2004-04-06 8:50 a.m.
What's Shiny Today: Christmas and Easter Jew Edition (Take Two)
(There was a whole lot more to yesterday's entry than actually showed up on the page. That's what I get for not double checking after I post. Grr! Here's the whole thing.)
- Like Gretchen Speck Horowitz on Wonderfalls, I'm a Christmas
and Easter Jew, only without the conversion. But we won't be seeing any
more of Gretchen or anyone else on this show, because Fox has
cancelled it.
The show was neither as perfect as the critics would have it, nor as vile as pamie thought, but it had interesting characters and funny dialogue, and it could have been really good if given a little time to hit its stride.
Arrested Development, on the other hand, deserves every ounce of praise heaped on it and then some, and it will be criminal if it gets cancelled. Jason Bateman has redeemed himself for every piece of crap he was ever in, up to and including Teen Wolf Too. It is funny, funny shit, and there are only three episodes left of the season, so you'd better add it to your TiVo season passes now while you can.
(I don't want to hear any excuses from you Sopranos fans -- if you're on the West Coast, catch the Eastern feed and vice-versa. And if you'd pass up sheer genius in favor of yet another Law and Order spinoff, go read another diary, because you're dead to me.) - To those Catholic Red Sox fans who are whining about not being allowed a Lenten exemption
for eating hot dogs and pepperoni on their opening day? On behalf of all A's
fans who won't be able to go to Opening Day at all because of Passover
obligations tonight, SHUT THE FUCK UP. Learn to love veggie dogs or order
nachos instead. You'll get over it.
- It's the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death and the rock-crit
canonization continues. This article manages to hit every annoying
theme of "what does Kurt mean to us?" journalism -- the martyred saint angle;
mentioning the claim that all Nirvana fans remember where they were when they
heard he died, just like with JFK; glossing over Cobain's questionable choices so as to make him appear more deserving of veneration;
and the demonization of Courtney Love in order to shine Kurt's halo up
even brighter. Love is unquestionably batshit crazy, but she wasn't the
only one to bring the crazy to that relationship. (At least the author of
this article passed up accusing Love of actually killing Cobain and hinted
that Cobain dying young might not have been a huge surprise.)
Repainting the suicide as an act of integrity is especially grating; after
all, Cobain didn't have to blow his head off in order to avoid making
mediocre music.
Nirvana was great, but Kurt's gone, he's not coming back (despite the Easter part of this entry's theme) and making him out to be perfect does no justice to his memory. Could we please move on now?