2011 D-Bag Awards: Nominations

It’s that time of the year again. It’s the 2011 Mongo, Angry! Mongo Smash! D-Bag Awards. This is the round up of all the best d-bags of the year which culminates in the presenting of the Golden D-bag Award (fictional, of course) to one not so proud recipient.

Last year, it was almost in the bag for the Grim Reaper, himself but BP pulled ahead thanks to an environmental disaster and all around mucking up of the aftermath. Still, Death shows he’s a competitor as he comes back for another year as a probable finalist. While BP fires only a single d-bag worthy shot with a claim that Halliburton destroyed evidence from the Gulf Oil Spill. Nice try BP, but we’ll hope you can do more to represent your place in d-bag history next year.

So, here are the categories and the nominees. Each post will be a basic rehash of reasons why they are nominated culminating in a declaration of the winner. The winner from each bracket will go on to face each other in a battle royale for d-b supremacy.

Wannabe Celebrity (Reality D-bags) – In this category, folks who have made a lasting d-bag impact on the Internet or those who have tried to become a celebrity for lack of a better reason than to land themselves in the lineup of the nominations here will duke it out for a chance to go bags deep against the other bracket winners.

And the nominees are:

• Courtney Stodden
• The Kardashians
• Brooke Mueller
• Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino

Celebrity – They’re famous for being infamous across movies, television, and music. Pop Culture will cry in a corner for years to come.

And the nominees are:

• Chris Brown
• Charlie Sheen
• Lindsay Lohan
• Brett Ratner

Business – If I could name them all and fit them on the ballet, I would. Simply put, they make up the 99% of the d-bags in this world, but alas I had to narrow it down to four.

And the nominees are:

• NetFlix
• Bank of America
• PayPal
• Retail Industry

Sports as a Business – The individuals are pretty bad. However, the companies and brands behind them are simply baggerific.

And the nominees are:

• The NBA
• The NFL
• The Pittsburgh Pirates
• PSU

Sports People – These folks made a name for themselves being douchebags in the realm of sports.

And the nominees are:

• Jim Tressel
• Jerry Sandusky
• Jerry Meals
• Roger Goodell

D-bags That Have Affected People - OK, this one is a bit of a potpourri of d-bags. I couldn’t find anyway else to slice it so these folks were d-bags to people’s lives and property.

And the nominees are:

• Mother Nature
• Death
• Vancouver Stanley Cup Rioters
• John Pike

News/Media D-Bags - These D-Bags are a part of the fabric of our culture.   They haunt the Internet, the checkout aisles, our televisions, and our phone conversations.

And the nominees are:

• Julian Assange Mark Madden
• Rupert Murdoch
• Old Spice
• Perez Hilton

Update: Mark Madden was substituted in for Julian Assange who was originally nominated last year for the Wikileaks scandal.  My bad. 

 Let's get ready to rumble!

2010 D-Bag Awards Round Three: Reality D-Bags

Up next is the d-bags from reality television, the ultimate sign of the fall of Western Civilization. Some of these folks aren’t talented enough to have a real career or their lives are ridiculous enough to be put on film.  God help us all.

The Cast of the Jersey Shore
I was hoping against hope that this show would not have lasted. Even if it meant I would never sell another Jersey Shore related shirt in my stores I hoped that this was purely a joke that would just go away. Nope, it didn’t. Reality television’s newest stars are still going, way beyond their 15 minutes of fame and are continuing to gain fans. Whether you are a fan of the pugilistic Oompa Lompa, Snooki, or the comfortably fitting shirt challenged Mike “The Situation” whateverhislastnameis, you probably live to do Gym, Tan and Laundry and avoid grenades like the plague. Me, I avoid this show like the plague. Unfortunately, the missed the cutoff date for last year’s list, premiering in December. However, they’ve managed to rack up an impressive rap sheet this year. We’ve got…

Being all around ethnic stereotypes of Italians from New Jersey… of which only one of the original cast members are from New Jersey (No longer even on the show, at that) and only three of the cast members are actually full blooded Italian. Two are half and one is Chilean who was adopted by Italians.

• Arrested for fighting in bars
• Overuse and promotion of tanning beds
• Being general douchebags

Separated at birth?

Heidi Montag
Someone may have to remind me, again, who the hell this person is? I have no clue who she is other than she decided to get so much plastic surgery she makes Barbie look biodegradable. I mean, come on. I realize that she made the list last year as part of a tag team with her husband, Spencer Pratt, but I guess I decided to block out what her real claim to fame is. Oh, right she was on Laguna Beach, the loosely called reality show on MTV and then The Hills. Yeah, real life, sure, I believe that. Oh, and she became a recording artist. Wow, that was really groundbreaking wasn’t it? Oh, and then her and her husband divorced. Why? To help her career. She compared the momentum of fame she would gain from the divorce to that of Sandra Bullock’s fame after her split from Jesse James. She is actually putting herself in the same realm of reality as Sandra Bullock. Hmm, oh, and there’s a supposed sex tape, which she denies, while her husband shops it around. Ok, once again, how is any of this reality?

