Whoopie Goldberg, Alec baldwin and other New York celebrities are doing these public service anouncements.
The plug line is "I'm a New Yorker who cares."
Which has to be better than the original, "I'm a New Yorker. Who cares?"

They say that people in LA don't spend enough time with their kids. Not true. Right now my daughter is at her "Nanny and me" class.

Mariah Cary is doing great. This month she's on the cover of "ebony?" magazine.

Mariah Cary is doing great. This month she's on the cover of "ebony?" magazine.

Stop your Emmy Crying!

Right after the the articles describing the Emmy nominations the items criticizing them start. Columists from everywhere incuding Hollywood Reporter bitch and moan that some shows and actors were ignored.

One cry baby might say, "More Soprano cast members should've gotten a nod this year." - Which is true, it's hard to pull off an episode when nothing happens - week after week. It's really ahrd to pretend teh scripts are as good a they once were and not phoned in.

But really, if you work in the business in anyway shape or form and have the $150 membership fee, you can join the accedemy and vote for yourself.

You write about TV for a major industry publication and you're not in the accedemy? Then join. This isn't Cuba, it's TV.

What's going on with the news? Am I right people?

Big story? No one has seen Tom Cruise's baby. the news isn't that we've seen it, it's that we haven't seen it. I saw a guy from Us weekly on cable news discussing the non event. They had a clock showing the hours since the baby was born.

What's teh big deal about seeling his baby? They all look the same. Just google imagine "baby."

How is that news?

I can tell you when we'll see it: When Tom's next movie comes out.
All his big anouncements that have to deal with his new family revolve around a movie opening. It's more staged than a Hollywood star cermony.

He met and fell in love with Katie right before the "War of the Worlds" opening.
That did so well that a baby was announced and schedule to be bor just in time for MI:III.

So why waste a baby viewing when he has nothing to promote?

He'll tell us when the time is right, his next press junket.

Entourage is back!
They got rid of Cousin Oliver and they made Ari's daughter problem into a funny Showbiz diss. The show was never Seinfeld to begin with, but it's nice to see a little edge back.

Also - preview for the Wire! this September! can't wait.

Entourage left me alone!

Yes, I watch Entourage! That and Meerkat Manor are my guilty pleasures.

Let me the 100th person to call the new character on HBO's male "Sex and the City" Entourage - Cousin Oliver. They brought in a character that no one needs. All of a sudden last night a character shows up and causes trouble. And guess what? He's not leaving.

This guy was conveniently in jail for the last five years so he never came up. Now that he's out of the joint he's here to stir up some drama and save the writers from coming up with fresh organic material.

I always hated when "long lost friends" are introduced in sitcoms. All of a sudden Tom Hanks is an uncle that no one mentioned - he has a drinking problem that solved just before the end credits.

The first thing is I've always resented their existence. Who are you? Where did you come from? No one told me about you? I've known the Seavers for four season and they never mentioned you. Not once. Now you walk in and everyone is so happy to see you? No one tells me anything. You think you know a family. Why did you hide this person from me? Are you ashamed of me?

The second thing is the introduction. it's always uncomfortable because the writers have four lines to establish what great friends everyone is. So secret handshakes are brought out, force anecdotes are told. Usually it's the new character telling an embarrassing story about the main character, the main character gts embarrassed while everyone else is happy to hear the story.

Thirdly - it's lazy. In the cae of Entourage you have five great over the top characters. You can't come up with something for the four Hollywood hot shots to do this season so you brought in trouble? Entourage had an whole year to come up with a new season of story lines and all they could do is steal a page from the Melrose Place play book? “Next week on Entourage Heather Locklear guest stars as the evil woman from Turtle’s past.”

Maybe at the end of this season Johnny Drama will get pregnant and then the kid will miraculously grow up during hiatus to a cute fast talking four year old.

Hey HBO - I gots to sleep!

Hey - HBO! Why start your 2 1/2 hour Sunday block at 9? Why are the cowboys of Deadwood shooting off bullet and f-bombs at 9 Pm and I have to wait until 10 for my male sex and the city and 10:30 for Louis C.K.'s low budget version of a network sitcom?

The last show on the schedule is Dane Cook's Tourgasm. Which is basically Blue Collar Tour meets the Original Kings of Comedy meets The Queens of Comedy meets... (Cook gets a "created by" credit. What did he create? He just took a well worn idea and plugged in himself. Is Charlie Gibson getting a "created by" credit for hosting "ABC World News Tonight?" Dane should get "pitched by" or "sold on the based on his myspace page by.")

