Calling "Bullshit" at Technorati

Is anybody else just fucking sick of being lied to?!?! In the spirit of Joe Rogan, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that Technorati.com is a whole load of bullshit.

This supposedly "user-driven" search tool rates profiles, blogs, stories, and the like, based on usage. Bloggers sometimes fight to trump each other in its rankings.

I've noticed lately, that "lizz dunn" is a popular poster in the Technorati ranks. I didn't think much of it, until tonight when I was scrolling through Technorati's employee postings.

And then I saw lizz dunn.

But to whomever this photo actually belongs, we may never know. To the eye, she is a 40-something hausfrau with 1990's knots in her hair. She makes posts like "No, SILLY!...."

Yes, (pretends to be a kitten batting a ball of yarn) we are ALL so SILLY, SNUGGLEPUSS!!!

What this really comes down to is that Technorati, first and foremost, claims to be "user-driven." The reality is anything but. Its employees are disguising themselves as users and pushing whatever bullshit is the key of the day. And yes, TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny has topped that list, as I've previously told you. And I'm still calling "bullshit."


Technorati users, I'm interested to hear how you feel about this?!?!?!?

Joe Rogan SCOOP

You're NOT going to read this anywhere else (at least for a little while) and I'm going to take a lot of pleasure in SCOOPING ALL THE TYPICAL NEWS SOURCES.

Before I get to it, let me just thank my unnamed source, a girlfriend of mine who's a powerhouse public relations chick. While she won't tell me everything, here's what she did say:

Yes, Joe Rogan was dropped from his booking agent, the fucktard Gersh Agency.

But now, TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny gets to break the news that Joe Rogan has signed with a new agency.

So there is justice in the world, all ye cynics. The good guy does win. Truth and justice trump evil. And Joe Rogan (hopefully) gets a jumbo-juice deal with a new agency.

If you go to the Hollywood Improv shows this weekend, give Joe Rogan a big congrats for doing the right thing.

And stay tuned to TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny for news and info you just won't find anywhere else.

Joe Rogan Dropped by the Gersh Agency

In the ultimate act of punishing the kid who tattles rather than the kid who put a hammer through someone's head, comedian Joe Rogan has been dropped by the Gersh Agency. Since they are the folks who rep both "Carlos Mencia" and Pauly Shore, they *obviously* know comedy.


Here's the scoop from Joe Rogan:


My agent dropped me because of the Carlos™
Posted by Joe Rogan on Thu, Feb 15th, 2007 06:14pm
This is starting to get hysterical.
As the fearful little animals scamper to a safe, dry spot on the sinking ship of lies, characters are exposed and karma is radiantly beautiful.

My agent from the Gersh agency, who is the same guy that represents Carlos, spoke to me on the phone today. He told me that he was being "put in the middle of this thing, and forced to make a choice." He said that Carlos wanted to get on the phone with me and end this once and for all, and get this... wanted an apology.
If I didn't do this, he wanted the Gersh agency to either drop me, or he would leave them.

I told them that was fucking hilarious, and said that it's been fun working with them. The fact that they would even consider asking me to do something like that meant I was going to leave them anyway, but the sheer stereotypical "hollywood" nature of conversation actually fucking shocked me.
It was like a scene in a movie. Not even a current movie. More like that Kevin Bacon movie "The Big Picture" that was about the evils of Hollywood from the early 90's.

I hung up the phone and laughed out loud. A real, hard, pleasure filled laugh.

Now can you IMAGINE if I was a young, struggling comic and all this shit went down? THAT is the really ugly part of it.
Now you know why people don't speak up about this shit.

Hollywood eats it's young.
At least the Gersh agency does.

What a fascinating, and intriguing life this is turning out to be.


