Slowly Going Bald

Day Watch

Fido

Evan Almighty

Live Free or Die Hard

This one goes out to my mom, who took me to see Die Hard With a Vengeance because I was too young to drive, and who also let me watch our tape of the original Die Hard when I was home sick from school one day over what had to be strenuous objections from my father, who was likely worried it would corrupt me (which it did, but in an awesome way). So, thanks Mom.

Clickety-click.

It kicked all manner of righteous ass.

And Joss Whedon was there.

Because, sometimes, birthdays are pretty wonderful.

After a certain point, age no longer feels to be the milestone it was in youth. Each passing year as a child is somehow indefinably but unequivocally different from the one before it; this year is a new one, and there will be changes. But a lot of that mindset comes from simply being in school, and after the rush of freedom at 16, the liberation of 18, and the poor choices of the night you turn 21, there aren't many more signposts to so clearly mark your progress from birth to death. The next big number is probably 30, but there's a lot of fast water between here and there, and not a lot of points to stop and catch your breath. However, I have found another one of those signposts:

• Today I am 25 years old, meaning:

• I am now too old to be on "The Real World."

This is a weird thing to realize, not least because every member of my generation has, at some point, thought about what they would put on their audition tape or just what it would be like to live in the house, be one of the roommates, become superficially friendly with intellectually challenged people before stabbing them in the back with a withering confessional, get drunk on camera, etc. The show has been a cultural touchstone for people my age, who have never lived in a world without MTV, and though it isn't what it once was — or maybe I'm too old to care — it still serves as a kind of clearinghouse for the current generation's prettiest and dumbest people.

As I've gotten older, though, I've come to realize that the dichotomy between the thought of being on the show and the actuality of being cast would probably perfectly fulfill the maxim: "Having is not often so pleasing a thing as wanting; it is not logical, but it is often true." You have to be 18-24 to be on the show (though, weirdly, the rules only say you "should appear to be between the ages of 18-24," which is confusing, since I doubt like hell that a young-looking 30-year-old would be let anywhere near the show), which means there's a good possibility that getting cast would mean spending 4 months in a house with at least one 18-year-old, who are generally pretty insufferable people. Where's the fun in that? I'm surprised the age cutoff isn't 22, since the possibility of watching a 24-year-old and 18-year-old interact would be like watching a big brother babysit their younger sibling. Every day. For months.

Which is the bigger picture, and the even weirder part about getting just a day older this time around: I don't even think I would want to be on "The Real World" anymore. Sure, my sister and I used to think about being on the show — I maintained that I would be the laziest roommate ever, sleep in constantly, and not get laid; basically, my current life plus some rapid-fire editing and B-roll of downtown exteriors — but that was in high school. Even the occasional discussion of the show in college was more about how crazy it had become than anything else.

Still, it's weird to think that from now on, the kids on that show will always be younger than me (except for the oldies they bring back for the challenges, like Timmy, who's clearly 39ish). I suppose as I get older I'll get accustomed to the fact that people in the media are more and more likely to be born after I was, and I guess that's okay. But it's just weird to realize that I'm really starting to slide out of whatever demographic MTV hopes to capture.

Maybe that's a good thing.

Title: "Heart Transplant" (or, possibly, "Boning for Marrow")

Cast: A handsome man of stunning athleticism and below-average intellect, age 29ish; a dozen or so physically attractive but culturally unaware women aged 25-31

Logline: One lucky bachelor searches for true love in a flock of beautiful women, but there's more to these ladies than meets the eye.

Synopsis: The show would follow a pretty typical format for arena-dating programs: group dates, one-on-one time, quizzes about a woman's favorite puppy, etc. But the twist is that each of these women has a terminal illness, a fact that isn't revealed to the bachelor in question until he makes his final choice, eliminating all but the tanned and vapid creature with whom he plans to carve out a short-term relationship based on sex and shared interest in wine. The woman who wins will receive money for medical care and treatment of her disease, while the rest of the women will have to make do on insurance or whatever. At the end of the series, the 11 losers will be arranged before the bachelor, who will then have to apologize to each one for unwillingly condemning them to possibly dying sooner than they'd have liked. The host, an affable Ralph Garman type, will intro the women with something like, "You all remember Jenny, who as it turns out as cystic fibrosis." The bachelor's complicity in the dark fate of the women would eventually lead to his own depression, making for a sad follow-up/reunion show in which it is revealed that he and the winning bachelorette wed five months after the show but divorced a year later.

So, NBC, I'm ready when you are.

Because I like sharing music that I love, and being introduced to new music by my friends; because I crave your validation; and because it's a lot easier than coming up with more original content, it's time once again for an alt-country playlist from yours truly. This compilation, to the best of my recollection, came together in the summer of 2006; I remember playing the track list for a friend on my iPod while driving through the mountains of northern Arizona on the way home from the Grand Canyon last year. That means the list came together about a year after the creation of the previous one, which I guess is a good enough time to spread out a little, incorporate some new bands, and also shine some light on old favorites (the attentive among you will notice a near constant presence of Old 97's on these lists; that's the way it's gonna be). It's a slightly longer list than the others, coming in at 22 songs but still short enough to fit on a standard 80-minute CD. I think a big part of this is that this is the first mix I made after purchasing my iPod, so the ease of bouncing around from track to track within a digital playlist instead of listening to a CD from beginning to end seems to have influenced the assembly of the songs; in other words, it feels more like a jukebox of tunes instead of a somewhat more cohesive attempt to make a good alt-country mix. As a result, it's probably the weakest mix as far as overall flow, but it's a solid collection of hits, and I couldn't bring myself to trim any. Sue me. As always, I've provided iTunes links where possible; as always, feel free to share any music you think I might like or just post a comment to shower me with sincere praise. In retrospect, I realize these mixes have been getting (to me) slightly less accomplished with each iteration, but I have some other stuff in the works that I think you all might enjoy. Like I said, I need the validation. Anyway, here it is:

Alt 4.0
1. "Won't Be Home," Old 97's — A great, fuzzy opening from the group's Drag It Up. Solid driving song.

