HubArts.com

Breaking Bad finale was a blast

I was OMG-ing online like a little girl last night as the fourth-season finale of "Breaking Bad" exceeded even my high expectations. On most shows, the characters change in the tiniest increments if at all over an open-ended run, offering endless variations on essentially the same crime-solving exploits or sitcom capers. "Breaking Bad" has made good on creator Vince Gilligan's promise to turn its protagonist from a milquetoast into Scarface. Oh boy has it ever.

The series is one long, continuous arc charting the moral self-destruction of high school chemistry teacher Walter White, who turns to cooking crystal meth after a lung cancer diagnosis, in hopes of leaving his family some money when he's gone. His cancer is in remission, but his insides are still rotting.

Gilligan and AMC have promised that Walter's story will reach its conclusion after just 16 more episodes. If you have not watched the show, go get the freakin' DVDs today and start - but do not read the rest of this post because there are SPOILERS galore.

I've been thinking about "The Sopranos" and "Mad Men" and "The Wire" a lot these last couple of weeks, as "Breaking Bad" is now routinely mentioned in their company as among the best dramas in TV history, the four stars of a current golden age that's mostly on cable. I think in particular of "The Sopranos," because it covered some of the same ground as "Breaking Bad," namely the intersection of 20th century suburban America with violent crime, the story of a man and his morals and how they affect his wife and kids and friends.

But "The Sopranos" had an open-ended run, had good seasons and less good ones, and plenty of slack time. Remember that horrible dream sequence? "Breaking Bad" more than any of those other three shows has kept its relentless momentum, as the bodies pile up and Walter and his sidekick Jesse keep cookin' meth and facing new consequences.

Particularly amazing is that last night's season finale tied up with a plot line begun way back at the beginning of season two. That's when Walt and Jesse first encountered Mexican drug lord turned pathetic bell-ringing stroke victim Tio Salamanca. Last night when Tio agreed to help Walt take down meth kingpin/fried chicken baron Gus Fring in a wheelchair suicide bombing at the hilariously misnamed Casa Tranquila nursing home, it was the sum of an equation that Gilligan began writing something like 30 episodes ago. And it was perfect.

The waiting, the explosion and the aftermath were as gripping a sequence as I've seen on TV. Fring trudged zombielike out of Tio's burning room, and the camera slowly came around from the left side of his face to the right, which was mostly...missing. He straightened his tie, then fell down dead. I'd wager there were more viewers screaming "Holy ----!" in their living rooms than at any time since, well, the Red Sox won the '04 series.

His horrible injuries - the condition already known as "Gus Face" on Twitter - reminded many viewers of the zombies in AMC's "Walking Dead," which had been advertised during the episode. And in an interview published online as the episode ended, Gilligan revealed that "Walking Dead" special effects mavens had indeed done the work. (A favorite tweet: @jhowardrmit's "Well they blew up the chicken man in Breaking Bad last night. #brucespringsteen #breakingbad.")

But to just focus on the big bang would totally misrepresent this series, which for all its pulp entertainment value is at heart a brilliant character study of Walter White - Bryan Cranston has won three Emmys in the role and should get a fourth now. The finale reached a second climax of sorts when his wife, on the phone, asked him what had happened, and he said, "I won." I'm not sure there's ever been a TV character whose arc covered as much ground as his.

But wait, there's more.

Much of the last couple of episodes has revolved around Walt's sidekick/partner/pseudo-son Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul (one Emmy), and his concern for a little boy named Brock. Brock lay at death's door in the hospital, apparently because he'd been served the poison - ricin - that Walt and Jesse had intended for Gus Fring. (Funny moment. Cops to Jesse: Where did you hear about ricin? Jesse: I think I saw it on "House.")

Walt had made the ricin and given it to Jesse, and it seemed that Gus had outsmarted them and fed it to the kid. This bonded Jesse more tightly with Walt against Gus. But as the episode wound down, we learned that the kid had actually been poisoned by lily of the valley. He'd probably found it in his yard.

Or at least that's what we all thought, until the final shot of the episode, a lovely look at the pool and patio behind Walt's house that ended with a slow zoom... to...a pot of...lily of the valley.

