The tribe has deliberated

Alright, I know I often discuss the show 24 with a sometimes childlike giddiness, and well, this won’t help. Jack Bauer action figures! But where's the Tony Almeida model with removable soul patch?

The Law Firm is a show that will certainly never have action figures. I admit I continued watching this crass reality program because it’s not every day you see a TV show about precisely the same things you study in school. (I’m still waiting for the reality show where economists compete to find the optimum NAIRU curve and control inflation!)

Among the several frightening aspects of this show: you can expect a lot of post-production dubbing from Donald Trump on the Apprentice, because the man can never get his lines right on camera. But in The Law Firm, it’s particularly unsettling to note that all the post-sync is for lines where the boss is discussing the ethics and care needed when dealing with clients. It's as if the notion was an afterthought only the studio editor caught.

Elsewhere, isn't there some sort of conflict of interest with contestants vying for prize money? Can these lawyers really have their client's best interests in mind, or is the endless talk about "winning" a case just like a tribal ceremony to them? Note the show's tagline: Real People. Real Consequences. One Winner. You're the loser if you guessed that person was the client.

Oh, and what's with the attorney who looks exactly like Ryan Atwood from The O.C.?

Ah, but maybe I'm just wasting my breath on the show. Heck, when the site has its own handy legal glossary, maybe I'm wasting time in law school.

So back to music: in a truly rare and fascinating interview, Pitchfork gets Ryan Adams to dish on his next two albums coming out before 2007, the Patsy Cline-esque September, and the concept album 29 written when he was in the hospital nursing a broken wrist. (His site used to have an mp3 of the tune "Shadowlands" where you could hear the exact moment when he plummeted from stage and broke the wrist. Points if you find it.)