American Gladiators Sucks: Part Deux

So I haven't tuned in to another episode of this trainwreck (the bad kind, not the entertaining kind). But I did end up happening upon a few hilarious tidbits of information.

American Gladiators is already re-upped for a second season
Yes, it's coming back. I'm going to blame it on the writer's strike. It doing well, ratings-wise. Gladiators had the highest-rated debut for NBC since Heroes premiered. As of last Monday, NBC dominated the ratings. Deal or No Deal started it off and Gladiators helped continue the trend. However, ratings for Gladiators did drop from the previous week and I have to think that the Deal or No Deal lead-in helps. That shit is on in the gym constantly (Deal or No Deal), so I'm assuming people like it. Good news, apparently the Gladiators are all tested for steroids. Doesn't everybody just assume they take steroids? Who cares anyway?

MGM is creating an American Gladiators cartoon
I'm not really sure who the hell came up with this idea or how it got any support... but I can't wait to trash that stupidity once it's on the air. But according to the press release:

With the show's strong ratings, MGM along with Johnny Ferraro, owner of Flor-Jon, Films Inc. have put into development a cartoon series based on the "American Gladiators" franchise.

The press release also goes on to say that the Gladiators are going on tour WWE-style. They're also launching a website paying homage to the old series (hey, at least they had one good idea). Chances of the Gladiators cartoon airing an entire season: 5 to 1.

One of the recent American Gladiators contestants was in softcore porn
You too can be on the new American Gladiators. Just visit NBC's casting section. It's a sure-fire way to boost your career if you're a struggling actor, right? Well that's what Belinda Gavin figured.

Belinda is a 36-year-old bull rider originally from Australia. She grew up on ranches in Australia and was regularly taunted and dared to do things even the boys wouldn't do. Her bravado stayed with her when she immigrated to the United States 15 years ago, leading her to become a bull rider. She currently lives in Burbank, California.

Well, I guess she can still technically qualify as a bull rider. But Belinda Gavin's IMDB entry lists credits in features such as: Bikini Round Up, Bikini Chain Gang, Bikini Airways, Wicked Pleasures, and Passionate Deceptions. Bikini Airways was great, but I felt the series really fell off after that... oh yeah, her pseudonym is Kylie Wyote (you know, like Wile E. Coyote).


Can we just bring back Larry Csonka and Mike Adamle? This piece of garbage needs to die.

FoxNews Entertain-e-ment Experts!

I was watching the O'Reilly Factor the other night. Don't worry -- it's purely for entertainment purposes. I actually used to watch it somewhat regularly about four or five years ago (I also used to watch a lot of MSNBC's broadcast of Imus... I'm a weird guy). The Factor was spot-on as usual (kidding) when they decided to discuss the ENTERTAINEMENT business.

I might put more stock in FoxNews entertainment coverage if they could spell the word correctly

After bringing up Heath Ledger and showing some video of a throng of paparazzi outside of his house, O'Reilly clumsily segued to Oscar nominees. Reviewing the list, O'Reilly declared that he wouldn't see Atonement because it's British and he "doesn't understand the accents" ... ok. He went on to say that Juno was the best movie on the list (haven't seen it, can't disagree) and that There Will Be Blood was unwatchable because people can't "watch oil" for nearly three hours. He also dismissed No Country for Old Men because he didn't understand the ending. Insightful.

The next part was the most entertaine-ing though. Along with his FoxNews cronies (read: scrubs) Jill Dobson and Bill McCuddy, O'Reilly launched into a diatribe about how the Best Picture nominees don't match up with the top box office earners of the year. Huh? So what? I guess it was an attempt at his usual "sticking up for the common man so nobody can challenge me unless they're against America argument, but it really made no sense at all.

O'Reilly jumped the shark in 2002. He used to actually be able to at least provide entertainment value, but now his subjects (whether people or topics of discussion) are just punching bags. Although, I still get immense pleasure from reading his sexual harassment complaint. I mean, what guy doesn't masturbate with a vibrator?

Mobile Post: How Do You Get 1000 Girls to a Party?

You send out hundreds of tickets to beautiful women. I became a
machine today.

Does your "Dream Job" involve naked women?

The title of this post actually refers to a lucky bastard named Mark Frazier. Mark is a professional artist and one of his skills happens to be bodypainting. Surprisingly enough, my dream job does not involve nude women. Well, maybe there's some way to make that happen as a TV/movie producer, but that's a long, long time away.

He's a veteran in this field -- with numerous Playboy covers. You've seen his work most recently on the cover of February 2008 with Tiffany Fallon as Wonder Woman, but my personal favorite is October 2005 with Sara Jean Underwood and Victoria Thornton painted with Oregon State and Arizona State jerseys respectively. Oh yeah, he also paints girls for most of Hef's Playboy Mansion events. Are you already looking up airbrushing lessons online?

One of my responsibilities for Playboy's Super Saturday Night (our party during Super Bowl weekend), is to get all of the bodypainting taken care of. It was pretty much a no-brainer to hire Mark for this year's festivities. So I'm operating as his co-pilot/navigator (whichever has less responsibility) on this project. I have to give him direction for designs and revisions and pass them back to the rest of the Super Bowl event team. I also have to supervise on-site -- which means I have to make sure the bodypainted designs are applied correctly (translation: in between running around and doing everything else at the event, I have to pop in and make sure the naked girls are painted with the right designs). Arizona nudity laws mandate that the girls must wear latex thongs and pasties, so it's not quite as x-rated as some would hope.

