Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Fuck Leno

I’ve been watching a lot of Leno the last few days, and suddenly it dawned on me, the similarities between Simi Garewal and the slimy rich fuck that is Leno. Leno is the biggest ass kisser I have ever seen. He makes Jon Stewart seem like an investigative journalist. Wait, that isn’t fair; Lou Dobbs makes Jon Stewart and The Daily Show seem like a news show; I didn’t mention O’Reilly or Limbaugh, because that’s a circus. That is where I will be taking my kids after the elephants and the lions are extinct.

Anyway, back to Leno and his ass-wipe of a show. Is it me or do the audience at Leno’s “Tonight Show” laugh and applaud every damn fucking thing, even when it isn’t funny. The “awws” from the audience makes me think they will fit right in at a screening of Full House. But I digress again. Leno had the chance to interview Broke Obama and Con-doleezza Rice; and throughout the interview, the only thing I noticed was that his big fucking chin couldn’t be found; because it was stuck up their ass.

But what was more pathetic was when he was kissing this dumb broads ass on his show (Emma Roberts, for the Google perverts). While he had his head stuck up this barely legal chick, and she was making fun of Paul Giammati for being old, all I could think of was, let’s see where you are when you are as fucking old as him (btw, the only thing different about her being 18 is that men in basements with beer bellies could finally jerk off to her images in public. I am currently looking for a basement and free beer.)

Back to Leno though, Leno, the thoughtful, empathetic guy who worries about the crises faced by America and its middle class; the guy who does two free shows in Detroit to lighten up the days of a few people who are facing financial hardships. Fuck that, I can’t do it. Give me a couple hundred classic and super cars and I’ll be a fucking asshole 365 days a year – for free.

To those that think this is just another angry rant (well, it is that, but not just), this is who Leno thinks is worthy of interviewing (resting on the laurels of an Obama interview1); Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Dennis Rodman, Lisa Lampanelli, Emma Roberts, Frank Calliendo, “cast” of American Idol, Bill Mays and John Cena (in the last two weeks). I omitted some names, for instance, the saving grace, Michael Caine. And just to prop up a benchmark, a network that is predominantly a comedy network, whose sister networks include Nickelodeon and MTV in that same period, interviewed Michael J Fox, Tom Zoellner, Peter Orszag, Seth Rogen, Bruce Springsteen (yes, the dirty black blots on this list), Jack Cafferty, Nandan Nilekani, Gen. Richard Myers and Jim Cramer.

And all this thanks to NBC; the worst network to date; worse than Star Plus and their Saas Bahu serials. Wait! You can’t make me pick between the two. I would much rather light a match to my pubic hair. I would much rather tweeze every single hair off my body; I would much rather watch Sarah Palin become President of USA. Can we bomb the US then using the “Bush Doctrine”?

Edit:

Sometimes Jon Stewart's jokes are created out of thin air; so much so that the audience does not notice. You can't possibly expect something that hasn't been rehearsed. Take this play with words for instance.

Talking about "pestilence and fear in the modern world" with Philip Alcabes (with AIDS as the talking point):

"I'm wearing a condom right now, on the show. I've been wearing it since 1987... Has a couple of holes in it, but I'm working through it."
- Jon Stewart


NB.


1. I think it is perfectly fair to mention here that Obama seems to be nothing more than a media whore at the moment, and would be on my blog if I had a few million readers, and answer questions about how he would avoid drinking India’s “newly developed” Coca Cowla, if it ever became the “state drink”.

2. This was written on the 7th of April.

3. How to make Leno less lame?

4. Things some guy hates ABOUT Leno.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

An Idiot for the idiot box!

Television for a few years now (perhaps even a decade) has shown us why it has earned the name, Idiot Box. It probably has something to do with the fact that it makes idiots out of us. So well is this fact documented that a movie Idiocracy was made to predict our future, as witty satire. But it did achieve another feat, aside from the one already mentioned. It proved how much they can dumb down television (which includes movies for me) for mass consumption, if there ever was a doubt with Spartans, the Scary Movie series, Disaster Movie, Date Movie, Epic Movie…

But then television loves to prove to us how fucked up our society really is, be it a “wardrobe malfunction” (read nipple slip) at the super bowl, or a “celebrity malfunction”. I am sure I could spend another 15 minutes and find a few more, but this isn’t the point of today’s post.

This post is dedicated to the cinematic abyss that is Indian television. And no, I won’t be taking potshots at our “saas-bahu”1 soap operas, even though I am tempted. It would be far too easy. I will however let the funniest words ever to be uttered on television speak for itself.

