Masters of Reality

"100% fake." (her quote)

A totally stoned Arnold Poindexter once queried, "Would you rather live in the ascendancy of a civilization or during its decline?" A not-quite-as-stoned Lee Mazzola now replies, "Both."

If you're already bitching about Mad Men or trying really hard to spread the word about Treme, you're pissing on the wrong tree. This Golden Age of TV we now live in allows us never to be disappointed in a show again... just watch something else! Including reruns (excluding on-demand and DVR, of course), I claim there are a minimum of fifteen things worth watching during prime time on a nightly basis (and that's just standard cable!).

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist (Bravo)
I neither watch nor care about the chef shows, but how many elimination- based contests actually judge entrants based on a creative product? A nice wet spot on Chad Johnson's sheets doesn't really count as a creative product, although I guess I'd have to see the actual stain to make a final decision.
Anyway, contestants on Work of Art must create a piece each week according to a given theme and time restraints. The artists range from dorky hipster painters to pretentious designers to headcase photographers to trainwreck sculptors, and every possible combination of the descriptions I just listed. Contestants' work is critiqued each week by irritating gallerists, smug art critics, loathesome "enthusiasts," and a variety of smarmy artists themselves. It should come as no surprise that the show is dorky, pretentious, irritating, smug... you get the picture. What's surprising to me is how fun it all is! Plus, the winner gets their own show at the Brooklyn Museum and $100,000 worth of magic markers. There's something fascinating about watching people create half-baked (not to mention totally rushed) original pieces as part of a competition. I haven't been this excited since the Vancouver Olympiad's opening ceremonies!

Jersey Shore (MTV)
Haters can go smush themselves, and the indifferent don't matter anyway. Get over yourself and enjoy something that's undeniably hilarious and just plain fun. At least show some R-E-S-P-E-C-T-T-T for JWowww, who makes Xena the Warrior Princess look like Dora the Explorer.

The Real Housewives of New Jersey (Bravo)
I was a bit late turning on to this show and the Housewives thing in general. It's as if I'm hearing "Whole Lotta Love" having never heard Led Zeppelin before in my life; a bit embarassing but ultimately mind-blowing. To be honest, I got into RHNJ by way of Bethenny Getting Married?/RHNY, so it's more like discovering Zeppelin only after purchasing The Principle of Moments (hey, I'm sure it's happened to at least one person!). Either way, another masterpiece of stereotypes in the tradition of great American literature and film.

Ochocinco: The Ultimate Catch (VH1)
One of the more bizarre programs you'll have the misfortune of watching. I'll just refer you to the "summary" provided on the actual VH1 website. Here's a little nibble (emphasis mine):

Just like in football, before you make the team you have to prove you rank high enough to make the rooster. So, before these woman get a chance to play in Ocho's tournament they are going to have to show him and a few of his NFL colleagues what they're made of in a mini tryout camp.

The show's math is even worse, as the harem has too many cincos and only a few ochos. Trainwreck TV.

JESUS CHRIST THIS IS FUCKING ANNOYING!!!

I don't know where to begin... I've been looking forward to watching this game all week, and I can barely stand to be in the same room as it (the game). I spent most of the day arguing (to myself) why baseball is so much better than soccer, and this is what I'm rewarded with?!

I realize that I'm not the first person to complain about Fox's MLB broadcasts. In fact, I've recently gone on record saying that Tim McCarver's "not really that bad" and even praised the "professionalism" of Joe Buck. Those two nitwits are probably the least offensive thing about this horrible crap.

First off, the game itself has been awful. Watching A.J. Burnett pitch this season has been a bit like trying to watch a redneck meth addict teach calculus to a bunch of retarded kids. It's not even funny. Things are getting even worse-- they just brought in Chan Ho "Hairpie" Park.

