Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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1) using profanity or any euphemisms for profanity
2) personally attacking other commenters
3) baiting other commenters
4) arguing for the sake of arguing
5) discussing politics
6) using hyperbole when something less will suffice
7) using sarcasm in a way that can be misinterpreted negatively
8) making the same point over and over again
9) typing "no-hitter" or "perfect game" to describe either in progress
10) being annoyed by the existence of this list
11) commenting under the obvious influence
12) claiming your opinion isn't allowed when it's just being disagreed with
Monday brought another episode of a 2005 Dodger season that has had all the artistic merit of Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.
With the game long over by the time the kids were in bed, I was free to contemplate other things. While doing some household chores, I came upon the first half of one of the greatest hours of television ever, Part 1 of the Season 1 finale of Cheers.
Cheers had almost no audience at its start, and most of us watching back then found ourselves members of a club too good to be true. That first season was romantic comedy at its highest televised form, a spiritual descendent (not that I knew it then) of Much Ado About Nothing that was flat-out brilliant, that melted euphorically in your consciousness.
By the end of its decade-plus run, I came to detest Cheers, which arguably suffered television's greatest creative fall from grace ever. Few programs, if any, went from intelligent to adle-brained with such depressing clarity - the comedy's signature sophisticated banter and heart replaced by one character humiliation or enfeebled contest with Gary's Old Towne Tavern after another. Those were the Kevin Malone years of Cheers.
But during the early 1980s, I would record Cheers and Hill Street Blues for my brother, who was away at college without a television set, and we would watch them in marathon sessions during his vacations. And then, when he went back to school, I would watch the tapes again and again. This season finale, in which Sam almost loses Diane to his brother, "a man like any other man ... you would find in Greek mythology," made such an indeliable impression on me that years later, while struggling on a long bike ride, I diverted myself from my exhaustion by reciting the entire finale in my head, line-by-line.
Nerd? Sure thing. But nerd for a good cause. There was a sweetness to those early Cheers episodes to be cherished.
At the same time, not even the best television makes makes me jump up and down like a pogo stick, the way watching Fernando Valenzela's no-hitter or Steve Finley's grand slam did. Baseball has a power that comedy and drama do not.
And the reverse is true as well.
A half-hour after the Cheers rerun ended, I watched the series finale of Six Feet Under. Not everyone likes Six Feet Under, and some who once did have turned on it (or felt the show has turned on them, like I feel with Cheers). Six Feet Under isn't perfect, but some people seem to grow impatient with it not because of quality issues, but because the characters never healed. Time and again, in dealing with difficult, tragic topics, the writing has been surgically precise.
Regardless, I was prepared for just about any kind of misery in the series finale. For the most part, we got a welcome catharsis. But then there was the epilogue, which laid out the future deaths of all the main characters in a montage that left me, I'm not kidding you, physically ill.
About 10 years ago my family was rear-ended in a hotel shuttle van at a stoplight by a drunk driver going about 80 miles per hour. Miraculously, we suffered no major injuries, and I came away only with a concussion. I was given some medication for the physical pain, but under the influence of the drug, I would have flashbacks of the crash and what-might-have-beens every single time I closed my eyes. I found it easier to endure the physical pain than the mental and went off the meds.
The Six Feet Under finale hit me like getting the crash and the medication at once. As much of a reminder as it was to treasure life, the show was that painful. My mortality and my family's mortality hammered against my forehead, and an hour after the show, when I closed my eyes for sleep, images of Ruth and Claire on their deathbeds haunted me. A television show did this to me.
In a sense, I love the power great television has. I embrace it. But baseball has given me greater euphoria than the greatest television show, and has never made me feel as low.
Thank freakin' goodness.
that line got to me in SFU finale. It is still getting to me and things don't normally get to me.
(Nerd alert: the above line is best read as the professor in the Simpsons monorail episode - "I probably shouldn't have stopped for that haircut")
The HBO website has obituaries for all the characters. It's interesting to read what they all did.
Having had to deal with the real thing in my family in the last two weeks (and continuing);
Unlike the true life experience; the cast and crew of SFU will be available for curtain calls at the Emmy Awards next year, along with their agents, creative handlers, and HBO honchos.
And no disrespect to SFU or any of the fans of that show; then again, I don't quite believe that Entourage is necessarily an accurate depiction of young actors in Hollywood, either.
