We Wanted To Be a Millionaire
This story about the idiot who guessed wrong on the final question on last Sunday's Millionaire annoyed us. Because: a) "24-year-old LA lawyer," b) we knew the goddamn answer and c) we were too dumb to make it on Millionaire. First of all: Fresca. Come on. It was LBJ's favorite soda! He was not a chocolate milk man. Second of all: "24-year-old LA lawyer." Ugh. And thirdly: we just failed the Millionaire audition last week. In what is probably a violation of ABC's game show audition policies, our mother signed us up for a Millionaire audition against our knowledge, emailing us after receiving a confirmation from ABC.com and then shipping us a copy of The World Almanac 2009. And because we do not like to disappoint out mother, we schlepped out to West 66th last Friday afternoon. And we stood outside of one of ABC's many buildings on that street, in the oppressive heat, with a couple dozen 50-year-old ladies from Westchester, cantankerous retired men from all over the tri-state area, a couple mooks in from Scotia, and three or four tattooed young folk participating either as a sop to mothers who think they've always wasted their prodigious talents or because it would be funny. The ABC employees eventually ushered into a classroom with an unmarked door leading directly to the street, where we learned how incredibly terrible old men are at going through metal detectors. They have literally hundreds of pockets, in their old man trousers and shirts and coats, and each one of those pockets is filled with assorted things they've collected during their 70+ years on this earth. They spend ten minutes emptying these pockets of their paper clips, LifeAlert pagers, money clips, Buick keys, buffalo nickels, bits of twine, pocket knives, and Nazi gold, and then they still set the alarm off, either because their hips are made of titanium or because they forgot they're keeping some tin for the war effort in their shirt pockets. It was hot, and we were slightly hungover, and standing outside waiting for these old men did not make us happy. But it did give us some time to chat with the old ladies! They were a more fun-loving bunch, though none of them have had anything to do with all the hours in the day for 30 years now. Which is why all the old ladies have auditioned for Millionaire multiple times. And not just Millionaire! One lady told a story that began "well, when I was on Hollywood Squares..." and who knows if she meant Paul Lynde Hollywood Squares or Whoopi Goldberg Hollywood Squares or even Shadoe Stevens Squares. Once we finally sat down the two fresh college grads organizing the audition waited out the old guys still at the metal detector by asking us if anyone had traveled far for the audition ("62nd street," said an old man) and then one of them got into a flirty argument with the mooks from Scotia (she was from Troy) and once it became dangerously like the first day of camp or maybe rehab the test finally began. Here's how the audition works: you sign... MORE >>
McCain Promises Not to Give Any Health Care to ACORN at Town Hall
Last year, Senator John McCain demanded that Barack Obama have 100,000 town halls with him, daily, until election day. So he is loving this month. His town hall was a sleepy affair, but it's Arizona, so there was crazy! [Update: That's a new clip above of mashed crazy by our own Mike Byhoff and intern Sergio Hernandez.] He lied, of course, about health care, a topic he's never ever pretended to care about before in his zillion-year political career, but it was way more entertaining when he spilled water all over himself, made the famous crazy McCain face, and then tacitly acknowledged that he'd ignored a heartfelt question about how the two-party system has failed Americans. Oh, and also: do you remember ACORN? Back when that was something conservatives thought would help them rile up some old-fashioned resentments and base-rousing fear, we used to hear about ACORN all the time! They were going to steal the election and then they were going to steal all your census information, or something. Who knows. That was so long ago, and no one cares anymore, now that we have The Death Panels. But this lady remembers ACORN! And John McCain is like oh god they are just community organizers and no one took them seriously but I guess I have to pretend that they are still scary, or something, because I wouldn't shut up about them last year, ugghh I want to go back home to Arlington. See, when you throw that little bit of conspiratorial nonsense out there because it's useful for you in the short term, politically, it just festers and grows until it becomes part of the mythology of an entire subculture of people. And then they start to wonder why no one is doing anything about this grave threat to democracy that you told them all about! Well, some people wonder. Other people, mostly old people, just nap. Can you stop the two sleepy old men in this picture? MORE >>
