CBS Encouraging Bad Behavior? Or Desperate?

Another blog item at EW.com caught my eye today. It seems that a doofus jumped over a fence today during the CBS "Early Show" and did a shout out to Coney Island while putting his arm around co-host Harry Smith. Why is this interesting?

During football and baseball games, if an idiot runs onto the field, usually the TV cameras cut away, not showing the intruder because they don't want to encourage others to try and get their moment in the spotlight the same way. Unfortunately, that leaves only poor-quality video when something special occurs. CBS has, according to the blog, put the video of today's interruption on their website and YouTube.

You think, "Okay, CBS desperately wants people to watch their morning show. The ratings have always been terrible during the morning. So even if other dimwits now hop the fence and manhandle the hosts, at least people will watch."

But then the blog mentions an "Early Show" overhaul that begins next week -- which means even if someone sees that clip and thinks, "Wow, I like how those hosts handled that! I think I'll start watching this show!" -- as improbable as that is -- on Monday there will be all new hosts! So why bother putting the clip online?

(The image above, by the way, is apparently how the CBS logo looked in 1966. I kinda like it.)

These Two Need To Have Hate Sex, STAT!

From Entertainment Weekly's Music Mix blog:

"Chris Brown launched into a profanity-laced Twitter feud for several hours today with former B2K member De’Mario Thornton — a.k.a. Raz-B — in which both Brown and Thornton employed homophobic slurs and taunts."

So, it's a battle between one practically-a-has-been and one never-really-was. Sigh. The article goes on:

"The exchange began after Thornton tweeted, using the Twitter handles for, respectively, Eric Benet, Brown, Halle Berry, and Rihanna, “I’m just sittin here Thinking how can n—-s like @ebenet & @ChrisBrown disrespect women as Intelligent as @HalleBerry11 [and] @Rihanna.” Brown quickly tweeted in response, “@razb2k, n—- you want attention! Grow up n—-!!! D— in da booty a– lil boy,” and followed up with several tweets taunting Thornton over his accusations that he was molested by his ex-manager and one of his former group mates. Thornton replied by accusing Brown of being on the down-low (i.e. in the closet)."

It finishes with: "By the end, both Brown and Thornton had apologized for using homophobic slurs and appeared to have moved on to tweet another day. It was all a masterful display of debate at its finest." These are what the EW.com writer linked to as their apologies:

Of course, one of these isn't really an apology, is it? Also, as you can see below, after these apologies the "war" actually continues, so the EW.com writer is even more mistaken...

Stupid people behaving stupidly. That's life. But really, shouldn't they get rid of all that sexual tension once and for all? I think it might go somewhat like this...feel free to skip to the last two minutes of this...

My Week In Comics 12-22-10

After last week's stunning win, many Eagles fans had visions of finishing at least second in the NFC, if not first overall, dancing in their heads. All they needed was for Chicago to lose a game and New Orleans to lose a game and Atlanta to lose two games and...and...and then they went and lost tonight at home to a very poor Minnesota team, meaning the Eagles get no bye week to start the postseason and are likely to hit the road if they win their first playoff game. What does all of this have to do with my comic books? Mainly it's a way for me to vent a little about a pathetic performance without writing a separate screed. But it gives me a segue in that I think the fans' greed in wanting to believe this team is a serious Super Bowl contender is matched only by the star of the first book I'm discussing this week...

Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special 1 (of 1): I knew this would be ridiculous from the moment I first read it was coming. If you remember back to the Blackest Night stories, Larfleeze is the Orange Lantern, with orange being the color of avarice. So it's in his nature to want, well, everything. And he's learned of the existence of a magical man who gives the people of Earth whatever they ask for once a year. Naturally, Larfleeze has a looooooooooong list for Santa Claus. Hmmmm...I just had an idea: in the ultimate battle of greed, we need a Larfleeze-Daffy Duck crossover...

Batman, Incorporated 2: This series is off to a fun start. Bruce Wayne's development of "Batman, Inc." finds him (along with Catwoman) in Tokyo, where he wants to recruit the Japanese hero known as Mr. Unknown. But Mr. Unknown has been killed by a criminal called Lord Death Man, who somehow is unable to be killed. There's a mixture of action-adventure and humor that makes for a fast-paced story.

Superman/Batman 79: Meanwhile, here's a book I skipped a month ago, and now it begins a story arc featuring the Superman and Batman of the 853rd century (as featured some time back in the DC One Million event -- one million as in one million issues of DC books, not one million years). But a villain from that distant future escapes their grasp and travels back to a time in the past when Dick Grayson was still Robin and calling himself "The Teen Wonder." So this series continues to be just a place to tell stories from any era, rarely connected to current events in DC continuity. I'm feeling it's not an essential book for me to buy on a regular basis any more.

MixBlog 12-27-10

Now that Christmas is over, we can look forward to the end of 2010. I thought about doing something on this blog this week, perhaps pointing out some of my favorite posts or something. Anyway, that will be for the week to come. I've got a few things to go through now...

