Quote of the day

One of the few areas where I agreed with George Bush was in the notion that a country providing safe haven to terrorists should itself be treated as a terrorist organization. Morally this isn’t a difficult one to figure out; a country that keeps house for a bin Laden and doesn’t assist other countries in trying to catch him is a rogue state, one that should be booted out of the community of nations.

We don’t permit countries that harbor terrorists to participate in international society, but the Catholic Church — an organization that has been proven over and over again to systematically enable child molesters, right up now to the level of the Pope — is given a free pass. In fact the Church is not only not sanctioned in any serious way, it gets to retain its outrageous tax-exempt status, which makes its systematic child abuse, in this country at least, a government-subsidized activity.

Somewhere underneath all of this there is a root story that has to do with celibacy. The celibate status of its priests is basically the Catholic church’s last market advantage in the Christian religion racket, but human beings are not designed to be celibate and so problems naturally arise among the population of priests forced to live that terrible lifestyle. Just as it refuses to change its insane and criminal stance on birth control and condoms, the church refuses to change its horrifically cruel policy about priestly celibacy. That’s because it quite correctly perceives that should it begin to dispense with the irrational precepts of its belief system, it would lose its appeal as an ancient purveyor of magical-mystery bullshit and become just a bigger, better-financed, and infinitely more depressing version of a Tony Robbins self-help program.

-Matt Taibbi

The Scarface school play the world's been waiting for is finally here

In case you're one of the few who haven't seen this yet...



Thanks for sending it over David!

The Tao of Victoria Jackson

This pretty much speaks for itself...

The NY Observer on "Cajun Expats"

Almost two years ago, in a post titled "Could New Orleans become the new New York?" I wrote:

I've been thinking a bunch of late about how much New York has changed just in the few years that I've been here. I think about how many of the artists, the creative types, the people who historically have given New York its color and flair, are being priced further and further out. I wonder when the tipping point will be reached. When will it become no longer feasible for wannabe artists, writers, musicians, to come to New York to chase all of their crazy dreams, to let their art flourish in an environment that welcomes and appreciates it? I wonder what place they will turn to as an alternative when the welcome mat is finally pulled from New York's front door.

New Orleans?

Fast forward to today, which saw the New York Observer published a piece titled, "The Cajun Expats." An excerpt:

Before Katrina hit, (Jordan) Friedman, who now co-owns a local PR firm, was a frequent visitor to the city. “What was really funny was that during the dot-com and bull market boom, I’d fly down to New Orleans for weekends because even with airfare, it was cheaper to spend time here than to stay in my own hometown. In a way, it was like coming home. People here knew I was one of them. And I am one of them. New Orleans was, to me, the closest you could come to expat living, while still being in the United States.”

He now lives in an historic apartment building, called the Orphanage, and pays $1,085 a month—“which is a little pricey by New Orleans standards”—for a 1,000-square-foot space with its own backyard.

“You’re either a New Orleans person or not. People here have a very different way of thinking than folks in other parts of the country, particularly New York,” he said.

But, he cautioned, “don’t let the simplicity of this calculus fool you. People here are not unsophisticated. In New York, I grew up among the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world. And I can tell you, without equivocation, that a large percentage of them are miserable and hate their lives.”

And another...

“It’s the most un-American of American cities,” said Bill Doyle by telephone on a recent weekend.

Mr. Doyle came to New Orleans two years ago as the location manager for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a job which entailed finding sitting rooms, bars, houses and shops for the $165 million, man-child movie starring Brad Pitt, who now keeps a residence in the French Quarter.

Mr. Doyle, who is 45, had been living in Chelsea, in an apartment where “you could almost touch the walls on both sides if you spread out your arms.” For that, he paid $2,000 a month.

Now he is working on Green Lantern, the comic-book movie, starring Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, which is shooting exclusively in the parishes within New Orleans city limits. His sublet apartment in the French Quarter has a Mardi Gras–beads–encrusted, street-front balcony and a rooftop terrace, where he entertains the cast and crew.

...

Meanwhile, Mr. Doyle spends his early mornings cruising along the scenic old waterfront of the French Quarter, along Esplanade Wharf. He wears a U.S. Navy T-shirt to please the Harbor Police, who navigate the heavily marked, no-trespassing-signed stretch that joggers and Mr. Doyle pretend not to notice. “The celebration of food, music, living here … It’s not fake, or put on for the weekend. It’s in the people’s blood.”

This is the rare trend piece I actually like. Go read it.