 

Before and After Shots.  More Plastic Than Barbie

Jesse James

Speaking of Jesse James, welcome to d-bag garage. Today we’re going to take a wonderful relationship and tear it apart and make it into a huge lie. Jesse had the sweet life. I actually admit to being a fan of Monster Garage and his persona. Then he met Sandra Bullock and it was like all weird relationships we see in life. “What the hell is he doing with her?” kind of feeling. Sandra Bullock is this level headed, sweet gal next door, save the world and all the puppies kind of person who is genuine and she hooks up with this grease monkey kind of bad boy. It couldn’t be more perfect right? Once again, this is reality television at its finest. There was the infidelity and with a porn star, no less. Let me restate that, a Nazi porn star. And all of this came to light as Sandra accepted the Oscar and touted that Jesse made her a better person and her resurging success was a direct result of their loving marriage. WTG, d-bag!  Just for the sake of argument, look at these two pictures and you tell me.

Sandra Bullock

Michelle McGee

Teen Mom Cast Members

Once again, I admit I do not watch this show. In fact, I stay away from these types of shows because they are simply vehicles for people trying to get a career out of nothing other than being a teen, pregnant, or a little person… or a washed up 80s icon (tv or wrestling, take your pick). Put simply, the people featured on this show have either gotten into trouble for abuse of the other parent, criminal behavior, hit and runs, mental problems and just being a d-bag in general. But then again, the purpose of these types of behaviors is to be exploited for the sake of advertising and money at the hands of the network that puts them on television.

Teen Mom Amber Giving The Baby Daddy The Smackdown

And the winner is?   I have two endings.  The original and then the one I had rethought.

ORIGINAL 

I really wanted to pick Jesse James. The sum of what he did was cause enough to be the winner. The ridiculousness of the spectacle that became the news story surrounding his infidelity and divorce from Bullock was d-baggery at its finest but I will not feel bad for Bullock in this case. If she had stayed with him, then she would have gained my sympathy and a spot on this list for being an idiot. But she is neither an idiot nor a d-bag. That being said, I cannot give him the award because as much of a d-bag as he is, the cast of The Jersey Shore’s total amount of d-bag moves eclipses the sum of one Jesse James. So, my hopes for 2011 is that either The Jersey Shore gets cancelled or it stays on the air, allowing me to make money off of them being idiots and d-bags. Well played, to my advantage!

REDUX
OK, so I originally picked the cast of The Jersey Shore.  However, I went back and rethought the outcome and am going to strip the D-Bags of MTV of their win and give it to Jesse James.   Why?  While I stated that the sum of what the cast of TJS did outweighed what Jesse did, I believe in my heart that he is the bigger douchebag and yes, I actually used the full word because he deserves it.   He had it all.  He had a beautiful wife that loved his kid.  He had a great company.  He had all the world on a platter and he just fell back on his bad boy ways.   There can be something said for trying to reform the bad boy.   There's also something to be said for wasting an opportunity that you will never have again in your life.

Oil Spill Threatening The Gulf Coast

The Gulf Coast of the United States is in imminent danger from an oil slick heading to shore.   It had been previously thought that the spill was caused by an oil rig, Deepwater Horizon, which had exploded offshore.  However, we have just recently learned that the oil spill was not caused by the rig's explosion.  Instead it was caused by the cast of Jersey Shore filming in Miami Beach.   One of the filming crew spoke with EPA officials shortly after completing the scene that caused the spill.  "We had no idea of the impact that we would have on the environment.   We all warned the cast not to get Snooki's hair wet, but when we saw her go down into the water we knew we had a situation."  The cameraman then explained to Michael Sorrentino that he was not referring to him but to the spill.  

EPA officials estimate that between the amount of hair and spray tan products on the cast members, the ecosystem is serious peril.   It was originally thought that Miami was in immediate danger but it seemed that the slick moved South around the Keys and has ended up in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening Louisiana.

Five Things That Need To Go Away In 2010

T-Pain Auto Tune Insanity
The Super Bowl put the last nail in the coffin for this gimmick that is so overused in popular music that it has become a source of inter cranial bleeding. The premise of the Bud Light commercial updates the old “Wassup?” ones for Bud where a guy calls up his friends after drinking a Bud Light and begins speaking in T-Pain style. Auto tune and the voice box are overdone and just need to go away. Any number of artists today employ the auto tune method and it really shows in live performances. *cough*Taylor Swift *cough* Oh, come on. You explain to me how she can win all these awards, be named artist of the year, blah blah blah and she can’t effing sing live? It’s the magic of the studio and a mixing board is all I’m saying. Do you feel like I do? Yes, that was a nod to Mr. Frampton.

