1. “Grapefruit Moon,” Tom Waits. I’ve been slowly exposed to the bulk of Tom Waits’s debut album, the more than thirty-year-old “Closing Time,” and you know what? I’d be hard-pressed not to consider it one of the greatest albums of all time, seriously. “Grapefruit Moon” is one of the overlooked tracks on this album, and is early-career Waits at his finest – it’s some straightforward crooning from the quirky-voiced balladeer. Give it a download. It’ll melt your heart, in the best way possible.
2. “Let My Love Open The Door (E-Cola Mix),” Pete Townshend. Normally, this solo single from Townshend functions as an upbeat pop classic; this remix, found on the soundtrack to the highly underrated John Cusack movie “Grosse Pointe Blank,” turns the uptempo gem into something else entirely. In this mix (apparently created by Townshend himself), the song turns into a sweeping, epic ballad with electronic textures. It fits, magnificently.
3. “Put It On Me,” Ben Harper And The Innocent Criminals. In this digital age, Harper and his band took a risk by recording an entire album live to analog recording. This track is one from that disc; it rattles and hums beautifully, an elegant bastard of gospel and rock and roll that would make Sly Stone proud.
4. “Camera,” R.E.M. This mournful tune from R.E.M.’s second album, released at the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term, may be one of the greatest ballads the band’s created. It’s the sound of a band that’s almost – but not quite – found their voice; Michael Stipe has yet to grow into the tenor voice that defined later hits, and rather than stride to the emotional heights of later tracks, the music takes a definitive turn inwardly. The resulting song doesn’t achieve the universal mournfulness of a track like “Everybody Hurts,” instead it becomes incredibly specific and note-perfect. Goosebump-inducing.
5. “Anna Begins,” Counting Crows. This month, the Counting Crows have re-released their landmark album “August and Everything After.” Years later, this track still stands out – emotional, powerful, and absolutely resonant. It’s easy to be annoyed with singer Adam Duritz and his pretenses, both in fashion and voice; however, tracks like this – exacting and delicate – may turn out to be among the most influential from the 1990s.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Forthcoming: Five Fall Movies We're Excited About
The Darjeeling Limited
(IMDB page)
This film opens in New York City on September 28, and makes its way to other cities beginning on October 5. It’s scheduled to arrive in Albany on October 19.
Why we’re excited: It’s a Wes Anderson movie. Say what you will about his other movies (“Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou”) but, more than any other directors, Anderson’s established a definitive style with both visual imagery and his use of music. This film promises to be more of the same. If you’ve liked the other films (and I’m admittedly in that category), this looks promising.
Why we’re hesitant: Anderson’s films have been increasingly whimsical; “The Life Aquatic” enough so that his style came perilously close to torpedoing the movie as a whole. Hopefully, he’ll pull himself back from this fantastical precipice. We’re optimistic.
Dan In Real Life
(IMDB page)
This film opens nation-wide on October 26.
Why we’re excited: Steve Carell. If the advertisements are any indication, this film is a romantic comedy; after broadly comic turns in “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Anchorman,” and a foray into dramatic comedy in his supporting role in last year’s surprise Oscar contender “Little Miss Sunshine,” this seems to present Carell with his first opportunity to headline a mainstream romantic comedy. It could catapult him to mainstream A-list stardom. The trailer for the film hints at a warmth that I haven’t seen in a romantic comedy since “Love Actually” – this is a very good sign.
Why we’re hesitant: Dane Cook. The sometimes/rarely-funny hyperactive standup apparently plays a supporting part. He’s appealing to some folks; however, not so much for me. We’ll probably see it anyhow.
No Country For Old Men
(IMDB page)
This film opens November 9 in limited release
Why we’re excited: The Coen Brothers are directing this; it’s going to be interesting to see what they’ll do with Cormac McCarthy’s really bleak subject material. Oscar buzz abounds for the Coens and star Javier Bardem.
Why we’re hesitant: Bleak movies, while often interesting from the perspective of actors, designers, and directors, aren’t really appealing to a lot of people, myself included. If I wanted to walk out of a darkened room after two hours in a bummer of a mood, I’d hang a picture of an ex-girlfriend over my bed and nap more often.
Southland Tales
(IMDB page)
Opens November 9 (we think)
Why we’re excited: Richard Kelly’s followup to the darkly brilliant “Donnie Darko” has been in the works for quite some time. It filmed in 2005, and was originally due in 2006. “Southland Tales” has an eclectic cast – the film features Dwayne (“The Rock”) Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott (as twins!), Justin Timberlake, Wallace Shawn, and Kevin Smith.
Why we’re hesitant: Premise overload. A postapocalyptic near-future? Tons of quirky, specific characters? Musical numbers? It could be way too many things crammed into one 137-minute flick. Also, the least time we were waiting for a followup film like this, it was Mike Judge’s followup to “Office Space,” which wound up being the overloaded, relatively unfunny “Idiocracy.”
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
(IMDB page)
Opens November 16 nationwide.
Why we’re excited: Dustin Hoffman’s been making some interesting acting choices lately, with quirky, distinctive parts in films like “I Heart Huckabees” and “Stranger Than Fiction.” This is another quirky part, where Hoffman plays a fantastical, 216-year-old toymaker. Natalie Portman also stars, which is a good thing.
Why we’re hesitant: It sounds awfully derivative of “Willie Wonka,” to be honest. Other than that, we’ve got nothing.
(IMDB page)
This film opens in New York City on September 28, and makes its way to other cities beginning on October 5. It’s scheduled to arrive in Albany on October 19.
Why we’re excited: It’s a Wes Anderson movie. Say what you will about his other movies (“Bottle Rocket,” “Rushmore,” “The Royal Tenenbaums,” and “The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou”) but, more than any other directors, Anderson’s established a definitive style with both visual imagery and his use of music. This film promises to be more of the same. If you’ve liked the other films (and I’m admittedly in that category), this looks promising.
Why we’re hesitant: Anderson’s films have been increasingly whimsical; “The Life Aquatic” enough so that his style came perilously close to torpedoing the movie as a whole. Hopefully, he’ll pull himself back from this fantastical precipice. We’re optimistic.
Dan In Real Life
(IMDB page)
This film opens nation-wide on October 26.
Why we’re excited: Steve Carell. If the advertisements are any indication, this film is a romantic comedy; after broadly comic turns in “The 40 Year Old Virgin” and “Anchorman,” and a foray into dramatic comedy in his supporting role in last year’s surprise Oscar contender “Little Miss Sunshine,” this seems to present Carell with his first opportunity to headline a mainstream romantic comedy. It could catapult him to mainstream A-list stardom. The trailer for the film hints at a warmth that I haven’t seen in a romantic comedy since “Love Actually” – this is a very good sign.
Why we’re hesitant: Dane Cook. The sometimes/rarely-funny hyperactive standup apparently plays a supporting part. He’s appealing to some folks; however, not so much for me. We’ll probably see it anyhow.
No Country For Old Men
(IMDB page)
This film opens November 9 in limited release
Why we’re excited: The Coen Brothers are directing this; it’s going to be interesting to see what they’ll do with Cormac McCarthy’s really bleak subject material. Oscar buzz abounds for the Coens and star Javier Bardem.
Why we’re hesitant: Bleak movies, while often interesting from the perspective of actors, designers, and directors, aren’t really appealing to a lot of people, myself included. If I wanted to walk out of a darkened room after two hours in a bummer of a mood, I’d hang a picture of an ex-girlfriend over my bed and nap more often.
Southland Tales
(IMDB page)
Opens November 9 (we think)
Why we’re excited: Richard Kelly’s followup to the darkly brilliant “Donnie Darko” has been in the works for quite some time. It filmed in 2005, and was originally due in 2006. “Southland Tales” has an eclectic cast – the film features Dwayne (“The Rock”) Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott (as twins!), Justin Timberlake, Wallace Shawn, and Kevin Smith.
Why we’re hesitant: Premise overload. A postapocalyptic near-future? Tons of quirky, specific characters? Musical numbers? It could be way too many things crammed into one 137-minute flick. Also, the least time we were waiting for a followup film like this, it was Mike Judge’s followup to “Office Space,” which wound up being the overloaded, relatively unfunny “Idiocracy.”
Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
(IMDB page)
Opens November 16 nationwide.
Why we’re excited: Dustin Hoffman’s been making some interesting acting choices lately, with quirky, distinctive parts in films like “I Heart Huckabees” and “Stranger Than Fiction.” This is another quirky part, where Hoffman plays a fantastical, 216-year-old toymaker. Natalie Portman also stars, which is a good thing.
Why we’re hesitant: It sounds awfully derivative of “Willie Wonka,” to be honest. Other than that, we’ve got nothing.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Meandering Thoughts: On Bill Belichick And Cheating
This is the NFL policy on videotaping other teams. It comes from a memo sent to all head coaches and general managers on September 6, 2006, prior to the start of last year's season: "Videotaping of any type, including but not limited to taping of an opponent's offensive or defensive signals, is prohibited on the sidelines, in the coaches' booth, in the locker room or at any other locations accessible to club staff members during the game."
The coaching staff of the New England Patriots, led by Bill Belichick, was caught two Sundays ago in the act of videotaping the signals of the New York Jets. (This was apparently not their first violation of this edict: last year, when the Belichick-led Patriots played the Green Bay Packers, a cameraman was detained and believed to be doing something similar.) They have since been punished by the commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell: the team will forfeit up to two draft choices in next year's draft, the team was fined $250,000, and Belichick himself was fined $500,000. This should have, by many accounts, have been the end of things.
However, Bill Belichick all but assured that this story would be far from over. The day the penalties were announced, Belichick released the following statement:
To be helpful, I placed the troublesome part in bold. You see, sports fans, Bill Belichick refuses to admit that he cheated. His clear and blatant violation of the year-old policy? An incorrect interpretation.
Ultimately, this highlights the attitude that is currently causing a great deal of difficulty for the National Football League. Simply stated, Belichick might as well be imitating the cocky, balding record producer from the "Chef Aid" episode of South Park -you know, the one who'd bellow "I am above the law" while squeezing more hair gel onto his combover.
In refusing to acknowledge what he did, Belichick is doing two things - neither of which are particularly good for him.
First, he's stonewalling (think a less-serious, non-governmental version of Richard Nixon circa Watergate) - rather than admitting responsibility, he's seemingly trying to stop the amount of information that is publicly known about his actions from getting out there. He's not discussing the events - which is understandable in a way, as his primary responsibility is to prepare his football team for games. However, the way he's going about it seems practically designed to make him seem utterly and completely unlikeable - he's quickly become a football version of Barry Bonds; unapproachable, surly, and generally churlish. Bonds, at least, has never been caught red-handed, and continues to deny; Belichick's been caught and penalized and continues to deny. In the NFL, a league which prides itself on its character, this can only get increasingly worse.
Second, his antics - and they are antics, no matter how much people will try to downplay them or qualify them by saying, sans evidence,"oh, everybody does this" - is overshadowing what might be a tremendous all-time team. My personal distaste for everybody in a Patriots uniform aside, this current Patriots team might be one of the best to play in Foxboro; they made some smart moves over the offseason, buying tremendous amounts of talent on both ends of the ball to go along with Tom Brady and the other talent that already existed on a playoff team. Image is everything in this league; right now, instead of golden boy Brady serving as the team's primary focus, the klieglights of the media are focused directly at the man on the sidelines. Belichick dresses like a hobo on the sidelines, often sporting tattered sweatshirts. He looks squirrelish and distrustful; to find out that, behind the scenes, he's acting this way as well will only keep the bright lights shining onto his persona. This is not good for the Patriots; they spend the big bucks on the players partly to keep Belichick in the background.
