Look Lively: My Dear John letter to music

Dear Music:

We had a good run, you and I. Every year on Grammy night we'd sit down together and laugh and cry and run through the streets like Sal Paradise. We'd see things we love, things we hated, things we didn't appreciate but strove to understood.

Grammy night used to be cool. What happened?

Remember where there'd be a segment of the show given over to opera, classical music, and jazz. Sure, it wasn't our favorite part, but we got to see Yo-Yo Ma, Oscar Petersen and a young Diana Krall (who was dating the head of the Grammies at the time...just saying). And when old and new artists got together it was something memorable, like Red Hot Chilli Peppers doing "Give it Away" and "One Nation Under a Groove" with The P-Funk All Stars. And when people got lifetime awards, they had a great moment to themselves. Remember when Bob Dylan tore through "Masters of War" as the First Gulf War broke out, and then gave a speech that still resonates with me to this day.

Last night I saw you fall all over yourself, drunk, with a younger girlfriend. I saw you mock those things that once made you special. I saw you use the classical art of opera as the set up for a Jamie Foxx joke about how stupid it was. I saw you put on musical numbers that looked more like the reviews at theme parks. I saw you stand up and cheer for cheap parlor tricks and auto-tune. I saw people who are poets and geniuses in their fields get less screen time than a pop flavor-of-the-month who couldn't even read his own teleprompter as he stood next to someone with a dollar sign in her name. And you celebrated yourself for it?

Music, maybe it's time we see other art forms. I've been spending more and more with short works of fiction lately, and find that I've been getting more from that and feel less conspicuous hanging out in public places with it. We have more in common and more to talk about. Plus, it has a longer memory span than you do, since that Taylor girl seemed to think that she was the first person you ever winked at from her town...you didn't even tell her that this time last year you were cavorting with Allison Krause...but I'll calm down.

Maybe in a few months we'll come back and have grown and remembered those things that made our time together special. But right now...after what you did last night...I need some space. I...I just think this song sums it up better than I can..

Smooches,

GValentino

PS IT'S CALLED A MEDLEY, NOT A MASH UP. GOD YOU SOUND 12 WHEN YOU SAY THAT!!!!!

... nonplussed for the Oscars

Normally this is one of the times of the year I get annoying.

Well, more so than usual.

See, the Oscars appeal to both the trivia nut (Quick: Which two movies were nominated for the most Oscars without winning any?) and the pundit in me ("The Best Animated Feature category has become a joke and really should be discontinued post-haste"). But this yeah, here's what I'm feeling.

"Ellipses"

Nuthin'. And it's not because of a bad year of movies: most movies I've seen this year have quite impressed me (and I could write many many words on how this was both a renaissance for science-fiction with Watchmen, Star Trek, and District 9, while also confirming all the things I hate about sci-fi in Avatar). Instead, what's ruining it for me is a change is the Academy voting policy that sets to cheapen all previous winners, and will also dilute this year's field.

I'm speaking of the return of 10 nominees for best picture. In the early days of the award this amount was the default. And you know what? There were a lot of movies nominated that people do not remember like Blossoms in the Dust, One Foot in Heaven, Kitty Foyle - The Natural History of a Woman.

The ostensible reason for this is that bigger budget, popular, crowd pleasing movies were not making it into the best picture field, so the ratings for the telecast were down. The point raised last year was that since The Dark Knight didn't get nominated for best picture, there was something wrong with the system.

Now I've seen most of last year's nominees for best picture, and the only one I didn't see (The Reader) Dawn saw and said she didn't hate as much as she expected. Of those the only one I would take off the list is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I liked much better the first time it was done when it was called This Movie Doesn't Exist. So, let's take that off the list. Does The Dark Knight make it based on that?

