I went to 10 Allman Brothers concerts in 13 nights-- the last one, on Tuesday, was a benefit concert for the Big House that featured Jaimoe's band, Oteil's band, Derek's band, Gov't Mule, and then the Allmans, running from 7 PM to 2 AM. I loved every minute of every show, and I even got to watch rehearsal on Monday afternoon for 90 minutes (no one in the Beacon but the sound guys and me; a sublime and tasty treat.) But I'm so run down now, suffering from a wicked sore throat, and no one is happier to see them gone than me! (just kidding)

I doubt I'll write about any of it here, because I've posted the link (below) which will take you to my reviews of the shows; I haven't been posting lately because of the time demands of both the shows and the review writing. (But I'm Baa-ack... and this time... its personal.)

Anyhoo, let me make my first post back about something important...

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We've been TiVo-ing (and I don't care what the pundits say, TiVo will flourish as a company because I just used their brand as a verb and you know what I meant) old episodes of Mad About You. I had forgotten just how good that show is. The writing, and the interplay between Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt (who is consistently brilliant on it) is so good that by the last 2, 3 years of the run, each episode is like a little movie. A perfect, compact comedic movie. Art, for sure. Oh, I should also mention one of my favorite comedians, David Steinberg, who directs most of them, certainly most of the later ones.

Indeed, the combination of remembering how good Mad About You was-- contrasted with what crap the Friends spin-off Joey is-- have together led me to the re-assessment that the show Friends, rather than being innocuous and occasionally funny, actually really sucked (outside of the first season, which was funny at the time and holds up.)

Give me a half hour of Jaimie and Paul over ten years of Ross and Rachel any day. (Yeah, alright already, they were on a break.)

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By the way, Seinfeld and Friends exist in the same TV universe-- thanks to Mad About You. Of course you probably have some dim awareness that Lisa Kudrow, who played Phoebe on Friends, had a minor recurring role as a ditz waitress on Mad About You, and that character was subsequently written into Friends as Phoebe's twin sister (indeed Jaimie and best friend Fran make a crossover appearance on a first-season episode of Friends.) What you may not remember is that Paul Buchman had sublet his old bachelor pad to Seinfeld's Kramer (who guests on a Mad About You episode, in which Paul cuts the cord to his bachelor past by giving Kramer the lease.) Hence Seinfeld, Mad About You, and Friends all exist in the same TV universe-- in the same way that Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, and Green Acres once did. (And the Andy Griffin Show, The Danny Thomas Show, and Gomer Pyle did).

Why in God's name do I know this crap? More importantly, is there any way to get paid for knowing this crap?