As we are flooded with images of the recent Gulf oil disaster, there are some who worry about the future of our planet and its wildlife, while others are concerned with who is to blame in this epic botch job.

Before anyone arrives to these concerns, however, they are reminded of one thing and one thing only – “Pipe Dreams”, the Saved By The Bell episode where Bayside strikes oil. When witnessing the sea of nameless crude-covered ducks we are reminded of Becky, Zack’s close friend and confidant (and duck) who met her untimely demise in the wake of the gang’s capitalistic interests. The episode was generically prescient and made The Onion AV Club’s list of “amusingly misguided eco-friendly entertainments.” Anyways, someone made this great mash up of the ironically enjoyable episode with the slightly more renowned There Will Be Blood, and it’s awesome.

Well, here we are folks. End of the line. Avid readers of popfessor.com will tell you that I’ve been haphazardly been documenting the history of The Beach Boys since December last year. Actually, that’s the only time period I worked on that. Anyways, I ended on part 3 without ever finishing it. These things take a long time for me to do, so please take a look. If you are unfamiliar with the series, you can start HERE.

And now, let’s continue.

THE END

When a celebrity passes, we are often shown the same images in the news cycle over and over: Dennis Hopper on a motorcycle, Michael Jackson moonwalking, that famous Farrah Fawcett poster. Sure, they’re iconic and all, and necessary for those who have absolutely no idea who the departed is, but those of us who are pop culture inclined need not be informed that Gary Coleman once said, “What you talkin’ about, Willis?”

No, there are those who require something more. Give us the deep cuts, the projects that didn’t make the highlight reel in the A&E Biography. And that’s how you end up with The Gary Coleman Show, a terrible animated program for children that is best enjoyed in the form of YouTube excerpts. A Hanna-Barbera production from 1982, the series follows the adventures of an apprentice angel (voiced by Coleman) who is sent to Earth to help others in order to get his wings. It’s just another case of networks exploiting Coleman’s initial popularity before he was tossed aside, but what it lacks in quality, it more than makes up for in kitsch value.

After years and years of hearing what a lost treasure MTV’s The State was, I was finally granted access through it’s recent addition to Netflix’s Instant Stream feature. It more than lived up to its reputation, especially when compared to it’s lazy older brother, Saturday Night Live. Sketches on The State rarely outstay their welcome, you’re in and out before you know it. Even a weak concept is a low risk venture, because you know the shows rapid fire pace will soon move onto a new topic (often with a clever segue).

The one sketch that stood out for me the most was Ken Marino’s “Louie: The Guy Who Comes Out And Says His Catchphrase Over And Over Again.” Just as SNL was knee deep in characters like “It’s Pat” and “The Richmeister”, this sketch brings to light the lame and lazy formulas those SNL sketches often employ. A situation is set, be it a party, the beach, or what have you. An opportunity for entry presents itself, as in an unseen guest who is late to said party. Enter: familiar character. Cue applause. Character says line. Audience knows line, so audience laughs. If the character was withholding a treat, the audience would probably sit or roll over on command. As you can see, “Louie’s” catchphrase, “I’m going to dip my balls in it,” makes no attempt to be even remotely clever. That anti comedy aspect of it is what works for me, while the audience lapping up the 7th incantation of “Schwetty Balls” makes me want to put my face in my hands for a long time.

The audition process can be a harrowing and embarrassing experience for any young actor, but at least young unknowns don’t have to worry about some botched tryouts leaking to the web. And then there’s poor Chris Klein. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, Klein is usually a supporting player in hit movies like the American Pie movies and… I’m sure there’s another one somewhere, but he’s never really caught the public eye in a big way. He’s just famous enough for this terrible audition for Mama Mia to make serious rounds in the meme-verse (has that been used before? Can I coin it? Probably shouldn’t? OK). It really is a must watch. Klein’s usual affable oafishness is put to the test when he tries to “emote”, for the lack of a better word. And those eyes, my god, those eyes.

But like any good sport, Klein took the opportunity to get in on the joke. He recently appeared in this Funny Or Die video showing more of his leaked “auditions”. That’s some redemption right there.

I love Biography. I’ll watch pretty much anyone’s. The photo is shitty half because I took a picture of the TV, and half because film just looked pretty shitty in the seventies, or whenever this was made. I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere between Mary Tyler Moore and Golden Girls, and that it’s an action show, but I couldn’t figure out what it was on her filmography. Does it matter?

Don’t read if you’re not caught up.

Some four seasons ago, a young(er) James Ford sat on the beach of a shipwrecked island, passing the time by reading an unpublished manuscript he had found among the strewn about luggage.

The manuscript, Bad Twin, was written by fellow Oceanic passenger Gary Troup. You may recognize Troup as the unfortunate soul who was sucked into the turbine in the chaotic few moments of the television series Lost.

Troup, obviously, is no longer with us, but thanks to Bad Twin, his legacy lives on. Sort of.

Bad Twin was a meta, semi-canonical attempt at expanding the ‘Lostverse’ that was published in the summer of 2006. Was it successful? Not really. Was it good? Kind of.

After hearing that it’s association with the show was tenuous at best, I avoided “Bad Twin” for a few years. Not helping was the fact that I associated it with the “Lost Experience” – a convoluted, semi canonical, alternate reality game that I couldn’t explain to you if I wanted to. Neither seemed worth my time.

