Archive for the ‘The Media Ate My Brain’ Category
Washed Up Or Not? A Point/Counterpoint.
Is washed up TV personality Lyndsey Rodrigues truly washed up?
Totes, according to the Daily Tele:
TRAGIC former TV personality Lyndsey Rodrigues has again hit the keyboard late at night, this time taking to Twitter to denounce the ARIAs as an “epic fail” and MTV hunk Darren McMullen a “douche”.
The Wednesday night whinge, which occurred about 11.30pm, follows a similar stream of posts earlier this year where she announced things like: “Might just take a Valium and sleep through another f … ed up year.”
This week, she posted, “McMullen makes me ill. Just saw his ‘perform-ance’ with Carmen Electra at the ARIAS. DOUCHE!”
– Lyndsey doesn’t hold back in ARIAs tweet, Daily Telegraph, 12/11/10
Totes not, according to the Sydney Morning Herald:
LYNDSEY Rodrigues has hit back at claims that she is a “tragic former TV personality” after posting a late-night tweet about how bad the ARIAs were, which is not news to anyone.
“I’m happier and healthier than I have ever been,” Rodrigues tells S. “I’ve got a new boyfriend and a three year contract with BigPond. I was shocked. It was so unnecessary and bitchy when I’m working harder than I’ve ever worked before.”
And she stands by the tweet. “Darren McMullen and Carmen [Electra] were mortifying!”
– Not washed up, The Sun-Herald, 14/11/10
So is she washed up?
We’re not sure, though we question the wisdom of getting such a long contract with Bigpond. What if you move house?
An Open Letter To The Liberal Party of Victoria.
Dear The Liberal Party Of Victoria,
How are you? Well, I hope! Anyway, best get down to business. I don’t have all day to be writing letters and you certainly don’t have time to be reading them. We are both “Busy Berties” and that is no mistake.
I was reading the august journal The Sunday Herald Sun this Sunday just gone, when I came across an interesting story regarding your Melton candidate, a young man with a bright future and a stupid name: Braidy Kean.
A BEER-swilling Liberal candidate has been caught out promoting 24-hour alcohol consumption, slamming police chief commissioner Simon Overland and criticising his federal leader less than two weeks before the state election.
Melton Liberal candidate Braidy Kean, 21, is running for State Parliament on the promise of “safer streets” and “more police on the beat”.
But despite the State Opposition vowing to curb the hours of Melbourne’s all-night bottle shops last year, Mr Kean is a member of a social network site called “Melton needs a 24-hour-bottle-o!”.
His Facebook page lists his candidate profile and professional portrait but also contains numerous photos of him drinking.
A Facebook posting by Mr Kean in March, likely to draw the attention of the police he hopes will “make Melton matter”, lambasts the chief commissioner.
“Simon Overland is a d—head!” it says.
Liberals’ party boy, Sunday Herald Sun, 14/11/10.
What a hack job this story is. So typical of today’s 24 hour news cycle rush to print forget the facts flat earth bullshit media. Yes, let’s visit someone’s Facebook page and call it the news. Disgusting.
See, if state politics reporter Peter Rolfe wasn’t so lazy, he would have visited Kean’s Myspace page and seen that he was in a dreadful black metal band, which would make for a far more interesting story.
Meet Ill Omen. A band whose live shows have been described as intense, insane, awesome, brutal and fucking crazy. What else would you expect from a band whose influences include Slayer, Lamb of God, Cannibal Corpse, and Led Zep – amongst others.
Their demo is available from Missing Link Records in Melbourne for $5 and contains such classics as ‘Blood Ritual’, ‘For Your Ignorance’, and ‘Silent Demise’, but if you want to hear songs like ‘Breaking the Covenant Part 1: The Great Defilement’ and ‘Breaking the Covenant Part 2: The War of Uncreation’, you WILL need to keep abreast of announcements re: Battles Of Bands in the Melton area.
Now, check out this video of the band performing Blood Ritual live at the Waterloo Cup.
Having seen this, we have a few questions for you, Liberal Party:
Does the Liberal Party endorse homophobic Necrophagist puns?
Does the Liberal Party endorse frontmen who BARELY get into it?
Does the Liberal Party still believe that “Let’s make Melton matter” is the best possible slogan to use in Kean’s campaign literature, now that they are fully aware of the apropos lyrics of The Forthcoming?
Beneath the Destruction,
Lies a hate with no function,
Before us lies death with no chance of redemption.The earth burns,
We turn to god,
Your blind faith has failed us,
Scavenged the earth, the rest will die,
We have paided the price.We run in fear,
Screams bellowed by tears,
We fear the night,
A death worth than torture a world wide slaughter.Death has become our life,
The Forthcoming is upon us.
Thanks. Have a good one.
Purple Haze
The Warwick Daily News reports:
IT stands as a tribute to American psychedelic rock musician Jimi Hendrix and his signature song Purple Haze, but a group of Warwick mums wants to be clear on one point.
While their tree entry in this year’s Jumpers and Jazz Festival might have been inspired by the song, commonly believed to have been penned during Hendrix’s drug-induced phase (courtesy of purple LSD capsules), their inspiration is more innocent.