OMG! Walt poisoned the kid to win back Jesse! Walt poisoned the kid!

Several people quickly pointed out on Twitter and Facebook that Gilligan and Co. tipped it the week before, when Walt was sitting on his patio, brooding and spinning a gun on a tabletop. Look where the gun points in that screenshot up above, which many posted online. Walt wasn't just idly contemplating a thing of beauty amidst all the ugliness of his life. He was thinking of using it to poison a child. Holy...

Walt, the former teacher, outsmarted everyone. He killed five people in just the last couple of minutes of the finale (although Brock will survive). Walt has totally broken bad. Now there are 16 episodes left, starting next summer. He thinks he has won, but the karma must come back to get him. The question is whether it will be the cancer that finally kills him, or Jesse, or his DEA agent brother-in-law, or the remnants of the Fring organization, or ...

I think the one thing we can be sure of is that whatever happens will be totally fitting, and even more mindblowing than last night's season finale.

Bravo.

 

Whitey Bulger in jail. Eddie Coyle on stage.

I went to bed early Wednesday night. Before I went downstairs this morning, I picked up my phone to check email and saw a fresh message from playwright Bill Doncaster. “A little overwhelmed by the karma,” he wrote. “When I started this, would never have predicted Higgins' work would be back on the rise, the Bruins would win the cup again, and Whitey would  get pinched. A little surreal.”

 Wait, what? I read it again to make sure he wasn’t joking, then ran to turn on the TV. Sure enough, a couple of days after the start of a new FBI ad campaign, they’d finally caught Whitey Bulger.

Doncaster wrote a stage adaptation of George V. Higgins’ classic 1972 Boston crime novel, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” which limns the same Irish-and-Italian mob scene where James “Whitey” Bulger ruled before he went on the run 16 years ago.

“I was more shocked than when they got Bin Laden,” Doncaster said by phone later in the day. “I heard his name and thought, they’re not still reporting on that ad campaign are they? And then I heard the word arrest.”

Doncaster’s play was cheered in a staged reading at the Burren in Davis Square last November, with Higgins’ widow in the audience. And he recently announced that a full production of the play will begin performances Dec. 8-Jan. 15 at the ART’s Oberon venue on the edge of Harvard Square. (Doncaster notes that while Bulger was a Southie phenomenon, the fictional Coyle came from Cambridge's Central Square.)

The play is just one sign of a Higgins resurgence, the biggest being that Brad Pitt spent part of the last few months filming an adaptation of “Cogan’s Trade” in (alas) New Orleans. Doncaster is putting together a non-profit to finance his production and will sart raising money sometime next month. You can go to www.thefriendsofeddiecoyle.com and sign up for email updates.

Doncaster and I had already joked recently about the timing of the Bruins championship. One of the best remembered moments in Peter Yates’ acclaimed “Coyle” movie is when Robert Mitchum, as the drunken hood Coyle, cheers on “Number four! Bobby Orr!” The last Bruins’ Stanley Cup triumph was in… 1972. But the Whitey capture takes karma to a new level.

One of the key characters in “Coyle” is Dillon, a felon who is the silent owner of a bar (like Bulger and Triple O’s), a government informant playing both sides of the street (like Bulger) and, it turns out, a killer (like Bulger). Doncaster said that Higgins, although he’d been a federal prosecutor, always maintained that Dillon was an invention and not based on Bulger.

"I get asked about that pretty frequently,” Doncaster said. “With the similarities…it’s easy to jump to that conclusion.”

In Doncaster’s production, Rick Park plays Dillon. I’d recently asked Doncaster to put me in touch with Park on an unrelated matter, and when he emailed me this morning, his original intent was just to make sure I’d heard from Park.

“Very, very strange,” Doncaster said with a laugh.

Not as spooky as the real thing, though. Doncaster met Bulger “for two seconds” back in the 80s. “My girlfriend at the time lived in the neighborhood. Scary guy, even in a brief meeting.”

Natasha has her say. So does Natasha. And Natasha.

"The Natasha Plays" at Charlestown Working Theater, tonight through Saturday, comes with an intriguing back story. Russian playwright Yaroslava Pulinovich is still in her early 20s, but has been produced several times in her homeland and Europe. This triptych of monologues by three different Natashas puts a spotlight on the youth of modern Russia, but at the same time it's universal, says Jennifer Johnson, one of CWT's three co-directors. Abandonment and identity, the price of celebrity, the worship of fame ... not so far from the America of reality TV, Lady Gaga and mall culture.

In "Natasha's Dream," the speaker is an orphan (Julia M. Smith, pictured) who attaches herself to an interested journalist with disastrous results. In "I Won," we hear from an upwardly mobile teen (Sarah Lloyd) who's not going to let anything interfere with her chance at fame. And in the short "Epilogue," recently added, another teen (Shannon McPhee) composes a love letter to a pop star.

"Each of the characters is named Natasha, but they are vastly different. The whole idea is that these young Russian women are products of their environment and their upbringing," she said. "It will be interesting to see how audiences correlate the same kind of themes to the American experience."

The actors are current or former masters students in the theater program at Towson University in Maryland, home to the New Russian Drama Project, and the production was developed there with The Center for International Theatre Development. Center director Philip Arnoult was aware of CWT's interest in international projects, and one thing led to another. The production is directed by Stephen Nunns, translated by John Freedman.

Of course, none of this would matter if CWT hadn't also found an audience that shares its interest. The best sign of that may be that CWT sold out three of last week's four performances of "Caesarian Section" by Poland's edgy Teatr Zar. That was a show of movement and meaning, but not especially linear. Johnson says "The Natasha Plays" is text-based narrative, more traditional in form. Despite the distance between Boston and these teenagers' lives, it should be quite accessible.

"Tons of people came to see Zar, they were very, very exciting events, made more exciting by the tornado on Wednesday night, which was their closing night. It was so crazy," Johnson said. "Weirdly and inexplicably our lights flickered...but it sort of went with the performance.

"The audience at CWT typically stays (after shows), we really try to make it an opportunity for people to talk to each other and the artists, particularly if we have artists from other countries," she said. "But it was such crazy weather, basically no one could leave. So we just were there forever, but we had a lot of wine, so that was OK."

Now that's my kind of theater.

"The Natasha Plays" runs tonight through Saturday at Charlestown Working Theater, 442 Bunker Hill Street, Charlestown. It's accessible by the Orange Line from Sullivan Station or Bus Lines #92 and #93. Tix are $10 tonight, $15-22 the rest of the week. Call 866-811-4111 or click to www.charlestownworkingtheater.org.

Photo: Jay Herzog.

Hear O'Malley talk about *that* scene

You may remember our rave for Boston comedian Mike O'Malley's performance on "Glee" last week, as the blue-collar dad defending his gay son. Callie Crossley interviewed O'Malley yesterday on her WGBH FM 89.7 "Callie Crossley Show," in advance of last night's "Glee" season finale. It's worth a listen, not just because she quotes us to him, twice! Not sure why they use a video player, but oh well. The fun starts at about 42:00.

We'll get to the book in a moment. The new Pernice Brothers CD, "Goodbye, Killer" drops June 15 and it's another gorgeous set of melodic rock and pop. Sunny on the surface, mordant underneath, always erudite: it's impossible to mistake Joe Pernice's voice and lyrics for anyone else's. When was the last time you heard an album that namechecks Ford Madox Ford and Leni Riefenstahl? My favorites are the jaunty title track and chiming rockers "Something For You" and "Fucking and Flowers." The anthemic "The Great Depression" is irresistibly catchy, although it's either about an actual depression or the worst girlfriend ever.

Once in a while Pernice gets too cute by half - a spoiled "Bechamel" as romantic metaphor - but that's kind of a trademark, actually. You have to go too far regularly to get to a classic like, "I'd kiss your ass to kiss your ass again" (in the twangy, broken-hearted "Newport News"). Pernice sings the same way - occasionally there's a falsetto note he can't quite hold, as on the refrains in "The Great Depression," but somehow that too makes it all work.

My previous favorite Pernice disc was "Discover A Lovelier You," which for all its varied sounds seemed to be of a single dreamy mood. "Goodbye, Killer" reminds me more of "Revolver," which I've also been listening to a lot since I got the Beatles box - a collection of disparate songs held together by the voices and guitar sounds. Love the guitar work all over the place by Pernice and  James Walbourne (also of the Pretenders), especially the electrics on the throbbing "Jacqueline Susann" and the slide on the title track, which sounds like it dropped off a Rod Stewart album circa "Gasoline Alley."

