Deep Six

The Best and Worst
in Austin and National Media

1) American Literature 101. A story about the Dreamworks team in the October 20 Entertainment Weekly reports that the group recently aquired the rights to My Old Man and the Sea. Was that one written by Ernest Hemingway or Fred MacMurray?

2) Reality Bites. Two disc jockeys from one of the city's so-called alternative radio stations stage a broadcasting marathon to drum up publicity for themselves and to encourage MTV's insipid docu-drama The Real World to come to Austin. Don't ever say that Gen X'ers can't pick some worthy causes to fight for.

3) Fair Weather Conservatives. Paul Pryor, KLBJ-AM's born-again right-wing radio host, loves to chastise the wrongdoings of the supposed liberal media elite. His spite quickly transformed to sickeningly sweet adulation, however, when CBS Evening News anchor (and Republican whipping boy) Dan Rather placed a courtesy call to his program during an October 27 Austin visit. No more slip-ups like this, Paul, or Rush will leave you off his Christmas card list.

4) Your Eye on Austin. Call it Heidi II. On Sunday night, October 27, local viewers were outraged when KEYE cut off the last nine minutes of a remake of Streetcar Named Desire. Worse still, they had to sit through the station's 10pm newscast in order to see the end of the film.

5) The National Pastime. The Rembrandts, a forgettable pop band whose crowning achievement is the theme song to the television show Friends, contributed "The Star Spangled Banner" for Game Six of the World Series. While the band's rendition of the anthem proved surprisingly competent, NBC's decision to advertise the next episode of this sit-com immediately after this performance was embarrassingly tacky. Both the network and the game of baseball look very silly after this cheesy maneuver.

6) Obituaries `R' Us. Jim Hightower discusses his controversial firing from the ABC Radio Networkon on Donahue. KEYE features Molly Ivins reading her nationally syndicated column on the same issue. Too bad these same media outlets didn't have the brains to give Hightower's innovative program a little press when it was still on the air. n