The UPS Whiteboard GuyThe first time I saw this doodler for the shipping company I thought Steve Perry found a new job since Journey decided to go with a Filipino YouTube guy that sounds like an Engrish version of….well, Steve Perry. And just in case I thought I was the only one who thought this… apparently someone was so confused they posed the question to Yahoo Answers.

The guy’s real name is Andy Azula and he is the creative director for an ad agency that was hired by UPS to do those commercials. When the commercials first began to air, the street magician style of drawing that ultimately revealed a UPS logo was kind of neat. However, after the first few ads, like anything else in this world, reality was wiped off the whiteboard and computer generated graphics replaced what looked like utter magic. Actually, according to an article on Slate, he does do the drawings, but they are redrawn in between takes to speed things up. What makes me want to see this guy get chased by the dry eraser is that we now know that he isn’t REALLY doing the drawing on the fly, so the magic is gone and now it’s not as catchy and cool.

Reality Shows
I will cry about this till I am blue in the face and then some. Of course, there is no way in hell I will ever see my dream come true. Not in 2010. Not in 3010. Reality shows are now a fact of life and they are like Walmart, taking over everything. How many shows and clones do we need? We all know reality television is fake, right? It’s professional wrestling that’s real, right?

With Jersey Shore being the latest show to capture the hearts and minds of idiot America, we have to realize that these folks are neither from Jersey nor are they even full blooded Italian, save Vinny, which is appropriately stereotypical. Ellen even tested these d-bags with a test and they flunked. Apparently, Snooki thought Canada was one of the original 13 colonies. Can we deport these idiots?

Shawtie / Shortie / Shorty
There are far too many songs with the term shawty in it. Nobody really wants to divulge WTF (Mandatory Internet slang quota reached) a shawty is and I really don’t care who is a shawty, if she’s out on the dance floor, has boots with fur, a fruity booty, or is like a memory in my head. Just stop it.

Reboots, Remakes, and Adaptations
This madness has to stop. Since Spider Man 4 fizzled, they’ve decided to reboot the franchise. We’ve got The Karate Kid which neglects the entire idea that Karate was a Japanese form of martial arts since the reboot is set in China. We’ve got a Nightmare on Elm Street remake with the guy from Bad News Bears playing Freddy Krueger. Highlander and Red Dawn remakes. We’ve got a new Clash of the Titans coming out, a Night of the Demons remake, We’ve got an A-Team movie, Johnny Quest movie, and a Smurfs movie. SMURFS!!!!!  I mean EFFING SMURFS!  And John Lithgow and Wallace Shawn are in it.  Didn’t y’all learn from G.I. Joe, Speed Racer and Transformers? You know what insanity is, doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.   SMURFS!

2009 D-Bag Awards - Heat Four: A to D List D-Bags

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. We're so glad you could attend. Come inside! Come inside! There inside the house you look and you will see. The greatest d-bags since heat number three. Move along! Move along!

The contestant from this heat have all the makings of a great reality show so why go against that notion. We’ve taken our contestants and locked them in a house. Find out what happens when people stop being polite and start acting like a d-bag.

• Lindsay Lohan
• Megan Fox
• Heidi and Spencer Pratt
• Ryan Jenkins
• Chris Brown
• Kanye West
• Chad Johnson
• Manny Ramirez

As we lock all the contestants in the house we have our first forfeit. It seems both Heidi and Spencer are claiming that they are being tortured after riding up to the D-Bag house in a stretch limo. They have decided to leave before ever stepping foot inside the house. Once the door is closed, it will not be opened until we have crowned a winner… and Heidi and Spencer Pratt are now back, choosing to join the competition, again. Let’s hope that we have no more….and they’re gone again.

Now that everyone is in, we will begin our first competition for head of household. The task set before out hose mates is to stand perfectly still and not open their mouths. The one who can go the longest is the winner. As I’m saying this, Megan Fox is talking incessantly and is disqualified for this challenge. Even she walks away, she is still talking. She is continually putting the word uber in front of every word she says. It’s almost like D-bag Latin or something.

Now, Chad Johnson is out because he has violated the rules of the task and while not actually speaking, he is tweeting to his fans about how cool he is and how he is going to give me a dollar after he wins the challenge.

Ryan Jenkins looks a little unstable but is very still. I’ve asked the judges to do some background checking on him to see if there are any issues with his character. I’ve been assured that he is perfectly fine and is capable of enduring the test. I ask them to check again, because he has just taken a large butcher knife and hacked Lindsay Lohan to pieces.

