A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

"Everything's better
Down where it's wetter"

This is why they call them "killer whales" and not "fluffy boo boo whales":

A killer whale at the Sea World theme park grabbed a trainer by the foot and held him underwater during a show Wednesday.

The trainer escaped and was in good condition later, park officials said.
Kasatka, a 30-year-old killer whale who is a veteran of many performances, grabbed the trainer and pulled him underwater, said Mike Scarpuzzi, head trainer at Sea World.

Other trainers were able to persuade the whale to surface, allowing the trainer a breath of air, but enacted emergency procedures in place for such instances, Scarpuzzi said.

The other trainers got a net in the pool, and the trainer, who also has years of experience, was able to calm the whale, swim to the other side of the net and get out of the pool, he said.

We, as a nation, have tragically forgotten the painful lessons taught us by Siegfried and Roy.

Didn't you people see Deep Blue Sea? You can't allow these intelligent carnivores to swim around with impunity. Instead of firing a shotgun into its brain like Thomas Jane's character wanted to do, you guys decided to go the Saffron Burrows route and let the beast live. I think we all know how this ends up. SeaWorld will be collapsing into the ocean any day now.

Sure, it's a bummer and all, but at least it was an isolated…what's that?:

Tourists flock to Fisherman's Wharf for the seafood and the stunning views of San Francisco Bay, but for many visitors, the real stars are the dozens of playful, whiskered sea lions that lounge by the water's edge, gulping down fish.

Now a series of sea-lion attacks on people in recent months has led experts to warn that the animals are not as cute and cuddly as they appear.

"People should understand these animals are out there not to attack people or humans. But they're out there to survive for themselves," said Jim Oswald, a spokesman for the Marine Mammal Center across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco.

In the most frightening of the recent episodes, a rogue sea lion bit 14 swimmers this month and chased 10 more out of the water at San Francisco's Aquatic Park, a sheltered lagoon near the bay. At least one victim suffered puncture wounds.

Some scientists speculate that the animals' aggressive behavior is being caused by eating fish contaminated by toxic algae, or by a shortage of food off the coast. But wildlife experts say even healthy sea lions are best left alone.

I think anything lion-related is best left alone, period.

With the following exceptions:

World Cup Willie - 1966 World Cup Mascot (not, in fact, a nickname for Franz Beckenbauer's penis)
The Great Sphinx
Lyon, France - Much better than that snooty Saint-Etienne
White Lion - Some of the comments for this video are sublime.

Continuing with our theme of "aquatic denizens gone wild," comes the story of a near-finalist for the Darwin Awards:

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) -- Florida sheriff's deputies jumped into a dark lake and pulled a naked man from the jaws of an alligator early Wednesday, authorities said.

The man lost his left arm and had a broken right arm and major injuries to his left leg, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said. He was hospitalized in critical condition.

After several people reported hearing screams for help from central Florida's Lake Parker at about 4 a.m. ET, deputies arrived to find the man in the alligator's grasp, the sheriff said.

Four deputies waded through waist-deep mud, wrestled the man free and pulled him about 40 yards back to shore to a waiting ambulance, Judd said.

"He was totally naked," Judd said of the victim, identified as 45-year-old Adrian Apgar.
"He admitted that he'd been smoking crack cocaine. But still, it's a human life," Judd said at a news conference. "Our deputies don't ask questions, they respond and they save people."

This was apparently a misunderstanding, as Apgar merely asked the alligator if he was holding.

The right to arm bears

Yet another reason to hate Nashville. Not only does the music suck, but the musicians themselves are morons:

Troy Gentry, who pleaded guilty this week in Minnesota to a misdemeanor charge of falsely registering a captive bear as being killed in the wild, said the ordeal has been "a humbling experience."

"I relied on the experts around me for guidance, and I regret that today. Not so much because I was fined and punished, but because it appears that I don't have respect for the law," Gentry, of the hit country singing duo Montgomery Gentry, said Monday in a statement.

"This has been a humbling experience for me, and one which I deeply regret."

Lest anyone thinks these so-called "experts" were ambiguous about exactly what was going on, there's this tidbit from a previous story:

Gentry told the court he bought the bear from Greenly with the understanding they would videotape a hunt inside the bear's enclosure, which was surrounded by an electric fence.

"Lee and I made a deal about harvesting this bear," Gentry testified. They also agreed to report it was killed in the wild 6 miles east of Sandstone instead of on Greenly's property south of the town.

