Money Matters: 5 Smokin’ College Success Stories

facebook_1.jpgLast night, President Obama addressed the current economic crisis, assuring America that “We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” That sounds especially promising to the billions of college students across the country, who are faced with escalating tuition costs and skyrocketing student debts, and who are watching as the window of opportunity seems to shrink with news of major layoffs every other day.

However, if you play your cards right, you can find great success after college. Sure, some of us will spend years after college struggling to pay off student loans and going on interview after interview, sometimes for entry-level jobs we are overqualified for but still can’t seem to nab. But some of us are on the brink of making headlines, like these uber-successful post-grad powerhouses have done in recent years.

1. Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda went to Wesleyan University in Connecticut, a school where tuition runs at over $38 grand a year, plus $10-12,000 for room and board expenses. While attending Wesleyan, Miranda, a native of Inwood, New York City, turned his life experience into a theatrical production that has exploded since his graduation from the University in 2002. Miranda is the composer and lyricist behind the smash hit musical In the Heights, which was produced at Wesleyan, picked up for off-Broadway, and transferred to the Great White Way in 2008. Miranda, an actor-slash-rapper who originated the lead role, Usnavi, in his own show, picked up a Tony award last spring and is currently slated to reprise the role when it hits the silver screen. Read More »

G.W.W.E.: Neil “Down For Me” Patrick Harris

neilpatrickharris.jpg(We’re back with another weekly installment of G.W.W.E. [Guys We Wanna Eff]. This week, we turn our attention to the slick, sarcastic, and suave Neil Patrick Harris, who has been revving up our engines since age sixteen.]

I know what you’re thinking: Neil Patrick Harris is a looker and all, but uh, doesn’t he bat for the other team? You would be right about that, but for this week’s GWWE (or would that be, GGWWE- Gay Guy We Wanna Eff?) I’m longing for that boy-he’s-so-awesome-maybe-I-can-score-a-conversion-eff.

Can you blame me? I’ve had a hard time keeping my temperature down since Neil was sporting lab coats in Doogie Howser, MD. He had everything my teenage heart desired: good looks, great smarts, and a stethoscope (what better way to hear my pulse beating, “eff-me, eff-me, eff-me”?).

And Mr. Harris beat the child-star stereotypes to become a successful (and sexy) entertainer. He has been seen most recently in the hit series How I Met Your Mother, but is also well known for his hilarious portrayal of—well, himself—in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle. But best of all, he starred in the web-based mini-movie Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, as a mad scientist in love with pretty Penny from the laundromat. Was it absolutely hysterical? Yes. Did I superimpose my own image over Penny’s to imagine Dr. Eff Me singing and pleading for my affections? Maybe. Read More »

The World Gets Just a Little Bit Dirtier: Mr. Clean Dies at 92

No, not the actual cartoon (cartoons don't die. Unless they're those cartoon rabbits from Watership Down), but actor House Peters Jr., the man who became the model for Proctor & Gamble's original Mr. Clean in their 1950's advertising campaign.

Because a lot of college kids may not know who House Peters, or even the cartoon Mr. Clean, is (these days we wipe up beer with more beer, right kids?), we've dug up a vintage Mr. Clean commercial from the '50's. It's so happy and peppy and long (how the hell did anyone have the attention span for a 60 second commercial?), it's sure to keep you humming all the way to Econ 105.

RIP Mr. House Peters. You had the coolest bald head in the business.

WTF Harry Potter?

danielradcliffe-equus_-1-copy.jpgAnd I quote…”He’s a truly remarkable man. If I was gay or a female I’d just want to marry him. He’s gorgeous, and he’s really cool bloke as well.”

That’s what Daniel Radcliffe, 19, said about his ‘Equus’ co-star Lorenzo Pisoni, 31, after admitting to writing some “deeply sexual things” on cards Radcliffe gave Pisoni on opening night. But they were just to get Pisoni “wound up, you know?”

This is either method acting to the max, or straight weird.

Ah well. So maybe Harry Potter’s a little gay?

It’s fine Danny, we don’t judge.  Keep on whipping it out on Broadway.

G.W.W.E!: Jeremy “Put it In Me” Piven

jeremy-piven-picture-1.jpg(In our first ever weekly installment of G.W.W.E [Guys We Want to Eff], we decided to tackle the possibly oily but strangely hot Jeremy Piven.

If you have an expensive cable package, you love him as Ari on Entourage, and if you’ve only got basic, you love him from the small to medium roles he’s played in tons of various movies that were not always good. Now, on with the GWWEeeing…)

Two Sundays ago, the Emmy’s were on. I don’t watch the Emmy’s because they’re boring and everyone is always thanking God — who probably doesn’t give a crap about your little gold statue when there are wars and famines going on all over the globe — but I happened to switch over to it during a commercial break from TLC’s Incredible Medical Mysteries (best show ever. TiVo it NOW).

The part of the snooze-fest I ended up catching was Jeremy Piven’s heartfelt acceptance speech for his 3rd Emmy for Entourage. And something just…happened. I was inexplicably drawn to his chiseled boyish middle-agedness. My insides got all hot and tingly. There was a need to see what he was rocking underneath that tux.

