Matt the Great

The True Colors Study Guide, vol 1

2007-04-19T00:48:00.000-04:00

We are now two short, yet two very long months away from June 18th 2007: the True Colors Tour at Radio City. As this date creeps so slowly upon us, I have created an extensive study guide that you can experience maximum enjoyment the night of the concert. After listening through these compact discs, you will have a firm understanding of the headlining acts you will fall in love with on this evening. Our syllabi follow...

VOLUME ONE: INTRODUCTIONS
to acquaint you with the big ones

Thesis statement: Cyndi Lauper - "True Colors"

I. FAME
the songs you love to know
1. Cyndi Lauper - "I Drove All Night"
2. Blondie - "Rapture"
3. Erasure - "A Little Respect"

Interlude: Margaret Cho - "Personals"

II. THEME
the songs that speak to it
1. Cyndi Lauper - "Shine"
2. Blondie - "Love at the Pier"
3. Erasure - "Freedom"

Interlude: Margaret Cho - "Gay Agenda"

III. UNDERAPPRECIATION
the songs you will love
1. Cyndi Lauper - "Sally's Pigeons"
2. Blondie - "Victor"
3. Erasure - "Stop!"

Interlude: Margaret Cho - "C.C. Bloom's"

IV. HOST
the faves of Matt the Great
1. Cyndi Lauper (feat. Shaggy) - "All Through the Night"
2. Blondie - "Atomic"
3. Erasure - "Always"

Conclusion: Margaret Cho - "Revolution"

The 6* Most Beautiful Things of 2006

2006-12-23T17:02:00.000-05:00

Julianne Moore: in The Vertical Hour. The play blew, but Julianne Moore’s face? I’m done with needing to see things ever again.
The Last 20 Minutes of the Confessions Tour: began with a “Music”/“Disco Inferno” mash-up, touched on an ABBA-infused “Lucky Star,” and ended with many gold balloons falling from the grid. Then, as Kevin said, “the world [was] made of love and a thousand colorful lights.”
Kyoto: was actually around in the 6th century BCE, but I didn’t discover it until the 2006th century CE.
Bad Education: right, this movie came out in 2004, but it was on the screen again in 2006 as part of the Viva Pedro! series. Remember that time when Gael Garcia Bernal got out of the swimming pool in his Fruit of the Looms? Yeah, I do too.
Ana Matronic’s Verbosity: Bitch does not shut up. At Coney Island, she spoke for 15 minutes about the history of the Cyclone. In Boston, she taught us about St. Nick’s Day and discouraged slavery…in the same story. At Hammerstein, I was really drunk.
The New Color of my Bedroom: as of MLK Day 2K6 is Behr’s Sweet Midori. It’s not for everyone, but it is for Matt the Great.
OKGO’s Treadmill Video: We’ve all seen it by now.
“Solomon Song”: from The Threepenny Opera. The play blew, but Cyndi Lauper’s voice? I’m done with needing to hear things ever again.
"You can get away with camo pants, Matt": said Jeffery Self early in the summer. He didn't know it at the time, but that comment would go on to become, like, the nicest thing anybody told me all year.
The 110th US Congress: keep your shit together, Tim Johnson.
The Tim/Dawn Kiss: OK, yeah, I know. This happened in 2002, but I didn’t know it until 2006. …Oh Jesus Christ… Fine, whatever: The Jim/Pam Kiss.

* -- ...was much too difficult.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2006-12-15T15:10:00.000-05:00

Matt the Great goes VH1 today because the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week is THE BBC OFFICE: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Last night while waiting for the NBC Office to finish DVRing so I could watch it commercial-free, I watched Ugly Betty commercial-full. I know this is a sleeper (?) hit that everyone's charmed by, but I've only seen this one episode. The sassy entertainment reporter is Dawn! Most. Awesome. Thing. Etc.

Additionally, Ricky Gervais is just all over the American place: For Your Consideration, that new museum movie...

And I think I saw Tim involved with something on IMDB.

This is all v. v. good.

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (1)

2006-10-19T23:02:00.000-04:00

Track 1/”I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’”/1 Fucking Day Remains

I don’t know, have any of y’all heard this song yet? A little catchy? Kinda fun? Dig the lasers?

Yeah, me too.

Dancy-ness: a trillion.

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (2)

2006-10-18T23:01:00.000-04:00

Track 2 / "She's My Man" / 2 Days Remain

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (3)

2006-10-17T22:58:00.000-04:00

Track 3/”I Can’t Decide”/3 Days Remain. Oh God.

Is this my favorite song on the album? I think it might be, at least at this early point in my budding relationship with TA-DAH!. Here are my reasons: 1) its lyrics are homicidal (“Oh I could throw you in the lake/Or feed you poisoned birthday cake”); 2) metaphors with more camp than a dinner at Waikiki Wally’s (“If lies were cats you’d be a litter”); 3) it’s beautifully catchy; 4) it has these total pauses where Jake Shears takes a breath before singing the chorus. This is definitely the song I sing to myself, and others, the most.

Dancy-ness: 8

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (4)

2006-10-16T22:54:00.000-04:00

Track 4/”Lights”/4 Days Remain

“The strutting love song “Lights” is a high point,” is what the NYT has to say re: this one. And yeah, it’s a good one, very ‘70s, but a high point? Clearly this guy did a very cursory listening of only a couple tracks. If even. Did he skip Track 2? Track 7? Tracks 3 and 6? Who wrote this shit?

Dancy-ness: 4

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (5)

2006-10-15T22:53:00.000-04:00

Track 5 / "Land of a Thousand Words" / 5 Days Remain

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (6)

2006-10-14T22:51:00.000-04:00

Track 6 / "Intermission" / 6 Days Remain

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (7)

2006-10-13T22:42:00.000-04:00

Track 7/”Kiss You Off”/7 Days Remain

God, Ana Matronic, you’re fabulous. Thank you for going into the singing industry.

She’s singing on this one, and it totally reminds me of her debut album romp, “Filthy/Gorgeous.” In 7 days, she’ll sing this song to me live, and she’ll no doubt preface it with some ridiculously verbose, rantastic speech, and a Hammerstein Ballroom full of kids will eat it up.

Dancy-ness: 8—wait, Stuart Price, is that your name attached to this song? You’re right: 50.

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (9)

2006-10-12T22:37:00.000-04:00

Track 9/”Paul McCartney”/9 Days Remain

It’s not one of the ones that I’ve listened to 800 times yet, but I can hear that it’s really great. I’ll probably fall for it later on, as mine and TA-DAH!’s love matures, much like what happened last time with “Better Luck Next Time.” It is damn fun, though, even if I haven’t figured out why Paul McCartney gets such a shout out. Maybe I’m just jealous there isn’t a track called “Matt Gurry”?

Dancy-ness: 8.5

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (10)

2006-10-11T22:24:00.000-04:00

Track 10 / "The Other Song" / 10 Days Remain

If you like ballads, this song will do you right. And get this: this song requires the liner notes to footnote that, "Jusy Garland dialogue used courtesy of the Judy Garland Heirs' Trust" ... because it ends with Judy Garland speaking that she can find love. When you listened to thins song, did it take you back to Cyndi Lauper's "911" on True Colors--you know, because Pee-Wee Herman "plays" the 911 operator at the end of the song? It took me there.

Dancy-ness: 2 (it is a ballad)

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (11)

2006-10-10T22:20:00.000-04:00

Track 11/”Might Tell You Tonight”/11 Days Remain

The NYT—the source any true music-lover goes to for opinions of pop music—says of the song it is a low point, a “tepid balad.” It’s one of my favorites. Maybe it’s because when I close my eyes and think about someone nervously thinking of telling me that, “you should stay all my life,” the synth-strings are exactly what I hear. Maybe it’s also because just like in the song, I hear Jake Shears saying those words. One day.

The song defines love in terms of toothbrush usage and storage, a beautiful idiosyncrasy I’ll always be a fan of and have been ever since No Doubt’s “Bathwater.”

Dancy-ness: 7.5—it’s not a discotastic highlight, but when you consider awkward eighth grade slow dancing, it’s totally dancy.

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH! (12)

2006-10-09T23:10:00.000-04:00

Track 12 / "Everybody Wants the Same Thing" / 12 Days Remain

Sadly, the album’s closer is what I think is kind of its low point. Lyrically it’s great, but musically, it’s no Track 1. It’s a good downer in that it reminds me what a rat race we’re all in, but nowhere near as artery-slitting-inducing as “Return to Oz” was two years ago. And you can’t dance to it.

Dancy-ness: 1

Greatest Songs Never To Be Sung By Corey Feldman: TA-DAH!

2006-10-08T22:18:00.000-04:00

In a special section within THE BEST SONGS NEVER TO BE SUNG BY COREY FELDMAN, everyday I will be sharing a track of Scissor Sisters album number two, TA-DAH! These entries are a countdown to October 21, the night my life will change forever, the night Matt the Great sees the Scissor Sisters at Hammerstein Ballroom.

We’ll go through the album song-by-song, and I’m going to use my sister Kevin’s scale of dancy-ness that he had to invent for his recap of that concert that happened over the summer.

Kevin defines his dancy-ness-ometer thusly:

“10 being on fire with glitter and passion, 1 being Stephen Hawking.”

We start tomorrow.

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-28T11:48:00.000-04:00

TODAY'S BIG EVENT: Onsen (see below)

IS-THE-U.S.-TAKING-NOTES OF THE DAY:

Almost all the restaurants have call buttons on the table that summon your waiter. Perfect.

SHOUT-OUT TO MICHAEL ETTIANNANI OF THE DAY:

Out of your list of 13, I hit 9. I missed a couple of the big ones such as the Nishiki Market; if Lonely Planet found out, they would slap me. But the ones I did catch made my trip so much better...thanks!!

You are owed a major shout-out for item number 9, "find a place that makes melon-pan (because it's really good)." It was really good indeed, though I would offer a bigger adjective: really amazing, perhaps.

J-POP MUSIC VIDEO OF THE DAY:

Pink Lady & Morning Musume singing their big hits together on some variety show. It made a huge splash one night at karaoke.

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

The previously mentioned onsen. The Japanese love taking hot baths, and they love taking their baths together. Val and I hiked in the northern hills of Kyoto--the area is named Kurama--to see a temple with a very cool, secret catacomb and then on to take a bath, or rather, baths. The bathhouse has two areas, an indoor and an outdoor. Additionally, it has a relaxation room to recover from the grueling trial of soaking in a hot spring bath. You have to shower before getting in the baths, and when I saw the shower, I had no idea what to do. There was a mirror with a handheld shower head, a stool, and an ottoman. Later I found out that it wasn't an ottoman so much as a bucket that was just upside-down you use to dump fresh water over yourself. This is how I learned that being naked in front of people only heightens the experience of making a cultural faux pas. The indoor bath had a hot bath (yum), a cold bath (hell), and a sauna that was 70*C, which translates to 1,000,000*F. I lasted two minutes in there. Nonetheless, Val and I left the baths clean, refreshed, and relaxed.

And oh--you remain robed in the co-ed areas, so I got to wear a kimono!:

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-26T16:17:00.000-04:00

ENGRISH OF THE DAY:

"Wavy front panel creates a lively motion. I wish you good luck and pleasant time."
--On the wavy-surfaced coin changing machine at Namco's Wonder Tower arcade

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

TAIKO!! This is the most bad-ass entrant to video gaming since Donkey Kong. Both players get a taiko drum and have to beat the rhythm of whatever song you selct: 1812, William Tell, Carmen, MARIO THEME!, J-pop song, etc. It's tough. Sometimes you're just hitting the head, but other times, you have rim shots, rolls, and double hits. Winner is the one with the most accuracy. It's by far the best attraction at Wonder Tower, but it's no surprise that Namco would come up with such wonderful gaming.

IMPROVEMENT-ON-MELON SODA OF THE DAY, IF THAT WAS POSSIBLE:

Melon Cream Soda

SCARLETT JOHANSSON MOMENT OF THE DAY:

Sitting around Val's apartment in a haze of malaise: The evening rain weather.com promised came early--11 am--making sight-seeing wet and chilly. I came back to Val's to dry off/wait for her, and have just been sulking around.

This entry had a brief shot at being called the "LUCY EPISODE OF THE DAY" because I am using this downtime to do my laundry. I just kind of pressed buttons until something happened. No incident as of yet.

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-25T06:11:00.000-04:00

TODAY'S BIG EVENT: Monkeys in the morning; good vegetarian food for lunch; geisha-land at night.

JAPANESE OF THE DAY:

"AIEEEEEEE-EEE-EEE-EEE!!!" -- what a Japanese monkey yells when you give him a piece of apple and another monkey tries to take it from him.

STEREOTYPES-COME-FROM-SOMEWHERE OF THE DAY:

Several of the attractions I've been to are hot tourist spots, but there aren't very many Western tourists. They're all tourists from other parts of Japan, and quite [un]fortunately, they all have big floppy hats, carry crazy-big cameras, and take many pictures of themselves in front of the given monument.

CULINARY ADVENTURE OF THE DAY:

Shojin-ryori. This is the food Zen Buddhist monks would eat, and they serve it in temples today. It's...totally...vegetarian. No fish broth, no fish flakes, no chicken that shouldn't have been there in the first place. And it's delicious. For New Yorkers, think Gobo, but less hip and simpler flavors. For Mom and Dad, think blobs of mushy stuff.

ENGRISH OF THE DAY:

"It costs 3,000 yen per person and one bag is free. ... 1,000 yen as the extra charge of the spare prick from piece second." (email confirmation for airport shuttle)

PHOTO OF THE DAY:
(--NOT shojin ryori--)

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-23T11:06:00.000-04:00

IS-THE-U.S.-TAKING-NOTES OF THE DAY:

All the trains AND BUSES are on schedules, and get this: they stick to them! A train that arrives at 12:52 will arrive at 12:52.

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

Eastern toilets! They're troughs in the ground you squat over. And make sure you have some tissues in your pocket!

CULINARY ADVENTURE OF THE DAY:

Popping Shower Ice Cream. OK, ready for this? Baskin Robbins has this flavor that is a crazy, swirly color and contains...POP ROCKS!

Brogging abroad

2006-05-23T05:19:00.000-04:00

BIG EVENT OF THE DAY: Who has now seen all three of the world's captive whale sharks? Matt the Great has! Today was Kaiyukan, the Osaka Aquarium!

EAST-MEETS-WEST SONG OF THE DAY:

At the train station in Osaka, they were piping in a Jap-pop song that sampled "Battle Hymn of the Republic."

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

Melon soda

HAIKU OF THE DAY:

Kids on a field trip
Matt tries to watch the whale shark
Kids: 1; Matt: 0

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

TODAY'S BIG EVENT: Going to Val's elementary school to teach the kids how to say the names of countries in English. Scheduled and upheld an UNO playdate with a 5th Grader. At lunch, I couldn't figure out how to open my [whole--gross] milk. The boy across the table opened it for me. They all thought that was funny.

CULTURAL AWARENESS LESSON OF THE DAY:

You have to pack indoor shoes and change into them when indoors.

EAST-MEETS-WEST QUESTION OF THE DAY:

"Why do you have black hair?"
--Little girl to Matt the Great, who is both from America AND not blond

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

25 kids wanting my autograph!

JAPANESE OF THE DAY:

sakana, katsuo bushi, nerimono, tako, iwashi, shifudo, kai, ebi, ika, be-kon, bi-fi, chikken, hamu, ramu, niku, buta niku = the list every vegetarian discusses with his waiter before ordering

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-20T11:14:00.000-04:00

TODAY'S BIG EVENT: Birthday party on Biwa-ko

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

Beer Truck!

Today was Val & Kevin's birthdays, observed, and we went to Japan's biggest lake, about 45 minutes northeast of Kyoto. At the lake, the party had rented a beer truck. A beer truck is a truck that drives to your site containing 60 liters of beer dispensed from the three taps on the side.

HAIKU OF THE DAY:

Thirteen-hour flight
And a beer truck on the lake
Major hangover

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-19T11:02:00.000-04:00

HAIKU OF THE DAY, dedicated to 42A:

Shut up you baby
Infuriating screaming
Will shoot me or it

GERMANE-TO-JAPAN OF THE DAY:

Electronically heated toilet seat!

Brogging Abroad

2006-05-17T22:10:00.000-04:00

Today begins a very special, limited edition section up here in Matt the Great-land. For up to the next two weeks, teaMMatt will relocate to Kyoto, Japan, and teaMMatt will [possibly] be blogging about it. Readers know that teaMMatt only does things that are well themed up, so this special section will be called "Brogging Abroad."

What is "Brogging Abroad"? At first I thought it would be a haiku-a-day, but then I realized that thinking I would actually write eleven haikus was a terrible joke. Then I thought it would be a photo-a-day, but then I realized that me thinking I have the tech capabilities to post my own photos was a terrible joke. And then I thought it would be an Engrish quote-of-the-day, but then I realized that I would likely just start making things up. But then I realized my answer. In my angst period and even my post-angst period, Alanis Morissette's website was a regular hit. She had [still has?] a section titled "Musings," and that's basically a place for her to do whatever the hell she wants. Poetry, jokes, observations, watercolors--it's just Alanis "being free." Gross, no? But that will be "Brogging Abroad." Matt the Great "being free."

The trip's already in shambles. At midnight tonight, I got the call from OrbitzTLC saying my 10:00 am LGA-ORD flight was canceled, so they've taken the liberty of booking me on the 7am. Supershuttle arrives in two hours. Rock.

Nonetheless, I left a really cute extended absence greeting on my cell phone, and I am totally stoked. I'd like to say I'm going because I want to visit my good friend. Or because I got an amazing airfare. Or that I am expanding my life experience. Or that I will have seen all of the world's captive whale sharks by the trip's end. But let's face it: there is one reason I am going to Japan, and that reason is that Gwen Stefani made Japan awesome by choosing it as a phase to go through on her cd. Look out Love, Angel, Music, and Baby; there's a new Harajuku Girl in town, and her name is Matt the Great.

[Note: I had such a bad-ass picture of Gwen and her Harajuku Girls for this, but Blogspot's being a turducken, and you guys suffer for it. Sorry.]

The best songs never to be sung by Corey Feldman: by CYNDI LAUPER

2006-04-25T21:57:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you teaMMatt's official opinion on covers: they are great.

Now let me offer some tidbits of Matt the Great's history with covers:

For YEARS, I loved "Hazy Shades of Winter." I thought, "Gee, this is such a great Bangles song!" Then, one day I heard a crunchy cover of "Hazy Shades" and thought it was a cool way to re-interpret the song. Turns out, the re-interpreters were Simon and Garfunkel, and they re-interpreted it a solid decade before the original!
The best part of Christmas this year was Ladystein's 'How Ladystein Saved Christmas' concert. This was in February. They sang "Jessie's Girl." I died. There was more trademark Ladystein apathy packed in that familiar post-chorus pause ("...Where can I find a woman like that? / [pause] / [guitar chords resume]") than in my entire middle school career.
I know all the words to "Ring of Fire." I didn't learn them from Johnny Cash. I learned them from Blondie.
I know all the words to "Heroes." I didn't learn them from David Bowie. I learned them from Blondie.
Did you guys know that "Comfortably Numb" isn't a Scissor Sisters original? I didn't.
The Swedes will always beat us at pop music. Totally. But Erasure manages to beat ABBA at Swedish pop music.

But when I heard that Cyndi Lauper's catalogue was to get the cover treatment, I found the end of my Cover Lovin'. Don't fuck with the masters. (see: Roundabout Theatre Company) But then I learned that the person charged with covering the twelve tunes was actually quite capable and worthy of my trust. That person is Cyndi Lauper.

Her holiday season release record was The Body Acoustic, and on it, she restyles her old and new classics with acoustic makeovers and special guest stars. The acoustified "She Bop" makes you feel severely guilty for every time you've ever masturbated...ever. You want to go to church, badly. We see lez-rock favorites Ani DiFranco and Sarah McLachlan (On a Cyndi Lauper cd. This is why we are now seeing all this women's heart disease stuff. Lesbians are exploding.). Japanese pop-brat stars Puffy Ami Yumi giggle on "Girls..." It's great.

Matt the Great's official favorite Cyndi song is "All Through the Night." Here, it's perfect. She calls on Shaggy to help her out on this one--a very good choice. His function is to weave his rap thang in and out of her singing as well as to bring it home on the breakdown. It creates the hybrid of Alanis Morissette's "Front Row" and Erasure's "Take A Chance On Me." It's subtly Zydecoed up (she loves her Zydeco).

Across the album, we hear that strain in her voice that no doubt comes from having to squint her eyes all the time. The album sounds as if she said, "OK, we're doing each song in one take, and if it's not perfect, then fuck it," but in a good way. In a live concert sort of way. Playing the cd really brings up the emotional journey you go through at one of her concerts, and since I've been to a couple [14] of her concerts, I do consider myself somewhat of an authority on the Lauper Live! sound.

There's been a lot of Cyndi Lauper business lately. I saw Threepenny. I wanted to write about it, but this site doesn't cover outings at the "Gay Store," as Popzilla calls Broadway. (Watch out for this Popzilla. I believe Popzilla is the new Pink Is the New Blog.) When you clicked on Popzilla's link, you surely saw the Madonna/Cyndi collaboration post. You're right, P, Chelsea just imploded, and so did I. I'll leave now with this Lauper Live! short story: when Jaclyn and I saw her on The Today Show at Bryant Park one summer (cooking bundt cakes with Emeril), someone in the crowd yelled, "You're so much cooler than Madonna." Cyndi just rolled her eyes and kept singing.

---

And for the record, the Celine Dion "Drove All Night" cover: it never happened, as far as I'm concerned.

100% Intense [New Feature!]

2006-04-11T00:14:00.000-04:00

One of the best internet finds, as most twenty-/thirtysomethings totally already know, is Television Without Pity.

The site is a forum of the kids who were dorks in high school, but are on the cusp of inviting the formerly popular kids to blow them because their next jobs will be for The Daily Show, The Onion, or South Park. Essentially, they explain what happens on TV each week. Often, the episode redux takes about an hour and a half to read though the episode itself was only thirty minutes long. The recappers have, at times, really screwed things up, such as that time theu moved Commander in Chief to Permanent Hiatus after Episode 3, but we allow them to err because so often they provide us some of the greatest moments in Western literature:

It's like when you walk into Diesel and there's pieces of t-shirts stapled onto other t-shirts and first you think, "Björk made this!" and then you think, "Oh. I could make this." (Unknown)

[Top Model's Brittany] is also wearing kind of an obnoxious hat, which isn't
helping matters. The hat always seems to give people license to act more
annoying, which is why Mayim Bialik was such a freaking pill. (Potes)

Unfortunately, TVWoP does not recap Degrassi: TNG, and they never will:

What about Show Y -- can we expect recaps of that?
If a show has already started and it doesn't have a section on the site..., it's pretty safe to assume that we won't be recapping it.
Awwww, why not? You guys could do such a funny job with it!
Why, thankee. We do have good reasons for these decisions, though, so you'll just have to trust us (and refrain from blitzing us with emails about adding the show). ...if it's three weeks into the season and you haven't seen a recap, there aren't going to be any. Accept it and move on.
But --
No.
(source: TVWoP FAQ)

This is a bitter shame. I have discussed Degrassi as quality television before. Remember? So that means I will have to recap Degrassi: TNG. Just like The N's taglines for the show itself, my recaps will (a.) be 100% INTENSE, and (b.) GO THERE. Teen pregnancy, drug dealing, gun violence, acne, coming out, sleeping with the teacher, racism, cheerleading squad coups, graduation, alcoholism, shitty locker assignments: get ready bitches.

Organized Shout-Out [New Feature!]

2006-04-10T23:10:00.000-04:00

I made a policy on Day 1 not to make a list of friends' blogs' links. It's just tacky. But done in ordinance of the proper guidelines, I believe I can make linking to a friend's blog a little bit classy.

And such has been born "Organized Shout-Outs."

Organized Shout-Outs will be announced each month as an entry and appear for the entire month as a sidebar. Look. This month's is sitting right there to the right.

The inaugural OSO links to my friend Isaac, who was named after Track 10 on Madonna's Confessions album, which I will see in live performance in Section 202 this summer. Isaac's a real link-whore, linking to such sites as Google, NYT, and Craigslist, but somehow not MTG's stellar webspace. Despite this, Isaac asked to be link buddies, so he gets to be not only Miss April, but my first ever Organized Shout-Out.

It's teaMMatt's very first monthly feature. Isaac: Happy April.

* * * * *

Do you want to be next month's Organized Shout-Out? Email me.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2006-04-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

Ian McWethy, you were the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week.

My friend and neighbor made his requisite debut on last Sunday's Law & Order, "Wasichu." Ian got a nice chunk of screentime, brooding as the apparently pivotal character Jud Rorich, the pot-trafficking or pot-using--something with pot, or maybe cocaine--teen. Ian brilliantly embodied everything that's wrong with American kids today, with their hair dye and rock music and apathetic detachment.

Ian's co-star was Mr. Big, cast as the detective grilling Ian for something. Apparently Ian saw something out of the window that was important to the plot. I really don't have any idea what happened on the episode; it had something to do with real estate and drugs, and there was a murder, blah blah blah. But Ian was on it, and HE GOT TO CRY! He totally broke down. Awesome.

All of Ian's Lavender Hill(*) buds gathered in his apartment, and the big screening was unsurprisingly so well themed up. Ian's girlfriend Carrie wrapped the apartment in police tape and placed all the utensils for her baked goods in ziplocks marked "Exhibit A," "Evidence: Do Not Tamper With," and such. And to celebrate Jud Rorich, Melissa came all gothed out. Yeah Melissa, as if you really needed to hotten yourself up even more with fetish-wear.

At the first commercial after Judfest (as the scene will no doubt be called on the L&O message boards), everyone in Ian's family started calling to congratulate the cutest lil goth kid ever.

(In a brief moment of earnestness, CONGRATS, IAN!!!)

* * * * *

(*) - Editor's Note, 4/10/6: I had been sitting on this post for a while, waiting for Urban Dictionary to accept my definition of "Lavender Hill." Urban Dictionary didn't for whatever reason, maybe because I used words like "erroneously" or used "its"/"it's" correctly while they're going for a different kind of feeling. Here's the definition Urban Dictionary did not accept:

Lavender Hill - (N.) The uptown section west of Broadway in Manhattan's
Washington Heights, perhaps erroneously labeled for its
allegedly concentrated gay population. Referred to by realtors as "Hudson
Heights."

Ex.: I don't know what kind of place the Monkey Bar is trying to be, but it is
on Lavender Hill...

"Lavender Hill" comes from a favorite bee/neighbor and her gay boyfriend.

* * * * *

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2006-03-15T22:09:00.000-05:00

The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week was my own hot self! New York City Opera opened the NASDAQ this past week; CNBC broadcast it, and people everywhere are still talking about it.

The NASDAQ is the least exciting market to open since when you press the button, nothing really happens. When the NASDAQ--the entirely electronic exchange--opens, people in their underwear click 'submit' on their home computers. It's nowhere near as exciting as the NYSE, where all the suits start running around and being financial and stuff.

The staff at NASDAQ doesn't feel that way, though. They go through the motions of making us feel like it's important, serving us brand-name coffee with 2 (!) waiters, sending us a bajillion pictures and a DVD of the event, showing us a video about the NASDAQ and opening the NASDAQ, and broadcasting the whole thing on that bigass tower at 43rd and Broadway.

The best part is the last couple minutes before you hit the fake button. There are all kinds of narration and video going on--all that nonstop-information atmosphere that creates panic which is what makes all the cable news networks evil, I believe. And then as you get close to the big moment (9:30:00am), they start with this crescendo-ing thumping techno music, and you feel like you're a Who Wants to be a Millionaire? contestant. It made me so apprehensive that I leaned in to my sexy co-worker and asked if the room was going to explode. Despite whatever major event we were scared of happening, we had to keep our fake perma-smiles on and our clapping up so that everybody out there thought, gosh, these kids are really into opening electronic stock exchanges. Then NYCO pushed the button; the thumping stopped; we gathered our coats and left.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2006-03-02T23:30:00.000-05:00

I haven't really seen a lot of TV in the last week or so, or, more accurately, I haven't seen any TV in the last week or so. Tonight, though, I saw some TV. I saw last week's Family Guy, about 20 minutes of The Real World, and then the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week, Julianne Moore. She has that new movie out that looks intense, and I'm sure my mom will see it and tell me it was good, but I won't see it, and Jon Stewart had her on to plug it.

The interview kind of blew; it was Jon Stewart talking and she giggling. Like everyone else, I like watching Jon Stewart talk, but I really like the image I have of Julianne Moore being really smart, so I was hoping she'd just talk about smart stuff like the Senate or Rational Zeros of Polynomials or whatever. She didn't. She did look ravishing, though. Her hair was really red and her skin was really white.

That's it. Slow period in TV watching.

Top 14 Quotes I Used as Away Messages in 2005

2006-02-12T11:01:00.000-05:00

(Make sure you follow the links on numbers 4 & 14!)

1.
JHS girl: I'll be damned if I let a seventh-grader ruin my reputation.
--8th Ave. playground
(from Overheard in NY 2/23)

2.
Some pull-quotes from the NYT's Where Are We Now article. Oh-- and congrats, Class of 2005:
"...but I'm staying calm and thinking happy thoughts, reassuring myself that the right opportunity will show itself eventually."
"I know many people who have fallen into a depressive malaise this year."
"But our jobs are providing us with skills, money and knowledge. [my guess is that Chrissie Akwari is not a Broadway usher]"

3.
Best Thing On Television This Week:
"Mack, you are the first female president. If Moses had been a woman leading the Jews in the desert, she would have stopped and asked for directions. They'd have been in Israel in a week."
(Commander in Chief)

4.
I declare March 9 Kevin Guilfoile Day. Here's why.

5.
"...today is Mozart's birthday, but you're getting the gift! We'll be playing The Marriage of Figaro in its entirety...and it's just a delicious night of radio..." NPR, 1:02 am

6.
i was mentioned (collectively) on gawker stalker! scroll down (don't get distracted the sexy badass catherine deneuve entry) to the andrew mccarthy bit!

7.
McSweeneys Recommends:Rachael Ray, from The Food Network
Oftentimes spunkiness is just straight irritating. But in this case it's endearing. And in this case we forgo skepticism of false TV-personality genuineness and believe that she'd be equally joyful playing Scrabble or a character in an Ionesco play. Verve is good, right? She's got verve. She's a clear star on the rise. She makes great salads.

8.
"...but since I've met you and moved to Sydney, I haven't listened to one ABBA song, and it's because my life's as good as an ABBA song. It's as good as 'Dancing Queen.'"

9.
how's this for freakin weird: yesterday, i was thinking about putting up "when you're tired you take a nap-a; you don't move to Napa" as my away message. and the Big-moves-to-Napa episode is on RIGHT NOW.

10.
" It's like when you walk into Diesel and there's pieces of t-shirts stapled onto other t-shirts and first you think, "Björk made this!" and then you think "Oh. I could make this." "
www.televisionwithoutpity.com

11.
"crushes come and go but jake ryan is forever"
--WE on sixteen candles

12.
selected entries from The Onion's "Irish Heritage Timeline":
7500 BC - The first humans arrive in Ireland. Prior to this, only the Irish lived there.
456 - The last giant Irish panda dies.
1807 - Famine strikes
1817 - Famine and typhus strike
1836 - Famine and cholera strike
1845 - Famine and meteor showers strike
1895 - The Irish Stone Age ends
1985 - The hilariously titled "Anglo-Irish Agreement" signed
2004 - U2 special edition iPod released

13.
"I heard Tom DeLay's blood was in the water and the sharks were circling him, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a metaphor."
--Colleen Bowers, Systems Analyst

14.
i have a new favorite person, and he is CHRIS GAVALER . with one click he will no doubt become yours as well.

Best songs never to be sung by Corey Feldman

2006-02-04T17:32:00.000-05:00

(15) "Any Way You Want It"- JourneyOhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyy gooooooooooooooooooooood I love Journey!! August 28th at Jones Beach. I'm not going. It breaks me. This is the best song to never be sung by Corey Feldman.

---

Do you guys know Kevin? If you don't, you will. He's on the verge of being huge. Kevin shares this "sexy, bad-ass blog" with his girlfriend--despite her living in DC, and despite his being gay--Leigh. I get down with them regularly, and when I got down on July 23, 2005, I learned that Journey's " 'Any Way You Want It' is the best song never to be sung by Corey Feldman." And the first thing I thought when I read that was, duh, blog feature! So I had to ask him why he thought "Any Way You Want It" is the best song never to be sung by Corey Feldman. Here's what he gmailed:

Corey wanted to sing in the show, so Kate asked for my input. Her idea was "Any Way You Want It" and mine was "Every Rose Has Its Thorn," but he ended up
with the worst choice of all- "Babe" by Styx.

And since I, like, really care about the Mattketeers, I gmailed:

i needed quotable text for the old blog. you didn't give me much to work with--i'm probably going to have to go back and beef it up for you. you should read nick's sandra lee essay, which i published in its entirety. *there's* feedback.

So then, this is what Kevin pulled up:

Bitch, I will KILL you. You want something better?? FINE.

