If "the Earth Stood Still," would you save your dog?

Save RC Cola!  Without it we're goners.

As a Web-o-centric publicity stunt for the much-hyped "The Day the Earth Stood Still," 20th Century Fox has created an amusing site called "The Earth's Vital List," which asks fans worldwide to assemble a list of things they'd 'save' if the world ended.  Heavy, eh? 

Of course not.  Any possibility that this question would be taken seriously was nuked on arrival by a bit from the press release, which, after immodestly declaring this project "a truly interactive application of global proportions," quotes a Fox marketing executive as saying, "I plan to put macaroni and cheese at the top of my list."

And that appears to be the path consumers have followed.  Which is not to say that the nine pages of dogs people have listed are frivolous choices (there are only four pages of "moms").  But it is to say that just about everything else is:  For every "modern medicine" that the more serious players have elected to save, there are 50 X-boxes, tweezers, ukuleles, Yodas, "me's," marijuanas, unicorns and roller coasters. So basically, if faced with the dilemma of which things to save in the event of a total apocalypse, the mass consciousness would elect to save ... everything.  Sounds about right.

Magic Johnson went on Larry King last Wednesday evening. King asked him what he thought of the election.

“Oh man. Last night I cried like a baby, Larry.”

Magic? Crying? Is Mercury in retrograde or something?

Then Will Smith went on Oprah. “Did you cry?” Oprah asked. “Did you cry? Did you cry?” (She had cried in front of millions during President-elect Obama’s  election night speech, so presumably she wanted to know if Smith, an action hero, was in the Crybaby Club.)

He was.

And then there was Jesse Jackson. And Colin Powell. And Michael Salerno.

Who? Oh yeah, Salerno’s an IT manager out of Mahopac, N.Y. Barbecue enthusiast, avid reader, father of triplets. He wasn’t on TV like the other guys, and unlike the others,  he’s white — but you can still see a picture of him getting teary on election night, because he posted it on Flickr.

“I have never been more proud to be an American,” the caption says, and “yes, I’m crying.”

I found Salerno’s pic, along with dozens of other crying photos and videos, on Flickr and YouTube after several friends told me they’d cried on election night. Two of them were guys I’ve known for a decade without seeing them cry a single time.

In one YouTube video, a blue-eyed  guy named Sam with big tattoos and no shirt completely loses it, bawling wordlessly for seven minutes during Obama’s victory speech: a classic.

In another, a pretty 18-year-old girl named Whitney cries in a smiling way that looks almost like laughter. “I’m such a loser,” she says. “I’m so happy.”

“I cried too,” wrote four of the video’s 11 commenters, with one adding, “and I’m not even American.” That was it. The Obama Crying thing was, as far as I was concerned, a full-blown epidemic. One worth further study and explication. I did the only thing I knew how: I went to SurveyMonkey.com.

Survey Monkey lets you create free surveys and send them to people online. It’s easy. So I made a questionnaire: Did you cry on election night? If so, when was the last time you cried before that? And I asked respondents to specify their gender, age range and party affiliation.

Next, I took the hyperlink to my survey and posted it all over Facebook. Seeking parity, I posted it in a number of groups representing many distinct points along the ideological spectrum. I went from the famous group called “One Million Strong for Barack” to “1,000,000 Strong for McCain Palin” to “Reduce the Drinking Age to 18,” and to“weddings 2008.”

Another half-hour of this and Facebook decided I was a spammer and revoked all of my posting privileges, dealing a serious blow to my ability to disseminate the survey. So I turned to Twitter, where I “tweeted” a link to the survey to all 468 of the people who had, through the Web Scout blog, opted to follow my feed.

I popped open a bag of Fritos and let the results trickle in.

Some hours later, my survey had attracted 133 respondents. And are you ready for this? Fully 75% of them said they had cried or “sort of” cried on election night. (I’d included a box for people to say what “sort of” meant, and the consensus was that if you welled up but didn’t actually overflow, that’s “sort of” crying. Fair enough.)

More statistics: 33% of the criers/wellers were male. About half were between 15 and 25, a quarter 26 to 35, and another quarter were 36 to 45; 67% Democrats, 18% Republicans, 11% Independents. An impressive spread across all categories — perhaps this really was a phenomenon!

