Stephen Colbert tried to transfer to University of Virginia in 1984, but never completed his application essay. Regardless, the political satirist delivered the school’s commencement speech over the weekend, poking fun at university founder Thomas Jefferson, the popular not-so-secret study aid Adderall and the attitudes of Baby Boomers and Millennials.
Here, we present you some highlights: The silly, the serious and the somewhat amusing.
2. “As has been stated before, the most impressive ranking of all has once again has to be Playboy naming you the number one party school in America. Now to be clear, I only read Playboy for the rankings.”
3. Referencing Time magazine’s recent cover story about Millennials’ navel-gazing: “So self obsessed,” he says. “Tweeting your vines, hashtagging your Spotifys and Snapchatting your YOLOs. Your generation needs everything to be about you, and that’s very upsetting to us baby boomers because self-absorption is kind of our thing. We’re the original ‘me’ generation. We made the last 50 years all about us. We took all the money. We soaked up all the government services. And we deep-fried nearly everything in the ocean.”
4. On the school’s founder: “In Jefferson’s public life as a founding father, we often see him as the embodiment of the white male patriarchy. But in his private life, he was known for, shall we say, embracing diversity. Very affirmative in his actions. Am I right? I am right. they did the DNA tests. I’m right on that one.” He then pauses to tweet the following about “old Bible slicer” Jefferson:
5. “But my favorite thing about UVA has got to be it’s secret societies. That’s sexy. You got the Zs, you got, I think, the Illuminati, the Masons and Shield. But of course the most secret of all is the Sevens Society. Nobody knows who’s in it. I’m not going to say I’m a Seven. I’m not going to say I’m not a Seven. I’m just going to say eviganblumencroft. Benedictcomberbachen [referencing the Star Trek villain played in the new movie by British thespian Benedict Cumberbatch]?Now I have to have all of you killed.”
And for the obligatory advice portion of the speech:
6. “You may learn sooner than most generations, the hard lesson that you must make the path for yourself. There is no secret society out there that will one day tap you on the shoulder and show you the way.”
7. “If you must find your own path, and we have left you no easy path, then decide now to choose the hard path that leads to the life and world that you want. And don’t worry if we don’t approve of your choice. In our benign self-absorption, I believe we have given you a gift. A particular form of independence because you don’t owe the previous generation anything. Thanks to us you owe it to the Chinese.”
KSN-TV employees and meteorologists in Wichita took shelter from a tornado Sunday, May 19, while continuing to broadcast from a safe place. AP has the raw video.
As if a bathing monkey weren’t enough, this video has a bonus: The newscasters have some great ideas for other baby pets, plus they invent two new words while on the air.
This week, the broadcast networks finish the annual upfronts, the process by which networks try to woo advertisers with bright and shiny objects called “New Fall Shows.” In the process, a lot of shows have fallen by the wayside.
In fact, since last fall, shows have been cancelled left and right, which only shows both an air of desperation in the TV industry as well as an absence of originality and creativity.
I offered a list of the handful of shows I’ll miss earlier this week. Now we turn to the much longer list of shows I want to forget forever.
Here’s my non-hit list:
1. “Animal Practice” on NBC. The Peacock turned to a damn monkey to save the fall season and wound up stepping in something early on. And it wasn’t a banana peel.
2. “Guys With Kids,” on NBC. The network made a big point of saying it wanted to seek a broader audience for sitcoms, which was a thinly veiled way of saying, “‘The Office‘ and ’30 Rock’ and all that edgy stuff is too precious for us. We want to appeal to the masses.” You can do that but only if the show is funny. This wasn’t.
3. “Deception” on NBC: The network’s pale answer to ABC’s “Revenge.” But no one was deceived into thinking it was any good.
4. “Do No Harm,” NBC – Sheesh, it’s amazing how many shows NBC has had to cancel. “Do No Harm” should have been the advice given to the network, but at any rate, this dopey Jekyll and Hyde doctor show was monstrously boring.
5. “Smash,” NBC. I thought it had potential in its first season, and thought it had potential at the start of its second season. It didn’t. Fool me twice, shame on me.
6. “Up All Night,” NBC: I used to like this show, but it went off the rails, so much so that even Christina Applegate quit. The lesson here is that if you have a challenged show, you gotta be careful about how much you screw around with it. Go too far and you lose your small loyal fan base without attracting new viewers.
7. “Whitney,” NBC. A bad idea from the get-go. Whitney Cummings is a real talent, but she can’t act and all she does when she tries is to do a stand-up routine of one-liners. It didn’t deserve to last as long as it did. Glad that Chris D’Elia got a new project. He deserves a purple heart.
8. “1600 Penn,” NBC. There was something here but not enough to earn viewers. Politics makes good TV fodder, but you have to do it right, like HBO does with “Veep.” The NBC show was too much about the screw-up son and not enough about the full ensemble of otherwise capable actors.
9. “Made in Jersey,” CBS. I liked Janet Montgomery in this even better than I liked her in BBC America’s “Spies of Warsaw,” but the show felt like it belonged on USA, as a “Fairly Legal”wannabe.
