While the rest of us are drinking and snoozing, the television is trying to transmit important information into our homes. Today, our special correspondent for T.V. punditry catches us up on the week in chat shows. Because we totally wouldn't watch that shit if you paid us. Get your tinfoil hats on!
We briefly mentioned this as an update to our A.J. post from yesterday, but Code.tv founder Morgan Hertzan appeared on MSNBC's The Most to talk about the "Models and Bottles" video and to plug Code.tv. Nothing too earth shattering here, though Hertzan clarifies that "AJ is his real name, MSNBC exclusive" - that's the power of the mainstream media for ya.
Aleksey Vayner finally showed up for an interview today, appearing on MSNBC's Rita Cosby Live and Looking for Work. Aleksey is deeply hurt by the way people on the Internet who don't even know him assume that he's some sort of douchebag. We feel for the kid. Also joining him was attorney Christian Steuben, who once again suggested that Vayner's privacy should have been respected since "it's not like he was applying to sell hamburgers." Agreed. Because you know everyone who's working the night shift over at Hardee's sends out their douchebaggy video resumes with the full foreknowledge that it's likely to be passed along.
• You ever get so incapacitated by the incredible number of jokes that you could possibly do about a story that you just bury it in a linkdump? Because sometimes we do. [FBW]
• The dog ate the Times' and the Trib's homework. [NYT]
• Network television as we know it is apparently dead. This is what happens when you put Jeff Zucker in charge of things. [WSJ]
• Mean Dan Abrams won't answer sweetie Rachel Sklar's questions concerning long overdue canning of Crosby, Carlson. [ETP]
• Jesus Christ, Crown will buy anything. [NYP]
• Did you know that the magazine industry is starting to embrace the Web? Of course you did. But confirmation from Jon Friedman always makes it seem a little more legitimate. [Marketwatch]
• Sheryl Stolberg is gay for Tony Snow. [NJ]
• NBC Cuts: Approximately 700 jobs axed, MSNBC moved from Secaucus, news budget slashed, expensive dramas abandoned. [Bloomberg]
• Of course, if you believe the Times, the layoffs will not be extensive. [NYT]
• Also, the network now plans to buy more of its crappy programming from its in-house studio. Insert your own "And such small portions" joke here. [WSJ]
• And MSNBC "stars" like Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews may be moved to CNBC, which means we might actually start watching MSNBC. [B&C]
• In non-NBC news, you'll soon be able to see the Wall Street Journal's repellent editorials in full color. The rest of the paper, too. [AdAge]
There are many ways to go about ridiculing Fox News screambox Bill O'Reilly. If you're mouthy, you can shout "Shut up!" at every given opportunity. If you're crafty, you can distribute personalized falafel loofahs as holiday gifts, as did the Smoking Gun in 2004. If you're enterprising, you can even start your own satirical spin-off on Comedy Central. All are perfectly acceptible ways of deriding a man who seems to have been sent from above solely for the sake of mockery. Hell, if you're lazy, you can even just don an O'Reilly mask and do a stupid dance. You cannot, however, don an O'Reilly mask and do a Nazi salute. MSNBC host Keith Olbermann tried it this weekend, and the humor just got overshadowed by that whole systematic extermination thing.
• Though the financial details have yet to be settled, Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson are a very short stone's throw from becoming legally divorced, freeing Jessica to marry her father. [TMZ]
• A British literary magazine has published a poem written by Kate Moss for her then-beau, crackhead Pete Doherty: You love them more than you love me/So that's why I could cry all day long/that's why I can't breathe. Watch out, Donald Hall. [Page Six]
• A fight breaks out after someone tries to photograph the Black Eyed Peas at a club in Berlin. Gee, that was worth it. [R&M]
• Dan Rather won't touch Walter Cronkite with a ten-foot-pole. Maybe if the pole were longer than the tongue of a black Alabama rattler. [Page Six]
• MSNBC HATES TRANNIES: Rita Cosby's show will be cancelled in July. [Lowdown]
• When he was a wee lad, Mekhi Pfieffer was best known as the kid who went and pissed on his classmates' coats. [disco-not-disco]
Well. We thought we had it on good authority that new MSNBC chief Dan Abrams was not, in fact, a virgin. But then, we also thought he was younger than 40.
• Anderson's Angelina interview is "a watershed moment in the history of CNN." Huh. And we thought it was just kind of boring. [LAT]
• Connie Chung has no regrets — well, at least too few to mention — about her "Thanks for the Memories" farewell. Probably because she's the only person who hasn't had to watch it repeatedly. [TV Guide]
• Dan Rather still eats lunch. [Media Mob/NYO]
• NYP business reporter Tim Arango wants to be on TV. Oh, honey, don't we all? [Jossip]
Remain mystified by Connie Chung's off-key, ill-choreographed, nonsensically lyric'ed song-and-dance routine bidding farewell to her avec-Maury MSNBC show? (Haven't seen it yet? Oh, go watch. You'll thank us.) In this morning's Times, media reporter Jacques Steinberg graciously explains. It was, as Connie insists, all just a joke. Oh really? Hmm. In this case, then, we fear Connie never learned what our father used to tell us were the first and second cardinal rules of humor: First, your joke must be funny. Second, other people must think it's funny. How we wish we'd been able to explain this to her last week.
His makeup job was horrendous this AM on the Today show. He looked like a drag queen.
• Kate Moss will not be charged with possession stemming from her September '05 cover shoot with the UK's Daily Mirror. Apparently something about a lack of evidence or being able to definitively prove she was bumping rails of blow and not, say, powdered sugar. You know how those skinny models love their powdered sugar! [Guardian]
• Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams didn't mean to snub Howard Stern at Nobu last week; they were just having "a very deep conversation about something in our personal life," says Ledger. Go ahead and read into that all you want, but they were likely just whining about Brooklyn. [Page Six]
• MSNBC host Keith Olbermann apologizes for telling a viewer to go fuck his mother. That was meant for Rita Cosby. [Lowdown]
• In a remarkable display of maturity, Lindsay Lohan turns down a round of shots, noting that she's underage. She still stayed out until 7 AM — thankfully, there's no age restrictions on marching powder. [R&M (bottom of page)]
• And after all that partying, Lohan still has the energy to be Madonna's new BFF. Though admittedly the starlet's not thrilled about getting Britney Spears' sloppy seconds. [Scoop]
• Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood has headed off to rehab. How are these guys even alive enough to be addicts? Were they all given new livers at some point in the mid-90s? [Fox411 (2nd item)]
• First daughter Barbara Bush uses Craigslist for job-hunting. Suddenly, we soften. Just a little. [Page Six]
• New Yorker writers are dismissive about blogging; prefer to use their finely-honed talents discussing Bazooka Joe, bridge suicides. [NYO]
• Frank Barnako would pay to see Tom Friedman blog. Apparently it's not enough for Tom to be wrong on Wednesdays and Fridays. [Marketwatch]
• Reporter for paper no one reads leaves to take job in sport no one watches. [BG]
• MSNBC won't be renamed, even though alternate identification "The Change the Fucking Channel Already Network " has 100 per cent viewer awareness. [LAT]
• Pot remarks upon patina of kettle. [ChiTrib]
• Yesterday, we watched Britney cry to Matt Lauer that celebrities "are people, too!" Today, we learn that she changed her baby's diaper on the FLOOR next to a cash register at Victoria's Secret. This pretty much clears up any confusion about whether or not Britney's a person — she's not even a primate. Where the hell is the manny when this stuff happens? [Us Weekly]
• The battle of Paris and Lindsay continues: Hilton tries to pick a fight with Lohan, Lohan takes the high road and walks away, Hilton responds by performing a striptease for Eli Manning. [Page Six]
• An Us Weekly reporter gets pepper-sprayed by security when trying to get pics of Oliver Hudson's weekend wedding. Seems like quite a length to go for Goldie Hawn's other kid. [R&M (last item)]
• Keith Olbermann says Rita Cosby is "dumber than a suitcase full of rocks." Suspiciously masculine rocks, that is. [Lowdown]
• Liza Minelli's estranged, plasticine husband David Gest is accused of sexually harrassing his personal assistant, grabbing his jingly bits and punctuating orders with dirty talk. If true, Gest deserves every beating Liza ever gave him. [Page Six]
• Nick Lachey hooks up with MTV's Vanessa Minnillo, ensuring that Jessica Simpson will never again grace the set of TRL. [Scoop]
• For Michael Jackson, the proceeds from his Katrina charity single will go to straight to his pocket. After all, someone's gotta pay for his new earlobe. [Fox411]
Not one week since MSNBC's former president Rick Kaplan "stepped down" from his post, the fledgling network has promoted Dan Abrams to the position of general manager. This comes as bad news for fans of drowsy afternoon legal analysis, as it means he will no longer be hosting the Abrams Report (though he will, however, continue to act as NBC's chief legal correspondent, so we'll still get to watch Dan bat his pretty blue eyes on the Today show and Dateline).
As you may have heard, MSNBC president Rick Kaplan — the famously antagonistic former ABC and CNN executive, and a shockingly tall Jew — announced late yesterday that he's leaving the network after two and a half years, in which time he barely budged the news network's anemic ratings. His departure was widely expected, given MSNBC's performance on his watch, and it once and for all proves that, surprisingly, the way to rescue a cable network is not in fact to pick as one of your lead anchors a male-to-female tranny. Who knew?
A reliable pal passes along this bit of cable-news programming gossip:
