CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

Updated 6/20/2007, originally posted 6/3/2003

Update 6/20/2007: Yesterday Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, announced he was leaving the Republican Party and will now be an independent. This follows on his switch from the Democratic to Republican parties a few years ago. Mr. Bloomberg has also been travelling to states with upcoming Presidential primaries, inflaming speculation that he will be running for President. Based on what I know at this point, Mr. Bloomberg is the first Presidential candidate in a long while for whom I would be willing to vote, and I hope he runs.

He fits the profile of an ideal candidate (from the article below) in that he has had a career outside of politics, he’s not a Republican or a Democrat, he can speak extemporaneously, he acknowledges that the system is broken, and he’s not a lawyer. I’ve liked what he’s done in New York so far, and

• Leave a comment... (0)

So we watched the premiere episode of John from Cincinnati last week on HBO, and watched the second episode tonight via TiVo, and we’re hooked, at least for now. We’ve been here before with shows that caught our initial interest but then took a wrong turn, but we have our fingers crossed that JfC will continue to deliver.

The show is centered around three generations of a surfer family in Southern California. The father is Mitch Yost (Bruce Greenwood), a weathered, older, legendary surfer whose career was cut short early by a bad knee, and now he only surfs alone at dawn. He drifts between noble and bitter, and he also has a tendency to levitate six inches off the ground. His son is Butchie Yost (Brian Van Holt), a late-20’s/early-30’s drug addict who was also on his way to surfing legend-dom when his career was cut

• Leave a comment... (0)

First let’s all agree that Paris Hilton has never accomplished anything worthwhile, ok? Her “celebrity” status is the result of her complete willingness to prostitute her name and position as an heiress (not to mention her body and sexual escapades) in order to gain notoriety. That notoriety has gained her a reality TV show in which, if I’m interpreting the previews for the new season correctly, she entices six year old beauty pageant contestants into drinking champagne. How noble of her.

She supposedly has a singing career and an acting career, but both seem to be artificially created (certainly not based on talent), bought and paid for by her money and notoriety, and neither are noteworthy in any way. She calls herself a businesswoman, but her ventures into fashion and nightclubs have either gone nowhere or ended in acrimony and lawsuits. Meanwhile, in her shrewdness, she ignores her family hotel and

• Leave a comment... (0)