I have decided that I will periodically collect some of the videos that I’ve been enjoying in one post. This will probably be a new weekly thing, until I get too lazy.
First up is episode two of The Michael Showalter Showalter, featuring Show’s long time friend, and, according to the interview, the exceptionally long-dicked, Michael Ian Black.
Next we have a very recent and candid interview with David Cross about a myriad of topics, including his dog, his work schedule, and the demise of “Arrested Development.”
And lastly we have “Welcome to My Home,” a decades old video starring former “Young and the Restless Star,” and current plastic surgery victim, Brenda Dickson (seriously, check out her site. It looks just like geocities, but without the ads). This one is a total mind-blower. Dickson invites the viewer into her home and gives “glamour secrets.”
I just spent the last forty five minutes searching the google for a screen capture of an obese, drugged-to-the-gills, Anna Nicole Smith, Howard K. Stern, her currently beleaguered and oft-cuckolded attorney, and her personal assistant/sometime make-out partner, Kim Walther, beating the shit out of a bed frame.
This fantastic and frightening tableaux was captured by E!’s cameras in 2002 for the regrettably short-lived “The Anna Nicole Show,” and will remain seared in my brain as the lasting image I have of Anna.
The best part is that the reason her attorney gleefully stabbed the bed with a screwdriver and she and her assistant kicked the frame to pieces, was because some throw pillows, also made by the bed’s designer, Bobby Trendy, were-wait for it-not washable. The unlaunderable pillows pushed Anna, who was already angry with Trendy for a litany of reasons, over the edge. She decided the best way to take out her aggression was to desecrate the largest, and presumably most expensive, item Trendy had produced for her.
“The Anna Nicole Show” captured so many mind-blowing and hilarious moments that it not only redefined Anna for me, but also opened my eyes to the enjoyment reality TV could provide.
I did find a full episode on youtube, though sadly not the one featuring the bed destruction. Above is part one, and here’s two and three.
After seeing a single episode, Anna went from being a svelte, sexy blonde, who actually showed some acting promise in her brief cameo in Hudsucker’s Proxy, to a pilled up, self-described “porker,” who had surrounded herself with a motley group of odd characters that were all, to varying degrees, desperately in love with her.
Smith in 1993. Later that year she would be crowned Playmate of the Year.
Kimberly Walther, Smith’s personal assistant, displays her Anna tattoo during “The Anna Nicole Show” years.
After two seasons it became painfully obvious that the show’s producers had run out of hoops for Anna to jump through (such as renewing her driver’s license, going on radio shows, and taking her dog to a psychic), and the waning ratings led to cancellation. For me, that’s when Anna stops.
I had decided that I was not going to pay any attention to the media circus surrounding her death, but last night I caught a video on Countdown with Keith Olbermann that, much in the same way Anna did, totally blew my mind.
Please allow me to introduce the man conducting the trial regarding who gets Smith’s body, Judge Larry Seidlin, proud graduate of Brooklyn’s Hunter College, and King of the Non Sequiturs.
This dude’s amazing. His courtroom demeanor, appearance, and constant quips bring to mind a younger, less funny, Larry David. Here’s just a few of the quotes he let fly in court:
“I jogged almost four miles this morning—my head’s as clear as a bell.”
“Let’s face it. Money is the root of all evil. Am I right?”
“Don’t use that term. It turns me off.”
“The wheels of justice aren’t always round, they’re sometimes square. It’s like the Old West. It’s a bumpy ride.”
Anna, I will miss you. Thanks for all the memories and for bringing Larry Seidlin into my life. We will meet someday on the rainbow bridge.
This American Life, my favorite radio show, is—by the looks of it—about to become one of my favorite television shows. They recently cut together a trailer to promote their March 22nd television debut on Showtime. I can’t wait.
Last night, while I should have been catching up on sleep, I was instead catching up on reading every single post (something I’ve only done twice, once here and here) by slut machine. Her blog, One D at a Time, is an intensely funny, extremely well-written, exploration of one woman’s sexuality, a repository for illustrated essays on celebrities that are probably gay, and her ongoing quest for the best bathroom to do a line and a dude in, among other things. I can’t recommend it highly enough.
And the other funny lady I’d like to talk about is Sarah Silverman. Tonight marks the debut of her new Comedy Central program, aptly titled “The Sarah Silverman Program.” I’ve had the good fortune of viewing two of the episodes, and if they are any indication of the rest of the season, the show will quickly become one of my favorites. It’s been receiving glowing reviews from a number of publications and I think The New Yorker’s take on it is a great primer for the show. It also features a snippet of dialogue from tonight’s episode with Officer Jay that is genius, “You know, being a cop, I’ve seen things that make you crap a book on how to puke,” he tells Laura. “But—I’ve never seen your kind of compassion.”
