Throwback: Gershwin, Wodehouse, Superman?

• So for the past couple weeks I have been trying to find a copy of Vanity Fair, I confess I am rather infatuated with the magazine. It has everything, gossip (Dominick Dunne), high fashion (which I cannot afford, but enjoy drooling over), and interesting articles (that tend to have a nice slant left). But I cannot! seem to find the magazine, it is most distressing. Considering this is Cambridge, I would have expected to be able to find it easily, but instead all I get is Cosmo, Vogue, blah and double blah.
• They just showed a trailer for Superman Returns. It seems awful. I don't want Kevin Spacey to play Lex Luther. I want the Smallville guy to play him. He makes bad look good. (Yes, I am fully aware of how ridiculous and cliche that sounded). Err... I am afraid that the movie will ruin Smallville for me. That would be sad. There is a reason there isn't a Batman TV show. It just complicates things.
• So I went to the Pops tonight. It was my first time, and I loved it. I happen to be a Gershwin fan, which just made it even better. Rhapsody in Blue is my favorite. We played it in Orchestra. But he has great show tunes too... 'Somebody to Watch Over Me' and 'They Can't Take That Away From Me'. And it got me to thinking, there are some really great old songs. Like Nat King Cole songs. He's so good! It's possible that I may know the words to all his songs... I wonder if people will ever look back at the songs today (e.g., Britt, U2, Gwen, etc.), and consider them to be 'classics'.
• We were asked in class to recommend a book everyone should read before they die. It was a hard choice, a really hard choice. My most favorite book ever is Piccadilly Jim by P.G. Wodehouse. I laugh out loud (literally) every time I read it. The cover has nearly fallen off because I have read it so many times. But as much as I love it, it is pure fluff. No substance what so ever. So I suggested East of Eden instead, which is fabulous. Plus James Dean was in the movie version, and although the movie version bears no resemblance to the book what so ever, he is nice to look at. My only concern is that people might think I read the book after it became an Oprah Book Club book. I hate the Oprah Book Club. I was sad when she selected East of Eden as one of her books. She ruins and trivializes books by putting them in her book club. She can't seem to recognize the difference between Great American classics (e.g., East of Eden) and crap written by Wally Lamb.
• Go Pistons! They got lucky in Cleveland yesterday. Here's to hoping they bring it in Detroit. Although Drew Carey thought Cleveland rocked, he was clearly! so wrong.

Uncomfortable Funniness

So when I read the quotes from Stephen Colbert's stint at the Washington Correspondent's Dinner, I thought they were pretty hysterical. But actually watching him talk, it's really uncomfortable. And it must have been even more uncomfortable sitting in the audience. I mean are you allowed to laugh at lines like:

Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash

The point is it is the heart-warming story of a man who was repeatedly punched in the face, so don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say that 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing?

So, the White House has personnel changes. And then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring! If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!

Still there were some great very laughable lines. These ones probably got fewer
laughs than they deserved.

Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center and a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar

Tony Snow. Secret Service name: "Snow Job." Toughest job. What a hero! Took the second toughest job in government, next to, of course, the ambassador to Iraq. Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else.

FOX News gives you both sides of every story: the President's side, and the Vice President's side.

Check out the video for yourself http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879

Bush III

Is America turning into a monarchy? Well, Bush's approval ratings have hit the all time low of 29%, that probably rival's Herbert Hoover's ratings during the Great Depression when the poor were starving in the streets and rich financier's were blowing their brains out after the market crash, lower than that of the world's most embattled royal - Prince Charles. But then again, Prince Charles was only guilty of making love (to someone who wasn't his wife), whereas Bush is guilty of making war (on lots and lots of people). That perhaps could have something to do with it.

Now onto the case of Jeb, who Bush the other day stated would be a "great president". All Hail Jeb I. quite frankly, all Jeb has going for him is the fact that his approval ratings are higher than his brothers (not a mean feat by any means) and that he bears a strong resemblance to an older, gluttonous Henry VIII.

While the Bushs' may wish to build a dynasty, it's not going to happen barring some dramatic Rove engineered Rove-around. The most telling indicator that the Bushs are going down is the fact that Rupert Murdoch is organizing a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. This is the Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, Hannity and Colmes, Bill O'Reilly fame. I wonder what those guys have to say about the whole thing.

An exceptionally good quote from the New York Post (a Murdoch rag)...

"The 'Dynasty' reunion got exceptionally low ratings on TV and there's no reason to think that this dynasty reunion would do any better."

More Random Thoughts

For those of you who actually read this blog, you may have noticed that I have lots of random thoughts. Here are a few.

