We’re here tonight because of light.   Actually, we’re here because of the chicken wings, cheesecake, wine, and the chance that you all might see me do something extremely embarrassing, which is all but inevitable.   But the true reason, in the beginning (long before you, me or any of us), that we are here is light.

“I’ve seen the light”

“Let the light shine in.”

“Don’t go towards the light Carol Anne.”

So many iterations, but really only one meaning.

Be it solstice, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Saturnalia, Christmas or December, this is historically the month that people of any faith created one concrete ritual.  It’s what we as people seek.   As the days grow dimmer, the nights fall more quickly, we leave fires warming, LED displays flashing, strung lights twinkling, candles burning for days at a time to lead us home.

Home – whether family or friends, craves a bit of extra warmth at this time of year.   It craves light.

Before you all interject, or fear that I found a little too much Buddha, Shiva or Jesus, rest assured I am as secular as always.  To the best of my knowledge I am not now nor have ever been a member of the Branch Davidian.  But sometimes, a reminder is needed.

In the midst of all the hustle and the seemingly interminable bustle – jobs that suck souls, grad school, part-time hysteria and other miscellaneous drudgery – sometimes we need to remember that at those moments when we’re bundling up for the biting wind and the slicing snow that at the end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the block there is our home.

There is light.

Without attempting to dive into fondue cheese territory, it must be said – You are all my light.  The pull from the dark, the cold, the stress filled work place, the awful bus ride with the woman who keeps saying I look like her oldest daughter.   I hope that in some small recess of your life and busy calendar that I can be at least a twinkle or half a glimmer.   I wish, that I burn as bright as you need me to and that each year we grow older it never diminishes.

We have wine, we have booze.  We have cheesecake and chicken.  We have everything we need to fatten ourselves up for hibernation, to sleep away the dark and the cold and wake up when the flowers bloom, the bunnies have happy time, and the street construction begins.  But I say we fatten ourselves tonight so that for each other, we burn a bit bigger.  We stand a bit brighter; leading the way with perfect clarity.

Let us be the light.

I fancy myself an avid reader.   That is actually a bit of a fib.   I read voraciously, when I’m in a “reading phase”.   I don’t so much read as consume.   Three of four books a week is par for the course during one of my feasts of words.  Then, like with politics or current events or the Indianapolis Colts, I lose my appetite for reading.   Music takes over my focus.   Or culinary exploits.  Or television.  Or, most commonly, horror movies (okay…that’s a stretch…I’m always hungry for horror movies).

But about once a year, regardless of whether or not I am feasting or fasting, I make time and concentrate my efforts on the latest release from Douglas Coupland.  My love affair for Doug began with his first novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture. It stood out in the book store like no other book.  Shorter, longer, with a strange photo negative cover.  I judge it.  By its cover.  And it was a wise decision.

Generation X had been published for at least five years before I picked it up the first time, but, once I owned it, it rarely left my side.   I had always felt that I was an older soul.   Born perhaps a bit later than I should have been (and if we are speaking generationally I am actually one year past the societal marker for being a “Gen X-er”).   But this book, amongst the cornucopia I had read at the time, spoke to me like no other.  I had fully embraced Salinger as a way of life but had the unfortunate disconnect of not really appreciating him when he was the rage.  This was an author I could discover and age with.   As years have passed, I have found that I have been maturing right along with him.

I harbor a special love for Shampoo Planet, I read it at a time in my late teen years when I was living very independently and sympathized with the main character Tyler.   I felt the family pangs in All Families are Psychotic as I myself was embarking on a new phase in my life.  Some of his best books I re-read when I am in a word feast (Microserfs, Miss Wyoming, and Hey Nostradamus!).    I even think fondly of some of his less cohesive novels, like Eleanor Rigby and Life After God, and find myself returning to the shelves to read certain passages from them. Each book has a sentiment to it, an ache, that speaks directly to me.

Coupland writes in worlds where post apocalyptic landscapes resemble shopping malls and he has a skill for making it romantic.  He’s clever and constantly divining new ways of utilizing pop culture as a way to comment on people and society.  Some people don’t “get” Douglas Coupland.  Some days, I want to live in his brain (yes I know how creepy that sounds).

I recently finished reading Douglas Coupland’s latest novel Generation A. It has taken me while to formulate my thoughts on the piece.

As any midwesterner can attest, the very idea of leaving a scrap of food behind on your dinner plate is tantamount with mortal sin or, at the very least, puppy-kicking.  Eating quickly commonly goes in tandem with cleaning your plate as well.   I think when money can commonly become scarce and when both parents, or the single parent, work all the time, family meals become a chore.  Growing up, there are very few meals or dishes that stick with me or create some sort of sense memory.

Cheap and easy was commonly the way to go.  Hamburger Helper, Pizza Kits in boxes, trips to Ponderosa, stews in crock pots or soups from the freezer.  So more times than not, the goal was to eat the food quickly and get back to TV.   Clean the plate, rinse the dishes, brush your teeth and watch “Northern Exposure”.

The few dishes that still cause a great rising of warmth and satisfaction in me are the dishes that came out of those rare times when my mother had the time to cook.  She’s honestly a great cook, even if she doesn’t think so, but so rarely could devote the effort.  But I challenge anyone to give me a better mustard potato salad than hers.  I’d remember the mornings waking up to the smell of fried potatoes in the pan and would instantly begin salivating.  My aunt’s fried chicken recipe was to be rivaled and I am still trying to recreate it on my own.  Fried green tomatoes, cast iron corn bread.  These are the foods that made me realize what flavor was.

