Okay, so maybe I've been hard on Chuck the past few weeks. I know I've been criticizing the show lately for not jumping on the TV bandwagon to create complex season-long story arcs, much to the dismay of all you Chuck fans. So I decided that this week, I would just sit back and ? as PopWatcher Patrick said last week ? enjoy the popcorn that is Chuck.

And it seems all you smarty-pants out there are right. Chuck is a lot more fun if you simply don't think too hard. Save the theorizing and scrutinizing for Lost and Heroes. Sometimes a breather from excruciating mythology is all you need to enjoy a Monday.

But I'm not going to let Chuck off too easy. There still is one facet of the show badly in need of fixing, altering or just plain extinguishing: Morgan. I know some of you defend and enjoy Joshua Gomez's annoying but big-hearted character, but his scenes have become so tired and predictable, that part of me is secretly hoping he either gets caught in the crossfire or gets punched hard enough by Casey to get amnesia and develop a completely different personality. And though I did feel a bit bad for the guy when Chuck chastised him for being immature, I couldn't help but cheer over the fact that somebody finally gave Morgan a wake-up call. Not to mention the fact that Chuck has yet to dip into its untapped resources ? Buy More employees Anna Wu, Lester, and Jeff have delivered some great scenes and one-liners in previous episodes. Why haven't Chuck's writers begun to develop their characters instead of settling for Morgan for comic relief?

Then again, for every Morgan, there is a Captain Awesome. How happy were you to see Chuck's best character make his triumphant return ? in a fig leaf, no less? The Captain once again appealed to his philanthropic side to help Morgan become a man. Who knew all it took was a tucked-in shirt? Though Morgan's initial attempt to become a "tucker" made him appear more Urkel than Awesome, his dapper work attire later in the episode was definitely an improvement. Perhaps we can look forward to seeing a more mature ? and well-coiffed ? side of Morgan in future episodes? I'm crossing my fingers.

Now, onto the spy mission of the week. If we learned anything from last night's episode, it's that the CIA builds everything ? cars, televisions, you name it ? and manufactures it all so it can explode, or make something explode, at a moment's notice (wonder if Sarah's CIA-made Princess Leia costume, pictured, can do the same?). But I guess that's to be expected when the super-genius who designed it all is also an unstable mental case. Chuck first met said mental case at the pier playing a Guitar Hero-esque game with Morgan. Thanks to Chuck's computer/brain, he recognized that the gamer ? named Laszlo ? was a dangerous fugitive who was on the run from the government. But initial conversations with Laszlo ? and his use of a water gun to hold up our title character ? led Chuck to see the troubled outsider as a sort of emotional doppelganger ? a good-natured person who was forced to join the CIA against his will. And after Chuck learned that Laszlo was correct in his assumption that the title character's home was wired by his handlers, he decided to side with the new guy and introduce him to some of the best Bond films ever (A View to a Kill ? good choice, Chuck!). But a reintegration plan went sour once Laszlo unveiled his evil ways by sharing that he sympathized with Christopher Walken's Bond villain. Chuck called for help from Sarah and Casey, but was outwitted by Laszlo and his Nerd Herd car's secret controls. Realizing that Laszlo was planning on ruining a perfectly good Halloween party with a bomb, Chuck managed to catch up, defuse the bomb, and allow the CIA to detain Laszlo.

Though early on, it seemed like we were going to see some Sarah-Chuck action, all the love in last night's episode was saved for Chuck and Morgan. Neglected by his best friend because of yet another spy mission, Morgan once again proved his loyalty to Chuck by attempting to interview for Buy More's assistant manager position on behalf of his pal. Sure enough, Morgan's plan was for naught, as corporate decided to hire Chuck's second most annoying character ? Harry Tang ? as assistant manager. (Kudos to Big Mike for his observation that Harry has "the charm of a prostate exam.") But for a split second there, I thought that Morgan's inspired speech to the corporate lackey would land him the assistant manager job. It certainly would have been interesting to see Morgan suddenly have the upper hand on his best bud. Even though Chuck was unable to live the dream of becoming low-level management, he still was able to salvage his friendship. After saving the partiers at the pier, Chuck proved his love for his best friend by showing up at Ellie's Halloween party to dress up as a giant penis ? ahem, excuse me, sandworm ? with Morgan. Insert analysis of homoerotic subtext here.