2. "Another Travelin' Song," Bright Eyes — I like Bright Eyes. Tough.

3. "That's Not the Issue," Wilco — Man, sometimes I forget Wilco used to rip out these amazing little country tracks. It's enough to make me really miss old-school Golden Smog (which is coming later down the list).

4. "My Winding Wheel," Ryan Adams — Wonderful, easy song.

5. "The Charging Sky," Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins — I couldn't take this album out of my stereo for a couple weeks after I got it. I keep hoping I'll run into Jenny Lewis out here, though the odds that she shops at my Ralphs are pretty slim.

6. "Still Feeling Blue," Kasey Chambers — This is one of my favorite Gram Parsons songs, and I love Chambers' cover. It's a good reminder of how country is often built on songs that get passed around and recorded by multiple artists, like the blues.

7. "Streets of Where I'm From," Old 97's — Solid, yearning bar rock.

8. "A Kiss Before I Go," Ryan Adams & the Cardinals — In and out in just a couple minutes, and fantastic along the way.

9. "Sin City," Uncle Tupelo — Speaking of great covers, here's another Parsons track from his days with the Flying Burrito Brothers. Love it.

10. "You Are What You Love," Jenny Lewis & the Watson Twins — A kind of shimmery pop-country that's downright heartbreaking.

11. "Live Free," Son Volt — Trace is still the best album you haven't bought yet. So go buy it.

12. "If I Had a Boat," Lyle Lovett — Why did I not get into Lyle Lovett until the past couple years? I'm a moron.

13. "Making Love With You," Old 97's — A fantastic track from Down to the Promised Land, a comp from Bloodshot Records' fifth anniversary. The double-disc set isn't too bad, but it's worth buying just for this song.

14. "What a Crying Shame," The Mavericks — I love this album. It's straight-ahead country from 1994, featuring mainstream two-steps and some Latin influences. Wonderful song.

15. "Roses Are Blooming," The Hollisters — I sing this in the shower a lot. I don't know why.

16. "Hung Up on You," Fountains of Wayne — I've liked Fountains of Wayne since their debut in 1996; I have many good memories of playing Quake III late at night at a friend's house while listening to "Leave the Biker" (yeah). They play brilliant power-pop, and every now and then they fiddle around with some country tunes, and the result is usually pretty great. Case in point: This track, which features pedal steel from Robert Randolph.

17. "Let It Ride," Ryan Adams & the Cardinals — Arguably the best single from Cold Roses.

18. "Crazy Arms," BR5-49 — Writing all this has made me realize just how many covers are on this mix, including this song, which has been recorded by just about everybody. This is a great treatment by BR5-49; if I were going to start a retro-country band, it would be a little like BR5-49. We would play in Oplin, and we would blow you away.

19. "Today's Teardrops," Fountains of Wayne — The last cover of the bunch: A Ricky Nelson song covered by Fountains of Wayne in concert and released on their B-sides collection Out-of-State Plates. Also a good shower song.

20. "Passionate Kisses," Lucinda Williams — It would later be covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter, who had a pretty big hit with it, but Lucinda's original remains amazing. However, iTunes only seems to have this live version. Deal.

21. "Please Tell My Brother," Golden Smog — Someone please play this at my funeral.

22. "Maria's Bed," Bruce Springsteen — For Devils & Dust, the Boss just went acoustic and changed all the references to Jenny/Elizabeth to Maria, but it totally worked. This was a great collection of Southwestern alt-country, and his best conceptish album since The Ghost of Tom Joad.

I'm not sure why Too Far to Care isn't on iTunes. I think you should all write letters to Steve Jobs asking that he put it on there, and also that he send me an iPhone. Thanks.

And, what the hell, here's a music video for track 10:

• The posters advertising a "tour" to Yavin are somewhat inaccurate, as Yavin was actually a gas giant, and the Rebel base was on Yavin IV, one of the moons. Duh. They also feature a shot of Luke on a tauntaun on the poster for Hoth, as well as shots of Bespin, but the ride itself renders that nonsensical, since the tour clearly takes place during the Battle of Yavin, before the Alliance relocated to Hoth or anyone went to Cloud City. Again: Duh.

• The pilot was a droid named Rex, but is it really likely that the piloting of a human transport ship, even one belonging to a tourism company, would be left up to a droid? Sure, the R2 unit up top helped out, but you'd think it would be a better idea to have a human behind the actual wheel.

• The instructional video that instructs tourists to buckle up and avoid using flash photography features a child taking a photo of a Wookiee, who is startled by the flash but just whines/growls about it. At the very least, the Wookiee should have yelled at the kid, and probably should have actually ripped off his arm as a warning. That would have been good.

• Who's running this tour, anyway? The ship at one point jumps into the fray during the battle outside the first Death Star, which begs the question as to which side actually owns the tourism company. At a time of even small-scale war, it doesn't seem feasible that the Rebel Alliance is willing to pony up the credits to run tour ships throughout the galaxy. They sorely lack the infrastructure needed to mount a serious attack; they had something like 25 X-wings, tops, at that battle.

• It also doesn't seem that likely that the Galactic Empire is running the tours, because since when do they care about showing people a good time? I guess it's possible the tours are being run by some kind of third party, a nonpartisan organization that leans toward the Rebellion, but you'd think that if they really supported the Alliance then they'd volunteer their tour boats for supply transports until the war is over. Ships are hard to come by, you know.

[No, it's not this one, though that's a close second.]

I could watch this over and over again. And I have:

I tried to work in a flannel board reference, but I couldn't quite do it. Ah well:

Clickety-click.

