By Doug Strassler

He’s got to be one of the most ubiquitous actors working in movies today, but when you see the picture of the actor above, how many of you actually know his name? He’s perhaps one of the definitive character actors working today, and I’m going to help put a name to the face today as I wrote in praise of Kurt Fuller.

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The Extries are almost like the Emmys… only they’re awards given by the good folks at Extra Hot Great podcast. I’m delighted to be on the special panel of award giver-outers, so won’t you join us for a rousing discussion of our TV favorites? (Note: I mostly chose people I thought would never get Emmy nominations. It’s my way of spreading the love.)

And do NOT miss the Game Time at the end of the podcast. DO NOT.

By Doug Strassler

Well, it’s here. The flip-flops and shorts are out, the shore traffic is gridlocked, and half-day Fridays have begun. Forget what the calendar says, summer’s here! And for that reason, I’m writing about one of my all-time favorite summer songs: Madonna’s “Borderline.”

Technically, it’s not exactly a summer song. Released right after Valentine’s Day in 1984, it was really during the summer months that “Borderline” hit the charts, becoming, as Mark has pointed out here, the first Top 10 of Madonna’s blondely ambitious career. And while the next album saw several bigger hits – “Like a Virgin,” “Material Girl” – that became far more iconic, it was “Borderline” that helped introduce her early signature sound and persona.

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Mitchell and Cameron, the resident gay couple on ABC’s Modern Family, have been frustrating me this season. Over at NPR’s Monkey See blog, I just wrote an essay explaining why. As a preview, I’ll say that I’m irritated less by their lack of physical affection than by their general nastiness to each other.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the piece!

Underneath the leather and sex and alien shoulder blades, Lada Gaga is an idealist. Or at least, that’s how she seems on her new album, Born This Way.

Preceded by 42 advance singles, 6 million TV spots, and at least one U.N. summit, this album presents Lady Gaga as an artist who believes that pop music can really do something for the world. Her new songs are earnest and passionate, and almost all of them deliver pointed messages to listeners: Don’t be afraid to be gay; everyone feels weird; it’s okay to be scared of love. There are throbbing dance beats, yes, and hooky choruses, but after fourteen tracks, they feel like delivery systems for political platforms.

And this is not the same as Ke$ha mixing up her glittery norm with “We R Who We R,” or even Pink stirring “Fuckin’ Perfect” into her confessional anthems. By and large, artists like Ke$ha (Taio Cruz, Usher, Britney Spears, etc.) are here to help audiences mindlessly party. They occasionally sing about love or heartbreak, but they never stray far from their “booty booty on the floor” ethos. Pink, meanwhile, hews closer to the singer-songwriter track, as do Adele, Sara Bareilles, and the like. Their songs may have messages, but they are often borne out of personal stories.

Lady Gaga fits neither camp. Though her music is easy to dance to, it isn’t “fun.” Almost all of her songs have sinister edges or heavy bass lines or bridges built around shrieking. They are not frothy distractions, and they make much more sense in dark rooms than on sunny beaches. (Just imagine blasting “Bad Romance” while you’re relaxing by the pool. It would harsh your buzz.)

Meanwhile, though Lady Gaga’s music is filled with emotion, it’s not nearly as “personal” as a traditional singer-songwriter’s. She’s very open about loving her fans and such, but she’s also unabashed about admitting that she’s always performing the Lady Gaga Identity. No doubt her personal experiences are informing her music, but they don’t drive it the way Taylor Swift’s conversations and restaurant preferences drive her songs. Again, Lady Gaga’s music is driven first and foremost by her social messages.

And that’s what makes her an idealist. That strategy suggests she believes that pop music can change things—that if she’s serious and focused enough, if she’s clever enough about how she packages her politics, then she will actually alter the world.

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Friends have been recommending it for months, it won a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and it’s being adapted into a series for HBO. Enough said, right? This weekend, I finally took the hint and borrowed a friend’s copy of Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad , an interlocking collection of short stories that has me totally absorbed. It’s one of those collections that only needs a single phrase to capture, say, how young women ignore old women. It’s one of those collections that only needs two pages to make you understand a character’s heart.

It’s also one of those collections that makes people stop and talk to you on the street. On Sunday, I was hustling off the R train to see a play, with the book tucked under my arm, when a stranger walked passed me and said, “That’s a really great book.”

I didn’t catch this at first, since I was surrounded by the Ignoring You Bubble. You have to construct that Bubble in New York City, lest you wind up seeing free stand-up comedy on a double-decker tour bus driven by a homeless woman who just lost her belongings in a fire.

But even through the Bubble, I noticed that this woman was staring right at my copy of A Visit from the Goon Squad. That meant she wasn’t trying to give me a pamphlet about Jesus, so I stopped to actually look at her. She was wearing a cute blue trench coat and had brown curly hair that made me kind of jealous. She seemed too put together to be crazy, so I mustered all the power of my wit and replied, “What?”

“That book. It’s really good.”

“Oh, I know! I just started it yesterday, and I can’t put it down!”

We about the book as we climbed the stairs out of the subway. “Has she gotten to Africa, yet?” she asked. “Oooh, no!” I said, and I was intrigued to learn that the stories, which so far had been rooted in America, would soon zip off to Africa.

After a few more steps, my little friendship with Trenchcoat was over.

But what a wonderful friendship it was, you know? For a few seconds, a stranger and I found a real connection. We both knew it would be fleeting, but we dove in anyway, sharing our enthusiasm. I love that impulse… that willingness to have a casual conversation, just because it adds little kindness to the day.

