Out of the studio. Odd. Free time. Not liking it so much right now. Antsy.

Weather is beautiful and sunny. Feels like summer here in Southern California. Went to see Sin City last night, loved it. Mickey Rourke is the shit, I wish his character "Marv" was in the movie the whole time. Very happy to see a filmmaker truly respect and be faithful to a comic book's inspiration to the obsessive degree that Robert Rodriquez did. The Clive Owen section dragged a bit for me, but otherwise, it was all good. Seriously, though .. Mickey Rourke owned that movie.

Finished Dean Koontz' "Odd Thomas" last night. Loved that as well. It's the story of a young man who lives in a small California town who can see the dead. His gift gives him insight to an upcoming massacre, and the book is his race against time to decipher his visions and keep the event from taking place. Odd is a really likeable character, and has a cool world view. The story was riveting, and I have that "missing the book when it's over" feeling. Next I'm probably going to hit "Johnathan Strange & Mr. Norrell".

E! ran that poker show Dave and I played on Thursday night. I am not sure if I am going to check it out. It was fun playing to a degree; with the excitement of all the people running around and the cameras, but the actual game wasn't as "real" as I think it could have been. It was more about the cameras than the cards. I guess that's ok for a televised celebrity game, but my ass really could have used that 10 grand ...I wasn't out there for the friggin exposure...but it was cool of Dave to invite me along.

Speaking of television - sampled the recent crop of new reality shows that have been popping up on A&E. First, there's Knievel's Wild Ride, which follows motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel's son Robbie's stunt show tour. The first show was not so great. The usual reality-show mechanism of trying to get some kind of drama to document was in gear, but the bickering between his team members about where to set up his jump ramp in a car dealership parking lot wasn't hugely interesting. Knievel's team gets in a bar fight and Robbie gets his ass kicked, but even that was more sad than interesting. He is really bitter about his Dad, and that's cool. The jury is still out on this one.

On the other hand, I am really into "Dog: the Bounty Hunter". This is some good reality TV in my book. Dog is a crazy, wrinkled, bleach-blond, mullet wearing muscle bound bounty hunter, and this show is his family team cruising around Waikiki searching out bail jumpers and various miscreants to send to jail. Dog is irresistible in a Mr. T kind of way. Plus, the whole thing takes place in paradise.

Also Riss and I are into "Family Plots" the show about a family who runs a mortuary. Most of the people in the show are either divorced or breaking up, and it's a pretty volatile mix of personalities.

The heaviest of the new bunch is "Intervention" - where they somehow film addicts of all kinds (drug, alcohol, gambling, shopping, self-mutilation, etc.)  while in the depths of their sickness, and at the end of the show inevitably face an intervention in the hopes of getting them to treatment. This show can be hard to watch, and is more often than not it's pretty dark, and without release, but always is fascinating to watch.

Speaking of TV, here's my current Tivo Season Pass (record all episodes) rundown:
Battlestar Galactica
The Contender
The Apprentice
Survivor
Family Plots
Dog the Bounty Hunter
Intervention
Iron Chef America
World Poker Tour
Caesar's 24/7
MTV2 Rock Countdown (I have found this the best way to see some videos with the least amount of bullshit: set the Tivo to record a couple hours in the middle of the night when MTV/MTV2 play just music, then I can zip through when I want, and those two hours are overwritten the next night)

Wishlists: ( this is setting the Tivo to record anything that has to do with these keywords)
Occult
Ouija
Witchcraft
Poker
Mars Volta
Ghost
Haunted

I am a believer in the existence of quality television. Almost all network sitcoms and dramas I have no interest in, and as you can see, I like the reality TV. Drama on TV just seems dumb and formulaic, and don't even talk about sitcoms. That said, when you have hundreds of channels, economically, that is going to force smaller channels to try harder and harder to create more specialized (and usually higher quality) programming. That means with all these channels in competition, the little guys are probably putting on something good. Until Tivo started digging it out for me, I could never have given a shit enough to spend the time to find it.

So I am not one to categorically reject all television as crap, that's just ignorant. Television was the greatest communication medium in human history until the advent of the Internet, and there is an ocean of wonderful, fascinating, mind expanding, and entertaining content out there. It's not ALL dreck, just because "Two and  Half Dads" is still on the air.

Been following the sordid details of the Jackson case. Wow. Made me search out the cover of his 90's record "Dangerous". The cover kind of said it all:

When I worked at MTV, and Michael Jackson was still marketable, and still kind of weird, but not insane and truly dangerous weird, he did an interview on Oprah and talked about his mysterious skin condition. I, in that "trying to kill valuable on air broadcasting time with half baked jokes way" said that he was on his way to becoming fluorescent. No biggie, right? ... just shooting the breeze with the people, until I got a call from the MTV higher ups. Apparently he or his people were watching and got pissed. I got my hand slapped, and the higher ups told me that they were forced to do an all Michael Jackson weekend for my comment. How the world has turned since then.

And I was right, he is basically fluorescent now, so sue me.