Ryan Adams Called It, Way Back in Ought Three

With all the latest news of Britney Spearseses 2-3 year meltdown, we must remember that Ryan Adams warned us, not so long ago:

Re: I think his fame will hit the next level tomorrow
Author: ryanadams
7/4/03 11:29:52 AM
i met britney spears in a LA nightclub called BLUE....they have it acros the steet from Boardners on cherokee/ next to LA Deuux........anyway, what a fucking gross chunky cheerleader she was. She had stubby body builder legs and she just reaked. fucking bad sunglasses in a bad LA party. in any event whatever low cut show more skin thing she was trying to pull off on t.v. all those times was pure distraction from her horrible Florida white trash body.
like Berolina, but actually that stupid and un attractive but just not being given the credit for it, justin timberlacke must be a homely piece if he was feeding her the much. she looked like a germophobe.
why wont my parker just come home

Not to say that Adams isn't difficult in his own right, but hey, give credit where credit is due.

Small Town Basketball: An Antidode to the Writer's Strike (and The Hills)

Writer's strike got you down? Tired of watching the faux reality of seventeen year old, artfully lit millionaires-to-be pouting through a thinly scripted breakup?

I have the show for you. It's called Nimrod Nation.

I know, it sounds like some kind of Fox reality contest pitting mentally handicapped people against one another in American Gladiator style bouts (hmmm...not a bad idea...), but it's really a short documentary (read: real reality) series about a small town in rural Michigan called Watersmeet, and the way the town rallies behind (and lives through) the local high school basketball team, the Watersmeet Nimrods.

It's a funny, touching, kind of melancholy, soulful show, as the Sundance website says, really more a portrait of a rural small town than a sports documentary. It's about high school kids, but also their parents, and also the old guys sitting around the diner talking about the high school kids (and, sometimes, their parents). It's about a small town in the same way that The Wire is about a big city, which is to say, in all the best, most complicated, unflinching, real ways there are.

And it's a real portrait of a small town, not some kind of condescending (I'm looking at you, The Good Girl starring Jennifer Aniston), Hollywood version of a small town. There are no Simple Life style yucks over the yokels and their accents, modest homes, haircuts, or their habit of walking through the woods and shooting anything that moves.

That's another thing: this is real rural America, or at least the rural America that I grew up in. People hunt not because they're taking a position on animal rights; they hunt because they need meat to make it through the winter. And the filmmakers take a very clear-eyed, documentary-style to this: after a few episodes, you may start to think, Man, those Zelinski's just love to shoot animals. But then you hear junior class valedictorian and classic small town smart girl Beth Zelinski say that she's thinking about entering the military (no mention of the war in Iraq) because it's the only way she'll be able to pay for college. This is reality for a lot of rural Americans, and the series neither panders nor criticizes, but perfectly captures the situation, just like the best documentary films.

The high school kids are the focus, if there is one, and they're refreshing and awkward and painfully real. The boys are quiet, funny, smart, and stupid, all at once, which is to say, they're high school boys. Watching them goof around in the middle of a frozen lake, cheerfully ice fishing and talking shit in subzero weather, was one of the few times I've ever had legitimate nostalgia for high school and simpler times.

The girls are there largely to cheer for the boys. We don't even know if there's a girl's basketball team, but we know there's a gaggle of cheerleaders. As usual, however, the women are smarter. There's little chance that Hope Yoblansky, cute blond cheerleader that she is, is going to show up on the cover of Us Weekly anytime soon, but every chance that she's since realized her dream of going to college and never coming back.

There are only 8 episodes so far, which makes just under 4 hours of television, but it'll be the best 4 hours you've seen in some time, at least until The Wire returns.

Spencer Pratt is a Genius of Douchebaggery

Anybody who knows me, or the stuff that I write, knows that I am fascinated and disgusted by celebrity worship culture, and by celebrities, especially the ones who are famous for doing nothing at all. Take the strange case of Spencer Pratt, a man universally regarded as a douchebag with no talent at all, who is famous for being the douchiest douchebag on a douchey fake reality show.

Interestingly, I don't even watch that show -- the Hills, for those of you who are over, um, like 25 -- but I'm still painfully aware of Spencer Pratt and the trajectory of his douchey stardom, as well as his engagment (and, I believe, subsequent, maybe non-engagement) to somebody named Heidi (interestingly, not the person in the photograph to the right, who is his sister -- more on that below).

Why do I know? Because of my good friends at Us Weekly, of course! They have ensured that anybody -- well, anybody shallow enough for an Us Weekly subscription, and that's me (the best 8 minutes you'll spend on a toilet all week is "reading" Us Weekly, believe me) -- could in no way be unaware of Spencer, Heidi, and their tumultuous relationship.


Unfortunately, we are not saving our Us Weekly's for future generations, so this is a rather nonscientific survey, but according to my shitty memory, Spencer Pratt has now appeared in one form or another in Us Weekly for 8 solid weeks. That's two months running for a man known only for looking vaguely like a less manly version of Steve Sanders from 90210, and for being a douchebag.

