Oogachacha
All together now – “what the hell?”
A few months ago a woman uploaded a short clip of her infant son dancing around to a Prince song.
Shocking, right? Apparently so, the woman has been legally threatened by the artist’s recording company for copyright issues.
Seriously, what’s next? The boy who puts “When Doves Cry” on a burnt cd for his crush or the kid listening to “kiss” way too loud on their ipod while walking around so everyone around can hear the song even though they didn’t pay for it? I understand there is some need to protect copyright issues, but there are bigger fish to fry than babies dancing on youtube.
Nobody can even name a Prince song that has been made in the last decade and a half so they should just be thrilled someone likes a song enough to let their kid listen and dance to it, let alone post it on a website and publicly acknowledge that they are a Prince fan.
Is it odd that Prince had sang about partying like it was 1999, and it was that very year all this hubbub with copyright business exploded with Napster. Universal Music Publishing Group should get over it and be thrilled people are still listening to this guy.
f.i.n.a.l.l.y.
Very few things can bring me joy when I am trapped in a law school for eleven hours straight.
Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal finally coming forward with their relationship is one of them.
I have amazing amounts of respect and admiration for both these actors and to see them happy together makes me ecstatic.
Is it natural for this to happen? Am I living vicariously through celebrities? It was only about a year ago when I was at my computer reading my celebrity gossip for the day, and when I read the news of Reese and Ryan Phillipe’s divorce announcement, I gasped so loud the entire apartment heard. Are we becoming so wrapped up in the lives of others that we attach an emotional sentiment to it? I remember when rumors of Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey’s breakup began swirling and one of my friends said “If they can’t make it, who can?” as if the fact that these two pretty dumb people having a reality show made them the poster couple for a successful marriage. However, this interest in celebrity personal lives is nothing new, and it isn’t just in the entertainment industry. Millions of people around the world watched on television to see lady Diana in her Cinderella dress arrive to wed Prince Charles. Last week’s announcement of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and wife’s divorce made front page news. For whatever reason, we are intrigued by the personal lives of those who live in the public eye. Perhaps it is merely curiosity but it may reflect something lacking in our own lives or voyeuristic tendencies.
Regardless of the reason, this photo of Ryan and Reese finally acting like a couple in public has made me happy, and on a rainy day like today, I’m just gonna accept it and be grateful for it.
Radiohead: the anti-Metallica
This week Radiohead begins sales of its latest album “In Rainbows”. In a move that has most of the industry watching, they are not setting a price on the album. Instead, fans can download the album at whatever price they feel like paying.
It’s a pretty interesting move in this post-Napster/Kazaa/Limewire “now we pay 99 cents for a single on itunes and don’t buy an album” world. I speculate that devoted fans will pay more than the typical price to support the idea and curious fans that wouldn’t purchase the album will download it for free because they can, therefore bringing the average “price” probably somewhere around the $12 one would typically pay anyway.
However, even if that happens, the band will benefit in the end. Although they may make only about the same amount of money, more people will have their music. And this could lead to higher profits in the future from concert sales and advertisers using their music in commercials. Maybe, I’m just being an optimist, but I think Radiohead knows what they’re doing. And even if they don’t and it all backfires and the average price is only about a quarter, I will have all the more respect for them for taking one of the boldest moves a band has made in years.
If interested in purchasing, visit their site. Downloads begin October 10th.
Justice by Internet?
America loves justice. And America loves holding people accountable when they have done something wrong. And the internet is a magical place that exposes people for every wrong they have ever done.
Now this post isn’t some sympathy session on every celebrity who had a bad photo taken of them sneezing spread across the internet like wildfire. This is about something more serious. This is about all people being held accountable. By normal people who happen to use the internet, like you and me. This is the magic of the internet here and now.
While the administration of my school has warned me of the dangers of incriminating facebook photos just as much as they have about paying my bills on time, the internet is a place that allows no secrecy and gives no sympathy. For better or for worse.
Let’s be honest here. Paris Hilton spent twenty some odd days in jail this summer for driving on a suspended license. Why? Because the public outcry had expressed its disappointment in the system when she was released only after five days. How? Because of this magical thing called the internet.
Now, before you dismiss this claim, think about it. Before the internet was readily available in all the Western world, OJ got away with murder. Now Paris Hilton was forced to fulfill every day of her full term sentence. That means a lot, and I cannot help but think that every person with a keyboard who is able to express their urges, thoughts, and complaints with a few keystrokes may have something to do with it.