Christmas Music: I just removed the holiday songs from my iPod. Here are my Top 5 Most-Played Christmas Songs:

Baby, It's Cold Outside - Glee Cast (16 plays)
Baseball Glove - Gord Bamford (13)
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Annie Lennox (10)
Put A Little Love In Your Heart - Annie Lennox and Al Green (10)
We Need A Little Christmas - Glee Cast (9)

All of the songs from the new Annie Lennox and Glee albums were played at least 5 times.

Snow: We officially had 12.4 inches Sunday into this morning. The forecasts generally went like this: from nothing (Thursday) to a coating to an inch (Friday) to 6-12 inches (early Saturday) to 10-15 inches (later Saturday evening) to 5-10 inches (late Sunday afternoon). The development of this storm, we're told, was very tricky to forecast. (Aren't they all?) As it turned out, all day and much of the night Sunday, the heaviest bands of snow that were circling around the low pressure as it moved north along the coast were unable to push across the Delaware River and into Pennsylvania.

A Little More On My Christmas Music

I just thought it would be fun to share how many versions of various Christmas songs are in my iTunes (out of the total of 468 holiday tracks), and the most notable performers of each...

Angels We Have Heard On High - 6; Aretha Franklin, "Glee" cast
Auld Lang Syne  - 5; Barenaked Ladies, Chris Isaak (and why is New Year's music played on Christmas?)
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting...) - 8; Nat King Cole (duh), two versions by Ella Fitzgerald
The First Noel - 4; Annie Lennox, David Archuleta (I think these two names back to back form some sort of musical oxymoron)
Frosty the Snowman - 5; the Ronettes, two versions (again) by Ella Fitzgerald
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - 5; Annie Lennox, Rascal Flatts, Barenaked Ladies feat. Sarah McLachlan
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - 6; Pretenders, Kermit the Frog
I'll Be Home For Christmas - 4; Fats Domino, Kristin Chenoweth
Jingle Bells - 8 (if you include "Jingle Bells?" by Barbra Streisand and the medley "Jingle Bells/Jingle Bell Rock" by the Muppets)
Joy To The World - 5; Lee Greenwood, the Supremes
The Little Drummer Boy - 8; two up-tempo versions by Alexander O'Neal and the Salsoul Orchestra
O Holy Night - 7; Neil Sedaka, and a very funky cover by Musiq Soulchild
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 9; Gene Autry, Meredith Brooks, and only one version by Ella Fitzgerald
Santa Baby - 4; Eartha Kitt, Madonna, Everclear (male vocal, changed lyrics because heaven knows the band had to butch it up) and Miss Piggy
Santa Claus is Coming to Town - 8; the Four Seasons, the Supremes, the Looney Tunes (I own the CD "Have Yourself A Looney Tunes Christmas" -- not the greatest Bugs Bunny & Company work Warner Bros. has put out there, although it's mildly amusing at times)
Silent Night - 13 (this looks like the winner); Wynonna, Mahalia Jackson, the Salsoul Orchestra (non-discofied!)
Sleigh Ride - 9 (including the Kristin Chenoweth/John Pizzarelli duet medley of "Sleigh Ride/Marshmallow World" but not including the Alexander O'Neal song with the same title but different lyrics; I also have a version by the Spice Girls
White Christmas - 7; besides the obvious Bing Crosby, there's Darlene Love, the Supremes...and there goes that Ella Fitzgerald again with two versions...
Winter Wonderland - 6; of course, my favorite is by Eurythmics, though you can't go wrong with Johnny Mathis
We Wish You A Merry Christmas - 4, including Weezer

And with that, I wish you a Merry Christmas as well, if you celebrate it. Or, just follow Krusty the Clown's advice: "So, have a merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, kwazy Kwanzaa, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified Ramadan. Now a word from MY god: our sponsor!"

The Day I Was Santa Claus

And now, a Christmas story! No, not that Christmas Story.

Once upon a time (because all of these tales have to begin with that, don't they?) there was a little boy. He was in the third grade when his school decided, in the middle of the year, that he should be in fourth grade instead because they thought he was so smart that he was bored in third grade. From then on, he was always a year or so younger -- and more importantly, less mature -- than the other kids in his class, and it was really tough. Grade-wise he was able to keep up, but when it came to making friends and such, that didn't really happen at all.

(Let's drop the third-person narrative now. Of course, this is about me.)

Flash-forward to a few years later. I think I was in 7th or 8th grade. One of those "My Weekly Reader" type publications had a short Christmas play in it, and our teacher decided that our class would perform the play for the 1st- and 2nd-grade kids right before schools shut down for the holidays. So she was asking who wanted to play various roles -- elves, reindeer, etc. For some unknown reason --

My Go-To Christmas Music

Before I get into my main lists, I want to share a new favorite I discovered on Todd Zolecki's Phillies blog at MLB.com. It's "Baseball Glove" by a Canadian country singer-songwriter, Gord Bamford. The lyrics talk about the many things the family wants, but all he wants is a baseball glove -- specifically, "a genuine cowhide Rawlings Pro Special, one autographed by Roy Halladay." Bamford is a Blue Jays fan and it was released last year, before Halladay was traded to the Phils, but it doesn't matter. Click the above link and you can watch the video and find a link to download the song for free.

There are so many new Christmas albums now, but in recent years I've only bought a few. These are the albums I bought in the last couple of years that I really enjoy:

Glee Cast - Glee: The Music, The Christmas Album (love the Chris Colfer/Darren Criss version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside")
Annie Lennox - A Christmas Cornucopia (I love what she did, but I kind of wish this had a couple of fun, not so serious/religious-oriented selections, like Eurythmics' "Winter Wonderland," one of my all-time faves)
Kristin Chenoweth - A Lovely Way To Spend Christmas
Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked for the Holidays (their quirky humor shines in a number of songs, especially "An Elf's Lament;" also includes a few Hanukkah songs)
Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Wishes You A Swinging Christmas

I also found a couple of CDs that had been released previously: "A Classic Cartoon Christmas" and "A Classic Cartoon Christmas, Too." They feature tracks from many classic TV shows (and some that aren't so classic). Between the two, they include "Welcome Christmas" and "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch" from "Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas," songs from "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town," Jimmy Durante's "Frosty the Snowman," a couple from the Muppets, and -- most happily -- the "Heat Miser" and "Snow Miser" songs from "The Year Without a Santa Claus." (I really need to edit them into one mp3 so when my music is in shuffle mode, I won't hear one and not the other right away.)

The following are the Christmas CDs I've had the longest, and are still my favorites:

The Philly Holiday Shows

I already posted these videos to Facebook but I thought I'd share them here as well, since I blogged about my Wednesday plans. First is a short clip of the finale of the Macy's Holiday Light Show. The Macy's show has been around forever -- well, over 50 years -- dating back to when the downtown store was Wanamaker's. It's been freshened up a bit, though. It's been a while since I've seen it so I was surprised that the narration, which had been recorded by the late John Facenda (known nationally for his work on NFL Films) is now done by Julie Andrews. I think, as a uniquely Philadelphia show, the vocal should have stayed local. Still, it's a charming old-fashioned tradition:



This is a longer clip, from the Comcast Holiday Spectacular (I would record a bit and then hit "pause" so it's not a full version of the show, just some excerpts all in one video):




The Comcast show is, as befits a high-definition age in a building that only officially opened in 2008, high-tech. The video is played on a giant hi-def LED screen on the wall. But other than the shot of the city skyline, there's nothing that says "Philadelphia" about it. Nice, but less than spectacular.

Christmas Is Coming!

Last Christmas I gave you my heart I listed the Christmas TV specials from my DVD or VHS collection that I try to watch every year. Well, this year I haven't watched a single one yet, and time is running out. (Although I have listened to every Christmas song in my iTunes. I want to try to do a holiday music-related post this week as well.) But it's not as if I haven't watched any Christmas programs. I've got both the "Glee" Christmas episode and this year's Christmas-themed "Simpsons" episode guest-starring Martha Stewart and (in live-action with Muppetized Simpsons) Katy Perry on my DVR and have watched both two or three times.

I also just recorded the TV-movie "A Diva's Christmas Carol" starring Vanessa Williams -- surely this helped lead to her becoming Wilhelmina Slater on "Ugly Betty" -- and right now I'm recording "Bad Santa" from Spike TV, although I'm sure it's a censored version that may disappoint.

Tomorrow I plan to try and add to my DVD collection, if I can find an inexpensive DVD of "Scrooged" starring Bill Murray. Like the Vanessa Williams film, it's another update of the Dickens classic, but with a more satirical streak. The soundtrack included the duet by Annie Lennox and Al Green of "Put A Little Love in Your Heart," a non-Christmas song that is now, for me, a holiday classic.



Yes, Christmas is coming...although the case can be made that it arrived early this year...

My Week In Comics 12-15-10

A few days before Christmas. And the events in one of these books actually take place on Christmas Eve. Ah, synergy! But first...did you listen to my comedy recording I posted the other night? I'd like some feedback on it. It's only a little over 30 seconds long.

Superman 706: I'm just going to say it: this book is turning into a trainwreck. Instead of continuing to follow Superman in his walk across the USA, there's another "interlude." This issue goes back to Metropolis, where the Daily Planet has come under attack from a blog. Seriously. Occasionally awful dialogue and a simplistic resolution of the problem.

Supergirl 59: Here's the book set on Christmas Eve, although it's not really a Christmas story per se. It's the conclusion of the story in which Cat Grant's life is threatened. But after Supergirl saves the day, it concludes on Christmas with a super-powered being -- wearing a reindeer headband. (Okay, it's Krypto.) New writer coming on board next issue. I hope the characterization of Supergirl doesn't change with the change in writers.

Simpsons Comics 173: Remember the episode where Bart, Nelson, Milhouse and Ralph were turned into a boy band? This is like that, but there's no sinister subliminal YVAN EHT NIOJ angle, Bart is the only performer, and there's a different gender. Think Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana.

Victorian Undead II - 2 (of 5): Sherlock Holmes learns more about Dracula's nefarious plans to destroy the Royal Family and rule the British empire...although it's odd that Holmes, a man who deals in facts and data, so easily accepts that there are such things as vampires. Then again, he recently was dealing with zombies...