Taller people are smarter than you, so they deserve more money. They are also probably more attractive.

Pop quiz: what’s America’s seventh-largest metropolitan area and also its number-one most crazy? Here’s a story, though, as these sort of things generally are, it’s a bit impenetrable. The distilled version: Miami’s police chief agreed to let the department star in a docusoap pilot about the hot and steamy life of cops in the City. But then he saw a cut of it, and saw that it was totally crazy — and learned it was produced by the Mayor’s son! — and withdrew his participation. What a good guy! Except that was all lies, as his emails later proved. He had already known that the Mayor’s son had recused himself from the production — and he’d given the pilot an enthusiastic go-ahead after seeing it, even asking when it’d be screened for the “boys” in the department. And never asked the company to stop trying to sell it to networks. The reason this came to light is that residents thought the dramatic selling cut of the docusoap really painted the city in a bad light, what with it glamorizing the City’s war on poor and black people and all. (The video seems to have been yanked from YouTube, but is available in Windows Media form.) The City is, unrelatedly, preparing for a recall election of the Mayor and a City Commissioner because, well… “Car dealer and former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman was angry over a property tax increase and a growing county payroll.”

They came slowly, the franchise films, the grandchildren of the serials. The other night I was in the theater trying to see The Green Hornet for the second time (the first time, the theater started to burn down 30 minutes in, so I had to, like, evacuate (evacuate the theater, I mean, not like, in my pants), and then the next day sit through act one twice, which wasn’t really the worst thing), and there was the omnipresent trailer for Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides. And it suddenly occurred to me that we were on the fourth movie of a franchise built around a really rather terrifically lame amusement park ride. There is also a Pirates of the Caribbean version of Monopoly, you know. (The Amazon reviews note that “the Jail should have been changed to the Brig and Free Parking should have been changed to Free Docking.” Which, God, really, are companies that lazy now that they won’t even rename Free Parking for us?) Despite how enjoyable Johnny Depp nearly always is (The Tourist excepted), this is a really strange state of cultural affairs.

Pirates of the Caribbean, even more than Harry Potter, which you know, is a long multi-volume yarn about growing up and wrestling with the demons of our parents, rests on the inherent magic of formula and familiarity: there’s nothing more soothing than old friends, back again. It’s why people used to read books that weren’t Harry Potter that had recurring characters! (Or at least why they used to read the Narnia books; now you can watch the increasingly more terrible movies — an extremely pure example of the evil of franchisedom, where each movie must continue to exist for its payday and yet should never have been made at all.) A franchise in general is good business, it’s good psychology and it’s good marketing. It’s certainly a deeper draw than 3D, which, Jesus, let the 3D stop now.

And that the Internet is literally aflame today with the news that Anne Hathaway and Tom Hardy signed on for the next Batman movie, Christopher Nolan’s third/last of that franchise, truly shows our deep devotion to running stories. (I mean, you knew this: among the top five films in the 2010 box office: Toy Story 3, Iron Man 2, Twilight: Eclipse. Poor Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 1 came in at #6.) And there’s a weird line down the middle of these franchises: some are fantastic (I mean, there is nothing wrong with Iron Man) and some are garbage. That’s why Christopher Nolan isn’t necessarily just big-budget-whoring with the Batman films, although there’s questions about what Nolan is doing in general, to be sure, but: he’s trying to make real movies about a man who fights crime.

What’s going on though, what’s a little unnerving about the whole thing, is that all this success means the hunt has been on, and hard, for future franchises. That means we live in a world where Peter Berg is directing a $200-million budget film, starring Rihanna, based on the game Battleship. (Her acting debut!) It is called Battleship! (“OMG, like, Rihanna, you sunk my battleship!) Also there are film versions coming of games including: Risk, Asteroids, Missile Command and oh so many more. They are all trials for franchisedom. That is what the shit-pile that is the Transformers franchise has brought to the entertainment industry.

That being said, The Green Hornet: Too Fast Too Furious is going to be kind of awesome though. I will attend its sequel! Jay Chou needs to get famous in America, he is awesome. Maybe America is ready for a three-film series of The Atom?

“I think we can safely say it’s not car trouble, and he’s not sick. This doesn’t look good.”
 — Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum, discusses the absence of the mysterious stranger who for nearly 60 years would leave three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Edgar Allan Poe’s grave on the anniversary of his birth. The “Poe Toaster” has missed the occasion for two years in a row now, leading to speculation that… well, pretty much every news story you read about this is going to contain the word “nevermore.”

Taj, America’s oldest elephant, died yesterday at her home at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California. An Asian elephant born March 3, 1940, Taj weighed 9,000 pounds and was a circus performer before coming to Six Flags in 1978. She enjoyed painting and was known for her joie de vivre. Said an attendee of her 70th birthday party last year, “That’s awesome. I wish I could eat cake like that.”

Save the date: February 1, in the city of Los Angeles, in the neighborhood of “Echo Park,” at Taix. Awl readers are gathering to drink and discuss their feelings, beginning at 7 p.m. More info will follow in the comments.

12. Hearing Secret Harmonies
11. Temporary Kings
10. The Acceptance World
9. A Buyer’s Market
8. At Lady Molly’s
7. Casanova’s Chinese Restaurant
6. A Question of Upbringing
5. The Valley of Bones
4. The Kindly Ones
3. The Soldier’s Art
2. The Military Philosophers
1. Books Do Furnish a Room

“Musician Boy George has agreed to return an icon of Christ to the Church of Cyprus that came into his possession after the 1974 Turkish invasion.”
 — Boy George has better policies on art repatriation than most American museums do!

“Your naked pictures will end up on the internet.”

Oh, man! Bob Dylan is going to write six more books for Simon & Schuster! That’s great, because his first one was so totally excellent. But also, six more? Really? Six? When am I going to have time to read six more books by Bob Dylan? (Especially seeing as I have to spend so much time watching his old music videos on YouTube.)

I mean, I’ve just started Keith Richards’ book last week. And so far it’s as charmingly written as everyone says it is. But it’s long — 547 pages. And I’m hoping to get to Patti Smith’s book next, which won the national book award. And Jay-Z’s, with the cool Warhol cover. Sheesh! Rock stars need to stop writing good books. There’s enough stuff you want to read from people who don’t also make music you like to listen to.

(I thought for a long time that the first line of the second verse in that song was, “Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with these eggs.” I recently learned, from Dylan’s big book of lyrics, Lyrics, that it’s, “What’s going on with Miss X.” I’m a little saddened by that. I liked to think of Dylan sitting in a roadside diner, staring down at his plate, pondering a pair of undercooked sunny-side-ups.)

Speaking of this, according to Andy Greene’s preview of the new Rolling Stone cover story, Lil Wayne told writer Josh Eells that he got through his recent stint in jail by reading a lot of rock biographies — Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Marvin Gaye, Joan Jett, Anthony Kiedis. He must be referring to David Henderson’s ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky, about Hendrix, probably. And Barry Hopkins and Danny Sugarman’s No One Here Gets Out Alive, about Morrison. And David Ritz’ Divided Soul about Gaye. And Wayne said he really liked Keidis’ Scar Tissue. The problem is, what Joan Jett book was he talking about? Is there a Joan Jett biography? I don’t know of it. Amazon doesn’t either, it seems. Nor does Wikipedia.

Lil Wayne might be excused, I think, for a certain cloudy-headedness. But I wonder what he thought he was talking about. Maybe Todd Oldham’s photo book. That’s probably it. Or maybe he meant Cherry Curie’s book, Neon Angel, which was about her time in the Runaways with Joan Jett and probably had lots of stuff about Joan Jett in it? It was probably one of those. I really like Lil Wayne. I’d hate to think…