Imagine a seamless advertising environment. It’s easy if you try. A virtual mall, where everything you view is a promotion for itself, and all you need to do to add it to your shopping cart is click. Where every song you hear is instantly available in streamed, downloaded and hard copy versions. Reality as QVC. A world in which your every physical movement generates income. Sounds like a radical capitalist’s view of heaven, right? Except it exists right here and now. Which means the following consumer guide is a treasure trove for potential sponsors… OK, got that? Now all we need to do is kill ourselves to experience the eternal joy of content generating actual income. Hey, we can dream, can’t we?

WEAKEND CALENDAR
Fast for points! Atone! Or go to the San Gennaro Festival and stuff yourself. Evil Italians. Mary Kay LeTourneau talks to Barbara Walters about doing a student. Did somebody say, atone!? Oy, Mary! Post-Yom Kippur Hoobastank action at the L.A. County Fair and enough baseball/football to keep the lads on the couch all weekend.

Friday (9/24)
7 p.m.
You a Jew? Eat a big dinner. Cause that’s it til tomorrow night

7:30 p.m.
Go check out an awesome band Turn of the Screw rockin the Whiskey. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

8 p.m.
Head on down to the L.A. County Fair this Friday to get your fill of the petting zoo and homemade chili.

Touch a sheep and then catch some HOOBASTANK! The Hooba guys rock the hizzzouse, well, actually the fizzzair, at 8:45.

Sarah Silverman in her one-woman show Jesus Is Magic. She is f’d up. In a good way. She’s filming this performance for theatrical release & your ass should be there ’cause it’s crazy funny. El Portal Theatre (5269 Lankershim Blvd. N. Hollywood, (818) 508-4234)

Dodgers vs. Giants: A three-game series begins at SBC Park, where the reeling Dodgers square off against their mortal enemy in what has now become a pivotal series. The Blue have been dominant up until the last month of the season when it really counts, and they will need to step up big if they want to win the division, or even make the playoffs, for that matter. Typically, the Dodgers are always getting our hopes up, only to let us down every year.

All Day Event Feast of San Gennaro: Hey yo, paisan, head on over to the Grove this weekend to celebrate the Italian heritage. Pizza, pasta and wine, Montebello!!! Some restaurants that will be catering the event include Louise’s, Albano’s Pizza and Frankie's on Melrose.

10 p.m.
Set your Tivo for the 20/20 exclusive: Mary Kay LeTourneau, recently released from prison for having sex with one of her grade school students, tells her story to Barbara Walters, for Barbara’s last interview. Then Mary Kay is off to pick up Jill to cruise junior proms together.

Saturday (9/25)
10 a.m.
You a Jew? Go to services & atone for some stuff

12-4 p.m.
The Annual Taste of Santa Monica: Cruise on down to the Santa Monica Pier for some good eatin, live chef demonstrations and music all afternoon. The beach, food and music… You can’t beat that. Admission is $35 for adults and $10 for children. And $4 for aliens.

7:45 p.m.
The Adventure of Iron Pussy: On title alone, you should see this Silver Lake Film Festival selection! It’s screening at the ArcLight Cinemas. For more info on the festival: (323) 993-7225)

8 p.m.
The Last Shot with Alec Baldwin & Matthew Broderick. Broderick plays a director who doesn’t realize his entire film is a front to bust a mob dude. Baldwin is the undercover agent posing as his producer.

American Idols Live: Featuring finalists Fantasia Barrino, Jasmine Trias, George Huff & more. Sooooo cheesey, we just might head over. Bakersfield Centennial Garden (1001 Truxton Ave, Bakersfield). For more info: (661) 852-7777 … and then feel awkward that you did.

9:30 p.m.
O Bar (8279 Santa Monica Blvd.): We’ve written about this one before, but we just can’t get enough. Yummy Mojtios and tasty entrees (try the Mahi Mahi wrapped in banana leaf).

