Local bastard

Bow down to the master. Dennis Leary is the master bastard. Local Bastard jumped on the engine late, but he finally rented and watched season one of the Leary-created F/X drama, Rescue Me. Aside from being as kick-ass a show as The Sopranos, Leary’s bastard skills in the role of post-9/11 golden boy New York firefighter Tommy Gavin are top notch: The police vs. fire department hockey game is coming up? Tommy goes into a cop bar, punches the biggest cop there straight in the throat and speeds away with half the force in pursuit, just to get the cops riled up enough to get preoccupied with revenge (instead of the game) when they hit the ice. Genius, forget about it.

Pussycat! Kill, Kill! You can’t avoid crap. No matter how good you are, or how well you plan your life, or how wise the decisions you make are, you cannot avoid the rest of the cattle who spend their lives squeezing out giant loaves of shit with which the rest of us must consistently make our sandwiches.

Exhibit one million: The Pussycat Dolls. At the tippy-top of a steaming pile of unsolicited promos stinking up L.B. headquarters is the press pack for the latest helping of pre-fab pop: “Inside every woman is a Pussycat Doll,” is how the bio starts off— Seriously, it actually says that—“inside every woman is a Pussycat Doll.” (L.B. needs Tommy the fireman’s connections so bad right now; maybe get all Pussycat credit cards cancelled, or get some cousin to have ’em all arrested for prostitution?) Continuing, the bio tries to pass this lingerie/ karaoke girl group off as some kind of feminist movement by saying that the line in the group’s MTV hit “ Don’t Cha’”—“Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?”—is “meant to be empowering.” To whom, it does not say. Maybe, your girlfriend can like, be inspired to the next level of hotness, and, like, purge and get a hair weave. Power to the hoochies!

Manager/producer-created bands are nothing new of course. Some are good ( The Monkees, Public Enemy), some are bad ( Menudo, Spice Girls), and some maybe didn’t get a chance to realize the initial concept’s full potential: On further examination, The Pussycat Dolls just might actually be a re-worked Sigue Sigue Sputnik. The resemblance is eerie.

TO DO: Local youth slam poet group Chico Speaks Out celebrates the release of its live poetry CD, Vigilante, Sat., 9/24, 7 p.m. at Moxie’s. Also, another reminder that Mac from Superchunk’s other band, Portastatic, is at Fulcrum, Mon., 9/26 with The Rosebuds and Slow Down Theo.

TO BURN: Afro Ninja is not a quitter: http://pofi.net/images/afroninja.mpg

TWO MORE: I’d like to start off as maybe a “Pre-Dunker,” and work my way up to like a “Go Go Dunker” or even a “Country Dunker.” There’s a spot for all y’alls at the home of the National Dunking Association of America ( www.ndaadunk.com), a schizoid site that jumps from hawking official dunking gear (?) to a confusing dunking/Michael Jordan/Jordan River tie-in with a story from the Bible.

Better, and far less of a strain on the eyes, is the history of the NBA’s Slam Dunk Contest ( www.nba.com/history/allstar/slam_dunk_video.html).