(Photo: Pernice, center, with bandmates Ric Menck and Walbourne. Not shown: Bob Pernice, known as "Other Pernice." Pic by Mike Ritter.)

Referencing other artists is a rock critic's crutch of course. But Pernice keeps reminding me of Elvis Costello, and not just because of the glasses and (sometimes) beard, or the way he can go from the new wave of "Jacqueline Susann" to the bucolic country of "We Love The Stage." It's the way he produces pretty sounds that seem to curdle when you hear what he's actually saying. Like Costello, Pernice seems to enjoy coming off as a misanthrope. And like Costello, you get the sense that all the bristly wordplay is a romantic's defense mechanism, and once or twice an album the armor drops. Anyone who protests so eloquently that he's not "The Loving Kind" probably doth protest too much.

But then again.

Let us now consider "Pernice To Me," the paperback released simultaneously with the CD.

The slim volume comes from Ashmont Books, the publishing arm of Dorchester's Ashmont Records, both of which are basically Pernice and the one-woman conglomerate known as Boston publicist Joyce Linehan, who also serves as Pernice's manager. "Pernice To Me" - which I and other Linehan fans have been demanding for many months - recounts the communications between the pair, documented over time by Linehan via the @ashmont twitter account. They share the author credit.

Example:"Pernice to Me: We're touring in YOUR car? All I can say is, that piece-of-shit lezmobile better not break down. And I'm driving." (A footnote in the book explains that Linehan does drive a Subaru, although she is not a lesbian.)

No less an authority than critic Robert Christgau says that the book is a kind of music journalism, offering "little glimpses into the highly unglamorous life of an indie-rock lifer." Christgau seems to think it's the life that's given Pernice the nasty mouth. I don't know Pernice, but I have to figure it's part performance, a way of amusing himself via the caricature of an infantile, egomaniacal, misogynistic, utterly self-centered artist. Because if it was all for real, Linehan would have (justifiably) killed him by now.

"Pernice to me: People keep saying I'm a curmudgeon. It's like you invented this character. Tweet that."

It's a hilarious postmodern Punch and Judy act. And give Linehan credit: the twitter stream preceded @shitmydadsays by months, and that's now going to be a sitcom starring William Shatner as dad. What delicious irony it would be if Pernice's indie-rock life was glammed up by a "Shit My Rock Star Says" sitcom based on "Pernice to Me." Maybe if Costello isn't too busy with his talk show...

OK, two Lady Gaga-related items in a row is at least one too many, I know. But...

Mike O'Malley (left) is a Boston native and a huge Sox fan - he emcees things like the Hot Stove, Cool Music concerts - so this is HubArts-related. The guy deserves a shout-out for one great scene last night in "Glee's" Lady Gaga-centric episode "Theatricality," so we're going to give it to him.

Fox's "Glee" is a fun show, though I get tired of its relentless fabulousness - everyone is always having a moment, and the high-school kids' let's-put-on-a-show inspirations keep turning into these giant, Oscar-night-worthy production spectaculars. But Jane Lynch as psycho cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester is pretty much a must-see, and the actors who play the kids are mostly very good. It's hard not to root for Chris Colfer, who plays the just-out-of-the-closet Kurt; not long ago Colfer was a gay high school kid getting a hard time from his peers, and now he plays one on TV, with flair. That's him below, in full Gaga getup.

O'Malley plays Burt, Kurt's father, a blue-collar widower who accepts who his kid is, but isn't always perfect. In a recent episode, Kurt was hurt when Burt (sorry) showed up unexpectedly at school - but only to take Finn to a ballgame. Finn, played by Cory Monteith (bottom left), is emphatically straight, a big jock who's trying to be a better dude since he accepted his own singing and dancing side and joined the Glee gang. Lately Burt has started dating Finn's widowed mom, and Burt was trying to bond with Finn, but also maybe just a little too glad to have a jocky kid to take to ballgames and such. You following?

