This Can't Be Broccoli

"I blame Grandpa's Magical Toys " my mother said, "That's why you're a hoarder." My mother is referring to a video I loved when I was a kid. It was one of those movies for kids that went directly to video and looked like it was shot on some Canadian soundstage for about eight dollars. I loved it. In the movie, every time someone leaves Grandpa's Magical Toy Shop, the toys come alive and interact with each other. (That's right Toy Story , I'm well aware you plagiarized a bad 80's kid's video.) My mom recently decided that there was a connection between "Grandpa's Magical Toys" and the fact that I have trouble throwing out anything that ever meant anything to me. The term hoarder is a little strong, since my refrigerator doesn't have an ecosystem inside of it and there aren't any raccoons living in my garage, but I do develop the occasional unreasonable attachment to something. For example, when I dro...

A few words of wisdom from my Grandmother: On politicians: They're all crooks and none of them have mothers. On religion: I don't have to go to church to be religious. I go to the church of me, and I'm a damn good priest. On driving downtown: I want to see your show but it's downtown and if I go down there I'll be killed in my sleep. (Did you get that she planned on sleeping during the show? Just making sure.) On natural disasters: A natural disaster means God wants you to move. As soon as an earthquake hits Rhode Island, I'm out of here. On my mother: She works too hard, because she's a lunatic. Your mother is absolutely insane. She's lucky I love her. What other mother would put up with that much insanity? On her cat: I have to get home. Fluffy worries if I'm gone for more than an hour. I don't want him thinking I was killed downtown by some thugs while I was watching my grandson's play. (Apparently, murd...

This year's bumper crop of Academy Award nominees has a notable--and controversial--distinction. Their race. Out of the twenty acting nominees, there's only one that isn't Caucasian (Javier Bardem for the film Biutiful is the lone exception.) And, for the first time in a long time, there isn't a single African-American actor nominated, and it's already become a huge issue in the media. The last time I remember there being a firestorm over African-American actors not being recognized was in 1995, when Al Sharpton took the Academy to task for not having a more diverse list of nominees. What I didn't understand was why Sharpton was blaming the Academy, and not Hollywood itself. There weren't any stellar performances given by an African-American that year that went overlooked. It was just that African-American actors weren't being given the same quality of roles as the Caucasian actors were. This was a much bigger problem than who shows up on a...

With the Academy Award nominations being announced today, lots of pop culture pundits are commenting on who's in, who's out, and who will win. What none of them are talking about is the inspiration found within the nominations themselves. Inspiration? In a list of film nominees? Sounds crazy, right? But the list is full of it. Take the Best Actor race for example. Here you have Jeff Bridges, nominated for True Grit, a great actor who won his first award last year and now seems to be enjoying a winning streak in what most would call a young man’s game. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Jesse Eisenberg, nominated for The Social Network. Ask most people if somebody who starred in a movie called Zombieland would, less than a year later, be nominated for an Academy Award, and they’d probably laugh at you. Not only a nominee, but co-host James Franco, is nominated for 127 Hours. Not bad for someone who used to have nothing more to their name than the brilliant ca...

In the winter of 2011, an undercover operative from the F.B.I. encountered a domestic threat at a gay bar in New York. Unfortunately for them, all they got was his first name, before he disappeared out of the club, and seemingly, into thin air. Despite their extensive resources, the Bureau was unable to locate the threat or any information about him, until last week, when a suspect brought in for interrogation revealed that-- "He's on Facebook." That's when they brought in the (little) big guns: Andrew Holder. ANDREW:  What do we got? FBI CHIEF:  We know he's on Facebook, and that his name is Michael. ANDREW:  That's it? FBI CHIEF:  Is that enough? ANDREW:  Pshh, bitch please.  Get me a coffee and Season 5 of Will and Grace . FBI CHIEF:  That'll help you find him? ANDREW:  No, I'm just tired from being out all night and I need a few laughs.  Now move. Once Mr. Holder was set up in a secret location underneath Washington, D...

The big news in entertainment today was the revelation that Oprah has a half-sister. A smaller news item that the media chose to pay little attention to was the fact that somebody else found out they have a half-sibling today: Joyce Carol Oates. Yes, I am Joyce Carol Oates' half-brother. We were both thrilled to find each other after all these years. Well, I was thrilled.  JC (as I have taken to calling her) was taking it in a...different way. "Perhaps I'll write a story where you force yourself upon me," she said, "And I'll call it--'Why Brother?'" "Um, here's the thing Joy Joy," I said, and this was before I had taken to calling her JC, "I'm gay.  Plus, I think people would actually assume I did force myself upon you, and--" "It's even better if you're gay," she said, "Because then it would be about you forcing your fraudulent sexuality upon the world with me as a symbol of the ...

GQ Online is reporting thoughts and observations about spring fashion for 2011.  I figured they shouldn't be the only ones to have all the fun, so I'm joining in. (This is when you say a prayer for me.) http://www.gq.com/style/editors-picks/201009/new-york-fashion-week-reactions-spring-2011#slide=1 For the hipster who finds himself out in the rain...a lot.  Is it a robe?  Is a trench coat?  Is a trench-colored snuggie?  Who can tell?  And who cares, really?  When you're wearing brown sneakers with orange laces and carrying a leather messenger bag, you've clearly thrown coherency out the window. http://www.gq.com/style/editors-picks/201009/new-york-fashion-week-reactions-spring-2011#slide=12 Do you find that your business meetings just aren't gay enough?  Do you feel like looking like a character from Aha's "Take on Me" video?  Well, you're in luck!  Simon Spurr has created the perfect outfit for you.  Caution:  This s...