Will this go away? I don't think so. Unfortunately for Patriots fans, the tone set in the first year and change of commissioner Roger Goodell's reign over the National Football League has been one of personal accountability and punishment; if, as it is currently being speculated, the taping of the Jets is the mere surface, then there's a lot more bad stuff coming down the pipe for Bill Belichick and the Patriots franchise.
The coaching staff of the New England Patriots, led by Bill Belichick, was caught two Sundays ago in the act of videotaping the signals of the New York Jets. (This was apparently not their first violation of this edict: last year, when the Belichick-led Patriots played the Green Bay Packers, a cameraman was detained and believed to be doing something similar.) They have since been punished by the commissioner of the National Football League, Roger Goodell: the team will forfeit up to two draft choices in next year's draft, the team was fined $250,000, and Belichick himself was fined $500,000. This should have, by many accounts, have been the end of things.
However, Bill Belichick all but assured that this story would be far from over. The day the penalties were announced, Belichick released the following statement:
"I accept full responsibility for the actions that led to tonight's ruling. Once again, I apologize to the Kraft family and every person directly or indirectly associated with the New England Patriots for the embarrassment, distraction and penalty my mistake caused. I also apologize to Patriots fans and would like to thank them for their support during the past few days and throughout my career. "
"As the Commissioner acknowledged, our use of sideline video had no impact on the outcome of last week's game. We have never used sideline video to obtain a competitive advantage while the game was in progress."
"Part of my job as head coach is to ensure that our football operations are conducted in compliance of the league rules and all accepted interpretations of them. My interpretation of a rule in the Constitution and Bylaws was incorrect."
"With tonight's resolution, I will not be offering any further comments on this matter. We are moving on with our preparations for Sunday's game."To be helpful, I placed the troublesome part in bold. You see, sports fans, Bill Belichick refuses to admit that he cheated. His clear and blatant violation of the year-old policy? An incorrect interpretation.
Ultimately, this highlights the attitude that is currently causing a great deal of difficulty for the National Football League. Simply stated, Belichick might as well be imitating the cocky, balding record producer from the "Chef Aid" episode of South Park -you know, the one who'd bellow "I am above the law" while squeezing more hair gel onto his combover.
In refusing to acknowledge what he did, Belichick is doing two things - neither of which are particularly good for him.
First, he's stonewalling (think a less-serious, non-governmental version of Richard Nixon circa Watergate) - rather than admitting responsibility, he's seemingly trying to stop the amount of information that is publicly known about his actions from getting out there. He's not discussing the events - which is understandable in a way, as his primary responsibility is to prepare his football team for games. However, the way he's going about it seems practically designed to make him seem utterly and completely unlikeable - he's quickly become a football version of Barry Bonds; unapproachable, surly, and generally churlish. Bonds, at least, has never been caught red-handed, and continues to deny; Belichick's been caught and penalized and continues to deny. In the NFL, a league which prides itself on its character, this can only get increasingly worse.
Second, his antics - and they are antics, no matter how much people will try to downplay them or qualify them by saying, sans evidence,"oh, everybody does this" - is overshadowing what might be a tremendous all-time team. My personal distaste for everybody in a Patriots uniform aside, this current Patriots team might be one of the best to play in Foxboro; they made some smart moves over the offseason, buying tremendous amounts of talent on both ends of the ball to go along with Tom Brady and the other talent that already existed on a playoff team. Image is everything in this league; right now, instead of golden boy Brady serving as the team's primary focus, the klieglights of the media are focused directly at the man on the sidelines. Belichick dresses like a hobo on the sidelines, often sporting tattered sweatshirts. He looks squirrelish and distrustful; to find out that, behind the scenes, he's acting this way as well will only keep the bright lights shining onto his persona. This is not good for the Patriots; they spend the big bucks on the players partly to keep Belichick in the background.
Will this go away? I don't think so. Unfortunately for Patriots fans, the tone set in the first year and change of commissioner Roger Goodell's reign over the National Football League has been one of personal accountability and punishment; if, as it is currently being speculated, the taping of the Jets is the mere surface, then there's a lot more bad stuff coming down the pipe for Bill Belichick and the Patriots franchise.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Beating The Drum For: Bill Simmons Inadvertently Explaining His Writing Since 2003
The column: Bill Simmons's Week 2 Picks (formally titled: "The mail, the picks, and the cheaters")
The date: September 14, 2007
In Simmons's 2,132nd "mailbag" column in the past 100 weeks, Simmons takes on the following question from "actual reader" Dan from Greenville, South Carolina: "Can you tell me why it is necessary for all the networks to have like 12-20 people on their pregame shows? Brent, Jimmy, Irv, and Phyllis were all we needed back in the day. I feel like NBC needs to take a census of who is in their studio each week."
Simmons responded by blaming it on network executives, and in doing so, inadvertently explained his own volume of work since the Red Sox won the World Series a couple of years ago:
"Well, the problem is every network has too many executives, and when you have a lot of executives, you have a lot of meetings, and if you have a lot of meetings, those same executives feel obligated to come up with ideas for those meetings just because they don't want the head boss to say, "Gee, that was weird, Bob didn't come up with a single idea in today's meeting."
He goes on: "That leads to people feeling obligated to throw out bad ideas because a bad idea is better than not having ideas at all."
And lo and behold, we have an excuse for most of the crap Simmons spews out on a regular basis. (Remember "The Sports Guy Cartoon?" Me neither. How about groundbreaking stuff like the 'Bill goes to a Devil Rays-Red Sox game and gloats about how awesome Red Sox bandwagon fans are' photo essay? Yeah...that was terrible. Boy, I can't wait for book number 2. Or the next "Bill goes to Las Vegas" column.")
God, Bill Simmons is terrible.
The date: September 14, 2007
In Simmons's 2,132nd "mailbag" column in the past 100 weeks, Simmons takes on the following question from "actual reader" Dan from Greenville, South Carolina: "Can you tell me why it is necessary for all the networks to have like 12-20 people on their pregame shows? Brent, Jimmy, Irv, and Phyllis were all we needed back in the day. I feel like NBC needs to take a census of who is in their studio each week."
