random stuff about TV (and requisite tangents)

One bonus of staying with my parents over Thanksgiving was having access to their cable tv.

I watched an interview with Sarah Palin, and it really made me feel sorry for her. It seems like she's in way over her head. In addition to her obvious deficiencies, remember when her 17 year-old daughter (Bristol) got pregnant out of wedlock during the 2008 campaign?

That couldn't have sat well with Palin's conservative base. And just imagine how her advisors took the news.

Here's a serious question: Upon learning that 17 year-old Bristol Palin was pregnant out of wedlock, what percentage of Sarah Palin's advisors wanted to spin the story by claiming that Bristol's Palin's child had been immaculately conceived?

(25%?)

(40%?)

...

I watched part of a Science Channel program about the Earth's atmosphere, and it made me want to learn about chemistry. I watch Planet Earth all the time and it makes me want to learn about biology.

Maybe high school science classes should be taught with the goal of simply sparking a student's interest in science -- as opposed to going in-depth. (Memorizing the periodic table meant nothing to me.) It didn't seem like we spent enough time learning about how the different fields of science can teach us about the world around us.

Teachers should save the details for college. High school science should be more fun.

...

I saw a bunch of Blockbuster video commercials that went like this: First, customers were told they had to wait 28 days for a table at a restaurant, then other customers were told they had to wait 28 days for a delayed flight, and then the punch-line: "You wouldn't wait 28 days for a table, so why wait 28 days to watch a newly released movie? Blockbuster gets new releases 28 days before Netflix and Redbox. So why wait?"

Are people that impatient?

A Netflix subscriber has access to practically every movie ever made, so they can probably find something to watch during those 28 days. I watched Annie Hall on Netflix for the first time last week (and it came out 33 years ago.) There's plenty of stuff to hold people over for 28 measly days.

I hope Blockbuster can find a better advantage to emphasize.

If you really want to feel like you're being patronized, watch the commercials during a football game. You'd think that all American men want to drive big powerful trucks and drink light beer.

I wonder what marketing works on me.

(How about the two colons in the first sentence of this section?)

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I'm a snob.

For a man who's accomplished nothing in his life, I'm incredibly arrogant.

I'm almost unbelievably arrogant.

It's really pretty funny.

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My favorite feature on my parent's cable is the ability to rewind and slow down what I just watched.

My second favorite feature is On-Demand.

And it's crazy how you can just record a show and save it on your cable box!

How do people with cable get anything done?

...

I think that the Blockbuster commercial really stuck out for me because I've become borderline obsessed with the Netflix app on my phone. (I watched a few movies on it last week.)

Quick notes on a few documentaries in case you're in the mood for one:

No End in Sight: About the war in Iraq, I recommend it. The thesis is unique in the sense that it doesn't argue that sending troops into Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein was terrible idea, rather it shows how poorly every aspect of the invasion was handled.

I'd recommend it over documentaries like War Made Easy and Fahrenheit 911, because it doesn't necessarily portray the administration as unimaginably corrupt and evil, it simply portrays them as being extremely incompetent and stupid (and imaginably corrupt.)

(Why We Fight is also a good war documentary)

South of the Border is short series of interviews with Socialist leaders of South American countries. I don't know how socialist governments actually work -- is the line drawn at land ownership? is Denmark considered socialist? -- but whether you agree with it or not, the film demonstrates that Socialism is a growing movement in South America.

Other docs I highly recommend:

Cocaine Cowboys -- about the role of cocaine in building Miami's economy (interesting economics lesson, plus lots of drug smuggling/war stories)
Tyson -- about Mike Tyson
American Pimp -- about urban pimps
Bigger, Stronger, Faster -- about steroid use in America (but also a cultural commentary)
Deep Water -- about a relatively novice sailor who enters a competition to sail around the world
Food Inc. -- about the perils of industrial agriculture

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New addition to the blogroll: I just learned that my friend's dad has a blog, and it's pretty good. He's a longtime newsman (I think he's the best newsman in the city, this is his show) and you can tell he's an experienced newsman because his blog entries are very short and well written, and they touch on random topics of interest.

(again about me being a snob: I'M CALLING HIM THE BEST NEWSMAN IN THE CITY, AND THEN IN THE SAME SENTENCE I HAVE THE NERVE TO ASSURE MY READERS THAT HIS POSTS ARE "WELL WRITTEN")

(NO SHIT!! OF COURSE THEY'RE WELL WRITTEN!!)

