Unyielding Commissioning Can't Quite Win Today

Almost made it. The Lollapalooza schedule is up today. Now begins the hierarchical ranking of bands you want to see. I was going along just fine - no real conflicts on the first day. It's all crappy and/or hippie bands playing at the same time as the best rawkers. Day 2 features only one challenging decision - The Roots at the same time as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. I'm more into The Roots, but I've seen them before in a much smaller environment. At this point, I was feeling great about my chances to catch everyone I wanted. Day 3 is not cooperating, though. Kings of Leon is playing at the exact same time as The Stooges. To me this seems like horrendous planning. It boggles the mind that the organizers wouldn't think that there would be crossover between these two bands. Between the two, it's an easy call as I've not seen The Stooges and no matter who they were opposite, they would win for me. But I'm greatly displeased with having to make this choice. My initial, gut reaction plan for the three days:

Day 1 The Fratellis, Ghostland Observatory, Ted Leo, Polyphonic Spree, Against Me!, Silversun Pickups, The Black Keys, LCD Soundsystem, Daft Punk

Day 2 Tokyo Police Club, Tapes 'n Tapes, Cold War Kids, The Roots (again, a tough call - leaning that way), Roky Erickson & The Explosives, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Patti Smith, Interpol

Day 3 The Cribs, Heartless Bastards, Amy Winehouse, Annuals/Paulo Nutini, The Stooges, Peter Bjorn and John, Modest Mouse, TV on the Radio, maybe a little Pearl Jam out of curiosity

Those who don't study their history are doomed to repeat it. Another quirk in the schedule is that one of the more promising acts is getting only 45 minutes because they're across the field from the main headliner. Last year, Broken Social Scene put on the best performance of the entire festival - even though they had fifteen minutes less than everyone else. This year, TV on the Radio is in that same slot. This is baffling to me. I don't see why (A) they can't make this slot an hour like all the others or at least (B) put some crappy band no one is excited to see in there.

There've been a lot of changes in the law. Joshua Jackson is set to be cast as Iwrin F Fletcher in the upcoming prequel, Fletch Won. This project has been kicking around Hollywood for quite a while, and many others have been mentioned in the title role. Looking at Jackson's resume, I don't see any comedy. Unless you count The Skulls. Kevin Smith was originally going to write and direct, but he is off the project now. Steve Pink is directing - he wrote the screenplay for both High Fidelity and Grosse Pointe Blank, but so far has only directed Accepted (yeah, the one with the I-Mac dude). Things do not look promising. Fletch Lives, the sequel to the original, gets a really bad rap, particularly by fervent Fletch fans, but I found it to be decent. It's nowhere near on par with the original, to be sure, but it has its moments. All signs on this project point to an absolute disaster. Using the whole fist, Doc?