Recently, I was reading a magazine that outlined the big projects coming out in the upcoming year.  Some of them I can't wait for--HBO's Game of Thrones series, Steven Spielberg's epic War Horse , and the final novel from David Foster Wallace. Then there are those projects that the media is convinced I should be excited about, but alas, I'm not having it. Take Pirates of the Carribbean:  On Stranger Tides .  Nobody seems to be pointing out that the first three movies were meant to be a trilogy, not a franchise.  As a trilogy they worked fairly well, but watching Johnny Depp pull out his old Jack Sparrow costume for the fourth time made me groan in the theater.  I realize this stuff is supposed to be the equivalent of cinematic comfort food, but if you're going to go back for a fourth round, shouldn't you at least have to come up with an exciting reason to?  Based on the trailer, the only difference between this movie and what's already been done with ...

The MTV show Skins has riled up a lot of people--particularly, but not surprisingly, the Parents Television Council.  They're trying to get MTV to edit the show or risk facing child pornography charges for a future episode where the naked backside of a teenage actor is shown. The show is a hit over in England, and if you watch a few of the episodes on BBC America, it would seem like the show was almost tailor-made to be brought to America.  And what better home could it have than MTV?  The channel that's been offending parents for years. So what did I think about checking out the show? Well...it's kind of...boring. Okay, I'll just come out with it:  It's a bad show. And I'm not saying that because of the "offensive" elements of it.  It takes a lot to offend me.  What bothers me more about the show is the poor writing and the fact that the shocking aspects of the show aren't shocking at all. Where has the PTC been the last ten years? ...

With the Oscar race heating up, a close race can be decided by a number of factors. One of the closer races may be the Best Leading Actress race where Annette Benning and Natalie Portman will be battling it out.  Benning is a multiple nominee who has never won, but Portman turned in a career-best performance in Black Swan .  She was awarded the Golden Globe this Sunday, but Benning was as well for her turn in The Kids Are All Right , because the Globes split up Comedies and Dramas. Still, the edge usually goes to the actress who takes home the Drama award, but in this case, something else may end up costing Portman her little gold man. The Eddie Murphy factor. That's right, Natalie Portman and the former SNL funnyman turned megastar turned...well, not-so-megastar may have something in common. Both may fall victim to an ill-timed bad movie killing their chances at an Oscar. When Murphy was nominated for Dreamgirls  a few years back, he went into the race as th...

When I was a kid, I earned money by typing out letters for my stepfather. He ran a non-profit organization, and he would often have to send out letters to different businesses asking for sponsorship. I would get ten dollars for every letter I typed out (your first clue that my stepfather wasn't exactly a professional when it came to making money) and it wouldn't usually take me very long. ...Except when I would decide to...let's say...edit some of his letters. Admittedly this happened...pretty much every time. I don't know if it was early onset control freak-ism or the fact that I genuinely wanted to help my stepfather acquire funds, but I couldn't help but...correct him. Most of the time I could get away with it, but not when he'd dictate to me. "Uh, do you really want to say 'I'm not trying to kiss your ass, but--'" I'd ask. "Yeah," he'd say, "That's what I'm saying." "But don't...

A friend of mine recently made his entire Facebook profile private for a few days until changing it back to its original setting. When I asked if something he had happened, he told me that he had applied for a job interview and he was worried that if they looked him up online they would see that he was gay, and that it would cost him the job. "Isn't that illegal," I asked. "Well," he said, "It's illegal for them to outright deny me the job because I'm gay, but if they find out I'm gay, and decide they don't want to hire me, who's to know?" Something like my friend's scenario isn't specifically a gay issue.  Employers are going online to find out all sorts of things about their potential employees.  But my friend doesn't have embarrassing photos of himself out drinking, or doing drugs.  He doesn't have obscene wall posts or anything that would make him look like an unreliable worker. Yet he was still worried about lo...

On February 13th, the Grammy awards may find themselves getting bleeped--and for good reason. One of the songs up for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year is Cee Lo Green's upbeat "F**k You."  The song was all over the airwaves last year, complete with a parody version being performed by William Shatner on George Lopez  and a G-rated version done by Gwenyth Paltrow on Glee . The latter also gets radio play and is entitled "Forget You" (as you probably guessed, most stations can't air a song entitled "F**k You," although some have been brave enough to play a third version entitled "'F' You"). Green says he dislikes the edited versions, and you can't really fault him for that.  He wrote a song called "F**k You" and even bloggers like me aren't allowed to write the actual name of the song down without offending someone. And really--why should it? The song isn't about sex.  Arguably what makes t...

Best Motion Picture - Drama Black Swan Protozoa Pictures & Cross Creek Pictures & Phoenix; Fox Searchlight Pictures The Fighter Paramount Pictures and Relativity Media; Paramount Pictures and Relativity Media Inception Warner Bros. Pictures UK LTD.; Warner Bros. Pictures The King's Speech See-Saw Films and Bedlam Productions; The Weinstein Company The Social Network   (Winner) Columbia Pictures; Sony Pictures Releasing Follow this category on Twitter using  #GoldenGlobesDrama Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama Halle Berry  –  Frankie and Alice Nicole Kidman  –  Rabbit Hole Jennifer Lawrence  –  Winter's Bone Natalie Portman  –  Black Swan   (Winner) Michelle Williams  –  Blue Valentine Follow this category on Twitter using  #GoldenGlobesDramaActress Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama Jesse Eisenberg  –  The Social Network Colin Firth  ...