As much as I did like The Wrestler, I totally love Darren Aronovski and I think it is always good to see someone transcend some level of self destruction like Mickey Rourke did through playing The Ram and then winning Best Actor at the Golden Globes; the relentless cheering at the announcement of his triumph reeked of self congratulations to me in much the same way that Jennifer Hudson winning the Academy Awards did.

It really seems like things like this are set up in no small part to propagate the myth that Hollywood is the land or organically fostered dreams and that it is not entirely about politics and insanity. Everything worked for Rourke, marketing-wise for this film and he won.

It was sort of similar when Russell Crowe won Best Actor at the Academy Awards and he went out with his private school haircut, suit and father’s medals on and opened up with the line “G’Day Folks” just to hammer it home that he is the physical embodiment of thick masculine ruggedness. I mean, he’s from New Zealand the land of sheep farming, for Christ’s sake. It all felt like an entertaining routine for the relentlessly bored Hollywood Exec.

There was a sincerity in what Mickey Rourke said as he accepted his award (the part about his dogs particularly) but he’s looking awfully well styled now that he’s the personification of transcendence and hope. Perhaps he could have dinner with the Obamas and blind us all forever more. [source]

The former vice presidential candidate for the Republican Party, who shall remain nameless because printing her name only encourages her to keep talking and issuing statements to the press which are crapulently addictive in the same way gummi bears are even though you know that they have no nutritional value and about twenty minutes after you gorge yourself on them the darkness creeps in like the Angel of Death and you just wish your income tax would calculate itself, is in fact issuing statements about how the media’s treatment of Caroline Kennedy as a woman in the public eye will help to clarify whether she herself was exploited by the media elite.
Because it’s totally all STILL about you, isn’t it dear?
The interesting thing about said former vice presidential candidate is that apart from her red neck appeal, the main angle she had was that she is a woman and so it really comes as no surprise that in order to keep fostering public interest in her, she has to keep reminding the public that she is a woman. Second to that, the point is that sure she didn’t actually succeed in taking office in the White House but that is in no way really her fault. That is the fault of all the elite leftists in the media.
The Huffington Post writes:
Palin also complained about reports suggesting that Trig Palin was not her son and said she was "frustrated" by rampant rumors about her and her family. However, mainstream media stayed away from such rumors, which were fueled by bloggers and others online and the supermarket tabloids.

"I wasn't believed that Trig was really my son," she said. She called it a "sad state of affairs."

It is a sad state of affairs but I really think that any frustration she felt or still feels was as a result of not profiting more from whatever press she got and still receives. Poor dear is stuck up there in Alaska with a teenaged mother for a daughter and a good natured oaf for a husband. She’ll never win the pageant from up there. [source]

The Daily Mail in the UK is reporting that the skeleton of another strange, mysterious and incredible beast has been found on the beach in Devon reigniting interest in the dreaded and feared Beast of Exmoor that was apparently responsible for the mauling of 100 sheep. Unlike the blood curdling, fear marinated story of that weird, dry, sunburned cat like thing that washed up along the shore of Long Island a while ago, this thing is huge and is probably just a large cat like a panther, according to experts.

The actual Police had a hand in investigating the find and PC Tucker added: 'It's a good 5ft and it has black fur. It certainly looks quite beast-like with those teeth.'

I tell you, a quality beast sighting is always a good thing. It’s almost better than a celebrity sighting because beasts are so much less predictable. On a fundamental level, it’s hard to justify using the words maul, beast, and mysterious all in the same sentence when you’re talking about celebrities unless you’re talking about their publicists so I always welcome a beast sighting. Especially if one involves official confirmation that giant cats live in Britain. What an absurd notion and yet, it’s true!

Plus, there really are semi regular beast sightings too. All over the world. The places where the beasts are more likely to be real, however, always tend to be places with access to areas of higher cultural density.

There’s a mysterious monster in Africa that apparently goes around raping men at night and I’m almost certain there’s no real cause for alarm there except from whoever came up with that story. I'd be surprised if the originator of that myth isn’t an hysterical Catholic, Muslim or member of some other sex phobic religion. Reports of that African rape beast only usually surface around election time anyway.

