The Cheeseblog

Wednesday is the day of new Free Will Astrology horoscopes. Mine says:

Aquarian singer Justin Timberlake suffered a temporary blow to his reputation last November. Speaking to ABC-TV’s Diane Sawyer, his ex-lover Britney Spears implied that he is under-endowed in a part of his anatomy that most men take very seriously. It didn’t take long for Timberlake’s grandmother to come to his defense. “I helped raise him, and I can assure you that there’s nothing wrong with him physically,” 70-year-old Sadie Bomar told the press. I predict you will soon undergo a similar fall and redemption, Aquarius. Start rounding up the allies you will want to testify in your behalf.

OMG: Justin is an Aquarian! That explains so much.

I can’t decide which is worse: being the dancing monkey for McDonald’s or being Madonna’s ticket back to the top 40. (Luckily, this is not a decision I need to make.) See, McDonald’s is bad, but it’s always been bad. Madonna used to be good and now she’s like the trench-coated guy in the playground who just stands there, watching you play. And you wonder if he is someone’s dad, or if he’s a pervert, or if he’s just lost in thought or maybe having some sort of seizure.

Madonna and Britney in the terrifying playground that is Me Against the Music is a similarly creepy and embarassing experience. Whether Madonna is following the ass, the association, or the credit for having made it OK to be a Really Sexy Woman in music, it’s obvious that she is chasing her own tail and pretty soon Brit’s just gonna duck around a corner and hope Madonna keeps going.

Now, of course there is room for people older than 22 in the music industry. I don’t think Madonna should go away and leave her fame behind for us to pick at. (I do think she should never make another movie. No. Just say no to her.) But I don’t think she needs to beg for the table scraps of someone else’s fame. For someone who has made her mark as a revolutionary, riding the Britney Pony to get to her fifth? sixth? wind makes Madonna seem awfully lazy.

I just learned that the title of the hit song by Nelly about taking all your clothhhhhhhhhhhes off is actually spelled “Hot in Herre.” I have been spelling it wrong all this time. I apologize to all you Nelly fans.

Oh, Nelly has many fans. For example: Miss Flawless, who wrote the following in response to some anti-Nelly postings at Leo’s Lyrics Database:

Yo! Alla mah peeps out durr dat dissin’ dis song… y u in hurr.. 2 begin wit. It jus shows dat u lookin’ fo sum shit! stop dissin’ n hatin’ cuz u ain’t 1 a dem… peace mah peeps… holla lata!

Hello, Christopher Guest? Could you please make your next movie about hip hop? I would really like that. I will help out and make you yummy sandwiches if you make your next movie about hip hop. And get 50 Cent to star in it. Or Eugene Levy as 50 Cent.

Ow. I think I just pulled something.

The double “r” thing happened before, with “dirrty” by Christina. I wonder Y the double R. I will research it and get back 2 U.

There does exist a company called Durr. They’re one of those companies that offers technologies, systems and solutions. When you watch the little flash movie at their website, it’s a race against time to figure out what they actually make and sell before the movie ends. OH, you’re engineers! “e-manufacturing” must mean programming! Ha! You clever monkeys.

Apparently, Mr. Original Durr was a tinsmith. He acquired the title of “Tinsmith Master to the Royal Court of Wurttemberg” in 1911. Now that’s a title!

More Journey

From the liner notes of the recently purchased “Journey’s Greatest Hits Live!” album.

“…the quintet defined arena rock, as they cast a magical spell over their audience woven by Steve Perry’s soaring vocals, Neal Shon’s electrifying guitar, Jonathan Cain’s fluid keyboards, Ross Valory’s precise bass, and Steve Smith’s flawless drumming.”
– Melinda Newman of Billboard Magazine

Melinda is obviously trying to stomp out the embers of Journey’s once-bright, hot-fire sex appeal. (If you could see the pictures in the booklet, you’d know she has nothing to worry about.) I’ll grant her that the bass player is generally the least interesting member of a band. But couldn’t somebody have given her a thesaurus?

