Phlog

POLL: How do you feel about MJ's death?

Boston Phoenix — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 22:23:00 GMT

We all know he died, but who is sad, who is indifferent and who wants the media to stop talking about it?

Morning news: Jackson memorial, Google

Boston Phoenix — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Paris weeps
Jackson's daughter provides memorable moment at Jackson funeral [BBC]

G8 summit begins
Amid bad news on the economic front [Guardian]

Health care battle continues
New focus: tax on benefits [SF Chronicle]

GMail no longer beta
After, what, five years? [PC World]

Also: Chrome OS
Google has been busy [PC World]

Larry King is on Twitter...just like old times

Boston Phoenix — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:00:00 GMT

I dunno why I didn't check a long time ago to see whether Larry King was on Twitter.

It just stands to reason, doesn’t it?

After all, he was Tweeting for many years before the phenomenon even had a name.

King’s USA Today column was sadly dropped eight years ago after a near-two-decade run, but in its heyday it was must-read material — its “apparently aimless concatenation of musings and meanderings, plugs, name-drops and nostalgia” a veritable goldmine of bugfuck crazy stream-of-consciousness.

Now, as newspapers crumble into dust, the ageless windbag has taken to the tubes, and his Twitter feed is rekindling a delightful nostalgia for that old newsprint showcase of quick-hit, ellipses-pocked cerebration about celebrity and other sundry nonsense. (Archived versions of the column are tough to find online, but for those who haven’t had the pleasure of reading it, let’s just say that this dozen-year-old Onion parody is not too far off the mark.)

Here are some of our favorites so far...

kingsthings David Cook, Heidi & Spencer, and Jeff Foxworthy tonight.
wouldn't that make for an interesting dinner party? 15 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings only in Las Vegas can you see Cher, Bette Midler, Britney Spears and Madonna all in one night … and they’re all the same guy. 18 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings Conan just did a bit on me as a "Transformer" -- I love all those late night guys! 27 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings talked to Mike Wallace (60 Minutes) today.
He's 91, retired & in Martha's Vineyard -- great to hear his voice.
He's one of my favorites. 29 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings this just in from the water cooler...
we need more water! 03 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings Happy Birthday @PeteWentz
and congrats on 600,000! 05 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings The remake of the Taking of Pelham 1,2,3 is a topnotch thriller.
The best is years…
Denzel Washington & John Travolta are superb. 05 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” -Mae West 11 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings children are being abducted and forced to fight as soldiers. @petewentz & @icTRI are on tonight
http://tinyurl.com/h7fjc 02 Jun 2009 from web

kingsthings They never get the credit they deserve, but jockeys are the best athletes in all of sports. 03 Jun 2009 from web

UPDATE! My estimable colleague Ryan Stewart reminded me this morning of this late-'90s Norm Macdonald bit from SNL.

Matt Taibbi Smacks Goldman Sachs Silly

Boston Phoenix — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:20:00 GMT

Since no self-respecting person would ever buy the new Rolling Stone (with the Jonas Brothers on the cover - for the second time in less than one year) in public, I thought I'd do the service of directing readers to the on line version of Phoenix columnist Matt Taibbi's ruthless Goldman Sachs takedown, "The Great American Bubble Machine."

I have a long history with Goldman Sachs, as I was fortunate enough to earn a scholarship to a fancy New England prep school. Several of my friends' parents cashed in off their fraud, and I'm proud to say that I stole from all of their houses. In college, I also named my weed business Goldman Sacks, so this is all a bit disheartening.

At this juncture, no act of corporate depravity could possibly surprise me. Nothing - not even if Jack Welch dug up Ray Kroc's corpse for a late night skull fucking. I used to call my dad a conspiracy theorist for arguing that the Bush administration was determined to bankrupt the country; now I know it's true. This article is just another reason to continue telling bill collectors that I really will hunt and murder them.

Finally - from what I can tell there are three types of people who are outraged about Taibbi's Goldman Sachs piece: gluttonous scumbags who scam to the tune of trillions; robotic mid-level jerkoffs who desperately want to climb up in that honey jar; and working class suckers who have been convinced by wealthy right-wing pundits that mega-banks and businesses should operate unchecked. Which one is that uncle who you fought with at your 4th of July barbecue?

Morning news: Palin, Jackson, second stimulus

Boston Phoenix — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:52:00 GMT

Jackson memorial today
"Celebration of life" at the Staples Center in Los Angeles [CNN]

Palin discusses resignation
Hasn't ruled out 2012 bid [ABC News]

Obama advisor: plan a second stimulus
Some saw this coming long ago. [Wall Street Journal]

Obama also caving on public plan?
Now says they're willing to negotiat on this [HuffPo]

Cubs sold
Ricketts, Tribune Co. agree [NY Times]

POLL: Should mother get charged with murder after son's death?

Boston Phoenix — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 20:27:00 GMT

A hearing for Kristen LaBrie was held today. LaBrie is being charged with attempted murder, child endangerment (amongst other charges) for denying cancer treatment to her autistic son. Her son died in March; he was 9 years old. LaBrie has entered a plea of not guilty, according to the Associated Press. (AP's Full Story)

Morning news: Busy Independence Weekend (news-wise)

Boston Phoenix — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:55:00 GMT

RIP Robert McNamara
Former Defense Secretary was 93 [Washington Post]

RIP Steve McNair
He was a personal favorite of mine during his NFL career [NY Daily News]

Sarah Palin resigns governorship
But does not resign from aggressive media-bashing [CSM]

Honduras situation gets heavy
Deposed President couldn't land [CSM]

Spree killer stalks SC
Scary stuff [Fox News]

But seriously, Rasheed Wallace
This is going to be fun [Globe]

Famous people get swine flu, too
First Jens Lenkman, now Rupert Grint [Chicago Tribune]

Rasheed Wallace is a Celtic

Boston Phoenix — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:32:00 GMT

"I don't [care] about no trade rumors. As long as somebody CTC at the end of the day, I'm with them. For all you that don't know what CTC means, that's Cut The Check ... so long as somebody CTC, it's gravy with me" -- new Celtic Rasheed Wallace.

SHOCKING: Boston man's Twitter account suspended, uses TELEPHONE to ask friend out for ice cream

Boston Phoenix — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:09:00 GMT

The good news: BOSTON TWEET is back online. The Onion-style shocker: a Twitterer actually used a telephone to contact a friend . . . to wait out the Twitter outage at JP Licks.

It appears the outage that briefly took Boston Tweet down was part of a huuuuuuuge Twitter screwup that bolloxed thousands of accounts around the world. (Headed now to file FOIA to see if State Dept involved. You can do that by Twitter, right? No? Nevermind.) Even though BostonTweet honcho Tom O'Keefe figured out what happened early on, "it did however scare the bejesus out of me." The account was still down as of 1 am last night, but is up bright and early. You can also read Tom's comment on the earlier post.

Twitter goes on account-suspension rampage -- @BostonTweet shut down!

Boston Phoenix — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 03:29:00 GMT

If you've been on Twitter today you've probably noticed some chatter about an abnormal number of accounts being suspended -- one tweet guesstimated the number to be in the hundreds of thousands, which seems apocryphal. But something is definitely very, very amiss. Mashable reports that one of its own reporters, and one of the LA Times accounts, have gotten shut down. A quick search of the terms "suspended" or "account suspension" will give you a sense of the shock and outrage. The best guess appears to be that Twitter is going on a suspension rampage to combat rampant spamming -- which, y'know, would be nice. This post suggests the net has been thrown extraordinarily wide (@blockbuster -- dead?), and suggests steps for getting your account back. Except that there's also an awful lot of collateral damage . . . including Boston's own BostonTweet, a threaded message-board-style application that's been gaining traction for months.

We attemped to email BostonTweet honcho Tom O'Keefe, and for all we know he may have emailed us -- we just found out that our IT dept locked our email account, and we won't have access to it until tomorrow. (When we get in, we will be visiting upon our IT department the same wrath that BostonTweet is likely wishing upon Twitter right now.) While the @bostontweet account is down, the BostonTweet website is up . . . just inactive at the moment, with a couple of users more or less screaming, "WTF?"(Worse, it appears that while @bostontweet was taken down, a spambot account at @bostontweets is still up . . . did Twitter shoot the hostages?!)

