TV is my crack – at least certain shows, but this summer, only three are on my list. :( But DWTS starts up soon, so here goes!

Sorry, no Sarah cartoon today, but I found this on Facebook – the best dancing dog video I’ve ever seen. Look at his tail wagging the whole time! It brought tears to my eyes!

And Television Without Pity is my favorite place to play. So, anyway, lots of guessing about who the pros and who the stars will be each season, and last week it was rumored that Bristol Palin will be one of the “stars”!

Now, we all know she isn’t a star. At all. I think it’s terrible she wasn’t using birth control, and I do believe in abortion, which I know disappoints some conservative readers, but there you go. She’s just a kid.

But how fun would it be to see lovely Sarah each week in the audience, however long Bristol can be voted to stay in?! Ooh, I just found that I made a joke about Sarah and Obama on Dancing with the Stars back in 2008. How prescient am I?!

From a commenter at TWOP:

Bristol Palin would be a dealkiller for me. The message would be: get knocked up as a teenager and have a fundie lunatic for a mother and you too can be on Dancing with the Stars. Apparently ABC wants to give Sarah Palin free publicity because you know that every show will include at least 5 shots of her sitting in the front row.

No thanks.

—————-

I have nothing against Bristol, it’s better than if we end up with some Jersey Shore moron. And Sarah tends to stick to FOX News since they gave her that fat contract, so we may not see her as much as you think.

———————

I thought it was tough to watch Heather Mills, I thought it was tough to watch Tom Delay. Kate Gosselin almost did me in. I’m sure Bristol is a nice person but…maybe I should take this season off.

I liked Heather Mills and Tom Delay, and even Kate! So this might be a good season for me!

Other stars rumored to be on the show, according to Daily Kos:

A friend at ABC Entertainment informs me that Bernadine Dohrn, professor and former Weather Underground militant, is among contestants soon to be announced for “Dancing with the Stars.”

Along with Dohrn, the newly added contestants include:

Chris Kattan, comic actor
Nastia Liukin, Olympic Gold Medal gymnast
Ron Gettelfinger, former union president

They join the “stars” announced earlier:

Bristol Palin
David Hasselhoff
Brandy, R&B singer
Audrina Partridge of “The Hills”
Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino

Politico reports it, too. But I don’t believe the rest of this list at all. ABC keeps the cast under tight wraps, and always lists fake ones each year! The leaks this year are coming mostly from Twitter – actors and dancers cannot keep their mouths shut. (Who didn’t know that?)

Other rumors:

I’m not sure how credible Star magazine is, but according to them, Audrina, Jennifer Grey and Florence Henderson are signed up for this season.

Michael Bolton & Kym
Rick Fox & Edyta
Mike “The Situation” & Cheryl
Kurt Warner & Cheslie
David Hasselhoff & Karina
Troy Aikmen (or whatever male star) & Lacey

Bristol Palin & Mark
Brandy & Maks (just don’t give my girl Alec lol)
Margret Cho & Louis
Florence Henderson & Derek (one can hope right lol)
Jennifer Grey & Tony
Audrina Patridge & Alec

There will be a Press Conference! tonight on Bachelor Pad about the cast, so stay tuned!

More cartoons:

1. Dancing With the Stars leeches off of The Bachelor. Thanks, ABC.
2. Debating candidates for Dancing with the Stars cartoon.

goodbye lost cartoon

Haven’t watched the finale yet, but they said on Jimmy Kimmel that Vincent will live. Good boy.

After watching it: It made me cry buckets, but I was unhappy in a fan/writer/shipper way that is longer lasting. That was not an ending I appreciate, after watching for 6 years.

Tom Richmond, a famous MAD cartoonist with a very active blog, wrote a good summary here. (He writes at one point that he doesn’t watch much TV, but that’s my line, and we know that ain’t true!)

My comment I left there:

I loved this show – it showed that television can be art. Every other show will be held up to this one, and it’s good to have something to aspire to.

This season kind of sucked – the mystical temple, magic waters, and mythology was overdone and hammered into the scripts.

I don’t know anyone who didn’t get the ending – it’s pretty obvious if anyone watched the series, or even this season. But the NYT poll said only 2/3 of the viewers liked the ending, and I’m in the unhappy part. First of all, when I say I want a happy ending, I don’t want the protagonist to DIE in the last 5 minutes.

