As I was sufing the channels I came across a headshot of someone that I recognized immediately – Steve Cropper. Now I have been a big fan of Steve Cropper for many many years and I was intrigued – what is this show about? Turns out I struck gold and had come upon a special documentary show about Staxx records in Memphis back in the 1960’s. It had info on Booker T and the MGs, Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam & Dave, and all the greats of the Memphis sound, narrated by Samuel Jackson.

Great show – what a lucky break that I found it this morning.

It was a small budget film that felt like it might have been made for TV. The acting was good although everyone but Luke Perry was small time, and Luke isn’t a big attraction anymore – it was hard to get past the Beverly Hills association. But there was no sex, limited violence, and a fresh take on western cowboy shoot em ups that today’s kids just might embrace.

I loved Bernie Mac and his stand up routines. He was able to be funny about racial issues, poverty, and contemporary life without being a smart aleck and without being completely nasty like some of the other popular black comics. Sure, he cussed and talked about politically incorrect topics, but his take on those subjects was what made him funny.

The Bernie Mac show was really funny and although I never watched the show’s original airings, I caught many reruns on late night TV. From reading his biography, the Bernie Mac show ran 5 years and was Fox’s biggest hit comedy of the time. Plus, Bernie had a long string of movie titles, including Oceans Eleven, Oceans Twelve and Oceans Thirteen.

Bernie Mac was born Bernard McCullough on October 5, 1957 – just a few days before my baby sister was born. He died this morning in Chicago at age 50. Bernie – you will be missed.

I really like this show for the insights on criminal psychology and the way a team of experts from diverse backgrounds can come together and find a way to work as a team under tremendous pressure to solve the crimes.

The show is a little gory and gruesome, but if you can get past that it is a great psychological thriller reduced down to an hour show. Take out all the time for commercials and I think you have about 44 minutes of actual show.

The fan site has a lot of behind the scenes info and communicates fairly regularly with the actors, writers and production staff.

The show had a lot of twists and turns, but honestly, I thought the storyline was pretty lame and unnecessarily gory. This season has not been as interesting as the first season, although the writers have tried to develop the ensemble of main characters more than the first season. It seems that the writers – or perhaps the network in directing the writers – has wanted to push the envelope on how macabre and gory they can get on network TV in today’s world. I don’t really like that approach and don’t think it is necessary for this series. If they continue in this direction next season I don’t think I’ll be watching it any more. I’m not a slasher movie fan and this is getting close to that.

In their announcement, NBC says that Conan O’Brien will take the helm of the Tonight Show immediately following Jay Leno’s last show. And with the dominoes falling for late night hosts, the vacancy left by Conan O’Brien will be filled by Jimmy Fallon.

Even with all this movement at NBC, I have to say that I’m staying loyal to David Letterman and Craig Ferguson on CBS.

Evidently, both Ebert and Roeper have not come to agreement with Disney on their new contract terms and they have both decided to leave the show. Since Ebert and the wife of his former partner, Siskel, own the rights to the “Thumbs Up” and “Thumbs Down” trademarked catchphrase, that won’t be on whatever show Disney tries to salvage from the wreckage.

Ebert has hinted at developing a new show at a different network. “Stay tuned” for further developments!

Anyway, over in the section where they evidently don’t give a shit if you steal these older or less popular releases, I found a new western starring, of all people, Luke Perry, as the cowboy who was done wrong and goes out for revenge. It’s called, “The Pledge” and I haven’t seen any ads for this movie but since it is a western and I could take it off the shelf without the security hassle of the other movies, I went ahead and bought it. Hope it’s a good one.

Makes you stop and think, could I downsize to a Cobalt for the sake of the better MPGs?