Slice of Life

Someone Did Their Homework

Just a few hours ago as I sat at work and announced to my teammates that I was leaving early for the day (the purest form of occupational joy possible as a result of being paid hourly on a schedule I have the sole discretion to create, just sugar), I was talking to a guy who sits across from me about tonight's game and our respective fantasy football squads. When the topic naturally changed to tonight's NFL season opener with the Washington Redskins against the New York Giants, we collectively tried to figure out what time the game would actually start. "Coverage starts a 7," I said, "which means that after the dumb concert no one is going to watch and all the bullshit, kickoff will probably be around 8:30 p.m."

Well wouldn't you know it, but there was no bullshit concert this year. No interviews with the 3rd grade teachers of each team's starting quarterback, or the 93-year old guy or gal who has gone to every single home game since 1951 and has worn the same underwear and never washed them once. No bullshit. No bullshit predictions. No bullshit product placement that actually works on me every now and again; amazing how tasty a Dominos Pizza and cold refreshing Coke can sound when you don't eat or drink either. Seven o'clock hits then boom. Some bullshit presentation with the Super Bowl trophy and old retired Giants that was live at the stadium, then boom. Kickoff. In a way, I was almost unprepared. I thought I had a few minutes to double-check my fantasy lineups, blog a bit (the first quarter is already over), then settle in with a cold Miller Lite with my hound in my lap and my boy in the other to begin what is by far the most enjoyable season of the year. But what a pleasant surprise - no bullshit. How totally un-American yet refreshing.

Missin' this Guy

Thanks to the writers' strike, 2008 might be the year I start reading more books after all.

I Hate to Admit it

But those Budweiser commercials where George Clooney is doing the voiceover work, a specialized jingle playing softly in the background with a gradual crescendo (an oldie from my band days) as George talks about a full-bodied beer with balance and just everything you would want in life, with the ending involving the silhouttes of 3 arms and hands raising full glasses and to the tune of unison voices singing, "Come on raise it up!"  Man, it just does something to me.  So much so that I'm actually considering buying a six pack of Budweiser to show my support for good marketing.

Even though I'll surely never drink a drop of that horse piss.

"Come on raise it up!"  Great stuff.

Frank TV: OVER-RATED!

The Wife and I stumbled upon the premiere of Frank TV last night on TBS (TBS has an hour or so of The Office reruns every Tuesday and this has become a staple in my weekly late-night TV surfing).  During the first rounds of this year's MLB playoffs, which were mainly aired by TBS, there had to have been a plug or an ad or a trailer or some dumb graphic on the bottom of the screen for Frank TV every 10 seconds.  It became a joke after a while and many of the group e-mails I exchange with a group of friends on a daily basis discussed how TBS was killing this show before it even began with overexposure.  Well, the show pretty much killed itself last night, and I don't see it lasting beyond 6 episodes.  It should be taken off the air sooner, but the collective brain trust at TBS is surely going to hold out since it invested so much into drumming up support for the show.

Frank Caliendo is no doubt very, very talented.  The way he can change his voice from a spot-on Robin Williams to George W. Bush to John Madden to Bill Clinton is nothing short of unbelieveable.  But the show sucks.  It started out with this skit of a hypotetical Seinfeld reunion episode 20 years from now.  Caliendo played the role of Jerry, George, Kramer, Newman, and a brief showing by Elaine in the skit.  Some creative makeup and costome work certainly had Caliendo dressing the part, and again, the voices he did for each character (with the exception of Elaine), were right on the money.  But the skit itself fell completely flat.  We all remember George Costanza as the over-emotional stout man who had some type of crisis every other minute of his life.  Hilarious, back in '98.  Not so much today.  Same can be said for each and every other Seinfeld character and his or her quirks and character traits.  Just sucked, not sure what else I can say about it.

The one time I did find myself laughing during the show, albeit briefly, was a skit Caliendo performed as Bill Clinton.  Basically the ex-president took the viewers on a tour of his presidential library, which was set up as if it were something you would enter somewhere on the Vegas strip.  The computer lounge, Bill explained, was a place where you could look up information about his landmark legislative victories such as the Family Medical Leave Act and NAFTA, or surf various porn sites since these computers had no type of content filters whatsoever.  A downstairs lounge lets you eat and drink a variety of items one would find at a great watering hole or bar, with waitresses rivaling those of the Hooters girls.  As Bill explains that you can rent out an exact replica of the Lincoln bedroom, a young couple is exiting said room, with the female occupant clearly disheveled and the younger gentleman buttoning his shirt.  A "wall of fame" has portraits of each female that played, for a lack of better terms, "prominent" role in the ex-president's life, including Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky.  As Bill walks by a bust of Janet Reno he looks at the camera and shrugs, "That's called 'one-too-many-jack-and-cokes.'"  Pretty funny stuff.  (And for crying out loud, can we get some intern to blow the current president so we can impeach his ass and get him the eff out of there?!?)

