Stardate 03142003
I have to confess. My whole STAR TREK reference is a cheat. I am not a Trekkie. But a friend of mine is. So that whole Stardate thing is props to Sammich. But you know who IS a Trekkie? Mira Sorvino. Never in a million years, should I live that long, would I have guessed. Carson Daly gave Mira a phaser from the original Star Trek, which I guess she then told everyone about because Chris Ryall talked about it in this week’s ONE HAND CLAPPING. The last two times I talked to Mira Sorvino were for her sophisticated acting efforts in THE GREY ZONE and THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE. It was fun watching her geek out on Carson. I’m a huge Mira Sorvino fan – I think that’s the word for it.
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By the way, The Carson Daly Show (NBC late night after Conan) is a way more palatable Carson then anything MTV has him do. Put on the Carson Daly Monkey Suit and jump around for some bananas is what it looks like most of the time. I wish he’d spend more time doing a monologue on his show. But only if he can write his own stuff. Not that anyone else writes their own monologue.
Except for maybe Michael Essany. He’s on E! after ANNA NICOLE and it’s a new show about a guy who does a late show on cable somewhere in the Midwest and E! found him. His style is an amalgamation of Johnny Carson and Jay Leno. He’s a perfect mimic. But totally professional. Why am I talking about what’s on the tube? Or rather, the High Definition Plasma Screen? That’s Ryall’s gig over at TV RECOMMENDATIONS on Mondays.
I’m a cannibal. I eat other people’s programming. And shit it out right here. I SHIT IT OUT RIGHT HERE! If this column were a made-for-cable magazine show, would it air on SHOWTIME, COMEDY CENTRAL or HBO? These are the things that keep me up at night.
Speaking of Carson Daly and MTV – from now on Christina Aguilera will be known as Christina Faguilera. I mean, I feel bad for her that she’s been taking a beating in the media lately. But she has her fans. She sells records. You can’t argue with product moving off the shelves. But I think she really believes her own hype. Like, I really think Christina Aguilera thinks she’s some kind of all-that Diva.
Britney Spears is getting interesting, though. She did that whole “Sonoma County Organic Farmer” cameo on SNL a couple weeks back with Will Ferrell and I was like, “Hey, Britney Spears is making me laugh … and not AT her.”
It was a pop revelation. Pop Revolution. Like Margaret Cho on her Revolution Tour which I’m going to have pay to go see because her publicist was all “DENIED!” But I would totally pay to go see her anyway.
UNZIPPED, a gay porn magazine that I do some freelancing for – I’m not saying anything but you should read all the reviews in the back by Rob Goodman. *wink*
Anyway, this month there is an article called “15 Reasons J.Lo Should Do Gay Porn.” Reason number 1: She’s got the butt for it. NUH-UH – YOU DI’INT.
In this week’s ONE HAND CLAPPING, our fearless Editor-In-Chief Chris Ryall had his picture taken with Bruce Villanch at the TV LAND event. Bruce is a notorious cock-hound and he’s not trying to hide it. You can see photos of him in several issues of UNZIPPED with porn stars in-flagrante-erecto. Yes, folks, this is the guy who writes the Oscar ceremony. So you see, we are all secretly being controlled by fags.
Isn’t it time to give them their due? I was at the San Francisco premiere of NORMAL starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson which debuts on HBO March 16 at 10pm EST. The stars weren’t in attendance but I did see Jessica Lange on CNN’s NIGHTLINE the next night delineating her opinions about “The Potential Conflict in Iraq ™” (she’s none to happy about it). Jane Anderson, who wrote the play and directed the film based on the play was there, though.
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Okay, now that I’ve packed your head with all that info … let me get back to the point. I also met Geoffrey Kors, the executive director of CAPE – The California Alliance for Pride and Equality. CAPE is a LGBT civil rights lobbying organization currently sponsoring several bills in the California State Legislature to expand domestic partner rights. It’s a small step towards the eventual legalization of same-sex marriage. I asked this Mr. Kors when same-sex marriage will stop being a gay issue and become a human rights, quality-of-life issue. He was stumped. I don’t think it’s very far off because younger, more accepting generations are moving into positions of power and influence and changing our public institutions as naturally as surf changes the shore.
NORMAL is about a middle-aged Midwestern man who decides to transition from a man to a woman. The big question is, if his wife decides to stay with him after he becomes a her, does that make her a lesbian?
What else happened…
I went to New Wave City for the Adam Ant Tribute Night. I wore eyeliner. It was just like last year all over again. I keep trying to grow up. Really, I do. But whatever my parents think adulthood is supposed to be is just lost on me. New Wave City has spent more then a decade not letting a decade go away. It was 1992 when the wave of 80s nostalgia was rekindled by DJs Skip and Shindog. Shindog is also the local marketing rep for Landmark Theatres. I deal with this guy a lot but I always feel like I have to remind him who I am every time I see him.
And FRAMELINE VIDEO hosted another CLOSE-UP with Christine Vachon. Vachon produced two of last years critically acclaimed films: ONE HOUR PHOTO and FAR FROM HEAVEN. She also produced BOYS DON’T CRY which garnered Hilary Swank an Oscar. Her wardrobe is remarkably similar to my black on black street-thug aesthetic. She has to go to the Oscars next weekend because FAR FROM HEAVEN got nominated for a few things. An audience member asked her what she was going to wear (because what else do you ask people who are going to be prancing down the red carpet). She said her friends staged a fashion intervention and she didn’t want to talk about what they are having her wear. Producers are never invited to the VANITY FAIR party. And punk-ass entertainment journalists are also usually routinely denied. I’m so stupid. I didn’t even TRY to get a press credential for the OSCARS. I must be smoking the funny stuff.
