Mark McGrath Joins 'Extra'

Talk about selling out!

Every opportunity McGrath has had to sell out, he has taken it. The first Sugar Ray album was skateboard metal. It tanked. That just wouldn't do. So for the second album the band recorded a cut called "Fly" which was an obvious concocted pop hit. The rest of the album was more like the previous. The single exploded but no more hits emerged from the rest of the record. So what did McGrath & Co. do? They ditched their old sound, the one created in rehearsal and gigging for a new sound, one created in the studio with help from a producer. The third album was chock full of cuts that sounded like "Fly" and spawned four hit singles. At the same time, McGrath started appearing on game shows and the cover of Seventeen.

Being from California, stardom was the goal, not rock cred. Now McGrath - who has a speech impediment not usually found among tv anchors - is covering up the tats with Versace and kissing ass.

Would I do the same thing if I could?

Damn right I would!

Bush: My Duty is to Protect America

After a slow start - like most Bush speeches - he picks up steam and let's 'em have it.

The two gate crashers worry me. I thought a fine-toothe cmb was in place there.

Big time!

Cheney is very statesmanlike. He gave a very similar speech when I saw him at David Vitter's fundraiser. If it works, it works.

Zell-ing it like it is

"Spitball" in Kerry's face...pow!

Holy mackerel!

Anne Rice on Gibson's The Passion of the Christ

Posted on Amazon.com, no less:

The Film is a Masterpiece. See it. August 31, 2004
Reviewer:Anne Obrien Rice (New Orleans, LA United States)

"Gibson created something of enduring magnificence. He did it with intense focus, and total commitment. The refusal of much of the intelligensia to engage in responsible dialogue about this film revealed immense hypocracy and cynicism. The violence is not a legitimate issue. Prime Time television with it crime show obsessions centered on killing children is so much more truly violent as to make public discussions of the cruelty in the Passion of the Christ ridiculous. The Passion achieves a near impossible goal: the accurate dipiction of a first century execution and an embracing vision of the moment that changed the history of the western world, as remembered by those who insist upon that event's unchanging religious significance. Whatever your beliefs, or lack of beliefs, it's worth your respect and attention. It's absurd to think children will be harmed by this movie when network television spews lurid stories of kidnapping, maiming, rape, and murder into our homes every night. The film has set a new and very high standard for religious films and identified a huge audience that hungers for spiritual content in media."

Wow. Hunger is the precise correct term. I know what that hunger feels like, and moreover what its abscence feels like. Politically, Mrs. Rice and I are on opposite sides, I actually enjoy eating at Al Copeland's restaurants, and I prefer her son's novel to any of her work. Yet like all good writers, she has crystallized a situation in few words and scored a direct hit into my psyche. Bravo and God bless.