Let’s face it, there is a lot of crap on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and the other streaming services.  When you are paying $7-$9 for unlimited movies though, it isn’t exactly surprising that most of what you have to choose from is drivel.  Thankfully though, there are certainly gems to be found, you just have to look a little to find them.

Or, you can just listen to me.  I am always very aware of what is coming and going on the streaming services thanks to weekly posts on sites like Vulture and The Dissolve as well as my streaming best friend, Instant Watcher.  If that weren’t enough, I just fall down the rabbit hole of perusing the offerings more often than I would like to admit.

My first suggestion in this “Instant Gratification” series came from such a perusal.  I am not exactly sure how it came up in my feed, but given that I have been refining my Amazon preferences for a good decade, it doesn’t surprise me that the 2011 New York Philharmonic performance of “Company” popped up.  In fact, it isn’t even the first taped performance of “Company” floating around the streaming world.  The 2007 revival with Raul Esparza in the leading role of Robert was on Netflix for some time, and it was something I watched that introduced me to the seminal Sondheim musical. 

When I watched the ’07 version, I appreciated some of the numbers in the show, but I didn’t understand what the big deal was about this show.  Then I watched the 2011 version, which features Neil Patrick Harris as Robert, Patti Lupone as his mom, and a remarkable cast of friends that includes the likes of Craig Bierko, Jon Cryer, Martha Plimpton, and Steven Colbert.  I know it sounds cliché, but I literally couldn’t tear my eyes from the TV.

Perhaps I wasn’t quite old enough to appreciate the show the first time around, as the 07 cast was certainly talented.  Really though, I think the credit goes to Harris for turning me around on this show.  Honestly, is there anything this guy can’t do?  Doogie, Barney, Dr. Horrible, and now sensitive unmarried 35 year old Robert belting it out about life as a single person?  It is astonishing how he can get me to buy into him as any character under the sun.  I don’t make it to New York City often, but if I do while he is Hedwig on Broadway, you know where to find me, bopping my head along to Wig in a Box.

But until then, I think I might just watch this staging another dozen times.  Harris isn’t the only highlight. It goes without saying that Patti LuPone knows her way around the stage. What might surprise you is that Colbert, the tongue-in-cheek funnyman, is actually remarkably sincere, convincing, and funny to boot in his part as Plimpton’s husband.  His performance in “Sorry-Grateful” shocked me, it was such a departure from what I know of him.

Then there is Katie Finneran as Amy, the bride with cold feet who gets to perform the show stopper of a number, “Not Getting Married”.  I’m going to make this about me for a second, which shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve read my blog at all prior to this.  I did musical theater all through my childhood and teen years, but I had a tiny problem.  I can dance no problem and acting was never really an issue, but, fact of the matter is, I cannot sing to save my life. I am seriously tone deaf.  So, whenever I see parts in musicals in which singing is minimal, I add them to my list of dream roles.  I long to play Anybodys, the girl who wants to be a Jet in “West Side Story”.  I feel like I could pull off Kristine from “A Chorus Line” with ease, as the whole point of her song “Sing!” is that she suffers from the same problem I do.

Now, the character of Amy in “Company” does sing a little bit, but most of the song is spoken rapidly and is about the comedy and the character.  Katie Finneran plays Amy in the 2011 revival and nails it, though Madeline Khan’s rendition of this tune remains my favorite.  I will give Finneran that her physical comedy really brought a lot to the role though, and has me even more inspired to someday try and live in a town with community theater and someday try and play this part.

So, will you enjoy “Company” as much as I will?  If you are not a musical theater person, no, you probably won’t.  If you are 19 or 20, you may not really understand the incredibly deep themes at play in this musical.  If you are curious just how talented Colbert is, just watch his vignette and it is worth your time.  If you want to see NPH go all NPH on Sondheim, this is can’t miss endeavor. And, if you are a little more grown up and you enjoy the theater, there is no way you won’t enjoy this masterwork of artistry.  I mean, just look:

(Warning: If you care at all about spoiling the plot of the Veronica Mars movie, don’t read this until after you’ve watched. Also, if you haven’t watched Veronica Mars, this will likely make no sense to you.)

A long time ago, Veronica Mars and I used to be friends.  We don’t talk as much as we used to, but I’d like to think we still are.  She remains up there with Liz Lemon and Mary Richards in my pantheon of inspiring yet believable independent women of the television world.  Unlike Mary and Liz, Veronica was always a little bit colder, a little more cautious with her feelings, and sporting a much more caustic view of the world.

This caustic view is why she and I get along so well.  In fact, the reason I got into the show is because my friend Jenni implored me to watch, explaining, “She talks like you. I mean, she says sentences you say, verbatim. She dropped a sarcastic, ‘Be cool Sodapop’ in the pilot.”

