Today in Extraordinarily Odd

What with being so obsessed with making sure their employees have the right to assert moralistic intolerance on whoever they want by not filling prescriptions they deem to be sexually immoral AND with making sure that their employees are shafted out of basic employees rights to health care in the US, Wal Mart’s head office in the US has dropped the ball on what guns are marketed to children in China’s Wal-marts. The Chinese government has seized a wide array of toy guns from a Wal-Mart in Shanghai because they are too realistic and realistic toy guns are partially outlawed in China. Way to fail, Wal-Mart. FAILURE [source]


School teachers in a South Korean girls school were so racked with panic and fear and terror and the disapproving internal voices of their strict but long dead parents that in order to increase their chances of winning a band competition, they put on the school uniform and played in the band alongside the less proficient students. Well, at least they were considered less proficient according the standards of their stern taskmaster teachers. Who doesn’t love a grueling, staggered arrangement of a medley from Disney’s Aladdin, eternally stripped of all enjoyment and drawn out for several minutes longer than it should be. Why ruin it with aspiration or a quest for excellence. Shame on those teachers. [source]

All eyes should remain on the Spanish town of Reus where the newly elected mayor has promised to regularly dress as Elvis, paint the town hall pink and turn the town square into a nude swimming pool. What’s the bet everyone gets all offended now that they’ve elected a madman to public office. Either that or the town of Reus is more evolved than any town in the West.[source]

With an album on the way and a single out, well, look it’s time for another internally upsetting dose of the entirely predictable attention whore, Marilyn Manson. We already had the music video where he’s apparently having sex with his yelping teenaged fill in since Dita von Tees and he divorced. Then we had the carefully placed Page Six item which stated that, aside from divorcing his wife and shacking up with a younger version of her, recording an album, making a music video and any other time he left the house, Manson had been so depressed over the last year he hasn’t left the house.

So, what’s to do when you’ve got an album to promote to a demographic of 14 year olds who fancy themselves as depressed, rebellious misfits? Well, you survey the pop cultural landscape, identify the figure getting the most attention and then lay into it, thus attaching yourself to the proverbial bandwagon.

Cue Manson’s latest reactionary ego massage:



Who was shooting this and who made the final decision which suggested it was done? What the fuck is it anyway?

“Oh, yeah…I think we really got to the place we were aiming for with that Marilyn. You really hit the nail on the head with it. Good work. You’re so focused right now…wow…are you working out?”

And yes, obviously posting about this enables him, obviously. [source]

Apparently, one of the biggest concerns that has surfaced in relation to Lindsay Lohan’s seemingly endless demise due to her chronic reliance on alcohol and drugs and boundaries to cross is all the cash she is losing because of her new stint in rehab. Svedka Vodka has pulled out only now. Because at THIS point, the combination of Lindsay Lohan and vodka is distasteful, not at any point prior.

This is just like when Britney Spears raced around smashing cars with umbrellas and shaving her head. The moment she shaved her head, the investors backed away and if you scrutinize that it indicates quite clearly that, just as it is with America Ferrera’s smile and Jenna Jameson’s vagina, Britney’s power is stored and sourced from her hair.

No hair? Apparently, no deal.

In the case of Li Lo, she was able to edge closer and closer to officially turning her liver into foie gras but it was only the point where she was literally photographed, pale and dead looking in a car, completely obliterated and finally numbed to a safe distance from her internal emotional horror that Svedka started to re think it’s association.

After all, she’s done rehab plenty of times. Rehab isn’t the deciding factor and really isn’t even a legitimate past time anyway. Hell, I want to go to rehab in LA, it sounds like the most fun you could have in that soulless, death ridden, hell hole. And fuck Svedka for being so utterly sycophantic. In the absence of a party where LiLo gives out gift bags with Svedka in them, here are the two brands side by side. Just so we know to associate the two in the future – against Svedka’s wishes.

So, in short – getting drunk and smashing a car is costing Li Lo an arm and a leg. [source]

And, just as expected, Michael Lohan, the estranged Lohan father, isn’t just concerned with his daughter’s well being. His ulterior motive is slowly becoming more evident as it’s revealed that not only is he jumping on the LiLo gravy train the minute he gets out of jail by talking to the press about his Christian concern for her well being but he’s also interested in raising 15 million bucks to open a rehab center on Long Island…with the critically acclaimed Stephen Baldwin who is now a right wing Christian. Ok, wow – who knew Stephen Baldwin was still alive let alone a right wing Christian? Still, maybe he needed all the theistic support he could get when he realized he had made films with Paulie Shore.

