Like sitting in the park or on the subway with a good read? Well, keep in mind, that outfacing book jacketis saying something about you to others.
Book: Harry Potter (any)
What it says about you: I shave my pubic region.
Book: A Million Little Pieces
What it says about you: I am James Frey.
John Updike (any)
When I make love to my wife I think about Brittany Spears.
The Devil Wears Prada
I wear Prada.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I thought this was ‘bout somethin’ else.
Neal Stephenson (any)
I have free passwords to porn sites.
Atlas Shrugged
I was a fine art major at an Ivy League school but now work in finance and desperately need an intellectual justification for my rampant materialism.
there’s more! >>
(more…)
Oh hey, remember when Foster Kamer over at Gawker was all “slimy good-for-nothing AP is slumming for your crash porn photos” to show of the Hudson River Helocopter-Plane joust? Well, just a week later Foster is now ready to post crash porn “footage” of the event. But it gets better. Listen to his analysis of the amateur footage:
“…there’s something trite to be said for representing yet another step in the progress of eyewitness accounts becoming even more readily available following tragic accidents, so we can learn from them and use them to prevent future instances as technology progresses forward.”
Mmmmmm mmmmmm. Taste that? Tastes like bullshit.
“ZOMBIES! That’s what they are. Whining for another government teat to suckle. If John Gault came back today, he’d never stop puking.”
David Rees’ “Get Your War ON” contribution to Harper’s “My Great Depression” Collection; June 2009
“But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what’s going on in his name, he’d never stop throwing up.”
Woody Allen as Frederick; Hannah and Her Sisters; 1986
The Magnum Desert Eagle handgun’s unique, triangular-barreled profile makes it perfect for highly stylized film violence. In turn, this exposure, none of it paid for by the brand, is invaluable. Its (maybe phallic?) appearance also makes it the favorite for heaving-bosoms heaving handguns roles. (Read my interview with Desert Eagle founder and CEO Jim Skildum. The brand also won 2008’s Product Placement Awards Lifetime Achievement Honor).
Each Friday I will try to feature a new Desert Eagle scene.
This week, a classic, Universal Soldier.
Those who watched and mocked the national Tea Parties back in April would find a different bunch of tea partiers today. The truly lunatic fringe of opportunists is now largely gone. But owing to the froth kicked up months ago, the movement’s name, “Tea Party,” still has currency and momentum, so why not use it? It’s a branding conundrum the United Negro College Fund surely appreciates. A day after one of North Dakota’s largest-ever tea parties, at the courthouse in Grand Forks, the only thing I can say with certainty about the movement is that it’s mostly about making funny signs and producing lots of unintentional irony. And anger. Plentiful, seething, soul-rooted and only vaguely-focused anger. And maybe racism. But not really that much racism!
Read It.
North Dakota is not a blog haven. But what is lacks in numbers it makes up for in crazy. Let’s see if we can find an example. I’ll just surf around and…… Oh, my.
Here’s a screengrab of some challenging, well-argued analysis of Obama’s current health care reform plan from (award-winning?) North Dakota blog Too Much Dog Hair. What can we learn about this upstanding North Dakotan?
“North Dakota is about hunting and the outdoors. I also believe that Hunting is man’s connection to the world and environment. Global Warming yeah, I will take some global warming in the Winter months. I am sick and tired of the liberals trying to shove political correctness down our throats, its sad and it will be the down fall of our once great nation.”
Hmmmm. Seems he forgot racism. Terrible, unrepentant racism.
Twenty years ago this month, the “If I could Turn Back Time” video of Cher fucking the Battleship Missouri was in heavy rotation on MTV (but only after 9:00 pm!). I was a teen boy (This also happened to be the last time Cher was relevant to straight, teen boys.)
To this day I think the video is easily one of the top ten videos ever and was before its time. A 50-year-old woman dressed in a black dinner-table doily struts all over a battleship full of sex-starved young sailors.
The video perfectly captures the antiseptic, peace-time atmosphere of the 1980s military. Juxtaposed against the very similarly-shot, yet thematically opposite, Coppola Playboy Bunny visitor scene from Apocalypse Now, Cher’s video offers a treasure of insight about the differences of the two periods.
While pumping my paycheck into my clunker (which I love because of the very fact that it is a clunker thankyouverymuch) I noted a Grand Forks tattoo parlor (are they called that anymore?) had a worrying marketing sign. (And yes, that’s snow on the ground in late April.)
Then, not far away, just weeks ago, I noticed that the sign had reproduced… or should I say,”reprodooced:”
And now, because I’m all about the follow-up journalism, I present the below window shots from a fine Grand Forks tattoo establishment. Both of these shots are from the same place as the first, top photo. This demonstrates that…? It’s intentional? The second photo shows they seem to know the correct pluralization. And yet the “tatt’s” thing is again wrong. And then there is the incomplete “free consulta” (which is maybe Spanish; mi gusto no speako Espanol). And the dangling open parenthesis (and the unnecessary nature of said parenthesis to begin with). Look, not everyone is an English major (I’m not). But there are certain businesses that are more sensitive to certain criteria than others. For building bridges, it’s math. For politics, it’s not sleeping with people who are not your wife. For tattooists, it’s spelling and (one would hope) some grammar.
On the bight side, they got “your” right.
Writers are all talk when they’re poor and have nothing to lose. But then they get optioned and, well, James Frey. So it is EXTRA special when a story like this boils up.
The Ice Man: Confessions of a Mafia Contract Killer author Phil Carlo turned down renegotiating a lucrative extension on his book’s film option with the producer of Transformers because Channing “GI Joe” Tatum was the pick for the lead role.
“I really hated the idea of Channing Tatum… this is not the guy to play one of the most feared killers of the 20th century. Mickey Rourke would really be good… But it’s not Channing Tatum.”
Bravo Mr. Carlo. Here’s to the recognition you’ll never get from the Learning Annex Extension struggling writers group you’ll be teaching in 15 years.
In product placement, brand recall is one of the most important measures of success.What good was a placement if the audience forgets it before ever leaving the theater?
Total Product Placement Recall presents a screen-grab of product placement from a film. Can you guess what the brand is.
This time, Funny People.
What did these two chubby comedians drink to slim down’? Click thumbnail for the answer:
