Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Two girls, one idiot
Okay, I'm chiming in on this Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kanye West controversy at the VMA Awards, which just got me to Google and watch the two videos, one of which won BEST VIDEO and the other of which won BEST FEMALE VIDEO, which caused Kanye to blow his cool and grab the mike away from Taylor Swift to say Beyonce had been robbed.
Kanye West reminds the world he's a fucktard
Someone's got to say it so it might as well be me. This is a fight over two videos that are BOTH total crap. In one, three dames in leotards do a dance that's missing three poles while singing "if you want it, you better put a ring on it," delivering the astonishing message that Beyonce won't fuck me unless I ask her to marry me, and in the other, a hot teenage girl is in love with her hot teenage neighbor who's only interested in another hot teenager till the night of the prom when he finally realizes he was in love with her the whole time, which we find out when they both mysteriously pull out pieces of paper that say "I love you." Subtle.
Though they're both well shot, neither of these videos have an original frame.
Taylor Swift tries to get you to feel sorry for her because boys don't notice her
Beyonce reminds you that she's really hot but won't
fuck you unless you get down on your knees
Since people obviously judge songs minus the videos, it's fair game to judge these videos minus the songs. Turning down the sound, the Beyonce vid is just soft-core porn that would work with absolutely any song ever written, Elton John, I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself, just to pick one ironic gay icon that would give it an interesting spin. The Taylor Swift video at least has a story line and works as a competent silent movie, with a predictable beginning, predictable middle, and predictable end. It would work just as well, if not better, with something simple minded like early Beatles, Please Please Me or She Loves You, though Mad World from Donnie Darko would be just peachy.
Even the happy ending is a weird combination of fake emotion, where Beyonce does the right thing by letting Taylor Swift give a standard crappy acceptance speech
I'd like to thank the VMA and everyone else on earth for
giving me the opportunity to drive Kanye West crazy
Now that he's offended everyone on earth, I'm worried that Kanye West will never get laid again. Time to start a cause on Facebook. Won't you please buy a prostitute for Kanye West? Or a noose.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Heartburn commercial in South Africa
Someone in South Africa had this Gaviscon ad captioned by a person whose English is suspect. The result is hilarious.
DW
DW
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Sour Grapes #2
Meanwhile, Scott Bakula, who played me in a CBS MOW, is starring in Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl. If I were starring in Guys and Dolls at the Hollywood Bowl, I would have invited HIM.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Careers to Pursue When Yours Disappear
by Michael Dare
Some people lose their jobs because they always show up late and leave early. Some people lose their jobs because they called their boss an asshole. But there's a special category of people who lost their jobs because the job itself doesn't really exist any more. It just disappears, like those buggy whip manufacturers at the advent of the Model T, they produce a product that's no longer needed by any but the loyal few. They still sell buggy whips, just not as many. The masses have moved elsewhere. Here's a guide to other careers to pursue if you lost your job in such a manner.
PORN STAR
Considering how much free porn there is on the net, it's surprising the professional porn industry survives at all. If you're a porn star laid off because Harry Putz and the Prisoner of Asskaban laid an egg, there are surely a plethora of other ways to put your talent to use. You could virtually blow everyone on my Facebook FRIEND list, but that would only get you further friends, not further income. You might think about downsizing to a smaller audience and doing private porn films for a select clientele. Put the following ad in CraigsList: "Star in your own porn film. Select from our luscious collection of actors. We will come to your house and film you fucking them."
ROCK STAR
Considering how much free music there is on the net, it's surprising there's a single musician making a living. If you had a hit in the 90s, way back when people actually played CDs, you might have noticed you're not getting any royalties from the constant stream of downloads - at Limewire, Frostwire, and Pirate Bay - of your one-hit-wonder. You could follow the RIAA's example and sue your own fans, but I suggest the opposite. Make a YouTube video offering a buck to everyone who can prove they downloaded your song for free. Since that's virtually impossible, you won't have to actually pay anyone anything, and the resulting free publicity might get you a shot at being the opening act on a Vanilla Ice reunion tour.
PAY PHONES
The manufacturers of pay phones didn't sue the manufacturers of cell phones for putting them out of business because the manufacturers of pay phones WERE the manufacturers of cell phones. Let this be a role model for everyone put out of business by some new technology. Don't fight it. In the future, you'll just look like a jerk, and you don't look so hot now.
