MTV Award shows usually are as good as their host so I was a little skeptical when it was announced that Jessica Alba was hosting thinking back to the Lindsay Lohan Dance Off debacle of last year. Or was it two years ago; was there a Jimmy Fallon bombfest in between? And that in lies the problem, there hasn’t been a memorable Movie Awards host since Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar hooked up. Here’s a look at this year’s festivities:
- First we have to start off with the obligatory pre-show this time with guest reporters Rihanna and the dude from Fall Out Boy. And for those who think Rihanna sounds extremely bored when she’s sing, she was even more anemic while talking. As for Fall Out Boy, yeah Sugar We’re Going Down is catchy, but I’m totally over them since making the Michael Jackson sized video. Now it’s time for them to go to the pseudo-punk where all the other band of the like have gone after minimal success. Say hi to Good Charlotte while you’re there boys.
- Christina Aguilera announced her next album is going to be a double-album. Great that means twice as much music for me to ignore. Seriously, if I wanted to listen to jazz music, I’d break out my Ella Fitzgerald album; you really need to go back to coy pop double entendre like Genie in a Bottle.
- Not to be outdone by sports programs that have sponsored everything out except the National Anthem, the MTV Awards, instead of a Green Room, have the Neutrogena Amber Room. I shouldn’t mock too much because coming soon to the 9th Green is the Adidas Lyrics Quiz and the Scooter Hall of Fame brought to you by Heineken.
- Also seen multiple times of the blue carpet was Joe Simpson. Dude must have incriminating photo’s of very powerful people because I can’t understand how him and his daughters have stayed in the spotlight for so long.
- And now on to the big show with what I believe was a Mission Impossible 3 spoof (I only know this because its theme music played at the end). I have no clue why Topher Grace was there, but the whole bit was saved by Flavor Flav. I really can’t wait until the inevitable second edition of Flavor of Love.
- Luckily we are spared from an Alba monologue by Andy Sanburg as Mr. Google in a funny bit. Here’s a wild idea, why didn’t they have Mr. Lazy Sunday co-host the show? Or Dane Cook? Or any comedian not named Jimmy Fallon? Really, if I wanted to stare at Jessica Alba, I could have just googled her like the bit suggested.
- Another reason why the award show has gone downhill, instead of randomly picking presenters for comic effect (think Busta Rhymes and Martha Stewart) they resort to just putting together from the same upcoming movie much like having the cast of Superman Returns present Best Hero. Hopefully the verbal beat down Batman gave to Superman during his acceptance speech may lead to the much rumored Superman vs. Batman movie.
- For Best Kiss, Justin Timberlake routinely repeats the phrase “ranch hand jobs.” Yeah, that should really help stop those pesky gay rumors.
- Crap, a Jimmy Fallon sighting. And it’s for parody of yet another movie I haven’t seen, The Da Vinci Code. And what Movie Awards wouldn’t be complete without an Andy Dick sighting. And that begs the question, Where’s Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn?
- Should I know who Borat is? But anyways. The dude is out to present the highlight of the night (asides from Flavor Flav), Gnarls Barkley who were in full Star Wars gear with Chewbacca on drums. Classic. Between this performance and the uber catch Crazy, Cee-Lo is almost forgiven for raising a daughter who got her own My Super Sweet 16 episode (um, not that I watch that show or anything). In fact the song is so good, I may start my own cover band, Gnawn Bradley. And the Barkley karma was so good, Darth Vader promptly wins best villain.
- Alba wins the Sexiest Award and thanks all the perverts out there. Um, you’re welcome, I guess.
- It’s nice to hear The J. Geils Band back on MTV to accompany Adam Sandler out. He’s out to present the Best Performance, with his Click co-star of course. I really don’t like these new serious awards MTV are heading to. But the award went to the dude from Bubble Boy, so how credible can the award be?
- Aside from Alba in her underwear, the King Kong parody was a waste of time. Stay away from comedy Jessica and stick to, um, well, um, yeah, um, never mind.
- Christina Aguilera is out next as she looks more and more like a drag queen every day. C’mon, take out the fake breasts, stop putting stuff in your hair, lay off the excessive makeup, and return to asking me to rub you the right way.
- Speaking of shameless plug, Will Ferrell is out to run down the long list of sponsors in addition to those already on his jumpsuit. Not nearly as funny as the scene from Wayne’s World, in fact it wasn’t funny at all. And did anyone notice the blatant cut during his thing? But anyways. Ferrell is out to present Best Comedic Performance and apparently the Wedding Chashers duo split their votes because that’s the only way Steve Carell could win.
- The Silver Bucket of Excellence was awarded to Do the Right Thing. Again with the seriousness. Please stop. Remember the good old days when they gave these awards to Shaft?
- Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are teaming up again. Yawn.
- Thank goodness for the AFI performance because it gave me a chance to check out the end of the Astros game on TBS. Whoever suggested this band should be fired. Doesn’t the Red Hot Chili Peppers have an album to promote?
- Chris “Ludacris” Bridges I up next. Why does the rapper insist on using his real name for acting purposes? You don’t the clock dude going around calling himself William “Flavor Flav” Drayton, you don’t see Ice-T’s real name in the credits for Law and Order.
- Next up is the first ever MTV Generations Award given to Jim Carrey. Remember the good ol’ days when Carrey and Sandler won Best Comedic Performance every year? Those were good time. It’s interesting during his retrospective, they didn’t bleep out “There’s a lot of fine looking pussy here tonight” yet they did back when he originally uttered the line. Of course that was back in the day they were still banning the word “pimp” and now they even have a show with it in its title. Wow, I feel old now.
- Instead of the first time filmmaker award, we now get the student filmmaker award which was heavily edited. I give it two years before it’s edited out of the whole program like its predecessor.
