The Simpsons Is Dead, Long Live The Simpsons.

What the hell happened? You used to be the best show on television. You’re the funniest TV show I’ve ever watched. I love your characters. I love the influence you’ve had on our culture. I love that you made FOX a watchable network. I love that you made sitcom writers stars in their own right.

But now I hate what you’ve become.

You’re like a hot wife who has let herself go. And you didn’t even bear a child (spin-offs). Your pointed social commentary and unrivaled style of commentary has regressed to pop culture riffs and cheap puns. ‘Tis a shame.

I tried to watch your season premiere this past Sunday, but I only got through the first 15 minutes. I went into my room during a commercial break and didn’t bother to come back.

Here are 5 episodes, however, that I will always come back for:

1. HOMER THE VIGILANTE
"Lisa, never EVER stop in the middle of a hoedown!"
Homer starts a vigilante group to snuff out the Springfield Cat Burglar. Most people don't remember this episode, but Homer's corrupt group of guys just gets me every time. That scene with the shotguns; "Can you swing a sack of doorknobs?"; the whole Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World ending. I just like this one far too much.


2. HOMER GOES TO COLLEGE
"This bra bomb of yours better work, Nerdlinger."
My first Conan O'Brien ep and the one that I think really stretched the reality of the Simpsons universe with "I don't understand, there wasn't any nuclear material in the truck." Really made Homer stupid, but the fact that he was trying to mimic old college B-movies really made the behavior work for me.


3. HOMER AT THE BAT
"Hey, we know how to play softball!"
I love baseball too much not to put this on the list. And every single beat in this episode was pitch perfect.






4. MARGE VS. THE MONORAIL
"Batman's a scientist." "It's not Batman!"

Classic. The Monorail Song alone.

Is there a chance the track could bend?
Not on your life, my Hindu friend.

**TIE!!!** 5. THE JOY OF SECT & KING-SIZE HOMER
"So the cops knew Internal Affairs was setting them up the whole time?"
"Phew. All this hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a Tab."
In truth, Homer at the Bat nearly bumped King-Size Homer off the list. But I had to put this tie. Both episodes were really whacky but they touched on things that NO TV series tackles that I found them both really original and really funny.

Anything after Season 8 and I’m going to be very suspicious of the show’s quality. Anything currently airing on FOX every Sunday and I’m probably going to not miss skipping it. A shame. A shame indeed.

Still, when that movie comes out, I will foolishly go see it, AND I will maintain my pledge to see it twice in a row.

Thanks for the years of free entertainment, transcendent comedy and inspiration.

9/11's Failure to Launch.

I was an RA at the time. An urgent knock early in the morning awoke me to the tragedy. My ROTC resident was the guy to do it; he told me, “We’re under attack. The Arabs are attacking us.” After that, there was a prevailing notion of turning the entire Middle East into a smoking crater, particularly after one of the news networks showed people in the sand of some village celebrating.

Who knows if they were cheering about two buildings in America crumbling? The news takes everything out of context and repurposes it for a certain narrative. Regardless of the truth of that image, I will say that I was on board with the Smoking Crater Plan.

Rage can be a very powerful tool of motivation, if we are possessed enough by it. Rage has got to be the reason behind terrorist attacks. The desperate act of suicide bombings, the willingness to take out civilians, and the inflexibility of beliefs point to rage and not the need to dominate other people. In other words, this isn’t about power, it’s about emotion: the feeling you get when you finally vanquish an adversary.

Americans haven’t gotten mad enough. It’s not a matter of complacency, though, only misplaced emphasis. Capitalism is an independent venture. As such, our pursuits are independent of community. Without a strong sense of community, attacks upon it don’t carry as much weight as attacks on the individual. The emphasis on the micro as opposed to the macro is the misplacement of emphasis. But even if we were to a person pissed off that our soil soaked up the blood of so many innocents, we still would not be angry enough.

Ryan Seacrest spoke with former Noxema spokesperson Rebecca Gayheart about her new show Vanished. Ryan’s line of questioning went something like this:

SEACREST: “You’ve gone and straightened your hair on me. How long does it take you to straighten your hair?”
GAYHEART: “About an hour and a half.”
SEACREST: “Wow. I thought it was tougher being a boy than being a girl.”
GAYHEART: “Why would you think that?”
SEACREST: “It’s just that we’re not programmed to do all that. So, when we have to sit there and do it, it’s tough.”

