So even though most of us (or maybe just people like me who don’t know much about ’80s hair bands) only know Bret Michaels from his addictingly bad reality show on VH1, apparently he really was, at some point, famous for being in a band. For reasons I haven’t quite figured out, he and his band, Poison, performed at the Tony’s last night, and at the end of the show, Mr. Michaels got clotheslined by his set. See for yourself:
My first I’m-clearly-going-to-hell asshole reaction was to laugh. A lot. Because who doesn’t love seeing people (especially people who are men who wear eyeliner and have ridiculous blonde hair and star in reality shows about falling in love in two weeks) fall? But apparently he might be hurt? Let’s hope he’s not, for the obvious reasons, but also because then we can laugh at this clip with less guilt.
Today is a sacred holiday. It’s National Neil Diamond day. Let’s take a minute to appreciate how glorious this man is and the impact he has made on our lives.
What a fox. RAWR!
Ba ba ba! So good! So good!
Check out the outfits in this one. Neil Diamond is all that is man.
Oh dear God, take a look at this. According to a Billboard article (and last night’s episode of “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!”), the male half of the media whore team known as Speidi just came out with a rap single. Yeah. The video is worse than you imagined:
In the Billboard article, Spencer waxes eloquent about his rap skillz, and on the fact that he is like totally the best white rapper ever:
“Honestly, I used to be the biggest Eminem fan on the planet, but the difference now is that he’s so paid. My hustle is the same as his was when he was 25, coming out with his first flow.” And he continues his harsh criticism of [Asher] Roth, whom he recently referred to as a “nerd” in an interview with MTV News. “I want to be the antithesis to Roth,” explains Pratt. “If he’s the good guy right now, I’ll be the villain. I’m more hated than Eminem ever was, so why can’t I be the hated rapper?”
Spencer, I don’t think you’ve ever had “hustle”. And “so paid”? Okay, Kanye West. (I obviously had to look that up…but I understand that “Gold Digger” line now!)
Spencer Pratt, please go away. Take your wife with you. WE DO NOT CARE.
P.S. If you insist on staying around, at least make your wife dye her hair a normal human color.
Hello, SWTCTW readers! Here is Chris’ weekly SYTYCD update!
Mallory brought up an interesting point – which is that some people may not be familiar with the summertime awesomeness that is SYTYCD. I’m not really sure how this could be the case and I’m too frightened to explore the deep dark world in which this scenario could be possible. So, taking her hypothetical point to heart, I’ve prepared a quick tutorial based on the dancing kid video she posted last week.
During the first weeks of the show, we are entertained with audition footage from various locations around the country. (Please resist any obvious comparisons here to American Idol.) If they were to audition for the show, Mallory’s dancing kids – we will call them Suzy and Steve because Mallory once told me how much she likes those names – would have stood in line at one of the audition spots, awaiting their big break. I think it is clear to all of us that Steve is really the shining star of the pair. Suzy is cut, her SYTYCD career is over. Now for Steve. He has got good musicality, but does he have what it takes to compete? Steve gets put in the choreography group to see if he can learn and perfect a routine with other dancers. He’s good, but I doubt we will be seeing him in Vegas. There’s not much for a 5-year old to do there anyway. That’s basically how the selection process works.
The four hours of SYTYCD we got this week marked the end of this audition process. Tyce Diorio is one of the judges for one of these auditions. Tyce is normally a choreographer for the show, and we saw this week that he is apparently a bitchy queen. You may think this is harsh, so to back myself up, cue bitchy queen montage (at exactly 30 seconds):
But enough about Tyce. One kid in the Los Angeles auditions named Nathan was probably one of the most impressive male auditions of the season. The problem: he is 17 and you have to be 18 to participate. The judges were so taken by his performance they gave him a ticket to Vegas for next season when he is eligible. Nathan was followed by a Stacy who literally danced like she had stuck her finger in an electrical socket. No ticket for Stacy. She should call Suzy to commiserate.
