THE NEVER ENDING CORAL MAZE: Various indie rockers are now saying it's okay to say you like Phish and other jam bands. (I'll admit to having had a phase in college, but that's about it. Just one show, and a few songs stored on my iPod.)

WE ACCIDENTALLY REPLACED YOUR HEART WITH A BAKED POTATO. YOU HAVE ABOUT THREE SECONDS TO LIVE: Among the truths this blog holds to be self-evident is that the world misses Fametracker.com -- misses, misses, misses deeply its savvy analysis of celebrity in the modern world. So I'm thrilled to see Fametracker vet Adam Sternbergh use his New York magazine perch today to perform what we can only call a Fame Audit on George Clooney, last audited by Tara Ariano in January 2001.

Ariano, then:

[W]hat we don't get is his whole career. Never mind the recent years, in which, following an initial run of notably inauspicious films (From Dusk Till Dawn, One Fine Day, Batman and Robin, The Peacemaker) Clooney somehow managed, just like that, as easy as pie, as though anyone could do it if they put their mind to it, to reel off an improbable run of notably auspicious films (Out of Sight, The Thin Red Line, Three Kings, O Brother, Where Art Thou?). Either he fired his agent, sold his soul to the devil, or both. Sure, he's offhandedly mentioned in interviews that, after the Batman débacle, he decided to do projects that really meant something to him and not worry so much about the paycheque, but come on -- we seem to recall Val Kilmer saying something similar after his own private Batman débacle, and last we heard he was in The Saint, At First Sight, and Red Planet.

.... Consider he nabbed the Golden Globe for his very charming turn in O Brother, and he has enticing future projects like Charlie Kaufman's Chuck Barris bio, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven remake loaded in the torpedo tubes, we think he'll be just fine. As such, we aren't so much calling for Clooney to receive more fame as we are sounding the klaxons and unleashing a great Aaah-ooo-gah! Aaah-ooo-gah! to warn the citizenry: hug your loved ones, stock your pantries, and find shelter in doorways and under desks, because Clooney is about to start sucking up all the fame in a hundred-mile radius like the great, huge fame-sucking vacuum he has become.

(Emphasis mine.) Sternbergh, today:

The question is not "Does George Clooney guarantee a blockbuster?" (he doesn't, and he doesn't try to); the question is, "Does it matter?" Apparently the answer is no. Up In The Air was a moderate success, grossing $83 million domestically, but Leatherheads tallied only $31 million, falling short of recouping its budget. (Fantastic Mr. Fox also faltered, but we chalk that up to America's aversion to deadpan foxes and puppets, not Clooney.) Yet talking about numbers when it comes to Clooney seems not only irrelevant, but vaguely crass. After all, if he gave up the "I'll wear a cape and leotard for $10 million" game, shouldn't we?

Clooney remade himself into something more heroic: He is, if you'll pardon the allusion, the perfect storm of celebrity. He does charity. (Think Haiti.) He does playful. (Think his recent Emmy cameo.) He wins Oscars (for Syriana) and makes Capital-1 Important issue films (like Good Night and Good Luck). He shrugs off flops(The Man Who Stares At Goats) and runs with the Coen brothers posse. And he's the only current male star you can envision standing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Cary Grant and Gary Cooper, largely because he's the only current male star who seems to enjoy wearing a tie.

TEAM KATNISS: I haven't yet read Catching Fire or Mockingjay, but quite enjoyed The Hunger Games, and was shocked by the level of violence and brutality in it for an at least nominally YA book. But of course, there'll be a movie, and according to Nikki Finke, not only is a script done (from Billy Ray, writer/director of Shattered Glass and Breach), but there's a director fight--with Sam Mendes, Gary Ross (Pleasantville, Seabiscuit), and David Slade (Twilight Saga: Eclipse, 30 Days of Night, Hard Candy), being the final 3 contenders. Mendes seems too arty and Ross too sunny, so I expect it goes to Slade (who's also a hot commodity, coming off of a big hit that got better reviews than the first two chapters), but others may disagree or have thoughts for who should play the leads.

LIVE, FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SOMEONE WHO CAN DO AN OBAMA IMPRESSION! Meet Jay Pharoah, one of four new SNL cast members. Fifty of his impressions in eight minutes here, but you'll want to hear his POTUS:

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THAT'S NO WAY TO TREAT WHOEVER AXL ROSE HAS DECIDED IS ADEQUATE THIS WEEK: That Guns N' Roses were apparently Tila Tequila-ed last night by a crowd in Dublin is amusing enough. That the AV Club uses the headline that GN'R are "Not Down With Hot New Trend of 'Throwing Things,'" means that our linkage is essential.

COMEDY IN A HOSPITAL; TRAGEDY IN A STAND-UP CLUB: As the summer winds down (you can tell because it just got warm in San Francisco), it's a good time to say a few words about two pleasant additions to summer television -- FX's Louie and Adult Swim's Children's Hospital.

Children's Hospital is the less ambitious of the two, and all I've seen of it so far is old stuff that first aired on the web. It's broad parody very much in the style of its principal creator, Rob Corddry, so if you have a problem with that, you wouldn't like it. But the excellent cast -- a rotating stew of half the comic actors from the incestuous Greg Daniels/Daily Show/UCB/Human Giant ensembles -- seems excited about the format (each episode is roughly the length of two SNL sketches), the gag rate is high, and the shots the show takes at the enduring hospital-show format generally hit the mark. And the National Terrorism Strike Force: San Diego: SUV commercials are Veridianesque in their value-additivity.

Louie, on the other hand, is a show that Matt Ufford accurately described as not really a comedy so much as a show about the painful stuff that comedians use as comic source material. Louis CK puts his character into a lot of sit-com situations -- a playdate co-supervised with a brash single parent; a date interrupted by a bullying teen; a political argument with a friend; a poker game with some loudmouths and a gay man. Then he frequently mines them not for yuks, but for sharply observed examinations of flawed characters or insights about his own and others' shortcomings. Those, and not the more traditionally comic episodes (the airport episode; the lesbian mom episode) are the ones I have liked the most. At its best, the show is unlike anything I can remember seeing on TV.

DUH NUH NUH NUH, DUH NUH NUH NUH [CLAP CLAP]: Check your calendar -- today is 9.02.10.

Your trivia question, should you choose to accept it: in what order did the characters lose their virginity, and to whom? (90210 Original Recipe. I stopped watching the remake after about 2-3 episodes.)