The Daily Brief

…that Randy Jackson from American Idol is actually an extremely accomplished musician. He’s the bass player on my favorite Springsteen track, and was in Journey? You’re not going to believe the tracks this guy’s played on. The things you learn on Jay Leno…I’m both absurdly proud and ashamed that I didn’t know this…

My question? Okay, he’s obviously got some serious cred as a musician and producer, what the hell is he doing on American Idol? Is he getting paid obscene amounts of money?

You think after 7 years of not having any TV gigs that Lucy Lawless would have picked something better than Locusts. Although the alliteration is kind of cool…

What? You thought I was serious about takin’ a break…Jeez you people are easy.

Like I can keep dis crap in my head…I have no idea what I used for Anger Management before you all let me come play here.

–ducks–

…I have to say: This is far closer to the real Orange County, CA than Fox’s other series: The OC.

Yep, Vic Mackey is back. Rawling has given him license to do what needs to be done. I predict that, later in the season, she will find she has loosed the Dogs of War.

Update: The way she handled the ADA shows she knwws EXACTLY how the game is played. This is sure to get interesting. Further, we’ve seen that Shane ain’t got the juice to play his game – ya’ baby.

Pronouncement: Without any “commercial”. or “non-premium” qualifers, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, and even American Family be damned – this is the best drama on TV today.

Oh and further: CCH Pounder should get equal billing with Chiklis and Close – she’s great.

If you are missing Forty Deuce, you just aren’t with it.

Have we been over-blogging on BSG? I’m surprised that Timmer, or any of my other co-bloggers haven’t commented on the season finale.

If it weren’t for FX, this would be the best drama on non-premium TV.

Update: In an attempt to avoid any more spoilers than I’ve presently delved into – she drew a gut-shot, lowered her weapon, and then took another gut-shot. What’s with that? It seems like rather irrational behavior from a presumably totally rational being?

Springsteen’s new album and single are titled Devils & Dust. You can hear the track over AOL Music or if you’ve got iTunes you can download it for 99 cents. I did that because I’m trying to get a feel for it to see if I’m going to buy the album/DVD combination.

Once upon a time it would have gone without question that I’d buy a new Bruce album. I still remember almost falling asleep one night just after I’d turned 14 and “Born to Run” came blasting through the earplug connected to the AM/FM radio I had “hidden” under my pillow. For a city kid…it was as if someone had reached inside and grabbed all the longing, all the alienation, all the music of the street and piped it into my head all at once.

I can’t find anything about the rest of the album, but if it’s like the title track, think “Ghost of Tom Joad” vs “Born etc..” I don’t like Bruce when he’s trying to be artsy, trying to be Woody Guthrie, trying to teach me something…especially when there’s a lot of harmonica involved. That’s on me…when I was in high school I worked a sound board for a folk coffee house on Saturday nights. I heard too much of that. I start to convulse when a harmonica solo starts…no matter how good it is.

And from all indications the DVD was shot in black and white…and it’s grainy.

Sigh.

I didn’t buy “Nebraska,” didn’t buy “Ghost,” and I probably won’t buy “Devils & Dust.” I’m guessing the critics will love it. It will be called powerful and deep. Bruce will be hailed once again as the minstrel of our generation. I’ll miss it because that’s not the Bruce I need. You see, I’m still waiting for the next power chord. I want to hear him on his big blocks of wood that he uses for guitars, I want Clarence backing him up with the saxophone and Max on drums. I want Nils, Stephen and him to have an electric guitar free for all. I want a rock’n’roll revival not a folksey sermon. Guess it’s just not my turn.

The Shield on FX has always been one of the best dramas on television. This season, it is so far above-and-beyond as to set a new high-water mark.

My regular readers know that I think Southern California’s own Chris Pierce may just be the hottest unsigned act in America. Our European readers may be interested in the fact that he will be touring there with Seal this summer.

Some of you might recall that I was quite impressed by Paige Hemmis, after her guest apperance on Discovery’s Monster House. Well, it seems she worked that into a regular position on ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

While the question is all over the internet, I never asked it myself. I mean, how can one match up an implanted figment of Baltar’s imagination – who, in physical form, could withstand an atomic blast – with a flesh-and-blood human?

But, no matter. According to TV Guide, the two mix it up in next Friday’s (the season finale) episode. And, of course, there will be a big cliffhanger, to keep everyone anxious for next season – the first ten episodes of which are supposed to air in the summer.

And, of course knowing Ron Moore, there will have to be some sex. Who knows – perhaps Starbuck and Six get turned-on by their catfight and… 🙂

All three of us, Boyo, age 8, included laughed maniacally over this one. At first I thought, uh oh, they’re just going to show off the animation, they’re not serious about the story…but as it unwound it became clear there was a serious story here. One part sendup of our pop culture, another part morality play about our disposable society.

I left very happy that my son had seen Robots…that’s not always the case.

Somewhere back there, I believe it was on a comment thread, I said that Arrested Development had been canceled. This was incorrect:

Fox started the cancellation rumors by slotting the May 1 premiere of the animated sitcom “American Dad” at 7:30 p.m. Sundays, the “Arrested Development” time slot. The Hollywood trade papers reported that along with the news that Fox would buy only 18 episodes of “Arrested” this season, rather than the standard 22, and that it would end its season on April 22, before the start of May sweeps.

Fans working via the Internet responded by bombarding Fox Entertainment president Gail Berman with “save our show” e-mails. Then, in possibly a first for a network programmer, Berman shot off a “not canceled” note to fans, saying, “Thank you for your e-mail and your passionate support of ‘Arrested Development.’ While the show has finished production for its second season, contrary to the rumors you may have heard or read on the Internet, it is NOT canceled.”