So last night, it turns out that the thing between the parents is serious - they're moving in together. And Finn is not cool with it. Not cool with mom knocking boots with Burt? Maybe. Not cool with the idea of bunking in with Kurt? Definitely. So Kurt, who has a crush on Finn, tries to make him comfortable by re-decorating their basement quarters...like a Morroccan harem from the 30s. Or something. I mean...whew. And Finn finally loses it.

Now this is where a less well-written show would have him learning some easy lesson about tolerance, or maybe admitting it's just the mom thing. But, uh, no. He comes right out with it. He knows why Kurt is excited about him moving in, and he calls him on it. "You think I don't see the way you stare at me?" he says. It's a supremely uncomfortable moment, and Kurt crumbles, eyes welling up, exposed and humiliated. But Finn is freaked too, probably for a combination of reasons, including the fact that being a better dude isn't easy. And he starts raging against the "faggy" decor.

And that's where O'Malley comes in. Hearing the F word shouted, Burt enters, infuriated but in control, and blisters Finn's ears with a speech about why the word is wrong, and how he used to say it himself the same way Finn says it, and he knows what it means, and he's not going to hear it spoken to his son that way. And Finn is entitled to believe what he wants out in the world, but not in Burt's house. And Finn can't answer, he leaves without a word. It's less than a minute of acting by O'Malley, but it's terrific. It looks like authentic living, a guy who has crossed a line and isn't going back behind it.

Of course "Glee" always has to go over the top, so the writers fuck it up with a scene at the end where Finn dons  major Gaga drag himself and sides with Kurt against some other jock bullies. It's way too on-the-nose, too much a moment, and totally "Glee." But in that basement scene, all three guys did some real acting, especially O'Malley. After that it was just a matter of mopping up and giving "Glee" loyalists their weekly tear duct hose-out.

O'Malley was funny in a gonzo supporting bit on "My Name Is Earl," and his laconic line delivery was the only thing worth saving in the terrible sitcom "Yes, Dear," which somehow ran for five season. His own show lasted a whole two episodes back in 1999. He's been very good as Burt, in what's really a straight acting role, and he just killed it last night in the most dramatic scene I've ever seen on "Glee."

You can watch the episode here (after the ad), and if you just want to see the scene in question, fast-forward to 25:17.

This blog will now resume not thinking about Lady Gaga at all.#

Monty Burns did it, of course! I can't believe no one else has reported it, but "The Simpsons" solved the 20-year-old Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery. In Sunday's episode, called "American History X-cellent," Homer, Carl and Lenny were loudly partying down in billionaire misanthrope Burns' mansion - long story - and Burns called the cops. But when Springfield's finest arrived, one of them looked at a painting on the mansion wall and recognized it as Vermeer's "The Concert" (right), stolen from the Gardner in March 1990 along with a dozen other works, several of them masterpieces, none of which have ever been found.With very unusual perception for the dimwitted cop, Chief Wiggum asked Burns how he came to possess "this miracle of measure and harmony." Burns contemptuously replied, "Is it a crime to want nice things and then to steal them from a public museum where any gum-chewing monkey in a Tufts University jacket can gawk at them?" Burns was arrested and imprisoned, leading to a "Green Mile" takeoff and - in another nod to the Gardner heist - Homer, Carl and Lenny posed as cops to break him out. Watch the episode here. The key clip:

If I was making up the front page today, I would have been tempted to put Alex Beam's hi-larious "radio wars" column on the front instead of the BU opera resume embarrassment. I was kind of disappointed he didn't find an opening to bring up Chris Lydon's former BUR salary, but nothing is perfect. ... Also in G is my theater column, "Theater company scripts say 'trim' and 'team up.'" I made a rookie mistake - I pitched a column idea that required eleventy-hundred phone  calls to do right. But it came out pretty good. ... Names and the Herald both do right by our local SYTYCD winner. ... Globe critic Sebastian Smee and blogger Greg Cook are still talking about localism, yokelism and other -isms. ... And Ryan has another hot tip, complete with a free listen.