WHO AM I TO COMMENT ON THE QUALITY OF PHIL PONCE'S WRITING????????

I'd probably get down on my knees and beg him for any kind of job on his show (except for cleaning bathrooms) (but I'd bring him coffee and pick up his dry-cleaning and do that sort of stuff) (shining his shoes and giving him massages is probably around the area where I'd consider drawing the line) and yet here I am, assuring people who can sit through my blog, that this man -- who is nothing less than a Chicago journalism icon -- has blog posts that are "well written"

Man, I might need to check into some kind of arrogance therapy. Is there such a thing arrogance management classes? 

Am I just an asshole?

Is it that simple?

...

Serious suggestion:

A female co-worker (Ena) was going on today about how she wants to take part in a program that uses female volunteers to hold orphaned children. She was very eager to do this.

And at that moment it struck me what women should do if they really want to help out the less fortunate.

If a woman truly wants to help the less fortunate, she should take off her clothes and dance for them.

I know, I know, trust me, I know how that sounds.

But what would bring a bigger smile to a homeless man's face than a woman's bare ass shaking in front of it?

Listen, I know that this idea couldn't be less politically correct, and I know it's probably not going to change the course of these homeless men's lives, but you've gotta admit, it'll probably be something that they'll never forget.

Maybe we can make it a charity that collects money and then hires professional strippers to dance for homeless men (and women).

("Maybe we can make it a charity..."  apparently you're in this with me.)

...

If you're in the mood to read about something fucked up

...

It's getting late and I want to go to sleep, but I really don't want to end this post with that "If you're in the mood to read about something fucked up" section.

The Wire

After watching the final episode of The Wire, I did a google search to learn more about the show's creators. One link that came up on the results page included the words "Wire Emmy Snub." I've never paid much attention to the Emmy awards, but knew that it was the most talked about television award. And while watching The Wire, I guess I just assumed it had won a bunch of awards.

So I went to the Emmy website and looked up past nominees for the years when The Wire was on tv, expecting to find a bunch of shows I'd never seen. But that wasn't the case. Shows like Lost, 24, and Deadwood had all been nominated, even CSI and Boston Legal had been nominated.

Of course, I didn't think any less of The Wire after reading that list of Emmy nominees, but I certainly thought a lot less of the Emmy awards.

the vision

I told Dirk I'd write a blog entry today, but also feel kind of lazy---kind of like watching TV. I can multi-task.

Did you know Drew Carey hosts The Price is Right? I watched my fair share of The Price is Right as a kid, and while I wouldn’t call myself a Bob Barker fan, the show seems strange without him. But besides losing Barker, little has changed since the 80's. The format is the same, set is the same, announcer sounds the same, games are similar, and that peculiar -- do you call it jazz? -- theme music is the same. And Barker's Beauties are still beauties (too buxom to be supermodels, but not buxom enough for rap videos.) Contestants still can’t go over during the first round of price bidding, so the dreaded $1 overbid still occurs, but surprisingly infrequently. I’d bid either $1 or $1-over-someone-else’s-bid every time.

One difference is that contestant pools seem larger and more organized. And Drew Carey couldn't seem less interested as a host. He’s less enthusiastic than Barker, which is odd because Carey is a comedian and I expected him to be joking around a lot, but he’s not. He’s completely deadpan. It's as if the producers instructed him to not be bigger than the show -- which I suppose is what Barker did so well, except he seemed happier to be there than Carey. (A quick scan of the “controversy” section of Barker’s Wikipedia page provides some explanation for this.)

I’m unimpressed by the showcases. The first showcase today: a one-year supply of chocolate, a laptop, and a trailer (like a Winnebago without an engine, so you have pull it with your car.) What if your car doesn’t have a hitch? Not surprised to see the contestant pass on it.

The second showcase: one year of maid service, a living room furniture set (that looks like something from the 80’s), and a hot tub. If someone interested in a hot tub owns enough land to install a hot tub, they probably wouldn’t be in The Price is Right studio audience because they’d either be at work or they’d already own a hot tub. Does a Price is Right hot tub show up in the LA edition of craigslist every week?

Are contestants given an option to take the cash equivalent of their prizes? In this episode a 40-year-old woman weighing at least 200lbs won a pair of off-road motorcycles. And she was thrilled about it.

