Hello again, Smartass radio’s Michael Jackson correspondent Megan Riebesell here, just checking in to follow up on the status of our dearly beloved.  As we all could have predicted, not even MJ’s passage into eternity could ease the controversy that besieged him all his life.  Back here on earth, we are still picking away at every morsel of flesh that our ugly beaks can scrape off his bones.  People are still making  careers out of revealing any kind of sensitive information they can dig up in his wake, so-called “artists” are  still depending on his legacy for their own shot at celebrity or capital, and the fat, greedy vultures of the world are still milking his hard-earned masterpieces for every pathetic cent they can steal.  However, do not fret, I am here to remind everyone that Michael’s pure soul, which was always too powerful to be contained by a simple human body, has finally reached its proper ranking among the gods, as an immortal presence.  Of course, Michael’s kingdom in the great beyond is immune to the commotion of silly, frantic scavengers still chirping his name down here.  Rest in assurance, MJ smiles down on all of his children still, giggling at our antics.

That being said, skimming through Jacko’s most recent controversy was actually a pretty hilarious and  of course bizarre venture. Where do I even begin?

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It’s a little difficult to think of the holiday season during the hot summer season, but we all know that Christmas will one day come again. Every Christmas without fail a new collection of Christmas songs is released, performed slightly differently then they usually are, but still not as good as they first were. These Christmas albums are usually stamped out by music giants like Kathie Lee Gifford, Rosie O’Donnell and Twisted Sister.

Well guess who’s next to bite off a chunk of the money-making yule log? That’s right! Bob Dylan.

I mean when you think of Christmas doesn’t the image of an old Jew come to mind?

Now I’m as big a Bob Dylan fan as the next guy (provided the next guy isn’t DJ), but this idea seems the tiniest bit horrible to me.  Story has it that Bob’s already got four songs in the bag, including “Here Comes Santa Claus” and “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Again, I’d like to emphasize that Dylan is a Jew and, thus, will still be getting a sack of coal this December 25th, record or no record.

Dylan did go through a born-again-Christian “phase” from 1979-1981. Up until now I had passed that off as a bad joke, but it looks like Dylan is getting in touch with his non-existent Christian roots again. Maybe all these celebrity deaths are getting him worried. Is recording a Christmas album a free ticket to heaven? It’s a possibility.

I could support this album if Dylan had changed things up a little.  Couldn’t he have added that vintage Zimmerman flair? I would consider picking up a Christmas album with this track list:

1- The Empty Stocking Blues
2- Snowy Day Women #12 and #25
3- Stuck inside the Chimney with the X-Mas Blues Again
4- These Presents They Are A-Wrappin’
5- Subterranean Homesick Elf
6- It’s Alright Mama (It’s Only Hanukkah)
7- All Along the Rooftop
8- I Dreamed I Saw St. Nicholas
9- 34th Street Revisited
10- Ballad of a Snow Man

But, no, I do not need to hear Bob’s rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

However, I will be the first to snag his cover of “Dradle, Dradle, Dradle.”

HEY! Something NEW! Here’s a guest blog from our very excellent friend Pavel Podolyak. You can check out his rantings about current politics (and now celebrity commentary) at his blog The Pragmatist. Here’s his take on the career of Nicolas Cage. – DJ

Hollywood has reached a special milestone with the most ridiculous movie of the decade.

(major spoilers ahead)

In every area of entertainment there is always a goofy but lovable character or group that keeps trying regardless of the endless failures and social ridicule. Basketball has The Knicks, music has Christian metal, and Hollywood has Nicolas Cage. This man carries the heaviest of burdens: trying to appear as a lead actor in one good movie (by his own criteria) before he dies while playing a role of somebody who dies.

You might be confused and object, “but what about Spike Jonze’s Adaptation? That was great! and The Rock! That was neat too! err, Leaving Las Vegas!”

It would seem that Adaptation is the pinnacle of Cage’s career and also a good movie. And it is. However what really got imbeded psychologically into Cage’s brain is the Oscar that he got for playing an alcoholic on a mission to drink himself to death in Leaving Las Vegas. He was 31 years old when playing a tortured soul on a mission of self destruction provided the greatest positive reinforcement an actor can get.

Cage thus learned a valuable lesson back in 1995. “To become great I must destroy myself on film.” He set out to do just that on a life project that grew beyond his control.

Obviously he didn’t think he was already past his prime after getting the Academy Award. At that tender age, people are at the peak of their cognitive powers and think they’ll keep improving indefinitely. What ended up happening is that no other actor has appeared in more movies where the role seems to be to either directly or indirectly commit suicide or be killed during some martyrdom operation. No, this is different than stuntmen actors or typecast Mafia wiseguys who die often by somebody else’s hand. This is self inflicted.

Lets begin with a few examples to see what led to Cage’s pinnacle of madness that is Knowing.

1. The Rock – Cage goes on what appears to be a suicide mission to rescue hostages. As he dies from chemical weapon, he jabs a saving andrenaline needle into his heart (which if done in a wrong way will kill). He saves many lives and appears to be killed by a fiery explosion. Yet he lives.

2. Face Off - Cage goes on what appears to be a covert suicide mission by cutting off his own face and putting on a face of a mass murderer (played by another epic tortured soul John Travolta) who killed Cage’s wife. Cage is a good guy wearing the face of a bad guy. He is driven to madness but saves his son and lives.

3. City of Angels – Cage commits suicide right away for love. What? Well he is an immortal angel you see who falls in love with a human and becomes a mortal human to be with her. He doesn’t even get to be with her since he dies.

4. Snake Eyes – Cage decides to risk his life for love. He helps a woman who is marked for death. He lives but goes to prison.

5. 8mm - Cage decides to risk his life to find out who killed a young woman. He continues on even after it increasingly becomes a suicide mission. He is driven to madness and slaughters the perpetrators. He lives but dies inside.

6. Bringing out the Dead – Cage saves lives while slowly dying inside. He finds salvation in a young woman but merci kills her father. He lives.

7. Windtalkers - Cage goes on repeated suicide missions during WW2. He is both a good guy and a bad guy who mercilessly slaughters Japanese. He saves the life of a comrade while getting shot and killed.

8. Adaptation - Cage plays two characters who are twin brothers. The fun loving happy and life filled brother gets killed. The loser writer brother lives. Cage manages to die and survive in one movie.

9. World Trade Center – Cage is a firefighter goes on a borderline suicide mission to save lives in a burning WTC. He gets trapped in the rubble and goes into a coma. He lives but everybody else dies.

10. Vampire’s Kill – Cage thinks he died and became a vampire. He tried to kill himself (again in his mind) but doesn’t have what it takes. Not to worry since somebody else kills him later.

Now things start getting strange as Nicolas Cage decides to consciously kill his own serious career by appearing in movies for children and obvious B movie horror flicks. First we see National Treasure and then the final legs of the journey are completed.

11. Ghost Rider – Cage is playing a person who goes on suicide mission stunts. He is also committing career suicide by starring in a B movie designed for the borderline retarded. Cage dies in a fire but is brought to life as an anti-hero who is on fire and in constant pain. Cage goes full circle and goes from being human to an angel of death by dying. He err, lives as an undead avenger who is always on fire.

12. The Wicker Man – Cage is a cop and fails to save a woman and a girl who dies in a fire. He drinks lots of liquor and finds out that his ex-wife is missing. Yes, out of love Cage decides to find her and goes to an island controlled by a matriarchal pagan cult. He increasingly begins to believe that the woman he’s looking for was either killed by being burned at the stake or is about to. He finds out that not only is she alive but the whole thing was an elaborate set up to burn Cage alive in a ridiculous ritual. His mind snaps. Cage finds himself trapped in an unnecessarily large wicker man and dies in a fire.

*drum roll*

Move aside The Passion of the Christ. Knowing has Nicolas Cage as both Noah, a willing martyr dying a horrible death, and the father of the only male chosen to be in the new garden of Eden.

What? Yes, we’ve come to the most ridiculous movie of the decade and one that Cage will not be able to top. This movie also combines an incredible number of genres. It is a horror movie, an action movie, an apocalyptic movie, a movie catering to Christians, a mystery movie, a sci fi movie, a B movie, as well as a Blockbuster summer movie. It is a movie to end all movies. The equivalent of a deep fried Big Mac broken up onto a deep crust pizza. An epic movie that will liquefy your mind and spirit into goo. This movie represents a dimensional flux where Cage and Hollywood merge together in an attempt to make the audience surrender and join them in a self destructive behavior of watching and enjoying movie trainwrecks (in turn, becoming part of the wreckage themselves).

13. Knowing - Cage’s wife died (not in a fire) and he has a son that he looks out for. Cage is a meteorology professor who drinks a lot. His son gets a letter from a 1959 time capsule. The letter lists all the dates of major disasters and numbers of people killed by them. Yes, some disasters didn’t happen yet. Cage risks his life trying to save people but they all die anyway and he is almost killed. A jetplane for example almost smashes into Cage’s car as he is waiting in traffic. He runs to rescue survivors who are burning alive. Total insanity.

He then meets a woman whose mother wrote the letter all those years ago. She has a daughter. It appears that Cage found a love interest but all is in vain. He finds out that the final disaster will kill everybody on the planet by burning them alive. It will be caused by a solar flare that he cant do anything about.

Yes, Cage comes to a realization that he cannot save anybody this time and also has knowledge that he and his son will die. This is it. Also, Cage’s apparent potential love interest dies before he can even die with her a little later. He is stuck with her daughter.

Ah, but wait a second audience. In the final minutes of the movie, an alien mothership descends and tells Cage’s son telepathically that he is chosen to go with them along with the little girl (they are all special and connected of course).

Cage logically wants to go on the mothership with his son and a young girl. The aliens say that he can’t go since only the two children were chosen. Cage insists that he go with them and aliens appear to be fine with that. Then Cage changes his mind at the last moment and decides to stay behind and burn alive with everybody else. His son could care less and the children go into the mothership that leaves Cage whimpering on the ground in madness and horror. Then he goes back to his city. The solar flare comes and all of humanity burns alive.

Cage’s son and the young girl find themselves in Eden by a tree of knowledge.

It is the end of the line for an actor who is used to playing characters at the end of the line. Knowing has increased chances of Nicolas Cage committing suicide in real life 10 fold. Hopefully that doesn’t happen and Cage is reborn to save us all another day.

Everyone has heard the sad news about Michael Jackson and I like to think that everyone was at least somewhat saddened. I mean if you don’t like Michael Jackson songs, then what’s the point? While everyone was upset, some people, some very deeply devoted fans, were nothing short of devastated…physically , emotionally, spiritually. One of these people was our good friend Megan Riebesell.  She won’t be able to see Michael in London this summer, but the least we could do was let her share some words with you. – Roy

Hello.  My name is Megan Riebesell and I am here to talk to you about the biggest tragedy this planet has ever seen.  As you must have figured out by now, I’m referring to the death of Michael Joseph Jackson.  During this period of confusion, referred to by psychologists as “Stage 1: Denial” in the model for the five stages of grief, it is hard for people to see clearly to the issue at hand.  In hopes that this article will make it easier to cope, at least for the mere few it may reach,  I am going to use this forum to share some of my experiences with Michael, and discuss how his passing has affected me, Megan Riebesell.

It was obvious from a young age that Michael was probably not supposed to have ended up on earth.  Something went wrong, somebody messed something up.  Whoopsies!  Typo, wrong planet, something like that.  People kind of started to realize this when the J5 made their first appearance on Ed Sullivan in 69.  If you saw this you’d probably notice what could develop into a debilitating overload of soul and groove.  Certainly too much to be contained by the small, frail body of an11 year old.  If you went even further and watched this one you’d additionally notice that he’s not moving the way that a child who probably just advanced to having legible handwriting should move.

So lots of people were sort of catching on, J5 ruled with 4 consecutive number one hits on the billboard chart, which was the first time this had ever happened.  I have to assume that people who actually lived through his emergence were desperately rationalizing: “Okay this kid will probably grow out of it in like 4 years when he’s a fucked up teenage mess.”  I think a lot of people would have been more comfortable with that scenario.

Instead, Michael decided to fucking unleash his maniac talent on everyone full throttle.  By the time when most kid stars would start to totally burn themselves out, realizing they completely missed out on childhood and collapsing beneath the pressure of the limelight and everything, Michael invented a new way of dealing with all of it.  He figured since he was irreversibly damaged and would probably never fully work through it, he might as well use the one thing he did get out of it, which was being raised as a fucking psychotic perfectionist.  So he decided to just like create everything.  He focused all of his dysfunctional shit as well as his superhuman talent-energy, and took music and entertainment to a level that didn’t even exist yet. Flawlessly.  Pretty much: wake up, think of the bass line to Billie Jean, brush your teeth, oh start doing THE MOONWALK, um go downstairs, grab a banana,  redefine music videos , and then finally head off to work at the studio inventing pop music, etc. Day in the life of MJ.  No biggy.

By 1994, Michael has already released Thriller, which is still the top selling record of all time, and is onto his 4th best selling album already (and has done all that other shit that you’ll wikipedia later.)  People as a whole are immersed in the new world of entertainment he has created.  I’m starting to feel a little weird about how many consecutive times I can jump all over my couches screaming to the Free Willy theme and still get emotional at the end.  Ironically enough, this is around the point when everyone starts to turn on him.  He’s just doing his thing, inventing everything that people ever like ever so that everyone can copy him forever.  Yea, he’s fucking crazy as fuck considering everything, but he’s still just pumping all of that into amazing visual and auditory masterpieces for the whole world to enjoy.  He’s touring selling out shows on every continent by now and it’s a little bit daunting for humans to discover that one being can pretty much hypnotize a good amount of their entire species at one time.  It’s to the extent where an alarming amount of people literally become incapacitated or unconscious, sometimes needing medical attention, when in his presence.  I mean yea, I know, Beatlemania and everything, but seriously this is different.  Full grown men had to be lifted out of the crowd, sobbing and hysterical. The physical reactions people had just to seeing him on stage was unsettling.  Humans detected an unmistakable cause for concern.

If you’re going to watch one video in this post, watch this one. With the lights off.

Everyone flipped out when they realized Michael Jackson had too much power over the human race.   So we just did the thing where we criticize someone until we bring them down to our level.  We thought it was weird that he was had a chimp named Bubbles, wanted to buy the elephant man bones, made his house into a peter pan amusement park,  cried at the end of Men in Black, etc.  Personally,  I don’t see what’s so weird about being a fucking CRAZY person after having a dramatically shitty life, and having to be a vessel for all of those insane songs and dance moves that needed to reach earth somehow. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty confident that a normal, psychologically sound person would not be capable of even one of his countless feats.   Still, most people were feeling uneasy about the whole situation.  We felt compelled to exploit all of his quirks until we had completely forgotten about all of his contributions.  On top of being the victim of a really unfortunate skin disease analysts agreed that MJ suffered from another shitty condition, body dimorphic disorder.  Jeez, what a weirdo, feeling like he needs to change his physical appearance.  Anyway, as it turned out, no one could see past his physical appearance, so his music became secondary to gossip about his strange lifestyle, and he was slandered for the rest of his life. After this, Michael decided that he would rather hang around chimps and little kids only.  Again, to me this seems like a pretty basic cause-and-effect type situation we have here.  However, the masterminds of mankind determined that he must have been molesting kids.  Not the monkey though, oddly enough.

So somehow by the time his last album hit, which was of course no Thriller, but still better than most things, lots of people were too embarrassed to go into a record store (remember those?) and ring up the latest from the world’s  most renowned child-molester at the time.  And who could blame us?  The trials got way more publicity than, lets say, when he founded the Heal the World foundation, whose mission was to  provide medicine to children and fight world hunger, homelessness, child exploitation and abuse.  Or his being a major contributor to 39 additional charities in his career.  They got even more coverage than when all of the profits from smash hits “Man in the Mirror” and “Heal the World” went to charity.  Probably even more well known than the “We are the World” video, which he coordinated, gathering the biggest musicians at the time to record a song that raised millions of dollars for famine relief.  Or how on the 123-show world tour for “Bad” he invited underprivileged children to watch for free and sing with him on stage, and then gave donations to local hospitals, orphanages and other charities in every place he visited.   The trials, which were unsuccessful in providing any actual evidence of molestation, are still more widely acknowledged than how the “Dangerous” world tour, where he danced like a fucking maniac for 65 shows and then gave all of the proceeds, I repeat, all, ALL of them to Heal the World.  After that he sold the broadcast rights for the show to HBO, took that money and put it towards HIV/AIDS research.  And remember when his afro caught on fire during the filming for that Pepsi commercial? Haha ha ha!! Guess what?  He took the money from that lawsuit and gave it to the hospital where he was treated and started a burn ward for research and technology in severe burn treatment.  Then he got plastic surgery because he was self-conscious about his scalp and we made fun of him for the rest of his life.  And said that he touches babies.

So after trying to withdraw from the public eye, (unsuccessfully, as tons of brilliant journalists and psychoanalysts made whole careers out of obsessing over his weirdness) Michael comes back at the world and announces “THIS IS IT.”  A 50- show tour taking place at the 02 stadium in London, possibly his last performance ever.  In tradition of MJ, he had invented some kind of crazy 3-D background scheme that would transform the experience of seeing  a live concert.  He committed to giving the world one last show, granting everyone the chance to forget all about the baby-dangling and plastic surgeries and just enjoy the fucking immaculate presentation of all of the songs that make everyone dance no matter where they are.   He agreed to subject his 50 year old body to putting on 50 more seizure-inducing performances which would have allowed millions of people to enjoy the same magic that had possessed them for decades.  It would have given millions the opportunity to experience the intense, uplifting energy that looks more powerful and mind-altering than any drug trip.  An experience that is unexplainable, but proven by concert footage of full grown adults losing the ability to hold themselves up.  I was going to be one of these people.

Michael Jackson has left behind a whole world of humans who were touched by his timeless legacy.    I’m sure that even those of you who didn’t spend $750 on airfare to London have the same feeling of emptiness in your lives as I do right now.  But remember, we are all in this together.   Take advantage of your neighbors and comrades who have probably all have attempted the moonwalk at one time or another, and might need someone to commiserate.  Talking it out feels good.  Even if it leads to both parties drunkenly agreeing that Michael Jackson was more important than Jesus, or the holocaust, and then the conversation becomes a little uncomfortable.  Just get it all out.  Letting yourself come to terms with how you feel will help you to reach the final step in the grieving process: Acceptance.  Make this tragedy easier for yourself and those around you.  Heal the world. It’s what Michael would have wanted us to do.  We’re all going to get through this.

This week’s podcast marks a definite change in direction. After 50 rambling messes, we (I) decided to take the reigns and practice some preproduction for realsies. Of course the day between recording and posting, Michael Jackson died. Hopefully, everyone will be very very tired of hearing about him, as unbelievable as his death truly is, because there is no coverage here. We do talk about Ed McMahon at length – let’s face it, Michael Jackson and maybe even Farrah Fawcet are really raining on his funeral procession. We also invented a game called “Carcass or Surgery” where I had to guess whether or not James added a term from a sex-change operation to a Carcass lyric.

We also decided to feature some new music this week from bands LAF and Zero System. Don’t let James’ fucking their names up in the intro fool you, we do really like these bands. If you want your music featured on the show, just send some mp3′s in an email to SmartassRadio@gmail.com.

Here’s the show:

Click here for .mp3

Here is the clip of Ed McMahon drunk:

Hey all,

This week we had a packed house as Patty, Roy, James and I gingerly sipped alcohol in a dingy basement. This week’s topics included the supposed Rihanna sex tape which stars an actress who looks nothing like Rihanna, a week old puppy getting flushed down the toilet, Patty’s impending death on her way to Oregon and some other shit too…

Click here for .mp3

Oh and we watched this video:

This past weekend my good friend Luke sent me a wake up call, asking if I would like to go with him to a sweet lodge. I thought to myself, “Yikes, this is going to severely interfere with my Saturday afternoon calisthenics routine down by the sound,” but then I thought “Aw heck, I’ll go anyway. After all, this sweet lodge sounds pretty sweet.” Twenty minutes and an orange later, I was in Luke’s hotrod, on my way to the sweet lodge. Little did I know, I was in for one of the sweatiest days of my life.

Why was my day sweat-drenched? It all comes down to a simple mis-communication. I thought that Luke, who has a very strong and noticeable Staten Island accent, said SWEET lodge, but in reality he had said SWEAT lodge. Though the difference here is only one letter (that letter being A) the implications are significant. What did I expect? I imagined a lovely gingerbread house, with candy cane gutters, a twizzler garden hose and a gumball compost pile out back. I pictured a nice little candy lodge, something straight out of Hansel and Gretel. Well, the experience was like Hansel and Gretel…in the sense that I felt trapped in an oven for two hours.

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