Turning 58 (on the 13th) seems to be proof that I am not demonstratively bothered by my advanced age. At 58 you can no longer legitimately round down to "mid-fifties". You are now officially "pushing 60". And yet, I feel no particular crisis is upon me beyond that ongoing steady drop in enthusiasm for familiar activities that has been a persistent in my psyche for the last 10 years or so, and which I have written off as either the natural aging process or a growing sense of familiarity with, and therefore a certain contempt for, the ways of the world.
Accompanying this is also a growing resignation to myself and my limitations. My running pace, like my writing pace, seems to steadily dwindle. I like to take naps more than ever. I no longer delude myself that I can catch the eye of a young woman (it would be more easy to convince her I'm rich). But I am alert as ever and still fairly quick-witted. And healthy for the most part. I'm also good on the most important thing in life: maintaining a strong sense of absurdity, especially your own.
[TV] Toob Notes: Quick Takes
[Movies] Flick Check: Franchise Fodder
[Travel] Austin, Not So Weird
[Rant] Dave the Builder
Friday, October 05, 2018
[TV] Toob Notes: Quick Takes
Just some quick comments of what I've been watching.
Better Call Saul -- Remains the best show on television but this season has started a bit slow. The show lost quite a bit when the Chuck-Jimmy conflict ended. You can tell because perhaps the most striking dramatic moment of this season (so far) is when Jimmy realizes he's not getting reinstated because he couldn't bring himself to mention his brother's name. Things are coming to head, however, for Jimmy, Kim, and Mike. I expect a full on race to the finish starts now.
Lodge 49 -- Self-consciously bills itself as Lebowski for the small screen, and that's a good description, but I see a lot of John from Cincinatti in there too. Dysfunctional brother and sister make their way the weirdness of life and characters in Long Beach, CA. I don't know where it's going or what to make of it yet, and that may be the creators intent, but it is engaging and intriguing enough for me to come back every week. Strong cast, especially Sonya Cassidy. You need to be of a certain type of mind to appreciate it. I, evidently, am.
Rewind: Justified (2, 4, 6) -- Rewatched the even seasons, which were the best, but all are worth seeing if you missed it first run. So many great characters, so much wonderful dialog. Why can't all shows be written this well? I hope they never revive it, like...
...Magnum, P.I. Yes, they rebooted Magnum. It serves a purpose. It captures the good-natured, cheese-and-corn-on-a-tropical-island tone of the original and reminds us of how bad TV used to be (by comparison) and demonstrates that we watched it because there was nothing better. Also interesting are the casting decisions. Higgins is a hot chick and Magnum, well, I guess they figured there were no modern day Tom Sellecks so they went in the opposite direction and cast a small, pretty, hispanic boy. Oddly, they do pull it off to a certain extent. If you we're really hoping they'd bring more shows like Magnum P.I. back, well, wish granted. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
As for me I can't get over the contrast of a good '80s cop show (Magnum) with a good contemporary cop show (Justified). Night and day, my friends. Despite what you read, some things in this world get better.
Better Call Saul -- Remains the best show on television but this season has started a bit slow. The show lost quite a bit when the Chuck-Jimmy conflict ended. You can tell because perhaps the most striking dramatic moment of this season (so far) is when Jimmy realizes he's not getting reinstated because he couldn't bring himself to mention his brother's name. Things are coming to head, however, for Jimmy, Kim, and Mike. I expect a full on race to the finish starts now.
Lodge 49 -- Self-consciously bills itself as Lebowski for the small screen, and that's a good description, but I see a lot of John from Cincinatti in there too. Dysfunctional brother and sister make their way the weirdness of life and characters in Long Beach, CA. I don't know where it's going or what to make of it yet, and that may be the creators intent, but it is engaging and intriguing enough for me to come back every week. Strong cast, especially Sonya Cassidy. You need to be of a certain type of mind to appreciate it. I, evidently, am.
Rewind: Justified (2, 4, 6) -- Rewatched the even seasons, which were the best, but all are worth seeing if you missed it first run. So many great characters, so much wonderful dialog. Why can't all shows be written this well? I hope they never revive it, like...
...Magnum, P.I. Yes, they rebooted Magnum. It serves a purpose. It captures the good-natured, cheese-and-corn-on-a-tropical-island tone of the original and reminds us of how bad TV used to be (by comparison) and demonstrates that we watched it because there was nothing better. Also interesting are the casting decisions. Higgins is a hot chick and Magnum, well, I guess they figured there were no modern day Tom Sellecks so they went in the opposite direction and cast a small, pretty, hispanic boy. Oddly, they do pull it off to a certain extent. If you we're really hoping they'd bring more shows like Magnum P.I. back, well, wish granted. There are worse ways to spend an hour.
As for me I can't get over the contrast of a good '80s cop show (Magnum) with a good contemporary cop show (Justified). Night and day, my friends. Despite what you read, some things in this world get better.
[Movies] Flick Check: Franchise Fodder
A couple of recent entries in recently restarted blockbuster franchises became accessible on the small screen, so I checked them out. From the Star Wars universe we have...
Solo -- Overall, not bad, which puts it near the top for this franchise. A good origin story, if unoriginal. Ron Howard is nothing if not solid and reliable moviemaker. There were some minor struggles in tone with Han himself, wavering seemingly randomly between emotional seriousness and scruffy-looking swagger. Lando was a bit of a let down; Donald Glover is too chill for his own good sometimes. But other than that, a solid entry. It's interesting that the only good quality entries in this series since the original trilogy have been one-offs -- this and the very good Rogue One. The constraints of the core narrative seem to destroy any possibility of creative value in the main story.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom -- Overall, is pretty bad. All the infantile tropes are on display: the greedy and violent rich are despoiling the world for their own greedy and violent purposes; Jeff Goldblum lectures like a 14-year-old who thinks he's deep. It is just inane. The action is pretty good, if horrific. But that raises the question, Who is this movie for? For children? They might not notice the dumb storyline, but the scenes of dinosaurs eating people and menacing children in their beds is the kind of thing that would cause kids to demand to sleep with mommy and daddy. For adults? In that case, the plot and dialogue is just insulting. I don't know what to make of this other than to say it's just not a good movie. I think this franchise could be saved, but clearly not by the folks running it now.
Part of me is also ho hum about all this because Marvel has cast such a shadow of this genre that everything else seems like background music by comparison. These old school franchises have no idea how to catch up.
Solo -- Overall, not bad, which puts it near the top for this franchise. A good origin story, if unoriginal. Ron Howard is nothing if not solid and reliable moviemaker. There were some minor struggles in tone with Han himself, wavering seemingly randomly between emotional seriousness and scruffy-looking swagger. Lando was a bit of a let down; Donald Glover is too chill for his own good sometimes. But other than that, a solid entry. It's interesting that the only good quality entries in this series since the original trilogy have been one-offs -- this and the very good Rogue One. The constraints of the core narrative seem to destroy any possibility of creative value in the main story.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom -- Overall, is pretty bad. All the infantile tropes are on display: the greedy and violent rich are despoiling the world for their own greedy and violent purposes; Jeff Goldblum lectures like a 14-year-old who thinks he's deep. It is just inane. The action is pretty good, if horrific. But that raises the question, Who is this movie for? For children? They might not notice the dumb storyline, but the scenes of dinosaurs eating people and menacing children in their beds is the kind of thing that would cause kids to demand to sleep with mommy and daddy. For adults? In that case, the plot and dialogue is just insulting. I don't know what to make of this other than to say it's just not a good movie. I think this franchise could be saved, but clearly not by the folks running it now.
Part of me is also ho hum about all this because Marvel has cast such a shadow of this genre that everything else seems like background music by comparison. These old school franchises have no idea how to catch up.
[Travel] Austin, Not So Weird
I spent three nights in Austin. It's not so weird. In fact, it is a quintessential college town writ large. If you have been following my travel posts from the past nearly two decades, you know anytime I get to a college town or hipster enclave (Ithaca, Ashville) I start to draw comparisons to Ann Arbor. Austin, while probably four times the size of Ann Arbor, still has the strong vibe of a college town, being the home of the nearly Michigan-sized University of Texas. Throw in its standing as a tech hub second only to Silicon Valley and you get upper middle class hipster paradise.
If Austin was once weird, it is no longer. Food trucks featuring outlandish combinations of flavors are no longer unusual. Dirty 6th street -- kind of like a slightly less psychotic version of Bourbon Street -- is fun and can be crazy, but it's not weird. Bird scooters? Don't make me laugh.
There is an interesting spot called Graffiti Park which is a series of walls that were set to be demolished for condos, but when people started filling them with graffiti it became an iconic landmark and the condos were forestalled. It is actually a pretty cool thing; some of the artists are quite talented, but nothing is sacred. A beautiful panel can be covered by any idiot with a spray can before it even gets seen, with no recourse except of course to repaint over it I suppose. Impressive that it doesn't descend into scatology and the lurid. There is a lot of cool artwork to see and it changes all the time. It qualifies as moderately weird but the weirdness is mitigated because money is money and the real estate is too valuable not to build on. So they are moving it to the outskirts of the city by the airport where it will be at least partially controlled and dedicated to "legitimate" graffiti artists, sanctioned by the government probably. Ah well. Like I said, the weird is gone and the gentry has a firm grip on everything.
Probably the last truly weird thing in Austin is the bats. The Congress Avenue bridge crosses the Colorado river in the heart of Austin. In 1980, it was rebuilt in such a way that there were crevices lining the underside of the bridge. Turns out, bats love crevices. Were you to walk under the bridge during the day, you would have no idea that above your head were in excess of a million bats. Just before dusk, the top of the bridge is covered with hundreds of humans who have gathered to watch the million or so bats emerge in a swarm from below. They flow out like a billowing cloud of smoke that lasts for many minutes as they stream upriver in search of bugs to eat. Very cool thing to see. Recommended, but be advised, bats smell. Bad.
(Aside: I don't think can I count the number of places I have seen the Colorado River. From as far north as Westwater, UT to Lake Havasu, AZ in the south. It would be an interesting project to retrace all my travels through the West and pick out all the stops I've made along the river.)
All this lack of weird doesn't mean Austin isn't a great place to visit. It is. There are tons of things to do and an incredibly energetic vibe anywhere you go. Even a trip to the capitol building is of interest, which would normally be the least interesting thing in the world.
And then, of course, there is the live music. All up and down 6th street and hundreds of other places. Most folks know of the Moody Theatre where Austin City Limits is held -- there is a statue of Willie Nelson out front -- but it's only one of many storied venues.
Endless options for food and drink and music are the core of Austin's particular brand of cool. Still, it is not without its downsides. It is not green, in the sense of verdant. Oh there are parks and greenways and such, but you will never doubt that you are in a major city in the throes of booming building and development. They joke that the official bird of Austin is the crane (Do I have to explain it?).
The bigger problem is the traffic, as you would expect. There are no major freeways that will get you directly to Austin, at some point in your approach you are going to get dumped off onto four lane roads. At that point you better hope you timed things right or you might as well get comfortable. If there is a Longhorns game you might as well get a room at a motel outside town. Driving in the city itself is not much better and parking is a savage beatdown. If there is any place you want to Uber around, it's Austin. Maybe those Bird Scooters make sense after all.
I can understand why Austin is growing like it is. If I was a young tech exec or a student free riding on the 'rents, it would be at the top of my list. It would be a little too intense for me now, given my age and habits, but I do hope to visit again -- maybe catch the F1 race one year or a good Austin City Limits headliner or just snag some interesting food. The energy is infectious.
If Austin was once weird, it is no longer. Food trucks featuring outlandish combinations of flavors are no longer unusual. Dirty 6th street -- kind of like a slightly less psychotic version of Bourbon Street -- is fun and can be crazy, but it's not weird. Bird scooters? Don't make me laugh.
