Why don't women ever win reality show competitions?

I was recently accused of not being a feminist so I ask the above question not because I broadly feel the world is full of misogyny, although perhaps it is, but because it's been something I've observed lately.

Mainly, I've observed that phenomenon on Top Chef, which is really the only reality show I watch. Bravo's Top Chef: Just Desserts just concluded and the winner was Chris, who was clearly the front-runner from the beginning. Still, two men, Chris and Matt, and a woman, Sally, comprised the final and per usual, a man came out on top. Don't get me wrong, I think Chris deserved the win. He was completely in control of everything he produced for the finale, including his chocolate showpiece, while Sally basically handed construction of her (gorgeous and superior, in my opinion) showpiece over to Orlando, an arrogant but brilliant builder of such whimsical things.

Still, I started wondering: why don't women ever win these things? In Top Chef, season six, Jen was a contender all the way to the end, but by the finale she had fallen apart (a performance she would repeat early in All-Stars). At the end, Michael Voltaggio prevailed over his brother Bryan, while Kevin seemed to have lost his cooking mojo during the two-month break between taping in Las Vegas and the finale in Napa.

And in Top Chef: All-Stars, two women -- Carla (Hall, now starring on ABC's The Chew) and Tiffany -- turned in such a good semi-final performance that for the first time ever the  judges waived the rule and allowed them both to progress to the final. But both women failed to make the cut, and in the end, genius Richard Blais prevailed over upstart Mike Isabella.

Final Top Chef example: in season seven, Kelly Liken made it all the way to the final four and got to go to Singapore, but she didn't make it past that point. Having eaten at her not-so-exciting restaurant in Vail (see above link), I kind of understand why. That season seemed full of lackluster chefs, and the only person in the group who seemed to have any real talent, Angelo, fell ill right at the end so the final was sort of a fail.

I should point out that one woman, Stephanie Izard, has won Top Chef, prevailing over Lisa Fernandez and Blais (somehow) in season four.

OK, that's Top Chef, but what about other reality shows?

Let's start with the granddaddy of them: CBS' Survivor. The only edition of this show that I've watched in full, besides season one, was Survivor: All-Stars, in which Boston Rob Mariano ended up getting the girl - his now wife and mother of his children, Amber Brkich, whose last name lacked vowels -- but losing the game. Amber took home the million dollars, but since she concurrently agreed to marry Rob, it was a win-win for him. The couple went on to run The Amazing Race twice (but not win), and Rob has subsequently been on Survivor two more times, finally winning it all in his last outing, aptly named Survivor: Redemption Island.

So even though Amber beat the odds with her win, did she really? Amber didn't play All-Stars, while Rob did, and Amber has never come back on the show, while Rob is on practically as much as Jeff Probst at this point.

After 22 iterations, however, Survivor seems to come out pretty equal: men have won 13 times, while women have won nine (one woman, Sandra Diaz-Twine, has won twice).

Fox's American  Idol also comes out nearly equal, with women four times and men winning five. A woman has  not won since the show's sixth season, when Jordin Sparks was declared the victor.

Finally, women have won more rounds of Lifetime's Project Runway, with women taking home the trophy five times in nine seasons.

So, maybe I should pose a more specific question: Why don't women ever win Top Chef? Or maybe it's less about women and reality show competitions and more about women as chefs. Professional kitchens are notoriously male-dominated places, and the lack of well-known female chefs is a topic of frequent conversation in the food world. Maybe the question is really: why don't women prevail when it comes to cooking?

I think I get it: My take on Lost’s Season Five Finale, "The Incident"

As a somewhat obsessive Lost fan and random blogger, one would think I would make like everyone else and blog ad nauseum about the show. But up to this point, I have not. I think that's because I'm usually too brain-boggled to form coherent sentences about it. To that end, I deeply admire EW's Doc Jensen, who not only manages to conjure coherent sentences in late hours, he also throws in tons of literary analysis, philosophy, religion and mythology while he's doing it.

So the fact that the season-five finale has motivated me to put my thoughts down and post them is surprising. Turns out, though, I finally have some things to say and no one to say them to. Thus this blog.

All along, my predominant theory about Lost has been that it's a show about redemption, and the island is some kind of underworld that helps people find that redemption. Not hell, but maybe purgatory.

