Lost and Found

LOST just blew my mind.

For the second post in a row I am writing immediately after having my ass completely kicked by an incredible TV viewing experience. Wow. Lost is back. It's been awhile but oh my God, that was an amazing episode. Now I'm usually more of a writing guy, I pay attention to dialogue and plotting and stuff like that. BUT - Holy crap, Terry O'Quinn has gotta be one of the greatest actors today. Okay, I knew he was good after his now-classic (well, cult classic at least) role as Peter Watts on Millenium. And the first Locke-centric ep of Lost stil stands as the show's best. But wow, here he took it to a whole new level, where though the plot's direction was not exactly shocking, it still gave me chills to see O'Quinn's incredible portrayal of John Locke - betrayed and used by a man he thought was his father, robbed of his health by the mysterious island, watching his friend Boone fall to his possible doom, and struggling to go on despite it all. Okay, give this man an Emmy or something. GREAT, CLASSIC episode of Lost. A+

ANYWAYS ...

I survived doing Ticket Box at work today! While it was still an EXTREMELY LONG and EXTREMELY TIRING day, I managed to pull through with but one void slip and not much else in the way of major problems, except for some incidents in which ppl didn't have ID's for the Tonight Show which was nothing I could control but resulted in some very angry customers. But overall not the nightmare that the first time was, but it still left me completely wiped out and thanking the lord that the work day was over at 5.

Yesterday I escorted supermodel Tyra Banks to her dressing room (well not really, she ran there since she arrived very late, like 5 minutes after the show had already started), and also Mr. former Mayor of NYC Rudy Guliani himself. I told Rudy G. I was a big admirer and brought him to his dressing room. But I did kind of tell a white lie with that one out of respect for the man, because in reality ...

GULIANI TANGENT:

Seriously, what an ass-kisser. I thought he was supposed to be this maverick independent who called it straight down the middle? Shyeah right. Come election time he was Bush flag-waiver numero uno, with nary a negative or even analytical comment to make about Dubya. During election season Guliani gave some of the most blatantly one-sided and propaganda-filled interviews I've heard, especially surprising coming from a man who had formerly been considered independent-minded. Now as mayor of NYC I give Rudy a lot of credit for helping turn that city around and providing good leadership in times of crisis. But his post-mayoral career has been built on a platform of 9-11, 9-11, and more 9-11, all with a blatant dose of "yes I just MAY be thinking of persuing a national political career down the line, so remember .....
9-11." Last I checked Guliani was MAYOR of a city with no actual foreign policy credentials, no actual national experience, and no actual qualifications to challenge less exposed but more experienced candidates on either side of the political spectrum. His lack of vision was painfully obvious in his repeated and desperate pleas for Americans to support Bush on the sole basis that Bush was the only candidate with the balls to crack down on terrorism, when in fact Bush and Kerry's plans for dealing with the issue barely differed in any discernable way. But Rudy's high-profile and over the top endorsement thrust him into the national political spotlight, and made this once universally respected leader a one-note footnote in the new neocon nation that solidly emerged post-November 2004. But hey, he gets to appear on LENO, so it's alllll good.

Oh, HEY:

Next week we got some good guests coming on the show, as the Sin City hype machine continues, and some high profile musical acts appear, including a little band called VELVET REVOLVER. Rockin'.

TOMORROW:

Eight hours of Dennis Miller. That's A LOT of cultural baggage for one day.

THIS WEEKEND:

Things are shaping up pretty nicely for once. Friday = Sin City (the movie, not the city). Saturday = day o' fun with some of the NBC pages. Sunday = oh, so i a late-breaking development, on Sunday, just when it seemed like there was no way in hell of this actually happening, I am going to be headed to the Staples Center in LA to witness, live, a day of mayhem and staged violence that can only be known as WRESTLEMANIA. Awwwww yeah, thanks to fellow CT transplant Paul Lurie, who's job at the Late Late Show yielded a pair of tickets to the sold out show, hand-delivered by Stone Cold Steve Austin himself! Hell yeah!

In other nerd news : Sorry to see the BLUE BEETLE go. He was one of my faves, and hopefully he'll be back soon, resurrected and hatching schemes with Booster Gold like old times.

Another overly-discussed favorite show of mine, VERONICA MARS, finally returned Tuesday with a truly excellent episode which revealed A LOT about the show's ongoing mystery arc. What a great show, and congrats on it being voted the NUMBER ONE show that fans want to see renewed for next season. See, other people DO watch it (yes, I'm talking to YOU, non-true-believers).

Randomly ran into a former NBC page today who now works at FOX. He told me only that his name was Johnny D and that I should mention his name to my superiors. Intriguing.

How 'bout YAO MING with the coast-to-coast behind the back fake-out drive-n'-dunk tonight against the Blazers?

How 'bout the fact that I am COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED and better put and end to this rambling post NOW - put it out of its misery before I start ranting about how K-ROQ plays the same three songs over and over or how I must have explained to people how to get Tonight Show tickets about 87 BILLION times today.

And with that, I can only say ... goodnight.