She was giddy just to be on stage. That curtain could have risen to reveal two logs of un-petrified dog shit and her mood wouldn't have dampened. When she finally realized she was looking at two off-road motorcycles, her smile didn't fade; she just said, "I have two kids."

"How old are your kids?" Carey obligatorily asked.

"19 and 23."

It looked like Carey wanted say, "Take the cash equivalent, trust me."

And did you know that this guy [John O'Hurley] hosts Family Feud? He is an enigma. He was strangely funny on Seinfeld, but after watching him on Family Feud I’m guessing that either he wasn’t acting on Seinfeld or the Family Feud producers have instructed him to stay in character.

On the Fast Money round (where two family members must combine for 200 points to win $10,000) the first guy scored 182, but second guy couldn’t get the final 18! The #1 answers were all fairly obvious, so the second guy guessed almost all the same ones as his brother. For example: the first clue, "Name a topic of conversation that would bore a girl on a date." The second guy smiles and answers, “Sports.” BUZZZZ. The first guy guessed Sports; try again. So he panics and says, “Uhhhhh, weights.”

The rest of his answers were so bad that when they began tallying his score, I was looking back at his answers and thinking, “Maybe he can squeeze out a good chunk of those 18 points with weights."

Commercials during the day all seem to fall into four genres: drugs, personal injury law, for-profit vocational schools, and things that will be illegal in 10 years.

I have fewer than ten channels, but at this moment two of them are airing Judge shows. I watched the first minute of Judge Joe Brown. To introduce the program, they showed a clip of a Plaintiff saying, "My mother wrecked my car when she was drunk and all she can say is Oh Well."

And during Judge Joe Brown, there was a message at the bottom of the screen instructing me to stay tuned for Judge Mathis coming up next. I flipped the channel. (Only because I don't believe they’re real.) (If these were real small claims arbitrations I'd tune in more often. I'd probably find myself in the studio audience once in a while. I’d definitely send them a resume.) (for all you real MF's out there [a link Joseph Wapner’s bio]) (and for the realest of real [a link to Doug Lleweyln’s bio])

Maury Povich is on. This episode features a husband and wife having marital troubles. As I started watching, a solemn Maury was preparing to read the results of a lie detector test that would reveal whether the husband was in love with his wife's mother.

Maury should be the spokesman for Ambien.

I flipped the channel.

The guy who worked security on The Jerry Springer Show now has his own talk show.

Let me repeat that with proper emphasis:

THE GUY WHO WORKED SECURITY ON THE JERRY SPRINGER NOW HAS HIS OWN TALK SHOW.

He really does. [link to the show’s website.] From the commercials the episodes seem to progress in a similar manner: he converses with guests, one of the guests begins exhibiting unruly tendencies, the conversation slowly turns argumentative, and finally the former Springer security guard angrily confronts the villain and kicks him off the set. (So at least they utilize his physicality.) Celebrity is an interesting concept.

(The commercials for the show remind me of the classic Hulk Hogan routine where he gets beaten up for a while, but eventually goes into a frenzied state and becomes impervious to pain and throws the opponent into the ropes and gives him a boot to the face and finishes him off with a leg drop.) (I’ll bet that was the model for this show.)

I flipped to the opening credits to a show called Cheaters. Has anyone seen it? The premise: contact Cheaters if you suspect your significant other of infidelity. Cheaters producers will send licensed investigators to spy on them, and if caught, you'll get to confront the cheater in the act.

The show begins with host Joey Greco delivering a short monologue on the virtues of fidelity. Greco is oddly captivating. Look at the facial expressions on his webpage.  [link to Greco’s website that has since changed.] Cheaters holds itself out to be a serious show, and Greco so carefully straddles the line between genuine righteousness and absurdity that while he’s barely believable, he’s believable.

This is furthered when the announcer introduces today's guest by saying, "Meet Brian, a computer engineer who worries that his wife has found satisfaction from different hardware."

My remote control just breathed a sigh of relief after realizing it will have the next half hour off.

Brian is a ~25 year-old man who has been spending most of his weeks out of town searching for a job. He lives with his wife, mother, and stepfather, and suspects his wife (unemployed) of infidelity. I didn't notice where this takes place; it appears to be a small, semi-southern, semi-urban area -- definitely not a small town; might be on the outskirts of a fairly large city. Brian has a slight southern accent.

Brian is a decent looking guy. I'd guess women might think he's cute rather than hot. He's 5’10-ish, somewhat skinny, decent head of hair (dirty blond, three inches long), unremarkable white man’s features, average dresser. A guy you'd bring home, even though meeting him wouldn't necessarily inspire you to write home.

The wife’s face is blurred out, but we can see her body, and it's not too bad. She certainly wouldn't hear any complaints if she lost 15 or 20lbs, but nothing is necessarily necessary.

(Yes, my descriptions are superficial, but they're not giving me anything in terms of personality)

The first break in the Cheaters investigation comes on the second afternoon when cameras follow the wife to an office building. The picture is unclear, but we see her enter the building and exit a short while later alongside a mustachioed man with an impossible-to-miss mullet. He is wearing a white dress shirt, chinos, and tie; everything fits terribly. They get into his early 90's Ford Taurus and drive to a bar. Nothing physical happens, but the man moves in very close while talking to her.

Eventually they drive back to the office building where she gets in her car and drives home. The mystery man follows her home, as do investigators. Hidden cameras have been set up in the house, but the lovebirds go into an unmonitored room. Commercial break.

I get up to grab some food and come back in time to catch a commercial for the Hoveround Personal Mobility Vehicle [link to the website.] [It’s a motorized wheelchair.] The "drug" genre of daytime commercials can be expanded to: commercials-targeted-towards-the-sick-and-elderly. This commercial takes the extra step of assuring viewers that 1) although you might not think you need a motorized wheelchair, trust us, you do, so at the very least check out our free pamphlet, and 2) if you’re over 65 it's covered by Medicare, so even if you don't like it, it’s ok because it’s free.

(This commercial might also fall into the things-that-will-be-illegal-in-ten-years category.)

Back to the show. On day seven Brian is in Seattle looking for a job and calls home. His wife answers (we can see her from a hidden camera in the house.) After a night of drinking, she is watching TV with the stepfather but claims to be alone. During the call, the stepfather walks over and leans on top of her -- almost completely lies on top of her. We are now told that the mulleted man from Day 2 is the stepfather. After she hangs up the phone, the stepfather picks her up and carries her into the bedroom.

This evidence is enough for Cheaters investigators. They call Brian and show him the videotape.

As soon as Brian sees the first blurry clip of his wife walking out to the car with the poorly-dressed mulleted man, he turns away and says, "Jesus, that's my f*@#ing step dad!"

Before cutting to commercial, they show a preview for the next scene: it is a shot of Brian running into the house and attacking his stepdad without saying a word.

I decide to stick around for the commercials. The first one advertises a service that provides Cash for Gold [link to their website.] The premise is simple: they'll send you a postage paid envelope, you send them your gold, and they'll send you a check.

“It's that easy! All shipping is pre-paid!”

The first testimonial is a woman saying, "I sent in my old gold and I got a check the next week." (And then she laughs)

Another testimonial: a woman talking on her cell phone, "I'm going on vacation next week, and all I had to do was send in my old gold."

One last reminder, "We'll even pay the shipping!"

I waited for a final testimonial that gave a more detailed example, maybe something like, "I just got a check for $70, and all I had to do was send in $8,000 worth of gold!"

But it never came.

A diabetes drug commercial came on, so I got up to refill my water.

The show returns to a shot of Greco, Brian, and the camera crew caravanning to the house.

Greco has a tendency to try emitting an air of authority by overusing formal police-sounding language. At one point during the video of Brian’s wife and stepfather, the stepfather leaves the room to get a beer; and Greco describes it to Brian by saying something like, “Thereupon the suspect momentarily extricates himself from the situation.”

As they ride in the van, Greco calls his investigator on the scene and confirms the location of the suspects. He then explains the situation. Essentially: they're at your house and we're going to surprise them; but in his lexiphanic manner of speaking it takes nearly a minute to explain. 

Soon Brian is flanked by Greco and over a dozen crewmembers as he walks toward his house. Greco instructs, "Ok, everyone remain close together, no one split up." At least three people in the camera crew are carrying home video cameras that fit in the palm of a hand.

The stepfather is lounging on a Lay-Z-Boy and watching TV when Brian enters through the back door and dives at him and takes him down. Brian is able to land a couple of glancing blows before the stepfather gets up and throws Brian to the ground and yells in a heavily accented and terrifyingly deep voice, "YOU CRAZY? WHAT IN THE HELL YOU TRYIN TO DO, BOY?"

