the norm show

The '80s resurgence continues with the pending DVD release of 'Max Headroom', one of the most ambitious and baffling sci-fi shows to ever hit the small screen.

Too young to remember Matt Frewer's babbling blonde digital hipster? Allow me to play professor: In the mid-'80s, Frewer (you know, that guy) played a strange, spastic (and sarcastic) computer-animated Coca Cola pitchman and music video host that lived inside of your TV. He frightened young children and hypnotized susceptible nerds into guzzling Coke by the gallon.

Perhaps as a meta-comment on his own existence, his creators produced an insane cyberpunk TV movie starring Max that satirized TV marketing, the media, politics, and everything else worth satirizing.

Fans of Artie Lange (and of Howard Stern's show on SIRIUS radio) have been worried about Lange every since he was rushed to the hospital last weekend. Now we know why he's there and why no explanation was given at first: he tried to commit suicide.

Lange stabbed himself nine times and his mother called 911. He lost a lot of blood but doctors were able to save his life.

For some reason, suicide didn't even cross my mind as a possible reason that he was in the hospital. Not even for a second. I just assumed that he was in there because of drug problems and/or a possible overdose.