Then he comments about her age and how young she looks in spite of it. Very bitchy, catty, girly stuff.

I’m not saying that the frivolity of the conversation on the anniversary of a tragedy is why the terrorists have won or why America is a terrible place, I’m saying the mere presence of Ryan Seacrest (who influences millions of people) is a factor.

President George W. Bush is not an obviously intelligent, well-spoken, thoughtful leader whose motivations come off more sinister than they ought to. He is a factor.

The United States of America now imports more products than it exports. Our worldwide lead in industrialization has diminished and our blue collar workers are being forced into poverty. That is a factor.

Elections continue to evolve into a battle of the lesser of two evils. That is a factor.

Intelligent conversation and intellectual personalities are vilified and discredited, unable to affect public discourse on account of extremists on either side of the coin. That is a factor.

Bureaucracy has caused airplane crashes, levy breaks, and devastating terrorist attacks, leading to the deaths of thousands. That is a factor.

These are all a factor in the reason why none of us have learned a damned thing from September 11th, why we will not be angry enough: We Are Mediocre.

We live in a nation of mediocrity, of diminishing returns, increasing mistakes and a disaffection for our communities. Our multitudinous voice has been squashed by a monotone, hawkish imperative, in the process deflating our quest to become better.

*In the past five years, have you sensed that humanity has gotten better or worse?
*In the past five years, have you sensed that Americans have gotten better or worse?
*In the past five years, have we come together or grown apart?

We will never forget, I will never forget, you will never forget what happened five years ago, but our increasing and collective stupidity will soon enough make us incapable of learning anything from that day.

***********

Lindsey,

I love you and I pray every day for your safe return.

Through The Wire

Reader Mike asked my opinion of HBO’s heralded The Wire. Specifically, he wanted my opinion through the filter of Aspiring Television Writer.

Out of habit, I don’t usually watch HBO programming. I have nothing against it, I just have never been sufficiently hooked by their shows to come back week in and week out. Speaking of come backs, though, Lisa Kudrow’s The Comeback is fantastic; The Sopranos is obviously great; I am a fan of Curb Your Enthusiasm; see the goodness of Rome & Entourage; love Real Time with Bill Maher; and laugh my ass off at Da Ali G Show. But not until last night had I ever watched The Wire.

The Wire is an ensemble crime drama that is a flawless execution of screenwriting. Tightly written, well-paced and above averagely acted, it has all the ingredients of a good show. The end result is thoughtful entertainment in the Dickensian sense.

Last night opened with the show’s resident Grim Reaper walking into a hardware store and asking a clerk about a nail gun. The clerk describes the specs of the different guns, then asks the woman what type of gun she needs. She basically says, “Whatever kills a dude will do the trick.” [that’s only a paraphrase of the scene, not the dialogue]. What I like about this scene was the contrast of the thug in a hardware store. The clerk doesn’t even hesitate to go into his sales pitch despite the thug’s look. Network TV would have made the disparity in appearance an issue. But The Wire has decided to treat its characters with dignity and respect.

I don’t know if any of you will understand what I mean by dignity and respect as they relate to characters in a fictional universe, and I am actually having a tough time conjuring up a sufficient way of explaining it, but it’s extremely important to the integrity of a story. The writer(s) must have respect for her/his characters, otherwise the story will fall apart.

With The Wire, everybody has their own unique perspective on the world, their own place within it, and the audience is never directly asked/told to criticize, belittle or look down on this or that character as a result of her/his perspective and place. A lot of times, the audience is explicitly told to feel a certain way about a situation or towards a given character. The Wire is able to present a far more challenging narrative, one I think is ultimately a more rewarding viewing experience.

I’m a fan of realistic drama. The more I can identify the fictional universe I’m watching, the more likely I am to be engrossed in it. Last night got me pretty good. I’ll be back.

I plan to tune in and watch The Wire this season. If you’ve got the HBO On Demand, you might want to give it a try.

The 40 Year Old Star Trek

I got chicken pox in the 4th grade. During my time away from school, my dad and I would watch Star Trek at night. Every weeknight at 11:30 was the repeats of The Next Generation (the one with the dude from X-Men). The very first episode I ever saw was called “Remember Me,” and it involved all of the crew disappearing one by one until the only person left is Dr. Crusher.

The episode’s title has added significance for me. You see, my dad died eight months after I saw the show for the first time. It was the last thing we ever bonded over. In fact, my foggy recollection seems to indicate that Star Trek was the only thing we ever bonded over.