You may remember her as the tall redheaded drink of water who played Cybill Shepard's teen daughter on a '90s sitcom. She's got something of a movie and TV career, including a stint as a detective on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." But these days the Worcester native seems just as interested in her work at the piano as a singer-songwriter; you can look up her 2009 EP on iTunes. And this Friday night she'll be playing the Thanksgiving Hangover Show at Oliver's at the Cask & Flagon on Brookline Ave. The band Soap Stars follows at 8:45. Here's a taste of Witt at work:

I saw the new ad for Boston Mayor Tom Menino's reelection campaign during the Sox game last night, and I have to ask, What the hell were they thinking? If you listen to the voiceover, it touts his impact all over the city, saying he's a guy who doesn't do his business behind closed doors at City Hall. But if you look at the pictures, what you see is his empty chair and an empty desk doing nothing all over town. Menino is nowhere in sight, and to judge by the empty desk, he doesn't have anything to do, anyway. (Even the voiceover starts by telling us what he doesn't do.) I don't live in the city and don't have a stake in who wins, but this is a terrible spot. "Mad Men's" Don Draper, a genius on the emotional impact of advertising, would have laughed it out of his Sterling Cooper office before it got to storyboard. Sure, it's nicely shot, with hip angles and vaguely U2-ish background music, but a picture is still worth a thousand words, and the pictures here tell us Menino is a no-show. Just a few tweaks to the copy and it would make an excellent ad for one of his opponents. Watch:

New Pernice CD and "Sh*t My Rock Star Says"

We'll get to the book in a moment. The new Pernice Brothers CD, "Goodbye, Killer" drops June 15 and it's another gorgeous set of melodic rock and pop. Sunny on the surface, mordant underneath, always erudite: it's impossible to mistake Joe Pernice's voice and lyrics for anyone else's. When was the last time you heard an album that namechecks Ford Madox Ford and Leni Riefenstahl? My favorites are the jaunty title track and chiming rockers "Something For You" and "Fucking and Flowers." The anthemic "The Great Depression" is irresistibly catchy, although it's either about an actual depression or the worst girlfriend ever.

Once in a while Pernice gets too cute by half - a spoiled "Bechamel" as romantic metaphor - but that's kind of a trademark, actually. You have to go too far regularly to get to a classic like, "I'd kiss your ass to kiss your ass again" (in the twangy, broken-hearted "Newport News"). Pernice sings the same way - occasionally there's a falsetto note he can't quite hold, as on the refrains in "The Great Depression," but somehow that too makes it all work.

My previous favorite Pernice disc was "Discover A Lovelier You," which for all its varied sounds seemed to be of a single dreamy mood. "Goodbye, Killer" reminds me more of "Revolver," which I've also been listening to a lot since I got the Beatles box - a collection of disparate songs held together by the voices and guitar sounds. Love the guitar work all over the place by Pernice and  James Walbourne (also of the Pretenders), especially the electrics on the throbbing "Jacqueline Susann" and the slide on the title track, which sounds like it dropped off a Rod Stewart album circa "Gasoline Alley."

(Photo: Pernice, center, with bandmates Ric Menck and Walbourne. Not shown: Bob Pernice, known as "Other Pernice." Pic by Mike Ritter.)

Referencing other artists is a rock critic's crutch of course. But Pernice keeps reminding me of Elvis Costello, and not just because of the glasses and (sometimes) beard, or the way he can go from the new wave of "Jacqueline Susann" to the bucolic country of "We Love The Stage." It's the way he produces pretty sounds that seem to curdle when you hear what he's actually saying. Like Costello, Pernice seems to enjoy coming off as a misanthrope. And like Costello, you get the sense that all the bristly wordplay is a romantic's defense mechanism, and once or twice an album the armor drops. Anyone who protests so eloquently that he's not "The Loving Kind" probably doth protest too much.

But then again.

Let us now consider "Pernice To Me," the paperback released simultaneously with the CD.

The slim volume comes from Ashmont Books, the publishing arm of Dorchester's Ashmont Records, both of which are basically Pernice and the one-woman conglomerate known as Boston publicist Joyce Linehan, who also serves as Pernice's manager. "Pernice To Me" - which I and other Linehan fans have been demanding for many months - recounts the communications between the pair, documented over time by Linehan via the @ashmont twitter account. They share the author credit.

