Dance like only skeleton and a dog wearing a really sweet bandana is watching.
It begins like the start of a horror movie. A first person camera winds its way around a hallway while retro music plays in the background, dogs look up frightened and confused, the song breaks into its chorus as we turn the corner to reveal our main subject: A half-naked, physically fit male specimen, dancing with a mop as his partner.
Our hero makes it all the way to the second "morning train" before he realizes he's being watched.
They always say the heroes in horror films make terrible decisions, but I dare you to listen to Sheena Easton's "Morning Train" without taking off your clothes, grabbing a Swiffer, and showing a paper skeleton what you're made of.
The picture at the top isn't actually Taylor Swift, it's a wax figure that was unveiled last month at Madame Tussauds of Creepy Statue Tourist Trap in Hollywood. When making the Taylor Swift figure, they decided to put her in an "I (heart) LA" T-shirt, because why the hell not? She owns a beautiful home in Los Angeles.
That's why a lot of New Yorkers were surprised when Taylor was named New York City's Global Welcome Ambassador recently. Mostly, because they weren't aware that was even a job, and would've loved the opportunity to at least fill out an application before the gig was handed over to a pop star whose strongest link to the city is a dopey song inspired by the recent purchase of a $20 million Tribeca penthouse.
Law and Order star Chris Noth may have been surprised by the appointment, but he's cool with it. The guy who will always be known as Sex and the City's "Mr. Big" (because it's a way better nickname than "Detective Michael Logan") has lived in the city for years and thinks Taylor Swift perfectly represents the new face of New York City. Here's how he put it to NY Daily News:
“Manhattan has become a borough for the rich. I’ve said it and I’m not afraid to say it again. So she’s probably the perfect representative. I don’t know what people (who disagree with her appointment) are bitching and complaining about — that’s what happened to New York.”
“It’s become a boutique borough, and that’s why young people are having a hard time finding a way to live here, and the middle class and the blue-collar workers ...
He should know, as a guy who spent years making a show that was worse for New York City's image than drunks who brunch and catcalling videos combined.
But Noth's point is valid. The city is now famous as a playground for the famous, which is why NYC and Taylor Swift are perfect for each other. At least until she dumps them and comes back to Los Angeles.
1. Republicans Take Hard Stance Against Confusing Internet Thing That Obama Seems To Support
President Obama decided this week to throw the full support of his office behind the controversial concept of net neutrality, calling upon the FCC to regulate the Internet as though it were a public utility, thus ensuring that both Republican-led houses of Congress would be opposed to it. Before he even had a chance to absorb the President's statements, Sen. Ted Cruz ran to Twitter to frame the debate thusly: "'Net Neutrality' is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government." So, there goes any hope of that.
Ted Cruz has no clue what net neutrality is but that will not stop him from getting paid to loudly have the wrong opinion about it.
2. Obama Chews Gum, Offends 1.4 Billion Person Nation Of China
Americans are absolutely mortified today, after their cloddish President Barack Obama totally embarrassed them in front of the supercool 1,396,793,796 citizens of China by chewing gum in public while attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation economic summit. Ugh! We can never show our faces in Asia ever again!
4. Christopher Nolan's Newest Impenetrable Piece Of Cinematic Pretension Delights Impenetrable, Pretentious Brits
British filmgoers made their love for dense theoretical physics, byzantine storytelling and extremely long running times clear this past weekend by propelling Christopher Nolan's newest film, Interstellar, to the top of the U.K. box office. American audiences instead chose to see a cartoon about a big, cute, puffy robot.
All our nation's top physicists are currently tied up writing "19 Things Interstellar Got Wrong About Space Travel" for Buzzfeed.
5. Study: Smoking Pot Leads To Stupidity, Unless Being Stupid Leads To Smoking Pot
Frequent marijuana use has been shown to correlate to a smaller amount of gray matter in the brain's orbitofrontal cortex and a lower IQ, according a new study. It is currently unknown in which direction the association swings, but in either case, it sure does seem to say something about people who follow Phish around on tour, doesn't it?
A new study says that pot can shrink some parts of your brain. The uncool parts. #Swish
On Monday night's show, it was Best Friends Week, which was filmed in Hawaii. When a pair of men randomly guessed "Riding a brown horse" and not surprisingly got the puzzle wrong, the next two ladies decided to guess "Riding a white horse." Pat Sajak couldn't take it anymore and walked off the set.
And they said it wouldn't get picked up.(via Getty)
Congratulations to Jenny McCarthy and Donnie Wahlberg on their celebrity marriage officially being recognized by Hollywood! Which is to say, they've signed a 10-episode deal to star in a reality show! Donnie Loves Jenny begins airing in 2015 on A&E, which is obviously using the show to balance out the more cerebral content on the network's lineup, like Wahlburgers.