Well, this seemed to go over well last time, so here goes nothing. Today's mix is the second real alt-country mix I made, and I assembled it sometime after moving to L.A., though the specific date remains fuzzy; I didn't learn about Shurman until I saw them open for Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers in November 2004, so it's safe to assume this list came together sometime in the spring or early summer of 2005. That places its birthday a solid 18 months or so after the creation of Alt 2.0, and it's always interesting to see the bands that showed up again versus the ones that are "new" to one of these mixes. (Being pretty anal about things like this, I already envisioned making myself an ongoing series of alt-country mixes. I'm okay with this.) Aesthetically, I don't think is quite as strong as my previous mix; I usually try to cool things off a bit by track 4, whereas this one doesn't calm down till track 6, making the first third of the album a little top-heavy. But it's still pretty listenable. Again, I've provided iTunes links where I could, but some of these are going to be tougher to come by. Go by your local Amoeba/Waterloo/whatever and root around. That's when you'll find the best stuff, anyway.

Alt 3.0
1. "Petty Song," Shurman — The track I have is actually from their EP, which went our of print but was put briefly back into production a few weeks after I emailed their site and inquired whether they'd be selling any more. Was I singlehandedly responsible for inspring them to press up more copies? Yes, yes I was.

2. "W. Tx Teardrops," Old 97's — When I saw Old 97's at the El Rey a couple years ago, bassist Murry Hammond, who does lead voclas on this and a few other songs, said before launching into this tune that "This is for anybody who's seen those tornado warnings in West Texas." I was the only one to launch a "Woo-hoo!" when he said that, which was mildly embarrassing, but not so much it kept me from singing along with every word.

3. "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road," Lucinda Williams — I really like Lucinda Williams, and have spent some decent time with a few of her albums, but I feel (and my buddy Collins agrees) that she's a fantastic artist whom we're probably supposed to love when we actually just like her. Don't get me wrong; Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is a classic, and West is pretty amazing. But sometimes it's like I like the idea of Lucinda better than Lucinda herself. But this is still a good song.

4. "Miss Williams' Guitar," The Jayhawks — Whenever I hear the glittery electric guitar, I always am secretly pleased that I placed this song directly after the one by Lucinda Williams. Because I am like that.

5. "Jackie," The Pistoleros — This is a fantastic band out of Tempe, Arizona, fronted by brothers Lawrence and Mark Zubia, and their debut album featured some songwriting assistance from Radney Foster and The Jayhawks' Gary Louris. The Zubias also used to be in a band with Doug Hopkins, who went on to play with Gin Blossoms. I just find that interesting, is all. Their first album, Hang Onto Nothing, is definitely worth seeking out.

6. "Dancing With the Women at the Bar," Whiskeytown — When I sing along with this song, I wonder what it would be like if my father had actually seen the moon and "heard the sound of the strip" calling out his name, instead of just being a completely likable salesman in central Texas. That would've been weird.

7. "Tear-Stained Eye," Son Volt — Beyond fantastic. A pure, sweet, easy kind of country.

8. "This Flower," Kasey Chambers — Ditto.

9. "Doubting Thomas," Nickel Creek — I remember liking Nickel Creek in high school, mainly because they played great music and were about my age, meaning they were either really talented or I hadn't really applied myself (probably both). I still think they're a great group, and I like how their sound and subject matter has matured, as in this song, about the conflict between faith and doubt.

10. "Full Moon Over Dallas," Maggie Brown — I nabbed a free copy of this album from work on impulse, mainly because it looked halfway decent, which it is. But I'm a sucker for songs about Texas, I guess.

11. "Rain King," Counting Crows — Bam, right in the middle of the album, I drop some stout mid-'90s alt-rock on you. And it totally works. I love hearing songs like this in new contexts like this one, where its mild country inflections are enhanced by the rest of the list. Fountains of Wayne have recorded some great country songs, too. I also will always wish I had the range of Adam Duritz.

12. "No Depression," Uncle Tupelo — You pretty much can't beat Uncle Tupelo covering the Carter Family.

13. "Are You Still in Love With Me?," Tift Merritt — Sad, sad song. When this comes on, I feel like I should pull over and find a quiet bar and drink myself stupid.

14. "Blinding Sheets of Rain," Old 97's — A great, low-key two-step.

15. "Gold Watch and Chain," Nitty Gritty Dirt Band feat. Kris Kristofferson — The iTunes link goes to the tribute album The Unbroken Circle, but I actually got my copy from a compilation called This Is Americana, a fantastic record being sold for the ridiculously stupid price of $2, which means you should all go buy it right now. Right. Now.

16. "My Heart Is Broken," Ryan Adams & the Cardinals — I loved Jacksonville City Nights with a passion; it was easily the best of the three albums Ryan Adams put out in 2005 (second place was Cold Roses, while the off-putting29 ran a distant third). This is a quick, efficient song that gets in and out in just over two minutes, and I love it.

17. "Virginia, No One Can Warn You," Tift Merritt — If anyone can put me in touch with Tift Merritt, I'd appreciate it.

18. "Last Hard Bible," Kasey Chambers — Kasey Chambers has this thin little voice that fires like a cannon, and the tight harmonies on this song are excellent.

19. "At the Bottom of Everything," Bright Eyes — Sometimes I launch into the monologue at the beginning of this song at the office. It weirds people out, but not as much as when I say it while sitting in an airplane. Anyway, great song, great album, etc.

So, there you go.

It's the middle of the month, and that doesn't just mean payday. No, it's time once again to get all religious, and that means it's time for:

Jesus, Etc.

• It's a little weird trying to objectively write about "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," which has been cancelled and will end its life after only one year on the air. It wasn't a great show, and most of the time it was only decent, but I think a large part of this is that Aaron Sorkin spent so many years writing White House dramas that were only peppered with jokes that he forgot what it was to write a comedy-drama set in a newsroom. "Studio 60" isn't even a comedy at all, as the endless series of bad sketches and awful fake-news segments make abundantly clear; but it is a passable workplace romantic drama, albeit one whose moments of emotional truth are hampered by Sorkin's self-indulgent nature and willingness to let his personal battles play out on screen.

• Matt and Harriet argued in a recent episode, "K&R: Part I," about (I think) the existence of God. The nature of their argument wasn't very clear, but they seemed to go back and forth throughout the episode about whether or not faith was rationally acceptable, and there was a montage at the end that traced them having the same fight constantly through the various stages of their on-off relationship. But they will never stop fighting, for two reasons (well, three, if you count the fact that they're fictional and that their conflict has been manufactured for dramatic interest): (1) they are pretty stubborn characters, and (2) they don't even agree about why they're fighting.

• They will never stop fighting because they both stubbornly cling to one of a pair of extreme views, and the very premises of their arguments are so different it makes agreement pretty much impossible. This is why conservative Christians and gays will never party together: One side views being gay as a natural character trait, while the other views it as a flaw and temptation to be overcome. The argument isn't about whether it's bad or not to be gay; it's over whether being gay is a choice, and the two sides are so violently apart on where the base their positions that they will never find a middle ground. It's like staging a debate between someone who believes in a heliocentric solar system and someone who thinks green is the best possible color. The two theses aren't even in the same ballpark. That's why Matt and Harriet, if they continue their current course, will never stop fighting. He's not saying her specific beliefs are irrational; he's saying that any kind of belief at all is irrational. She likes the sun, and he wants to color it green.

• However, most of the time I found myself either unmoved completely by either side or deferring to Matt, mainly because Harriet bugs the hell out of me. When Matt breaks the news to Harriet about Tom Jeter's brother being kidnapped — so much for just standing in the middle of Afghanistan — she drops to her knees in the writers' room, surrounded by her colleagues, and begins to pray. Later, she explains to Matt that she believes what Jesus said when he instructed his followers to ask things in his name, going so far as to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (Leave aside for a moment the fact that Harriet is surprisingly conversant in the Old Testament, when most evangelicals only know Genesis 1:1 and Jeremiah 29:11, the latter of which has been printed on so many mugs and cards and shirts it would make you puke.) But Harriet's piety is relentlessly annoying, mainly because someone clearly so familiar with the gospels would (one assumes) be familiar with Jesus' exhortation in the Semon on the Mount, detailed in Matthew's (ha) gospel, in which he specifically tells people not to pray like Harriet does. Matthew 6:5-8 reads in part:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. (emphasis added)

If Harriet legitimately believed with even a fraction of the fervor she claims to have and with which Sorkin has supposedly imbued her, she would have bolted from the room and found some place she could have been alone, where she could have more honestly acted out her faith to petition God. I know it's a small point to some and likely nonexistent to others, but the way her faith became a public performance was unsettling. I was grateful the scene ended there, instead of having her pray on camera; moments of genuine spiritual connection are notoriously difficult to capture on camera, and I have a feeling hers would have felt horribly phony.

• That's actually what made the episode's closing moments so intriguing. Harriet offered to teach Matt how to pray, and he brushed her off, but as they were leaving the building, he hung back and spent one brief moment on the edge of frustrated tears: He gave his chest one quick tap over the heart and lifted up a hand and pleaded, "Show me something." This is one of the most honest prayers I've probably ever seen on TV, and certainly more refreshing and compelling than Harriet's acts of public sanctimony. Matt's doubt is a key ingredient to the maturation of any kind of belief system, whether it's political or religious or anything else, and instead of statically coasting like Harriet, he's actually willing to concede in his moments of desperation a need for help. And who can't relate to that?

"Batman vs. Superman:

I'm not doing a comprehensive look at the comics, movies, and lore of each of these guys. I'm solely going off of the mid-'90s animated series on each.

Batman wins, easy.

If I'm Batman, I'm a bad-ass, shadow-stalking detective with genuinely frightening stories. … I mean villans whose psychosis is so profound they could be an entire lecture series. A show where the bad guy can and sometimes does win. So — gritty darkness wins.

Superman — seriously, that guy is a city planner's nightmare. 'Maybe we should put in the new business center on Fourth Street.' 'Yeah, so Superman can throw someone through it.' No joke, the only thing Superman ever did was beat people up. And not just with his hands: He would through them into building, smash someone else's car over them, and pick trees out of the ground to use as clubs.

I think he got kickbacks from the construction firm Metropolis used."

I think Billy Connolly found the greatest role ever: No lines, and all you have to do is walk around and grunt.

Clickety-click.

• There won't be a cute girl sitting next to you on the flight. Either of them. But really, is that so bad? Would you really have done anything? You're better off sitting next to an empty chair or the guy in his 40s who keeps pulling out a journal-ish looking book and writing in it. It's just easier.

• Houston afternoons are impossibly muggy, weighed down by the kind of oppressive heat that rubs your face raw like a pillow and ruins your clothes. And yes, the high heels would suck, as well as the constant makeup and having to live slightly underweight in order to be appreciated by an increasingly skewed society, but women also get to wear skirts to things like weddings, and I can only imagine the holy wonder of having a breeze constantly blowing up your legs and keeping you a little cooler. I'd put up with a stomach-restraining magic elastic waistband for the sheer joy of feeling air circulate around my thighs.

• Houston is the biggest city in Texas. That's probably the only redeeming thing to be said about it, and even that trait doesn't get you very far. I spent 72 hours in the city and saw nothing aside from endless acres of car dealerships, strip malls, and franchises, franchises, franchises. It's like Starbucks and Chili's got together and had a hellacious orgy and spewed their little baby restaurants across the coastal plain. I'm not saying there's nothing interesting in Houston, just that I covered a lot of ground and didn't see it.

• Going home to the place you used to live is always weird; what you once took for granted becomes foreign and surprising. The abundance of quality and affordable Mexican food, for instance. A lunch that would have run me $11-$12 in L.A. was $7.50 in Houston, and that's a wonderful thing to keep rediscovering on successive trips. Of course, it also works the other way: I'm always floored by the amount of pickups on the road and the sheer open space of everything.

• Seriously, Houston is hot.

