Apocalypse Now: My cousin Hala called me from Damascus to tell me the end of the world is nearing, with a sandstorm that has Egypt, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon. “The sky is red”, she told me. It is hard to believe they could hit Damascus with anything more but there you go. In an area that couldn’t get any more desperate, guess what? It got more desperate. Oddly enough there is a positive side to this… the fighting has had to stop.
Recorded: The new Tommy Keene, the new Elvis Crespo, the three neo-soul masterpieces, and some Madonna to steady myself before her show at MSG.
Live: Speaking of Tommy Keene, I hear he is playing the Bowery Electric (a place I really hate, it is both small and impossible to see at the same time, no, not a T5 but Pianos for one is a much nicer room) on September 17th… the album is good enough to make a viewing almost obligatory.
Television: There was nothing wrong with Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show”… nothing right with it either. All these Late Night guys get the balance of silly and straight wrong. They should watch Johnny Carson and then they’d realize the reason they aren’t really funny is because they come across as desperate. Stephen, even now, seems to belie the Catholic school teacher flattened seriousness him. Ten years separates Stephen from Fallon: I see him losing to NBC (just like Letterman before him) but not losing his job.