no rest for mr. noise

With all the race-and-gender battles going on in the Democratic Party contest you'd think tonight's Vegas debate on MSNBC would be the TV show to feature the punches and bitch slaps. But no. Fight night was on PBS's Charlie Rose. For those who missed it, here's a comprehensive synopsis of what transpired.

Our very own Alex Ross for a while was in cruise control, in that elusive zone of tremendous intellectual nuance and personal charm, talking Cage and Copland and Kucinich and Sgt. Pepper ...

...while remaining thoroughly down-to-earth (sort of an enviable combo of Hillary's overbearing competence and Barack's pungent inspiration):

Here he is thinking about his next book project while Charlie fumbles on D-u-d-a-m-wha? isn't he still in middle school?? ("Those left coast people must be snorting again" I believe is the exact quote.):

So Alex insists that classical music ain't dead. Yet. It's just morphed into an Icelandic woman named Bjork. All these complex deductions while checking for spots he missed to shave this morning:

But then Charlie Rose, true to form, brings up the topic of Schoenberg's ambitious sex life ... or is it Zubin Mehta's chest hair ... uhm anyway, it's along these lines that our congenial repartee turns into a Clintonesque moment of human emotion:

So Alex is left with no choice but to shift swiftly into attack mode, clenching his fist in a sort of Power to the People pose:

But Charlie remains recalcitrant on the issue of gays in the brass section ... or something else as hot, I forget. I was busy taking pictures.

What happens next is a sure item on tomorrow's Countdown with Keith O.. To claw the eyes out of their antique sockets ...

...or to slap this muthaf*cka's vile face?

See the rest of the riveting climax here.