Passengers are prohibited from discarding the following items in the airplane toilet:
1) Pizza boxes
2) Old-timey, doorstep-delivered glass milk bottles
3) Shriner hats
4) Ear flaps
5) 80’s cassette mix tapes made for your girlfriend (unless the tape contains songs by Richard Marx)
6) Unfinished origami
7) Severed hands
Your cooperation is appreciated.
Someone has crafted an excellent Twitter satire with the fictional Debra Jones-O’Brien, a sanctimonious, busybody, self-appointed supermom with her fragile, peanut-allergic son Caleb and a rapid-fire scroll of judgemental, self-oblivious perspectives from the suburban vacuum. Here’s a sample:
The tweets themselves are a hilarious, a too-close reflection of actual clueless parents with a few more dollars than sense and a lifestyle-convenient social consciousness. @peanutfreemom creates a legitimately clever satire of obnoxious nannies everywhere who are eager to impose their rules, lifestyle choices and morality on everyone around them.
But I really love the author’s use of the unique structure of Twitter to pull it off. It’s more than just Twitter trolling; @peanutfreemom knows how to agitate just enough among the credulous who think she’s a real person. She pushes buttons sure to draw indignant outrage, including class snobbishness, judgement of others’ parenting, pop culture (baiting fans of Glee and Bridesmaids), school teachers and adoption. That outrage in turn fuels the growing audience, who are unwittingly participating in the production as it unfolds. The narrative can go wherever the audience steers it, or wherever it gets the most laughs and attention.
As long as it’s funny, and grounded by concepts and characters that reflect some real aspects of our culture, then I consider something like this as creatively entertaining as a well done comedy sketch or comedy episode. I’ve also thought about this way too much.
[UPDATE: Welcome all the many, many @peanutfreemom lovers and haters.]
A late-vintage Orson Welles entertains and inspires parody in these four clips:
UPDATE: I probably put these in the wrong order. Start with third one; a booze-soaked Welles staggers through failed takes of one of his classic Paul Masson spots from around 1980. It gets better with every viewing.
First clip: Orson Welles agitating in a voiceover session for a frozen peas commercial. I heard this for the first time about 12 years ago, had forgotten all about it, and rediscovered it last night with the pleasure of seeing an old friend. YouTube clips with a single image and audio usually annoy me, but this still shot of Welles holding ad copy with a vicious scowl of pure contempt perfectly seasons this rant. Plus, I imagine he’d have stormed out of the studio if only he could’ve extracted himself from the chair. (It runs a little long, so even if you don’t play the whole thing, don’t miss the parody clip posted next.)
Next up: Short, delightful parody of the frozen peas rant from the sadly underappreciated animated show “The Critic.”
Clip de Trois: Somehow, I’ve managed to miss this clip until now. A stellar reel of outtakes with an enormous, inebriated Orson Welles filming a late 1970s/early 1980s Paul Masson commercial. The other actors look as if they are helplessly watching a house burn down. I vow to start every conversation tomorrow with Welles’ flourishing “mwaaaaaaAAAAAAAHH, the French . . .” (And by the way, I know “Clip de Trois” is incorrect. Of course it’s “Clippé de Trois.”)
Fourth clip: The third clip led to this parody link, with Groundlings and United Citizens Brigade performer James Adomian doing a hilarious, flawless impersonation of Welles in the Paul Masson spot. I’m not sure which one makes me laugh harder.
Orsen Yells
$154 per gram Norway? No way! I'll take my travel dollars and my coke habit to Luxembourg
We’re also pleased to see that, despite Greece’s debt woes and volatile economy, the Greek cocaine market still commands a stable $104 per gram. No hyperinflation, just hyperinhalation.
Finally, we see that The Economist provided a print-ready cocaine price list for European travelers, with even more countries listed, as its Daily Chart a few days back. Just remember, it’s twice the vacation if you never sleep.
"I'm burning with fiery anger!"
Apparently, all the “ginger” jokes and comments have offended Mick Hucknall. He equates it to racism, and can’t understand why people identify him so closely with the color of his hair.
“The pop star questioned why a string of prominent Britons were not similarly defined by the colour of their hair.”
Hmmm. Perhaps because their locks aren’t quite as shockingly red as yours, Mick. Oh, and they also didn’t name their famous bands “Simply Red” after the color of your hair. Just some theories.
We spotted this gem in a small street art market in front of a gallery after dinner last weekend:
Our interpretation: Since ABC Cancelled “All My Children,” Susan Lucci awakens with the recurring nightmare that her lone Daytime Emmy has turned into a giant red onion.
We welcome other interpretations. And we apologize for knowing so much about soap opera divas.
Fergie, back then child actor/singer Stacy Ferguson, actually voiced Charlie Brown’s sister Sally in animated Peanuts productions:
The latest updates on the presidential debates in New Hampshire:
Best week ever for headline editors. We are unashamed juveniles and have collected some of our favorite actual Weinergate headlines from the Web the past couple of weeks:
And perhaps the final word:
containseggs 