Treme — 3 and 1/2 Stars

I was annoyed reading Alex Pappademas’ Grantland piece on Treme, mostly because I was anticipating five years from now, when Grantland Editor-in-Chief Bill Simmons will lecture all of us about how great the show was. Simmons hasn’t written about Treme, but admitted on his podcast that he dismissed it after a few failed attempts at watching. I guess it bothers me when a pop culture tastemaker with such incredible reach ignores a show as good as Treme, a gift from a mind whose work has given us the best the medium has to offer. It’s probably unfair to be so irritated by Simmons glib reaction to Treme. In fact, I’m sure it is. But here I am anyway.

Alex Pappademas is a good pop culture writer, his piece on MTV’s Teen Wolf is fucking awesome, and he had the decency to at least watch and think about Treme before deciding it was no good. I read his piece as I was in the midst of a Treme binge, catching up on season 2 in a six episode burst that moved me to tears on more than one occasion. A lot of his problems with Treme reflect exactly what I love about it, the very same qualities that make it one of the five or six best things currently on TV and a worthy successor to the single greatest show in television history.

Rate the Universe Podcast

Sometimes there’s just not enough hours in the day to sit down and write. I love doing it, but it’s hard fucking work. So in order to keep active with reviewing every inch of universal minutia, I’m pleased to announce the Rate the Universe Podcast, in which my good friend Matt and I do what I do on the blog, only we do it with our mouths and tongues (sexy!) because it requires less effort on both our end and yours. I’ll still be writing the blog, but as you know, time restraints often make posts few and far between.

We’re going to try our damnedest to churn out new episodes every Monday, and I hope you’ll tune in every week by subscribing in iTunes or visiting the direct stream. If you’ve enjoyed the blog at all and you’re still reading this, I honestly think you’ll enjoy the podcast — wouldn’t waste your time otherwise.

In the debut episode of the Rate the Universe Podcast, we review Roger Ebert, masturbating to someone you know, and admitting you like girly things. Also, we debut our regular segment called “Blank, this is Blank.”

You can find it all right here: www.ratetheuniversepodcast.com

And actually, you don’t even have to listen to it. Just click the link a bunch of times to make me think there are legions of listeners out there who will validate my need for an audience. It will make me feel good about myself. But if you DO listen, I hope you’ll come back for more.

Jury Duty — 3 and 1/2 Stars

Some people tried to make me feel shame for not having the guile to get out of performing my civic duty. I heard tales of what they thought were displays of great cunning and quick witted deception, but to me just sounded like the kind of lies that are exhausting to tell. It seemed so much easier to just show up, check out the show, and enjoy a day away from work. Every story I’d ever heard about jury duty involved a day of sitting, reading, and being dismissed in time to make it home for Jeopardy. Didn’t sound so bad.

Chicago’s Daley Center, home of the Circuit Court of Cook County, is a strikingly bland building on the inside – and if it wasn’t for Picasso and the fact that the Blues Brothers once drove their car through the lobby windows, the outside would be pretty unremarkable too. The place is a blank slate. The inside halls have no character or attitude or point of view, which I suppose is appropriate for a place that is supposed to trade in the distribution of unbiased justice. It made me think that doctors’ and dentists’ offices should be like this too – no false motivational artwork pressuring you to feel optimistic – just the purity of tabula rasa and the freedom to feel however the fuck you want about your disease or your lawsuit or your root canal or your bad luck getting called for jury duty. The Picasso in the plaza is more than enough artwork for your entire court experience. It says everything it needs to about the strange beast you are up against when conducting business in an institution such as this. That thing should be outside of public schools too.

Our Modern Time Machine — 3 Stars

I want you to notice when I’m not around.

You’re so fucking special.

I wish I was special.

But I’m a creep.

- Radiohead, Creep

In October, the David Fincher directed, Aaron Sorkin written The Social Network will be released, which tells the story of the group of Harvard shitheads who invented Facebook. I’m sure it will be good, because David Fincher doesn’t make bad movies. I don’t really know much about Mark Zuckerberg, or even if he and his friends were indeed shitheads, but at the moment, he’s the world’s youngest billionaire (lawsuit pending), and as well he should be — he helped invent the closest thing to an actual time machine the world has ever seen.

The popularity of Facebook is mostly unextraordinary. By now, we all know its strengths (keeping up with the family, checking in to see how ugly/fat your formerly attractive classmates are) and its weaknesses (endless baby pictures, stories of the mundane, having former classmates see how ugly/fat you now are). Facebook can help you promote your business or your blog; it can, of course, help you reconnect with old friends. But I believe its massive popularity is due to its ability to hit into a deeper, psychological desire that we all have: to go back in time.

When Your Team Wins It All — 4 Stars

If you are a sports fan and also the type of person who thinks about things, witnessing your team win a championship is, of course, a wonderful, wonderful thing. However, I suspect that most thinking sports fans would admit it also comes with a twinge of melancholy reflection. It’s a time when it’s hard not to think about your sports fandom in general, about whether or not all the time and energy you put into cheering for your teams is worth it, about if sports really matter in any tangible way.

These are questions that only subtly occurred to me as a child, when I was able to get caught up in the pure emotion of a moment and quickly dismiss any need to define or qualify an athletic achievement, but as I’ve gotten older, I feel compelled to answer those nagging questions that come from my need for sports fandom to be logical. As such, I think I’m actually a bigger and more passionate sports fan now than I was when I was a kid.

Our Basketball Jesus — 3 Stars

Watching the LeBron James debacle makes us reconsider everything we once thought about James and the team of advisers surrounding him. In one grand moment, LeBron went from being perceived as a shrewd businessman and sensitive soul to an out of touch mercenary with little regard for his NBA legacy or the fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

This is the absolute worst decision he could have made for both his corporate brand and his career as a basketball player. I’m not saying this because I feel like a rejected Bulls fan (even though I do feel like a rejected Bulls fan). In fact, the more I think about it, the only decision that made complete sense for James was to stay in Cleveland, but almost anything other than the Miami scenario would not have killed his reputation in such a surefire way. Had he signed with any other of his final four teams (Bulls, Knicks, Nets, Clippers), Cavalier fans would undoubtedly still be crushed, but they sure as hell would be taking it better than having to watch him join an unholy triumvirate on the sunny and boobalicious shores of South Beach.

When Your Dog Dies – 0 Stars

When they told us the lump on her neck might be cancerous, here is the promise I made myself: if anything happened to her — if she should die before she reached the age of, say, 10 — I would never own another dog. And not only would I never own another dog, I would become one of those over-the-top, movie villain, “I’ve-had-pain-in-my-past-which-explains-my-hate-for-this-certain-thing” type of person who actively dislikes dogs and refuses to be around them because all my displaced anger turns me into some kind of K-9 murdering monster like Cruella DeVille.

Clementine did die. She died not long after I made myself that promise, but I have yet to become that person. As much as I wanted to erase the part of my brain that loves dogs, I find myself unable to deny one simple fact: Dogs are awesome, even the parts that cause you pain.

The Lost Finale — 3 and 1/2 Stars

“Everything dies, baby. That’s a fact. Maybe everything that dies someday comes back.”

- Bruce Springsteen, Atlantic City

“Now you are like me.”

– The Protector

I’m wondering how Lost head writers/producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse are feeling this week. My guess is that they might be a bit disappointed. Not necessarily disappointed in themselves — I’m sure, as artists, they stand by their work — they may, however, be disappointed in some of their most vocal supporters on the web, as most major TV writers I’ve seen chiming in on Lost’s curtain call seem to have universally misinterpreted the last scene to varying degrees. The desired result of the closing moments was clearly to evoke debate, but the response doesn’t feel like spirited argument to me. Instead, so far at least, critics and the masses seem to be falling into one of two camps without much disagreement: 1) complete befuddlement, or 2) unfortunate misreading.

For the record, I thought the finale was a remarkable, cinema-worthy experience, with an ending that was as appropriately ambitious and enigmatic as the show itself. And while I don’t claim to know the hearts and minds of Lindelof, Cuse, and their writing staff, my suspicion is that on Monday morning they might have wished to have one quick rewrite of Christian Shephard’s monologue to his son. I want so badly to give the finale four stars, but I have to doc a half-star if only because Cuse and Lindelof wrote a scene that is forcing me to listen to people throw around the “purgatory” theory again, which makes me want to pee in someone’s communion wine. I hope to  soon tackle the entire series in an upcoming essay, but for now, I’d like to just focus on the finale and a few things that I take issue with regarding the immediate critical response.

The Late Night Wars 2: Electric Boogaloo — 3 Stars

In what is quickly developing into the biggest entertainment news story in quite some time, the Late Night Wars of the early nineties have been reignited. Only this time, it’s ten times more entertaining because so much of it is playing out in front of our faces in monologues across four or five different shows, instead of behind closed doors among agents and executives.

Like almost all big entertainment news stories, the “can’t-we-please-stop-talking-about-this-it-doesn’t-even-matter-especially-when-there’s-a-earthquake-in-Haiti-and-a-war-in-Afghanistan” contingent is starting to come out only days after the story is hitting its apex. Of course, Haiti is a more important story, worthy of coverage and all the relief efforts we can muster. Any Haiti benefit is a better use of our time than to worry about Conan O’Brien and Jay Leno. Everybody believes this. No one would argue with it. Yet, people continue to complain about the Late Night Wars coverage because they think it makes them seem intelligent. They position themselves as being above the discussion of what happens on television and believe our perception of them will be that they are somehow more in touch with the way the world works. I’m guilty of this too — it’s kind of like what I want people to think when I go out of my way to say I like Pavement (which I do, but still, I don’t have to say it. I don’t like that them that fucking much).

Year End/Decade Lists — 2 and 1/2 Stars

Note: All entries are 100% spoiler free.

It’s true what they say about these lists. They’re incredibly self-indulgent, a pretty lame attempt at showing others how cool you think you are, how modern and plugged into popular culture your tastes happen to be. The selections will inevitably match most popular critics’ lists, with a few very carefully chosen deviations which most likely take the form of unique sequencing or a couple of populist or unexpected genre selections that are all meant to show you are indeed a free thinker.