It's not a lot of fun if people are disagreeing about things. It's awful. There are many decisions to make and hardly anyone is in the proper emotional state to make them.
I used to think that I would never ever forget August 10, which is the day my mother passed away in 1993. And for the last three years, the day has come and gone without me noticing it. I think I was more upset over Yhency Brazoban that day.
However, if you catch me on Mother's Day or October 8 (her birthday), you have a good chance of finding me hiding under a table.
We can offline and swap horror stories.
The Nate character was shown as being deeply affected by Kurt Cobain's death. I must admit that I barely listened to his music and his death meant little to me.
I did have a friend from junior high who called me up me weeping when John Lennon was shot. Name dropping, it was John Heilemann, who writes for "Wired" now. I was really surprised once when I saw his face on CNN. The guy looks almost exactly like he did in 9th grade, except for the receding hairline.
Which is why I found Dead Like Me such a refreshing counterbalance to SFU. I think they do a wonderful job of presenting the absurdities and humor inherant to life, and a much more philosophical approach to the whole shebang. Unlike as presented in SFU, we're not all drama queens all the time.
And Mandy Patinkin...well, that dude can flat out act.
...started to lose me, as Jon alludes to, as the seasons of SFU wore on...
I'm a pastor so I deal with funerals on a regular basis. Family dynamics are fascinating at both death and marriage. No matter how much or how little I know the family, I never know what I am stepping into.
I'm guessing that's why my biggest complaint on six feet under, how they cannot seem to get on with their lives. I watched all 5 years and liked the show, and I realize it would be hard to write an entertaining show if the family wasn't so dysfunctional, but it's still annoying to me. I wanted to strangle Claire a few times because she couldn't stop thinking about herself and go offer some comfort to the family. Maybe that's why it was a good show since it could make me feel so strongly about some of the characters.
Now Mandy Patinkin joins the latest in a series of forensic procedurals. Because you know those scientists can find out who did ANYTHING.
Then my grandmother passed away and the bickering was unbelieveable. There is that line where once you cross it you are an undeniable disrespectful money-grubbing hier. While no one in my family actually crossed it, many had no problem getting their toes right against it. After sometime of this I felt myself being drawn into the fray and fighting with relatives for things that I didn't really want in the first place. Then I realized, its not that I was caught up in what I was getting but in what everyone else was getting. In the end, we all agreed she would have prefered that we give the stuff to her favorite charity than fight about it. We did so with no regrets(with one exception, but that's another story).
Oh, well, guess I'll have to suck it up and watch Weeds...
No doubt there will soon be a show where The Forces Of Good over Evil, aka proponents of intelligent design, regularly rout those pesky scientists.
Until October 1988, when the Dodgers made the post-season. Orel's scoreless streak and the magic of that team "pulled me back" in. I came home with a 12 inch black and white set from Goodwill, to much eye-rolling from you know who. Even though the reception sucked, I got about 75% of the essence of the game, good enough to make that postseason the most memorable for me.
We've since upgraded to a 13 inch color set with a VHS player that we can still unplug and put in the cabinet. So no SFU (or Daily Show, or any other cable/dish stuff -- or baseball!) for me unless I get the DVD and watch on the computer. I have had 3 close friends about my age (51) die this year (2 of cancer, 1 took his own life) and that's enough for me.
On the other hand, I'll be completely alone in the world with a lot of business to take care of all by myself.
Sounds fun...
I never saw "Dead Like Me" - but Mandy has been amazing in everything he's done, from Evita to Princess Bride to Elmo in Grouchland.
I looked at the Six Feet Under characters not as drama queens, but embodiments of everything that can go wrong in our lives. There were certainly characters that wore on me from time to time - I never liked Brenda - but the show was a tragedy, a stage to explore the depths of humanity. Few projects will take on that challenge and even fewer will do it well. I don't go to Macbeth or Antigone expecting a happy ending.
My cousin James wrote and directed a movie several years ago, Little Odessa, which was bleak and not surprisingly, did not have popular success. But nepotism aside, I was so impressed by it. I really thought it found the nuances of suffering.
we watch all the Law & Order and all the death and mystery shows, but this finale took the cake...
we loved Claire...she was the best...just like we love the gothic girl on NCIS...she is so cute...
Even weighing 500 pounds, she's not ugly.
However, I'd totally recommend it as well.
I've never been much of a "Six Feet Under" fan, but my wife is -- and she was tremendously moved by the finale.
Any "Deadwood" fans here? I've only seen the first season so far, but it's definitely some of the best TV I've seen in years (along with "Lost").
Sir Ben was nominated for Best Actor for "The House of Sand and Fog."
I love "Deadwood". Perhaps more than any other show I've ever seen on TV.
But I don't think we can properly discuss it in a blog where there is a strict no swearing policy.
That would eliminate about 90% of the dialog.
I don't even think I can link to the site that counts the profanities in "Deadwood" because it's not a worksafe link.
Luckily, with the Dodgers, there won't be a 'series finale' for a long time (don't tell the people in Brooklyn that).
Deadwood? Not enough swearing for me.
Marty, rent Little Odessa...I've seen it several times, and it's well worth it. Tim Roth was the perfect choice to play the lead, and IMO it's his best work (think Edward Norton in American History X), though 1900 was a great film also. Kudos to Jon's cousin.
Northern Exposure was a great series...started watching it on cable reruns,and it fell off the map not long after. I vaguely remember the dancing on the grave bit.
I really like Deadwood and think it is the closest thing to modern-day Shakespeare there is, complete with soliloquys and (at least to my ear) iambic pentameter.
You've got it exactly right, Icaros. It's supposed to be like Shakespeare.
I've actually read "The House of Sand and Fog" and my copy of it I read had an "Oprah's Book Club" logo on it that I tried to obscure when I was in public because I wanted to maintain that "he-man" image that all librarians give off. The book was very good. It was very draining, so I didn't want to watch the film because I knew what was going to happen.
I had such high hopes for him after seeing that film. What happened?
Admittedly, I haven't seen everything he's done since. Was that Spike Lee movie he did any good?
"Lost" is simply a mystery with some supernatural overtones when you get right down to it.
People on plane crash on mysterious island. They aren't found by people. No one knows where they are. Weird things happen. Backstories of characters intertwine.
I didn't think I would like it, but my girlfriend made me tape episodes for her when she was on vacation. And I watched them with her and got hooked.
We don't talk to each other on Wednesday nights in the fall because of the show. We don't want to spoil the episode for the other person.
The less said about The Italian Job the better...
The Dan Patrick Show on ESPN Radio had Kieth Olbermann as a guest. Olbermann told this story:
In Florida, Brad Penny told one of the clubhouse boys that he would pay him $500 dollars if he could drink a gallon of milk without throwing up. Some of the other Dodger players got into it and the wager went all the way up to a thousand dollars. According to Olbermann, the guy gave it a shot but "didn't make it."
The things you hear on the radio...
I loved him and Tim Roth in "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead", thought he made a good Beethoven in "Immortal Beloved", a good evil cop in "The Professional," and even liked "Dracula", despite the curse of Keanu.
SFU finale was very, very good. So was the Cheers finale, come to think of it.
Hello Larry
You talk to people all day for a living
But about all those answers you are giving
Are you really living your life that way?
Portland is a long way from L.A.
R.I.P., McLean
*
On the movie front ... Shadowlands, anyone?
Kind of like the impossibility of folding a piece of paper on itself more than eight times?
Norton was in "The Score" with Robert DeNiro and Marlon Brando. As Norton told it, the three were only on screen together twice and only once for any significant period of time. It was a dinner scene; Brando at the head of the table, DeNiro and Norton on either side of him. At this point in the shooting of the film, Brando had made it all too clear that he was no longer going to listen to the director. Norton implied on the show that Brando was very, uh, "eccentric" during the shoot.
Anywho, the three of them are in the scene, the Director calls "Action" and Brando immediately starts improvising. He picks up a pitcher of liquid and starts pouring it into a glass while mumbling some dialogue. Brando kept pouring the liquid until the glass started to overflow. The director does not call out "cut." The liquid starts to spill into Brando's lap. Still no word from the director. Finally, the liquid spills onto the floor which starts making noise and the Director calls out "cut."
According to Norton, "I looked over at DeNiro to see what he thinks about all of this... and DeNiro's asleep. So after the Director calls out "cut", DeNiro wakes up, looks at me and smiles and says, 'I fell asleep, didn't I?'"
