plus 3, Make My Day - American Reporter

Make My Day - American Reporter
Cell phone free - Herald Journal
A Sharp - Santa Fe Reporter
Modern parenting: Bad is the new good - The Province

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 12:33 AM PST

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Make My Day
PARIS FOR PREZ
by Erik Deckers
American Reporter Humor Writer
Indianapolis, Indiana

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INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- It was the snit heard 'round the world. The snarky, scantily-clad video response that got pundits tongues wagging about something other than politics, at least until their wives saw them. Maybe its echo has faded from the news, but it still makes me wake up screaming in the middle of the night.

Paris Hilton says she's running for President.

The vapid blond heiress and star of "The Simple Life," announced her candidacy in a spoof video on FunnyOrDie.com. Hilton said she was running because that "wrinkly white-haired guy" - John McCain, for those of you emerging from under your rocks - used her image in a television spot against his opponent, presumptive President of the United States, Barack Obama.

"Hey America, I'm Paris Hilton, and I'm a celebrity too," she said without a sense of irony or shame. "Only I'm not from the olden days, and I'm not promising change like that other guy. I'm just hot."

Oh man, this is really bad. I've always been a big supporter of third party candidates, but my one litmus test is whether they can even spell "candidate." And that they haven't starred in an Internet sex video/ I swear, if she wins, I'm moving to Canada with Alec Baldwin, unless he chickens out like he did last time. (Big wussy. The guy swore up and down he would move to Canada if George Bush became President, but we're stuck with him and his 17 brothers.) Still, I don't think she's got a real shot, so I'll probably be here for a while.

"But then that wrinkly white-haired guy used me in his campaign ad, which means I guess I'm running for President," she continued. Yeah, right. By that logic, since her boyfriend used her in that sex video, I guess that would make her a slut. . .

Uh, oh. This is worse than I thought! Do they get the NFL in Canada? Can I get the Dish Network to work up there?

"So thanks for the endorsement, white-haired dude, and I want America to know I'm, like, totally ready to lead."

Oh, good, as long as you're totally ready. I mean, we wouldn't want someone who was , like, only concerned about whether certain other world leaders are, like, hot, or whether the White House clashes with her outfits. She'll probably appoint Extreme Makerover's Ty Pennington the Secretary of the Department of the Interior to make sure.

"I'll see you at the White House," she concluded. "Oh, and I might paint it pink."

Looks like I've got a tough decision to make. Do I go for the big city or the small town? I've been to Toronto, and it's a nice city with a strong arts community. But if I lived in a smaller town, I'd be closer to nature and some really good fishing. Dryden, Ontario is gorgeous in the summer.

But even as I pace the floor and gnaw on my fingernails, I have to admit, her energy policy made some sense.

"We can do limited offshore drilling with strict environmental oversight, while creating tax incentives to get Detroit making hybrid and electric cars. That way, offshore drilling carries us until the new technologies kick in, which will create new jobs and energy independence. Energy crisis solved. I'll see you at the debates, bitches."

But then she, like, totally shot herself in the foot when she said she was considering Rihanna, the R&B artist, as her vice presidential nominee.

Come on! Rihanna?! Are you kidding me? Everyone knows she doesn't have the foreign affairs experience needed to re-establish the U.S. as a world leader. Plus, she was born in Barbados, so she's not a natural-born American citizen, which means she can't take on that role.

While some people would say Britney Spears, Hilton's fellow celeb and John McCain commercial target, is the emotional favorite, I think Cameron Diaz is the better choice. She can shore up the Hispanic vote and improve relations with Latin America. Of course, you'll also need Ashton Kutcher to head up the Department of Homeland Security (Hey Iran, you've been punk'd!). And what do you think of Scarlett Johansen as the Secretary of State... ?

Uh, excuse me. I don't know what came over me. If anything, I'm worrying too much about something that will never happen. Hilton is only 27, eight years too young to run for president, which means I don't have to worry about a global disaster for eight more years. But with her sordid past, I doubt she could even be elected dogcatcher of Putnam County.