Full disclosure: I've been hunting once. Infrequent commenter MacInFla brought me along several years ago, and I equate the entire experience to taking a 10-hour hike with a rifle slung over my shoulder. Had I seen a deer, I doubt I could've brought myself to shoot (at) it. Nor did I bother with the plentiful goats in the area.

Whatever your feelings about hiding in the trees and shooting an animal with a high-powered rifle that propels a bullet at 3,000 fps, at least most hunters don't go down to the zoo and plug the Malayan sun bear, which is about the degree of difficulty Gentry was working with. He also agreed to lie about the location of the kill, which seems less like "expert guidance" and more like "giving misleading information to the cops."

Under the plea announced Monday, the 39-year-old singer agreed to pay a $15,000 fine, give up hunting, fishing and trapping in Minnesota for five years, and forfeit both the bear's hide and the bow he used to shoot the animal in 2004. The bear, named "Cubby," was killed in a 3-acre private enclosure.

My bad, Gentry was hunting with a bow and arrow, which is how Ted Nugent and the Native Americans did it, after all. Though I doubt a couple of guys with Remington 673s were backing up the Chippewa. They also probably had better names for their bears.

Three acres surrounded by an electric fence. Ah, the cagey resourcefulness of the wily hunter.

Back to phtagn

From the Nov. 19 edition of the Maine Sunday Telegram:

New Island Emerges

Crew members of a yacht sailing westward from the South Pacific island nation of Tonga toward Fiji say they witnessed the birth of a new island, which appars to have emerged from the Pacific during a volcanic eruption.

Those onboard the Maiken initially were puzzled by the vast blanket of pumice that they sailed through for several miles. But they later came across an uncharted steaming island in Tonga's Vava'u group, which was apparently created by an undersea volcano.

The crew described the new island as being one mile in diameter with four peaks and a central crater. Tongan government geologist Kelepi Mafi said he plans to visit the new chunk of rock if his country can afford to dispatch a military ship.

You might also want to bring along a mathemetician schooled in non-Euclidean geometry, and maybe a psychically-sensitive artist or two. The stars are right, after all.

"Now, I'd like to digress from my prepared remarks to discuss how I invented the terlet."

Jeez, I go out of town for a few days and somebody dies. Normally, I wouldn't have much to say on the subject of Bo Schembechler passing away, but it makes sense later, honest:

In the end, Michigan vs. Ohio State might have been too much for Bo Schembechler's failing heart.

The man with half-century-old roots to The Game died at age 77 on Friday on the eve of perhaps the biggest matchup in the storied rivalry's history, No. 1 vs. No. 2, and his doctor said it might have been because of all the excitement.

Schembechler, who became one of college football's great coaches in two decades at Michigan, collapsed at the studios of WXYZ-TV in the Detroit suburb of Southfield, where he taped a weekly show. He was pronounced dead a little more than two hours later at nearby Providence Hospital.

Okay, technically I was still in town when he died. I went to bed early on Friday because I had to drag ass to Intercontinental at 4 AM to fly to Maine and surprise dear old Dad for his birthday (I won't give the age, but he officially predates the Truman Doctrine). I learned of Schembechler's death while watching ESPN at a bar in the Newark Airport around 11:00 AM (don't you judge me…I was on vacation), and I had to get clarificaton from the guy next to me (Steve from Albany) about the specifics:

PETE: Bo Schembechler died? When the hell did that happen?
STEVE: Friday night, I think.
PETE: Heart attack?
STEVE: I think so, he was about to tape his radio show and collapsed.
PETE: Huh.
STEVE: At least he died doing what he loved.
PETE: Yeah, I guess if you can't go in your sleep it's the next best thing.

At this point, the conversation takes a rather severe left turn.

STEVE: After all, he could've died on the shitter.
PETE: What?
STEVE: How awful would that be, taking a shit and dropping dead? I think about it every time I go to the toilet.
PETE: You know, I never thought about that.
STEVE: It's my biggest fear.
PETE: I think you just made it mine, too.

We discussed the statistical likelihood of dying sur la toilette and famous crapper-related deaths (Elvis, Lenny Bruce) until my sister showed up and mercifully dragged me to our connecting flight.

You're as cold as ice

The annual Frigid 50 list is up again over at that place I write for. In fact, it's been up on the front page all week, meaning my Casino Royale review isn't there yet. As I'd hate to do the public a disservice, I'll let y'all know that it's probably the best Bond since Live and Let Die, and Daniel Craig may very well be the best James Bond since Connery.

