The Weekly Awesome! #6
Emmy Notes
Emmy Nominations came out this morning and they are a bizarre amalgamation of craziness, wrong-headedness and tiny bursts of exciting inspiration. Even more so than normal, and that's saying something, considering the Emmy Noms are, year in and year out, a veritable country-style buffett of the bizarre and profane. So let's break it down:
The Crazy and Wrong-Headed
- Lost got completely and thoroughly shut out in all the major catagories, save for a single writing nomination. Um... wha...? I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't as steller a season as it's first but still I think it'd be hard to argue that it's not one of the best drama's on TV. Certaintly better than that Grey's Anatomy nonesense.
-This isn't surprising, but once again the cast of Scrubs, TV's best comedy, end of story, was completely ignored. It did pick up a Best Comedy nod, so that's cool, but the cast it's self is flawless and deserves some individual recognition. I refuse to believe that Jon Cryer and Sean Hayes are more deserving of an Emmy for their hackishness and hysterics, respectively, than Donald Faison and John C. McGinley for their subtle, deeply funny work.
-Kevin James got a Best Comedic Actor nod. Um... is it 1998? I like the guy and I think he's funny on the show, but... c'mon. He must be dying of cancer or something.
-The Comedic Lead Actress catagory is just a mess. Stockard Channing is nominated for a show that lasted four episodes, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is nominated because she used to be on Seinfeld, Lisa Kudrow is nominated because she was on Friends, Debra Messing is nominated because they forgot to take her name off the ballot from last year, and Jane Kazmerick is nominated because they technically have to have five people on the list. Not a deserving one in the bunch.
-Shatner's nominated again for Boston Legal. Academy... stop it. It's just mean now. Seriously. Stop.
The Inspired
-Will Arnet, who in a normal world would be the always funny but criminally ignored supporting character on Arrested Development, got a suprise nod. I think the fabric of our reality is tearing.
-Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchent got a writing nod for their HBO show Extras which was, sorry to all anglophiles, better than their own The Office. It just was, that's why.
-Despite Six Feet Under's slide into weirdness and off-putting story twists, Peter Krause was always rock solid and heartbreaking and his nod, one of the few for the show this year, is well-earned.
-Hardly any nominations for Desperate Housewives. The national nightmare is over?
-Steve Carrell. This is just his year, I guess. Hell, the guy's funny and seems like a genuinely nice guy. Hope he runs with it.
Songs of our Week
1. “Help Yourself” by Tom Jones
Yes, Tom Jones is cheesy and oily and probably smells like hot-buttered steak all the time, but, be that as it may, I would gladly give at least an arm and possibly a buttock to be him for a long holiday weekend. Despite the fact that he’s a rather unappealing Welshman, women go absolutely batshit for him; proof, I think, that he’s got some kind of mind-control device hidden in his pants (if there’s room in there for anything other than the rather obvious torpedo that he’s packing). Anyway, most of his music has aged about as well as polyester pants and feathered hair, but this song, used to great effect in the movie Anchorman, has withstood the test of time. Fun and silly; good karaoke song.
2.“When You Were Mine” by Prince
Speaking of people I’d glad part with appendages to be for a few days… Yes, I know that Prince has gone a little North of crazy in the last few years and he’s supposedly all religious now (which is really sad, considering this is the guy that wrote Darling Nikki and Head), but… hell… he’s still Prince. Okay, an amendment; I’d like to be Prince back in the 80’s when he was all about playing guitars in leather jockstraps and trying to name his back-up singers Vagina (true story!).Anyway, for me, he hit his peak not with “Purple Rain” but a few years earlier with the album “Dirty Mind,” which really had him firing on all cylinders. This song, which was eventually covered to great effect by Cyndi Lauper, is the best break-up song of all time that’s not written by Tom Waits.
3. “Big Brown Eyes” by Old 97’s
This is just one of many, many outstanding songs by Old 97’s, so feel free to just go nuts with the downloading; anything off the “Too Far To Care” album will do right by you. If you’re not familiar with them then, I’m sorry, but you’re just an inferior person or living in some sort of Slavic prison that doesn’t allow awesomeness. To be fair, they’ve never really hit it that big outside of Texas, for absolutely no reason other than their particular brand of country-friend rock just hasn’t found the right outlet to punch through the nation’s collective conciousness. But whatevs, you’re still partly at fault for not being in to them and we that are all laughing at you.
4. “Those To Come” by The Shins
I know that everyone is already over The Shins and even though you listened to Chutes Too Narrow all the time when it came out, you pretend you hate them now that 15 year-olds love them because they were on the Gilmore Girls once. That’d be a mistake, I think, because even though they’ve gotten a tad overexposed (thanks, Zach Braff!), they’re still one of the finer bands to come out of the indie scene is quite some time. Two rock-solid, immentily re-listenable albums and being great live sometimes are enough to make people want you to stick around for ever and ever. This song, in particular, is a fave.
5. "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
He writes songs about murderers and death and riders on pale horses that tell of the coming apocalypse. And, occasional, he writes tender love ballads. While the gloom and doom stuff is fantasticly dark and you really shouldn't listen to it when you're depressed and within easy access to firearms, his love ballads will make you want to drink bourbon in bed with a pretty girl during a rainstorm. There's not enough music like that.
Emmy Nominations came out this morning and they are a bizarre amalgamation of craziness, wrong-headedness and tiny bursts of exciting inspiration. Even more so than normal, and that's saying something, considering the Emmy Noms are, year in and year out, a veritable country-style buffett of the bizarre and profane. So let's break it down:
The Crazy and Wrong-Headed
- Lost got completely and thoroughly shut out in all the major catagories, save for a single writing nomination. Um... wha...? I'll be the first to admit that it wasn't as steller a season as it's first but still I think it'd be hard to argue that it's not one of the best drama's on TV. Certaintly better than that Grey's Anatomy nonesense.
-This isn't surprising, but once again the cast of Scrubs, TV's best comedy, end of story, was completely ignored. It did pick up a Best Comedy nod, so that's cool, but the cast it's self is flawless and deserves some individual recognition. I refuse to believe that Jon Cryer and Sean Hayes are more deserving of an Emmy for their hackishness and hysterics, respectively, than Donald Faison and John C. McGinley for their subtle, deeply funny work.
-Kevin James got a Best Comedic Actor nod. Um... is it 1998? I like the guy and I think he's funny on the show, but... c'mon. He must be dying of cancer or something.
-The Comedic Lead Actress catagory is just a mess. Stockard Channing is nominated for a show that lasted four episodes, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is nominated because she used to be on Seinfeld, Lisa Kudrow is nominated because she was on Friends, Debra Messing is nominated because they forgot to take her name off the ballot from last year, and Jane Kazmerick is nominated because they technically have to have five people on the list. Not a deserving one in the bunch.
-Shatner's nominated again for Boston Legal. Academy... stop it. It's just mean now. Seriously. Stop.
The Inspired
-Will Arnet, who in a normal world would be the always funny but criminally ignored supporting character on Arrested Development, got a suprise nod. I think the fabric of our reality is tearing.
-Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchent got a writing nod for their HBO show Extras which was, sorry to all anglophiles, better than their own The Office. It just was, that's why.
-Despite Six Feet Under's slide into weirdness and off-putting story twists, Peter Krause was always rock solid and heartbreaking and his nod, one of the few for the show this year, is well-earned.
-Hardly any nominations for Desperate Housewives. The national nightmare is over?
-Steve Carrell. This is just his year, I guess. Hell, the guy's funny and seems like a genuinely nice guy. Hope he runs with it.
Songs of our Week
1. “Help Yourself” by Tom Jones
Yes, Tom Jones is cheesy and oily and probably smells like hot-buttered steak all the time, but, be that as it may, I would gladly give at least an arm and possibly a buttock to be him for a long holiday weekend. Despite the fact that he’s a rather unappealing Welshman, women go absolutely batshit for him; proof, I think, that he’s got some kind of mind-control device hidden in his pants (if there’s room in there for anything other than the rather obvious torpedo that he’s packing). Anyway, most of his music has aged about as well as polyester pants and feathered hair, but this song, used to great effect in the movie Anchorman, has withstood the test of time. Fun and silly; good karaoke song.
2.“When You Were Mine” by Prince
Speaking of people I’d glad part with appendages to be for a few days… Yes, I know that Prince has gone a little North of crazy in the last few years and he’s supposedly all religious now (which is really sad, considering this is the guy that wrote Darling Nikki and Head), but… hell… he’s still Prince. Okay, an amendment; I’d like to be Prince back in the 80’s when he was all about playing guitars in leather jockstraps and trying to name his back-up singers Vagina (true story!).Anyway, for me, he hit his peak not with “Purple Rain” but a few years earlier with the album “Dirty Mind,” which really had him firing on all cylinders. This song, which was eventually covered to great effect by Cyndi Lauper, is the best break-up song of all time that’s not written by Tom Waits.
3. “Big Brown Eyes” by Old 97’s
This is just one of many, many outstanding songs by Old 97’s, so feel free to just go nuts with the downloading; anything off the “Too Far To Care” album will do right by you. If you’re not familiar with them then, I’m sorry, but you’re just an inferior person or living in some sort of Slavic prison that doesn’t allow awesomeness. To be fair, they’ve never really hit it that big outside of Texas, for absolutely no reason other than their particular brand of country-friend rock just hasn’t found the right outlet to punch through the nation’s collective conciousness. But whatevs, you’re still partly at fault for not being in to them and we that are all laughing at you.
4. “Those To Come” by The Shins
I know that everyone is already over The Shins and even though you listened to Chutes Too Narrow all the time when it came out, you pretend you hate them now that 15 year-olds love them because they were on the Gilmore Girls once. That’d be a mistake, I think, because even though they’ve gotten a tad overexposed (thanks, Zach Braff!), they’re still one of the finer bands to come out of the indie scene is quite some time. Two rock-solid, immentily re-listenable albums and being great live sometimes are enough to make people want you to stick around for ever and ever. This song, in particular, is a fave.
5. "Into My Arms" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
He writes songs about murderers and death and riders on pale horses that tell of the coming apocalypse. And, occasional, he writes tender love ballads. While the gloom and doom stuff is fantasticly dark and you really shouldn't listen to it when you're depressed and within easy access to firearms, his love ballads will make you want to drink bourbon in bed with a pretty girl during a rainstorm. There's not enough music like that.
posted by Clinton at 9:43 AM
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