How Miranda Priestly Saved Anna Wintour
We thought the Late Show portion of Anna Wintour's Make-People-Like-Me-Before-My-Contract-Is-Up Tour 2009 would be a disaster. Until Letterman asked about The Devil Wears Prada. Then we knew she was safe, because she could never come off worse than Miranda Priestly. The character created by one-time Wintour assistant Lauren Weisberger and portrayed (brilliantly!) in the movie by Meryl Streep is a caricatured version of the magazine tyrant meant to sell books and movie tickets. She throws her coat and bag at her assistants, she has exacting standards for how her lunch is cooked and the temperature of Starbucks, and she sacrifices her friends to keep her job. Wintour may do all these things too, but last night, America tuned in hoping to see the beast come to life, and instead they got a mildly self-depreciating lady who championed fashion's ability to do good and pooh-poohed the stories of her cruelty. She was kind of sweet, at least compared to the cartoon version of her we're used to. Miranda Priestly would have crawled over the desk and eaten Dave's head. Anna Wintour just made a few jokes about his socks. And that's why Weisberger did her boss the biggest public relations favor when she betrayed her by writing The Devil Wears Prada: No matter what Wintour does on Letterman or at the 92nd St. Y or on 60 Minutes or in front of a documentary crew for The September Issue (and she does some shitty things), she'll never be as bad as her trumped-up alter ego. The most telling moment of last night was when she strutted onto the set of the Ed Sullivan Theater wearing her trademark sunglasses, only to take them off to do her interview. With that she told us, "Yes, I am an icon and you think you know me, but guess what, I'm not that bad." And, you know what, she's probably right. MORE >>
Ikea Is the Disney World of China
We're not sure how to break this to you. So we'll just say it: People in China go to Ikea just to hang out. And sleep on the beds. When dealing with the most extreme and bizarre practices of foreign cultures, it's often best not to judge. Grotesquely stretching women's necks with a series of metal rings? Outsiders wouldn't understand. Setting old people adrift on ice floes to die? It's just their way. Chinese people using the Beijing Ikea like it's some theme park, spending hours and hours there hanging out like common homeless people, but ostensibly for pleasure? It's not something we could or would desire to understand, no. Nevertheless, the LAT reports: "It's the only big store in Beijing where a security guard doesn't stop you from taking a picture," said Jing Bo, 30, who was looking for promising backdrops for a photograph of his girlfriend. Sure, it's tempting to believe that our friends in the Far East have already fast-forwarded directly into our dystopian nightmare future in which soulless big box stores are offered to a zombie-like populace like a fast food menu to replace any dangerous, free-thinking "culture." But who are we to judge? Imagining the possibilities here is one of the reasons Bai Yalin drove an hour and a half from her apartment to spend a day at the store with her 7-year-old son and two teenage nieces. There are few other indoor spaces, she said, where she can entertain the children free on an oppressive summer afternoon. Bai mapped out a five-hour outing. First, they had hot dogs and soft ice cream cones at noon. Then they enjoyed a long rest lounging on the beds. Bai kicked off her sandals and sprawled out on a Tromso bunk bed. The 36-year-old homemaker made herself comfortable and even answered passing shoppers' questions about the quality of the mattress. Fuck it! These people are crazy. I will swallow cyanide if America ever gets to the point that we forsake the outdoors in favor of whiling away long hours lounging in corporate chain stores while... oh, Barnes & Noble. Global dystopia, huzzah! [Pics: pmorgan, Mana Dili] MORE >>
Tucker Max Can Assure You His Movie Is Hilarious
It's almost time: time for Tucker fuckin' Max to unleash his movie ["One of the best comedies released over the past generation."—Tucker Max] on the world. You know who thinks this movie is fuckin' awesome? Tucker fuckin' Max. Tucker gives Bitter Lawyer an exclusive sneak peek of his own opinion of his own movie about him: BL: Do you feel like the hilarity of your written work translated well into a movie? TM: Fuck yes. The movie is absolutely drop-dead hilarious. Wait until you see it, you will laugh your ass off. There you fucking have it. Tucker also notes that he cast the actor that plays him based on his "likability and redeemability," for unexplained reasons. An actual non-Tucker review of Alcohol and Fruit of the Looms Go Together Like Grilled Cheese and Mail Order Brides, TK. [Previously: The script of this shitty movie, Parts One and Two. Pic: Flickr] MORE >>