Tell me, PopWatchers, what did you think of last night's episode? Do you think Chuck will ever fully trust his handlers? Are you glad that next week will fill in the gaps about Bryce and Chuck? And, finally, what sandwich would you bring with you if were stuck on a deserted island?

Tell me, if you were flipping channels one idle evening, looking for something to watch, would this tickle your fancy?

That just might be the worst title sequence I've ever seen. You can't even tell what the name of the show is (after looking it up, it's O'Hara, U.S. Treasury). It's as if someone in early '70s TV exec said, "Badges! All I want is stinking badges!" And don't give me the "It was the '70s... nobody knew anything about anything in the '70s" excuse. Not when a mere three years later they hatched this, the best main title sequence in the history of television:

The Spice Girls' new single, "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)," hit British radio last week, but I needed a few days to process its stupendously awful title before blogging about it. Seriously, the whole thing sounds as if someone swallowed down Vitamin C's "Graduation (Friends Forever)" with a gallon of Splenda and a bottle of NyQuil, then vomited it back up with the help of Auto-Tune. And while Sporty, Scary, Baby, Posh, and Ginger were never known for their world-class lyrics, "Headlines" is enough to make me long for the poetry of "2 Become 1"

To go beyond the surface, to reach into your soul

This love is not demanding, my heart has told me so

I?ll hold on to my hero, with faith enough to fly

The power to imagine will keep this love alive

Zig-a-zig-what?

Anyhow, take a listen for yourselves, and tell me what you think, what you really, really think. And if you need something to jolt you out of a "Headlines"-induced stupor, I've embedded the "Wannabe" video after the jump.

Music

Black Cobra, Feather And Stone

Releases Oct. 30

Don't let the fact that there are just two of them fool you: These uncompromising San Francisco metalheads stir up quite a ruckus using just a low-tuned guitar, drums, and tortured, gut-wrenching vocals. Fans of metal's doom/sludge subgenre will gobble up this release, which contains all the tracks from a previous Japan-only split with Japanese doom metal gods Eternal Elysium, plus one additional track and enhanced CD footage from the band's appearance at Roadburn 2007. Anger, paranoia, and brutality are the name of the game here, and unlike MTV's metal torchbearers, Black Cobra does it without feeling like the need a catchy hook ? or any kind of melody at all, for that matter. Catch them on the road this November and December with Austin's fabulous stoner/doom outfit the Sword.

Movies

Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten

Opens Nov. 2 in limited release

This doc about the late Clash frontman earned raves this year at Sundance. Punk chronicler Julien Temple (whose three Sex Pistols movies include The Filth and the Fury) had been filming Strummer since 1976, a year before the band broke worldwide with its self-titled debut album. Tracing the firebrand singer/guitarist's life before, during, and after the Clash, Temple also gathers testimonials from suspects both usual (Bono) and unusual (Johnny Depp, John Cusack, Steve Buscemi), but the heart is the footage of the outspoken, self-deprecating Strummer, displaying the emotional directness he was famous for. Watch the trailer below.

Nostalgia

Jim Henson Fraggle Rockin' Collection

Releases Oct. 30

Hard to say what audience the makers of this boxed-set compilation of all three Fraggle Rock music CDs had in mind. Young kids who enjoy this kind of bouncy, sing-songy repetition don't care about Fraggles, or any non-animated puppet for that matter. Meanwhile, reminiscing adults who will smile and feel warm and fuzzy at the opening refrain of "Dance your cares away!" will presumably tire by the time they hit the less-known "Pukka, Pukka, Pukka Squeetily Boink" on the third disc. Maybe there's a group of subterranean Fraggle superfans living together in a commune alongside pudgy green slaves who are waiting with bated breath for a guy they've dubbed Uncle Traveling Matt to avoid capture by hairy, oafish farmers and return to their lair with this collection. But really, how many people could that be?

