Fikaked: February!
Sunday, March 1, 2009

Relative/Friend/Co-worker: "Hey, did you see The Office last night? It was so awesome/awkward! I can't believe Michael did that!"
Me: "Yeah, great episode as usual/I'm really getting sick of the Pam & Jim drama. Did you catch 30 Rock?"
Relative/Friend/Co-Worker: "Nah, I had stuff to do/I've never really gotten into that show for some reason/it's just too out there/blah, blah, blah."
Point is, it kinda sucks not being able to discuss 30 Rock with anyone, because it's definitely worth discussing. Jack McBrayer and Tracy Morgan are both great, Tina Fey is the funniest woman on television (by a landslide), and I'm still shocked that someone was actually able to convince Alec Baldwin to make a sitcom a full-time gig. To top it off, the cast is full of former Saturday Night Live & Late Night With Conan O'Brien writers, and the material they come up with is better than ninety percent of what ends up on SNL anymore. Set your DVRs, people! (If you are without a DVR/TiVo, they put every show up on NBC.com for free. No excuses!)



weren't any conflicts (DVR or otherwise) when it came to getting my nightly Letterman/O'Brien fix. That's about to be a thing of the past. In addition, the question of how this move is going to affect Conan's style has to be asked. Conan promises he's going to be just as immature as ever, and they did bring back Andy Richter, but we'll have to wait and see on that one. As for Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, I'm going to remain skeptical until I see it.

Bon Iver, (Behind) Closed Doors:
The Dodos, (Behind) Closed Doors:


6. Remember how funny I said 30 Rock is? Well, Chelsea Handler and her show on E! are that unfunny. In fact, as long as we're making 30 Rock comparisons, I'd say Handler is the anti-Fey. Why in the hell the E! Channel saw fit to give her a show is beyond me. It's not like her stand-up was great; in fact, it wasn't even good. Her material isn't clever at all, her attempts to compensate by being "edgy" (which consist of her saying the most outrageous/offensive thing that she can think of) come off as pathetic, and her personality is annoying. Basically, she has no sense of humor, and that's not something you can fake. Unfortunately for her, the writers she works with apparently aren't helping: the show sucks just as much or more than anything Handler has done previously. It's just baffling to me how shows like Arrested Development and MST3K can't survive but garbage like Chelsea Lately finds a way. In fact, it's actually been renewed until December. I realize that countless unknown circumstances play a huge factor in the fate of a show, but seriously, who's watching this crap?



9. After the Oscar-winning Saving Private Ryan and the truly awesome miniseries Band of Brothers, Tom Hanks' production company and Steven Spielberg are teaming up with HBO again for The Pacific. The format and style will apparently mirror that of Brothers, and will focus on the Marines in the Pacific Theater of Operations during WWII. My big question upon hearing about this was where the material was going to come from, mostly because the author of the book BOB was based on, Stephen A. Ambrose, passed away about 6 years ago. Ambrose is regarded as one of the greatest historians of WWII (he was actually hand-picked by former President and five-star General Dwight D. Eisenhower to be his biographer), and he was also the head consultant for Private Ryan. I've since found out that his son Hugh has been brought in to consult, and the show will be based on the memoirs of two Marines. Also, whereas BOB focused on the 101st Airborne throughout all 10 episodes, The Pacific will instead follow the journies of three different Marines in three different locations, so it may be a little harder to get attached to the characters involved. And then there's the question of whether or not the actors chosen for the new miniseries will be able to hold a torch to the awesome performances that had so much to do with Brother's greatness. Despite the concerns, though, I can't see Hanks, Spielberg, etc. putting their name on anything that isn't extremely well-done, and I'm sure this new project will not be an exception. Filming concluded in Australia in May of 2008, and will air sometime this year.

10. I've never been a big fan of compilation albums. They're often intended to raise money for good causes, which is obviously a great thing, but they also resemble mix cds (which I usually don't care for) made by other people who have no idea what I want to listen to. Plus, I've always struggled with how to organize them in my iTunes library, which is really annoying. This week, however, saw the release of not one, but two really cool comps. The first one, entitled War Child: Heroes, was organized to raise money for an organization that attempts to help children around the world who have been affected by war. I know, the thought of that kind of makes the music seem insignificant, but, nonetheless, the main idea behind what's actually on the album is a pretty

cool one. Great artists like David Bowie, Brian Wilson, and Bob Dylan have been asked to choose one of their favorite songs from their own catalog, and then choose their favorite contemporary artist to cover it. The resulting album is pretty impressive: some of the standouts include Beck covering Dylan's "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat", TV on the Radio covering Bowie's "Heroes", and Franz Ferdinand covering Blondie's "Call Me". A complete track listing can be found here.
Also released this week, Dark Was the Night benefits the Red Hot Organization, which is dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS. There really isn't much else I can say about this thing, except that it's both massive and really, really good. I'll let the track list of this two-disc monster speak for itself :
"This Disc"
1. "Knotty Pine" - Dirty Projectors/David Byrne
2. "Cello Song" (Nick Drake) - The Books/Jose Gonzalez
3. "Train Song" (Vashti Bunyan) - Feist /Ben Gibbard
4. "Brackett, WI" - Bon Iver
5. "Deep Blue Sea" - Grizzly Bear
6. "So Far Around The Bend" - The National/Nico Muhly
7. "Tightrope" - Yeasayer
8. "Feeling Good" (Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse) - My Brightest Diamond
9. "Dark Was the Night (Blind Willie Johnson) - Kronos Quartet
10. "I Was Young When I Left Home (Bob Dylan) - Antony Hegarty/Bryce Dessner
11. "Big Red Machine" - Justin Vernon/Aaron Dessner
12. "Sleepless" - The Decemberists
13. Stolen Houses (Die) - Iron & Wine
14. "Service Bell" - Grizzly Bear/Feist
15. "You Are the Blood" (Castanets) - Sufjan Stevens
"That Disc"
1. "Well-Alright" - Spoon
2. "Lenin" - Arcade Fire
3. "Mimizan" - Beirut
4. "El Caporal" - My Morning Jacket
5. "Inspiration Information" (Shuggie Otis) - Sharon Jones/The Dap-Kings
6. "With a Girl Like You" (The Troggs) - Dave Sitek
7. "Blood Pt. 2" (Castanets) - Buck 65/Sufjan Stevens/Serengeti
8. "Hey, Snow White" (Destroyer) - The New Pornographers
9. "Gentle Hour" (Snapper Cover) - Yo La Tango
10. "Another Saturday" - Stuart Murdoch
11. "Happiness" - Riceboy Sleeps
12. "Amazing Grace" - Cat Power/Dirty Delta Blues
13. "The Giant of Illinois" (The Handsome Family) - Andrew Bird
14. "Lua" (Bright Eyes) - Conor Oberst/Gillian Welch
15. "When the Road Runs Out" - Blonde Redhead/The Devestations
16. "Love Vs. Porn" - Kevin Drew
*Last, but not least, RIP Paul Harvey.
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