In other words, on an emotional level, I feel connected to Veronica, even though she isn’t real.  Her decision making over the course of three seasons of TV always made sense to me, even if I was always rooting for her to dump Duncan and go back to her real love, Deputy Leo (for those unaware, Max Greenfield from “New Girl” can play incredibly charming and boyish when he wants to be. If you doubt me, go watch Season 1’s “Ruskie Business” and watch the moment where he shows up the dance and, in his signature mumble asks, “What’s wrong, Veronica?” as it is beyond swoon-worthy).  While I always thought Leo was the guy I’d pick though, I was very much happy with the Logan and Veronica relationship (full disclosure: I knew Jason Dohring, or Jay as we called him, while I lived in LA, which probably helped explain why I was on board with this ‘shipping from the start).

Like everyone else, I rolled my eyes when Piz (Chris Lowell) showed up on the scene in Season 3 as a potential college love interest for Veronica. Sure, he was sweet and doofy, but Veronica and Logan were, as Logan aptly put it, “epic” and Piz was, well…I mean…his name was Stosh Piznarski.  I don’t want to call the love of my life Stosh nor do I want to call him Piz, so right there we have problems.  As a girl who has had very lovely boys express interest I simply didn’t reciprocate for an array of reasons, I had Veronica’s back when she went with the troubled Logan over the seemingly superior Piz.

That is what friends do, they support each other’s decisions. We also support each other when we need help, which is why I eagerly contributed to the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign and spent the past year eagerly awaiting answers as to what happened to the people of Neptune.  I finally returned to my friend’s side this past weekend thanks to the release of the Veronica Mars movie, fully prepared to be on board with Veronica’s decision making once again.  After all, even if you lose touch with good friends, if they are truly good friends, it is no problem to pick up where you left off.  They change, sure, but they aren’t unrecognizable.

Veronica ten years removed from high school, like most people, has changed.  She is still prickly and snarky and self-depricating, but some of her spunk is gone.  I can relate.  In high school you have the hope of the future to keep you going.  Veronica is experiencing that ennui we all do as we grow up.  It reminds me of a Great Big World lyrics: “Cause we’re all getting older, wishing we were young, Hanging on the memory of what we would become.”  There comes a point where you realize some of these big dreams aren’t going to happen. While it is disheartening to come to terms with sometimes, it is part of growing up, and the good news is that you may end up down a path you never considered instead.

Veronica is reaching that point in her life where she is starting to feel that pressure that there won’t be enough time to become what she set out to become.  Yes, her life plan is falling in place, but  the whole premise of the movie is that she needs to go back home and make sure this life she left behind deserves one more shot or not.  While I don’t necessarily agree that Veronica’s options are as binary as presented in the movie, which offers her Neptune or NYC, it is a believably conflict nonetheless.

I think most people who set out on a different life path than their friends can relate.  I can also understand why Veronica is still under the pull of that boy who was supposed to work out even though the whole world is her oyster in New York City where she has a life, a great job, and a supportive boyfriend that is none other than Piz.  In other words, she has her doubts, but she also has the life most 27 or 28 years olds would kill to have.  Three years ago, if you told me things were coming together like this, I would like to believe I would be thrilled.  Really though, two years ago I got the job I wanted for years and, while it was great to get, I realized fairly early on that the job didn’t make all of the other life issues easier to take or disappear. It helped sure, but it wasn’t a cure.

Veronica has her chance to live that life and hope it makes those feelings of self doubt and uneasiness disappear, but she throws it all away.  For the first time in our friendship, I didn’t quite understand Veronica.  She not only chooses to return to her old life, give up what she spent years working towards, and basically just concede she is a lost cause who can never be more than what she was in high school, she is also a gigantic bitch to Piz.  Seriously, this girl is supposed to be in New York to meet this boy’s parents and she doesn’t even bother to call to tell him she isn’t coming even after this supportive boyfriend flew all the way to Neptune, CA to see her and did not say a peep about the fact she was frolicking around with the very same boy from college that kept Veronica from choosing Piz the first time around.   You could argue Piz was being a doormat, but come on Veronica. You dated this boy a year that, unless you just straight up hate him, you call him and tell him why you can’t come home and you certainly don’t get lippy when he calls you out on your bad behavior.

As I watched the movie and, for the first time, really felt like I was on Piz’s side, I had to wonder if it was Veronica who changed or if it was me.  Credit to the show’s creator, Rob Thomas, this is actually right in Veronica’s wheelhouse of behavior.  She will double cross anyone, her dad included, if she feels like it is what she has to do (see her and Duncan’s insane plot to get baby Lily out of the country).  She can be selfish (see her unabashed and unashamed using of Deputy Leo’s attraction to her to get details on the Lily Kane case).  She can be a little ruthless when it comes to other people’s feelings (See her initial courtship with Piz back in college where she readily admitted she should want him, but that she wanted Logan, yet still messes around with Piz nonetheless).  This behavior was classic Veronica, it was me who was different.

Somewhere along the way, I began to identify more and more with Piz.  In fact, I have to wonder why fresh out of college Jess didn’t seem to notice how sad and unfair it was that Piz did everything right and Veronica just couldn’t bring herself to care.  Yes, the heart wants what the heart wants, but come one Veronica, your heart finally sees what this guy has to offer years later and you can’t even call him to apologize that you aren’t coming home?  This is a step beyond standard selfish Veronica behavior. It is just cruel.