Talking about this incident, a friend commented, "Indian television was just lame before this incident, now it is American".

I won’t ruin the fun for those of you that haven’t already seen or heard of this abomination and will let you watch the video and make up your own mind. I don’t think a rational human being will need much prodding. All I want to know is what able minded individual thinks the guy deserves it? And to those that have to ask what I think, I say, he didn’t hit her hard enough.






Side note: It is imperative to indicate that the genre of satire is not defined by these sorry box office excuses for cinema. There happen to be classics like Yes Minister, The Family Guy, just to drop a few names.

Olympic Dreams

With the end of the Beijing Olympics (yes I know it ended some time back), there are those that are reveling in the pseudo-national pride that comes with your nation performing, however lack luster, at the big event; ecstatic at our performances in shooting, wrestling and boxing, Indian sports fans and the above mentioned pseudo-patriots are going crazy with accolades. At the other end of the spectrum there are the critics that either can’t/won’t take anything positive from it or are just inclined to finding the cloud that carries the silver lining.

The medal trio is enjoying the adulation being poured in on them, while the other athletes either disappear into obscurity or get back to training for the next event of their season. But that sounds just like the India I left two years back, where effort goes unnoticed, hard work and dedication sidelined by the Indian publics need for instant gratification.

But let us leave them for the moment and concentrate on our critics. Just 3 medals from a billion strong? Or how about the fact that countries the size of Estonia, or ones with political strife like Zimbabwe manage to win more medals than us?

"We are the world’s biggest democracy, the second most populous country in the world. Then why is that in a span of 4 years, we are only able to produce 57 top athletes?"
Source: http://www.iwebie.com/indias-2008-beijing-olympics-dreams

But these comparisons are simplistic. Canada, the second largest country finished just 19th, and Indonesia, with the 4th largest population did worse than the aforementioned politically handicapped nation. This just goes to prove, your size, population or wealth has no bearing on how well you will do at the Olympics or any large sporting event for that matter.

"This is a matter of national shame, an aspect that the Indian Govt. needs to look at closely."
Source: http://www.iwebie.com/indias-2008-beijing-olympics-dreams

This sentiment is highly reflective of Indian behavior, our need to shirk off responsibility and redirect blame. It isn’t the government that is to blame. It is the Indian public. A nation, taking a crap on Rathore, without even knowing what the reason for his poor performance might have been. And even if there is no reason, I believe our medal winners (and prospects) deserve a little more respect than they are currently being shown

But what irks me more than everything else Indians do is the fact that some of these critics aren’t too appreciative of the fact that our medal winners are getting the attention that they are currently receiving.

"Now lets move our focus towards the sportsmen themselves. Vijender Kumar has already started talking in terms of modeling. Sushil Kumar seems to be completely over the moon. Its obvious that these people have started losing their focus even before their actual journey has commenced. At a time when they should start concentrating on the Commonwealth Games, India's so called medal winners are everywhere except for where they should be."
Source: http://www.intheorbit.com

Note: They are not “so-called” winners.

Well, it is alright when those douche bags get coke and Pepsi deals, isn’t it? I find nothing wrong with the Indian sportsmen and women cashing in on their newfound and (possibly) short lived fame due to their “so-called” Olympic triumphs. After all we are a fickle nation with no regard for our sports heroes. Maybe you will remember some of our athletes that had to sell their medals1 from other events in order to survive. Or maybe you do not. But that is our nature. And it is this nature that has dawned on these three men and they deserve to make the best of what they have now. May they never have to worry about selling their hard earned medals.

But all this begs the question, who is to blame; when our system rewards performances after results and provides no impetus (different from incentives) for our athletes (cricketers aren't athletes in my opinion). I don’t have the answer, and I don’t think Indians really care either. The question will be put on the back burner until a few months before the 2012 Olympics.

But all this doesn’t hold a candle to the final and most absurd accusation, one that pisses me off so much that I believe that anyone that dare make such an accusation deserves castration; and that is for the lack of time to construct an appropriate torture that matches the blasphemy. It is said that the reason we had so many ‘flakers’ these Olympics was due to the fact that they lack passion. To those cricket loving douche bags that know not true passion when they see it, I hope you rot in the world’s dirtiest cesspool

I don’t see how they can levy this accusation, with reasonable seriousness, when our sportsmen who toil in their respective sports even though the chances of any glory are minimal, even if they do bring in the results (Karnam Malleswari won a few lakhs for her bronze and some Arjuna Award or some titular facade). Most of them toil in their sports into obscurity. Few have heard of the gallant sportsmen who fight so that we may one day have an Abhinav Bindra or an Akhil Kumar.

