TV's top 35

The Post posted it: Here's their list of the top 35 shows ever. Check it out and see if you agree. FYI, the shows I wrote about were Oprah, Sesame Street and All in the Family, although that last one was pretty heavily edited. I think they ultimately went with 35 because it was just impossible to narrow the list to 25. I spent several hours on the phone having that conversation repetitively.

Off the subject a bit, B&C's Ben Grossman has this column online today about "fixing American Idol", which reportedly has caused some controversy because Fox didn't realize he was actually going to publish what they said and then get it linked all over the Internet. Anyway, it's an interesting take. Idol's ratings are down year to year, but it's a seven-year-old show and that's what happens to old shows. It's still the biggest entertainment program on TV.

Earth Day hangover

I actually paid attention to some Earth Day related events and I came away feeling a little overwhelmed.

Sandra Bullock was on Oprah talking about recycling everything, eating nothing with dyes or pesticides, and doing research to make sure your candles are environmentally friendly.

Then I went to the Boulder Book Store to hear my co-book club member Heather Hansen talk about her new book, “Disappearing Destinations: 37 Places in Peril and How You Can Help Save Them” (note shameless, but worthwhile, plug).

Heather talked about securing carbon offsets every time you travel and always making sure you stay in eco-friendly hotels. Since I already feel largely overwhelmed by my life and the research it requires (how much of my retirement fund should be in bonds? What seafood is environmentally unsound to eat? How do you plant an organic vegetable garden?) I decided that I would just add one more simple act to my already simple environmental regime: I’m keeping grocery bags in my car so I don’t get new ones every time. I’ll also continue recycling, I’ll try to reuse Ziplock bags instead of just tossing them, I’ll replace my light bulbs with those more efficient spiral ones and I’ll check out carbon offsets for my next trip, although with the price of gas, who knows when that will be.

I'm all for saving the planet but since it makes expensive things (food, travel, clothing) even more expensive, it can be a little tough to incorporate. I think we all just have to do what we can immediately, and then do more if the opportunity presents itself. Don't they always say awareness is the first step?

There were lots of cool things going down online for Earth Day yesterday – here’s some links to a few of them:

Nasa’s Top Ten Photos of the Earth -- the first of these is posted above

Google’s Earth Day page -- Google just figures out the coolest online applications! Could Google Earth be any more enthralling?

The World Wildlife Organization’s Earth Day page

Discovery’s EarthLive page -- this is pretty amazing

Listphoria

I love lists. I love reading them, printing them, posting them, checking the items off as I complete them -- it doesn't matter if it's my to-do list or a list of Oscar-nominated films. Crossing every item off a list, which rarely happens, always feels like a triumph. Like you really accomplished something, although I suspect it's a delusion. Once one list is done, another always awaits.

My NY Post editor just asked me to do a list of the top 25 TV shows of all time, which I feel sort of unable to realistically list since I haven't seen every show on TV. But due to my list love, I cobbled something together for him.

The shows I feel strongly about are the ones I've watched recently: Deadwood, Six Feet Under, Sex and the City (HBO in the glory days). But it did bring me back to some beloved shows of days gone by: Taxi, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Dick Van Dyke way back in the day, The Bob Newhart Show (has humor ever been drier?).

I did include some shows from today's TV: The Office, Lost and 30 Rock, although I'm not wholly convicted about any of those shows. I find them all uneven, although 30 Rock probably the least so. Lost wanders off track far too often and The Office is inconsistent -- sometimes it's pitch perfect (last season's episode in which the Dunder-Mifflinites have to play Survivor-like games to get Michael's job is the best of the series, in my view, followed closely by Boys and Girls, written by B. J. Novak) and sometimes it's almost intolerably awkward (Gay Witch Hunt in which Michael almost kisses Oscar. I hid my face.)

Shows that I'm LOVING right now: Showtime's The Tudors (which sadly I can only watch when Showtime takes mercy on me and sends me an episode) and HBO's John Adams. Paul Giametti and Laura Linney are stunning. I predict they will both win Emmys and the series will clean up come September.

Here's the list I turned in. I'll post what the Post ends up using later:

Lost
The Office (BBC and NBC versions)
30 Rock
The Sopranos
Sex and the City
Deadwood
Cheers
Friends
Seinfeld
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Cosby Show
The Daily Show/Colbert Report
M*A*S*H
The West Wing
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
The Oprah Winfrey Show
Taxi
Saturday Night Live
The Little Rascals
Little House on the Prairie
Moonlighting
Six Feet Under
Star Trek
60 Minutes

Here's Time's list of the 100 best TV shows of all time, which includes several shows I couldn't fit on my list, such as All in the Family, The Twilight Zone and The Carol Burnett Show.

What You Should (and Should Not) Be Watching This Summer

Worth staying inside for – give it a 'series record' on your DVR:

HBO's Flight of the Conchords – understated, but oh so hilarious

FX's Rescue Me – this show just socks you in the stomach with humor and tragedy and everything in between, but that sucker punch in the gut still feels really good

Guilty Summer Pleasure:

TBS' My Boys – I'm not saying it's Shakespeare, but it's still fun to watch. Season two starts in late July.

Lifetime's Army Wives – soapy, sexy, um, patriotic goodness. When's the last time you used those three words together?

USA's Burn Notice -- like The Bourne Identity only funny, breezy and sunny, even when our burned spy is shooting drug dealers in the knees.

Jury's Still Out:

HBO's Big Love – I know people who love this show but I'm still not one of them. I'm trying, though.

So Disappointing:

HBO's John From Cincinnati – I was a HUGE fan of David Milch's Deadwood but this show just makes no damn sense. In homage, I should say it makes no fucking sense.

Boring and Predictable:

TNT's Heartland

TBS' House of Payne

Horrible, But Expectedly So:

All reality shows on broadcast network television, which is pretty much what the Big Five are airing this summer. Oh, and repeats.

If nothing else is on, fire up the DVD player:

NBC's The Office – I'm slowly converting everyone I know into a fan of this show, which is my favorite thing on TV right now.

I still miss:

HBO's Sex and the City – so I stay up late to catch it in syndication and then watch uncut episodes I've already seen 95 times on HBO On Demand. Because Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha are my TV friends.

Shows coming soon that I haven't seen yet:

TNT's Saving Grace starring Holly Hunter
FX's Damages starring Glenn Close
Lifetime's Side Order of Life (July 15)
Lifetime's State of Mind
Showtime's Californication starring David Duchovony (August)
TNT's The Company starring Chris O'Donnell

Look, I’m on Gawker

But I'm in disguise as the intrepid "New York Post reporter." It's pretty funny that this ended up here because I didn't feel like I was being particularly aggressive, but maybe it's an example of not really knowing how you are coming off. I also think it's a result of my doing so many interviews – I've learned to get to the heart of the matter without thinking much about it. I also think Lauer and NBC also were more sensitive on this subject than I realized, so my basic questions got better answers than I expected. Finally, there was a Palm Beach Post reporter on the line that asked even more direct, more aggressive questions -- "what do you think about rumors that NBC offered to pay for an interview with Paris Hilton?" "what do you think of criticism by Phil Mushnick (also of the NY Post, but a sports writer so I'm not sure why he's talking about this) that the Today Show is so cross-promotional he can no longer watch it?" -- but he didn't get on the queue first so I ended up setting him up.

The really funny thing is that I was writing the story for the weekly TV guide section of the Post, but the daily section had no clue, so when they read this on Gawker they were like, um, who was the reporter on this call? The sad part was that I had to go teach aerobics so I didn't end up getting the daily byline for this.

I would also like to note that ruddy, garrulous Harry has really come into his own. He's like the JFK Jr. of England. If only I was 22 ... and smokin' hot ... and English ... oh, nevermind.

Matt Lauer: "No Quid Pro Quo" For Princes Harry & William

Today NBC's Matt Lauer participated in a conference call with journalists about the Dateline interview he did recently with Prince William and Prince Harry, and about the Concert for Diana that NBC is broadcasting on Sunday. But some journalists didn't want to play along—they kept asking him pesky questions about whether he'd gotten the interview with the princes because the network had ponied up $2.5 million for the rights to air the concert. Not surprisingly, Lauer denied it.

"NBC had been interested in the concert for a very long time," he said in response to a question from a New York Post reporter about how the network got involved with the interview and the concert. "Months ago, they told me they were pursuing the concert and asked me what my interest level was.... But we had been talking to the palace about interviewing the boys for a long time, long before the idea of the concert came up. Once NBC decided to do the concert, it seemed like a great time for them to speak if they were going to speak. Perhaps on this occasion the boys would speak out—then it was just a question of whether the boys would do it with me, or me over some other people at NBC."

Lauer claims he was forced to jump through hoops before the palace would approve the network's request to interview William and Harry, including having to send over tapes of his previous interviews. "I was very excited when I got the interview," Lauer said.

"Usually those types of interviews involve lots of chasing," the Post reporter prodded. "Because of the concert, was it NBC's guarantee that you would get the interview?"

"When the concert deal was signed, they hadn't decided they were going to do anything. There's no quid pro quo here," Lauer said. "But the concert gave us an enormous advantage, absolutely. It's a no-brainer."

Now, let's parse that. Lauer claims there was no quid pro quo, and if by quid pro quo he means, literally, that the network said to the princes, "Here's $2.5 million for the rights to the concert and now you have to give us an interview," then sure, there was no quid pro quo. But the second part of his response—"the concert gave us an enormous advantage"—seems to be what people are getting their boxers in a bunch about these days. Sure, there's no official deal. There's nothing that anyone can point to as concrete evidence that there was a quid pro quo.

"I was not in on the business dealings of this," Lauer said in response to another question. "If there had been a quid pro quo I wouldn't have had to go through the hoops I had to go through. There was nothing set on paper before we started making those calls."

Well, sure! But it also seems that Lauer—and the rest of the NBC News division—are almost willfully ignorant about the way that their Entertainment division works. After all, if Lauer keeps himself in the dark, he can reassure himself that it was his wonderful audition tapes that landed him the interview with the princes, not the $2.5 million that the entertainment division of the network paid the princes for the rights to the concert.

But Lauer will be hosting the concert for the network as well. So is he working there as a member of the NBC News team? Or as a representative of the Entertainment side? The latter seems more likely.

Here's the link to the item on Gawker

Sicko will make you sick

I watched Michael Moore's latest documentary – Sicko – over the weekend, and I was surprised to find how angry, depressed and desirous of moving to France, home of the world's number-one health care system, it made me feel.

The movie starts with a simple premise that we all pretty much know: the American health care system sucks, lots of people don't have coverage, and everything you need should you fall ill might not be covered. But Americans are so used to this system that we tend to blame individuals for their stupidity if they don't have the kind of job that gets them covered. "I have a friends who are 45 and still don't have health insurance," said one friend to me. "I just can't deal with their kind of craziness anymore."

What Americans don't really know – because this would require actually knowing that there are other countries in the world besides our own – is that in many other countries, health care is free and universal. If you are having a baby in Great Britain, you just go to the hospital and have it. There is no stop at the cashier on the way out the door.

I think most people have a general idea of this, but they don't understand the implications. And we sort of toss it aside, anyway: "well, they don't have a military," we say, or "they pay 80% of their income in taxes." I myself have said these things verbatim.

And they may be largely true. Still, Sicko got me thinking that this was a pretty shallow way to look at the issue. Yes, many countries spend far more money on their universal health care than they do their military protection. Well, that's because we, or our government and its military, protects them. (Sort of.) One upper-crust Brit in the movie says this (not verbatim): "it's just a matter of what your country's values are: do you want to spend your money killing people or saving them?"

That got me thinking. I know it is necessary to have a system of national defense in place, but do we need to be spending billions of dollars each year fighting an impossible and unclear war in Iraq? Since 2001, we've spent more than $500 billion in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to warresisters.org (not the world's most bipartisan organization in the world, I realize). Meanwhile, 45-50 million Americans lack health insurance and 18,000 people die each year due to that lack, according to the U.S. Census and the Center for American Progress.

Moore takes these numbers and makes them personal: A two-year-old girl dies in a hospital, and a wife loses her soul-mate husband because the hospital board won't approve the experimental treatment that could save his life. That's saying: sorry, your ability to pay your medical bills far trumps your life – your life! – so please go home and die.

Does that really represent our country's values? Does it represent my values? Does the fact that I am personally doing nothing about this make me culpable too? In some ways, yes, I'm afraid it does. People say "the only way to change things is to vote," but I don't agree. Voting might get some new guys in power, but does it catalyze institutional change? Unlikely, considering the way our government works. The only way to bring about the massive change something like this would require is overwhelming, unrelenting grassroots demand for it, and at this moment, that kind of universal political will does not exist in apathetic, comfortable America.

People argue that Michael Moore's films are propagandistic and don't tell the whole story. I thought that myself watching Fahrenheit 9/11. But Sicko tells stories of personal tragedies that could have been avoided if we as a nation cared more about each other. Propaganda has no affect on that truth.

LA Times' interview with Moore

Time's interview with Moore

New York Times' review

Of course, the Post hates it
But it still gets a Tomatometer of 92% -- that means 'go see it!'

Once again, Seymour Hersh tells us about the lying liars of the Bush Administration

There are very few journalists left who frequently uncover news so important that it could change the country's current course. The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh is one of the most prominent on that very short list. (The Washington Post's Bob Woodward is another.)

A Hersh story comes out about every three to six months, and each one usually manages to take some false assumption, tell the absolute truth about it, and turn the original perception on its head as a result. His latest piece tells the detailed tale of how former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his henchmen absolutely knew what sorts of torture had gone on at the Iraqi prison camp of Abu Ghraib but lied outright to Congress (and thus us) about it. Here's a link to the (very long) story -- The General's Report – it's worth a read if you have any interest whatsoever in knowing what sort of lies this administration constantly perpetuates.

I find it amazing that every time you scratch beneath the surface with this administration – and it's really just a very light scratching – you find lie upon lie upon lie. The entire Scooter Libby debacle was all about lying and the covering of lies. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales – whose job it is to uncover lies -- lies every time he opens his mouth, and he still has a job. It's amazing, and appalling, that we as Americans stand for it. We spent two years impeaching Bill Clinton because he had inappropriate sexual encounters with an intern and lied about it. OK, that wasn't great. But Bush's lies are killing thousands of people in Iraq and we are just letting it happen.

The Sopranos Comes to Abrupt but Fitting End

I am coming out of nine months of unintended blog retirement because I just can't stop thinking about the finale of David Chase's masterwork, The Sopranos.

And apparently, neither can anybody else because that's all I've been reading about for days. Was it genius? Was it a rip-off? What was it?

I must admit I felt bored during much of the episode, and that's not an unfamiliar experience for me while watching the show. After September 11, 2001, I lost any desire to suspend disbelief and empathize with Tony and his gang of thugs. I know Gandolfini's nuanced portrayal of a sympathetic sociopath was part of the show's genius, but after he personally shot cousin Tony Blundetto's (Steve Buscemi) head off and bludgeoned the completely unlikeable Ralph Cifaretto (masterfully played by Joe Pantaliano in the role of his lifetime) to death, it just got hard to feel concerned about Tony's fate. Would Carmela finally leave him? Would he go to jail? Would he get popped himself? Would he consolidate power and become the mafia lord of the East Coast? At some point it became clear that no matter what happened in the series, Tony's end, like his life in general, wasn't going to be that great.

Still, we all kept watching.

For me, that was mostly because The Sopranos is so critically acclaimed, so beloved, that I couldn't ignore it. I make my living writing about TV and pop culture and The Sopranos has firmly secured itself a place atop both those heaps.

Having said all that, I found the show's finale fascinating and fitting. I don't know about perfect or genius or even satisfying, but appropriate and true to Chase's vision.

In my view, the show's final scene – which has members of Tony's family gathering at a diner for dinner – was Chase giving us insight into Tony's inner life. Every heightened moment in that diner was infused with tension, even though Tony was doing nothing more than sitting in a booth, ordering onion rings and greeting his wife and son. Was the mysterious guy at the counter finally going to whack Tony? Would Tony's entire family go down with him? Was something going to happen to Meadow as she had trouble parallel parking her Lexus? A regular Joe wouldn't even notice that these things were happening. For Tony Soprano, head of the New Jersey mob, any moment could be his last. While that's true for all of us, most of us aren't marked, and didn't just leave our mafia safe house where we were hiding out with an automatic for a few days waiting to die. No wonder the guy had panic attacks.