Frank TV:  great idea, incredibly talented star, but doesn't have the sound writing or variety that will give it much of a television run.

GRADE:  D+

Questionable

George Clooney doing the voice-over work for Budweiser commercials.

David Chase, You Ignorant Slut

More on the absolutely atrocious ending to The Sopranos last night hopefully later today, as a heavy workload on top of shopping for a mortgage and keeping my fingers crossed for the final inspection on our new home has me a bit preoccupied.

Step Away from the Television

When I'm not drooling over Jack Bauer and how throbbing of an erection my favorite TV show 24 gives me, I do indeed have other television tastes in which I dabble.  The Sopranos is about to begin its final season, look out.  Probably one of the most underrated shows going right now is Dateline's To Catch a Predator (Tuesday nights, 8 p.m., NBC, not that I watch or anything).  I suppose it's the ol' driving by a car accident analogy, in that as awful as it is, you just can't turn away from it.  My brother gets a kick out of sending me e-mails the day after new shows that quote excerpts from the perverts' chat logs.  I'll get a new message with a subject line of something like "Mets Tickets," an attempt to pique my interest, then open the message only to find a one-liner like, "I will bring you rasberry wine coolers and promise I will be gentle when we make love hahahahahaha."  Maybe you had to be there.

Certainly in my top 5 of television shows is Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO.  Take a funny male wiseass who is also a Libertarian and give him his own TV show, and yours truly is going to be a loyal fan.  What kills me is how quick he is on his feet and the witty responses he comes up with when interviewing guests or panel members.  If you get HBO, put this show in your rotation, and thank me later.

A few days ago the wife and I were watching his most recent show, which he began with by saying, ""We have been on the air now for this new season five weeks.  Three out of the five weeks, there's been a Bush scandal."  The best part of the show was at the end when he went through his "New Rules," and the delivery was absolutely stellar.  Maher, if you can't tell from the below excerpt, is not a Bush fan.  The following recital had me in absolute stitches, and I hope you enjoy it, too:

And finally, New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn't asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he's asked us to sacrifice something enormous. Our civil rights.

Now, when I heard George Bush was reading my emails, I probably had the same reaction you did: George Bush can read?! Yes, he can. And this administration has read your phone records, credit card statements, mail, Internet logs. I can't tell if they're fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of "Cheaters." I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they'll open it and see what it says.

So -so when it comes to sacrifice, don't kid yourself. You have given up a lot. You've given up faith in your government's honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here's what you've sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment. Here's what you have left: hand guns, religion, and they can't make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.

You know, in previous wars on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds, and in the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Right, like you laughed at him.

Okay, women, donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes. Can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Bad example.

But, look, George Bush has never been too bright about understanding "fereigners." But he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we would not miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn't much care if we became a "Big Brother" country that has now tortured a lot of random people.

And yet no one asks the tough questions like, "Is torture necessary?" "Who will watch the watchers?" "And when does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?" I mean, it's been five years. Is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?

In conclusion, after 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn't hide. But, then he ran and hid. So, Bush went to Plan B: pissing on the Constitution and torturing random people.

Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Well, do you feel good about America now? I'll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don't even have to hold my head underwater and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don't feel very good about that.

They say evil happens when good men do nothing. Well, the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing.

Full text available at:  http://www.hbo.com/billmaher/new_rules/

Biggest Pussy Award: President Logan

Yeah, baby.  This past season's 24 absolultely kicked ass, so I was pysched to hear this morning that the show was awarded best drama and my boy Keifer got best actor.  Nice work, everybody.  Can't wait to see what goes down next season and how in the world Jack is going to finagle his way out of a Chinese cargo ship headed for the Red Sea.  What amazes me about this show is that after season one, I was like "wow, it's going to be tough to top that."  Then season 2 comes out and I'm like, "holy shit, there is no way they will be able to top that."  Over and over and over again I'm blown away at how it just keeps getting better and better.  And they don't fuck around in terms of giving you some raw terrorism right in your face.  For those of you not familiar with the show, this past season terrorists got their hands on some nerve gas and released a cannister near the central air vents of a shopping mall.  No qualms at all about showing a 10 year-old girl bleeding from her mouth and ears after sucking in some of the gas.  I'm not saying that is necessarily pleasing to me but I like the fact that the writers don't do much sugar-coating when it comes to painting the face of terrorism.

This is partly why my New Year's resolution every year for the past 5 years has been "to read more."

Classic

The writing for Six Feet Under is amazing.  Last night's episode featured the following exchanges:

Brenda:  I care about you, Nate.  I can't just shut that off.

Nate:  Sure you can, you did before!

(Nate exits)

Claire (to Brenda):  Can you give me a ride?  I have to go get an abortion.

Brenda:  Sure.

Question

Did Uncle Junior really shoot Tony?

Um, wow.