• It's also always inherently weird to travel from a place where marriage is viewed as a risky option to be entered into cautiously to a place and culture where it's much more encouraged, especially among younger people, especially especially especially among younger people who grew up in some kind of church. Being 25 and single in L.A. makes you pretty much a normal face in the crowd; in some parts of Texas it makes you stand out. And it also makes your grandmother wonder if you're gay. Marriage is a good thing, but it's disorienting to pass from one realm into another with nothing but a plane ride. I think you should have to have a passport, or at least sit through an obligatory briefing on board your aircraft, before entering Texas or California. Just as a reminder.

• But there's a funny thing about that heat. In early summer, Texas nights are as warm as Los Angeles days, which makes for another in the long line of geographical disconnects, but Texas summer nights are damn beautiful things. The heat's burned off but the air is still warm, and while SoCal nights can be chilly or downright cold near the ocean, Texas midnights under the bruised but smog-free sky are never anything short of transcendant, with the countryside opening up and actual stars coming out for a few hours and everything generally feeling full of the possibilities that only punch-drunk twentysomethings can feel when the moon's out, and which will be clumsily erased by morning. Texas summer nights are easily one of the best things about the place, along with Rudy's Barbecue and the lack of a state sales tax. An old buddy of mine used to call it lawn time; grabbing some lawn time at dusk or late night is key to keeping your wits about you in Texas, to remembering that there are good things there that not even the heat and the humidity and the rednecks can take away. If you can make it through the day, the night is always waiting, and it is always worth it.

So long, trusty Norelco.

You served me well for five good years, always ready to keep my facial hair neatly trimmed. Your detachable head came in handy when I wanted to trim small areas or maintain my sideburns, which I gamely sported all through college, because I took pride in my ability to grow them. Your sturdy handle, cast in a somehow manly magenta plastic, has been a constant presence in my young adult life.

Why did you die? We'll never know. You were fine before I flew to Houston; I used you that morning, and you didn't complain. True, your battery hasn't been what it once was, and I've had to keep you plugged in all the time, but that was always your way, trusty friend: You served without reservation. Did the flight somehow break you? Did you perhaps just decide it was time to move on? All I have are questions with no answers.

Take care, old friend. Tomorrow morning, a brand new Remington will take your place in my bathroom, but never my heart.

Trim on.

[Note: This has been cross-posted at Pajiba.]

I'm at a loss for words to describe how happy I am that the phenomenally stupid people who made up the cast of "The Real World: Las Vegas" have been put back on the air and unleashed on an unsuspecting but assuredly grateful nation by the soulless corporate overlords at MTV. The Las Vegas season, airing in 2002, was probably the greatest (read:sh*thouse insane awesome) season of "The Real World" since 1999's Hawaii installment, which was glorious. The cast members were drunk way more often than any of their previous counterparts, which seemed an impossible feat, but they rose to the challenge. They were all also recruited to have sex with each other. This wasn't particularly new to "The Real World," which by the end of the '90s had come a long way from deigning to put fairly average-looking people on TV as it did in its auspicious first run; sorry, but those original New Yorkers weren't exactly photogenic. But most seasons included at least one cast member who was on the show simply because they were an entertaining person, not because they were expected to get laid with any kind of regularity. Examples include Seattle's Irene, who was infamously bitch-slapped by Stephen the day she left the house, and Hawaii's Matt, who was affable and goofy and didn't do much all season except watch Colin and Amaya implode and put up with the deeply weird sexual advances of Kaia, who even as a teenager freaked me out.¹ But the Vegas kids: Now, there was a group of people whose sole purpose was to screw on camera. The first episode involved all kinds of hot tub shenanigans and three-way kisses and crazy amounts of sexual tensions, as if the dumbest and hottest kids at your high school had been dropped into a giant terrarium with a sixer of PBR and five hits of X and told to just have a good time. It promised nothing but glorious drama — by which I mean the kind manufactured by reality TV producers and emotionally stunted women and men, not genuine interpersonal conflict that leads to growth — and it delivered. It even launched the "career" of Trishelle, who would go on to appear on a few of the Challenges as well as pose for Playboy pictorial. (Not that that itself is terribly original; "Road Rules: South Pacific" cast member Cara also stripped for Hugh Hefner and was even a Playmate of the Month. Even in softcore porn, Trishelle is a loser².)

Anyway, perhaps realizing that the show has been tanking in recent years — I kept hoping one of the roommates on the Key West season would die since it was filmed when Hurricane Rita hit — executive producer Jonathan Murray and Satan got together and decided to whip up "Reunited: The Real World — Las Vegas," which picks up 5 years later by rounding up all the roommates and putting them back in that suite at the Palms, where precedent points to the inevitable drama, drinking, and sexually ambiguous practices for which "The Real World" so desperately aims. And man, right away the show is fantastic, by which I mean everyone is just as dumb as you remember them being. Maybe even more so. I love you, MTV.

My memories of the terms on which the roommates parted is pretty fuzzy, but so far it's been great to see Frank and Steven palling around like some kind of Rat Pack reinterpreted by guys who think K-Fed was onto something. I remember some tension between them toward the beginning of the original Vegas season because Frank, who sported a high-wall haircut kinda like Dignan, privately confessed his desire to get all up inside Trishelle to Steven, who subsequently encouraged Frank to go after her while Steven himself played it cool and hung back, essentially setting up Frank for the fall because Frank was willing to go after her, and that kind of directness was bound to backfire. I guess, thinking about it, that this is actually pretty devious of Steven, but I still don't think it means his ability to pull off a hormone-driven scheme means he's any kind of scholar, just that he probably watched a lot of TV and had the kind of high school experience that most people don't (i.e., he got laid way more often). But anyway, now they seem to be copacetic, meaning the story editors are going to have to work to come up with some sufficiently dramatic storylines; so far Steven got hammered and maybe assaulted a girl by the pool, earning him an episode-long ban from the patio that Frank valiantly and successfully fought to have overturned, which is pretty weak plotting. Then again, the fact we're only a couple episodes in and they're already getting so drunk they're attacking strangers can be nothing but a good sign.

