The Pop Culture Review

Salon.com: Celebrity Political Endorsements

Who knows if the Material Girl's endorsement of Wesley Clark last week will have any material effect on the primaries. But you've gotta give her points for creative use of capitalization and boldface.

"I know that people seem to pay attention to everything I do. Big or Small. Ridiculous or Sublime. So I am hoping they pay attention to this," she wrote in a note posted on her Web site. "I am supporting General Wesley Clark for President."

Madonna's endorsement got us thinking about other rallying cries from celebrities on behalf of presidential hopefuls over the years. Here are a few worth remembering:

Cher, in Playboy, endorsing Michael Dukakis in 1988: "He has all the things I really admire in someone. I don't give a flying fuck if he's charismatic or not."

Jann Wenner, stumping for Bill Clinton and Al Gore on "This Week With David Brinkley" in 1993: "I mean, these are guys who love rock 'n' roll."

Pat Boone, who endorsed Ronald Reagan for president in 1984: "There are no human solutions only divine solutions."

Jon Bon Jovi on a fundraiser he hosted for Al Gore at his New Jersey estate in 2000: "It was quite a thrill. If you think a rock band has a big entourage, you should see what a presidential candidate has. There were cops and police dogs everywhere, and they had escape routes mapped out."

Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder at a rally for Ralph Nader in 2000: "I've never had anyone I could believe in before."

Willie Nelson, endorsing Dennis Kucinich in the current election: "I normally do not get too heavily involved in politics, but this is more about getting involved with America than with politics ... I plan to do concerts to benefit the campaign."

Danny Glover, another Kucinich supporter: "I have sat and dialogued with him and watched him learn from others, and of all the candidates he stands the closest to my conscience, and I must go with my conscience."

And Ani DeFranco likes Kucinich, too. She also likes to use the word "whore": "I was just instantly struck by how different he is from any politician I've ever met ... He's not a self-aggrandizing strategist or corporate whore."

Hootie and the Blowfish "individually and collectively," however, like John Edwards: "We believe John Edwards represents everything that is great about America."

Peter Yarrow, of Peter, Paul and Mary, is a John Kerry man, though how much of a help that is for the presidential hopeful remains to be seen. Witness this report from CBS News.com: "Kerry aides were shaking their heads after a Yarrow-inspired scene turned out a little weird. At a house party thrown by Story County Democrats, Yarrow summoned Kerry to the living room where he had just started playing 'Puff the Magic Dragon.' At one point, as Yarrow sang the word 'puff,' Kerry quickly gestured as if he was smoking pot."

Rob Reiner for Howard Dean: "I'm throwing my entire support behind Governor Dean this early in the campaign to send a strong message."

Meathead would be proud.

(From salon.com)

Breaking Legal News

Jury selection in the aggravated manslaughter trial of Jayson Williams is expected to be both tedious and crucial to the outcome of the case against the former pro basketball star.

CNN.com - Jury selection seen as critical in trial of ex-NBA star - Jan. 12, 2004

There is no way to hold public court hearings on the medical records of Kobe Bryant's alleged sexual assault victim without violating her privacy rights, lawyers for the prosecution and the woman say in court filings.

CNN.com - Judge gets arguments for closing Bryant-case hearings - Jan. 12, 2004

When Michael Jackson is arraigned later this week on child molestation charges, the pop star won't be alone if his fans have anything to say about it

CNN.com - Jackson fans plan show of support - Jan. 12, 2004

Slate.com: Dispatches From CES

Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate and also writes for several publications about hi-fi, home theater, and DVDs. This week he's seeking out the coolest gadgets at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Dispatches From CES - A futuristic house leaves The Jetsons behind. By Fred?Kaplan

Madonna Endorses Clark On Website

Pop star Madonna has posted a letter on her website in support of Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark.
The singer describes the retired US general as "a perfect example of the American Dream" and "a national hero"...

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Showbiz | Madonna endorses Clark on website

All in the Family

Over the past year a cottage industry of anti-Bush diatribes has exploded onto the best-seller list. Many have unforgettable titles like Molly Ivins' Bushwhacked or Hunter S. Thompson's Kingdom of Fear or Al Franken's Lies (And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them). These books are brimming with nasty one-liners and parlor jokes portraying George W. Bush as a dangerous dunce, an aristocratic oil brat unfit for the Oval Office. The Bush Cabinet fares no better: Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, has been characterized as an utterly corrupt stalking horse for Halliburton, while Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has become Dr. Strangelove incarnate...

