On Television

This past Friday Jaimes and I had a fun play-date and then hung out w/ my dad (or as jaimes would call "baa-ba") until my mom came home from work. Whenever we go over there we watch TV. Jaimes loves it, no LOVES it! Especially when she's eating cheezit's or pretzels. I use this time to watch shows like Oprah and the Ellen DeGeneres show to, uh, stay "in touch" w/ culture. Give me a break, I don't have a TV and sometimes it's nice to watch and visit w/ family.

I'm a little surprised that Ellen won. Not that I don't think she's talented but I just don't enjoy the show. She lost me when the whole show was about her lame dancing and she was trying to get all of her guests to dance.

8. What celebrity hair do you like best? Least? I have no idea why but I've always liked Helen Hunt's hair not when its short but when it's long. It's not the hair color. It's just the way it is. Not a big fan of Jeff Bridge's hair. I saw him on the Ellen DeGeneres show promoting his new movie. I don't think long hair looks good on him.

The commerci-short is part of the credit card giant’s “My Life, My Card” campaign, which I’ve already admired via its print iterations in Entertainment Weekly. Its print counterparts, while not as captivating, are classy, understated spots that feature interesting black and white photos of celebs (such as Ellen DeGeneres brushing her teeth) and personal comments from them.

I haven’t blogged in like ten days (I say “like” because I’m too lazy to even count the days from when I last blogged. Ten is just such a nice number). I wish I could tell you that I’ve been filling my life with something slightly more productive (well, actually, I think that making a web site/writing a blog is productive. When I do either I feel as though I have accomplished something, and that, in my excruciatingly boring book, is the definition of productive), but I really have done even LESS than I did when I was blogging frequently. I haven’t cleaned my room in weeks, I have lately been physically unable to start my homework until after 10:00 PM, and on top of it all, I’ve watched Ellen Degeneres’ HBO comedy special twice a day for the past seven days (I could have just said “week”, but “seven days” is better for emphasis).

Wacky invocations of God have occurred recently on the right and left, with pundits interpreting natural disasters as the voice of God. The obligatory outrage of the left against Robertson and the contempt of the right for Nagin followed in lockstep. But I think that the criticisms of the two were a bit misdirected. When Pat Robertson said that Katrina was God’s response to choosing Ellen Degeneres to host the Emmys, of course it was coarse, cruel, and stupid. When Ray Nagin said that Katrina was God’s response to the invasion of Iraq, of course it was coarse, cruel, and stupid.

The CES presentation (New.com article with video) with Tom Cruise and Ellen DeGeneres was just embarrassing: a mad scientologist and a funny lesbian representing technical advancements? Gimme a break!

On the other hand, I didn’t like Ellen Degeneres for a long time. Not because of any big reason, just a matter of her comedy wasn’t my taste at the time. But when she did the voice of Dori in Finding Nemo, my opinion started changing a bit. Then her show came to NBC. I figured why not give it a chance right? It’s light, it’s funny, she’s so…normal. I love a host that can lose her train of thought mid sentence and laugh at herself while moving on. I like that she doesn’t laugh at her own jokes. I like that she doesn’t have an agenda. There is no political slant, no hot topics, and I have yet to see her verbally ambush a celebrity on camera due to their beliefs. She of course had something to say about Katrina, and is doing certain things for the victims…but because it’s her home, not to make herself look good, or to make a point.

10. Ellen Degeneres and all her other faggy/lesbo friends. Good Lord help them!

Last night, I heard Ellen Degeneres mention podcasting on her talk show. Wow!

I'm purely a sit-down comic. At my best, I'm horizontal, well fed, and post-orgasm. Put me in a living room of friends & family & strangers & pets and I become a mix of Lewis Black, Richard Pryor, and Stephen Hawking. Add a large quantity of alcohol and I'm a lewd combination of Eddie Griffin and Ellen Degeneres.

Apparantly, hurricane Katrina is completely Ellen Degeneres’s fault. According to Pat Robertson, because of Ellen’s status as host of this years Emmy Awards, God decided to punish Ellen’s hometown (New Orleans) by sending a massive hurricane its way.

In the past few days since the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina started to become known, I've seen dozens of organizations respond. Of course there's groups like the Red Cross and the Salvation Army that immediately stepped up and were on the scene almost instantly. And within a day or two I started hearing about different ways that other groups are also working on contributing monetarily or with much needed food, medical supplies, and other items. Most major corporations, including my employer are offering to match employee monetary donations. Celebrities like Harry Connick Jr., Ellen DeGeneres, and countless others are trying to help raise money too. Even professional athletes, who are known for being self-centered, are moved to try to do something. Hats off to folks like Warrick Dunn.

The Ellen Degeneres Show does a segment called “Celebrity Look-a-Like Pets”. I sent this one in last week (haven’t heard back yet):

I had a very bizarre dream the other night, in it, Ellen DeGeneres was giving my father an enema. When I asked her why she was doing this, she said it was because he was full of crabmeat and they were making crab salad.( I have no idea. I did not take any drugs before I fell asleep.) After I objected to her extracting the crabmeat from my dad's ass, she sent me to TIME OUT and said I was to be given demerits for being impertinent.

Ellen deGeneres was the one who said, “If you’re not doing what you want to do, then you don’t really want to do it.” Well, she’s right. And I guess what’s stopping me is… I just don’t know.

If I could pay for just one channel to exist in my perfect reality, it would be Comedy Central. They really have just a smashing lineup. I watch it at work at the clinic while I am waiting on and folding the laundry. I am a HUGE fan of standup comedy/comedians - my favorites include Eddie Izzard, Ellen Degeneres ("Here And Now" is far better than "The Beginning"), Mitch Hedburg, Robin Williams... Tons of others.

i cannot imagine why anyone would romanticize the kind of slavery women endured pre womens liberation movent. the religious right and destiny’s child are seem to be on the same page. i feel sorry for young girls growing up today; i remember looking up to women like ani difranco and ellen degeneres as young as middle school. i think the 90’s had signifigantly more positive (or at least strong) female role-models, we had… alanis morissette, kathleen hanna, four non blondes, kim gordon, tracy chapman… now the closest thing popular culture has to a feminist is, dare i say, paris hilton, who makes no apologies about sexual promiscuity and has yet to get breast augmentation.

American Express ads are particularly annoying for me. I can understand when an underworked has-been celebrity peddles something (ala Kristie Alley and Pier One), but when I see Ellen Degeneres (who has a show now), Robert DeNero (doubtful he’s hurting) and Jerry Seinfeld pushing a credit card so more can spend what they don’t have, it makes one wonder if there is any line some “entertainers” won’t cross for more money.

I’m zeroing in on who I want to be when I grow up.

Last night I watched Ellen Degeneres’ new stand up show on Comedy Central. A lot of her act was devoted to talking about “meeting God.”

And I thought, how sad, that all of these people will listen to HER talk about God in jest, but won’t listen to a dynamic preacher or evangelist talk about God.

Before I knew it, I found myself at a gay bar flirting with a Harley-riding crew-cut sporting lesbian named Elspeth. Then I went home and spent seven hours locked in a furious Sapphic bidding war on eBay for ownership of the DVD box set of The Ellen DeGeneres Show whilst listening to a recently purchased copy of Melissa Etheridge’s Greatest Hits. I can hardly bear to imagine what effect learning about The Gays has had on even younger, more innocent folk who were forced to sit down and listen to pinko glitterati propaganda during school hours....

Dr. Phil, meanwhile, as usual came in second to Oprah in the talk show category, jumping four percent from the previous week to a 5.9. Several other talkers also saw boosts, including Live With Regis and Kelly (3.6, up six percent), The Jerry Springer Show (2.3, up 10 percent), and The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2.2, up five percent). Among all talkers, Ellen is showing the biggest year-to-year improvement with a 10 percent increase.

Comic and talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has a not-so funny tale to tell. The New York Daily News reports that DeGeneres has publicly discussed the molestation she says she endured at the hands of her stepfather thirty years ago.

I'm still waiting for the punch line. Hugh Hefner? Michael Moore? Ellen DeGeneres? Greatest Americans in history? To achieve these results, did AOL only make polling available on the E! website between the hours of 2 and 4 am? I hope so.

Fred Phelps, the Wesboro Baptist Church "reverend" best known for aspirating on his own spittle and obsessing over hot gay men, has plenty of experience abusing and bullying kids. Now we learn from The American Street that he and his merry band of homophobes will harass and intimidate elementary school kids because one of them had the gall to write a winning essay about Ellen DeGeneres.

Analyze how the characters on "Desperate Housewives" mock the gravitas of upward strivers and image controllers. Then, ask yourself, could you produce an equal homerun in your stage presence if you were real about how difficult it is to be real about anything, and everything? Ellen DeGeneres pulls that off every day. She's hot. So is "Desperate Housewives." The self-involved Katie Couric, Charlie Rose and Dominic Dunne are not.

Check it out, and check out the rest of the blog too. I'm still not sure, but I think I'm going to like the Huffington Post. I'm definitely intrigued by the possibilities of a blog that includes Jon Corzine, Quincy Jones, Larry David, Robert Evans, Ellen Degeneres, John Conyers, etc.

Huffington has been promoting her effort for the past few weeks, touting an "A-list" of media luminaries like Walter Cronkite, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, Tina Brown, Ellen DeGeneres and Mike Nichols. But this is the least interesting part, as these are people who command suffiicient public attention to make their opinions known anyway, and their posts aren't particularly insightful, clever or noteworthy. Political scholar Norm Ornstein, playwright Seth Greenland and New Jersey Senator Jon Corzine do much better.

Homosexuality has gone, over the course of some five decades, from being the “love that dare not speak its name", to being the latest hip thing (viz. “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", “Queer as Folk", Ellen DeGeneres, etc.). This means that we Christians are going to encounter homosexuality on a daily basis, in the media, and very likely in our own lives. In particular, we have to be able to respond to homosexuality without compromising our principles. In this post, I’d like to take a look at some of the various situations...

Ellen Degeneres, winner of the favorite daytime talk show host, in her ever so manly black on black tuxedo looked more masculine then Prince, who looked very girly man in a white hooded outfit borrowed from Jlo’s closet. we wouldn’t expect anything ordinary from this talented entertainer, he is so loved, and the outfit was overlooked for the pleasure of seeing him back on stage. Too bad he didn’t honor us with a song.

This generation is the time to make extreme poverty a distant memory. If Pat Robertson and Ellen DeGeneres can work together behind this, I think we all can, and until we've beaten back extreme poverty, I think other things we might otherwise want to scrap about can wait.

Hooray! WENN is reporting that Chris Rock will probably not be back as host of the Oscars next year. The tell-tale sign: Academy insiders are already floating the names of Billy Crystal (please, no more), Jay Leno and … Ellen DeGeneres. LIBERTAS throws its support behind Leno, who will not feel the all-too-familiar compuction to be ‘edgy.’

After this year’s Oscars, the Academy is looking for a host for next year. The article mentions some choice candidates, with some of them being Ellen DeGeneres, Mike Myers and even Robin Williams.

* The 1960s were when hallucinogenic drugs were really, really big. And I don't think it's a coincidence that we had the shows then like The Flying Nun.--Ellen DeGeneres

* In the beginning there was nothing. God said, "Let there be light!" And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.--Ellen DeGeneres

Cynthia Nixon and Ellen DeGeneres ended up with a mouthful when they met up this morning, after they attempted to have a conversation wearing false teeth.