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When people talk about The Simpsons, they tend to come to one of two conclusions. There’s the “It’s just fucking awful now” crowd, which insists that the show has not produced a single laugh since 1997, and there’s the “It’s still good!” crowd, which completely denies that there has been any decline, and that The Simpsons is as good as ever, and the fans who think otherwise are just a pack of ungrateful curmudgeons.
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A few days ago The BEAST broke the story that J.C. Penney, despite a very public claim to “share values” with their openly gay spokesperson Ellen DeGeneres, contributes to anti-gay politicians through its PAC. Well, in response to a media inquiry, the folks over at J.C. Penney have offered us this bizarre statement:
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”That one alone will get us a couple crates of glue!”
0-15:00 The movie opens with John Williams piloting a plane with his orchestra who he has kidnapped. The deal is that they have to keep playing that sappy music he likes so much or else he will crash the plane. You ever wondered how he managed to get so much soundtrack work? Now you know. So Williams is spying on this town which seems to exist only for the sake of a horse-driven economy. Most people’s lives revolve around buying and selling horses. No other commerce is permitted. One of these horses is called War Horse, and a family trains him to assassinate a member of Austrian royalty. War Horse is obviously a code name for Whitney Houston. The horse starts smoking rocks all day.
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Newt Gingrich’s “Faith Leaders Dream Team”…
… and the Nazgûl?_________________________________________________
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BEASTcast Episode 19: Adam WarRock (mp3)
Adam WarRock is a nerd rapper who releases a ridiculous amount of free content through his website. His newest album, You Dare Call That Thing Human?!?, was released just this week. We talk about nerdcore rap, comic books, sci-fi, ragequitting, politics, and his newest album.
You can buy his newest album here. Also, check him out on tour if you can.
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According to my Facebook & Twitter feeds, I’m supposed to be inspired that J.C. Penney is forward-thinking enough to have an openly gay spokesperson in Ellen DeGeneres. It is kind of cool that the company didn’t capitulate to the puritanical zealots calling for her dismissal. And it wasn’t just a savvy business move to retain the popular talk show host and trendsetter, says J.C. Penney CEO Ron Johnson, “because she shares the same values that we do in our company.”
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I can’t decide if the Grammys are relevant. On the one hand, they have a nasty habit of ignoring modern trends — like when Kanye West and Amy Winehouse lost Album of The Year to Herbie Hancock doing Joni Mitchell covers, or that time Radiohead and Lil Wayne lost to Robert Plant’s and Alison Krauss’s bluegrass concept album about how Robert Plant hates touring with Jimmy Page. But on the other hand, humanity has a few scant generations left before global warming decimates our civilization, and wipes out most life on planet earth.
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0-10:00 Johnny and Jane America have tagged along with Jane’s parents to Paris. They hate each other and are probably only engaged to spite each other. Jane meets up with some of her friends and they all go out of town together so they can throw rocks at Johnny while yelling homophobic slurs at him for being a sissy boy who enjoys France, rain, and other gay stuff like that.
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“OBAMA! And BIDEN! The Three Musketeers!”
So it looks like birtherism is about as dead as we could hope. Sure, the WorldNetDaily and Washington Times crowd will never be convinced Barack Obama is an American human, but the public consciousness has at least shifted enough around this issue that when someone admits to being a birther it’s pretty much the end of any serious conversation. So now the would-be birthers who still want to be taken seriously have to limit their race-baiting to the kind of dog-whistle buzz words and phrases that people like Newt Gingrich are so fond of.
