Thursday, August 25, 2005
Work is work. Not much to report from back at League HQ where I've been getting up early for work and arriving home late this week as it's the first week of the semester and that makes The League a busy bee.
Last night I sat down on the bed to prevent Jamie from reading her book, and fell asleep at 9:20. I woke up again a fe wminutes later, but I was asleep by 10:00, and that is not assisting me in my contribution to the world of blogging.
Randy over at RHPT.com has not only given up on RHPT.com, he's re-directed his blog to this page. Which makes me wonder... If I redirect to RHPT.com....? Well, I'm pretty sure it would mean the end of the universe.
I am supposed to interview Nathan Cone in short order. Nathan, expect your questions this weekend.
There's been a lot of e-mail discussion about Six Feet Under concluding, and I'm proud of the producers for not trying to go on for ten years and just make a buck. It sounds like the show maintained its integrity right up to the end. Aside from "Small Wonder", I can't think of too many shows which went out on their own terms in quite the same way.
I did watch Six Feet Under for the first season and one-third of the second season. I missed an episode somewhere along the line, and when I came back to the show, I had no idea what was going on. Seriously, like one episode. Anyway, I moved shortly after that, didn't have HBO for a while, and never got back into it.
I also don't watch Sopranos, Deadwood, Lost, or any of the other programs which some people are hooked on like $5 crack. I'm just not much of one for episodic, hour-long TV. I even gave up on X-Files for the last season or two. Something about dedicating an hour a week to a show doesn't bug me. Dedicating 22 hours of my life to a network show or two... that sort of bugs me. That's the equivalent of half of an entire credit-bearing course at a semester-based university.
Watch two or three shows like that, and suddenly you should be getting some sort of associates degree.
Don't get me wrong, I am a bitch to the TV. Sadly, my favorite show right now is probably "Mythbusters" on Discovery. I also watch a lot of "Soul Train" on Saturdays on WGN. On Sunday mornings I try to tune into "Breakfast with the Arts" on Bravo rather than watching Russert, which I should probably be doing if I were more responsible.
I also will sit and watch an entire program simply because I can't believe it's on TV at all. "So You Think You Can Dance?" has almost drawn me into it's gyrating spell on numerous occasions.
Last night VH1 was running some programming from it's sister channel, VH1 classics. The show was called "Alternative" and featured videos pretty much from my middle and high-school era. Echo and the Bunnymen. Pixies. Love & Rockets. Basically, somebody raided the locker they kept the videos in from MTV's Sunday night show, 120 Minutes.
120 Minutes ran at a time when MTV figured its audience was probablya sleep, anyway, and they figured there wasn't much to lose by airing these videos that the "college rock" fans of the time could enjoy.
Younger Leaguers will be shocked and dismayed to learn that until 1992ish, there was no such term as "alternative rock". There was just rock. And some of it sold, and some it didn't. And some of it did well with college audiences, and it had it's own chart and everything. And then one day people quit sniffing glue long enough to realize that Vanilla Ice was just a horrible idea, and for some reason everyone decided to buy Pearl Jam's debut record and the album by the band with that "Teen Spirit" song, and voila! A new genre was coined by some coked-up record exec.
The funny thing about the show on VH1 was that it was referring to the videos they were showing (all of which were incredibly cheap looking by today's big budget standards) were incredibly unpopular at the time. Go back and check your Yearbook. Your school didn't vote for "Jesus Built My Hotrod" for class song. You guys all got together and voted for "End of the Road" by Boyz II Men. Shut up. Yes you did.
VH1 Classics is talking up some video by Peter Murphy, like this was what we were all listening to, but meanwhile "End of the Road" is popping up on one of VH1's endless "100 Worst Break Up Songs" specials, and everyone is having a good laugh, like that album wasn't flying off the shelf at every Sam Goody in the country in 1991.
But The League has a long memory. And we remember that you couldn't flip channels in the latter days of the Bush-41 administration without Garth Brooks or Color Me Badd lurking around every corner.
This was pop culture at the time. Only dusty old copies of Billboard Magazine survive to back up what I remember with crystalline clarity.
So is it great to see these videos? Sure! Is it somehow dirty and disingenuous of MTV Corp. to suggest they always backed these bands? I dunno. Somehow I really miss Dave Kendall sitting in his dark little studio trying to get you to stick with him for a full two hours.
And, hey, I found some bands I liked at the time through 120 Minutes. Lush. Charlatans UK. A few other things which never made the transfer from cassette to CD.
9:55 PM |
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Hope all is well with all Leaguers, great and small.
I made a huge mistake at work sometime several months ago which I was completely unaware of. Until today. It was not fun. No sir, it was not.
