Part of a well-balanced breakfast: free DVDs

After five boxes of Raisin Bran Crunch, cutting out five cardboard circles and mailing them off, I filled a giant hole in my sports DVD collection. Sure, for $5 I could have gone to Wal-Mart and received a snap case for my efforts. But I don't care what you say, at the end of the game, in my book this deal was a winner! And one more week's worth of cereal will give me the choice of A Walk in the Clouds, Benny & Joon, Eight Men Out, Here on Earth, Picture Perfect, Rocky II and The Sandlot. I already own The Sandlot (obvious reasons) and Here on Earth (Sobieski reasons), so it looks like I'll say it's so for Eight Men Out.

Don't worry - news does have a future

Reading the news about the news can drive one to many vices: drinking, bloviating, smoking. And sometimes you reach for the hard stuff to numb the pain, like old comic books. I recently stopped by the local library and picked up the Superman: Past and Future trade paperback for a quick pop culture fix.

Many of the stories are from the early days of the comics, when storylines could range from Jimmy Olsen going undercover with the Nazis to an especially desperate Lois Lane trying to seduce Jor-El (Superman's father) on a pre-explosion Krypton. But amid the embarassments, there was a series of stories detailing the Superman of 2965, a direct decendent of Clark Kent who conveniently looks exactly like his forefather. "Klar Ken T5477" retained the news gene as well, but in a very different news world. So, fear not, reporters: There will be reporting jobs 950 years from now. Editing jobs? Not so much.

Hey, Entertainment Weekly! Say it, don't spray it

A lengthy subscription can make one feel emotionally invested in a magazine, especially a weekly. The variables of staffing, the pop culture landscape and decision-making all lead to ebbs and flows in quality. Surviving on the racks takes some sacrifice, including alienating any of your audience that doesn't LOVE Twilight, all for a fleeting, one-time purchase from a tween who just stopped talking about Kate Gosselin's latest hairstyle .... ahem, but I digress.

Still, I want the magazine to be more than snapshots, "scoops" on TV show plotlines and 30-word reviews. I want Entertainment Weekly to be in-depth, and not just for the pop culture (Lost, Survivor, Sarah Michelle Gellar) for which its writers carry proverbial torches.

Readers must be vigilant in not letting the magazine mix "stinging" barbs at well-acknowledge dreck and quick, six-paragraph puff-piece profiles for people who play the game. The latest issue (June 19, 2009) features a fun Q-and-A with Megan Fox, who manages enough personality to make her story more than just a dumping ground for text in white spaces too small for another photograph. But the piece on Maya Rudolph by Dave Karger features two examples that even a cheerleader would deem as overly supportive.

"Some of my best '[Weekend] Update' memories are when Maya was playing Whitney Houston next to me," says her former castmate Amy Poehler. "I could watch her play Whitney every day for the rest of my life."
We all could have. But in 2007, ....

And then, the Entertainment Weekly trademark, the last-second editorial flourish!

After her sentimental Away We Go sojourn, it's a return to the nuttier stuff that made her a star. "Don't worry, I still want to do Stripes, believe me," Rudolph says. "I hope that I get the chance." Where do we enlist?

You can end it on the quote, man! I know the temptation always lurks to end a piece, especially a short one, on a quick little expression of writerly passion. I've ended things with all the sweetness and tidy appearances of a model home, and the heart to match. But Entertainment Weekly should be a pinnacle for even the quick-interview-as-preview story form, not this hackery. And "we" mean it.

P.S. - The "we" that somehow includes Project Runway fans one week and mouth-breathing Megan Fox disciples the next also appears on the Web site, this time on a Mary Jo Buttafuoco(!) item.

Figurative Language Day: Pushing Daisies

"It's like driving a car blindfolded."
"People's nature is like a river - you can only keep it dammed up for so long."
"... ruby he flaunted like a trophy wife at a high school reunion."
"They'll be all over me like weevils on rice."
"Signals are like nuts - mixed is better."

- From the June 6, 2009 broadcast of Pushing Daisies

Pushing Daisies wouldn't exist without figurative language. Actually, it won't do much existing at all after Saturday, when ABC airs the last episode shot for the series. But the show certainly wouldn't break the bonds of summer-season, Saturday-night silence without its trademark kaleidoscope of colors, characters, conversations and charm. (The end result even means its viewers start thinking in alliteration, with little regard for coming off too corny - Chenowonderful!)

