The Lint Screen

After shelling out big bucks to see well over a couple dozen movies this past year, it finally struck me–– the big screen is getting trumped by the little one.

The creative output on broadcast television far exceeds the re-hashed plotlines, remakes, kiddie pablum, cookie cutter sequels, artsy-fartsy borefests and special effects-driven mindless fare Hollywood keeps churning out.

Here are 23 great shows you can see on air. Some are subscription based, but many are free, and almost all are available on Netflix or on demand. It’s a feast of storytelling and rich, complex character development.

Get a load of these:
Justified, Falling Skies, Mad Men, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Luther, Downton Abbey, Weeds, Hell on Wheels, Boardwalk Empire, The Daily Show, Game of Thrones, Louie, Portlandia, Dexter, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Homeland, The Colbert Report, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, The Middle, Treme, Californication and The Walking Dead.

That’s 23 terrific shows, everything from period pieces to fantasy to gritty drama to sharp political satire and commentary to gripping psychological character studies to absurdist humor to family friendly comedy to rich explorations into the human condition.

It’s no wonder some of the sharpest talent in entertainment has gone from the big screen to the smaller one. There is more freedom to create, to develop, to take risks, to tell truly interesting stories and to succeed.

In short, contrary to what our parents always told us, we should all be watching more TV.

Steve Jobs has left the building. He is no longer Mr. Apple. While this day had to eventually come, it doesn’t make it any easier to take.

No other business leader has been such a visionary, and no other company is such a reflection of its inspirational leader. Jobs is Apple, Apple is Jobs, and we will see if the great company can continue going forward without him at the helm.

I suspect it will. After all, Jobs stocked the pond.

In its early days, back when IBM ruled the PC world, Apple was positioned as “the computer for the rest of us.” Us were those who could care less how the damn thing worked. Us were the technophobic crowd who merely wanted the magic without knowing how the trick was done. Us were the ones who wanted to do a task with one keystroke instead of three, and wanted to make it possible for typography to be beautiful.

That’s what Jobs and Apple gave us: easy to use computers and devices that did what needed to be done, while doing some other cool things, all while looking pretty cool.

I spend most days hunched over an Apple laptop. I listen to an iPod on foot, in the car and on the plane. I talk on an iPhone and surf the web with it, too. I rarely resist the siren call of an Apple store and lust for all the goodies within (MacBook Air, I’m stalking you). And, of course, I’ve been a fan of Apple’s advertising from the start.

Aside from those couple years when Jobs got das boot from Apple and created NeXT and turbo-boosted Pixar, the company was a reflection of the man in jeans and a black turtleneck. A man who is sick, but still generously shared his wisdom a few years back with this inspiring commencement address.

A man who was our modern day Edison with his name listed on 313 Apple patents. A man who thought differently, and asked us to think different. A true American legend, this Steve Jobs. He will be missed. Enjoy.

Clarence Clemons is dead at age 69. Nicknamed The Big Man, he stood 6′ 5″ and weighed-in at 270. Pity his pall bearers. Pity us fans.

His mighty lungs were the engine room of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. When he picked up his mighty tenor sax, the walls of Jericho protecting the human core shook and crumpled as emotions were laid bare and spirits were lifted to the heavens. The solo Clarence plays in “Jungleland” is testament to his greatness.

With breath and finger movement, he picked our bones clean.

I had the pleasure of seeing him perform with the Boss at least 10 times. Over the years the band lost some of its intensity, but the E Streeters always delivered the goods. Front and center in my memory banks is the band in its glory days on the “Darkness” tour, playing Richfield Coliseum outside of Cleveland. I managed to get free admission to be a security person for the show. Originally, my task was to check purses for booze and weapons, but I talked my way into a better detail– guarding the rows of seats behind the stage to keep fans away.

As the concert started, I settled into my post in one of the seats on the edge of the vacancy zone and watched the show. Springsteen and the E Street Band were at their peak, and I had a fabulous seat.

And Clarence, Clarence just blew us all away.

Thanks, Big Man. With your lungs, I doubt you’ll be issued a harp in heaven.

I like Ike because although he was a military man, he knew how dangerous the power of profiting from wars could be.

Here’s a swatch from President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s “see you later” speech to the American people. Now it’s 50 years later, and his words are still haunting, especially in light of how they’ve been ignored. Today, we’ve got us a trillion-bucks-a-year big business in defense!

Enjoy this liberal peacenik’s rant. One can only imagine what Ike would have thought of our military industrial complex today.

Get a load of this: Mark Clavarella, a former juvenile court judge in Pennsylvania, was just convicted of racketeering in a scheme where he and another judge sent youth offenders to for-profit detention centers in exchange for a cool couple million bucks from the builders of the hoosegows.

Imagine that, a scumbag in robes throwing the book at kids as young as 10 so he can get his greedy palms greased.

Clavarella was notoriously harsh in his sentencing of youths. Now we know why: he had vacancies to fill.

The builder (a friend of Clavarella’s) and an attorney who co-owned the lockups were dishing fistfuls of cash to keep the young traffic coming to their crossbar motel.

And now that Clavarella’s been caught and convicted, what’s the penalty he’ll be paying to society? Maybe 12 years in prison. Is that justice?

No. This guy deserves life in prison for ruining so many young lives to pad his pockets. He’s like the scum Charles Dickens used to imagine in his novels. Minor drug offenders are serving more time than this bastard will. That’s not justice.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world (3.1% of the population is on probation, behind bars or on parole) and I suspect it’s only going to get worse if we continue with this for-profit lockup racket. There’s too much money in the jailing business and too much temptation for sleazy, greedy guys like Clavarella.

Let’s see if we can’t get him some Madoff time. Oh, and while we’re at it, wouldn’t it be wonderful to throw some of the fatcats responsible for the financial meltdown to get some serious jail time? Any jail time?

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I think you went overboard in the your Oscar nomination love for The King’s Speech and True Grit.

Yes, both films were well made, acted, and directed, but 22 nominations between them is a bit much.

You should have slathered much more love on The Social Network, far and away the best film that I saw last year.

You could have shown a little more love for Black Swan and The Fighter, two fresh takes on the human condition.

But, you went and did what you usually do: bow down and curtsey for the period movie with British accents, and toss rose petals at the feet of talented filmmakers who are being recognized more for their past work that you ignored than their film being honored.

Oh, Hollywood, you are so predictable you deserve to give yourself an award for consistency.