CityCynic.com

Jerry Seinfeld was in the SNY broadcast booth for the Mets game against the Detroit Tigers today, calling the game and reminiscing about Seinfeld and Lady Gaga’s recent antics with Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez.

Not only was Jerry Seinfeld absolutely hilarious, but he also was really good at calling the game AND providing color comedy commentary!

Seinfeld also discussed Keith Hernandez’ memorable guest appearance on Seinfeld, as SNY came back from break with a couple of clips.

Here are some choice exchanges between the trio from the event:

SEINFELD: “This is the greatest booth in baseball… 1-2 on Johnny Damon…. Gary Cohen is the greatest broadcaster… the best booth”

“I don’t want to do play-by-play. I’m here for the color Mets comedy.”

ME: “Wow, Jerry Seinfeld actually does some great play-by-play. Ron Darling better watch out! His seat is in danger! LOL”

SEINFELD: “Speaking of innovative at first base… Who was more innovative at first base than Keith Hernandez?”

“I dont think there’s anything more fun than being a Mets fan.They have 2 World Championships but they are two of the most exciting a team can have.”

“When are we going to talk about Lady Gaga, that’s why I’m here.”

“Well we don’t understand the kids today & the music business. Maybe, I’m sure we’ll all be bigger fans now that she cursed us out.”

“She should make a nice apology to the Mets fans… then I’m willing to forget the whole thing.”

“Is that Johnny Damon in center?!? What is he doing out there? He can’t cover THAT much ground!”

“Why are the Tigers EVEN HERE?!?”

And when Mets on-field reporter Kevin Burkhardt made a reference to wearing a shirt to the game from the J. Peterman catalog in Seinfeld’s honor (a Seinfeld reference), Jerry replied right back:

“Don’t do my stuff, Kevin.”

I think Gary, Keith, and Ron should have Jerry Seinfeld on once (or twice) EVERY season and make it a yearly Seinfeld Night! So hilarious!

Today marks my one year anniversary with my girlfriend, Melissa.

This past year has been both amazing and exhilarating. We’ve traveled and we’ve spent time together at home. We’ve both seen new places and met new people that have made our lives better. We’ve learned just how great helping each other feels. We’ve enjoyed being in sync and seen more than enough signs of “446″ together.

We’ve tweeted, blogged, and dailyboothed. We’ve used thousands and thousands of cellphone minutes.

She’s inspired me to express myself again in word and photographs. We created a baseball blog together about our favorite MLB teams, the Dodgers and the Mets.

We’ve shared new foods together and enjoyed new experiences. We both loved going to the movies and listening to music together. We’ve decided on and then watched our television shows together.

We’ve shared our love of dinosaurs and history together. We’ve traded baseball stats and players our teams have shared.

We’ve heard our song, You & Me by Dave Matthews Band, many many times, just about everywhere:

And we’ve laughed, cried, joked, debated, discussed, lived, and loved together more than either of us every have before.

And all of that is exactly why our relationship works so well and why she means so much to me.

I’m looking forward to what the next years will bring! Love you, sweetie! <#

Okay, so I missed the MTV Movie Awards this year. Until I caught half of the second immediate rerun and the other half of the third immediate rerun.

Overall the show was pretty good, a lot of funny jokes from host Aziz Ansari (“Parks and Rec”) and some typical MTV-ish moments, like Sandra Bullock’s kiss with Scarlett Johansson, but the real moment of the night was Tom Cruise’s attempt at remaining relevant.

He was back as his alter-ego Les Grossman, dancing around the stage like a lunatic, and then eventually with Jennifer Lopez for some reason.

Man, Tom Cruise has really let himself go…

Oh well, Katie Holmes didn’t seem to mind. She really enjoyed Tom’s moves…

I guess part of challenging other people to take the NaBloPoMo challenge is that they decide to tag you with things to post about. Or at least that’s what RedLotusMama tells me.

So without further ado, and in no particular order, I present ten things that make me happy:

1) Baseball – Namely my New York Mets, who have me on the Mets Rollercoaster this season.

2) Having time to myself, including a little bit of silence. Doesn’t happen that often these days…

3) Turtles – Including my several pet turtles, just awesome creatures all around.

4) Discovering new music and listening to my old favorites. Paramore and Dave Matthews Band, thank you.

5) Taking photographs – I always enjoy capturing what I see and sharing it.

6) Twitter (@citycynic) – Meeting new people and tweeting along with my fellow Mets fans!

7) [CENSORED]

8) Dinosaurs. (Nothing more to say)

9) Late Night Comedy – Yes Team Conan, nooo Jay Leno!

10) Her – She’s my everything.

What are some of the things that make you happy?

I understand that people love LOST. I really got into the show, even if I have to watch it all over again to really figure it out.

But how much do you have to love LOST to spend the time doing this?

4 8 15 16 23 42: As seen on the Long Island Expressway, 2010.

