I happened to catch Lady GaGa’s new video Bad Romance
or shall I say Nemiroff’s Vodka new video?

I had to both laugh and cringe at the story behind her video and the rampant amount of product placement.

By the looks of this video, it seems like Nemiroff Vodka (which you can see about seven times in the video) is the winner of the “most shoved in your face award” hands down.

The video not not only shows the Lex Nemiroff bottles repeatedly, they show people drinking glasses of clear liquid which is supposed to insinuate drinking the vodka. They also show someone pouring it into a glass, and also forcing a glass of clear liquid down GaGa’s throat. 

Nemiroff Vodka is not only being shoved down GaGa’s throat in the video, but GaGa chose to shove it down her fan’s throats.

Then there is the story behind the video, that can be very questionable to certain audiences. Doesn’t GaGa have an awful lot of young fans? Was booze, kidnapping and sex slaves the right direction to go with this video? We will get to that in a bit.

The product placement is EVERYWHERE in this video.

In the beginning of the video, once you get past the first picture of the Nemiroff Vodka bottle, there is a group shot of the “cast” in the video and right up front on either side of GaGa is a Parrot by Starck pair of black funnel tower speakers with an iPod or iPhone perched on top on the left speaker.

Then you can see GaGa’s mesh covered finger push the button on a Parrot by Starck iPod speaker. Parrot by Starck was designed by French product designer Philippe Starck (although the real product name is “Zimku”). It is a $1,600 sound system for an iPhone or iPod.

We then move on to GaGa wearing a pair of her very own silver Lady Gaga Heartbeats head phones in the bath tub scene. These will set you back $100.00 and of course, they’re available on her website.

Then THREE times you see GaGa wearing a pair of white “Safari” sunglasses by Carrera.

And last but not least, there is the HP Envy Beats Limited Edition laptop and headphones by Monster. There is a whole row of these laptops to show the “sex slave bidding” results in the video’s story. The laptop logo was very prevalent. A real bargain at $2,500. 

Also making an appearance, was a Wii controller a couple of times which was used to bid on GaGa the sex slave by the bidding Russian mafia men. Wonder how Wii weighs in on what their controller was used for?

Now there are a few smaller product placements in the video, but they are not as visible. There are gold aluminum cans in the beginning of the video on the floor and some of the “actors” are holding them. Maybe someone knows what they are? 

There are also plastic bottles of a red “drink” on the tables which are seen several times. It also shows one the “actors” drinking one of these bottles. Looks like Vitamin Water (acai blueberry) to me, but the name is not visible. I guess they didn’t pay enough moolah for their name to be visible in the video. Funny they showed people pouring vodka, made it look like people were drinking vodka, but put no emphasis on the Vitamin Water.

They showed SO much vodka in this video, I was kind of shocked. Even though you don’t actually see the word vodka on the bottle, I still think it was a big mistake. Gaga has a lot of young fans, what kind of message does this send? In one of her earlier videos,LoveGame, it shows people drinking Campari on the subway. Again, more booze placement.

I know many other artists do this too. Rappers show a lot of crap they shouldn’t be showing when it comes to excessive behavior and demeaning women, but this video wins the award for booze placement.

This new video is definitely Lady GaGa’s style in all her wackiness and her “edgy” shenanigans. One of the things I did like about this video, was the scene with the floating crystals around her, I thought that was pretty darn cool.

Now the premise behind the video according to Wikipedia:

“Gaga is kidnapped by a group of supermodels who drug her and then sell her off to the Russian mafia for sex slavery.”

The Russian mafia? OH! That’s where the Nemirfoff Vodka ties in — their bottles state it’s a product of the Ukraine.

Lovely story for young fans, isn’t it? Hello sexual degradation…your table it waiting!

Lady GaGa believes that the opening scene with her wearing a pair of razor blade glasses “portrays a tough female spirit.”  I didn’t really pick that up from that scene.

I guess the “tough female spirit” is then squashed with the rest of the video’s story:

“Two women pull her out of a bathtub, rip her clothes off and force her to drink a glass of vodka. As the second verse begins, Gaga seductively dances for a group of men bidding on her. She straddles one of the men and performs somewhat of a lap dance on him.

Afterwards, he raises his bid and becomes the highest bidder for Gaga. When the chorus is played for the third time, Gaga is shown wearing a jacket made of a polar bear hide. She walks toward the man, who is sitting on a bed, unbuttoning his shirt. Gaga has a look of indifference on her face and removes her jacket and sunglasses.

Suddenly, the bed spontaneously combusted with the man still sitting on it. The video ends with Gaga laying beside a smoldering skeleton on top of the destroyed bed with ashes everywhere. She smokes a cigarette, while her pyrotechnic bra goes off”

The Russian Mafia Bidding Scene

Ok, I am not a fan of censorship, but again, she has MANY young fans. Between all the vodka drinking and sex-slave bidding…is this the message GaGa wanted to send? FYI.. Her website sells Lady GaGa back to school supplies.

There was a comment left on her website by a women who said her daughter loved the video so much that she watched it 100 times. Now I know it is up to the parent to police their kids, and I don’t know how old this girl was, but it’s close to impossible to watch your kids 24/7.

But wait, there’s more…

Alex Da Silva of TV’s So You Think You Can Dance fame, has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting four of his students in his two homes over the last six years.
The charges that were brought up against Da Silva made me cringe. There is a total of eight felony counts. Four counts of forcible rape, two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object. Are you freakin’ kidding me?

Da Silva is 41 years old. Let’s hope that this abuse has not been going on for a longer period of time. It is always possible that more students may come forward. With Da Silva arrested, other students may now have the courage to speak up. It really makes my blood boil when I hear of any cases of abuse like this. But when it involves any sort of teacher or mentor, it enrages me even more. The thought of students being victims of someone they trust AND someone they are paying, is just horrendous. Not to mention the pain and suffering that these victim’s families and friends must endure. I wonder if Da Silva promised these poor students fame and fortune.

The bail was set at on over 6 million dollars, and when this trial comes up, if found guilty, Da Silva can face life in prison. I hope he gets what’s coming to him and that he doesn’t get a slap on the wrist like SO many rich or famous people do.

Eonline reported:

So you think you can come up with an alibi?

Alex Da Silva, who up until this past season was So You Think You Can Dance’s go-to salsa, mambo and Argentine tango choreographer, was arrested at his North Hollywood home this morning on a bunch of sex-crime charges involving four different women he tutored.

All told, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office charged the 41-year-old dance instructor with eight felony counts: four counts of forcible rape, two counts of assault with intent to commit rape and two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object.

Da Silva is currently being held on $6.2 million bail and, if convicted on the charges, could face life in prison.

According to Deputy District Attorney Rosa Alarcon, who works within the bureau’s Sex Crimes Division, the alleged assaults were committed against women ages 20 to 26, all of whom are dancers, and all of whom met the choreographer through his self-taught instructional classes.

The incidents all took place between August 2002 and March 2009. Da Silva worked as a choreographer on So You Think You Can Dance between 2005 and 2008.

We’re guessing his feet are anything but happy right about now.

Da Sleazo’s career doesn’t have to be over though. He can still carry on with his love for dance if sent to prison. I am sure there are plenty of inmates that would love to trip the light fantastic with him at a place where the tables can turn and the predator will then become the prey. Seems only fair to me.

Perhaps they will send him to the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines.
After all, the inmates at that center have been busting a move there for some time.

But that would be WAY too kind of a sentence for the likes of Alex Da Sleazo. I think a place a little farther South with a muy caliente climate would suit him better, where he can be among his own kind.
Everybody sing… Feeling HOT HOT HOT!

Thank God, it’s Friday!

I was just transported back to 1987 when I saw this video.  I totally remember when this movie came out…yeah, it was pretty cheezy and corny, but come on.  Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd.  Whaddya gonna do?

I love how Dan is just basically doing the Blues Brothers dance with a new partner.  He only knows a few steps, but the ones he knows he does with conviction, and isn’t that what counts?  And what’s not to like about Tom Hanks, pre-Oscar?  He’s still in his nutty, zany phase in this movie, and so what?  He wears it well.  (Oh, and cookie if you catch the one second clip at the end.)

This movie holds a special place in my heart…no, not because of its wonderful cinematic qualities or the many awards it won or because of the uplifting, heartwarming message it conveys, but because I had a best friend/pseudo boyfriend (he never really could make up his mind, which is probably why he never moved up the ladder to “real boyfriend”) at the time who was Dan Aykroyd’s Joe Friday personified.  He looked like him, he dressed like him, he acted like him, he could do the Joe Friday impression, he even worked in the police station and had a blue shirt.  Ah, memories…

Maybe I’m sharing too much with you people.

I so know what DVD I’m gonna rent this weekend!

Well, that’s all I got.  Now you kids be good and be sure to put away your goatskin pants when you’re done with them.  I’m outta here!

You won’t have Michael Jackson to kick around any more!

Well, he did it…Michael Jackson, frail and tottering and acting drugged, made the announcement that he is definitely playing London one last time (I’ll still believe it when I see it):

[The] trembling, gaunt figure in front of the microphone stumbled over his words just long enough to tell everyone he loved them – before saying an emotional goodbye. [...]

‘This really is it,’ he said. ‘When I say this is it, it really means this is it.’

And just in case anyone failed to pick up on the message, he added: ‘This is the final curtain call.’

Quite whether that was worth a five-hour wait in the refrigerator temperatures of the 02 Arena was the subject of much discussion afterwards among those who had so loyally endured the queueing marathon.

What was billed as a press conference turned out to be four minutes that failed to change the world. But, don’t worry. There will doubtless be masses of hyped up non-events like this one throughout what is certain to become the Summer of Jacko. [...]

It has been 12 years since he toured, the last several of which have been shadowed by erratic behaviour, tarnished reputation and concerns over his health.

He might have been punching the air and giving victory signs yesterday but his heavily-caked face failed to mask the uncomfortable impression that here was a middle-aged man who looked and acted as if he was on painkillers.

Now, don’t forget this is in London, so you’re going to have to pony up some dough; after you pay air fare, tickets for Michael’s shows should run around $70-$106 USD (£50 and £75 UKP).

Also this week, Britney Spears kicked off her new Circus tour, with tickets going anywhere from $90-$750 a pop.  So, this beggars the question:  In this recession, when people are losing their homes and being laid off left and right and wondering just how they are going to put dinner on the table, would YOU pay that kind of money for tickets?  I think you already know my answer.

Thinking of these two also brought to mind this snippet, talking about how both Brit and Michael are horrors to work with in the recording studio:

If only Britney Spears could sing in studio the way she’s able to cash in on her All American smile she’d be much more pleasant to work with, according to one of her New York record producers. The shapelessness of her psyche during recording sessions transcends into a living recording hell. The incensed producer said Spears has the blank schizoid fever of white southern trash when it comes to laying down her vox. “She’s the only artist I’ve ever worked with where it takes at least 250 takes to record a vocal,” the producer told IUC. “If you could hear just her voice tracks on solo play you’d have to block your ears. You hear the blank tones of her annoying southern drawl. Simon Cowell would have a heart attack hearing her.”
Another pop icon the producer had stirring memories working with was Michael Jackson. “Michael was impossible to deal with from the second he stepped in my studio,” the Grammy award winning producer said. “He requested mineral water from Norway and refused to wear headphones to record his vocal. That’s the biggest nightmare to work with. Imagine, no headphones and all the background noise filtering through. It’s almost impossible to clean up in post production.”

Searching through videos, I found this little gem of Michael and Britney performing together at Madison Square Garden in 2001  (sadly, shortly before the terrorist attacks).  It shows that even as recently as 2001, Michael could still sorta-kinda bring it (even though this was basically a rehash of a previous Grammy performance) and Britney looked pretty good pre-Kevin, although all Brit does is wander back and forth across the stage and shakes her booty a little while leaving Michael to do the actual work.  It just ticks me off that they goofed with a great MJ song…you know, from back when he was actually trying.  Putting Brit’s voice on there made it toothachingly awful…at least we know Michael can sing when he wants to.

Well, y’all enjoy…I’m outta here!

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Psych is one of the best shows on television you’re not watching.  Basically, Shawn is not a psychic but he had to pretend to be one in the pilot to get out of trouble with the cops…he notices everything because he was trained by his retired cop father to grow up and be a detective.  Only he grew up to be a loser, until he started pretending to be psychic.  Not only is it funny, not only is James Roday the hawtness, not only does it have The Best Theme Song Currently On TV (I have it on my mp3 player), but in the Tuesday The 17th episode, it got rickrolled.  Sort of.  Dude!

This part doesn’t have the prologue, where there is always a flashback, but here’s the back story:  Shawn and Gus (the two guys in the clip, best friends since grade school) went to summer camp every year where they always paired up in the Camp Pinata Contest.  Well, one year Gus teamed up with golden boy Jason Cunningham and won with a pineapple pinata (you search for the pineapple in every episode) while Shawn, who made a pinata in the likeness of Rick Astley, got stuck working with the kid who wore a jacket all week (complete with obligatory Star Wars reference).  Shawn got so mad at Gus that he drowned his Rick Astley pinata in the lake with a chain anchored to a rock.  Which leads to the theme song, which leads to this opening clip.

Oh, and if you ever wondered what happened to Mallory from Family Ties, she makes an appearance in this episode.  That’s all I’m gonna say.

The whole episode is a takeoff on the Friday The 13th movies.  You have to watch this show!  Srsly.  It’s on Friday nights, 10 PM EST, USA Network.  Set your DVR.  You can also watch episodes online at the link above.

Oh, the Reese’s Cups reference in the title?  I dunno, it’s just how my brain works.

In between the lines there’s a lot of obscurity
I’m not inclined to resign to maturity…

That’s my motto…be good this weekend, I’m outta here!

I remember back in 1993 when Conan did his first show.  I only had one kid, I recorded it on VHS tape, and I was prepared to hate him.  After all, he was stepping into the show which my boy David Letterman had made famous, and he got that sweet gig only because NBC had decided to go with the safer Jay Leno instead of giving The Tonight Show to Dave after the retirement of the late, great Johnny Carson.  I remember watching the first show, and laughing in spite of myself at Conan’s wry way of poking fun at himself.

Now, here we are in 2009…Conan himself is getting ready to take over the hosting duties of Tonight, Dave has carved out his own unique niche over at CBS, Jay is gearing up for his own variety-type show at 10 PM.  How things can change.  It took Conan until about 1996 to truly find his footing, and he was famously on thirteen-week extensions of his contract for a long time until he finally figured out how to showcase his unique brand of humor.  On his 10th Anniversary Show, Mr. T came out and presented him a medal with a 7 on it:

O’Brien: But Mr. T, we’ve been on the air for ten years!

Mr. T: I know that, fool, but you only been funny for seven!

Tonight is Conan’s last Late Night (wow, I swear it seems like yesterday that he just got there…isn’t that something only old people say?):

Over the past week, his last as host of NBC’s “Late Night,” Conan O’Brien has taken to entering the NBC headquarters at 30 Rockefeller Center from the ice-rink side, breaking with his long routine of coming in from Avenue of the Americas.

“I was just determined that in the last few days I would walk through the front and into that main entrance,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I know I won’t come this way again.”

He added, “I’ll probably cry like a baby on Friday night.” [...]

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have reservations about how Conan will fit into the earlier time slot.  He’s already had to leave some of his best-known gags behind because of censor issues and the earlier time is usually more traditional than edgy:

What he creates on “Tonight” will inevitably be different, he said, in ways still to be determined. Several other late-night producers privately question whether Mr. O’Brien’s comedy style — which he himself defines as more silly than sophisticated — will translate to the more traditional “Tonight” show. A competitor who would speak on the record, Rob Burnett of the Letterman show, said: “I think Conan will succeed. He’s a really smart, really funny guy.”

Plus, let’s face it, Leno going to the 10 PM slot probably wasn’t the news Conan was waiting all his life to hear:

Warren Littlefield, who was NBC’s top program executive when Mr. Leno began at “Tonight” in 1992, said: “Sure, Conan is still getting the ‘Tonight Show,’ but who are we kidding? Call it what you will. But if NBC hasn’t done it yet, you know they are going to at some point be saying: ‘Late night begins at 10 o’clock.’ ” [...]

Mr. Leno made clear in an interview in December that he envisions his show as another late-night entity, despite the prime-time location.

“Even though it’s 10 o’clock, we’re going to pretend it’s 11:30,” Mr. Leno had said. As to guests, he added, “I think we will have an advantage in saying to press agents: It’s prime time. We reach a wider audience.” [...]

After the announcement Mr. O’Brien’s representatives said they preferred this outcome to the prospect of Mr. Leno landing at ABC — his most likely destination — and going head-to-head with “Tonight.” But the move gave Mr. O’Brien pause for about “an hour and 45 minutes,” he said. “The 10 p.m. thing, Monday through Friday, I don’t think that was something anybody necessarily saw coming.

“I took some time before I went to my producer and said: ‘In this scenario I’m still hosting that show that Johnny Carson had that I watched with my father in my living room, right?’ And he said, ‘Yes, you are.’ And I said, ‘Then I’m good.’ ”

Known for an affable demeanor uncommon to the often cutthroat world of television stars, Mr. O’Brien professed relief that NBC found a way to keep Mr. Leno in house.

“Of all the alternatives in the universe, this one honestly does work best for me,” he said. “I didn’t want to suddenly be perceived as this person who forced someone into a bad position. I wouldn’t be comfortable in that role.”

And here’s a bit of Conan trivia that I didn’t know…according to the article, NBC actually gave Conan the axe one night, only to change their mind the next morning.  Oh yeah, I’ll bet that was fun.

Anyway, I thought you might like to see what things were like back in the day.  I’ll be tuning in to watch the show tonight, only I’ll put it on DVR instead of VHS.  Oh, and for a little bit of Conan fun that I can’t post here, here’s the End Of The Show Song, the part that is never on TV!

Enjoy a blast from the past…that’s all I got, I’m outta here!

A little early, I know, but I wanted to share it with all my GlossLip friends before I head out for the weekend.  (Yeah, head out…to the other room!  But if I close my eyes, it’s a vacation in my head.)  So, I wanted to share a very romantic scene from one of my absolute favorite movies, the A&E/BBC version of Pride and Prejudice.  If you’re looking for a romantic movie to watch this weekend, I can’t recommend a better one.  I love the book, but there are times when I simply must watch the movie.

And Colin Firth is teh awsumness.

Don’t eat too many conversation hearts, be safe, and enjoy yourselves…I’m outta here!

While seeing Ed McMahon shilling for a gold-digging website gave me a bit of a start, I have to admit the ad is pretty funny.  At least the man has work!

And of course, seeing MC Hammer made me nostalgic for baggy-crotch pants, fade haircuts, and really big medallions.

Either work hard or u might as well quit!

That’s all I got…I’m outta here, everybody have a nice and safe and fun weekend!

Has it really been almost thirty-two years since Elvis died?  I remember it like it was yesterday, that August day when I heard he was gone…I was eight years old, sitting watching the big console television at my mom’s house.  From that point on, I have been fascinated by the man, the myth, the mystery that was Elvis.  Before he became a bloated caricature of himself (still with talent like none other), he was the epitome of cool.

Today he would have been seventy-four years old,  had the ravages of excess not overtaken him.  A truly cautionary tale for today’s young stars who believe they are six feet tall and bulletproof.

I don’t know about you, but this is one of my favorite times of the year.  Not just because my family and I can celebrate the birth of my Savior, but because as of today I get my kids home with me for two whole weeks!  I love to have my family around so we can just hang out and have fun together.  In fact, I’m rather sad when it ends.

So, with that in mind, here’s a little montage of one of my all-time favorite holiday movies.  Enjoy!

And that’s all I got…I am outta here, have a wonderful, safe, bargain-filled weekend!  Play Ball!