How does Fox think it's okay to spend an entire inning interviewing people in the booth while there's a goddamn baseball game being played?!! Not only that, but they feel it's important to actually show everyone sitting around talking to each other... why would anyone want to see that? The Yankees are putting guys on base, and all I get to see and hear is Tom Lasorda and Reggie horsing around with Tim and Joe. Then they kiss Billy Crystal's annoying ass for a half hour. How many times do we have to hear about 61*  in our lifetimes?

Plus, there's stuff going on that I'd like to know about! Some kid named Colin Curtis is on the field in a Yankee uniform, and all I get is Billy Crystal talking about how close a friend Joe Torre is. This Curtis character just made an absolute little league play out in left field, and I was in no way prepared to deal with it.

I swear, we always lose these damn Fox games. The new Rush movie is on VH-1 right now, which I'm an idiot for not watching. Hell, I might even check out Alicia Keys on Iconoclasts for a little while. Our only possible saving grace just entered the scene in the form of Jeff Weaver. Ah shit! Joe just took him out. I'm going to eat some Vanilla Swiss Almond ice cream.

Bad Girls' Club, Naked Lunch, and The Wire

What do The Wire (season 2), Bad Girls' Club, and the 1991 film Naked Lunch all have in common?

A) Each features brilliant portrayals of men and women caught in fundamental human struggles central to most classic literature (survival vs. morality, objective/subjective perception, thongs vs. panties, etc.).
B) Each contains compelling performances depicting gay/lesbian/bi characters in lead and supporting roles.
C) Each is best appreciated stoned, or in some other diminished capacity.
D) All of the above

The correct answer is (D), but I'll be focusing on choice (C) here. One of the latest buzzphrases in the field of education is "the curse of knowledge," which I'm happy to report very few of today's youth seem to be accursed with. Actually, the idea is more about teachers: it's hard for an expert to remember what it's like to not understand something.

Fortunately, television/cinema is about having a good time, not actually learning something. For this reason, i'll go with the good old "ignorance is bliss" approach. Most of the stuff we watch these days favors the passive viewer, or at least the one that doesn't really know (or care) what the hell's going on. But let's not equate apathy with confusion here-- we can certainly enjoy something with passion and still not "understand it" at all.

No better example than Cronenberg's adaptation of the novel Naked Lunch. When the film was released, the hardcore Burroughs fans formed two distinct camps: those that trashed and disavowed the film, and those that got trashed and enjoyed the film immensely. As a proud member of the latter camp, I can honestly say I was more fucked up for the ??? Multiplex (somewhere out east on the L.I.E.) showing of Naked Lunch than I've ever been in a movie theater. It was also what I'd have to call a religious experience (especially the harrowing drive home!), no exaggeration. That film was beyond any notions of sense or meaning I'm familiar with; it simply was.

I saw the film about a half-dozen more times, in various states of varying intoxication. Once I was able to approximate that amazing debut performance, and apparently celebrated by watching most of the video completely naked in a 100+ degree apartment in Providence. Naked Lunch was untouchable in its genius until I watched it completely straight. I mean, it's still good, I guess, but golly if that film wasn't a hell of a lot better when shit didn't really make so much sense.

Ditto for the sophomore season of HBO's darling The Wire. I watched most of season 2 high as the top row at Camden Yards, usually "on demand" Friday nights. I kinda did this for the first season too, but nowhere near as consistently as this time. I LOVED season one, and if you asked me then, I LOVED season two as well. It didn't matter that much to me that Ziggy was fucking annoying as hell, or that they probably could've done the whole loading docks story in about three hours, or that nobody really cared that much about most of the new characters... I was enjoying the heck out of myself. I didn't really see what a bunch of dead white girls in the back of a truck had to do with anything I'd seen in the previous season, but I was too busy zoning out on other shit to mind much. Second and third viewings of said season weren't as forgiving, as the critical (focused?) eye revealed a bit too much. What a pity.

Our third example is a bit different. Now I've watched more than a few BGCs a sheet or two to the wind, but I've generally been better described as "diminished capacity." Just plain fucking tired, to be exact. Throw in the fact that I usually watched the show with the sound off, and we're talking about one mixed-up and diminished motherfucker! As far as I was concerned, the Bad Girls' Club had absolutely no plot or concept to it at all! How could anyone not enjoy this show!!!

Turns out the show really doesn't have anything to it. Jury's still out on whether I can actually watch the show without a fatigue-adjusted I.Q. in double digits, but last season's finale (which I stupidly watched completely awake and aware) makes me think I was better off before.

You can't go home again. Actually, you can. Just make sure your doctor doesn't write "no refills" on your script.

a bad day gets worse

Celebrity Rehab - funniest line of the month so far:

"Oh my God..." - Tom Sizemore after encountering Heidi Fleiss in rehab

possible runner-up:

"There he goes..." - Dennis Rodman watching Tom Sizemore walk out of rehab

Manic Mondayz on A&E!!!

Gearing up for the biggest one-two punch in TV since the Beverly-Melrose heyday... the sometimes unbearable, occasionally hilarious, always exhausting combo of Intervention followed by Hoarders.

This 9pm to 11pm double-dose of dysfunctionality is the reality TV equivalent of watching Raging Bull and The Deer Hunter every fucking Monday night, assuming that each film were edited down to one hour in length apiece. Add the fact that A&E (sadistic bastards!) throws in a bonus episode of IV right before the 9:00 new one and spins a bonus Hoarders at 11pm, and we're talking about watching Raging Bull twice in a row followed by The Deer Hunter twice in a row (hour-long edited versions) for a total of four agonizing hours. I'm pretty sure we've never seen anything this grueling in the history of prime time television, unless you count last season's Met games on SNY.

This week's new Intervention features Sarah, an OxyContin addict who manages a massage parlor in Florida. She jerks off clients to pay for her habit, and supposedly took 8 hits of acid at once as a high school freshman! Sounds like a job for Jeff VanVonderen, the Albert Pujols of interventionists. Jeff always gets 'em off to rehab safely, and generally keeps 'em clean for good. Like they say about climbing Everest... it's not getting to the top, it's getting your ass back down alive.

Tonight's Hoarders also sounds like standard terrifying fare: Deborah's obsessive hoarding is driving her alcoholic husband to drink even more, and Jim the beekeeper has a shithole for a hive. More on this another time.

Natasha? Natissa? Natette?

As I started the first of eleven loads of laundry for the evening, I said to myself, "I think I'll watch the Knick game tonight." I actually said it out loud in the building laundry room!

I've been a bad fan lately. Knicks are actually winning games lately (putting their humiliating loss to the Nets aside), and they're doing it without any Nate Robinson at all. Almost starting to feel like a Marbury kinda thing... Nate hasn't played since December 1st!

I had the game on for about the first 3 minutes of the 1st quarter, and I started wandering. Say what?! Lockup marathon on MSNBC?! "Extended Stay: There Goes the Neighborhood" followed by "Tennessee Women's Prison"?! Maybe I'll just keep tabs on Knicks-Hawks every few minutes or so...

I finally came to my senses after a couple of hours, and stumbled back to MSG to find that Nate was not only playing, but was on fucking FIRE!!! Seriously, he scored every god damn time he took the ball down the court.

I sat there for a while with my jaw in my lap, folding Jr's shirts and (the future) Lil' Mz's onesies like an inmate on Thorazine. The game went into overtime with Nate still sinking everything he put up (except free throws, of course). Forty-one points????!!!! Off the bench????!!!! What the hell is going on???!!! How many "question mark/exclamation point" tandems can I possibly squeeze into a single paragraph???!!! Are we really having another kid in five weeks???!!! Is there a girl version of the name "Nate"???!!!

Win Some, Lose Some

Another one of those fun-filled blog diaries of Fox's Saturday afternoon coverage. I don't think I'll last too long here, as Jr. should be waking up somewhere around the 4th inning.

