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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Britney Spears phoned in yet another lame ass concert of her tired old hits from years ago in Orlando and it seems people loved it despite an apparent lack of well…concert. According to People Magazine, Britney went on stage for a staggering 14 minutes and churned out the same saccharine, corporately produced, chemically addictive, music flavored product that totally worked prior to her meltdown. Problem is, it can’t possibly work now that it’s been revealed she’s actually got a soul and that it’s currently in a crippled state due to her realization that she has actual emotion; something she evidently didn’t realize prior to having kids and marrying K-Fed.

Plus, right at the beginning the backing CD skipped. No problem though, of course, she just smiled and told the audience she loved them.

So, let’s get this straight: She goes on for 14 minutes, fucks up lip-syncing as the sound doesn’t work, drags her tired, alcohol and fast food fueled body through some tired old dance routines while her 40 million dollar synthetic wig gets in the way of her face and Judy Jensen, 25, one member of the moronic Floridian audience actually says, "If Britney's going to make a comeback, it's going to be the best one yet. She looked amazing."

Well, sure! It will be “the best one yet” (what the fuck? Out of how many? How many do we have to sit through?) Except, there’s no way that Judy Jensen, 25, isn’t actually the intern of whoever is Britney’s publicist right now. But, let’s be fair – if Britney does manage a comeback it WILL be the best one yet. As long as she goes away for a while and comes back in some sensible shoes with a normal haircut and sits on stage in a white shirt, black tights with no shoes, cross legged under a stark white spotlight and proceeds to deliver a one woman show that explains everything she really went through to get to that breakdown, what it entailed as opposed to what the press showed and an acknowledgment of all the times she said yes to a corporate executive when she should have said no. THAT would be a comeback. [source]

Currently incarcerated Girls Gone Wild owner Joe Francis writing a terse reply to Candy Spelling is sort of like Tawny Kitaen attacking Florence Henderson on the Surreal Life. Sure, he might be right and sure it might be a good gutter level swipe designed to muster up some publicity but when you lash out at a cultural matron, you’re going to come off as a loser no matter what.

Still, cultural realities aside, Joe Francis battled on and gave it a bit of a go with his weekend letter to Candy Spelling from jail, also delivered to her (and everyone else) through TMZ. Because apparently TMZ is some kind of new celebrity e mail server. Click here for the original letter sent by Candy. Here’s what Joe Francis wrote back:

Dear Candy:

I don't know you, I have never met you and I don't know anything about you.

After reading your letter posted on the internet, my mental picture of you is of a lonely old woman living in a mansion in Holmby Hills with let's say 300 cats jumping around, some in their own feces.

I have tried to think to myself what would compel a woman such as yourself to write a letter to someone they have never met? Even worse, you are making up your mind based on headlines. I can understand you writing Paris Hilton a letter out of care because as you said in your letter, you have known her most of her life. Then again, it's sad and pathetic you had the audacity to post that letter on the internet instead of just sending it to Paris personally.

Candy, you don't know any of the facts concerning my situation. I am a hardworking, compassionate and honest person. I will prevail just as I have in the past because overcoming adversity is not only a part of the entrepreneurial experience but a part of life. You should appreciate this and know this more than anyone and I am ashamed of you for forgetting how hard it is to make it in this world and the people who would love to tear you down because you have. Sadly, it appears you have become one of those people.Contrary to what you have said in your letter, my world has not changed.

My business Girls Gone Wild is thriving and posted record sales last month. Most important, my friends and my family (I love you guys....) have stood by me. This whole situation will be over soon and I will be standing strong. I have never played a victim but I have always been a fighter. I will ultimately prevail in the matters at hand but I am concerned that you will die a lonely and unfulfilled person playing with those cats and posting open letters to people you have never met on the internet.

