Inside Job

I have been covering the financial sector for quite some time now, as the sole correspondent for Tell It Like It Is News, so the facts, figures, and villains on display in Charles Ferguson's Inside Job were hardly new to me. I know what happened, I know who did it, and I know exactly why--greed.

With that in mind, there were a few moments I felt the movie dragged (1h45m felt like 2h30m), but overall it was a surprisingly slick production chock-full of beautiful visuals and some highly-entertaining gotcha moments that make it well-worth watching.

And, as an added bonus for the ladies out there, Matt Damon's voice is also on display for at least twenty minutes in total. Although I am so manly I shave the bottoms of my feet, I got chills everywhere whenever he spoke. Money well-spent, Sony Pictures Ltd Intl Inc Megacorporation Nation-State.

Much like the villains in this tragedy have always claimed, there will be plenty of people out there who will hem and haw and tell you everything isn't black and white and it's really complicated but actually rich people getting richer helps poor people somehow.

If you believe these people you are dumb and you know it, which strikes at an important point of similarity that people in the media never seem to point out:

Just as the financial market demolition expert (aka 'Investment Banker') gets his conscience to swallow enormous lies in a series of more easily digestible incremental white lies, truth-bending, and questionable justifications, the Average American engages in a similar series of incremental lies regarding their limited exposure to ruin, the volatile nature of the "free-market" economy, the trustworthiness of those in power, the priorities of the rich, and the extent to which pure evil has permeated our society.

In other words, just as the banker knowingly swallows the lie that he is not evil, his victim also swallows the lie that the banker is not evil.

And so, whether he realizes it or not, the victim is kicked down another rung on that great big ladder from serfdom to Lord, forced to scramble to make ends meet, cut back on spending, get another job, get deeper in debt, etc, until the house of cards ultimately crumbles--at which point he is hopefully old enough to die.

I am a firm believer that the root of most of the problems facing America today is the fact that people don't want to know what is happening in the annals of power. They intentionally ignore the news, ignore the altruistic activists, ignore the canaries in the coal mines, because deep down they know the Warshington/Wall Street elite is so evil they would rather not know the details. Ignorance is bliss, none of my business, everything seems fine, that's just the way things go, the market is cyclical, the Matrix is actually pretty cool, yadda yadda yadda.

Well, to all of you out there who think ignoring a problem of this magnitude is okay because you have yet to be turned out on the street yourself, remember this:

The ostrich with his head in the sand eventually gets bitten in the ass.

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Is 'Green Day' Really Punk?

You have been warned:

Green Day's album American Idiot has been turned into a musical by fanboy Michael Mayer, who "discovered American Idiot while he was still in the early stages of directing [Tony-award-winning] Spring Awakening, Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's musical about the pubescent struggles of 19th-century German youth."

Discovered? I think 'assaulted by' is more appropriate.

How do you discover something that is as omnipresent as the sun? We're not talking about some obscure, self-produced punk 45 found at a garage sale--we're talking about a pop album that sold 12 million copies, that played everywhere in the world for what seemed like forever. We're talking about a band that everybody and their parents know about--a Green Day song (Time of Your Life) played over the ending montage to the last Seinfeld episode, for Devil's sake!

As if only to encourage me, Mayer goes one further:

I can only hope this wasn't a thought he had while listening to Mozart, although, sadly, I can't take that for granted at this point.

Get your extremely expensive tickets through Ticketmaster soon, or all your Abercrombie-punk friends will make fun of you until you intentionally overdose on Advil in the suburbs!!!

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How Much Money Does Patricia Heaton Need?

Let's face it, she's not an artist--she always plays the same character, which is no doubt not very different from who she is in real life. For those of you unfamiliar with her oeuvre, Heaton played 'hilarious' Debra Barone, Ray Romano's wife, on 'Everybody Loves Raymond,' a show that seemed to go on forever, but actually was only on for a finite 9 years. 209 episodes. She made $450,000 per episode in season seven--$11 million that year alone.

'Raymond' thankfully expired in 2005, and it did EXPIRE--it was not canceled and did not even finish out its last season. According to www.patriciaheatononline.com (yes, this fucking website EXISTS, and packs a punch):

"Raymond Falls Short - Despite a last-ditch effort by CBS to lengthen its final season, Everybody Loves Raymond will stick to Plan A and produce just 16 original episodes before signing off in May. "We honestly couldn't think of any more [ideas]," says series creator Phil Rosenthal. "We brought in a couple of people to pitch stories, but everything either reminded us of stuff we've done before or wasn't good enough." Damn you creative integrity. Damn you!"

Now, I know what you're thinking or, at least, should be thinking: where was your creative integrity the last nine years? Did every one of those scripts REALLY not remind you of every other episode you'd ever done? Did the initial concept, and every subsequent idea, REALLY not remind you of every other stock, cardboard character/storyline in the boring-ass sitcom pantheon? Were they all 'good enough?'

After nine years of going to work five days a week to play herself on national TV, you'd think Patricia Heaton would pocket the $80 million and live out the rest of her life quietly, raising her four young boys, eating finger sandwiches with her hubby, etc. But no--she decided to start appearing in commercials that seem to play constantly, even to this day. Was this her 'honing her craft?' She obviously didn't need the money...

To make matters worse, she appeared in a pilot for a TV show that never even received a proper name--that's how bad it was, how quickly the umbilical cord was cut from this 'baby' by the powers that be--even though it was made TWO YEARS AGO--"The Untitled Patricia Heaton Project (2006)." Since I know you're curious, here is a synopsis of this series that thankfully went nowhere:

"A recently widowed woman (Heaton) starts a new life for herself by joining the PTA."

No need for a joke here--the work has already been done. Thanks, Patricia!

Sadly, Kelsey Grammar then decided he needed to add Patricia's 'star wattage' to his new unnecessary show, 'Back to You.' In this show, he plays Dr. Frasier Crane--but with a DIFFERENT NAME! His range is truly stunning. Talk about somebody who doesn't need the money--Kelsey! Go away! Swim around in your vault full of gold coins and leave us alone! You were funny in Cheers, but that's in the past!

Isn't the goal in life to make a bunch of money and retire young, to enjoy life the way it was meant to be lived, as children of paradise, sipping fruit smoothies out of coconut halves and making love in the surf, nary a care in the world? When you have $80 million laying around, shouldn't you just go on vacation for the rest of your life, raise your children, and work on the occasional pet project? TV sitcoms are not art--they are popcorn entertainment created by, and starring, people who are only doing it for the paycheck. Why do greedy-soccer-mom-actress-whores like Patricia Heaton not understand this? Why does she think we need to see more of her one-trick-pony acting? How come she doesn't understand that she has no need for her own website? How come she doesn't realize we all see right through her? How come she had her belly button removed by a plastic surgeon?*

Wait, I know the answer--she's a psychopath.


[*Yes, this is true. Read all about it, and check out some scary photos, by cutting and pasting this link into your browser:
http://defamer.com/366521/missing-one-celebrity-belly-button-and-one-sense-of-inhibition]