Agree completely.
His own elbow, not mine.
[Link: http://fametracker.com/fame_audit/norton_edward.shtml]
I haven't seen it, but I seem to remember my folks talking about it in a good way.
Gary Oldham was excellent in Batman Begins. His performance was sublte but great. I really thought he was great in the Professional, the contender and State of Grace with Sean Penn as well.
65 Me too, especially enjoyed Kevin Kline. My friend, who has a serious stutter, hated that movie, and even wrote an article about why he hated it in the local weekly indepdendent paper.
As for the elbow, my short left humerus makes it almost possible for me. With Gene Simmons' tongue, I could do it easy
Did he stutter in the article? I'm sorry, I couldn't resist.
I think jumping into "Lost" after one year may be hard because there will be a lot to catch up on. There are a lot of characters on the show.
Of course, if you want to watch a show that's hard to catch up to in midstream try Eric Enders' favorite "The Wire". There are dozens of characters with many different arcs and sometimes they just disappear for entire seasons, although with good reason.
I've been really confused by the way different storylines and characters seem to come and go each week without explanation. I sure hope that there is some sort of master plan in the works.
There is always someone who comes into an episode and you have to think "Oh, that's the guy from the first year who did this...."
Tony's dream episode where he met all the dead people really helped me catch up.
Did enjoy the epiloge.
A real ending would have had Claire killing someone while driving in her drunken stupor and then find the family has brought the body/bodies to her family funeral parlor to be buried. It was a chicken ass ending. JMO
Everytime I see a person in the shape of the soldier who kills himself I think of "Johnny Got His Gun". I read it when I was 15 and have never had the urge to kill myself. This is a book that should be read by everyone. JMO
I have a coworker who hated SFU and hated "American Beauty" 10 times as much.
Yeah, I know that's how they do it. But the last two seasons have seemed pretty scattershot from episode to episode, IMO. Something will happen, like when Meadow's fiance caught the guy going down on that guy in the car, then we never hear or see anything more about it.
Like I said, I'm still holding out hope that a lot of this stuff will tie together in the end. But the first three seasons seemed better at providing some closure.
I really hope that Russian guy who escaped in the snow comes back at some point.
FWIW I loved the finale of SFU, except I thought they could have found a better way for Keith to have died. All the other characters seemed to have died while at peace with their lives or in a moment of happiness (o.k. except for Rico), but to have Keith shot just seemed silly.
Hope I didn't spoil the show for anyone who hasn't seen it.
The episode Bob mentioned is great (I see dead people!). My personal favorite would have to be the `lost in the barrens' episode (Christopher chowing down on the packets of ketchup).
But I feel like Six Feet Under is the epitome of a show that didn't have characters solve their problems in an hour. Not all problems were solved, some of the solutions are no doubt temporary, and the more permanent solutions certainly were longer than an hour in the making.
The depiction of Keith's death was the most disappointing for me as well.
I think we're all waiting for the man in the snow in "the Sopranos" to return.
Rico died on the cruise, right? Not sure why that wouldn't be a momrnt of happiness.
Christopher replies, "Really? His place looked like s---."
Add me to the list of people that liked "Hill Street Blues." We often end project meetings with "Be careful out there."
According to the Times, it was ...
What "Forrest Gump" would have been had Forrest Gump directed.
Again, whether this would hold for 50 years, I don't know. But they made it clear that Vanessa's biggest concern with Rico was about trust, and this funeral home thing might have earned it back.
vr, Xei
It's one of my favorite plays, but I've only seen the old Katherine Hepburn version.
Deadwood is easily the best show on right now and may be one of the all-time greats if they can keep it up. Al Swearingen is a treasure.
I loved Hill Street Blues when it was on, but find it painful to watch now becaue it is so dated. The Buntz character and the SWAT leader and low-life under cover detective are soooo cartoonish.
I keep meaning to try to catch up with Lost, but so far I've not seen one episode.
A Fish Called Wanda! "You owe me a p p p p p pound"
In the same vein, I've refused to see One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. That is one of the only books that make me cry. It can't possibly be as good as the book since the book is told through the Indian's eyes. And I can't imagine Nicholson as McMurphy.
The las of the mohicans was a great movie.
