Liveblogging the Season Finale of True Blood

Why, yes, a girl can make it from Mack’s couch to my couch in 27 minutes, just to liveblog True Blood, in case you need to know for next season.

Oh, Rene, why do you have to be so fucking creepy now after a whole season of sweetness?  Oh, and so creepy are you!

Is Tara naked?  Oh, okay, no.

But where did she get pajamas?  I should not overthink this should I?  But is the mute guy perhaps some kind of man slave?

Oh, creepy white woman, you are so creepy.

And now there are more creepy white people!  It’s like creepy white people quarter hour!

Ugh, no, never wear someone else’s bathing suit.  That’s like sharing underpants!

A black guy, Eggs, who doesn’t seem to be related to Tara, who has a beautiful voice!  “Collecting stray black people, is that some kind of hobby of hers?” Good question, Tara, good question.

But, is it just me, or does Eggs not seem to be looking directly at her?  I mean, he’s handsome and all, but I am not trusting him, either.

Man, those are some kinds of shakes that white woman has.

But, god, could they stop with the creepy music when it comes to Rene?  It’s hard to concentrate when the music is all “skreek, skreek, skreek.”

And I like that Terry has become the show’s Cassandra, just making true statements no one listens to.

How did Rene get all those tapes?  And are there really tapes that help you perfect a Cajun accent, because, in general, I think most actors just watch The Big Easy and copy that.

Okay, so everyone knows now that Rene is the killer.  Argh!!!!

Hurry Sam!!  Hurry.

I’m sure he took out the … yes bullets.

Yes, because in the whole history of the world, screaming the name of the person you’re chasing to kill always convinces them to stop running.  But I do thnk it’s interesting that Rene says he can feel Sookie in his head.  Have we ever had any recognition before that it works like that?

Oh, Bill.

Oh, Sookie, you are so stupid.

And Sam is naked again.

And Bill is melting.

Oh, Sookie, I’ve had to do that to some baby rabbits before.  It stays with you.

And Bill looks like an overcooked marshmallow.  Put him in the ground!

God, do not count on Sookie to save you.  Apparently, it’s naked Sam to Bill’s rescue.  Good god.

Aw, Andy, I’m sad that the whole county had good reason to think you’re an idiot.

Does Sam know Mary Ann?  He does!  He does!

Oh, god, is Jason going to become a religious freak?  Oh, no no no.

Oh no!  Did Bill kill Lafayette?!

TWO WEEKS LATER?!  Oh, so cheesy.

No, no, no.  I just don’t want to see Jason get scary Jesus.

Holy shit!  Do all bar owners keep that much cash around?  That seems unsafe.

Next summer?!

But this terrible show has sucked me in!  I can’t wait for next summer.  Can we at least get a soundtrack before then?

SNL Last Night

Sometimes, when we’re watching Saturday Night Live, we play a game–“What drugs would you have to be on for this skit to be funny.”  I felt that way watching Tim McGraw dressed like a turkey.  By the time we got to the skit with Ludacris, T-Pain, and some Vanilla-Ice wanna be, it was clear that the problem is less than that you need to be on drugs.  It’s not that Ludacris and T-Pain were sorry.

It’s that the skit wasn’t, even in concept, funny.  If there’s going to be something weird going on, everyone in the skit needs to be in on it (except, if you don’t trust the audience, you could have one person in the skit who doesn’t get it, to cue the audience that it is indeed ludicrous) and you let the absurdity ensue.

But I thought that Tim McGraw did a fine job.  Not great, but fine.  And I thought his opening was nice.

The overly-nice prank phone call skit was middlingly funny, but it made me realize just how much I kind of miss Hee Haw.

Do Not Take Publishing Advice from the Folks at Pajamas Media

(Also, Bill Hobbs, when one is the “brains” behind the Cartman Republican Strategy–“Fuck you, I do what I want.”–perhaps one wants to stay away from using terms like “master’ when talking about the people you think are going to rule Obama.  Most folks get the benefit of the doubt, but I think we all know that the benefit of the doubt doesn’t even take your phone calls.)

So, apparently John Rosenthal just discovered that Obama wrote some books and that SHOCKINGLY he makes money off of them.

The Obamas’ most recent 2007 return lists a staggering $3,279,000 in income from Random House plus another nearly $816,000 from literary agent Dystel & Goderich, adding up to over $4 million in book-related revenues in all. (As so happens, Jane Dystel is Obama’s former literary agent, whom he is reported to have unceremoniously dumped before signing the Random House deal. That Obama should be receiving such large sums from Dystel & Goderich suggests some sort of complicated settlement between the three parties and this suggests in turn that the sums could well represent additional indirect payments to Obama from Random House. In any case, it is unusual for an agent to be paying a client rather than vice versa.)

This has, quite possibly, got to be one of my favorite conspiracies, right up there next to “Obama is the secret son of Malcolm X.”  Apparently, now, it’s nefarious and suspect for a man to write a couple of best-sellers.

Anyway, I don’t know the terms of Obama’s book deals and they’re actually not that interesting to me.  That he earned four million dollars in royalties and rights fees in 2007 seems completely reasonable to me.  Most authors earn about a dollar a book for every book sold (sometimes more, if they have a good agent, sometimes less if they are a scholar).  In 2007, it became obvious that Obama was going to be someone interesting in the Democratic party.  Does it seem unreasonable to think that almost four million people AND LIBRARIES would have wanted to have his books?

Not to me.  That sounds about right.  Then, remember, the publisher is getting paid (and splitting the fees) with Obama every time someone quotes at length from one of his books or runs an excerpt in their publication.  Again, it makes sense to me that he would have made a boatload of money off that, too.

But, what I want to address is this comment: “It is unusual for an agent to be paying a client rather than vice versa.”

Let me be perfectly clear: NO IT IS NOT.  YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVERY PAY AN AGENT JACK SHIT.

The biggest scam unscrupulous agents run is to take money from you up-front (supposedly for copying and postage and the like) and then they sit on your project.  After all, they just got $300 from you (or however much) for doing nothing.  What does it behoove them to do anything?

Usually, what happens is that the agent makes the deal with the publisher and the publisher sends your royalties to your agent.  Your agent takes their 15% cut and sends the rest to you (which is how you might end up getting $900,000 from your agent.  In the case of Obama, depending on how Random House does their accounting and how the agent does hers, it could very well have been that the $900,000 was royalties minus the agent cut from 2005.

The second most usual arrangement is for the publisher to pay 15% to your agent and the rest directly to you.  So, again, a big payout from Random House is not unusual, and doesn’t necessarily raise any red flags.  Even if Obama “unceremoniously” dumped his agent, she would still be getting paid for the deal she made–either directly from Random House or from Obama, but only for the work she’s already done.

It’s just not true that authors don’t get money from agents.  Authors get their royalties from agents all the time.  It’s one of the standard arrangements.

Paying an agent is not.