Ah, devilish October. The crisp mornings, the strange days, the endless nights of Columbus. It's always been a month of funky vibes for the Passenger, but I gotta tell you - even when October brings suffering, at least I'm suffering in style. Do yourself a favor: breathe deep this rarified air while you breeze through this week's pop culture sheet, and while I burn myself in effigy. Ah, life.
 

Man alive, what the Passenger wouldn't do to be John Lurie. Blows alto sax like no other human being, and has a resume that staggers the mind - liberally dotted with collaborations with Ryuchi Sakamoto, John Zorn and Morphine, among many others. A founding member of the amazing Lounge Lizards, whose 1982 debut is a must-have for every crib, penthouse and bedsitter. A film composer of note - "Mystery Train," "Stranger Than Paradise" and "Get Shorty" wouldn't have been the same without Lurie's pure, smooth evil pushing the action. Runs with a circle of friends that includes Tom Waits, Matt Dillon and Jim Jarmusch, and hosts a fishing show that features every one of them in hip-waders - oh yeah, daddy, a giant among hepcats. Strange and Beautiful, Lurie's record label, is everything that the player has come to embody, from the smoky grooves to the straight-faced comic deadpan. These are strange and beautiful times, fully suited to an ever-present John Lurie soundtrack.
 

Get off the veggies, skinny, and go full-on Extra Crispy. Eric, Frank, Greg, Jason and Shawna are waiting to tell you what they had for dinner, what compact discs they're listening to, and everything you've ever wanted to know about the problems endemic to parking in SOMA. More than just five gearheads with attention-deficit disorders of varying intensity, Extra Crispy is actually a pretty funny parody of the proliferating CityGuide and Sidewalk sites; those poor replacements for alternative weeklies that are slowly folding our entertainment options into a stupefied, Java-based gumbo. (It's funny, reading "editor's picks" on sites with two programmers and a bunch of freelancers.) EC is a bit thin on useable information - enough with the damn parking already - but still tells the Passenger more about San Francisco than Microsoft does. And all their faces are prominently displayed, so I know who to blame for the phrase "kiss my cooter" - stuck in my head like the theme to Disneyland's "It's a Small World."
 

He can puncture plate steel with one punch, but can't schmooze a girl to save his life. He is a paragon of fairness and virtue, yet advocates the correction of criminal behaviors with exploratory brain surgery. No, it's not Ronald Reagan. Born in the heart of the Great Depression, Street and Smith pulp fiction star Clark "Doc" Savage Jr. is the alpha and omega in action heroes - quick witted, technically savvy, dashingly handsome and built like an Olympic team. (The whole team.) Penned by meek-mannered scribe Lester Dent under the nom de plume Kenneth Robeson, Savage punched, pulled and rationalized his way through one sticky situation after another - usually involving cultists or ghouls or ghoulish cultists - for the better part of 15 years. Aided by his five amazing cohorts - chemistry whiz Monk, slick-talking lawyer Ham, engineering behemoth Renny, dapper archaeologist Johnny and techno-fetishist Long Tom - Savage endures in a calm, collected manner that doubtlessly inspired every cinematic action hero we've put our money on for the last 20 years. (Yes, even Reagan.) Tune in to this brilliant unofficial site right now - don't miss a single beat of Doc Savage's sizzling white-knuckle action!