Well, this seems oddly appropriate, and well-timed if you’re Channel Nine, that’s for sure. Not so much if you’re Carl Williams…

Carl Williams murdered in prison

Notorious underworld identity Carl Williams is dead after an attack by two inmates, one wielding part of an exercise bike, in Barwon Prison’s maximum-security Acacia unit…

So this might just bring the original Underbelly saga to a close, or possibly just bring about another sequel. No word yet on which prisoners did him in, or what their motivations were (because they must have known who he was).

So finally an end to the whole thing? Is there anyone left to get revenge on anyone else? Will Underbelly never end…?

The smile is finally gone…

Read my guide to Underbelly, the original series (and the only one that matters)

Not in Australia (yet), but I’m really hoping it’s only a matter of time before Netflix gets in on the act locally:

Wii becomes third console to stream Netflix

It’s a triple crown for Netflix. Beginning in the spring, the Wii will become the last of the three current video game consoles to get instant viewing of Netflix movies and TV shows over the Internet.

Wii owners who have a broadband connection and a Netflix subscription that costs at least $9 a month will be able to watch those programs with no extra charge.

Nintendo Co. and Netflix Inc., which wouldn’t give an exact launch date for the service, were set to announce the deal on Wednesday.

More here

My take: They already have Netflix streaming on PS3 and Xbox over there, so it was only a matter of time before it got on the Wii. And the Wii is lower cost and has a far bigger install base, so this is big. But alas, no Netflix like service exists in Australia yet (and don’t say Bigpond movies: $10-20 a month to stream all you like? Not in Telstra’s lifetime), so we will wait a little longer I think.

But it’s rumoured that Netflix or someone similar will setup a real service of that nature here soon (all they really need are servers here, plus some rights issues), so it likely should happen soon. There’s a lot of rumours about the TV landscape changing here this year, so let’s keep watching…

Now I mean, obviously it’s a bit of PR both for Playboy and The Simpsons… but damn, it’s an amusing piece

And the question is,will it turn you on at all? Apparently there’s three more pages of pictures inside, so who knows?!

Which other cartoon characters should be in Playboy… I wonder…?

More on this Hey Hey It’s Saturday sketch… I’m over the sketch, it’s so clear that no one meant to be racist, even if it clearly was, and I believe the people who did it (even channel nine), were ignorant and dumb at the worst, not racist.

But the defense of this situation… even after all the explanations, even after all the details, even after all the reaction and embarrassment — this is just pathetic now. This is what is wrong with Australia, or at least a very big proportion of Australians.

Now we’re seeing  new stories that polls declare it was all okay. But hey, 77% thought the way Howard treated the Tampa refugees in 2001 was okay too, and look what that said about us.

Don’t people fucking get it? I even read blog comments declaring Connick was somehow deficient his his reaction… give me a break. We’re going to attack him for taking offense at something he obviously had every reason to dislike? And this whole “but he did it too” defense, complete with 13 year old video is even worse: HE WAS NOT IN BLACK FACE, and that’s all there is to it. No one ever said you could never make any joke relating to black people, but black face humour is pathetic, dated and wrong.

And yes, politically correct… blah, blah, blah. STOP IT. The argument essentially goes “I can do anything and say anything I like because if you don’t like it you’re being politically correct and that’s bad now.” I’ll say it again: political correctness is a myth invented to justify being as obnoxious as you like and pre-emptively attacking anyone that would dare take offense.

Once again, this particular situation is almost irrelevant now. What this shows is just how screwy attitudes in this country are to race and racism. All it takes is something to bring it out (and I thought we’d ended that in November 2007).

As a semi-regular Letterman viewer (thanks to Channel Ten here), it’s been an odd one reading about this whole Letterman/affairs/blackmail saga. Missed last week’s initial revelations due to it not being on until 1am, but checked out part two last night, and it was odd. Interesting but odd.

So he had some affairs. Not a newsflash really, as he does kind of seem the type, especially since he was unmarried for decades, and that only changed earlier this year. I presume these affairs ceased before his marriage, but even then it isn’t much of our business if they didn’t, but it would make sense. While his girlfriend and now wife was with him for 20 years, we don’t really know the situation of their relationship, or the stability. Totally between them of course. I can easily imagine though that a condition of their marriage might have been that such things ended. which again would make sense.

