Sigh 2.

TV Ratings:

Week two of NBC clinker Friday Night Lights lived up to that description, with a mere 4.4/ 7 in the overnights (#4), 6.28 million viewers (#4) and a 2.4/ 7 among adults 18-49 (#3) at 8 p.m. Compared to its already disappointing debut one week earlier (Overnights: 5.3/ 8; Viewers: 7.17 million; A18-49: 2.7/ 8 on Oct. 3), that was a decline of 17 percent in the overnights, 890,000 viewers and 11 percent among adults 18-49.

In retrospect, maybe the fact that a show about high school football appeals to someone like me who is so...not a high school football person, was a bad sign right there. But I'm still enjoying this series, howeversolong it may last.

The acting is particularly strong, and the directing style, lots of hand-held work accentuating close-ups, helps put it over. Another great score by Snuffy Walden, too. The writing is not flashy-great in the way of an Aaron Sorkin, but the words fall easily upon the ear. You believe the characters have depth and an existence away from that moment.

Also, the perhaps-surprising number of strong female characters is lovely.

Although Gilmore Girls on the CW remains a solid player at a fifth-place 4.0/ 6 in the overnights, 4.61 million viewers and a 2.0/ 6 among adults 18-49 at 8 p.m., lead-out Veronica Mars dipped to a 2.4/ 3 in the overnights, 2.99 million viewers and a 1.3/ 3 among adults 18-49 at 9 p.m. Retention was just 60 percent in the overnights, and 65 percent in both total viewers and adults 18-49. Even so, fans of Veronica Mars take note: Veronica was up a healthy 33 percent among women 18-34 (2.4) from it’s year-ago performance. As for Gilmore Girls, a third-place finish in the 8 p.m. hour among adults 18-34 (2.3/ 7) with growth from one week earlier earns it an honorable mention.

I glanced at Gilmore Girls again during the commercial breaks for FNL, and saw my first scene with Paris in the new season. I don't know if it was because I love Liza Weil, or just because she's such a ferociously intelligent actress (of course, those two things are not at all unrelated). But it was the first and only time so far I really felt at peace with GG under the new regime.

For the rest of it, based on what I've seen so far and the "next, on Gilmore Girls..." Well, before I say this, I hope you'll take into account what I hope is my well-established at this point love for strong women in general, the Gilmore girls in specific, and Lorelei Gilmore as she was for most of her first six seasons in particular. I don't say this lightly.

But at this point, all I'd really want to say to Lorelei if I could is "Get back with Luke, you stupid whore."

Onward!

The second episode of Veronica Mars this season was a massive improvement over both the premiere last week and the second half of last season. It was so good it immidiately started me worrying that it would be just my luck if they made me like it again just in time for cancelation.

My friend Corey offers that it would be better if it ends on a high, if premature, note than if it gets good, gets renwewed, and then gets bad again. But I'm not so sure. I want to believe that Thomas and his team have regained control of the wheel, but I guess only time will tell.

The first half of this season is said to be a do-or-die time for Veronica ratingswise. If I read it right, the show doesn't seem to be dying on the vine just yet, but it could sure use some more viewers. So I'm going to do something I haven't done for a long time, I'm going to suggest you watch Veronica Mars.

I guess, even though they let me down last season, I'd still rather see them have a chance to race at the long track, even if they spin out again, than get cut before the flag.

One last item about last night's TV shows, even though it's not ratings-related. There's an article here about Boston Legal's endearing habit of letting the characters comment upon the fact that they're inside a TV show ("I've hardly seen you at all this episode").

The item doesn't mention this, but I've come to think of it as an homage, though this may not be intentional, to the Hope & Crosby road films which did the same thing. Come on, can't you see Crane & Shore in: The Road to Boston?

I think Denny's Bob Hope and Alan's Bing Crosby. Which, I guess, given that she's become the object of affection for both men, would make Candace Bergen Dorothy Lamour. Again, I can see it.

Oh, good

“There is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America. Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle… Life there was savage … and those brought to America, and other countries, were in many ways better off.”
– Gerald Schoenewolf, a member of NARTH’s Science Advisory Committee.

The “Ex-gay” advocates of the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) have not denounced the above comments from Schoenwolf, a NYC psychotherapist and author of The Art of Hating, (”Many people talk about hate, but few know how to hate well.”)

Via Pandagon, where Pam's entry speaks for itself. But I'll add, to the members of this fine, upstanding group: You always gotta think about the acronym. How is anyone supposed to take your organization seriously when your name sounds like something Pinky would say?

Every minute of every hour - I love a sunflower

Sigh

TV Ratings:

-Yesterday’s Losers (excluding repeats):
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC)

Unfortunately, the news remains bleak for NBC at 10 p.m. with week four of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip at a distant second-place 6.8/11 in the overnights, 8.76 million viewers and a 3.8/ 9 among adults 18-49. The one piece of good news for Studio 60: it beat ABC’s competing What About Brian.

-Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (Mon. 10 p.m.): Losing steam every week.

There's a musical called Merrily We Roll Along, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, which is one of the more famous underperformers-I'm being generous-in Broadway history. By all reports (I've never seen it staged) it has never fully worked succesfully, either in its original run or in a couple of revivals. Even though it contains one or two of Sondheim's best songs. "Not A Day Goes By" alone is worth a couple of shows.

I remember once reading someone speculate that one of the reasons it never worked is because the audiences didn't relate to the characters. Merrily We Roll Along, as I recall, is about a man who starts out wanting to write for Broadway and ends up "selling out" by writing commercial, pop music.

Well, this person speculated, not wanting to write for Broadway may be the worst betrayal Sondheim and his longtime directing partner, Hal Prince, could think of...but it's not a given that even a Broadway audience is going to care that much.

I wonder whether one of the reasons Studio 60 is doing so poorly (compared to, say, West Wing) is because: There simply aren't that many people to whom the running of a TV show is as interesting as, say, the running of the country.

No matter who's writing it. I mean obviously, they've got people like me-even if if this wasn't a Sorkin show, as a writer a show about a writer would interest me. But how many of us are there?

(Apparently, 8.76 million of us)

About last night's episode specifically: Last week a few of us were discussing over on Sherman's blog whether or not within the world of the series, Harriet's religious beliefs were well known. Enough so that they could be referred to on the show-within-the-show. Sherman wasn't sure, I thought they were.

I am much less sure that in this world or any other, a writer/director/producing team coming back to a late-night TV comedy show is cover story fodder for Vanity Fair. I mean, come on. How often do you see people like Lorne Michaels or even Al Franken (back before he launched his second career as a comedian) making like Jennifer Aniston?

Finally, it may interest those of you who watched to know that last night's plot was, presumably, based in part on a real incident. In his book about his time spent as a writer/performer on Saturday Night Live, (you could read my review here) Jay Mohr cops to having plagarized a sketch and being found out. If memory serves he did not, however, have the "get out of jail free" card Sorkin provided his characters at the end, a final twist I kinda wish they'd left out.

It's a weakness as well as a strength of Sorkin's writing that sometimes, he can't let people be too angry with each other for too long. The strenth of this is that all his characters are too well-rounded to be one-dimensional villains (or heroes). The weakness is that sometimes he lets conflict, or even potential conflict, dissapate too quickly.

Well, come hell or high water, I'm in with Studio 60 until they shut the lights out. I just wish there were more of us.

President Ursus

Ursus: The only thing that counts in the end is POWER! Naked merciless FORCE!

Glenn Greenwald has some horrifying-at least in their implications-observations about the North Korean nuclear test.

Our credibility to act in the world -- both diplomatically and militarily -- has to be close to, if not at, an all-time low. We are already fighting two wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan) which, by all accounts, have significantly depleted our military resources. And we have been overtly threatening -- and flirting with a passing of the point of no return -- to fight a war against a third country (Iran). We plainly don't have enough troops to devote to our current wars in order to win them, let alone start new ones. And we have close to 40,000 American troops on the border between North and South Korea who are veritable hostages in any military confrontation.

Time and again, the President has demonstrated that he is capable of seeing a complex world only in the simplest Manichean terms. Someone is either Good or they are Evil. And if they are Evil, it means you cannot deal with them or negotiate with them or rely upon diplomacy. By definition, Evil understands nothing but force and threats of force. The only thing that works with Evil is to crush it, not to manage or compromise and negotiate with it.

What do I think?

I think Bush is the gorilla general, we're the human civilization that killed the baby chimp more than decades ago and North Korea is the cult that worships the bomb.