And is there really a happy? Because if Jack’s OWN SON wasn’t real in the sideways world, who’s to say all the happy reunions were real? Okay, he gains his LOST pals, but loses a son. Yeah, maybe the son wasn’t real, but then what about all the people we know? Logic disconnect.

I’ll write more in my TV blog, when I get time.

As far as the science mentioned here…

Molecular biologist J. Craig Venter, the primary author of the report detailing the findings, described the converted cell as “the first self-replicating species we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.”

Not that impressive, it turns out: the inside part is artificial, but it still lives in a real cell! Spin, much?

More cartoons:

1. Will Sarah Palin show up in Dancing with the Stars?
2. Dancing With the Stars leeches off of The Bachelor. Thanks, ABC.

Before Haiti, it was all about the Jay Leno – Conan O’Brien scuffle. (With Carson Daly thrown in the mix somehow, but I’ve never watched him… and some other talk show host I never watch.) I didn’t know if this was a real news story – I mean, networks move stuff around all the time, because they’re as bad at guessing as the rest of us, and does anyone really care about late night talk shows?

Well there’s sure been a lot of buzz about it, so, yeah.

And the letter that Conan wrote was kind of fun and sly! For some reason the Times has parsed it, as if we couldn’t understand the original FU letter, which was perfectly direct, well-mannered, and open.

In a scathing letter addressed to the “People of Earth,” O’Brien ripped into NBC for undercutting his brief reign at “The Tonight Show” with a move that he said would “seriously destroy” what he called “the greatest franchise in the history of broadcasting.”

“I grew up watching Johnny Carson every night and the chance to one day sit in that chair has meant everything to me,” O’Brien said. “I worked long and hard to get that opportunity, passed up far more lucrative offers, and since 2004 I have spent literally hundreds of hours thinking of ways to extend the franchise long into the future.”

Today the Times announced that Conan O’Brien is definitely being kicked out, fired, or paid off so King Leno can do his thing. What a surprise. Like we couldn’t see that coming.

NBC said early Thursday that it has reached a deal with “The Tonight Show” host Conan O’Brien for his exit from the show, allowing Jay Leno to return to the late-night program he hosted for 17 years.

Poor Coco. No, that’s not my pet name for Conan, but apparently his fans think Conan is too ethnic or something, so they call him that on Twitter.

Even though I never ever watched Conan O-Brien more than once or twice, I still feel resentful towards Jay Leno now. What is wrong with me?

Cartoon Caption: Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien, Late night, 12:35 PM, Midnight, etc.

“Just tell me. Who will sing me to sleep each night?”

I read an article that no one likes changes of  late night shows. You’re in your nightgown or pjs, things are winding down, you don’t want to think about work the next day, you either are or you aren’t looking forward to sex before bedtime, and it’s best that TV just give you a routine, and put you to bed.

What is that baby doing, exactly? I shudder to think. I redrew Jay Leno in a later version of this, but I do think Conan came off very well.

I wasn’t thinking of the bands and singers they have on late night programs, as I meant this metaphorically, but as so often happens, that works, too!

More cartoons:

1. Who’s your rac-ist?
2. Meg Whitman’s maid has nothing on John and Ken.

I see Top of the Ticket in the LA Times just reviewed Going Rogue: An American Life. No, not really! Instead, Andrew Malcolm just quoted from a review in the WaPo written by Ana Marie Cox, the original Wonkette from Gawker.

One thing is clear: No one can say today with any certainty what lies ahead in national politics for the hockey mom and Todd’s biggest snow-machine racer fan.

Now, one minor disclaimer: We haven’t actually read Palin’s new book. Not one single page. We have a copy. We intend to read it. And we imagine it’s fairly entertaining, perhaps revealing, as self-serving inside political stories go. We may even autograph it to ourselves from her.

Also, hopefully, it’s short on exclamation marks!!!

But after reading the Washington Post’s review of “Going Rogue” the other day and the reviewer’s candid confession that she hadn’t really had time to finish the book that she was writing so authoritatively about, we realized this is the latest thing in U.S. society and journalism.

Why bother reading any of it? Just talk about it.

Well, if I get a review copy – and I don’t know why I would, although that would be swell – I’ll review it here! Go, Sarah, Go!

Meanwhile, let’s see if it turns up in Oprah’s Book Club…

To set up the drawing, I wanted to pay homage to a wonderful painting of Soul or Spirit touching man, when their fingers almost touch, but I can’t find the name of it or a photo of it! I saw it in the Huntington, I think. Does anyone know the name of that painting?

