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Waiting For The Sun To Go Down

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 29-06-2009

As I just started watching True Blood (although I’ve read several of Charlaine Harris’ books), I did what anyone would do.

I started dicking around on YouTube.

A few comments on True Blood, the folks in that show other than the vamps sorta look like people in Hoots. Second of all, any man that can look that sexy and pretty damned scary beating the hell out of someone with their very own arm with foil in his hair and flip flops on deserves my undying admiration. (They don’t make them like that here in Hoots though. He is like an updated version of Spike from Buffy before Spike got a soul.)
As a Southerner, the accents are pretty laughable but I am enjoying the hell out it anyway. For horror buffs, it’s fun.

Yeah, I like my vamps. Just do.

So, I found this video. If you don’t like vampires, just turn the song up. It’s that good. (I don’t usually do Fan Videos but this one is pretty decent.)

News Changed With The Death Of Michael Jackson

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 26-06-2009

I don’t know how Michael Jackson spent his time off the stage. I’ve had a variety of people in the last 16 hours tell me about his abilities in crafting a pop song, how he was tortured and his legal woes regarding his unhealthy obsession with children. We will continue to be talked to death because Jackson was bigger than life when it comes to celebrity.

He was talented though.

He changed the way videos and music converged in the early days of MTV and I watched him sometimes with wonder of how he actually “made” MTV in many ways. The revolution always starts in the arts and he was an early leader. I grew up with him from his early appearances on variety shows of the early 70s, watched the TV show and was pretty much wowed like everyone else when he went solo. I didn’t buy his albums though because it wasn’t as much my thing as The Police, The B52s and new wave music from the UK during the Thriller years. You couldn’t help but appreciate him though. Eddie Van Halen’s guitar riff in Beat It was brilliant as was the distinctive bass line in Billie Jean. I don’t know if that was as much Jackson or Quincy Jones being pretty damned gifted.

There is no doubt that Jackson went into bizarro world later in his life but in the beginning, there wasn’t anything purer than the way he did things. I’ve always heard that our greatest strength are also our greatest weaknesses. I have no doubt that this is true in Michael Jackson’s case.

On another level, I’ve seen Twitter and Facebook blow up before over some issues when it comes to dying celebrities but yesterday proved that news has indeed changes faster than any of us could have predicted. It was a trial by fire yesterday. News outlets on Twitter reported his death, retracted, we waited for the credibility of someone other than TMZ and ultimately it came while my family played CNN in the background. I think TMZ had it first and news outlets need to watch web sites like it. You may not like them (I personally think they are too busy and a bit predatory) but they have become a force to be reckoned with. We also need to give some of the cable newsers credit for making sure the story was accurate with verification. It was a bizarre dance off between new media and traditional media both working. It was frustrating to watch but I think yesterday was that moment that news ultimately shifted permanently.

I went to my nieces softball game last night and, of course, this what people were talking about. The social event was filled with the discussion of some of us sandwichers who always grew up with Jackson around us. From his music, his celebrity, his bizarre physical changes over the years and ultimately the legal troubles he had, he was always around. There was some talk about his videos, which I think everyone can admit were fantastic.

So Michael Jackson is the celebrity death for this generation that rivals Elvis’ 32 years ago. Except Elvis’ passing was not broadcast on the Internet and back in the day we only had a handful of television channels.  We have compared the value of the younger Elvis to the older spandexed-wearing Elvis and I’m sure we will do that to Michael Jackson as well.

With Farrah Fawcett’s passing and that of the King of Pop, I’m feeling all of these four decades, campers. Intangible reminders of our own mortality always rears it’s head when celebrities pass. It’s real, yet we watch from a safe distance and wonder when it will be our turn.

Marvel Zombies

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 23-06-2009

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Your favorite Marvel superheroes ~ Zombified.

All You Need

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 18-06-2009

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From Business Pundit

Mouth Breathing Cured!

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 13-06-2009

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I swear to you this looks like wrapping underwear around your head for fun. Cotton, Linen or Mesh, you choose. It’s like a head whale tail.

It will add to your spirits. The ad says so.

Drag Me To Hell Or Goats Come From Hell

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 31-05-2009

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You choose. We sang in the car after the movie “Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell” as we are wont to do because that’s how we roll.

