Do you guys have background shows?

I don’t mean “shows about whose background you are very familiar, a la being aware that Judith Light’s background, before she joined Ugly Betty,involved wondering who was the boss and crying all the time on a soap opera my mom used to watch.”

By “background shows,” I mean programs that you turn on while you’re do other stuff. Before I got DVR, I didn’t have a single one. I just had my radio, like I was Laura Ingalls Wilder. Now, however, when I’m cleaning the living room or doing home yoga (namaste!), I like to boot up a series that doesn’t require my full attention.

Currently, that means I Windex my glass-topped coffee table while watching Family Feud. So! Addictive!

But before the Feud, I was backgrounding Reaper. At first, it was appropriate. The show was interesting enough, but not so good that it required Lost- or 30 Rock-levels of focus.

Then a funny thing happened: About four weeks ago, Reaper turned awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I need to write two separate posts about the season finale, just to explain all the reasons I loved it.

Let’s start with this: The season finale proved that Reaper, unlike many films and TV shows, can depict male friendships without being smug or mawkish, and without treating women like crap.

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Is the Critical Condition taking up too much of my time? Am I the only one who didn’t know that Green Day has about five thousand side projects?

Because much to my surprise, Green Day has a new album out. Kind of. It’s by a group called Foxboro Hot Tubs, which is really just the members of Green Day playing with a few other guys.

The band’s album–Stop, Drop, and Roll!!!–is like a Zen riddle: When is a Green Day album not a Green Day album?

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Big Boi has sliced off a delicious piece of hip-hop.

The song is called “Royal Flush,” and it features guest verses from Raekwon and (OutKast reunion alert!) Andre 3000. Before we talk about why this song is great, go ahead and treat yourself to the following three minutes and eighteen seconds…

Saucy analysis awaits you after the jump… 

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You know who’s awesome? Suzanne Vega.

Fun fact: The DNA remix of “Tom’s Diner” was the first cassette single I ever bought. My mom hated that song–particularly the repetitive “duh-duh-DUH-duh” chorus–but I thought it was creepy and funky and irresistible.

Even better, the song became my gateway to Vega’s incredible music, which is consistently literate, surprising, and moving.

And now, on her semi-regular blog for The New York Times, Vega explains her process as she writes a song. I love getting this glimpse into her work, and I love how it’s equal parts emotional and intellectual. I can’t wait until this song is finished!

To explain why I’m so irritated by this season of American Idol, I have to share one of the worst pop culture disappointments of my life. But I don’t mind. I want The Critical Condition to be a place of healing.

In early 1995, I finally got my friend Stephanie to watch an episode of My So-Called Life with me. I had spent our entire sophomore year pestering her about what a great show it was. “The characters are in tenth grade just like us!” I cried. “Jordan Catalano is the world’s cutest! No one echoes the music of our souls like Angela Chase!”

As a Seinfeld woman, Stephanie was dubious. Every time I suggested that she join me for an episode, she said something like, “Well, um… I… have homework?”

So when she showed up at my house on January 19, 1995, you can imagine how victorious I felt. And really, how glad I felt for Stephanie. Here was her chance to be inducted into the glorious religion of the Chases!

And on this fateful night, which episode came on? “Weekend.” AKA, “The One Where Rayanne Gets Handcuffed to the Bed.” AKA, “The SIngle Lamest Episode in the History of the Show, Or Possibly Any Show.”

God, it was crushing. Because there was no way Stephanie was going to believe me now. It was like the show had betrayed me.

And that’s how I feel about this season of Idol. If this were the first year someone had watched, they’d probably wonder why anybody cared. It’s like the memory of everything the series has given us has been totally defiled.

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I’m not saying I single-handedly changed The Office, especially since my last post about the show wasn’t visible to the public until after the series improved, but I still think I had something to do with the upswing. Of course, when I was in kindergarten, I thought invented the peanut butter & banana sandwich, so maybe I just have a factitious disorder.

But I digress. Regardless of what caused it, The Office has aired three amazing episodes in a row, all featuring believable office hijinx that the show hasn’t previously explored. (Guess that well’s not dry after all. Whoops!)

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Why do I keep watching scary movies by myself? Even when they’re stupid, I want to surround myself with guard dogs, and when they’re actually scary, I almost lose my mind.

Which is exactly what happened when I was watching The Mist, the latest Stephen King adaptation from Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption.) The movie flopped when it came out last fall, but it got decent reviews. So last Friday, when Andrew was spending the evening with his family, I decided I’d rent ‘er up and see if I got spooked.

And let me point out: The Mist is about creepy bug-aliens lurking in the fog that envelops a New England town, and I watched it in the middle of a thunderstorm, with nothing handy for protection except my double-thick fleece blanket and the paltry little chain on my apartment door. Already, I was behaving like a fool. Any monster could’ve snapped that chain with a snap of its bug-alien jaws.

And it turns out the movie is really, really scary.

(Keep reading if you like, but be aware: I will give away every major plot point of the film.)

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Look, y’all… I’m still very interested in the music of today. New Mountain Goats album? That one Chris Brown song? Leona Lewis bleeding her love all over the place? Yes, yes, and yes.

But sometimes I get sucked into the glorious early nineties, when Paula Abdul was dancing with animated cats instead of telling me I should love Taylor Hicks. When Wilson Phillips was a group that mattered, by God, and we dreamed we could touch M.C. Hammer, even when he told us we couldn’t.

And I know people always feel this way about the music that was popular when they were eleven or twelve or thirteen, but I swear to you: Pop was at a golden, shimmering peak in those days.

Need proof? Just fire up some Technotronic. This afternoon, I was cleaning my apartment with the radio on, and the D.J. decided to drop an oldie between the millionth spins of “No Air” and “My Date With T-Pain’s Vocoder.”

While I was Windexing the glass on top of my coffee table, I suddenly heard the lost, forgotten sounds of “Move This.”

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Okay, look: I know I’m a New Yorker now. I have to accept public behavior that would have freaked me out in Georgia or Tennessee.

And thanks to that, I don’t feel bad about blowing my nose on the subway… No matter how loud I honk, I’ll never be more disgusting than that guy who threw up on his saxophone case.

But even though I walk past public urination every day, I have still have limits. This ad is one of them:

Can you read what’s behind the subway pole? It’s an ad for Cottonelle toilet paper, and it features an adorable little puppy quizzically looking at you. And what’s the puppy asking? Why, he’s asking, “Too much bran?”

Think about that: You’re sitting on the subway, and there’s a puppy wondering if the muffin you ate this morning has come with consequences. Because really, the question implies you’ve had too much bran to make it to a bathroom. You’ve just had so much bran today that you might poop your pants on the A train.

And in case you do need to defecate while using public transportation, the puppy would like to suggest Cottonelle toilet tissue. Didn’t pack any? Oh, well! You’ll know for next time!

You see where I’m going here? I don’t want to think about my lack of bathroom supplies while I’m shoved between a woman eating Thai food and two kids begging their dad to take off his headphones.

I might be a New Yorker, but I’m too much of a Southerner for that.