It was exciting upon moving to Chicago to see all of the endless food options I had.  Any country, any kind of cuisine and any kind of preparation.  Through my artistic endeavors I found myself drawn into a close circle of friends (see: Lauren, Erin, Dave, Laura, and Jamie) who made food and flavor a priority in their lives and I loved the synergy that the love of a good meal and the love of a good friend brought me (I also discovered the world of wine and booze…as in, “Hey…did you know that on top of the fact that this here whiskey concoction that’s getting you drunk as a skunk and making you ‘popular’, it also pairs nicely with that bone marrow you’re eating?”)  In Chicago, I was certainly cleaning my plate at every meal, but I was not eating quickly.  In Chicago, I had learned how to savor.

But with this bevy of gourmet options in Chicago came a price.   Literally.   And the more and more I ventured out the larger and larger the final tabs got.   The immediate feeling at looking at a bill and thinking, Sixty bucks…for a meal?  Sixty bucks?   Dear lordgoneuptothemountain, is like a kick in the gut.   To think that there was a time that I ate for two weeks on sixty bucks.   Conflict.

I learned, it’s not just the food I am paying for, it’s the experience.  That, to me, is priceless.   I see that bill ($60, $70, and sometimes $120) and I cringe inside (thinking of all the debt I could be paying off, starving children in Botswana, saving for a future and worst of all DEARLORDWHATMYMOTHERWOULDSAY).  But then I look up from my emptying wallet, see my friends, their full bellies, their smiles, and all that goes away.  Memories tend to fade, but I can honestly say, the ones tied with the tastiest bites stick around the longest.

Ever year, Lauren and I, make culinary New Years plans.   We pick a restaurant on our list that we have been salivating to go to but can’t imagine paying for.   Its a special night, so it should be a special meal.   Past entries have included the now closed Aigre Doux and Art Smith’s Table Fifty-Two.  This past New Year’s we aimed big.  Extremely big.  Bigger than big.

Finally after YEARS we were able to cross off our list of restaurants to try what we considered a perhaps unreachable dream.   We went to Alinea.

Alinea opened in 2005 to copious amounts of acclaim and over its few years has garnered multiple awards and mentions in tons of magazines.   The chef/owner Grant Achatz created a restaurant that deconstructs classic flavors and presents them in dazzling fashions that challenge the palate.  Some people call it molecular gastronomy.  I call it magic.

Lauren and I saved for months for this dinner.  Forty dollars apiece every single week would be neatly tucked away into an envelope and stashed securely in Lauren’s apartment.  Alinea is the kind of place where reservations must be made far in advance and all men must arrive in a suit jacket.   This was every variety of “foreign” that I could imagine.  At the beginning of our saving, I honestly told myself we would never actually get there.   That misfortune would intervene and cause one or both of us to spend our saved money for some urgent family matter or an organ transplant; something of that ilk.   But as New Year’s approached, it became very clear to me that I would be dining at not only one of Chicago’s most revered and unique restaurants, but, in all honesty, one of the world’s.

I’ve discovered a new urban battlefield.   Not quite as destructive as “The Single Scene Massacre” or the “Battle For Dominance in social networking”, but equally treacherous.

What makes this new territory nearly impossible to counterattack is that it is absolutely essential to our everyday lives.  It houses most modern necessities and prides itself in being a hotbed of requirement.

I am talking about…the grocery store.

Okay…tendency for hyperbole aside, I am finding it increasingly difficult to navigate my local Jewel lately.  Its proving to be a stern taskmaster in the lesson of self-esteem.

Case in point.   Over the past two months I have run into an old college friend several times while shopping for many of life’s essentials.   She was a good friend in college and made the long sojourn to the windy city, along with a small cadre of graduates.  Through me, and about six other connections, she met my Freshman roommate and they are now happily cohabitating and well on the way to indentured marriage (what no judgment???).  In all honesty, they make a great couple and from everything I have heard, make each other splendidly happy.   I say “heard” because this is one of those friends that you rarely see and only at special occasions; birthdays of other old friends, openings of shows/art installations/cafe/keg parties, or randomly out one night when one or both of you are completely hammered and one or both of you may have just puked/peed in an alleyway and someone caught it on camera.

The rarity of these encounters makes it exponentially more painful when you begin to size up life status with one another.   The less you see someone the greater that chances that the last time you saw them your life has changed in some grand and exciting way.   Or…if you are me, the more excruciatingly obnoxious/embarrassing it is that absolutely nothing has changed about you except for your “new hairstyle” (see: unwashed) or your waistline.

So picture if you will:  I make my way into the local Jewel, grab my little gray basket and begin to dash between all the aisles, grabbing everything from my mental list in record time, so I can make it home, attempt to ride an exercise bike for an hour (see:  20 minutes), prepare a fresh home-cooked meal (take the plastic off the lean cuisine), and continue working on my novel (RuPaul’s Drag Race).

So I’m standing there in front of the frozen vegetable aisle trying to decide which brand of peas is less likely to cause me food poisoning when I hear…

“Ben,   is that you?”

And there she is.

And there I am.

Holding my little gray basket.

Full of single serving frozenness, hand lotion, AA batteries, and ohdearlordcatfood.

She looks at my basket.   Looks at me.  Looks at the AA batteries.  Looks back at me.   Looks at the lotion.  Tries really really hard not to look at me.  And even though I don’t want to…I look to her shopping items.  Two boxes of family sized cereal.  Cases of diet soda, cases of Gatorade.  Many multi packs of yogurt.  Lunch meats, cut from the deli counter.  Assorted fresh vegetables in individual plastic bags.  Two tubs of ice cream (strawberry…I assume for him and something with a chocolate ribbon in it for her).  And masses and masses of practical, great home-cooking implements.

