Sunday Video: How to Report the News

From Charlie Brooker's News Wipe, a satirical weekly show that dissects not just news, but how it is reported.

I think he hit all the right notes with this analysis of how almost remote piece is structured.

Bravo Mr. Brooker, bravo!

Tags: charlie brooker, television news, news wipe, bbc 4, news presentation, daily show, british

Week 38: Pageant of the Transmundane

An overtoasted bagel forced the evacuation of Portland, Oregon's City Hall this week. No real joke. Just think about how many times you've burnt something in the toaster and firemen didn't show up. I'm just saying...

There are times when a Transmundanity winning entry is a singular item which is really weird and memorable.

This week, it is a group of weird things that all add up to a very strange and bizarre look at the world.

Now, I could gild the lily here and try to really sell this week's winner, but it isn't that kind of week.

This is a list of 50 more of the most "interesting" articles on Wikipedia. And by interesting, the proprietors of Copybot mean odd, weird and say what?

And because this week's winning entry has to do with Wikipedia, it seemed like an image of Homer looking up something online at something vaguely like an encyclopedia was the best option for the award this week.



Congrats Holly on this wonderful find. Here is your web badge.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: pageant of the transmundane, homer simpson, wikipedia, bagel, toaster, portland, oregon, copybot, bizarre

Friday Favorite: The Joy of Coffee: A Culture Kills Comic

At one time I had a weekly comic. I miss doing it. I don't know if I will start doing it again however.

Here is one of my classics.

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Created with the flash-enabled madness of Strip Generator

Bad dirty mind. Bad dirty mind.

Tags: culture kills, comic, strip generator, coffee, starbucks, porno, sickness

Ugly Betty: Mode Magazine Downsized By ABC

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye Ugly Betty.

A lot of us thought that the writing was on the wall for the show when it was given a slot working the graveyard shift on Fridays at 9 (myself included). Of course, its move to some better television real estate on Wednesdays at 10 raised a few eyebrows and started getting people's hopes up that it might indeed return next year. But alas, that was not to be.

It is a show that has seen better days. Even as a fan, I am willing to admit that it really isn't what it once was. As a series, it lost its spark somewhere along the line. Something that Aaron Davis from Electronic Cerebrectomy has noticed is whenever Betty seems to be getting ahead or starts getting on a roll, the writers eventually take everything that she has won away from her.

I was starting to see the writing on the wall when the ratings for the last two episodes were released and it was dead last in the time slot. That's right, The Jay Leno Show (buoyed by controversy of course) was beating this show.

So for those of you out there who enjoyed the series, there are just 8 more episodes left to say goodbye.

Well, at least we now have the prospect of America Ferrera and other cast members moving on to bigger and better things.

Tags: america ferrera, ana ortiz, ugly betty, mode magazine, jay leno, abc, cancellation, eric mabius, aaron davis, electronic cerebrectomy

Little Black Napoleon: An Idea That Has to Come to Fruition

A few days ago, I was riffing in the comments section of my post on blaming Leno for his role in that NBC unpleasantness, when I said a certain phrase that tickled me.

Little Black Napoleon.

And over the course of that night, I started to imagine how a play about Napoleon at Waterloo would turn out if the leads were played by diminutive African-American actors.

Yeah, welcome to my warped little world.

Since I can really only think of three actors who fit this bill off the top of my head, well, it made the task of doing so a very easy.

For instance, who could play Napoleon... hmmm... who was in a picture recently looking defiant, angry whilst incarcerated? Why, it is Gary Coleman of course.



Naturally, he would bring that same quality to this project playing a man who has just escaped from captivity in a bid to regain his former glory. (It is also said that if one was to urinate on a picture of Gary Coleman, the demon of fame would be summoned. However, it is a capricious little creature, so I would not advise you do that).

There would have to be a scene where he is stretched out on the floor saying Merde repeatedly.... just that one Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure reference.

But who would be the Wellington to Gary Coleman's Napoleon? Why there is only one person it can be. I am of course talking about TV's Webster, Emmanuel Lewis.



So while Coleman was getting robbed blind by his parents, little Manny Mo was living a life of privilege as an executive producer of Webster, a show he wasn't even originally supposed to be on. And you know there would be tension between those two on stage. I think there might be a point where they actually try to kill each other, and looking into Coleman's eyes above, I think he would definitely have the advantage.

And playing Field Marshall Blucher would be none other than Tony Cox.



Why? Because any dude that can hit the ground like this...



...is the same dude who has the poise and dignity to play a Field Marshall.

Now you have to admit to yourself that now that I've suggested it, you sort of want to see this too. Come on... you know you want to see it.

Tags: gary coleman, little black napoleon, wellington, blucher, waterloo, bill and ted's excellent adventure, emmanuel lewis, manny mo, webster, tony cox, little people, napoleon, warped world

Travolta Helps Haiti with One Hand, while Molesting It With The Other

When I read that John Travolta was flying planeloads of food and supplies to Haiti, I some of my hate slide away. I mean, that was an awesome thing to do.

But then, well, another part of that story started to come out. You see, in addition to the food, Travolta is also flying Scientologists into the area. I wish I was making that up.

Quoting a recent piece from The Guardian, "The Church of Scientology has dispatched several hundred "volunteer ministers" in yellow T-shirts to other disasters, including September 11. They use a process called "assist" in which the power of touch purportedly reconnects nervous systems shaken by trauma. Since last week several hundred have fanned across Port-au-Prince."

Even if Scientologists weren't involved, the idea that there is an army of men and women running around a disaster area laying hands on people is sort of creepy. The fact that the Volunteer Ministry of the church is really a sinister way of preventing people from receiving professional psychological help after a tragedy (there is a paper trail to prove that too) and another way promoting the church to people who are in a state that makes them more susceptible to that kind of influence.

The fact that these people are using a humanitarian disaster in one of the poorest countries on earth to advance their money making scheme is truly despicable. Basically, their presence undercuts a lot of the good that Travolta is doing in Haiti.

So again, Travolta should be lauded for bring literally tons of food to that ailing nation, but the entourage he is bringing with him is really taking the edge off his generosity. Haiti needs food and supplies, but it certainly doesn't need the kind of "spiritual help".

Tags: john travolta, haiti, volunteer ministers, scientology, sea org, scientologists, earthquake, psychiatry, touch therapy, fraud, cult, humanitarian aid

On Celebrities and Social Networks

I will not be dropping any names in this post, so everything I say will be in abstraction.

The genesis of this entry is a simple one. I have a friend on Facebook, and when I was hanging around the site last night, I noticed that a celebrity had dropped them a line on their Wall. It seemed like more than a mere celebrity to fan interaction (beyond something like Thanks for the Support or any other very general message), it was an exchange that was clearly between two people who had mutual respect for each other and a shared history. I wasn't being nosy at this point by the way. I was just looking at a conversation as it appeared on my feed.