As for the Frigid 50...I think they kept about half a dozen of my entries verbatim, and I had a hand in another 10 or 15. High five.

EDIT: Here's the review.

"But of course, for that ending to work you would have to ignore all the Simpson DNA evidence. And that would be downright nutty."

All jokes about O.J. Simpson writing a book and conducting an interview on how he would've committed the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman - and there are a metric fuckton, believe me - withered on the vine for me when I saw the cover of the book in question. If this is a gag, my hat's off to whoever pulled it off. If it isn't, well, words fail me:

I mean...you just...it can't...

The Wife and I were discussing the current events of the day and, when we reflected upon it, O.J.'s decision makes a certain amount of sense. The guy's obviously a legitimate sociopath, but worse, he's an egomaniac. He hasn't been on the front page in ten years, and since (I imagine) the character of Nordberg will be conspicuously absent from any future installments in the Naked Gun series, this is his last, best shot at capturing the nation's attention.

Until he finally tracks down the "real killers," of course.

"All this computer hacking is making me thirsty."

So The Wife's cell phone starts going off around 8:30 last night. By "going off" I mean "vibrating madly on the coffee table." Obviously, it's no one she knows, because they're interrupting Veronica Mars. Being the good spouse, I pick it up, only to be greeted by the following:

I naturally assume that my spouse is up to no good, probably with the local pool boy, but as I'm on my way to the garage for the nail gun she reminds me that She Who Shall Not Be Named was mucking around with the cell phones earlier. Considering the unfamiliar calls I made to Singapore last month (including several to certain, uh, houses of ill repute), this seems eminently plausible. She's figured out how to lock my laptop keyboard and freeze up the TV remote with nary a second thought, after all.

But she doesn't get a MySpace page until she's at least...oh...13 or so.

"Well, I was sure you'd be on foot, because you always say public transportation is for losers."

I don't read the Houston Press, our local weekly, as much as I used to. I find the old excuses work the best: no time, not enough time, and even less time available to read it. There's also probably an element of professional jealousy, meaning: I'm jealous of those who write professionally. I suppose it helps that I generally like the quality of writing I see in their film reviews, Wilonsky and Weinkauf especially.

So it's always a nice surprise to come upon something like John Nova Lomax's chronicle of his sojourn down the length of Westheimer, on foot, with his friend Geoffrey "Uncle Tick" Muller. How daunting a task is this?

Not from the Loop to Midtown, nor from the Beltway either. By "all the way," I mean just that -- start from where the No. 53 "Westheimer Limited" Metro bus turns around at West Oaks Mall and Highway 6, and then pound the pavement of the entire 16-plus miles, eight zip codes and three U.S. congressional districts, all the way to where Westheimer gives way to Elgin in Midtown.

You might be asking yourself why someone would take on such a challenge. The day after the slog, awaking with blistered feet and sore to the bone, I was wondering the same thing myself. I doubted anyone else had done it, for starters. I also did it because I wanted the physical challenge. I have recently lost about 20 or 30 pounds, and while I'm still no Lance Armstrong -- I could probably stand to shed about 30 or 40 more pounds -- I felt my relatively svelte self needed a test. I just hoped my thighs wouldn't chafe, and thanks to Dr. Atkins, they didn't.

But above all else, I wanted to see if I would gain any insights into H-Town's soul. Westheimer, more than any other thoroughfare, embodies Houston's car-enamored, zoning-free ethos, a damn-near 20-mile phantasmagoria of strip malls, storage facilities, restaurants, big-box retail, office parks, apartment complexes, strip clubs, malls, supermarkets and the occasional church.

Indeed, one could live their entire life purely within the confines of this fabled road and never want for anything, from quality comic books to high-end golf supplies to the best lap dances southeast Texas has to offer.

I've taken a number of ill-advised urban treks of my own. My personal favorite was a late-night hike in February of 1988 from the University of Texas' Jester Dormitory down Congress to Ben White Blvd. and back, a roundtrip of just over six miles (the journey was precipitated by a really meaningful fight with my freshman girlfriend). I hit the road around midnight, and by the time I wandered back to my room (around 5 AM), the cops had stopped me - twice, I'd been offered a ride by a dude who was the spitting image of Redd Foxx, and an English guy tried to pick me up so many times I had to threaten him with physical violence to get him to leave me alone.[1]

In retrospect, the walking ensemble consisting of ripped jeans, a black leather jacket, and black cowboy boots probably screamed "Joe Buck." At least I wasn't wearing a cowboy hat.

