I just found myself in the middle of a three paragraph email rant to Matthew discussing the merits of assorted contestants on Rock Star: INXS. Egad. Ted, how could you? But since i mostly suck at covering up my fairly obvious interest in the show, i'll recap my assorted thoughts.

JD is a total scumbag. Obviously a talented performer (although sometimes it's apparent that Michael Hutchence's range far outshines his), and definitely the most competent songwriter in the bunch (although as the movie Rock Star attest, replacement singers are not always recruited to come in and write songs). However his personality blows ... what a completely smarmy bastard. His gamesmanship early on was just atrocious. Like holding out for Queen's "We Are The Champions" during song selection, then realizing he couldn't sing it and trying to get Jordis to switch with him. And when she wouldn't, trying out some really awful "I want to get to know you" pick up lines in a pathetic attempt to manipulate her. While he has toned it down a bit lately, he doesn't get off that easy with me ... while INXS may buy that he's now a team player, i think he's genuinely an asshole who's just put on a different hat. I also find that his performances are pretty hit-or-miss. While he's nailed some songs, there's just as many that have fallen flat. I wish Marty would haul off and sock him.

That said, I'm not thrilled with any of the contestants, but then just as I don't accept American Idol contestants as valid artists, I probably won't accept the winner as the real successor to Michael Hutchence. I think Mig will win if only because he's got the Australian thing going for him.

One thing that has greatly pleased me about the show were the comments made by Ty when he was dismissed. Usually an entertaining performer, he somehow managed to keep ending up in the bottom three after the world voted. While the hosts of the show (INXS, Dave Navarro, and the utterly hopeless Brooke Burke) managed to concoct various explanations for this, there was one very obvious one that went unsaid: Ty is black. In leaving he didn't blame the band, and they to an extent commiserated with him, but he did state that he is disappointed that as a people we haven't yet put to rest our racial differences. It needs to be pointed out that there are some rather unsettling trends in reality TV voting, that reveal some unpleasant but nonetheless valid facts about the state of our society.

Of course, we are talking about people dumb enough to waste money voting for a has-been Australian band's new lead singer here ...

Despite the somewhat kitschy appeal of their post-Kick offerings, you have to admit that Hutchence et al. made some magic with songs like "This Time" and "Don't Change".

I'm learning that i need to feel some sense of honesty in music before i can enjoy it. I understand the business savvy of running INXS's singer auditions on national TV. I however put it in the "money-generating" rather than "artistic" category. Rock Star: INXS is the complete antithesis of honest in art. While there's certainly a spectrum ranging from pure art to pure commercialism, and it's not always easy to pinpoint a certain act's location along said spectrum, i tend to gravitate towards indie labels because of the lesser influence of money (ie, they don't make any). Green Day are a nice example ... ever since they left Lookout! Records for a major label, i haven't liked anything they've done. I don't trust their motives at all. If former Dead Kennedys frontman and Alternative Tentacles label head Jello Biafra got beaten up at 924 Gilman in the 90's for being an alleged sellout, Billie Joe Armstrong should get skull-f@$#ed. Now they're media darlings again with this new über-catchy but typically hollow album American Idiot.

Finally, and i've argued this point with Veronica until I'm blue in the face, i have little to no respect for frontmen/women that play no instruments and do no songwriting (and i don't consider writing lyrics "songwriting"). Throw into this category all the American Idol contestants, teeny bopper boy and girl bands, Madonna, etc etc. I realize this condemns a lot of sacred performers, but that's just my bias. I focus on the musical aspects of a song, am fascinated by the intricate songs crafted by masters, and just cannot see why i should get excited by Kelly Clarkson's rendition of something someone else wrote and to which she had no creative input. She's just the vehicle, who gives a crap?

I always come back from the Society for Molecular Imaging meetings with tons of ideas, and this time was no different. While i'm temporarily occupied writing a short grant proposal by Thursday, i've given my postdocs a slate of new experiments to try out. It's good to be the king, no? I suppose, except for that "buck stops here" problem.

Got an advance of the new Franz Ferdinand album You Could Have It So Much Better. The single on the radio at the moment, "Do You Want To", didn't really do much for me, but i must say it sits well in the encouraging first half of the album. The second half of the record seems to drag a bit, but then their first album took a while to grow on me before i found it thoroughly mesmerizing.

I impressed V in Europe by being especially quick to name all the music we heard on the radio, including Hard-Fi, Doves, and others. For someone who gets routinely lambasted for not listening to any new music, i was definitely putting her to shame. Bwa ha ha.

I caught up on the recent Chelsea highlights today. Despite the fact that we have a 100% record in all competitions this season and that we've yet to concede a goal anywhere, we're certainly not playing with any particular verve or dominance. I keep reminding myself that the same was true last season before the squad clicked (sparked by the mid-season arrival of the previously injured Arjen Robben) and we began to impose our will. This season Robben's in the thick of things, but everyone seems out of sorts, including previous stalwarts like Frank Lampard. José Mourinho has shown significant savvy before in getting his squads to achieve at their maximum level, and i trust him to do it again. I just hope it's soon because i'm getting sick of reading the press's criticism of boring, boring Chelsea. On the upside, the protracted transfer saga and eventual steep price tag of Michael Essien looks to be justified by his rapid establishment in the Blues' midfield. Hernan Crespo again seems to be struggling to find his form in England, however Didier Drogba is quietly shrugging off his critics and consistently putting the ball in the back of the net.

Wayne Rooney sent off again today in Man United's lackluster opening Champions League draw against Villareal. All matured now, as he said before the season? Don't bet on it.

Writing about the novels i read on the plane during our trip, i realized my reading-for-pleasure has come to a complete standstill since returning to California. The lack of free time makes me pine for the days of reading on the T for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening. To rectify the situation, i picked up two books on the history of science at Barnes & Noble last night. History of science, you say? Pleasure reading? Absolutely! This is coming from someone whose most-watched TV network these days is the History Channel.

Experimenting with the new iTunes (v5.0) i downloaded yesterday it seems more less like the last one (4.8? 4.9? I can't remember), with a slightly trimmed-down user interface (in terms of real estate, not function). My listening statistics script still works fine, although (it may be my imagination) i seem to detect it running a bit slower. Veronica became entranced with the new iPod Nano after seeing it on the internet while in Europe, and is more or less resolved to getting one to replace my old 20 GB generation 2 iPod that she'd been using. I must admit, they're dead sexy. However, at this point what i need is a bigger iPod (say, 250 GB? You hardware development types listening?) rather than a more aesthetically-pleasing but smaller capacity one.