Uncle Jay Explains the conventions!

For those of you who don't know my Uncle Jay...

My Uncle Jay is a really great person. I like Uncle Jay really a lot. He's a really, really great grown-up person. Anytime I am confused about stuff he does a really, really good job to explain it to me good so it all makes sense. He's the bestest. I like Uncle Jay.

Uncle Jay has his website and he makes video stories for me to learn all about the news each week. I really like my Uncle Jay! You can see him too at UncleJayExplains.com!

I like my Uncle Jay.

And I like his story this week about the conventionses.



p.s. - In case you are dense... this is not really my uncle, but I wish he were! I highly recommend visiting Uncle Jay's website every Monday to get caught up on the week's important news! If you're too lazy to go to the website, you can just subscribe to his video podcast and have it download automatically!

p.p.s. - You definitely need to go view his episode from July 2nd, 2007! This is Uncle Jay at his BEST!

Enjoy!

"He's one bad mother..." "Shut yo' mouth!"

"...I'm just talkin' about Isaac Hayes!"

The great funk/soul artist Isaac Hayes (aka "Black Moses") passed away today; unglamourously falling victim to a treadmill.

According to WashingtonPost.com, "A spokesman for the Shelby County, Tenn., sheriff's office, said that Mr. Hayes's wife, 2-year-old-son and a cousin returned from the grocery store shortly after noon [on Sunday] and found Mr. Hayes lying beside a still-running treadmill in a downstairs bedroom."

Isaac Hayes' story was full of ultimate-highs and rock-bottom-lows. He was raised by his desperately poor sharecropper grandparents, picking cotton near Memphis in the 1940's. He became a father in his late teens (and eventually had three failed marriages). But he developed a love for music and worked hard to rise to the top of his game in 1971, when he wrote the soundtrack for Shaft. The Shaft soundtrack stayed on the pop charts for 60 weeks, and won him an Oscar and two Grammys! However, 3 short years later, the IRS came knocking and he declared bankruptcy as the government auctioned his entire estate to collect his debt. In 1997 he re-emerged as a cultural icon voicing the character of Chef on South Park; he angrily left the show almost a decade later after a well known episode mocking Scientology (which deeply offended him as a follower of the religion).

To the many faces of Isaac Hayes... "Can ya dig it?"

White House press conference... VAMPIRES EXIST!!!

Urgent News Flash!!!

The White House announces to the press that VAMPIRES ARE REAL!
And... the President is meeting with top officials of a VAMPIRE rights group!

If you don't believe me... Watch it!



And...
Now that the word is out, Vampires are all over the place!

They are now openly dating... see LoveBitten.net!
Openly selling blood alternative beverages... see TruBeverage.com!
Have their own alternative news source... see BloodCopy.com!
And have their own Washington lobbyists... see AmericanVampireLeague.com!

Not that this movement for acceptance is without opposition...
The Fellowship of the Sun is trying to fight back by preserving "the strength and purity of the human race"... organizing an oposition movement and aiming to expose false claims on the part of vampire activists! (see FellowshipoftheSun.org)

I don't want to play politics...
but I think Vampires are AWESOME!

Interview With a Vampire... AWESOME!
Underworld... AWESOME!
Blade... AWESOME!
Night Watch... AWESOME!
And Joss Whedon even made Buffy the Vampire Slayer AWESOME!

In more esoteric fare I also loved... Nadja (produced by David Lynch), and Ultraviolet (the AWESOME British mini-series not the crappy Milla Jovovich movie)


So I'm totally in! Who's with me!



OK....
Confession time...
In case you haven't figured it out yet...
All that stuff at the beginning about Vampires being real...

All lies.

In truth, all the videos and websites noted up front are all just "viral advertising" for a new HBO series coming in the fall. And you may have come across other sly advertisements for these products and services cleverly run in magazines, on Myspace/Facebook/Twitter, or on TV. These ads all seem normal enough ... unless you're really paying attention.

The series called True Blood is based on a series of novels called Southern Vampire, by Charlaine Harris. HBO is also publishing a graphic novel to promote the show. You can find the official HBO website here, or a very helpful fansite at True-Blood.net!

I'm stoked!

Giving new meaning to the phrase "Stimulus Package"

David Brooks, today on All Things Considered:

"The idea that the stimulus package is going to stimulate the economy is dubious. There has been a long history of stimulus packages; they almost never stimulate the economy. We just had one, and that doesn't seem to have worked. Though I did see a study suggesting that the stimulus package, the old one, raised online porn subscriptions."

I think it might be 1988...

... but I'm not quite sure.


As evidence I submit 4 clips from this week's most popular TV show in America - So You Think You Can Dance...

1. Joshua dances to funk icon Zapp's mid-80s hit "I Can Make You Dance"
2. Twitch dances to 1986's "Midas Touch" by Midnight Star
3. Twitch then follows up by dancing to 1988's "Don't Worry Be Happy"
4. Lady GaGa performs her club hit "Just Dance" - while looking a little bit like Jane Fonda just walked out of her workout and grabbed a jacket and shades from the sci-fi mini-series "V" (or maybe she borrowed it from Michael after Thriller)




I swear I thought the nightly news might lead right in with a story on Gorbachev's "Perestrioka" reconstruction efforts in the Soviet Union!


Don't worry...
I'll set the record straight...
It is definitely 2008 and not 1988!!


I shall now demonstrate by recounting current world news!

Major airplane disasters have spawned a series of "based on real events" movies.
(...are they inspired by bombed PanAm Flight 103 and Aloha Flight 243 that ripped open in mid-flight, or inspired by United Flight 93 and the 9/11 disasters??)

Benazir Bhutto's party has been elected to lead Pakistan.
(...is this her first term, or is her husband ruling for her posthumously??)

Iraqi Sunni's loyal to Saddam have been fighting for years against the Shi'a insurgency within Iraq and across the border in Iran.
(...is this the "Iraq-Iran War" or the US led "Iraq War"??)

In Afghanistan, an untrained army of insurgents is defeating a major world power!
(...but is it the Soviets or US who are losing??)

Major banks are in crisis and many are going totally out of business!
(...but is this the "Savings and Loan Crisis", or the "Credit Crisis"??)

Senator John McCain's "Keating Five" political scandal is all over the news.
(...but did it just happen, or is this political mudslinging??)

George Bush is preparing to leave his current post at the White House!
(...but is it Sr. who is just finishing as VP and taking over the Presidency, or Jr. who is ending a second term??)

And... we're gearing up for the Olympics!
(...are they in Canada or China??)


Wait ... I guess I'm still confused ... is it 1988 ??
Help.

OH S#!T ... literally!

Any news story with these quotes has got to catch your attention...

"12,000 gallons of raw sewage into Spinnaker Bay"

"The L.A. and San Gabriel rivers are like 'big latrines' that dump into Long Beach harbor"

"Severe sewage contamination has forced four beach closures so far"

"Long Beach has seen 31 sewage spills since January"

Read the full LA Times story here.


Side Note: This is why you should never swim in Long Beach.