David Mamet's editorial notes

David Mamet created a TV show for CBS called "The Unit." David Mamet wrote notes to the writers on the show under his employ. David Mamet wrote these notes just as one would expect him to: in all caps, laced with profanity and using terms like "penguin" to refer to network executives who wear suits. To illustrate, I've edited one of his letters to the writers down just a bit:

TO THE WRITERS OF THE UNIT

GREETINGS.

...

EVERYONE IN CREATION IS SCREAMING AT US TO MAKE THE SHOW CLEAR. WE ARE TASKED WITH, IT SEEMS, CRAMMING A SHITLOAD OF *INFORMATION* INTO A LITTLE BIT OF TIME.

OUR FRIENDS. THE PENGUINS, THINK THAT WE, THEREFORE, ARE EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE *INFORMATION* — AND, SO, AT TIMES, IT SEEMS TO US.
...

AND I RESPOND “*FIGURE IT OUT*” ANY DICKHEAD WITH A BLUESUIT CAN BE (AND IS) TAUGHT TO SAY “MAKE IT CLEARER”, AND “I WANT TO KNOW MORE *ABOUT* HIM”.

WHEN YOU’VE MADE IT SO CLEAR THAT EVEN THIS BLUESUITED PENGUIN IS HAPPY, BOTH YOU AND HE OR SHE *WILL* BE OUT OF A JOB.

...

BUT NOTE:THE AUDIENCE WILL NOT TUNE IN TO WATCH INFORMATION. YOU WOULDN’T, I WOULDN’T. NO ONE WOULD OR WILL. THE AUDIENCE WILL ONLY TUNE IN AND STAY TUNED TO WATCH DRAMA.

HERE ARE THE DANGER SIGNALS. ANY TIME TWO CHARACTERS ARE TALKING ABOUT A THIRD, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

ANY TIME ANY CHARACTER IS SAYING TO ANOTHER “AS YOU KNOW”, THAT IS, TELLING ANOTHER CHARACTER WHAT YOU, THE WRITER, NEED THE AUDIENCE TO KNOW, THE SCENE IS A CROCK OF SHIT.

DO *NOT* WRITE A CROCK OF SHIT. WRITE A RIPPING THREE, FOUR, SEVEN MINUTE SCENE WHICH MOVES THE STORY ALONG, AND YOU CAN, VERY SOON, BUY A HOUSE IN BEL AIR *AND* HIRE SOMEONE TO LIVE THERE FOR YOU.
...

I CLOSE WITH THE ONE THOUGHT: LOOK AT THE *SCENE* AND ASK YOURSELF “IS IT DRAMATIC? IS IT *ESSENTIAL*? DOES IT ADVANCE THE PLOT?

ANSWER TRUTHFULLY.

IF THE ANSWER IS “NO” WRITE IT AGAIN OR THROW IT OUT. IF YOU’VE GOT ANY QUESTIONS, CALL ME UP.

LOVE, DAVE MAMET
SANTA MONICA 19 OCTO 05

Just awesome.

Hitler is not pleased about Jesse James cheating on Sandra Bullock with a Nazi chick

Even Hitler can't wrap his brain around this one...



via Vulture

Um, just forget about what I said previously about "Treme"

So I caught this preview for "Treme" on Sunday night after "The Pacific." Just go ahead and forget about my previously stated reservations about the show.

Dave Grohl likes coffee

I love Dave Grohl and this is kinda funny.



Thanks for sending it over John.

Quote of the day

If you’re a liberal House Democrat, here’s what you’d be voting against: Legislation that covers 32 million people. A world in which 95 percent of all non-elderly, legal residents have health-care coverage. An end to insurers rescinding coverage for the sick, or discriminating based on preexisting conditions, or spending 30 cents of each premium dollar on things that aren’t medical care. Exchanges where insurers who want to jack up premiums will have to publicly explain their reason, where regulators will be able to toss them out based on bad behavior, and where consumers will be able to publicly rate them. Hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to help lower-income Americans afford health-care insurance. The final closure of the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit’s “doughnut hole.”

If you’re a conservative House Democrat, then probably you support many of those policies, too. But you also get the single most ambitious effort the government has ever made to control costs in the health-care sector. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill cuts deficits by $130 billion in the first 10 years, and up to $1.2 trillion in the second 10 years. The excise tax is now indexed to inflation, rather than inflation plus one percentage point, and the subsidies grow more slowly over time. So one of the strongest cost controls just got stronger, and the automatic spending growth slowed. And then there are all the other cost controls in the bill: The Medicare Commission, which makes entitlement reform much more possible. The programs to begin paying doctors and hospitals for care rather than volume. The competitive insurance market.

-Ezra Klein, via Rillawafers

Pic of the day

This gallery of pics taken at the abandoned Six Flags in NOLA's 9th ward are pretty haunting. (via twoeightnine)

Hipsters on food stamps

This Salon story made me laugh...an excerpt:

Mak, 31, grew up in Westchester, graduated from the University of Chicago and toiled in publishing in New York during his 20s before moving to Baltimore last year with a meager part-time blogging job and prospects for little else. About half of his friends in Baltimore have been getting food stamps since the economy toppled, so he decided to give it a try; to his delight, he qualified for $200 a month.

"I'm sort of a foodie, and I'm not going to do the 'living off ramen' thing," he said, fondly remembering a recent meal he'd prepared of roasted rabbit with butter, tarragon and sweet potatoes. "I used to think that you could only get processed food and government cheese on food stamps, but it's great that you can get anything."

Think of it as the effect of a grinding recession crossed with the epicurean tastes of young people as obsessed with food as previous generations were with music and sex. Faced with lingering unemployment, 20- and 30-somethings with college degrees and foodie standards are shaking off old taboos about who should get government assistance and discovering that government benefits can indeed be used for just about anything edible, including wild-caught fish, organic asparagus and triple-crème cheese.

Pic of hipster cloaked in grass-fed beef via Look at This Fucking Hipster

On "Treme"

A few people have emailed me links to the newly-released long form trailer for "Treme" in the last day or so. With that said, people are often asking for my thoughts about it, even though the show has yet to air. So here you go...

To be perfectly honest, I really don't know how I feel about "Treme." I'm confused about it and how I feel about it. I should be excited as hell and I've tried to manufacture enthusiasm for it, but I fail to do so most of the time. After all, I was a HUGE fan of "The Wire," the brainchild of the same creator as "Treme," and the show is supposed to be about artistic folk in post-Katrina New Orleans, subject matter that is near and dear to my heart, but I still feel an odd hesitation about the show. Lately, when I've seen promos for "Treme," I've felt more dread than I have excitement. Frankly, all of the trailers for the show that I've seen just, well, they bring me way the fuck down.

There, I said it.

I'm not exactly sure what it is and why I feel this way and how is it that I can't even put my finger on it, but I think it's born out of the feeling that things are finally looking so up back home, that South Louisiana is energized and happy and has a spring in its step and people from other places are looking upon the celebratory lifestyle the area's renowned for with great envy once again, that I fear the show will focus on the negative and on the past struggles a little too much and, in doing so, bring us -- and I say "us" meaning all of "us" who grew up and/or lived in the region long enough to consider it the place where our hearts will forever reside -- back down again.

I fear that it'll knock New Orleans off the pedestal it's been suddenly, unexpectedly, but welcomely thrust upon in recent months (Due in no small part to the Saints' Super Bowl run). I fear that "Treme" will re-open wounds that are healing just fine and don't need to be picked at, lest the healing process becomes prolonged or, even worse, the wounds become infected. Once you've managed to escape the darkness to bask in the sunshine, is it ever a good idea to wander back into the shadows to reminisce?

I don't know, perhaps I'm being weird and maybe my fears are unwarranted, but they do exist and I can't help but feel that I'm not the only one of "us" who feels this way. Anyway, here's the trailer for "Treme" if you're interested in watching it...

Trailer

60 Minutes' report on Michael Lewis' new book about the Wall Street collapse

If you didn't see the 60 Minutes report earlier tonight on Michael Lewis' new book on the collapse of Wall Street, please do below. It will likely stupefy and infuriate you, but I think that's a good thing...


Watch CBS News Videos Online


Watch CBS News Videos Online

"The Yellow Handkerchief"

So last night I went to the movies and saw this film, "The Yellow Handkerchief." It tell a story of three strangers, one a recently released from prison ex-con and two teenagers, on a road trip to New Orleans, which shouldn't take more than two hours from where they started from but winds up taking them a day and a half. Whatever, the film stars William Hurt, Kristen Stewart, and Maria Bello (swoon!) and was shot all over parts of Louisiana I'm quite familiar with, including Morgan City, which is where much of the film is centered through flashbacks to Hurt's character's past life. Though the movie itself was, well, kind of slow and a little meh, I really enjoyed the imagery. It's sort of beautifully shot actually...it really captures the sleepy beauty inherent in rural South Louisiana well.

Anyway, I don't think it's playing in many theaters around the country, but I wanted to pass the word nonetheless. Here's the trailer...