But then the blackmail thing, and the remarkably public way he’s handled it… well that was unexpected. On the one hand he’s such a public figure, but on the other hand he has been fairly private for such a well known name. Masterful media relations really, as being upfront about it has probably lessened or removed anby damage to him, which is smart. And he’s keeping the women out of it as much as possible, while really letting the accused blackmailer have it. I’ve already read the suggestion that it’s an uneven playing field, that Letterman can put his side out there every night while the accused can only do it in court, but really, who did this guy think he was up against? I’d say this is par for the course if you try and blackmail a major celebrity, something that seems like a fairly zero sum game to begin with anyway.

As for the fallout, well it’s already been asked iif Letterman risks hypocrasy over this, with so much of his humour being about other people’s infidelity. But really, he never condemned, just made jokes, and it’s clear he expects the same in return. All the other talkshows are on him now, and his routine last night was good, where he mocked going for Clinton, Spitzer and Sanford jokes and realised going there was pointless now.

Letterman’s schtick has always been heavily based on self mocking, so that skill will seriously help him now, and I wouldn’t expect that to change. He’s endless self-depricating, and will continue to be. As long as anything he did never involved any kind of coersion or other kind of boss-employee manipulation, I think people will let this slide, just as anyone sane did with Bill Clinton. All Letterman should get in return is good humoured mockery, and he’s already got a jump on us by laying plenty of that on himself.

As many will have no doubt read, Des “Tuppence” Moran was murdered yesterday, in broad daylight, in the middle of the day, in a crowded cafe in Melbourne. He follows to the grave his brother Lewis, his nephews Jason and Mark, and many, many of their colleagues and friends.

This is likely freaking police out right now, since Des Moran had no connections (that I’ve read) to any recent criminal activity, and everyone you’d think would have been out to get him was already dead or in jail. The fact he was so well known was one thing, but the fact the crime was so brazen and public is the other thing: and obviously very dangerous. Whoever did this clearly wasn’t worried about anyone else.

Makes you wonder who did do it though. I actually wonder if new gangsters in Melbourne actually thought killing the last Moran man would be good for business, not because he was any kind of competition, but simply because it would get them in the Underworld fame books, and get them media headlines (mostly of these nutters are fame whores now anyway, in that Godfather/Scarface kind of way).

So another chapter of Underbelly, or just a sad segue into some other lame crime syndicate, selling drugs to dummies who still want them, while the cops wonder what kind of idiots are keen to shoot up people in broad daylight like this? Hard to tell really, but I hear the police are very close to arrests already (I mean, I’ll check the news, they might have someone already).

Either way, Underbelly is on again next year on Nine, with another past story. If this new thing warrants more stories, expect to wait until at least after there are convictions and sentencing, at least.

UPDATE: Turns out the culprits were far closer to hom… Judy Moran and family arrested in gangland murder

Well, only in a small way, but it’s nice to be wanted

My Yo Gabba Gabba review, on the State Sports Centre website… they contacted me and asked to reprint it, so they obviously figured I liked their venue:

http://www.sports-centre.com.au/sop/centre/137/Tell_Us

I’ve noticed a new trend in TV shows recently… one completely ignored in Australia of course… and not an entirely new idea, but a trend nonetheless.

The skilled bystander: Someone who is skilled and talented in a certain area, that can through design or happenstance be transferred into crime solving. So teaming them with a crime solving professional, usually a cop or FBI agent, will create a new crime solving story.

Examples:

Bones, with the forensic anthropologist and the FBI agent.

Numbers, with the mathematician and the fed

Lie to Me: The lie expert and the feds/cops

Castle: The mystery author and the cop

The Mentalist: Magic/con/illusion expert assists cops in solving crime

It’s all about the hook really, and all these shows veer into high concept land… ie: what fancy new way can we think of to create new crime solving stories? They’re all so desperate to not look the same as the last show, they’re kind of crazy about finding new ways to hook into the crime-solving paradigm. It’s all about being the same but different: crime shows will never run out of ideas, but if you can get yourself a new niche, a new take on the genre, you’ll distinguish yourself from the competition.

A shout out here to Life, one of my favourite shows in the last couple of years, and sadly one no longer in production, having just been cancelled after two seasons. The whole zen master thing didn’t exactly fit the skilled bystander paradigm, but the “cop wrongly imprisoned and now very wealthy” thing did, in a way. Still, I like it, with Damian Lewis’ Charlie Crews a fascinating and quirky main character, a regular cop but not quite. And Sarah Shahi’s troubled but tough Dani Reese, the classic cops daughter turned cop herself a great character too… not to mention being eternally gorgeous and worth watching all day Will be missed, and I hope to see both of them in new projects soon.