So as you can see I'm quite optimistic about how all this is going to turn out.

Four women in increasingly less clothing

If "increasingly less" is not a contradiction in terms...



Sarah Michelle Gellar, impersonating an old couch, standing next to Amber Tamblyn, who has some very nice-looking legs. [Via Pink Is The New Blog]



Scarlett Johansson, wearing leather, standing next to Dita von Teese, wearing a necklace and heels. [Source]



I choose to believe this is some kind of an anti-leather statement.

Happy Monday, everybody...

Thank god for weblogs

If you missed David Rakoff’s interview on “The Daily Show," as I did, you'll want to follow this link and watch the clip. It's hilarious.

Terry Gilliam reduced to hustling on the street

Shame, really.

No, no, but seriously though, this is him trying to whip up some support for his new movie Tideland. Which may be about to get an extremely abbreviated and only limited theatrical run before going straight to DVD.

Which really would be a shame, since he remains my favorite director. Seeing him again and again find himself on troubled productions, while the terrible Tim Burton goes from hit to hit, gives me a pain in the back of the head like a needle, a big, ice-hot needle.

I'd hoped Tideland might be my longed-for "pure" Gilliam film. One that seems, as co-writer Charles McKeon described Brazil, like taking off the top of his head and peering around inside. Early reviews suggest that may not be the case.

I'll still be watching it, whether on the big screen or small, hoping to love it. It's been too long.

Oh, man. What the hell was that?

Nothing, baby.


"When Album Covers Attack"

If you don't Look Sharp you might get Crushed.

Stephen Colbert probably isn't reading this

According to this article, he doesn't look at the blogs much, though he does sometimes ask his wife to do so and give him a report. Good evening Mrs. Colbert, my you look lovely today. The article's only so-so; it's better for its Colbert quotes than for the intrusions by the author, Adam Sternbergh.

Sternbergh comes off as the kind of guy who tries to tell jokes but forgets punchlines and thinks a little, but not enough. How else do you explain his trying to descibe Colbert's trademark "Word" bits while leaving out the answer-back commentary captions that makes it funny?

Worse is his digression into a not-fully-thought-out equation of Colbert with Ann Coulter. I think I know what he was trying to say with that, but to my mind he didn't close the loop. Though I have thought about whether there is an equation for Colbert, not with Coulter but with Andrew Dice Clay.

Like Colbert, Clay became rich and famous saying hateful things. He always reacted to criticism of his act by hiding behind the notion that it was "just a character." Colbert, of course, makes similar claims about his on-air persona.

The difference is, Colbert always finds a way to signal from within that character, and without breaking it, what his true thoughts are. Also, he's genuinely funny, another thing that separates him from the Diceman.

Whose sole lasting contribution to our culture remains the "OH!" sample on "Unbelivable" by EMF.

Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_7382

From the rarely-seen "Paul and Jamie experiment with bondage" episode of Mad About You.

Original source credit here.

I would just revel in these poll numbers, but...

Rather astonishing item in Newsweek. What's astonishing is not the words like--

the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new all-time low

--those words have come to be as predictable as a change of seasons. But a headline to the story asks the question: How Low Can The Republicans Go?

In Newsweek. Not a Democratic blog like Maha or Pandagon or even this one. Not a more moderate but still Bush-disliking blog like News From Me.

Frickin' Newsweek. Wow.

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has fallen to a new all-time low for the Newsweek poll: 33 percent, down from an already anemic 36 percent in August. Only 25 percent of Americans are satisfied with the direction of the country, while 67 percent say they are not. Foley’s disgrace certainly plays a role in Republican unpopularity: 27 percent of registered voters say the scandal and how the Republican leadership in the House handled it makes them less likely to vote for a Republican Congressional candidate; but 65 percent say it won’t make much difference in determining how they vote. And Americans are equally divided over whether or not Speaker Hastert should resign over mishandling the situation (43 percent say he should, but 36 percent say he shouldn’t).

But, as I say up there, there's something that stops me from just reveling in these poll numbers as one or two other bloggers are almost certainly doing. And that is that I'm wondering: Shouldn't the Democratic leadership (I know, I know, contradiction in terms) have said or done something about Foley's disgrace by now?

I mean yeah, it's great that the Republican leaders keep slipping in the mud they've been slinging for years. But the response of the Democrats seems to be to laugh and smile and say "Hey, you're all dirty, man."

Attack the motherfuckers! They're weak! How many times, how many chances, how many opportunities do you have to get to step up, on and over the Republican hari-karis they're leaving in their wake?

A later paragraph states that

The scandal’s more significant impact seems to be a widening of the yawning credibility gap developing between the President, his party and the nation.

Unfortunately, that credibility gap exists for the Democrats, too, thanks to Nancy "no time for responsibility" Pelosi. What do I mean by that? More in a moment.

... While 52 percent of Americans believe Hastert was aware of Foley’s actions and tried to cover them up, it’s part of a larger loss of faith in Republican leadership, thanks mostly to the war in Iraq. For instance, for the first time in the NEWSWEEK poll, a majority of Americans now believe the Bush administration knowingly misled the American people in building its case for war against Saddam Hussein: 58 percent vs. 36 percent who believe it didn’t. And pessimism over Iraq is at record highs on every score: nearly two in three Americans, 64 percent, believe the United States is losing ground there; 66 percent say the war has not made America safer from terrorism (just 29 percent believe it has); and 53 percent believe it was a mistake to go to war at all, again the first time the NEWSWEEK poll has registered a majority in that camp.

Emphasis mine.

Can we impeach him nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow?

The answer: No, no we can't, because as re-stated most recently in this item, the Democrats wouldn't impeach Bush if he shot a child in the back of the head on national television.

Rep. Pete Stark, the decidedly liberal Democrat on the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health, said: "The '08 contest for the White House will be the major moderating influence. I don't think we're going to run out and impeach Rumsfeld and Bush, although a lot of my constituents would like to."

Pelosi, mindful of the power of the Republican charge that the Democrats will spend the next two years on partisan payback, explicitly ruled out impeachment of Bush. "Absolutely," she said in an interview on Thursday. "We don't have time for that."

It's not partisan payback, you stupid, appeasing...! Partisan payback is what they were doing to Clinton!

Clinton lied to cover-up inappropriate behaivor. Bush lied to put American lives in danger and get the country into war. How much more explict a rationale for impeachment could you possibly need?

Okay. Clearly, I need something good here. You regulars know what that means...



This is a video that I first saw when I was around 11. Maybe that's why although some would say it's silly or even stupid, it always carried more weight with me than that, especially the last few shots.

For all that the '80s get caricatured as a decade of low-volume values and high-volume hair, a big part of being a child then was living with the knowledge that there were these bombs out there that could destroy the world. Are you gonna drop the bomb or not, as Alphaville starkly asked.

But this is not that song, and this is not that band. Even if you don't like the video, close your eyes and listen to the song. It's almost 25 years old and it could have been written last month.

And I think I'll stop reading political blogs. I'd say "and start watching more videos and listening to more music from when I was 11," but that hardly seems possible.

This isn't irony, but I like it

SNL Topped By It's Doppleganger
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/5/2006 4:28:00 PM
The debut of the 32nd season of Saturday Night Live Sept. 30 averaged a 3.2 rating/13 share in the 18-49 demo. That's up a tad (3%) from last year's season opener.



But it was not enough to top the NBC show about Saturday Night Live, NBC's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, about a Friday night comedy show on NBS, which averaged a 3.5/9 for its episode Monday night on NBC.

Minor quibble w/the above:

For what it's worth, I think Studio 60 is "about" Saturday Night Live about as much as The West Wing was "about" the Clinton or Bush administrations or Sports Night was "about" ESPN. Drama is not about its setting, it's about-please hold for pretention-the mind, soul and heart of its creator.

Oh, and in reference to my "haven't been paying Amy Poehler the attention she deserves" theory: Having done my token watching of an episode of SNL for the year, I can now safely say this.

Wide, tall, and proud bush or not, the woman is on a show that is only fitfully funny at best. And although she is far from the least funny person on it-that would be Darrell Hammond-it's like not being on the lowest deck of the Titanic...

That was quick

CBS pulls plug on ‘Smith,’ making crime drama first fall show to get ax

“Smith,” the Tuesday night CBS drama with [Ray] Liotta leading a band of high-stakes thieves, is off the schedule, the network said Friday. It will be replaced temporarily by reruns of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” and “Criminal Minds.”

