ETC.: Deep Thoughts

ETC.: Deep Thoughts

It's the first day of summer and my brain is cooked already. Incapable of longer coherent posts, so here are things to watch, hear and read as you lie on the beach or carpet or what-have-you.

WATCHING "Entourage" co-star Jeremy Piven as Hollywood agent Ari Gold may just be my favorite character on TV. Just finished watching Season 2 of the HBO comedy on DVD and Piven, dammit, should have an Emmy for this stuff. He makes Ari a compelling, complex bastard, a standout among a superb cast. Watching his meltdown against boss Malcolm McDowell at the end of Season 2 was fantastic teevee. The rest of the show's pretty swell too. I only wish us poor HBO-less folk didn't have to wait a year or so to see the now-airing Season 3 on DVD.

LISTENING to Bob Dylan "Live 1975" (The Bootleg Series Volume 5). Yep, still on my dedicated (some, wife Avril, would say obsessive) Bob Dylan kick, and got a copy of this recently, a fantastic souvenir of Bob's rollicking "Rolling Thunder Tour." From the very first track, a fiery, stomping take on "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," it's tremendous stuff, with an amped-up, rocket-fueled Dylan sounding more passionate than I've ever heard him before.

READING James Kochalka's Superf*ckers #3 from Top Shelf, the latest issue of his extremely sick and twisted take on superheroics. Imagine an extremely talented, Tourette's-afflicted 10-year-old doing a scatalogical superteam comic. It's disturbing, gross and hilariously funny stuff. Neon-colored and brutal satire.

LAUGHING at the things a toddler says. Peter's most recent curious statement, which can sound quite bad out of context:
"There rice on my penis!"

Ah ha ha.