Month: August 2006

24 gone horribly wrong

elvis7 Comments

I hate to use the phrase jump the shark. It was clever when someone coined it but it’s one of those things you hear all the damned time. People will say it every time a show has an off episode, or because they’ve decided it’s not cool to watch that show anymore, or because something […]

I hate to use the phrase jump the shark. It was clever when someone coined it but it’s one of those things you hear all the damned time. People will say it every time a show has an off episode, or because they’ve decided it’s not cool to watch that show anymore, or because something changed in the show. They seem to miss the concept that it’s not just a slight change; jump the shark means a show gone utterly, disastrously wrong.

Yet, that term applies to season three of 24.

First let me say – Jack is still fucking Jack. Jack is the man, and it doesn’t matter how bad the show gets, he’s still Jack. Jack Bauer wasn’t addicted to heroin, as they say; heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer (and I must give props to my sweet-as-sugar ChelseaGirl for getting me to watch this show; she gets every bit of the credit).

But after watching two spectacular, addicting, irresistible roller-coaster seasons of this show back to back (and almost without sleep, that’s how bad it is watching this show, you just can’t put it down), I hit a wall at season three.

I could go on and on with this – the list of things that went wrong is amazing. Every single episode had something that started my eyes rolling, and this is a show that generally makes little things like logical inconsistencies irrelevant.

But – my god. It starts right from the first episode; a pointless partner for Jack, his teenage daughter somehow become, not just a staff member at CTU, but a high-level computer expert. A baby out of nowhere. President Palmer, the two-legged Muphasa, suddenly a weak and indecisive leader. A love interest who turns up in one episode to die in the next. An entire sub-plot (mexican drug-lords) which boils up and then evaporates pointlessly long before mid-season. A killing that makes no sense whatsoever, just because it means we get to see jack suffer a little more. Tony, the guy who almost turns Jack in for breaking the rules in seasons one and two, suddenly become mister fuck-the-rules-it’s-my-wife in season three.

By the end of the second episode, it had become clear something was horribly wrong. When the baby showed up, it seemed it’d dug deep. And yet it slides, and slides, and slides, digging deeper into the ground with each episode, to the point where you think it can’t get worse and it does.

I went from the point where I could not wait for netflix and had to rent at my local blockbuster, to the point where I kept saying god, how can we still have three more disks to go before it’s over?

This, my friends; this is the shark. Watch as we jump over it.

And so I finished it, and I can say, it did get better, pulling out shards and slivers of the old 24 with the last two episodes, and finishing with possibly Jack’s most gut-wrenching moment ever.

And I fear. Can season four go lower? God, it can, can’t it?

There’s a bright spot; season five, which I watched in real time and which hooked me, is truly great teevee. I can’t say if it’s as good as thefirst two, or better. Yet it stands out as a brilliant season of teevee. So I know it’s not a loss after season three. Yet, I wish for season four to start with a bobby-ewing-in-the-shower. Please.

Warn me, someone. Is season four as bad? Dare I put it my netflix queue?

stolen moments and entries unfinished

elvis2 Comments

I keep figuring I’ll get some time, soon, to get progress on blog entries. And now, I’m starting to think that’s not true and i’ll never have anything to say ever again. I’ve got these entries started on movies, teevee shows (and why 24 went from best to worst between seasons two and three). On […]

I keep figuring I’ll get some time, soon, to get progress on blog entries.

And now, I’m starting to think that’s not true and i’ll never have anything to say ever again.

I’ve got these entries started on movies, teevee shows (and why 24 went from best to worst between seasons two and three). On books and the new rings I just got from the brilliant Julian Lamb that I need to review. On tattoos (wanted, gotten), on guitars and my desire to start taking lessons again (so that I will have an excuse to buy a new guitar).

Seems like I ain’t gonna get that time i keep thinking I’ll have, not in the near future. Today i managed to grab an hour sitting in a bar reading a greg rucka novel and and sipping a guiness, and it felt, for a little while there, like i was on vacation, just having time utterly to myself. All too soon though my phone rang and it was time to go pick up my daughter.

On the other hand, I’m making serious progress on a blog template i’m co-designing with another blogger, so it’s not like it’s all work and no play (because i’m geek enough to find that entertaining). So it’s not like my entire output of energy is being sucked down a black hole. Not every ounce of it, anyway.

Pleasure in the small things, I keep thinking, and eventually this gets better. I’m hoping.

Right?

