It's Over For Katy Perry and Russell Brand

Well, that's very sad. You never want to see people split up if you really care about entertainment and the various aspects of it that surface. In some respects, it is no one's business what goes on between two people. They do their thing, and they should then be allowed to have a private life. Too much of the celebrity machinery is dedicated to the fall of the celebrity rather than celebrating what it is they actually do. If people cared about the talented aspects of celebrities, and if there was more emphasis on that, they would get better celebrities rather than fake ones.

Americans get Katy Perry. She is a singer and entertainer who can do just about anything and do it well. They do not get Russell Brand, who is more at home before an English audience than an American one. He definitely plays better that way. I don't think he really believed in his own film career and I think he will be happier living and working in Britain. What does he have lined up to do in the states? His films have flopped and his style of humor runs a little too hot for American audiences. He's funny but he has not found a way to connect.

Zach Braff and Donald Faison Sing Baby It's Cold Outside

Is This Really a Bomb?

I keep reading about how The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo may be a bomb, or a huge disappointment, and I think that this will affect whether or not a sequel is made. I don't know if one will be made (they should make all three of the books into films) but I do know this--no one expected that they would shoot the entire book and make that a film.

What's turning people off? I don't know, but if I had to guess, I would say that there really are people who just don't want to see a book that they love get turned into a sickening film. And, with Fincher, love him or hate him, he's going to shock people.

The reason why I read all three books, and enjoyed them immensely, was not because of the characters or the deviancy. I enjoyed the fact that these books were crafted by a knowledgeable journalist. And, really--that's what Stieg Larsson was--a journalist who could call upon a vast amount of experience and create a believable story. Journalism doesn't easily lend itself to moviemaking.

Turning that into a film is next to impossible.

Ed in Cary Has a Fanboy Bromance With Rich Lowry

Oh, to have a devoted fanboy such as Ed in Cary. Something about this level of devotion smacks of satire, humor, and/or something pretty twisted.

The Pneumonia Diet

Someone somewhere is going to start marketing a George Michael Pneumonia Diet program that includes a stay in Austria and a chance to tell the media how scary it was, but I'm not going to blog about them when they do. That would be tasteless and irreverent, and the holidays are just around the corner.

A New Ethical Problem For Professional Basketball Bromances

While I don't foresee Systems of Bromance becoming a massive blog anytime soon (perhaps in the months ahead?), this is an important forum for ethics and social practices. This next case will probably provoke a lot of debate, should it ever catch fire in the way that I suspect that it will.

Say you're a professional athlete, and you enjoy the company of women who are not your wife. There are already various protocols established for men who see other men--teammates, or, in some cases, opponents (but fellow members of the Players Union). But, what protocols exist for the wives? Or girlfriends?

I bring this up because of a piece of gossipy trash:

Now, let's be up front--this is all probably speculation. Pinning this on the warnings of wives lets a lot of people off the hook, Kobe Bryant, for starters, and the husbands as well. Is that right?

What if you had a vested, competitive interest in seeing Bryant miserable? What if you knew that your wife had information about Bryant and you did nothing while she passed it on to Bryant's wife? There you go--that's where it gets complicated for teammates, bromances, and professional relationships.

In the case of professional basketball (expand this to other sports, I suppose, and things get even more complicated when there are over 20-30 players rotating in and out of baseball and hockey clubs, and when there are over 50-60 pro football players to consider), there is a tightly-knit group of twelve roster players and maybe a few others who might rotate in or out depending on trades and injuries and whatnot. These are all individuals who have to be handled as professional relationships. With them, comes their personal relationships and, to be specific for this case, their wives. Do you have a responsibility as a teammate or friend (or blood enemy) to those other players to make certain that your own wife is not passing information to their wives, or vice versa? Do you have a vested interest in making certain that what happens on the road, stays on the road, or what happens during team outings or gatherings is kept private?

Do you have an obligations to make sure that your wife isn't ruining another man's marriage by trading on information? And will this become an issue when it comes to trades, acquisitions, signings, and contract negotiations in the future?

Or am I missing the fact that this has already been an issue for decades? I think the latter is probably more likely.

In any event, so long to Kobe Bryant's enemies. I think he'll figure out how this all unraveled, and he'll get rid of the culprits. He always does.

Why Didn't Hefner Say No?

I don't think Hugh Hefner is telling the truth. The fact of the matter is, he probably wanted, desperately, to put nude photos of Lohan out there. The problem is, Lohan has already posed nude or nearly nude or upskirtedly nude or nude-by-accident.

No, what Hefner has a problem with is the fact that there's not a lot of interest in seeing her pretend to be Marilyn Monroe. We already have Michelle Williams doing that, and Michelle Williams was stunning and unforgettable. Lohan should have done something else, like, I don't know. A tribute to Farrah Fawcett. Or perhaps this:

Cheryl Tiegs Poster, 1978

This iconic Cheryl Tiegs poster has all but vanished from the culture. I found it almost impossible to find a decent rendering of this image; the one you see above is resampled in order to make it presentable. I think someone should update this, or pay tribute to it. This image is over 33 years old; to me, it is an amazing example of marketing a look, a sense of free expression, and female beauty. There is nothing in the cache of nude Lohan photos that can approach the Cheryl Tiegs poster. Nothing.

Interest in Lohan is fading as well. Hefner, being a businessman first and what used to be called a gentlemanly pornographer way back when a distant second, knows that her celebrity is evaporating on a daily basis. She isn't in films, she does not realize that what she needs to do now is television, and nobody is helping her make good decisions. Do you know what would reinvigorate her career right now? One of two things--a sitcom where she is genuinely allowed to be funny or a show like Breaking Bad or True Blood where she can be interesting. Anything else is just trash.

