Gomorrah

I had every intention to write about the Oscars tonight-- soup to nuts. Hell, maybe even a real-time diary kinda thing. Then I tuned in to ABC's "Red Carpet" coverage at 6:00 (!), which was so awful that I abandoned all ideas Oscar. It seemed like keeping all mic's operational, showing the people they're talking about, and generating even a microblip of energy was way too much for good old channel 7 to handle tonight. I even gave 'em one more chance at 7:00, but they went with Barbara Walters and the Jonas Brothers. Jeez.

I'd much rather take this time to plug a non-Oscar, non-Hollywood film (my, how snooty of me!). Gomorrah (Gomorra) is an extraordinary film about warring gangsters in modern-day Naples. Extraordinary for its lack of glamour, depth of characters, and brilliant performances (especially Salvatore Cantalupo). You'll surely hear the stories about death threats on the writer's life, cast members dead or locked up... don't listen. Just watch the film. More Mean Streets than anything else familiar, save City of God.

Sittin' on top of the world

The Yankees are finally nearing the end of their Relocation Process for season ticket holders. Lots of sad faces out there.

I wasn't really sure if I'd get to keep my Saturday plan at all, let alone with decent seats. Lucky for me, I still have my plan. Unfortunately, my new seats are what Pimp C (r.i.p.) would've called "higher than the Goodyear Blimp". Here's a digital rendering of my new spot:

We have... two winnahs!

It's a thrilling tie between EPDM and De La Slow!!! I guess I'll have to do both mixes. Fair enough!

The Transversal

Last night I wasted a whole hour doing nothing while I should have been watching The Bachelor. Tonight I wasted another whole hour watching The Mentalist while I should have been doing anything except watching The Mentalist.

The show follows a well-worn formula: a brilliant, boylike investigator (Patrick Jane) solves crimes using his uncanny powers of observation, assisted by a bitchy, by-the-books boss (Teresa Lisbon), a bumbling, brawny sidekick (Wayne Rigsby), a buxom (ok, she's not that buxom but she never buttons up her shirts) brunette (Grace Van Pelt), and an uptight Asian guy (Kimball Cho). Not exactly an ensemble cast.

Jane usually starts things off by accusing the murder victim's spouse of having an affair with the primary suspect, which is only true about half of the time. He then sniffs around the crime scene, sometimes eating scraps of left-behind food or staring at family pictures. Finally, he encounters the "weird" family member, usually an autistic or socially challenged child or occasionally a dimwit. He bonds with said oddball, and cracks the case after the next commercial break.

Somewhere in between, he (1) uses an unconventional interrogation method fully against department protocol to gain information, such as hypnotism or sheer befuddlement, or (2) catches one of his underlings doing something embarassing, like hitting on a suspect or falling asleep on the job. He always almost gets fired by the bitchy boss, who never seems to have any idea who the murderer is.

In fact, Jane's extraordinary intellect is heightened by the fact that he works with completely incompetent fools. His team says things like "um, how did you know that?" or "I don't understand..." or "are you trying to tell us that she killed her own twin sister?!" and other stupid shit. The mentalist might be smarter than hell, but he's a terrible teacher.

Oh yeah, I performed an unbelievable parking feat today. Me, Mz and LJ drove out to Brooklyn for an Ikea/Costco trip. That's kind of an unbelievable feat in itself, but here's the real story. We came back home at around 4:00, so every contractor known to man was double parked on my block, with no real parking places to be found. Suddenly, a tiny little Honda squirted out from behind a couple of trucks, leaving a prime (but small) spot empty right in front of my pad. I was two truck widths from the curb, as shown in the accompanying diagram. It was not an easy maneuver, to say the least. First I thought I'd dub my move the double parallel park or maybe the para-parallel park. I finally settled on the transversal.

Anyway, The Mentalist is fun sometimes, but tonight's episode sucked. Even the guys walking in on two chicks in bed together couldn't save the show tonight. Now if only the Bachelor would do that...

Bachelor faces a tough trim

So we waited around all weekend to watch The Bachelor Monday night, and we missed half the damn show. I thought it always started at 9:00!!! Am I really so out of it that I can't remember the time of one of my favorite shows?

