1) Yeah, another wholly random and out-of-context Larry King quote, which I guess signifies another Random Thoughts post. Only this one isn't so much random as a few things that have been annoying me lately, minor nuisances that aren't worth more than a paragraph or two. Still deserving of wrath, though.
2) A ubiquitous pop-up ad at The New York Times promotes Cirque du Soleil's new show, something called Banana Shpeel. Instead of the usual self-consciously arty line-up of contortionists and whatnot that is Soleil's usual fare, this is apparently a salute to vaudeville, featuring a trio of clowns (or, to use the preferred nomenclature, "funsters") bedeviling a conniving impresario...or something. Who the hell cares?
The point is, the ad for this thing bills it as "a collection of ha-has, la-las and ta-das," and dear God, has there ever been a less appealing tagline in the history of advertising? There is no way anybody, anywhere, would be drawn to such a thing. It's like the producers of this thing suddenly realized they'd made a show with clowns as heroes, and wanted to warn people away. Mission most definitely accomplished.
3) While it might seem hopelessly insular to rag on a local free weekly, the Des Moines-based yuppie funtime rag Juice is after all available to everyone everywhere thanks to the miracle of the Interweb, and besides, it's so consistently awful it needs to be thrashed whenever possible.
The most recent issue featured a profile of the paper's brand-new advice columnist, Chris Gardner, a local boy who once wrote for People and Variety but has inexplicably chosen to return to Des Moines to write for a shitty giveaway. Anyway, in his first column, he offers this bit of wisdom to a young woman who is concerned that all of her friends are getting pregnant and making her feel self-conscious: "Girl, I gotta give you snaps for recognizing you and your husband aren't ready, but shame on your friends and fam for pressuring you to relocate to familytown."
It goes on from there, but at this point, any sentient reader has crumpled the paper and thrown it away, unless they're reading online, in which case, they're wondering how much it'll cost to replace the monitor they just punched.
4) Somebody suggested a lame running Saturday Night Live sketch would make a good movie, and somebody else agreed. The result was MacGruber, which in its third week of release found its box-office receipts dropping ninety percent from the week before. The people responsible for this earn more in a year than I'll make in a lifetime, and will inexplicably not be tried for crimes against humanity.
