A Situation of the Apocalypse

I'm having difficulty even typing out this post due to a combination of non-stop laughter and utter shock at the degradation of our society.

(Deep breaths.  In.  Out.  In.  Out.)

My friends, there is a "situation" taking place at Amazon.com.  What kind of "situation", you might ask?  This "situation".

I'm not sure what I find more fascinating about this "situation".  Is it that a reality-TV star has "written" his own book?  That can't be it because this isn't the first and it certainly won't be the last.

Is is that "The Situation" himself has "written" his own book?  Nah, it's hard not to see this coming a mile away.

Perhaps it's the fact that "The Situation's" book is, and I'm going to quote this in order to get it right, "[a] guide to Creeping on Chicks, Avoiding Grenades, and Getting in Your GTL on the Jersey Shore".  (Good thing I copied that word-for-word cause I'm not sure I could have brought myself to actually type such a ridiculous sentence.)

*Some of you may be wondering what the hell GTL means (and if you don't watch Jersey Shore, you would have no reason to ever know).  GTL, as defined by the Urban Dictionary, stands for "Gym, Tan, Laundry".  So "The Situation" has "written" a guide instructing people how to workout, sit in a tanning both and to make clothes oh-so soft and fluffy.  I wonder, do the laundry instructions include a discussion about ironing cause that's a skill that's worth it's weight in gold!

As much as the fact that "The Situation" has "written" a book...sorry, GUIDE...as much as the mere existence of the book itself is fascinating it really isn't that shocking.  Of course, that fact that it isn't shocking is, in and of itself, really sad.  No, the really fascinating part is that people will buy this book.  How many, I can't be sure.  But I'd wager every dime I have that the sales numbers will be in at least the hundreds, probably the thousands.  No, it won't be a bestseller, but somebody (many somebodies) will actually plop $10.12 on Amazon to get "The Situation's" book...guide...whatever.

I have to give this guy some major credit for marketing himself like few reality TV stars have ever done.  I don't know whether this whole thing is an act or what, but the deadpan way in which he plays this character is beyond anything we've seen in the genre in a long, long time.  Think about some of the more curious realty characters we've had over the past couple of decades.  There was Puck from The Real World: San Francisco, who I like to think of as the original realty TV freak.  He's really the first one that tried to make the whole show about him.

After Puck, word got out that getting on TV and acting like an ass would win you two tickets to paradise.  That led to a whole plethora of reality freaks, such as New York on Flavor of Love (and then Flavor of Love 2, I Love New York, I Love New York 2, New York Goes to Work, New York Reads a Book, and the final, and surprisingly unsuccessful, New York Sits on Her Couch and Watches Re-Runs of I Love New York).

We also got The Hills super-couple of Heidi and Spencer.  Heidi's claim to fame and stardom was that she was A) on TV (the only required element in all of this), and that B) she loves plastic surgery.  Spencer's claim to fame is that he's crazy (not required for "freak" status, but it certainly helps).

Those "stars", and all the others that space, time and sanity prevent me from listing, helped to take "celebrity" status to the heights we see today.  "The Situation", however, has apparently re-invented the rules.  He threw out the playbook and started over with a concept and a delivery that will be imitated for decades to come.  I only wish it was still the 80s cause then we'd have the pleasure of seeing "The Situation" hawking a VHS workout tape.

It would be nice if ESPN had an ounce of class.

Check out the following link to ESPN (The Greatest Thunder Team of All-Time).

Last time I checked, Shawn Kemp never played for the Thunder.  Nor did Gary Payton. Or Slick Watts.  Or Jack Sikma. Or Lenny Wilkens...wow, that takes some balls.  ESPN actually included Lenny Wilkens as a choice as all-time greatest Thunder?  You know Lenny Wilkens, the head coach of the 1979 NBA Champion Seattle SuperSonics and one of the most respected men in the Seattle community.  Unbelievable.

I wonder how all of those great SEATTLE SUPERSONICS feel about ESPN identifying them as part of the Thunder's history?

Regardless of what a piece of paper might say, the history of the Seattle SuperSonics belongs to Seattle, not Oklahoma City.

Nike: Destroying sports one fabric at a time

The Portland hype machine released their 2010 college football Pro Combat uniforms the other day to much fanfare and critical acclaim...or something like that.  Stroll on over to ESPN.com's Uni Watch to check out the images (link: Uni Watch: Nike Uniform Updates)

Since Nike firmly lives by the mottos that any publicity is good publicity and that it's better that people are talking bad about you than not talking about you at all, I offer my take on these uniforms:

1. Alabama's uniforms are the only ones that don't make you want to immediately reach for the vomit bag.  Of course, Nike didn't have a lot of leeway with the Crimson Tide...I mean, can you image the caravan to Portland of outraged Bama fans if Nike conjured up something as grotesque at Boise State's uniforms for their beloved team?  No chance in hell Nike tries to stir that pot.  I'll give Nike this, they know which schools will put up with uniforms that look like they were designed for use in a circus and which won't.  Alabama won't.
2. When I was 10 years old my best friend and I used to play old school video football games and we'd create several teams that each one of us controlled.  For each team we'd design helmets, colors, logos, and uniforms, the whole nine yards.  The designs we came up with when we were ten were better than the Boise State monstrosity.  Just wearing that helmet onto the field should be grounds for an immediate 15-yard personal foul penalty.
3. Florida's uniforms, like Alabama, are fairly ho-hum by Nike standards.  They take their football seriously down in SEC country and no uni-freaks from Oregon are going to come in and make them look like the laughing stock of college football.
4. The technical name for the color of Miami's uniforms is "Prison Suit Orange".  Too easy?  
5. Ohio State...good lord, I thought you guys had a little more respect for yourselves.  A traditional power like the Buckeyes doesn't deserve anything so grotesque.
6. As everybody knows, Nike is the baby of Oregon alum and sugar-daddy Phil Knight.  When you look at the designs for Oregon State, the hated in-state rival of the Ducks, don't you think this is one big joke on the Beavers?
   
   If you go to a store like Toys 'R Us you can buy full football uniforms for little kids - they come with the whole sha-bang: helmet, jersey, pants, socks...you name it, the kid can have it all.  The sets almost always look incredibly cheesy and toy-like, especially the plastic helmet.  When I looked at the Oregon State uniforms I immediately thought of those kid sets.  It must be the ultra-wide stripes all over the place.
7. Pittsburgh.  See Oregon State without the Nike desire to make Oregon's rival look foolish.  That's actually a bit more pathetic since it looks like Nike sought to make the Panthers look bad just for the fun of it.  At least with Oregon State you can understand the motivation but why punish poor Pittsburgh?
8. It looks like more conference shake-ups are coming because TCU's uniforms make it clear as day that the university is going to attempt to leave their conference and join the Arena Football League.
9. Nike apparently designed two sets of uniforms for Oregon State and after they decided on which set to go with they realized they hadn't designed a thing for Virginia Tech.  Scrambling for a solution, they slapped a couple of "VT" logos on the reject OSU uniform and sent it to Tech.
10. Mountaineer fans have got to be shouting from the rooftops with their designs as they are clearly not the worst of the bunch.

There is something about English football

Big Brother 12: Brigade getting ass kicked by Vegas cocktail waitress

A quick take on this week's action:

-It's amazing how a four-vote alliance (actually, five, if you count Kristen), like The Brigade, is getting destroyed by a Las Vegas cocktail waitress.

So far, through four weeks of Big Brother 12 insanity, Rachel has won two of the four HoH competitions (with The Brigade winning the other two); the two HoH's that she didn't win have seen Brendon win the Power of Veto.

-Hayden put it best in a recent episode: Matt, you're supposed to be the brains of the operation.  Don't call yourself a "diabolical genius" when you can't even do a simple thing like nominate Brendan and Rachel when you win HoH.  

Week three, when Matt lost his mind and didn't nominate Brendon and Rachel for eviction, might be the week that sealed The Brigade's fate.

-Andrew may be the worst Big Brother player of all-time...the absolute worst.  Now, we've seen some bad players in the past twelve seasons, but this guy was simply brutal.  From his freakout when Rachel won HoH, to his 'I'm coming after you Brendon and Rachel, now save me from the chopping block' plea during the Power of Veto meeting, to the classic melt-down speech this last Thursday...I don't know that I've ever seen a player single-handedly cause his own eviction the way that Andrew did.  Well done, Andrew.  You went from a nobody in the house to evicted in the third week.  

I gotta question for everybody: how in the hell did Andrew even make it through the screening process?  Did CBS come up with a requirement that one of the house-mates had to be a complete lunatic this season?

-I'll be shocked if Rachel doesn't nominate Kristen and Hayden for eviction this week.  If that happens, The Brigade needs to finally win a Power of Veto.  Given their performance so far, that seems unlikely.  Remember, they have a solid voting block; if they would just get their heads out of their asses and start thinking they could be dominating right now.  Of course, the operative words in that last sentence are "start thinking".

Big Brother 12: The idiots are running the asylum

The new season of Big Brother (and the 12th overall) began a few weeks ago, much to my ignorance.  For whatever reason I seem to always miss the start of a new season, perhaps it's due to it being summer and I'm just not thinking about new TV.  Anyway, I recorded the first few episodes on the DVR and finally got through all of them last night in an excruciating multiple-hour viewing session.  I say excruciating because, for some reason, this season appears to have a higher than normal amount of idiots.

Let's cut to the chase and talk about  the main elements of season 12.  First up, the four-pack guy alliance, "The Brigade".

In order for an alliance to be effective the people within it have to be either a) smart, or b) really good at winning competitions.  That's the basic premise of a good Big Brother alliance: people who can win competitions and implement excellent strategy.  An alliance of a bunch of morons is not an alliance, it's a self-help group.  An alliance with a bunch of diabolical geniuses is a force to be reckoned with.  Chill Town was an alliance (and the best alliance in Big Brother history).  Evil Dr. Will couldn't win a competition if he tried but he was a brilliant and manipulative strategist.  Mike Boogie wasn't as diabolical and brilliant as Dr. Will, but he could win a competition when he needed to.  Chill Town was featured in two seasons of Big Brother and they won both.

Okay, so now that we know what a kick ass alliance is, let's talk about The Brigade.

The Brigade is the alliance formed by Hayden, Matt, Enzo, and Lane.  Let's first focus on what The Brigade has done well in the first three weeks.  So far, the Brigade seems like they are going to be decent at winning competitions, after all, they've won two of the first three Head of Household's.  What they seem to be lacking, however, is a clear, well-organized strategy that will get them to the end.

The strongest current players in the house are Brenden and Rachel...well, Brenden's the strongest and Rachel is essentially tagging along...and the longer they are allowed to remain, the greater the chance that they are going to take down The Brigade and take control of the entire game.  As such, Matt should have put those two up for nominations this week and ensured that one of them was going home.  If one were to have gone on and won the power of Veto, then all he had to do was nominate someone that the house would likely not vote out this week (like Brittney) and watched as either Brenden or Rachel went down.  Instead, Matt is trying to outsmart Brenden, which is a move that has a low chance of success.

By not putting Braden or Rachel on the chopping block this week, Matt is apparently trying to buy their loyalty for the future.  The problem with that is he (and The Brigade) don't need their loyalty; they can take them out all on their own.  When they need is control, and the way to get control is to eliminate the strongest competition.

The advantage that The Brigade has right now is their four-vote block...well, five if you count Kristen, Hayden's Showmance, who is the de-facto fifth member of The Brigade.  They have to keep their block together and the way to do that is to get rid of the players that post the greatest threat to them.  Andrew and Kathy do not pose the greatest threat.  Brenden and Rachel do.

Dr. Will would have put Brenden and Rachel on the block in the blink of an eye.  Actually, he wouldn't have put them up because he never won a HoH competition, but he would have manipulated someone else into doing it for him.  He was the master puppeteer with a plan that was even more masterful.  The Brigade, however, is willing to let their biggest threat off the hook.

After this week it's likely that Andrew or Kathy goes home (my guess is Andrew), neither of which poses any serious threat to The Brigade.  After that, they better hope that Hayden, Lane, or Enzo can win HoH, or else Brenden and Rachel could start to hammer away at their block.  Matt, in particular, better start watching his back because there are pleanty of house members who are starting to see through his B.S..  The Brigade has the numbers, but if they can't be smart enough to come up with a better strategy than nominating Andrew and Kathy when Brenden and Rachel are sitting ducks...well, they won't get near Chill Town.

Great Performances of Anthony Kiedis

Caught an airing of Point Break this afternoon; I tuned in right when Special Agent Johnny Utah was getting roughed up by a bunch of outlaw surfers until Bodhi (P-Swayze) jumps in to save him.

The above fight scene from Point Break brought a question to my mind: what is the best movie that Anthony Kiedis (aka, the lead singer from The Red Hot Chili Peppers), has appeared in?  (Kiedis was one of the renegade surfers pounding on Agent Utah.)  Here are your options:

• Point Break - Kiedis plays Tone, a renegade surfer that fails to appreciate the spiritual side of the ocean...at least that's what Bodhi tells us.
• The Chase - Keidis plays Dale, driver of the monster truck who, along with his side-kick Will (played by Chili Peppers base player, Flea), attempts to run Charlie Sheen and Kristi Swanson off the road. 

Keidis' role in The Chase was much more comedic-based, while he put his dramatic hat on in order to play Tone in Point Break.

Random Point Break fun fact: Did you know that Point Break was originally going to star Matthew Broderick and Charlie Sheen?  According to the DVD liner notes, that is in fact what was supposed to happen.

Somehow I can't picture Charlie Sheen pulling off Bodhi...or Matthew Broderick as Johnny Utah.

Want more great Point Break useless information?  How about the track listing from the official soundtrack?

Ratt – Nobody Rides For Free
Concrete Blonde – I Want You
Jimi Hendrix – If 6 Was 9
School of Fish – Rose Colored Glasses
Public Image Ltd. – Criminal
Shark Island – My City
Love – 7 and 7 Is
Loudhouse – Smoke on the Water
Westworld – So Long Cowboy
Little Caesar – Down to the Wire
L.A. Guns – Over the Edge
Liquid Jesus – 7 and 7 Is
Wire Train – I Will Not Fall
Ice-T – Original Gangster
Mark Isham – Foot Chase

Any soundtrack that can combine Ratt, Jimi Hendrix and Ice-T deserves some props.

Lindsay Lohan: Legal Eagle

From the Wall Street Journal Law Blog:

Lindsay Lohan's Twitter: Your Source of Legal Scholarship

Two Tickets to Taradise

I made a glarring, inexcuseable error in my Bottom Five All-Time Reality TV Show list the other day, as for some reason I failed to include the short-lived E! program Taradise (or as some might remember it: Wild on Tara!).

For those that don't have a clue as to what Taradise was (and, truthfully, if you blinked you could easily have missed it), here's a brief synopsis of this ground-breaking program:

Tara Reid gets drunk in Europe.

There's a key problem with trying to write about Taradise that centers around the fact that it's a good bet that no one will ever see an episode of this show again.  Ever.  E! doesn't show re-runs of it and, amazingly, you'll find next to nothing on the internet.  (This pathetic clip from YouTube is all I could gather.)  For the 99.9999% of our society that never got the chance to watch Taradise, they have only us us unlucky few to rely on to for insight into this awful, awful show.

If you're wondering what a typical episode of Taradise episode entailed, you're in luck because I'm about to tell you:

Tara would go to some European country.  She'd spend a minute or two of air time shopping and/or getting her photo taken.  She'd then take us on an exclusive tour of the place she was visiting ("That's the Eiffel Tower over there.  It's really tall.").  While pointing out sights she would also point out trendy bars and/or clubs that she would be visiting later on to get plastered.  Later on in the show, we get to see Tara at said trendy bar and/or club getting plastered.  The next day, Tara would describe to the E! cameras how much fun she had at said bar and/or club getting plastered.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

If you click over to TV Guide's webpage you'll notice that there are no scheduled airings of Taradise within the next 14 days.  That seems a little unfair, doesn't it?  Seinfeld, King of Queens, and The Office are on for what seems to be hours on end each and every week but we can't get one episode of Taradise?  Unforgivable.

So here's to Taradise, easily one of the Top 5 Worst Reality TV shows of all-time.  In fact, I'd venture to say that on my personal list the only thing that could out do Taradise was Bonds on Bonds.  The fact that I'd ranked Taradise three spots higher than Growing Up Gotti tells you how bad Taradise truly was.  The fact that I'd still rank Bonds on Bonds higher than Taradise tells you that no matter how bad a reality show might be, there is always a TV executive somewhere that can come up with one that's worse.

In case you missed it, here's a list of every single episode of Taradise:

1. Greek Isles
2. Mykonos
3. Cyprux
4. Pamplona
5. Monaco
6. Athens
7. Mykonos &; Athens
8. St. Tropez
9. Sardinia
10. Croatia
11. Paris
12. The U.K.
13. Biarritz
14. Marbella & Valencia
15. Paris & England (cause visiting the U.K. wasn't enough.)

Norby Williamson of ESPN thinks you're stupid

One last shot at ESPN for last Thursday's LeBore Decision and then I have to revise by reality TV best and worst shows as I forgot a key stinker in the bottom five.

Prior to Thursday's special episode of Blossom...er, I mean "The Decision", ESPN executive Norby Williamson claimed that LeBron would announce his free agency decision within the first 15 minutes of the hour-long broadcast. That, of course, didn't happen as it took 22 minutes for the talking heads in the studio to toss it to Jim Gray for another five minutes of softball questions.  Twenty-seven minutes into the program "The Chosen One" announced his earth-shattering decision.  

Following the broadcast, Williamson provided this explanation as to the timing discrepancy:

"Our plan was to go to the announcement within the first 15 minutes," said Williamson. "It turned out the LeBron interview began 22 minutes into the live show. The larger point I was trying to make is that the news would be presented within the first part of the program, to allow for analysis and perspective on the front and back end of the announcement. I think we accomplished that despite the fact that my prediction was a little off."

I realize very few other people will write this so let me clarify Williamson's statement: he's full of shit.

I have a small amount of experience with live television programming; I'm no expert or long-time professional, but I've seen enough to know a little bit about how programs are produced and I can say without a shred of doubt that a live program such as ESPN's "The Decision" is timed down to the second.  To the second.  Produces sit in control rooms with stop-watches in order to time out exactly how long until they transition from one segment to the next, or to a commercial.  If a talking head runs long, they get cut off.  Nothing is left to chance, even on live TV.  

So when Williamson says that "our plan was to go to the announcement within the first 15 minutes" and it actually was 27 minutes where they finally got to it, that is not "a little off" and has nothing to do with the volatility of his prediction.  It's a flat out lie.  ESPN's plan all along was to build up suspense and drama by prolonging the announcement.

A friend of mine that is intimately involved in the television industry stated to me that ratings spike at their highest point 22-minutes into a program.  ESPN kicked the program to the Jim Gray-LeBron inverview 22-minutes into the show.  Coincidence?  Not in a million years.

ESPN scripted "The Decision" to garner the highest ratings possible and I have no problem with that.  What I have a problem with is their executives flat out lying about their motives.

Norby Williamson thinks we're all stupid.  Maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong but one thing is for sure, he's full of B.S.