During this summer's 10-week suckfest known as 'Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy,' New York audiences were subjected to not only some of the best acting and writing of the season, but to the cataclysmic performance of 80s teen hack Corey Feldman. Channeling equal parts Michael Douglas (or some hideous approximation thereof) and a crazy bag lady, Mr. Feldman also insisted on showing off his (pause for comic effect) vocal gifts with a musical number. But what would he sing? "Any Way You Want It"? Too tuneful. "Every Rose Has Its Thorn"? Too
decade-appropriate. No, he settled on Styx's "Babe," much to the detriment of
everyone within earshot. And so, "Any Way You Want It" has indeed come to be
hallowed as 'The Best Song Never Sung By Corey Feldman.'

And now www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com has a music feature.

So here's the thing: despite seven years of tuba-playing, I don't know a thing about music. My tastes generally line up with a fortysomething of today who was mainstreamly cool twenty years ago. So the idea here is going to be that I come up with a song that I care enough about to write on for whatever reason, but I'm challenged by choosing only those songs that Corey Feldman has never sung.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2006-01-30T12:35:00.000-05:00

I woke up this Saturday morning, and after brushing, peeing, and eating cereal like always, I turn on the FN. Here's the schedule:

10am--How to Boil Water: "Kick-off Can Dos"
10:30--Paula's Home Cooking: "Game Night: Appetizers"
11--Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee: "Tailgate BBQ"
11:30--30-Minute Meals: "Home Field Advantage"
12pm--Everyday Italian: "Game Night"
12:30--Barefoot Contessa: "Canapes and Canvassed"
1--Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello: "Are You Ready for Some Football"
1:30--Good Deal with Dave Lieberman: "Sports Party"
2--BBQ with Bobby Flay: "Extreme Sports BBQ"

The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week came when I was flipping through the TimeWarner Guide looking at what everyone was cooking and saw:

12:30--Barefoot Contessa: "Canapes and Canvassed"

Clearly today's theme is "the big game," but not the Barefoot Contessa's, for today, she is working on a catering spread for her friend's opening at a "wonderful art gallery in East Hampton." While everyone else is making chili-centric meals, beer-infused dishes, recipes that have words like "touchdown" and "score" in their titles, Ina is making figs & prosciutto, spanokopita, cheese straws, and "[her] friend Miguel is making the most amazing fruit topiaries!"

I think the reason I love her so much today is because she's reminding me of me on my childhood sports teams. One of my parents' favorite stories is when in tee-ball I was playing the outfield. I was completely turned away from the bases wearing my glove over my face. The coach comes over with a "what's up," asking how I plan on catching a ball that comes my way.

"I have magical powers," says the little and *adorable* Matt. I just did not give a shit. I had my own 5-year old's equivalent to an East Hampton gallery opening to worry about.

And also, here in the middle of January, I'm really pining for this summer when Kevin takes Nick and me to his [parents'] house in Montauk. Pining so badly, in fact, that I'm in a Friendster group dedicated to the planning of hampt06ns. I have strong reservations with the word "fabulous," but I'm allowing myself to use it here. I mean, if I'm looking for an appropriate oppurtunity to say "fabulous," a land with mozzarella and tomato topiaries must be that.

Gurrennaissance

2006-01-28T10:08:00.000-05:00

Hi there, Mattketeers*! My new relationship with The Man has trampled over my commitment to writing about Geena Davis and Degrassi while in my underwear, which I got to do a lot of when I was "working" as an usher. And we're all the lesser for it. But I've been thinking a lot about www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com, and I have some things planned that we can all be very excited about. NEW FEATURES!, for example. Because of the overwhelming praise I regularly receive for my episodic organization (NYCO co-worker J-Co once told me he thought it's pretty cool), I've decided to really do it up. And here's what I've got coming:

The Greatest Songs Never to be Sung by Corey Feldman - music
As Good As Number 2 (working title) - food
100% Intense - straight-up Degrassi recaps
Dear Mr. the Great - your mail

And we'll keep all our favorites:

Movie X is a lot like A League of Their Own
The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week
Reviewing the Food Network

Get ready, Mattketeers*; we're going to have some fun.

---

* - we're going to try this out for a little while. It's a nod to only the best editorial columnist ever.

Reviewing the Food Network: All Star Christmas, Appendix

2006-01-01T22:51:00.000-05:00

As I mentioned in Part I of my All Star Holiday Party opus, Nick nails the description of Sandra Lee. Here is Nick's report on who Sandra Lee is and why she's a problem. Nick, if this doesn't deserve a =u) , I don't know what does.

" sandra lee, huh? well, pretty much i think she's a fraud. she's not a "chef" and has no place on the food network. i mean, i guess there's a place for her and what she does in the world... those are the kinds of recipes real housewives in the midwest really trade with eachother. which is fine, i guess, but that's something for a cheap little magazine at the checkout counter, not really something to go along side bobby flay, mario battalli, sara moulton, et al. she shows you how to put together packaged and processed products and PASS THEM OFF as "homemade". her "recipes" (and i hesitate to use that word) are either the kind of thing you get right off of a package of whatever or they're just overkill. one of her christmas "recipes" was to take a package of white chocolate covered oreos and make some colored frosting and drizzle it on them. what?! gale gands would be showing you how to MAKE oreos. or her christmas idea to buy tons of packaged candy and let the kids decorate a mini tree with candy necklaces and gumdrops and licorice, etc. nothing says home or family or baby jesus more than a fake tree with twizzlers on paperclips. she's the anti-martha stewart... she's all about artiface and no quality. her whole angle is these "shortcuts" because she "doesn't have time". what does she do all day? other than shop thriftstores for her themed tablescapes? she's always concerned about and referring to "the kids" and yet, she has none. obviously she doesn't have any kids of her own with that dumbass decorate-a-tree-with-candy idea... who would want to deal with their sugar shocked kids after that? but she only thinks about the kids until it's cocktail time when she includes a cocktail recipe in every episode (i guess to help her deal with all those two nieces of hers) and adds alcohol to recipes that don't need it (and usually she goes for the hard stuff, too.) i think the saddest thing is that she represents a larger trend on the part of the food network to take the lower road and go this direction with their programming in general. less and less is it actual chefs showing you new and fresh ingredients, techniques, and fundamentals... more and more it's personalities showing you shortcuts with packaged products. oh, she also deals with processed foods all day and yet she's rail-thin... how does that happen? at least paula deen is full-figured! "

Reviewing the Food Network: All Star Christmas, part III

2005-12-25T23:23:00.000-05:00

And then Paula Deen is paired up with Rachael Ray to bake a pumpkin roll cake. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh...my...god. This is what I've been waiting for all throughout 2005. This is heaven. I didn't even know what they were cooking for the first half of the vignette because I was too busy being all, "oh my god! Paula Deen with Rachael Ray!"

OK. Let's isolate the components of this one. First we have Rachael Ray. If you've ever set e-foot into www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com, you know where teaMMAtt stands on Rachael Ray. Then we have Paula Deen, and I think we all know where teaMMatt stands on Paula Deen. But then, we have a pumpkin roll cake. I just don't know what to do with this. My two favorite flavors are lime and pumpkin. They are both seasonal, and right as one goes out of season, the other comes in, and that works really great. This is big.

Paula is teaching Rachael how to bake this thing, and we all know that Rachael Ray does *not* bake. She doesn't even own a measuring cup! [giggle, giggle] It turns out that Rachael does sort of suck at baking, and Paula totally calls her on it. This, of course, does provide RR with plenty oppurtunity to explain her system of "eyeballing it," wherein a tablespoon = about a palmful, a teaspoon = about a half-palmfull, a cup = a couple turns of the pan. She "teaches" this to Paula and by extension "teaches" this to us, but y'all remember that ALoTO quote?

MADONNA: Well I was just thinking, what if I go to catch a fly ball, and oops, my bosoms fall out?
ROSIE O'DONNELL: You think there are men in this country who ain't seen your bosoms?

Well, Rachael Ray, we've all seen your proverbial bosoms. (Readers: don't take this as agitation with RR; I so totally still dig it after hearing it so many times.)

The last thing from this scene I need to discuss is a quote from Paula:

"A couple things we don't skimp on: butter and sugar."

Nick--I am putting that on a tee-shirt for your birthday, dude.

Finally, everything's cooked, and they all walk into the dining room from different doors carrying their dishes. As a former film student, and as someone with a fair amount of stage management experience, all I could think about was how much planning it took to create that spontaneity. Something I didn't think about when I was taking notes on the special but just now realized: why do they all come from different rooms with their dishes in the first place? What business would risotto have coming from the living room?

But that is finally it. And this will mark the last time until late next year that I wish y'all Season's Eatings. Season's Eatings to everyone!

Reviewing the Food Network: All Star Christmas, part II

2005-12-25T20:04:00.000-05:00

So the basic set-up of last year's Thanksgiving special was that each star cooks a dish in his own kitchen, be it in Savannah, New York, LA, Roswell, etc., and then they all come to a neutral kitchen with their individual dishes to make a full spread. For Christmas, Emeril has invited everyone over to his house (I think) and they pair off to cook and dish. Either one person is "teaching" the other how to make her dish or they're both on equal terms.

Some of the pairings were just plainly predictable. Paula Deen and Emeril, for example, get lumped together. Both are Southern. Get it?

And then Sandra Lee and Bobby Flay cook together, which is also obvious since they both make you want to gag. They're cooking lobster. For Christmas. I really don't get meat-eaters. They just put the lobster in the pan and cook it. Is that really all you have to do? I know that works for carrots, but I thought that you have to prep meat, either by marinade, by chopping, or at least by killing it. All y'all are just weird.

They pepper the special with confessionals like on The Real World, except instead of talking about alcohol and ass, they're talking about family traditions and each other. You know those Season's Eatings spots where they put an average FN viewer on a white screen and have him talk about the holidays and food? It's the same thing. They all advertise each other: "Cooking with Blah-blah-blah is just so much fun because he is so blah-blah-blah!" They are basically leaving each other Friendster testimonials. It's a little weird but I kind of like it.

Michael Chiarello cooks something for some reason. He tries to have the "It"-factor that makes me want to purchase action figures of all the other FN stars. He, of course, doesn't. Here is Michael Chiarello being funny:

"You can crush the biscotti however you want to. Sometimes I crush it with
my head."

Here is Michael Chiarello making food and his food-skills accessible to the average viewer:

"Don't be afraid of some caramelization."

Thanks for the laughs, Michael Chiarello.

Later he cooks with Sandra Lee. Gross. In one of her confessionals, she talks about how much energy he has. The editor then cuts to him saying "whoa" with about the same amount of enthusiasm I use when I ask our office manager for another box of paper clips. I think the editor did that on purpose just to be a smart-ass. Good work, editor. I know I complain about Sandra Lee, and I know I'm right to complain, but I really do have to admit that she's pretty hot, albeit alienesque, and I do want to sleep with her.

Remember the blond lady I was talking about back in Part I? The one I said has no business to be on FN, but rather should be on HGTV? OK, turns out she is from HGTV. I checked the website for the special and found that she is "...Candace Olson, a special guest from HGTV, [who] creates a beautiful backdrop and table setting for the party." Let's briefly discuss the "beautiful backdrop." It is lime green and sky blue. It is pretty; I really like both of those colors. But this is a Christmas ("Holiday") special, so I mean, what? If this is the crazy fucked up shit that goes on over at HGTV, then I'll pass, thank you very much. I get her point, that she wants to depart from the traditional, and I'm all about that. But she's not so much departing from tradition as she is just stealing another tradition--Easter--and I label it "unsuccessful."

