Bragging Rights

January 15, 2006

Sometimes, O Best Beloveds, I take time off from writing about MEEEEE and write about your fine exploits instead. This is one of those times.

But first, the opposite of bragging; after 24 years, the Los Angeles Times has discontinued the music news column known as “Pop Eye,” and I mention this because for 14 of those years, it was written by Steve Hochman, long-suffering husband and cancierege (tm J. Bicks). Oh, sure, there will still be some form of music news column in the Sunday Calendar, but under a different title, and only by staff writers, and if this change bothers you in any way, or if you generally enjoy reading stuff by that Hochman fellow, feel free to write a note to the Times telling them so.

On to the good stuff:

  • Tired of just being my wingman, Rick Garman wrote his own guide to Las Vegas, Moon Handbooks Las Vegas. Rick’s funnier than I am, plus there are photos he took his very own self inside it. To appease any Frommer’s editors reading this, I hasten to point out that no one should use just one guidebook when they travel (you should always have more than one perspective from which to draw), so pair Rick’s book with my Frommer’s Las Vegas. (Oh, okay, fine. Just buy only Frommer’s in all cases except this one.)
  • After spending years making “Will & Grace” a better show than it ought to be, the keen wit of the splendid Jeff Greenstein, aided this time by the adorable Bob Kushell, has been turned to “Jake in Progress,” and the result is quite a funny show. Watch it on Mondays at 9:30pm, in ABC.
  • Hey, speaking of Steve Hochman, he wrote the passionate and absorbing liner notes for The Great American Baseball Box, a sterling collection of baseball related song and sounds, all neatly packed in a replica of first base. Steve should write about sports more, specially baseball; when he does, his heart is on his sleeve and both look better for it.
  • The indefatigable Steve Wynn, and his aptly named Miracle Three show off their unstoppable sonic chemistry on the new noisy (and I mean that in the best of all ways) record, “…tick…tick…tick”. Go to www.stevewynn.net to hear it and learn how to buy it.
  • Claire Fordham left her home in England to come hang out with her sister Julia, and discovered Hollywood is a tough town. But she’s a tough chick, so she wrote a comic memoir about it. Unlike SOME memoirs, hers is true. Also, funny. Plus One: A Year In the Life of a Hollywood Nobody.

Basking in reflected glory,