No, because here are other movies I saw that I both liked more and thought were better pictures than The Dark Knight, which I'll go on the record now as saying I loved (and yes, there are a few blockbusters in there):

• Doubt
• Gran Torino
• Waltz With Bashir
• The Visitor
• Wall-E

And those are just of the ones I saw. Now, Wall-E didn't get nominated because of the aforementioned segregation of the Aninmated Feature category. I mean, I still haven't seen Happy-Go-Lucky, In Bruges, or a lot of other well received pictures for that year (The Wrestler suffers from the "Proximity to Evan Rachel Wood" demerit).

So, let's add my list there to get the ten. Does this still bring in a big rating? No! Because there's not much in the line whiz bang blockbuster there. And I'm fine with that. Because I like holding the Oscars to a higher level than, say, The Golden Globes.

Let's take a look at the Golden Globes: They give out awards for comedy and drama, so there are at least ten nominees there. And a couple of years ago they nominated 7 (!) pictures in the drama category. So let's take a look, using their logic of "More=quality", at some of movies that they would have considered the best of their years:

• Still Crazy
• The Hangover
  
• The Great Debaters
• Bobby
• Sunshine
• The Producers (musical)
• Phantom of the Opera
• Legally Blonde
• Analyze This
• Patch Adams
• Pret a Porter
• Ragtime

Now, the Oscars have a track record of embarrassing picks (Forrest Gump, Titanic, Crash) but they stand out more because the field, being more selective, is a better representation of what is actually good in that year.

We're all grown ups here. Our team is not going to win the World Series every year. Someone's favorite movie is probably not going to get nominated either even if there are 100 slots open. But that's part of what's great about the Oscars: You should be able to look at a list and say "Wow, I never heard of that movie/never thought of seeing it. I wonder if it's that good" and actually GO AND SEE IT! Then form an opinion. Don't sit there and say "Well, they just nominate arty farty crap and don't care about box office".

Because when you take pride in what you do, that's what you do: You don't cast a wider net in hopes that you can pull some chum in, you cast a better net in hopes of finding something worth celebrating.

(Answer: The Color Purple and The Turning Point)

... choosing action over awareness

So here's the thing.

There are a lot of posts on Facebook and twitter about cancer, autism, the tragedy in Haiti, the civil unrest in Iran. And these are all important things that we should be aware of. Same goes for the AIDS ribbon, Violence Against Women ribbon, and all other campaigns. I have no gripe with these campaigns or the intentions behind them. I come not to busy Caesar.

The problem is that awareness, while admirable, should never be the goal. Awareness is the starting point. It may create a great sense of community to all put something in your status that condition X is really bad, and that people should copy and paste this, and then say that X% of people won't do it. But what does that change? It's an action that cost you nothing and gains nothing other than the appearance of a chain letter.

Let me give you a practical example: During a part of the morning the Sun shines between two office buildings and right into the line of sight of my desk. If I look up, I'm looking directly at the sun. My eye sends a message to my brain that it is in pain and if something is not done soon then it may incur permanent damage.

Now, what should I do?

You say, "Well G, since you're not an idiot in the clinical sense, you would either move your head or your would get up and draw the blinds so to eliminate, or at least control, the situation you find yourself in."

Exactly correct. I would take ACTION. AWARENESS only changes things when it leads to an ACTION.

Now, let's take an actual use case and run it through this algorithm. There was a recent campaign on Facebook where women would change their status to the colour of their bra. There was no announcement to the outside world of this - it was purely viral. This was all in the name of raising breast cancer awareness. So what happened was a lot of statuses like this:

Blankity McBlank black.

and the comments thread of each status had one of the following:

1. Other women saying their colours also - they were "in the know" so to speak.
2. People not getting it and trying to play along with a game they didn't know the rules to - The Mornington Crescent effect.
3. RARELY: Someone explaining what it was about.

So what you had, in effect, were a lot of people saying colours, a lot of curiosity and eventually some enlightenment.

And then....what?

Any time you do something, always ask "And then...what?" Even if it's simple, just ask, think it through. Always ask what you're going to do with the net result of whatever action you've taken. I got an orange juice. And then...what? I drank it. if I didn't drink it, there'd no point in getting the juice. In the case of the Sun and my eye, I can keep doing the same thing every day or try to move my desk or do something so it's not an issue.

Ideally what should have happened the next day would have been this.

Blankity McBlank Yesterday I posted my bra colour for breast cancer awareness. 192,370 women in the US were diagnosed last year. Today I donated the price of that bra to the Cancer Society. You can do the same here.

The awareness raised would have been turned into something tangible: money for research and treatment. Something that would change a life.

Some might (and will, and have) say that I'm very negative, that it was just something people did and it hurt no one. And this is true. But cancer is not something nice. Cancer sucks. Cancer wrecks you, and the treatment can wreck you more. We can wear ribbons and try to put happy faces on it, but we'd be fooling ourselves.

Because it was really hard for me to put on a happy face when my father was getting treatment for his prostate cancer. And it was pretty hard on me when I found out that my uncle had the same. And I've lost two of my most beloved aunts to cancer. And I grew up in a house full of smokers.

So yeah, I got that goin' for me.

Now you're aware of my situation. What ya gonna do about it?

For a start: go here

...Tusk tusking Kings of Leon

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

We music snobs love to do this.

We find a band, a pretty good band that's doing good but sometimes not spectacular music, but they gots alotta heart and passion. We nurture that band, talk about it to friends, pass around copies of albums and complain that the local radio station doesn't play them. Eventually, as

Arlo Gurthrie put it:

And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin' a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

So eventually said band, which ideally should be Big In England, starts get a push from the label, which then gives the radio station "an incentive" to play the track, and then before you know it they've "crossed over" and are Big Not In England.

And then those fans go to the show, complain about all the people who listen to them now, and turn their backs and give the band the finger when they play The Hit.

I'm here to talk about Kings of Leon.

I was one of the early adopters after reading a review of their first album while in France. The first two albums were almost unapologetic southern rock which earned them a U.S. cult and British superstardom (Europe's obsession with "American" rock is a whole other thang I'll talk about later). Their third album was a little more polished, felt like it had actual overdubs and production values. They opened for Pearl Jam and were "ready".

"Sex on Fire" came out and was a hit. "Use Somebody" was a bigger hit. They got mad airplay. They got new fans, and those old fans went into the spiral described above. I'll admit, the two Kings of Leon shows I've seen since the crossover did annoy me a little with all the Tourists.

But I wasn't there to see the Tourists. I was there to see the band. A band that put out three previous albums and an awesome live EP (Day Old Belgian Blues). A catalogue that most people, however, seem unaware off. I've lost count of the number of people I've talked to who think that the Followill boys started with Only by the Night.

Now I wanna talk about Tusk.

Fleetwood Mac bared all their neuroses on Rumours, an album that was a mix of California pop and Buckingham's guitar rave ups. It sold, at last count, 5 copies for each person who has ever lived in the history of this planet.

How did they follow that up? Tusk.

Tusk is one of the most uncompromising (and expensive) double albums of all time, with little of the pop that made Rumours ubiquitous. Lindsey Buckingham described the process of recording it as finding out what sounded good, taking a note of where all the dials were and then tuning them 180 degrees. The resulting album was called everything under the sun and lost a lot of the fans they won with their previous outing. It's also a remarkably under-rated album that still sounds ahead of its time today.

What came next: Mirage and Tango in the Night, albums that took the sound experiments of Tusk and married to them Rumours. People called it a "return" when both were still miles ahead of what Fleetwood Mac had been doing before. But because of Tusk they sounded safer.

Members of Kings of Leon have mentioned that they want to go "grungier" on their next album, back to their roots. This is a great idea, and I like any band that resists resting on their laurels and coasting (Hi, Weezer. You tried the same with Pinkerton, but seemed to forget that trick as soon as the lucre got filthier). I think that they should go even further: become self indulgent for the simple sake of doing so.

