i'm here, i'm here. Back from san francisco, where i attended hardly strictly bluegrass 2006. A great FREE festival in Golden Gate Park, this year featuring: elvis costello, jimmie dale gilmore and butch hancock, emmylou harris with a bunch of great dc musicians: john starling, jimmy gaudreau, and mike auldridge; richard thompson, tim o'brien with sister mollie o'brien, the austin lounge lizards, and more. I enjoyed it, as did about 350,000 of my closest friends.

The best part? Walking into the park and almost being hit by a plastic water bottle. Why? because that bottle was tossed by my friends louis and kathy, who were in from boston. What are the odds of running into someone you know in a crowd that size????

The second best part of the trip? Well, seeing my friend michelle was pretty cool, as was a finding a great (and cheap) chinese/vietnamese restaurant on geary downtown. Driving up to calistoga for a mudbath monday was also near the top. hanging with ann, talking with butch, mingling with the lizards, all good stuff.

But what I'll remember most is my uncontrollable glee while watching the brill bbc series "life on mars." it's the story of a police officer who is hit by a car, and wakes up in 1973, working as a detective in manchester.

What happened to him?
# Is he in a coma?
# Is he insane?
# Has he fallen back through time?
# Is there a fourth possibility?

Gritty, wonderful characters, and some of the best use of music I've come across in years. Absolutely perfect.

Here's the official bbc website.

Unfortunately, they couldn't secure all the music rights when the dvds were produced, so the home version isn't quite as good. The substitutions work, but it's just not how the producers intended. (just as it is with the current syndication of WKRP. Losing the original songs lessens the episodes.) In fact, I just told lee that the last ten minutes of episode 4, starting with when they bring in the Stones "Wild Horses" is just about the most perfect ten minutes of TV I've ever seen. The stones didn't give the OK, so the scene just falls short of perfection on the dvds.

Interestingly, paul mccartney gave the ok for the use of "live and let die" (it's used brilliantly, I must stay) after seeing the show. Perhaps when the final run is over, and a complete boxed set is released, things will work out. I can't imagine the Stones not loving this....

8 episodes, fantastic acting, engrossing story.Characters so good that the a recent newspaper poll named the second lead (not the star character, his supervisor in the plot) one of the "ten best television characters ever in britain.

I've gotten through 5 episodes and am sad at the thought of only three more. There's another season scheduled for this year, and then that is it. finito.

The kind of tv we don't make here. David e Kelley is going to make an american version, and he'll ruin it. Everything will be tied up in cute little packages. People will look to perfect.

Do whatever you must to find this series. Don't watch it on BBC America. They've chopped ten minutes out of each episode to make it fit....and that ruins everything. Not to mention the loss of tension with a commercial break every 90 seconds.

(if you need help with this mission, contact me.....)