10 p.m.
Flavor Flav originally of Public Enemy and now of The Surreal Life (see below) will be performing solo for the first time ever at the Key Club.

Sunday (9/26)
12 p.m.
Brunch at the Edendale Grill (2838 Rowena Ave. (323) 666-2442): A luscious New American menu, full bar, outdoor/indoor seating—all in a cool restored firehouse setting. Have the Wild Alaskan salmon filet or the macaroni & brie and you’ve gotta try the Red Velvet cake… So white trash, so good.

10 a.m.-8 p.m.
Football, football, football: If you have the NFL Sunday Ticket package, you will have football games galore. What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than to invite your homies over, kick back on the couch and watch the NFL? (FYI, Jill & Steph can think of 507 other wonderful Sunday events, but we certainly understand & support Je-ce’s machismo).

9 p.m.
Jack & Bobby (WB): Haven’t watched it yet, but looking forward to it. I’m down with seeing which girl our future president makes out with & stuff.

Echo and the Bunnymen with the Bravery at the Henry Fonda Theater: You wouldn’t miss the chance to see Ian McCulloch responsible for such kick-ass songs as "The Killing Moon" and "Bring on the Dancing Horses" and see your new favorite NYC rockers The Bravery… Would you?

9:30 p.m.
Jordan Knight at the House of Blues, Anaheim: Come see your favorite New Kid and Surreal Life star as he plays at the HOB.

Phantom Planet at the Troubadour

Upcoming Info:
Mon (9/27) The Bravery at Spaceland: Show starts at 10 p.m. and it’s FREE!!!
Tues (9/28) Ivy League Comedy @ the Hollywood Improv w/Mad TV’s Bobby Lee, Eddie Peppitone and more!
Tues (9/28) Super Size Me and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind out on DVD.

What’s the Dilly Yo with the Sidekicks?
The Sidekick 2: The Sidekick frenzy is in full force! E-mail, Instant Messenger, full feature world phone, web browser, camera with flash, organizer

JILL REVIEWS RECORDS
John Price, Questionably Red (Aezra Records): Texas hottie with style, charisma & tons of charm. Oh, and the music is killer. The 25-year-old Price blends pop melodies and a rock beat with a powerful, clean voice and incisive lyrics. Three tracks on the record were mixed by John Porter (worked w/Ryan Adams). He’s currently touring with The Samples, where I caught him at L.A.'s Knitting Factory.

POPCULT TOP 10
1. End of the Century: Like Mayor of Sunset Strip (whose Rodney Bingenheimer makes a cameo here), Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia’s feature-length documentary on the Ramones is a bittersweet tale of prophets unsung in their time. It takes you from their humble beginnings as misfit Stooges fans straight off the streets of Forest Hills, Queens, to their 2002 induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. There’s testimony from witnesses like first manager Danny Fields, Sire’s Seymour Stein, Punk magazine founder Legs McNeil and Blondie’s Chris Stein and Deborah Harry, and plenty of hilarious performance footage from the early days. There’s an underlying sadness to the interviews with founders Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, all deceased within the last four years, and sole survivor Tommy, especially the career-long estrangement that contributed to more of a dysfunctional family than a ("Gabba Gabba Hey") happy one. What endures is the lifelong tension between Johnny’s right-wing greaser drill sergeant and Joey’s amiable rock & roll hippie, resolving itself in Da Bruddas’ perfect punk-rock storm. And while they might not have found any personal satisfaction in their 20-plus-year run, they spread the word all over the world. Added note: Check out yours truly, impossibly young and with a full head of hair, over CBGB owner Hilly Krystal’s left shoulder in a still shot taken in front of the fabled Bowery club which spawned the Ramones and many others. (Roy Trakin)

