Brandon's Buzz

So, I spent a goodly portion of the day on Facebook chatting with a couple of high school friends of mine, and while I was there, I stopped over to check in with my buddy Chip, who was my very first Facebook friend. After writing on his “Wall,” a strange, mesmerizing application on his page entitled “Pieces of Flair” hijacked my attention. If you’re a Facebook newbie, I’ll try my best to describe this application: you get a blank brown square that uncannily resembles a bulletin board, and on this board, you get the opportunity to attach “buttons.” There are literally millions of buttons to choose from, which contain all manner of pictures, sayings, and images.  (There are buttons for EVERYTHING, I’m telling you!  So far, my board has buttons for “Designing Women” and Catherine and Vincent, as well as a humorous one about the staggering price of gasoline, and a sweet one with two hands joining to form the shape of a heart.  But there are buttons for George Michael, Tori Amos, “Friday Night Lights,” and EVERYTHING else you can think of!  (Even “One Tree Hill” buttons, Sherry Ann!)  And, you can upload photos and create your own buttons!)

Below:  a sample board, filled:

And, what mine looks like as of an hour ago (note — Facebook has this dopey rule that you can only acquire three buttons per twenty-four hours; I guess that’s so obsessive-compulsive freaks like me won’t burn up a whole frickin’ day filling up bulletin boards!):

Basically, I find this to be the most breathtakingly brilliant idea I’ve ever seen — I kid you not, there are buttons for EVERYTHING!! — and I’m currently combing the ‘net looking for a non-Facebook-related facsimile of this concept that I can adapt for the Buzz.  I swear to Jesus, if I ever find one (or figure out a way to build one!), I will fill this damned site with my bulletin board.

If anyone out there knows where I can find this (paging you, Mike!), please don’t hesitate to hit me up.  Please.  In this instance (and for this slice of chilling genius), I’m not above groveling.

Another jam-packed week is on tap, even if you don’t count the new country album from Jessica Simpson, which also drops on Tuesday.  (My official stance on that is as follows:  The Buzz carries no water for that vapid tramp.)  Don’t waste time reading this paragraph — there is much greatness that awaits you in the previews that follow.

Released without any fanfare in the summer of 1998, a beautifully haunting record called Dressed Up Like Nebraska quietly introduced the world to a bold new talent name of Josh Rouse.  Ten years and eight albums later, Rouse reflects on the last decade of his life with The Best of the Rykodisc Years, a double-disc, 32-track compilation with pulls together highlights (including, thankfully, Nebraska‘s finest track, “Flair”) from that span of time.

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“The theme for tonight’s Republican convention is, ‘Who is John McCain’ … Tomorrow night’s theme is, ‘Who forgot to check if the vice president’s daughter is pregnant?”‘

— Conan O’Brien, riffing on Sarah Palin’s daughter on “Late Night”

In a smashingly brilliant follow up to last year’s monumental ten-disc Classic Soft Rock collection — the infomercial promoting which was hosted by Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock (those peerless bastions of ’80s schmaltz who were better recognized by the masses as Air Supply) and was one of the finest, most compelling half-hours of television I have ever witnessed — the fabulous folks at Time-Life have truly outdone themselves with Ultimate Rock Ballads, a new eight-album assemblage of music which pulls together 133 of the most essential percussive dirges from the past four decades into one gloriously cheesy listening experience.

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“When, in the second hour, Garth’s Kelly and Doherty’s Brenda sat across from each other at a table to exchange a few tense lines, it was the teen-soap version of De Niro and Pacino meeting for the first time in Heat: all that buildup, all that tension!”

— the LOL moment — why the hell didn’t I think of that, dammit?! — from Ken Tucker‘s fairly charitable review of the new “90210” in Entertainment Weekly

No offense to the girls who managed to stay afloat in a crowded field during the sun-scorched months — imports Duffy and Leona Lewis both managed to score critical and commercial bullseyes, and Cyndi Lauper, an old friend of ours from way back, came out of nowhere with what was my hands-down favorite album of the summer, the brazenly brilliant Bring Ya to the Brink (more on that in an upcoming now hear this post celebrating the season’s strongest offerings) — but it was, by and large, the guys who made the music of summer 2008 such a pleasant surprise.  Fall is on our doorsteps, but before we close the book on the season just passed, let’s take a glance back at the men (some young, others not so much) who gave us the works of art worth getting out of bed for.

She has never asked me to explain the origins and the depths of my seemingly nonsensical obsession with one Hilary Duff, so I have likewise refrained from forcing Sherry Ann to quantify her fixation with that supreme doofus Jason Mraz.  (Mocking it outright is markedly easier, besides.)  Best known for his inescapably goofy 2003 radio smash “The Remedy (I Won’t Worry),” Mraz and his often-cloying attempts at flippant cleverness have the most mystifying effect on Sherry Ann’s otherwise potent mind.  (However, as the proud owner of all of Duff’s records, up to and including all of the Lizzie McGuire soundtracks — film and television, honey — I understand better than most that we all have our vices.)

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6:38 pm: Got a bowl of tomato soup and some goldfish crackers before me, and anticipation is building.  T-minus 22 minutes and counting, people!

6:41 pm:  The terrific Sherry Ann is the world’s leading 9021-ologist — quite seriously, she knows everything — so it feels odd to be doing this without her at my side.  However, I’ve invited her to send along her thoughts (and I know damn well she’ll have some!) via text message.

6:44 pm:  Sherry Ann just alerted me she’s gonna miss the first thirty minutes of the episode, because she and the chillins are at soccer practice.  My response:  “Hurry home!”

6:47 pm:  Anybody else catch my literary hero Jay McInerney on the “Gossip Girl” season premiere last night?  Whoa!  Sherry Ann had texted to warn me it was coming — I had to miss the first half, so I watched it on videotape later — but even though I was prepared for it, I still almost choked on my Rice Krispies!

6:50 pm:  A quote from Sherry Ann last night:  “New ‘90210’ and new NKOTB… it’s like the ’90s all over again!”

6:51 pm:  Umm, yeah!

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Going to the movies may never be the same again.

“Entertainment Tonight” is reporting that Don LaFontaine has died in Los Angeles at age 68.  Even if you don’t immediately recognize his name, it’s a sure bet you know his voice:  the self-professed “King of the Movie Trailer,” it was LaFontaine’s rich, booming baritone that narrated most of the coming attractions which have played before the feature presentation at your local multiplex for the past three decades.  (To say nothing of the thousands of commercials and television promos he has voiced throughout that same span of time.)

In a cruel twist of fate, word has it that the man whose singular voice made him a millionaire many times over was felled by complications from a collapsed lung.  LaFontaine is survived by his wife and their three churren.

Here’s what I know:  as many times as I’ve gone to the movies and paid money for an experience in which the previews were times better than the films they preceded, I find this loss to be devastating beyond expression.  Fare thee well, Don.  You’ll be missed.

September opens with a bang, courtesy of a marvelously likable freshman television series and a hotly-anticipated reunion album from one of the most memorable (and missed) relics of the ’90s.  No sense in wastin’ time on pleasantries; let’s dive right in:

One of network television’s most pleasant diversions from this past strike-crippled spring, The thirteen-episode Complete First Season of ABC’s light-hearted charmer Eli Stone makes a most welcome arrival on DVD this week.  Starring the ridiculously adorable Jonny Lee Miller as a noble lawyer who, thanks to a pesky brain aneurysm, begins experiencing ill-timed hallucinations — many of which involve pop singer George Michael (who makes numerous appearances throughout the course of the season, including a terrific outing in which he is sued for promoting promiscuity through his music) — Stone is bolstered by a fabulously eccentric supporting cast, including Victor Garber and the priceless Loretta Devine, whose superbly-rendered sarcastic line delivery goes miles toward grounding the series through a great many of its outlandish flights of fancy.

The series returns for a second season in mid-October, and since it’s not yet clear whether or not King George will continue to be involved — don’t let me ruin anything here, but let’s just say the first season finale gave all the storylines a good bit of closure — it’ll be interesting to see if (and how) Stone is able to reinvent itself.  My beloved A, who finds television to be the root of all evil, fell head over heels for this show — go figya, that! — and if you’re able to get past its Ally-McBeal-with-a-penis premise (which, at times, can become unbearably cutesy), chances are you will as well.

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To celebrate the CW’s super-anticipated remake of the series that definitively put the then-fledgling Fox network on the pop culture map — Aaron Spelling’s earnest classic “Beverly Hills, 90210” (or, as we prefer to refer to it, “Sherry Ann’s and my teenage years”) — Brandon’s Buzz is going live tomorrow evening to blog the megahyped two-hour season premiere.  If, like me, you can’t wait to see Lori Loughlin in Cindy Walsh mode, or to see how Kelly Taylor has held up as she moves into middle age, be here at 7pm CDT (that’s 8 Eastern and 5 Pacific, for all you far-flung folks) and join in the fun.

“When Volume One sells five million copies, your next record is called Volume Two.”

— legendary music mogul Clive Davis, simplifying for Rolling Stone his decision to send Rod Stewart spelunking into the great American songbook

My skin was positively tingling the minute I got the news that fresh music from Ray LaMontagne was imminent, but my anticipation for Gossip in the Grain, the artist’s forthcoming third album, just slid into warp drive, because Grain‘s resplendent leadoff single “You Are the Best Thing” went up at this week, and it’s a startling knockout.  However searing and wrenchingly brilliant the lion’s share of LaMontagne’s music may be (and trust me, it most definitely is), his discography isn’t exactly littered with what one would call happy tunes, and that’s precisely what makes “Best Thing” such a wicked revelation, as LaMontagne seems to funnel all his obvious inspirations — from two hundred year old Negro spirituals to ’30s jazz to the ghosts of Tapestry — into a horn-drenched sing-along which somehow sounds completely fresh.  With this unexpected leap over to the sunny side of the street, LaMontagne has hurled out an opening salvo clearly meant as a challenge to his peers, and a confident declaration that he is the musician to beat this crowded fall.  Believe it: the artist who has designs on beating this in the season to come had better have already gotten one hell of a head start, because New England’s most lovably eccentric hermit has just thrown down the gauntlet.

And then I told him, without a trace of jest, “If you lose this one, I will kill you.”

(If you missed the original blog post which more or less explains the above picture, you can find it here.)