Hope everyone popping by will just go down the blogroll. I really don't have time for much today.
It seems like I had a crackerjack idea for tonight, but I can't remember what it was in the slightest.
I shall soon interview Nathan "Attack of the" Cone. Keep yer eyes peeled.
The interview with Randy went so poorly that the fall-out has been to see Randy shut down his own site and disappear. I sort of am reminded of the Seinfeld episode with the dude who, when upset, would go into the woods, dig a hole, and sit in it.
So, anyway, thus far the result of the interviews has been a mixed bag. So, you know, who else wants to get interviewed?
Also, for those of you who are going to miss Six Feet Under (a show I used to watch, missed an episode, had no idea what was going on, and never came back), may I suggest: CATWOMAN?
Yup, the mom from Six Feet Under is in Catwoman. And since it's the best movie EVER, I highly suggest you check it out.
9:58 PM |
Sunday, August 21, 2005 "THE JASON STEANS STORY" WORTH SEEING
The League and Mrs. League went to the 1:10pm show of "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" on Saturday.
The movie is not the stupid sex-comedy I sort of supposed it would be. Well, yeah, it sort of is, but it isn't Porky's or whatever.
Once again, I sat in the dark of the theater believing "there, but for the Grace of God, go I." Just check it out. You'll see.
The movie is not set in the same bizarro parallel universe as something like "Anchorman", but actually sort of grounds itself in some semblance of reality, even if it is a silly, silly movie. The acting is pretty good, but doesn't appear to be much of a stretch for anybody. Some scenes have the pacing of improvisation, and I am sure that was the case. And during the "waxing" scene from the trailer, Carrell comes dangerously close to breaking character. But, hey, it's pretty funny, anyway, and you get the distinct feeling the girl doing the waxing was not acting at all.
The lovely Catherine Keener is actually genuinely funny in a role which could easily have been typical romantic-interest dull (think any straight-woman in a Jim Carrey comedy), and Jane Lynch has a few really priceless scenes as well.
The movie may have dragged a bit for a few minutes as they decided to tie up the loose ends of the plot, but the ending... yes, the ending redeems anything which may have gone wrong. The League had tears streaming down his face.
Look, the language in the movie is pretty coarse, but I honestly believe it's funny because it's true. Sorry, ladies, it's true. While ultimately funnier than any conversation I think I ever had on the topics covered, there's some painful reality in all of this.
Steve Carrell and Judd Apatow have made a pretty darn good comedy, and I guess it might even be a romantic comedy, in it's own way. The League gives it, oh, 62 out of 75 Mels.
11:13 PM |
THE LEAGUE GOES TO SEE THE PHOENIX MERCURY
The League loves him some professional basketball. And tonight, The League and Mrs. League headed into town to see the Phoenix Mercury, our local WNBA team, take on the Minnesota Lynx.
The tickets, in comparison to an NBA game, were pretty inexpensive. Plus, I bought them on a special where I could also get a free hotdog and soda with each ticket with the "dinner and game" package. We were supposed to sit in the 11th row of section 104, but couldn't quite figure out the whole seating arrangement with the corner we were sitting in, and some nice folks, apparently regulars told us to just sit down. Apparently it doesn't really matter at the free-wheeling Mercury games what the seat assignment is on your ticket, what matters is that you just sit down.
The Mercury's record isn't very good. I think they're .500 for the season, but they've been playing much better since the European League (no relation) broke up for the summer and they got Kamila Vodichkova back.
Long story short, the Mercury wiped the floor with the Lynx this evening. Which was fun, but at the same time, it was such a blowout, it wasn't really a nail biter.
The audience is fairly small. They don't sell tickets for the upper tier of the arena as the audience isn't terribly large for live WNBA games, but it's a tight-knit group of fans. Who is the audience for the WNBA? Well, there are a lot of families at the games, a lot more than at Suns games, and especially a lot of families with girls. Also, ladies out for a night on the town. And the only two random dudes (a large portion of the Suns' audience) sitting next to us were cheering for The Lynx. Cheering very quietly as they were, literally, the only Lynx fans in the stadium.
There was also some crazy woman who, apparently, knew ahead of time about the Disneyland Vacation Giveaway, as she was standing center court at half-time dressed in mouse ears, black nose, red pants and big, white Mickey gloves. In a way, it was kind of creepy. Luckily, she won the trip or I would have felt really, really bad for her.
Anyway, we don't get out a whole lot, but for once we did. And on a Sunday, no less.
Play-offs start soon, and I THINK the Mercury are in the play-offs. We'll see.
9:12 PM |
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