• I read this pink book, Family Trust, last week. I expected it to be good. It was by the same author as Legally Blonde. But it was wretched. Positively wretched. One of the main characters was supposed to be some financial whiz kid. Reality check - having spent more than a significant amount of time in the world of financial services, she is a figment of the imagination... pure fiction. Once I realized that at 24 going to night school for an MBA while managing the Morgan Stanley equity research technology group was non-plausible, I rapidly lost interest in the story. Likely you will too. Need a good pink book? Try Sex and the Single Girl, it really was rather amusing in a 1950's sort of way.
• Tiaras really are a lot of fun to wear. Sadly I cannot be a princess.
• Big Brother is back. No, not the TV show, which I believe was finally officially cancelled. But Big Brother (aka. the Bush Administration and the NSA) have been collecting data from the phone companies on what numbers we have been dialing. So as Mr. Bush keeps telling us that he is "fiercely protecting" our privacy and not engaging in any "mining or trolling" through our lives, the NSA is doing just that. Mining the data to find calling patterns that will help them find terrorists. I am all for finding terrorists, but do you really need mine, everyone's!, personal information to do this. Quite frankly, I feel the government is violating my trust, privacy, and constitutional rights.
• Chris Daughtery, Idol loser, becomes Fuel frontman. That's crazy! But then again, I also thought it was crazy that Brittney Spears got as big (in the fame and $$ sort of way, not the preggers sort of way) as she did. Not to mention Christina who is trying her darnedest to channel the drag queen version of Marilyn Monroe. But anyway, back to Chris. I didn't watch much Idol, but I thought he was good. And back in the day, I did love Fuel.
• You gotta check out this site: http://www.youtube.com, it has literally every single video of anything you could ever want to see. Amazing!
• How can anyone not love to see the Bad Boys dominate? The Pistons as per usual rock, and are at the top of the East and have the most wins overall. Yeah take that Tony Parker. The things that make me sad... poor Allen Iverson. He is like the awesomest player ever. Besides KG, also a sad story, what the heck is going on in Minneapolis? But somehow Philly just isn't hot these days not even with a transfusion of Chris "I love to hog the ball" Webber. That boy is bad news. I hope they cut him loose. In the mean time, nothing could me happier than seeing the Lakers go down, see Shaq be humbled, and see the Wallaces' carry the Piston's to another Title.

What Is Going On?

These days it seems that Sin City has moved to DC. Is everyone in DC a felon of some sort? The list is surprising...

• Karl Rove - I figured I'd start with the big kahuna. Given that the investigation is still! not over and Rove keeps getting called back to the Grand Jury, either Patrick Fitzgerald has a man-crush on the evil-genius, Republican-mastermind, destroyer of all that is good or Rove is going to be indicted (praise the Lord!).
• Scooter Libby - Sure he outed a CIA agent to help pave the way for the administration ill-advised and ill-fated war in Iraq, but things are looking up for Scooter. It's possible he might have some company in his hard, dark, cold cell in the form of one Karl Rove.
• David Safavian - I never thought procurement was very exciting. But as the chief procurement officer of the OMB, a position that requires little in the way of gray matter but provides access to tons of dough, Safavian spent time playing golf with Abramoff in Ireland. Who's he kidding? Free trips and golf for kicking a few contracts Abramoff's way... must have sounded like a good deal.
• ex-Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham - Can there be a more apt name for a pimp? Well, it makes sense given that he was one of the key members of what is being called "hookergate". So not only did he accept cash bribes from defense contractors, he also accepted women. Errr... talk about your dirty old men.
• Kyle "Dusty" Foggo - What is with these names? I, for one, am no longer going to trust anyone with a strange pornstar-ish nicknames. And what is with the whole sex, money, and defense contractors drama? Perhaps female government officials should deal with unscrupulous contractors, god knows, they are less susceptible to such temptations.
• Rep. Bob Ney - Things just go from bad to worse for this poor schmuck. The dark cloud of Jack Abramoff has just gotten larger with the betrayal of his former aide, Neil Volz. Volz already pleaded guilty on corruption charges and it likely to testify to Ney's susceptibility to "inappropriate gifts" (e.g., money, lots and lots of money).
• Rep. William Jefferson (not quite Clinton) - So apparently Democrats have caught the corruption bug as well. Things aren't looking up for this Rep from Louisiana, his constituents are underwater and understandably upset, his briber has confessed all, and he was caught on tape by a woman - for shame!
• Claude Allen - I always suspected certain Republicans considered themselves above the law, but typically they go for broke - bribery, corruption, and the like. But apparently, they are not above petty, plebian criminality either, like shoplifting from Target (or as I like to call it, Tarjay, French things always seem more classy). I hope he at least got something nice for all his troubles!
• Rep. Cynthia McKinney - Oh no you didn't... punch a police offer. Talk about Law & Order. In the long ago episode where they wrote off Chris Noth, he punched a politician in the nose and was banished to Statten Island. Who thinks Georgia voters are going to vote McKinney out? maybe to Arkansas?
• Rep. Patrick Kennedy - Oh, you gotta love those Kennedy boys! Whether it's driving the intern off a cliff or popping some happy-pills, we can't seem to get enough. One thing's for sure, Kennedys' and cars don't mix. Pat, if there is anything daddy should have taught you, that's it!
• And let's not forget our old, almost-forgotten favorites... like Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff, who keeps dragging the Republicans down. Keep it comin'!

And on a more random note. Just what is up with Ashlee Simpson's nose? Sure her nose was weird, but after Jennifer Grey got her nose job did anyone remember her? Jennifer who? Yeah, nuf said.