This week a Virginia Immigration Officer resigned from duty after the Governor had become aware of a YouTube video containing his support of jihad.
It’s shocking. Virginia would be the least of all states that you would think would have a jihad supporting immigration commissioner. What’s more shocking to me?
It was all exposed by YouTube, a website that was unknown to most people just two years ago. And now it helps bring justice to someone in a public office supporting an act that is bringing down the objective he is supposed to protect.
And while I hear fellow students whine about what future employers might think of the comment their ex had written on their MySpace profile last night, it is all about a bigger picture. While the internet may make us question what parts of ourselves we want to broadcast to the world, it allows us to hold others accountable for awful things that they may have otherwise gotten away with unnoticed.
All We Really Want Is Girls
When it comes to the entertainment industry, it really is all about the women.
Correction: when it comes to gossiping about the entertainment industry, it is all about the women.
The more pop culture and entertainment sites I come across, the more women I see. Most of these sites are geared towards women and gay men, yet photographs of women is what we see.
On a road trip this weekend, I bought two magazines Ok! on the ride up and Us Weekly for the ride back. For my ride up, the cover stories included “Dannielynn’s Secret World With Diva Dad” (Anna Nicole Smith’s orphaned baby for those of you that are not on a first-name basis with this infant), “Brit Misses Kids’ Birthday Party for Sad ‘Comeback’ “, and “How Shiloh Saved Angie” (Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, once again, if you were not familiar with the other one year-old covergirl). So the entire cover was all about babies, a mother saved by her daughter, a mother off the tracks, and a baby left to live with a former paparazzi dad after the mother died from drug use. Wow.
And, yes, I spent $2.99 at CVS to read this Pulitzer Prize winning material.
I don’t know what is more frightening, that I actually paid money for it or that I immediately became intrigued with this world of Hollywood women and their infant children.
Two days later, I picked up Us Weekly with “Mommy’s Crying – Britney’s Darkest Hour”. I actually laughed out loud in the New Jersey rest stop when I saw this headline accompanied with a large photo of one of Britney’s children pouting. Also on the cover was “Jess Wins Weight War”. Women love reading about other women’s weight struggles. Especially when those women are celebrities. And especially when we get to witness their weight progression through carefully chosen photographs from the past two years placed side by side so we get the full visual effect. And rounding out the cover was “Owen: Inside His Recovery”.
That’s right. A man has to attempt suicide to get on the cover of the magazine.
It’s all over the magazine racks and the internet, we love women. We love reading about them. We want to know about their depression, their babies, their weight loss, their clothing, we want to know e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.
Why? Do we feel better about our own life choices when we can see Brtitney Spears’ demise? Do we weep on the inside thinking about poor Dannielynn? Do we get a rise from seeing Miss Simpson’s size go up a few numbers? I don’t know. What I really want to know is why everyday I get some small scrap of news and a picture reminding me of Lindsay Lohan’s existence when the girl has been holed up in Utah for the past two months and has not made a movie worth seeing in the past three years. And can someone please explain to me why I still see photographs of Tara Reid. American Pie came out almost a decade ago.
That’s right. We need to see pictures of the botched liposuction on Tara’s stomach to feel better about ours not being flat. If we make fun of Dina Lohan’s parenting skills, we will think our family isn’t that bad. And as for Spears, we all wanted to have her fame and now we can convince ourselves that we are better off without having been the fantasy of every man in America because look where that got her. And as for the baby photos… well, we do love children.
For whatever reason, we cannot get enough of girls.
Just for kicks, here’s a photo of Nicole Richie swimming in all her pregnant glory. Because that’s newsworthy.
Keep Blaming It On The Industry
Her career is sagging more than her skin, and Demi Moore chooses to blame it on the industry:
“There aren’t that many good roles for women over 40. A lot of them don’t have much substance, other than being someone’s mother or wife.”
Yea, that’s about right. Let’s look at this year’s Oscar nominations for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Three out of the five nominees, including winner Helen Mirren, were women over the age of fifty-five. It’s okay though, I’m sure they just played silly roles about being a mother. The Queen of England…. what a trite role.
Let’s take a good look at Ms. Moore…
Next time Demi Moore is asked why she has only been in four movies since 2003’s Charlie’s Angels, she should tell the truth. She looks like she is 22, is married to a 29 yr old who is not even as mature as her own children, and everyone knows she is old. The only way she could get a role she would seem physically appropriate in would be playing Lindsay Lohan’s younger sister. The only problem is that all of America knows she already has an AARP membership and goes to bingo night.
