What did Tom Hanks say in "A League Of Their Own", "There’s no crying in baseball"?  Well, attempts don’t count in music, but they do in TV.

Kinda like the new Springsteen song.  It’s all dark and dirty, but once is enough.  Forget the e-mails telling me it reminds listeners of Tommy Tutone, "Radio Nowhere" just doesn’t possess that elusive magic.  That made you stand up at attention when you heard "Born To Run", never mind "Wild Billy’s Circus Story".  When you paint by numbers, you can get us to move our bodies.  But if you want to own us, you’ve got to create a record that captures the zeitgeist, that is just fucking perfect.  Like "She Loves You" or "Love Me Do".  Never mind "Satisfaction" or "Smells Like Teen Spirit".  You can’t convince someone to love a track, that’s a conclusion they have to come to by themselves.  And there’s no formula.  I was elated when I heard "Over The Hills And Far Away" on XM this evening.  But when "Carouselambra", one of my favorite tracks off "In Through The Out Door", came out of the speakers, I had to switch channels.  After all these years it’s clear, it’s just not good enough.  Jimmy was best in the beginning.  Oh, he had a comeback with "Physical Graffiti", but that perfect darkness, that was captured best on the first two albums.  Especially the first.  IV was the peak, the apotheosis.  When you get it perfect, it’s hard to do it anymore.  Where do you go from there?  Ultimately, to extended numbers and simplified romps.  Which gives us "Kashmir" and "The Rover".  But "Down By The Seaside" was maybe the last hurrah.  We didn’t EXPECT IT!

What do we expect?

The same old thing.  Curiously, right now in music.  But especially in TV.  And now movies.  Actually, movies are the worst.  If you go to see Hollywood fare you’re looking for escape, because that’s all there is.  Who cares if Brad Pitt is a star, the pictures he makes are such trifles that they’re forgotten right after you see them.  Whereas on TV, they’re now trying to test the limits.

And just when we were about to switch allegiance to Showtime, HBO makes a comeback.

Credit Larry.  The reviews might not have been A+, but when he showed up at Super Dave’s house, i.e. Marty Funkhouser’s, Bob Einstein’s, Albert Brooks’ brother’s, I started laughing uncontrollably just like I did during the first five seasons.  And when that cigarette hit the garbage can, I knew that we were going to once again live the saga of the marble rye, when everything in the episode was tied up neatly in the end.  Larry David was the genius in "Seinfeld".  Without him, the series fell flat.  Actually, I told him this at the AMC in Santa Monica one afternoon.  And his reaction was STRAIGHT OUT OF CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM!  He said I DON’T WANT TO HEAR THAT!  I’M A PRODUCER, I WANT THEM ALL TO BE GOOD!  And as he scowled and bought a ticket, I was left dumbstruck, I thought I was paying him a compliment.  But this was before we knew who Larry David really was.

And when I was done with his show, I fired up the other series that had debuted that evening, "Tell Me You Love Me".  You know, the one where everybody takes off their clothes, where even Jane Alexander gets naked.

I was not prepared.

Oh, I’ve seen tits and twats before, but the subject matter…

This show is painful to view.  It’s a bit like watching paint dry.  It’s SLOW!  I almost turned the TV off five times.  But the latter few were because I was starting to get flipped out.  I’d HAD that relationship.

This show could only be created by a woman.  Only a woman could be this honest.

We live in a land of meaningless diversions.  It’s believed Americans can’t handle the truth.  Not only does the entertainment business protect us, the government does too.  We don’t want to see the truth, we might get scared.

The truth really is scary.  But everybody knows it.  Do they want to face it?

What do you do with a jealous spouse?  You’re devoted, but it’s never enough for them, they believe that waitress you’re talking to is going to become your new girlfriend.

And on the surface, your relationship looks great.  All those people treating you like a loving couple don’t know that sex is uneven, that orgasms are elusive, that masturbation eclipses coitus.

You want a baby more than you want your spouse.  And when you get it, your husband becomes a second-class citizen, no matter how much he reads to the children, he’s not doing enough, only you understand them, they care about you most.

In your twenties, you’re doing it everywhere.  Your fights never eclipse your arguments.  You’re so passionate, you gloss over the bad times.  Until…

Is marriage forever?  Does ANYBODY know what’s going on?

"Tell Me You Love Me" has got an east coast feel.  As opposed to being set in La-La Land, where everybody goes to therapy.  Those on the east coast are closeted.  They rest on their graduate degrees and family pedigrees.  Problems are shoved under the rug.  Are you shoving problems under the rug?

While you worry about your record’s SoundScan number is your wife fucking her yoga teacher?  Or are you fucking your assistant.  Or is nobody fucking anybody, even though you talk about sex all the time.

Are you at the end of your rope, believing you have no options?

Are you afraid to get out of your relationship, however bad, because you don’t want to be alone?  Or, in the alternative, are you not getting into a relationship because you don’t want to be hurt, AGAIN!

Do you know what it feels like to put your fingers down a woman’s pants?  It’s de rigueur when you’re in a relationship, but watching this show you’re reminded of the sensation, which is in your memory bank, but might have been papered over, so you don’t despair.

I had issues with my spouse to be.  But I never give up.  I stayed the course.  Through the wedding.  All the way until she left me, which I knew she’d do BEFORE we got married.  But what did I know?  You’ve got to take chances, RIGHT?

And what is most important?  Compatibility, trust or hot sex?

If you hated "thirtysomething", you won’t like "Tell Me You Love Me".  If you’re twenty five, and barely beyond puppy love, it won’t tickle your fancy either.  But if you’re in your late thirties, or older, you’re gonna freak when you watch this show.  You’ve been there.  The stolen sexual moments, and the absence thereof.  The connections and the crossed wires.  When Sonya Walger stormed out of the therapy session, I was brought back to that exact moment.  When my old girlfriend stood up in the therapist’s office, announced she was done, slammed the door and never returned.  You can imagine how trepidatious I was about going back to our shared apartment.

And breakups aren’t that easy when you live together.  And when you don’t, they’re constantly right around the corner.  Your love can retrieve their toothbrush and some underwear and suddenly they’re gone from your life forever.

All we see in the media are winners.  And sometimes I feel like a winner too.  But not all the time.  Actually, I can’t relate to the folks who are constantly upbeat, telling me how great life is.  Because it’s not that way.  I know, I’ve spent a lot of time on this mortal coil.

I have no patience for automatons.  I’m interested in those with more questions than answers, who are trying to figure it all out.  Those who can see the conflagration coming, but still aren’t sure whether they want to leave, or explode and stay.

Our nation is made up of those suffering silently.  Rather than live a life of quiet desperation, tune in "Tell Me You Love Me", you’ll find out you’re not alone.