The Offspring come out and play at BlizzCon

In addition to being able to rub elbows with the great unwashed World of Warcraft playerbase during BlizzCon (and getting a baby murloc pet to follow my character around in the game, making gurgling noises), the Offspring will be playing the final night of BlizzCon. Nice bonus.

I assume the Offspring play on the Horde side.

The new television season: Casualties two and three

After thinking the first two-hour episode of Threshold was pretty good, I watched the next one on TiVo Saturday afternoon, after the parade. It was comparable, at best, to one of the bad syndicated sci-fi shows of the 1990s. When they had a military school student in Danville, Virginia (a town I happen to know and was pleased to see mentioned on network TV) talk like an extra from Gone with the Wind, I got worried. Then they said a soldier had received a “Brown Star” during Vietnam. Delete.

In contrast, I had gone into watching Ghost Whisperer knowing it wouldn’t be very good, but I was unprepared for the scale of the awfulness. It was, as expected, mostly a showcase for Jennifer Love Hewitt’s cleavage, for which I can’t fault producers and directors, but I was probably being naive when I was surprised that the script was, essentially, Medium: The Early Years.

The show starts off with Melinda being married to a husband who knows about her powers and is alternately concerned for her and frustrated by her powers. Sound familiar? Except Medium, which just started its second season last week, has some of the best writing of any TV show in recent memory, especially in how the husband and wife relate to one another. (Jake Webber, who plays opposite Patricia Arquette probably deserved an Emmy even more than she did.)

One of the things that makes Medium work is that, while Allison has ghosts appearing to her and all sorts of psychic dreams, her ordinary reality is incredibly mundane. She has three small daughters, who range from adorable to needs-to-be-drowned-in-the-river, a husband who demands real attention from his spouse, dirty dishes, dirty clothes, a frumpy wardrobe, a practical-but-that’s-all haircut and a decidedly non-glamorous lifestyle in suburban Phoenix, Arizona.

Melinda, over on Ghost Whisperer, owns her own fabulous store (which no one shops at, except when the plot dictates), a husband who carries her down the block to the big Victorian home he’s restoring somewhere in the anonymous town of “The Village” (I kid you not) and who, despite no apparent financial means of doing so, drives a big bitchin’ SUV and dresses fabulously.

Now, if this had the sort of loopy sense of humor that Charmed does, it might succeed despite being so freaking dopey. But it doesn’t. It takes itself as seriously as Highway to Heaven and Touched by an Angel ever did, except few conservative Christians are likely to watch an occult show about Hewitt’s breasts. And even they can’t carry this show. It’ll be dead in a matter of weeks, and good riddance. Maybe then the networks will shift things around so that Everybody Hates Chris isn’t up against Survivor, Veronica Mars isn’t up against Lost and Supernatural isn’t up against My Name is Earl.

Liz Phair on All Songs Considered

OK, a shot at me (or at least, guys like me) was taken on the latest edition of All Songs Considered. In their team review of the new Liz Phair record, it was stated that most of her fans are horny guys who think that Exile in Guyville was a smutty love letter to them, and that they don’t get the irony.

Speaking as a male fan since the EIG days (it came out while I was in Egypt, but the Rolling Stone cover story about her was so intriguing, my brother mailed me a copy of it from New York City), this is nonsense.

For starters, the female commentator (I didn’t catch her name, but she’s apparently a disc jockey on Sirius Radio, on their Outlaw Country channel, of all things) can’t have gone to that many concerts. The two I’ve attended in Los Angeles have been mostly women and gay men, neither of whom, presumably, thought that Liz was trying to sex them up on EIG.

Secondly, you’d have to be a moron to not get that “Divorce Song” and “Fuck and Run,” two of the high points of the record, are somehow happy about sex and relationships. “Divorce Song” is a tough listen, as you’re hearing the apparent penultimate conversation of a relationship, and “Fuck and Run,” in addition to its other baggage, implies she was sexually molested at age 12. Maybe there are guys who would interpret this as love letters to them, but I doubt they’re listening to her — they’re more likely having creepy salacious thoughts about Radio Disney.

