We here at the DHMBIB bar social club were big fans of Alanis Morissette's angsty Gen-X post-feminism 10 years ago. Sadly, she lost us with her last few albums, but we still from time-to-time wade into our CD collection to give Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie another spin [that CD was awesome!!! -- Ed.].
We also loves us some Fergie. Shut up. [pun completely intended -- Ed.]
So, it's not surprising that our hearts and ears and eyes were warmed today when we came across this video of Alanis channeling Tori Amos in a cover of the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps".
Seriously. We could not possibly make this up...
[Alanis: "Hey, Fergie! Tori! Go down on THIS in a theater!!!"]
Now, we're sure you're asking yourself, "How did DHMBIB possibly discover this gem???"
We were first tipped off to this by the fine folks over at Idolator. After watching it, we searched some of our other favorite music blogs to see if they had it too. Both Stereogum and Pitchfork have it as well.
Time stamps on blogs are notoriously unreliable as indicators of when a post was "posted", because some blogging software programs allow the blogger to "set" a time, and some blogs use the time of the host server, which may be in a different time zone from the blogger. So, determining who had this first is difficult to ascertain. Stereogum credits Pitchfork's "Forkcast" as their source. Pitchfork credits "[a tip] in our mailbox" as their source. Idolator credits "YouTube" as their source.
We're not sure which is funnier -- this video, or the idea that the Idolators -- and perhaps the Pitchforks and Stereogums -- possibly spend their day searching for the following tags on YouTube: " 'Alanis' 'Morissette' 'My' 'Humps' 'Black' 'Eyed' 'Peas' 'Fergie' "
YMMV
Monday, April 2, 2007
Video Of The Day: This Is Why We Still Love Alanis Morissette [2 April 2007]
Friday, February 9, 2007
META: Breaking: Blogger Googling Results In Loud Echo In Bloggosphere
I'm sorry this couldn't be more timely, but I was busy on other matters for most of Wednesday, and when I finally got free, my "google" went down until mid-day Thursday.
If you've ever heard the old adage that, "in the future, we'll all be doing each others' laundry writing each others' blogs", or you believe that "there are two things you don't want to see being made -- sausage and legislation blogs", you may not want to read this post.
On Tuesday 2.6, American Idol aired an audition show from San Antonio. One of the contestants shown on television was Akron Watson. Watson was shown on the air receiving one of the coveted "golden tickets" to Hollywood.
I watched that show and took some notes about it during the broadcast [sadly, I have neither a TiVo (or similar DVR device) nor a VCR (VeeCeeWhaa???)]. After the show, I worked up a blog post about the show.
Inspired by earlier work done by Eric at deathbycamera, I googled several of the contestants looking for MySpace pages, YouTube videos, etc. etc. One of the hits I received was this story on the Pegasus News site about Watson's invitiation to Hollywood having been revoked just days before he was scheduled to leave. As you can see on this page, the story originally appeared online on 1.31. No one -- no one -- had picked up on it before Watson's appearance on the 2.6 airdate of his audition. In my post, I linked to this story [with attribution] and questioned why Watson's ticket had been torn up. My post went up at 10:39 PM PST on 2.6 [1:39 AM EST on 2.7]. [N.B.: The Pegasus News article was updated at 9:17 PM CST (10:17 PM EST) 2.6, after Idol aired in the Eastern and Central time zones and after I had already found and cached the page, to reflect the fact that Idol aired Watson's audition in spite of the fact that he had already been uninvited.]
Puzzled about the lack of corroborating evidence of this story when I was ready to post my report -- I googled again, and found only the updated page [N.B.: my post reflected the updated title of the PN post] -- I began to wonder if this was some internet hoax. I went to bed wondering whether this story was on the level -- What is "Pegasus News"??? Would I have to "update" my blog??? -- or, if it were, when this explosive news would "filter" in to the entertainment websites.
I should not have been so naive.
Dear reader[s], it is at this point that I must refer you to my earlier disclosure. Take a moment to refresh yourself. Back? Okay, let's go...
On Wednesday 2.7, the entertainment bloggosphere was abuzz about the plight of Akron Watson, the contestant from the Dallas-Fort Worth area who had received the "golden ticket" on Tuesday's show but had been uninvited from Hollywood by the AI producers. Here are some representative post times -- and sources -- of some of these posts:
* RealityTVMagazine -- "10:33 PM 2.6" -- PN [note -- RealityTVMagazine.com uses TypePad for their blog; TypePad is centered in San Francisco; TypePad's website does not specify how the post time is determined or what time zone is used as the default time zone; RTVM's post did not appear in my post-post [ha ha!] google search]
[all dates below are Wednesday 2.7]
* TMZ -- 11:30 AM [EST?] -- PN via RTVM
* BestWeekEver -- 1:43 PM [EST?] -- PN via TMZ
* Stereogum -- 5:30 PM [CST?] -- TMZ
* Idolator -- time unknown -- RTVM [note: RTVM "reported this morning"]
* MollyGood -- time unknown -- TMZ
Okay, DHMBIB, we're getting tired of reading. What's your point?
My point is.... It's pretty clear to me that the big, "well-respected" entertainment sites [*cough* bloggers *cough*] RTVM and TMZ got this story the same way I did -- by googling with a search that looked something like this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22akron+watson%22&btnG=Google+Search
And the other sites [*cough* bloggers *cough*] got their stories by...reading other blogs.... If you regularly read any blogs, you should not be surprised to read that most bloggers' content is merely recycled from other blogs. Trust me -- I'm not hatin' on this method of creating content. Different blogs have different audiences, and the bloggers behind them blog what they blog because they believe their eyeballs meal-tickets readers want to know about this info, regardless whether it is "original news".