Instead I found this, The Creation of Man by Michelangelo, a fresco in the Sistine Chapel. Okay, Oprah as G-d! I love it! And at the last minute I tossed her book in, as if she was playing booksie with Oprah. I think there is some great strong tension in this cartoon. Happy.

Photo of Michelangelo borrowed from here.

Cartoon caption: If Oprah can shake hands with Sarah Palin…why can’t we find peace in the Middle East?

More cartoons:

1. The vampire and Sarah Palin.
2. Do pregnant women have sex?

In this cartoon, I’m saying that they do put a negative spin on Obama (“bad info”) at times. :) But geez, everyone’s entitled to an opinion. And he hit them first! This time!

Mike Luckovich’s cartoon after the jump.

Luckovich had a cartoon with a different approach, including CNN as a casualty in the White House’s newest obsession, according to Daryl Cagle.

Cartoon from the great cagle.com.

Actually, I don’t quite get this cartoon. I thought CNN was conservative. And aren’t Fox ratings down after the White House dissed them? I guess I need interpretations of opinion cartoons, too!

Newsbusters had an interesting scoop on the White House’s attitude towards Fox as compared to MSNBC:

A senior White House advisor on Tuesday told Campbell Brown that Fox News is biased, but refused to comment when the CNN host asked her, “Well, then do you also think that MSNBC is biased?”During a taped interview at the Woman’s Conference in California later broadcast on CNN’s “Campbell Brown,” Valerie Jarrett sidestepped this marvelous question and instead haplessly said, “I don’t want to just generalize all Fox is biased or that another station is biased.”

Later Jarrett said:

So, this isn’t anything that’s simply directed at Fox. We really just want the American people to have a clear understanding. There’s so much at stake right now. We really don’t have a lot of time for nonsense and distortions.

Cartoon caption: “Obama kicks off the Fall TV season by giving bad info (oops) interviews to every network except us! That’s not Foxy. In other news, he also defriended us on Facebook.” from Fair and Foxy Fox.

Haven’t done silhouettes in forever, so this was fun. I used a texture brush for the couch. Hee!

More cartoons:

1. Obama introduces culture to the American people.
2. The Ghost of White House Christmas Trees Past.

Oh, David. First Sarah Palin, and now this. I used to think you were cool beans. Then I stopped watching you, but I still respected you. Now…

Well, what you said to Sarah was not appropriate, especially about her kid, but comedians say far worse at times. And it’s not like you’re as vulgar as Jimmy Kimmel is, at times.

But this confessing to your audience is GROSS! Don’t you know it’s wrong to hang your dirty laundry out in public?! No one cares! Tell it to your lawyer or your shrink or your manager!

And now, tonight, you even talk about how you have to make it up to your wife. OMG!!! This is not a self-help group, so just keep quiet, and STOP TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF. 

*Double X has an essay on his shenanigans in which the writer compares his self-serving monologue to a feature he does called, “Is this anything?”

When he tells us that someone has proof that he does “terrible, terrible things,” “embarrassing, terrible things,” “quite a lot of terrible stuff,” and “creepy stuff,” we are eagerly anticipating the anticlimax of the event, which, in this case, is the fact that he slept with women in his office. What could be less of a story than plain old heterosexual sex? Letterman breaks the tension and gets a big laugh and a round of applause.

Yeah, laughing out of embarrassment and sheer relief THAT HE HAS STOPPED TELLING THEM all the gritty details. Gosh, I wish the author would apply this standard of who cares about sex (she seems to hint that having plain old gay sex might be a story!)  to politicians, who invariably end up either out of work or with a sullied record on their name which never goes away. In the article, Ms. Silverman throws in the fact that he was also unfaithful to his wife, but who cares. (As it happens, I believe this all happened before he was married, so at least she isn’t hurt.)

Cartoon Caption Starring David Letterman, The Invention of Confessing. Variety: TMI, not funny LA Times: we’re not your therapist Hollywood Reporter: uses show as soapbox NY Times: employer seduces workers CBS: David who? Puff Post (who I hate, as if you didn’t know): he’s liberal, so it’s all good.

I know, he has that gap between his teeth, which I forgot to include in this cartoon, although I did for the one running in Slate now.

This ran first in Slate today! Took me a little work, but I think I played well off the popularity and top of the news movie, The Invention of Lying. Say, who wants to go with me?

More cartoons:

1. David Letterman has a secret crush on Sarah Palin.
2. Men like to talk about sex.

But I still do watch you, sometimes – love the Cousin Sal bits the most, and the Dancing with the Star losers.

