It's not often that reading someone's obituary makes you laugh out loud.  But then we will not see the likes of Jerry Girard again soon.

His obituaries are peppered with words like "wry", "acerbic", and "deadpan", but they don't capture the man or his work.  Back in the days before any alleged standup comic could claim to be a sportscaster, or vice versa, Jerry Girard delivered the goods.  He was the reason to watch WPIX news in the late '70's and '80's and nobody else could match his expertise or the verbal gems he delivered almost every night.  He didn't yell, he didn't gesticulate; he didn't have to.  He simply appealed to our intelligence and our senses of humor.

My favorite show which I never listen to -- This American Life -- is about go to visual, courtesy of Showtime.

I never listen to TAL because it's broadcast locally when I'm otherwise busy (Friday at 7 PM, Saturday at 11 AM).  Courtesy of the podcast I'm now theoretically able to listen to it, but I rarely have the time.  (Yes, I know I can burn them to CDs and listen to them in the car.)  I won't watch TAL because I don't have a Showtime subscription, though I expect that if it gets released on DVD I'll watch it then.

I caught the TAL live show at The Paramount last night, part of their promotional tour for the TV show.  It was a combination of live readings and previews of the TV show with director's commentary.  David Rakoff, Alexa Junge, Dan Savage, the Mates of State, Chris Wilcha, and of course, Ira Glass.  I laughed, I cried, I laughed some more, OK I didn't cry.

From the previews, the TV show looks great.  It has a visual richness that matches the aural richness of the radio show.

The highlight of the live show was Ira Glass gleefully describing when TAL became a pop culture reference on The O.C.: "Isn't that that hipster know-it-all show about how fascinating ordinary people are?"

One thing that bugged me was when Ira Glass and Chris Wilcha were describing how they wanted to come up with an original way to have Ira appear on screen, and they chose to put him at a traditional TV host desk in the middle of the landscape where they were filming.  Original only if you never saw John Cleese do it on Monty Python's Flying Circus nearly forty years ago.

Dan Savage also took the opportunity to bash the proposed plans for the Alaskan Way Viaduct without proposing a better solution of his own.  Thanks, Dan.

Bombs, Tanks Shoot Down Roadside Avalanches

Getting paid to drive tanks and snowmobiles and set off explosives?  They could charge people to do that job.