There is an interesting spot called Graffiti Park which is a series of walls that were set to be demolished for condos, but when people started filling them with graffiti it became an iconic landmark and the condos were forestalled. It is actually a pretty cool thing; some of the artists are quite talented, but nothing is sacred. A beautiful panel can be covered by any idiot with a spray can before it even gets seen, with no recourse except of course to repaint over it I suppose. Impressive that it doesn't descend into scatology and the lurid. There is a lot of cool artwork to see and it changes all the time. It qualifies as moderately weird but the weirdness is mitigated because money is money and the real estate is too valuable not to build on. So they are moving it to the outskirts of the city by the airport where it will be at least partially controlled and dedicated to "legitimate" graffiti artists, sanctioned by the government probably. Ah well. Like I said, the weird is gone and the gentry has a firm grip on everything.
Probably the last truly weird thing in Austin is the bats. The Congress Avenue bridge crosses the Colorado river in the heart of Austin. In 1980, it was rebuilt in such a way that there were crevices lining the underside of the bridge. Turns out, bats love crevices. Were you to walk under the bridge during the day, you would have no idea that above your head were in excess of a million bats. Just before dusk, the top of the bridge is covered with hundreds of humans who have gathered to watch the million or so bats emerge in a swarm from below. They flow out like a billowing cloud of smoke that lasts for many minutes as they stream upriver in search of bugs to eat. Very cool thing to see. Recommended, but be advised, bats smell. Bad.
(Aside: I don't think can I count the number of places I have seen the Colorado River. From as far north as Westwater, UT to Lake Havasu, AZ in the south. It would be an interesting project to retrace all my travels through the West and pick out all the stops I've made along the river.)
All this lack of weird doesn't mean Austin isn't a great place to visit. It is. There are tons of things to do and an incredibly energetic vibe anywhere you go. Even a trip to the capitol building is of interest, which would normally be the least interesting thing in the world.
And then, of course, there is the live music. All up and down 6th street and hundreds of other places. Most folks know of the Moody Theatre where Austin City Limits is held -- there is a statue of Willie Nelson out front -- but it's only one of many storied venues.
Endless options for food and drink and music are the core of Austin's particular brand of cool. Still, it is not without its downsides. It is not green, in the sense of verdant. Oh there are parks and greenways and such, but you will never doubt that you are in a major city in the throes of booming building and development. They joke that the official bird of Austin is the crane (Do I have to explain it?).
The bigger problem is the traffic, as you would expect. There are no major freeways that will get you directly to Austin, at some point in your approach you are going to get dumped off onto four lane roads. At that point you better hope you timed things right or you might as well get comfortable. If there is a Longhorns game you might as well get a room at a motel outside town. Driving in the city itself is not much better and parking is a savage beatdown. If there is any place you want to Uber around, it's Austin. Maybe those Bird Scooters make sense after all.
I can understand why Austin is growing like it is. If I was a young tech exec or a student free riding on the 'rents, it would be at the top of my list. It would be a little too intense for me now, given my age and habits, but I do hope to visit again -- maybe catch the F1 race one year or a good Austin City Limits headliner or just snag some interesting food. The energy is infectious.
[Rant] Dave the Builder
I am decidedly not handy. This is quite clear to me. Oh I can get some basic stuff done -- replace a ceiling fan or light fixture, change the air filters in my car (you'd be surprised how much that saves you), paint a bedroom, etc. -- but if something goes awry all bets are off. You know how you can be following a youtube how-to video which tells you to remove a ramastat with an adjustable whichamacallit, except your whichamacallit doesn't fit and the ramastat is actually a thingamajig? At that point I'm toast. Improvised handiness is beyond me. (This is especially true of bike maintenance, it turns out.) So I was really quite proud of myself for building a catio. That's not a typo -- a catio.
My house abuts a huge swath of protected wetlands. This has its pluses and minuses. It affords me privacy and nice view out my back window. I also get an abundance of wildlife. Deer, sometimes in groups of eight or ten, traipse through my backyard (although less so now that I've learned to plant deer-resistant flowers), there is a troupe of wild turkeys that parade about, bunnies abound, squirrels and chipmunks in uncountable numbers, racoons, fox, and even coyotes -- it's like Wild Kingdom back there.
Currently I have a houseguest that is the owner of a siamese cat. Needless to say, the cat likes to go outside. I don't know why. Given the size of my house, she has run of an area that is likely not much smaller than the relative territory of a Bengal tiger. Still, one can't dump the cat out the back door because there is no way a siamese cat that will look a live mouse in the face walk away to get ear scratches would last more than five minutes out in the wilds behind my house.
