The best laid plans of mice and men...

So, I had a post all queued up, but for some reason, it never posted. sigh. I don't want to waste it now, since it's well-after when the usual Wednesday post would drop.

So instead, just take this placeholder post, and let me pimp another great series on Slate about their (and a doctor's) mass experiment in altering memories. You can find it all here, and I found it to be a pretty fascinating read, especially the parts about repressed memories.

Around The Web - Sex and the City sucks, more upfront fun and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

Catching up on some various things I found funny, interesting or appealing from the web...

- As regular readers know, I love Roger Ebert in a way that should be illegal for a man to love another man. Perhaps Tommy Heinsohn loves Walter McCarty and Rajon Rondo more; I don't know, and I really hope I don't ever have to complete a test to find out.

Ebert is at his best when he is ripping into a truly horrible movie, such as Sex and the City 2. Frankly, the first movie looked like excrement, and the second movie looks even more horrid with the totally cheap plot device of transporting the characters to some foreign locale. He is no fan, giving it one star out of four, and he savages it from the opening paragraph:

Some of these people make my skin crawl. The characters of "Sex and the City 2" are flyweight bubbleheads living in a world which rarely requires three sentences in a row. Their defining quality is consuming things. They gobble food, fashion, houses, husbands, children, vitamins and freebies. They must plan their wardrobes on the phone, so often do they appear in different basic colors, like the plugs you pound into a Playskool workbench.

As a wise man once said, ouch baby! I've seen about half an episode of Sex and the City, and I found it... well, repugnant. Then again, I find no problem with professional wrestling, so go figure. Like Jersey Shore, I just find Sex and the City to be the embodiment of thoughtless, ridiculous extravagance. I understand that it is probably escapist fun for many, but given how many people seem to actually emulate the show, I'm not a fan.

- Slate finished its series on upfronts by having Troy Patterson go to the CW's presentation. There are at least two reasons that I'm happy they had Katy Perry perform at their upfront. Apparently, she's some sort of singer! Strangely, I had never noticed that she sang.

Anyway, all of the CW shows sound horrible, but none of them are really aimed at me. Nikita sounds like it would have potential if it was on another network, but since it is on the CW, then she will probably be a part-time assassin, and a part-time fashion consultant. Plain Jane and Shedding for the Wedding sound like rehashes of shows. And California Gurls and Hellcats sound like the horrid, standard fare for the CW.

- And finally... This entire story from Slate about three guys claiming to be Jesus Christ who were forced to live together is pretty nuts. Enjoy! (And p.s., wasn't Dogma an underrated movie? I totally agree!)

The Katy Perry photo is from here.

A sneak peek of the other upfronts, and Pitching Perfect Projects

Note: Elvis Costello should have his own sitcom.

Continuing on my post from yesterday, and from the excellent dispatches from the upfronts by Slate's Troy Patterson here and here, my thoughts on the new shows pitched for the upcoming fall season...

- Lonestar is about an oil tycoon con man trying to keep it all together. A FOX show, it'll probably be canceled at the first sign of ratings trouble. I'm not really that interested in the concept; this sounds like the type of show that will be crammed down my throat in promos during the baseball playoffs, only to disappear from the fall schedule after a couple episodes. (However, in case anyone has forgotten the lesson pounded into our heads from past postseasons, "Her father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!")

- I like the pedigree of Running Wilde, which has Will Arnett and Keri Russell in it. However, as good as Arnett was as Gob Bluth, he has produced a lot of... well, shit, since then. It would be a shame if that was his career peak, but it has happened to actors a lot better than him. Therefore, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic for his new show.

- Mixed Signals got the best response from the mostly-old-dude crowd at the FOX upfront, so I will try to check it out in the fall, even though I know almost nothing of it. Raising Hope sounds horrid, even from Patterson's short description of it as Three Men and a Baby minus two men. Doesn't Two and a Half Men fill out quota for shows-without-moms needed on network TV?


Better yet, I think we need a ridiculous premise show that goes the completely opposite direction. Therefore, I am proposing a new show, which I call Four Lesbians, Two Babies and an Elephant. (In case "lesbians" in a show title doesn't fly, my alternate title is Four Women, Two Babies and an Elephant.) Of the four women, two would be doctors - they're very popular with executives - one would be a spy, and the last one would be a drug addict. If one baby means ratings, then two babies mean DOUBLE ratings. And, any show can have a puppy or a kitten. To spice things up, these gals need an elephant.