But enough about me, how did Lomax's trip go?

So, had we found the soul of Houston? Yes, I would have to say that we did, such as it is. It's ugly, preposterous and inhuman, interspersed with all-too-rare pockets of serenity and beauty. It smells like roasting corn, raw sewage, fish sauce, frying hamburgers and exhaust. (Heavy on the exhaust.) There's sex and God at one end of it and plain old sex at the other. It's chic and tacky, humble and proud. It's Vietnamese, Mexican, Korean, black, white, Muslim and Christian, macho and effete, alive and dead, Red State and Blue. It sounds like the whooshing of cars, and if you close your eyes, you can delude yourself into believing they're waves lapping at a beach. It's the American dream, and it's a prison. And it's got the best sweet tea.

I hate sweet tea, but otherwise he's pretty much on the money.

[1] His swinging technique consisted of telling me he'd already slept with an American woman,and nailing an American man would make his trip complete. Or words to that effect. Hey, I'm sure I've used worse.

Two things

First, reviews for this week are up:

Stranger Than Fiction - ***1/2
Harsh Times - **1/2

Second, I have apparently taken complete leave of my senses and agreed to start a reader blog over at the Houston Chronicle website. It'll be somewhat like APCB, only strictly movie-related - well, bad movie-related - and not as much profanity. If that sounds like something that wouldn't bore you to tears, I'd like to direct your attention to Blog 9 From Outer Space.

It just keeps getting better

Majorities, biyatch:

A Democratic takeover of the Senate is appearing likely after an ongoing canvass of votes in Virginia produced no significant changes in the outcome of the hard-fought race led by Democratic challenger Jim Webb, sources told CNN Wednesday.

Wednesday night, with Webb leading Republican Sen. George Allen by about 7,200 votes and the canvass about half complete, The Associated Press declared Webb the winner.
[...]
A victory by Webb would put the new Senate lineup at 49 Democrats, 49 Republicans and two independents -- Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut -- who have said they would caucus with the Democrats.

That would give the Democrats the 51 votes they need to claim a majority for the first time since 2002.
[...]
If the Virginia result is confirmed, Democrats will take over the Senate and the House of Representatives in January, and Bush said he would work with whomever was in charge.

That's quite a refreshing change of attitude, considering the Republicans' recent history of excluding Democrats from virtually all aspects of the lawmaking process. Maybe someone should've informed Hastert and Sensenbrenner of their President's desire for bipartisan cooperation before they made midnight votes and closed sessions par for the course.

As control of the House moves to the Democrats, Bush said immigration and minimum wage measures were areas of common ground to discuss when he meets Democratic speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi Thursday.

"We can work together over the next two years," the president said.

For a change, I guess. Bush's statements remind me of Arjen Rudd shooting Riggs then hoisting his credentials aloft while claiming "diplomatic immunity." The problem is, it was his party that turned our Congress into a rubber stamp instead of a functioning legislature and/or a legitimate check on the Presidency. To quote that book they're so fond of hiding behind (and Young Guns), "For they sow the wind, and they reap the whirlwind." Enjoy the backlash.

Meanwhile, back in Texas, gains by Dems weren't quite as impressive. Certainly I'm happy that Nick Lampson won CD22, and Ellen Cohen and Hubert Vo secured State seats, but the Lone Star State is still heavily red.

Shit, this guy was actually elected Land Commissioner:

I don't know exactly how mastery of the Weaver stance contributes to one's abilities to do this job, even if - as an '80s action movie aficionado - I can appreciate the aesthetics of this mailer, but...what the fuck?

"I am looking forward to an orderly election tomorrow, which will eliminate the need for a violent bloodbath."

An off-year election always means great turnout, Regardless, polls are open from 7 AM to 7 PM, and you can find your local (for Houston folks) polling place here. As for whom you should vote for, my proclivities are already pretty well known, and since I'm in a bit of a hurry, I'll just quote last weekend's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher::

New Rule: Controlling Congress is for closers. Listen up, Democrats, it's as simple as ABC: Always Be Closing. First prize? Controlling congressional committees, with subpoena power. Second prize: set of steak knives. Third prize? You're fired.

