Did Lou Holtz Ever Get Around to Giving out an Oscar Last Night?

Look, it's not like I ever watch an awards show and think, "Holy Shit! That was Awesome!" But when the highlight of your 3 hour telecast is a 90 year old stroke victim, you've produced an incredibly forgettable waste of time. First off, who the fuck tapped James Franco to do this? Have you ever seen this man interviewed, he's batshit insane. And not in that fun Tracy Morgan/Charlie Sheen way where he's as likely to expose himself as he is to actually say something interesting. No, I mean insane like in that self-absorbed Marlon Brando way where he doesn't respect his audience because they couldn't possibly understand how deep he is, so he just mumbles incessantly and says weird shit because he's soooo bored with it all.
Anne Hathaway was pretty and harmless but she's not gonna save a show from it's dull moments. Especially when they're served up in wide load truck sizes like last night. And that's the whole problem with this soulless crap-tacular, they removed anything that could be considered offensive (read: interesting) and left you with a 3 hour infomercial.
Anyone notice how Billy Crystal got a standing ovation last night? It was as though the audience just saw the first interesting person walk into an Amway pitch meeting. You could hear the crowd begging him,"No please stay. Those two won't mind. Right, guys?" Hell, I was hoping there were enough one liners programmed into the Bob Hope Holotron 6000 to last the rest of the show.
You need comics to host that crap. Otherwise it's a big self-congratulatory circle jerk. I know, I know, isn't that all any awards shows are? Yes, but that's not why we watch them. We watch to see some of those smug assholes get taken down a peg. We watch so that somebody like Nicole Kidman, who leads a life of privilege you could not possibly imagine, has to walk the gauntlet of people like Joan Rivers who want to know what drape she took down in her house to make that dress. We watch so that Chris Rock can take a shot at Jude Law, who was nice enough to take a break from fucking to come present an award, and make us all feel a little better about living in a studio apartment that barely has room for the bowl of Cheetos we like so much.
But no. Ever since Janet Jackson whipped out her tit 5 years ago, everyone of these shows has become so scared of someone saying something a guy who wrote for "Our Show of Shows" didn't write on a cue card, that it's become The Lawrence Welk Show. Here are some things I think they should bring out next year to get people interested again:

-Trap Doors
-That Price Is Right sound effect when you lose or tell a bad joke
-Tracy Morgan
-Death Montage set to Alan Parson Project's "Sirius" (BTW, where the fuck was Corey Haim in that list last night? I guess License to Drive just isn't good enough for some people)
-All celebrity bloggers allowed on the red carpet. A domain name gets you press credentials.
-All "Best actor and actress" categories will be settled in the Elimination Chamber
-Charlie Sheen
-Martin Sheen with Charlie Sheen

Is Dina Lohan the worst mother in history to not have murdered her child?

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You know, a lot of people give Lindsay Lohan shit for pissing away a movie career that only five or six people a decade get a chance to have. It's almost as though she watched a couple E! True Hollywood stories when she was 20 and said, "That's the career path I want!".  But I'm willing to to give Lindsay the benefit of the doubt that her drug and alcohol problem is not at Steven Adler proportions, but more along the lines of most college students who tend bar/live with a dealer. But with Dina Lohan as her sole parental influence, I'm surprised she hasn't ended up killing a drifter after a bottomed out career in scat porn.

Jesus H Christ, is this woman the worst kind of attention whore or what? Not only does she flat out lie about how many times Lindsay has been to rehab, but she blames all of this on the judge. Not surprising considering she invited the Entertainment Tonight cameras to film her first visit to see Lindsay in rehab,  but has claimed she will move back to New York where "state laws are more lenient". Uggh.

Of course none of this should be surprising coming from the woman who lied about launching her own talk show, lied about being a Rockette, and then-while her daughter was in her second dry out clinic- launched a reality show to try and make sure Ali Lohan would be able to be bought and sold in the same fashion.

Dina Lohan is the worst kind of gold digger and you cant tell me that if her child hadn't become a celebrity that she wouldn't have found some octogenarian millionaire and fucked her way into his will.

