blog riley

Bruce Springsteen on VH1's Storytellers … [Read more...]

Here & Now broadcast my Petra Haden piece today, everybody should run out and buy it. … [Read more...]

Sure, Bernard Kerik and Judith Regan are easy targets. But last week's LAW AND ORDER had a spicy ex-police commissioner plot with Kevin Dunn doing a deliciously narcissistic Kerik, who was two-timing on publishing magnate Regan with a porn star. (In real life, the married Kerik was cheating on his … [Read more...]

"Imagine Something Awful," -- Phil Gallo in Variety (try bugmetnot). THEY LIKE ME... James Levine appeared on Charlie Rose a couple weeks back, and nobody seemed to notice his scathing subtext. The overall theme was how great his career is going, how beloved he is at the MET, how the BSO has rushed … [Read more...]

What's the Matter With Liberals, the new afterword to WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH KANSAS, details the subtextual class warfare that Rove perfected in 2004: The only centrism to be seen on the Republican side was the parade of GOP moderates across the stage of Madison Square Garden, an exercise clearly … [Read more...]

Elitism for Dummies: Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts on DVD got picked up for the WBUR Arts Online pages. … [Read more...]

CLICKTRACK SNOBSITE … [Read more...]

"John Lennon's ex-lover May Pang has slammed his widow Yoko Ono for erasing her relationship with the late Beatle from the Broadway, New York musical about his life." Starring Joan Collins as Yoko Ono, Linda Blair as May Pang, Tab Hunter as Peter Fonda, and Brian Dennehy as Leon Wildes (Lifetime, … [Read more...]

First saw this LONG EMERGENCY excerpt linked off Wolcott, then found Kunstler's own page of rants. (Is Rolling Stone trying to earn back our respect? If so, how come we still can't search by byline?) After we lock Karl Rove in a room with a laxative-dosed greased pig, this is our questioner... I … [Read more...]

I LOVE HUCKABEES (DVD) Reminds us how much we hate West Wing's TOTAL WASTE of Lily Tomlin…not to mention Kristin Chenowith… (John Spencer for VP? Can they Cheney-ize his broken ticker…?) UPSIDE OF ANGER Plenty of yucks, worth seeing for Pat Nixon, you'll forget it's Costner, daughters are thinly … [Read more...]

WORDS ESCAPE ME A reader sent this link from Zwecker's People, via CBS2Chicago.com: "Hard-working actor and Glenbrook North alumnus Jeff Cahill will be featured on next Sunday's "Deadwood" series on HBO -- though Jeff's mom and dad, Josie and Ed Cahill (and Josie's loyal customers at the George … [Read more...]

WEST WING They're not gonna hand over the reigns of this franchise to Hawkeye... which means we'll get a Hispanic President and TERI POLO AS FIRST LADY. DEADWOOD Would you say it takes BALLS? to have Bard Dourif shove a poker up Swearengine's johnson not once (for season premiere) but TWICE (for … [Read more...]

THREE INSANELY GREAT MUSIC SITES: Chromewaves , with weekly covers, copy, right?, a very savvy survey of ongoing mashups, covers and remix paraphanalia, and Brat Productions, "obligatory web clutter" (check out "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Baby You're A Rich Man"). … [Read more...]

We were imprressed with Garret Dillahunt when he played Jack MacCall, the dazed dumbfuck who up and shoots Wild Bill. Last week he showed up on ER as Sam's Ex Steve Curits (they pulled a Bewitched switcheroo), another dazed df. Suddenly he's back as dapper perv Francis Wolcott, and goner Crop Ear as … [Read more...]

HOW COME the NYTimes puts out such a good Circuits section but still runs vapid editorials like this... ESPECIALLY WHEN there are ALREADY intriguing alternatives to sending lawyers' kids to college for all eternity like this...? Nina Totenberg did a much better job explaining the opposing … [Read more...]