I don’t pretend to have good taste. I have standards, but these can seem arbitrarily-determined to outsiders. Basically, I like what I like, and it isn’t more or less complicated than that.
When I am sick, my standards for what I will watch on TV get very low. I am too embarrassed to tell the internet everything I watched on Sunday, but I do want to talk about this movie that I watched on LOGO. It’s called Prey For Rock & Roll, and it is bad in precisely the way I love when I am sick.
For one thing, there were only actors I recognized from other things so I didn’t have to bother to learn new faces. There was Gina Gershon (from Bound, duh!). There was Drea de Matteo (whom we shall pretend I remember from The Sopranos rather than from Joey). There was Marc Blucas (who played Riley on BtVS). There was Shelley Cole (who went to high school with Rory Gilmore) and there was Lori Petty (who was Kit in A League of Their Own).
Secondly, the movie is basically about fucked up people who stop just short of being irredeemable, and these particular fucked up people happened to be in a rock band. Movies about wannabe rock stars are generally dumb, and while this movie is really no exception, it slides by my standards because a) the wannabes in question are all women (including a couple lesbians!) and b) the songs are epically awful. Seriously, you cannot imagine how terrible these songs are. There is one about rape that goes something like “Every six minutes, a woman says no/ And every six minutes, she is ignored.” But, really, you have to hear Gina Gershon sing it.
See what I mean? Is it possible that rape is not an appropriate subject matter for songs?
Despite the over-the-top drama, the preciously tragic plot points, and Gershon’s narration, I liked Prey for Rock & Roll. Maybe I’m a sucker for a chick flick, as long as the flick is about the chicks and not just marketed to them. It helps a lot that the actors are so likable, particularly Gina Gershon and Drea de Matteo. Both of these women play convincing badasses in that way that keeps your eyes glued to the screen. That the plot doesn’t require very much intellectual investment makes this the perfect movie to watch when you’ve got a cold on a chilly November Sunday afternoon.
I have a cold, and the single thing I hate most about being sick is all the time I am forced to spend inside my own head. You’ll recall that I have addressed this issue before.
I am increasingly fearful of the wall coming down. By “wall,” I of course mean the imaginary structure that separates my regular, everyday thoughts from the scary ones in the depths of my mind—not scary in a “clowns singing Rascal Flatts songs” kind of way but scary in a “what if it were always 1:03?” kind of way.
You see, the cable box in the bedroom usually displays the time but last week, it started displaying the channel instead. I tried to reset it, but although the menu claimed the box was displaying the time, it was still displaying the channel.
During the hours between Friday and Saturday, each time that I woke up in the middle of the night, I spent a couple of minutes thinking it was 1:03 because the cable box said 103. (Yes, those of you who have Verizon FIOS TV in my area have likely already noticed that my TV is permentantly on MSNBC.) Then, when I realized the cable box was playing a trick on me, I would contemplate a world where it is always 1:03.
At first, it seemed like a cool idea. If it is always 1:03 a.m. (because in the middle of the night, a.m. is more logical an assumption than p.m.), I don’t have anywhere to be. It isn’t so late (or early, depending on your perspective) that I am too tired to do anything. I could watch a movie or read a novel (oh, how I longed to be reading a novel when I was reading theory and grading research papers this weekend!) or I could just stand by the window and look outside. When it is warm, I like to sit by an open window in the middle of the night and watch the neighborhood, especially if it is raining.
But I followed the 1:03-all-the-time idea too far and it lost its luster. If it is always 1:03 a.m., it’s never time to watch The Rachel Maddow Show, Coney Island and the Dash-In are always closed, and it’s always dark. I like the dark but I’m sure it would lose some of its appeal if I had nothing to compare it to.
Despite its obvious pros, my official answer to that eternal question “Should it be 1:03 all the time?” is no.
Oh, and the cable box issue has been resolved. It is back to displaying the actual time.
In lieu of a proper blog post, here is Rachel Maddow’s appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show Friday night. She was her usual charming self, organically moving from casual vernacular to geeky intellectualism.
If you’ve known me for any length of time, you know that lesbians and soaps are two of my favorite things, so you can imagine how I feel about Bianca Montgomery on All My Children. AMC’s decision to make Erica Kane’s daughter gay was groundbreaking. When Bianca came out, I was shocked in the best possible way. I’ve already covered this ground so I won’t go over it again. I’m anxious to get to the present.
When I heard that Tamara Braun had been cast as Bianca’s new girlfriend, I was skeptical. On General Hospital, she was not my favorite Carly, but my initial reaction was the superficial, “She doesn’t look like a lesbian.” I know, I know. By that logic, neither does Bianca. It’s just that at this point I am used to Bianca being a lesbian. It will take some convincing for me to buy Tamara Braun as gay.
She is actually much skinnier than she appears in this photo.
Of course, I began DVRing AMC. I had to see for myself what kind of lesbian Carly No. 2 would make. It took approximately 2.5 episodes for them to reel me in.
Soaps are, for me, about characters and chemistry. Most of the Bianca/Reese relationship took place off camera, in Paris, while Eden Riegel was taking a break from the show. It doesn’t seem to me like Bianca has been gone long enough to meet someone new and forge this uber-serious relationship, but you know how soaps can be. I doubt that AMC even realizes it is perpetuating the lesbian U-haul stereotype here. The problem with this kind of instant relationship is that I am used to watching my soap characters fall in love. I like to observe the chemistry as it develops (or let’s be honest, often doesn’t develop) between characters. Therefore, I can’t assess the Bianca/Reese pairing just yet. I need more time.
What I can assess right now is the kissing. Hello, did you see all the kissing in that clip? If the only lesbian TV you watch is The L Word, you may not have noticed anything out of the ordinary, but like I said earlier, I have been with Bianca from the beginning. That was the most action she has gotten in a single episode ever. There was so much kissing that I almost lost count. (There were four separate instances of kissing. I said “almost.”)
I’m not over-the-moon about Bianca and Reese’s other physical interactions, though. When they hug, it feels weird, like when straight girls hug with their arms all up on each other’s shoulders. I don’t know if this is because Eden and Tamara just started working together and haven’t gotten comfortable yet, but it may very well be as simple as that. (Plus, Tamara is so skinny that I can imagine hugging her under any circumstances would be awkward.)
The thing is, I didn’t have high expectations when I put AMC on my DVR so I could follow this Bianca-and-Reese thing. I have been disappointed by the soaps too many times to muster up any real hope anymore, and besides, there is simply no precedent for lesbian storylines on daytime. I hate to eat scraps when I know what dinner could taste like, but that is exactly what I am willing to do at this point when it comes to lesbian representation on the soaps.
P.S. Bianca and Reese had sex today, but as usual, Sarah Warn examines it better than I could.
When I was telling my mom about the transformative experience of seeing Amy Ray live, she referred to me as a groupie. I proudly accepted that label, and I’d like to adopt it now for MSNBC as well.
We had some people over for dinner the Saturday before the election, and as we found ourselves inevitably talking about the election, I realized that every other word out of my mouth was “MSNBC” or “Rachel Maddow.” Seriously, that network should be paying me. I’ll shill for Rachel Maddow pro bono, but MSNBC can spare some coin for a tired graduate student making T.A. wages.
My love for MSNBC has evolved (or perhaps devolved) into infatuation. I realized this week that I would be more excited to meet Rachel Maddow than to meet Barack Obama. When I recall this election in the years to come, it will be Rachel Maddow’s face that I see in my head. She made the campaign not just palpable but interesting.
Now that the election is over, my love has not subsided. I still watch The Rachel Maddow Show every night, and I still find it to be one of the best things on television—rivaled only by 30 Rock. (On a side note, how delighted am I that Madeline will grow up in a world where Rachel Maddow and Tina Fey are on TV and Barack Obama is in the White House?)
Also, I am completely hooked on Rachel’s Twitter. I can’t describe the joy her Tweets bring me.
I’m not the only one who has noticed the awesomeness that is Rachel Maddow. Everytime I turn around, some other magazine is doing a feature on her. This New York Magazine article is my favorite so far. It is five pages, which means in-depth conversation that goes beyond the “she’s a Rhodes scholar” stuff we’ve already read a hundred times. Also, the reporter spoke to her partner Susan Mikula, who may just be the luckiest woman on Earth. If you aren’t going to be silly and not follow the link, here is a photo from the article:
It’s perfect, isn’t it? With the glasses and the smiling and the looking-down like she is reading? I have moments where I can’t believe she is real.
