Every workday I wake up to NPR, get my act together then drive down the hill to the Oakland Coliseum BART station and wait a bit before picking up my commuting buddy, Mafalda. I used to squeeze in a little Air America before her train would show up, but KQKE (the Air America affiliate) blew a great idea before they even implemented it and lost my morning drive-time patronage - they created a local show (good) but put Willy Brown and Will Durst on the air as its hosts (decidedly bad in my book).

So once they started this show, I switched back to listening to the local classic rock favorite around these parts, KFOG. This morning the big topic of conversation was CBS’s new show, Love Monkey. Apparently, the Chronicle’s TV critic loved it even calling out the show’s secondary focus on music would be up a “Foghead’s” (a listener of KFOG) alley - although I can’t find that particular assertion in the article. The New York Times’ critic, however, didn’t like it.

Contrasting the warm fuzzies of a new show along the lines of “Sex and the City” or “Jerry Maguire” (or something - anything - more entertaining than random non-celebrity people heaping all sorts of abuse on each other) were some acerbic opinions, mostly offered by Alessandra Stanley of the Times. While there was lively discussion about different aspects of the show, the idea that the stereotypical woman does not like Bob Dylan - and that any woman that professes otherwise just pretends to to please men - was an interesting one.

Music is such a funny thing - you either love it or you hate it. And God forbid if you run into anyone who disagrees with you. Now I will freely admit that Dylan is a brilliant songwriter - someone called in to say that a female friend of his has a license plate cover that professes that Dylan is the Shakespeare of our time. I don’t necessarily disagree with that idea, although I find the medium to express such a romantic notion to be a little at odds with the sentiment. But that said, I just cannot fathom how anyone would agree to allow Dylan to sing his own songs (never mind a group of men responsible for investing gobs of money into a recording contract). This opinion was only reinforced when the DJs took a break and played Tangled Up in Blue.

Listening to a song written so beautifully, sung in a fashion that made me cringe made me wish for someone or some group to record the entirety of Dylan’s catalog - so I could listen to and fully appreciate his work (something I haven’t done for obvious reasons). Then it dawned on me - that might not be an improvement, given the industry’s penchant for getting random unknown groups to perform on tribute albums usually resulting in performances that are so unbelievably sub-par that it makes you wonder why they still do tribute albums. What’s with that?

As for “Love Monkey”, I recorded it on my ReplayTV and just watched it tonight. I have to say I like it. It’s not perfect - I agree with Goodman’s assessment of the supporting male characters and kind of cringe at some of the treatment the show gives women, but it’s entertaining and shows promise. And I’m just happy that I can stop racking my brain as to why Judy Greer looked so familiar - she played the goofy roommate Andrea in Kissing a Fool (a guilty pleasure that is interestingly commented as “Not bad for a crappy romantic comedy starring David Schwimmer” by someone on IMDB).