Zach Galifianakis hosted Saturday Night Live on Saturday, and he was a bit underwhelming. Like many people who are legitimately funny on their own, he was only adequate within the context of the show. After an elongated monologue that was basically his routine, he didn’t do much. Most of his involvement was—like in the sketch above—creepy background work. In three skits, he had no lines at all.
Unlike most potential hosts, Galifianakis can only play himself. If nothing else, the SNL writers usually can dress up the host to play against type for a gag. But even if you put Galifianakis in a Little Bo Peep costume, he’s still just Zach Galifianakis. One of his older lines is, “If you look like me, it’s hard to get a table for one at a Chuck E. Cheese.” And now his self-aware uber-beard persona is so funny that it’s…unfunny.
There’s something else going on here though. You get the sense that when someone is traipsing around the background playing himself what he isn’t doing is playing ball. There’s a distance there. On camera, there’s always a part of Galifianakis that seems too-cool-for-school. For instance, there’s a part of the monologue in which he talks about living in a super-hip part of Brooklyn. Or on The Hangover commentary, he pretends to be falling asleep the entire time. There’s an interview with Conan O’Brien in which he basically crapped all over his performance in G-Force.
Here’s the reason this bothers me: You don’t get to make fun of G-Force if you’re in G-Force. It’s the same song-and-dance that Janeane Garofalo used to do: ridicule how fake and empty mainstream Hollywood is, then do as much fake and empty mainstream Hollywood stuff as you can. If you choose to mock an aspect of culture, it precludes you from profiting off it.
The guy has had his share of embarrassing studio roles: What Happens in Vegas, Out Cold, Corky Romano, Bubble Boy. Yet after one sort of subversive hit, he’s acting as if he owns the world. For Galifianakis as an actor—a guy who has gotten a lot of chances and finally connected—this cynicism is frustrating; for Galifianakis as a comedian, however, this is probably a good thing.
Once upon a time, the desultory stance I accused Galifianakis as having was a comedian’s role in society. He was a misanthrope. If you look at most of the groundbreaking comics—Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison—they were people with a deep distrust of other people and the machinations of mainstream culture. Unlike the breed of ingratiating fratboy goofs that has populated Comedy Central for the past five years or so, these were dark personalities who were not easy to get along with. It’s hard to imagine getting replies from @billhicks on twitter. Looking at everything in a pessimistic light was the way people like him found comedy in places that no one else did.
If Zach Galifianakis is going to make a difference, it’s going to be as a comedian, not as an actor. So maybe we need to allow cock-eyed stardom grabs and hipper-than-thou posturing for that to shine through.
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"Texas Hearing Considers Deeper Conservative Stamps on Textbooks"- James C. McGinley, Jr.- The New York Times
I’m not the type of person to bemoan things like this on my blog but…
“There have also been efforts among conservatives on the board to tweak the history of the civil rights movement. One amendment states that the movement created ‘unrealistic expectations of equal outcomes’ among minorities. Another proposed change removes any reference to race, sex or religion in talking about how different groups have contributed to the national identity.
References to Ralph Nader and Ross Perot are proposed to be removed, while Stonewall Jackson, the Confederate general, is to be listed as a role model for effective leadership, and the ideas in Jefferson Davis’s inaugural address are to be laid side by side with Abraham Lincoln’s speeches.”
Bemoan. Is it really time to change my voter registration?
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… stemming, as is probably obvious, from this Decibel bit on Urban Outfitter’s “Classic Rock Boyfriend Tee.”
- Just so I don’t sound nuts, let me say that I do understand what the marketing category of “boyfriend” clothes is trying to conjure: some kind of insouciant grace where you’re just so fabulous that you can throw on other people’s too-large clothing and look all casual and smashing in it. Plus maybe boyish in that one small way it’s considered feminine to be boyish. Personally, I own some roll-neck cardigans that are this close to being advertised as “great-uncle” sweaters — it’s not like I don’t get the thrust of this stuff.
- Note that this insouciant grace, “boyfriend”-wise, requires you to be really thin and feminine from the get-go, because if that “boyfriend blazer” looks like it actually suits you, suddenly you’re “butch” instead. The society-approved feminine-boyish zone is awfully exclusive, body-wise — it wants you to be so small and feminine that the large men’s-clothing item actually contrasts and accentuates those qualities. (It’s also, significantly, not aimed at much of anyone above the age of 25 of so.)
"Disney Wants Women with Natural Breasts for New 'Pirates' Movie"- Cynthia R. Fagen- New York Post
Why is no one else talking about this? This none-too-veiled sexual harassment should be the Hollywood story of the year. And I say that as a fake breast apologist.
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No, because unanimus would be closer to 431-0, they used a gay voting system that time for the health care bill.
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I was into being into things before they got popular before being into things before they got popular got popular.
![thedailywhat:
Some Obscure Meme That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of of the Day: How many Hipster Cats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
What? You don’t know?
[reddit.]](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l0mse1QIYW1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
Some Obscure Meme That You’ve Probably Never Heard Of of the Day: How many Hipster Cats does it take to screw in a light bulb?
What? You don’t know?
[reddit.]
I had a dream last night that I was beginning a romantic relationship with known-AHoL favorite Zooey Deschanel. I won’t go into too much detail because I know hearing about other people’s dreams is boring—and this one is strangely innocent and juvenile—but this will circle back around to a point about pop culture, so just trust me.
My dreams are quite narrative in nature—they have arcs with beginnings and ends, for instance—and they usually make a bit of perverted sense with a little amateur psychoanalysis. In this one, I was more or less starting grad school and trying to make new friends, so I threw a party to seem magnanimous and outgoing (not something I would do). I was living in the family home of my childhood best friend and charming Zooey’s pants off (figuratively—we never had sex) by doing things like putting a blanket over someone who had passed out. That is something I would do: help someone, but only to impress a girl. I then took her upstairs to show her some footage from a film I was editing. I put my arm around her. She didn’t object.
Cut to a gathering of some kind at her house with her family. (Her dad is famed cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, but I don’t know what he looks like, so he was a nondescript, gray-haired dude in my dream.) I’m eating turkey and cutting up with them, basically assuming that Zooey and I are going out now, until the doorbell rings and in comes a guy she introduces to me as her boyfriend. Ruh-roh! You didn’t say anything about that when my arm was around you showing you rough cuts of my opening credits sequence, bitch!
While Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard is her husband in real life, Zooey’s boyfriend in my dream was none other than Party of Five’s Scott Wolf, who acted like a dick in that rom-com Other Guy way. It’s not weird for me to have a dream about Zooey Deschanel because I think about her once every few days. I haven’t thought about Scott Wolf in probably ten years.
Anyway, two elements fascinated me about the whole thing. First off, even in my dreams, it’s way too simple for a beautiful woman to just like me. There has to be some kind of a problem with it that I have to overcome. Way to go, secret opinion of self.
The second interesting thing is that I know in real life who Zooey’s husband is, but I ignored that in the dream. Morally, I wouldn’t mess around with a married woman, so that might be a part of why my mind changed things. But I think my opinion of Gibbard is a big part of this. Even though he wasn’t in it, he might be the winner of this dream. He’s a guy I respect and with whom I identify. He seems like a good dude, so my subconscious didn’t think I would be able to steal his girlfriend. Scott Wolf, however, I have no opinion of. All’s fair, etc. We make judgments like this about public figures every day. “I hate her.” “He’s funny.” “Why does he keep getting to star in movies?” But those judgments never manifest themselves into anything that matters. This is one of the only examples I can think of in which those judgments have any weight, even if that weight is imaginary.
All things considered though, I could never go out with Zooey in real life. For one thing, I would mimic her voice until she became irritated by it. Also, I don’t believe I could seriously consider a vegan as a potential spouse. Everybody has his limits I guess.