Rock Star 6767

elvis2 Comments

If you’re as hooked on Rock Star as I am, you should follow Big Dave Navarro’s blog, 6767. He’s got some commentary going that’s dead on about the issues with this season (though i think he’s still holding back a bit, you can tell by his body language that he’s frustrated with things, i think […]

If you’re as hooked on Rock Star as I am, you should follow Big Dave Navarro’s blog, 6767. He’s got some commentary going that’s dead on about the issues with this season (though i think he’s still holding back a bit, you can tell by his body language that he’s frustrated with things, i think much more than he says).

I keep meaning to post a summary on this show, both what I’m likin’ and my frustrations, but as usual, I can’t seen to line up the time and the inspiration together, they’re on opposite ends of the wheel. It’s been like that now for a good couple months, time and inspiration chasing each other around the tree. If they get faster maybe they’ll turn into butter.

Let’s Pretend

elvis8 Comments

Let’s pretend it’s my birthday. And let’s pretend you’re all going to get together and buy me these. That store was right across from my hotel in hollywood last weekend, but somehow I never got over there while they were open. And maybe that’s a good thing, for my wallet’s sake.

Let’s pretend it’s my birthday.

And let’s pretend you’re all going to get together and buy me these.

Dsc0099-3 Dsc0093-2

That store was right across from my hotel in hollywood last weekend, but somehow I never got over there while they were open. And maybe that’s a good thing, for my wallet’s sake.

puddle-deep wallow in self-pity

elvis6 Comments

I posted something last night that was a puddle-deep wallow in self-pity. The kinda shit that makes me want to bitch-slap myself. It makes me angry, you know, when I feel like that. I get angry with my own inability to express myself verbally, by inability to just spit out what bothers me. So I […]

I posted something last night that was a puddle-deep wallow in self-pity. The kinda shit that makes me want to bitch-slap myself.

It makes me angry, you know, when I feel like that. I get angry with my own inability to express myself verbally, by inability to just spit out what bothers me.

So I go mute – and the muteness makes me angrier. I’m angry and want to be left alone, when what i need is contact; I isolate myself from the treatment I need.

It becomes a cycle, a spiral, and the only things I can think to get me the fuck out of it require that I reach out.

Even now I’m thinking, fuck this, I want to delete it, I’m just fucking whining.

I’m in that teeth-griding state of low-grade irritation; I’m looking for someone to hit, metaphorically. I need to take the slow-boil of rage I’ve had sitting behind my eyes, in my neck and shoulders, and point it at something.

How many times have a written this same fucking entry? This is why I think I should give up blogging.

Read more “puddle-deep wallow in self-pity”

…never write

elvis1 Comment

I’m back at that point where people are asking me if I’m mad at them, wondering why I don’t write. I don’t fucking know. Like I said recently, sometimes the shark gets you. I can’t seen to communicate at all – I’m sittin’ here alone this eve – family gone again for a short trip […]

I’m back at that point where people are asking me if I’m mad at them, wondering why I don’t write.

I don’t fucking know. Like I said recently, sometimes the shark gets you.

I can’t seen to communicate at all – I’m sittin’ here alone this eve – family gone again for a short trip – and feeling like unplugging phones and shutting down my internet connection and just drinking myself stupid, wishing I had some sorta goofballs that’d knock me into dreamland for a good day and a half.

Maybe not blogging is the new blogging.

What do you think you’re looking at, Sugar Tits?

elvis8 Comments

I’m not sure where this picture came from. But it rules. And I have to say, I’m utterly and completely taken with the phrase “sugar tits“. Is it a kind of bird? A candy? a frosted fried dough confection? You know, it’s the kind of thing I’d actually call someone, in a bar or in […]

I’m not sure where this picture came from. But it rules.

Mel Gibson Sugar Tits.0

And I have to say, I’m utterly and completely taken with the phrase “sugar tits“. Is it a kind of bird? A candy? a frosted fried dough confection?

You know, it’s the kind of thing I’d actually call someone, in a bar or in bed. You know it’s true – how many of you can hear me say it? How ya doin, Sugar-tits?

But aside from that – and, you know, looking great in a kilt – I’m not Mel Gibson. Trust me on that.

How I Spent my Summer vacation

elvis9 Comments

Here’s photographic evidence of how I spent my summer vacation. Sometimes you get the shark, and sometimes… …the shark gets you. (click that for a bigger view)

Here’s photographic evidence of how I spent my summer vacation.

Sometimes you get the shark, and sometimes…

Help Help Shark-2

…the shark gets you.

(click that for a bigger view)