Gary Carter gets made to look like a self-centered Asshole by a self-important Douchebag

I got to be honest, I'm not seeing a clear cut winner here.  Don't get me wrong, Gary Carter gets no love from me.  He's a preening jackass who always wanted the media to know what a good guy he was. Nobody on the '86 Mets liked the guy. Not even the other straight edges like Ray Knight, who once told an assistant coach who was looking for Carter to "find the nearest TV camera" could stand his Dudley Do-Right routine.  So is it surprising at all that Carter is asking for charity donations from fans who already ponied up $45 bucks just to walk into an event where they were promised free photo-ops and memorabilia signings? No.
But if there was ever a You Tube video that needed to end with a phone filming 6 minutes inside of the cameraman's rectum, this is it.  Dude, save this shit for the real scumbags like Reggie Jackson and Albert Belle. It's not like Carter wasn't signing anything. He was just signing slips of paper unless you made a contribution to his charity.  Douche-y ? Sure. But worthy of hounding the man like you just caught him stealing a pocketbook? Fuck off.  And don't hide behind the "For the kids" excuse either. Those kids wouldn't have known Gary Carter from Jimmy Carter considering they were all born 10 years after he had his last at-bat. Of course that didn't stop Carter from making sure the kids heard all about how his 30 home runs in Olympic Stadium would have been like 60 in any other ballpark, oh and he never did steroids, or drank, or chased women. Stay on the right path kids, like your hero, Gary Carter. That's G-A-R-Y-C-A-R-T-E-R. I played catcher. I was awesome.
And another thing, quit acting like every fucking pro athlete in the world owes you autographs how you want them. It seemed like he was pretty content to have a conversation with a fan which, regardless of how Carter steered it to his own stats, is pretty fucking rare for anyone in those mass signings. I went to a lot of those as a kid and I can tell you for a fact that I never had any conversations with the guys signing. Well, unless you count Will Clark yelling at a crowd full of me and several other kids that he was "Fucking done with this bullshit!", or the time when I was 10 years old and was next in line to get an autograph from Pete Rose only to hear him explain, at length and in graphic detail, about the "Jew broad" with the "biggest tits" he'd ever stuck his dick between (All right, that one was actually awesome), as conversations.

LeBron James May Be The Biggest Asshole......Ever.

Listen, New York was never gonna get him. The Knicks sucked shit for way too long to think that Amare Stoudemire and Tony Parker were gonna lure James to MSG. And since the NBA markets players instead of teams, you can be as big a star in Oklahoma City as you can in NYC. So sorry, Knicks. Wait till 2034 when you'll start get the first draft picks Isaiah Thomas didn't piss away.

Holy-fucking-shit was that press conference cold hearted or what? Look, far be it from me to say that James should have stayed in Cleveland. But if he wasn't, he should have had the courtesy to announce it mid-afternoon and let the pain wash over Cleveland throughout the day. Not to schedule the most ego driven free agent press conference in the history of sports to tell the city that has worshiped him since he was in 8th grade to collectively eat a dick. 

Cleveland is the Milhouse of all pro sports cities. Jordan put a stake through their heart the last time the Cavs were good. The Fumble and The Drive have long since eclipsed any memories of Jim Brown's dominance in the minds of Browns fans. And if that wasn't enough, Art Modell told Cleveland-who had bought every seat in the stadium for 30 years whether they were good or bad- to lick his taint because he would rather own a team in Baltimore. That's right, the town that was captured accurately by both The Wire and Homicide:Life On The Streets was a better city to an NFL owner than Cleveland. (And 5 years after he left they won a Super Bowl to really twist the knife).

But tonight has to be an all time low. And to add insult to injury, here's Cleveland Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert sounding like a girl who got dumped at prom:

Dear Cleveland, All Of Northeast Ohio and Cleveland Cavaliers Supporters Wherever You May Be Tonight;

As you now know, our former hero, who grew up in the very region that he deserted this evening, is no longer a Cleveland Cavalier.

This was announced with a several day, narcissistic, self-promotional build-up culminating with a national TV special of his "decision" unlike anything ever "witnessed" in the history of sports and probably the history of entertainment.

