Do you guys remember when X-tian dyed his hair blonde, bought a 12 pack of white t-shirts and walked around with his arms folded for what seemed like an entire year? Well that year was 2000.
This, of course, is from the 2000 VMA’s. The VMA’s were a show people like us used to look forward to – like a Top Chef finale for the beginning of the decade.
Posted on December 30th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
The Wire was a television program that could not have happened before the 2000s. Really, it was probably 20 years too soon but it came when it came and it was awesome.
More…
The concept was huge
The concept was simple enough I suspect when he sold it. A police procedural about drug dealers and wire taps in Baltimore. David Simon (a former City Reporter for the Baltimore Sun and later a producer and writer for Homicide and author of the The Corner) delivered on this but he also gave us so much more. In the end he told a broad story about the failure of large US cities at the beginning of the 21st century starting first with the drug trade, and subsequently exploring the evaporation of the middle class, the inherent bureaucracy of local government, the complete failure of the educational system and finally why the media is no longer in a position to expose all these limitations.
The narrative and the characters are complex
Lots of writers who got paid to watch TV called the show “Dickensian in scope”, something that annoyed Simon so much that he used it as an example of the sort of drivel that Editors use at flailing newspapers in season 5. What the meant is that he managed to avoid following a strict linear narrative. Dominic West was ostensibly the star of the show but he spent the entirety of season 3 showing up every other episode, smirking, and then drifting back into the background. This is because the city (its street corners, funeral homes, projects, police precincts, city hall) was the star with several characters going into and out of focus at any given time.
They also never give you an upper hand over anyone in the show. You learn things as they do. You also have to pay attention. Police Chief Bunny Colvin shows up for 3 minutes in season 2, quietly observes a situation and decides then and there what his only course of action is; as witnessed by his Hamsterdam experiment in Season 3.
People love Omar Little – the Robin Hood of the ‘hood. They fear Marlo Stansfield. They inexplicably want Bunny to succeed and mostly because you are willing to trade anything away for a cessation of the insanity.
It also manages to be quite funny.
It won’t make you feel good
There is no redemption for the system it’s a disaster. Some characters find individual redemption but its few and far between and even then their position is assumed by someone else from the cast ensure that their system stays broken and things stay hopeless.
Season 4 is essentially about the children raised on the streets of Baltimore and it is at times heartbreaking. Your investment in the “hoppers” – Namond, Michael, Dukie, and Randy will leave in pieces after you realize where Baltimore leaves most of them… You also get to meet Kinard – who turns out to be the most evil 5 year old ever.
A closing thought
This is a tough show to watch. No one stops to explain anything to you – its one long sprawling narrative that unfolds bit by bit. It was also the single vision of one creator – an auteur – just like filmmaking in the 70s. This is the conceit of television in the 00s. Prior to this decade TV shows were pretty consistent. The status quo could not be disrupted week to week so viewers could check in or out without much work. This is no longer the case. As technological advances drove a drop in prices (as VHS went to DVDs then On Demand to our eventual post net work future), the revenue opportunity for television series also changed because revenue could be made up in the secondary market. This allowed people to stretch on TV. I suppose it could have happened earlier with VHS but it didn’t for whatever reason. I mean really, who went out and bought MASH or even Friends on VHS? I don’t know many folks who did.
I am not sure which was the chicken or the egg here. Was it the burning platform (the 10 hour drama of the Sopranos, FX’s The Shield or ABC’s Alias) or the technology? The best answer is that they probably helped each other out – a virtuous circle with each element re-enforcing the other. Now telling a story (large or small) across a series was possible because any audience sacrificed week to week could be made up future consumption. The medium of that consumption continues to evolve and soon no one will consume DVDs and eventually we won’t even being paying for cable (the next inefficiency to fall and I can’t wait)
So this is the TV story of the 00s. The first few examples of this in the decade (JJ Abrams work on Alias and the guy from Sopranos) begat others like Lost and even Glee. But it reached it potential with The Wire – a brilliant show that is probably best consumed on DVD or on Demand as one long single narrative.
Posted on December 30th, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment
When we look back on this era, it will be hard to explain to our grandchildren just how fast technology was changing our lives. This decade really began to deliver on the promise of the massive internet technology investment bubble of the late 1990s, bringing connectivity to a place that would have seemed like science fiction in 1990. Below are 10 technological innovations born of the 00’s that have changed our daily lives (note that some of this technology existed in the 90s’, but reached critical market mass this decade).
10. Flat screen TVs & monitors – In January 2000, nobody had a plasma or LCD TV. Today damn near everyone does. One could argue that these TVs didn’t change anything; they just replaced a slightly different version of the TV. But I would argue that they are changing our lives at least aesthetically. The TV as furniture is done. The hulking entertainment cabinet as the centerpiece of a home is a thing of the past. These fantastic TVs have also changed the viewing experience. A decade ago, a 37” TV was really, really big. Today it is the smallest model Costco carries.
9. GPS + mapping sites – There is just no reason to be lost anymore. Nobody uses atlases or maps. We print up directions before we go, or we pop in our destination in our ubiquitous GPS devices.
8. Digital cameras – Over the course of this decade, the price of taking a picture went from ~$1 (film + development), to zero. This declining cost has led to an explosion in photography. Every human event is thoroughly documented in a way that would have been unfathomable a short time ago, as noted in a recent Onion article. Interestingly, as the ability to take and share photos grows, the production of physical photos has fallen off a cliff. I have shoeboxes full of pictures from college and before, but only maybe a dozen physical photos from the last 7 years. Sure hope my hard drive holds up!
7. Wikipedia – Wikipedia started out as a joke, but man, they have really turned things around. I would argue that it is the single most useful site on the internet (search engines collectively are more important, but there are several of them, and only one Wikipedia). I wasn’t thinking of including it in this list until I realized that I had looked up every one of my entries in Wikipedia. It has killed the encyclopedia outright, and it has evil designs on research libraries. Here’s a fun wiki time killer, if you are interested.
6. Facebook – Email brought down the cost of keeping up with people you don’t see every day. A lot of us still have high school friends we would have lost touch with in an era of letter writing. But keeping up via email still has a cost. You need to compose a message, get the right email address, etc. Facebook dropped the cost of keeping tabs on people down to zero. Kids today will need to opt out of keeping up with their high school friends. The concept of whittling down one’s social circle as life progresses – a constant feature of civilization for the last 5,000 years – will cease to be.
5. TiVo – Remember trying to be home at a specific time to catch your favorite show? As recently as 2004, I was scheduling my graduate school classes so I could catch the 5pm Simpsons reruns. TiVo has made that a thing of the past. Good riddance!
4. Wireless internet – As the importance of the internet grew in the 1990’s, the usefulness of the laptop computer diminished. What’s the point of having a mobile computer if it had to be tethered to your network to be at all useful? Nowadays, we just assume every café, airport, hotel and strip club has wireless available. At the end of this decade, it’s the desktop computer that is looking more and more obsolete.
3. Home broadband connection – Remember that terrible shrieking sound your modem made when it connected to your ISP? Remember the per-minute charges? Can you believe that was just 8 years ago? Installing the capacity to bring broadband internet access into every home nearly took down the entire telecom industry, and it certainly bankrupted a number of its biggest names. But the result was worth it. Bringing the internet in all of its glory into every middle class home has really unlocked its potential, allowing everything else on this list to flourish.
2. Smart phones – Man, what can’t these things do? They have truly turned the 10-hour worker into the 24-hour worker, which is either a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective, but definitely a different thing. It has made escaping work harder and less tolerated, but it has also made escaping the physical office much, much easier, for which I love my Blackberry dearly. To grasp its importance, 25 minutes of downtime of a device that didn’t exist 10 years ago now makes the front page of the NYTimes.
1. The Segway – Do any of us even remember life before the Segway?
And now a few things that get a lot of talk, but did not warrant a top-10 placement on my list
Google – It’s a search engine. Yes, we use it every day, but before we used Google, we used Yahoo, and before we used Yahoo, we used Alta Vista. Whatever algorithmic advantages it may have over its competitors doesn’t mean much to the casual search engine user.
Ipod – I had a walkman that a rarely used. After that, I had a discman that I rarely used. Now I have an Ipod that I rarely use. The concept of carrying music around with you has been around for 25 years. Yes, the Ipod made it easier to carry much, much more music, but there is a very finite amount of music one can actually consume on the go. The Ipod changed nothing and doesn’t deserve a spot here.
DVDs – No consumer product has ever taken off as quickly as the DVD player. But I am not sure it changed our lives very much. I use DVDs exactly as I used VHS tapes – to watch movies and occasionally to use as a coaster.
Net Flix – This almost made the list. It has singlehandedly made the phrase “going to the video store” as obsolete as “going to the soda fountain.” Let’s call it #11.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
Now this one is a bit of a political image of the decade, but let’s face it, this had crossover appeal. Even people who didn’t give a flip about politics enjoyed watching Howard Dean implode in Iowa on that brisk January evening in 2004.
Things I don’t want this man doing:
1) Responding to emergencies
2) Responding to requests
3) Responding to enemies
4) Responding to supporters
5 – Infiniti) Anything that is more than trivial
Of course, he’s now in charge of the party that largely supported him before this epic meltdown.
Posted on December 29th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
So, I got backed up on this and was struggling to catch up. I think there is more potential for debate and discussion if blow through 6-2. By Tuesday, I will put up what I think #1 is.
There are some notable exceptions that I want to proactively mention:
I am declaring Survivor a creature of the 90s
I hate everything to do with forensic science
Rome went for only 2 seasons and the second season was undone by budget pressures that made them skip through about 10 years of their story
So none of the make the cut, though there are strong arguments for all.
Having said all that, I still had 7 to go and only 6 slots, so I am going to have a tie for 6th.
So without further ado,
More…
6A. Top Chef
Our first Reality Show Entry! Let’s admit the following as a group: Bravo is primarily geared towards gays. I just needed to get that out of the way. This show is also super surprising. I think a lot of other reality shows tried to manufacture drama – Survivor through their ‘coalitions’ and what not, The Real World with their booze, the bachelor and the . Top Chef is a little different. They really rely on the nutty diva personalities, much like a chef who relies on the natural qualities of his ingredients. Who knew that cooking could be so competitive.
6A. Mad Men
Mad Men is great for several reasons. First, it works very hard to put us in a different time and place. Second, it has complex characterizations. Lastly, it refuses to indulge its audiences with quick resolutions. I have had conversations with people who argue that somehow, even though its a highly serialized drama they never disrupt the status quo. I am not sure it could be more wrong. As near as I can see, all the characters are exactly where they are as a direct result of the decisions they have been making. We all have to respect that.
5.Arrested Development
I suspect many shows are too smart for their own good. I think Arrested Development is one of these shows. Prior to writing this I went and looked up the definitions of surrealism and absurdist humor to see if those were phrases I should use to describe this show. They aren’t and that’s too bad because there should be a word, a phrase, a style to describe what Arrested Development was all about. I mean why was the camera shaky? As if they were taping a reality show? Why did that one episode have a “live episode” ending, even though it was not taped live? Why is GOB so motherF***ing hilarious? What exactly was Charlize Theron doing in those last few episodes?
This show raised more questions then it ever answered. But that’s ok. I just knew I was in a good place if GOB was on camera and I knew I hated Buster. Can you really hate a show that brought us Michael Cera? Or the show that will springboard Maybe’s eventual Cinemax career? Of course not. It was awesome.
4. 30 Rock
This show makes the list because I am sexually attracted to Tina Fey. I think she’s HOT. In an earlier draft of this post, I went on at length about how attractive her scar looked when she did “Weekend Update” and how that scar makes me think of sex. I took this out for obvious reasons.
Tina Fey is hot because she is really funny and this show is really funny and post coital joking is awesome. Also I find Tracy Morgan hilarious.
3. Lost
Lost is the most successful, completely inaccessible sci-fi TV show ever. It is also the most successful piece of serialized television ever. It is also the most character driven drama of the last decade. Their ability to balance all these elements enabled this show to dominate the zeitgeist for 2-3 years in the middle of the decade. It also makes it nearly impossible to jump in on now and makes every new episode worthy of substantial, if unfulfilling discussion. Regardless, I can’t not watch this show. I am completely convinced that this show has not won a new viewer over since the middle of season 1. I am terribly worried that with 18 hours left, people will not get every question answered and that will somehow undermine its legacy. There will never be another Lost. We should all be sad about that.
2. American Idol
Everyone watches this show. It turns people like the chick in clip below into super duper stars. It’s a huge deal week in, week out. The dynamic between the judges is awesome and it was a juggernaut for most of the decade. So its #2, not #1.
Posted on December 27th, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment
It is important to note that I have been consistently gay for vampires for most of my life, whereas the country as a whole goes through a pretty cyclical love affair. The end of the decade was the latest resurrection of America’s love affair with the bloodsucker.
More…
True blood is quite different from most other incarnations. For instance, instead of taking place somewhere more cosmopolitan it takes place in rural Louisiana. The world is very much like the setting for other vampire stories – similar to our own, but with a twist. Instead of vampires existing in hiding, they are an acknowledged if not quite accepted fact of life. True Blood is also totally gross on several levels. Humans take vampire blood (V) like it’s a drug and “fangbangers” love sexing vampires, pretty wild. Of course, it’s not only about vampires. The protagonist, Sookie, is a normal human (except she can read thoughts) and her boss is a were-person and the fry cook is a gay. Their problems though (stilted out of time dialogue aside), are terribly human. We are only two seasons in, but Alan Ball has already turned these goofy novels into totally must watch TV.
Posted on December 24th, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment, Life
I suspect none of the fastidious forty ever watched this show. Unlike Glee, I found it hard to evangelize this show. How would I do it – “yeah…it is a remake of that dippy sci-fi show starring Face (pre-A- Team) but its so much more…” does not really sell it. Neither does “So it’s like the last 5 years of human civilization”, nor does “really it is an on going meditation about the natural tension of social evolution and how that impacts society’s notion of faith as referenced in an evolution from polytheism to monotheism…but in space”. So it’s all those things and so much more…want to watch? Yeah, did not think so…
More…The pitch for this show is simple enough. The last few thousand human beings in the universe are stuck on an increasingly decrepit space ship looking for a new home. They are being terrorized by their “children” – hot human looking robots – because the humans refuse denounce polytheism and embrace the love of the one true monotheistic God that the robots worship (or something). I am not even remotely kidding. Over its 5 seasons the show moves in all sorts of disturbing ways as humans become increasingly desperate. It is pretty tough to watch and the highs never quite match the lows. Watch people debate hot robots about faith and destiny. Try to figure out just how completely insane Dr. Baltar is as he argues with his super ego (in the guise of the hottest looking robot ever). This show is also the logical extreme of serialized inaccessible lunacy that television networks explored in the 00s to drive up DVD sales. More than anything, this show is one story…clearly I am biased.
Posted on December 22nd, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment, Life
Ah, yes Larry Birkhead, you are a winner.
No fewer than 5 men claimed to be the father of little Dannielyn, daughter of Anna Nicole Smith, and you came out on top. Congrats. You must rea$$y, rea$$y, rea$$y love that child.
Here we see your quiet dignity in the months following the death of your daughter’s mother.
Posted on December 22nd, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
It’s important to understand that Gilmore Girls is not the nefarious construction of born again crazy people – something I got wrong at first. It did get early help from the Family Friendly Programming Forum but that organization is no where near as dangerous as they sound. I think I have should have done more research early on. I mean just look at the premise – the show centers around a hot MILF with commitment issues who had a baby as a teenager and ran away from her upper class Connecticut wasp family to raise her child in a more bohemian atmosphere. The show focuses on the increasingly hot daughter’s high school and college years and the reunion of their family.
More…
Everyone talks about the witty chatter and really that is one of the hallmarks of this show. So instead, I will focus on other subtlties. This show had a much harder edge than anyone gave it credit for. The kids would listen to the Stooges and discuss the implications of the second Joy Division album but refused to slow down long enough to explain what they were talking about. No other show would divide the population of their town into those who are more “Dandy Warhols” while the other being more “Brian Jonestown Massacre”. You might think this is some desperate name check for credibility (I’m looking at you “Entourage:) but three episodes later, when Hep Alian (a band made up for 3rd level characters from the show) gets in a fistfight onstage, they are interrupted by Joel Gion again with no explanation.These jokes that made no sense to me till two years later when I watched a documentary called DiG and realized the writers were huge BJM fans. Weird. I learned a lot from this show – I learned to love PG Wodehouse, I learned what Norman Mailer looked like (in the weirdest cameo ever) and I realized that a TV show about a single mom raising her precocious (then incredibly hot) daughter could be much more than that. I miss the way this show would just make me smile. I also miss Friday night dinners
Posted on December 21st, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment
Take note, fellas. This is what love looks like.
If you love your wife (beard), and want the world to know it, you need to act irrationally, in public, on tv, just like Tom Cruise did.
This. Is. Love.
Posted on December 21st, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
Following the same drill as before, I decided to highlight some of the shows that I thought were important in the last ten years. Same rules as before, but I liked Killer B #1’s style so much I am going to do them one post at a time but with a twist. I am actually doing this countdown style. So I have 10 to get to, and sometime around December 31st I will unveil what I thought was the show of the decade
So without further ado…
More…
The Chappelle Show: No show soared higher or flamed out more quickly. White kids everywhere started declaring themselves Rick James, even though most had no idea who Rick James was. People were talking about it everywhere and almost entirely by accident in a way that no one ever talked about Half Baked, even though I always argued we should.
Everyone knows how this story ended. Dave had an incredibly successful second season and then was offered $50MM to do several additional seasons. An offer he accepted then ran away from as he became less comfortable with the show and the pressures of fame and fortune.
Of course, the weirdest thing about all this, was how aware Chappelle was of his undoing as seen is this clip below…
| Chappelle’s Show | ||||
| Dave Has $55 Million | ||||
|
||||
Posted on December 18th, 2009 Filed in: Entertainment, Life
Oh Man. Who can forget this crazy lady, with her crazy eyes? Is she the craziest looking person ever?
So why was everyone so surprised when the “Runaway Bride” Jennifer Wilbanks disappeared in 2005? As you’ll recall, she went out for a jog in her ritzy Atlanta neighborhood and disappeared.
I’m not certain, but I think this was kinda the kickoff to the news media’s “missing white girl” fetish. Or maybe it was Chandra Levy? But that was more of a political thriller.
Anyway, Wilcox hadn’t been abducted and taken to Albuquerque by a Hispanic man as she claimed. She had just gone nuts.
Posted on December 18th, 2009 Filed in: Life
Ah – now this one is classic. Most of you will remember this as the famous Superbowl “wardrobe malfunction”. Parents were outraged. JT was embarrassed. Janet Jackson was momentarily famous again. And, Evil came within an inch of seeing his first real boob ever.
Posted on December 16th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
Ah – Adorable Prince Harry, he’s so cute and innocent….. WTF!!!, is he dressed like a Nazi?
Oh, Harry, you royal douchebag. You’ve lived such a sheltered life you really don’t know what offends people. Some day you will grow up and make Grandpa Philip seem seem positively charming and compassionate by comparison.
Posted on December 16th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
I think we can all remember where we were and what we were doing when we first saw this one…but let’s not elaborate.
For those who want to pretend they don’t know what this is because their strict parents and sheltered upbringing requires them to squash any suggestion of prurient tendencies, this is what Paris Hilton looks like while having sex in the dark, when shot with a military grade night vision camera. In case you were wondering.
Posted on December 15th, 2009 Filed in: Uncategorized
How black is xTian?
Total Voters: 20
Loading ...
Recent Comments