This post will make you laugh, cry, and barf

I will gladly tell anyone who will listen about my radio glory days. In said days, a favorite segment involved rock news in which the stupidity of rock musicians was readily pointed out and laughed about. While I no longer have the same passion for rock n' roll and certainly have retired from the world of radio, rock stars still provide for some wonderful entertainment. Some days, such as today, they provide multiple moments worth mentioning.

For starters, U2's Bono received "honorary knighthood" in his Irish homeland. The British Ambassador to Ireland (so famous he's unnamed in the article) performed the knighting. Bono was happy for the honor saying that it will assist him "getting through a few doors" in his making the world a better place in every possible way crusade.

Bono is the most recognizable musician in the world today, and I have no idea how this knighthood could help in receive any further notice than he would already have. Can you imagine someone refusing to see Bono before but now because he has been knighted by some unknown ambassador (Lord John Marbury of West Wing fame perhaps?) but now will? This strikes me as the equivalent of me receiving an honorary degree in counting change from Wishing Well Pre-school where it does nothing to further anything except a little ego.

The next story is really an on-going one. Scott Weiland lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots (oh, there will be a reunion) and Velvet Revolver has provided endless inane quotes and stupid actions in his quest to give rock stars a bad name. This time, though, it was his wife making news as she decided to trash a hotel room, set fire to Weiland's clothing, and beat up Scotty. Her explanation for this performance?
"The weekend's difficulties were brought on by a reaction to an imbalance in [my] medications. Scott was simply trying to help calm me down."

Anyone married to Scott Weiland would have to be heavily medicated, so in my book she gets a pass there. I just don't see Scott calming anyone down.

And finally in what is a popular move these days, we have a musician touting an upcoming album as the greatest thing in the history of the universe. Fall Out Boy in particular is notorious for absurd comments on their own greatness, but this time we have Quinn Allman of The Used. Lies for the Liars hits stores May 22nd, and Allman wants everyone to rush out and buy it for the life altering emotional swings that it will no doubt invoke.

"I think if you're gonna get the record, you've gotta open yourself up to it . . . and if you do, you're gonna have every emotion flying at you. My ideal reaction is [for fans] to laugh and cry and barf."

Oddly enough, that's exactly what I hope every post of mine does for you.

Awful flashbacks

As Becky so appropriately pointed out, Karl Rove is doing his best Mel Piehl impersonation. For those there, the "Lose Yourself" rap from the 2003 Christmas Symposium was a saddening emotional void. I would like to personally apologize for my part in that incident. I maintain that the hours spent editing the piece was the best I could do with what was thrown at me. Really. Ugh. Utter, unspeakable disaster.

The first two minutes are not funny. The next two minutes bring back awful flashbacks, minus the ghetto get-up and JR provided bling.

JR Has Been Voted Off

A sad day as our dear friend, JR Radcliffe (albeit with hair) leaves American Idol. Every thing you do is not magic. Somewhere, David Hasseloff is crying.

Let's lighten the mood

Yes, I stole this from my beloved deadspin.com, but I felt the timing was appropriate. I saved this unbelieveable photo for a day when I needed a laugh and (moreso) had little time for an actual post. Stu Scott helps us out on both accounts here.

Probably not America's #1 party school

St. Hugo of the Hills Catholic School in Michigan made my morning TV news. It seems that they have decided to ban students from using myspace.com. Fine, no big deal that stuff doesn't belong in the school day and if they want to outlaw it, so be it.

The catch here is that they are also outlawing students from using the website at home, too. Per Principal Sr. Margaret Van Velzen:

"Those students who have existing MySpace.com accounts must delete them if they wish to continue going to school there. Students who do not delete their accounts cannot attend the school"

Principal Van Velzen says that the parents have been supportive citing "99.9% of e-mails" have been for the ban. The school, er, news crews found one such parent in favor of eliminating myspace:

"I think we've got a long way to go because it's a very difficult situation to grasp in its entirety. There's so many things going on on the Internet and there's so much vulnerability for children."

I thought early on that a "99.9%" positive response seemed a wee bit unreasonable. In fact, the clickondetroit.com story host has a poll up as a sidebar to the story and after 9,000 votes, 75% of the readers were anti-school policy. As well they should.

I don't disagree that there's a lot of vulnerability for children and that schools should protect them within the confines of the school. However, I am firmly against the stand that schools should be dictating what goes on at home. Sure it's not a public school and therefore outside the normal scrutiny of free speech, but as a product of Catholic schools, I'm a concerned that St. Hugo of the Hills has decided that the best approach to the serious situation is to close their eyes and pretend it's not there. That does the children a disservice, especially since they will inevitably come across myspace.com regardless of the principal's policy. After all, candidates for the Presidency of the United States are doing the chic thing and coming up with myspace pages and accounts. Educating as opposed to ignoring the situation strikes me as the best response.

The fault here I find with the often criticized group of people known as parents. The quotes scream of ignorance of the situation. The article quoted another parent who said, "I think this is going to have to happen because things are getting out of hand." Coupled with "there's so much going on" I have to believe that these vague quotes come from parents have no idea what myspace.com is. Instead of learning themselves the dangers of the Internet and finding out how to best instruct the children, they've hidden behind the shield of a school and said, "You do it for us." Disappointing all around.

Combined with my Andy Rooney post, it's been a happy time here at Wolfden V the past two days. Somebody say something funny to lighten the mood. Preferably not involving Regis Philbin.

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch

I confess I have never actually watched a full episode of CBS's 60 Minutes. After all, I'm approximately 83 years too young for the demographic it reaches, but be that as it may, I have been sampling the tail end of the show.

And the tail end smells like, well, a tail end. Andy Rooney fills the final three minutes of each episode with a commentary on whatever the hell he feels like lecturing about. After a few such commentaries, I have deduced Andy Rooney is a bitter, mean, nasty man. I'm sure he's a legend in the broadcasting world, but I have to believe he's more memorable by his inexplicable longevity than by any actual contribution to 60 Minutes.

Let me back up. I don't understand complaining at great length about television shows. If it's so bad, why not just change the channel? Why prolong the agony and view the program long enough to the point you have enough material to fill a blog entry with it?

In this case, though, I am innocent. I don't want to watch 60 Minutes, and I especially do not want to ever see Andy Rooney's corpse on my television again. However, I am a bit fanatical about the show following 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race. Due to CBS's extensive sports coverage - football in the winter and NCAA basketball in the spring - the Sunday night prime time line-up gets shifted all over the place. 8pm CDT should bring The Amazing Race, but it has brought a big smelly heap of Andy Rooney instead.

This past Sunday night, he lamented in his rambling, incoherent three minute commentary that New York had the worst kind of winter. It was cold and then mild but never enough snow. And that's a shame because the kids like the snow. Furthermore, when there was snow, New York City attached snow plows to the garbage trucks, leading to a day delay in picking up garbage. He continued babbling about how the weather man is always wrong and that he's only gotten to use his $750 snow blower twice as a result. Right, as if Andy Rooney shovels snow. Whatever, Andy.

In all it was a whiny, bitter old man rant about nothing. Maybe other 120 year olds who watch the show can relate and find this segment of the program enlightening, but I'm left baffled as to how he maintains a place on 60 Minutes. He contributes absolutely nothing worthwhile except pure meanness. His commentary just before Christmas proved that.

Due to the NFL's games running long in December, I was subjected to my very first Amazing Race delay and subsequent Rooney commentary. At the end of his commentary I was left stunned, mouth agape wondering how this man was considered a legend in any way shape or form.

The subject of this particular discourse was Christmas presents people sent to Mr. Rooney. He listed a few and then stopped to say, "What am I going to do with this junk?" The "junk" he referred to consisted of one man writing his first ever novel, which he presented to Rooney as a gift. Other presents included old people, presumably his audience, offering what were definitely heartfelt gifts. Rooney turned around and took a big ol' crapper on all these people's cookies (unhealthy), cards (too many to read), and flowers (perishable). The whole piece was horribly offensive and anti-gift giving during the most generous time of the year.

So, I ask dear readers, does anyone have anything positive to say about Andy Rooney? I realize I have a tiny sample of his life's work, but I have to believe that what good he could have offered at any point is being undone rapidly by the filth flowing forth from his face. Boo to you Rooney. Boo.

Regis Update: He's Horny

I would be negligent if I dropped my coverage of American Icon Regis Philbin and his recovery from heart surgery. He called into his television show and offered an update of his condition. He mentioned that he is in pain, but that the worst of it seems to be past. I'm not so sure.

"Last night I was yelling -- I'm a little embarrassed to tell you this -- but I was yelling, 'I haven't had sex in 3 1/2 months!'

Unfortunately it seems that the situation has taken a turn for the worse. For everyone.