Hence, a new collective term: A precision of bass players.

Junior Senior is a band I heard about from Kate Sullivan’s Rock Blog. At their website, Junior Senior’s, you can watch the video for “Move Your Feet” and it has a squirrel in it. And a duck.

It’s like someone went inside my head and set the little man free!

Go find out your squirrel name. Then report back to me.

Mine is: Acorn short of an Oak Tree.

So: Donald Trump. What’s with that hair? I say that with confidence, because I don’t want to be Donald Trump’s bum-licker like the people on “The Apprentice.” They’re all thinking it, you can practically hear them while they bow to him and call him sir and flash a little more leg (women, mostly) and their shiny white teeth that are polished just enough but not too much because you don’t want him to think you’re being TOO aggressive, just the right amount to be America’s Next Top BusinessShark but still below Donald himself. They’re all thinking: Wow. That HAIR.

One of the apprentices used “myself” incorrectly in a sentence, which reminded me how much I hate it when people do that.
“I have lots of respect for myself.” OK.
“I think that as far as myself is concerned, I rule!” Not OK.
Why do salespeople (yes, I have several examples to back this up) insist on using words and grammar they don’t understand? There was this guy I used to work near. His job was to call people and try to sell them things that they probably already wanted. He would say things like, “Here’s the number where you can reach myself between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm,” and I would have to use packing tape to strap my hands to the armrests of my chair to keep me from getting up and squeezing himself to death.

Though, if you are from the Maritimes, Ireland or Scotland, it is acceptable to say things like, “There goes Himself. Down the pub again.”

The women won the first challenge on The Making of America’s Next Top BusinessShark. Their reward? To see Donald’s penthouse. Apparently, not very many people get to see it. Lucky, lucky millions of viewers last night. Paintings on the ceiling, fountains that spurt, statues of naked ladies and men, Donald’s new girlfriend, Hottie La Hot, gold everything gold gold so much gold.

Saint Aardvark described it thusly, “It’s like Donald got an interior designer. And he said to the designer, ‘OK, here’s what I want. I want you to pretend you are a gay Pope.”

Is it the money? Or is it the process you go through to get the money? Or is it the drive you have to have to be the kind of person who gets that much money? What is it, exactly, that makes people with lots of money reject any sense of aesthetics, taste and ability to behave reasonably? It’s a whole chicken/egg argument, I suppose.

And, um, hair! Someday, when I’m really rich, or even richer than I am now, if I have really bad hair, I want someone to tell me. If it looks as though my hair is lowered by crane onto my head every morning and kept in place by space-age polymers and spray painted by one of those student painters that drives around in a beat-up van all summer, smoking pot and listening to Nirvana, will someone please take me aside and say “I know you’re rich and you could totally fire me even though you’re not my boss, but for the sake of the puppies, please do something about that hair.”

Now that I think of it – my hair is always longest when I am most broke. And last year, when I had the most money I’ve ever had, my hair was at its shortest. Hmm. Now what?

New feature: Understatement of the Day!

Understatement for January 9.2004

Journey rocks! (I am too afraid to go to the multimedia section of the site, which apparently includes Oh Holy Night performed by Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain. Maybe if I get drunk this weekend.) The only Journey song I thought I knew (until a recent re-run of “Scrubs” brought Journey to my life in a big way, including yesterday’s purchase of “Journey’s Greatest Hits Live!”) was Open Arms. I think I was in my swooning romantic boy-song phase by then. I was post Laura Branigan, Pre Led Zeppelin. It was a fragile time. They’re one of those bands that had a kabillion hits. My brain went behind my back and noted all of them and now I am unable to stop humming along. Damn you, brain! You work for me! I am your Donald!

The live version of Any Way You Want It has a real polka-frenzy feel.

Journey = Velveeta. It’s plastic, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Donald Trump = Port Wine Stilton with Blueberries. Too many flavours! Pink and blue and creamy and chunky! Not classy, just gross!