Blogs have become cultural beacons, sculpting public opinion and the whole of the landscape. I have come to love the blogosphere. What’s not to love? Quick, easy, hilarious rants on current events, news, celebrity, anything and everything. It makes me laugh. It makes us all laugh. I’m a big fan, yet it drives me nuts when people put a greater emphasis on being funny rather than thoughtful. And the funnies are getting all of the credit.

Take Perez Hilton, self proclaimed Queen of all Media: his blog has made him rich and famous. There’s even a TV version of his “work” on VH1. He is a well-regarded, highly-quoted source regularly featured in other media. Why? Because he concocts funny word mashups and indiscriminately draws cocaine debris under the nostrils of celebrities, celebutants and celebutards? I laugh. But is it intelligent or thoughtful?

Not a whiff of either.

His counterparts are no exception. D-Listed, Pink is the New Blog, What Would Tyler Durden Do? –examples of cheap and hysterical hilarity, a lot of vulgarities and bathroom humor about stars and starlets…the writers are very funny, but do they have the chops to become real comedic writers with a day-to-day gig? Most of the humor is easy to come by (raunchy sex jokes that occur to the average 12-year-old boy); these bloggers are brave enough to boldly voice their inner tween. Where the rest of us would blush at the thought of quipping like that with even our closest and dearest, they in fact take the, yep you guessed it, plunger.

The newsiest is The Huffington Post, a digital version of Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. The content is there, the points are on and the contributing writers are some of the biggest uh names in the game (is it bad to shamefully plug myself in my own blog?), but it is not meant to serve as primary news source but more a way to buttress your information on an hourly basis. It says so up there in the fine print.

Wonkette.com, a famous offering about D.C. gossip, honestly describes itself as a, “blend of gossip, satire and things the author makes up.” Similarly, its parent, Gawker, is known for the same in a New York market. The problem is, people look to these sites as honest news sources instead of ha-ha jabs at anything plus everything.

And everyone is guilty these days. We’re all adapting blog speak (see Diablo Cody please) and abbreviated language that was once reserved for quickly jotting down messages via IM has made its way into the daily vernacular.

Remember Cingular’s enormously popular ad? The mom reprimands the daughter for texting too much. The daughter responds in text / IM code. It was only funny because we all got it. OMG people, WTF is going on?

Being tuned in does not make any of us educated while simple-minded and raunchy cynicism doe not make you a comedian and maintaining a blog does not make you a writer… In the end we are reading bloggers.

Oh yeah, and the most important point of today’s rant is this: Abbreviating words doesn’t make you original, just kind of annoying, except when it comes to me, obv. Duh.

Madonna seems to have a case of Girls Gone Wild-itis. Five years after swapping spit with Britney and X-tina, The Material Mom has proven again there’s an insecure college freshman in all of us….. Doing her seemingly bored jaunt hyping her new collection of quickly-thrown-together dance tunes, Madonna indulged in an onstage girl-on-girl kiss while performing in Paris. Turns out all the money and success in the world can’t buy better judgment – no judgment, of course.

Once upon a time this was totally Madonna’s thing. Her image was sex and it worked. That’s it. From her cone-shaped bras to those onstage simulated sex antics, Madonna was not only controversial, but captivating too. We couldn’t look away.

That was then. One marriage and three children later have changed things. Earth to Madonna, this stuff no longer shocks or amuses us. It’s confusing. Not the good kind of confusing. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but things have changed.

Her last book was a children’s book, not a sex book (there is a G-d), and she has replaced the likes of Sandra Bernhard with Lourdes, Rocco and the one she stole from Africa (how on earth did Access Hollywood manage to get that guy to talk?).

Madonna is married to Guy Ritchie. Last time I checked, publicly kissing another person is cheating. Male, female, on or offstage – remember this, Madge, a kiss is still a kiss.

How does Mr. Madonna feel watching his wife declare to her audience, “I’m always drawn to working with French people - and frenching French people. Vive la France!” Her awkward declaration led to a make out with her not-so-French back up dancer. Hmmm. Yeah. As if the guy doesn’t feel emasculated enough.

Point is, Madonna should be passed this by now. Yes, sexuality has always been a part of her image. She’s done enough of everything to forever cement that not only in our minds, but also in history. We get it.

What we love(d) about Madonna is her ever evolving, reinventing self – please, let’s have the sex stuff follow that. It’s icky.

Even if we weren’t so weirded out by her behavior, without having to go into this more—it’s simply old. This too needs to evolve. We’re not captivated, we’re bored. There’s no greater sin than boredom, M.

Instead of approaching the Big 50 like a 19-year-old desperately seeking attention, welcome it as an icon. Think of what Roseanne said at the TV Land Awards: “This is awesome! In old age you are congratulated, no longer that obnoxious bitch.”

Like, gee. Emily Gould’s much-maligned cover story in this week’s Times Sunday Magazine may not win the Gray Lady awards but it did garner what any self-respecting newspaper wants in the age of severely diverted eyeballs. Attention. Lots of attention. The article became a sensation and it—

Wait! What do you mean? No, trust me, it WAS a big deal. Hold on, I’ll prove it. Let’s just click over to the Times site..and ….

See, look. Most e-mailed stories of the past week. And that “Exposed” piece is right —-gee. No, it’s here somewhere. Has to be. Where is it?

Well holy smokes. Huh. I guess Times readers really didn’t think Emily Gould was such an important person. Instead they bit on the typical lineup of politics, faux trends, and self-help that pretends it isn’t. That’s what they e-mailed to their unenlightened, Post-reading family, at least.

But, wait, there’s “Exposed” – gosh, yay! I found it! Heading the week’s list of “Most Blogged” articles! See: it is relevant! Told you. A blogger’s bloggy confessional about blogging and its bloggy complications turned out to be catnip for other bloggers who like blogging about blogs! Let’s see here, who blogged about this bloggy article . . . why, Romenesko! And MediaBistro! Jezebel and Jossip! And the granddaddy of ‘em all: Gawker! Which used to employ Gould! Just like MediaBistro does now! And so on. And so forth.

Let me take a look at that Gawker post . . . that’s–eleven thousand views! Wow, like, um, not very many. A lot for Gawker, I am sure. But compare that number to the number who read, for instance, whatever watered-down nonsense was on the cover of the Parade Sunday insert this week.

Hint: it’s not even close. Like, at all.

So what does that say, kids? Maybe that the same few thousand people who read the same incestuous pack of media blogs were inordinately interested in La Gould, even while deriding her piece, and, more tellingly, even as most of The New York Times readership shrugged and went on with the crossword. And these are Times readers! The elite of elites, who love nothing more than to gaze at New York-y media-y fluff with hearts a-flutter. And they kinda didn’t care. Even with “come hither” cover photography and the author’s appetite-whetting persona: equal parts narcissist and train wreck.

The blogosphere is vibrant and vital, despite what the many detractors say out loud. That said, when it is its own subject one notices just how insular a community it is. Emily Gould is a very big name to only very few. And those people debated her article back and forth. And knew about it days before the Times published. And felt impugned and delighted and irritated and important because it was about them as much as it was about Emily. And then . . . what? It exploded like a neutron bomb in its little corner of our culture and, thanks to the electronic version going up early, was yesterday’s news three days before yesterday.

(Literally.)

This was the year “Gossip Girl” caught fire in New York and among its chattering bloggy/media classes. To read about the show in this sleep-filled city is to think you’ve witnessed the birth of a kind of phenomenon. Except that the two thousand people whispering breathlessly about each episode on blogs are also the only two thousand people watching it on their hi-defs. The show gets absolutely no ratings (it’s “OMFG, not that great,” said EW this week). And yep, no one in Topeka gives a dink. This isn’t “Seinfeld” or “Sex City” or some other quote unquote New York show that appeals to our coastal vanity while generating a huge audience. It’s not even “Mad Men,” for Chrissakes. It’s big-B Buzz doing little-b business. The lesson (this is a blog, so a lesson is forthcoming) is not so different from the Sunday magazine’s. Self absorption, no matter the medium, is only as magnetic as self.

I feel like I have not quite made my point. Wait…for…it…

Damn it, Emily! You loser.

[Check out “2011” now on Amazon via www.yeahwhatever.com. Like for sure…]

It has been a never ending winter here in New York. My winter blues have been longing for the chance to spend a single day outside, lounge in the park, lunch outdoors, check out street fair or two…or so I thought.

I woke up Saturday thrilled with how beautiful it was out there. On my way to the door, I couldn’t help but pause to check my Facebook. What if somebody had written on my wall? Or what if there was some new event I had to add to my online schedule? I reasoned it would be irresponsible not to check.

Whew. One Big Mistake…it sucked me in fast and frenzyish.

Checking the FB turned into a cascading whirlwind of distraction – a real trip into the ole rabbit hole. That quick glimpse, the one that wasn’t meant to cause more than a 5-minute delay tops, consumed my day. I didn’t mean for it to happen!

