it speaks to the early 20th’s:

I’ve got no beef with self-made men, but I wish they’d stop acting like boys and actually become men someday.