Ravings from a Man in an Old White House

We all know that there has more and more new television programing during the summer in recent years, and shows have started at times other than the traditional fall launch or as mid-season replacements. The writers strike has given at least one network, NBC (I think), the excuse to go to drop the traditional fall-spring schedule and begin 52-week programming. I’m curious to see how this will affect ratings sweeps.

I have posted before about Foyle’s War. Season 4 (broadcast as Series 4 and 5 in the UK) finally made its way to PBS this past June. With these four new episodes, the Americans have finally landed on English shores and have enmeshed themselves in the odd South Downs mystery or two. No need to worry, Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle is there to sort it all out.

At any rate, unbeknownst to me, the fourth season was released on DVD in mid July. I don’t really have the $50 to drop on it right now, but I bally well want to.

I finished the fifth season of Gilmore Girls and all four series (seasons) of Black Adder. I am thinking about working through Angel, I probably won’t.

Rory’s first time was with Dean? After he was married? Weird. I’m glad she was in college when it happened. The puritanical part of me should wish she waited longer (at least for a single guy), but I am glad it was Dean. Imagine if it were Jess. Or Logan! Actually, Lane would have been pretty cool.

I came home from work in time to see the last third of Bones tonight. I was shocked to see Stephen Fry playing a psychologist or something. Fry was the long-time comedy partner of the English star of another Fox show. He and Hugh Laurie were in shows like Jeeves and Wooster and Black Adder together. I loved them both in Jeeves and Wooster. Fry’s delivery and expressions as the genius valet were really quite good. If any of you who know me want to borrow a Jeeves and Wooster sometime, feel free.

Incidentally, Many of you have heard Fry as the narrator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy or seen him in V for Vendetta or Gosford Park.

This was a good Halloween. I watched four Buffy episodes: “Halloween,” “Hush,” “Fear Itself,” and “Once More, With Feeling.” Also, I think I got my youngest brother hooked on the Slayer. The fact that Joss (”the guy who did Firefly“) did it seems to have helped a lot. Its weird to think of it that way.

The first episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was classic Sorkin. I look forward to the next one. It didn’t seem to have the fast-as-lightening dialogue, but hopefully that will pick up in future episodes.

Boston Legal was good, too. Those two will probably round-out my commitment to television this season.

Some years ago, AMC (American Movie Classics, became a worthless cable network. For example, the offering is the Arnold Schwarzenegger-Danny DeVito stinker Twins, which will be interrupted with commercials like all their other movies. It wasn’t always this way. AMC used to show classic american movies, hence the name. They were unedited, uncut, and uninterrupted. They didn’t need to be edited because they showed movies that were clean in their original form. In the old days, circa 1992, Bob Dorian hosted a show called Movie Palace Memories. He would broadcast from a different beautifully restored movie palace every week. There would be a couple of old movies, shorts, newsreels, and the precursors to music videos. between these, Dorian would tell you interesting facts about the movie coming up, its cast or crew, or the theatre he was standing in. The network only showed old stuff: Key Largo, The Thin Man, The Road Movies (e.g., The Road to Morocco, Anything Goes, etc.

The fact that I lost a station that played things I wanted to see disappointed me, but isn’t actually the thing that bothers me. That station exposed me to a lot of things I would never have seen otherwise. Earlier today, “You Always Hurt the One You Love,” a Mills Brothers Song, randomly played on my iPod. I wouldn’t know who they were if not for AMC. I saw their “video” for “You Always Hurt the One You Love” on Movie Palace Memories and realized, “hey this is pretty good.” Lazy kids don’t have that sort of exposure anymore.

Before getting to the meat of this post, let me explain your recent respite from the drivel that often sits below the pretty lady on this page (if there is no pretty lady, don’t worry about it: just know she’s a Pre-Raphaelite beauty). I have been busier than usual at work, where major renovation has been underway. The busy patch is almost over. This week alone we have three evidentiary hearings, one of them major-ish; one argument; and two pre-trials. There being five days in a court-week, you can see we have multiple events on at least one day. In fact, we have two events on two days. The worst part is that the three most difficult and labor intensive events are on those two days, and those two days are back to back. I will participate in anywhere from two to four of the six, but I have already helped prepare each, to varying degrees.

The meat of this post isn’t steak. Not even cheap steak. It’s more like beef jerky. Or even beef stick. But not individual servings. Its a variety-pack post.