However, I must admit that curiosity did get the better of me and I looked at that celebrity's list of contacts, and I found myself seeing a lot of other performers and such whose work I loved.

Now I had a momentary tickle in the back of my brain telling me to try to befriend that celebrity and then the huge weight of the rest of my personality bore down on that impulse and beat it to a pulp because that is something that is quite frankly, a dick move. Celebrities deserve the right to frequent social networking sites and interact with their friends in peace too, and if I, as someone who is merely a fan, tries to invade that space, well, then I am an asshole, as simple as that.

And I should know, as I've been somewhat on the other side of this issue. You see, back in the early part of this century, I became acquainted with a public figure, and at one point, they asked me to be their friend on that antiquated set of web pages known as Friendster (as if anyone really remembers that one). Well, one day, someone started chatting me up on the site, and we became chummy, and the moment I became Friendster friends with them, well, they sent a friend invite to the figure in question as well. That person basically used me to play leap frog to a celebrity. That made me feel incredibly crappy, because not only was I used, but I feel like I let my friend down too... because basically I was exposing them to someone who didn't legitimately earn their friendship. Conversely, while they had a number of other famous friends, I never interacted with them because in essence, I would have been doing what that one user did to me, and that's totally not cool. Their friendship was enough, and I valued it as much then as I do now.

Basically, the way I see it is if a celebrity wants to interact with their fans, well, they will make themselves available in other online venues to do so. Like if you go to Myspace and interact with a musician or comedian on their specially designed page, well, that's ok. However, if you find out someone famous has a personal page on one of those sites that isn't connected to that, well, then you shouldn't really bother them there. For example, at Myspace, I accidentally came across the personal page for someone famous, and on one level, it would have been awesome to write them, but I know that would have been the wrong move. That profile was for their friends and family, and however I approached them would have been a breach of etiquette.

So, if you run across a celebrity on a social network, and you are thinking about adding them as a friend, perhaps you should think twice about doing so. And consider who is saying this, a guy who writes almost exclusively about pop culture, the media and famous people. I mean, I would love to have that kind of access to the people I write about, but bugging them at Facebook/Myspace is clearly not the way to build an organic relationship, so I just don't do it. Of course, some celebrities are cool about their social networking profiles, but if you aren't sure if they are or not, discretion is the better part of valor in that case.

Tags: facebook, myspace, celebrities, social networks, organic relationships, friendster, comedians, musicians, artists

Sunday Video: Rendez Vu

Basement Jaxx has had a lot of strangely compelling videos in their time. But the one that always pops up in my head when I think of the group has nothing to do with Bollywood, performing monkeys or dancing monarchs.

This one is a weird blend of luchadors, westerns and the movie Rashomon.

While I am not a huge fan of the song, the video is well worth watching.

Tags: basement jaxx, rendez vu, romeo, where's your head at, rashomon, luchador

Week 37: Pageant of the Transmundane

A man in Scotland was banned for life from a public park after he was caught trying to have sex with a tree. No word on if he was a druid, or was just really into nature. I guess he had wood for wood. I'll be here all week (unless Jay Leno wants to takeover my blog that is), enjoy the veal.

Anyway, this week's winning entry is from the blog Maven's Links of Awesomesauce.

What did Maven discover that blew my mind? Well, she found a forum post which had models made up to look like dolls.

I mean, made to look like full sized dolls in a creepy way.

Look at it and freak out.

Now the question I had to ask myself was should I trying to replicate the circumstances, or the results. I tried to replicate the latter, but alas, the image I found the the Simpsons parody of the Pep Boys didn't have Homer in them. So I went with a little Lard Lad action.



Congrats Maven. Here is your badge.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: pageant of the transmundane, maven, lard lad, homer simpson, doll heads, scotland

Friday Favorite: My Vote for Late Night 2009? Patton Oswalt

For my final word on this whole NBC late night debacle, I thought I would go back to February 2007 to refresh an entry I wrote regarding who I felt was the best choice to replace Conan O'Brien on Late Night after he moved onto The Tonight Show.

I admit that sometimes I get things very wrong. This was one of those posts that given what we know now, was an awful idea. But I still have to live with it and sometimes their is humor in folly.

I am glad what I wrote didn't come to pass.

I also swear this is the last time I am going to discuss this topic on Culture Kills for a long time. That is unless one of three things happen:

a) Conan's final show ratings tonight surpass Leno's final Tonight Show ratings.

b) Leno shows a remarkable lack of class on an upcoming Oprah appearance and he grossly slanders Conan O'Brien, who cannot defend himself because of the nature of his settlement with NBC (there would be monetary penalties and he is not allowed to be interviewed on another talk show for a while).

c) I got a really really bad comment on one of my previous posts about this subject and I single that person out for scorn and humiliation. (I am not talking about well-thought out responses to what I've written... you know the kind of thing I mean)

Other than that, I will likely be silent about this issue for a long time.

Anyway, here is that previous piece of poor prognostication. ;)

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While I am happy that Conan O'Brien is going to be behind the big desk of the Tonight Show starting in 2009, I am worried about what is going to happen over at Late Night.

You see, there are two names currently floating around for this empty slot: Carson Daly and Jimmy Fallon.

Carson Daly currently has a show following Late Night called Last Call... and much like a bar at Last Call, there is little mirth there left as all the entertainment has left the building. And there is the fact that he isn't a comedian and really, not much of a personality either.

And well Jimmy Fallon... you know, that guy who starred in Taxi with Queen Latifah and is rumored to star as Major Nelson in the remake of I Dream of Jeannie, the guy who couldn't keep a straight face during sketches on Saturday Night Live? Yeah, that guy. I'll admit that the fact that he played Carson Daly on SNL gives him an edge over the former host of TRL, but really, even I have an edge over him. I don't think he has the stuff to fill that chair particularly well either.

I know that when Letterman left that slot in 1993 and Conan O'Brien ascended to those relatively lofty heights, there were a lot of naysayers then claiming that he had no business helming a talk show, and this may seem like more of the same, but there is a big diffence in these situations. Conan was truly an untested commodity, while the limitations of Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly are clear today.

But rather than merely kvetch about the people who are in line for that throne, I thought it would be better to suggest an alternative.

Patton Oswalt.

When you look back at the almost three decades of Late Night, you will notice something profound... the comics who hosted it were sort of geeky and that worked for them and Patton Oswalt with his pop cultural sensibilities would fit well with that aesthetic.

He is also willing to take a joke to its natural conclusion, even if it makes him look foolish to get the laugh. His delivery is very natural and conversational, and I think he would probably be very adept at the art of interviewing.

