VAGUE SPACE

The Korean Bookie

First there were big vaginas, now there are big breasts.  And a once truly inspired show continues to wallow in cheap jokes and incessant Jewish-related humor.  Not that it's not funny, though.   

    Larry: "You go around calling Jeff a fat fuck."
    Susie: "He is a fat fuck.  Oscar's just big boned."

Oscar, the Greens' dog - who Jeff was once allergic to, who is a certified corpse-sniffing canine, and who once assaulted Larry's penis - goes missing (which is another recycled plot idea) shortly after meeting Larry's bookie, a Korean flower salesman who seems unusually taken with the large-sized mammal.  In the meantime, Larry is trying to fix the mess he made in last week's episode, when he let the Orthodex Jew girl jump from the ski lift.  As usual, nothing ends well.

The Zone Diet

The ESPN Zone in Times Square features two giant television screens mounted on a huge wall, surrounded by more normal sized plasma TVs showing every sporting event imaginable on a Sunday afternoon, including all 8 one o'clock NFL games as well as a college basketball matchup, an NBA contest, and I believe but I can't be sure, a Canadian Football League match between Winnepeg and Montreal.  In addition, there's an entire floor full of arcade style sports games from hoop shot to QB accuracy to air hockey and car racing, all to waste its customers' money and build up their appetites for the main event.  And the main event?  Shoving as much food and drinks into your mouth in the span of one day in order to cover the costs of having the privilege of taking the train at 9 am to get to the city and watch big TVs all day long.

The Final Four

Randal Pinkett, Rutgers alum and former acquaintance of yours truly, has made the final four of the 4th season of The Apprentice (The Donald Trump version, not the one featuring the ex-con that recently got cancelled).  And he appears to at least be a co-favorite, along with Alla, for the prestigious position of.. well, whatever the hell you do after you win The Apprentice, which if 1st season winner Bill Rancic is any indication, involves a lot of appearances on future episodes of the program kissing Trump's ass.  Which I'm sure is what Randal attended Oxford to do with his life.

Anyway, here are the rest of the final four in what has been a fairly entertaining season mostly devoid of the intense infighting and gratuitous camera-whoring that has been so frequently on display in previous seasons.  Well, at least since Clay got the boot two weeks ago. 

Along with Randal and Alla are Rebecca and the barely alive Felisha, who stands about as much chance at getting the job at this point as I do, but who at least survived the last episode emolation from Carolyn, who told Adam and her point blank that they were "by far" the worst remaining contestants.  Adam ended up getting fired, mostly because he was younger than Felisha - and probably Trump's grandkids.  And he had the personality of an office chair, although that didn't seem to hurt Bill Rancic too much.

So This is What the Volume Knob's For

Record Review

The Mountain Goats: The Sunset Tree
Rating:  7.3 (out of 10)

    Alright I'm on Johnson Avenue in San Luis Obispo
    And I'm five years old or six maybe.
    And indications that there's something wrong with our new house,
    Trip down the wire twice daily.
    I'm in the living room watching the Watergate hearings,
    While my stepfather yells at my mother
    Launches a glass across the room,
    Straight at her head.
    And I dash upstairs to take cover,
    Lean in close to my little record player on the floor,
    So this is what the volume knob's for,
    I listen to dance music.
    Dance music.

John Darnielle is a singer/songwriter specializing in sad tragic stories about American suburban life who has recorded and released a huge collection of albums under The Mountain Goats name, beginning in the '90s with cassette-only records self-produced using a boombox.  His sound has become more polished and his last few albums are studio recordings, with his latest The Sunset Tree achieving quite a modicum of notoriety for its raw honesty, highly literate lyrics, and acoustic stylings.  And while "Dance Music", a peculiar little track that first reminded me of the Dead Milkmen, was the first song I'd heard from this album (or from The Mountain Goats at all), the rest of the album is much more traditionally a singer-songwriter guitar based affair which includes a bunch of great tracks.

Thanksgiving

My favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal:

1. Mom's stuffing
2. Mashed potatoes, slathered with gravy
3. Cousin Joanne's green bean casserole
4. The turkey (white meat only)
5. Bread and butter pickles
6. Cranberry sauce
7. Cousin Cheryl's broccoli in bacon cream sauce
8. Mom's apple pie (although I rarely have room for dessert)
9. Pumpkin pie with whipped cream
10. Sweet Corn
11. Buttered rolls
12. Passing out from a combination of tryptophan, wine, and exhaustion from eating.  Good times.