Sincerely,

Joe Francis

WOW. SNAP! And the thing is – he’s pretty much handled it really well. Sure, he comes off as a bit mean to an oldish woman but after all, he’s in Federal Prison under a lot of pressure, remembering each night as he falls asleep to the wailing and gnashing of teeth from his fellow inmates that only 6 months ago he fell asleep every night in a jacuzzi with six 19 year old cheerleading whores, drunk on Cristal champagne. What the hell is she doing talking to him like that - or, as he puts it – at all? He’s not hysterical or freaked out, it’s a pretty composed letter. He even gets in a great reference to cat feces in the beginning. Doesn’t he come off like the winner of the argument? Ah…sadly not.

Prior to this letter, Mrs Spelling also sent unsolicited advice to Paris Hilton telling her to grow up and to Larry Birkhead to make sure his hair always looks right. Everyone thought it was charming, nice, newsworthy and more or less spot on, motherly advice at the most even if it was kind of bizarre that she’d take it upon herself to actually bother. But, then, who is going to beat down Candy Spelling and make fun of her for being a dottering old lady? No one, that’s who. She’s the trophy wife of the late father of formulaic crap camp TV. She never did anyone harm. Hell, maybe she has some good advice. She’s a lovely older woman and she may as well be OUR mother, not just Tori and Randy’s.

Just as the audience of VH1’s The Surreal Life 6 saw Florence Henderson as a mother figure a few months back and immediately sided with her when 80s gutter trash groupie whore, Tawny Kitaen tore into her, so too will they see Candy Spelling as a mother figure and it doesn’t matter what Joe Francis says. People don’t like to see their mothers attacked and they especially don’t like to see their mother attacked by a childish, dried up groupie or a wealthy smut peddler. It’s the same thing with Francis and Spelling as it was with Kitaen and Henderson.

Grand matrons never lose because behind that caring smile and warming look there's a vicious animal that is always ready to kill to protect their flock.

Well, they don’t lose until they’re attacked by a grander matron. Yes, if the grand matron like Candy and Flo had a slap down, in a boxing ring in full Victorian garb that would be interesting. But Joe Francis? He never stood a chance. [source]

Week #20 in Review


During the week where Jerry Falwell died and the continuing inquiry into the conduct of US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales revealed that there were far more than just 8 Federal Prosecutors fired for failing to be “Bushies”, Candy Spelling ascertained that her new role as grandmother is actually a role that extends far beyond her own family and, in fact, encompasses any floundering celebrity who didn’t ask for help. For the second time now, Candy Spelling has written an open letter to a celebrity – first it was Larry Birkhead and gave him some information about how he should pay attention to his hair and this week was Paris Hilton with advice on how to grow the hell up. If nothing else was apparent, Candy Spelling wants a magazine advice column at the very least.

Paris Hilton was continuously given unsolicited advice via the blood thirsty press about what to expect in jail, namely that it would be unpleasant and as the week drew to a close her 45 day sentence was reduced to 23 days for “good behaviour”, Britney Spears ignored her bed ridden, pneumonia stricken mother on Mother’s Day and Avril Lavigne started complaining about how Britney’s whole breakdown routine was just to get attention; edgy unpredictable outbursts, of course, being her territory. Avril Lavigne also suggested that she would like to be in a movie but it would have to be something like “Girl, Interrupted”.

Authentic darkness was also the theme when Marilyn Manson, following the release of his new single and music video which allegedly shows him having sex with his girlfriend, was quoted in the New York Post as saying that he was suicidal and didn’t leave the house for the year prior to making his new album (except, obviously, to make the album, divorce his wife and shack up with a 19 year old). Ugly Betty star, America Ferrera’s prominent smile was insured by the company who is paying her to promote their tooth centric product, 72 year old Sophia Loren said she would perform a public striptease if her favourite sports team won a few games and it was revealed that – astoundingly enough – Joan Collins and Linda Evans fought behind the scenes of their play in Los Angeles, Legends. The play featured the two of them making fun of the fact that they attained popularity for a while by playing bitch type characters who fought on TV.

