Alex Balk

Pop quiz: Can you tell what product this is part of an...

Wed, 14 May 2008 16:37:00 -0400

Pop quiz: Can you tell what product this is part of an advertisement for? No? It’s digital cable. I know, right? Also, the gal in this spot is obviously supposed to be attractive, but she’s so dolled up that she frightens me. I get way hotter for someone who displays a more subtle sexuality. Someone like the guy in the lobster suit in the previous reggaeton ad.

I know mine is.

Wed, 14 May 2008 12:26:43 -0400

“A little penis, it turns out, can be a dangerous thing.”

Bad Lieutenant, Bad Idea.

Wed, 14 May 2008 11:39:00 -0400

“Nicolas Cage will star in an updated version of 1992’s “Bad Lieutenant” with Werner Herzog directing, Edward R. Pressman producing and Avi Lerner’s Nu Image/Millennium Films financing.”

I have a lot of faith in the Vernster, but, uh, no. I’m not sure what’s worse: the possibility of seeing Cage’s wee-wee or the fact the EVEN Bad Lieutenant IS FIFTEEN YEARS OLD.

Wisdom of UWS doorman actually proves prescriptive.

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:39:28 -0400

“That gets thrown around like ‘hello’ and ‘good morning,’ ” said Omar Villaneuva, a doorman at 27 West 72nd Street, between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, referring to the word Ms. Simmons used. “But when you’re a news reporter, you’re supposed to report the news. You’re not there to swear.”

Maybe if they were there to swear nightly news wouldn’t be dying. I mean, I’d tune into The CBS Fucking News with Katie Couric, wouldn’t you?

Yeah, I wasn't much different as a kid.

Wed, 14 May 2008 09:52:00 -0400

Wanna feel old?

”This months marks the 25th anniversary of “Return of the Jedi,” which debuted on more than 1,000 screens and pulled in $23 million in its opening days.”

I vividly remember seeing Jedi on opening day. I had read the novelization (yes, very well, let’s all pause so you can have a good snicker at that) and so knew the entire story. My little brother, who was seven or eight at the time and hated reading, did not. When the Ewoks first came on the screen he leaned over and said something to me about how cute they were. I looked at him very seriously and whispered, “They eat Princess Leia.” I’m pretty sure my dad had to take him to the lobby to calm him down.

keepinganotebook: My favorite part of this? How much bigger...

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:44:04 -0400

keepinganotebook:

My favorite part of this? How much bigger Lois’s thighs are as a black woman.

Just rambling at this point. I should have slept in today.

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:22:35 -0400

In my darker moments I occasionally think that this administration has fucked up the country so badly that it might be better if the Republicans actually win again this year. A Democratic president would have to spend so much time digging out from the rubble that at best—at best—all he could do (and, yes, he) is hold the line against things getting worse. I’m well aware that there’s a serious strain of defeatism in that attitude, but it ties in to another defeatism I’ve noticed during the campaign. It’s most prominent in people of my parents’ generation. They’re all good liberal folk whose support for Hillary is less a function of Clinton nostalgia or the desire to see a female president than it is a deep, persistent fear that Obama can’t win because the rest of the country won’t vote for a black guy. I’m optimistic to the point of naivete on the subject, thinking that not only are Americans ready for a black president, some of them actively want to vote for one because it’ll help them prove to themselves that they’re not racist (or they somehow think it’ll even up the books for slavery). Still, the results from West Virginia give me some pause. I do still think that we can and will, but you know what? Let’s just do it and see. If America really is so racist that it would rather sign up for four more years of mismanagement, cynicism, and deceit, let’s just come right out and put that on the table. Because only then will we truly get the government we deserve.

Every fucking morning I get fucked over by fucking WWD with this...

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:02:20 -0400

Every fucking morning I get fucked over by fucking WWD with this bullshit. I understand that we all need to maximize clicks these days, but come the fuck on. I’m not playing Charlie Brown to your Lucy any more, you fucks.

Because I'm a terrible manager, a continuing series.

