The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

When Jimmy Fallon first started on The Late Night Show, I wasn't impressed and I didn't know why he deserved The Roots, but overtime he proved himself to be energetic, creative, talented and most important of all... funny. Also, he seemed to be an exceptionally genuine and nice person, pretty unusual for show business.

Mind you, I kinda "grew up" on Leno. When I first came to the States, watching Leno pretty much helped me with my listening skills. Every night, his opening monologue helped me learned the American culture but over the years Leno grew less and less funny and become the pompous ass that we came to know. His bits has gotten old, mostly making fun of the dumb and stupid. The whole Leno/O'Brien thing had left a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Things got even worst after band leader Kevin Eubanks left.

So I'm very happy that Jimmy got the Tonight Show spot, not happy enough to watch his show airing live since I have to go to bed around 11pm to get up and get to work by 8am. And even if I'm up, I would probably be watching Stewart/Colbert but I can always get it On Demand. The show doesn't seemed to be designed for a younger, more liberal crowd. I mean thus far we've seem some recurring skits from the Late Night Show happening here. #Hashtag, the evolution of dance, history of rap. Comparing to Leno, we see a lot more reference to the African-American culture. I mean, sure Leno's Tonight show band were mostly comprised with African Americans as is The Roots, but Will Smith, Roots, Michelle Obama and rap in just the first week? The funny thing is during this clip, Justin and Jimmy went out to the audience who, other than the lady who worked there was nearly 100% white. You can see a 60+ white guy trying to bounce to the rap and you can tell he never had to do that before.

Of course, it's great to see more people of color on TV, I just hope the American population feels the same way.

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TV Round Up (Feb 2012 Edition)

So I've yet to get back in to the groove of blogging. It's strange, I think once you lose something it's really hard to get it back and I count it as an experiment that went awry.

Work had been kicking my butt lately, I'm spending too much time at work and after working a few 12 hour days, My brain is frazzled and by Wednesday, I just don't know what to do anymore. I got so tired that it's hard for me to focus on anything. And then some asshole had to add more pressure on me that I'm resenting my job. When people know that you're capable on doing work, everyone starts coming to me for stuff and since we have 60 staff, it adds up quickly. I'm working lots of uncompensated overtime and I don't get pay much to start with. Maybe it's not a bad idea to start looking for another job. The non-profit world really don't pay. Or maybe I should stop making everything so personal and taking everything to heart.

Other than spending a huge amount of time with my Chinese cohort, I've been watching a lot of TV, both real time and downloads. The usual like Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert which acts as my political moral compass. I also picked up on David Duchovny's Californication during a 72 hours Showtime OnDemand free trial. It's amazing on how many shows one can watch when ones Chinese upbringing steers him towards free stuff. I was pretty much on lock down. The story is pretty compelling. He plays a successful writer that has the ability to charm women off their panties, he seems to enjoy bring drama into his life.

SyFy had been doing pretty well for themselves of late, Face Off is on their second season. Some 12 special effects make up artist competing against each other on their skills, It's like sci-fi version of Project Runway. Lost Girl is another highly addictive series from Canada that combines mythology and detective series altogether in one nifty show Anna Silk (real name) plays Bo who's a naive succubus that got caught between the wars of Fae. Anna Silk sounds more like the name of a succubus than Bo but I digress. We got superpowers, strange creatures and half naked bodies of hot men. It's like Buffy but gayer and better special effects. Bo is also Bi who's torn between a hot lesbian doctor and a sexy werewolf. (Why does all these shows had to have a werewolf as if werewolf is a hyper form of masculinity?) It's fun to play a little detective while learning a new kind of demon every week. I've watched the whole Season 1 and half of Season 2 now. I'm eager to watch more.

