television II: later in the 2007 season

"NBC recently handed out full-season pickups to two of its four rookie scripted series, "Life" and "Chuck.""

ie. the only good shows on that network.
actually i think it's pretty amazing that the shows that i like were picked up. that hardly ever happens.

"In limbo is the fate of the fourth new NBC series, the once-promising "Bionic Woman," which has been sliding in the ratings since its premiere."

and that's because it sucks and people are finally admitting it. as a "the bionic man/woman" fan i wanted to like it, but it comes accross as sub-sci-fi network crap.
don't even get me started on the politics of it...let me just say that they reference "the rules" in one episode and the main character is constantly grousing about how tough it is to have superpowers. plus, the special effects are really lame, are not in slow motion, and are not accompanied by the sound that all authentic bionics must make.

modern literature & music journalism

1. here's a piece of creative non-fiction about the best band ever.
   well, it was always more of a concept than a band.
2. it includes a link to the website of the second-best band ever.
3. i'm somewhat torn,
   but i think that it's best to have the concept first and then the band.
4. hey casio, bring back the SK-5! it could be huge.

rockin' the zeitgeist pt. II

COUGARS are the non-story of the month and being this condescending must be a lot of work.

bonus ironic insight: by saying that age doesn't matter you make it matter.

Q: what do you call a male cougar?
A: it depends on how much money he has.

in conclusion, cougar is just a television friendly term for milf. also, where milfs are passive, cougars are aggressive.

cluelessness

i have never been a big fan of society. so much of it is just so stupid and american society in particular has elevated societal stupidity into an art form. it has ceased to amaze me how a group of people can be simultaneously self-obsessed and yet completely deluded, to spend so much staring into a mirror but somehow not see the reflection. maybe it's a funhouse mirror. maybe they're just too lazy to change. most of of the time the deluded people i meet seem to be willfully self-deceiving, even if they don't realize it. on some level they CHOOSE not to see the truth.

so this is where i will start making a list of all the things that make cynicism the only viable outlook available:

• Seinfeld's "Deceptively Delicious" and Lapine's "The Sneaky Chef": oh yeah, sneaking a beet into a sheet-cake is going to solve all of our obesity problems. people have been forcing their children to eat their vegetable for centuries, but now, because we're so either soft-hearted or lazy, we're going to stop doing that. while no one should ever be forced to eat brussels sprouts, this is really stupid.


• the president calling the democrats "tax & spend" when his administration has spent more than clinton ever did. bush asks for billions of dollars in order to keep the war going and then vetoes a bill that would have used cigarette taxes to pay for uninsured children. nice. it's a beautiful system: you spend without taxing, then, when your opponents come into power and are forced to raise taxes in order to offset the enormous debt that you have accrued, you can accuse them of being "tax & spend," even though you did most of the spending. it's like magic!
  
• lawn farmers: don't water your lawn during a drought. don't expect a green lawn if you live in santa fe. it's not always a good idea to try to bend nature to your will. you can't win. nature doesn't need you-you need it.


• political party as sports team: voting a straight ticket on either side is ridiculous. there is no such thing as bandwagon jumping in politics. you're supposed to vote for the best candidate regardless of political affiliation. this is democracy, not the playoffs.
  
• 1 Out of 4 Homeless Are Veterans: when you say "support our troops," you should actually do it and no, buying ribbon-shaped magnets doesn't count.
  
• ticketmaster: $2 to buy a ticket online and print it out yourself.
  
• trade paperbacks: you can stick your "generous margins" up your ass.

rockin' the zeitgeist

now it's a song!

and an NPR news item!

thank you dallas!

baggy pants responsible for cincinnati riots

when fads go too far:

Thomas was probably reaching to pull up his pants which were quite large and sagged below as was the current style of many young men at the time so when he lowered his arms without instruction the intent was unclear in that moment of heightened tension.

thomas was then shot dead for his misunderstood "hitching" of his pants and the cincinnati riots of 2001 began.

baggy pants, high heels, and flip flops: why does fashion trend towards people not being able to run? being able to run is one of humankind's only survival mechanisms and society has finally found a way to subvert it. how baggy pants might effect the outcome of a fight has yet to be seen. must fashion and function remain forever at odds?

maybe it's historical prescedent.
regardless, you're all so tame.

---

and the tragedy continues:

Collins, 20, was arrested late Sunday when his pants fell to his knees and tripped him as he ran from police, Franklin police said.

