News flash: Kutcher and SNL writers are still talentless.
Ashton Kutcher, well known social media junkie and hugely irritating waiter actor, hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend in an attempt to combine two hacky, talentless products of pop culture in the hope that something good will result.
No such luck. When they decided to try for a parody of Kutcher’s Twitter success, SNL’s writers couldn’t come up with anything more creative that fart humor: a new social media site “Tooter,” that not only broadcasts when Special K farts, but sprays artificial fart scent into the the faces of Tooter subscribers.
The only highlight of the video, watching the great John Paul Jones of Them Crooked Vultures saying simply “I was in Led Zeppelin,” was tempered by the fact he’d agreed to be in the car wreck at all (the video, not the band).
But I’d guess that Them Crooked Vultures provided the only redeeming moments of a show that stopped being worth watching over two decades ago (I certainly didn’t watch it Saturday night). Which is no surprise, really, because how can you lose when you combine Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age), John Paul Jones (Zep), and Dave Grohl (Scream)?
You can’t – which is why I’ve chosen to embed THOSE video instead of the stupid fart bit.
Venezuelan President & musical theater fan wants state control over Internet
"Pretty Bird. Now you DIE!"
Well, as goes Mexico, so apparently goes Venezuela. While not as damaging to lives and countries as Bush 43’s attempt to tie 9/11 to Iraq, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (shown here after trying out for the Venezuelan road company of Pirates of Penzance) is making a claim that may be as off the mark.
Responding to a steady stream of negative comments about himself and his administration, President Chavez has not only called the anti-Chavez Twitter messages terrorist threats, he’s now calling for state control over the internet.
I suppose it’s POSSIBLE that a bunch of terrorists are actually twittering shit like “you distract his body guards, and I’ll fly a plane into him,” but I’d tend to doubt it. Particularly since the hashtag they appear to be most pissed off about, #freevenezuela, is reportedly being used by almost 70 million users.
All of whom, apparently, want to overthrow Venezuela.
Yes, it’s true: Facebook has turned six. I know it’s tough to believe, especially as it seems like only yesterday that you started wasting hundreds of hours trying to increase your friend count, playing Scramble, and trying to reconnect with your high school girlfriend (so you could bang her).
But, as it turns out, today isn’t just about length, it’s also about girth. Facebook founder Mark Zuckeberg recently announced on the Facebook blog that not only is it their birthday, they’ll reached the milestone of 400 million users this week.
Considering the fact a year ago they had less than half that, and they announced the 300 million mark only five months ago, it appears that Facebook’s growth is actually still accelerating.
At this rate, they’ll should have something like four times the entire population of Earth as users by sometime in May. Which definitely increases your chances of finding someone interested in “what’s on your mind.”
Joanna thought of them, I made them, she topped them, Desmond looked on in wonder. Read about our journey (complete with photos!) to meaty cupcake happiness in my New Times column. Online now, in print this Thursday.
Here’s the deal: it’s tough to take it seriously when someone raps “I’m a ninja,” even if the cat goes by the name Ninja. But it’s still worth catching these two videos from Die Antwoord (The Answer) a zef-rap-rave band from South Africa. What’s zef? Open to interpretation it seems: some say it means common, some say it means fucking cool, but I don’t really give a shit.
Whatever it means, the music is very fucking cool, the rapping in Enter The Ninja is kick ass, and the video for Zef Side has Crazy Swinging Penis in it, which is always hilarious (just try to ignore the silly posturing). Plus, that albino-ey chick is awesome.
I stopped watching the Grammys a long time ago; before I started earning a living as a recording engineer, before a label insider told me what I had long suspected: that the entire thing was rigged like a Cuban election. I stopped watching simply because it was too painful to see what was so obviously a giant marketing event that bore little resemblance to what it was supposed to be: an awards show for musicians that deserved to be recognized.
Taylor Swift Feigning Surprise
I was reminded of all that last night, when I tuned in three times, for about 5 minutes a shot. The first time I tuned in, Taylor Swift was accepting one of the four awards she was assigned by the labels won, and actually thanked her record company for letting her write every song on her album (uh, yeah, thanks). I suppose that it shouldn’t surprise me that music has become so formulaic and machine-driven that singers actually feel it’s necessary to thank their record company for “letting” them write music on their own album, but it still makes me want to puke.
But then we learned that not only are the songs she writes a hearty pablum/Velveeta blend, she’s also a really shitty singer (at least not without, I suspect, a copious application of Auto-Tune). She proved that the second time I tuned in and found her on screen again (supporting my atheism), this time performing with Stevie Nicks on the old Fleetwood Mac song, “Rhiannon.” To say she was a bit pitchy would be like saying downtown Baghdad is a bit fucked up.
If you can stand listening to it, you’ll see that she butchers what I assume is one of her own songs first, then finds complete disaster in the second, with Nicks (fair warning: if you have any cats in your home, I’d suggest you lock them in a room with no humans or other objects you don’t want clawed up). The last song she sings proves that not only is she a crap singer, her voice, when not treated with effects, is incredibly annoying.
Then I made the mistake of tuning in one last time (actually, this one was by accident; while I was popping in the DVD of Deadgirl the TV blipped to CBS). Lionel Richie was introducing the 3-D presentation of Michael Jackson’s “Earth Song” performed by a whole bunch of singers, the entire list of which I’m too lazy to look up (I do remember that horrible Celine Dion being among them though).
I doubt anyone else will say it, so let me: that song, in fact the whole presentation, sucked. It was silly, it was trite, and it was boring. It was also grammatically incorrect:
“What about all the dreams that you said was yours and mine?”
Please. But when Usher bore down with every bit of love, and soul, and drama he could dig up and delivered the lines:
“What about the elephants?
Have we lost their trust?”
That was about it for me. Because if we’ve lost the trust of the elephants, we’re fucking used. They never forget you know, and we’ll never earn that shit back. Never.
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Sitting at home alone and watching President Obama’s first State of the Union address while you make snarky comments to your pet turtle just doesn’t deliver the satisfaction that irritating an entire room full of other viewers does. Which is why you should consider visiting one of the following sites, where you’ll be able to watch tonight’s address while offering your real-time, incisive political analysis to the great unwashed masses.
Get it right from The Man: No White House has ever been so enamored with new technology and social media as the Obama White House is. And if you want to watch the official stream while chatting with other computer-bound citizens, they’ve got, big surprise, a Facebook page for that.They also have an iPhone app for it if, like Chance in Being There, you just like to watch.
Hit Ustream:Ustream has partnered with CBS to rebroadcast their coverage, and they’ll have an integrated chat tool that you can use to tell everyone why you think the Obama should make you a close advisor.
Go with CNN: As usual, Ted “Freakshow” Turner’s ground-breaking brainchild, CNN, will be broadcasting the event with the usual social media suspects integrated. No word on whether or not Darth Vader will be stopping in.
The Voice of Reason: Although you won’t get to weigh in yourself, I can think of way worse places to hang out tonight than on Reason Magazine’s blog, HIt and Run, where Reason editors will be delivering real-time commentary.
You’ve got other options of course, like hitting YouTube’s “CitzenTube” page and submitting questions to the President Obama that won’t be answered, or sitting in your living room and watching a network broadcast while you update your Facebook status. But considering the huge timeline delays at Twitter before and during today’s iPad announcement, you might want to try chatting rather than tweeting.
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