The Weak Ender

You still think life is fair? This young lady, Alex Leigh, was the guest of Colin Montgomerie recently at Wimbledon. Yes, the golfer with the bigger rack than Phil Mickelson and Natalie Gulbis pulled this underwear model. Word is, this is girl is also deaf and dumb and oversexed and she operates a liquor store. (Props if you get that reference.)

You can reason all that you want that golfers are not athletes. But they attract women like they are. Hell, he is pulling better than Michael Strahan.

Hey, what do you want, it's a holiday weekend!

Strahan Stars on Broadway

Michael Strahan is not gay, but his boyfriend sure is. Just kidding. As noted in the New York Daily News today, Strahan has done a pretty good job of downplaying the gay accusations. Instead of holding a press conference to announce he is straight (like Mike Piazza) or impregnating Katie Holmes, Strahan has been pretty cool about the whole thing.

But having the world find out about your liposuction surgery is not going to help those rumors at all. Not that there is anything wrong with that. You can kind of see Strahan�s dilemma. Once weighing in at 275 pounds, Strahan needed to drop a few pounds to get meaner and leaner to keep pace in the NFL.

It's not like the quarterbacks are just going to lay down for him anymore.

And new Last and Ten is ready for you!

Somewhat cloudy

Today's column looks at season two of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," a show I always want to like much more than I do. (I think I was one of three people who actually preferred "Starved" to it.)

And with most of the TV business taking the long weekend off, so am I. I don't know whether I'll be near a computer to do recaps of "Deadwood" and/or "Entourage" over the weekend, but if not, I'll get to them late Tuesday/early Wednesday.

Enjoy your independence, everybody. Remember: they may take our lives, but they will never take... our freedom! Or something like that.

The week after

I feel like I've written about nothing but "Rescue Me" for the last week, and since the latest episode barely dealt at all with The Incident, I'll keep this brief.

With a lot of the storylines running in place -- the Chief's non-bartending job and struggle to find money for his wife's care, Garrity and Maggie, Probie's non-relationship relationship -- the big developments came from our pair of Oscar-winning guest stars. I'm particularly torn about Susan Sarandon stealing Franco's daughter. On the one hand, she stole his kid. On the other hand, it's not like she plans to shut Franco out of Keelah's life, and she gives Tommy a much more reasonable explanation for why she'd be a better parent to Keelah than Franco -- one of the few times in this show's history where a woman has taken the moral high ground over one of the guys and really seemed to deserve it. But still, she stole his kid! (And, yeah, Franco stole her, too, but from disinterested foster parents, and he's her actual father.)

Meanwhile, enter Marisa Tomei as the latest gorgeous babe to fall improbably under Tommy's manly spell -- or not. I like that she blew off his proposal for revenge sex, and that, even when she finally agreed to it, it was more out of a desire to get back at Johnny than any kind of attraction to Tommy. (And the previews make it look even more fake and businesslike.)

The hour's strongest moment came, as it often does, when Tommy was confronted by the ghosts of his past -- not just Jimmy and Connor, but Billy the well-endowed fireman who died in "Inches." As much as this show can piss me off in other ways, I stick around for scenes like the one at the end.

What did everybody else think? Is Susan a heroine or a manipulative baby-stealer? Is Marisa really just having fun, or is she going to become Sheila 2.0? And how long before Jerry smashes a beer bottle over his boss' head, and/or steals money out of the till to pay the bills?

The column took yesterday off, but today's features an interview with Bill Lawrence about his attempt to resurrect "Nobody's Watching" via YouTube.

And in another "Scrubs" musical link: Payback is a bitch.

Bad Apples

A Raiders fan being drunk and arrested is not really newsworthy. Unless of course that fan is Guns N� Roses front man Axl Rose, who was arrested in Stockholm after reportedly biting a security guard on the leg. Appetite for Bouncer anyone? Obviously, Rose was a huge fan of Matt Millen. Rose reportedly bit the security guard after he broke up a fight between Rose and a woman. (Yeah, why should baseball players have all of the fun beating up women?)

Rose faces charges of damaging property, assault and threatening police. Rose was said to be so drunk, he couldn�t even communicate with police who tossed him in the drunk tank, waiting for him to sober up. In other words, it was just your average day in the Raider Nation.

Hey Axl, how about more work on your new album and less biting security guards. Guns N� Roses hasn�t put out a record since the last time the Raiders won the Super Bowl. Or maybe it just seems that way.

The Hater Nation will keep you updated on this case.

Wimbledon Hates Men

There are leagues that flat-out ignore its core fan base (looking at you WNBA) and pretend that it's the sport that sells. Then there is women's tennis that has thrived in popularity because it features hot women in skimpy outfits. There are those who will try to reason that women's tennis is more popular than the men's because it has better competition and is more compelling.

Those people are idiots.

And, unfortunately, those people are the stuffy Brits in charge of Wimbledon. Officials have warned players like Maria Sharapova, Tatian Golovin and Maria Kirilenko (right) saying they could be disqualified if their clothing deemed inappropriate. Just to be perfectly clear to those officials, nothing worn by Kirilenko should be deemed inappropriate. Ever. If she wants to play tennis in a burlap sack, let her.

Be realistic.

Making sure that Lindsey Davenport is wearing conservative clothing. Good idea. Making sure the Williams sisters are wearing conservative clothing. (Expletive) great idea. (Burqas maybe?)

But like how the NBA always gave Michael Jordan all of the calls, tennis officials need to let superstars like Kirilenko and Sahrapova wear pretty much what they want to.

Colleges Preparing Future NFL QBs

Cal coach Jeff Tedford has developed a knack for turning out quarterbacks who can�t quite make it in the NFL�at least on the field. Tedford�s latest prot�g�, Steve Levy, has proven that he has the same bad-decision making skills of guys such as Daunte Culpepper, Drew Bledsoe, Brian Griese and Ben Roethlisberger.

The Cal senior was jailed this weekend in San Francisco on suspicion of felony assault for allegedly throwing a pint glass at a doorman who asked him to leave a North Beach pub, police said Monday. Levy has been suspended from football activities.

Levy was involved in a dust-up and was asked to leave the bar when he picked up a pint glass and tossed it, hitting a doorman square in the forehead. Tedford was said to be impressed with Levy's accuracy even though he had already pounded a few beers. Levy spent his junior season as a backup, but Tedford said that he could work his way to the starting lineup if he could continue to hit his receivers between the eyes.

Maybe Levy should just have a few shots before practice to get his skills sharp.

Levy is rumored to be using the famed "Hollywood defense" claiming that he got the idea of hitting the doorman in the face by watching John Moxon in the movie Varsity Blues. Levy was heard yelling, "I don't want your life dad," as he was hauled away to jail.

No word on if Levy ends up with Amy Smart or that slutty cheerleader. If the whip cream bikini scene is not in the YouTube Hall of Fame, that's a crime.

Fun With NFL Shops

Found this via via Office Pirates. You knew this was going to happen eventually. This is kind of low class and really harsh. In other words, we love it. In fact, kind of bummed not to think of it first. It�s not really that bad seeing that Roethlisberger brought this on himself. If this was say, a bloodied Jerome Brown jersey with a Corvette patch, that would be over the line. (But damn funny.)

You can actually get a jersey like this customized at NFL Shops. The only problem is that Toothlessberger is a little too long. (And they might do some sort of Ron Mexico-type of ban on this.) So here are a few suggestions for Browns fans really looking to stick it to the Steelers.

The suggestion here would be to get the white jersey and really bloody this thing up. Rips and teethblack would really sell this concept. Have any suggestions? Leave them in the comments section.

It's baaaaaaack!!!!

Someone has once again posted the video of Turk dancing to "Posion" on YouTube. If you didn't see it when that episode of "Scrubs" aired, don't miss it. It will fill you with six different kinds of happiness.

The Post Mortem

The media never ceases to amaze. White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen calls a reporter a name and the sporting world tilts off of its axis. Really, has more ever been made out of a non-story like this?

Yet, the White Sox have been accused of cheating by using a center field camera to tip off pitches and nobody cares. Either it was the centerfield camera, or Crash Davis finally made it to the big leagues. But this still remains a non-story because Guillen called a reporter a name.

Of course, the Cardinals might just be whiners. But isn't cheating a bigger issue than calling a reporter a name? Well, not cheating in the sense of steroids because baseball reporters ignored that forever. Maybe if Barry Bonds had called some reporter a "fag," the steroid case would be been uncovered sooner.

Philadelphia pitcher Brett Myers smacks his wife up in public and he made his start on Saturday. Talk about giving baseball a black eye. Guillen is expected to attend sensitivity training for calling a reporter a name, but Myers has no repercussions for hitting a woman. Anybody in the media want to tackle this issue? Where is Jay Mariotti calling for a two-week suspension? Oh that's right, Myers didn't call Mariotti a name so it is no big deal.

Bud Selig could pull out a firearm and shoot up a school, but it wouldn�t register a blip in the news because Guillen called a reporter a name. And you wonder why nobody is reading newspapers anymore. (Actually, it's probably The Bish's fault.)

• It's really hard to imagine the White Sox as cheaters, especially after watching A.J. Pierzynski play the game. There is a guy who plays the game the right way. The right way if you are fifth grader playing kickball and you want the entire class to beat your ass.

• Does Ozzie seem like the kind of guy who would be sophisticated enough to pull off an elaborate scam like using a center field camera to tip off pitches? Not to say that he is stupid, but he's always seemed like the kind of guy whose brain is always flashing "12:00."

• Looks like North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams is trying to challenge the K-Dawg for the College World Series� biggest camera (expletive).


AND FINALLY
The NCAA is looking to expand the men's basketball tournament field from 64 to 128. Good to see they have the student's best interest in mind and is not all about the money. The only good news that could possibly come from all of this would be to expand the women�s tournament, too.

Dom-duh-dom-dom

I don't know that I have a lot to say about last night's "Entourage," other than that I could have lived a million years and still not needed to see Domenick Lombardozzi's ass. Give me him busting heads as Herk on "The Wire," not as this thug who's such an obvious troublemaker that even Vince -- head in the clouds, everyone's my friend Vince -- would have paid for Dom's hooker and sent him on his way by the end of the episode. I like that the show is acknowledging that Vince's new status as the hottest movie star on the planet will have its downsides, as well as making it clear that Turtle and Drama aren't just leaches by contrasting them with Dom, but there had to be a smarter, funnier way to illustrate those points. If it wasn't for Ari's feud with the star of "Young 21 Jump Street" (a show I would pay money to see), the episode would've been a total loss.

Also, in case you checked the Leary/Tolan entry before I was able to include the link to my column, NJ.com finally posted it.

MexiCHOKE

Fans of Mexico�s national soccer team, much like Raiders fans, are among the most delusional in all of sport. Yet, not as smart though just as ugly. And believe me, my country produced Steffi Graff and even I would not go out with a fan of Mexico�s soccer team. The mustaches are too thick�and that�s just the women.

For the Raiders, one win in early September against the Texans has their fan base booking their Greyhound tickets for the Super Bowl.

Confusion eventually arises for Raider nation in late February when their team is nowhere to be seen near the big game (this is the hidden reason why Super Bowl Sunday is often cited by women�s support groups as the day in the year more domestic violence is committed than any other - apoplectic Raider fans often turn on their ladies that day when they sober up long enough to realize their team was eliminated from playoff contention in October).

Likewise, Mexican fans were roused from their siestas earlier this month when their overrated team had to come from behind to beat an embarrassingly poor Iranian (they play soccer?) side, in their first World Cup Match.

Based on this one meager win, victory parades were planned, pi�atas were beaten, and certain fans who made their way to Germany jumped over the remnants of the Berlin Wall in joy. Or for practice.

But then Mexico and went out and were fortunate to tie a short-handed Angola team. Angolan players may or may not have shown up for the game with soccer shoes, we�re still looking into this.

And then Mexico got their asses handed to them by a Portugal team with nothing to play for, but they still snuck into the Round of 16 because they were undeservingly placed in the worst group in the tournament.

And in the knockout round � Mexico lost, just as I said it would happen a couple weeks ago. Outclassed by the classless Argentineans, 2 to1. But hey, give Mexico credit, they held the lead in the game for almost four minutes. And, to be fair, they were the better team for the first six minutes of the match. Kind of like how the Raiders were better than the Buccaneers in the opening minutes of Super Bowl XXXVII.

So, to recap, here�s Mexico�s World Cup in Review: One near-loss against an awful Iran team, one embarrassing tie, and two beat-down losses. And they were the first (and only) of the eight #1 seeds in the Cup to get kicked out early, too (was Mike Kzshexvsksky their coach?).

That, my friends, is a Raider-like tournament.

Rape or not rape?

Tolan! Leary! Leary and Tolan! Tolan and Leary! The morning after last week's "Rescue Me" -- specifically, after The Incident between Tommy and Janet at the end of the episode -- I called my friendly neighborhood FX publicist and asked to speak to Peter and Denis about their interpretation of the scene and some of the angry reactions to it.

As I said in a post on Friday, I don't agree with a lot of what the guys had to say, but I respect their willingness to talk about it in a fairly calm exchange. NJ.com just posted the column I wrote about the interview, but if you have lots and lots and lots of time to kill -- especially on the passage where Denis gives his views on women in the FDNY -- I've put a full transcript of the interview after the jump. I didn't really bother to clean up the grammar on either end, so apologies if my questions are so evasively-phrased that I occasionally sound like a "Deadwood" character.

QUESTION: Peter, from seeing what you wrote on TV Without Pity, you're clearly aware of some of the negative reaction to what happened in the scene at the end of Tuesday's episode. First of all, can you describe what your intention was, what you were trying to convey with that scene?

PETER TOLAN: Well, we're talking about characters we've established who have great difficulty in terms of expressing themselves emotionally, and so at that point, it doesn't seem an option anymore for these people, especially as their actions become more unacceptable to each other, Janet sleeping with Tommy's brother, so forth and all that. We can only expect that the non-emotional reaction, that is, physical or vocal, are going to become more and more dangerous, or more and more intense. So in that way, it seemed right. I mean, we've never said that this is a functional relationship, it's highly dysfunctional. And so it seemed -- we definitely knew that this was a dangerous scene, and in some ways we tried to be very careful about it, but at the same time, those are the characters, this is the show, it's informed by everything that's come before it and it will inform everything that comes after it. If this was the season finale or the finale for the series, I wouldn't blame viewers for burning down FX. And by the way, I'll give the address to anyone who wants it.

DENIS LEARY: The other thing you have to remember with these two people, is the choice she made after Tommy -- discussing this thing amongst ourselves, in organically continuing the characters paths, before the season began and before we started writing it -- Tommy actually says it, I think, in the first episode, you know, 'There's blood on both our hands.' Because she got back into the relationship last year, with that great reading of that line 'Til Death do us part.'. She did it because of financial reasons and to put the family back together for the kids. And Tommy said, basically, if we hadn't gotten together again, Connor would still be alive because he wouldn't have been on that street at that time. It's backtracking, they're both trying to backtrack to explain why they lost that child. Anyways, she made a choice from there that is very difficult for Tommy to swallow. At the same time these two have had an animal attraction to each other going back to when they first met. That, in essence is what that scene [inaudible] of -- everything that antagonizes the both of them towards each other, and then this insane physical passion that they have never been without, really, in their relationship, you know?

Q: So even though he's clearly manhandling her and in charge at the beginning of that scene, you guys would not in any way consider what took place there to be rape?

DL: No, not at all. As a matter of fact, in shooting that scene and in writing it, but especially in shooting it, you go back and you watch the scene and watch it from the beginning of that scene until the end, it's actually one of the -- Andrea Roth was fantastic in that scene, because she goes from fear and anger and punching him in the face and fighting him back, and back to the place where they began their relationship, where the spark occurred. Even her reaction afterwards is that horrible magnetic pull that these two people have for each other, which is ultimately going to be their destruction, because they can't get away from each other and they have to. One of the things I've always said about shooting this scene and knowing that people were going to be hanging on a Tuesday night waiting till the next week is, you know, 'If you want to see what that scene is about, keep on watching, and watch what happens with that relationship over the course of the season,' because, you know, it's about the intensity between them and the attraction -- they'll never get over that attraction, so they have to get away from it, they have to be separated, because it's always going to be there.

Q: Now, I have actually seen next week's episode, because (FX publicity) sent out 4 and 5 together, and there's very little follow-up to that in the next episode, other than Tommy, I guess, being concerned that he might have given her chlamydia. You had to know -- as you said, you had to be careful in the writing and the shooting of the scene -- you had to know that some people were going to take it that way. Was there any thought to doing something in the following episode to clarify exactly what this was?

DL: No. We clarify it over the course [of the season]. It's in six, it's dealt with seven and again in eight. It affects her long-term, and, without giving away how it goes down, comes down right into the last three episodes of the season.

Q: But you're obviously not surprised that some people did take it that way.

DL: No. Whenever you do something, you know, it's not the movie world where you can wrap everything up in the course of 90 minutes or two hours, so these relationships are very detailed and long-term. We knew that some people were going to react the wrong way, in our opinion, but either way that people reacted, that they would get their answers as they continued to watch, because that relationship in particular -- all of them obviously, because you hope you're creating interesting relationships across the board -- but that relationship is so complicated, and complicated even further now by what occurred. And it obviously has an affect on both of them, and on Tommy's brother Johnny, as well.

Q: Other than, I guess, show 3, which ends with us finding out that Probie is having this relationship with his roommate, every episode this season so far has closed with Tommy sort of walking off triumphantly into the sunet or into his car or whatever, and there was definitely, as he leaves Janet's apartment, that look of "I've just accomplished something and I'm driving off because I came, I saw, I conquered." Was that what you were going for with that?

DL: The look on his face afterwards was more about his brother and reclaiming his wife without his brother knowing it. That's what that's about.

PT: There's a lot of conjecture as to what that look means and what the whole act is actually about. And this is what I think it's about, and this shows you how deeply distubed these characters are. Yeah, you could say, yes he has forced himself on Janet to get back at Johnny or to get back at her for her being with him and all that, but I think the truth of it is, in spite of all this stuff that's gone on, he still loves her. In an entirely misguided, crazy way, he's trying to recapture something with her from a million years ago that he'll never be able to recapture and so much water has gone under the bridge, the relationship is irreparably damaged, and they're just going to spin in this vortex for a while until one of them breaks away for good.

DL: I don't think there's any question in Tommy's mind, that's the way, certainly when I'm writing or working the scenes with her, that's the woman he wants. It's obviously a very screwed-up and complicated relationship, but if she said, 'Yeah, I'm coming back tomorrow,' he would take her right in.

PT: A lot of people see that scene, Alan, and say, 'I got her back' [meaning revenge], but I see it as 'I got her back! My wife's back!'

DL: Hopefully it's a long-term effect that, because of that passion, she may come to her senses and say, 'I want to be with you.' That's Tommy's dream come true. With all the water under the bridge fllowing, let's get back together. That's the woman he wants to see when he walks in the door at night.

PT: I think it's a little simplistic for people to look at that and say 'Well, he just did that to get back at Johnny.' He already got back at Johnny, he already beat the shit out of him in the street, I don't think he needs to go this far. I can see how people would make that interpretation, but that's not in our minds what it is.

Q: Now, earlier in the episode there's the Crazy Chick-Calling Day sequence where Tommy's fielding these phone calls from all the women in his life and who are all nagging him, and one of the complaints I've heard about the show and, frankly, that I sometimes have, even though I love it overall, is that, while the men are allowed to be screwed-up and have problems and be reprehensible at times, they're also shown to have admirable qualities. Tommy's good at his job, he cares about Lou, he cares about the other guys, etc. Whereas the women, for the most part, we're only getting the male point of view of them, which is negative. They mainly seem to be there to mess with the guys. What would you say to that?

PT: Denis has always said that, when that complaint comes up, that somehow it's about men who hate women or have some issue with women. The reality is these are men whose actions are determined by the fact that they need these women, and either they love them or need them in some way. Ultimately it's the women in these things who have the power over them. Either they can't express themselves or they're incapable of that, but it's the women who are more powerful. In terms of what those women do, we're obviously only showing parts of their lives, because our main story is the guys. We're not showing the full story. Is Sheila -- yeah, some people say 'Sheila's crazy, 'Sheila's a whiner' -- but is she also a good mother? Because we've only seen her in certain situations where she's done everything she can to protect her son. 'You're not going to be a firefighter.' 'You're not going to be selling drugs.' 'I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that.' We see Sheila, that as a positive. Having said that, when people say 'Why can't there be a good relationship on Rescue Me, why can't we have a positive happy couple?,' I say, 'You know what? I'd love to show that. Do I want to write it? No.'

DL: Do you want to play it, as an actor?

PT: It would bore the shit out of me.

DL: It's not a great story to tell. But at a certain point, this is one of the things we've talked about for next year is how much fun, having had these screwed-up relationships, to have everybody settle back and all of a sudden everybody has paired off and is happy. And then, because it's the nature of life and the stories we're telling, that can only last for so long.

PT: At this point, we've established a format where, every now and then, we offer the prospect of happiness to a couple, or to a man and a woman, and at the last minute, of course, our better instinct comes through and we dash whatever hopes they had.

Q: Well, I'm not even necessarily talking about whether people can have functioning relationships. I think back, you know, to the Diane Farr character, for instance, who when she was introduced, it seemed she was there in part to fill the same role she did on 'The Job,' which was to keep some of the guys' macho bullshit in check and show this is not necessarily the way you have to look at the world, and by the time she left, she had been reduced to this whiney, incompetent character.

DL: In the house that we're working out of, and within the reality of the show, which is based in the reality of firefighting in a big city, that is exactly how that relationship would occur. We've discussed it in the show, and I forget the monologue where we deal with it, but women have, for the most part, including Diane's character, been legislated into this job, because they don't have to take the same physical test that the men have to take, and the Mayor's office and other political aspects have come into it, and they demand a gender balance. And now they're demanding an ethnic balance. They're willing to forgive failure in the physical test because they want more black firefighters, more Chinese firefighters, they want an ethical, politically correct balance. The truth of the matter is that on the job guys are extremely resentful that they had to go through a physical exam that involved so many difficult things, including running up seven flights of stairs with 100 pounds of equipment strapped to you and picking up a 150-pound dummy and carrying it, running down seven flights of stairs with it. If you can't do that, you can't do the job, so when these women and other people are legislated into the job, it pisses these guys off to no end, because it puts their lives at risk, as well as the people they're saving. And that's an issue that will never go away, it's only going to get worse, actually, as the FDNY starts to deal with federal government investigations, 'Why aren't they more ethnically-balanced in the New York fire department?' The truth is, it's a job that you have to want to do and be able to do. I don't know about you, but if my kids are stuck in a burning building, I don't want the person who's legislated in, I want the guy who wants to go in and get them going after them. It's life or death, and that's what her storyline was about. We wouldn't introduce another female firefighter tomorrow unless we were going to make her -- and, by the way, I've met female firefighters from other parts of the country who are supremely physically able to do the job, that we would deal with -- that would be an interesting female character to have. That's why that issue was dealt with the way that it was. She shouldn't have been there. She wasn't capable of doing it.

Q: I guess what I'm asking is, is there a way -- going back to what I said before, it's not like Tommy for the most part is a positive character, but he does have admirable qualities. Is there a way of changing what the show is to maybe alter the balance a little bit in terms of showing occasional good sides to the female characters?

PT: Alan, we have actually talked about this, and at a certain point, yeah, you want to try and balance things out. We've talked about next season, that Probie's going to be a full firefighter soon, and we're going to need to bring in another probie. Who is that? Why couldn't it be a woman? And why couldn't it be a capable woman? And why couldn't it be a lesbian or somebody who's extremely capable in the job and the guys have to deal with that. They'll do the same thing, they'll say she shouldn't be there, but she'll prove herself and they'll have to accept her. And then you'll be getting that woman's viewpoint from a woman they are forced to respect for her abilities. And then you can open the character up and open them up to in terms of having a woman they can talk to about women and get sort of an informed attitude. I think that's an interesting choice we could make.

DL: You start talking about conceivably, possibly, a gay firefighter. Well, I know a chief here in Manhattan who's not only out of the clsoet but was a fantastic firefighter and became a lieutenant and became a chief. And the guys had no problem with him whatsoever, because he was physically able to do the job. And that's what it all came down to. As much as they were probably upset about it at first, once they saw the guy in action, they were like, 'Fuck this. He's good.' That what it's all about.

Q: That brings me to the current Probie storyline. Peter, you were saying in the TV Without Pity message board that it had started out as something else and had morphed. Could you elaborate on what it originally was going to be and why it evolved into this?

PT: I had originally pitched that storyline, and in talking about it with Dennis, we constructed a different story for that, that was certainly dramatic, it certainly had highly dramatic elements to it. Part of that was the Probie actually was -- we'd set up a guy who was searching for love, was restless and lonely and all those things, he'd had the relationship with the overweight woman last season -- and he was just searching. So it made sense that this was the next step that it would be. But it was for the most part a dramatic storyline. In the course of talking about it, we realized maybe we were repeating some things, some storylines we'd done in earlier seasons. That was the main concern, so we started to back off that storyline, but we'd already put it into motion. So at this point we're playing it much more for humor than we did in the original pitch. Whether it's successful is another story, I don't know. A lot of people, from what I'm hearing, either think it's very funny and right on target for the character or really confused by it and not sure why we did it, and whatever. But that happens a lot on our show. We'll start out saying, 'Hey, we're going to do this,' and then either some flaw will come up and we'll move on to something else, or something else stronger will come along and we'll go with that.

Q: Before we finish up, let's go back to the original scene with Tommy and Janet. Dennis, you talked about how it's not a feature, you can't wrap it up at the end of two hours, it's something you're going to deal with going forward. But I've certainly heard and read a lot of people saying that they're done with the show after having witnessed that. What would you tell them to make them maybe want to continue to see where this goes?

DL: It's hard to tell somebody who's giving up on a show... Me, my favorite show on television over the course of the last five or six years has been 'The Sopranos,' and it's always interesting to me that people can see Tony Sopranos kill somebody and chop up a body and get rid of it and not have an issue with it, but in this instance have a problem with Tommy Gavin and his wife in that scene. Maybe you're watching this show for the wrong reasons, and maybe you shouldn't be watching it, you know what I mean? The only time I have a problem with The Sopranos is when I think, 'Oh my god, this is a ridiculous storyline.' or 'Why are we watching this character when we could be watching the main characters?' So I have no answer for them, you know?

Q: Peter, do you have one?

PT: First of all, I think that the number of people who are saying they're done with the show is probably a small number. I would certainly hope so. But the truth of it is, we must believe, and we would not write a scene to be provacative. That was never our intention, this is a storyline that is thought out and is supported by the previous actions of the characters in this relationship and will be answered in karmic ways in later episodes. We're not there to be provacateurs, but I would say to them somewhat the same what Denis said: 'Don't watch the show.' But I have a feeling that a great many of the people who said, 'I'm not going to watch' won't be able not to. Because if they care that passionately to make that statement, there's something that attracts them to the show.

DL: There's actually a woman who called my production office at Apostle and spoke to one of the guys who works for me. And she went into a diatribe about how much she loved the show and was so upset about what happened (last night) and eventually he cut her off and said, 'Why are you calling me?' And she said, 'I just want to file a complaint.' He said, 'Are you saying you're not going to watch the show anymore?' And she said, 'Well, I didn't say that.' That's just kind of interesting to me.

PT: A lot of people, yes, they hated that. They thought it was over the edge, too far. But just like you, Alan, just like what you wrote in your blog, there are other parts of the show that still have their attention that still have their heart, and they're not ready to give up on that. Look, the fact is, people are passionate about it, people are talking about it. In this business, that's always better than people who just don't give a shit.

DL: That's true. If they didn't give a shit...

PT: ... then we've failed all the way around.

Deadwood: You can leave your capon

Spoilers for "Deadwood" episode three after the jump...

Okay, I am officially scared of Gerald McRaney. Here's a guy I always thought of as a meat-and-potatoes actor, someone who got the job done and not much more. When Milch cast him as Hearst, I assumed there was more to the man than I had seen, but I never imagined him being this bloody good. When Hearst leaned in and told Alma, "You are reckless, madame. You indulge yourself," I don't think I've been as frightened by a fictional character as I was with Gene Hackman's "I'm gonna hurt you. And not gentle like before... but bad" scene from "Unforgiven." If this was a feature, I have no doubt Hackman would be playing Hearst, and I doubt he could play him much better. Sometimes, an actor just needs the right material to show his stuff.

(Hands up, anyone who already knew what a capon is. I had no clue, but upon looking it up, that's exactly how Hearst would view his role in Alma's proposed deal.)

Though he shows no interest in the town beyond its gold, Hearst is a good fit for Deadwood. The town is filled with people incapable of functioning in more polite society, and as Hearst admits to Aunt Lou (who, not surprisingly, is only faking the whole mammy act), he shouldn't be around regular people. The problem is, where Swearengen or Bullock recognizes his need for others, Hearst views himself as the God of The Color, answerable to no one. (Who says evil corporate barons first sprang up in the 1980s?)

As I said last week, the bonds of history are going to prevent any kind of definitive victory for Al in this fight, and as the episode begins, it looks like Al is already waving the red flag, despite Trixie's protest that "the last shot ain't been fired." It isn't until the arrival of Jack Langrishe, of all people. I don't know whether the real Langrishe had met Al years before he arrived in the camp, but my mind is swirling with visions of how these two men became friends.

In a way, it felt like this was the season premiere, what with the arrival of new characters like Jack and Aunt Lou, the return of others like Wu and Blazinov, plus Al's tour of the camp. (When he told Jack, "This is new," it was like Milch was showing off the additional sets they had built during the hiatus.) Brian Cox is one of those actors I'll watch in anything, and he finds the right balance between flamboyant and tough.

On the other end of the capon scene was Alma, who finally appears to be recognizing the limits of her sham marriage, especially now that she no longer needs Ellsworth to pose as her baby daddy. And unfortunately for Ellsworth, he sometimes forgets his place and tries to assert himself like a real husband. Not that Alma would have listened to anybody once she gets her mind set on something, but her "You hardly need explain yourself to me, your wife, in the thoroughfare, having laid down the law�" line was some cold sarcasm. Also interesting that, when Ellsworth later says he was trying to protect her, she barks, "You. Can't." So who can? Bullock? He got his lunch stolen by Hearst, who finally revealed the purpose of letting Al kill two of his guys while two other witnessed: now he has a Mutually Assured Destruction option should Al's ally Bullock ever come up with real evidence of his wrongdoing.

Some other random thoughts:

• While each episode usually takes place the day after the previous one ended, there are occasional exceptions, like the 10-day gap between last week and this one, which was necessary if for no other reason than to avoid having Alma bedridden for most of the season. Oddly, there's a reference in one of the next two episodes to six weeks having passed since William got trampled by the horse, and since a week elapsed between that episode and the season two finale, does that mean only four weeks elapsed between seasons? Or maybe I should just repeat the line one of the "Deadwood" writers once gave me after attempting to explain the season one chronology: "Now my brain hurts."
  
• At what point did Farnum turn into Renfield from the Dracula movies? His lurching and shuffling almost distracted me from the comedy of Hearst talking over E.B.'s "haughty cunt" line. Almost.
  
• Not sure which was funnier: Mr. Wu's new look or Blasinov demonstrating his new telegraph equipment to Merrick. Funniest of all was Al's pantomime routine: "'Hello, hello, hello.' The many Chinks."
  
• What the hell is wrong with Doc Cochran? It's never good when you cough up blood.
  

Milch-isms of the week:

• Al giving some meta-critique: "Ever wonder if you expressed yourself more directly, Merrick, you might fucking weigh less?" (Followed by Merrick's meta-rebuttal: "I see no logic in that whatsoever.")
  
• Al exaggerating his resume to Wu: "Swidgen must act as translator, as he is the only one in camp versed in both languages."
• Al irritated by Jack sucking up to Merrick: "Shit blizzard's early today."
  
• Farnum the unsubtle bigot to Hearst: "What depraved creature of exotic origin have you engaged to take my place?"
• Al on the local bacon: "Might have a human aftertaste."
• Al on Bullock: "Insane fucking person."
• Cy kissing Hearst's ass: "If you hadn't met me to wag it, sir, why would the Lord give me a tail?"

Matt's take is posted here. What did everybody else think?

The Weak Ender

Gotta dance!

Boston Celtics fans derided Lakers fans during their glory years for being too soft, too Hollywood, and having two many Paula Abduls dancing around on the sidelines. Boston was about basketball, not celebrities and pom-poms. But times, they are a changing. The Celtics are joining the rest of the NBA in the 1980s with the formation of the Celtic Dance Team.

You have to figure that Red Auerbach is spinning in his cigar-ridden grave right now.

The Celtics becoming hypocrites is bad. But having to choose a dance team from a talent pool like New England (which isn�t especially deep) is quite another. You can check out the pictures here. But your eyes might hate you. Not quite the Chargers Girls.

Thanks for the tip Sports By Brooks and especially Flash Warner.

• Sad news about the U.S. soccer team. This country was on the verge of getting into soccer. Now it is likely lost forever. At least America can now turn its attention to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

• Quote of the Week: "It's been different when you'd had a guy behind you for seven years."�Michael Strahan on his divorce. Oh wait, it was Peyton Manning in regards to Edgerrin James.

• The Angels are holding a summit with its brain trust to figure out a way to right the ship according to the Los Angeles Times. This should be good. The sad truth is that you are only as good as your last team, and the memory of 2002 is starting to fade. Only two moves are needed to help the offense. Dump Chone Figgins, a glorified nine-hole hitter. And how about getting a new hitting coach? Why is it that these prized minor leaguers never seem to improve when they get to the big club? Maybe they can bump Mickey Hatcher down to Rally Monkey.

• Where the hell is Ghana? Is that where this guy is from?
  

AND FINALLY
The final word on Shaq. The Lakers did the right thing in getting rid of Shaq. The Diesel was going to be motivated to win one title without Kobe and it would have been nice to do it in a Lakers uniform. But not at the expense of crippling your team, salary wise, for the next five years. Selling out for one title makes sense for a team like Miami where a single title means the world to them and the city. One extra title means nothing to the Lakers. When you talk about Lakers and championship, only multiple titles matters. The Lakers have a better chance for multiple titles with Kobe than they did with Shaq. Happy for Shaq and Riley, but it just wouldn�t have made sense for the Lakers to keep him.

What is the over/under on Shaq�s weight next year? He could be pushing King Kong Bundy type of density.

Being Denis Leary

I'm going to be tied up for most of today transcribing and then writing up a very interesting phone interview I did yesterday with Leary and Peter Tolan about The Incident from this week's "Rescue Me." (Much good debate is still taking place in the comments section of the original post.) The story will run Monday, and depending on how ambitious I'm feeling, I may post the complete transcript here. While I don't agree with a lot of what the guys said, I give them credit for being willing to defend their positions in a reasonably non-hostile manner.

In the meantime, some interesting links:

• Matt reviews AMC's Robert Duvall/Walter Hill/Thomas Haden Church cowboy joint "Broken Trail" in today's column. Not surprisingly, he loves it. I've only seen the first half so far, but I'm inclined to agree.
• "Futurama" lives!
• Poor Chicken George is still trying to turn his stint on the first "Big Brother" into a new career as an entertainer. I have to confess a certain fondness for that inaugural season, which was so mind-bogglingly awful in every single way that I was mesmerized in a way that the generic "Survivor"-in-a-house format of the Arnold Shapiro years have never done for me. Bring back Will Mega! Bring back Jordan the stripper!
• Body image issues: Evangeline Lily hates her body, and "American Idol" helped Katharine McPhee kick bulimia. I am so not looking forward to the gaunt, sunken-eyed version of the McPhee that I'm sure we'll get once Clive Davis' minions are done "improving" her look.

Have a good weekend, everybody. Back Monday with the usual "Deadwood" and "Entourage" reviews, plus the Leary/Tolan extravaganza.

Happy now, USA?

Feeling good after blatantly screwing over my Hasselhoff-digging homeboy, Dirk Nowitzki?

Still giggling with glee after seeing the refs give All-American Dwyane Wade every, and I mean every, conceivable call in the NBA finals, to ensure Dirk's Team Teutonic lost?

Think it's funny that I have to hear another f'ing joke about how the Germans started strong, but couldn�t finish the job? And all because the freakin refs couldn't come close to doing their job?

Well, turn-about is fair play, because our German ref Markus Merk just single-handedly ensured the elimination of the US soccer team from the World Cup. Take that, capitalist swine!

Pay-back is an uber-bitch, as we like to say here, in between bites of bratwurst.

Today Merk issued one of the world's worst penalty kick decisions in the history of mankind, gifting Ghana a goal just when momentum was going in the US's favor late in the first half. Hilarious. Yeah, that might have been a foul, just like it might have been a good idea for my country to continue invading Stalingrad in the winter of 1942.

And that was after allowing Ghana to score their first goal moments after crippling the US captain Claudio "Backpass" Reyna on the play. Nope, no foul there, Gringos. Sorry about the ACL, though.

Ha! Merk was almost Knick Bavetta-like in the game. At least now Uruguayan ref Jorge Larrionda (he of the dubious red cards in the US-Italy fiasco) has someone to compare favorably to.

Keep that in mind the next time Wade gets 93 free throw attempts in his next game against Dallas.

In the meantime, I, Lil Dieter, say to my American soccer friends: Get the hell out of my country!

What's Alan watching? 'Nobody's Watching'

The nice folks at HBO sent out the first six episodes of "The Wire" season four (back in September!), so I spent most of last night watching the first two. I won't say much yet, save that fans are going to be very pleased, especially at the way that Simon has managed to keep around characters you would think the show would be long done with. (Prez is a major player this year, for Pete's sake.)

As a palate-cleanser, I watched a little of "The Gong Show: 2000," aka "America's Got Talent." Almost exactly what you'd expect, save that the judges are actually even less useful here than they are on "Idol," since the contestants aren't all doing the same thing that Hasselhoff, Brandy and Simon Lite can use to provide the occasionally helpful comment. Ratings were good, so I may need to check back in a few weeks professionally, but otherwise I doubt I'd care.

Since I can't discuss "The Wire" in too much detail, today's recommendation is for something anyone can see over on YouTube: "Nobody's Watching." It's a pilot the WB rejected last year, created by Bill Lawrence, Neil Goldman and Garret Donovan, about two best friends and lifelong sitcom junkies (think J.D. times two) who get hired by the WB to develop a sitcom while at the same time living and working on a sitcom set (with a live studio audience) and starring in a reality show about their experiences. It's very meta, funnier than pretty much any actual sitcom the WB has ever aired (with the possible exception of "Grosse Pointe"), and yet I can see why it got rejected, as I'm not sure there's an entire series there. Still, worth a look, if for no other reason than to see Billy from "Battlestar Galactica" be funny.

And if that's not enough YouTube time-wasting for one day, there's always Yacht Rock.

Ozzie Guillen: Froot Loop

And no, that is not meant as a question to Ozzie's sexuality. The White Sox manager, as many of you have likely heard, has gotten into hot water for using a derogatory term for homosexuals when referring to columnist Jay Mariotti.

But who hasn't?

Of course, Guillen was forced to apologize and he went to the standard, �I�m not homophobic, my boyfriend is gay.� Actually, Guillen asserted his openness to homosexuals by saying that he will be attending the Gay Games (don't buy your tickets on Stub Hub), goes to ton of WNBA games and even went to a Madonna concert.

Seriously, a Madonna concert. And at this point, the WNBA should just drop any pretenses of who its league caters to and should put rainbows on their jerseys.

But still, Ozzie could be a little bit more convincing. Here are a few suggestions on how Ozzie could prove to the world that he is not homophobic. Because really, just going to a Madonna concert isn�t good enough. Please feel free to weigh in on the comments section.

I'm not homophobic, I watched Will & Grace.

I'm not homophobic, I belong to PETA.

I'm not homophobic, I watched Top Gun.

I'm not homphobic, I like the original line-up of Van Halen.

I'm not homophobic, I served on a Greek submarine.

I'm not homophobic, I hang out with Michael Strahan.

It's Raining Giants

One of the most disappointing parts of the Mavericks losing out on the title was the trophy presentation from David Stern to Mark Cuban. Had long imagined that Stern would end up getting back at all the trouble Cuban has caused by pulling a line from Matt Dillon in the movie In-and-Out.

"Congratulations to Mark Cuban for having the tenacity to finally lead the Mavericks to an NBA title. Mark truly is an inspiration� and he's gay!"

Not only won�t that happen, but Michael Strahan�s wife stole his bit. Jean Strahan has accused the disputed sack king of having a romantic relationship with TV doctor Ian Smith according to the New York Daily News.

Both Strahan and Smith vehemently denied the rumors.

"We're not gay," Strahan said. "We might catch a Tom Cruise movie together and then spend dinner discussing window treatments, but that doesn't mean we're gay. And sure, we have taken showers together, but that's just water conservation. Not gay. Of course, we do share the same bed, but I was kicked out of the house by my wife. See, I'm totally not gay."

Oh man, Strahan is going to get killed in Philadelphia. The over/under on the amount of Brokeback Giants jokes is approaching one million.

This Is Getting Absurd

If the Titans run in Omaha was developed into a screenplay, it would seem so far fetched, even the K-Dawg himself � Kevin Costner � would have to pass on it. (Although rumors say the K-Dawg will be in the picture about a killer-robot driving instructor who travels back in time for some reason. Ron Howard has signed on to direct.)