I didn’t get a chance to ask the blond-haired lady driving the Jeep, as she sped away, weaving in an out of cars.

Must have been rushing to re-watch the series from the beginning…

Cynicism has been taken a lot of high-profile hits lately.

Late night talk show host Conan O’Brien, who certainly could have become cynical after the way he was treated by NBC, mentioned cynicism during his final show:

“All I ask of you, especially young people…is one thing. Please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen.”

Now, being a self-proclaimed CityCynic, I feel I have to explain that being cynical doesn’t always just mean becoming jaded. O’Brien was right on with his statement. In life, you don’t always get what you want and reacting to that by thinking that nothing will ever go right is absolutely the wrong way to live.

But being cynical doesn’t necessarily mean you think nothing will ever go right. Cynicism is actually about having a healthy skepticism of certain institutions that society leads you to believe can be trust unconditionally.

“Trust No One.” That was what the poster said on Fox Mulder’s office wall on The X-Files. Now, David Duchovny’s character certainly had valid reasons not to trust anyone and perhaps what he demonstrated was the jaded brand of cynicism Conan O’Brien called out on his final show.

Luckily, most people don’t live a life that would provoke such a severely negative reaction. And even with the entire federal government after him, Mulder still was able to find that “The Truth is Out There” and to say “I Want to Believe.”

And that’s the flipside to cynicism, the idea that while you can’t always believe everything that is presented to you and that doing so might actually endanger your life MUST be balanced by the struggle to discern the truth and the goodness in life from all the distractions that are in the way.

Separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff enables the value of cynicism to emerge. Cynicism can be used as a tool to navigate life. It’s all about how you use it, of course.

American playright Lillian Hellman put it this way:

Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth.

Cynicism is just a way to get at the truth. Many people would rather avoid the truth in certain situations because sometimes it might be easier to just pretend everything is okay even when’s it not. But being oblivious to the truth or ignorant of a situation because you want to avoid it can’t be a healthy way to get through each day.

And lastly, I just want to say that cynicism is not the opposite of optimism. I can see that it may be easy to draw that comparison because a lot of being cynical can often be construed as being negative or pessimistic. That couldn’t be further from the truth in my experience.

I suppose cynicism used improperly can be no better than being pessimistic, however when it is used properly as a tool to navigate through your life, it can help you to hold on to optimism because once you see how things really are, you are able to adapt and thrive.

And isn’t that really what Conan was really getting at? Members of Team Conan would certainly hope their favorite talk show host will see through the nonsense Conan was presented with by NBC so that he can adapt and thrive on another network.

So don’t be negative and jaded, but don’t be ignorant or ignore the truth either. Take the time to investigate life so that you can live a better one.

The Jay Leno Show (airing at 10pm weeknights) will go on hiatus on Feb 1 and Jay Leno will return to 11:30pm weeknights after the Olympics end, according to a report on TMZ.

NBC is moving Jay Leno back to 11:30. What about Conan? (Photo credit TMZ.)

NBC experimented with a late night comedy show before the local news in order to save money and because they really didn’t have anything besides Southland to put on at 10pm. (And we all remember how that turned out.)

The move to 10pm proved to be a poor lead-in to the local newscasts, prompting stations to complain about The Jay Leno Show experiment being a ratings disaster.

NBC hasn’t yet announced exactly how they’re going to be able to put Jay back at 11:30 since Conan O’Brien has been in that time zone since he took over The Tonight Show from Leno. It would likely go the way of one of these possible scenarios:

1. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to 11:30, but shortens it to a half hour and then runs The Tonight Show at 12:00 and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon at 1am.
2. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to 11:30-12:00 and also shortens The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien to a half hour from 12:00-12:30. Jimmy’s show stays the same, cause everyone’s already sleeping anyway.
3. NBC moves The Jay Leno Show to the 11:30-12:30 slot and Conan’s Tonight Show moves to 12:30-1:30. (This is probably the least likely scenario, since Conan fought for years to get the 11:30 slot and would almost definitely not go back to 12:30 on NBC.)
4. NBC gives The Tonight Show back to Jay Leno and Conan gets the $50 million buyout in his contract and is free to entertain offers for the 11:30pm slot on ABC or FOX.

You’d have to figure that if scenario #4 happens ABC would jump at grabbing Conan for 11:30 and push Jimmy Kimmel back to 12:30 to compete with NBC and CBS. Conan – Kimmel? I would so watch that!

And FOX would love to have Conan at 11:30 to have a late night comedy show that would actually COMPETE. (Remember The Magic Johnson Show? Enough said.)

While it remains unclear as to which path the network will take, one thing is crystal clear: NBC doesn’t know what the hell they are doing.