In fact, I will say one thing that I was surprised to see in the movie.  The Veronica I knew from the TV shows would answer phone calls from her potential employer.  Even in the worst of times, Veronica always managed to get her school work done, show up for events, and be a responsible human being. She didn’t run from her problems and she didn’t hide from things that scared her by clicking ignore on her cell phone.

But the more I think about my dear friend Veronica Mars, the more I realize I am not nearly as upset about her actions as I was about Liz Lemon’s out of character behavior near the end of her “30 Rock” run.  Yes, it is disappointing, but for the brutal noir-toned TV series about a girl hardened by life, it is an ending that makes perfect sense.  She had a chance to get out, but, like the rest of us, life wore her down and, when an opportunity arose to go back to what was easy and familiar, she took it.  Some may believe it is dissatisfying and I can’t disagree.  I want to see Veronica pick Piz, even though Logan in his weirdly oversized Navy whites is rather dreamy.  I want to see her get what she set out for.  But, this has always been a show about the harsh realities of the world and a girl coming of age and learning just how harsh they are, that even ten years later, there seems no other way this story should end than with her learning a life lesson that, even if you manage to check off all the boxes of the life you are supposed to live, it may not feel like you’ve accomplished much of anything.  And sometimes you decide that returning to what you know is easy and comforting, even though it may not be the smartest thing to do.  Even Veronica Mars can get tired and selfish sometimes, which makes me feel a little less badly about the fact that sometimes I do too.

I’m not going to say my parents weren’t the most observant parents. They weren’t bad parents by any means, but things were different in the 80s. The helicopter parenting hadn’t really caught on, so after school kids were just kids in their own world. Our parents didn’t check on us all that often unless someone started crying.

Which perhaps explains why my parents never noticed the series of strange behaviors I exhibited as a child that would have most people believing I had a raging case of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Here are just a few examples:

1. Every year I would run a census of my stuffed animals. Each critter would be documented by name, location in my room, and occupation. For example, Swiftheart Rabbit the Care Bear Cousin pursued a career as jackhammer operator because of his ability to bounce and balance at the same time.

2. Rather than eat all my Halloween candy at once or simply keep it in the bucket until it was gone, I decided it would be better to ration it out. So, I put 5-7 pieces each in Ziploc bags and hid them around my room. I kept track of where they were located by drawing my own version of a treasure map, thinking my candy stash was not too unlike “The Goonies”.

3. My favorite day of the week was Sunday because the local paper included an insert that listed what was on all the TV channels that week. I would nab that section first thing in the mornin and go through it with a highlighter, trying to determine what I would theoretically watch every given hour of every given day, that way I would never be at a loss of what channel to put the TV on.

4. I used to organize my fun sized packs of M & Ms both by color and by number of each color. There is a color hierarchy with M & Ms, you see. Browns are obviously the worst, while yellows taste the best, so you have to partition out how you eat them accordingly.

5. Did you guys used to get the Service Merchandise catalog? This place was a catalog/story where you picked out what you wanted to buy from the catalog, then went to the “store”, which was more just the front of the store where the item you wanted would come out on a conveyor belt. I used to make long lists of what I would purchase from Service Merchandise when I got married, almost as if I was making a registry. I am not sure if this is a tip of the hat to my OCD or my raging love of consumerism. Likely the answer is somewhere in the middle.

6. Over the span of three of four years, I played an elaborate game with myself at the mall, which had linoleum floors in two colors of tile. I allowed myself a certain number of steps on the white tiles before I had to step on a green one. The more times I successfully hit my step goal, the more steps I would earn for the next trip. I also used to never step on cracks in sidewalks. This might explain why, to this day, when I walk, my natural reaction is to keep my head down.

7.For a period of a year or so, I would go home and watch the Disney live action musical “Newsies”. I would sing along with all the songs and, if I missed a lyric, I would rewind the tape and start the song over again. To this day, I could probably act out this entire movie by myself in a pinch. I also maintain that this is the finest work Christian Bale has ever done. I mean, he sings, dances, flirts with Ann Margaret, and rides a horse. Even Batman can’t beat that.

8. To this day, I refuse to ride on the same step as another person on an escalator. I don’t really know where it came from, but over the years, I developed an irrational fear of escalators, bridges, pedways, and any other structure off the ground that doesn’t appear to really have much of anything underneath it. Sometimes, this results in an impromptu dance of sorts in which it appears I am trying to do-si-do around my friends.

9. I don’t know if this next story is a sin of OCD or just that I was a little…er…mental? Like many other kids my age, I had a Teddy Ruxpin. As my mom tells it, I was four or five years old when she came downstairs to our playroom to discover me and my Teddy, but something was the matter. One of Teddy’s plastic eyes was missing. Turns out, it was just pushed into Teddy Ruxpin’s skull and bouncing around in there. When my mom asked me what happened, I could only offer one explanation:

“Teddy Ruxpin’s mom made me do it.”

