Who’s That Lady?

31 percent of American teenagers [have] the honest expectation that they [will] one day be famous and that 80 percent [think] of themselves as truly important. [Source]

We live in an age in which celebrity is considered an easily attainable item, made clear by the stats above.  In a century where reality television continues to thrive – broadcasting the lives of strangers about whom we couldn’t care less, despite their lives being broadcast to millions upon millions – I can’t help but hate myself when I realize that I can accurately recognize the likenesses of New York, Brody Jenner, and Drew Lachey (although I could never say no to more Vincent Libretti, who, upon meeting my sister and her friend in the street recently, assured them that he’d "talk to them later").  In my opinion, the space between the spoiled and connected and the talentless and shameless is not vast, therefore allowing me to detest Paris Hilton and Trishelle Cannatella with an equal amount of disgust.

But man oh man, could it be easier to hate someone as much as I do Rumer Willis?

Yuck.  Yuck yuck yuck yuck yuck!  Somebody got Mom’s body and Dad’s head [below her mouth, and pointier]!

The 19 year-old daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Rumer was just named Miss Golden Globe 2007. Admittedly, I don’t know what such a title means, but if "being born rich and going out and stuff" are the credentials needed to attain such a distinction, then the girl did her job.  She may not be a bad person, but  – at the very least – Willis’s recent comment that being a celebrity is a "24 hour job" should send off a red alert to the entertainment media signaling the arrival of yet another idiot starlet vomiting sound bytes about her "fans" and "work."

Is she a professional actress?  It seems so.  Golf claps for her – hopefully, she won’t spend too many years struggling for parts with a last name like Willis.

However, must there be a doll bearing her likeness auctioned off for AIDS research?  I’m as little a fan of AIDS as the next guy, but I think there ought to be mildly less narcissistic way for Rumer to "use her power," as she puts it.

(For the record, the doll looks like Jay Leno, to the surprise of no one.)

Shame On Jew

All I know of Jackie Mason is that he was the shlubby Jew who occupied my grandma’s television screen when I was a kid.  I distinctly remember him pacing back and forth in front of a black curtain dotted with lights (see above!), spouting political and cultural commentary sprinkled with Yiddish phrases.  So, basically, Jackie Mason was my grandparents, their neighbors, friends, tennis partners, and everyone else with whom I’d ever come into contact at Jericho, Long Island’s own Piquet Lane Tennis Club.

When my friend Kyle heard that Jackie Mason’s upcoming performance of Jackie Mason:  The Ultimate Jew would be his last, he nonchalantly visited Mason’s website.  Lo and behold, he came across an item that signals what may be the Internet’s own version of "jumping the shark."

Jackie Mason has discovered YouTube.

The first half of the video is only mildly entertaining, but for three reasons:  1) Jackie Mason is talking about viral videos (specifically, "Obama Girl"), 2) Jackie Mason’s face lift should be enough to scare Lisa Rinna from any more dates with Dr. Rey, and 3) the stock graphics, "funky" background music, and awful lighting on Mason as he stands in what is likely the gaudy foyer of the Upper West Side townhouse/condo in Boca. 

But by the time you hit 1:33, you will witness one of the most horrid displays of senility to ever happen.  Not only will you learn that Jackie Mason owns a sheer shirt, but he also has itsy bitsy baby nipples.  The two cameras, both on tripods, capture every sickening moment of Mason’s striptease to The Weather Girls’s anthem "It’s Raining Men" with exceptionally awkward purpose.  It’s as if the camera operator (whose hands we see flail randomly at the very end) has awoken his/her mentally-decaying uncle, slipped some meth into his Metamucil, and told him to do his best impression of Marilyn Monroe.

My friend Brian recently referred to my longtime hobby of collecting lowbrow cultural artifacts on video as a form of "cultural anthropology," I couldn’t help but agree.  Maybe – just maybe – a child will one day ask, "Who was Jackie Mason, and what was his most extreme and repugnant method for sharing his political views?"

Well, now you know, children.  Now you know.

The O.C. + SNL x Imogen Heap = Meta-parody Paradise

As television, parody, nostalgia, and the Internet become increasingly incestuous, someone out there (specifically, a writer from North Carolina) has taken the reigns and become an INTERNET GENIUS! Chronologically speaking, we begin with the dramatic finale from The O.C.:

[Source: Overtime Comedy]

Tell Me Something Good

From The New York Times
“Chaka Khan is planning to join the musical production of “The Color Purple” in January as Sofia, the strong-willed character portrayed by Oprah Winfrey in the film version”

Are you sure about this, Chaka? I hear there’s an opening for Pumbaa over at The Lion King. At least there, you could wear onstage what you wore to work.