Monkey Business

Dow Jones gained nearly 480 points after last week’s devastating losses, doesn’t mean that this story is not still relevant. So listen up big Wall Street bosses, Wall Street wise asses, and all other jerks, it goes like this: “Once upon a time, in a village in India, a man announced to the villagers that he would buy monkeys for $10. The villagers, seeing there were many monkeys around, went out to the forest and started catching them. The man bought thousands at $10, but, as the supply started to diminish, the villagers stopped their efforts.  The man then announced that he would now buy at $20. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and they started catching monkeys again. Soon the supply diminished even further and people started going back to their farms. The offer rate increased to $25 and the supply of monkeys became so little that it was an effort to even see a monkey, let alone catch it! The man now announced that he would buy monkeys at $50! However, since he had to go to the city on some business, his assistant would now act as buyer, on his behalf. In the absence of the man, the assistant told the villagers: ‘ Look at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has collected. I will sell them to you at $35 and when he returns from the city, you can sell them back to him for $50. The villagers squeezed together their savings and bought all the monkeys. They never saw the man or his assistant again; only monkeys every where!

Branding

Have you noticed that all the songs in Apple products (iPod, Mac..)commercials sound exactly the same? Is this what one might call Branding? Or is it Over Branding?

And also, my Mac does need to be restarted at times, and while I appreciate it’s quality, it still gets stuck  here and there!!!

Let’s Get Serious For A Second

What’s wrong with being an equal opportunity offender within the confines of comedy? If you asked me before I saw Tropic Thunder last night I might have answered, “Not much.”

Not the case anymore.

I went to see the much-anticipated Ben Stiller flick after a few months of heightened anticipation. I had read many enticing reviews, including David Ansen’s glowing accolades of Ben Stiller’s comedic rise to genius from his days on the Ben Stiller Show to his fall in The Heartbreak Kid to his present-day redemption.

I like Ben Stiller most of the time. I used to get annoyed with his shtick but ever since Zoolander (which people I either love or hate), I’ve been singing a different tune. It was a silly commentary on the fashion world, models, and the media that exploits every facet of pop culture. It was so over-the-top, it was hard to offend. Unless you’re a self-obsessed, dumb model, that is…Or just an incredibly dim-witted, kind-hearted model like Stiller’s Derek Zoolander.

So given Stiller’s penchant for poking fun at various groups in his work (and most notably “slow” people) and his 2-D labels, it’s not surprising that the President of the AAPD (Association of American People with Disabilities) came out denouncing Stiller’s portrayal of a character playing the part of mentally retarded individual, even going so far as to call out the film as “tasteless” and “offensive from start to finish.”I know what he meant because I, too, cringed every time I saw Stiller stutter in his “Simple Jack” character, wondering how this brand of cruel humor managed to see its way through the DreamWorks editing suite.

And I felt doubly ashamed and irate with Tom Cruise’s cameo as a money-grubbing, fat, and vulgar Hollywood Executive named Len Grossman.

Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of a white man playing a black man was meant to be funny and self-deprecating because it was poking fun at someone who was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. It didn’t involve colors so much as one actor’s self-absorption and what he put himself through to be an artiste. The make-up and phony accent were all part of the gimick.

The joke ended there.

But with Cruise’s Jewish character and Stiller’s mentally disabled character there was no foil. There were stereotypes that were magnified and blown up at the expense of these groups. The joke was entirely on the people that comprise these groups.

I’ve never been fond of the mantra that it’s ok to insult and joke about a group if you’re a member. We all have the responsibility to uphold a degree of ethics and social responsibility in our work and our daily conduct. Besides, the majority of people attending such a mainstream flick aren’t necessarily Jewish nor Special Needs so you’re depicting these groups in an unfavorable light to a broader audience for the sake of what? To fuel the fire of discrimination and spread hate?

It’s quite possible I have a giant rod up my butt and just don’t “get it” but “it” seems like such infantile and low-brow humor that I’m not sure I ever want to get it. It makes me long for the comic brilliance of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor - men who valued a level of sophistication in their cultural commentaries and knew that the best kind of laugh sometimes came with the price of of a tear in that it held a mirror to our own ignorance and short-comings. And at the end of the day we were better people for having listened to them and chuckled at our own expense - not someone else’s.

Beijing 2008- The Sad Olyimpics

The entire world will be amazed by the beauty of China, and exited with the beginning of the Olympics. I won’t. Not that I don’t like sports, nor was I born yesterday to this cynical-material world, but every day we discover more and more about how the Chinese government managed to pull this production on the backs of it’s poor people, the less I’m inclined to actually watch the games. NBC, who paid $894 million for the US broadcast rights, will show the Olympics no meter what. Here and there, we’ll see an item on the news that gently criticize the Chinese actions, but it disappears between Matt Lauer reporting for the Today Show, and Billy Bush getting a foot massage for $25 in Beijing.

Money talks, as the Chinese and we know, so what are a few million people whose homes were demolished in favor of a shiny stadium? Or a few millions more who are left to starve because they are not allowed to water their rice fields, comparing to Coca-Cola TV commercial?

So, I’m not so exited about the games. Maybe I’ll watch it a little bit, but no more than that.

Who Do You Think You’re Fooling, Will(is)?

