Modest Mouse music video directed by Heath Ledger debuts

You can watch the animated video for the song "King Rat" over at MySpace.

Ledger directed part of the video and the rest was finished by his company, The Masses.

Stephon Marbury's bizarre behavior

Is Stephon Marbury self-destructing? And doing so in an incredibly public fashion which is exceptionally bizarre -- even for a celebrity?

I think the answer is yes.

Starbury TV is what happens when any sense of restraint has been removed, when a person decides he has nothing better to do with his life than rant into a webcam.

"I'm doing me!" Marbury keeps repeating, usually adding a melody and dance. "I'm doing meeeeeee!"

Apparently that now entails eating Vaseline and breaking down in tears in the middle of a prayer. He justified his behavior by saying it was more interesting to watch than someone who just sits around doing nothing. "I'm entertaining to people," Marbury said. "You watch entertaining things."

I caught a few minutes of Stephon Marbury's live UStream (Starbury TV) -- and he was flossing. No, not that kind of flossing -- he was brushing his teeth and flossing.

I, sadly, missed the Vaseline eating incident.

Sarah Palin's speech as interpreted by William Shatner

Shatner is a god. Yeah, I said it.

Somewhat hilarious liveblog of the WWE Raw with Shaq

Shaquille O'Neal hosted an episode of WWE's Raw (that's pro wrestling) last night, and SLAM magazine liveblogged the whole thing.

Jericho climbs into the ring and stands toe-to-toe with Shaq, who glares way, way down at Jericho.

Jericho says, “When I heard the most dominant player in NBA history was guest-hosting RAW, I automatically assumed it was Kobe Bryant.” I laugh out loud.

I didn't watch it, but found the liveblog hilarious anyway.

Dilbert cartoonist's speech problems

This is an incredible story about Scott Adams (the cartoonist behind the Dilbert phenomenon) and his speech problems -- problems that led him to be selectively mute.

I can't find a great paragraph to excerpt, so you have to just read the whole thing.

It's worth it.

Mark Cuban doesn't like the AP

I think that Mark Cuban has a beef with the Associated Press, judging by what he said on Twitter moments ago.

Why do people believe that AP stories are factual ? Their fact checking is horrid, their balance non existent. They are worthless IMHO

Boxer Arturo Gatti reportedly found dead in Brazilian hotel room

Arturo Gatti will never be considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. Gatti was just 49-9, but he will be remembered for being a warrior.

He was found dead in a Brazilian hotel room. He was with his wife and son, and there were no bullet or knife wounds.

Gatti fought in an epic trilogy against Mickey Ward, two of the fights which were named "Fight of the Year" by Ring Magazine. He had multiple other fights that were Fight of the Year nominees -- usually because the final rounds of a Gatti fight resembled a fight from a Rocky movie.

Blood always seemed to be flowing down Gatti's face in the 12th round, but Gatti continued to stand toe to toe with his opponent, giving as good as he got.

As I said before, he will never be in the same league as the Oscar de la Hoyas for Floyd Mayweathers of the world (two boxers who he lost to), but he was always one of my favorite boxers to watch.

Important notice to all politicians (re: Michael Jackson funeral)

Hilarious from musings:

In anticipation of the 'round the clock coverage of Michael Jackson's funeral tomorrow and the toxicology report due to be released on Thursday, if you have (1) an affair you'd like to admit to, (2) an addiction you feel should be revealed, (3) federal or state taxes you have not paid...

Go there to see 4, 5, 6, 7.

And is it kind of sad that in eight years people might be asking, "Do you remember where you were when you heard Michael Jackson died?" just like people now ask "Where were you when you heard about 9/11?"

And some of these people will completely mean it. As for me, I'm having a hard time remembering where I was and it wasn't even a month ago. It only feels like a year since he passed away.

Steve Martin does 'Billie Jean'

Via The New Yorker:

As a dancer, Michael Jackson was great. He was like Fred Astaire. This video, a parody of the “Billie Jean” video, was done for “The New Show,” which was a prime-time NBC program that Lorne Michaels did in 1983-1984, when he wasn’t producing “Saturday Night Live.” This was the opening—it was the first piece on the first episode of the show.

My dad loves telling me a story about a time I saw Jackson do the moonwalk on TV. He says my eyes got really big, I stood up, attempted the moonwalk, then sat down.

Didn't say a word, I just tried to moonwalk. I must have been six or seven at the time. But I'm sure that the first time everyone saw Jackson do the moonwalk, they all did the same thing -- stood up and tried it. And, utterly failing, sat down in shame.

Celebrities don't die in threes

Do celebrities really die in threes? The answers is "No." Just look at this year's list of prominent deaths from recent weeks.

If there does happen to be three celebrity deaths in a row, it is just random.

Filipino prisoners who did "Thriller" dance to do tribute to Michael Jackson

I think I can safely say that if you are reading this, you have seen the video of Filipino prisoners doing the Thriller music video:



Well, they will do the dance again to honor Michael Jackson after he died Thursday of cardiac arrest.

@TheOnion remembers Michael Jackson

The Onion has a section on all things the King of Pop.

My favorite?

This story: "New Rap Song Samples 'Billie Jean' In Its Entirety, Adds Nothing.

I'm actually surprised that The Onion didn't write more about the King of Pop.

Zach Galifianakis is the new comedy god

OK, the title is a little bit facetious. But Zach Galifianakis is a really funny guy. Or he's extremely unfunny. It all depends on the person who is watching his act.

I watched Galifianakis' Comedy Central special (video) with my old roommates and a girl when they were over at the house. This is a Comedy Central special where Galiafianakis jumps around in a leotard, has a chorus of his ex-girlfriends sing a song and... well, it's pretty weird.