CBS announced that it would be featuring a program as part of its Fall lineup called Kid Nation which involves 40 prodigy kids no older than 18 being made to live in a ghost town in New Mexico and to build it into a functioning society, Jay Z came out with a rapping parody of Amy Winehouse’s song, “Rehab” which more or less made fun of celebrities who had gone to rehab including a mention of Anna Nicole Smith and David Hasselhoff responded to the endlessly repeated footage of him drunk on a bathroom floor trying to eat a hamburger by saying he wished he’d used a knife and fork to eat it instead of his hands.

Fort Hays University awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree to the world’s oldest student, 95 year old Nola Ochs, a woman in Tajikistan failed at an attempt to smuggle 17 kilograms of heroin into Russia by putting the heroin into a fridge and then posting the fridge by DHL, a man in the UAE paid 6.8 million dollars for a license plate that featured only the number “5”, two German soccer stars were each awarded 50,000 Euros compensation after a company marketed sex toys with their names but did not ask permission to do so and two melons that came out of the now bankrupt Japanese city of Yubari were sold for $US12000.

Protesters in Hong Kong petitioned to have the Bible sold with a warning on the cover because of all the rape and violence featured in it but their request was denied, Maggie the lone African elephant living in the Alaska Zoo was so depressed she lay down and could not get up so the fire department was called to move her and three newborn tiger cubs were suckled by a farm dog in China when their mother lost interest in them.

Catholic pilgrims to the Fatima shrine in Portugal were treated to tourist brochures that contained historical information on one side and ads for sex services on the other, a German mother drove her seventeen year old son to a jewelry store so he could rob it and she was sentenced to three years in jail and women in San Francisco were paying $1800 to have silicon injected into their g-spot to enhance sexual pleasure.

Passengers on a train in India were asked to get out and push the train until it reached a source of electricity when the train stopped and no other solution could be found, a court in China was under investigation for corruption and the investigation revealed that the court had used taxpayers money to hire a Feng Shui master to rid the court of bad luck and a man from Minnesota included a portion of dog feces in the posted payment of a fine he felt he didn’t deserve causing an office worker to be sick.

Taiwanese politicians, famous for physically fighting in parliament, announced that they would stage a publicity stunt where politicians would actually go all out and wrestle.

"They just want to steal the spotlight going into the primaries," said People First Party MP Lee Hung-chun. "Parliament should be a sacred and noble place."

Now, it seems, we’re at the point with "rehab" where celebrities can parody other celebrities’ use of "rehab" as an image cleanser because it’s been done and done and done so many times – to death even. There was Amy Winehouse's song "Rehab", which has particular satirical poignancy and Jay-Z is now re-working her satire and making fun of stars who go into "rehab" by actually naming them. All I can say is, it's about fucking time.

There is a natural trajectory for cultural phenomenon like "rehab". You have the clever parodies, then the novellas, perhaps a film or a short film, then a mainstream short film or film about a celebrity using "rehab" as an image cleanser. It keeps going until you then get the fictional retelling of the same "rehab" themed stories but with a slight twist – like those total rip offs of Harry Potter; the children’s books about a school boy Wizard named …oh, I don’t know Barry Totter or something.

The end of the first wave of the cultural narrative is the infrequently arrived at contemporary, atonal opera about “rehab” written by a sensationalist and ambitious young composer who bases the libretto on the actual Page Six transcripts.

Then, skip 40 years.

Then, at the start of the second wave, 40 years later you have the historical retrospective on what “rehab” meant in the early 21st Century. Future contemporary artists are influenced by conceptual fragments of the notion of “rehab” in their work and future film makers make clever underlying references to “rehab” that only the really old people in the audience understand.

Then, in some interview show on the future version of 20/20, an actor or musician talks about how their favourite old star Lindsay Lohan used rehab to keep her appeal mainstream. People talk about it at dinner parties and everyone nods and thinks it’s interesting.