MUSIC OR FILM DISTRIBUTOR
We don't need you any more. We can make copies ourselves, thank you, no need to pay someone else to do it. Man, if you make money making copies of ANYTHING, toodle-ooh, the Free Barrier has been broken and those sonic booms you hear are your industry going bye-bye. Once I can receive MP3s and AVIs of music and movies directly from their creators, downloaded in minutes, what the hell do I need Netflix for? Waste of time and energy. I could be doing jumping jacks instead of running to the mailbox. But that's just home distribution, which once didn't exist, then became 50% of profits, and now is going to barely exist again. The future really is those big opening weekends, sitting in a crowd at a mammoth screen, where simple images take your breath away and you enjoy yourself whether you liked it or not. In order to make money, film and music have got to get you off your butt and away from the computer to an actual theatrical experience where you pay to get in. Everything else is public domain.
NEWSPAPER COLUMN WRITER
You used to crank it out for a paycheck. Now you just crank it out. No more editors telling you what to do, only readers and other writers, who are notoriously cranky too. Logic tells us if you want to support a writer, buy a physical copy of his book or magazine or newspaper or leaflet, stopping right short of Blog Post, where money never changes hands. Whenever you accept a compliment, accept the fact that compliments are pay, and thank you for reading this. If you pass it on, I get 10%.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sour Grapes Obituary: How Karl Malden ruined my life
It's completely personal. Between me and him. Karl Malden fucked up my life, he really did. No matter how much I dig his talent - and I certainly do, he's a Strasberg acting God, and I studied with Strasberg in New York in 1970 where he was treated as such, so I know - Malden is still the premiere putz in my professional life. Or was. He's dead now. Great. Now I get to be pissed off at a dead man.
I know you're sick of celebrity obituaries in this horrible week of death and chaos, but this one's different. At this point I've got to pin you to the wall like a drunk in a Hollywood bar, slurring my speech, hot breath in your face, "You don't understand, no matter how good he was in Baby Doll, I'm glad he's dead, that bastard..."
Luckily, I'm not that drunk. Here's what happened more than 20 years ago.
The 80s was my decade as film critic for the L.A. Weekly. While trashing their films in print, I met most of Hollywood, and I considered it my duty to photograph and distort it all. I've got thousands of ridiculous SX-70 Polaroid portraits of the famous, the insane, and the dead. They've never been published and rarely been seen by anyone except the subjects themselves - who usually expressed either glee or abject horror. Due to copyright law, or maybe just good old fashioned good taste, I've had an incredibly hard time getting my work shown in public.
In 1989 a horrible mistake was made and I was voted in as a member of the Los Angeles Film Critic's Association. Meetings in the incredible homes of other film critics was truly inspiring. I was in a profession that could lead to the good life. One day, just for fun, I brought a book of my Polaroids to a meeting where it was eventually passed to Doug Edwards, who turned out to be not just a film critic but the curator of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the ones who give the Oscars. I had no idea. He asked me if I'd like to have a show in their lobby. Holy shit. The Academy lobby leads to the Samuel Goldwyn Screening room, which is used almost every night for preview screenings and premieres of major films. It's a perfect location to be seen by all of Hollywood. Total legitimacy at last. You bet I said yes.
We picked 250 images for a mammoth show. Fifty would be blown up to poster size, the rest displayed in eight groupings of 25 original Polaroids. My opening date was Sept. 18, 1989. I met with their PR firm and they drew up a press release.
The Polaroid Corporation agreed to sponsor the opening night party, and we expected the press to show up to photograph celebrities standing in front of their portraits. Entertainment Tonight, here I come. My career was made. The anti-Annie Liebowitz.Then the Academy voted in a new president, Karl Malden, who took one look at my pictures, cancelled the press release, and said "Wait a minute. Do we have releases from all of these people?"
Of course I didn't. I was a film critic for a local paper. The subjects of the show were public figures whose pictures I was literally invited to take at press conferences. I've been assured by the constitution of the United States that nobody needs permission to display a public figure's image on their wall. Nevertheless, Malden decided that my pictures were weird and that some people might not like them. He declared that no pictures would be shown without signed releases from the subjects.
