But, Russell got off lightly--as Salon's Drew Grant says, in his title alone, last week featured "Saturday Night Live" hosted by Elton John's homosexuality. It's a good little article trying to figure out why it is that SNL is really obsessed with the constant gay jokes. This is a ongoing topic of conversation in my house--The Guy has loved SNL from the start. This weekend, by the second skit in, he announced, "Maybe it's time to think about giving this up..." Obviously, that's a pretty qualified suggestion--but it was one engendered by the non-funny and the homophobia. After every episode, he gives me a postmortem--and at some point, he will cringe and announce that he doesn't understand why the show is so obsessed with gay jokes. (As Grant points out, one of the more infamous low points of SNL's gay-is-funny obsession is the Shmitt's Beer Ad...The Guy always uses that as the classic example of how uncomfortable and homophobic SNL can be.)
Given that SNL is now 35 years old, and began before a lot of the current cast was born, it's hard to think it's just the writers and performers--at some point, one has to wonder what Lorne Michaels thinks of all this...
The title of the next link pretty much says it all, The scientific breakthrough that will turn cannabis into the new aspirin.
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Lately, it seems a lot of discussion has focussed on "how dumb can people be?". Take a look at this logo:
Now, how about this one?
Brand-name Ecko is offering a life-time discount to anyone who comes into their stores** with a tattoo of their rhino or scissors logo. Yes--a life-time discount! Tempted? It's a TWENTY PERCENT DISCOUNT! Yes, that's right--a whacking 20%. As in, no one would be that stupid would they?
**alas--only in the United States and Puerto Rico. Le sigh.
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I never cease to be astonished at the latest reality show--at some point, after Parking Wars, Intervention or Extreme Couponing (I kid you not) you'd think I would know better. How can one person still has so much potential astonishment left in them? But perhaps, it's not astonishment so much as complete and utter horror...yesterday saw the premiere of a new show on A&E called Relapse. Seriously--Relapse. Because you know what's entertaining--watching people at the absolute lowest point of their life who are really unhappy at how much they've screwed up. Again. Relapse. I don't believe it's listed in The Bible as one of the signs of the end of the world...but it's made my own personal list.
The site points out that 50% of addicts relapse--which pretty much means that the other appalling A&E show, Intervention is just a prequel. Add to that, the show is actually called Relapse: The Sober Coach Chronicles and this begins to sound like a bizarro extreme gonzo sketch comedy troupe piece.
(so nice of A&E to use a picture of a pretty blonde model looking--woeful, perhaps?--for the Relapse page. And speaking of A&E...last time I was paying attention, the aconym stood for Arts and Entertainment. What exactly is entertaining about people who've relapsed?)
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So what attempt at "feel good news" can I make after that? How about an 84 year old man who has volunteered for...The Peace Corps. I guess it could be possible that it would just make us all feel bad that we haven't got this kind of literal "get up and go" at our not-anywhere-near-84-years...but I'm still regarding this as a good moment. According to the HuffPo article James Gronseth says,
"Life is for living, you know, and this is something I want to do. So I'm going to do it."Mr. Gronseth is learning to speak "the native language of Botswana" (not sure what that is, as the bare minimum of research suggests a couple different possibilities, although English is the "official" language) and will be heading off for a two year stint there.
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