The Daily Procrastinator

Plenty of sites and magazines give previews of the new television shows hitting the airwaves each season. The DP isn’t one of them. No, the DP has no access to previews or screenings of these shows, and because of this we don’t feel an obligation to be nice when talking about the recycled, tired garbage the networks are going to be attempting to foist on us this fall. We have something better than previews, though: instinct. And we’re here to tell you which new shows you should pay attention to, and, more importantly, which shows not to get emotionally attached to, because they’re not long for this world (Trauma is already hemorrhaging).

A few caveats here: 1) I’m not looking at HBO shows – no real reason why, except those fuckers are responsible for True Blood and I’m getting sick of hearing/reading about that soap opera (that’s all it is, people – a soap with mythological characters, Rogue getting naked, and bad accents). 2) No reality shows are being mentioned. They thrive on appealing to the lowest common denominator, and I’ve found the LCD always manages to surprise me with their poor taste. And 3) I’m not mentioning actors in the series unless for some reason its pertinent to my prediction…or if there’s a good pic of an actress available.

So let’s start with CBS’s new shows:

Accidentally on Purpose – Mondays, 8:30/9:30

Stop me if you’ve heard this storyline before – a babe gets knocked up by someone who would normally not be on her radar, and then they decide to keep the kid and see where that takes them. Yeah, it’s stolen from Knocked Up, though it throws in another love interest for the girl. Whoop-de-doo. This is attempting to draw in the HIMYM and Big Bang Theory crowd, so it’s got a chance, but I’m betting that crowd has seen Knocked Up too and won’t feel the need to see a serialized small screen version.

The Good Wife – Tues. 9/10

The wife of a shady politician has to go back to work at a law firm when her husband goes to jail. Topical, and I really like Julianna Margulies, but the point about her working at a law firm leaves me cold. Too many damn shows out there with the court system, and I’m sure there will be a lot of emotional cases Margulies will get involved in: abused children, battered wives, etc., so it will become a courtroom drama. And dramas focused on leading women haven’t traditionally lasted on the Big Three (Providence, The Ghost Whisperer, …ok, that’s all I’ve got).

NCIS: LA – Tuesdays, 9/8

Can anyone actually watch Chris O’Donnell for a straight hour? His movie career says “NO.” LL Cool J is also part of the cast of this criminal investigation drama – yes, another one (which makes, what, 15 such shows, 8 of them with the letters “CSI” in them?) – and without Mark Harmon this time there goes the moms over 35 audience. But CBS is pretty good about marketing its crime shows, and with the names attached it’ll get at least two seasons. But I’ll be damned if you’ll be able to find anyone who admits to watching it.

Three Rivers – Sundays, 9/8

A medical drama revolving around transplant doctors. A tear-jerker to be sure, but it’s locked into a limited formula from the get-go. They’ll be telling stories from three perspectives (doctors, patient, donor), so there will be a lot of human interest, but CBS has not faired well with medical dramas since Chicago Hope which ended in 2000 ( L.A Doctors and City of Angels both might as well have been DOA). Still, CBS audiences tend to like limited formulas, and with the passing of ER, and the fact that older audiences probably find House too edgy, I’ll say the network finally will have an established medical drama to hang its hat on.

Next time: NBC’s new shows

Not man is crying, guys! Crying!

It’s tough being an Anthrax fan. On July 21 news hit the web that Dan Nelson, newly anointed lead singer of the thrash metal band, had been fired from the gig days before a European festival tour was to begin and three months before their new album “Worship Music”, was to be released (it was in the final stages of production). In a carefully worded press release, the band suggested Nelson was too ill to go on tour, and that the band would soon be auditioning for a new lead singer. Dan Nelson would later release his own press release, saying that the band’s reasoning was bogus and that his legal counsel would take appropriate action.

Well, shit.

This is not the first time Anthrax has had problems with its singer (unfortunately).  For instance, back in ‘05 Scott Ian and Charlie Benante, founding members of the band, decided to tour with their original lead singer, Joey Belladonna and the rest of their “Among the Living” lineup in recognition of their 25th anniversary as a band.  For me, it was a bit of a head scratcher as the band had just released “We’ve Come for You All” to critical acclaim, if not matching sales (if you haven’t heard it, do yourself a favor and grab it).  John Bush, their singer from 1992 until then, felt slighted and left the band, leaving the band frontman-less when Belladonna decided he did not want to continue with the band after the tour.

That situation always seemed to me to be Ian and Benante’s fault – I don’t know that too many fans were clamoring for an “Among the Living” reunion tour and Ian’s reasoning that the death of Dimebag Darrell made him want to see what “might have been” had Joey never left still seemed like a jerk move when considering Bush’s perspective.  And so they burned that bridge with Bush, leading them to pick up Dan Nelson as their singer.  It’s now been 6 years since Anthrax has released a new album.

This time, however, I can’t see how Ian and Benante can be blamed.  Something led them to kick Nelson to the curb before the European tour began, before the first album with Nelson fronting was released.  It apparently wasn’t Nelson’s decision, based on his press release, so Ian and Benante would have to some MAJOR reason to can him.  What was it?  No one’s saying, but there have been some reports of tension between the band members during their Rocklahoma appearance.  I just know that the release of Worship Music is now pushed back until a new lead singer is found, and who knows what the status of those songs will be?  Will we fans of Anthrax ever hear Nelson’s versions?   It’s doubtful.  I guess the bigger question is: will there even be another album?  John Bush is going to join them for a one-off at England’s Sonisphere show – I’m hoping against hope that there might be enough remnants of that bridge to rebuild it.

For me, it’s a bit depressing to think of a future that will be Anthrax-less.  I’ve been banging my head to their thrash for over 20 years now, and have longed to see them get the recognition bands like Metallica and Slayer get (two of the pillars of thrash, along with Megadeth and Anthrax).  I had hoped Worship Music would have announced a triumphant return.  It looks like it might be an unheard swan song.

May 1st is going to disappoint a lot of Wolverine fans. It’s going to enrage a lot of every single Deadpool fan. Gambit and Emma Frost fans are going to feel slighted. Hell, the three Blob super-fans out there are going to have to commiserate over a bucket of fried chicken skins after seeing Wolverine: Origins. To a Marvel comic book reader, the movie is that bad.

To non-comic book readers, the movie might be a mindless, action-filled romp, which is apparently all Fox wanted this movie to be. To fans of the comic book characters, the movie will be yet another example of why Fox should keep their hands off of Marvel properties.

Think about it. The most successful comic book movies have been films that, above all, stay true to the characters they are representing from the comic books. The Dark Knight takes enormous liberties with the details of how Bruce Wayne manages to be the caped crusader, but the movie never falters on the reasons why he does what he does. The first two Spider-Man films might diverge from the stories as presented in the comics, but they don’t infringe on who Peter Parker is, who Spider-Man has historically been (and even the third can only be faulted for how poorly the symbiote’s influence on Parker was portrayed). And the first two X-Men films, while not presenting the exact stories from the books, get the characters right.

Even with Storm's bad hair, you can still recognize each character

Look at the failed superhero movies: Daredevil, while not a complete bomb, tried to make the Man Without Fear into a Spider-Man/Batman hybrid. He’s not. It should be the simplest thing in the world to make a solid Punisher movie, but it hasn’t happened yet. Elektra might as well not have been about the Marvel character. The Fantastic Four films chose to go cheap on characterization, heavy on the campiness, and any sense of these characters beyond cartoons is never allowed. The casting wasn’t all that great, either (note: when re-booting, keep that guy who played Johnny Storm, can the rest – yes, including Jessica Alba – and make the Thing CGI).

Shouldn't The Thing look more physically imposing?

Wolverine: Origins commits the same damn mistake that those latter films do: it’s not true to the source material. Listen, I could care less how Ryan Reynolds character becomes Deadpool, so long as the figure called Deadpool is a mouthy killer who’s good with all kinds of weapons. He shouldn’t shoot Cyclops’ beams out of his eyes nor should swords the length of his arms come out of his forearms, AND HIS MOUTH SHOULDN’T BE SEWN SHUT! And it follows that if a prior film suggests that Wolverine has a dark past (you know, like X2 – and all of Marvel continuity – suggests), I’d expect to see some dark times rather than a character that is utterly heroic and noble throughout his entire life. As the tagline suggests, what Wolverine does isn’t very nice.

FOX studio's version of Deadpool - I'm not kidding.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the most successful comic books films remain true to the source material. There’s a reason these characters have remained popular with readers for decades, and when a studio disregards these qualities in favor of a chance to dazzle with some meaningless special effect, they are not creating a Wolverine movie, a Marvel movie, or a DC movie, but a _______ studio movie.

And that’s not what comic fans are paying to see.