Note to self: Start working on screenplay for beautiful, accomplished and now at-liberty actress. Actually, if I'd ever written the part, Virgina Madsen would be perfect for the role of my character Annabel's mother as I see her in my head...in about 12 years. Which, given the way things are going, may be about as long as it's going to take me to get Annabel's story told in any form.

But I digress. And, should Ms. Madsen or any of her representatives be reading this, and feeling weak at the prospect of her moving from "hot babe" to "mother" roles...

Let me hasten to say I still feel that taking an endless hot shower with Virgina Madsen is what happens to us when we die if we've been good.



I seem to have digressed again.

["Smith's"] last episode had only 8.4 million viewers on Tuesday, according to Nielsen Media Research. It faced tough competition in the time slot from NBC’s “Law & Order: SVU” and ABC’s “Boston Legal.”

Here again we see the differences in perspective and standards. "Only" 8.4 million viewers would keep "Veronica Mars" on the air at least another three seasons, however little it may deserve it at this point.

And if I get my book published and "only" 8.4 million people buy it? I'll be writing this blog from my apartment in San Francisco overlooking the Golden Gate...

Garry Trudeau is a very wise man

Story on the writer and artist of Doonesbury here. Excerpts:

When you focus on a political theme, do you find that it’s harder to keep it fresh or funny and not just be obvious? How do you avoid the trap of merely pointing your finger and, in effect, saying of your subject, “You’re stupid because I disagree with you”? That’s the art of satire. Sometimes it’s subtle, surprising, and illuminating; sometimes it’s heavy-handed and tiresome. Obviously the former is the ideal, but that’s true on any subject, not just politics.

I’ve grown up with every president since JFK. I remember how froth-at-the-mouth furious Nixon made people; and there was Reagan, who had people pulling out their hair. But compared to George W. Bush, Nixon and Reagan seem like wise men, even sages. But how do you see it? From your perspective, who is the scariest? And how do you keep yourself from getting so sputtering mad that you can’t be funny? Is that tough? Well, you can’t leave Carter and Clinton off the list of presidents who made people apoplectic. But to me, Bush is the scariest because he is easily the most radical. Nixon still caused the most harm — 30,000 Americans and many more Vietnamese died needlessly on his watch — but don’t count Bush out. There are still plenty of countries to take down.

As for not becoming overwhelmed by outrage, that’s exactly the purpose humor serves — an outlet. It keeps me from going sputtering mad.

Someone I can't remember once said something like "We have art that we might not die from the truth."

If they gave me a half hour of national television, four nights a week, or even a handful of panels in the newspapers and on computer screens every day? And if I had to talk about President Bush at least part of the time?

I'd have snapped years ago, and all you'd be hearing is outraged, sputtering rants.

One of the reasons I think Jon Stewart is such a national treasure, as is Trudeau, is because they keep it funny.

And then the corporations will not hesitate to pull their dough

For any of the rest of you who are following the fortunes of "Studio 60, Media Life magazine has a short article you might want to read. It's true there's been "a hefty drop" in the ratings in the first few weeks.

But what really seems to alarm people is that "Studio 60" loses viewers at the half hour mark. I've seen that mentioned in almost every story on the ratings I've read and I'm not sure how to explain it.

When I watch a show I'm in for the half, in for the hour, even when it isn't this one. I have noticed that a problem Aaron Sorkin had in his later seasons of "The West Wing" has carried over to "Studio 60," though.

His act breaks suck. If they're supposed to leave a viewer metaphorically on the edge of his seat so he has to come back, they're usually too low-key. I'm not saying this is a flaw in his writing-even though, much as I admire him, I wouldn't want to say he's flawless.

But it may be a flaw when it comes to writing for commercial network television. I'd love to see what he could do with a show on Showtime or the like where act breaks aren't a necessity. When he leaves me with a weak act break I'm always coming back, because I know he's Sorkin and I know he's got a goody bag. But what about everybody else?

If I had to guess-and it is only a guess, albeit a semi-educated one-I'd say it's because he overwrites and the act breaks have to be found catch as catch can in the editing room. Again, pure speculation, but it doesn't seem totally unlikely based on what I know about Sorkin and the way he works.

Which I would never want to change, BTW-I'm the guy who, when Sorkin's drug bust was made public, said,

"Smokes crack and he wrote "The West Wing, "Sports Night" and "The American President?" Get me the name of his dealer."

But seriously folks, the good news is that in a survey of "media planners and buyers"-the folks who buy commercials-in response to the question:

Do you think the show will bounce back up eventually? Just under a third of respondents think not, agreeing with the statement: "It has a strong (if somewhat incompatible) lead-in in "Heroes" and still sank. I think the second-half viewer drain is pretty telling. I'm not sure how long this show, which is pretty expensive, will last."

...the largest share, 46 percent, see "60" regaining audience. It's just going to take time. They agreed with the statement: " 'Studio 60' could be a slow builder. It’s smart, it’s got great acting, and critics love it, so they’ll be pounding people to watch. Once 'Monday Night Football' is done at midseason, it could find some new devotees who’ve been catching it online or on TiVo."

Emphasis mine. Please God I do hope so.

I like the best women.

Case in point: Kate Winslet, in this USA Today story. If she didn't smoke, she'd be almost perfect. Excerpts...

Winslet is the only actress to have collected four Oscar nominations — two for supporting (1995's Sense and Sensibility and 2001's Iris) and two for lead (for Titanic and 2004's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) — before age 30...

"She has not been eaten by celebrity," say Jeanine Basinger, the head of film studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. Compare her to Gwyneth Paltrow, Oscar winner for 1998's Shakespeare in Love in a role that Winslet turned down, and "the difference in the level of work and projects chosen is quite pronounced. She has defined herself as an actress, not a glamour pinup or a mature sophisticate."

Part of [the decision to make smaller films in the wake of Titanic] was based on advice given to her by her late boyfriend, Stephen Tredre, an actor and screenwriter she met on a BBC sitcom in 1991. He died from bone cancer at age 34 in December 1997, just as Titanic was about to open.

Before signing on for Titanic, "I remember standing in the middle of Knightsbridge on my phone. I had just gotten this mobile phone, and it had been ringing all day with people hassling for answers for this, that and the other, and I was 20 years old. I phoned my boyfriend and said, 'What do I do? What do I do?' And he said, 'What does your heart tell you to do?' "

With those words, Winslet suddenly bursts into tears. "I'm sorry. I'm getting emotional because this person passed away. Go away, Stephen," she says, waving her hands as if shooing a ghost.

Cooooooooooooooooool.

Scientists have found a fossil of a "Monster" fish-like reptile in a 150 million-year-old Jurassic graveyard on an Arctic island off Norway.

The Norwegian researchers discovered remains of a total of 28 plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs -- top marine predators when dinosaurs dominated on land -- at a site on the island of Spitsbergen, about 1,300 km (800 miles) from the North Pole.

"One of them was this gigantic monster, with vertebrae the size of dinner plates and teeth the size of cucumbers," Joern Hurum, an assistant professor at the University of Oslo, told Reuters on Thursday.

"We believe the skeleton is intact and that it's about 10 meters (33 feet) long," he told Reuters of the pliosaur, a type of plesiosaur with a short neck and massive skull. The team dubbed the specimen "The Monster."

Hurum reckoned the reptiles had not all died at the same time in some Jurassic-era cataclysm but had died over thousands of years in the same area, then become preserved in what was apparently a deep layer of black mud on the seabed.

As every Doctor Who fan in the world thinks to themselves, "Nonsense. Now that's what the Mryka should have looked like. Either that or it's leftover Skarasen technology. Oh, and about that Jurassic-era cataclysm..."

New addition

You've got to cool it now, ooooooh, watch out, you're gonna loose control...no, I'm just playing. As you'll see if you glance to the right, I've added the MediaMatters newsbox to my blog.

I decided to do this after being confronted for the third time in a week with the urge to recommmend their entire page, rather than link to a specific article. MediaMatters has been good for years, but with the Foley thing they've just been on a roll.

So now you can take it as a given I suggest you at least glance at those headlines once or twice a day. Follow up on the ones that intererest you; I may still be recommending specific articles, but not so much.

Thanks to Ink 19 editor/publisher Ian Koss for help with the tech talk.

BTW, any and all of you who use this blog as any kind of a news source, more fools, you-you should be using The Daily Show, of which the beforelinked story writes,

Jon Stewart may call “The Daily Show'' fake news. But a telecommunications professor at Indiana University said her research shows it has just as much substance as traditional network news.

