Posts: 166

1. 

   Bang A Gong

   18.Jul.08, 13:08 EDT
   
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   The first thing you notice about Comedy Central’s revival of the television classic The Gong Show (which debuted last night on the cable channel) is that the set is considerably more subdued than the original. Gone are the flashing lights, quilted curtains, and gold glitter that dazzled us denizens of the ‘70s. It appears that Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, producer of the 2008 version, didn’t want to spend a dime on this thing.
   
   Also gone is the quirky, smiling, huggable host Chuck Barris (now 79). His replacement, the brilliant Dave Attell (of Insomniac fame), is, by all accounts, Barris’s polar opposite. The dour, chain-smoking New Yorker had little visible enthusiasm for the parade of wacko “talent” that made it onto the stage last night. But the show, which clipped along at a much livelier pace than the original, was damn funny regardless.
   
   If you are unfamiliar with the original Gong Show, the premise remains unchanged: It’s basically a talent show where outrageous guests compete before three low-rent celebrity judges (in the case of last night, comics J.B. Smoove and Andy Dick with rocker Dave Navarro) who either score them or gong them (literally) based on how preposterous the act is. If nothing else, last night’s offerings (which included a magician who pulled a bloody, fake rabbit out of his abdomen, a cavegirl/caveman acrobatic striptease, and a Milli Vanilli-looking duo that slapped out rhythms on their buff, nearly bare bodies) prove that, though over 30 years have passed since the original Gong Show’s debut, there is still a bounty of painfully bad entertainment out there. Apparently, “stupid” never goes out of style.
   
   Not surprisingly, the new show is darker, bawdier, and more extreme than its predecessor – a sign o’ the times. But it’s funny nonetheless. Attell has none of Barris’s nurturing charm, but he makes up for it with lightning-fast acerbic wit, at one point describing a performance by a pair of wrestling midgets to be “like watching a fight from really far away.” The judges, too, seem to relish in this comic spectacle. And though, predictably, his best moments from last night are unprintable here, Andy Dick is one of the funniest people who ever lived. I hope he’s on every episode.
   
   The description of the show at the Comedy Central website says it all: “Stars will be made, feelings will be hurt.” And, if next week is as good as this week, many, many laughs will be had. Tune in next Thursday at 10 p.m. EST to find out.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

2. 

   Gay Sex with Lemmy

   16.Jul.08, 13:48 EDT
   
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   Ice Cube is a very sexy man. So is Snoop Dogg. Though, previously, I’d never imagined them locked in a tight “69,” the entries at Rockfic.com have given me some naughty, naughty ideas.
   
   Snoop would be the bottom, for sure – his long, lean frame and caramel skin warmed from the California sun. Cube, the brawnier and the brainier of the two, would be spoonin' up on him -- 'cause he's in charge like that. It's gangsta love in the LBC, y'all. Holla at a playa.
   
   It’s sick and wrong, I know. But it's kinda sexy and hilarious too. Though you won’t find any rap stars on Rockfic, what you will find are lots and lots of fan-generated fictitious stories involving members of popular musical acts engaged in homoerotic liaisons. Called “bandfic” or “bandslash” (because of the punctuation involved in pairing these curious couplings), the phenomenon was brought to my attention via the latest issue of the always captivating Utne Reader.
   
   Apparently, this sharing of fantasy celeb smut has been going on for quite some time -- finding its genesis back in the '60s heyday of Star Trek, when viewers began to sense a “certain something” between Kirk and Spock. What started as simple fan fiction eventually evolved into ridiculous intergalactic buggering. And now, according to the Utne story, flourishing web communities of (mostly) female rock fans have picked up the studded gauntlet.
   
   Though there’s plenty of bandslash peppered throughout the web (much of it centered around sexually ambiguous acts like Panic at the Disco and Fall Out Boy), Rockfic represents the most unified and committed collection of bandslashers online. In its archives, you’ll find sexy gay stories about everyone from Rush (yikes!) to Nickelback to Jack White.
   
   Hair metal bands like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden are particular favorites -- Metallica tops the list with a shocking 352 entries. While not all the posts are pornographic, brief blurbs reveal which ones are. A particularly vivid encounter between Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and the band’s longtime producer, James Guthrie, in Lessons Learned, penned by Luna 65, demonstrates the level of fandom that goes into composing these nuggets of fictitious filth. With so much factual historical background available on the subjects, these stories (most of which are surprisingly well-written) take on a creepily authentic-sounding air.
   
   But they are not without humor. In the blurb for Mister Kilmister, a homoerotic tale of a hotel room encounter between tourmates Lemmy Kilmister (the gnarled, warty, ancient frontman for Motorhead) and his rock progeny, Metallica singer James Hetfield, author ScrewTheDaisies issues this disclaimer: Warning: Story contains images of Lemmy that you may not want burned forever on the face of your brain.
   
   With a tease like that, how can you resist? Rockfic.com charges a nominal $2 per year fee to view its twisted content, but offers a two-day free trial for tourists. Start clicking.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

3. 

   Dysfunction Junction

   11.Jul.08, 16:21 EDT
   
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   When HBO announced yesterday that Curb Your Enthusiasm would return next year, I gave a quiet little yelp of glee. Though we don’t get the cable network around here, my fiancé and myself wait like anxious children for each season to come out on DVD. When we get our mitts on one, we always make plans to parcel out the episodes like decadent slices of comedy dessert -- but invariably wind up gorging on the genius of Larry David and his brilliantly dysfunctional cast of kooks.
   
   The former head writer and executive producer of Seinfeld, David was ranked No. 23 in a 2005 “Comedian’s Comedian” list (a poll of professional comics taken by the BBC's Channel 4) of the greatest comic minds of all time. No surprise -- his ability to transform the self-centered, absurd essence of modern culture into a biting comic mirror is dazzling. Anyone who’s seen the show recognizes instantly when they’re having a “Larry David moment.” You can practically hear the theme music playing in the background.
   
   According to the hilarious Susie Essman, who plays foul-mouthed wife “Susie” to the character of Larry’s manager, “Jeff Greene,” keeping the revolutionary, retroscripted Curb alive is no mean feat.
   
   “When we are shooting and when the season is done Larry will always say, ‘I'm not doing another (one),’” she says, in an interview on the show’s website. “And then after he's finished editing, and is doing nothing for a couple of months, he gets a little itchy to do another season ... the problem is Larry doesn't want to repeat himself. He wrote all those Seinfeld episodes and now fifty episodes of Curb. He's got to keep coming up with these new ideas and new ways to be fresh and funny, and it's hard.”
   
   The new Curb episodes are scheduled to premiere at the top of 2009, marking over a year between seasons. I can bear the drought, and even the wait for the DVD release, as long as I know that David is still crankin’ out the comedy magic. With Dave Chappelle in early retirement and Wanda Sykes’ (a Curb regular) television career in retrograde, this guy is pretty much the last man standing in terms of boob tube brilliance. And, I have to say, it’s heartening to know that, at 61, you can not only get funnier – but better looking. Check out David (as the plastic surgeon) in this sketch from the short-lived early ‘80s comedy show, Fridays, for proof.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

4. 

   Beautiful Loser

   09.Jul.08, 13:56 EDT
   
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   “They say I live a fast life,” Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson once said. “It won't last forever, but the memories will."
   
   Indeed, with the recent release of Sony’s “Legacy Edition” of Wilson’s 1977 solo album, Pacific Ocean Blue, the memory of the dashing, charismatic, self-destructive “middle” Wilson brother is being reconfigured somewhat by young critics who are discovering the album’s captivating beauty for the first time.
   