The best option was to take the cat out on my deck (which is elevated to second story level) but the cat would make a beeline for certain death if not restrained. There was only one solution. I needed to build an enclosure so the cat could be left to wander the deck but not escape.
At this point you are no doubt smirking and saying "What could possibly go wrong?" Well, I'll tell you: Nothing. I bought some lumber and chicken wire, measured everything ten times before I cut. Bought a couple of better quality tools. Thought about everything -- sometimes for days -- before I took action, but I completed the catio. It is ugly, but can easily be disassembled and removed in 15-20 minutes. There are things I would have done differently, but still, I did it without losing any fingers or putting out an eye. To any skilled craftsman, I'm sure it would be a source of comedy. But it works, and I did it myself.
It was a good lesson to (re)learn. Trying something new, without fearing probable failure is always rewarding. If there is one thing I could change about myself it would be to not be so afraid to fail. It would be convenient to blame this on my childhood environment, where any mistakes opened you to shame and derision, but I'm 58 and my window for blaming things on my childhood closed decades ago. I have to keep doing things like this -- to make myself keep doing things like this. It's even more important as I age and get more and more comfortable with those limitations I discussed above. As they ask in Tough Mudder, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?"
For now, I'm just going to keep doing the little projects and maybe next summer, if my houseguest is still here, I'll build a bigger, better catio. Actually, my next goal should be taking on a bike upgrade over the winter without screwing it up so royally I have to call in a professional. When you see me on HGTV, you'll know I've arrived.
But first I have to go make sure my health insurance covers accidental dismemberment.
My house abuts a huge swath of protected wetlands. This has its pluses and minuses. It affords me privacy and nice view out my back window. I also get an abundance of wildlife. Deer, sometimes in groups of eight or ten, traipse through my backyard (although less so now that I've learned to plant deer-resistant flowers), there is a troupe of wild turkeys that parade about, bunnies abound, squirrels and chipmunks in uncountable numbers, racoons, fox, and even coyotes -- it's like Wild Kingdom back there.
Currently I have a houseguest that is the owner of a siamese cat. Needless to say, the cat likes to go outside. I don't know why. Given the size of my house, she has run of an area that is likely not much smaller than the relative territory of a Bengal tiger. Still, one can't dump the cat out the back door because there is no way a siamese cat that will look a live mouse in the face walk away to get ear scratches would last more than five minutes out in the wilds behind my house.
The best option was to take the cat out on my deck (which is elevated to second story level) but the cat would make a beeline for certain death if not restrained. There was only one solution. I needed to build an enclosure so the cat could be left to wander the deck but not escape.
At this point you are no doubt smirking and saying "What could possibly go wrong?" Well, I'll tell you: Nothing. I bought some lumber and chicken wire, measured everything ten times before I cut. Bought a couple of better quality tools. Thought about everything -- sometimes for days -- before I took action, but I completed the catio. It is ugly, but can easily be disassembled and removed in 15-20 minutes. There are things I would have done differently, but still, I did it without losing any fingers or putting out an eye. To any skilled craftsman, I'm sure it would be a source of comedy. But it works, and I did it myself.
It was a good lesson to (re)learn. Trying something new, without fearing probable failure is always rewarding. If there is one thing I could change about myself it would be to not be so afraid to fail. It would be convenient to blame this on my childhood environment, where any mistakes opened you to shame and derision, but I'm 58 and my window for blaming things on my childhood closed decades ago. I have to keep doing things like this -- to make myself keep doing things like this. It's even more important as I age and get more and more comfortable with those limitations I discussed above. As they ask in Tough Mudder, "When was the last time you did something for the first time?"
For now, I'm just going to keep doing the little projects and maybe next summer, if my houseguest is still here, I'll build a bigger, better catio. Actually, my next goal should be taking on a bike upgrade over the winter without screwing it up so royally I have to call in a professional. When you see me on HGTV, you'll know I've arrived.
But first I have to go make sure my health insurance covers accidental dismemberment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)