VAGUE SPACE

An Ending Development

Well it's official.  Mostly.  Arrested Development is finally completely over.  Unless it's not.  Creator Mitch Hurwitz has officially closed the door on his own involvement in the series, which apparently came down to not enough money from Showtime for the time he has to put in to make the series as great as it is was.  Showtime had signed a deal with 20th Century Fox, as reported here and in various other places, for 2 years at 12 episodes each with an option for a third year.  But the deal was contingent on Mitch's continued involvement with the series he developed and ran.  And apparently, Mitch's heart isn't in it anymore.  At least not at their price.  Variety quotes him:   

    "The fans have been so ardent in their devotion and in return ... I've given everything I can to the show in order to try to live up to their expectations," Hurwitz told Daily Variety on Monday in a telephone interview from Gotham. "I finally reached a point where I felt I couldn't continue to deliver that on a weekly basis."

Nonetheless, Hurwitz said he put off making a final decision on his involvement so Showtime and 20th could talk about a possible deal.

"Of course, if there was enough money in it, I would have happily abandoned the fans' need for quality. But as it turns out, there wasn't," he said.

Chick Music

I've never been a big fan of female musicians for whatever reason.  In fact, if you look at my Top 100 songs of all time from a few weeks ago, you'll notice the complete absence of any women singing.  Gillian Gilbert, New Order's keyboardist, is probably the only female on the entire list.  Which is odd to say the least.  In the past, I've been a fan of Ani DiFranco and Liz Phair and Natalie Merchant when I was younger and she was still a Maniac.  But there's been a dearth in recent years, as indie rock - at least the kind that I like - is mostly the domain of skinny white emo boys.  That's changing though, as females have had a string of recent indie acclaim as key members of Rilo Kiley, Arcade Fire, Cat Power, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Metric, Dresden Dolls, Love is All, Mates of State and other hot in-bands of the moment.  And you know what, they're pretty damn great.  So in honor of that, here's some female led songs for your enjoyment, starting with half of the great Canadian indie rockers Stars, who had my #6 favorite song of 2005.  Amy Millan's debut album is called Honey from the Tombs and the first single oozes with cool style.

Download Amy Millan - "Skinny Boy".mp3

And of course, veteran singer Chan Marshall and her band Cat Power have released one of the top indie rock albums of the new year, The Greatest.

Download Cat Power - "Love and Communication".mp3

Download Cat Power - "Dreams (Japanese Bonus Track)".mp3

And a special acoustic version of Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Maps" off their last album Fever to Tell.

Download Yeah Yeah Yeah - "Maps (acoustic)".mp3

NL Preview 2006

Following up last week's highly debated AL Preview, we will now delve into the superior Senior Circuit to find out just who will go on to the World Series against my surprise American League pick, the Oakland Athletics.  And I say "superior" because I grew up as a Phillies fan and therefore a National League fan, turned off by the impurity that is the designated hitter, and the horridness that is the New York Yankees.  Of course later in life, Edgar Martinez became my favorite baseball player and he kind of made his living as a DH.  So I don't have a bias against the AL anymore.  I still hate the Yankees though. 

In reality, the National League has been a pretty sorry affair in the last couple decades.  The only teams to win a World Series since 1990 from the NL were the '95 Braves, the '97 Marlins, the '01 Diamondbacks, and the '03 Marlins.  In other words, the dynastic Braves and 3 expansion clubs that didn't exist back in 1990 (and whose teams fell apart or were torn apart shortly after their championships).  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to call any National League team a consistent success in recent years, with the exception of the Braves, and possibly the Cardinals, teams more defined by their World Series failures than any successes.  In the meantime, the Yankees, Red Sox, and Angels have been consistent successes with rings to show for it.  The Blue Jays won two titles in the early '90s.  The Indians won 7 straight division crowns.  And the Mariners won the most games in a season in major league history.  The A's went to the playoffs in multiple years on shoestring budgets, while the White Sox joined the Red Sox in erasing a nearly century long curse.  The Cubs?  They didn't even make it to the Series.  Heck, the National League had a team almost contracted, then bought out by the league, and moved to a city without a new ballpark and still without an owner.  The AL team that almost got contracted (the Twins) went on to win the division that year and the next.  So yeah, the AL has dominated.  But what about this season?

The Motherland

My ancestors hail exclusively from Germany (and Austria), so I've always wanted to visit the Motherland.  But since I don't really fly or travel or you know, leave the state of New Jersey, last week's episode of The Amazing Race in and around Germany was the next best thing.  It was actually the 2nd part of a 2-part leg that began in Russia and ended in Moscow with Phil telling teams that they needed to fly to Frankfurt because the leg wasn't over.  Eric and Jeremy were the first ones to arrive there, and get on the first flight to Germany.   

    Jeremy:  "Eric and me hugging wasn't very romantic.  It was kinda gay."

And the race begins...

Brackets Busted

What a tournament.  What a ridiculous, unbelievable, buzzer-beating, annoying, horribly-refereed, disastrously seeded, amazing tournament.  For the first time since 1980 (and second time ever), no #1 seeds made it to the Final Four.  And for the first time since Larry Bird's top-ranked Indiana State team in 1979, a mid major has made it to the Final Four.  And it's not Gonzaga.  Or someone from the highly touted Missouri Valley conference.  No, it's Colonial Athletic Association member George Mason.  A team that lost to Hofstra.  Twice.  Is in the Final Four.  What the fuck?  No Big East teams.  No ACC teams.  No Big Ten.  No Big 12.  But the Colonial Athletic Association.  No Duke.  No UConn.  No North Carolina or Kansas or Kentucky.  No senior-laden Villanova or Memphis squads.  No national player of the year candidates.  None of that.  Just four schools that got hot, got a few lucky bounces, and didn't shrink under the lights of the big time.  Three of them featuring lineups loaded with freshmen and sophomores, supposed to be at least a year of two from making their mark.  Plus one school that I couldn't even name a single member of before today.  Florida.  Louisiana State.  UCLA.  George Mason.  What a freakin' disaster.

Lover I Don't Have to Love

The O.C. is unwatchable.  It's been in the midst of a steady spiral since early in Season 2, and here we are in the midst of a truly horrific Season 3 that has finally lost me forever.  The entire Johnny plotline that resulted in his "tragic" (as in tragically boring) death was the end for me.  Sort of.  I've been behind at least 2 episodes on TiVo but I watched this week's episode after the end of the Duke game.  And I realized finally, that there is nothing redeeming about this show anymore.  I could really care less about any of the characters.  The actors are blatantly going through the motions (Adam Brody most egregiously).  And the writers' attempts to bring some new energy - or anything - to the series by introducing multiple storylines a week involving tertiary characters just is doing nothing for me.  We end up with a new character (like last night's Jess) who just ends up acting like Marissa, so we see Ryan reacting the same boring way in the same boring manner.  It's just unbearable. 

But the thing that has taken me over the edge, the thing that has made me unwilling to ever turn on Fox on a Thursday night again (or any other night for that matter, now that Arrested Development is gone), was that they used an incredible song as the background music for the episode - a definite factor in their favor through the years - but this time, instead of the brilliant original version of Bright Eyes' "Lover I Don't Have to Love", they substituted some weak, ethereal version featuring some horrible chick singing the lines, devoid of Conor's irony.  The cover was by Bettie Serveert, which I think is a Norweigan or Danish band or something and I'm sure they're great and all, but they're no fucking Bright Eyes.   The O.C. may have asked Conor to use the original and he turned them down (he's not as big into whoring his music as Death Cab is), but even if that is so, they should have just moved on to a different song.  Because that was just a disgrace.  Not as disgraceful as Adam Brody's performance this season, but really bad.  Read on to download the original version of the song.  And please help me not to waste my time with this show anymore. 

The Return of Chef

   

    Chef:  "I want to stick my balls inside your rectum, Kyle."

