What
follows is a scattershot bit of random thoughts, links, and images that
showcase the lunacy that exists in the entertainment world and beyond.
Folks who remember my old missives from the old Steady Leak articles
should find this kind of stuff familiar. Folks seemed to get a kick out
of the first installment, and each Wednesday should fall victim to
another installment. Don’t expect anything deep here but something may
tickle your fancy.
1. For the Grim Reaper Who Has Everything.
I love the internet sometimes.
The
amount of angry emails I get complaining about our advertising are all
worth the headache when some sort of ad technology arrives that spiders
through a page and creates what it considers targeted marketing but
ultimately ends up making me smile like Jerry O’Connell on payday.
To right is an excerpt from my MySpace [be my friend] control panel’s desired advertising, an ad which reacted to a mention of the screenplay Grim Reaper I wrote with Florida’s own Steve Alten [his new book, The Shell Game, is in stores now by the way].
Grim Reaper items! Not that the world wouldn’t benefit from Grim Reaper items and lots of them, but still.
Makes
me want to write more articles about Baby Slams, Asshole
Whippoorwhills, and Cancerous Nuggles. Just to see the advertisement.
2. Horse Sense.
As
a human being man I have been known to sashay around town clicking away
with my trusty camera phone at the plentiful bizarre shit that makes
its way into our lives.
There’s a church over by me proudly
proclaiming that they’re teaching Creationism and there was a
restaurant in Roswell that spelled their own name wrong on their sign [Craby Bill’s Seafood].
There used to be a Chinese restaurant in Nanuet, New York called E.Wok.
The cigar shop I frequent has a “No Kid’s Allowed” sign that I never
cease to give the owner shit about.
These things keep me on my side of sanity, whatever it may be.
I drove past a place called Horse Town in Marietta before softball practice on Monday. Horse Town.
Horse Town.
Check out their mascot on the right...
3. Balls in the Face!
Why
do sporting websites always have the ass ugliest and weirdest
photographs accompanying their articles? I forgot which pitcher it was,
but for a while last year it seemed like MLB.com looked for the most
fucked up facial contortions and arm positions of that guy whenever
they did a story. It was as if they were trying to get an FX Oscar the
guy looked so much like a Rick Baker creation. It may have been Greg
Maddux, but he’s already on his way to Creaturetown without their help.
I
think it’s boredom. Sports and the heroic poses and the exaggerated
fist pumps and end zone antics have painted it into a corner of lame
military metaphors and self aggrandizing marketing when it comes to the
photography that sells. I mean, does anyone get grossed out by those
Gatorade ads where the athletes perspire bright blue and green? Freaks
my shit.
So this picture to the right of Kevin Garnett experiencing his own personal Cloverfield struck me as funny and made me wonder if sports photogs have to really find some way to keep themselves interested.
Either way, good for us.
4. Goners, All Of ‘Em!
Making
fun of People Magazine is like picking a fight with an aphid, but
somehow that rag always finds a way to go from incredibly dumb and
trite to outright lunatic. I mean, of course they’re going to devote a
lion’s share of their covers to Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and
James Gammon [OK, if I ran People at least…]. Of course they jumped
onto Heath Ledger’s coffin with both feet. I’m sure they’re camped
outside some starlet’s house right now hoping that they pressure the
gal into doing something really destructive to herself.
But they
have this book GONE TOO SOON on newsstands, one that has been there for
quite a while and it basically showcases how shitty they are and worse
yet they’re doing it with a product that is playing on the emotions
folks have about their favorite celebrities who took an early walk into
the Styx.
I propose a GONE AT JUST THE RIGHT TIME magazine. One with Katherine Hepburn, George Burns, Henry Fonda.
And Jonathan Brandis.
By the way:
“Pigeon stole my Froot Loops!”