Buzz

I recently received in the mail a copy of Jenni “J-Woww” Farley’s book “The Rules According to JWoww: shore-tested secrets on landing a mint guy, staying fresh to death, and kicking the competition to the curb.” I could tell immediately that it was a fine piece of classic literature because the dust cover opens into a poster of Jenni holding a bouquet of roses and smiling that “Thank you for funding my next boob job” smile. The cover photo makes Jenni look like one of those porn stars in the Sex Ed video in the movie The Girl Next Door. I was pretty excited to read this book. I was expecting pretty much everything I encountered in this book, but I didn’t expect one crucial thing: This book was actually pretty darn good. Jenni has always been my favourite Jersey Shore guidette — she’s tough, savvy, and smart — but I didn’t realize that her personal success was based on her own personal trial and error and not good TV editing.

Written in handy chapters, Jenni’s book covers the sixty essential rules of being a girl: dating, relationships, breaking up, and personal style and hygiene. Some of these rules are great, like rule 25: If it smells like a hookup… it is a hookup, which says “if he’s got an itch, he knows he can call you and you’ll come running to scratch it.” Great advice to those girls who think “maybe this time…” Some of the things she says, however, are somewhat questionable: “All you get from sitting around scrolling websites for love is dimples in your a**.”

Inserted throughout the book are Cosmo-esque tips on things like “What to do if you f*** up your spray tan” and “Five red flags that he’s a control freak.” These tips make great additions to an otherwise solid book.

The only real problem I had with this book was the insertion of the same types of lines over and over: “Don’t do this if you’re under 21.” It seemed strange to me that Jenni would be constantly reminding her readers not to do ninety percent of the things we watch her do, week after week on Jersey Shore. The only explanation for this could be for insurance purposes. In order to cover their behinds, they put a disclaimer in. They may as well have written “If anything happens to you because you were dumb enough to get out of control, don’t come crying to us.”

All-in-all, I enjoyed this book, and I think that if one were to de-Jersey-ify this book, it would be a great guide for anyone hoping to get ahead.

As has been blaring over all the radio stations, television channels, and tomorrow, the newspapers, a Hollywood icon, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, passed away from heart failure Wednesday morning at the age of 79.

An English-American actress who received her big break at age 9, she was born to American citizen parents in Hampstead, London, and at the beginning of World War II, came to America with her parents who wanted to avoid the brewing hostilities.  Her parents were encouraged by a friend to introduce a young Elizabeth to the chairman of Universal Pictures in Hollywood, who was convinced that Elizabeth would dazzle the chairman with her looks.  Unsurprisingly, a contract was secured in 1941, with Taylor making her debut in There’s One Born Every Minute, which would be her only film for Universal.  She was not popular with Universal, and her contract was canceled in 1942, allowing MGM to secure her for Lassie Come Home.

MGM was impressed with her performance in Lassie, and they signed her to a seven year contract where she would eventually play Velvet Brown in National Velvet, a film that would propel her to stardom at the ripe old age of 12.  She quickly earned a reputation as a skilled young actor before ending her adolescent roles with Little Women before traveling back to England to begin filming her first adult role.  She would eventually be hailed as a skilled dramatic actress, with roles in films being designed just for her.  She would eventually star in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (which would win her a BAFTA), Celopatra, and would win her first Academy Award for BUtterfield 8 in 1960; Taylor would win her second Academy Award for her performance in

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? in 1966.

Elizabeth Taylor loved more than just the stage, she was the owner of a number of very well-known and beautiful pieces of jewelery, including the 33 carat Krupp Diamond and the 69 Carat Taylor-Burton Diamond, both gifts from 5th and 6th husband Richard Burton, along with a pearl which had once belonged to Mary I of England.  She also designed jewels and launched three perfumes, devoted time and energy to her own AIDS foundation, the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which has raised approximately $50 million towards fighting the disease.

Likely the thing most notable with Taylor was her marriages and affairs.  Stereotypically Hollywood in her romantic affairs, Taylor ended more than just her own marriages, as she was linked to more than one married man who often divorced their previous spouse to be with her, only to be single a few years later.  She was married eight times to seven different men, divorced seven times and widowed once.  She divorced Richard Burton twice, and convinced an Iranian ambassador, whom she left Burton to be with, to divorce his own spouse so they could form a relationship, but an Iranian Shah convinced him to end his relationship with her before they could marry.