The Titans were down to their final out on Sunday night and the three-run game-winning rally was highlighted by Corey Vanderhook hit a ball that took more twist and turns than your average CSI episode. Fullerton held on to eliminate Georgia Tech. It was an act of redemption for Hook who was the goat in Friday night�s loss to North Carolina.

Tuesday was more of the same. A�s center fielder Mark Kotsay made his name in the College World Series by driving in seven runs as a freshman against Florida State. Current freshman David Cooper conjured up images of Kotsay with a 5-for-5 performance � including a two-run shot and the game-winning hit.

But the biggest story yesterday was closer Ryan Paul who was hampered by the same stomach virus that slowed Lauren Gagnier over the weekend. Paul did not arrive to Rosenblatt with his teammates, instead getting there in the seventh inning. But that enough time to notch the biggest strikeout of the season, fanning Clemson�s dangerous Andy D�Alessio for the first out of the bottom of the ninth. The game was closed out by Wes Roemer. And in keeping with the script, Roemer will be the starter today.

What is in store for today? It�s hard to imagine. At this point, it wouldn�t seem unusual for the Titans season to be saved today by a talking pie � who will play K-Dawg�s buddy in that killer-robot driving instructor picture.

And hey, it�s been a long time since we pimped
The Hater Nation Forums.

Raping the shark

Big, big, big ol' spoilers for last night's "Rescue Me" after the jump (though I'm thinking the subject line is a bit of a hint)....

God, I don't even know where to start. Wait, of course I do. Let's start with Tommy smacking around his ex-wife, forcing her onto the couch and raping her until she gets into it. Seems a notable event, dontcha think?

On the one hand, Tommy and Janet's have had a dysfunctional relationship since the start of the series, one bound up in anger and mutual self-loathing, so in the context of everything the show has done, I can believe that she might start to enjoy it. But the show has such a pattern of misogyny and pathetic characterizations of women -- in one sequence, Tommy took successive phone calls from Janet the shrew, Sheila the doormat, Maggie the alcoholic bitchy skank and Mrs. Turbody the sexual predator -- that I don't care whether it was consistent or not. It made me uncomfortable and unhappy in a way even the most extreme TV and film almost never does.

As I've said in the past, there's a difference between letting your characters have a despicable point of view and letting the show as a whole have it. The men on "The Sopranos" do evil things all the time, but the writers never try to suggest that, say, Paulie was perfectly justified in smothering an old lady to death so he could steal the money under her mattress. But when Tommy marches out of Janet's apartment, having no doubt just produced the Gavin heir he was struggling to create at the sperm bank, the tone of the show was just as triumphant and unrepentant as the look on Tommy's face.

I'm not saying I'm done with the show yet, since I had already accepted it as a brilliant comedy and a deeply flawed drama, but I think I may have to start treating it the way I did "ER" back when I was still watching it. This was a couple of years into the Maura Tierney era, and the writers had turned Abby into such a pill that I would TiVo the show and then fast-forward anytime she appeared on screen. At this stage, I may have to start skipping over any "Rescue Me" scene that isn't all-male.

And even there, it's not always safe. Probie's "I'm not gay but you kind of are" was just embarrassing. When "The Sopranos" did the Gay Vito storyline, it was an obvious attempt to have some fun at a supporting actor's expense, but the show also took it seriously. Vito was gay, he was conflicted about it, he did find some measure of happiness with Johnny Cakes but they also fought, he went into denial about it to get back into his old life, etc. This was just about making Mike Lombardi squirm, and the tone of this week's scene in no way matched last week's closer where Probie and his buddy rested their heads against each other for comfort after a tough day. Plus, the roommate may be an even more pathetic caricature than any of the women on this show. Ugh.

Some other random thoughts:

• The reason I haven't given up on the show yet is for scenes like Lou and the bum arguing over who gets to touch the third rail first -- and the bum realizing that Lou's life is worse than his. Now that's the blend of comedy and pathos that the show does so well, and it worked because Lou is a fully-realized character, and so well played by John Scurti.
• Good opening scene with the bus -- one of the more extended on-the-job scenes we've had in a while -- and if you ever questioned whether Al Sharpton was anything but a publicity hound, his willingness to play himself in a scene that makes his usual shtick seem self-aggrandizing and foolish should put that doubt to rest.
• On the one hand, I'm glad the show hasn't forgotten that Franco doesn't have legal custody of his daughter, since in the real world that would come back to bite him eventually. On the other, I worry that Susan Sarandon's going to be the one doing the biting, just as she's turning out to be the only decent female character on the show.
• This was the first episode of the season that I watched live on FX, including the previews. Do they always seemingly give away so much of the next episode? I feel like I just watched the trailer to a Robert Zemeckis movie and don't need to go buy a ticket.

What did everybody else think?

"Good evening. Tonight on 'It's The Mind'..."

Slow morning. In today's All TV column, I finally got around to that "House" finale-themed mailbag I was talking about last week. The delay was because I was waiting to talk to David Shore, who has some definitive answers on what was and wasn't real as well as some hints about where next season is going.

Since I spent most of last night watching the Yankees lose again, time for another open thread. As I mentioned in a post from back when this blog had, like, two readers, I have this weird deja vu thing happen where, whenever I turn to a particular movie on cable, it's always at the same part: "Karate Kid" is always at the scene where Daniel-san goes to pick up Elisabeth Shue for their Golf 'N Stuff date, or the first "Austin Powers" is always at the bit near the end where Austin and Liz Hurley are impersonating tourists to get into Dr. Evil's lair. I firmly believe that TNT only shows five or six "Law & Order" episodes on a continuous loop -- all of them, oddly enough, from the Carey Lowell years -- because those are the only ones I ever see when I surf past it. And for some reason, my iPod almost always spits out T-Rex's "20th Century Boy" at the same point in my workout, even though I have several hundred songs on shuffle each time.

So, two questions: 1)Does this sort of thing ever happen to any of you, and if so, how? and 2)Any statisticians or probability experts have a theory on this?

Jim Otto: Froot Loop

Browns center LeCharles Bentley wanted to honor the legend of Jim Otto when he petitioned the league to wear No. 00 as a homage to the Raiders center. One problem � Otto is a crazy (expletive) (expletive) hole.

Otto obviously played too long without a helmet when he replied with this:

"To let him wear my number that I built into a legacy, all it takes is one ounce of coke up his nose, and that legacy is gone," Otto said to the Contra Costa (Calif.) Times.

"I don't know who he is. I played 15 years with the Raiders. He's played, what, three or four years in New Orleans? What kind of legacy would he give double zero? I don't think he should wear it, and I don't think anyone in the NFL should wear it.�

Yeah, because these comments are just doing wonders for old No. 00. Like double-zero was the former center�s Wonderlic score or something. Either that or he is suffering from untreated syphilis.

Bentley � a two time Pro Bowler in his first four years � even apologized for even suggesting such a thing. He should have beat the old coot's ass.

The Mick

CBS commentator Ben Wright might have been on to something when he said that golfing is tough enough without the boobs getting in the way. Otherwise, how do you explain how both Phil Mickelson and Colin Montgomerie tanked in the U.S. Open? (Yes, we�ve used that joke before.)

So that means we have a brand new Last and Ten.

Can you feel the excitement?

The Truth of Ratings

I almost choked on my weinerschnitzel when I saw this post.

Nice job with the selective editing, Gunther. I haven't been this disappointed in one of my heroes since Falco refused to play Rock Me Amadeus at the sold-out Berlin County Fair in 1998. Even for the second encore.

A couple points you forgot to mention:
1) The 2.4 ESPN2 rankings you snickered at were the channel's highest ratings for anything this year. Yes, that included dog shows, poker tournaments, and spelling bees. And baseball.

2) The games are on at 6:00 a.m., not prime time.

3) Soccer fans watch matches in packed bars, not the basement of their parents' house, like wresting and baseball fans, so those numbers are underrepresented.

3a.) You didn�t factor in the ratings from Univision (5.5 for Mexico-Iran, making it the most watched sporting event in Spanish-language TV history). I'm guessing half of their audience is made up with Gringos who can't bear to listen to the Joe Theisman-Paul Maguire of soccer announcers, Dave O'Brien and Marcel Balboa. Jesus they're bad.

4) If Reggie White taught us anything, it is that you can fit a family of 30 Mexicans into a small apartment, so even Univision's ratings are vastly underrepresented.

5) Hockey averaged ratings of 0.2 on OLN this year.

6) In Los Angeles, Univision�s ratings were 12.5 for the Mexico-Iran game, and 4.9 for ABC.

7) Combined, that�s more than double the 7.1 the NBA got for the finals last year.

Your poor math and lazy deduction skills are exactly the reason we will CRUSH you in WWIII! You have no chance, capitalist pigs!

Who needs to hydrate?

Before we get to "Entourage" episode two, the morning column link: Matt on PBS' "The History Detectives" and "Free Speech: Jim Lehrer and Bill Bradley," plus a capsule review from me of the muckraking first segment on tomorrow night's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel."

Now, then, on to "Aquaman." I thought the season premiere was just a'ight-blah, but this was much better. I spent the hiatus telling friends that I thought it would be an interesting story direction if "Aquaman" was a flop and suddenly Drama, Turtle and E had to fend for themselves, possibly with Drama experiencing a brief career renaissance and becoming the new breadwinner while Vince struggles to prove he's not washed up before 30. Obviously, they ain't going in that direction, and that's fine, since A)My idea is more one of those things a show tries in its later seasons when it's run out of variations on the premise, and B)The writers clearly haven't run out of variations on "Vince gets everything he's ever wanted while the guys ride his coattails" just yet.

Things to love: Ari denying Mrs. Ari because you don't fool around on game day; Drama going all T.E. Lawrence for the trip into the Valley (Matt's been quoting the "I gotta hydrate" line at me for weeks), Turtle striking out with the older sister, Ari smashing Lloyd's statue, the clever use of an "Aquaman" clip that didn't feature the costume or any major FX (I'm sure the wave was lifted from another movie) and Vince trying to have the "I am a golden god!" moment from "Almost Famous." (I think if Vince had a choice between having lots of money or just getting to re-create scenes from movies he loved growing up, he'd pick the latter.)

So now Vince has starred in the movie with the biggest opening of all time. His playground just got a whole lot bigger. What did everybody else think?

Pilot Watch: The end (for now)

To quote a very wise man, all right, all right, all right. I have now watched every pilot the networks sent out, including Fox's "The Wedding Album," which I didn't write about because it's being massively revamped (new lead, new showrunners, new format), but oddly enough not including ABC's "Brothers and Sisters," which as far as I know is only recasting one supporting part.

Rather than just barrel through the pilots network by network, disc by disc, I've been picking and choosing along the way. And though I always try to leave a few good ones for the end, it never quite works out that way. I don't think I'll want to see any of the final four -- "Runaway," "The Game," "Notes from the Underbelly" and "Happy Hour" -- again, barring major changes between now and September. (Which is why, as the song goes, these ain't reviews; oftentimes this stuff can and does change dramatically.) More specific thoughts after the jump...

"Runaway"
Who's In It: Donnie Wahlberg, Leslie Hope, Dustin Milligan, Sarah Ramos
What It's About: "Everwood" meets "Running on Empty" meets "Prison Break," as Wahlberg's family is forced to go on the run and move to a blue-collar Iowa town after he's framed for murder by some mysterious conspiracy.
Pluses: I pretty much always like Wahlberg and Hope. Doesn't try to depict Iowa as a complete backwater; Wahlberg gets a job at a coffee shop that has Wi-Fi!
Minuses: The "Everwood"-y parts (including the eldest son being bitter about the move) just remind me how much better "Everwood" did it, and as I've said, I'm completely burnt-out and disinterested in any kind of ongoing crime conspiracy plot anymore.

"The Game"
Who's In It: Tia Mowry, Wendy Raquel Robinson, Coby Bell, Aldis Hodge
What It's About: Fake "Girlfriends" spin-off where Joan's cousin Melanie moves to San Diego where her boyfriend is the third-string wide receiver for a pro football team.
Pluses: Fairly novel premise, and it has "Girlfriends" creator Mara Brock-Akil (responsible for one of UPN's better sitcoms) running things.
Minuses: Didn't make me laugh much.

"Notes From the Underbelly"
Who's In It: Jennifer Westfeldt, Peter Cambor, Rachael Harris, the woman with the squeaky voice from the Glad commercials
What It's About: Yuppie couple argue over whether to have a baby, then freak out after discovering the wife is pregnant.
Pluses: Rachael Harris is funny pretty much anywhere you put her -- VH1's "I Love..." specials, "Fat Actress," or here as the stereotypical bitchy single friend who's annoyed best pal Westfeldt is joining the mommy cult. I liked Westfeldt in "Kissing Jessica Stein." No laughtrack.
Minuses: No real laughs, either. Like Thursday partner "Big Day," it plays on a lot of fairly universal experiences but doesn't really put any spin on them.

"Happy Hour"
Who's In It: A whole bunch of people you've never seen or heard of before
What It's About: Recently-dumped guy wants to stay in his girlfriend's building in hope of reconciling, so he moves in with a martini-swilling Internet t-shirt salesman determined to make his new roommate lighten up.
Pluses: As the token wisecracking but sexy pal, Beth Locke convincingly eats a deep dish pizza (for Fox actresses, this is an achievement) and has some off-beat line readings. Some fun to be had in trying to figure out why so many of the actors bear uncanny resemblance to more famous people. (I spent half the pilot wondering if Nat Faxon, second from the left in that picture, is Jon Heder's older brother.)
Minuses: Didn't the whole Rat Pack nostalgia thing come and go about 10 years ago, sometime after "Swingers" but before "Buddy Faro"? A real mess overall.

The Post Mortem

Do you Believe in Miracles?

Cal State Fullerton coach George Horton might have said it best when he noted that hard-working teams tend to create their own luck. The Titans might be the hardest working team in baseball.

Unless two-run infield singles happen everyday.

Fullerton was down to its last out when it scored three ninth inning runs with two outs to oust Georgia Tech, 7-5. Cory Vanderhook, the base-running goat from Friday night, had the game-winning hit � a ball bounced off the plate and through the infield. Like Pete Vuckovich said in Major League, �You really knocked the crap out of that one.� Thankfully, this game wasn�t a beauty contest.

�That�s a record, the best 90-foot hit I�ve ever seen,� Horton added.

Never a doubt, eh?

It�s hard to imagine where this game ranks amongst the all-time greats, but it is right up there. There are exciting games. Come-from-behind games. And there are destiny defining games. A game like Game 6 of the 2002 World Series. Moments after Troy Glaus hit the go-ahead double, you knew the Angels were going to go one to win the World Series. There was no doubt.

It�s hard not to draw a similar parallel to Fullerton�s game on Sunday. Of course, the Angels had the benefit of playing the same team in Game 7. The Titans will play Clemson on Tuesday, a team that already had its own comeback magic against Tech. But sometimes the difference between winning and losing is a swagger. The Titans definitely got it back.

• Was that Jeffrey Maier wearing a North Carolina hat on Sunday? You might remember Maier who threw himself into a Yankees/Orioles playoff game by reaching over the fence to give the Yankees a home run a few years ago. The same thing happened on Sunday when some punk kid reached over the fence to take Matt Wieter�s drive away from Titans outfielder Danny Dorn. Luckily, that play was not a factor. Or was that hard work that it was not a factor?
  

• So the Angels couldn�t pitch Jered Weaver on Sunday, and then push Bartolo Colon's start to Monday? Did that make too much sense? It looks like Colon has been hitting the HGH � hamburgers, grease, and Hershey. Colon gave up four runs to the Padres on Sunday. That�s like giving up 10 runs to a Major League Baseball team.

AND FINALLY
Leave it to the NBA to have a Finals game go into overtime, be settled in the final seconds and still not be exciting. Maybe it was the Fullerton game earlier, but there was nothing interesting in that series. There is no way the Heat win a game in Dallas. No way.

Deadwood: Bring the pain

Spoilers for "Deadwood" episode two after the jump...

Is it wrong that I want to see Al Swearengen get a finger chopped off with a pick-axe every week? Am I a sadist if I love watching reruns of the kidney stone arc from last season? Or am I a masochist for the way I love watching Ian McShane portray the repeated passions of the Swearengen? Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever seen an actor do a better job of conveying physical pain than McShane does in moments like tonight's closing scene; whenever Al suffers, I wince.

While Al may insist "I'm having mine served cold" (who knew Klingon proverbs were so popular in the Old West?), I'm damned curious to see how the show deals with this conflict. While Milch has introduced some fictional characters like Alma and fiddled with the personal details of real ones like Bullock (Martha was never married to his brother, and they had a daughter who never got horse-trampled), he's not going to make a radical break with history by having Al or Dan execute George Hearst. Since I've seen the next three episodes, I won't speculate too much, but Hearst is the first opponent who's dramatically won the upper hand over Al. Al was so confident that Hearst and the Captain wouldn't try anything -- or that, if they did, he could stab his way out -- that he went over there solo, and didn't even attempt to signal to Dan and the guys when they forced him inside at gunpoint. And if Al is going to win even some small measure of revenge over Hearst, he's going to have to follow his own advice to Dan -- "Change calls the tune we dance to." -- and stop thinking like he can out-think and out-tough anyone.

Maybe he can learn a lesson or two from Calamity Jane, who for one afternoon was able to dry out, clean up her body (that's a nude scene I never expected) and her language, and be an effective, entertaining guest lecturer for the schoolkids. Just a fun, sweet sequence all around, especially the revsiting of her bond with Sofia and her brief compliment to Martha. ("I know another brave person her, too... several.") History (both real and the show's) says this isn't going to last, but it was a nice moment.

Like many fans, I've never really warmed to Alma, and Seth's ring of fire love for her is my least favorite element of his character (he really is the Ryan Atwood of the Black Hills), so I wasn't too caught up in the drama over whether Alma or the baby might survive -- until, that is, she went and passed over Ellsworth in favor of Seth as Sofia's legal and financial guardian. Jim Beaver was so good in that moment. Ellsworth has no illusions about this "marriage," but he's been there for Alma and Sofia when Seth has chosen (with defensible reasons) not to be. For Alma to say, essentially, that his only value was as a beard and that she'd rather turn Sofia's care over to another man was a major slap in the face to one of the most stand-up men in the camp.

Some other random thoughts:

• Does Charlie understand that Joanie's a lesbian? Does he have a libido? I know he's a good guy -- like Sol and Ellsworth, one of the least complicated, most altruistic man in the camp -- but does he really expect nothing out of this but friendship? Whatever his motives, the scene where he recalled Wild Bill's own self-loathing was very touching.
• On the flip side of the humanity spectrum is Cy, whose initial response to Joanie's suicide talk was, "What the hell were you doing at Shaughnessy's?," then complains to himself about having to listen to such a story. Then he goes and uses his alleged spiritual awakening as a ruse to pull a gun on Andy -- a scene that Leon thankfully ruined.
  
• The monologue the drunk delivers before falling and breaking his neck (which inspired the episode's title, "I Am Not the Fine Man You Take Me For") sure sounded like the kind of thing Milch read in a letter and transcribed.
  
• Watching the Doc use Trixie as his vagina model to test the angle of the mirror reminded me how handy her lack of self-consciousness can be sometimes. Almost makes me willing to give her a pass for all the times she yells at poor Sol. (Also liked the oblivious Sol doing his "I bought the house!" pantomime while Trixie is tending to Alma.)
• During Deadweek, Andrew Dignan wrote an essay comparing "Deadwood" to the "Godfather" films, and watching Adams and Dan constantly jockey for favor with Al reinforced the parallel for me. Al is Don Vito, the stately power broker. Dan is Sonny, the hotheaded eldest son who's good at muscle work but doesn't have the brains to succeed the old man. Adams is Michael, whose savvy and sophistication is sometimes held against him by the other brothers. And Johnny is, of course, Fredo. Not sure it's intentional, but if fits.

And some Milch-isms of the Week:

• Mose hearing that Jane is taking a bath: "Camp get up a petition?"
• The Farnum 'n Richardson Smiletime Hour: "I'd like to use your ointment to suffocate you."
• Charlie walking into The Gem seconds after the two killings: "I'll drink after I vet."
• Dan explaining things to Johnny: "It was his preliminary signaling that he was gonna show Al his ass."
• A fart fills the air at The Gem: "That'd knock the buzzard off a shitwagon."
• Farnum the unsubtle race-baiter: "Farnum, twice-measured; Starr, once cut" and "Farnum! CHRIST knows he's earned it!"

Matt's review is already up on NJ.com. So what did everybody else think?

Mexico Could Learn from Chuck

When USA Basketball�s Dream Team played Angola (which may or may not be a country, we�re still checking into this on Google) in the 1996 Summer Olympics, Charles Barkley had these comments:

At a press conference before the Dream Team played Angola, Barkley said: "I don't know anything about Angola, but I know they're in trouble."

Barkley was true to his word, and the US obliterated Angola, 87-54, showing its dominance in the sport. He also threw in a total cheap shot at one of Angola�s players, just to remind them who the boss is.

On throwing that elbow at an Angolan, Barkley replied: "Well, he might have pulled a spear on me." Nice, Chuck.

Fast forward to this year�s World Cup, and RaiderNation South, aka Mexico�s national soccer team, was presented with its own opportunity to teach Angola a lesson in the sport that they care about most.

Instead Mexico crapped the bed, like their Oakland-based brethren. The game ended tied 0-0, despite Mexico playing with an extra dude for the last 15 minutes.

So much for winning the World Cup, Mexico will now have to work just to make the next round � where it now looks like they�ll play Argentina, who humiliated Serbia (we think that�s in Europe, or maybe Asia) 6-0.

This should end very badly for Raider/Mexico fans. As it always does.

As for the Team Whopper with Cheese USA Soccer Ball Kickers, Presented by Mastercard, their European Vacation effectively ends tomorrow at the hand of our fellow Axis Power Italy. We�ve been waiting 53 years for this day! World domination will once again be ours! Heh heh heh�.

Whoops, did I say that out loud? Where�s that edit button? Ah, f**k it, these lazy American readers won�t make it this far down the column anyway.

Anyway, tomorrows US-Italy match should be a rout. I will sit back and watch with malicious glee at the misfortune of the Americans, who are bound to get drubbed.

I wish I could better explain what we Kraut-rockers will be feeling, but we don�t have a word that corresponds to your English term for this phenomena, I believe you Americans call it schadenfreude.

The Weak Ender

ESPN released its list of top celebrity sports fans with Jack Nicholson ranking No. 1.

At least they didn�t take the easy way out with the most obvious pick.

The alleged Lakers fan who was found rooting for the Clippers during the second round of the playoffs is your top celebrity fan. Right. Eva Longoria also ranked high on the list. Really? Her interest in the team seems about as sincere as Anna Benson. Does Longoria even understand the rules of basketball? As a poster on a message board said, �She is one deep (expletive) from a non-Frenchman away from not being a Spurs fan.� Hard to disagree.

The top celebrity sports fan is Ashley Judd and the contest is not close. She appears to have a sincere rooting interest and be honest, who would you rather see sitting on the sidelines wearing shades?

The list was as little bit too long because, let�s be honest, if you are resorting to using �The Rick� as one of your top celebrity sports fans, you are really reaching. And where the hell were the Red Hot Chili Peppers? Does anybody want some of Magic Johnson�a song made famous by the band in the 1980s?

But the most disappointing omission was the K-Dawg himself, Kevin Costner. Like Judd, the K-Dawg is always down for his alma mater. When the Cal State Fullerton basketball team blitzed through NIT tournament a few years ago, the K-Dawg was there every step of the way. Or maybe not. When Cal State Fullerton needed some extra dough to finish the baseball stadium, the looked to the K-Dawg. And that is why the Titans play at Jerry Goodwin Field. But hey, when it comes to opportunistic camera (expletive) at the College World Series, the K-Dawg is your man. You would think that with the amount of face time the K-Dawg is set to receive today (starting tonight at 4 p.m. PST), ESPN would have recognized that.

Photo shamelessly stolen from the Sports Column.

The following excerpts are only opinions, but someday they might belong to the Bish.

• It was a striking contrast watching the Angels and CSF Titans on side-by-side televisions last week. One team had timely hitting, clutch pitching and flawless defense. The other team was the Angels.
  

• The Angels looked more relieved than anything else after being the Royals in extra innings on Thursday night. This was the most underwhelming series, ever. It is unacceptable to lose even one game to the Royals, a team that would have problem winning the College World Series. Even OC admitted as much in the post game interview after driving in the game-winning run.

• It�s hard to blame athletes for being allured to motorcycles. If anything, blame Hollywood�and this guy.

AND FINALLY
It appears that Tiger Woods has missed the cut at the U.S. Open, ending a string that rivaled the Atlanta Braves dominance of the NL East/West. You might wonder how Tiger could have fallen so fast, but there are two words � the Bish whose column on Thursday obviously jinxed Tiger. Thanks, jerk.