- Sam Jackson is out to present the granddaddy of them all, Best Picture. But before he hands that off to Wedding Crashers, he gives a shameless plug to his latest film, Snakes on a Plane. Normally I go off on things like this, but since it’s Sam Jackson promoting something as silly as Snakes on a Plane, I’ll let it slide. Plus I was laughing the whole time epecially when he hints at the sequil, More Mother(Expletive Deleted)ing Snakes on Another Mother(Expletive Deleted)ing Plane.
As a whole, the awards were another borefest, but if you are interested in watching it, not only can you wait for MTV to repeated ad nausea, you can watch individual segments on their broadband channel, Overdrive. I highly suggest the Flavor Flav bit and the Gnarls Barkley performance and skip the rest.
Now for something unrelated to the awards but under the rule of ask and you shall receive, Annie asked for more “Weird Al” Yankovic, and it just so happens that Al is offering up his latest parody, You’re Pitiful on his website (click his name). So if you are a fan of Al or just hate James Blunt (yep it’s a parody of You’re Beautiful), this is a must download. I personally love the beginning of the song.
Of course, by football, I’m referring to European football. Now it doesn’t take me much to get revved up for the World Cup. Unlike the Olympics, which also come around every four year (well two alternating summer and winter), there is no overload, because it’s only one sport to focus on. And this years Cup will be extra exciting this year because this will be the first time I’ll be participating in a fantasy World Cup run by ESPN.com. Unfortunately it strays away from the tried and tested fantasy behemoth, March Madness brackets because you can change your pick to win the game up to the start of the game (Germany time of course). Since the bracket are set ( Winner of bracket A plays the 2nd place team in bracket B and so on) they should have set it up much like March Madness where you had to choose the top two teams for each bracket, giving a point for each one right, then two points for picking the right quarterfinals and so on. Maybe I should copyright this idea for an office pool in 2010 (um, I mean I already copyrighted it, so don’t try stealing my idea). But using that idea, here are my pick for who will compete in the round of 16 and so on:
Sweet 16
Germany vs. England (1A vs. 2B)
Argentina vs. Angola (1C vs. 2D)
Sweden vs. Costa Rica (1B vs. 2A)
Portugal vs. Netherlands (1D vs. 2C)
Czech Republic vs. Croatia (1E vs. 2F)
France vs. Ukraine (1G vs. 2H)
Brazil vs. United States (1F vs. 2E)
Spain vs. Switzerland (1H vs. 2G)
Quarterfinals
Germany vs. Argentina
Sweden vs. Netherlands
Czech Republic vs. Ukraine
Brazil vs. Spain
Semifinals
Germany vs. Sweden
Czech Republic vs. Brazil
Finals
Brazil over Germany (3-1)
Then back stateside, the biggest story is of Jason Grimley whose house recently got raided because of Human Growth Hormones. And of course everyone’s favorite oversized dome is prominently featured in the story. According to Grimsley’s attorney, the reason why his house was raided was because he refused to wear a wire in hopes to dig up dirt on Big Head Barry. And some of the Monsters also appear as Grimsley has been teammates of both Rafael Palmeiro and Sammy Sosa. And to add intrigue to him naming names (which you know will come out within a week) Grimsley became a Yankee around the time they were winning a bunch of World Titles as well as my hometown Indians when the had the massive offensive explosion in the mid-nineties well he also made a name for himself by crawling through the air ducts in Chicago to steal Joey Bell’s corked bat.
And here’s a lesson to all those people out there who watch too much Sopranos, if the Feds com knocking out your door asking you to do something, unless you have a mob boss backing you up, do it.
And so it ends, after getting booted around by the WB last season, and bumped from the inaugural CW schedule for a last second reprise of 7th Heaven (not to mention CW giving a spot to the worst show on television that doesn’t feature dudes singing karaoke, One Tree Hill), Everwood has ended. And I’m not really holding my breath for a midseason revival. If there was any chance of one, I’m sure it would have been talked about already by the higher up. Now on to the review of the last season.
As the season begun, we were promised a wedding, but it only learned out to be a renewal of vows, but this event unfortunately brought back Ephram to town. If there was one sore spot to the earlier season of the show was the amount of whining that boy did. Yeah he had good reason with the whole getting uprooted to move to the middle of nowhere and his daddy paying off his baby mama to leave town, but there is a point where you can’t take anymore and I found myself switching channels whenever he came onscreen. Luckily an epiphany came to piano boy while in Europe, because he came back much more tolerable. But that did mean he still took up valuable screen time from my favorite Everwood denizens Dr. Abbott, Hannah, and Irv.
Dr. Abbott certainly had his shares of ups and downs this season and Tom Amandes hit every note just right (did I mention I met him, see - My Dinner with Dr. Abbott). He made it through his wife’s cancer stronger and even attempted to adopt an African baby after his trip there. All the while Dr. Abbott even foun the time to watch Beauty and the Geek sometime this season. But you just ache with him when he realized his omission of his wife’s cancer was found out during an interview. But thanks to the nice little bow that put on the finale, he got his baby after the crazy chick left her’s on his doorstep.
Then there was Hannah whose tedium part of her relationship with Bright was even more entertaining than the start of it. And I knew as soon as it began, it would end badly as Bright finally gave into his manly urges and got it own with the chick from Nip/Tuck. Unfortunately thanks to the nice little bow put on the end of the show, she pretty much forgives him by going choosing Colorado A&M over Notre Dame. Well at least she got her prom before he cheated.
Then after a season of near deaths, Edna having heart problems, not-gay dude committing suicide, and Bright going through a window, it was Irv that bit the big one. This wasn’t too surprising as he was off on his book tour most of the season and it seems these days on television, instead of coming up with new storylines for characters, they just kill them off instead and Irv ended up being the latest casualty of this trend. Well that and the age old rule that the black dude’s always the first one to die.
One major problem this season is that it looked as if the writers gave up on storylines midseason so they could wrap up the show in a nice little bow realizing this could be the lat season. So feminist Amy is dropped unfortunately before any lesbian activities and in time for to make up with uber-conservative Hannah and reunite with Ephram who also dumped his new girlfriend for his one true love. And Amy’s professor, who looked like she was brought in to be a love interest for Andy, promptly disappeared paving the way for him to hook up with Nina. And that begs the question: who drives their own car to the airport when they are moving out of town? Wouldn’t they drive it to Los Angeles or have someone drop them off at the airport if they were leaving the car in Colorado so they would incur the massive parking fees airports charge? Then their was Delia who was slowly turning into a B Girl only to do a one-eighty so she could end the show happily too, even getting the pony she was promised in the first episode.
But instead of crying over the loss of the show, I will instead look at the bight side, first and foremost, that means there will be one less hour stuck in front of the television come fall. Then, without the show, it almost guarantees a fourth season of Veronica Mars being it the only quality drama on the CW and considering it’s doubtful 7th Heaven will make it another season (although I still would put money on a spin-off) nor will One Tree Hill after getting crushed by Lost and karaokers (not to mention Supernatural in the Thursday 9:00 death hour slot) so barring the New Kid on the Block show being any good and an onslaught of good pilots, our favor Neptune resident will be back for 2007-2008 season. And by favorite Neptune resident, I am referring to Dick Casablancas. Now I just need to find some wood to knock on.
Everwood 4.x gets a ![Terror Alert Level: High [ORANGE]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhebDZ0qqwOVKMZj7oFSUe8Hm3ax54U9Hp1fThJPgiddTyzcdwx_5SV6E3b7hkKyxbaDiym4COmUXT2YJnsKCUjBHI_a2xZtNoY7qFQRslP5AGO5gLkJwn2ZbO0wIF80ycbKrgPPA/s400/small_high.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale. It also won a
STA.
Holly Brook may strike up images of a local creek, but the twenty year old is currently invading your radio singing the haunting chorus to Fort Minor’s Where’d You Go. But don’t expect any hip hop beats or guest spots from Mike Shinoda or other rappers on her debut, Like Blood Like Honey. Instead the album is strictly part of a Lilith Fair revival where Holly pours out her soul while switching effortlessly from the piano to the guitar.
But as heard on Where’d You Go, Brook is more deep than her contemporizes sets the tone with the opening lines to the opening track, Giving it Up for You where she tells us, “Though I’m young and cynical, it’s not my only crime.” The song itself sounds like an edgier version of songs heard on Anna Nalick’s debut. And when I say edgy, I’m not talking about the manufactured edginess of singers like Ashlee Simpson. Then there's What I Wouldn't Give which shows a much more vulnerable side. As for influences, they run the gambit of female singer songwriters; Wanted is reminiscent of something from Sarah McLachlan’s prime. Saturdays acoustic quickly beat sound like something Susanne Vega could have came up with. Heavy brings up thoughts of Tori Amos but much more palatable.
Even though Holly doesn’t get as experimental as another artist she is compared too, Fiona Apple, Brook branch out more musically than other singer songwriters of the day. This is helped by Brook’s knowledge of multiple instruments so she can switch from one to another without bogging the album with tedium and knows when to bring in other instruments into the equation to highlight the song. She can also bring things down, ending the album her and the guitar on All Will be Forgotten then spotlights her piano on the closer Cellar Door. Maybe after a couple more years and albums under her belt Holly Brook can get to the place where Fiona recently reached herself.
Song to Download - Wanted
Like Blood Like Honey gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.
I have to admit I wanted How I Met Your Mother to fail before I ever saw an episode because I wanted Trina Echolls to be free to pop in on her little brother on Veronica Mars, but unfortunately the show ended up not sucking massively and even was one of the first shows CBS renewed for next fall. Luckily Alyson Hannigan wa still able to squeeze a trip to Neptune this pass year.
That’s not to say the show had a few incidents that had shark jumping potential even in its first season. The biggest being the first episode where they built up Robin as this great love for Ted only to end the show with future Ted telling his kids “that’s how I met your Aunt Robin.” Of course that leads to another problem in the narration where future Ted tells his kids about stories now parent would share like his one night stand with Winnie Cooper. Then half way through the show, the future kids disappear from the show completely as if we, the viewer, wouldn’t notice. Then the show ended its season much like it started with Ted blindly pining over Robin. You already told us they are not ending up together so why waste our time?
Okay, enough with the negative, let’s get to the good stuff: Doogie Howser. Doogie’s character on the show is so great, I may even start referring to him as Barney in the near future. First off, Barney is good for a new catch phrase that I would be using obsessively by Tuesday morning, with some of my favorites being the Lemon Law, Legendary, and of course Suit Up. Unfortunately my cousin Ted is married so I can’t do the, “Have you met Ted?” And there is his pinnacle of practical jokes when he got Robin to do the Ickey Shuffle on live television. Classic. You could stick Barney on any show and I’d watch it, he’s that entertaining.
Then there is Marshall and Lily who surprisingly avoid being the obnoxious couple even when they go into their lovey dovey moments. I chalk that up to Alyson Hannigan who can easily portray the guy’s girl then switch to the girly girl effortlessly. And the former Willow even brought in some of here Buffy-verse almni as former Wesley Wyndam-Price, who just happens to be Hannigan’s real life husband, stopped by for an arc as Robin’s co-anchor/stalker and former Fred even stopped by as a former Barney conquest. But my favorite guest of the season was Victoria as Ted’s culinary girlfriend who sadly went off to Germany leaving Ted to go back to obsessing over Robin. Yawn.
Hopefully for the second season, they quickly break up Ted and Robin, get back Lily and Marshall, have Banrey have promiscuous sex with many anonymous partners (even with Robin if that gets her away from Ted) and hopefully they give Hannigan enough time off to make an appearance or two in Neptune again next year.
How I Met Your Mother 1.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale. It also won a STA.
Last year, around the time U2 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I began to wonder why, after twenty-five years of being one of, if not the best band in the world, the band hadn’t spawned a new generation of U2-wannabes. Even newer, and lesser bands such as Green Day and Nirvana have inspired many of the bands of today, but there still are not any new U2’s with only Snow Patrol comes to mind. Well there is now a band, that comes from a surprising source, openly hoping to be the next U2 and that would be former Blink182 guitarist, Tom Delonge’s new band Angels and Airwaves.
Yes, a member of a band best known for being naked in their videos and sodomy jokes in their songs has grown up and there is not a one fart joke on the group’s debut, We Don’t Need to Whisper. Instead the album focuses on the seriousness of relationship something Blink182 had already been moving towards on later albums. But the songs here do lack the faith overtones that seem to soak into a lot of the U2 catalogue.
So if there is a comparison to U2, it would be sonically where Angels and Airwaves builds a wall of sound opposed to heavily relying on the drummer as Blink182 did. The opener, Valkyrie Missile builds up to a crescendo and takes it’s time tapering off at the end much like Where the Streets Have no Name. Well so does The Adventure which highlights the problem with the album, diversity. Most of the songs blend into each other, not noticing where one ends and the next one begins even with spacing in-between and the songs themselves, all of which clock in at over four minutes seem to drag on. Also the choruses of It Hurts and Distraction get old real quick.
It’s a novel idea trying to copy the style of the best band of my generation, but at the end of the day, it still sounds like the dude from Blink182. And the rest of the band, made up of Dave Kennedy of Delonge’s other side project Box Car Racer, Ryan Sinn, formally of The Distillers, and Atom Willard, who has drummed for Rocket from the Crypt and The Offspring, just are not close to the musicianship of The Edge, Adam and Larry, nor have the history the close friends had even before starting U2 with Bono. But at least Angels and Airwaves haven’t run naked through a video yet or uttered a fart joke.
Song to Download - The Adventure
We Don’t Need to Whisper gets a ![Terror Alert Level: Guarded [BLUE]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzCbHfExiuXqojow1zxkBUX6j-9BHg9IyrfzqR77jnja2Xq6dbv-7iiqMFzp_UKXGcUF9FyAHqCkNxa5uitXa5Xu2Q1OboN9-TLjsaeI1a2eoGLORU4vkTQ54l1C-_cZyn81QHyQ/s400/small_guarded.png)
on my Terror Alert Scale.
From time to time, I like to share CD’s I’ve made and one type of CD I like to make is my very own “Best Of” completion. Most Greatest Hits packages leave off some of my favorite songs so I have to make my own. Plus I prefer my Best Of albums to be in chronological order which some are not. This Best Of is from one of my top five favorite artist of all time, The Artist Sometimes Known as Prince. Granted there is only one song from the symbol era. Now I heard a rumor that the Purple One recently showed up on a karaoke show recently, which begs the question: If you are singing your own song that you wrote, is it still karaoke? But anyways. Here are my favorite Prince songs that fit on a single CD (unfortunately there are some holes in Prince’s iTunes library, so that is why I can’t link to some of the songs):
1. 1999 - 1999
2. Little Red Corvette - 1999
3. Let’s Go Crazy - The Purple Rain Soundtrack
4. Purple Rain - The Purple Rain Soundtrack
5. When Doves Cry - The Purple Rain Soundtrack
6. Raspberry Beret - Around the World in a Day
7. I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man - Sign ‘o’ the Times
8. Sign ‘o’ the Times - Sign ‘o’ the Times
9. Money Don’t Matter 2 Night - Diamonds and Pearls
10. Cream - Diamonds and Pearls
11. Gett Off - Diamonds and Pearls
12. Diamonds and Pearls - Diamonds and Pearls
13. 7 - The Symbol Album
14. How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore? - The Hits/The B-Sides
15. P Control - The Gold Experience
16. Musicology - Musicology
The Best of Prince comes in at 1:16:27. Did I leave your favorite Prince song off? Feel free to tell want songs you would have exchanged in the comments section.
One of the shows that has quickly become must see television has been VH1’s Hip Hop Honors that for the past to years have given props to the genre’s founding fathers with performances by the artists and tributes by rappers of today. So to capitalize on that success, about a month back VH1 announced that is was going to do its first ever Rock Honors. I was a little skeptical when I heard this because, just from a logistical standpoint, it much harder to pull off. All rappers need are two turntables and a microphone. To have the band, and another as doing a tribute, there will be a lot of time devoted for changing between bands. So instead of paying tribute to about eight rappers, all we get are four bands. And those four inaugural bands: Hendrix? Cream? Zeppelin? AC/DC? Well, nope, nope, nope and nope. Here are some thoughts on the first Rock Honors:
- Jamie Pressly is are host most likely because she looks like every woman you see at Ozzfest, well the ones you see backstage at Ozzfest (which I know from experience). The best part of the whole show is when that huge nerd who comments for I Love the (Insert Decade) tells her “My name isn’t Earl, but his is” when he points to, well, Little Earl.
- The first honoree is Queen who performs a couple songs with Foo Fighters and some dude not named Freddie Mercury. Queen was always a little too theatrical for my taste. But anyways. They did do a really cool version of We Will Rock You with three drummers. I seriously doubt that any song will dethrone that song as greatest stadium anthem ever. And even the dude not named Freddie Mercury can’t screw up the song because it’s all about fan participation.
- Next up is Judas Priest who is preceded by having Godsmack do a medley of their songs. Seriously, if it weren’t for Beavis and Butt-head, I probably would never of heard of Judas Priest. And watching his leather-clad performance, you gotta wonder, much like George Michael, how no one figured out Rob Halford was gay. And add this to the previously honored Freddie Mercury; this is turning out to be a pretty gay show. Well this is VH1.
- The All American Rejects are next to pay tribute to Def Leppard with Photograph. This ended up being the biggest of their songs performed tonight.
