10 Best Dumb TV Characters

It's easy to write a dumb character: It's essentially like writing a normal character, only you don't have to bother with a personality or any semblance of intelligence. A good dumb character, however, is damn near impossible. Why? Because it's hard to make a blank slate likable. But when you do, it's pure fucking comedy GOLD. For the sake of qualifications and so that you guys don't end up sending me the obligatory "YOU FORGOT THIS PERSON GRAAAAAAAH!" comments, in order to make the list, the character must be on TV, must be purposefully written dumb, and have to be both funny and at least likable on a personal level. Also, I eliminated any character that was on a show comprised entirely of stupid people (i.e. The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, etc.) And now, in absolutely no particular order whatsoever...

Hank Yarbo (Corner Gas)
Sample Dumb: "(Re: The riddle about where you bury survivors) OHHHHH! The *survivors* ... Bury one on each side.

T (United States of Tara)
Sample Dumb: I'm here because she went all CSI on your pubic patch you call a backpack and found those kill pills I got you.

Brittany (Glee)
Sample Dumb: Did you know that dolphins are just gay sharks?

Philip J. Fry (Futurama)
Sample Dumb: He wasn't an astronaut, he was a sitcom actor. And he was only using space travel as a metaphor for beating his wife.

Cerie Xerox (30 Rock)
Sample Dumb: These sunglasses have a chip in them that makes the lenses change color as my iPod loses power!

Anya Jenkins (Buffy The Vampire Slayer)
Sample Dumb: I like you. You're funny and you're nicely shaped, and frankly it's ludicrous to have these interlocking bodies and not... interlock. Please remove your clothing now.

Valerie Cherish (The Comeback)
Sample Dumb: You see puppies, I see Korean barbeque!

Buster Bluth (Arrested Development)
Sample Dumb: No mother, I can blow myself. You've interfered for the last time.

Michael Scott (The Office)
Sample Dumb: I guess the atmosphere that I've tried to create here is that I'm a friend first and a boss second, and probably an entertainer third.

Meatwad (Aqua Teen Hunger Force)
Sample Dumb: I don't have any real dolls, I prefer to use my infinite imagination... cause I ain't got no damn money.

The 10 Hottest Jews

Because I haven't made a list in a while and Jews are hot.

#10: Natalie Portman

#9: Jon Stewart #8: Alyson Hannigan #7: Joseph Gordon Levitt #6: Mila Kunis #5: Jake Gyllenhaal

#4: Jason Ridge

#3: Jenny Lewis

#2: Michael Lucas

#1: Rashida Jones

8 Fictional Characters Who Are Surprisingly Shitty At Their Job

#8 - Mills Lane (Celebrity Deathmatch)

Actually, Mills Lane is a damn fine referee, but let's face it: Is there really a point officiating over a fight where someone is going to end up in a body bag anyway? For the most part, all he really does is stand in the corner in order to keep A-List blood off of him.


#7 - Nancy Botwin (Weeds)

You know, for a weed dealer, Nancy doesn't actually deal that much weed. Actually, the only time we see her doing any dealing, she's getting busted. Not only that, but most of her actual victories are because of other people, and she usually ends up completely blowing them anyway.

#6 - Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter)

Apparently wisest and most powerful wizard in the series, Dumbledore is kind of a gigantic dumbass for the most part. Despite being the most accomplished man out there, instead of becoming what is essentially wizard president, he decides to become the principal of a school where 1/4 of the students go on to commit mass genocide. And he also got killed by one of his employees, although that was just some double-double-cross or something. Point is, you can't spell Dumbledore without "Dumb".

#5 - Gregory House (House)

House is a doctor, and by "Doctor", I mean he physically and verbally abuses his patients, throws out wild accusations, pops pills and generally acts like a dick to everyone and everything until the disease is halted at the last minute. For the most part, this usually involves a shit load of illegal or unethical practices, but hey, living patients. Woooooo!

#4 - Dora The Explorer (Dora The Explorer)

Ugh, yes, this bitch. She doesn't so much "explore" as she does "walk around, stare vacantly at the screen, and encourage your children to scream like banshee hellbeasts from the deepest pits of the inferno." Hey Dora, wanna find that tree or whatever the fuck it is you're after? Fucking look behind you, you stupid prostitot.

