The Patron Saint of Liars and Fakes

MTV2 will relaunch at midnight after the Super Bowl. The new MTV2 will feature a combination of music, shows and random content geared toward young males.

While I'm wary of MTV2's new direction, I dig its new two-headed (mutant Cerberus) dog logo as well as the offbeat marketing campaign for its relaunch.


click the image to visit the site


I frequently see spots on MTV for exclusive videos and I wonder: Who is MTV excluding? MTV owns VH1 and bought all its competitors (BET, CMT, The Box, College Television Network) save for Fuse, which is only truly competitive on satellite.

I think MTV machinates with record companies to withhold popular artists' videos from less-exposed Fuse out of spite for MuchMusic (parent of Fuse), which for many years kept MTV off the air in Canada.


I misread a news brief headline in the Los Angeles Times and thought it said "Clinton to Be Special Envoy for Tsunami Aids."


I'm so sick of seeing articles on Bright Eyes in newspapers and magazines.

Enough.

Frankly, Conor Oberst's best work to date was produced with his band Desaparecidos, not as Bright Eyes.

Also, I hate how every article on Bright Eyes inevitably compares him to Bob Dylan.

"He's the greatest songwriter of this generation!"

Nigga please.

I'd write a rant, but Chris Morris already said it eloquently in the Los Angeles CityBeat:

Let's put Oberst, now 24, on one side of the critical scale, and the 24-year-old Dylan on the other, and see who's carrying the real weight.

By the time Dylan turned 24, he had released his first five albums, which included such compositions as "Blowin' in the Wind," "The Times They Are A-Changin'," ["Maggie's Farm,"] "Mr. Tambourine Man," and "Subterranean Homesick Blues." In his 24th year, he would merely complete Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde, winding up a four-year metamorphosis from Woody Guthrie imitator to rock visionary and the most important singer-songwriter of his time.

And Oberst? Despite his penchant for loooonnng albums like 2002's Lifted and his rep, developed over a half-dozen albums since 1998, as a prolific, prodigious writer (shared by another overpraised [music critic] fave, Ryan Adams), he doesn't sport the muscle to win in a cage match with Dylan. Memorable or anthemic songs? Um, no. Any hits outside of the increasingly oxygen-free universe of indie rock? Nah. The musical standard-bearer of his generation? Beyond the delusions of certain writers with a weakness for autohypnosis, unh-unh.

On that point, I rest my case.


In its promos for the cable television premiere of 8 Mile, VH1 claims the movie stars "Academy Award winner Eminem."

That's shady advertising (no pun intended). He won for Best Song!

With Clint Eastwood currently the favorite to win "best director" for Million Dollar Baby, Eminem will likely continue to have more Oscars than Martin Scorsese.


I saw a commercial for Right Guard Xtreme Spray in which Xzibit jumps out of an airplane with an average Joe and opens his parachute, leaving Joe to keep himself elevated using a bottle of deodorant as a rocket.

The man uses an aerosol can while in the sky. Did the Bush administration secretly commission this ad?


Finally, I saw this on amazon.com: