My iTunes Shuffle Baker's Dozen 7-11-12

In honor of the free 7-11 Slurpees...not really...


Falling - Cathy Dennis
Advice for the Young at Heart - Tears For Fears
One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head
99.9 F° - Suzanne Vega
Pump Up The Volume (U.S. Remix) - M/A/R/R/S
She Runs Away - Duncan Sheik
What's New Pussycat? - Tom Jones
Heal the Pain - George Michael
Jackie's strength - Tori Amos
Congo - Genesis
Gimme More (Oakenfold Remix) - Britney Spears
Into the Hollywood Groove (The Passengerz Mix) - Madonna feat. Missy Elliot
The Brothers Cup - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Summer's Over, Summer Playlist Forever

This is another of those delayed-by-travel posts. Since my last update I've added more songs to My Big Fat Summer Playlist. A few are from this actual summer, the rest are from summers past or otherwise fit the concept...

Beautiful People - Chris Brown (feat. Benny Benassi) (I feel a little bit guilty about liking a song sung by the woman-beater. It helps that I didn't actually pay for this one.)
I Wanna Go - Britney Spears
California Gurls - Katy Perry feat. Snoop Dogg
Who Do You Love - Bernard Wright
High On Sunshine - The Commodores
Party Rock Anthem - LMFAO (ft. Lauren Bennett & Goon Rock) (Yes, I succumbed to the madness.)
Summer Breeze - Seals & Crofts
Stare Into The Sun - Graffiti 6 (I saw this on one of the Logo music video shows, NewNowNext or its PopLab spinoff)
Summer Madness - Kool & the Gang
School's Out - Alice Cooper
Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run) - Billy Ocean
Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 feat. Christina Aguilera

This brings me to 117 songs. As always, I'm looking for more. But probably not until next summer, unless I hear some old song that begs to be added.

My New Problem With Glee

You may remember that I didn't take to "Glee" at first. I watched for a couple of weeks and then stopped. After the first 13 episodes the show took a break for a few months, then came back in April. Since the second episode upon their return was their much-ballyhooed Madonna episode, I started watching again. I loved "The Power of Madonna," and watched every episode thereafter. Slowly it won me over. This summer Fox ran two repeats on Tuesday nights and I caught up on what I missed.

I'm still watching, but I have a new issue. And it's not the Britney Spears episode, which was annoying in the way it forced Britney and her music into the show so blatantly. It's not that Artie, the kid in the wheelchair, is now on the school's football team -- something even more impossible than the offense lining up with time running out, stopping a play and doing Beyonce's "Single Ladies" dance to distract the opposing defense and score a game-winning TD without getting called for some sort of penalty. (Delay of game, illegal formation, maybe illegal use of the hands?) It's not any of the other implausibilities or improbabilities. I've been able to overlook just about every bit of weirdness. (And I adore Chris Colfer. Love the picture from Rolling Stone...)

But last night it dawned on me that, in light of all the recent events regarding bullying and suicides, I am very uncomfortable seeing the goon football players dousing Glee kids with slushies, yelling menacingly, and worse -- remember, they were about to beat up Kurt in the so-called "Lady Gaga" episode (which only featured two Gaga songs) until Finn and the others arrived -- and no one in authority even tries to do something to stop it. Ever. Maybe it seemed funny in those early episodes when they were throwing kids into Dumpsters. It doesn't seem all that funny now. It's strange that, for all the surreality on the show, bullying is what seems to be the most grounded in reality.

Am I overreacting here or does anyone else feel the same about this?

Adam Lambert and TV Network Lunacy

So let's sum this up: on Sunday ABC televised the American Music Awards. The show ended with a performance by Adam Lambert. It was wildly over-the-top in his sexual acting-out, including simulated oral sex, among other things. The mildest part of the whole thing was probably when he kissed his keyboardist, another man.

Then the morons took over. ABC canceled Lambert's scheduled Wednesday performance on "Good Morning America" because they were afraid of more of the same. CBS eagerly snapped him up to perform on "The Early Show" the same day, and interviewed him about the controversy. While doing so, they showed a clip from the AMAs, and CBS blurred out the kiss between Lambert and his keyboardist. Moments later, they showed footage of Madonna kissing Britney Spears from the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards -- unedited.

What we have here are two networks so afraid to alienate part of their dwindling audience that they made utterly stupid decisions that end up alienating another part of the audience -- the part with working brains. The broadcast networks are a shell of their former selves anyway. Where there were once only three networks and some independent stations, there are now hundreds of cable networks, the Internet, DVDs, iTunes, cell phones that play video, and so on. The audience is fractured, probably forever. So it behooves a network to not give in to foolishness, to not be conservative and boring. To stand out in the crowd it takes boldness.

ABC struck out by canceling Adam Lambert's GMA appearance without, oh, contacting him on Monday or Tuesday and saying, "Hey, Adam, we loved what you did on our awards show. The ratings were up, which we're grateful for. But that type of performance wouldn't really go over at 7 a.m., you know? You probably know that, so you'll tone things down, right?"

CBS struck out by displaying hypocrisy. It's okay to show two women kissing, but not two men? Double standard much, CBS? Let's refine the question. It's okay to show two straight women kissing each other, but it's not okay to show two men, at least one of whom is gay, kissing?

Two network dinosaurs, slowly dying. With decisions like these, they won't be missed.

Good for K-Fed...'cept for the reality TV crapfest...

K-Well Fed is going to try and slim down! Kevin Federline is going to appear on the next edition of VH1's "Celebrity Fit Club," reports TMZ. I'm not sure why he doesn't just hire a trainer and chef, with all the money he got from Britney for watching their kids during her tour -- in other words, doing what a father's supposed to do anyway.

Wait, I take that back. Of course I know why he's going on a reality TV show. Like all has-beens and never-really-weres (guess which category he belongs to!) he's doing it for the money, and to feed his enormous...ego. And hey, TMZ says he'll be doing it with his ex-girlfriend Shar Jackson, mother of his two non-Spears offspring. And both will be joined by Bobby Brown, who apparently reacted to the comeback of his ex, Whitney Houston, by eating everything in sight.

K-Fed photos from TMZ...not for the faint of heart.

K-Fed more like K-Well-Fed

This is what not being married to Britney Spears does to you? I've seen some footage on TMZ of a bulked-up Kevin Federline but it seems to be getting worse. I guess he's not going back to ahis old career as a dancer any time soon. Before and after: