A week goes by, and the TBS people call them up to say, "Hey! We love it! Thanks!" The Roger guys (none of whom are named Roger, BTW) ask them when they'd like the final version, and TBS says, "This is it! We're done!" So airing on TBS right now is a promo for Conan O' Brien that I wrote and narrated. I feel like a high school girl in Passaic who just got asked to prom by the orangest juicehead in New Jersey!

The sound is a little tough to decipher since we did it with a USB mic in iMovie (!), but there you go! Modern advertising at it's best. Check it out after the break!

Side trivia: The model in the spot is Roger's beloved office manager Beth McClung. I don't think she had any acting aspirations before this, but I could totally see her rocking Don Draper's world on Mad Men. And everyone knows that aspiration is just as good as perspiration, right, Danny?

"This is the most embarrasing moment of my life." Hahhahahahahahaha! "I'm going to murder myself after this is all over." Whoooo hahahahahahaha!!! "Seriously, for the love of God, please help us!" Ahhh hahah hahahahaha!!!

I watched the first episode, the one that premiered after the Olympics. If it had been produced by Mr. Nobody and was airing on some buried cable channel, it would have been pretty bad. But with Jerry Seinfeld and gazillions of dollars behind it, it was a train wreck. I decided it would only last a few episodes and I filed it away in my "Irrelevant" folder next to Heidi Montag and the complete works of Rob Thomas.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my machine was still dutifully taping The Marriage Ref. And that one of the episodes featured Ricky Gervais, Larry David, and Madonna. If there was going to be a good episode of The Marriage Ref, it would be the one with Ricky Gervais, Larry David, and Madonna. Plus, I didn't have any new episodes of Nanny 911 lined up, so I decided to give it another shot.

0 for 2! This episode was even more shockingly awful than the first. Twice as shockingly awful, because it occupied an entire hour of prime television real estate. At one point in the episode, Ricky Gervais declares that the show is a fiasco, and soon, all three of the panelists are openly admitting on air that they are taking part in an unwatchable disaster. But every time they make a negative statement about the show, it's overdubbed with massive laugh trackery and joyous reaction shots from the host to trick the viewers at home into thinking that everyone's having a good time, instead of what they are really having, which is a time of deep shame and career reconsideration. It was the most surreal thing I've seen on television since Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, (which I just saw for the first time a few months ago and is actually brilliant surreal and not awful surreal and should never again be mentioned in the same breath as The Marriage Ref.)

I didn't make it all the way through the episode, but according to Time Magazine, near the end, Larry David says, "This is easily the most uncomfortable hour I’ve ever spent in my life.” and Madonna tells Larry David, "I hate you." (I just tried to find relevant clips on Hulu, but the only option is to watch the entire episode, which you can do here if you're so inclined. Hide the knives and guns before you begin watching, please. On account of how you will kill yourself with a knife or a gun if you watch this entire show).

Today, it was announced that The Marriage Ref was picked up for a second season. What? Who's watching this show? Are you watching this show? If you're watching this show, I recommend not doing that anymore. Your brain will thank you!

When I found out the show was picked up, I wanted to read articles by other people who agreed with me that this show is unwatchable. When I want to feel superior to other people, I can always find someone to share in my hatred on the Internet. (Except when I hated Glee, which everyone else in the universe seems to love.) So I googled "marriage ref awful," but every article that comes up is from March 1st or 2nd, right after the premiere. As far as I can tell, no one has watched The Marriage Ref since its premiere. It's not on the Onion TV Club. It's not on Television Without Pity. As a last ditch effort, I googled "I want to read about how awful the marriage ref is." That didn't get me anywhere, either.

And that's the point of this post: the Internet will finally achieve human intelligence the day I can google "I want to read about how awful the marriage ref is" and get the response I'm looking for. And that, my friends, is where my life is going today.