Hollywood’s golden couple, Will Smith and Jada Pinkett blah-blah-blah have officially got with the program and are opening a “non-affiliated” private school.

On the mythological waiting list/roster of shoe-in attendees, Suri Cruise and possibly the Preston-Travolta clan. While the Hancock star and his wife are insistent that the school is not grounded in L. Ron Hubbard’s teachings, “several teachers on board at the school are members of the Church.”

Will and Jada’s New Village is different. For one, unlike your standard everyday brand of school sports which are nothing more than thinly veiled exercises in masochism where humans get used as target practice (dodgeball, kickball), New Village students will have the option of doing yoga. How very progressive. We’re no Scientologists here (and therefore ignorant as to the ways of the future), but we foresee a very heartfelt Oprah episode airing towards the mid-August in which Tom and Katie make cameos alongside their bestest friends and everyone shares some “I love you(s)”.

If only the ending to this sad story weren’t quite as predictable as Hancock’s twisted denouement.

When Will This End?

Hillary Clinton said: “I’m just very grateful we kept this campaign going until South Dakota would have the last word,” but Bill said: “This may be the last day I’m ever involved in a campaign of this kind.”, and I’m thinking: Is today really the last day Hillary and Barack will bore us with their endless meaningless, empty promises and speeches? Will tomorrow be a new day, in which we’ll get to hear real news for a change? The answer is probably NO, but it’s OK to dream isn’t it?

Iron Man- Mini Review

So, we went to see Iron Man on Friday. In Hollywood’s saturated political environment, where “We are to blame for all the bad in this world” George Clooney style, it’s hard to avoid the agenda even in a movie like Iron Man. But other than that, it is a very enjoyable movie; Robert Downey Jr, Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow and Terrence Howard are doing a very good job. So, if you like the genre, you are up for a treat.
Oh, and a very important tip: Stay in the theater for the credits, and wait until the very end!!!! You’ll thank me later.

Sprewell In Trouble

It was very saddening to hear that former NBA star Latrell Sprewell lost his home, like many others, to foreclosure on Monday.
AOL Sport’s Matt Watson put it in perspective:

I know the automatic reaction among fans is to point and laugh at the silly athlete who didn’t know how to manage his money, but there’s nothing funny about foreclosure. I’m in the process of buying a house, and over half of the houses I walked through were both empty and in a sad state of disrepair as a result of frustrated owners taking it out on their property before losing it to foreclosure, which is becoming a sad trend in my state. After awhile, it’s just depressing.

Will eBay Auction Skype?

3 Years ago, Skype was the hottest thing in town. Then the bidding started, and when it comes to bidding no one knows how to do it better then eBay, who, with plenty of woo ha, paid a modest sum of $2.6 billion for their new toy. But, a while later, eBay, who also own PayPal, realized, that its harder to integrate the technology into its auction business then they first thought, Skype has become the hot potato that no one wants, even the appointing of Josh Silverman as the new CEO in February did not seem to help, and now eBay is considering selling the VoIP provider. Skype is quite good actually, it allows free PC calling, and saved me a lot of money when I used it to call computers internationally.

Oprah [& Her Friends] Can’t Save XM

The Justice Department just approved a merger between former satellite radio arch-nemeses, Sirius and XM radio. In short, Sirius bought XM out for $5 billion. Maybe it’s just me, but I kinda miss the whole healthy, clean days of competition a la Battle of the Network Stars. Then again, with Howard Stern and Martha Stewart doing the Sirius circuit, I’m not sure even Oprah (& “Her Friends”) stood much of a chance…

Is This The Last We Hear From Heather Mills?

So, she finally made it, she shook the tree, and got her $48.6M from Sir Paul. “I’m so, so happy with this,” Heather Mills told the many reporters following the closed hearing. “I’m so glad it’s over, It was an incredible result in the end to secure mine and my daughter’s future and that of all the charities that I obviously plan on helping and making a difference with — because you know it has been my life for 20 years” she said. Oh…..so noble…. What she forgot to mention, was that she was offered this amount from McCartney in the past, but the greedy dancer wannabe refused to settle, and sought almost $250 million.
I just hope that we can now have a break from Heather Mills’ circus, and concentrate on what’s really important… American Idol…..

Don’t Blame Oscar’s Lowest Ratings Ever on John Stewart’s Ad Libbing

Oscar ratings were dramatically down this year. This despite all the George Clooney pimping, the red dresses, and Sean Penn’s new arm candy. While the writers’ strike is rumored to be the primary culprit of ABC’s bad fortune in a year that was ripe with downer nominees, some fault needs to be shifted to the downright lack of charisma of the show’s host, John Stewart. Considering I had to wait till 10:50 PM before there was one comment that made me chuckle and that it’s all but erased from my memory, it can’t bode well for Stewart’s wittiness. Yeah, yeah, writers’ strike and there were 5 writers that had pitch in to write the telecast this year and they had fast turnaround given time restrictions, but isn’t Stewart a comedian after all? If Tina Fey can pull off of the more memorable SNL episodes to hit the tube in a long time, can’t Stewart work some magic? I always thought Stewart was a little bit of a whiny sissy anyways, but maybe he lacks that bitch is the new black factor after all…