"[Rachel Uchitel]'s also set to take a turn on Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew...She's got an addiction to pills...[her] appearance will inevitably be a letdown, as she is clearly barred from discussing the specifics of her relationship with Tiger by some private contract or other. On the flip side, we'll finally get to see what that one eyeball of hers does when it is left up to its own devices on-camera."
---nymag.com somewheres

Best Thing Going (For Tuesday)

It appears that there was a glorious(-seeming) t.v. pilot called 111 Gramercy Park filmed in 2003, and never picked up. Some kind of American Upstairs, Downstairs? And look! Tippi Hedren, Frank Langella, and Joel Grey were in it! And look! You can watch (some of) the pilot on the YouTube! I haven't yet, because I'm at la oficina. But I feel I can recommend it alls the same.

And b.t.dubs.--this accompanying image is unrelated to above unaired series pilot. I Google-Image-Searched "111 Gramercy Park," and boom. Do you think it's the spa at that Schrager-rape of the G.P.H.? I might actually love the mural...

Founding Fathers: Marjory, the Trash Heap

Mostly, I was thinking about Marjory from Fraggle Rock today because I'm pretty sure she's what my insides look like. But then I also remembered that Marjory was damn amazing. She was telepathic, telekinetic, could sink into the ground to take a nap, didn't abide by Western rules of cleanliness, and was the oracle of Fraggle Rock. The trash heap has spoken!

Dunzo

I've been meaning to write a post about Gossip Girl's blatant shark-jumping for a while now. The show has been downright dull, and when they took a month's vacation in February, I felt no pangs. This is exactly when (midway through a second season) The O.C., creator Josh Schwartz's last teen drama effort, lost steam (it came back for a genius final, fourth season, but that was largely due to some heart-full character development that hot-airy GG has always lacked). Rolling Stone has put the two comely female leads on their cover in a miserable effort to keep "buzz" going as interest falls away. The picture is really gross (I'm embarrased for these girls!). I mean, whose dick is that ice-cream cone supposed to be?

This "buzz" stuff is not fuel enough for a moldy, feathered, brainless jive-turkey like Gossip Girl; no amount of press and costumery can undo bad writing and boredom, or the new, "recessed" American psyche. Whatever.

Quote of the Day

I know her from the club! She's my gay sister!

—Courtesy of Cops, Atlanta

Pollyanna

We have mentioned MTV's The City at this here school newspaper once before--I believe I termed it "the ultimate jumping of [Manhattan's] heptitude shark." I generally have less to say about it than I thought I would. It's parent programs (same premise, methods, producers, etc.) Laguna Beach and The Hills are utter gems, aesthetic marvels top full of a truer "nothingness" than Larry David could ever muster (being he's cerebral and all). And The City is about here, this, my town (not the inner and outer Los Angeles of the other two). It is also about Whitney Port, who was my very favorite Hillsean (the seemingly savvy, disinterested one) until she branched out to my coast. But yes, despite these factors, I find the whole quite dull and repugnant (still watching, poor me!).

I was present for a a bit of filming in early Fall. Two characters, heroine Whitney and half-baked sidekick Erin, live near my office, and a beloved diner (The Lyric, at 22nd and 3rd) was chosen as set-for-a-day. It was bizarre. I had to sign all kinds of paperwork and was barred from my usual booth. The "actors" were not speaking or eating (you know, playing the "scene") while I was there, but checking the monitor to see "if their tans looked funny" (which they most certainly did). I just think being on a reality show is super-trashy (duh). The transplant characters lead gross existences in Murray Hillish end-of-days condominium towers and SoHo bars. The native characters are the worst sort of dumpster people, claiming Uptown/socialite identities, dwelling in the filthiest new developments in TriBeCa (I take this quite personally being that these stupid bastards ousted my family from that lovely old district and chose to live in glass and sheen rather than the warm, beamed industrial spaces of its inception and true artist's golden age). If these clowns were in any way legitimate, they WOULD NOT BE ON TELEVISION.

Preamble preamble preamble (my greatest fault)! What I really meant to say in the first place is that you should watch last night's saga {right here}. Because it contains a thing so remarkable, so rare, so very very strange: an actually, plainly nice person on a reality program. Of course, she, Allie (the knife-boned international model), is being trod upon by Adam, her loserly, scum-times boyfriend (a dippy model/promoter person-thing). Adam has cheated on her and in his hair-jellyed sociopathy is denying and denying it. Poor little, gawky, gorgeous Allie believes and disbelieves him (in that way that only lovers of losers can comprehend). Her pain and insecurity are the most stunning jolt of reality in a universe of camera tricks and dull fakery, an accident of heartedness from an otherwise distended, cynically crafted teen-bop T.V. network. I feel for her, and you will too.

Etiquette Lesson For Friday

Folk Art for Tuesday

The Long Weekend

I've only caught fifteen minutes of an episode. And it made me feel icky all over. But Tool Academy is a non-stop thrill-ride (of caca), sort of not to be missed. You see, nine young gentlemen were lured by VH1 (and their nine sad girlfriends) into a cardboard model home under false pretences, told they had been cast in a competetion reality show called Mr. Awesome and then . . .

Stories Time

Holy moly, I have so much to say about Kalup Linzy. A day late and a dollar short, I know. Evidently there are some downsides to never really paying attention to contemporary art: I might overlook some really beautiful contemporary art. I knew of Linzy's acclaim and of the title of his (almost) one-man soap opera, All My Churen (2003). But, strike me down, I'd never bothered to see the damn thing. I've only caught excerpts on Youtube this morning, but I'm generally floored. At A&P, we are sentimental, expert, addict television-watchers. And I am so moved by Linzy's construction of a television show about people who watch television shows (stories). There is an incredible comic-tragic symbiosis between lived facts and screened fictions; they bend toward and apart from each other like uneasy relatives. Uneasy relatives (and lovers) are in fact the characters that Linzy plays--black, Southern, gay inversions of television stars, different and the same. Unlike, say, Ryan Trecartin, Linzy makes strange from unstrange, does not use drugged, fantastical, dream-world tropes; instead, his are something like fine Youtube videos--homemade, straightforward, not filmic.Though Linzy lives in Brooklyn and has been on the receiving end of some tony fellowships and grants, he seems to work on the periphery of the art world, over and beyond it (not around it).

Below is an excerpt from All My Churen and a very brief gallery satire that isn't even trying to be accurate. Or is it? I imagine that Linzy is playing a frustrated gallery employee, made ill by the pressures and expectations of her exacting lady boss (hmmm . . .).

Theater Games

Founding Fathers: Buffy Summers, She Saved the World. A Lot.

There's been a lot of talk of 2005 as of late, and it's got me thinking about how I survived that fever dream of a year. After I meditate on it, my endurance can be chalked up to four factors: Alpha, Able, Lil' Kim, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

As a small-but-scrappy, slightly damaged blonde with violent tendencies who had fancied myself invincible and had it all blow up in my face, I was thrilled at the idea of seeing someone like me (the archetype of the fragile damsel) who was pretty much invincible. Buffy Summers could roam the streets at night alone, crawl through sewers, stop Armageddon, travel to alternate dimensions, drown, get stabbed, and was constantly saving the dudes' asses. But how Buffy really won me over was that she was not, in fact, bulletproof. She was victim to various aches and pains due to an absentee father, lovers who viciously turned on her, the loss of her mother, and her well-meaning but selfish friends who constantly (albeit unconsciously) put their need for her strength and leadership over her own well-being.

I learned a lot of valuable lessons from good ole B, but, in the end, the most important thing she taught me was that sometimes you just need to FUCKING DEAL. You get killed by a thousand year old vampire on prom night? You're boyfriend turns evil? He tries to torture and kill you? You die, finally find a little peace and quiet, and your clueless friends bring you back to life? Wash the blood out of your dress, pick the leaves out of your hair, and claw your way out of your own grave; because the world's sure as hell not going to save itself.

Unfortunately YouTube is awash with fan videos, but no actual clips. So head over to the WB's website to catch a few episodes from the first season.

Cartoons

I'm OK. You're OK.

"She is literally the Polaroid of perfection!"—perhaps the deepest, most puzzling lyrical description down our way. 

Founding Fathers: Jackie Harris

"But, it came from Memphis!" [read pleadingly]

I found myself in discourse yesterday with two non-fans of Justin Timberlake. They were not virulent haters, just unimpressed. I tried to prove his worth with a few quick strokes, playing "Cry Me a River" from 2003's Justified and "My Love" and "What Comes Around (Goes Around)" from the more recent Futuresex/Lovesounds (2006). They remained luke-warm, "He's talented and all, but the songs don't stand out. He's no Madonna." I sometimes have this charmless inclination to get angry when people disagree with me in matters of music, beauty, politics, history, protocol, what have you. Here, I remained calm. For one, I was intrigued by this Madonna comparison, and, really, all of a moment, I wasn't so sure I disagreed with them.

I mean, couldn't you credit Timbaland and the Neptunes with the candied brilliance of his hit songbook? The lyrical content is forgettable. Timberlake brings us his doo-wop falsetto, good looks, and (questionable) style, but production teams were responsible for the layered sophistication and of-the-moment hip-hop and house fusion that truly drove both records. But even that dim view is a bit rosy, what drives a record is promotion and good timing. Timberlake is madly marketable to both (increasingly pop-conscious) critics and the populous. In 2003, he left N'Sync with a ready-made, millions-strong, international fan base. With a little bit of smarts, all he had to do was prove he was remotely independent and interesting to critics, to whom it would seem that he was a winner with long odds, a dark horse. All the while, for Clive Davis, he was the surest of bets. At the dawn of the 21st century, even the most discerning folks are servants of the Culture Industry. "Hotness" is holiness.

But--OH--I despise this cynical line of thought. Pop is my mountain top. What good comes of me questioning the artistic merit of the moneyed, collaborative process that drove, for instance, Britney Spears' Blackout, the record I'm writing a book about. When I doubt the worth of the vernacular, not only am I being a limited sort of snob, but I'm also lowering the discourse of my critical life to a matter of simple preference, taste that could be deemed--GASP--bad. Clive is right and not necessarily wicked (no more so than Barry Gordy); in pop, it's the product that matters, not the process. We must listen to what we are fed, no Basement Tapes in these parts. In pop music, whether rock-ists like it or not, image and packaging and videos and moment-ness can be content. And, a pop singer's interpretation of someone else's lyric and melody can be the very height of (highly legitimate) appropriation art.

Even after all of this circular stuff, I do pay heed to that Madonna comment. In terms of voice (point-of-view, not instrument), Timberlake is a little bland and unduly smug. Unlike Madge (or Britney), he doesn't seem to have much of a story to tell. "Voice" aside, he's a well-informed cat, clearly bowing to our Memphis legacy, Elvis and Al Green in particular, as well as MJ and Prince and a terribly long list of others--an appropriator appropriator!

(And, argument aside, I love a hometown boy.)

Hallmark Original Movie That Made Me Weep For Sunday Night

Unfortunately this is just some sort of CBS News item about said Hallmark film. I will post clips as/if they become available.