Things that Robert is thinking about that keep him from accomplishing anything.

 
Boob Revealed
Thanks to a new friend in Ontario, we can now relay to you that the Nikki Cappelli character from the godaddy.com ad is Ms. Candice Michelle, and apparently she is known to Playboy. Here is her personal website.

posted by RSaunders at 8:15 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Super Bowel
Something about me and my relationship to sports has changed. Except for baseball I no longer care about the events themselves--mostly because they're too slow and not enough happens--and I'm content to follow the stats and results alone.

So, it's more important to me that I was right in my prediction of the game (an Eagles backdoor cover and the under), than that the game was entertaining. It actually was pretty decent, but nothing about it forced me to stop flipping through magazines. What's that Donovan McNabb is throwing another interception? Oh, they're punting again? [You may be saying to yourself, "When did I read Robert's predictions for Eagles covering and taking the under?" Well, unless you were the student I emailed my predcitions to on Saturday, you probably missed it. But, I have the email to prove it.]

I'm tired of the whole concert thing before the game. "Hey gang, let's go scream our heads off for a bunch of mediocre current acts who are lip synching!" I don't mind a concert at halftime if it's U2. I guess Sir Paul was fine. Still, I prefer something shorter. The game should be enough on its own.

And the ads were pretty weak, though I confess to missing a few to play in the kitchen. I was surprised that after Budweiser's ad mocking the Janet Jackson situation was pulled that the godaddy.com ad made it to air; apparently the NFL put the kibosh on a second airing. Nevertheless, I'd say she, Nikki Cappelli (if that is her real name, was the breakout character this year. Look for the requisite FHM spread in a couple months. (You can view the ad that aired and the full two minute version here. Note: she's definitely the kind of girl that looks better from a distance.)

I think the one that everyone will go sentimental on is the Budweiser one with the troops coming home. That'd be a nice ad for when they're coming home for good. Will we see random, spontaneous standing ovations now wherever more than two uniformed soldiers are? I guess since it's a (more or less) volunteer military, you have to give them credit.

Still, the ad itself felt unseemly to me. It's like we've outsourced responsibility for defending the country to these people, and we get to absolve ourselves of responsibility for their deaths or injuries by clapping for them and knowing they volunteered. As the song goes, "We eat and drink while tomorrow they die."

posted by RSaunders at 2:46 PM ⇒ (1) comments

 
A Fun Ad You Won't See in the Super Bowl
I saw a link to this ad posted over at Marginal Revolutions. Dick Cheney's wet dream.

posted by RSaunders at 10:27 AM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Teri Polo?
I meant to write about this yesterday. Local radio station 106.7 has switched to 24-hr sports with its local sports programming and nationally syndicated games (e.g., Westwood One's NFL and NCAA coverage) layered on a skeleton of Sporting News Radio. My new wake-up show is that network's "Murray in the Morning," which features Bruce Murray, who may be familiar to Washington Bullets fans, and Second City's T.J. Shanoff. Probably not going to be confused with Imus or Stern in terms of influence, but it's a solid alternative to Tony Kornheiser since I don't yet have an alarm clock that wakes me up to an Internet (or satellite) radio station. (An invention we definitely need, and soon.)

Since the show is new to me, I have learned that they routinely take advantage of their Chicago location to gain access to Playboy playmates for interviews. (Headquarters are at 900 N. Lakeshore Dr., which, incidentally, is the same building in which I would have worked had a gotten and taken the job I applied for at Northwestern. Would make for interesting office parties, no?)

Yesterday, though, they had Meet the Fockers co-star and current Playboy covergirl, Teri Polo, on the show by phone. I've seen the cover advertised on the show's website, and I'm sure she's quite lovely, but I wonder, "Is this who America is clamoring to see naked?"

This is actually related to a couple of questions I've been pondering for the past few months: when did it stop being cool to pose in Playboy, and who was the last person launched to stardom by Playboy? Playboy has always had two key features, besides the interviews and the "girl next door" model for its playmates, and those were that it was the place where you might see some superstar woman naked for the first time ever and that it was a legitimate career move for a nobody actress to become a somebody star.

Who is the last B-level star discovered by Playboy? Jenny McCarthy? She, Anna Nicole Smith, and Pamela Anderson (Lee) are the last to "make it" in the sense of being recognizable by some critical mass of people and having their own tv shows or name modeling gigs. Is there anybody else?

As for celebrities, who is the last person to pose for the first time that made you think, "Oh my god they finally got her!" Maybe Elle MacPherson? (Bill Simmons touched on this topic in a mailbag a few weeks ago, to a degree, focusing on would qualify as a "must purchase." As I recall they considered the Bush Twins, so you it's a slightly different kind of list.)

Perhaps this is just an age thing. Obviously I'm too old to be giving a shit about this, and perhaps I'm too old to care about who the young people care about. For example, maybe Denise Richards would get somebody stoked, but havent' we seen her naked before? Isn't she why Wild Things is part of the "creepy old guy" DVD starter set? (The other is Swordfish featuring a pre-Monster's Ball Halle Berry and a gratuitous boob shot. The criteria for "creepy old guy" status are (a) jaw-dropping nudity in a (b) movie with no other redeeming quality to it than the jaw-dropping nudity. And no, I don't own either, thank you very much!) America's already seen her naked and already ponied up its cash for her. Do they really want to see her after having married Charlie-fucking-Sheen?

And perhaps it's just a sign of market segmentation (e.g., people who are really into naked chicks have cheaply available porn and those who want the "softer side" have Maxim) and better career choices for women. Michelle Pfeiffer and Jennifer Anniston, whatever their merits as actresses, never had to stoop to pimping themselvs to that degree to get a good job.

Whatever it is, the magazine's efforts to hip itself up by poaching Maxim's editorial staff seem not to be paying off in terms of their gets or their launches.

posted by RSaunders at 1:40 PM ⇒ (2) comments

 
Way to Go, Kid-o
I watched Conan's tribute to Johnny on Tuesday. I found his to be the most eloquent and effective. He perhaps had the advantage of not being as close to Johnny as the other big hosts, but I thought he did an amazing job of making his only slight personal connection to Johnny into something appropriately grand and funny:

• A sweet story about being a goofy kid working on the Simpsons giving Carson wrong directions off the Fox lot;
• His opening for Carson at a birthday party for NBC's Bob Wright in the weeks between getting Late Night and starting Late Night; and,
• A brief phone conversation with him five months ago after he landed the Tonight Show beginning 2009, where he said nobody could take away that moment when Johnny picked up the phone and said, "Hey, Kid-o."

It would have been the perfect eulogy for my "All-Star Celebrity Funeral" network.

For all of Conan's quirkiness and twitchiness as a perfomer (e.g., constantly flapping his hand down on the desk and banging his wedding ring and wrist during his eulogy), there's something to be said for having somebody who's not only funny but also quite intelligent giving a speech.

posted by RSaunders at 1:23 PM ⇒ (1) comments

 
Weight Updates
My weight is still holding steady, today at 189.6 lbs. Back on the treadmill after my week and a half of grant writing and class prep stuff. The cool news though is that I went to get my body fat tested "for real" (compared to what my scale reports back to me). Turns out that my actual body fat is now at 16.8%. My scale tells me anywhere from 20-24% these days. This compares to my last official test 11 years ago (caliper-based) of 25% (at 233 lbs). Not too flabby...I mean shabby.

posted by RSaunders at 1:20 PM ⇒ (0) comments

 
Johnny Bye-Bye
I didn't get to post on Johnny Carson. I taped Leno last week and Letterman last night. I'm taping Conan tonight. While I'm no longer a Leno fan (I admit I liked him before he took over the show), I thought he did a really nice job with his opening speech. Delivery was a bit awkward, but it was a difficult speech to give and was clearly sincere.

I was irritated with Letterman initially because I thought, "Is that bastard off this week, too!" because I recognized all the jokes. Then I realized he was doing a "best of" of jokes Johnny had been submitting to the show. They were good jokes.

I gave up on Leno's show about half way through (I had only set the tape for 30 minutes not knowing he'd do the whole show on him), but I thought it was a nice touch to have Newhart and Rickles tell stories, and Ed was a sensible choice. The thing that really burned into my mind watching Leno's Carson clips was how much it was like "The Larry Sanders Show" (or rather, how much TLSS was so spot-on about Carson). I kept mentally filling in what it was like backstage after the show.

Letterman's tribute though epitomized the difference between their two shows and reinforced why Carson seemed to love Letterman more. While Leno chose stock footage (great footage, but footage we've seen a bazillion times) and showed Carson mugging for a joke (e.g., dealing with the lost moustache, jumping in to lap up the Alpo when a dog walked off during the commercial), Letterman's approach captured the dignity of Carson while also showing his humor. Getting Doc and Tommy together was really nice. Even though I liked having Rickles and Newhart, it felt like it was about them, and not so much about Johnny. I guess Fred DeCordova is dead now, but I thought Peter Lasally was wonderfully sweet and respectful as the primary guest, and that just underlines the difference.

It also showed the relationship between the two men and what Carson meant to Letterman, which is a big part of what I came looking for: it was his love letter to his fallen hero. Leno was the adopted foster child, Letterman the first-born. Perhaps Leno could never win the contest with me: I mean, if he had showed clips of himself with Carson, would I have thought it tacky or self-serving? I would like to think I could be fair about it, but maybe not.

I remember thinking in the early '90s that Carson should hit the road, not because I never found him funny but because I didn't find him as funny as often. He had long since stopped using his characters, but more importantly he was on only 3 days a week at times (a Monday repeat, a Leno guest host, and 3 nights of new Carson). Also, he didn't seem particularly engaged with the guests much anymore, and at the time I thought Leno was doing better monologues. Then again, Leno was at the top of his monologue game back in the late-80s, and it's easy to look great 1 night a week.

Still, I loved Carson. It got me thinking about what his wake or funeral must have been like. Perhaps because he was so private, it might not have been as great as I would expect. But, in my imagination Dave and Leno and just a revolving door of about 10 people would get to speak, and it would be the funniest sad day in the world. If ever a funeral called for C-SPAN coverage, this would be it.

It also got me thinking about whose funeral I would like to attend, assuming I had to let a celebrity I admired and loved die. I still miss Phil Hartman, but I think his funeral was such a shock that it would have been tough to be pleasant. I think about the stories from public funerals (e.g., Dick Schaap's as told by Kornheiser), and I wonder if there isn't a market for it on t.v.

Anyway, thank you, Johnny, for being so funny.

posted by RSaunders at 5:07 PM ⇒ (2) comments

 
Up for Air
I've been toiling away at a grant for the past 10 days, if you were wondering where I've been. It's a grant to help coordinate government and provider resources for teens with substance use problems in the state of Tennessee. We led the writing of it for the state; our reward is the evaluation contract, which means salary for me after '05 if we get it.

I've been so busy with it that not only did I not blog, I did not use the treadmill. Nevertheless, I was able to keep my weight between 191 and 193 for the whole week. I got on today, and I'm back under 190. It'll take a bit to get back up to speed, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I ran shorter but faster, and then I walked for a while.

posted by RSaunders at 4:38 PM ⇒ (0) comments