Clearly, this is bitterly disappointing to all of us.

The good news is that the ownership team and the rest of the hard-working, loyal, and driven staff over here at your hometown Cavaliers have not betrayed you nor NEVER will betray you.

There is so much more to tell you about the events of the recent past and our more than exciting future. Over the next several days and weeks, we will be communicating much of that to you.

You simply don't deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.

You have given so much and deserve so much more.

In the meantime, I want to make one statement to you tonight:

"I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER 'KING' WINS ONE"

You can take it to the bank.

If you thought we were motivated before tonight to bring the hardware to Cleveland, I can tell you that this shameful display of selfishness and betrayal by one of our very own has shifted our "motivation" to previously unknown and previously never experienced levels.

Some people think they should go to heaven but NOT have to die to get there.

Sorry, but that's simply not how it works.

This shocking act of disloyalty from our home grown "chosen one" sends the exact opposite lesson of what we would want our children to learn. And "who" we would want them to grow-up to become.

But the good news is that this heartless and callous action can only serve as the antidote to the so-called "curse" on Cleveland, Ohio.

The self-declared former "King" will be taking the "curse" with him down south. And until he does "right" by Cleveland and Ohio, James (and the town where he plays) will unfortunately own this dreaded spell and bad karma.

Just watch.

Sleep well, Cleveland.

Tomorrow is a new and much brighter day....

I PROMISE you that our energy, focus, capital, knowledge and experience will be directed at one thing and one thing only:

DELIVERING YOU the championship you have long deserved and is long overdue....

Dan Gilbert

Majority Owner

Cleveland Cavaliers

Dude. People are watching. Put the bottle of Jack down, and get off the Twitter. It's gettin sad.

And from the "WHATHEFUCKWASTHAT?!?!" camp.

I've already spoke my peace. But there are some genuine feelings of "we got screwed" concerning last night's Lost finale  that I haven't seen since 1997 when Vince McMahon called for the bell in Montreal. To give a voice to these angry masses, I give you Lee Rubenstein - Writer for Upright Citizens Brigade Maude Team, High Treason. And one pissed off Lost fan. Lee, you have the floor.

With that final fade to white, I flipped off my TV. I didn’t turn it off though. I just sat there, middle finger outstretched, watching the credits roll. I knew in my heart that, somewhere out there, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were rimming each other and murmuring softly about how they don’t owe anybody anything.

It would take days to write out all the ways Lost finale failed as a piece of fantasy (or sci-fi, whatever you want to call it). And I’m not going to bother, because apparently, I wasn’t watching it for that reason. I was watching it for the characters. For the love stories. Ok. Sure. Let’s say I was.* HOW THE FUCK WAS THAT A REASONABLE OR SATISFYING CONCLUSION IN THAT CONTEXT?

1. Apparently you must be a certain height to ride the great space coaster into the white light. And apparently it takes you to Fuck-Palace 7 where you just bone all day. That’s the only reasonable answer, right? Because even though parenthood and the proper raising of children were such huge themes in Lost, no one seems to care about meeting their children in heaven. Not even, say, the child we are told is SPECIAL and IMPORTANT and MUST NOT BE RAISED BY ANOTHER. Where’s your child Claire? “Who cares, I’m going to go angle-fuck this drug addict.”

2. But that bad parenting pales in comparison Jin and Sun. Jin chose to die instead escaping the island to raise his kid. And Sun let him. Jin has only had two motivations on the entire show: Protecting and providing for his family, and finding his family so he can protect and provide for it. And how did he end his life? By, you know, maybe sacrificing himself to protect and provide for his family? NOPE. He died doing the exact opposite. Because that’s good writing, right? If you close your eyes, you can literally feel Damon Lindelof pissing on your face.

3. Is Sayid evil? Well, he did torture all those people, both in Iraq and on the Island. And then he did murder a shit ton of people across the world and on the island in cold blood. But, to his credit, he did choose to not shoot a dude sitting in a well. But good, evil, apparently doesn’t matter, cause he gets to go to heaven with his true love, Nadia.

4. Wait, what? Where the fuck is Nadia? What do you mean, Nadia who? FUCKING NADIA. The strong, independent women that Sayid based all his adult life around loving and protecting. Is she not-WHAT THE FUCK IS SHANNON DOING HERE? Get her out of here or it’s going to be awkward when Nadia shows up! So for reals though, was the big plot twist of Lost that Sayid is really Tiger Woods with his hair grown out? Sayid’s entire life is based on what he would and wouldn’t do to be reunited with Nadia. Turns out though that he’d throw it all away for an eternity of whiny, shallow sex with some chick he knew for less than a month.

5. Desmond and Penny, where is baby Charlie? Wait, sorry, I’m done talking about not going to heaven with your kids.

6. So Ben kills like a million people in cold blood, but he can still be redeemed. Then, after he gets redeemed, he kills two more people, just for good measure. No worries, he can go to Heaven after he lives out his dad fantasy with Alex and Rousseau. But Michael, under extreme duress, trying to protect his HUGELY IMPORTANT son (sorry, I momentarily forgot that none of the fantasy plot points mattered at all), shoots one person on purpose and another accidentally, and he’s forever trapped as a ghost? Yup, a good resolution to that character, just as I wanted from my character drama.

6. Why was Jacob and MIB’s mom a ghost? Who did she shoot? Doesn’t matter.

7. John Locke, fresh out of his wheelchair, is apparently going on the space coaster solo. Sorry Kathy Segal, at least you’ve still got Fry.

8. You must never let the light go out…or else you will have to turn it back on again. What a pain, am I right?

Ok, I’m straying back towards discussing the MASSIVE PLOT HOLES instead of the nonsensical behavior of characters in a supposed character drama, so I’ll stop for now. What a fucking waste of time.

*It’s weird, as much as people want to tell me this was why I was watching, I really don’t remember going from website to website, pouring over in-depth analysis of Kate and Sawyer’s breathy exchanges. I don’t remember reading long, speculative blog posts about whether Jack and Juliette’s flirty banter was well-earned. I don’t remember spending off-seasons playing long and convoluted mystery games about finding the location of Locke and Kathy Segal’s first date. Weird .

Last Episode of Lost.

In the book "Misery" by Stephen King, there is a scene at the end, after Annie Wilkes has held Paul Sheldon hostage for a year while forcing him to write the final book in his series about her favorite character Misery. After keeping Annie at bay with page after page while getting strong enough to kill his captor with his bare hands, Paul tells Annie that the last page he has written contains all of the answers to her questions and her desires for the story characters. Paul then lights the page on fire to get Annie to dive after it while he bashes her head in with a typewriter.  If he had allowed Annie to read 75% of the page fulfilling all of her hopes for the story before reading the last line which read "Misery Takes a Hot Runny Shit on Annie" before bashing her head in, I would have a perfect analogy for what I just saw.

I knew we wouldn't find out why Walt could move shit with his mind, or why Cindy took the kids in. All I wanted was to have closure. Good closure. Not that kind of ending like The Sopranos or X-Files where the writers say "Well what do you think happened?".
Well, fucksticks, if I have to write the ending... that makes you pretty shitty storytellers. So here it is SPOILER ALERT: THEY ARE ALL FUCKING DEAD. Some died on the island, some died later after living what I can only assume to be rich, meaningful lives. But they are all dead.

Okay, so they are all dead in the flash sideways, but that's still dead.  The ending everyone guessed from season one, that all of the shows producers, writers, actors, and directors swore up and down they would never do, just got did. Meaning that anything that happened in the "alternate reality" had absolutely no bearing on the plot as it related to the island.Well shit shoot and howdy, thanks for stretching this shit out. The ending was a great ending for Season 6 but not the series as a whole. Great, Jack closed his eye. I knew how that was going to end, but just doing it was akin to not showing your work on word problem.

I gotta tell you, up until the Jack/Christian hugfest, I was in. I thought it was a great way to say goodbye. I damn near cried during Sun and Jin's "awakening" as I almost did during Claire/Chahlie's. Even the Shannon/Boone cameo which should have felt forced and ham handed got carried off with some genuine emotion. And then the ending.......

