Doedermara

Please, Andre, Don't Hurt 'em

While I'm constantly impressed by the genius that is OutKast (I just saw the video for Roses for the first time this weekend -- though maybe it's easy to be constanly impressed if you finally catch things months after they are released), I'm also a little worried.

I'm pleased they've picked up the cultural baton dropped by Snoop. To see just how far Snoop has stumbled, witness this week's Saturday Night Live. Snoop is now only funny or amusing as "MetaSnoop" -- commenting on the pimp culture he helped bring mainstream and white folks reactions to it.. You know why it's funny for the women of Saturday Night Live to escort Snoop to his opening monologue -- because they're white comedians, not ho's ***. Same with the pleas for whiteys to stop using izzle-speak. That's not to say MetaSnoop isn't funny -- I found the skit where he was bummed because of the end of Friends amusing, it's just that all this self-commentary makes you not cool. (Most blogs will also prove this point.)

(*** - Yes, I know Maya Rudolph isn't exactly white, but as someone brilliant said recently: they weren't exactly asking Ellen Cleghorne to play Donatella Vesace.)

But, even with the fall of Snoop, I'm comforted by Andre 3000's contributions to pop culture.

Until I read this: Andre 3000 Mulling Cartoon Project.

While I see the fact that it's being made for the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim as hope, I'm having far more flashbacks to this:

Real World Meets Real Sex

Dan Renzi was the gay guy who got into this great fight about his mail on some season of the Real World I watched (Miami maybe?). I think he was from Kansas and went to high school with a friend from college. But this could all be someone else. My memory for reality stars fades quickly, eh? Like the boy you crushed out on at a bar for three weeks in a row -- you see them 5 years later and respond fondly, but have no clue from where or when you know them. (Yet, I can rattle off the names of the original Facts of Life girls like nobody's business -- viva la scripted television.)

Anyway, he got busted in a porn theatre pulling a Pee Wee on Cinco de Mayo.

I heard this rumor last night -- because these days, as will soon be scientifically proven, the gays prefer gossipping about homo reality stars over having anal sex -- and did a search this morning where I found Dan's own site -- where he has the balls to actually 'fess up to the whole thing.

How very un-K-Pax. Well done, Mr. Renzi.

The mug shot, however, is a little scary. Apparently, no matter what folks do to try to shatter stereotypes about "sexual deviants", even nice-looking guys still look like the "creepy guy from the porno theatre" in their mugshots.

UPDATE: The Smoking Gun, also using the turn-of-phrase "Pulling a Pee-Wee", has the blown-up mugshot -- which actually looks quite handsome.

Friends Tie-ins

(everybody's doing it, why not me?)

1) Yes, the post below really does solidify my Chandler Bing-ness. It's quite pathetic. I even do the Matthew Perry's too skinny/attractive/too bloated trick. Which Mike is coming to the Thanksgiving table? Season 1 or Season 4 or Season 7? I like to keep 'em guessing.

2) I was really afraid that all the Friends hype was going to kill whatever enjoyment I might derive from the final episode. But instead, I'm so annoyed with all the "Friends is over and I don't care because I'm better than that tripe" articles that I'm going to laugh my way through the finale even if it's just extras singing "Smelly Cat" over and over again while Ted Koppel and Gunther read the names of the fallen Ross Gellar wives.

Fashion Advice

I've given similar words of wisdom before, but lessons like these are important, especially if one doesn't learn from them -- as I have not.

If you're worried about a shirt being "too gay" for work, don't spend so much time worried if it makes you look thick in the midsection ("sausage-y") or showing off too much arm ("tricep-y") that you entirely neglect to wear of an undershirt and serve to the populace way too much man-nipple. Survey definitely says "too gay" for a suburban cubicle jungle.

In fact, if you're standing in your too gay bathroom (even if a bathroom rarely gets cleaned, it can still be too gay based on number of products), looking at yourself in a shirt, wondering "too gay" -- just take it off. If it's too gay for your gay house, it's far beyond too gay for Waukegan.

I need to keep a change of clothes here in case of fashion stupidity. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The Death of the Sitcom

Hey, I just heard that Friends was ending. Did you know?! Wow. Such a long road, it's been. What will we do on Thursday nights? Maybe this is my chance to write an article about the Death of the Sitcom. (pause for google search) This was such a great idea that hundreds of other columnists have already written it. But that shouldn't stop me, should it? Why be creative when you can be beat a dead horse?

Seriously, though, in a week where Paramount apparently wants Kelsey Grammar back for another spin-off where he'd again play Frasier -- stretching out our long national nightmare of a pretentious metrosexual-but-an-ugmo psychologist on the airwaves for perhaps a third decade -- nothing should surprise me.

But this did: Apparently, Cameron Mannheim is up for spinning off the Eleanor Frutt character from The Practice -- which is already spinning off into a James Spader-led drama -- as a midseason sitcom.

We -- or at least the gay We who've seen Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion a few times -- know the lady can play comedy. But We also suggest that maybe she play another role; the Frutt character isn't exactly a gold mine of comic possibility. Take, for example, this imagined scene:

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INT. OFFICE OF A LAW FIRM

Sassy Non-White Female Secretary at desk, Ellenor enters.

SN-WF Secretary: God, girl, my momma set me up on the worst date last night. She thought he'd be great just because he was her foot doctor. But I couldn't get my hoofs out from there fast enough.

(INSERT LAUGHTRACK)

Frutt: Once a podiatrist I dated a couple of times showed up at my office with a head in his medical bag. I got him acquitted and we started dating again. It turned out he was guilty and he liked to dress up as a nun. He almost killed me too.

Secretary: Fat girl, you so crazy.

(INSERT LAUGHTRACK)
---------

Actually, as I write this, I realize maybe it could be funny -- like the failed Debbie Downer skit on SNL this weekend. Of course, that failure made it the funniest sketch I've seen on the show this season (yes, even funnier than Christina doing Samantha).

Completely Juvenille, Completely Funny

The packaging engineer who sits two cubes down is having many teleconferences about, presumably, something he designed, and I've heard him say this phrase, in a loud, clear baritone, three seperate times today:

"8 and a half inches long, 5 inches around"

And I laugh like I'm 13 going on gay each and every time.

Speaking of frightening things from Hellboy

Russian Museum to Exhibit Rasputin’s Penis

(For those who haven't seen the movie, Rasputin works with the Nazis in it -- and comes back to life. His genitalia is unseen.)

Weekend Reviews and Dreams

1) See Mean Girls before the #1 Hype sets your expectations too high. No, screw that -- mine were high and still I left the theatre quite satisfied. I haven't laughed that consistently at a comedy for quite some time.

2) I did, however, laugh quite consistently at the last 15 minutes of 10.5; I tuned over after a particularly bad Queer as Folk (yes, a lonesome TV watcher has no shame) and found the acting bad by comparison. Yes, worse than Ted. Worse than the gay extras. Worse than that. Not that I'm a particularly huge fan of Kim Delany, but this is her worst effort ever. The cast seems to be phoning it in. But they aren't even using phones. Hell, they're not even using telegraphs. It's like they're using tin cans on strings. And the string is yarn so it can't get tight enough. The group effort is so bad that, by comparison, John Schneider looks like a great thespian while playing the First Husband to the Governor of California (and wouldn't he and Arnie make a handsome, if overly tanned, couple?)

Technically, it's even worse. I won't even get into the psuedoscience (though if you're looking to see Seattle collapse, you missed your chance -- see, the earthquake is moving its way down the coastline. So Seattle got wiped in the opening apparently.) The lame ass cliffhanger (Will the president use nuclear bombs on northern California to fuse together the plates so the aftershocks might not be so bad? No, I'm serious...) was made even worse by the overuse of 24-style split screen technique. Atrocious!

3) More earth-shattering, The Sopranos had a recurring male character blowing a male security guard in a construction site parking lot at 5 am, followed by one of the creepiest seduction scenes ever. I seriously had a nightmare about it. (I'm playing semi-spoiler-free zone here -- because I know folks often catch it later the week. Do so.)

4) Alias was also good, if slightly predictable. Delightfully, Sydney showed up in a swimsuit for no good reason other than the way it looked. The return of the evil Asian dentist (finally, lamely, given a name -- Dr. Lee, indeed) -- and Vaugn's descent into madness -- was nice. I appreciate how the crazier Vaughn gets, the better Jack looks. (Having dealt with a similar, more devastating betrayal, he still managed to keep himself somewhat together.) Unfortnately, the evil Asian dentist also caused nightmares -- which is doubly upsetting as I've been grinding my teeth like crazy in my sleep the last couple of weeks, so I woke up completely sure my teeth had been extracted.

5) And speaking of bad dreams and movies, the friend I saw Hellboy with had nightmares about Kroenan and I can't say I blame him -- though as far as surgically-addicted villains go, I'm much more afraid of the ladies on The Swan. Hellboy was enjoyable -- though it might make you, if you're like me, long for a live action GI Joe movie.

What's Creeping Me Out Today

1) Thinking about comic strips like Gasoline Alley are every day nationwide. And that there is apparently some audience for them. Who are these people?

2) Finding out that Mr. Brady's (Robert Reed) grave is 5.9 miles from my home and thinking I should swing by a pay my respects next time I go to Old Orchard.

3) That the name "Old Orchard Mall" shows up in Mean Girls -- which is set in Evanston. And while the girls there do seem quite mean and/or plastic, it's an indoor mall in the movie -- whereas the real life Old Orchard is an open-air. Perhaps Hollywood-types couldn't wrap their mind around what a colossally stupid idea having an outdoor mall is in the Midwest. ("It's a great place to shop. Unless it's cold at Christmas.")

Okay, #3 isn't creepy -- it just tied really well with Mike Brady being buried near the mall.

Kids Today

So when I was running for high school office, I was successful running on a closted-gay/metrosexual ticket. Kids these days are more direct running on the slogans like "Gay guys know everything" which delights me.

Of course, gay guys don't know everything. But fortunately for our young politico, insecure high school girls -- an ever-important swing vote -- often think they do.