Want to do a 15 minute tom-tom solo? Do it! Do the words "Jazz odyssey" strike a fancy? Explore that avenue. King of Leon Sing the Catalog of Wesley Willis? I'll take seven copies, one for each day of the week.

The point is, cleanse the palate, remind yourself of the rebellion that got you away from your fundamentalist family and into the life of international rock stars. Don't worry about the bad reviews: Just think how much ink was spilled over Metal Machine Music and how Lester Bangs was able to build his career around it. It's a symbiotic relationship, the critic and the experimental album. And then when you come back to your roots, you'll have your acclaim back.

Neil Young famously described the time after "Heart of Gold" as time he spent "headed for the ditch". The result were albums that shed his casual fans and a lot of critics, but which over time created an entire genre of music. I don't think Kings of Leon are going to be the next Neil Young, but the are fans of his work. And you have to think, you have to hope, that they are planning a little side trip right now.

UPDATE

Or, you know, don't give me any reason to hope that this might happen.

... tired of excuses being made for "Good Boys"

When I read my beloved Globe and Mail, I normally skip over Roy MacGregor's This Country column. It's a type of forced patriotism and social class fetishisation that I abhor (add to that the sponsored parody that the Olympic torch relay has become).

Today as I sat down to my Weetabix I saw that his column was on the first page, and it was about how the Edmonton Oilers Ice Hockeying Club was stuck in Calgary and proceeded to rack up an impressive tab at an upscale eatery, and then decided that they didn't need to pay the whole thing. You can go and read it here; I'll wait.

So, there are a few things I really hate about Canada (Feist, Feist, FEIST!). Flat out hate. (FFFFFEEEEEIIIISSSSTTTTTT!!!!!!) One of them is the apotheosis of the hockey player.

I want you to take a look at the tone in the article. MacGregor does everything he can to make the owner of the restaurant appear villainous. Allegations of a sold story, using a tone and quotes to imply that he's telling a "the dog ate my homework, honest. Look, I have soggy ripped paper here" tale. However the restaurateur is behaving in the telling of his tale, it doesn't give MacGregor license to paint him as guilty when he is clearly the victim in this situation.

Secondly, let's talk about the behavior of the players. I've never heard of anyone claiming that shots are bought by the bottle. I've bought bottles and had them at my table for my consumption, but I've never ordered a whole bunch of shots and said "That's about a bottle's worth". It's just not done. No matter how MacGregor tries to paint it, that's not in doubt.

As well, I was not raised in a barn (I clearly remember that part - no barn) and knew that if I sipped from a bottle it was then my bottle because it was full of my backwash. As I grew up I also gained a level of sophistication and also knew that brandy is not cheap - that's one of the reasons for the fancy glasses and the whole ceremony about it. So to take a swig and say "What do you mean I owe you for the bottle," especially when you're crying about buying shots from the bottle, is pretty hypocritical and, well, Jason Stackhouse Stupid.

The article also talks about the culture of silence around this behavior. Another restaurant owner is quoted talking about how this might happen, but they would accept whatever the hockeyists wanted and then shut up, lest they lose the business. I'm married to someone who works in the restaurant industry, and I watch the Food Network. It doesn't take much to know that restaurants work pretty close to the bone, even in the best of times. Alcohol is where they money is made. If I went into your workplace, took a truckload of things and said "Since I'm a World-Famous Blogger, here are some magic beans", my picture would be rightfully circulated as an idiot. If I were a hockeyist, however, this means that you should shut up and take it.

This is where the HULK MAD part of me gets all up in the grill. MacGregor's defense of them is that in small towns they often get preferential treatment, and that they don't earn a lot in those days and now they earn more, but are given more, and haven't adjusted to that yet.

Oh really?

Although I did not grow up in a barn (see above), I did grow up in a small, arguably economically depressed town in a small, arguably economically depressed region, and I didn't even know about Dom Perignon until I moved to Toronto and I found out about this in terms of "Yo, this is ex-peeeeennnn-sive". And despite the fact that I live in a prosperous world-class city I've drank exactly zero units. The amount I also believe I am entitled to as a World-Famous Blogger: less than zero units. Yet somehow these boys, who according to MacGregor are innocents thrown out into a cruel cruel world run by restaurant owners who lick their lips and stroke their Van Dyck beards when their bus breaks down at the crossroads, didn't know what they were doing and confused by this change in their lifestyles.

Of course. Because they're just good boys.

Like Patrick Kane, who tried to stiff a cab driver out of his fair fare, and when the driver tried to get his story out, the first priority of the Canadian sports press was to try to make the driver the victim.

Like Shane Doan, who arguably said some racist things about French Canadians in the middle of a game. There was a great upheaval about this, especially concerning similar things said on a national platform by Don Cherry week after week, things bordering on the things that cost Al Campanis his job. But Doan scored a goal the next day, and the headlines said "Doan silences his critics!" No he didn't. He scored a goal. Completely different things.

Like Chris Simon, who stomped on Jarkko Ruutu's leg with his skate blade, nettef a 30 day suspension for this action. The reaction: Ruutu had it coming with his attitude. Marc Spector said that he has too much respect for Simon as a player to think that he needs that big a suspension.

Like Todd Bertuzzi, who attempted murder on Steve Moore. Bertuzzi was just a good boy, who was defending a teammate. Steve Moore was stupid for doing the same for his team and should have expected this and thanked Bertuzzi for the lesson. In fact, how dare he, the man who cannot walk or play the game he loves or earn a living, initiate legal action action against poor innocent Bertuzzi, a legal action which might have prevented him from playing for the Olympic team in Turin (which did good enough for 7th with him). Who does he think he is, a hockey player? Only in Canada, only in hockey, would there even be a debate.

And people wonder why hockey can't "make it" in the states. It's because they see this. They see a league full of boys in states of arrested development, spoilt rotten, making up their own rules as they go along.

We had a name for them: Bullies. We had a name for what they did: Bullying. It's when you take something from someone and then expect special treatment based on your own code that means something to you and you alone, but everyone must respect it.

And like most bullying cases, this one is pretty cut and dried.

... listening to music in 2009

Top album released by Pearl Jam this year

Backspacer was Pearl Jam's Who's Next, a restatement of purpose, a rock album that wasn't afraid to turn it to 11 ("Supersonic") or be kinda funny ("Johnny Guitar"). But it wasn't the best album the band put out this year. No, that was the "official bootleg" of the Toronto show, a concert that reminded you that passion is no ordinary word in rock. Being there also drove home a very valid point: You can keep your multiple stages, bridges, fiberoptic screen, expensive videos and costume changes - Pearl Jam does more with a simple light set up and a backdrop than all those bands combined.

Album I so wanted to love, I really did...

I had been hearing about Glasvegas on BBC 6Music for about a year, and finally got their album right before they were nominated for the Mercury Award. "Flowers and Football Tops" sounded good...as did the song after it....and after it...but then I noticed that they were sounding good because they were almost indistinguishable from each other. It was just the bridge of most Jesus and Mary Chain songs over and over again. It might yet grow on me, but as of right now it feels very unessential.

The Horrors, on the other hand, do the same thing but blow the doors off the joint. Get that one instead.

Oh she wore a funny costume and that makes he an artist? Yawn!

He doesn't just look like a skinny Elvis Costello: Jarvis Cocker has had a long career where he's flitted from style to style, genre to genre, and been an astute observer of Britain's class system. He's also got an encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation of pop style and is so damn smart he doesn't even have to tell you he is. His appearances which have included lectures, and performances as part of spinning classes have puts the boots to a certain someone's concept of "pop art" without even trying. Also, Further Complications is the best album you probably didn't buy, or even know existed, this year.

Daniel Kessler of Interpol also put on a personality this year for Julian Plenti is...Skyscraper. The difference between him and her lady the con artist: Kessler actually likes music and uses this personality to explore different styles that he can't really do in Interpol. Also, he's not in love with his reflection.

Even I didn't think I'd like this album this much

I go bonkers every year when the Mercury nominations come out, and one of the first I bought was the self-titled release by The Invisible. Because they are led by a black guy with a beard and have a white guy, people call them Britain's TV on The Radio. The Invisible are arty, but they're much more jazzy. On the first few listens the album faded a little in the background. Around the third listen I suddenly noticed something: This album is fracking amazing.

Canada has them too!

We've been trying our own version of the Mercury here in the Polaris Prize. Sadly, they haven't learnt that nominating Broken Social Scene members will just encourage them to keep making records as opposed to getting more productive jobs as meter maids. But this year the Polaris Prize did something that not even the Mercury has done: Give the top prize to a band as uncompromising as F*cked Up (ed note: I'm trying to keep things a little clean....). F*cked Up takes hardcore and actually ramps it up, but the dudes can play! It hits that sweet spot between punk, heavy metal, and progressive rock that's always been hardcore's crazy aunt in the attic.

The second big surprise from the Polaris Prize was Hey Rosetta!, a band from Newfoundland which is basically Arcade Fire light. But, it's nice to see a band from the rock not feel the need to do overplayed, sound-alike "Hey nanny nanny, Hey nanny hey" music.

Hey, there's a pop song I like!

Most pop has become as formulaic now as it was in the mid 70s. Not making it any better is the overuse of autotune and processed guitars. However, in the middle of this, "Fireflies" by Owl City came out. Sure, it's a Postal Service rip off, but it's a good one, and is actually, you know, structured like a song, unlike pretty much every other song that hit #1 this year. (I'm look at you, Wil.I.Am.)

They're growing up, those little boys of ours

If you're not taking Arctic Monkey seriously yet, get Humbug. Then take your socks off, you're just cutting out the middle man.

Also, Wilco: The Album proves that Wilco the band is so good that they can release an amazing album that gets overlooked because, well, we've come to expect amazing from them.

A non-Pearl Jam concert I loved

I think if I had to relive any concerts from this year, I'd be hard pressed to choose between The National (spotty, but gained strength) or Yeah Yeah Yeahs (total revelation). I think I give it to Yeah Yeah Yeahs if only because It's Blitz is the best album to come out of NYC since CBGB's closed.

Believing your own press

Editors have always had "21st Century Joy Division" hung about their neck. On In This Light and In the Evening they pretty much tried to wonder what would happen if Joy Division could have recorded a reunion album in 2009. The result: something that just has a lot of good parts, but sadly is a bit of a letdown from a band that I feel is capable of a lot more, as The Back Room suggested, and no really subsequent album has proved (although "Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors" off of An End Has a Start is simply awesome - Chris Martin would give his right arm for that image and hook)

My hope for next couple of years

Kings of Leon should pull an In Utero or Tusk and release an album so daring that we can get rid of the bandwagon jumpers, and so that the band can regain that immediacy with the fans and its music that made the first three albums totally essential. I don't resent them getting famous, I just hate that it's for such a bland album.

... looking at TV in 2009

Yeah, everyone's doing it, their silly little 2009 lists. I don't know much about anything, but I know what I kinda likes, so I'm-a gonna spend the next little bit talking about some of the things I've watched, seen, and listened to. Let's be honest, it's just a way to keep writing for a week or so!

First of all, let's get one thing out of the way: these aren't so much best and worsts as they are what I did and didn't like. If your choices aren't on this list, or are the reverse of your choices...well..start your own blog. Just link to me is all I ask.

So let's talk television.

Stay up late on a school night

Mad Men is still defying the PVR. I rarely watch TV live anymore, preferring to watch things when I have a free moment, or just binge on Friday and Saturday. However, I've often made it a point to stay up late when I can to at least watch the first half of Mad Men every week. No other show, even the competitive ones with definite spoilers, don't get that treatment. The best way to think of Mad Men is like a novel: Wait until the whole story is told before you try to really put it together.