Manny Ramirez has been suspended for two challenges because it was discovered that he took a performance enhancing drug that rendered him in a catatonic like state.

It is now, neck and neck between Kanye West and Chris Brown. Oh, there goes Kanye. The cameraman got too close and he attacked him. That leaves Chris Brown as head of household. There is some post challenge activity as two potential d-bag contestants, namely Tareq and Michaele Salahi, have crashed the competition looking to get into the reality show. Secret Service has been dispatched but they gave them slip with a "They went that-a-way" move while wearing lampshades. No worries, Ryan Jenkins is on it.

As we head back to the living room for our first elimination we find Heidi and Spencer sitting on the couch. We’re not even sure how they got back into the house, but it is of no matter because Ryan Jenkins has killed them as well. As we clean up the Pratt’s we get down to the elimination. Chris Brown is head of household and immune. The remaining members of the household each vote, unanimously, to remove Ryan Jenkins from the house. With Ryan being selected for elimination, he is removed from competition and subsequently eaten by Megan Fox who truly is a demon. Not wanting to go quietly, Ryan has stabbed Megan repeatedly causing her to bleed out. It’s a shame really, her performance was a bit robotic, but she really transformed herself into a total d-bag over the last year. The Vegas bookies are going to take a loss on this one.

The final challenge is set to go. The members of the household must go through the rest of the day without drawing attention to themselves. Now, there is a secret task that, if completed, will guarantee a win. The task has not been revealed to anyone in the house or the audience.

As the competition starts, Chad Johnson has already begun to cause a stir as he has decided to don a sombrero and poncho and insists on being called Ocho Cinco. He is doing that because he wants to be called by his jersey number of 85. What he fails to realize, and what could have been considered the coup d-bag, is that 85 in Spanish is ochenta y cinco. Ocho cinco is merely the number eight and five. Kanye has ripped down the blinds in the house and fashioned himself a pair of sunglasses. He’ll take a penalty for defacing property and drawing attention to himself. Manny Ramirez has a lock on the win but has decided to quit the competition and take a shower. Wow, that was a surprise move. I’m glad his team gave him all that money to compete. That leaves Chris Brown as the winner of the challenge a second time, and…and…what’s this? Kanye West has broken into the booth and is taking my micr…..

Kanye: Yo, Chris, I’m really happy for you, I’ma let you finish but Ocho Cinco is the biggest D-Bag of all time.

After that disruption, Kanye has handed me back the microphone and I’m getting word from the judges that Kanye West has completed the secret task and has automatically won the competition for biggest D-Bag in this heat. Apparently, unselfishly giving away the title of biggest D-Bag was the secret task.

Here’s the statistics
Chris Brown got his D-Bag status off to an early start by being arrested for domestic violence against singer Rihanna. Since then, he’s pretty much become irrelevant while Rihanna has used the experience to come back stronger. Heidi and Spencer Pratt, apart from being wastes of space, made themselves total D-Bags on the reality show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. If they would have just went away and stayed away, they could have saved us all a few brain cells. Manny Ramirez has had an eventful year in that he was suspended for performance enhancing drugs and decided to leave the most important Dodgers game of the year in the ninth inning because he thought he smelled funky.

Ryan Jenkins killed his wife after being allowed to exist on not one reality show, Megan Wants a Millionaire, but a second I Love Money 3. How this nut job made it past the censors and onto television is beyond me. Oh, wait a minute, that’s right, reality shows don’t give a crap about personal safety and ethics. They want a cheap train wreck to drive viewership up. Somewhere in a board room, I’m sure that the discussion of a person’s background comes up and then they roll the dice on what could happen. They also probably goad their contestants to get the best and craziest performance out of them.

Megan Fox and Lindsay Lohan are equal in talent as well as D-Baggery. But while Lindsay is heading towards total crash and burn, sex tape, overdose, Gary Buseyville, Megan Fox shows no sign of stopping and repeatedly opens her mouth letting insanity spew forth. She compares herself to other actresses with 10 times more talent and frankly, what she doesn’t realize is that most guys look at her while holding an athletic sock in one hand.

Chad Johnson, yes I refuse to call him Eight Five, may have some modicum of talent on the field, he totally overshadows it with his antics in the end zone. The fact that the NFL continually just fines the guy for being a d-bag gives them an honorary award as he should be suspended, for the playoffs and possibly longer. But that won’t happen, not when he makes the league money in fines and merchandise. What is really great about Chad being a D-bag is that since 2003 he has only scored three touchdowns against the Steelers. Sorry, just a fan, here but stats don’t lie. The almost irrelevant rivalry between the Steelers and the Bengals comes down to the fact that they continue to be the bigger dogs yet end up screwing themselves in the end. This year is the exception as they lead the AFC North and have playoff dreams while Pittsburgh is doing the math.