Secular Holidays

National Knock Knock Joke Day

Oct. 31

Delight your friends during the Halloween celebrations by barraging them with classic knock knock jokes on this overlooked holiday. Here's a classic to get you started:

Knock Knock.

Who's there?

Venice.

Venice who?

Venice your mother coming home?

A good day to be thankful that we don't live in an age when that was considered funny.

Have you been following the brouhaha over New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones' essay "A Paler Shade of White"? The music blogosphere has been atwitter in response to the article, which uses Arcade Fire (pictured) as an example of how indie rock has become awfully white ? not just in the racial makeup of many bands, but in the music's supposed abandonment of black musical influences (jazz, blues, R&B, hip-hop, worldbeat, etc.).

Now, the band itself has responded to Frere-Jones, insisting, We are, too, funky! The response takes the form of an MP3 juxtaposing snippets of Arcade Fire's music with the black music tracks that supposedly inspired them. It's not the best argument in AF's favor; it's often hard to hear a resemblance between the Canadian combo's tracks and their supposed inspirations; plus, if you're trying to prove your debt to black musicians, you probably aren't helping yourself by citing the Beatles and the Beastie Boys. Still, this miscegenation mashup may be my favorite AF track of the year, and that includes the entirety of Neon Bible.

A better argument comes in the form of AF member Will Butler's letter to Frere-Jones, in which he suggests that most of what falls under the umbrella of popular music ? no matter how unsyncopated its rhythms or how white its composers ? draws upon a hopelessly complex jumble of influences, black, white, and other. No music today has a racially pure pedigree. To argue otherwise is to oversimplify and to stereotype.

Critics (and I include myself here) like to analyze influences; it's part of what we do, taking things apart to see how they work. But the search for authenticity is a trap; it leads to purist standards that almost no band can live up to. And it ignores the larger, simpler, ultimately more important question: is the band any good? (Even Frere-Jones admits he likes Arcade Fire.) Ultimately, what do these angels-dancing-on-the-head-of-a-pin arguments matter, as long as folks are dancing?

You're at a party, meeting someone new. You politely extend your hand, but he ignores the gesture and introduces himself as Captain Jack Sparrow. You ask the man/pirate if he is having a good time at the party.

"Are you talkin' to me?" says the stranger with the unlikely name of Captain Jack Sparrow. You're thrown off. Who else would you be talking to? Then the "captain" points to a man across the room and says, "If I saw myself dressed like that, I'd have to kick my own ass."

You realize this attractive, perfectly normal looking person is actually suffering from a common malady known as EMQ ? Excessive Movie Quoting.

"I'm going to..." you start, but the EMQ'er cuts you off mid-sentence.

"... make him an offer he can't refuse?"

You sigh, exasperated. "Don't you think all the movie quoting is tiresome and annoying?"

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."

"Well, I think it's annoying."

"Are you trying to seduce me?"

"No, I'm not."

"You had me at hello."

"Oh, that's just perfect."

"Screws fall out all the time; the world is an imperfect place."

"What's your problem?"

"Houston, we have a problem?"

"Seriously, cut it out."

"I wish I knew how to quit you."

"I wish I knew how to get rid of you."

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate."

"I'd say so."

"Ditto."

"Give it up."

"There's three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way, and the way I do it."

"Nothing will ever get through to you, will it?"

"Never tell me the odds."

Do you or a loved one suffer from EMQ? What movie quote do you love to slip into casual conversation, and what movie quote makes your ears burn? When boarding a boat, do you run to the bow, lean over the railings, and scream, "I'm the king of the world"? If so, you may have EMQ. Seek help.

