Obama to struggling Americans: "BUH bye!"

You know that SNL sketch where David Spade and Helen Hunt are flight attendants who absolutely refuse to acknowledge any question their passengers have beyond saying"BUH bye"?

That's basically what it's like to watch President Obama talk about the economy.

For those of you who didn't see his town hall on CNBC last week, the meeting basically went like this:

A veteran who is struggling to make ends meet begs President Obama to tell her if this is "her new reality."
Obama: You're the bedrock of America!

A young law school graduate who can't afford to pay the interest on his loans, get a house mortgage, or even start a family asks Obama if the American Dream is dead for him.
Obama: You're the bedrock of America!

To be fair, he did say more. For example, he told the struggling veteran that "times are tough for everyone."  And the law school graduate who said he couldn't afford marriage?  "I'm not going to comment on that!" joked Obama.

The whole thing was basically a chance for Obama to reassure Americans that things are just fine. Calmly and repeatedly. 

In short, it appears we have elected the presidential equivalent of Total Bastard Airlines.  

In comedy, I learned that if you say something and people don't laugh, it's not funny.  (Actually, it is funny. Very funny. And someday they will all know.)

I know that comedy is a matter of taste, but if an American feels unemployed, then they probably are. 
I can't say I have patience for the argument that the economy has been headed toward disaster for a long time and that it's tough to undo.  That's an argument you and I can make because we're lazy and we aren't President.  


People who are President are, like, supposed to try.   It isn't trying to release a statement saying you are "enormously pleased" with Larry Sumners for his "experience, brilliance and judgment." 

It also isn't helpful to hold a series of agonizingly staged publicity stunts (visiting homes of real Americans!)

According to the New York Times, Obama first went to the backyard of Paul and Frances Brayshaw of Falls Church, VA, where

"Half the guests were neighbors of the Brayshaws; the other half — who, along with the president, did all the talking — were handpicked by the administration and came from around the country to share exactly the kind of stories the White House wants to tell, personal tales of how the bill had improved their lives."

Knocking on people's doors so you can explain how helpful you are.  That's not a solution. That's the world's most useless Publisher's Clearinghouse. 

As Paul Krugman said last month, Administration officials insist that

"The economy is continuing to recover, albeit more slowly than they would like. Unfortunately, that’s not true: this isn’t a recovery, in any sense that matters. And policy makers should be doing everything they can to change that fact."

Maybe McCain would have been worse, but who cares? Since when does being a safer bet than that old guy and that scary lady who sees Russia from her house make you good?

 There is more to helping people than repeating the same infuriating platitudes, over and over again.  But in the meantime, thank you for voting the blue skies of Total Bastard.

2010 VMAs: no, we still don't know what the "M" stands for.

As it turns out, if you have an awards show devoted to honoring music videos, it helps to have played some of them.  


Since the 1990s, The VMAs have been the People's Choice Awards of Music. Except that last time I checked, people still exist, while on MTV, music does not.   

As a result, despite the coked-up DJs screaming into the mike that this was the most exciting, fresh, in-your-face night of the year, there was something sort of off about the whole thing.  

First, there was the Red Carpet, during which MTV "DJs" (I'm putting this in quotes because DJs usually do something distantly related to music) yelled that the crowd behind them was losing their minds as the biggest stars in the world arrived.  Unfortunately, saying something does not make it true, and the girls behind her seemed much happier texting than hearing Snookie talk about her spray-tan.  

Another DJ yelled about how happy she was the the fans had taken a vote to decide her Red Carpet outfit, which appeared to be a shapeless potato sack with glitter-nipples, so I'm thinking the fans pulled a fast one.  


Despite being the Dementor of artistic integrity, MTV still manages to unite music lovers.  That is because -- whether you are a rocker or rapper -- performers of every stripe can agree that sharing the red carpet with the cast of Jersey Shore makes you feel worthless.

Needless to say, many of the stars looked uncomfortable.  At least as uncomfortable as anyone with standards looks when appearing on the same network as the new reality show "Bret Michaels: Life as I Know It."

To present the awards, MTV booked cool stars like Ellen who -- like all stars who don't exist solely to sell Proactive -- fell into that "I'm not here" monotone celebrities use when it hits them that they're onstage at an awards show that nominated Ke$ha. 

The tension was alleviated slightly by host Chelsea Handler, who -- while she was not able to conceal how desperately she wanted to not be there -- won the crowd over by swearing up and down that the cast of Jersey Shore had herpes.  It got awkward when it was clear she wasn't kidding. And that she followed up by accusing Justin Beiber of being a 28-year-old lesbian. 

So nothing that interesting happened unless you count the fact that -- sometime between now and 1986, the year she was born -- Lindsay Lohan has managed to turn 80.  

