Dear Blog,
Sorry I haven't written. Between graduation and the subsequent loss of student loan money plus the spiraling out-of-controlness of American society, I've found it difficult to get my thoughts in order. I graduated last weekend, the parents came down and met my friends and Mark--went better than I expected. I'll be leaving the ATX in a few more months to set up shop with honey in west Texas, something I'm deliriously excited about. The times, they are a-changin', but change is good.
Until I have some solid thoughts on anything solid, here what I think of the summer entertainment lineup. First, TV: TV by and large is total crap. Aside from a few worthy shows, it's insulting, especially the commercials (that's a whole 'nother post). Two upcoming shows have at least induced a quizzically raised eyebrow:
90210. Jebus. Has it been 18 years for real? I was 10 when the original aired? From the looks of it, Jennie Garth has fared the best by nailing a 3pm sitcom with the slightly cross-eyed Amanda Bynes, unless you count Shannen Dougherty's Charmed as success. From what I can tell, the only appeal to the show is that it signals a transition tv time between horrendous daytime court and talk shows before the news and primetime come on. The remaining members of Snobbery White High or whatever high school that is can be found on milk cartoons.
Try not to get distracted by the eyebrows or the asymmetrical eyes:
The new onslaught of CW teen "talent" have updated names--Daphne, Dixon, Annie, etc. There seems to be more of a multi-cultural inclusion as well. Before you start judging, keep in mind that I've been home by myself all night with nothing to do. And I'm grumpy, so shut up. What's next, Saved by the Bell: Redux? Melrose the Second Place? I'm all for recycling, but this is ridiculous.
Another show that intrigues me in a sick kind of way is Swingtown, from CBS: "From the director of "Big Love" and "Rome," SWINGTOWN peeks into the shag-carpeted suburban homes of the 1970s to find couples reveling in the sexual and social revolution that introduced open marriages and women's liberation." Here I thought we couldn't get any sluttier. Although I'm attracted to the 70's context (as I'm sick of shows set in nowadays, as nowadays is all janky), I have a bad taste in my mouth watching these commercials, which keep showing up on my five channels of television. It tastes kind of like latex mixed with salt and shame.
Movies I'm looking forward to:
1. Batman--starring the dead and beautifully tragic Heath Ledger. I bet I'll cry.
2. Get Smart--hell yeah. I love Steve Carrell, and I loved watching the original on Nick at Night as a kid, starring Don Adams. Here's a clip of it featuring another of my heroines, the great Carol Burnett:
Decidedly Stinkers:
1. Sex in the City, the Movie--I'm a devoted fan, don't get me wrong. But here's the thing: if she gets married, it's kind of a sell-out as to her character. If she "chooses New York," not a damn person will be surprised. If he runs out on her, I'll just be depressed. I've seen all the seasons many times over, I don't need to spend $8 to see a longer version of an episode.
2. The Strangers--I don't like movies that feature people with bags on their heads.
Boy, it feels good to write again. I'll cut things off there, 2 tv shows, 2 good movies (hopefully), and 2 bad. I'm out of mixer drink so I either need to drink the vodka straight or go to bed. As I am working tomorrow, I imagine the latter is better.
Happy long weekend, hope you don't have to drive anywhere...
6 comments:
TV is like a Dyson vacuum--no loss of suction. Or, briefly, Suck.
A couple thoughts, mostly on Swingtown. The notion of a primetime show dedicated to swingers died quietly with Dallas and Falcon Crest. Swinging caught a quick and brutish death just as disco was trampled by Blondie and Tom Petty. The sweaty, shag-carpet burned idea of fucking your neighbor was replaced with a more transcendent and equally decadent notion of figuratively fucking your neighbor--hence Dallas and Falcon Crest. Cocaine fueled the parties and sinister greedheads wrote the invitations. It was a horribly ugly time void of any real meaning. All the while Rupert Holmes' Pina Colada song spun on the hi-fi. It was the orange cones on the highway detour to Hell. Ronald Reagan was twice elected on the goldfish-filled heels of swingers. Tell me that's not evil.
As for TV in general, it hates you. Doubt me? Chew on this--E! has given Dinah Lohan a new platform to pimp Lindsay's younger whore sister. It follows the soulsucking cunt through her various trials and tribulations as she flogs the younger Lohan while simultaneously bankrupting the elder. Oh ho ho, folks, that's good times. It begs a metaphor to the US spaceprogram in the early 60s, when the Russians were kicking our asses. After the Soviets successfully launched Sputnik in 1957, we failed woefully in our attempts to catch up. Throughout the late 50s and early 60s, NASA's efforts were affectionately referred to as Kaputnik. Vehicles routinely exploded on the launch pad.
Unlike NASA, TV makes no effort to make the program better. Instead, they count on you to watch the explosion and the resulting fire trucks. When the smoke clears, they simply blow up another ill-conceived rocket.
I blame Sputnik for our obsessive competitive educational agenda. NCLB and its preceding curricular stifling are just our way of trying to prove ourselves as an economic force.
Mothers of dumb sluts have no place on tv or society. Or life.
Find a house yet?
NCLB occupies a special place in my heart.
Among all the Bush Administration's catastrophic policies, NCLB is one of the most detrimental and dishonest. To begin, Margaret Spellings, Sec Ed and arguably NCLB's lead champion, has never had a classroom of her own. Spellings is the wife of a Bush crony, Robert Spellings, an Austin attorney who sits at the right hand of San Antonio's Dr. Leininger. Robert Spellings is Leininger's pitbull in the fight for school vouchers in the State of Texas. See a potential conflict here?
The reality of NCLB is that it has produced mountains of empirical data. The data ranges from high-level to very granular, down to individual student's performance in a given subject over a selected period of time. Rather than using the granularity of the data to develop meaningful plans for students, the data instead is used to highlight failures of public education, and in turn, promote school vouchers. It's a very clearly delineated vector aimed at bolstering the credibility of selected small-scale voucher prototypes.
NCLB is a subterfuge from top to bottom.
It dumbs down the classroom, suffocates teaching of critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis, and produces children unable to reason their way out of any problem that does not fit the rigid strategies associated with standardized tests.
Just to shed a little light on the inanity of NCLB standards, special needs children are expected to perform at grade-level despite severe limitations. Children with profound learning disabilities are in special needs classrooms because they have demonstrated challenges with the curricula of a regular classroom--hence special needs. To maintain inflexible expectations of special needs children reflects a, shall we say, special needs element of those responsible for the program.
Is it a surprise that morale is down? Only to those whose heads are buried in the sand when it comes to NCLB in the first place.
Hell no, it's not a surprise.
Preach, love. I could give many examples of the disenchanting effect of standardized tests. It's why I quit. But you know that.
Aw, you don't want to see what will finally happen on SATC? Not even to the other characters?
I wish tv stations had new show seasons start in the summer instead of in the fall--more people wuold watch during the summer, don't you think? But no. They decide to have all their finales at the beginning of summer. Dumb move, if you ask me.
Congrats on graduating! TV will suck, but this will give you more of a chance to enjoy Austin while you are still here :p
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