Twilight (Years)

Equal air time be damned! Saturday Night Live makes a political statement this weekend and that statement is TEAM JACOB. Taylor Lautner, aka New Moon’s Jacob Black, treads the boards in Studio 8A tomorrow night, along with musical guest Bon Jovi, a band nine years older than he is a person. Let’s chronJOVIology this into perspective. By the time Taylor Lautner was born all this had already happened for the Jov:

• Years of toiling in obscurity in already-obscure New Jersey before achieving massive international success with their lady-looking brand of manly love rock on the seminal album Slippery When Wet:

• Another album which was good but less good followed by a two-year “break” (international code for “if I do awesome without you we’re officially broken up and if not, I’ll see you when I fail”) that brought us mostly crap, but also this sturdy classic:

• A softer, more adult contemporary Bon Jovi, reunited to take the music world by light drizzle. Nine millions albums sold, none of them to cool people. I know because I was one of those buyers. Probably even lamely sang along to this wet rag:

What a fruity Bruce Springsteen ripoff that song is. Emphasis on the BRUCE, knowwhatI’msaying? A couple of you probably do.

Right around this time Taylor Lautner was born, and his first words were probably “Bon Jovi sucks!” Because from that point on Bon Jovi did suck. Which is not to say they made bad music – I don’t know good from bad music – only that they made rock for old people and in pop music terms that means they suck. In January of 1993, their suckitude fresh and potent, they performed on Saturday Night Live for the first time. Nearly seventeen years later, alongside a fully sprouted seedling from their last great harvest, they will suck up that hallowed stage for a fifth time.

Just think, a baby born right now could one day go on to host Saturday Night Live with musical guest Bon Jovi. Check your babies, maybe you have a winner!

As for Young Jacob Black, who can predict how he’ll do tomorrow night. Taylor Swift turned in this season’s finest performance so far and January Jones its worst. Dramatic actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt was pretty good. Comedic actor Ryan Reynolds was so-so. So if Taylor Lautner is surprisingly not bad don’t surprised…wait…how does that…?…let’s just watch and see. I mean, I saw New Moon, so I know the boy has his limitations, but I’m sure SNL will find a way to play to his strengths (abdominals).

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

The Days of the Math

Tuesday I re-posted the shit out of Conan. Thursday I spouted off about Twilight. Add ‘em up and you get a re-post of Conan spouting off about Twilight on Friday. Tuesday + Thursday = Friday: It’s the Conangorean theorem. That’s what we in the business refer to as a sheep joke: It’s baaaaaaaaad. That was also a sheep joke. Now here’s a wolf joke:

Conan, you’ve saved me from having to write jokes once again. Luckily I’ve got Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Jason Sudeikis to do the remainder of the heavy lifting with this week’s SNL preview. I love this being lazy with the joke writing thing. If idle hands are the devil’s plaything then Miss Mary Mack these mitts, Satan! While we do that, you watch this:

If it wasn’t for NBC this post would be shorter than Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Love his work, just didn’t realize the greatest trick he ever pulled was convincing the world he’s not a midget. And I thought he was good on 3rd Rock! Another joke courtesy of NBC.

Wait a minute: Was JG-L a child actor back then or a midget playing young? Let it go, blogger. This investigation leads nowhere good.

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

Don’t Feel Bad For Loving Monsters

There’s this movie coming out tomorrow and you REALLY want to see it. It’s about vampires fighting werewolves and vampires fighting vampires and werewolves fighting werewolves, all over a salaciously-spooked, storm-soaked Kristen Stewart. Awesome! But you’re afraid to tell anyone you REALLY want to see it because 14 year-old girls comprise a large portion of its audience.

Fear naught, movie-goers, you can enjoy Twilight: New Moon without recently getting your first period. It’s about monsters fighting, for Chrissakes!

It’s true, the Twilight Saga has marketed itself to a young, shrieking demographic. Anything that isn’t marketed towards the young shriekers id practically begging to lose money. Young girls spend ALL the money. If there’s any chance your creation might appeal to young girls you exploit that to the fullest. The Beatles did, and their songs were still hipped by cool adults. The only people who didn’t like The Beatles were the stuffy dads of all those hormonal girls and even they may have liked the music were their hormonal daughters not giving The Beatles ALL their money. Either way, would you rather be more like a stuffy dad?

New Moon is going to be an exciting movie and hormonal teenage girls going “ga-ga-ooh-la-la” over its tale of endless, impossible love and shirtlessness doesn’t change that. The hoopla is just hullabaloo. You don’t have to register a vote in the Teen Beat sex polls pitting Pattinson against Lautner. You don’t have to read the fan fiction or attend the conventions. You just have to enjoy movies where monsters fight each other. Don’t worry about what young girls are doing. That’s a good lesson for all of life.

The reality is, everything you love as a snob or a hipster or a critic or a connoisseur or an intellectual or a douchebag will eventually fail unless teenagers decide otherwise. Everything you love is for sale. And they spend ALL the money. When you occasionally like the same thing as them, don’t scorn it or cast it aside. Embrace it like you do with your precious Harry Potter books-turned-movies. Because it’s a rare opportunity to love something that lasts. Sure, the Twilight books are dumber, but the movies star fewer ugly people. It’s a trade-off. So, c’mon, give it a shot. Don’t be a snob. Or a hipster. Or a critic. You get the picture.

My name is Ben and I blogged this.