Millions of families are watching! Including Andie and I. Time to liveblog American Idol.

8:00 p.m. Apparently calling the contestants “girls” is O.K. (I mean, I don’t have a problem with it.)

8:01 p.m. Also: “guys.”

8:01 p.m. Ryan just said “ladies,” referring to the girls.

8:02 p.m. Randy wears a size 13 1/2 shoe, according to Ryan.

8:02 p.m. “Pretty fantastic,” says Paula.

8:03 p.m. I think Simon bleaches his teeth.

8:03 p.m. All the songs tonight will be ‘70s classics!

8:03 p.m. Carly is up first. She works at an Irish bar, where everyone is Irish. Like her. She’s “a homey person” who loves to clean and cook. She’s got a crazy accent. It’s Irish. Like her.

8:04 p.m. “Crazy on You!” By Heart! Andie recognizes it immediately.

8:05 p.m. Where does Carly’s accent go when she sings? That’s weird.

8:06 p.m. That was good, says Andie.

8:06 p.m. She overhit some notes, says Randy.

8:07 p.m. “Crazy on You” is Carly’s favorite song ever. And she’s “amazing,” says Paula.

8:07 p.m. Much better than last week, says Simon. “You’re panting,” he adds. But it’s not the “right song” for her despite being an “incredible singer.”

8:08 p.m. Andie is taking notes.

8:10 p.m. Correction: Andie was writing down phone numbers, not taking notes. “Don’t make me sound any nerdier than I already am,” she adds.

8:11 p.m. First commercial break: It’s not mystery fish. It’s cod, dammit.

8:13 p.m. Syesha has done a lot of commercials: “Dewayne! Find me a big beautiful shell.” Her imitation of a baby cry is terrifying.

8:14 p.m. “Me and Mr. Jones.” They got a thing goin’ on. Dear lord.

8:15 p.m. Andie is writing down Syesha’s number, too.

8:15 p.m. Liveblogging makes a young man sweat.

8:16 p.m. Randy loves Syesha’s baby cry. He hates her song choice.

8:16 p.m. Paula says that on the softer notes, Syesha tends to go off pitch. But she liked the interpretation.

8:16 p.m. “A bit indulgent,” says Simon. Also: that song wasn’t written for a girl. First boos of the night for Simon. He was put off as soon as she started, he says.

8:18 p.m. Brooke went to beauty school. Brooke annoys Andie. Exhibit A: “I see people walking around and I think, ‘What can I do with their hair?’“ Also: “I guess you could call me a beauty school dropout. But not a high school dropout. I did finish high school.”

8:19 p.m. She’s playing acoustic guitar. Carly Simon. “You’re so Vain.”

8:20 p.m. “Really good,” says Andie. Simon liked the way Carly—I mean Brooke—was looking at him when she sang the song. Pointed commentary or vote whoring?

8:21 p.m. The song suits her, says Paula. “Everyone was diggin’ it.”

8:21 p.m. Simon: I absolutely loved it. Absolute perfect song for her. Sang well. Didn’t sound old-fashioned.

8:22 p.m. Simon admits (twice) he actually did think the song was about him.

8:23 p.m. “She’s the one who needs to eat a brownie,” says Andie of Brooke. “She’s near anorexic.”

8:27 p.m. Welcome back to Idol.

8:28 p.m. There’s a Coca-Cola logo on the screen for some reason.

8:28 p.m. Ramiele! She used to Polynesian dance when she was in first grade or something. She can move her hips in a circle without moving her shoulders.

8:29 p.m. “She’s cute,” says Andie.

8:29 p.m. I don’t know this song. (I was a music-unaware larva in the ‘70s.)

8:30 p.m. I’m thirsty for a Coca-Cola.

8:31 p.m. “I like her,” says Andie. “She’s been my favorite.”

8:31 p.m. Randy says it was just “O.K.,” vocally. Crowd goes “Eww.” “Keepin’ it real!” counters Randy.

8:31 p.m. Paula feels the same way. Ramiele didn’t get to perform her magic.

8:32 p.m. Simon agrees with Paula, “astonishingly.”

8:32 p.m. But Ramiele’s one of the top-three singers in the competition, adds Simon.

8:33 p.m. Ramiele says she changed her song selection, “like, four times.”

8:33 p.m. “I’m gonna vote for her because I definitely want to keep her in the competition,” reveals Andie.

8:34 p.m. It’s that Ford commercial backed by “The Funeral,” which is a Band of Horses song. Eric hates it, says Andie. I like it because it was filmed in NYC. Plus: Band of Horses song.

8:37 p.m. JCPenney commercial: I didn’t know JCPenney still existed. Really.

8:38 p.m. Welcome back!

8:38 p.m. Kristy. America would be surprised to learn she’s a tomboy. “No, we know you’re a horse person,” shouts Andie, who is pretty much “America” in this case. She still can’t walk in heels. (Kristy, that is. Andie can walk in heels. I think.) But Kristy is definitely a tomboy at heart, as evidenced by the baseball cap she’s wearing during her clip.

8:39 p.m. Linda Ronstadt’s “You’re no Good” is the song. Kristy wears too much eye makeup.

8:41 p.m. Randy: “I liked it.”

8:41 p.m. Paula: “You’re back!” And good song choice.

8:41 p.m. Simon: “This week...it was a huge improvement.” I don’t know how to label you, he adds. (“Tomboy,” obviously.) She has real potential.

8:42 p.m. She’s trying to make it better every time, Kristy says. And she’s “a total country singer.”

8:43 p.m. “I don’t know if I like her,” muses Andie. “She likes the outdoors. I like that about her.”

8:47 p.m. Welcome back!

8:47 p.m. Brace yourselves, America. For Amanda. Who rides a Harley. And is a nurse. And likes reading biographies of rock icons.