Finally, a movie star has been drinking on set and they get in trouble. America starts to hate them and a manager remembers that dinner party he went to a while back where someone talked about how they used to use “rehab” as a way of cleansing an image. He suggests it at a crisis meeting one morning, they all go with it, check the star into "rehab" and the cycle begins again.

So, thank you Jay Z, for taking us to the next god damned level.

Incidentally, Jonathan Rhys Meyers wasn’t really ever a drunk who needed "rehab" although he did go into "rehab", this is really just another excuse to post a picture of him.

[source] [song]

Today Extraordinarily Odd


Attempts to save the children in Hong Kong from the relentless violence and rape that feature so prominently in the Bible by a petition to have the book banned were turned down by Hong Kong’s media regulator. Consequently, not only with children in Hong Kong now remain unsafe from reading about rape and violence, they are also statistically more likely to grow up to be slightly more boring, frigid, controlling, and intolerant. [source]




A woman has failed to smuggle 17 kilos of heroin inside a fridge which she was planning on sending from Tajikistan to Russia via DHL. Sending drugs in the mail is one of those “separate the wheat from the chaff” type tests. You almost get away with it but then once they find out what’s inside the package – which they do for the most basic and obvious reasons – your return address is on the package isn’t it so it’s almost the equivalent of writing a nice little letter to the police saying who you are, what you’ve done and where you’re most easily contacted. But, then, this is the only way heroin smugglers learn. You have to put it in a balloon and shove it up your ass. Then fly there in person and sweat the whole way hoping it doesn’t break on the way. It’s just like reality TV or a suspense thriller in real life. [source]




One man from Minnesota was, apparently, so disgruntled about getting a parking ticket that he send the payment along with a steaming portion of dog feces. See, now, this is the same basic thing as what we’re talking about above with the woman who tried smuggling heroin in a fridge. The real downfall with protesting through something like the postal service is that once you’ve done it, they can find out exactly who you are rather easily because you've actually more or less told them. The slightly more hilarious part about this story is the added bonus information which actually describes what it was like for the woman who opened the envelope. Brown liquid got on her hands. Mmmm. Then she went to hospital, sick. It’s so visceral.[source]

Among the other utterly remarkable excuses for television shows that make up the networks’ Fall lineups (including the show where people pretend to be pirates) there’s a show which is bound to be about as horrifying as it is genius and telling. Well, telling these days more or less constantly equals horrifying but we can go into more detail on that in every other post on this site.

Anyway – so, the basic premise of one of the most interesting shows, Kid Nation, is that you get 40 kids ages 8 to 15 trying to build a town out of Bonanza City, N.M., an old ghost town. No parents allowed for 40 days (that’s technically a day per kid – so just like with the lottery, you could technically tune in each day to see a different kid get victimized and it would never get old) and you watch and see how it plays out.

The amazing thing about this kind of concept is that there have been a couple of other similar experiments already filmed and broadcast in England that actually show what happens when you do that and every time, it’s more or less the same. Two English documentaries, named Boys Alone and Girls Alone were done based on gender though, so you had one with a house full of ten year old boys and then the other was a house with ten year old girls.

The footage of the boys became a frighteningly accurate re-enactment of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies happening in real life while footage of the girls showed a more or less similar dynamic but far more reliant on emotional attacks than physical one. Plus, there was one girl who simply refused to join in and decided to leave because she thought it was appalling how things were playing out which was kind of to her credit really. Kid Nation appears to have girls and boys together which will bring sex into it - thank god, because what would we do without under aged sex allusions on network TV?

On a basic level this show could be almost educational as it’s probably less likely that adults will be able to watch children act out the same basic things they would – reveal the same prejudices, the same animalistic tendencies – and not feel at least partially responsible. Unlike with shows like Survivor where you don't have to feel weird for the contestants because they're adults and probably stupid ones too. Unless I’m grossly underestimating the decency of adults in America – and frankly, if I am then that’s remarkable and outrageously telling on a whole other level.

