phamos | Entries tagged with tv: tds et al

I was extremely disappointed with the Lee Siegel interview on The Daily Show last week. To recap, Lee Siegel is a writer for the New Republic who wrote some really crappy blog post about Jon Stewart, then sockpuppeted his way through the comments talking about how Lee Siegel is an authentic American hero, and you guyz r totally teh suck, so shut up! When his douchetastic sockpuppetry was found out, his blog got shut down and he was briefly suspended from the magazine. To kill time during said suspension, Siegel decided to write a whole book about how the internet is totally stupid anyway, and he totally doesn't care about what all the webdorks think of him. Actually, the totally BRILLIANT irony of the book is that his central thesis is that the web is an invalid forum for social criticism because you never know who is doing the posting. Everyone's a sock puppet! Not just me! And it's destroying Western culture, through its mass sockpuppetdom! As such, he insists that his "Sprezzatura" alter-ego on the blog was created as "a prank and a provocation", not because he's a whiny baby. So he's not really a petulant flouncy sock puppet, he's simply a damn troll.

Given that Siegel is a giant wank, and given that the post that started the whole thing was ABOUT JON STEWART, I was expecting at least SOME MENTION of the original incident during the interview. But the interview was surprisingly inert -- the New Republic blog disaster never came up, so there was a glaring lack of context for the book itself. Siegel just sat there, choading it up in his black-mock-turtleneck/tweed-sport-coat/self-satisfied-shit-eating-grin combo. I honestly think Jon Stewart was going to talk about it, but as soon as Siegel opened his mouth, he realized it would be totally futile to talk about anything of substance with the man, so instead he decided to make the interview as boring as possible to avoid stoking book sales for this absolutely useless human being. Pretty much the opposite tack as he took with Jonah Goldberg. (I'm still dying to see the unedited cut of that interview, by the way. I'm hoping against hope that now that the writer's strike is over, they'll post it on the web.)

But yeah, here's the Siegel interview. If you click it, prepare to be bored stiff. (Although it's kinda worth it just to see how lame and smug this guy is.)

Bill Kristol, my absolute favorite pundit in the whole frickin' universe, was on The Daily Show last night. I have to run and watch it RIGHT NOW. Apparently he said that Bush is going to be vindicated because "the economy's been pretty good." This man is a ROCK STAR of ridiculousness. I mean, seriously, does he have ANY credibility left at this point? It's like the Times gave an editorial column to Yakov Smirnoff. "In capitalist America, economy collapses YOU!" I think Bill Kristol should have to do all of his interviews from now on wearing a clown nose and a shriner's hat and sitting in a tiny tiny car with circus music playing softly in the background. I love him and want to have 8 million of his babies, and we will name them all after AEI fellows. "This is my son, Joshua Muravchik BenZvi Kristol!" (Oh my god, that's the Jewiest name possible in the whole world. Maybe it's cheating to keep my husband's name while having hypothetical babies with another man...)

Sometimes, in my more brainfarty moments, I mix up Harold and Allan Bloom. This is unfortunate, since Allan Bloom was all Straussy, so I should really keep that straight if I'm going to be taken seriously when I blather about neocons. The best way to distinguish between the two? Harold Bloom tried to fuck Naomi Wolf when she was his student. Allan Bloom totally wouldn't have thought to do that.

In other conservative-scholars-and-their-relations-to-sexy-type-things news, I totally learned today that Jonah Goldberg is Lucianne Goldberg's son! As I have only recently become well-acquainted with Mr. Goldberg's work through the evil machinations of Mr.

rationalpassion, I did not know that. He looks a lot like her, too -- I could really see it in that Daily Show interview, or what was left of it after the editors whittled it down to a nonsensical nub. Oh my god, do I ever want to see the directors cut of that interview. He may be cranky about it now, but his book sales are gonna go through the roof -- and that's obviously the only point of these book tours.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have returned to the airwaves after nine weeks of strike-induced absence. Neither host wanted to go back on the air without their writers, but their contracts left them with little choice. I watched the first episodes back of both shows. As we were watching them, Segev said, "Do you support the writers strike?" When I answered decisively in the affirmative, he snapped, "Well, then why the hell did you download these?" I explained that the Daily Show was already paid for, the money already long gone from the iTunes monthly pass I had purchased but not completed before the strike. The auto-renewal has now been turned off, but I'm going to watch the remaining 5 episodes relatively guilt-free. And the Colbert Report...that somehow mysteriously appeared on my hard drive. Maybe the Viacom fairy put it there; I don't know... Suffice it to say that the writers may not have received any income from my viewing of Monday night's Colbert Report, but neither did Sumner Redstone or Les Moonves. (And, to be perfectly honest, I feel absolutely zero guilt about this. The studios are going to have a hell of a time trying to prosecute intellectual property cases on internet downloads of TV shows if they've proclaimed that viewing an entire episode online is a "promotional use" [even when there are unskippable ads embedded] and therefore shouldn't result in residual payments to the writers. If the internet episode has no monetary value, what are you suing me for? Not to mention Betamax time-shifting blah-di-blah...I'm over it. Get your act together, AMPTP.)

So, anyway, the results of the first episodes were mixed. Jon Stewart was widely criticized for being kinda cranky about the fact that the WGA wouldn't break him off the same deal that Worldwide Pants got. I personally think that the Worldwide Pants deal was a bad strategic call on the part of the WGA. They're saying that it's a totally different case because Worldwide Pants owns the rights to Letterman's show, where as Busboy Productions doesn't own The Daily Show or The Colbert Report (Viacom does). But, you know, where I'm standing, CBS is getting ad revenues from Letterman the same way that Comedy Central gets ad revenues from Colbert. The difference really seems to be that The Daily Show has more cachet as a bargaining tool than Letterman does -- higher profile, I guess, what with John Oliver traipsing around New York with picket signs, being all British and cute. Obviously Jon was a little upset, because he wants his show to go back to normal, but he's very sympathetic to labor, and he knows how much he depends on his writers for material. (Last night's episode had a great bit where Jon quoted Cocoon and it flew right over the college-aged audience's head -- he said, "You know, without my writers all my references are going to be from the '80s. I can get up to about Breakfast Club, and then nothin'.") He's conflicted. So Jon's first episode back was a little rough, especially compared to Colbert. Colbert has a huge advantage -- he comes from an improv background, a rich and storied Second City improv background, and is much more able to just wing it than stand-up Jon. Colbert really can just pull stuff out of his ass and be funny at a moment's notice. It's kinda brilliant. But, as I've said before, although I'm a huge fan of Colbert himself, I'm not super fond of the show. Colbert-the-persona is a little hard for me to take in full half-hour doses. If the episodes were Aqua-Teen-sized, then I'd be totally up for it. 11 minutes of Colbert-larity, in and out, boom. But I cant do the full half hour. Which is sad, because half-hour shows are really only 21 minutes long. I have no attention span left.

Last night's Daily Show, however, was leaps and bounds better, and featured a music cue that made me laugh hysterically -- as a response to Hillary's total non-cry heard around the world, they did a montage of presidents and other celebrities crying set to "It's Alright to Cry" from Free To Be You And Me, ending with the classic shot of the Indian crying about pollution. Jon's cultural references really did top off somewhere in the mid-70s. I think Cocoon is actually pushing it, timeline-wise. But that montage totally made me want to download Free To Be You And Me and sing about how William Has A Doll and Parents Are People, People With Children, and listen to Marlo Thomas and Mel Brooks riff about gender roles. Awesome. (Speaking of Betamax...I HAD THAT on betamax! It was part of the Children's Video Library, which had an animated logo with balloons and a jaunty whistled tune. They also put out Benji movies on videotape. I miss my childhood so.) It looks like Hillary has learned the lesson Rosey Grier made clear all those years ago: It's alright to cry. Crying gets the sad out of you.

This might put a crimp in Veronica's shoe budget.

I'm going to miss my Daily Show, but as the daughter of a (former?) WGA member, it's pretty obvious where my sympathies lie. Writers get screwed over in Hollywood, both monetarily and in terms of general respect. Without a script, what do you have? (Don't answer that; we'll see soon enough. Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, 24-7. Shudder.)

Here is lesson one in why hosting random people's blogs on your political website isn't a great idea if you're running for president -- because semi-literate ramblings about Bill Richardson wanting wolves to eat children will have the words "blog.johnedwards.com" attached to them.

Nothing has been done to protect our children in New Mexico and if Bill Richardson is president I am sure he will continue support coyotes attacking kids in New Jersey, alligators killing children in Florida, mountain lions stalking and attacking children Arizona, not to mention wolves stalking children in every state they are soon to be released in...If Bill Richardson is elected president or even vice president I am sure he will work to make your neighborhood save for dangerous predators. His statements, appointments to New Mexico Game and Fish, and actions make it clear that as the safety of our children is not important to him; dangerous habituated wolves are..If you think this sounds like Jurassic Park or the Twilight Zone living in here is.

And when someone calls her a troll, her response is brilliant:

I have lots of advanced degrees too. Big deal. The issue is rural America is being forced to live with wolves that are habituated and endangering our children. Poor people should not have to live this becuase they are poor. I move here to this beautiful area as a telecommute worker. THat being said studying what other pro wolf writer and biologis say about wolves is not unterstanding wolves or living with them. These wolves are not what I grew up with in canada. You should read up about wolves in russia a new book and really learn about wolves...there are otehr books too. Even Dr Mech talks abotu wovles wiping out species of snowshoe hair and deer on Elsner Island. Children are more important that wolves.

You've gotta love the "I have lots of advanced degrees" response -- I wonder if her thesis work involved unterstanding abotu wovles? When asked for further clarification, she replied:

Fact: Defenders signs up to compensate they claim full market value for confirmed wolf kills

Lies: Defenders has failed to pay. When they have paid it was less than market value. Horse owners should know that horses in defenders eyes are only worth a capped vaulue of $2000.

Your dogs being attacked in your front yard and ripped apart in front of your kids - free killing enjoyment for the wolves.

Defenders takes in thousands of dollars in donations promising to compesate and claiming full market value. No so. Stop Supporting these Crooks.

Plus how to you compensate for my child not being able to walk safetly to school or home?

That's a very good question -- how TO you compensate for something like that? I'm glad John Edwards is worried about my ability to walk safetly. Oh, wait, you mean this woman actually has no ties to the Edwards campaign and is posting this same story on lots of right-wing blogs too? Glad to know the Edwards moderators are paying attention.

Look, I know these are mostly just typos, and despite my ignorance of the issue at hand, I'm sure it is a very important election-deciding litmus test for tens of people in rural New Mexico. But when I see a lede that says "The official John Edwards blog has a great new message about Bill Richardson that will surely be offensive to Democrat primary voters," I assume that the writer has actual ties to the Edwards campaign. In fact, my initial thought was, "Didn't they hire that chick from Pandagon? Has she lost her mind?" But no, the website is apparently set up similarly to Kos. And if that site isn't enough of a clusterfuck to turn you off to the idea of sponsoring hundreds of random liberal loonies, I don't know what would be. This is the sort of thing that makes me cringe, because apparently whoever is running their web campaign is at about the same level as the person on the Obama campaign who thought Obama techno ringtones would be a killer strategy. Yikes. I probably can't find campaign work because I just said "clusterfuck", right?

Current Music: Someone Great - LCD Soundsystem

watched fukuyama on the daily show. besides being sorely disappointed in jon for conflating the total opposites of the monroe doctrine and the bush doctrine (non-intervention in affairs outside the hemisphere as opposed to FIERCE intervention anywhere in the world), i was struck by fukuyama's dropping of the term "benevolent global hegemony" without much follow-up. the idea of benevolent hegemony as expressed by kristol and kagan (and i should REALLY buy "present dangers") is based in a deeply felt nationalism and the idea of american exceptionalism. what is it about america, the circumstances of its creation and what it thus supposedly stands for, that makes neocons feel that we have not just a moral duty but the unquestionable good intentions to impose our will? i cannot disagree with the idea that promoting democracy is in america's strategic interest. of course it is, and it's the one point that liberal internationalists and neocons can agree with in opposition to realists. but it's the execution of that promotion that becomes the sticking point. do they mean that everything america does is inevitably in the best interest of the world; our intentions in promoting democracy are unassailable simply because We Are America? or is it more that promoting democracy will strengthen america, and it's in the world's best interest to have a strong, unipolar america, because We Are America and will inevitably be "benevolent hegemons"? it's a very circular argument and one that is going to be hard for me to lay out clearly, if only because i find their central argument, the inherent good intentions of american foreign policy, is so completely without logic. a country is not inherently good or evil. a country is only as effective in the world as its leaders, and the philosophy those leaders live by. is the rest of the world supposed to sit back and accept as rationale the neocons saying "trust us, we're americans, we have your best interests at heart"? american voters decide on a government, but then the rest of the world has to live with the decisions that government makes? how is that democracy?