India doesn’t deserve the medals these young men and women bring in. And while I will be hurt if we continue to perform as we have in the past, I believe the Indian nation deserves nothing more.

Monday, August 25, 2008

Just Another Day...

Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Independence Day, New Years Eve; I don’t attach too much stock to any of these. After all, they do come every year! And there is a reason for that. It’s called a calendar. The same goes for birthdays. So when people ask me what I have planned on my birthday, I usually give them an uncomfortable “I-don’t-know”. Uncomfortable, because I know they expect something generic; for instance, going out with my buddies to get drunk so I can’t distinguish vodka from grape juice.

I don’t need my birthday for that. Heck, I got drunk on some random day, at a party. Let’s call that my birthday and New Years Eve all rolled into one. Wait, it was New Years eve! But the point is birthdays are irrelevant. They were created by us, and I still don’t get the reason! Sure, it indicates we are getting older. But I’m older today than I was yesterday. Yay! Let’s go celebrate with some ice cream. Wait… I just did that.

Here is how birthday’s and New Years Eve are similar. It’s almost expected for people to look at the past year of their lives and introspect, relive good times and take notes on where to improve, which brings us to resolutions. After all life is a lesson right? And then there is of course dreaded milestones, be it quarter-life crises or Y2K.

Well this year I did just that, looked back on the year gone by. It has been a wonderful year, filled with so many lessons, and heart-warming experiences, some gastric delights, and some plain silly stuff. So here are the 10 most memorable moments that transpired during year 24 of my life.

  1. In the spirit of the Olympics, let’s start with this one.

October 8, 2007 - Track and field star Marion Jones surrenders her five Olympic medals she won in the 2000 Sydney Games after admitting to doping.

Marion Jones got screwed. She surrendered her fucking medals; they should have taken away. She lost 5 Olympic medals and about fucking time. The only lesson to learn from this experience is; DON’T GET CAUGHT. Indian weightlifters are dumb. They get caught. Had they not gotten caught we’d have medals lined up on our walls too! So cut them some slack. When they ask you to pee in a cup next time, oblige. Don’t ask questions. It’s all in the Olympic spirit. But what takes the Birthday cake is the fact that the bitch was banned for 2 years. OH fucking really!! Is she planning on taking part in the senior citizens Olympics?

2. December 20, 2007 - A group of activist Lakota Indians send a letter to the United States State Department declaring their secession from the Union as the Republic of Lakotah.

This one is amazing. Mount Rushmore might end up in another country! If RoL succeeds; do they bring down Mount Rushmore the way the Americans brought down Saddam’s statue? I can’t wait.

3. November 5, 2007 - The Writers Guild of America goes on a strike that lasts until February 12, 2008.

For 3 months, no TV, no news. That’s not a lot of fun. Where would we get our news if it wasn’t for The Daily Show and The Colbert Report? To put things into perspective, I watched 27 Dresses. Yep, that’s how much the writer’s strike affected me.

4. April 22 - Surgeons at London's Moorfields Eye Hospital perform the first operations using bionic eyes, implanting them into two blind patients.

Robocop! Awesome! But in all seriousness, I’m glad scientists are figuring out how to stick it to the retarded religious creeps. Screw god’s mysterious ways. No wonder they don’t like stem cell research and genetic research. That’s probably all the proof any rational person needs… that THERE IS NO GOD!

5. November 1 - London's Metropolitan Police Service is found guilty of endangering the public following the fatal shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, an innocent Brazilian whom officers mistook for a suicide bomber.

How do you mistake someone for a suicide bomber? This is a suicide bomber!

This however, is not

6. August 30 - 2007 United States Air Force nuclear weapons incident in which a B-52 flew from Minot AFB , ND to Barksdale AFB, LA carrying six nuclear warheads.

Whoops! Nuclear war anybody? Come on, it might be fun. In fact, it might be more fun than dying the slow death that we will eventually see.

7. September 6 - "Operation Orchard": an Israeli airstrike occurred against a suspected nuclear site in Syria

Oh… I didn’t realize that it was enough to blow another country up if you suspect them. That changes everything. Now all Russia needs to do is say they suspected Georgia of the same. Go Russia!

8. July 15–20 - World Youth Day takes place in Sydney, Australia. Pope Benedict XVI appears at the event.

Holy sodomy! I nearly had milk coming out of my nose when I read this. The pope with kids… do I need to paint a picture?

