Culture Blues

The Final Countdown: December 18th Edition

Let's face it:  All the people at this holiday party are way cooler than you. They know things. They're capable of substantive conversation about what's going on in the world. You? You're a wreck; a sweaty, stammering mess of non-sequitors and Jingle "Balls" jokes, a cultural void. But all that can change! Your real friends at Culture Blues have put together a special candy cane flavored rundown of worthwhile topics for you to wow these pretentious merrymakers with, maybe even gain back some holiday spirit. Your social redemption starts here.

Oh golly! It must be Christmas.

(14) Christmas is in the air! Here at Culture Blues that means the same thing as every other part of the year – it’s time to watch some movies. As always, we’re going with the holy trinity of “Christmas” movies: Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Gremlins. Now I’ve got a machine gun. Ho ho ho.

(13) SoundScan released a list of the best selling albums of the decade last week. It’s filled with names like *NSYNC, Eminem, Linkin Park and Nelly (yes, Nelly!). If those names are giving you a flashback to 2004, there’s a good reason for that. This list is clear proof that nobody buys albums anymore. It reminds us of a time when we were all downloading music one MP3 at a time and still paying for our Norah Jones CDs. Now that we’ve all discovered torrents offering albums and complete discographies, there’s no reason to shell out money for our music. And since talk of litigation against illegal downloaders was actually much louder in the first half of the decade, we are assuming that the RIAA has given up. We win!

(12) There has been lots of chatter about the 2010 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees. In March, ABBA, Genesis and The Stooges will make up the Cleveland institution’s 25^th annual class. LL Cool J will not. In his first year of eligibility, Cool James will not be able to join Run DMC as rap representatives in the famous halls. Maybe this is a referendum on some of the trash he put out in the last few years, or perhaps the rumors of ab implants caught up to him. *Ahem* Hey Lover, anyone? “I see you at the bus stop waitin’ everyday/your man must think it’s safe for you to travel that way”. We expect this oversight to be remedied in the 2011 induction.

This is why you're fat.

(11) Limey scientists have performed the first study on fructose involving humans and the results are sobering and unsurprising. The sweetener, which appears in pretty much everything, is being linked to juvenile diabetes, heart disease and the formation of fat cells around vital organs, which doesn’t sound good. To say that fructose is the largest single contributor to the current obesity epidemic seems, well, accurate. I guess we all should have followed Kramer’s lead. The hipster doofus revealed that he had cut out fructose completely in an informal job interview with Calvin Klein over a decade ago.

(10) In our continuing search for Mom of the year, we here at Culture Blues believe we might have finally found a winner in Tennessean (of course she is) April Wright. This week, April’s 4 year old son Hayden was apprehended for stealing Christmas presents from a neighbors’ house. While wearing a stolen dress. And drinking a beer. Seriously. While the image is hilarious, Hayden’s motivation is heartbreaking. The little cross-dressing klepto drunkard wanted to get caught so he could spend the holidays with his daddy, who is currently serving time. Reportedly, Hollywood has already optioned the story with Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thorton set to star.

(9) The Brits are on fire this week! A ban on photoshopped Olay ads showing a wrinkle free Twiggy that was proposed in August was finally approved. The ads are hardly the most egregious use of photoshop out there, but in this case the ad essentially lies about the effects of Olay’s skin care products. Making girls look skinny is bad, but lying to consumers is heinous. Photoshop is a terrific tool and has unfortunately become the focal point of a debate that is really about irresponsible advertisers.

In 2010, terror goes wireless.

(8) It was announced this week that McDonald's will soon become the world's largest provider of free WiFi. This January, your life will finally become complete, as 11,000 plus restaurants in America and Canada will begin letting you check your fantasy team and harvesting your Farmville crops, all while you stuff your fat fucking face, free of charge. Thanks McDonald's; it's highly magnanimous of you to ease our burden in this tough economic climate. If only you'd exhibit this sort of altruism when concocting your next more-than-mildly addictive, artery clogging, grease dripping, Epicurean atrocity. In all fairness, it should be pointed out that we would probably be the biggest fans of such an epic sandwich; in fact this particular entry is being written from a McDonald's. Wifi currently costs about 3 bucks for two hours, but the McFlurry makes it all worth it.

(7) The man who “stalked” ESPN reporter Erin Andrews pled guilty to shooting and posting nude videos of her. We envisioned the culprit as some stocky college nerd, using the video to prove a point to his Entrepreneurial Ethics in the Digital Age professor. But this guy? He doesn’t even look like he’d know how to turn on a camera. Michael David Barrett has reminded us, however, that fantasies of hot women airing their flesh as they iron, amongst other everyday tasks, are images not solely relegated to our minds. The potential price? A 27-month sentence, though a judge will determine restitution to be paid to Andrews. Kirk Herbstreit reports that could mean College Gameday broadcasting live on the dude’s first day in the prison shower.

(6) In the mid-1990s, the Smashing Pumpkins’ lead singer, Billy Corgan, made a career out of whining over distorted guitars, and looking bald and skinny.  Oddly enough, Jessica Simpson made a career out of whining to her husband, Nick Lachey, on The Newlyweds, and getting fat. And…ah hell, there’s really no logical way to spin this. We learned this week that Corgan and Simpson are dating, which is f’ing weird.

Is this a... what day is this?

(5) Details about Iron Man 2 have been popping up with increasing frequency lately. Jeff Bridges even made headlines by claiming that the first film didn’t have a script! A dubious claim from someone we’re inclined to believe. Bridges claims, in amusing fashion, that the whole thing was a make ‘em up and only succeeded due to Jon Favreau’s ability to roll with the punches. Oh yeah, the first trailer also hit the internet, and pretty much cemented Iron Man 2 as the movie of summer 2010.

(4) In even more British news, apparently it’s a big deal in the UK who has the no. 1 song on Christmas day. Over the past four years, Simon Cowell has exploited this by having the newly crowned winner of his hugely popular X Factor show release their first single the week before Christmas, pretty much ensuring that they own the top spot. This year, an enterprising couple are attempting to end Cowell’s carefully calculated dominance by encouraging people to push Rage Against the Machine’s Killing In The Name to the top of the charts. The story gets even better as the BBC is supporting Rage as revenge for Cowell beating them in the ratings. They even had the band on their morning show to perform the confrontational and vulgar song live. They repeatedly asked singer Zach de la Rocha not to swear. Zach, or course, did swear and the mics were cut after the 4^th utterance of the fuck word. Considering the line in question is “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me,” we’re not too surprised the band ignored the BBC’s instructions.

(3) Apparently 9/11 wasn’t the biggest American news story of the decade. At least not if the New York Post is to be believed. Today, when Tiger Woods appeared on the front cover of the Post for the 20^th day in a row, he bested the attack on the World Trade Center as the all time leader in consecutive covers. News Corp. clearly has a bead on what is important in today’s society. Congratulations on your journalistic excellence and your hilarious puns (“I’m a cheetah” har har har).

Merry Christmas! I got you a replacement!

(2) As the holidays descend upon you like some sort of red and green, winter cloaked specter, you may find yourself suffering through some gift related anxiety. Well, if you're a rich bastard who really wants to freak the crap out of a special loved one, please, allow us to direct you to some Japanese doppelganger robots!!! That's right; for the low, low price of about $230,000 you can order up an animatronic clone of anyone under the sun, complete with life like replicant face, body, hair, eyes, and eyelashes. Renowned robotics firm Kokoro (maker of the best selling Actroid receptionist humanoid line) will make only two of these "marvels." The eerie personal touches don't stop at aesthetics, these future human replacements will mimic the upper body movements of their human counterparts, and even their speech will be emulated via an algorithm based on recorded voice samples. If you're interested you'd better act fast; there were millions of Furbies available and we all know how quickly those sold out.

(1) The 245^th person to be exonerated by DNA evidence has just been released after 35 years, a record amount of jail time for convictions overturned by DNA results. James Bain was 19 years old when he went to jail in 1974.  These stories have become pretty common and while they are clearly a cause for joy and a victory for justice, they are also a grave reminder of how flawed our justice system is. It’s not flawed because it sometimes leads to incorrect verdicts. It’s flawed because one of its cornerstones is the belief that it is better to let the guilty go free than to imprison the innocent. Yet, it seems that in certain cases, due to prejudices (of all kinds), it is all too easy to secure a conviction. Prejudices that prosecutors are expected to identify and exploit because evaluation of their performance is based on how many people they’ve locked up, guilty or otherwise.

Jeremiah White, Giovanny Caquias, Jeff Hart, Jason Arican, and John Burgman contributed to this Countdown.