Andy Richter turned 41 yesterday, and since PopWatch is closed on Sundays, he didn't get the respect that he's entitled to. But that's nothing new for the veteran of two wonderful, short-lived sitcoms, Andy Richter Controls the Universe and Andy Barker. P.I. I've embedded clips from both shows as gifts to you, but for Richter, I offer this haiku.

brilliant but cancelled

sitcom format almost dead

won't you try again?

It's been the buzz of the blogosphere for well over two weeks now, and we thought it was time to get to the bottom of Van Halen's "Jump" mystery. If you haven't seen (or rather, heard) the tortuously off-key live performance from Greensboro, N.C., you can find it on YouTube, as seen below. (It's not quite Ashlee Simpson on SNL, but substitute her Irish jig for David Lee Roth dry-humping a blow-up microphone, and it comes pretty damn close.)

So was it the sampling rate of the keyboard track? Eddie Van Halen's guitar out of tune? Were their monitors or in-ears to blame? We let the pros duke it out, enlisting Chris Vrenna, keyboardist for Marilyn Manson and Gnarls Barkley's drummer, Clayton Janes, a tech for Playback who's handling backing tracks for Ozzy's tour, and Lonnie Totman, Eddie Van Halen's former guitar tech, currently on the road with Matchbox Twenty, to pick apart the train-wreck (Warning: the following discussion involves some seriously geeky gear talk). Read on and jump to your own conclusions.

EW: What do you think went wrong?

Clayton Janes (playback tech): I think it's a complete backing track issue. [The synthesizer] is a digital recording off a computer and normally played at a sample rate of 44.1k. In this case, I think it's already been proven that a master clock source was at 48k, a higher quality playback. What happens is that it transposes a pitch shift so all of a sudden, it's playing three steps higher. If you know the song "Jump" and hear it on the youtube clip, you could tell right away that it sounds a little higher and faster. There's nothing you can do at that point. I don't think it had anything to do with the guitar side.

In other words: The sample was played a wee-bit fast.

Lonnie Totman (guitar tech): It was 100 percent a guitar issue. All of Eddie's guitars, except one, are tuned to E flat. He typically has one in E, a half step off, for a couple of songs, and he was either handed that one or he grabbed it. A lot of people on the net are saying it was a sample rate issue, that's impossible. Ed is actually playing that part, recorded into ProTools, and with ProTools, if you want something to play back at a different sampling rate, it won't allow it in that session, you have to set up a whole new session. Plus, the keyboard guy on their tour is one of the most together guys I know, so it simply wouldn't happen. I even confirmed with the Van Halen camp, it was all Eddie.

In other words: Eddie played a guitar that was sharp. Or what Randy Jackson would call "a little pitchy."

Chris Vrenna (keyboardist): I believe the synth track was playing fine. First, the original song is in the key of C. But live, they play it in C sharp, up a semitone (bands will often change the key of a song to make it easier to sing every night). I found another live performance of "Jump" from a few nights later, then played along with both performances on a piano and both nights the keyboards were the same. Plus, what it would take for the backing tracks, or live keyboards, to go out of tune, would be a series of events. If a computer was playing back a prerecorded session, that session ? and the sample rate ? would have been made and saved previously. If they were using ProTools, someone would have had to go into the menus and manually changed that info. I cannot believe any of their techs would have done that. Some think there's a live keyboard player off stage. Again, one would have had to go into the programming functions of the MIDI keyboards to change the tuning. Pitch bend wheels are usually spring loaded so if the pitch wheel was bumped, it would've returned to the null position. Both of these scenarios seem unlikely. It was Eddie's guitar that was out of tune.

In other words: No way it was the keyboards.

EW: So then what happened on stage?

Janes: Edddie's playing to what the files should be and his guitars are probably perfectly in tune, and the whole band could be in tune but all of a sudden this track is introduced and it's chaos. Maybe they introduced a new piece of gear to the equation and it was a situation of, let's match everything to 48k so we get the best possible quality. Something changed, it wasn't like someone mistakenly flipped a switch. But it's the backing track that's out of tune, not Eddie. In the beginning of the video, you can tell he's trying to see if he's in tune or not, he didn't really know what was going on, but the train had already left the tracks.