So, in short, Hooray for Beasts! [source]

For some reason I’m having technical difficulties uploading pictures. I’m having problems with Windows Vista in general actually. It’s a complete pain the ass what with its constant need to shut off all sound every now and then and require System Restores to be performed semi regularly.

SO – apologies for the lack of illustrations.

One thing I can say is that last night I went to a book reading for one of my favourite non fiction authors, Benoit Benizet Lewis because he has a new book out called America Anonymous: 8 Addicts in Search of a Life. I haven’t read the book yet but when it arrives in the mail I totally will. I spoke with him a bit which was all very pleasant and the book is bound to be great but here’s the thing; they had a really swank buffet.

Exceptional chicken wings marinated with some kind of asian glaze, rare roast beef displayed in a kind of makeshift rose shape which I found oddly vaginal, turkey or pork – I can’t tell which because they’re both white meat and when they’re cut into semi circles you just can’t tell unless you try them and when I did I wasn’t paying attention, prawns on sticks with a variety of dipping sauces, two aioli type dips which after a while looked slightly oxidised on the top so I just avoided those. There were also salads and a delightful baguette too. There was no alcohol at that party because it was hosted by a rehab organisation and so I drank Coke and it made me thirstier than I've ever been. Isn’t the point of a drink that it is meant to quench your thirst? Coke does not care about that point apparently. I was sort of appalled. Kirsten Johnson was there and said that her new movie that comes out today is dreadful.

Also, here’s a link to an article in the London Times arguing that Tin Tin was gay. Why not? [source]

The Washington Post reports that the guest scheduled to stay at Blair House, the official guest quarters for White House visitors, during the period the Obamas had requested to stay there– a party that the White House refused to identify when the request had originally been submitted turns out to be none other than former Australian Prime Minister John Howard. BOOOO. Cue: kazoo centric introduction music as the huge curtain draws back to reveal the short and generally unimpressive John Howard. John Howard was the reason the Obamas couldn’t move into Blair House a couple of days early.

At this point, all stories about the Obamas as people are really anchored in the idea that they are the physical embodiment of hope and inspiration for America. It’s often inane but that’s the way it is. How fitting then, that on one, admittedly minor situation where the Obamas were denied being able to break with tradition and take up residence slightly early, a moment where their wave of light filled progress was sort of held up – the person at the center of it was the consistently disappointing and little John Howard.

What was he REALLY doing there anyway? The Washington Post says he's a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Honor but is that really the reason he's here? He’s not Prime Minister anymore so he was probably just on a quick tour to the US so he could cash in on the perks of being part of the Coalition of the Willing before Bush is officially out of office. Perhaps the breakfast rolls at Blair House are second to none and Howard wants to stock up before he’s completely irrelevant on the world stage. Quick, stuff them in your INSIDE pocket John. Why not ask the staff to send you a case? You can probably keep them in your freezer at home. [source]

The Huffington Post reports that Sarah Palin’s Grandson’s father, Levi Johnston (whose mother was incarcerated on around about the same day his son was born) has quit the job he had lined up as an electrician’s apprentice for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation after coming under fire from a newspaper columnist who reported that you actually need a High School GED before you can take that job. Apparently, Johnston hasn’t finished high school yet.

Let’s just recap the basic facts about Levi Johnston. He is a self described redneck who doesn’t want kids and who should be at high school but has dropped out and now has a son with his girlfriend to whom it appears he will not be marrying any time soon despite the fact that it was officially announced the entire world during the election campaign that this would be the case because if he didn’t he would be a human strike against his sort of mother in law’s political platform. Plus, his mother is in jail for drug related charges. What a crippling loss for the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation.

Is there anyone more fucked than Levi Johnston right now? Sarah Palin rushed to his defense but what exactly could that really do anymore besides aggravate?