That was before the end was nigh. About a third of the way into this final season run, the reality that our time was almost up started to sink in. I had already seen all the seasons, and the creators officially stated there would be no spin offs after the series was over. I wanted more. And unless I wanted to watch a bunch of boring, low budget viral videos featuring characters I have never heard of before, I had to check out “Bad Twin.”

Let me just start off by saying that “Bad Twin” was not written by any ‘Lost’ staff writers. The book was ghost written by novelist Laurence Shames, who was given notes of elements to include by the shows creative team. According to a quote from ‘Variety’, however, “the author had his own vision and wound up including only a few of the elements.”

It’s true. The book contains no island, Hurley, or four-toed statues, but a few things do get a shout out: the Widmore family (although none of their first names are familiar), the Hanso Corporation, Paik Industries, Oceanic Airlines, and Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack. Although the Widmore clan is the centerpeice of the story, most of the other elements are mentioned in passing.

“Bad Twin” is basically a detective story about a private investigator hired by one “good” Widmore twin to find his missing, “bad” twin brother. Cliff Widmore, the “good” twin, is ostensibly a clean, put together businessman who wants to follow in his fathers foot steps and take control of the family dynasty. Xander, the missing “bad” twin, is described as a wayward, prodigal son whose life may be in danger.

Sound kind of familiar? Now, this book came out between the 2nd and 3rd season, so it should be considered solid evidence that the creators had at least a general idea of the island’s underlying mythology and were not “making it up as they were going along.” The book even contains a reference to Jacob and Essau, a biblical story that really didn’t start making serious rounds in Lost discussions until the end of its 5th season.

In fact, the book contains literary reference upon literary reference, covering everything from Gilgamesh to Lord of the Flies. Before I ever got into the series, my initial concern was that I didn’t want to waste all this time in this fictional universe. I pegged Lost as a mere genre distraction. As it got going, however, I was impressed with its use of religious, philosophical, historical, and mythological themes. The use of these elements inspired me to do further research of the subject on my own time, making me honestly able to say that ‘Lost’ has enriched my life more than I ever could have imagined. In this respect, ‘Bad Twin’ delivers, shining light on a lot of the shows themes, even spelling them out for those who need it sometimes (I do).

The most significant reference to me was regarding the detective novel, Trent’s Last Case. The story is a mystery with a solution that appears to have been reached half way through the novel. The solution turns out to be erroneous, and the 2nd half of the novel is spent rearranging the facts and clues until the correction solution is reached. This reference pararallels the character arc of Xander Widmore, a not-so-bad twin who just wanted to get away from the hullabaloo of the family fortune and dedicate his life to charity and spirituality. Half of life, the book implies, is spent aquiring material wealth and becoming successful. Many think this is the ultimate end game, like the detective in Trent’s Last Case coming to a false conclusion. Once this success is reached, one can start feeling empty, as if he arrived to the wrong solution. The 2nd half of life, then, is spent letting go of all that you’ve acquired, bringing the circle of life to a close.

This theme is even further mirrored in the Lost castaways story thus far. They come to island like babies out of the womb, scared and confused of their new surroundings. As they proceed, they adopt many philosophies and styles of leadership to get them through, shifting allegiences and world views when need be. All of us do this in our lives, albeit on a much less epic scale. Half way through the series, the castaways finally reach their intended goal by getting off the island. Only, it wasn’t what they thought it would be. Like a filthy rich CEO who made his fortune on genocide, it didn’t feel right. They had to “go BAAAACK.” Now, here we are, back, and ready to put the pieces together in the right order. What is that order and what are the creators trying to say? I don’t know yet, but that’s why I watch Lost.

The above photo comes from the cover of Freakonomics, a bestselling book that I very much enjoyed (although I’m not an economics major or anything, and I hear criticisms. Anyone care to share?).

I get the feeling that other books are trying to ride Freakonomicseses ‘ coattails by subtly making every single book that comes out mimic the layout of the Freakonomics cover. Does the strategy subconsciously work? I don’t know, but I bought a few of them.

Come, take a walk with me…

Here’s Freakonomics in all it’s glory. The background is not part of the book cover, I just needed a buffer zone because not every book is going to fit neatly into the image template. I know EVERYBODY feels me on that one.

Anyways, you can see the key: BIG title at the top. Roundish food object in the middle. BIG authors at the bottom. Also, lots of white space. It’s visually appealing, I get why it’s used. It’s clean, open, focused. Very nice. Everybody should do it. And did it they did. I know some of these aren’t quite exact but hey! Shut up. This is the internet. It doesn’t need to be accurate. I still don’t know why the middle object ALWAYS has to be food though, especially when hardly any of these books are ABOUT food.

This next one has 2 strikes in one title. One is yellow, but both involve pie for some reason:

Some may argue that Starfish aren’t food. But you obviously haven’t met any Asians, or haven’t made giant leaps of assumptions about what they eat based on movies you’ve seen.

In the wake of Lost, ABC has been blatantly scrambling to fill the mystery show void with transparent clones: Flash Forward, Happy Town, and V. Despite aping all the superficial qualities of their predecessor, none of these posers have managed to muster the quality or following of the real McCoy. This video from this weekend’s edition of The Soup sums up the trend in a nutshell.