Reviewing The Food Network: All Star Christmas, part I

2005-12-25T18:20:00.000-05:00

Show: All Star Holiday Party

Episode: n/a; special

Air date: 12/24/5

Subject: Change of IN THE KITCHEN personnel

The holidays can be a really stressful time because of all the Food Network we watch. 'Season's Eatings' starts before T-Day, and circa December Week 2, it goes crazy! I wanted to review all the delicious programming the Jesus of Cable has been throwing at us, but that, to rip off the NYT when speaking about doing the reading in college, would be to take a sip of water from the fire hydrant. So the best thing to review is the All Star Holiday Party.

Remember last year's All Star Thanksgiving Celebration? That was easily one of the happiest events in my life. You see, it was the sampler platter of everyone important to me seen in each's own element, culminating in their coming together. Every 'In The Kitchen' star (except Ina. Where the fuck was Ina? Paula got in from Savannah, Giada from LA, but passive-aggressive Ina couldn't get to the FN HQ in Chelsea from Long Island?!) prepared a dish for the feast in his own style and his own kitchen. Then, they all bring it to the same table. I wanted to hug my television. When I saw Cold Mountain with Isaac, he wept. He said it was because he read the book, and when you're with those characters for 500 pages, you really become attached, so when Jude Law dies, it's devastating. To me, that meant he must have been bored senseless twice. But the point is, these cooking show stars are my life, and when they come together, I am happier than I am at any other point of my life ever.

So they did it all over again for X-mas 2K5. The 'In The Kitchen' roster has changed so much this short year. Present were:

Rachael Ray: as if the FN could do anything without their perky money-maker.
Paula Deen: who cooks with Rachael! Merry Christmas from the FN!
Emeril: I think it's at his "house."
Sandra Lee: whenever I think someone is more qualified to comment on something than I, I will use his commentary. Nick is loads more qualified than I am to discuss Sandra Lee. I asked him for a quote; what he gave me was a tour de force. That will be published as its own entry.
Bobby Flay: whatever.
Michael Chiarello: he's worthless. I don't get why he has a FN show. His pitch to the network must have been something to the affect of, "I am going to cook things on television."
Some Blond Girl: she decorates things. Is she really on the FN? If so, they should totally move her show to HGTV where she would be more welcome but could stay on the Scripps Network's payroll. She will prove to be worthless as well.

Absent from last year's Thanksgiving, sadly, are:

Sara Moulton: She had to grow on me, but boy, did she! I don't even know if she's still an 'In the Kitchen' chef. If she isn't, we're all the less without her.
Alton Brown: love him, and he represents from Roswell, GA. This Christmas would have been substantially more entertaining if we had apple cider made over a Bunson burner. Again, our loss.
Tyler Florence: and what good riddance! Why be part of a team when he can just boss Jack around on How to Boil Water, you know? I love Jack. I hate Tyler. [cocaine and super-model comment deleted]
Giada di Laurentiis: I now know what it would be like if I had to present my body to someone but didn't have my left arm.

As you can probably gather, the times are changing, and I don't like it. 2003-4 are now evident to have the optimum melange of personalities on this network. But the year is 2005, and I only have what they give me.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-12-21T23:21:00.000-05:00

The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week was the montage in 1988's A Very Brady Christmas wherein Alice is charged with rounding up all the arriving Brady children at LAX while Florence Henderson and the father have to set up beds for everybody! Alice be-bops around the airport picking up all the full grown kids (Jan's marriage is falling apart!), and she gets herself into all kinds of crazy mishaps. For example, she's pushing one of the Brady boy's luggage cart and steps onto the moving sidewalk--but in the wrong direction!! Meanwhile, back at the house, the lovely lady and her man named Brady are busy trying to figure out where all these people are gonna sleep! They have to set up all kinds of complicated cots, roll out sleeping bags that are just stuffed with leaves, fold out those pesky twin bed fold-aways that have a tendency to snap shut on you, AND pull a queen mattress up the Brady staircase!! You can only guess how funny this all is.

As the montage finishes, each Brady walks through the door(1) (after ringing the doorbell and being invited in. Huh?), and it all ends with Alice carrying all the bags, and boy, is that funny!

I hesitantly chose this as the MATISoTVTW over some of the South Park Christmas specials that have been on. Y'all. You *have* to watch these things. These things make me so mad because I know I will never be as smart or keen as Trey Parker/Matt Stone. Tonight I saw the "Critters' Christmas" one which was expectantly unbelievable . Try really hard to see this one. You'll die when they rhyme "a portion" with "abortion." Comedy Central is airing a lil mini marathon X-mas Eve of South Park X-mas Specials.

***

(1) -- I was kind of humbled when I watched the reunion-moment and realized that our families will not ever look as they do in the memory we have of them from when we were kids. The grown-ups get old, the kids do stupid things (like grow moustaches in the big Brady boy's case), and the world just isn't going to look like the '80s again. A friend recently pointed out that algos is the Latin for "pain, grief, distress," as in "nostalgia."

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-12-15T00:04:00.000-05:00

This week's Simpson's episode (and let me qualify "this week's": with DVR, I don't have any idea when the shows I am watching originally aired. So "this week's" episode of any given show may well be a Halloween episode or some such nonsense.) was lame, lame, lame, no shock. It was "The Simpsons Do Italy," which they've done before, only they called it "Africa" or "Japan" or "Disneyworld," and you know, we get it. Italians make-a the pizza and drive-a the Ferrari. It's kind of sad that Groening and co. have to take the obvious, but they are still the Simpsons, and God bless 'em.

But the reason I'm talking about I Simpsoni is because "this week's" was a Sideshow Bob episode, and plenty of the jokes were throw-backs to the good old days when Conan O'Brian was writing (TRIVIA! What band lost its founder due to his choice to redirect his career and become a Simpsons animator? Answer at the end.) which include my all-time favorite episode, "Cape Feare."

That's the one where Bart enters the Witness Protection Program and features some great comedy moments, listed in bullet form:

"The CIA Sings the Hits of Gilbert & Sullivan" tape.
Homer running in Bart's room with hockey mask to show him his new chainsaw.
The rakes.
Bart running to the stern of the boat: alligators. Runs to the bow: eels. Runs back to the stern: alligators. Bart: "Oh yeah."
Bart foils SB by having him sing HMS Pinafore in its entirety.

In this episode, Bob steps on the rakes again, and so does lil Sideshow Bob, and that was the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week, but only because it harked back to, like, the best Simpsons episode ever.

This episode, I'll note, tried to marry the word "plagiarizer" with Peter Griffen, and that's just really sad because Seth MacFarlane is totally kicking Matt Groening's ass right now in the quality battle. In the sucking battle, though, Matt G. (the other one) has the lead. But then, above "plagiarizer of a plagiarizer" was the picture of the guy from that other Seth MacFarlane cartoon that everyone hates. And for that, Simpsons, good work. Jaclyn says that show has its good moments, but they're spread much farther apart than on Family Guy, and it just isn't worth the work.

(ANSWER: Eric Stefani left the band he started with his [brunette!] sister after Album 2, sometime in the middle of writing Tragic Kingdom.)

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-12-03T22:21:00.000-05:00

OK. So the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week actually (ding!) came from last week. It was the Thanksgiving week episode of Commander in Chief, or as I've started calling it, Geena in Charge. And that Thing was the star of the movie Dead Man on Campus joining CiC's cast!

He's also the love interest of Kelly, and we at www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com *love* Kelly (Pesident Geena's Press Secretary).

Right before the credits, they whipped out what I think might be one of the most dramatically planned shots ever in TV.

The reason Zack is in the White House is to help President Davis with her--ready for it--re-election! Aaah! Mac has 2 years left in her term, and with ABC talking re-election, it looks like we're on our way to syndication! MTG's fear of an assassination attempt on Sexy Redheads in Power is completely unfounded.

This is such good news that it beat out Nutcracker on Ice as the MATISoTVTW. Word.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-11-27T20:01:00.000-05:00

Paula Deen: "It's Thanksgivin' time, and while the rest of the country's hunkerin' down for a long winter, we're still enjoyin' the out-of-doors. We're still in shorts. And Mama's in flip-flops!"

I watched Paula Deen's Thanksgiving at Home (Savannah), and she made turducken, and that was the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week.

OK. Here is MTG's backstory with turducken: at the Walter Kerr Theater, we get a lot of annoying people who are comically dumb. No seriously, we keep a book of the dumb things they (and we) say. Our feisty, little ticket taker Brandon and his saucy coworker Elizabeth Taylor (for real) discovered turducken and immediately applied the term to a special type of Excuse Me that needed that extra special flourish of insult. An Excuse Me, of course, is any ticket holder for any given art performance ever ("Excuse me, where's the restroom?" Excuse me, I need a playbill." "Excuse me, where can I get the hearing devices?" "Excuse me, there's an excessively large woman in the seat next to me." "Excuse me, where is your handicap facility?"). And somehow, we got to usin' this Southern delicacy of turkey, stuffed with duck, stuffed with chicken to describe these people.

Yes, I'm a vegetarian, and yes, this is, like, the most offensive meat dish ever, but it represents something so wonderful. It's so trailer chic. So where on Manhattan would you find it? At a hip place in a trendy neighborhood neighborhood.

Makin' the turducken's pretty easy. We see all three animals sliced open and sprawled out on Paula's cuttin' board. She stacks them and seperates them with layers of stuffin' (key ingredient: 2 sticks of butter). As her dogs Dixie and Ladybird yelp, she and her main squeeze Michael sew it all up. The bird(s) slide around in the pan, so Paula hollers, "he just got fresh with me! Bad boy!" And spanks it! After it's baked, she slices it open, and it looks like a bouche de Noel, only disgusting.

And she ends the special at the table, "Alright. Don, Bobby, Brooke, Jamie, Michael, Bubba, Aunt Peggy, Connie...this is to love and family. And to all y'all out there...love and best dishes to your family on a wonderful Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgivin', y'all! Pass the turducken."

To all of Matt the Great's readers, Season's Eatings, y'all! Pass the tofurkey.

Cyber Monday

2005-11-27T19:13:00.000-05:00

On Friday, the news media celebrated Black Friday. But Black Friday is so over, and the news media's Next Big Thing is Cyber Monday: the first day back in the office [the first ever day in the office for newly employed MTG =u) *] where we have the high speed power to buy our online gifts, say the merchants, making it sweet to shop! shop! shop!

Well, www.mattthegreat.blogspot.com readers, teaMMatt has presents for you!

New features!

The Best Songs Never to be Sung by Corey Feldman
As Good as Number Two

and the big one...

12 Days of Reviews of 12 Days of Christmas Specials on the Food Network

Get ready, y'all, December is going to be crazy.

---

* - emoticon TM, Nick Austin

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-11-16T23:10:00.000-05:00

...and I saw lots of tv this week, my Sick Week. So let's just call the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week Sleepless in Seattle. They even played it twice, back-to-back; except the second time, they called it You've Got Mail. Anyway, I watched it both times.

We'll Be Right Back

2005-11-12T11:02:00.000-05:00

Matt the Great is a little poopy right now with a head cold. My witty e-friend, but recently real friend Nick once asked, "did you have dramatic second-act-Evita moments of losing your balance and clutching on to curtains or furniture? Laying, languid and pail in your sweat-soaked bed while attendants give you sips of water and bites of Godiva ice cream (since you're practically dying anyway, you might as well enjoy it and do it in style)?"

Curtain clutching, yes; asshole roommates feeding me Godiva, no.

Well Nick, as I slip into verse two of "You Must Love Me," I suggest going to http://gayninjarobot.blogspot.com/ (GNR--I hope this link is sweeter than the "quick, rough, and blind-folded" hand job you asked for) for some teaMMatt endorsed blogging. But come back real soon!

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-11-07T00:29:00.000-05:00

The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week was the absence of baseball. The baseball season's end frees up Fox to air their Sunday night biumverate, The Simpsons / The Family Guy, as well as their Monday night DVR-worthy Kitchen Confidential. Treehouse of Horror 36 began with Kang and Kogos pointing out how baseball as an activity blows. Bart actually (ding!) said both "Cowabunga!" and "eat my shorts." I was happy the episode was generally better than mediocre. The Family Guy gave us a pointed commentary on the recent(1) wardrobe malfunction-gate. Kitchen Confidential wasn't actually (ding!) on this week; maybe it got cancelled. I don't know.

(1) - in geologic terms. Yeah, they're two years late on that one (I'm guessing Fox was afraid to air it when it was topical), but this episode made fun of people reading East of Eden AND had a musical number!

Adventures in Hotness: GWEN STEFANI

2005-11-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

Every day after a No Doubt concert, my away message is generally, "Gwen Stefani has more cool in her little finger than I'll have in my whole life." I always end up arriving at depression by way of jealousy when I think of just how rad she is, and how rad I will never be. Jaclyn, Gwen, and I were at MSG this Tuesday night. Boy, she is uncontrollably sexy. Gwen, not Jaclyn. Jaclyn has a great personality though.

The concert was ridiculous and big (her very special guests, the Black Eyed Peas, had very special guests of their own, James Brown and Justin Timberlake). One of the hottest parts of the night, no doubt, was that Gwen sang through the whole damn thing (no surprise). She was there with her Harajuku Girls. I went in thinking the concert would be over-the-top exploitative of Japan, but I don't think any Harajukan would mind. Not that a Harajukan would care anyway; this, from teaMMatt's Japanese Culture Correspondent Val, a self-described "non-fluent foreigner that teaches teenagers but doesn't spend 24/7 with them":

As for the Gwen Stefani situation, teenage girls in Japan don't really even know who she is. They're into Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears if they dare venture out of their J-Pop scene. It seems as though Ms. Stefani is into Harajuku, but Harajuku couldn't give a damn about her.

Some of Gwen's hotter moments included a hot, hot 1950s bikini in red, a flowy Monroe gown for "Cool," and, well, any other time she was onstage. She was doing some badass dancing in bigass high heels. I asked Jaclyn--I guess she's my Female Issues Expert--if that is hard to do, and for perspective, she offered that she can't even walk in heels.

Jaclyn and I, both No Doubt purists, were happy with Gwen in her typical presence; she's awkard, her dancing's a little geeky, we were scared of her in punk and attracted to her in glam. We went to be dutiful, but came out thinking the night was so hella good. The album's rad, and I've known that for a year, but when you put a high-heeled Gwen in a majorette uniform and watch her jump, you suddenly get "Hollaback Girl." Favorite songs of the night: "Crash" (MTG did not holla "back it up, back it up" when she requested that of her New York City Boys. Nor did Jaclyn holla, "you got it, you got it," as was asked of Gwen's New York City Girls.), "The Real Thing" for being so 80s tuff, and the un-released "Candyland."

Kevin, who describes the night as "the 180-degree opposite of sucking," belives Ms. Stefani to be "literally an icon for the ages. One or two more albums and she'll be the biggest star in the world." And this should have us wondering, "what about Madonna?" Again, Kevin, who we'll call teaMMatt's Gwen Field Reporter, offers, "she's the new Madonna. Flippin' genius."

<--Girl, not Hollaback

Girl, Material-->

He might have a point. The NYT reviewed "Harajuku Lovers Tour," And Madonna is mentioned in sentences 2 and 3. Later, the Stef' (it's gonna catch on--no doubt) is referred to as, "a material girl strutting to the beats and keeping any ironies to heself."

Fischer, who is teaMMatt's Head Correspondent for the Gwen/Madonna Conflict, brought this quote to teaMMatt a while ago:

Madonna has recorded a new single, "Hung Up." She played it recently to a friend who said, "It's quite Gwen Stefani, isn't it?"

Her reply? "That cunt's been stealing from me for the last ten years, so I thought it was time I paid her back."

source: ask Fischer.

Now Madonna will never really offend me because she is Madonna, but for real, that shit is just a little too bananas.

Days later, Fischer found this in USA Today:

"She ripped me off, so we mutually agreed that I could rip her off," Madonna quips of Stefani. "We work with a lot of the same people. She married a Brit, she's got blond hair and she likes fashion. But I don't mind. I think she's very sweet and really talented."

And as he pointed out, there is peace in the valley. Good thing he bothered to glance at his USA Today before he re-lined his birdcage or whatever it was he was doing with a USA Today.

Now to close, I'd like to share my favorite-ever Gwen Stefani Live quote. It comes from No Doubt concert #1 at Roseland:

"We're having a contest to see which city screams the loudest. So far, the winner is Utah."

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-11-01T14:52:00.000-05:00

Jessie: Time? TIME??! There’s never any time! I don’t have time to study! I’ll never get into Stanford! I’ll let everyone down! I’m so confused

Zack: Everything will be all right, just calm down, OK?

Jessie: You’re right! Everything will be OK. I just need one of these!

Zack: Pills?? You mean you really are taking drugs?!

Jessie: I need them! I need them Zack I HAVE TO SING!

Zack: Jessie! You can’t sing tonight!

Jessie: Yes I can! I’M SO EXCITED! I’M SO EXCITED! I’M SO ... (sob) .... SCARED! (Cries)

Zack: Jessie, hey don’t be scared. Listen, we’ll get through this. Remember that time when we snuck out to see ET, riding home on our bikes, it was so dark--we were scared. C'mon.

(Quoted on http://poppycockcircus.com/v-web/b2/index.php?m=200408. You *won't* be disappointed.)

When someone says, "Saved By The Bell," you know the caffeine pill episode is going to be mentioned within two or three beats, and we all know why it's so awesome, so I'm not going to bother talking about it.

But...

I was watching a Degrassi, Old School, and listen to (read) this!:

BLT (for real): Hi Michelle. What's in the bag?

Michelle: Nothing.

(BLT reaches for Michelle's bag.)

Michelle: I said no!

BLT: Fine.

Michelle: I'm sorry, you know how I get during exams. It's just these. (She hands him a blue box of "Perk-Ups.")

BLT: Caffeine pills? Michelle, what are you doing taking drugs for?

Michelle: They're not drugs; they're just like lots coffee!

BLT: These are drugs.

Michelle: C'mon, they can't be that bad. You don't even need a prescription. They just help keep me awake, that's all.

--And then later, the breakdown, or The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week--

BLT: (enters) Ready for the Geography exam? It's in five minutes.

Michelle: Five minutes? Oh no! I lost track of time! I'm not ready. I'll blow it. I know I'll blow it. (she hurriedly gathers her books)

BLT: Calm down.

Michelle: Why should I calm down?! Why are you always telling me what to do? You're worse than my dad, you know that? (in a fit of bad acting, she drops her belongings) Oh no! Everything's going all wrong!

BLT: Hey, relax!

Michelle: (throwing a book at BLT) You relax! (she throws the rest of her books at him) Why don't you leave me alone? Why can't you stop bugging me?

BLT: Michelle, stop it!

Michelle: (screaming) YOU stop it! YOU STOP IT!!

(Michelle stops. Her eyes roll around. She collapses onto the floor!!)

BLT: (rushing towards Michelle) Michelle? Michelle! Michelle!! Somebody get the nurse!

This episode was copyrighted in MCMLXXXIX, I whole year before "Jessie's Song" aired. Gay marriage, universal health care, once again, Canada beats us to the punch.

Reviewing the Food Network

2005-10-31T00:27:00.000-05:00

Show: Behind the Bash
Ep: Grammy Awards After-Party
Air Date: 10/30/5
Subject: New show!

I've been waiting for this one for a while. Giada de Laurentiis is one of the Big Three FN personalities that I live for and do a mean impression of. She hosts Everyday Italian, the softcore porn-cum-cooking show wherein Giada (who's hot) explains everything with much sensuality, and she's always cooking around 5pm, so we get that fuzzy, warm light while she sprawls out on her living room couch and has a lot of fun with words like "prosciutto." Chris doesn't like her because he finds her "yuppy," "model-y," and "annoying." He didn't want me to quote him though, which is stupid because he didn't say anything that will hurt him later. I had to pull those words out of him long after he had said them which prompted him to say, "dont quote me. especially if i cant remember and you cant remember, its not much of a quote then (sic)." And this brings up an important point. Folks, I have no idea exactly what or how people phrase things. This is my e-world, and I'm predominantly concerned with providing you impressions of what I see. I'll quote what I want to quote.

This show is kind of tricky to review. Am I concerned with this episode, or how this episode represents the series? Rather than decide, I'll just keep writing. The show gives us all the details, planning, logistics ("Behind") of the Grammy Awards after-party ("the Bash"). The bash will be catered by Along Came Mary, and Mary gives us this gem: "We're producing and catering quite possibly the largest awards celebration ever." I have a feeling this might indicate a show that has a little too much self-importance. The Grammys? Ever? Uh-oh.

Then the credits. They are boring. Many of the clips come from this episode, but more importantly, all the clips are caiter-waiters carrying trays and cooks squeezing pastry bags. How many times over the course of this series can we watch people cait and wait and still convince ourselves it's entertainment?

Quickly we're introduced to Eddie Cooper, Executive Pastry Chef, who is to Along Came Mary what J. Alexander is to America's Next Top Model. He's a little ridiculous, but I do want to try his inventive tiramisu. Tiramisu does, of course, give Giada an oppurtunity to say "mascarpone," and that's my signature word when I "do" Giada. Even more predictably (for Giada's fans), the tiramisu allows Eddie to squirt a dallop of creamy, white mascarpone onto her finger for her to lick off. Tastes good, I'm sure.

A great selling point of this Food Network product is the large focus on the food. It's about 70% in the kitchen, and the remaining 30% is for everything else. This makes it easy for Giada to let us know helpful things, such as that eggplant can be stored for a few days. Three days before the bash, she's talking to some department head about his eggplant parmigiana. He's brushing them in olive oil, and she says that she grills hers, and he gives her a kind of, "yeah bitch, I'm cooking for 6,000 people." Anyway, she does her trademark teethy smile-lunge, and I'm happy.

Later, she's Giada-ing through the kitchen with her hair all done up and her makeup real pretty. She might not be actually hot, but she's what the FN sells as "hot," and I buy it. We learn how to make fish creviche shooters, and also that creviche is, in Latin cuisine, cold-cooking in citrus juices--keeps fish fresh and flavorful! With this new guy, she makes a bowl of this stuff, but at the rate they do it, there's no way they'll have enough in time for all the guests. But wait! Now she has different clothes, and her hair's down! Minus one, editor. I DVR-paused a bunch of times to get to the bottom of this, and I'd keep getting a good frame of her face, and yeah, she really is pretty.

Security/lights/sound/yawn. Mary starts getting really intense (her Chinese herbs are wearing off, she says); Giada says "caprrray-zay" (caprese); and it's bash-day. She's back with cerviche-guy, and he's feeding her something. Then this:

Cerviche-guy: "You don't have to put the whole thing in your mouth."
Giada: "Why not?"
(both laugh)

I hope that people are starting to get why I love her shows.

The guests arrive *any minute*! Chinese herb-Mary is walking to her crew of caiter-waiters to prep talk them, and Giada and crew interview her about nerves and stuff. I think it's kind of mean to make her worry about taping Behind the Bash moments before her huge event begins. Back in the kitchen, Giada tries Eddie's creme brulee. The tart bursts, and creme shoots all over her. Sex.

The party starts, and Giada looks pretty darn hot. I like that the food is the focus, and I like that we get to go behind closed doors, and I like even more that they use a whooshing door slam sound effect every time she says "behind closed doors." Ultimately, the show's a little boring, and I think it's going to be like Queer Eye--you see three episodes and quickly realize how much the same they all are. I like that her Everyday Italian softcore and innuendo fit in with this show's beat. Or maybe they don't, but I do really love her softcore and innuendo, so I don't care whether they belong or not. I guess they are to her what giggling is to Rachael Ray. Speaking of RR, this is so clearly Giada's Inside Dish with Rachael Ray. Don't worry Giada, you'll get a $40 a Day, that is, a successful secondary show, soon enough. I am upset that this show doesn't give her a chance to force her friends to tell her how good her food is as in Everyday Italian. Final word: Giada is so freaking hot.

Adventures in Hotness: FRANZ FERDINAND

2005-10-17T03:10:00.000-04:00

Ears are still ringing two hours after the concert. I saw FF last year at about the same time at Roseland, and it was really one of the sexiest things I've ever seen, but we were kind of far back, and Dave's skin infection kind of plays down just how hot the concert actually was. But tonight was Ferdinand's second, hopefully annual night of singing to Matt.

G & I were standing about 5 people from the stage, so they were all so big. We were kind of split in the middle between Nick McCarthy [at right, behind the American Eagle tool's hand] and Alex Kapranos [at left], and watching them together gave me many of the same feelings I got when watching Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna together in Y Tu Mama. And I really don't know how to describe it all, other than it was all so hot.

The pictures come from the really hot Australian girl whose ponytail slapped me in the face a lot when she was jumping. If she wasn't, like, as hot as she was, I would have been all passive aggressive about how she was annoying me, but the situation being what it was, her ponytail totally enhanced the concert. There was a lot of jumping. We were standing on the orchestra pit at the Theater at MSG, which is a hydraulic lift, so it kind of worked like a trampoline. You jumped even if you weren't planning on jumping. It was great, but now as I type it, it doesn't sound all that safe. The crowd was yelling out for "This Fire" at the end, and now thinking about that, it probably wasn't cool to have a lot of people yelling "Fire!" in a crowded, dark, public space. They gave us "This Fire" at the end of the encore which had them all standing on the drums doing things with their guitars and the drummer that made me really glad I'm an adult and know what to do with those kinds of feelings.

There was plenty of crowd interaction, yet they maintained their properness. Alex, at points in the music when his guitar playing wasn't that important, jammed it down into the crowd. They opened with "Jacqueline," each taking the stage and entering the song one-by-one. G and I thought of calling Jaclyn then, but the band was too hot to figure out how to work the cell phone at that time. G got her act together by "Michael," though, and called Spear. Costumes: Two center men in bright red cowboy button downs--a cut of shirt I've had since '03, mind you--and the two on the outside in all black. Drummer in the back in my old Jujamcyn ushering uniform.

They had 4 rotating panels of Franz-backdrop in the, well, back, and I knew they're called periaktoi because I have a degree in theater from a private school, and this blog entry marks the very first bit of good that degree has done me since graduation.

Yeah, it was hot. Look at the hot Aussie's pictures. That is why Franz Ferdiand is mattthegreat.blogspot.com's first Adventure in Hotness. And oh--the new cd is totally worth $13.99. Their voices in Track 1 are those type of voices you know come from hot people. I've developed a liking to Track Nos. 4, 5, 7, & 12.

THE PRIZE WINNER OF DEFIANCE, OHIO is a lot like A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

2005-10-17T03:08:00.000-04:00

This is the movie where Julianne Moore plays a 1950s housewife. Basic premise: she's a mother of ten, her husband spends his measly paycheck on booze, she wins the bread by winning little housewife contests all the time. I saw it on a rainy Monday and it warmed the cockles of my heart. Iit's all a real memoir.

ICONS IN THE CAST: Julianne Moore. Of course the first movie I want to talk about has Julianne Moore. She could win this year--not that she'll win for Prize Winner, but Prize Winner could easily be the one they use to award her for The End of the Affair, The Hours, Magnolia, etc. It's pretty unanimous to think J-Mo is hot and awesome and good at acting and stuff, so rather than talking about her in this movie, I'll recap our moment. I'm on the First Center Aisle at Doubt during the busy period of the walk-in. A solidly annoying amount of Excuse Mes are asking me stuff. I take a ticket from one in the crowd, look at it, and say that this ticket is on the Second Center Aisle. I hand the ticket back to the patron and notice, OMG, it's Juli-fucking-anne Moore. She's surprisingly not too tall, and not surprisingly stunning with no makeup and plain clothes. I gave her her ticket and she said:

"Thank you."

As I was handing it to her, we made eye contact and unmistakably had a moment. I don't have a link to Julianne Moore's blog, but no doubt she talks about our experience together on there. After I got off, about 40 contacts in my phonebook got this text:

ohmygodohmygod...oh...my...god. JULIANNE MOORE.
JU-LI-ANNE-MOORE. i am dead. oh god.

SOMETHING THAT MADE ME AT LEAST A LITTLE VERKLEMPT: Like, the whole freaking thing! The most verklempt-wrenching moments were all those where Julianne Moore seemingly hits rock bottom and then pulls out some skittle-colored maxim about happiness and life. And then MTG puts his hand around his face lest Gayathri sees his tear. A really special one, I think I remember, is in the last 20 minutes when the main daughter (she's the one whose real-life counterpart wrote the book, so I guess the extra screentime makes some sense) by the window. Oh--and then at the end, (spoiler!) all the real-life kids play themselves in the present.

Also, if you dig really precious children, you're going to *love* the flower-picking son. You might want to save your $10.25, Lauren S.

AT SOME POINT, I SAID, "AWW, DAMN ": The weakest link of this movie was Woody Harrelson (who also came to Doubt--we didn't have a moment) as the loser dad. But I will say he did make me really uncomfortable a lot, so I guess he did his job. But there's the is-this-domestic-violence? incident with the milk bottles. If ever I were going to say "aww, damn," this would be that time.

COULD PUT IT ON MY FRIENDSTER FAVES: Umm, yeah, I could. One thing listing this as a favorite says is that, "this guy, though devilishly handsome, really likes his chick flicks." But I think anyone I would want friendstering me would say, "this guy LOVES Julianne Moore. His stellar tastes well complement his stunning looks."

This movie is so much like A League of Their Own. AND! I learned a secret for making better egg salad (spoiler!): pickle juice.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-10-15T00:27:00.000-04:00

It came during Commander-in-Chief, but I'm showing great restraint by not calling the MATISoTVTW Mack's judicious, progressive leadership that makes me fall ever deeper in love with Mackenzie Allen/Geena Davis each week. And boy, do I want to.

But the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week might also be the Most Merry Thing I Saw on TV This Week; after the C-i-C: created by Rod Lurie opening titles, the first commercial break gave us a triple punch of Christmas commercials! Bam! Bam! Bam!

Commercial One: Carnival Cruise Lines. A jolly, white family Christmas shops. "Beyond the Sea (yuletide remix)" is the background. "How do you wrap togetherness? Or put a ribbon around a memory? Can you even put a bow on fun?" It's snowing, and people hug each other. Fortunately, the narrator answers his questions: "You can; you will; when you surprise someone with a vaction from Carnival." And oh, after typing this, I just got why they chose "Beyond the Sea." Boats. Sea. That one should probably have been easier.

Commercial Two: K-Mart. They're having a sale on winter coats and scarves. The racially diverse kids and adults are building a snowman on the soundstage. There's nothing Christmas-y about it, I suppose, but you tell the Jewish kids that "Frosty the Snowman" is non-demoninational.

Commercial Three: 20th Century Fox (the logo card's been dressed with snowflakes!!). They're promoting their new film SJP in a Romantic Comedy or something. Whatever it's called, it is in the home-for-the-holidays genre and is out November 11.

Every year I can't contain myself and whip out the Christmas carols circa Halloween. And by every early December, I've already blown my load and am over Christmas. While everyone else grunts when Duane Reade starts decorating, I rejoice that the people who want my money say to me, "go forth, MTG, and celebrate this season." Hark, the Herald Advertisment Agencies Sing!

A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN is a lot like A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN

2005-10-11T01:45:00.000-04:00

teaMMatt is so pleased to announce "___ Is A Lot Like A League of Their Own." In this new feature, I am not interested in telling you whether Movie X is good or bad; I am interested in telling you about movies that favorably compare to perhaps the best value you'll get for $3 and two hours, ALoTO. Because I'm not trying to play critic, all of these movies are movies I liked and am passing on to you. The way you're most likely to want to see it--and I think you will agree--is by identifying Movie X's components to those shared with ALoTO.

So to lay down some framework, teaMMatt isolates those components that make A League of Their Own the world's most enjoyable movie. Ever.

ICONS IN THE CAST: It's no secret that ALoTO has a stellar roster. Joining Lori Petty are Tom Hanks, Rosie O'Donnell, Jon Lovitz, Bill Pullman, Penny Marshall (director), Madonna, and Geena Davis. The teaMMatt-selected ICONS are the last two. Madonna and Geena Davis are two mega-icons acting in the same movie--often in the same scene!--sometimes even having lines TOGETHER! I know; I came too. It would be idle to hope that Julianne Moore, Gael Garcia Bernal, Angelica Huston, or Bebe Neuwirth will appear in every movie, so sometimes "icon" will cover not necessarily a regularly called-upon favorite of teaMMatt, but at least someone we can all really sink our teeth into. Ex.: Ileanna Douglas, Kathy Najimy, that guy from Freaks and Geeks.
SOMETHING THAT MADE ME AT LEAST A LITTLE VERKLEMPT: In ALoTO, there's no "a little" about it. When Geena Davis drops that ball in the final game against the Racine Belles, I sob. There's only one motif in movies that makes me cry: two people who started as foes putting their differences aside and donning each other respect. Geena Davis could have held on to that ball for a Rockford Peach victory, but out of love for sister Lori Petty, she drops it...on purpose. "Though we have disagreed in the past, Kit, I care about you and hope to work together to build a positive future for us."
AT SOME POINT, I SAID, "AWW, DAMN ": In other words, something a little gut-wrenching. Maybe it was sad; maybe it hit an intellectual chord. Sometimes, it might even make me want to look away, though I know that by watching, I will grow. In ALoTO, it's that pre-game locker room scene where Betty Spaghetti (And get this! For these characters' names, I'm not googling or re-watching or anything; I totally have them remebered from 1992. Snap.) learns her husband was killed in the line of duty for his country. The close second is Lori Petty learning she's been traded, throwing a baseball through the window, and "BITCH!"-ing Geena Davis.
COULD PUT IT ON MY FRIENDSTER FAVES: So basically, it's a movie that A.) I'm not ashamed at the level at which I like it (To Wong Foo...), B.) isn't obnoxiously popular, where people like it to be hip (Donnie Darko), yet C.) makes people think, "gosh, Matt is such an intriguing character with quirks I am anxious to explore!" (Splash).

