Too bad NPR has thrown Shearer into its slagheap of tired satirists, his Crescent City show learned me more about the town than anything else in the past couple of weeks... That one SONG taught me more... It's the Bush limbo dance: how LOW can you GO, creating unlikely heroes along the way... This … [Read more...]

Tuesday, 7 September 2005, 9:30 AM Pacific A Lexus SC 430 convertible speeds down a sunny street in Cupertino. The top is down. Brushed Metal is behind the wheel, stabbing at the buttons on his mobile phone. We hear the connection ringing. Brushed Metal’s agent, Mike, answers... … [Read more...]

A hand-me-down from that whole Marie Antionette fracas, a notorious joke called The Aristocrats entered comedy culture like a virus, and mutated into an obscene way to unwind after shows in the wee hours, when pissing on the audience tasted like sweet revenge. The tired blue-collar gag itself works … [Read more...]

IT'S OFFICIAL Flickr is addictive. … [Read more...]

...We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. The era of easy motoring is over now, and to rebuild suburban sprawl would be a double tragedy. … [Read more...]

Can you hear them singing...? 1. Eschaton Reliable even in the off-season. First recommended to me by Dan the man (at Disc Diggers). 2. TMFTML Back and baaaaaaad... 3. ROCKS OFF For obvious reasons, and for Ian Stewart. 4. RUDE PUNDIT "Sweet Foucaultian nightmare..." 5. ZOILUS: CARL … [Read more...]

REAL LIFE AD COPY Are you still a wax virgin? (BBC 1 TV) Beat the French on their home turf! (OTB horses) Big flashy films for your grubby little houses. (billboard) WILL YOU GO TO LUNCH! Lindsay Posner on why David Mamet is great, warts and all: Perhaps in no other writer's work can the … [Read more...]

WKD DIVIDEND I misread the blog date as today, when actually, it's next week, so here's a BONUS post: Filmoculous: constantly replenished links by category... James Wolcott: a writer finds his medium... Pluck RSS Feed of the Day: latest and greatest... memeorandum: news as clusterlinks... TV … [Read more...]

NOTES ON SFU FINALE Analogous to SEINFELD's closer, where creator Larry David reached for sentimental self-hatred and found barely pity. (CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM often pulls this off.) Alan Ball's feast of death became a weeper, true sign of a writer who's fallen too much in love with his characters … [Read more...]

Even for a family hotel, $13.95 is an obscene amount to pay for MR AND MRS SMITH, but it has its money shots, especially Jolie's wicked smirk. As producer I would have trimmed it down about twenty minutes, but hey. The meta story makes it all but irresistible: that Vaughn and Aniston hooked up after … [Read more...]

In honor of Oprah, I've been listening to Mark Hammer read GO DOWN, MOSES aloud in the car during commutes, a rendition of the novel that catches every nuance, every tingle, every shiver of recognition, especially in the freighted silences that explode inside the dialogue like landmines. Check WF's … [Read more...]

[SNARKY POST-MODERNIST REJOINDER] [Witty, irreverent yet immodest declamation of how busy blogger has been working on innumerable book projects and accepting awards, barely time to think nevermind blog, but here they are, cranking it out...] [EXASPERATED threat to quit blogging … [Read more...]

This date (August 9) carries a special meaning for us geezers who remember George Bush Sr., then heading up the RNC, as one of Tricky Dick's more ornate apologists. We like to read old copies of STONE, turn up some Bad Company and hit the Nixon Monument (#15 of 16, description only, of B. Kliban's … [Read more...]

FILE UNDER: STAR TREK, THE ASHTRAY Michelle Phillips bookmarks, in the press kit to her VICTIM OF ROMANCE AND RARITIES (Hip-O Select). SELECT PODCASTS: I'm disappointed in the iTunes podcast feature, especially the auto update to iPod which takes forever. I do it manually and it's far more … [Read more...]

WHERE I DRAW THE LINE AT TIMMY WONKA'S TASTELESSNESS SIX FEET UNDER: #60 Ecotone Well it was a doozy, and the more it seems like a soap and the more I get ready to dismiss it, the more I find it's turned some cliché into something original and weird. I didn't think they would off Nate, and I'm … [Read more...]