The couple released a statement which Jenny probably had written before the appetizers arrived on their first date:
"Not only have we found a new home together, we have found the perfect place for our exciting new projects to live with A&E Network. We're so excited about this deal and look forward to a long and successful relationship creating entertaining and provocative unscripted programming with our partners at A&E. Our feeling is, who better to make our first show for the network about than about us? We love working together and with our crazy schedules this gives us the chance to both work and play together."
It's hard to imagine anyone being shocked by the news. Least of all, any guests at their wedding able to hear the vows over the racket being made by the film crew:
PRIEST: Do you, Jenny, take Donnie, to be your costar? To pitch ideas with and executive produce together? Through good premiere ratings and poor time slots, till cancellation do you part?
JENNY: Wait, where's the line about my backend points?
We kid Jenny and Donnie, but wish them a long happy life together in syndicated bliss.
By most journalistic standards, Megyn Kelly is a capable talking head. Compared to many of her colleagues at Fox News, she's one of the sharpest political minds of our time. Which is what makes her slipping up and going blue so entertaining. While introducing Mike Huckabee to The Kelly File on Monday, she said "Joining me now, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is the host of F*ck — of Huckabee."
Huckabee, the happiest angry guy in politics, didn't seem bothered. His name begins with "huck," so it can't be the first time someone's made that mistake. And considering the clip has racked up nearly a half-million views in less than a day, it seems a lot of people prefer the way she said it the first time.
One might call this retro. Kim Kardashian might single-handedly have kept Paper Magazine in print for the next five years with this one cover photo for their Winter issue.
(NSFW below for BUTT)
Not sure if there's any connection to the Keira Knightley topless photo. It's not clear if photoshop, or gravity, was involved in this pic.
Good for Kim. Paper has been a New York institution for avant-garde arts journalism for a long, long time, and if she was going to go butt first into the media, at least she did it in a glossy that doesn't suck.
No word on whether we're helping or hurting things by joining the 10,000 websites that are putting this print cover photo online instead of making you all put on your robes and slippers and drive to the nearest newsstand.
The photo was taken by Jean-Paul Goude. Here's the alt:
On the "Ridiculist" segment on Monday night's Anderson Cooper 360, Anderson Cooper thought he was going to be talking about the habits of irritating coworkers, but his staff surprised him by not revealing beforehand that the segment was all about him and his stinky candle.
You'd think by his well-groomed appearance that Cooper would only ever smell like autumn breezes and optimism, but he makes clear in the segment that he only got the candle to mask the odor emanating from his pants, which his coworkers have also not hesitated to complain to him about.
"Listen, first of all, someone told me that I smelled," Cooper says in the segment. "It was Kirk, my researcher, told me that I smelled. Or my jeans smell because I don't wash them. So that's why I got the candle, people."
In short, Anderson Cooper's stench is as powerful as his giggle fits.
"Yeah! We're here! Jesus H. Christ we're still here!"
As we all make sense of the unveiling of the E! network's single-most valuable asset, our nation's photoshoppers are hard at transforming those oily hills into whatever the imagination pours forth.
The first we found was shared by redditor kelkulus who wrote, "Kim Kardashian looks so much like a centaur in Paper Magazine, I figured I'd take it one step further."
Break the Internet, then break into a gallop and take the fifth race at Belmont.
Sorry, environment. We wanted to stop using disposable plastic water bottles, but then we discovered that puppies get super cute around them. Puppy cuteness always comes first, and if that means the destruction of our planet, so be it.
A not-so-defenseless baby elephant narrowly escaped attack by 14 lions after being separated from his mother. This worrying video was caught by journalist Jesse Nash, Long Island University Art Professor Dan Christoffel, Naturalist Steve Baker and Australian TV personality Nina Karnikowski while they were on safari.
Unable to help the young hero, we can hear them coach the one-year-old pachyderm to run into the water and remark that the lions have no intentions on giving up. At one point, you can hear one of the men wonder, "where are the other elephants, for god's sake?"
Innocent, the guide who was driving the group on safari, told theNY Post, "In the 30-plus years I have been a safari guide in Zambia at the Luangwe Park, never have I seen anything like this. We were all so worried the baby elephant would be killed right before us.”
At its worst, things looked pretty grim for our hero, with three vicious lions on his back. Fortunately, he managed to shake them off and cleverly used his height as an advantage in the water.
The brave baby is now reunited with his herd, and has since been renamed for his acts of courage.
“We’ve named the little fella Hercules," said Innocent. "What a fighter.”
Ava Ryan may not care what people think, but she's still polite enough to apologize for passing gas. She's strong-willed, but she's not a monster.
You might recognize Ava the toddler from her other work on Vine, including this video where she says what dessert she'd like to be when she grows up and this one where she tells you how scarily old she is (16!).