Among the written explanations were a few gems:

• “As the mother of a biracial child I have always been afraid that she would never be accepted by her peers. She wouldn’t be ‘white enough’ or ‘black enough.’ And seeing that an entire country can accept this biracial man as their leader, and also knowing how much the world as a whole supports him — gives me so much hope for my own daughter’s future.”
• “So proud that Americans elected a smart President! I also cried when I got a thank you text message from Barack Obama on my phone.”
• “I cried because I was so devastated that my country would choose someone who was going to destroy what America was founded on.”

I called Jack Glaser, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley who has written extensively on race, politics, emotion and the Internet. Quite possibly he could help me publish my findings in some obscure academic journal. When I asked him what he thought of my results, there was a pause. He then told me my methodology was completely flawed and my results scientifically meaningless.

I nearly cried.

“Whenever you have a survey where people voluntarily participate, you tend to overrepresent people who feel strongly one way or the other,“ Glaser said.

As a consolation prize, Glaser allowed that “it does look like there’s more expressed emotion after this election than there typically is. There’s a huge release on the partisan level,” he said, “And also a big exhilaration on the civil rights side. And the two sort of intertwine.”

So no science was had here today. Still, I count this as a victory, skewed and warped as it may be, for the social Web. It turns out that a few minutes on YouTube, Flickr and Facebook, plus a bit of survey monkeying, quickly revealed 100 people who had cried on election night. I don’t think you need science to see that there’s something happening there.

Special thanks to David A. Malbin

Kaufman also draws a parallel between his creative process and that of his main character, Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who spends an eternity trying to finish a play that keeps getting longer and more complicated. "If you're trying to be truthful, you start out with one idea, and as you become more familiar with it and explore different aspects of the idea, different things become revealed to you.  And you have to incorporate that. So whereas Caden's city kept getting bigger and bigger and more populated as time went on, there was really no ending to it. So that becomes a bit of a hindrance when you're writing, but I do feel like it's the way I like to write."

—David Sarno

"Blah Girls," Ashton Kutcher's latest brainchild, is a modest project: a comical, animated celebrity gossip site. The site is built around a show featuring three celebrity-obsessed, sexually curious teenage cartoon girls who gossip about their idols — and try to meet them and date them, with disastrous results. (I did a mini-review here, and our Technology Blog interviewed Kutcher about it here).

There's South Park-style trash-talking, explosions, crashes and gross-out physical stuff. A new three-minute episode appears twice a week, and the girls — Tiffany, Krystle and Britney — also maintain a Perez-Hilton-like blog (along with their gay friend Stuart) that is updated pretty regularly. All in all, it's a nice twist on the increasingly surreal and cartoonish culture of celeb gossip.

But there's something less obvious going on too: These three cartoon characters are sexualized in a way we rarely—if ever—see teenage girls depicted. They're not sexed-up in an exploitive Bratz way, or in a judgmental cautionary-tale way. Instead the show gives us realistic teenage-girl sexuality as subject matter for lowbrow humor, the kind that can be seen as crass or as refreshingly honest, depending on your point of view.

The girls are trying to define their own fledging sexuality in the midst of our hypersexualized celebrity culture, and the embarrassment this usually leads to makes the show a gleeful satire of teenage girls' confused desires. Perhaps even more radically, the show doesn't have any impulse to protect its characters from the rest of the world's sometimes cruel or even menacing reaction to teenage girls' sexual curiosity. 

On TV, slapstick sexual humor is safe only for boys, as in, obviously, "South Park." (When "South Park" does turn its lens on girls' sexuality, as in the "Raisins" episode, where the boys visit a junior Hooters, the humor is in the boys' reaction to girls' sexuality -- it has nothing to do with what's going on inside the girls themselves.)

But consider a recent Blah Girls episode focused on the Jonas Brothers. Britney declares that if she could meet Kevin Jonas, she'd get down on her knees and — gasps from her friends — tie his shoes. The visual of her doing just that is mischievously ambiguous. That gag is followed by an "OMG!" from Tiffany, as she sends an e-mail to the JoBros saying she and her friends want to be their wives -- and gets a reply saying they'd be happy to marry the girls, and asking them to send pictures, which she does. The episode ends with a shot of a skeevy old guy looking at their pictures with a horny cackle.

That's risque stuff, and Kutcher knows it will draw some disapproval given the teenagers in the audience: He told Jessica Guynn in the interview I linked to above, "I don't think content should parent children. I think parents should parent children. This doesn't go too far."