Still, he could always make money working for Sean Cody or Randy Blue. Sure it’s gay porn and he’s straight but doing gay porn for publication on the internet would probably require no more or less squinting and pretending that he’s psychologically somewhere else than his life does now on an hour by hour basis. Talk about political prisoners… [source]

The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama wants the always alluring Dr Sanjay Gupta to be the Surgeon General of the United States. Gupta is a neurosurgeon so he’s not just one of those evil doctors who appear on TV but don’t really know what they’re talking about. Dr. Phil, I’m looking at you.

Here’s the thing about this. I remember when the pope died and Dan Savage wrote about Cardinal Ratzinger who then went on to become Pope Benedict. He wrote:

But before I open the girl-power spigot, I wanna get two things off my chest: First, Ratzinger? Ratzinger! Jesus Fucking Christ. Ratzinger.

And the inference there is that Savage totally knew everything about how lame Ratzinger was and that I mean, Jesus, we could have done better than that! As though the current posse of potential popes contained someone better that any normal and informed person would have known about. Oh totally, Savage. You totally knew. You know everything.

I’m not going to pretend that I know a whole lot about who is potentially up for the role and I don’t watch Nip Tuck or Grey’s Anatomy so I can’t make a sassy and predictable comment about how Julian McMahon or Patrick Dempsey could be worthwhile candidates (although Patrick Dempsey’s character is also a neurosurgeon so …you know…) even though they’re not actual people.

What I will say is that if Sanjay Gupta is made Surgeon General then the Obama administration will be far more sexually marketable than the Bush Administration. I mean, Stephen Galson is certainly no Yasser Arafat in the looks department but I mean, Sanjay Gupta has a sparkling, professionally whitened smile and doesn’t look at day over 33. Put that next to a shirtless, gym fit President Obama with his presidential pecs glistening in the sun and you have yourself some high impact porn…sort of.

Obama’s administration is going to turn out to be many many things and sexy is definitely one of them. Isn't that reassuring? [source]

Here’s Gwyneth Paltrow’s talking about her shitting experiences on her blog. She’s talking mainly about detoxing and the menu she goes with when she wants to detox but part of detoxing is shitting out toxins. That’s right, Gwyneth Paltrow expels human waste from her body by shitting! Ok, so she doesn’t actually use the word “shit” (at least in public!) but it is probably ok to admit that the idea of her doing so is like some kind of thematic juxtaposition and that’s interesting to me.

Gwyneth Paltrow, a living zeitgeist whose entire being is at once focused on being in cleansed harmony with the universe while she stays thin enough to be a leading female movie star product who is married to an ego maniac musician, likes to detox and she doesn’t mind talking about her bowel movements. What an amazing world we live in.

“If your bowel movements get sluggish," she says. "You can accelerate things by drinking half a cup of castor oil or using a mild herbal laxative. Bowel elimination is paramount for correct detoxification.”

What a trooper. Why, she’s just like us!

It’s important for me to admit that I would totally follow that diet because it actually seems like nice food and I figure that Gwyneth probably spends a shitload on herself when it comes to health specialists. This way, I get to benefit from her costly, movie star medical advice.

However, ultimately, I’m torn between totally buying into the hype and shit-centric information she gives and the natural tendency to simply find fault with her because she is a movie star and therefore probably not actually a real person at the end of the day. Well, I mean, she’s probably a whole lot of nerves and body image anxiety and need. That’s about it though. God, it’s complex being alive. [source]

