Even junk can be beautiful: Barbara Hashimoto’s art installation was built with a year-long collection of shredded junk mail.
Nothing smacks of hollow tradition and false nostalgia like a ceremonial first pitch. Most of the time, it seems, the first pitch is thrown out by some dude you never heard of before or don’t care about — a raffle winner or Eddie Vedder or some washed-up actor. But now that our nation’s capital is again blessed with their own National League franchise, President Bush is invited each year to toss the ceremonial first pitch on opening day. After keeping the tradition that was started by William H. Taft alive in the beginning of his presidency, though, the unpopular president took a pass the past two years, letting Cheney embarrass himself in 2006.
Last night, Bush reinstated the tradition at the Nationals’ home opener, tossing a high floater to Nationals Manager Manny Acta amid a chorus of boos. It must be pretty uncomfortable to stand in front of 40,000 people that are all hoping for you to screw up. By the standards of first pitches, though, it was actually pretty respectable (Bush did serve as a relief pitcher during his freshman year at Yale).
Fantasize with me for a minute though, and watch this video or this one, imagining Bush’s stupid little head in the place of the shamed pitcher. (Is that Trent Lott laughing in the second one?)
Produced by Hassan S. Ali and Dorothee Royal-Hedinger
Chicago folk-rocker Tom Schraeder understands that when it comes to creating a successful band, size matters. Critical praise is cool, too.
Fresh Cut drops in on Tom Schraeder and his Ego at the beginning of their prestigious month-long residency at Schubas Tavern in Chicago.
The lead singer to the viral “Raining McCain” music video has posted a video response to unprecedented attention the video received in the past week. Given her tone (she uses cuss words!) and that she addresses it to “the haters,” I think this video settles once and for all the question of whether or not “Raining McCain” was an earnest appeal to vote for John McCain. This girl is clearly annoyed with the volume of negative comments and video responses she has received, “especially because nobody gives a crap about half or an eighth of what the fuck you have to say,” she says.
The good news, though, is that we can look forward to future McCain Girls videos — although it’s unlikely that they’ll ever be able to top the original.
Right after taping their pilot episode for Chicago PBS station WTTW, the boys of “IL-Informed” pose with a girl and some boy from Fresh Cut. We all sang “Kumbaya” afterwards. The show was hilarious. Watch it when it airs the week of May 4th.
From left: Sandy Marshall, Paris Schutz, Hassan Ali, Dorothee Royal-Hedinger and Justin Kaufmann.
As part of WTTW’s new show, “IL-Informed,” comedian Sandy Marshall plays a hard-hitting, ethics-bending investigative reporter, aptly named Hassan Ali.
Way back when, show producer Paris Schutz and Fresh Cut’s own Hassan Ali were talking about the initial concept for the show. Hassan pitched the idea of a Walter Jacobson-type reporter who’ll stop at nothing to get his story (and is also a complete ass).
So the show named the character in Hassan’s honor. Seeing as he probably won’t have a child, this is just what Hassan needs to preserve his legacy.
The latest news from the campaign trail involves DNC Chairman Howard Dean’s plea that Barack and Hillary stop fighting for the good of the party, so as not to jeopardize a Democratic win in November.
I imagine the press is praying the candidates don’t take that advice. After all, what else will fill the Election ‘08 special pull-out section of the paper? Articles about town-hall meetings? And how on earth will Wolf Blitzer fill those three hours on “The Situation Room”? Human-interest stories and interviews with the candidates about their platforms? Nooooooo!!! This can’t be happening!
Sure, if Hillary and Barack start braiding each other’s hair, things will get a little dull around the blog-o-sphere and the nation’s newsrooms. We’ll turn back to celebrity gossip and investigate Hollywood’s new baby bumps. But eventually, I admit, something else will inevitably come up to keep the chief political consultants on CNN doing what they do best. The big surprise, of course, is what could possibly pop up in a potential political ceasefire.
As a news editor in college, I hated when everyone was getting along on campus. The pro-Palestinian group was hosting “Interfaith This-and-That” with the pro-Israeli organization… Or nobody had been mugged in a week… Or the university acquiesced to student demands. B-O-R-I-N-G.
It’s a rather perverse notion to want something to go awry. The adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” is frighteningly true. But it’ll be interesting to see how the press handles a relatively peaceful campaign after all the hoopla that’s preceded it. Will reporters wish for a better time? A time when campaign supporters and surrogates said really offensive stuff? When folks like Rev. Jeremiah Wright made Don Imus look like Gandhi? Or will there be some much-needed innovation to how the real political news gets reported?
For everyone’s sake, I hope the media doesn’t get what it wants.
A video for all the bicyclists out there who feel like drivers just don’t see them! This awareness test was created as part of the UK’s cycle safety campaign that aims to reduce the number of cyclists that are hurt on London’s roads. We’d say it’s good for American drivers as well…
Check out this funky ad from the Japanese clothing company Uniqlo. It seems like they filmed it in real time in one continuous take! If only Gap ads were this exiting…
For some more awesome robot dancing action, check out this video.
About a month ago, I wondered whether or not a couple of unimaginably horrible YouTube music videos supporting Hillary Clinton had actually been created by her detractors. The videos were just so comically bad that it seemed like a practical joke, or worse. Now, a similar karaoke-style music video is making the rounds, this one supporting John McCain, and it raises the same question: Can they be serious? Either way, there’s no way this thing can help his campaign.
The video, Raining McCain is a music video featuring three overweight women singing a song about John McCain to the tune of It’s Raining Men. And again, the singers are so off-key that it seems intentional, and the content of the video is so ridiculous that it seems like a spoof (the older woman’s body actually disappears in front of the green screen for most of the video).
This video raises a bunch of questions, but the biggest mystery to me is the meaning of this line, which recurs a couple of times in the course of the song: “I’m going to go out and let myself get ab-so-lute-ly John McCain!”
What the hell does that mean? The line from It’s Raining Men is, “I’m gonna go out to run and let myself get absolutely soaking wet!” But substituting “John McCain” for “soaking wet” is so meaningless it makes the song even more ludicrous than it already is.
Here’s another choice line: “He taught every angel to rearrange the vote, so that each and every American could find John McCain.” Whoa, that’s deep.