Look, I don't regret one minute of watching this show. I thought Cuse and Lindeloff told a pretty entertaining yarn while developing characters in a way no one really cares to do anymore. I was into it, really into it. I read Dark UFO, and the comments on Pop Candy, and I knew there was no way to really answer everything. But I would have liked to see them clear up these few loose ends (which , by the way, are all from beyond season four, when the writers had supposedly known their endgame)

* What was Widmore and Eloise's purpose? Why was Charles Widmore so interested in the island. He didn't seem to want to protect it, yet they never really showed him exploiting it either. When he returned, was he trying to kill Locke/smoke monster or just hold him at bay while Desmond did the uncorking?And why was that so important to him. And Eloise, keeps helping people get back to the island, telling Desmond where he needs to be, and seems to have left the island and sacrificed everything (her words) but for what?

* Why was Ben Linus so obsessed with Juliet? This wasn't some small story that didn't play out. Ben brought Juliet to the island under the guise of a fertility doctor only to reveal that she "belonged to him". Harper told her that "she looked just like her" and Ben went so far as to have Goodwin killed just because Juliet had feelings for him. I guess they just ran out of time, and decided it wasn't that important, but it sure looked like it could've been a big reveal about Ben's past.

*What was the purpose of "The Others"? I get that the Dharma initiative was studying the electromagnetic properties of the island and that they warred with the island's inhabitants who eventually destroyed the group in "The Purge". But why did they take over their experiments? And how did they disguise themselves as a company who recruited Juliet? Why are they all super strong and super fast? Now I'm just nit picking.

Awww fuck it. Now that I think about it, I'm sitting here writing a blog next to no one will read talking about my feelings for the end of a TV show. When is the last time any show made me this invested? I guess the fact that I am still re-running that episode in my head over and over is a testament to it's strength. I still maintain that just throwing questions at an audience and answering the ones you like can fool people into thinking it's great storytelling, and to be a truly great story teller, your ending should answer the questions you pose in the story's exposition.  But I was a fan, and still am and it because Abrams, Lindelof, and Cuse created a world I could escape to once a week, no easy task, so thank you -truly and sincerely- for that.

See ya later LOST. It's like a good drinking buddy moved away, only to find out he opened a credit card in your name.  Cue the "Somebody is about to Die" Piano, and hope the fan fiction about Hurley and Ben's adventures gets kept someplace far, far away.

Friday Night Lights Logic Problems

You know, I really do love this show. Why NBC has buried it on Direct TV until summer while pushing a hateful bloody pile of shit like "Chuck" is beyond me. Friday Night Lights is the most realistic high school sports show I've ever seen (Just inching out "The White Shadow") and might be the best show on Network TV right now. Yeah that's right, "Lost". I said it. The island is the light huh? That's what you have for me after 7 years? Come talk to me after the finale. But even though FNL gives a pretty honest look at Texas High School Football and the mania it causes in small towns, I find myself being prevented from truly getting caught up in the story of Dillon, Texas the way I get with "Lost" or "The Wire" because of the sports involved plot twists that require a HUGE suspension of disbelief for anyone who has ever watched an organized sport for more than ten minutes.

In no particular order:

1) "Smash" Williams gets blackballed from colleges for punching a kid- Setup: Smash is the Me-First-Entitled-to-everything star running Back of the Dillon Panthers. In season 3 he is said to be the top running back in Texas and one of the top ten in the nation. Then he punches a kid who was harassing his sister and all of the colleges recruiting him turn their back on him. Why this is complete bullshit to any sports fan: You have got to be kidding me, colleges recruit violent felony offenders and you expect me to believe they turn their back on a kid because of a fight? Christ, John Thompson recruited Allen Iverson WHILE HE WAS IN JAIL. If colleges didn't admit guys with shady backgrounds then the University of Miami would have 5 less national titles than they do now and The '85 Oklahoma Sooners wouldn't have had almost everyone from that team serve time in prison for cocaine trafficking and shooting each other.