Northern Exposure was probably my favorite running TV show followed very closely by Mash/Simpsons. I still watch the Soprano's but I'm probably the only one rooting for the fed's to bring the family down. Right now Deadwood is my only must watch show when it is on. Luckily HBO gives me many options as to when to watch it.
Weeds looks interesting if not for the content at least for the lead.
now Dallas is on weekly on cable, and I can't understand why I was home every Friday night watching it
when Mel Brooks was in the covered wagon going in circles by himself, I thought I'd pee in my pants
What is your guiltiest pleasure? A show where you mention it to friends and they look at you like they never really knew you?
May I nominate one of my guilty pleasures: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the first few seasons of which were absolutely terrific.
Marty, give it up. The movie version of Cuckoo's Nest was one of the few times cinema has done a book justice.
It was a great show, IMHO.
Whether you like Norton and/or Spike Lee or not, 25th Hour is an amazing movie.
It is a beautiful, terrible, heart-wrenching vision of what has become of the American dream. This is one of the few movies were Spike doesn't force an unwieldy ending on us.
Channelling Edwin Starr there.
Even if you can't get in to the story, Rosario Dawson and Anna Paquin get enough screen time to make the rental worth while.
Didn't get to see Long Days Journey, but I have seen "A Life in the Theatre" with Matthew Broderick, and Jack Lemmon based on Mamets play of the same name. Good stuff. Good luck finding it though.
147 - You're no more gullible than Elaine Benes.
The movie version of The Stand was pretty great. Damn, I've loved that book everytime I've read it.
BTW, if any of you are fans of The Stand, and haven't read Swansong by Rob't McGammon, what are you waiting for!
Of course, this was back when I was a kid.
117 Everyone keeps telling me how awesome "Battlestar Galactica" is. One of these days I'll torrent it and get to watching.
The first season of Cheers was not exactly bad, and there was enough of interest to keep me watching, but it was still pretty weak. There was only one episode in the entire first season that I considered better than fair -- episode 17, titled, "Diane's Perfect Date." In that episode, Sam and Diane agree to set each other up on dates with people they each think would be prefect for the other person. Sam thinks that Diane is just going to present herself to him as his ideal date, so he does not bother to find a man to go out with Diane. When Diane later introduces Sam to the woman she has selected for him, Sam is stunned, and after some hectic scurrying about, he gets a guy from the back of the bar he does not know to pretend to be a friend of his whom he has selected to go on a date with Diane. Once Diane starts chatting with Sam's "friend," it starts to become evident to Diane, and the TV audience, that the man is mentally unhinged, with the gradually escalating disaster culminating in the fellow revealing to Diane that until recently he was locked up for killing a waitress. Now THAT'S comedy.
I tend to think that I like good television (Deadwood, Sopranos, West Wing, etc.) and my wife likes garbage (All My Children, Survivor, The O.C., etc.), but I will readily admit that The O.C. is now one of my my favorite guilty pleasures.
I was so excited when I first got a TiVO until my wife started using it for evil (i.e. daytime soaps). Fortunately, lack of free time has forced her to focus on the highest quality of her low quality shows, which now rules out All My Children. Althought, at this point, the 40 stored episodes of Blues Clues don't leave room for much else.
The Sopranos
Law & Order (the original... remember George Dzunda?)
Seinfeld
Six Feet Under
I'm hoping that Deadwood continues to entertain me as well as it has in its first 2 seasons.
As for SFU, I had really tired of watching it, but my wife (who never watched the show regularly) and I sat together and watched the finale. We were both haunted for a full day just as Jon was. This made it that powerful. And yes, when I layed down to sleep the epilogue kept playing over and over in my head... I still have that song in there.
Here's to the Sopranos improving in seasons 6 and 6 1/2!
I too really liked Dead Like Me, and I'm pissed at Showtime for canceling it, as well as MGM who messed with the creator of the show.
However the new Shotime show, "Weeds" isn't too bad.
Jon got me hooked on Arrested Development. whenever I see LA Law on TV, I watch it. Boston Legal is like the modern day LA Law, and William Shatner is hilarious, as is James Spader.
I can hardly wait for the new season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Same with the Sopranos.
As far as SFU, well I too thought the series finale was really a great way to end it all. Sort of like the 2005 Los Angeles Dodgers! :)
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