Example:"Pernice to Me: We're touring in YOUR car? All I can say is, that piece-of-shit lezmobile better not break down. And I'm driving." (A footnote in the book explains that Linehan does drive a Subaru, although she is not a lesbian.)

No less an authority than critic Robert Christgau says that the book is a kind of music journalism, offering "little glimpses into the highly unglamorous life of an indie-rock lifer." Christgau seems to think it's the life that's given Pernice the nasty mouth. I don't know Pernice, but I have to figure it's part performance, a way of amusing himself via the caricature of an infantile, egomaniacal, misogynistic, utterly self-centered artist. Because if it was all for real, Linehan would have (justifiably) killed him by now.

"Pernice to me: People keep saying I'm a curmudgeon. It's like you invented this character. Tweet that."

It's a hilarious postmodern Punch and Judy act. And give Linehan credit: the twitter stream preceded @shitmydadsays by months, and that's now going to be a sitcom starring William Shatner as dad. What delicious irony it would be if Pernice's indie-rock life was glammed up by a "Shit My Rock Star Says" sitcom based on "Pernice to Me." Maybe if Costello isn't too busy with his talk show...

Glee, Gaga and Mike O'Malley

OK, two Lady Gaga-related items in a row is at least one too many, I know. But...

Mike O'Malley (left) is a Boston native and a huge Sox fan - he emcees things like the Hot Stove, Cool Music concerts - so this is HubArts-related. The guy deserves a shout-out for one great scene last night in "Glee's" Lady Gaga-centric episode "Theatricality," so we're going to give it to him.

Fox's "Glee" is a fun show, though I get tired of its relentless fabulousness - everyone is always having a moment, and the high-school kids' let's-put-on-a-show inspirations keep turning into these giant, Oscar-night-worthy production spectaculars. But Jane Lynch as psycho cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester is pretty much a must-see, and the actors who play the kids are mostly very good. It's hard not to root for Chris Colfer, who plays the just-out-of-the-closet Kurt; not long ago Colfer was a gay high school kid getting a hard time from his peers, and now he plays one on TV, with flair. That's him below, in full Gaga getup.

O'Malley plays Burt, Kurt's father, a blue-collar widower who accepts who his kid is, but isn't always perfect. In a recent episode, Kurt was hurt when Burt (sorry) showed up unexpectedly at school - but only to take Finn to a ballgame. Finn, played by Cory Monteith (bottom left), is emphatically straight, a big jock who's trying to be a better dude since he accepted his own singing and dancing side and joined the Glee gang. Lately Burt has started dating Finn's widowed mom, and Burt was trying to bond with Finn, but also maybe just a little too glad to have a jocky kid to take to ballgames and such. You following?

So last night, it turns out that the thing between the parents is serious - they're moving in together. And Finn is not cool with it. Not cool with mom knocking boots with Burt? Maybe. Not cool with the idea of bunking in with Kurt? Definitely. So Kurt, who has a crush on Finn, tries to make him comfortable by re-decorating their basement quarters...like a Morroccan harem from the 30s. Or something. I mean...whew. And Finn finally loses it.

Now this is where a less well-written show would have him learning some easy lesson about tolerance, or maybe admitting it's just the mom thing. But, uh, no. He comes right out with it. He knows why Kurt is excited about him moving in, and he calls him on it. "You think I don't see the way you stare at me?" he says. It's a supremely uncomfortable moment, and Kurt crumbles, eyes welling up, exposed and humiliated. But Finn is freaked too, probably for a combination of reasons, including the fact that being a better dude isn't easy. And he starts raging against the "faggy" decor.

And that's where O'Malley comes in. Hearing the F word shouted, Burt enters, infuriated but in control, and blisters Finn's ears with a speech about why the word is wrong, and how he used to say it himself the same way Finn says it, and he knows what it means, and he's not going to hear it spoken to his son that way. And Finn is entitled to believe what he wants out in the world, but not in Burt's house. And Finn can't answer, he leaves without a word. It's less than a minute of acting by O'Malley, but it's terrific. It looks like authentic living, a guy who has crossed a line and isn't going back behind it.