David Lynch and Mark Frost shared a love of pop culture that thoroughly informed the show they created together. “Twin Peaks” is rife with post modern allusions to cinema and television to the degree that listing them all would probably double the length of this article, but some of the most prominent ones are:
• Laura Palmer’s forename was nabbed from Otto Preminger’s 1944 noir Laura, in which the memory of a murdered woman haunts those who loved her and the detective investigating her death.
• Laura Palmer’s cousin Madeline Ferguson got her name from the two main characters of one of David Lynch’s favorite films: Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, which starred Kim Novak as Madeline Elster and Jimmy Stewart as John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson.
• In episode 18, Peggy Lipton and Clarence Williams III share an exchange for no other reason than their history as co-stars of “The Mod Squad”.
• The scene in which Cooper has trouble adjusting his stool in Ronette Pulaski’s hospital room is an homage to a similar scene in which Humbert Humbert struggles to open a folding cot in Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, another favorite film of Lynch.
• Dancing fool Leland Palmer was named after the actress and dancer of the same name who appeared in Bob Fosse’s 1979 film All That Jazz.
• Gordon Cole, the hearing-impaired FBI Regional Bureau Chief played by Lynch, was named after an unseen character in yet another of his favorite films: Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.
• Sitcomy couple Lucy and Andy owe their monikers to sitcom pioneers Lucille Ball and Andy Griffith.
• In keeping with “Twin Peaks’” notorious sweet tooth, brothers Ben and Jerry Horne allude to a famous duo of ice cream makers.
• Schizo one-armed man Phillip Gerard/MIKE is a reference to both the police lieutenant of the same name and the murderous one-armed man in the classic TV drama “The Fugitive”.
• In Black Edward’s excellent 1962 chiller Experiment in Terror, Lee Remick is terrorized in the (real) town of Twin Peaks, San Francisco. And the terrorizer’s name? Red Lynch.

I remember how excited I was for the Twin Peaks premiere. I was 14 years old, and already a massive David Lynch fan (I still think Blue Velvet is the best film ever made, although the fact that it was my favorite film even back then could point to some serious psychological problems). During the series' initial run, I only missed a single episode on account of a band concert. I haven't played the drums since.

Since then, I've purchased Twin Peaks on DVD in its three incarnations ... first as separate box sets for the 1st & 2nd season, and then in the more expansive Gold Box. In spite of this, I am ashamed to say that I have yet to make it all the way through the second season. Twin Peaks can be extremely entertaining, but it can also feel like a lot of work. It's a slow show, and getting all the way through its 30 hours more than once is a real test of endurance. Maybe this 20th anniversary should inspire me to watch the full run again, the way nature and God intended. Whaddya think, superfriends? Should we start an Awkward Twin Peaks club? Anyone?

But lots of people have good stories ... what makes Big Mike so great is that he has mad chops. This morning, I watched his performance from last night's show four times in a row.

Right? I wish I didn't know that this was based on Maxwell's version of the song, because he would be that much cooler if he was a Kate Bush fan. Brother makes me want to go to CHURCH!

Shut up! ShutupshutupshutupSHUTUP!

Listen here, Lost. I really worked my ass off for you. For the past several years, I've avoided every mention of Lost in the media. I've ignored every review, every article, every publicity photo. I did these things because I knew one day I would watch the whole series and I did not want to know what was coming.

And starting last spring, I did exactly that. I watched every episode of this damn series on the digital movie playing machine. My wife quickly "lost" interest, (get it? That's a pun because it's the name of the show) but I kept at it. I knew this was the last season and I wanted to enjoy it along with the rest of America.

But so then why are you being so lame to me? I put in my time! I thought we were friends! But you are not being interesting! Half of you is devoted to circumstances that are maybe not even really happening. And then the other half of you is stuck in some ugly cave with a bunch of dickheads that no one cares about.

Also, Lost, if you want to make things believable on you, here's a suggestion. Try to give the characters some sort of perspective on what they have been through for the last 5 seasons. They have seen crazier shit than has ever been seen by anyone in the world ever. I would think by this point, they would all be like, "Now we can all fly and shoot lasers out of our stomachs? Rock n' roll!*" Instead, whenever some new weird thing crops up, they say, "why, that's impossible! I know I've jumped through time and fought monsters made out of smoke and come back from the dead and all that nonsense, but this new weird thing just doesn't adhere to the same sense of logic as all those other things, which I found equally incredulous at the time." You waste a lot of time on "that's impossible" conversations, Lost.

In conclusion, you better stop dicking around and make me care about you again. Because honestly? I don't think Sawyer or Jack should end up with Kate. I think they're much better suited for each other.

* not an actual spoiler

Just kidding. It's not a bloated monstrosity. It's fun and smart and everything good about TV, and also sometimes silly and totally convoluted. And I do believe that the writers know exactly where they're taking us. I am just getting somewhat impatient at having to wait. But such is life. Sometimes we just have to wait.

Last night's episode was okay. I mean, at this point, there's really no such thing as good or bad. It will be bad if the series ends badly, and it will be good if the series ends goodly. But the point is, about twenty minutes before the end, this comes up on the screen:

Hmm. I can't quite read that. ENHANCE.

Finally! Thanks for keeping on top of it, Eyewitness News!

As Smallville begins its ninth season this autumn ...

Wait, really? They're still making new episodes of Smallville? Is the XFL still around, too?