A tragic day

A death trifecta

Ed McMahon
Farrah Fawcett
Michael Jackson

I guess it's no surprise that Ed died. He was in dire straits physcially & financially for a long time. I also think that he never recovered from Johnny Carson passing away. Farrah ... tragic tragic tragic. She suffered so needlessly from a cancer that I've never heard of. I didn't watch her special, but thought it was brave of her to be so public with her illness. Michael Jackson ... wow ... didn't expect it, but I can't say I'm surprised at all. I'm already thinking suicide, which again, wouldn't surprise me one bit. Tortured soul doesn't begin to describe Michael Jackson. Robbed of his childhood, tried to buy it back too late.

How long before Walter Cronkite passes ...

So ... on to television!

Watched an awesome Frontline on the bank collapse. A pox on Henry Paulson, what a tool! Talk about a power hungry bully. I'm not defending the greedy bastards in the banks, but Paulson really screwed the pooch by forcing the banks to take government money. The episode focused mainly on the forced merger of Bank of America and Merrill Lynch. It was as much about the cultures of the 2 banks. BofA in Charlotte and Merrill in NYC ... it was about as odd of a merger as Morgan Stanley merging with Dean Witter ... anyone remember that one? Oh, and it was about as sensible as Mercedes merging with Crysler .. ha! There's another match made in heck.

Z-Rock is much much better this season. Very funny, great guest stars. The guys seem to be more at ease with the show. I'd hire the guys for a birthday party in a minute.

Nurse Jackie. Wow .. what a great character driven show. Edie Falco's first tv show since Sopranos. She plays a drug addicted affair having ER nurse. She's brilliant! No hint of Carmela Soprano here! The first episode was dry .. kind of a snoozer, but the last 2 episodes have been kick butt. Each character, the head game playing ER doctor, the hauhty former nurse administrator, the new nurse on the floor who is scared poop-less ... but I have to say the character I'm digging the most is Peter Fancinelli's ... yep, Jenny Garth's husband ... he plays this ultra young doctor who is a complete loon. Loonie in the young doctor sense. He's smarter than he thinks he is. I see Jackie and Coop having a torrid affair at some point. Great show on Showtime. I still can't forgive them for cancelling Huff! and Dead Like Me, but Nurse Jackie is a good start.

Watched American Masters. I have to say that this one should have been called NORTH American Masters because it was about ... errrr, aboot ... ha! Neil Young. I love this guy. I can't say that I'm a big fan of his music. His fanbase is very rabid, I'm not that way. I think I'm more a fan of the person than the music. Neil Young is totally about HIS music. He's a selfish artist. He leaves people high and dry and doens't really care because for him, it's about music, not people. Look at his career ... started out as a surfer guitar guy, went folk, went new wave with Devo, went electronic with Trans, rockabilly (I'll always love that album, particularly, the song Wondering), back to his roots ... fans be damned. All Neil Young cares about is making music that he likes. This man is neither a hypocrite or a sellout. I can respect that. He's a true artist.

The Daily Show has been fantastic. Stewart had a civilized discussion about abortion with Mike Huckabee. Yes, I said it, civilized! Both of them are to be commended, yes, I said that too. Mike Huckabee was civil! The best though is Jason Jones's trip to Iran. Unbelieveable! What's sad though is that some of the journalists and leaders that he spoke to are now in jail. I really hope some kind of award is bestowed upon them for this wonderful reporting. The funniest was Jones interviewing Iranian citizens about American history and they knew more about American History than Americans did! Sad!!!!! They had this old guy who could name all the presidents backwards ... American presidents! He's Iranian!!! Good stuff!

I'm starting to hit all the repeated Corner Gas episodes now. I understand that they ended production in April, so I'm hoping that I can see the series in it's entirety at some point. What a great show. My kids even dig it.

Globe Trekker, Keith Olbermann ... Total Wrecklamation seems to have gone, which is sad. I have a ton of movies to catch up on .. oh, and Penn & Teller's new season of Bullshit started this week too ... will report back.