The show's final moment – when Meadow finally walked in the door and a quick shot of Tony's face abruptly cut to black and silence – was clearly left open to interpretation. Part of me believes that Tony met his maker (and that guy could not have been that happy with Tony) right then, and that was the end of his perspective and the end of him. That would jive with what seems to be Chase's view of death – final and empty when it comes. The series never gave us much warning when someone was going to meet his untimely end – Tony's hot-tempered nephew Christopher Motisanti (Michael Imperioli, who also wrote five of the show's episodes) didn't die in an exciting and bloody shoot-out, but quietly, at his uncle's hand. Bobby Bacala (Steven Schirripa) was taken down quickly in a toy store, a fitting location for the man-child he was, while Tony's adversary, Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent), was shot point-blank in the head in front of his wife and grand-babies while he was just gassing up his car. Tony Soprano's life was constantly full of deaths like those – he knew his own death wouldn't be much different. In the meantime, he just lived to survive and enjoy his family, his gluttony, his gambling and his carnal pleasures.

The other way to look at it is that The Sopranos' lives went on, just without us there to watch. Chase leaves that to us to decide, which is in keeping with the show's existential framework. Jean-Paul Sartre would be pleased. And while the first view is appealing, the second probably makes more sense. Chase showed us the deaths of everyone else; maybe he just couldn't bear to finally take Tony out.

One of the reasons The Sopranos was considered TV genius was because it was true to life. It never became cliché or predictable or pandering, like much of TV (take that Grey's Anatomy). In both Chase's world and our own, life is unpredictable and doesn't offer closure. That was true of the entire series and especially true of the finale. Fans may have wanted more, but would we rather have show creators write shows that satisfy us or satisfy them? Ultimately, shows are better when the creator gets to be true to him or herself without interference from meddling networks or whining fans (and you take that, Lost). Would The Sopranos have been as good if David Chase allowed others to interfere with his vision? I'm sure it would not, which is why the show's finale was exactly right.

Some of TV's best comment on Sopranos finale

Chase speaks

Why Network PR People Are Retarded

Today in the mail I got my 400^th press kit heralding the arrival of the new fall season. So far, due to these never-ending postal gifts, I have received the following: multiple copies of every fall TV pilot; one baseball hat embroidered with “CNU LA,” whatever that means; one bullhorn that only included two out of three AAA batteries and thus does not work so I cannot use it to bullhorn anyone. Wait, I found the missing third battery on the floor -- this thing is awesome! I am so effortlessly loud and annoying; one “House” t-shirt with a gross CAT scan of a brain on it; one hooded sweatshirt that very subtlely says “Prison Break;” and one broken pen set emblazoned with the word “Justice” on the pens, which work nicely and actually include a penlight on one of them. So those I will probably use.

In the past, I have also received cookbooks, glassware, blankets, jackets, books, CDs, a huge vat of red licorice that is now stale and sitting on my refrigerator, microwave popcorn, many many office supplies and so on and so on. My apartment is largely decorated by TV show chatchkes, and my office is largely supplied by paper goods with the names of TV shows on them. Like I have a “prescription pad” from “House” and actually another one from “Dr. Keith Ablow,” a syndicated show that’s premiering this fall. I tried to use them to write my own prescriptions for things like Ambien and Vicodin but for some reason that didn’t work at all. Plus someone at the pharmacy mentioned something about “felony” so I decided it was best to let the issue drop.

Truthfully, it’s mostly Fox that likes to send out these goodies and I’m not really that opposed even though I really doubt I’ll ever wear a t-shirt in public that’s displaying a brain. But what would be more likely to convince me to write (favorably) about any given program is if someone would send, say, Patrick Dempsey to my house for a visit. Or a pound of freshly ground Starbuck’s. Or some really good Belgium chocolate. Not that I really need these things – except of course, the Dempsey visit – but if they are going to waste the postage and the effort to send a bunch of crap to me in the mail, they might as well send me something I want.

So below, I’ve comprised a list of things I actually want. Please stick faithfully to this list, all you soliciting network publicists:--

• Soundtrack to "Grey’s Anatomy." But if you fail to send this, network publicists, ha ha! I can just burn my friend Day's new copy.
  

• Anything chocolate, even Hershey’s

• Wine glasses, because mine sort of suck

• New ski boots. And if you decide to go that route, I also would like new Atomic or Volkl Supersport skis, 160 cm, with new bindings. I like to ski bumps and trees, so please take that into consideration

• Scuba gear, and a complementary RT ticket to Palau also would be appreciated

• Ping golf clubs. I actually like my golf clubs, but it would be cool to have Pings.
  

• VW Touareg, in this awesome navy blue color I saw the other day

• New laptop because mine keeps overheating and shutting down and it’s super annoying. Plus it’s messing up the interviews I am trying to do with YOUR stars. See how you could help me out here while also helping yourself?

• Baseball shirts, because I think I look especially cute in them. It’s OK if you want to put TV show names on these shirts, as long as you stick with cool TV shows, like "The Office," and not lame-o TV shows that I don’t like, such as "NCIS." Sorry CBS, but I don’t like all those crime shows and when you throw the military in there, well, forget it.

• And of course, Patrick Dempsey. If Patrick isn’t available, Isaiah Washington, Eric Dane or Chris O’Donnell will do.

Thanks in advance, network PR people, or as I like to call you – flaks – for noting and meeting my needs. I'm looking forward to all the better flackerie that's soon to arrive at my doorstep.

I ask, the news responds

With Thursday's arrest of John Mark Karr, main suspect in the unsolved murder of Boulder's baby beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, I think we have our answer to my recently posed question -- Boulder: Eden of the Front Range or Home of the Devil? Well, Karr didn't really live here, um, ever, but he kind of looks like the devil, don't you think? Or maybe ET? In the interest of presuming that bonafide child molesters are innocent until they are proven guilty, however, I will stop short of saying that Karr is a) the devil b) guilty or c) an extraterrestrial.

Not to mention that his confession is the weirdest ever. First, he got all the details of the murder wrong. He says he raped her, but there's no evidence of rape. He says he drugged her, but there's no evidence of drugs. And he says he was IN LOVE with her, but there's no evidence of love or sanity really because who says publicly that they were in love with a six-year-old? And who writes said six-year-olds Christmas poems for random CU professors to go read to her once she is dead?

Anyway, being back in Boulder and all, I'm a little obsessed with this at the moment, but it should pass soon. My attention span isn't that long.

Boulder: Eden of the Front Range or Home of the Devil? Unclear

Here's a lovely aerial (for some reason, that word was really hard for me to spell) shot of Boulder, where I now live, far away from the hustle and bustle of city life and really close to the hustle and bustle of small city life, which during rush hour can boast traffic that's about as bad as LA's, especially now that apparently almost every street in town needs to be repaired.

Anyway, Outside just talked again about Boulder as "the best place to live if you are a masochistic freak whose idea of a good time is to bike 120 miles up three mountain passes, but not so much if you are a fat, drunk couch potato who is easily made to feel like a slob." Outside's article on this well-discussed topic -- Boulder: pristine place of health and spirituality or home of the white and self-indulgent -- is pretty good. A friend of mine says that Boulder-bashing is almost as popular a past-time here as cycling, so be sure to also check out Marc Peruzzi's take: The Goretex Vortex.

An assignment that I love

In my life as a freelancer so far, I've gotten to do some pretty cool things and I hope even cooler things are to come. But here's three stories I got to write for one of Publisher's Weekly's web sites. In each, I got to interview a screenwriter and then write a story about adapting a famous book to film. In this month's edition, I interviewed filmmaker Richard Linklater, novelist Armistead Maupin and screenwriter, director and producer Bob Dolman. It's really great fun and I'm blessed to have the opportunity. (For that, I must thank my wonderful editor Robert Rorke, whose birthday it is today.) Here's the link, which will only be relevant for the next month: http://www.pwbooklife.com/features3.html

The White Trash Chronicles: We go to the Demolition Derby

In an ongoing quest to experience the best that white trash has to offer, a group of us went to the Demolition Derby in Longmont on Saturday night. That is definitely an event that only men would think of, although there was one woman driver in the field. She was out pretty fast though. Anyway, what woman do you know who would come up with building cars for the sheer purpose of smashing them into each other? Testosterone has brought all sorts of hilariously stupid activities into this world, like dating, for example.

The premise of the Demo Derby is this: take a beat-up shell of a car, like a 1965 Lincoln Town Car or a 1977 Ford Fury, put a driver’s seat in it, a gas tank in the back and gird the driver’s side for impact. Then go to a big outdoor arena in the heat of summer and crash into lots of other cars in front of a crowd of screaming rednecks, and us, who were playing redneck that night. The last car running wins.

I have to say there was something strangely compelling about the Demolition Derby. I’m not a big car fan – I tool around in my 10-year-old Nissan Sentra and besides the A/C, it’s working just fine – but I really enjoyed watching men in tank tops crash into each other. Cars had smoke coming out of them and were on fire, wheels and bumpers came flying off, entire back ends were smashed flat. Oh, and the half-time entertainment involved two tractors ripping a poor unsuspecting car in half.

After the whole thing is over – and it runs long, four and a half hours – you get to go down into the dirt arena and check out the cars. I wish I could do the destruction justice by describing it, but these vehicles are really effed up. And the guys who drive them just laugh and talk about how they’ll pull the side of this car out with their tractor and then weld some stuff on and bring it back out the next time.

Prize money for the Demo Derby runs about $2,500 - $8,000 for a win, which I think you basically put back into your piece-of-crap car, which your wife then bitches about because it is truly an eyesore on any piece of property and marks you most certainly the white trashiest of your particular neighborhood.

Here's a good link if you want to learn more about the Demolition Derby. The man known as Speedo, as profiled by PBS's POV in 2004, is a good example of how people become so immersed in these subcultures that they shape their entire lives.

The other sort-of great part about this Demo Derby, in particular, was that our little county fair accompanied it. So in between crash-fests, a few of us went out to ride a ride and get a snack. I say sort-of because it was an appearances-beat-reality type of affair. The rides looked fun but were kind of ramshackle once you got on them. Plus we did a super twisty-turny one and I was nauseous after that for a good long time. I started out laughing and screaming and then just queasily going “uhhhh” every time we were jerked around. In fact, it makes me nauseous now just remembering it. I think that's one clear sign that you are getting old -- spinny rides that used to be the most fun ever when you are ten are now like horrible torture. If I was a CIA agent or something and I got captured by Iraqi soliders, they could easily learn everthing I knew just by putting me on some super-spinny ride for 15 seconds.

