Monkeys in the Attic

I wrote TrekFic

2009-06-12T03:06:28Z

Like James T. Kirk, I am dangling from a precipice. A precipice perched over a chasm of full-blown obsession with this movie. I'm gonna have to rein it in or it's going to be hard to get work done over the next couple weeks.

This was written for yahtzee63's Star Trek Reboot Drabble Challenge, located here:
http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/410178.html

All the drabbles are amazing.

My contribution here:
http://yahtzee63.livejournal.com/410178.html?thread=10919234#t10919234

More on Trek

2009-06-10T13:35:26Z

You know what my favorite part was? It was not the Kobayashi Maru, or the space battles, or even when Spock flips out and almost murders Kirk's ass. It wasn't even any moment with Uhura, though her being a miniskirt-wearing, Vulcan-banging, linguist badass makes her pretty much my favorite female character in years.

I don't really cry in movies. I need like, footage of one-legged puppies to spark waterworks. But I'm not lying to you when I say that I had tears rolling down my face, ten minutes into this film, both times I saw it on the big screen. It was embarrassing how into it I was. The actor playing George Kirk broke my fucking heart. The sound effects go silent and the music is pitch perfect as we see the Kelvin divebomb the Narada, and Kirk's poor wife watch from a shuttle moving as fast as it can in the other direction while she desperately holds onto her newborn. And we all fucking know who that newborn is. I was weeping, but still like "oh shit, Kirk is going to FRY some motherfuckers!"

And that, children is why the first 10-12 minutes of this movie were perfect.

Incidentally, in one of the Trek comms I now lurk, someone mentioned that it was the writers' intention that both Kirks' parents were Starfleet officers, and I have to say, that honestly threw me for a loop. I did not for one second ever imagine that Kirk's mother might be in Starfleet too, and I have no idea why. Cause he's an Iowa farmboy, maybe, and because I don't know quite enough about TOS to know what his parents were like. It makes so much sense, though, since Federation ships didn't even carry civilians until the TNG era. But hot damn, I want more info on Kirk's momma now! Lots of House fans hate Jennifer Morrison, and it would be a bitch to age her 30 or so years, but oh, think of the possibilities. Is she proud of his accomplishment, sad about his youthful missteps and apparent lack of communication with her, nostalgic about him following in his father's footsteps, annoyed that he already outranks her? I want to know!

Oh. Dear. God.

2009-06-10T13:20:46Z

It's been almost two years since I've even posted. In that time, I've loved all over Pushing Daisies, Chuck, The Dark Knight, Iron Man and old school Babylon 5. So what brings me out of Livejournal retirement?

Fucking Star Trek.

I was a Next Gen girl, dammit! You know, Dad would finish cooking dinner, Mom would come home from a long hard day at work, I would wash off the blood from soccer practice, the brother would turn off his WoW session and we'd all watch a couple episodes of Picard & Co. together. Wasn't it that way for everyone? Sometimes we'd watch Wrath of Khan, or WhaleFest IV, but Shatner was getting old (is he hitting on Annie Camden?) and what was so great about the Original Series crew anyway?

Oh.

Oh.

That movie was...

Um, okay. And... suddenly I'm twelve again, watching a group of brothers and sisters chase the stars together. God help my dystopia-loving ass, I'm a Trekkie again.

Office Meta for "Money"

2007-10-23T05:33:38Z

I'm so confuzzled about this episode, it seemed to reverse most of the things I've come to expect from the show in the past season. Tonight was better in the second half than in the first, high on the character, low on the funny. I think it was the least funny this season, but there was something almost cathartic in seeing everybody try desperately to deal with the changes life has bombed them with. Like this was the ep where they all started to freak out and ask themselves what the hell they'd gotten into.

I can't even express how happy I am to have a decent character moment with Jim. I'm all on board with the happy Jim and Pam who do not slay us with their drama, but it's nice to remember that he went through a load of awful feelings that even we never saw that much of. I'm still crossing my fingers, though, that once he becomes completely sure of Pam's love for him he'll start chafing at the torpor of paper sales once more. He's better than this job, and I'll always want more for him, same as I do for Pam.

And now for the meta, which is short, because this episode seriously messed with the normal way I do things:

— Michael can kill me with his desperate sadness in under sixty seconds, so I think a good twenty minutes of it this episode was way too much for me. Paul Lieberstein loves him some angst.

— Those kids have got to have the kind of weed of which legends are told for Michael's Michaelness to not register. We love him, but it's only because we don't have to drink with him, kids.

— Poor Andy. He hath not an idea of the minefield into which he doth wander. I look forward to epic engagements on the battlefield of love.

— It speaks volumes of Dwight's situation here, that he finds comfort from Jim's story. Jim, who spent something on the order of three years in love with an engaged woman, got his heart broken, spent six months or so away from her with next to no contact, and then tried to forget himself in a relationship with a woman he didn't love. Take charge early, Dwight. That's your lesson.

— It kind of breaks my heart that there was no one to run interference for Jim's love-pain way back when. And here Dwight's got a cheerleading squad. What is wrong with this world?

— I wasn't sure I wanted Pam to become the Office counselor this way, but seeing how sincere she is about helping Michael and Dwight, I kind of love it. She can put on a Deanna Troi outfit for Halloween and completely blow Dwight's mind, which would just make my year.

— I am so petrified of what's going to happen to Jim and Pam soon. By this point they've built up so much good relationship karma that TV law dictates a meteor now must strike one of them.

Somewhere, Joss Whedon is itching to be the man who writes the scene that tragically but necessarily destroys Pam and Jim's love. Back off, Joss.

— This is a sad day, my friends. Never have the cameras failed us so egregiously. Andy moonwalked past Angela's desk ten times and yet I do not see one second of it on my TV!

— I never knew how much I loved Mose until he returned to us. Reflect now on the fact that it is Dwight who has the most fully established backstory, residence, and family tree of anyone in the office. Reflect and marvel.

Music Thoughts

2007-10-20T07:37:31Z

Slate had an article on indie music which mentioned a video of Win and Regine from the Arcade Fire playing "Keep the Car Running" at a Springsteen concert in Ottawa with the Boss himself. It's a really fun video, look it up on YouTube, even though the audio sucks, because you can hear the questioning tones of the audience members who recognized Win and Regine, and then their crazed, joyful disbelief when the song began.

http://www.slate.com/id/2176187/pagenum/2/

As for the article itself, well, aside from the sticky loog it hocks on my beloved Decemberists, it had a lot of good points. I'm an indie music junkie and have been for a while, and I still can't figure out quite what I'm looking for in a band. Carl Wilson, in refuting a point made by another journalist about how indie rock often seems to be allergic to danceable rhythms, said that there is a folkier subset of indie rock that is hardly trying to be rock at all. I know that subset. I wallow in that subset, and I didn't even realize I was doing it.

Wilson also had some interesting things to say about indie rock's pasty, pasty whiteness. There are black indie artists, I'm sure. I... just can't think of many right now. I'm drawing a total blank. When I go to a hip-hop concert, a reggae festival, whatev, there's black artists out the wazoo. Rap is tied to black identity, and no matter how hard white suburban boys try, it's still a "capital cultural crime" for white people to take rap as their own. Most of it is quite simply not meant for us, no matter how much it kicks ass when there are real artists behind the mics. There's not a grown Caucasian in America that doesn't know that.

But from that perspective, is it necessarily a bad thing that indie rock is primarily white? I guess it's the ingrained discomfort of our segregationist past that makes it feel like it's wrong to have our genres separated like this, but so long as rap and hip-hop aren't really allowed to be white, does it matter if indie rock isn't black? Do we have to get over this aversion to poaching each other's territory?

Maybe a little. I'd like to be a little less conspicuous at hip-hop events, and indie rock can only benefit from having more of a black presence. But white kids blast rap out of their car windows with no remorse, as do Hispanics and Asians, and indie rock samples from everything they can get their hands on, including the funky stuff. Can we just let it evolve instead of feeling the need to practice artificial selection?

Wilson throws in the even bigger issue, though. Class. Indie rock isn't so much for the poor and uneducated. It's popular in colleges, and usually born in college towns and from the brains of college students. It isn't concerned, for the most part, with poverty or race or the violence of modern city life. It isn't ghetto, at all. But it takes itself wicked seriously, and so do its fans.

Indie lovers know exactly what this is. We recognize it in ourselves immediately. We're bookish, we're "deep," we love to be right, and if you don't know what the right bands are, it's only because you don't love interesting music. This attitude sucks, it's true, but it's also pretty human. The hipsters ought to fuck off, but they're just trying very hard to be cool, and they aren't ever threatening.

I'm not entirely sure, though, where Wilson got the idea that indie rock is largely sexless. It's not much for the pounding beats, sure, or the hip-shaking, but there's an intellectual sexuality that quite frankly, I've never gotten from any music besides indie, because no one else wants to be the nerdy kid who gets turned on by eloquence and imagery.

Moreover, who cares if it is sexless? I can find a beat to fuck to from lots of genres if I want, or hell, I can just throw on NIN's "Closer." Why does indie need to encompass it all?

