The other day I was thinking of famous people, so then I thought I might as well put together all the ones I’ve seen in person into a comprehensive but shameless post. So here you go.
Trent Reznor: Saw him at the Pittsburgh airport. (He grew up about an hour north, in Meadville.) He got his own bags. Short dude, but cool hair.
Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier: Driving an SUV and heading to a fried-seafood restaurant with a really skinny girlfriend, respectively. For some reason that trip to L.A. became the “see people from Entourage” trip. I also saw Mrs. Ari Gold on the trip before that one.
Whoopi Goldberg: She was walking up Sixth Avenue. That’s pretty much it.
Jim Lehrer: At a book-launch party in D.C. at Ben Bradlee’s house. (I met him too, but that’s an interesting anecdote for another time.) Lehrer = super nice and introduced himself as if the rest of us would have no idea who he is. (“Hi, Jim Lehrer, nice to meet you.”)
L.L. Cool J: Walking through O’Hare airport. The woman ringing up my gum bailed in the middle of our transaction to go stare at him.
Dennis Kucinich: Strangely, in 2.5 years in D.C., and even having lived on Capitol Hill, Dennis Kucinich was the only recognizable politician I encountered. (Presidential motorcades don’t count.) I was out on a run and the Rep from Ohio was walking with some staff. Seriously short dude.
Wolf Blitzer and Christiane Amanpour: I met them at the CNN 25th anniversary party in Atlanta. Wolf is pretty short, and Christiane drinks Miller Lite.
Bill Cobbs: I didn’t know his name either, but I just now learned it when I looked up the guy from Night at the Museum that I saw waiting for a car in NYC.
Joey Porter: Saw him in NYC when the gate agent called for “Passenger Porter, Joey.” He flew coach. I told him “Nice game” and he said “Thanks.” It was craziness!
Joe Biden: Getting on a plane to D.C. in LaGuardia. Since I saw him in NYC, he doesn’t count for D.C. politician sightings. Tall, and mo old.
Chris Noth: Eating lunch with some homeless-looking guy in the same Hell’s Kitchen restaurant as me and two female friends. The two friends completely flipped out. Chicks.
Blair Underwood: He was waiting to cross the street in NYC, then I think he got on a bus. But why would Blair Underwood ride the bus? So I’m only 90 percent sure it was him, rather than 100 percent. But if it was Underwood, I would say he has, in fact, gotten on a bus.
Don Cheadle: On the five-hours-later-than-scheduled flight I finally caught to D.C. on the same day as the Biden sighting. A coworker on the flight, sitting directly behind Cheadle, completely missed him even with all the people mysteriously hanging around his seat. Short dude.
Michael Stipe, Christina Ricci, Mike Tyson and Heather Graham: All seen at a Guggenheim benefit party in NYC that I attended thanks to a helpful friend who worked there. Unfortunately I was a bit out of place: me and Mike Tyson were the only people not in suits, and I’m pretty sure that he’s the one of the two of us who could pull that off. Whoops. But I did make eye contact with Heather Graham. She and Mike Tyson later went on to star together in The Hangover. Coincidence?!??!?!
Updated Omissions 8/19:
Michael Phelps: A recent addition; I was watching the first Presidential debate with some UMich sectionmates at The Blue Leprechaun bar, then Phelps rolled in with an entourage of 15 college-age party types and the bar owner kicked us out of our spot. When we left 10 minutes later, there was a line around the block to get in.
Ted Turner: He was down the hall at one of the TIME conferences. I also saw Bill Clinton and Bill Gates at this thing, but they were scheduled speakers, which would be cheating to include.
Bob Novak: I’m surprised I forgot him, since he just died yesterday. Saw him at the restaurant where I was eating dinner with some coworkers. No CIA secrets were revealed to me.
Yesterday I made it to Day 3 of Lollapalooza 2009. I had a great time reliving 1993 with Jane’s Addiction and Snoop — Lady of Rage even made an appearance — though the organizers did throw in some solid bands from 2009, too. Ranking the bands that I saw or mostly heard:
1. Jane’s Addiction (probably a given, being that it’s my list, but very exciting. Also, Eric Avery really looks like Dennis Quaid)
2. The Raveonettes (the surf-guitar thing works great live)
3. Snoop (great show and he was smart to get a live backing band)
4. Cold War Kids (haven’t heard much of their stuff but liked it)
5. Kaiser Chiefs (like them a lot but they missed a few songs I like)
6. Silversun Pickups (good stuff)
7. Vampire Weekend (not a very exciting show)
See the Grooveshark widget down below if you want to hear some tunes from each.
Back in my TIME.com days, I developed a serious music-at-work habit that kept on going all the way through Slate. Fortunately for me, my summer workplace at Kaplan Higher Ed is also cool with employees listening to headphones during the day, so I haven’t had to spend my time here sans face-melting shredfests.
Even more fortunate for me in the wake of my busted iPod, a coworker from Slate (props to Ellen) pointed me in the direction of Grooveshark, a startup music site that lets you search for any tune you want and stream it. It has similar functionality to Pandora, as you can click on a song and get a list of related songs, but with the instant playability there’s no need to wait to see what gets played next. Not only that, but mugs with a free profile can create and save playlists, mark songs as favorites, send out URLs for individual songs, and create exportable widgets like the one I have down below in the right column. (Though I’m a little disappointed at the lack of volume control on the individual-song widget. How are you supposed to go to 11?)
I set this player up so you can all rock out to a bad-ass metal tune from the ’90s:
I’m hella confused as to how this site is allowed to exist, but Grooveshark’s DMCA-infringement policy and the fact that all of the music is uploaded by users would seem to put the legality onus on the general webgoing public. I can imagine record companies and Apple’s iTunes division wouldn’t think this is such a big deal right now because the songs aren’t downloadable to a hard drive or music player, but once everyone’s got high-quality web access on their cell phones and less of a need for hard copies of music files, record companies better check themselves before they wreck themselves. (That reminds me to go listen to that Das EFX song, particularly for Ice Cube’s ability to rhyme “knife, ho” with “rifle”.)
But for real, Grooveshark = mad good. Give it a visit.
Also, I updated some site CSS this weekend, so I wanted to point everyone to the style chooser up top. You get your choice of red, blue, green, black, or old-school viewing.
My iPod started acting ill today, and now I’m in the middle of restoring the factory settings. Since I have to completely re-upload all of my music, photo and backed-up files, I got some time to write. First, the news:
• At first today, it really annoyed me that the entire media-swilling world spent the day rending its garments and pulling out its hair over Michael Jackson. (It’s 10 p.m. here, and the funeral is still the top story on CNN.com.) But then I thought, “Parts of the U.S. have been doing this for more than 30 years for Elvis, so this is really nothing new,” and I felt better about our modern era — or worse about past eras, I can’t decide.
• I’ve been asking people for a percentage: how many people watching Michael Jackson’s funeral know who Robert McNamara is, and they have to understand that he was far more historically important than MJ. The common response is less than 1 percent, but I would think it’s actually up around 4 percent. Call me an optimist.
In fairness to that other 96 percent, I did call him “George McNamara” at lunch today. But to burnish my own history-nerd credentials with an even bigger bit of nerdness, I was also thinking of McGeorge Bundy at the time.
If policy now tilts too far toward deficit cutting, some argue, that would treat job creation as an option the nation somehow cannot afford, in contrast to “must haves” like tax cuts for wealthy Americans and unpopular foreign military entanglements.
True, but you also can’t ignore the fact that those tax cuts and unpopular entanglements were put in place, and now they are indeed making the job creation that much more financially difficult. I fall reluctantly in line with the spending advocates — I don’t think now is the time to pay down the deficit, because government spending at the moment really is a big portion of the money flowing into the economy. But if things do turn around, raise my taxes. It sucks, but it’s better than betting our economic livelihood on the whim of the Chinese government.
And on to frivolous stuff:
• I’m sorry to see the Penguins lose Rob Scuderi to the L.A. Kings, but they were right not to pay what the Kings paid. The dude is good, but not $13.6 million good.
• I got a Lollapalooza ticket for Sunday, August 9, hombres. Jane’s Addiction original lineup? I am hella there.
• This past Friday I went to see The Hangover. Verdict: four phats. Definitely some gross humor; definitely a weird Zach Galifinakis; and most likely worth seeing. (Though don’t take your parents.)
Even stranger, the movie featured both Heather Graham and Mike Tyson in prominent roles. Why is this strange? Those two were both guests at a 2004 arts-benefit party at the Guggenheim in NYC attended by yours truly, who by all rights should not have been there in the first place. (I’m pretty sure this Heather Graham photo is from that very night.) Mike Tyson is somehow even scarier when he wears fur, and I even made eye contact with Ms. Graham — or as I have no right to call her, Heather — for a full second.
The moral here? I really should have been offered at least a cameo appearance as the third part of that party trifecta, Hollywood.
With Saturday being the Fourth of July and the start of America’s 233rd year, I would like to honor our fine country’s independence by telling you exactly how not to honor our fine country’s independence: by purchasing, lighting and displaying Snakes, the world’s stupidest firework.
Since my childhood, I have loved fireworks. I’m not necessarily talking about the big citywide Zambelli shows where people in the crowd try in vain to remember which FM station is broadcasting the patriotic musical accompaniment; those are good, but they can’t compare to the miniaturized action-movie thrill of taking a match to something so it can shoot fire and blow up. Tanks, spinners, firecrackers, Roman candles and the infamous Mr. Cuckoo: all good for shooting across the patio and blowing holes in a coffee can. What would the Fourth be without the “PHWEEEEET … POP!” of bottle rockets resonating throughout the suburbs? There’d probably be a lot more fingers and fewer high-school kids lighting their shirts on fire — good one, Bill — but ours would be a less-jubilant nation without the ability to celebrate America through novelties from China.
Each year on the Fourth, my family would head out to one of my aunts’ houses out in more exurban parts near Pittsburgh for burgers, orange pop, water balloons and Ohio-bought fireworks in the driveway at dark. Everyone would ooh and ahh at the tanks, spinners, etc. — though probably just to humor us kids — and then it would be time for the lowlight of the night: Snakes.
I don’t even know how these things showed up every year, but inevitably someone would slide the telltale black discs out of a red box, set them on the driveway and let the disappointment begin. Here’s a video to show you just how crappy Snakes truly are. I mean that literally, too: they very much resemble a growing pile of black excrement.
One year I paid $10 for a fat, tall, missile-looking firework at Phantom Fireworks, and after excitedly saving it for the evening finale, it shot up into the night sky and fizzled as nothing more than a bottle rocket. Yet that letdown, which was substantial, will never compare to a burned-out box of Snakes for firework impotence.
Our country was born in a burst of pride, freedom and the human spirit, lit up by the fires of war with Britain. It was a powerful and vivid moment in world history, one that would shape the fate of humanity forever. There are poignant and powerful ways to celebrate those concepts, and then there is the opposite: Snakes. Screw ‘em.
You heard it here first: Neverland is the new Graceland.
Man, what a week for news. It’s been a while since we had such a contrast of the important (Iran) and the junk-ridden (Transformers 2 = 2nd highest grossing opening ever).
My vote for biggest story: Considering that I live in the U.S., it has to be the start of American withdrawal from Iraqi cities. There’s the potential for the sectarian pot to boil over again now that American troops won’t be piled onto the lid anymore, but the alternative of policing the country forever isn’t going to work. This is all after the fighting there has been all but forgotten by the general public. I’d put Iran second, and the dramatic turnaround the nation’s opinion of Michael Jackson third, but in my mind it was a return to the big story of the decade.
Michael Jackson: it’s sad that the guy fell so far from the heights of the ’80s and never made it back, but the country this week seemed to forget the past 15 years in a single afternoon. This is the same thing that happened when Richard Nixon died — granted, Nixon did real harm to the country, while Jackson was just weird — but I wonder if it’s a uniquely American thing for national opinion of a controversial guy to turn on a dime whenever that guy passes on.
I first heard about Jackson’s death on Twitter myself, but this is just incorrect. You know what I did after I first read that whiff of the story on Twitter? Started hitting the NY Times, CNN and BBC news sites. You can’t note that people check the “respected” news outlets before they really believe an account of something, then turn around and say that this proves those respected news outlets are pointless. Plus, I don’t get the comment about TMZ representing “the new realities of journalism” when they got their scoop through old-fashioned reporting. The truth is that the base of all news will always be reporting, and obviously you don’t have to be a giant, 100-year-old paper to do that, but it still has to happen somewhere along the line.