Recently the funniest man with the smallest lips decided to start his own talk show. He christened it “The Michael Showalter Showalter” and got Zach Galifianakis as his first guest. Hilarity ensued.
Awhile back a balding, pink-clad man with a closely cropped mustache and glasses hanging around his neck, appeared on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and, armed with a flame thrower of condescension and over-enunciation, completely obliterated any goodwill I had towards Richard Dreyfuss (which, admittedly, was not much). I don’t know where Dreyfuss 2.0 came from, but he attempted to hijack the show by rambling on and on about his new pet cause, civics, which he is apparently studying at Oxford, and by making broad, unintelligible and nonsensical statements about the state of the world, and what, according to him, is needed to right the universe.
For whatever reason, Dick decided that “Real Time” was the best time to climb atop the largest soap box he could possibly find and talk down to the lonely, unenlightened, civically ignorant proletariat of our country. Dick warned Bill Maher and the rest of his viewers that if “we” (which he elongates into three syllables) do not teach our kids “the ideas that make America a miracle” (he’s a little nebulous on what exactly these ideas are), that “we will lose it” to an axis of evil that, in his mind, include “fundamentalists of any stripe,” “stupidity,” and a third, more ominous force that Dreyfuss refers to simply as “the darkness.”
Dreyfuss then went on to frame the United States in some of the most overblown and unnecessarily dramatic terms I’ve ever heard. He states, “What this country represents is a tiny twinkle of light in a history of darkness and oppression and cruelty.” Jesus, Dick, when did you become such a Debbie Downer? The amazing thing is that Bill Maher and the rest of the guests on the show just sat there and let Dreyfuss spew forth his fountain of inanity and condescension uninterrupted. The only time when Bill actually acted like the host of the show was to correct Dreyfuss when he made the incredible claim that democracy is only 200-300 years old.
So how is this newly enlightened multi-millionaire going to change the world? In what I believe perfectly exemplifies how misguided and out of touch a lot of celebrities are, Dreyfuss has decided that he can best serve the community by helping set up a program to teach civics at a school in, wait for it…Martha’s Vineyard! That’s right, one of the richest municipalities in the country and the same place where “Jaws” was filmed is where Dreyfuss has decided to bestow his beneficence. It seems that, while he has been able to ward off the fundamentalists and keep “the darkness” at bay, stupidity has already overtaken him.
Ted Haggard, who can currently be seen on movie screens across the country acting like a total dick in the documentary “Jesus Camp,” was recently outed and ousted as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after a male prostitute revealed to the news media that Haggard was a fan of total dick. And crystal meth. Haggard initially responded by denying all allegations, but after the prostitute said he had voicemail messages, Pastor Ted changed his story to a simple case of massage and meth purchasing between friends, but no buggery. Haggard later stepped down, and in a statement to his church confessed to “sexual immorality,” among other things.
The blogosphere had a field day digging up all the hypocritical statements and footage they could find on Haggard, and one in particular they focused on was a scene from Richard Dawkins’ documentary Root of All Evil that features a heated discussion between Haggard and the Oxford professor.
I was blown away by the conviction with which Dawkins spoke to Ted Haggard. Dude came blazing right out of the gate by comparing Haggard’s sermon to a Nazi gathering. “I was almost reminded of a Nuremberg rally,” Dawkins calmly says to Haggard about the service he just witnessed, “I think Dr. Goebels would have been proud.” Haggard, in turn, appears to have no idea who Dr. Goebels is, and smiles his patented shit-eating grin as he attempts to change course, but Dawkins won’t let him off the hook.
And this is how I came across Richard Dawkins, who in the last few weeks I’ve become increasingly interested in. Dawkins believes that religion is ruining the world, and has written books expressing this view (his most recent, The God Delusion, is currently on The New York Times Bestseller list), as well as a two-part documentary for the BBC. The documentary is a must-see. Dawkins travels the world over, confronting religious nuts of all kinds, arguing science and progressive thought over old texts and faith, and lays out why we would be better off without religion.
Here’s part 1 and part 2. Or just watch them below:
It isn’t often that an advertisement featuring a rolling ball of humans, garbage cans, car doors, flower pots, and garden gnomes makes me nostalgic, but that’s exactly what happened when I saw this piece of brilliance. I used to spend a lot of time at the exact spot in Dolores Park where the monstrosity hits.
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/jorna/JudgeSeidlin.jpg")
