A meticulously crafted fake edition of The New York Times broadsheet is being given away throughout the five boroughs today. Purportedly from July 4, 2009, the future-paper, the work of a team of infamous pranksters, tells of a world gone perfect, one in which the Iraq war is over, maximum wage laws have been enacted and people have collectively decided to stop burning their youths away toiling as lawyers and businessmen. It's a great gag, but also a cruel one—your eyes will never see these headlines on an authentic newspaper.
Check out the online edition here before the real Times sues everyone into hell.
ESQUIRE: PLEASE NOTE, VINCE VAUGHN HAS GOTTEN HEAVY • "Vince Vaughn looks a lot like Vince Vaughn, only bigger…His face is full, puffy enough to make him sometimes look as though he's fighting to keep his eyes open—not as though he's just woken up but as though he's never bothered to go to bed in the first place."
Barack Obama discovered a way to keep print publications from dying! He just needs to get elected president every day forever and erase everyone's memory of the event after each successive election. By doing so, he'd ensure that each normally insignificant newspaper would have the possibility of increasing in value in a hundred years, thus sending every overgrown baseball card collector out to get a Times they can look at and never read, as they're doing today.
You really are amazing, America.
My newly retired mother decided to use some of her well-earned free time to belittle me. I love that woman.
OH GREAT GOD OF HOLLYWOOD, PLEASE, NOT THIS "As campaign managers for Sarah Palin plot last-minute tactics to get her elected, Hollywood bigwigs are convening strategy sessions of their own. Their goal: finding the ideal on-air vehicle for the vp candidate if and when she exits politics. … 'Any television person who sees the numbers when she appears on anything would say Sarah Palin would be great,' said veteran morning-show producer Steve Friedman … 'The passion she has on each side, love and hate, makes television people say, 'Wow, imagine the viewership." Although none of the execs has — at least as far as anyone is admitting — made direct overtures to the Alaska governor, they are readying their battle plans if she decides to give up her day job."
EVERYONE IN MEDIA HATES MCCAIN We're all in the tank: "Media coverage of John McCain has been heavily unfavorable since the political conventions, more than three times as negative as the portrayal of Barack Obama, a new study says. Fifty-seven percent of the print and broadcast stories about the Republican nominee were decidedly negative, the Project for Excellence in Journalism says in a report out today, while 14 percent were positive. The McCain campaign has repeatedly complained that the mainstream media are biased toward the senator from Illinois."
The rotund gent you see at right is being indicted in the city of New York for snatching a McCain campaign sign from the hands of a middle-aged woman, snapping it in half and then punching the GOP supporter, who's been described as "small" and "quiet," in the face. Witnesses to the assault said the man gave no indication as to why he was attacking the lady, to whom he said only, "You people are ridiculous!"
What a crazy man. But what's even crazier is this…
FOUR MORE AWFUL, BIGOTED, IDIOTIC YEARS "Bill O'Reilly is going to be sticking around the Fox News Channel for another four years. The top-rated cable news network is expected to announce as soon as Wednesday that O'Reilly has signed a new multi-year contract. The deal is estimated to be worth between $10 million and $12 million a year. … He's had the most-watched show in the 8 p.m. time period among the cable news networks for 94 consecutive months, according to the Nielsen Company. And so far this month, he's averaging more than 4 million viewers a night."
Much like the time Bart Simpson went to an auction and accidentally bought an abandoned warehouse, Macrovision finalized its deal with OpenGate Capital to sell the unprofitable TV Guide to the equity fund for $1. A buck.
Most assessments today of last night's presidential debate are grim. Under a picture of Barack Obama and John McCain squared off in Tennessee, the Drudge Report presented a single-word critique: "Boring." Politico is calling it the "worst debate ever."
We beg to differ. Instead, how about worst electorate ever?
Remember that New Yorker cover that portraying Barack and Michelle Obama as fist-bumping terrorists and everyone was like, "Racists!!" and The New Yorker was like, "You're all hella dumb?"
Well, would real racists come out and officially support Obama with a 4,214 word editorial about why he is the best and our current government and John McCain are the worst?
World famous pornographer Hugh Hefner, who's somehow convinced everyone that he's better than the common street pimps who do what he does, is being forced to can Playboy staffers in both New York and Los Angeles.
Since Hefner's once reputable magazine went from interviewing people like Malcolm X to interviewing people like Pete Wentz, and since anyone interested in masturbating to pictures now has the Internet for that, Playboy the brand has seen its stock fall precipitously, from $11.40 to $2.85.
This is just the latest blow to the 83-year-old Hef's empire, which has been in a rough patch for quite sometime now. Besides being turned down by falling starlet Lindsay Lohan, it's rumored that Playboy's notorious mansion parties have a tenuous future and that two out of three of Hef's girlfriends, Holly Madison and Kendra Wilkinson, have ditched him for younger men (magician Criss Angel and football player Hank Baskett, respectively).
Whaddya know? Women for whom one pays have no loyalty.
Update: Whoops! Page Six reports today that Hef's final girlfriend, Bridget Marquardt, is now dating Marisa Tomei's ex.
LIFE GETS SECOND LIFE "The executives at Time clearly believe in eternal Life. The publishing giant said Tuesday that its venerable Life magazine will again be reincarnated, this time as Life.com. Time has partnered with Getty Images to launch Life.com as a destination for thousands of new and classic photos in early 2009. The new version of Life, perhaps best known for its iconic images of presidents, war and Hollywood icons from the 1950s and '60s, follows the 2007 closure of the most recent Sunday supplement version of the magazine. Time is looking to leverage the power of the Web to be timely and deep. Life.com will publish 3,000 new images each day from across the globe while also housing archives of thousands of Life magazine photos from the '30s through the '90s."
SEX PLOTS COME TO THE FOREFRONT OF CULTURE "In the life-imitates-art department, there's no better example than David Duchovny, a real sex addict - he recently checked into rehab for sex addiction - who plays one in the Showtime series 'Californication.' … Yet Duchovny's show is not the only place where once underground practices are moving into the mainstream. Opening Friday is 'Choke,' … starring Sam Rockwell as a sex addict; George Clooney plays one for laughs in the recent 'Burn After Reading.' Writer-director Kevin Smith's 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno,' opening Oct. 31, tells of platonic friends … who raise money by starring in their own sex film. … Coming soon to the WE network are 'Secret Lives of Women: Sex Addicts' … and a new reality series, 'Sex Change Hospital.' CBS recently broadcast 'Swingtown,' a summer replacement series about swinging '70s couples. And really pushing the envelope is Palahniuk's latest novel, 'Snuff,' about an aging porn star determined to have sex with 600 men in a single day."
All out of ideas for relatable, real news stories about the presidential election, CNN is now shooting relatable, fake news stories about the presidential election.
You see, because many people get confused when it comes to statistics, dialectics and history, major news outlets have taken to filming segments in which correspondents say things like, "Whichever candidate's Halloween mask sells more is going to be president." Or they'll interview women like Cindy Michaels, at right, who so resembles Sarah Palin in this stupid, hateful world that she gets mean voice mails making fun of her glasses.
After the jump, a piece discussing both those things and containing an interview with a black Barack Obama supporter named John McCain. Watch it and see if you can avoid cringing at the part when all the stories collide and the correspondent asks the black McCain, who kind of looks like Obama, to wear the white McCain's Halloween mask.
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Hoverboards, colonization on Mars, cars that run on love — out of all the promises late 80s/early 90s films made to its children, how come the only thing technology reaped is better CGI to portray things that we still don't have?
Well, wonder no more, as the future is officially here, albeit in a crappy, analog form. Esquire's digital cover, y'all:
Despite confirmation that Sarah Palin will be on Charlie Gibson's ABC show for her first interview since she was named VP nominee, the McCain camp lashed out at the media and said Palin wouldn't be talking to anyone until they can behave themselves. "Behave themselves" being code for "not mentioning anything about her children," apparently:
Editor