I do recommend one more blog for those of you who are reveling in the hair-pulling Foley fiasco. Glen Greenwald has been going into it at great length, most recently with a post entitled,

Does the Foley scandal prove the existence of a God?

Excerpt:

The absolute refusal ever to admit error. The desperate clinging to power above all else. The efforts to cloud what are clear matters of wrongdoing with irrelevant sideshows. And the parade of dishonest and just plainly inane demonization efforts to hide and distract from their wrongdoing: hence, the pages are manipulative sex vixens; a shadowy gay cabal is to blame; the real criminals are those who exposed the conduct, not those who engaged in it; liberals created the whole scandal; George Soros funded the whole thing; a Democratic Congressman did something wrong 23 years ago; one of the pages IM'd with Foley as a "hoax", and on and on. There has been a virtual carousel -- as there always is -- of one pathetic, desperate attempt after the next to deflect blame and demonize those who are pointing out the wrongdoing. This is what they always do, on every issue. The difference here is that everyone can see it, and so nothing is working.

Says you.

The good women of Pandagon have been named one of Playboy's Top Ten Political Blogs of 2006. The often-inspirational Amanda had this to say about that:

I’m still trying to decide if I’m offended at having my intellect described as “almost frightening”. It’s hard to be offended when you’re flattered. You try it.

Anyway, hard as it is to believe this, we made it into the pages of Playboy. And I’m like still clothed. And everyone’s like still grateful about that.

A choice of captions

One: Pardon me, ladies...

Two: This is why it's important when drinking to maintain your input at the same constant as everybody else. Otherwise...

Found at my new favorite source for things that make you go hmm, avore de pensamentos.

Jessica Simpson's breasts: smart boy Kryptonite

Damnit. I like artistic women. I like accomplished women. I like skillful women. I like the very best women. I like...



...um....

(source)

That's the saddest thing I've ever seen

Words can't describe, just go see.

Okay, yet more on the Foley thing

At the risk of repeating myself, today is another day when I highly recommend going to the Media Matters homepage and reading what they've got on the latest homophobic attempts of the right wing to save their own asses, no play on words intended.

I especially urge you to read William Donohue of the Catholic League telling 15-year-old boys that if they're molested, it's their own damn fault. Speaking of repeating myself, I've said it before and I'll no doubt say it again.

The Catholic Church serves no damn good purpose except to tell budding young women that sex is sinful, thus making it more exciting to them, and then sending them out into the world in uniforms that are best described as: Convenient.

Though that is an exceptionally good purpose (ah, those bygone days), it's still not worth jackasses like Bill Donohue's mudslinging.

You can also see Tony "named after a famously closeted gay actor" Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, hauling out the falsehood that gay men are more likely to be child molestors, which is just not true.

I'm enjoying this, except that I keep wondering how former Kid in the Hall, NewRadio star and Celebrity Poker Showdown! host Dave Foley feels about his last name being linked to child molestation...

My streak for picking winners continues

I'm always surprised more than validated when popular tastes happen to coincide with my own. This is not to say that my tastes are better than you common folk, merely different. I was always kind of amazed that so many people were watching The West Wing at its height, when I thought they were making it just for me.

Liking something like Veronica Mars in its first season, when they really were making it just for me (for all intents and purposes), is much more my speed. So I suppose I'm not surprised that all the new shows I like this season seem to be weak in the ratings.

Friday Night Lights, a show about high school football that even I liked, loses to Dancing With The Flippin' Stars. Studio 60's ratings are slipping in reverse proportion to its quality, it keeps getting better and they keep getting worse.

And last night, The Nine. The premise is that in the first few minutes of the premiere, we see a group of people, all mostly strangers to one another, gathered in a bank moments before closing. Suddenly, two gunmen begin a robbery. Cut to first commercial.

When we come back it's 52 hours later. What happens to the survivors afterwards, interspersed with flashbacks of just what the hell happened in there, is the subject of the series. It's a setup ripe for drama, and the direction, acting and writing rises to meet the bar. "The Nine" are now bonded, and the different forms that bond takes (has taken...will take...) has many imaginative possibilities.

This show, as many of the critics have been saying, is one of the best of the season (USA Today has a good review). Unfortunately the ratings, while reportedly strong on their own, did not hold as much of Lost's audience as Invasion last year.

For reasons I don't know if I fully understand, how much audience you hold of the show before you is still a big deal in television. I think it has something to do with the idea that the networks have never really recovered from the invention of the remote control.

They would still like you to tune in one channel at 8:00 and leave it there till 11:00. The fact that no one's watched TV that was in at least 25 years doesn't seem to enter into it. But, like it or not, it does seem to be the way the game is played.

To get back to The Nine, I'm pleased to note this is yet another example of some of my favorite things being connected-producer and director of the pilot Alex Graves was also a director and producer on West Wing.

My only concerns were these: For some reason that I can't quite put my finger on, the last act of the pilot fell a little bit flat for me compared to the rest. This was made up for by an effective, if unlikely, cliffhanger.

One of the hostages is the teenage daughter of the bank manager-who comes out realizing that she remembers nothing of the past two days, and her father will not speak of it even to his wife. The episode ended with her visiting one of the gunmen in prison.

All we hear her saying is "Hi..." Fade to black.

Unlikely that a teenage girl would be allowed to visit a convict without, evidently, her parent's knowledge? Absolutely. But like I said, it was very effective (and maybe there's an explaination coming).

I do wonder, can the show sustain the heightened emotion of the pilot for a whole season, and if it can and it's succesful enough to be renewed, what about next year? I don't know, but I'm hoping to.

Call me crazy, I don't think she looks that bad

Sharon Stone w/out makeup (via TMZ.com)...

Okay, more on the Foley thing

I agree with just about every word in this entry by Pam at Pandagon. Especially this 'graph...

Yesterday’s purported bombshell press conference by Foley attorney David Roth to announce that the former congressman was molested by a priest — was complete BS, an insult to abuse survivors everywhere. Yes, that and the alleged boozing (which a fellow Republican, Rep. Peter King (NY) calls “a gimmick”) explains how the man couldn’t take any responsibility for his actions. Another nice lesson for the children.

Emphasis Pam's. I would have emphasized the bit about it being an insult to abuse survivors.

What does this mean?

Last night there was a lot of television. But what does it mean that on a night including Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, and a show starring Virgina Madsen, the most compelling viewing I found was the show about high school football?

What I caught of GG, again, cofrimed for me that I'm probably right only to be keeping one eye on it this season. For any of you who watch it: I don't beleiev Lane would be that naieve.

Graham and Bledel deserve some kind of JoBeth Williams memorial award for the "fake Asia" scene. I've never seen actresses fight harder to fake whimsy.

At nine, Veronica Mars opened season three with an episode that dissapointed, both me as a viewer, and in the ratings. It really didn't hold a lot of Gilmore Girls' audience after all.

I was never sure they were as great a fit as so many seem to have assumed. In my mind a better match for Veronica would have been a great detective show, Columbo when it was still on regularly. Now I think Veronica leading into House would be a good fit, if only they were on the same network.

Moot point though on two counts, since they're not, and since VM seems to have continued to lose its fire. Ah well. At least the first season still stands as one of the best shows ever made.

Home.

I deny

Worthwhile (though-let the clicker beware-somewhat lengthy) entry in The Mahablog. It discusses a couple of things.

First, the would-be-hilarious-if-it-wasn't-about-something-so-somber slow-wittedness with which Bush supporters past and/or present are accepting the fact that he is not...

Well, let me quote, as Mahablog does, George Will, of all people.

"Where's the leader?" Bush, according to Woodward, has exclaimed in dismay about the Iraqi government's dithering. "Where's George Washington? Where's Thomas Jefferson? Where's John Adams, for crying out loud?" For a president to ask that question about Iraq, that tribal stew, is enough to cause one to ask it about the United States.

Some of us were asking that about the United States before, George, but welcome to the party. Which brings me to the next thing MB takes on. One or two conservatives who were pro-war are trying out a new defense: To claim anti-war liberals who say they knew the war was going to go badly are acting with the benefit of hindsight.

MB's put together a few pretty prominent liberal and/or Democratic voices (Krugman, Dean, Ivins) who were right early and right often.

What I want most of all in regards to the situation in Iraq is for ever single one of our troops to be brought home. I know some claim now that we're in the ditch, we have to stay and dig ourselves out but I subscribe to the Jon Stewart theory: As long as we're looking to the same person who led us into the ditch to lead us out...

