SlapClap

Self-explanatory.

The fact I find Padma Lakshmi extra-fetching is well documented. So it was exciting news today to find out that Padma gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Krishna. The 39-year old, first time mother, has refused to identify the father publicly, which leads the door wide open for rampant speculation, on my part:

I think it’s this guy. Sean Shinaberry, chief operations officer and investment adviser rep for Modern Portfolio Insurance in Holland, Ohio.

“Why this guy,” you ask? “Why not the venture capitalist heavily rumored to be the father in New York tabloids?” “How would Padma even lay eyes on a guy who lives in the middle of Ohio?” “Isn’t it a bit far-fetched, considering Mr. Shinaberry is already happily married with child?” “Why would a jet setter like Padma date a mild mannered insurance rep with a series 7 securities license?” “Where is the pill I gave you?” “Did you take the pill?” “Did you swallow?” Well. Those are a lot of questions.

“I ate a … sandwich for lunch it was … crying out … to be eaten. It said, ‘Eat me I … just want this over with.’”

“I requested that … the dressing room be small I … don’t want my fear of … performing to … grow to the size of a … much larger room, like a … Osca’ fish.”

“How is my … hair?”

“Baby powder was … invented by babies who … were both named Johnson.”

“I asked … Henry Winkler once … how did he come up with the … backwards chair-sit? He said it was … Marlon Brando who … he saw do it in … a commercial for … Levis.”

“Sexually I … have not lost not even a … step I … hump like a Wildebeest.”

My favorite President of all time is Babe Ruth, because he loved America. So much so he wore baseball uniforms. On the down side, he moved the Indians to places in the country that no one else liked, and I don’t mean the Cleveland Indians- the people ones.

Plus, Babe Ruth cut spending, and when he mounted his stallion, and unsheathed a baseball bat, to fight for our right to brew tea cheaply, he became more than just the nation’s ugliest President. He hit a home run that landed inside the pages of the history book my Pa made for me before he got sent to prison for kidnapping.

There are plenty of great scenes in the movie Cocoon. Too many to name, but my personal fave is when Wilford Brimley takes his grandson fly fishing to tell him that he will be “moving” to “somewhere else.” Then grandson asks if he can visit. Brimley casts his reel, and says blankly to the horizon “No.“

Then the grandson asks Brimley will he ever even see his grandparents again, a relationship the movie took great pains to stress as important. “No,” says Brimley with all the curtness of a “Nope. No way. Next question.” I like the scene so much because it ain’t all about you kid. You want pop-pop to take you to the mall arcade? Guess what? Pop-pop can’t. Pop-pop going to another planet.

My second favorite scene is when old ass Hume Cronyn blows off Jessica Tandy to go caterwauling with a checkout girl. My third favorite scene is when Hume Cronyn punches Ron Howard’s brother Clint in the face, because, as director, Ron Howard cast his brother in a terrible role.

This is part of a TVTV documentary about the 1976 Super Bowl in Miami, starring Bill Murray and Christopher Guest. In it, Johnny Unitas and Paul Hornung, in particular, act like they both, probably, really got laid the night before. Like in a Brazilian way.

Bill Murray has a mustache in it, and he talks to ex-players. Then the ex-players take hold of former beauty queen, and then current NFL Today host, Phyllis George by the arms and pull her onto the field. They chase her around with the ball like it’s a hotel room. She’s a lady in a man’s world! Just like Mika Brzezinski.

At the end, Pat Summerall shows up to class up this bit of an affair. Just as he will have to do this weekend as master of ceremonies at the Scott Storch and Jaime Foxx “Salt & Pepper Girls with Pom-Poms Party” at Club Gassy on South Beach- cash bar. $200 entry fee without a guest pass; $250 entry fee with guest pass.

This kid must think he’s real hot sh*t making fun of the way Jason Mraz sings, but Jason Mraz put himself out there and wrote that song kid. Lets see you write a Top 40 hit, and while you’re at it stop thumbing pick-ups on that ukulele and play the goddamn thing!

I went to a new French restaurant the other day and ordered their Sauteed Calf’s Brain with a Savoy Cabbage, Pancetta, and Brown Butter Sauce. Well guess what? They used chicken stock instead of veal stock. After my waiter wiped the spit from his face he went back into the kitchen to reorder my meal. So thanks Chef, round of applause.

Philadelphia Phillies ace Cliff Lee fell asleep on the mound after 8 1/2 scoreless innings against the New York Yankees in last night’s Game 1 of the World Series. Lee was wakened in the 9th only after Derek Jeter laced a single off of him into right field.

“Wha- what? Yeah! I’m up. I’m up.” he said bleary eyed as shortstop Jimmy Rollins sprinted over to jostle him from slumber.

This REALLY worked, and I bet they weren’t sure it would.

The Daily Show expounds on a familiar premise.

I finally saw District 9. It made some good points about staying away from Nigerians. Plus I liked it when they called the aliens “prawns.” I’m a big fan of that- nicknames. Like, I’m always calling Roger who works with me “Jeffrey Osborne,” because he looks like a sad Jeffrey Osborne. Sometimes I follow him into the bathroom, and when he’s at the urinal I look down at his pee-pee and sing “Can you woo woo woo?” Human Resources wants me to knock it off. “I’ll knock you off, Kim!” That’s my answer.

District 9: B-

Obviously, the sometimes prickly Letterman likes to have on Jay-Z as a guest. It’s hard to nail down chemistry, but whatever Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins didn’t have these two do.

Michael Jordan is about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame – the Clap Academy Hall of Fame.

There are few more evocative childhood memories than the ones tied to my beloved Chicago Bulls. Imagine being a child and latching onto something very early on — a player and a team — and then watching every year as the both of them, fates entwined, struggle to mature, grow, get better, then ultimately win.

And when they win they don’t stop winning. Suddenly that team’s name is synonymous with championships and that player is an international superstar. It’s like being able to say you were a fan of The Beatles since way back when Pete Best was on drums. It’s the perverse pride of being at the ground floor of something that later turns into a phenomena. There is a weird pride in that. You did nothing to contribute to the success of it, but you feel as though you did, and it reaps a lasting emotional reward.

It is also rare to watch someone, in real time, become the absolute best at something. Not just good, THE BEST. It’s happened before of course. We saw it during the seven year run of TV’s Empty Nest when Richard Mulligan became the finest actor of a generation. Then there was that fleeting moment in 1983 when David Copperfield vanished the Statue of Liberty, allowing him to claim title as “the greatest large-objects magician” since Wilbur the Druid Tempest, in 1884, made Spain disappear for five full seconds.

Michael Jordan’s Top 23 Most Memorable Moments

So what was so great about Michael Jordan, besides his prescient ability to never be wrong athletically (excluding baseball, golf, or, actually, anything not basketball)? It could just be the man’s highlight reel. The dizzying string of heroic game winning shots, acrobatic plays and official dunks. Maybe it was his commercials?

Maybe it was his Marx-like range of facial expressions in those Spike Lee commercials? The man emoted facially like someone about to lose to a Keynesian economist at math camp– and by someone, Karl Marx. Maybe it was just that everybody loves a winner. Or maybe it was the shoes? THA SHOOOS!

Whatever it was that made Michael Jordan a seminal figure it all came together at the right moment. In terms of fame, the 90′s were a lot like the 80′s but with slightly rounder edges. You could still be a matinee idol, but corporate culture made more demands on your personality. Jordan marched arm-in-arm, lockstep with those demands, and in return his iconography was captured in front of billions of cameras. Big cameras. Not like the millions of tiny ones, cellular and invasive, we know and use today that smudge our vision of celebrity. Big cameras make you a matinee idol; tiny ones make you the butt of a YouTube joke.

Above all else though, Michael Jordan became the idealized heir to the fame African-American celebrities enjoyed in the 1980′s. Black fame was nothing new, but Jordan came along at a time just after black crossover appeal had taken hold in the American culture and he illuminated its strongest characteristics.

He was as exciting to watch as Michael Jackson but not as erratic. He was as friendly as Bill Cosby but the context of sport gave him permission to be edgy. He was as self-confident as Ali, and as rich as Oprah.

It may likewise be said that MJ’s success laid its own groundwork for progress in this current decade, and for the fortunes of another high-profile black Chicagoan. There must be something about that particular commodity, being from that particular town. The marker tends to get moved.

Welcome Michael Jordan’s career to the Clap Academy Hall of Fame.

SPLENDOUR BEACH from Ely Kim on Vimeo.

(via nikitagale)

This video serves as a reminder that in the near-future Grandpa’s are going to want to watch old Tony Scott movies before their robots make them take naps.

P.S. future, the robot’s nap button should not be right next to the assisted-suicide button. The last thing we want are death panels breaking down doors right after lunch.

Brace for “numbing cold“

But rejoice this August last

And dive into summer’s hold.

~A SlapClap Haiku™

Into the Nereteva River. Sarajevo, Bosnia

Into the Ganges. Varanasi, India

Into the Yangtze River. Wuhan, China

Into the Tigris. Baghdad, Iraq

Into Skaneateles Lake. Skaneateles, New York

Into the Nile. Cairo, Egypt

Into the water at Ueno Zoo. Tokyo, Japan

Into the Port of Havana. Cuba

Into the pool. Duesseldorf, Germany

(Photos via Boston.com)