Simmons responded by blaming it on network executives, and in doing so, inadvertently explained his own volume of work since the Red Sox won the World Series a couple of years ago:
"Well, the problem is every network has too many executives, and when you have a lot of executives, you have a lot of meetings, and if you have a lot of meetings, those same executives feel obligated to come up with ideas for those meetings just because they don't want the head boss to say, "Gee, that was weird, Bob didn't come up with a single idea in today's meeting."
He goes on: "That leads to people feeling obligated to throw out bad ideas because a bad idea is better than not having ideas at all."
And lo and behold, we have an excuse for most of the crap Simmons spews out on a regular basis. (Remember "The Sports Guy Cartoon?" Me neither. How about groundbreaking stuff like the 'Bill goes to a Devil Rays-Red Sox game and gloats about how awesome Red Sox bandwagon fans are' photo essay? Yeah...that was terrible. Boy, I can't wait for book number 2. Or the next "Bill goes to Las Vegas" column.")
God, Bill Simmons is terrible.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
A quick thought for Kevin Everett...
I've been a Buffalo Bills fan for pretty much my entire life (it's a byproduct of having spent several summers of my life within a quick drive of the Bills' old Fredonia, NY training grounds).
I'm not going to lament the team's last second loss to the Broncos on Sunday. However, I will break from my tradition (thus far) of using no pictures on this site.
This is Kevin Everett. He's a tight end for the Bills. On Sunday, he got hurt quite badly in a head-to-head hit on a special teams play.
The prognosis is bleak; doctors expect that Everett will be paralyzed, and fear that Everett might suffer from complications that involve his various involuntary processes.
Keep Everett in your thoughts; from all accounts, he was a hard-working football player who had already overcome a major injury in his career. The newswires are filled with reports about how kind and generous this guy was.
Football is a dangerous game, and yes, these are risks that players undertake whenever they strap on the pads. But, let's be real here: Everett is 25 years old. Nobody deserves this at 55, much less 25. He's just a kid. Keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
I'm Way Too Old For This: Thoughts As I Watch The 2007 MTV Video Music Awards
I don't watch MTV anymore. There's a really good reason for this; aside from "Human Giant," there's really nothing on the channel that strikes my fancy. [Full disclosure: I submitted material as a consulting writer for the upcoming season of "Human Giant."] The bulk of the programming ("The Hills" and its similarly themed ilk) does nothing for me.
However, every year I watch the Video Music Awards. Why do I do this? There's no good reason. The music that the channel celebrates does nothing for me; I'd probably rather see the "NPR's Morning Becomes Eclectic" Music Awards. I'm generally disgusted by the trashier side of pop culture, and, to be bluntly honest, I'd be pretty much okay if an atomic bomb was detonated on one of the floors of the Las Vegas hotel in which these awards are being held this evening.
Yet, I watch it. It's kind of like the donkey show referenced in "The 40 Year Old Virgin." - you think it's gonna be cool, and then you realize that it's a woman (expletive deleted) a horse. And you just feel sorry for the horse.
They're advertising this year's show as a one-time-only event - in previous years, the show's been rerun eternally, but MTV is swearing that this will be it. So, I'm watching. I will not, however, be linking to any pictures
8:50 - Preshow. John Norris is hosting the preshow. He seriously looks like a vampire, and not in the cool, "Interview with the Vampire" way. He looks like the undead with a tousled, bleach-blonde cut...or, minus the showy hairdo, Freddie Mercury circa "Barcelona." Look that one up, kids. According to Wikipedia, Norris has been working for MTV since 1986 and is almost 48 years old. Huh. He doesn't look a day over 65, though.
8:58 - Preshow. Some British dude is interviewing Linkin Park. Mike Shinoda is the worst rock star ever. He's gigglier than Dakota Fanning on nitrous oxide, all the time.
9:00 - Britney Spears is opening the show. She is wearing a barely-there sparkly bra and panties set. It doesn't look good. Kind of a muffin top thing going on there. Her new song is entitled "Gimme More." I'd settle for giving us Britney wearing a shirt, and putting some actual rehearsal time in. She looks vaguely stoned. Not good. See you on "The Surreal Life," Britney.
9:09 - Alicia Keys introduces us to the night's conceit; they've apparently taken over the entire casino, and are throwing different "parties" in which different performers are going to be performing all night. Kanye West's hosting one, Justin Timberlake's hosting another one, and the bassist from Fall Out Boy's got another one going on. The Fall Out Boy guy's microphone isn't working - it's always nice to see karma and common sense work together to protect the general public. (I know he's got a name, and I know it, but I refuse to mention it - he seems like the kind of douche who spends the bulk his days doing a "blog search" on Google for his name, and I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing his name on this particularly-low trafficked corner of the internets.)
9:20 - Akon's performing "Smack That" with Mark Ronson and the band that made Amy Winehouse's album. It sounds infinitely better with this band, which makes me believe that Amy Winehouse is more or less a lucky crackhead with a half-decent voice and great production.
9:22 - Robin Thicke was just introduced as "R & B's new royalty." Do they know that his dad was the pop from "Growing Pains?" Finding out that Jason Seaver has fathered R & B royalty is incredibly discomforting to me. It's just...kinda weird.
9:31 - The Foo Fighters are performing. This is awesome. They're a real band, with actual rock-and-roll bonafides. They're joined by former guitarist Pat Smear, among others - this is a genuinely cool moment. I'm sure MTV will cut away from this prematurely. (It lasted precisely 90 seconds.) It's always great to see Pat Smear doing stuff. That guy's great.
9:34 - Beyonce just won an award. Surprisingly, it isn't for the advanced robotic technicians who keep her looking so lifelike. I'm looking forward to her turn as a lifelike female doll in the upcoming "Lars And The Real Girl," mostly because Ryan Gosling can make anyone look good.
9:42 - Chris Brown's performance begins with an homage to Charlie Chaplin. Or, as I'm going to call it, that time the vaguely effeminate teenager put on a tuxedo and fake Hitler mustache and then tap danced and lip-synched in an odd attempt to curry some kind of street credibility.