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Now how else am I going to report on THE MOST IMPORTANT NIGHT IN HOLLYWOOD? I’ll fake it. I’ll just print a bunch of scandalous lies that you want to believe are true.
I like this DAREDEVIL review.
George Lucas lives down the road from me and the other day I thought about stopping by. I thought maybe C3PO would answer the door. And they’d be celebrating Chewbacca’s birthday. George would ask me if I wanted to take a spin with Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon. But then I found out that his front door isn’t right on the street. And it didn’t seem like there was room in the backyard for the Falcon.
Did you know Dagobah means “Temple of the Gods”. Note to the remedial students: Dagobah is the swampy planet where Luke (Skywalker) first meets Yoda. Okay, you are now excused. The short bus is leaving the store and you will have to take it back to the bizarro dimension that you have escaped from. Now go so I can discuss your ignorance with my internet news group friends. Your presence here is lowering the value of my 1980 Kenner mint-in-box Lando Calrissian action figure.
I was doing some reading while standing in line for government cheese – THE FUNCTION OF THE ORGASM, VOL. 1 THE DISCOVERY OF THE ORGONE by Wilhelm Reich - a little light reading to take my mind off the troubles of the world. And I’ve been thinking a lot about this passage:
“The schizophrenic merely represents in grotesquely magnified conditions what characterizes modern man in general. Modern man is estranged from his own nature, the biological core of his being, and he experiences it as something alien and hostile. He has to hate everyone who tries to restore his contact to it.”
WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT MEAN?!?
What else…
Remember when I wrote about CODE PINK? Some of their members were arrested in a National Women’s Day protest outside the White House. Among those taken into custody was COLOR PURPLE author Alice Walker. Janeane Garofalo later spoke in support of the day’s protest. She has been very vocal about her resistance to the Bush Administration’s current foreign policy.
Which brings me to this weeks play list – songs for the revolution:
The War Song – Culture Club
Bobby McGee – Janis Joplin
Rhythm Nation – Janet Jackson
Egyptian Lover – Egyptian Lover
Jam On It – Newcleus
They Don’t Know – Tracy Ullman (covering Kirsty MacColl)
Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
And while I’m finishing up this weeks business – Gigi didn’t get all Yoda with me this week. All she said was, “We sure have been spending a lot of time together.” I’ve turned her kitchen into my office and I’ve been drinking all her coffee and tying up her phone line so she spent most of last week turning her kitchen from my make-shift office into her make-shift studio and making innuendos about me being at her apartment all .. the … time. She’s been working on this collection of her photographs for a design class and its looking pretty good.
When we were in high school all those many years ago, I was her “model”. I was also a self-obsessed club poseur and I was happy to stop for the cameras. These days I’m more apt to hold her photo bag than jump in front of the shutter. She snuck a picture of my arm on to her “People” page, though
Stop reading here if you want to skip the social history lesson.
I think Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix died when they did because they didn’t know where to go. Jimi was only 27 when he kicked it. All they could do was express the moment and capture the energy of the counter-cultural, peace movement in themselves and let it rip. As somebody who made it past thirty, lemme tell ya, doing what he did by 27 was a gift from history.
The modern progressive movement is in the same position. Nobody knows where we go from here. We can’t go backwards, ecologically speaking and we can’t go forward with the present socio-political configuration (we can, but that would totally suck). So where do we turn for vision and inspiration to build a better a future? How do we talk about and work with established institutions to create a society that those established institutions may not be able to contain in their current form.
Where are the people who want to lead trying to take us and is it really in our collective, long-term best interest to go there?
The student democracy movement of the 6’s wasn’t trying to stop a war as much as they were trying to stop a supremely arrogant, bullying paradigm that has gotten us where we are now, in spite of all those idealistic boomers growing up, getting real jobs and becoming senators and having kids who grew up to be just like me.
For the more hardcore polemic, click here.
RUN! IT’S GO-JIRA!
So where are we, you ask? Take a good look around, brainiac. This ain’t friggin rocket science. I’m pretty sure though that the answers are not blowing in the wind, they are actually in COMICS 101, which runs here on Ye Olden Movie Poopen Shooten every Wednesday until the children in China are no longer starving.
Each week Scott Tipton brings us all a little closer to God. ALL HAIL!
Ice Cream Fantastic, the brainchild of the unparalleled creative genius of Andy Milonakis, made its national broadcast debut last week on THE JIMMY KIMMEL SHOW. Necessity is the mother of invention. Don’t you forget it. Jimmy promised, right in front of God, America and Everything, to get Andy on the show. SO DON’T MISS THAT SHOW.
Andy has been making short internet videos for a couple years now where he has assumed the role of everything from “probing journalist at the corner market” to folk-rock hero declaring to the world that the SUPERBOWL IS GAY. While a select few have been hysterical for them since “the beginning”, the rest of the world somehow found out about our little secret. I, Me, who has been egging him on for years, now has to wait in line behind the NEW YORK OBSERVER to get an interview but I’m gonna get him for OFF THE RADAR next week. And I’m gonna get him good.
Friday’s Kimmel show featured what will now forever be known as CUPPY KIMMY where Andy was a poor kid with two bad eyes. One glass, the other, a cup with an eye drawn on the bottom. I wonder how we went blind in the first place? Dating Rosy Palm, I bet. Andy sent the file over to the Kimmel people with the name “Cuppy_Kimmy” so the good folks at the show asked if they could air “Cuppy Kimmy.”
Big Ups to Bryan Lynch for giving Andy space on the ANGRY NAKED PAT website to do his thang.
“Forget about who you thought you were and just accept who you are” – the tagline on the ShoWest JERSEY GIRL poster. We have to wait until when to see this movie? [Ed. Note: November 7]
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