Stand back! . . . I'm going to blog.: Why So Serious?

Let me introduce you to a little thing I like to call “Owning Your Shit.”

Owning Your Shit is a state of admitting to your past, and not taking yourself too seriously in light of it. Now, I could name a dozen people I personally know who are guilty of not Owning Their Shit, but today I was struck by a particularly egregious case of celebrity denial.

Dear Mark Wahlberg – stop pretending you didn’t spend your early twenties engaging in hijinks with The Funky Bunch.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m very much a fan of Mark Wahlberg. He has actually turned out to be a terrific actor – The Perfect Storm, Four Brothers, The Italian Job, and especially The Departed. He can even pull off sillier roles, like in I Heart Huckabees (which is a movie, although widely panned, I very much enjoy). And let’s all be honest here . . . he’s exceptionally, wildly attractive. I respect the hell out of him for turning his life around and becoming a stand up guy and a great actor. I just wish he would realize that nobody is forgetting his tighty-whitey shenanigans. I don’t mean it has to brand him forever, or that he needs to remind us of it all the time – but don’t deny it happened either. I’ve seen and read interviews where he gets sincerely pissed at just the mention of his Marky Mark days. He caused all kinds of uproar over Andy Samberg’s imitation of him in his running Saturday Night Live sketch, “Mark Wahlberg Talks to Animals.” Now that business was seriously funny. Yeah, he eventually did his own sketch to mock Andy’s sketch and his own reaction, but I feel like that wasn’t exactly his idea, nor was it a sincere apology. Today on The Ellen Show he was sinfully dull. Yes, Mark, we understand that you underwent incredible training to put together your new movie, The Fighter. And that’s certainly admirable, as are the resulting abdominal muscles. But Own Your Shit, sir. You've done big things, but stop taking yourself so seriously. We all know you were Marky Mark. You once had good vibrations. And I bet they’re still in there.

I would like to direct your attention to one C. Thomas Howell. Mr. Howell has dropped far off of Hollywood’s radar, but in 1983 he made young girls squee when he shared the screen with Patrick Swayze as the greaser Ponyboy Curtis in The Outsiders. That’s a role that sticks with you for life. He will be Ponyboy forever. A couple of years ago, Howell was chosen as a cast member for the VH1 reality show Celebracadabra – a show that took celebrities (and played fast and loose with the term ‘celebrity’ for sure) and taught them magic. It was exactly as stupid as it sounds. In one episode, Howell lost one of the pre-magic show challenges, and had to perform his show in drag. The drag name he created for himself? Ponygirl.

That, Marky Mark Wahlberg, is Owning Your Shit. Take notes. And say hello to your motha for me.

Sarcasmo

Currently Excited About: The Sing-Off. You guys, this show is the shit. Most excellent singing show on TV. It is a competition for purely a capella groups. It is amazing how cool these groups can make music sound without instruments. There are groups of frat boys, street performers from Nashville, a mixed group of teens, a church gospel group, a group of music teachers, and my personal favorites on the show, Jerry Lawson and Talk of the Town, a group of older gentleman who can legitimately pull off hits from Ben E. King and The Drifters, and contemporary songs as well. They’ve got some pretty smooth gentlemanly moves too. The judging is even great – I could live without Nicole Scherzinger, but Shawn Stockman of Boyz II Men fame and Ben Folds are clever and witty, and give legitimate, constructive critiques. Seriously cool show.

Jerry Lawson, performing Ben E. King's "Save The Last Dance For Me" (one of my favorite songs ever, no less)