8:48 p.m. And wears kerchiefs.

8:48 p.m. “Wayward Son” by Kansas, with Bon Jovi guitars.

8:48 p.m. “She’s got bad hair tonight,” says Andie. I think she’s always had bad hair, at least for the two episodes in which I’ve seen it, tonight’s included.

8:50 p.m. Randy: Wrong song! (Yes.)

8:51 p.m. Paula spins it positive: Amanda can dance. Also: she’s special and a brilliant artist. And the song sucked.

8:51 p.m. Simon: Everything felt contrived. “Terrible hair.” None of it felt natural or real. An ugly song. “I really, really didn’t get that.”

8:52 p.m. Andie had to leave the room for Amanda’s performance. “I like her too much to watch her in that state.”

8:53 p.m. If Andie had to sing a ‘70s song for American Idol, it’d be “Have You Never Been Mellow” by Olivia Newton-John. If she had Samantha’s voice, she adds. “Which I don’t and because I don’t I’d do a Carole King song. I’d probably do, ‘I Feel the Earth Move.’“ Jesus. I’d probably do a Neil Young song. But I’ve been drinking, so don’t listen to me.

8:55 p.m. Arty new Reese’s commercial.

8:56 p.m. That cell-phone commercial in which girls/ladies are playing ACRONYMS in Scrabble. You can’t play ACRONYMS in Scrabble.

8:57p.m. Here we go again.

8:57 p.m. Alaina. Age 17. From Tulsa. She doesn’t like the food on her plate to touch each other. She’s gap-toothed. And spends her ENTIRE segment talking about her food-touching problem.

8:58 p.m. “Hopelessly Devoted” is Alaina’s song.

8:59 p.m. Meh, says Andie.

9:00 p.m. Randy loves Olivia Newton-John. But it’s not the right song for Alaina.

9:00 p.m. Paula thinks Alaina did “a real good job.”

9:00 p.m. Simon likes Alaina. BUT: Alaina’s grandmother must have told her to wear that blue dress. Simon gets her to admit she’s only 17, just like the Winger song. “You’re one of the dark horses in the competition,” he says, telling her she’s gotta sort herself out and “become relevant.”

9:01 p.m. Do you think Simon bones the female contestants? If not, he’s at least jerking off to their B-roll.

9:05 p.m. Remember that music video where Paula danced with a cartoon dog? That was awesome. (Or was that a wolf?)

9:07 p.m. Back! Again!

9:07 p.m. Alexandrea: poster child for a fire department. Sang patriotic songs. Sang at Ground Zero a few months after 9/11. She has a nasally speaking voice.

9:07 p.m. “If You Leave Me Now.” Fucking AWESOME: one of my favorite Chicago songs. “I love this song,” sighs Andie, clasping her hands girlishly to her bosom.

9:09 p.m. Is Alexandrea wearing culottes? (No, says Andie.)

9:09 p.m. Randy asks her what Alexandrea thought of her performance, then says, “Here’s the problem...” Safe choice! Boring choice!

9:10 p.m. Never heard a female take on that song, says Paula. Relevant. Important. &tc.

9:10 p.m. Simon was a big fan in the early stages but thinks she’s struggling now. The song “is stuck in its time period,” and not in a good way. Boring song. (Crowd boos.)

9:11 p.m. Did you feel unsure, asks Ryan. No, says Alexandrea. Trying to stay consistent. She feels like she’s the underdog. “Aww...” says crowd, then claps.

9:12 p.m. “I like her,” says Andie, who confirms she will vote for her. Andie’s putting a star next to her name.

9:12 p.m. Kady: does her Britney Spears imitation. It’s accurate/funny.

9:12 p.m. “I love to sing opera in the bathroom.” [Clip of her singing opera in the bathroom.] Then she does a Simon imitation.

9:13 p.m. Heart. Again. “Magic Man.” Off key.

9:15 p.m. Randy: “Umm...” He loves Heart. But: “never quite found the notes.” In other words: OFF KEY.

9:16 p.m. “I think you sing opera very well,” says Paula, adding that Kady has “many hidden talents.”

9:16 p.m. “I’m very, very frustrated,” says Simon. He likes the imitations. He likes the opera. He doesn’t like “Magic Man.” No love.

9:17 p.m. “You’ve just got to find the right song,” adds Simon.

9:17 p.m. Andie’s not sure she wants to vote for Kady.

9:20 p.m. Andie is conflicted. She needs to review the recap.

9:21 p.m. Back!

9:22 p.m. Final performance: Asia’h. She was a cheerleader through middle school and high school. Went to something called “cheer camp.” “You gotta put your all into it.”

9:22 p.m. “Those are serious earrings,” says Andie. I agree.

9:23 p.m. “When I was young, I never needed anyone.” Ahh! It’s “All by Myself.”

9:25 p.m. “Highest degree of difficulty,” but “really good job with it,” says Randy.

9:25 p.m. Ending “brought it home,” say Paula and Randy.

9:25 p.m. “Diva song,” says Simon. Not that great a singer; shouldn’t have tried that song. “A silly decision.”

9:26 p.m. “You’ve gotta know your limitations, Ryan,” snipes Simon.

9:26 p.m. Recap montage!

9:29 p.m. “The ladies! It’s up to you America! The lines are open!” says Ryan.

9:30 p.m. Andie is voting for Carly, Ramiela, Alexandrea and Asia’h. But the only person she was really blown away by was Carly.

9:32 p.m. Apparently Kelsey Grammer is still off the blow and doing sitcoms. With Fred Willard. I really need to buy a T.V. Or not.

Goodnight, ladies!

One of the monkeys in the production department agreed with me that a morning show on cable-access TV during which we would discuss our favorite childhood beverages would be a blockbuster. Although we would speak often of “fruit drinks” and use slang like “bevs” for beverages, we agreed the name of the show will be Juice Talk. We would sit on an orange couch and sip the bevs about which we’d riff. Sample promo voiceovers for our show would include “Wake Up to Juice Talk!” or “The Juice is Loose!”

We developed a preliminary list of childhood beverages, each of which could comprise an episode of Juice Talk.

• Capri Sun (Careful! That straw is sharp!)
• Hawaiian Punch (“Go Hawaiian!”)
• Hershey’s syrup in milk
• Hi-C (Ecto Cooler! Flavor mixing! The pre-sweetened vs. non-sweetened debate!)
• Juicy Juice (The rich-kid juicebox of choice!)
• Kool-Aid (Hey, Kool-Aid Man!)
• McDonald’s orange drink, dispensed from those orange and yellow plastic coolers
• Nestlé strawberry-milk powdered mix
• Nik-L-Nip (What was that fluid?!)
• no-name sodas, like Faygo
• Slush Puppies (they always beat out Slurpees; also, at my local childhood swimming pool, I could request “a suicide,” which was code for the Puppie vendor to mix all of the flavors together into a bruise-colored fantasia that was like a party in my mouth to which everyone was invited.
• Sunny Delight (Wrong on both counts!)
• Tang
• those 25-cent multicolored drinks in squat, translucent plastic barrels topped with a foil seal
• those steel cans of pineapple juice with peel-off tabs
• Yoo-hoo

Storms this morning washed out the full function of nearly every line in the subway system and on the streets, irritated commuters fought for cabs and clustered among dozens waiting for full busses that didn’t stop.

My own 1 train made it downtown to 137th Street before going out of service due to flooding. After a pair of halfhearted attempts waiting for a bus, I decided to walk, and surprised myself when I was able to make the entire 100 blocks without sore feet or tiring. It took about an hour and 45 minutes, though I did stop for a cinnamon raisin bagel and some orange juice at H&H Bagels on the Upper West Side.

After work, after buying a plum-colored polo shirt from American Apparel to replace my sweaty work shirt, I met up with Andie, her coworker Ian and some of his friends at Therapy, a gay bar/lounge in Hell’s Kitchen. We were there to watch So You Think You Can Dance, which the bar broadcasts on a large screen on the second floor. Here are Andie and Ian, voguing during a commercial break.

The dancing was impressive but I think this is one of those shows that requires a long-term investment in the characters to vote accurately and consistently for the “best” dancing.

For dinner I had a turkey burger and fries, which were not bad, and two mojitos, that were also not bad but extremely expensive. I was most impressed by the fishbowl of free, elusive NYC Condoms at the door.

Therapy

• 348 W. 52nd St.
• (212) 397-1700
• Meal 33 of 52: turkey burger and fries ($11.07) and two mojitos ($18.45).

By now, you’ve probably heard of this study from the Stanford University School of Medicine in which preschoolers overwhelmingly declared that McDonald’s food tasted better than the same food placed in plain wrappers. I await the follow-up study in which preschoolers declare poster paint “delicious” and reveal that the Gorton’s fisherman hides in their bedroom closet at night.

Of course most kids are going to say McDonald’s food tastes better. They’re also going to claim Coke tastes better than Sam’s Choice Cola and that Honey Nut Cheerios taste better than the store-brand equivalent (“Sugar-Shellacked Oat Tori”), because they believe commercials, because they watch too much TV and because their parents buy them the scrapple they clamor for.

I recall junk food advertised more heavily when I was a kid, but I think I escaped most of its charms because, at the risk of making my family and I seem even more like colorectal Family Values politicians, my parents laid down the law, reserving fast food meals for special, occasional treats, and limiting commercial television consumption.

As hinted here before, as an impressionable youngster, mainly I watched commercial-free shows on PBS such as All Creatures Great and Small, 3-2-1 Contact, The Electric Company, Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, as well as cuddly family-fare sitcoms like The Cosby Show and Murder, She Wrote, which may explain why I didn’t have many friends as a child, seeing as I was unable to chime-in on playground conversations about who shot J.R. or the coolness of the newest Duran Duran video. And although I did get my fair after-school share of G.I. Joe and Transformers, I also got a healthy jolt of classic Warner Bros. cartoons, which opened my eyes to cross dressing rabbits, pigs that sing “Moonlight Bay” and shotgun-toting hunters with speech impediments. (I must say, I’m a more confident New Yorker having been educated early by Looney Tunes about life’s grotesqueries and idiosyncrasies.)

My TV intake was leavened further by reading. Oh, I was a precocious youth, reading as a Kindergartner, volunteering at the local library in grade school, and plowing through perhaps hundreds of books. At home, in addition to Highlights (“Fun with a Purpose!”), my magazine reading included my Dad’s copies of Consumer Reports, the theme of which is that food and other objects in name brand packaging is not necessarily as good or as price-effective as similar items in other packaging.

But enough about me. This story has a happy ending in that, as most parents will tell you, it’s easy to play off preschoolers’ small minds in a positive way, like how you can tell them that their dead hamster is in heaven and that cursing is “wrong” because “I said so.” For you see, the Stanford study found that fruits, vegetables and milk in McDonald’s packaging also tasted great to kids. Under fire for peddling crap to kids, McDonald’s, realizes this as well, and now only heavily promotes Happy Meals that contain fruit and food with fewer calories and less fat. Now all the company needs to do is brand exercise with its golden arches so kids think that’s cool, too, and we’ll have the Childhood Obesity Epidemic licked.

I got nothing for today, so I thought I’d lazily link to this post on Boing Boing that is a reminiscence of some of Sesame Street’s creepiest moments. Ah, the memories.

To promote The Simpsons Movie, 7-Eleven has temporarily transformed a dozen of its stores to resemble the Kwik-E-Mart convenience store from the animated series. What’s more, those 12 stores, plus most of the chain’s 6,000+ other North American locations, are carrying products previously available only in Springfield: Slurpees have been redubbed Squishees and customers can also buy Krusty-O’s breakfast cereal, Buzz Cola and donuts with pink frosting and sprinkles.

At the Kwik-E-Mart I visited tonight, on 42nd Street between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, the decor is well done, from the striped Kwik-E-Mart logo covering the store’s original external signage, to the show-quoting signs and giant cutouts of the series’ main characters posted inside. The clerks even wear lavender and green shirts inspired by Apu’s own uniform. On the donut case I noticed a small sign referencing Apu’s rebuff to Homer’s overzealous self-service donut-topping that “A Mounds bar is not a sprinkle. A Twizzler is not a sprinkle. A Jolly Rancher is not a sprinkle, sir.”

The level of Simpsons fandom is such that a reference to the show cannot be obscure; it can only be slightly less-referenced. My favorite among these is the life-size image of Jasper trapped in suspended animation inside a freezer case. (See ““Lisa the Simpson.”)

I realize 7-Eleven chose to develop the most-recognizable and multi-referenced food/beverage items from the show because they can’t afford to be too obscure with stuff that’s taking up valuable shelf space. But I spot at least three missed opportunities.¹

1. Duff beer. “Can’t get enough of that wonderful Duff!” That shit would’ve flown off the shelves and instantly appeared on eBay and at frat parties nationwide. The reason for its non-existence, according to an Associated Press article today, is that 7-Eleven and Fox felt that selling Simpsons-themed alcohol to promote a PG-13 movie may very well have been “a tough call” but “didn’t seem to fit.”
2. Cheers for Krusty-O’s. Jeers for not including a Jagged Metal Krusty-O inside each specially marked box. C’mon, it could’ve been just a plastic jagged metal Krusty-O.
3. My background in the candy business requires me to ask: why no Krusty Klump Bar and Krusty Klump Bar with Almonds? Get the lead out, private-label chocolate manufacturers.

Yet judging by the crowd of nerds taking pictures for their blogs and judging by the Kwik-E-Mart-style gouging on the Simpsons merchandise (I bought a 12-ounce can of Buzz Cola for 96 cents), this could be a profitable publicity stunt for the chain.

¹ Among readily conceivable foodstuffs, that is. Because, yes, as a white male, age 18 to 49, I would like to buy some Nuts and Gum and Skittle Bräu. But let’s be realistic. [back]

I came across a curious coincidence during a memory trip of old music videos on YouTube. Watching the 1982 video for Tom Tom Club’s “Genius of Love”¹. I had the volume in the YouTube player slid all the way down, when Arcade Fire’s “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” (4.4 MB mp3) started playing in iTunes. Although the songs aren’t the same length or tempo or style, parts of the video’s animation gelled remarkably well with parts of the song. It was oddly mesmerizing. (If I had a million years spare time, I’d cut the two together in iMovie to make it work perfectly. There are parallels in lyrics and imagery and a floaty transcendence about both.) Makes me wonder what other videos can take on completely different songs as backing tracks and still work (for a start, obviously videos with not a lot of lip synching; in other words, not many videos).

¹ That’s right, youngsters: it’s the song Mariah Carey plundered for “Fantasy.” [back]

Walking back to the subway from Greenwich Village during my lunch break, the wind whistled at and over my fresh haircut. I passed Jane Street and wouldn’t you know it, this Clark Gesner song from The Electric Company somersaulted into my conscious:

Scene: A montage of New York City street signs. Soundtrack: A group of kids sing-read each as it appears.

In. Stop. Park. Walk.
Yield. Enter. Exit. One way.

Jane Street. Jones Street. Park Avenue.
No right turn. No left turn. What can you do?

Gas. Car wash. Subway. Don’t walk.
No parking. Tow away zone.

Uptown. Downtown. First Avenue.
Home sweet home.

I never appreciated until now how much my childhood regimen of New York-based public television-viewing—not just The Electric Company but Sesame Street—would infuse my Manhattan existence with occasional bursts of barely remembered whimsy. (See also, before it gets pulled: Subway!)

It’s Super Bowl Sunday, that day when ad agencies thrill to have taken a break from promoting products and services to do whatever they want for half a minute, providing bloggers and white-collar workers grist for excited chatter upwards of 24 hours later.

A theme of physical violence ran through the commercials this year. Characters were struck in the head by a rock, stepped on, slapped in the face, incinerated by comet and felled by office supplies. They leapt off a cliff en masse, tripped into a closed car door and were yelled at for more fries. Great stuff. As comedians such as the Three Stooges proved, insult, injury and death are funnier when they happen to people other than yourself.

My favorite commercial overall was the one by electronics manufacturer Garmin International for its GPS navigation system. In it, a motorist gets lost and unfurls his map, only to have it expand, engulf his car and transform into Maposaurus, a lumbering origami villain.

GPS to the rescue! Another motorist turns into a Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger-style hero in a silver bodysuit who battles Maposaurus in the style of a bad Japanese monster movie from the ’60s. They lunge at each other and knock down the flimsy scale-model trees and buildings. A death metal band provides the soundtrack and appears briefly at the end of the spot over the tagline, “Grab your Garmin/Take on the World.” (Sample song lyric: “GPS power will save the day/Grab Your Garmin, blows maps awaaay!”)

The game had its moments, too, although it got off to a bad start. When Gloria Estefan appeared on the field, I assumed I’d have ample cause to shake my body, baby, and do the conga, but instead she got stuck introducing the surreal stylings of Cirque du Soleil.

During the game, incessant rain added a wildcard Slip ’n Slide element resulting in exciting turnovers and other blunders. Grossman showed off the youthful looks and approximate skill of an eight-year-old Pee Wee player while Manning exhibited post pass-play emotions ranging from angry to very angry.

