Category: Television

  • Midlife Thoughts

    I moved 1,000 lbs of clay today. I needed to do it for my job, and I did have help, but still… I moved 1,000 lbs of clay.

    As I was driving the clay across the county in my small SUV, I did have that moment where I had to ask, “How did I get here?”

    That’s what the past two weeks have felt like. Honestly, how did I get to where I am?

    Is that the call of the mid-life crisis? Is “Once in a Lifetime” the unofficial theme song of these moments. “That’s not my beautiful house! That’s not my beautiful car!”

    Does anyone care about mid-life crisis anymore? I read about how people now shit all over “American Beauty” now. Not only because Kevin Spacey is in it, but because it’s about a material successful guy, who buys a sports car, changes jobs, and lusts after a teenager. When you say it that way, does anyone want to see a story about comfortable people who aren’t as comfortable as they would like.

    It’s also like he movie “The Land of Steady Habits,” which played like a John Updike or John Cheever story were updated and retold. I liked the movie, but it also functions off of the male midlife crisis trope.

    The more I think about it, that seems to be a bunch of stories written by men. That, “I have lost my spark and must reclaim it by behaving the way I did in my past.”

    I really hope that’s not what I have to look forward to. I would prefer to regain my spark by moving forward, and not by trying to be that idiot from my past.

  • Compartmentalizing

    I just have trouble saying that word, let alone spelling it.

    I think that was what I was trying to write about yesterday when I was speaking about Brett Kavanaugh.

    I don’t think I was very good at it, as a day later, I now feel I know what I was trying to say.

    And then that white dude got fired from SNL before he every performed on the show. This is another white guy, who should have known better.

    There was a piece about Shane Gillis getting fired that I think was very insightful. The comedian who wrote it made a very good point that most comedians punch down with their jokes, and most comedians are white men. It’s just lazy humor, and it always has been. As some comedians were lamenting that we live in an age where you “can’t joke about anything anymore,” but I have to disagree. If I might point out, 40 years ago, Asian Americans weren’t “cool” with being made fun of by white guys because 40 years ago, no one asked Asian Americans, “Are you cool with being made fun of by white guys?” The funny thing is that 40 years ago you would have gotten the same answer you are getting today, the difference is other people are now asking and listening to the answer.

    Either way, he lost a job for what he said, and he will have to live with that.

  • Whomp! Debate Edition

    Though I would like to watch the Democratic debate tonight, I have to work. Also, I think I might prefer to watch Thursday night football. That is only a half knock at the debate. If this debate was presented better, then I might care more.

    I really don’t like the 10 people on stage, and I have a feeling that Joe, Bernie, and Elizabeth will get the majority of the questions. Not much doled out to the rest of the pack. No one is debating; it’s not like people up there are for or against health care. It’s really about which program do you think is better, and for that reason, I wish they would give the candidates more time just to stake out their positions. Instead, we will get sound bite TV, and though it existed before Trump, now that we live in a Trump political world, you better believe the candidates have several zingers in their back pocket, just waiting for the moment to use them.

    I can already hear someone saying that this isn’t the government we want, but through our actions, this is the government we deserve.

    I really dislike that train of thought.

    I have conservative people use this logic to defend Trump while not defending Trump; Whomp! It’s who we got so let’s make the best out of it.

    What an awful way to accept the world around you. I would want to believe that people want to make things better, and not put up with the crap we are severed.

    Ung… Hopefully something good will come out of this.

  • There Goes That Joke

    First, I acknowledge that with everything going on in the world, this is not a big deal.

    But

    Using the word “nasty” has been ruined.

    My wife and I are of the age when “Miss Jackson if you’re nasty!” was, and is, cool as shit. As a couple, it is used playfully, silly way. Such as, we are flipping channels and the wife comments that she hates that show, which I say, don’t be nasty, and you can guess what her response is, Miss Jackson if you’re nasty.

    And Trump has ruined it.

    We have both caught ourselves about to use the work jokingly with each other, and then we pull back. We don’t want to even use the same words as him, even if we both clearly recognize that the other is joking.

    I mean, we didn’t have this issue with, “binders full of women.”

    And I know that it will be coming in the news, because it is when any woman stands up to Trump, and clearly points out how stupid he is, that’s when the “nasty” word is rolled out. Like clock work.

    What I feel is that I don’t want to use “nasty” in any context now. To do so feels like I am empowering Trump’s use of the word against women.

    I also know this is a little silly, but it is the game with language; who can get to a word first and redefine it to their own purposes.

    Just sucks

  • The Chef Show (Sort’a Review)

    I don’t actually like writing reviews of show. (Though I did it for Trotsky on Netflix, and somehow got a bumper crop of readers.) I never feel that I get down to the real reason why I like a particular show, but when I have a dialogue or conversation, I feel like I do much better. Either way, I don’t do it often, but here we go again.

    I started watching The Chef Show with Jon Favreau and Roy Choi, and it is presented like a companion piece to the movie Chef that came out in 2014. Though the movie was a little weak on plot, it sure made up for it with the passion its characters had for the food they made. It reminded me of Big Night, and Jiro Dreams of Sushi, as both of those movies were infused with an infectious love of not just food, but the joy of preparing food.

    Which gets us to The Chef Show, which isn’t like a normal cooking show. What is being presented isn’t for me to learn how to cook anything. It’s more like I’m being shown the joy of preparation and being around other chefs. The one detraction I have is that it does have a Food Network/reality show feel to it, like “would you believe that we happen to run into…” ya-da, ya-da. (Like Jeffery just “happens” to be walking by Ina’s kitchen when she is finishing making a meal.) We all know it’s staged.

    The best parts are just Favreau and Choi working together in the kitchen. There is a feeling of friendship between the two of them, and also a teacher/student relationship. Which is fun to watch because Favreau is an A-Lister in Hollywood and has more money than all of us, and doesn’t have to do anything he doesn’t want to, and there he is being politely yet firmly being chided by Choi on his knife skills, and Favreau takes it with a smile. It’s fun to watch, but more than that, it is enjoyable to see the joy in the hard work of preparing food.