Is Tom Cruise insane or if he actually the smartest man in the entire universe equal in some ways to God? I like to think about that kind of thing a lot and I also enjoy letting it override every thought I have so I’m glad the Post has run a piece about how Robert Pritikin, the man who wrote the Rice-a-Roni jingle is suing someone because a replica of one of Hitler’s globes was featured in “Valkyrie” without copyright payments being made. Robert Pritikin bought the globe and several other Nazi artifacts and copyrighted their likeness so no Nazi group could use them to promote Nazi causes. Ok, wow – all of that really did happen.
Pritikin wants to sell all his Nazi art so he’s using this completely random event to mention that too at the end of the news piece by suggesting that Tom Cruise buy it all and donate it to a museum.
Apart from the fact that this reeks of a media savvy Pritikin using this angle to get some press so he can sell his artifacts, I wonder if this is all part of a world dominating plot by Tom Cruise to repair his freakish image and to promote the film.
After all, the film is the third highest grossing film at the moment and that’s after a series of apparent set backs during its production not the least of which were based on Tom Cruise’s personality being “unpleasant”. All that bad press kept us thinking about a film that really had no reason to be any worse than anything else when you consider the cast and production values. Here were are again wondering about conflict that is connected to Tom Cruise and it really only serves to make Tom Cruise look like a hero and to let Robert Pritikin sell his Nazi art for top dollar. It’s win win for everyone.
Right, everything is a plot. I’m not paranoid – everyone is in on everything around me. [source]

I am so glad I went and back read some of New York Magazine’s Vulture blog today because had I not I would have missed Chris Martin’s interview that made me feel just great about being alive. There’s nothing I enjoy more than that feeling.

When talking about his work, the Coldplay front man and male counterpart in boredom inducing uber celebrity douchebagness to Gwyneth Paltrow was quoted as saying:

We feel bands need to fill their first 10 years, so we have lots to do before December 31, 2009.
“I know it’s stupid, but that’s kind of our deadline. We have to do something good by then.

“We’ve done some pretty good stuff, but there’s something about the year changing to 2010. I’ll also be 33 that year, and I always feel that marks a different phase of songwriting. So I just try to keep as busy as possible till then.

“Most of my heroes did most of their great stuff before they were 33. It’s not that you can’t do great stuff afterwards. You just have to have deadlines, otherwise you’ll spend all day in the sauna.”

Even though when he says "We" he’s clearly talking about he and the other band mates, the way he uses the word “We” makes him sound like he’s in a cult and his inadvertent “We have to do something good by then” is simply too easy to attack.

Aside from that, just to calm myself down and place the razor blade back in the safety drawer, I did reassure myself that I am in fact a year younger than Chris Martin so I totally have another whole year to scramble my way up to his level. That being said, the quote reads like something out of a sit com script that sends someone directly into a mid-(ish)life crisis after which they spend half an hour freaking out and being weird only to discover that actually wherever they go there they are. Oh, how wonderful…I’m nauseated. Kick ass, Chris Martin – you’re so tolerable!

Still, there’s something great – and I genuinely never thought I’d say this - about a major celebrity rock star who is always drunk on ego gratification talking about the world that is almost better than a can of frosting at midnight while watching a marathon run of Iron Chef. [source]

Scarlett Johansson went on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, blew her nose into a handkerchief and then put it in a plastic bag and sold it on ebay for $5300. Here’s the link to the actual page.
The seller included comments on the ebay page that included the earnest, slightly agitated statement: UPDATE: DUE TO REPEAT QUESTIONS ON THE SAME TOPIC, PLEASE NOTE THAT THE ITEM CAN ONLY BE SHIPPED WITHIN THE UNITED STATES…
Which means that people all over the world must have been hankering for some Johansson mucus. Plus, you just know the assistant who did that has "crazy busy" syndrome and is angry because no one knows how busy she or he is. After all, all this has to be taken care of before he or she can get that fllight back to Arkansas for Christmas. Working for a movie star is a pretty tough job! How entirely enchanting this WHOLE story is.

Ultimately though, mucus and bitchy gay assistant aside, there’s really nothing more reassuring than when people spend vast amounts of money on useless crap. I mean, sure this is for charity, but the thing is over one hundred thousand people have ordered copies of the exact shoe that was thrown at President Bush during his press conference in Iraq and that’s after a no doubt bored rich Saudi offered several million dollars for the actual shoe and one man offered his daughter as a bride for the thrower. It seems odd to me that more people would be sleeping in homeless shelters in New York City than in any other year since 1983 when records were first taken, that since the financial crisis began there are too many people wanting to be cab drivers and there aren’t enough cabs and yet, someone is spending 5300 dollars on a mucus soaked tissue.

