by The Cranky Media Guy

No Uglies Need Apply

Hollywood is mourning the passing of Walter Matthau, an exercise that seems a bit hypocritical to me.  Matthau was a good actor and he was absolutely perfect in The Odd Couple and The Sunshine Boys.  Ask yourself this question, though: if Walter Matthau was just getting started as an actor today, would there be any place in Hollywood for him?  He was, after all, kind of an ugly mofo. 

Sorry if you're a fan of his, but Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't strike me as all that great an actor, but he is a pretty boy, isn't he?  Right now, in the Age of the Superficial, it doesn't seem to be talent that sells.  If you're cute, you get the gig.  Walter Matthau would have about as much chance of becoming a star in today's Hollywood as I would have of winning an Olympic marathon.  Walter Matthau, Ernest Borgnine and a boxcar-ful of pug-ugly actors from the past would all be laughed out of the casting office today.  Mourn Matthau's passing, by all means, but realize that, somewhere, at this very moment, there's a less-than-handsome but talented young guy who can't get an acting gig to save his ass.

Elian Escapes

After being held without bail for many months , Elian Gonzalez and his father were released and allowed to go home on Wednesday.  Perhaps his problem was innocence ...He should have tried committing a crime; they would have let him go a lot sooner.

I think I've figured out why the Republicans were so against Elian going home to Cuba.  Once he got back there, he was eligible to receive the universal health care that Cuba offers and we all know how much the Republicans are against that.

Supreme Indifference...

...Or at least lack of direction: The Supreme Court of the United States handed down a mixed bag of rulings in this past week. Among them;
Miranda Stays - Cops hate it, lawyers like it... cop shows would suck without Miranda.  Come on, we've all seen the part where our troubled but devoted hero throws the criminal against the wall and spits out,  "You have the right to remain silent, SCUMBAG." Seriously, given the sorry state of education in this country, it's a good idea to make cops explain to people what their rights are.
Gay People Go - The Boy Scouts can discriminate all they want, according to the judges.  Perhaps now they'll decide to be "whites only."  Yes, private organizations are entitled to choose who they wish to admit (or not admit), but the Boy Scouts have traditionally benefited from being allowed to use schools and other tax-supported facilities for their meetings.  Can't have it both ways, Scouts.  If you want to exclude certain groups, then pay your own way for EVERYTHING.  No handouts.  No freebies.
Protests Are Out - The Court upheld a Colorado ban on protests near abortion clinics. These same laws in the past have been used to step all over the right to protest in general and the current court seems to be fine with that.
So Are Babies - Even partial birth abortions are okay, according to the old farts.  One can be pro-choice and still be anti-infanticide,  boys.

The Bride Who Wouldn't Shut Up

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Darva Conger, who surely must be in her 14th minute of fame by now, announced that she has posed for the August issue of Playboy magazine.  She said that she "had" to do it as she can't find regular work (she's a nurse) and that she was sure that God would forgive her (remember she said she was uncomfortable when Rick Rockwell went to kiss her after she married him on national TV because she was a good Christian girl?)  Rumor has it that she received in excess of half a million bucks to do the spread, plus bonuses if the magazine sells more than a certain amount of copies.

E-Outta Here:

BBQ.com
Mytalk.com
Giftemporia.com

"Well, Our Paper Has Standards...I Think."

Weasel of the Week contender Michael Saylor, CEO of MicroStrategy, was the guest of an online chat with Washingtonpost.com the other day.  Saylor's company is under investigation by the SEC because of funny little bookkeeping "quirks" shall we say? that caused its stock to plummet from $333 to $13 a share in March.  Oh, you know, nothing big--just stuff that made it look like the company was profitable in quarters when actually it lost money.  We talked about this before, remember?

Well, given that MicroStrategy is deep in doo-doo and it's based in northern Virginia, the Post's backyard, you'd probably expect that Saylor got a lot of tough questions during the chat.  You'd expect that, but you'd be wrong.  Only a couple of questions touched indirectly on the company's troubles; the rest were softballs.  Gee, how'd that happen?

Turns out, the Post lets its on-line guests choose their own questions.  I'll say that again.  The Washington Post allows guests to its on-line chats to pick the questions they want to answer.  Out of roughly 170 questions submitted to Saylor, he chose 18.  I guess he just missed the ones that said things like, "How do you sleep at night, you miserable son of a bitch, knowing that you caused me to lose all the money I invested in your company?"  Yeah, that must be it--he just didn't see those.

"Some guests take on tough questions and some don't," said Post.com Executive Editor Douglas Feaver.  "We are trying to get names--celebrities and important newsmakers--but we're not pretending it's a reporter-adversarial situation...There's no question this takes some of the pressure off and makes it possible for us to get some people we wouldn't be able to get otherwise."  As the Church Lady would say, "Isn't that special?"  Picture Woodward and Bernstein dead.  Now picture them spinning in their graves.  When did the Washington Post turn into a friggin' Barbara Walters Special?  "I know you're under indictment, Senator, but if you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?"

As if to make the analogy for me, Post.com executive Vic Sussman called its on-line discussions, "a nexus of journalism and infotainment."  Maybe they should start selling the Post at supermarket checkouts, next to the Weekly World News' front page coverage of the alien who endorsed George W. Bush.

And I Forgot To Buy Richard Simmons A Card!

Sunday was Gay Pride Day and several big cities in America had parades to honor it.  I think it's fine if gay couples want to marry; basically I'm for anything that reduces stress in someone's life without directly threatening someone else's safety or welfare.  Just a suggestion, though?  If the goal of the gay community is to be accepted as just plain folks, it might be wise to cut back on the number of guys in the parades whose costumes consist entirely of leather jockstraps.  

I think everyone with two active brain cells realizes that those guys do not represent the majority of homosexuals, but they're the ones that the TV cameras are going to show most frequently.  Ma and Pa Kent in Smallville, Kansas aren't likely to vote "Yes" on Proposition Whatever if their mental image is of the Village People buying the farm next door.  I am NOT advocating going back into the closet here; I'm just saying "think 'public relations' ".  When you put your best foot forward, you might want to make sure it isn't wearing a pump.

It's A Sad Election When Ralph Nader Is The Most Exciting Candidate

The Green Party had its convention in Denver and Ralph "Mr. Electricity" Nader walked away as their nominee for the Presidency.  Nader got 295 votes, easily beating his opponents, Stephen Gaskin, a commune owner who advocates legalizing marijuana and Jello Biafra, the former lead singer for the Dead Kennedys, each of whom got 10 votes.

Yeah, okay, so the Greens are a little wacky.  They say the right stuff and Nader, God knows, is as straight an arrow as there is.  The guy gives 80% of his income to charities and causes, for Chrissakes!  After he recently disclosed publicly that his net worth was a couple of million bucks, the mainstream press tried their damndest to make him look like a hypocrite.  Why?  He's never said that it was a sin to have money; he's pointed out that what you do with it matters. 

It would be almost impossible for the Greens to do a worse job than the two traditional parties.  After the shambles the Republicans and Democrats have made of this democracy, the Slightly Silly Party of the old Monty Python sketch would be preferable.

Speaking to the Greens, talk show host Jim Hightower said that third-party agitation is what American is all about.  Agitation, he said, "is the centerpiece in the washing machine that gets the dirt out."  Amen, brother!  www.voteNader.com

"Not The Black Guy's Party"--the Understatement Of The Year

Retired General Colin Powell said that the Republican Party is dangerously close to being seen as a party for white people exclusively, especially because of their historic stand against affirmative action.

"It is certainly not seen as the black guy's party...It has not done well in the African-American community," Powell said in an interview. 

To put it another way, Black Republican representative J.C. Watts' father said, "A black man voting for a Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders."  (In case you're wondering, Watts recently told C-SPAN that J.C. stands for "Julius Caesar".  Yes, really.)