Ken Tucker

Lowlights from an elitist frustrated over his inability to defend President FailureTeleprompter: [emphasis added]

Huntsman was undoubtedly relieved he didn’t have to stand on-stage Monday night to face the most raucous, roused-rabble audience of any Republican debate held thus far.

[T]he people in the seats hailed lustily the history lesson offered by “Professor” Newt Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson knew what to do with his enemies — he killed them.”

It was a wild, schizo crowd. They yelled their approval of Rick Perry’s suggestion that America should “go to zero on foreign aid.”

The audience showed a nasty streak in the booing Fox questioner Juan Williams for asking Gingrich[.]

The jeers that erupted the second Williams uttered the phrase “black Americans” was chilling on this Martin Luther King Day. Gingrich didn’t help matters much when he said a bit later, “Barack Obama has put more people on food stamps than any president in history.”

It was a light laugh line in a night that was heavy with malice — not from the candidates, but their supporters. Moderator Bret Baier might have done a bit more to try and quell the mob.

What Tucker is doing is trying to scare off moderates from joining the “nasty mob.” This is the same approach these MSM liars used against the Tea Party.

And the left obviously hates the fact that Obama owns the food stamp record, so it’s now racist to speak the truth, especially on Martin Luther King Day — because we all know Dr. King would want his day used as racial club to stop people from speaking the truth. You know, because he was all about that. For Tucker to exploit one of our greatest Americans in such a cynical, divisive, and racially charged way is about as low as you can get.

But it’s early in the election, and you can bet the house Tucker and company haven’t come close to hitting a bottom.

People always accuse me of hating the media. I’m just hating them back.

A new survey conducted by Entertainment Weekly shows that Democrats prefer sarcastic comedies and morally entangled heroes, while Republicans gravitate toward workplace scenarios.

Yet both the Left and the Right adore “Modern Family,” a pro-gay comedy with plenty of Emmy appeal. Sounds like a media meme takes a hit with that news.

There’s some unintentional comedy packed into the intriguing report, too. Consider this description of why “The View” fares better with liberals:

Shows that skew female tend to do better among Dems, while male-friendly shows tend to do perform higher among Republicans.

How ’bout the panel’s hard left tilt? Might that have a smidge to do with it?

And why wouldn’t Republicans flock to “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,” as the report indicates, since Leno doesn’t go out of his way to insult the Right like peers Jimmy Fallon and David Letterman do?

The survey also notes how shows like “Hawaii Five-O” appeal to righties, but cop procedurals like the left-wing “Law & Order” don’t. If the New Media didn’t exist, would the “left-wing” tag had been applied to that venerable franchise?

The hit show has something special up its sleeve for next Tuesday’s new installment, according to a breathless post at Entertainment Weekly’s PopWatch blog.

“The First Time.” It’s without a doubt one of Glee‘s best installments ever and features two popular couples on the show having sex for the first time.

The couples losing their virginity? Finn and Rachel and…Kurt and Blaine! Yep, the couple — who was featured on the cover of EW’s Gay Teens on TV issue – finally decide to take the next step in their relationship.

Hey, if it can distract us from worrying about Kim Kardashian’s post-divorce woes …

Sean Penn may have a bigger foe than Mr. Hand in the Tea Party, but, still, a rep for the conservative movement is still willing to sit down and share a pizza (or, let’s face it, more likely tea) with the man who was Jeff Spicoli. After the actor appeared on Piers Morgan Tonight Friday and called the Tea Party the “Get the N-Word Out of the White House Party,” the co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots released a statement to EW, inviting Penn to meet with members of the movement.

Said Mark Meckler: “I’m fairly certain that Sean Penn has never been to a tea party or met anyone who belongs to a local tea party. I’d be happy to sit down and speak with him if he’s ever interested in really speaking with one of us and learning what we are about instead of just slandering millions of his fellow American citizens with racist hatred. This kind of rhetoric, while protected by the First Amendment, has no place in reasonable discourse in America. Then again, no one has ever accused Sean Penn of ‘reasonable discourse.’”

Read the full article here.

There is absolutely no difference from what you’re about to read below and those who defended the Motion Picture Production Code. These people are prigs, censors, and humorless moralists of the highest order:

To me, the series premiere of ABC’s new, Tim Allen-led sitcom Last Man Standing seemed simply annoying, what with its low-brow and overly testosterone-fueled humor. Macho jokes about what it means to be a man? Simply not my cup of tea, I thought. I was going to turn it off a few minutes in, but I kept watching half-heartedly until the show’s lead character Mike — played by Allen — uttered a “joke” somewhere near the end of the first half hour. And that’s when I lost it.

Let me set up the “joke” for you: During a conversation about his grandson’s daycare, Mike Baxter (Allen) laments that his daughter’s choice of schools is “hippie-hippie rainbow.” Fine, sure, it’s a stupid comment, but it gets worse. Mike’s daughter Kristin (Alexandra Krosney) explains to her dad that the teacher at this school “teaches sensitivity and tolerance.” Then comes Allen’s seemingly homophobic bomb: “I just don’t think your kid should go to that school,” his character Mike says, filled with disdain. “You know how that ends up: Boyd dancing on a float.”

I’ll reiterate the offensive part: “You know how that ends up: Boyd dancing on a float,” said with total disgust, as if a boy dancing on a parade float is an unacceptable, bad thing. My response: Huh? How is a boy dancing on a parade float anything but a joyful thing?

And that’s just the beginning; this joyless crybaby goes on for SEVEN more paragraphs.

How is that joke any different than the sitcom shots taken every quarter-hour at conservatives, Christians, tea partiers, and anyone who refuses to worship the State?

And where was EW’s priggish outrage the other night when a sitcom called “2 Broke Girls’ made this “gay” joke about Rep. Bachmann’s husband: “He is more stiff than Michele Bachman’s husband at a Chippendale’s”?

I guess some “gay” jokes are more equal than others.

Yes, Big Hollywood criticizes jokes made about our side. But unlike EW, we’re not trying to STOP anyone from telling them. We’re just tired of the PC-fascism that demands a particular group be singled out. We want everyone mocked, ridiculed and satirized. We want to return to the days of “Blazing Saddles,” George Carlin and Sam Kinison. But look at how difficult this is going to be when you have one of the top entertainment rags in the country attacking and obviously attempting to chill speech and start a crusade against a sitcom over an obvious joke.

The Motion Picture Production Code never died; it just went humorless and became far more selective in its choice of sacred cows.

Entertainment Weekly is just another dishonest media outlet disguised as non-partisan and objective, and like too many of their counterparts in the entertainment media, that disguise is their weapon of choice as they propagandize to young readers and kiss Hollywood ass in exchange for the access necessary to keep those lame exclusives coming that only read well in a restroom.

Aubrey Vaughan at NewsBusters busts their biased, partisan double standards red-handed here:

The conservative documentary, which successfully opened last weekend in limited release, was given a snarky review under the headline “Sarah Palin’s ‘The Undefeated’: We saw it so you don’t have to!“.

While ‘The Undefeated’ is admittedly told from a conservative viewpoint, the criticism of it, compared to the warm reception of Moore and Gore’s liberally biased films, is remarkable.

In the ‘Undefeated’ review, Young acknowledges that the director has every right to make it a pro-Palin film, but mocks the quality of the film for that same reason. Palin, whom Young describes as someone “who positions herself as so outside the political system that she can host a reality-television show and somehow get away with it,” had no affiliation with the production of the film, but Young still manages to frequently insult her and the director. …

In contrast, never do the ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ or ‘Inconvenient Truth’ reviews acknowledge any one-sidedness or disagreements with the films’ content.

Young also complains of a number of biases in the film he sees as conveniently aiding Palin’s case, including glazing over the 2008 presidential campaign, painting her resignation as a result of the distracting bombardment of ethics investigations (ignoring possible financial motivations to move to TLC and Fox News), and only including commentary from “conservative bigwigs like Mark Levin and Andrew Breitbart” who are just “voices to the choir.”

Instead, the ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ review lauded Moore for his Bush-bashing, leaving no room to explain any factual inaccuracies or the possibility of differing viewpoints.

Reviews of ‘Fahrenheit 9/11′ and ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ never mentioned the possibility of biased omissions or one-sided debates, even though both were released to much wider audiences.

You’ll want to read the whole thing.

Charlie Sheen unleashed his Violent Torpedo of Truth Tour on the Motor City on Saturday night before a crowd that greeted the actor with an adoring standing ovation and concluded with booing and walk-outs.