Alaina Reed, who played friendly neighbor Olivia for 12 years on Sesame Street, passed away from cancer Thursday at the age of 63:

Actress Alaina Reed-Amini, best known for her long-running roles as Olivia Robinson on the children’s program “Sesame Street” and Rose Lee Holloway on the comedy “227,” has died.

Reed-Amini lost a two-year battle with breast cancer at St. John’s Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, on Thursday, according to reports.

Reed-Amini, who changed her named from Alaina Reed Hall after she married Tamim Amini in 2008, turned 63 last month. In 1976 she joined the cast of “Sesame Street” as Olivia, a professional photographer and the kid sister of Gordon the teacher. She left the program in 1988 for a role on the NBC sitcom “227.”

When I heard the news, I didn’t even recognize the name, but then I searched on YouTube and found this video from Sesame Street in the 80′s. All the childhood memories of watching Sesame Street flooded back and I realized that it was Olivia from Sesame Street who had died.

So thanks Alaina, for playing a part in my development during my formative years. You will always have your place on Sesame Street:

Oddville, MTV ran one season on MTV in 1997.

Every once in a while, I daydream back to a time when MTV didn’t just show music videos, but rather experimented with original talk show programming.

And while I see Tom Green way too much these days to try to limit him to only daydreams, there was a show that pops up from time to time in those aforementioned daydreams: a little show I like to call Oddville, MTV.

Oddville, MTV (1997) was a variety talk show that originated on NYC public access as a show called Beyond Vaudeville (1986-96) and was hosted by Frank Hope (Rich Brown).

The original show featured New York City eccentrics and other real life characters who came on to showcase their “unique” talents. When it was brought to MTV, it went on to include celebrities and eccentric people with special talents from all over the place. Although to be fair, the level of the guests’ talents varied widely — from a nose hummer to a roller skating grandmother to a guy with a third nipple to a bilingual midget.

Frank always had a sidekick named David Greene who would always remain silent throughout the show, never reacting to any of the weird stuff going on in front of him, and sometimes just resembling someone in a catatonic state. Oddville also had a cute announcer named Melissa Gabriel who provided someone that Frank could talk to during the show.

Oh yeah, and Joey the Dancing Monkey.

Here’s how a typical interview segment went on the show, this one featuring the WWE’s Sunny:

Celebrity guests included Kathy Griffin, Blink 182 (one of their first TV performances), Jessica Biel, Reel Big Fish, Sugar Ray, Stephen Baldwin, Kenan and Kel promoting their smash-hit Good Burger, and the U.S. television broadcast debut of a three-brother band known as Hanson:

Whereas I always enjoyed the show for its cheese factor, obviously some people didn’t agree, since the show only lasted one season (episode guide) and inspired negative reviews from viewers like this one:

When I watched the show on MTV, all I saw was the same boring things. There was a host who always acted in a nervous manner, a guy who just sat there and didn’t talk, pointless interviews (the interviews weren’t even interesting because they seemed to be so short), and a bunch of losers being brought out to showcase their talent. I remember seeing a guy do bad impersonations of celebrities while he was laying down on the floor.

But anyway, it’s nice to daydream sometimes and remember a simpler time, like 1997, where bands like the Bloodhound Gang would actually fit in somewhere when performing their song “Why is Everybody Always Picking On Me,” while a dancing monkey and a cute announcer would dance around to the song, as a catatonic co-host and nervous show host looked on:

That was Oddville, MTV.

RELATED: Check out the original 1997 CNN article about the show: ‘Oddville, MTV’ shows off weird things people can do

Listen along with me as we check out the progression of “Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap.

The original:

And then the second chorus was heavily sampled in Jason Derulo’s “Watcha Say”:

And of course “Hide and Seek” made an appearance on Australian Idol in Season 5 by contestant Ben McKenzie:

What really made the song famous was it’s inclusion in a scene of the (now-defunct) teen drama The O.C.:

That inspired a Saturday Night Live Digital Short parody of The O.C. finale, called “Dear Sister”…

Check this out here (it was playing automatically).

And then someone parodied the parody on YouTube:

And then, of course, there are parodies of the parodies and parodies of the parodies of the parodies. And parodies using Lord of the Rings scenes and parodies using The Office, etc.

So what does Imogen Heap think of the sampling, at least in Jason Derulo’s hit version of the song?

She spoke about it recently with the BBC:

Finally, I have to ask you about Jason DeRulo’s single Watcha Say – which samples Hide and Seek. It seems to have split fans right down the middle: Some love what he’s done and others are literally out for his blood. What do you think of it?

I really believe a song has a life of its own, so when I heard his version, I actually thought it was pretty good.

Even the first time? I found it took a bit of getting used to…

First time I heard it, yes. I understand that for some people, it’s their favourite song and it feels like he’s butchered it and butchered their memory of it. But, to me, I’ve heard it in so many contexts – by a choir, by a marching band – I loved that it was completely different.

You just can’t keep a good song down!

Thanks for listening along!