Elizabeth Taylor leaves behind four children, ten grandchildren, four great grandchildren, and a legacy as an actress of exceptional talent and beauty.  She will be missed.

We’re always hearing about Hollywood marriages falling apart before they’ve really begun. I measure Hollywood marriages in dog years and,  even at that, many are shockingly short-lived. In some cases, the couples seem so mismatched that we wonder what they were thinking getting hitched in the first place. Every once in a while, though, we get surprised. Here are three Hollywood couples who have made it safely past their tenth anniversary (and one that just might), in chronological order.

Warren Beatty and Annette Bening (Married 19 years)

Warren Beatty was well-known for being a lothario and commitment-phobe. When he married a pregnant Annette Bening in 1992, few thought that it would last. Here we are, nearly 20 years (and 4 kids) later, and they are still going strong! Bening has said, on Beatty’s past “You can’t expect to take away his past. You have to know it and respect it…Whatever got him to where he is now is fine with me.” It seems to be working for them!

Céline Dion & René Angelil (Married 16 years)

An age difference, in itself, isn’t cause to cringe, but the ick-factor on this partnership is pretty huge. Céline Dion met René Angelil in 1980, when she was 12 and he was 38. Dion and her mother sent him, a prospective manager, a demo tape. Yes, he began as her manager when she was a teenager. They began dating in 1987 (for those keeping score at home, that makes her 19 and him 45), got engaged in 1991 and married in 1994 (she was 26, he was just shy of 53). How a grown man marries a woman he has known since age 12 is beyond me. In fact, his first child was born the same year as Dion.  However, they’ve stayed married a good long time, and just welcomed twins — their second and third children.  Maybe their hearts really will go on.

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas (Married 14 years)

Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas were both married to other people when they met on the set of Two Much in 1995. When they got together, Griffith had been going through public relationship and rehab drama with Don Johnson. She was seen as a bit of a mess, while Banderas was a brand-new star, having hit it big with Desperado the year before. They each got a divorce, and married in May 1996, three months after Griffith’s divorce from Don Johnson was final. Their daughter Stella was born in September of that year. They seemed wildly mismatched, and few thought it would last. However, they’ve made it nearly a decade and a half, and we’re not hearing about trouble in the tabloids. Maybe these crazy kids can make it work!

And one to grow on…

Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore (5 years)

Although they have only been married a little over 5 years,  this marriage has already made it longer than most thought it would. In 2005, actress Demi Moore wed actor Ashton Kutcher in a Kabbalah ceremony after dating for two years. Moore was a well-known actress, and was also known for having been married to Bruce Willis and having 3 children with him. Kutcher was known as the dumb kid from That 70s Show. It seemed like a May/December fling, and nobody expected them to get married. One they were, I don’t think any of us expected them to make it 5 years without significant tabloid fodder.  Every once in a while, we hear a rumor of an affair or an open marriage, but these rumors never seem to come to anything. You never know what the future will bring, but we’re pulling for you!

So, you see, Hollywood marriages can work. I’m not sure what these couples are doing, but they’re doing it right. I might even be able to stop counting these marriages in dog years…but I don’t want to jinx anything.

I’m honestly not sure how that joke ends.  Or where it originally started.  I know that when you go to Ireland, the Bank of Scotland signs actually read “Bank of Scotland (Ireland)” and I recall a theory that there are certain beers that can result in a lot of confusion if imbibed even in small amounts, hence the need for clarification of your current location, but really, who cares?

More important than Irish jokes, its time for another comedian to be showcased in our Year of the Comedian, and since March is a time of celebrating Irishness (March 17) or celebrating being a chick (March 8 ) or celebrating your ability to do math (March 14), any comedians relating to these abilities or minority groups were chucked in favor of a Welsh fellow I think everyone needs to hear a bit more about.  Now, I know you’re astute enough to already want to point out that the patron saint of Wales (Saint David) has his day in the sun on March 1, but it’s not March 1 anymore, so Rob Brydon can still complain in a proper fashion.