[…]

9:18 – “Nothing terrifies a troll more than its own reflection,” Sheen continues, before shifting gears into politics. “In a recent poll, they told me I’d bring down that whore [Sarah] Palin. I don’t have time for that nonsense.” [Read about the poll he's referring to here.]

9:20 — People start booing Sheen. Not playing around, but actually booing him. Sheen yells, “I already got your money, dude!”

Until this point, the libertarian in me was truly pulling for Sheen to continue sticking it to the Hollywood Man and fulfilling his own personal definition of #WINNING.  Sheen has probably been “banging” cocaine and porn stars for a couple of decades now, and the fact that it became an international crisis all of a sudden still strikes me as a bit unfair.  We all can imagine that he must have been extremely difficult to work with, but despite all the drugs and all the women, he managed to show up to work and do his job for seven seasons.  That’s actually pretty impressive, in a filthy, depraved sort of way.

I’ve heard reports that “Two and a Half Men,” through international syndication and DVD sales, is worth over $50M per episode to CBS, and maybe even twice that.  Sheen, the big-name star of the program, was making about $2M per episode when this saga began and wanted a bump to around $3M per.  Sure, no one really needs all of that money, but fair is fair, and if he’s the biggest piece of a puzzle worth at least tens of millions of dollars, wasn’t it on CBS to make it work out so that the show could go on?  Forget about the raw values and think about the principle: in all likelihood, Sheen is mathematically worth the extra million per episode for the network and the dozens (hundreds?) of people whose bills are paid by “Men.”

And besides, Money Talks alone should earn the man the benefit of the doubt.

It isn’t black and white, of course, and I don’t mean to defend him–I would love to say that Sheen is only hurting himself, but he has a family, including children, and you can’t just go around trapping porn stars in hotel bathrooms.  Still, the man struck me as a genuine free spirit–a contrarian with a skepticism about the natural order of every-things that made him seem downright insane yet charismatic at the same time.  This even applies to his 9/11 trutherism.  I’m usually quick to dismiss 9/11 truthers as America haters, but my read on Sheen was that he just doesn’t believe what anyone tells him and would rather stir the pot than heed deference to facts.  That would be consistent with everything else in his life.  He lives like a rock star and relishes it–a breath of free-based air, if you will. So why not just pay the man the money and let this go away?

Anyway, it’s painful to feel forced to respond to a remark delivered to get attention by a person who is utterly desperate for it, so I’m not going to overly indulge Sheen or anyone of the other anti-Palin bed-wetters who would enjoy it; after all, the ad hominem attack is provably false and meant to offend people like the ones who frequent this blog, so why bother?  Also, Charlie is Martin Sheen’s son, so we can’t realistically expect him to have reasonable political views.

But what I will say is that I’m disappointed that Sheen, a star who I thought did everything in his power to buck the establishment, has embraced the single most pathetic cliché in Hollywood today: bagging on the mother of five with some of the most caustic words imaginable.

And even in deep-blue Detroit, he was booed for it.  Now that’s what I call Tiger Blood.

Just as bad as the news contained in the story itself is that the person reporting on it — Entertainment Weekly’s Keith Staskiewicz – actually uses the phrase “on the other hand” to excuse the censorship and outright vandalism of one of the all-time classics in American literature.

This is what happens when no on watches the pop culture Watchmen, they become as corrupted as those they’re charged with holding accountable:

According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the “n” word—I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told PW. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

Unsurprisingly, there are already those who are yelling “Censorship!” as well as others with thesauruses yelling “Bowdlerization!” and “Comstockery!” Their position is understandable: Twain’s book has been one of the most often misunderstood novels of all time, continuously being accused of perpetuating the prejudiced attitudes it is criticizing, and it’s a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context. On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge

Staskiewicz wouldn’t think of judging, but he’s sure not above the snark that’s come to define his profession — not above the snark employed to immediately dismiss and make light of those who might disagree. After all, we just don’t understand how this is all for the greater good, how timeless classics must be edited and altered in order to be more appropriate and appreciated  in these sensitive times of ours.

First question: Why is Mark Twain’s name still on the cover of a novel he didn’t write?

Second question: Now that the “Newspeak” door has been successfully opened with no less than Entertainment Weekly’s approval, what’s next? Don’t underestimate what it means to the PC-police to have the approval of a major voice in popular culture stand by this kind of word-policing. And you can bet that if it were sex or drug abuse being edited out of “On the Road,” EW would be at the front of the bitch-pitching brigade.