Wed, 14 May 2008 08:00:13 -0400

Because I’m a terrible manager, I just got around to reading these rules for blogging that a staffer of ours was apparently too embarrassed by to put under his (or, uh, her) own byline. (Send $10 and a fifth of Old Crow to Alex Balk c/o Radar and I’ll tell you his (or, uh, her) name.) Anyway, they’re pretty funny! (God, I’m easy today.) Except for the fact that one of them comes from an actual memo I sent out proscribing a certain usage. Sigh. Well, at least they’re reading the damn things.

17 June 1998: Sinatra’s wife Barbara angrily denies...

Wed, 14 May 2008 07:42:00 -0400

17 June 1998: Sinatra’s wife Barbara angrily denies tabloid reports that Sinatra is near death. “The rumors are crazy,” she says. “He just laughs when he hears it. He says those reporters are all a bunch of fags.”

I remember reading this when it actually came out. Now its writer reminds us that it’s ten years old. Ten years. Holy fuck, I’ve wasted the last decade.

Couple of weeks ago the DVR did that thing it does where it tapes the end of a previous program and...

Wed, 14 May 2008 07:28:59 -0400

Couple of weeks ago the DVR did that thing it does where it tapes the end of a previous program and then cuts out before the show you actually want to watch finally finishes. I can’t remember what the series whose climax I missed was, but the show I did get to see the conclusion to was Two and a Half Men. I paused in disgust to go refill my bourbon—because believe me, after seeing even a second of that piece of shit you’re gonna need another drink—and when I returned the TV was frozen on one of Chuck Lorre’s famous vanity cards. (This one, in fact.) I had never seen one before, but you know what? It was kind of funny! I mean, I’m not making any claims for their being great literature or whatever, but coming from a guy who created one of the most painful viewing experiences in television history—and I say this as someone who has been forced to watch an entire episode of According to Jim while awaiting a prostate exam—they’re pretty amusing. Anyway, there’s an article about them in the WSJ today that is probably worth a few minutes if you’re bored. Or not. Do what you want. You don’t need me to tell you how to spend your time.

“An art form should be judged by its best example, not its...

Wed, 14 May 2008 06:55:51 -0400

“An art form should be judged by its best example, not its worst. Jackson Pollock fans wouldn’t abide his work being shellacked as pretentious horseshit simply because most abstract expressionism is pretentious horseshit. Fans of Entombed and Dismember should remain similarly unbending.”

Audio

Wed, 14 May 2008 06:51:20 -0400

Great Moments in Journalism

Wed, 14 May 2008 06:39:29 -0400

Great Moments in Journalism

Shocking. Slightly less shocking when you actually, you know, do...

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:38:00 -0400

Shocking.

Slightly less shocking when you actually, you know, do the math: “Two in 10 whites said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote, second only to Mississippi. And only a third of those voters said they’d support Obama as the nominee against John McCain, fewer than in other primaries where the question has been asked.”

I wanted to call tomorrow’s feature “Because I Could...

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:09:04 -0400

I wanted to call tomorrow’s feature “Because I Could Not Stop For Death Metal,” but it was overruled as being “too literary.” Anyway, tomorrow’s feature is about death metal. Get excited.

Then all he'll have to worry about is the "black" thing.

Tue, 13 May 2008 14:41:34 -0400

Fuck the flag lapel pin, Obama ought to start wearing a fucking cross.

Presumably in the same way that Joel Stein is a god to people in their twenties and thirties.

Tue, 13 May 2008 13:06:56 -0400

“‘The young kids think he’s the cat’s meow,’ says Caroline Hirsch, proprietor of Caroline’s on Broadway, the comedy club where Fallon got his start performing stand-up in the mid-1990s.”

Yes, she’s talking about Jimmy Fallon.

maura: Classic Cafferty/Simmons in this Live at Five intro from...

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:31:30 -0400

maura:

Classic Cafferty/Simmons in this Live at Five intro from 1983. There’s also this clip of Sue Simmons interviewing Peter Criss, which I’m saving for later maybe.

And then there’s this. Oh my God, it’s like I’m ten again.

Classic Sue Simmons interview, via.

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:11:16 -0400

Classic Sue Simmons interview, via.