The Turks and The Japanese

Has anyone at YouTube done a study on their web traffic? It sure as hell seems the Turks and the Japanese are posting more vids than Americans. Can that become a central issue in the 2008 presidential campaign? This is a serious threat to America's global competitiveness. That's what I want to see: McCain/Giuliani and Obama/Clinton debating on how to take YouTube back from the Turks and the Japanese.

And now, other trivial items:

The Media Mea Culpa Supreme Court
Good to know that Alec Baldwin apologized to his daughter on The View. While he was at it, he decided that he needed to first ask out of 30 Rock at NBC, then ask for guidance from Dr. Phil, and finally appear on The View with his best friend Rosie O'Donnell to drop a few thinly veiled rips at Kim Basinger. I'm sure he'll get around to talking to his daughter in person eventually.

Is that what every celebrity has to do now when they make a bad decision? Why not just start a Media Mea Culpa Supreme Court with Justice Al Sharpton, Rosie O'Donnell, Dr. Phil, Oprah...hell, we'll throw in Pat O'Brien and Mark McGrath just for kicks.

Please Alec, don't leave Hollywood. You were just getting good at playing obtuse, shoot-from-the-hip, supporting characters like in The Cooler, The Departed, and 30 Rock. Second place is a set of steak knives. Third place is you're fired. Alec, we don't want to fire you, the only good Baldwin.

Laker Pride?
Maybe it's because he has three rings with Shaq but when will Kobe's free media pass end? I've never understood why Kobe doesn't get the Kevin Garnett, Jermaine O'Neal and Paul Pierce treatment. Why aren't Laker fans debating whether the franchise is better off without Kobe? Watching Kobe score 80 is fun and all, but his supporting cast is hopeless, his GM is clueless and Kobe knows it and doesn't care. The only difference between KG and Kobe is that Shaq won Kobe his three rings and Bryant is now content to win scoring titles while KG actually cares about winning enough to be frustrated.

If Kobe played in Boston, they'd be making pinatas out of him and flogging him for candy. In Los Angeles, he can chase a Hall-of-Fame center out of town, rape (allegedly) a hotel worker in Colorado, and "lead" his team to a scintillating 45 and 42 wins and their fans say: "Wow, did you see Kobe score 80?"

Where's the Laker pride? When are Laker fans going to ask: "When's my team going to be good again?"

Randall Tobias: "Just A Massage"
Apparently there are no day spas at the State Department because Randall Tobias, the director of US Foreign Assistance, admitted to getting massages (no sex) from a DC call girl service. The former CEO of Eli Lilly and AT&T International has resigned for "personal reasons."

Back in the Clinton administration, it was "I smoked but did not inhale." In the Bush administration, it's "I got a massage but no sex." Just like in prisons, it's naked pics with bags over heads and waterboarding but no torture.

Ah, our current administration - our strength against terror, our moral compass, our Mark Foleys, our Randall Tobias, our Tom Delays, our Scooter Libbys, our Ken Lays, our Dick Cheneys, our Paul Wolfowitz's.

I'll take 100 annoying Nancy Pelosis over those guys any day.

The MegaCultureUpdate -YES! and YEESH!

First of all, since it's always ages between blog posts for me, a few plugs for my recent reviews:

- My latest review of Rick Moody's The Diviners on MostlyFiction

- I've reviewed The Show I'll Never Forget: 50 Writers Relive Their Most Memorable Concert Experience and Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand for Punk Planet. Subscribe to Punk Planet y'alls.


So here is my first edition of YES! and YEESH!:

YES! - Season 2 and Season 3 of The Office

YES! - Jonathan Coulton's Baby Got Back

YES! - The Devil and Daniel Johnston - The sweet-voiced songwriter responsible for the album covers on Kurt Cobain's T-shirt was not just a little nutzoid. He nearly killed two people including his father.

YES! - Conversations about Other Women - Despite the splitscreen trick, the movie is a throwback to romantic films. Helena Bonham Carter and Aaron Eckhart give strong performances about a one-night stand that mutates beautifully into a twilight of sadness and regret.

YES! - Before Sunset - Speaking of regret, this sequel to Before Sunrise is also impressive.

YES! - Children of Men and The Lives of Others.

YES! - The Machinist - Christian Bale loses 63 pounds. 63 pounds! Then you check out the extra DVD features to see how he did it. The answer: "I just didn't eat. That was pretty much it."

YES! - Smilla's Sense of Snow, a novel by Peter Hoeg.

YES! - Tokyo Police Club - I love the dystopia even if there's no reason for the all the songs to be so short.

YES! - Modest Mouse's new album - never much of a fan before but gotta give credit where credit is due. Must be Johnny Marr.

YES! - Arcade Fire, The Well and The Lighthouse - there are a few songs on Neon Bible that are a little Springsteeny-Mellancampy for me, but not The Well and The Lighthouse.

YEESH! - John McCain's stillborn presidential campaign

YEESH! - Nick Cage's "hair" - his new movie Next has him being paired with Jessica Biel. Yeah, right.

YEESH! - Anyone surprised that Alec Baldwin had a bad temper? Not me.

YEESH! - Media coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting. Memo to cable news networks: when there's no new news on an event, no one is holding a gun to your head (!) to continue broadcasting no matter how tragic. Is there nothing else going on in the world for the 24 hours that the police are sorting out the details?

YEESH! - Joe Francis, Girls Gone Wild founder: sociopath.

YEESH! - Rosie O'Donnell: sociopath? example 1, example 2, example 3

YEESH! - Did you hear The Sopranos is ending? Between the actors trying in vain to articulate how great the writing is (remember, these guys play mobsters - it's not like they're quoting Dostoyevsky) and all the Monday morning radio show hosts gizzing all over all The Godfather allusions, I'm dying for some gangland thug to shoot Tony so they can end the show early. When will it end with the ending?