I don’t know why Brooke Smith was fired. I’ve read a lot of explanations and rumors (the best take on the issue comes not surprisingly from AfterEllen’s Sarah Warn*), but the real reason doesn’t matter to me at this point. It seems clear that her firing had nothing to do with her job performance. It is too late for you to consider my opinion, but I’ll give it anyway. I loved Dr. Erica Hahn. She was my favorite type of TV character: strong, somewhat emotionally-stunted, extremely good at her job, and equipped with a biting kind of wit and self-deprecating humor. You don’t know me, but my inability to refer to Dr. Hahn as “Erica” is indicative of how much I dig the character.
I started watching Grey’s Anatomy at the beginning of the show’s run, back when it was on Sunday nights after Desperate Housewives, which I stopped watching after the second season. I stuck with Grey’s for a couple reasons. First, I thought it was funny. Funny goes far with me. Second, I am a TV enthusiast. I kind of study it. Grey’s was very popular from the very start and I wanted to be in the know. Third, I liked that the cast was mostly newcomers, although I had seen Isaiah Washington on Soul Food (we’ll get to him in a moment) and I had heard of Patrick Dempsey. Finally, when Kate Walsh showed up, I was hooked. I love me some Kate Walsh. Nothing seals the deal like a pretty woman.
When Isaiah Washington got fired, I was proud. Behind-the-scenes crap can ruin a show for me. No matter how much I love Remington Steele, I can’t watch it without thinking about how much Pierce Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist disliked each other. Washington’s behavior created an uncomfortable work environment, and he lost his job because of the way he treated T.R. Knight, who is by all accounts the most adorable person on the planet. I liked that you chose people over money there. Storywise, Burke just disappearing was stupid, but I understood that Washington needed to be gone from the show so I let it go. At this point, I respected Grey’s Anatomy.
When Kate Walsh left Grey’s, my interest in the show started to wane. I continued to watch it because of my generic interest in TV and out of habit, and then Callica drew me back in. When I Callie and Dr. Hahn started to become friends, it made perfect sense to me because they are both the (perhaps only) people at Seattle Grace that I would want to be friends with. Addison returned briefly to verbally connect the dots we had all started to see forming, and then—holy cow!—there were women kissing women on Grey’s Anatomy!
Well, that was incredibly fun while it lasted. Seriously, it was the most fun I’ve had watching this show.
Now I’m finished watching Grey’s Anatomy. This isn’t a boycott. I’m not pretending that my not watching the show will affect your bottom line. I’m just done. That is all.
P.S. So far, I love what you’re doing with Bianca on All My Children. Lucky for Tamara Braun and Eden Riegel, they both are young and skinny…
*I seriously recommend that you follow the link. Sarah Warn is always worth reading, but this time she is especially insightful. Perhaps more importantly, she quotes and links to other insightful women.
I went to a free yoga day on Saturday. While the hippiness of yoga has always appealed to me, the exercise aspect has not. I am not a person who moves when she doesn’t have to. Sachen and I have that in common.
I know a lot of yoga people (and I think Alice on The L Word went to yoga once) so I knew basically what to expect when I went to yoga on Saturday. It was a quiet affair and the atmosphere was decidedly non-aerobic, which was refreshing. I sat on a mat and did various stretches for various amounts of time, none of which were too long. That’s the thing I always hated about phys ed. The running and the stretching and the ball-playing just went on too long. Yoga was not like that.
When it was over, I felt good. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about my physical well-being, but I definitely noticed a difference when I left yoga. It wasn’t just physical, though. There was a mental calmness that I’m not used to, especially lately. For an entire hour on Saturday morning, I was awake—really awake—and not thinking about anything. A blank mind is a wondrous thing.
For awhile now, I’ve been struggling with Ava’s personality because I want it to be clear and understandable what Hillary is attracted to. I think yoga might be the key. I’m still working it out, but it’s something about inner calm and mind/body connection. If she spends an hour every day, or even just a couple times a week, engaged in the kind of concentrated focus on the way the body responds to movement that yoga entails, she is going to radiate an energy (to use one of yoga’s buzzwords) that is foreign to Hillary. Hillary’s mind doesn’t stop. I understand Hillary. I’m not like Hillary, although I am more like Hillary than I am like Ava, and I can understand her because I’ve with her longer. Hillary is my way into the story; Ava is what I see when I get there.