10. “Partners,” CBS. This was an Odd Couple pairing of a gay guy and a straight guy who set up an architecture practice together. It came from “Will & Grace’s”Max Mutchnick and David Kohan, but it didn’t advance the ball down the field much. In fact, it felt really old fashioned compared to, say, “The New Normal” and “Glee.”
11. “Touch,” Fox. Way too touchy-feelie in an effort to expand Kiefer Sutherland‘s image from “24.” And that was the mistake. The whole thing felt like “Touched by an Angel.” Back to “24,” Jack, which is exactly what Kiefer’s doing in a forthcoming “24″ miniseries.
12. “The Mob Doctor,” Fox. This came straight out of the uninspired mind of someone who doesn’t get out of the TV writers’ room much. People like medical shows, people like mob shows, let’s combine the two and have a show about a woman doctor who’s in debt to the mob. Let’s not.
13. “The Last Resort,” ABC. I couldn’t figure out what this show was about. It seemed to want to tap into the “Lost” demographic, but maybe it tapped in too many other places as well. It was a futuristic world conflict story, a desert island story, and overall, a terrible waste of the considerable talents of Andre Braugher.
14. “Rules of Engagement,” CBS. The Tiffany Network has kept this old chestnut around for far too long and used it to fill in the gaps left by prematurely cancelled shows. I guess it shows belated confidence on the part of the network that it thinks it doesn’t need this ace in the hole. Actually, more like a deuce in the hole.
15. “Golden Boy,” CBS: For this, CBS moved the struggling “Vegas” to God’s waiting room, AKA: Fridays? Theo James was always too pretty and clean-cut to be believable as an ambitious cop who becomes commissioner of police in seven years.Even if you accepted that gimmick, the show was just a dopey police procedural that even the presence of Chi McBride couldn’t save.
16. “How To Live With Your Parents (For the Rest of Your Life),” ABC. Coulda, shoulda worked, but didn’t. Too precious and not very funny. Sarah Chalke deserves a better vehicle, and the presence of over the top parents, over-acted by Brad Garrett and Elizabeth Perkins, made living “With Your Parents” insufferable.
17. “Red Widow,” ABC. Ukrainian mobsters in Marin County. There was nothing at all believable or compelling in the show. And why was the widow “red?” The Soviet Union doesn’t exist anymore, people. Buy a new calendar.
18. “Malibu Country,” ABC. I’m a little surprised that Reba’s popularity didn’t keep this afloat, not to mention that it was pared with Tim Allen‘s “Last Man Standing” on ABC’s Friday night schedule. But overall, there wasn’t a whole lotta difference between this show and McEntire’s previous sitcom, “Reba.”
19. “Happy Endings,” ABC. I used to love this show, but then I realized it was kind of the “Groundhog Day” of sitcoms. It was the same situation over and over and over again and never really moved forward. If this had been a year ago, I would have been sorry to see it go. Now? Not so much.
20. “Family Tools,” ABC. Well, J.K. Simmons was in it, and he’s usually worth watching, but, to paraphrase Bette Midler, “not when he’s stuck in a turkey the size of this one.” It should have been more of an ensemble show and less about the ne’er-do-well son, and it shouldn’t have costarred Leah Remini. Nothing should co-star Leah Remini, but that’s a whole other column.
Ok, your turn: What shows won’t you miss at all? Add your nominations to the comments portion here and I’ll toss a few more pics on the gallery.
Share!
And here’s a look at this week’s earlier gallery of shows I really will miss a lot:
Forget all that E.U. ‘we are all brothers’ nonsense, Europeans are fiercely patriotic and right now a battle royal of nationalism is brewing…in Malmö, Sweden.
But this ain’t the Euro Cup, we’re talking about the 2013 Eurovision Song Contest and it’s your chance to see some seriously entertaining musical acts duke it out for the crown. Basically, if the Super Bowl and Balki from ‘Perfect Strangers’ had a baby, it would look like Eurovision, only with less hair gel.
Personally as a Hellenic American, I’m pulling for Koza Mostra, the Greek folk/punk/Balkan/ska-ish band featuring super gangsta baglamadaki player Agathon Iakovidis to kick all the other malakas to the curb.
Now in its 58th year, Eurovision is billed as the largest non-sporting event in the world and, like football (ahem, soccer), since the United States doesn’t legitimately compete, we’ve never actually watched it. We probably should since it’s guaranteed to be vastly more entertaining than watching a bunch of dudes chase a ball around for 90 minutes and then end in a tie.
Oh yeah, and a bunch of it’s in English, so you won’t have to makeup your own lyrics.
WHEN: Saturday, May 18th at 21:00 Central European Summer Time…um…that would be 3 p.m. EST.
After facing accusations of violating campaign laws, making obscene comments, public drunkenness and squandering public funds, it didn’t seem possible that a controversy existed that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford hadn’t faced.
At least until two news sources came forward, Thursday, claiming to have seen a video they say shows Rob Ford smoking from a crack pipe.
