Sexy time!

Borat in Cannes.



More here. Borat the movie is in November, and it sounds good.

Outstanding Colbert-related irony wormhole

Colbert has generated an alternative irony-free dimension where his schtick as an idiocy-spewing wingnut is now used to justify the positions of the very idiocy-spewing wingnuts he lampoons. This from ThinkProgress today (lots of embedded links in the original post):

A good sign that Tom DeLay doesn’t have the facts on his side: the top source for his latest defense against his critics is Stephen Colbert. This morning, DeLay’s legal defense fund sent out a mass email criticizing the movie “The Big Buy: Tom DeLay’s Stolen Congress,” by “Outfoxed” creator Robert Greenwald.

The email features a “one-pager on the truth behind Liberal Hollywood’s the Big Buy,” and the lead item is Colbert’s interview with Greenwald on Comedy Central (where Colbert plays a faux-conservative, O’Reilly-esque character). The headline of the “fact sheet”: Hollywood Uses Micheal Moore Antics on Tom DeLay - Colbert Cracks the Story on Real Motivations Behind the Movie.

DeLay thinks Colbert is so persuasive, he’s now featuring the full video of the interview at the top of the legal fund’s website. And why not? According to the email, Greenwald “crashed and burned” under the pressure of Colbert’s hard-hitting questions, like “Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?”

Ho. Lee. Sheet.

I liked this in the comments: "Tom Delay obviously doesn’t understand satire. Next thing you know he’ll be eating Irish babies."

n-n-n-n-n-nineteen

I'm very ambivalent about this huge list of 80's music videos that can be found on YouTube. There's soooo much shite on there, but as nostalgia trips go there are some real gems. I hadn't heard Paul Hardcastle's 19 for over 20 years, but I remembered every image in the video and every silly vocal edit. And Down Under by Men at Work is still weirdly funny. Cameo? Talking Heads? And when it's all said and done, Public Enemy and Prince arguably redeem the decade as a whole. As ever, one must simply give little creedence to the hype.

Sweary Starbucks deconstruction

Starbucks sticks it to the working man. Let the kid from Brooklyn (.com) break it down for yous.



Fucken t'anks and a cheese danish to Bruddah Boris for da hookup.

(this video may be in the top ten funniest things I've ever seen on the internets, btw.)

A legend in his own pants

I'm so old I remember when Steve Martin was funny. Relive those simpler times with The Great Flydini.

Pimpfants

I hardly know what to make of this: a kiddies' clothes company called Pimpfants. It sells Lil Beaters and Velour tracksuits.

Afghangsta

Hiphop hits Afghanistan. The BBC drops it like it's hot. "The people find this very funny," said the young man. "They say this isn't a song because this man isn't singing, he is talking."

Love this: "[DJ Besho's] first video finds him rapping atop a bouncing Hummer utility vehicle." Can it be a coincidence that the Hummer H1 is being discontinued? The plot thickens...

29%

The second post I ever wrote on this blog, all the way back in February, noted that B*sh's approval rating had fallen to a then-new low of 34%.

TPM just told me that a new poll has him at 29%.

What a week. The story that broke this morning about the phone companies handing over the records of millions of people to the NSA might even get traction where BJs can't.

Following Watergategate

So this whole mess with the CIA is on a slow burn, but the payoff is coming. There are hookers involved here somewhere, hence BJs, hence a scandal the media should ostensibly salivate over. They ain't biting just yet, but it's coming. These poker parties with defence contractors, close associates of Goss and Ch*ney, and a dude called "Nine Fingers" took place it the Watergate Hotel, for fuxake. And, of course, featured both metaphorical and literal BJs. The best shit is on TPMmuckraker, Wonkette, and Harpers. Come on, bring it home...