Anyway, good on Michael Lohan for getting relevant and involved the smart way; by becoming the anti-Dina. He’s more or less embodying every single thing Dina Lohan publicly isn’t (repentant, religious, self aware, concerned) in an attempt to clip the jumper leads from his life support system onto their kid. It would really be the only way to get close to LiLo anyway. Play the repentant, ex jail bird with insight to offer. It’s almost like, when you reduce away all the bullshit, Dina and Michael Lohan are playing the parts of Satan and God when it comes to their daughter. Or, those tiny little devils and angels that appear on cartoon characters’ shoulders. Except in this case one is a conscienceless show mother and the other is a self flagellating ex-con father. Why is it that this all sounds like the premise for an hilarious sitcom? [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd

Microsoft has finally stepped up to the plate and filled a gaping chasm in the market that was crying out, yearning no less, for a way to insert a computer screen into lounge room living by inventing the Milan Coffee Table. The Milan is your average coffee table but it contains enough software to control the western economy, all workable from the computer screen top. So now, you can do all those things you didn’t get done at the office secretly while guests enjoy their cashews and beer and the children drink lemon flavoured soda and read old copies of National Geographic from 1974 while not speaking. [source]

A driver in Germany was casually driving their Volkswagon, the official car of the Third Reich, along the Strasse and wanted to park somewhere. Spotting a path that descended into the ground that focused and clear headed driver simply headed toward the path and drove straight down it – only then realizing that the descending path was in fact leading into the subway. Who are these people? [source]

As part of China’s PR push to seem pleasant and a “willing participant” in the “world”, China is cleaning up its act, shutting down filthy restaurants, installing expensive spittoons in cabs and hosting the Olympics and Expo. They’re now also hoping that the Great Wall will be voted into the list of “Wonders of the World”. Chinese officials are nervous that it won’t make it so they’re urging the Chinese people to support their campaign. And by urge, it’s assumed they mean “kidnapping family members in the middle of the night and cutting off food supplies until the general populace succumbs. [source]

A million dollar 18k gold bath tub that weighs 80kg (that’s 80 kg of stainless steel and gold in the shape of a bath tub) was stolen from a Japanese Hotel and the plice and hotel people have no idea who stole it. Sounds like the premise to another Oceans movie with Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and George Clooney. 100,000 people have apparently bathed in that bathtub and so consequently the movie would have to be about stealing that bath tub WITH all 100,000 people who have bathed in it, still inside. Who knows if they can do it. Guess we’d better watch to find out! [source]

Oh, what an enjoyable story to wake up to; Britney Spears had to be carried out of the men’s bathrooms of an LA Hotel Bar because she was vomiting uncontrollably over a toilet bowl, the vomit was pouring down the front of her, her make up was smeared and her (albeit fake) hair was a total birdsnest mess. The report suggests she was relentlessly vomiting all over herself; really just bringing up liter after liter of acidic bile and projecting it uncontrollably all over herself. Oh, well now that’s just lovely isn’t it? The legitimate news is always so bad and shocking but here is a lovely little break from that. It’s a story the entire family can enjoy. The report doesn’t mention the extent to which Brit Brit’s huge and shocking amount of half digested food (which she threw up all over herself in the men’s bathroom) got all over the floor though, so, we’ll wait for more information on that.

But, regardless, her smeared makeup and tattered hair mixed to a desperate look of quiet frenzied desperation all seem to point not only to her barreling toward a full on truck stop hooker aesthetic when it comes to fashion – prompted, perhaps, by a delayed homage to Anna Nicole Smith after her sort of recent death (God, it feels like a year ago with the massive lull in hourly coverage from TMZ.com).

Additionally, Britney was quoted as saying: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Things aren’t going well for me at the moment.”

They sure aren't!

And it’s only natural to assume that here she is referring to the recent concerts she sold tickets to in Florida and San Diego. The apology is a bit late but better late than never.

