CHARGE! WE HAVE A PULSE! The roaring return of TV's best show was all but written off before the season began, though some howlers linger: Will Sam ever deal with her murder of HER SON'S FATHER? Will Luka ever deal with the guy he MURDERED on the waterfront "protecting" Abby during their first … [Read more...]

Unsung EMI engineers gather at the legendary studios to celebrate a new book about their accomplishments By Tim Riley ABBEY ROAD REUNION or All Together Now THINGS WE DID YESTERDAY SUBHEAD: Unsung EMI engineers gather at the legendary studios to celebrate a new book about their … [Read more...]

JUSTIN COBER-LAKE IN POPMATTERS Yikes: This is dated almost a year ago. So do I circle back and redress his weirdly regressive argument that "Be My Baby" was "driven by the sonics and fantasies of a male that benefited the bank accounts of those already in charge..."? … [Read more...]

FROM COLORADO SPRINGS, AIR FORCE CITY … [Read more...]

NOT TO BE KILLED New Joe Strummer biography by Chris Salesicz just out in UK from HarperCollins, FSG will release it stateside next spring... But it's already gettings raves from the Times and Guardian, and I'm gonna get me a copy when I head over November 7. … [Read more...]

BRUSH WITH FAME My sister texted me about being behind Steven Colbert in a rental car line last week, asking what she should say. Naturally, I knew exactly how to handle it: 1) Hey I loved you in 40-YEAR-OLD-VIRGIN! 2) Your show's great but give the telethon a rest! 3) Hey it's you! Is it true … [Read more...]

No decent thoughtful reviews of Studio 60 yet, but since Sorkin's morphed into pure brand, a pure product of the medium that's his subject, a revolving mirror's not much more interesting than a revolving door. Sarah Paulson was that Deadwood creampuff, and she's oh so fetching but the concept is … [Read more...]

Stewart at the Wang center last Friday night, first show, mostly brilliant, including two savvy pop jokes. 1) After the Y2K crash, the whole world devolves back to... (gasp!) 1982! "No! I can't run like the wolf again!" 2) Why don't Jews and blacks get along? Both oppressed minorities, blacks came … [Read more...]

LEARNING THE GAME or: How John Lennon Learned to Stop Worrying and Love His Inner Geek Perfect Sound Forever LONG BEFORE "POST-MODERN" became pure jargon, Buddy Holly put quotes around his "normalcy" to disarm rock machismo. Holly, the "King of the Sixth Grade," hiccupped his hormones out loud, … [Read more...]

NIXON... OR BUSH? HERE AND NOW story aired today: interview with David Leaf, co-director of THE US VS JOHN LENNON. … [Read more...]

ARCHLY ANTI-STARCH "I appreciated the relative anonymity of the actors (one doesn’t want recognizable faces in trash), but what is Samuel L. Jackson doing in “Snakes on a Plane”?" --David Denby in the New Yorker. … [Read more...]

WHERE THE PAST PEEKS INTO THE FUTURE "Archimedes Palimpsest," a 10th-century parchment document, has been rotting for hundreds of years, besides being erased and painted over numerous times. And lost. And rediscovered. On August 3, Uwe Bergmann, a physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator … [Read more...]

MORE DREAMS OF JOE HILL Mother Jones has posted an Iraq war timeline that's even better in its interactive edition: Lie By Lie IF I WERE AN ASSIGNMENT EDITOR Write me a story about how gas prices have fallen by as much as 20 percent in the past month, and do a comparison of gas price … [Read more...]

HATE TO AGREE WITH THESE GUYS Tierney in Friday's Times: Compared with past threats — like Communist sociopaths with nuclear arsenals — Al Qaeda’s terrorists are a minor problem. They certainly don’t justify the hyperbolic warnings that America’s “existence” or “way of life” is in jeopardy, or … [Read more...]

Let us be frank: godless sodomites is a COMPLIMENT in this day and age, ESPECIALLY if you don't get it. But we hasten to add: Annette Bening wuz ROBBED. (And we ADORE Helen Mirren. AND Jeremy Irons.) … [Read more...]