- I have to say, when I think of rock, the first thing that comes to my mind is the chick from American Dreams. Although I guess it’s only appropriate that she introduces Def Leppard because throughout their career, their main fan base was teenage girls. And I may be dating myself, but whenever I hear that German opening, my first thought isn’t Rock of Ages, but rather Pretty Fly for a White Guy. Then for some reason in lieu of Pour Some Sugar on me they perform 20th Century Boy, the old T-Rex song. Oh, that’s right; the song is part of their new cover album that everyone ignored when it came out last week.
- To honor the final group, Kiss, VH1 assembled an all star lineup that included Rob Zombie, Slash, and Scott Ian, who happens to currently be staring in VH1’s reality show, Supergroup, as well as Gilby Clark and Tommy Lee who will be participating in the next Rock Star incarnation coming this summer on CBS (by the way both VH1 and CBS are owned by the same company). Boy and girls, today’s word of the day is synergy.
- Closing out the show is Kiss. I wanted the best, but all I got was a bunch of extremely old dudes in face paint. I’m not sure what is more sad, the band or the old dudes who still worship them. An anticlimactic end to a mediocre show.
- Hopefully next year they ask for my input on whom to honor. If for some reason you want to see the show, you can watch it anytime on VH1’s broadband channel VSPOT which includes four performances that weren’t even good enough to make it into the broadcast version.
I have a dirty little secret I must confess, I just recently got Paul’s Boutique. As someone who has been called a music snob, you’d think I would have gotten back in ’89 and look down on everyone who overlooked what is widely considered not only the best Beastie Boys album, but the best rap album ever made, but much like the rest of America at the beginning of the 90’s, I was expecting License to Ill 2 and could quite understand the direction they were going in.
Even when I got those songs, I still didn’t pick up Paul’s Boutique until discussing the rap troupe around the release of To the 5 Burroughs and a co-worker of mine asked to borrow my Beastie Boys collection and then chastised me for my lone omission from their catalog (granted, keep in mine that this dude had none). So this exchange finally to plug the hole and the album somehow exceeds all expectations which makes the album this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame.
Much like every Beastie Boys album, the songs are chock full of enough pop culture references that would make Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars blush even if not all of them are all that popular. Am I the only one who looked up Sadaharu Oh? Also the wordplay is tight with my favorite being the phonetically pronounced “knowledge” from The Sound of Science. But the key to making this the greatest album is all the intertwining samples, roughly four hundred, throughout most of the song from such diverse artists as Chic and Johnny Cash as well as some artist so obscure even I’ve never heard of the. And thanks to licensing fees put in place right after the release of this album, it’s a good bet that Paul’s Boutique will stay on top of the best rap album list for a while.
The songs on the album are some of the group’s best. Hey Ladies is a great transition from the sophomoric lyrics heard on their debut but trade rock riffs for disco beats and a cowbell that even Christopher Walken could approve of. Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun shows you how good the rap/metal genre could be in the hands of real artists. High Plain Drifters showed that rappers could slow things down and still be creditable. And Shake Your Rump should be required be on the playlist of every house party. Or if you are lazy, you can just throw Paul’s Boutique on and everyone will be happy.
Just days after winning the STA for Best Cable Show for the second straight year, Rescue Me is back for its third season. The main problem with the show though is that it has been so long since the second season ended, about nine months, it’s hard to remember what’s going on with Tommy Gavin and the boys, the minute “previously on” segment wasn’t nearly long enough. In fact, I remember watching Everwood the past two weeks wondering where I have seen Andy’s dad before only to watch the season premiere of Rescue Me to realize he also played Tommy’s dad too.
So once everything started to come back to me, Tommy’s kid was hit by a drunk driver who his uncle then killed in retaliation, the chief had to put his wife in a home, the chick firefighter bolted without a way for Franco to find her, Kenny got conned by a prostitute, Garrity got schooled by Tommy’s youngest, and the probie got kicked to the curb by the fat chick, it was time to kick back and enjoy the best drama on television not named Veronica Mars. So a couple months have passed and Tommy’s soon to be ex-wife still hasn’t talked to him as she blames Tommy for Conner’s death. Then to make think worse, for at least little Tommy, is that it looks like Shelia has lost interest too. But that doesn’t stop her for asking for favors like find out whether her son is having sex and needless to say, Tommy doesn’t handle the situation very well but at least there are a few good laughs at his expense. And since he’s been hitting the bottle again, that means the return of his dead cousin who doesn’t care too much on how Tommy’s handling the situation.
The rest of the boys seemed to be put on the backburner this week getting minimal screen time, but were able to up the entertainment when they were there specifically when the boys leaned that the smoking ban in the firehouse was going into effect much to the chagrin to Tommy and Kenny who apparently didn’t get the memo five months ago. Then Kenny finds a video made by the escort that ripped him off that led to some great scenes.
There was some predictability to the episode, so thanks to the preview that revealed who Garrity’s new girlfriend was, and it wasn’t too surprising to me to find out that Janet’s new beau was as I called it about five minutes in. They aren’t the only one’s who will find new love this season as Oscar winners Susan Sarandon
and Marissa Tomei pop up for a couple episodes each. Much like the past two, Rescue Me will likely be the cure for the summertime rerun blues.
Rescue Me airs Tuesdays at 10:00 on FX and if you want to know more about what’s coming up on the show, check out highlights from my chat with star and producer of the show Denis Leary - Tonight the Part of Denis Leary Will be Played by Denis Leary.
Some say there is no such thing as bad publicity, but sometimes that isn’t always true, like, say, when you offend the majority of your fan base and have your records pulled from the radio like the Dixie Chicks did at the start of the Iraq War. Of course that was back in a time where is you were against the president, you were anti-American, and now, a couple years later, even some Republicans have been piling George Bush leading him to the lowest poll numbers by a two term president not named Richard Nixon.
But even before their comments, the Chicks have been alienating country radio by drifting to more bluegrass and pop sounds on their last album Home. That tend continues on their latest outing, Taking the Long Way, as the group even brought in noted rock and rap producer Rick Rubin who had much success resurrecting the career of Johnny Cash with his American Recoding sessions. But unlike the American Recordings, there are no cover songs as the Chicks wrote all the songs on the album with help from artist as diverse as Keb’ Mo’ and Sheryl Crow.