Besides, I'm hoping Lindsey Lohan will be out of rehab and ready to run for Senate by 2016.

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Cell phone free - Herald Journal

Posted: 24 Feb 2010 12:54 AM PST

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A Sharp - Santa Fe Reporter

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 11:28 PM PST

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During a recent beer-induced conversation about shitty music, my dumb friends and I got to the topic of guilty pleasures. Everybody has that band or record they're afraid to admit to liking. I figured it would be cathartic to admit some of my own guilty pleasures, and to ask folks from the local scene about theirs.

The No. 1 song I'm nervous to admit being into is "Lovefool" by The Cardigans. Even though I hated Baz Luhrmann's awful adaptation of Romeo + Juliet—deal with it, girls who were 15 at the time and cried over that bullshit—I still love that soundtrack, specifically this jam.

We all know what it's like to live with unrequited love, and I know what it's like more than most, so the song just speaks to me.

Either that, or I have a major boner for the singer.

Sure, Radiohead is on the soundtrack as well, but I don't always feel like descending into a deep and morbid depression, which is the reaction I have to "Exit Music (For a Film)."

Disclaimer: I love Radiohead, so nobody freak out or anything.

Kiel Gwin, a local solo acoustic act, offers her two cents: "I listen to tons of stuff I consider to be awful," she says. "I really like Depeche Mode and other bass-heavy electronic stuff. Depeche Mode has some really well-written songs, but something inside me cringes at the '80s vibe of it…It's like I'm supposed to think it's bad, but I can't bring myself to hate it."

No. 2 on my personal list is Britney Spears' "Toxic." Seriously, listen to the beat on that thing, and tell me it doesn't rule. Sure, it makes me feel gross, especially because the video features her as a futuristic Mata Hari, boning dudes so they don't notice when she commits crimes. All the same, it's a complex and interesting beat, perfect for dance moves used to circumvent a laser grid. I'm not sure what the lyrics are, but considering her songs are penned by fat old white guys in an office somewhere, I'm not sure I want to know.

Noah Baumeister, aka DJ Neegs (also of Man Hurls Hedgehog), says, "It's fun to throw a cheeseball pop song into the middle of a DJ set. I like J-Lo's 'Play' and all kinds of Justin Timberlake."

Sounds like Neegs just likes pop.

"I used to be a sucker for Fall Out Boy," he continues. "That album Infinity on High is totally great all the way through."

No. 3 on my list goes to Hole's "Violet." It took me years to admit to liking the song. In fact, it wasn't until I realized that it was probably written by Kurt Cobain that I felt OK about it.

I never would have even formulated that theory had it not been for Hole's inability to release an album after Cobain's death.

It wasn't until years later, when Courtney Love started hanging around Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins, that the band put something out. But let's face it, amazingness of Smashing Pumpkins aside, Corgan became a pretentious little fuck, and Hole's music suffered. Well, suffered more anyway.

Even Red Cell, founder of alternative music showcase The Process, has his guilty pleasure. "I am a fan of La Roux, an English duo with only one release so far," he says. "The album is crafted to sound just like the soundtrack to a John Hughes film, while maintaining a modern sound."

Cell unapologetically continues, "I realize that '80s throwback stuff is all the rage currently, [so] for once I'm a full-fledged, card-carrying member of apopular trend. Trendy or not, it feels strange to pull up to a stop sign blaring what sounds like Human League or Yaz."

Music doesn't always have to be a life altering, mind-bending experience. There's no shame in liking the things you like.

Unless it's Counting Crows. Then there's no hope for you.

Follow SFR music news on Twitter: @SFRsA_Sharp

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Modern parenting: Bad is the new good - The Province

Posted: 23 Feb 2010 11:43 PM PST

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Reality trainwreck Kate Gosselin was minding her own sordid affairs this week when she was called out and smacked down by none other than Nadya Suleman, a.k.a. Octomom.