LAMB OF GOD - WRATH

I am a huge fan of thrash metal.  There is just something about it that grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go.  The best metal of this sort has a “groove”:  riffs to kill for keeping time with hellaciously fast blastbeats, riding cymbals, and a pounding bass.   Back in the mid- to late 80s, there existed a sort of glory days of thrash.  This was exemplified by the four pillars of the genre (Anthrax, Slayer, Megadeth, and old Metallica) coupled with the “newcomers” Pantera.  Go ahead and throw in Prong (particularly Beg to Differ) and Testament as a couple of other favorites.

Lamb of God is today’s undisputed leader of the genre and is leading a renaissance of thrash.  Sure, Slayer and Metallica get the Grammys, but that is just a case of  name recognition on the part of the voters.  I was first turned on to LoG after hearing “Laid to Rest” from their album Ashes of the Wake, which was the first album I’d bought in a long time that simply ripped my face off.   And while I was never a huge fan of the “cookie monster”-style of vocal stylings, LoG just made it work for me.   Their follow-up, Sacrament, became a drop-date purchase for me, and it continued to impress.

But both albums have been eclipsed by the triumph that is Wrath.

Where do these guys get all of these wonderful riffs?  Seriously, if you don’t find yourself involuntarily headbanging during the bridge of “Dead Seeds,” you have no metal in your soul.   High points (as if there were low points) include “Set to Fail”, “Contractor” and “Choke Sermon”.    But my personal favorite is the closer, “Reclamation”:  the blues-based lick that provides the structure and, simply put, drive of this song is perfectly pieced together.  It is the juggernaut of the album.

Wrath is now the front-runner for album of the year.  It will be interesting to see what other bands are willing to put out this year in the face of this onslaught.

I firmly believe in the power of the placebo effect.

I am 97% certain (margin of error =/- 3%) that Airborne, Emergen-C, echinacea and any number of other supplements and herbal remedies don’t do a damned thing for you.  And yet, here I sit with a citrus-flavored effervescent drink fizzing beside me.  Why?

Because in every cold there is a pivotal moment.  In some cases, it’s that terrible moment of realization that you don’t feel quite right.  In others, it’s the day that you realize that you’re the only one in the office who isn’t half-dead.  It’s the feeling of inevitability.  It’s way too early for NyQuil, or even Tylenol.  It’s a horrible, powerless feeling, and you just want to do something to make you feel like you have some element of control over your body.  This, I believe, is why Airborne and its compatriots exist.

And so I sit here, confident that thanks to this magical little cocktail, I will have a great day and wake tomorrow feeling good as new.

But because I’m also a realist, I’ll be stopping at the drug store to buy some NyQuil and tissues.  Just in case.

Do you remember when you first heard the story of Nadya Suleman, the mother of the octuplets?  The first news that we heard was that they thought there were seven babies, and suddenly, mid-delivery, they discovered that there was an eighth baby hiding out in there.  Wow, quite a story, right?  Women everywhere were shaking their heads and thinking that there was no way in hell that they would ever want to be in a position where they were giving birth to the equivalent of a full litter, especially since multiples tend to be premature and have health problems.  How on earth could any one couple take on octuplets?

But then we learned more.  There was no couple; she’s a single mom.  And this wasn’t a fertility drug mishap where too many eggs fired off at once.  This was a deliberate placement of twice as many embryos as recommended for a woman her age (six were placed; two embryos split into twins).  In a woman who already had six other young kids, one of whom is autistic.  An unemployed woman who lives with her mom.  I mean, short of the kids being the spawn of some alien life form, the story could not possibly get any more bizarre.

And while the public turned on her, and the media exposed every strange corner of this woman’s life, one thing echoed in my mind: this is going to ruin reproductive medicine for other women, all because this woman and her wild card doctor went too far.

Tiny fingers.

Over the years, I’ve had several friends who’ve undergone reproductive therapies, ranging from fertility drugs right on through to IVF.  When it works, the result is nothing short of a miracle: a beautiful baby when nature alone wouldn’t allow it.  But even under the best of circumstances, the process is brutal, gut-wrenching and physically, emotionally and financially draining for the couple involved.  I’m worried that going forward, access to reproductive treatments will be limited, possibly taking away one last option from someone who so desperately wants it.

I’m hoping, for the sake of those other women, that the public will be able to distinguish between Suleman and the vast majority of women undergoing treatment.  I don’t want to see the reproductive rights of responsible individuals curtailed just because of one woman and one doctor who pushed things too far.