At the beginning of the album, most of the songs seem to focus on the infamous comments mentioned earlier, most notably on the aptly titled Not Ready to Make Nice. So if you think the Chicks have soften on their position on this administration, the title pretty much says it all and they even touch on the backlash with lyrics like, “How in the world can the words that I said send somebody so over the edge that they’d write me a letter sayin’ that I better shut up and sing or my life will be over.” But that theme doesn’t linger long as songs quickly transition into more familiar territory like relationships. Then the album ends with the I Hope, a gospel song that was released last year to benefit those hit by Katrina.
As the Chicks move away from traditional country, they start moving into genre, the best result being I Like It, a song that sounds influenced by the girl group of the sixties. Then there is the album opener, The Long Way Around that sounds exactly like Learning to Fly by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers but with fiddles. Lullaby is as soft as the title suggest. Baby Hold On hits the emotional intensity of songs like You Were Mine from their first album. Really the only song here that would have fit on previous albums the brilliantly titled Lubbock or Leave It which has that same pure rage as Sin Wagon. Unfortunately some songs on the album suffer from being uneven where the verses are great but the chorus doesn’t hold the intensity or vice versa. This is most apparent on Silent House where the chorus just rubs me the right way.
Song to Download - The Long Way Around
Taking the Long Way gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.
Much like the STA’s, to be eligible, the show must have had the bulk of the season’s episode between June 2005 and May 2006. So without further ado, here are the top ten best shows of the past year:
1. Veronica Mars 2.x (UPN)
2. My Name Is Earl 1.x (NBC)
3. Rescue Me 2.x (FX)
4. Lost 2.x (ABC)
5. Arrested Development 3.x (FOX)
6. Everwood 4.x (WB)
7. Everybody Hates Chris 1.x (UPN)
8. Smallville 5.x (WB)
9. How I Met Your Mother 1.x (CBS)
10. Survivor: Exile Island (CBS)
Even though Everybody Hates Chris was my most anticipated show of last season, I still doubts about the show as Chris Rock’s previous foray into PG territory were less than memorable (except for the maybe Little Penny ads, but how many people knew that was him). But conventional wisdom would say that say that Rock has always been funny so there could have been a time in his youth when he didn’t rely on profanity so this look back his life could be entertaining at least in a Wonder Years kind of way.
The show, yet still funnier than, say, Head of State, it still doesn’t reach that of his stand up routines, but then again it doesn’t have too because in the scenes that lack laughs make up for it in heart. In an era where all sitcoms feature dysfunction families that hate each other, you can sense the love in the Rock household aside from all the natural sibling rivalries. Even when the family argues you know it’s only because they care and that’s refreshing to see on network television without having to sit through an hour of the should have stayed canceled 7th Heaven.
But it wouldn’t be a Chris Rock project without the discussion of racism and with Rock going to an all-white middle school during the early 80’s, it is dealt with head on. The catalyst of most of it is school bully Joey Caruso who has already used every racial epitaph for black people in the first season, my favorite being Bo Jangles. They even occasionally throw in the “N” word, but this only enhances the realism of what Rock had to go through at the time (keep in mind, even with racial slurred, the show still landed on the Parents Television Council list of Best Shows of this year coming in at number five).
Even though Chris Rock has a good ten years on me, the show almost takes me back to my middle school days complete with the token black student who teachers went out of their way to avoid being racist. And with the early 80’s time period, the show makes for the best soundtrack on television ranging from Eye of the Tiger to Ebony and Ivory. And it was just classic when Rock dressed up like Prince for Halloween. I almost hope that on the show, Rock doesn’t make to high school for a while, because I’m having too much fun laughing at his middle school experience.
Everybody Hates Chris 1.x gets a on my Terror Alert Scale. It also won a STA.
Usually when I write, I do a draft during down time at work, but when I pulled out some paper to jot down some thoughts I just sat there for a couple minutes and stared at the paper before I gave up and pulled out the Newsweek to read. Then when I got home, I fired up the computer, opened up Word and stared at the screen for a while. My writer’s block comes down to my inability to wrap my head around last night’s finale of Lost (click to download Live Together, Die Alone, I know I need to see again). And it’s not that it dragged on like last year’s last episode and it wasn’t as sad as having some old dude being crowned karaoke king (for those keeping track at home, if you are older than me, you, by definition, cannot be an idol).
The show instead had the rare ability to be thoroughly entertaining, suck massively, and be mediocre all at the same time. The good involved what was the lone bright spot of the season, Not-Henry Gale. It all started last week when Michael was given the list of people to bring back to The Others. Yet for some reason only Sayid was the only one to realize this was a trap so he devised a plan to turn the tables on Zeke and the boys. Even though they planned ahead, they forgot that The Others are always two steps ahead and ambushed Jack and the crew before they made it to Not-The Other’s Village.
This lead to the best part of the finale as Zeke, Miss Cleo, and Not-Henry bickered because Miss Cleo and Zeke revealed each others name and Not-Henry yelling at Zeke for not having his beard. Although it’s odd with all their thinking ahead, they would carelessly leave the fake beard and theater glue where it could be found. I wonder if that was left there to be found. The list made a little more sense once Hurley was let go as the remaining people were all there the night when the group went after Michael except that Locke was also part of the search party. Maybe since he wanted to go back was why Locke didn’t make the list. So we are left with Jack, Sawyer, and Kate being led back to wherever The Others’ camp in while Hurley has to find his way back to camp even though he was brought there with a sack over his head and Michael got Walt back and a boat to take himself back to civilization. But considering where Desmond ended up, I have a feeling Michael won’t be making it Fiji or Honolulu.