While checking my Funwall, I got distracted by a Juno plug advertised right there on Facebook. I needed to buy the movie that instant. “Honest to blog” (great Junoism), there wasn’t a singular moment to spare. To add that extra bit of incentive, the good folks at iTunes threw in the soundtrack to FOR GOSH DARN FREE. Service with a smile is overrated. I’ll take service with a click any day!

I promised myself I wouldn’t actually watch the movie. I also told myself I was going to go to the store instead of ordering from Fresh Direct. I lied to myself.

Once I started my viewing pleasure, I accepted couch potato status for the day. Then it happened-outside guilt: A friend called insisting we go to the Farmer’s Market or the park. I felt bad turning the offer down. I had a very real case of bad relaxation!

Apparently, this is the state of the world. The blog Stuff White People Like” depicts a similar scenario. One friend says, “Hey, lets go for a hike in the park,” so the other guy says, “Thanks but I’ve been working all week and I’m really excited about watching this game,” and then the first guy responds with, “Don’t be a lump on the couch, you’re wasting your life away,” etc. Supposedly, “If you ignore them, they eventually go away.” Or so we can only hope.

During the sofa stupor I started messaging with an old friend who now spends his days teaching and traveling some outside world. He was on the side of a mountain in Dubai and he was on AIM! Yes, AIM. Which begs the question, is there even such a thing as the outdoors anymore? Does it exist?

Shed the shame, people, remember we’re celebrating Outdoors 2.0. Everyone wants to stay home–it’s national agoraphobia! When people are outside, they are on their Crackberry, phone or connected anyway—glancing at something. Exhale now.

My name is Richard and I’m a WiFi guy. I admit it extends further than my MetroCard. There I said it! First step to solving, right?

Some things you see in the news make you go “Oh please.” Let’s get into it:

After years of Hangin’ Tough, watching the varying worlds of pop culture pass them by, the New Kids on the Block are gearing up for a comeback, returning to their old stomping grounds, which I suppose is… the Block. (Does J. Lo owe them a licensing fee?)

NKOTB deserves credit for appearing on Today Show to announce their reunion. I found myself thinking about the late 80s. I saw the huge crowd, screaming girls, even some crying fans, all I imagine hired by the NK’s desperate chieftains. But you got to hand it to them—they did it right.

Young Gen-Xers and old Yers are ready to re-embrace the Kids Who Have Been Around the Block Quite a Few Times (now KWHBATBQAFT). Road to retro has not been easy. They were has beens for more than a minute and had to endure embarrassing solo careers, some attempts at serious acting, and no doubt at least one abortive stab as a real estate agent. Which leads me to think we can blame the subprime mess for this too!

The actor of the group, ole Donnie Wahlberg has been on the rise since the group disbanded in ‘94. He toured with little bro Marky and that nutty Funky Bunch, and by 1996 he was already on the big screen. He really worked for it! “I didn’t have big movie offers, or any big agents wanting to work with me,” he said. “I had to go grassroots, start at the bottom and go on 150 auditions before someone finally gave me a shot.” From The Sixth Sense to NBC’s brilliant but cancelled Boomtown, to a lead in HBO’s Emmy-winning Band of Brothers, Donnie managed to stay employed and relevant. He even has two projects in post-production in 2008. He’s smart, he’s building momentum and putting himself out there.

Others not so much. Danny Wood, aka, the one everyone forgot about, blogged to his fans, “I want to start off by saying I am so thankful and feel blessed to have this opportunity again.” Followed by”I feel like I have won the lottery twice.” Well, dude, you totally have.

He totally went one step too far then. “We finally have the chance to give all you guys what you have always deserved.” Didn’t you guys do that when you broke up in 1994?

The Backstreet Boys are what-happened-tos, too, but they’re only about six years removed from their peak. The Spice Girls? Check cashed. Between the two they’ve logged three comebacks, but the nicest way to put it is that one fizzled while two failed. As 70s nights fade, 80s nights are ruling, while 90s nights are still too fresh in our memories. To that, NKOTB provide an interesting lesson in nostalgia. There is value in carefully resurrecting old brands with a retro-cool feel that can draw from the well of pop culture’s goodwill.

Take Boones Farm Wine. No longer such a joke, right? What used to be down-market even by Kwiki Mart standards has T-shirts selling with the moniker at Saks; a fan site populated with photos of hipsters hitting the retro sauce (at boonesfarm.net), and more than a few celebrity endorsements by way of the groovier-than-thou tabloids.

Marketers have used old logos, promos, and slogans to reestablish emotional connections between brands and consumers for a while now. The smart ones, however, know the limits of this particular tactic. These must be short-lived, meant to give a jolt to a brand, not take the place of a genuine branding/rebranding effort. With that, you will note how McDonald’s may dust off old commercials every so often—but you will never see them completely going backward.

