I'm currently watching the Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve spectacle and I think that it might be highly entertaining. I'm not sure, though. They keep showing clips from the New Year's Rockin' Eve performances from years gone by. Rick Springfield. Hall and Oates. Boy George when he was with Culture Club and was not on heroin. (Well, wasn't getting arrested for being on heroin at least.) The Go-Go's. It's interesting, but I think that I'd like it better if they juxtaposed pictures of how those folks are looking these days against their performances that they made back in their hey day. In fact, I think that's such a great idea that I'm just going to go ahead and do it in advance for some of the acts that are performing tonight. Behold! And happy new year!
Now, I just want to make it clear that this post is not making fun of stroke victims. I can see where it might come across that way, but that is NOT what I am doing here. If anything, I am promoting stroke prevention awareness AND I am also promoting some things being in name only. There's no reason why just because something bears someone's name that that particular person has to be actively involved in the thing, right? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, please defer answering that question until I've painted a more clear and frightening picture of said scenario.
Dick Clark is an icon. I highly doubt that there is going to be anyone out there could or would argue with that. The name Dick Clark is practically synonymous with New Year's Eve and since 1972, Clark has been the host of Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve and has counted down to the new year every single year sans the 1999 to 2000 transition and the 2004 to 2005 transition. He missed the 1999 one because it was some sort of "milestone" year. That "milestone" being the year 2000, because if you're going to have a bunch of zeroes all in a row, you get to call it a "milestone" and act like it is somehow different than all of the other years without the zeroes, even though everyone knows that it's exactly the same. But he missed the 2004 countdown because he had a stroke.
As I'm sure you all know, strokes are not good. Bad is what they are. Strokes are bad. No one is fond of the stroke. In many instances, those who are stroke stricken are usually left with some sort of impairment of bodily function. Some have difficulty walking or moving parts of their body and others have difficulty speaking without great difficulty or impediment. Many stroke victims unfortunately, have to learn how to do simple everyday functions all over again. To summarize, strokes are bad.
But while strokes are bad, ringing in a new year is supposed to be good. It's supposed to be a joyous time. It's supposed to be a time of happiness and hope and joy and all other things associated with the whole new year gala stuff thing hoopla. And while I find it extremely commendable to allow some traditions to continue on, having Dick Clark continuing to host Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve is far from happiness and hope and joy. It's depressing. Granted, it does bring up the issue of stroke prevention awareness, but that's a pretty depressing undertaking on the eve of a new year, don't you think?
Why do they continue to let this man, who was once a great speaker, but who does not speak so great now, host this show? Sure, they have pretty, pretty (and probably pretty closeted) Ryan Seacrest there to help things along, but Ryan isn't much of a help. Look, hosting that American Idol gig is cake. Who couldn't do that? You stand there, call out the names of folks and then look to three or four other people for a critique. I'm pretty sure you could train one of those rhesus monkeys to do the very same thing. Hosting American Idol is not like hosting a New Year's Eve celebration. And when you're trying to let the icon still be the icon that he was (even though he so clearly is not), well, you're really not helping the situation much at all. (Granted, I'm not sure if the rhesus monkeys would do much better in that aspect, but as overall hosts, I'm pretty sure they've got Seacrest evenly matched at the very least.)
I could understand if the entire show were geared toward an older generation that grew up with Mr. Clark and his American Bandstand or even with his variety of Pyramid shows. If Mr. Clark were introducing acts such as the Beach Boys or Simon and Garfunkel and the show was themed around the history and nostalgia of Dick Clark and was geared toward those who remember and enjoyed that Dick Clark, that would be fine. Well...fine? OK, maybe not fine. But it would at least be understandable. But with acts like those of Rihanna and some young fellow named Justin Bieber (who I'm not sure that I had ever heard of before New Year's Eve...sweet Jesus! Does that mean I'm old?!) the show is clearly not aimed toward the elderly older crowd. So why is he there? He doesn't mean anything to the 15-year olds that are watching the show. No, they're enjoying acts such as Selena Gomez and J Lo (who, if you saw her, was damn near naked, and that alone could cause one to have a stroke in and of itself) and wondering why there is an old man who has difficulty speaking hanging out with pretty, pretty rhesus monkeys Ryan Seacrest. What are they getting out of having Dick Clark host? (OK, what are they getting out of it other than the knowledge that they should regularly check their blood pressure in order to catch any early warning signs of a stroke? Other than that, what do you have for me?)
