For some of us, April Fools' Day is the worst day on the calendar.
By "us," I mean the type that could be described as "gullible." Those who, I don't know, "tend to trust their fellow man." A certain lot that "often assumes bad things will happen to them at every turn, so when you tell them bad things just happened, even on April 1, they will believe you." That "us."
And making it worse, the people who enjoy April Fools' Day know who "we" are. It's no secret. There's a directory/listserv/message board community dedicated to our names, phone numbers, blood types, addresses, and locations for the 24-hour period of terror. Bad times.
The traps are everywhere, with each passing year proving more difficult to determine what's real and what's prank. If I had mastered the art of avoiding them all, I'd certainly enlighten the vulnerable masses, but I haven't. Not even close. What I can do, however, is outline some common pitfalls and guaranteed constants, and state that April Fools' Day immediately following Easter is like Adele opening for Carl Lewis.
I bet all you Timberhaters who predicted Justin would flop after "Suit & Tie" feel dumb now that you heard the album! Unless you don't like grown and sexy music to make babies to, in which case I'm not sure we can be friends anymore. There was a worldwide collective sigh of relief after Justin dropped his second single from The 20/20 Experience. "Mirrors" is considered a safer bet than "Suit & Tie" even though it's more than eight minutes long. Maybe it's telling that Justin's big love song about his ideal partner compares her to a mirror by which he may better look at himself, but look, I choose to interpret it as a sweet "I'll Be Your Mirror"–type thing. As for all the people who thought Justin should bench Timbaland because his beats are tired, do you still like those Aaliyah songs? Because Timbaland is still the guy who made them, so sit down. Sure, it's a little embarrassing to hear Justin sing so earnestly about love and know it's about Jessica Biel, but it's exactly what we all love about Justin: He commits! And then he gives 100 percent. If your heart doesn't crack when Timberlake's voice does at 4:35, I can't help you. No one can. Grade: A Best YouTube Comment: "Move over Bieber, Daddys Home." —Drew Carrey
From Kirstie Alley oversharing about conspiring with George Wendt to snap a picture of Ted Danson's dick during the Cheers years to the revelation that Mel Gibson is dating Jennifer Aniston's body double, this year we learned more than we could have possibly ever wanted to about celebrities.
After seven years, several serious-ish boyfriends, and countless offscreen episodes of TGS, Liz Lemon is a married woman. Last week's 30 Rock saw Liz making it legal with handsome slacker boyfriend Criss Chros (James Marsden). Liz eschewed her original plan to elope in sweats at City Hall in favor of a more formal event, replete with Tony Bennett and a Princess Leia bridal gown. You'll have to forgive me for replicating the famous Lemon eye-roll when I learned that Liz had secret white-wedding fantasies concealed under all her anti-romance bluster. It was somewhat trying to watch Liz realize that her tireless hatred of the culturally enforced marriage-industrial complex was a defensive reaction to her true heart's deepest wish, which just happened to be a ceremony like the ones on Bravo's Wedding Bitches. I found myself rooting for witness Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters) to pound on some glass and break up the wedding, The Graduate–style.
Scarlett Johansson Is Depressed: "She was totally out of control in Moscow recently" at a champagne brand's promo event. "She was drinking nonstop and barely slept. It was obvious that she was trying to numb her feelings." She's sad about her breakup with ad exec Nate Naylor. "She's not used to going home alone — it's a shock to her system. The fact that Ryan Reynolds is happily married while she's single again has done a number on her. And the drinking is taking its toll — she's been crying because she feels so fat." She got a lucky horseshoe tattooed on her ribcage "because she's feeling a bit unlucky." A rebound with ex-boyfriend Jared Leto quickly went south. "She thought a fling with Jared would make her feel better, but since it was only a hookup, it only made things worse." Time for Lost in Translation 2? I know I'd pay good money to watch Scarlett be sad in Russia.