In the meantime, if anyone has been shut down for no reason, let us know in the comments . . . or if you've got an alternate Twitter account, shout at us @bostonphoenix, we'll be attempting to RT as many cries for help as possible.

Awesomely creepy marketing, or creepily awesome marketing?

Boston Phoenix — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:35:00 GMT

Oh dear.

Thanks to J. Cannibal for bringing this to my attention, and for providing fodder for my next 15 nightmares:

http://www.retrocomedy.com/2009/07/15-creepiest-vintage-ads-of-all-time.html

Hi Neighbor! Screw The Rain. Come Get Hammered At The Rattlesnake

Boston Phoenix — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:21:00 GMT

So I get a call from the Narragansett Beer guy the other day, and he's like, "We're having a rally on Copley Square followed by a 'Gansett party at the Rattlesnake on Thursday." And so I was all, "What's this rally all about," and he was all, "We're trying to build a new brewery in New England and we figured this was the best way to raise awareness."

I like totally agree with the 'Gansett guys; the only hella problem is that they planned to meet at Copley Square at 5pm today, and it looks like that might get rained out. "No problem," the 'Gansett dude told me, "In that case just head straight to the Rattlesnake. There will be promotions."

You can get more info on today's 'Gansett rally/party HERE. Also to note: they're in the market for some new 'Gansett Girls, preferably those with "New England character." We're not sure what that means, but we're pretty sure it has something to do with revealing Patriots tube tops and serious attitude problems.

New advertising business model? Modernista ad scripts going for $35 on eBay

Boston Phoenix — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:41:00 GMT

We pity ad copywriters generally, but we pity them even more today. The trailblazing Boston ad agency MODERNISTA are well-known for blowing other people's shit out of the water, and now they're doing the ad-copy equivalent of a three-minute endzone dance: auctioning off their scraps to the highest bidder. "We had this crazy idea," they wrote recently on their blog. "It’s summer time, we were drinking a few beers, we were talking about how we’d like to work in the beer category. So we wrote a few TV scripts, and we’re putting them up on eBay. Just for fun. We might even do it again for another category."

That's right: Modernista is auctioning off a "12-pack" of ad-spot scripts. Says Modernista co-founder Rick Jensen, via press release: "We know how hard it can be to come up with good ideas on a tight schedule, and we don’t currently have a beer account, so we thought these might serve as a little inspiration for someone who’s looking at a blank page right now. Here you go. Good luck.”

The initial bid was $12, but with four hours to go, the batch of .30-second scripts is on fire at $33, which includes free shipping. If someone can think of a something funny to do with 'em, the Phoenix might consider throwing in $10 to see what's in 'em. As the Modernista guys say, "Buy ‘em, present ‘em to your ECD or executive board; hell, shoot the damn things. If you’re the winning bidder, they’re yours to do with as you wish." Or maybe just grab 'em for summer beach reading? Pretty sure it'll be a more entertaining read than the latest Hank Phillipi Ryan paperback.

BUY: Modernista beer-company spots [eBay]

Morning news: Senator Franken at last

Boston Phoenix — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:49:00 GMT

Coleman concedes
Al Franken finally wins [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

Jackson body to lie in Neverland
Public viewing to be held [BBC]

So this crash survivor...
Claims to have not felt a thing [CNN]

Red Sox win
Or at least we assume they won after we shut it off during the rain delay. Wait, what? [Globe]

Morning news: Madoff, Sotomayor, Iraq, Pirate Bay

Boston Phoenix — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:55:00 GMT

Bernard Madoff sentenced
150 years [NY Times]

US pulls out of Iraqi cities
Iraqis cheer [CNN]

Jet crashes carrying 153
One survivor found so far [NY Times]

Court overturns Sotomayor ruling
John Roberts: making the world safe for white men [SF Chronicle]

The Pirate Bay goes legit
This should work just as well as Napster going legit! [PC World]