Let’s also face the fact that TMZ had nothing to lose by claiming Jackson was dead at the very first moment there was speculation. He’s not actually dead? “Well, they’re just a tabloid anyway.” He died? “Brilliant job getting the story!”
Guy who benefited the most from Michael Jackson’s death: Mark Sanford.
Gail Collins said it better than I can on Sanford: it’s not that he committed an affair or that he’s a total moral hypocrite that makes him a bad governor; it’s the fact that by definition, bailing out on being governor tends to make one a bad governor. And no, I don’t feel bad for him, even if I give him credit for a more human response than most politicians caught cheating.
Transformers 2 has been a lot of fun for me, and I haven’t even seen it: every critic has sharpened the knife for the review, so at that point it’s a contest to see who can get it the sharpest. Naturally Roger Ebert’s review is brilliantly written, but I also liked Dana Stevens in Slate and The A.V. Club. I like my wit dry, with just a hint of acid.
The funniest part of it all is that Transformers 2 has been critically hated-on more than any movie I can remember, yet it also had the second-highest opening of all time. (Thankfully for the American cultural soul, Dark Knight barely kept the top slot.) One of the commercials this week even ran a bunch of critical excerpts with the tiniest possible font for attribution. Interesting move by the studio to do a Terrell Owens on the Dallas 50-yard line.
R.I.P., Billy Mays. As I felt the need to tell anyone each time he showed up on TV, the dude was from Pittsburgh. The guy sold some bizarre products, but he was the rare salesman where I enjoyed the pitch.
As a tribute to the man, I will republish that in the style he knew best:
R.I.P. BILLY MAYS! AS I FELT THE NEED TO TELL ANYONE EACH TIME HE SHOWED UP ON TV, THE DUDE WAS FROM PITTSBURGH! THE GUY SOLD SOME BIZARRE PRODUCTS, BUT HE WAS THE RARE SALESMAN WHERE I ENJOYED THE PITCH!
The TV world lost a truly fun character. Vince from ShamWow just isn’t the same.
I subscribed to P. Diddy’s Twitter feed last week, and it is a highlight of my day each time I log in. It’s a nice reminder each day that anybody can make it in this country, even the guy who writes these:
Man I wanna be GREAT! I wanna make the WORLD A BETTER PLACE!!! Fuck being rich!!! I wanna be necessary!! I will be GREAT!! I’m not DONE!!!!
RT THIS!! We are at BITCHASSNESS LEVEL ORANGE ALERT!!! CLICK HERE FOR THE REMEDY!! P.TwittyTV Ep#30!! http://tinyurl.com/cb4pdk
Its getting late!!! Go HARD OR GO HOME!!!! Let’s get it!!!!
LOCK IN is not a SAYING its a WAY OF LIFE!!! Lets stop playing people!! GET LOCKED IN!!!
Are you really trying as hard as you can??? Really? Come on you know you can try harder!!!! Come on let’s go people!!! Lock in rt now!!!!!
Its so hard to stop eating carbs! I love carbs!!!! Lol
I’m so HIGH off life right now!!!! Get HIGH with me!!!! Off of life!!! Life is such a blessing!!!! Thank you GOD!!!!!!
Though I was busy finishing up Winter A for the past week, it doesn’t mean I haven’t kept up with the world. (Sage RSS sidebar = a favorite of mine.) So here’s a burst of opinion:
My newest senator Roland Burris grows more as an embarrassment each day, but what’s even more embarrassing is the way the Senate was originally going to block his appointment, yet instead completely rolled over and let this dude sit with the nation’s foremost legislative body. Lame. And now proven so!
Next topic of choice is Rick Santelli, a reporter for CNBC who went on a tear about subsidizing foreclosable homes via the stimulus package:
I was reading this NY Times Opinionator roundup of people’s take on the matter, and naturally there’s absolutist sentiment on either side: either the nation is only angry at people who took out bigger mortgages than they could afford and put the country in this predicament, or they are solely angry at the traders and capitalist machinery that went beyond common business sense and put the country in this predicament.
