(NOT QUITE SO MANY) NOTES FROM A FRIDAY AFTERNOON
plucking the strings of my
mind.
For your consideration: another curious collection
of thoughts, reactions, and observations that didn't make it into a full-length
post this week. So they're sort of like my students finally getting back to
work after Spring Break. But without the hangovers and the bad
tans...
• Is anyone really surprised that Vice President Cheney demands, among his many downtime requirements, that the televisions in his hotel rooms be tuned to Fox News? That's only marginally less shocking than it would have been to learn that the President demands his hotel rooms be cleared of all televisions. And reading materials. And internet access. And just about everything but the mini bar and those nice, soft bathrobes. He probably wouldn't bind a Bible in the nightstand drawer. As long as it had pictures. But I digress. The real shocker here is that Cheney first demands extra lamps in the rooms, then demands that all lights be turned on prior to his arrival. I always imagined him, whether it was to his home, his hotel rooms, or his undisclosed bunkers, preferring the cover and comfort or darkness. You know, before crawling back into his coffin for the night.
• Here's another shocker: MSNBC ratings maven and missing-white-chick poster child Natalee Holloway is reported to have been drinking heavily and in possession of illegal drugs on the night of her much-discussed disappearance. Holloway's mother could not, for perhaps the first time in the last ten months, could not be reached for comment. Perhaps she was busy organizing a boycott of all alcohol manufacturers and illicit drug dealers.
• All the more now, I stand by what I wrote last June: that young woman did not deserve whatever fate may have befallen her. But neither did she do much to prevent it.
• Note to the 9/11 Truth crowd: when the proudest new mouthpiece for your cause is Charlie Sheen, a guy whose horrendous acting is eclipsed only by his horrendous living, you're not exactly pumping up your credibility. That a C-grade celebrity famous for his tastes in cocaine and hookers and infamous for once accidentally shooting his girlfriend believes the government is lying about 9/11 and the Twin Towers were actually dropped by a controlled demolition does not, anywhere short of your own addled brains, help your case one little bit. The fact that he once made a movie with Oliver Stone only adds extra grist to the anti-conspiracy-theory, pro-logic-and-reason mill.
• Proving he is, if not plausible, at least prescient, Sheen told a reporter, I’m sure I’m being demonized across the nation by people that do that sort of thing. What sort of thing, Charlie? Sounding like a babbling idiot by spouting fantastical theories without one scintilla of evidence to support them? Indeed. And amen. But look on the bright side: at least you're right about something.
• I’ve never quite understood the allure of taking a cruise, and I've always thought that I would never want to take one. But I must admit it's getting more and more tempting as the big cruise lines add new and even more exciting options for vacation adventures. After this week, you can now add the chance of being burned alive to the possibilities of being murdered, falling overboard, being thrown overboard, catching a debilitating stomach virus, crashing, capsizing, sinking, and drowning on your once-in-the-end-of-a-lifetime maritime itinerary.
• All that and buffet dinners too? Where do I sign up?...
• It's bad enough in a blizzard, but when only a few light flurries are flying and, like that unfortunate guy at the corner of Forbes & Beeler this morning, you're using an umbrella, you are officially announcing to the world that you're a weenie. And that, had you been born two hundred years ago, you would never have made it across the street, much less across the plains.
• She's gotten a lot of buzz lately, so you've probably seen or heard or at least heard of her, but I still feel the need to add my own honey to the hive: Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall is well worth a look and a listen. Her debut CD Eye to the Telescope is great, groovy fun, filled to the brim with smart tunes and cool hooks and gritty vocals. Also well worth your time is the Rolling Stone Originals video clip of Tunstall turning herself into some kind of foot-stomping, mind-boggling one-woman band for an acoustic performance of her current single, Black Horse and the Cherry Tree; it'll get you woo-hooing along and put a great big smile on your face. Guaranteed.