4:10 - Well, Junichi "Lunchmeat" Tazawa is off to a somewhat shaky start. Fox's Sprint Pitcher Profile didn't have much info except "must have pinpoint accuracy" or something like that.
4:17 - Tim McCarver just made the first of what will surely be many dumb Japan jokes.
4:22 - They're talking about Burnett's rocky relationship with Jorge... have any of our good pitchers actually gotten along with Jorge?
4:24 - Well, A. J. Burnett's off to a somewhat shaky start. I'm guessing 15+ total runs today.
4:27 - PLEEEEEAAAAASSSSE nail Ortiz in the fucking neck... or at least the ribs. Don't ask questions, just do it!
4:29 - Ortiz slaps a double into left. See?? Just do it!
4:31 - I was really hoping Jeter would show up in a Manny-style wig for his first at-bat today. Jim Rice is such a fucking idiot.
4:36 - I read somebody talking about Pedroia and Youkilis being real "throwback" players. Evolutionary throwbacks, perhaps? A small tidepool was struck by lightning, filling the prehistoric cave with ion-charged ozone...
4:40 - Figures-- the one time Jorge actually goes 1st to 3rd, Cano lollygags his way on and off the basepaths.
4:42 - Eric Hinske's kind of a neanderthal version of the King of Queens guy, if that's possible.
4:48 - I'm reading The Bad Guys Won! by Jeff Pearlman (great material, lousy writing)... the PE consumption of the '04 Sox was probably a miniscule fraction of the booze, coke, speed and nicotine swallowed up by the '86 Mets.
4:55 - Carl Crawford better steal a few tonight.
4:56 - McCarver just shared some dumb anecdote about Pedroia having the "look of a winner." How about the look of a scumbag?
4:57 - Man, Burnett's tough to watch when he stinks like this. Can we please win one of these stupid fucking Fox games?
5:00 - Jorge's "conference" with Burnett really seemed to work... Youkilis just ripped one ovah the Monstah.
5:01 - Wow, that makes eighteen runs allowed by Burnett at Fenway this season.
5:10 - Shit, Jr.'s up.

The boy made it pretty darn clear that he didn't want to watch this crappy game, and I agreed. We watched Peppa Pig and did some word processing instead. This was one of Jr.'s more inspired works; reverent yet open to sudden bursts of inspiration:

The 7-Up dude

This guy was totally dope, right?!

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.

"This is the hardest thing I've ever done..."

Wow. Too much going on in the world.

Joe Torre trashes A-Rod, Cash, and who knows who else. C'mon... you seriously think the guys called him "A-Fraud" behind his back around the clubhouse?! Nobody really talks that way. "Douchebag" maybe-- but "A-Fraud"???

Stephon "Theseus" Marbury has a new plan every week-- Knicks are buying him out after all, he's gonna play in Greece, etc. Now he's saying the Celtics are on the verge of picking him up, which is completely unfounded by any and all reports out of Boston. What does this guy do all day?

The coach of the Covenant School's girls basketball team was fired for unapologetically trouncing the Dallas Academy by a score of 100-0. Apparently his actions weren't "Christlike" enough for the brothers at the Cov. What hasn't made the papers is the longstanding feud between the schools, which boiled over last spring when the Dallas Academy allegedly cheated in a "pray-off" competition (several girls were caught with snippets of the 23rd Psalm scrawled in pen under their skirts).

So, what else to do tonight but check out Superstars of Dance on NBC?!! I was one of the few that caught the premiere a couple of months ago, which was one of the strangest hours of TV since the (2-hour!) Glutton Bowl of 2002. Sadly, nobody ate testicles from a giant vat this time.