---

also, "sagging" is apparently not as gay as one might imagine.

post-irony or irony v.2.0?

The ironist is ironical, not because he does not care, but because he cares too much.

--Randolph Bourne

Here is one dictionary definition of irony: "Incongruity between actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result." That kind of irony might note that America, for all its effort to shine a beacon of freedom throughout the world, is seen as an imperial oppressor by large swaths of the Islamic world. That kind of irony would wonder if in this new battle on behalf of freedom, we may rush to strip away civil liberties. That kind of irony would wonder whether this new kind of war, waged to make us safe from terrorist attacks, might plunge the world into a far more dangerous conflagration.

written on september 25th of 2001 by david beers

read the whole article at:
http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/2001/09/25/irony_lives

petraeus

i'm sure that i'm not the only one who noticed that Petraeus rhymes with betray us. what an unfortunate name, like an adult version of Nerdlinger or something. the gradeschool jibe is way too obvious.

apparently the united states senate has nothing better to do than "condemn" some stupid newspaper ad. news to senate: you're just giving them free advertising. free speech is all well and good when it protects campaign donations, but when it comes to expressing the very real feeling that everything the current administration says is a lie, that's going too far?

it's like when politicians say that we should allow the market to correct itself you know it's correcting itself right into their pockets. they'll only say that we should allow it to correct itself when it seems to be correcting in a way that benefits them. if it's not correcting correctly, all bets are off - it's time to pass a law.

by the way, this still drives me crazy. of all the things he's done, this is the one thing that i can never forgive.

TeleVision

CW - BEAUTY & THE GEEK 8-9PM
it's funny how the dumb blondes make fun of the geeks, but the geeks rarely retaliate. this show needs meaner geeks.

CBS - SHARK 10-11PM
raines gets cancelled and this crap is still on?
woods vs. goldblum? the choice should be obvious.

FOX - THE SIMPSONS 8-8:30PM
this show is still on.

FOX - KING OF THE HILL 8:30-9PM
bring back bevis & butthead so we don't have to sit through this...

FOX - FAMILY GUY 9-10PM
...to get to this.

NBC - CHUCK 8-9PM
i'm curious about this one. it's about a nerd spy who decides to glom onto the nerd-renaissance of...

NBC - HEROES 9-10PM
as if we needed more, now with KRISTEN BELL as Lightning Lass!

NBC - JOURNEYMAN 10-11PM
a time-travelling show with Lucius Vorenus. if they're smart, they'll add Pullo as his sidekick.

CBS - THE UNIT 9-10PM
picked up for another season. hey mamet!

CW - REAPER 9-10PM
someone gave Kevin Smith his own show? god save us all.

NBC - BIONIC WOMAN 9-10PM
ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch!
*** they're not really bionics if they don't make that cool sound.

CBS - MOONLIGHT 9-10PM
a new vampire show with a former veronica mars cast member.
buffy and veronica will eventually converge.
*** this show is super-boring, but the lead has somehow found a way to be even more wooden than angel, so that's impressive.

SHOWTIME - DEXTER 9-10PM
read the book. love the show.
*** get the first season on DVD.

ABC - PUSHING DAISIES 10-11PM
just freaking watch this show. i mean you, nielsen families!
*** picked up for a full season!

NBC - 30 ROCK 8-8:30PM
two shows enter, one show leaves, studio 60 isn't moving.

NBC - FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS 9-10PM
it's back. it's on friday night. uh-oh.

iPhone price drop

boo hoo hoo
early adopters getting gouged.

newsflash:
EARLY ADOPTERS ALWAYS GET GOUGED.

that extra $200 you paid was a fee for lording it over the iPhoneless for the last 2 months,
you pompous ass.

HD radios are selling for $200 right now;
wait a couple months and you'll see that price start to drop right off.

you can wait or you can pay extra.

it's like when CD players first came out they cost $200.
now they cost $20 and don't weigh a ton.

think of it this way, no matter what kind of crap apple pulls, it's just a drop in the bucket compared to all the stuff microsoft has pulled and is still pulling on a daily basis.

IT'S HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED.

apparently.

---

now steve jobs has apologized for lowering the price of the iPhone.

apologized for LOWERING the price.

this is insane.

the pop cult

Q: If this is a pop culture blog, shouldn't there be something on Owen Wilson?

A: Other than the fact that it's sad... I didn't have anything else I wanted to say.

Q: But you never talk about anything in pop culture. Paris, Britney, and such are pop culture, whether you're interested in them or not. Your blog is more like leisure time activities, which is fine, but don't call it pop culture.P.S. I'm a different anonymous than the original post.

A: You are right. I have no interest in Paris or Britney.

G-RANT said...this IS pop culture, just not mainstream pop culture. if you want that kind of crap there's tons of it over at people.com and elsewhere.

if i cared about that stuff i'd read those blogs, not this one.come on, the state, for example, IS pop culture, sadly overlooked pop culture.

Anonymous said...Wouldn't the phrase "pop culture" refer to popular culture? So if it is overlooked then it's not popular?

G-RANT said...so the question becomes how popular and with which demographic group. "the state", for example, is very popular with those that watched it back when it was on and "got it." it spawned a sort of pop-cult.

most of these pop-cult people try to avoid the hilton/lohan/spears machine that seems to dominate mainstream pop-culture journalism or they embrace it with a strong sense of irony.

a certain amount of obscurity is necessary for those of us that are more interested in pop-culture arcana than popular pop-culture. it has something to do with nerdiness as well because i love "heroes" and "LOST" despite their popularity in more mainstream circles.

i think that i define pop-culture quite broadly as anything that has ever been on television, in a movie, on the radio, or in a comic book even if very few people have heard of it. for example: manimal. how many people remember that fine, but short-lived show? it's still part of pop-culture, isn't it?

come to think of it, isn't pop-culture just everything that isn't high culture eg. opera, Literature, or all the stuff that they used to put in museums? you know, stuffy, snooty, elitst culture.

if an album of pop music is released and it isn't popular, does it cease to be pop music?

personally, i don't think that there is a line between different kinds of culture anymore. there are only genres.

but i might be wrong.

Anonymous said...That wouldn't really be pop culture just because it is in the media, would it? The definition of pop culture...the culture of the masses, including popular music, television shows, commercials, brand names, advertisements, sports, the Internet, movies, fashion, etc.So if the masses don't like it, wouldn't it be unpopular culture? Shouldn't this blog be called "What Brian likes" since there is already a movie, television and music blog? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but not really pop culture.

G-RANT said...L. popularis "belonging to the people," from populus "people."

so it seems to come down to how we define "popular" and "a population." does "popular" in this case mean "mainstream" or does it mean "populist?" defined as widely as i define it, pop culture is huge and practically all-encompassing these days because most culture is no longer aimed at a privileged elite, but at all people (or at least a certain large demographic).

my question: what culture ISN'T pop culture? where does it end?

i know this is diverging from the original question of "how can b.b. not mention Owen Wilson, Paris, & Britney in a pop culture blog?" but i find this discussion quite interesting because i, for one, would stop reading this blog if it started to dwell too much on the celebrity gossip side of things.

in my opinion, it doesn't matter "if the masses don't like it," it's still pop culture because of where it's aimed and how it's delivered. for example: even universally reviled films are part of pop culture. sometimes it's how bad they are that makes them popular.

Anonymous said...I blame Jack Black.

Aaron said...Jack Black isn't popular in any culture. He should never be mentioned on this site.By the way, let's talk pop fashion. What colors are "in" this year?

G-RANT said...oh, i don't know, maybe some kind of backlash against the pornslut-fashion that has become increasingly played out over the last couple years. i mean where can it go from here short of total nudity? maybe just an embroidered belt like that one amazon tribe. or body paints. or clothing with stategically placed holes.

as for colors, how about scottish tartans?

posting on other people's blogs

in response to: http://blogs.citybeat.com/spill_it/2007/08/nothings-shocki.html

anyone that has seen short vine's decline since its late-80's early-90's hayday will know exactly what you're talking about.
i remember the moment in the mid-90's when the bad sound and obnoxious bouncers at bogart's finally got to be too much and we started going to newport in columbus instead (from dayton).
there was a sense of community then. troublemakers were ostracized, thrown out of the pit. when someone fell we picked them up and kept dancing.
there were no hipsters then. it was all punk & alternative and alternative was everything from the smiths to front 242.

in 1992, the year that punk "broke," punk was also broken, seemingly beyond repair. commerce was finally able to co-opt the DIY spirit, at least superficially.
as far as short-vine goes, for a city that is as hung up on its past as cincinnati, we do nothing to preserve what's good about the present. we seem to prefer nostalgia to now. i hope that changes, otherwise northside will be the next to fall and become north camp washington.
is it true that there are now only 2 live music venues near UC? mad frog and bogarts? oh, and downstairs at the holy grail if that counts. that's just sad.
fianlly, that jane's show at hara where the rollins band opened WAS amazing.