Then there was the mediocre where the show answered two questioned I stopped caring about a while ago and the both ended up being connected. First we learned what happened when the button isn’t pushed, but when since we already saw the counter hit zero once already this season, it ruined the final payoff. And on that note, Desmond let the numbers hit zero and beyond when he confronted his partner and the magnetic charge that followed turned out to be the thing that brought down the plan. What a letdown. In a show where characters coincidentally intertwine without them knowing, the plane turned out to be an accident. It wasn’t Jack’s not so dead dad. It wasn’t Zeke and his band of merry men. It wasn’t part of the Dharma Initiative. It was simply an accident. Yawn. Then there was the bright light and piercing sound, that for some reason didn’t rattle The Others as they were back to business as usual afterwards and don’t even acknowledge it. And for some reason, the hatch door was launched into the air only to almost land on Claire.
As for the bad, that had to do with devoting two hours to a character we have only met once in the season premiere, granted we saw the one meeting in about four episodes, then promptly disappeared. I fully expected to see Desmond to pop up in other people’s flashbacks throughout this season, but we didn’t see or hear from him until last night. The only problem with Desmond is that I stopped caring about him around Christmastime. How do you make someone we don’t really know the focal point of the season finale? Then after investing two hours on the character, he dies, or at least he thought what ever he did was going to kill him and the worst part is after building up that stupid book all night, he didn’t get to read it. Although I have a feeling he will make it out of there because if he dies, that means that Eko and Locke bit the dust too, and I don’t think they would kill off all three. Plus with the last scene, it would be stupid to kill Desmond off now. But then again I thought it was stupid to kill Libby and the token hot chick when they did too. Did anyone else notice that Shannon’s death was conspicuously absent from the recap show before the finale?
We didn’t, as I hoped would happen, find out the identity of “Him” (See Oddsmakers: Lost: Who Is Him?). Even though Not-Henry was clearly higher in the ranks the Miss Cleo and Zeke, since Zeke pretty much blew off Not-Henry when he asked him why he wasn’t wearing the beard, I still think there is someone bigger out there. We even saw someone in the episode that could be added to the list in Penny’s father. He clearly has the resources and the motivation to keep Desmond on a deserted island.
Other people seen in Desmond’s flash back include Libby who gave Desmond a boat to compete in some competition that led him to be on the island. Libby was also wearing an obviously hideous wig that made me wonder if it was significant. Could losing her husband be not the only bad thing to happen to her, could se had also had cancer? All that bad new could have led her to a nut house. Or did she also pick up the numbers from Leonard and had a string of bad luck after getting out? Of course she’s dead now so I really don’t care anymore. Apparently she wasn’t the only person we have seen before in Desmond’s flashback as the guy who recruited Sayid during Desert Storm turned out to be Desmond’s hatch mate. I only know this because it’s in every review I’ve read. Seriously am I only person that didn’t catch that.
My major problem with Desmond’s flashbacks was the scene with Locke. It was show that Desmond was suicidal and his faith was renewed with Locke’s banging on the hatch. Why, when knowing there was a person out there, go out of the hatch and recruit the guy to help him? He knew it was safe to go outside. But instead he stays put and then seems surprised when people come down the hatch. There was some poor planning with that storyline.
In the end, the finale was much like the second season itself, there were some great parts, some bad ones and some filler. Oh, and did you notice Matthew Fox was one of the Brazilian dudes in the artic station? Yeah, neither did I, in fact I thought they were French. Oh well.
As for Veronica Mars, this week’s episode gave us a chance to see Jackie’s first appearance again. Now with most of the finales have come and gone, I highly recommend that you rent season one if you have yet to jump on the Veronica Mars bandwagon.
With a name like Rock Kills Kid, your band has plenty to live up to. But the band isn’t a thrash metal band, instead on the band’s debut album Are You Nervous? there are syth beats that would have fit in well during the early 80’s. Sound like another “Killer” band? Well so does this album.
To be fair not every song on the album sound like as if it were created a Killers cover band. The throbbing base line that starts off Paralyzed is as innovative as anything of Hot Fuss. But after that it digresses into what would have been leftovers on the latter’s album. Well without the wit and more depressing songs and goes as far as saying “All God’s children are evil” in the aptly titled Life’s a (Expletive Deleted). Um, yeah, enough for escapism in music. Sadly that is one of the more uplifting messages of the album.
When it comes down to it, once you get past the innovative first track, all you are getting is a second rate Killers album but without the entertaining part. Add to that The Killers themselves are basically derivative of 80’s syth-pop bands like New Order and Rock Kills Kid is to that genre what 98º were to the boy band era. Maybe the lead singer of Rock Kills Kid can look forward to a lucrative reality television career in between overlooked albums.
Song to Download - Paralyzed
Are You Nervous? gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.
Many may wonder why, after two successful albums, Michelle Branch would veer into a side project, The Wreckers so early in her career with a virtually unknown, Jessica Harp. It could be to test something new under the guise of a not very well hidden pseudonym as the she steers more to the country side of the radio dial. That’s not to say the two are singing about how tractors are sexy or anything as the duo is in more of the vein of more palatable country artist such as the Dixie Chicks where there are fiddles and banjos but there still a pop ethos to it.
The album, Stand Still, Look Pretty, starts off with the rare break up song that is not to angry and not overly depressing either. Leave the Pieces is a more tranquil look at a failed relationship, “It’s alright, I’ll be fine, don’t worry about this heart of mine.” For those looking for the depressing relationship song, skip forward a couple songs to The Good Kind, “Do you know why I cry, and it’s not the good kind.”
Even though the album could be labeled pop-country, the songs definitely lean more towards the pop end of the spectrum but they get the country flare more from the instrumentation. The only straight up country songs include the bluegrass My, Oh My, a song that could get any hootenanny in a barn started. Then their as the album closer, Crazy People, where the girls take a stab at dumbed down country of today that they talk about on the song Cigarettes, “The radio's playing old country songs, someone's leaving, someone's cheating, on and on.” The lyrics are as over the top as their fake southern accents, with lines like “He love his whiskey, and his fist loved my face so I buried that man, they won’t find a trace.” And that was some of the nicer lyrics in that song. Then if you weren’t sure that the girls were taking the song serious or not, they break down laughing at the end.
But Stand Still, Look Pretty isn’t all banjos and fiddles as the ladies plug and turn the amps up on a few songs. Lay Me Down has been in Branch’s vault for a couple years, but this is the first time it’s made it on an album and could be her most rock and roll song in her repertoire. Later there is Rain, another hard driver that should satisfy those still weary about the country twinge of other songs on the album.
The blues have been a key element of country for years, but the lyrics here are hit and miss when it comes to the subject. When the girls stick to writing about being broken hearted like on Leave the Pieces and Hard to Love You, thing turn out well. But the songs when they address the ugly side of the business like on Stand Still, Look Pretty (where they complain that people think that's all they do), it can get annoying even though they even sing in the song, “I don’t want you to think I’m complaining all the time.” But the album as a whole is still solid and makes you wonder if Branch could pull off a disco album for her next side project.
Song to Download - Leave the Pieces
Stand Still, Look Pretty gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.
It's time for the game that's hotter than Tony Kornheiser with a red afro: Oddsmakers. This Wednesday’s finale of Lost promises that the answers you have been waiting for will be answered including what happens when the clock hit zero and why did the plane crashed in the first place. One question that has been puzzling me since Claire’s flashback is who “Him” that Zeke is and Ethan Rom were talking about. Not-Henry Gale would later bring up “Him” after been found out to be an Other. Now I have no clue if finding out who “Him” is during the two hour finale will be one of the questions that will be answered, but that isn’t stopping me from rounding up a list of suspects. Feel free to place your bets* in the comment section on who you think "Him" is.
Dave (1000:1) - Maybe Dave isn’t the figment of Hurley’s imagination after all. But then again there is a reason why he's a longshot.
Libby’s Evil Twin (750:1) - I have theorized before that Libby has an evil twin, maybe she’s behind it all. But then again I also theorized that Libby was the person whose Jack’s wife left him for, so my theories aren't always the best.
Passenger of Flight 815 (100:1) - Could Him have been on the flight too, and had been the reason it went down where it did, then became the ultimate mole for The Others? Of course then who, Charlie, Jack, Locke?
The Monster (80:1) - What could strike fear in humans more than the wrath of a cloud of black smoke that can chew up and spit out them with ease? Granted not technically a Him.
A Chick (70:1) - On JJ Abrams last show the Big Bad was named “The Man” only to turn out to be Sydney’s mom, so maybe that trend will continue. My leading chick candidates include Rousseau and Miss Cleo or whatever the black chick’s name in the last episode was.
Someone We Haven’t Met (60:1) - This could possibly be the biggest disappointment of the show yet, hopefully this choice doesn’t pay out in the end.
The Field (50:1) - If you think it is someone not mentioned elsewhere on the board, here’s is where you put your money.
Desmond (45:1) - He was an enigma at the beginning of this season showing up in Jack’s flashback only to be revealed as the person in the hatch moments later. Then just as soon as we met him he disappeared into the jungle. I fully expected to see him in other flashbacks throughout this season but we haven’t seen him since kind of poking wholes into him being behind the whole thing theory.
Jack’s Dad (30:1) - He has shown up in the most flashbacks, Ana Lucia, Sawyer, and of course Jack’s and was instrumental in bringing two of them to Australia. It also seems plausible that he is Claire’s father too. When Jack found the coffin empty in the caves he just thought that they didn’t ship his dad in the plane. Maybe he was in there, but left out of his own volition to get back to The Others camp.
Leonard (25:1) - The keeper of the numbers who supposable went insane after hearing them over the radio one night and ended up in the same nut house as Hurley and Libby. Could he have been there solely to give Hurley them? It is suspicious why Hurley made the list, maybe Leonard wants to see his old pal.
Random Person from a Flashback (20:1) - Walt’s step-dad, Claire’s physic, the Second Terminator, Peg Bundy, the guy who was both Hurley’s and Locke’s boss?
Someone From the Orientation Videos (15:1) - The people that set up the experiment seems like to play God, maybe their ego’s are so big from it they don’t even let their subordinates call them by their name.
Ethan Rom (10:1), Zeke (5:1), or Not-Henry Gale (2:1) - The three guys that uttered Him, could they just been the Wizard behind the curtain the whole time pulling the strings? I always thought Rom’s death was too easy after the beat down he originally gave Jack after he kidnapped Claire. Could he have lost on purpose because he knew he wouldn’t really die?
* This game is strictly for entertainment purposes, no money is meant to change hands. Unless of course you would like to donate to the Scooter McGavin is Poor Fund.
MTV Award shows usually are as good as their host so I was a little skeptical when it was announced that Jessica Alba was hosting thinking back to the Lindsay Lohan Dance Off debacle of last year. Or was it two years ago; was there a Jimmy Fallon bombfest in between? And that in lies the problem, there hasn’t been a memorable Movie Awards host since Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar hooked up. Here’s a look at this year’s festivities:
- Should I know who Borat is? But anyways. The dude is out to present the highlight of the night (asides from Flavor Flav), Gnarls Barkley who were in full Star Wars gear with Chewbacca on drums. Classic. Between this performance and the uber catch Crazy, Cee-Lo is almost forgiven for raising a daughter who got her own My Super Sweet 16 episode (um, not that I watch that show or anything). In fact the song is so good, I may start my own cover band, Gnawn Bradley. And the Barkley karma was so good, Darth Vader promptly wins best villain.
- Christina Aguilera is out next as she looks more and more like a drag queen every day. C’mon, take out the fake breasts, stop putting stuff in your hair, lay off the excessive makeup, and return to asking me to rub you the right way.
- The Silver Bucket of Excellence was awarded to Do the Right Thing. Again with the seriousness. Please stop. Remember the good old days when they gave these awards to Shaft?