Okee doke. No problem. That week, the Academy sent out black-and-white Xerox copies of my pictures to all of the subjects themselves, along with a letter asking for permission to display the picture in their lobby. The Xeroxes were pretty awful so I knew this was a bad idea, but I had no choice.Some of my subjects know my work. I was sure that Emilio Estevez would say yes because one of my photos was on his refrigerator. But I was concerned about people like Ted Turner or Hugh Hefner or Menachem Golan. To them, I would have been just another schmuck paparazzi who took their picture one day and disappeared into the crowd. What would they think when they opened their mail to find ugly Xeroxes of their faces distorted into hideous mutants, along with a letter asking permission for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to make an enormous blow-up of the monstrosity to display in a popular public place where all their friends went?
66 people said yes, 22 said no, and 72 didn't respond. A lot of the answers surprised me. Hefner said yes! Golan & Turner both said no. Steve Martin and Whoopi Goldberg and Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges and Bruce Willis and Nick Nolte and Vincent Price and Martin Fucking Scorsese said yes!
Robin Williams said no, even though he's handsome and not distorted at all in the picture.
Don Siegel said yes, Clint Eastwood said no, and they were both in the same shot!
But what did it matter who said no. My reaction was "Great, let's go. 66 pictures is plenty for a show, especially with so many incredible people saying yes." When's the last time you saw a gallery show with 66 goddam photographs. More than enough. Doug Edwards agreed and the blowups were actually ordered, but then the word came down from Malden. The whole thing was cancelled. 66 yeses somehow confirmed in his mind that the show must not go on. It was a question of whether the glass was half empty or half full, though 22 noes is only a third of the yeses. He was worried about the people who didn't respond. (Huh? Maybe they wouldn't like the ugly pictures of other people who gave their permission?) Also, some of the negatives were big negatives. Harry Dean Stanton not only said no, he threatened to sue the Academy if they displayed my picture of him. (On what possible grounds? Malicious surreal facial reconstruction of a celebrity in an artwork?) Here's the shot.
Come and get me, Harry!
In any case, Doug and I got the runaround. The Academy was enthusiastic about the show, they looked forward to doing it, some time, maybe the next spring, unless they got that new air conditioning system, which would mean the lobby might be torn up, so they might do the show in another location, or possibly later in the year.
Doug had a suggestion. "Let's just wait for the Academy to vote in a new president," he said.
Two years later, it happened, Malden was out on his ass, and Doug re-submitted the show to the new president, Robert Rehme, and he assured me it was a shoe-in, asking me to call the following week.
The very next Monday, I opened the Los Angeles Times and was stunned to read Doug Edward's obituary. He had died of AIDS. I didn't even know he was sick.
The Academy was in turmoil. Nobody knew who would replace him or where my portfolio was, and so I waited. On March 10, 1993, four years after the whole process got started, I got my portfolio back from the Academy along with the following letter.
I could blame Bruce Davis or Bob Rehme or the Los Angeles Times for delivering the bad news. Harry Dean Stanton, you got some splaining to do. Hell, I could even blame AIDS. Stupid fucking disease that ruined my career. But I tend to blame Karl Malden because everything was fine till HE butted in his potato proboscis. Even though Harry Dean Stanton's reply proved he was right in starting the vetting process, that's no excuse for cancelling the whole show. You just drop the offending photo.
At this very moment, somewhere in the Academy archives there are 66 signed releases from major celebrities giving the Academy, and ONLY the Academy, permission to display my pictures in public. Yeah, that's right. I can't even use them to get a publishing deal. Nobody else will ever be able to compile such a list. You got Baryshnikov's address?
It's not often you can point your finger at an individual who deliberately called your career as a celebrity dickwad to a grinding halt. Maybe that's a stupid thing to aspire to, but I can't help imagining the photos I'd be cranking out now if things had gone another way. Maybe I wouldn't have gained all this weight. It's Karl Malden's fault!
Sorry Karl. Yeah, you were in On the Waterfront, and you and your method pals got me to New York for a whole series of adventures, but now when Marlon Brando says "You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am," it's got a whole other meaning. It's me talking to you.
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