- At the ABC upfront, No Ordinary Family sounds like it could be a winner. A drama about a family with superhero powers? Yes. Sign me up. Heroes was awesome until it started adding 500,000 different characters, so focusing on just a single family of heroes could be interesting.

- In contrast, I'm not sure how much I'll like Mr. Sunshine with Matthew Perry. In the early seasons of Friends, he was savagely sharp and funny. But as the show was increasingly pitched toward female viewers and the female characters, he lost a lot of his edge. If he is back to his snide-as-eff character, then I'm in. If he's pining for some woman in the first episode, I'm out.

- Happy Endings sounds vapid and stupid and a waste of time. The same goes for My Generation. Generally, anything that claims to be cool, hip or on the cutting edge is never cool, hip or on the cutting edge.

- Off The Map and Body of Proof sound like rehashes of shows currently on the air. If they're decent, I'm guessing they'll just piggyback on to the existing shows. Neither one sounds like it has breakout potential.

- And finally... The Shatner show based on Shit My Dad Says. My goodness, I'm excited. Two reasons: It will either be legitimately good, or it will be so bad it is great, because Shatner is involved. I really don't see any middle ground on this, although I think it's far more likely that it sucks, like the show based on the Geico cavemen. I do like my friend Tom's suggestion: It should be renamed from Shit My Day Says, which won't fly on network television, to Shatner My Dad Says.

The picture of Elvis Costello at the top of the blog is from this blog, which is in some foreign language. The lesbian photo I modified a bit, but found at this blog. The baby photo is from here. And Dumbo is from this blog.

A sneak peek of the NBC upfronts

In the past, I've spoken of how Troy Patterson from the online magazine Slate is my favorite television columnist. Well, I'm happy to report that in keeping with a yearly tradition, he is filing dispatches from all of the network upfronts this year, starting with NBC. (And if you want to see a nifty question and answer with Troy, which is also where I got the picture from, click here.)

For those not in the know, the upfronts take place over roughly a week, and the networks give critics, advertisers and industry heavies a sneak preview of their new shows and pilots for the fall season. Since NBC is in fourth place, they obviously would like to make the best impression of the networks that will present.

Of the shows described, The Paul Reiser Show is the only one that sounds remotely interesting to me. A network-rated version of Curb Your Enthusiasm could be good, and before it focused solely on the baby in its later seasons, I did enjoy Mad About You. Reiser is likable enough in the stand-up and movie roles I've seen him in, like as the square detective partner of Alex Foley in a minor role in Beverly Hills Cop.

The rest of the shows... ick. Outlaw, the Jimmy Smits show, sounds too implausible for people interested in the law, and too lame for people into action. The Event sounds like it could be solid, a casual version of The West Wing, but it isn't really the type of show I'm into. And although I like Olivia Munn, Perfect Couples sounds like a good candidate to get canceled within five episodes.

The picture of Reiser comes from this site about movie actors, obviously.

TV Review: You effing suck Jay Leno, please just retire and stay gone, you miserable old hack.

In case the title of this entry doesn't make my feelings toward Jay Leno abundantly clear, this review by the great Troy Patterson of Slate.com does an excellent job. From his first paragraph:

The cold open depicted him [Leno] awaking in a black-and-white farmhouse, a Dorothy Gale coming to, as his bandleader, other subordinates, and also a slumming Betty White crowded round his bedside. The implication was that Leno's months away from Tonight and his prime-time sojourn did not represent a disastrous misadventure but rather a magical mystery tour. The bit was no less shameless than we might expect. And no less unfunny. Pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain.

Patterson is my favorite television reviewer; I consider him the Ebert of the medium. And I agree completely with his take. The return of Leno to The Tonight Show was every bit as mediocre, depressing and lifeless as you would expect, despite some utterly shameless behavior on the part of everyone involved.

Let's start, naturally enough, with the aforementioned cold open. The Wizard of Oz was the easiest movie spoof they could have used for the situation, so of course, they absolutely used it - Jay Leno is effing involved, after all. Except for a brief pop-in by Betty White, the cold open was uninspired and stupid, which segued nicely into a stupid monologue where Leno pretended to be actually upset with NBC.

My whole problem with Leno is that he is seemingly devoid of real emotion. Know what would have been awesome? If Leno started his show and said, "Hey, I'm glad I'm back, and fuck Conan. I got shoved out of this show years ago and pretended to be okay with it, but really, I wasn't okay with that, and I apologize." Instead, Leno was passive aggressive, playing on both the side of NBC management (not acknowledging that his show's MASSIVE FAILURE in prime-time led partially to Conan's low ratings) and against management (calling them idiots now and during the fiasco). Hey Jay, why don't you pick a god damn side instead of trying to sit on the fence for every issue?