But what I want second most of all is for every single policy maker who supported the war (Republican or Democrat) to have to stand up in front of people like Krugman, Dean and Ivins and say:

"You were right, and I was wrong."

And as long as I'm fantasizing, I'd like my novel published with a cover by Paul Chadwick and for Aaron Sorkin to read it and say "This is incredibly good, Ben."

"...if you're gonna have delusions, you may as well go for the really satisfying ones."
-- Marcus in Babylon 5:"The Summoning"

To fill the space inside of yourself with Money, love or...

You know there's something you need
Right here and now
To fill the space inside of yourself
with Money love or power
Well you want to have the number one, first run anyone
crazy 'til you own them...

Daryl Hall/John Oates

If you look over to the right there and click the View my complete profile link you'll find, among other things, a link to my Amazon.com Wish List. If you're amazed at the quality of posts on this site (I know I am), please consider making a small donation to the Buy Ben CDs And Books Fund.

I thank you.

Oh Boy

Prime-Time Monday Ratings:
...Studio 60 Tumbles on NBC

-Yesterday’s Losers:
...Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC)

Week three of NBC’s...Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip took another significant hit, dipping to a 7.2/11 in the overnights, 9.05 million viewers and a 3.5/ 9 among adults 18-49. Retention for Studio 60 out of Heroes was just 77 percent in the overnights, 72 percent in total viewers and 66 percent among adults 18-49. Take a look at Studio 60’s three-week track:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip – Mon. 10 p.m.
9/18/06 - Overnights: 10.3/16; Viewers: 13.41 million; A18-49: 5.0/13
9/25/06 - Overnights: 8.7/14; Viewers: 10.83 million; A18-49: 4.2/11
10/02/06 – Overnights: 7.2/11; Viewers: 9.05 million; A18-49: 3.5/ 9

And, to make matters worse, erosion in the second half of Studio 60 continued, with a loss of 8 percent in the overnights (7.5/11 to 6.9/11), 650,000 viewers (9.38 to 8.73 million) and 5 percent among adults 18-49 (3.6/ 9 to 3.4/ 9).

The irony is, I thought last night's Studio 60 was the best so far, with many laugh-out-loud lines and a skilled performance by Matthew Perry, who continues to surprise me with how good he is. And as if I didn't love it enough, last night sent me references to a few of my favorite things:

• Harriet doing an impression of Holly Hunter, one of my favorite actresses, doing lines from Broadcast News, one of my favorite films.
• D.L. Hughley quoting the title of "Beat Me Daddy (Eight To The Bar)." This is an old song that was used in (but pre-dates) Big Deal, the last new Broadway musical staged by Bob Fosse, a director I much admire.
• And a cameo appearance by Rob Reiner, whose film The American President introduced me to Sorkin's writing in the first place.

Perhaps a deeper irony is that a lot of last night's episode was about the producers of the show-within-the-show getting good news in the ratings. Of course, there were also references to how many shows many now consider classics (Hill Street Blues, All in the Family, Seinfeld) took some time to grow.

I sure hope this is one of those.

Christ, George, get it together

I can't say that George Michael is one of my favorite singer-songwriters or anything. But I like pop music too much not to know that his knack for putting catchy melodies to foot-tapping beats back in the Wham! days was harder than it looks.

I'll admit that when the Faith album came out it hit me as hard as it hit most of the rest of the world, there was a time when I really loved it. That lasted until I actually dated, for a disasterous two weeks, a woman named Faith.

And a close friend once told me that "Freedom 90" reminded her of me.

I guess what I'm saying is, I have some respect for the man's gifts. And I'm just really sick of seeing headlines like this:

George Michael Arrested on Drug Charge

For Christ's sake, George...

Obviously I haven't been paying Amy Poehler the attention she deserves

In fact I've never really paid much attention to Saturday Night Live's Poehler. I do remember one of the last times I watched SNL thinking that she seemed to be in every sketch and wondering if she'd written them all, or what.

She didn't make me laugh that much, but she didn't make me want to scream "God! Release me from this torment!" a lot either, which is more than some.

But enough about The L Word.

Poehler's given an interview to Bust magazine-which seems to have a knack for interviewing female comedians, they also ran the excellent profile of Samantha Bee from The Daily Show I posted about last year.

A couple of gems from Poehler's interview, via Eat The Press--

What I've been doing now is getting my agents to send me scripts that are written for guys. Because sometimes when guys write for women, they freeze up. I had this friend who said he had trouble writing for women, and I said, "Here's my advice: call the guy Larry the whole time, and at the end change it to Susan. 'Cause there's no difference, really."

And, words to live by, at least metaphorically:

Grow your bush out wide, tall, and proud.

I'm not sure how the theme of today's posts became Ben's Thought's On The Female Body, except inasmuch as that's the part of the theme every day. But metaphorically, schmetaphorically, I say.

Random Flickr Blogging-what is it?

Letters, oh we get letters...Jennifer writes:

Just wondered how you got involved with Random Flickr Blogging...where did you sign up, etc. I'm thinking I need to jazz up the old blog.

This tells me that it's apparently been too long since I ran the explaination of what RFB is and how it came to be. Random Flickr Blogging was the idea of Tom Hilton, who writes for the If I Ran The Zoo blog.

That link will lead you to Tom's first post on the subject and how it works. Basically, you can either start checking each week for the randomly-generated number at Tom's blog late Sunday afternoons, or if you email him he'll put you on the list.

Then when you've made your entry you either post it in the comments or again, email Tom direct and he adds a link from his blog to your post. Ta-da. Yes, it's just that simple.

Clearly, the women on the left are both cows

Feministing and Pandagon both have entries about a dandy new "slimming" feature the HP digital camera is offering.

Amanda's headlined hers with her usual acid wit: Skeletal is the new fat. This sort of touches on what always gets me about things like this-by what stretch of the imagination do either of these women need a "slimming effect?"

And yes, I know, obviously the broader point is that no woman (or man) does or should. But this is ridiculous. The top model there, especially, looks much better to me in the "Without slimming effect" picture.

Between you and me, ladies, if you want one man's opinion, hips are nice things to have and a woman's body should be soft. I hope I'm not crawling out on a limb to say that...

Hi-diddle-de-dee

Stephen King on The Writing Life, in the Washington Post. Excerpts:

There may be a stretch of weeks or months when it doesn't come at all; this is called writer's block. Some writers in the throes of writer's block think their muses have died, but I don't think that happens often; I think what happens is that the writers themselves sow the edges of their clearing with poison bait to keep their muses away, often without knowing they are doing it. This may explain the extraordinarily long pause between Joseph Heller's classic novel Catch-22 and the follow-up, years later. That was called Something Happened . I always thought that what happened was Mr. Heller finally cleared away the muse repellant around his particular clearing in the woods.

This is the room, but it's also the clearing. My muse is here. It's a she. Scruffy little mutt has been around for years, and how I love her, fleas and all. She gives me the words. She is not used to being regarded so directly, but she still gives me the words. She is doing it now. That's the other level, and that's the mystery. Everything in your head kicks up a notch, and the words rise naturally to fill their places. If it's a story, you find the scene and the texture in the scene. That first level -- the world of my room, my books, my rug, the smell of the gingerbread -- fades even more. This is a real thing I'm talking about, not a romanticization. As someone who has written with chronic pain, I can tell you that when it's good, it's better than the best pill.

Great Headlines In History

BEYONCE SCORES BIG WITH TOP BOTTOM


BEYONCE KNOWLES has scored Hollywood's Best Booty in a new US magazine poll. The BOOTYLICIOUS singer/actress beat out JESSICA SIMPSON and SALMA HAYEK to claim the best bum crown in weekly publication In Touch. The top 10 top bottoms are:
1. BEYONCE KNOWLES
2. JESSICA SIMPSON
3. SALMA HAYEK
4. JESSICA BIEL
5. HALLE BERRY
6. TYRA BANKS
7. SCARLETT JOHANSSEN
8. JENNIFER LOPEZ
9. EVA LONGORIA
10. JESSICA ALBA

Source.

I'll go along with Berry and Johanssen, and even Jennifer Lopez back in the day. The rest of 'em I don't know what they're talking about.

Okay, the GOP/Foley scandal thing

This is a good day to just go to the Media Matters main page. They have a lot of good coverage about the way spinmeisters like Brit Hume and Newt Gingrich are trying to lessen the damage from the allegations.

At the moment this interests me a lot more than the allegations themseles. If they're true, then Foley should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. My sense of justice in matters of "inappropriate behavior" involving minors is remarkably simple.

