IS IT JUST ME, or are all these reality shows driving you CRAZY?!? I’m tellin’ ya, you can’t swing a dead cat on TV without smacking Survivor, Big Brother, Real World, Road Rules, or that weird real-estate infomercial featuring the two twin midgets. And it’s infecting my everyday life, too! I can’t even take a […]
Wm. Steven Humphrey
Bang bang, choo-choo train, let me see you shake that thang.
Wm. Steven Humphrey is the editor-in-chief of the Portland Mercury and has held the job since 2000. (So don’t get any funny ideas.)
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
Bring Out Your Dead!
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but I think the dead can be really annoying. For the longest time, I thought I didn’t have to worry about the deadbecause, well, they’re dead. But apparently the dead aren’t as dead as they claim to be, because there are all these movies and TV shows that claim dead […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
Bon Jovi’s Drool
HUZZAH! The results are in! After two excruciating weeks, the final numbers from the I Love Television™ Readers’™ Poll™ have been crunched and tallied by my crack team of illegal Chinese immigrants. And though they’re being shipped back today, I’d like to congratulate them on a job well done, and present each with a container […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
Iron Chef Rules!
FIRST THINGS FIRST! There have been so many responses to my recent I Love Television™ poll–concerning what readers would lower themselves to do on television (up to and including allowing Jon Bon Jovi to drool in their mouths)–that my Commodore 64 computer had a mainframe meltdown. Not to worry, though! I’ve hired a troupe of […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
PEOPLE, IT’S A FACT! I loves me some Buffy the Vampire Slayer. However! As is often the case in relationships, right when you express your love, that’s when they suddenly confess, “Oh did I happen to mention I’m a Republican crack whore with a wooden leg and a permanent yeast infection?” Though there aren’t any […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
Sure, I’d Do It!
IT’S OFFICIAL! America LOVES “reality-based” shows. Gone are the days when sweaty cigarette-smoking scriptwriters sat in darkened rooms, cranking out tired-ass plots for even more tired-ass sitcoms. The way most TV executives figure it, why should they pay big bucks to some failed theater major to write a crappy script for Touched on the Swimsuit […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Mercury Video Picks
Salute Your Television
Celebrate your independence by sitting on your fat can and watching these red, white, and blue flicks on the tube! • Fantastic Voyage (1966)–Itty-bitty scientists take the scenic route though a dying man’s blood stream with hubba-hubba Raquel Welch! (Sat July 1, 11 am, AMC) • Rocky (1976)–Sylvester Stallone represents a white America who can’t […]
Posted inI Love Television
The Evil Within
THOUGH ONE MAY find it shocking, there are certain people in this world who consider me to be “evil incarnate.” They take one look at me and say, “Hey, now there’s a guy who would most certainly thump lit cigarettes at a passing kitten, tell children their parents are putting them up for adoption, and […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
Good News, Bad News
I SWEAR TO CHRIST, there are two phrases in this world that if I hear one more time, I’m going to stroke out. One of them is “The proof is in the pudding.” I HATE that fawking phrase! You only ever hear it from the mouth of some hyper-intellectual doorknob who’s trying to bring you […]
Posted inI Love Television
I Love Television
The Sole Survivor
KNOW WHAT’S great about having your own column? NOT A GODDAM THING. Oh, sure, everybody thinks just because you have a column, life is filled with prostitutes and candy corn–but it’s a LIE. The burden of having a terrifically popular column can be practically overwhelming. For example, people are always stopping me to say, “Hey, […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Eat This
Breaking Rules with John Waters
IS A DRAG QUEEN MUNCHING on a real piece of dog poop as shocking as it used to be? It still makes my gag reflex do flip-flops–which, considering the things I’ve put in my mouth, really says something. Director Steve Yeager explores this issue and other tabooisms in Divine Trash; his tribute to the masters […]