Baron Dave Romm
Hot In Cleveland
By Baron Dave Romm
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Hot In Cleveland
I'm actually in Washington DC for my brother's 50th birthday which is -- or was by the time you read this -- a surprise party. So a quickie this week.
Okay, so you're TVLand, which specializes in rerunning old tv shows. You want to do an original tv show, for reasons as yet unexplained. What do you do? Of course, find some great talent that hasn't had a steady job for a while, get some sharp writing, and set them free... in Cleveland.
I live in Minneapolis. I'm used to "Fly Over Land" jokes. Here in Mpls, Cleveland is Fly Over Land. People go to Salt Lake City or Las Vegas. Unless there's a science fiction convention, Cleveland is where people are from. The Drew Carey Show featured aliens.
The first episode showed promise. Three friends from LA are flying to Paris on a lark when they're forced to land in Cleveland. They wind up in a bar, and are stared at, not looked through. "We appear to have landed in a dimension where men hit on women their own age. We owe it to science to investigate." One of them rents a 7,000 foot house for a month, at the same price as a night in Paris. With the house comes an octogenarian.
The plot was an okay vehicle to get the women to Cleveland. The women are playing parts they could do in their sleep. White gets the best lines and does well with them. Malick is chewing the scenery like a pro. Bertinelli and Leech aren't exactly straight men, but they haven't grown into their roles. But hey, it's been one show.
Hot In Cleveland is unapologetically distilling the best of years and years worth of sitcom humor. The pilot didn't blow me away, but I did chuckle a lot. I'll watch more.
Watch the entire first episode.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog maintains a Facebook Page, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts of Shockwave Radio Theater. Permanent archive. A nascent collection of videos are on Baron Dave's YouTube channel. More radio programs, interviews and science fiction humor plays can be accessed on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Alex Lasarev: "Experience: I blew my million-dollar inheritance" (guardian.co.uk)
'Sudden wealth puts you in a cocoon; it makes you feel invincible. I thought I was Superman'.'
Susan Estrich: The Politics of Disaster (creators.com)
When BP CEO Tony Hayward went to Capitol Hill this week, he got beat up on by all sides. When the president declared "war" from the Oval Office in response to the continuing spill, he, too, got beat up on by all sides. Welcome to the politics of disaster.
Marilyn Preston: De-Aging: The Miracle of Each Moment (creators.com)
I have a friend visiting me on this small, remote, glorious Greek island. He is a Zen master, a poet, a peace activist and a world-class calligrapher. His name is Kazuaki Tanahashi. Sometimes, when people ask hello, how are you? Kaz will laugh and answer, "I am de-aging."
20 Questions: Sloane Crosley (popmatters.com)
Satirist Sloane Crosley has been compared to Dorothy Parker, Nora Ephron, David Sedaris, and Sarah Vowell. Her debut, 2008's 'I Was Told There'd Be Cake,' became a 'New York Times' bestseller, staying on the list for months, and was a finalist for Thurber Prize for American Humor.
"Dear Money" by Martha McPhee: A review by Joseph Peschel
You know the George Bernard Shaw play: Higgins bets Pickering that he can turn flower-selling street waif Eliza into a well-dressed lady who speaks proper English. This time the setting is New York and Maine. The "flower girl" is India Palmer, a 38-year-old novelist with four critically acclaimed books to her credit, none of which has sold more than 5,000 copies.
"The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake" by Aimee Bender: A review by Steve Yarbrough
Flannery O'Connor was famously supposed to have remarked that anyone who made it through childhood should have enough material to write about forever.
Alexis Petridis: Robyn: unchained melodies (guardian.co.uk)
She was a teen pop star who stepped off the conveyor belt. Now Robyn Carlsson is singing about fembots, working with Snoop Dogg and dabbling in the avant garde.
James B. Eldred: A Chat with Eric Sean Nally, Foxy Shazam singer (bullz-eye.com)
It's easy for me to gauge what kind of people we're performing in front of and kind of transform our performance into something they understand or something they want to understand. We never get negative feedback.
Laura Barnett: "Portrait of the artist: Marin Alsop, conductor" (guardian.co.uk)
'The first review I got said: "We should think this person is talented, but we don't." I stayed in bed for two days.'
Jon Chattman: "Stark Raving: Lewis Black on the Constant Stream of New Material" (huffingtonpost.com)
When not in front of an audience erupting with hilarious anger at the world and everyone who lives in it, Black said he's a "less intense" guy who finds joy performing on the road.
The life of an Anglo-Saxon princess (guardian.co.uk)
The unearthing of Eadgyth, the Anglo-Saxon princess, was an emotional moment for historian Michael Wood. She was the Diana of the dark ages - charismatic, with the common touch.
The surrealist muses who roared (guardian.co.uk)
The women of the surrealist movement were often written off as silent and subservient. In fact, a group of them were creating extraordinary work - and lives - in Mexico, says Joanna Moorhead.
The Weekly Poll
New Question
The 'Gettin' Yer Buzz On' Edition...
America's Prohibition laws were meant to cut crime and boost morality - they failed on both fronts. So how can the 'War on Drugs' ever succeed?
How Can America's 'War on Drugs' Succeed When Prohibition Laws Failed? | CommonDreams.org
What is your position on 'illegal' drugs?
1.) Legalize them all
2.) Legalize only ______
3.) Keep the status quo. They're bad, bad, bad...
Send your response to
Friendly Reminder:
Polling cut-off is tonight (Monday) at 8pm EDT
(5pm PDT fer you 'Left Coast' types, haha)
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From The Creator of 'Avery Ant'
Links from RJ
Two-Fer
Hi there
Two possible links for you - thanks for taking a look!
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Pretty, sunny day.
Free Concert On Alabama Beach
Jimmy Buffett
Jimmy Buffett and a few of his friends plan to give a free concert on the Alabama coast to show support for the Gulf region.
Alabama tourism director Lee Sentell says show will be July 1 on the beach at Gulf Shores.
Buffett's website says the concert is meant to demonstrate support for the people, businesses and culture of the Gulf Coast. It will be broadcast live on CMT.
Buffett and his Coral Reefer Band will be joined in Gulf Shores by Sonny Landreth, Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney, Jesse Winchester and Allen Toussaint.
Jimmy Buffett
Raise $1.5M For Charity
Taylor & King
Grammy winners James Taylor and Carole King are announcing that they have raised more than $1.5 million in charitable donations so far on their "Troubadour Reunion" tour.
Taylor and King are holding a news conference Sunday before their show at the TD Garden in Boston to present donations raised through the halfway point of the North American leg of the tour to the Natural Resources Defense Council, Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other charities.
The $1.5 million raised so far is 50 percent more than the singer-songwriters had anticipated.
The money is being raised through special packages offered to fans, including stage seating, pre-show soundcheck sessions, private VIP receptions and a commemorative tour book.
Taylor & King
Touts All That's Good
NJ
Tired of boorish comments and jokes about New Jersey, residents and business people have created a website to express their Garden State pride.
The site - JerseyDoesntStink.com - is designed to rally those who are tired of the putdowns about pollution, wisecracks about wise guys, and cheap shots about corruption. With companion Facebook and Twitter pages, state residents can sound off online in defense of their home state.
NJ
Says "The Osbournes" Took Its Toll
Ozzy
Ozzy Osbourne has admitted to being camera-shy following his stint on reality show The Osbournes.
"I didn't like being on TV. My ego did for five minutes, but then it got old very quick. Be careful what you experiment with because sometimes it takes off."
The 61-year-old admitted to letting his inhibitions get the better of him:
"I began to get camera shy. When you have a camera crew living in your house all the time it takes its toll."
Ozzy
Do Limits Make Sense?
Media Ownership
Even the news industry's free fall probably will not be enough to wipe out complicated federal rules designed to restrain the power of media companies.
For decades, the Federal Communications Commission has imposed strict limits preventing any company from controlling too many media properties in the same market. These limits were established to ensure that communities have choices of newspapers and local TV and radio stations.
Congress requires the FCC to take a hard look at the rules every four years to determine whether they still serve the public interest. If they don't, the FCC has to rewrite them.
Now, as the FCC kicks off its latest review, it faces calls to pare the limits because traditional media companies are no longer the almighty players that they were when the ownership rules were first enacted.
Public interest groups are pushing to roll back Martin's cross-ownership rules and leave the rest of the restrictions in place. Meanwhile, media companies are fighting to lift the cross-ownership ban entirely. They also want some relief from rules that prohibit one company from owning more than one TV station in smaller markets and more than two TV stations in larger markets, including only one of the top four.
Media Ownership
ER Stats
Meds
For the first time, abuse of painkillers and other medication is sending as many people to the emergency room as the use of illegal drugs.
In 2008, ERS saw an estimated 1 million visits from people abusing prescription or over-the-counter medicines - mostly painkillers and sedatives. That was about the same number of visits from those overdosing on heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs, according to a government report released Thursday.
Only five years earlier, illegal drug visits outnumbered those from legal medications by a 2-to-1 margin.
Painkillers and sedatives clearly drove the trend. ER visits for the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone more than doubled from 2004 to 2008. And cases from one kind of tranquilizer nearly doubled.
Meds
Imported Bees Behind Hive Collapse?
Honeybees
Disease-carrying honeybees imported from Australia may be responsible for a mysterious disorder that's decimated bee hives around the country, and federal regulators say they'd consider import restrictions if necessary.
By some estimates, beekeepers in the past several years have lost from a third to half their hives to what's called colony collapse disorder. Each hive, or colony, can contain as many as 100,000 bees. The bees are disappearing from the hives never to be seen again.
Scientists are unsure what's causing the problem, though it could involve a combination of factors. The possible culprits include mites, viruses, other diseases, pesticides, habitat loss, stress and even climate change. The latest suspect, however, is the imported honeybee from Australia .
Honeybees aren't native to North America ; they were first brought to the continent by European colonists in the early 1600s.
Honeybees
Growing Scandal
France
A French minister on Sunday hit back at attacks after his wife was linked to a growing scandal over secretly taped conversations by France's richest woman, Liliane Bettencourt.
"Enough is enough. My wife is going to sue," Eric Woerth said in an interview with several French media after a Socialist lawmaker suggested the minister's wife had helped Bettencourt commit tax fraud.
Woerth's wife Florence managed part of Bettencourt's financial affairs from 2007 until earlier this year and her ties to the 87-year-old L'Oreal heiress have come under scrutiny following reports of the secret tapes.
The conversations -- transcripts of which have been obtained by the Mediapart website and Le Point weekly -- reveal that Bettencourt allegedly conspired to evade taxes, hiding money in Swiss bank accounts while making big donations to the governing UMP party.
France
Buried Ancient City
Egypt
An Austrian archaeological team has used radar imaging to determine the extent of the ruins of the one time 3,500-year-old capital of Egypt's foreign occupiers, said the antiquities department Sunday.
Egypt was ruled for a century from 1664-1569 B.C. by the Hyksos, a warrior people from Asia, possibly Semitic in origin, whose summer capital was in the northern Delta area.
The radar imaging showed the outlines of streets, houses and temples underneath the green farm fields and modern town of Tel al-Dabaa.
Archaeology chief Zahi Hawass said in the statement that such noninvasive techniques are the best way define the extent of the site. Egypt's Delta is densely populated and heavily farmed, making extensive excavation difficult, unlike in southern Egypt with its more famous desert tombs and temples.
Egypt
Spelling Matters
Stoughton, Wis.
A painter working on a Wisconsin water tower left behind one big typo. The mistake had Stoughton residents scratching their heads. The new paint job had the town's name without the second T. It was spelled "S-T-O-U-G-H-O-N," rather than "S-T-O-U-G-H-T-O-N."
It turns out a painter from Neumann Co. in Romeoville, Ill., had the correct information but simply forgot the second T when painting the 6-foot letters.
And the name was spelled right on one side of the tower. It's just the side facing town that's wrong.
Painter Mike Sandmire says it was the first time he had made such an error. He added that it would be easily fixed with a new coat of paint.
Stoughton, Wis.
Weekend Box Office
'Toy Story 3'
Movie fans have not outgrown the "Toy Story 3" gang. The animated sequel about toys that come to life leaped to the No. 1 spot with a $109 million opening weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday.
"Toy Story 3" became the third animated film to top $100 million in the first weekend, joining "Shrek the Third" at $121.6 million and "Shrek 2" at $108 million.
In limited release, Fox Searchlight's comedy "Cyrus" debuted strongly with $180,289 in four theaters, averaging $45,072 a cinema, compared to $27,061 in 4,028 locations for "Toy Story 3."
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. "Toy Story 3," $109 million.
2. "The Karate Kid," $29 million.
3. "The A-Team," $13.8 million.
4. "Get Him to the Greek," $6.1 million.
5. "Shrek Forever After," $5.5 million.
6. "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," $5.3 million.
7. "Killers," $5.1 million.
8. "Jonah Hex," $5.09 million.
9. "Iron Man 2," $2.7 million.
10. "Marmaduke," $2.65 million.
'Toy Story 3'
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