(From MotherJones.com)

All in the Family

Think Different

Apple Computer, Inc. was awarded the Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences second-ever Emmy in the Outstanding Commercial category for its "Think different" television commercial.

The commercial, which honors creative geniuses who strived to change the world, includes such heroes as Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Muhammad Ali and Martha Graham.

"The 'Think different' campaign set out to honor our heroes," said Steve Jobs, Apple's interim CEO. "In the process, it has inspired us all to reach higher and further in our own lives and work."

What had to be infused was an emotional resonance to the spot.

Think Different, first, speaks to the dedication of personal computers, to be creative, imagine something that hasn't been done before. It's the "change the world" kind of challenge that Apple has always been part of.

"Think Different"

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
are the ones who do.

Think Different

BBC NEWS: 'Miserable Failure' Links to Bush

George W Bush has been Google bombed. Web users entering the words "miserable failure" into the popular search engine are directed to the biography of the president on the White House website. The trick is possible because Google searches more than just the contents of web pages - it also counts how often a site is linked to, and with what words.

Thus, members of an online community can affect the results of Google searches - called "Google bombing" - by linking their sites to a chosen one. Weblogger Adam Mathes is credited with inventing the practice in 2001, when he used it to link the phrase "talentless hack" to a friend's website.

The search engine can be manipulated by a fairly small group of users, one report suggested.
Newsday newspaper says as few as 32 web pages with the words "miserable failure" link to the Bush biography. The Bush administration has been on the receiving end of pointed Google bombs before.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, internet users manipulated Google so the phrase "weapons of mass destruction" led to a joke page saying "These Weapons of Mass Destruction cannot be displayed." The site suggests "clicking the regime change button", or "If you are George Bush and typed the country's name in the address bar, make sure that it is spelled correctly (IRAQ)".

BBC NEWS | Americas | 'Miserable failure' links to Bush

The 34 Best Movies of 2003 by Slate.com

Is there any activity more onanistic for a critic than compiling the year-end 10-best list? True, it's a service to readers who want a handy checklist. But the number 10 means nothing: As the late Stephen Jay Gould pointed out at the turn of the millennium, it has no correlative in nature. And a critic's naked opinion (thumbs up or thumbs down) is the least interesting thing about him or her. You'll learn much more from a lively writer you think is nuts (c.f., Manohla on In the Cut or Elvis Mitchell on the execrable 21 Grams) than from the 10-best list of someone with whom you agree.

But my colleagues and I do this every year because it's fun and makes us feel important. We play high-schoolish games with each other: "You guess my list, and I'll guess yours." We catch up on movies we should have seen nine months earlier. We give our lists to publicists and to columnists—there are more and more of them, it seems—who care less about individual critical voices than about statistics and consensus. We vote for our little awards and hold our breath for the Oscar nominations, which we'll invariably find dumb.

The 34 Best Movies of 2003 - Child spellers, hobbits, and the year in cinema. By David?Edelstein

Now on DVD: American Splendor

For an art movement that never cracked the mainstream and whose finest practitioners barely paid the rent, the underground comics of the 1960s and '70s have had a splattery and lasting pop-culture impact. Seminal figure Robert Crumb was the focus of the celebrated 1994 documentary ''Crumb,'' whose director, Terry Zwigoff, went on to turn Dan Clowes's graphic novel ''Ghost World'' into a biting 2000 satire. Art Spiegelman found fame with ''Maus'' and New Yorker covers; Bill Griffith's ''Zippy the Pinhead'' drops daily zen-bombs in the funny pages.

Now it's Harvey Pekar's turn, and, believe me, he's probably griping about how long it took. The longtime Cleveland file clerk, poet of the mundane, genius crank behind the ''American Splendor'' comic book, and David Letterman's holy fool finally has a film dedicated to his dyspeptic battles with the quotidian -- and it's a beauty: wise, many-layered, and funny as hell. The great joke about Pekar's work is that he can't draw to save his life, so he gets other illustrators -- notably his old friend Bob Crumb -- to ink the autobiographical rants and whimsies that fill the pages of ''American Splendor.'' The movie, written and directed by married Pekar fans Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, is an adaptation of a number of stories from the comic. (From The Boston Globe)

American Splendor (2003)