Still, I guess it’s better than some lame bull semen hair treatment or complex fish based exfoliation experiment in Europe. Those things are just a waste of money and they are careless, frankly. [source] [source]

Pete Wentz may not be able to sell pictures of his new kid Bronx Mowgli to the gossip magazines for a tidy profit because he has principles and also because the magazines are genuinely interested IN pictures of the kid but he can still get some coverage by talking about how he has tasted Ashlee Simpson’s breast milk. Here’s the quote he graced the reporter from Pop Wrap at the New York Post with:

Can I tell you, I've tasted it. My mom was sitting here, I swear to God she was sitting here and she's like 'It's the sweetest milk on the planet, you can't even...' - I was like 'What are you talking about?' It kind of tasted, I don't really know how to explain what it tasted like - it's kind of soury weird milk. The baby loves it, it's the only thing he's had a chance to have."

Talking bluntly about things like drinking his wife's breast milk and ass fucking is more his style anyway – it keeps him slightly edgier than if he were just in a picture holding some kid with flat ironed baby fuzz. That would make him look like something other than a cool, out-there, uber hipster father with really straight, shiny eye covering hair and if he did look different than that then what would he be then?

Because if J Lo has taught us anything it’s that if you have a dwindling career the best thing to do is get your newborn offspring involved. You may not have a music or acting career but at least you can make a living. [source]

I do NOT watch “The Real Housewives of New York City” because the premise is unimaginative and crap. There are all these totally uninspiring franchises of the show too like “The Real Housewives of Orange County” which, I believe came first and also the immediately inspiring “The Real Housewives of Atlanta”. I’m culturally offended by all these shows at the basest level. Actually reality TV in general offends me. Back in 1996 or something I thought that Reality TV would be the fondue set of the late 20th Century and boy was I wrong. It’s not enriching to realize that. It is sad and crap and I feel vomitous.

But back to the point. There’s some woman on The Real Housewives of New York City named Alex McCord and she’s written a book about parenting.

My god…it’s just so obvious how this works out. Having never seen the show I can’t be sure but I warrant a pretty good guess that her children were shitty brats who got whatever they wanted and she was oblivious and or incapable of parenting them because she was too busy obsessing over status and jewels and credit cards. Ok, wait, she lives in Brooklyn so she was probably obsessing over how big and expensive and intrusive her stroller was, how much brown she could wear and how ironically enjoyable cupcakes are. God, I’m even bored trying out that angle.
So, releasing a book works because there’s got to be a percentage of people who watch that show that will just buy whatever comes out in relation to it and furthermore if Alex McCord writes a book about parenting it will tap into the rage she inspires in people because she’s probably a bad selfish child adult. That way, you can’t look away from the horror she inspires.

The thing is, I don’t even hate her because I don’t know who she is but I can just take a guess and what I come up with is lame. It’s less about her and more about the fact that something like her is viable that sucks.

Oh yeah, what’s the book about? McCord was quoted as saying:

"It's not about how to discipline. It's about things like how to get a passport for an infant when you don't have a birth certifi cate yet," she says. "It's gonna be fun."

Oh good, so I’ll put it on the shelf next to the book on how to lose weight by the fat idiot Gotti brat. Cool. Let’s find out about inane things from people who have no earthly idea what they’re talking about. [source]

I wondered what had happened to Ted Haggard, the high profile Christian evangelist who was brought down by a hooker he had sex and smoked crystal meth with – and here’s a promo for a documentary about him that promises to update us. He now apparently delivers guest sermons at small churches and sells insurance. He considers himself a loser at this point in his life. Isn’t that heart warming? It’s a little frustrating that no mention was made of the ex-gay therapy he attended as part of damage control for his public image. After all, I was hoping to find out if it worked and I’m sure plenty of people would like to know whether they won or lost money when they bet he would slip up and accidentally find himself in a hotel room with another male porn star.