9. November 16 - Over 3,000 people are believed to have died after Cyclone Sidr hits Bangladesh, with the death toll expected to rise.

December 20 - An earthquake of magnitude 6.6 ML hits the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand, causing one death and significant damage in the town of Gisborne.

October 20 – November 9 - Wildfires in Southern California result in the evacuation of more than 1,000,000 people and destroying over 1,600 homes and businesses.

September 19 - Typhoon Wipha hits Fuding, China. Authorities had evacuated over two million people prior to the storm's landfall.

September 4 - Northeast Nicaragua takes a direct hit from Hurricane Felix. The hurricane was a strong Category 5 storm when it reached the coast.

August 25 - Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis declares a national state of emergency after a series of devastating wildfires ravage western Peloponese and southern Euboea, killing 68 people.

August 18 - Typhoon Sepat makes landfall in eastern Taiwan.

August 18 - The remnants of Tropical Storm Erin re-strengthen into a tropical storm over Oklahoma, causing widespread flooding and wind damage.

August 21 - Hurricane Dean, a powerful Category 5 storm, slams into a largely evacuated Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico.

February 5–6 - A tornado outbreak, the deadliest in 23 years, kills 58 in the Southern United States.

March 25 - A 160-square-mile (414 km2) chunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf disintegrates, leaving the entire shelf at risk.

August 15 - An 8.0 earthquake strikes Peru, killing 512 people, injuring more than 1,500, and causing tsunami warnings in the Pacific Ocean.

January 25 - China's worst snowstorm since 1954 kills 133, delays traffic, and causes massive power outages in central and southern parts of the country.

May 3 - Over 133,000 in Burma/Myanmar are killed by Cyclone Nargis, the deadliest natural disaster since the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004.

May 12 - Over 69,000 are killed in central China by an earthquake measuring 8.0Mw. The epicenter is 90 kilometers (55 miles) west-northwest of Chengdu.

June 14 - A 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, kills 12 and injures more than 400.

June 22 - Typhoon Fengshen hits the Philippines and capsizes the ferry MV Princess of the Stars, leaving hundreds dead or missing.











Source: The International Emergency Disasters Database

Climate change? Nah, that’s just the biggest hoax perpetuated on the American people. All these disasters were just staged. Come on, you can’t really believe these incidents are true, can you? The only events that we can be SURE about are when there is NO ONE else around but a chosen few, like the passing down of the ten commandments on a mountain, or the first men walking on the moon. Nah, these are truly staged. After all, climate change has no evidence, but we did see the moon landing on TV!

10. December 25 - An escaped tiger at the San Francisco Zoo kills one person and injures two others.

That gastric delight I was talking about, mmm. I never said it was something I would eat (maybe I would)! And before anyone decides to jump down my throat, hear me out. It’s about fucking time those tigers eat some of those pesky little runts. First you take those tigers out of their habitat, then you put them in a little cage that is smaller than the one you have your newborns in, and then your little angels think it’s smart to tease, and agitate the animal by throwing their peanuts or rattling their cages. You know why kids today are dumb? It isn’t our education systems! It’s the fact that we don’t let natural selection take its course. What happened was natural selection at its best, 1 dumbass down, 6.5+ billion to go.

Incidents like these almost make me hope climate change fucks us up and spirals us into extinction.

(2 months ago) (in reply to this)


lionheart209

God gave man dominion over the animals. Peple need to carry weapons, legally of course. I'm a peace officer and carry an off duty weapon, had I been there, the tiger would have been shot upon reaching the outer gate.

An armed citizen is a safer citizen;)

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Losing Battle of Uber-Patriotism

Uber-Patriotism is the phenomenon (as perceived by my limited faculties and partial knowledge and understanding of the term) of over-zealous nationalism and patriotism. Uber, German for super or often over, along with patriotism creates some of the worst kind of excesses, the excesses that created the Hitler’s and the Mussolini’s. Anyway, I am not here to discuss the effects of uber-patriotism in history, or its continued effect on world politics and the Middle East, or even the "war on terror", how the United States has been zombified into believing in things that don’t really exist.

This might be stretching too far into the past, but it certainly is still in touch with the trend that is growing in present day India. Uber-Patriotism is a steadily growing phenomenon in India. The film Industry has certainly caught onto this sense of shallow patriotism and cashed in. The Rang De Basanti’s, Chak De India’s, Lagaan’s, Sivaji’s etc. I could go on. This millennium has certainly seen a lot of bollywood "enthusiasm" into the patriotism genre, raking in the big bucks. But this isn’t about the intentions of the movie makers, however noble/ignoble . Its about how we have allowed ourselves to get caught up in the grip of uber-patriotism.

It was sad, for me, as a starry-eyed, quixotic, almost over-zealous patriot, in my mid-teens to see the lack of any spirit of patriotism in the average indian. The ever-ready question, "Aap kahan ke ho?" (where are you from?), to indicate that you are different from them (and to those that lack the background, I am talking about Indians asking people that are obviously indians). But just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does (though the starry eyed boy is long gone).

The pop-culture of patriotism means you have the indian flag waved around on every damn occasion, more pomp and show on days of national celebration, more movies celebrating the national spirit but at the end of the day, you notice that most of it are just words. Empty, shallow words, that have no actions attached to it, nothing of significance to make you stand and take notice.

Anyway, the rambling must stop, let me get back to what originally got me here, the "stretching into the past" that has forced me to make this post. This was a forward that made it’s rounds a few years back. Perhaps more than a few. The gist for the vast majority that won’t bother reading it is, how the current national anthem is in praise of our colonial rulers and hence does not warrant its place in history and certainly doesn’t warrant being the national anthem. The forward then urged unequivocally, that everyone, "united in breath" ask for it to be replaced by Vande Mataram.

Now let me take this opportunity to dispel any notions that might indicate that I have anything against either of the two songs. Both were born out of the minds of literary geniuses. The point to all this is how easy it was to generate mass hysteria, that we as free indians continue to sing the adulations of our colonial miscreants and in doing so, lower ourselves to our slave status, and hence required the urgency that no other matter deserved. The starving millions, the poor federal reserves (at the time) and the countless other problems faced by the nation were all of secondary importance as we prioritised our need for a national anthem that truly forged in our minds the idea of independence. A hyseteria born out of pure speculation and if the same sources are to be believed as the ones that generate the rumour, then the writer very well knew what he was doing.


But irrespective of the intentions, as sensible indian’s that understand the meaning of the word patriotism, shouldn’t you be more open to interpretation than what the original author intended? Should we dismiss all great literary works because its topical relevance contradicts our belief system? Or should we just take a more rationalistic, non-sensationalistic approach to the whole thing, realise that even if the author wrote the song in praise of our evil over-lords, to the vast majority of a billion indians the song is simply, a song in praise of the motherland?



Thursday, July 26, 2007

Editor on Holiday.

In between the work I have had to do coupled with the necessary amounts of procrastination, I have been left with little time over the past few days but to read nonsense like English Verb Tenses, Bread Recipes, Barbecue recipes, and How to Make Beer and Wine.

So I apologize beforehand for the extreme boredom that will reflect in this post, but do bear with me. I promise more interesting posts in the near future, or atleast to a degree amusing, depending on how you are inclined. Some might find it boring, and I strongly urge them to be as critical and/or abusive as they can be. It surely will reduce the boredom.

But for now, I feel the need to rant about the Indian "news media" once again. The fact that this happens to be an article about Shilpa Shetty is purely coincidental.

Startling that Newspapers or their online counterparts let such bullshit fly. I don't wish to debate over whether this is News or page 3 bullshit. The thing that does startle me is that a reporter typed this out and the editor didn't bother to proof read. Apparently, newspapers don't care about correct grammar and language.


"Indiafm.com

Wednesday, July 25, 2007: (Mumbai):


Shilpa Shetty is in legal trap. The writer obviously never got an A in class. Hence she figured no one would miss it in the sentence. Bad joke? Perhaps, but undoubtedly poor grammar. A London law firm has sued Shilpa's company Cine Entertainment for not clearing their dues.

A security company called CTR services is also planning to sue her on non-payment of bills as they had provided security services to Shilpa in the UK sometime backs. What backs? And if i remember my school grammar correctly, the subject of the sentence is a collective noun (Company) and hence 'is' should be replaced with 'are', purely speculative.

According to the reports, Shilpa has also been dropped from famous publicist Max Clifford's client list due to conflicts with Max's employees.

However, her representative in the UK, Farnath Hussain informs that her company Cine Entertainment has already paid every penny that they owe. Their payment got delayed because the figures CTR submitted were not right and her company asked them to rework on it. Rework on it??? wtf! 'it' refers to 'the figures', so lets plug it in place and see if it makes sense. '... asked them to rework on the figures. If you haven't shot yourself yet, I assure you the next one will take you over the edge.

Recently, she was allegedly linked up with her "good friend" and producer Raj Kundra. Kundra's wife Kavita openly accused Shilpa in media for breaking their marriage." In media? need I say more?