I think I will probably go back to yoga—if not for myself, then for Hillary and Ava, but probably for myself. The truth is that if I didn’t want to be more like Ava, I would not have chosen Ava for Hillary.
In 1994, my aunt Nancy and my mom took me to see Billy Joel in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena (RIP). I was already a fan, but seeing him live pretty much cemented it for me. For years after that show, every time I went to a concert, I was disappointed that Billy Joel wasn’t there.
I saw some good people. I’m not about to sit here and tell you that Ben Harper was disappointing. Ben Harper was awesome, but we just didn’t have the connection that Billy Joel and I have. For one thing, I have been a Billy Joel fan for more than fifteen years. I spent my formative years listening to Billy Joel. When my friends were listening to Nirvana, Dave Matthews, Madonna, and whatever pop star-of-the-minute was getting radio play, I was all Billy Joel all the time. My CD (remember those?) collection from high school is sparse, to say the least. I had (and still have) every Billy Joel album every released, but other than that, a few cringe-worthy Celine Dion albums, some downright humiliating Shania Twain ones, and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (which I’ve decided not to be embarrassed about) pretty much rounded out my collection.
When I went to college, I went from a dial-up internet connection at home to an ethernet connection at IU, and there began my mp3 revolution. All the Elton John I could ever want! So you see that I was always a big dork.
It was while I was at IU that I saw Ben Harper in Indy with some of my DMB friends. I had been peripherally aware of Ben Harper, but I wasn’t a huge fan. I was impressed with him, but my mind kept recalling that time I saw Billy Joel in 1994.
The same thing happened when I saw Martina McBride (all four times, but not as much the third time) and Rob Thomas. I was absolutely thrilled and excited to see both of these people, and they both sound very good live. Martina McBride’s voice is amazing, and when I saw her live, it was doubly amazing. Rob Thomas’s appeal seems to be debatable. I didn’t realize that he wasn’t universally recognized as awesome until my sister’s boyfriend spoke out against him. I also noticed recently that Matchbox Twenty is the subject of some mocking on Gilmore Girls, but I have always liked Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty. My sister and I saw him solo at the Embassy right here in the Fort, and it was excellent.
Still, though, I missed Billy Joel. There is something indescribable in my relationship with Billy Joel. There is magic that cannot be replicated.
Or so I thought.
Enter the Indigo Girls.
I have never felt this way about music, but my thing for the Indigo Girls has gone beyond music. My Billy Joel fanship is rooted in childhood and so I love him in a way that can’t be compared to the way I feel about the Indigo Girls. I have an adult relationship with the Indigo Girls. (Does that sound dirty? No? Not even a little? Darn.) When I saw the Indigo Girls live for the first time, I did not miss Billy Joel. The whole experience was just too different from a Billy Joel concert for me to even think of him.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a little guilty. I use this blog frequently (and perhaps obsessively) to discuss and adore the Indigo Girls. If I had had a blog when I was fourteen, it would have been all about Billy Joel (and Mountain Dew—I used to be really excited about Mountain Dew), but I have the blog now. One of the things I like best about the blog is that it is a representation of what I was thinking about at different points of the past (almost) three years. Rereading old entries helps me remember how I felt when I first started listening to the Indigo Girls or when I first saw The L Word. So, yes, sometimes the recollecting is accompanied by eye-rolling.
My guilt over ignoring Billy Joel sometimes tricks me into wondering what I like better: Billy Joel or the Indigo Girls. Of course, it doesn’t matter and I couldn’t choose even if it did matter. Billy Joel has been with me since I was a kid—and I don’t mean “kid” the way that 50-year-olds refer to their 20s. I mean “kid” as in a person who is ten years old. It’s almost has if my sense of who I am formed around Billy Joel songs, and to reject him or replace him now would mean changing a fundamental part of my identity. Since identity is ever-evolving, the Indigo Girls have contributed as well. I am just now realizing how much Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have affected the way I write. I’ve largely put my novel on hold until I figure out what is going on with my voice. I feel like I’m on the edge of a transformation and I’m close to a new way of accessing my ideas.
It isn’t a contest between the Indigo Girls and Billy Joel, but if it were, it would be a draw. I need them both too much to choose.
