Category: Television

  • Report on the Politicians, and the Reporters Who Follow the Campaigns

    I follow the politics of the country as if it were a form a reality television; It tries to imply that its real, but it’s all fake. And that fake show is reported as reality. Not that I blame the press for it, but I also feel that no one really has been honest about it for a while. Like, even the people on “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth,” seem more interested in looking cool, or that they know how phony it all is, but they are right in the middle of it. I don’t think anyone has been honest about the whole fake business that politic and the reporting of politics has become sine Hunter Thompson in “Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail “72.”

    I was trying to describe this to my wife the other night as the New Hampshire results were coming in on cable television. And then we switched over to watch “The Circus,” and that’s when the idea hit me; I would like to follow all the campaigns and the reporters, and share with everyone all the crazy shit that happens in the stage craft of campaigning. I’m not a reporter, so I have no idea what the ethics of that job is in those situations.  I would be an outsider peeking in.

    I wonder if I could do this, and get someone else to pick up the tab?

  • The Child and The Mandalorian

    I feel the need to talk about Baby Yoda. Only because everyone else is.

    And when I say Baby Yoda, it’s really The Mandalorian I want to talk about.

    (I don’t think this is a review of the show, but more of expression of my reaction to the show.)

    Watching The Mandalorian reminds me of watching Kung-Fu, or The Fugitive, or even The Hulk, as a kid. Those were shows where the hero traveled from town to town getting in adventures, only to have to move on to the next town, leaving his new friends behind. All of these shows were fun, offered some basic morality lesson which reinforced society’s sense of making things right.

    I do like the decision to release new episodes on Friday. That also makes me feel a little like a kid again; waiting to get home to watch the new show. Having all weekend to talk to my friends about it. X-Files was like that. (Game of Thrones I thought used Sunday nights well to it’s story telling. For most adults, Sunday night comes with the dread feeling of having to go back to work. Dread of coming events drove that show.)

    And then there is Baby Yoda. Or as I just found out, is called “The Child” by Disney when describing the show. It is kind of like icing on the Star Wars cake. I really don’t feel the need to pile on, as others have done a much better job than me talking about him.

    What I will say is that the to characters really aren’t very original. It the “Man with No Name” protecting a baby, and did we all not see it coming. Yet, here we and we pretty much love it. And that is what makes me say that there is nothing wrong with just being entertaining from time to time.

  • Trump or the Emmys?

    These are the first two thoughts that popped into my mind when I thought about writing a blog today; do I write about Trump or the Emmys?

    I could say that writing about Trump, again, will do nothing but make me feel defeated and powerless. Yet again, we have another situation where Trump has gone and done something illegal, and then ho goes and gaslights the world into believing that he was doing everyone a favor for doing this thing, which in his opinion, wasn’t illegal at all. I think Bill Maher had the best reaction this past Friday which was that this will follow the same cycle of denial, then admitting to it but it wasn’t wrong, and then starting another scandal to make everyone forget about the first scandal. I also expect this to happen, which is why I feel defeated and powerless.

    Speaking of defeated and powerless, I watched part of the Emmys, and it was a rather dull affair. The only take away I had was the free broadcast television was now officially dead. SNL was the only over the air broadcast show to win, and the rest went to cable or streaming. This is the new entertainment world we live in. It is a little sad that free tv is no more, as what I mourn for are all the great 15 and 30 second commercials we will never see, as no one watches commercials. All of those jingle writers will be out of a job. Sad.

  • You Would Think

    You would think I would know better. I have been trying for some time to get my stupid ass to bed on time. This has turned into a task that I fear I will never accomplish.

    I’m over 40, and I can’t stop watching TV at night. I have been making my way through Rick and Morty, and then last night I found out a friend of mine had a part in Fosse/Verdon, so I had to watch and look for her.

    I’m sure you can see how this goes. I finish and episode, and then I think I can handle one more. And then it’s 2am.

    I should know better…

    But I think I need to start to accept that this is not a life style that I can lead.

    I have always been a night owl, and I love staying up late alone. I like flipping channels, and looking for movies that I haven’t seen before. That’s still fun to me.

    And that’s the problem.

    I’m trying to change a behavior that, logically, I know is in my interest to do, but my heart isn’t into it.

    Being sleep deprived isn’t fun, but in a weird way, I have come to learn to live with that. It sucks, but I somehow know that in the middle of the day I will rally and recover.

    I’m an adult, but man, I have no idea what I’m doing, except finishing Fosse/Verdon tonight.

  • 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.