And that, my friends, is why this is the end for the Kids—quicker than you can say “blow your mind.” A quick splash of nostalgia-fueled fun, a couple of kitchsy (and well-covered) concerts, maybe even a new single grafted to a rerelease of a greatest hits collection…but that, folks, is it. Six months from now, it’s time to dust off the real estate licenses and go back to work.

As Linda Richmond might mutter: New Kids on the Block! Not new! Not kids! Discuss!

The Masters golf tournament opened Thursday. It is, in some ways, like Passover. It falls sometime in April, matters a great deal to a small segment of the population, and everyone else kind of looks up and thinks, “Oh, right, it’s probably time to take off the snow tires.”

But in recent years The Masters has been a somewhat bigger blip on America’s socio-cultural calendar, and for one reason: 11 Aprils ago, a man of mixed race months out of college went out there to take on the world’s best golfers (on a course, it should be noted, that for decades hadn’t allowed black members) and coolly destroyed them. Destroyed. Them. And ever since Tiger Woods put up the biggest winning margin at one of golf’s majors in over a century on its grandest stage, the tournament and the game have never been the same. The history from there is known. Tiger became the face of the sport and its best player. There were Nike ad campaigns, higher television ratings, swarming hordes in the galleries, etc. Blah blah-de-blah.

History and greatness and underdogs-cum-superstars attract eyes.

That’s old news, and has been the case in entertainment, sports, politics, and culture for the better part of forever. In everything there’s a pecking order. Bill Clinton will always draw a bigger crowd and a higher fee than Jimmy Carter. Meanwhile, that French lady who won the Best Actress Oscar this year will be forgotten by six months after THIS year’s telecast; Lindsay Lohan, with zero awards to her name, is roughly 20,000 times more famous. Just the way it is. And we like it that way.

But what’s interesting this particular week is not The Cult of the Superstar. It’s The Cult of the Narrative. It’s often said that we build up our heroes only to tear them down. And to justify the claim we hold up to the examples of Britney Spears and Eliot Spitzer and all the rest. But I think it’s only part of the story. It isn’t the downfall we crave - it’s the Grand Story. We are a culture of Fabulists and Fictionalists and Dreamers and Absolutists. Our mediasphere behaves accordingly. Sure, sometimes the Grand Story is a bit more tangled and harder to pinpoint (what is it, for instance, we eventually want Hillary to represent in the end, win or lose?), but most of the time we get a handle on it early and fit the facts to it.

Tiger Woods has failed to win four of the past five Masters tournaments. This, of course, does nothing to diminish his deserved status as the world’s best at what he does. But his superstar status doesn’t alone quite explain why 90% of the coverage and attention is devoted to him again this year. Yes, we get it, he has an exponentially better chance to win than any other single golfer, but somehow Las Vegas puts him “only” at about even odds to take the thing. Surely there must be some worthy stories out there among the dozens and dozens in the field?

In 2007, an unknown named Zach Johnson came from nowhere to win the thing. Catnip for a country that loves an underdog, right? Well, 12 months later, I think even Zach Johnson’s family is probably more interested in The Grand Tiger Narrative than they are in young Zach’s chances to repeat. And it’s because we like big, shiny, lasting arcs that we can take with us from one season to the next.

We like the Narrative. We like curling up and having ESPN (or Access Hollywood, MSNBC, you choose) filter out all those annoying subplots and details, the Zach Johnsons and the Marion Cotillards.

It’s the Narrative that is at work this weekend in Augusta, not the Known Superstar. And there aren’t many nuanced alternatives. Downfall is one, like what we’ve chosen for Britney. Glory is another, and it is Tiger’s at our behest. Some we build to tear down. But some we build to keep building and building and building.

If you live in New York and have left your home since the middle of March - a safe bet unless your governorship ended then - you’ve seen messages everywhere. Harsh little missives scribbled in black on a white background. On bus stops and taxis, billboards and buildings. They’re everywhere. And they’ve blanketed Los Angeles and Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco, too. The petty taunts of a scorned lover.

“My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall.”

“You Do Look Fat in Those Jeans, Sarah Marshall.”

“I’m SO Over you, Sarah Marshall.”

“Wow!,” you think. “Someone really pissed off her boyfriend and, hoo boy, he is NOT shy about airing their dirty laundry! The claws have come out!! Also: he must have remarkable reserves of disposable income and a great deal of free time. Hey, wait . . . I have disposable income! Just about eleven dollars and fifty cents. I wonder if there’s an easy way to spend it, quickly and mechanically . . .”