Of course "Glee" always has to go over the top, so the writers fuck it up with a scene at the end where Finn dons  major Gaga drag himself and sides with Kurt against some other jock bullies. It's way too on-the-nose, too much a moment, and totally "Glee." But in that basement scene, all three guys did some real acting, especially O'Malley. After that it was just a matter of mopping up and giving "Glee" loyalists their weekly tear duct hose-out.

O'Malley was funny in a gonzo supporting bit on "My Name Is Earl," and his laconic line delivery was the only thing worth saving in the terrible sitcom "Yes, Dear," which somehow ran for five season. His own show lasted a whole two episodes back in 1999. He's been very good as Burt, in what's really a straight acting role, and he just killed it last night in the most dramatic scene I've ever seen on "Glee."

You can watch the episode here (after the ad), and if you just want to see the scene in question, fast-forward to 25:17.

This blog will now resume not thinking about Lady Gaga at all.#

"Simpsons" solves Gardner robbery

Monty Burns did it, of course! I can't believe no one else has reported it, but "The Simpsons" solved the 20-year-old Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery. In Sunday's episode, called "American History X-cellent," Homer, Carl and Lenny were loudly partying down in billionaire misanthrope Burns' mansion - long story - and Burns called the cops. But when Springfield's finest arrived, one of them looked at a painting on the mansion wall and recognized it as Vermeer's "The Concert" (right), stolen from the Gardner in March 1990 along with a dozen other works, several of them masterpieces, none of which have ever been found.With very unusual perception for the dimwitted cop, Chief Wiggum asked Burns how he came to possess "this miracle of measure and harmony." Burns contemptuously replied, "Is it a crime to want nice things and then to steal them from a public museum where any gum-chewing monkey in a Tufts University jacket can gawk at them?" Burns was arrested and imprisoned, leading to a "Green Mile" takeoff and - in another nod to the Gardner heist - Homer, Carl and Lenny posed as cops to break him out. Watch the episode here. The key clip:

Morning reading: WGBH v. WBUR and more

If I was making up the front page today, I would have been tempted to put Alex Beam's hi-larious "radio wars" column on the front instead of the BU opera resume embarrassment. I was kind of disappointed he didn't find an opening to bring up Chris Lydon's former BUR salary, but nothing is perfect. ... Also in G is my theater column, "Theater company scripts say 'trim' and 'team up.'" I made a rookie mistake - I pitched a column idea that required eleventy-hundred phone  calls to do right. But it came out pretty good. ... Names and the Herald both do right by our local SYTYCD winner. ... Globe critic Sebastian Smee and blogger Greg Cook are still talking about localism, yokelism and other -isms. ... And Ryan has another hot tip, complete with a free listen.

Alicia Witt plays here on Black Friday

You may remember her as the tall redheaded drink of water who played Cybill Shepard's teen daughter on a '90s sitcom. She's got something of a movie and TV career, including a stint as a detective on "Law & Order: Criminal Intent." But these days the Worcester native seems just as interested in her work at the piano as a singer-songwriter; you can look up her 2009 EP on iTunes. And this Friday night she'll be playing the Thanksgiving Hangover Show at Oliver's at the Cask & Flagon on Brookline Ave. The band Soap Stars follows at 8:45. Here's a taste of Witt at work:

Menino ad says one thing, but empty chair says another

I saw the new ad for Boston Mayor Tom Menino's reelection campaign during the Sox game last night, and I have to ask, What the hell were they thinking? If you listen to the voiceover, it touts his impact all over the city, saying he's a guy who doesn't do his business behind closed doors at City Hall. But if you look at the pictures, what you see is his empty chair and an empty desk doing nothing all over town. Menino is nowhere in sight, and to judge by the empty desk, he doesn't have anything to do, anyway. (Even the voiceover starts by telling us what he doesn't do.) I don't live in the city and don't have a stake in who wins, but this is a terrible spot. "Mad Men's" Don Draper, a genius on the emotional impact of advertising, would have laughed it out of his Sterling Cooper office before it got to storyboard. Sure, it's nicely shot, with hip angles and vaguely U2-ish background music, but a picture is still worth a thousand words, and the pictures here tell us Menino is a no-show. Just a few tweaks to the copy and it would make an excellent ad for one of his opponents. Watch: