Lil Boosie apparently has a problem that isn't ours

Lil Boosie - who, clearly, was at the back of the queue when hip hop handles were being handed out - has a problem with All The Gays on his TV:

Since I’ve came home ever time I turn on the Tv some gay sh*t on I try to watch love n hip hop (gay sh*t)tried to watch empire (gay sh*t) walked n on a cartoon doing gay sh*t a f*ckin cartoon kids watch tv,” he wrote.

The rapper added, “I guess next they go have a f*cking gay channel for kids saying if U want to be gay watch this tune n smh f*cked up world n my eyes ( but everybody don’t agree smh).

This from his Instagram account.

Oh, where to begin? Where to begin? Poor Lil Boosie, just wants to watch TV and there's a cartoon doing gay shit which kids might watch. WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?

Boosie is 33 - which explains why he prefers not to be known as Lil Boosie any more, although as a man in his 30s his preferred name, Boosie Badazz, is even more toe-curling. Also, it's sad, being 33 and still not knowing that (a) gay things happen and (b) if you really are that uptight, you can switch off the TV and (c) that if you don't want to switch off your TV, that's okay, because gay, bi and other queer themes are still rarer than anyone who actually gives a shit about what Lil Boosie thinks about TV.

Funny. He's worrying about kids perhaps seeing that it's okay to be gay. This from a man who cheerfully makes songs about shooting people out of revenge. Funny, that.

Michael Jackson TV Drama: Spoliers - he dies in the end

Oh, good. They're turning Michael Jackson's death into a jolly television drama.

(Given it was played out on TV in real time, strictly speaking this is a remake, surely?)

Warner Bros said in a statement that the biography will "examine the soaring highs and deep lows faced by the late popstar - his constant hunt for privacy in a life that was more public than almost any other, and the pressures he endured as someone whose fame made him socially fragile and almost unable to live".

There's a couple of things here, Warner Bros - first, he dies in the end so there's no "almost" required; just "unable to live" will suffice.

Secondly, you start by saying it's going to examine the soaring highs and deep lows, but then... it sounds mostly like deep lows. Unless by "soaring highs" you're specifically talking about whatever it was those drugs his doctor was giving him did.

TV times: All Shook Up

I don't know why the BBC aren't trumpeting about this from the top of their highest trumpeting towers: All Shook Up, a new (pilot) music series that's iPlayer only.

It's presented by Marc Riley (is this his first TV work since UK Play closed?) and episode one features Slug, Lonelady and The Wave Pictures. It suggests Nightingale-era Whistle Test styling that Later With Jools went for before the put out tables and invited James Nesbitt and Tomas Shafernaker in to watch.

Hugely recommended. And there's some extra offcuts on YouTube, too:

Tiresome, The Creator to launch a TV network, apparently

Exciting news from America, where noted homophobe and misogynist Tyler, The Creator has announced plans for a TV network.

Yes, a TV network. This is in no way just a website being launched. Be clear about that.

"I'm creating my own MTV or my own Cartoon Network," said Tyler Okonma — better known as Tyler, the Creator — from the stage at the Code/Media conference in Dana Point, Calif.

It's not actually "his own", as it's just a deal with another company, Whalerock. But, hey, having half shares in an MTV. That'd be a thing, right?

Unless it's just a website. But it's not, is it?

The network, which will launch before the end of June, will allow Okonma to bring content directly to his fans, bypassing traditional media companies and social networks that served as the launching pad for his fame. Other details about the service were scarce, but Okonma will charge a subscription fee to access a mix of both exclusive and licensed content.

That might sound like it's a website rather than an actual TV network, but it isn't, okay? Because the important difference is a website would be accessed through a browser, and a network broadcasts over a Tv distribution system. And Tyler TV is going to be going to set top boxes from the off, yes?

Isn't it?

Braun founded Whalerock as BermanBraun but rebranded the company after he bought out his former partner Gail Berman last year. He said he plans to create as many as 12 channels for performers or brands in the next three years. In the future, those channels could be bundled together and distributed via cable or over-the-top platforms such as AppleTV.

Oh. So, erm, we're getting very excited about 'man launches website which may one day appear on TV'.

See ya, CeeLo

The only disappointing thing about TBS cancelling CeeLo Green's TV show is that they decided to do it because they realised nobody wants to watch CeeLo Green doing a TV show, rather than because of his apparent belief that simply not being awake is a way to consent to sex:

According to screen shots of his Twitter page, Green reportedly wrote, "People who have really been raped REMEMBER!!!" He added, " "If someone is passed out they're not even WITH you consciously! so WITH Implies consent."

Another tweet noted: "Let me 1st praise god for exoneration fairness & freedom! Secondly I sincerely apologize for my comments being taken so far out of context."

Yeah. I'm not sure there's any context you could put those comments in which would make them suddenly sound ok. Unless you lived in some sort of society which regularly turned a blind eye to rape.

Yeah, I know. I know.

To be fair, CeeLo did suddenly try again to apologise:

I truly and deeply apologize for the comments attributed to me on Twitter. Those comments were idiotic, untrue and not what I believe.

Although the earlier CeeLo was reportedly furious with this later CeeLo, claiming that later CeeLo's suggestion his comments were idiotic and wrong was taking them out of context. "Later CeeLo just doesn't understand" complained earlier CeeLo. "Why is he treating me so unfairly? Why is he impinging on my freedom to suggest that if someone falls asleep on your sofa they're saying it's okay to rape me? What's wrong with later me? Did I take a panicky call from someone in my management team or something?"

CeeLo, genuinely, is currently working on an album called Girl Power.

Fred Durst moves on to second TV series

There's no denying that Fred Durst is a pretty hot property in television right now. Why, before CBS have even aired a single episode of his much-ballyhooed sitcome Douchebag, he's off and busily developing a drama series.

While Douchebag, the sitcom that never made it to screen, was loosely based on Fred's life as a man who was too old to be doing what he does even when he was doing it back then, the drama - The Noise - will be loosely based on Fred's life.

Yes, The Noise. Oh, it's not even an open goal, is it? It's like he's putting the balls on the goal line, and then leaving the field entirely. THE NOISE.

Actually, it's not quite the same series - Douchebag was about a cartoon rocker who was trying to adjust to family life, while The Noise is about someone fleeing to cartoon rock to escape family life.

If the series is ever picked up, there will eventually be an episode where the Durst character pitches a sitcom based on his life.

It's CBS who will be looking at the script and wondering if it's best to just ask him to come back with a pitch for a quiz show based on Durst's life sometime round 2015. Presumably called Rockerz.

[Massive thanks to @Pedro_Dee for the tip]

Gordon in the morning: First with the news

Hold the front page. Gordon has exciting news:

Benedict Cumberbatch is coming back Holmes

Third Sherlock series is go

BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH and MARTIN FREEMAN are two of the most sought-after British actors in Hollywood.

But the pair have stayed loyal to their fans here by signing up for a third series of BBC1’s Sherlock.

That is pretty exciting news. Not quite as exciting as it was when it was announced back in January, but exciting nevertheless.

Still, despite running a ten month-old story, Gordon doesn't miss the chance to be his master's voice:

Women all over the UK will be dusting off the Sky+ in preparation.

Now, while I'm sure he hopes that Rupert Murdoch will be pleased at the mention of another part of his empire, isn't the implication that Sky+ machines might be sitting around, so unused they become dusty, actually less of a plug for the device?

Global Radio to launch two unwatched music channels

As more and more TVs get connected to the internet, with the ability to stream YouTube and other videos through the big screen, is there any segment of the TV industry looking more doomed than the music video channel?

We can only assume Global needs a massive tax write-off, then, as it brings Capital and Heart to the TV.

Yes, not one brand, but two largely unloved and virtually identical brands. Pumping out videos 24 hours a day.

Why?

Apparently brands unextended are not brands at all:

[Ashley] Tabor, Global's founder and executive president, said: "Global prides itself on clear, simple brand propositions for its consumers.

"Brand extension is a natural thing for us to do, for example online, mobile and live events, so I'm delighted we're now bringing both Heart and Capital's top-class brand quality to music television."