Yeah, so I guess there's no chance of Isaac Hayes ever coming back.  In the disturbingly hilarious and brilliant 10th season premiere of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone get back at Hayes for leaving the show a week ago due to their "intolerance and bigotry towards religious beliefs of others".  Of course, Hayes was on the show for years without public complaint, while on an almost weekly basis the creators poked sarcastic fun at Christianity, Catholicism, Islam, and especially their own Judiasm.  But it wasn't until last season's attack on the voice of Chef's own Scientology that he decided to leave.  And that didn't please his former employers, as they turned him into a hypnotized, crazy pedophile who wanted to have sex with the child stars of the show.  And they used his own voice to do it.  It was laugh-out loud funny satire at its best, unless of course you are a friend of Isaac Hayes. 

AL Baseball Preview

Shockingly, especially since it's still freezing cold here in New Jersey, spring arrived this week and the baseball season is less than 2 weeks away.  I've already had a fantasy draft, have another one scheduled for next week, and have purchased tickets to 7 separate Phillies games this summer, the first one on April 23rd against the defanged Marlins (that should be a win, right?)  So it's about time for the first half of the Vague Space annual baseball preview.  Last year's preview was probably inaccurate, but I don't have the energy to look it up so I'm assuming I picked White Sox over the Astros in the World Series.  I said it would take 7 games though, so I'm not sure how much credit you can give me.  I did insist multiple times in this space that the Yankees would not win the American League East pennant.  Since the Red Sox ended up tying the Yankees for first, I'm giving myself credit for that prediction as well.  The Yankees won it on a tiebreaker?  That's just a technicality, and much like President Bush I don't want to admit that I might possibly be wrong.  Let's just say the Yankees suck, lost to the Angels despite having the highest payroll in the history of sports, and didn't even make it to the ALCS.  Pathetic.  Not as bad as Bush has run the government, but pathetic nonetheless.

The Countdown

    "That's Countdown for this, the 1054th day since 'Mission Accomplished' was declared in Iraq." - Keith Olbermann, Monday March 20th, 2006.

I used to be a big Olbermann fan.  Back when he was co-hosting the 11 o'clock Sportscenter with Dan Patrick, dubbed "The Big Show" for its amazing blend of sports news, highlights, and sarcastic humor.  This was before the Internet took off and was really the only place in the world to catch a summary of the day's sports events, delivered with hilarious aplomb by the deadpan Olbermann and semi-straight man Patrick.  But Keith left the program, bored by simply reading sports headlines and tired of living in Bristol, CT, and shot some angry zingers at the ESPN brass on the way out.  He got a talk show on MSNBC, titled The Big Show, which failed miserably, while Sportscenter was done in by the growth of the Internet and ESPN's own desperate attempts to recapture young viewers by dumbing down the analysis and upping the amount of "boo-yah"s, virtually killing the program as it became irrelevant by the turn of the century.  Now I haven't watched Sportscenter at 11 pm in years, but I have recently stumbled back upon Mr. Olbermann, who is back with a not so new program on MSNBC, called Countdown that's apparently been around for three years but is generating recent buzz and surging ratings as the only news program on prime time television with an anti-Bush slant.  And you know what?  I'm very glad he's back.  The show is pretty damn good.

The Sopranos

My first recap of the show!  But don't blame me, it took them 2 years to put out another new season - and boy was it worth the wait!!!  Um... not so much.  Actually last night's episode was surprisingly good.  The first week was full of stuff - not really action so much as "stuff" that sort of all got thrown on the page in a rather incoherent manner and then someone got whacked - but not anyone we'd seen before - and the guy who whacked him killed himself - but he was someone we didn't really even know so who the fuck cares, and then Tony ate a lot of Japanese food.  Huh?  Yeah, we waited over 2 years for that.  Oh yeah, at the end Uncle Junior shoots Tony.  So that was kind of cool.  And sorry I ruined it for anyone waiting for the DVD.  It happened over a week ago.  And buy fucking HBO for crying out loud.  Let's just move on.