My dad committed suicide after a life of depression. It has been a challenge to hold his memory in high regard because he ultimately chose the route of the poorer man, leaving his son to figure out how to be a better one. But whenever I have doubts about him, I try to recall good memories. Invariably, something Star Trek-related comes up. In the short time that we both watched it, he made me a costume (super, uber-dorky, I know) and basically talked to me about the show. We were both excited to watch it during my chicken pox days and that was genuinely the last thing that we were both excited about together.

He was a baseball player – a damned good one – in his day. I was not, nor have I ever been. To his credit, he shunned his upbringing and did not push the sports on me. He just wanted me to be my own person. Ultimately, I’m brain and not brawn. He wasn’t alive long enough for me to enter my teenage years and feel embarrassed/disappointed/resentful that I could not live up to the physical gifts that the male Murphs possess so I can say that I’ve been able to look back at that aspect of my life without anger. Conversely, because of Star Trek I have a positive memory of my father. I’d call that a miracle.

And after his death and through the funeral and the rough transition from a two-parent to single-parent household, Star Trek was there to cushion the blow. I immersed myself in its science fictiony protection and no one ever bothered to yank me from it. My family understood the dynamic it created between me and dad while at school I was able to convert or find other young Star Trekkers. I nerded out A LOT in my youth, and I am not ashamed.

I can tell you the name of any episode of Next Gen just by glimpsing a single frame of footage. I *used* to know the names of every episode of that show. I have been to a Star Trek convention, I did sneak onto the bridge of the Enterprise when I worked at Paramount, I did get most of the toys for Christmas, and I do have an autographed portrait of Captain Picard.

Star Trek is ultimately about the hope for a better tomorrow through discovery. There are millions of Star Trek fans on this earth. Obviously, the message comes through loud and clear, even if the messengers are sometimes poorly written, acted and directed (Voyager, Enterprise, and Nemesis I’m looking at you). I’m proud to be a part of this fandom and I’m glad that we can all celebrate a 40th Anniversary for a show that has touched so many lives.

Thanks, Dad.

Crocodile Hunter, Star Trek, Las Vegas, Cheesecake, Haircut.

In an effort to drive more traffic to my blog, I have decided to post more eye-catching (and search engine-friendly) subject headings. Today was simply a summation of the topics to be covered herein, but in the future they might actually be more poetic. Also, if you have any suggested topics for me, please list them in the comments section. I might write better on assignment anyway.

Steve Irwin has always reminded me of my eighth grade science teacher Mr. Zuidland. He was an Australian bloke who sorta threw himself at the subject a little more than the next most enthusiastic person. To the extent that any interest we might have had in the science alone would be overshadowed by the bizarre behavior of our teacher – much like The Crocodile Hunter and his expeditions.

Mr. Zuidland had the clichéd, humorously over-the-top Australian accent like the Crocodile Hunter, and he used strange “Australian words” like fortnight and lift. He would say the word beaker “beek-uhh” and never “nevuh.” Mostly, though, Mr. Zuidland had horrendous body odor.

It took me a long time to get over my preconceived notion that all Aussies stink like Mr. Zuidland. I’m not saying, nor do I mean to imply, that the Crocodile Hunter broke me of this particular idea, but I will say that having a wily khaki-clad wild animal wrestler to entertain me on my TV screen sure did ease my reservations about ever getting stuck in an elevator or steam room with an Australian citizen.

My one true moment of B.O.-related disgust came during a lab experiment in the classroom. I can’t remember what we were doing, exactly, but the lab involved rocks, sand and a telescope. My lab group is completing the assignment at a nice clip. For once, I am understanding what the heck it is we are supposed to be learning from the experiment (I was too right-brained even in 8th grade). We are so far ahead of the rest of the class that when Mr. Zuidland comes over, he is puzzled by our progress. Believing we had conducted the lab in error, he reminds us, by slamming his palms down on our lab table (really just four desks turned into each other), looking me straight in the eyes and saying, “Yow suppos’d to put rocks ‘n sand in there.” And then, for reasons I can’t even begin to understand to this day, Mr. Zuidland LAUGHS at us, but laughs by moving his head around the whole table, essentially laughing in our faces, spraying us with his horrendous, HORRENDOUS, HORRENDOUS! breath.