While this show could be utterly remarkable in a sociological sense, the chances are that seeing as it’s being produced in America, most of the contestants will be pushed into it by viscous, Dina Lohan type show parents who have forced them, since the age of three to learn eight types of dance and who have shunned school for a vocal and acting coach. They’ll all have the typical blinding white teeth, relentless depression hiding smile, fear based ambitious and desperate axe to grind. It’ll just be 40 kids with the same 15 year plan that involves getting their own talk show at 23. Curse you Elizabeth Hasselbeck for beating a clear path from crap TV to highly paid opinion/talk gig. Look what you did to a reality TV show that could have been really really disturbing in a really healthy way. For even more reasons than usual, Elizabeth Hasselbeck deserves our scorn [source]
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Yes, it was too much for the public to bear. At the end of the day even the gas guzzling, corn syrup eating, obese, depressed American public can’t pour scorn on their muse for too long and all of a sudden Paris Hilton’s sentence has been reduced to 23 days and she’ll be swaning around in a special cell – separate from everyone else with an hour to shower every day. This, as far as cultural gestures go, is about as clear as it gets that celebrities in the US can do a whole lot more than regular people by virtue of the fact that public consciousness finds it really hard to punish its symbols of hope.

Still, you can’t just let her off the hook without a reason so, whoever it was that came up with this spin decided that Paris should get a break because of “good behaviour”.


What exactly IS good behaviour?


She emphatically DIDN’T drive her Bentley? She didn’t go out for a week?


She dressed in Laura Ashley and went to Church with her sister once – that would have knocked a week off on its own. The old Fraulein Maria defense. Oldest trick in the book.


She’s still got 23 days to knock off her sentence though, so there’s still a few massive gestures needed to get her off the hook entirely. Like, maybe she would indeed be wise to dress in full nun’s habit and walk solemnly through the streets of South Central L A penitently chanting psalms and dragging a rickshaw which the locals could ride in whenever they wanted to get somewhere. Plus, every hour on the hour she had to stand up on a wooden box and debate to an audience different moral questions. Like, maybe that free will is an illusion. And also, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there, would it make a sound?

Also, maybe she could wash up. Everything.


That might whittle the sentence down to a long weekend.


While this is a terrifying confirmation that if you’re rich or famous you can buy your way out of responsibility, the down side for Paris is that she probably won’t become the all powerful celebu-beast from time spent in that metamorphosis cocoon jail – so, too bad for her. She loses out. [source]

Today in Extraordinarily Odd



No one can accuse the Chinese of not being resourceful; they seem to use dogs for all sorts of things that we, in the west wouldn’t have even thought of. Current reports suggest 3 little tiger cubs born at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong province are currently being nursed by a farm dog after the cubs were inexplicably rejected by their mother (What kind of freak says no to a tiger cub? Maybe the mother had post partum depression). That dog just jumped in and took up the slack. One thing that’s for certain here: The job description to be a dog in China certainly isn’t lacking in potential job variation and spontaneity. Here we can see the dog is a source of food for tigers while on another day, that same dog might end up an entrée for humans. Who knows what’ll happen? Every day is a new set of challenges and excitement for dogs in China. [source]



Politicians in Taiwan, who are known for hard core fighting in parliament – as in, 2 years ago one man used tear gas to get his point across - are going the whole way and actually planning an all out wrestling match for press, obviously. Even though politicians have been quoted as saying that parliament is a noble place – it still seems to more or less runs on the principles of reality television. Is there anything that doesn’t essentially boil down to reality television? People clearly, no matter where they are, simply want to sit in front of the TV, inhaling cans of frosting while watching other people kill each other. That seems to be more or less where we are…as a species. [source]



A German woman, concerned for her 17 year old son who was planning to rob a jewelry store, decided to drive him to the store so he wouldn’t get hurt. If the essence of her concern was a motherly one – in the sense that as a mother she had great concern for her son – it’s interesting that she never considered what would happen to her other kids if she went to jail. Which she now is, for three years. This was no white trash 19 year old ho either, she was 36. [source]