EW, BABY BABY: If you're not already an Entertainment Weekly subscriber -- and if not, why are you here? -- make sure to pick up the current issue, the one with that Louisana solitaire player on the cover, for three reasons: (1) Tim Carvell sat through two straight weeks of Wayne Newton concerts, and now you get to read his wicked deconstruction of Wayne's "spontaneity"; (2) Tim Carvell also gets to interview Triumph about his new album, and, oh, Kathleen Turner is not going to be pleased; (3) Dalton Ross compares Survivor 7's Rupert Boneham to "Capt. Lou Albano on acid," and if there's one thing this blog goes crazy for it's good simile; and (4) an interview with Michael Stipe at his most ridiculously defensive. Did you know that if you don't like R.E.M.'s past decade's worth of music, it's because you're jealous he has six-pack abs, and not because a lot of it sucks?

Get this issue.

I WANT TO BE THE GIRL WITH THE MOST CAKE: To commemorate this blog's one-year anniversary (tomorrow), have a little fun and provide a little extra to you, my loyal readers (as well as the people who are just hoping for the free pizza), I decided to seek out Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis, one of this blog's favorites, who was happy to chat with me yesterday about his new book, the alternarock explosion of the 1990s, the contemporary scene and future of rock music.

I think you'll enjoy our conversation a lot, and it will appear here as soon as I have some time to transcribe my notes.

In the meantime, a preview. Because it all comes back to Nirvana, right? (And then back to the Pixies, but you know what I'm saying.)

We were talking about Nirvana, and how troubled Cobain was by the band's success. "They didn't know what the hell was going on," DeRogatis told me.

He visited Cobain at his home a few months before his death. "It was a beautiful house on Lake Washington, but it looked like a slum," he told me. "He had a thrift-store couch in the middle of the living room. They had no idea how rich they were."

Which he then linked to, and I will now for you, a 2002 interview he conducted with Courtney Love, contained in the book, and one particular Love quote which he called "creepy":

[Cobain biographer] Charlie [Cross] has this theory that there was always suicidal ideation, and there was no way around it. I think that's bull; ideation can be replaced with other ideation. Now, I have a theory, and it sounds vulgar, and it sounds shallow, and it's capitalism coming from a capitalist. But if we were around folks who knew luxury, who were our generation, who had money, who were flying on Lear jets, who were drinking fine wines, who were feeling great fabrics, who knew what Ming was, and fine art, and thread count, things might have been different. We didn't experience what [R.E.M. guitarist Peter] Buck experienced when he was living next door. We didn't have STUFF. We didn't know about food. We didn't have a cleaning lady! Wealth makes things nicer -- it does, and that's just a goddamn fact! We were rich people, and we didn't get to BE rich people. And I think that luxury might have replaced [Kurt's suicidal] ideation.

If only Kurt had been introduced to the Pottery Barn in time, Courtney. . . .

More on Nirvana, true rock experiences, bands that have become "corporate self-perpetuating success machines," the importance of Trent Reznor and more, as soon as I have time to type it up.

ACTINIDE IT IS: Throwing Things has made the Periodic Table of Bloggers. Canada officially has this to say about Throwing Things:

Radioactive [Throwing Things] retains its silvery lustre for months due to a protective oxide coating. The 90th element was discovered in 1829 by J.J. Brezelium and named after the Scandinavian god of thunder, Thor.

This element is attacked slowly by water, but it does not dissolve readily in most acids, with the exception of hydrochloric acid. An important compound formed by this actinide is [Throwing Things] oxide that has a melting point of 3300°C. Laboratory glass and crucibles subjected to high temperature applications are often made from this compound.

IT DIDN'T HURT E.J. DAY EITHER: PETA's new spokesperson? Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog.

The campaign? Get Neutered -- It Didn't Hurt Clay Aiken.

The celibate red-headed elfboy declined comment.

SET YOUR TIVOS. NOW: TNT will restart its cycle of ER reruns by re-airing the original two-hour pilot on Monday, November 24 at 10 am. You know, from back when the show was really good, or even great?

Like, not when they felt compelled to promote a standard-issue helicopter crash as THE BIGGEST EVENT IN ER HISTORY, as they are in the promos for next week's cheese-filled episode. Seriously? Bigger than Doug Ross leaving, Gant's suicide, Mark Greene dying, the blizzard episode, the hostage episode, the guy who died from hypocalcemia, Knight's murder, Doug's rescue of the drowning kid in the ravine, Shep's partner Raul dying in the fire, the random beatdown on Greene, Carter's entering rehab, Jeannie's HIV revelation, Susan leaving (the first time), or Peter Benton dressing up like Shaft for Halloween?

I'd give my right arm for an episode worthy of that hype.

MORNING TRIVIA: In his new book Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the '90s (about which you'll be hearing more in the next few days), Chicago Sun-Times rock critic Jim DeRogatis reprints an entertaining interview he had with one of the bigger rock hitmakers of the past five years who had taken issue with the critic's writings on his band.

In answer to a comment about hype and the band, the lead singer replied:

Hype is something that our band has certainly eschewed. Our band has been, if not the most D.I.Y. next to Fugazi, then number two or three.

Name the hype-eschewing singer/band. Or guess. But don't Google, because that's cheating, and it puts you in the same boat as Stephen Glass, Albert Belle and Gerald Plecki when the day of judgment comes, and you don't want that.

IF THERE'S A PING-PONG SCENE, ALL BETS ARE OFF: Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells hails Tim Burton's upcoming holiday flick Big Fish today, calling Burton's appreciation of a tale-telling Alabaman "storybook surreal, magical and fantastical . . . Burton's most emotionally affecting work since EDWARD SCISSORHANDS." Even noted NYT/VF sourpuss Lynn Hirschberg wrote Sunday that its "extraordinary ending . . . is a perfect melding of the visual and the verbal: the words are bolstered, rather than overwhelmed, by Burton's artistry.

Yeah, okay, but a good friend of mine saw it in previews Monday night. His review: "I liked it better when it was called FORREST GUMP."