The girls promise to bring infinitely more drama, mainly because (a) women can do this like falling off a log, and (b) "The Real World" usually exclusively casts the kind of dumb alpha-girls who make other girls look really horrible by association. Granted, the producers do this with the men, too. But the men usually — usually — are just extreme versions of guys you know; they drink and fart and play basketball, just all to a greater extent and with a lot more riding on it. However, the women are often terrifying creatures, the kind of weird girls who got really into being manipulative ice queens in high school and have made the tragic mistake of thinking people in the real world³ can and do and should still act like that. Part of this is the fact that this particular cast includes four women and three men; had the balance fallen the other way, the season would have been more slanted toward mysogyny and fistfights. It's also an apparent oversight that the casting of the original season had a pretty huge overlap with Irulan and Arissa, both light-skinned black women prone to tears. Usually, MTV and Bunim-Murray Productions try to spread around the stereotypes. For instance, the Denver season had two Christian guys, which normally would've been overkill, except that one of them was black and conservative and one was pretty and blonde and gay. See? Spread it around. But for the sake of the show, Irulan and Arissa are pretty much the same person. The downside of this is that it's harder to care about either of them; the upside is that having two equally crazy people who are crazy in such similar ways in one apartment is a lot more dynamic, and guaranteed to start some pretty messed-up stuff.

It's also hilarious and sad to see Brynn, who's still cute and relatively spunky, carting her infant around Las Vegas. It's not surprising that she got married and spawned in the years since her brief stint as a reality TV star ended, but I really hope that kid doesn't have any kind of congenital defects or alcohol-related problems that have yet to make themselves known, because mama was and is a partier. But the fact that she has a kid, damaged though that kid might become, also makes her the most human, instead of the dramatic placeholders and caricatures that the rest of the roommates became.

Ultimately, "Reunited: The Real World — Las Vegas" is one of the greatest ideas MTV has ever had, and also the surest sign yet that the network's eventual downfall is inevitable. MTV cultivates a mindset that of both infinitely reusability and instant forgettability; this is how videos can dominate "TRL" for weeks at a time⁴, only to be promptly forgotten when something better newer comes along. It's also how MTV can keep churning out the exact same reality show for 15 years but slap on a facade of freshness by relocating to a new and as-yet-unsullied (by the roommates anyway) city. But the reunited Vegas cast is being recycled from something that already aired, and not just the specific concept, but the actual people. These people aren't supposed to be here; we finished with them a long time ago. By turning back on itself and offering up a part of its past as something ostensibly new, MTV is effectively eating itself. It won't be long before the kids are being reunited to talk about what it was like to be reunited, and what used to be seven fresh-faced and weak-willed individuals wil have transformed into a bland entity whose sole purpose is to sell the worth of its own existence. So drink up, kids; you're only young twice.

<sup>1. The Hawaii season actually highlights the inherent problem of casting more intellectually gifted roommates, namely, the fact that gay elitist Justin hated everyone else because he (probably rightly) thought they were kinda slow. He said that fellow cast member Teck's antics were "so tired it's comatose." Justin quit the show to go back to school; Teck went on to costar in National Lampoon's Van Wilder with Ryan Reynolds and a set of fake bulldog testicles. Draw your own conclusions.
2. Google her. She had obviously not yet appeared in Playboy in the spring of 2003, when my roommates and I would catch reruns of the show and one of my roommates, who shall remain nameless, would pontificate about Trishelle's hotness. He, or perhaps one of his friends, also remarked upon seeing Britney Spears one day on "TRL": "Man, look how low that skirt is. I bet her hoof starts right below that." That guy worried me. Anyway, the point was that had Trishelle's nudie photos been available at that time, I doubt I would have seen that particular roommate more than 4 hours total per day, and I also would have had to start using the other bathroom.
3. Hehe.
4. I assume. I haven't seen the show in years, and can only guess at what's actually going on there. But I'm probably right.</sup>

I had this all planned out, and it was gonna be pretty cool. After many months of toiling to repair my iTunes and realizing that my hard drive isn't quite as spacious as I'd like it to be (long story), I was going to create and publish iMixes and then link to them here. We did a similar thing over at Pajiba a while back, only I wouldn't be requesting songs from you (at least not so soon after last time), but instead sharing some of the alt-country and other mixes I've made over the past few years, both as a way to share some good tunes and conspicuously declare my tastes while also subtly seeking your validation, since you know you're the only reason I do this. Yes, you.

Anyway, it turns out that some of the tracks in my mixes aren't available on iTunes, thus making the creation and publication of iMixes at the very least problematic. So I've decided to just post the track lists, with iTunes links where available, and let you buy the songs yourself. Or buy the CDs. (These are good artists, and I don't really believe in piracy anyway, and if you live in the L.A. area you can just come over and borrow the albums. Or if you'll be in Texas the next time I am, give me a heads-up and I will bring the CDs. I swear.)

So, with that in mind, here's a mix I made between 3 and 4 years ago. It's fascinating to keep all these different mixes in occasional rotation in my car (I listen almost exclusively to CDs instead of the radio), because each one is a reminder of particular songs I was deeply obsessed with at a certain point in my life. I still love all these songs, of course, but you know what it's like to need to hear a song daily, to inject it in your bloodstream and let it guide you. I've listened to these compilations so often that when I listen to the full albums from which the individual tracks were drawn, I always suffer the schism of alternate realities when the songs end, since half of me patiently waits for the album's next track but the other half anticipates hearing the track I placed after that song on a separate mix. I love that. The first version of this mix was good, but shorter, and this version incorporated some songs I got from a friend who made me a mix called The Gospel According to [his name], which is itself a damn fine compilation. So this album owes a debt to him, and to the great city of Buna. Here it is:

Alt 2.0
1. "Timebomb," Old 97's — This remains probably the greatest album-opening track of all time.