Most devoted fans haven't missed the three-episode swan song, even without the guarantee of a storybook ending or at even a few answers for the downright fantastic plot points. Unlike the serial satisfaction of a show like Lost, Pushing Daisies episodes could exist on their own accord (a dessert without need for the ceremonial meal). And so they have taken to message boards with laments, false hope, some communal appreciation and maybe just a little residual anger at ABC for canceling their beloved. So I have come to think of the show in much the way lives can diverge at crucial life moments - the end of Pushing Daisies is like a romance put on a time limit by life changes.

For starters, both seem to draw out the most florid of language in those doing the lamenting, much to the chagrin of anyone with snark coursing through their veins. In both instances, a sense of helplessness overwhelms. You are but one person, not even a very important Nielsen person at that, and Twittering your love for Anna Friel as Ned's love interest can only get you so far. The same holds true for love against the clock. Graduation will come in just a few days time, and with it a move to the big city/mom's basement. Or, the signs of back-to-school sales in the circulars provide a SAVINGS SPECTACULAR on reminding you that she isn't going to be on your campus in just a few short weeks.

Both situations lend themselves to wide-eyed dreams amid the despair. "The show can move to a different network! It's like Scrubs! What the heck else does NBC have going on, anyway?" And these are the moments when long-distance relationships sound manageable, or if you're too far detached from reality, romantic.

Whether the writers planned it, or the two of you have "the talk," the end will come either way. Acceptance comes in realizing this, and finding in the last moments the reasons you are so upset at its end in the first place.

Addendum: I haven't quite figured out how "the show will live on in comic book form" equates to our young lovers, but I'm sure there's something out there. Also, the comparison of creator Bryan Fuller's other weird, wonderful show (Wonderfalls) to wooing a girl and then her kid sister was discarded on ethical grounds.

Figurative Language Day: David Ortiz is like Lindsay Lohan

If I am a crippled writer, then similes and metaphors are my crutches. They reveal pop culture touchstones, latent psychological issues and an escape from a humdrum paragraph. This being the case, on Mondays The Brockett Blog will feature various scenarios scratched down in the quiet moments on any piece of scrap paper available. Today's example: Baseball players with "old player skills" are like pretty, curvy young actresses. In other words, David Ortiz is much like Mean Girls-era Lindsay Lohan.

Ortiz, the Red Sox slugging DH who helped lead the team to World Series wins in 2004 and 2007, has seen his game fall off by a staggering amount. After five straight years in the top five for American League Most Valuable Player voting from 2003-2007, he struggled and was injured for much of 2008. This year, his batting average has plummeted to .185, he is striking out much more than he is scaring pitchers into walking him and he has hit just one home run in 178 at-bats.

The reason? No one knows for sure. In between solemn pats on the back, columnists have thrown out a litany of reasons ranging from lingering health issues to a lack of certain chemicals coursing through his body. One phrase that pops up in more sober circles is that of "old player's skills." It appeared in reference to former Twin Tom Brunansky in the New Bill James Historical Abstract, and has filtered into the general discussion ever since. It basically posits that a peaking ballplayer with power and walks but no speed will age less gracefully than his more athletic counterpart. Ortiz' "comparables" page on Baseball Reference is littered with takers and rakers who burned bright and faded away quickly. Richie Sexson, Mo Vaughn and Ryan Klesko all are of recent vintage, but Hal Trosky did basically the same thing in the 1930s (but with the caveat that his downfall was aided by World War II and intense headaches).

The aging process spares no man, especially one north of 200 pounds and who requires amazing eye-hand coordination in conjunction with a powerful back and set of legs. The mass only accelerates the cascade, forcing the lumbering slugger quickly from the game. In this way, we can compare Ortiz to another group of people fighting the good fight against time and human anatomy: the buxom young starlet.

It will not be breaking news to mention that many men like their women (or at least the women on their desktop background) young and with curves in all the right places. Various entertainment across the G-PG-PG13-R-NC17-X spectrum take advantage of these preferences and seek out women who fit the bill. During the David Ortiz era, no one exemplified this better than Lindsay Lohan. After her acting in kid-centric fare like Freaky Friday and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen caught the eye of pubescent boys and ashamed dads, Lohan busted out in Mean Girls. Having passed the magical age of 18 barrier, men were free to ogle and even most message board commenters couldn't find much wrong with the talented and beautiful actress. She even used her burgeoning sexuality for comedic effect on Saturday Night Live, memorably playing a "grown up" Hermione in one sketch.