Toronto mayor Rob Ford laughs as he sees a sculpture of himself made of butter. / Getty
Both Gawker and the Toronto Star say they were contacted by an anonymous source seeking $40,000 for a copy of an iPhone video. Both outlets declined to pay for a copy, but each say they saw the video which shows Ford inhaling from a glass pipe most commonly used to inhale crack. The seller told both outlets that there was crack in the pipe, and that he had seen the mayor smoke on more than one occasion.
Both sources say the video shows Ford ranting about politics, at one point calling a political opponent a “fag,” though they disagree on if Ford was referring to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau or his son, liberal leader Justin Trudeau.
“I’m f—ing right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just f—ing minorities.”
The Star says that Ford’s lawyer has already denied the accounts in both news stories, saying that — in any case — it would be impossible to tell what is being smoked from a video alone.
California’s Humboldt State University helped the group analyze geotagged tweets, manually reading through 150,000 containing some kind of slur (read individually to determine if the context was, indeed, mean-spirited). They then figured the ratio of offensive posts compared to overall tweets in the country.
“Hateful tweets were aggregated to the county level and then normalized by the total number of tweets in each county,” the group writes in a detailed explanation of the study. “This then shows a comparison of places with disproportionately high amounts of a particular hate word relative to all tweeting activity.”
A hate-by-numbers glance at everyone’s favorite microblogging site. (Photo via Humboldt State University)
Most of the hate-spewing had to do with race, using disparaging terms for Latinos, blacks and some Asians. Next highest number were homophobic tweets. And posts about the handicapped used the word “cripple.” If you want to see the terms used (warning: highly offensive language) and the frequency by region, click here to view the interactive map.
Before we start harping on the right side of the country (and parts of Idaho and California east of Sacramento), though, consider another study, this one with a more global outlook. Despite their penchant for less-than-savory 140-character-or-less rants, Americans overall are among the most tolerant people in the world, according to some Swedish researchers.
A survey of 80 countries found Western nations, including United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and, yes, the U.S., the most accepting. Hong Kong, Jordan and Bangladesh, conversely, were deemed the most intolerant.
The World Value Survey asked people who they’d refuse to live next to. The countries with the highest number of respondents citing “people of a different race” were named least tolerant. Justifiably so.
Nearly 72 percent of Hong Kong residents surveyed said they refused to live next to someone of another race. In the U.S., less than 4 percent said the same.
“Europe is remarkably split – the west of the continent is generally more tolerant than the east, but France is a striking outlier with 22.7 percent of the French rejecting neighborhood diversity,” the Daily Mail writes.
Americans may mouth off like a bunch of racist nuts online, but at least they’re generally better about actually co-existing than other places.
Which country harbors the most racism? (Photo via World Values Survey)
Mike Jeffries talks target market. (Photo via i.imgur.com)
Angry at Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries’ exclusivity, a Los Angeles filmmaker decided to give away the brand’s clothes to the homeless.
Greg Karber caught his charity rebranding mission on video, uploaded it to YouTube and asked others to join him in the marketing effort to undermine the company’s uppity image.
Karber’s not the only one enraged by the CEO. Hordes of social media users share the sentiment. And when the Internet’s mad, it unleashes memes with fiery vengeance.
Right now, it hates Jeffries. Something fierce. Thus, you’ll likely see the garishly nip-and-tucked 68-year-old’s face superimposed near quotes he’s made over the years about his exclusionary business practices.
“We want to market to cool, good-looking people. We don’t market to anyone other than that,” he told Slate in 2006 in an article that painted him as some Willy Wonka eccentric lording it over a sartorial utopia built on a single-minded view of male sexuality as a (preferably white) tight-bodied polo-clad frat bro.
Jeffries’ brand doesn’t bother to make XL or XXL sizes for women, though XS and XXS (was that even a size before?) abound. And he’s known for mostly hiring people who fit his ideal of beauty.
“A lot of people don’t belong in our clothes, and they can’t belong,” he’s quoted as saying in the same piece. “Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.”
Those comments have come back to bite him. Hard. Reddit and Tumblr rediscovered those and other bon mots and, well, you know how the Internet handles. It doesn’t help that the guy’s a dead ringer for Biff Tannen.
Easily meme-ified quotes like the one pictured above so infuriated Karber that he set out on his crusade. He scoured the racks at L.A. thrift shops for the country club-lumberjack threads A&F is known for. Then, he meandered around Skid Row to pass them out to the neighborhood’s houseless residents, catching the expedition on video.
Karber’s call for help in rebranding the company’s rich-collegiate-kid image (which, really, hasn’t been relevant since the early 2000s), elicited a pretty big response. The social media movement encourages folks to share their effort to redistribute old A&F clothes (and probably prompt self-examining questions about why they bought a $79 pair of shredded jeans in the first place) by posting an Instagram snapshot, G+ post or a tweet under the hashtag #fitchthehomeless.
People are now snapping pics of the homeless donning logo-adorned T-shirts with signs scrawled with messages like, “too fat for this shirt,” or “too poor for this shirt.”
Karber’s certainly made a point, though it might be a tad condescending to street-dwellers. After all, they aren’t props, they’re people.