Kanye West however takes the microphone of D-Baggery away from them all and comes out on top, moving to the next round. His interruption at the VMA awards this year was ridiculous. Regardless of how much talent Taylor Swift lacks, he lacks class.

Today’s match has been brought to you by the numbers 8 and 5 and the letter D. No real talent was harmed during this post as no real talent was present.

2009 D-Bag Awards

It’s getting close to the end of the year and here at M.A.M.S. we’d thought we’d look back at 2009 and see who was the biggest d-bag of all. When I say “we” I mean “me” and the voices in my head. 2009 was quite the year for d-baggery. Usually, in case like this, I would do a straightforward list. But I wanted to be a little different and thought it would be fun to pit these folks against each other for my amusement. The worst part about it is having to only choose 32 competitors. There were a lot more that I wanted to include but felt that the field would be too diluted.

The remaining few weeks of 2009 are filled with retrospective lists of pop culture goodness. Unfortunately, to compete with everyone else, the demand for supremacy ultimately causes some list makers to miss out on crucial proponents of their topic that occur after press time. I have been planning a list of the biggest d-bags of 2009 and had hoped to publish them before the end of the year but had I done so I would have missed out on one of the biggest stories of the year. So, I waited and tried to gather more research in order to bring you a more complete list. Unfortunately, this project comes right at the busiest time, the holidays.

I had such hopes to do something exciting and different with this post. I had it all planned out as a March Madness style tournament that would bring matchups between nominees based on their area of d-baggery using bracketology. I just don’t have the time to be that creative and the scope of this project is way beyond me, so let’s just do this as simple as possible. So, here are the list of nominations in their matches. We’ll go from there.

D-Bag Dogs

1. Tiger Woods
2. Charles Barkley
3. David Letterman
4. Steve Phillips

D-Bag Dads

1. Jon Gosselin
2. Richard Heene
3. John Phillips
4. Roman Polanski

Deadly D-Bags

1. H1N1
2. Salmonella
3. Death
4. Conrad Murray

Political D-Bags

1. Rod Blagojevich
2. Sarah Palin
3. Kim Jong Il
4. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
5. Mark Sanford
6. John Edwards

A to D List D-Bags

1. Lindsay Lohan
2. Megan Fox
3. Heidi and Spencer Pratt
4. Ryan Jenkins
5. Chris Brown
6. Kanye West
7. Chad Johnson
8. Manny Ramirez

Million Dollar D-Bags

1. Wall Street
2. Auto Industry
3. Fox
4. NBC
5. Raj Rajaratnam
6. Bernie Madoff

TWC Becomes MTV

On August 1st, 1981 television and music was changed forever. MTV debuted with The Buggles, Video Killed the Radio Star. That’s probably one of the most well known answers to a trivia question if not the most overly asked. You might as well say, “Who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?” Since the dawn of music television network, viewers and musicians made the declaration “I Want My MTV!” Soon, they got their wish and soon after, that wish was destroyed.

Not wanting to sit on their laurels and wait for someone to move the cheese, MTV branched out into more original programming by adding shows to their schedule. One of which was a game show for the collegiate crowd called Remote Control, which as I write this I am just finding out that the host, Ken Ober has died at age 52. Remote Control was a pop culture trivia game show with a quirky sense of humor that featured a few now familiar faces in their pre-celebrity-due-paying years. Adam Sandler showed off his goofy pre SNL characters like The Stud Boy. Colin Quinn, also pre SNL was the sidekick and announcer and Kari Wurher was the Vanna White in Ken’s Mom’s basement.

Also, who could forget Downtown Julie Brown, wubba wubba, wubba, as the host of Club MTV? The dance show was styled after American Bandstand set to the hottest music of the moment. Often, a pubescent male viewer would hope for just the right shot from the sky cam or floor cam to show a glint of forbidden skin on the female dancers or at least I did, at that age.

And long before Jeff Probst held tribal councils, roommates were kicking each other out of the house on one of the first successful reality shows, The Real World. Forget Richard Hatch and Jeri Manthey, who could forget Puck and Eric Nies?

But somewhere around the new millennium, MTV started to develop more and more reality and other crap shows and played less and less music videos and great shows like 120 Minutes and Headbanger's Ball. By the year 2000 there was up to eight hours of music videos being played on the network whereas by 2008, an average of three hours of music videos were being shown, yet each year they showcased the best of the best with the Video Music Awards. You have to wonder if, somewhere, Adam Curry is chomping on his gums, muttering "Damn Kids" while adjusting his long blonde 80's hair toupee to keep the liver spots covered on his forehead?

The reason I bring all of this up is that MTV was a niche network, much like its sister channel VH1. However, they stopped being what they originally were and became something else. The trend isn’t lost on other networks. For instance, The Weather Channel (guess what they show) has always been a niche network.

