Our favorite post Civil War relic Don Imus is back after reaching a settlement on Tuesday that frees him to get back on air at a new station, four months after calling the Rutger women's basketball team nappy headed hos.
"He's more valuable now than before the controversy," says founder Michael Harrison of Talkers magazine. "He was such a focus of media attention for so long that his career has been reinvigorated, and he's in a position to sort of reinvent himself -- to make himself more pertinent and even more interesting."
Racist slurs spouted by major media figures are indeed demonstrably interesting. Consider our other buddy Mel.
Well hell, if nothing else, maybe Nike will get another campaign out of it.
The distinguished self-made caste of Elvis impersonators have finally been permitted into Mecca. Graceland managers will be appointing a "tribute Elvis" set to perform in a way that suits the king, which is open to interpretation - but no tacky, no kitschy and no "ridiculous spoofs" which will be hard, considering those characteristics comprise most mental pictures of a would-be rhinestone king of rock 'n roll.
"Ultimate Elvis," a contest for finding the first tribute performer for Graceland's 30th anniversary, consists of qualifying rounds worldwide, with 24 contestants making Memphis and 14 enduring elimination last Sunday.
The winner will be chosen this Friday, the 30 year commemoration of Presley's death. Said anointed one will nail $5,000 in cash, a shopping spree of equal value through Graceland, a $3,000 gift certificate for a better Elvis jumpsuit, a championship belt and other stuff.
We couldn't make this kind of shit up.
Mr. T, the earring-sporting punk-squasher from our '80s childhood, occasionally makes quirky ad appearances in which - to our surprise - he never seems to age.
And neither do his cameos seem to share a rhyme or reason. In a complete 180 from that last Snickers jaunt he did (see link above), he's just appeared in a string of Hitachi ads for virtualization technology.
more »
Finally! It's been, like, forever since we've been able to slather over a celebu-campaign. It's like they all decided to heed that research that claims celebu-tising doesn't work. Or, we're so immune to it all, we've missed any recent campaign that might have barfed itself up from the bowels of desperate marketers and their agencies who can't find anything meaningful to say so they grab a celeb and slap on a logo.
Anyway, the latest celebu-campaign comes courtesy of Chanel which has photographed Keira Knightley wearing nothing but a top hat over her breasts and a shirt draped across her lap. Stunningly beautiful as she is, we can't help but wonder, as we do with all her appearances, how much photoshopping the girl received this time around. After all, the marketers behind her not so recent appearance on a King Aurthur movie poster didn't think she had enough curves up top and manufactured some for her.
We're not saying anything's manufactured in this poster nor are we going to taunt the agency which created the ad. We're just going to sit back and drink in the beauty that is Keira Kightley and appreciate her - and Chanel - for sharing it with us.
-
- The Denver Egoist hopes to "promote creative growth in Denver" while at the same time admitting Denver is "conceptually stunted."
- Muchmor Media, an independent Canadian web publisher, has launched mymuchmor.com a social network for naturalized Canadians and the 270,000 newcomers who arrive in Canada every year.
- Cynopsis reports Merv Griffin, creator and producer of game show hits Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune, died yesterday. He was 82.
more »
Video game publisher 2K Sports has pulled digital firm EVB into its ranks to build a lifestyle marketing campaign called Football Resurrected.
A big plug for All-Pro Football 2K8, the virtual game boasts 300 pigskin "legends" including Jerry Rice and Barry Sanders, as well as a few familiar faces of underground hip-hop, including Hieroglyphics, Jurassic 5, Pep Love and even Rakim.
The site is pretty cool and the raps, which revolve entirely around "the resurrection of 2K Sports," are damn sound. It's all really clever and whatnot.
If the musical icons from our beat-banging youth aren't going to rap about their shoes or how cool they are or how lame haters can be or how love pounds you into submission, they might as well be rapping about football.
We're all just trying to get paid at the end of the day, right? Right.
Senior Editor Danial Lyons of Forbes has just been outed by a New York Times reporter as the Fake Steve Jobs that's got everybody frothing at the mouth.
Having crowned Bill Gates "the Beastmaster," Eric Schmidt "Squirrel Boy" and open source addicts "freetards" during his anonymous reign, Lyons hit everybody with his schoolyard candor - from major CEOs to tech journalists to forum geeks.
There doesn't appear to be a successor in line. Post-unmasking, Lyons wrote, "My plan at this time is to live forever and to remain in charge here, though perhaps with fewer restrictions on my power.
"The truth is, I am not human - I am a man-god, son of Zeus, born to a mortal woman but fathered by the ruler of the gods, lord of thunder."
We like this Danial Lyons.
After playfully rebuking the NYT reporter for robbing people of their "childlike wonder," he alluded that Fake Steve Jobs will live on as part of the Forbes.com family.
When politics and pop culture meet, it's always a little fun to watch the synergy. Adverlab points us to this spot for Louis Vuitton, which slid from the Lolita-esque Scarlett Johanssen series to a celebrity survey that includes Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union's first (and last) president.
The New York Times observes that Gorbachev "appears the last comfortable [...] holding on to a door handle, as if the bag contained polonium 210."
Upon examining Gorbachev's expression, and then the bag, we've concluded there's definitely not a bowling ball in it. (Although it may well be perestroika.)
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has just burrowed into L'Oreal's ass for the use of false eyelashes in an ad for its Telescopic Mascara, a product that promises to make your lashes "up to 60 percent longer."
The ad features Penelope Cruz, who sported the illicit hairs. According to the ASA, the ad should have made it clear that the actress was wearing falsies. L'Oreal claims this is "common industry practice" - just as, we imagine, all of these conventions are.
Since when are we playing Nazi to the (unrealistic?) appearance of stars in ads? If we're going to unleash the dogs, maybe we should first address the copy writers that come up with lines like, "Imagine, lashes that could reach for the stars."
On a mission to benignly molest any and all Sci-Fi classics we may have placed on the altars of our souls, DirecTV tears into the scene in Aliens where Ripley fights the alien queen.
In this appropriation she's really peeved because the queen won't leave her in peace to watch her DirecTV.
Nice touch with Sigourney Weaver who, according to Adfreak, joins William Shatner, Pamela Anderson and Charlie Sheen in the annals of DirecTV's illustrious ad history.
Post Kill Bill, Daryl Hannah doesn't seem to be doing much, so who wants to bet a cookie that the next ad is a Bladerunner nab?
|
