ARG! With Me
By Adam Griffin, Entertainment Editor, Buhner.com

“For a time, I considered sparing your wretched little planet.  Now you shall witness… IT’S DISMEMBERMENT!”

-Orson Welles

I first heard that particular quote back in 1986, when I was but six years old and already being shaped by the world around me.  I had already been banned from watching MTV and all other music video programs (this was back when Nickelodeon showed videos as part of their daily lineup), and I was well on my way to growing up under the watchful eye of my parents like any other normal kindergartener.

However, on this particular day I was exposed to something that would change my life forever.  It was on this day that I learned that the good guys can die, and the bad guys can get away.  I realized just how powerful the world of entertainment could be.  Most importantly, I found out that people will pay their hard earned money to see a critically panned film, as my dad did exactly that when he bought the both of us tickets to see Transformers: The Movie.  The circumstances behind that particular Orson Welles quote?  He was playing a planet-sized world-devouring robot.

At this point, you’re probably wondering two things: number one, who the hell is this joker writing all this crap, and number two, what the hell is the point of all this anyway?  Well, to answer the first question, my name is Adam Griffin, and I’m the Entertainment Editor (as Tom likes to call me) of Buhner.com.   Each and every week I’ll be writing about the world of entertainment, and since the entertainment industry branches off into many different areas, there’s no limit as to what this column can cover.  Basically, if there’s something going on in the entertainment industry that inspires me to try and get you to waste your bandwidth and time reading my column when you could be reading one of Tom’s or Chris’s or wondering how in the hell Tara beat all of us in football picks the previous week, then I will.

By the way, I sense that Tara will be going on a streak soon… you heard it here first.

Anyway, back to the nitty gritty.  This little column isn’t a chance for me to pass of my opinions about certain things as fact, although I probably will inadvertently doing that a few times just to contradict myself.  Ultimately, this whole “rantspace” of mine is going to be about having fun, which is what I plan on doing while writing these little nuggets of joy, and I hope that you’ll have fun reading them.

Even though this is merely the first column in what hopefully will be a long series of them, there are a lot of different routes I can take.  I could talk about football, wrestling, video games, comic books, “real” books, movies… but I think to kick things off I’m going to talk about TV, the WB, and Puffy Lipped Actresses and why they’re ruining everything.

It all started last Friday when I got home from work and started watching the tail end of Joss Whedon’s Firefly on Fox.  For those of you who don't know, Joss Whedon’s the guy who created Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he has his hands involved in countless other things, from other TV shows such as the WB’s Angel, the aforementioned Firefly, as well as a few comic books here and there.  Now, I could go off on a totally different tangent about television networks and their scheduling habits (Firefly is being aired hideously out of order), but I won’t, as I’m here to talk about the Puffy Lipped Actresses being grown in Hollywood.  Like I was saying, I was busy watching Firefly, using all of the Critical Thinking skills I learned in college to try and figure out the important plot points that I missed, blah blah bliddy blah, when I noticed something.

The actress on my television screen had some extremely puffy lips.

By the way, this is the part where the term “DSLs” is mentioned… and I’m not talking about that particular type of internet connection… but I digress.  There’s a woman on my television with a pair of beestung lips, and I’m busy wondering, “Where the hell do they find these women?”  I mean, they have to grow this particular brand of female… there’s no other way possible, because if they didn’t grow them, they wouldn’t be on my television every time I turned it on.  Naturally, they’re on television because a huge percentage of the population favors Puffy Lipped Actresses; look at how many times Julia Roberts has been on TV; I doubt it’s for her acting ability.  Hell, take a look at how fast Jennifer Garner's star has risen (she stars on ABC’s Alias, for those that don’t know); sure, she can act… but have you seen her lips?  She’s duck lipped, man. If you want even more proof, what do you think the term “DSLs” refers to?  

Face it folks, America has an obsession with Puffy Lipped Actresses, and it’s hurting the entertainment industry.

Ok, maybe that’s a bit harsh.  The Puffy Lipped Actresses in this nation aren’t hurting the entertainment industry… but the phenomenon that surrounds them can be applied to a large bit of the reason that people don’t want to pay $8.50 to go to the movies anymore.  What I mean is this:  just because the majority of America likes something doesn’t mean that the whole country needs to be exposed to that particular facet of pop culture at every opportunity.  For example, just because Keanu Reeves took a six month crash course in various martial arts styles and starred in a groundbreaking-for-its-time-yet-will-be-hideously-dated-in-a-few-years-just-you-wait-and-see little science fiction film called The Matrix doesn’t mean I want to see Drew Barrymore get hauled up into the air on wires by a bunch of stuntmen and “Ki-yah!” and “Ha!” her way through a fight scene and then moonwalk out of the room because I, along with the majority of America, thought the action in The Matrix was cool.  I don’t want to see the same thing over and over and over again when I plunk down $8.50 to go to the movies.

I want to be entertained.

That’s what the name of the game is, right?  We all want to be entertained in the long run, am I correct?  When I turn on my television, I want to have fun, enjoy myself, and not wonder why the fuck there seems to be an influx of Puffy Lipped Actresses on various television programs that aren’t either on Cinemax after 11 or classified as porn.

Hurry up and get to the point already, says the Buhner.com reading folk.

Well, the point is pretty simple:  something’s happened to what we used to define as entertainment.  Somehow we lost all the shows that were good like “insert the name of your favorite TV show here”, and we started to get the fresh faced teenybopper formulaic hit-or-miss programming of the WB, the “I watch it for the same reason I watch car wrecks: it’s so horrific I just can’t look away no matter how hard I try” appeal of UPN, or the various dumbed down by-the-numbers Hollywood productions that do nothing to expand the medium as well as entertain the masses.  Granted, there are a few things out there that are diamonds in the collective entertainment rough, and like everything else, they’re whatever the hell you want them to be.  All I’m here to do is hopefully provide a new slant on what’s going on in the entertainment industry and maybe uncover a few of those diamonds for everyone else to take a look at and admire… and if that doesn’t work, then I’m going to do my damnedest to have fun no matter the cost.

I plan on making this a two way street, so if you’ve got comments about whatever rant I’m able to get up on the site, feel free to email me at griffworld17@hotmail.com.  In the next few weeks I’ll be bouncing back and forth with the column and various reviews of DVDs, books, television shows, and whatever else that catches my eye… so all I can say is hold on tight, because I’m not gonna slow down for anyone.

And with that, we’ve made it through the first column.  Give yourself a hand.

As for me, I’m out of here.