Dane's (I call him "Dane") audience is mainly middle school girls with posters of him on their walls and sticker books in their backpacks. They can't stay up to 11 and sit through Louis C.K. masturbating in a closet to get the cute com cut farts with a 3 comics that are constantly reminded how lucky they are to be on the tour. KISS THE RING!).

Here's how the HBO Sunday night schedule should go so I can get some sleep and get ready for the coal mines early the next morning.

8:30 - Tourgasm
9:00 - Entourage
9:30 - Lucky Louis
10:00 - Deadwood

I put Deadwood at 10 because of the content and because I don't give a shit about the show. I started watching the first season until I realized I had no idea what was going on. It just kept going and going like one long scene. There's no purpose, no end result to any of the show. It just keeps moving along.

Plus, people were just randomly getting shot. So if you lived in the town at anytime you could get shot - for no reason. That's time to move. I get why you you live in a bad neighborhood with house prices the way they are and all, but just getting shot by an Al Pacino look alike is in no way worth it.

It's a great place to start and end a family.

"I'm stepping out to get milk. As you know, I may get shot. If so, you'll have to eat your Corn Flakes dry. I'm sorry. This is Deadwood."

My realtor is showing us places in "Deadwood Adjacent." It's up and coming.

But with Dane and Louis' show getting the worse reviews since HBO jumped into the Mind of a Married Man or saddled us with Arli$$ like a boring uncle that needs a place to hang until his ride gets here -they might not be a problem for long. HBO isn't one to pull shows mid-season, but theses shows might just stink up and down K street.

Enough with the new shows. Bring "The Wire" back already.

Prison Break was nice enough to send a pop up book. I love this show!











And I love pop ups!

The show "House" about a doctor named "House" yet no one gets the pun (I'm sorry I can't make the connection) sent an IV of blood along with a DVD of the show. BUt because the show takes place in NJ, there was a needle floating in it. I'm kidding!
this is a serious show. People are dying!
Yum, homeless blood.



Maybe this wasn't quite a good idea.

Every day for the past three weeks or so it's been free TV Christmas. Studios and networks are sending screener DVD's to voters so they could get an Emmy nod.



Here's the award for best packaging. It's the remake of the original, original "The Ten Commandments"







When you open it up you get two tablets like Moses did.






But this time, it comes with something useful; on the back there two DVD's of the ABC mini series. This is what Moses needed to convince his people. "Behold! DVD's!"




If they really wanted my vote, they should've sent a burning bush.

F Dial up!.

Driving around LA in my vintage SAAB convertible I was struck by this new billboard campaign. Maybe because I have the top down or because if I go over 25 miles an hour, my entire dashboard will shake, I've seen a few things about our urban landscape:

--Even though "Emily's Reasons why Not" only lasted one night, Heather Graham's big head still looms over Sunset like a South American dictator.

--Cable is constantly making and promoting movies about young Russian sex slaves. "We must save them...But first let's watch them dance!"

--Old slow internet sucks.

There are billboards all over LA that have "Dial-up" on them with "Dial" crossed off and the word "Washed" written over it. Way to take a stand! Forget this war thing, I say boo to unplugging the phone in order to get my email.

It's part of an ad campaign to get new users of some DSL.

Who comes up with telling people that something stinks, stinks? Are these the same people who created the unsuccessful, "Drowning is no fun" campaign that was all over the Atlantic Ocean? Or the "Dying is not as fun as living" that was up at Hostices around the country?

I picture a board room, annoying Apprentice rejects line the long table. An intern is organizing a plate of doughnuts.

One corporate a-hole has this great idea. He stand up in Tommy Bahama shirt (It's "Wacky over priced shirt Friday.").

"Instead of getting people who have high speed internet to change to our service because it's better, let's get the new customers. How do we get new costumers? Tell tehm that what they areusing is bad. These poor souls have no idea that dial up is bad. We need to infor them. How? through the internet? No, we established that it will take too long."

I get it. But why tell someone that their inferior product is inferior? They know that. You think there's someone in an igloo in waiting 2 hours for a down load of Paris Hilton's latest nipple slip thinking, "This is great. There couldn't be anything better than this. What? Faster connection? You speak the devil's words! Stop with thee!"

No one knows it's bad? Thanks for taking a stand. Becarefull what you print, the government is watching. You might end up on a list. A list of peopple who make obvious statements.

My guess is that people who still use dial up are doing so because of price and availability, not because they love it.

Why would someone use a third rate product when they can have something better?

Anyway, I have to go. AAA is here to tow my car.