57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXLIII

Quote of the Week: My recall wasn’t total. (The Hateable Dan LeBatard, Pardon the Interruption)

Song of the Week: It Had to Be You – Tony Bennett (Rescue Me)

Big News of the Week: It’s Hot

Leverage: It must been family season for Leverage, first we meet Parker’s “dad” and now Nate has a run in with his old man. I was surprised that Nate was so confident that daddy dearest could leave the town before being knocked off by one of the goons he should him out to for. He came close to running into a machine gun while walking down the street. You can stream recent episodes on TNT.tv. You can also download Leverage on iTunes.

Rescue Me: I really hate it when they end an episode with an excruciateingly long scene that is just painful to watch like the restaurant scene. And are we really supposed to believe Conner would be seventeen. Unless there was a time jump I was unaware of, I just have a hard time believing that. But still not as egregious and his red hair turning blonde in the afterlife. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Rescue Me on iTunes.


Free Download of the Week: Memories – Weezer (Spinner.com): Weezer recently went independent and will be releasing the album as such next month entitled Hurley, with an album cover with an extreme close-up of the Lost character. Spinner has the first single from the album for free.

Deal of the Week: Save up to 60% on Popular TV Shows and Movies (Friday Night Lights, Shaun of the Dead [Blu-Ray], Atonement [Blu-Ray])

Video of the Week: We are still a couple of months before Conan shows up on TBS and here is the latest promo which someone faster than me noted its familiarness to the title sequence to You Can’t Do That on Television.



Next Week Pick of the Week: Weeds, Monday at 10:00 on Showtime: The last couple seasons have been mediocre and I do not see some renaissance on the horizon, but I will still catch up when the latest season hits DVD, but those with Showtime get new episodes this week.

Around the Tubes vol. LXII

I have gotten a plethora of cool press releases have been flooding my inbox recently that you may find interesting. This post will include blurbs on Bored to Death, Pawn Stars, The Event, Entourage, So You Think You Can Dance, Army Wives, Timmy Time, the Smithsonian Channel.

- The new season of Bored to Death featuring Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zach Galifianakis is returning September 26 on HBO. To tide you over, you can download The Birth of Super Ray comic book or watch the Invitation to the Set video below:



- Yesterday I mentioned the upcoming Hardcore Pawn, and for those that cannot get enough of the occupation should check out the second season of Pawn Stars coming to DVD August 24. Check out below to pre-order the second season or catch up on the first.



- I am glad I am not watching much television this summer because I get the impression that NBC’s marketing of The Event may be on par with ABC’s “Mommy… you smell different” campaign. For those that have escaped the marketing blanket, here is the latest promo for the show:



- The Daily Beast takes a look at two television shows that are struggling in the seventh seasons, Gina Piccalo takes a look at the dark turn on Entourage while Andy Denhart remarks on the failed makeover for So You Think You can Dance.

- Speaking of So You Think You Can Dance, if you watch the show, you make have heard Jar of Hearts by newcomer Christina Perri and Cambio Music has exclusive footage of the singer.

- Gabrielle Union guest on this Sunday’s very special episode of Army Wives. You know how it is a special episode; it gets its own subtitle: Murder in Charleston. If we are lucky, someone might even reenact a scene from Blazing Saddles. Here is a promo:



- Here’s one for the kiddies (or ones that have them), multi-award winning animation studio, Aardman Animations, has a new show called Timmy Time coming to Disney Channel’s Playhouse Disney starting September 13. Below is a picture of Timmy, a little lamb about to enter pre-school or head over to timmytime.tv for exact airtime and more about Timmy.



- Those with an iPhone or iPod Touch and love history will want to check out the Smithsonian Channel app featuring full episodes, fun facts, video clips and more. While on the channel itself, this Sunday at 8:00 is the latest of their Inside the Music episode entitled Electrified:
The Guitar Revolution. Below is a preview:

Previewing Hardcore Pawn

In this economy, and every vocation getting its own reality show, it was only a matter of time before cameras followed the day to day operations of a pawn shop. And what better place to set the show in the most economically depressed city in America, Detroit where American Jewelry and Loan is located just off of 8Mile, the road that Eminem made famous in his semi-autographical movie of the same name.

Don’t ask me why the show is titled Hardcore Pawn, my closest guess is that “pawn” sounds very much like “porn” and the owner of the pawn shop, with his long, stringy, but rapidly balding hair, kind of looks like a prototypical porn mogul. The third generation pawnbroker Lee Gold (natch on the last name) oversees the 50,000 square foot American Jewelry and Loan and with its forty-five employees and is as outspoken as his look.

Trying to reel him in are his two children Seth and Ashley, with Seth taking a more business approach than his shoot from the hip father while daughter Ashley has a keen eye for jewelry for that side of the business yet doesn’t have the best negotiator. With a pawn shop this big, the Gold family sees a lot of out of the ordinary, in the first episode alone; people bring in a stripper pole, homemade cannon, and a live horse, some of the Gold family actually takes in. But the majority of the episode revolves around an irate costumer that comes back a few times when she thinks the shop stole her earrings, a storyline that gets old quick.

Hardcore Pawn airs Mondays at 10:00 on truTV.

Feed Your iPod vol. L: Long Black Veil

In my youth I hated country with a passion, I believed that just listening to it would lower ones IQ. Then in college I was listening to a Dave Mathews Band live album and heard an amazing version of Long Black Veil, a heart wrenching tale of a convicted murderer who won’t clear his name because he was with his best friend’s wife. Since I was not familiar with the song and cracked opened the liner notes to learn more about the song and saw it was written by Johnny Cash and had to check out the original. After that I became a huge Cash fan and softened my stance on the genre as a whole (though I still find a majority of mainstream country IQ reducing). Below are both versions that should find their way to your iPod.

Long Black Veil – Johnny Cash



Long Black Veil – Dave Matthews Band

I Want My Music Television vol. LXXXIX

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I thought I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. If you are interested in buying the video through iTunes, click the title link (where available). If you are interested in buying the song, look for a link in the analysis.


Power - Kanye West



Do not call this a music video, it ia living portrait. Alrighty, I am not sure that it awesome, or just the most pretentious move ever. Probably both. Hopefully Kanye West doesn’t use the same delivery style throughout his next album because it reminds me of the voice Eminem used during Relapse which was so annoying, Em disavowed it. It is alright for a song or two, but I have no desire to hear and hour’s worth of it.


Love the Way You Lie - Eminem & Rihanna



Speaking of Eminem, he has a new video of his own and you know it is serious because it has big name actors in it. Granted it is hard to take anything serious when Megan Fox is involved because she cannot act, and really can only come close to pulling something off when she is portraying a hooker or succubus.


What Part of Forever – Cee Lo



When his former partner is going the pretentious route by casting the chick from Mad Men in a sci-fi video, Cee Lo is stuck slumming it with vampires on the Twilight soundtrack. Maybe he should have stuck with Gnarls Barkley.


Cold War - Janelle Monae



You may remember Janelle Monae as the house band for this year’s ESPY Awards and here is a super simple video to her latest song reminiscent of Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2U performance.

57 Channels and Only This Is On vol. CXLII

Quote of the Week: If you see your balls, pick ‘em up. When I get back I’ll staple them back on you. (Needles, Rescue Me)

Song of the Week: Goodbye – Steve Earl (Friday Night Lights)

Big News of the Week: MTV Video Music Awards Announced: Remember when the VMA’s were a cultural landmark, now, like most people that watch during the MTV heyday, I do not care. I haven’t even seen half nominated videos or even heard the songs. The only nominations of note are Broken Bells up for Best New Artist, though both James Mercer and Danger Mouse put out music for most of last decade, and Tighten Up - The Black Keys for Breakthrough Video, granted I do not remember anything groundbreaking about Tighten Up and both videos are better than anything in the Best Video category, but it is hard to complained because the VMA’s lost credibility about five years ago.

Leverage: Nice light fair after last week’s heavy political episode and Turner was nice enough to give Bill Engvall some work after canceling his show. I wonder if the network is regretting that decision after the daughter on the show has become a much buzzed about actress for her performance in Winter Bone and being cast in the X-Man reboot. You can stream recent episodes on TNT.tv. You can also download Leverage on iTunes.

Rubicon: I am always up for a good conspiracy theory and it is too soon to tell if this is one yet. It is moving a little too slow for my taste so far. You can stream recent episodes on AMC.com. You can also download Rubicon on iTunes.

Rescue Me: There have been some very bizarre moments throughout the history of the show, but handcuffing your daughter in church to baptize her ranks very high near the top. And it is strange that Lou broke out of the hospital and no one there seems to care. I really do not think that storyline is going to end well for him. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Rescue Me on iTunes.

Covert Affairs: Let me put out my prediction of who I think the leak is: the chick from Invasion. You can stream recent episodes on Hulu. You can also download Covert Affairs on iTunes.

Also check out my season wrap up of Friday Night Lights.



Free Download of the Week: For The Summer - Ray LaMontagne & The Pariah Dogs (Amazon MP3)

Deal of the Week: Over 1000 Albums for $5 Each (Huey Lewis and the News, A Tribe Called Quest, KT Tunstall, The Like)



Video of the Week: Two years ago there was a Stand Up 2 Cancer special that aired on all the major networks (except Fox who for some reason had something else to air) and there will be another one coming up September 10 at 8:00 on many networks (this time Fox is included). Here is a PSA featuring Kristen Bell (in a bathtub), Zach Levi, Olivia Munn, Clark Duke, Aubrey Plaza, Vanessa Hudgens and more to bring awareeness to the cause..

SU2C: Change The Odds PSA


Next Week Pick of the Week: Pretty Little Liars, Tuesday at 8:00 on ABC Family: Pretty Little Liars really didn’t catch my interest enough to actually write about it that often, but it has intrigued me enough during the summer doldrums to tune to find out who A is. My prediction: Aria (her name does start with A).