In other words: Eddie's playing to a backing track that's out of tune with the rest of the instruments.

Totman: Eddie didn't change or swap out the guitar. For whatever bizarre reason, he decided to keep playing. Because everything else is in [tune]: Dave did an outstanding job of staying in throughout the song, the bass was still in, even the drums are tuned to the keyboards, it was clearly just the guitar. Eddie's a pretty ornery guy, not the most pleasant human being that I've ever worked for. And he's the kind of guy who would keep playing it to make a point, to his tech or whoever. That's the only reasonable explanation that I can come up with.

In other words: Eddie knows his guitar is out of tune, keeps playing out of spite.

Vrenna: Something must've happened to Eddie's guitar tuning. Maybe he banged the headstock or the whammy bar threw it out of tune. And when guitars go out of tune, they do it randomly, not in nice even semitones. So the strings could be playing anything really. Maybe the guitar was in tune with itself, but just tuned wrong. Or maybe the tuner the tech was using was off. There are many variables to consider. It happens to the best of them.

In other words: Eddie's guitar was off. S?t happens.

EW: Is it possible they couldn't or didn't hear what was really going on?

Janes: That's possible. Not knowing what they use, maybe in their monitors or in-ears, they weren't listening to the track or a little bit oblivious to what was happening. It could have been mainly on the front of house, for sure.

In other words: Maybe only the audience heard it.

Totman: No. Eddie doesn't wear in-ears, the only guy in the band that does is Alex. And they're very demanding of their monitors and side fills. He heard it without a doubt. He does have a good set of ears, he knows if he's out of tune. Watching the video, you can tell by his reaction, the way he goes back to his cabinet to listen to it.

In other words: Eddie heard every note.

Vrenna: Perhaps. If Eddie's guitar was in tune with itself, he may not have thought it was him, but the keys. But the way he and Wolfgang look at each other, they both know something is wrong. In the heat of a huge live show, it can sometimes be hard to immediately grasp what's wrong when something does start going off.

In other words: Eddie and Wolfie heard something was off, but couldn't pinpoint the problem.

EW: Might as well stop? What could/should have been done?

Janes: The playback person should have had eye contact with the band, and signaled or pulled Eddie over to the wings. Or the mixing engineer could have pulled that track out. People really just wanna hear Eddie playing guitar, so it would've been fine. They might have thought, "Oh where did the synth go?" But there's Eddie's solo and his guitar playing... We talk about these kinds of apocalypse situations at the beginning of tours. Usually we decide with the artist that at that point, we're gonna stop. And it's OK to do that. Any competent person could check that really quickly and start again.

Totman: Eddie could have simply stopped playing and gotten another guitar. It would have taken a couple of seconds, the song would go on and they wouldn't have had to subject everybody to that.

Vrenna: No matter what actually happened, one of the offending instruments should have been stopped. If it was the guitar, Wolfgang or Eddie's tech should've said something and quickly changed to a new guitar, maybe at the verse where his parts aren't as important. If it was the keys, the tech should've stopped the playback and the band finished the song without it. It may have been missing some parts, but at least what was there would've sounded musical. Between the band and their techs, someone should have figured out the problem quickly and jumped in to help. You can never just stop playing a song. That's admitting to the crowd that something is wrong. You have to get through it, but the band and crew didn't react fast enough, or at all, to try and fix the problem.

EW: So, ultimately, who's to blame here?

Janes: Whoever's in the position to control the playback. It's a weird discipline ? a combination of studio engineer, somebody that can troubleshoot computer equipment and also understand live [sound]. And the person above who oversees that on a day-to day-basis, like a production manager.

Totman: Either the guitar tech or Eddie for grabbing the wrong guitar, which he's been known to do. One or the other, but ultimately, I'd have to put the blame on Ed and his attitude because he knew right away it was out of tune and he could have just stopped.

Vrenna: Eddie's guitar, so it could've been the tech's fault in his tuning. Or maybe the tuner the tech was using was off (especially if it was a strobe tuner. They are very accurate, but can become un-calibrated easily.) It's happened to every band. [On tour with Manson], I've had my MIDI keyboard controller lose communication with the host computer even though it said it was online. We rebooted and still nothing. Luckily it was also during our last song of the night. The next day everything loaded fine and that problem hasn't happened since.

Our verdict: Using the very unscientific method of playing two YouTube clips at the same time, we conclude that the guitar was off, since the keyboards sound the same on both nights. But without getting into locking nuts and things beyond our comprehension, we're not entirely clear on why Eddie didn't simply readjust on the spot. After all, he's one of the world's greatest living guitar players, right? Anyone care to keep the debate going?

Yesterday was my idea of the perfect Sunday, which means I spent my time glued to the couch, snacking on crackers and cheese, and catching up on a couple weeks' worth of backlogged TV shows. What stuck out for me ? aside from the fact that Desperate Housewives has finally returned to its freshman-year level of hilarity, and that I can't seem to force myself to catch up on Heroes ? was the number small, guest-starring roles that caught my attention. Three, in particular, stood out:

? Jordan Bridges (left) on Bionic Woman: The unsteady writing and acting on NBC's freshman series has been most vexing ? and steady ratings declines since the show's debut indicate I'm not alone in my opinion ? but Bridges' work as a teaching assistant with a hidden agenda seemed to shake series star Michelle Ryan out of her usual stupor, so much so that I barely noticed the absence of Katee Sackhoff (the true Bionic headliner). Granted, I'm probably swayed by Bridges' superfine looks (check out a behind the scenes video here), but the fact that he'll return in his role this Wednesday stopped me from removing Bionic from my series-recording list ? despite the fact that last episode's climactic scene involved a Ryan using a cantaloupe to subdue a baddie. Seriously.

? Caroline Aaron (center) on Grey's Anatomy: Aaron's one of those super-familiar character actors who's appeared on everything from Ally McBeal to Curb Your Enthusiasm, but her brief, touching turn as a chatterbox with a tumor on her tongue got me wondering why producers from all the major networks aren't lighting up her agent's phone line with offers to make her a series regular on something ? anything ? that requires both comedic and dramatic chops.

? Josh Stamberg (right) on Brothers & Sisters: Stamberg's performance as Cliff, an almost one-night stand for Sarah (Rachel Griffiths) was fleeting but filled with warmth, humor, and sex appeal. And incidentally, it marked a mini Six Feet Under reunion, seeing how Stamberg played Sarge, David's paintball-playing fantasy guy on the still-missed HBO series, and Griffiths played David's sister-in-law. With creepy Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson) almost out of the picture, here's hoping the producers find a way to reunite Cliff with my favorite Walker child.

Anyhow, those are three actors who had me heading to IMDB to double-check their credits. How about you? Any unheralded guest-starring spots that caught your attention in recent weeks?

Country star Porter Wagoner had his first No. 1 hit in 1955 with a song portending his own death, "A Satisfied Mind." He's been singing these same quasi-gospel lyrics for the last 52 years: "When my life has ended and my time has run out/My friends and my loved ones will weep, there's no doubt/But one thing's for certain, when it comes my time/I'll leave this old world with a satisfied mind." And it seems like these stanzas came true for Wagoner, who died of lung cancer Sunday at age 80. At least, it sure sounded like he was in a contented place when we interviewed him four months ago for our "Must" double issue, in which Wagoner was the eldest selectee among our annual EW 100. He'd just released an acclaimed new album, called The Wagonmaster, which he called "the best album I've ever done in my career," on the punk-oriented Anti- label, and was playing a few gigs in rock clubs, not to mention opening for the White Stripes at Madison Square Garden. "It's a younger audience," he said, "and people that have never heard of Porter Wagoner are hearing about him now, and I'm very proud about that." Not that late-career resurgences are the standard by which we should measure a "good death." But knowing that legends who've lost a little of their shine over the years have a sense toward the end of just how loved they are? well, that helps leave us with satisfied minds, anyway.

Wagoner was best remembered by many less-than-hardcore country fans as Dolly Parton's old duet partner. She'd come to stardom on the TV program he hosted in the 1960s and then struck out on her own in the '70s, leading to years of estrangement. Parton wrote "I Will Always Love You" as a sort of farewell song for him, though it wasn't till many years later that he could soak in the sentiment. In May, the Grand Ole Opry hosted a celebration of his 50 years as host of and performer on the venerable radio and TV broadcast, and Parton serenaded him with "I Will Always Love You" ? which, no, was not written about Kevin Costner after all, kids. "It was the most emotional night that I've ever spent at the Opry in my life," Wagoner told us in June, shortly after the big night. "And Dolly sang that song, and they had me on a stool, and she just came out and wiped some of the tears away. That's a wonderful thing, that she stood there and sang it for the whole world to see. My whole family was there in the front row. It was a magical evening and meant more than I could ever say."

If you ever went to the Opry in recent years on a weekend night and opened your program to find out Wagoner was hosting ? or just came across him on radio or TV ? you knew you were in good hands that night. Wagoner didn't have the most distinctive or capable voice in country music, but his genial, joking presence spoke loudly ? though it wasn't as loud as his famously jewel-encrusted "Nudie" suits. He was a showman through and through, but this year's excellent Wagonmaster album, produced by Marty Stuart, was austere enough that I wondered aloud if he might be tempted to ditch the showy stuff to make sure he got taken seriously this time around. Nope. "That's a part of my dress forever," he told me. "I've always worn the rhinestone suits. I think they look the best on me of anything I've ever put on. So when they make something that looks better than that, if I can afford it, I'll try to buy me one of 'em!"

And then there were the records ? sometimes the easiest thing to forget about Wagoner, in light of his wardrobe, his Opry leadership ad conviviality, his early TV fame, the legends surrounding the Dolly brouhaha, and even his tall, gaunt frame and trademark blond pompadour. Among his 81 charting singles on the Billboard country chart from 1954 through 1983 (29 of which went top 10), there were some strictly good-timey tunes, like "Company's Comin'," his breakthrough hit. But he was better known for sober, even literally grave fare like 1965's "Green, Green Grass of Home," a hopeful ballad of reconciliation that eventually turns out to be the final dream of a doomed convict about to meet his maker. In the era of country music we're now in, is it even conceivable to think of a time when somebody could have a hit single called "The Carroll County Accident"? In "Confessions of a Broken Man," the self-proclaimed bum of a narrator tells his barmates at closing time, "I guess it's about time to go find me a gutter and tuck myself in for the night." And then there's his signature cheatin' song, "The Cold Hard Facts of Life," in which he comes home early to find his adulterous wife hosting a wild party, and puts his knife to use. Some of these songs were collected earlier this year on an import CD, The Rubber Room, named after a song about the funny farm. If that makes Wagoner sound even darker than the Man in Black, funny you should mention it, because his Wagonmaster album includes another song about a sanitarium, "Committed to Parkview," that had originally been written by Johnny Cash for Wagoner about a real place where they'd both spent quality recovery time back in the day. These kinds of lyrics could provide a shocking contrast with his religiosity and general bonhomie, and they endeared Wagoner to a new generation of hipster twentysomethings looking to complement Cash in their collections, even as fellow septuagenarians still flocked to enjoy his warmer material at Opryland.

Playing the rock club Safari Sam's in Hollywood in June, Wagoner needed bifocals to read a few of his lyrics, but seemed mostly recovered from that aneurysm, which made his sudden collapse and lung cancer diagnosis last week a shocker. But he made good on his promise to perform up to the very end. "I don't have any desire to retire," he told us in June. "I love to write songs and sing, and I'm just a country boy who's been blessed with enough talent to get by on. And God bless the people that have afforded me a career all these years. It's a wonderful thing to happen to a person who does love it." Porter Wagoner was one of the last links to a golden age of country, and we salute him with satisfied minds and heavy hearts.