August 17, 2007 at 11:56 AM

-=-

in response to:

Wow - how excited am I that Kristen Bell (aka Veronica Mars) has signed on for at least half a season of Heroes? The answer is: very.

At 12:12 PM, G-RANT said...

she should just play veronica mars on heroes! maybe neptune, ca exists within the heroes universe and veronica could find out that she has powers! maybe being super-sassy IS a power.

geek-out!

-=-

in respose to: http://plattitude.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/my-children-will-play-with-clothespins-and-rocks/

August 9th, 2007 at 10:39 pm

sure, there’s a place past post-modernism;we’re just not ready for it yet.
if society could just move past whatever moment it is mired in, it would have done so a lot faster in the past.
it seems that cultural revolutions are preceded by the diffusion of some technology that makes them possible.
so we’ll just have to wait until then…
and maybe then people will understand what the hell we’re talking about.

but probably not.

-=-

in response to: http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/popculture/2007/08/no-more-cincinnati.asp#comments

not upset at all,well maybe a little that we'll probably have to wait another 20 years for a show with "cincinnati" in the title to be on TV.

-=-

in response to : http://frontier.cincinnati.com/blogs/popography/2007/08/alchemizedecibel-loungealchemize-closes.asp

as much as you might not want to admit it, anon-chi makes a valid point about the average cincyite not exactly having his ear to the pop culture ground,
people who read this blog excepted!
there have been many shows where a buzz or sub-buzz band played some local club and i was suprised by how few people showed up. case in point, robbers on high street played both southgate and alchemize this year and the turn-out was pathetic both times. it was a tuesday and it was raining, admittedly, but still.
i think radio airplay has a lot to do with it. chicago just has better radio stations, while here WOXY has to go internet-only and WVXU switched from 'college rock' to boring old BBC at night.
it takes some work to discover under-the-radar bands on tour, work that most cincyites seem unwilling to do. so it's not too suprising when arcade fire and modest mouse play columbus and louisville but not cincinnati.
local music venues: use them or lose them, cincinnati!

-=-

in response to: at August 4, 2007 5:09 PM Lauren Bishop said...

So how was the show? BRMC was excellent and there was a good-sized, appreciative crowd, although I would have enjoyed the show more if I hadn't been standing so close to Air Guitar Guy, Leaping Devil Horns Dude and Flailing Drunk Guy.

at August 7, 2007 3:33 PM G-RANT said...

there was a huge line because the doors opened 2 hours late due to (i heard) some sound check fiasco.
I would have enjoyed the interpol show more if I hadn't been standing so close to stand stock still guy, irked by the slightest movement dude, and i'm too cool to dance guy.
the madison is not a very good venue.

the band sounded great, though.

NEWS ITEMS JUNE 2007

I CAN TELL JUST BY LOOKING AT THEM THAT
THESE BROADS HAVE GREAT TASTE IN MUSIC.

hillary clinton's supporters have chosen her new campaign theme song and it makes me feel the same way i felt about kerry. out of all the choices you have, THIS is the best you can do? so, let me get this straight, out of all the songs in the history of the world, you choose one by celine dion from an air canada commercial and, out of all the possible candidates in america, you choose this guy. just because many of your supporters are tree-huggers doesn't mean all of your candidates have to be this wooden. nothing says grassroots like a song by a french-canadian gazillionaire.

it's important to remember that in politics it's better to shoot your friend in the face than shoot yourself in the foot.

baby-boomers might be pathetic if they weren't already so simultaneously self-absorbed and oblivious.

as far as al gore goes, i still haven't forgiven his wife for this. if hillary's supporters had chosen one of these songs, all would have been forgiven though.

it's clear that our current presidency is corrupt and clueless, but what the democrats don't seem to understand is that with most people, given these choices, even the smallest shred of charisma is enough. it doesn't matter how smart, talented, experienced, reliable, or genuinely honorable you are, if you aren't just a little bit likable, you won't win. it didn't matter what reagan actually did, he was charming. it doesn't matter how good a president mondale or dukakis might have been, they just weren't very charismatic. i'm not saying that it's right, just that it is.

