Celebrities Category
Celebrity news & gossip from the world’s showbiz and glamour magazines (OK!, Hello, National Enquirer and more). We read them so you don’t have to, picking the best bits from the showbiz world’s maw and spitting it back at them. Expect lots of sarcasm.
Tom Waits & Cookie Monster mashup – sing God’s Away On Business
YouTuber cookiewaits has created this terrific mashup of Tom Waits and Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster singing God’s Away On Business. The singer and cookie enthusiast do sound remarkably alike.
Posted: 12th, February 2021 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
Watch The Princess Bride Home Movie
The Princess Bride (redux), directed by Jason Reitman, broadcast on Quibi (the now dead streaming service you never heard of), starring Fred Savage, Cary Elwes, Adam Sandler, Rob Reiner, Jon Hamm (Westley), Zoe Saldana (Buttercup), Penelope Cruz (Prince Humperdinck), Pedro Pascal (Inigo Montoya), Shaquille O’Neal (Fezzik), Charlize Theron (Fezzik) and Andy Serkis (Count Rugen).
Why was it made? for charity. Money raised went to José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen.
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 2nd, February 2021 | In: Celebrities, Film, Key Posts | Comment
When F Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway compared penis size
Just as men took up painting to spend time with naked men and women, many famous writers were also preoccupied with sex. In A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway notes the time he and fellow novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, compared penis size:
In the time after Zelda had what was then called her first nervous breakdown and we happened to be in Paris at the same time, Scott asked me to have lunch with him at Michaud’s restaurant on the corner of the rue Jacob and the rue des Saints-Pères. He said he had something very important to ask me that meant more than anything in the world to him and that I must answer absolutely truly.
[…]
I kept waiting for it to come, the thing that I had to tell the absolute truth about; but he would not bring it up until the end of the meal, as though we were having a business lunch.
Finally when we were eating the cherry tart and had a last carafe of wine he said, “You know I never slept with anyone except Zelda.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I thought I had told you.”
“No. You told me a lot of things but not that.”
“That is what I have to ask you about.”
“Good. Go on.”
“Zelda said that the way I was built I could never make any woman happy and that was what upset her originally. She said it was a matter of measurements. I have never felt the same since she said that and I have to know truly.”
“Come out to the office,” I said.
“Where is the office?”
“Le water,” I said.
We came back into the room and sat down at the table.
“You’re perfectly fine,” I said. “You are O.K. There’s nothing wrong with you. You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened. Go over to the Louvre and look at the people in the statues and then go home and look at yourself in the mirror in profile.”
“Those statues may not be accurate.”
“They are pretty good. Most people would settle for them.”
“But why would she say it?”
“To put you out of business. That’s the oldest way in the world of putting people out of business. Scott, you asked me to tell you the truth and I can tell you a lot more but this is the absolute truth and all you need. You could have gone to see a doctor.”
“I didn’t want to. I wanted you to tell me truly.”
“Now do you believe me?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Come on over to the Louvre,” I said. “It’s just down the street and across the river.”
We went over to the Louvre and he looked at the statues but still he was doubtful about himself.
“It is not basically a question of the size in repose,” I said. “It is the size that it becomes. It is also a question of angle.” I explained to him about using a pillow and a few other things that might be useful for him to know.
A pillow to rest our head upon when you lie down, pick up a good book and forget about it.
Spotter: BB; Flashbak
Posted: 15th, January 2021 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Hear James Baldwin’s great record collection on a Spotify playlist
You can hear American writer James Baldwin’s record collection as Spotify playlist. In his hymned work Another Country, Baldwin hailed the creative power of music:
The beat: hands, feet, tambourines, drums, pianos, laughter, curses, razor blades: the man stiffening with a laugh and a growl and a purr and the woman moistening and softening with a whisper and a sigh and a cry. The beat – in Harlem in the summertime one could almost see it, shaking above the pavements and the roof.
Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, a curator at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, has gone further, creating a playlist of Baldwin’s listening. “I latched onto his records, their sonic ambience,” says Onyewuenyi. “In addition to reading the books and essays, listening to the records was something that could transport me there.”
Image: CC – Allan Warren – James Baldwin taken Hyde Park, London
Spotter: Flashbak, Hyperallergic
Posted: 31st, December 2020 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comment
Hilaria Baldwin and Phoebe – life mirrors 30 Rock?
Hilaria Baldwin, née Hillary Hayward-Thomas, is a celebrity, yoga instructor and the current Mrs Alec Baldwin, star of TV’s 30 Rock. She is accused of creating a fake Spanish heritage.
She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and appears to have attended school in the state. But, as reported widely, a now deleted bio on her management’s website said that she was born on the Spanish island of Mallorca. As the BBC notes: “She also previously claimed in an interview that she did not move to the United States until she was 19 to attend university in New York.” Page Six adds: “Her 2016 interview with Hola! magazine also stated: ‘Hilaria, who was born in Spain, has made certain to raise her children with her native language, Spanish.'”
In this video, Hilaria Baldwin seems to forget the English word for cucumber, something many of us (vegetarians included) have done.
Hilaria goes on the record. In a long video on Instagram, Hilaria Baldwin says she was born in Boston, but was partly raised in Spain.
“I’ve seen chatter online questioning my identity and culture. This is something I take very seriously, and for those who are asking – I’ll reiterate my story, as I’ve done many times before. I was born in Boston and grew up spending time with my family between Massachusetts and Spain. My parents and sibling live in Spain and I chose to live here, in the USA. We celebrate both cultures in our home – Alec and I are raising our children bilingual, just as I was raised.”
Both her parents appear to be American with pretty deep roots – Dr. Kathryn Hayword and David Thomas moved to Mallorca in 2011. Vanity Fair adds: The obituary for Hilaria’s paternal grandfather, David Thomas Sr., also states that his “family presence in that part of Vermont pre-dated the American Revolution.”
And the name Hilaria? She says she was called Hillary in the US and Hilaria in Spain. She opted for “consolidating” under Hilaria – but will answer to both, adding:
“I care because my thing is about being authentic and then if people say I’m not being authentic, it hurts my feelings…I don’t really understand why it’s turning into such a big thing…I’m getting attacked for being who I am…people wanting to label me Spanish or America, can’t it be both? It’s frustrating that is my story.”
It’s all more than a bit ridiculous. She can call herself whatever she pleases and talk however she likes. More’s the pity Hilaria didn’t respond to accusations of cultural appropriation’ by wearing a Fez and speaking in a rich Scouse accent.
And it might be nothing like a scene in 30 Rock when Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) falls for Phoebe (Emily Mortimer). In one scene, Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) confronts Phoebe:
Phoebe : You know how John Lennon was better than the rest of the Beatles, but didn’t realize it until he met Yoko Ono? Well, I’m Jack’s Yoko.
Liz Lemon : You want to be Yoko?
Phoebe : This is none of your business, anyway. I’m marrying Jack. He’s everything I ever wanted.
Liz Lemon : Oh, I bet he is.
Phoebe : [in American accent] You don’t know anything about me, so back off!
Liz Lemon : What happened to your accent?
Phoebe : [back to British accent] Um, I don’t know what you’re on about. You daft wanker!
Image: Creative Commons / Wikipedia by Joella Marano
Posted: 29th, December 2020 | In: Celebrities, Hello!, News, TV & Radio | Comment
Lux Interior of The Cramps Christmas mix tape download
Kristian Hoffman received a mix tapes of Christmas songs from Lux Interior of The Cramps. Called ‘Jeezus Fuck, It’s Christmas!!!’, you can download it. Says Hoffman on his Facebook page:
Lux Interior used to make holiday cassettes for me, and so many of his friends. As odd as it seems, he was all about sharing. Listening to this one right now.
You can get more files at WFMU Ichiban.
Spotter: flashbak
Ye Motherf*cker : listen to a medley of Medieval hip hop covers
Helping us know what hip hop sounds like on Medieval instruments is Beedle the Bardcore . Listen out for twinkling, instrumental version of songs by Wu-Tang Clan, Eminem, Coolio & L.V, 2Pac and The Fugees.
Would be interesting to hear what rappers make of Medieval texts, like Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales:
“This Absolon gan wype his mouth ful drie./ Dirk was the nyght as pich or as the cole,/ And at the wyndow out she pitte hir hole./ And Absolon hym fil no bet ne wers,/ But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers/ Ful savourly er he was war of this./ Abak he stirte and thoughte it was amys,/ For wel he wiste a woman hath no berd./ He felte a thyng al rough and longe yherd/ And seyde, “Fy! Allas! What have I do?”/ “Tehee,” quod she and clapte the wyndow to.”
