Vladimir Pinup?

It looks like Abercrombski & Fitchivich has a new cover boy.

Recently Russian President Vladimir Putin and Albert II of Monaco - the former head of the KGB and that foremost impregnator of flight attendants - decided to make a Siberian version of A River Runs Through It. All I can say is, thank the gods it wasn't Brokeback Gulag.

What would normally count as the most shameless act of pandering to the female vote since Poppy Bush made Dan Quayle his running mate becomes an almost indecipherable act when committed by figure as enigmatic as Putin. It might be that he's demonstrating his virility in a more modern way than Stalin (for which we can all be thankful), or it may just be that he's eager to distance himself from his resemblance to C. Montgomery Burns.

Russia's gay pundits have suggested Putin's recent topless antics demonstrate tacit support for greater tolerance of homosexuals in their country. I don't know if I believe a theory as far-fetched as that, but since homophobia there is endemic I have no problem supporting it either.
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This Cougar Makes Some Serious Scratch

Quicker than a ray of light, Madonna might be leaving Warner Music Group, her record label for the past 25 years.

According to British music bible New Music Express that's the case.

She's said to be in talks with Live Nation, and this talk ain't cheap; the deal is said to be in the vicinity of £50.5 million. That's a hundred mil to you and me.

Whew! That oughta buy a lot of Ben-Gay and support hose.

Madonna's current contract calls for an (eagerly anticipated!) new album produced by Justin Timberlake - due out this fall - and a greatest hits package to wrap up her years with Warner in a tidy little bow. It could all be a done deal by the New Year.

Once she's finished promoting those she'll be footloose and fancy-free. [Insert your own joke here.]
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Now Showing - "Jake and The Fatman"

I must confess, I never watched this show. I did, however, see Joe Penny on various talk shows and such. I would probably watch it now that I have a better attention span. I was --

Hey! Shiny...
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Now Showing - "Magnum P.I."

Hawaiian tourism never had a better poster boy than Mr. Tom Selleck.
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Now Showing - "Hawaii 5-0"

In keeping with Pop Culture Institute's celebration of all things Hawaiian, here's the first in a series of three shows which have featured tropical scenery with a side of crime-fighting.

Recently I had occasion to watch some old episodes of this show, and I was surprised to find it solidly written and acted. Even if Jack Lord's acting was often Shatnerian, his three dimensional hair always made me feel safe. Plus it kinda looked like Diamond Head.
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What's Your Opinion?

Recently I was discussing this blog with a friend of mine who has only recently become a reader.

It was an interesting conversation, mainly because, as he was giving me his advice on content and editorial slant, he kept telling me I needed to be more opinionated. He said it half a dozen times, so I asked him what he meant.

Apparently, according to him, I don't give my opinion enough.

Which is news to me, since in my opinion this whole damn thing is my opinion. So... What's your opinion?
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Great Barrier Reef: The Bad News And The Worse News

Tourism to the Great Barrier Reef is up, which may be great news for places like Cairns and Townsville and Rockhampton in Queensland who share in the $5 Billion annually generated by tourism, but it's definitely destroying the reef.

In the very near future all tourism to the Reef itself may have to be banned to protect it; that is if the pollution doesn't destroy it first. Currently only part of the region is protected by Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Of course, the first tourist to impinge upon the purity of the region was Captain James Cook, whose ship Endeavour ran aground here on June 11th, 1770. But casual boaters and day-trippers have been known to do their share. Already one-third of the reef has been closed to harvesting.

I have no doubt that the Great Barrier Reef will outlive me, and there may even be a happy ending to the story. But happy endings in real life involve the efforts of millions, and may fail despite their best efforts. In the meantime, it is incumbent upon aquariums to have well-stocked saltwater tanks, so that many people can experience the glory of living coral without running the risk of killing it in the wild.
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Ryan Seacrest: The New Merv?

Seacrest out? Not yet. But he is In as the host of the television industry's annual gladhanding festival.

It was announced today that generic metrosexual and perennial closet case Ryan Seacrest will be hosting this year's 59th Annual Emmy Awards, scheduled to air September 16th on Fox.

In recent years hosts as diverse as Ellen DeGeneres and Conan O'Brien have handled the top job, and admirably. However, whatever artistic triumphs these two may have wrought, their ratings all but stunk up the place. For this reason the producers of American Idol have been brought onboard.

And this was the best they could come up with. This fembot with his fifty teeth and hair by Cuisinart. Yeah.

^{Hmm... No one knows why awards ceremonies are getting lower and lower ratings... Could it be because there used to be four a year and now there's four a week? Too bad I'm too smart to be a TV executive, huh?}
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Bif Naked's Engaged

It was announced last week that Canadian punk icon Bif Naked is engaged to marry Ian Walker, a sports reporter with the Vancouver Sun. The wedding, set to take place September 29th in Vancouver, may be traditional, but the marriage promises to be anything but.

No word yet on which tattoo parlour the happy couple are registered at, but as soon as I find out I'll let you know.

[S O U R C E]
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Why Are There Are Outages, But Never Innages?

In my perambulations around Vancouver I am again and again both impressed and distressed by all the construction; there are more cranes in our skyline than at an origami festival.

The Internet, it seems, is going through similar growing pains of its own. Between Blogspot, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Photobucket it's a rare day I can blog in peace without interruption by scheduled maintenance or planned outages.

Today's outage is at Blogspot, which would be fine if it were summer. But just because it's the third week of August means nothing when you live in Vancouver. The current city motto - "By Land And Sea And Air We Prosper" ought to be changed to "The City That Summer Forgot".

Oh well, I guess I can always do some housework; there's some dust behind my fridge that's so old I could sell it to a museum.
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RIP Leona Helmsley

I was brought up to believe that if you can't say something nice about somebody, don't say anything at all.

Of course, that advice stopped making sense the minute my mother got behind the wheel of her car and started impugning the parentage and IQ of every other driver on the road. Despite the lesson on offer, what I really learned was that there's often a difference between what we ought to believe and what we actually do.

Despite her well-publicized bouts with tax evasion and homophobia, I have nothing against Leona Helmsley. After all, there are bigots and shady capitalists literally everywhere, and who has the time or the energy to get bent out of shape every time one of them spews hubris? Or even dies?

The fact that Leona Helmsley made a fortune converting apartments into condos in the late sixties, long before her last name was Helmsley, makes her seem far more loathsome than hearing her subsquently saying "Only little people pay taxes" and firing her staff for being gay. The two events in her life that made her famous seem inconsequential beside the far-reaching ramifications of the real estate development which cost Manhattan its affordability.

If anything the most offensive thing Leona Helmsley ever did was to be portrayed in a TV movie by Suzanne Pleshette; linking that lovely and talented lady to this Skeksi-in-drag was downright immoral.
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An Anonymous Comment

Today I received an anonymous comment, which I published with the previous post. The text of the comment is as follows:

your blogs really suck and u should stop

The comment came from Rome, from the IP address 88.49.63.#

Thanks for the destructive criticism! It takes real guts to hide behind your anonymity and tear down rather than build up.

(Honestly. You'd think the Pope would have something better to do on a Sunday.)

~ MSM
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Rita Moreno on "The Muppet Show"

Undeniably the highlight of Season 1, not to mention one of the funniest things ever put on film. If you doubt me, try watching it with the sound off.
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"The Muppet Show: Season 2" - Now on DVD!

I've only just returned from the rooftop of the building I work in, where I've been shouting about the long-awaited purchase now clammying up my hot little hands. For those of you who think I'm exaggerating, I know at least one very traumatized seagull who will beg to differ. The poor thing; I'm sure not even Gonzo could calm her down now.

If the previous paragraph seemed a little silly to you, either a) you haven't been reading this blog for long, or b) you are unaware of the effect The Muppets have on kids of all ages (not just me).

For five years (from 1975 until 1980) Jim Henson's felt and foam and funfur coterie infected their syndicated corner of television with a riotous, anarchic energy. Aided by guest hosts, The Muppet Show assayed vaudeville and popular music with an aplomb seldom seen before or since.

Season 2 features such classic guest stars as Don Knotts, Milton Berle, Madeline Kahn, Bernadette Peters, Elton John, and John Cleese, among 18 others, and is loaded with special features besides.

But wait, that's not even the best part. Turns out the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational show of my childhood is even better than I remember it, mostly because now I get all the jokes.
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A Formal Apology

Tech Support has detected a virus within the Pop Culture Institute's mainframe, Utilitas.

The virus, known as a "bummer" virus, causes circuits to become depressed and very often hostile.

Not to worry. Encryptions have been rerouted, and the virus removed.

We apologise for any unintentional bumming out which may have occurred. Such material is usually dumped into a Spam-type folder called "Self-Loathario"; in this case, there may have been some leakage. We will be working through the night to ensure that all trace of it is removed.

Thank you for your "support".

- Tech Support
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Gingerphobia: An Update

Over the past week one of the most popular posts on here has been one I ran on July 29th, about an increase in bigotry directed at redheads in the UK.

Well, I am nothing if not a whore where this blog is concerned, and so I am once more into the fray. Anything for a hit, a page view, or a comment...

Clearly this is a divisive issue. Like many divisive issues, it's one which was never known to me (since I am not red-headed), and might have remained unknown, had I not stumbled across the original article by accident.

It doesn't surprise me that humans have an almost limitless capacity for hatred, at least not anymore. What does surprise me is the seemingly modern phenomena for how small and narrow these prejudices are getting. Some day I fully expect to read about how the coppers are discriminating against the auburns, and/or vice versa.

In the old days a Catholic would hate a Protestant, and that I could almost see because that's a big deal. I don't agree with it, but I understand it. Our forefathers were ignorant and superstitious, and so their religion meant everything to them. Less obvious was how one Protestant could hate another Protestant; I guess I just put it down to the nature of Christianity, which is a kind of bigotry in itself on my part.

Lately, though, identity politics has made everything a potential battleground. People with brown eyes often get coloured contact lenses because they feel discriminated against. So is theirs an actual discrimination or just a matter of perception, like a neurosis? And in the end, does it matter?

I was under the impression that this bias against redheads went out of style at about the same time people stopped fearing black cats and eclipses. It's a funny thing about bigotry, though: you can't kill it. As a minority (or even as a majority, in the case of brown-eyed people) you may think that the matter has been settled, when all of a sudden it's back, only this time it's got a website.

Yet despite reading all these articles I can't seem to find one concrete instance of gingerphobia, only people's impressions of having been discriminated against. Could it be that redheads are simply using their genetic gift as an excuse? Or is that - horror of horrors - merely blaming the victim?

Maybe because one of Canada's pop cultural heroines - Anne of Green Gables - is red-haired, the situation isn't as bad here as it is there. It could also be the vast numbers of Irish-Canadians and Scots-Canadians in Canada, whose mark can often be witnessed still, and vividly at that.

Clearly, if this issue is going to linger in the public debate, I'm going to have to do more research. More reading, more enquiries. Maybe I'll even have to find some redheads and conduct some interviews. In-depth interviews, lasting until the wee hours, involving candlelight and soft music...

Anything for my readers.
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A Very Different Mary Poppins

NSFW: No' Sui'able Fer Wee'uns

^{(Thanks to my Facebook friend Ryan Anning for turning me on to this. ~ MSM)}
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Paul Shaffer's Sidekick Has A Point

I have to agree with my buddy Dave on this one.
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Karl Rove's What?

It's everybody's favourite Bush-whacker, that pudgy little dumpling we lefties all love to hate... Yes, it's Karl Rove!

When I first read that he was retiring the other day, I hadda sit down. I remember thinking, it's not even close to April 1st. Not even he would be so cruel as to pull such a prank in the middle of August, with all the heat and such making it a real effort to fight back?

So I waited a couple of days.

Sure enough, it wasn't just something from The Onion, or a joke on The Daily Show gone horribly awry. Actual newspapers were talking about it. It was official.

Well, I'll be a monkey's cousin (anywhere but Kansas). The man responsible for the Intelligent Design of the Bush White House is taking his protective coating of executive privilege and going home to write a book. While the President is left alone to try and read one, or at least try to colour inside the lines.

We'll miss you, buddy. All the lying, the cheating, the stealing... Good times.

The image is one of my favourites. A couple of years ago, he made a hilarious guest appearance on American Dad, as himself. He showed a real flair for comedy; they even got him to do that trick where he turns himself into a bat. I mean, he usually only does that for his fraternity brothers.

(Two little known facts about Karl Rove that I discovered while "researching" this post: his middle name is Christian, and he was born on Christmas. Suddenly, the rest is becoming clearer...)
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This Should Be Good

For seven months now the Vancouver papers have been filled with the most ghastly, lurid evidence from the trial of Robert "Willie" Pickton, who stands accused of killing 26 women and disposing of them in the usual ways associated with the pig farm he owned. Even for the Province, which is nauseating on a good day, the evidence has been grotesque.

Yesterday the Crown rested; now it's the defense's turn. Now, someone has to defend why he had dismembered body parts all over his property. Heads in coolers, buckets full of hands, sudden trips to the rendering plant...

In other words, someone has the onerous task of defending the indefensible. They have to do a good enough job so that justice is served, but not such a good job that a monster walks free. Yet for all that Robert Pickton might say he wants to walk away from that court room, in the back of his mind he's got to be just a little worried that karma won't bite him in the ass.

Remember Fargo? Steve Buscemi in the wood chipper? Now, I'm not suggesting anything. I'm just saying, is all.
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