my best friend Mike Betts and some of his friends made this video and it is Hilarious!!!

check it out!

A couple weeks ago in this post I mentioned this video of Jon Stewart taking MSNBC’s new morning show Morning Joe to task over their Starbucks sponsorship. As always, Jon is on point, neatly dissecting the absurdity of the MSNBC team’s seemingly odd relationship with their show’s patron.

Or so I thought.

As much as I appreciate Jon’s fiendish logic, I wonder if we haven’t moved into some bizarro cultural landscape that I would characterize as post-ironic. In the post-ironic cultural landscape we are so hyper-aware of the irony of any given situation, rather than using the irony as a tool for critique, we embrace it by drawing attention to it, while simultaneously accepting it. Advertising today teems with examples of this condition. In post-ironic advertising, advertisers and their partners are hyper-aware of the purported soulless/sell-out nature of their business. To appeal to an audience that they perceive (somewhat correctly) as being as cynical about advertising as they are, they demonstrate this awareness in nod-and-wink fashion to demonstrate their authenticity, that they’re on the level, that we’re all in on the game. Thus, in today’s cultural climate, as much as Jon Stewart – idealist that he is – would like it to be different, it is valid for Joe Scarborough to claim that they were being sarcastic (except that he was actually confusing sarcasm and irony, but oh well) about their show’s sponsorship, because we have moved beyond the belief that someone who endorses a product really “loves” it. It’s merely brand association and a way to pump dollars into the programming. Or an attempt to have your cake and eat it too.

We’ve been moving into this space for a long time now. In my mind, the tipping point had to be this infamous clip from Wayne’s World, probably the most epochal example of what I am trying to describe.

More recent examples include:

Brands such as Pepsi buying airtime on SNL to be featured in mockumercials.

The current crop of Old Spice commercials.

Weezer’s post-ironic promotional parody Snuggie infomercial that says, “Isn’t the whole post-industrial mass commercialization of everything just such a farce? That’s why we’re offering a free crap product from those infomercials you see on tv all the time to help promote our new album!”

Taylor Lautner será conductor  del programaS aturday Night Live el 12 de diciembre, ¿Cómo creen que funcionará el lobito en el área comica?! Le regresará el cumplido a Taylor Swift, mencionandola en su monólogo?

Que espero que todas las fans del licantropo más sexy que he visto no se lo pierdan y veamos que sucede con esa parejita.

There’s nothing BETTER than someone whose GREAT to look at can provide a good LOL here and there.

SNL has got your back.

They’ll be introducing Rihanna, Taylor Lautner, Blake Lively and James Franco as hosts in the upcoming Holiday month…

Delicious.

what the hell am i gonna wear?

This just so happens to also be Bonza Bottler day, which by definition is:
“An excuse to celebrate. This happens every month when the day and the date are the same number. (September 9, October 10, November 11, December 12, etc.)”

No doi.

The last time Saturday Night Live ran a funny skit satirizing the Obama administration, MSNBC reacted by asking for Ray Finkle, and a clean pair of shorts.  It will be interesting to see how the left reacts to the most recent SNL parody about the President’s visit to China, where he ‘made love’ with his counterpart there.  Here it is:

Saw this on SNL and it cracked me right the fuck up. In case you don’t know, Dave Matthews plays Ozzy Osbourne in this sketch. It’s hilarious to see Bill Hader act like Dave next to Dave acting like Ozzy. Plus the whole “mellow” thing, the random pets rolling and smoking doobies, and Andy Samberg saying random things like “vegan cookies” and “Ultimate Frisbee” makes me laugh. Oh, those fucking wannabe hippies…

Jimmy Fallon no siempre logra ser cómico, pero a veces tiene unos momentos de genialidad indudables. El más reciente fue su cover de la canción de Fresh Prince of Bell Air, pero como si fuera Neil Young en los setenta.

Si no se recuerdan acá va la original

Y si les suena raro es porque seguramente estuvieron acostumbrado a escucharla en español, en Venevisión, con el voice over de la muerte dando los nombres de los actores.

y de ñapa les dejo la versión gallega que nunca había escuchado JA!

For some insane reason, Hulu deleted Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s amazing monologue from his Saturday Night Live episode, so it’s only available on YouTube presently in a lesser form. Can’t these jackasses on YouTube that manage to get past copyright infringement blocks at least upload widescreen videos correctly?

It’s always a pleasure to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt showing up around every corner being infinitely charming and genuine. He’s clearly a multi-talented, multi-faceted guy and a constant surprise. (500) DAYS OF SUMMER is a wonderful movie, and he played that part perfectly. His roles in recent years have all shown an excellent taste for roles (Cobra Commander excluded?). My realization of just how damn cool this guy really is came when he and the equally charming and all-around perfect woman Zooey Deschanel made the following music video for one of her songs, “Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?”, from her band, She & Him, from SUMMER’s director, Marc Webb:

That’s the best music video ever. Plain and simple. I will not be hearing arguments. I could gush and gush about this video, that movie, and these people all day long.