There I stand…with my basket of solitude.   And her with a cart full of marriage.

Conversation goes as expected.

“So what are you up to?”

“Oh you know.  The usual…still looking for a new job.  And um…the new season of “Lost” started.  You?”

“Well I’m starting a new dance program to help inner city kids with physical disabilities learn to love themselves and nurture the karmic circle of life.”

Or something similar to that.  Neither of us can finish the conversation fast enough and we part ways only to be reunited (OF COURSE!) in the checkout aisle.

Typically I use the self checkout lane, but always after seeing my grocery store friend I require that human connection that can only be gained by having a sixteen year old girl go,  ”Do you have a coupon for the hand lotion?” or “Fried chicken again huh?”  At which point I start to contemplate how much hand lotion I actually buy and what sort of pervert these grocery store employees must think that I am.   Then I look behind me, and there is grocery store friend, waving politely…smiling.  I pay for my wares and leave as quickly as I can, feeling wholly dejected and slightly embarrassed.

On very rare occasions my father would make brief mention of his time in the army.  My brother’s father Steve, my surrogate uncle, would occasionally talk about old friends from his time in Vietnam.  At parties and cookouts and biker rallies, I’d see countless tattoos signifying brotherhood, minor war wounds, and hear mentions of people lost long before I was born.  Sometimes at these gatherings a conversation would stop mid sentence as a room full of factory workers and manual laborers fell silent, took a moment for a reverence or remembrance, and then continued on with their beers, their softball or their general carousing.

That was all I knew of war.

I feel that over recent years I’ve watched the military become over glamorized.  Do not misunderstand me, I highly value the armed forces;  I admire the bravery and courage of soldiers and marines.  But when I am about to sit down in a theater and I watch a five-minute music video, sandwiched between a Julia Roberts trailer and a coke commercial, about how an entire world of opportunity awaits you when you join the army, my eyes roll and truthfully my heart sinks.  A whole new generation of young people are being shown that by joining the army, you will be able to climb mountains while a crunchy 3 Doors down song plays  behind you.  We are wooing future soldiers not with dignity or honesty or sense of duty, but with glamour.

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker should be required viewing for any person looking to enlist in the armed forces.  It’s a gut-wrenching and realistic depiction of everyday life in the field.   It also happens to be the best film of 2009.

Kathryn Bigelow is one of my favorite film directors working today.  She bravely pioneers new filming techniques and utilizes dazzling camera work like all of the great action directors working, but she also employs all of these cinematic techniques in the pursuit of amazing stories full of well-drawn characters.  I wish this wasn’t such a rarity in Hollywood, but sadly it is.

The movie follows a group of three soldiers stationed in Baghdad.  They are on the final leg of their tour of duty and home is in their sights.  They are all members of an Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) unit.  For those unaware, this is pretty much the most dangerous job in the world.  With the prevalence of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Device) increasing more and more in the battlefield, these units have become extremely integral to the war on terror.   Their job is to assess and dismantle, if possible, any IED’s  that have been deteced in the war zone (or the occasional suspected device in a green zone).  These aren’t “works on art” explosive devices they are tackling.  These unstable bombs are sometimes crudely put together, wired with remote detonators, filled to the brim with shrapnel, and often hidden amongst every day objects to decrease their visibility.  EOD units commonly employ remote robotics to maximize safety, but often times have to suit up and work on the IED’s with their bare hands.  Nervous yet?

In less than two weeks I am about to embark on a fantastic trip to an exotic, unknown local.  I’m very excited about this vacation.  I very rarely travel, so it will be good to get out of my house and see some tropical scenery for a while.

Yes that’s right.   ABC’s “Lost” is coming back with its final season.   I, like about twelve million other people, have been sucked into the intricate web of wonder born from the mind of JJ Abrams and carefully reared by the delicate hands of Carlton Cuse and Damen Lindelof.  It’s been a long, sometimes frustrating journey, but I’m terribly excited to see how it ends.

Of course I, like any annoying fan who has spent hours on Lostpedia looking for connections or spent days in deep discussions with other equally geeked out and border-line certifiable friends, have several burning questions that I pray are answered before the end of this six-year journey.

Without further ado I present my “Final Season of Lost Wish List”

(warning:  here by SPOILERS for the 14 people left in the world who haven’t watched the show)

-  Smoke gets in my eyes – If this isn’t first on people’s list, then it certainly has to be in their top five, and if not…WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???   This was the very first WTF moment we were faced with on the show.  Darlton have done a great job at giving us a little smokey each season without Urkeling it in the slightest.  But there is no way to wrap up this story without figuring out what the deal is with the security system.

- Who the frak is Jacob? – Is this going to be a biblical connection?  Can he be killed?  What is his deal?  Who is his Locke/Nemesis?

- Libby, Libby, Libby -  Thankfully at the TCA conference, we were informed that the amazing Cynthia Watros will be reprising her role as Libby and all I can say is, “Hallefrickinlujah”.  Forget Ana Lucia and Eko, she was the tailie I was obsessed with.  Perhaps it was partly Watros’ performance, but there was always a secret smile behind her eyes (much like Elizabeth Mitchell was able to convey with Juliet).  Her death was tragic and a great launching pad for a lot of dramatic conflict, but her presence lingers long after her passing.  Why was she in the mental institution with Hurley?  Why is that important enough to show us?     What has kept me with “Lost” all these years are the characters.  As a more than casual Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror fan, I can find a myriad selection of horribly frustrating and baffling mythologies with secret agendas and confounding mysteries, but rarely does genre literature or television in this scope have such wonderfully crafted characters.  I know there is mythology to the island and I know that mythos  intertwines with each of the survivors past and futures, but would I care as much if I didn’t get to watch how much it affects John Locke’s life decisions?   Would the mystery of the island be as exciting if I hadn’t spent five seasons watch Jack-I-Can’t-Catch-My-Breath Shepperd trying desperately not to give into the pull of the island and its wonders?  I doubt it.   Ultimately, what I want is a great mythological ending that also serves to complete these characters’ arcs and fill in the holes as to why they are connected so intimately.   Libby and her mysterious past exemplify this best for me.