Living in Milton Keynes, my experience of people's view of Heart's brand quality would mean the TV service should operate for years under the Horizon brand, with lots of local content, before slowly declining and eventually adopting the Heart branding timed with an 'All Bruno Mars, all the time' policy.

It might sound crazy to launch music video channels in 2012, but in a way, it makes sense - nobody watches Heart when it's on the radio, and nobody will watch it on the TV.

The illustrated Friends: Dr Kildare

More singing actors, then. Richard Chamberlain wasn't the original Dr Kildare - the character had been taking temperatures and countersigning passport application forms for quarter of a century on radio and in the cinema before Chamberlain pulled on his white coat on NBC in 1961. But he is the definitive Kildare.

And, as was the custom at the time, he couldn't resist having a go in a recording studio:


But in the singing-fake-doctors stakes, Chamberlain was never anything more than a junior. Rick Springfield managed to hold down a proper acting role in General Hospital, while also being a more-or-less proper Pop Star:



You can't picture Charlie Fairhead getting a top tenner, can you?

[Part of the illustrated Friends]

If you've taped the Glee v Kings Of Leon match, look away now

It's hard to work up too much energy over the Kings Of Leon v Glee feud; it's a bit like Kasabian going to war with Tickle On The Tum, only with a bigger budget and Perez Hilton replacing Bill Oddie.

But apparently the great war - when Kings Of Leon refused Glee the permission to sell their songs to a large, seemingly endlessly gullible audience, and Ryan Murphy had a little stampy-foot hissy about it.

But it's all over now, as Ryan Murphy has been to NASA and discovered the world doesn't rotate round his late-period Dawson's Creek with singing show:

"I didn't speak with as much clarity as I would have liked," he said on the set of Glee Friday afternoon. "Who am I to say 'F--k you?' That's not what I meant. I completely understand when artists don't want a show or another artist to interpret their songs. In fact, I respect it. It's their personal work and I'd feel the same way. We get turned down all the time and I've don't fight it or even go back after a rejection."

So, much as the Tories tend to not quite apologise for getting things wrong, but blame us for a lack of comprehension, Murphy explains that when he said "fuck you", he wasn't being entirely clear.

That makes sense - a long, rambling statement like "fuck you" is difficult to grasp - even now, I'm not sure exactly what he could possibly have meant by it. If only he could have been a little clearer, perhaps by dropping one of the words in the phrase.

Still, it's peace of a sort - and who is the United Nations in this rapprochement?

Dave Grohl, apparently. He'd sided with the Kings Of Leon, and that seems to have been good enough for Murphy:

. "I've never felt that if you don't give Glee your music, there's something diabolical about you," says Murphy. "To the contrary: I support artists and what they choose to do... I think Kings of Leon are cool as shit. The Foo Fighters are brilliant. We'd love to do one if their songs, if they were ever interested. But if it's not their thing, then OK. I personally wish them luck will still listen to their music."

How big of him to promise to still listen to the Foos, even if they don't want their songs lip-synced.

Truly, the world has achieved a new level of reasonableness.

Beth Ditto doesn't know much about her favourite show

You know what Beth Ditto really likes? Pantomime scrubbing:

The Gossip frontwoman wishes her favourite programme, 'How Clean Is Your House?' - in which presenters Kim Woodburn and Aggie McKenzie help people sort out their filthy surroundings - would launch in her native America because it would be such a challenge for the hosts.

She said: "My favourite TV show is 'How Clean Is Your House', the British one - there is no American one.

"Though sometimes they come to America and than can be better - I feel there's no dirtier house than in the United States."

Um... Beth, this is an American one. It's the ones where they come to America. You can even buy it on DVD. Should you want to.

Interesting that Beth's favourite programme hasn't made a new episode in over three years. Perhaps, like Chris Patten, she doesn't watch much television?

Gordon in the morning: Kelly on the telly

So it sounds like Being In The Stereophonics isn't lucrative enough any more:

KELLY JONES is working on a second career away from the STEREOPHONICS.

I'm not sure Being In The Stereophonics quiyte constitutes a career, to be honest, but do tell us more. With Jones' talent and charm, I'm guessing the Asda fish bar has come calling, right?

The singer has lined up meetings with TV execs to discuss ideas for shows that he would then produce.

I think from this we're meant to assume that Jones' second career is as a television producer, but it actually sounds like he might just have taken on a part-time role annoying television executives.

In case you're wondering, Jones seems to have no track record of producing television programmes at all but - hey - how hard can it be, eh?

So, what Monkey Tennis style ideas does Jones have?

One programme he's pitching involves a music show with performances filmed around the UK, including the frontman's native Wales.

Is this an idea he's had, or just something he's seen on TV? Is he also going to pitch a programme about people in Manchester having a tram dropped on their heads?

Even Gordon spots this is a bit hackneyed, but does his best to try and pluff up the idea:

Although there have been a few similar shows in the past, Kelly could count on his musician mates to put in an appearance.

Yeah. Kelly Jones' musical mates. That doesn't actually make the idea any more attractive. It's a bit like trying to spiff up a bowl of cold sick by sprinkling prunes in it.

Welcome to Portlandia

Down there in some of the comments, Olive posted a link to IFC's just-launched Portlandia.

Why would this be of interest, you ask?

The 6-part IFC Original short-based comedy series PORTLANDIA, created, written by and starring Fred Armisen (SNL) and Carrie Brownstein (vocalist/guitarist, WILD FLAG, Sleater-Kinney), premieres on IFC Friday, January 21, 2011 at 10:30 PM ET/PT. Each episode's character-based shorts draw viewers into "Portlandia," the creators' dreamy and absurd rendering of Portland, Oregon.

Happily, the preview clips are embeddable, too, so we can look at it even from here:

Pointer downwards

I don't know what addiction is troubling Bonnie Pointer, but surely even having an OCD-Crack double whammy (where you have to wash the pipe fifteen times before you can use it) would make it worth going on Celebrity Rehab?

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Celebrity Rehab

Juliana Hatfield watches Celebrity Rehab, freeing up time for the rest of us to just sob silently to ourselves. This was Heidi Fleiss' last TV work before she went in to Celebrity Big Brother. But, obviously, there were others:

Mike Starr is the former bass player of Alice In Chains. He’s a “hardcore polydrug addict” in the words of Dr. Drew. When asked the inevitable — does he have any history of trauma — Mike tells the doc, “Yeah — trauma from losing my band.”

Being fired from Alice In Chains? Trauma?

“I was the best bass player/entertainer there was.”

Really, Mike Starr? Really? I never even knew the guy’s name (or face) until I turned on the TV to watch this show. I think part of Mike’s problem is that he has a little bit of a skewed perspective on himself and where he fits into the world and history.

Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Ross loss upsets boss

The music industry - yes, the very music industry - is crying like a kiddie with its fingers trapped in a car door as the disappearance of the Jonathan Ross show sinks in. Head mourner, of course, is HMV's Panther Of Fact, Gennaro Castaldo:

Among those who are sorry to see the demise of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross are many in the music industry. Gennaro Castaldo, of HMV, said: “The loss of this show will come as a blow. It was one of the few shows that still showcases music and new releases to huge family audiences.

“Jonathan was particularly great at championing the kind of new artists and leftfield talent that don’t get much of a look in on TV.”

Because it's not like there's going to be a similar show, in a similar timeslot, having the same sort of 'book Bono, but if Bono's busy book someone who has had a couple of NME covers' approach to filling those all-important three minutes at about ten past eleven on a Friday when everyone is already switching off.

Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

The last installment of the festive TV and radio guide, then. You're on your own from tomorrow:

7.00am Radio 1 - Chris Moyle's All Day Breakfast
Twelve hours of Chris Moyles. Is there anything more designed to make you curse Marconi's name for inventing the radio?

Noon Radio 2 - Patrick Kielty
Oh, yes. There is.

7.00 Sky Arts 1 - The Roy Orbison Story
Sky Arts spends the day flipping between Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison programming. When Orbison died, David Gedge made a joke about how it was a shame because he'd always wanted to see a guide dog on stage. Turns out Gedge had just assumed only a blind man would wear such thick dark shades all the time. This anecdote doesn't appear in this programme.

8.00 Planet Rock - Nicky Horne's Chain
Songs connected to each other. Not like a programme made from a Radcliffe & Maconie feature, then.

