I hadn't heard this before today, but I guess Bill Moyers is back on PBS, which is pretty awesome. Furthermore, episodes of his new show are being posted online, which is a wholly appreciable action on whoseever part that was, because hey, I don't have a TV. The whole Ken Tomlinson/CPB deal really really pissed me off my senior year of high school (to the point where I even was going to make a Banksy-styled Bill Moyers t-shirt--something I should still do*, because that'd be awesome), and I'm glad to see that Moyer's cynicism didn't extend so far as to harden him away from ever ever ever returning to tv.

A couple of days ago, he interviewed Jon Stewart. You can watch it here. It was/is a really good interview.

I always think its fascinating whenever Jon does interviews for other shows. I rewatched his Crossfire appearance a few months ago, and its still pretty remarkable how he dug at the very core of the critical fallacies that show ended up predicated upon and ripped them out a la that guy to that other guy's heart in Temple of Doom. It's pretty rare to see that sort of thing.

That said, I was kinda let down by Stephen Colbert/Bill O'Reilly reciprocated interview thing a few months back (I couldn't find the O'Reilly on Colbert interview; suffice it to say that one of the best parts was the Barnes and Noble 30% off sticker stuck on O'Reilly's picture on his book's cover). Though I know that Colbert and Stewart operate in very different ways, there was just so much potential there for something absolutely amazing to happen, and nothing really did. It seemed like the world should have collapsed in upon its dinosaur-laden innards, or that Baudrillard should've proclaimed, "My mission is complete" before vanishing in a puff of powdered sugar, but no. No no no. Baurillard died a few weeks ago from unrelated ailments, and the dinosaurs still proudly strut along the interior side of the Earth's crust, eating whatever cave plants and cave small mammals exist in that mysterious underrealm. Reality gleefully ticks on. Granted, Colbert couldn't break character, and O'Reilly was trying to be topical or funny (or something), and that may've made things awkward. And regardless, last year's White House correspondent's dinner totally makes up for it in almost every single way.

* Or maybe a MacNeil/Lehrer/Moyers/Rose superhero team?

Keri alerted me the to existence of Hip Hop Harry. This prompted immediate investigation, and the following video came up.



Mr. Harry herein lauds the merits of water as a tasty beverage treat that you totally don't need to think twice about. This puts me at ease, because the sweet and tart ambrosia of grapefruit juice oft seduces me at the local juice spigots, and I'm glad to know that such sinfulness tempts others too. I am not alone.

If others say that they are speechless, I am sure that this is on account of their mouths being filled with sticky sticky juice which would get all over the fucking keys you asshole if they started to speak. Luckily, I can make no such transgressions, and I can say what I want when I want, for my mouth is full of water, and I can totally gulp that water at any time.

Not that I even need to. It evaporates nicely.

The dancing for some reason or another reminded me of the following clip from Finnish superstar sensations c.1978? Armi Ja Danny, and I think it goes without saying that it's pretty fun to play the sound from one of these videos while watching the other on mute. Maybe more fun one way than the other, but you really can't lose either way.



These is how rhymes should be laid.

X-Entertainment just addressed an issue very close to my heart: the bizarre purpose of the impossible secondary Big Red slice in 15-to-25-year-old Big Red commercials. I once accounted for its existance by thinking it was some sort of bastard prototype--something Wrigley's had rushed off to the deadline-oriented advertising agency while still functioning at a sort of gum-drafting stage. (I didn't know gum-drafting stages didn't really exist.) I also used to think that this advertising agency was once (the late 1970s) a grand behemoth of the industry, with a news-room like central office very closely resembling the fake Washington Post's in All the President's Men, and that they, being deadline-oriented pragmatists, steadfastly refused to revise their costly commerical for some superficial change brought on by the caprcious gummakers. I also also used to think, faced with Big Red's relentless, harsh, pinkish-red-and-dusty-looking-with-treadmarks reality, that every goddamn gummaker in the whole world starts their creations with a sense of naive optimism wherein they earnestly try to give their creation a nice white stripe, and then, within a month, Wrigley's starts up its machinery, they get old and cynical, and the desire to fight the system--to ensure stripey looking gum--gets far too hard and pointless to fight. (Hence the appeal of Fruit Stripe Gum: marketed counterculture. Even though the functionally preferable bubble gum variety came with that fucking pastel color.)

But no; they're just comparing the size of a slice to a fake piece of Dentyne or someshit. I feel stupid.

Also, speaking of things I barely remember: the original opening to Newton's Apple. I miss that show, and it's pretty neat to see the opening sequence before they changed it to the have-the-apple-display-what-construes-the-random-object-flying-by motif that I remember slightly better. I remember seeing an old tape of the show once (recorded because Andy probably really wanted to see the episode but was stuck at the science fair or something) when I was about 8; it had the old intro on it, and I suddenly got nostalgic for a time predating the DNA-baby and the 3D computer-generated oscilloscope. And then, they changed the opening again, this time along with the entire format of the show, made the set look like a cross between a Seattle teenager's attic room c.1993 and a nature preserve's visitor center, and added a whole bunch of non-David Heil or -Peggy Knapp hosts, one of which may have been SuChin Pak, who's on MTV now, and it started to suck, and was cancelled. Maybe is was because they dropped the early Kraftwerk (band used to be about the flutes you know!) themesong. Thanks to Andy for pointing out the fact that Kraftwerk did that themesong. Also thanks to YouTube for yielding a bunch of Apple Newton-related clips in the search this needed. One YouTube search yielding two discrete types of cool things: 'spretty awesome ratio.