Also, it seems like what’s really happening here is Britney’s body is violently expelling the remnants of her old corporate self before it starts to rebuild itself and move forward to a slightly more edgy and at least vaguely human career. Hell, compared to her old corporately constructed public profile, becoming a marketing executive for a fur trade company would contain more evidence of human life. . [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd



72 year old Katsusuke Yanagisawa from Japan climbed Mount Everest and in doing so he broke a world record. He started on April 8 and finished on April 22 officially set the record for being the oldest man to do so today. It takes a while to get that “official” status when you break a world record and the last person to do it owned the record because he was 70. What that means is that he should do it every year until he dies so he can keep the record. The previous record holder has got to be really taking this hard – after all – how the hell is he going to break another record now? He had all this personal life meaning tied up in that record and now, it’s all gone. It just goes to show, never invest your energy in anything because someone will always steal it. Stay inside and be safe. [source]



A bride in Malaysia peered into the spilled entrails of a cow and saw the name Allah arranged, it can only be assumed, through the random fallen placement of cow bowel and colon. Consequently, she has ascertained a bright future for herself. What remains (ha!) to be acknowledged by the woman is that the entrails, the very ones that spelt out the name Allah, were originally alive and inside that cow and yet, they didn’t do her much good, did they? [source]


Basically the gist of this story is that a bunch of English people got together over the weekend and threw cheese down a hill and then rolled down after it in an official competition. Clearly, there’s nothing that remarkable about that. After all, who DOESN’T do that kind of thing on a daily basis? Well, unless it’s American “cheese”. American cheese doesn’t really muster up enough realness to warrant throwing ones self down a hill after it. In fact, American cheese isn’t, when you get down to it, cheese…at all. What is interesting about this story is the headline: Daredevils dice with danger in bonkers British cheese chase. Now there’s some quality copy editing."There's no training you can do for this," said the battered winning tumbler; 25-year-old Jason Crowther, proudly clutching the seven-to-eight pound (3-3.5 kilogramme) cheese. [source]


It really was only a matter of time before the stupidity seeped across the border into Canada. They were holding out for so long but the membrane-like border has been pierced and Alberta is only a few days away from opening up its first Museum of Creationism. For those at home who don’t know what that is, firstly, congratulations and secondly, it’s a building that is designed to look like a museum that explains the idea that God created the world in seven days just over 3000 years ago and it does that by mimicking the nomenclature and institutional structure of science. If you do that, it means it’s rational and reasonable. Little cards with information on them and model displays equals true. But, why should I write more here when the good people at the museum themselves have presented a little film that explains how reasonable and on the money they really are. Enjoy:

[source]

At a certain point news stories anchored in the earth shatteringly new angle that Lindsay Lohan has been acting like a total and utter fuckwit for attention isn’t news anymore. For a while you can look at her situation, examine what she symbolically represents to American culture and global pop culture, figure out why she’s popular, marvel at how entertainingly fucked up her useless white trash family is, be appalled at her enabling freeloader mother and enjoy the train wreck spectacle for what it is; just another train wreck. After a while, however, it's really just more of the same.

So, LiLo’s been charged with DUI and she had coke in her car. Ok, so there you go. It’s not surprising, it’s not even new but now it’s happened. So, just like Paris going to jail, Li Lo – our sometimes muse – is in actual trouble so she has put herself back in rehab, will probably go through a public stint with a lawyer, conjure up the old Fraulein Maria defense routine where she dresses like a pretty little nun, reads and doesn’t go out, the teenaged girls in the Midwest who idolize her with cry, distraught without irony they will clamor that this is SO UNFAIR and the carefully positioned friends of Li Lo will talk to the press about how she’s taking rehab seriously this time blah blah blah.

And the other thing is, maybe the parents are tag teaming. Dina has had her go riding the kid to free entry and free drinks and now Michael is taking the reins for a while because he’s got the whole born again angle which could help her personality overhaul in the media. Plus, the great character twist with Michael is that he’s a convicted felon so no matter he does with Li Lo now there’s always that underlying potential for self destruction that could happen at any moment which is reassuring. Plus, you know he has an axe to grind being in jail and watching his kid get rich and not being able to take advantage. It’s actually sort of like the Count of Monte Christo but in Hollywood and with white trash freeloaders.

The fact that we’re still talking about her doing the same thing is the story here but even that story is pretty tired. Why is America so obsessed with rich people behaving badly. In this instance: Oh, GOD, who cares? If you haven’t figured that out by now then JESUS, what have you been DOING? The real question that remains, which apparently no one else cares enough to ask is…who is left for us? We’ve got Avril Lavigne (sigh), P!nk (seems to be outgrowing it at the moment), The Duff sisters…ok, so there’s something interesting. The Duff sisters still lack irony and are playing it slick, clean and saccharine.

Alright, one more teenaged diva crash and that’s got to be it. All eyes on the Duff sisters until they fall off the cliff. After that, it’s back to our REAL lives. And this time, I mean it.

Week #21 in Review

ps. This week's review is a bit shorter than usual as I was in Vienna, Austria from Thursday the 24th to Sunday the 27th covering the Life Ball for DNA Magazine. As a result, the information below does not include information from Friday 25th of May. Reluctant Whore is back on track starting Tuesday, May 29.

Britney Spears continued her assault on culture and the United States in general by continuing to appear in public and charge fans money to see her perform. Appearing at several events in Florida at a mercifully reduced ticket price of 35 dollars, many Floridian audience members were astounded and thrilled by how great they felt she was on stage for each of her 15 minute sets, one of which included a major sound system malfunction which left her having to face the back wall. Madonna’s brother, Christopher Ciccone, who was at Britney’s Miami concert, was quoted as saying, however, that his sister would never be seen on stage “looking like that”.

Rosie O’Donnell and Elizabeth Hasselbeck got into one of the biggest and most aggressive verbal arguments that have occurred on The View between them since Rosie began on the show in September of 2006. The fight prompted news media across the US to call in the talking heads to discuss the cultural implications of the fight. The tragic last moments of Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez that were caught on film were posted online and, weeks after it was predicted on Reluctant Whore, the New York Post published a rumour that Candy Spelling may be getting her own advice column. The Post announced this after Girls Gone Wild producer Joe Francis wrote a public letter back to Candy Spelling via TMZ.com putting her in her place after she offered him some somewhat harsh yet unsolicited advice about how to personally handle his current legal woes. This was the third letter she has written to a celebrity with her perspective, the first two being to Larry Birkhead, then to Paris Hilton.

American Idol reject and temporary American zeitgeist Sanjaya Malakar made a film in which he claimed to be a 25 year old Industrial Design student from the Rhode Island School of Design named Bill Vellner who had invented the character of Sanjaya as a component of his school work. It was later revealed to be a hoax produced by Will Ferrell’s website, www.funnyordie.com .

With her jail time drawing ever closer, Paris Hilton attempted to clean up her party girl image by being photographed dressed more or less like a nun, carrying a copy of the Bible and a book called “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle and Anna Nicole Smith’s half sister, Donna Hogan was interviewed in relation to her book about Anna entitled, Train Wreck, during which she suggested that she too wants to pose for Playboy and she is planning on getting breast implants to do so.

With Britney Spears in the midst of actual emotional turmoil, the heavily constructed anti-establishment persona that is Avril Lavigne was feeling out shone in the edgy pop tartlet stakes and so she picked a public fight with Hillary and Haley Duff as they’re more or less the same type of product as Britney but they’re still keeping it professionally perky.

409 people were reported to have clicked on an online ad that promised to provide them with free computer viruses, an Indonesian fisherman caught a fish that was believed to have died out 80 million years ago and a woman in Tajikistan attempted to ship 17 kilograms of heroin to Russia by hiding it inside a fridge and shipping it there by DHL (she was caught).

A woman in India, upon seeing just how dark the skin of her intended fiancé was, declared she would not marry him on the day of their wedding and in response, he starved himself outside her door until she gave in and married him and a statue of Bhimsen in Nepal started sweating which, if history is anything to go by, spells major misfortune for humanity everywhere.

Giant African rats became a major problem in Florida and local wildlife officials were mobilizing to lay down poison to kill them, scientists produced a study that revealed dolphins off the coast of Wales make noises that contain a specifically Welsh intonation about them and the same cultural variation was found to be true with dolphins all over the world.

