Mmm Hmm

Associated Press photographer Michael Conroy captured this image of Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen after the Irish's sixth straight home loss to Michigan State.

I couldn't help noticing Clausen's similarity to my favorite wiz with small engines, Karl Childers.

Charlie Weis must have eaten all of Jimmy's french fried puhtaters.

Better keep Jimmy away from your lawnmower blades.

Success At Last

You've been playing this game since the pee-wee league in the park.

You took your high school team to unexpected heights.

You parlayed that college scholarship into numerous accolades and even got yourself drafted into the upper echelon on football.

But you're still not at the top...until you become a verb.

That's right, Michael Vick is now a verb (not too shocking considering Vick's previously fast and loose use of language).

Someone at Franklin Central High School in Indianapolis posted a banner that read "Vick the Bulldogs" ahead of their football contest against the Columbus North Bulldogs. By the way, Franklin Central are the Flashes. Intimidating indeed. All this and the Flashes got Vicked up the ass 42-14.

Let this lapse in judgment serve as Michael Vick's final foray into famedom. He is truly an ath-lebrity of the nth degree. It reminds me of a trip to a fireworks store circa 1996 when the man thumbing through bins of bottle rockets ahead of me was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Shut up, bitch, before I O.J. your ass."

Other great celebri-verbs

• "Friends don't let friend drink and Billy Martin."
• "I'm gonna have to hit the teaser card unless I want to Pete Rose my paycheck."
• "I've got this job nailed. I totally George O'Leary-ed my resume with a PhD from Dartmouth."
• How'd you do on finals? "Jim Harrick-ed my way to a 3.8, beyotch!"
• "My landlord was gonna put my ass on the streets of Ann Arbor until my dad went all Ed Martin and bailed me out."

The Hurt Doesn't Show But the Pain Still Grows

When "Don't Stop Believin'" was uses to underscore the final scene of "The Sopranos," it inspired a flurry of articles celebrating and/or deriding the self-diagnosed "renaissance of Journey." Most of the arguments put forth filled me with self-righteous smugness. In my world, the Journey comeback had started years before. In fact, over two years before "Don't Stop Believin'" appeared while Tony Soprano stuffed his face with onion rings, I attended the wedding of one of my best friends, and saw that he had made good on a promise to convince his bride to walk down the aisle while the wedding pianist cranked out the opening chords from the Journey masterpiece. As she walked down the aisle to get married! It was far and away the greatest thing I've ever seen at any ceremony, and nobody in attendance needed David Chase to tell them that it was OK to appreciate Steve Perry.

Nevertheless, the bottom line is that people go apeshit when a classic song from decades ago forces itself back into pop culture, either genuinely or in a ironic sense. Case in point: Phil Collins is back people.

Exhibit A: The promo for a new sitcom "Carpoolers" centered around "In The Air Tonight." I know nothing about this show (other than Vern is riding shotgun!) but I'm betting the ad will run for a longer duration that the series.



Exhibit B: A stunning ad for Cadbury running in the UK. Apparently this ad launches a £6.2m campaign for the company, which may help explain why they're cutting costs by shrinking the Cadbury eggs.


Perhaps things are simply coming full circle. Today, virtually every television series uses commercial music in episode montages/flashbacks/establishing setups, but it was "Miami Vice" producer Michael Mann who in 1984 first had the vision to combine cheesy overdubbed drum compressions with amazingly hackneyed dialogue between Don Johnson and his ex-wife.


23 years later, Phil Collins is back in the forefront of the worldwide psyche. We are a nation of Alec Baldwins, repeatedly enjoying our mixtape from Tracy Morgan.

Michael Vick is Sorry...No, Not That Michael Vick

I know Michael Vick has done a kennel's worth of bad things, and I have full faith in the legal system to mete out the justice necessary for such crimes.

What's troubling is the fact that so many people are impressed with Vick's contrition after he seems to have apologized for an imaginary friend.

Within the transcript of Vick's apology given at the Richmond Federal Courthouse are numerous references about "Michael Vick" (NFL caricature) by Michael Vick (dog strangler).

• "I totally ask for forgiveness and understanding as I move forward to better Michael Vick the person, not the football player."
• "If I'm more disappointed in myself more than anything is because of all the young people, young kids that I've let down who look at Michael Vick as a role model."
• "I got a lot of down time, a lot of time to think about my actions and what I've done and how to make Michael Vick a better person."

I know that Vick is in no way the first athlete to refer to himself in the third person (see Deion Sanders). However, Vick is the most recent ath-lebrity looking to appear contrite in order to salvage what he can of a career spinning recklessly into the abyss. My question remains, who's really sorry? Michael Vick the person or Michael Vick the football player?

Forgive my incredulous response, but Vick apologizing for Vick - as opposed to appologizing for himself - is like Sylvester Stallone apologizing for Rocky after being busted for steroids. One is a real person in real trouble. The other is a character who will fall off the entertainment radar until the former serves their time. One is a human being stuck in shit so thick no publicist can spin them out and the other is a statue in Philadelphia or name on a jersey.

I know this may seem to be a semantic debate calling for pronouns from a person who is admittedly "not a public speaker." I just think if Falcons owner Arthur Blank is going to get pulled in hook, line, & sinker - and not make any move to cut Vick - he might want to know whose holding the rod: Michael Vick or Ookie.

The Perfect Match

Last week, IFC aired a four-part series focusing on sex in indie cinema. The series was nicely put together, though I don't get the promotional department's fixation with Dita Von Teese. However, there's always an inherent problem with any docs that give blanket approval in celebrating every film that tests certain limits. Just because a writer/director pushes boundaries with a provocative idea, if the movie itself isn't good, that's a problem, and that idea is pushed to the background here. Midnight Cowboy and Last Tango in Paris were groundbreaking as classic rated X films, but putting them in the same category with the "look how shocking we're being!" efforts of Kids and The Brown Bunny just seems...short-sighted.

However, IFC is not finished with their exploration of taboo sex on film. In fact, they've made themselves the home for the most independent of all sex-with-underaged-kids filmmakers around.

Starting today, each day at IFC.com will reveal a new chapter of R. Kelly's never ending "Trapped in the Closet" anthology. According to IFC's VP, it's a natural fit:

Call me crazy (or obsessed), I find something in Trapped that makes it a natural next step in this experiment. While it might not be on the scale of Midnight Cowboy, in its own iconoclastic, pop-culture way, Trapped in the Closet challenges the traditional mores and sexual stereotypes of the current climate as boldly -- and hysterically -- as many films coming out of Hollywood or the indie movement. The cheating women, the closeted preacher, the pop star hiding in the closet, the adulterous midget with a paternity problem -- Kelly makes a case to carry the mantle of John Waters into the new millennium. You may laugh, but you can't look away.

Chapter 13 debuts today featuring an elderly couple wishing bird shit-related misfortune on each other, the protagonist telling time, and R. Kelly watching the video himself and acting way too amused, while a hipster film critic smiles nervously. Indie cinema at it's finest. Take some pointers, Waters.

Chapters 13-22. (New chapter each day.)