   As documented in Steven Gaines’ page-turning 1986 biography, Heroes and Villains: The True Story of the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson’s roguish lifestyle and romantic demise (he drowned in a Marina del Rey harbor searching for trinkets tossed overboard in a lover’s quarrel) would take him worlds away from the innocent sun ‘n’ fun of the band’s early recordings. A heartbreakingly handsome kid and the only real surfer in the group, Dennis exemplified the ideal captured in songs like “Surfin’ USA” and “Fun, Fun, Fun.” But, like brothers Brian and Carl, he suffered monumentally at the hands of his tyrannical father, Murry. While Brian (the “musical genius” core of the band) turned inward and Carl played peacemaker, Dennis rebelled. Vulnerability, volatility, and substance abuse would plague his extraordinary life to the end, which came in 1983 at the age of 39.
   
   Happy to stay in brother Brian’s mammoth musical shadow for the bulk of the Beach Boys’ career, Dennis concentrated his energy on the bacchanalia that came with stardom. But, in the moments when he was compelled to express himself musically, the results were wondrous. Late ‘60s Beach Boys tracks like “Little Bird” and “Forever” hinted at the considerable talent lurking behind the drum kit. And when the band began to unravel completely in the ‘70s, Dennis turned his attentions to a solo career.
   
   Though it only reached #96 on the Billboard charts, Pacific Ocean Blue received considerable critical acclaim upon its release. Largely written with friend Gregg Jakobson, the album’s emotional heft and stirring instrumentation were unlike anything that had come before it. By now Dennis’s hard living was beginning to show in his voice and, like Chet Baker at the end, there was a grizzled beauty to it that couldn’t have been achieved by any other means. Songs like “Farewell My Friend” and “The End of the Show” suggest that Wilson wasn’t confused about where all this was heading. But his ability to embrace his fate (and even celebrate it) made for a profoundly insightful and moving musical moment.
   
   If you are unfamiliar with Pacific Ocean Blue, the Sony Legacy Edition represents a perfect opportunity to get on board. Along with the album in its entirety, the two-disk set includes tracks from Wilson’s unfinished follow-up LP, Bambu. Long coveted by collectors and Beach Boys geeks, Bambu is a masterwork in its own right. While not as consistent as Pacific Ocean Blue, some of its tracks are shimmering examples of Wilson’s capability.
   
   In all, this collection should do much to cement Dennis Wilson’s place in music history, not just as a tragically beautiful burnout, but also as an artist of astonishing depth. Recorded in an era that valued artistry over industry, it is truly the window to a man’s soul.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

5. 

   Pimparazzi

   02.Jul.08, 15:22 EDT
   
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   When X17 paparazzi photographer “Dano” describes the night an outraged Britney Spears attacked his Ford Explorer with an umbrella, it’s with an almost child-like glee.
   
   “She was breathing like a bull,” the Mexican-American Angelino told writer David Samuels in a recent cover story for The Atlantic magazine. “It was like smoke was coming out of her nostrils. Then she leaps out of the door screaming ‘Motherfuckers!’"
   
   Ironically, her rage-fueled lapse in judgment (perhaps spurred by being denied visitation with her sons minutes earlier) made Dano a star. His net profits from sales of the photos totaled $400,000.
   
   According to the Atlantic story, Britney-related photos/videos/etc. bring the celebrity-stalking industry over $100 million in proceeds annually -- and that’s just Britney. With Paris, Lindsay, TomKat, and Brangelina in the mix, along with hundreds of other movie stars and socialites, we’re talking astronomical sums of money. Once a highly specialized business, it’s now a piranha pool roiling with opportunists.
   
   Because it is so profitable, chasing celebrities has become a bloodthirsty game. And it may surprise you to know that its most successful players are former pizza delivery drivers, valet parking attendants, and other service industry rejects. The modern paparazzi are not professional, lone wolf photographers, hauling expensive camera equipment from location to location. They are mostly packs of immigrant kids, armed with simple digital cameras and camcorders, who are willing to risk life, limb, and incarceration to bag a “big money” shot.
   
   X17 photographers are the biggest breadwinners in the business, mostly because they are so organized. Francois “Regis” Navarre, himself a Parisian immigrant, owns the company. He and his wife, Brandy, run a stable of 60-70 photographers which they pay, on average, $800-$3000 a week, to bring them fresh celebrity meat daily. They, in turn, sell the pictures and videos (of which they retain full rights) to outlets like Us Weekly, People, Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and other national and international media outlets.
   