"Blah girls" may not be going "too far," (wherever that line is nowadays), but it is going to a place that we haven't yet comfortably gone as a culture. When the screen pans out to the back of the pedophile's head as he ogles the Blah Girls' pictures, it's hard not to have a moment of visceral, involuntary fear and revulsion. (I know they're cartoon characters!)

Maybe it's a good thing, that all the vulnerability inherent in female sexuality is something we can joke about now. As far as I know, for example, nothing in the mainstream has yet mined the humor in the supposed Middle School oral sex epidemic, as this little episode does.

But I wonder whether the Blah Girls' humor is bumping up against some still-tenacious cultural taboos. I still can't picture that episode (in a longer version, obviously) on any imaginable TV network, even cable -- or even in a movie theater.

—Maria Russo

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Obama victory spins a web of tears

Magic Johnson went on Larry King last Wednesday evening. King asked him what he thought of the election.

“Oh man. Last night I cried like a baby, Larry.”

Magic? Crying? Is Mercury in retrograde or something?

Then Will Smith went on Oprah. “Did you cry?” Oprah asked. “Did you cry? Did you cry?” (She had cried in front of millions during President-elect Obama’s  election night speech, so presumably she wanted to know if Smith, an action hero, was in the Crybaby Club.)

He was.

And then there was Jesse Jackson. And Colin Powell. And Michael Salerno.

Who? Oh yeah, Salerno’s an IT manager out of Mahopac, N.Y. Barbecue enthusiast, avid reader, father of triplets. He wasn’t on TV like the other guys, and unlike the others,  he’s white — but you can still see a picture of him getting teary on election night, because he posted it on Flickr.

“I have never been more proud to be an American,” the caption says, and “yes, I’m crying.”

I found Salerno’s pic, along with dozens of other crying photos and videos, on Flickr and YouTube after several friends told me they’d cried on election night. Two of them were guys I’ve known for a decade without seeing them cry a single time.

In one YouTube video, a blue-eyed  guy named Sam with big tattoos and no shirt completely loses it, bawling wordlessly for seven minutes during Obama’s victory speech: a classic.

In another, a pretty 18-year-old girl named Whitney cries in a smiling way that looks almost like laughter. “I’m such a loser,” she says. “I’m so happy.”

“I cried too,” wrote four of the video’s 11 commenters, with one adding, “and I’m not even American.” That was it. The Obama Crying thing was, as far as I was concerned, a full-blown epidemic. One worth further study and explication. I did the only thing I knew how: I went to SurveyMonkey.com.

Survey Monkey lets you create free surveys and send them to people online. It’s easy. So I made a questionnaire: Did you cry on election night? If so, when was the last time you cried before that? And I asked respondents to specify their gender, age range and party affiliation.

Next, I took the hyperlink to my survey and posted it all over Facebook. Seeking parity, I posted it in a number of groups representing many distinct points along the ideological spectrum. I went from the famous group called “One Million Strong for Barack” to “1,000,000 Strong for McCain Palin” to “Reduce the Drinking Age to 18,” and to“weddings 2008.”

Another half-hour of this and Facebook decided I was a spammer and revoked all of my posting privileges, dealing a serious blow to my ability to disseminate the survey. So I turned to Twitter, where I “tweeted” a link to the survey to all 468 of the people who had, through the Web Scout blog, opted to follow my feed.

I popped open a bag of Fritos and let the results trickle in.

Some hours later, my survey had attracted 133 respondents. And are you ready for this? Fully 75% of them said they had cried or “sort of” cried on election night. (I’d included a box for people to say what “sort of” meant, and the consensus was that if you welled up but didn’t actually overflow, that’s “sort of” crying. Fair enough.)

More statistics: 33% of the criers/wellers were male. About half were between 15 and 25, a quarter 26 to 35, and another quarter were 36 to 45; 67% Democrats, 18% Republicans, 11% Independents. An impressive spread across all categories — perhaps this really was a phenomenon!

Among the written explanations were a few gems:

• “As the mother of a biracial child I have always been afraid that she would never be accepted by her peers. She wouldn’t be ‘white enough’ or ‘black enough.’ And seeing that an entire country can accept this biracial man as their leader, and also knowing how much the world as a whole supports him — gives me so much hope for my own daughter’s future.”
• “So proud that Americans elected a smart President! I also cried when I got a thank you text message from Barack Obama on my phone.”
• “I cried because I was so devastated that my country would choose someone who was going to destroy what America was founded on.”

I called Jack Glaser, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley who has written extensively on race, politics, emotion and the Internet. Quite possibly he could help me publish my findings in some obscure academic journal. When I asked him what he thought of my results, there was a pause. He then told me my methodology was completely flawed and my results scientifically meaningless.

I nearly cried.

“Whenever you have a survey where people voluntarily participate, you tend to overrepresent people who feel strongly one way or the other,“ Glaser said.

As a consolation prize, Glaser allowed that “it does look like there’s more expressed emotion after this election than there typically is. There’s a huge release on the partisan level,” he said, “And also a big exhilaration on the civil rights side. And the two sort of intertwine.”

So no science was had here today. Still, I count this as a victory, skewed and warped as it may be, for the social Web. It turns out that a few minutes on YouTube, Flickr and Facebook, plus a bit of survey monkeying, quickly revealed 100 people who had cried on election night. I don’t think you need science to see that there’s something happening there.

Special thanks to David A. Malbin

Kaufman also draws a parallel between his creative process and that of his main character, Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who spends an eternity trying to finish a play that keeps getting longer and more complicated. "If you're trying to be truthful, you start out with one idea, and as you become more familiar with it and explore different aspects of the idea, different things become revealed to you.  And you have to incorporate that. So whereas Caden's city kept getting bigger and bigger and more populated as time went on, there was really no ending to it. So that becomes a bit of a hindrance when you're writing, but I do feel like it's the way I like to write."

—David Sarno

"Blah Girls," Ashton Kutcher's latest brainchild, is a modest project: a comical, animated celebrity gossip site. The site is built around a show featuring three celebrity-obsessed, sexually curious teenage cartoon girls who gossip about their idols — and try to meet them and date them, with disastrous results. (I did a mini-review here, and our Technology Blog interviewed Kutcher about it here).

There's South Park-style trash-talking, explosions, crashes and gross-out physical stuff. A new three-minute episode appears twice a week, and the girls — Tiffany, Krystle and Britney — also maintain a Perez-Hilton-like blog (along with their gay friend Stuart) that is updated pretty regularly. All in all, it's a nice twist on the increasingly surreal and cartoonish culture of celeb gossip.

But there's something less obvious going on too: These three cartoon characters are sexualized in a way we rarely—if ever—see teenage girls depicted. They're not sexed-up in an exploitive Bratz way, or in a judgmental cautionary-tale way. Instead the show gives us realistic teenage-girl sexuality as subject matter for lowbrow humor, the kind that can be seen as crass or as refreshingly honest, depending on your point of view.

The girls are trying to define their own fledging sexuality in the midst of our hypersexualized celebrity culture, and the embarrassment this usually leads to makes the show a gleeful satire of teenage girls' confused desires. Perhaps even more radically, the show doesn't have any impulse to protect its characters from the rest of the world's sometimes cruel or even menacing reaction to teenage girls' sexual curiosity. 

On TV, slapstick sexual humor is safe only for boys, as in, obviously, "South Park." (When "South Park" does turn its lens on girls' sexuality, as in the "Raisins" episode, where the boys visit a junior Hooters, the humor is in the boys' reaction to girls' sexuality -- it has nothing to do with what's going on inside the girls themselves.)

But consider a recent Blah Girls episode focused on the Jonas Brothers. Britney declares that if she could meet Kevin Jonas, she'd get down on her knees and — gasps from her friends — tie his shoes. The visual of her doing just that is mischievously ambiguous. That gag is followed by an "OMG!" from Tiffany, as she sends an e-mail to the JoBros saying she and her friends want to be their wives -- and gets a reply saying they'd be happy to marry the girls, and asking them to send pictures, which she does. The episode ends with a shot of a skeevy old guy looking at their pictures with a horny cackle.

That's risque stuff, and Kutcher knows it will draw some disapproval given the teenagers in the audience: He told Jessica Guynn in the interview I linked to above, "I don't think content should parent children. I think parents should parent children. This doesn't go too far."

"Blah girls" may not be going "too far," (wherever that line is nowadays), but it is going to a place that we haven't yet comfortably gone as a culture. When the screen pans out to the back of the pedophile's head as he ogles the Blah Girls' pictures, it's hard not to have a moment of visceral, involuntary fear and revulsion. (I know they're cartoon characters!)

Maybe it's a good thing, that all the vulnerability inherent in female sexuality is something we can joke about now. As far as I know, for example, nothing in the mainstream has yet mined the humor in the supposed Middle School oral sex epidemic, as this little episode does.

But I wonder whether the Blah Girls' humor is bumping up against some still-tenacious cultural taboos. I still can't picture that episode (in a longer version, obviously) on any imaginable TV network, even cable -- or even in a movie theater.

—Maria Russo

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Charlie Kaufman on screenwriting and "Synecdoche"

Kaufman also draws a parallel between his creative process and that of his main character, Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who spends an eternity trying to finish a play that keeps getting longer and more complicated. "If you're trying to be truthful, you start out with one idea, and as you become more familiar with it and explore different aspects of the idea, different things become revealed to you.  And you have to incorporate that. So whereas Caden's city kept getting bigger and bigger and more populated as time went on, there was really no ending to it. So that becomes a bit of a hindrance when you're writing, but I do feel like it's the way I like to write."

—David Sarno

"Blah Girls," Ashton Kutcher's latest brainchild, is a modest project: a comical, animated celebrity gossip site. The site is built around a show featuring three celebrity-obsessed, sexually curious teenage cartoon girls who gossip about their idols — and try to meet them and date them, with disastrous results. (I did a mini-review here, and our Technology Blog interviewed Kutcher about it here).

There's South Park-style trash-talking, explosions, crashes and gross-out physical stuff. A new three-minute episode appears twice a week, and the girls — Tiffany, Krystle and Britney — also maintain a Perez-Hilton-like blog (along with their gay friend Stuart) that is updated pretty regularly. All in all, it's a nice twist on the increasingly surreal and cartoonish culture of celeb gossip.

But there's something less obvious going on too: These three cartoon characters are sexualized in a way we rarely—if ever—see teenage girls depicted. They're not sexed-up in an exploitive Bratz way, or in a judgmental cautionary-tale way. Instead the show gives us realistic teenage-girl sexuality as subject matter for lowbrow humor, the kind that can be seen as crass or as refreshingly honest, depending on your point of view.

The girls are trying to define their own fledging sexuality in the midst of our hypersexualized celebrity culture, and the embarrassment this usually leads to makes the show a gleeful satire of teenage girls' confused desires. Perhaps even more radically, the show doesn't have any impulse to protect its characters from the rest of the world's sometimes cruel or even menacing reaction to teenage girls' sexual curiosity. 

On TV, slapstick sexual humor is safe only for boys, as in, obviously, "South Park." (When "South Park" does turn its lens on girls' sexuality, as in the "Raisins" episode, where the boys visit a junior Hooters, the humor is in the boys' reaction to girls' sexuality -- it has nothing to do with what's going on inside the girls themselves.)

But consider a recent Blah Girls episode focused on the Jonas Brothers. Britney declares that if she could meet Kevin Jonas, she'd get down on her knees and — gasps from her friends — tie his shoes. The visual of her doing just that is mischievously ambiguous. That gag is followed by an "OMG!" from Tiffany, as she sends an e-mail to the JoBros saying she and her friends want to be their wives -- and gets a reply saying they'd be happy to marry the girls, and asking them to send pictures, which she does. The episode ends with a shot of a skeevy old guy looking at their pictures with a horny cackle.

That's risque stuff, and Kutcher knows it will draw some disapproval given the teenagers in the audience: He told Jessica Guynn in the interview I linked to above, "I don't think content should parent children. I think parents should parent children. This doesn't go too far."

"Blah girls" may not be going "too far," (wherever that line is nowadays), but it is going to a place that we haven't yet comfortably gone as a culture. When the screen pans out to the back of the pedophile's head as he ogles the Blah Girls' pictures, it's hard not to have a moment of visceral, involuntary fear and revulsion. (I know they're cartoon characters!)

Maybe it's a good thing, that all the vulnerability inherent in female sexuality is something we can joke about now. As far as I know, for example, nothing in the mainstream has yet mined the humor in the supposed Middle School oral sex epidemic, as this little episode does.

But I wonder whether the Blah Girls' humor is bumping up against some still-tenacious cultural taboos. I still can't picture that episode (in a longer version, obviously) on any imaginable TV network, even cable -- or even in a movie theater.

—Maria Russo

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

The radical thing about Ashton Kutcher's "Blah Girls"

"Blah Girls," Ashton Kutcher's latest brainchild, is a modest project: a comical, animated celebrity gossip site. The site is built around a show featuring three celebrity-obsessed, sexually curious teenage cartoon girls who gossip about their idols — and try to meet them and date them, with disastrous results. (I did a mini-review here, and our Technology Blog interviewed Kutcher about it here).

There's South Park-style trash-talking, explosions, crashes and gross-out physical stuff. A new three-minute episode appears twice a week, and the girls — Tiffany, Krystle and Britney — also maintain a Perez-Hilton-like blog (along with their gay friend Stuart) that is updated pretty regularly. All in all, it's a nice twist on the increasingly surreal and cartoonish culture of celeb gossip.

But there's something less obvious going on too: These three cartoon characters are sexualized in a way we rarely—if ever—see teenage girls depicted. They're not sexed-up in an exploitive Bratz way, or in a judgmental cautionary-tale way. Instead the show gives us realistic teenage-girl sexuality as subject matter for lowbrow humor, the kind that can be seen as crass or as refreshingly honest, depending on your point of view.

The girls are trying to define their own fledging sexuality in the midst of our hypersexualized celebrity culture, and the embarrassment this usually leads to makes the show a gleeful satire of teenage girls' confused desires. Perhaps even more radically, the show doesn't have any impulse to protect its characters from the rest of the world's sometimes cruel or even menacing reaction to teenage girls' sexual curiosity. 

On TV, slapstick sexual humor is safe only for boys, as in, obviously, "South Park." (When "South Park" does turn its lens on girls' sexuality, as in the "Raisins" episode, where the boys visit a junior Hooters, the humor is in the boys' reaction to girls' sexuality -- it has nothing to do with what's going on inside the girls themselves.)

But consider a recent Blah Girls episode focused on the Jonas Brothers. Britney declares that if she could meet Kevin Jonas, she'd get down on her knees and — gasps from her friends — tie his shoes. The visual of her doing just that is mischievously ambiguous. That gag is followed by an "OMG!" from Tiffany, as she sends an e-mail to the JoBros saying she and her friends want to be their wives -- and gets a reply saying they'd be happy to marry the girls, and asking them to send pictures, which she does. The episode ends with a shot of a skeevy old guy looking at their pictures with a horny cackle.

That's risque stuff, and Kutcher knows it will draw some disapproval given the teenagers in the audience: He told Jessica Guynn in the interview I linked to above, "I don't think content should parent children. I think parents should parent children. This doesn't go too far."

"Blah girls" may not be going "too far," (wherever that line is nowadays), but it is going to a place that we haven't yet comfortably gone as a culture. When the screen pans out to the back of the pedophile's head as he ogles the Blah Girls' pictures, it's hard not to have a moment of visceral, involuntary fear and revulsion. (I know they're cartoon characters!)

Maybe it's a good thing, that all the vulnerability inherent in female sexuality is something we can joke about now. As far as I know, for example, nothing in the mainstream has yet mined the humor in the supposed Middle School oral sex epidemic, as this little episode does.

But I wonder whether the Blah Girls' humor is bumping up against some still-tenacious cultural taboos. I still can't picture that episode (in a longer version, obviously) on any imaginable TV network, even cable -- or even in a movie theater.

—Maria Russo

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Prescient "Batman" episode nails the Obama-McCain race

Thanks to YouTube, the below video of Batman's televised mayoral debate with the Penguin, from the "Dizzoner the Penguin" episode of Adam West's 1966  "Batman," is gaining new currency.

The clip, first uploaded in early 2007, has been picked up by several political commentators and compared to recent debates between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. 

Besides being an amusing clip on its own -- the great Burgess Meredith turns in a virtuoso performance as  the Bilious Bird -- viewers have noted some chuckle-worthy parallels between this fictional debate and the real thing. 

In last week's face-off, moderator Bob Schieffer asked the candidates about the smears and personal attacks that have become a significant part of the discourse as the campaign winds up. 

"I think the tone of this campaign could've been very different," said McCain at the time. "And the fact is it's gotten pretty tough, and I regret some of the negative aspects of both campaigns."

Likewise, the Penguin starts out humbly enough: "Friends and fellow citizens, I want to give you my solemn word that there will be no mudslinging in this campaign. ... I intend to stick to the issues." 

But with that disclaimer out of the way, the Penguin wastes no time in getting to his point. "Now what are the issues? There's only one issue: Batman!"

"I suggest that behind that mask, Batman is, in reality, a dangerous criminal. Why else does he wear a mask? Why else does he conceal his past? Would you think about that a moment, my friends? Whenever you've seen Batman, who's he with? Criminals, that's who!"

McCain makes a similar pivot, this time to the controversial subjects of Obama's association with former radical Bill Ayers, a founder of Weather Underground who McCain called a "washed up terrorist."

"Senator Obama chose to associate with a guy who in 2001 said he wished he'd bombed more." McCain then draws links between Obama and the community organization ACORN, which, he says, is "maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."

It's probably a comment on the predictability of this presidential campaign that it was anticipated by a 40-year-old TV show populated by wacky caricatures. Same hack script, same hack channel.

Unfortunately, Penguin's brilliant plan hits a snag. Afraid that his lead in the polls is shrinking, he kidnaps the Board of Elections so the vote cannot be certified. This scheme backfires, and Batman turns up to rescue the hostages ("Pengy, you said we associated with criminals.  So ... here we are." BOOM! POW! WHAMM!). 

Batman is elected but resigns to allow the current mayor to keep his position. But not before one of the major parties calls to offer him the presidential candidacy for 1968 -- exactly 40 Novembers ago. 

Exclaims Robin: "Bulging ballot boxes, Batman, that was some offer!"   

-- David Sarno

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Lindsay Lohan: In her own voice

Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson at New York's Fashion Week, September 2008. (Photo credit: AP Photo/Peter Kramer)

A guest post from television editor Kate Aurthur:

In an article I wrote in July about the media coverage of Lindsay Lohan and Samantha Ronson's romantic relationship, I posed the question of whether Lohan would parlay the novelty of her lady liaison into a payday from one of the big gossip magazines. They were all approaching her, after all, so it appeared that Lohan would be the latest to profit. Like Jamie Lynn Spears did with her pregnancy and Brangelina has done with their babies.

Back then, I asked -- in the context of her calling in to Ryan Seacrest's radio show and using only gender-neutral words to describe her current partner, such as "the person I care about" -- "Is Lohan getting closer to more specific nouns and pronouns, particularly if one of the celebrity magazines will pay her a big check to do so, as has been rumored?"

But that so has not happened! Not only has Lohan eschewed capitalizing on an interesting story that people (not to mention People) might be willing to pay for, but she has actually done the opposite. She has plainly and simply written about Ronson as "the girl who means the world to me" (along with other references) on her MySpace page. On the Internet, the land of the free.

For that, I owe her this rowback/clarification.

Lohan first began blogging in late July. She wrote that she had just found out the log-in for her MySpace page, "so i can be more involved." Since then, she's written pretty frequently, checking in about what music she's listening to -- loves Annie Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass," hates "Ladies of the Canyon" by Joni Mitchell: "So- I don't like the one person that requested this song once and they have ruined the song for me forever more....Those who know me and care about me will understand why... I love the artist, but dislike this particular song for my own reasons…" (Sidebar: Who is this person so horrible that he/she could make someone hate "Ladies of the Canyon"?)

But what's gotten more attention have been the rants, and there have been a bunch. Against the suggestion that her 14-year-old sister, Ali, has gotten breast implants; against her troubled father, Michael; against Sarah Palin. The most recent Palin post was in fact a joint one with Ronson, with the peg being an AP story about Palin's church promoting the conversion of gay people into straight people.

The celebrity blogosphere's reaction to Lohan's political blogging has been one of interest, of course. TMZ commented that Palin "may have trouble getting the rehabbed and rumored-to-be-gay vote come November." And Perez Hilton, who is himself obsessed with Palin and all campaign matters, has excerpted all of Lohan's blogs.

As has been true for months in the tabloids -- and continues to be the case on MySpace as well -- the Lohan-Ronson relationship is simply there for the public to see, with Lohan throwing random shoutouts to Ronson at the end of posts ("this song is for sr... ILY.") But as opposed to a big coming out party as paid for by a gossip magazine, Lohan's self-presentation is the less predictable route for a celebrity these days. She's mad at her dad, she's wishing her mom a happy birthday, she's trying to remember the name of an ice cream she liked when she was a kid and she's obsessed with the election.

In this case, at least, stars really are just like us.

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

DiggDogg! L.A. has 50 dogs named 'Digger'

Find a good story down there, fella?
(Photo credit: Waldo Jaquith / Flickr user )

Here, Digger! 