#3 - Lara Croft (Tomb Raider)

For those of you wondering what exactly the fuck Lara does, she's an archaeologist. Yes, really. Which strikes me as odd really since she's perfectly happy to smash various fossilized pots and vases for the little trinkets inside, also she can get her hands on ONE little piece of shiny bullshit. Congratulations on breaking millions of dollars worth of priceless artifacts.

#2 - The entire cast of CSI (CSI: Pretty Much Any of Them)

I'm surprised these people actually manage to get anything accomplished since none of them even know what exactly their job entails. In the show, not only does the CSI team investigate the location, but they apparently perform all the functions of pretty much the entire judicial system as well. Not only that, but forensic evidence becomes some sort of hyper-accurate method where a murder can be tracked down by a cigarette butt and a wad of gum under someone's shoe. Sure, whatever you say.

#1 - The Staff of Seattle Grace Hospital (Grey's Anatomy)

To be honest, the CSIs probably would have taken this one if it weren't for the fact that the doctors of Grey's Anatomy regularly kill their patients through illegal and immoral practices. Seriously, I may not be an expert, but I somehow think letting a patient die so you can score some organ harvesting might be against the Hippocratic Oath. Or at the very least, result in a greater punishment than a verbal thrashing.

My Gay Porn To-Do List

I know that this year is supposed to be the year where I finally start actually doing shit, so I decided that I would give myself a list of goals. If you don't have goals, you just wind up wandering around listlessly, and most people usually look down on the whole listless wandering thing.

Wonder why?

Anyway, here's a list of people I need to work with, naysayers be damned. And needless to say, but...
Diesel Washington
So not only is he fun to look at, but the man lays pipe a goddamn plumber. Seriously, the man knows how to give a hot dickin'. Also, he's kind of a dork, and I have the biggest boner for dorks ever.

Erik Rhodes
Yes, another guy who fulls under the "Hot muscle bod plus a cock most fly" category. What? Shit like that gets my motor running. And by "motor", I mean "penis". And by "running", I mean...You know where I'm going with this, right? Right.

Derek Da Silva
...Well, I certainly have a type (He's on the left-hand side). Actually, he also happens to be an indie-rock nerd too, which is the equivalent of a bottle of wine and a handful of Viagra down my throat. Nothing gets me hot like a guy outside who has The Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Maps" on his iPod.

Matthew Rush
Because shut up your face; he's pretty.

Ricky Sinz
I just want to be all tattooed like he is eventually. Mind you, I'm doing pretty well so far, but I need more. WAY more. Also, once again, fucker throws the dickage. For reals.

Rocco Giovanni
Okay, so granted he's not a dog person, which means that the fucker cannot be trusted (*Glares*) but other than that? Nice guy, nice tats, overall badassery...Oh yeah. Word.

Steve Cruz
What can I say? It's the hair. I have a thing for the furry guys, so long as they don't have backhair. Or pubes that make it look like they have Diana Ross in a leg-lock. Point is, he has some kickin' body hair.

Reese Rideout
I am fully aware that Reese Rideout is, for lack of a better terms, crazypants. But he's the good sort of crazypants, like Lily Allen. And I like good crazypants. Also: Abs.

Cameron Marshall
Oh come on, I'm allowed to fall for the more conventionally hot guys, right? Seriously, he's just hot no matter how you look at it.

Ben Patrick Johnson
Okay, technically not actually a gay porn star, but he's gay porn adjacent here, which is kinda close. Also, he did send me one of his books, so (to steal a phrase from Julie) "Isn’t he sweet? He’s one charm bracelet away from sticking it in your ass!" Needless to say, he has 24-hour anal privileges here.

20 Best Albums of 2009

#20: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

Indie Hipster Douchebags may have been rubbing their pubic pitchforks over the album, but underneath the (admittedly) excessive hype is an actually well put together album. Musically speaking, it takes risks that most other artists wouldn't dare, and the production on it makes the entire album razor sharp and occasionally danceable, although you'd still enjoy it more on a controlled substance.

#19: Bon Iver - Blood Bank

Yes, it's an EP. Yes, 25% of the album relies exclusively on auto-tune. Yes, it fully deserves to be on the list. The story of For Emma, Forever Ago's creation has pretty much entered the canon of Indie-Folk legend, and Blood Bank was Bon Iver's way of assuring us that he was more than the sum of his parts.

#18: Karen O & The Kids - Where The Wild Things Are OST

While it may have been something of a commercial failure, but artistically speaking, it was a middle-age hipster's wet dream: Direction by Spike Jonze, adaptation by Dave Eggers, and held together with a score by Karen O. Equal parts playfully naive and introspectively melancholic, the soundtrack was astounding, bridging the gap between childhood daydreaming and adult woe. And Hideaway still breaks my heart into itty bitty pieces whenever I hear it.