Along those lines, at the center of most sci-fi stories is a Christ figure, who volunteers to sacrifice himself for the salvation of all mankind. This is true of Lord of the Rings, which has Frodo ultimately sacrificing himself to take the ring to Mordor and Mt. Doom; the Chronicles of Narnia, which takes the much more obvious route and has Aslan allow himself to be sacrificed on the Stone Table by the White Witch; Star Wars, except that Luke really only has to sacrifice a hand, but he's still the chosen one; The Matrix, in which Neo, which descrambles into One and also means New, gives up his identity to be reborn into what he is destined to be; and finally, Harry Potter, which was always my fear with that series, and which Darlton are vocally a fan of.

We also know that Darlton are heavily influenced by C. S. Lewis and Narnia – with references to the Lamppost (the Dharma station that houses Eloise Hawking and an actual lamppost that serves as a guide for young Lucy and her siblings in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe) and Lewis himself in the character of Charlotte, whose initials were C.S. Lewis. And Damon Lindelof at least is a huge Star Wars fan. I believe Damon has said that he's seen the trilogy about 70 times. Earlier this season, we had Hurley trying to rewrite Empire Strikes Back and deliver a perfected version of the script to the future in one of Lost's funnier moments.

While the show is chock full of symbols – from the red herring that Jacob was cooking up to the Egyptian hieroglyphics to those mysterious numbers (which now we know are the fictional Valenzetti equation) to the statue -- I've given up trying to assign a specific symbology to any one character in Lost. If anything, I've decided the show is way top-heavy and overly layered with symbols, to the degree that what they are pointing out becomes repetitive. I think many of the characters – particularly the more murky, seemingly immortal ones – blend many religions and mythologies to take on a mythology all their own. And often I think the characters are given deeply loaded names – Richard Alpert or John Locke or Daniel Faraday – in order to make you go hmmmm. Those names cast a shade of meaning over these characters, but they don't define who he or she is. I also think it amuses the hell out of Lost's producers to throw in some reference and watch the audience go nuts trying to figure it out for weeks.

I've interviewed Darlton several times and they don't make their plans any clearer to me than to anyone else, but I remember one specific interview where I asked them if they were ever going to answer all these questions they kept opening up. That seemed to particularly annoy them. I don't remember Damon's word-for-word answer, but it was something to the effect of "many of the answers to these questions are right in front of your face. Don't read more into them than you need to."

I started watching the show like that – not reading into everything but just sort of taking things as they were presented – and it's made the whole process a lot easier and clearer. I feel like the show itself often includes hints to stop looking for all the deeper meanings and just watch – for example, when Sayid told Jack to "hide in plain sight."

Finally, I've realized that Lost is never going to explain it all to me, and much of the interpretation is up to me. I think that's how it's going to end too, so people who are expecting a big complete, total reveal where everything is cleaned up and tied off at the end of next season are going to be sorely disappointed. This is a show that requires you not only to think for yourself but also to rely on yourself. To some extent, the show is what you think it's about. If you think the island is a spaceship and the events that unspool after next year's finale allow you to keep thinking that, then it's a spaceship as far as you're concerned and the producers are fine with that. I don't think they are particularly possessive about interpretations.

So, after last night's finale, here are mine:

Jacob and the guy everyone is calling Esau, which has a certain symmetry to it, are two entities – perhaps deities – fighting for control, kind of like how angels wrestled over good and evil back at the beginning of time or how God made a bet with Satan on how Job would handle every crappy thing that Satan could throw at him. Our little Losties, and the Dharma Initiative and the Hostiles, are just pawns in this endless game, which is essentially what the two deity-like guys agree to in the opening beach scene. There are lots of examples of Gods playing with humans like pawns – or black and white backgammon pieces – throughout mythology and religion. The Old Testament is one big story in which Jehovah endlessly messes with his chosen people. In the end, however, the good deity believes humans can pull it out, while the bad deity believes humans are doomed, and he's psyched about that and ready to speed up the process already.

These two – one clothed in white, the other in black – may be Jesus and the Devil or they may be the Egyptian Gods Ra and Apep or they may be some other gods, but I think it's clear that they represent good and evil. Or perhaps more accurately: faith in humankind and no faith in humankind. Lost gives us endless symbols to lead us in this direction. But who they are exactly doesn't really matter – likely they are two creations original to the show but influenced by all of these other mythologies I've already mentioned. What matters is what they represent, which is humanity's constant battle between its baser and better instincts: good vs. evil, free will vs. predestination, and most importantly, love v. hate. Jacob is betting the better instincts will win, while Esau is betting on baser.

That's why Rose and Bernard didn't need to join Dharma or The Hostiles. They'd already figured that one out. That's why smart Vincent decided to follow the love and hang with them. The rest of the Losties have a ways to go, however.

Our Losties are the latest to take the island stage in this battle. The stakes appear higher this time around: Esau seems to have taken over John Locke's dead body, which grants him some sort of loophole that allows him, through Ben, to kill Jacob, something he's been longing to do and apparently has been a long time coming.

But I don't believe Jacob is dead for one minute. Jacob chose to sacrifice himself to save the world. He's the one that lives in the shadow of the statue or "the one who will save us all," as so many avid viewers have now translated from the Latin. He's The One. In all things science fiction, being the one means sacrificing yourself to save the world. (Another thing that points to this: the flight on which everyone returned was Ajira 3:16. John 3:16 is the key verse of the New Testament: "For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life." Ajira, by the way, means island in Hindi.)

In that final scenario, Benjamin Linus, always the dedicated slave who allowed himself to be used for a cause in which he believed blindly, became Judas, the betrayer, and completed the act for which he had been set up, for which he was destined. Someone pointed out that they found that scene to be like the one in Star Wars where Obi Wan Kenobi allows himself to be killed by Darth Vader but tells Darth before he dies that he'll be back stronger than ever. I'm sure that's what's going on here. Entities like Jacob aren't easily felled by the knife of one Benjamin. "And who are you?" Jacob asked Benjamin, before willingly allowing Ben to stab him.

Ok, enough about what was happening in 2007. Back in 1977, the Losties finally decide to go with Jack's plan to explode the nuke and stop (or cause – Darlton is definitely allowing us to spend the next six months wondering about that one) The Incident. I agree that the degree to which Juliet and Kate wavered on whether they supported Jack in this endeavor seemed silly and distracting, and I don't think I believe Jack that the reason he's back at the Island is to win Kate back. He might not really know why he's back though – I suspect it has something to do with his long-lost sister Claire and his nephew, Aaron. In any case, we finally got to the scene we've all been primed for – The Actual Incident – and once we got there the key factor was Juliet.

When Kate returned to the island, Juliet was suddenly faced with doubt about whether Sawyer loved her. That doubt made her act erratically – from taking over the sub and bringing the trio back to the island, to deciding she would go with Jack's plan. While it would be a serious overreaction, I think that irrational behavior was due to her interpreting and overdramatizing Sawyer's reaction to Kate's return.

In the end, however, she learned that Sawyer did really love her. Once she felt certain of that, she was literally able to let go.

Juliet then, and not the bomb, was Daniel Faraday's variable. She was the one that had a choice—and not one but many -- and her choices led to what finally happened. She exercised her free will and sacrificed herself to redeem Sawyer. That's what will change the future. I don't think Juliet will be back -- she was not touched by Jacob – I think she's fulfilled her destiny. This show is a big believer in self-sacrifice for love: it's what Charlie did for Claire; what Sayid would have done for Nadia – and did in a way; what Faraday did for Charlotte; and what Sun and Jin have now both done for each other.

When last I chatted with Darlton, I asked if next season was a return to season one and if we would find find the core Losties all back on the island, finally figuring out what their destinies are. Carlton Cuse said yes. So that's where I expect we'll start, but I've watched and written about this show long enough to know that will be but a tiny part of the picture. I do think this theme of The One and self-sacrifice for redemption – whether yours or everyone else's -- will be a big part of next season. I wonder if one or all of the Losties will find themselves in some way to be The One -- in fact, maybe one of them needs to step up and take Jacob's place. I know Jack annoys everyone, but if this theory materializes, my money's on him. In his scene with Jacob, he buys an Apollo bar and that struck me. Apollo, like Ra, is the sun god. He's also the god of medicine -- If Jacob represents Ra, an older god than Apollo, is Jack the heir apparent?

Biblical, Egyptian and Roman references aside, I think this show is really a sappy soap opera cloaked in sci-fi geekiness. Sun and Jin, Jack and Kate, Juliet and Sawyer, Desmond and Penelope – the ultimate reward is always love, always The Constant. In fact, that Constant – pure, unconditional love for which you are willing to sacrifice everything – is what people must have to survive a place like the island, a tropical gladiators' colliseum where everything you think about yourself is put to the ultimate test.

Lost is really like love itself: completely simple, and yet completely complicated.

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.