Yeah, Project Runway All-Stars is on TV and so far I'm not really that impressed. Maybe I'm way out of touch on fashion but most of the winning looks kinda sucks. Even though I root for Mondo because he seems to be the one who really got gypped on his season his end product is not really that exciting either. Also RuPaul this season seems to have the most busted drag queens I've seen so far. I was gonna say something snide about even Philadelphia have better drag queens but we don't. Our gay scene here is as tame as a hospital cafeteria. I haven't been watching Glee for a long time but I'm excited about the new show Smash. Just saw their pilot on demand and it seems like a whole lot of fun. The whole Broadway is in full view from the sparks of an inspiration to song writing, to auditions, choreographing, production, funding and the whole politics of it. I thought it might be set in the past but the show is very modern day and we have some original scores to boot. And what? Debra Messing in a show being the best pal of another gay man? Will & Grace and being the first Project Runway celebrity judge, I wonder if one can be typecast in that particular light. Morticia Addams, is that you? Anjelica Houston where have you been all those years? I expect a lot of guest appearances from Broadway stars and legends. We'll see how likeable Katherine McPhee could be.

These and the Big Bang Theory should keep me pretty well occupied. I'm sure I'll be exploring another series soon, which doesn't do well for my healthy living challenge at work. I'm supposed to be more active but lately my motivation is low. Thank god I have a loads of interesting men to help me on the physical end of the spectrum. (Pun intended)

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Days of Our Huh?

I nearly choked on spit laughing uncontrollably watching Stephen Colbert last night because of his report on a new TV trend on the old show Days of Our Lives. I guess product placement has grown out of its shy phase and now it's full on and blatant.



No longer is the product just sitting in a corner quietly facing the camera, now it has to be a bit in the show; an awkward excerpt that stands out so much that it's almost comedic.





Wanchai Ferry? Really? I personally love the episode where George drove over the cliff in his Jaguar and got amnesia (while the car is pristine and unharmed) and had to rely on the nutrients of V8 juice to gain back his memory. That episode was epic.

I guess soap operas had to find a way to survive, though I'm pretty sure with these awkward scenes, it's more likely that they will lose viewership than to gain new ones.

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Dancing With The Stars As A Metaphor

Ever since the latest results of Dancing With The Stars were announced on Tuesday night, it had been non-stop Palin coverage again. I was gonna do a summary on the subsequent events but I was just a tad too late and Jon Stewart had done it for me. That's convenient.



Yes, despite mediocre performances Bristol Palin is in the top 3 of Dancing With The Stars. So how did she manage to stay in the contest despite being in dead last score-wise week after week? Apparently the same rings true for her as it is for her mom, their supporters don't care about abilities or merits. They will blindly support them, which led me to believe that her claim that she can beat Obama in the upcoming presidential race to be true.



Given how Democratic support has been weakened by the perceived inaction and even though Sarah Palin did quit midway through her gubernatorial term to go for the more lucrative reality TV and Fox News career. The Democrats, on the other hand, seems to be allergic to negative campaigns that point out their opponents weakness. The poll did indicate that there were less Democratic supporter coming out to vote in the last election. To make my argument more solid, I always refer back to 2004 when W. got reelected. Anything could happen no matter how undesirable it might be.

After an episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska, one of Willow Palin's classmates Tre put a status update on Facebook in which triggers the Mama Grizzly within Willow and she lashed out with gay slurs to defend her family.



It would have been admirable if she could have cleaned up her language, but then the Palins weren't exactly known for their intelligence or making good decisions. On top of it Willow is a 15 and her sister is an unwed mom, it would be somewhat unreasonable to expect little Willow to be polished. Within this exchange, Bristol Palin also chimed in to say to another boy named Jon: "You'll be as successful as my baby daddy, And actually I do work my ass off. I've been a single mom for the last two years." Disillusioned much?

Bristol Palin is hardly a star and we are still scratching our heads on how she qualified for the show, her dancing abilities are mediocre at best and let's not use the word "talent" to measure it. Just because she made the tragic mistake of bearing a child and giving birth before she's of age or married doesn't get her the honorable title of a "single mom" even thought technically she is one. It makes her an "unwed mom" or a "teenage mom". A "single mom" is usually reserved for a person who is below poverty line and has to work a couple jobs in order to provide for herself and her kid. I don't think that applies to Bristol Palin.

For a show to have Bristol Palin on their 11th season to increase ratings from the right, Tea Partiers and their spawns but while that might be true, the show has also lost the rest of America. It is quite an analogy of right-wing panderers and our democracy, isn't it? Good thing I'm not so invested in DWTS, I don't own a gun and I love my TV too much to shoot it. Too bad for Brandy, she should know that in most voting competitions, minorities go first, just look at Margaret Cho.

Where can a show goes from here? How does it retain any credibility and its viewership from this skewed point of view? Are they going to have Levi Johnston on next time, or Ann Coulter? One thing that we learned for sure from all this is that voters aren't always right AND that television in general is moving towards the right. Scary.

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Project Runway Season 8 Finale

We interrupt your usual programming of the usual weekend meme and bring you a special report on Thursday night's Project Runway finale. I have been a fan of Project Runway and love the creativity, the process and the challenges most of all. Like many fans, I have followed the show from Bravo to Lifetime and I too enjoyed the extended 90 minutes episodes so to better understand the creative process of each clothing.

This year, our villain is in the form of a pompous Gretchen Jones and her lackey head-bitch Ivy Higa picking on a cute bear called Michael Costello who doesn't have formal design training. Said bear has a son and a wife and everyone. including me, thought he was straight at first but turns out he was forced into marrying a girl when he was younger and he's in fact gay and has a partner.



As with any usual talent competition show, the talent pool and the interest wanes, and if it's not for the drama I doubt that anyone would watch it. The challenges had been somewhat predictable and boring, maybe due to its move to a lesser channel the celebrities who appears on the show also seems to be of a lower rank. After 13 grueling weeks, 3 contestants ended up in the finale:

Exciting Mondo who likes to mix-and-match prints:



Hawaiian Asian Andy with a shiny, Asian influenced collection with celestial headgears.



Decidedly granola, monotone and drab Gretchen with a chunky jewelry collection that she designed herself:



Based on my description, I'm sure you already know my feelings towards certain designers and their designs. Overall, I like Mondo's the best. His inspirations were Latinas, Mexican Day of the Dead festival, Aztec and his black and white prints. Somehow, I see early black and white version of Minnie Mouse. Is it just me?

While Andy's headgears were distractingly bad, I didn't mind the collection too much. It's short and shiny just like what Heidi Klum would like and there's an easy and lightness to it that I do enjoy. But the bigger story is that there seems to be accusations that some of Andy's designs actually comes from a Japanese pattern book. Plagiarism is seriously shunned on and if it was intentional, and it seems that it is, it's seriously unwise.

Gretchen's collection is really humdrum, the fabrics utilized were drab and uninspired. Truly it's the worst amongst the three. I can see the collection being sold at Burlington Coat Factory or Ross. Not that there's not a market for it, but it's for a girl who likes to browse consignment and second hand shops. The jewelry reminds me of car hood ornaments, they are clunky. Maybe it's just personal taste, I've never responded well to drapey clothing, I'm more into form fitting pieces.

So how in the hell did Gretchen become the winner of this season? My theory is that one of the prize for the winner is to have his winning collections produced for sale and Gretchen's collection seems to be the easiest. It's not easy to use the prints exactly right and it surely will not fit most body types. Also, a little controversy makes for good TV. Anyway, too bad reputation of the show suffers because of a bad decision, Lifetime really dropped the ball on this. I mean even queen bitch Ivy Higa managed to turn out a pretty respectable decoy collection:

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A-List? Not That Much.

On Monday night I stumbled into an episode of A-List: New York, the newest Logo TV original reality show programming about wealthy/famous gay people done in the fashion of the famed Real Housewives series.

We follow the lives of reality show star/model Reichen Lehmkuhl and his circle of acquaintances including Reichen's current boyfriend Brazilian model Rodiney Santiago, famed video/photographer Mike Ruiz, salon owner Ryan Nickulas and his Black husband/sugardaddy, former model Austin Armacost and model manager DerekLloyd Saathoff. Each of them have a micromechanism of gays of their own, creating all the melodrama feedback necessary for the show.

In this first episode, we got to know about these people and their claim to fame. Reichen introduced himself as a former contestant and winner of Amazing Race and his subsequent modeling career as well as his dating history with Lance Bass, but no, he doesn't want to be known and label to be the guy who dated Lance Bass. (Then don't mention it. Or am I missing something?) Mike Ruiz convinced us that he is the most sought-after photographer of celebrities while showing us how friendly he is with Kelly Rowland. Former model and celebrity plaything Austin Armacoat defined himself as the former boytoy of Marc Jacobs until he got dumped because he brought some friends to Marc Jacobs apartment and now that he's mildly out of shape, he needs to train his body back to get back into the modeling industry.