• Great little piece by Jacob Leibenluft on Slate.com yesterday, shattering the myth of NCAA Tournament mid-major cinderella teams as restorers of college basketball innocence with rosters fully formed from a magical peach-basket-laden gym in rural Indiana, ready to hoop it up and hit the books with equal enthusiasm. Turns out many of those programs are just as bad as -- and sometimes even worse than -- the top-tier programs. It's good writing and good reading, even if anyone who works at a university or watches college basketball, and especially those of us who do both, will not learn anything we didn't already know.
• I have, of course, never been one of those Kill Your Television losers who blindly and ignorantly assert that everything on the tube rots your mind and is unworthy of your time; if I'm not going to hate books and libraries because of The DaVinci Code or The Truth About Diamonds, I'm not about to dismiss my television because of Trading Spouses or Nanny 911. That said, there's enough crap on television to fill a few hundred outhouses, and it's easy to go months without finding something new and truly worth watching. Not so this past week, which featured a fresh hour of Real Time with Bill Maher, this season's second episode of The Sopranos, the 90-minute season finale of The Shield, two-and-a-half entertaining hours of American Idol, the first new LOST episode in what seems like a millenium, and an episode of The Office I hadn't seen before. All told, that's seven-and-a-half hours of top-notch, I'd-be-pissed-if-I-missed-it programming coming through the satellite dish in a single, seven-day block. I can't remember the last time I was so compelled to watch so much television in a week. And I doubt it will recur anytime soon. But it was one hell of a haul of first-rate entertainment. And it sure beat reading something by John Grisham or Danielle Steel.
• The best of that week's worth of great viewing was, hands-down and guns-up, the searing, excruciating season finale of The Shield. I have long been a fan of the show and many times sung it's praises here, but Shawn Ryan and his crew of writers and actors and directors somehow continue to top themselves week after week, season after season. With LOST losing its way a bit in the second half of its second season and The Sopranos still trying to recapture the grooves and rhythms of its first three seasons, The Shield, for its insistent depth and consistent brilliance through five mind-blowing, gut-wrenching seasons, has earned the right to be called the best drama on television.
• And, finally...
...RIP, Curtis "Lem" Lemansky, 2002-2006. A good man, a good cop, and a great character, who learned the all-too-painful lesson that conscience really is a killer.
• Is anyone really surprised that Vice President Cheney demands, among his many downtime requirements, that the televisions in his hotel rooms be tuned to Fox News? That's only marginally less shocking than it would have been to learn that the President demands his hotel rooms be cleared of all televisions. And reading materials. And internet access. And just about everything but the mini bar and those nice, soft bathrobes. He probably wouldn't bind a Bible in the nightstand drawer. As long as it had pictures. But I digress. The real shocker here is that Cheney first demands extra lamps in the rooms, then demands that all lights be turned on prior to his arrival. I always imagined him, whether it was to his home, his hotel rooms, or his undisclosed bunkers, preferring the cover and comfort or darkness. You know, before crawling back into his coffin for the night.
• Here's another shocker: MSNBC ratings maven and missing-white-chick poster child Natalee Holloway is reported to have been drinking heavily and in possession of illegal drugs on the night of her much-discussed disappearance. Holloway's mother could not, for perhaps the first time in the last ten months, could not be reached for comment. Perhaps she was busy organizing a boycott of all alcohol manufacturers and illicit drug dealers.
• All the more now, I stand by what I wrote last June: that young woman did not deserve whatever fate may have befallen her. But neither did she do much to prevent it.
• Note to the 9/11 Truth crowd: when the proudest new mouthpiece for your cause is Charlie Sheen, a guy whose horrendous acting is eclipsed only by his horrendous living, you're not exactly pumping up your credibility. That a C-grade celebrity famous for his tastes in cocaine and hookers and infamous for once accidentally shooting his girlfriend believes the government is lying about 9/11 and the Twin Towers were actually dropped by a controlled demolition does not, anywhere short of your own addled brains, help your case one little bit. The fact that he once made a movie with Oliver Stone only adds extra grist to the anti-conspiracy-theory, pro-logic-and-reason mill.
