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Archive for December, 2009

I’ve been planning to write my Top 10 Albums of 2009 list for some time now, but whenever I write about music I enjoy, I come off sounding alternatively like a gushing schoolgirl and a total douchebag, or some unholy combination of the two, which I would call a “douchegirl” except that you’d be like “is that a girl made of douche?” and I’d have to explain it, and it’d just waste more time than it saved.

So for this year’s 10 Best Albums of 2009 list, rather than be intimidated by the grandiose prose of my online music brethren, I’ve decided to compile an even better-written list than everyone else’s by accompanying the album choices not with rambly writeups, but with passages from assorted literary masterpieces.

If the excerpts end up applying to the albums, I assure you it’s completely incidental, but can you argue with the greatness of the writing? The answer is that you cannot. So here it is — The Best-Written Top 10 Albums Of 2009 List On The Internet:



10. The Flaming Lips – Embryonic

On the table was an empty glass and a glass half-full of brandy and soda. I took them both out to the kitchen and poured the half-full glass down the sink. I turned off the gas in the dining-room, kicked off my slippers sitting on the bed, and got into bed. This was Brett that I had felt like crying about. Then I thought of her walking up the street and stepping into the car, as I had last seen her, and of course in a little while I felt like hell again. It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night is another thing.



9. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook’s uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

‘Please, sir, I want some more.’



8. The Juan MacLean – The Future Will Come

It was a monstrous big river down there — sometimes a mile and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up — nearly always in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres — perfectly still — just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs a-cluttering, maybe.



7. St. Vincent – Actor

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

He didn’t say any more, but we’ve always been unusually communicative in a reserved way, and I understood that he meant a great deal more than that.



6. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

Just as in the clock the result of the complex action of innumerable wheels and pulleys is merely the slow and regular movement of the hand marking the time, so the result of all the complex human activities of these 160,000 Russian and French – of all their passions, hopes, regrets, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear and enthusiasm – was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the battle of the three Emperors, as it was called; that is to say, a slow movement of the hand on the dial of human history.



5. Girls – Album

“I knows what you thinking.” Dilsey said. “And they aint going to be no luck in saying that name, lessen you going to set up with him while he cries.”

“They aint no luck on this place,” Roskus said. “I seen it at first but when they changed his name I knowed it.”

“Hush your mouth” Dilsey said. She pulled the covers up. It smelled like T. P. “You all shut up now, till he get to sleep.”



4. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career

She was really good. All you had to do was touch her. And when she turned around, her pretty little butt twitched so nice and all. She knocked me out. I mean it. I was half in love with her by the time we sat down. That’s the thing about girls. Every time they do something pretty, even if they’re not much to look at, or even if they’re sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are. Girls. Jesus Christ. They can drive you crazy. They really can.



3. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

“What a mine they’ve dug there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!”

He sank into thought.

“And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s thought. “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind — then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.”



2. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm

“No one’s trying to kill you,” Clevinger cried.

“Then why are they shooting at me?” Yossarian asked.

“They’re shooting at everyone,” Clevinger answered. “They’re trying to kill everyone.”

“And what difference does that make?”

Clevinger was already on the way, half out of his chair with emotion, his eyes moist and his lips quivering and pale. There were many principles in which Clevinger believed passionately. He was crazy.


1. Passion Pit – Manners

STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

—INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

—Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest.



Honorable Mentions: Dan Deacon – Bromst; Wild Beasts – Two Dancers; Bat For Lashes – Two Suns; Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca; Islands – Vapours

Favorite albums of 2009? Leave ‘em in the comments.

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Airplane Food (âr’plān’ ˈfüd)
n
An element of culture that’s been so universally made fun of by comedians and people alike, when you encounter a negative experience with it, you can’t express any new or original frustration.

As the latest example of such an occurrence, I recently went to an expensive luxury spa (a Christmas gift), and amidst an amazing array of mineral baths, hot tubs, and orgasmic fruit scrubs (their technical name), the entire men’s side of the spa was expectedly full of naked middle-aged men going very far out of their way to be demonstratively comfortable with their nudity.

The hordes of naked dudes in a bathing-suit-optional area didn’t mar the experience, but it was really awkward, and yet, afterwards, I felt I couldn’t make any jokes about it to my friends without sounding like every standup comedian ever making an observation that was comically retired at an early-90s Comedy Central special. There’s a bunch of naked middle-aged dudes in spas. Airline food is bad.

This same concept — something that’s been made fun of so much, you can’t make fun of it anymore regardless of your experience — applies in all kinds of situations, from eating airline food to doctors making you wait forever, to people in gyms being so cut you need to work out before you work out there, to women taking a long time in the bathroom, to George W. Bush messing up words. The things get overly made fun of because they’re so prevalent, and yet, this prevalence eventually protects them from being made fun of once the observation becomes so accepted, there’s no longer any reason to bring it up. This isn’t to say that Bush didn’t continue messing up words long after it was fashionable comic material, or that he didn’t still deserve it, just that at some point in the arc of , everyone just accepts

Hopefully the expression will catch on. I haven’t successfully leaked the insult “Dickwolf” into the public consciousness, but dammit, it’s getting there.







Other examples of airplane food? Leave ‘em in the comments. Talent scouts from the Bill Engvall Show will be scouring these comments for ideas.

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Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas/whatever holiday you celebrate. Mine was great. Except for all the relatives. Since Bad Girls is a repeat this week I thought I’d hold off on this recap until tonight. (That’s my story and I’m 60% sure it’s true) Let’s go review what happened last week on Bad Girls Club!

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• Travel Channel has a Man vs. Food marathon all night.
• At 8, ABC has Happy New Year, Charlie Brown.
• ESPN has the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl at 8, Arizona vs. Nebraska.
• At 9, PBS has a new P.O.V.
• Discovery has two new episodes of Everest: Beyond the Limit at 9.
• History Channel has two new episodes of Jobsite at 9.
• Also at 9: Showtime has a new Inside The NFL.
• At 9:30, A&E has a new Dog The Bounty Hunter, followed by a new Steven Seagal: Lawman.
• At 10, ABC has a new Eastwick.
• TBS has two new episodes of Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns at 10.
• MTV has the season premiere of The Real World at 10.
• TLC has a new episode of The Imploders at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

After the jump, the late night talk shows.

Continue reading What’s On Tonight: Charlie Brown, Inside The NFL, Real World

Filed under: Late Night, Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show, What To Watch Tonight, Reality-Free

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More of our best of the decade coverage, which started on Tuesday. You can read the other posts at the link above. Here, we talk about the best dramatic actors of the decade. And, boy, was it a tough choice.

From a meth-making chemistry teacher to a damaged 1960s ad exec, the guys populating the dramatic actor category in our best of the decade are nothing short of brilliant.

It’s hard to choose favorites when you’re dealing with the likes of Jon Hamm, Bryan Cranston, Mark Harmon, James Gandolfini, and many others, but the TV Squad team has spoken.

Did your favorites make our list? If not, feel free to add them in the comments below.

Continue reading Best TV of the ’00s: Dramatic Actor

Filed under: OpEd, Law and Order, Lost, Rescue Me, Doctor Who, NCIS, Breaking Bad, Reality-Free, Mad Men

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When I heard the news that NBC’s news division had hired a private jet to entice David Goldman to grant them his one and only interview as he flew to Brazil to pick up his long lost son, I was shocked. A news organization has enough money to pay for its own private plane?!? I didn’t think ANY news outfit would have enough money to pay for its own private bathrooms.

The Society of Professional Journalists has issued a public statement criticizing the news division for using an “extensive gesture” to score an exclusive with Goldman and thus “jeopardized its journalistic independence and credibility in its initial and subsequent reports.”

Did NBC cross a line or should the reporter with the biggest bank account score the scoop?

Filed under: News, Industry, Reality-Free

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No, that’s not an altered image of a ransom note clipped from a clever New York Times article or a Photoshopped jpeg cooked up by our art department. Truth be told, those guys ate some mystery Chinese take-out in the office fridge and haven’t been heard from since.

Time Warner has pulled out all the stops in their ongoing battle with Fox over licensing fees by accusing them of holding their viewers’ favorite shows hostage.

They even went so far as to present their customers with a faux ransom note that demands the money or “you’ll never see Fox again.” Give Time Warner Cable one more day and they’ll start mailing their customers severed toes.

Filed under: Industry, Cable/Satellite, Reality-Free

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The scary-looking man to the right who looks like he’s trying to swallow your soul through your computer screen has made one of his boldest statements yet.

Robert Halderman, the man federal prosecutors have fingered as the David Letterman extortionist, has laid (ahem) a claim on his case that uses Tiger Woods’ recent trysts as evidence to back up his innocence.

His attorneys claim since Woods paid one of his gaggle of secret girlfriends to keep things quiet, that should earn their client a get-out-of-jail-free card for making the same gracious offer to Letterman. That only makes the tiniest bit of sense if the person Letterman was having sex with was Halderman. Actually, forget I just said that. Whoops, too late.

Filed under: Late Night, Celebrities, Reality-Free

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(S02E04) So Better Off Ted is all but dead. OK, maybe that’s not entirely true, but the writing is on the wall. ABC has opted to burn through the show’s remaining episodes by double-running ‘em every Tuesday through the end of January. (They’re doing the same thing with Scrubs.) Considering that BoT only kicked off its current season last month, it’s probably safe to assume that a third season isn’t in the cards.

Sorry, Tedheads. I’m just as bummed about this as you are. Hopefully the powers that be will give creator Victor Fresco another shot at a series. After this and Andy Richter Controls the Universe, you can officially count me as one of the guy’s biggest fans.

That’s not to say that he can’t let me down every once in a while. Tonight’s episode seemed to be missing something. The brisk humor was there, but the jokes were more cutesy than funny. We spent very little time with Phil and Lem, and the Veridian commercial was MIA, again!

Continue reading Review: Better Off Ted – It’s Nothing Business, It’s Just Personal

Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free

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Bestweekever.tv has taken a look back into the year of film, compiling the year’s movies with our trademarked “For Your Consideration” titles. Take a look through the below gallery, and tell us if you agree with our assessment in the comments. So, ladies and gentlemen, we present:

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: 2009, The Year In Film

(click on the first picture to begin)

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