Of course, that isn’t what happens. Among the sentient, or at least among those young, gorgeously media savvy who got wise when they got born, “mysterious messages” mean only one thing: a bit of viral marketing. I’ve seen cryptic things plastered on bus stops and subway stations. They don’t carry trademarks or even directions to a Web presence.

“Forgetting Sarah Marshall” is the latest movie to emerge from the Judd Apatow comedy industrial complex. To build buzz, Universal hit major cities with the signs. The goal: get people to ask, “Who is this freaky Sarah Marshall?” Read her official bio on http://www.sarahmarshallfan.com/. And then, presumably, to ask: “When will my local multiplex answer this question, as it has so many others for me?”

I’m going to see it, yeah. You know why? Because it’s Judd Apatow and I get his style. Also because most of the people I know will see it (again, ONLY because it’s Judd Apatow - not because it stars the dude from “How I Met My Mom” who strangely is NAMED Marshall on that show…). Anyway, you know that we all tend to see movies that other people see. I, like you, can predict the “Marshall” plot with 85% accuracy from the 2-minute trailer. I can also probably predict with 85% accuracy how much I’m going to enjoy it. There’s very little about the movie that can be described as intriguing. It’s a romantic comedy. There will be dirty jokes. It’ll be kind of like Knocked Up and Superbad, and then we’ll all wait for the next one and wonder what new “taboo” will be discussed (bro-mantic love? pregnancy between a beauty and a beast?).

Anyone who plops down in the stadium-style seating on Forgetting Sarah Marshall’s opening night does so after seeing “wacky, cutting-edge” buzz scheme and shrugged “Oh.” Its core audience is too “alternative marketing”-bombarded to pull double takes at a major motion picture studio’s carpet bombing of focus grouped ad copy, no matter where that copy shows up. And the people who see the movie on its second weekend do so merely because their friends’ kids said it was a riot.

And oh yeah if you go to SarahMarshall.com, you see an allegedly “self-made” Web page with YOU ARE THE 17280th PERSON TO HATE SARAH MARSHALL. We’re naive to believe it…. But at least it isn’t smacking us over the head like so much bad advertising.

We all know the saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer. For celebrities and the press, it’s more cardinal law than old saw. There ain’t much choice.

But in the TMZ Era – which makes the US Weekly Era years back seem like a Norman Rockwell portrait of tranquility –savvy celebs are more creative in how they manage that schizoid relationship.

Today’s lesson, girls and boys and trannies, is the fake wedding.

George Clooney ambled by Today Show yesterday to promote his new movie, the one about leather. While talking shop with Meredith V, Clooney admitted gloriously loving all of the false rumors and media fodder. His favorite rumor? False one about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie were slated to marry at his house a couple of years ago.

In order to really bring the story to life, Clooney ordered tables and chairs to be placed in his backyard. Oh, that guy! The paparassholes, along with the rest of the world except me, waited with baited breath to catch a glimpse, even a peak at the couple. The wedding never happened but the story sure did.

Just this past week nearly every tabloid EVER and those in the seemingly bored bloggy-sphere tattled about Brangelina having tied the knot in New Orleans. According to Star’s site, “Sources in a position to have information regarding a secret wedding ceremony between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie had confirmed to Star that the couple married in the French Quarter Wedding Chapel on Saturday, March 29.”

Pitt’s publicist played on the rumors claiming she had “no idea” as to whether or not the story was actually true. Hmmmm, likely. Of course, Star along with every other weekly, gossip show and online mag had to retract the story. Double the coverage! (Let me put this into context, those sites got more hits from this story than Amy Winehouse from a crack pipe. That’s a lotta hits.) Another wedding is set to launch, rather is scheduled for TODAY, and this time it’s Jay-Z and

Beyonce—both of whom have launches currently occurring that need heat behind ‘em. Perez Hilton suspects they chose April 4^th because they are both born on the fourth day of their respective months – put it together, you get 4/4. I know…sham or leaked plan or just way too much thought for two future Trivial Pursuit answers…we shall need to wait and see. And finally, while A-listers like Brangelina and Jay-B lead the pack, the rest of Hollywood isn’t too far behind. Heard of a promise ring? Young Hollywood is so crazy for these. They are tokens of love to put Eliot Spitzer’s hooker-tab to shame. Celebrities wave to the paps, new bling ablaze and gee is it an engagement or a marriage or a baby or whah? Everyone wins here. We’re entertained, they’re famous and the media makes money. It’s fun, right. And ridiculous. What more can America in its Mediocre Period want?