Man. I should not ever watch TV. Amy’s been watching the second round of “I Love The 80s” on VH1, and it was pretty cool. I am suitably ashamed of growing up in the 80s, and I remember enough of it to be able to laugh at myself and my contemporaries. In short, it’s a good time. So, when we turned on the TV this morning, and “I Love 1974″ was on, we thought it would be fun, too. And it was. Until noon, when “1975″ came on.
  I was born in 1975, and that year sucked ass. Everything about it was awful. It’s gotten so bad that Amy has taken to yelling out when the infrequent good things, like Jaws and “Saturday Night Live” show up. She can see my humiliation and shame at the suckitude of my birth year, and she is valiantly trying to bolster my spirits. She’s cool like that. But, god damn. There was so much about 1975 that sucked.
  For me, the thing that really sums it up is something that VH1 overlooked. In 1975, there were no new quarters. “What?” you’re saying. “That’s… hang on a minute.” Don’t worry, I’ll wait while you sort through the change in your swear jar. Look all you want. You’re not going to find a 1975 quarter. Why? Because the U.S. Mint was too busy gearing up to crank out bicentennial quarters, so they decided to skip the series 1975. If you buy one of the boxes that contains a mounted set of all the coins from a certain year, the 1975 box has a 1976 bicentennial quarter in it. The Mint knew that 1975 sucked, so they decided to skip it altogether. 19 years later, I spent an entire summer searching through the change I got pumping gas before I found out the truth. It made me a sad, quarterless panda.

  Marguerite Perrin, the self proclaimed “God Warrior” who earned a peculiar kind of notoriety with her deranged evangelical ranting on Fox’s Trading Spouses, has just released a rap CD.
  None of the four horsemen would comment on the record, but sources close to the quartet confirm that they have, in fact, been saddled up and ready to go for some time, and are merely awaiting “the call.”

  As I was flipping in and out of the big awards last night, I found myself chuckling heartily at Jon Stewart, while the crowd in the theater was giggling halfheartedly at best. It led me to believe that Stewart would be getting much bigger laughs if the audience didn’t take itself so seriously. Lo and behold, MSNBC agrees with me.
  I am a gee-nee-us.

  Fire up your TiVos, kiddies. An iNDEMAND cable TV special on April 24th is planning a séance that will attempt to contact John Lennon’s ghost. They plan on soliciting the deceased Beatle to channel them lyrics for a new song, which they will then have produced.
  If this works, I suggest that they next try to contact Keven Federline’s talent. Or Tara Reid’s acting ability. Or Paris Hilton’s brain.

  Wait, these are things that never existed.

  It turns out that Isaac Hayes probably didn’t quit South Park. Instead, his church quit for him.

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  In every city where tryouts are held, American Idol attracts upwards of 10,000 aspiring one (or fewer) hit wonders. (Justin who?) Obviously, Dawg Man, Drunky McSlurs-a-Lot and Sir Nastypants can’t personally audition that many wannabees in a few days. There has to be some sort of preliminary screening process, where someone decides who goes before the Three Douchketeers and, not incidentally, the largest viewing audience of any current show. Someone’s job is to eliminate the middling talents, and thresh out the most dynamic and the most awful/deluded/mentally disabled contestants to go before the cameras.
  Can you imagine a more horrible thing to hear from a network TV flunky? “Yeah, you’ve got a nice voice, but you’re not really great. And unfortunately, you don’t look like an escaped mental patient or sound like an alley cat being stuffed headfirst into an accordion, so you don’t get to meet the snarky Brit, the 80s pop star, or the former bass player for Journey.”
  I fear for the human race.

  I don’t usually go in for that “celebrity gossip blog” bullshit. As far as I’m concerned, celebrities are either human beings who deserve some modicum of privacy, or camera-fellating attention whores who don’t need their already inflated egos stroked by the constant attention. I’m making an exception, however, for Bravo’s new voyeurgasm Hey Paula.

  The satellite box was left on Bravo the other night, so when whatever it was that I was watching ended, I wound up right in the middle of en episode of Hey Paula. (I’d tell you what I was watching previously, but the memory of it was completely pounded out of my brain by the sheer horror of the subsequent spectacle.) I know I’m not the first person to observe this, but that woman is a fucking train wreck. She’s whiny, hysterical, abusive and dismissive to her small army of personal staff, wildly more self-absorbed than her resume should permit, and she can’t get through a sentence without slurring some relatively simple word.

  Anyone who’s given even a cursory glance in the direction of American Idol knows that Abdul appears to be drunker than an Irish wake pretty much constantly. On her own show, she defends her behavior with a mantra of complaints about how little sleep she gets. On behalf of America, Ms. Abdul, I’d like to respectfully ask you to shut your fucking cry hole. Take one afternoon out of selling your crappy costume jewelry on QVC and take a nap. You’ll either catch up on some sleep, or you’ll lay off the hooch for a couple of hours. Either way, you might be able to get through your next public appearance without stumbling about in (a remarkable simulation of) a drunken stupor.

  Unless, of course, you’re counting on your dubious behavior for publicity that your far more dubious talent and your appallingly infantile personality could never generate. In that case, keep it up. Just keep your fingers crossed that your fans don’t get wise.

  A few years ago, I expressed my contempt for lavish entertainment industry awards shows by sniffing disdainfully at the Emmys. I compared the networks’ skill at creating quality television with my own (total lack of) skill at making crystal meth. As part of my snark, I ran a quick search for instructions on operating a meth lab, and linked to a couple of the pages that came up.

  Enter a group called 1800NoDrugs, which offers referral services for drug users looking to get into rehab. They’ve created a website at methamphetamines.org which, through clever use of keywords, comes up in a search for instructions on making meth. Budding entrepreneurs looking for an all cash opportunity, and desperate junkies looking to do a little homebrewing, go out on the web looking for help in setting up their labs and wind up getting advice on finding a residential treatment program.

  I’m all for a little subterfuge in the pursuit of helping drug addicts get clean. I don’t give a puddle of opiate-laced urine what people put into their bodies, but if a search for tips on manufacturing drugs misleads someone into getting help for a life-sodomizing dependency, that’s fine by me.

  The confusing bit is that, after the offer for help in finding a rehab program, methamphetamines.org lists other links for meth-making info. It’s as if the site is saying “Oops, sorry for wasting your time with an offer of potentially life-saving help. Here’s that information you wanted on using volatile chemicals to make an addictive substance.” Seriously? Make the wannabes go back to Google if they’re that determined to be drug kingpins.

  I’m flogging this particular equine-American because, by virtue of its included links, my long-ago Emmy-bashing post wound up in this list of “crystal meth making instructions Resources.” Which means that I get a few hits a week from people who are, one assumes, looking for help in playing Trailer Crack: The Home Game.

  So, here’s a friendly nod to the meth dealers and users wandering by. If the shakes subside long enough, feel free to browse around. Sorry, but you won’t find any drug manufacturing instructions here. And in case you’re wondering, I still don’t watch the Emmys.

EDIT: I have caved to popular pressure and posted a sure-fire recipe for making crystal meth. Start building your drug empire here.

It’s August, and that means many things. Back to school season has begun, summer is heating up and winding down simultaneously, the frantic end-of-summer romances are burning and fizzling, and Waldorf Van Buren looks forward to the Fall Television Season.

I’m terribly bitter about television shows being axed and ground off the air by merciless executives with no compassion or TASTE. Every year I shed a tear when Fox allows chum like American Idol to grease the screens but nixes quality shows like Firefly. (Yes, I’m still horribly bitter about the Firefly cancellation). So, I’m not going to get involved too much with anything this season; not going to get hooked by anything that the networks might tempt me with. Instead, I will simply discard everything before I’ve even watched a single episode.

Today, I will deal with the Monday prime time lineup.

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