According to the L.A Times' nifty new Doggy Database, it turns out that 50 pooches in the area go by that very name. 

Raising the question: How long would it take 50 dogs named "Digger" at 50 computers to submit the exact same set of stories that Digg users have already submitted? 

Also receiving an honorable mention is the guy who went a step further and named his pup  "Digger dawg."

But, as often happens in discussions of Digg, "Buzz" is getting unfairly left out. There are actually 124 L.A. dogs named Buzz. I was shocked to find that no local owners named their dogs "Delicious," even though dogs abound with names like "Dr. Ruff" and "Betti Spaghetti."

Four local canines are named "Google," making it, according to the database, the 9,100th most common L.A. dog name. 

If you find any funny Web 2.0-related dogs, please send along and I'll add to the post.   

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Q&A: Joss Whedon examines 'Dr. Horrible'

Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tanharoen, Joss Whedon, Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion,
Felicia Day (front), Zack Whedon // Photo credit: Amy Opoka.

Writer-director Joss Whedon  answered a couple of e-mail questions about the origins of "Dr. Horrible" and what he thinks of the Internet as a creative medium.

How did knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on the Internet change the way you approached the making of it? What kinds of stylistic or narrative elements might work on the Internet that might not on TV or film?

The first answer is obviously freedom: not just creative but structural, in terms of running time, number of episodes, presentation and (fingers crossed) monetization. Nothing is set in stone. I'm a very traditional storyteller, and I'm in no way Internet savvy, but I did appreciate the elasticity of the medium. The story was also geared toward the Internet audience -- and not just by putting "blog" in the title. The fact that Dr. Horrible does blog is part of his character, which is the guy alone in his room ranting about the world not being the way it should.  We're long past the age of "everybody on the Internet watches 'Star Trek' and lives in their parents' basement," but there is a modern societal truth about the kind of guy who needs to tell the world his troubles and show off his talents.  And I relate to that guy. Neil's blogs wouldn't work in the same way if they weren't coming from your computer screen. Correction: They will work brilliantly on DVD. Or at a midnight screening in your local city! Other difference in doing it without major backing: I become a whore.

Most importantly, there is the silly. The things that have hit on the Internet have almost all had that quality, from "Star Wars" kid, to "The Landlord," to 1,500 prisoners doing "Thriller." Not just the I-made-it-myself aesthetic, but the truly, transcendently goofy. The absurd (which is important to me, as an Absurdist) is part of the Internet's identity. Maybe it's just a stage, but it's an awesome one. On TV, Dr. Horrible would be greeted with a lot more skepticism than on the Internet. We knew as writers that we could bare our ridiculous souls to the point where people would suddenly, sincerely burst into song -- it took six years to achieve that kind of audience trust on "Buffy."

And finally, it does have to be said that every time a shot wasn't perfect and we had to move on, we'd just proclaim "It's an Internet musical!" and comfort ourselves with the idea that it would all be very tiny.

*

Whedon talks about making money from the show here...

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Exclusive: Rare Clint Eastwood footage (1966's "Le Streghe" / "The Witches") finds its way to YouTube

I've just been alerted that two lengthy clips from a barely known 1966 Italian art-house film starring Clint Eastwood have been up on YouTube for over a year, and no one's noticed! The film, called "Le Streghe" ("The Witches"), was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starred his wife, Silvana Mangano. It's  comprised of five vignettes by five directors; one of the vignettes -- "Civic Sense" -- stars Eastwood playing an uncharacteristic role as the everyman husband of Mangano.  The YouTube blurb describes it  as a "light comedy," but it's actually more surrealist and Fellini-esque -- and is quite saucy in parts (at one point Eastwood tells Mangano, "I want to swallow you"). 

The film had a limited U.S. release (four years after it was made, it says here) and is not available on DVD. In fact, according to a tipster, until recently all known copies of "The Witches" were thought to be lost.  Universal apparently owned some or all of the U.S. rights to the film, but it's not clear if they still do.

Developing...

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.

Live on tape from Google's lobby: the search visualizer

I was bouncing around Santa Monica yesterday and happened to land in the lobby of the Google office on 2nd Street. Up on the wall is a nice big monitor that shows all the terms being searched on Google in real time. (They've had these things for a while but it was the first time I've seen one in person.) Lots of languages and varied interests. If anyone wants to translate some of the non-English phrases, please leave them in the comments. By the way, does anyone know what "space ibiza" is?  Sounds like a fun party.