Bookmarks: After Prince

The Open University's OpenLearn Live service has pulled together a collection of some of the more thoughtful responses to the sudden death of Prince.

Also worth your time: New York Mag on how Prince helped editors when he changed his name to the symbol:

Prince did the only thing you could do in that situation: He had a custom-designed font distributed to news outlets on a floppy disk.

The Prince font substituted his symbol for what would otherwise be a capital P. In addition, the font was also made available for download on CompuServe. It was accompanied by a stern letter featuring both usage and installation instructions.

You may have heard a lot of the tribute radio programmes that were broadcast on Friday night. But if you haven't caught Radio 4's The World Tonight, it's worth it for the interview with sound engineer Susan Rogers. You can listen to that here.

On the other hand... not everyone covered themselves in glory.

The Daily Mirror should be ashamed of its "Prince found dead in party mansion" headline on Thursday night online - nothing factually incorrect, but the inference was clear and unwelcome. Not as bad as Fox News, though, which spoke loudly about how the mansion was being treated "as a crime scene". The story, surely, was big enough to not need extra nudges and winks.

Adam Levine hates America

So on Tuesday night, on the American version of The Voice, Adam Levine was puzzled by the ridiculous choices made by the phone vote.

"I hate this country" he joshed, in an eye-rolling way. You know, like the way you might tell someone you love that you hate them if they eat the last Quorn cocktail sausage, or they score a day off you don't get. "I hate you" you say, but you don't mean it.

Everyone knows that, right?

Nothing to see, right?

Sorry, what's that Fox News contributor Todd Starnes?

I was watching “The Voice” last night, NBC’s singing competition and I could not believe the words coming out of my flat screen television.

Todd, you'll note, just slips in that he has a flat screen television. He's no hick, with a big old clunky cathode ray tube. That's because he's a success. In America, when you're a success, your TV gets flat. If you don't like that, get the hell out of America.

It happened near the end of the two-hour episode just after country music crooner Amber Carrington had been saved from elimination by television viewers.

Coach Adam Levine was upset because two of his singers were in the bottom three – and that’s when he muttered something under his breath.

“I hate this country,” he said – apparently unaware his microphone was hot.

“I hate this country.”

To be fair to Todd Starnes, it must have been tricky for him watching the Mainstream Media for two hours; obviously something was going to have to give.

Of course, under those circumstances, Levine setting fire to the flag, pissing on a soldier, and then actually suggesting that apple pie and motherhood were over-rated was going to set Todd off.

And given that none of that happened, Todd had to cling to what he could get.

So, Levine, apparently unaware that his audience were nuts, said something that could possibly be wilfully misinterpreted as being anti-patriotic. But you'd need a prism for that to work.

Have you got a prism, Todd?

Levine, the Maroon 5 frontman, is a passionate supporter of President Obama.

During the 2012 presidential election he warned the nation in a tweet: “Dear America, if you don’t re-elect @barackobama, I’m gonna lose my sh*t.”

And after Obama won re-election, Levine tweeted: “That’s what happens when you f*ck with Sesame Street.”

Ah, he supported Obama last year. So, obviously, prone to being anti-American sharing that support with just half of all Americans who could be arsed to go out and vote. That's practically communism.

But, Todd, you've surely seen Adam trying to explain patiently that it was the sort of humorous remark that people say all the time?

As you might imagine the “country” didn’t take kindly to Levine’s nationally televised hissy fit. So Levine decided to use Twitter to clarify his remarks.

He was all a big joke, he explained. Oh yeah – it was a real chuckle fest.

You know that not always everything that's said in jest is going to be a guffaw party, don't you, Todd? Like when Fox claims it's fair and balanced, that sort of joke isn't one that people laugh their heads off at, right?

Fox News see fundraiser; hear 'vote Obama'

If there's one thing we know about the Fox News Channel, they hate nothing more than something pretending to be impartial while actually being a political statement. They really, really hate that.

So it's perhaps no surprise to find Fox angrier than a child without a balloon over the NBC Sandy benefit. You or I might have seen it as a well-meaning attempt by some older pop acts to try and raise a few quid to help some people who are in quite a bad way.

But, no: It was little more than an Obama campaign advert:

"Good intention, raise some money for victims, but the timing is more than suspect," guest host Eric Bolling said. "Is this more political? Is this more, let's get this thing on TV before the election to help President Obama look more presidential? Or is it more to help out victims?"

"It does look like they're trying to squeeze it in," Steve Doocy agreed. He then noted that Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen are avowed Obama supporters (they are also New Jersey musical icons, of course).

"Where are the conservative performers?" Doocy asked. "How's NBC going to control what people say?"

"Is it a hurricane benefit or a concert for Obama?" he later said darkly. "I don't know," Bolling said.

They even dragged up Kanye West's "George Bush doesn't care about black people" remarks during the New Orleans hurricane benefit to somehow explain why they believed an event that hadn't yet taken place was going to be a Democratic pep rally.

There's something almost sad that Fox is now so broken as a rational beast that their first thought when they hear people are raising money to help others is that this stands against everything they believe in.

The other sadness is that Sting, Springsteen and Billy Joel is about as (small c) conservative a line-up as you can possibly get; that trying to suggest Billy Joel is like some cross between Che Guevara and, uh, a bloke playing pianos is so ridiculous you can't help but laugh.

"People will see a man who used to be married to a supermodel, who has a personal stash of 160million dollars, singing a song in front of a picture of a washed-out New Jersey theme park and will be tricked into voting for healthcare."

Really, Fox? If you believe that, you're more in need of an appropriate adult than Britney Spears ever was.

If you don't, you're kinda of a disgrace for pushing that sort of shit on the television to the small-but-significant audience who see the word "news" on your screen and confuse that with "truth".

Maroon 5 now at war with Fox News

Parody news channel Fox News has gone to war with Maroon 5.

Fox quite likes using Maroon 5's music in the gaps between its swivel-eyed skrikecasts; Adam Levine has asked them to stop.

Fox doesn't like being told what to do. (It can work out what the Republicans want it to do all by itself). So they've wittily shot back:

Fox News hosts Greg Gutfeld and Andy Levy both replied to the singer on Twitter, each mocking the "Dear Fox News" phrasing of Levine's tweet. "Dear Adam, that's not music," wrote Gutfeld. Levine elaborated slightly in his tweet, writing "Dear @AdamLevine, don't make crappy fucking music ever again. Thank you."

Ha-ha, that's telling him. Telling him that the music you play on network is rubbish, admittedly, but telling him all the same.

Chris Brown: Sorry, sort of

Not everything on Fox News is paranoid, gibbering, right-slanted douchery. Take this, a response from Andy Levy after Chris Brown complained about something Levy had said on Twitter:



[Hat-tip to the The MediaBlog]

Fox News: Accuracy is their watchword

Sarah Palin meets LL Cool J in the past

This had the air of something that might have been an April Fool, but it appears to be genuine - rather than actually interview people for her Fox News Show, Sarah Palin is merely lobbing in old versions of other people's interviews.

Not in a Wogan Now And Then way. Simply using old stuff, and pretending it's new.

Toby Keith's in it, for example:

Elaine Schock, his publicist, said a radio reporter contacted her seeking details about the programme.

"I said, 'You're wrong. There is no Sarah Palin special with Toby Keith on it on Fox,"' she said.

She said the reporter then e-mailed her the press release issued by Fox News, which said Keith would "explain the inspiration behind his song 'Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue."' Ms Schock said she believed the interview was conducted in January 2009 in Las Vegas but she had received no e-mail or phone call from Fox News informing her it would air on Mrs Palin's show this week.

LL Cool J is also suprised to find himself in it:

The LL Cool J interview was from 2008, his spokesman said.

"Contrary to what was reported, LL Cool J was never scheduled to be a guest on 'Real American Stories' with Sarah Palin this week," spokesman Rhett Usry said.. "The show had planned to use an interview from 2008 that was being repurposed without LL's permission.

"This statement is not a reflection of any feelings LL has toward Fox News or Ms. Palin, whom he has never met, rather a clarification of what we have seen published in the media."

There's no problem with making a programme up out of old interviews. Trying to pass old stuff as if it was all-new and specially made, though: that's dodgy.

Could there be a final irony?

Oh, yes. The programme is called Real American Stories.

[via @culturalsnow]

Decade Null: 2008 - XX Teens

This was the song we wrote our piece about for the Sweeping The Nation Noughties By Nation series. Music by the XX Teens, lyrics - yes - by Fox News:



[Part of Decade Null 2008]

Muse haven't asked Beck to shut up

Further to the earlier piece about Muse asking Glenn Beck to disendorse them, it now seems that Beck was only joking when he said he'd been asked to stop praising them:

Christopher Balfe, the president and COO of Beck's company, Mercury Radio Arts, released a statement clarifying the situation. "After raving about Muse for four minutes, Glenn made a joke about their representatives e-mailing him to stop," Balfe wrote. "While it is entirely possible that Muse does not like having Glenn as a fan, he was making a joke and their representatives never reached out to him."

In fact, it turns out that Muse aren't prepared to say anything at all:

When asked for a response to the retraction of the fake retraction, a spokesperson for the band said there would be no comment from the Muse camp.

So last week, Matt Bellamy was all for revolution and overthrowing things. Now he can't even be arsed to disassociate himself from Glenn Beck.

Beck off: Muse ask Glen to retract

As if it wasn't bad enough that he's just led to Waitrose dumping advertising on Fox in the UK, Glenn Beck has now had to withdraw his endorsement of Muse:

He described the album as "absolutely fantastic" and interpreted the album's political lyrics as an attack on the Obama institution and the dangers of "one world government".

He said: "These guys are brilliant, they know the time that we live in. They are libertarians from England.

"All of the lyrics are... dead on, on what's coming our way."

Oh, dear. Muse asked him to recant, and he did (although The Quietus doesn't mention if he sobbed as he did so):

They would like me to retract my endorsement," said Beck. "My apologies to Muse for saying that I like them. I didn't mean to destroy all their credibility and all their coolness.

"It's an awful album and you should never go out and buy it."

Of course Beck made it sound like the band were upset at being endorsed by a big ole square, rather than rejecting a political misrepresentation of their beliefs by a hectoring blowhard. But then he's a man who wouldn't be able to keep things straight if he had a plumb line and set square stapled to his forehead.

Perhaps if he'd found out about Matt Bellamy's desire for internet users to be taxed, he might never have mistaken them for libertarians in the first place.

[UPDATED: It turns out this is all Glenn Beck's idea of a joke.]

Aubrey O'Day clarifies her love of fascists, communists

There's a certain amount of chilling down of your cerebal cortex to be able to follow the latest twists in the life of Aubrey O'Day, out of Puff Daddy's play-band Danity Kane.

Having quit the sort-of-band to concentrate on showing her breasts to Playboy readers, O'Day was - it seems - a natural choice to appear on Sean Hannity's Fox News programme to talk about things like she was an expert.

She made the slight slip, however, of forgetting where she was and happened to mention an admiration for Fidel Castro. On Fox News. It's like going into church and suggesting that Satan is alright:

"I met him and worked with him when I was in Cuba," she said. "I'm not defending his behavior in many instances, but I do have to say that I will 100 percent agree he's an incredibly brilliant man."

Now, on a proper news programme, with a host rather than an I Speak Your Weight machine with a TalkRadio box spliced on top, this could prove to be an interesting entree into a discussion about the pros and cons of the Castro regime, and the extent to which the interests of that country's citizens have been sidelined in a decades-long battle between Castro and capitalism.

Being Hannity, though, he merely squawked "he's a murderer", like O'Day had said, ooh, that a man dying of cancer shouldn't spend his last days in a foreign cell.

Again, Hannity's stupidity wouldn't have been a problem if he'd been parading it in front of someone who was able to grasp an argument and use it. Instead:

[O'day] responded, "I'm sure I've met a lot of murderers in life. I'm not condoning [his actions]. [The United States has] supported a lot of murderers. I'm specifically addressing [U.S. Representative Diane Watson's] comment suggesting that he is a brilliant man. I'm sure many murderers are brilliant people."

"...like this one time, Professor Plum managed to use a candlestick in the kitchen - but how could he have found a candlestick without a candle in it in the dark?"

As if the aburdity wasn't already reduced enough, Hannity decided to take it further. Because you know who's like Castro? Hitler, that's who:

she said, "Listen, I don't condone Hitler one ounce, but yes, he was a brilliant man. Can you guys say that he wasn't? He ran a country and convinced everyone of horrible things."

"Excellent at organising a country, and pretty persuasive at pushing a sometimes unappealing agenda" is - we've weighed it - not quite one ounce of condoning. This, of course, is measured on the Bryan Ferry of "ooh, that architecture" Nazi scale.

Naturally, you can't go on TV and say "look, Hitler was smart enough to run an entire country" and not have your management team rush out some sort of half-assed statement to try and stop people thinking of Hitler when they're looking a photos of your breasts. And so it goes:

In the statement released to MTV News, the singer reasserts what she said on the show, emphasizing that just because she thinks they were smart doesn't mean she condones the notorious leaders' "evil behavior."

"Murderers and dictators generally are some of the smartest people out there — they just use their brain power for evil purposes," O'Day said. "I don't condone any of their evil behavior, but I was asked about their intellectual firepower ... and in my opinion you can't have a low IQ and wreak that much havoc on the world. What Hitler succeeded in doing was deplorable. And I hope we never see such an abusive use of power again."

Her people edited out the next paragraph which rambled on for a bit along the lines of "hey, in fact... people with IQs can do bad stuff, so why don't we just round them up and put them in some sort of compound where they can't do any harm? Like we could lay a trail of sudokos or something and gather them up...".

So, that's all cleared up, then. In short: Neither Hannity nor O'Day should be allowed near anything requiring the ability to think more than one big thought at a time. At least we can be sure neither of them are likely to wreak very much havoc on the world.

Bring me the head of Bill O'Reilly (but not with the face looking at me)

Fox News chief honker Bill O'Reilly has a habit of upsetting people - a side effect of having a mouth designed to spout out barely-considered cant. Last year, he got into a battle of wits with Nas - imagine two rhinos charging at each other, but without the political sophistication.

Now, the East Coast Avengers have released a record calling for O'Reilly to be murdered.

However, you don't perhaps need to be a Fox News contributor to feel a little uneasy at the call to Kill Bill O'Reilly. Isn't that rather playing into his hands?

Whatever happened to Tim Kash?

You and I might remember Tim Kash as one of the very worst of the run of bad presenters that Top Of The Pops suffered in its declining years. Nowadays, though, he's working for MTV delivering sub-Newsround "it's exciting behind the scenes" stories about Fox News for MTV.

Buddy, can you spare Britney a dime?

Catching the mood of America as the economy slowly erodes, Fox News worries that even celebrities are going broke:

Michael Jackson knows this story all too well. He's defaulted on a $23 million loan, and if he doesn't pay the full amount — plus $212,963.83 in interest — by the end of January, he could lose his beloved Neverland Ranch.

Twelve years ago, the female R&B group TLC was also forced to file for bankruptcy, despite selling a staggering 23 million records.

Britney may not be far behind. Court papers show that she spends $102,000 each month on entertainment, gifts and vacations. Her monthly clothing bill is a whopping $16,000 — $1,000 more than she forks over for child support.

On the other hand, every time someone drops a bit of one of her songs into a news report on Britney's troubles, it helps her make the rent for the month. Indeed, she's probably making money off the reports of how broke she is. You've got to love capitalism, haven't you?

One question remains: How much would the clothing bill be if she was buying underwear as well?

Nas remembers VTech by shouting at Billo

The decision to invite Nas to perform at last night's Virginia Tech showbiz memorial wasn't a universally popular one, what with Nas's track record for making gratuitiously violent songs. However, the adoption of the 'ban Nas' campaign by Fox News' Bill O'Reilly handed Nas an easy way out. Instead of defending his music, he was able to get on the safer ground of attacking O'Reilly instead:

"He's a racist," Nas said. "Everybody has a marketing plan; his marketing plan is racism.

"He doesn't understand the younger generation. He deals with the past," Nas continued. "The people he represents are Republican, older, a generation that has nothing to do with the reality of what's happening now with my generation. ... He's not really on my radar. People like him are supposed to be taught and people like me are supposed to let niggas like him know. I don't take him serious. His shit is all about getting ratings or whatever. I wouldn't honor anything Bill O'Reilly has to say. It just shows you what bloodsuckers do: They abuse something like the Virginia Tech [tragedy] for show ratings. You can't talk to a person like that."

Now, you'll not find anyone keener than us to point out the shortcomings of Billo, but this is somewhat simplistic - after all, while Fox News' interest in Virgina Tech might be a ratings boost, isn't Nas' appearance at the Dave Matthews organised event also about commerce? And is turning the event into a platform to cry "racism" at Fox really any less of an abuse of the memories of those who died?

Nas did eventually try to explain why a man who makes money selling violent records was present at a memorial service for those who were killed. Tried being the operative word. His reasoning? Erm, life's hard:

Here's somebody that speaks about America in his music, and the community that I come from has the same kind of violence as Virginia Tech," the legendary rapper said about himself. "It's unnecessary, stupid violence. Hip-hop is a part of the generation of [Virginia Tech] as well as alternative and pop and rock. Hip-hop is a part of that. That's why I'm [performing at the concert]. With Bill O'Reilly, it doesn't raise an eyebrow to me because it's garbage, its bullshit. He has nothing to do with the real people who go to school or the parents who had to endure that tragedy."

Hmm. Is Nas really comparing the tiresome internal gang-on-gang shooty-shooty-look-at-my-gun violence which has blighted hip-hop is comparable with being shot in a random mass-killing? He does seem to.

Nas then suggests that it's not odd that he would be there, because not all his songs are violent and, um, he doesn't sing about Russians:

"Let him ask why I made the songs I made," Nas said. "It didn't come from nowhere. It came from this country. I'm not talking about Russia in my music. I've never been to Russia. I'm not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I'm talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life. I got songs also about totally different things — 'Black Girl Lost,' you feel what I'm saying?"

Some of these points may or may not be fair - the more coherent of them, anyway - and there is room, certainly, for a debate about how far artists are making violent works because they're influenced by surroundings, and how far violent art makes all our public spaces less safe. And Bill O'Reilly's one-manned version of less-informed Daily Mail, with piles, is fair for a take-down.

Indeed, so wrong-headed is Bill's worldview, his suggestion that something must be banned is usually enough to get us out running up a petition to have the State supply whatever it is on the general rates.

But this does miss the point somewhat. The best Nas has done is suggest why Bill O'reilly might not be the best person to frame the question, but he still hasn't managed to answer it: when families and survivors of the Virginia Tech killings had asked you, because of your violent work, to not come to an event being held in their name, why did you still go?

Gibson says 'vote for climate change'

John Gibson - who plays a newsreader in Fox's long-running drama set in a repressive right-wing future, Fox News Channel - is fuming that NBC is broadcasting Live Earth. Not because he hates Genesis - actually, we rather imagine that Gibson believes in the literal truth of Genesis - but because he believes it's political bias in an election year. Even although it's not an election year, and Al Gore isn't running for office:

In a commentary Gibson asks whether NBC's telecast doesn't "constitute a political contribution of free airtime? Do the people who want the return of the Fairness Doctrine think NBC should be forced to give equal time to me and let me argue against Al Gore? I don't think so."

Well, to be honest, John, if you think you should be given eight hours of airtime to argue that the climate isn't changing and that we need to burn more resources, perhaps you should go ahead and organise a concert.

Still, its good news for Al Gore - most of the criticism of the event so far has been coming from the left; people who know the world is changing but think this isn't the answer. It's nice that at last there's someone who it is easier to argue against.

Abdul explains rambling; can't answer the being in love with smoking cat charges

With footage of her stumbling and slurring her way through an interview with a Fox affiliate in Seattle clogging up YouTube, Paula Abdul is rushing to explain it:

Abdul has repeatedly claimed that the botched appearance had nothing to do with either drugs or alcohol, but was instead the result of an audio snafu.

"I did a big week of press all last week in New York, and on the third day I did one of those press junkets where you're in that one little room and you're looking at one camera and there are 30 cities talking into your ear," Abdul explained on the Tonight Show earlier this month. "I guess Alabama was in my ear and so was Seattle at the same time, so I'm answering questions to the wrong answers of the cities."

Hmm. Well, that might explain the first snatch of interview, where, clearly Abdul is responding to voices from somewhere other than Seattle, but it hardly explains her appearance when the interview picked up shortly afterwards. She clearly knew she was talking to Seattle, but god alone knows where she thought she was.

Here, Fox rides to her defence - why, she was joshing:

Fox issued a statement of support for Abdul, backing up her explanation of technical difficulties and commending her sense of humor in the face of adversity.

"Rather than getting angry about these difficulties, or stopping the tour, Paula forged ahead and decided to have fun with the increasingly challenging situation," the network said. "Unfortunately, because reporters and viewers were unaware of the situation, her humor was misconstrued."

Well, that must be true - it's not like Fox News would lie to us, is it?

But you can see why pretending she was drunk as Edna The Inebriate woman celebrating being locked in brewery might be a little misconstrued. Unaware that she was "acting" drunk, a casual viewer might conclude she was totally bladdered.

Presumably she was also pretending to be ripped off her tits when she signed a deal to get involved in a live-action movie based on popular children's hooker toys, Bratz. Abdul is apparently going to choose the push-up trainer bras ("design the wardrobe") and choreograph the film. Rumours that the film will therefore be called Last Tango In Playschool cannot be confirmed.