To all my readers, have a happy Thanksgiving...

Download The Microphones - "Thanksgiving".mp3

Download Adam Sandler - "Turkey Song".mp3

The Ski Lift

On this week's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, regular Jew Larry David takes on Orthodox Judiasm, poking fun at its peculiar rituals, while also offending organ donors, skiiers ("it's a big schlep"), and a perhaps heretofore unknown affliction - women with unusually large... um, "private parts" (no, not breasts - the other one).  The plot revolves around Larry's ongoing efforts to avoid giving up a kidney to save Richard Lewis, whose cousin remains alive but in a coma, with perfectly working organs.

"Comas are very unpredictable," Jeff reminds Larry, but they luck into a chance encounter with George Lopez, who explains that they could help move Richard Lewis to the top of the donor list if they got in good with the doctor who runs the "Kidney Consortium".  The only problem?  He's an Orthodox Jew.  So Larry crashes into his car, leaves a note, and arranges a meeting, in full kvetching Jew mode.  And yeah, I'm not sure I'm using any of these Jew phrases correctly.  You know, Seinfeld at least made its show about topics that gentiles could follow for crying out loud.  And what the fuck is a Mitzvah?

iPod with Video VIDEOS!

In my review of the recently released 5G iPod with Video, I raved about the size and the sound quality and the battery life and the color screen and the cool new features that I'd been missing out on with my "old" (only 2 years, but old in this conversation) 3G iPod black & white.  But I didn't have much to say about the actual videos, since (a) I had only downloaded a single video (Death Cab's "Crooked Teeth" for $1.99) and (b) didn't know if or how much I'd use it.  It was certainly a cool, eye-popping addition, but I just wasn't sure how useful it was, or how much content was available.  But now I've found a treasure-trove of videos available for download which play on the iPod, and with a $19.00 Apple A/V cable, also play on your television.  And it looks great.  More on that later.

Priceless

Here's a quick summary of my Thursday...

3 am:   I wake up with a severe hacking cough resulting from a cold that I mistakenly thought had passed.  I can't get back to sleep.

8 am:   I decide to go to work anyway, since I was planning on going to the Garden that night for the Syracuse game via train from Woodbridge.  Plus, I'm a dedicated worker who doesn't like to miss work for any reason, even a potentially life-threatening illness.  I'm sorry, I just feel that way.

8:05:  As I walk in the door,  I get assaulted by the company president who has an "emergency" proposal that needs to be written - by me - before he leaves for the airport, ruining my plans for work for the day.  I knew I should have called in sick.

9:00:   The work is finished and I leave it on the president's desk.

9:30:   Coughing, hacking, wheezing, brief loss of  consciousness.

10:00:  The president returns with a few hundred changes and asks to have them done in 5 minutes.  I nod through the tears.

Scientology 101

Scientology is a pretty easy target for satire, and not just because of Tom Cruise's summer of psychotic ramblings on talk shows across the nation.  That doesn't stop South Park from skewering the "religion" in a pretty funny and effective way on last night's episode.  Now it wasn't nearly as good as the episode about the Mormon religion, but that was an all-time classic a few years ago.  This was certainly quality on its own.   

    Is this a church?  Because my parents are like Catholic or something.

Stan Marsh gets roped into the cult of Scientology after taking a free "personality test" that results in a diagnosis of severe depression which can only be solved by having himself "audited" by a professional.  For $240.  Stan, suddenly worried that he is depressed even though he didn't know it, decides to spend the money he'd saved up for a bike and take the plunge.  But the "e-meter" test reading of his "theton level" sets off alarm bells that resonate all the way back to the Scientology headquarters in California.  It seems that Stan is actually the second coming of the group's founder and savior, science fiction writer and alleged racist L. Ron Hubbard.

The Seder

Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry guest stars on this week's Curb Your Enthusiasm as a convicted sex offender who moves into Larry's neighborhood, befriends him with golf tips, and then attends the Davids' Passover feast.  But what was much more disturbing was my viewership of an actual Jewish Seder, which as far as I could tell involves a lot of eating, kvetching, and making kids go through an unnecessary amount of trouble just to get a dollar.  Actually that sounds like a typical weekday, so I'm not sure what the big deal is. 

    Cheryl: "Seems to be a lot of trouble you people go through."
    Larry: "I don't know if I like that phrase 'you people'."
    Cheryl: "Ok... you Jews."
    Larry: "That's better."