Yes, this month, in our year of the Comedian focus, we’re going to look at Rob Brydon, master of the “Small Man Trapped in a Box”, voice of a million commercials, frequent failure on QI: Quite Interesting, wonderfully funny stand up comedian, and proud father of four.  Very proud father of four.  In fact, in his performance at the Apollo theatre in 2009 resulted in much bragging about his natural inability to actually father children and a brief musical interlude when describing his wife’s giving birth to their fourth child while he did what Rod Stewart would do (he went golfing).

Rob Brydon is a really strangely entertaining man, and like all proper comedians, he doesn’t really view any topic as sacred.  He frequently jokes about his wife, his world and his Welsh heritage, laughing about his love of golf, or harassing audience members with proper Welsh names and asking questions about why we obsess over preserving languages that really have no business being used anymore.  Despite occasionally complaining about institutionalized racism against the Welsh, he is quick to have a go at his nation, pointing out the odd spelling of pretty much everything, the proper Welsh names, the fact that Welsh children learn the language in schools because it’s incredibly useful across Europe and the tendency of the Welsh to complain.  Don’t laugh at those jokes though, that’s racism.

A frequent guest on QI: Quite Interesting and host of Would I Lie to You?, and well known as Uncle Bryn on popular comedy-drama Gavin and Stacey, Brydon does not just limit himself to stand up comedy or television or stage.  He’s also provided his voice for numerous Discworld stories, is the author of Making Divorce Work and is a skilled impressionist and singer.  No, he does not have any albums out, but some of his stand up does result in singing (most entertainingly, he sang “When a Child is Born” whilst describing his youngest son’s birth in a rather Chucky horror film style) and he has sung in a number of television performances.

North Americans may not understand all of his humor, however the vast majority of it is easy to grasp and does not require any understanding of Welsh or British culture.  Certainly, it can help in some cases, but you and I both know you’re smart, so I’m sure you’ll not need to study before seeing any of his shows.  After all, we’ve all heard the joke about the sheep tied to a lamp post in the centre of Cardiff.  I love that one.

Rob Brydon can be found on Annually Retentive, Gavin and Stacey, The Keith Barrett Show, hosts Would I Lie to You? and has a DVD featuring his live stand up show.  He is currently working on an autobiography to be released this fall.

In the world of celebrity blogging, one name stands above all the rest as being the world’s leading source of gossip, leaked photos, and general entertainment

‘juice,’ as he calls it. The name I’m referring to isn’t, as some would know him, Mario Lavandeira, Jr., but rather Perez Hilton, the genius behind the self styled “Most Sassy Website” of Hollywood. Perez prides himself as offering “Celebrity juice, not from concentrate.” While at the start, he was a guy with a blog writing about his passion — celebrities — in no time at all, he became a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment world, becoming infamous for ‘outing’ celebrities, breaking news before the major entertainment magazines have it, and being an all around awesome dude.

I had the opportunity to interview Perez, and this is what he had to say!

You’ve been extraordinarily successful in the world of celebrity blogging. What made you get started?

• I start blogging in September of 2004, which is forever ago, because it was easy. If it wasn’t easy, I probably wouldn’t have tried it because I’m not very technologically inclined. And not only was it – and still is – easy, but it was and is so much fun for me. I don’t consider it a job; I consider it a way that I’m able to express myself and entertain others.

How have you become as successful in it as you have?

• There is no real secret to my success, other than luck and hard work. I was lucky in that I was one of the first people to use the Internet to really talk about celebrity news. Because, when I first started blogging, many of the celebrity magazines only used their websites to get subscriptions. Now, they’re all breaking news online. The way people consume media has changed. And if it weren’t for the fact that I work really hard at it and take what I do seriously, I probably wouldn’t have become as successful as I have.

In your career, you’ve made some enemies in the celebrity world. How have you managed to have such good relationships with other stars while still being able to give your fans the juiciest gossip?

• I think at the end of the day, celebrities know that I’m just doing a job. And, I am a fan of celebrities. But, what’s great is that nowadays I hope to make less enemies than before. Because I’ve really made a conscious effort to change how I operate, and being conscious of the energy I’m putting out there. I still love celebrities and think that you can discuss them in a way that’s fun and sassy without being mean and hurtful.

As a follow-up, have you ever specifically broken (or held off on writing about) a story about a friend?

• I have done both.

What’s been the most shocking (or most popular) story you’ve ever broken?

• For some reason – not all too hard to imagine why – people love celebrity sex scandals or naked photos. Recently, I posted a nude picture of Chris Brown, which got a lot of attention.

In addition to PerezHilton.com, you’ve launched a fashion website, a site for animals, and even a more ‘adult’ focused site as well. Where do you see your brand expanding from here?

• I’ve done a lot of brand expansion recently, but I wouldn’t call it that. I’ve embarked on a lot of new projects recently because I can, and because I wanted to. A lot of these things that I do – other than PerezHilton.com – aren’t that premeditated. I usually just get an idea and I think it would be fun, so I like to act on those ideas. The one area where I really want to expand more on is TV. I want to figure out the appropriate play for myself on television. Whether that be me starring in my own show, being part of a larger show, or producing a show that I don’t even star in, I love doing television and that’s one area where I really want to be more involved in.

Tell us about your new “Fit Perez” initiative — what do you hope to accomplish through it?

• I launched FitPerez.com to inspire people. I myself have embarked on a journey of becoming a healthier person, and in that process I’ve lost 70 pounds, so I wanted to motivate others to live healthier lives, and FitPerez.com talks about all the ways you can be healthier and happier.

You’ve obviously been sued and attacked for things that are often true. Does this negative blowback motivate you or hinder you in your work?

• I think negative blowback, as you say, doesn’t necessarily motivate my work or hinder it, but it helps keep me very grounded. I don’t have a big head, because I constantly have people saying negative things about me. And that’s okay. I can handle it, you know. I am critical of others; I need to be able to accept others being critical of me.

You’ve spoken about your goal of living life openly and without skeletons in the closet: Is this an attitude you’ve held since you started in the public eye?

• I only know one way to be; and that’s honest. I always think — professionally and personally — that if you’re able to be honest in what you do and who you are, then life will just be easier, and that’s what I want…my life to be easy. I don’t know too many people who want their lives to be hard.

In your book, Red Carpet Suicide: A Survival Guide on Keeping Up With the Hiltons, you talk about people who are famous for being famous. What do you think of the Kardashians?

• I think the Kardashians are doing something very right, because they made $65 million last year, and I’m jealous of that.

Day after day, year after year, parents throw their children at Disney in the hopes of getting them on a hit show. One hears stories of waiting in line for hours only to be allowed into the lobby…to wait hours more. What I can’t figure out is why. Clearly these parents are willing to trade a normal, healthy childhood to live vicariously through their little cash cows. What, exactly, do they think the outcome will be? Join me on a trip down memory lane as I recount some of Disney’s most memorable trainwrecks in chronological order.

Remember when Britney Spears was fresh-faced jailbait? Yes, we all do. The first sign of real trouble was Britney’s 55 hour marriage to a friend in Vegas and, just months later, an engagement to Kevin Federline. The descent into nuttiness had begun. Three months after having her first baby, we had the car seat incident, when Britney was photographed driving with her child on her lap. Then there was the nude Vanity Fair cover when she was pregnant with her second child. In November 2006, two months after the birth of her second son, Britney filed for divorce from Kevin. The world breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that her bad boy phase was over, and our Britney would soon return. Little did we know, he was the stabilizing influence on her life. We would soon learn that this was Britney-lite.

By February of 2007, Britney was in rehab for drug addiction. She left after one day, and I’m guessing she wasn’t done recovering, because she immediately shaved her head. We then had more rehab, followed by losing custody of her sons. After refusing to give up her children, police went to her house only to find her drugged up, and she was hospitalized at Cedars-Sinai.

A few months later, she was in the psychiatric ward of UCLA. Remember when we didn’t know what a 5250 was? Those were the days. Upon being released, Britney’s father and attorney were given conservatorship, including complete control of her assets. With actual parenting, our Britney seems to be slowly finding her way back to the right path, but other Disney starlets had already started down the same path.

After Britney, we had Lindsay Lohan, another sweet Disney girl who went bad in a hurry. We heard she was difficult to work with on Herbie: Fully Loaded, and she was de-emphasized on the poster due to “Un-Disneylike behavior.” Unfortunately, this is becoming a pattern, the very essence of Disney behavior, but I digress. Later, we had rehab, a DUI, more rehab, and a pocket full of cocaine. Another trip to rehab and, now, a stolen necklace. I’ll give her this; at least she’s creative. That jewel heist and occasional bisexuality really kept things exciting between trips to rehab! The tale of Lindsay is still being written, and the next two girls are already coming up through the ranks, ready to take over.

This brings us to Miley. Miley, Miley, Miley. The thing that makes her different  is that her parents should have known better. Her father had experienced brief fame, and should have understood what that could mean for a young girl. Apparently, his taste of Achy Breaky stardom was

enough to get him hooked, and he sold out his daughter for more. Miley burst onto the scene with Hannah Montana (squee!) at the age of 12. It quickly became a hit and Miley was a tween sensation. Tickets for her Best of Both Worlds tour were scalped for up to $2,500 a pop.

The early controversies were fairly innocuous- – a MySpace picture of her “almost kissing” another girl in 2007. In 2008, photos of her in her underwear were leaked after her e-mail was hacked. We first really started to wonder about her with the Vanity Fair shoot. She appeared to be topless and, although we didn’t see anything naughty, it was because she was wrapped in a bed sheet. At the time, it was spun that she was the victim — a 15 year-old girl manipulated into having these photos taken. Please note that her Dad was on set for this photo shoot. Eww. She manged to wriggle out of that one, but we’ve seen this before, and she had all the hallmarks of a Disney girl about to lose her mind.

Enter the Teen Choice Awards 2009. Can any of us forget the pole dance, as much as we’d like to? Then, in 2010, TMZ released a video of a 16 year-old Miley giving a lap dance on the set of her film The Last Song…to the producer. Her Dad defended her, saying “It’s what people her age do.” Again…eww. Recently, just a few days after she turned 18, we had the infamous bong picture. Of course, she claims that she was smoking a legal substance. Whatevs. I have a feeling we haven’t seen rock-bottom Miley yet, but we will hope for the best.

Alas, whatever Miley’s fate, Demi Lovato is already waiting in the wings, in the early stages of her meltdown. The interesting thing about Demi is that she didn’t have nearly the non-tween name recognition of the others before she started to get her freak on. Although she was in Camp Rock and Princess Protection Program (before the seemingly inevitable album was released), these didn’t bring her the same amount of fame as our other ladies. She briefly dated Joe Jonas and both wearing purity rings like good Disney kids. In November of last year, however, Demi left the Jonas Brothers tour to enter a rehab facility, reportedly for self-harm and an eating disorder. Rumors swirl about cocaine use and punching backup dancers, and racy pictures have already hit the interwebs. Demi is already out of rehab, and we’ve seen how well these quick stints work. The unfortunate truth is that the next tabloid trainwreck is likely in the Disney system now, just waiting to nosedive.

It’s worth noting that the male stars churned out of the Disney machine (Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling for example) seem to fare remarkably better than the girls. Although the odd girl does come out unscathed and successful (Keri Russell comes to mind) it tends to be the girls who are hardest hit by this lifestyle. Yet, despite this history of girl after girl going guano crazy after being on a Disney show, parents continue to push their daughters Disneyward. How can they imagine that this is going to end well? The best outcome for the kids is that they don’t get the part.

Oh, Lindsay. Poor, sweet Lindsay. Was ever a starlet so put upon?

Lindsay Lohan, the fresh-faced Disney star, has become known for her brushes with the law. However, you can’t believe everything you hear. Clearly, there are those who are so jealous of her success that they will frame her for just about anything. Just ask her, she’s been innocent of every charge, no matter how much the evidence is stacked up against her.

She started to ping the gossip radar with a month-long rehab at Wonderland in 2007. Later that year, she was arrested for her very first DUI, resulting in another trip to rehab. As this was the first time her enemies had tried to frame her, they didn’t do a very thorough job. The drugs weren’t hers! She explained to the officers that her pants full of cocaine were not, in fact, her pants. Apparently unfamiliar with The Sisterhood of the Traveling Coke Pants, she was charged anyway. Even in this clumsy attempt, Lindsay was unable to emerge victorious.

Thinking that they had sunk our Lindsay with the Coke Pants Incident, the nefarious elements laid low for 2008-2009. Sensing a comeback, however, they were back at her in 2010. After missing a scheduled progress hearing for her DUI charge in May 2010, the judge was cruel enough to issue a warrant for her arrest. But you guys, her attorney totally warned him! It’s not her fault that she lost her passport at the Cannes Film Festival and couldn’t get home. I’m guessing somebody stole her passport just to make her look bad. She certainly didn’t misplace it herself during a drug and/or alcohol fueled bender. She’s a

professional, and Cannes is work!

Now, just barely into 2011, they are at it again. So, she borrowed a $2,500 necklace without telling anybody. And she forgot to return it. Doesn’t that happen to the best of us? Now, however, she’s in trouble for violating her probation and might be facing prison. She must have known she was on camera. Perhaps

she thought it was an audition piece. The judge however, who must hate celebrities, is preparing to throw the book at her. Her assistant clearly explained that Lindsay meant to return the necklace the day after taking it, but she got busy, OK? People are busy these days! Especially huge Hollywood stars!

I hope this will make you consider the facts in these cases. There is an evil cabal out there trying to discredit one of the great actresses of our time. We must unite, and we must fight this evil. This shall not stand.

Free Lindsay!

I think Jane Lynch’s character Sue Sylvester from the popular primetime comedy Glee may have met her match! Coach Sylvester has a track record of pushing students into lockers, insulting them, berating them, and manipulating them into doing her bidding. Sue, however, is fictional. Recently dismissed Natalie Monroe is not! Monroe kept a blog going while she was a public school teacher and had some rather interesting things to say about some of her students and fellow faculty members. She doesn’t even regret it!

Courtesy of Zap2It, here are some of the meanest lines from the two teachers!

Natalie Munroe’s greatest hits:

“A complete and utter jerk in all ways.”

“Although academically okay, your child has no other redeeming qualities.”

“I hear the trash company is hiring.”

“I didn’t realize one person could have this many problems.”

“There’s no other way to say this, I hate your kid.”

In her posts, she called students, “out of contol,” “rude, lazy, disengaged whiners,” “rat-like,” “dresses like a streetwalker,” and “frightfully dim.”

Sue Sylvester’s greatest hits:

“So you like show tunes. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It just means you’re awful.”

“I’m gonna make it a habit to not stop and talk to students because this has been a colossal waste of my time.”

“I’m going to ask you to smell your armpits. That’s the smell of failure, and it’s stinking up my office.”

“All I want is just one day a year when I’m not visually assaulted by uglies and fatties..”

“High school’s a dry run for the rest of your life. Not everyone can be champions; not everyone should be champions. The world needs fry cooks; bus drivers.”

“You may be two of the stupidest teens I’ve ever encountered – and that’s saying something. I once taught a cheerleading seminar to Sarah Palin.”

“Do they go to college? I don’t know. I don’t care. Should they learn Spanish? Sure, if they wanna become dishwashers and gardeners.”

February is a month of romance for some strange reason — why is beyond me: It’s cold and gray and snowy, which is hardly romantic — and seemed like the perfect time to showcase the newly married, former sex-addict in the comedian troupe to be trotted out over the course of this year.

Russell Brand, a comedian, actor, writer and goth detective, is no stranger to controversy, rehab or hundreds of women.  A former addict of pretty much everything — he’s done the vast majority of it at some point in his life — Brand is a man who was once described as having the potential to either become a brilliant comedian or to have a very long stay in prison.  The jury is still out on the prison thing.  Before the jury comes back though, let’s celebrate a wonderful comedian who has overcome a fair few barriers in his life, and yet can still make jokes about syphilis and wear his hair like a mad man.

Recently made popular in North America following the success of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Get Him to the Greek, Brand’s breakthrough in North America was inevitable (at least in my mind) if only because he’s refreshingly eccentric, and so unlike the irritatingly smarmy and full-of-himself stereotypes we are all too often stuck with (see: Piers Morgan).  Brand in fact, has taken many of those familiar stereotypes, and not so much spurned them as shown to the world that there’s so much more personality that coming from the UK.  And personality is something that Brand has in spades.  He’s been the butt of almost as many jokes as he’s made, he seems to thoroughly enjoy his press (especially the incorrect stuff) he’s assured the heterosexual women in his audiences that he’s not unobtainable (up until recently, he was quite obtainable, however he is a happy and loyal new husband to singer Katy Perry) and despite the strange dress and profanity laden stand up routines, he’s not a dumb man.

His stand up show Shame features (between the swearing) playful insight into his world.  He is unashamed of his past, and refuses to apologize for being the kind of man that he is, despite having been arrested no fewer than 10 times.  Confronting manlier men than himself, his former heroin addiction, his sexuality and his rather literal interpretation of the most mundane of subjects are not off limits.  He has fun reading newspaper articles about himself and reading letters written by not-quite-fans and taking them apart on stage line by line (he did concede that one news article which he claimed was entirely inaccurate did have a single correct word in it: It described him as “randy”).  Strangely, even a person without a sense of humor can’t argue that he’s quite intelligent, how many people around the world know what a tautology is?

Russell Brand, in addition to his film work, books and live stand up routines, is a supporter of numerous charities.  Most notably, he is a patron of Focus 12, a drug rehabilitation charity which helped him to finally become clean in 2002 after heroin nearly killed him.  He’s participated in the Secret Policeman’s Ball, an Amnesty International event, co-hosted an evening with friend and fellow comedian (and Goth Detective) Noel Fielding to raise money and support for the Teenage Cancer Trust and has even performed for the Queen in a Royal Variety Performance.  For someone who has fallen as low as Brand, he certainly has come a long way.

If you aren’t easily offended and you can find humor in an evil Willy Wonka character bouncing around a stage and using the occasional $10 word, Russell Brand’s stand up is a welcome change from some of the “comedians” created in America.  Yup, he takes politically incorrect shots at people, and yes, he dresses like a nut, has done a lot of drugs and has a “Shagger of the year” award named after him, but his ramblings are funny, cheerful and will elicit a smile from even the hardest to entertain.

Brand has starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Get Him to the Greek, lends his voice to Despicable Me and has three stand up routines on DVD, Live, Doing Live and Scandalous.  Be sure to check out his autobiographies, My Booky Wook and My Booky Wook 2 if you want to learn more about this eccentric and fun comedian.

“Surely you can’t be serious!”

“I am serious.  And don’t call me Shirley.”

The above is one of the greatest lines from 1980 film, Airplane, one of the many films in the impressive CV of Leslie Nielsen, a Canadian-born actor.  The world has lost a great comedian, as Leslie Nielsen died this weekend in a hospital in Florida after losing a two week long fight with pneumonia at age 84.  Nielsen was famous for his role as Lt. Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun series, Doctor Rumack in Airplane, the president in the Scary Movie series, and many other hilarious films.

It’s a sore loss for the comedy world, as Nielsen, born in 1926 in Regina, Saskatchewan and a trained aerial gunner for the Royal Canadian Air Force, was a great actor.  He starred in The Forbidden Planet, a film today viewed (incorrectly) as the forerunner of Star Trek (there was no forerunner to Star Trek, it was a bad idea all on it’s own), earned roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Patriot, The Opposite Sex and a number of other films where he earned a reputation as both a skilled dramatic actor as well as an incredibly handsome romantic lead.  In the end, he has portrayed more than 220 characters in film and television, including Canadian cult film Men with Brooms and Michael Moore bashing parody An American Carol.

An Officer of the Order of Canada, Nielsen was a master of deadpan lines in silly films, taking roles of characters notable for being completely oblivious to the absurdity of the world around them.  He earned a space on the list of top 100 greatest movie quotes with his deadpan delivery of “I am serious.  And don’t call me Shirley.” in Airplane, coming in at #79.  His Autobiography, The Naked Truth, is a bright and cheerful and wholly inaccurate story of Nielsen’s life, he claimed both a pair of Oscars and an affair with Elizabeth Taylor (though he doesn’t lie about being related to a former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, his elder brother was Deputy PM from 1984 – 1986).

The world is a little less funnier today.  Nothing more to say.