The Sopranos

I would like everyone to watch this show. I know not everyone is able to handle its violence, sex, language, darkness, brutality, passion, rawness, and food plethora, but I wish everyone could, because this show is a masterpiece.

(Heather, I’ve thought about it. This show may or may not be for you, but I don’t think you’ll be for it.)

I decided to make this post as spoiler-free as possible, but that elso means it’s going to be rather any-details-at-all-free. And rather shorter than usual.

If for no other reason, watch this show for:

“Irregular Around the Margins” – In the circles I grew up in, ‘riding alone in a car with a man’ is a phrase which was always spoken a few octaves lower than the sentences surrounding it. It didn’t mean having sex, or going parking in shady areas, it literally meant nothing other than two people of the same gender sharing a motorized vehicle, which could remain in motion the entire time it was jointly occupied; it was still bad, very bad. This episode took something I saw as a Big Deal for only ‘those circles,’ and made it a life-altering event. Adrianna’s line, ”If it were Christopher, alone with a woman, I would have killed him” is perfect, and perfectly delivered. You could devote an entire class in psychology to that scene.

Tony Soprano. – Appalling, revolting, impossible, disgusting, immoral. Appealing,  riveting,  incredible, disturbing, loyal.

The Food. – I’ve had 3 people ask me if this is an accurate representation of how I grew up. Yes, oh yes. The uber-supply of cooked food and various building ingredients in the house at all times. The plethora of pasta. The fact when multiple branches of the family get together, each family brings enough to feed everyone there, and yet all the food is gone by the end. The echoes of ‘eat eat eat’ (mangia mangia mangia!). The association of food and love (ie, if I offer you food it means I love you; if I don’t, I’m mad at you; and if you don’t eat, it’s an expression of hatred that shall haunt me forever). The cannoli and capicola, and lasagne and salami, the multiple pronunciations thereof. The Eating Events complete with singing and wining and dancing. All true, and truly spectacular. Italians do three things better than any other people on the planet. The first thing is cooking/eating.

The second is holding grudges/guilting.

The Thing That Happens in “Kennedy and Heidi.” – I knew, somewhere inside me, that it had to happen. It was perfect, and necessary, and the only possibility. But I didn’t see it coming.

The Production Values. - You haven’t seen many movies put this much time, lighting, concentration of high-caliber acting, diversity of casting, willingness to tackle risky storylines, painstaking attention to detail, tables of food, makeup, facial hair growth, blood, emotion, sweat, and tears into every little scene. You haven’t seen any TV show this willing to commit to a character, then grind him or her into the garbage disposal for sake of the story. You won’t see it again unless you buy the DVD sets.

“Whitecaps.” – I watched this episode only a few weeks after the movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. These two exercises in verbal and psychological warfare between people who love(d) each other stand out as two of the most powerful ever committed to celluloid. “Whitecaps” is absolutely brutal. Earlier in The Sopranos there’s a brief rape scene, and it is not nearly as powerful as this episode.

Carmela Soprano. – Before I saw the series, I saw Edie Falco’s name come up for almost every possible Lead Actress category out there. I thought ‘well, she must be good, but no-one’s THAT good.’ Now, I know Falco deserved every nod she got, and then some. Phenomenal.  The casting directors originally considered Lorraine Bracco for Carmela, and Edie Falco for Dr. Melfi. While I respect the work both these actresses do, and I think either could have handled the different role on some levels, this would have been a drastically different show. Carmela is that rarest of dramatic personae; a perfectly flawed human being, played to flawless perfection.

“Long Term Parking.” - Tony: To the people I love. Nothing else matters.

- Christopher: That’s the guy, Adriana. My Uncle Tony. The guy I’m going to hell for.

That Ending. – Yes. That one.

I’m thankful for books. I would not be where I am today without books. I love movies, I crave movies, I need movies, I want to make movies. But books are who I am.

I’m thankful for pumpkin pie for breakfast.

I’m thankful for friends with whom I can discuss anything. I mean, topics I’d not even voice on this blog, we talk about in depth. Even if some of them can’t make eye contact during said conversation (Hi, Bobby). And those whose tastes I can follow off a cliff.

I’m thankful for people who cook, and people who eat the things cooked.

I’m thankful for new, random, and different experiences. Yesterday, my parents and brother ended up eating Thanksgiving dinner in the back of a craft store with a group of 20 Mormons they’d met 15 minutes before. I mean, I would not have considered this an abnormal occurrence growing up. Run of the mill. I’ve never had a ‘normal’ life, and while I could have passed on some ‘experiences,’ I now have lots of fodder for . . . well, anything. (Speaking of which *ahem* Bethany, you don’t read this, but I’m crazy thankful for you.)

I’m thankful in this time in the world, in this place in my life, I can still afford to do and give things for those I love.

I’m thankful for Drain-o. That’s all.

I appreciate all my appliances, new and new-to-me, which allow me to clean and listen to music and cook and warm and humidify and preserve food and light my pages and type these words.

I’m grateful for steering wheel covers.

I’m thankful for Judd and Joss, who have given me so, so many beautiful, ugly, vicious, amazing things for these 2 days off work for some tradition started by men in buckled hats. And, relatedly, Linda Cardellini. And Jason Segel. And vampires, and puppets, and vampire puppets.

I’m grateful for honesty.

I’m thankful for those who are thankful for me.

I’m incredibly-oh-so-thankful for and to those who have suffered and enjoyed and red-penned or green-highlighted  my various works through the years. I’m better for it.

I am still discovering the joys of unlimited texting, and the special connection my phone has with the most advantageous person.

I’m thankful for the brutal lessons I’ve learned. Some even in cotton-candy ways, though it didn’t feel like it at the time.

I am thankful for chocolate and coffee.

And those of you who aren’t bothered by cliches.

I’m thankful some filmmakers still use film.

I am thankful for friends who remain so, unbothered by opinions and conventions and differences in everything and disdain from anyone.

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If you feel like dancing, dance with me.

Things That Need to Die

In Defiance of the Support Act (ie concert opening acts)

Another History of Violence

Do You Cry at Bad Movies Too?

Insurance.

in-shur-ən(t)s also in-. Function: noun. Def: A scam with a long pedigree of government complication and interference, made necessary by avarice, stupidity and greed.

I cannot explain to you, without the aid of facial expression and hand gestures,* how frustrated, angry, and downright disgusted I am with the whole system. What was once an unnecessary commodity is not only essential, but about to become a legal obligation? Some senator has the unmitigated gall to say if I just reorganize my spending priorities and put health care above texting, it’ll all be good?

I, a fairly health-conscious, college-educated, single adult, who works with insurance every day, cannot find a suitable emergency plan for under $70 per month. In other words, I am gambling away a premium-expanded-cable-with-HBO-subscription every month on the off-chance I hit my head really really hard,** or discover I have cancer. If either (heaven forbid) happens, I have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars before insurance even considers kicking in.

I worked my butt off (literally) to put myself through college. I’m careful with money. Some may even call me ‘cheap.’ Yet, I can’t afford a second rent for a policy which will pay for me to see the doctor if I contract the flu, or get a prescription if I do see the doctor. If I pay cash for said visit, I’d better work a lot of overtime – which is hard to do when, you know, you’re hacking up a lung. Why? Because the very service I can’t afford has jacked the cost of healthcare sky-high.

God have mercy on those not even as fortunate as I.

Defaulting.

I had a talk with a Defaulter recently. This person gives the moral high ground to anyone who is more conservative than his or her opponent (in this case, the opponent was me).

In other words, ‘You, Melanie, say this activity/movie/viewpoint is right/beautiful/acceptable. Person B says the same activity/movie/viewpoint is perverse. Therefore, you, Melanie, need to revise your standards and ideas, or at the very least not try to make Person B revise his or hers.’

WRONG ANSWER.

First, erring on the side of caution does not necessarily make one more ethical, principled, good, right, just, decent, noble, moral, or anything else.

Second, if Person B has reason/ability to back up his or her statement (as I have reason for mine), why is there anger that I would try to engage  in a conversation to make him or her see my point of view? Is my point of view not as valid? Do not I have the right to challenge his or her conclusions, simply because the other is a ‘lesser evil’ than mine?

I have no problem with Person B personally holding a different standard than I. What I do have a problem with is Person B thinking because his or her conclusion is less ‘liberal’ than mine, I am less moral, or at least less ‘right’ and discerning.

Understand, I’ve been in a similar scenario with a friend defaulting to the more liberal view as being the most acceptable. This is just as bothersome. Simply because one is more ‘free’ does not make one more ‘correct.’

Do not defer to whomever is most uptight, offendable and strict, and assume their position is inherently holier. Do not kowtow to whomever is the most lax, lenient, or liberal, and assume their position is inherently more tenable. Default to someone because his or her position is more logical, or compassionate, or reasoned, or – here’s a thought – simply, actually RIGHT.

Labyrinths.

I’m looking for a Christmas present for my brother on Amazon, where every page has suggestions based on my history of searches (which is especially annoying when I’m searching for things other people want . . . two months from now I will be inundated with my mothers’ taste in movies and home décor) and lists of ‘People who bought This also bought That and That and That!’

Now I’m done. I attempt to locate the ‘sign out’ button. My eyes must pass over all sorts of suggestions shouting my name. Special offers! Deals! Free shipping! Where’s that blasted button?

A) in small, innocuous print
2) nowhere near the heading or main eye-traffic areas
C) not even on the main page.
D) All of the above.

I get it. It’s clever. It’s distracting. It makes sales. It’s not necessarily invasive or immoral. But it is annoying.

Good Hold Music

You’d think the worst thing in digital hold music would be insipid pop tunes occasionally interrupted by an insincere monotone robot reminding you how important your call is.

Nope.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was not my favorite classical piece ever, but I liked it. I first heard it on an old 45. Good times.

In the past year I sat and listened to UnitedHealthcare’s Provider Service line play a tinny version of selected measures over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and I don’t think I will ever, ever be able to listen to it again without wanting to take my phone and beat insurance customer service representative senseless and then use the cord to string up their bodies as a warning to their comrades that I am not to be toyed with!

*smooths down shirt, looks around cautiously*

I’d rather have Katy Perry whining in my ear any day.

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*Well, yes, those gesture too, but really, hand motion in general. Being Italian, I cannot talk without my hands, and the more animated I get, the further away you should stand. Unless, of course, you don’t value your eyes.
** For the sixth time . . .

I attended a harp recital tonight, with some of the best harp-recital-attending company possible.

RA was great. To work that hard, that long, that persistently, to understand and wrestle and conquer . . . HARP.

I don’t fully comprehend. But I fully appreciate. Tonight, my hat is off, my glass is raised.

And my stomach is full of peanut butter dessert. Seriously, it doesn’t get better.

Ross: Hypothetically speaking . . .
Joey: Wait, you just lost me.

The main point of this series of posts (Top Ten TV) has been to point you towards shows you may not have seen. But I honestly can’t imagine anyone in my generation – which I think you all are, gentle readers, or at least I shall flatter you by telling you so – not having seen several scattered episodes of Friends. It’s ubiquitous. So I will leave you with some observations, but don’t feel the need to ’sell’ it hard, or really, at all.

Seinfeld is funny and dead-on with its observations, albeit with surreal situations. Dharma and Greg is kooky. Scrubs examines our real-life-in-our-head fantasies. That 70s Show is wickedly nostalgic. Mad About You is realistic. Caroline in the City is fantastic. The Cosby Show is familiar and comfortable. All in the Family and Married with Children are humor-edged, vitriolic outlets. Golden Girls is innuendo’d. Many of them are us.

Despite its lavish salaries, uber-famous guest stars, and ’special’ episodes, Friends is what we want to be. Ten years down the road, we want to still be close with our best friends of today. We want to be making it in our personal lives, in our relationships, in our jobs, in our weight battles, and in our fantasies, even after we have a few setbacks. We want to know our friends have our backs and always will, and we won’t lose the people we need so badly, who – to be blunt – have no external obligations to us whatsoever, and could make our lives a barren wasteland if they tried or stopped trying altogether. (Incidentally, an attractive aspect of How I Met Your Mother as well. The attraction of various other asspects we shall not go into here and now.)

Friends manages to be popular and light while staying witty and, while it may not deal with issues as complex as some sitcoms, it still touches on a wide enough variety of topics to keep it relevant. It’s also willing to poke fun at and play with the genre – such as Pheobe’s various crossovers with Mad About You’s waitress Ursulla, her twin sister. Any half-hour show lasting that long and still going out on top is doing a lot of things right.

Notable Episodes:“The One Where They All Turn Thirty” – Ah, life. And sitting at old age and reminiscing. I’m headed that way. We all are.
“The One Where Rachel Has A Baby (1 and 2)” – Significant more for the hype than the happenings, it’s not up to the Murphy Brown standard of hullaballoo, but the birthing of a baby is usually a death knell for a sitcom, second only to the characters actually getting their heads on straight and getting together. Here we have both, and yet life goes on.
“The One With The Embryos” – a TV Guide Top 100 episodes pick. Which gender knows the most about the other?
“The One in Vegas (2)” – Hookups, breakups, makeups . . . all in my newest fourth-favorite city in the world.
“The One With the Thanksgiving Flashbacks” – Are they gimmicky? Are they predictable? Are they tear-jerk-y? Then why can I not hate Friends‘ flashback episodes?
“The One With the Prom Video” – With some of our friends, we can only guess what events shapes their psyche. Here we see how Ross and Monica got to be the way they are now . . . 

The last two entries in the TV Top Ten are coming. Really. Soon.