Fake Brain rocks

My favourite New York rock band Fake Brain is performing a second run of their rock opera 'Dr Wei Wei and the Fake Brain'. Hilarious, moving, profound and sexy, this show has everything. Twenty killer songs, swearing, a dominatrix and a cheerleader, robots, nipples, the devil and the truth. One day, they're going to be famous. Here's the trailer:



Go see it at the Bowery Poetry Club, on the Bowery above Houston, this week and next. I'm going again at least twice.

Fur real

Man, that looks pretty damn comfy. Not sure how those gingers slipped in though...



Via CO, of course.

Fun with floods

The volume level on global warming has been nudging up over here, fuelled largely by the wailing and gnashing of teeth over gas prices and a ratcheting up of mockery of Al Gore. Geezer is having a fair crack at raising awareness, but the great American way of life is a tough zit to pop.

So why not have some fun at this site and see how many metres the sea level needs to go up before your home slips under the waves. On the right here is lower Manhattan after a 9m rise, and a closer examination reveals that my current corner of Soho is going to get wet.





London won't be any help. Battersea is going to be moist underfoot too - and this is after just 7m. Sleep tight.

Mike Myers walks around Manhattan with a hockey stick

Reading around for Colbert info leads me to a rare dip into Gawker, which delightfully turns up this:

One stalker sighting we keep receiving and deleting usually looks like this:
9:30 PM: Mike Myers, Barrio Chino, carrying a hockey stick.
Why do we keep tossing Shrek aside? Because every single sighting we get of Mike Myers involves him carrying a hockey stick. Sunday morning mass? Hockey stick. Black-tie fundraiser at Cipriani? Hockey stick. It’s just absurd, we thought, and it seemed like a well-organized prank, a la Clooney, to flood the site with fake sightings.
Until we saw him last night, walking into Max Fish, carrying a hockey stick.

What I really like about this is that about two Sundays ago, I saw Mike Myers walking briskly down Mercer Street near Broome in a Canadian hockey jersey carrying a hockey stick. I remarked upon it to Nyx, but she didn't clock him because he was moving so fast.

It happens that I've previously weirded out Mike Myers. About four years ago he and his wife came into 7A, the diner on the corner of my old block in the East Village. I was eating breakfast and reading the paper and he sat a few tables over, directly in my line of sight were I to look up from my Times. Which of course I did, because let's face it, he's made many of us laugh our arses off plenty of times. We made eye contact once, then twice about a minute later. Then he stood up and swapped chairs with his wife.

By the way, nice to find an old picture of the twins back before they moved in with me.

Colbert update

The video I linked to in the original post has been pulled form YouTube for 'copyright violation'. Hmmmm. Anyway, this link from boingboing has more, as well as other places to see the video. Also, check out this crooksandliars post that has a video of Bush during Colbert's audition tape. Man, he looks super pissed! Great stuff. Also also, as of Friday evening thankyoustephencolbert.org has almost 50,000 thank yous. Mine is around 2,300th or so. AOL's online poll asking "Was Colbert funny?" has had around 180,000 responses, with about 2/3rds saying yes he was.

Ninja news

First, the new Ask a Ninja tells us all we need to know about the ninja convention 'KillaCon'. And as a special treat we get 'Ninja pick-up lines'; my favourite is "Sorry I had to cut off both of your boyfriend's arms. Need a hug?"



But there's more. Real words of wisdom from Grand Master Masaaki Hatsumi, the real 'last ninja': "Always be able to kill your students."

I like this part too: "Hatsumi is the only living student of the last 'fighting ninja', Toshitsugu Takamatsu, the so-called 33rd Grand Master who was a bodyguard to officials in Japanese-occupied Manchuria before World War II and fought - and won - 12 fights to the death. Legend says that during one battle, Takamatsu snatched an eyeball from a would-be Chinese bandit." I mean really, does Tarantino come up with anything on his own?

And of course, there's a Bond connection - Hatsumi was the martial arts adviser on You Only Live Twice, the classic with the ninja army.