We interviewed the guy that slept with Ted Haggard on D List Radio and I asked him what Ted Haggard did the minute they had finished having sex and the guy said he had written a book about it and you had to buy the book to find out. I never did find out. I imagined he would have prayed and cried and then negotiated reality with himself and then gone into damage control and pushed it way down in the dead vacant space inside him where a soul should be and continued with his day. It was always amusing to me that his last name was Haggard because it seemed to me that he was a pretty emotionally haggard guy.

One thing I've learned in all my years is that Christian evanglists tend to get freaked out by hooker porn stars. Not me; I’m bored by them. They’re every second person I meet so I’m not freaked out by them at all. All you do it pat them on the head, talk to them about something like income tax and they glaze over and wander away. Sometimes into a wall. That’s how you deal with hooker porn stars. Of course, I’m not a high profile Christian evangelist so that makes my experience a little less comparable.

Still, this documentary looks compelling.

The Post reports that there are several photos of women who have been linked to Tom Cruise showing them with cold sores. The inference here is, of course, that the common link between all the women is that they’re believed to have kissed Tom Cruise and consequently, Tom Cruise probably has herpes.

Ordinarily, I’d say this was just a story thrown in at the last minute by an editor who didn’t have much to run today but you know, this sort of reminds me of the exhaustive campaign Tom Cruise went on to prove Katie Holmes was pregnant by dragging her bloated and probably exhausted frame out in front of the media. “Look!” he was more or less saying. “I got her pregant, I’m the MAN!”

With all the other career rehabilitation going on through the efforts of Cruise’s camp – with the inane celebration of his 25 years in showbiz, the launch of his website, the Oprah interview, his appearance on the Today Show – a little item like this fits right in. It emphasises one of his primary characteristics; that he makes out with women he is married to. There’s a lineage of them too – a lineage of fine Hollywood beauties that Tom Cruise has made out with. They are all marked with the mark of the Cruise – a swollen sore on their lip. [source]

Even though Sarah Palin wasn’t elected as Vice President for all manner of reasons, not the least of which was because her candidacy was emblematic of a bullyish, cynical, anti-intellectual narcissism that appeared to plague America , it’s apparently still important that we talk about her daughter Bristol Palin’s pregnancy and that’s why the Post is reporting that the Palin grandfather has stated that it is a boy but that the kid’s parents have no name picked out yet. It’s due tomorrow. Additionally, Levi Johnston’s mother, Sherry L. Johnston, was just charged with six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Isn’t it interesting at this safe point to think about the last election as a kind of Faustian fork in the road? America could have taken the red pill and gone the way of car donuts on the White House lawn, a drug addicted white trash second mother in law, teenaged pregnancy with a resentful alpha male bully father being roped into a life of forced public visibility and a “Second Dude” as the VP’s husband. The great part about this being something we see explicitly now, with a Democrat president like Barack Obama firmly in place is the fact that this is something we see explicitly now with a Democrat president like Barack Obama firmly in place.

It’s important for the media to fixate on this because the way the Republican Party dealt with it was so completely about papering over the cracks with unbelievably transparent and unrealistic lies regarding the fact that Levi Johnston and Bristol Palin were to be married, despite the fact that Johnston’s myspace page lists him as a redneck who doesn’t want children, that the longer the saga is drawn out, the more likely it is that the Palins will end up caving in and we’ll find out the full extent to which they really are unfit to run a gas station let alone the extent to which their social ideals have no practical application. The money shot will be documenting the essentially irrelevant Palins as they acknowledge failure and defeat. Failure and defeat are gratifying when you're watching TV and it's someone else.

So, yes, the two kids are still unmarried despite clear assertions that they would marry prior to Sarah Palin’s nomination and Levi Johnston’s mother is a drug addict who was just arrested. Surely they deserve at least a reality show. [source] [source]

Argentine soccer player Gaston Aguirre killed a pigeon with a single shot -- right off his foot. "I kicked the ball and, poor pigeon," the San Lorenzo defender said. "Now I will be remembered as the pigeon killer."