- Vincent, that bitch!!! -  Is he a dog?  Is he psychic?   Who has been scooping up his poop this entire time?

- Whisper to a Scream – Nothing has served to set the mood and bring in the creepies more than the whispers in the jungle. (Perhaps the masterful score but I doubt the characters can hear that…although wouldn’t that be wild if they could?  If Kate was like…”This isn’t going to end well.” And Sawyer was like, “How do you know?” and she says,  “Didn’t you just hear that trombone fall-off?”  “Oh that?” Sawyer says, “That’s nothing freckles, that just means we’re headed to a commercial.”)  What are the whispers?  Even if it is as simple as it being the others calling out from the trees to really freak out the survivors, then let’s see a moment of that.  I want “The Whispers:  Behind the Music.”

- Sun/Jin -  Nothing much…I just want a lot of Sun and Jin.  They rock my world.  I mean…look at them…they’re frickin’ gorgeous.

- Walt about the children?  (get it?) – I doubt we will get much Michael David Kelly this season as I assume he is now eight foot tall with a widow’s peak and graying temples, but why was Waaaaaaaaaaaaaalt so important?  Why were children so important?  Does that tie into Hurley seeing ghosts?   To Miles and his Jennifer-Love-Hewitt-Arquette powers of ghost messaging?  Why did I spend all summer watching those mostly pointless webisodes about Walt in the testing room if it isn’t important?   If you can’t show me Waaaaaaaalt, then at least let me know, somehow, what the deal was.  Please…won’t somebody think of the children???

- Ben, the two of us need look no more… -  What is Ben’s deal?  Seriously?   I  would almost be down for a Benjamin Linus spin-off, but actually what I would like is for him to be added to the regular cast of some really innocuous sitcom, like, “How I Met Your Mother”.  Just imagine it?  Eh?   Comic gold.  But seriously, fill in the gaps?   Should I be rooting for him or against him?

- Why is Juliet so sad?  Is it because she got blowed up? – I loved the character of Juliet; she frustrated me in the best way possible and that was largely due to the masterful performance by Elizabeth Mitchell.   So is she gone?  Was she a sacrifice the island demanded?   Did she die because Jacob never visited her in the past?   I’m sad she may never get to solve her “Why can’t women get pregnant on this island?” mystery, but more importantly I just want to make sure her presence isn’t forgotten in this last season (Elizabeth…you are the only reason I am watching “V” right now.)

- Are we all just fate’s butt puppet??? -   Man of science v. Man of Faith.  Which is it?  Is it both?   Who does that tie into the lives of Kate, Sawyer, McBreathy?  Was all of this part of Locke’s destiny?   I assume this is ultimately the crux of the show so I am not worried about whether or not it will be explored.  I just want to know what the answer is?  Wait…isn’t that a kick in the pants?  Aren’t I essentially asking “Lost” to tell me the meaning of life?

And finally…

- Rose and Bernard better get a fucking happy ending…I’m serious about this so I am not even going to try and come up with a funny title about it. -    I have loved Rose since the pilot and every time I start to get fed up with the characters, she seems to show up and say exactly what I’m thinking.   Her reunion with Bernard on the island was one of the most touching moments.  Her episode, “S.O.S”, was one that many people said they could do without, but it is actually one of my faves, because it tied the power of the island so succinctly into the lives of the characters and made it clear these stakes were life and death for everyone…not just the people on the promotional posters.  I don’t care what their ending is, just so long as they are happy…maybe they buy some real estate on Lost Island or flip a Dharma Station into a really cozy loft space.   But if either of these two end up dead or missing…I will be writing a very strongly worded letter to Dartlton c/o their managers and I might even throw in a few curse words.

What else?  What are the mysteries you want solved?  I cannot wait…my slanket is packed, my passport at the ready and I am generously applying sunscreen.  (I know I left out anything to do with Clair/Ghost Claire/Aaron or the Myriad Love Triangles…and that was intentional….I don’t care who Jack ends up with, just so long as he finally catches his goddamn breath.)

January is quickly coming to a close.  In addition to meaning I have one month less this year to accomplish anything with my life, it also means that midseason replacement shows are beginning to crop up on the networks.  I haven’t managed to get to “Life Unexpected” yet (but am planning on it) and I plan on avoiding “Human Target” as it seems to be an exact clone of “Keen Eddie”, including its star Mark Valley, minus London and also appears to be wasting the enormous talent of Chi McBride.

So this evening, I had to undergo the chore of watching “The Deep End”, ABC’s time filler until “Flash Forward” comes back.  Its the newest vehicle from series creator David Hemingson, who previously worked on “Lie to Me”, “How I Met Your Mother”, and a personal fave “Kitchen Confidential”.   He has a great pedigree, so I am not certain how he got so many things wrong with “The Deep End”.

The show centers around four first year lawyers who get the opportunity to  gopher for a very prestigious law firm that everyone calls Sterling (really???  why not call it Sterling, Silver, and Caliber).  You have your four pretty archetypes.  The sexy do-gooder with a penchant for bumbling (Matt Long), an australian man-slut with a penchant for…well…women, a quirky yet gorgeous girl with a penchant for gulping (Tina Majorino), and a sexy blonde with a penchant for being boring.   And so the clichés of pretty white people with upwardly mobile careers begins.

