philly

Colbert Show Recap

Oh how I love the Colbert Report. Their "Better Know a District" is one of my favorite recurring segments. "Formidable Opponent" is my absolute favorite with the athletes using performance enhancing drugs my single favorite segment.

Over the weekend, the NY Times took a look at the "Better Know a District" series. It made me recall all the hilarious moments once again.

And it's not as if Democrats are getting off easy. Mr. Colbert knew just how to get under the skin of one of them, Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey, by suggesting that Mr. Pascrell, a co-sponsor of legislation seeking an end to offensive media portrayals of Italian-Americans, was not a true Italian.

"Congressman," Mr. Colbert said, "your name doesn't end in a vowel."

"Italians don't have to end in a vowel," Mr. Pascrell parried. Mr. Colbert demanded that he name one.

Flustered, the congressman blurted out: "Sole! Tom Sole. S-O-L-E."

Zinger!

Daily Show on the Cheney Shooting

Oh Crooks and Liars, how I love thee. How quickly you record, compress and render video — it is beyond me.

For anyone who missed Monday night's episode of The Daily Show, C&L already has it up here.

Comedy gold.

Women on the Daily Show

So what's the deal with so few female guests on The Daily Show? My friend Ms. Biffles noticed the trend and told me it was a topic of conversation of late out in San Francisco lately. I immediately noticed the trend as well as I watched for the last month or so with [I'm 99% sure] zero female guests. Until last night when Torie Clarke, author of Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game was on.

It's not like women can't go blow for blow with Jon. It's not like women aren't funny. It's not like there is such a scarcity of notable women that the bookers can't get them on the show. What's the deal?

Maybe with the birth of his second child [Maggie Rose] Jon will push for more female guests.

Colbert Report Rips Humane Society

On Thursday night's Colbert Report [it's French, bitch] Stephen cited this Inky article and it immediately piqued my interest. It was an article on how the Humane Society was "livid" about the episode. Stephen then played a [real?] taped conversation of his call to the Humane Society. The most hilarious part the one that had me almost in tears, was the "visual approximation" of the Humane Society receptionist. A just beginning to be dread locked dirty blonde haired girl with freckles or acne and a goofy smile. I was cracking up a storm. And when Stephen was handed off to a higher up, the graphic was changed to a black bear holding the phone up to its ear.

Stephen demanded an apology and when he didn't get one, he said that he accepted it anyways. When the bearman said that he/they didn't apologize, Stephen said that it was too late and that he had already accepted the apology and quickly hung up. I don't know how he does it. Keeping that straight face.

Saw Me Some Brokeback

Me, Lady and our buddies Pat and Jodi went out to see Brokeback Mountain a.k.a. the gay cowboy movie. Pretty good. About what I expected. A good movie with some cheesy Ang Lee moments thrown in there taking on a story that is larger than a two-hour Hollywood release can accomodate. It was, overall, an important film for Hollywood to put out, especially in this hostile climate that the W and Co. administration has placed this country in.

I cannot even begin to fathom what it must have been like to live a repressed life like the lives portrayed in this film. Two gay men finding each other and sustaining the closest thing to a relationship they could muster driving fourteen hours one way for a weekend at a time every few months behind the backs of their family, friends, wives and children in the mid-1960s through the mid-1980s. The four of us all liked the last quarter of the film the most, it just got better. More emotions were displayed and the characters kinda exploded. I think that was on purpose. Their feelings for each other had to be repressed. So repressed that they couldn't even show each other all of the feelings they felt because they knew that at any moment someone could see the wrong thing and they could be killed without question by just about anyone. The justification would've simply been that they were "not right" or a similarly stupid "reason" stating the obvious fact that they were ignorant fucks.

The brief sex scenes were highly sexual. Raw. And if seeing man-junk is holding anyone back from seeing the movie, there is none. Well, except for a split-second while they're jumping off a cliff into a river for some nekkid skinny dipping. There are also a few male-female sex scenes with nekkid breasts galore. A mammary for a mammary.

Go check it out. The cinematography is breathtaking. One thousand head of sheep, two guys, to horses, a couple sheep dogs and Wyoming's snow capped mountains. Fucking gorgeous.

Greatest love story of all time? No. Gratuitous anti-heterosexual propaganda? Pu-fucking-lease. It's a good movie.

But Larry David won't see it. I laughed when I read his editorial on his choice to not see the film. Oh how I love his comedy. I loved Seinfeld and thought it was strongest when he was there as a writer, but I never got into Curb Your Enthusiasm for some reason.

Onion Top 10 of 2005

I fucking love The Onion! They've published their Top 10 stories of 2005. The headlines alone are rediculous.

1. Bush Elected President Of Iraq
2. Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, Kashmir Earthquake Battle For Natural Disasty Award
3. Pope Died As He Lived: Propped Up For Public Viewing
4. North Korea Nukes Self In Desperate Plea For Attention
5. Brain-Dead Americans Defend Brain-Dead Florida Woman
6. Prince Charles Weds Longtime Horse
7. Losing Super Bowl Team Gets Locker-Room Condolence Call From John Kerry
8. Theory Of Intelligent School-Board Design Disproven
9. White House Celebrates Fifth Straight Year Without Oral Sex
10. Pitt, Aniston To Quietly Separate

I think my favorite is #7. That should be motivation enough to win in the big game. Can you imagine a condolence conversation with that guy? It would drag on for like forty-five minutes. At first you'd be crying because you lost, then, you'd be asleep.

When A Man Loves A Woman

What does one do with the information that one of their high school classmates is currently dating one Michael Bolton aka A No Talent Ass Clown? You grab your high school yearbook, flip to the Senior Superlatives page and take a photo of her as half of the combo "Most likely to be 'Mr. and Mrs. Scarsdale'" and grin ear to ear.

There she is in 1998 and there she is, next to the mane-less No Talent Ass Clown at a Johnnie Walker party.

Photos: left: Scarsdale High School yearbook 1998. right: Getty Images

Metro Philly Website

Metro Philly - that rag you get for free in the green boxes - now has a website. I went to it. It looks, ironically, like a poor man's version of The Onion. It is greenish and their headlines could easily appear in the next Onion.

Sly's Rocky and Rambo

Let me start this off by saying that I loved/love Rocky. I love Rocky II. I love Rocky III. I love Rocky IV and there was no Rocky V. My friends know I love it. Two of my best friends from back home got me the boxed DVD set for my 22nd birthday a few years ago.

Rocky VI aka Rocky Balboa [V to me] started filming in Vegas this weekend and open casting calls have already started here in Philadelphia.

This movie is just destined to fail. I think this movie will flop and barring a miraculous cast, I won't be seeing it, not even for laughs. Hang 'em up, Sly.

The BBC News article [no story in the DN or Inky on this?] also points to the pre-production of a new Rambo movie. Oh man. Maybe W will see the movie and send in the agèd John Rambo into Iraq/Afghanistan. We may be over there for that long.

Me on Rock on Miers

So Harriet Miers has withdrawn. And the phrase that comes to mind is "Where's my O.J. prize?" What the fuck you say? It's a line from one of Chris Rock's Bring the Pain referring to his reaction to the O.J. verdict now a decade ago. He was saying how white people were too mad and black people were too happy. White people felt completely screwed over by this he observed. Black people were too elated he saw. He joked that he went to his mailbox in the morning and looked inside for his O.J. prize because everyone was so personally happy about the decision.

But this is a little different.

But still, Where's my Harriet prize?