I have been watching some new programming this summer, in the form of HBO's The Comeback, a faux-reality show starring Lisa Kudrow. The basic premise is that Kudrow plays Valerie Cherish, an early-'90s sitcom star who is trying to resuscitate her career by co-starring on a sitcom and making a reality show based on her small-screen comeback. Valerie is humiliated in every scene, and she just takes it as the cost of doing business.

I'm normally very uncomfortable watching people get humiliated on screen, even if it's fiction (I can't watch Meet the Parents or There's Something About Mary for exactly this reason). But I can watch this. I'm not sure if it's because it's about television, and I'm just fascinated by the behind-the-scenes look at my favourite medium, or if it's because the humiliations are on a small scale, like getting snubbed at a club or banging your head on the toilet during sex because there's a camera in the bedroom, instead of semen-hairspray and catnapping. Who's to tell?

I'm listening to: My friend Lal picked me up a CD sampler from Tower when she was in New York last week. It has some great tracks from K-OS, Caesars, Graham Coxon (whose music sounds a lot like one of my favourite punk bands, Bracket), and 14 others. Rockin'!