2. New York Dolls, Live From Royal Festival Hall 2004 (Sanctuary): Ya gotta hand it to Morrissey, a charter member of the New York Dolls fan club back in the day. The man puts his money where his taste is, encouraging this seminal band to get back together for his own London Meltdown Festival, recording the results and then releasing them on his Attack imprint. Now all he has to do is bury the hatchet with Johnny Marr, put the Smiths back together and I forgive the guy all his other idiosyncracies. If anything, the Dolls sound like they always should have, as original members David Johansen (joking that he only recently looked like a scruffy John Martyn but now resembles a member of the Scissor Sisters), Syl Sylvain and since-deceased Arthur "Killer" Kane marveling at the enthusiastic reception from the British audience. If you were a fan of the band’s two albums, all the classics are here… from "Looking for a Kiss" to a closing "Human Being," with the group’s humor and sass still intact. The Dolls have traditionally been cited as an in-joke only a bunch of hip downtown New Yorkers got, but this ferocious live album (along with an accompanying DVD) proves otherwise. Not just crazed Lower East Side transvestites, they were classic rock & rollers who spawned a musical revolution that included the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads and Blondie, as well as, across the pond, the Sex Pistols, the Clash and, oh yeah, the Smiths. (RT)

3. Family Bonds (HBO): I need my Sunday night HBO fix as much as the next cable customer, but I’m not sure if this half-hour reality sitcom about Long Island’s Evangelistas, who run a family-owned bail bonds business in Queens, will tide me over until the return of Curb Your Enthusiasm. A kind of low-rent Sopranos, the show definitely wants you to embrace this dysfunctional, but ultimately loving brood, but the trouble is they’re all so physically unappealing. The lure of The Sopranos, Curb, Sex Feet Under, Entourage, Deadwood and even Carnivale is that the characters are compelling, if sometimes grotesque. Family Bonds delivers on the grotesque, all right, but that’s not gonna be enough to sustain this series to its conclusion. (RT)

4. Surreal Life (VH1): An absolute train wreck, but fascinating none-the-less, as a group of B-list celebs, led by the completely insane Brigitte Nielsen, borderline psychotic Flavor Flav and "I have no idea what she’s talking about" Charo. American Idol loser Ryan Starr walks around with a permanent grimace, fending off pathetic advances from ex-New Kid on the Block Jordan Knight and Full House’s Dave Coultier, and undoubtedly cursing her agent for getting her into this mess. VH1 pumps up the volume with all sorts of absurd situations, as we are left to wonder what drugs Sly Stallone was on to get him to actually marry the screwy Swede, who claims she’s still big in Europe. No wonder they’re in so much trouble over there. (RT)

5. James Wolcott, Attack Poodles & Other Media Mutants (Hyperion): Vanity Fair media columnist James Wolcott spends his time spinning context and unearthing the backgrounds and agendas of the people controlling what we take as unbiased reporting. Not a whistle-blower so much as a man fascinated by the lenses people view events through, Wolcott's take is usually smart, sardonic and often enlightening. And with the crisply written Attack Poodles, he deconstructs the reflexive conservatism/neo-jerk right wing media outposts with clarity. Getting the "big dogs"Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Robert Novak and Maureen Dowdin his crosshairs, he lifts the veil on their methods and refutes their reasoning. Indeed in "Punditry for Dummies," Wolcott creates a Dummies Guide to Being A Talking Head thatas someone who media trainsis as solid as it is sarcastic. If you're conservative, its insight into what the libs are whining about could strengthen your team's playbook; if you're a liberal, it takes you to the frontline of how the other team dominates the media without breaking a sweat. (Holly Gleason)

6. Criminal: Steve Soderbergh assistant director Gregory Jacobs makes his feature debut in this bracing, low-budget version of grifter-like tales such as The Sting and David Mamet’s House of Cards. The always-fascinating John C. Reilly takes Y Tu Mama Tambien co-star Diego Luna under his win, teaching him several white collar scams, as the two stumble upon a lifetime score involving a counterfeit bill. Who’s screwing who only becomes clear at the slightly implausible ending. Still, the pleasure is in the gripping journey, which balances well-known L.A. landmarks with forays into the ‘hood, and fine acting in small roles by Maggie Gylenhaal as a hotel concierge, Peter Mullan as an Irish millionaire and Zitto Kazann as a Mexican forger. A b-movie with grit and style. (RT)

