Not exactly, but the singer/songwriter once used that simile to say what a pointless exercise writing about music was. Apparently, however, that doesn’t apply to talking about music, as he is about to demonstrate in a new show for Sundance channel:
Hey, I Like to Watch My Swim Trunks Inflate!
Each of the major candidates this season has his or her own pop-culture surrogates or inspirations: Hillary Clinton has Tina Fey, Barack Obama has Will.i.am. Last night, John McCain appeared on David Letterman, and it would appear that the Republican Party is about to nominate… Don Rickles.
A clip of C.P.O. Sharkey’s performance …
Unwanted Programming Advice: An HBO Teen Show
Unwanted Programming Advice is an occasional series in which I offer crackpot suggestions that, if heeded, would save—or destroy—TV networks. Last week, I advised History channel to get into the scripted-series business.
Today: why HBO (or Showtime) should make a teen drama.
The Morning After: Hooray for Dollywood
My morning-after American Idol reviews are posted now at time.com. [Yes, I know, for some reason they were posted with photos from last week’s show. I’m working on it, if by “working” you mean “I just sent an e-mail to time.com’s photo people.”] Dolly Parton …
The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization
Until now I resisted the urge to complain in public about the wall cards and catalogue texts that accompany this year’s Whitney Biennial. (Let’s be clear, the Kosuth piece up there is not one of them. It just felt pertinent to the mood I’m in.) That was partly …
Corporate Press Release Theater: The New Adventures of Old Raymond
TNT is getting ready to bring you Ray Romano as you apparently always wanted to see him, although you weren’t quite aware of it until now—as a drama-series lead. Details after the jump:
Liberal Nielsen Ratings Attack Fox News
Following up on my column of last week about the malaise of Fox News in the waning days of the Bush era come the first-quarter ratings for 2008, and they continue the trend I mentioned: CNN beat out Fox in prime time for the quarter, among the prime advertiser demographic of 25-to-54-year-olds. It was also a fairly big quarter for MSNBC, …
Thumbs Down for Pro Movie Critics?
I Am David Carr’s Publicist Week continues this morning, as the prolific New York Times writer pens an interesting piece on the disappearance of print movie critics. (I should note, self-servingly, that print TV critics have been downsized or bought out left and right lately also—and, less self-servingly, that much the same has been …
Is Today Wacky Enough for Kathie Lee?
Yesterday, NBC announced that starting April 7, Kathie Lee Gifford will be the new host of the fourth hour of the Today show (which runs up in some markets against her old cohost/sparring partner Reege). I didn’t originally think I had anything much to say …
Sign Language
Fifty years ago this week, the peace symbol made its debut at a British demonstration against nuclear weapons. By now it seems like some ancient rune that rose out of a primeval folk culture. It was actually the work of one man, Gerald Holtom, a London textile designer and peace activist. What he created may not be a work of art, …
The Morning After: March Angriness
Well, if Job One for How I Met Your Mother right now is to convince CBS to take it off the bubble and renew it for next season, this, more than the Britney stunt-cast episode from last week, may have been the episode to do it. No better way to prove you’re a good …
Strike II: Revenge of the Actors?
Are we going to need to revive the Tuned In Strike Watch? Just as we’re seeing scripted TV return to air after the writers’ strike, there are some ominous rumblings regarding the actors’ contract, which comes up in June. This weekend, the American Federation of Televison and Radio Artists effectively split up with the Screen Actors’ …
In Which I Admit That Bill O'Reilly Is Right
In my column about Fox News last week, I referenced a controversy last month in which “Bill O’Reilly caught flak for using the phrase ‘lynching party’ in a critique of Michelle Obama.” A producer for The O’Reilly Factor wrote to complain that my wording—specifically, the word “critique”—misrepresented O’Reilly, because he wasn’t …