I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say that this reminds me of the time Rob Lowe was playing golf in Iowa and the ball he hit not only killed a bird mid flight, it killed a Goldfinch, the state bird. No one could really pin that on Lowe because it’s pretty unlikely that a person could calculate killing a bird inflight with a golfball. I mean, he would have to be some kind of God to be able to do that and Rob Lowe is not a God.

unless...

No. Rob Lowe is NOT a God.

This situation with Gaston Aguirre is less “interesting” because pigeons are vermin of the air who sometimes hobble around on stumpy, fungus infected stump legs and have terrible cases of scaley face which I’m sure is the bird equivalent of leprosy, at least aesthetically. In that sense, because they are less attractive and are lower on some kind of bird niceness scale, it matters less.

Additionally, with sentences like “I kicked the ball and, poor pigeon” Aguirre sounds mildly neanderthal – not unlike, if you will, the good natured giant in “The Princess Bride” who was played by Andre the Giant.

SO – ultimately, it’s bad luck that Aguirre killed a bird by killing it but he should take heart. With notoriety like this he could get enough press to warrant his own reality TV show. It could either be a show about poor children learning to play soccer or it could be about how long he can survive while trapped in a cage filled with very angry and possibly forlorn pigeons. That show would be called “Payback: it’s Pigeon time” and every week would be the same half hour distillation of the full 38 minutes Aguirre spends in the cage per week to pay off his karmic debt. Commentary would be provided by Katie Price and the President of France. Only. [source]

Season 2 Online Premiere - Flight of the Conchords (US Only) - watch more funny videos

Also - Here’s the ENTIRE of the first episode of Season Two of Flight of the Conchords.

Tom Cruise was on Letterman to talk about Valkyrie but overall as part of his career rehabilitation and he read out a list of the Top Ten Craziest Things People Say About Tom Cruise.

It would seem that if you’re going for the whole “humanise me” angle, particularly in the wake of the career horror that Cruise suffered after he fired Pat Kingsley, then you really should be trying harder to be softer and lighter. Cruise was wooden and stoic with Letterman and none of the points were particularly edgy or “hilarious” – except number 4: I believe all emotional and psychological disorders can be cured with Vicks Vapo Rub. I wonder just how many PR executives had a hand in sanitising that list before it was cleared for the show.

Although, if you want to talk about putting your ego aside for the sake of the work then I guess he should receive props for at least attempting to reach out to younger audiences by going on the discussion show that is broadcast after The Hills. He actually sat there and talked about how Spencer Pratt should have planned a bigger wedding for his wife and smiled. That was gutter level inanity and anyone who has to suffer through that shit and actually does should be given some kind of credit.

I’ve taken to eating these ridiculous meringues because they’re vanilla flavoured. The thing is, I would actually probably see Valkyrie and I don’t quite get why it has been denigrated so much. It has been pushed back plenty of times and sure, Cruise doesn’t bother with an accent but why is that so bad? Wouldn’t that make it just that bit more accessible to Americans who hate to watch things that differ terribly from the familiar?

Tom Cruise is talking to Us Weekly and he’s saying he would love it if Suri Cruise became an actor. He actually said this, as in – this is the quote:

"I'd love it. I'd love it," he told Usmagazine.com at the NYC premiere of Valkyrie on Monday. "Acting is ... a great life to get to entertain people and create characters and stories."
No matter what his children do, "They have the life that I wanted," Cruise said. "I always wanted to travel the world, to be developed by different cultures, learn about their history.

The reason he says this is because he gets to do two things. One, he gets to talk about how he’s an entertainer first and foremost which is his main concern seeing as his foray into being an advocate for Scientology wasn’t smart business practise and two, he gets to remind us he has a freaking daughter in the first place. Part of it is that in reality, no real, rational parent would ever want their child to go through the personality corsetting human ruination of being an actor in the way that Tom Cruise is one and so by vouching for his lifestyle and pointing at his kid everything gets put in its place and Cruise can try and get back to where he was a few years ago; on the whole not universally creepy.

I categorically deny that I am over thinking this. [source]