The allure of the curves is fed in part by its relative rarity, especially when you consider how hard it must be to get fat cells into very specific parts of the body. Metabolism and lifestyle change, and an Actress-Reference.com could tell you that at least appearance-wise, it would be hard for Lohan to capture this look for long. Men still speak in hushed tones when talking about a young Jennifer Connelly circa-The Rocketeer, as she sleeked-down her frame but still managed to develop as an actress. Current actresses must balance self-image with an everpresent, paid-by-the-photo paparazzi, as Scarlett Johansson and countless others have learned.

Some try to stay ahead of the game, with their own version of performance enhancers. But there is something about believing in the natural, no matter how fleeting the moment may be.

The lumbering slugger and the curvy young actress can live full, varied lives and their talents can extend well into their golden years. A ballplayer can manage, or use his earnings in charitable ways. An actress can harness a talent that is limited only by the roles available to her. But both are forever defined by the poster on the bedroom wall, an image captured in time.

Cuban's rare podcast appearance highlights podcast publicity problem

Individual podcasters can figure out their audience size by examining hits to the hosting Web sites. But what about the competition? And specifically, what about those podcasts occupying better real estate on the iTunes charts?

ESPN's Bill Simmons has uttered such a refrain, as his competitive nature manifested itself in constantly checking his iTunes popularity ranking. He wondered how Apple figured out these rankings, and the only thing that most of these podcasters have figured out is that it helps to have lots of five-star fawning praise listed on the podcast's informational page. (This article from 2005 details the use of recent subscriptions to figure iTunes rankings, and this story from 2006 asks a similar question.)

Thus, recent listens to podcasts such as On the DL and The Basketball Jones have included a call for fans to write reviews to the ubiquitous podcasting interface.

The confusion between the have's and have-not's also can be confusing for prospective guests, as Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban explained this week on the BS Report:

Bill Simmons: I've been trying to get you on for a year, and Marc Stein says that you didn't want to come on mainly 'cause you hate being on the phone, which I accept. That's a valid reason.

Mark Cuban: Yeah, it's not so much that I hate being on the phone. The honest answer is I'm just not a big fan of podcasts.

BS: You're anti-podcast?

MC: Yeah, it's not that people don't listen to them. Obviously, people do. But it's just, you know, there's only a few of them, yours included, that have more than 10 people that listen to them. I always felt that, If I'm going to be fair and objective, I'm going to have to do a whole bunch of them. And so, if I wasn't going to do them all, I wasn't going to do any of them.

Of course, Cuban goes on to use his opportunity to stoke an uprising in support of HDNET's battle with Time Warner Cable. So as podcasters do their best to appeal to advertisers, they might need to make two copies of that presentation and save one for audience-generating guests, as well.

My Boys, Cubs "meet cute"

As a Cardinals fans, I don't demonstrably relish a Cubs cold streak. Like a no-hitter or a woman who takes interest in me, I don't want to jinx it by making any loud noises. But the team's power outage against the St. Louis pitching staff last week continued against the Padres, and only a series against the Pirates could solve their problems.

Even so, I'm not the type of fan to invade the opposing teams' blogs to see what the fans are complaining about this time. This is why I was so surprised to see a couple of Cubs invade one of the last remaining shows recording to my DVR. "My Boys" on TBS can be counted on for a couple of laughs, some Chicagoland-centric plot devices and just enough ridiculous references to the journalism profession to make me scoff. As mentioned in this previous post, the show toned down its peek inside the journalism world to focus on more important things, like love triangles and visiting new bars.

But Tuesday night's season finale remembered how PJ affords her apartment. She travels down to Arizona for spring training to parachute in and find the column angle seldom seen among the sunburned scribes. Along the way, her friends end up conversing with none other than international superstar ... Mike Fontenot! The (overextended in regular playing time? Or just intimidated by the manly presence of Aaron Miles?) infielder even gets in a few lines in the B storyline, as the boyfriend of a woman looking to make the Cajun jealous.

Micah Hoffapauir also makes an appearances as himself, with game footage featuring Derrek Lee and Lou Pinella, among others. TBS doesn't have the episode up just yet, but you can check out the show here. Mouthpiece Sports has some captured video of the show for those who can't wait. So for at least one day, Fontenot can count Keith Hernandez ("Seinfeld"), Kevin McHale ("Cheers") and Joe Namath ("Brady Bunch") among his peers.

(Image inexplicably found on Chicago Cubs official site)