Quote of the day

Why has our profession, through its general silence -- or only spasmodic protest -- helped Fox News legitimize a style of journalism that is dishonest in its intellectual process, untrustworthy in its conclusions and biased in its gestalt? The standard answer is economics, as represented by the collapse of print newspapers and of audience share at CBS, NBC and ABC. Some prominent print journalists are now cheering Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp. (which owns the Fox network) for his alleged commitment to print, as evidenced by his willingness to lose money on the New York Post and gamble the overall profitability of his company on the survival of the Wall Street Journal. This is like congratulating museums for preserving antique masterpieces while ignoring their predatory methods of collecting.

Why can't American journalists steeped in the traditional values of their profession be loud and candid about the fact that Murdoch does not belong to our team? His importation of the loose rules of British tabloid journalism, including blatant political alliances, started our slide to quasi-news. His British papers famously promoted Margaret Thatcher's political career, with the expectation that she would open the nation's airwaves to Murdoch's cable channels. Ed Koch once told me he could not have been elected mayor of New York without the boosterism of the New York Post.

...

Under the pretense of correcting a Democratic bias in news reporting, Fox has accomplished something that seemed impossible before Ailes imported to the news studio the tricks he learned in Richard Nixon's campaign think tank: He and his video ferrets have intimidated center-right and center-left journalists into suppressing conclusions -- whether on health-care reform or other issues -- they once would have stated as demonstrably proven by their reporting. I try not to believe that this kid-gloves handling amounts to self-censorship, but it's hard to ignore the evidence. News Corp., with 64,000 employees worldwide, receives the tender treatment accorded a future employer.

-Howell Raines

"The New Dork-Entrepreneur State of Mind"

I know dudes just like the one in this Jay-Z/Alicia Keyes spoof. Thanks for sending it over Ruth!

Cablevision sucks

If you live on the East Coast, you probably heard that Cablevision -- one of the two major providers of cable television round these parts -- pulled ABC off the air early this morning in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the result of a dispute with Disney over fees. With the Oscars airing tonight and all, there are many people who are quite peeved over this, a move that seems to make no sense for anyone involved. I mean, this is New York City, the biggest media market in the world, in addition to being one of the world's entertainment capitals. It's also one of the gayest cities in the world, which has me giggling each time I envision hordes of NYC gays storming the Cablevision offices like Huns invading Rome to demand the Oscars get aired.

So, in an effort to soothe customer anger (seriously, there must be no worse job in the world today than Cablevision customer service rep), Cablevision sent out an email to customers a few minutes ago saying that all of their on-demand movies are free of charge today:



As someone who was looking forward to watching the Oscars, I consider this a lacking gesture, though one I still felt compelled to take advantage of. You see, I've been meaning to watch Julia & Julia for some time now (I know, I know...just shush, okay!), so a few minutes ago I decided to take advantage of this offer. In the past 35 minutes, I've now tried a dozen times to order the movie, and this is the message I've gotten each time:



You'd think that maybe before extending such an offer in an attempt to soothe customer fury, they'd do something to bolster the system to handle the increased demand, but no...these are the same people who run the New York Knicks after all.

GIVE ME BACK MY NIGHT OF HOLLYWOOD AUTOFELLATIO CABLEVISION!!!

UPDATE: Cablevision just sent another email to remind me and their other customers that we can all watch the Oscars online for free. I would do that, but apparently they don't know that I also subscribe to their crap internet service, which is rarely fast enough to watch live events on without me wanting to slam my face into a sheet of glass.

Rebirth

In October of 2009, the marquee on the Saenger Theater in New Orleans was lit up for the first time since Hurricane Katrina flooded the city in 2005. A few nights ago my buddy Jim was walking by and snapped this shot, which tickled me because a) it captures the marquee in its glorious working condition again and b) I'll never tire of the message it conveys.

Quote of the day

Check this site out: www.harvardconnection.com and then go to harvardconnection.com/datehome.php. Someone is already trying to make a dating site. But they made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I'm like delaying it so it won't be ready until after the facebook thing comes out.

-Go read Nich Carlson's piece on the founding of Facebook. You will be dazzled by the depths of the shady shenanigans Mark "I'm going to fuck them" Zuckerberg pulled in the process of screwing over the guys who originally came up with the idea for the site.

Palin takes Hollywood

Sarah Palin at an Oscars gifting suite. How funny is that? From EOnline:

Like all politicians, Sarah and her crew were hardly gems when the cameras weren't rolling...

"They were like locusts," says one vendor at the suite, regarding Palin and her large group of hangers-on. "She showed up with like 20 people, and they immediately swarmed the place taking everything!"

S.P. was accompanied by daughter Willow, grandson Tripp and a bunch of female handlers. A source at the suite said Palin was stopping in while daughter Bristol was doing a photo shoot nearby.

