TSA TO CNN REPORTER: TAKE GREYHOUND, MOTHERF***ER

ITEM: The infamous no-fly list the TSA uses to keep extremely dangerous people off airplanes – of which there are now between 400,000 and 1 million, depending on who you ask – now includes a CNN reporter who, by the wildest coincidence, found himself unable to board planes shortly after filing a series of stories critical of the TSA.

The TSA swears he’s not on the list. The airlines swear he is. The list itself is unavailable for public view and the criteria for who gets on the list is secret.

So who do you believe?

What makes this especially worth knowing is that this most likely ISN’T the work of some evil plot by Dick Cheney to silence the media, but probably some gung-ho TSA person who didn’t care for Griffin’s unpatriotic attitude.

It’s not hard to imagine. CBS2 in Chicago recently did a piece on flyers who have been publicly humiliated by TSA screeners who were likely acting under their own paranoid, powermad directive. Which in many ways is even more arbitrary – and therefore stupid and dangerous – than if it was all official policy. That said, it might as well be policy, since the TSA doesn't actively do anything to discourage this kind of thing.

Either way, of course, it’s one of those things that doesn’t make people any safer but does make Obama Bin Laden a very happy terrors. I’m sure the Yankee Stadium sunblock ban is also making his afternoon.

Nobody's free to wear sunscreen,

This is dF

NEVER ASK FOR GREY POUPON IN UTAH

Some of you may remember the Grey Poupon commercial from the 80s that inspired one of the great stoplight pranks where people would ask the person in the car next to them for some posh mustard in a bad English accent.

Here’s how that typically went circa 1992:

Here’s how it scans in 2008:



Progress!

(Well, in a way. If this had happened a hundred years ago, the guy would’ve just shot them and stolen their horses. See how far we’ve come since then?)

Mean Mr Mustard,

This is dF

ROBOTS IN LOVE

The bridal unit and I went to see WALL-E last night, and holy crap, Glenn Beck was right! It’s a big liberal movie about big liberal global warming that teaches kids that capitalism is bad and we should all become hippies and plant trees and then hug them all day and ... and ...

Ha ha. Right. Good one, Glenn.

I liked it, me. Good fun, good story, pretty clever satire, great character design. The ending could have been a little braver, but that’s a lot to ask of anything backed by Disney.

Speaking of which, while we’re imposing our own sociopolitical filters on what in reality is just a cute film about robots in the future, one thing I find interesting is that in order for this to work, the filmmakers had to impose genders on what are basically sexless machines. There’s no reason for WALL-E or EVE to be either male or female, other than to sell a love story. Imagine if the characters had been designed as androgynous machines – or at least had been given voices that were gender-neutral. How would audiences have reacted to that?

Besides Glenn Beck, I mean. He probably would have just ‘sploded all over the place. “PIXAR ADVOCATES GAY MARRIAGE! ONOES!!!”

Anyway, I’m not complaining. Just over-intellectualizing out loud. Sorry about that. Forget what I said. Cute robots, loved it, the end. The opening short with the magician and the rabbit? Totally ROFTLMAO. Okthxbye.

We do the Batman tomorrow. Right after we pillage the annual Hong Kong Book Fair. In theory, anyway.

Who’s the woman who’s the man,

This is dF

MADNESS TAKES ITS TOLL

ITEM [via the ever-vigilant stacyjill]: Aw, HELL no ....

( In-depth commentary follows... )

( And another thing ... )

I realize it’s not news that MTV stopped being a relevant force in musical pop culture years ago. But dear God, must they take our past triumphs and kick them repeatedly in the nuts until we go blind and half mad from the pain? Have you no decency, sir? At long last?

It’s gotten to the point where I’m almost ready to accept the theory that MTV is covertly trying to save us from bland 21st century monocultural boredom by destroying the past. The next Hendrix or Lennon or Satchmo or Madonna or Aretha cannot happen until we smash up everything that has preceded us. A clean slate is the only way to move forward.

But who am I kidding? MTV is in an unstoppable death spiral and it’s determined to take as many of us down with it as it can. Its epitaph will be harsh and its judgement merciless. There can be no redemption now. It’s too late for that.

Or is that too melodramatic?

Sue me. Rocky Horror is a perfect thing. It is the ultimate in sci-fi cross-dressing call’n’response rock’n’roll horror. It is one of the most influential elements of my adult education. I remember my first midnight show in Franklin, TN. My friends and I randomly inserted the word “spam” into the reponse lines. It caught on for a few weeks. Yr welcome.

Fuck.

Defamer has some cute ideas on who MTV would probably cast in the thing, but it’s hard to laugh, because they probably WOULD put Hannah Montana, Pink and The Cute One From Fall Out Boy in it. Just to piss me off even more. Why not? If yr going to defile a hallmark of pop culture, why fuck around?

Bastards.

We’ve got to get out of zis trap,

This is dF