Daily Archives: August 16, 2011

12 posts

Tuesday Evening Open Thread

Botswana Meat Commision's First Known Ancestor

Howdy gang. Hope you have had a great day so far. Let me continue to beg about the need for some more posts for this week. We are going to have another writer’s workshop tomorrow evening starting at 8 pm EST to help everyone come up with some new ideas and to brainstorm a bit. Please check it out.

Additionally, please share our articles on your social network do-hickies. It is a great way to thank our writers and to bring new people into our community.

Now here’s a little fun to get your evening started. Continue reading →

Reality TV: 1 Humanity: 0

And now someone’s dead.

Russell Armstrong, the flinty, irritating husband of Taylor Armstrong–of the perfectly toned arms and mile-wide smile from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills–apparently killed himself last night.  He was found hanging in a bedroom of their Mullholland Drive home.  By all reports, his life was a mess: his wife had filed for divorce, he was in massive debt, he was being sued to the tune of $1.5 million, he very well could have been just a high class grifter, not the “venture capitalist” he claimed.  He might even have been an abuser.  (There are reports he shoved Taylor and perhaps abused his first wife.)  Not a nice guy, clearly, as anyone who watched the show can attest.  He was socially awkward, cold—even downright mean–to his melancholic, grasping, pseudo-glamorous wife, testy and judgmental towards everyone around him.  But one quote in a Reuters article really struck me.  “This (TV) show has literally pushed us to the limit,” he told People Magazine. Continue reading →

The Hypothetical Spin-off

Bea Arthur famously appeared in two episodes of All in the Family as Maude Findlay before starring in a spin-off that was developed for her ratings-friendly character. Maude ran for six years on CBS. Flavorwire has a great post today about minor/supporting television characters who deserve their own shows. Some of Flavorwire’s choices are no-brainers. Who wouldn’t love to see Mad Men‘s Carla as the lead character of a show? With retro TV shows becoming a trend (see the upcoming Pan Am and The Playboy Club), a show that explores the 60s from the perspective of a working class black character would be a welcome addition. True Blood’s Godric also seems a natural choice; how could he not? The character has literally millennia of history to explore. Continue reading →

Memories of The King

Thirty-seven years ago this morning, Sir Tone was walking towards his office on Music Row in Nashville when he heard one of Elvis’ side men yell out “You hear Elvis is dead?”

Sir Tone: “Drugs?”

Side Man: “Yeah.”

The mere mention of Elvis’ name is enough to throw Sir Tone into a fury. The primary reason black blues musicians and early pop recording artists never got their due, Sir Tone says. Not half so good a musician as a multitude of them, never wrote a song of his own and most egregious of all, failed even to acknowledge his debt to the Delta black music his baby self breathed in along with its white country and church music. Continue reading →

Limerick Contest Tuesday

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical,
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean,
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.
– Author Unknown, but I’d like to have a beer with him

We had our high-brow poetry column on Monday, but I think this crowd could really do some bang up limericks. Continue reading →

Palm Springs and the Mid-Century Modern Eye Candy

I miss the desert. I miss the quiet and the calm. I miss driving down the 111, feeling the stress of Los Angeles melting away, along with my clothes and inhibitions. The heat was oppressive and comforting all at once. You didn’t have to be bothered. Bothered by neighbors, street noise, traffic or getting dressed. Being in the desert felt like our own tropical island getaway, the antithesis of living our “during the week” lives in Los Angeles. Continue reading →

America’s Love Affair With Tim Pawlenty Comes To An End

Running for President isn’t easy.  You have to eat a lot of corn dogs. You have to go to every diner in New Hampshire and drink cup after cup of maple syrup with flinty, skeptical maple miners. You have to go to dusty Iowa fairs and feign admiration for a lot of prize hogs.

You have to raise a lot of money, make some spiffy ads, and get some college kid to make you one of those website gizmos.Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty did all these things. Back in January, his campaign kickoff ad, entitled Courage to Stand–no seriously, that was the name– was a work of genius, a trailer for a summer blockbuster starring superstar action hero Tim Pawlenty. The ad, skillfully edited so you don’t actually see much of Pawlenty, looks like it’s a preview for Transformers IV. You could taste the Pawmentum. Continue reading →