We're told Palin was quite the prima donna and that she insisted the suite be opened two hours early so she could come when no looky-loos would be around.

"They told us last minute to get here superearly for [Palin]," says our rightfully annoyed source. "Then, she wouldn't let anyone take her picture or do any interviews."

For those of you who think that's a standard request—uh, it's not, especially when you're getting thousands of dollars worth of free goods. Some of the products Palin picked up included Bloom facial products, which she told the vendor she needed for her under-eye area.

"She said she always needed to look her best because she's always in the press," says a Bloom spokesperson.

And oh yeah, she's got a reality show in the works.

Banksy speaks to the Times of London

My awareness of and respect for street art, or graffiti, grew substantially after spending some time at Animal. With that said, the infamous Banksy granted a rare interview to the Times of London on Sunday, and it was sort of fascinating. Here are two of my favorite quotes from him:

“I recommend graffiti to anyone, for no other reason than a trip across town is never boring — you’re always on the lookout for new spots and what you can do on them. Likewise, if you ever get bored going round a museum, the interest level ramps up substantially when you smuggle in your own piece under a coat and glue it up somewhere.”

And here's Banksy on the "traditional" art world:

“I won’t be doing any more big gallery shows for a while, it’s all a bit dodgy. I’ve come into contact with a lot more villains since I moved from vandalism into selling paintings. The art world is full of shady people peddling bright colours. Anti-graffiti groups like to say tagging intimidates people, but not as much as modern art. That stuff is deliberately designed to make normal people feel stupid. I could try and get more legitimate mural work, but scaling a drainpipe is still probably a lot easier than getting an original idea past a committee.”

Read the whole thing here.

Here's is the latest hilarious conservative hip-hop offering

Fewer things make me chuckle more than the right's attempts to appear "hip."



via Wonkette

Today in dumb ideas

Rupert Murdoch wants to sue the shit out of Google for directing web traffic to his newpapers' websites.

Before Murdoch realized that Google posed a mortal threat to his empire, he used to praise it, recalls one former News Corp. employee. “We would be sitting in meetings, and he’d go on and on about the Google guys, and how they had dry cleaning and massages, and what a great company and culture it was,” the staffer recalls. When he bought the Journal, Murdoch thought about making online content free, even though the Journal was one of the few successes in fee-based news sites. And Murdoch and Wendi are friends with Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, though they are not as close lately, given the heated nature of their conflict.

Last year, Murdoch and his senior executives decided they needed an organized counteroffensive. As a code name, they chose Project Alesia, named after Julius Caesar’s victorious siege of the Gallic forces in 52 B.C. Murdoch conceived the fight against Google as a political campaign. He mapped out distinct phases. First, Murdoch and Thomson would make a series of provocative speeches to drum up press, using News Corp.’s media outlets and other interview opportunities to shape the debate. In February 2009, during an appearance on Charlie Rose, Thomson said, “Google devalues everything it touches.” In April, Thomson said in an interview, “Certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the Internet.” And in December, Murdoch published an op-ed in the Journal declaring that “there are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production … To be impolite, it’s theft.”

The inflammatory rhetoric generated a flurry of press and laid the foundation for the announcement that News Corp. would begin charging for its online content. Last year, he hired Jonathan Miller, the former CEO of AOL, who, along with Murdoch’s son James, is leading a team of senior executives to develop an online pay model while negotiating an accord with Google. The plan, which is still evolving, envisions bundling all of News Corp.’s newspaper content and partnering with other publishers to deliver it to mobile devices and the coming crop of tablets. James, according to executives involved in the discussions, believes readers will pay for bundled content like viewers pay for cable television. “It’s very much like a cable thing,” one News Corp. executive explained. “If 5 million people around the world are willing to pay, that changes the economics of the industry.”

Meanwhile, Miller has also been in talks with Microsoft about possibly pulling all of News Corp.’s content from Google and signing an exclusive distribution deal with Bing. And if talks with Google break down, Murdoch is readying a lawsuit against them. “He’s pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them,” says a senior media executive who recently conferred with Murdoch. “He doesn’t trust them at all.”

Murdoch’s defiance invited speculation that he had lost it. And continued trouble at his MySpace division furthers this view. “Digital is out of his comfort zone,” a former senior MySpace executive says. “It’s much more the Wild West. He gets the raw-competition part of it, but he’s never been in a place where the business model isn’t clear. The destruction is just happening so fast.”

I have to give Uncle Rupert some credit for trying to wrap his brain around the internet, but he just doesn't get it. Obviously.