He has experience working within a writer's room from his stint at MadTV and managing a show from putting together the Comedians of Comedy tour. And because he was a featured player on The King of Queens, he has some additional face recognition with Middle America and experience working on a show week in and week out while at the same time, Oswalt also has quite a lot of cache because of the edgy nature of his comedy. He is the best of both worlds: an affable, genial personality with quite a lot to say.

Now I don't even know if he would consider such a position, but I think if he was interested, NBC should at least give him a shot, as he is far and away a much better choice than either of the personalities they are currently rumored to be after.

So, given the choices out there, who would you hire for that position?



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Patton Oswalt naturally went on to greater things, including a starring role in a Pixar movie and numerous comedy specials, so clearly, he didn't need that gig, even if it was offered to him. Let's just say, I stand corrected.

Tags: patton oswalt, tonight show, conan o'brien, late night, carson daly, jimmy fallon, madtv, king of queens, nbc, comedians of comedy, stella dora breakfast treats, david letterman

If I Won a Razzie...

It is awards season, and while the majority of ceremonies this time of year are laudatory, self-congratulatory affairs, there is one award that keeps it real and celebrates not just mediocrity but outright awfulness.

I am of course talking about Hollywood's favorite award, The Golden Raspberry. Apparently the long list of award nominees is making its rounds, and people who are on them are getting upset.

Of course, most of the people who get named would never be nominated for, much less win any other award, so perhaps they should take it in the spirit in which it is given.

I mean, I would certainly accept a Golden Raspberry if I won one. Then again, I am a little bit of an attention whore too, and I generally don't get a lot of negative feedback for the things I do, and the little I do get, I really call attention to.

With that in mind, I thought I would give you all a taste of what my speech would be like if I was to win a Razzie as Worst Director (because let's face it, if I directed a movie, it would be terrible... I am willing to concede that).

Thank you for this great honor. When I first heard that I was nominated for this award, well, I cried a little bit. I'm not a proud man, I can admit that. I looked at the work of the other nominees in this category and thought that I didn't have a shot at winning this award.

Let's face it. The depth of directing talent in this category is, how can I put it delicately... its shallow. There are D-Students in film schools around the country putting out shaky little Youtube videos who have more talent than all of those nominated in this category combined.

To continue that analogy, if we are only as good as one pretentious film student making Youtube videos, then the film critics and bloggers out there are the people who leave comments on those videos. The fact that both groups use a lot of derogatory terms for gay people, blacks and women in relation to our work is purely coincidental. At least I hope is.

And we all know that Michael Bay would have been here, but alas, he has unfortunately gotten stuck in his own home. It turns out he's was stealing all the money set aside for story development on every film he has ever made, and now A&E is sending in a camera crew to try to rescue him and tell his story on Hoarders.

I am also guessing that Uwe Boll would have been here too, but fortunately for all of us, his Xbox 360 had a Red Ring of Death, so he was unable to come up with any ideas for franchises he wanted to destroy on the silver screen. And while you can crap on a DVD and call it a movie, most state and federal law enforcement entities would call it by a much uglier name: fraud.

But truly, I join some illustrious company today. Think about some of the luminaries that have been given this award in this category. Steven Seagal, Prince, Sylvester Stallone and Tom Green. Oh did I say luminaries... I meant losers. I mean, wow, I am following in Tom Green's footsteps... well, without getting the pleasure of sleeping with Drew Barrymore... or the prescription I would need after sleeping with Drew Barrymore either. And if he were alive today, we can all agree that Ed Wood would have received a lifetime achievement award.

Speaking of which, I've heard that Tim Burton is planning on making a biographical movie about me. Unfortunately, Johnny Depp isn't available, so he is going with his second choice... Seth Rogen. I apologize in advance that you are going to have to see him run around in tight black leather. Hopefully Tim has learned his lesson from his remake of Planet of the Apes, so he won't arbitrarily change the ending, and if he hasn't, well, I fully expect to see him here next year on this stage accepting this very award.

I also heard rumors that even Eddie Murphy stated he was glad he didn't work on this movie, and we all know, he is a man who carefully weighs his options when it comes to the scripts he is offered. If you don't believe me, you can ask him yourself. Seriously Eddie, what are you doing? You've done a lot of penance for your sins, really you have, but we've all forgiven you for picking up that tranny hooker. You can make good movies again... we've been punished enough already.

Of course, I should also extend an apology to my cast. While they were well compensated for their roles in my movie, they didn't deserve to be painted with the same brush as me. I don't know if they will forgive me when the stench of failure finally fades, and it will eventually fade, but I do know that I have likely given them stories to tell on talk shows for a very long time. I am sure they will work with me again... mainly because I know all their dirty secrets and I am not above blackmail. It is one of those life lessons I learned from observing the Church of Scientology.

Anyway, I am sorry that I have to cut this speech short, but I have to catch a flight. I got a summons... apparently I am being tried by a tribunal at The Hague for Crimes against Humanity. They are talking about giving me the death penalty. I didn't know they could do that, but I can tell by the way you are all looking at me that you want me to drop dead too, so I will just say Thank You once again, and be on my way.

You know, maybe it is a good thing I haven't really pushed my luck in Hollywood as of yet. I don't think I would work for very long.

Tags: golden raspberry, razzies, tom green, steven seagal, sylvester stallone, prince, drew barrymore, bloggers, scientology, the hague, crimes against humanity, uwe boll, michael bay, hoarders, a & e, eddie murphy, johnny depp, seth rogen, planet of the apes, xbox 360, red ring of death

Leno: Putting Blame Where it Belongs

I was going to email someone about this issue, but I thought that the matter was better served in a post. I've been trying to hold back on writing about the late night unpleasantness at NBC, but Jay Leno's monologue last night sort of pulled me back into this. I admit that even I am getting fatigued by the length of this story, but I had to come back to critique this issue. You see, the line that I keep seeing in forum posts and such regarding the Tonight Show fiasco is that people shouldn't be angry with Jay Leno because he is a victim in all this too.

You see, Jay Leno is trying to get out of this whole debacle as an innocent and equally aggrieved party too, but frankly his previous actions don't seem to back that up. I will reproduce Jay Leno's statements from last night's monologue and bold the passages which are of particular note.

I thought maybe I should address this. At least give you my view of what has been going on here at NBC. Oh, let’s start in 2004. 2004 I’m sitting in my office, an NBC executive comes in and says to me, listen, Conan O’Brien has gotten offers from other networks. We don’t want him to go, so we’re going to give him ‘The Tonight Show.’ I said, ‘well, I’ve been number one for 12 years.’ They said, ‘we know that, but we don’t think you can sustain that.’ I said, ‘okay. How about until I fall to number two, then you fire me?’ ‘No, we made this decision.’ I said, ‘that’s fine.’ Don’t blame Conan O’Brien. Nice guy, good family guy, great guy. He and I have talked and not a problem since then. That’s what managers and people do, they try to get something for their clients. I said, ‘I’ll retire just to avoid what happened the last time.’ Okay.