Before he even walked away, the four of us burst into laughter. The tears that soon followed were the result of his combined bizarreness and stench.

Anyway, Mr. Zuidland was the block I carried into my first viewing of Steve Irwin as the Crocodile Hunter. As my resistance to Aussies eased I came to respect the man for what he did. Ultimately, he served to entertain us. But his appreciation for the wildlife he seemingly pissed off on a daily basis always came through. If his actions inspired even a dozen kids to appreciate wildlife, to nurture it, then the man has a legacy that goes far beyond clichéd buffoonery. To leave behind a legacy is the only way we human beings can live forever on this Earth. He has also left behind two beautiful children, too young to ever really understand who he is. I can relate to this. But his children will always be able to watch their dad and, at least, come to know the love and affection for nature that he now leaves with us.

********
Who knew that the desert could be so hot?

Over the Labor Day holiday, I trekked with my girlfriend to Las Vegas. While there, I dragged her to Star Trek: The Experience at the Hilton. Suffice it to say, I nerded out quite a bit. I got to stand on the bridge of the Enterprise. If you don’t think that’s awesome well, then… I can’t blame you. It’s pretty dorky.

Having now been to The Experience, I can’t help but think that I could have designed it better.
********
I had the good fortune of eating a GIANT CHEESECAKE from the New York Deli in Caesar’s Palace. It’s the most I’ve ever paid for a slice of my favorite ‘cake ($8.00), but it was definitely worth it. That motherdonker was ginormous, creamy and topped with strawberries. A perfect dessert to end a fantastic weekend. You can check out a picture of this giant cheesecake on the forthcoming Big Food Blog.
*****
Finally…

After a weekend in Vegas, rent, and a hefty payment towards my financed desktop, I woke up this morning to a negative balance in my account. My on-line ledger had three items clear today that I had already counted as clearing two weeks ago. These three items appeared on my ledger and then disappeared, only to be re-charged again. I’m only a little upset that this happened (it’s happened before), but what gets me really mad is that Karma has reared her Ying-Yangy head as retribution for my last post. The one item I did not account for properly that finally cleared this morning was my haircut from the Iranian woman.

For Entertainment Purposes Only.

Dear Iranian Woman Who Cuts My Hair,

I am flattered by your offer to be your boy on the side. That you insist I’m Persian only makes your offer that much more amusing. Whatever you want me to be, baby.

But, you see, I cannot afford you. You’re too well put together. I can tell that you’re used to having whatever you want… whenever you want it and no matter what the cost. I don’t suppose this knowledge, but instead base if off your comment about Santa Monica: “It’s too poor down here.” Of course, the “down here” part referred to your status atop the hill overlooking we common people. That mighty hill called Brentwood. I’m pretty sure that Brentwood resides at sea level, too.

But it’s clear that local geography is not your strong suit. You’ve traveled so far. All the way from Iran, with your husband and son. You say I remind you of him. Doesn’t that put your offer in the creepy column? Whatever you want me to be, baby.

But no matter where you live or who I remind you of, my wallet does not suddenly fatten at the sight of you.

The immaculate hair, the taught physique, the trendy cut jeans devilishly revealing your licorice-thin thong and your seductive gaze cannot penetrate my Low Class Armor. You can use your Farsi accent and breathy voice to disarm me while I’m in that chair, but once I leave Fantastic Sam’s, you have me not.

Normally, women who cut my hair aren’t so gentle and then rough with my mane. It’s almost like you’re testing me out, trying to see what grabbing onto my youthful hair feels like in the heat of passion. I’m just your plaything on the side, and you’ll do whatever you please with me. Whatever you want me to be, baby.

But, alas, it can never be, for you are Iranian and I am Lebanese & Irish. In the interests of remaining patriotic, anticipating a conflict between our homelands, I cannot be yours. In the interests of retaining the services of someone who ably cuts my hair, I cannot be yours. In the interests of my fantastic relationship with my beautiful Aryan Princess, I cannot be yours.

But you will miss me. You will miss me when you settle for the stocker from the Sav-On right next to your place of work. You’ll be slapping his bald melon head wishing you were grabbing onto my jet black hair.

But I will not miss you. I do not want you. Thanks for the cut, though!

Sincerely,

That Hot Lebanese Dude You Scam Every Time He Comes In And Tries To Get A Haircut From Somebody Else But You Insist On Taking Me But I Can’t Refuse Because That Would Be Rude.