2. "Firecracker," Ryan Adams — Beautiful. I still think Ryan Adams is a great artist, but I wonder if he'll ever recapture some of the magic of his old stuff.

3. "Wildflowers," Tom Petty — I listened to this album a lot in high school. That should tell you plenty.

4. "Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart Tonight," Whiskeytown — Great lyrics, great steel guitar, and guest vocals from Alejandro Escovedo. Stranger's Almanac was their best album, hands down.

5. "Forget the Flowers," Wilco — Country-rock and power-pop Wilco will always be better than electronically self-indulgent Wilco. Like, always.

6. "Tampa to Tulsa," The Jayhawks — Can't think of anything particularly worth adding here. Just a good song about a bus trip, and how many of those can there be?

7. "Birds Sing," The Refreshments — I have many, many opinions about The Refreshments, including the utter laughable waste Roger Clyne has become, but their second studio album is still fantastic, and this is a great country-rock track. But one thing always bugs me: The chorus in part says, "It's a melody I stole from a bathroom wall / And it's the words I hear the birds sing." That's backwards, Roger. It would make infinitely more sense if you stole the words from a bathroom wall, where people carve words, and the melody from a bird, because birds cannot speak. Anyway, it's a great song, grammatical screw-ups notwithstanding.

8. "Murder (Or a Heart Attack)," Old 97's — A great track for those just getting into the 97's and wanting to start poppier.

9. "Angelyne," The Jayhawks — One of the best songs in the history of recorded time.

10. "Windfall," Son Volt — This is the first Son Volt song I ever heard, and it felt as if I'd heard it before. A cynic would chalk it up to the fact that Jay Farrar may have just been recycling Uncle Tupelo sounds and country heritage, but that person would be a soulless douche. No, it felt like I'd heard it before because it connected with me instantly in a way only a great song can. It was so pure, so honest, so downright transcendent, that it seemed it had always existed, and all Jay Farrar did was scratch the surface of something to find it and write it down.

11. "Oh My Sweet Carolina," Ryan Adams — Because college is about feeling like you know the depth of the world's sorrow.

12. "Don't Wanna Know," The Refreshments — A more mainstream electric ballad, but it fits the CD. I listened to this album a lot in high school, too. A lot.

13. "Someone Else's Song," Wilco — Good grief. I was totally that guy in college, you know?

14. "I'm Good Now," Bob Schneider — A great song from a really solid album. Some of my fondest memories of senior year are listening to this album in my roommate's bedroom while watching him play an endless series of RPGs and talking about women.

15. "Bad Time," The Jayhawks — This is my Patsy Cline song.

16. "Houses on the Hill," Whiskeytown — Arguably among the three greatest songs Whiskeytown ever recorded.

17. "Far, Far Away," Wilco — Untouchably wonderful.

Why the hell Rainy Day Music and Tomorrow the Green Grass aren't on iTunes is beyond me, but it's a travesty. Anyway, have fun.

When your female mid-40s coworker hands you a two-sided 4x6 card advertising her erotica-themed podcast. There are photos. One of her.

Meh:

Clickety-click.

You all know about lolcats by now, if you read this blog. There are plenty of offshoots, but this one's pretty entertaining: theoLOLgians. I found out about it through Kendall-Ball, and was immediately inspired to create one of my own:

Then there's this one, titled "LOLOsteen," from another user who I sincerely hope is flattered that I'm doing this and not pissed that I had to rip off the photo to share it here. Don't sue me or anything. Enjoy:

I know the group is only for a frighteningly narrow band of people whose humor and theology are of a certain bent, but come on, this is just fantastic.

• Judd Apatow is quickly becoming the master of making raunchy comedies that actually enforce personal responsibility and eschew the typical frat mentality that idolizes sloth in favor of a straight-laced, mature, and even moralistic lifestyle. The 40-Year-Old Virgin was a fantastic comedy because it mixed gross-out gags — e.g., Andy's peeing on himself while struggling with morning wood — with an equally blunt look at the emotional side of the story. That film was, after all, a story about a guy who waits until he's married to have sex, despite having at least two women offer themselves to him and even, one supposes, having the opportunity to sleep with Trish after revealing his sexual immaturity but before actually walking down the aisle on the side of that giant hill. And Trish's glancing shout to her daughter that "We are going back to church!" when the young girl expresses an interest in obtaining birth control can't just be an accident, can it? Not that Apatow means to shoehorn organized religion into his stories. But the invoking of a higher moral authority is at least a sign that Apatow recognizes the existence and necessity of living a life that includes accountability, and personal responsibility. That's already the second time I've used the phrase "personal responsibility," and it's likely to come up again, because Apatow's latest film, Knocked Up, is an epic paean to the upsides of taking stock of your life and deciding to, well, grow up a little. It's still a comedy, though, and every bit as graphic and hilarious and weirdly wonderful and geek-infested as The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But by shifting the subject matter from personal sexual liberation to pregnancy and child care, Apatow charts the next logical course in what could wind up being a series of films about postmodern losers and the sad and terrible and occasionally beautiful lives they find themselves living.

• Ben (Seth Rogen) is a more gregarious version of Virgin's Andy, but even more immature. He lives in a dirty house with a posse of roommates like he's still in college, and he wastes his days getting high and trying weakly to get his celebrity nudity site online. He's a slob, but he's also not without a relatively sensitive side: He's clearly flummoxed by women, as witnessed when he has an awkward meet-cute with Alison (Katherine Heigl), who walks away after he buys her a drink. He says he'll see her later, but he admits to himself he won't, then finds his buddies and says he just wants to get drunk. Andy was childlike in his innocence, a hermetically sealed and naive spirit who just may have been happy staying home and playing with his action figures. Ben, on the other hand, is aware of his loneliness, or at least his singleness, and that makes for a much darker and more realistic premise. Knocked Up is full of moments and themes like that one, where the characters butt up against an uncomfortable reality that can't be easily laughed off.