Kirstie Alley's Juicy Memoir Is All About Men: She dated Tim 'Otter' Matheson in the early '80s "until one fateful night when his secret fiancée's unexpected visit forced Kirstie to escape out the window." It was then that she learned, "don't trust actors, no matter how many éclairs they offer you." She and Patrick Swayze had an emotional affair during '85 miniseries North and South while they were both married to other people. "Patrick told Kirstie that he was falling in love with her and she, in turn, begged him, unsuccessfully, to have sex." As in she begged him unsuccessfully or the sex was unsuccessful in some way? "This man and I never had sex or did sexual things, but I consider what we did more dangerous and a betrayal to our spouses." Does they mean they played, like, really steamy games of Connect Four?
Alley fantasized about Ted Danson and his "big dick" during her time on Cheers, although she never got to sample the merchandise. The cast once conspired to photograph Danson in the shower, but "things didn't go according to plan." Kirstie says, "George Wendt kicked the door open. I snapped the photo of the naked Ted. I swear to God he was well endowed. I would show you the picture, but my hands were shaky." She calls handsome Dancing With the Stars Maksim Chmerkovskiy pro "mysterious" as well as "capricious, rude, thoughtless, and bossy. He is also gentle, childlike, fragile, and sensitive." Be sure to take Alley's revelations with a lot of salt. She also claims she and John Travolta fell in love during Look Who's Talking, although they never hooked up. It's possible some of these passionate love affairs may have taken place mainly in her imagination. I wanna see the receipts.
Every week, Hollywood Prospectus editor and masochistically devoted mainstream-radio listener Emily Yoshida will pick an aging Top 40 hit that she has heard enough times to render the song meaningless, and thus likely to inspire otherwise inaccessible epiphanies.
Weeks on Chart: 37 Peak: No. 3 on Billboard's Hot 100, March 31, 2012 Current Radio Play Frequency Like no. 85 or something on KIIS FM's Playlist
The Wanted are a British boy band who are generally considered to be the older, more dangerous version of One Direction. There is also, apparently, some Wanted–One Direction beef, which means that you have to pick which side you are on right now. If I'm going strictly off of the songs I've heard of each (which is a limited but fair sampling, I think), I'm probably Team Wanted. Once Sasha Frere-Jones pointed out in The New Yorker that all 1D songs sound like Katy Perry, whatever luster there was kind of wore off for me. The Wanted just sound like five hot dudes singing different versions of Taio Cruz's "Dynamite" (Cruz worked on their debut album, which of course he did), which I can't picture myself getting sick of anytime soon.
Sean Fennessey: By the standards of 2010's The Monitor, the breakthrough album from New Jersey's gallant punks Titus Andronicus, "In a Big City" is a modest yelp. Which is to say, it's not seven minutes long and it's not a parable about how the Civil War is like beating the malaise of living in your parent's basement. Then again, this is a three-and-half-minute song that quotes Hamlet ("Who would fardels bear to grunt and sweat") before closing things out with "I'm a dirty bum, but I wipe my own ass." That's Titus front man Patrick Stickles's move, though: high-low; treasure-trash; champion-loser. The band's new album, Local Business is out October 22. Expect genius slop.
Just like with the Opening Ceremony — which rode a wave of geese and sheep and horses and cows and chickens and ducks to critical acclaim — the exact details of the Olympics Closing Ceremony are being kept under wraps. But some idea of what we'll be seeing on Sunday night has now been unveiled. And it sounds like what the Closing Ceremony will lack in farm animals, it'll make up for in famous musicians from throughout British history.
There are only three reasons to listen to the Billboard Top 10 on a continuous loop for 10 hours:
1. You're 13 years old.
2. You love pop music.
3. You're a masochist.
Options 2 and 3 would apply to me. I'm not the type of masochist who locks himself in a room and blasts these 10 songs on a loop because he has nothing else to do but listen and cry. I'm the type who has the entire music library at his disposal, but decides to spend his long workday blasting the 10 most popular songs in America into his ears. That's me. The songs:
Hey, it's that song! I know this song! Grade: C Best YouTube Comment: "I don't always listen to soft Music but when I do it I listen to this" —metal103
