This Can't Be Broccoli

Now that summer's drawing to a close, I thought I'd mention some of my favorite (and not so favorite) things that happened in the pop culture universe over the past three months. ~ Dark Knight Rises lived up to all my expectations--even after Gawker skewered it.  Did it make as much as Dark Knight ?  No.  Should anybody really care?  Absolutely not. ~ On the flip side, I don't care how much money The Amazing Spiderman made.  It was still an unnecessary remake (and yes, I refuse to use the word "reboot.")  "Reboot" may be my least favorite word of the summer. ~ "Call Me Maybe?"  Still good. ~ "Some Nights?"  Still good. ~ "Chloe" by Grouplove?  Should be a hit.  Get on that hipsters, this is your jam. ~ Louie on FX keeps getting better, whereas True Blood and Weeds are so bad, if you still like them, I may have to question your ability to see and hear. ~ And the "TV Show I'm Sure Is Enjoyable But I H...

Dear Taylor Swift, I didn't think it was possible, but you've done it.  You've really done it. The "Milking a Break-Up for All It's Worth" Award always seemed like it would be held by Alanis Morissette, but after listening to your latest single "We Are Never Getting Back Together" I think we finally have to hand that title over to you. Bravo. Now, if you would, I'd like to suggest that you find something else to write about. I know what you're thinking--what else IS there to write about? Tay Tay, I have you covered. I'm sending you this list--it's a variety of things I'm sure you've experienced that I think you consider exploring musically.  Surely it'll expand your range as a songwriter, but more importantly, it'll stop me from cringing whenever I turn on the radio, worrying that I'll be assaulted with "You Left Me" or "You Left My Heart" or "My Heart, Your Hurt" or what...

"It looks like we're going to have to remake Spiderman ." "Didn't we just remake Spiderman ?" "No, we rebooted it." "Huh?" "New cast, new director--" "But we told the same story we told in the first one." "Exactly.  We rebooted it.  When you reboot, you have to go back to the beginning." "Okay." "Or 'a' beginning.  You can't just pick up where you left off." "So Superman Returns was a--" "Continuation." "And Batman Begins was a--" "Reboot." "And Sparkle ?" "Remake." "And when a rapper redoes a hit song?" "Remix." "Why don't we just come up with something new?" "Look, nobody wants to stop making Spiderman movies more than me, but whenever we make one, people go see it, so we can't stop making them." "So why not just continue the story?" "Because people ...

Last week while working at the Johnston library, I overheard two women talking about Jersey Shore cast member (and Johnston native) Pauly D. WOMAN #1:  He used to be at my house all the time when he was a kid.  These people who get all excited over him don't even know him. WOMAN #2:  They're always taking credit.  He took me to the prom. WOMAN #1:  I went to the prom with him too.  He's like my brother's best friend. WOMAN #2:  And he takes care of his parents. WOMAN #1:  He's very good to his parents. WOMAN #2:  Nice to have something to be proud of. I wish I could tell you what they said after that, but my head had already exploded. Of all the odd Rhode Island behaviors that mystifies me, the obsession with being proud of anybody that just happened to walk through the state at some point is the one that confuses me the most. It took everything I had not to yell--"If someone's a millionaire, and they're parents are still living...

I'm pretty sure I know what Entertainment Weekly's album of the year is going to be. (This is a little game I play with myself--see if I can peg what pop culture items are going to wind up on year-end lists now that 2012 is already more than half over.) Unless something unbelievably brilliant comes out between now and December, it would seem that Fiona Apple's The Idler Wheel ... will take the top spot. Do I agree that it should?  Yes. Did I listen to it?  Yes. Did I listen to it more than once?  No. When I tell people that I think the best album of the year is one I only listened to once, they shake their heads at me. "It can't be that good if you only listened to it once." It occurred to me after I heard this that music is the only art form in which we demand that something have substance AND make us want to experience it over and over again. I've only seen Gone with the Wind once. I've only read The Grapes of Wrath once. I've...

I think I've discovered the secret to working with the general public in Rhode Island. Be rude. Sound crazy? Trust me, it might not be. When you do theater (and work a day job in addition to that), you end up interacting with a diverse group of strangers on a regular basis. You start to develop theories--some crazy (Why does everybody in the market decide to check out at the same time?  It's a conspiracy!)--and some not so crazy. Here's my this-might-not-be-so-crazy theory: I think people respect you a little bit more when you're rude to them. Or at least, rude people seem to respect you more when you're rude to them.  Maybe it's like anything else--maybe they just like having someone speak their language to them. It seems a little absurd, but I've seen too many examples to make me think it's a fluke, and I'm starting to wonder if it's a Rhode Island thing. When I was a teenager, I worked a few retail jobs, and I always saw th...

This is one of those trending news topics that seems to have ten conflicting accounts, so bear with me for a paragraph.  Daniel Tosh, comedian and host of Comedy Central's "Tosh.0" (a show where Internet videos are played and mocked by Tosh) is taking a lot of heat because, allegedly, he made a rape joke at a comedy club, a woman got offended and as she was leaving, Tosh asked the crowd if it would be funny for everyone to rape her. Or something like that.  I couldn't be bothered to look up all the different articles to achieve some sort of "accuracy."  I'm a blogger, not a journalist.  Regardless of what Tosh said, I still think he should lose his job, and it hasn't nothing to do with the fact that he may or may not have told a rape joke. I think he should lose his job because he's just not funny. First off, let's address the elephant.  You can't say anything is never funny in any context in any way.  That's ridiculous.  I'...