After the monologue, we were treated to a taped bit involving Leno searching for a new desk. This was predictably lame, except for a brief segment with my man Adam Carolla. Of course, he was only on for about a minute because he was using some racy humor. sigh. Leno got on a mom for "cooking" her family a nutritious meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken; at least she didn't subject them to his show later in the night.

The worst was yet to come though, as Jamie Foxx just acted like a retard for 20 minutes. (Sorry Sarah Palin.) His entire appearance made me throw up in my mouth, and he was followed by Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn, who was dressed up like a street hooker. (Even worse? She looked really uncomfortable in that outfit. It is one thing if she likes to dress that way, but the whole thing reeked more like an idea to capitalize on her image ASAP, methods be damned. She needs a new publicist.)

Anyway, since Jay doesn't have the nerve to relay this message to Conan, let one of his fans instead relay the message to you - Fuck you. You are everything wrong with late night television.

Grade: F

News - Thursday, September 17, 2009

[Left] This image will be more important later on in the post, so just keep it in mind for now.

Here is some random, trivial news that you nonetheless can't do without:

- This article is from June 2008, but I just recently became aware of its existence. It is written for The Atlantic by a professor at a small liberal arts college and a community college. It is a pretty damning account of how a lot of people are being shoved toward school, even if they're clearly unqualified for it or if it would have little practical value for their career.

For more own experience in college and substitute teaching, I do think this is still the case. People who have no interest in learning and school go to college and community college because it is another year that you don't have to get a real job. Then, as the article spotlights, there are people interested in learning that just don't have the capacity or the underlying ability to do college-level work. While it would be nice for there to be more services to "bridge" this sort of gap, I don't really have a solution at all.

- Slate has a good interview, the first of two parts, with Bill Cosby. He mostly talks about The Cosby Show, which is always a good thing. Also in Slate, a reviewer pans the accuracy of Dan Brown's latest book. And Bill Simmons being sponsored by Miller Lite isn't a gag.

- In neato dinosaur news, scientists have found a smaller version of the T-Rex in fossils. You know, if Jurassic Park was real, I would love to have a pet dinosaur. I promise that I would take care of it and everything! It would awesome, especially one of the ones with a long neck, that I could ride down like a slide. I would also like the plush dinosaur featured above. (See, told you it would be important later.)

- And finally, in strippers news, Las Vegas Weekly notes that the pole is on the rise (get it?) culturally. According to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, a former transportation director is in trouble for shaking down witnesses, and also allegedly traded contracts for sex parties on Lake Erie. Lucy Lawless' new show has strippers cast as extras. And this company is advertising a book from an Ivy League-educated stripper who just recovered from breast cancer.

The Wikipedia groupthink

[Left] The first result on Google Images for "wikipedia monster." Thanks to this site for providing it.

Over the years, Wikipedia has morphed from a quirky, somewhat-encyclopedic place that I could find out everything I ever wanted to know about Top Chef, Top Cat and Topps baseball cards to some weird organization paralyzed by a collective mind. Just in case you can't tell from the wording I've used, and the title of this entry, I'm somewhat against this shift.

Slate reporter Chris Wilson has done a couple good articles, here and here, which show that a small percentage of Wikipedia users are responsible for the vast majority of the edits to the site. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing – The accuracy of Wikipedia has improved as a result, and silly (but funny) things like Stephen Colbert getting everyone to change the elephant page are edited out pretty quickly.

The downside has been an adherence to some destructive policies, namely, the elimination of trivia and fancruft from articles. Maybe it is just because I have a journalism degree, but I think this is the new weak spot of Wiki's collective editing mind. While trivia sections, by their definition, are not important information, they are interesting. I like reading quirky little facts in articles about obscure subjects; they help flesh out characters, whether you're reading a novel or an encyclopedia entry. I understand that the editors are shooting for a collection of objective fact, but why not shoot a little higher and go for a collection of interesting, objective fact? It seemed to work out quite well for Hemingway, when he was a journalist, and George Plimpton.

Because the groupthink has been given the edict to cut down on the trivia, Wikipedia is now a less interesting place for me to visit. Oh, sure – When I want to read up on a certain subject, it and Google are still the two sites I consult first. But it has traded the sheer, utter depth it used to possess for a sort of quasi-professionalism. There didn't seem to be much thought given to the idea of integrating tidbits, regardless of how small they were, instead of making “yes no” value judgments.

And getting personal for a second, looking at some of the edit histories for Wiki's most active editors can be downright scary, in terms of the time devoted. While there should be some praise given for what is an altruistic deed – contributing to a common encyclopedia for all of the Internet to use – I feel that the personality type of such an editor is showing through in the writing. If you have the time, and more importantly the drive, to do so much editing, then creativity and art are probably secondary concerns, and I definitely think this is reflected in the current quality of articles.

The death of USA tennis and crazy parents

I always hype up Slate.com on here, and it is articles like this by Huan Hsu that keep me coming back. I find his analysis of the problems of USA Tennis right on, and it ties in with others theories like the 10,000 hours principle extolled by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers (highly recommended by me) and the dip of Seth Godin. If you just follow the established training regimens for tennis, you probably won't be a Grand Slam tournament winner, even though you'll surely be psychologically broken if you do have a nutty parent. (Example: The father of Jelena Dokic [left] claimed that her boyfriend had kidnapped her, and was so abusive he was banned from courtside at pretty much every tournament.)

It is kind of a logical supposition to make, although one that isn't always apparent. Professional athletes largely come from broken or nutty homes. How else do you practice basketball eight hours a day unless the parents are a bit absentee and you let your homework effort slide? Natural ability and aptitude do come into play, but they are only part of the equation. Insane devotion spurred by parents helps.

I imagine this is an even greater issue in individual sports like tennis, boxing and swimming. At any given time, I'll guess that only 100 to 500 adult boxers, tennis players and swimmers are good enough in the world to make their primary living from the sport. Since all of them are individual sports, there is far less opportunity to earn a living. Contrast this with baseball - Even AA and AAA players often make as much as they would in jobs they could use their degrees (assuming they have one) on, and there are hundreds of teams, plus thriving Asian and Latino leagues, all of which need roughly 20 to 30-man rosters. A rough estimate of that gets me to 3,000 players. More players means a greater opportunity for different personalities.

Epiphany

Reading two authors recently has made me reassess a few things about my writing.

First, Chuck Klosterman. A few weeks back, a friend said my writing reminded her of him, and I finally got access to one his books from the library. It was eye-opening, akin to some guy finding out that The Beatles had been what he was doing for years previous. In particular, one of his books features an essay by him in which he just watched VH1 Classic for a day and commented on all the videos. I've been doing the same thing, although at a much more sophomoric and shitty level. (Also, Klosterman looks like a skinny Bruce Vilanch, and I bet he just loves that comparison.)

Still, it's to be expected, since Klosterman is a professional writer and all... But then again, aren't I a professional writer? After all, I get paid to write, whether it be sports coverage, video game reviews or news stories. It is an odd sort of feeling to realize, "Hey I kind of do what this guy does, maybe it's not so far-fetched that I could make a career out of writing." Klosterman also started out as a conventional journalist.

I guess the main thing preventing me from just launching headlong into writing a novel is the whole, you know, lack of money thing. It would be one thing if I thought I had some great story to sell to a publishing house for a nice advance that could support me. Instead, I'd rather muse about random aspects of pop culture; reviewing past journal entries reveals a hodgepodge of advanced baseball statistics, professional wrestling, personal posts about being a 17-year-old to 22-year-old trying to get laid, pop culture analysis and music cataloging.

I'm narcissistic enough to think that people would buy this from me if it was marketed to them, or if I had a proper forum to advertise it. My reign as entertainment editor at the Cigar and just general compliments on my writing have fed my hungry ego quite satisfactorily. (I blame all of you for this.) But, I don't really have enough of an audience to just quit looking for a 9-to-5 job and to just write all day long.

Now, moving on to the second author as a way to explain my biggest failing as a potential writer - interest level, motivation, commitment. In the past, I've tried things like a wrestling blog, a sports blog, only to get disinterested and move on to other projects.

Toby Young also has this struggle, which he writes about in The Sound Of No Hands Clapping, his book about trying to become a screenwriter in Hollywood. He mentions about how unless he is forced to do something, he will just dawdle and dawdle. I realize that in my case, this was part of the appeal of journalism - the deadline forced me to produce *something*. In Toby's case, the stability of his wife led him to stop boozing and to actually hold a steady job. I'm hoping being self-aware of my problems with just effing writing something will force me to write more.

To link to yet another thing, I think this Slate article details my problem pretty well. It's not that I'm ever really "blocked" and can't write, it's more that I will find 50 million other things to distract myself with before actually sitting down and spitting something out. The few times I've had consistency in volume is when I've forced myself to write (driving range days) or when I've been paid for it.