If you're as secretly guarded about your TV-watching habits as I am, then you no doubt are a fan of VH1's latest guilty pleasure: "The Best Week Ever."
It's "Entertainment Tonight" meets "I Love the '80s" meets "The Week in Rock" meets pure, heavenly goodness. Anytime entertainment "news" is re-packaged into funny, irreverent and meaningless banter, I say "Yay!"
But if there's anything I hate, it's when someone latches onto a new - and still undiscovered - hit and claims it his or her own.
So even though I advise that you watch it, just remember that it's not cool to be that guy who said he liked Dave Matthews Band "before they sold out." Guess what, only 15 people in Virginia knew Dave Matthews before he sold out, and you weren't one of them.
So make sure "The Best Week Ever" remains our best kept secret. Because truth be told, I am that guy, and I DID know Dave Matthews back in 1995. We were tight.
I'd like to add my two cents to the best show ever, by offering a few of my own news bits from Buffalo and beyond:
Speaking of Grain Elevators. Buffalo has always been an unbelievable arts city. We've even been ranked nationally as such. But this week, I realized just how central our little lake-effect artistic colony is on the country's map.
Matthew Barney's "Cremaster" film cycle showing at the Market Arcade movie theater last week was really something to witness. I loved it, not withstanding the fact that I didn't understand a single second of the third film in the series. Watching the nearly dialogue-less experimental film, I was - for the first time since last Tuesday -very close to throwing up on myself.
Let's just say that waking up from a three-minute doze to a completely random scene of a racehorse with its bodily organs dripping from its skinless body really makes you want to watch a Meg Ryan movie.
Another hit for B-Lo was the nearly sold-out run of the new Billy Joel musical, "Movin' Out" at Shea's. It's funny when you pay all that money for a good seat and are enthralled by the performance, only to be annoyed by the man sleeping and drooling across the aisle. His pool of drool required buckets.
The fact that the brand-new show, which is still a Broadway hot-ticket, made Buffalo its second stop on its first national tour, is a big deal for touring markets like this one. It's because of Shea's revitalization and restoration that shows like "Movin' Out" and "The Lion King" (coming to town in the 2004-05 season) can grace the Queen City.
Speaking of Queens. Keep your eyes peeled for another wave of gay entertainment. Coming to Comedy Central is their awaited parody of Bravo's monster hit, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." It's called "Straight Plan for the Gay Man," and spins the original's concept around, transforming a gay (and probably effeminate) man into a rough, rugged, football-watching, Swimsuit Issue-"reading" straight man. Hey, I used to read Playboy ... for the articles.
Also, the new J.C. Chasez CD comes out. ("Blowing' Me Up With Her Love?" I think not.)
Liquor? I Don't Even Like Her! Courtney, Courtney, Courtney. When are you going to snap out of your "I make my Kool-Aid with cocaine" phase and shape up? You can't win your daughter's custody hearings by snarling at your lawyer like you're a kitty cat with a heroin problem. Put down the bottle, flush the snow and shape up. It's time you used your addictions to make good music, like all the great musicians do.
No More 'Sex' in the Champagne Room. A few weeks ago, I was told by a few of my devout column readers (all two of you) that my thoughts on this season's big three season finales ("Friends," "Frasier" and the now defunct "Sex and the City") were everything from "just wrong" to "dead-on."
So with one finale down, and two more to go, Sunday night's last "SATC" turned out to be just as smart, suspenseful and satisfying as could be expected. Carrie ends up happy, Big's name is revealed (John? That's not sexy!) and Alexsandr "The Russian" turns out to be just as crazy than his country's namesake salad dressing.
Photo: Courtesy of SUNY