The show is too ridiculous to even begin to explain. Riverdance's Michael Flatley (looking about as lithe as Pat Flatley) hosts with a hilarious lilt of an accent, and feels the need to repeatedly explain the two or three rules of the competition. Dancers from eight countries compete and are judged by experts from the same eight countries. However (this is supposed to be a cool twist), no judge can judge his or her own country's routine-- instead they are compelled to laud their kinsmen in grotesquely broken English. The enduring question of S.o.D. is whether the horrible dancers are offending their own cultures, or just the rest of the human race in general.

But... the rose goes to The Bachelor tonight. Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, and those who haven't seen The Bachelor are doomed to watch the repeats. It's the skeeviest show of all time, with a fiendishly brilliant premise: a tragically flawed man drinks and fucks his way through a harem of emotionally challenged women, leaving a trail of despair, psychosis and empty champagne flutes in his wake. Yikes.

Don't Wanna B Dick

Carson Daly's said over and over again that he's not trying to be the next Dick Clark. I think he means he doesn't want to turn into a zombified wraith, doomed to wander this world and the next as an ageless, timeless spectre.

He's off to a bad start. CD looks like a wax museum rendering of Stephen Colbert without glasses, or perhaps a wax museum rendering of himself without a soul.

"I'll never forget the first time..."

If you watch as much lousy TV at weird hours as I do, you're probably familiar with Klee Irwin and his Dual Action Cleanse.

Dual Action Cleanse might be the most horrifying infomercial of all time. The product claims to improve the quality, frequency and comfort of your bowel movements. The host, Klee Irwin, doesn't skimp on details.

Here's Klee's memoir of his daughter's doo-doo:

"I'll never forget the first time I saw my four-year-old daughter's bowel movement in the toilet. It literally scared me. She wasn't more than 45 pounds, but her bowel movement was about as thick as my wrist and about as long as her arm. And I thought, 'Oh my God.' I got scared. I was going to call my wife. I thought, 'How could something that big come of something—a little child—that small. And I thought, I'm six feet tall and I weigh 190 pounds and by proportion to my size compared to hers my bowel movements were very inadequate to say the least."

Yeah, we're all literally scared over here, too. It's literally twice as scary to watch Klee himself talk about this... shit. He looks like Eric Roberts after his "I was burnt in my lab while I spliced my own genes with those of an insect" incident. He makes an uncomfortable subject exponentially more uncomfortable, like a revolting 7th grade health teacher (I really had one of those!).

The testimonials are the best part. Aside from the infamous "John Wayne had 44 pounds of fecal matter in his colon after he died" crock of shit, there are a few spooky stories for sure. One guy in an older incarnation of the program talked about removing a 12-foot worm from his intestine (was it swimming around in his toilet? was it dangerous? can i use it as big fish bait?) after feeling the benefits of the product. Another woman assures us with a smirk that "you wouldn't want to see" the 10 or 15 pounds of fecal load she shed after using DAC.

Even worse is the building caseload against Irwin & Co.-- literally hundreds of complaints have been filed for overcharges, failure to deliver product, and various unauthorized charges to customers' credit cards. And this is assuming that the stuff even works!

Watch the show. I guarantee you'll have no problem eliminating some sort of waste-like substance from your body when it's over.

Too Little, Too Late

So this year's World Series is looking like the lowest TV ratings of all time (Phils-Rays?? No way!!). Point the finger wherever you like, but the reason is as clear as quartz.

Last night's game ended at 1:47 a.m. for chrissakes! I was all ready to watch this one-- LJ's in bed, I only had one beer, took two naps, I'm good to go. Last I remember was 12:55 or so. I staggered out to take a leak at around 4 a.m. and checked ESPN to see what happened. Kinda funny, since ESPN's one of the reasons this shit's happening so much these days.

I can't take it. At this rate, my son has absolutely no chance of becoming a baseball fan, as he'll never get to watch enough games to know. I'm already worried to death that the Yanks' opening day 2009 will get hijacked and set for an 8:05 first pitch. Add in ceremonies and other bullshit, and the game begins at 8:30 if we're lucky. A couple of my drunk friends will be there instead of me, in my seats.