All these people are trying very hard to paint New York to be the place where everybody wants to be and they are trying very hard to convince people that they are the "A-List" of Gay New York and so everybody wants to be them. But no. These people are no role models.

I remember watching Reichen and his then partner, Chip, through Amazing Race where they painted a rosy picture of a gay Air Force pilot married a loving partner and then winning the race. But then the couple split up after the show and we see Reichen slowly dating himself to fame with various gay celebrities. No doubt Reichen is a buff good-looking, model quality person, but I don't see a role model in Reichen or someone I want to be. In the first episode we see Reichen struggling with an acting role in a musical called My Big Gay Italian Wedding in which he was hired to be the beefcake walking around in his undies, but in his mind he was an actor even though the producer cut a song from him because he can't sing and from the looks of it, he can't dance either.



Former model Austin had dated Reichen and now that Reichen has a boyfriend, he's using every trick in his bag to devalue the relationship Reichen and Rodiney, from the Brazilian's accent to the period of time they were together. And as the show ends, Reichen blew off his boyfriend and arranged a dinner date with Austin. As if the audience didn't know that gays can be bitchy, racist and all the bad stereotypes, the first episode shown as much. At least 3 of the cast member inspired to find someone so they can be taken care of.

These people try VERY HARD to convince the audience that they are somebody through name dropping of the people they've slept with and the parties they went to and in truth some of them are, but there seems to be a lack of self worth. And the bitchiness in general is very repulsive. So we saw a half-butt from Rodiney, the show does nothing for our youth, it does nothing for the gay movement and if this is being gay, maybe I don't wanna be gay anymore.

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Dancing With The C.H.O.

I've never been a fan of Dancing with the Stars, because let's face it: most stars can't dance and you're really not dancing with them now, are you? In fact I have never watch a single episode of it. But this season got more interesting, not because of Bristol Palin but because of Margaret Cho. Here's her doing a Viennese Waltz:



Kudos for her to attempt adding some cheesy comedic element to her performance, though the judges didn't respond to that. Fuck'em, Margaret clearly can dance. While I still don't think I'll watch her on TV, there's always YouTube clips available the day after. Though I wonder how long she'll stay on the show since she's sort of a D-list actress herself and how many long sleeve gowns can they find to cover her biker tattoos.

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Required Viewing 8/24/10

Last night on Jon Stewart:

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TV Round Up (Aug 10 Edition)

Summer is nearing its end, at least for TV seasons anyway. There's really nothing good to watch accept maybe a few shows, for some reason RuPaul's Drag U doesn't seems as interesting when you're making real life women into drag queens, if they would only transform regular guys instead.

1. True Blood

Seems like a lot of people had been complaining about the gay elements on the show as if it's a bad thing. Yes, every episode have some naked guys in it and they are all great looking guys and some physically imposing. By comparison, there aren't a lot of new naked, great looking new female characters on the show, but sorry straight viewers having one show with great looking naked guys is not even enough to counter balance every other shows. So will you just let us have this one?

All the male characters on the show minus a few minor ones are all good to look at. Sure Stephen Moyer looks like he's aging quickly, Ryan Kwanten looks a bit tweaked out and Alexander Skarsgard is just too skinny and not my type but I'm waiting for them to exploit Jim Parrack (Hoyt Fortenberry) a little bit more and can we marvel at Joe Manganiello just a little more? The guy looks like he should be selling paper towels. There's the occasional shock of female nudity but its well worth it. Only 3 more episodes to go in this season and I'm already missing it.



2. Being Human

Another show about vampires and werewolves brought to you by BBC. It's way toned down from True Blood, there is still violence involved but the story is more about how these supernatural beings trying to fit into normal society.

Mitchell is a vampire who's fighting off his addiction to human blood, to do so he has became a loner and separated himself from the vampire society, taken a lowly job of being a potter for a local hospital. The vampire found himself sharing a house with a newly turned werewolf played by the cute Russell Tovey here and a recently died female ghost who are trying to figure out how their recent transformation will mean for their futures.

This show is more reality driven and less flamboyant than True Blood but the werewolf still get naked a lot during transformation.