That conversation wouldn’t have happened if I didn’t live in a pedestrian-friendly city, but it also wouldn’t have happened if I’d been reading A Visit From the Goon Squad on a Kindle or a Nook or an iPad. If I’d been carting a digital reader, then Trenchcoat wouldn’t have known what I was soaking up that afternoon. Our brief, yet vibrant friendship wouldn’t have been possible.

This is an unexplored consequence of the current digital revolution. By porting all of our media onto digital devices, we lose a signifier that might connect us to another person. This is only true regarding books, I guess, since you could never tell what was in someone’s Walkman, but still… it’s a loss. I’ve had lots of conversations with strangers about the books we’re carrying around.

I’ll probably get a digital reader, but for now, I’m glad I’m still walking around with books in my hands. I’m always up for making a new friend, however briefly.

By DOUG STRASSLER

I have a pretty like-hate relationship with reality TV, but every now and then, a show sneaks and gets me good. Since I’ve already confessed to being a big Toni Braxton fan, it should come as little surprise that I’d be curious to see just what she’s up to these days, more than a decade since “He Wasn’t Man Enough,” her last major hit.

So imagine my surprise, and joy, when a couple of friends told me about the new WE network show, Braxton Family Values. (Whuddup, Deb and Joi!!) Between my curiosity and the fact that I hadn’t seen anything on WE except for Snapped, I figured it was time to tune in.

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My girl’s name is “Teeny.” At least, that’s what Honda’s official YouTube page tells me. Her name is Teeny, and she’s just a gal on the go in her Honda Civic. Look how much fun she’s having with her friends!

And… oh yeah. She’s also big furry monster… like the cutest little reject from Where the Wild Things Are. (She probably got kicked off Monster Island because instead of obvious emotional issues, she has pink toenails and good taste in pop songs.)

And you know what? It would be easy to hate on Teeny and on Honda’s ad people for bringing her to life. After all, girlfriend is kind of a freak, and it’s not obvious why she would make me want to buy a car. But here’s the thing: Teeny is so weird that she did make me stop fast-forwarding my DVR to see what the hell she was doing in that cute little hoodie.

I’d never stop to look at a car, and since advertisers don’t yet have permission to put big hard cocks on primetime, fashion-forward monsters are pretty much the only thing that will catch my eye as I zoom through a commercial break.

That’s the point of modern commercials, I think… they need to grab viewers who are seeing them on fast-forward. They need to make us slow down and pay attention.

And I’ll say this: After I stopped and watched Teeny, I also became aware of the Honda Civic. This commercial may not directly sell a car, but because it gets my attention, it does build my awareness of Honda’s brand. (It clearly has been grabbing other people, too.)

Ultimately, when it comes to creatures selling cars, I prefer the gangsta smoothness of the Kia Soul hamsters, but I will still give Teeny her props.

Oh, and also… do you think this is why Teeny was jettisoned from the final season of Big Love? Because she turned into a giant monster? If so, then the writers missed a major opportunity, since you know that Nicki would’ve had something to say about that.

Like a wary acolyte, I approached the trailer for Super 8 with trepidation. Yes, Steven Spielberg (the executive producer) and J.J. Abrams (the writer-director) have served very good alien over the years, but could they really convince me they’d done something new? Didn’t the plot of this film—a group of kids are shooting a monster movie when they see an actual monster/alien/freak crash on a railroad track–sound like a fusion of things they’d done before? Like Cloverfield mixed with E.T. and maybe a pinch of War of the Worlds?

But oh, I was a fool. Even though I do recognize many of the plot elements here—and there are also touches of Stand By Me and Breaking Away and every other “gang of young boys” movie—I don’t care. I am in. If nothing else, Spielberg and Abrams both know how to tell sci-fi/fantasy stories that brim with human feeling, and this movie appears to have plenty of characters worth caring about. Like, tell me more about this guy who actually saw the creature. Why is he so sad?

Plus, the trailer’s rocking an aw-shucks-I’m-just-a-moseyin’ energy, which seems like an interesting way to approach an alien apocalypse story.

Oh… and Noah Emmerich’s in it! He’s one of my favorite Hey! It’s That Guy! actors, what with his unusual mix of soulful regret and I-might-touch-you creepiness. No matter which part her plays, be it Marlon in The Truman Show or cloistered CDC survivor Dr. Jenner in The Walking Dead, he always seems like he’s about to cry or fuck you up. Or maybe both. And I find that fascinating.

What do you think? Are you down for Super 8? Or would you rather Super wait? HA!

This week, Adele has the top single and the top album in the country, with “Rolling in the Deep” crowning the Hot 100 as 21 leads the Billboard 200 yet again.

And while I love “Rolling in the Deep”—I even named it one of the best songs released in 2010—I’m shocked that it’s the number one song in America. It’s just so different from everything else on pop radio. It only features real instruments, and it doesn’t distort Adele’s voice or toss in a superstar rapper or anything. When you put it next to the sonic experiments of the Black Eyed Peas or the bratty dance-pop of Ke$ha, it sounds downright quaint.

I could write a whole post about how happy I am that Adele has defied the odds. With any luck, her success will create room for more honest-to-god music in the pop landscape. As I keep saying, I like my dance pop and AutoTune as much as anyone, but I also like pretty melodies. And if that makes me an old biddy clutching my giant black purse as I shuffle down to FoodCo for another jar of those prunes I’m always hankering for, then so be it.

But that’s not the post I’m writing today. Instead, I’d like to mark Adele’s achievement by celebrating some of the unlikeliest #1 singles of all time. Whether it was their subject matter, their sound, or the artist who delivered them, these tracks had something working against them, yet they became hits all the same.

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