Who are the folks who just have to have Dick Clark on their TV every single New Year's Eve, even though he is difficult to understand and even though he depresses the hell out of anyone who watches. Anyone who has ever known anyone who has had a stroke will automatically think of that person when watching Dick Clark struggle to carry on an articulate conversation with his co-host. But now it's gotten to the point where it's not just that he has difficulty articulating what he is saying, but that he has trouble saying what he is saying correctly. Even if it involves something requiring seemingly as little thought as counting.
Mr. Clark began his countdown right around the 20 second mark. For the first 6 seconds of that countdown, things were fine. All of the numbers were in the correct order. I don't know what confused him, if he was, in fact, confused at all or if the part of his brain that does the counting just does work any more due to the previously mentioned stroke-age that he suffered in 2004. I don't know. All I know is that after "14", things did not go well.
It went something like this: "20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 14, 12, 10, 11, 10...." Um....what now?
Fourteen, twelve, ten, eleven, ten? Is that what he said? That's...that's not right...at all. Counting down (or up for that matter) is kind of like the alphabet. The beauty of it is that it doesn't repeat itself. That way, if you're having trouble at first, you can check them off as you go along. To repeat fourteen and ten each twice, well....that brings me back to my earlier question: What is the purpose of this?
Can't the show just bear his name and have Seacrest and the monkeys do it? There are plenty of things out there that just bear someone's name, but the person whose name is bore really has little (if anything) to do with the product itself. Mrs. Butterworth's, for example. There is no Mrs. Butterworth. She's not out there making the syrup. It just bears her name! (Is she even real? Of course not. I knew that!) Aunt Jemima and her syrup. Same concept. Dr. Scholl's is another one. He has nothing to do with those things that are shoved in your...shoes? Shoes! Colonel Sanders. His picture is on every box/bucket of chicken, but he's no longer around to serve the chicken! (Mmmm....chicken.) When the Kentucky Colonel went to that great chicken coop in the sky, did all of the KFC's around the globe suddenly cease operations? I don't think that they did! And how's the chicken taste? Delicious as always! So there's no reason why it can't be Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve without Dick Clark, right? Right!
And as long as I'm suggesting changes here, I have one more. The name. That is the most ridiculous name that anyone could have given that damn show. New Year's Rockin' Eve? What the heck is that? Shouldn't it be Rockin' New Year's Eve? Why is the rockin' all breaking up the New Year's and the Eve, there? I don't get it. It sounds silly and they should change it. Now.
I wish Mr. Clark continued success with the marvelous progress that he's making with his recovery and I hope one day that he can once again do the countdown without repeating any of the numbers. Just like old times! That'll bring back some memories, won't it? When the last few seconds of the old year didn't consist of fourteen, twelve, ten, eleven, ten?! Good times. Good times indeed.
Finally! Finally! The holidays are over! Technically I don't have to speak with or have a meal with another human being until the next major day of nationwide observance which, according to my calculations, might be Groundhog Day. I don't mind the holidays. The alligators in my moat which surrounds my walled off compound kind of freak out my relatives, but other than their needing sedatives rather often, I enjoy them. So many traditions that just keep happening year after year. I embrace consistency like that. I like to know what to expect. You know who else seems to embrace consistency and who else seems to like doing the same thing year after year? Kathy Griffin and her tradition of belting out some sort of expletive or sexually inappropriate reference while hosting some New Year's gala with, of all people, pretty, pretty Anderson Cooper.
Here's the deal: Last year, while hosting the New Year's festivities again with pretty, pretty Anderson Cooper, Kathy was being heckled by none other than, you guessed it, a heckler. And, well, let's just say that she had finally had it with said heckler and she let fly a rather pointed rebuttal when she yelled out to the dude, "Shut up!! Do you know what? Screw you! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, buddy!? I don't go to your job and knock the d**ks out of your mouth." Ah, yes. What a way to welcome in the new year!
But that was last year. I think. Wait. Yes. Yes, it was last year. I was a little confused because Kathy Griffin again hosted the New Year's Eve festivities and she again let her vocabulary fly a little bit off in a direction that I'm sure the FAA will be looking into. It won't be as intense as the scrutiny over Janet Jackson's Nipple-Gate at the Super Bowl that one year, but if she gets the same gig next year, they're really going to have to look into assigning a permanent agent to follow her around or something just to monitor her and her inevitable and predictably unpredictable outbursts. I'm just saying.
So this year, Anderson Cooper, being as how he's a fairly legitimate news reporter and all, decided it would be a good idea to engage Ms. Griffin in a little game of "Who Was Who in the News in 2009". You know, show her some pictures of folks who were prominently in the news (for better or for worse. I'm guessing mostly worse.)...see if she knew who they were. It seems harmless. And if he wasn't doing it with Kathy Griffin, it probably would have been harmless.