I can tell you that this week he was featured for two things that, well, okay, even though I "read" the magazine on Saturday, I already can't remember. The week before, it was, and this was a stroke of complete genius, a story about his sister's substance abuse and recovery. This is when I really took notice and realized that, in addition to being a douchebag that looks kind of like Steve Sanders, Spencer Pratt was a stone cold genius of douchebaggery publicity. He is like Teri Hatcher, but without the weird face work and the desperation. Spencer Pratt knows he's going to be in Us Weekly every week. It's just a matter of how: surprise engagement, fiance's boob job, non-engagement, beach walking, sister's substance abuse, the list goes on and on and on.

The week before, he was serving Thanksgiving turkeys with Harrison Ford (who no doubt immediately fired his publicist for failure to book an A List public service engagement).

The week before that, it was "trouble with Heidi." Before that, a long string of random photos of him and Heidi cavorting in a posed fashion, like Spencer and Heidi golfing, Spencer and Heidi on a playground, Spencer and Heidi at the beach, Spencer and Heidi keeping it real, eating tacos, walking on the beach, walking on the beach again. You get the picture. We all get the picture. Us Weekly ensures that we get the picture.

So what to make of all this?

This: Spencer Pratt is a genius of douchebaggery. Like Gallagher and Carrot Top and Celine Dion and Good Charlotte before him, he has succeeded so grandly at his chosen field -- being famous and being in Us Weekly -- that we now have no choice but to celebrate his achievements.

I salute you, Spencer Pratt, and I look forward to following your brilliance this Saturday, on my toilet, for a solid 8 minutes.

Some Damn Cool Sheet

So next time don't complain to me whenever you want an LCD monitor to look like it was forged from brass in 1875.

Check out this link

And this one!

I bet my steam engine car this guy loved Wild Wild West.

Altogether Wrong Without Quite Being Wrong At All

John Stamos and Bob Saget drinking with the Olsen twins.

Because That's What Colette Craves!

Congrats to Kistulentz on the new addition to his family, and as a gift I have ordered a lifetime supply of Brawndo, The Thirst Mutilator, because that's what kids crave, not water, like from the toilet.For more Brawndo products and t-shirts to send to your loved ones, go here. (Hat Tip: The Onion AV Blog, where they also provide a taste test.)

Colette!

This young lady is Colette, the newest addition to Team Barrelhouse. She is the proud owner of a Santana Moss jersey (no, I'm not kidding--it was a Father's Day gift), and was born at 6:54 pm, or right at the end of happy hour, on Saturday night, December 8.

She shares her birthday with, among others, Sammy Davis Jr., Ann Coulter and the Lizard King himself.

I also read somewhere recently that conservatives average more children per family than liberals. So I am doing my part to help us catch up. I challenge you, Team Barrelhouse. Procreate.

Speechless

The Writer's strike is moving into its second month, and I'm starting to get antsy about the quality of the things my best friend Tivo is able to show me. Seriously, this is getting dire. Thank god the World's Greatest Television Show Ever comes back for it's final season in about a month. Until then, maybe our good friends at Fox will bless us with another special like the World's Worst/Greatest Reality Show Ever.

In the meantime, these shorts from the United Hollywood site, Speechless, are amusing and pretty effective at delivering the message that, well, none of this entertainment bullshit is going to work without writers.

Except this one, because Patricia Clarkson is actually such an amazing actress that literally watching her read the phone book is funny, sad, touching, pretty much fucking amazing.

Those Italians Are So Cute!

Apparently, a Naples court summoned Looney Tunes luminaries such as Tweety Bird, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, et. al. in a criminal counterfeiting trial. As far as we know, Tweety Bird (aka Titti), Mickey (aka Topolino), Donald Duck(aka Paperino), and Daisy Duck (Paperina) are known associates of La Cosa Nostra (aka Fugeddaboutit).

And other bad jokes ensue! Without clicking on the link, can you guess which actually appeared in the article?

"Unfortunately they cannot show up, as they are residents of Disneyland," Sorotto joked. "Italy has no jurisdiction whatsoever there...now Spaghetti Village at Epcot Center Disney World, that's a whole other matter."

"It's a good thing this is all a mistake, because Tweety Bird would sing like a canary in court," Castiglione wryly noted.

"Let's hope the characters will not be prosecuted for failing to appear," Ravelli quipped.

"At first I thought Donald Duck was being brought up on an obscenity charge, because, you know, he doesn't wear pants! But then I realized it wasn't Naples Florida we were talking about," cracked Luputti.

"I understand Donald being brought to trial, but why Daisy? Why do they have to involve his wife with this, and bring shame upon his whole family? Who will take care of his three beautiful, orphaned nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, should she be prosecuted? Have the authorities no decency?" Vincenzo "Three Knuckles" Mangini joked.

"If I were Tweety or Donald or Daisy, I would watch your backs. Mickey Mouse doesn't want certain things about his operation being heard or seen, and he's not going to take the chance of taking this to trial. Don't believe me? Hey, have you seen Porky Pig lately? I didn't think so." Detective Sargeant Ron Miller warned, off the record.

All the World Is Staged

TAke the "Hills or Shakespeare" quiz at Radar Online:

Note: I got 6/10, and it shoulda been 7.

And for further entertainment: Men who look like Old Lesbians.