• Proving he is, if not plausible, at least prescient, Sheen told a reporter, I’m sure I’m being demonized across the nation by people that do that sort of thing. What sort of thing, Charlie? Sounding like a babbling idiot by spouting fantastical theories without one scintilla of evidence to support them? Indeed. And amen. But look on the bright side: at least you're right about something.
• I’ve never quite understood the allure of taking a cruise, and I've always thought that I would never want to take one. But I must admit it's getting more and more tempting as the big cruise lines add new and even more exciting options for vacation adventures. After this week, you can now add the chance of being burned alive to the possibilities of being murdered, falling overboard, being thrown overboard, catching a debilitating stomach virus, crashing, capsizing, sinking, and drowning on your once-in-the-end-of-a-lifetime maritime itinerary.
• All that and buffet dinners too? Where do I sign up?...
• It's bad enough in a blizzard, but when only a few light flurries are flying and, like that unfortunate guy at the corner of Forbes & Beeler this morning, you're using an umbrella, you are officially announcing to the world that you're a weenie. And that, had you been born two hundred years ago, you would never have made it across the street, much less across the plains.
• She's gotten a lot of buzz lately, so you've probably seen or heard or at least heard of her, but I still feel the need to add my own honey to the hive: Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall is well worth a look and a listen. Her debut CD Eye to the Telescope is great, groovy fun, filled to the brim with smart tunes and cool hooks and gritty vocals. Also well worth your time is the Rolling Stone Originals video clip of Tunstall turning herself into some kind of foot-stomping, mind-boggling one-woman band for an acoustic performance of her current single, Black Horse and the Cherry Tree; it'll get you woo-hooing along and put a great big smile on your face. Guaranteed.
• Great little piece by Jacob Leibenluft on Slate.com yesterday, shattering the myth of NCAA Tournament mid-major cinderella teams as restorers of college basketball innocence with rosters fully formed from a magical peach-basket-laden gym in rural Indiana, ready to hoop it up and hit the books with equal enthusiasm. Turns out many of those programs are just as bad as -- and sometimes even worse than -- the top-tier programs. It's good writing and good reading, even if anyone who works at a university or watches college basketball, and especially those of us who do both, will not learn anything we didn't already know.
• I have, of course, never been one of those Kill Your Television losers who blindly and ignorantly assert that everything on the tube rots your mind and is unworthy of your time; if I'm not going to hate books and libraries because of The DaVinci Code or The Truth About Diamonds, I'm not about to dismiss my television because of Trading Spouses or Nanny 911. That said, there's enough crap on television to fill a few hundred outhouses, and it's easy to go months without finding something new and truly worth watching. Not so this past week, which featured a fresh hour of Real Time with Bill Maher, this season's second episode of The Sopranos, the 90-minute season finale of The Shield, two-and-a-half entertaining hours of American Idol, the first new LOST episode in what seems like a millenium, and an episode of The Office I hadn't seen before. All told, that's seven-and-a-half hours of top-notch, I'd-be-pissed-if-I-missed-it programming coming through the satellite dish in a single, seven-day block. I can't remember the last time I was so compelled to watch so much television in a week. And I doubt it will recur anytime soon. But it was one hell of a haul of first-rate entertainment. And it sure beat reading something by John Grisham or Danielle Steel.
• The best of that week's worth of great viewing was, hands-down and guns-up, the searing, excruciating season finale of The Shield. I have long been a fan of the show and many times sung it's praises here, but Shawn Ryan and his crew of writers and actors and directors somehow continue to top themselves week after week, season after season. With LOST losing its way a bit in the second half of its second season and The Sopranos still trying to recapture the grooves and rhythms of its first three seasons, The Shield, for its insistent depth and consistent brilliance through five mind-blowing, gut-wrenching seasons, has earned the right to be called the best drama on television.
• And, finally...
...RIP, Curtis "Lem" Lemansky, 2002-2006. A good man, a good cop, and a great character, who learned the all-too-painful lesson that conscience really is a killer.
Posted: Fri - March 24, 2006 at 01:36 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:50 PM