First up was a picture of reality show
hopeful asshats Richard and Mayumi Heene who had their kid hide in the attic or somewhere whilst they told the rest of the world that he was flying over a three state area in some sort of mylar balloon thing that the family constructed in the backyard during their spare time. (In spare time at my house growing up, we did yardwork, but whatever.) Ms. Griffin knew exactly who they were and said that she "admired their stick-to-it-tiveness". I hadn't heard it put quite that way before then. They did have stick-to-it-tiveness, didn't they? They would not let go of their lie for what seemed like weeks! OK, fine, kudos for that.
Then Kathy asked Anderson if he followed the story and he said that he did and that his
favorite part was when "Falcon said 'Who the hell is Wolf?' " It was at that moment that Kathy Griffin became a bit confused. It was like Anderson Cooper had suddenly started speaking Chinese or something because she started sputtering words out as if she was hoping to randomly hit upon what it was that he had just said. So she asks him, "Falcon?" And Anderson reiterates, "Falcon Heene." Do you see where this is going? Neither did I.
Even with Anderson's "Falcon Heene" clarification, that didn't seem to clear things up for Kathy Griffin. Nope, instead she continued to question him on what he had said. "Fal....F**kin'....Falcon? How do you say it?" Hoo boy. Nice.
I think that poor ol' closeted Anderson Cooper was having flashbacks of the year before and probably was praying that it wouldn't go any farther. Meanwhile, those of us watching this unfold were praying it would go farther. We wanted it to go really far. We wanted her to continue to act as if she had just been liberated from lifelong deafness and was hearing the spoken word for the very first time. That's what we wanted. Sadly, it didn't go that way.
Anderson acknowledged her "curiosity" by simply bowing his head (likely asking the gods for forgiveness and praying that he either keeps his job or finally loses the New Year's gig) and moving onto the next picture while muttering, "You're terrible...." Good cover, Anderson. I wonder if Kathy will come up with something that clever when she is inevitably asked about it?
Well, in a statement released by her publicist on Friday, she didn't just come up with something that clever; she came up with something more clever. According to the AP, she responded to this incident with the following: "Like every other serious reporter covering the now infamous balloon boy hoax, I struggled to pronounce his name 'Falcon' correctly and have gotten a kick out of how many ways I've heard it pronounced by other serious reporters. Just add me to that list and happy new year!"
It's hard to know where to start with that obviously sarcastic and non-serious statement. There's the hilarious reference to her being a "serious reporter". (Then again, there's the hilarious reference to everyone else who covered that ridiculous story as a "serious reporter" as well.) There's also the implication that she was "covering" the story. She was barely having a conversation, let alone covering anything. But my favorite was the assertion that the name/word/bird "Falcon" is difficult to pronounce. You know, more people had difficulty pronouncing the family's last name of "Heene"
than they did have trouble pronouncing "Falcon". Tell me, just how many ways are there that "Falcon" can be pronounced? Let's see...there's falcon. That's one. And then there's...oh, that's right. THAT'S IT! That's the only way! What else could there be? Fulcrum? You're going to tell me they named their poor child after a lever mechanism? Falco? How into the 80s would his parents have had to be to name him after the one-hit wonder Rock Me Amadeus guy? (Very. Very into the 80s and probably very stoned as well.) Falcon. There's one pronunciation and we all know it. Well, we all know it. Let's just hope that the guys at the FAA don't know it because if CNN gets fined and she gets booted from the New Year's Eve gig then the tradition will never have a chance to properly flourish! And after the year that we just had, we need as much possible flourishment in the upcoming year as we can possibly get. And if it has to be through the means of a raunchy, D-List comedienne dropping a f-bomb at some point during the last night of the year, then so be it.
You've gotta love Kathy Griffin, don't you? You do. Trust me, you do. Even if you don't , you know you do. She's awesome. What's not to love? She tells it like it is with language saltier than that of the saltiest sailor, she's pretty damn funny, she titles her albums things like 'Strong Black Woman' (and if you have seen Kathy Griffin ever you know that about the one thing that she is not is a strong, black woman), and she has built her career around her own shortcomings. Oh, if we could all only be so fortunate as to figure out how to do such a thing and be successful at it. (Sure, I've tried, but one of my shortcomings is shortcoming. It's sort of a conundrum wrapped in an enigma or a blanket or something. Either way, it ain't happenin' any time soon for me like that!) Oh, and Kathy Griffin is also the heir apparent to the Fag Hag Throne whenever it's vacated by Cher. She'll do just fine (only without the singing, the long black hair and that short little guy. Oh, wait. Cher doesn't have him either. Never mind.) She's great. Please, give her more events to host. Or to win. Soon!
