Editors note: This is the third installment of the lone drinker. The last two statements are song lyrics, from Modest Mouse and the Beastie Boy's respectively, I don't know why I wrote them. When I returned to my computer this morning the word coarsened was up on dictionary.com. Also, my hand still hurts and I woke up on the floor this morning. To ensure authenticity, I have not edited any of this.
8:00: Welcome to the third installment of the lone drinker. Tonight’s post is being brought to you by a magnum of Sutter Home Pinot Grigio. Sutter Home: making taste buds question their day jobs since 1890. Tonight’s Pinot is a 2001 vintage which is probably more of a testament to the amount of time it’s aged on liquor store shelves than on vines.
8:18: I’ve been looking into the Church of Satan. My interest is more for networking opportunities than spiritual concerns. Regardless, it’s really not all it’s cracked up to be. I feel like the name was chosen more to rile up “squares” than for any other reason. I actually agree with a lot of their principles. Hell, the founder even said the religion is “just Ayn Rand's philosophy with ceremony and ritual added.” Plus cardinal sin number one is “stupidity” – I can get behind that.
8:33: Don’t Forget the Lyrics! is on Fox. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the show and it is frighteningly entertaining. The format seems very similar to Who Wants to be a Millionaire. If I were a pessimist I might suggest that the evolution of reality television has (unbelievably) trended progressively dumber – this would definitely bear out that pessimist’s perspective (if I were a pessimist) (onto glass three).
8:43: I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the current contestant. He’s like a gayer Richard Simmons. It’s unreal.
8:46: Wayne Brady (the shows host, who’s been surprisingly funny) just made a Richard Simmons joke – I wish someone could confirm me beating him to the punch, such is the struggle of the lone drinker.
8:58: Richard Simmons just went out on the Roy Orbison tune Pretty Woman, I’m not making this up.
9:32: The lone drinker was temporarily interrupted by an Aunt who had seen I was in town this evening and asked if I could drive her husband to meet her. (umm, two and half glasses in)
9:45: During the car ride home I was listening to the “alternative” rock station in New York, 9.23 K-rock. They played a song by Chevelle, called Send the Pain Below, I like this song a great deal and did when it came out (apparently in 2002). It’s honestly one of the few commercial rock bands I thought had true potential over the last 5 years. I have no idea what they’ve done since.
10:35: Watching Mad Men. The jury’s still out on this show. I did notice something in the last episode that I thought was ill-conceived. At one point one of the secretaries says to the other “that sandwich is making me sad” with regards to a stay-in meal the woman was going to have at work. That sentence seems very 200- to me – not something that would be said in the 60s. I had another example of the liberties the program is taking with colloquialisms but I’m not on top of my game right now. (glass 6)
11:09: I truly believe the most frustrating thing that an individual can experience is knowing that which they can do well and not being given the opportunity to perform that task. I look forward to serving drinks. (7 drinks in)
11:20: Couple things; so I’ve been watching the “Send the Pain Below” video on youtube and maybe I’m wrong but the only part about that song that sucks is when they incorporate the snowboarding…without that, that songs a killer example of good early ought’s rock. Also, I’ve been punching the wall in my study, this is not an important idea but I’m curious where the studs are, I use to work in construction (also my hand hurts).
11:26: I’m on such a Chevelle kick I just air guitared myself into the ground on my rolley chair. I heard some sort of metallic object trickle away after my fall but the chair still works and I don’t seemed to have experienced traumatic back failure yet – so that was rockstar. (goodbye magnum)
11:54: Finished watching the episode of Mad Men I had been watching earlier. Who knows? I would never cheat on my significant other but every relationship exists on it’s own plain. I’m drunk and am not willing to indict others for behavior I would not engage in, despite my disagreeace with it.
11:57: btw I spent a bit figuring out which parts of my wall are supported by studs. My fists prove much of my wall is unexpectedly sturdy.
11:59: Much of my hands hurt.
12:14: I just watched the All These Things That I’ve Done video in the hopes of explaining the idiocy of myself and my dearest friends. I’ve failed completely. Jesus, that video’s stupid.
12:18: I haven’t made an alcohol update in awhile so I feel obligated. Magnum gone, Budweiser gone, onto a beer called Tecate, going to have a cigarette.
1:02: I’ve drank a great deal of water. There’s no beer left, I’m a magnum and two beers in, I’ve drank a great deal of vodka, I’m the olive king of New York.
1:12: Here’s an idea: every magazine I’ve ever read portrays a bullshit liberal perspective. How ‘bout a progressive magazine that isn’t all about left leaning politics. There’s obviously a market for men that have views that don’t coarsened
1:22: My idea does not disassociate liberal ideas, it just invalidates them.
1:29: My idea does not disassociate liberal ideas. But I think its funny to type that reflex.
For your sake I hope heaven and hell, are really there but I wouldn’t hold my breath, you wasted life why wouldn’t you waste death, you wasted life why wouldn’t you waste death.
