T Bone Burnett & "Palestine Texas"

Yeah, we're not so much concerned with the guy currently in the picture (though one day he might amount to something), but rather T Bone's scorching performance on The Tonight Show...



Oh yeah...some guy wrote about the upcoming show in The Rage...

Another babbling head joins the fray...

In an ongoing attempt to make Headline News into a viable 24/7/365 "news" operation, the CNN-owned network added some opinion to its evening lineup last week in the person of Glenn Beck, a radio talk show host turned televised bloviator.

Let's just call him "O'Reilly for the blog generation."

I've sat through a handful of segments in his first few shows, and wondered how I was going to get that wasted time back.

He doesn't so much deliver the standard conservative talking points (I guess only Roger Ailes has that direct fax line from the White House in *his* newsroom), but instead does the oh-so-fashionable duck-and-dodge, "can you believe the temerity of these people who don't believe exactly like I do?" routine, set in a cramped, retro-futuristic (heavy on the "retro") living-roomesque set.

Case in point: his commentary segment the other night on the Dixie Chicks' appearance on "60 Minutes." He used his new toy, a digital video player he kept having trouble with, to jump back and forth to selected quotes from the piece with which he used to make the beleaguered point "Dixie Chicks: Bad."

Sigh.

Then he turned to his self-professed "best friend/suck-up," Houston-based talking head Pat Gray, to help him back up his "point," saying the Chicks should be ashamed of themselves because they're turning their backs on their country music roots and fans, and that country music is most concerned with the idea of "family values."

Think about that idea whilst you listen to some recent country hits like "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off" and "Drunker Than Me."

I'll spare you the diatribe about how Chicks fans are completely unlike any other country music fan, hence Beck's argument sits as semi-unfounded. No, I'll just (not so-)quietly lament the fact that in this era where it's so important for news organizations to have competent people on the ground serving the oft-ignored duty of acting as the Fourth Estate, Time Warner and CNN have given mucho dinero and primetime airspace to this yutz.

You have *got* to be kidding me...

A new survey by AutoVantage.com says Nashville ranks second in cities with the "most courteous drivers". Clearly, they've never driven here.

Needless to say, I'm a little psyched...

The perils of plagiarism...

Sam Seaborn, one of the many alter egos of Aaron Sorkin in the first four seasons of The West Wing, once noted, "Good writers borrow from other writers, great writers steal from them outright."

Apparently some kid producer at NBC took Sorkin a little too seriously during the coverage of the Kentucky Derby...maybe he had one too many of the $1K mint juleps during the pre-race coverage.

"No, I'm not..."

There's a certain eight-year-old I know who, when she's in the middle of doing something she's not supposed to be doing, tends to announce that she's not doing it.

"No, I don't have the stuffed animal you told me to leave in the car."

"No, I'm not eating that piece of candy you asked me not to."

"No, I'm not torturing the cat." (OK, she doesn't really do that one, because the cat can kick her posterior...and pretty much anybody else's she comes in contact with...)

So when I hear this coming from the direction of the White House, I can't help thinking of dear, sweet Little Running Mouth...

The 12,693rd blog entry titled "Han Shot First"...

There are moments when I really hate George Lucas. Then again, I was firmly convinced we wouldn't see this until George had become a Force ghost himself. Good news for those of us who want to see the un-futzed with versions of the movies we grew up with...bad news for those of us who bought the first DVD box set the day it came out. (Not to mention these new DVDs will only be out until Dec. 31...the man is getting as bad as Disney...)

Prepping for T-Bone...

There are few things more daunting, professionally and journalistically speaking, than talking with one of your heroes. For me, T-Bone Burnett is one of those heroes, and I love this quote from the bio for his new record The True False Identity:

"The tragedy and the comedy is that reality has been devoured by Image Management. Today, you can say anything you want and you can do anything you want. Then, you can say you didn't say it or didn't do it and no one will remember or know the difference or believe anything other than what he or she wants to believe."

I'll find out Friday if he actually said this, and I'll share it in the May 18 edition of All The Rage...