"She needs to stop being so judgmental and stop pulling at straws for attention," snapped Suleman, the mother of octuplets (oh, and six other kids).

Gosselin, also a mother of multiples and the star of Jon & Kate Plus 8, evidently set Suleman off by suggesting to Dr. Phil that raising 14 children would be difficult -- "particularly without a husband to help with parenting."

Mothers are always judging other mothers. Stay-at-homes judge off-to-works -- and the other way around. Helicopter moms judge slackers. Nursing women judge bottlefeeders. We all judge Britney Spears.

The latest cagematch in the Mommy Wars? Good vs. Bad.

Ayelet Waldman defines the first group on the cover of her new book: "The Good Mother remembers to serve fruit at breakfast, is always cheerful and never yells, manages not to project her own neuroses and inadequacies onto her children, is an active and beloved community volunteer; she remembers to make playdates, her children's clothes fit, she does art projects with them and enjoys all their games. And she is never too tired for sex."

Waldman is not one of those moms, as she reveals in Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities and Occasional Moments of Grace. The book is one in an armload of parenting confessionals to acknowledge that along with sunshine and roses comes boredom and disappointment and anxiety. The so-called "momoirs" include Mommies Who Drink, Confessions of a Slacker Mom and It Sucked and then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown and a Much Needed Margarita.

Between book releases, there are mommyblogs and message boards and Twitterfeeds. And always, bad parents make for good TV.

Waldman earned a seat on Oprah after confessing in the pages of the New York Times that she loves her husband more than she loves her kids. "They cross-examined me," she says. "And New York City's elite Bad Mother SWAT team, the warrior shrews of UrbanBaby.com, sank their pointy little incisors into my metaphorical ankles."

Lenore Skenazy is another mom who made the rounds from MSNBC to FoxNews to the set of the Today Show. "Here's a badge of honour," she boasts. "The ladies on The View devoted a whole segment to agreeing -- perhaps for the first time on anything -- about what a terrible, crazy, horrible, heartless and fill-in-the-disapproving-adjective-here mother I was."

Her transgression? She allowed her nine-year-old son to take the subway on his own. In New York City. (To paraphrase the mothers of other fourth-graders, "You let him WHAT?")

Almost as quick as morning-show hosts could say "America's Worst Mom," Skenazy had a six-figure advance to write Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts With Worry. "It all turned out fine," she writes. "One subway ride, one bus ride and one hour or so later, my son was back home, proud as a peacock."

So maybe less mothering is actually more.

"The newest wave of mothers is saying no to prenatal Beethoven appreciation classes, homework tutors in kindergarten, or moving to a town near their child's college campus so the darling can more easily have home-cooked meals," Lisa Belkin wrote in last Sunday's New York Times. "Over coffee and out in cyberspace they are gleefully labelling themselves 'bad mommies,' pouring out their doubts, their dissatisfaction and their dysfunction."

Bad is the new black.

Perhaps that's why the Twittermoms want to know: "Are you bad enough to be shameful?" Maybe it even explains TrueMomConfessions.com, the "judgment-free zone" where women reveal their "mommy misdemeanours." Exhibit A: "When people notice the improvement in my son's behaviour, I tell them it's because I cut red dye and refined sugar out of his diet. Actually, it's because I started seeing a therapist and stopped yelling at him so much, but how do I explain that?" You don't explain, you boast -- especially if you want a taste of that trendy bad-mom cred.

Critics point out that all this high-tech navel-gazing is a luxury and preoccupation of the few. Most parents are too busy to think, never mind blog.

Truth be told, some have found it's not all that great to be not so great. Waldman herself argues that when examined too closely, the self-flogging and conscious rebellion of bad moms rings false. "As happy as I am to crown myself Queen of the Maternal Damned, part of me still believes that my children would be better off with June Cleaver," she confesses.

That said, June probably had bad-mothering secrets of her own. That Beaver sure seemed to find his way into a heap of mischief.

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