• Alison, on the other hand, is an aspiring TV producer, which is a nicely average ambition for an attractive blonde in Los Angeles. If the jobs of Apatow's men reflect their generic stations in life — tech-savvy but still somewhat aimless — then the jobs of his female characters are either plot devices or irrelevant. In Virgin, Trish worked at an eBay resale store solely for the purpose of eventually clearing out Andy's old toy collection and collecting a six-figure windfall. But Alison's job is completely beside the point, and doesn't serve to do anything except let Ryan Seacrest swear on-camera. It's a shame that Apatow didn't invest the same care in Alison's career that he did in other aspects of the script, or at least give it a purpose (I kept hoping the B-roll of Seacrest's rant would come back later, but it didn't, which was a wasted callback opportunity).

• In fact, the best female character in the film was Alison's sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann), the somewhat frigidly beautiful wife of goofy generic music exec Pete (Paul Rudd). There are several reasons for this, not least of which is that her supporting character status means Apatow doesn't have to try and saddle her with a job that has some kind of external significance. And it's only partly because Mann is Apatow's wife, and he clearly knows how to write for her in ways that emphasize her gifts of timing and delivery. It's that she's 35, and while Apatow has no problem tapping into the male mindset of any age group, he's more sure-footed when dealing with women his own age. The secondary plot that follows Pete and Debbie's rocky relationship, and charts the tangential relationships between Debbie and Alison and between Pete and Ben, was often meatier than the pregnancy story simply because it had the benefit of (probably) more accurately reflecting things Apatow knows more about. Apatow turns 40 this year, by no means an old man, but the fog of being 26 has surely faded as he's come to grips with what it means to be a father. What makes Pete and Debbie's relationship so interesting to watch is that they clearly love their kids, and have no plans to get divorced, but are also completely confused as to how they got so lost. They still love each other, but have forgotten how to like each other, and it's a welcome change to see an onscreen couple actually working through things instead of just divorcing and moving on. Pete is dumbfounded at how his problems aren't really problems at all, not on a big scale: His main complaint is that Debbie loves him so much that she wants him around all the time, and he doesn't know how to deal with that.

• It's still a hilarious movie, full of sick humor and geek love. The degree of Apatow's nerdiness becomes apparent when an editor working with Alison sees her vomit and compares it to "Jabba the Hutt dying," then does the little back-and-forth tongue thing Jabba did when Leia strangled him on the barge. It's such a fantastically specific reference it would almost be easy to overlook it, and it's a wonderful signifier that Apatow has been and will continue to be a friend to freaks and geeks. And the moral undertones don't diminish the blue humor quotient one bit; if anything, things here are even more sexually blunt than they were in Virgin. But again, the graphic sexuality usually works to embroider the characters, as in the scene when Ben and Alison try to figure out a workable position where Ben won't feel like he's crushing the baby. (On a personal note, I completely understand his fear. I mean, there's a person in there. It's like I'm invading his/her space in the worst way.)

• Still, Knocked Up flirts with the kinds of darkness that The 40-Year-Old Virgin never had to touch, which makes it a much tougher comedy at times. "I'm the guy girls f*ck over," Ben confesses to Alison at one point, and it's easy to see he isn't lying. Debbie looks at him and says to Alison, "He's overweight; where does that end?" Ben's attitude coasts past self-deprecating and stops short of a kind of self-loathing, which is infinitely sadder than Andy's wide-eyed way of just quietly going through life. And then, good grief, the film breezed through the abortion sequence with a disturbing lack of depth. There was never any doubt that Alison would keep the kid, since a movie about a one-night stand and her subsequent abortion would be much shorter and damn depressing. But the film hit a rocky patch when Apatow had to come up with a way to have Alison consider abortion as an option — she is, after all, an ostensibly secular and career-oriented woman working in the industry — but then to reject it and decide to raise the child. On the whole, the film is a little overlong, but it's hard to see just what Apatow could have done, considering he had to cram in 9 months of relationship issues and tough decisions into 2 hours. But the confrontation of abortion almost pushed the film into a paradox — mention it and it becomes a drama; avoid it and it loses its resonance — which is probably why Apatow's characters only referred to the problem as getting the pregnancy "taken care of," in the parlance of Alison's randomly cold mother (Joanna Kerns, seemingly taking a break from Lifetime movies), or a "shmashmortion," in the joking terminology of Ben's friend Jonah (Jonah Hill). Knocked Up isn't quite as tightly paced as The 40-Year-Old Virgin, which was itself somewhat loose, but it takes advantage of its occasional languor to play with some heavy content. And if Apatow's willing to take the risks to explore modern life through comedy, I can forgive him a few length issues.

• Ultimately, Knocked Up is a raunchy, crass, funny, uproarious, sweet, and heartfelt look at what happens when people are forced to come to grips with the two-pronged hell that is young adult life: namely, the necessity of accepting personal responsibility for your actions, and the inability to prepare for the challenges and surprises life has in store. The major problems in the film all deal with these in some way and allow the characters to work through them: Alison's OB/GYN is out of town when she goes into labor (challenge) so she has to reconcile with the doctor she previously abandoned (acceptance); Ben's online startup fails (challenge) so he winds up getting a cubicle job (acceptance); etc. One of the film's many honest exchanges is between Ben and his dad (Harold Ramis), who looks with bemusement the pickle Ben's in while Ben pleads for help and guidance. "Just tell me what to do," Ben says; and who hasn't felt that? Who hasn't wished for someone to turn to who had the answers? But Apatow makes his point clear: Life isn't that easy. There is no set path, and certainly no guarantee of happiness, but we do it because it's what there is to do, and because buried in all the crap are occasional moments of genuine joy. Sitting in the park watching Pete's kids, Ben asks him, "Am I gonna be okay?" Pete just shrugs and says, "I don't know, man. Is anybody okay?" But later, as Ben and Alison are driving their daughter home from the hospital and the strains of Loudon Wainwright bounce with the sun off the Pacific, Apatow almost offers an answer.

So it goes.