salon

Cops hate cop shows. Doctors hate doctor shows. Comedy writers hate Studio 60, and the media is loving to hate I'm from Rolling Stone. Everyone from Idolator to Salon is lining up to spank Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner and his ridiculous charges, but that's just because they're jealous. When they started out as interns back in the day, they didn't get to rock the red carpet events and see their bylines the next day. They chose the path of hard work to achieve their journalistic dreams when they should have chosen the far more lucrative and entertaining path of reality television.

You don't have to repeat those bitter journalists' mistakes. You can choose a path somewhere in between. I'm from Rolling Stone has started an online writing contest.

(S01E11... or, is it 04?) Why? Why do networks do this? "Swag" was originally supposed to air as the fourth episode of Ugly Betty. Instead, ABC pushed it into the number eleven position. Brilliant strategy. Take a show that's part telenovela and air it out of sequence. The result was a poorly edited version of an otherwise entertaining episode. The tags that were filmed later with Betty, Christina and the janitor, along with the occasional "remember when such and such was happening" voice-overs, were clumsy and unnecessary.

Production has just begun on a new competition series for the Oxygen network that will pit hairstylists against one another in an attempt to go one-on-one with a famous hairstylist. The new series, hosted by SoapTalk's Lisa Rinna, is called Tease. Robert Verdi of E! and Style will judge the competitions along with salon owner Peter Ishkahns and booking agent Frank Moore. Six episodes of the new series are currently in production and slated to air in January. I'm clearly not the target audience for this new series, since to me the only thing more boring than getting my hair cut is watching someone else have their hair styled. Then again, if the series is as frantic as they're making it out to be, maybe we'll see a lot of accidental head stabs, third degree burns and eye punctures. If that's the case, then I may have an excuse to tune into Oxygen for the first time since that network debuted.

So regular readers of TV Squad and my personal blog know that I have a love for Amy Sedaris. And it's not a crush or stalking, it's a mature, serious, dinner-and-a-movie type of love. Sure, Adam and Joel will say they love her too, but their love isn't real (plus I hear Joel's wanted in five states and Adam always forgets to put the toilet seat down, if you're reading this Amy). So I'm excited to see that Amy will be on The Late Show With David Letterman tonight.

But that's not all! Amy also has a podcast interview today over at Salon. Among other topics, she talks about why she likes ugly people and misfits.

Last night's episode of Everybody Hates Chris focused on a sibling rivalry between Chris and his younger brother Drew, who is better than Chris in everything that matters to young teenage boys, especially fighting and getting girls. Jealous, Chris decides to enroll in a karate class, where his instructor informs the class that karate is about learning ways to kill people, and then not doing it.

I grew up with two siblings, an older sister and a younger brother, and all three of us were so radically different in our personalities and interests that there was never any real jealously between us. I couldn't really empathize with Chris' desire to do something better than his little brother, but I do remember wanting to take karate at a young age. My reason for wanting this, as is the case for most boys, was so I could beat the living crap out of anyone who tried to beat me up at school. I never did take lessons, but I did develop my own form of karate which involved placing one foot in front of the other, and using this motion to propel myself quickly in the opposite direction of my assailant.

Ever wanted to know what life is like as a "That Guy" in Hollywood? You know who I'm talking about; he's one of those actors that you seem to see as a guest actor on every TV show that's on the air, but you wouldn't recognize his name if you were just looking at the episode listing in IMDb. It must be an odd life; you're on TV or in movies, and you're making enough money at acting to be comfortably middle-class, but no one outside a casting office knows who you are and everyone tells you that your destined for bigger and better things but it never seems to happen.

Peter Birkenhead is one of those "That Guys", and he gives Salon readers a little insight into what his life is like in an essay that was posted to the site on Saturday (if you're not a subscriber, you'll need to watch a short ad before viewing the entire essay, but the effort is worth it). It's funny and a little introspective, and if you're an aspiring Hollywood actor, it'll give you some pause, especially when he tells the story of how he finally got a recurring role on Becker (yeah, I know), only to have the part axed after four episodes.

Oh, and here's an indication of how anonymous Birkenhead is: I had to crib this photo from Salon because I only found three pictures of him, and they were all group shots. That's on the entire Internet, folks. I think there are more pictures of me out there than Peter.