Results tagged “media” from Powers Perspective

Justin Halpern is an ordinary guy who curates an extraordinary Twitter page. In less than a year it's garnered over 1.3 million fans who follow Justin simply to keep track of the latest and greatest shit his dad says. Justin's talent lies in realizing the aforementioned shit was of a superior quality to that emitted from other dad's mouths. He also has a knack for conveying the underlying heart behind his father's seemingly harsh witticisms.

Raised on a farm in Kentucky, Justin's dad, Sam Halpern, is a man of few words - who knows how to make every syllable count. The exact opposite of passive-aggressive, Halpern, Sr. has never been backwards about coming forwards with his often-unsolicited opinions and words of advice. Growing up, this brutal honesty was difficult to deal with, but now Justin is reaping the rewards. His @ShitMyDadSays Twitter page has spawned a hilarious yet surprisingly touching book of longer vignettes -- brilliantly retold by Justin -- and a TV sitcom produced by Warner Brothers for CBS starring William Shatner, which was co-written by Halpern, Jr. in association with the team behind Will & Grace.

The @ShitMyDadSays phenomenon was precipitated by a very humbling experience for Justin. As the founder of the Holy Taco comedy site, a Maxim.com contributor and an aspiring screenwriter who was free to work wherever is laptop rested, he decided to move back from Los Angeles to his hometown of San Diego to share an apartment with his girlfriend who also happened to reside there. Things didn't go to plan however; Justin's love interest broke up with him the day they were supposed to start cohabiting. To add insult to injury, having already given up his LA apartment, at 28 Justin had little option but to move back in with his folks. Fortunately his story, or at least this chapter of it, has a happy ending.

I caught up with Justin, who now splits his time between Los Angeles and San Diego, to find out more about the upside of living in close proximity to your grumpy old dad (and the fun that can be had with irritable bowel syndrome).

Read my interview with Justin Halpern at SuicideGirls.com.

hilip DeFranco is a next generation celeb. Known to many by his YouTube moniker, sxephil, since joining the video-based site on September 15, 2006, he's become one of the biggest stars of its pixelated small screens.

DIY broadcasting from a ubiquitous eggshell and beige room in his home in Atlanta, Georgia, the fast-talking 23-year old self-confessed geek delivers often funny, always sarcastic and biting commentary on subjects as disparate as penis sniffing housewives and the mysterious and convenient (if you're a senior Republican who's into a little election tampering) death of Karl Rove's IT guy, Michael Connell (who was ready to spill his guts -- just not in a plane crash-y kind of way).

It has to be said, The Philip DeFranco Show is a cut above most made-for-YouTube fare. But as his salary begins to match his online status, DeFranco threw a curve ball into his satirical mix, announcing his retirement towards the end of 2009 in a recent show. In the meantime, he's enjoying a new wave of web-based notoriety, as one of Wired.com's Sexiest Geeks, as decided by an annual online reader poll, which he is topping at the time of writing by a very healthy margin.

I caught up with DeFranco while he was in Utah, not staying at his girlsfirend's Dad's house (the trip itself provided the subject for DeFranco's Dec 30th Douchebag of the Day), to find out more about the man behind The Philip Defranco Show and its companion PhillyD.tv blog.

Click HERE to ready my interview on SuicideGirls.com.

Having been harassed and arrested by agents of the United States' government as he perpetrated his graffiti art from coast to coast, Shepard Fairy has since earned the respect and gratitude of a future American president. Using the visual vocabulary of popular revolution, the humble DIY poster and sticker maker-cum-revered gallery and populist street artist used his graphic skill to transform Barack Obama from a presidential hopeful to a visionary icon.

But now that the future leader of our government is one of his choosing, Shepard Fairey is questioning his own message of dissent. In essence, what does a rebellious artist do when the central entity he was rebelling against is controlled by a commander-in-chief he helped elect?

SuicideGirls called Shepard at his Los Angeles studio to find out. In our interview he also talks about his Obama image, the psychology behind it, how he had to make a unique version that hadn't previously been distributed by illegal means for use by the official Obama campaign, and how he self-funded his own campaign of Hope for which the artist printed up a staggering 300,000 stickers and 500,000 posters!

Click HERE to read.

Kristen Schaal has much to hide: She's somewhat pathological when it comes to winning things, has a wet T-shirt attired skeleton rattling around in her closet, and has a proclivity for the sexy bits in Harlequin romance novels. But as The Daily Show's Senior Women's Issues Commentator, she was loud and proud in her support of Hillary Clinton for president. Sadly, that didn't work out so well (though the Secretary of State gig is not such a bad consolation prize).

When Schaal's not championing the female cause and fighting sexism on Comedy Central (by stripping down to her superhero-inspired undergarments), she can be seen avidly stalking losabilly band Flight of the Conchords in the HBO Emmy-nominated show which shares their name. Schaal herself is easily cyberstalked, with multiple appearances in DIY comedies, such as Horrible People and Penelope Princess of Pets, posted online.

We caught up with Schaal by phone just as she was about to get hot n' steamy with her boyfriend in a New York diner. More on that later, first a few questions about the new season of Flight of the Conchords, which is almost in the can, and her thoughts on Clinton's new leading role.

Click HERE to read my full interview with Kristen on SuicideGirls.

Real Time comedian Bill Maher and Borat director Larry Charles are men on a mission: to destroy society's blind faith in God. The medium they chose to convey their doctrine is not a dusty old book, but an entertaining documentary which highlights the ridiculous aspects of religion, hence its name, Religulous.

In an effort to spread their brand of enlightenment, Charles and Maher embarked on a romp around the world, questioning religious beliefs in the places they began and the palaces they paid for. The duo returned from their three-month pilgrimage with oodles of often-funny footage, much of it shot guerrilla-style as with Borat. Stringing interviews together with biting commentary and incisive footnotes, (to quote Kazakhstan's most famous fake export) they present their "cultural learnings" which they ultimately hope may "make benefit" of our "glorious" globe.

I chatted with Charles, who mastered absurdity while working on Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and took the opportunity to challenge a few beliefs of his own.

Click my HERE for full SuicideGirls.com interview.

Never has there been a time when Americans needed to rage more against the machine. As we weather a perfect storm of a Great Depression-like financial meltdown, a war that's more costly (in so many ways) than Vietnam, and daily scandals that make Watergate look like a Boy Scout prank, guitarist, singer and songwriter Tom Morello is raging hard, on stage, on CD, and on the streets, where he's repeatedly risked his own life and liberty fighting what he believes are the true forces of evil.

A Harvard Political Science graduate, Morello has seen democracy in action both as an insider, while working for a United States senator, and on the frontlines. He faced a pitched battle with 700 riot police while participating in protests outside the Pepsi Center in Denver during the recent Democratic National Convention and days later was threatened with arrest while attempting to perform with his band at a rally on the Capital Lawn in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention. Despite skirmishes with the authorities at both events, Morello refused to be silenced.

Having expressed his anger loudly with his bands Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, in 2007 he found a quieter voice with One Man Revolution, his first solo release under The Nightwatchman moniker. On September 30, The Nightwatchman returns with a more introspective album, The Fabled City, but (somewhat conversely) this time he's amped-up and ready to rock.

Click HERE for full interview.

In these politically dubious times there are certain things I won't stand for on principle at a soccer game, but watching David "Golden Balls" Beckham lead Galaxy to a 5 to 2 victory on Saturday night had me jumping up from my seat like a Jack-in-a-box on speed. Losers, Washington D.C. might as well have gone home at half-time. Go Galaxy!

PS. Apologies to David if he had the feeling he was being followed from the freeway into the stadium. He was -- by me and my buddies. Well, after spotting his rather conspicuous blacked-out convertible Roller on the way to the game, with its even more conspicuous DVB plates, what else were we supposed to do?

Richard Patrick, Filter's (hybrid) driving force, is frustrated. With one man down (the Webmaster of a fan site), and an ex-band member currently on the frontline in Iraq, what's going on in the Middle East is less remote for him than for most. So, while supporting our troops, he's speaking out against the war, but feels his cries of protest on Filter's May 2008 album release Anthems For The Damned are lost on a nation that downloads everything and values little.

In 2002 General Motors ironically launched their gas-guzzling H2 to the sounds of Filter's "The Only Way (Is The Wrong Way)." In 2003, to fuel a hunger for democracy -- and oil --America invaded Iraq. With our government, economy, environment -- and music industry -- in crisis, Richard talks about how he reconciles his need to make a living with his own value system...

Click HERE for full interview.

Loved this rather homoerotic display of athleticism, which was featured in the Olympic opening ceremony. It's a worthy tribute to the game's Greek roots, but the glaringly obvious subtext is perhaps not what the conservative Chinese government had in mind LOL.

A new study has linked the consumption of energy drinks to risky and aggressive "toxic jock" behavior amongst young adults. Kathleen Miller, the principle investigator at the University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions, published a report on the link between energy drinks, athletics and risky behavior, which appeared in the March issue of The Journal of American College Health. She found that those who regularly consumed energy drinks were more likely to indulge in substance abuse, violence, and unprotected sex.

Miller doesn't necessarily blame the hazardous habits on the energy drinks, which often contain high quantities of caffeine, taurine and other stimulants, but says they may serve as a predicator for such behavior. "It appears the kids who are heavily into drinking energy drinks are more likely to be the ones who are inclined toward taking risks," Miller said.

Two of the energy drink brand leaders are Red Bull and Rockstar, which both market heavily to young people at extreme sports and music events. A 250 ml serving of Red Bull contains 80 mg of caffeine and 1000 mg of taurine, alongside assorted sugars and sweetners, a carbohydrate compound, and some B group vitamins. Rockstar contains similar quantities of caffeine and taurine mixed with what the manufacturers describe as a "the potent herbal blend of Guarana, Ginkgo, Ginseng and Milk Thistle."

Though the drinks themselves contain levels of caffeine that are comparable to those found in a cup of coffee, they can be drunk much faster since they are served cold and therefore provide a more concentrated caffeine hit. The combination of caffeine and tourine, an amino-like acid which was originally isolated from ox bile but is now synthetically produced, is also thought to make the drinks more potent. The subjects of one study, conducted by James Kalus of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, exhibited an 11% increase in resting heart rate after consuming just two cans of energy drink per day for a week. Such potentially detrimental effects, have kept this class of beverages off the shelves in countries such as Norway, Denmark, and Iceland.

When combined with alcohol, energy drinks have been found to serve up an even riskier cocktail. A study conducted by the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina found that "college students who drink alcohol mixed with so-called "energy" drinks are at dramatically higher risk for injury and other alcohol-related consequences, compared to students who drink alcohol without energy drinks." Lead researcher, Mary Claire O'Brien, notes when under the influence of super-charged cocktails, "you're every bit as drunk, you're just an awake drunk."

But the stimulants in the drinks, and their effects when mixed with alcohol, aren't the only things encouraging risky behavior. On Red Bull's website, the manufacturers claims the drink improves performance, increases concentration and reaction speed, increases endurance, and stimulates metabolism. Meanwhile the makers of Rockstar, invite fans of their drink to "party like a Rockstar," the phrase being the brand's tag line alongside the words, "Bigger. Better. Faster. Stronger." Could it be young people are falling victim to a false sense of invincibility induced by juiced-up sugared water, and some highly seductive marketing?

Robert F. Kennedy talks eloquently about how the media has failed democracy (click HERE to view video). But has an apathetic democracy also failed the media, by consistently undervaluing it and failing to protect it? I guess it's a question of the chicken or the egg.

Further Reading:

Propaganda, Filler And Fodder: How The News Doesn't Work

On What Planet Is This OK?

Fox Buys Beliefnet: Divine Intervention Or Deal With The Devil?

Are Murdoch, Fox, And News Corp. Plotting A Shift Into The Blue?

UnChristian: A New Understanding Of Contemporary Christendom In America

Blind Faith: Evolving Church and State With Reason And Religion

Worshiping False Idols

Britney Hits The Confessional To The Displeasure Of The Catholic League

The Zen of Tax, That $600 Bribe, And the Enslavement of America