Here we are with two east coast teams, and nobody gets to watch shit. It's hard enough to watch a series as lousy as this one (come on, really!), but when I'm pretty sure I won't even see the 9th inning... no thanks.

MLB's becoming the "G-String Divas" of the sports world. It's only on after the kids go to bed, all the guys have stupid goatees, and everybody's dumb as shit.

Presidential Debate 2008 II

Damn, I missed the first five minutes changing the damn cat litter. Has anyone ever developed "graylung" from inhaling litter smoke?

Sounds like all I missed was Obama telling us we're losing our pensions. Shit!

McCain looks like shit. He even bungled his pet line, "...countries that don't like us very much." Might be the most pathetic line in his arsenal-- sounds like Mr. Rogers.

My buddy Heath predicted the "bait and switch" GOP tactic long ago. Get McCain elected, watch him die, and Palin slips in the back door. We were thinking more along the lines of Newt Gingrich when we discussed it almost a year ago, but...

Wow, Barack looks great against that red floor backdrop. I love it when Biden calls him "Barack"... such a cool sounding name.

McCain can't stand up during his breaks without leaning on the chair in the back. Then again neither can I, but I'm not running for President, am I?

Did you hear that some chick was arrested for stalking Luke Walton? That's one of the weirdest things I've heard in a long time.

McCain: I'm a reformer, "reaching across the aisle", reform, reform, bipartisan, I fought this, I fought that, , drilling, I can fix this, blah, blah blah...

What if McCain falls down? Pulls a Miss America. He just exceeded his one minute limit again, which was a rule that the candidates themselves established. Keep it real, Brokaw!

Obama's going over too! Tom needs a buzzer, gong, hook, something! The candidates established the rules themselves!!!

This isn't anywhere near as fun as Biden-Palin. McCain's trying to attack Barack in his hackneyed style, but falling flat. Barack doesn't seem to be attacking at all. Goddamn hippie!

Tom's just plain pissed now. These guys have about as much regard for time restraints as a being from the fifth dimension. Brokaw just served up a facial on Barack. He should've done a Mutumbo finger-wave.

Barack's distancing himself even further from the average American-- he's speaking too clearly and sensibly about issues that really matter. Joe Six-Pack's gonna hate that kind of "smart guy" talk. He just spelled out a detailed tax plan, complete with numbers and everything. Joe Six is really gonna hate that.

McCain's really hanging in there. Scratch that-- he just marveled at battery powered cars as if he were talking about personal hovercraft machines.

McCain looks like Pauly from Darkman. He's one of the many in the film whose face-mask melts while worn by Darkman himself, and is subsequently discarded onto the pavement.

Barack's on the attack now. I only attack when I have been attacked!

Amurrica, my friends. Amurrica. I'm going to bed.

2008 Vice Presidential Debate

Totally weird already. C-SPAN's coverage is badly out of sync for the first 2 minutes of the moderator's introductory remarks, reminiscent of Ian Holm in Naked Lunch. Hopefully Sarah Palin remembered her bug powder.

Palin's hair looks like a fake pineapple.

She just winked. Totally inappropriate.

Who the hell is "Joe Six-Pack"? Does he know "Tommy 12-Gauge"?

This is starting to remind me of the scene in Husbands and Wives when Sydney Pollack's aerobics instructor girlfriend starts blabbing about "crystals and tofu" at a cocktail party.

I think she just dropped her index cards. She looks like she's mentally running through her memorization tricks-- "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally... Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally..."

Has Sarah Palin ever been to Wall Street? The World of Money at Epcot doesn't count-- although I'm not sure she's been there either.

She seriously can't pronounce the words "tax" and "taxes".

Wow, they sure rushed through the gay marriage portion of the program. At least we learned that Palin has very diverse friends that don't always agree with her.

OK, Biden's gotta shift into high gear right away. Ask her to spell "CONSTITUTION" or something.

Palin's smart to call out Biden on his former quotes on Obama and McCain, since no quotes exist by Palin about politics of any kind before August of 2008.

I like C-SPAN's split-screen approach. We get to watch Biden smirking and Palin staring at her notes.

YES!!! She said NUKE-u-lar!!! AWESOME!!!

So far, Palin gets the report card comment "Works to best of ability".

I'm starting to think Palin recorded the automated touch-tone prompts for my health insurance company. For prescriptions, press one... for billing, press two...

YES!!! She said NUKE-u-lar again!!! She may have even explained quantum mechanics somewhere in there too!

Man, I used to love Alaska. Fuckit, I'm watching baseball...

Law & Order Poll Results

The results are in!!! This thing was down to the wire all the way-- we may need a recount! I'd like a word with Blogger's statistician about his/her methods of rounding decimals, but...

1. Claire Kincaid / Abbie Carmichael (tie)
3. Jamie Ross
4. Connie Rubirosa
5. Serena Southerlyn / Alexandra Borgia (tie)

Not surprising, really. I think we'll skip the Favorite Junior Detective poll (Cyrus Lupo?!).

ADA Cheat Sheet

By request...

Claire Kincaid
Pro: old school fave
Con: too familiar with Jack McCoy's penal code

Jamie Ross
Pro: convincing manner, silky smooth
Con: chronic hair issues

Abbie Carmichael
Pro: the voice that launched a thousand conjugal visits
Con: Jason Sehorn/Republican

Serena Southerlyn
Pro: gentlemen prefer blondes
Con: dumb blonde

Alexandra Borgia
Pro: mystery woman
Con: a bit creepy

Connie Rubirosa
Pro: currently on the job
Con: may be digitally rendered

The Sexy Six

Don't miss your chance to weigh in on the verdict for our favorite Law and Order Assistant D.A.! These pretty prosecutors will only be up for the rest of the coming week, so vote now!!!

Republican National Convention

Sorry, but I can't watch this any longer without writing something.

The Republican National Convention is, um, weird. It has the feel of an overblown school board meeting, or maybe even a Christian phone-a-thon. Hmmm.

The "Country First" signs being waved around look exactly like the "Country Kitchen" logo. Bizarre new-country pitch-corrected songs fill up the interludes, while white people awkwardly clap their hands. Most of the speakers spurt and sputter, making painful bids for applause (pregnant pauses?). Eerie "Sa-rah, Sa-rah" chants creep in and out of earshot. Carrie meets Children of the Corn?

Linda Lingle (!), the Guv of Hawaii (pronounced Ha-vah-eh), is a lunatic. She just made the absurd point that you can fit 250 Delawares in the state of Alaska. I was hoping she'd try for a paradoxical brain-twister about how many Americas you can fit in the state of Alaska. I ended up simply hoping she'd fall into a volcano.

Rudy is absolutely pathetic. At least he used to have some kind of stubborn style back here in New York. Now he's a sad, sad puppet. I can't believe I used to pretend I voted for this asshole at parties.

A "Drill, baby, drill!" chant just drowned out Rudy for a little while there. I honestly thought they were saying "Kill, baby, kill!" at first. Then Rudy parries with, "Who are we offending when we say Islamic terrorists?"

Is there really such a thing as an American "hockey mom" outside of Minnesota?

Rudy's really confusing the crowd now-- they're booing stuff they're supposed to cheer for. Wait, he just got a great, authentic cheer for "We are all Georgians!!!" I don't think anyone has any idea what Rudy's talking about.

OK, here she comes now. Jeez, it looks like half the people are carrying rubber infants. Anyway, Sarah Palin just took the podium. She sounds like a valedictorian accepting her high school diploma.

I dunno, there's something funny about her. I can't quite put my finger on it-- something unsettling... oh Jesus, she's a dead ringer for my ex-wife!