First the whole purple fiasco

Is nothing sacred? If I wanted a candy bar I already had dozens of choices.

Guess who's back?

This (scroll down to North Shore Returns) is kind of old news, but I couldn't be happier about it. Back on TV and as a complete and total bitch-face. Woo-hoo! This is obviously very similar to Heather Locklear's arrival at Melrose Place, but then, when I was in seventh grade, I had no idea who Heather Locklear was or why it was exciting she had joined the cast. I just wanted her to stop breaking up Billy and Allison. Here's hoping Shannen can do for North Shore what Heather did for Melrose.

The end of an error

I’m over stimulated. It's been a really long day: euphoric and nervous and long and hot and exciting and now exhausted and sunburned. The Times already changed their march headline three times, most recently from, something like "Hundreds of thousands protest GWB" to "Vast Anti-Bush Rally Greets Republicans in New York," because everyone is scared of numbers. Well, there were hundreds of thousands of people there, all peaceful and positive despite this being the hottest day in the last month and the fact that some of us didn't move even a block for over 2 hours.
I got home and showered and then went to watch the Video Music Awards, which I won't apologize for. The show sucked, due entirely to the absence of Britney, Madonna, or some other up-and-coming substitute who could have done something, anything of the slightest bit of interest.
What was most noticeable about it was MTV’s continuing commitment to non-partisanship and an appearance by both the Kerry girls and Bush twins exhorting people to vote. Re the first- MTV’s non-partisan stand. I find it incredibly infuriating. I can understand that a TV network has an obligation to neutrality. What infuriates me about MTV is that it remains neutral not due to some greater sense of journalistic/ MTVistic integrity but only because they don't want to alienate any of their audience. And while this is and “should” be the guiding principal of any and every successful television station, I'd be willing to bet almost everyone who has anything to do with MTV is a Democrat and I just wish they'd have some damn balls about it. And, while musicians have the same concerns about alienation, it’s a little surprising to me that no one said a word about taking sides, just about voting (except, of course, for Ad-roc who sported a very quiet anti-W pin). I wonder if they were asked not to.
But maybe I’m wrong about MTV’s politics. The Kerry girls, after all, were booed. Maybe because they were in Miami, and the crowd was mostly Republican, or maybe because they were in Miami and the crowd was mostly 14 and really, really annoyed that someone was holding up Hillary Duff's appearance. The second is a real possibility. The audience couldn’t seem to shut up for anything, except to wave the Virgin mobile phones they’d been handed in a crazy bit of product placement. And then Mary-Kate and Ashley’s surprise appearance (NYU is in the midst of orientation) made at least one member of the audience break out in tears: MK & Ash, the Michael Jackson of the tween generation.
The booing of the Kerry girls, who were saying nothing particularly partisan, and who were joined by the Bush twins via satellite, was also disheartening because it reminds me that America is not NYC, and though it felt like almost everyone in the city was protesting this afternoon, that doesn't mean the majority of America agrees with us. And even though the march was peaceful and we didn't "play into Republican hands" by scaring the rest of America with our anarchic tendencies, it may not have mattered at all. The front page of USA Today doesn't say a word about the march: it does say Bush is now ahead in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

You Gold Girl!

I swear, as much as I hate the Post, their headlines make me laugh.
Thoughts on Carly Patterson: someone, somewhere in America really, truly loves that girl but it ain't me. She really is the next Mary Lou Retton, another high-pitched linebacker I don't care about. She was obviously born to go on a box of wheaties, but she's so middle American, in her "I Heart Glitter," have overly tweezed eyebrows, smile through any and every occasion, and only use the words like, gosh, and omigod, that I just want to renounce her.
And what it is about American gymnasts sounding like they're on helium?
And what is it about male athletes sounding like they're on helium in particular? Mike Tyson, David Beckham, Paul Hamm, anyone?
And, when the ladies get set to go out and compete, do you think there's a blind man sitting at a table with overstocked '80s eye shadow who assigns them colors on their way out the door? "Carly, you get bright Blue. Chinese pixie girl, you get bright green. You, over there, you get Chartreuse."
What I really didn't like about the women's gymnastics final was that it didn't look easy. When those ladies got on the balance beam it looked really, really fucking hard. And of course it is hard, I couldn't walk across a balance beam without cracking my head open, let alone flip down the length of it. But the best athletes do extremely difficult things with so much grace and skill that it looks easy. Not a one of those gymnasts did that last night. Great, you stuck your landing, but it's not quite the same when you're swinging your arms like a windmill and seem surprised yourself that it worked out. I guess that's the difference between a 10 and a 9.8whatever.