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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Everclear- “Santa Monica”
From their album Sparkle and Fade
I find myself listening to the Generation X radio station more and more on my way home from work and, while it’s depressing that “songs played at my sixth grade Jewish Community Center sock-hops” is now a demographic people are actively pushing*, I learn a lot from it. The station rotates a lot of melodic power-pop of the Third Eye Blind/Better Than Ezra/Foo Fighters/311 ilk. A type of accessible, melodic, modern rock that, mostly because of the way modes of music consumption have changed, no longer exists.
When discussing how digital downloads and YouTube have taken the legs out of the music business, we usually focus on individuals. As in, “Man, a lot of people bought Nelly records before they realized they didn’t have to buy Nelly records.” But in this case, an entire genre of music, what used to be called AOR, is gone.
“Success in music,” whatever that is in this climate, is either dictated by young girls, their way cooler older brothers, or their square parents. You can be Lady Gaga, Sleigh Bells, or Josh Groban, but no one’s talking about being the next Stone Temple Pilots. The tone has to be either deadly self-serious or archly ironic, so there isn’t really a place for a band like Everclear, who were fun-loving and, in the grand scheme of things, comfortable with their place in the musical landscape. Increasingly, adults (that hidden audience that is barely ever catered to) listen to either the most broadly mainstream music they can find, just to stay a part of The Conversation, or they embrace a stratified subgenre that will never get past the Clear Channel gates. The last earnest, old-regime modern rock hit I can remember is Hinder’s “Lips of an Angel,” which came out two or three years ago. And which was terrible.
In accelerated culture, there’s also the need to instantly connect or provoke. While Everclear’s work is anthemic and accessible, (If I can play your power chords ‘n palm-mutes song on guitar, I have no choice but to call you that.) it’s also occasionally angst-ridden. In the wake of Nirvana, when everyone was signing post-grunge, verse-chorus-verse anguished rockers, that was fine. Now, because there are no outlets with the patience for a slow-grower, it’s problematic.
In 2001, the time when this all started to change, Everclear released the companion albums Songs From an American Movie, Vol. 1 & 2, albums that are sort of about this whole idea. In other words, they saw it coming. Maybe they’re laying low and waiting for the next Nirvana Superman to open radio back up. Or maybe they’re spending their money with Presidents of the United States of America, knowing, as 3 Doors Down fans, that they’re “Kryptonite.” Or maybe, as Our Lady Peace fans, they know that “Superman’s Dead.” Or maybe, like me, they don’t know what they’re talking about anymore.
*- Plus, I’m totally a Millenial/Generation Y member. The cut-off is 1980, geezers.
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ilovecharts: justinalcon: ragbag:
f(x) = ½x + 7
it was only yesterday that i realised that the rule of thumb for dating people of different ages (the “half your age plus 7” rule) determines not only the lower bounds for dating but the upper bounds as well—that for each ½x + 7, there is a corresponding 2(x-7). for the last 15 years of my life, i have been ignoring an entire market segment, namely those of the genus cougar.
i decided to graph these equations as a handy pocket guide for when i mack on chicks in the library stacks and a few interesting things soon became apparent. for starters, if one is under 14, it is mathematically impossible to date anybody. let’s say my five year-old nephew wanted to join the scene. according to this rule, he could only date girls older than 7.5 (which he would be down with), BUT the same girls also have to be younger than -4. MATH has prevented my nephew from getting jiggy with anybody!
only when you become 14, does math allow you to begin dating—and then you can ONLY date other 14 year-olds. society will scoff at you if you ask a 15 year-old to your freshman day dance, and don’t even think of approaching a 13 year-old.
from 14 on, your options increase at a linear rate such that by the time you are seventy, you are eligible to date 42 year-olds AND 126 year-olds. so the next time that your seventy year-old auntie introduces you to her 126 year-old paramour, give them each a (gentle) nudge and let them know that you support their union.
Pretty brilliant actually.