Then the food seems great and fun and white trash – which it is – but it’s also really kind of gross. Burritos from a frozen box, fried funnel cakes and corn dogs, disgusting cotton candy that I once begged for, iffy pieces of pizza that have been sitting out, watery and expensive lemonade.

That said, it was all quite fun. It’s always eye-opening to take a wholesale dunk into other social cultures and find some people whom you probably otherwise would never encounter.

Shocking Hollywood announcements

OK, I'm back home from press tour now and I still have a couple of press tour-related posts to put up, but I had to blog on this one because I found it hilarious. Hello, Lance Bass, of course you are gay. You are so gay that I see no need to make an announcement about it. On the other hand, I was watching the South Park episode the other night in which Tom Cruise and John Travolta literally won't come out of the closet and for some reason R. Kelly is there singing about how they need to come out the closet and then suddenly brandishing a gun. Unbelievably funny and also pointing out that some people should just go ahead and make an announcement already. But with Lance, I think we were already on to you man.

Now if the rest of N Sync would please come forward and clear some things up for us, that would be helpful.

Lance Bass: I'm gay

'N Sync singer worried he would harm group

Lance Bass is involved with Reichen Lehmkuhl of "Amazing Race."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Lance Bass, band member of 'N Sync, says he's gay and in a "very stable" relationship with a reality show star.

Bass, who formed 'N Sync with Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, Joey Fatone and Chris Kirkpatrick, tells People magazine that he didn't earlier disclose his sexuality because he didn't want to affect the group's popularity.

"I knew that I was in this popular band and I had four other guys' careers in my hand, and I knew that if I ever acted on it or even said (that I was gay), it would overpower everything," he tells the magazine.

'N Sync is known for a string of hits including "Bye Bye Bye" and "It's Gonna Be Me." The band went on hiatus in 2002. Bass has also found headlines for undertaking astronaut training and failing to raise money for a trip into space.

Bass says he wondered if his coming out could prompt "the end of 'N Sync." He explains, "So I had that weight on me of like, 'Wow, if I ever let anyone know, it's bad.' So I just never did."

The singer says he's in a "very stable" relationship with 32-year-old actor Reichen Lehmkuhl, winner of season four of CBS' "Amazing Race."

Bass and Fatone, 29, are developing a sitcom pilot inspired by the screwball comedy "The Odd Couple," in which his character will be gay.

"The thing is, I'm not ashamed -- that's the one thing I want to say," Bass says. "I don't think it's wrong, I'm not devastated going through this. I'm more liberated and happy than I've been my whole life. I'm just happy."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Press Tour, Day Nine: He's Just Not That Into You

This day, Sunday, started out with breakfast at the Ritz. Since it was an off-day – meaning no network was scheduled – non-network affiliated syndicators wanted to take advantage of the free time. This is a bit of a hard sell because we’re coming to the end of press tour and people are wanting to do non-press-tour type stuff, like laundry or exercise. To try to overcome that objection, Sony hosted a breakfast buffet with almost everything you could ever want in breakfast food – everything from ricotta pancakes with lemon curd to bagel pizzas with salmon to a toast bar including almost every possible toast topping (honey butter, peanut butter, almond butter, body butter, and so forth). I didn’t think at this point in the tour food would still prove a lure to many critics, but there was actually a good turn out to see Greg Behrendt, who is launching a syndicated talk show with Sony this year.

Greg is a funny guy. He’s been a stand-up for years, and he once held dreams of becoming a rock star. He made his fortune, however, by casually telling a woman that the guy she was dating was “just not that into you.” And boom, a star was born.

Greg used to be a consultant on Sex and the City, and the woman he said that to was a writer on the show, so it was immediately incorporated into an episode. If you aren’t a Sex and the City fan, let me refresh the scene for you: Carrie and Berger (my new boyfriend Ron Livingston) are having dinner with her friends, and Miranda is recounting the tale of a date she just had. When she completes the story, Berger reveals he didn’t want to come back to her place with her because “he’s just not that into you.” Miranda’s friends go into a frenzy of analysis and defend her to the end, but Miranda says, “thank you. That was the most freeing thing I’ve ever heard.” She then tries to repeat the line to a couple of younger women she overhears on the street to poor effect. She also accuses a later date of being “not that into her,” only to learn that no, he actually is having serious intestinal problems. So it’s not a hard and fast rule.

In any case, this line had a similar ripple effect in the country. Behrendt, with encouragement from his wife, Amiira, wrote a book called “He’s Just Not That Into You,” which shot to the top of the best-seller lists. The book offered pretty basic dating advice – if he’s not calling you or asking you out or generally paying any attention to you, it’s time to move on and get a new guy. But apparently women nationwide did not know this and the book shot to the top of best-seller lists. Behrendt ended up on Oprah, and even more books were sold.

Sometime last year, Sony decided they thought Behrendt was a good choice to host a one-hour syndicated talk show. He is charming, funny and relatable, but there’s some problems with this premise: 1) syndication is pretty much an impossible business, and all the more impossible for Sony because the company doesn’t own stations and has a hard time getting shows on good time periods. But this show was done in partnership with Tribune, which owns many stations, so perhaps that will prove helpful with the ratings; 2) I’m not sure how long Greg can jump off this “he’s just not that into you” schtick, and I’m not sure where it can go from here. 3) Even with Sex and the City, the book and Oprah, most people haven’t heard of this guy. People in Hollywood think that just because something’s a phenomenon in their little world, everyone in the U.S. feels the same way, and if they don’t, that’s their problem because they live in the rejectable “flyover” states. (Like Colorado, for example.)

That snobbery is all well and good when you are in your glassed-in office on a studio lot, but Hollywood suits would be better served if they paid attention to what the people want in the flyover states. Most of the country lives in those states, and those viewers are needed in order to make any show a success.

I wonder who will be first to write the headline in the likely event that Greg’s show fails: “Audiences just weren’t that into him.”

Press Tour, Day Eight: Interest Is Waning

I’ve dropped off the blog for the past couple days and that’s a hazard because now I can’t remember what happened over the weekend. Hmmm ….

Oh, here’s some good gossip that I probably should have known already: I guess that Aaron Sorkin dumped The NY Times' Maureen Dowd (who also supposedly was dumped by Michael Douglas in favor of Catherine Zeta, although if Catherine Zeta shows up in the middle of your relationship, you just say 'you win,' and walk away) to date the tiny and spunky Kristin Chenoweth (she’s best known as Glinda in Wicked). He eventually put her on The West Wing. In the meantime, Chenoweth cut an album of “inspirational” music and appeared on the 700 Club and he dropped her like it’s hot. Cut to Studio 60, and we see Matthew Perry’s character breaking up with his sketch-comedy-star girlfriend, played by Sarah Paulson, because she’s a member of the religious right.

Once again, art imitates life. A friend of mine who himself is a wonderful writer recently told me that he’s just good at “writing about himself,” but I think that’s true for everyone. If you find yourself hanging out with me a lot, watch out, because you might find yourself a character on my next TV show. Wait, what's that you say? I don't have a TV show? OK, well, you might find yourself a character on this widely read blog then.

Anyhoo, I ditched out on most of Saturday’s happenings because I had to write a story so obviously I didn’t hang out with too many famous people while I was holing up with my laptop in the Ghetto TL. Saturday night was the NBC party and since it was 110 degrees here and NBC chose to have a Texas-style barbecue, it was quite the sweaty affair. We were really feeling for the poor people who had to man the sizzling grills.

Famous people in attendance and sweating: From The Office: Rainn Wilson, John Kryzinski and many of the show’s minor players but no Steve Carell (I chatted up my favorite movie star on Sunday night). I do love The Office so I gave a lame-o fan shout-out to Rainn and John and they accomodated my stalker tendencies quite nicely. From Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip: Aaron Sorkin, Tommy Schlamme, Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, Evan Handler (played Charlotte’s husband Harry on Sex and the City); from Twenty Good Years: Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow (Ausiello called this show 22 Unfunny Minutes); from Kidnapped, Jeremy Sisto, who consistently was surrounded by a scrum of reporters, and then a bunch of people from shows like Friday Night Lights and Heroes that you have never heard of. I haven’t watched Friday Night Lights, but I did get the book from NBC for free. Heroes is an interesting pilot about people who have superpowers that they are just realizing. I thought the show was a little uneven, but it has promise, and it's already got tons of Internet buzz. And supposedly the show was a big hit at Comic-Con, the comic-book convention that was going on late last week in San Diego.

Having nothing to do with any of this, I just learned that one of the reporters here who asks actors questions like "what do you consider a healthy snack," and "what's your workout regime," making me want to yank my hair out in chunks, gathers all these quotes in quantity and then sells them to places like Esquire, People, US, whoever wants them. It's quite the interesting business venture -- not one I would want to get into because if I am ever caught asking an actor about their eating habits please kill me on the spot -- but still interesting. I mean, it takes balls to earn a living by asking people totally ridiculous questions, especially if you aren't Jay Leno or Stephen Colbert. In some ways, however, I think such "reporting" should be banned from the critics tour. This person is not acting as either a TV critic or a reporter, and posing such questions lowers the bar for everyone. What's more, it's often hard to get a word in edgewise with this person around, and sometimes I actually have real questions to ask. I'm just sayin'.

Press Tour, Day Seven: Drug habits are hilarious

It’s always good to know that people in Hollywood can poke fun at themselves. Well, at least some of them.

Asked what he thinks about reality shows, Aaron Sorkin, creator and executive producer of NBC’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, said “I do think that television is a terribly influential part of this country and that when things that are very mean-spirited and voyeuristic go on TV, I think it's like bad crack in the school yard.” Sorkin was busted for possession of crack and other drugs in 2001, so it was no surprise when he then wondered out loud: “Why did I use that word?” Later, Matthew Perry, a former prescription drug-addict himself, responded to a question about playing a character that resembles Sorkin, his ostensible boss: “I think it’s most like bad vicodin in the schoolyard.” Overall hilarity ensued in the room. Perry’s co-star Bradley Whitford later mused: “I have never wished I had a drug problem before.”

Staying with the self-deprecation note, when Perry was then asked why he decided to return to series TV so quickly after Friends, he said “because this script was so good and The Whole Ten Yards was so bad.”

More notes from press tour to come but I need to go drink now.

Press Tour, Day Six: Ohmygod, Grey's!

Today we visited the set of Grey’s Anatomy and I lived at least the initial part of the fantasy of many American women: I looked Patrick Dempsey in the eye and had a conversation with him. Obviously, I didn't get follow this encounter through to its preferred conclusion, but it was a good start. As my friend said, “if you tell me he’s a midget, I’m going to kill you.” This is because I had previously told her that David Krumholz (from CBS’s Numbers and the movie Serenity) is pretty much a midget and even if she puts platform shoes on him, she still probably wouldn’t want to sleep with him. I could be wrong about this, however, because Krummy had quite the hot young girlfriend, as did James Woods, who I find disgusting, so what do I know? Anyway, Patrick was quite doable, so no worries women of America.

I tried my very hardest to learn whether the delicious Eric Dane aka Mark “McSteamy” Sloan (link to http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0199312/for more info) would be coming back to the show, but I was shut down by Grey’s creator Shonda Rhimes’ absolutely no-leaks policy. Damn! But me and other fans were encouraged that the martinis at the ABC party were named McDreamy and the extra dirty ones were named McSteamy. To me, mainly because I am desperate and I have told the exec producers this several times, this was a very good sign. Or if nothing else, a very good drink.

Other than Patrick, I also met Sandra Oh, Ellen Pompeo (very briefly and she is no skinnier than any of the other anorexics that populate this town but absolutely adorable. See Old School for proof), Kate Walsh (she plays Addison Shepherd, wife of McDreamy) and Katherine Heigl, who is absolutely gorgeous and like Virginia Madsen, very skinny in real life, except with some boobs. I chatted with Peter Horton, who directs the show and we bonded over our mutual ownership of Keen shoes, and Betsy Beers, one of the exec producers. We then got to look around the set, which is vast and quite realistic. All in all, it was TV heaven, even though I am supposed to be a cynical reporter and all that. I don’t want to live in Hollywood but there are moments when I sure like visiting it, and this was one of those times. The scant hour we were granted was nowhere close to enough. I needed like an hour of solo time with each cast member. So much stalking, so little time.

I will say that touring a set makes you realize what people are talking about when they say that series TV is exhausting and difficult. It all seems wonderfully glamorous when you are watching it, but when you see the dark, cramped sets, and think about how actors are shooting takes over and over again for 12 hours a day, six days a week, you can see how it gets a little tedious. It's not all award ceremonies and red carpets, people. That said, it's not coal-mining or truck-driving either, so my sympathy for successful actors remains limited.

Anyway, after that wonderful hour came to a screeching halt, I was back on the eternal LA highway to return to the Ritz in Pasadena. There, I hung out with the stars of Fox’s My Network TV, which is basically going to be an English-language telenovela network for TV stations. The young stars of these shows are, like The CW pages, the hottest people I’ve ever seen. One of them is a supermodel on the side! Hanging with them makes me feel like there’s some other planet where they grow much more attractive people than they do on this planet where I live. Or vice versa. Either way, I don’t think we are members of the same species.

Also in attendance – Morgan Fairchild and Bo Derek. I chatted a bit with Bo and while I’m sure she’s amply Botoxed, she is gorgeous and tiny. She may be the planetary mother of this other species about which I was just talking.

My night ended with dinner at the Ritz with the NBC PR corps, which was delightful and relaxing.

Tom Skerrit: Is He or Isn't He?

Tom Skerrit’s apparently not really in ABC’s Brothers & Sisters, but he still managed to pervade the show panel on Wednesday afternoon.

Most of this crowd has not seen the pilot of Brothers & Sisters, which looked great from the clip they showed, because they keep retooling and recasting it, and failing to put out a final episode. In the clip, Skerrit falls into the pool and his fate is not clear. So it was reasonable to wonder whether Skerrit, as the father of five brothers and sisters, would appear further in the show. Skerrit did not appear on the huge 14-person panel, indicating that perhaps his performance is just a cameo. And the show’s executive producers were very sketchy about whether to expect more Skerrit in the fall. When asked where Skerrit was, they said, “he’s working on a movie.”

This went on for quite a while until finally one intrepid reporter checked the ABC media site and read the following: “When the family gathers to celebrate a birthday, what they don’t know is that tonight the family patriarch will die.” This met with much laughter, and also seemed to settle the question.

Still, the question of Tom Skerrit remains unanswered. The web site no longer describes the show that way, and the press release about the show mentions both father and mother equally so maybe Skerrit is going to be a regular cast member. The producers did say repeatedly that the pilot had changed significantly.

Anyway, when the cast was asked “which member of the family will provide the comic relief?” (This was actually a much sillier question in practice, asked by the same reporter who asks most of the silly questions), the creator/EP said “Tom Skerrit.”

Raccoons Take Over TV

In another example of the genius of the TV critic, the apparent star of ABC’s Men in Trees is Elvis the Raccoon. Elvis makes an appearance in the pilot as the destroyer of an ill-fated wedding dress, which is in Alaska for specious reasons anyway. The best part of this is that later in the scene, Elvis the Raccoon is played by a stunt double, Boomer the Terrier, who wears a raccoon costume as he runs down the stairs. Yes, I did just say that a terrier is wearing a raccoon costume in a primetime television program. Just in case you were wondering, Elvis and Boomer were both local hires. And although Elvis is nocturnal, he graciously agreed to work during the day. Elvis has at least a two-episode deal for the show, creator and showrunner Jenny Bicks revealed during the Wednesday afternoon session.

As B&C's Ben Grossman points out: When the panel starts focusing on the animal actors, you know the show has no chance. (See Ben's work at http://www.bcbeat.com, a blog sponsored by my corporate alma mater.)

Seriously, these are the things these people ask. And my absolutely favorite question: “For everyone in the cast, please tell us what character you play and describe him or her.” Even though watching the pilot or even just reading the fat binder each network helpfully provides would immediately clarify for this for you, moron reporter, without wasting our time with your horrendous question that you keep repeating during every single panel session.

I’m not alone in my hostility. After the third time this same moron reporter did this, about 50 other reporters groaned in unison.