Best reveal of the season

Dexter's cat and mouse game between Dex and Trinity salvaged a season that felt like a greatest hits parade of the past couple (Dexter's lies to his family, Deb falling in love with the wrong people, Vince is a perv). But I don't think any one moment on a show stunned me like Betty Draper opening the dryer and finding Don's key to his secret drawer on Mad Men. It was a moment fans of the show waited for, knew had to happen some day, but were still surprised when it happened, and knew that nothing was going to be the same after. What we didn't know, however, was that it was going to completely change the focus of the show.

From Zero to Hate

There's a great line in High Fidelity when Barry, in a moment of music-snob-pique says to Rob "How can someone with no taste in music run a record store?" When Glee came on the air, critics picked on its misandry/misogyny and bevy of unsympathetic characters. For some people, such as myself, that wasn't a big deal. What became a big deal the more I watched it was the completely literal and un-inspired song choices. Most of the time it seems that they just picked a song based on the title and not its relevancy to the plot - "Smile", a song about watching a philandering ex looking for mercy sex and turning him down, was used to try to get a secret crush relaxed for a picture. "You Can't Always Get What You Want", one of the darkest songs on the Stones darkest album, was used to show perseverance over odds. Does anyone on the show actually LISTEN to the lyrics? And even worse - as soon as I saw in the first episode that there was an overweight African American girl I was worried that before we knew it we'd have to hear "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going." Sure enough.... So I ask Glee, how can a show that hates music be a musical?

Happiest surprise

One show that I love is Top Chef. Now, we're not finished it here in Canada, but it's been amazing that Kevin, who looked - literally looked - like someone who would be eliminated in the middle stages turned out to be one of the most amazing chefs. He's a great example of having a consistent vision and style and not giving into the Voltaggio peer pressure to be something he's not.

Are you watching the same show?

The hip thing has been to pick on 30 Rock, which is only natural for a show that's become as critically acclaimed as it has. What these people are missing, however, is that the show has started slow every season, and it best viewed as a whole set of pieces rather than individual episodes and plot lines. When people think of the best 30 Rocks, they don't often point to an episode but to a series of events, almost like skits. The sum of the parts has always been greater than the whole. Trust me, at the end of the season people will feel the same way about the show as they do at the end of every other one.

An argument for giving a show time

People love to note that Hill Street Blues and Cheers started at the bottom of their ratings and were in danger of cancellations. People note it, but don't remember it. Thus last year they were crying for the cancellation of Parks and Recreations and this year were telling you you were stupid for giving up on it.

An argument for giving a show time, pt II

Sit Down Shut Up was never going to be the second coming of The Simpsons or Arrested Development, but it was certainly going to be more cohesive and better thought out than the show that replaced it, The Cleveland Show, which took its main character out of an environment where rape is considered funny and into one where dated racial stereotypes are considered funny. I guess that cleans it up a little. (Deaf people and homosexuals, however, are still fair game) If you can catch the late Saturday night repeats/burn offs of Sit Down Shut Up, do so.

No one asked

I watched the remake the The Prisoner while writing/doing other things, so I'll admit that I didn't follow it as closely as I should have. Even if I had, I think I would had found it confusing for confusing's sake, and with a payoff that really wasn't worth the time invested to get there. If there's one thing I hate, it's any plot that takes a surreal situation and tries to resolve it by saying 'Well, it's all in the subconscious.' It's lazy writing. It also made me think that Wild Palms was ahead of its time.

A great moment of Hubris, full stop

On the Oscar telecast this year, Ben Mulroney was talking to Melissa Leo about her nominated role in Frozen River. Since he only knows what people tell him, he tried to talk up the movie by saying it was a cast of amateurs. This brought out righteous indignation on her part, where she educated Mulroney on what it means to be an actor, that these were people who worked their heart out and were trained and not iditots savants or noble savages. Mulroney was kinda of flabbergasted but didn't have a chance to embarrass himself more before her handlers moved her on to someone else. Delicious.