Greco explains the situation from a safe distance.

After Brian catches his breath and again lunges for his stepfather, his mother attacks his wife. The stepfather easily tosses Brian to the ground and shouts, "Boy I ain't never laid a hand on you when you were a kid, but if you come at me one more time I'm gonna whoop your ass!"

I was hoping Greco—the consummate grammarian—would interject, “Uh, sorry to interrupt, but by saying you ain’t never laid a hand on him, you’re actually saying that you have laid a hand on him.”

But he didn’t.

Before cutting to a commercial, they show a preview for the next scene. Brian and his stepfather are standing outside, squaring up to fight; as Brian lunges to attack, the commercial begins.

The next commercial:

"Are you receiving monthly settlement checks that just aren't enough to cover your immediate needs? Call Peachtree Settlement Funding now and transform some or all of your settlement payments into cash, today! You see, at Peachtree, money does grow on trees."

While transcribing the opening, I missed the testimonial.

They should just come out and say, "Listen, we're not gonna give you what it's worth, but we can give you something now. And isn't that what you really want? You'll find a way to pay your physical therapy bill in five years; but wouldn’t this commercial look a lot better on a flat-screen TV today?" (They also provide the same service for lottery winnings, life insurance and other annuities)

I'm going downstairs to check the mail. (I’m getting The Sopranos from Netflix.) (I would gladly support an extra .01% federal income tax that goes directly into James Gandolfini’s bank account to keep him from taking other roles. It’s too weird when he makes a cameo in a movie.)

When the show resumes, our combatants are face-to-face in the backyard, less than two feet apart. They bend their knees and get into fighting stances. It’s dark and a light rain is falling. They size each other up. Brian is still in shock over what's happened and shouts, "How can you do this to me? Huh? I can't believe you f@*king did this!!"

Before Brian attacks, the stepdad makes one final -- and surprisingly borderline-reasonable -- argument. He throws his arms into the air, points to the sky and the city in the distance, and shouts, "Hey, it might as well be me, because if it wasn't me, she would have been banging some guy off the streets."

Again, almost a debate worth having, except that by having sex with his stepson's wife, he was also cheating on his stepson's mother. Brian considers the argument for a few seconds and responds by attacking. Both men fall to the grass. The stepdad quickly takes the advantage and stands up. The Cheaters security guards pretend to try breaking up the fight, but don't do much before backing away. Brian jumps up and attacks again and is thrown down immediately. He picks himself up and charges one more time only to find himself on the grass even faster than before. This time he stays down, crawls over to his stepdad, grabs a hold of his leg, and wrestles him down. Brian actually gets on top for a few seconds before the stepdad regains the advantage and has him pinned.

Finally the Cheaters bodyguards step in and separate the two.

After bodyguards release him, the stepdad has hardly taken a second to survey himself before screaming in anger, "GODDAMN! THIS IS A GOOD SHIRT!!" (referring to his black button-down that has been soiled in the action)

The stepdad is so poorly groomed that his "good shirt" comment is nothing short of bizarre. (But in his defense, he's had a haircut since the original blurry footage.)

Brian runs inside to where his mother continues berating his crying wife. The wife turns her attention to Brian and apologizes, insisting that he doesn't understand. But Brian -- probably not in the most conciliatory of moods because not only has his stepfather been sleeping with his wife, but he also pretty much just kicked his ass -- slightly regains his composure and shouts, "WHAT ABOUT THIS DO I NOT UNDERSTAND??"

The mother hurries into the backyard and yells at the stepdad to leave. He climbs into his car and speeds off.

Meanwhile back inside, Brian asks his wife if she knows what makes him most upset. When she can only respond with another apology, Brian says he had originally come home bearing good news: he got the job in Seattle.

His wife makes one final plea, "Lets just go to Seattle and start over. We can start over."

"Start over?" He scathingly replies, "Start over? Get out of here."

At first she appears to think he is speaking figuratively, and doesn't move, so he clarifies, "Get OUT of here!" and starts pushing her out of the house.

She leaves, still crying.

In the end, Brian says he has to do some thinking in the days ahead. He doesn't explicitly rule out reconciliation, but I imagine this’ll be a strange hurdle to clear.

(Man, this blog has really devolved.)