The highlight of the evening was the halftime extravaganza, during which Prince proved he’s still a sexy mf and The Shortest Working Man In Showbiz. Fireworks and dancers going off all around him, he strut out a fabulously staged medley, the centerpiece of which was “Purple Rain,” in the rain, naturally. In closeup, he appeared to have not aged one day since he last wore ass-baring chaps. Our party enjoyed the Michael Bay fireball that engulfed the stage, the Tron costumes of the marching band and the lingering shot of Prince’s shadow backlit onto a rippling silk banner, dampened by the rain with a humorously unfortunate blot resembling a giant erect penis.

Fortress of Solitude:

Cone of Silence:

Agony Booth:

Referencing predictions in the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2007 that the U.S. Census Bureau is issuing tomorrow, USA Today noted today that next year, Americans will spend nearly half their lives consuming media, whether watching television, going online, listening to music or reading. Specifically for TV, each person will spend 1,555 hours watching in 2007.

If there was ever a wakeup call for me to purchase a TV, this is it. Clearly I have a lot of catching up to do. Also, I notice via another study that I can no longer make excuses by saying a TV is an unnecessary expense.

According to a paper by two professors of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14 percent of people who live in the Ivory Coast on $1 a day have a TV and 45 percent of those there who live on $2 a day have one.

I caught the Ohio State/Michigan game at Andie and Eric’s tonight. What a corker and what a sweet victory for my homestate Buckeyes. All I ask for in football games is closely scored excitement, which this match provided abundantly: turnarounds, close scores (for a time), spectacular passes, catches and rushes and other associated thrills seldom associated with the NFL games that have given the sport a bad name for me, bogged down with their blowouts, conservative play and penalties aplenty.

Nothing’s new, so I readily admit that these TV plot pitches I developed while walking from Penn Station to work this morning may have already been piloted, suggested or exhausted, but I figured I could at least capitalize on my unfamiliarity with TV shows past and present for your entertainment.

1. Cheers proved barflies were a goldmine of sitcom hilarity, while The Office showed white-collar comedy, like white-collar crime, often pays off. Why couldn’t a show be dedicated half and half, like Law & Order: the characters work during the day, then hit the bar at night. Dramacomediarama!
2. Why is it that television kids have to be “cute”? I think it’d be fun to gather a bunch of older-than-their-years child actors often typecast in serious, hard-bitten roles (assorted Culkin, Dakota “Jodie Foster” Fanning and that kid who saw dead people and then got charged with drunk driving) to enact a courtroom drama or gritty detective show where there’s never any recognition made that they range in age from 12 to 18.
3. A bunch of arcade-game characters from the ’80s move into a boarding house. Hilarity ensues! Pac-Man can’t stop eating and chain smoking because he insists ghosts are after him. Donkey Kong goes on malt liquor benders and hurls furniture at people. He harbors a grudge against Mario, who has a mean Italian temper and a serious case of plumber’s crack. And nobody likes Tempest because he’s always knocking stuff off the mantle. Wait, make that a haunted house.

Now that I finally have a Netflix account, I’m renting and rewatching movies and TV shows that freaked me out when I saw them as a kid. One of the first such shows I thought to review was from the ’80s revival of The Twilight Zone, specifically a segment from the first episode named “A Little Peace and Quiet” and directed by Wes Craven.

I would have seen this on TV in the autumn of 1985, and the story is simple enough I remembered it fairly well. A stressed out housewife unearths from her flower garden a golden necklace with a small, sundial-shaped pendant. She puts it on and discovers she can stop time by saying “shut up” and restart it by saying “start talking.”

This comes in handy for enjoying relaxing breakfasts without her four demonic children screeching and her idiot husband complaining that she hasn’t laundered something of his. She freezes time in the supermarket to nab the last box of Choco Poppers cereal. Later at home, two young preppies going door to door stop by to raise her awareness about the alarming growth of the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal. She zaps time, drags their stiffened bodies down her walk and lays them flat on her lawn. Then she retreats indoors and restarts time, much to their confusion.

This vague threat of nuclear annihilation runs through the episode, popping up in a radio broadcast early on and later during a televised newscast about stalled peace talks. And it all ends with the Russians launching the Big One, apparently directly at the housewife’s neighborhood. She freezes time at the sound of air raid sirens and wanders outside in her robe to the town’s square, where everyone is panicked and motionless. As she comes to an old man staring at the sky, she follows his gaze to see the missile of doom suspended in midair.

O.K., discard the frozen-time effects, especially earlier in the episode when the actors strain so hard to stand motionless that they waver. Definitely discard that missile, a blatantly cheesy effect even for the mid-’80s. (Sample writer-director commentary on the DVD: “We would have done that a little differently,” followed by laughter.)

Nuclear paranoia wasn’t keeping me up at night in the mid-’80s, but it may have been responsible for a certain malaise, particularly with haunting nuclear-holocaust entertainments like The Day After and the “Russians Are Bad Guys” streak in lighter fare (Rocky IV, Rambo III, etc.).

But what really freaked me out was the idea that this Twilight Zone woman was trapped forever in a purgatory of her own creation: if she restarts time, everyone dies. As I rewatched the episode I realized I had forgotten that it ends simply with a stillframe of the missile. In my mind, I had extended the story to include the woman wandering alone, taking food and making shelter wherever she needed, roaming the abandoned country, maybe at some point growing so lonely or desparate that she restarts time and ends it all. That still kinda freaks me out.

• If anyone can look good singing about in an all-white pantsuit, it’s Dolly Parton. Land sakes!
• Joaquin Phoenix did not blink once the entire night. Maybe it was the image of Ben Stiller burned into his retinas. Nice shameful one-joke physical comedy, Stiller. Although if anyone can look good prancing about in an all-green pantsuit, it’s you.