Like Jay's former manager Helen Kushnick did when she helped put pressure on Johnny Carson to facilitate his exit from The Tonight Show through a series of backstage maneuvers and some well placed press coverage (things that were done with Leno deniability in mind). And Leno didn't just retire now did he?

So time goes by and we stay number one up until the day we leave. We hand - (applause)-No, no. Okay, but I’m leaving before my contract is out. About six to eight months early. So before I could go anywhere else, I would be at least a year or 18 months before I could go and do a show somewhere else. I said to NBC, ‘would you release me from my contract.’ They said, ‘we want to keep you here.’ Okay. What are your ideas? They said, ‘how about primetime?’ I said, ‘that will never work.’ No, no, we want to put you on at 10:00. We have done focus groups. People will love you at 10:00. Look at these studies showing Jay’s chin at 10:00. People will go crazy. Didn’t seem like a good idea at the time. I said, ‘alright, can I keep my staff?’ There are 175 people that work here. I said, ‘can I keep my staff?’ Yes, you can. Let’s try it. We guarantee you two years on the air, guaranteed.

Maybe I am not clear on Hollywood math, but I don't see how 8 months becomes 18 months in that above scenario. Can someone explain that to me. I also remember reading that Jay's contract was finished at the end of his run on The Tonight Show. But I have to give Jay credit. Mentioning his staff in that statement was genius, because it makes him look like a caring human being in this instance. But remember, he just said that the original contract binding him to NBC was up in 6-8 months from his final Tonight Show. And by the moves he discusses later in this monologue end up putting 200+ people, most of whom moved across country for that opportunity, out of work. There is also another little Johnny Carson story that never gets mentioned. Johnny Carson had to wait for his contract to expire at ABC before he could take the helm of The Tonight Show, and ABC held him to the last day of that contract. You are telling me that Leno couldn't have waited for his contract to end? NBC was going to continue to pay him, and he had stated publicly that he was retiring. You think the public wouldn't have waited 8 months for some other Leno project? Or that there wasn't a loophole that Leno could have used to start negotiating with networks (the same kind of loophole Letterman used to have networks pitch themselves to him while he was still under contract with NBC in 1991-2).

Now for the first four or five months against original shows like “CSI” you’ll get killed, but in the spring and summer when the reruns come, that’s when you’ll pick up. Okay, great. I agree to that.

Jay is a savvy guy. He would have been well aware of NBC's track record at 10PM, so he would have known exactly what was about to happen. It has also been widely reported that Jay wasn't forced to do this show, but rather, that at the end of his Tonight Show run, he didn't want to leave and this show was in fact a way of keeping Jay off of Fox.

Four months go by, we don’t make it. Meanwhile, Conan’s show during the summer, we’re not on, was not doing well. The great hope was that we would help him. Well, we didn’t help him any, okay. They come and go, ‘this show isn’t working. We want to let you go.’ Can you let me out of my contract? No, you’re still a valuable asset to this company. How valuable can I be? You fired me twice. How valuable can I be? Okay. So then, the affiliates are not happy. The affiliates are the ones that own the TV stations. They’re the ones that sort of makes the decisions, they’re not happy with your performance and Conan is not doing well at 11:30. I said, ‘what’s your idea?’ They said, ‘well, look, how about you do a half hour show at 11:30?’ Now, where I come from, when your boss gives you a job and you don’t do it well, I think we did a good job here, but we didn’t’ get the ratings, so you get humbled. I said, ‘okay, I’m not crazy about doing a half hour, but okay. What do you want to do with Conan?’ We’ll put him on at midnight, or 12:05, keeps “The Tonight Show” does all that, he gets the whole hour. I said, okay. You think Conan will go for that? Yes, yes. (laughter) Almost guarantee you. I said okay. Shake hands, that’s it. I don’t have a manager, I don’t have an agent, that’s my handshake deal.

Tom Shales about Conan O'Brien's start on The Tonight Show in August 2009: "He's in much better shape than Leno was at the beginning, and Carson didn't really become the master of his domain -- in terms of asserting his own identity -- until a few years into his heroic three-decade run. There've already been enough wild, socko segments on the new "Tonight Show" to fill a 90-minute "Best of Conan" special. But there's still the nagging sensation that we aren't really seeing his best -- at least not yet." I also love the fact that Jay neglects to mention that on at least two occasions he publicly undermined Conan O'Brien by basically saying either that he wanted to come back to do The Tonight Show or that if he was asked, he would definitely do it. If you don't think that Jay Leno showing up at a press conference in disguise that is discussing the Tonight Show transition to Conan O'Brien and asking "Brett Favre retired and then wanted to come back, and the Packers said no. What do you make of that?" isn't, I don't know, being a little dickish, I don't know what is. And there was that whole interview with Broadcasting & Cable where Leno is asked numerous times about taking the 11:35 slot again, and at no time does he say no he wouldn't do that. He'd do whatever the company told him to do. Now if he was talking about these things publicly, then what was he saying privately, because I have a sneaking suspicion that he was a Chatty Cathy with people at NBC about this whole situation, making it clear that he was #1 when he left late night and so on. He also admitted that he talked to the affiliates a lot, and he knew they were pleased with his performance on The Tonight Show, and he may have made a few suggestions. I'm not saying he did, but it is well within the realm of possibility.

Conan told a joke the other day where he stated "And I just want to say to the kids out there watching - you can do anything you want in life, unless Jay Leno wants to do it too." They both work in the same town, so if that lobbying was going on, Conan was probably well aware of it, and now that he is headed out the door, well, now seems like as good a time as any to say it.

And does anyone believe for a second that if they offered Jay Carson Daly's slot that he would have taken it? I have serious doubts about that. Or that he believed that Conan O'Brien would say yes to the deal as described above, because Jay wouldn't have stood for that, and in a 1992 piece in the New York Times, he was rather clear on that.

Next thing I see Conan has a story in the paper saying he doesn’t want to do that. They come back to me and they say if he decides to walk and doesn’t want to do it, do you want the show back? I go, ‘yeah, I’ll take the show back. If that’s what he wants to do. This way, we keep our people working, fine.’ So that’s pretty much where we are. It looks like we might be back at 11:30, I’m not sure. I don’t know. (applause) I don’t know. But through all of this - through all of this, Conan O’Brien has been a gentleman. He’s a good guy. I have no animosity towards him. This is all business. If you don’t get the ratings, they take you off the air. I think you know this town, you can do almost anything. You get ratings they keep you. I wasn't getting the ratings. He wasn't getting the ratings. That was NBC’s solution. It didn’t work. So we might have an answer for you tomorrow. So, we’ll see. That’s basically where it is."

And how can Jay act surprised about this. He knows exactly what that situation feels like, and he was ready to walk over it back in 1992 when they were going to take the show away from him then so he knows exactly how shitty that is to do to someone else (and if he doesn't find it ironic that it happened around 7 months in, then he is really dense). But he makes it sound like he is taking The Tonight Show back with a heavy heart. If you've been publicly angling for the job back, you can't really play that card. It doesn't work that way. To quote Leno in that earlier story: "I am disappointed. I feel like a guy who has bought a car from somebody, painted it, fixed it up and made it look nice and then the guy comes back and says he promised to sell the car to his brother-in-law." I mean, that is exactly what Conan O'Brien could be saying today.

The way things happened, Jay accepted the offer before they ran this plan by Conan, and he admitted that in his monologue. To me, that shows either a remarkable lack of respect on Leno's part, or an incredible amount of eagerness for him to have the 11:30 slot back. So yes, he is an active participant in destroying Conan at NBC, and not just by providing a lousy lead in to his show. He had to do some of the legwork to get Conan out the door by placing him in an unwinnable situation, because even if Conan accepted 12:05, Jay was still in a position to continue to kill The Tonight Show or usurp it. Conan merely saved him a step in the process (but ironically, left it in a better state than if he would have let Jay continue to erode his power and ratings on the show for months or maybe years).

Now personally, I am a political realist, so I appreciate Machiavellian schemes for power, and I think that is exactly what has happened here. The fact that Jay Leno is trying to play the victim here instead of just owning up to his complicity in this whole affair makes him not just unlikable, but someone I can't respect. If he said he wanted the show, events moved in such a way that he could get it back, so he took the network up on their offer, I'd still be pissed at him, but I could nod my head and say that at least he was honest in the pursuit. He was applauded as being clever for sneaking into a storage area to listen to a network meeting regarding his job at The Tonight Show back when it was still on shaky ground.

I mean, put it this way, I am siding with Rosie O'Donnell on this thing, you know someone who is on my Enemies List. If you haven't heard the story, well, Rosie was offered a gig as a Tonight Show Guest Host in the mid-1990's by someone at NBC which she accepted, and Jay put the kibosh on that, and then tried to still act like he was a nice guy in that mess.

The fact that so many comedians have come out against Jay Leno in all this is also telling. Jay still works a lot of comedy gigs, so if his peers who he likely rubs elbows with on a weekly basis in clubs around the country aren't directing all their anger towards NBC suggest that there is perhaps other stories that aren't being told in all this, other slights and tales of Leno being dickish. The one notable comedian who has come out in favor of Jay in this is Jerry Seinfeld, but you have to remember that he also got an NBC time slot because of this shuffle, so he isn't the most objective person in this whole thing.

But the concise way of saying this is, Jay Leno, even if it was a network decision, still pushed another person under a bus to get The Tonight Show back. If that other information wasn't out there, the fact that he agreed to take the 11:30 time slot before Conan had made been made aware of the proposal was bad enough. But the fact that Leno publicly stated he either wanted the show back or was willing to take it back if the opportunity arose makes Leno complicit in this affair, and there were likely other conversations which we may never know about which really put Leno's actions in clear perspective. He sat at that desk for 17 years, and he denied another person the joy of helming The Tonight Show (make that at least 3 people now). But somehow he's a victim in all this.

I'm sorry, but I don't think I can ever believe that.

Tags: jay leno, johnny carson, conan o'brien, rosie o'donnell, comedians, tonight show, david letterman, late night, enemies list, guest host, broadcasting & cable, brett favre, blame, carson daly, machiavelli, political realism

Australia scares the Bejesus out of me.

I recently came across an article on Cracked which looked at the dangers of Australian wildlife and insects.

It is like they took every deadly and dangerous planet in the movies and just stuffed them into one continent. True story, Captain Kirk stranded Khan not on Ceti Alpha 5, but in the Outback.

Compared with Australia, I live in a Disney cartoon.

I mean, the only wildlife I am sharing this neighborhood with are, let's see, squirrels, rabbits, foxes, skunks, possums, raccoons, ducks, geese, bluebirds, cardinals, robins... you know, the usual pantheon of cute and sometimes annoying animals. I am sure there are chipmunks somewhere around here too.

Yes, I have to occasionally deal with a skunk spraying my dog, but nothing is actively trying to kill me on a daily basis, despite what that crazy dude at the coffee shop down the street keeps saying about the squirrels conspiring to seize the supermarkets so that the precious nut supply can be theirs. I am sure I would look at things differently if we were having Night of the Lepus rabbit problems or the geese around here, while being a little bit agressive, had poison claws on their webbed feet or venomous bites.

So Kudos to you Australians. You are living in God's country... if he was a vindictive murderous bastard AKA Old Testament God.

Tags: australia, disney movie, wrath of khan, god's country, geese, chipmunks, possums, skunks, outback, cracked, ceti alpha five

Sunday Video: Summer in the City

It is the middle of winter, so I thought a summery song would be a nice change of pace. I sort of wanted to go with Nashville Cats, but it looks like the performance video of that Lovin' Spoonfuls classic has been removed from Youtube.

Now I want to watch Die Hard with a Vengeance, and I may do just that.

Tags: lovin spoonfuls, summer in the city, die hard with a vengeance, nashville cats

Week 36: Pageant of the Transmundane

A small town in Georgia (the state, not the country), forgot to have a municipal election in 2009. Forgot. The entire town. As one commenter on this story quipped, it looks like the Apathy Party won.

This week's winning entry makes me cringe a little bit. It is a blog entry from the craft site Lovelyish and once viewed, it can't be unseen.

Someone posted a tutorial for knitting tampons. I am going to let that sink in. Someone not only went through the process of knitting their own tampons, which I am sure took some time to do, but they are advocating other people do the same for environmental reasons.

Now let's not even think about the sanitary issues of knitting something like this which is specifically designed to be washed and reused. No, the thing that I immediately thought of was how itchy wool was when it was in contact with your bare skin. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable the above items would be inserted into one of the nerve rich areas of the human body.

Finding an appropriate image this week was a little more difficult than it usually is, but somehow I found a cross stitch of Homer Simpson that someone was selling on Ebay at some point and because that is in the vaguest way related to the winning entry, I ran with it.



Congrats to whoever discovered this and blogged about it at Lovelyish, and many thanks to Maven for referring it to me.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: homer simpson, pageant of the transmundane, lovelyish, tampons, cross stitch, election, georgia, irritation

The Midweek Video at 12:05... err on Friday

I keep starting posts and they end up morphing into things about late night television, and I am sure everyone is getting sick of hearing me and everyone else harp on about this topic this week, so I am going to take a step back, really gauge my Leno/Zucker/NBC hatred right now, and likely have more stuff to say about that next week.

