Bill Recommends:

Cleopatra 2525: This is the premise of this show, which I swear I am not making up. In the year 2001, a Las Vegas stripper goes to the hospital for breast augmentation surgery. She is accidentally cryogenically frozen, until she is woken up in the year 2525 by two buxom babes in order to help them defeat the killer robots who have taken over the earth. Wow. Inspired. Check your local listings.

Leprechaun in the Hood: Yes, the fifth in the Leprechaun series of films! Fresh off the cinematic triumph of Leprechaun in Space, the directors have come up with another timeless tale, this time of a shoe-polishing evil gnome let loose in the ghetto. What an inspired conceit! Sheer genius! A rollicking good time! And it features the soulful, expressive acting of Ice T! It just doesn't get better than this.

The Upper Crust: This Washington, D.C. based band is just plain awesome. They dress like members of the 18th Century French aristocracy - powdered wigs, knee-breeches, ascots and dickies - but they play 80s-style AC/DC hair metal, interrupted with elegant between-song banter like: "We are going to rock you harder than you have ever, heretofore, been rocked." Plus, their bass player is a speechwriter for Clinton. Cool.

Bill Recommends:

House of Leaves: this book is like the Blair Witch Project of novels. It purports to be a doctoral dissertation about a documentary about a guy who moves into a house, only to discover that it's larger on the inside than it is on the outside. A lot larger. He wanders labyrinthine, pitch black hallways that couldn't possibly exist, then can't get out. The really cool part is that the typeface of the book mirrors what's going on in the story, so when he gets lost in the hallways, the type starts going in columns, sideways and upside down, and when he gets

Ben Harper: Fight for your Mind: Forget that "steal your kisses" song you may have heard on the radio. It sucks. Now go out and buy this album - he's an excellent musician, one of the best I've been introduced to in some time. Elegant songs, drawing on elements of rock, soul, and folk ballads - little songs about revolution, love, and ganja. But mostly it's his voice that carries the songs - he sounds so weary, as though he can just barely force the words past his lips. But you've got to love anyone who can write lyrics like: "Please, please me like you want to."

Mission Hill: A new WB animated series from former writers on The Simpsons. It's about a 16-year-old nerd  who goes to live with his slacker cartoonist brother in the Big City. It's a great series - lots of pop-culture satire, cool visual jokes in the background, and bizarre jokes about deviant sex and fans of Babylon 5. I especially like the neighbors Gus and Wally, an elderly gay couple who can often be heard loudly arguing and loudly making up. Sunday nights at 9:30

Due to drunken incompetence on the part of our copy editor, the last edition of the newsletter referred to a journey up I-81. Bill and company, of course, traveled on I-95. The offending party has been fired.