This newie and goodie, featuring the underrated Kenan Thompson and the always hilarious Kristen Wiig, popped up toward the end of one of this most recent season's episodes. I think I watched it about a dozen times in a row when I first saw it on DVR.
"Hahaha! Oh, Bork...."
Related: Obscure SNL Skit 1, Obscure SNL Skit 2.
I know Toyota is a Japanese car company, but despite the fact that their American commercials are made in the good ol' U.S. of A., there's still something lost in translation with so many of their idiotic ads.
It's a special brand of hate, really. I don't like many car commercials to begin with. At all. They're rarely original, often jam-packed with numbers and percentages and stock footage of vehicles driving in scenic locales. But I've always spewed the most venom at ads for Toyota, which ironically makes really nice cars.
There was the 2007 Camry ad that makes men look spineless and women look insane. And the Tacoma ad that unintentionally praises a competing truck.
And then there's this newer one that I should like because it offers a car with good fuel economy, but loses all credibility at just the 3-second mark with the dopey deejay who asks his supposed listeners about gas prices by asking if they "love 'em (or) hate 'em":
Clearly that radio station has call letters of WTF on the east coast or KRZY on the west. Unless the station is exclusively pumping the show into the ears of ExxonMobil employees on an oil rig, I highly doubt anyone's calling in to celebrate gas prices that make my face melt.
So what's more likely/offensive? That Toyota just got lazy with writing the copy for the deejay? Or that some ad wizard suggested that "love 'em" be added to the line so that the 0.0000000000001 percent of us who actually profit off high oil prices will consider buying a Toyota?
Everyone at the bar is going to secretly wish for the other one.
Just think about it. The crowd buzzes upon hearing the "doom doom doom do-do doom-doom" of the bassline and wonders if pressure's going to come down on you or if you're going to stop, collaborate and listen.
And once you reveal your selection, there's the automatic let-down: You're either doing the original, which, while superior, has far inferior goofy ironic value, or the ripoff that every drunk flock of girls or frat boys has bludgeoned to death.
But gun to my head, if I were a tenor, I'd pick "Under Pressure." Straight-up rap songs without some kind of melodic vocals to break up the spoken word just don't work well at karaoke. At that point, it's basically glorified TelePrompTer reading.
Back in 1991, America was facing turbulent times. Mired between the neon '80s and the dot-com '90s, we as a society were battling recession, the Rodney King aftermath, huge pants and a whole lotta blah. (Had a whole lotta blah! Nyerrrr!)
But one man had the courage. The courage to transform beatboxing into a 4-year-old's impersonation of exploding bombs. The courage to possibly add "Fuh" as a prefix to the word "cool," making it sound vaguely dirty. The courage to shield himself from the trends of the era -- whether they be flat-tops or mohawks -- and just be himself.
I think Jesus Jones summed it up best that year when they sang, "I was alive and I waited for this."
If Mr. McDonald hadn't already earned the title of "Sir Ronald," then certainly this contribution to Madison Avenue warranted knighthood.
An online chat, held moments ago:
Christina: and i had a brownie and a lemon square ...
Me: funny... i had a lemon and a brownie square
Christina: hmmm most people dont eat lemons
Me: well i do. and my mouth hasn't unwound itself from a pucker position since
Me: total strangers think i'm trying to kiss them
Me: and i am, but that's besides the point
Gary Wright's "Dreamweaver."
Seriously, from the spacey, endless clashing intro/outro to the ball-less snoozefest verses, the non-chorus cacophony is pretty much the worst thing ever compared to the catchy, groovy, chewy nougat center:
There's a reason "Wayne's World" only uses the chorus the first time Wayne Campbell sees Cassandra.
And now some of my best Facebook Status Updates from the last month, in reverse-chronological order:
- Chris is a 100-meter butterfly that has nothing to do with swimming.
- Chris is torn; China's gymnasts were no older than 16 COMBINED, but they still won the Gold. Technically, isn't that more impressive?
- Chris is dressed to maim.
- Chris thinks gold-medalist Natalie Coughlin is cute but looks better with wet hair.
- Chris is Michael Phelps except for all that swimming.
- Chris just saw one of his old high school yearbook quotes was from "Night Court": "It's so hard to say au revoir, so let's just say au gratin."
- Chris has little to no voice left from last night's Police concert, which at one point also featured actual police on stage playing along to "Message In A Bottle."
- Chris is Synchronicity I ... and II.
- Chris is not your name/He knows what you're up to just the same/He will listen hard to your intuition/He will see it come to its fruition.
- Chris caved and uploaded the "legit" Scrabble application. Ugh.
- Chris fears hygiene and plot issues when it comes to traveling pants.
- Chris shouldn't be surprised that ignorant people hate teachers, but he's disappointed nonetheless.
- Chris has the wussiest injury in the history of everything: A sore left hand from hitting it too hard with a tambourine at post-wedding karaoke.
- Chris now knows that at least 23 of you have iPhones because you've installed the Facebook application to them. And, yes, he's jealous.
- Chris will never not find Steve Carell in "Anchorman" hilarious.
- Chris thinks the words "Spuyten Duyvil" shouldn't exist, let alone be flaunted on a Metro-North sign.
- Chris reminds you that the National League sucks.
According to today's main ESPN.com SportsNation poll, Vermont is the only state whose majority of Internet voters thinks American swimmer Michael Phelps won't win eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics:
Even the rest of the WORLD -- except for maybe, well, France -- agrees there's no stopping Phelp Phever. But don't expect Ben & Jerry's to start shipping out mass quantities of Phelpraline Delight anytime soon.
It's probably because Vermonters are voting with their minds instead of their hearts, but part of me wishes that it's because they're all walking around with Mark Spitz mustaches that scream Ron Burgundy.
And in case you're wondering, Spitz is from California, making this voting trend even more baffling.
Just me and Nick Di Paolo, having a chat at a diner. Oh, don't mind the TV camera, Nick.
And now the latest in a series of surely doomed regular features on Varsity Basketweaving: Collections of my own cell-phone photos with commentary, conveniently assembled in a feature called Trapped In A Cell. Enjoy.
i. Wendy, fast-food pitchwoman or psycho killer (qu'est-ce c'est)?
Date taken: 11:39 p.m. July 20. Location of photo: DVR freeze-frame of TV commercial.
In the latest ad campaign for one of my favorite fast food chains, an animated Wendy looks like a cute little girl until her pupils practically disappear, making her look like a satanic extra from another unintentional creepfest, "The Polar Express." OK, I'll eat a Spicy Chicken Sandwich! Please don't eat my soul!
ii. Condensation or Religious Experience?
Date taken: 11:31 a.m. July 11. Location of photo: Movie theatre restroom
I added the arrow for clarity, but this otherwise undoctored and unstaged photo features a Seth Rogen lookalike crying a single tear of joy on my Coke cup. Yes, it's only a perfectly coincidental drop of condensation, but faux-Rogen's 3D impression of a mournful Harvey Dent scared the crap out of me for a split second right after a viewing of "Hancock." If a crying Jesus reinforces faith in Christianity for those who witness it, does this mean I must worship Apatow for the rest of my life? I mean, he's OK, I guess, but I'd sooner kowtow to Scorsese.
iii. Well, hello my name is Simon and I like to do rehabiliation
Date taken: 9:17 p.m. July 10. Location of photo: Metro-North train car vestibule.
Yes, a train passenger was looking at me confused, perhaps trying to figure out which addiction demon I was trying to exorcise. (Answer: All of them.) At first glance, this just appears to be another eye-catching ad for the Canterbury Institute's rehab clinic. But upon further review, shift the circle 90 degrees clockwise and you have the exact color scheme for a childhood staple:
I guess the ad's primary demographic is children of the '80s who have replaced one increasingly frustrating addiction with a more destructive version. Almost any of these vices in extreme cases would pretty much ruin your chances of even turning the power switch on Simon, much less advancing past two moves. But maybe the right amount of cocaine would actually have you so wired that you'd not only win but also outlast the game's triple-A batteries before crashing in a heap of despair.
Please settle this minor dispute between me and my friend Christina.
When you read "Ha ha ha HA ha," do you hear:
A. The Woody Woodpecker laugh
or
B. The chorus of Spandau Ballet's "True"?
And before you ask: No, no other pop culture reference is an acceptable answer.
Related tangent: I like how Woody's hair fits right in with Spandau Ballet's '80s coifs. A Flock of Woodpeckers, if you will.
Kanye. Jay-Z. Lauryn. Fergie. Serico?!
Ten years after the fact, I just learned that I'm singing on the same album as John Legend. Follow along, friends.
My college a cappella group, the Boston College Acoustics, made the cut for the 1998 Best Of College A Cappella (BOCA) album. Despite poor production quality, Fran Gendrano's powerful lead vocals and Matty Lane's classic arrangement for our rendition of Paula Cole's "The Ladder" helped make it the penultimate song on the 18-song compilation. My buddy Matt Havens and I are the two guys singing the bass line on the track.
BOCA 1998's opening cut -- and rightfully so -- is a University of Pennsylvania Counterparts song inspired by Prince's R&B reinterpretation of Joan Osborne's "One of Us." Soloing is John R. Stephens, the man who would change his name to John Legend.
One of only about three dozen a cappella songs comprising the 2,301 in my regular iTunes rotation, I've been enjoying the Counterparts' version of "One of Us" for more than a decade. But while researching the origins of Osborne's biggest hit for work, I learned only today via the song's Wikipedia page that Legend was the vocalist I'd been admiring all along. Not relying on Wikipedia alone, I was able to confirm that fact here and here.
So yeah, John, call me. Let's do lunch and another collabo soon.
My winning scratch-off treasure: "Knowledge."
Thankfully, the title of this post hasn't come true (yet), but I wouldn't be surprised if a drunken and/or soberly spastic version of me does just that, thanks to the genius software designers for Verizon's Voyager phone.
For those who don't know, the Voyager is Verizon's supposed response to the iPhone -- a touch-screen gadget that's far inferior except for GPS Navigation and, y'know, actual phone service.
So say I'm fortunate enough to add the phone number of a pretty young lady to said phone:
Make that another pretty young lady, as you can see the lovely and talented (and engaged) Abbi Crutchfield is already in there. Anyway....
Let's take a closer look at my only two options on this menu, shall we?
So with one slip of the thumb, not only can I say good-bye to the supermodel's number I'm trying to add, but also those of every friggin' number I've collected and not yet deleted during a fit of rage, apathy and/or depression.
Can you hear me now? No, I can't hear anyone on the phone because the phone numbers of anyone I'd be talking to have been deleted.
I mean, hypothetically. But still!