#17: Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You

Lyrically, it was weaker on the whole than her previous efforts, but it established Allen as an artist who knows her way around bubblegum beats. While she might not be ready to tackle some of the bigger issues, she's still able to effortlessly bitchslap the men in her life who piss her off with little more than clever quips, a breathy voice and some absolutely killer hooks.

#16: Dinosaur Jr. - Farm

At 25 years old, Dinosaur Jr. might be a bit of a misnomer. Regardless, Farm was a surprisingly accessible album from a band that's only been together for two years following their 8 year hiatus. Musically, it feels a bit like a mix-tape of the best songs from 90's college rock radio, channeled into a band who actually knows their way around a guitar.

#15: Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

Considering the album's painfully self-aware title, Wilco (The Album) is pretty much a collection of songs that are quintessentially Wilco (The Band). 'Consistent' may not be the most flattering adjective, but when I say that Wilco (The Album) is as good as you would expect it to be. After 15 years, Wilco (The Band) has created a style so uniquely their own, that each album seems to build upon it, and you can't help but call the resulting work home.

#14: Morrissey - Years of Refusal

Morrissey is fifty years old if you can believe it, and he still sounds as better and depressed as he ever has. And God bless him for it, because the man can still rock out some of the most depressing songs you'll ever hear. He's got the voice of an angel, albeit one in desperate need of some counseling, and he can still rock the ever-loving shit out of you, even if he is at the age where he yells at children to get off his lawn.

#13: Peaches - I Feel Cream

Peaches is filthy, disgusting an absolutely perverted; I wouldn't have it any other way. While Teaches of Peaches may have been her defining work, every subsequent album has proved that Peaches still has that sexually-explicit polish she's become famous for. She still rules the dancefloor with an iron shocker, and I Feel Cream established her as electronica's reigning MILF.

#12: Matt & Kim - Grand

I'm trying very hard to think of a good way to describe this one, but to be honest with you, I honestly can't do it. Words can't describe what exactly this album is. The closest I can get to properly describing it is as a delirious fever dream, replete with crashing drums and frenetic keyboards. It's zippy, scrappy and pretty damn spunky. But once again, that doesn't really do it justice now does it?

#11: Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

To be perfectly honest with you, I honestly didn't see what the big deal was for Bat For Lashes' debut album, Fur and Gold. That being said, Two Suns was a message to the non-believers, as if to say "Didn't like my first album? Well fuck you, my sophomore is going to kick the musical shit out of you." And it did. Two Suns was frigidly beautiful and trippy as hell, and converted those who normally wouldn't give art pop a second look.

#10: Passion Pit - Manners

Manners was dance music for people who normally wouldn't be caught dead dancing. Between falsetto vocals, flawless rhythms and a theme dreamy yearning, Passion Pit created dance music with Indie sensibilities, never losing the balance between twee cafes and sweaty dance clubs. And for people who can't even take a shit without it being ironic, you gotta admit, hipster douchebags are a ton of fun to dance with.

#9: P.O.S. - Never Better

If you thought hard enough about it, you could draw quite a few parallels between P.O.S. and Atmosphere: They both share the same bleakly moralistic style of alt-rap, they both share the same record label, and they both share the same position on my best albums list for their respective years. Needless to say, if you liked Atmosphere's ego-free music, you'll probably like P.O.S. too.

#8: The Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

The one big problem most people have with indie music is that it lacks the soaring vocals of mainstream Top 40 radio. Sure, anyone can pick up a guitar and mumble a sweet little ditty, but how many can you name with a five-octave vocal range? The Dirty Projectors brought that sort of charm down to the hipsters with intricately woven pop songs that seemed to dance in and out of modern music conventions with almost limitless ease and grace.

#7: Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Before 2009, Phoenix was little more than a little French rock outfit that enjoyed critical and minor-commercial success. Then Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix dropped and it was over. The album wasn't so much a breakthrough as it was a driving a tank through the front door, with it's first two singles, Lisztomania and 1901, burrowing so far into your brain that you could never hope to get them out. Score one for the cheese-eating surrender monkeys.

#6: Metric - Fantasies

If you take their word for it, Metric's music is about "sweaty fucking". By that logic, Fantasies is the part near the orgasm, when two people are pressed together and every inhale and exhale, each bead of sweat and every miniscule heartbeat becomes magnified tenfold. It's intimate, it's raw, and if you give it enough time, it's one hell of a release.

#5: Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

No other song encapsulates Grizzly Bear's appeal like Two Weeks. It starts off simply, with a tinkly little piano riff, before adding bits and pieces, sweet little "oh-oh, OH-OH, OH!-OH!"s, a guitar that thumps a long, a steady drum beat, a whirling keyboard, before coming together at the end for one grand aural display akin to a fireworks show. And that's what Girzzly Bear is all about: Little bits and pieces that build to a grand finale.

#4: Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Neko Case' work has always had a element of nature to it, but Middle Cyclone was when Case finally became a part of her surroundings: a force of nature. Irrational, wholly unpredictable and devastating; she's just as likely to hold you tenderly as she is to tear apart towns and cities in search of something or someone to love. Case's voice rises above the torrential instrumentals as if to let you know who exactly is the fucking boss here.

#3: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

If her discography is of any indication, Karen O can crack a whip like it's no one's business, effortlessly commanding any audience she feels worthy enough to captivate. It's Blitz was Karen O's way of marking her territory on the dancefloor, barking out orders in a voice that can break a heart in seconds flat. When she cries "Dance 'til your dead!", she means it.

#2: St. Vincent - Actor

St. Vincent has never been more conflicted than on Actor. Despite her fragile voice and porcelain features, the woman is a ticking time bomb. From the explosive bridge of The Strangers, sandwiched between Disney-esque woodwinds, to the two-and-a-half condemnation of Actor Out of Work where she chews out and coddles you simultaneously, indecisiveness never sounded so good.

#1: Various Artists - Dark Was The Night
A celebration of indie music, encapsulated for future generations to look back on, Dark Was The Night served not only to collect the best of the best of modern music, but for every album bought, proceeds went to the Red Hot organization, helping to raise funds and awareness for HIV/AIDS. Not only was it a flawless mix-tape, but it also helped fund a worthy cause. Not a bad deal, huh?

20 Best Movies of the Aughts

...In my opinion anyway. Feel free to send me any and all complaints by writing them down on a piece of sandpaper, rollin' it up reeeeeeeeeeeal tight, and shoving it right up your ass.

#20: Zack and Miri Make A Porno

Granted, comedies for the new millenium have been ruled over by the iron fist of Apatow, but Zack and Miri was Kevin Smith's way of showing him who did it first and who did it best. The movie was filthy, hysterically funny, and genuinely sweet without once ever being heavy handed or preachy.

#19: Coraline

This was just one of those movies that was bound to be good. Adapted to the screen by Neil Gaiman from his own book and directed by Henry Selick, it's just one very dark and very sinister fairytale that succeeded by never talking down to the kids and never pandering to the adults in the audience.

#18: Secretary

I made the mistake of first watching this with my parents. Bad move on my part. It's one of the first, if not the only, movie that successfully combined romance with BDSM without playing it for laughs. It's just too wonderfully twisted and kinky people falling in love over a mutual love of the more bizarre and enjoyable forms of sex.

#17: Junebug

Junebug is one of the harder films on the list to initially grasp. At first, it seems a little too stiff, the polite southern charms a little too painted on. Watch it a second time and you realize just how well acted it is. Never has a film so lovingly embraced sheer earnestness, and Amy Adams' performance remains to this day one of the most tragicall overlooked of the decade.

#16: Donnie Darko
Watching Donnie Darko is the closest you will ever get to a literal brainfuck in cinema. If you fail to keep up with the narrative, it probably won't do much for you; But take in each glorious snag in the fabric of space and time, blessedly intersected with occasional flashes of middle-American satire, and you're brain will be lighting up a post-coital smoke.

#15: Spirited Away

Forget the Japanes cash-cows that were Pokemon, Sailor Moon and that one with the children's card games. This is what Anime is all about: Painstakingly beautiful, hand-drawn animation wrapped around mythology, all put together by a man who is so obviously in love with his work you can't help but feel the same.

#14: Half Nelson

This might be one of the few movies that could have made the list based on its soundtrack alone; It's composed entirely by Canadian indie supergroup Broken Social Scene. And if that doesn't do the trick, Ryan Gosling gives a performance that can, for all intents and purposes, knock you on your ass in all of about five minutes.

#13: Pan's Labyrinth

It's hard to describe a movie as being brutal without making it sound like criticism, but Pan's Labyrinth is absolutely brutal in the best possible sense of the word. It's a visual masterpiece that treads the line between childlike fantasy and what can really only be described as soul-crushing cruelty. And I mean that in a good way.

#12: Ghost World

I know I already reviewed this one a while back with AVB, but I stand by what I said: Ghost World should be standard viewing for every self-righteous teen who's hiding their own personal insecurities and uncertainties about the future behind sarcasm and ironic hipster threads. It's a movie about figuring out how to just live when everyone seems to have it together but you.

#11: Finding Nemo

This list could have easily been dominated by Pixar movies, a studio whose worst movies are still heads and tails above most other movies. Finding Nemo was the one that cemented their reputation for creating movies that captured what it really means to be human, even if the main characters were fish.

#10: Almost Famous

There's a part in Almost famous where Lester Bangs drops the famous line "The only true currency in this bankrupt world... is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." That's what Almost Famous is: A celebration of being honest, innocent and compassionate, and sharing it with the world, no matter how uncool that makes you.

#9: Let The Right One In

Easily the most surreal and disturbing film on the list. It's terror doesn't lie random flashes of gore, viscera and intestines, but in a deliberate, slow creep, juxtaposing childhood innocence with a sense of quiet but impending doom. The gradual movement from one to the other, and the inability to go back, is where real scares are found.

#8: Waitress

This is a movie that manages to be heartbreaking both on camera and off camera. The gentle love story of a woman who constantly finds herself a victim of circumstance coping with an unwanted pregnancy is given further depth by the fact that Adrienne Shelly was murdered before she could ever see its release. From that point, it becomes a love letter to her own daughter, a message that someone, somewhere out there will love them enough to just hold them for 20 minutes straight without a trace of selfishness.

#7: Up

When I first wrote about Up, I said something along the lines of "I will end up crying within the first ten minutes of this movie". Ooooooh boy was I ever right. Wall-E may have been lauded for forgoing dialogue for the first half of the movie, but Up has undoubtedly the best opening ever, effectively condensing a lifetime of love into ten minutes without uttering a single word, then spending the rest of the movie figuring out how to cope once the love goes where you can't follow.

#6: Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain may, at this point, be a shorthand joke for anything gay in Hollywood, but this is more a sign of ignorance than any fault of the movie. It's the perfect combination of an absolutely flawless script, spot-on direction and acting performances from a young and all-to promising cast. And it's Oscar snub is still seen as something of a mark on the Academy.

#5: Little Miss Sunshine

How exactly the hell does a movie about a cocaine-addicted elderly man teaching his granddaughter to strip for a beauty pageant become one of the most heart warming films of the decade? No idea, but Little Miss Sunshine was what happens when you realize that yes, all families are dysfunctional and shitty but love just makes it all a little easier to deal with.

#4: Shaun of the Dead

You can't really parody something if you don't love it, and that's what Shaun of the Dead was: it took the piss out of zombie movies while showering them with praise. It proved that yes, zombie apoclaypses are FUN, but at the end of the day those zombies are loved ones, family, friends, and having to (re)kill them is a heart-wrenching experience.

#3: The Dark Knight

Batman Begins was Christopher Nolan's way of establishing the fact that movies based on comics can, in fact, be rooted in reality, and The Dark Knight proved it. It was a dark, disturbing appeal to humanity's ability to stand strong in their beliefs and principals even in the face of absolute cruelty, and Heath Ledger's Joker was the epitome of Machiavellian, tormented insanity. And on the plus side: No Bat Nipples. Woo!

#2: Juno

Fuck the backlash. If you can't see the forest through the trees, that's your problem, but Juno was, and forever will be, the movie that brought indie into the mainstream. It's what happens when fresh young talent comes together and makes a movie that succeeds on talent rather than on budget. It's what happens when you strip a romantic comedy of all the studio-approved gimmicks and leave behind the raw beating heart. It's a love story. That's it, that's all. If that's not enough for you, what is?

#1: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
In the space of an hour and 48 minutes, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind will rip out your heart, break into a million sharp, jagged, unrecognizable pieces and put it back together. It's the closest representation you will ever get to falling in, and losing, love. It will show you just how wonderful, confusing and painful love is. It will show you every single reason why you should not be nor should you ever be in love, and it will show you why every single reason why you shouldn't fall in love will never count for more than the one reason why you should be in love. And you will never, for the life of you, be able to put it into words. At least, not as eloquently and perfectly as Eternal Sunshine ever did.