Once again, if you're in the L.A. area this weekend, check out Joe Rogan at the Improv in Hollywood

While I think that being dropped by your agency for such a thing is complete and utter bullocks, I can't imagine that Joe Rogan will suffer for too long without representation. Any agency worth a whit will be able to use this current groundswell of support and earn some rock star bucks for this guy. But as we can all see, logic is trumped by bullshit in the world of comedy.

European Commercials

Free of the puritanical restraints of our particular national psyche, our Euro brethren are able to laugh and love more freely (at least on television) than we are.

I feel safe in assuring you that there will never be a national discussion about 'wardrobe malfunction' in Spain. Hell, the Page 3 girl has been a daily institution in the United Kingdom since 1970.

With that in mind, it's often fun to see just what takes place during prime-time in Europe. This commercial is a good example, and quite a good laugh, even though it's been altered somewhat for American audiences.

Enjoy:

Hysterical Videos - Joe Rogan

All right...I'm feeling like a little Joe Rogan tribute. So if you're in the mood to laugh at things that you know you shouldn't, join me for a hearty chuckle. If you're way into the politically correct tone of things, go ahead and pass on this one.

This first video is So Fucking Wrong. But here's the lesson: if you're a 24-year old drunk girl, you shouldn't heckle a professional comedian.








All right, now that you've watched it, I can finally say that the absolute high point of that clip is the part where he says "I'll wrap my dick around your neck and start you like a lawnmower." Holy shit. That is officially the worst put-down ever.


The second clip I've chosen for your viewing pleasure isn't comedy so much. It's just kind of fucking hot. It starts like a bad joke..."So Joe Rogan and Jenna Jamison walk into a bar..." But then they spend the next three minutes discussing how to get a woman off with one's tongue.

Straight guys will watch this and hopefully learn something. Straight women will watch and be surprised to find themselves nodding vigorously in agreement with Jenna Jamison, mentally encouraging Joe Rogan to shut the fuck up and let the expert talk. Lesbians will bask in their superiority, while gay men should run screaming *now*.







Seriously, raise your hands if, when Jenna Jamison says "I've seen you in action," were thinking, "Not as many times as I've seen you" ???

Liars.

Oh, fuck. I just realized that, after watching that again, I've got some weird aftershock going on in my brain and I keep hearing the chorus to Oscar the Grouch singing "C is for cookie." Well that's just fucking great.

Joe Rogan

Today, Joe Rogan is my fucking hero.

You see, he took a big one for the team by defending his and other comedians' rights to not have their creative work stolen from them and performed by talentless little shits who can't or won't do the work themselves. And every single person who works in a creative industry should stand the fuck up and support him, because he took one for all of us.

If you work in an industry where your mind is your paycheck--where the words, worlds and images that you create keep a literal roof over your head--you need to care about this. For those of you not in a creative field, consider this: plagiarism, copyright infringement, and any other whored up name you want to give to stealing is the equivalent of you building a house, then having some jackass walk up and declare that it's his.

That's how fucking bad it is. Because that creativity is a part of our souls. We take pride in our work. We've logged long, painful, and not always successful hours to hone what we do--for many of us, the only thing we feel we do well. In the commercial world, that creativity is also our bread and butter, along with the occasional philly cheese steak and dry martini.

I feel very fucking passionately about this topic. I've been plagiarized. And for three straight days after discovering the intial instances, I was nauseous and repeated the same twelve or so lines of "fuck"-filled vitriol to anyone who would listen to me rant. It felt like the mental equivalent of being raped. Someone reached in and plucked something from inside of me. And they were profiting off of it, like a roofie rapist with a web cam. I pursued the plagiarists, but had to take a break from what I now call the Plagiarism Project when my list of offenders hit 65. And Google Alerts sends me at least three new ones each week.

The last offender I identified is a certain Utah visitors' bureau website. Since ConVis folks tend to happily pass along 'their' work to anyone willing to promote their fair cities, that one instance of plagiarism has resulted in over 125 different businesses, proposals, et al, reproducing *my* work, without my permission, knowledge, or compensation. Just thinking about it now makes my stomach twist in knots again and brings to mind my new favorite phrase that "My ass is fucking killing me because there's a huge Mormon cock stuck up it."

