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    Examining the Jersey Shore stink

    My double trouble night with Kathy Griffin at Houston's "Verizon Garage"

    Steven Devadanam
    Aug 8, 2010 | 3:46 pm
    • Kathy Griffin didn't drop her pants in Houston, but she did just abouteverything else.
    • Including rip the Jersey Shore gang for their distinct ... smell,
    • call Elisabeth Hasselbeck a "complete moron" in the nicest way possible.
    • And of course, pimp her new book many times.

    Nothing was off limits at Kathy Griffin's roast of pop culture Saturday night at Verizon Wireless Theater — or what she dubiously dubbed the "Verizon Garage" in a jab at the no-frills arena.

    "You Texans are crazy — you know that!" she yelled into the cheering audience, which she determined was a close 50/50 ratio of gay men and straight girls, along with the "17 straight men sure to get a blow job tonight" thanks to wonderful odds.

    The most pithy cultural commentary was inspired by reality TV, of which Kath is a devout consumer ("I can read when I'm dead," she justifies). Number one on that list of programs was Jersey Shore, which the comedian lampooned for its Oomp-Loompa star Snookie, as well as the cast's distinct scent — when Kathy met the crew on a talk show, she couldn't help but get a whiff of their blend of spray tan and sweat.

    "Would it be so hard to add an 'S' for shower to the end of 'GTL'?," she cried out.

    And on the topic of cleanliness, Griffin sounded off on the new VH1 program The OCD Project, in which patients diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder are all placed in one house and put on paths to overcome their neurosis. She cited one episode in which a participant who was afraid of hitting a person while driving was taken to an empty parking lot and instructed to drive around in circles, while a therapist tossed baby strollers at the windshield.

    It's such bizarre instances of low culture that really get Kathy going. She also took on the cultural gem, I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, accompanied by expert imitations of the participants' country accents — an effect that was partially inspired by the day's earlier trip through Schulenberg, a backwater experience slightly on-par with visiting one-time-flame Levi Johnston in Wasilla, Alaska.

    Notorious for self-promotion, Kathy missed no opportunities to plug her reality TV show and new paperback edition of her book, Official Book Club Selection, which boasts an added chapter "talking shit about the people I was too nice to in the hardcover edition" (Andre Agassi and his crystal meth addiction are at the top of that list).

    When Griffin wasn't talking reality TV or her mother's alcoholism, she focussed on a handful of public personalities and their ridiculous eccentricities — Katie Couric's new "Suze Orman dyke haircut," Lindsay Lohan's artistic court-date manicure and Elisabeth Hasselbeck's being "a complete moron" and "the D-List Ann Coulter." But what makes Kathy so charming is that she's not critiquing these celebrities. In fact, she's mostly thanking them for providing constant gold mines of stand-up material (more of which fans can consume with her singular "twats").

    Despite a few flat jokes, the 6:30 and 9:30 crowds both offered Griffin a standing ovation, perhaps in agreement with her complaint regarding the Houston humidity causing epic frizz, but mostly in thanks for a night of epic laughter.

    unspecified
    news/entertainment

    Bad Times at the Cinema

    Big budget busts and incoherent stories: The 10 worst movies of 2025

    Alex Bentley
    Dec 29, 2025 | 6:00 pm
    Red Hulk/President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Captain America: Brave New World
    Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios
    Red Hulk/President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Captain America: Brave New World.

    5) Anaconda

    Red Hulk/President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Captain America: Brave New World

    Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios

    Red Hulk/President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) in Captain America: Brave New World.

    It's no surprise that most of the worst movies in any given year tend to come from big studios, as the big budget marketing campaigns behind those films build up huge expectations that are then dashed when audiences see what little effort was put into making the movies broadly appealing. Whether it was too much fan service or too little understanding of what it takes to make a story coherent, the worst movies of 2025 were barely worth watching, either in theaters or at home.


    Scroll through CultureMap's picks of the 10 worst films of 2025 by using the left and right arrows on each photo.


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