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The Pernice Brothers sell out

Saw this ad the other night, I thought that was the Pernice Brothers. And lest you think I'm bashing, the link - and the "sell out" line - comes right from the band's camp, at Ashmont Records. The song is "The Weakest Shade of Blue."

Glass fish and FX drama

I've got two features in the Globe today. This one, about a local guy here in Newburyport who makes these amazing glass fish no bigger than your thumb. And this one, about Wednesday's coming season premiere of the FX series "Damages," with Glenn Close.

E of Eels on music, death and PBS

I've got a feature on the front of the Globe Arts section today, an interview with Mark Oliver Everett, better known as E, the man behind the band Eels. He's got a new book out Tuesday and a Nova documentary on PBS the same night, both exploring his insanely tragic family life as the son of a physicist who invented the "parallel worlds" theory. Click here to read the story and see a film clip.

Tom Brady down, CBS crab cakes up

The ratings-oriented site TV By The Numbers says the TV sports poobahs can't be any  happier than Patriots fans about Tom Brady's injury yesterday. If he's out for the rest of the season, it could hurt their TV ratings, which translate directly into dollars. Meanwhile my friend Jess over at the Herald gave WBZ a pretty good shot for their asinine, over-the-top shilling for the "CBS Experience" restaurant that opened next to the stadium in Foxboro over the weekend. Brady made the scene before his injury. If you ever though sports and television were anything but cold-hearted businesses, here's your answer.

Weekend TV tips: Love dogs, vampires too

Over at MeeVee, I've just written about a couple of shows worth watching this weekend. Tonight on "Dogtown," on the National Geographic Channel, it's "Saving the Michael Vick Dogs," an infuriating then heartwarming two-hour installment. At press tour this summer, I got bellyrubs with one of the pit bulls Vick and his thug-life pals trained to fight to the death. The transformation the Dogtown folks worked is amazing. And speaking of transformations, also this weekend is HBO's highly entertaining vampire drama, "True Blood."

Watching the Olympics, feeling a little sick

I get hives whenever I agree with Jeff Jacoby's op-eds in the Globe. But I agree with pretty much everything he wrote today about China's Olympics - the pretty pictures, rhapsodized over by Bob Costas and the rest of NBC's gold-medal-in-the-ratings team, can't obscure the ugly reality of life there for anyone who would cast a blemish on the repressive superpower's phony image. The fakey-fake-McFake aspects of the Olympic coverage are just the frosting on the cake. I feel guilty every time I tune in. I feel angry every time I see, as I did tonight, a gee-isn't it-awesome-and-wonderful NBC feature package, complete with the pedigreed scuzz buckets of the IOC assuring us that, hey, it ain't perfect, but China really is better because we're here.

I really don't care that Kobe and the rest of his pampered troupe of gazillionaires will have gold medals with which to adorn their Escalades. I know Michael Phelps is amazing, and the Jamaican dude sure can run. There are thousands of athletes for whom the games are a lifetime highlight, and I'm not saying they shouldn't go. But the fulsome gush on NBC coverage is more than I can stomach, and the half-hearted attention to the reality on the ground, well, I suppose it's just good business.

Mostly what I think about when I see the NBC coverage is stuff like this from Jacoby: "In America, you can fight an eminent-domain taking all the way to the Supreme Court. In China, you suck it up and keep your mouth shut. Otherwise you end up like Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying, two former neighbors who were unhappy with the compensation they received when their homes were demolished (to make room for Olympic venues -JB). Rather than suffer in silence, they sought permission to demonstrate during the Olympics in one of Beijing's three official 'protest zones.' Permission was denied. Instead they were charged with disturbing the public order and could face a year of 're-education through labor.' Wang, who is nearly blind and walks with a cane, is 77. Her friend is 79."

But the fireworks displays were awesome, right?

SuperManny to the rescue!

I flipped when I saw this headline:

Unfortunately the story wasn't as interesting as I thought: "ABC is moving forward with its plans for a male-based 'Supernanny' spinoff. The network will air a pilot episode of 'Supermanny'" in the fall. The spinoff's format will remain similar to the original, with a child-development expert lending a family in crisis some tough-love guidance."

I like the idea of Manny-as-superhero better. You know, Gotham City would need saving from some ultra-villain and he'd be in the can. Or instead of chasing after the bad guy at top speed, he'd just kind of jog after him, and stop halfway.

Obama might get this. McCain never will.

From 8 to midnight on Sept. 26 at the ICA, the art collective Sosolimited will perform "ReConstitution," a live, non-partisan remix of the first presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama. Uh huh, that's right. The Cambridge-based Sosolimited Cambridge, Mass., has designed software to samples a TV broadcast in real time - video, audio and closed captioned text - for remixing. Did I mention that the members of Sosolimited are MIT grads?

ReConstitution 2008 - Live Presidential Debates Remix by Sosolimited from Sosolimited on Vimeo.

"Each argument and rebuttal is analyzed for emotional content, word choice, speech pattern and body language, and the results are projected on to a large screen for the audience," says the ICA. The point: dig out what's really going on under the surface of the debate. The group did the same thing in 2004. Additional performances are planned for New York and Washington during subsequent debates this year.

And there will be drinks, as well as regular DJs. And a voter registration table. And the whole thing will be projected out to the Harbor Walk. This sounds like an almost painfully cutting edge evening of fun. Tickets are $25 general admission; $20 members, students, and seniors. Must be 21 years of age. Tickets can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling (617) 478-3103.

"Mad men" returns tonight, still the best show on TV

Over at the day job, I've written a bunch about AMC's acclaimed 1960s drama "Mad Men," starring Jon Hamm (right) as existential ad man Don Draper. In L.A. over the last couple of weeks, I interviewed most of the cast and visited the set. Start by reading my rave review of the second-season premiere, which airs tonight at 10 on AMC, and will repeat several times during the week. Nothing to do with Boston here, but you might be glad you did.

Edgers and Schwartz agree, Tanglewood is lovely in the summer

UPDATE: This blog post makes clear why Schwartz's project was worth doing. Doesn't change the issues, but worth reading.

I think it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said something about it being a mark of intelligence if one could hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. I'll try it anyway with the current dustup between the Globe's Geoff Edgers and the Phoenix's Lloyd Schwartz.

What am talking about? Read Globe staffer Edgers'  post earlier this week on the Exhibitionist blog, in which he takes to task the Boston Phoenix's Pulitzer Prize-winning music critic Schwartz for violating journalistic ethics. The BSO paid Schwartz, also a serious poet, to help some of the Tanglewood fellows set six of his poems to music. He worked with the fellows, stayed overnight and was even reimbursed for his mileage. Understandably, Schwartz found this a pleasant experience and blogged about it. And Edgers gave him a couple of mild smacks for violating the basic journalistic tenet of not doing business with the people you write about.

Edgers also posted Schwartz's lengthy response, in which the critic detailed his arrangements with the BSO, noted that the honorarium involved was "VERY small" (caps his) and grumped about the "personal hostility" of the post. Apparently he doesn't read many blogs, because he clearly has no idea what hostility exists online. And he says this:  "None of this would have been public knowledge if I hadn't mentioned it myself. As for my favoring the BSO, I wonder if anyone responding to the blog has bothered to read my reviews of the Boston Symphony Orchestra during the last few months, let alone compared them to what I've written about the BSO in the past 30 years? I've always been honest in my reviews and have always said, sometimes indiscreetly, what I think. Anyone who reads my reviews knows this. And I will continue to say what I think as long as I write."

Perhaps it's too obvious why you're not supposed to take money or favors from the people you write about. And that holds in any milieu, no matter how rareified. Schwartz's rejoinder that he has never pulled his punches and never will, despite this lovely offer from the BSO, can be true and still, well ... In flow-chart form, it's the same explanation forthcoming from every corrupt city councilor who accepts a Lincoln Continental from a city contractor and then swears on his mother's grave that it won't influence his decision on those upcoming bids.

But full disclosure is a bitch. I should stop now and remind you that I write for the Globe sometimes. And Geoff and I are email acquaintances. But I swear my decision to write this post has nothing to do with that.

See?

Schwartz says one shot at an honorarium in 30 years isn't enough to make him go all soft and gushy about the BSO, and that's no doubt true. But we can't have every reporter following the ethical standard Schwartz sets for himself, or else journalism would be collapsing. Oh, wait a minute...

Schwartz also has a point about artists writing some of the best criticism. He names Virgil Thomson, and I think immediately of John Updike. Much good book criticism today, in particular, is by authors. And we'd be losing something of value if people like Thomson and Updike and Schwartz couldn't write criticism because of these sorts of ethical issues arising from their art.

The traditional remedy here would be to tell Schwartz he can't write about the BSO for a while. But that would make it pretty tough for him to do his job, and Phoenix editor Peter Kadzis doesn't sound like he has any problem with the BSO arrangement.

Schwartz and his editor see him as an artist who also writes criticism too; Edgers sees him as a longtime local journalist who ought to know better than to take a check from the BSO, no matter how worthy the project. Contradictory ideas, both valid.

It is bit much when Schwartz  says it's "a sad state of affairs" that his arrangement with the BSO might be seen as compromising his standing as a critic. Ditto Kadzis' "narrow minds" crack. It's very right for Edgers to ask the questions. And if the honorarium is "VERY small," why risk the appearance of a conflict by accepting it at all?