Friday night clearout

I've been off Thursday and Friday. The first day was spent dealing with a slightly sick kid (he's fine). Today was very slightly productive. I made it to the store and Hair Cuttery. That's about it.

I've been trying to untangle a few knots in my head. I'm still at a career crossroads, anxious to pick a path. But let's just say my ride isn't here yet.

So while I'm clearing out my head, here are a few things that fell out:

- In the early days of music videos, I didn't just watch MTV's weekday programming. I watched 120 Minutes, plus VH1's New Age/fusion/folky New Visions and something that aired over a University of Georgia cable channel that probably existed for a couple of years at most. This was the height of my musical awakening in high school, and it exposed me to all sorts of songs.

It's been a while since I've had anything similar, but I stumbled on it tonight. MHz -- a local public TV station that's going national -- has a show called Strictly Global. Strictly speaking, it's not all that global -- it's basically alt-pop with a few songs from Brazil and elsewhere mixed in. But the alt-pop is much broader than you hear on the radio. Yes, even on XM, where much of this music would fall in the gap between new-music XMU and the lifestyle channels such as The Loft or Hear Music.

And it's damn good.

Highlights so far tonight include a new-ish Cardigans tune called Don't Blame Your Daughter, a 2007 release from Bloc Party called I Still Remember, and a sweet video by Bob Sinclair in which a kid and his dog dream of building a rocket and saving Earth from an approaching meteor.

- The problem with running the show Dirt in the 10 p.m. slot is that there's no time to shower after watching Courteney Cox (weakly) pretending to have an orgasm, Rick Fox getting his knees whacked, outdoor man-on-man or woman-on-man action (and they're surprised someone got photos?), indoor woman-on-woman action, or Wayne Brady channeling Samuel L. Jackson while threatening to cut off a guy's Mr. Happy and make him eat it.

You read that correctly. That's Wayne Brady. That's art imitating Chappelle's Show. And you wouldn't believe how well he pulled it off. Dude isn't just an improv wizard -- he's got some chops.

- I've probably said it before, and I know I edited the relevant Wikipedia page, but Remember Me As a Time of Day is NOT the theme song for Friday Night Lights, no matter what the closed-captioning says. The FNL theme is in 3/4 time. Remember is in 4/4. Your Hand in Mine, another Explosions in the Sky tune, is in 3/4, but that's also not the theme song.

- And a conversation with MMM Jr. ...

ME: You're being uncooperative.

MMMJ (laughing): No, I'm not.

ME: Yes, you're being uncooperative.

MMMJ (laughing harder): No, YOU'RE coopratif!