• Same with Will Ferrell and Steve Carell presenting the award for makeup while wearing some of it badly. O, physical comedy; you are so simple, yet bring so much joy into our hearts. “It’s called Pineapple Bliss.”

• Jon Stewart: funnier than the studio audience gave him credit for. Nothing can faze those air-conditioned stiffs, although there were several reaction shots of Jack laughing, which is really all that matters.
• Only two truly sacred cows seemed to get the electric prod from Stewart:
  1. Scientology: Cut back from commercial and we catch Stewart explaining to the audience “...and that is why I think Scientology is right, not just for this city, but for the country.”
  2. Steven Spielberg: Stewart claimed that, as a Jew, he couldn’t wait for what was next in the trilogy after Schindler’s List and Munich.
• Speaking of Jack, I loved watching him strut to the podium for his presentation. Those creepy-uncle shades of his be damned, the man is still cock of the walk.
• Frances McDormand is starting to resemble the third Cohen brother. I don’t demand women look like sugar and spice 24/7, but would it kill her to comb her hair?
• Producers shouldn’t be allowed to make acceptance speeches. We don’t care to hear what you have to say, moneybags.
• Robert Altman, with his rheumy eyes and heart of a 30-year-old woman, made some pretty freakin’ good movies (and Popeye), as evidenced by the retrospective clips that refreshed my memory before his honorary lifetime achievement award. I liked his “I’m not dead yet”-style comment and his contention that with his directorial freedom, he’s really only made “one long film” in his career.
• Well-deserved indirect honorarium to Annie Proulx: Brokeback Mountain, fleshed-out from her short story, won for Adapted Screenplay. Proulx was thanked by script co-adaptor and fellow author Larry McMurty, who noted she was present, but oddly, we got no cut-away shot. Irksome.
• Nice touch by McMurty thanking the booksellers of the world.
• Crash: didn’t see it; can’t comment. A surprise that it beat Brokeback for Best Picture, though.
• Nick Park, you big British nerd, with your giant bow tie and matching mini for Oscar. Glad Wallace & Gromit finally took the big cheese, as it were, for Animated Feature, Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. (Although Nick did get Oscars thrice in the ’90s for the trilogy of W&G shorts.)
• More nerdery with the French guys who won Documentary Feature Oscars for March of the Penguins. They chirped, clutched stuffed animals and had one guy in their party who I thought was gonna pull a Benigni and start clambering over seatbacks.
• Favorite presumably Stewart-produced cut-scene: the Oscar campaign smear ads, especially the pro-Keira one, “Keira Knightley: Acting While Beautiful,” which congratulated her “for having the courage to act with cheekbones which may have been flecked with gold dust.”
• Awww. Reese in her Annie Oakley ballroom gown thankin’ grandma and gettin’ all corn-pone on us. A well-deserved recognition nonetheless: Best Actress as June Carter Cash in Walk the Line.
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, scoring one for the non beautiful people: Best Actor, for Capote. He was appropriately flustered while giving his speech and thanking his mom.
• Top lady hotness: my vote goes to Catherine Keener because unlike Alba (too much bronzer, dear?), Charlize, Keira or J-Lo, Catherine is foxy and wouldn’t seem adverse to hang out with you for billiards and beers.

• Best acceptance speech by far: Three 6 Mafia for Original Song, “It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” Talking jubilantly all at once and thanking everyone from The Lord to George Clooney, which are really one and the same in Hollywood.

Reading and reflecting on Adtunes.com’s “Top Ad Music of 2005” list, I sheepishly admit that I do discover and rediscover songs I enjoy from television commercials. It’s not much different than when I hear a good song when I’m at a friend’s, shopping (usually at Urban Outfitters or American Apparel, where I do more browsing and music listening than purchasing) or at a bar (the kind that isn’t playing “Brown Eyed Girl” every hour).

Sometimes a commercial features a song I own but haven’t listened to in a while, so I rejuvenate it for myself by adding it to my iTunes Music Library and iPod. When it’s a new song I like, I’ll buy a CD it’s on or download it. In this sense, the commercial has become a promotion for its soundtrack and not the product being peddled. And this from a guy who claims he doesn’t watch any TV.

Here are some of my favorite songs that I heard in television commercials throughout 2005.

“Simply Irresistible” by Robert Palmer / Applebee’s
I imagine that old pop music in commercials often serves to remind boomers they’re aging, as when they’re being courted to buy a SUV or sportscar with the strains of Led Zeppelin or the Rolling Stones. This mortality reminder for me started head-on in late 2004 when Circuit City commandeered “Just What I Needed” by The Cars. But it hit me even harder with “Simply Irresistible,” which I remember from constant radio play in my childhood. With the black vinyl-clad vixens from the video and Robert’s explanation that his girl was unavoidable, he was backed against the wall, and she was giving him feelings he’d never felt before, what song wouldn’t make more sense to advertise the Most Stupidly Named Product of 2005: Applebee’s Irresist-a-Bowls.

“Push It” by Salt-n-Pepa / Nextel
Are all the kids where you live using Nextel-like walkie-talkies to talk to each other instead of cell phones? They’re fucking everywhere in my neighborhood, and branded into my brain is that digital chirp sound you hear every time someone presses the “speak” button. Anyway, “Push It,” another song I remember fondly and unironically from my youth, is used in this commercial to represent three whitish businessmen “cutting loose” after a job well done, facilitated, naturally, by their chirpy Nextel walkie-talkie. Ha ha! Get it? Businessmen can be uptight and that is why the commercial is funny.

“Do Ya” by Electric Light Orchestra / Monster.com
The use of “Mr. Blue Sky” by ELO in the trailer and commercials for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind reminded me that I really do like the cheesy bombast and AM-Gold haze of the band. But only the use of the gleeful headbanger “Do Ya” in commercials for Monster.com inspired me to buy an ELO greatest hits CD for myself as a Christmas gift. And I didn’t regret it.

“Everybody Got Their Something” by Nikka Costa / Pantene
Nikka’s been a busy bee shopping this song around since she cut it in 2000. According to Adtunes.com, it’s been appropriated for Sears and Mitsubishi Endeavor commercials, and a promo for ABC’s Desperate Housewives. But as the backdrop to a Pantene commercial starring Maria Menounos was the first I’d heard of it. Funky.

“Heartbeats” by José González / Sony
This song was used to strangely relaxing effect for a European commercial for Sony Bravia featuring the hills of San Francisco and 250,000 superballs. Just go watch it. Funny now that an “advert” can get its own web site, like a movie or a celebrity. Not a bad song, either, if you’re the sort of person who likes Nick Drake or long walks on the beach with someone who looks like Nick Drake.

“Hello Tomorrow” by Karen O / Adidas
Early last year, Spike Jonze directed a commercial for the Adidas_1 shoe. Karen O, lead singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, provides the musical backdrop. The result: a mindbending, nonsensical video with a song to match.

“There She Goes“ [originally] by The La’s / Ortho McNeil
If you’re a drug manufacturer, it can tough to represent your product, its use or really even its effects in a television commercial. This is especially true with drugs relating to sexuality, like Viagra or the pill, because you can’t show certain organs on TV in the U.S., at least not during prime time. So instead you show shiny happy people, often holding hands or laughing. In this commercial for the Ortho Tri-Cyclen birth control pill, you’ve got a bunch of willowy, earth-mother types spinning around like ballerinas because they’ve got a tingly good feeling in their uterine linings, or something. The soundtrack boasts a breathy folksinger covering The La’s “There She Goes,” which only serves to emphasize to me that “There She Goes” by The La’s is such a perfect pop song, it doesn’t need anyone to cover it, especially when there are plenty of Cranberries songs available for pushing your norgestimate/ethinyl estradiol.

Last month in Daily Variety, I read about Fox launching Skating with Celebrities, a knockoff of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. Skating will pair pro skaters with C-list celebrities such as Todd Bridges of Diff’rent Strokes, singer Debbie Gibson, and Dave Coulier of Full House.

Yet somehow, I don’t think the show will be as exciting and original as the series these titles seem to be mimicking, whether in name, subject matter or both. I’m referring to actor/musician John Lurie’s great Fishing with John, which ran in 1992 for only six episodes. But what a run it was.

The concept was for Lurie to join one of his friends in an exotic location, then fish, while the impetus was to fulfill his dream of “threatening to do a fishing show for a long time,” write off vacations, and exact revenge. In the first episode, for instance, he invites director Jim Jarmusch to fish for shark off of Montauk, knowing Jarmusch gets seasick, but chiefly, as Lurie notes on the show’s DVD commentary track, to “repay him for Stranger Than Paradise and Down by Law,” in which Jarmusch directed Lurie.

Lurie also fishes with Tom Waits in Jamaica, Dennis Hopper in Thailand, Matt Dillon in Costa Rica, and Willem Dafoe in northern Maine. In the show’s most obvious and ironic joke, the men rarely catch anything. (Lurie later claimed the trip with Jarmusch netted four maco sharks but that the cameraman was too busy vomiting over the side of the boat to capture it on film.)

So instead, Lurie and his guests talk a lot. Lurie, who never claimed he was producing anything grander than poorly edited “home movies,” relishes in capturing the ridiculousness of this mostly unscripted banter.

”So what are the great fish movies?” Jarmusch asks as they set off from shore. There’s a pause, then both he and Lurie answer simultaneously, “Jaws,” then just stand there.

Dafoe, who says the best thing about ice fishing is that “it’s filled with possibility,” helps Lurie build a makeshift wooden hut on a frozen lake and, turning in for the night, suggests they share a sleeping bag to conserve warmth. “You’re making me really nervous,” Lurie chuckles, while keeping an eye on him. “You know what, I get kind of sweet when it comes to bedtime,” Dafoe laughs.

The conversations are complemented by narration from voiceover professional Robb Webb, who’s now best known as the voice behind the clicking-stopwatch promos for 60 Minutes. He serves up an equal number of facts about fish that are outright lies and non-sequiturs. “I’d love a bite of your sandwich!” he says at one point, apropos of nothing, and when Waits puts a fish in his pants, he deadpans, “Oh my god.” Or he’s serving up some mock-documentary commentary in all seriousness. A few minutes before reporting that Lurie and Dafoe have died of starvation during their trip, Webb solemnly intones, “The situation is growing serious. John and Willem have consumed only melted snow since their supply of cheese crackers ran out two days ago.”

Lurie’s show wasn’t built to last. The material was ahead of its time and, regardless, after the first few episodes, his funding had dried up from Telecom Japan, which had only agreed to fund the project because it was desperate for a U.S. television investment, only to find that it had absolutely no idea what to make of it.

Fishing With John was about “real men, doing real things,” according to one Webb voiceover, and I think that if today’s realty shows weren’t as predictable and suffused with their own sense of greatness, and more like John, I’d be watching more TV.

Walking to work today, I noticed that a bodega at the corner of West 37^th Street and Ninth Avenue had been tagged by some not-so-thrilling graffiti: didyouseethelights.com, spray painted in neat lowercase black letters at eye-level.

I immediately smelled a guerilla marketing campaign and when I got to work, I went to the site. It’s a promotion for the new series, Invasion, and it’s really lame. ABC half-assed what could have been an awesome ramp-up to their show.

First, if you’re gonna go though the trouble of tagging a building, at least give that shit some style.

Second, why couldn’t the web site resemble, say, the “low-tech” personal site or blog of some alleged graffiti artist who had been abducted by aliens (or whatever the premise of this show is). They could have posted shaky lo-res video clips or designed it to mimic a conspiracy theorist’s site, chock full of rants and 1995-style animated GIFs and flashing text. But instead, you’re merely directed to what’s like ABC’s “generic new show template” page, complete with embedded Windows Media format commercial and “Premieres Wednesday, September 21^st 10/9c” tag right up top.

A quick Google search shows there’s a separate isawthelights.com site that sort of fits the bill of a conspiracy site, but not really. It still has a prominent banner ad for the show, some obviously Photoshopped “sighting” photos, and no particular flair of the real.

This could’ve been something really cool, particularly if you’re going to go through the trouble of spray-painting buildings in New York City and, according to one blogger’s report, Los Angeles. But the sites don’t live up to the thrill. ABC should take some viral marketing notes from two of last year’s most amazing examples: Burger King’s much-loved Subservient Chicken and the I Love Bees site, which is presently “dead” but last fall was a constantly warping Pattern Recognition-like scavenger hunt that ultimately tied-into Microsoft’s Halo 2 videogame launch.

I didn’t watch Friends when it originally aired, but I catch the reruns now and again on TBS because it helps me adjust to what life is really like in Manhattan. Tonight, I watched a two-part episode (named, cleverly, “The One With Two Parts”) from 1995 and I must say, if this wasn’t when the show jumped the shark, it had to have been mighty close. (I know I’m like, what, 10 years behind the times on this, but shut the fuck up.) This two-parter is simply jam packed full of tired TV elements:

• Mr. Heckles! The annoying and nosy downstairs neighbor.
• Marcel the Monkey! The crazy pet and his hilarious antics.
• Phoebe and Ursula! Twins! Played by the same actor!
• Guest Stars! George Clooney! Noah Wyle when he was young and not haggard! Helen Hunt! Elliott Gould!
• Pregnancy! Including a riotous Lamaze class! Ross’ lesbian ex-wife is pregnant with his child and he has Doubts About Becoming A Parent.
• Surprise Party! But the person who’s supposed to be surprised isn’t!
• Forbidden Kiss! Phoebe and Joey! Whaaaa?!
• It’s a Very Special Two-Part Episode!

Eric, Andie and I watched the Super Bowl today. We feasted on do-‘em-yourself sandwiches, made with rolls, meats, cheeses and condiments Eric procured from Fairway, washed down with plenty of beer and other alcohols. Fox’s obnoxiously patriotic pre-game breast-beating gave us a conniption and Andie hurled a grape at the TV in protest. The commercials were OK this year, but if the only ones I can immediately recall are those ones with the monkeys, they couldn’t have been all that great. McCartney’s halftime show was surprisingly well done, but too brief. Also, I was bitter he didn’t play my favorite non-Beatles song of his, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” despite the fact that Fox played it over all the promos for the event beforehand. Instead, I was moderately content to bask in the cheesiness of “Live And Let Die.” The football that was apparently played was also pretty good, but I won no money in the office pool, which, like all office pools, is mysteriously almost always won by whomever collects the money.

Why do I watch CSI: Miami? I'm the first to admit it's a bad combination of Miami Vice and Murder, She Wrote, especially in episodes like tonight's, where Caruso is contractually obligated to console a young child so as to make his character seem slightly less robotic. I think it might be that I am hypnotized by Caruso's monotone and pompadour. Or maybe it's the techno breakbeats they play when they place evidence in that Plexiglas box which is then flooded by clue-revealing fumes of some sort. Or the slow-motion special-effects ride of the bullet rending the victim during an investigation-related flashback. Ah, CSI: Miami; I love you but I hate you.

That was kind of cruel how the previews for tonight’s episode of The West Wing made it seem as if Toby was resigning, don’t you think? But that hilarious scene of him fumbling the press conference just about made up for it.

Law & Order isn’t the same since Jerry Orbach left. Dennis Farina rubs me the wrong way, with his character’s $300 Italian shirts, pimped-out ride and greasy attempts at charm; this isn’t Miami Vice, buddy, it’s New York City. Orbach’s Detective Briscoe leant a curmudgeonly, gritty, everyman quality to the show that’s sorely absent. At least now I’ll get more sleep Wednesday nights. And praise the Gods of Syndication for the omnipresence of old Law & Orders on TNT, stuck in that alternate universe where Orbach is forever cracking wise.

We stepped up to the 21st century today and got cable. Not cable TV, of course; cable Internet.

Inexplicably, we already get a few cable stations, namely the Food Network, C-SPAN and TNT, even though we’re not subscribers. The cable Internet guy helpfully pointed that out to Andie today, but Andie is not about to call off her longstanding relationship with Rachael Ray.

The cable guy also helpfully pointed out that instead of paying $59.95 per month to a certain multinational media conglomerate-based cable company that shall remain nameless, we could be paying $18 less per month with EarthLink’s cable service.

Argh.

Barring any Nazi provisions buried in the fine print of our current service agreement, we’ll switch over. But in the meantime, it is relaxing to not have to deal with the pokiness and unreliability of dial-up, or with pirating other people’s poorly protected (but equally unreliable) wireless networks.

We can access the signal anywhere in the apartment, so it doesn’t matter where we use our laptops now; we’re no longer tethered to phone cords. The signal degrades the further you get from the wireless base station, but because the signal is radio-based, it’s hardy. Right now, it’s traveling through some heavy furniture, my closed bedroom door, at least two walls and Andie’s guitar.

Also, because we’re using an AirPort Express as our wireless base station, I’m enjoying being able to play my mp3s wirelessly from my computer through our stereo. Keep on rockin’ in the free world, baby! There’s also a handy option to print wirelessly, but that would mean moving the printer to the living room, a maneuver I’m still considering.

Should we ever get a microwave, stay-tuned for an equally exciting and relevant entry (“It cooks and reheats food so quickly and evenly!”).