As would I.

But what’s happened here with “Huckleberry Finn” and the acceptance of it is going to be precedent setting. As with everything when it comes to the left, we are merely seeing the tip of the PC iceberg.

What’s next? Blazing Saddles? Rap albums?

You don’t update and whitewash Mark Twain, you teach Mark Twain. You have your students read the novel and then teach them the context of the times and the context of the words.  Twain was no racist and the words he used were deliberate. But again, what’s most troubling isn’t one idiot publisher making a moronic decision, it’s that those like EW who should be at the head of the line protesting this are instead the primary PC Palace Guards defending it.

Didn’t anyone teach Orwell’s “1984″ to the Entertainment Weekly staff or to NewSouth Books? Sadly, I think they did. They just see it as more of a blueprint than a warning.

—–

There is another world out there, young pop bands shunning the traditional channels and using the internet to sell their exquisitely crafted, gloriously melodic pop.  Twenty-ten was another banner year in which it was difficult to limit the top ten to only ten.  Nevertheless, here goes.

1. Oranjuly formed in 2009 joining lead singer and writer Brian E. King who had already been working on these songs for years.  Every year it seems a one-man band emerges to stun us.  In years past it’s been Roger Klug and Josh Fix.  This year it’s Oranjuly’s Brian E. King who says, “I played everything but drums and cello. I did play drums on South Carolina though!”  Now the band is a five piece so they can reproduce these astounding sounds in public.  This time the Jellyfish comparisons are apt.  King also has a knack for sunny Beach Boys-style harmonies which permeate the record.  If architecture is frozen music this is the Taj Mahal.

2. Sunrise Highway Instant classic.  Seamless collection of sunset (not sunrise, as the title suggests) dreamy surf-tinged pop that effortlessly evokes the world as it might appear in a Thomas Kinkade painting with swooningly gorgeous stacked harmonies.  Yes Brian Wilson is a cornerstone but there’s so much more going on here, and in songs like “Magic” and “Roundabout,” Sunshine Highway establishes their own sound firmly.  Instrumentally challenging—note guitarist Marc Silvert’s bent note solo on “Endless Summer.”  Silvert wrote most of this material which makes him a major American songwriter in my book.

3. Timmy Sean: Songs From & Inspired by Noisewater. Another one-man band.  Timmy Sean started recording in ’06 and finished in ’10 as the cover art amusingly illustrates.  Much like Bryan Scary’s first record, Sean puts together a keyboard-based minor mode masterpiece in “Noisewater Overture,” theme music to epic noir science fiction.  The melody works you over like a Rolfing specialist but it only feels good.  Every song is a polished gem of great pop dynamics.  Brian Mahoney plays sax on the Billy Joel-esque “If Your Mother Has Her Way.”  I would be remiss for not mentioning the exquisitely Beatle-inspired “Wait” with a bridge to die for.

4. Buva: Not Scary!  Friendly! Opening with lazy day acoustic guitar, Buva spins a beguiling web on “Smoke Into the Sky,” sounding more like Badfinger than Badfinger itself.  Again the key is endless melodic invention with well-thought-out hooks and choruses that will have you singing along.  Buva (Tom Wolfe) shuns Brill Bdlg song conventions on “You Say It Too” which consists of three movements—the Byrds-like tonic, fantastic bridge and a chorus that is both surprising and logical.  “Hide Away” has a McCartney feel.  So if you love the Three Bees; Beach Boys, Byrds and Beatles, add a fourth.

5. The High Dials: Anthems for Doomed Youth.  This is the second year in a row the High Dials have landed on my top ten list.  This Canadian quartet absorbed the principles of early Brit rock: the Zombies, the Beau Brummels, Pink Floyd, and melds it with a modern psychedelic edge that makes their music seem both familiar and experimental.  “Teenage Love” charges out of the gate with chiming guitars and a massive hook.  More than a touch of Byrds here.  “Uruguay” combines chamber pop with an anthemic chorus and stadium guitars.  “The Rich Die Too” doesn’t sound too much like the Zombies.  Ceaseless melodic invention.