Catholics in Croatia are now able to e mail their prayers to St Anthony in a new initiative set up by the local church, a chastity belt and wedding dress were found amongst other items left at the Iberian airport and were later auctioned off, an American tourist went for a walk completely naked in a German town causing many of the locals to complain and a female hammer head shark in Nebraska reproduced with no evidence of male involvement. Despite the biological rarity of such an event, scientists noted that this phenomenon is not entirely uncommon among a wide range of animals.

“It’s all over the place,” Dr. Schuett of Georgia State University said.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd



Dolphins off the coast of Wales actually make noises that have Welsh inflections claim scientists who have spent a while professionally wondering about whether or not that’s actually the case. It is. and what’s more, dolphins off the coast of Ireland do the same etc. It is also at this point that you’d insert an hilarious joke about how dolphins in Ireland drink and fight and seem to have a global case of small man syndrome and how dolphins in Wales spell words in ways that don’t look like they sound. And also, that they have a Prince who is in line for the DOLPHIN British throne. Yes, this is where you’d find those clever references. [source]


Maddeningly large African rats have invaded Florida and now local wildlife officials are faced with the task of getting rid of them. They’re laying poison etc. Ok, great so but maybe it’s also indicative of a much bigger and more hysterical, religious based terror that is about to befall the entire of humanity. Perhaps this is the ACTUAL Apocalypse. Maybe the details were wrong in the Bible. First Britney goes mad and sort of churns out some sub standard dance moves on stage in Orlando and Miami and now, the local government is forced to deal with what is obviously a growing giant rat infestation. The demise of a pop star and an infestation of rats. This version feels slightly more culturally relevant that Four Horsemen. These rats are HUGE too. In New York they’re average sized but they’re viscious and full of hateful intolerance. In Venezuela, at the foot of the Andes, rats are white with light brown spots and they’re not as filled with an appetite for blood and filth as their New York relatives. In Africa and now Florida, they’re massive. It’s probably corn syrup based. Is there a central point to this post? Yeah, nah. [source]


And while we're on the topic of extraordinary stories about animals, here's an amateur clip that was posted on towleroad. Truly extraordinary stuff. [source]

What is it; some kind of family legacy? Just ride something. ANYTHING. Just RIDE it until you’re famous and rich. It’ll happen. Actually, that might go well in Latin on a floating ribbon that encircles Virgie Arthur’s family crest. Perhaps I’ll write a letter to Virgie suggesting it. In the meantime however, Anna Nicole’s half sister, Donna Hogan, is trying to ride the Anna Nicole train to some form of ultimate notoriety and acclaim by essentially becoming Anna Nicole or at least positioning herself as a kind of authority on Anna. She’s laying all the right foundations too.

First up, she’s written a book called Train Wreck (no word on whether or not it includes complete sentences) which is her own “insider version” on Anna Nicole. Good. That’s a good first step. Here, she’s essentially setting up her cultural anchor to relevance in a primary source.

She’s also coloured her hair to look like Anna and she’s quoted in the Post as saying she wants to get her body where it needs to be to pose for Playboy. Namely, to stuff her chest full of silicone and…well, now here it gets tricky. She SAYS,

“I just want to get my body to where I want it and I'll be ready to step in and do it . . .”

which could either mean that she’s wanting to seriously fatten up on buckets of uncooked donut batter and strawberry frosting and then staple her top lip up so it permanently shows off her liquid paper whitened teeth OR she needs to starve away that double chin so she can appear in a magazine. Either way, she’s acknowledging that she’s not at her optimum body just yet. Ok, good on her.

At the end of the piece, Donna Hogan is quoted as saying:

"I don't even believe Anna thought she would ever see any of that money. It was just a tool she used for keeping the media interested in her."

It’s funny because if you took out the subjects, you could end up with a quote that could essentially sum up Donna.

“I don’t even think Donna thought she would see any of that Playboy based notoriety. Shamelessly sponging off the memory of her dead sister was just a tool she used for keeping the media interested in her.”

Oh, what the Hell, Anna’s dead. Someone’s got to carry on the “12 year old mind in the body of a greedy, truck stop whore” family legacy. [source]

Well well well, look what’s happened. The New York Post reports the rumour today that Candy Spelling may be getting her own gossip column and doesn’t it all just fall into place like over cooked meat falling off the bone and onto the serving platter? (The answer is “yes”). Why, only the other week I predicted that her unsolicited advice to people like Joe Francis, Paris Hilton and Larry Birkhead by way of TMZ was nothing more than a ploy for a gig and ultimately attention.