Coming back to Wilson's point that some indie rock isn't even trying to be rock, I realize that the bands that really touch me tend to come from that group. And it's because they shoot for allusions, and literate storytelling, and a blending of musical ideas with often dramatic harmonies. I realize this can make for a lot of posing, a lot of showy emotionalism and not much to say for modern masculinity. With horror, I have to admit that indie rockers aren't much better than the emo rockers. At least I take comfort that pop junkies, rappers and country boys aren't much better either. And I still fucking love the Decemberists.

Office Meta!

2007-10-16T05:36:00Z

— This cold open may have vaulted into the coveted position of my favoritest ever. It's got so much going for it: Michael's obliviousness, Andy's barely restrained rage, Pam and Jim being adorable, team unity (excluding Michael), and a fixation on something so mundane that I'm sure everyone out there who has ever worked in an office or went to school or owned a DVD player knows exactly how important it is that that stupid box just hit...the f***ing...corner.

— Meredith just does not give up. I see a serious case of flashing-induced PTSD in Jim's future.

— Dwight "Jilted Mountain Man" Schrute.

— Good god, Ryan. No one has ever combined so many cliches in so many meaningless ways since the dawn of television. Boy needs to stop listening to his business school tapes while he sleeps, pronto.

— I really love to hate El Beardo, and I've never found his presence on the screen more entertaining than now, but he is such a douchebag that a part of me hopes the good people at Dunder-Mifflin corporate are one smirk away from a wunderkind-ectomy.

— Dwight and Andy are BFFs now? All it took to cure a rivalry so epic that Amish shunning became involved was a seven-hour tenure as the office bosses.

— I love how Dwight, showing he can learn from years of repeated experience, ignores Jim and Andy is now the one who can't let it go. What a n00b. Jim looks so happy that the fishy is taking the bait.

— Wait. Did Dwight say there were PELTS in the trunk of his car? And is this SURPRISE that I'm feeling?

— I'd be more sympathetic for Phyllis if she wasn't pulling the kind of amateur psychologist crap that makes me want to commit murder with toothpicks. However, Angela, because she is Angela, is responding to BB gun pellets by opening fire with a bazooka, so not a lot of sympathy there either.

— It's coming out of nowhere, sure, but Michael's constant references to Angela's size this episode are hilarious.

— The return of pranking! Yes! And for a damn good reason, too. Dwight and Andy together just pile manic on top of manic until there's nothing left to do but mainline speed along with their power gel. Jesus.

— Guess I spoke too soon on Dwight learning from his years — years, people! — of experience with Jim's pranks. Though I admire him for taking the opportunity to insult someone in binary.

— There are a lot of things that can be explained simply by Michael being Michael, but that shirt is not one of them. That shirt is the work of the gay Devil. Is it made of stretch satin? Dear god.

— Dwight, shouting into the phone: "Why would you reorder from a computer when you can have the personal touch of a salesman?!"

Sometimes the meta just writes itself.

— I love Jim and Michael's semi-annual man-dates.

— Darryl accomplishes so much in so little time. He displays a heretofore unknown friendship with Jim (which, hey, wasn't he close with Roy, and wouldn't that be a little weird?). Then he goes back to the annex to make an actual paper delivery, something we've never seen and which is even more mundane when witnessed than when talked about. Then he delivers the line of the night: "How about instead of yelling at our sweet little Miss Kapoor you get back to your desk and start selling multiple reams like a man." Then he puts himself among the frontrunners in the "Give Ryan the Thrashing He So Richly Deserves" sweepstakes.

— Oh jeez. Even a man who can raise and lower his cholesterol at will, secretes weapons in his desk and stores his car with pelts and air horns can get a broken heart and be really, really pitiful. And poor Pam for being more burdened with this knowledge than anyone else.

— Michael: "I'm not gonna cry over it. I did that on the way home."

And I'll bet Jim was overjoyed to be stuck in the car with that.

— Andy! Didn't you listen to Jim? Angela is fun for no one! Even Dwight's not having a good time of it right now!

— I prefer to summarize the second half of the episode thusly: the pizza delivery guy is a shiftless, arrogant asswipe, quite unlike Ryan's power-mad douchebaggery, but Michael doesn't know the difference and approaches levels of unbelievability that are more appropriate in a Jim Carrey character. Jim and Pam fail to make out on the rooftop (that we see, anyway). Andy rocks the fucking house down.

— I thought there was nothing in life that would cause my heart to be lifted when an ABBA song comes on the radio. I didn't count on Ed Helms. I'm going to be playing Take A Chance On Me at my wedding. That's how great that scene was.

You know, I adored tonight's episode, for many reasons. But I think we can say with certainty by now that the one-hour format is problematic. It helps the show without sacrificing any quality only on rare occasions. Not that I wasn't thoroughly entertained; this show would probably have to become a one-hour block of fart jokes to get me to stop watching. But something isn't right, primarily with Michael, and it's just more noticeable when so much of this show is so perfectly and subtly beautiful. I really hope the return to regular schedule will iron out the kink.

So long, motherfucker

2007-10-16T05:13:48Z

One of the busboys got fired, thank god. He needed it, bad. Not only would he stop in the middle of working to stare at the waitresses while we did sidework, he would often stand just behind us while they entered info on the computers and be a general lecherous maggot.

Well, turns out he's either dumb, criminal, or both, because when a waitress noticed some of the money was missing from a table he'd bussed, she asked him if he had seen it. And the moron pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her.

What? If you're stealing it, then play like you never saw it, ass. If you're not stealing, try to offer an excuse. We knew he was stealing, though. Other waitresses had suspected it before, this was just proof. Busboys do not take money off the tables. Period. Except for the dumb ones.

So I walked in today and got the joyous news he'd been fired when I sat down for a pre-shift drink with the waitress he stole from and a busboy who is pretty much everyone's favorite. He's our favorite not only because he's a funny, nice guy, but because his good English allows him to socialize with us much more than the other busboys. Cold fact of restaurant life.

Anyway, this guy reminded me about a weird day a while ago when Creepy stopped me when I walked by a group of them to say he wanted to ask me a question. Only he was giggling like a little girl and couldn't say it, or maybe didn't know how to in English. I remember that the Favorite Busboy was really embarrassed and was trying to get me to just keep on moving.

Well, he told me the question Creepy had wanted to ask, and imagine my not-surprise when it turned out to be whether or not I was wearing any panties that day.

It's God's little joke that most of the people that deserve to be sued for sexual harassment don't have the money to make it worth it.

Did You Know? — California National Parks Edition

2007-10-11T05:42:44Z

Did you know that Yosemite's most famous advocate, John Muir, was sick with malaria when he landed in San Francisco for the first time, but was such a badass that he proceeded to walk the whole way to Yosemite? Even the President of the United States has got to give up whatever a guy like that asks for.

Yosemite Valley is utterly spectacular, and I love how foreign tourists seem to make up at least a fourth of the hiking and climbing populace. It always makes me happy to see foreigners experiencing America in a way that has nothing to do with movies, cities or politics.

Fun Run

2007-10-03T04:13:22Z

New Office episodes make me so damn happy.

— Sweet zombie Jesus! Way to start the season with a bang, guys!

— And the hair is back. I can't say I'm happy about it. It's time the approximately three women in North America who feel this way make our voices heard. Join hands across America to keep Jim Halpert's hair trimmed.

— Pam, between us girls, ordering a celebrity sex tape on your work computer might be a little too fancy, you know what I mean? Stick to bossing Michael around.

— So Karen is gone? That seems... harsh, considering we barely knew her. I didn't know I liked her this much, but I hope that wasn't the end for her.

— I adore Oscar and Kevin's friendship. Oscar seems to consider it his duty to be the straight man for Kevin's nonsense. So far we have no proof that he's taken Angela's suggestion to be straight in another area of life, though.

— All the early bald-faced lying from Jim and Pam is great, because given how easily they accept being outed later, I have to conclude that they concealed their relationship primarily for shits and giggles, and that sweet, sweet clandestine sex. I'm sure they've each had at least one nightmare involving Michael forcing them to demonstrate appropriate and non-appropriate PDAs between an involved couple in a workplace situation (and I'm betting the reality of the office knowing they're dating will turn out to be worse than either dreamed of), but I'm impressed at how little they seem to care about the cameras knowing.

— Ryan's talking head is douchebag gold. With that terrible beard and his smug superiority given excuse to roam free, I can only hope that the writers are thinking up ways to make him an even bigger yet recognizable tool. Because BJ Novak looks like he just relishes turning that screw of unlikeability even further.

— Something about Michael is not sitting right with me in this episode. Maybe it's the summer separation, I don't know.

— On second viewing, Dwight's behavior when he breaks the news to Angela ought to have screamed "guilty" when I first saw it, but I doubt anyone out there was under the delusion that he would be any more empathetic even if he hadn't killed Sprinkles. With Dwight, some of his subtler behaviors can easily get lost in the general noise.

— Michael: "Kelly, you are a Hindu, so you worship Buddha."
Kelly: "That's Buddhists."
Michael: "You sure?"
Kelly: "No."

If Mindy Kaling didn't write that line, I'll be very disturbed. It'll mean there's someone else out there I need to love as much as I love Mindy Kaling, and that I have so far been failing to do so.

— Aw, Kevin's on a stakeout! Hateball really isn't cutting it as a time waster anymore, is it Kevin?

