GLEE
First, I am beginning to wonder if ANY TV is too much TV to watch? I can understand if people shied away from what constitutes as 'hard news'. There is so much spin going on and what gets me is that the damage usually has been done and often is nearly impossible to reverse.
I will get to 'Glee' in a moment. But the Libya thinks stinks soo bad. Has anyone forgotten the last time a Democratic President followed a UN coalition, fronted by the French, into a military intervention? Going after Qaddfi smells like Vietnam... but that is me.
This week's episode and the firefight over bands who would not license their music for use on the show caught my attention. The contrived situations fray my nerves as they unnecessarily stretch the realm of believability. While I am sure that there were kids who were confused about their sexuality, does anyone think that it is to the extent that is portrayed on the show? Also the storylines are simply too farfetched for me to believe that anyone can relate to anything on the show. Ryan Murphy, the show's producer, runs the show like a house party when the adults are out of town. He indulges himself in every warped fantasy that a picked on kid, still coming to grips with his identity, has in when they are in high school.
Not only that, with the newfound 'popularity' he has among all the 'cool kids', the celebs who do cameos and pick up roles in the middle of a season like Gwenyth Paltrow, he carries himself like a nerd kid who finally gets the invite to hang out at Muffy's place after the game. Because so many popular kids now like him, EVERYBODY should like him.
The Kings Of Leon disagree with him. After not giving Mr. Murphy permission to use the band's music they got into a verbal spat where Nathan Followill, one of the brother's who make up the KOL, had some harsh words for Glee's producer. Before condemning Nathan's remark as being homophobic (and he has since apologized for his words), I think it should be noted that he was provoked by the santicmony of Ryan Murphy. It was his statement to the effect that the KOL was denying 6 and 7 year-olds exposure to arts and education and that they are a--hole's for not letting the show use the music.
After the shots were fired between those two, Murphy slammed Slash from Guns 'n Roses in the same article and using the interest in other big name muscians in working with the show (never minding that the artist's he spoke of are 'over the same hill' if the highly successful G'NR guitarist is past his relevance) in a way that owe a lot of its meaning to showing 'how wrong you are, they like me' more than it supported any argument he could have made at the refusal to license the band's music.
I had been struggling with my mixed feelings for a show that I should be a huge fan of, but was not quite into as I even expected for a little while. From 'appointment' to 'eh, I guess I can miss this repeat of 'Criminal Minds' (on Ion, dontcha know!) and watch 'Glee', the show has become as bad at showing the various 'micro-minorities' as any other program does in their characterizations. But this post about how unrealistic the character Artie is portrayed pushed me to speak about my feelings about the show.
The show has constantly devolved as it has risen in popularity. I don't if the 'it factor' the show has translates into ratings or if it is a demographic thing, that the show optimizes the marketing targets, but I look forward to when its run is over. It is no longer saying anything and is more an exercise in delusion.
MORE STUFF THAT I FOUND MYSELF WATCHING THIS WEEK
...or last week. Whenever.
'Our America with Lisa Ling' did a show about on-line love recently and I had to check it out! The show focused mainly on a young woman in Columbia and a mid - 40 cat from Texas who took part of the 'marriage tour' that she was a part of. Apparently there are matchmaker services who bring men from other countries to meet available single women in Columbia with hopes of making a match. Of the ten men that were a part of this group, only the Texan made a match. The Columbian woman that was featured, not selected even in the first cutdown.
Listening to the 19-yearl old's lament about the shortage in available men confirmed something I already knew... American women aren't the only ones dealing with issues from immaturity to stability, when it comes to finding a partner. In fact, she was no stranger to taking this kind of risk, as she had one relationship via an on-line matching website result in her being a single mother. But from what I inferred about her, her home and education, I had to wonder what did she have to offer a cat who could afford to take such a tour that was 'hit or miss' when it came to matching people up. There were a couple of hundred women vying for the ten men on this particular tour and she simply did not have it. And of the ten, only 5 made any kind of connection with anyone and only one would leave you with the impression that the match had any hopes of lasting, and that was with the Texan.