9:46 - After a desperate attempt to prove his sexual prowess by awkwardly touching Rihanna's back, Chris Brown is now recreating Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" dance. Someone should inform Brown (and Justin Timberlake, among others) that Jackson was an artist and not a genre of music.
9:55 - Bill Hader and Seth Rogen are on, in a recurring bit where they're talking about voting for the potential "losers" of the Viewer's Choice awards. This allows Rogen to throw out a jab at Wang Chung, which is lame, but we'll cut him some slack, as "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" were the best things going this summer.
9:59 - The Foo Fighters are back, with Cee-Lo this time. Cee-Lo is throttling the microphone stand and giving it his rock and roll best. They're ripping through Prince's dirty "Darlin' Nikki" and...yep, commercial break.
10:01 - Finding out that Alan Thicke somehow fathered someone referred to as "R & B Royalty" is like finding out that Pat Sajak's son is the new United States Poet Laureate. It's...just not right.
10:05 - In 2000, 50 Cent got shot 9 times. In 2007, in a desperate attempt to make it back to the top of the charts, he's relying on the questionable beatbox skills of a former Mouseketeer on a song. Just sayin'.
10:08 - Shia LeBoeuf just announced the title of the new Indiana Jones movie. It's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I'm guessing "Indiana Jones and the Magical Social Security Payout" wasn't, y'know, mysterious enough?
10:20 - Oh, joy. It's Linkin Park. Despite the angsty undertones of the music, Mike Shinoda is beaming like a first-grader on Christmas. I don't get the appeal at all.
Well, this is where I came in. It's the same celebrities, rotating in and out. If there are going to be any true "surprises," I don't forsee any actually happening, unless Britney somehow manages to sneak in an overdose during the live broadcast. [Which, since it's Vegas, the house has 3:1 odds on.] So, as two coked-up looking dudes from "Entourage" present Fall Out Boy with an award, I bid you, my reading audience of (maybe) tens a fond adieu.
The sad thing is, as terrible as this show has been - and believe me, it's been terrible - I will probably watch a bit of it next year.
PS. Kid Rock and Tommy Lee apparently got into a fistfight. The battle for irrelevance...gets literal! I'm not sure what's more likely: one to knock the other one into oblivion, or the Billboard charts and general public to do the job for them. For me to root for one over the other is like rooting for poop to be better than doo-doo. Wait, that's not a metaphor. Yeah, I need to stop this.
However, every year I watch the Video Music Awards. Why do I do this? There's no good reason. The music that the channel celebrates does nothing for me; I'd probably rather see the "NPR's Morning Becomes Eclectic" Music Awards. I'm generally disgusted by the trashier side of pop culture, and, to be bluntly honest, I'd be pretty much okay if an atomic bomb was detonated on one of the floors of the Las Vegas hotel in which these awards are being held this evening.
Yet, I watch it. It's kind of like the donkey show referenced in "The 40 Year Old Virgin." - you think it's gonna be cool, and then you realize that it's a woman (expletive deleted) a horse. And you just feel sorry for the horse.
They're advertising this year's show as a one-time-only event - in previous years, the show's been rerun eternally, but MTV is swearing that this will be it. So, I'm watching. I will not, however, be linking to any pictures
8:50 - Preshow. John Norris is hosting the preshow. He seriously looks like a vampire, and not in the cool, "Interview with the Vampire" way. He looks like the undead with a tousled, bleach-blonde cut...or, minus the showy hairdo, Freddie Mercury circa "Barcelona." Look that one up, kids. According to Wikipedia, Norris has been working for MTV since 1986 and is almost 48 years old. Huh. He doesn't look a day over 65, though.
8:58 - Preshow. Some British dude is interviewing Linkin Park. Mike Shinoda is the worst rock star ever. He's gigglier than Dakota Fanning on nitrous oxide, all the time.
9:00 - Britney Spears is opening the show. She is wearing a barely-there sparkly bra and panties set. It doesn't look good. Kind of a muffin top thing going on there. Her new song is entitled "Gimme More." I'd settle for giving us Britney wearing a shirt, and putting some actual rehearsal time in. She looks vaguely stoned. Not good. See you on "The Surreal Life," Britney.
9:09 - Alicia Keys introduces us to the night's conceit; they've apparently taken over the entire casino, and are throwing different "parties" in which different performers are going to be performing all night. Kanye West's hosting one, Justin Timberlake's hosting another one, and the bassist from Fall Out Boy's got another one going on. The Fall Out Boy guy's microphone isn't working - it's always nice to see karma and common sense work together to protect the general public. (I know he's got a name, and I know it, but I refuse to mention it - he seems like the kind of douche who spends the bulk his days doing a "blog search" on Google for his name, and I don't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing his name on this particularly-low trafficked corner of the internets.)
9:20 - Akon's performing "Smack That" with Mark Ronson and the band that made Amy Winehouse's album. It sounds infinitely better with this band, which makes me believe that Amy Winehouse is more or less a lucky crackhead with a half-decent voice and great production.
9:22 - Robin Thicke was just introduced as "R & B's new royalty." Do they know that his dad was the pop from "Growing Pains?" Finding out that Jason Seaver has fathered R & B royalty is incredibly discomforting to me. It's just...kinda weird.
9:31 - The Foo Fighters are performing. This is awesome. They're a real band, with actual rock-and-roll bonafides. They're joined by former guitarist Pat Smear, among others - this is a genuinely cool moment. I'm sure MTV will cut away from this prematurely. (It lasted precisely 90 seconds.) It's always great to see Pat Smear doing stuff. That guy's great.
9:34 - Beyonce just won an award. Surprisingly, it isn't for the advanced robotic technicians who keep her looking so lifelike. I'm looking forward to her turn as a lifelike female doll in the upcoming "Lars And The Real Girl," mostly because Ryan Gosling can make anyone look good.
9:42 - Chris Brown's performance begins with an homage to Charlie Chaplin. Or, as I'm going to call it, that time the vaguely effeminate teenager put on a tuxedo and fake Hitler mustache and then tap danced and lip-synched in an odd attempt to curry some kind of street credibility.
9:46 - After a desperate attempt to prove his sexual prowess by awkwardly touching Rihanna's back, Chris Brown is now recreating Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" dance. Someone should inform Brown (and Justin Timberlake, among others) that Jackson was an artist and not a genre of music.
9:55 - Bill Hader and Seth Rogen are on, in a recurring bit where they're talking about voting for the potential "losers" of the Viewer's Choice awards. This allows Rogen to throw out a jab at Wang Chung, which is lame, but we'll cut him some slack, as "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" were the best things going this summer.
9:59 - The Foo Fighters are back, with Cee-Lo this time. Cee-Lo is throttling the microphone stand and giving it his rock and roll best. They're ripping through Prince's dirty "Darlin' Nikki" and...yep, commercial break.
10:01 - Finding out that Alan Thicke somehow fathered someone referred to as "R & B Royalty" is like finding out that Pat Sajak's son is the new United States Poet Laureate. It's...just not right.
10:05 - In 2000, 50 Cent got shot 9 times. In 2007, in a desperate attempt to make it back to the top of the charts, he's relying on the questionable beatbox skills of a former Mouseketeer on a song. Just sayin'.
10:08 - Shia LeBoeuf just announced the title of the new Indiana Jones movie. It's "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I'm guessing "Indiana Jones and the Magical Social Security Payout" wasn't, y'know, mysterious enough?
10:20 - Oh, joy. It's Linkin Park. Despite the angsty undertones of the music, Mike Shinoda is beaming like a first-grader on Christmas. I don't get the appeal at all.
Well, this is where I came in. It's the same celebrities, rotating in and out. If there are going to be any true "surprises," I don't forsee any actually happening, unless Britney somehow manages to sneak in an overdose during the live broadcast. [Which, since it's Vegas, the house has 3:1 odds on.] So, as two coked-up looking dudes from "Entourage" present Fall Out Boy with an award, I bid you, my reading audience of (maybe) tens a fond adieu.
The sad thing is, as terrible as this show has been - and believe me, it's been terrible - I will probably watch a bit of it next year.
PS. Kid Rock and Tommy Lee apparently got into a fistfight. The battle for irrelevance...gets literal! I'm not sure what's more likely: one to knock the other one into oblivion, or the Billboard charts and general public to do the job for them. For me to root for one over the other is like rooting for poop to be better than doo-doo. Wait, that's not a metaphor. Yeah, I need to stop this.
Meandering Thoughts: An Appreciation of "For Better or For Worse"
One of the many cultural benefits of growing up in New York City, aside from its myriad museums and artistic happenings, is the access that I had to many different sources of media. It seems almost incongruous now, given our current culture of information available on-demand whenever and wherever, but when I was growing up, I had access to a number of newspapers for a constant stream of information. Every Sunday, after church, you could stop by the corner store and pick up any one of a number of newspapers, from the highbrow New York Times to the lowbrow New York Post to the Spanish-language El Diario.
My favorite, growing up, was the New York Daily News. It wasn't intimidatingly massive like the Times, or in a language I don't understand like either the Post or El Diario. It was reliable - a great sports section, relatively-unbiased news. Most importantly, though, it had an awesome comics section - a pull-away 12+ page section on Sundays, and 3 to 4 pages of daily strips on the other days of the week.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the comics of my childhood. When I was young, my favorites were always the cartoons that didn't talk down to me. Calvin and Hobbes was unrelenting in its quest to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood, and as such, a constant favorite. I appreciated the life-is-somewhat-dismal outlook of Charles Schultz's finest Peanuts moments. I always read strips like Doonesbury and Bloom County, as well. The one other favorite of mine? Oddly enough, it was the relatively-saccharine For Better or For Worse.
I can't tell you why I took to For Better or For Worse. The strip has always seemed like it was aimed towards the generation two ahead of mine; while it's readily featured three young characters, who have aged in real-time since the strip's inception in 1979, it's a cartoon that, like Doonesbury, is ultimately by a baby-boomer for an audience of baby-boomers. I guess I've always been appreciative of author/cartoonist Lynne Johnston's no-frills approach; where strips like Doonesbury and Bloom County diverted easily and often into the political, For Better or For Worse did a pretty phenomenal job of maintaining an intimate, personal point of view. There wasn't any political commentary, nor was there too much angst. The strip maintained a point of view for a great amount of time without getting too jokey or too flashy; it tackled a lot of capital-i issues (one character had a severe stroke, and another one fended off a possible sexual assault) without being too preachy. Everything that was done over the span of For Better or For Worse was done with a certain grace; this is not to say that the strip always succeeded (like many other strips, the author obviously struggled to write about adolescence and youth from her adult perspective), but it maintained a real dignity.
Recently, For Better or For Worse author Lynne Johnston announced her retirement. According to media reports, she's decided to phase out the strip gracefully - rather than wrap it up right now, she's going to use the next few months to create a "hybrid comic" where she'll use a flashback format to look back at the strip's original days before signing off sometime in the new year. Good for her. It's a plus to see a strip like this go out on its own terms, rather than see it taken over by a media conglomerate and farmed out. It might not be the hippest, edgiest strip, but it's always come from a singular point of view. I'm glad it's going to maintain that to the end.
I'm not really a constant visitor to the comics page anymore - I haven't been, really, since I stopped commuting in to work in New York City and stopped reading the New York Daily News on a regular basis - but, weirdly, I'll miss For Better or For Worse. It's another piece of my childhood - my strange, quirky, different childhood - that's disappearing. I can only wish it well.
My favorite, growing up, was the New York Daily News. It wasn't intimidatingly massive like the Times, or in a language I don't understand like either the Post or El Diario. It was reliable - a great sports section, relatively-unbiased news. Most importantly, though, it had an awesome comics section - a pull-away 12+ page section on Sundays, and 3 to 4 pages of daily strips on the other days of the week.