And, no matter what. It is always creepy when a former child star poses nude. There's no getting around the perv factor. Speaking of that, I was ten in 1978, but the full impact of this poster lingered well into the 1980s. It is something that is impossible to forget, and for many of the right reasons and not so many of the wrong ones anymore.

Supermodels Do This All The Time

Isn't that how it always works out? You're on Facebook, you hook up with Claudia Schiffer or Heidi Klum or Tyra Banks and, the next thing you know, she's flying to Moscow to have sex with you. Who wouldn't get sick of having to deal with that all day?

Keanu Reeves is an Unassuming Gentleman

I don't know how long this video will stay up, but it purports to show Keanu Reeves giving up his seat to a female train rider.

Given that the man looks, indeed, like Keanu Reeves and that it was shot surreptitiously by some sort of handheld phone camera or flip camera, I'm as skeptical as anyone when it comes to asking, "is this real?"

Well, it looks real. And it speaks to a situation that is rare (or at least seems rare).

People of privilege don't give up anything with ease. The last post on this blog was about Alec Baldwin's refusal to turn off his phone while playing a game as he sat on the tarmac, boarded onto a plane, and waiting to take off. Baldwin then turned it into a vicious personal attack on the flight attendant and a bankrupt airlines; he was given space on The Huffington Post to air his views.

Contrast that with Reeves. He is sitting on the train, by himself, and he is aware of his surroundings. He is aware of other people.

Let me repeat that. He is aware of other people. He has not masked himself off with dark glasses or a hat. He does not have the cool detachment of a distracted, self-centered person. He isn't even fiddling with a phone or engrossed in looking up who's saying what about him on stupid blogs like this one. He's engaged.

When he notices--because he's in the calm act of giving a shit about other human beings--that a woman is standing by the door, he offers her his seat, stands up, braces himself for the train to move on, and he goes back to whatever he was thinking about. And, I'm sorry, but we've intruded on that by watching this moment in his life. This moment has been stolen from him because we can now see how functionally considerate and societally adapted he has become as a person. As a celebrity. As a guy who gets paid millions of dollars to act in films and do all of that stuff.

Fame and money have not turned him into a self-flaggellating beast. He is a gentleman, at least here, and at least in the stolen moment we witness above.

All you can say is, next time I'm on a train, I'm giving up my seat. I want to be as cool as that guy. Hopefully someone will film it and I'll look one-one hundredth as nice as Keanu Reeves.

Alec Baldwin Gets Thrown Off a Plane

I have never understood how people get kicked off of airplanes. Just do what you're told. It's not hard.

Alec Baldwin's removal from an American Airlines flight brings yet another incident to the forefront in America's slow burning war against convenient methods of travel. It's as if people want to go back to the age of riding long distances overland in vehicles that seek out and magnify every bump along the way.

There's a ban on electronic devices for one simple reason--they CAN interfere with the equipment on board the plane. Not "will" and not "may." They CAN interfere, and just because they do not always interfere, that does not mean that they should be used whenever someone is bored. Each and every wireless device is different, and each and every plane is configured with numerous instruments. It would be impossible to sit there and say, "all right, that device only operates on these frequencies and with this much power" or "that device uses the upper bandwidth in so-and-so range so it cannot be turned on."

Just do what the nice person tells you. Really, all you're doing is flying from point A to point B. This is not the place for your last-ditch stand against the tyrants of the sky.

Stealing Copper is Not a Great Bromance Activity

Here are two articles about some bros out stealing copper. In this one, two dudes in California got caught by a church using a baby monitor when they went back a third time. In this one, three dudes were tearing up a school in the middle of a Sunday night and tried to pass themselves off as working on a remodeling project (yes, at night, with flashlights). There are probably fifty more stories like this out there.

Is this what you want to be doing when you're hanging out? Stealing copper wires and pipes out of buildings?

In the first place, you can get electrocuted. Or, you could cut through a heated water pipe and end up scalding yourself. Plus, there's that whole thing about being arrested and tried and convicted of theft. Those are all pretty bad. On the upside, yes, selling copper to metal dealers can get you some beer money.

At the end of the day, if you suspect that you and your friend and one other buddy are going to end up stealing copper, don't. It would be much easier to sell your plasma or hook up with an old lady who has a lot of money.

Limp Bizkit Had a Record Deal?

This is one of those stories where you have to say, "hold on a minute."

Limp Bizkit is still a band?

They had a record deal?

Interscope Records is still in business?

Someone released something that they recorded recently after paying them to make music?

And Fred Durst is happy that they are now unsigned?

None of that makes any sense to me. By all rights, neither Limp Bizkit nor Interscope Records should still exist. I realize that it wasn't that long ago that they were both actually viable (or were they?) but we're creeping up on 2012. At some point, you have to acknowledge that the ship has sailed.

Pakistan Erupts Over a Naked Woman

Someone decided to take a shot at the Pakistanis, playing on the joke in India about how, if something goes "wrong," it must be the fault of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI. Unfortunately, this kind of prudery always plays to a big audience.

Veena Malik should be a worldwide sensation, and rightly so.

UPDATE: Malik is suing, claiming that, what you see above, has been tampered with (as in, she didn't pose nude, so that's not her body below the neck? below the waist?). What Malik does concede, however, is that she did pose with the ISI tattoo on her arm.

Sad, and Not in a Good Way

How do you work up enough sympathy to care anymore? This stuff is being batted around by publicists, and no one knows why it works. Millions will read this and the celebrity media will have their fix for a few hours. Then, nothing.

You have two wrecked individuals, grappling onto each other, as they slowly turn into dust. It's a shame.

We will look back on this era of destroyed lives, thanks to pharmaceuticals and whatnot, with horror because this is all so very easily preventable.