In closing, it's a fine piece of work that--wait for it--scores a home run upon every viewing.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week

2005-10-09T21:09:00.000-04:00

OK. I caught the season premiere of Degrassi: TNG tonight, and if the teasers during the commercials live up to themselves then this show is going there, times ten. Suicide, plastic surgery, pregnancy, corn rows... But before it goes there, a couple big crises in the opening credits:

Alex and the hood she always hangs out with are finally in the opening credits. Fine.
Where are Sean and Ashley??? This is not cool. Sean was like, the more watchable version of Spinner; Ash was the hot, goth, singer chick who went to London. And to answer my question, she's not coming back. But Sean was written off the show in one passing "I'm so over that drama" from Emma. Lame work, writers.
Peter. There's a new kid at Degrassi Community School. He's an American Eagle pretty boy, wannabe director that creepily always has his Hi-8 cam in hand, even when he comes off the basketball court. Thanks, Canada, for giving us another Dawson.

The episode tonight belonged to Manny who, after acting in last season's Jay & Silent Bob "do Canada" movie (guest starring Alanis Morissette), decided to be an actress (read: "gets her breasts done"). She drunkenly lets Creepy Dawson film her undone breasts, and then he Paris Hiltons her to the whole school. Paige is still a bitch; Emma is still the voice of what one ought to do.

But even after all my anticipation for the return of the 100% Intense Canadafest, the Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week happened in the commercial break: I saw an ad from The N promoting their airing of THE ORIGINAL DEGRASSI SERIES! There was Spike and Snake from 20 years ago making a date to go to the Gourmet Scum concert! The N is airing these episodes Sundays through Thursdays at midnight, calling it Degrassi, Old School, which I don't think it was called when it first aired.

Degrassi, for those that need the schooling (I kill me), is a Canadian public television series that followed a group of classmates at the title school as they go through life issues. It aired in the States on PBS, and a lot of us watched it in Health class. All the kids on the show had crazy '80s hair. Two summers ago, Tim lived with me as Dave's sublet. Tim watched Degrassi: The Next Generation a lot. I watched at first as camp, then I started to care about the characters, and now it's only like, my favorite show ever. TNG is back at the old school, and the idea is that all the "old school" characters are parents of present-day Degrassi students. Some of those old schoolers are on now as their old selves. The writers do an awesome job with some damn good kid actors. The issues range from "I'm sick of Liberty always winning the science fair" to "Rick brought a gun to school, injuring two and killing himself."

The saga aspect makes it really hard to explain to newcomers, but it basically goes as such: Craig and Ash were dating on and off, but he cheated with Manny, which resulted in abortion, which was never aired in the US, even though JT was crushing on her, which he totally blew when she saw him using his penis pump, which was the idea of Toby, who....oh screw it....go here: timeline.

Anyway, the new season is going to be hard core, and Old School will be harder than hard core, but I will use Ellie's words from tonight and venture that all of these episodes will make "the greatest, most rockingest party ever." Word, Ellie.

Reviewing the Food Network

2005-10-09T11:54:00.000-04:00

The most appropriate way to kick off "Reviewing the Food Network" is with the love-her-or-hate-her-but-be-prepared-for-MTG-to-defend-her-with-an-annoying-vengeance FN darling Rachael Ray. She's perfect, but as she showed today, she isn't, but as this review will prove, that is why she is.

Show: 30-Minute Meals
Ep: "Take a Hike"
Air date: 10/9/5

Subject: Rachael Ray's Sacrifice of Perfection as a Yield to Fun

This morning, Ray is cooking portobello hoagies which are *perfect* to take on a hike where mayonnaise- and meat-free foods carry great gravity. She's making the marinade for the portobellos:

4 tablespoons sherry vinegar
2 rounded tablespoons spicy mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, eyeball it
6 ["gigando, hUUUge" -RR] cloves garlic, finely chopped
Coarse salt and coarse black pepper
(reprinted without permission from www.FoodNetwork.com, and remember, regarding these measurements, "...the food will taste better if you let your own hands and taste buds be your guide. Recipes are suggestions, not written law." --RR in 30-MM2)

...she adds the salt, and oops!, she forgot that (RR TIP!) you're not supposed to add salt to mushrooms until after the cooking as the salt pulls the moisture out and impedes their cooking process. "Everybody makes a mistake...once in a while. So what? It's just food. It'll taste good, no matter what," Rachael says, reminding us all A.) that 30-Minute Meals is a legit, no re-dos, balls-to-the-wall cooking show, and more importantly B.) of Ray's anyone-can-cook, there-are-no-rules, just-get-in-there-and-have-fun cooking mantra.

This is why Ray is America's sweetheart and isn't correctly described by any of this rachael_ray_sux bullshit. To one palmful of imperfection, whisk in 3 big spoonfuls of whimsy, add EVOO twice around the pan; yields one big bowl of perfect. That she's as hot as a bowl of stoup makes for one sweet garnish ("the big ta-da!," if you will).

In this same episode, she's toasting her hoagie rolls for the 'shrooms, and before commercial, she mentions she'd better go get those before she lets them burn, which she's wont to do. She's always talking about how notorious she is for leaving things in the oven, but never once have I seen anything overcook in that lil' retro kitchen of hers. If that happened, I'm sure she'd just scrape off the carbon and giggle. This is what Rachael Ray is all about. It's like when Baz Luhrman made Shakespeare accessible to MTV-ers.

In 30-Minute Meals 2 Rachael promises us, "a high can-do factor that makes you feel like a rock star in your kitchen." Now that I don't have to sweat the small stuff, I believe I can rock! Thank you for rocking, Rachael Ray.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw On TV This Week

2005-10-01T09:48:00.000-04:00

"Mack, you are the first female president. If Moses had been a woman leading the Jews in the desert, she would have stopped and asked for directions. They'd have been in Israel in a week."

Those of us who have been on the edges of our seats since the 2001 cancellation of The Geena Davis Show finally got our guerdon when ABC loudly debuted Commander in Chief this Tuesday. The NYT copped an "alright-so-it's-pretty-good" attitude on the show, and that's most likely how each felt of the 16.15 million viewers who made the pilot that night's most watched show.

teaMMatt sponsored a party to welcome the spicy redhead's Next Big Thing. Nine guests attended and were, if I gandered correctly, disappointed to find the show pretty damn decent:

(from the E-vite e-sponses)

"Its [sic] like West Wing written by fifth graders. POLITICAL FIFTH GRADERS!" --Ian
"I also don't think women should be in MENSA, as they could never be as intelligent as men. AND Geena Davis is Fat." --Dave

Maybe Ian was right by just a little; the writers seem to have the right idea of how to do this show, but plenty of the gloriously bad dialogue you'd expect with this topic slide right into the final draft. Alessandra Stanley chose these as her most laughable lines of the evening for her NYT review:

[Donald Sutherland] assures [Geena Davis] that Islamic nations will never accept a woman as leader of the free world. "Not only that, Nathan," she retorts sarcastically, "but we have the whole once-a-month, 'will she/won't she press the button?' thing." He laughs nastily and says, "Well, in a couple of years you're not going to have to worry about that anymore."

But it was that gem up there at the top that commanded multiple DVR rewinds from the nine party guests, and that was totally The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week.

The Features

2005-09-27T01:59:00.000-04:00

After receiving preliminary feedback from www.maTTThe great.blogspot.com beta testers, the biggest problem seemed to be an apparent lack of direction. Fair enough. The first post was all, "this blog's gonna be so awesome with all these recurring features and stuff," but then I ran into the problem of having to explain what the feature is all about in each feature's pilot. So to get us all off happily, I will introduce the features we've all been fired up for here. A couple of the features will need an introductory post, just to give you the template, but as I said earlier, the world is running. Let's go!

Fridays of Friendship: I will choose one friend and E!THS him or her. This is a blatant rip-off from GayNinjaRobot, but we're all cool since I don't think he's stumbled across www.maTTThegreat.etc. Friends, this is your space to shine! Originally, this was supposed to come every Friday, but after I started work on a couple, I realized these are really time consuming. So rather, these will come on sporatic Fridays. And why Fridays? No other reason than alliteration. You want a Friday of your own? Write me and tell me why.

Iron Chef: Zen Palate v. ___: Restaurant Reviews! Zen Palate is the base line for a good, solid eating out. I will isolate what components make ZP rock zenfully and see what restaurants hold up to or stumble in front of this sturdy comfort zone.

___ is a Lot Like A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN:

A League of Their Own : Film :: Zen Palate : Dining. This is the movie review corner. Like the ZP feature, I will isolate the goodness in ALoTO and point out why Movie X does all the same things to me. Unlike the ZP feature, these are all movies I like and am recommending.

Most Awesome Thing I Saw On TV This Week: Is just that. And then I write about it. These Things can be bad in the Michael Jackson sense meaning they're good or good in the camp sense meaning they're bad.

Reviews of Things I Saw on The Food Network: After things involving Gwen Stefani, The Food Network is the most important cultural artifact to me. I'm critiquing what works and what doesn't on the channel that can do no wrong (Rachael Ray, Paula Deen) but often does (Sandra Lee, Tyler Florence).

Hi, I'm Matt

2005-09-25T23:47:00.000-04:00

I think the novelty has worn off of blogging long enough ago so that I can become a blogger. I didn't start wearing cargo shorts until 2001; I discovered Blondie at age 21 which fell in Summer 2002; I am still an iHavenot. I don't have a finger on the pulse. It takes me a little while to adjust to what's hot.

But the main factor that's been keeping me away from Blogspot has been the pressure to make a cool blog. I can't be a "TODAY I DID THIS..."-blogger, nor a "THE THING ABOUT LIFE IS..."-blogger. Rather, this blog will be a collection of regularly recurring features. NoNoNo!!! That was, "...regularly recurring features!" They will be *that* exciting!

Together, we will explore such episodic posts as: Reviews of Things I Saw on The Food Network; Fridays of Friendship; The Most Awesome Thing I Saw on TV This Week; How ___ Compares to Zen Palate. There will be installments that come weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even randomly. You will love coming back here, and you will leave me comments.

If you've found this manifestette, it means you've scrolled down. Before going public, I privately got my own ball rolling and ironed out my kinks. The world has already started. Glad you're here.