First of all, I agree: It’s compelling stuff, the whole “future of American society and civilization” deal. It’s high-ratings event coverage, all right. However, I will part company with Dan’s rather Swiftian suggestion we have sponsored elections, televised contests for office. Yeah, it seems inevitable, but there are two things keeping it from becoming, er, reality: 1) I can’t see how any losing candidate in a reality-show election would NOT sue the winner AND the network AND the advertisers for conflict of interest, corruption, and collusion; 2) This show already exists: It’s called “American Idol.” Good-looking contestants are judged on appearance and nuance and, once in awhile, musical skill. We get to vote for them– Directly, in fact. No “American Idol” electoral college. This is actually better than Dan’s idea, in that the winners have no constituency and can only f*** up their own lives afterward.

Nonetheless, It’s remarkable how strongly the media is playing on the Presidential horse-race this year. Maybe it is a needed distraction from the continuing bad news from Wall Street and everywhere else they trade stocks. Maybe people are hanging onto the nuances of the race because it symbolizes the hope the next four years will be better. Maybe people are scared and are looking for a strong leader in an uncertain time.

But most likely they are mesmerized by Sarah Palin.

The most fascinating thing about her is how she and her handlers have attempted to portray her. She is a “Joe Sixpack, Main Streeter, Hockey Mom.” Just a regular middle American everyone can relate to.

Wrong. This is exactly backwards. Sarah Palin is an extraterrestrial, a space alien, fresh off her flying saucer. I can prove this.

Since her surprise entrance to national politics at the Republican National Convention, The public and the press cannot get enough of her. The first week or so after her RNC speech there were endless articles about Palin. She was everywhere: Slate even reported people had recurring Sarah Palin dreams. But most of them were trying to find out something about her, to gain a definition: What Wasilla is like, about her family, her kids, her personal habits, her hobbies. What female politician– Hell, what politician, period– has ever been under such scrutiny?

She is from a faraway, exotic place. She has a large, quirky family. She speaks with an accent nobody has heard much of in the lower 48. She processes and delivers information in ways that defy easy explanation. And she is beguilingly attractive. All interesting qualifications for, say, an MTV reality show or participating in “Extreme Makeover Home Edition.”

Sarah Palin is so UNLIKE any sort of politician seen before we’re struggling to find a collective definition for her. It made the work of the Republican Party easy: All they had to do put out those “Hockey Mom” talking points and they were grabbed onto by media and public alike. They had to grab onto something, for God’s sake.

(If you are of an inclination to disagree with my Palin/alien theory, I ask you to consider this logical construction. Aliens are fascinating. Joe Sixpacks are, by definition, not interesting– After all, Joe Sixpack is your neighbor, and if your neighbors are like mine, thank God they’re boring. Sarah Palin is fascinating. therefore…)

She’s a complete novelty. A lot of this has to do with her Alaskan heritage.

Americans are enamored by The Last Frontier. It’s full of colorful characters, strange wildlife, and forbidding wilderness. It’s the last place where people can still escape to and reinvent themselves. Which leads to my proof that Palin is an alien: Thom Beers.

Mr. Beers is a producer of reality television shows. His first breakthrough was “Monster Garage.” He went on with a few wide-ranging reality shows about unusual professions, but hit on one breakout: “Deadliest Catch,” which chronicles the harrowing process of catching crab in the Bering Sea off Alaska. It was a hit, and it continues to be the number one reality show on cable.

Beers also branched off with several other shows with similar premises: “Ice Road Truckers,” about the guys who drive semis on frozen lakes in Canada; “Axe Men,” tough lumberjacks in the Pacific Northwest, and even “Lobster Wars,” crustacean-catching in New England.

None of these really took off. Part of this is the fact “Deadliest Catch” makes good on the title: Crab fishing is extremely dangerous, and not a season goes by without a fatality. In comparison, “Ice Road” features a bunch of truckers, and you can see them anywhere. “Axe Men” makes the viewer feel too guilty about clear-cutting as entertainment. And “Lobster Wars” is just lame.

But most of the appeal of “Deadliest Catch” is the Alaskan setting: forbidding, cold, dangerous. The locals on the show are equally strange to average Americans: hardscrabble, tough, willing to risk their lives going out to sea. And out at sea, it’s as weird as a science fiction movie: ice packs, thirty-foot rogue waves, seas so cold it’ll kill in three minutes exposure. The crews risk it all to catch gigantic, hideous, otherworldly-looking crustaceans.

People can’t get enough of this show. And they can’t get enough of Sarah Palin, another native product of Alaska. We’re fascinated by both, not because they’re familiar as Main Street, but because they come from the outer edge of the world.

–Skot C.

I was shocked and saddened to hear this, even though I knew he announced a few months ago he was too ill to continue acting and retreated in seclusion to his Connecticut home. He was a sensational talent, an irresistible screen presence, a blue-eyed delight. He was one of my favorite actors, and starred on some of my all-time favorite films: Cool Hand Luke, Slap Shot, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Road to Perdition. He’s been in many, many others films I’ve liked, but those four are part of a set of movies that are just special, awe-inspiring, and even deeply personal to me. These are films I’ve seen so many times I can’t count: I own them on DVD, and I’ll pop them into the player every once and while for inspiration.

Newman seemed ubiquitous throughout his career, but in fact he wasn’t: According the the IMDb, Paul Newman had an acting career that stretched back fifty-five years, and he appeared in sixty-four films (he had seventeen additional appearances on anthology or live drama television shows). This is one and one-sixth movie per year. If you figure a time commitment of four months per movie, he kept a darn casual work schedule. Plenty of time for car racing, inventing salad dressings, and an impressive body of charitable work.

Part of this was probably being choosy about his roles. every marquee-level actor has the misfortune or poor judgement to wind up fronting the occasional turkey, but Paul Newman managed to keep his bad film quotient very low. He probably has the highest number of quality performances in excellent films by percentage than anyone of his caliber. In fact, he considered his very first starring role his worst: The Silver Chalice (d. Victor Saville, 1954).

The Paul Newman films I’d call ill-considered on his part were really just curiosities, rather than examples of out-and-out bad cinema. And at least the ones I’ve seen there is a solid reason he consented to star in them. Paul Newman was not an “anything for a paycheck” actor: in fact I think these films were a reflection of his loyalty to his movie-industry associates.

When Time Ran Out (d. James Goldstone, 1980) was an overblown, silly bit of bombast, the door slamming closed on the disaster-film craze of the 1970s. It was produced by disaster-movie maven Irwin Allen, and by all accounts he had everything to do with that dumptruck full of money they backed up into Newman’s driveway for appearing in The Towering Inferno. Newman knows how to repay a favor, apparently.

He also co-starred with Lee Marvin in a nearly forgotten low-budget movie called Pocket Money (1972), an intensely boring little movie about shady cattle dealings in Mexico. A strange, Western-feeling film with an improbable jazz soundtrack and a theme song done by Carole King. Paul Newman probably consented to do this movie for the director: Stuart Rosenberg, the director of Cool Hand Luke. It also featured a few of his co-stars from that earlier classic: Wayne (”M*A*S*H”) Rogers and Strother Martin.

There is an interesting relationship between Paul Newman and Strother Martin (1919-1980). One of the finest character actors of his time, he worked with John Ford and Sam Peckinpah on big-budget Westerns, as well as starring in wonderful schlock like Ssssssss (1973) and The Brotherhood of Satan (1971), he appeared four times with Paul Newman (Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Pocket Money, and Slap Shot). In fact, you can define Strother Martin as a character actor by his on-screen relationship with Newman: “What we have here… is failure to communicate.” Strother Martin’s acting career started roughly the same time as Paul Newman’s, but he appeared in twice as many films and TV shows. I guess character actors have to work harder.

You could define Strother Martin without Paul Newman, but he would seem less compelling. The same goes for Paul Newman and Hollywood: His presence and influence made the movie industry a much better place. The same goes for all of us: Everyone who appreciated and enjoyed Newman were made a little better for having known and loved his work.

–Skot C.

From the IMDb:

Mike Myers’s The Love Guru , which is being released on Friday, is receiving so many blistering early reviews that Los Angeles Times writer Tom O’Neil, who tracks films up for major awards in his column “Gold Derby,” is predicting that the film may be a shoo-in for the Razzie for worst film of the year.

Slate’s review subtitle on the front page says it all: “Even worse than you thought it would be.”

To paraphrase another godawful comedy featuring another past-his-prime, perpetually infantile, creatively exhausted SNL alumni: You don’t mess with the TPN::Box Office Weekly.

–Skot C.

I am not really going to go out of my way to say anything too bad about the show. I have to respect what “American Idol” does: connects well with it’s audience, makes ordinary people feel special and gives these ordinary, if musically gifted, people a shot at real, honest-to-god pop stardom. I mean, Jennifer Hudson got a friggin’ Oscar!

All that being said, I generally only like watching the first auditions at the front of any new season. And I’m now tired of that– there is a sameness to all the talentless, self-deluded failures, crying and whining in the lobby after their flame-out.

Anyway, I limited my viewing of the current season to the very, very end, and taken in that context it was hilarious, exhilarating and creepy– The medium of commercial TV at it’s finest. When I came in Ryan Seacrest was standing behind the finalists, two nearly identical men named David. Well, one was a slightly magnified version of the other, and there were differences in the facial hair, but these were superficial, Spock-with-a-beard differences. As I had not watched the interminable biographical pieces on these guys, or even heard them sing, it looked for all the world like a joke, a contest between clones.

With the clock ticking ever closer to the top of the hour, Ryan never stopped padding. Apparently, from people I know who watched the entire final show, padding was the central theme, silly celebrity drop-ins and mindless cameos by unfunny actors, all hawking upcoming summer films.

So David Cook (the taller one) won, cried, stuff dropped from the lighting grids, and he sang his song of triumph, an undifferentiated bit of bombast called “Time of My Life.” I sat there amazed by the lyrics:

I’ve been waiting for my dreams
To turn into something…

So I’ll taste every moment
And live it out loud
I know this is the time,
This is the time to be
More than a name
Or a face in the crowd
I know this is the time
This is the time of my life
Time of my life

In a show that features people typically belting out randomly picked pop tunes, Mr. Cook’s musical declaration was as precise as a Sondheim musical cue, a succinct bit of emotional reportage. No more waiting in ATM lines for tall David anymore.

More cheering and crying, confused-looking family members milled on stage, and finally: “Seacrest out!”

It all ended up making the news start late. Only a few minutes late, though.

–Skot C.

At a table strewn with lead figurines and hex-graph paper sit FOUR PLAYERS and a DUNGEON MASTER, behind his dragon-emblazed standing folder.

DUNGEON MASTER: Did you hear about Gygax?

JAPHETH BLIGH (8th-level warrior): What’s that? A troll? I’m taking out my +5 Longsword–

HELVETICA the MEDIUM (6th-level Cleric) –I’m reaching into my robe for a scroll–

DM: No. Gary Gygax.

DELINDIR The ELFMASTER (7th-level Paladin) Gary? That’s a dumb name for a Troll.

MIGHTY MOGENKELLER (2nd-level dwarf) I have a +1 pointed stick! I’m jabbing him!

MogenKeller rolls twelve-sided dice. It comes up 1.

DM: That doesn’t count, Mogenkeller. Gary Gygax is a real person. He just passed away. He had a influence that far exceeded his own creations. He co-developed “Dungeons and Dragons,” which was sort of a phenomena in itself– But the genius of his legacy lies in the details. The role-playing game, where one inhabits a character and is guided on adventures by the Dungeon Master, a sort of movie director, was unique enough. But he added quantifiable elements such as ability scores: each character has an admixture of Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma, all mediated by Experience and Hit points. Run out of too many of these attributes or hit points, and your character is toast. This gaming system, initially kept pencil-on-paper, translated easily into computer-based attribute scoring. First-person shooter games like Half-Life, Doom, and Halo are merely computer-based applications of this basic system, first codified in 1974.

H. the M.: I knew that.

J.B.: Geek.

DM: The immersive, interactive world of D&D could also be considered a real-world dry run for virtual-community online games like The Sims and Second Life. In tone, details and type of play, the universe of D&D is virtually indistinguishable from World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

H. the M.: Hey, why aren’t we playing that?

J.B.: Perhaps because there is something more intrinsically creative and imaginative about a role-playing game that is played face-to-face, and largely occurs inside the players heads, not on a computer screen.

D. the E.: Maybe you’re too cheap to afford $20 a month to subscribe to Warcraft.

J.B.(quietly): Let’s talk about this at home, okay?

M.M.: I have a pointed stick!

H. the M.: Hush, now.

DM: As stigmatized as D&D seems to be in popular culture (”geek!”) it’s mythical lexicon, culled from the fiction of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft, has though it’s direct and indirect influences kept open a popular-culture window to fantasy entertainment. Would the Lord of the Rings trilogy have taken in nearly $3 billion if the core audience were strictly Tolkien fans– aging 60s college students– rather than the generations of people familiar with the strongly Tolkien-like D&D universe?

J.B.: That dude must have had total wealth points!

DM: You’d think so. It’s somewhat illustrative that Gary Gygax never got really, really rich off his fecund co-invention. Wizards of the Coast, a bunch of RPG publishers who got rich off of Magic: The Gathering (a very D&D-like collectible-card game) bought Gygax’s company outright in 1997, a case of the imitators acquiring the original.

D.the E.: Still, an impressive legacy nonetheless.

H. the M.: Quite the visionary.

M.M. I have a pointed stick!

J.B. (in character): I’m turning rouge… And I’m turning and stabbing Mogenkeller with my +5 Longsword!

Japheth rolls a 12.

DM: You killed him.

J.B.: Hah! Now you have to go out and get more Dr. Pepper. We’re all out.

–Skot C.