Anyway, we turned the TV on at 9:00, and Jason was already making pretty good time with Melissa-- she was nearly naked in a hot tub. My prediction for this episode was for the big fella to get what he still could from her and get the heck out! Kinda like robbing a museum or something. Seemed no way he'd ever reconcile his intense disappointment from last week... after all, it was the "Jason meets their parents" episode and Melissa's parents didn't show up. They ended up hanging out with her lame friends instead (playing pool, cuddling with pets, etc.). I thought the closest Melissa's gonna get to Seattle is a rerun of Frazier.

You know what? Things kinda heated up! You know, like past just having sex and stuff. He took her up to this "private" room for their dinner, which resembled a seance in a wax museum. Even with the horrible ambience, Melissa spilled out a little "I love you" and I swear some of it might have stained the side of his khakis! Jason might be hooked on the Dallas mall girl.

We don't know how things went with Molly and Jillian because we were dicking around in the kitchen for an hour while the show started without us! Lucky for us, the show's pretty good about reminding viewers about things that already happened, often things from the same episode. We learned that he had "the most romantic helicopter ride I've ever been on" with Jillian, and that he bungee jumped with Molly. As far as I was concerned, I saw absolutely no electricity between J and Molly whatsoever. Unless he's convinced that her family really are Michigan billionnaires, he's kicking the debutante to the curb.

That's what happens when you miss half of a show as emotionally complex as The Bachelor-- you lose all bearings on the ways of the human heart. You also lose all bearings on time itself. I was shuttling between two theories at this point: (1) we missed some sort of new clock change on Saturday night, or (2) this was actually a three-hour episode, and we weren't even halfway done yet!

Then we saw the final plate of roses. He didn't pick Jillian, which might be the biggest mistake of his life. He already admitted it was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life, but could it also be the stupidest? We'll see.

It's also possible that two months of drinking gallons and gallons of wine are finally beginning to erode Jason's decision-making abilities. I honestly can't recall a network TV show where more alcohol is consumed (or portrayed to be consumed) in plain view of the cameras (so Hollywood Squares doesn't count).

Looks like next week's kind of a bloopers, reunion, behind-the-scenes type episode, which should tide us over until the big show in two weeks. Even though I bad-mouthed her for weeks on end, I'm going with Melissa for the ring.

Ste-Rod

(I wanted the title "A-Roid" but a few of the local papers already took that one)

Hey, this looks like a nothing story. Unless it comes out that he and Madonna were using together.

At least no photos have surfaced of A-Rod doing a bong hit...

Lee's Top Ten Songs

(originally appeared as a comment to a post from All Of It)

1. "Magical Mystery Tour" - The Beatles
My favorite song (and record) as a kid. I left the gatefold album out in the rain once while the vinyl played safely inside.

2. "Black Dog" - Led Zeppelin
If you're not into this song, then you never really bang your head.
If you never really bang your head, then you're not into this song.
You're into "Black Dog" if and only if you really bang your head.

3. "Swastika Girls" - Fripp & Eno
This was my first punk rock moment. Funny, since this song might be the polar opposite of punk rock (if such a thing is possible).

4. "Night Moves" - Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
Me and a few of my friends were tripping one night and decided we should each pick the greatest song ever recorded, and then somehow secretly play each one on the stereo. The "secret" part was nearly impossible, but this was my choice that night.

5. "Sucker M.C.'s" - Run-D.M.C.
First time I heard this a bunch of dorky kids were playing it on their front stoop. I couldn't believe what I was hearing (or seeing)...

6. "Damage, Inc." - Metallica
If you're not into this song, then you never really bang... oops, already used that one. I used to spit on indie rockers that hated Metallica. Now I buy coffee from them.

7. "Glider" - My Bloody Valentine
Had a real mind-melter listening to this on the L.I.E. bombed on cough syrup. Then had to see them live to confirm that the song was even real. It was, and it is.

8. "Everything Flows" - Teenage Fanclub
After the grunge and indie rock was left to rot in the landfills, this song is still alive and kicking.

9. "Criminology" - Raekwon & Ghostface
I felt like I waited my whole life to hear this song. It's never been topped since.

10. "Exactly Where I'm At" - Ween
After falling onto the train tracks at 59th St, I crawled out and home to listen to this. I still haven't decided if the song saved my life or ruined it.

Honorable mentions: "Thrasher" - Neil Young, "Bobby James" - N.E.R.D., "I Heard Her Call My Name" - Velvet Underground