In the meantime, I had noticed that I hadn't posted a Midweek Video this week, and well, I thought we were due for something.

But I am not embedding this week's video, mainly because I can't.

We are going a little old school with this with a flash video I saw years ago called M.A.M.E. Jump.

It is super geeky, but I've always loved the vibe. And it is a refreshing change of pace from the other things I've been posting about recently.

Tags: mame jump, old school, nbc, zucker, jump, van halen

Legion: The Calm Before The Storm

I was going to do an enemies list post today, but I am going to let that one sit for a couple more days to simmer, as it was going to involve things that are going on this week, and in one case, I've clearly gone to that well too often.

However, I did have another thought this week after seeing numerous ads for a movie which looks like something I would enjoy, but which I think might get a negative reception from certain groups of people (and no, I am not talking about film critics).

You see, I am sort of waiting to hear what kind of backlash the movie Legion is going to get from the really chatty and generally disapproving cadre of evangelical and other Christian groups who usually have something to say about everything if it has anything to do with their faith.

In this case, if you haven't seen any trailers for this movie, or heard of it, it tells the tale of God's Wrath against mankind in the form of ravenous, body stealing angels and the defense of a small group of people, including a pregnant woman (who is carrying the only hope for humanity) by a Gerard-Butler-in-300-abbed and multiple machine-gun wielding Archangel Michael, played by Paul Bettany.

Now, again, I haven't seen the movie, but I have a feeling that the idea that angels are killing off humanity and they are the bad guys in all this might upset some folks. Or the fact that the hero, the Kyle Reese of the whole thing is an archangel who turned his back on God (Church Lady: sounds a little like.... SATAN!). Or the fact that the angel-inhabited people (ok, aside from the leads, all the angels) look absolutely demonic, and in some shots, they look like a plague of locusts.

You know, all the kinds of stuff that make a certain set of people really uncomfortable and makes them want to tell everyone about how upset they are. I get upset about things and I blog it out, but these people get upset and they try to do something about it.

Who wants to make a bet that William Donohue of the Catholic League will have a press release or television appearance within 3 days of the film's release.

I mean, personally, angels in this situation are almost interchangeable with say 9 foot blue aliens, but we have to remember that people got really bent out of shape about those recently too, so it really is a no-win situation.

But for me, I just want to see the firing of lots of big guns in a movie. It doesn't really matter if they are fighting other human beings, giant spiders, aliens, mutants, ghosts, unspeakable horrors from the depths of the ocean, Godzilla, predators, machines, elves, vampires, zombies, angels, demons... as long as someone is getting shot at and someone is shooting at them in what amounts to a largely unwinnable situation, I am happy.

I am going to say this now and for the entirety of the potential moaning in the future. It is only a movie. It isn't an anti-Christian assault on your belief system by evil liberal Hollywood. It is just a movie.

Tags: legion, paul bettany, godzilla, 300, archangel michael, christian, william donohue, demons, apocalypse, machines, elves, blue aliens, avatar, catholic league, evangelicals, christian hate, rapture

The 10 Pop Culture Milestones of the Last Decade: My Take

A lot of people did lists of individual milestones in a particular media or genre for the first decade of this century recently, and I didn't think that I could sum up my experiences in the past 10 years by listing items from just one kind of media. So, instead, I have chosen 10 series, movies etc which revolutionized the way I looked at pop culture and the world as a whole over the past 3650 days, give or take a week.

I realize this post would have been a little more timely if it had been finished before the end of 2009, but there was just so many things that I was influenced by over the past decade that it was a little difficult for me to narrow things down to a nice concise 10. But I managed to come up with what I feel are some interesting choices.

Won't you join me in re-examining the decade through my eyes. These are in no particular order.

Kill Bill: By 2003, Quentin Tarantino was already a critical darling who had redefined movie making in the 1990's with Pulp Fiction (after all, think about all the movies that followed its 1994 release that had plots or characters which seemed to have been spawned from that universe). However, other projects he had been involved with after that success seemed to be disappointing and there was talk that perhaps Tarantino had mined his psyche completely clean and he couldn't produce anything else era-making. And then the rumors about Kill Bill started to circulate. The Kill Bill films are my favorite films created by him, mainly because I love Spaghetti Westerns and the action movies of Hong Kong/Japan, which this was a love letter to. To me, Kill Bill proved that Tarantino was capable of creating exciting action scenarios (even though I am sure someone else choreographed them). It was also refreshing to watch North American movies with a heavy emphasis on fighting in the post-Matrix age which did not resort to a heavy reliance on computer technology. The soundtrack was also stellar, as it incorporated music from the very same sources Tarantino was referencing on screen. I could have picked an art film, but really, if it comes down to it, if it is a choice between a slower, ponderous movie and a movie heavy on action, I will almost always pick the latter.

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: I remember being in the office of my university newspaper back in the spring of 1998 and watching a few people playing a top down action game that was just over-the-top violent, and although I didn't know it then, that was the first installment of a game series which would change my life and perspective on games in the following decade. If I had gotten on board with the Playstation 2 earlier in its lifespan, I know that this entry would be about GTA III or Vice City, but San Andreas was the first game in the series that I had played. As I've said many times in the past, this was the kind of game that I had wanted as a kid (the sandbox driving game), and while Driver had done much to whet my appetite for this kind of game, it was still limited in many ways. San Andreas was an experience that changed my decade and was instrumental in turning me into a gamer once more.

Sinfest: Started in January 2000, Sinfest was a breath of fresh air in terms of web comics. Yes, there are dirtier, edgier comics out there, ones that are more geek-friendly too, but Sinfest doesn't need to be those things to be great. I love the art style, the underlying messages and the commitment that creator Tatsuya Ishida has to put out a topical comic daily with characters I can care about and some rather biting social commentary, and it is topical without really dating itself. The fact that it does all those things while remaining funny is a testament to Ishida's talents.Featuring a cast of characters that include God, The Devil, Buddha, Death, a talking, pot smoking pig and numerous human characters, the comic has a lot going on and it has some good story arcs. It has a point of view, and it isn't afraid to court controversy, and I applaud it for that.

Launchcast as a Yahoo property: Launchcast has existed as an entity in the late 1990's, but it was when it became part of the Yahoo empire that I first noticed it. And the reason I started using the service had nothing to do with the music service at first. Rather, I was interested in watching music videos. This was back in mid-2002, before later video services like Youtube and the like made watching music videos a lot easier. I had also been a fan of internet radio for years, going so far as to start a Live365 station in October 2000, so when I discovered that you could create a personalized music station based on your tastes and continual ratings, well, I thought that was great too (which now sounds like a lot of services these days, doesn't it?). It certainly broadened my tastes when it came to music. Of course, that golden period has sort of come to an end with the decision to tie Yahoo! Music to CBS Radio, a move which destroyed personalized stations.