Endeth.
Spotter: Laughing Squid
Dame Barbara Windsor : Carry On and a night with George Best
Actress Dame Barbara Windsor was 83 when she succumbed to Alzheimer’s at a London care home. Dame Barbara is best remembered as the star of nine of the 31 Carry On films, The Rag Trade, Sparrows Can’t Sing and EastEnders. But it was on stage where her talent and effervescence marked her out for stardom.
After a stint at the Aida Foster School in Golders Green, Windsor joined Joan Littlewood’s company at the Theatre Royal in Stratford, east London, appearing in productions of Oh! What A Lovely War and Fings Ain’t Wot They Used To Be.
At four foot ten and half inches tall with a bawdy laugh and impressive cleavage, ‘Babs’, a native of London’s East End, was a terrific and apparently fearless performer – although as she once cautioned: “I am not like my image,. Everyone thinks I just bounce in, but I study and everything has to be just right.”
Take the memorable bra scene in Carry on Camping (1969), filmed in chilly February and March. Windsor stands in a field with other women. She is dressed in a bikini. Twang! The straps cannot stand the strain. The bra jets off and lands on Kenneth Williams’ face, in his role as the gym instructor. The bra was attached to a fishing rod. On take one the props man pulled. The bra did not come loose and Babs was dragged over and through the mud. “Get her up and mop her down. Let’s go for another take”, Windsor heard as she struggled to her feet.
She married three times, including to small-time criminal Ronnie Knight, and she also dated hymned villains Charlie Kray and his brother Reggie, her Carry On co-star Sid James, Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees and the footballer George Best, of whom she said: “There was this vision, this absolute vision. He was so beautiful. He came over to me in the bar and I said, ‘Look, don’t waste your time with me, darling. You’ve got all these lovely ladies after you’. And he said, ‘Well, when do I ever get to talk to somebody like you?’ Well, that did it. That was it. A magic moment.”
Dame Barbara Windsor (nee Barbara Ann Deeks): August 6, 1937 (Shoreditch, London) – December 10, 2020.
Posted: 11th, December 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Roald Dahl was a hardcore anti-Semite – but hating Jews is ok
Roald Dahl is dead. He’s been dead since 1990. He was a brilliant writer for children. Buried on his official website run by his estate is an apology for his brazen and unalloyed anti-Semitism. “The Dahl family and the Roald Dahl Story Company deeply apologise for the lasting and understandable hurt caused by some of Roald Dahl’s statements,” goes the comment.
Jews, eh, those folk devils for Christian culture. Lots of talented people are and have been Jew haters. It goes with the territory of being a Jew living amongst non-Jews to experience the slights and slurs. It’s part of the culture.
The New Statesman printed this gem from Dahl in 1983, part of an interview with the writer: “There is a trait in the Jewish character that does provoke animosity, maybe it’s a kind of lack of generosity towards non-Jews… Even a stinker like Hitler didn’t just pick on them for no reason.”
That in the New Statesman, which much later came up with this explainer for everything wrong with the world and your life:
The Dahl family apology adds: “Those prejudiced remarks are incomprehensible to us and stand in marked contrast to the man we knew and to the values at the heart of Roald Dahl’s stories, which have positively impacted young people for generations. We hope that, just as he did at his best, at his absolute worst, Roald Dahl can help remind us of the lasting impact of words.”
But why apologise now, thirty years after Dahl’s death? Is it all about money? They’ve done rather well flogging his stuff, despite of what Dahl said about Jewish power:
“It’s the same old thing: we all know about Jews and the rest of it. There aren’t any non-Jewish publishers anywhere, they control the media – jolly clever thing to do – that’s why the president of the United States has to sell all this stuff to Israel.”
Hating Jews is ok, say the anti-Semites. It is systemic, of course, because it tells Jews that they are the problem. Sure Hitler was a mass murdering anti-Semite but it wasn’t his fault, see. It was theirs. It is not punching down to hate Jews. It is punching up. It is their differences from the norm, their faces, culture and very being that need correcting. That’s how systemic racism works. It pitches the minority as an ugly otherness in need of fixing.
When two Jewish children wrote to Dahl, his reply was, well, take a look:
Dear Mr Dahl, We love your books, but we have a problem … we are Jews!! We love your books but you don’t like us because we are Jews. That offends us! Can you please change your mind about what you said about Jews. Love, Aliza and Tamar.
Dahl replied that he against not Jews but “injustice”. Jews are fair game. Attacking Jews does not make you racist say the liberal idealists in their Islington town houses and Suffolk parlours. It makes you just and righteous.
But it won’t matter. Shakespeare and Dickens are rife with anti-semitism. Shylock and Fagin are characters that reinforce and pander to the readers’ prejudices. They’re on every classroom reading lists.
“If a person has ugly thoughts,” Dahl writes in The Twits, “it begins to show on the face.” Do we could dig him up, give him the once over and beat him with sticks? No need. No point. Hating Jews is the oldest story in Christendom. And everyone loves a story…
Posted: 7th, December 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Prince William needs a German or Greek passport
A new biopic starring Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana needs a Prince William – and only actors with British-European passport holders can apply. If you’ve only got a post-Brexit British passport, you cannot audition for the tole. Apparently it’s something to do with the film’s financing.
But it doe make me wonder: does the future King William qualify for a German passport?
Posted: 26th, November 2020 | In: Film, Money, News, Politicians, Royal Family, Strange But True | Comment
You scumbags, you faggots: BBC censors The Pogues Fairytale of New York
‘You scumbag, you maggot /
You cheap lousy faggot /
Happy Christmas your arse /
I pray God it’s our last.’
Prudes at the achingly stiff BBC Radio 1 have censored The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. Words deemed too strong for the Beeb’s youth audience have been purged. This is of course marvellous news for The Pogues because there is no surer way to blunt the once edgy and hip than to have it endorsed by the BBC. Ban it. And ban it good. The kids will seek it out.
Listeners to Radio 1 will not hear Kirsty MacColl and Shane MacGowan sing “faggot” and “slut”. Instead it’s “haggard’ and “slut” gets beeped out. Oddly, BBC Radio 2 will air the full version and in a sop to further management cowardice 6 Music will allow its DJs to choose the version they wish to play. So if you want to hear the uncensored version, kids, tune into the station once reserved for middle-aged roadkill.
The BBC says: “We know the song is considered a Christmas classic and we will continue to play it this year, with our radio stations choosing the version of the song most relevant for their audience.”
So there it is. The young must be protected from hearing bad words and so remain on the ‘right side of history’. Meanwhile… here’s on Radio 1 is a song about Cardi B’s vagina:
Watch Noel Edmonds being Alan Partridge as Keith Chegwin glimpses the oblivion
Noel Edmonds being more Alan Partridge than Alan Partridge is remarkable TV. Stay tuned for the closing shot as Keith ‘Cheggers’ Chegwin’s soul departs.
Posted: 19th, October 2020 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comment
Snowball Fight (1896) – Lumière Brothers films gets the HD and Colorised treatment
In 1896, the French Lumière Brothers made the film Bataille de boules de neige (Snowball Fight). “The film was shot in Lyons, France using one of the duos’ all-in-one cinématographe creations,” says Petapixel, “which was part camera, part projector, and part developer.” It’s been updated by Joaquim Campa, “who used the AI-powered software DeOldify to upscale the footage to 1080p, interpolate additional frames for a smoother result, and colorize the old footage.” Does it look better than the original, or is it just a technical trick that flattens the past?
Spotter: Flashbak, JoaquimCampa
Posted: 8th, October 2020 | In: Film, Technology | Comment
Watch Beyonce dance to the Grange Hill theme tune – the mash-up you’ve been waiting for
Beyonce dancing to the Grange Hill theme music might be the greatest thing ever.
Previously:
Posted: 6th, October 2020 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Everyone Murdered By Teatime – watch a strange Soviet film from 1966
This Soviet film from 1966 presents a series of murders seemingly without end. The perpetrator becomes the next victim. And then… Well, you can watch it and see what occurs:
Spotter: Boing Boing
Alexander Dorogokupetz : the teenager who threw eggs at Frank Sinatra and lived to tell the tale
On Flashbak the story of Alexander Dorogokupetz, the 18-year-old who carried a small bag containing three eggs into a Frank Sinatra concert and tossed them at the singer. He struck a few days after the so-called Columbus Day riot, when as many as 35,000 bobbysoxers overwhelmed the area around New York City’s Paramount Theatre for a chance to see the return of the dreamy Frank Sinatra.
There was a lot that irritated Dorogokupetz about Sinatra and his fans. In particular, the bow ties frustrated him, those famous bow ties they were famous for wearing. Why, he thought, did people say he looked like Sinatra if he wore one, and not that Sinatra looked like him? He had a collection of two hundred bow ties at home, and had got his first when he was seven years old. Bow ties were his thing, not Sinatra’s.
…
There was a lot that irritated Dorogokupetz about Sinatra and his fans. In particular, the bow ties frustrated him, those famous bow ties they were famous for wearing. Why, he thought, did people say he looked like Sinatra if he wore one, and not that Sinatra looked like him? He had a collection of two hundred bow ties at home, and had got his first when he was seven years old. Bow ties were his thing, not Sinatra’s.
…
Sinatra began singing I Don’t Know Why (I Just Do). This was what Dorogokupetz had wanted, a romantic song, the more romantic the better. He thought of himself as a singer too, having been in the choir at high school. Sometimes, he told people he was a better singer than Sinatra. As proof, he would sing a plaintive duet, done solo.
He threw the first egg gently, and missed. The second, more forceful, hit Sinatra between his eyes, as he was singing the first “you” of the song, his mouth open: “I don’t know why I love you…”
Sinatra stopped.
The third egg hit him on the chest of his gray suit, glancing his bow tie. For each egg, there was a gasp from the crowd. The “horde of female rug-cutters,” the papers said, “were confronted with the deliberate desecration of their bow-tie idol.” Someone shouted, “get the skunk who done it!”
The Teenager Who Egged Frank Sinatra And The Bobby Sox Riot – New York City, 1944
Posted: 1st, October 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, Music | Comment
Watch Charlie Chaplin in colour in a new version of A Night at the Show, 1915
Charlie Chaplin was great in black and white but can he cut it in colour? Thanks to YouTube, you can watch Chaplin in a colorised version of his 1915 short movie A Night in the Show.
Chaplin played two roles: one as Mr. Pest and one as Mr. Rowdy. The film was created from Chaplin’s stage work from a play called Mumming Birds (a.k.a. A Night at an English Music Hall in the United States) with the Karno Company from London. Chaplin performed this play during his U.S. tours with Fred Karno company and decided to bring some of this play to his film work. Edna Purviance played a minor role as a lady in the audience.
Spotter: Flashbak
Posted: 1st, October 2020 | In: Celebrities, Film, Technology | Comment
Russell Brand and his dog introduce apricots and cinnamon to the working man
You don’t need to like Russell Brand to see that he’s rather good at what he does. And what he does well is media with a lot of ‘me’. It’s made him wealthy and famous. Yesterday Brand went on twitter to talk about his dog, an Alsatian called Bear. He told us that two working-class men ‘independently described him in surprisingly poetic language. “Apricot” coloured said one. “Cinnamon” said another.’
Moose Allain nailed it:
Who would have guessed apricots are one of the working man’s five a day and the lower ranks have experienced cinnamon? Maybe they glimpsed the exotica in Brand’s walk-in larder when they were fixing his yurt?
Posted: 22nd, September 2020 | In: Celebrities | Comment
Chinese won’t buy Jo Malone candles from John Boyega – Star Wars actor censored in ‘racist’ China
Do Chinese people living in China not buy scented candles from black people, like the actor John Boyega? The London-born star has resigned his role as “global ambassador” for scented candle-makers Jo Malone because he wasn’t a global ambassador at all. He was the face of melted wax in the UK and some other places but for Chinese consumers he was replaced in an ad he made for them called ‘London Gent’ by Chinese actor Liu Haoran.
The company has apologised for the “misstep”. Not an error, then? Surely this was a plan, the brand appealing to their target market, doing its best to shift product in China. Ads are usually products of market research. Did Jo Malone poll the Chinese and find they like Liu better than they do John? Do they rate Liu as the celeb more likely to deliver a full-nosed blast of candle fumes? Can we see the marketing reports and questions asked?
Boyega says Jo Malone was “wrong” to have used another actor “without my consent or prior notice”. Well, quite. What’s the point of hiring the Star Wars actor to be your global ambassador if you don’t employ him globally?
“We deeply apologise for what, on our end, was a mistake in the local execution of the John Boyega campaign,” says Joe Malone in a mealy-mouthed statement. Does it suppose Chinese consumers are racist against black people? And did it just use John Boyega to show us that it isn’t?
Posted: 15th, September 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Adele: Bantu Knots fail to distract editors from singer’s stomach and breasts
Jerry Sadowitz once told a rude joke about Princess Diana, lampooning the obsession with women’s looks and fashion choices: “Breaking News – Princess Diana has put her hair in a bun and her **** in a toaster.” The singer Adele has put her hair in Bantu knots and her body in a bikini. “Happy what would be Notting Hill Carnival my beloved London GBJM,” said Adele as she brought a bit of carnival to her garden in Beverly Hills.
First the hair, which has upset a few people on Twitter. Billboard says, “The singer’s hair was intricately twisted in a style similar to Bantu knots, adorned with bright yellow feathers behind her head.” Sky tells readers that there were Bantu Knots, “a traditional African hairstyle in which the hair is twisted into a series of small coiled buns.” Just the thing to join in the celebration of Afro-Caribbean culture in the UK. Unless you have the blinkers on:
That tweet from the “CEO of Ernest Media Empire” was out of kilter with most people, whose views can be summed up best by Ciku Muiruri:
And in the UK, Adele’s bikini and hair a political matter:
The Times now steps in: “Cultural appropriation describes borrowing styles or items which are significant in a culture that is not theirs.” Did Adele seek permission to put her hair in Bantu Knots and wear a Jamaican flag bikini? And if she did, which body did she submit her outfit to for official approval? Says Naomi Campbell: “She looks hot. As a Jamaican girl myself, my girl has grown up in black culture. People forget she’s from Tottenham.” What if Adele was from rural Hampshire? Would that not give her a pass?
Matthew Phillip, executive director of the carnival, tells The Observer: “Yes, we say black lives matter, but it’s about promoting unity and inclusion. That’s why it was set up in the first place, to bring different communities together from different backgrounds.”
But bigger news than Adele’s hair is her weight:
What price Adele used her hair to distract attention from the media obsession with her weight? Look out for the Mail article, “Why Bantu Knots are slimming.”
Posted: 1st, September 2020 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts, News | Comment
Michelle Obama’s ‘low-level depression’ is not a mental illness; Donald Trump appears unwell
Feted and minted former US First Lady Michelle Obama is worried. The BBC tunes into her podcast and hears her say: “I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worrying about something or there’s a heaviness.” The older we get the less well we sleep. “These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually,” says Mrs Obama. “I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.” Depression is a disease. It’s not to be confused with feeling low or blue. It comes from somewhere other, an invasion that kills your sense of reason and infects your being with a “lie of the mind”.
Rod Dreher likened his depression to walking around the house “as if I were wearing a heavy wool blanket soaked in cold water almost all the time.”
Depression kills. So why is Michelle Obama a little bit depressed? She explains: “Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”
Pathologising the Trump presidency and being woke – literally awake – might be a step beyond. And you don’t need therapy to cure yourself of Trump-phobia – you need better politics and ideas.
And if we are going to talk about mental illness, can we talk about Donald Trump? The man does not seem to be well.
Posted: 6th, August 2020 | In: Celebrities, News, Politicians | Comment
State approved rap rebel Wiley finds sympathy in the Guardian and NME – antisemitism is mainstream and the Left is OK with it
The musician Wiley (MBE for services to music), aka Richard Cowie, is in the news over what the Indy calls “antisemitic social media posts”. Tweets include: “I would challenge the whole world of Jewish community on my own I am not scared I can handle them”; “There are 2 sets of people who nobody has really wanted to challenge #Jewish & #KKK but being in business for 20 years you start to undestand [sic] why … Red Necks Are the KKK and Jewish people are the Law…Work that out.”; “If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in anyway of course you will get fired.” In a video reported on by ITV, Wiley says, “crawl out from under your little rocks and defend your Jewish privilege”.
The establishment have loved Wiley. They gave him an MBE. They praised him:
And how did the Press and big brand media respond to Wiley’s recent nastiness? With blinkers on – by making it mostly about Israel. And you know how it’s ok to hate Israel:
Thankfully, some people get it:
You can say what you like about Jews. Anti-semitism is mainstream.
Posted: 25th, July 2020 | In: Key Posts, Music, News | Comment
Those Beastie Boys videos have been remastered in HD
The Beastie Boys’ videos have always been immensely enjoyable. Ever since She’s on It (1985), the band has been cranking out a lively and fun blast of sight and sound. And now they’ve remastered 36 of their videos for the internet age.
