As you may know, I keep a Google Ads bar on The League of Melbotis side-bar (RSS readers may not know this). I don't do it to generate revenue. I just like to see what ads are spawned by the most recent posts.
My most recent posts (and the news of the day) is about the early and unexpected death of entertainment and litigation icon Michael Jackson. Apparently, the Google Ads do not miss a @#$%ing beat.
insensitive, yet tacky. click for the full effect,
Jesus H. Christ, Google Ads. I don't care if you're autogenerated or not. Let's see this as a use-case of what-not-to-do, shall we?
Jamie: ..hello! Me: The King is Dead! Jamie: What? Me: The King of Pop is dead. Long live The King! Jamie: ...what? Me: Michael Jackson is dead. Nathan sent me an article. I'm late coming home because I had to verify before going to print. Jamie: He's dead? (long pause as Jamie is clearly opening laptop and going to CNN) Oh. Oh my god. Me: Yeah. Jamie: That's so... weird. (long pause) Me: Some mixed feelings, huh? Jamie: Yeah.
I was 7 or so when Thriller hit the radio. Its got to be hard for anyone born after 1978 or so how absolutely important Michael Jackson was to the pop culture scene between 1982 and 1985. Jackson then disappeared briefly to re-emerge with "Bad",. Soon after, things would turn poorly for the entertainer.
Look, I actually really, really like Michael Jackson's "Thriller" and big parts of "Bad". And "Smooth Criminal". And so while we started to hear weird stories almost immediately (trying to buy "The Elephant Man's" bones, the zoo at Neverland Ranch), it wasn't until I was in high school that the first accusations about impropriety with a kid began to creep out. This was all pre-Internet, so the stories came from supermarket tabloid covers and shows like "A Current Affair". But during one lazy summer, MTV showed the video for "Bad" over and over. And I sorta learned the whole thing. I mean, yeah, I needed the video for reference. I'm not exactly Usher. And, yeah, it's been many a year, but there was a time when I was flopping around my living room imitating The Gloved One. Poorly.
I'm not really sure I need to fill anyone in on the details of the scandals. Either of them (younger readers may not remember the first batch, but they were there).
The truth is that I'm not really sure what the hell happened during those cases. Jackson's, frankly, bizarre and secretive lifestyle made it easy to believe just about anything.
So what do you do? Shrug at the death of a guy who somehow escaped justice time and time again? Or mourn/ pity a guy hounded by the media and possibly falsely accused of one of the most grave crimes an individual can perform?
I have no idea.
About two weeks ago I was going to do a post about latter-era Michael Jackson, but got lazy. I was going to talk about videos from "Dangerous" and the video for "Scream" and "Black & White". But... I sorta thought nobody would be interested.
And, man, it wouldn't be complete without Thriller. Thriller. This video, btw, got MTV banned in my house for a year when The Admiral spied the zombie make-up, decided it was too scary (ignoring that we'd seen the video 100 times before that), and locked it out on the Scientific Atlanta box.
We almost lost cable again, circa 1987, thanks to George Michael's "Father Figure" video, which The Admiral would mistake for soft-core pornography, until I pointed out that they don't show softcore during the 6:00 hour on basic cable.
I was out of town for the Jon & Kate big reveal episode, but DVR is a wonderful tool. Yes, I DVR'd it.
What's stunning is:
this is all taking place on camera. Whatever the show was about with the cute kids and the struggles of raising 8 kids at the same time... that's over with. This stuff would normally play out in the tabloids and result in the show being quietly shelved. Instead, TLC decided to proceed, and Jon & Kate went along with it.
In a way, its pretty savvy. With a show that airs weeks after taping (or even more quickly), the show can manage the situation to an extent and show folks more than they'd really want to see. Speculation becomes a little redundant.
Jamie tells me the episode pulled in 10 million viewers (which is absolutely enormous by basic cable standards). So I'm not entirely certain what will happen. Surely TLC can now offer both parents even larger sacks of money to keep with the show.
Its certainly different from other reality shows in that the narrative has taken a decidedly unexpected turn (will TLC now ask The Little Couple to start having issues to boost their ratings?). The conventions of the "confessional sofa", etc... have taken on a whole different kind of immediacy that a program like "Rock of Love" doesn't really muster.
One last thing: I felt bad for Jon before, and its tempting to say he's doing the wrong thing as one considers the kids. Especially as, seriously, the dude is almost giddy at the prospect of getting this over with. But I don't think his decision is wrong. One day those kids are going to watch those DVD's, and they're going to see exactly why their dad and mom split. Its that, or those kids grow up in a house where they learn that bullying and berating is how a relationship works.
But that doesn't mean I am tuning in any more. This show is now a real downer.
Goofy enough that Sanford skipped the country. But where were these stories coming from placing you on the Appalachian Trail? Who was awkwardly covering for you? Badly played, sir.
I don't think Ebert likes the new Transformers
From Jamie:
"Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.
Why don't we have entertainers anymore like Carmen Miranda? She's attractive, can sing and has a wide variety of fascinating hats.
I guess we got too fancy for the likes of Carmen Miranda and her hats, what with our rock'n'roll, internets and whatnot. But how can you not like Ms. Miranda? At one point, she was considered to be quite the bees knees. She was, after all, lampooned by Bugs Bunny and was in a great number of films, representing what was considered to be the fun times to be had with our neighbors to the south (Miranda was actually Brazilian).
You Shall Die By Your Own Evil Creation
It is too late. I am going to start an indie band just to name my second album after this new book (I keep pitching the band name "The Invincible Monster Men" to Jason, but he isn't biting). You can not use that name for your album (or band).
Anyhow, the first book (both collect the works of forgotten comic artist Fletcher Hanks) was pretty much mind-bending.
One issue that many comic geeks like myself have is that new stuff is but a photocopy of a photocopy, that we're so familiar with convention as fans, and fans as artists and writers, that its easy to argue that the wild creativity that fueled the engine of the creation of the superhero genre has been mostly lost. Imagine being at the start of a genre where there really aren't many rules yet, and you only kind of care, but you have to turn in pages... Anyway, its a wild, unmanaged sort of creativity that's being discovered here in in the 21st Century after being almost completely forgotten for 65 years-ish.
I strongly suspect its what so many of us love about Kirby's-latter-career stuff. The guy was so unselfconscious and was able to spin out a mind-bending story as someone who had helped build the medium, so he might as well continue to define it (and he did).
Sadly, Fletcher Hanks disappeared out of comics relatively quickly, and had a fairly rough life.
I don't know exactly why Hanks' stuff works for me, but it does.
Is it possible someone noticed that Bay can not direct actors or action sequences, comedy or drama? And that you can't really tell what's happening in the big-ticket action scenes?
Or is it just the case that in a sequel, once the shine of the original is off, that we sort of need a story this time around?
Best of luck to the GI Joe movie.
Best of Luck to South Carolina
Do you have any idea how much I wish my governor would go missing?
