Blogs and Kisses!

Brits continue to kick our asses.

Tracey Ullman is one of my personal heroes. If you didn't catch her new slot on Showtime, State of the Union...tivo that mofo right now.

Like most of her work, it's her doing different characters, not sketches with other people. She's an amazing actor, mimic, and social commentator who is remarkably unafraid to look atrocious.

Highlights from this pilot include a white house correspondent who delivers the news in such a terrifying way that her anchor and entire crew start yelling out of fear, an African-American airport security worker who uses her x-ray machine to diagnose people who don't have medical insurance, Lindsay Lohan's mom, Renee Zellweger, a soldier mom on a 3-hour furlough from Iraq to see her son, and David Beckham (although she looks remarkably like Harvey Keitel in it, awesome).

The hands down best, however, are the Arianna Huffington scenes where she is first trying to decide what to wear to the Blog Awards, and then her acceptance speech at said event. She uses the word 'blog' indiscriminately. "Oh! They're telling me to blog it up." "Blogs and kisses!" Effing brilliant.

Don't miss it!

LJ

Right, so, first of all...Lipstick Jungle. I'm watching this show partially because it's shot in NYC and I auditioned for a part I didn't book...but it's actually kind of fun. A couple of things, though: 1)since when do we have previews for the next segment of the show during a commercial break ("Next, on Lipstick Jungle..."). WTF? Is the show that boring that I can't wait 2 minutes to stay hooked. Yeesh. 2)Have you seen the Candace Bushnell (writer of Sex And The City and this show) spots talking about the different characters and their motivations/style choices? Does she not sound coked out?! Maybe this is just an -ism of hers but she is almost unintelligible and looks like H-E-double-hockey-sticks. Bleh.

Second...I don't have a second. Sorry.

Ah, 1982

When I got home tonight and saw Knight Rider on my list of saved shows, I squealed like the 6th grade girl I pretend I am not. I double checked and made sure I hadn't left the flux capacitor on when I went to work and settled down to watch what promised to be a train wreck of a pilot. Actually, it's a "movie event" which means if it tanks, they can yank it.

Actually, not bad, NBC. Aside from the terrible, night-time-soap-opera-ness of the casting...not a terrible story. I'm sure Sidney Poitier is thrilled that his daughter, and namesake, upheld the family history of pioneering civil and human rights with the bikini, boob shot at the intro of her character. This was, of course, counteracted by the fact that she leaves her lesbian one night stand in bed as she slaps her badge on and races to work. Oh, wait! She's a dyke? Bring on the objectification! That makes it totally okay.

The lead gal, Deanna Russo, was on a soap for some time, natch, and Justin Bruening was on TWO soaps. [I want it noted that I actually had no knowledge of that until I imdb'd them both this instant, my psychic skills are rapidly sharpening.] Another fact I just learned, this instant, is that VAL KILMER is the voice of KITT. Holy shit. My favorite VK moment (other than seeing him in the catastrophe of The Ten Commandments, the musical!, in LA) is when I saw Deja Vu with my parents. About 25 minutes into the movie, my mom turned to me and whispered, "Who is that?" The resounding gasp of horror from my southern belle mother that the bloated, detective on camera was the one, the only, Ice Man said it all. WTF? Now he's making some much needed moolah providing the emotionless, even voice of the car in Knight Rider.

The brief appearance by The Hoff at the end of the show was painful. He seemed cagey, unable to stand still. I've decided that he's just doing '80's television...he hasn't gotten the memo that the current style of TV acting is akin to being as expressionless and unmoved by anything as possible.

The two best parts of the show were the rockin' remix of the theme song (which I can't find on line for the life of me, sorry) and Bruce Davison as the designer of the car, he is an amazing actor, I'm thrilled to see him working.

I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, Porky's II: The Next Day was on a couple of channels away. Dear. Lord. Deliver us.

In the cross hairs...

There's a Military Channel.

The lineup tonight was Weaponology (season 1, not 2), followed by Top Sniper, then Sniper School. Rinse and repeat for the next 3 hours.

I have a fascination with special ops as much as the next, red-blooded, American, hottie but...really?

I need to get out more.

BBsee

What is it about British sitcom? Seriously, they are so much smarter and funnier than we are. There's also something beautiful about the horrible, cheap sets being the stage for such brilliant work. The charming lack of production values means the acting is effing great.

My favorite thing is seeing amazingly versatile actors like Ben Miles, who played the heartbreakingly dysfunctional Montague in The Forsyte Saga, bust out some amazing comic timing. (btw, this was also where I first met my boyfriend, Damian Lewis, who I blogged about previously).

If you haven't seen The Vicar of Dibley or Coupling, Netflix them pronto. If you haven't seen Extras or The Office (the British version, which I think is much better than the US version), get on that, as well.

ugh

Seriously? The effing Bachelor?! Really? This man makes out with numerous women on camera and soulfully and talks about how “special” each one is between shots of him mackin’ on these chicks. He also tells each of them how amazing they are and tenderly kisses each one while holding their face in his manly hands. How is this even happening? Granted, each of the girls (that’s a choice) is waxing on how much they’re falling in love with them, blah, blah. Ew! THEN he sleeps with each one of them and each of them knows he has. GROSS.

How can I not be thinking, well, we know who gave the worst bj, after he keeps 2 of the 3 after sleeping with them all? Gahblegh!

Sound byte from the last night’s episode: “I don’t know that you should have to work that hard to find true love.” Really, Brad? Really? Is it supposed to be easy? What on earth must I be doing wrong?

Bret Michaels, the blue eyeliner wearing, hot, lead singer of Poison (the ‘80s band) did a reality show where he was looking for a woman. When it was down to 2 women, Skanky McSkankerson said to cute, hip tat chick “just remember where his mouth was all last night.” Ha! No conceits there, beATCH! Um, guess which is which…

Of course, the fact that I’m getting teary about being single while watching this stuff and drinking a glass of chardonnay is nothing to be alarmed about. Single, white cliché? Your table’s ready.

NaBloPoMo

That's right, kids, it's National Blog Post Month. I'm going to be blogging every day this month - lucky you! I can't promise equally amazing pearls of wisdom or insight with each entry, but I can promise words...that I've written. Every. Single. Day.

I have two friends running the New York Marathon this weekend. One of them, who's staying with me, ran the AIDS run in Florence last year. I have gotten back to running myself (jogging, really. Okay, loping painfully for four minutes and walking for one, then starting the whole thing over again) and could not be less made for long distance. I have profound respect and fear for someone who is able to put their body through that kind of prolonged agony. Send them some good thoughts Sunday.

And now, the TV Rant for the day:

My favorite ad on TV, hands down, is for Levis. You’ve seen it, this guy is pulling his jeans on in his living room and a phone booth (cause people still use those) crashes up into his apartment through the floor (with the rest of the street below). He finishes buttoning up his jeans, he walks out of the phone booth and they walk down the street together. I don’t know if this means they just made it (in homage to the most recent era in which phone booths were regularly used) in said booth de phone or he just happened to be changing his pants in the middle of the street. ‘Cause it’s Levis, yo, and that’s how they roll. [In watching this again, it’s pretty clear they haven’t been together but I thought this was too funny to cut.]

If you haven’t seen it, you’ve seen the exact same commercial with a hot MAN in the phone booth instead of a woman…and you’re clearly a night owl because this version isn’t shown during primetime, yo. Maybe on Logo.

This reminds me of a time when I had an audition at a random studio in Chelsea that caters to fashion and advertising. A Levis go-see was happening next to the room my theatre audition was happening in. As I concentrated on not having a panic attack in a sea of Size zero’s and resisting my sudden urge to eat myself through a bushel of Ho-Ho’s, the monitor for my audition stepped out, panned the room, zeroed in on me and said, “Actor’s Theatre?” Ouch. Um…what are you saying? I couldn’t be here for the go-see? Ha HA. Sigh.

Okay, clearly I’m living in the Dark Ages for even knowing what the ads ARE on TV right now, but the ads for the new Diesel fragrance are ridonculous! Yeah, these guys are relying on fragrance to get laid.

Thank you for visiting Single Gal-land. The next time you visit, remember that a $6.99 bottle of Merlot from Associated Supermarket doesn’t help take the edge off. Be smart, either go with the Manischewitz and stop pretending it’ll actually be wine, or spend 3 more bucks for the real deal, tightwad.