Sure, Old Mrs. Spelling might have been spurred on by the fact that her maternal instinct seems to have suddenly and unexpectedly defrosted with the birth of her grandson and, sort of like when you stop taking anti-depressants and all of a sudden you feel actual emotion again, it went into overdrive. That’s got to be part of it, but no one who has maneuvered their way into the position she’s in, in soulless Los Angeles no less, writes open letters to a gossip website without some scheme in mind.

She should stick with what she’s doing though; advice. Gossip doesn’t seem to befit a woman whose power is tied up in her matronly maternal appeal. She’s the contemporary, rich, Los Angeles based socialite Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served. Oh, no she’s not, I just wanted to put that in there. Anyway – I knew I was right on track about Candy Spelling. [source]

In a moment of triumph for lesbian sharks who are single mothers that lobby for social equality, a hammerhead shark that gave birth in a Nebraska aquarium reproduced without mating. This isn’t the first time female animals have been pregnant and given birth to young without the aid of males. Last year there was a Komodo Dragon who, around Christmas time did the same basic thing except they lay eggs.

Yeah, that's right... Christians inclined towards their own particular brand of comedic rhetoric went breathlessly mad making jokes about the immaculate conception etc. Oh, that story proved to be a real riot – especially when the joke’s punch line ends up being fumbled endlessly by people eager to promote their religion by way of a pregnant iguana.

Just after the alpha lesbian shark got knocked up in Nebraska, virgin births by white spotted bamboo sharks were reported in Detroit.

Does this mean that sharks are the first species to evolve to a level of self sufficiency that shows a disconnect between ongoing inter-gender socializing and pregnancy; something that could be a scientific pre-cursor to explaining the biological significance of sexual diversity? It just may!

“It’s a last-resort tactic that animals use when they absolutely can’t find another mate,” Dr. Hueter said.

and...

“It’s all over the place,” Dr. Schuett said.


And well, look. They’re doctors so they’d know wouldn’t they? But here is another option. Maybe keeping sharks in separate tanks based on gender promotes the same kind of behaviour in sharks that Catholic school does in teenagers. They just work around it and then, further on down the line – after being pumped full of inane “abstinence only” education those secret late night rendezvous between frightened school kids, or in this case, sharks who are in denial of what they’re doing actually ends up CAUSING more pregnancy than it would if they were just taught the truth about sex education and if they were allowed to hang out at lunch.

I had a fishtank with a couple of fish in it and they not only managed to jump out but they managed to jump out through a tiny opening in the top of the tank. I mean, how did they find that tiny hole? They only have a three second memory. They must have really wanted to get out of that tank and die. Think about it. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd



People with computers are just as stupid as people who don’t have them according to stats of how many people clicked on an online ad offering free viruses to anyone who didn’t have them. 409 people clicked on the ad put up by Didier Stevens and so, if we were to hazard as guess as to what it infers about people, it seems more than likely that as soon as people see the word FREE anywhere all reason shuts down and they just simply comply. Anyone who doesn’t comply is managing a slight level of anxiety within because at the base of it – people seem interested in “getting” as much as they can for as little effort as possible. Hooray. [source]


Turns out that the Pope was actually spot on when he cunningly predicted that, “Computer technology is in the future” a few months back in response to being given an iPod. What an absolute visionary old Hitler Youth pants has turned out to be! It’s no WONDER he’s now the head of an entire religion. Computer technology not only in the future, it’s actually in the present too (which, technically, WAS the future when you think about it from the perspective of the past meaning that the Pope was right in two different ways, at the same TIME!) as Catholics in Croatia may now e mail their prayers to St. Anthony. E mailing prayers to saints is, when you strip away the dogma and arbitrary avoidance of reality, the adult version of writing letters to Santa. All you have to do is log onto the Veritas Magazine website (only someone in magazine publishing could come up with something as inane as this to push up daily hits on their website) and then a Catholic priest prints them out and takes them to the site where St. Anthony’s remains are kept. [source]

Most of my usual sources were coming up with pretty lame oddball stories today so I've opted for a selection of quality film moments from TV and the web. It really shows a cross section of American pop culture at the moment actually with the final moments of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopez caught on camera, Rosie O'Donnell gnashing her teeth at Elizabeth Hasselbeck, and the preview for Michael Moore's new documentary about the American Health Care System, "Sicko".


So, you've got celebrity death, celebrity yelling and national illness. They seem to fit together quite well.

Leave it to some bitchy Miami queens and their tranny friends to sit in the back of a Britney Spears concert and spit venom over how bad she actually is. Madonna’s brother, Christopher Ciccone was quoted in the Post as saying, as he watched the show, that his sister would never go out on stage looking the way Britney does.

To which his entourage of local c-list queens who span the gender spectrum no doubt pursed their lips and nodded furiously looking at each other to ensure they all agree but always bringing their focus back to the only member of the Ciccone family they’re likely to be allowed near - being careful not to spill their cosmopolitans.

Yes, it just feels like people still drink cosmopolitans in Florida. But, you know what - thank GOD someone in Florida isn’t so culturally numbed by the tiresome tasteless flaunting of new money on Ocean Drive and strip mall blandness of everywhere else that they can actually see that Britney Spears is mildly off her game right now and they’re not afraid to say it.

Only the other day she performed in Orlando and more or less crawled out on stage chewing gum and flicking her 40 billion dollar hair extensions like she’s childless and 3 years younger than she actually is, mimed to a skipping backing CD she no doubt downloaded from Limewire on someone’s sidekick on the way to the venue and then fifteen minutes later walked off stage to go fill her gullet with whatever the hell cancer laden strip mall chain restaurant garbage passes for food in Orlando – and, $35 later (they mercifully reduced the price from what it was in San Diego for more or less the same thing) the clued in audience were cheering that she was brilliant. Wow, what a soul crushing bargain that concert turned out to be.

So, in short, while it’s a bit eye roll worthy that Christopher Ciccone had to remind everyone that he’s related to Madonna, he’s still one step ahead of Britney in the sincerity stakes and what the hell has he ever actually done? [source]

WHAT? A short video that shows Sanjaya Malakar explaining he is really a 25 year old industrial design student named Bill Vendall who created the concept of Sanjaya and consequently, Sanjaya never even existed? Well, now I’d like to see that! Oh, LOOK! I God damn well CAN! My GOD, it’s extraordinary! TMZ claims it was sent an "hilarious" video of Sanjaya Malakar admitting to being Bill Vendall.

Are we actually to believe that Sanjaya Malakar REALLY is a 25 year old student? It’s sort of like the American Idol version of the Blair Witch project. It’s so much cooler this way. But, sadly, it’s really far more likely that Sanjaya is just starring a film where he plays a man who says he is playing Sanjaya. When you consider just how unlikely it was that Sanjaya could even get that far on American Idol without being kicked off for having no talent, its actually a genius career move. Hell, TMZ aren't quite sure what to make of it. They had to call it "hilarious" just in case it's a joke but if it's not, it's still funny! Either way, they don't look stupid if they laugh immediately but you just know they're not sure. Deep down. And that, it seems, is the entire point.

Seductively free from fear, self doubt or anxiety, his totally sweet ethereal, lithe teenage boy with a killer smile angle was enough to inexplicably get him past the usual standards for American Idol due to popular vote. So, what becomes increasingly apparent is that as his appeal is anchored in being this muse type character, in order to stay relevant he doesn’t need to go out and actually learn to sing, release an ironic album or endorse hair products for three weeks and become type cast as the hair centric talentless ironic joke and then fade into obscurity only to be taunted by morons who watched him for the rest of his life.