I remember the early days where you really couldn’t do much more than give the forecast and the current conditions. And to that end, how much can the weather really change in the course of an hour? But still, over time, TWC began to expand its horizons and offer other programming like Storm Stories and Weather Center. But regardless of what the evening block held for prime time, you could always count on Local on the 8's. Sometimes, intentions aside, TWC can be the butt of jokes, as a sort of NPR of television almost taking itself too seriously.

I used to make such jokes at the expense of my wife who loved watching The Weather Channel. I would ask how she could be so addicted to a channel that pretty much repeats itself every ten minutes? Then I began watching like a weather zombie. Must see extended forecast. Every eight minutes we would be tuned in waiting for the trippy music as if we were watching a Joy of Painting marathon with the soporific tones of light jazz playing in the background. Although, I did get a kick out of hearing "Classical Gas" accompanying the Doppler Radar. When we would go on vacation you could tell how our week was going to go based on the availability and ease of locating The Weather Channel on the hotel room television. Sometimes we’d spend more time watching the weather on television instead of enjoying it up close and personal.

It would get so bad that we would become such idiots as to say, “What’s up with Jim Cantore’s hair? Is he going bald or just thinking that it’s a good look, regardless?” or “Mish Michaels is pretty sexy but that outfit isn’t good for her.” My personal favorite was Paul Kocin. My wife would always know when Winter was in full force because the Extreme Weather correspondent, Paul, was showing up in the rotation or meteorologists.

But like MTV, The Weather Channel kind of jumped the shark and started playing movies with a weather themed plot. The first one was The Perfect Storm. Now, you could not be more appropriate than kicking off your new direction with this film that is based in meteorological reality. However, one has to wonder how they are going to keep finding good movies to show which will keep in line with the topic of weather. Already announced are Twister (tornadoes), understandable, and March of the Penguins (snow), um OK. Then it kind of breaks down into a ridiculous mess with Deep Blue Sea and Misery. Misery has little to do with Snow as say maybe Avalanche does and Deep Blue Sea is not so much about tropical storms as it is psychopathic killer sharks eating Samuel Jackson and sparing L.L. Cool J. While I can see perhaps lining up Hard Rain for floods and even The River would be a good choice, I just hope they don’t decide to choose The Day After Tomorrow for a sense of reality surrounding global climate change. Of course, they probably will, though. In that case you might as well get ready for The Core to be shown as well.

To this end, I can see other niche networks deciding to play more movies that are themed in their offering. Perhaps HGTV will show The Money Pit or Mouse Hunt. G4 could actually get back to showing video game related content and put the Fred Savage classic, The Wizard on or even the technology reality based Hackers, because everyone knows that the hardest thing to hack is a Gibson. How about The Food Network showing Simply Irresistible or at least Ratatouille? That would be good. In a couple of years they could show Julie and Julia, although I would refrain from getting the rights to Titus based on Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, although one should really know what temperature you need to have your oven on in order to properly cook your enemies into a pie.

All kidding aside, I miss the good old days when television was a landscape of 57 channels and nothin’ on instead of today’s format of 900 channels and all the same thing is on. I yearn to escape the doldrums of regular broadcast television’s lame ass programming for a little bit of jazz and current conditions and possibly even a music video once in awhile, but alas, I find myself mired in Another Shot At Hepatitis C With Skanky Ho or Washed Up Music Artist or watching Batman and Robin because the character of Mr. Freeze represents the real possibility of global cooling. Where’s the remote? Let's see if the test pattern is still around.

I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Into Protective Custody

Ok, by now we know that Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Michael Jackson have died, but just a couple days later, pitchman and Western Pennsylvania native, Billy Mays, died in his sleep. Now, I don’t foresee Billy Mays taking the media spotlight away from Michael Jackson as if her were applying OxiClean to a stain, but his passing gives one pause. It’s been a bad week to be famous.

To say Billy Mays was a famous celebrity in comparison to Farrah or Michael is like saying that Britney Spears is as good a singer as Mariah Carey. But, as far as pitchmen for infomercials and other “As Seen On TV” products Billy was, as least, better than Taylor Swift. His in your face loud voice and perfectly manscaped beard was his trademark and he knew how to sell a product. From what has been publicized, Mays was on US Airways Flight 1241 when it had to make an emergency landing in Tampa. During the landing objects fell from the overheads striking Mays but he claimed to be fine. If this wasn't a strong case for some Mighty Putty, I don't know what is. Later, not feeling well, he went to bed and was found unresponsive the next morning. Apparently, we've learned nothing from Natasha Richardson.

But his death along with everybody else these past couple of weeks probably has everybody in News Media Outlets scrambling to put together a tribute video package just in case Patrick Swayze coughs. Hang in there Patrick, I’m really pulling for you.

Billy Mays is gone, yet Vince Shlomi is still getting injured on a regular basis with hookers and car wrecks. There is no justice.

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Doing a little surfing of the web brought up a ton of celebrity dead pool sites and a bunch of “Filtered by Websense” pages, sure to have some IT guys wondering what I’m doing on my lunch. However, looking at a few pages in Wikipedia, which is more reliable than CNN and more fair and balanced than Fox News…it’s sarcasm people, go with me… I've come up with a short and incomplete list of famous people who shouldn’t be running with scissors anytime soon.

Phyllis Diller – 91
Carol Channing – 88
Andy Rooney – 90
Elizabeth Taylor – 77
Betty White 87
Abe Vigoda – 88… wait he’s dead… sorry, he’s still alive…. must check my sources again
Richard Dawson – 76 Oddly enough, I forgot he was alive and as Randy as ever.
Kim Jong-il – 67 He could soon have a run in with a very large metal object that explodes on impact…
If he does die, someone find me Yoko Ono and prove to me that they aren’t the same person
Fidel Casto – 82
Half of television’s fall lineup - leaving only Wife Swap and Donald Trump to irritate me.

Why you'll never see me on Survivor?

It’s not that I am just a little hefty and like the creature comforts of home that I would never be picked for the show. OK, well, that’s partially a reason. I’d be out before Jeff Probst said, “Welcome to Survivor…” In any case, the reason why you’ll never see me on Survivor is that I’m not already famous or rich.

Now, I thought the whole reason for being on Survivor was to Outplay, Outwit, and Outlast the other contestants to win a million dollars. So, why would someone put themselves through all that bug eating, loin cloth wearing, and Probst dimpling crap to win less than they already are worth? Fame? Revived career? Masochistic tendencies?

Here in my own cubic-hell we have an office pool going. $10 for two contestants. That gives us a pot of $80. I have Taj and J.T. Until today I had no idea who these people were. I’ve never even seen the show. I watched one season of Survivor and that was the Australian version 8 years and 16 seasons ago. Go figure that one out. Anyway, Since I don’t pay attention, but like participating in a little competitive office pool, I had no idea if either of my survivors were even still on the show. So, I checked out my trusted source, Wikipedia. Apparently, both are still in it…not for a lack of head scratching with their tables displaying voting patterns, elimination records, and what not. Stranger yet, Taj had her name hyperlinked. I clicked on it and was surprised to find what most of America already knew, she’s famous outside of the show. She’s not only a former member of the musical group SWV, but married to Eddie George. Granted she’s not the first contestant with ties to the NFL. Gary Hogeboom was a contestant in Guatemala and hoped nobody would recognize him from his days as Roger Staubach’s backup.

So, this all begs the question. Why would the wife of a multimillion dollar NFL player compete for a paltry one million before taxes? Ok, how about this. Candace Smith, who got voted out early was a pageant winner, Barker Beauty, and actress, appearing on Entourage, Joey, and a small role in Beerfest where she has sex with a guy who is so drunk he sees her instead of the real woman he picks up from the bar until the next morning. While, Smith may not have the same bank account as Taj, she can’t be doing that bad. After all, she passed the Bar exam before deciding to become an actress. My parents would have killed me. At least, I never took the bar.

A friend and follower of the blog made the comment that this isn’t the first time an actress has been on Reality TV. The Amazing Race just had an actor as a contestant recently, and who can forget Jerri Matheny from Survivor Outback? Their comment was perhaps this is a trend. After chuckling a lot at that, I thought, maybe it’s a symptom. Perhaps wannabe actors are forgoing the traditional route of living out of their car and waiting tables with their head shot and resume tucked into their guest check folder. Maybe they are migrating to Reality Television since scripted shows seem to be on the decline. Although, cable is where it’s at lately. My hope is that this horrible experiment in cheap, repeatable television is almost over. Let’s hope that this was all a symptom of the former administration which made most of America feel less intelligent. Maybe the new sheriff can instill some intellectual pride among us and push us to require better standards from our idiot box. Of course, some will say that his version of Reality Television will have the winners giving some of their winnings to everyone else. To each his own. Me, I'd rather wait until I hit it big, then I'll go audition for a reality show when my 15 minutes are almost up. That's how I aim to survive.

Flavor Shot of Love on the Rocks

Oh for crying out loud?!? How much more can we endure? I will not go on at length about my already established loathing of reality television but will share my thoughts on some things.