The Sinister March of Net Niceness
Wikipedia, once an internet free-for-all, has announced it will now screen changes to certain articles. The New York Times' ethics columnist, meanwhile, is joining the eternal backlash against anonymous blogging. Two steps toward a nice, peaceful, boring and neutered internet. The changes at Wikipedia, which mandate review for anonymous changes to articles about living people, sound reasonable enough. The online reference has messed up its share of biographies, after all, falsely reporting the deaths of Senators Edward Kennedy and Robert Byrd and erroneously linking a prominent journalist to the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy. "The Ethicist" Randy Cohen's diatribe against anonyblogging of the sort aimed at Vogue model Liskula Cohen (pictured) likewise rests on a not-so-controversial assertion, namely that anonymous internet commenters are often complete assholes. And yet the column by Cohen (the nebbishy Times writer, not the hot model) is controversial, because it turns out he quoted his ex-wife without disclosing that fact. Which we know because of a — wait for it — anonymous blogger! And that's the thing about being impolite online: it might be needlessly abrasive 95 times out of 100, but those other five times it's awesome, conveying fresh perspective readers would not have seen were it not for the cloak of anonymity. Cohen says we should make anonymity utterly shameful, except in cases where there is a "reasonable fear of retribution," but this sort of etiquette is basically just a way of regulating opinion, and runs counter to the rawness that has historically been one of the Web's great strengths. You could say the same thing about Wikipedia's new mechanisms for institutional control. Anonymous writers might not always absolutely need the secrecy the shroud themselves in, but they have good reason to want it. Put another way, if we have to choose between prim scolds like Randy Cohen and impolitic ankle-biters like Fake Steve Jobs (anonymous for many months) or NYTPicker, we'll take the latter any day, even if the price is wading through tons of crap. MORE >>
Homelessness Now an Edge in Elle Internships
A homeless woman has landed a (coveted?) four-month internship with Elle magazine, proving that unemployed journalists need only fall a *little* farther to get "back in the game." "Bri" (pictured, eyes) is a homeless blogger currently living in a car in a Wal-Mart parking lot. She wrote a letter to Elle columnist E. Jean about blowing a reality show audition, and E. Jean was so taken with her inspirational up-and-at-em go-getting can-do spirit that she offered Bri a four month telecommuting internship! It comes with this guarantee: At the end of the four months, if you don't have a job and an awesome place to live, I will become your intern. A media job!? In this economy! So the best part of all will be seeing an Elle columnist intern for an unemployed homeless person. But good luck to one and all! [Let us know if we can help, Bri! Via Homeless Tales] MORE >>
Anna Wintour's Surprisingly Pleasant Late Show Appearance
We got what we expected from alleged Hannibal Lecter stand-in and Vogue editor Anna Wintour appearance on The Late Show: a staid, polite exchange. Regardless, it only made us love Wintour more — and she actually came off looking good. You see, everyone always talks about how Wintour's a raging bitch and condescending and all of that bad stuff, which, we're sure, is all true. That said, she was actually quite pleasant on the program. Sure, she was a bit rude when taking a jab at Letterman's socks and suggesting he buy Thom Browne suits, but she actually came off as human! She was engaged, she smiled (those teeth!) and even cracked a few jokes, many self-deprecating, a tactic not without its charm. She could have been much, much worse, we're sure. For all of the shit that's talked about her, though, she did go on a program whose viewers she would most likely rather spit on than look at, but that's beside the point. She humbled herself in a way. Yes, it was self-serving, but what do you want from the woman? She's a fashion editor, not Mother Teresa. And that's fine by us. The world needs someone like her: a walking caricature who lives up to the bad press and loves every second of it. (You know she does.) Bottom line: everyone won on this one. Wintour proved she has an almost approachable personality and can relate to — or at least tolerate — the masses, while Letterman received oodles of press and, we're assuming, a boost in ratings. Take that, Conan O'Brien! MORE >>
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