all my friends are from mark west
this is another one of those posts where i'm like "aaaaah so much has happened since last we spoke!" except that it's mostly just "baseball. beer. baseball. concerts. cross-country flight. baseball. football. BASEBALL." let's go to the tape:
! JOSH BECKETT. (see icon)
@ seriously, you guys, let me show you the red sox. the red sox. let me show you them. they treated the ALDS like a collect-all-three happy meal kid's toy promo (the pitching gem! the towering walk-off homerun! the offensive stomping!) and it was spectacular, even though i had to listen to the entire second game on an airplane and learn the outcome of the third game via text message.
# the above-mentioned cross country flight brought me to my parents' house, where i will be hanging out for a week, wearing a mismatched assortment of poor clothing choices, which is what happens when you at one o'clock the morning you're supposed to leave because you were out all night at a concert. the concert in question was patrick wolf, which was gay, glitter, violin solos, gay, demin cut-offs, gaaaaaay. however, i bought tickets to so many shows this fall that i almost forgot patrick wolf was coming up. for the record, please don't let me forget, still on my dance card:10/18 -- tori amos
10/19 -- stars
10/22 -- the hold steady
11/9 -- fall out boy + gym class heroes
$my parents picked me up at the airport at 10:30 on friday night, and my father promptly informed me that even thought we probably wouldn't get to their house until midnight, we had to watch friday night lights before we went to bed. oh, my father. sometimes it physically pains me that i can't tell him about fandom. i was very lukewarm about the actual episode, for most of the reasons other people have mentioned, blah blah blah tyra and landry kill the would-be rapist = WORST STORYLINE EVER ZOMG. i honestly think that i'm going to have to dvr this show and fast-forward through every scene with tyra and landry until someone can confirm for me that this storyline has been put to bed, that's how painful i find it. this shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice because i didn't ship angela chase and brian krackow the first time around, but i digress. anyway, i tentatively chalk the mediocre episode up to too much table setting/catching up and a hijacking by the WORST PLOT DEVELOPMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD OF TELEVISION, and will hope for a better episode this week.
% i also eventually watched the office: i meant to post more about the premiere of the office last week, and what i was going to say was that i had faith in the show runners to do right by the jim/pam relationship, and that the inevitable need to give the relationship a new conflict might be staved off by waiting as much as 1/3 of the season to reveal the relationship to the rest of the co-workers, just like they waited close to 1/3 of the season to bring jim back from stamford last year.
well, hahah, there goes that plan! and as much as i'm conditioned to expect hat getting together the unrequited couple ruins both the relationship and the show, i am really enjoying relationship!jim&pam, who, so far, are just like season two jim and pam except without the painful tension hanging over their every adorable interaction. and this week's episode reminded me of another reason why this could work: due to the tight narrative POV of the show, we're not going to see jim and pam outside of the office ensemble setting, which means we should avoid some of the more cliched new couple on a sitcom plots: the i-don't-like-your-friends episode, the meet-the-parents episode, the return-of-an-old-flame episode, the i-hate-your-apartment episode, etcetera. and if we do see those things, they'll only subplots to ensemble episodes.
(my model for the season four jim/pam relationship would be late season two alias sydney/vaughn. they got together, it was awesome, but then they just kept working together and the relationship didn't take over the show in an over-saturating or over-dooming way. of course, that ended in one of the more irritating break-up contrivances ever (vaughn thinks sydney is dead, marries lauren), but, uh, it was nice while it lasted?)
either way, i'm really enjoying that the relationship has furthered pam down the path of happiness and confidence that people talked about so much last season. and it's subtle, but i loved the part where she wouldn't let michael hug her instead of just hugging him and cringing, and the part where she said "yeah, he is" to kelly in the i-feel-so-sorry-for-you voice. and, of course, the logos! i'm definitely enjoying this reinvention of pam.
^ i still haven't watched supernatural or stargate atlantis, and due to the revelry associated item number one on this list, i passed out drunk about ten minutes into the top chef finale, so i should probably look into that as well. due to october baseball, i'm having a hard time committing to the television season, but i should probably make the effort, because eventually (hopefully not until the veeeeeeery end of this month) baseball will end, and i'll need something to keep me warm all winter.
& on the other hand, football! i usually visit my parents once in the late spring/early summer and once at christmas, so this was probably the first time i've been here in the fall in four or five years, and so i was able return to my julie taylor roots and go see my father coach a pop warner game. i'd forgotten all my favorite parts of pop warner football: towering 10 yard punts! the passing game being so unlikely that when the other team does try to throw the ball, the coaches yell "PASS!" to warn their defense! but, my father's team demolished their division rivals, and they are the most bad-ass ten-year-olds around. my father's actually a really bad-ass pop warner coach. he coached this kid when he was nine years old; i'm hopeful that he somehow manages to become a huge NFL star so a reporter will want to interview my father about the kid's formative years.
* i also went with my family to see a 49ers game and they did ... not play as well the pop warner team. however, please review the timeline from the 49ers game i saw with my parents at christmas except start the clock at 9:30 in the morning and add two hours of tailgating (!!) and a lot of deviled eggs, and you can see how i managed to power through, and pass out at nine-thirty last night.
+ JOSH MOTHERFUCKING BECKETT.
! JOSH BECKETT. (see icon)
@ seriously, you guys, let me show you the red sox. the red sox. let me show you them. they treated the ALDS like a collect-all-three happy meal kid's toy promo (the pitching gem! the towering walk-off homerun! the offensive stomping!) and it was spectacular, even though i had to listen to the entire second game on an airplane and learn the outcome of the third game via text message.
# the above-mentioned cross country flight brought me to my parents' house, where i will be hanging out for a week, wearing a mismatched assortment of poor clothing choices, which is what happens when you at one o'clock the morning you're supposed to leave because you were out all night at a concert. the concert in question was patrick wolf, which was gay, glitter, violin solos, gay, demin cut-offs, gaaaaaay. however, i bought tickets to so many shows this fall that i almost forgot patrick wolf was coming up. for the record, please don't let me forget, still on my dance card:10/18 -- tori amos
10/19 -- stars
10/22 -- the hold steady
11/9 -- fall out boy + gym class heroes
$my parents picked me up at the airport at 10:30 on friday night, and my father promptly informed me that even thought we probably wouldn't get to their house until midnight, we had to watch friday night lights before we went to bed. oh, my father. sometimes it physically pains me that i can't tell him about fandom. i was very lukewarm about the actual episode, for most of the reasons other people have mentioned, blah blah blah tyra and landry kill the would-be rapist = WORST STORYLINE EVER ZOMG. i honestly think that i'm going to have to dvr this show and fast-forward through every scene with tyra and landry until someone can confirm for me that this storyline has been put to bed, that's how painful i find it. this shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice because i didn't ship angela chase and brian krackow the first time around, but i digress. anyway, i tentatively chalk the mediocre episode up to too much table setting/catching up and a hijacking by the WORST PLOT DEVELOPMENT IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD OF TELEVISION, and will hope for a better episode this week.
% i also eventually watched the office: i meant to post more about the premiere of the office last week, and what i was going to say was that i had faith in the show runners to do right by the jim/pam relationship, and that the inevitable need to give the relationship a new conflict might be staved off by waiting as much as 1/3 of the season to reveal the relationship to the rest of the co-workers, just like they waited close to 1/3 of the season to bring jim back from stamford last year.
well, hahah, there goes that plan! and as much as i'm conditioned to expect hat getting together the unrequited couple ruins both the relationship and the show, i am really enjoying relationship!jim&pam, who, so far, are just like season two jim and pam except without the painful tension hanging over their every adorable interaction. and this week's episode reminded me of another reason why this could work: due to the tight narrative POV of the show, we're not going to see jim and pam outside of the office ensemble setting, which means we should avoid some of the more cliched new couple on a sitcom plots: the i-don't-like-your-friends episode, the meet-the-parents episode, the return-of-an-old-flame episode, the i-hate-your-apartment episode, etcetera. and if we do see those things, they'll only subplots to ensemble episodes.
(my model for the season four jim/pam relationship would be late season two alias sydney/vaughn. they got together, it was awesome, but then they just kept working together and the relationship didn't take over the show in an over-saturating or over-dooming way. of course, that ended in one of the more irritating break-up contrivances ever (vaughn thinks sydney is dead, marries lauren), but, uh, it was nice while it lasted?)
either way, i'm really enjoying that the relationship has furthered pam down the path of happiness and confidence that people talked about so much last season. and it's subtle, but i loved the part where she wouldn't let michael hug her instead of just hugging him and cringing, and the part where she said "yeah, he is" to kelly in the i-feel-so-sorry-for-you voice. and, of course, the logos! i'm definitely enjoying this reinvention of pam.
^ i still haven't watched supernatural or stargate atlantis, and due to the revelry associated item number one on this list, i passed out drunk about ten minutes into the top chef finale, so i should probably look into that as well. due to october baseball, i'm having a hard time committing to the television season, but i should probably make the effort, because eventually (hopefully not until the veeeeeeery end of this month) baseball will end, and i'll need something to keep me warm all winter.
& on the other hand, football! i usually visit my parents once in the late spring/early summer and once at christmas, so this was probably the first time i've been here in the fall in four or five years, and so i was able return to my julie taylor roots and go see my father coach a pop warner game. i'd forgotten all my favorite parts of pop warner football: towering 10 yard punts! the passing game being so unlikely that when the other team does try to throw the ball, the coaches yell "PASS!" to warn their defense! but, my father's team demolished their division rivals, and they are the most bad-ass ten-year-olds around. my father's actually a really bad-ass pop warner coach. he coached this kid when he was nine years old; i'm hopeful that he somehow manages to become a huge NFL star so a reporter will want to interview my father about the kid's formative years.
* i also went with my family to see a 49ers game and they did ... not play as well the pop warner team. however, please review the timeline from the 49ers game i saw with my parents at christmas except start the clock at 9:30 in the morning and add two hours of tailgating (!!) and a lot of deviled eggs, and you can see how i managed to power through, and pass out at nine-thirty last night.
+ JOSH MOTHERFUCKING BECKETT.