A List a Day

PICTURES CAME AND BROKE YOUR HEART: A quarter-century or so after the Buggles declared the radio star dead, done in by video (in the conservatory with the candlestick), a new poll conducted by British cell phone company 3 seems to suggest that the video star might now want to look into estate planning, as Johnny Cash's haunting video for "Hurt" topped a list of the Top 20 Music Videos of All Time. That Cash's simple and haunting video for a Nine Inch Nails' song could beat "Thriller," even after "13 Going on 30," has to be considered a major upset and a odd coda to Cash's legendary career.

I couldn't find the full list, picked by musicians like Michael Stipe, Robert Smith, and Bjork, anywhere on the Web, but rounding out the top five were "Thriller" Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy," Radiohead's "Just" and "Billie Jean." Refreshing absent from the top five were such perennials as "Sledgehammer," "You Might Think," "Money for Nothing," and Madonna's entire oeuvre, though you can bet they--and the Spike Jonze collection--made the top 20.

Related: Slant Magazine's top 100 music videos; MTV's 1999 list of the 100 best videos; and MTVe's top 20 of 2004.>

Movin' On Up
The big news that you have all been waiting for is A List A Day has now officially merged with a couple of other fine, like-minded, pop-culture blogs. The new home of this blog is here, though the archives and links and whatnot will remain at this current address.

Now what are you doing wasting your time here when you could be wasting it there.>

Warm Impermanence
Look for some big ch-ch-changes here next week.
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What About Jan-Michael Vincent?
ESPN's Page 2 continues its look at the best all-around athletes, with the list of the 10 Greatest athletes. Jim Brown tops the list, followed by Jim Thorpe and then Dave Winfield.>

Scenes From a Car Wreck on the Way to an Italian Restaurant
Where once he crashed parties on Friday nights, today Billy Joel primarily spends his weekends crashing cars. Joel, who was on his way to pick up a pizza at the time of his latest accident, may want to pay the $2 delivery fee next time, lest he join Harry Chapin, James Dean, and others on the list of Celebrities Who Died in Auto Accidents.>

Time on His Hands
As a columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper and blogger, you wouldn't think Eric Zorn wouldn't have the time to list all 100 of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People. But thankfully he (or some intern) did, so I wouldn't have to (I was going to blog it earlier this week, but was pissed to see that Time had blocked all its current content to non-subscribers). >

Listful
Just got back from a screening of what is sure to be a contender for Best Picture next February, so I'm in a baseball mood. Plus it's been awhile since I alienated non-sports fans, but there have been some intriguing lists popping up lately from the wide, wide world of athletics. ESPN's Page 2 is trying to determine the World's Greatest Athlete (Rocco Baldelli?) and along those lines they've come up with a list of the 10 Greatest Athletic Feats. Bob Beamon's then-World Record long jump in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics tops the list and there are some very obscure and unusual, but well-reasoned picks.

Also at ESPN, Sean McAdam has made a list of the 10 Best Knockout Pitches from today's hurlers. It's good to see Timmy Wakefield get some props for being the game's remaining full-time knuckler. And speaking of Major League pitchers, did you know that there are only four African-American starting pitchers in baseball today? The only problem with reporting this alarming stat is that no historical reference is given. How many were there in 1990, 1980, etc.? Still, only Dontrelle Willis, Jerome Williams, Darren Oliver and CC Sabathia? Where have you gone Dave Stewart, Bob Gibson, Ferguson Jenkins, Ray Burris, Vida Blue, Dwight Gooden, Blue Moon Odom, and J.R. Richard?

On a better note for the African-American athlete, in this re-examination of the NBA's 50 Greatest Players, blacks hold 37 of the 50 spots, including 14 of the top 15. Still, old Lacy Banks of the Sun-Times makes a lot of dubious picks, including Tracy McGrady as the 24th best of all-time (all-time!) And no way KG, Kobe, and Duncan are all top 15, ahead of the Doctor, Zeke, and Zeke from Cabin Creek. And knocking the Ice Man off the list is just plain cold.

For those of you who haven't fled, Premiere Magazine got around to posting its list of the 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time, and Dr. Evil in front of George Bailey is just plain criminal.
Speaking of Canadians, after an extended absence from the land of blogs, Marc Weisblott is back and he's got some interesting things to say about Blender's list of the 50 Worst Songs.

I've been meaning to post these two links for awhile. The Guardian gets a lot of actors and directors to list their favourite films, and Alan Cumming (the man was Nightcrawler) gets the question right by picking "Guffman." And in other Christopher Guest news, "Spinal Tap" makes screenwriter Jeremy Drysdale's list of the 10 Best Films About Music.>

Marconi Plays the Mamba
Back on Sept. 23, 2003, we noted that Starship's "Knee Deep in Hoopla" deserved to be included on the list of Worst Group Efforts (scroll down to the right date) and now comes the news that Blender magazine has picked "We Built This City" as No. 1 on the list of the all-time 50 Most Awesomely Bad Songs. While several of the picks are of the shooting fish in the barrel variety ("I'm Too Sexy," "The Macarena," "Don't Worry Be Happy"), both the Beatles ("Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"--Don't tell Corky) and Simon and Garfunkel ("The Sound of Silence") make the list.>

That's Maxxx With Three X's
While on the one hand it seems wrong to mock anything that has to do with HIV, on the other hand this list of Adult Actors on Quarantine in the wake of two porn industry stars testing positive for the virus last week is just plain surreal. >

Why Is the New Yorker Like a Teacher on Vacation?
It seems to take me about a week nowadays to get through a profile in the New Yorker, so I apologize if this has been blogged to death, but in reading the profile of Boondocks cartoonist Aaron McGruder, this passage stood out:

"Most of the time, though, they work on the pilot for Fox. It's been twenty years since 'Fat Albert,' the last black animated series on a major network, went off the air, so the prospect of 'The Boondocks' going to prime time is significant."

Apparently nobody at the New Yorker is a very big fan of Eddie Murphy's "The PJ's", which actually aired in prime time for various stints from 1999 to 2001 on Fox and the WB, unlike Fat Albert, which was a Saturday morning staple, except for a few prime time specials.>

Thank You, You've Been a Great Audience. Please Tip Your Waitresses
Ladies and Gentlemen, the Greatest Standup of All Time is...Richard Pryor. It's hard to argue with much of the top 20, though I would think Seinfeld deserved to be higher, while I never got the whole Roseanne thing. Chris Rock at No. 5 surprised me, especially ahead of Cosby and Murphy, but after watching his latest HBO special last night, I think he deserves it. Watching the show, it was great to see again how funny some of these guys were back in their standup prime. I'm talking about the classic Murphy, Steve Martin, Newhart, even Rodney when he was on. The show itself was an interesting format. Not a lot of filler, which was nice. I only caught the top 20, so I'm wondering if Richard Lewis and his cohorts were a little less reverent when it came to discussing the likes of Sinbad, Gallagher, and Louie (shudder) Anderson. >

And Then There We're 20
Comedy Central has posted another update to its list of the 100 Greatest Standups of All Time, and we are there with Nos. 21 to 40. Phyllis Diller becomes the seventh woman on the list, landing at No. 35 and surprisingly Bob Hope, the Don Sutton of Standup, finishes at No. 25. And although Jay may beat Dave in the ratings, Dave presumedly will beat Jay on the list, as Leno is ranked No. 27.

Who will be No. 1? Carson? Cosby? Seinfeld? Bill? Kwame? Tune in tonight for the answer, or just check back here.>

Take My List, Please
Since record numbers of y'all keep landing here after Googling "Comedy Central list of the 100 Greatest Standups and since between a killer deadline and filing my form 4686 (so lame, I just loaded the Turbo Tax software I bought in February on my computer today), I've got little time for list-finding, I thought an update on Nos. 41 to 60 might sate you. Some of the big names are starting to come in. It seems like they are actually taking this list seriously, too, mixing the old with the new, and not just including people because they had clips or could get an interview. My question of the day, who will be the highest ranking woman? The guess here is Ellen. Also who was the funniest person you ever saw live. For me, it was Gary Shandling. >

Of Bobcats and Buttons
Comedy Central has listed Nos. 61-80 from their list of the 100 Greatest Standups of all Time, and a restless nation can sleep easy tonight knowing that Sinbad, perhaps next to Condi Rice, the greatest alum of my wife's alma mater, in No. 78. Carson, Cosby, Hope, Seinfeld, Emo? Who will be No. 1? This update, in cidentally, is for the benefit of the dozens of you who have come to the site for the first time via Google searching for more info on Comedy Central's list.>

They're Biggest Rivals Are the Adams Gags
While the Jefferson Muzzles may sound like the name of a high school basketball team, they are actually an annual award given to those individuals and institutions that aren't down with the First Amendment of the Constitution. The list of this year's Muzzle winners includes Baseball Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey, CBS, and a host of other government agencies big (Defense Department, Secret Service) and small (The Parks and Recreation Division of Broward County). >

Reading Is Fundamental
A bunch of folks, including Roger Ebert, Robert Birnbaum, and Jessa Crispin, rif on their Ten Favorite Novels over at Professor Barnhardt's Journal today. Glad to see my favorite book make Tod Goldberg's list (go ahead and guess which one) and Vanishing Point by David Markson, which I just picked up at the library this morning, make Adam Finley's list. >

Funny 'Cause They're True
Expect to see a lot of brick walls this week as Comedy Central joins the list-making crowd with five hours of The 100 Greatest Standups of All Time. I couldn't find the list published anywhere, but I have it from a reliable source that a certain melon-smashing yuckster should be very pleased with the results.>

Thank God for VH1!
What better to distract us from the news of the world than another list from the cable channel that mine as well have invented numerical ordering, Video Hits One. While The 100 Most Outrageous Celebrity Moments, seems a better fit for E!, you can't help but be amused by such an exercise. Besides, it's hard to build up too much outrage about a list where 80% of the outrageous moments seem to have taken place in the last six months--Brittany's quickie Vegas nuptials No. 1?--we have a feeling this was driven more by good video and snark and wasn't meant to be much of a historical record. Still, no Fatty Arbuckle?>

Can't Seem to Get My Mind off of You
In contrast to Weird "The Hardest Working Man in Showbiz" Al (see post below), no one, and I mean no one, enjoys a good vacation like our president. While we were being reminded last week by Condi Rice's testimony that the president spent the month of August 2001 on his ranch reading old Archie comics and not his PDB, Bush was not in the White House monitoring the latest trouble in Iraq but was back at the ranch in Crawford were he "spent the morning watching national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's televised testimony to the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, then toured his ranch with Wayne LaPierre Jr., chief executive of the National Rifle Association, and other leaders of hunting groups and gave an interview to Ladies' Home Journal," according to The Washington Post.

So just how many vacations has W taken? The Post goes on to report that: "This is Bush's 33rd visit to his ranch since becoming president. He has spent all or part of 233 days on his Texas ranch since taking office, according to a tally by CBS News. Adding his 78 visits to Camp David and his five visits to Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush has spent all or part of 500 days in office at one of his three retreats, or more than 40 percent of his presidency."

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The Show Must Go On
On the one hand, you have to admire a man who shortly after learning of the death of his parents, decides to still go on stage and delight his legions of fans in Mankato, Minn., fans with "Eat It," "Another One Rides the Bus," and "I Lost on Jeopardy." On the other hand, there's something slightly psychotic about a man who can go on stage and perform "Like a Surgeon," "Hey Ricky," and "Amish Paradise," with all the antic zeal such numbers call for after receiving such news. >