24: As a fan of this show, even I have to admit that there have been times that it has been hard to love this show, especially after that awful sixth season. However, on the whole, it has been a great experience. Started as a one season experiment in television narrative covering a single day in the life of counter terrorist unit superbadass Jack Bauer and Presidential Candidate Senator David Palmer in real time, the show quickly developed a following and it was picked up as a series. It isn't just the time-based format or the Brian De Palma-type split screening that makes this show so compelling, it is the fact that aside from an exception or two, anyone can die at any moment. Even with its missteps, it is still compelling television, and despite what some have said, it has been very timely and critical of the events that were going on in the real world during many of the seasons.

Mythbusters: Who would have thought a couple of ginger special effects guys would somehow change the world of television? I wouldn't have believed it back in 1999, but this is the little Discovery Channel show that could. At first, it was like Snopes.com with some explosions, but over the past 6 seasons, it has slowly evolved into a much larger entity, testing things from movies (with explosions), pseudoscience (with explosions), internet videos (with explosions) and even old sayings (with explosions AND thermite). Entertaining and educational, a rare combination, the show has become an institution, and it has led to a number of other shows which explore some of the same territory of mixing experimentation and fun. It has also made Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman stars in their own right. There is a term on the TV Tropes site which describes how over the top some of their attempts to replicate the results of some of the myths have become, and that term is Refuge in Audacity. That's what filling a cement truck with high explosives and literally vaporizing a stationary hatchback with a rocket powered sled certainly is. It is also awesome.

Freakonomics: A little work of non-fiction that took the world by storm. Written by economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, this book found the freaky and at times controversial connections between various elements, like the similarities between the organizational structure of an urban crack dealing network and a Fortune 500 company, or the relationship between legalized abortion and crime rates. It was a work of non-fiction that got a lot of people talking, even if they didn't like what was said. But I think the important thing about this book and the discussion is unleashed was that things that seem like they are commmon sense may in fact be wrong, so even the most rudimentary of assumptions need to be examined. I look forward to reading the sequel to this book at some point.

The Corporation: Yes, there is a lot of creepy stuff in this documentary that I already knew about, but some of the stories are just beyond the pale and shook me to the core. The one I think of immediately when this documentary comes up is the tale told by Steven Wilson and Jane Akre's about their collective battle against a Fox affiliate who had told them they had free reign to investigate anything, but when they submitted their first finished report about a Monsanto bovine hormone that increased milk production, but also caused cancer, well, that was the beginning of a series of skirmishes between the parties involved and led to a court case that essentially said that a news organization can lie, and if you work there and you refuse to do so, you can be fired. There is also a woman who discusses her work a children's marketer, and just how much worse it is these days when compared with the kind of advertising I was exposed to as a kid (meaning how well they've been designed psychologically). And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It was a great counterpoint to the Michael Moore-style of documentary film making, and made me want to seek out other quality films in the same genre.

Hot Fuzz: I know there are people out there who would question this inclusion instead of the earlier Shaun of the Dead, but I've always been more partial to action movies than the exploits of those battling zombies, as shocking as that sounds. But what amazed me about this movie and still keeps me captivated by it to this day is it started off as a gentle little homage and it exceeded nearly every movie in the genre it was playing off of. That takes skill. The fact that they did that on a budget that wouldn't get a lot of romantic comedies off the ground is astonishing. It is a movie that took the cliches of the genre and constructed an edifice which is more impressive and seemingly effortless. And it certainly put those more expensive *blank* Movies to shame as well. I think given enough time, it may indeed achieve the same level of cult love as Shaun of the Dead, especially if Hollywood continues to make less intellectual buddy cop action comedies.

The Venture Bros: I will admit that when I first started watching the continuing adventures of the Venture clan years ago, it didn't really click to me that I was watching something which was going to blow my mind. But in taking in what the series encompassed, it really is awe inspiring. I think the thing that initially left me unimpressed at first was the episode endings, which seemed almost premature at times, as events didn't generally get full closure. But as I watched more of the episodes, I saw that the writers left a lot of little bits and pieces that eventually come back as the punchline to a joke, because they are indeed the masters of the long haul when it comes to payoff. And while the show is named after the Venture Brothers, it is their father and his bodyguard who are the real stars of the show, along with the various archvillains from the Guild of Calamitous Intent who seek to destroy them. The show also playfully made fun of a number of beloved cartoon and comic book heroes by showing slightly different aspects of their characters. Even though there isn't a huge number of episodes, in its relative brevity, it is a remarkably well-designed and implemented series.

I know that these are not the choices everyone would make, but then again, I am not everyone, I am just one man. I would love to hear your opinions about this list, and what choices you might make. I know at least one of my choices would definitely not make some of your own lists.

Tags: venture brothers, bros, hot fuzz, shaun of the dead, kill bill, freakonomics, the corporation, michael moore, 24, mythbusters, grand theft auto, san andreas, sinfest, documentary, discovery channel, brock samson, quentin tarantino, live365, youtube, tatsuya ishida, gaming, controversy

The Most Obvious Photoart Statement of My Feelings

Found on the net and shared as a 3 word expression of my feelings re: an issue I just won't shut up about.



Stay strong, my newly unemployed friend, stay strong.

Facebook Group for I'm With Coco

Tags: i'm with coco, conan o'brien, nbc, enemy, unemployed

Conan O'Brien Will Not Participate in NBC's Plans

I had another article planned for today, but as it was a little late anyway, one more day isn't going to do much more to hurt it.

A new development to an entry I posted a few days ago has made what I said a little more prescient.

Conan O'Brien has basically put the nails in the coffin of any NBC compromise that would see Leno, himself and Jimmy Fallon making a late night block together because he said he will not do The Tonight Show at 12:05, and gives a lot of reasons why he is making this decision.

Here is his letter:

People of Earth:

In the last few days, I’ve been getting a lot of sympathy calls, and I want to start by making it clear that no one should waste a second feeling sorry for me. For 17 years, I’ve been getting paid to do what I love most and, in a world with real problems, I’ve been absurdly lucky. That said, I’ve been suddenly put in a very public predicament and my bosses are demanding an immediate decision.

Six years ago, I signed a contract with NBC to take over The Tonight Show in June of 2009. Like a lot of us, I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me. I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future. It was my mistaken belief that, like my predecessor, I would have the benefit of some time and, just as important, some degree of ratings support from the prime-time schedule. Building a lasting audience at 11:30 is impossible without both.

But sadly, we were never given that chance. After only seven months, with my Tonight Show in its infancy, NBC has decided to react to their terrible difficulties in prime-time by making a change in their long-established late night schedule.