7. Jaan Uhelszki, "Five For Fighting" (Harp, Oct. ’04): A profile of Detroit's politically active, rock & blow-up, ever controversial MC5 from a woman who lived the drama and the dream as a fan, then as a critic and, ultimately, editor at rawk bible Creem. She understands the forces that came into play, pulled the band apart, sidelined their trajectory, fired their explosive live shows. With a reunion record coming from the fiercest band this side of the Sex Pistols who never realized their reputation, this reminiscence is tenderly rendered and yet—as the band themselves raved—"kicks out the jams." In addition, her revelatory conversation with Patti Smith in the same issue humanizes the punk poet as well. For anyone who ever appreciated the way rock & roll tore at the norms to build something broader, Uhelszki weaves pieces that illuminate the process, the people and the way music can deliver those willing to surrender to it. (HG)

8. Terry Gross, All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians & Artists (Hyperion): NPR junkies know Terry Gross as the hostess with the mostest on the Peabody Award-winning Fresh Air, a cultural forum that casts its net across the various arts and sciences with an eye to understand rather than judge. These are culled from just a few of the hundreds of interviews Gross has done since her show went on the air in 1987 on Philadelphia's uber-hip WHYY. Whether it's sparring with KISS' Gene Simmons or Bill O'Reilly, who act like petultant testosterone-addled troglodytes; engaging Jodi Foster on the fire behind her grace, or seeking the spark behind Chris Rock's intellectually incisive racial comedy, there is insight into the creative mind. In gentle conversations with authors Mary Karr, Nick Hornby and John Updike, actors Dustin Hoffman, Divine and Uta Hagen, funk-rap groundbreakers George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Grandmaster Flash, catalytic iconics Johnny Cash, artist Chuck Close and jazz pioneer Sonny Rollins, she deepens our understanding of the artists’ muse. (HG)

9. www.whoisthatwithjeremy.com: A website that begs the question whether an out-of-work actor-turned-Mr. Mom Michael Zorek is exploiting his adorable two-year-old son Jeremy or cleverly launching the lad's show business career by posting snapshots taken with the tyke and various celebrities he meets on the streets of New York. The site has caused a sensation around the world, as the kid beams next to the likes of Billy Joel, Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hugh Hefner, G. Gordon Liddy, Spike Lee, Bill Clinton and Elmo from Sesame Street. Kind of the equivalent of being trapped with a doting parent showing off their prodigy Polaroids, but a grinning infant somehow brings out the best in even the famous. (RT)

10. Backstreet Boys in China: Backstreet’s back, all right! The Backstreet Boys should receive a warm welcome in Beijing and Shanghai this weekend. Thanks to Emma Entertainment, who brought Whitney Houston to the country this summer, Nick Carter and friends will play their first concert in two-and-a-half years. Concerts in China aren’t as common as they are here: a promotion company must partner with the government’s culture ministry to be granted rights. "Kids in China are the same as kids in America," Emma Entertainment President Jonathan Krane told Weakend Planner. "But they’re not hearing about groups as fast. It takes extra time for new music to penetrate." A portion of the proceeds will benefit the Special Olympics. (Valerie Nome)

TRIUMPH OF THE WILCO
We just finished the third day of the Austin City Limits festival, and I have to tell you, I'm leaving here exhausted and inspired. It was so hot, almost to the point where the heat could have prevented me from going out for the third day's events. But, we sucked it up and made the long walk down Barton Springs to Zilker Park to see an absolute revelation of a set from Wilco.

Naturally, I knew that they had a lot of fans, but the throng that laid before them as the sun set on the far side of the park must have really made them feel more than heat.

They absolutely owned the stage from the first bar of "Hummingbirds" until the final progression of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)." This is a band that has gelled tremendously.

The definite highlights were all of the songs from A Ghost Is Born. Their electricity and enthusiasm made them incredible live. Jeff Tweedy's songs of addiction are taking on a life of their own live, as "Handshake Drugs" was riveting and "At Least That's What You Said" was so achingly beautiful that I never wanted it to end. Even the album's closer, "The Late Greats" took on a life of its own along with the Yankee Hotel Foxtrot faves "Jesus, Etc." and the majestic "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart." But, their closer, "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," is one of the high points of all of their concerts I've ever seen. It was stunning, and the air was thick with tension as Tweedy and Nels Cline traded solos over the endless Can-like verse figure. The cameras shot the pair from behind the stage with their shadows cutting through the sunset like movie monsters from days gone by. And, then just like that, it was over.

It was just awe-inspiring to see a band take so many chances and still hold the crowd in the palm of their hand. It was also a personal thrill to see my longtime friend Pat Sansone on keyboards with one of the greatest bands in the world. (Mik Davis, GM, WUSM-FM, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS)

TRAKIN’S PICKS TO FLICK
First Daughter (20^th Century Fox)
Premise: The teenage daughter of the President of the U.S. demands she be allowed to attend college without being followed by secret service agents, though she ends up falling in love with the one undercover guy who is assigned. If that sounds like the plot to Mandy Moore’s Chasing Liberty, that’s because it is.
Stars: Katie Holmes, Marc Blucas, Michael Keaton, Lela Rochon
Director: Forest Whitaker (Hope Floats, Waiting to Exhale), with a screenplay by actor Jerry O’Connell
Thumbs Up: Good cast, top-notch director, amusing premise.
Thumbs Down: Can Holmes top Moore at the box office in competing premises?
Soundtrack: None
Website: www.firstdaughtermovie.com/

The Forgotten (Revolution Studios)
Premise: A single mother, whose eight-year-old son recently disappeared in an airplane crash, seeks the help of a shrink to cope with her grief, only to be told the kid never existed, and that her mind is made up of eight years’ of false memories.
Stars: Julianne Moore, Dominic West, Gary Sinise, Anthony Edwards, Linus Roache, Alfre Woodward
Director: Joseph Ruben (The Good Son, Dreamscape, Money Train, True Believer)
Thumbs Up: Could be an intelligent psychological thriller, given the principals’ track record.
Thumbs Down: That image of Alfre Woodard being dragged into space from the trailer is just hilarious.
Soundtrack: None.
Website: www.sonypictures.com/movies/theforgotten/

The Last Shot (Touchstone Pictures)
Premise: A struggling filmmaker in Providence, RI, discovers his miracle producer is actually an FBI agent using the production as a sting operation to connect reports of union manipulation with the mafia.
Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin, Toni Collette, Calista Flockhart, Tim Blake Nelson, James Rebhorn, Tony Shalhoub
Director: Screenwriter Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can, Speed 2, The Terminal) makes his debut.
Thumbs Up: Some critics are comparing it to Get Shorty… Fine cast headed by Baldwin, coming off Oscar-nominated turn in The Cooler.
Thumbs Down: Looks suspiciously broad, like Bruce Willis’ The Whole Nine Yards mob spoof.
Soundtrack: None
Website: http://lastshot.movies.go.com/

TRAKIN’S PICKS TO QUICK
A Dirty Shame: John Waters’ tale of a town gone mad with sexual desire is sure to have something to offend everyone, with Tracey Ullman, Chris Isaak, Selma Blair, Johnny Knoxville and longtime collaborator Mink Stole.

The Motorcycle Diaries: Acclaimed Brazilian director Walter Salles’ road movie of Che Guevara’s motorcycle trip across South America with his pal Alberto Granado which inspired him to become a revolutionary, with Y Tu Mama Tambien’s Gael Garcia Bernal.

Shaun of the Dead: Comic flick about the undead swarming over London with kudos from Peter Jackson and Dawn of the Dead director George Romero.