— Can I talk about the genius of the Big Reveal? This is why I trust this show to deal with a relationship between the main UST couple: it has no pity for the shippers. Doesn't matter how much everyone wanted to see their first date or first kiss (if indeed it can be said they hadn't already had both of those over a year ago), it doesn't fit in the show, so it doesn't get put in. No weird-ass delays so that some dramatic hook-up between the two of them could happen on the show's schedule. No flashbacks to them post "The Job."

And chances are good that we're never going to get much, if any, alone time with them, simply due to the conceit of the show as being a workplace documentary. What we'll see is the little details in their behavior that point to a richer personal life, and not only am I fine with that, I think it'll be far more exciting and interesting than pretty much every other TV relationship, where we're used to seeing everything short of actual sex in intimate detail.

Of course, we could possibly just get soap opera. I'll reserve judgment until later about that.

— And then the cameramen show them the footage! Where in the hell was all this interfering, confrontational-documentary spirit back when Pam was plunging headlong into marriage? I appreciate the confirmation that they're banging and all, but oh, the humanity.

— Christ, they're cute. Cuter than a children's Thanksgiving play held in Narnia and sprinkled with fairy dust.

It's hard not to know what the writers are planning here, because all I know right now is how little I want to see some generic "a tragic misunderstanding drives a wedge between the previously Care-Bearishly adorable couple" story to maintain some of that good old romantic tension. I want the goddamn "Moonlighting Curse" to be shot in the head, and I want this show to be the one that pulls the trigger.

— Who, I wonder, is supposed to have taken those pictures of Angela and Sprinkles? I like to think Angela has a slutty roommate.

— Nice how Jim doesn't care so much about his girlfriend seeing Michael's baguette so long as she's clever enough to refer to it as his "dangling participle." I shudder to think what their idea of verbal foreplay is like.

— Michael appears to have been hitting the gym like his membership is about to lapse. Which it might be, considering all the involuntary donations and the possible lawsuits over workman's comp, and the Jan, and any number of other factors. It always troubles me, the times when I find Michael genuinely attractive.

— Is it wrong that I want to see the scene where Pam and Jim sign the relationship paperwork in front of Toby?

— That lamp is hideous.

— Andy is perhaps the character who was least served by this episode. After Karen, of course. Let your crazy run wild and free, Andy! Let the batshit flow!

— I'm all on board with the idea of mercy for suffering animals, Dwight, but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call a Scranton girl "city folk." That's just over the line.

— It would seem that S2 Jim has arisen vampirically from his grave, but I'm hoping it's not entirely so. I know S3 Jim wasn't the most heart-throbby of the Jim models, but we can't just ignore it all. I noticed that he can still occasionally cause actual harm when staging a prank: Dunder-Mifflinites probably still have crappy health care from his refusal to just pick a good plan himself in S1, and instead of gently directing the Fun Run money to a medical charity that could actually use it, he directs it to a stripper for his own amusement.

It used to be he did these things because he was stuck in a meaningless job that didn't make him happy, working with people who drove him crazy and in love with a woman who didn't appear to notice. But at least one of those things is no longer true, and he hasn't shown signs of genuine unhappiness with his work for a while; it was only a couple of months ago that he was angling for his second promotion in less than a year.

I'm back on my wasted potential fixation again, and wondering whether the show's eased off the bitterness of the comedy and the environment more than it should. Even though Jim now has the only person/thing he's ever shown a sincere and prolonged desire for, part of me is always, always disappointed in him while he's still coasting.

And now that the meta is over, let me explain my "Moonlighting" rant above. For years, we've been told that if a couple wants each other on TV, then the only resolution that won't kill the show is to have them yearn until their eyes bug out from all the longing looks, or to break up the millisecond they get together. It's happened so many times that people parrot this excuse for lazy writing as TV gospel, and I'm tired of it. Has no one noticed that shows which do this tend to suck? Friday Night Lights is currently milking every drama teat there is on the relationship cow, and they don't care whether the relationshipees are together, married, or just circling each other warily. Everyone's got troubles, and — holy shit — even married people can have passion.

It's not that I don't love UST. I really do enjoy seeing it on TV, because it's heartrending and dramatic and all sorts of squishy good things. But it shouldn't keep...going...on...and on. Sometimes a show can come up with some pretty good, even iron-clad reasons why a particular couple can't be together. Sometimes they make it work for an extended period of time. But people don't like to get jerked around, and sooner or later, every tender moment between a would-be couple becomes tiresome for the audience when they know nothing will ever come of it until the very end.

In conclusion, writers, I know it must be daunting to mess with a good thing — and sweet zombie Jesus were Pam and Jim pining ever a good thing — but I see only opportunities in the judicious hooking-up of previously pining characters. Use the whole dramatic span of a relationship, for Christ's sake! There's a whole mess of emotion that goes untapped in good TV. Unless the UST is the only thing they've got going for their show, it won't kill it. It might just save it from being tiresome.

Dear Chargers

2007-10-01T07:46:55Z

Dear Chargers,

Please stop losing. You're the same goddamn team as last year. More importantly, no one in the restaurant is happy when you lose.

Please, think of my tips.

Thank you.

Hallelujah!

2007-09-27T08:11:37Z

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070926/ap_on_re_us/polygamist_leader

Rot in prison, Warren Jeffs. Rot in prison like the accessory child-rapist you are. Should a lengthy stint in hell immediately follow, I might even be persuaded to throw a party. It'll commemorate an America that is just a little less infested with lying, power-hungry roaches.

Tom Waits is the fucking man

2007-08-15T05:58:49Z

My roommate watches So You Think You Can Dance. Because reality shows are a creeping, virulent disease which infects at will and even at great distances, I have also become addicted. And then on the elimination show yesterday, they did the opening group dance to a Tom Waits song. I've only been watching the show for a couple weeks, but I still would have laid money down that not one of those dancers knew who Tom Waits is. It's possible they didn't before this routine, but who knows? Wade Robson knew who he was. And that dance fucking rocked. Wade Robson earned himself my undying affection for it, because he made it creepy and weird, which is really the only kind of dance you can even do to a Tom Waits song.

Goddamn, I love that man. Every time anything reminds me of him I spend about eight days or so with my iPod's Waits playlist set on loop.

Go See "Once"

2007-08-10T06:53:51Z

If you love good guitar-based rock/folk music, find a way to see "Once" in theaters. For Christ's sake, see it now. Then go look up the artists, because you will want to know more about them. I hate to watch any character settle for less than greatness in film, especially if it's a woman, but when it's done with this kind of sensitivity, and this same sense that there is still beauty around you even if you do settle, I can exit the theater with my rage suppressed. This is one of those films that helps me believe that even if I never get everything I want, I'll probably get at least a few of them, and come out on the other side with memories.

My Weekend Was Overrun by Brits, Part 1

2007-07-27T06:31:15Z

The Running of the Hottie Footballers

There were two reasons why you would be at the Home Depot Center in Carson last Saturday: You love soccer and live in or around LA, or you are one of the many Hollywood stars David Beckham and his wife have befriended.

I am (shocking, I know) the former. My mother's been a rabid fan of the Galaxy for years, having become so after she no longer got her soccer fix from carting me to tournaments every weekend, so she already had two of her extra season passes lined up to see Becks limp onto the field for the first time. Anyone who wants to hear about the celebrities must know this: I saw Jennifer Love Hewitt walk by on her way to her seat, I saw Posh on the giant viewscreen that shows replays, and I saw Drew Carey at the VIP exit on the way out. That's the long and short of it.

Oh, and we saw Bob Bradley, the coach of the US men's national team, and we were way, way more interested in him. That'll tell you a little bit about me, right there. I am just that uncool.

Anyway, there was a guy in the crowd holding up a sign that said "I didn't come here to see Beckham," and that guy probably summed up the sentiment of lots of soccer fans in the crowd. Most of us would go without Beckham, but all of us are lying if we say we're not intensely curious and excited to see him.

The people there were pumped, and after years of going to games where that kind of excitement was usually only generated by important national team matches, or times when El Tri comes to town, I have to say I hope it sticks. Eventually there will no longer be cheers each time he touches the ball, or stretches, or gets up off the bench (no joke, there was a rising swell of noise and excitement each time he stood up) but if Beckham brings nothing else to the Galaxy, this raw fan enthusiasm could help simply because it'd be hard for the other guys to go out there each time and not try to kick ass, with all that going on.

The rest of my writings here have no real authority behind them, they are merely the opinions of someone who has watched the Galaxy loosely over the past couple of years, played lots of soccer before that, and has a vast maternal reserve of information about LAG available to her.

I think Beckham could be good for the Galaxy. They're not really a team right now, too young, too untested, too scattered. Much as I always want him to do well, and get my rage on when he slacks off — as he inevitably does — I can admit that Donovan has yet to consistently step up as a leader. And if Beckham is anything, he is confident. His twelve minutes on the field with an injured ankle showed that much. He knows he can hit a pass wherever he wants to, put the ball on a dime, bend it around a wall, whatever. But the MLS doesn't play confident soccer, the kind that's at ease with long combinations of passes and dribbling and crisp movements. Even the National Team is only finally starting to move away from a bunker defense style of play and really stop whaling it past the half-line and praying it connects with a US player's body somehow. I want the MLS to get there. And if Becks plays not just knowing he can connect a pass wherever he wants, crisply and stylishly, but wanting the other guys to know it of themselves, then I think they'd believe him. He's David Beckham, for Christ's sake, and if he's expecting you to go out there and keep your head, pass the ball and be smart, all while maintaining a stoked fire of aggression, then who the hell are you to refuse?

He may not care that much. Maybe he really did sign a five-year deal so he could lounge in LA and pursue Hollywood opportunities while making token appearances at practices. But I don't want to believe it of a guy who's accomplished so much. My admiration for his skill would take a sharp nosedive if it turned out he was content to pose for photo ops at the games of a struggling team that he's nominally a member of.

True, he's not the coach, and the coach is above all responsible for building the Galaxy. But let's not kid ourselves. Beckham was brought here on purpose to be a leader, and he has such a unique opportunity. This is a league he could help to kick into the stratosphere: money and talent are available, but the fanbase is still teetering on the brink of sustainability. Latinos show up, but not in the numbers they would if we had a truly world-class league going. Other people show up, but not in the numbers they would if their neighbors were going too, or watching the games on TV, and having tailgate parties and drinking beer in bars while the games play on the bar screens because those are sports stars. US Whites and blacks don't love soccer yet the way Latinos do, but they will once it becomes the kind of event football and basketball are.

Beckham can do that. He's got the fame to start drawing people in. He can bring big-name celebrities to games. He's got the fucking skills to back it up. And when the fanbase starts to swell, it doesn't just help with money to hire foreign stars. It helps attract young kids to the game, to grow up and become great players, and it motivates the players we've already got. Would you work that much harder not to look stupid in front of a crowd of 100,000 fans as opposed to a crowd of 25,000 who don't expect that much from you? I sure as hell would.

Next time, Part Two of My Weekend Was Overrun by Brits: Harry Potter and the Epic Fandom

Office Meta, Take 6

2007-07-18T02:20:39Z

I have Wilco tickets! Whatever happens to me this week, and stormclouds seem to be a-gathering, that will put a smile on my face. Not coincidentally, so does this week's Office Meta episode.

— Maybe it's the Southern Californian in me talking, but I have a hard time believing there are beautiful days in Scranton. The fake snow is too good (although, I think the last time I saw snow was on a trip to Utah in 2006, so make of that what you will) and the actors do too good a job of pretending to be cold. Some of their best work, I feel, is done in shivering.

— The camera work in the cold open is top notch. As soon as Michael feaks, they go flying past desks and copiers and fichus plants, zooming in on Jim before panning to Ryan, Meredith, Angela and then Michael again. It's like the director said to the camera operators: "Imagine you're on 24, now film it like someone's hidden a nuke in the building and Dunder-Mifflin just got a bomb threat called in." And the camera operators knew that their day had come.

— Michael Scott helpfully demonstrates Reason #1 Why I'm Glad I Don't Wear a Turban or Religious Headgear of Any Kind. Reason #2 is "I get really bad hat hair."

— Stanley's the only one who used the words "boss," "Michael" and/or "funny" in his emails? That seems odd.

— Michael's totally right, for once. Either eavesdrop on your employees and hope they don't find out what weasels you are, the way the government normally does, or leave them the hell alone. Don't do the "we're reading your emails for your own good" corporate bullshit. That just drives the really deviant stuff underground, and then what are you left with to print out and pass around the office for laughs?

— You know Dwight and Angela have to be into some fucked-up shit. Between the tight-ass, control-freak Christian prudery and the anime-babe-loving, authority-worshipping geekery in that pairing, there's room for a whole lotta freakey-deakey. They call it "cookie" and talk about being hungry, for god's sake!

— I f***ing love Jim leaning back and putting his hands behind his head once Dwight comes out with "does he have access to their medical records?" It so clearly telegraphs his multiple reactions of "holy shit, I don't even wanna know the backstory on that," "goddamn I hope the cameramen are catching Pam's face right now," and "whatcha gonna do now, huh, smart girl? This is what I deal with all day."

— Aw, he said "Evitation."

— Pam's little quirky eyebrow when Angela gets two candies out of the vending machine is incredibly sexy. And I don't lean towards girls. She needs more projects to work on, they do amazing things for her.

— Dwight eats his Baby Ruth in a manner that reminds me of a leopard feeding. I may be watching too many "Planet Earth" episodes.

— The problem with Michael is not that he wants to be loved. We all want to be loved, probably with the same desperation Michael does. The problem with Michael is that he's a man in his forties who still wants to be loved by the popular crowd, and not by people who might actually be on his level. Dwight's love doesn't count to him because Dwight is a fellow glue-eater. Meredith coming on to him and Phyllis being kind to him aren't enough because they aren't women he can brag about to Todd Packer the next day.

Jim is basically the quarterback, and Michael knows it despite his pretensions to being BMOC, and as a result Jim's love and friendship has the power to confer acceptance and coolness upon him. Which is why it's so severely cringey to see him essentially beg for it. His focus is all-consuming and unashamed, the focus of a man who will never stop in his quest to be the kind of uber-jock, beer-swilling, twin-banging alpha male he simply can't be. I doubt he even realizes that the rules change a little once you leave high school, and Jim is cool in part because he isn't that guy.

— It hurts Angela to be called a liar. Even when she is one. That's endearing.

— It seems pre-personality-transplant Kelly was a beer drinker. There's just a whole other woman there that we never really knew, wasn't there?

— In what world is it okay to ask a work colleague you barely know if you can call the ex he recently broke up with and ask her out? Is this guy world? Or is this Ryan world? I really hope it's the latter.

— When I took some drama classes, my teacher used to tell us to do whatever we had to to make the scene more dramatic. And I remember thinking, "well, I could just mysteriously die gasping and screaming right here, that's dramatic, right?" Seriously, what a silly idea. And... that's another entry into my "Worrying Personal Similarities to Michael Scott" folder. At least I never actually did pretend to die in a scene.

— The reason Michael does something is never the reason he tells you, and the second anyone makes him go off the script he's prepared for himself, the real reason becomes obvious. He always pretends to have a gun because he can't think of anything else to do when he's put on the spot except attack. What a metaphor for his entire life.

— I'd like to talk about Jim rescuing Michael in karaoke. I really would. But I'm afraid my heart just exploded and I'm too busy mopping up the blood to go into any depth.

Office Meta, Take 5

2007-07-11T04:22:15Z

Wherein I don't really feel all that inspired, but the meta shouldn't suffer because of my ill-mood.

Office Meta, Take 5

— Pam looks really good in her casual Friday wear. It's sad that just putting her in a nice V-neck shirt is an improvement over what she usually dresses in. Kinda like it's sad that there was a time when returning a light beer counted as bravery in her world.

— Michael will eventually be scheduling meetings in the ball pit of the local McDonald's. Can't get less snooty than that.

— I don't know how Pam could not expect everyone to guess that it was Roy who left her at the hockey game. Sorry babe, but that sounds exactly like something Roy 1.0 would do. Although in his defense, wouldn't nine years or so qualify as long ago, and isn't it kind of unsurprising behavior out of a sixteen year-old boy?

— Look at Jim adding "left her at a sporting event" to his mental tally of reasons why he's way awesomer than Roy. I'd say from that "interesting" that he was integrating the data into his master scheme to steal Pam away, but it turns out his grand plan was to tell her how he felt when it was almost too late, cry, kiss her, and then leave town. It's like when Gore managed to lose to Bush (fuck recounts, y'all, it should never have been that close). He was up against a complete monkey, and yet he still struck out. I want to give both of them a hug and a smack upside the head.

Now I've just equated Pam with the American voting public. If only America had wised up at even the glacially slow pace that my girl Pam managed.

— I must give props to Steve Carell. Mad props, because he made me believe, in one episode, that Michael could ask Jan about her divorce right in front of a potential client, sing the "Baby Back Ribs" song, and still close the sale. That is one good salesman.

— As always, Jim's total lack of shame when violating promises made to Michael or Dwight, or violating the privacy of either one by, say, photocopying their secret screenplay and handing them out to everyone in the office, really endears him to me in a way that makes me think I'm not a very good person deep inside.

— I've never been in a business meeting. I hope I never am, so that I can continue to believe that they go down in the high school sleepover manner that this one does: lots of alcohol, singing, and emotional sharing of each other's deepest thoughts and most painful life experiences.

— What Chili's in America was playing the New Pornographers two years ago, is what I want to know.

— Go Michael! Call me insane, but he's pretty hot when he's competent. Good damn thing it happens so rarely, but when it does, it shocks the hell out of me.

— Did Dwight have a bad dream? Why is he calling for Michael the second he wakes up? Forget I asked that question.

— The documentary camera guys have it so easy with Michael. All they have to do is keep the lens on him and make sure he knows it, and eventually he'll be talking more than Kelly on a Pixie Stix high. What a needy, needy little boy he is.

— Oh, it was genius to only have us hear Michael's side of the phone conversation with Jan. There's so much going on there, and we have to infer half of it from the humiliation and fury and confusion Jan is no doubt experiencing right now. Poor woman. Welcome aboard the express train to Unemployed Loonytown, Jan. Don't worry, it's all-inclusive.

— I think Jim's whole bit here yammering about what a great date they had is an instance of the writers taking it a bit too far. Mostly, I can't understand what Jim was going for, since he's talking to an engaged woman, and it doesn't seem that realistic that he'd push it. Also, I can't see how Pam didn't buy a clue when he's being that blatant about wanting to date her. That said, it never fails to make my heart melt when Jim and Michael end an episode on the same wavelength.

— I think it's still a date even if the girl does go home to her fiance. It's just the kind of date you'll someday be on Ricky Lake for.

Office Meta, Take 4

2007-07-04T05:33:20Z

I missed last week's, because I am lame. But now, fire! As anyone who really knows me is aware, I am nothing if not a big ol' pyro. I love fire. Therefore, this episode cannot but be wonderful.

— Jim, don't be that guy. That guy that makes sure the girl he likes knows all about the super-hot chicks he can bang anytime he cares to try. I'm not falling for your innocent face, boyo.

I've got to stop talking to Jim like he's a real person and I'm his sister or something. Because that's just going to cause me all sorts of mental discord. He already uncomfortably reminds me of my brother when he gets his game on in Basketball, which is why I try not to watch that episode too much. Welcome to my brain.

— Michael should never fuck around with the performance reviews of ambitious people. They will never laugh, their blood pressure will double, and you stand a good chance of being mauled before the end.

— Michael Scott's running form is outright cartoonish, and I love it. Incidentally, how bitchin' would a version of the Office done old-school, Hanna-Barbera cartoon style be? Michael could be Foghorn Leghorn, lots of talk but little to no sense, or Elmer Fudd, never quite knowing what he's doing. Dwight as Daffy Duck, Jim as Bugs Bunny. Pam as Bugs' girlfriend, I suppose — did he ever have a girlfriend? — anyway, not that many female Looney Tunes characters to pick from that I recall. Oscar as Speedy Gonzalez. Stanley gives off a bit of a Yosemite Sam vibe, except without the sociopathic qualities, or maybe that Sheepdog that's always behind Wile E. Coyote when he clocks into work. Kevin as Porky Pig (sorry, that was a low blow). Creed as Pepe Le Pew.

Damn, this is working out way better than I thought it would. The only question is, who is Marvin the Martian?

— From Phyllis' grumbling, Dwight has clearly conducted tests of the office fire alarm system before. If you all could see through my computer screen, you'd see me making my Face of Extreme Not-Surprise.

— The genius of Michael is that he can be so wrong and so selfish that he actually loops back around to where enlightened people ought to be. So a ridiculous and offensive display of sexual harassment actually loops back around to a legitimate question of where the boundaries of behavior are, and him knocking over his own employees to get out of what he thinks is a burning building becomes about how he respects women as equals and therefore isn't going to subject them to different rules. Michael Scott: So Wrong He's Sometimes Almost Sorta Right.

— I want to know Angela's backstory, desperately. Because she's clearly a smart woman, and in my experience, getting a smart person to the point where he or she thinks the only two books worth bringing to a desert island (or admitting to wanting to bring) are the Bible and Rick Warren's Manual O'Claptrap takes some world-class, disturbing life experiences. Things involving belt buckles or walled-in church compounds or summers spent in Jesus Camp. Even Bible-thumpers still read classic literature. Is Jane Austen too risque? What about The Scarlet Letter? Angela would love the Scarlet Letter, even as she totally missed the point.

— Jim really is the likeable version of the elitist indie kid we all know and kind of respect, because he does have impeccable taste in music and movies and so on, but who is still kind of a dick and will burn you for having any kind of guilty pleasure. Like, not everyone wants to watch Dazed and Confused and listen to Godspeed You Black Emperor the rest of their lives, Jim! Christ.

I feel his pain, though, as a sorta-fellow elitist. Legends of the Fall? But I also think Pam left off a couple of films she'd want to take but which she'd never admit to in front of Jim, because she knows him, and because that's exactly what I'd do.

— Sort of in the same way Jim makes me squirm because he's wasting a ton of potential, Dwight makes me squirm because he's lucky enough to be a sort of salesman/business-savant despite his general lunacy, and yet his reverence for authority and structure makes him subservient to Michael. Michael may also be a salesman-savant, but beyond that he's a fish in a desert. He has never taken the time to acquire expertise on anything, whereas Dwight throws himself in with enthusiasm, so that he can actually decipher mortgage papers and knows about real estate and business models and how to run a farm.

Wasted potential wreaks emotional havoc on me, which I guess is why this show keeps me riveted half the time. You can see the wasted potential leaking out of every seam in Dunder-Mifflin.

— Michael: "I became a salesman because of people. I love making friends."

He did, didn't he? Despite all the bullshit about being so successful as a boss, he really did pick this career to make friends. Because sometimes work is an excuse to get people to talk to you, or to get a certain person to talk to you, or because you have a reason to gather with a group who may not hang out otherwise. Because sometimes people really can get along better when they can all act like they have somewhere else better to be, if it weren't for work. And that's the only way Michael can appear cool to begin with.

— Kevin: "Present company excluded?
Jim: "Not necessarily."
Kevin: "Pam."
Oscar: "Pam!"

I expect that from Kevin, but Oscar! Stop getting your closeted frustration all over Pam! You're a nicer boy than that.

— Aw, Jim was going to try to rig the rules so that all the guys wouldn't be sexually harassing Pam! This is what passes for damsel-in-distress heroics in Office-land. And yet somehow it makes women even hotter than rescuing her from some castle would. It does me, anyway.

— Dwight: "I hope the war goes on forever and Ryan gets drafted."

This is a top contender for funniest line in Office history in my book, along with "And suddenly... suddenly she's not your ho no mo'!" Just genius.

— Roy: "Hey! Angela! Nice to meet you!"

Wow. How Jim refrains from screaming "That?! That's what you're marrying?" at Pam I'll never know.

— Look at Roy off in the side of the shot as Jim explains his rationale for doing Kevin, squinting confusedly and trying for reals to figure out if Jim is gay. See, he thinks he's too good for beer-bottle smashing humor, but he hasn't quite graduated to absurd humor and sarcasm yet. What a lonely place to be. I'd feel for him, but he actually said he'd do another woman in the office in front of his fiancee. Said it in front of her, I mean. Not that he'd fuck Angela in front of Pam.

Oh dear God, he'd probably do that, too.

— Hah! Ryan pulled the "pretend to program some guy/girl's number into your phone" trick on Michael! I bet he also gave Michael his own number with one digit wrong, so that he could pretend it was an accident if Michael ever found out. I've pulled that one, too.

— It's so gross, and awkward, when insecure people make fun of someone they feel inferior to.

— It occurs to me that Jim is more flirty with Katy in a couple of episodes than he was with Karen for most of their relationship. Was it just because of how they were more long-term, or was he really that damaged by then? I really miss flirty Jim, he's quite adorable.

— Pam: "I forgot what a super-nice girl Katy is."

Pam. Pam! She's my favorite character, hands down. I've felt that secret, evil joy when some other pretty girl is revealed to be a total nitwit. We are such a twisted species. Some day Pam is going to see this whole documentary, and she's going to want to hide her face in shame, but the beauty of it is that she won't, because she's my favorite character, and she now rocks more than any of them. She's going to be the one screaming at the TV, "oh my God! Who the hell did I think I was fooling?" And she'll be sharing popcorn with the cameramen while they tell her all about the number of times they wanted to knock her over the head and tell her to man up, and she'll face it all without flinching.

Have I mentioned how much I'm looking forward to season 4?

Office Meta, Take 3

2007-06-20T04:37:18Z

Sexual Harrassment!! Yay!

Ever noticed how the British emphasize the "hair" in harassment and Americans emphasize the "ass?" There's a really pervy joke I'm missing out on there.

—File my love for emailing stupid things to friends under the folder entitled "Worrying Personal Similarities to Michael Scott."

—Packer: "What's up, Halpert? Still queer?"

I hope not, or else a whole lot of our operating assumptions about Season 4 will turn out to be false. And millions of websites, fanfiction and personal fantasies will be all for nothing. Or will, at least, be replaced by more slash websites.

—So Michael gets a visit from his BFF, the guy who makes him feel like he runs with a super-cool alpha-male crowd, and the first thing he wants to do is gossip. If only Michael knew how pan-gendered he sometimes acts.

—Usually I love Michael. I really do. His inability to understand why people don't love him the way he wants them to (and heartbreak over the fact that they don't) is so poignant that I can't help rooting for him. But so help me God, when he lets his borderline misogynistic side run away with him, all I want to do is strangle him with his women's blazer.

It's people like Michael that are the reason women face so many obstacles in the corporate world, or the political world, or just the whole world. Because people like Michael are so normal and so human and so kind in so many ways, but they never ever thought to question any of the ridiculous double-standards of their upbringing. They never ask why they're supposed to believe women are only this way, or can only act this way. They never consider the points any equal rights advocate brings up, because to do so would require them to adjust their own place in the world, and they've spent their entire lives feeling uncertain about just where they stand as it is.

They never understand why someone might be upset at the toxic effects of favoring men and demeaning women, favoring straights and demeaning gays, favoring Christians and marginalizing religious minorities, because those double-standards are so integrated into their life that they can't even see them anymore. It's nothing but the noise of life to them — objective reality, not a twisted state of affairs. Overt racists or sexists or religious bigots can be dealt with; it's the people who don't realize their own bigotry that drive the rest of us up a wall.

It's odd that the episodes I enjoy the most tend to be the ones that can send me into paroxysms of rage if I dig deeper into what's going on. This show is brilliant when it talks about this stuff.

—The contrast between Jim and the raging jackassery of Packer is so glaring, it's hard to believe the writers weren't actively setting out to make Jim Halpert the king of America's bookish women. Honestly, what red-blooded heterosexual female doesn't want to bang him after he spends most of this episode outwardly loathing the biggest chauvinist ever to hit this show and sweetly longing to meet Pam's mom?

—Packer intentionally parked his ugly car in two spaces! Ryan ought to shoot him in the face right now and plead justifiable homicide. If he lands in front of Judge Calexical, he'll be getting off scot-free.

—Put Toby within five feet of Michael, and his internal DramaQueen-o-Meter shoots up about fifty points.

—Oh Darryl. A terrible gay joke? Isn't my love worth more to you than that?

—On the eternal question of who did Phyllis have a one-night stand with, I'm putting in my vote for Creed. Because he wouldn't remember it happened, and that's the only way anything stays a secret in this office.

—BJ Novak's moment on the commentary confessing his crush on John Krasinski is so cute I now have a crush on BJ.

—Toby: "I'm just sad the public school system failed him so badly."

I'm amazed the internet failed him so badly. How can one be a sci-fi and anime lover and wannabe know-it-all without having seen some internet porn? Are you telling me Dwight has never discovered manga?

—I want to meet a lawyer that specializes in both free speech issues and motorcycle head injuries. I imagine they'd have an interesting life story.

—Take note, Jim. If Pam takes after her mom at all, she's going to look amazing even when she has twenty-something year-old kids. So, you know, don't hesitate to get working on those little Jims and Pams.

—Does Pam's mom have a Southern accent?

—Her mom knows. Oh, her mom knows without even asking. And Jim knows she's told her mom about him! "Misinterpreted things," my ass. Listen to her all flustered because her mom talked about her secret boyfriend within his hearing range! LOOK AT THAT SMILE ON HIS FACE! I could not love them more than I do.

—Michael: "Times have changed a little...It would be inappropriate for me to take a bath with Pam, as much as I might want to."

No, Michael. It's inappropriate for you to think that's an okay topic to joke about with coworkers, which I have no doubt you have, never considering that her reputation is subject to your whims and you have professional power over her, and that maybe it'd be nice if you didn't treat the women in the office first and foremost on the level of how sexy you find them. GOD.

I'm sorry. I still love you. I think you're funny. Just... fucking have some respect, will you? I'm sorry I yelled. Please don't cry.

Every day you learn something new

2007-06-20T02:25:40Z

And sometimes it isn't something you particularly wanted to know.

Ever taken a CPR class? Ever experienced the creepy sensation of feeling fake ribs on a rubber dummy that you're meant to compress nearly to the breaking point? Ever felt a white-hot flash of rage at students who inevitably viewed the dummy — if it was female — as a sexual object, and ominously thought that the jackass is about to be thankful he's in a room full of lifesaving professionals?

Well, now you can be even more disturbed. One of the dummy retailers models it's face after the death mask of an anonymous girl fished out of the River Seine in the early 1800s.

http://www.laerdal.co.uk/mainnode.asp?nodeid=10928993

I don't care if it was a semi-famous incident at the time, a company would have to have one retarded PR director to allow that line to go into production.

Office Meta, Take 2

2007-06-13T01:49:50Z

Done for the Office Meta community. Analyzing minutiae of shows you love is fun, kids!

—Still no cold open. Do any shows airing today jump straight into a full credits sequence? How daring they were.

—The Dundie Michael holds up in the first scene appears to be extremely bored.

—"The Dundies are like a car wreck that you want to look away, but you can't because your boss is making you"

God, that's a horrible thought. Think how much worse traffic would be on the 5 if people had to look at car wrecks because their bosses were making them, rather than just because some of them are morbid, freeway-clogging sheeple.

—Jim almost looks like he's waiting for Michael to be ashamed of his abysmal Fat Halpert joke, but he must know he's going to die of old age before Michael is ever ashamed of any joke he directs at a straight white guy.

—What do you suppose pre-personality-transplant Kelly talked about with the girls? Strategies for avoiding sexual harassment? The glass ceiling? Nietzsche?

—Pam is this odd mix of shy and bold, sometimes at the same time. She's standing there lying to Phyllis and Kelly about the bathroom wall point-blank and making fun of Dwight, and yet her shoulders are hunched in and she's clutching her collar closed like she's afraid one of her buttons has popped. Whenever she has someone in her corner, like the girls in this scene, or Jim in almost any scene, or Karen in Benihana Christmas (or tequila, coming up) her playfulness rears its head. Take away her backup and she's not sure whether she's allowed to speak up. I could not be more happy that season three was about her shedding the need to have someone standing next to her.

—One office party a year?! So basically, a Christmas party only. Jan might as well shoot Michael in the heart right now.

—There's something incredibly poignant about the grainy home-video footage of a disgruntled Pam and Jim each reacting to the Longest Engagement award with their backs to each other, separated in frame by an oblivious cackling boss and an even more oblivious fiance. If I could pick one image that encapsulated their season two relationship, it would probably be this one, even if it is sorely lacking in the funny.

—I really, really love when someone on this show utters the phrase "what the hell?" Whoever says it is always so indignant, and the delivery is always brilliant.

—Oscar is wrong about the Dundies being like a kid's birthday party. Kids don't give a shit about whether the adults are enjoying the party. The Dundies are like campouts, and B&Bs, and parties where the keg never arrived, and obviously like really unfunny open-mike nights. There's always someone around who organized everything, and is trying really hard to make you have fun, and watching you the whole time to gauge whether you're having fun, and noticing when you're not having fun, which of course makes it even less fun, because now you feel like a heel on top of all the not-having-fun.

—Since I work in a restaurant, I can't get over my disbelief that Chili's management didn't put Dunder-Mifflin in an isolated area to begin with. I mean, what kind of restaurant schedules corporate parties that are bringing music and microphones and their own sound effects and puts them in the middle of the floor? There ought to be about twenty feet of empty space around them at least, because anybody sat there is going to immediately ask for a table without a badly-rapping clown jumping around in front of it.

Also, separate checks for large parties is a quick way to make your waiters hate your breathing guts. Jan should know of the anguish she has wrought.

—Dwight Schrute: Joke Killer.

—Much as Ping is gloriously offensive, my favorite costume is the unseen-except-for-in-deleted-scenes Native American garb. Some wonderful soul put the time in to get a full feather headdress for Steve Carell, and he rocks it while chanting his way out of a fight with Toby. It's great.

—I'm glad Pam is also clearly a friend of the Worm, because I suddenly have a craving for a Presidente Margarita. Working at a Mexican restaurant either leaves you a tequila fiend or turns you off margaritas for the rest of your life, and I proudly belong to the former camp.

—Jenna Fischer really does play a fabulous drunk, even if it is a little bit of a romanticized drunk. Every woman alive wishes she was that cute when she's plastered and falling off chairs, but we all know damn well that it would only end in dumb faces caught on camera and injuries, not adorableness. But at least any one of us would have effing made out with the cute office guy who's totally in love with us.

—Wow, I love Kevin and all, but am I terrible for pointing out that his fiancee is way out of what should theoretically be his league? Remember on Friends, when the guys and gals the friends dated used to be normal-looking people, but by the end of the series Brad Pitt and Elle MacPherson were the typical guest-star love interests, like you just trip over people who look like that every day in New York? You have to wonder (and I know no one else probably has) whether Kevin might be terrific in the sack.

—I wondered why Ryan's seat next to Jim was conveniently available for Pam once she came back, but I finally noticed that Ryan is busy hitting on the waitress in the back of one of the shots! Awesome. Continuity and BJ Novak gets to chat up a pretty girl.

—Aw, look at all the camaraderie. And all it took was the realization that Michael is in fact not the biggest tool in that restaurant.

—Even if the cast fawned all over Jim's post-kiss face in the commentary, I can't refrain from doing the same here. The poor boy looks dazed, elated, confused, flustered, turned on, like he hopes no one saw and like he hopes everyone saw, all at once. Bra-frickin'-vo.

—So, does Pam remember that she kissed Jim? Did she pretend she didn't? Did he make a light joke about it the next day and pretend he wasn't hoping for her to perk up and say, "oh, by the way, I broke up with Roy last night"? We'll never know! This is why fanfiction will take over the world.

—I, for one, applaud Dwight's (and Rainn Wilson's) remarkable comfort with his body. Down with uptight prudery!

Now put your shirt back on, Dwight.

—I feel like maybe Roy's biggest mistake of all was not getting Pam drunk at that hockey game, because from the way she's "woo-ing" and waving her trophy in the camera's face, that is a woman who was meant to be a sports fan. And yet years of Roy's neglect have stunted her true nature. How sad.

On Being Stagnant

2007-06-08T02:42:37Z

Generally I'm not one to go looking for latent psychological issues that would explain why I do things. I try not to analyze myself too often — the way I do everything else — because I don't trust myself as an impartial witness to who I am and what I'm becoming. Obviously I have to probe my gray matter occasionally, but if I do it too often I drive myself insane.

But I was back at school for a couple of days, and though my relationship with my college was a weird and occasionally frustrating one, it got progressively better all the way toward the end. Really, Day 1 was my lowest point at college. And while being back after a couple of months I suddenly experience a crippling fear: I may never be as good at anything as I was at school.

I rocked at school. Classes, tests, writing and studying are things I always intuitively knew how to do. Grades were never an issue. If I had a less than stellar one in any class, it would be up again by the next quarter, or the next exams, or whatever. I would find the problem and fix it. It's not that I didn't work at school. I did have to actively do the homework, which is where most smart people (including my brother) trip up and which I agree is mostly a complete waste of time. But you can't get good grades without doing it, so I did. I take tests well, always have. I write well enough that even subpar research can coast through. By the time college rolled around, I knew the game so well that the only time I was really working hard was when I had two jobs on top of classes.

And now that I finally got out, and am finally making baby steps toward an actual career, it's so clear now that that one skill opened up most of the doors of my life. But from now on, I'm going to need other skills.

Sure, they're related to some extent. Writing well translates. Ability to put together papers and projects and learn the things you need to know, even if it leaves your brain a month later, translates. But what's the first thing a newly minted college grad who dives into his first job says? "Wow, this is not what I expected."

Whatever I do, it's not going to be what I expected. I have no idea if my academic ability will in any way funnel itself into real world ability. And I wonder if that's why I still haven't done anything of note in the few months since I've graduated.

Office Meta, Take 1

2007-06-06T05:21:34Z

Time to dip my toe in the exciting waters of META! I haven't been an Office fan for too long, though, so even money says anything I have to offer has already been done far better by far more people.

That's what she said. HA! Now I'm sufficiently warmed up.

—You know, I just noticed that Dwight's bobblehead collection implies that he's a big baseball fan, which doesn't seem to fit Dwight at all. I don't think Dwight would go to a baseball game unless Michael wanted to, in which case he would be the one buying every kitschy accessory he could find. Maybe he only discovered the magic of Lasertag and Paintball between seasons one and two? And his bobbleheads should be of Picard, or Bill Adama, or... Siler. Or D'Argo! Though I suppose we have no real proof that Dwight has ever seen Farscape.

I have a new item for my season 4 wishlist. Proof that Dwight knows what a Peacekeeper is. Because you know Dwight would want to be one.

—So I have a roommate who also lugs a giant bottle of water around with her all the time, and for some reason, people who do this will never give me a straight answer on why. They always hedge about how they don't like the taste or something, instead of coming out and saying they read about how microbacteria from Tijuana migrate up the coast and settle in Southern California reservoirs, or that they harbor a secret fear of being caught unprepared for a flash-drought whenever they step outside. No doubt Dwight would give me a straight answer, and honestly, I'd like to know if I came anywhere close.

—Ah, Proto-Michael, and Proto-Michael's Hair. How easily we take Steve Carell's relative suavitude for granted in later seasons. Honestly, did the man vacation at the Queer Eye HQ over the summer? Because that's a video I desperately want to see.

—And Proto-Pam! I think my favorite part of doing this retro-Office meta is going to be focusing on how freaking far she came as a person. My least favorite part is seeing her sad, though. When Pam is sad, the world cries.

—There's something about the way S1 Jim is shot, and the dialogue he's given that feels so much more raw than it does now. Maybe Krasinski's performance evolved away from this earlier version, maybe it's just that the camera hasn't really gotten in his face for a while now. But I think that at the beginning, Jim saw this whole documentary as another way to jazz up his ultra-dull workplace. His body language is by far more comfortable with the camera than anybody, he knows he's a likeable person, and it's generally like he and the camera guys have had a couple of beers together after hours before. He so happily narrates his own life to them in this buddy-buddy way.

Then the cameras stayed there, and the novelty wore off a bit, and he's too smart not to notice that they keep picking up on these little parts of his life he's not so proud of. Then he starts analyzing what he says, and while his camera face is still affable and all, you can see a lot more calculation going on behind it. All of this within really, like, the first 16 episodes. It's kind of remarkable.

—For some reason, there's not much that's funnier to me than when TV shows show someone making a solemn vow to keep a secret, and then immediately cuts to them dishing the whole thing to their friend without a shred of remorse.

Obviously, it's only funny when the secret is trivial. I wouldn't think treason is funny. Probably. Sometimes 24 makes me laugh.

—"You are not going to believe this."
"What? I believe it."
It's the fact that Dwight seems to take everything anyone says as a dare that makes me love him.

—"That was beautiful. All her idea, too. Awesome. She is so great."
See? Jim may not have gotten a very good filter on his mouth until after Casino Night, but he still picked one up somewhere in early season 2. Sure, it was like one of those crappy fish tank filters that occasionally gums up and turns the aquarium green, but even that filter wouldn't have let that string of words escape his brain.

—It's not until you try to recreate one of these pranks that you realize how much Dwight's uncertain grasp on normality helps Jim out with them. My coworkers are alarmingly skeptical when I tell them there are secret meetings going on in Small Wares Storage and that they should hide under a stack of towels to get the scoop, but to Dwight that would of course be entirely reasonable. Honestly, Jim should have moved back to Scranton for no other reason than because he'll never find another pranking object who will so enthusiastically seal himself into boxes, or entertain the possibility that Jim really has been telekinetic all this time.

It's the shot of Jim gleefully taping Dwight into the box that kills me every time.

—Clearly, Angela had not yet clenched her iron fist around the Party Planning Committee at this point. Even the last-minute luau was better than poor Meredith's birthday.

—Pam's acting ability has taken a sharp dive on the journey from Jim's desk to the warehouse. I blame all the cake. After enough cake, I probably would have been buzzed enough to sit right on the Dwight-box and kick it with my heels while talking to a friend about menstruation, or something. Though I suppose Dwight would enjoy that.

—The brilliance of this show is the details. Like when Darryl is standing speechless in the background while Dwight busts his way out of a cardboard box, after presumably spending some time shifting around in there and making Darryl imagine all kinds of freaky possibilities for why one of his boxes is moving.

—Oh, Roy. You belong in a different world. A blue-collar OC kind of world, where a guy laughing with your fiancee and holding her hand equals trying to cop a feel.

—Peroxide has been the cause of so much evil in this world, and yet so much hilarity as well, in the form of Spike, Dwight's "politics" hair, and the bleached blonde roommate I had who used to use it on her arm hair.

Drink Up, Me Hearties

2007-06-05T07:12:51Z

The plots may be impossible to follow even with flow charts and clunking exposition, but the Pirates movies are still more fun than anything I've seen in the theater, in maybe ever. They absolutely revel in the fun of it, and it's glorious to watch the lot of them swashbuckling like freakish re-enacters. It's like Blackbeard, Baz Luhrmann and Errol Flynn had a baby together, and it exploded all over the screen.

Also, I am Hans Zimmer's bitch. All the man has to do is crank up the dramatic orchestra and suddenly I'm skipping through a theater searching fruitlessly for a rafter to swing from or a worthless swabbie to stab. I don't belong in this pirate-less city.

Is it me, or does Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley's comparative lack of acting skill become less noticeable with each film?

Keith fucking Richards! How did they keep him awake long enough to shoot that shit? I hope there are tons of outtakes with him and Johnny Depp talking complete nonsense to each other.

I don't think Geoffrey Rush will ever die. I think he's really going to become an immortal pirate and sail the world for eternity, laughing maniacally the whole time.

I thought I heard it, right in the middle of the Pirate Pow-wow during which KR graced us all with his presence, and then while sitting through the credits I saw his name right there. My man, Ghassan Massoud! Saladin himself! Where you been, Ghassan? What, did Bloom ask you to bring your thundering presence to the bit part of "Arab Pirate Captain?" Because I don't blame you — doesn't matter how serious of an actor you are, if I were him and someone called me up and said I could come to the Bahamas and get paid to dress up like a pirate and participate in re-enactments of smashing gunship battles, I'd have been in the Damascus airport so fast you'd think my ass was on fire. I need to go look up some Syrian films starring my man Ghassan, like now.

What plot?

The Job, Or Why Pam Beesly is The Most Endearing Character in the History of Ever

2007-06-04T23:23:00Z

God-damn, I love shows that are willing to mess with what we expect!

And yet, for a season finale that gave so much, this last Office managed to answer suprisingly few questions. Which is devilishly tricky, because I was sitting there the entire time muttering "they're going to leave me on a fucking cliffhanger, those still-born bastards, I just know it." But in the strict sense of the word... they didn't. And yet things are as open-ended as they were at the end of Casino Night.

That's quite a trick of writing to pull off. It's like the dialogue equivalent of distracting your honey from having a serious talk about your relationship by offering up some hot sex.

I have so many questions. Will Jan know enough not to even attempt the housewife thing, or have the implants leaked into her brain? Why did Karen so suddenly suck, and did Jim actually leave her in the Village without a ride back to Scranton? Who will finally give Ryan the ass-kicking he surely has coming to him, and will we be sufficiently blessed by God to have the cameras get it on film? What project will Pam devote her newfound verve and courage to, aside from making Jim forget Casino Night ever happened? Where, in the name of Cthulhu, can I read Creed's blog?