You may or may not be aware of Kathy's mark that she has made at the Emmy awards in the past couple of years. Aside from asking stars on the red carpet for their opinions about 12-year old Dakota Fanning being in rehab (she wasn't, but how funny is that?!), or causing a "scene" (which she had planned out ahead of time if she lost) when her Emmy nominated show (My Life on the D-List) lost to Extreme Home Makeover or some tear-jerking/feel good reality show like that, it's even better when she wins! When her show did win for Best Reality Series and she accepted the award, her speech went something like this: "A lot of people come up here and they thank Jesus for this award. I want you to know that no one had less to do with this award than Jesus. He didn't help me a bit. If it were up to him, Cesar Milan would be up here with that damn dog. So all I can say is "Suck it, Jesus! This award is my God now!" If you're interested in the real thing, the video clip is below. I highly recommend it, as it's quite funny. Of course, I was one of the ten or so people that actually thought so, apparently.
I mean, can you imagine? People being offended? Go figure. Naturally, those words were cut from the telecast (but, mind you, a video called "Dick in a Box" can WIN an Emmy and that seems to be just fine because apparently things are rather bass-ackwards in the censorship department at the Emmys) because they might "offend" people. When asked about that possibility Kathy Griffin replied, "I hope I offended some people. I didn't want to win the Emmy for nothing." You're starting to like her more, aren't you? I told you so! Oh, and according to Reuters, naturally a "...Roman Catholic group, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, which condemned Griffin's remarks as "obscene and blasphemous." Of course they did. It wouldn't be a controversy if some group didn't have to pipe up and be offended all over the place. Spare me. "Griffin's reaction to the imbroglio, according to a statement issued by her publicist: "Am I the only Catholic left with a sense of humor?" " Most excellent. Rock on, funny woman. Rock on! So she did.
Somehow she ended up hosting the New Year's Eve Ball Drop in New York City with a one Anderson Cooper (whose mother is....? Gloria Vanderbilt, that is correct. Who knew? Just a little bit of trivia that you won't find in other blog posts about Kathy Griffin. Keep it in mind. You might need it someday.). Now, her show might be called "My Life on the D-List" but the "D" is just a "D". It's not supposed to stand for anything! It's not supposed to be her signature letter or anything! She might have forgotten that part. Or, at the very least, she might have forgotten that she had TV cameras pointed at her in the middle of the night, outside, in a very, very cold New York as she hosted this Ball Drop thing.
OK, so there she is with Anderson Cooper and they're just chatting it up right before they go to a commercial and some observer who had been...well, observing was giving her a hard time. So as the picture fades to the live aerial shot as they go to commercial, Kathy must have thought her mike was off. That could explain why she chose then to go off on the guy. Then again, just being Kathy Griffin could explain why she chose then to go off on the guy. Regardless as to the reason, the retort was priceless. It was also the first live, on-air, "swearing" of 2009. Ring it in, Griffin!
She said, "Shut up!! Do you know what? Screw you! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, buddy!? I don't go to your job and knock the d**ks out of your mouth." Welcome, 2009!! Quick! Check out the video clip of it below before the FCC has their obligatory heart attack over something like this and pulls it!
I will say that I would have been a little disappointed if that was all that she said that was controversial during the entire time she was on Anderson Cooper's show. But I'm not disappointed because that wasn't all she said! Oh, no! That's right! There's more! She apparently said that she wanted to "get a pap smear from Dr. Sanjay Gupta (the CNN medical reporter)." And she also referred to Glenn Beck (who used to host a show on CNN) as a "heroin addict Mormon." Excellent.
On her website, Kathygriffin.net, there's really not much of a mention that she said "d*ck", "pap smear" and "heroin addict Mormon". Probably because it's just another day in the life of Kathy Griffin, not "controversial news" like some media outlets would like everyone to believe (because they believe it). And news or not, just keep putting her in front of the cameras. She has bills to pay just like everyone else, you know. And who doesn't need entertainment? Crass, foul-mouthed entertainment. We all do! Just go easy on her, FCC guys. Just because she said "d*ck" and it wasn't followed by "in a box" doesn't mean that you need to make a big deal about it. Should she put it to music next time? Would that help? I thought so. Excellent.
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