I have attempted to keep some sanity. Sunday, I bought shoes and a ceiling fan (I certainly don’t shop thematically. Yesterday seemed like a good time to install the fan. After 7th Heaven was over, of course. It was a good one, too. Anyway, 8:00 rolls around, and I knew it was getting dark. I didn’t let that get in my way. I should have. The thing about darkness is you don’t see well. I mistook a light blue wire for green wire. Blue means “hot” like black does; green means ground. I thought I was connecting a ground wire to a ground wire. What I actually did was destroy the wall switch. But that didn’t happen until the end of the project. With the fuse still out of the fuse box, I completely assembled the fan. When I put the fuse back in, “pop.” Think light bulb, but louder. I thought it was the fuse, but when I looked upstairs, things still worked. The fan didn’t, though. I thought the fan motor or something fried. So I took the whole thing back apart. Then I went to bed feeling angry, bitter, and inadequate.

Was the fan fried? Nope. My step-dad figured out it was the switch. So I bought a new switch. We had to troubleshoot a few different issues, but eventually we got everything working. Except that the new switch is faulty and has to go back. Ugh.

I am also working on the lengthy task of typing my notes from Knife of Dreams, the 11th book in the Wheel of Time series. Yes, I really just said that. And yes, I realize that means “too much time on my hands.” During 7th Heaven, I was typing a note from Chapter III that said, “Mesaana and Aran’gar are working on ‘the plan.’” The first thing that popped into my head was 10 Things I Hate About You. I laughed. You should have been there.

I discovered something awesome. Mott’s Granny Smith Applesauce. I don’t know if they have jars of it, but they do have single-serving containers. I tried one yesterday at work. My boss and the real estate paralegal were standing talking about some office renovation thing, and I suddenly let out a loud “mmmm.” They both turned and asked if I was alright. I explained that the applesauce was really, really good. Even better than expected. They weren’t impressed. I don’t care. It was damned good applesauce.

One of our clients fired us this week. It was the result of a phone call I had with him. I still don’t know exactly what went wrong. I think it’s my fault, but I’m not sure. Anyway, if you read this far, you now know where the title of this post came from. Except for Chris, who skips to the end, so has discovered the secret without reading the rest.

Trivia question for Brad: What is the significance of being within 100 miles of the Dirksen Federal Building?

Last night at the concert, as well as on his iTunes Originals set, Ben Folds stated that the song Jesusland is not political. It’s not a political statement. He’s not being political. He’s not totally right, but I believe he thinks he is. The song takes Jesus on a walk from the inner city to the suburbs. He sees the rich-poor divide, riverboat gambling, the clash of church and materialism, and a place where people use his name but “don’t know his face.” I don’t know if Folds means that his song isn’t directed at the “religious right,” but at every christian, and is therefore not political, or if he means that it doesn’t advocate any particular policy position, and is therefore not political. Either way, I think he’s right in the strictest sense because of the latter, but his song has direct and obvious implications on how policy questions should be decided, and is in that way political.

The concept of religion and politics interacting is manifestly important in contemporary policy making. John Kerry, in a recent speech, made some weird point about universality, then honed in on Christianity. He said he’s read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, and sees nothing in it about taking medicare and medicaid from children. This is a typical example of a Democrat not getting it. The first problem is this idea that Democrats walked out of the 2004 election with. They saw a poll number about religion being important to people’s choices in that election. That was a quick reaction before the numbers were actually looked at. It turned out that the more important issues had been broken down into small pieces. I want to say that less than 20% voted on religion/morals.

The Democratic reaction was to try to frame every one of their issues as a religious or moral issue. Cutting medicare is wrong. God loves trees. Guns are Satan’s ID cards. They are missing the point. Opposition to abortion is not a Republican construct designed to garner votes.

The Catholic Church does not get on all that well with the Republican Party, but a majority of Catholics voted Republican (and that is definitely not normal) because the President did a good job of playing to the existing Catholic positions on abortion, euthanasia, and homosexuality. Ironically, I think Catholics on some level voted for Bush because of an native discomfort with extremist religious beliefs. I say ironically because, while they were voting for someone to stand strong against wacky Muslims, they were voting alongside wacky Christians.

Racy television is another issue that Republicans have been able to get morality votes on. While there are members of both parties who want the FCC to keep naughty content off the public airwaves, the current administration is the first in years to actually do anything about it. I happen to think that is a shame, but the point holds. Doing something beats talking about something.

Two issues that are clearly existing religious/moral issues and traditionally aligned with the Democrats are poverty and the death penalty. There are significant problems with using these issues. One is that people don’t want to give up their stuff to make poor people not poor. Another problem Dems have with poverty issues is that their solutions have generally created more poor people. The problem Democrats have with the death penalty is that Americans like their executions. People get nostalgic about the days when the lights would flicker at 12:01 as the switch was thown for the chair.