Maybe it was his fantabulous hair plugs. Or wig. Maybe it was his new cut bod. Maybe he went to a voodoo lady and found a potion to make girls almost 20 years his junior want to eff him. Whatever he did. It worked. I want to eff all 43 years of him. Read More »

Shia LaBeouf Arrested at Hospital for DUI

060307_shia.jpg

Shia LaBeouf, the adorable movie star who used to seem so sweet and cute, apparently made a promise to himself to become just another one of those a**hole actors by breaking a bunch of laws in recent months. Early this morning (Sunday, July 27th), LaBeouf pushed his a**shole act up a notch by flipping his car on “the corner of Fountain and La Brea” in Hollywood and smashing up his hand bad enough to go into surgery shortly after. As soon as he got to the hospital, LaBeouf was arrested and charged with DUI.

Updates will no doubt come in as the day wears on, but as we all wait for those updates to happen, we here at CC are going to make our own promise to ourselves: no more fantasies involving actors who are lame enough to think that driving while intoxicated is a great way to get around.

LiLo Heads Back to Work

lohan.jpgIt has been so long since we’ve seen Lindsay Lohan in anything other than rehab/a bikini/a mugshot/the arms of her “girlfriend” that I sorta forgot she did anything else.

Yeah, it seems that Ms. Lohan was at one point an actress. Wait…now I remember. Mean Girls. I loved that movie! Oh man. Remember that part at the end when the girls are all sharing secrets and that girl was like, “Most people think I’m lying about being a virgin because I prefer jumbo tampons, but I can’t help it if I have a heavy flow and a wide-set vagina!”

Ha! Classic.

But back to my point. Lindsay has returned to work! She has been spending a lot of time on the set of her new movie, Labor Pains, and the reps for the movie say that everything is going A-Ok. Last time I checked, no one in Hollywood would insure a Lohan movie because she’s so…er….she’s a hot mess. But, the peeps behind Labor Pains decided Lohan was a risk worth taking. According to People:

“We were a little bit reluctant to work with her,” Lati Grobman, one of the producers, tells PEOPLE. “But she’s been amazing. We took the chance. It’s good that we did. So far, so good.” Read More »

Starlets: Media Moguls Or Greedy Bitches?

withlove_ad-thumb.jpgThere is a reason why pro-football players aren’t actors. The same reason why actors aren’t pro-football players.

There is a reason we come into this nice, little world, with…gifts. And unless you’re some SUPER HUMAN FREAK, you don’t tend to have gifts that cross into a million different categories.

So when Vanessa Minnillo, used-to-be MTV VJ and super babe girlfriend to Nick Lachey, Jessica Simpson’s former husband, announces she is making, “a film.“, I want to tell her to grab a microphone, bust out an ab-roller, do her hair, tell me what the number one video of the week is, and then-shut up.

I get that a job like VJing is, to most, a platform to a “greater success.” But when was the last time a VJ came out with an Oscar winning, or even bearable film that didn’t go straight to DVD? I don’t think ever? Or didn’t join some cheesy teen sitcom (One Tree Hill- Hilarie Burton)?

Come to think of it, its not just VJ’s who are overextending themselves, Hollywood in general is getting ridiculously greedy. Read More »

Remembering Heath Ledger For His Life, Not His Death

tn2_heath_ledger_1.jpgOn the afternoon of January 22, Heath Ledger was found dead in his New York City apartment.

A week later, I’m still unsure which is worse – that a tremendously talented young actor died, that I probably learned about it before his family, or that his family heard about it from the media, the same way as me.

From the moment the news was released, nearly every media outlet seemed to toss journalistic integrity out of the window in favor of reporting rumors and speculation. We saw pictures of Heath’s body carried out of the apartment in a body bag, TMZ had a live stream outside of the Frank Campbell funeral home on Fifth Avenue, similar to their feed outside of the Britney Spear’s court hearings (after many of their readers protested the funeral home feed, TMZ finally took it down), and Tinsley Mortimer, a New York socialite, was speculated to have used Heath’s sudden passing as a photo op, getting her nails done at a salon next to the funeral home and not so close to her own home.

There is no glamour in dying. Upon death, there should be no indignity. Yet at every turn, the stories ran wild – Heath Ledger died in Mary Kate Olsen’s apartment; pills were STREWN around his room, Heath was depressed and had a drug problem.

With celebrity comes endless scrutiny, yet in life, Heath Ledger was spared from a lot of it because of his low key profile away from the glare of Hollywood. But his death was another story entirely, and it wasn’t just paparazzi outside of the building. New outlets were there right next to the gossip photographers, covering the coverage of the event just to get a burning headline. Read More »

Greasy Grenier Wants to F**k the S**t Out Of You

adrian-grenier.jpg You might know Adrian Grenier as the slightly smug, slightly self-centered, but always adorable Vince from HBO’s hit Entourage. Although I personally think the show’s success has a lot to do with the hilarity of the character actors (including my personal skeevy love Jeremy Piven), Grenier certainly plays a major role in attracting viewers—a fact he has obviously let infect his brain and speech pattern.

As reported by a Radar journalist, Grenier recently showed up at a Lower East Side (read: skinny jeans and soul patches) party and spoke some choice words to a lady he apparently fancied. Instead of attempting to have a nice conversation like the rest of us common folk, Grenier the celebrity went straight for the kill—because, well, he thought he could.

Transcribed via Radar:

Adrian: Hi, what’s your name?

Brunette: [Giggling. It is obvious she knows who he is; she is flattered that he has approached her] Elizabeth*. What’s yours?

Adrian: Adrian.

Brunette: Nice to meet you! And what do you do, Adrian?

Adrian: I make documentary films.

Brunette: Oh really?

Adrian: Yeah. And some other stuff on the side. What about you?

Brunette: I’m in fashion.

Adrian: That’s cool. So how about we go home and I f*ck the sh*t out of you? Read More »