Yet I marvel at how quickly people like Hume and Gingrich can try to turn any allegation, no matter what, against Bill Clinton or gay people. Seriously.

On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume asserted that there is a "difference" between the Democratic and Republican parties because former Republican Rep. Mark Foley is "out of office and in total disgrace in his party" after allegedly engaging in sexually explicit communications with underage congressional pages, while President Bill Clinton and Rep. Barney Frank were not similarly reprimanded for their "inappropriate behavior." However, neither the Clinton nor the Frank allegations involved minors.

Gingrich: House GOP would have "been accused of gay bashing" if it "overly aggressively reacted" to Foley's emails in 2005

Two Lighthouses and a Cathedral: Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_1835

Original sources here, here and here.

The star of "Underworld: Evolution" thinks Hollywood is too superficial

Kate Might Have To Start Selling Marxist Rag

Kate Beckinsale has just about had it with Hollywood superficiality – and she might end up back on a street corner selling left-wing literature to prove her displeasure. She tells London's Sunday Express magazine, "There is a point where if you have one more person saying, 'Wow I love your belt,' you start to go, 'I'm going to have to start selling 'Living Marxism' on the corner again.'"

Beckinsale, who studied French and Russian literature at Oxford, also says that she wants to write a novel – but not using her own name. "I wouldn't want to be a celebrity author," sniffs Kate. "That sounds highly vulgar to me..."

Ms. Beckinsale's movie career also includes such solemn films as Van Helsing, Pearl Harbor, Click, Underworld, and Serendipity. I'm certainly glad she's taking a stand.

Awesome.

I've attracted another nut.

Chaos is the enemy of hope

One or two of you may remember last year when I posted a link to a thought-provoking entry on the film "Chaos" on Roger Ebert's (good health, Roger) website. He wrote:

The message of futility and despair in "Chaos" is unrelieved

This was followed by another link to

what the editor of [Ebert's] web site calls "an unusual number of impassioned and thoughtful responses..."

The film was not well received, and is only now coming out on video. The producers have taken a rare position on how to sell their failed flick. They're arguing that their movie about two young women who

suffer through torture, rape and murder and, as some reviews have noted, not in that particular order.

-is educational. Neat.

Director/writer David DeFalco is ready to defend his baby as well, telling TMZ, "People give us slack that that's just our excuse for making a sick movie, but I don't see how anyone can deny that it's gonna affect you ... [it] may actually teach you something about real evil."

A choice of replies:

Does that storyline sound like it teaches you anything that most of us didn't get from "Hansel & Gretel?"*

And if it does, wouldn't most of us pick it up from things like war, perverts in congress, outspoken and high-profile homophobes on the Supreme Court, and book-burnings in the 21st century?

*Or at least "Footloose," which I'm betting has better music.

To be angry by: Some sort of an audiovisual poem

Add Pop Will Eat Itself-"Karmadrome" as desired

Hello

This might be a continuation of the "songs that make me cry" post. But here's it's a video. The song's fine but the video just fucking breaks my heart. It's just so perfectly how I feel.

OK...I've been sitting on this one for what I hope is a suitably respectful period of time

But doesn't anybody else think that no matter what the coroner's report says, Anna Nicole's son really died of a heightened sense of mortification? (Also known as "Molly Ringwald's Disease.")

Never been in love with no one, Sign up! Join the programme, Within me, within you, Feels like...

This is, for my money, the last good single by one of my favorite bands, Pop Will Eat Itself (now defunct).

That I think of it as a good single and not a great single is mainly down to the arrangement. Every time I hear it I wish that last chorus after the choir break (yes, a choir break) kicked in just a little bit harder and faster.

And the video starts out looking like it's going to be kind of weak as well.

Doesn't matter. The classic elements of the track overcome the second-rate.

And you who know my feelings on anime will no doubt be amused that there are, apparently, samples from Akira all over it.

PS: Oh, and this single version replaces the line "No hippy shit can try" with the more radio-friendly "PWE...I!"

Restlessness vs. resignation

ETA: Mark makes a similar point in his political comment for today. And I'd just like to say that my "uncalcuable damage" line below was written before I knew that Ms. Clinton had, apparently, said something quite similar.

Mark says:

There certainly are other important Democrats who speak for a large part of the country who are saying that Bush is screwing up big-time: Kerry, Gore, Ted Kennedy, John Edwards, etc. There just don't seem to be very many who are in serious re-election campaigns at the moment saying it, which strikes me as odd. You'd think, with more than half the country saying Bush is doing a bad job, you'd have more than half the Democrats proclaiming that above a whisper.

To coin a phrase: They don't care, Mark.

Original post:

Maha writes:

In the last post I wrote that it’s time to decide if the nation is salvageable or not. Lots of people have decided it isn’t. As I said, these people may be right. But if you think it’s too late to fight, then please step out of the way. Some of us haven’t given up yet.

... It’s not just about defeating Republicans, but about making America safe for liberalism again...Instead of just reacting to the Republican agenda, we should be showing the nation an alternative way to look at issues. We should fight from a position of clarity and purpose rather than defensiveness. We should not, for example, try to counter the Religious Right with our own public displays of religiosity, but instead promise to preserve religious liberty by keeping government out of religion.

For the record, I don't think the nation is salvageable. I just don't know where else to go. And I'll be glad to step out of the way..."Steppin' Out" was always one of the best Joe Jackson songs anyway. Tony Bennett's is wonderful too.

But I think it's ludicruous for any blogger to start telling "Democrats" or liberals what we should do. It doesn't matter what we do. It only matters what those "Democrats" in positions of responsibility and power are going to do.

And that is, as they've shown us with vicious regularity: Nothing. They don't care. A failed President from the opposing party, and Democrats don't care enough to mount a succesful fight against him. They don't care.

Or rather, they care, but not because a failed President is of uncalcuable damage to the people of the nation...but because they wish it was their guy failing. And all they know how to do is appease and bend to the guy who's got the title.

Or maybe, even, one or two of them do care about the damage caused...but not enough to actually risk their jobs over it by emulating Spencer Tracy ("Stand on the balls of your feet and tell the truth!")

They don't care.

Me, I do care, but I also see the writing on the old wall.

As those of us who know the joke about the Jewish astronaut smile quietly to ourselves

...the next space shuttle launch attempt most likely will be at night, NASA said Thursday.

No!

Emma Watson is playing coy about signing up for the last two "Harry Potter" movies.

Emma, who plays Hermione Granger told Newsweek on a recent visit to the "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" set, " I don't know yet... I love to perform, but there are so many things I love doing."

Pink Is The New Sexiest Woman In The World

There is more evidence to support this theory here.

Proof positive that the "celebrity sex tape" trend has officially gone too far

Anyone who enjoyed, in any way, certain video curiosities and experiments done by people like Paris Hilton...we owe the world an apology. Because it's led to this. Three words: Screech sex tape.

TMZ has obtained portions of the latest celebrity sex tape, featuring former "Saved by the Bell" star Dustin Diamond, who played Screech. To say the least, the video is unique and, dare we say, entertaining.

David Hans Schmidt, who has become famous in the sex tape industry by peddling videos featuring Paris Hilton, Colin Farrell and others, claims ownership to the Screech tape. It was shot in a hotel. Diamond is holding the camera and narrating, as he engages two women in various combinations and positions.

The tape begins with Diamond in a bathtub, narrating what's to come. It ends with Diamond introducing one of the women to a "Dirty Sanchez."

This is the kind of thing which could lead to the extinction of the human race because no one is going to want to have sex ever again.

Another one of those weird blogs written in a language I don't understand but with many cool pictures

...can be found here.

You know what word I don't know how to pronounce? Meme.

But I stole this one from Amanda...

1) One book that changed your life?

An Edge In My Voice, by Harlan Ellison.

2) One book that you have read more than once.

Most of the books I own I've read more than once-for financial purposes I tend only to buy books I know can stand up to re-reading. The rest I'll get from the library. That said, I'll name Against The Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood, edited by Bhob Stewart.

3) One book that you would want on a desert island?

Tolkien's The Hobbit.

4) One book that made you cry.

Whichever Pippi Longstocking book ended with it looking like Pippi was going to sail away to the south seas and leave her friends behind. I don't want to talk about it.

5) One book that made you laugh.

Seven Seasons of Buffy.

6) One book you wish had been written.

Ben Varkentine: The World Would Be So Much Easier If You'd Just All Accept He's Smarter Than You.

7) One book you wish had never been written.