WINDOWS VISTA

THE "WHA?" STARTS NOW

have you ever seen that movie pearl harbor?

i hope not.

It is the most beautiful piece of sun-drenched crap that you've ever seen.

windows vista is the pearl harbor of operating systems.

it's absolutely beautiful to look at and definitely has some potential, but it's just a glorified beta and is obviously a triumph of marketing over actual functionality.

it's more of an advertising campaign than a working OS.

it (deliberately?) renders a large percentage of my software collection obsolete.

like the spate of psedo-celebrities that have ascended in american pop culture over the last couple years, it is both pretty and useless, all facade over a shoddy framework.

maybe in a few years it will actually be usable, and then microsoft will release another untested turd of an OS in an unveiled bid to cash in once again.

mark. my. words.

UPDATE:

i "downgraded" my new Toshiba A135-S2276 laptop from VISTA to XP with some help from my peeps over at hardware central and guess what? now it runs considerably faster, MUCH faster, and all of my old software works without complaint. now my (pentium dual core) laptop runs faster than my (pentium 4) home tower computer. i'm not sure quite what to make of it. i think that i may have to upgrade the RAM on my home computer just so it won't suffer so much in comparison.

so, in conclusion, why buy a souped-up new computer and then bog it down with a bloated OS? a computer has to be souped-up just to run normally under VISTA so why not stay with XP, which may not be as pretty, but runs blazingly fast on a VISTA-ready PC?

UPDATE 2:

if there was ever a good non-government target for a severe beating it would be a toshiba laptop pre-loaded with vista.

i've got an idea. let's take a really nice new computer with a fast processor and then severely bog it down so that the interface will look really pretty, because these days pretty trumps functional any day of the week. then, with the right marketing campaign (which probably cost more than development) and enough retro-fitting hurdles to prevent people from going back to an OS that, after years of updating and service packs, was finally getting to a point of stability, we'll totally cash in on our captive audience when they find out all of their old software no longer works.

i know! while we're at it, let's make all of the third-party people write all new drivers for their devices. get started boys!

this is how we will compete with apple and their snarky TV ads.

THE DRIVE-IN

WHERE ARE THOSE "PRESERVE THE HISTORICAL WHATEVER" PEOPLE NOW?

at last, weather permitting, drive-in season is upon us again and it is extremely important that everyone goes so as to preserve this fading piece of americana. just in case you're stuck in the wrong part of the past they are not nearly as seedy as you may imagine.

trust me, under the stars and on an enormous screen is the best way to see a movie. it's so good that even bad movies are fun to watch. a bunch of us watched alien vs. predator at the drive-in a couple years ago and had a great time making fun of it mercilessly. that's another advantage of the drive-in, it's much less likely that you'll disturb the other patrons with your witty and sarcastic remarks.

some pointers:

1. drive-in etiquette demands that you use only your running lights inside the theatre.
   
2. bring a boom-box, ghetto-blaster, or what-have-you.


3. also bring some folding camp chairs.


4. back into your parking space.


5. place the boom-box on the trunk of your car and tune it to the theatre's frequency.


6. place your chairs in front of the boom-box so it is aimed right at your head.


7. smoke 'em if you got 'em.

the dominant double features at the drive-in this weekend are:

• spiderman 3 & ghost rider
  
• condemned & 300


• i wouldn't even see wild hogs at the drive-in. what a waste of macy.
  
  [confession: i eventually saw wild hogs at the drive-in. my only excuse: it was on after pirates III - it was pretty bad, but was, as i predicted, almost saved by macy.]

SMOKING NOT A 'RIGHT'

all the anti-smoking politicians and legal types keep saying that "smoking is not a right."

this is a classic rhetorical dodge, a distraction, misdirection.

the right, or at least the implied right, is that private business owners should be able to run their busineses as they see fit.

why must everything be all or nothing in this country? where's the half-way?
why not issue smoking liscenses in the the same way that we issue alcohol liscenses?
why not put a big red X on the door of smoking establishments so non-smokers will know that they're not wanted there?
what ever happened to the market correcting itself?
if "nearly 80 percent of ohioans do not smoke" why weren't nearly 80% of the bars smoke-free already? the market demands it.
where will the hardcore, unrepentant smokers go now?

so here's my classic rhetorical dodge and i think it's slightly less lame: the slippery slope.
if things keep going like this, next they'll be telling veterans that they can't smoke in their own VFWs.

wait, they're already doing that.

fascist government bastards.