He just needs to keep people guessing and frankly, even if he IS Bill Vendall – I don’t freaking want to know. All I know is, I’m buying whatever he’s selling. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd




Just like when the police confiscate things and then auction them off at a lower price later on for charity or whatever, people lose things in airports and those things are auctioned off as well. And when people lose things in airports its likely that they are crucial components to daily living because they were packed for a trip. Which is why it’s really cool that not only did someone find a male chastity belt and several wedding dresses (we can only assume they were both to be at the same time by the same weird, fat arts administrator late at night in an underground club in Berlin) but ALSO that an auctioneer had to present it and then wait until someone sheepishly bid on it. [source]




An American tourist went for a walk through a German town completely naked and people complained. The police stopped him and he was stunned that they cared, stating that he assumed that walking around naked was perfectly fine in Germany. It’s so interesting how the first line of this news story has to make sure we all know that the tourist was American. As though that somehow explains the craziness. It’s far more likely that the man was under the perfectly reasonable impression that it was ok to walk around naked in Germany as it seems like, next to high quality German design, sausages, beer and genocide – Germany’s main export is dark sexual practices celebrated in the open. Like eating shit and smiling about it. Germans complained but did anyone ask them specifically what was wrong? It seems far more likely that they were upset he wasn’t on all fours wearing a leash and squealing like a pig than that he was naked. [source]






Clearly, there’s a global epidemic of galacticly stupid criminals at the moment because a thief in New York City just broke into a local politician’s home, robbed them and left a resume and set of house keys behind. When the woman in Tajikistan tried to send 17 kilos of heroin to Russia in a fridge via DHL, it was sort of like sending a letter to the police explaining what she’d done and where they could find her. This is much much closer to that in a literal sense. Mind you, in that it’s a New Yorker, you’ve also got to factor in that they were a messy combination of hyper ambitious and out of their mind. [source]

Because she’s more or less the human embodiment of all America's self loathingly desires, most of the gaping holes in Paris Hilton have been filled pretty effortlessly over the years. Hell, it was a versatile relationship; she filled the gaping void in America and helped people to avert attention from their horrifyingly common lives and in return it filled her gaping holes with adoration money and anything else...mostly on camera.

Now, with her jail time growing ever closer (13 days to go….) Paris seems to be looking for new options that won’t necessarily get her infected – at least with the wrath of a moralist judge. Cue: religion ….again and also reading(!) First she was seen using the old Fraulein Maria PR defense by dressing as a nun and going to Church with her sister and now she’s been photographed with a Bible in her hand and another book, the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (which extols the virtue of living in the moment).

But, this isn’t the first time Paris has turned to religion when times have become tough. When Madonna was on the Christ-like bandwagon for Kaballah and everyone in LA was wearing red string bracelets, Paris had just broken up with some guy, maybe it was Nick Carter – I’m not that interested to really assert myself to find out because the point remains the same anyway - and to get over it she bought a 75 dollar bottle of water and a 50 dollar piece of string and then went on a long drive. All that Kaballah inspired meditation seemed to work too because at the end of that drive, fresh in the knowledge that she’d spent money – Paris was more or less recharged and ready to get out there again.

So, in addressing that mysteriously deep chasm in Paris Hilton that so much has been pushed into and in which nothing has stuck…yet, let’s hope this time the Zeitgeist finds solace in the Bible and in living in the moment. The “moment”, at this point, seems to be 23 days long and locked behind bars so unless she slams her own head against the wall and dies, living in that moment might be rather a challenge.

The other explanation for her Bible alignment is that, as she heads into the cocoon to become and even bigger celebubeast, she's taking on several different forms so as to appeal to as many different types of people as possible. She's expanding her appeal beyond the non-thinking middle American teenager, moron twink homo go go boy and sexually infantile trucker.

Today in Extraordinarily Odd




An Indonesian Fisherman was out fishing and caught what was thought to be an extinct fish. It was believed to have died out 80 million years ago which means that science was wrong and therefore should never be trusted again. This fish could very well be the key to a Republican victory in the pending presidential election. [source]




A bride in India was about marry a man when she saw just how black her future husband would be and decided that it wasn’t going to work out. So, naturally, the husband sat outside her house and simply starved himself until she changed her mind and now they are to be married and will certainly live happily ever after. With a premise like that what could possibly go wrong? [source]




A sweating statue of Bhimsen in Nepal has locals sweating in anticipation of dreadful events to come and so people are naturally flocking to see it. They’re flocking TO what is supposed to be an omen of misfortune. Is it unfair to suggest that a sweating Hindu idol is the cultural equivalent of rubber necking on the New Jersey turnpike? Let’s all just make a trip to see it. If it doesn’t fill the pointless void within hell, maybe the misfortune won’t be over by the time we get there and we can take photos of the pure panic on the local faces. Good old religious superstition. [source]

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