Any number, I'm sure. But just because I tried to read it most recently, and I was sort of looking for an excuse to bash it about a bit here: The Anthology at the End of the Universe. Oh my god, what a stinking pile of crap this book was. Honestly, my expectations for the book were not that high-I've reviewed a few books from this publisher and in a word, they're hacks-but oh, my god.

8) One book you are reading currently?

I'm between new books at the moment (there's some waiting for me at the library, though), am re-reading Bill Carter's The Late Shift.

9) One book you’ve been meaning to read?

How To Win The Lottery. But seriously. Here's some of the books I have requested at the library...

The first five pages : a writer's guide to staying out of the rejection pile /
by Lukeman, Noah.

My sister, guard your veil; my brother, guard your eyes : uncensored Iranian voices /
by Azam Zanganeh, Lila.

The devil's guide to Hollywood : the screenwriter as God /
by Eszterhas, Joe.

10) What book do you routinely recommend but haven’t actually read?

None. I'm anal about that.

I hap'ly do the favor of an intellectual reach-around

A blog called Wings For Wheels is taking a look at how a few different blogs are responding to Studio 60, with a nod towards yours truly for posting the Gilbert & Sullivan parody lyrics.

More than a few short words about tonight's episode of "Bones"

I really wasn't expecting this to be a weekly feature...

ETA: It's a small world after all. The below-mentioned Hart Hanson, creator/producer of "Bones," worked on my beloved "Cupid"...which was created and produced by Rob Thomas, now C/P of "Veronica Mars."

Stephen Nathan, Hanson's second or consulting producer, began his career as an actor. He created the role of Jesus in "Godspell" on the stage. The film version of that musical is one of my all-time favorite movies, although Nathan did not recreate the part for it.

Victor Garber took the role. The same Victor Garber who currently plays the lead in "Justice" which airs immidiately following "Bones." This has to be some kind of trivia first.

ETA, again: It's a small, small world. I learn from this article that a few years ago Michaela Conlin, who plays supporting character Angela, appeared on Bravo's "The It Factor Los Angeles."

I enjoyed that reality series about aspiring, auditioning actors, so I'm a little surprised I didn't remember her.

You'd think I would've remembered...



Look at those eyes, she's judging me, I know she is.

Original post: For the past two weeks in a row, the very first non-series regular to get any camera time in the episode (not counting faceless FBI agents and such at crime scenes) has been the killer.

Lord knows it's not like my main interest in this or most other series is the great mysteries over things like character and humor*...but still, watch it, Hart Hanson.

*Though again, when "Veronica Mars" was sparking, it had great mysteries and character and humor...

TV Departments

Tuesdays are a busy night for me, TV-wise.

Below average Girls department: According to Marc Berman,

In season-premiere news, the CW’s Gilmore Girls opened on a below average note with a 4.0/ 6 in the overnights (#4), 4.56 million viewers (#4) and a 2.0/ 6 among adults 18-49 (#5) at 8 p.m. Compared to its year-ago opener on the WB (Overnights: 5.3/ 8; Viewers: 6.22 million; A18-49: 2.8/ 8 on Sept. 13, 2005), that was a decrease of 26 percent in the overnights, 1.66 million viewers and 29 percent among adults 18-49

Presumably most of that decay was from people who didn't like the way last year ended, but some (at least I'd like to think) must be people who don't want to see the Amy Sherman-Palladinoless GGs. And then there's me, who's both.

I didn't watch the SP, but I admit I dipped in during House commercial breaks. What I saw seems to go along with the gloomy assesments I'm seeing online.

Speaking of which department: House will be in repeats and such for the month of October, which is good (for me) because it means it won't be opposite Veronica Mars. Starting next week VM will be getting its last chance to win and keep the love of me and a few other million viewers.

For any latecomers: I thought the first season of Veronica Mars was one of the best shows out there. Well-acted, smartly written; layered. But the writing on the second season spun wildly out of control, with time-wasting episodes focusing on characters I didn't care about.

I'm coming back, though. And one of the reasons I am is because writer/creator/producer Rob Thomas has been apparently candid in interviews and such about mistakes he thinks they made last year.

This is infinitely preferable to the impenetrably smug "we meant to do that" attitude taken by some other producers whose series have spun out. I'm hoping it means they've learned.

Weird coincidence department: I decided to try Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which I've never seen before, and as luck would have it, found a guest star this week was Anton Yelchin, formerly Byrd on Huff. So nice to see him on a good script again.

When a pretty face just isn't enough department: I've also been trying to keep an eye on Smith, zapping back-and-forth with Boston Legal.

After two episodes watched in this admittedly not wholly satisfactory way, I find myself reminiscing about something I said regarding the recently deceased That '70s Show.

Why do they waste valuable camera time shooting anyone who isn't Laura Prepon?

One of the stars of Smith is Virginia Madsen.

Letters, oh we get letters

Well, as I kinda figured it might, my expression of pain that the mere existence of Bob Dylan had led to hideous folksingers setting up shop outside my window at 12:30 at night has attracted the attention of a Dylan-worshipper.

That's not my sarcastic name for him or her, BTW, it's what they called themselves:

DYLANWORSHIPPER said...
Maybe if you listened to the WORDS you'd understand his appeal.

Maybe. Although, when a man makes one's living as a MUSICIAN, it doesn't seem too off-base to care about his MUSIC at least as much as his WORDS, if not more. But hey, maybe I'm wrong. Never let it be said I can't admit that.

At times like these, I like to consult my musical betters, people whose credentials as songwriters are luminious. So let's go to the words of Paul Simon, who in 1983 was asked (from the book Rock Lives by Tim White):

Who...do you believe has been a positive inspirational figure in rock?

"Dylan. He made us feel at a certain time that it was good to be smart, to be observant, that it was good to have a social conscience. These are all things that are out of fashion now. Real art remains when the fashion changes, but art can run conjuctively with fashion. Both can occasionally be quite intelligent at the same time."

Blessed with the hindsights of adulthood, what's the smartest thing you ever heard anybody in rock and roll say?

[Long pause, small smile] "Be-bob-a-lula, she's my baby."

Or to put it another way, in the words of Sir Duke, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.

And now...a brief word from the boys and girls at Studio 60

For those of you who aren't watching (and why not?), this past monday's episode of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip ended with the cast of the show-within-the-show, joined by a background chorus, performing this parody:

"Modern Network TV Show"
Lyrics by Aaron Sorkin
(to the tune of "Modern Major General") Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan

Cast: We'll be the very model of a modern network TV show
Each time that we walk into this august and famous studio.
We're starting out from scratch after a run of twenty years, and so
We hope that you don't mind that our producer was caught doing blow.

Chorus: They hope that you don't mind that their producer was caught doing blow.
They hope that you don't mind that their producer was caught doing blow.
They hope that you don't mind that their producer was caught doing mounds of blow.

Cast: Yes, it's hard to be a player when at heart you've always had a hunch
To bite the hand that feeds you is a scary way of doing lunch.
But still when we walk into this august and famous studio
We'll be the very model of a modern network TV show.

Chorus: But still when they walk into this august and famous studio
They'll be the very model of a modern network TV show.

Female Soloist (Harriet): I am a Christian, tried and true, baptized at age 11.
So unlike the lib'rals, gays, and Jews, I'm going straight to Heaven.
(She's joined by two other women in the cast): But if you feel that you've been cheated and our sordid content lets you down
We'll hap'ly do the favor of an intellectual reach-around.

Chorus: They'll hap'ly do the favor of an intellectual reach-around.
They'll hap'ly do the favor of an intellectual reach-around.
They'll hap'ly do the favor of a hundred dollar hooker's reach-around.

Harriet (spoken): "That wasn't the same thing we said!"

Chorus: They'll hap'ly do the favor of a verbal euphemistic reach-around.

Cast: We know the Evangelicals are lining up to tag our toe.
And then the corporations will not hesitate to pull their dough.
But still when we walk into this august and famous studio
We'll be the very model of a modern network TV show.

Chorus: But still when they walk into this august and famous studio
They'll be the very model of a modern network TV show.

Cast: But still when we walk into this august and famous studio
We'll be the very model of a modern network TV show.

(Thanks to Pab Sungenis for posting the lyrics to the Aaron Sorkin mailing list.)

Pride.

If you do a search for the words "anne hathaway is the most beautiful" on Pesquisa Google, the results you get are both from this blog.

I can pretty much retire now.

It's that time of year again

The ALA's Banned Books Week is upon us. To celebrate, here are a few selections from a list of the Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century, with commentary where applicable.

