"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Dixie Chicks Ad Banned from NBC

Click and see. The fact that this sort of thing is not allowed makes no sense to me. I mean, the ads for Fahrenheit 9/11 were much more disparaging to Boosh.

Can't wait for the networks to stop mattering.

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Project Runway Rerun Plus Todo List

Got to the season finale for Project Runway on the re-run tonight. It's been a household institution all summer. I like that neck-tatted Jeffery won. He wasn't my favorite early on, but as he got to be less prickly I liked him more.

Michael was who we were all rooting for, but his stuff just wasn't executed at the same level as everyone elses.

I also liked how they opened up everyone's lives a bit more. That Jeffery was a junkie isn't surprising, but it's a real thing. Oolie is from East Germany? Cramazing! I'm sure she'll do great in the future. You could see that everyone wanted to make money w/her.

And speaking of money, how much do you think Laura's apartment costs? What does her strange Einstein-looking hubby do? I'm sure the answers are out there; maybe someday I'll look.

Anyway, this show is I think one of the best-executed of all the reality programs. It seamlessly weaves trashy drama with personal career development and big-name product placement, and it's effective because it doesn't pretend to be what it's not, or hide what it is.

Ok, enough talking about TV. I'll write about Lost whever I watch that too. Flipping away from consumption to production, my todo list is ever growing:

  • Post about Vagabond Opera show: gypsy good times, del-arte kids, sarah's secret door and how it makes you feel like an arcata insider, petas and moonshine, dancing a stomp.
  • Post three or four think-pieces on my work blog.
  • Start creating election-time video. I want to do Ross Perot, but me; mainly talking to millenials about millenials and getting that whole revolutionary spirit going again.
  • Working on my new theme for the site, documenting the Rebel Unicorn.

That's the short list too.

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BattleStar Season Three Premiere

Just peeped the season premiere of BattleStar Galactica. Holy motherfucking shit. These people are dropping bombs. I suggest you start watching.

The series has been something I enjoyed from the start because it innovates and pushes the envelope on both stylistic and substantive levels. There's been no other "dark, sexy, science fiction" on television that I can recall -- the only thing that really comes close at all is Ridley Scott's Blade Runner -- but this season the production values seem to be up even a notch further.

I deeply enjoy and appreciate the intelligence with which this piece of culture is crafted, and that which it grants the audience. In addition to being dark and sexy, it's also very smart. This is not TV for morons -- which I think, by the way, means that it is what most people really want; which is to say, high quality shit.

It's on the level of a feature film, their technique: the way in which they utilize jump-cuts and cinematic camera angles, how they'll play with narrative time. For instance, the producers feel free to intersperse scenes that were never aired in the "previously on BattleStar Galactica," and have made a practice of including quick flashes of the episode-to-come in the opening credits. That's stylish.

And then there's the richness of the settings, costuming, etc; the willingless to be frankly sexual, or ugly, or to juxtapose music with action. The attention to minor details, small shots and gestures. The commitment of tha actors and their work is tremendous: British actor Jamie Bamber (aka Lee "Apollo" Odama) not only rocks a great standard american accent, but also put on about 45 pounds for this season. Who the fuck does that for TV, let alone a season?

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TV/TorrentBlogging

So the conventional TV season is starting up (I watched Lost and BattleStar Galactica last time around) which means I'm firing up my bittorrent. I'm curious how early I'll be able to get stuff here on the west coast. Depending on torrent speed, maybe close to real-time!

So, to that end, I'll be firing back up my torrentfeed (which will also pick up torrents for new episodes of The Wire and other HBO shows I dig, plus the odd film). I'll also be posting some sort of essay defending the morality of this behavior, since a buch of squares and duped-teenagers seem to thing that this is somehow theft.

Anyway, that and a new site design, and hopefully some Rebel Unicorn info this weekend.

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