   The promise of four and five figure bonuses for extra-hot stuff like the Britney head-shaving pics (which were shot by X17’s Luiz Betat through a one-inch hole in the salon’s plastic curtain) keep the paps poised and hungry. Betat is part of X17’s elite Britney-stalking force known as “The Brazilians.” He is loyal to Navarre, who plucked him from a valet parking job. “For sure I get excited, but I don’t have a shaking legs or bullshit like this,” Betat tells Samuels, of taking the famous shot. “You can tell from the first frame that she never saw I was there.”
   
   While all of this sounds uncomfortably Mafioso, the other “reveals” in Samuels’ story are even more disturbing -- particularly when we learn that the informant that tipped-off X17 to Lindsay Lohan’s recent “family therapy session” was her own father, Michael. You can be assured that, like the rest of the company’s "tipsters," he was paid handsomely. Samuels also describes ride-alongs with the X17 paps that involve racing through the streets of Los Angeles like money-drunk Indy car drivers, swerving to the wrong side of the road and jockeying for position while in full pursuit of Britney.
   
   “What the paparazzi have done is developed a lawless society where the rules don’t apply,” Los Angeles Councilman Dennis Zine told Access Hollywood, after proposing a law that would limit the proximity that paparazzi must maintain in regard to their subjects, “(driving) on the wrong side of the street, jumping out of cars at the red lights, swarming the car, you don’t do that.”
   
   Zine says that when Britney is taken, by ambulance, to the hospital, it costs California taxpayers $25,000 just to cover the patrol cars, police motorcycles and helicopter support needed to keep the streets safe as the paps chase her. And while some argue that these actions are protected under the First Amendment, Zine points out that they are also "violating everyone else’s rights, freedoms, and privileges."
   
   In the same story, X17 Vice President Brandy Navarre stated that such a law would mean nothing. “I don’t think it would change things that much,” she says. “I mean, the photographers would just stand back a little more.”
   
   Though there seems to be no viable solution on the horizon, the problem is growing at a thunderous rate. Magazines rarely shell out for “exclusives” anymore as there are rarely any truly “exclusive” photos available – due to the sheer volume of photographers in constant pursuit of celebrity flesh.
   
   “Fame is vapor, popularity an accident and riches take wings,” New York Tribune Editor Horace Greely once said. “Only one thing endures and that is character.”
   
   Apparently, character is something Francois and Brandy Navarre have decided they can live without.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

6. 

   "X-Files" eXcitement

   27.Jun.08, 15:49 EDT
   
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   I didn’t realize how much I missed The X-Files until I watched the latest trailer for the new feature film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. In the two minute plug, you get all the usual accoutrement from the hit TV show:
   
   Haggard-looking, stressed out central character? Check.
   
   Shadowy, amorphous, otherworldly threat looming? Check.
   
   Stark, unnerving backdrop with creepy musical accompaniment? Check.
   
   But when the screen goes black for a moment and you just hear Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny address each other, with studied dispassion, by their character’s last names, that’s when the adrenaline really starts flowing.
   
   Never (in the history of my television-watching career, anyway) has there been a show with the mammoth unresolved sexual tension of The X-Files. I remember staring at the screen during its 1993-2002 run thinking, “FOR GOD’S SAKE MULDER, just put your hand on her leg!” But, alas, it never happened. The emotional dysfunction between the two ultra-foxy agents was every bit as nerve-wracking as the monsters, aliens, and unexplained phenomenon they investigated week after week.
   
   Realizing that I never saw the first X-Files feature film, 1998’s Fight the Future, I added it to my Netflix queue this week. I want to be fully prepared when I Want to Believe hits theaters July 25.
   
   Though I was a fan of the show, my X-Files nerdism wasn't even on the charts in terms of the level of geekdom the show inspired in its loyal minions. For a dose of the real thing, head over to IGN.com where you can find a list of the site's "10 Favorite X-Files Standalone Episodes.” The descriptions alone make me wanna go back and start with Season One.
   
