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CULTURE WATCH
Best of 2002’s worst
BY CAMILLE DODERO

Best advertisement for the Atkins Diet: episode three of E! TV’s The Anna Nicole Show. With her son and personal assistant in tow, the boldly buxom Smith challenges her lawyer and compatriot Howard K. Stern — Kermit to Anna Nicole’s Miss Piggy — to an eating contest at an Italian restaurant. Four small pizzas, four orders of manicotti, and a plate of meat ravioli later, Smith, belly more swollen than usual, runs off to the bathroom. Strangely, it’s not Anna Nicole who pukes, but everyone at home.

Best reason to pull a John Walker and take up arms against the US (note to John Ashcroft: just kidding!): American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson sings the National Anthem at a youth-sponsored event on the first anniversary of 9/11.

Best Bill O’Reilly declaration: "I want to go to that bathhouse and use that condom and have fun!" Back in October, syndicated advice columnist Dan Savage — an openly gay author who once wrote about trying to spread the flu to Gary Bauer by licking the doorknobs in the archconservative’s campaign headquarters — appeared on The O’Reilly Factor to promote the release of his new book, a defense of drug users, swingers, and all types of sinners called Skipping Towards Gomorrah: The Seven Deadly Sins in the Pursuit of Happiness in America (Dutton). The following dialogue ensued:

O’Reilly: You’re gay. How about the bathhouses? Now is that good? Is that good for people to go in there and have anonymous sex in those bathhouses?

Savage: Now here you’re going to find that I am non-doctrinaire. For the greater good, I think the bathhouses should be closed.

O’Reilly: Closed.

Savage: I think bathhouses are ...

O’Reilly: I want to pursue happiness, and I don’t want you, Dan Savage, to tell me after I know now how to use the condom because you taught me in school — now I want to go to that bathhouse and use that condom and have fun ... [Later, to bolster his point further, he repeats.] If I want to pursue happiness, Mr. Savage, and go to the bathhouse, okay, you can’t stop me, according to your philosophy.

Best evidence that the First Family wishes they were more like the Osbournes: the Bush family’s Scottish Terrier Barney stars in his own Web-exclusive home movie, the "Barney Cam," available online at www.whitehouse.gov/holiday/media/20021212barney-xmas.v.ram. Unfortunately, Barney’s adventures with a red Christmas-tree ornament are no match for the "plutonium turds" of Lola, Jack Osbourne’s white-and-brown bulldog.

Worst simile used to describe a public figure by a New York Times Company–employed columnist (national edition): Maureen Dowd’s lame observation that Eminem "is now as cuddly as Beaver Cleaver." Sure, Em’s gotten softer. But did the Beave ever rant about raping June?

Worst simile used to describe a public figure by a New York Times Company–employed columnist (local edition): Boston Globe scribe Joan Vennochi describing Green Party gubernatorial candidate Dr. Jill Stein as "cozy as a mug of warm vanilla chai." Here Joan, next time you want to describe somebody as cozy, I have some ideas for you: how about "cozy as a tin can of Campbell’s chicken soup"? Or "cozy as a tea cozy"? Or "cozy as a pair of holey underwear"?

Worst indie-rock irony: a scary 40-year-old Asian man with a history of attending riot-grrl band Sleater-Kinney shows and masturbating during the band’s performance (but not during the opening acts) attends a September show in Seattle and proceeds to masturbate during the band’s performance (but not during the opening acts). This time, though, the event’s security is aware of his previous offenses — as is the spying eye of Amy Jenniges, a reporter for Seattle alt-weekly the Stranger — and he gets caught. In the cruelest twist of fate, Sleater-Kinney were on tour to promote the album One Beat.

Issue Date: December 26, 2002 - January 2, 2003
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