Check out Joseph Gordon-Levitt charming the pants off of America talking with Jimmy Fallon and playing laser tag with the gusto of a 10-year-old boy. I can’t help but think of the new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s INCEPTION while he runs, jumps, and dives around the set.

When Saturday Night: LIVE of NBC Universal aired a faux movie trailer of the recently released apocalyptic movie “2012″, the uproar began almost immediately (i.e. from laughter to being appalled). There were those who said, they “would laugh at the face of danger, ha, ha, ha”! There were those who followed with, “they laughed in Munich during the twenties”. Some even said “the worst that could happen would be for President Obama to get re-elected”. Followed with “they laughed in Munich during the twenties”. Comedy does poke fun at politics, it’s a said commentary when politics is searching comedy for a deeper meaning in life. The right and the left were both made fun of at their own expenses, get over it. One person would say, “We watch Saturday Night: LIVE for comedy and we watch our politicians for LEADERSHIP”. Or is this being too…..what?

So I almost lost hope when January Jones, who was so clearly nervous/unfunny that they barely used her, hosted “Saturday Night Live” 2 weeks back.  And I was a little apprehensive when Joseph Gordon-Levitt took the stage, launching his monologue as if he was on at least three different uppers…until about 40 seconds into the song-and-dance number he did.

His zealous schitck played nicely into the whole musical comedy thing he was going for.  And he gets bonus points for the back flips off the walls.  NBD.

This episode had three major strikes against it in my book:

1. Dave Matthews

I don’t even feel like I have to explain this.

2. What Up With Dat?

I hate this bit.  It’s like the writers never thought about how to deal with the problem of writing an annoying character without annoying the audience.

3. Al Gore

Regardless of how much you care about global warming, it’s NOT NARRATIVE ENTERTAINMENT.  It’s not even docu-tainment.  Did you see “An Inconvenient Truth?”  It was a power-point presentation. A POWER-POINT.  I will have an Oscar someday.

And with all of that, the show still managed to be one of my favorites, largely due to THIS.

They managed to endear Dave Matthews by not only poking fun at him, but getting him to declare his own voice makes him want to throw up in his hands.  Fantastic.

Also, how great is JGL’s Jason Mraz voice?

Also, how great is it when Andy Sandberg almost starts laughing?

Also, frosty horchata.

Some might find this offensive…me..I think it’s SNL’s job to make jokes and “roast” people…I think it’s hilarious!

When Taboo and the Peas did their SNL performance, Taboo found out he was in the company of a fellow sneaker pimp, Jason Sudeikis so he got him laced up in the TABOOXJUMPs.

And of course, the band, Bucky Johnson gotta be looking fresh.

Some might find this offensive…me..I think it’s SNL’s job to make jokes and “roast” people…I think it’s hilarious!

O ‘Saturday Night Live’ já descobriu: o que causará o começo do fim do mundo em 2012 será a eleição de Sarah Palin à presidência dos EUA.

Hilário!

While I loved the Taylor Swift Twilight parody that aired a couple of weeks ago, I can’t say the same for last Saturday’s cold opening on SNL. In trying to poke fun at President Obama’s U.S. policy and programs, SNL decided to do a ching chong skit based on the president’s recent trip to Asia.

Sorry Will Forte, but mumbling fake Chinese as President Hu JinTao did not make it any less offensive, nor was Nasim Pedrad’s fake accent as his translator any more amusing. Of course, it’s hard to expect a higher standard for good taste when the actor playing the first black president is white. Really SNL? Really? Just because you got away with blackface doesn’t mean that yellowface is okay too. In fact, neither one with them was cool to begin with.

If you can afford to pay Amy Poehler and Tina Fey for guest appearances, couldn’t you have easily hired Ken Jeong for a one-time gig? There are really no excuses for not using an Asian/Asian American actor when you already have one on NBC’s payroll. Not to mention, he’s has a pretty impressive resume having been in almost every blockbuster bromance comedy since Knocked Up.

Green Day performs East Jesus Nowhere with Will Ferrell on CowBell – SNL

I’m not sure if i’ve made myself clear, but i truly, deeply, lustfully love Billie Joe and he is the only one on my “list“.    My sister and I went to Ikea last week and on the way down, I confessed to her that I was hoping we’d run into him and his family there.  He lives in the east bay.  Ikea is in the east bay.  The Armstrongs are moving into a new house.  People need stuff from Ikea when they move.

Irrational as that may sound, it could happen.  So i always dress nice for Ikea.

(incidentally, i truly admire his wife, adrienne, and would be almost as gaga over her as i am him, if and when we accidentally bump into each other at Ikea)

(and another thing, it’s obvious in the video that Will Ferrell had never heard this song.  -10 pts for his tragically unhip faux pas)