I’ve been a little sidetracked this past week, what with not getting anything productive accomplished and all. Well, that’s not quite true. I started some projects, cleaned and disinfected my house, began another behemoth of a book . . . but the projects are taunting me, the house is once again unkempt and probably serving as a petri dish for all sort of infectious diseases, the bookmark Bethesda receipt is only a few dozen pages into the book, and I’m beat.

So, what did I do? I connected with an old friend who is now coming for a visit (ensuring another weekend of nothing my mother would consider productive being accomplished), I started watching a movie at 2AM, I got three handstamps from three concerts, I and J sat on the couch and watched our next 4 episodes, I made plans, I heard songs in different lights and found one to die to, I talked to a comrade having a rough week in Afghanistan and I was the one who was lifted up, I was able to offer my home and hospitality – food, shelter, comfort, offer of protection and guidance - to  a large number of people, I laid on the floor of my empty apartment and felt alive, I fell in love a little with a complete stranger, I was kissed by a child, I stared at a picture until I lost myself in it, I stared at my computer screen until my words made no sense, I talked with friends  – there should be a much better word for those we love, but who are not lovers - in person and through the wires until all hours until the words made so much sense it hurt, I drank coffee and jack and coke and water and coffee and cider and coffee and orange juice and  rum, I looked life in the eye and laughed, instead of lowering my head against the gales until my face went numb. 

I didn’t get a lot done. But I did life.

Then I opened my heart and poured the red pumping plasma straight onto this page.

As changes the weather, so alter my listening habits. The weather is cold going on icy, meaning more and more I’m driving to work. Also, I’m making what is turning into a weekly jaunt to Madison. Driving means car. Car means CDs.

Not just any CDs. Either a mix CD or an album which is solid throughout, because hitting ’skip’ 8 times, listening to 3 tracks, and then having to fumble with changing the CD is neither safe nor conducive to happiness.

“But, officer, you don’t understand, I heard this song and impulse bought but really the band only has two good songs so I was trying to find a CD which is at least 80% listenable for 1 hour and . . . “

I’m not sure that’d fly.

I first heard Youth Group’s Skeleton Jar in 2006, and Birdlips’s Cardboard Wings this past summer, but they’ve both been strongly featured in my rotation recently, so I thought I’d throw them to your attention.

Skeleton Jar

It’s true the album can be listened straight through without skips, but some of the individual songs can get musically and lyrically repetitive, re: “Shadowland”. Understand that’s part of what the album–Youth Group’s most despondent and also my favorite as a whole–is getting across; life can be mundane, frustrating, and fatefully infuriating.

Most of the songs are done in narrative. The storytelling, whether done in first person or third, is extremely personal as it explores of the rage, sadness, and helplessness vacillated between on a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, or song-to-song basis.

Special Attention To: “Skeleton Jar,” ”Lillian Lies,” . After a few rounds, skip ”Piece of Wood” (though it gets points for its use of the word ’syphilitic’).

Cardboard Wings

I went to see Birdlips sight-unheard, and was impressed with their presence – highly enjoyable show (and an unbeatable $4 cover charge).

When the lyrics are minimalistic and simply enjoyable, the music pushes it over the top. And when the lyrics are not, they, like the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead, are very very good.

Though part of  Cardboard’s attraction is its unpolishedness, this album sampler and the video below give an unfair (read: atrocious) representation of the musical quality, but are worth a test run in case you don’t want to simply buy the album on my recommendation alone.

Which, really, is preposterous.

Special Attention To: “Cardboard Wings,” “When the Last Light Goes Out,” “Some Kind of Death,” ”Giving Up,” “Dream Within a Dream.”*

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*I’m not sure what the unofficial rule is, but I’m going to say as long as I don’t choose more than half of the songs to pay ’special attention to’ I’m ok.

 A. My Buffy post generated more dirty spam than any post heretofore. (So, she brought the wood out?)

2. I realized a few weeks ago (and Achi demonstrated) having something like my blog could be a liability when it came to, say, applying for writing positions. I use this page how many people use sleep; as basically a dumping ground for my brain overflow. It has quite occasionally been, in fact, sleepwritten. The spillage resulting can be – I’d like to think – as profound or absurd as dreams, So, if you’re researching me, happy reading. A few drinks or a bit of sleep deprivation would probably make it all seem much more insightful and interesting.

C. Experimentation is good. When the outcome is unsure, however, one would be best to pursue such things when one does not have to leave the house for work, shopping, or social functions. For instance, a child putting an entire bottle of green food coloring in the bathtub during the school year. In Spring. Or trying a new haircut/color/style right before a big date/play/interview.

Speaking of social functions – if crockodalerock and I go to a concert, and neither of us Twitter it, are we really there?