You will want to watch tonight’s Tony Aawards (8 P.M., CBS). This will be the second time Neil Patrick Harris is hosting. He won an Emmy for the last time (and another for a guest appearance on Glee). He’s also hosted Spike’s Video Game Awards, the TV Land Awards and the Emmys. And he showed up in the opening number of the Oscars. On June 23, he will host at the LGBT Leadership Gala with President...

A very smart and respected co-blogger on TMV (who happens to live a modest drive from me in Arizona) recently broached the subject of the former Alaska Governor and 2008 Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate. I agree that she’s great at self-promotion . She’s a very successful self-made entrepreneur because she fully understands America’s 24/7 info-entertainment news Media. She knows how to play the...

I have so far refrained from commenting on the sex and political scandals involving current U.S. Representative Anthony Weiner of New York and former U.S. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina. Some TMV readers might complain that this is an obvious oversight by an allegedly left-leaning blogger overlooking two Democrats. This partisan charge is far from the truth as I have enjoyed many a good sex scandal...

Turns out the Congressman is not just a Weiner but, in the parlance of our people (his, mine and Jon Stewart’s), a “schmuck,” the difference between the male member as metaphor for “stupid, foolish, or detestable” or simply clueless, as the euphemism for a smaller organ his surname suggests. Then again, he may now have earned the highest rank in the Yiddish lexicon of penile designations for the unwise–a...

Here’s a fascinating video from Walt Disney’s old ABC TV show in 1957 where he explained his invention the multi-plane camera. This video also shows you why Disney was a kind of uncle to many baby boomers who grew up watching his show: he never talked down to the kids on his show when he introduced episodes — and when he died in 1966 to many it was a real personal loss. If you’ve never...

(Editor’s Note: This is part of an ongoing series to preserve on the Internet the “lost” poetry of Nunihal Singh Layal, the “Tradesman Poet,” who I met in New Delhi in 1974. Some poems contain his original introductions. I have a self-published book of his that is disintegrating and falling apart and over the next year or two I will run and preserve all of his poetry here. Joe Gandelman) Problems and...

Part of the talk that Sarah Palin is planning to relaunch and may jump into the 2012 Republican nomination race stems from the fact that a new film about her is about to be released — a film that some suggested will reframe perceptions about Palin, her sting as Alaska Governor before she resigned, her running as Sen. John McCain’s 2008 Presidential candidate, and her impact on the political party....

Cartoonists are having a field day with Anthony Weiner and the so-called “Weinergate” controversy. GO HERE to see a collection.

According to Steve Martin’s twitter feed the great Wally Boag has passed away For generations of Disneyland visitors, Wally’s show at the Golden Horseshoe was a must see. It still (I believe) holds the record for the longest running show ever. Here is some of his magic (please check for more on Youtube)

Just for a minute forget the (as usual) partisan and not-so-partisan takes on the seriousness or lack of seriousness swirling around Rep. Anthony Weiner and a certain Twitter Tweet. For partisans, it’s one more skirmish in the never ending political war. For the media, it’s a story made all the more tantilizing because Weiner almost seems to be pleading for more coverage in the way he’s handling...

As a legendary woman of the last century turns 85 today, there are echoes of a Marilyn-like media frenzy in the hide-and-seek game being played now by another super-celebrity. “Congratulations, Sarah Palin, you have turned the Washington press corps into a bunch of paparazzi stalking your every move,” a reporter writes about the bus tour meant to bolster her presidential chances by blowing kisses to crowds...

SECOND OFFICER: Hast seen the White Whale? DONOVAN HAHN: Hast seen the Yellow Duck? When a load of 28,800 rubber bath toys plummeted into the northern Pacific Ocean from a storm-tossed container ship in 1992, beachcombers and oceanographers were in rapture. The toys washed up on coastlines from Alaska to California to Massachusetts for years, some traveling west to east via the Arctic Ocean, a treasure...

I get to see Ezekiel Isaac Malekar at least twice a year. A pleasant person wearing a kippah, Malekar is a permanent invitee at many Indian government’s national functions, including the birth and death anniversaries of Mahatma Gandhi at the Gandhi Smriti, in the heart of New Delhi, where Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Sitting next to a Maulvi, a Muslim teacher/scholar, Malekar recites passages from...

Not Hangover Part II, poised to win the award for Biggest Comedy Debut of All-Time, raking in an expected $138.1 million this weekend. The movie also broke the record for the Biggest Opening Weekend of Any R-rated Film, over five days. Nope, for me it was Bridesmaids, which comes in fourth, making $16.3 million during its third weekend. NYTimes’ A. O. Scott: The heroine of a standard rom-com is permitted...

Last week the largest defense contractor in the world and the United States government’s top technology information provider battled off a “significant and tenacious” cyber attack, Lockheed Martin Corp announced Saturday. And, the Huffington Post Reports, the Department of Homeland Security has now confirmed it: Hackers launched a “significant and tenacious” cyber attack on Lockheed...

From NPR: “Gil Scott-Heron, Poet and Musician, Has Died.”

A time elapsed video of puppty to dog in 40 seconds. Pretty amazing:

Aislin, The Montreal Gazette This copyrighted cartoon is licensed to run on TMV. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited. All rights reserved.

Gil Scott-Heron, whose spoken-word poetry songs like “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” “Winter In America” and “We Almost Lost Detroit” were precursors to rap, left this mortal coil on Friday afternoon in New York. He was 62. Gil, whom I knew through mutual friends, rejected the notion that he was the father of rap, explaining that his fusion of jazz, blues and soul...

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everyone. Bob Dylan was 70 years old this week, and the editorial board of Germany’s Die Welt published this open letter in tribute to the American music icon. Die Welt’s message?: keep showing the world how to change with the time – because “the times – they are a changin’” The open letter from the Die Welt editorial board says in part: Dear...

THIS JUST IN from investigative journalist Andy Borowitz: FEMA Declares Eric Cantor a Disaster Area Congressman Denies Funds to Self WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – One day after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) stirred controversy by withholding funds for tornado relief, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) took the extraordinary step of declaring Rep. Cantor a disaster area. Within hours of the declaration,...

A lot will be written today and in coming days about how the Republican Party could possibly lose a special election in a sure thing Republican district — losing in a way that cannot be accurately blamed on a former Democrat running as a Tea Party candidate but more accurately due a huge defection in Republican votes and votes from seniors which led to a Republican loss despite big bucks piped in from...

It’s getting harder to coopt reality for entertainment. Columnist Ross Douthat proposes a Dominique Strauss-Kahn epic—“one of those sprawling, complex, kaleidoscope-of-globalization movies that aspire to Oscar glory. Think ‘Traffic’ or ‘Syriana,’ ‘Crash’ or ‘Babel’”—but he has the wrong genre. The boffo box office gold may be in a remake of low comedy. Imagine the poster for the 1988...

Here’s further proof that not all nuts are sold in Sprouts Markets stores or on the right. File this for sure in your Twilight Zone extremist file and also the file where you save stories on people who talk violence and should be shunned by all sides in America: Lars von Trier, who was banned from Cannes for praising Hitler, was not the only one making unsavoury comments at the film festival. Peter Fonda,...

Never mind men in outer space or those slogging in Middle East mud, media attention is on a horny old Frenchman in Manhattan detention, a former body builder with no procreative self-control and a preening pack of politicians playing Chicken with the national debt limit. In the Age of Viagra, masculinity is being downgraded everywhere. Even 60 Minutes is obsessed with strength cheating by Lance Armstrong and...