For me, though, Liz is the musical equivalent of one of my many female friends. While her life doesn’t exactly mirror the life of Kris or Kathy or Denise or any of the others, it’s got elements that I suspect are familiar to all of them. Her first album is about a girl in college and just after dropping out, singing about the single life. Her second, Whip-Smart, is about her post-collegiate life, centering around the single “Supernova,” which boasts of the sexual prowess of her new boyfriend (who is favorably compared to an F-15 jet in the sack) whom she eventually marries.

whitechocolatespaceegg, her next full album, is about the married Liz, her husband and her new child. But marriage is obviously not all roses, and she has multiple songs about how marriage is real work. “Love is Nothing” is short for “love is nothing like they say,” and “Go On Ahead” talks about a married couple doing things apart so that the marriage will stay together. It’s a shockingly personal album, for all that it is layered with wild metaphors and imagery and psychodelic soundscapes.

The divorce happened, and the self-titled Liz Phair was her next album. Its open move towards a more slick and commercial sound is much-discussed, but it’s really a pretty obvious progression from the slick-sounding whitechocolatespaceegg and even many songs on Whip-Smart. She wasn’t going to always record her music on four-track recorders, folks. The highlight of the album — which talks about being single in her 30s and trying to figure out what comes next in her life — is “Little Digger,” a wincingly personal song about her young son showing a new boyfriend his toy cars, but telling him “this one is my favorite/this one you can’t have/I got it from my dad.”

And the new album, Somebody’s Miracle, carries Liz forward to her late 30s. It comes out in early October.

For me, to listen to Liz Phair albums is like catching up with one of my female friends, bitching about husbands and boyfriends or trying to figure out what the hell they’re going to do with their lives. I don’t think Jessica or Sarah are coming onto me by doing this, it’s about just sharing what’s going on in their lives when we catch up with one another.

I’m looking forward to catching up with her again next month.

Survivor Guatemala – Fantasy League

Well, it’s that time of year again. I’ve signed up for the Survivor Fantasy League, which always seems like it will be a lot of fun, but it’s hard to get too excited given how badly run the Web site for it is. Still, I’m playing with my in-laws, who are enormously into it, especially my father-in-law, who now has enough Survivor memorabilia to set up his own island here in the High Desert.

Scoring and such begins with tonight’s show. My picks at this point are Morgan, Margaret, Bobby Jon and Stephenie. The latter three are pretty much guaranteed a lot of camera time, and how can you go wrong with a magician’s assistant? (Don’t ask how I finished in last season’s league.)

Every year, I sit on the couch and tell Jenn how I could be on that show when I watch the first few episodes. Last week’s 11-mile overnight hike through the jungle seemed determined to shut people like me up. It worked.

(I could still do it, though!)

Rock Star: INXS finds a new lead singer

Well, Rock Star: INXS is going to be interesting even after the show ends, given that, in the end, the band picked the drama-creating J.D. as their new lead singer. His performance with them was fine (as was Marty’s), but I think his smoking arrangement of “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is likely what carried the day. Marty failed to show INXS anything new, which was a mistake, and I think he knew it before he stepped out on stage.

So, J.D. has got the musical and performance chops. We know that. I just think we’re looking at a very volatile, very “look at me” guy being added to a mix of people who are very comfortable together after all these years. It’ll be interesting to see if J.D. is their lead singer after this first album and tour. I could see him deciding he’s too big of a star and wanting a solo career before the tour is even over.

It’ll be interesting to see if Marty gets back together with his band, the Lovehammers, now. Depending on how the band feels about him — and they did hold parties for him every Tuesday night during the show at a local bar — this might be a great break for them.

Anyway, good show, and I’ll always have “Trees” on my iPod, whatever else happens.