Last Thursday, NBC executives told me they intended to move the Tonight Show to 12:05 to accommodate the Jay Leno Show at 11:35. For 60 years the Tonight Show has aired immediately following the late local news. I sincerely believe that delaying the Tonight Show into the next day to accommodate another comedy program will seriously damage what I consider to be the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting. The Tonight Show at 12:05 simply isn’t the Tonight Show. Also, if I accept this move I will be knocking the Late Night show, which I inherited from David Letterman and passed on to Jimmy Fallon, out of its long-held time slot. That would hurt the other NBC franchise that I love, and it would be unfair to Jimmy.

So it has come to this: I cannot express in words how much I enjoy hosting this program and what an enormous personal disappointment it is for me to consider losing it. My staff and I have worked unbelievably hard and we are very proud of our contribution to the legacy of The Tonight Show. But I cannot participate in what I honestly believe is its destruction. Some people will make the argument that with DVRs and the Internet a time slot doesn’t matter. But with the Tonight Show, I believe nothing could matter more.

There has been speculation about my going to another network but, to set the record straight, I currently have no other offer and honestly have no idea what happens next. My hope is that NBC and I can resolve this quickly so that my staff, crew, and I can do a show we can be proud of, for a company that values our work.

Have a great day and, for the record, I am truly sorry about my hair; it’s always been that way.

Yours,

Conan

I had been thinking about this issue last night and it occurred to me that perhaps Conan O'Brien might take the deal, even though it was very irksome because he had more people to think of than himself. I am talking about his entire staff, which may now be out of work in the near future if NBC doesn't blink and back away from this plan.

I have to admire Conan's guts and integrity on this matter. He did what Johnny Carson would have done in his shoes, and I applaud him for sticking to his gun. He also did it in a way that makes NBC force him out. He didn't quit. He just said he won't do The Tonight Show if it follows another comedy program. The upshot of this is NBC looks bad no matter how this plays out. In essence, they will be pushing someone out who patiently waited 17 years for a chance to sit in the big chair of late night talk shows, longer than Leno or Letterman had for that same chance, and there is no way the network is going to be able to spin this as fair treatment.

Now there is a small chance that NBC will side with Conan over Leno, but it seems unlikely at this time, because the network seems intent on keeping Leno whatever the cost and that is a shame. But I can still hope.

BREAKING NEWS: CONAN GOT PUNTED OFF THE TONIGHT SHOW! Now negotiating with Fox.

Tags: conan o'brien, tonight show, jay leno, johnny carson, quitting, nbc, network suicide

Sunday Video: Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear

I heard this song during the week, and I thought I would share it with everyone. I didn't know the video was going to be weird though.

It seems almost like Tears for Fears riffing on the work of the Beach Boys.

Tags: grizzly bear, two weeks, brian wilson, beach boys, tears for fears

Week 35: Pageant of the Transmundane

I'm brutally sick at the moment, so there is going to be very little embellishment for this award ceremony. It is like I have a cold and strep throat at the same time.

This week's winning entry is one of those rare full-blog awards, because again, the concept is the winning part of this.

The site is called Nic Cage as Everyone, which features other celebrities and characters as they would appear if they were Nicolas Cage.

And because this week's winning entry has to do with one person becoming another, I thought Homer in The Scream would be the best fit.



Congrats.



The rules of this little contest: Every week I will be selecting one blog post that I have seen from the vast reaches of the blogging village to bestow with the Homer Simpson Transmundanity Award for being one of the freakiest(in a funny way) things I've seen or read during a 7 day period. It doesn't necessarily have to have been written during the week, I just had to have encountered it. That means that if you find something interesting and repost it like a movie or whatever, if I saw it at your blog first, you get the prize. Of course, creating your own content is also a very good way to win.

Now, if you see a post that you think is worthy of this illustrious prize, just drop me a line at campybeaver@gmail.com and we'll see if we can't get your suggestion up and award-ready while giving you some credit and a link to your own blog.

Tags: nicolas cage, homer simpson, the scream, pageant of the transmundane, nic cage as everyone, parody

NBC blindly follows Jay Leno into Greater Folly

So in the past 48 hours, we've had reports that Jay Leno's show was being cancelled, wasn't being cancelled, was going to replace Conan O'Brien and now we are at the point where the story is that The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien will be moved to 12:05 to make room for a 30 minute Jay Leno monologue-based show, and that if Conan isn't happy about it, he can walk and Jay gets The Tonight Show back.

Through it all, I just kept thinking, "Wow, NBC really doesn't know what it is doing these days, does it?" Then again, I shouldn't be surprised. After all, this is the network that cancelled a season of Last Comic Standing a couple of days before the finale.

The smart play is just canceling Jay Leno and putting that low-rated dream to rest. It doesn't matter that it is cheap, it still isn't succeeding in any way. It is time to cut their losses. But that isn't the way they are going. Jay Leno at 11:35 is, no matter what.

The fact that Jay Leno is upset that he is only being offered a half-hour show at 11:30 is really the icing on the cake though. I mean, you would think that Leno would look at the situation, think back to when he started at The Tonight Show, and remember that brief period of time when NBC had made an offer to David Letterman for that same time slot because Jay's numbers weren't the best. The fact that he went through that, and now he is on the other side of it makes him almost villainous in all this... he is just royally screwing someone else, and I don't think he elicits a lot of sympathy.

And on NBC's side of this equation, what are they thinking? Seriously, who looks at the situation as it currently exists and comes to the conclusion that the person that is killing your entire late night schedule and is leading a lot of the affiliates to gnash their teeth about the poor lead-in numbers for the local news is the very same person that should have at least a half-hour show at 11:35.

I know that Leno was beating Letterman before he left The Tonight Show, but that was light years ago, before Leno bombed out bad in primetime and dragged the network down with him.

It is like if you worked at a company and the top salesman left and you got his job, and then the company decided to bring him back in a diminished role, but every day he came to work, he was poisoning the entire client base of the business and setting you up for failure, and then during review time, they fire you because you aren't selling enough, and give the person who hasn't sold anything since he came back his old job.

And all this is happening so fast that Conan O'Brien has seemingly been out of the loop for much of it, and reports are that he is understandably angry. I mean, this is disrespectful not only to him as a professional, but it sullies The Tonight Show as well.

I would love to see Conan quit over this and part with something similar to Ray Patterson's speech in The Simpsons episode Trash of the Titans: "Oh...oh, gosh...you know, I'm not much on speeches, but it's so gratifying to leave you wallowing in the mess you've made. You're screwed, thank you, bye." I mean, he certainly paid his dues, and he deserves better than this treatment, and nothing good is going to come from NBC's plan for any of the parties involved. You know Johnny Carson wouldn't stand for any of this.

Tags: jay leno, conan o'brien, nbc, david letterman, disaster, bad scheduling, cancelling, moving, simpsons, steve martin, johnny carson, tonight show