9.00 Radio 4 - Big In Samoa
Comedy play about a long-forgotten album being taken to people's hearts online.

9.00 BBC 4 - Guitar Heroes At The BBC
Tonight including New York Dolls and the Sabbath.

9.00 Dave - This Is Spinal Tap
I'm struggling to find anything today. Can you tell?

10.00 Dave Ja Vu - This Is Spinal Tap
Really, really struggling.

10.00 Radio 3 - Not The Messiah
Monty Python inspired comic oratorio featuring all the living Pythons. Except Cleese. And some actual musicians.

10.50 BBC4 - The Faces: Sight And Sound In Concert
For the best experience, place your speakers either side of your TV.

11.35 BBC4 - Guitar Heroes At The BBC
Admittedly, this will be repeated until the Lib Dems form a government, but is this the best time to debut a new collection? Features Santana and Knopfler. Oh, fair enough.

12.35am BBC4 - Rock Goes To College: Tom Petty
RGTC, the most successful Whistle Test spin-off until Mark Ellen Loves Chachi.

Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

9.00am BBC2 - Great Railway Journeys
Alexi Sayle on the Hejaz Line. Really just an excuse for this, though:



10.55am Channel 4 - The World's Greatest Pop Star
Beyonce, apparently, although I'm given to understand there's serious demands to re-run the election.

1.00 Classic FM - Dial A Carol
Handy if you've been on hold for a week and still haven't given up, I suppose.

3.05 BBC2 - Ready Steady Cook
Kenny Ball and Chris Barber in an all-jazz cook-off. The year is nearly over.

4.00 6Music - Lamacq's Top 40 of 2009
The closest we're getting to a Festive Fifty, anyway

6.30 BBC1 - Top Of The Pops
I'm not entirely clear how this is different from the Christmas Day one. Perhaps Fearne will wear a different pair of shoes.

8.00 ITV2 - Fearne And Alesha Dixon
Challenging documentary as Fearne chooses between "fabulous" and "brilliant" and "amazing" to describe Alesha's life

8.00 Sky One - All Star Don't Forget The Lyrics
Two - count 'em - slices of the programme which makes the last round of Buzzcocks look like Gascoigne-era University Challenge

8.00 Bio - Bryan Ferry
Oddly, the Biography channel has chosen to spend the day playing concert films instead. Much of the day is Buble-stuff, but it picks up a little towards the end of New Year's Eve

8.50 Standing In A Street In Eastbourne Looking Through A Cardboard Box - Toploader pretend they're on television

9.00 ITV3 - Celebrating The Carpenters
Richard Carpenter forced at gunpoint to pretend insipid readings by lesser, current acts are in some way a tribute to the work of his late sister

9.00 Bio - Amy Winehouse Live
From when she did the sort of thing that she was originally famous for

10.00 Bio - Franz Ferdinand
Surprising choice for Bio's day o'gigs; perhaps they've lost their Bloc Party tape
10.00 ITV3 - An Audience With Lionel Richie
Close-ups of Ronnie Corbett and the Anglia weathergirl as Richie builds to Dancing On The Ceiling

11.05 ITV3 - An Audience With Cliff Richard
While 2009 turns into 2010? Seriously?

9.20 BBC4 - Guitar Heroes At The BBC
From Bowie to Horselips.

10.50 Five - The Cheryl Cole Factor
"How quickly can we gloss over the assault, do you reckon?"

11.00 BBC2 - Jool's Annual Hootenanny
As inevitable as a new year's day hangover, the big question remains: when did this change from feeling like a bit of festive fun into something more akin to an office party thrown by WOMAD and a bunch of Butlins redcoats? Dave Edmunds is on, but... oh, lord: Boy George, Lily Allen, Dizzee Rascal, Kasabian and Paolo Nutini.

Midnight Radio 3 - Late Junction
Where the sort of people that Jools hopes watches his programme will be for New Year.

1.20am BBC2 - Best Of Glastonbury 2009
This programme has been removed due to a copyright claim by The British Broadcasting Corporation.

Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

6.00am ITV - GMTV
I know, I'm not going to have posted this before it happens. But nobody really wants or needs to see Chipmunk doing his new song in Ben Sheppard's face-hole, do they?