Carly Patterson = Tara Lipinski?

I've been watching the Olympics fanatically, or as fanatically as one can watch them when one doesn't have a television. And as fanatically as one can watch them on someone else's television when one already knows the outcome of events because of fanatically checking the New York Times for updates. But, for all that, still pretty fanatically. I didn't, by coincidence, know the outcome of the men's all-around gymnastics final; it turns out though, sports movies with the exact same plot are actually edited better, so still more exciting.
As I was watching some swimming event yesterday it occurred to me how really, really weird it is that we live in a world where human beings spend their entire lives training to swim back and forth in water as fast as they possibly can. For no reason. Just to see if they can go back and forth in water faster than any other human being has before. And really, all those swimmers who just qualify or get booted in the semi-final who have donated the first 20 years of their life to swimming know they aren't faster. They're just doing it because they like it. Which is as good a reason as any, I guess. And I really do like to watch swimming, so I'm happy that there are these people who just do nothing but swim, but swimming of this kind is pretty obviously of absolutely no use to anyone anywhere.

Get on with the show

This latest chapter in the United for Peace and Justice/ Central Park/ Bloomberg saga makes me insane. Could it make the protest movement look any worse to say, paraphrasing Leslie Cagan, UPJ's national coordinator, "many people, including representatives from other groups, vowed not to attend the rally if it were held at the highway." Are we protesting because it's easy? Because it's on a nice stretch of green? There's certainly an argument to be made that the city is trying to "marginalize dissent" (though I wouldn't be the one to make it), but that shouldn't turn dissenters away, it should make them louder. Any wanna-be protester that wouldn't protest because they don't like the West Side highway has their priorities totally out of order.
I think it's much more likely that UPJ got the sense that people would bail out of the march before it snakes around to the highway. Folks would march up 7th to MSG, and then leave. It is, after all, inconvenient and "sun baked." Undoubtedly there would be more people gathering in the Park. But again, better to do what we can with what we have than to do nothing at all.
The most likely outcome of all this, that they don't get Central Park and don't use the West Side Highway (if the ultimatums are to be believed. And worse than an ultimatum is one that's not honored), suggests UPJ doesn't need or want the extra space, but they don't want to look like they don't need or want it so they get in a pissing match with the city as a way out.
But all the hoopla just takes attention away from the meaning of the march and makes its organizers look like amateurs. The city may be the real assholes in this situation (after all, what is the big deal about the Park?) but that's not how it’s playing. Now it's playing like the organizers made a deal and are backing out of it because they miscalculated their own support.
I don't think they did; this march could be in the middle of the Hudson River and there'd be close to a million people there protesting Dubya. It's time to end the route debate and turn out the crowds.

Whales can jump?

My snaple cap "Real Fact" #46 is "Elephants are the only mammals that can't jump." This made me think about Hippopotami and Rhinoceroses jumping. Silly.

The French Connection is shelved under foreign

I just tried to rent Speed at Blockbuster and they didn't have it. Your probably thinking, "Why would anyone want to see Speed?" making you like the guy behind the counter, who asked me the same thing. The correct answer to that question, by the way, is "Because that movie is great." Yes, it is. Even if you disagree, it should still be carried in Blockbuster. It's not an arty movie. It's not a little movie. It's not a good movie. It should be at Blockbuster.
This is a particularly bad Blockbuster, there are basically only new releases, nothing is really alphabetized, and there's a very vocal and socially awkward, learning/mentally disabled man who sometimes greets you at the door and will follow you half way around the aisles asking you if you need help even after you've said no. And, The 400 Blows is shelved in the action section. Because of the title?
On my way out, I saw a young man with this piercing that looked like an inch long toothpick was sticking out of his chin. He must never kiss anyone.