Finally, a scandal everyone can all relate to

Porter Goss, head of the CIA and B*sh crony, resigned today unexpectedly. There is every reason in the world to think that this has to do with defence contractors, bribes and prostitutes. Therefore, it is safe to assume that BJ's were involved. Therefore, we may finally have a scandal that the American media might pay attention to. This video at crooksandliars has some of the background. I really hope this is going to be as amusing as it has the potential to be.

Mission File Addendum: As of Friday evening TPM has the best summary of the whole sordid story. This is great stuff, more please!!

Double Oh-Seven Double Shot

November sees the release of the new James Bond film with Daniel Craig in the role. For some reason I've yet to ascertain, the first trailer for Casino Royale is in French. Weird - but it looks promising. Thanks to Prague-based colleague Agent Pedrilson for the tip.



And since we're in a Bond mood, it's about time I raised a glass to one of the best 007 websites I've yet discovered: Make Mine a 007 is an in-depth, quantitative analysis of every alcoholic drink consumed in every Bond film or novel. This indispensable guide to Bond booze is highly entertaining. Here, for example, is the listing from the Fleming short story '007 in New York':

Overview: In this shortest of James Bond stories, 007 travels to the Big Apple to warn a former MI6 employee that her lover is a KGB agent. In the process, Bond discovers that New York City in fact does not have everything.

What does Bond drink? As Bond is taken by limousine to the Astor Hotel, he plans his day in Manhattan. He decides on a trip to 21 “for old times’ sake” (he dined there with Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever), to have a couple of “dry martinis—Beefeaters with a domestic vermouth, shaken with a twist of lemon peel” at the restaurant’s bar. Bond considers dining at Grand Central Station’s Oyster Bar, home of what he considers the best meal in the city, “oyster stew with cream, crackers, and Miller High Life.” Instead, 007 decides on a table at the Plaza Hotel’s Edwardian Room, where he will have a third dry martini, followed by smoked salmon and scrambled eggs. (During his musings he laments the “irritating Wine and Foodmanship” at Chambord and Pavillon.) Fleming includes a footnoted recipe for Scrambled Eggs “James Bond”:

For FOUR individualists:
12 fresh eggs
Salt and pepper
5-6 oz. of fresh butter
Break the eggs into a bowl. Beat thoroughly with a fork and season well. In a small copper (or heavy-bottomed saucepan) melt four oz. of the butter. When melted, pour in the eggs and cook over a very low heat, whisking continuously with a small egg whisk.
While the eggs are slightly more moist than you would wish for eating, remove pan from heat, add rest of butter and continue whisking for half a minute, adding the while finely chopped chives or fines herbes. Serve on hot buttered toast in individual copper dishes (for appearance only) with pink champagne (Taittainger) and low music.

Brand names: Beefeater gin, Miller beer, Taittinger Champagne.

Total: Three. This is based on Fleming’s ending paragraph detailing how Bond’s night went hopelessly awry following his lunch of scrambled eggs. Assuming that everything went according to plan up to that point, it would follow that 007 kept his earlier appointments with his three martinis. (Gin martinis, no less.)

The site calculates a grand total of 419 drinks served. Cheers!

Colbert: Hero

Stephen Colbert proved himself as the possessor of the most grandes huevos in the entirety of the political-media-industrial-complex on Saturday night.

At the White House Correspondents Dinner, in a room filled with the filthy hoards of media enablers of this travesty of a government, and only a few feet from B*sh himself, Colbert delivered the most scathing irony-slap I've seen since living in this country. It was a thing of beauty. And the audience had no idea how to handle it.



Stephen's taking a lot of heat for this from Big Media, when he's not being ignored. The NYT today did half a page on the utterly lame 'double' routine B*ush and an impersonator did beforehand, but couldn't bring itself to come to grips with what Colbert did. But there are a lot of people who get it. Including, possibly, B*ush himself, who is clearly pissed. Watch for yourself.

Thankyoustephencolbert.org

Firedoglake has a good take, with plenty of links to all relevant aspects of the great moment.