To reiterate: Watch this damn show.

Why? Because.



It would be a really, really smart idea.

Need more?

How thoughtful.

Vatican forgives John Lennon for Jesus quip

Beatles cover meme

Post one you like.



Jeopardygirl, Steve, PJ, Brave Sir Robin, and ahab...Yo!

"...the series has done a terrific job of reinventing what it means to be a terminator."

In my continuing quest to get you to watch the TV shows that I love, I'm going to point you towards this review of a recent episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: "Mr. Ferguson is Ill Today"

These are a few of my favorite things

Some things I like:

Gorgeous girls.
"Post-punk" music and '80s icons.
Idealism.
Water imagery.
Dolphins.

This is "Rush Hour" by Jane Wiedlin of The Go Go's, one of her most creatively successful solo singles. It's from the album Fur, which featured the late Rob Fisher of Naked Eyes on keyboards.

I like it.

Is it wrong that as I look at this picture, all I can think of is the squeaks all that leather must be making?

It's Kate Hudson and dancers in rehearsals for Nine, a musical based on the Broadway hit of 20 years ago, BTW, but it looks to me like one of those "leather shop" SNL skits.

Oh, this makes me sad...and then happy

This afternoon I got one of those emails that I frequently get from music PR folks. I'm still on a lot of mailing lists from when I used to write more reviews than I do these days.

I always glance at them to see if there's anything that makes me want to "come out of retirement," but there rarely is. Today, however, was a bit of hype regarding a new duo calling themselves The Secret History.

The Secret History was formed in 2007 by songwriter Michael Grace Jr., best known for acclaimed cult indie pop band My Favorite.

The Secret History also features vocalist Lisa Ronson, daughter of Bowie guitarist, and glam-rock legend Mick Ronson.

What makes me sad is that this is how I'm finding out that My Favorite has indeed broken up. I like My Favorite. They're on my "If my Colley/Keitha/Annabel movie got made, music I wish I could use on the soundtrack" list (specifically, a song called "listening to The Black Cassette"). More about that in a minute.

Now that I think of it, they inspired part of the writing, too.

I've written about them a few times (more about that in two minutes).

So My Favorite being no more makes me sad. On the other hand, the thought of songwriter Grace collaborating with the daughter of Ronson, who helped inventor of rock and roll David Bowie do so, is at least intriguing.

So then I scroll down and I see that the lead track of their debut EP is called...“It’s Not The End of The World, Jonah.” For those of you who don't know or have forgotten...my character Colley's first name is Jonah.

I love shit like this. Here's their MySpace page if you want to hear that song and a couple others (you should).

If you scroll down that page still further, there we have quotes from the press about Grace's previous music, and we find this little pop-out paragraph:

This is music that matters to me. The songs have become requirements; Grace's obsessions suddenly seem to have become mine. The alien, the girl or boy "differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility," to quote Webster's. This band reflects an amalgamation, of sounds and styles while all the while retaining an awareness of the awkwardness of youth. Each single track is better than most bands' entire album

The thing of it is...(as if you're not already way ahead of me)...I wrote that. Well, to be honest, I wrote over half of it. See, what they've done is to combine a section of my review of My Favorite's album, The Happiest Days of Our Lives, with Terry Eagan's review of an earlier EP. We were both reviewing for Ink 19.

Everything up through-

The alien, the girl or boy “differing in nature or character typically to the point of incompatibility,” to quote Webster’s.

-is mine.

I know it shouldn't make me happy that my words are found worthy of exploiting for promotion...but it does. If you will allow and forgive me just one moment of self-pity...maybe because it means it has value for someone.

The world is a strange strange strange strange strange place

Joe Lieberman is a turncoat who gets off scot-free (although, y'know...maybe he doesn't.)

Ted Stevens is being allowed to retire as if he were Gwen Verdon taking her last bow, instead of the convicted felon that he is.