I will leave you all for this week with Sex. No, this isn’t a joke. And he was back this season as well… in a dance-off.
I realize there are no clips of good dancing in tonight’s post. Fret not, readers. We have an entire summer of SYTYCD watching together.
I love Wonkette so much, as has been proclaimed many times on this here blog. Today, they helped me out by teaching me how to pronounce “Sotomayor” (who is Barry’s SCOTUS pick, by the way, since we were lazy and never posted about that). And then they wrote a fabulous article attacking some National Review douche who thinks, “Hey, why should we both trying to pronounce that Latina’s name the right way?” I’m posting the whole Wonkette article, because why not:
The National Review The Corner blog’s Mark Krikorian hears how the people on teevee are pronouncing Sotomayor — “Zo-toe-my-OR” — and he goddamn does not care for that at all, so he goddamn will not pronounce it that way, goddamnit, fuck you all, learn to speak English.
“But there ought to be limits,” he writes.
It Sticks in My Craw [Mark Krikorian]
Most e-mailers were with me on the post on the pronunciation of Judge Sotomayor’s name (and a couple griped about the whole Latina/Latino thing — English dropped gender in nouns, what, 1,000 years ago?). But a couple said we should just pronounce it the way the bearer of the name prefers, including one who pronounces her name “freed” even though it’s spelled “fried,” like fried rice. (I think Cathy Seipp of blessed memory did the reverse — “sipe” instead of “seep.”) Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent’s simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.
You and your THONGS. Pronouncing a proper noun in its natural Spanish way “is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.” How is this “giving in to” anything? It’s just saying a fucking word correctly. WAH WAH WAH. How does one pronounce “Krikorian” anyway? KRICK-WHORE-EE-NAZI… KRICK-DICK…KRIK-SHIT-WHORE-DONG… oh it’s too hard and unnatural, WAH, WAH, look at us crying now like babies, WAH WAH WAH, oh someone console us, pwease, WAH.
Let’s just call them both Hamburger SUV and get on with it.
I bet Kirkorian pronouces the l’s in quesadilla, too.
This video, much like the So You Think You Can Dance videos that Chris just posted, is strangely mesmerizing:
Right? Like…does this kid just watch a lot of music videos? Do his parents teach him this stuff? Was he BORN with these skillz? We may never know the answers, but I just might swipe a few of his moves and add them to my dancing arsenal. (Ha ha, that was a joke. My dancing arsenal has only one move in it, and that is the Jump and Twist.)
If everything goes according to plan, we’re going to have a weekly guest blogger give us a delightfully snarky recap of the night’s episode of So You Think You Can Dance. Meet Chris. He’s alright, I guess. Chris’ interests include interpretive dance, paleontology, a nice boxed wine (red, of course), lounging by his soon-to-be-open pool in his surfer dude shorts and Six Words to Change the World. What an introduction. Anyway, Chris we’ll be keeping us posted on So You Think You Can Dance season 5. And now, his inaugural post:
We’ve all been waiting for summer. Not for the warm weather. Not for the scantily-clad folks we see around town. Not because our apartment complex pool has opened. But because it marks the return of So You Think You Can Dance.
Hello SWTCTW! It’s Chris, your SYTYCD GB (guest blogger). That’s right. For the next however many weeks, I will be joining you on Thursday nights as your SYTYCD watch-party-guest-blogger-buddy, or SYTYCD WPBGB, as we say in the blogging biz.
I’m here for one reason – SYTYCD brings people together. Young and old, and even old and young. Minus Mary’s crazy screaming (there’s really no excuse for that nonsense), SYTYCD puts on TV the talent that we all think we possess at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday nights at the clubs (and P.S. I’ve seen the facebook pictures; we don’t really possess the talent).
I personally can’t wait for the episodes with the real dancing to start. Though I was a little offended by last night’s episode. Some of the moves they made fun of last night, I have spent weeks perfecting at the local bar…
six words to change the world. 