12:48 – cause you can’t and you won’t and you don’t stop
2:20:
Showing posts with label Mad Men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mad Men. Show all posts
Friday, August 3, 2007
Monday, July 23, 2007
Review: Mad Men
"Mad Men"
A term coined in the late 1950's to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue.
They Coined it.
Thus began the premier episode of "Mad Men," a program I watched on Thursday evening (I couldn't find it on-line but here is the encore schedule or you can buy it on I-tunes for $1.99) with an acquaintance (my mother, hereafter, Mombo), who has very different sensibilities than I do. During each commercial break she and I discussed the program. As I became more and more interested, Mombo became more and more disinterested. Her primary complaint was that there were not any characters that she particularly cared for.
I found this assessment to be fair, as many of the characters seem to be morally flexible (particularly with regards to their sexual behavior) and virtually all of them have a world-view that extends only as far as their self-interests. It is for these reasons that I really enjoyed the program.
In a moment of drunken clarity last Wednesday evening, I wrote about Bob Dylan's fraudulent persona and asked how many of the rest of us would stand up to the scrutiny of an in-depth examination of our own personalities (or rather those that we display to the world).
I don't know the answer to this question, but I suspect an airing of the entirety of an individual's personality would do well to upset/disgust many of his/her friends and family.
It is for this reason that I find programs like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Mad Men compelling. These shows are not concerned with making its audience "like" their characters and as such they needn't compromise the authenticity of their decisions and actions.
The program is also very interesting because it allows the viewer to editorialize on the advances and missteps our society has made since the 1960's. The show provides a fair amount of commentary of its own but it's cloaked in the words and actions of the characters and can be seen by those looking for a validation of their assumptions. (Their's a gay character that makes several remarks that might be missed by those who do not assume homosexuality, although I suspect this will be a more major plot theme going forward).
I did a bit of research on the shows creator and was not surprised to find he had produced and/or written numerous Sopranos episodes (including, unfortunately the Johnny Cakes episode, which was the opposite of good - a more apt description than bad). He's a real talent and I'll be interested to see where he takes Mad Men from here.
Premier episode grade: A-
A couple links; This months Vanity Fair has a very thorough article on Barbaro, that reads more like Sea Biscuit than an obit. Also interesting from that issue is David Halberstam's final article on the incompetency of the Bush administration.
I tend to agree with Halberstam's analysis but I'm not here to tell you what to think so here is a WaPo article about how Bush's administration will be seen as a success. Interesting. Yfbfb reports, you decide.
A term coined in the late 1950's to describe the advertising executives of Madison Avenue.
They Coined it.
Thus began the premier episode of "Mad Men," a program I watched on Thursday evening (I couldn't find it on-line but here is the encore schedule or you can buy it on I-tunes for $1.99) with an acquaintance (my mother, hereafter, Mombo), who has very different sensibilities than I do. During each commercial break she and I discussed the program. As I became more and more interested, Mombo became more and more disinterested. Her primary complaint was that there were not any characters that she particularly cared for.
I found this assessment to be fair, as many of the characters seem to be morally flexible (particularly with regards to their sexual behavior) and virtually all of them have a world-view that extends only as far as their self-interests. It is for these reasons that I really enjoyed the program.
In a moment of drunken clarity last Wednesday evening, I wrote about Bob Dylan's fraudulent persona and asked how many of the rest of us would stand up to the scrutiny of an in-depth examination of our own personalities (or rather those that we display to the world).
I don't know the answer to this question, but I suspect an airing of the entirety of an individual's personality would do well to upset/disgust many of his/her friends and family.
It is for this reason that I find programs like The Sopranos, The Wire, and Mad Men compelling. These shows are not concerned with making its audience "like" their characters and as such they needn't compromise the authenticity of their decisions and actions.
The program is also very interesting because it allows the viewer to editorialize on the advances and missteps our society has made since the 1960's. The show provides a fair amount of commentary of its own but it's cloaked in the words and actions of the characters and can be seen by those looking for a validation of their assumptions. (Their's a gay character that makes several remarks that might be missed by those who do not assume homosexuality, although I suspect this will be a more major plot theme going forward).
I did a bit of research on the shows creator and was not surprised to find he had produced and/or written numerous Sopranos episodes (including, unfortunately the Johnny Cakes episode, which was the opposite of good - a more apt description than bad). He's a real talent and I'll be interested to see where he takes Mad Men from here.
Premier episode grade: A-
A couple links; This months Vanity Fair has a very thorough article on Barbaro, that reads more like Sea Biscuit than an obit. Also interesting from that issue is David Halberstam's final article on the incompetency of the Bush administration.
I tend to agree with Halberstam's analysis but I'm not here to tell you what to think so here is a WaPo article about how Bush's administration will be seen as a success. Interesting. Yfbfb reports, you decide.
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