The election is four days away, and I'm through dicking around with you. Here are your talking points:

1) When they say, "Democrats will raise taxes," you say, "We have to, because some asshole spent all the money in the world cutting Paris Hilton's taxes and not killing Osama bin Laden." In just six years the national debt has doubled. You can't keep spending money you don't take in, that's not even elementary economics, that's just called "Don't be Michael Jackson."

2) When they say, "The terrorists want the Democrats to win," you say, "Are you insane? George Bush has been a terrorist's wet dream, and nonpartisan commissions have confirmed that he's a recruiter's dream: theirs, not ours. And, he has exhausted our military without coming away with a win, the worst of both worlds." Bush inflames radical hatred against America and then runs on offering to protect us from it. It's like a guy throwing shit on you and then selling you relief from the flies.

3) When they say, "Cut and Run" or "Defeatocrat," you say, "Bush lost the war -- period." All this nonsense about "the violence is getting worse because they're trying to influence our election." No, it's getting worse because you drew up the postwar plans on the back of a cocktail napkin at Applebee's. And of course Democrats want to win, but that's impossible now that you've ethnically cleansed the place by making it unlivable, just like you did with New Orleans.

4) When they say that actual combat veterans like John Kerry are "denigrating" the troops, you say, "You're completely full of shit." Remember when Al Gore caught all that flak for sighing and moaning during that debate? Yeah, don't do that. Just say, "You're full of shit."

If I was a troop, the support I would want back home would mainly come in the form of people pressuring Washington to get me out of this pointless nightmare. That's how I would feel supported.

So when they say, "Democrats are obstructionists," you say, "You're welcome." Because with a bad administration that has bad ideas, obstruction is a good thing, just as it's a good thing to obstruct a drunk from getting his car keys. I would be happy to frame the debate as a fight between the Obstructionists and the Enablers. There's your talking point: "Vote Republican, and you vote to enable George Bush to keep ruling as an emperor." A retarded, child emperor, but an emperor.

Democrats, you've got two days to get out there and close. It's not about slogans this time. Although when it comes to slogans, accept no other from your opponent except this one: "The Republican Party: We're Sorry."

Vote.

UPDATE: Democrats take control of the House. Senate still too close to call. Perry wins. So does Lampson. Hell of a night all around.

"I don't make movies to win awards...especially now that I have two Oscars."

I mentioned earlier that my friend and fellow FT-er Don Lewis got his film Stringers into the Austin Film Festival. Well wouldn't you know it, he and co-director John Beck won the Audience Award for Documentary Short. Congrats to Don and John, and I hope they'll remember me when they need someone to write their big screen Green Lantern adaptation.

Oh, and I have a couple reviews from last week:

Borat - *****
Babel - ***1/2

Tragically, you're on your own for The Santa Clause 3.

"If you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it."

I don't rant too much about movie remakes here. Well...anymore. Mostly because I consider it about as effective as voting Democrat on a Diebold machine. Your favorite movie, unless it happens to be one of the cherished few American classics (Citizen Kane, Raging Bull, Bambi vs. Godzilla ) is probably going to get remade by Frank Darabont at some point in the very near future and there isn't a goddamned thing you can do about it except cry like a little girl on your weblog.

So here I am. First, from an e-mail I received last week:

From filmmaker Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes production company (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” [2003], “The Amityville Horror” [2005]) comes a remake of the 1986 terror classic. Dave Meyers is directing the new film, which tracks the terrifying cross-country trajectory of Grace (Sophia Bush) and Jim (Zachary Knighton), two traveling college students who are tormented by the mysterious hitchhiker John Ryder, a.k.a. The Hitcher (Sean Bean).

Color me surprised. Seriously, after Armageddon and Pearl Harbor, I didn't think it was possible to hate Michael Bay any more than I already do. Certainly I'm not the only one looking forward to panoramic slow motions shots and PG-13 style violence from Cecil B. DeMousse's production company.

Remakes only have merit when the original could somehow be improved upon by modern technology or a new perspective. The Hitcher update offers none of these; it apes the plot of the original, and - while I like Sean Bean quite a lot (even in the Sharpe's Rifles series) - he's no Rutger fucking Hauer.

I mean, come on:

"Find a Whataburger or I cut her throat!"

No one will ever mistake the original Hitcher for high art. There are too many plot contrivances, Ryder is almost Voorheesian in his immortality, and the whole thing is too fantastic to take seriously. In spite of all that, it was a great atmospheric thriller featuring a much more complex hero-villain relationship than most films of its ilk.

And Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a pivotal role. You could almost say she's the lynchpin of the film.

For our next exhibit, we have even better news:

OK, the true-blue horror geeks can generally deal with it when you remake something like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, because everyone knows that flick, but when it comes to titles like, say, Near Dark -- we tend to get pretty protective. (It's sorta like you and that one band you loved -- years before everyone else loved 'em.) Word out of all the different horror sites (well, the three I trust, anyway) is that not only will there be a new rendition of Kathryn Bigelow & Eric Red's brilliant cult classic Near Dark, but a screenwriter has already been hired for the gig.

The good news is that Matt Venne, the guy who just turned in his screenplay for White Noise 2, seems to have his head screwed on where Near Dark Redux is concerned. As quoted at Fango, Venne says "there are images in the original film and in Eric Red and Kathryn Bigelow’s screenplay that are absolutely beautiful. Completely dreamy and captivating. Pure poetry. It’s an incredible project, and I’m honored to be writing it."

So the good news is, the screenwriter recognizes the special nature of the original film. The bad news is, his vast writing resume includes the fucking White Noise sequel and an episode of Showtime's lousy Masters of Horror series.

Oh, and this is going to be another of Bay's Platinum Dunes productions, in case you weren't aware.

Near Dark, for those who haven't had the pleasure, is a blisteringly cool Southern-fried vampire noir from 1987 that was written by Eric (The Hitcher) Red and directed by Kathryn (Point Break) Bigelow. Although the flick features strong performances from Adrian Pasdar as one unlucky lad and Tim Thomerson as his devoted pop, the three blood-soaked standouts had just gotten done working together in Aliens. As a devilishly evil trio of bloodsuckers, Lance Henriksen, Jenette Goldstein, and Bill Paxton are just perfect together.

That's right: Eric Red is getting the double shaft. Don't feel too badly for him though, from the look of things, Bay's going to be giving audiences the Ted Haggard treatment many times over for years to come.

Henriksen is on record as saying he'd be up for the remake, now rumored to be a prequel, which makes no sense if he's supposed to play a younger version of his characters in a movie that won't come out until over 20 years after the original. Lance was in the When A Stranger Calls remake, however, so his enthusiasm is hardly encouraging.

That'll show 'em

Aaron Sorkin’s latest overwrought wankfest, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, was reportedly in danger of getting the axe. Of course, these reports were coming from Fox News, an organization with little love for Sorkin, so fans of “good TV” can breathe easier knowing that new scripts have in fact been ordered.

Granted, the article remains cagey about the possibility of the show being picked up in the spring, so for those who simply have to make their voice heard, there’s a web site devoted to saving Studio 60, they even have a petition you can sign.

We, the undersigned believe in smart television. We have watched network executives cancel smart shows before-- shows like Arrested Development, Freaks & Geeks, FireFly and many more without giving them what we believe to be their rightful due.

Ah, online petitions. Is there anything they can’t do? Besides saving shows from cancellation, I mean.

The difference being, Arrested Development and Freaks and Geeks were shows one could watch without gnawing a hole in their own cheek. Studio 60 is – in the tradition of most Sorkin fare – didactic and repetitive. “Smart” television can’t be measured in words of dialogue spoken per minute, which Sorkin’s apologists seem to believe.

Beyond that, Studio 60 suffers from two serious problems. The first is NBC’s decision to depict the show as a comedy, which it really isn’t. There are (allegedly) funny situations, but things like last week’s blackballed comedy writer story (such current relevance) and the guy giving his dad the “Who’s On First?” album because he'd never heard it before(?!) are pure TV melodrama. It goes a long way towards explaining the show’s plummeting ratings, though it isn’t really Sorkin’s fault.

The second problem is, however, and that’s the ham-fisted political grandstanding the guy injects into everything he writes. It was understandable in The West Wing, which was a show about – guess what? – the Presidency. Hearing a bunch of TV writers (like Sorkin, coincidentally) pontificate on racial issues and HUAC and the like, on the other hand, is pretentious even by his usual standards.

Okay, three problems: Heroes isn't an appropriate lead-in.

And I've said it before (and I will continue to say it until I have converted every living human being to my cause) but if you still aren’t watching The Wire, whether on HBO, DVD, or the torrents, then you really have no idea what “smart television” is. Seriously.