There's No "I" in OFFICE!

“There’s No “I” In Office: 4293 Meaningless Phrases to Keep Your Coworkers Smiling While Avoiding Actual Conversation – by Jake Lentz and Paul Koehorst (BOOK)
This is one of the funniest books ever about the office place. Lentz and Koehorst have given their all in presenting us with every hilarious meaningless phrase to keep coworkers smiling while not really saying anything. One of the funniest books I’ve read in a LONG TIME. Perfect to pick up and read a few great lines – or to spend an hour with. It makes a great coffee table book, conversation piece and a great gift to anybody about to take or already has an office job – my highest recommendation. I laughed out loud MANY times from this. My highest thumbs up.
Grade: A +


PEARL JAM: “10” Legacy Remaster (and video VH1)
So, after 15 years or so and MANY shitty albums later, Pearl Jam, a GREAT band, decides to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of “10” – their debut CD, by offering up this LEGACY edition – which includes, the original disc, and a newer disc, remixed by their current main producer along with a bunch of extras and demos for songs that never made it to the disc. The new songs are just okay. The real revelation is the remixed CD. Listening to the older version, it sounds a bit stuck in the early 90s musically – a bit too much production – the vocals are kind of cliped - in the remix – you get much more real, ragged vocals, harder mixes for the instruments and an overall hotter sound quality. If you’re a fanatic or a huge fan of that CD, you’ll notice a huge improvement. If you’re a casual fan, you probably wouldn't notice a thing. Still, for this big fan of “10” – this was awesome.
Grade: B +

PEARL JAM: A look back at 10 (VH1)
This was sort of a quick half hour look back at the making of “10” – it seems like it should’ve been included in the package (maybe it was and I didn’t notice) but it’s basically a fluff piece explaining the creation of “10” without really getting into the meat of the package – the remix. But it’s a nice companion piece.
Grade: B -

30 ROCK (NBC)
The show is fine, Balwin is always superb, and Jon Hamm is brilliant, and I was sorry to see his character go. I think they could’ve handled Hamm's exit with a bit more subtlety in the storyline – however – lately subtlety is not 30 ROCK’s strong suit. In fact, the show has gone from low-key funny about a show that could exist, to the alternate universe SEINFELD went to in its final seasons – which is troubling because the show has no reality to it anymore. And sending Tracey Morgan to the moon – that was a bit DEFINITELY stolen from the STERN RADIO SHOW – about 9 months ago they sent “Gary the retard” (an actually mentally handicapped listener and great fan and good sport) into what he thought was space. 30 ROCK probably borrowed the idea –but Stern and Co. did the job better. As far as this great show goes, the more surreal, the more distant and weird it becomes. Every week it seems like they’re not sure what the tone is – I hope they straighten this out soon because when this show is firing on all cylinders, there is nothing better. Still, even at its worst, it’s far better than most.
Grade: B +


THE OFFICE (NBC)
Has anyone noticed that the show is now going completely whole-hog into the BBC version’s storyline? The BBC version did it better – this was sort of clumsy – but definitely gave the show a storyline at least to pursue. I look forward to the Michael Scott Paper Co. with Pam Beasley as head saleswoman.
Grade: B -


THE REAL WORLD: BROOKLYN (MTV)
The thing I always love about THE REAL WORLD – one of the few reality shows that doesn’t get into the whole “competition” and elimination and money prize – which means its basically about how these people simply get along. And every character you start out thinking you know – you realize you’re completely wrong about them and at its best, REAL WORLD really tends to break down stereotypes of what you think someone is. On the other hand – some of these people are EXACTLY who you think they are and there is probably some perverse pleasure in realizing that as well. For this edition they got some youngish, more naïve kids than in seasons past – in other words – they didn’t fill the house with shallow sex addicts this year. These are smart, interesting and thoughtful people. There is a bodybuilder type who seems to be a nice guy. There’s a guy dude (the one who broke the table) who is another example of a gay guy we simply haven’t seen on TV before (and I like his character very much.) There is a VERY weird dude named Chett who dresses metro, seems gay – and yet is a Mourman and quite a bit of a hound. Again – the stereo type goes out the window with this guy – but he IS annoying. He’s also really good at interviewing people and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him hosting some MTV stuff in the future. Then there’s RYAN, the centerpiece of this group of 8 (they went from a half-hour to an hour and gave us another person starting with last year’s edition) a Iraq war veteran who can sing, direct – he’s funny, sometimes gets frightengly mad and angry – and back to his songs – I think he might actually be a star – but what do I know?

The girls aren’t quite as interesting. There’s a HOT black girl who liked the body builder for the first few eps but backed off, and now she stands around looking really hot and mostly stays on the phone for almost the entire production. She also puts on her glasses and tries to speak intelligently when she wants to show her smarts – but she’s kind of an idiot. There’s this girl who’s kind of pretty with tons of tattoos and a real sweetness about her – but she’s also really really fake and tries to hard to be friends with (almost) everybody. There’s a skinny dancer who came out to dance – got into the academy of dance, then turned it down saying she doesn’t like their teaching style – but beyond that – she barely registers on the show. The real wild card is Kaitlin, the show’s first trans-gender female (once male!) who seems to be fairly well – adjusted except that she’s a total slut, she’s broke and she borrowed 1500 dollars from the bodybuilder dude to stay in NYC, then blew most of it gambling in Atlantic City. He/She’s a fucking mess.

Still, I have enjoyed this group and will hope the best for them when this one wraps next week – worst of all Ryan, the singer, has gotten recalled back to the war, so as soon as the show wraps he has to go back and fight for his life. All in all, a pretty interesting edition of THE REAL WORLD – although we BARELY got a chance to know Brooklyn at all! The way they shoot it, you wouldn’t even know it was Brooklyn unless you saw the title.
Grade: B

THE TONIGHT SHOW w/Jay Leno (NBC)
Jay has had some interesting guests of late. Barack – now infamous for its “Special Olympics” crack that Barack threw down. Frankly, I thought the whole thing reeked of Barack wanting to be a guest on a late night talk show and show America that he’s every bit as funny and entertaining as Jay Leno – and frankly, that’s a little scary. I’m a Barack supporter – but I don’t support his trips into late night comedy. Although I must say – he WAS funnier than Jay – but so is my cat, Munchy.

Speaking of Leno, how bad were those new PRINCE songs? Leave it to Jay – Letterman gets U2 for the week, even Conan gets SPRINGSTEEN for a week – who does Leno get? Prince – 20 years after His relevancy ended.

While we’re on the subject of Leno, did anyone happen to see Emma Roberts? She's ten times more annoying than Julia. Her stories about her driving test – I think while Jay Leno openly found them hilarious - because Jay Leno finds everything fucking hilarious – Paul Giamatti looked like he wanted to hang himself.


AMERICAN DAD (FOX)
The Bar Mitvah Heist was very clever, very well plotted and actually snared a very rare win in the FAMILY GUY vs. AMERICAN DAD fight that goes on every Sunday. FAMILY GUY usually wins, but once in a while – DAD hits it out of the park – this one came very close.
Grade: B +


FAMILY GUY (FOX)
Lois became the news anchor for FOX NEWS. It seems like this could’ve been seriously funny – it was seriously just ok.
Grade: B -


WHY IS IT ON TWO SHOWS:
ROCK OF LOVE BUS and CANDY GIRLS there are girls on BOTH SHOWS who keep using the expression “I was thinking O.M.G!” They actually spell the initials instead of saying it. I would say it makes me throw up in my own mouth a little bit every time I hear it, but then I would sound like all of last year’s reality show gals. (My favorite part is how they all say it then mug for the camera as if they’re bringing America something original and smart – only 8 years too late.)


CANDY GIRLS (E!)
Like most E! shows, this one’s premise is as thin as Lindsey Lohan’s waist. This is about an mostly Black/Hispanic model type agency which provides hot girls for videos and parties, etc. There is a modeling aspect to the agency too. Everything is very confused – hard to figure out all the relationships and the loft where some of them live – this thing was edited with a sledgehammer. As far as the “models” – they are typically shallow, thoughtless, selfish, weird, divas, and – unusually – kind of chunky and not really that pretty – for models. Seriously – I initially thought it was a larger woman’s type of show - but it’s relatively harmless, and has no real reason to exist since it lacks and real drama or sense of humor.
Grade: D


PINK FLOYD “WHICH ONE’S PINK?” (VH1 Classic)
I love Pink Floyd – particularly the original lineup. This was a 90 minute attempt to sum up a 30 plus year career with some really mixed results. Some of the best FLOYD stories were missing, and there wasn’t any critical analysis of the band with Waters, without Waters – most questions went glaringly unanswered. However – the nice thing about this docu was that they actually had all the principals talking about the band. I thought it was interesting how Roger Waters, once the notoriously angry man who dismantled the band, was the one who’d like to re-form and do a big tour (that would kind of be like printing money – a PINK FLOYD reunion tour would probably be the biggest thing in 10 years as far as the tour biz goes.) Roger seems to want this very much – and when they asked David Gilmour about a reunion he answered quite quickly “Ain’t never going to happen.”
Fuck.
Grade: B

AMERICAN IDOL (FOX)
I still like Scott M., the blind guy, but his CAN’T HURRY LOVE was awful. I loved that DANNY guy doing that acoustic TRACKS OF MY TEARS. That was hot, dawg! Danny Goki did a good song I forget the name of, but his dancing was so bad it scared my cat. By the way – is it just me or does Danny look exactly like Seth Rogan with a little less weight and straight hair. I like how Howard Stern pointed out the other day how Ryan Seacrest is now SO affected that he couldn’t even pronounce CRAYONS in a badly scripted schtick performed badly by Simon and Paula – but Paula does seem as retarded as ever. And I’m not so much into the new judge – although my favorite quote thus far comes from her. After one of the songs she says “I have six words for you – Best Male Performance Of The Entire Freaking Night.” Better still was Kimmel the other night trying to see if Uncle Frank could figure out what was wrong with that sentence. He sort of did – after 30 tries.


STORYTELLERS: KANYE WEST (VH1)
“Michael Jackson – awesome. O.J. Simpson – awesome. What he did – was he not, was he not awesome?” This was Kanye during one of the interludes and as crazy as it sounds – it kind of worked. I don’t think he was saying these people are still awesome – it had to do with what inspired him and what he did find awesome as a young man. He even says “I’m sorry for being such a bitch at awards shows – but what the hell – they ARE awards shows. I didn’t kill anybody at them.” This is probably the best I’ve seen Kanye – humble, funny, awestruck – and brilliant with his music. The songs here are fantastic and Kanye…aweseome.
Grade: B +