   Do you have some favorites? Tell me all about it ... along with any creative fantasy scenarios that involve Mulder and Scully finally sucking face.
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

7. 

   Did Coldplay Pinch Hit?

   25.Jun.08, 13:03 EDT
   
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   Shaggy Brooklyn rock act the Creaky Boards had a good-natured go at British megastars Coldplay last week when ‘Boards’ singer/songwriter Andrew Hoepfner posted a video on YouTube openly accusing Coldplay main man Chris Martin of pilfering his (ironically-titled) tune, “The Songs I Didn’t Write.”
   
   In the video, which has gleaned hundreds of thousands of views since its June 14^th posting, Hoepfner compares and contrasts his song with “Viva La Vida,” the title track off Coldplay’s new album, which debuted this week at the top of the Billboard charts. He also suggests that Martin was in the crowd when the Creaky Boards performed the track at New York’s CMJ festival in 2007.
   
   Are the songs similar? Yes, definitely. Is it plagiarism? Doubtful. Although this unfortunate statement, attributed to Martin recently by E! Online, comes at a particularly sensitive time:
   
   "We're one of the world's worst -- but most enthusiastic -- plagiarists as a band. We'll try and copy anything but tend to fail, so we come up with something ... that sounds like us -- only through trying to sound like somebody else."
   
   I might be a little more cynical had the same thing not happened to me about 10 years ago. I was feeling cocky about a little 2-and-a-half minute masterpiece I’d penned when I walked into a bar and heard some friends of mine playing what, in essence, was the same tune. When I confronted them about it after the set, the singer informed me that it was a Kinks cover.
   
   Doh!
   
   I don’t think it’s that unusual for music or melody to leave a subconscious emotional imprint. Surely George Harrison, one of the most talented musicians who ever lived, didn’t need to purloin the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine,” to make a hit record. But, when “My Sweet Lord” came out, it was clear that Harrison, subconsciously or not, had re-written history.
   
   In the case of the Creaky Boards, they certainly have enough of a doppelganger in “Viva La Vida” to make a case. But it appears that Hoepfner and his pals are perfectly content just to have the attention their cranky, somewhat silly, video has brought their way. They’ve even tacked on an amendment stating that Coldplay’s claims that Martin was in London at the time of the CMJ performance must be true.
   
   Hoepfner has told at least one news outlet that he now believes it was Prince Charles that was in the audience that night. Or, perhaps, it was a time-traveling Joe Satriani (whose "If I Could Fly" came out in 2004).
   
   Ouch! Trumped by the corny metal guitar wizard!
   
   Wendy Case is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Arts & Entertainment.

8. 

   Gone to the Dogs

   21.Jun.08, 12:17 EDT
   
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   If you dug up deceased billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley and fished out her heart, you might find a steely little ball of ice-cold lead. Her reputation as a tyrannical harpy is known far and wide.
   
   That said, the news that her 9-year-old white Maltese, “Trouble,” will only be awarded a portion of the $12 million trust promised the little precious upon Helmsley’s passing (which came last year) is causing me something of a moral dilemma: It’s Leona’s money. She should be able to leave it, incontestably, to anyone she wants – including her dog. But $12 million to a pet that doesn’t even have the opposable thumbs to spend it? At least Bubbles would be physically capable of slapping a fat stack on the checkout counter at Pet Supplies Plus.
   
   A New York City judge declared this week that Trouble will have to scrape by on $2 million, as the remainder of his inheritance is to be donated to charity. This is undoubtedly a more practical and morally responsible way to dispense with $10 million. But I’ll bet Helmsley is throwing fireballs all over hell right now. And, in some respects, I can hardly blame her. It seems pretty clear that, in life, she had a healthy disdain for humanity. Should she be expected, in death, to support it by way of an altruistic legal judgment?
   
   Things being what they are, what do you think Trouble (who can probably be expected to live another 6-9 years) should do with his remaining windfall? I’m especially interested to hear from our knower of all things