Squirrel Queen and I took in Sam Raimi’s latest journey into the horror realm yesterday. I am a complete sucker for horror movies, but there is one thing about “Drag Me To Hell” that I wasn’t expecting.

It was the social horror aspect of it.

“Huh?” you might be thinking but let’s break it down.

Spoilers after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bredesen To Veto Guns In Restaurants

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture, Tennessee | Posted on 28-05-2009

Gov. Bredesen will veto the guns in restaurants bill.

“This is not a right-to-bear arms issue. It’s about creating a problem for businesses when there was not one before,” Baker said.

The legislation, he added, shifts the burden from the individual to the business owner. Baker anticipates business insurance will go up as well as the number of lawsuits filed.

While businesses can post a sign prohibiting guns in their establishment, Baker asked, “How welcoming is that?”

My friends who own establishments in Hoots, it appears your voices joined others and was heard and this is of the good.

40,000 Insipid Pics To Find Cause of Dorm Fire

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 23-05-2009

From Random Man:


Police Slog Through 40,000 Insipid Party Pics To Find Cause Of Dorm Fire

That’s just about brilliant.

Follow The Rules

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture, Tennessee, When The Beer Runs Dry, The Coma Cries | Posted on 12-05-2009

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This made me laugh out loud. It’s actually not a bad rule at all.

Credit to Dead Dog

An Example On Why Politicians Should Twitter

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Politics, Pop Culture, Tennessee | Posted on 09-05-2009

Here is a perfect example for the SFGate Culture blog why politicians should twitter.

I don’t know. I can’t help it. I also can’t help but hope that maybe it really was him who’s been working on his grammar and sent me that Direct Message via Twitter. Ask anyone who knows me, every time I experience or imagine a Newsom snub, I have to fight tears. I kid the Mayor, but only because I keep a little eternal flame on my vanity where I pray that one day, I might give the man a chuckle (and please use chuckle as a euphemism for whatever your sick minds can come up with.) The thought that Gavin Newsom, while unable to actually put me on his radio show because, well, I’d obviously be really inappropriate, decided to send me a polite Twitter DM is one giant step for the Mayor, one giant leap for our relationship.

Beth Spotswood makes politics, and other things, just fun.

And, let’s remember, Newsom just got some free press.

You listening Tennessee?

Just saying.

Awkward Family Photos

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Pop Culture | Posted on 09-05-2009

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Yes, we’ve seen the Olan Mills List of the Day of groovy photos but how about Awkward Family Photos.

Yeah, I’m digging it.

H/T Raincoaster on Twitter

I Want To Be A Hobo, Baby

Posted by newscoma | Posted in Bloggers, Politics, Pop Culture, Tennessee | Posted on 07-05-2009

(Sing title to Cowboy by Kid Rock. It rather works.)

Have you ever had a day where it went so slow that it felt like I was riding the back of a turtle that was leaving Hoots and had to be in Vegas by the end of the work day?

I did see one of my coworkers pull her cell phone out of her bra when it rang and talk to her husband about she wanted Loretta Lynn’s Greatest Hits CD while “I’m the Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” serves as her ringtone. This rather endears her to me.

As I think the most viable line of employment for me these days is being a bona fide hobo, it was not a day of fun and revelry. I had to go try to figure things out last night and I realize I’ve got some pretty big decisions to make in the coming weeks. As I am really not in the mood to be an adult right now, I’m not looking forward to things I must do, I thought I would just share my random dark thoughts.

I realized that I most likely need a new hobby. While we wait for me to determine what I actually need to do, let’s do a link dump.

Now on to various annoying autobiographical stuff. You know that I’m bored and tired. I think I’ve been a harpy about that one little fact this week. So, in a dream quest that was much more exciting than my real life, I hung out with a blogger during my nocturnal wanderings.

Last night I dreamed about Nashville’s very own Aunt B. We were in Memphis eating crepes and a very young Keith Olbermann was showing us around Beale Street. Then we went to Graceland w/Olbermann because we were both convinced he had psychic powers and we wanted to channel the ghost of Elvis’s mother Gladys. Olbermann grew very tiresome to us, so we just left him and drank tea in some spinning restaurant that oddly looked like the one at the Doubletree in Nashville.

Dreams don’t have to make sense.

Finally, this has been around the tubes the last couple of days and we just got our Internet back at the house yesterday. Your moment of Tennessee government zen with a tip of the hat to Christian Grantham:

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