In their case LSD stands for: Latte, scones and dessert.
Fuck off.
I Have Some Problems With This…
Now, the front page story in the Herald Sun today was the story of how Melbourne City Council grants have been given to two artists whose art consists of building and then dismantling brick walls. OK. That’s a pretty crucial news story. Bravo, investigative journalism etc, well done on avoiding sensationalism and triviality.
I’m not here to quarrel with the front page story. I am here to quarrel with this editorial on the same subject:
This story starts like this:
“A MELBOURNE City Council grant to pay artists to build a brick wall, only to knock it down again, gives new meaning to ‘thick as a brick.'”
Now here’s the thing, “staff writer”…
No it doesn’t. I concede that you’re just following a trend here, the trend of finding a commonly used phrase with some oblique connection to a story, and then saying “gives new meaning to” in a sad and almost-touching attempt to be witty. I concede that 95 percent of these usages do not in any way demonstrate a new meaning being given to said phrase.
BUT that is no excuse! Can’t you think for three seconds before you write?
I mean, how the hell does that give new meaning to “thick as a brick”? If the artists were dressing up as bricks, perhaps, but they’re not, are they? They’re just building and dismantling walls. And you see, “thick as a brick” means the same thing as it always did, doesn’t it? If you said these artists were “thick as a brick”, it wouldn’t actually develop some devilishly clever double meaning. Dickhead.
And you probably think, OK, “staff writer” has pulled the wrong rein there, but everyone’s allowed one wrong rein-pulling in an article, as long as it is an isolated case.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This is the HERALD SUN, where sensationalism walks hand in hand with semi-literacy, and scaremongering rides tall in the saddle occasionally sipping from a canteen full of cool fresh not-as-funny-as-they-think.
Because it ONLY GETS WORSE. Later in the editorial:
“Another brick in the wall, as we are reminded by the Pink Floyd song, is to cost ratepayers $5500.”
Now I was stunned by this assertion, and immediately ran to my turntable to give “The Wall” a spin. And here’s an interesting fact:
At NO point during the song “Another Brick in the Wall” does Pink Floyd either say, or paraphrase, the sentence, “Another brick in the wall is to cost ratepayers $5500”.
Check it out, Herald Sun! The album is readily available! There is, in fact, no reference to ratepayers at all!
In other words, if you were to listen to any of the three parts of the song “Another Brick in the Wall”, you would not be reminded in any way of the cost to ratepayers of another brick in the wall. What is more, I doubt that this was ever Roger Waters’s intention! It seems, to say the least, far-fetched to suppose that as he sat down to compose his masterpiece, he thought, “Now we need a real epic protest song so that people will never forget how much it cost City of Melbourne ratepayers to hire two women to build and tear down small brick walls. It was $5500, and after this hits the charts, EVERYBODY WILL REMEMBER THAT!”
I do not think this happened.
And to pile outrage upon outrage, it’s not even true that another brick in the wall will cost ratepayers $5500. That is the cost of the entire installation – so one brick would be just a fraction of that. GET YOUR FACTS RIGHT HERALD SUN!
And even if you don’t, please note that a newspaper editorial is, ideally, a considered commentary on current events. The purpose of editorialising becomes, at the least, blurred, when the editorial morphs into some kind of bizarre comedy routine/1970s prog-rock medley.
THINK about it.
Responding to Letters in the Herald Sun with…by Ben
Welcome to the latest edition of “Responding to Letters in the Herald Sun With…”
Today we are responding to letters in the Herald Sun with assumptions the subject matter is sexual perversions.
One language, one flag
SIR Edmund Barton in 1907 said on being Australian: “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an Australian and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.
“But this is predicated upon the person becoming in every facet an Australian, and nothing but an Australian … There can be no divided allegiance here.
“Any man who says he is an Australian, but Something else also, isn ’t an Australian at all.
“We have room for but one flag, the Australian flag…
“We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language … and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is loyalty to the Australian people!” This should be mandatory reading for all of our governments, who seem hell-bent on undermining what it is to be an Australian, and with the forecasts on immigration, things for Aussies will only get worse!
Alan Salter, Bentleigh
– Only referring to men, Alan? Are you suggesting that Australia become a homosexual paradise? Why do you need to use Edmund Barton as support for your sick erotic fantasies?
Rage against the machine
I CAN only imagine the “rage” Victoria will face in the future – appliance rage.
It will be caused by consumers using vacuum cleaners, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, TVs and other appliances in the hours of 1pm-7am to save on their electricity bills (“Power pique on way”, February 2).
How people who live in apartments will cope will be interesting, and because we will need more high-rise buildings to cope with the expected population growth to 35.9 million, the only people who will be able to afford to live in a detached house and use electricity during the day are the politicians who allowed, nay propagated, these idiocies to be foisted on the general public.
Verity Mesketti, Traralgon
– A bit obsessed about appliances, aren’t we Val? Are you afraid the government’s plans will put a dent in your daily lunchtime sessions with your electric friend? Afraid the cost of riding the pleasure bull will become a bit prohibitive?
You whore.