I’m racking my brain to think of anything in Australia that’s been made anywhere near this story theory… nothing really comes to mind. Local screens are full of cop dramas as well, but they seem to go out of their way to be as conventional as possible. It’s like we’re just discovering the “gritty” genre now that US TV got into with NYPD Blue 15 years ago… it’s not that they’re bad shows (quite like Rush and City Homicide really), but they’re not cutting edge or glaringly new either. Like I always say, at least local shows are being made that are worth watching at all… which is sometimes surprising to be honest…

For anyone out there in reader land, I’d love to hear more suggestions of “skilled bystander” shows, new or old…

Today was the big day for Will and I. After we dropped off Sallie and Alex at Rosehill for a baby expo thing, we drove in to Homebush. Was relieved when there turned out to be no traffic or parking problems, so even though parking would be expensive, it was all systems go for Yo Gabba Gabba, live!

If you’re not familiar at all with Yo Gabba Gabba, a new kid’s TV show made essentially by a few 30-something ska-punk musicians and fronted by this futuristic DJ and his puppet toy friends, it is very hard to explain. The pictures here will do it some justice, but between DJ Lance and Muno, Brobee, Foofa, Plex and Toodee, you have this wild and colourful gang of all-singing, all-dancing characters that teach kids all sorts of good lessons, while also just having a good time, singing some fun songs, and providing a surprisingly good time for parents as well.

We had lunch first at the little cafe in the sports centre, and Will was temperamental about it as always. He was hungry, but also a bit crazy from the anticipation of the show, I know. So many other kids there, and an enormous amount of t-shirts from the show already, which we hadn’t seen much. After queueing for a short time, which at first Will hated but then he got used to very quickly, we were hustled into the venue. Reasonably large stage, good seating plan so everyone basically had a good seat.

It was fun right from the outset, with a local “house band”, the Pookynoos, who must be local kids entertainers — they knew just where to pitch things and they fitted in well.

DJ Lance, when he came on stage, was the consummate performer, really enganging well with the audience and showing a very “live” performance style — while it was obviously pre-planned, he was still very spontaneous and natural, especially when he came out into the audience for two segments.

And when the characters arrived on stage, the crowd went wild, and that’s when the familiar songs started up. I couldn’t decide if the character voices were performing live or were pre-recorded, so I decided it didn’t matter — the show worked well either way. They did about 30-35 minutes then had “snacky snack” time, then did another 35 minutes to finish. From my adult perspective, I could have imagined the show being longer, but really, considering the age of most of the audience, that was about as long as they could manage. Will’s five and it was probably just enough for him… many other kids were a lot younger, and you could see some of them losing it at the end.

I kept looking for Will’s reaction during the show, and I knew he was impressed. He started with this look of awe, of the sheer amazement of the characters he knows from the show suddenly being there right in front of him. Then he got right into the show, dancing and moving with the audience. Then I think at the end he was probably a bit tired out, but still very happy. That’s what we were there for

We got out of the area without any trouble, and met back up with Sallie and Alex for an afternoon Maccas snack. A really good day, and one any fan should try to get to

Listening to the radio this morning, and DJ Lance Rock and Christian “Plex” Jacobs (also the co-creator of the show) from Yo Gabba Gabba! were on. They’re doing their Sydney shows on the weekend, and I’m very happy to say that I’m taking Will to see the whole extravaganza.

It was a funny thing on the radio, pointing out to Will who was on and having his face light up with simultaneous joy and confusion when he heard Plex and Lance do the weather report. And listening to the whole story of their origins reminds me of why I actually like the show, and why I love the fact Will likes it as well. It really does have the whole punk DIY ethos going through it, and the guests and music they have is really part of that whole package.

Will wouldn’t have a clue about the bands or the musical background on it, but it gives the show a whole extra dimension for the parents watching. As Sallie constantly reminds me, it is a fairly “boyish” thing as well, which is why I expect to see more Dad’s than Mum’s on Saturday, but no doubt plenty of Mum’s will be there too. Everyone from 30ish types like myself to aging punks with their kids will be there no doubt. And I hear the local musical guests will be quite appealing as well, likely a lot of acts I will know but don’t expect.

Should be a great experience for us both! Yo Gabba Gabba!