THE URBAN I-TIE

I’m not a Jimmy Kimmel fan but this video montage is pretty funny. 

Now, that you’ve had a good chuckle….Bolivia’s president wasn’t attacking homosexuals or anything to that extent during the World People’s Summit on Climate Change.  He was speaking about genetically modified foods and the hormones that are injected in chickens (female hormones) which may change the body.  What Kimmel or no one else failed to talk about was President Morales’ comment on Coca-Cola (which he called”the poor-man’s Draino) or how severe climate change is affecting Bolivia.  But no, that’s not funny enough, I guess.

Ohhh, one of my favourite times of year - the Oscar aka Academy Award Nominations are in!!!  Some of the highlights are:

Best Actress

◙   Gabourey Sidibe – ‘Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire’
◙   Meryl Streep – ‘Julie & Julia’
◙   Helen Mirren – ‘The Last Station’
◙   Carey Mulligan – ‘An Education’
◙   Sandra Bullock – ‘The Blind Side’

Best Picture

◙  ’Avatar’
◙   ‘The Blind Side’
◙   ‘District 9′
◙   ‘An Education’
◙   ‘Up’
◙   ‘The Hurt Locker’
◙   ‘Inglourious Basterds’
◙   ‘Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire’
◙   ‘A Serious Man’
◙   ‘Up in the Air’

Best Director

◙   Lee Daniels for ‘Precious: Based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire’
◙   James Cameron for ‘Avatar’
◙   Kathryn Bigelow for ‘The Hurt Locker’
◙   Quentin Tarantino for ‘Inglourious Basterds’
◙   Jason Reitman for ‘Up in the Air’

….and so much more!!!  Check out the full list of nominations here.  Oscars air on Sunday, March 7th.

A couple of nights ago there were two telethons on tv (that I watched at least), Canada for Haiti and Hope for Haiti.  In case music or celebrity-ism gets you motivated to give to those who are in desperate need of help such as the country of Haiti, then these telethons should have done just that!  In my opinion, they achieved quite a bit of financial success; Hope for Haiti - lead by the man, George Clooney himself and a few of his A-lister friends, and Canada for Haiti - which included the big 3 tv networks in Canada (CTV, Global, CBC) and Canadian celebrities.  Both telethons (shown at different times, of course) had some really great and powerful performances from people like Alicia Keys, Jay-Z/Bono/Rihanna, Dave Matthews & Neil Young, Nelly Furtado, K’naan and so many others.  Hope for Haiti so far has raised over $57 million dollars and Canada for Haiti, over $27 million.  Canadians as a whole have currently donated $67 million, and the Federal government will be matching those donations, dollar-for-dollar.

In the end, there will always be that smalllll hint of doubt, whether or not the money will be allocated to the right people to do a lot of good and help hundreds of thousands of people who don’t have the means to survive at this point.  It will take quite some time for recovery to begin in Haiti but I hope that the world continues to reach out and help Haiti.

Damn, I was just thinking about ‘City High’ (an R&B/hip-hop group from back in the day…well, 2001) when one of their songs, Caramel, came on my iPod.  Now, he’s going to be on A&E’s “Intervention” for alcohol addiction. Very sad to see…hope he gets better soon.

“5’5 with brown eyes, smile like the sunrise.”

For those fellow Canadians who watch Citytv programming, especially in Vancouver and Toronto, there are going to be some drastic and saddening changes.  Citytv announced today that they’re eliminating local newscasts in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary.  Toronto is also greatly affected as there will no longer be the 12 or 5 o’clock news, Citynews International and possibly weekend newscasts.

What’s the most shocking is they laid off Toronto TV/journalist /reporter legend Anne Mroczkowski, who was with City for over 30 years.  They also let go one of my other fave reporters, Laura DiBattista who’s been with the company since 1983.  In total about 60 jobs will be lost, with about 35 coming from T.O.  I knew Rogers was going to do something dumb to mess up things after they bought the company in 2007.

I’ve heard he’s not as nice/personable in person, compared to how he’s portrayed in this segment.  Will he get back into the acting game or just stick to music?  I guess we’ll all have to wait and see..

‘Jersey Shore’.  I’m sure you’ve heard of it by now.  First of all, I need to say that as someone who is of Italian descent, those douchebags that MTV hired and paid to act like fools, are not only giving a horrible image of people who are from New Jersey, they’re also tarnishing the image of Italians…especially American-Italians.  As one of my friend’s would say, way too much ‘fist pumping’ for me.  Just ridonculous stupidness, if there’s even such a thing.  Not to mention, it can lead to lower intelligence for a moment of time, especially if you watch an entire episode.  Even after 30 seconds of it, you’re lost.  Prime example, the interview they had on ‘Chelsea Lately’.

But seriously, has the MTV audience and the company themselves, lost all common sense or even the care to judge and create programming that’s a bit more intellectually-stimulating?  Or better yet, play music videos again!!!!!  Go back to square one – what you started off being really good at.  That would be nice instead of supposed ‘entertainment’ that is simply a waste of television, period.  Please MTV, stop the shit shows you come up with and actually put on the air.  Stop embarassing yourselves.

I watched this the other night on American Idol but I still can’t get over General Larry Platt — he’ll probably be the best part of this season (or maybe the last season?) of Idol….he’s my life.

Man, where to begin.  2009 has definitely been an eventful, tragic, random and strange year, to say the least.  I know there are dozens and dozens of ‘top 10′ this and ‘top 10′ that, but this is my retrospective on 2009.

◙   The tragic and sudden death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.  This most certainly tops my list for what has happened in 2009, and I don’t care what anyone says.  People are still talking about it and he passed away on June 25.  Even though the rest of the family (ie. his brothers and Latoya) have tried to monopolize on their brother’s death, is tacky and distasteful, it still doesn’t downplay the fact that he’s gone. 

◙   The continuation of the stupid recession aka economic downturn aka tough economic times.  Glad that we don’t hear those statements every two seconds in the media, but it still negatively effected all of us, especially those who lost their jobs and are still struggling to make ends meet.  I empathize with you completely and I hope 2010 treats you much better.

◙   What goes hand-in-hand with tough economic times?  Douchebag fraudsters who deserve all the pain and suffering = Bernie Madoff, for example, or even Earl Jones, who was dubbed the ‘Canadian Madoff’ – he wasn’t as successful in milking billions like Madoff was.  Succkkeerrss…

◙   Whitney Houston’s comeback post-crack-chronic-Bobby Brown. 

◙   The fast-unravelling of Tiger Woods’ life and bag of dirty secrets: the pathetic ‘accident’ he had in front of his house; the few dozen women who’ve come out admitting to their affairs with him, the loss of his big endorsements and his indefinite leave from pro golf.  Hahahahaha another sucker!!  Elin, take him to the cleaners, girl!!!

◙   The neverending steroid saga in baseball….shouldn’t have been a surprise that the Yankees won the World Series this past year.  A-Rod loves steroids and I’m sure the rest of the team relishes in them too.  Woopdeedoooo!

◙   Who could forget (I almost did) the passing of the best ad-man of all time — Billy Mays.  Oxyclean will never be the same without him; frankly no cheesy infomercial is the same without “Billy Mays here!!”.

◙   The volatile and wonky stock market – from hitting record lows to silly highs (can we say Apple or Google stocks??).  If you were brave enough (or had some really good insider tips) and managed to keep your investments in the market throughout the rollercoaster, you probably made some good $$$$. 

◙   From Lady Gaga, Drake, Adam Lambert’s steamy AMA performance, to hearing more crappy Miley Cyrus songs on the radio, and who can forget Kanye’s “Imma let you finish” moment….the music world has seen some definite action this year.  Drake, hurry up and release your album already – we’re all patiently waiting, friend; the mixtapes aren’t cutting it anymore.

◙   Oh, as much as I want to forget this – the ‘big 3′ automakers asking for their ridonculous and uncalled-for bailouts.  We taxpayers will be paying for that crap for the next 20 years…..bureaucracy democracy!!!

◙   Susan Boyle made waves with millions and millions of hits on youtube and setting records for album sales in the UK and the US.  Another lesson to Simon Cowell and the rest of the world – don’t judge a book by its cover.

◙   The television world had some new life breathed into it with ‘Glee’ being brought to the airways.  Alongside the last episode/series finale of The Sopranos, and ‘Glee’, they both contributed to “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, becoming the most downloaded song in iTunes history.  Personally, I think The Sopranos had more to do with it…..

◙   Ellen DeGeneres finally joined Miss Oprah Winfrey on the cover of ‘O Magazine’, being only the second person to join Oprah on the cover (after First Lady Michelle Obama, of course).  Congrats again, Ellen!!

***Dang, how could I forget – honourable mentions, so to speak:
- Balloon Boy:  it’ll never be referred as the Seinfeld character anymore…
- Chris Brown & Riiiihanna draaaaama : hit her again, and slap some steak on it!  or did she hit him too?  Draaama.
- The passing of numerous stars: Charlie’s best and original angel, Farrah Fawcett, and one of the coolest US politicians ever, Edward “Ted” Kennedy…In addition to Patrick Swayze (I’ll heart Dirty Dancing forever!) and Natasha Richardson, most famous for her role as Lindsay Lohan’s mother in The Parent Trap.
- President Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize??  Still scratching my head on that one…

I’m not surprised, at all!  Tyra Banks has announced that her talk show will be no more after next spring.  Is she copying Oprah or the fact that her show lacks a lot of substance and hires extremely bad actors?  Apparently, ratings weren’t that bad but I’m sure her show titled “race in your face” didn’t help much – don’t worry, you aren’t missing out on much if you didn’t see it; it’ll only make your IQ drop about 50 points.  She should stick to what she knows  – and that’s being ‘fierce’ aka modelling….

2 cast members from “I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here” are being charged with animal cruelty after killing and cooking a rat so they can eat it.  This time, the show is being filmed in Australia.  Sounds like the producers are desperate for ratings – so why not make people cook and eat rat?  Just gross.

MTV has outdone themselves this time around with their ‘reality tv’ programming (major sarcasm).  “Jersey Shore” is their latest; about 10 supposed strangers who all rent the same beach house…you guessed it, on the Jersey shore and they all happen to have Italian backgrounds.  Except these trashy individuals like to call themselves and other Italians, guidos.  I can’t deal with the gross fake tans (someone needs to send an international memo: looking orange is NOT cool!) and can’t forget how bad they all dress (to think they all believe they look ‘hot’).  If you’re looking to watch something that doesn’t make you think, this is a good way to waste some time.