For serious, though. I'm not sure where the boob job thing came from (and suddenly the double meaning of the episode's title just became glaringly apparent to me), but I'm not sure I'm entirely on board with having the only powerful female character on the show melt down in ways that would leave Susan Faludi speechless with rage. If I wasn't simultaneously seeing such an amazing glorification of a woman who pushes past her insecurities and shyness and makes herself heard, I might be on the phone with N.O.W. In her defense, the only character on this show that hasn't gotten completely humiliated at some point is probably Darryl. Sure, the cracks in Jan's armor have shown before, but... did it have to be breast implants, a fully justified firing and a sudden desire to wear sweatpants and wait for her man to come home? I need to go beat something up.

I don't think I've ever been so ridiculously satisfied about any onscreen couple's Big Moment as I was about the lead-up to Jim and Pam's first real date. Which is a minor miracle. It felt not like Jim suddenly realized Karen was a hag and Pam made some grandiose play for him to stay, but like Pam had really grown to a place where she could honestly be with him and honestly let him know. And Jim, seeing that, remembered why he loved her, and what he had liked about the person he was back when he was openly in love with her.

I honestly thought it wasn't going to happen. The Beach Games flashback at the beginning felt almost like the documentary guys saying, "Sorry viewers, I know we wanted better than this, but we can't do anything about the fact that they're morons. Let's move on before someone out there starts mulling over the benefits of rioting." All we saw for a good half-hour was a brief hug and a let's-be-friends-again promise that was likely to become moot in the face of Jim's severe lack of real competition for the job. And what looked like a fun night in New York, courtesy of the girlfriend, seemed ominous. I know, in the part of my brain that has thoughts and reasons things out, that there's no way Jim leaves the show. But kudos to you, writers/directors/actors, I really thought he was going to cut ties and bolt for the call of the Big Apple.

Which, in Pam's words, would have been okay, at least for her. Not for the screaming multitudes of Jim fans, but for her. And for that, I'm profoundly glad. New Pam rocks the house down. New Pam is more than a match for Jim, and it feels more genuine than any maudlin "journey story" we've ever seen because we didn't see every step of the way. We saw the snippets of her work life that the camera caught, not the times she went home and cried pitifully into a tub of ice cream. And sometimes we were concerned and sometimes we doubted her, but in the end, she kept at it like a mouse who's seen the cheese at the end of the maze, and she showed all our asses up. Jim and Pam have always been the soul of this show, and a win for either of them has always felt like a win for the hordes of mediocre humanity. This was a big win, the kind that leaves you content for the rest of your life.

As for Ryan, that little whore, I guess we'll get to see some hard-core awkward come performance review time next year. I vote Michael continues to inadvertently hit on Ryan while simultaneously annoying him, since that would probably just leave the poor boy completely unable to do his job well, and he deserves it. In his defense, though everyone seems to hate him most for dumping Kelly so coldly... come on, if you were dating her, you'd do the same. You'd probably have done it a year ago, but still, doesn't matter how funny she is as a character.

Also, there is nothing funnier than Michael's completely irrational hatred of Toby, and Toby's varying reactions of hurt, dismay, disgust, and indifference, but since there was no Toby in this episode that I remember, I'll take David Wallace's non sequiter remark about his own HR guy, "Kendall," how much of a pain he is, and his very Michael-esque "ugh" when talking about him. So beautiful.

calexical @ 2007-01-04T16:06:00

2007-06-04T23:10:28Z

Just watched Kingdom of Heaven, and really have only one question: where's the other movie that focused on the Muslim army the entire time with only brief windows into the Christian camp? I want to see that movie. I'm certain that Saladin would be much more of a trip than Balian was. Ridley, call up Ghassan Massoud again and get on that shit.

It's not that Orlando Bloom is actively bad. He's not. He's just so very utterly not a leading man, at least not a leading man in a historical epic. There's a reason he was Legolas and not Aragorn, is what I'm saying. Give me Saladin's enigmatic expressions and tiny smiles over Balian's young, earnest but entirely blank visage any day.

Sure, the Head Muslim of the Movie lacked any, shall we say, aspects or opinions that might make a Westerner uncomfortable in this day and age, but I have to say, you get this feeling when he's on screen talking about the campaign to take back Jerusalem, a feeling that he is anything but an ego-driven loony tune with a major ethnic superiority complex. You really understand how this guy could be smart and compassionate enough to refrain from the bloodbath so many of his soldiers must have been clamoring for, and not only make them obey him, but like it.

It's odd, because I should identify a lot more with the guy who says things like "God does not know me," and wants to find a way to live a noble life now that he doesn't believe anymore. But with Balian, his atheism is only ever the most superficial kind: some anger at God, some questioning, some doubt about whether the structure he was taught as a child is really the way things work. But that's not really atheism at all. It's not necessarily better or worse, but it is different. Moreover, Balian as a character suffers from that most aggravating of contrivances: his inherent specialness. In fanfiction, he would be recognizable as a Mary Sue (/Gary Stu) from miles away. Let's go over the points, shall we?

First off, he's initially humble in origin (small house, dirty job, priests feel comfortable insulting him to his face), but discovers he's the son of a renowned nobleman. Not only that, but so very much the son of that renowned nobleman that with a couple weeks and a few words of wisdom from Pops he wields a sword well enough to take down guys with ten times his experience, and NoblePops' friends all recognize him, and compliment him, and invite him to their parties and show him their secret handshake. When he shows up in Jerusalem after miraculously surviving a shipwreck and making a new Muslim friend (who happens to be well-connected himself), his father's retinue puts him up in swank digs, the King of Jerusalem notices him and all in all, practically a week after arriving, Balian has become next in line to the throne. That's only a slight exaggeration. He also finds time to spruce up his father's "country estate" in the Holy Land, repel the initial Saracen invasion and bed the King's married sister, which leads directly to the next in line bit above.

Basically by dint of how he was born awesome, and only a little bit through his own integrity and even less through his actual actions and choices, Balian finds himself by movie's end at the head of what's left of Christian Jerusalem, facing off against Saladin's armies, and eventually Saladin himself, although thankfully that happens at the parlay table and not on the battlefield.

Unfortunately for my Mary Sue analysis, Bloom does manage to sell himself as a guy who is, at bottom, a principled person, somebody who managed to grow up largely free of the bullshit prejudices and presuppositions that usually spill over onto most people in any society. Somebody who would take a cold hard look at the state of his people at the end of the film and know that surrender was the best option. Unfortunately for the movie, you can't help but be convinced that he's also somebody who would have been knifed in a back alley long before reaching that position of leadership, because man alive is he ever not street smart. But he's special, so all such attempts fail.

On the surface, Saladin is much stronger in his faith. He never shows doubt that Allah exists, that he is real and is just as Mohammed says, nor does he question his own place within Islam. But listen to him: "Battles are won by God, but also through preparation." "How many battles did God win for the Muslims before I came?" Saladin's judgment isn't clouded by any insistence that just because Islam is the superior religion, those who are not Muslims must be inferior in character and intelligence. He does not underestimate people, situations, or the power of the intangible.

I saw a review that said he spends most of Kingdom of Heaven "seriously bummed out that he has to keep winning so many battles." Which is the perfect way to put it, except I would say that it's a mix between honest ambition, reflection on the magnitude of what he's up to, and the aforementioned "do I have to do everything around here?" attitude. Which is great fun to watch.

Ah, Jerusalem. "A state of mind, a rape date, a ramshackle casino." I have got to stop stealing lines from movie reviews (credit goes to James Christopher of the Times Online for that fantastic one, by the way). I need a few words with the writers and set designers, because they straight-up failed. I realize you couldn't film in the Old City, and also that including the brief reign of Baldwin V — the short-lived young monarch right before Guy crowns up and starts knifing Muslims left and right — would have been boring as hell. I'm not that unreasonable. But why the inaccuracies? If you did your research then you know: in the Holy Land, history is everything, followed closely by geography. People died over geography. Why was no attention paid to the geography of this, the most important place of them all, given that it was critical to the way battles were waged against it? Jerusalem proper was hemmed in by valleys, and still is, and hills surrounded it. There were no easy flat spots to drop CGI Saracen armies into. Why were there so many giant, massive towers that serve no purpose in the design for the city? I know it doesn't matter to anyone who doesn't have an inordinate fascination with the layout of Jerusalem, but fuck it, I lived there, and I want to see it done right. There was no reason not to.

Also, Golgotha was not on a hill high above the Temple Mount in that time period. Unless the producers were weighing in on the war between the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Garden Tomb as the site of Jesus' crucifixion and burial, in favor of the Garden Tomb. But in that time, no street urchin would have pointed to a pile of rock just outside Damascus Gate if someone asked them, "where is it that Christ was crucified?" They'd have pointed to the Holy Sepulchre Church — which was there at that time period, so why was there only a tiny shack to mark the spot, set designers? Yeesh.

In the end, though, it's an odd thing to see a war epic that sets up grand battles for religion and nation and family, and ends on a surrender... by the heroes. No noble last stand, no last-minute save, no thrilling escape. They surrender, and are granted mercy by the invading hordes many of them insisted would show no mercy. The invading hordes whose countrymen they slaughtered without mercy back when they first took the city. Not your normal balls-out action denoument. In the end, it was probably that, and Saladin's inherently fascinating character, that saves the movie from being an entirely cookie-cutter film peppered with some great actors.