Six of the video were directed by Spike Jonze, who also directed the Beastie Boys Story film. The pick of the bunch has to be the video for Sabotage.
The Beastie Boys love the fisheye lens:
Check out the playlist.
Stewart Lee mocks a Jewish MP’s name for sounding too foreign in the right-on Observer
After all the clever wit aimed at racists and Daily Mail readers, stand-up comic Stewart Lee, self-effacing star of the BBC’s Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, used his Observer column to take the piss out of someone for having a funny Jewish name. Lee never mentioned Tom Tugendhat’s Jewish heritage in his column, the one entitled “Now Boris Johnson is talking through his Tugendhat”. But what he did say about the Tory MP was enough for the Jewish Chronicle’s editor Steven Pollard to write beneath the headline “My father changed his name because of people like Stewart Lee. Nothing changes”:
Seventy years ago my dad needed to change his weird foreign name to avoid the sly glances of bigots. Stewart Lee is that bigot – a man who thinks the best response to a foreign sounding Jewish name is to ridicule it in a national newspaper
Might be worthwhile to see what Lee wrote before we brand him an anti-Semite or make him Labour Party leader:
Stay alert! Many names – Fisher, Cook, Smith – derive from ancient trades. But “Tugendhat” is just different words put together, like Waspcupfinger, or Appendixhospitalwool, or Abortionmaqaquesymptom. This former intelligence officer is the nephew of a real man called Baron Tugendhat. Baron Tugendhat is not a character from a 19th-century German children’s book about a baron with a weird hat, the end of which gets tugged.
It’s a weak joke. But the mention of solid English names to mock Tugendhat makes it all it bit stinky for Mr Lee, which is a name not derived from Levison, Levi nor Levine (I’ve checked). He wants us to compare and contrast those ancient yeoman of olde England with the weirdo foreigner. In 2012 then Labour leader Ed Miliband championed his family’s immigrant roots by telling conference in Manchester: “My family hasn’t sat under the same oak tree for the last 500 years.” Fisher, Cook. Smith. They have. You can understand them. Their roots run deep and true.
Tom Tugendhat was unimpressed by Lee’s snipe. He retweeted the following by Jonathan Greenblatt:
If you see anti-Semitism, brace yourself for what Lee went on to say:
Peasants! Get back to work! Over the top, boys! Gas! Gas! For God’s sake, gas!
No. No! His analogy is for WW1, not the later conflict WW2. The gas Lee mentions is mustard, which killed Smith, Fisher and Cook in the trenches. It’s not Zyklon B gas, which murdered Levy, Cohen and Zitter in the Nazi death camps.
The anti-Semites didn’t murder Benhamu because he fled Spain’s Inquisition a few hundred years ago, eventually becoming Benham so that my mother’s family would stand a better chance of dodging Jew haters and finding work in London. And the bastards didn’t get Zaransky either, which became Sorene at the will of a border guard when my great-grandfather wisely listened to a premonition he had about a looming pogrom and fled Poland, arriving in Leeds having survived on a diet of dumb luck and pig swill.
Sorene is still a bit unusual, of course, and when a French teacher at school used to pronounce it ‘sirène’, like siren, and go ‘mee-maaa-meeeee-maaaaaaah’ when he wanted me to respond and get a cheap laugh from his tame class pets, I never thought him an anti-Semite, just a condescending twat – which brings us to Lee.
Posted: 18th, May 2020 | In: Celebrities, News | Comment
Fight Coronavirus with a DEVO Energy Dome PPE face guard
DEVO are helping the world fight coronavirus with their personal protective face shield, modelled on their Energy Dome. You can buy one here.
Against all odds after unfortunate experiences with some bad actors & pandemic related delays, we are now able to offer cool DEVO stuff to any spud who might want it. In addition to the masks and classic T’s we have a spiffy, clear plastic, DEVO PPS Shield that is designed to attach easily to the DEVO Energy Dome to protect you from invisible microbes and unwanted bodily fluids. Stay safe in devolved style!
Wear one and feel cosmic energy vibrate thought your body”
It was designed according to ancient ziggurat mound proportions used in votive worship. Like the mounds, it collects energy and recirculates it. In this case, the Dome collects the Orgone energy* that escapes from the crown of the human head and pushes it back into the Medulla Oblongata for increased mental energy.
Posted: 16th, May 2020 | In: Music, The Consumer | Comment