3. Weeds



Season 6 of Weeds just started up this week. The suburban baroness of weeds has gone through quite an ordeal throughout the years and during the course it has lost the quaint surprising edge. After the valley fire in Season 3, the Botwins have moved down to their relatives somewhere down the shore of Southern California, so the reunion with its former cast seemed too far-fetched. I'm still watching, mostly due to the great writings in the previous seasons, although Alexander Gourd who played Shane Botwin is starting to creep me out.

4. The Big C

Starring Laura Linney as Cathy, a high school teacher who has been diagnosed with stage IV melanoma cancer. Knowing that she has limited time to live, Cathy set out to put her life back in order, that include dumping her childish husband, setting her spoiled son right, reeling in her homeless brother and teaching her students lessons outside of textbooks.

I have to say I'm not so fond of Oliver Platt and the young actor that plays her son also looks quite bloated but stories abou cancer patients do touch me in a deeper level. I'd be interested to see how they come up with a second season for a show about a dying person. Wrong diagnosis? New medications?

5. Rizzoli & Isles



Yes, the acting and plotlines are horrible and unconvincing. Yes, Angie Harmon is a right-wing loon and possibly a racist. Yes, she was just playing the same characters a few years ago in another detective/medical examiner novel turn TV series. Even though it's tragic, I'm still watching it against all my good judgment. Maybe I liked Womens Murder Club novels and it leaves me a good impression even after watching that TV adaptation.

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Other than that Top Chef is coming to an end while Project Runway started with too many designers for me to keep track and familiarize myself with the group. I'm sure a new batch of TV shows will start in a month, gotta keep myself entertained.

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Detective Angie Harmon

A month or two ago, I picked up an abandoned book in our stairwell where people regularly put things that they don't need anymore out for other people who might find some use out of them. It's a great thing. So I picked up James Patterson's 8th Confession and then got all the others in the series and finished all of them in record time. They are all part of the Women's Murder Club series about Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends who take jobs as Medical Examiner, Assistant District Attorney and Crime Desk Reporter to join hands and solve murder cases together. It was a good read since the chapters are all 2-3 pages long and I can stop anytime when I get too tired and can't keep my eyes open anymore.



So instead of waiting for the 10th installation, I went on the net and downloaded the first and only season of the TV series based on the Patterson books called Women's Murder Club starring Angie Harmon as blond detective Lindsay Boxer. The series was canceled after one season because of the writer's strike of 2007, which was the single cause of death for a lot of good shows and ideas. I didn't expect a lot from it but the more I watch, the more I grew to enjoy the show.

There's certain charm to all the characters, actually all four women are very likable. Of course, I have been to San Francisco so I'm faintly familiar with the city and the scenery and I like the city so I feel good watching it. The cast tries to incorporate minorities in the script even though the Asian characters in the show was either a bitch, a corrupt racist, or dead. For Latinos the portrayal is not any better, they are either illegal, a bruja, villain killers or dead. I guess in a detective show it's hard to create any positive role models. I finished the TV series too in a short amount of time and left with a good but regrettable feeling knowing that there wouldn't be a second season, wouldn't you know it when I turn on the TV and saw Angie Harmon playing a detective in a brand new show?



No, even though it's like a continuation of the previous series I wasn't excited. It's only two years ago that she played a toyboy-ish detective that loves her job so much that she couldn't manage to find a boyfriend who's best friend is a medical examiner and here she is again with the same personality playing a character with a different name based on another book series. The number of minority in this show shrunk into one black guy who puke whenever he sees a dead body. That reminds me that Angie Harmon was accused of being a racist herself because she made a comment about Obama which Whoopi defended here with the same line she defended Mel Gibson. At least Lorraine Brocco from Sopranos changed her looks and adopted an accent to play her mother but Angie Harmon's Detective Jane Rizzoli remained the very same. At least this time her hair color matched the original character written by Asian American writer Tess Gerritsen, unlike Sasha Alexander who turned a goth princess into someone more booji to fit her looks. Though I'm sure those things happens all the time.

So they set the story around Boston, I'm still a little peeved about the unoriginality of having the same actress acting on two different characters with a similar story lines that looks practically the same but I figure I can get into it. Despite the relatively long modeling and acting career, does she really know how to act or is she playing the same person over and over again? I've already picked up one of the books in the Rizzoli/Isles series. My requirements on detective books seemed to be quite low so I might be able to get hooked to it if I let it.

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