Berman’s e-mail added, “We at Fox love ‘Arrested Development’ and we look forward to having the Bluth family back on Fox in the future — hopefully for many years.”

She concluded that rather than complaining, “You can help make the show a bigger success by getting as many people as possible to start watching the show.”

But that’s what’s so frustrating for “Arrested Development” fans, many of them TV critics. We’ve done everything we can to get as many people as possible to watch.

Arrested Development is the best sitcom on TV since Sports Night. Fox is to be commended for sticking with it.

For those of you who have iTunes, they’ve got the live Joss Stone/Melissa Etheridge version of Cry Baby/Piece of my Heart from the Grammys available on an exclusive basis. All proceeds go to City of Hope and The Dr Susan Love Research Foundation. For my 99 cents it may be one of the best songs all year.

I still think Marshall Crenshaw is amazing and never got the credit he deserved. The break in “Whenever You’re on My Mind” still gives me chills. “I never thought I’d be in this situation, it seems where-ever I go I’m with you.” And “Bruce is King” may simply be my favorite display of enharmonics/reverb ever.

I’m loving U2 all over again as I work my way through The Complete U2 that I got with my Special Edition iPod. Okay…I’ll admit it, I originally only bought it because it was a different color. If I hadn’t used the coupon, I would have spent an extra $50.00 on a paint job. But some of the rarities and mix tracks are just plain great.

I get nothing from Apple for talking up my iPod. Although if they wanted to pad my iTunes account, I wouldn’t be offended. I’m a music junkie.

Because I didn’t want Kevin to think I gave up on being a pod person.

FX has the two best dramas on non-premium commercial television, with Nip/Tuck and The Shield. With tonight’s addition of Glenn Close, as Vic Mackey’s new captain, I can only guess The Shield will be even better:

Clearly, Close hasn’t loaned her name to the series for a paycheck, either. She’s brought her big screen A-game to her first episodic starring role.

A seasoned pro, she knows how to work a scene without histrionics. A glance here, a raised eyebrow there, perhaps an occasional dirty look is generally all she needs to assert her authority. She can be more forceful when necessary without losing self-control. Amazingly, the normally insolent Vic accepts her without reservation.

It helps that at first encounter she accepts a wink-wink tale that Vic had to kill an animal because it pulled a gun on him. Rawlings further endears herself to Vic by exhibiting as little regard for the outgoing Capt. David Aceveda, who has won a seat on the city council. She also has a game plan to take advantage of forfeiture rules to let her cops seize expensive toys for their use.

I don’t know about you, but, to me, the “Jack Bauer – Renegade Agent; Always Right, When The System Is Wrong.” story line is getting a bit old.

Update: I am SO lamenting the cancelation of Arrested Development, and looking forward to the renewal of Family Guy (both, like 24 on FOX, btw).

Remember when your folks just dropped you off at the movies on a Saturday Afternoon and told you to find your own way home? I could do that where I grew up, the neighborhood movie theater was “right up the street” and back then the neighborhood was relatively safe. But you remember the Disney movies of the 60s and 70s? There was a formula. There were good guys and bad guys and good guys who looked like bad guys but there was a chance they might be good and there were bad guys who migh just have some redeming qualities and then there were just plain ol’ bad guys and the good guys must find a way to defeat them, which shouldn’t be hard because evil is always so dumb? Those Disney movies.

I was wondering last week why “The Pacifier” did so well at the box office. I mean I like Vin Diesel as much as the next guy. I find him interesting even when he’s walking through a movie, not trying to act, just being himself. He’s like Stallone that way. I can watch him and if he never said a word, it might be better. My son suprised me…I thought the vote today would go 2 for “Robots” and 1 for “The Pacifier,” but I was wrong…Boyo wanted to see “The Pacifier.” I think Beautiful Wife may have got to him. She likes watching Vin Diesel too, for reasons that I don’t appreciate but understand.

And “The Pacifier” is a Disney movie in the old tradition. They’re not trying to be anything but Disney. And it works. There’s laughter, tugs on the heartstrings, good triumphing over evil, and the bad guys get “their wheiners smashed” (dontcha love 8 year olds?) a LOT. One guy in the back of the theater enjoyed the movie so much we thought we were going to have to call the ambulance. He should be hired by Disney so sit in theaters for them…he had THAT big ol’ laugh that was just infectious. God bless him.

And Disney…keep it up…we think you’re on to something. We’re even planning on seeing the remake of the Love Bug based solely on the previews and the fact that “The Pacifier” made all three of us laugh a LOT.

And yes ladies…Vin takes his shirt off, they weren’t lying.

Okay…I’ve tried to be nice, but last night THAT commercial was on every other break and you know what? Hootie in a cowboy outfit singing that creepy song is starting to make my tummy turn against everything BK…and I was working on a solid once a week Bacon Cheddar Ranch habit. I think you spent too much money on the disturbing big-head king outfit and now you’re trying to make it work and quite frankly, you’re scaring kittens and making babies cry.

It’s like HeeHaw mixed with Baywatch meets PeeWee’s Playhouse on acid and nobody finds that attractive.

Maybe you’re saying to yourselves, “Hey, at least people are talking about it.” and there’s “…no such thing as bad publicity.” but I’m tellin’ you guys, I’ll take Boyo back to McDonald’s in a heartbeat if I think it will discourage that freak show of a commercial.