Ticking Tuesday News- September 8th 2009

George Clooney's "agent"

Rolling Stone Writer Not Sure About These "Beatle" Poseurs

Upon receiving an advance copy of the remastered Beatles albums due for public release tomorrow, a writer for Rolling Stone Magazine who has asked to remain anonymous expressed his doubts concerning the band's ability to capture their listeners' affections.

Using his blog as dry-run for his upcoming article, the writer stated, "I'm just not sure how these guys plan on capturing the zeitgeist of the modern music world. While I appreciate their back-to-basics approach to the pop song paradigm, they clearly run out of ideas halfway through the recording process when their songs hinge on choruses consisting of "yeah yeah yeah" refrains." The writer went on to disparage the Beatles' name as "a juvenile pun that maybe passed for the marquis at their local dive but will never engender the respect of critics and listeners" and then devoted an entire paragraph to "the incomprehensible decision to affect obviously fake accents". After several thousand more words deconstructing the band's shameless cribbing of The White Stripes and calling their appearance in an upcoming edition of the Rock Band video game "careerism" the writer ends his article with the phrase, "The best we can hope for is some chick to come along and go all Yoko on this hopeless band".

"Harry Potter" Star's Maddening Matriculation

Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the wildly popular Harry Potter movie franchise, has gone on record recently about her difficulties blending in as a freshman at Brown University. Constant coverage by both professional media and amateur social networking enthusiasts has apparently made the actress's educational experience more difficult than she expected. Watson has expressed concerns that this wanton disrespect for her privacy will interfere with her studies such that she will not be able to continue at Brown to the terminus of her as-yet-undeclared degree. Watson worries that there will be no fairytale ending for her if she can't attain a college diploma. Without a university education, she will have no choice but to rely on her millions of dollars and almost certain movie stardom just to get by. "Are we really living in a world today," said Watson's mother, "Where a young woman can't even pursue a life as a permanently marginalized employee in a corporate setting that has nothing to do with the subject matter of her university studies just because she's a beautiful, world-famous actress with massive amounts of capital?"

Clooney Admits to Ownership of Magic Lamp

Actor and all-around dreamboat George Clooney finally admitted to owning the legendary Magic Lamp of Aladdin this week after responding in the affirmative to questions of his relationship with Italian TV personality Elisabetta Canalis. According to Clooney, who inexplicably becomes more handsome with each passing year and spends most of his days living in an impossibly gorgeous mansion on Lake Como, there is no reason why he should continue to keep his ownership of the lamp a secret. Contrary to the theories posited by the cartoon genie voiced by Robin Williams in the famous Disney rendition of Aladdin, it is actually possible to wish for more wishes, so Clooney effectively has an infinite well of universe-altering power. The actor supposedly discovered the lamp at a flea market in 1988 but only got around to actually rubbing it in a moment of desperation while auditioning for his career-making role on ER. For now, George Clooney has no plans of making major changes to the world but it is likely to continue to make his own life incrementally more fantastic as he sees fit.