10.35am Channel 4 - JLS Love Jacko
For some reason, JLS list their favourite songs by the man who died before they were born, surely? Tomorrow, Diversity choose their ten favourite impressionist paintings.

2.00 Radio 2 - Great British Songbook Of The 1980s
Together at last: Chris Tarrant and Nik Kershaw.

6.00 Radio 2 - Best Of Maida Vale
That's what they're calling Charles Hazlewood's programme celebrating the studio. And yet the listings promise Jamie Cullum.

7.15 Radio 4 - Front Row
John Wilson should really know better than to build a programme around the "surprise" that women are having hit records.

8.00 ITV2 - Fearne And Peaches Geldof
Fearne Cotton peers into a deep, dark abyss. It's actually a rip-off of that Angel where the exorcised the demon that was afraid of the child it had possessed.

9.00 BBC4 - Sounds Of The 80s
Following straight on from, erm, the Electric Dreams from the 1990s, but you should never look a gift horse wearing eyeliner in the mouth

9.00 ITV - Piers Morgan's Review Of The Year
Well, he helped spoil it, he might as well clean it up. Of course Louis Walsh and Amanda Holden guest on it.

9.00 E4 - The Greatest Songs Of The Noughties
Well, in your opinion, maybe, E4.

10.00 Radio 1 - Rob Da Bank And Friends
Enjoying an early outing, one of the few upsides of the destitute Radio One schedules this week.

11.40 ITV2 - Ghosthunting with The Happy Mondays
"Thank god they commissioned it, I only had 'Jenny Frost: Coconut Shy Operator' left on my pitch list."

Zapsmart: Music on TV and Radio today

10.40am BBC2 - Who Do You Think You Are?
Rory Bremner. He had a hit record as The Commentators. He counts.



God, the pickings are so, so slim this week.

11.05am Channel 4 - Lily Allen: Under The Skin
Unless she changes her mind, wipes the tapes and pretends she never really meant to make the programme in the first place.

Noon Radio 1 - Arctic Monkeys Live
From August 2009, so you can almost hear the first little voice in the crowd saying 'I think maybe they've spread themselves too thinly...'

1.00 Radio 1 - The Chart Of The Decade
For some reason, chopped into three daily chunks instead of being delivered in a single, magisterial, all-day, schedule sweeping gesture. If Radio 1 don't think it's worth a bit of fuss, why should we?

3.10 BBC2 - Ready Steady Cook
Toyah Wilcox cooks up something against the clock. The Thunder In The Mountains calls for a Rennie half an hour later.

6.00 Radio 2 - The Class Of 2009
Paul Gambaccini picks the best new artists of the year, and his choice should be enough to shut the Radio Centre's claims that Radio 2 is obsessed with young people and popularity right out the water.

8.00 BBC4 - Electric Dreams
Open University-tastic domestic electronics history 101 gets a rerun; tonight, it's the 1980s, which means there's a guest appearance from those members of Ultravox who don't get asked to make circus school documentaries for Radio 4.

9.00 Five - Celebrity Shock List
Seriously, who exactly is shocked by Lady GaGa? Entertained - briefly - maybe. But shocked?

10.20 Channel 4 - Alan Carr: Chatty Man Special
So, Channel 4 seem to have given up looking for a proper vehicle for Carr's talents and are just going to churn this out, over and over. Still, anything that spares us another series of Ding Dong. Spandau Ballet shuffle by, trying to avoid catching anyone's eyes.

10.50 BBC1 - Sting's Winter Songbook
Billed merely to reassure you that you're better off hanging out until last orders.

11.00 Discovery Real Time - LA Ink
The Game visits Kat Von D's tattoo shop. Even less happens than you might expect.

11.30 BBC Radio 7 - Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World
Stuart Lee and Richard Herring from 1992. In passing, it's worth noting that the Fist Of Fun wikipedia entry calls for a citation on the claim that the fake Rod Hull would believe the real Rod Hull would require gifts of jelly.

11.45 ITV2 - Ghosthunting With Louis Walsh And Boyzone
From, you know, before the very set-up of the programme started to sound like a bad joke