I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the comics of my childhood. When I was young, my favorites were always the cartoons that didn't talk down to me. Calvin and Hobbes was unrelenting in its quest to bridge the gap between childhood and adulthood, and as such, a constant favorite. I appreciated the life-is-somewhat-dismal outlook of Charles Schultz's finest Peanuts moments. I always read strips like Doonesbury and Bloom County, as well. The one other favorite of mine? Oddly enough, it was the relatively-saccharine For Better or For Worse.
I can't tell you why I took to For Better or For Worse. The strip has always seemed like it was aimed towards the generation two ahead of mine; while it's readily featured three young characters, who have aged in real-time since the strip's inception in 1979, it's a cartoon that, like Doonesbury, is ultimately by a baby-boomer for an audience of baby-boomers. I guess I've always been appreciative of author/cartoonist Lynne Johnston's no-frills approach; where strips like Doonesbury and Bloom County diverted easily and often into the political, For Better or For Worse did a pretty phenomenal job of maintaining an intimate, personal point of view. There wasn't any political commentary, nor was there too much angst. The strip maintained a point of view for a great amount of time without getting too jokey or too flashy; it tackled a lot of capital-i issues (one character had a severe stroke, and another one fended off a possible sexual assault) without being too preachy. Everything that was done over the span of For Better or For Worse was done with a certain grace; this is not to say that the strip always succeeded (like many other strips, the author obviously struggled to write about adolescence and youth from her adult perspective), but it maintained a real dignity.
Recently, For Better or For Worse author Lynne Johnston announced her retirement. According to media reports, she's decided to phase out the strip gracefully - rather than wrap it up right now, she's going to use the next few months to create a "hybrid comic" where she'll use a flashback format to look back at the strip's original days before signing off sometime in the new year. Good for her. It's a plus to see a strip like this go out on its own terms, rather than see it taken over by a media conglomerate and farmed out. It might not be the hippest, edgiest strip, but it's always come from a singular point of view. I'm glad it's going to maintain that to the end.
I'm not really a constant visitor to the comics page anymore - I haven't been, really, since I stopped commuting in to work in New York City and stopped reading the New York Daily News on a regular basis - but, weirdly, I'll miss For Better or For Worse. It's another piece of my childhood - my strange, quirky, different childhood - that's disappearing. I can only wish it well.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Meandering Thoughts: ESPN Brings Forth The Apocalypse
I was home sick from work today, which gave me the opportunity to watch some daytime television. In between trips to the bathroom, my television basically stayed glued to ESPN. It used to be that ESPN could be counted on provide some great sick-day programming; if it wasn't something decent like "SportsCenter" (which - despite its many misses and the fact that the show itself has become a series of commercials and sponsorships that has drained it of every single iota of journalistic credibility - can still be counted on for some mostly solid programming), it would be something awesome like "NFL Films Presents," which could leave you breathless after watching 1986 Buccaneers highlights for a half-hour.
However, what I beheld on ESPN - between the hours of 2:30 and 3:00 pm - was so very atrocious, so horrendous, so horrifying that I actually peeked out my living room window a couple of times to make sure that four horsemen were not stampeding down my street and that the apocalypse was not actually nigh. And while I'm still not actually sure this wasn't the case, I can say with some surety of what was actually occurring on my television.
The name of the show is "First and Ten," and the ESPN website describes it thusly: "With ESPN First Take's Jay Crawford and Dana Jacobson refereeing the always heated discussion, Skip Bayless and daily guests debate the top ten sports stories of the day from number ten to number one. In the show's first three segments, Skip and panel sound-off on each of the ten topics in a point-counterpoint debate. The final segment is "Extra Point" - the final word from all three on any sports issue they pick."
The show that I saw barely resembled that description. Yes, Dana Jacobsen and Skip Bayless were present. (Jay Crawford was apparently on vacation; the nondescript female talking head who assumed his place was possibly the least distinguished person to have graced the small screen at all. I couldn't tell you her name, or for that matter, anything else about her aside from her gender.) There was no "panel." Rather than having "daily guests," they had talking head/"sportswriter" Stephen A. Smith appearing. To call this show one of "discussion" and "debate" is like calling John Wayne Gacy "quirky." There was no discussion. There was no debate. There was a lot of screaming and posturing.
Why was this show atrocious? Let's look at the blustery talking heads at its Satanic core: Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless.
First, Stephen A. Smith. In the history of mankind, there has never been so much credit and credence given to someone who has so little credibility. Smith has been a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1994 - according to the paper's website, he has covered "Philadelphia 76ers, Temple University basketball and football, and college sports" and is now a columnist-at-large (which he began doing in 2003). Smith's lone other credit? Working for ESPN as a talking head, Smith has moved from commenting on basketball to a slew of other duties, including co-hosting SportsCenter and NBA Basketball coverage. ESPN even gave Smith his own television show, "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith," a talk show which gave a retroactive intelligence to "Thicke Of The Night" and "The Pat Sajak Show." ESPN banks on Smith as a personality - but there seems to be no rhyme or reason for this; Smith comes off on television as a belligerent, blustery ignoramus who makes up for content and reason by generally maintaining a vocal volume that seems better suited to amplifiers at a punk-rock show.
Then there's Skip Bayless. I do not know how ESPN executives looked at this person, and said, "hey, there's a guy we'd love to see representing us on a regular basis." He does not look good on television - facially, he resembles something akin to a wrinkly, harsh-faced Satan, if Satan were forced to suck on lemons on a regular basis. He makes very terrible points that make it seem less like he's a journalist considering a variety of topics and more like someone saddled with a case of utter incoherence matched with Oppositional Defiance Disorder. He comes off not just as grumpy, but as an unlikeable person who would have no qualms about saying something like "Hitler had the right ideas but didn't go far enough."
Putting these two together is a terrible, terrible idea. Their personalities are grating enough, but the true difficulty with watching these two is the fact that they do not actually debate. They barely engage each other (hardly surprising, given their narcissistic tendencies). For a half-hour, they speak in absolutes. Which is a terrible, terrible thing when you consider that they are paid to talk about things that (1) haven't occurred yet, and (2) really require opinions and discussion. Neither entertains the possibility that the future sporting events that they're debating (today, it was the forthcoming NFL season and the New York Yankees) might deviate from the course set forth by their opinions.
The two of them went on and on about nothing. Smith "repeated" the "rumor" again and again that A-Rod is actually called "She-Rod" (as a Yankees fan who's heard just about everything, I have to say that I've never heard this one - it is more than plausible that Smith made this one up), and then went absolutely ballistic when Bayless called Terrell Owens "Team Obliterator." They literally only engaged each other about their made-up nicknames for athletes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two are paid journalists! (Paid by multiple organizations, no less. Oy vey.)
Smith and Bayless are hardly the only individuals on television that do this; they're following a path forged by news channels like Fox and CNN, where journalists ranging from the quasi-likeable (I'm sure some name will come to me soon) to the blustery, Vader-esque (Robert Novak, Bill O'Reilly, everybody eles) insert their opinions into every single news story, obliterating the very concept of journalistic independence for the sake of ratings. However, Smith and Bayless have elevated meaningless, bad-for-our-society bluster to a new high in this - they suck the remaining drops of joy from sports, instead of contributing to our enjoyment of them. For that - although, surely, not that in and of itself - they should both be drawn, quartered, tarred, feathered, shivved, and shot.
And do it quick. Every time they "debate," those horsemen draw closer.
However, what I beheld on ESPN - between the hours of 2:30 and 3:00 pm - was so very atrocious, so horrendous, so horrifying that I actually peeked out my living room window a couple of times to make sure that four horsemen were not stampeding down my street and that the apocalypse was not actually nigh. And while I'm still not actually sure this wasn't the case, I can say with some surety of what was actually occurring on my television.
The name of the show is "First and Ten," and the ESPN website describes it thusly: "With ESPN First Take's Jay Crawford and Dana Jacobson refereeing the always heated discussion, Skip Bayless and daily guests debate the top ten sports stories of the day from number ten to number one. In the show's first three segments, Skip and panel sound-off on each of the ten topics in a point-counterpoint debate. The final segment is "Extra Point" - the final word from all three on any sports issue they pick."
The show that I saw barely resembled that description. Yes, Dana Jacobsen and Skip Bayless were present. (Jay Crawford was apparently on vacation; the nondescript female talking head who assumed his place was possibly the least distinguished person to have graced the small screen at all. I couldn't tell you her name, or for that matter, anything else about her aside from her gender.) There was no "panel." Rather than having "daily guests," they had talking head/"sportswriter" Stephen A. Smith appearing. To call this show one of "discussion" and "debate" is like calling John Wayne Gacy "quirky." There was no discussion. There was no debate. There was a lot of screaming and posturing.
Why was this show atrocious? Let's look at the blustery talking heads at its Satanic core: Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless.
First, Stephen A. Smith. In the history of mankind, there has never been so much credit and credence given to someone who has so little credibility. Smith has been a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer since 1994 - according to the paper's website, he has covered "Philadelphia 76ers, Temple University basketball and football, and college sports" and is now a columnist-at-large (which he began doing in 2003). Smith's lone other credit? Working for ESPN as a talking head, Smith has moved from commenting on basketball to a slew of other duties, including co-hosting SportsCenter and NBA Basketball coverage. ESPN even gave Smith his own television show, "Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith," a talk show which gave a retroactive intelligence to "Thicke Of The Night" and "The Pat Sajak Show." ESPN banks on Smith as a personality - but there seems to be no rhyme or reason for this; Smith comes off on television as a belligerent, blustery ignoramus who makes up for content and reason by generally maintaining a vocal volume that seems better suited to amplifiers at a punk-rock show.
Then there's Skip Bayless. I do not know how ESPN executives looked at this person, and said, "hey, there's a guy we'd love to see representing us on a regular basis." He does not look good on television - facially, he resembles something akin to a wrinkly, harsh-faced Satan, if Satan were forced to suck on lemons on a regular basis. He makes very terrible points that make it seem less like he's a journalist considering a variety of topics and more like someone saddled with a case of utter incoherence matched with Oppositional Defiance Disorder. He comes off not just as grumpy, but as an unlikeable person who would have no qualms about saying something like "Hitler had the right ideas but didn't go far enough."
Putting these two together is a terrible, terrible idea. Their personalities are grating enough, but the true difficulty with watching these two is the fact that they do not actually debate. They barely engage each other (hardly surprising, given their narcissistic tendencies). For a half-hour, they speak in absolutes. Which is a terrible, terrible thing when you consider that they are paid to talk about things that (1) haven't occurred yet, and (2) really require opinions and discussion. Neither entertains the possibility that the future sporting events that they're debating (today, it was the forthcoming NFL season and the New York Yankees) might deviate from the course set forth by their opinions.
The two of them went on and on about nothing. Smith "repeated" the "rumor" again and again that A-Rod is actually called "She-Rod" (as a Yankees fan who's heard just about everything, I have to say that I've never heard this one - it is more than plausible that Smith made this one up), and then went absolutely ballistic when Bayless called Terrell Owens "Team Obliterator." They literally only engaged each other about their made-up nicknames for athletes. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these two are paid journalists! (Paid by multiple organizations, no less. Oy vey.)
Smith and Bayless are hardly the only individuals on television that do this; they're following a path forged by news channels like Fox and CNN, where journalists ranging from the quasi-likeable (I'm sure some name will come to me soon) to the blustery, Vader-esque (Robert Novak, Bill O'Reilly, everybody eles) insert their opinions into every single news story, obliterating the very concept of journalistic independence for the sake of ratings. However, Smith and Bayless have elevated meaningless, bad-for-our-society bluster to a new high in this - they suck the remaining drops of joy from sports, instead of contributing to our enjoyment of them. For that - although, surely, not that in and of itself - they should both be drawn, quartered, tarred, feathered, shivved, and shot.
And do it quick. Every time they "debate," those horsemen draw closer.
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