Unsuitable for children
I MOSTLY keep my TV viewing down to favourite sports and quality drama, and have a sneaky look occasionally at Survivor, which is a good laugh.
I happened to see some of My Kitchen Rules and after 15 minutes turned the TV off.
I really don’t understand why it is necessary to make food the subject of gross conduct when we have terrible problems with healthy diets for kids and adults.
Pete Evans and Manu Feildel are good chefs.
Why they are in this kind of show is puzzling.
Money, I suppose.
I did turn the TV back on for Simon Baker in The Mentalist, one of the few crime shows that is watchable without endless gore and totally mindless stuff fit for the garbage bin.
I use my DVDs a lot more for relaxation these days.
Josie Dorian, Aspendale
– I think you’ve got a filthy mind to always be seeing fornication in the simple act of cooking.
Retire Saigon to open zoo
AFTER spending 50 years “on the road” with Perry Bros Circus, and with a life expectancy of possibly 20 more years, lone elephant Saigon deserves to enjoy some measure of freedom and interaction with her own kind (“Our saddest elephant”, January 30).
Stardust Circus elephants Gi Gi and Ama were retired in 2008 and now live happily with other elephants at Dubbo Open Plains Zoo in NSW.
Saigon should join them.
Jenny Moxham, Monbulk
– Just desperate to get a glimpse of some hot elephant sex, aren’t you, Jenny, you voyeuristic hussy.
LETTER OF THE DAY
IF my daughter were to ask me if she should get a tattoo, I would say not to give up the gift of virginal skin lightly.
My mum didn’t have my initials on her ankle, grandma had no Chinese scroll cascading down her left breast and great grandma had no butterfly on her dowager’s hump. I ’m well, well pleased.
Dad, by taking this position, you will likely be called chauvinistic, authoritarian, paternalistic and patriarchal by Jill Singer, confirming you are on the right tram.
Female tattooing has become fashionably permanent (oxymoron noted),led by Angelina Jolie. Our girls are slavishly copy-catting Hollywood populist culture, embarrassingly so.
I know today’s girls will deny it, but did girl tattooing catch on when Chopper Read was the principal model of body art? Daughters, in five years you won’t like the sunglasses and shoes you covet today, and look at your mum ’s hairstyle in 1999 or her eyeliner in 1989. . . oh, my God.
Rebuttals welcome.
Peter Bresnahan, Chelsea
– Have fun with your grandma’s breast, did you Peter? And humping your great grandma? And constantly monitoring your daughter’s virgin skin? ENJOYING YOURSELF?
Untroubled ride on freeway
LET us give credit where credit is due – the widening of the Monash Freeway has been a marvel of engineering.
For the past two years or so, I have travelled daily on the freeway and, although there have been disruptions to traffic flow, the logistical achievements have been of a very high order indeed.
As a result of this, we now have a much more smooth-running system in place.
So, to all concerned, congratulations on a job well done.
Peter D. Surkitt Hawthorn
– “Easy ride”? EASY RIDE? That you could do such things on a freshly rejuvenated highway sickens me.
Tears on her first day
MY five-year-old granddaughter started school this week.
A staff member went into the prep class to ask how they were doing.
My granddaughter said she was OK, but, apparently with a roll of the eyes, added: “Don’t know how mum is. She cried all morning!” Andrea Hampton, Morwell
– Probably because of the sexual abuse you subjected her to, Andrea. Your own daughter! Don’t you feel dirty?
Rough Justice
The Associated Press reports on Ja Rule’s recent legal troubles:
NEW YORK — Rapper Ja Rule has lost a bid to keep a loaded gun found in his luxury car from being used against him
WHAT SORT OF COURTROOM IS THIS?
Hey Weekly Times
It is neither big nor clever to make light of the important issue of industry standards for grass-fed beef.
Where there is a Will!
WHETHER meeting dignitaries, greeting admirers and celebrities or just chatting happily with children, Prince William is definitely his mother’s son.
But probably not his father’s son, right, The Age? Show some respect. This is Royalty we are talking about.
Aboriginal leader Mick Mundine said the Prince’s visit had been amazing.
“It’s such a blessing. You’d be amazed, he’s such a respectful young man,” he said. “He’s got the heart of his mother.”
Really? Didn’t it get all smooshed up in the accident?
Where there is a Will… is a headline you can expect to see shortly. A lot.
A few things occur while one is reading Jill Singer’s latest column from the Herald Sun.
Thing One.
On the Herald Sun website, her byline is given as Jilly Singer. Is the error online, or in the paper? Hopefully in the paper.
Thing Two.
Importantly, he seems to have a sensible head on his shoulders. Apart from a few minor episodes with one cocktail too many, William has barely slipped up in public.
It’s a pretty remarkable record when you think of the rest of his family Prince Philip rarely has his foot out of his mouth, Fergie rarely had her foot out of someone else’s mouth and Princess Anne presents as a species prone to foot and mouth, more interested in hoofed creatures than her fellow bipeds.
That seems unfair to Princess Anne – she’s as bad as the rest because she likes horses? How does liking horses constitute “slipping up in public”?
Is Jill hinting at a darker side of Our Favourite Princess?
Gather Around Me 