I suppose you could call it “Grey’s Anatomy” syndrome.  Take a smattering of nubile, quirky, gorgeous neophytes and pit them against their careers, insecurities and future all at the same time.   I am not saying the Grey’s pioneered this formula, but after its success, I have watched countless pilots trying to capture that charm.   The difference here…despite all of Grey’s copious pitfalls…it is still painstakingly crafted.

The episode follows these first years and of course their more mature partner/mentors in the firm as they navigate the pesky moral quandaries of sex and law.  Still with me?  I won’t bore you with the details, but all of the first years finish the episode with the morals teetering on the edge with their social lives.  Thank god they were working on cases that also happened to be personally relevant or how else would they learn important life lessons?  What is that around the corner…its a legal precedent that showed up out of nowhere just in time to allow a hackneyed plot with an estranged mother and harried daughter-in-law vying for custodial rights to be resolved within forty-two minutes.  (It was sad to see two great character actresses Meredith Monroe, of “Dawson’s Creek” fame, and Kate Burton, of “Grey’s Anatomy” fame, saddled with such a sad subplot.  To their credit…they tried…heartily.)

Clancy Brown, Nicole Ari Parker, and (WHY THE FACE????) Billy Zane play the leading partners in the company who all seem to suffer from an utter lack of real world perspective (which begs the question…how did they get their own law firm???).   Their acting is fine, but their dialogue is pathetic.

With all of these lost first years and lost senior partners, how can the show possibly stay on course?   Well thankfully broadway veteran Norbert Leo Butz plays a morally conflicted Junior Partner who can mentor the first years while at the same time playing confidant with the seniors.  To Norbert’s credit…he provided a smidge of energy to the snail’s pace pilot.

Also making an appearance in the pilot was Mechad Brooks (“True Blood”), but he seemed so strangely shoehorned in as an additional first year, brought in to help raise the moral standards of the company (what???), that it screamed “pilot reshoots”.  Hopefully the talented Brooks gets a moment to shine because he had nothing to do in the pilot besides make Tina Majorino’s “Addy” drool on herself.

Speaking of Tina Majorino, she is the only person to come out of the pilot even slightly positively.   Her quirky yet smart first year at least brought a few genuine chuckles when discussing that she is still figuring out makeup.  Blonde Lawyer (Leah Pipes) and man-slut Australian (Ben Lawson) do not seem without talent but their characters are so broad they have little chance to shine.   Leah’s Beth has a horribly written scene with her booze swilling father, that would make WASPS everywhere turn off their HD TV’s.   Ben Lawson does his best with a borderline ludicrous subplot about pretending to be Jewish for a potential client.

Centering the show is  Dylan Hewitt, played by Matt Long.  I’m happy to see Mr. Long back on television (miss you “Jack & Bobby”) but his character and performance were so generic the only thing he managed to accomplish in the pilot is looking extremely nice being shirtless while having great nipples.

Of all of the script’s pitfalls and clichés (line of dialogue:  ”the man doesn’t choose the moment, the moment choses the man” >gag<  >vom<) the worst ultimately is titular in nature.  Towards the end of the pilot a young Dylan Hewitt is thrown into a rooftop pool surrounded by hard-partying socialites.   His fellow first year and junior mentor pull him out of the pool and say,  ”We just threw you in the deep end.”   I haven’t retched that hard at a self-reverential title mention since my close personal friend Sandy Bullock had to choke out the title of her movie “Hope Floats” in the last two minutes before the credits.  Also…I have no affection for a pilot that takes me for a moron.

Ultimately, what disappoints me the most is that this was the pilot.   This is supposed to be the platform that excites the viewer and entices them in.  That convinces them that further episodes will not only be enjoyed but is necessary.  For a show called “The Deep End” I was expecting flawed yet funny characters willing to launch themselves into the great unknown in hopes of sussing the waters of adulthood.   This show stands at the edge of the pool, content in coasting on cliché and blowing up its floatees.

So it goes without saying…I have impeccable taste.  Or it would go without saying, except I’m going to write about it now.  This isn’t arrogance.  I just like good things.  People ask for my opinions and typically come to me for recommendations.  Movies, television, books, music, food.  I’m a cool guy.

So imagine my surprise when I find myself constantly having to defend my unconditional love for Sandra Bullock.  Even my friends react with bewilderment and confusion.

I like Sandra.  Or Sandy as I prefer to call her, because I’m pretty sure that when we become friends she will want me to call her Sandy.  Somedays she’s like a good antibiotic.  You feel like crap when you start an antibiotic and after the first dayyou start to feel a little worse, but when you finally give into it and let it do its job you end up refreshed, healthy and awake.   A lot like watching a Sandy movie.

Not the highest compliment?  I beg to differ.  Listen, I love the hollywood heavy weight females…Julianne Moore, Angela Bassett, Cate Blanchett, Penelope Cruz and yes, of course, Meryl Streep.  But sometimes after their movies…I’m a little worse for the wear.

This isn’t necessarily about artistic quality either…I can concede that in the exploration of addiction Requiem for  A Dream is a much more insightful, thought-provoking rumination on the power of drugs than 28 Days, but, dear lord, how many times can I watch Requiem for A Dream before I decide to give it up and look into home-remedy shock therapy options?  (Well…Requiem for a Dream does have Jennifer Connelly but that is a whole other bag of wonderfulness that I can’t get into just yet.)

What it comes down to, for me, is whether or not when I am watching a movie…do I buy it?   Am I in this world? Does this person’s performance work for me?  I am willing to go to many worlds for a movie…it’s why I feel I can appreciate and love the stark realism of 21 Grams or the snappy dialogue and quirky characters of Juno or the bombastic, overstylized approach of Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom or the absurdist reality of Fargo (coincidentally that is also why I feel Far From Heaven is the best movie of the past decade and will discuss it until I am blue in the face).

This willingness to give into a world and style of a movie is also why I tend to get attached to movies that other people might not.  I still constantly hope that I will someday work full time at Empire Records, because when I saw that movie, however flawed it truly is as an example of  “film” (which it isn’t), I very dearly loved that world and those characters.  This willingness has lead me to love many movies that really cannot qualify as “film”.

See:

Playing By Heart

Bubble  Boy

Dude, Where’s my car?

Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion

And of Course…

Sister Act 1 & 2

Some of my friends suggested SHAG (no judgement), Raising Arizona (I think it is art…as most Coen brother films are…except for Ladykillers because it doesn’t exist), Twister (Fun!!!) and Harold and Kumar go To White Castle (a classic!!!).

But back to Sandy.  When it comes to Sandy…I am hard pressed to think of a movie where I don’t “buy” her.  Anyone who is willing to make herself look that silly or unattractive in a movie  or even allow the most annoying insecurities and foibles take the main focus is brave in my book (seriously…watch her dance in the forest in The Proposal or fall down in ANY movie for that matter).  Plus…when did likable become the easier, less bravura choice?  Seriously…I have spent a grand majority of my life just trying to be slightly likable as a person and I only moderately succeed on my best days.  Does that make her suddenly innocuous?  Harmless?  It isn’t easy being personable…it isn’t easy being accessible…so why is it so easy to give an actor or actress a pass when they are so effortlessly personable and relatable in a movie? (especially when perennial sexpot ciphers like Megan Fox or apathetic i-don’t-want-to-be-here-because-i-am-so-indie-actressed like Zooey Deschanel are all the rage?)  Pathos comes easier to some actors, while charm comes easier to others (Hilary Swank -vs- Hugh Grant). Give credit where credit is due in my opinion.  As a former thespian I regularly bow down to Meryl Streep, but when is the last time you have ever been able to view her on screen as an “anybody”, much less a likable “anybody” you can relate for and root for?   Yet Sandy has retained and even refined this quality over all her years (seriously…doesn’t she look just as amazing now as she did during The Vanishing?)  I’d dare say she has kept that quality better and more successfully than look-i-hid-my-gummy-smile-so-i’m-serious-now Julia Roberts and look-i-destroyed-my-perky-smile-with-plastic-surgery-and-now-i-look-like-jack-nicholson’s-joker Meg Ryan.

When she tells the Keanu-Bot that she lost her license due to “speeding” with a heavy, belabrored smirk and then minutes later runs the bus she’s piloting into what she thinks is a baby carriage and loses her shit…I believe every second of it.  When she tells the room full of addicts that she’s, “HAVING A BAD DAY!!!” in 28 Days I chuckle and feel for her at the same time.  Now, whether that is an amazing level of talent or crafty choosing of roles, is neither here nor there.  The reason I am so vehemently defending my close personal friend Sandy Bullock is because I recently just…

no…I mustn’t…I can’t…

I just…netflixed….

>gag<

All About Steve

It’s my own fault really…any movie Sandy is in, I either have to see in the theater or add to my netflix queue.  I’m talking everything from the best of her performances (Thing Called Love, Time to Kill, Infamous) to her funniest performances (Miss Congeniality, While You Were Sleeping, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous DO NOT JUDGE ME, Demolition Man), to her great performances in seriously flawed movies (Forces of Nature, Practical Magic, Two if By Sea) to her dramatic/thriller work (The Net, Murder by Numbers, Premonition) to the stuff NO ONE HAS SEEN EXCEPT FOR ME (Loverboy, Gun Shy and Who Shot Pat?).   I even forgive her for being in the movie Crash, because her work in that movie is really quite exceptional and career altering and despite my hatred of that movie she deserved a Best Supporting Actress Nomination for it.   (For the record In Love and War, Hope Floats and large portions of The Lakehouse do not exist.)

Sorry…the chance to gush about Sandy distracted me.

All About Steve

Okay…WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT MOVIE AND WHO HONESTLY THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA AND WHY DID MY CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND SANDRA BULLOCK DECIDE TO NOT ONLY STAR IN THIS MOVIE AND PRODUCE IT AT THE SAME TIME THEREBY CAUSING ME INTENSE MENTAL ANGUISH, PSYCHOLOGICAL SUFFERING AND IMMEASURABLE PAIN??????????????????

That being said…it wasn’t that bad actually.   Like that Chinese restaurant that my friends ask me about and I say, “It’s good?”   And then they know they probably don’t want to go there.

The plot of this movie – Mary Magdalene Horowitz (yes a catholic-jew) is a crossword puzzle writer and all around neurotic mess.   She goes on a horrendous blind date with a news cameraman, Steve (Bradley Cooper), and after Steve makes an off-handed comment about wanting Mary to go on the road with her, even though he is actually blowing her off, she decides to follow him around cross-country and try to get to know him better…against his will…or…you know….STALKING HIM.  I could go into great detail about the movie but I don’t want to hurt you…essentially Mary is mentally ill.  She’s neurotic, talkative, combative, and generally annoying.

It was almost as if Sandra Bullock was trying to be unlikable.  Sandy…unlikable in a movie?  She really tries…she pushes me to the limit. There were two separate occasions I was close to shutting the movie off (for those who know me…they know that is a big deal for me…I have never…NEVER in my life walked out of a movie theater…and very….very rarely refused to finish a rental).

I mean…this movie was a mess.  It was like 14 different movies wrapped into one and none of them seemed too pressed to gel or even resolve themselves.

I would say to a non-sandy fan…avoid this at all costs.

But then…something happened in this movie…and please forgive me…I got hooked.   Maybe it was the car crash/train wreck effect.  Maybe I had to know how it ended only to wipe it from my mind…but…if I am being honest…it was something a bit more.

In one of the movies 437 dangling plotlines, Mary finds herself on the road with a group of equally neurotic, annoying and eccentric companions.  They  love her for her and even though they are almost intolerable, they begin to become charming.

Yes…she’s still unbalanced…yes…she’s still mentally deranged…but she found her people.   Isn’t that what we all want?  Ultimately?

By the end of this supposed quirky adventure/road movie/romantic comedy/abomination something amazing happened.  Without legitimately spoiling the end of the movie (even thought I know most of you wouldn’t care), Mary gets her happy ending, her deserved happy ending.  Not a romantic comedy ending.   Not a road trip happy ending, but the only ending a quirky adventure/road movie/romantic comedy/abomination can have.   And I smiled…genuinely.

Would I inflict this pain on myself again?   Probably not (yes…in about two years when it is on TBS constantly, where all Sandy movies end up being broadcast).  But did the antibiotics work?   Like I said…at fist you have to give into it.  And then…absolutely.  Is it “film”…oh dear god no.   Is it good?   Certainly not.   Does it have a single redeeming aspect?  For goodness sakes people, of course it does…it isn’t 500 Days Of Summer after all.  Despite everything working against the movie: script, cohesive direction, a singular vision, a general sense of taste…

it has Sandy.

(PS…about five hours after I watched “All About Steve” my close personal friend Sandy Bullock won her first Golden Globe for her exemplary work in “The Blind Side” and it was very much so deserved.  The movie itself wasn’t the greatest movie, but her performance was a small miracle.  Watch the scene where Leigh Anne is discussing sleeping arrangements with Michael and you will know what I am talking about.)

It is not uncommon for me to think I have autism.   Okay…to be honest…its not uncommon for me to think I have cancer, brittle bone disease, leprosy and greasy hair syndrome.

But when I find it hard to focus I tend to think I have ADD or Autism.  And ADD, or ADHD as many people tell me I should call it, is extremely passe and no longer in vogue.   Autism is pretty hot right now.   Dear god…if there were a hell…that is one of many comments that will send me there.

Why do I bring this up?    Because I finally got a Slanket!

Yes…a sleeved blanket.   And no…not a snuggie.   What do you take me for?   A tasteless couch potato???   I am a sloth with class.  My roommate and I decided for the holiday season to get each other Slankets as gifts.  This was a terribly exciting prospect for me.  So of course, naturally, my slanket got lost in transition and the order was cancelled…then reordered….then Fed Ex decided to taunt me for several days before finally delivering it.

The slanket…for those who do not know is the much higher end (ORIGINAL) version of the snuggie.  It’s a higher quality fleece…longer…and, for the owner, it comes with an exclusive kitsch that it is the best reviewed of all the sleeved blankets.

Snuggie bad.  Snuggie cliche.  Snuggie stupid thing that everyone else does.

Slanket good.  Slanket unique.  Slanket awesome thing that true individuals all buy at the same time to become cooler, slightly more hip cloned sheep.

After all of the waiting, the justifying, and shameless boasting you may be curious…was it worth it?

Absofuckinlutley.   Its effin’ ridonkulous.  I mean think about it.  Its a blanket…but with sleeves…for with to stay warm and feel like a druid from a distant future at the same time.

I can hold a remote and not let my arm get cold.  I can walk to my fridge…grab a diet Dr. pepper and back to the couch and not say to myself, “My what is that chill in the air?”

I am already saving on heating costs.

I can blog and stay warm at the same time.   If there were a heaven…it would be a slanket buffet.  I am convinced.

Also this holiday season one of my dearest friends in all of Sleeved-Blanketdom gave me a tremendously fluffy warm bath robe.   I had never owned one.   Typically, I do not make a habit of buying practical things for myself that might make life a little better and more comfortable.  My dearest friend does make a habit of purchasing these things (see: winter boots…seriously…Lauren…you saved me from losing a foot to frostbite)   I would always talk about hating the winter because in the mornings running from the shower to my room always ended up with me doing the “Dance of The Cold Floor”.  Or when waking up hungover on the weekend (see:  EVERY WEEKEND) how I would stumble from my bed to the couch and immediately pull thirty blankets on myself just to retain a bit of the womblike sleep I just left.   With the bath robe i was able to crawl out of bed (LITERALLY CRAWL) slip on the robe and lay around my living room for the bulk of the afternoon in absolute comfort.  How I lived without the robe or the slanket is beyond me.  (Although last weekend I actually paid for my delivery food while wearing the robe and there was moment…albeit brief…where i felt a hint of shame at my only level of sloth…the delivery sandwich deftly quelled that shame).

I sometimes crave the womb.   Or the pressure of that womb at least.  I cannot recount the number of times I have woken up in the morning tangled in a mess of sheets and pillows on my bed with my comforter pulled up over my head with the end tucked tightly under my feet.  There is something with the warmth…the darkness…the sound of my breath and, if I am silent enough, the beating of my own heart.  It calms me down…reminds me to breathe and for a second stops time.   Under that blanket, wrapped in that robe, or snuggled in that Slanket the world, for however brief a time is kept at bay.  I’m not sure how to describe how tremendously comforting it is to me, except to say it gives me peace.  A strange peace.

After a typically loathsome day (See: this past tuesday…a lot of Tuesdays lately) I often come home, kick of my shoes my socks, of course my pants, crawl into bed and make a womb.   I close my eyes and pull in tightly…flexing my feet…balling my fingers into fists…tucking my chin to my chest…and float.   Some days just for a minute, some days for an hour, but when I emerge…a small piece of the day is my own again.   That is priceless.

Its a common treatment for autistic people.  Not slankets…not bath robes…but womb therapy.   Warmth.  Pressure.  Embrace.  One of my favorite fiction authors, Douglas Coupland, wrote about it in his novel “jPod”.  In the book, he comically theorized that all video game designers, and perhaps creative minds, fall somewhere on the autism spectrum.  So one of the employees of the design firm in the book, creates a “hug machine”.   The machine isn’t fiction.  Its used as a therapy tool for children with autism and behavioral disorders.  I am terribly interested in trying one out.

To me, it makes nothing but perfect sense.  I’m not a huge fan of cuddling or hugging my friends…I’m sure my most of my friends know this.   I never give in fully to that hug.  There is always a small piece of me that pulls back.   That’s armor I suppose.   And yet another thing on my long list of things I am working on.   But their embraces do me good…they remind me not to be impenetrable.

But now…NOW…I have a plethora of womb therapy options.

I just need to remember to take them off from time to time.  To pay for my delivery without the cocoon.  Be a bit more naked.  Well…not entirely…not yet…and not in front of the delivery boy.

I am typically not an ”old adage” or “sage proverb” kind of person.  But more often than not lately, I keep coming back to one particular little collection of thoughts.

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

I have a tendency to let little things fester and become larger, more infectious things.   The kinds of things that cause great upheaval in my daily emotional life and, more importantly, my digestive life (see:  anxious pooper).  It’s a strange form of doormat-itis because I am all too aware of what I am doing at that moment but never think it will end in ultimate calamity. For the want of a nail the shoe was lost. But I don’t think about how giving up the shoe will lead to my horse running away and me wanting a new job or life or somehow failing and my horse moves back to Southern Indiana…the metaphor is escaping me so hold on.

I think that it is easier to acquiesce one time than cause a big stir.  But one time turns to two and two to three and three to five-hundred and forty-seven, until eventually I’m flattened, pressed neatly into an emotional pancake by my own passive (and sometimes aggressive) behavior.

Case in point.  My job.   I make no bones about my frustrations with my job, but I cannot honestly say that I am without blame.   There have been moments at my current position where I should have spoken up, dissented, or, at the very least, asked “why” something was occurring the way it was.  But each time I said nothing.   Setting a precedent that I am the most “go-with-the-flow” person possible.  I keep thinking, sane, rational people will not take advantage of this.  But then again…when are things or people often sane or rational?  And so on and so on…until one day…my entire world is one huge passive mess of  tangled frustration (oy…that phrase is weighty).

I need to be more like Christina Yang.  Yes, I realize I am aspiring to be a fictional female doctor vying for surgical brilliance, but I keep going back to her as my aggressive mascot.  For the 14 people like me with actual taste who still watch “Grey’s Anatomy”, for some reason, or at least to the majority of people who used to watch it, you know what a delight her character is.  While the show itself has gone majorly downhill, she is the reason I keep coming back (well her and Bailey and yes, even Meredith Grey…more on her at a later date).   I can’t find another character out there right now who stirs such a positive response in me.  And while she has her flaws, I marvel at her strengths (and seriously…give Sandra Oh her fucking Emmy already…the woman is a genius and deserves more praise than she has been heaped with).

She’s confident, intelligent, and doesn’t let her emotions get the best of her.  OR at least when they do, she has the presence of mind to know what’s in her way (STUPID EMOTIONS) and does whatever it takes to get them out of her.    Now, I know you could say, what about Bailey?  She has it all, career, family and people don’t find her rude or unmanageable like Christina, but that’s just it…I need people to see I can have fangs if I want to.  Just because I’m nice, just because I back down from time to time doesn’t mean I won’t snap (and in the cut ‘ya way, not the lock me up in a padded room way).  Dr. Yang is a bit of a robot at times, but I think I need that more.  I need that steely exterior and the determination of a machine, because this jelly that is my exoskeleton just ain’t cuttin’ it. I need that Yang assertiveness.  That kind of way of speaking where you can tell someone what is going to happen or how you see things without it being argumentative, but how it simply is.  Or when necessary the ability to level with people without seeming like a know-it-all.  Or, even better, how to be the toughest person in the room so everyone else shuts up.   I honestly don’t think I have ever done that.

So I’m trying to channel her more in my life (or at least thinking about what she would say in an instance, even if I don’t actually say it).  The crux is…I was raised to be polite and somewhere along the way I have construed that into a mentality that says it is better to burden myself than to contradict or impede the progress of others.  Even if their “progress” leads to the death of a kingdom (see:  previously mentioned adage; really mixing metaphors here).

Perhaps if I can take a cue from Christina Yang and just barrel through the bullshit in my life a bit more, shoot people down from time to time, go after what I want even if it isn’t mutually beneficial to someone else, then I’d at least feel more in control of my situation.   But its the initial instance I back away from…so many people are accustomed to seeing me react to a situation in a certain way.  If I change all at once…will they think I’m mean?  Will they hold it against me?  Or, an even greater fear of mine, will they counteract with twice as much aggression as I have somehow feebly manager to muster and ruin my moment of glory.

So its stewing…I’m working on it.  If I someday lash out at you unexpectedly, tell me to watch a little more Grey’s Anatomy and take better notes next time.

The brilliance of Doctor Yang: