Dribs and Drabs, Mostly Dribs, Dept.

Here are a few short notes with which you, Gentle Reader, may begin this week:

1) you would not believe how many people land on this page after searching for some variant on "Giada De Laurentiis cleavage".
And, by writing that phrase, I have, of course, just ensured myself another fresh boatload.
That said, unless no-one's getting Basic Cable out there, it really isn't that rara an avis, is it? Every episode, guys. Every fucking episode. I mean, I could understand someone Googling something a bit more recherché. Like "Mary Todd Lincoln cleavage". Or "Queen Victoria split beaver". But Giada's firm li'l tit-tays? You have to go out of your way not to see them.

2) your sobsister listened to Side 1 of Joe Jackson's 3-sided Big World album last night. I should say, his "shamefully-overlooked Big World album". Recorded live with no sweetening or crowd noise, the performances and songs are among Jackson's best. Which is recommendation enough, I should think. Despite being saddled with the "New Wave spiv" image and despite being pigeonholed as a two-song wonder ("Is She Really Going Out With Him?", "Steppin' Out"), Jackson has led a productive career en route to compiling a very diverse songbook underpinned by the creative tension between his formal, classical music training and his appetite for eclecticism. Big World is my favorite of his albums. The band turns on a dime or even, possibly, a shilling in Old Money. The album is thematically cohesive, as Jackson treats travel, Reagan/Thatcher-era foreign affairs, homesickness, manifest destiny, and a lot of other topics that wouldn't seem like great song topics but are. There wasn't room for two word-besotted "Angry Young Men" (as the reductionist media would have it) in pop, so Elvis C. snagged the ring. But Joe Jackson's catalog is as good as any.

3) watched half of an episode of America's Got Talent, NBC's contribution to the stultification of the warm-weather tube-sucking audience. Everything old being new again, it's the Ted Mack Amateur Hour meets the Gong Show yanked through the mangle of American Idol right down to the snippy Brit, the mothery woman, and the doofus. The latter role occupied by the man known to his fans and detractors alike as The Hoff. After hearing about David Hasselhoff's self-made drunk-ass video, I couldn't help but see the man tonight as being halfway in the bag. Then again, I don't have much experience with his oeuvre, so maybe he always looks halfway in the bag. All that said, based on the program I watched tonight, I can confidently assert that America does not, in fact, Have Talent. Unless one defines "talent" as the ability to impress a gormless, obese, and slackjawed audience that would seem déclassé in Branson, Missouri. Oh, and Sharon Osbourne's otherwise-handsome face could've been stretched tighter but then her every breath would force her cheeks to produce a perfect "A" at 440 cycles per second. Like a tuning fork.

4) Li'l Albertito Gonzales the Naughtiest AG What Ever Was ducked a no-confidence today after the whited sepulchers who do business as Senate Republicans voted to prevent the motion from being debated. Li'l Albertito's boss, who does business as the Very Picture Of Venality, put it thusly:
"They can have their votes of no confidence, but it's not going to make the determination about who serves in my government. This process has been drug out a long time. It's political."
Oh, but it does my heart good to hear this shit-heel speak.
It proves to me the existence of God.
A God with a fucked-up sense of humor like you read about.

5) your sobsister was in a mall recently and, yeah, I know I was asking for it just being in any of the great swirling toilets of patriotic consumerism, but I actually heard some wretched girl with crap hair and a muffintop, jabberjawing on the phone, say, "OMG!". Literally. The three letters. "O". "M". "G".
If someone acts that retarded in public, shouldn't they forfeit their citizenship or be elected Senior Senator from Alaska or something?