Unlike the young woman, the Texan was realistic in what he was looking for. He was a bit bland, but very stable. While he had a vasectomy, he was not opposed to meeting a woman with children. Additionally, he was looking for a mature, older woman, with character meaning more to him than looks and definitely more than youth. He was able to match up with an attractive 40-something with a pre-adolescent daughter. They got along smashingly well, so well that as the video will show, that you have to think and hope that they did make good on the connection that was established.
HOW LONG CAN THIS GO ON..?
I also watched 'A Feminine Touch' on TCM recently. I thought it was a sharp, crisp comedy about a professor who wrote a book that contained a chapter on jealousy that was seen by the publisher as the 'hook' to make the rather schloarly work a best seller. Professor John Hathaway (played by a rather dashing Don Ameche) would quit his position at the University over an ethic stand on the eligbility of a star football player. He and his wife, Julie (Rosalind Russell), would set off for New York, and meet with the publisher Elliot Watson (Van Heflin) and his able assistant (Kay Francis), who secretly was in love with the immature and playboy publisher.
So you had the analytical professor, his less complicated, very attractive wife on one side; the level-headed and smart devoted woman and the man-child on the other. Eventually each would get to act from their opposite's view and come together with a higher level of understanding for the person that they were with. I was taken with how the problems that men and women have now were not that different from the problems that existed in the past, making the words, 'those who do not learn from history...' as prophetic as the war in Libya is to Vietnam.
Showing posts with label Glee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glee. Show all posts
Friday, March 25, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
IT’S SUPPER TIME!
Had an early Sunday dinner with Nebraska, her two youngest girls, and HER MOM at Olive Garden. It was fun and I really enjoyed Mom and the chemistry that was present. Way cool.
Told Mom that I really like Omaha and that the people here are friendly and she would second Nebraska’s comment about how friendly folks are in town. I essentially replied with ‘the tour stop is new but the rodeo is still a rodeo’, as her daughter took a slight dig at my curt attitude with people. Mom understood and that was that with for the topic of my making friends.
One of the other noteworthy observances I made was Nebraska's ‘tween’ daughter and her phone. The scene was right out of a Microsoft commercial, as she would send texts or update her Twitter or whatever it is kids are doing nowadays, semi-oblivious to our group. To me it was endearing. All in all, it was a winning experience, even if I wasn’t at my best before the dinner.
I had received a text to confirm my participation and I was mainly ready… but the grey of the sky nearly was matched by the grey that was hovering around me. Had I not thought of the opportunity to meet her Mom and spend quality time outside, I have canceled. But it went swimmingly and her Mom was very inclusive when making reference to me. That was even cooler than cool… it was ICE COLD!!
IT WAS LIKE THE RAMIREZ – ROSARIO REMATCH...
One of the biggest reasons I like the Steelers now (when I was a kid it was because they were the perfect blend of the best of their chief rivals, the Raiders and the Cowboys) is that they are the embodiment of something I call ‘conceptual continuity’. There was a graphic during a pre-pre game show that showed that the Steelers, who were a losing franchise for most of the early years of their existence, turned a corner with the hiring of their Hall-of-Fame coach, Chuck Noll, and has built on the formula, adding to but not subtracting from, for the past 40 years. There have been more glamour franchises with mini-runs to repeat championships, from the 49’ers to the New England Patriots, but as far as being enduring, you would have to prolly go back the Montreal Canadiens of the 50’s to the 80’s to find a sports franchise that has stay near the top of its profession for any length of time (or you could bring up Man U or the New Zealand All-Blacks if you want to mention international team sport dynasties) with the same formula that made them a success to begin with.
Trading IM’s with Nebraska after the Packers went up 21-3, I told her that (unlike several of the Super Bowls in the mid-80’s to 90’s that were lopsided and dull) that the Steelers weren’t out of it and if any team could come back and make a game of it, they could. And that is exactly what happened. After the score tightened, I felt as if I could see the momentum shift, the same forces that pulls on the moon and causes the tides to go in and out, only there would be one final shift as the game was not immortal. But whoever won would be.
Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay quarterback of whom it was said of by the Packer’s organization, that more was learned about him the day he was drafted than any other item or skill in Rodgers possession. Highly touted the year he came out of college, Rodger’s would mysteriously slip in the draft, costing him not only millions of dollars but esteem and prestige among players as well. But unlike other draft day shockers, here was a young man who kept his composure and when his name was finally called showed the maturity by appearing as delighted to have been chosen 24th as if he had went earlier in the draft. You could see that quality in his play throughout the game and most definitely could see it in the game’s final quarter.
While the Packers were the betting favorite, the game was still ‘pick ‘em’ to me. Kind of like the second fight between Jose Luis Ramirez and Edwin Rosario back when ‘valley girl’ look was popular and you had to carry an umbrella to keep from being hit with jheri curl activator hitting you!
In the first match, Rosario, who was not only the champion but the anointed next big thing, would win a closely contested decision. Ethnic rivalry and boxing politics compelled the both of to fight a rematch in short order.
The fight developed very similar to the first bout between them. Rosario would come out and land a scorching right hand that knocked Ramirez down for a count. After Ramirez rose, he would be pummeled for the rest of the first round as well as most of the 2nd round. But the veteran of over 90 fights with 84 victories in those matches, would not be distressed, instead, gathering his composure to rally and stop Rosario in the 6th or 7th round to win the lightweight title.
'MY LIFE AS LIZ'...
… is back!
Along with ‘Glee’, two of my favorite shows have returned to air. I watched the ‘… as Liz’ marathon last night AND early this morning on MTV! The affluence of the shows characters makes it a little more of a stretch to identify with them but as much as I like ‘Glee’
, the show is becoming a guilty pleasure where the emphasis is on ‘guilty’ and not on the ‘pleasure’ part.
Teen dramedies used to have a stronger root in realism than ‘Glee’ does. It lacks a sophistication that not only fails to rival the shows of my youth, ‘James At 16’, ‘My So-Called Life’, or the sitcom ‘Square Pegs’. Watching the season debut after the game, it felt like a Tea Bagger’s version of how a multi-cultural society operates. The show has slipped into parody of itself as it re-invents solutions to social problems.
With Jenny changing her Face Book photo to the Jenny I crushed on in high school and who would crush on me later in Korea, I remember the feelings that I had wanting to be noticed and hang with the ‘A-list’ kids in school. Perhaps it is just me but the show has seemed like the vision some mildly-liberal conservative dreams of what the mutts of their ideal society must have been like as teenagers. The writing has become as clueless as Sarah Palin when it comes to the show being relevant to anything in society today.
It is late and I am getting sleepy. I am having problems leaving comments so I will look at my settings on Explorer and hopefully I will get that taken care of. The winds are blowing… and I find that relaxing.
Had an early Sunday dinner with Nebraska, her two youngest girls, and HER MOM at Olive Garden. It was fun and I really enjoyed Mom and the chemistry that was present. Way cool.
Told Mom that I really like Omaha and that the people here are friendly and she would second Nebraska’s comment about how friendly folks are in town. I essentially replied with ‘the tour stop is new but the rodeo is still a rodeo’, as her daughter took a slight dig at my curt attitude with people. Mom understood and that was that with for the topic of my making friends.
One of the other noteworthy observances I made was Nebraska's ‘tween’ daughter and her phone. The scene was right out of a Microsoft commercial, as she would send texts or update her Twitter or whatever it is kids are doing nowadays, semi-oblivious to our group. To me it was endearing. All in all, it was a winning experience, even if I wasn’t at my best before the dinner.
I had received a text to confirm my participation and I was mainly ready… but the grey of the sky nearly was matched by the grey that was hovering around me. Had I not thought of the opportunity to meet her Mom and spend quality time outside, I have canceled. But it went swimmingly and her Mom was very inclusive when making reference to me. That was even cooler than cool… it was ICE COLD!!
IT WAS LIKE THE RAMIREZ – ROSARIO REMATCH...
One of the biggest reasons I like the Steelers now (when I was a kid it was because they were the perfect blend of the best of their chief rivals, the Raiders and the Cowboys) is that they are the embodiment of something I call ‘conceptual continuity’. There was a graphic during a pre-pre game show that showed that the Steelers, who were a losing franchise for most of the early years of their existence, turned a corner with the hiring of their Hall-of-Fame coach, Chuck Noll, and has built on the formula, adding to but not subtracting from, for the past 40 years. There have been more glamour franchises with mini-runs to repeat championships, from the 49’ers to the New England Patriots, but as far as being enduring, you would have to prolly go back the Montreal Canadiens of the 50’s to the 80’s to find a sports franchise that has stay near the top of its profession for any length of time (or you could bring up Man U or the New Zealand All-Blacks if you want to mention international team sport dynasties) with the same formula that made them a success to begin with.
Trading IM’s with Nebraska after the Packers went up 21-3, I told her that (unlike several of the Super Bowls in the mid-80’s to 90’s that were lopsided and dull) that the Steelers weren’t out of it and if any team could come back and make a game of it, they could. And that is exactly what happened. After the score tightened, I felt as if I could see the momentum shift, the same forces that pulls on the moon and causes the tides to go in and out, only there would be one final shift as the game was not immortal. But whoever won would be.
Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay quarterback of whom it was said of by the Packer’s organization, that more was learned about him the day he was drafted than any other item or skill in Rodgers possession. Highly touted the year he came out of college, Rodger’s would mysteriously slip in the draft, costing him not only millions of dollars but esteem and prestige among players as well. But unlike other draft day shockers, here was a young man who kept his composure and when his name was finally called showed the maturity by appearing as delighted to have been chosen 24th as if he had went earlier in the draft. You could see that quality in his play throughout the game and most definitely could see it in the game’s final quarter.
While the Packers were the betting favorite, the game was still ‘pick ‘em’ to me. Kind of like the second fight between Jose Luis Ramirez and Edwin Rosario back when ‘valley girl’ look was popular and you had to carry an umbrella to keep from being hit with jheri curl activator hitting you!
In the first match, Rosario, who was not only the champion but the anointed next big thing, would win a closely contested decision. Ethnic rivalry and boxing politics compelled the both of to fight a rematch in short order.
The fight developed very similar to the first bout between them. Rosario would come out and land a scorching right hand that knocked Ramirez down for a count. After Ramirez rose, he would be pummeled for the rest of the first round as well as most of the 2nd round. But the veteran of over 90 fights with 84 victories in those matches, would not be distressed, instead, gathering his composure to rally and stop Rosario in the 6th or 7th round to win the lightweight title.
'MY LIFE AS LIZ'...
… is back!
Along with ‘Glee’, two of my favorite shows have returned to air. I watched the ‘… as Liz’ marathon last night AND early this morning on MTV! The affluence of the shows characters makes it a little more of a stretch to identify with them but as much as I like ‘Glee’
, the show is becoming a guilty pleasure where the emphasis is on ‘guilty’ and not on the ‘pleasure’ part.Teen dramedies used to have a stronger root in realism than ‘Glee’ does. It lacks a sophistication that not only fails to rival the shows of my youth, ‘James At 16’, ‘My So-Called Life’, or the sitcom ‘Square Pegs’. Watching the season debut after the game, it felt like a Tea Bagger’s version of how a multi-cultural society operates. The show has slipped into parody of itself as it re-invents solutions to social problems.
With Jenny changing her Face Book photo to the Jenny I crushed on in high school and who would crush on me later in Korea, I remember the feelings that I had wanting to be noticed and hang with the ‘A-list’ kids in school. Perhaps it is just me but the show has seemed like the vision some mildly-liberal conservative dreams of what the mutts of their ideal society must have been like as teenagers. The writing has become as clueless as Sarah Palin when it comes to the show being relevant to anything in society today.
It is late and I am getting sleepy. I am having problems leaving comments so I will look at my settings on Explorer and hopefully I will get that taken care of. The winds are blowing… and I find that relaxing.
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