Supermarket Lagerfeld

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

Ten years or so ago in London, when I was even less self-aware than I am now, I was in the middle of some rant with my friend Ben Ingham when I referred to myself as “slightly eccentric.”  Ben guffawed in a remarkable way, which is saying a lot because he is a consummate hearty guffawer. “‘Slightly eccentric’?  Hah!  You’re barking mad, mate.”

This was the moment I realized that my fascination with mental illness is somewhat self-reverential; I am on a quest to find my own pathology, mainly because I have never been diagnosed with any disorder, but when close friends like Ben say there must be one, there must be one.  I am not a hypochondriac when it comes to physical illness, but I am forever testing myself online for mental ones, and begging passing shrinks for their opinions.  To no avail.

Mars or Bust: “Carter” Craters

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW | REVIEW

by James Killough

I was moping in text messages to Tuttle yesterday afternoon about how lame my weekly round-up was turning out to be, when it hit me that I should write about what I’d been tweeting about all day: the colossal flop John Carter is destined to be.  Which meant that I had to get off my ass and fork over close to twenty dollars for the 3D version plus popcorn surcharge (it is a two-hour-nineteen-minute movie, and I’m a big guy who needs to be fed).  So I hope you appreciate the sacrifices this reviewer goes to bring you the freshest.

With "The Vow" killing at the B.O., and critics saying "21 Jump Street" is the next "Superbad," and advance word that "Magic Mike" is magic, this is Channing's year.

I admit it, I was drawn like Edward Cullen after Bella’s blood in Twilight to the throbbing, heady scent of schadenfreude emanating from the film: the industry awoke Friday morning to find out that analyst Alan Gould from Evercore had revised his predictions that John Carter’s losses could be one hundred sixty-five million, or double what he had previously estimated.  This is a lot of loss, and so far this weekend he is right.

To the Beat of the Frum Drum

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW

by James Killough

Well, whaddaya know.  No sooner do I publish a diatribe against Andrew Sullivan urging Tina Brown to cut him loose than she runs out and buys herself not-meshuganuts conservative thinker David Frum, with whom I don’t always agree, but who at least doesn’t outrage me with his whacky, sanctimonious claptrap.

Open letter to Tom: Come home soon. Daddy needs you. Contact details in the right margin xoxo

Well done, Tina.  This is the sort of Other Side opinion you need to balance out Newsweek/The Daily Beast.  I knew you could do it.  Guys like Frum are the best hope we have for a rational, civilized, reasonably intelligent dialogue between left and right.

A Little Madness in the Spring

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW

by James Killough

It was heartening to see that so many Americans haunting my sector of the Innernet—i.e., politics, foreign affairs, entertainment and Manhunt.net—were so accepting and philosophical about the apparent Islamist victory in Egypt this week.  They seemed to understand how hypocritical it is for a nation like ours—which until 2008 had an evangelical Christian president who followed God’s direct spoken commands, and which unilaterally supports the essentially fundamentalist Jewish state of Israel—to get up in arms if the Muslim Brotherhood forms a government in Cairo.

Screamin'-at-ya gay and borderline cheesy, Muto Manifesto is still beautifully shot and laid out. The text is pretentious, but it's French, so never mind. Click on the image for more.

This was a something of an unexpected outcome in Egypt; the Arab Spring was fueled and fanned by leftist, secular factions, not by the Egyptian equivalent of our own Nation of Islam.  But ain’t that always the case: the lefties do all the work, and the righties tell them what to do.  I doubt we’re going to see a return to the veil in Egypt anytime soon, but the trains will probably run on time.

Muthafuckin

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW

by James Killough

In one of the more shameless Hollywood publicity stunts, some genius in the marketing department at Fox Searchlight managed to convince Tina Brown to run a cover story about sex addiction in Newsweek-The Daily Beast in conjunction with the release of Steve McQueen’s Shame.  I’m sure Tina’s arm is still hurting from all the twisting it took to get her to agree to this.

14-year-old Moretz isn't as badass in "Hugo" as she is as the obscene bloodthirsty pubescent assassin in "Kick-Ass," but she is the most watchable face on the screen right now.

The article is, naturally, the top story right now on TDB, rather like how our own Mark Zuckerberg Has A Small Dick refuses to be dislodged from the PFC Top Ten six months after I wrote it.  Indeed, today it is number one.  This is rather annoying because I don’t consider it to be my best post by any means.  The reason for its high ranking is all the pervs out there—why do I keep imagining them to be Pakistani?—Google searching for ‘big penis.’

So You Wanna Be a Queen

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

Now that I’ve got myself going on the subject of Tina Brown, I wouldn’t be the first to notice that her favorite circulation booster while editor-in-chief at Vanity Fair, Princess Diana, was also the inspiration for Tina’s hair bob, which she still sports.  While I don’t doubt that it is the best hairstyle to frame Tina’s face, it can still be seen as an homage that is slightly stalker-ish, in a Single White Female sort of way.

A portrait of the once future queen by Testino for Vanity Fair. She might not have been stable, but at least the kids are all right.

Last week, the comments section of Brown’s The Daily Beast was all aflutter in response to the news that girls can ascend the British throne ahead of their brothers.  Historian Robert Andrews, whose author picture looks like a byline from an Op Ed column in The Daily Telegraph from the early 60s, wrote the most delirious article that begins with how the monarchy is illogical and ends with how grateful we should be this change in the succession wasn’t in place at the turn of the last century because otherwise the psychotic fascist Kaiser Wilhelm II would have inherited the British throne via his mother, the Empress Vicky of Germany, Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter.  Thankfully, the article went no further, or Andrews might have lauded the fact women didn’t have the vote at that point, either, or World War I might have gone to the Germans, or some such drivel.

Out of His Depp

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEW

by James Killough

Without knowing the exact insider gossip behind the release of The Rum Diary, I can only take a somewhat educated guess as to what’s created this mess at the Mad Hatter’s tea table.

Has to be botox. HAS to be.

The film has three credited financing companies, but I imagine there is a fourth: Johnny Depp himself, a longtime friend of Hunter S. Thompson’s, who no doubt magnanimously overpaid for the rights to the novel, and wants to see his money back, which is why his has thrown his considerable weight behind the film’s PR: a Vanity Fair cover article; pieces he wrote himself for The Daily Beast and others; and a rather forced, not-very-funny “viral” video with Ricky Gervais. Otherwise, Depp has suffered a mild psychotic break and actually believes this piece of absolute tripe is worthy cinema.

Some Bottom Bitches Scream Too Loud

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

It’s been a while now since I’ve taken a potshot or two at my evil twin Andrew Sullivan.  In truth, I’ve become sort of ambivalent about him, as opposed to hostile; his position on cannabis usage—that making a plant which grows naturally illegal, but letting alcoholic beverages, which are manmade, be not only legal but socially acceptable and an integral part of many religious ceremonies is hypocritical—is a laudable one.  I take a further libertarian view towards all drugs: if you are old enough to know what you want and can make an informed decision, and provided you don’t harm others—i.e., by getting slaughtered on legal ethanol and causing a lethal traffic accident—then nobody should tell you what to do.  Let’s not go into the safety issues of having drugs manufactured in dodgy labs by pseudo-chemists with no regulation; hardcore drugs users are people too, and deserve FDA protection as much as any alcohol drinker or anxiety-riddled pill-popping suburban soccer mom.

Proto-douche Andrew Sullivan has some decent points, but they are wiped out by other nonsense he stands for and spews forth. And, Andrew, what is that shirt? Moiré? Snicker.

But the sensible cannabis stance is outweighed by Sullivan’s other more insensible positions, like his advocacy of unprotected sex, for himself in particular because he’s Poz; the AIDS crisis is apparently over, according to him.  Well, it would be, now that he has—forgive my French—taken so many infected loads up his ass that he has surrendered to the disease.  But that doesn’t make the crisis any where near over for the vast majority of people, especially the young ‘uns, people who don’t sit on a sanctimonious high horse during the day, only to get off it and behave like a total bottom pig slut at night.