And somewhere, John Kerry and Al Gore are dancing around; saying "How you like me NOW, bitches?"

The Senate Minority Leader is acting like a spiteful little child

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell isn't speaking to Majority Leader Harry Reid.

If ever there was a time to, I think the expression is, "lol"...

So there's a little artificial intelligence thing called the Genderanalyzer. Which, as its name suggests, tries to see if it can tell from a page's content whether or not it's written by a man or a woman. I have three blogs, so I gave it three tries.

It got that pharmaceutical diaries and this blog are written by a guy…but it thinks dancing girls is written by a woman.

Now That's Entertainment

I mean, the pretzels the GOP/Fox News types will twist themselves into to avoid saying the simple truth: Such types don't believe gay people are human beings and so they don't believe they're deserving of civil rights.

Come on, GOP/Fox News types! Let your homophobia flags fly!

Because you're not fooling anyone, you know. I mean it. Not anyone.

To be fair, she does have all that experience under fire in Bosnia

David Corn has a good post at the Mother Jones blog on some of the many reasons why Hillary Clinton just might not be the best choice for secretary of state. I think he's right.

Whatever positives she may have for that position, I've become convinced they are dwarfed by the negatives she brings.

Let's just enjoy this headline while we can

Cheney and Gonzales indicted

Vice president Dick Cheney and former US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez have been indicted by a grand jury in Southern Texas.

The indictment accuses Cheney of engaging in an organized criminal activity because of his investment in the Vanguard Group.

It claims Cheney had a conflict of interest because the group holds interests in private prison companies running federal detention centers.

A separate indictment accuses Gonzales of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at one of the privately-run prisons.

Something like justice

The latest on the Megan Meier case The judge has decided he will allow evidence of her suicide to be presented in the trial of the horrible, alleged person Lori Drew who chose to torment a child. One whom she knew had emotional problems.

Good.

The good news and the bad news

The good news is that "Life" has been given a full-season order by NBC.

The bad news is that the Donal Logue character has not yet put a shotgun beneath his smarmy chin and pulled the trigger.

In the extremely unlikely event that anyone from the series should come across this, please, for the love of god, in the name of all that is holy, kill that character. Slowly. Make sure he suffers.

Before he kills your show.

For those of you just joining us, Rodgers, Hart and Hammerstein are all dead

Kelly Clarkson has finished recording her fourth album and her new single is likely called “My Life Would Suck Without You.”

Weird coincidences dept.

Remember last week, when I said that Richard Schiff, Toby on West Wing, was guest starring on Terminator? Well, last night, so he did. But what's more, so did an actor named Adam Busch.

Busch played the role of Warren in Buffy, the Vampire Slayer--a character I hated but I was meant to, and anyway it wasn't his fault. He's also the longtime boyfriend of Amber Benson.

Small world.

I remain convinced that if Hillary Clinton truly wants to advance any further in her political career...

...whether that be by working for Obama, or making another run for the White House herself in eight years...

...she really needs to have Bill boarded like a dog. Again, I suggest the Playboy mansion...

god-spare us from people who think they have to save us from George Carlin

From a Washington Post story

The late George Carlin, whose sense of irony was world class, would have appreciated last night's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony at the Kennedy Center, though it's not clear which rich irony he would have liked most.

And as a comedian who made an art out of blue language ("The king of raw," Maher called him) Carlin surely would have gotten some mileage out of the fact that only three of his "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" were actually spoken from the Kennedy Center stage. (Denis Leary alone accounted for three F-bombs.)

Carlin himself rematerialized in a clip to do the bit, though -- again, ironically -- the commentary on language and the absurdity of banning words was itself bleeped repeatedly by the Kennedy Center censor.

Even in death...not even this, huh? Even the man getting this prize in this place doesn't get to have his work spoken the way he wrote it. I guess the vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts at the Kennedy Center were worried about (the no-doubt vast) number of pre-teens whose ears might've been scalded.

(Thx Cor.)