Pop Culture TV

Right now I’m listening to Roger Daltry sing “Behind Blue Eyes,” one of the saddest songs ever written. He’s being accompanied by the Chieftains. It is easily my favorite version of the song, and I am a big Who fan. I’ve got a recording of it on a Chieftain’s album, but this one is from a T.V. special from 1994 called “Daltry sings Townshend,” (also called “Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and the Who”). It’s got a great bridge duet between John Entwistle and Kevin Conneff. Awesome. The show also has Lou Reed, Sinead O’Connor, and Michael Kaman conducting the Julliard orchestra. The music is, well, it’s Who music, meaning it’s the best damn rock and roll on the planet. Greg Koski, an amazing actor I went to school with, once said “they pack more energy into three minutes then most people manage to put into a lifetime.” The show was shot in 1994 at Carnegie Hall, and it’s weird to watch knowing that Darek Bell, Michael Kaman and John Entwistle are all now dead. Yeah, I know, everybody is The Wizard of Oz is dead too and they still show that every year, but this is different. Most of the cast of Wizard of Oz died along time ago.

The show is being broadcast on Trio. I am a fan of Trio as well. Subtitled “Pop Culture TV,” Trio has the most consistently interesting programming on cable. Yes, HBO has by far the best shows over all, and USA and FX run the best shows that are interrupted by commercials, but Trio is just fascinating. They have a series called “Brilliant but Cancelled,” in which they show T.V. series that are just that. A lot of it comes from England. No surprise: England is the homeland of cutting edge pop these days, as it was in the Austin Powers 60s. The other day I saw a British broadcast of a public autopsy: brilliant, but disgusting. Tonight they are showing the brilliant but cancelled “Parenthood” with David Arquet, Ed beagly Jr. and Leo Dicaprio, and a Bob Marley concert. They show better theatre broadcasts then Ovation or even PBS—today it was Three Sisters with Sir Lawrence Olivier, Joan Plowright and Alan Bates. A while back I saw Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in Rhinoceros. Seriously, if you never have, watch it. You will be mesmerized. It is everything that T.V. should be, and it proves what I’ve been telling my media studies students for years. We are living in the Golden Age of Television right now.