Evans Above

The soundtrack CD for the Judd Apatow and Adam Sandler collaboration Funny People is a refreshing and fun collection of ten songs. With artists ranging from Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr to James Taylor and Warren Zevon, listening to the CD is like getting a mix tape from a friend.

This road trip worthy collection, which also features Adam Sandler covering The Beatles Anthology mash-up “Real Love”, also includes a couple of tracks by Jason Schwartzman’s Coconut Records, an early take of Neil Diamond’s “We” and an acoustic take of “Watching the Wheels” by John Lennon.

I first cracked this disc open as I sat in a coffee shop and the collection of tunes was able wash away the pablum that passed for music coming over their speakers. A good mix of tunes can create an oasis during your day and the Funny People soundtrack provides more than a few auditory palm trees on the horizon.

So some lowlife illegally takes hotel peephole pictures of ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews and how does the mainstream media deal with it?

They could have just reported on the incident and said how nude video and photos of Erin Andrews were all over the web. They could have discussed how, as a lawyer for ESPN said, showing the images could make those websites accessories after the fact. Instead, several networks and publications decided to air the photos of Erin Andrews nude and blur or obscure out some parts.

Now perhaps that’s to be expected from birdcage liner The New York Post and the video sewage known as FOX News, but CBS’ The Early Show did the same thing.

CBS. CBS News. The home of Walter Cronkite. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been pleased, but the news these days has devolved into a bunch of repetition and rumour.

Like a dose of ratings Viagra, financial news network CNBC had a ratings boost last week when it aired a penetrating look at the adult industry called Porn: Business of Pleasure. Ratings measurement service Nielsen said the special earned the net, more famous for Jim Cramer’s bombastic booyahs then Jenna Jameson’s hoohahs, a roughly 500% increase in rating for that time slot.

The special, hosted by Fast Money’s Melissa Lee, had me chuckling at the beginning. Lee stood in Times Square and her red trench coat was longer than what she was wearing underneath, so it gave the impression that she was a Wall Street flasher. Apart from that laugh, the special was what you’d expect from a financial network trying to boost ratings during an economic downturn.

They did a quick history of the industry. They mentioned how VHS, DVD and the internet made anonymous consumption easier and how many hotel chains earn a significant chunk of their profits from adult pay-per-view. They touched on the topic of free porn on the internet and how it was giving the $13 billion adult economy a good spanking. Or as they said on the special, free internet porn “could bring the adult industry to it’s knees.” Really? They went there? Would the voice-over guy be telling us soon that the special would go “deep inside”? Did the Squawk Box hosts sit around at a meeting generating double entendres?

The show also featured interviews with adult stars like The Girlfriend Experience’s Sasha Grey and Adult Entertainment Expo veteran Jesse Jane as well execs like Vivid Video co-founder Steven Hirsch. They blurred out scenes from movies like Digital Playground’s Pirates 2 and video of Jesse Jane’s strip club performances. They briefly looked at Paul F. Little a.k.a. Max Hardcore’s prison sentence for obscenity and spoke to lawyers on both sides of the issue. Of course CNBC is a financial network, so the theme that the industry was facing hard times was constantly driven home. Can a bailout be far behind?

CNBC is walking a tightrope here. Creating salacious material like this special and Dirty Money: The Business of High-End Prostitution may gain new viewers from the one-handed web surfing crowd but it’s not necessarily going down well with advertisers. Charles Schwab already pulled some advertising which proves that though financial firms may have deep pockets they may not be into Deep Throat.

Dear CNN:

I’m officially tired of all the around-the-clock coverage of Michael Jackson’s death. I realize it’s a big pop culture story. I realize there are questions to be asked about various doctors and their ethics in prescribing the enormous amounts of drugs he is accused of going through. I realize that this case, more so than the Anna Nicole Smith case, might actually lead to the “Hollywood doctor” system being exposed and dealt with.

But does every show need to deal with this? Does Campbell Brown have to pass the story off to Larry King who then tosses the ball to Anderson Cooper? I’ve even seen it being covered on Lou Dobbs and I’m pretty sure that MJ was legal to work in the United States.

And it’s not just every show on CNN, but your sister network HLN too.

I get it. It’s a big story. But how about just one hour a night? Campbell, Larry and Andy can draw straws.

I almost started to believe you were a news network again during the Iran election coverage. My bad.

Firefox is was my favourite browser. I run it as the default on my XP desktop and my Vista laptop. Lately, though, Firefox can’t seem to stop freezing the XP system. The Vista laptop seems to run it fine but the XP desktop hasn’t been stable running Firefox 3.0.X in some time.

I’m not talking crashes here. The browser just freezes. Most of the time it freezes the system solid, as in hit the power button frozen solid. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can bring the task manager up, but that just begins a frustrating game of hitting “End Now” and not having the unresponsive program end at all.

A Google search on Firefox freezes brings up quite a few complaints, all stemming back to the latest few versions. In some cases people blame just the browser, its interaction with Java, or its workings with Flash. Quite a few people mention that it happens when they’re watching videos, especially on Youtube.

Regardless, the fact is that Firefox isn’t acting like the browser we fell in love with. I’m writing this post in Chrome right now, afraid that Firefox would have crashed mid-post. Sometimes I’m even running…shudder…IE8.

Our latest survey question: Would you buy a CD by Britain’s Got Talent contestant Susan Boyle?

Hulk Hogan, who is going through a bitter divorce with wife Linda, has told Rolling Stone magazine that he gets what OJ was thinking:

“I could have turned everything into a crime scene, like OJ, cutting everybody’s throat. You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can’t go to anymore, you’re driving through downtown Clearwater and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife…I totally understand OJ. I get it.”

Okay. Nice of the guy to put that in words. Memo to the Clearwater police: If Linda and her boyfriend are found murdered, keep the suspect list short.

Three cheers for Donald Trump.

Last night on The Celebrity Apprentice, The Donald delivered a well-deserved bitch slap to fame whore Khloe Kardashian, whose only claim to fame is being related to Kim, who in turn is only famous, as Joel McHale of The Soup would say, “for having a big ass and a sex tape.”

Both teams had lost the All Detergent viral video challenge, so Trump prepared to fire a player from each team. He fired Athena’s Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins for volunteering to come back to the boardroom with Melissa Rivers, chiding her with a “you never volunteer to be executed.”

He then turned his sights on the KOTU team. He asked country artist Clint Black if he was tired of the show and wanted to head back on the road. Clint said no. He asked pro golfer Natalie Gulbis if she wouldn’t rather be playing at an upcoming Asian tournament for a hefty appearance fee and possible prize money. Gulbis said she had made a commitment to the show and that she was going to honour it.

Having set up that her other two team-mates actually had careers and accomplishments, Trump asked Khloe Kardashian why she had missed part of the last assignment. Khloe said she had to go back to LA to face a judge who was none too happy about her missing court-ordered alcohol education classes that stemmed from her past DUI so that she could participate in Trump’s show. Her attitude made it seem like the whole thing was a bother to her.

Trump then launched into her. He said that he had not been made aware of her DUI before the show. He told her that he knew three friends who had lost family members killed by drunk drivers. He offered her charity $20,000 but said he couldn’t reconcile with her DUI past and fired her.

Kardashian’s post-firing interview revealed the cavalier attitude displayed by many tabloid stars about their DUIs. They always say they’re paying every day for their DUIs as if they’re the victims and the nasty cops, lawyers and judges should leave them alone.

To be fair, Trump’s behaviour in this can be questioned too. First off, you mean Trump never asked why Kardashian was famous and up for his show besides her resemblance to Jack O’Halloran? Nobody in Trump’s circle ever mentioned her DUI? Why did Dennis Rodman’s drinking not become a factor before it affected a task he was the manager of? And will Trump go after Jesse James for some drinking indiscretion from his past next?

All of Trump’s issues aside, it was just nice to see a talentless reality star having a strip torn off them for a change. Too often we see the Hiltons and the Montags and the Pratts get cheered by adoring fans and you just want to ask the kids what these people actually did to become their heroes. Of course, the real tyrants are not the celebrity airheads, but the network executives who create these brain-sapping shows in the first place.

While some Google searchers seem intent on finding out the definition of a 30 Rock reference “hot richard”, the other news that’ll be heating up today will be the reaction to CNBC pundit Jim Cramer’s appearance on The Daily Show wih Jon Stewart.

Except for a few jokes at the top of the show referencing the upcoming guest, the entire show was devoted to Stewart’s interview with the bombastic Mad Money host. In fact, Comedy Central indicated that the interview — or was it an execution? — went even longer and an excised additional eight minutes would be available online.

Cramer didn’t even seem to have any fight in him. He sat there taking it and offering quiet responses as Stewart took on the mantle of Everyman U.S.A. and railed against the financial situation and what he suggested was CNBC’s total failure as a news organization to investigate the financial collapse before it happened.

The video of the Jim Cramer/Jon Stewart interview will surely be flying into inboxes around the world today. Cramer seemed to almost be a willing lamb to slaughter. How will he react on his show tonight? Perhaps he actually wanted to use this watershed TV moment as an out for a change in the way he acts on his show. We’ll have to see.

Egads. Tried to get tickets for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band playing Toronto’s Air Canada Centre on May 7th.

Started right at the noon on-sale and was offered two tickets high up on the side…almost behind the stage. Tried again and…no luck. The concert sold out in the first three minutes.

Sigh…