I also have a friend who is breaking his ass right now to work on his stand-up almost every night of the week. I'm seeing all of the work that he puts into getting people to laugh for a few seconds. (For all of us out there who have cracked up a few drunk friends up at a party, let me just tell you, there's no fucking comparison.) The hours of watching tapes of yourself, critiquing things like pauses, timing and pitch; reworking everything from the jokes themselves to the order they're delivered, all for a 3 to 5-minute set...it's beyond daunting.

This brings us back to Joe Rogan.

Joe Rogan confronted so-called comedian Carlos Mencia onstage during one of Carlos' performances. He called him out about stealing other comedians' jokes, while the fucking thief denied, denied, denied. Happily, several comedians that Carlos had stolen from were actually in the club that night, and folks like Ari Shaffer and Bobby Lee back up Joe's version of events.

Thank god there was a camera in the club that night, so everyone can see what a whiny little scumbag and theiving bastard Carlos Mencia is.







Okay...you see the look on Joe Rogan's face when he's yelling at Carlos Mencia? I know that look. I've worn that look. And if I ever got the chance to be in close proximity to someone who had stolen my work, I seriously think they would have gotten a lot more than The Look. Because this is one of those situations where every cell in your being understands the phrase "murderously pissed off."

But of course, no good deed goes unpunished. While Carlos Mencia is lined up to "perform" at the Comedy Store this weekend, (click and scroll down) Joe Rogan has been blackballed. Yep, for making a scene. Oh, fuck, it's okay to steal someone else's intellectual property, but calling someone on it is apparantly unacceptable.

Here's the scoop on the fallout, straight from Joe Rogan:

"It’s also indicative of this massive problem we have in the comedy community in general. Here you have a club that basically sells other people’s art. They put the chairs there, sell the drinks and turn the mic on, and the artists do the rest. You have a situation where a comic that’s been known for stealing other people material gets called out onstage, exposed, and then the video is put on the internet for all to see, and their reaction is to ban the guy that exposed him and made the video. To the thief, they sit back quietly and profit from his crime.

It’s truly fucking mind blowing.

There’s not another art form in the world where the creative rights of the artist get as little respect. If they banned the both of us for this incident, then I would understand that they're just trying to avoid conflict, but the fact that they have told me to "take a break" but they have him onstage this weekend is just a tremendous slap in the face to me, and to the art of stand up comedy."

So if you're in the L.A. area this weekend, Joe Rogan will be appearing at the Hollywood Improv. Definitely head out and support a REAL comedian. All of you painters and poets and advertising people, you singers and songwriters and sculptors...this guy took one for all of us. And right now he's just one guy out there screaming that it's not okay to steal other people's shit. We all need to stand up and be counted.

How to Ruin Valentine's Day

I'm pretty apathetic when it comes to Valentine's Day. For me, Valentine's Day falls into the same category as, say, President's Day. I just don't really give it too much thought. Of course, I know people who absolutely love Valentine's Day....these are typically girlfriends who have been trolling for a little blue Tiffany's box since Christmas; and I know people who loathe Valentine's Day....typically the folks with girlfriends who haven't shut up about Tiffany's since December.

Last year, I was in the grocery story at about 6:00 on Valentine's evening. I saw a steady procession of harried men with frenzied looks in their eyes, haplessly snatching one of the last picked-over bouquets and rushing to check out. I imagined their wives at home, anxiously waiting to see what their husbands would bring them. I conjured up the thought that most of the women had spent the afternoon cooking a dinner that would work well by candlelight, then put the kids to bed early and squeezed themselves into some semblence of lingerie. I wanted to pull them aside and tell them that they'd probably get more ass if they just went home and offered to do the festive Valentine's Day dishes. But I digress...