My roommates didn't get it (for the record, they thought that Dane Cook was hilarious). The girl? She said that Katt Williams is funny and asked if we had any of that.

Yeah.

Anyway, the New York Times magazine ran a feature on Galifianakis (my second favorite Greek comedian behind Demetri Martin).

Here's a portion:

The beard lends him a subtly beatnik air, a link to the first generation of stand-up iconoclasts, like Lord Buckley and Lenny Bruce; at the same time,it gives him a professorial quality — dare I call it a gravitas? — that makes his more meatheaded material jarringly effective. Galifianakis himself put it more succinctly: “I look like a homeless guy now. People seem to appreciate that.”

One of the people who appreciated it was Kanye West, who saw Galifianakis perform at a Hollywood club called Largo in 2007. “I was doing a bit about how much I hate celebrity egos, and that seemed to resonate with him, for some reason,” said Galifianakis, with a barely perceptible grin. “He asked me to do a video for him, and I said yes, with one condition: I just go off by myself and shoot it, and he doesn’t get to look at it until it’s done.” To everyone’s surprise, West agreed. The resulting video, in which Galifianakis and the indie-folk icon Will Oldham drive a tractor around a cornfield while lip-synching West’s hit single “Can’t Tell Me Nothing,” has been viewed nearly half a million times. “I wasn’t sure what Kanye would think of it, to be honest,” Galifianakis said. “But his response was perfect, considering how we’d first met. He said it was the best video he’d ever made.”

Going viral

Just about every time someone uploads a YouTube clip of themselves up on YouTube, somewhere in the back of their minds is that this might be a clip that goes viral -- that becomes the Next Big Thing on YouTube, a video that will bring them fame if not fortune.

Somewhere around 99.99% of people who upload videos to YouTube never realize this dream. But Brandon Hardesty was one who actually did realize this dream and parlayed his love of certain movies and his acting ability into, well, fame.

The Washington Post Magazine did a 6,000 word article on Hardesty and his videos.

I don't want to give anything away from the article, but go ahead and read it. It's worth it, trust me. I would never lead you wrong.

To the right is an example of one of his earliest videos, a reenactment of a famous scene from the '80s teen angst-fest that was The Breakfast Club.

Ghostbuster the video game

Ghostbusters 3 is still in the early stages of development. Rumors are flying around all over that everyone from the original cast is coming back (which is the only way to do it, really).

As long as Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Sigourney Weaver are in it and Ivan Reitman directs it, I think it will be fine.

But well before then -- in just about two weeks, actually -- Ghostbusters the video game will come out. And the New York Times has a great profile of the Ghostbusters franchise in advance of the new video game.

So should we be worried about the typical the-video-game-of-the-movie-nearly-always-sucks concerns (the same is true of books based on movies)? From the NY Times article:

Hoping to break with the decades-long litany of slipshod interactive movie tie-ins, Atari, the game’s publisher, has approached Ghostbusters: the Video Game as a major production in its own right. In a reversal of the traditional entertainment food chain, the game, to be released June 16, will come to market even as planning for the long-awaited third “Ghostbusters” film remains in the earliest stages. The expectation is that the game will both revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie.

If their plan was to "revitalize and expand interest in the franchise ahead of a new movie" they would probably not release it three years ahead of when the movie is actually made.

So how involved were Ramis and Aykroyd (who wrote the first two Ghostbusters movies)? Well... kind of. But not as much as you might hear in the marketing.

“The crassest way I can put it is that they couldn’t have paid us enough to give it the time and attention required to make it as funny as a feature film," Ramis told the New York Times.

No, Susan Boyle didn't win

No, Susan Boyle didn't win.

And no, I don't care, internet.

NY turns to celebs to push gay marriage bill

This is a pretty cool story from the New York Times:

State Senator Shirley L. Huntley, a brassy, big-haired Democrat from Queens who opposes same-sex marriage, received a call on Wednesday that left her momentarily stunned.

Maya Angelou was on the line, and she wanted to know if the senator might reconsider her position. Ms. Huntley, hardly the type to be played for a fool, at first thought her staff might be pulling a fast one.

“I said, ‘What?’ ” Ms. Huntley recalled on Thursday, adding that she was not convinced that it was Ms. Angelou until she heard her deep timbre. “I heard the voice, and I said: ‘My God. It is her.’ And that was that.”

The NYTimes also says that former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon (a Google image search tells me that she's the redhead) made calls to state Senators to try to get them to back the bill.

“We think the most effective lobbyists on marriage are actual constituents, not Hollywood stars,” Maggie Gallagher, president of the much-mocked National Organization for Marriage told the Times. “That’s the most effective thing we can do.”

Come on, even I know that Angelou and Tagliabue are anything but "Hollywood celebrities."

Tagliabue has a gay son and Nixon is a lesbian.

Gay marriage is legal and has not caused an unraveling of society in Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont.

Young women love American Idol

I know, I know, it's not exactly breaking news... but according to a poll by the Pew Research Center, the demographic that follows American Idol most closely are young women -- that is women from the age 18-30.

The poll shows that 26 percent of women in this age group follow American Idol "Very" or "Fairly" closely. Me, I didn't know who Adam Lambert was until I was pointed to this video of the Idol runner up massacring "Ring of Fire," the Johnny Cash classic.

The numbers are slowly dropping across the board, a trend that I wholeheartedly support. In fact, I would hope that the numbers accelerate, but that is just me.

Meanwhile, men 18-30 (which is my age group) aren't that enamored with American Idol. Just 13 percent of men in the youngest age group follow American Idol "Very" or "Fairly" closely.

If you take away the number of men who are forced by their girlfriends or wives to watch the show, I would be the number would rapidly approach five percent.

Oh, an 71 percent of people say that they have followed the karaoke competition "Not at all closely."