All hail Simon Amstell!

[The Curmudgeon]

Music interviews are usually a boring affair. A musician puffed up on self importance being asked carefully screened questions by some timid, eager to please "interviewer." Garbage.

Then there's Simon Amstell.

Before being fired from Nickelodeon for being "mean to the children," Amstell made a name for himself hosting "hangover TV" Popworld on Sunday mornings. What should have been straight forward interviews soon turned into surreal discussions and baffling interview techniques. I can't find it on Youtube, but there's a crappy UK Popstar called Lemar, and Simon performed the interview in a parking lot, with him on one end and Lemar on the other, calling it "Lemar From Afar." He conducted the interview shouting through a megaphone at Lemar.

As well as making Britney Spears cry on TV by asking her if she's "gone a bit nuts", there's this beyond uncomfortable interview with an obviously "once bitten twice shy" and VERY guarded Marilyn Manson. Highlights being when Simon asks if he "enjoyed" Avril Lavigne and also giving Manson a wedding present..



And agreed this time, Manson haters - he's an utter dick here.

This next bit made a bit of a splash in the media. Preston, lead singer of super suck band The Ordinary Boys, gave up all hopes of ever being taken seriously when he not only appeared in Celebrity Big Brother, he also MARRIED the winner; a fake celebrity (she said she was in a band when she was a BB plant the entire time) who quickly brought a book out about her time in BB. Preston, from the very first minute, obviously regrets setting foot in the studio. Watch the sheer HATRED in his eyes..



Then there's THIS comment, which also caused a bit of heat, and it caused worried BBC bosses to print the large disclaimer when the show aired...




There's no Youtube clips to do this guy justice, quite frankly. He's totally fearless, either when dealing with celebs on his show (to Keith Chegwin, renowned alcoholic, "I'm sorry it's the wrong answer. Please don't start drinking,") or about those that deserve it (about comedian Peter Kay's DVD, "I'm going to buy it as a Christmas present for someone stupid that I hate").


The Curmudgeon always tries to include references and threads dedicated to the very best talent that TV has to offer. Simon Amstell can comfortably sit with the very best.

[trashcanman]

"Did I enjoy Avril Lavigne? Yes. Yes I did." [winks at camera] How hard is that? Willies? Marylin fucking Manson thinks the word "willies" is foul?!?! In America children use that word or ding-dong in place of "dick". How does somebody dressed like that take themselves so seriously? I would crush that man in an interview. He gets off easy.

That second bit was damn funny.

BOOM BITCHES!!!!! That was the sound of that disclaimed remark. So funny. Love's handling of the largely ignored allegations makes her seem more guilty than any of the evidence.

[The Curmudgeon]

Yeah, I thought you'd like that bit, Trash.

So - what's YOUR verdic on this whole Kurt/Suicide thing? Personally, I think it's complete shit, and just another reason for hacks to sell "The Truth" books.

[trashcanman]

I'd like it to be true because I hate Courtney Love with a passion, but I am a skeptic. The documentary "Kurt and Courtney" makes a very strong case and as I said her behavior regarding the matter is bizarre and suspicious, but I am not some fanatic who believes every conspiracy that I hear. I consider it a possibility, but at the end of the day I don't really care. Funny that these JFK, 9-11, and Tupac conspiracies are all over the place and the one that is blatant FACT and is genuinely disturbing gets overlooked. America, these are your great leaders: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCollum_memo

This is to say that the American government during WWII had an 8-step plan to instigate a war with Japan, which would allow America to wage war on their ally, Hitler. All they had to do was get Japan to bomb us so that the American public would side with the war and abandon the isolationism they had favored. Every step of the plan was enacted by FDR including the threatening/taunting move of sending our entire fleet to Pearl Harbor, the closest American soil to Japan. Almost all evidence shows that the resulting Japanese attack wasn't a surprise. In fact, FDR was counting on sacrificing those American lives. All so that his decision to join WWII would be a popular one. But I've never met a person who knows any of this. Conspiracy theory becomes conspiracy fact and nobody reports it because we would rather live a lie. Shameful.

[The Curmudgeon]

Yet again Trashy you continue to educate here at the Fortress. I had no idea this even happened - why isn't this more commonly known?

[trashcanman]

People don't want to know. We've built up such a heroic mythos around that event (right, Michael Bay?) that the truth simply is not acceptable. And when confronted, the argument is always that there is no proof that the document ever made it into FDR's hands. Well, he enacted every single thing on that list and I don't believe in coincidence so kiss that argument goodbye. We had planes in China shooting down Japanese aircraft well before that as well. The Japanese could have handled it better (and shouldn't have been invading China to begin with), but when you consider the firebombings of civilians who lived in paper houses and dropping not one but TWO FUCKING ATOMIC BOMBS when one would have done the trick America's response was inhuman. Hitler was one thing and we should have declared war on him earlier, public opinion be damned, but demolishing Japan in the process was unnecessary and unfortunate. But we did get Godzilla out of the deal so all the death and destruction wasn't all for naught.