The latest season of The Bachelor wrapped up with a three hour meh fest. The final episode and the “After the Final Rose” or as I call it, “You’ll-watch-this-because-there’s-nothing-on-during-the-10-o’clock-hour-on-other-channels-and-Heroes-is-still-lagging-in-the-9-o’clock-one!” I refused, flat out refused, to watch this season as a captive audience to my wife’s kidnapping of the remote. Luckily, she was turned off after the last offering of The Bachelorette, where DeAnna Pappas chose Spicoli-lite Jessie Csincsak over the current Bachelor, Single Dad, Jason Mesnick. The wife was pulling for Graham Bunn, but he was unwilling to play Deanna’s game. He probably was the best man for the job but since he didn’t fall all over DeAnna and make her the center of the universe, she dropped him.

So,…am I telling you anything you don’t already know? Ok, well, you know that DeAnna and Jessie broke up before the wedding and it had to be her choice because Jessie had some YouTube video talking about it and he was crying about the breakup. Anyway, DeAnna came crawling back to Jason crying, “I made a mistake!”

Obviously, the producers knew or had heard of the breakup between DeAnna and Jessie and made her an offer to come back. What? Scripted reality television, you say? No, you must be mistaken. Yeah, well obviously, Pappas has no dignity because she did just that, she appeared in the season finale. She probably tried to call Graham Bunn, but he’s too busy dating someone else, so what else was there? Again, I didn’t watch any of this season but saw the last five minutes of the finale and a couple of the after show thinking it couldn’t still be on at 10:00 pm. I was wrong.

How can they keep plugging this crap? Is standard television fare that bad? Is this high brow Jerry Springer? Instead of being a voyeur into the trailer park crowd, we get the beautiful 20-30 something professionals in a mansion. And why do people keep thinking that these people will make it? Is it any wonder why the show is two for 13 in successful marriages? It’s obvious that there’s a lot of screwing around going on, so why should anyone, guy or girl, feel that they are really special. They’re just a numbered contestant.

Then we have the cable knock off shows like Flavor of Love and I Love New York, and the rest. This stuff is a steaming pile of poo. Yet people watch with all the fervor of a Smoke Monster centric episode of LOST. On a side note, if the Bad Robot and company were really cool, they’d do an episode like that with Smoke Monster flashbacks. I guess only in my mind, only in my mind.

Where was I? Oh yeah, there was some story that Glen Danzig was going to appear in the next season of Rock of Love. Of course, it would be slanted towards a satanic spin with weird challenges involving body parts and goats. My question is who would be allowed to audition? He already has a built in warning to all the Mother’s of potential contestants telling them not to walk his way or hear his words. That’s probably the theme song. It’d be dumb for them to not use it.

And don’t get me started on that whole Tia Tequila hot mess. This chick was just an asshat and a sellout. Make up your mind…and you want to talk about glass houses, you’re doing about as much for the GLAAD image as Lindsay Lohan. Don’t let this one fool you. This was pure spot light grabbing idiocy. She knew what the demographic was going to be if she played both sides of the field and she was about as big a fake as the Joe Schmoe show. The fact that she even got a second season shows how depraved producers in Hollywood are. You know you can’t play the ambiguity card this time, and in the end, the winner bowed out. She couldn’t commit to her own fame seeking sham image.

How about Tool Academy? Let me get this straight. The object is relationship boot camp for idiots. How dumb does a guy have to be to think they are being entered into a “Mr. Awesome” contest only to be put into “charm school?” They obviously are somewhat in on it because they don’t walk away right after they’ve been let in on the joke that is them. Oh, and then in the second episode, one of the guys replaced his girlfriend. What the hell? The girlfriends signed the guys up for the show and this freak of nature drops her for an ex.

Oh and my personal favorite idiot of all time, The Pickup Artist. First off, take that dumb hat off your dumb head. Next, realize that you are an idiot and regardless of how special you think you really are, you’re just ripping off a sub par Molly Ringwald movie. Kind of fitting, no?

Look, I don’t claim to be anything but me. I’ve never, for once, in my life relied on sex appeal or looks to find someone. I’ve always been the Ducky, the Farmer Ted, or the LIoyd Dobler. I’ve relied on my character and humor and I ended up just fine. Yes, I watched as other, better looking guys, put a revolving door on their bedroom but I didn’t care in the end. I may have slammed them for being assholes or players, but at the end of the day, it all worked out for the best. I’m happy and I have I no regrets other than a couple of bad choices which I got lucky over the outcome. But I don’t get these mind numbingly dumb shows. At least with The Bachelor and Bachelorette, they find someone and they’re done, for a few weeks. Flavor Flav and Brett Michaels keep coming back for season after season. It’s not like they’re trying to find Mrs. Right, but Mrs. Right Now.

It makes you wonder what kind of compensation they give rejected contestants on those shows. You know how Oscar presenters get baskets of stuff from all kinds of high profile designers and confectioners? I wonder if contestants on these shows get a basket from CVS and Rite-Aid pharmacies. How about a lifetime supply of antibiotics and delousing powder?