Lady Gaga, as always, was very gracious about the awards she won.  One of them she shared with her fans, saying "looks like we're winners!" Though, last time I checked, spending $80 on a T-shirt that says "Haus of Gaga" on it doesn't make you a winner.

In the end, the VMAs was a bizarre collection of celebrities grimacing their way through feigned excitement.  And while we may not know what the 'M' in MTV stands for, it may just stand for 'boring.'  At least until they come up with a category for Snookie's spray-tan.

'Going the Distance' aka 'Yes, Drew Barrymore is a Journalist. Again.'

As we all know, the best part of seeing a movie is not the movie itself, but rather the part afterward where you pretend you could have done better via bitchy, self-righteous blogging.

Last weekend, I saw Going the Distance, starring Drew "I'm indie because I wear baggy pants" Barrymore and Justin "cute and Jewish with bangs" Long. 

Going the Distance is the inspiring story of Erin and Garrett, two people who fall madly in love but  -- while they don't appear to have any real obligations or debt -- would sort of rather stay in their respective cities.  A doomed romance on the order of Love Story. Or, like, Gigli.

The film starts with Justin Long making out with the dark-haired girl from Gossip Girl.  Creepy, but not as creepy as Michael Douglas making out with a girl who was born in 1989 (Solitary Man deadens you to everything).

Garrett can't commit, as proven by his two wacky best friends who spend five minutes saying things along the lines of, "Oh, Garrett! You can't commit!" But, like, wackier.

Enter Erin.  Like every Drew Barrymore character in the universe, Erin is funky, independent, and rocks outfits that would make anyone else look like a lesbian from the 80s.

Also like every Drew Barrymore character in the universe, Erin wants to be a writer.  Why?  Because when Drew Barrymore was a small child, someone held a gun to her head told her that playing a writer is the height of being funky and independent.

Erin and Garrett meet a dive-bar, where Garrett falls for Erin's funky-independent-ness and Erin falls for Justin Long's ability to sort of look like Ross from Friends.  

After an edgy night of beer, Pac Man and trivia, Erin and Garrett go back to Garrett's apartment, where we learn that Garrett is a quirky guy because he has a poster of Lenny Bruce hanging above his bed.

Despite the edgy, quirky funkiness, Going the Distance did have a few of the familiar Rom Com conventions, such as:

Ruthlessly efficient falling-in-love montage
Coming up with a meaningful way to demonstrate deepening love can be so darn hard.  That's why God invented the split-screen montage! That's when they're not only falling in love via Coney Island, they're also falling in love via Top of the Rock.  The Cure is playing too loudly for you to hear what they're saying, but you can tell by Garrett and Erin's carefree ocean frolicking that they're meant to be. 

Neurotic best friend with slightly bigger gums
The lead girl must have a slightly uglier sidekick.  Which is why they turned the stunning Christina Applegate into a shrill, obsessive-compulsive harpy who hates sex.

Cast of people who are supposed to be "quirky" but are actually so annoying you feel like you're being abused.  
Just your usual stoner waiter who thinks 2010 jug wine is the best thing ever.  And the best friend of the neurotic best friend?  Barely human. 

"Mumblecore" Dialogue
The kind of banter that when you overhear it at a restaurant, you think, "That could totally be in a movie!", but when you're paying $12.50, you realize it really, really can't.  Too good to be true, not interesting enough to be fake. Sort of like Juno.  Though at least Juno didn't wear a sexy, post-ironic bow tie.

Alternate universe where whatever problem the main couple is going through is the worst problem in the world
What's that you say, reader? Family and friends tend to not really care if you're in a long-distance relationship?  Not so in Going the Distance a.k.a. Crazy Angry Anti-Long-Distance Relationship World where in order of badness, it goes long distance relationship, holocaust, oil spill.
Needless to say, there was a lot of people saying, "Wait, you're in a long-distance relationship?" the way most people would say, "You buried that body in the yard? aren't you worried the police will find you?"  That's the way they roll in Crazy Angry Anti-Long-Distance Relationship World.

Metaphorical Asian
If there's one hard lesson I learned growing up, it's that not all Asians are metaphors. Luckily, they are in the movies. So when Garrett is playing Pac Man at the dive bar where he met his now ex-girlfriend Erin, he of course meets an Asian who tells him the errors of his ways coded in a discussion about Erin's impressive Pac Man scores.  "That's a hard one to beat," the Asian said meaningfully.  Needless to say, it resonated with Garrett on many levels.

So Garrett and Erin spend a long time figuring out what to do, but neither of them want to move because it's just sort of inconvenient, y'know?

In the end, they do manage to solve the problem in the least satisfying way possible.  Which makes you regret the 90 minutes you spent trying to convince yourself that Drew Barrymore went to Stanford Journalism School.

So Going the Distance. Not the best movie in the world.

It could be worse, though. Drew Barrymore could actually be writing.