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Challenged in the Waukegan, III. School District (1984) because the novel uses the word "nigger." ...Challenged at the Park Hill, Mo. Junior High School (1985) because the novel "contains profanity and racial slurs:"...Challenged at the Santa Cruz, Calif. Schools (1995) because of its racial themes...Challenged at the Moss Point, Miss. School District (1996) because the novel contains a racial epithet...Returned to the freshman reading list at Muskogee, Okla. High School (2001) despite complaints over the years from black students and parents about racial slurs in the text...Challenged at the Stanford Middle School in Durham, N.C. (2004) because the 1961 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel uses the word "nigger." Source: 2004 Banned Books Resource Guide.

I've been formulating a theory about something that's been kind of prickling at the back of my brain ever since the OJ trial. When we had nominally grown men and women using the euphimism "N-word" in the context of a courtroom trial.

Why do we get so bent out of shape about some words, even racially charged ones, regardless of their context? I think it's because we know, most of us, that race relations in this country are FUBAR. And worse, we're afraid we know that there's nothing we can do about it at this point. The wound goes too deep, yet too much time has gone by.

So if we can't do anything about that, well hey, at least we can ban a book because it uses a bad word, never mind that it uses it in the midst of an anti-racism story. That'll make us feel better.

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

The Knoxville, Tenn. School Board chairman vowed to have "filthy books" removed from Knoxville's public schools (1984) and picked Steinbeck's novel as the first target due to "its vulgar language:" ...Challenged as a summer youth program reading assignment in Chattanooga, Tenn. (1989) because "Steinbeck is known to have had an anti business attitude:" In addition, "he was very questionable as to his patriotism:' ...Challenged as appropriate for high school reading lists in the Shelby County, Tenn. school system (1989) because the novel contained "offensive language." ...Challenged at the Jacksboro, Tenn. High School (1991) because the novel contains "blasphemous" language, excessive cursing, and sexual overtones...Pulled from a classroom by Putnam County, Tenn. school superintendent (1994) "due to the language:' Later, after discussions with the school district counsel, it was reinstated. . Source: 2004 Banned Books Resource Guide, by Robert P. Doyle.

I admit I kept an eye on which of these books have been banned or challenged in Tennessee, and what I found was this: Those Tennesseeans really hate John Steinbeck. They banned The Grapes of Wrath, too. Also, A Separate Peace by John Knowles. But then, Santa Cruz is one of the cities that challenged To Kill a Mockingbird, so far be it from me to say that stupid, wrongheaded behavior is limited to the bible belt.

The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
Burned in Alamagordo, N. Mex. (2001) outside Christ Community Church along with other Tolkien novels as satanic. Source: Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Mar. 2002, p. 61.

That's right, baby. Burned in 2001. You know, the Harry Potter books occasionally attract the ire of one of these whackaloons (though none of them made this list, or the top banned books of 2005 which I'll get to in a moment).

But the Lord of the Rings books are still making Christians insecure almost 50 years after they were published. I'm just saying, you gotta have some respect for that. Now as promised, here are

the 10 Most Challenged Books of 2005:

“It's Perfectly Normal” for homosexuality, nudity, sex education, religious viewpoint, abortion and being unsuited to age group;
“Forever” by Judy Blume for sexual content and offensive language;
“The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger for sexual content, offensive language and being unsuited to age group;
“The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier for sexual content and offensive language;
“Whale Talk” by Chris Crutcher for racism and offensive language;
“Detour for Emmy” by Marilyn Reynolds for sexual content;
“What My Mother Doesn't Know” by Sonya Sones for sexual content and being unsuited to age group;
Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey for anti-family content, being unsuited to age group and violence;
“Crazy Lady!” by Jane Leslie Conly for offensive language; and
“It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families” by Robie H. Harris for sex education and sexual content.

As with Tolkien, I'm just pleased that Cormier and Blume are up there with J.D. Salinger when it comes to still offending the kind of people who ought to be offended, over 30 years after their books were first published.

I don't know "Whale Talk," but I read Crutcher's "Staying Fat For Sarah Byrnes" a few years ago and loved it. If were a betting man, I'd put my money on his still being on this list in another five, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 years...

Bob Dylan should have been strangled in his own crib

Maybe that would have prevented the hopeless wannabebutnevergonna who set up his bleating voice, guitar and harmonica act across the street from my office not 15 minutes ago.

I must suffer and cry for slightly longer.

No $#$*&%$#$ "voice of his generation" is worth this.

There's something in this about all women # 4 (Random Flickr-Blogging: IMG_4360)

Original source here.

Star Trek & the Holy Grail

Letters, oh we get links in letters...my friend Corey sent me this. See if it don't make you laugh.

"You tell 'im I'm coming! You tell 'im I'm fucking coming!"

So yeah, I've been thinking about Stephen Soderberg. There was a time when I found Sex, Lies and Videotape compelling-and I mean the movie-and I liked Traffic. Even though I'm not sure whether it pulls off all of its ambitions. Out Of Sight is, to date, the only movie to make me understand what's supposed to be so hot about Jennifer Lopez.

The first movie Soderberg directed (of those I've seen) that I think is really good is The Limey. And it might be surprising I like that one so much because, on paper, it has a lot of elements that tend to make me skeptical.

It's very stylized, with flashbacks and flash-forwards and flash-waybacks, sometimes-often!-all in the same scene. The plot-in four words, a man seeks revenge-could have been made into the kind of "thriller" we've all seen 10 times over.

And Lem Dobbs, the screenwriter, has complained about Soderbergh making changes that he-Dobbs-thought eliminated important character information. (He makes a few of these complaints on the more-acid-than-usual commentary track he shares with Soderberg on the DVD, a must-listen).

All these things together sound like they should add up to a movie which at best, I just wouldn't "get." But I do. I've watched it three times within the past four days-and I'd seen it twice a few years ago.

I think it's Roger Ebert who says, though he may have been quoting somebody, that the way a movie is about what it's about is more important than what it's about. I'm not sure that's always right, but it's definitely right about this one.

Without its star actor (Terence Stamp), or a different director and writer, the same movie could have so much style it simply skated away. With them, it's always tethered to a momentum which climaxes in an emotional train wreck that is quite simply unforgettable.

Getting back to Soderberg's career, Erin Brokovich is a movie that, as I said about Garden State, is good...but not that good. When the first things you remember about a movie are the clips played in ads nauseaum-they're called boobs, Ed-it can be a bad sign.

On the other hand, I'm almost as big a fan of Ocean's Eleven as I am of The Limey-which in a way it's the lighter side of. Less stylized in its direction but much moreso in its performances and setting.

The film has a seemingly effortless perfection-even though I know I lot of effort went into making it seem that way-so much so that I've avoided seeing the sequel. I simply don't want the balancing act, that the first accomplishes so gracefully, flawed.

(Plus, I'm convinced, the only way the climax of the first one works is if most of the crew never see each other again.)

Finally there's Bubble, Soderberg's most recent film to date, which I wrote about in passing here.

For the first time in my experience, a film with, apparently, almost totally improvised dialogue worked for me. Why? I think because unlike movies like The Anniversary Party, this one wasn't cast with actors looking for an excuse to emote.

I've been reading a collection of interviews with Soderberg. One of the best is also archived at Salon:

When I see people who I think have become either cynical artistically or just competitive to the point of self-destruction, what they share is the loss of appreciation for anything that anybody else is doing. Seeing something good should make you want to do something good; if you're not careful, you can lose that. And that can hurt you. I still get a charge out of seeing a really good movie or reading a really good book or watching "The Sopranos" on TV.

But be warned! That interview contains spoilers for The Limey, so I strongly urge you to see that film before you read it.

The first person who makes a smart remark gets smacked right in the face

You Should Be a Cherry Redhead

Sexy, dramatic, but still sweetly feminine. Perfect for getting out of the hair color doldrums!

What Kind of Redhead Should You Be?

Or, "Why I don't think I'll be watching '24' next year."

I sense there are some people out there who simply like the idea of us torturing "the enemy" or even anyone who kinda looks like or might be part of "the enemy." These are the same people who are happy when they hear a car bomb went off in downtown Baghdad killing 80 people because they figure the odds are that there were probably a few terrorists or future terrorists in that eighty. Leave those people aside. Is there a sane case to be made for practices that fit a reasonable definition of torture? Has any genuine military authority come forth to make that case? Or is the only controversy here what constitutes "torture?"

--Mark Evanier