Dawson's Ink

Over the past few weeks, there have been so many things that made me cringe. Slap my forehead, even. Which made me blow the dust off of one of my favorite features: an homage to Bill Maher’s end-of-show presentation from Real Time.

That’s right, for the first time in 2010, it’s already way past time for some New Rules.

Let’s go.

There were so many commercials during the recent Super Bowl that didn’t make sense to me. None more than the one starring former NBA standout and current analyst Charles Barkley, who is now shilling for Taco Bell. First of all, the last thing Sir Charles needs to be doing is promoting fast food, seeing as he’s the poster child for staying away from the stuff.

And if his face being part of the project wasn’t enough, MC Barkley puts his “rapping” skills on display as well, spouting what can be loosely called lyrics that would make Dr. Suess feel like he was Dr. Dre. It’s just shameful, and makes a once-menacing figure look like a buffoon. Granted, a very, very highly paid buffoon, but one nonetheless.

Stop, Charles. Just stop.

To all my friends on Facebook, I get it. You’re fascinated with the applications. You feel like you must post something to let your friends know that you’re thinking about them, or that you’re ready to celebrate the latest holiday, or that you have computer skills, or that you’re perfectly capable of and willing to be annoying.

Whatever it is, believe me. I get it. So just stop. Please. No more pillow fights, or heart transplants, or Blingee videos, or Farmville invites, or Mafia initiations, or petitions to make the new Facebook old again. I’m good with my music quotes, thanks.

Besides, if you keep sending all of this stuff to my wall, you might lose all of the equally annoying Formspring Q&A’s I send your way. And would we really want that?

I didn’t think so.

There should be a law against child actors being allowed to govern their own lives. Time and again, we’ve seen them do things that would make most sane people cower in disgust.

From Mackenzie Phillips and her daddy issues, to the entire young cast of Diff’rent Strokes constantly filling up the police blotter, it’s been proven that these kids, when they become adults, just aren’t able to care for themselves. You’d think the 80s and 90s child stars would learn from that, right? Wrong. We’re talking about TV kids here.

The latest (at least to me, even though this happened last year) example of such idiocy comes from former Saved By The Bell hottie Lark Voorhies, who thought it would be a good idea to have some plastic surgery. She. Was. Wrong. In a scenario that would make both Vivica A. Fox and Sammy Sosa go, “DAYUM!”, Lisa Turtle went HAM on the plasticos, going from gorgeous brown-skinned woman, to some sort of aged, ghost-like entity.

She looks so bad now, even Screech (he of the mentally imploded fare himself) wouldn’t even want to touch her. iCry.

There are plenty of artists that involved themselves in the 25th anniversary remake of the historic anthem “We Are The World.” There are also plenty of words that lend themselves to this event, most of which cannot be printed here.

However, in an effort to make some sense of what went wrong that night after the 52nd Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, one need to look no further than the “rap” portion of the song. This is where a sincere remake went off a cliff that resembled Lark Voorhies’ new chin. For those who haven’t seen it, this train wreck featured LL Cool J, Lil Wayne, Akon, T-Pain and Kanye West. No matter what you think of them as artists, they didn’t belong on this song. And AUTO-TUNE? On “We Are The World”?!!?! Really? Ugh.

Never would I have thought I’d see the day when Akon got more song time than Gladys Knight. Or where anyone in their right mind would allow Wyclef Jean to sing anything on their record.

If anything, these young men should’ve followed the lead of actor Vince Vaughn, who showed up to support, but stayed in the background. And that Ray Charles impersonation, Jamie Foxx? Epic Fail.

I still believe that none of this would’ve happened if Quincy Jones was still alive. Oh, wait…

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