My favorite Valentine's Day was the one I spent with a good friend in college. That year, we were the only two out of our group of friends who weren't dating anyone. So we decided to go out to dinner together, and deliberately chose the least romantic place we could think of, lest anyone treat us like a couple. (My lack of a penis conclusively precluded any interest he might have in me.) So we headed off to a place where we were regulars, a bar in the city that was known for its pizza and beer selection.

When we walked in, we felt betrayed. Valentine's Day was in full effect. All of the high-top tables were covered in white tablecloths, and waiters we'd never seen before were traipsing around in starched white tuxedo shirts and bow ties. We stared at each other for a full minute, both wary and amused. "What the hell?" the look said, "They got us." We grabbed a table near the bar, and a waiter came scurrying over to fawn over us. I think my friend grew even more pissed, as the waiters all clearly lacked any ability to pull off their formalwear for the evening, immediately pegging them as straight.

We asked for menus, but were told the only option was their Valentine's Day prix fixe menu, consisting of--get this--a heart-shaped pizza and a bottle of either red or white wine. We could order beer if we chose, but the wine was included in the price regardless. I wondered what teetolers would think of their $30 pizza, then began to scan the room looking for anyone who might fit that description so that we could score their bottle of wine as well.

With the waiter standing ready, we proceeded to have a bitchy conversation about the 'correct' wine to drink in a downtown dive bar with a heart-shaped pizza. The humor was lost on our clueless server. We went for the red, which of course, turned out to be some table schlock that I'm sure the bar had procured for about $2 a bottle wholesale. Like the pizza, it was shaping up to be a heart-shaped night, the very thing we were trying to avoid.

My friend spotted the jukebox and pulled out a $5 bill as we waited for our Valentine's Day pizza. I'd already slugged back a glass of the wine, complaining that I could still taste the feet of the hairy bitch who'd crushed the grapes. We headed over to play some music, and a few pages into the catalogue, I started furiously punching numbers into the machine. My friend grabbed my hand, trying to pull it away from the box as I repeated the same four-digit code over and over again. "What are you doing?" he hissed. The giggles growing inside of me threatened to become tears of laughter as I shook free of his grasp.

Just then, the music I'd chosen began to play over the speakers. Paul Simon's melancholy "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" was starting to get the attention of the erstwhile romantic couples. My friend froze, his eyes grew wide, and he doubled over in the same fit of laughter. I continued to hit the code on the jukebox, and when our credits were exhausted, we returned to the table to survey the Valentine's Day carnage as the song played over, and over, and over again.

The Valentine's Day revelers were looking pretty annoyed as we each poured another glass of the cheap wine. Our heart-shaped pizza came, and we could finally appreciate it. Just as the offending song ended, it would start up again, each time sending both of us into another fit of laughter. By the time our obligatory chocolate dessert arrived, we had effectively reclaimed Valentine's Day.

On the drive home, my friend developed a conscious about how we'd thoroughly fucked up the holiday for everyone else in the building. I reasoned that anyone who would seriously take a date to the pizza dive on Valentine's Day deserved to be cock-blocked. And any woman who found it acceptable for her husband or boyfriend to get by with such a lame display of affection needed the encouragement.

Years later, I still don't feel bad about what we (I) did. It's still one of my favorite Valentine's Day memories, and I think it probably always will be. Because the revelry came in a form that is too often lacking in these monstrously pre-planned holidays--spontaniety. No way would that Valentine's Day be as memorable if we had planned to go out and bitch-slap the fun out of everyone else's night. But that's the way it just so happened to work out. And every Valentine's Day since then, I think of my college friend at least once during the day, and always wind up telling a shocked co-worker the story.

Happy Valentine's Day, all. May it be what you make of it.

Before You Take A Big Whiff of Those Valentine's Day Roses

A rose by any other name...might be less toxic. Especially if it's, say, a tulip. Something most of us have probably never thought about before is becoming an increasing health concern.

Valentine's Day is a cash cow for retailers, who mark it as the third most profitable retail season of the year, behind only Christmas and back-to-school shopping. Consider these facts:

Americans will spend between $14 and $17 billion dollars for the 2007 Valentine's Day holiday on cards, restaurants, candy and flowers. In flowers alone, this translates to 189 million stems of roses.

Not surprisingly, men spend more than women, shelling out an average of $156.22. Men between 24 and 35 average $164.32, while women spend $85.08. I actually thought this last number sounded a bit inflated, until I realized that women are far more likely to also buy Valentine's Day cards and presents for family members and friends, as well as their partners.

While consumers are plunging into Valentine's Day en masse, a new Harvard study asks Americans to think about what those flowers, in particular, actually mean. In the United States, a huge portion of our flowers are imported from Colombia. The rose-friendly climate that allows the stems to flourish is also a natural breeding ground for pests and fungus.

Since U.S. regulations require imported flora, fauna, and produce to be free of these things, what comes attached instead are some serious chemical components. Unlike produce, imported flowers are not required to be below certain levels of chemical contamination. The World Health Organization states that, in 2005, 36% of chemicals sprayed on the Columbian flowers were classified as "highly" or "extremely" toxic.

For consumers, this poses a couple of questions. The first, is there any risk to sending these flowers (which recipients will no doubt inhale deeply from), particularly to people with immune or respiratory issues? For socially concerned consumers, what is the cost to both the environment and human workers within the Colombian flower industry?

But all is not lost for those who expect to give and receive flowers this Valentine's Day. The California flower industry is an enormous national producer, and American flower farms are subject to incredibly strict regulation. Organic flowers are another option, and the Organic Trade Association estimates a whopping 50% growth in demand for organic flowers each year.

What this really means is that, if you forget Valentine's Day and wind up standing in line at a crowded restaurant waiting to be seated, play up the social justice issue. Play up the concern for your love's health. At least it will give you and your love something to talk about until the hostess finally calls your name.

TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny Makes Technorati List

Well, this is an exciting development for a nascent blog! It seems that the parody post on Anna Nicole Smith and Rosie O'Donnell was the "Hot Blurb" on Technorati both today and yesterday.

Every time I've tried to post a snippet of the page, my computer has crashed...so, I'll just have to include the link.

I don't know how long this blog will be able to hold the top spot, but I have to admit that I'm thrilled to know that, not only are people reading TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny, but are taking notice. It's great to know that there are other cynical bastards out there who are amused with the content produced on these pages.

If you'd like to register your support, please head on over to the Technorati Where's the Fire page and take a moment to vote for ANNA NICOLE SMITH'S DEATH DEEMED MURDER !!!

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog, and mucho gracias to the folks who voted to put TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny on Technorati's radar.

Happy Monday, all.

How Punk Rock Music Can Teach Us All to Be More Polite

This morning, the punk band Ultraman helped my neighbors and I come to a better understanding of neighborly conduct. Hmmm...kind of sounds like a "Scooby Doo" episode, where the band comes in to teach everyone a valuable lesson. While that sounds all well and good, I didn't actually have a band in my apartment this morning. (For some people, this would be disappointing; my parents would probably consider it a sign of progress.)

The first time I was woken up this morning, I vaguely wondered why my life had become some sort of Hugh Grant-Julia Roberts Europudding, as my bedroom was filled with the suicidal strains of Bonnie Raitt singing "I Can't Make You Love Me." I never before knew that that song actually has bass in it, but the fact that it was pulsing through the wall behind my head was proof positive.

So I grabbed the broom that I keep next to the bed for just such occasions. Pounding the handle into the ceiling for ten minutes finally resulted in the radio from hell being turned down. I fell back to sleep, thinking that, since it was only 8 a.m., I'd do the Sunday Sleep and catch at least a couple more hours in my bed.

But just as I was back in dreamland, a horrible screeching wail jolted me awake. My downstairs neighbors--they of the huge patio that is literally three times the size of my entire apartment--had their devil grandchild visiting. Now, I'll admit that I'm not child-friendly. But even taking that barometer into account, this is the most hellacious small person I've encountered. All it does is screech, whine, and cry. Very fucking loudly.

This morning, at all of 8:30 I quickly discovered, the little snot ball was screaming so loud that it sounded like it was sitting in my living room. In my version of a polite society, one would think that, at the very least, you take the screeching shit monster back indoors. But my neighbors seemed to forego this option, as the wailing only increased in pitch and decibal level.

This is where having a decent collection of punk rock music comes in handy. While the Descendents CD was closest to the stereo, I walked over to my computer and pulled out an Ultraman CD., I cranked it loud enough to piss off both the Bonnie Raitt bitch and the asshole grandparents. I learned immediately--the baby does not enjoy punk rock. Its screaming reached fever pitch as lead singer Tim Jamison appropriately snarled "Ask...my...self. Ask myself 'Why?'"

As the punk rock reverbrated throughout my bare-ass unfurnished apartment the neighbors quickly realized just how much we can hear of one another's lives. After four songs, my early-morning Turret's started to wear off, and I actually started to feel like the villian in this situation (why is that?!?) When I turned off the stereo, both Bonnie and the brat were silenced, or at least removed from my hearing range.

You know, the irony is not lost on me that I was the one hassling old people about their noise levels this morning. But they need to realize that not everyone around them goes to bed just after sunset and believes that 8 a.m. is the geriatric version of noon. But old folks are the worst kind of noise polluting neighbors. Even if they did invite me to the party, it's not like I would actually want to go hang out on the balcony drinking grapefruit juice and watching their progeny make snot bubbles and scream.

Besides that, they have an egocentric approach that makes their lifestyles the despotic example by which the rest of us are supposed to live. I can imagine the upstairs neighbor huffily thinking "Well, *I'm* getting ready for *church*!!!" And the downstairs folk having the typical breeder response of "The *baby* is expressing itself!!!"

Well, I was just expressing myself, too. Expressing my displeasure at being jolted out of a warm and cozy sleep by someone else's vagina fruit. Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily fault the kid here. I doubt the one-year old decided to freeze his ass off in the morning chill to scream out on the balcony. The fucking idiot breeder grandparents made that executive decision, and they got to meet Ultraman as a result.

I admit, I'm tempted to throw a party tonight. I'm sure that if my fucktard neighbors were to be woken up at 10 at night by my lifestyle, they wouldn't want to extend the same courtesy that they expected this morning. But the reality is, I probably won't round up a bunch of folks from nearby bars to come hang out at my pad. Because I'm aware of how much we can hear of one another's lives, and don't deliberately encroach on my neighbors' peace and quiet with the same level of hubris that they approach mine.

ANNA NICOLE SMITH'S DEATH DEEMED MURDER!

THIS JUST IN:



Sources have concluded that Anna Nicole Smith's death was indeed caused by murder. Authorities are attempting to round up the suspect, whom they have identified as a public figure who made disparaging comments about Miss Smith just hours before her death...







When asked to elaborate further, Broward County officials denied working in conjunction with Donald Trump to charge Rosie O'Donnell in the death of Anna Nicole Smith. They instead obliquely referred to the legendary Gay Mafia that is well known and feared throughout the entertainment industry.

"The fact of the matter is that Rosie was sick to death of Anna Nicole Smith, referring to her as a whoring breeder who shouldn't be allowed to procreate," said a police spokesperson. "Her anger at Anna Nicole stemmed from both Rosie's own inability to impregnate her partner, and Miss Smith's 'famous for being famous' notoriety."

That's right, folks, TwelveYearsOfBeingAnnoyedByChloeSevigny is breaking the story wide open. We beat the news wires to the story, and we'll be there to see Rosie do her perp walk.