Monday, October 31, 2005 Oil companies laugh all the way to the bank POST A COMMENT Some say, "Greed is good in America," but many people will be struggling to feed their kids this winter. Is price gouging good? All the major oil companies are putting extra cash in their pockets and some are asking: "should they ease consumers' pain from record energy prices." How much is too much? Exxon Mobil, the world's biggest oil company, posted a profit of 9.92 billion dollars for the third quarter -- the biggest in US corporate history. Senator Charles Schumer said the 29 major oil and gas firms expect to earn 96 billion dollars this year -- up from 68 billion dollars last year and 43 billion dollars in 2003. "It's become perfectly clear that the big oil companies are cashing in while average American families are being bled dry," Schumer said. That's like the fat kid eating a bag of chips in the back of the classroom while everyone is starving. What happened to sharing is caring? Henry Hubble, Exxon Mobil's director of investor relations, said the issue is a "tightness of supply versus demand," which is double speak for "daddy needs to a new golf course." Higher energy prices means Santa Claus isn't coming around this holiday season and people will have a hard time putting food on the table. "Let them eat cake," Oil execs will be saying instead of trying to help. Helping for the sake of "helping" is just not the American way. By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 5:32 PM Don't F**k with Oprah! POST A COMMENT The wrath of Oprah can be deadly (check in with the now empty luxury store Hermes). "We should all have a healthy fear of Oprah," said Aaron McGruder, creator of "The Boondocks," talking to the New York Times. "The Boondocks" show airs next week on the Cartoon Network and promises to be "wildly scathing and racially charged" will have most of it's "bite." -- except anything that might upset Ms. O. The first 10 seconds of the new show does give viewers the following incites: "Jesus is black, Ronald Reagan is the devil and the government is lying about 9/11." Sounds like a real knee slapper, huh? I'm sure "Jesus as a Black man" will play well in Memphis. SONY "FEARS" OPRAH, case in point: "Sony executives asked that McGruder "heavily edit an episode featuring an animated Oprah Winfrey being kidnapped by two thugs." Sounds like the show had a little too much bite. "They were scared of Oprah, which is O.K.," he said. "Oprah has the power to lay waste to entire industries with a mere utterance," Mr. McGruder said. CARTOON CONTROVERSY COST MONEY: Cartoon Network told the NY Times it will be an expensive bid to piss people off. "Sony Pictures Television, producer of the series, gets a license fee of $400,000 per episode. Add to that the millions the network has spent on marketing trumpeting the show's premiere on Nov. 6 in the late-night "Adult Swim" block, and "The Boondocks" becomes the most expensive show the network has made." All for the love of the people. "We don't have a lot of money, so we decided that for this year, we're going to put every dime we have into 'Boondocks,' " said Mike Lazzo, senior vice president of programming and production at Cartoon Network. I going to say if this tanks "Lazzo" will be going for a long "adult swim." By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 5:07 PM My Religion in the Science Classroom? POST A COMMENT If I started a new religion today I'd have to find something that can kick my ass to pray to, (just like the good 'ol days when people prayed to statues). I think a hurricane would do, "Oh please hurricane please don't kick my ass today with your bad-ass rain and wind." I would need bad music to appease the "weather god." Maybe some of that Britney Spears stuff, "Oh baby baby please understand" (sing it with me). The Gods will spare us today. I'm carefully watching the federal judge in Pennsylvania a landmark trial on how public schools teach "evolution." I shall pray to my new god for the right answer. "Oh heavy wind hear my prayer." And now we dance. Last year I waited for Santa Claus to fly over my house and deliver his presents last Christmas. That old bastard didn't come, but I'll be waiting for him again this year because "Jesus Christ taught me forgiveness." (I hear a song coming on). "Forget my children that science class teaches us the DNA of humans and chimpanzees is 99 percent identical." Evolution is now a bad word in my church. Stop asking stupid questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? (God will supply you with all the answers if you close your eyes). "The real purpose is to say the Bible's true, and it's history. Genesis is true," explains Ken Ham, founder of the Answers in Genesis ministry. He brings us a new superhero: Intelligent design. Maybe Ken has the answers in his made up religion. He rejects years of findings by mainstream scientists that different species of creatures came into being over the course of hundreds of millions of years, through the process of evolution. Oh, wait is it time to set back the clocks? By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 5:05 PM Thursday, October 27, 2005 FAME GAME: It pays to be dead POST A COMMENT You can't take it with you when you die, but "being famous" has a few perks. I thought being part of the lucky sperm club (the son/daughter of a "famous person") meant you can just lay around and cash the checks. "Ah, to dream." Forbes Magazine listed their annual "Highest-Earning Dead Celebrities list" which raked in a total of $186 million in the last year. Elvis Presley was still the king as the number one earner on that list; I'm going to think that the "younger elvis" (before he got fat) is a reason he sells today. ROLLING IN THEIR GRAVE: Forbes said, "their estates, earned the money by selling their work--both written and recorded--or just the rights to use their likenesses on T-shirts, posters or in advertisements." New to the list, thanks to movie biopics, are Musicians Ray Charles and Johnny Cash. I wonder why Tupac and Biggie Smalls are still coming out with albums -- it's sounds so much better when you're dead. Dead Celebrity "top earner" List 2005: 1. Elvis Presley 2. Charles M.Schulz 3. John Lennon 4. Andy Warhol 5. Theodore "Dr Seuss" Geisel 6. Marlon Brando 7. Marilyn Monroe 8. J.R.R. Tolkien 9. George Harrison 10. Johnny Cash 11. Irving Berlin 12. Bob Marley 13. Ray Charles By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 5:37 PM Did DMX shoot Cam'ron? POST A COMMENT This is not the week to spit rhymes; your ass might get shot at or thrown in jail -- or sued by your white-trash cousins -- read on. Rapper DMX is going to do 60 days in prison after pleading guilty to violating the conditions of his release following a car crash -- anybody know if DMX was in DC this past weekend near the Cam'ron shooting? Note to self: when I make the kind of money a rapper is paid I'm going to hire a damn driver (and make sure he's packing heat). Poor DMX, whose real name is Earl Simmons, pleaded guilty last December to reckless endangerment and acknowledged he was taking Valium when he smashed his sport utility vehicle into a gate at Kennedy Airport in June 2004, after telling a parking lot attendant he was a federal agent. Was it a Pink SUV DMX was driving? I heard something about a pink SUV in the Cam'ron shooting. Hold on a second, what straight man rides in a pink SUV? "Yo bee, get me my glock. I got some business to handle right quick. Get me my purse." Pink must be the new black this season. IT'S EAST COAST VS. WEST COST: Over on the west coast ccommunity leaders are upset over 50 Cent's upcoming movie 'Get Rich Or Die Tryin' which has a gun theme in the ads . I'm going to put on my political hat here for a second. "Guns don't kill, people kill." The gun problem is not a film, which depicts realistic situations, it's "gun lobbyist" who make sure guns are available. Question: why there are so many guns out there? -- and you'll find your answer. Over in 50's redneck corner (in business at least), a judge has threw out most of a lawsuit filed by two relatives of Eminem who claim the rapper is evicting them from the home he had built for them. I hear those new trailer parks can fit a whole family, perfect fit for pain in the ass relatives. Hit that drum machine: To the beat ya'll, yes, yes. Going to jail, doing my time, dodging those bullets. Got get me a driver! Damn, it looks so easy on TV. posted by Henry Cruz at 5:35 PM Tuesday, October 25, 2005 Katrina uncovers the "Sun Down Towns" POST A COMMENT Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give a white man her seat on a Alabama bus 50 years ago, got us wondering about the topic of "racial segregation in America." Things have improved since then, but not by much. Did you catch the ABC Primetime Live chicks singing their "message of racism and White Nationalism?" Two pretty blondes being taught to stay clear of the blackmans juice. Last Friday Spike Lee on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher suggested a levee was destroyed in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in order to flood the nearly all-black ninth ward. Lee said: "a choice had to be made, one neighborhood got to save another neighborhood and flood another 'hood, flood another neighborhood." Spike is clearly putting on a show for the cameras but there is some truth behind the sentiment. History has not been very kind to people of color and where they live is not always by choice. THE NEW BOOK: SUNDOWN TOWNS (by James W. Loewen) points out "that thousands of American towns were deliberately kept whites-only." Sunday's Washington Post said "whites in America created thousands of whites-only towns, commonly known as "sundown towns" owing to the signs often posted at their city limits that warned, as one did in Hawthorne, Calif., in the 1930s: "Nigger, Don't Let The Sun Set On YOU In Hawthorne."...in that book the author writes, "I believe at least 3,000 and perhaps as many as 15,000 independent towns went sundown in the United States, mostly between 1890 and about 1930." In other words, blacks lived in places where whites didn't want to be. NOT PART OF THE LUCK SPERM CLUB: During the Katrina aftermath Barbara Bush chuckled as she said: "So many of the people here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." As if they had a choice in life. If anything good comes from Katrina it put a spotlight on racism -- 50 years after the Rosa Parks bus -- its alive and kicking back people with dark skin. posted by Henry Cruz at 10:37 PM Monday, October 24, 2005 In Starbucks we trust POST A COMMENT I always wondered if these high spirited TV Evangelists were on dope when they yelled about Jesus needing a new Cadillac. Now that Starbucks will put "God-filled quotes from the Rev. Rick Warren" (author of The Purpose-Driven Life) on its cups it all makes sense. It's the fucking coffee that has them all jazzed up about the bible. Starbucks has 63 quotes from writers, scientists, musicians, athletes, politicians and cultural critics on cups to carry on the coffeehouse tradition of conversation according to USA Today. "Americans are more accepting of overt religiosity these days, and corporations are good at figuring out how to do it with a light touch, one that's not going to scare off unbelievers," says sociologist David Halle, director of the LeRoy Neiman Center for the Study of American Society and Culture at the University of California-Los Angeles. I guess while I'm sipping my $6 cup of super-high Calorie creamy mocha I need some bullshit sayings to wash it all down. posted by Henry Cruz at 4:52 PM Freddy who? POST A COMMENT Fame can kick you right in the stomach, just ask Freddie. For years he's been known as Mr. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (spouse of the ultra-famous Sarah Michelle Gellar). We can all imagine that pillow talk: "don't worry baby, you are somebody!" This week Freddie Prinze Jr. has amazing healing abilities as his "cracked rib" actually turned out to be a torn muscle caused by eating too much Chinese food. It has nothing to do with the fact that his new ABC show called "Freddie" got big ratings. "I ate a lot and my stomach was a little upset and I went to bed and I woke up the next day and I felt like I broke a rib," he told a reporter. Freddy, you are somebody -- now stop eating so much. By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 4:51 PM Howard Stern gets his "Playboy Mansion" POST A COMMENT Howard 100 on Sirius radio went live recently pumping up his January arrival. Included in the line-up this week are interviews with former Stern show member Jackie The Jokeman Martling, and wack pack member Wendy The Retard, surrounded by "Howard 100 News" branding that lampooned traditional news. Stern told the NY Times "he had yet to rule anything out - including the use of his microphones and cameras to record a sex act in his brand-new 4,100-square-foot studio" (which has water-resistant walls and floors, for any gags that might involve whipped cream -- and of course a ready stripper pole). Sounds like we might need to tune in. posted by Henry Cruz at 4:48 PM Madonna likes to ride POST A COMMENT Madonna got back on the horse on Letterman - insisting after eight months of riding: "I don't think of myself as a beginner." Letterman shot back I've been riding five years and I'm still learning. BABY TALK: Former Madonna playmate DENNIS RODMAN confirmed Madonna likes a good ride (so to speak). In his autobiography I SHOULD BE DEAD BY NOW, he says "Madonna wanted to have my babies... One time I was in Las Vegas at the craps table doing my thing when I got this frantic call. "It was like the 'somebody died call' from New York. I picked up the phone and Madonna was like, 'I'm ovulating, I'm ovulating. Get your ass up here.' "So I left my chips on the table, flew five hours to New York and did my thing. We got done and she was standing on her head in an attempt to promote conception - just like any girl trying to get pregnant." Ah, the good 'ol days horseback riding. posted by Henry Cruz at 4:47 PM Beyonce's Vanity Fair is just a character! POST A COMMENT Can it be true that like Vanity Fair 'doesn't care about black people?'' -- I have a call out to Kanye West who tracks this kind of stuff. The latest magazine uproar is all about "how white can we go" --thank god for photoshop -- I think we all agree Tracy Chapman will not be on next months cover (wink, wink). This months "please don't scare grandma" -- Beyonce cover (the so-called Hip-hop issue) is looking very Vogue Friendly. “Everything on the cover is bright, including the white background, to make it seem as white as can be,” said a magazine insider to Radar Magazine I'M A BAD GIRL: In the interview Beyonce says she assumed an alter-ego called "Sasha" on stage where she leaves behind her church-girl to get nasty and shake it. Maybe for the cover she was just playing "Britney" the dumb blonde who just thinks she's a black girl. Vanity Denies making Beyonce 5 shades lighter. By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 4:45 PM Terminator "too busy" for Bush POST A COMMENT Schwarzenegger, known for chasing down a piece of "bush" in the past, said he was "too busy" to meet with the President on his "Cali" visit. Not even out-of-work "D list" actors have time to meet with Bush -- (they might nickname him Hurricane Bush because everyone's running for cover). The Governor downplayed questions: "President Bush is always welcome to California," he said. Ah, right. Just don't come knocking on my front door he should have added. I'm no political watch dog, but since Bush is slumping in recent polls -- and was never very popular in the state of California -- "too busy" is a nice way of saying "don't be back posted by Henry Cruz at 4:41 PM Dakota Fanning does number 2 POST A COMMENT Here's the thing, I don't have a problem with "overly cute child actors." Hollywood execs this weekend are scratching their heads wondering why Dakota Fanning's new film, "Dreamer," could not draw families to the movies -- coming in at number two (with a disappointing $9 million at the box office). Somebody out in Hollywood must've sent a memo to every movie studios that Fanning is the "it" child star of the moment, and all kid roles must be given to her. Find a new kid. Well, here's my memo (feel free to take notes): enough of the same crap! Please don't hire the same child actor to star in every movie to play the same exact role. Try something new. Here's a new buzz word: "original casting," and while you're at it try "original stories" (no more old TV shows remade into big budget films). By Henry Cruz posted by Henry Cruz at 1:38 PM Tuesday, October 18, 2005 Wilma comes home POST A COMMENT There's a scene in the HBO show "Rome" where Cleopatra must prepare to pass to the other side (meaning the land of the dead) -- before she is rescued by Roman Soldiers. Ah, don't you miss the good 'ol days when death was just a stopping place to another land. It would see that idea has died. Today tropical Storm Wilma strengthened into a hurricane on a path that threatens Florida (tying the record for the most hurricanes to form in an Atlantic season). Funny, why don't we see anyone hanging out preparing to die? In fact, if the hurricane is really bad people will leave their homes to avoid the winds of near 75 mph. Can't anyone see the sign post up ahead? It's time to die, why do people fight it? Prepare to die, don't fight it (we do need to get rid of a few people anyway). People are living longer than expected and nature is can't handle it (we're over populated and it's beginning to vote someone off the island). How come no one prepares for that other side? Let nature even out the numbers. posted by Henry Cruz at 7:29 PM     ARCHIVES October 2005 . November 2005 . December 2005 . August 2007 . September 2007 . October 2007 . November 2007 . December 2007 . March 2008 . April 2008 . May 2008 .