Okay, so we all write each others' blogs, and our readers don't want to know that.
[Go back and reread my disclosure.] But I am especially unimpressed with the work of TMZ here, which advertises itself as the "go-to" entertainment news blog:
" Named one of the year's 50 coolest websites by Time magazine [where is the disclosure??? -- Ed.], TMZ -- a joint venture between Telepictures Productions and AOL -- has enjoyed a meteoric rise to prominence by breaking [emphasis added -- Ed.] the biggest stories in entertainment. From Mel Gibson's DUI arrest and subsequent encounter with law enforcement to Michael Richards' ill-fated trip to the Laugh Factory to the breakup of Britney Spears and Kevin Federline's marriage, TMZ dominates the entertainment news landscape by changing the way the public gets their news. Frequently referenced by the media, TMZ is one of the most-cited entertainment news sources, utilized by national network and local newsgathering organizations across the country. "
I was the second site to have this news online. Please think about that the next time you "learn" something from TMZ, BWE, USMag, etc.
"Timing" is "everything".
Thank you. Drive through.
Monday, January 8, 2007
Nobody Puts Milhouse Pete Barney In The Corner
This picture is not Fall Out Boy bassist-lyricist-has-anyone-figured-out-why-he's-the-most-famous-one Pete Wentz, who some people think looks more like Lacey Chabert than a character from The Simpsons. It's also not Fall Out Boy guitarist-what's-his-name-oh-yeah Joe Trohman, who some people think does look like a character from The Simpsons. In fact, it's Bart Simpson's best friend, Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten, pictured here in costume on the set of the film "Radioactive Man", which was filmed in Springfield and for which Milhouse was cast to play the part of Radioactive Man's boy-wonder sidekick, Fallout Boy.
When I started doing this a few months ago, I told "you" -- not " 'You' ", or " 'You' ", or " 'You' ", or even " 'You' ", but one or two of "you" -- that some day I would tackle the burning question: "What's the deal with Fall Out Boy's 80's-pop-culture-obsession in their band name and song titles???" I mean, for example, "Pretty In Punk", "A Little Less Sixteen Candles, A Little More 'Touch Me'", and "Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner", not to even mention the band's NAME [ahem, "Fall Out Boy", which really is a mid-90's pop culture reference, but close enough] or their [awesome] cover of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
Alas, I'm afraid this will not be that some day, as it seems that not even Pete Wentz can answer that question. Famously [or is that "apocryphally"???] the band took its name from a suggestion yelled out at one of their early shows, maybe-or-maybe-not because what's-his-name-oh-yeah Trohman resembles Milhouse, even though the band [supposedly] didn't understand the [admittedly-very-obscure-Simpsons-geeks-only] reference at the time.
No, alas, this post will hook into something else not even only peripherally FOB-related -- that one of FOB's song [as previously noted] has something to do with "Baby In The Corner".
"Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner" is, as I'm sure my readers know, one of the awesome cheesy awesomely-cheesy lines uttered by Patrick Swayze in that classic 1980's coming-of-age film, "Dirty Dancing". I have wine-cooler-impaired fond memories of that film, and I'm aware that it is the favorite of at least one of DHMBIB's loyal readers.
All of that bloviation is really just an elaborate set-up for a quick post about tonight's [Monday 1.8.2007] episode of the best sictom on network teevee [last item], "How I Met Your Mother". Tonight's story: Robin's teenage [16, I believe] baby sister is visiting BigSis in New York and is "traveling with" her boyfriend of two months [!!!] who "happens" to have family in town. BabySis tells Robin that she plans to lose her virginity to her boyfriend that night, which freaks Robin out and prompts all of the characters to relive their own when-I-lost-it memories. Famously-womanizing Barney tells everyone that he lost it when he was "17 -- 16 -- 14" at "a summer camp" in "upstate New York" where he was "teaching...dance". Here's the memory as flashback'ed by Barney:
A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it...
[Seriously, how does HIMYM keep raising the bar like this??? It's got to be embarrassing for the producers of the other sitcoms on the teevee. And seriously, doesn't Jennifer Grey look great???]
As I write, the ep is not online yet at Innertube, but is sure to be within 24 hours. So if you're interested, keep checking back. But at the risk of spoiling it for you, I'll tell you that Barney eventually reveals that he didn't lose it until he was 24 [I can totes relate]. Of course, the story is appropriately hilarious, but if anyone stumbles upon this blog who is facing these issues from either Robin's POV -- or from that of her "Baby" sis, or, heaven forbid, from BARNEY'S POV -- there may actually be some valuable life lessons we can all draw from this ep:
* don't do it [first] with someone you've known for only two months [BabySis]
* don't do it [first] in the dorm [Marshall]
* don't do it [ever] in the bottom bunk -- with someone else in the top bunk [eww, Marshall!]
* don't do it [ever] at a mythical summer resort in upstate New York back in the late-50's-early-60's [Baby, and Baby's sis]..[which you can't, because, well, ya know...]
* don't ever succumb to peer pressure
* don't set it up via SMS [yes, it's 2008 2007, but still...let's bring SexyBack, please...]
* and under no circumstances should you update your MySpace page about the deed before you do it -- Robin's BabySis, I'm looking at you [yes, they name-checked MySpace tonight too]...
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Hey, Rob, wasn't this post supposed to be about Fall Out Boy? Alright, fine -- here's Pitchfork's review [from Monday] of the new FOB single/video ["This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race"]. Summary: the video is awesome...the song -- eh...And here's Stereogum on the single almost two months ago...
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I recently found out that Blogger has a character-max-limit of 200 in the "labels" [tags] field for posts. Which means I won't be able to label/tag this with all of the labels/tags I would like...Hmm...