I got all excited when you announced one night last week that Governor Rod Blagojevich was going to be on. I did a Blagojevich cartoon a few months ago, and was fascinated by him last winter as he got knocked down and just kept on coming. Plus, I tend to like Mafia types. Your first interview that night was a man who is married to Mariah Carey. Don’t know his name, but that’s all you talked about with him. You were all awkward, kiss-ass, and uncomfortable.

Then Ex-Governor Blagojevich came on (I think he’s ex-gov) to pitch his new book, called The Governor- so maybe he’s not an ex-governor?? I found him very interesting. He said there were a lot of secret tapes that he is NOT allowed to talk about, that would clear his name, and that the whole scandal is upside down. Hmm. I hope those tapes are in the book. So, Jimbo, you let him talk about that – and he is an interesting speaker – and then you made him talk about his hair, and how he conditions it. Funny as hell. The 2 of you hit it off, didn’t you? Youtube.

You also offered to sell the chair he was sitting in on your set, in ebay. I thought it might be a joke, but he signed it, and here it is on ebay! It’s in the closed section, so you have to be signed in to see it, I think, and it will only be up a month from now, as it just sold, so here’s the description:

- For sale: former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s seat from the set of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
- custom made
- 33″ long x 35″ deep x 35″ tall
- perfect for home, office or prison
- relatively hair-free
- start your own Smithsonian!
- celebrities who have previously sat in this seat include:
*Shaq
*Paris Hilton
*Mel Gibson
*Megan Fox
*Matthew Fox
*Jamie Foxx
*Gerard Butler
*Jonas Brothers
*Shia LaBeouf
*Tom Cruise
*Jennifer Connelly
*Denzel Washington
*Mariah Carey
*Robin Williams
*Adam Sandler
*Kobe Bryant
*Regis Philbin
*Kelly Ripa
*Seth Rogen
*Charlize Theron
*Anne Hathaway
*Eminem

All proceeds from this purchase will go toward putting people to work (as per former Governor Rod Blagojevich).

It got 67 bids and $10,200 for the people of Chicago. Good for everyone.
You got me back on this one, Jim-boy.

I write more about the hair-man – TWO men with big hair, actually – here.

More cartoons:

1. Is Blagojevich as bad as Madoff? No.
2. David Letterman has a secret crush on Sarah Palin.

obama's first 100 days

Ah, Reaper, the rare comedy-drama that works both ways, and is totally, always compelling had just recently been pronounced dead by Hollywood Reporter. If you liked  The Screwtape Letters, (yes, the same C. S. Lewis who wrote the Narnia books which are much better than The Chronicles of Narnia, because that’s for kids, but I’m a grownup) you’ll love Reaper. The Screwtape Letters is a series of letters from Uncle Screwtape, a demon, to his demon nephew, on how to do it better: that is, how to tempt man and womankind, and what evil is, and how to make it.

I don’t know if the extremely clever writers of Reaper actually read this book, but I saw that Ray Wise, the only actor in Reaper I was familiar with,  saw a lot of films with a devil to design his portrayal. And boy, does he knock it out of the park. He is the perfect devil.  And Sam is his perfect victim.

The Reaper begins with Sam, a slacker who works at a Home Depot type place because “college made him sleepy” waking up on his 21st birthday, ready for a normal day at his boring job. Then he meets the devil. Turns out his father, an attractive appealing advertising exec, promised Sam’s soul to the devil when he turned 21, in exchange for keeping his mother alive during some illness. (I think, the deal isn’t quite clear.) Sam has 2 jobs now: his job at The Bench, and his work for the devil to find different souls who have escaped from hell and bring them back. He’s allowed to let Sock and Ben, co-workers at The Bench, in on his secret, and they help him out in the chase.

One of the most beautiful things in this show is that even with the setup of a different soul (scary bad people of all types) to get every week, EACH EPISODE IS ALMOST TOTALLY SURPRISING! This is just not a predictable show. How rare is that! And thank God!

Other things I love are in the original post on my other cartoon site, Why I Did It.

Save Reaper.

Another great site on it that I highly recommend here: ReaperDMV.

And about Obama? Oh, I get cranky, but I think his 100 days went pretty good. Everyone was scared. Now they are scared and a little panicky. At least I am. So much is gone, and the new hasn’t arrived. But I really thought his bailouts went overboard, and went to all the wrong people. Let’s see if I’m proved right for the rest of the year. His rating for the first 100? B minus. That gives him lots of room for improvements.  Today it would be more like a C. Do you agree?

For cartoon fans: Lettering is super important for these Slate cartoons, as I only get 500 pix, and if you can’t read it, you can’t get it. In this case, I decided to have fun by putting it on a background of taupe brush strokes. Maybe it makes it harder to read, but if I didn’t experiment, I wouldn’t be much of an artist…

I think Obama came out pretty good. His mouth looks a little like how the talented Carol Lay draws! And again, took a chance with the turquoise couch and the lime green table and the magenta sweatshirt. Your eye kind of bounces around. Oh well, it’s like dancing – you get more points if you cover the whole floor.

Caption: “I can’t believe it’s been one hundred days, and he’s still standing. Do you think it’s like Reaper, and he made a deal with the Devil?” ©D.Barstow 2009

More cartoons:

1. Funniest dog video of 2011!
2. Making raw meat into Obama’s War Team.

TMZ broke the big story of Michael Jackson's death, but why skim over Senator mark Sanford's affair? We'll let the Democrats dig up the dirt on this one. All rights reserved ©D.Barstow

I like reporting on the media. But how many mirrors does the world really need? I don’t care, I find it fascinating to reflect on what newspeople think is news, and how they report it.

If fate is right, that means eventually someone will report on me reporting on the media reporting on the news – perhaps one of those hate liberal blogs.

I remember watching the TMZ head honcho, Harvey Levin, back when he reported on the OJ trial. He was a good reporter/lawyer. I don’t know how or when he turned to sleaze and  getting crap about celebrities, but I guess he’s a staple on Hollywood news now. I never go to the blog – too much vulgarity -but I’ve seen the TV show in passing, which spends a lot of time on a goodlooking blond photographer, who I just found in passing, from this blog, is called Max Hodges. 

Anyway, the LA Times made a big deal as to how cool it was that TMZ  broke the MJ story before anyone else. I don’t know why that would be worth a story – they’re on the tail of anyone who’s famous or interesting all the time, anyway. But the Times will never waste a good excuse to suck up to Hollywood! (True, but I love Hollywood, too, so I don’t mind.)

But the Jackson drama puts the spotlight on TMZ at a delicate time. Its tactics have stoked growing outrage among publicists and government officials. Its tabloid sensibilities have made some other news organizations reluctant to cite its reporting — including CNN, a sister company, which relied on the Los Angeles Times’ reporting rather than TMZ’s on the day of Jackson’s death.

Now, when an LA Times reporter calls TMZ “delicate”, you know someone is hoping for a big fat ad deal in their dwindling paper…

So the same weekend, everyone went crazy over the fact of Mark Sanford’s affair. Get over it. Some huge percentage of people have affairs. It’s not nice and it’s not kind, but it certainly isn’t a political or partisan thing – which all the liberals screamed about.

Mark Sanford cartoon as reported by TMZ. They like MJ better.

So, TMZ is sleazy, but this time the Democrats were worse.

———————————————–

I can’t tell you how hard it is for me to make these deadlines. In the past, I grab a good idea as soon as I have it, but I like to turn and twist it in my mind. It could take weeks, or even years, to make it work. But now I have to not only draw it, but then figure out colors in Photoshop, and I find PS to be pretty slow – I just don’t know many tricks or shortcuts yet, and it’s a time-killer.

But when I really get into trouble is when I change my mind after it’s drawn and lettered! The first one was not quite clear, I don’t think. The 2nd one is good enough. And the colors are sublime.

More cartoons:

1. Mark E. Kelly, your wife called.
2. Farewell to Lost cartoon.

Graduation thoughts: Choose fonts for resume, Look for good unemployment, Daytime TV. ©D. Barstow

What to do with your new diploma? Ewww, I hate daytime television! Never ever watch it. Even though I do like talk shows.

And I’ll never get unemployment, now that I’m self-employed. :( :( :( :(

I do like fonts, however. I got this idea after I read someone on MySpace who wrote, seriously, that he had just finished his 5-year plan, and now he just had to find a font for it. It still makes me laugh! Maybe I’ll redo this resume dealie next year.

Frankly, I hope these grads get off their duff, do some real work, and go buy my books.

Also, this cartoon is covered by the DMCA and copyright, and may not be used without permission.

More cartoons:

1. Santa was laid off. AGAIN.
2. I need to frequent more bars.