First off, nobody outside the financial community watches CNBC in the first place, so this is hardly cause to nominate the reporter for president. (For real, I mean there’s hyperbole, and then there’s hyperbole.) Secondly, those traders in the video do seem to be completely ignoring their and their bosses’ own role in the mess, but I think if the country’s angry at anybody, it’s angry at both groups. Plus, the thing that both have in common is a desire to live beyond their means outside the bounds of rationality, so you’re really talking about two sides of the same coin.
“I think they’ve always been a good value to consumers,” Ettinger said of brands like Spam, Dinty Moore stews and Hormel Chili, which all grew in the quarter ending in January. “Our company really prides itself on being a leader in value-added meals that feature meat.”
Goofy b-school terms are often running through my head while I eat meals, so I’m proud to now put the rest of you in the same predicament.
Trent Reznor: Saw him at the Pittsburgh airport. (He grew up about an hour north, in Meadville.) He got his own bags. Short dude, but cool hair.
Jeremy Piven and Adrian Grenier: Driving an SUV and heading to a fried-seafood restaurant with a really skinny girlfriend, respectively. For some reason that trip to L.A. became the “see people from Entourage” trip. I also saw Mrs. Ari Gold on the trip before that one.
Whoopi Goldberg: She was walking up Sixth Avenue. That’s pretty much it.
Jim Lehrer: At a book-launch party in D.C. at Ben Bradlee’s house. (I met him too, but that’s an interesting anecdote for another time.) Lehrer = super nice and introduced himself as if the rest of us would have no idea who he is. (“Hi, Jim Lehrer, nice to meet you.”)
L.L. Cool J: Walking through O’Hare airport. The woman ringing up my gum bailed in the middle of our transaction to go stare at him.
Dennis Kucinich: Strangely, in 2.5 years in D.C., and even having lived on Capitol Hill, Dennis Kucinich was the only recognizable politician I encountered. (Presidential motorcades don’t count.) I was out on a run and the Rep from Ohio was walking with some staff. Seriously short dude.
Wolf Blitzer and Christiane Amanpour: I met them at the CNN 25th anniversary party in Atlanta. Wolf is pretty short, and Christiane drinks Miller Lite.
Bill Cobbs: I didn’t know his name either, but I just now learned it when I looked up the guy from Night at the Museum that I saw waiting for a car in NYC.
Joey Porter: Saw him in NYC when the gate agent called for “Passenger Porter, Joey.” He flew coach. I told him “Nice game” and he said “Thanks.” It was craziness!
Joe Biden: Getting on a plane to D.C. in LaGuardia. Since I saw him in NYC, he doesn’t count for D.C. politician sightings. Tall, and mo old.
Chris Noth: Eating lunch with some homeless-looking guy in the same Hell’s Kitchen restaurant as me and two female friends. The two friends completely flipped out. Chicks.
Blair Underwood: He was waiting to cross the street in NYC, then I think he got on a bus. But why would Blair Underwood ride the bus? So I’m only 90 percent sure it was him, rather than 100 percent. But if it was Underwood, I would say he has, in fact, gotten on a bus.
Don Cheadle: On the five-hours-later-than-scheduled flight I finally caught to D.C. on the same day as the Biden sighting. A coworker on the flight, sitting directly behind Cheadle, completely missed him even with all the people mysteriously hanging around his seat. Short dude.
Michael Stipe, Christina Ricci, Mike Tyson and Heather Graham: All seen at a Guggenheim benefit party in NYC that I attended thanks to a helpful friend who worked there. Unfortunately I was a bit out of place: me and Mike Tyson were the only people not in suits, and I’m pretty sure that he’s the one of the two of us who could pull that off. Whoops. But I did make eye contact with Heather Graham. She and Mike Tyson later went on to star together in The Hangover. Coincidence?!??!?!
Michael Phelps: A recent addition; I was watching the first Presidential debate with some UMich sectionmates at The Blue Leprechaun bar, then Phelps rolled in with an entourage of 15 college-age party types and the bar owner kicked us out of our spot. When we left 10 minutes later, there was a line around the block to get in.
Ted Turner: He was down the hall at one of the TIME conferences. I also saw Bill Clinton and Bill Gates at this thing, but they were scheduled speakers, which would be cheating to include.
Bob Novak: I’m surprised I forgot him, since he just died yesterday. Saw him at the restaurant where I was eating dinner with some coworkers. No CIA secrets were revealed to me.