6. Paul Collins: King of Power Pop! Paul Collins was in the Nerves which split giving birth to Paul Collins’ Beat and the Plimsouls.  The Beat is a great American rock band in the tradition of The Replacements.  King of Power Pop! Is a straight-ahead blast of no-frills power pop with rockabilly undertones thanks to Collins’ unique voice.  He’s still got that duck’s ass glissando at the end of each vocal.  Songs like “C’mon Let’s Go!” “Do You Wanna Love Me” and “Doin’ It for the Ladies” speak for themselves.  “Don’t Blame Your Troubles on Me” is an appropriately snotty expression of middle-aged punk fury.  Paul throws in a two minute version of “The Letter” as homage to his spiritual predecessor Alex Chilton.  “The Kings of Power Pop” has surprising emotional heft.

7. The Like: Release Me. Okay, this one’s on Geffen.  Score one for the dinosaur media.  Cheeky all girl quartet with a designer bag full of great girl songs.  Sounds a lot like the Shangri-Las.  Grabs you with “Wishing He Was Dead” and carries all the way through.  Standouts include “Walk of Shame,” “Narcissus in a Red Dress,” and the insanely catchy “Catch Me If You Can.”  Do you crave cheesy Farfisa organ?  It’s all here.  (Not played by regular organist Annie Monroe, but by studio honcho Victor Axelrod.)  Lead singer Z Berg has that classic Maryanne Faithful sound.

8. The Contrast: God of Malfunction. “We are strange and getting stranger/We won’t change we’ll screw the danger,” the Contrast sing on “Coming Back to Life.”  Insistent beat, exquisite harmonies, offbeat chords, and pumping roller rink organ permeate every song.  “I Am an Alien” sounds like Ziggy Stardust era Bowie.   “Better than They Seem,” an ironic paean to positive thinking combines Beatlesque chords and harmonies with a dissonant bridge.  “She’s a Disaster” evokes Jefferson Airplane but these guys are just off-kilter enough to create their own sound.

9. Zombies of the Stratosphere: Ordinary People.   These lovers of classic Brit pop (including the Zombies) and American psychedelia incorporate a vast panoply of influences to create a highly melodic and very personal statement.  The opener, “Our Life in Shadow Falls,” is almost pure Kinks save for Arthur Smith’s very un-Davies-like vocal.  “Love Song 99” borrows Marshall Crenshaw’s chords with a classic Brit-rock bridge and chorus.  “Flyboy” might have come off the Dukes of Stratospheare record.

“The Other Side of the World” is sui generis, a bittersweet rocker with a doo wop chorus.

“All Those Pretty Lies” ends the record on a sigh.

10. Smash Palace. Don’t play this in the car.  “Win It All” is Raspberries-strength power pop that instantly adds 30 mph to your speed.  Hard-edged but sweet Replacements-like band effortlessly bangs out one hook after another.  “Win” and the follow-up “How Can You Say” pack an almost Stones-like one-two-punch before the band breaths deep with the pleasingly off-kilter “Holding Out For You.”  “All in Love is Fair” sounds like the theme song to a Peter Gunn-type show.  Stephen Butler has a matinee idol’s voice—a young Peter Cetera.  Plays excellent guitar too.  “Somebody Up There Likes Me” is a rockin’ expression of gratitude.

Entertainment Weekly’s “racially insensitive” Owen Gleiberman’s insights about the original “Exorcist” aren’t quite as deep as a puddle, but at least his Christian stereotyping and bigotry are plenty rabid:

So what does the devil look like in The Last Exorcism? I’d be the Antichrist if I spoiled it, but I will say that the movie is a nightmare vision of the rise of Christian fundamentalism. It’s about the dark side of piety — the cultish wrath that can emerge out of the high and the mighty. At the center of it all, once again, is a teenage girl’s gnashing madness. The original Exorcist came out a few years after the feminist revolution kicked into gear, and Linda Blair’s she-devil expressed our primal fear of a newly furious, newly empowered, and newly sexualized generation of young girls, the first that seemed to be channeling wanton forces far beyond their control. …

The movie is like The Exorcist without a spine-tingling catharsis. Still, it does leave you with creepy images of a newly severe Bible-thumping underground America. That’s the thing about the devil in movies: He’s really just a mirror.

So there you go, reason #11, 422 to cancel your subscription to this left-wing rag of sucker-punchery on the off-chance you haven’t already.