March 19, 2007
9:45 pm
Dan Savage on TV: “Like anybody acts the way people do on Lost.“
9:47 pm
Oh yes! Now Dan Savage is going to go off on the creepy “The Suite Life of Zach and Cody.” The hair on that show is enough to remind me that all the Lawrence brothers had jobs for a good ten years. He follows with a thoughtful essay on stereotypes in TV–but I am still caught up on the horrible hair and greasy attitude the kids on that show have.
9:55
This entire show has made my heart swell and swell and swell. A shout out to the beautiful friend that made me first listen to “This American Life” in 1999, when she was convinced it was hosted by a man actually named “Hour Glass.” It took us years to figure out we weren’t hearing things right.
9:57
Things end with kick-ass space disco music. And so, radio is good for you, too.
March 19, 2007
9:34 pm
Ira Glass loves “The OC” and can sass talk about shit TV as good as the rest of us. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by him doing another thing well.
9:35 PM
It turns out “The OC” loves “This American Life” as Glass explains over the melancholy piano of the theme of “The OC,” which Glass admits to singing along to every show.
9:37 PM
Ira Glass knows TV is good for you, and knows that it can offer us brief moments of enlightenment/endorphins/heightened appreciation/ and a joy (I mean it,a-no-holds-bar-fill your-shoulders-up-and-sigh kind of joy).
“It makes me love TV, makes me love my wife, makes me love everything all at once, ” says Ira Glass, before the Mates of State go at the poignancy of the OC theme, again proving that it is an excellent song to drive around cul-de-sacs late at night to when you are feeling all teenagey.
March 19, 2007
9:23 PM
This American Life has just broken and peeled Televisionisgoodforyou’s heavily wired heart. We love David Rakoff, and he just made this Sunday worth it’s space in time for his essay on Television, reality TV, and, My Super Sweet 16. I wonder what Mr. Rakoff would think of WifeSwap, and the strange American portraits it makes in its weird swaps. After the nausea passed, I imagine he would like it as much as I do.
Since today was a day spent procrastinating, it was of particular joy to hear Mr. Rakoff talk of his own methods (to avoid TV no less). It made a day of my own particular procrastination seem more rightly timed than wrong.
Mates of State then sang something lovely. Ah radio. You kick televsion’s assless ass sometimes.
March 12, 2007
H&R Block is trying to lure students (and their taxes) as clients by offering a ten dollar “coffeehouse gift card.” All you have to do is bring you 1040EZ, tax returns, and $49 bucks to one of their insta-shops, and then watch as they do what you could do for free either on their website, or in the confines of your own house. I’m not saying taxes aren’t complicated, but if the 1040EZ is all that is in the game, then I think the kid is going to be okay paying for her own cuppa, and keeping the fifty to spend on other college treasures (like health insurance, or some over-sized poster of Audrey Hepburn). I’m just saying.
March 11, 2007
Ended up watching two shows that had me genuinely panicky about the outcome of those involved. Animal Planet’s MeerKat Manor, with their strategy of fullblown personification of the weird chipmunky animals (they have names and “characters” not to mention, a freakin’ manor), and a nature show on Humboldt squid that made me feel all afraid and in awe of nature and shit (squid have beaks!).
The meerkats are absolutely engaging, and the show fairly genius–especially b/c unlike reality TV starring humans, these little animals are actually willing to kill each other, and have a harder time faking things for the camera. In one scene a warring faction of meerkats (named “the commandos”) decides to attack a smaller group (the delicately named “the whiskers” or “whispers” I can’t remember). It is a frightening scene: the commandos chase the whiskers into a burrow, and then start piling in after them. At first, only one or two of the meerkats can fit into to go after the persecuted meerkats, but all the commandos are working together to dig them out, and eventually, about 15 more squeeze in to make the attack more claustrophobic and ferocious. I was pretty much as in awe of the bad being done as I was when Tony Soprano gets the roach spray out with Ralphie after the horse dies.
And, it is all narrated by the gentle voiced Sean Astin, adding to the strange calm of the show–which shares a similarly cheerily controled tone with Wife Swap (which also shares the same crazy moments of seeing what animals (or people) can actually do to eachother).
As for the squid. Those beasties are crazy. Did you know they flash color, from white to grey to red, when they want? They are apparently not man eating killers, but sensitive, curious animals that get worked up when they are being hunted (which seems fair). Still, they disorienting to watch as their shape changes from a long elegant point to a tangle of tentacles that reach out to catch prey with suckers that are lined with teeth. Apparently, when they aren’t feeling sensitive or curious, the squid can drag divers down to the murky depths, or impale them with that beak.
The show made for good television. The footage of the squid swimming and hunting was better than anything else seen on television lately, except for the old episode of The Office where Dwight gets a concussion.
March 10, 2007
Eddie Izzard is going to be a main cast member on a new FX series, The Riches. It looks like a serious role, with no French language jokes.
The long lost Minnie Driver takes the other lead.
It could suck to high heaven, but I’m in, FX. Well done .
March 8, 2007
I spend a little time every day with music videos during the wee hours they get played on the so called music channels. While eating cereal and wondering why I have the job I have, I flip between Vh1, MTV, MTV2, BET, and on rare occasion, CMT. I think music videos are better than coffee, because they give you all the flashy wake up stimuli, but also soothe you, and promise that mornings can be just as glittery and thoughtless as weekends or temporary unemployment. So, I have had a steady diet of Mary J Blige and Ludacris going on and on about runaways (every time I think about the size of the girls backpack at the clinic, and then, if Mary J and Luda are offering anything besides running away as an answer to these kids shit deals–the chorus is almost a command “runaway runaway runaway,” but if that is a plea to not runaway, then what else? Go to Mary’s house in New Jersey?), Cupid’s Chokehold (the video charms me every time, every frickin time), and Glamourous Fergie (again showing off that she can spell real words) at the backyard kegger, later getting served champagne by that guy from Six Feet Under.All of these videos, which are a good sample of the most pop-i-fied are all surprisingly narrative. They have full story arcs, and Fergie’s even plays with some flashback doubling stuff, that is probably less interesting than it sounds (Fergie with bad highlights, Fergie with good highlights, etc.).
On top of this, there is the continued popularity of the cerebral video, which in my head stems back to R.E.M’s “Losing My Relgion” video where everything from Gabriel Garcia Marquez stories to imagery from the works of Caravaggio. The Shins latest is full of this kind of aesthetic savvy–scene re-enactments from famous imagery of world history, dramatic lighting, and pronouncedly aware costumes (the costumes want you to know they are costumes, the light does the same thing)–all in the frame of kids in a pageant. Its kind of great–we get to see the horrors of culture enacted as a kids school play. Joan of Arc (or a witch, I can’t remember) goes up in flames, native americans get slaughtered, Christianity arrives in North America, and so on. Every time I see this video I feel smart–like I am in on the “western civilization is one nasty beast” joke. This is a strange feeling to have from a music video.
The trend continues. The new Modest Mouse video plays off of Moby Dick, or at least Melville’s description of New England’s whaling culture, and ends with a witty wooden leg joke to boot . The reason both these videos are worth mentioning is that they are skimping on the video go-tos of hot babes and explosions. Just like irony and complicated narratives have trickled into network television, the weirdly over detailed and allusion heavy has made it to the mainstream music arena.
February 26, 2007
Do you think the Bush gov has been in cahoots with MTV to get America’s youth hitched? Besides their slew of “Engaged and Underage” episodes, where everybody gets married and seems pretty happy about doing so, they are also are spreading the “alternative” version with “Bam’s Unholy Union” suggesting that even if you are supposedly crazy, tattooed, and the never grow up type, what you really want is to have hotel ballroom reception. Why don’t they mention Bam’s long lost allegations of one night stands with Jessica Simpson? Not to mention the divorces that have sprouted from their other wedding based reality shows (remember that whole Dave Navarro, Carmen Electra affair? and the doozy Newlyweds fest that we were all subjected to?).
And what happened to that blond guy from O-Town, wasn’t he supposed to have a baby and get married to his lady and be happy? Oh, right, and also become successful–he was supposed to do that too.
February 26, 2007
In a magical piece of news, it was revealed that the galore 16th birthday party of Ariel Milby alerted the fuzz to her father’s illegal wealth! How amazing is that?
Apparently Daddy Warbucks Milby owes the state of Arizona about $1.3 meelyoon dollars, and the show, which requires at least a $100,000 budget for the party like a princess events, suggested that Milby was being a bit of a spendthrift.
Mind you, this is the party of the girl that goes on and on that oil–her daddy’s business, smells like money and Coach bags. Now daddy is under investigation, and he swears that MTV set most of the shindig up, and that he didn’t pay for any of it. He swears.
I am full of glee.
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