Bodypainted girls with Usher Raymond IV from Detroit in 2006 & Bodypainted girls from 2007 in Miami


The process started with Mark sending us a few of his mockups. Unfortunately, that didn't fit with our theme -- so we had to go back to the well a few times. Mark has been fantastic with his correspondence and you can see the evolution of designs below. I can't give away the theme, but I can tell you that one of the girls will be a bellhop and another will be a French maid (more below).






Two girls will actually get to wear a small amount of clothing that's not made out of latex. It's pretty hilarious that I had to buy a French maid hat and Bellhop hat. I'll probably throw away the rest of the French maid costume -- it's not like I'm gonna wear it.

So the next step is picking the models with my co-worker Kaki. I didn't help out with this last year but apparently some of the requirements are no "saggy boobs", no visible stretch marks, and no "bumpy nipples/areola". Please keep in mind that I DID NOT make these up -- so don't get mad at me for being a shallow asshole (a girl came up with them!). Katie Ludwig from OneSource Talent had auditions for models and Kaki and I will review the pictures this week. Sounds good to me.

If you can't get to SSN '08, I'll be covering all of the events for my blog. Stay tuned!

Becoming Less Fat

About a week ago I started my new routine in an effort to become less fat before I go to Cabo (March 7, also my birthday).

Back when I used to be athletic, I would be about 175 if I was lean and working out consistently and maybe 185 if I'm jacked. I'd guess that when I started, (and I'm incredibly accurate) I was about 189 (with more fat than I'd like, but I have been lifting off and on lately) -- I've probably dropped a few pounds since I started. The plan is to lift two days in a row (and do 20-30 minutes of the stationary bike after) and then a third day of just cardio (hopefully 50-60 minutes or more).

Pumping Iron - I work out these days mostly for vanity. I forgot to sign up for indoor soccer for the winter season and it's not like lifting weights would help much. I don't even have my hockey equipment in New York, so these are purely beach muscles. I've added cardio to my routine because I need to lose some fat. In the prior 3 months or so, I had made the decision to become obese. One expert says that's a lifestyle choice that many Americans are making these days. My routine is below...

It's not exactly the "300 workout"


Day 1
chest: flies, incline press with dumbbells, decline with cables when available, dips, pushups on the mat with swiss ball(s)... I usually do them in that order and I'm not doing many pushups at the end
abs: seated spinal twist, leg lifts, hoist/crunch machine, plank on the mat
and a not that much for triceps (dips, extensions).

Day 2
back: seated row, seated high row, lat pulldown with arm handles,
shoulders: rear deltoid, shoulder press, lateral raise
bicep: preacher curls, reverse curls, neutral position curls

Then the third day, I do cardio for an extremely long time. We'll see how it works out. The diet part is always really, really hard for me... and I'm not putting that much effort into it right now.

American Gladiators sucks

Ben Silverman (NBC programming czar) has been responsible for a number of remakes (Gladiators, Bionic Woman, Knight Rider) in his short tenure at the top. It's a simple formula... take something that was good, update it, and you'll have something good, right? The problem is that the original American Gladiators was awesome and the new version simply feels like an off-brand ripoff. Why?

Annoying Format - Interviewing gladiators and contestants (both corny)... I had the pleasure of hearing "Wolf" talk some trash, non-stop power-orchestra music and cheesy announcer

Wolf... is not gay?


Shitty Eliminator - No Gladiators, the stupid barrel roll part, seemingly no consequences for fucking up on the Eliminator (which happens on every single stage), and amazingly, they didn't bring back the paper barrier ending which was by far the most entertaining part... one woman contestant's winning comment was "it's a lot harder than it looks!"... oh really? It's on TV, so it SHOULD look hard.

You can see the sweet, paper barrier a little after the 1:00 mark


The Prize - Some cash, product placement, and reality component. I mean $100,000 + Toyota Sequoia + Chance to be an American Gladiator. Do we really want to see regular people as Gladiators?

The reason I characterized this as an "an off-brand ripoff" is because I saw RollerJam at Universal Studios back in the day. It actually used the same studio that Gladiators used in its last season. Same roided-out-men-in-tights with extreme sports (roller derby on rollerblades... except for one guy that wore rollerskates) and when I saw it live, it was extremely boring. The new Gladiators rustled up that feeling for the first time in a long time. Can anybody convince me that it's entertaining?

Mark D'Amato, one of the RollerJam headliners, was also known as the "Quadfather" because he used rollerskates

Mobile Post @ MSG

I'm here at the Garden watching the Knickerbockers DESTROY the
Pistons. It defies all logic. Z-Bo is tearing it up and Jared
Jeffries has three highlight-worthy shots. At the the time of this
post, the Pistons are down by 29.

This is truly shocking. Right now, Tayshaun has 0 points and Rip has
3. McDyess is the only Pistons player worth a damn tonight. I've seen
a lot of Afflalo and Stuckey. Maxiell has gotten some time and even
Fabio-style Walter Hermann has gotten into the game. I'm still
wondering who the massive white guy on the Pistons is (later
identified as Brezec). I haven't seen an NBA game since Spurs/Pistons
game 6 of the finals in San Antonio.

I just came within two rows of a catching a shirt slingshotted by the
Knicks City Dancers. I would have gotten physical with the 11 year old
in front of me if it had been shot one row higher. It was very similar
to a Yankee game about ten years ago. The kid in front of me brought a
catcher's mitt. He kept acting out a fantasy where he caught a foul
ball over his head. Make no mistake... had a ball come our way, I
would have elevated to make the grab.

We also saw a sweet wheelchair basketball game. Rest of the shitty
iPhone pics to come later.

FYI - Playboy is likely having two parties in LA and Boston for the
slam dunk/skills on February 16. Be there!