I’d like to think it is probably for the best that, even with the menacing acts on my talking stuffed toys, my parents didn’t seek professional help for me. I’d like to think these tics made me quirky and perhaps see the world in a light I wouldn’t have otherwise should someone had made the effort to try to make me more normal.

Certainly, there is something to be said for kids getting help, don’t get me wrong, but I think I turned out as reasonably close to normal as I could have, penchant for organizing M & Ms or not. I mean, I am a functional human being, I haven’t gone to prison, and I can hold down a job and pay my bills. I may still walk with my head down too often and continue to set the yellow candies aside for last, but if this is what it takes to get through the day, then there is nothing wrong with that.

At least that is what Teddy Ruxpin’s mom tells me.

When I asked friends to suggest what to write blogs about, a friend and a writer I really admire, Pauly, suggested I should address a very important question:

Is Kentucky bluegrass really blue?

Thing is, I am really not sure what he is getting at with this question.  To give you the straightforward response, no, the grass itself is not blue, however bluegrass is completely different than your standard grass.  First of all, it is a very fine grass.  Blades look kind of like green porcupine quills.  Don’t think this grass is scratchy though.  This grass is, in fact, softer than any grass you will ever encounter.  It is so soft and downy, we used to take naps in the yard, not even on a blanket.  It is also delicious, though I can’t speak to that fact from my own experience.

There is a reason Lexington and Central Kentucky serve as the horse capitol of the world.  It is our delicious grass.  Our fertile soil produces our unique grass, which is chocked full of calcium, and our pretty ponies eat it.  Then they get prettier and faster and stronger.  Thankfully they don’t eat all the grass though, as I have yet to encounter a natural site as pretty as driving through the outskirts of Central Kentucky admiring the white wooden fences, the rolling hills covered in the green bluegrass.  This picture, taken on my trip to Lexington last fall, does not even come close to doing it justice:

While I think this answers Pauly’s literal question, I don’t think it quite suffices as an answer though.  Because when you say “bluegrass”, you can mean a lot of things. Yes, there is the actual grass, but the part of the country where I come from is called the Bluegrass region.  Is the Bluegrass region blue?

Yes. Very. Or, as you might say, it is Big Blue.

With no professional sports teams in the state of Kentucky, the University of Kentucky basketball team has become our NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, and raison d’etre all in one.  You are raised to “bleed Blue”, as, even if you aren’t an alum, you are a member of the Big Blue Nation (hence all my #BBN hashtags).  This week, I watched each SEC tournament game beaming with pride at “Catlanta”, the massive number of fans from KY decked out in blue packed in the Georgia Dome.  You can buy UK gear at gas stations, grocery stores, Wal-Mart, or one of the dozens of stores that exclusively sell the merchandise.  On game days, be it football or basketball, the whole town is blue.  Even today in Vegas, I put on one of my Wildcat Blue t-shirts.  I texted my friend Billy about the game and he responded with a picture of himself in head-to-toe gear even though he is here in Vegas too, not headed to Atlanta to see it person or even a bar in Kentucky to watch with friends.  This is what we put on to watch the games in our homes in Nevada.  So, you can only imagine what the Bluegrass region is like.

In fact, the basketball team is such a vital part of our town, that when you say the word “blue”, most people will think of Coach Cal, his Kiddie Cats, and the winningest team in college basketball history before the grass.

Of course, Pauly might also be asking about the music.  You may hate country, but you probably haven’t heard real country, and by real country, I mean bluegrass.  This fiddle-heavy, Celtic-influenced genre may be one of those hipster things to like these days, but I have been a big fan of the strumming of bluegrass notes since my childhood.  As I grew up, I became obsessed with bands like The Avett Brothers, Old Crow Medicine Show, Alison Kraus, and my all-time favorite, the newly-reassembled Nickel Creek.

Like I said, this music isn’t your standard country fare, but is it blue?  I think it might be.  While there is happy bluegrass music like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”, there is something melancholic and yet hopeful about country music.  As Aaron Fox’s “Real Country” notes, a common theme in country music are songs whose messages amount to: “Yes, life is kind of awful, but what’s new? We can always drink and sing our sorrows away and hope tomorrow things suck less.”  Even a loving happy song like Nickel Creek’s “When You Come Back Down” is a song about a man’s love for a woman that is so strong, he is going to send her away to live her life and take the chances she needs to take, and simply wait for her at home if she needs him.  See what I mean? It is beautiful, it is something I think we can all relate to, but it is a little depressing.

They are depressing, pessimistic messages I suppose, but it is what I love most about country music.  Country artists understand that rural working class people feel and are oppressed, unrepresented in modern media, and generally doing their best to make do with very little.  So, while this message may seem a little blue, it actually speaks right to the heart of the Bluegrass.

So, back to the question at hand…Bluegrass, huh?  Well, even though it may be green, when it comes to Kentucky and its people and its music and its heart, I think blue is pretty much the perfect color to describe it.

Dearest Chipotle,

I love your food.  I eat at your establishment basically on a weekly basis. However, we have a problem we need to address.: Your rice. Namely, the fact it has cilantro in it.

A recent study suggest that almost 15% of the US population is genetically predisposed to hate cilantro.  On that note, let me ask you a question—have you ever met someone who is meh on cilantro? When you ask someone their opinion about cilantro, you will get the extremes in terms of responses. You rarely meet people who say, “I can take or leave cilantro.”

I am one of those people who finds cilantro disgusting. It taste like soap, it numbs my tongue, and it is generally disgusting on all levels.  And, unlike some of my other plain-food loves, a very large piece of the population is with me on this front.

So, I have to ask.  As a Mexican establishment in which rice is a base ingredient in pretty much everything you serve, why are you including an ingredient a good 20% of your customers can’t stand? Does it really make things that much more difficult or alter the taste to add cilantro after the fact?  Because you certainly can’t take it out and have it taste the same. That rice is ruined.

The thing is, at most of your restaurants, I can ask for the plain rice and it is available.  I must say though that many of your employees are not thrilled with my special request and heave a sigh before trekking to the back of the kitchen to fetch it. 

I want to be accommodating, I don’t like making trouble, really I don’t, but this is absolutely not my fault. The issue is yours. Why on Earth is the plain rice not the default and cilantro what people can ask for you to go fetch from the back?  You serve two types of beans and four types of salsa. Why can you not openly offer two types of rice?  I don’t like being shamed for asking for rice that doesn’t taste like it was prepared in an old sock.  Put it out front where it belongs. This isn’t In-n-Out and its secret menu.  People should know they don’t have to eat your crappy rice and that they have options.

I’m not saying get rid of the cilantro, I am just saying you need an alternative if you ever want me to put you on par with an establishment like Moe’s Southwestern Grill or the all-time greatest quick Mexican food establishment, Poquito Mas.  I know you have a lot of folks on your side, but you fix this rice situation and it could be game over for the rest of the Mexican quick service world, comprende?

Gracias,

Jess

Let me start by saying the ABC soap opera “Nashville” isn’t really doing it for me in Season 2 like it did in Season 1.  This show, which was legitimately good stuff last year is more one I keep on the DVR out of habit.  In fact, when I do watch, it tends to be while I am working and need something to half-listen to as I plow through my daily tasks.  The joy and fun of the adversarial relationship between Juliet Barnes (Hayden Panettiere) and Rayna James (Connie Britton) is gone, as that relationship basically doesn’t exist as a plot device anymore and, in its place, I have to deal with all these ancillary characters who cut into my time admiring Britton’s gorgeous hair or observing Panettiere’s tiny, tiny hands (as an aside, seriously they are small like a carney, she just probably doesn’t smell like cabbage.  Plus, the props people always have her holding oversized mugs or giant bowls to just fully drive home the size of her teeny tiny fists).

These days though, instead of Rayna and Juliet, we get to hear more about Gunner the aspiring songwriter, Teddy, Rayna’s ex-husband, Zoey, the girl fresh off the bus from Mississippi, and, the worst of them all, freaking Scarlett.

For those who don’t know, Scarlett (played by Australian Clare Bowen) has been on the show since the start, but her role has grown larger, not to mention substantially more obnoxious, as the show has progressed.  Why they keep shoving this person down our throats is beyond me for a variety of reasons. Let me list them for you:

1. Clare Bowen is a horrific actress
2. I don’t really care that Clare Bowen is Australian, this is sincerely the worst Southern accent ever depicted on broadcast television
3. The writers have made her both boring and a horrible person all at the same time, prompting the audience to constantly just pray she gets hit by a bus.

Earlier this season, they teased a major character was getting shot.  My friend Elaine and I knew it was a longshot, but prayed they would finally off Scarlett.  We weren’t the only one, as the Fug Girls, various recappers, and just about the entire Southern “Nashville”-watching population of the United States chimed in hoping for the same.

First, let’s address Bowen’s acting.  She speaks in a weird, clipped cadence that makes her sound like she has some sort of handicap.  Here, look.  She stares a lot, but don’t let this clip fool you that she is emoting.  This stare is what you get when she is happy, sad, scared, drunk, upset, or any other emotion.  That is her emoting. Speaking in short, machine gun-like spurts, then just staring at people. It is Acting with a capital A.

Then there is the accent, which is like Yosemite Sam by way of a Muppet.  I have lived in or frequently visited the South my entire life. I can say with 100% assurance that I have never met anyone that sounds anywhere close to this.  While I have never been to Scarlett’s alleged home town of Natchez, MS, I have met plenty of people from Mississippi and the coach from The Waterboy sounds more like a believable human from that state than Scarlett does.

This scene I linked to shows you the staring and the accent, but it is also great because you get to see all the other awful things about Scarlett, like her wardrobe.  Yes, that is her bare midriff as she wears the same sweater I believe Julia Roberts wore in 1997’s My Best Friend’s Wedding, just in a different color.  It is paired with some sort of flouncy skirt, the kind girls used to wear on Howdy Doody.  In fact, most of Scarlett’s wardrobe looks like what would happen if Anthropologie created a Howdy Doody Collection.  Her strange, long, fake blonde hair is often styled in strange designs, pigtails, and other ‘dos you would expect Daisy Mae from Lil Abner to turn up in.

Then there is this diary her music producer is reading out of…You see, darling Scarlett never wanted to be a singer, oh no. She writes poems. In her journal.  She wanted to be a poet.  That is why she moved to Nashville. To be with her uncle and pursue her career as a poet in the literary hotbed of America. Screw Music City, Nashville is Sonnet City and darling Scarlett is going to make it her oyster.

She decides to fall back on Plan B, which is to be a singer because, as her friend and sometimes lover Gunner teaches her: songs are just poetry with a beat!  Amazingly, Scarlett never figured that out in elementary school like the rest of us, so when she puts two and two together and discovers there *is* a way for poetry to be profitable, she figures, “what the heck?”

We are expected to believe that this low rent version of the preposterously offensive Renee Zellweger character in “Cold Mountain” is somehow crafting work on par with Nickel Creek or The Avett Brothers or some other country band with indie cred, which seems hard to believe.  For a gal so in touch with her emotions she can channel them into poetry, the poorly-written Scarlett can’t handle just about any social situation. Being on stage? Too scary. Dumping a boy then having him end up with your friend? Hate them both forever.  Even a task as simple as showing up at a bar to watch her friends sing can’t be handled without her drink of choice, tequila and grapefruit juice.  Yes, even Scarlett’s drink of choice is unbelievable and annoying.  Seemingly every week, she is so awkward and stupid, she nearly gets fired from her lucrative record deal as she offends publicists, producers, and managers with her inability to behave like a half-normal human being. Yes, this person sounds like the type of person with such a nuanced understanding of her feelings, she is capable of drafting this:

I wanna melt in I wanna soak through
I only wanna move when you move
I wanna breathe out when you
breathe in then I wanna fade into you

If I was just ashes and you were the ground
And under your willow they laid me down
There’ll be no trace that one was once two
After I fade into you

She is the worst kind of depiction of a Southerner–a terribly accented hillbilly idiot who can only show the slightest bit of intelligence and depth when she is singing.  And therein lies the problem–worthless as Clare Bowen is in all other facets of the show, the girl can sing.  I can’t stop listening to Black Roses, even though I think the premise of the song is beyond dumb, and it is mostly because that girl just sings the shit out of it.

So here is what I propose that I think will at least start to fix what is wrong with Nashville:

We can still have Scarlett get hit by a bus and die.  This is a good plan we shouldn’t give up on.  Here is the trick though: we just have Rayna or Scarlett’s uncle, Deacon, or whoever learn that, during Scarlett’s recent addiction with pain killers, she pulled three all-nighters in the studio recording almost 50 original songs.  She can be the Tupac of Nashville, an artist who long since died, but keeps turning out tunes.  We will never have to see her dumb ass outfits, listen to her dumb ass talking, or watch her dumb ass pouty duck face pointedly stare at another character ever again, but darling Clare can still collect a paycheck churning out songs that make the show worth watching.

Who’s with me?

http://player.theplatform.com/p/PHSl-B/yT7k3t_YLXoZ/embed/select/3Yv9TMb_o1cW

I’m not sure why I am so infatuated with a couple versions of the Real Housewives franchises on Bravo.  I almost think it would be better if I liked all the Housewives series, but I actually pick and choose which ones I watch. Moreover, I pick and choose the two least popular franchises, Orange County and New York, which returned to the Bravo airwaves tonight.

For some reason Atlanta and Beverly Hills always seemed too outlandish to me. These people seemed over the top from the jump, whereas the OC housewives, who are the OG housewives, didn’t really know they had to act crazy to be famous.  They are all crazy now, don’t get me wrong, but originally they were actually still sort of friends in real life prior to the show, plus they had legitimate drama, the kind that comes with raising teenagers and having jobs, not the kind that comes with throwing endless cocktail parties or launching your own boutique purse line.

The ladies of New York originally tried to keep it sophisticated and minimally dramatic too.  They were Manhattan ladies after all, they had to be above the drama.  That didn’t last long.  They quickly devolved into their own breed of antics that produced the most absurd, bizarre fight in Housewives history: Kelly Bensimon having a full blown mental break with reality on Scary Island.

What I love even more than these absolutely insane fights is the way the ladies attempt to rationalize their behavior once America has had a chance to comment and their comments amount to, “Holy shit, what a psychopath.”

It is terrible schadenfreude, I realize, but watching Bensimon try to pawn off her insane and sad breakdown as an example of “systematic bullying” was a marvel to see.  To watch this woman just refuse to acknowledge the undeniable video evidence she straight up lost her mind with such fervor and conviction was like observing the most fascinating psychological case study through a two-way mirror. Even though she can’t reconcile what is fighting and having a breakdown and what constitutes “bullying”, Bensimon clearly saw that everyone hated her and, from what I can tell, she kept tabs on what just about everyone was saying about her. So much so that, when that episode aired, I tweeted something about her being cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs and shortly after that she started following me on Twitter (she has since, wisely, pared down her list of followed accounts).

We have a great example of this image adjustment happening on the New York franchise right now.  Last season, Aviva Drescher was one of the new Housewives on the block.  Initially, the pretty blonde with a prosthetic leg, massive anxiety and codependency issues, and the fancy Manhattan upbringing was depicted as the new, nice housewife, while Heather Thomson was portrayed as the new instigator.  As Season 5 progressed though, Aviva’s patience with her castmates wore thin and she began lashing out at the “white trash” of the cast, Sonja Morgan and Ramona Singer.  At first, the frustrations paralleled those of the viewers, but once she started to become straight up vicious as opposed to a somewhat catty mean girl, she started getting the villain treatment from the editors and producers.  Rightfulyl so really, as this girl, who is supposed to be a high powered executive, couldn’t board and ride a small plane without her husband, couldn’t get on elevators in skyscrapers (which, um, why live in NYC, you know?), and seemed to be driven to madness by a couple middle aged ladies getting boozy and shaking their tatas.  In other words, she was on her way to being systematically bullied into a breakdown. The season ended with massive fights, and on the reunion Aviva continued to ride the Kelly Bensimon cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs crazy train insisting she was not overreacting at the behavior that is so unsurprising to the rest of the cast.

The beginning of this new season offers Aviva a chance to do what folks like Jill Zarin and Alex McCord have tried to do before her, which is redeem her image and ensure she gets more positive storylines.  Despite offering no credible explanation as to why she wants to mend the fences with two women that seem to drive her to the brink of her sanity, she spent the bulk of tonight’s premiere basically trying to win her way back into Ramona’s good graces without doing the one thing she needs to do in order to make that happen: apologizing for the fact she told this woman she was white trash, was likely an alcoholic, and appeared to be having her life spiral out of control in front of reality TV show cameras.

Instead, she awkwardly pulls Ramona aside at a birthday party and decides the best way to start this conversation is to ask for a hug.  Not forgiveness, a hug.  And I have to give it to Ramona, she says what most sane people would: “I don’t think I am up for hugging right now.”

While most people would relent after a person won’t even drop them a courtesy hug, Aviva’s quest to be perceived as nice by the viewership continued on with her calling Ramona insisting they should have a drink, patch their friendship, and try to soldier on.  Ramona, again, is like “not interested”.

Eventually Ramona gets peer pressured by the other Housewives to go and what does Aviva, who accused this woman of being a raging alcoholic less than a year ago suggest? A tequila shot.  

What fascinates me about Aviva and Kelly before her is the remarkable balance of complete self-awareness and complete lack of self-awareness the two display all at the same time.  You obviously aren’t thinking about how you come across to a person if you call them alcoholic white trash (fwiw, I would much rather hang out with alcoholic white trash than most any other of the social groups depicted on Bravo TV reality, so it doesn’t seem all that insulting to me), but you have to be a special breed of calculating to go out of your way to mend a friendship not because you want to, but because you know your image needs the boost.  As I mentioned, to not even pretend to offer an explanation why your reality show persona would ever want to deal with these women again indicates you don’t quite get how you’re coming across to people. 

They say these shows are vapid, empty drama that is completely scripted and devoid of reality.  But, as NPR’s Linda Holmes noted in her awesome piece on The Bachelor today, there is in fact a very real narrative taking place here and it takes place in these moments.

With these friendships basically being completely forced and manufactured for the show, with a few exceptions, the way these women engage with one another is basically a blank canvas for them to depict a version of themselves that will either earn them a bigger paycheck by bringing in ratings for their franchise or earn them respect and goodwill from their viewers.  Aviva can kiss and make up with Ramona (or at least attempt to) without feeling like she is compromising herself, because her friendship with Ramona is completely made up for the show.  She is just performing what kind of Housewife she wants people to think she is. And that performance is what I find to be the most fascinating part of these shows, because there is the narrative the show tries to put forward about what is happening, there is the narrative the housewife is trying to put forward, and their is a whole meta narrative where avid reality viewers get to read between the lines as these two narratives battle it out for supremacy.

As a lazy former film scholar, I love when the subtext is just right there for me to consume and interpret, so yeah, reality is, in a way, pretty junk foody, but really it is junk food for the lazy academic in me I was discussing the other day.  Here is a readily apparent struggle between production, cast, reality, and the show itself that I don’t even have to dig all that deep to find because if there is one thing the Housewives will never, ever do, it is subtlety.

Watching these moments where the persona on the show rub up against these ladies real lives, as it did with Countess Lu Ann’s shall we say nighttime activities while she was away from her on-show boyfriend on a girl’s trip, is where reality TV is at its best.  You see these women try to negotiate these two lives and construct a narrative that makes sense.  Lu Ann was a pro at this, always effortlessly exuding her haughty dignitary persona and simply batting away the rumors of infidelity, open marriages, and the poor house with one well-manicured hand.  The same way it is impressive to watch a skilled craftsman at work, it is impressive to watch Lu Ann navigate the murky waters of RHONYC.

But the true beauty of the show is watching not so savvy people who believe they are savvy struggle and strain their way through these unspoken conflicts between show self and real self.  It is mean to take pleasure in it, I realize, but when it comes to the Housewives, I don’t really feel too bad about relishing in the performance these ladies are so eagerly volunteering to give me and the Bravo audience.

This season is going to be a whole lot of Aviva trying to revive her good girl persona and, judging by the previews, failing. As you can see from the clip, she appears to possibly even embrace her evil ways by going after the one unassailable Housewife, the universally beloved seemingly normal by Housewives standards, Carole Radziwill. So you know things are gonna get cray and, if that isn’t enough, the season preview features Aviva’s prosthetic leg on the ground without her at a party, so one can hope there is a really salacious explanation of how it got there.  If you feel bad marveling at that leg, don’t.  It is actually a pretty perfect metaphor for the Real Housewives franchise.  You have a lady like Aviva who works very hard to make it seem like she is a person with two legs, even though that isn’t the case, and their is nothing Housewives producers love more than rolling up that stocking and unveiling that, it may have polish, shine, and work as an illusion most of the time, but in the end, it isn’t what it seems at first glance.

A t-shirt made me irrationally happy this weekend.

Thing is, it wasn’t even mine…though it is now.  That is why I am so happy. This t-shirt, which was briefly in my possession back when I was in college, is now mine to keep.  I feel like Linus, reunited with his blanket.  I cannot explain the warmth and happiness, but I am unspeakably happy.

Funny thing is, I shouldn’t like this shirt to begin with.  First of all, it is yellow, a color that is completely absent from my wardrobe.  Like other gingers, yellow tends to make me look jaundiced, like my liver is in trouble.  However, this was a magic yellow t-shirt.  Similarly to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ magical jeans, this yellow t-shirt complimented my complexion in a way no other yellow thing could.

Second of all, this shirt is huge, as it is a guy’s t-shirt.  It is the kind of shirt you only wear to the gym or around the house.

Finally, it isn’t really all that special. It is one of those Urban Outfitters sorts of shirts that reads “Copacabana Beach” in black writing with a green graphic skyline.  I have never been to Copacabana Beach, for what it is worth.  When I first became enamored with the shirt, I wasn’t even sure if it was a real place or not.

Yet, in college, all I wanted to do was wear this stupid t-shirt.  I can’t remember why I borrowed it from my friend Vince one day. I think it may have been a night of drinking where I elected to crash on the couch and got the t-shirt as something to sleep in.    

Six months passed and I did nothing of the sort. At first, I pretended to forget about it.  Then, I got brazen. I would wear it out to the movies with him, citing the impossibility of giving it back as it was literally the shirt on my back.  I can’t recall the circumstances, but I think the only way Vince got it back was by stealing it out of my dirty clothes hamper one afternoon.  My wondrous yellow shirt was gone.

I think part of the reason I just wouldn’t give the shirt back was because I enjoyed having a guy’s shirt to wear.  I’ve always been a sucker for the girl in her boyfriend’s button down as a night shirt.  I have always stolen boyfriend’s shirts to wear as my own, which explains why there are many family photos of me from Christmas break freshman year of college sporting a Tool t-shirt. While Vince remains to this day my most platonic of male friends, the lure of a dude’s shirt during a time I was single and all my friends had very serious boyfriends (and boyfriend t-shirts) was too much and I simply had to have it, even if there was no sentimental romantic value to it.

Over the years though, this old shirt did develop sentimental value.  All future nights on the couch, this shirt was my shirt, no questions asked, though I was required to fork it back over in the morning.  Whenever Vince wore it himself, I would complement him on his attire.  Numerous conversations were had about the stupidest of stupid Urban Outfitters t-shirts.

Then, I moved away from Southern California in 2006 and Vince and I didn’t see each other nearly as much for a few years.  Like a neglected plaything from Toy Story, we forgot about the old Copacabana Beach shirt.  In fact, it was maybe six months ago that I brought the old shirt up in the midst of a phone conversation.  Vince was shocked to learn I did not have it in my possession, as he convinced himself a year prior he had given it to me, knowing I would want it more than he did.

I was immediately excited to hear he was willing to give me the shirt, then suddenly concerned he may have given it away by accident.  Thankfully, he checked his drawers and Old Yellow was still there.

So, this weekend when I was over there for breakfast, I did what any normal person would do: I refused to leave until the shirt was in my possession.  Now, I am home in bed in Vegas, typing away on this blog in the comfort of my new t-shirt and I already have big, big plans for my old friend.

I have a period of recovery for a minor health thing on the horizon and, if this yellow shirt can’t make me look jaundiced, maybe its magical powers can make me feel better faster.  I plan to spend the weekend in bed in this t-shirt, taking comfort in its comfort and in the memories.  It started out as just a shirt, but now it is sentimental in spite of itself.  It wasn’t supposed to be a gift, it wasn’t supposed to be a gesture, it was just supposed to be something to sleep in. It still is, but now it is what I always wanted it to be in the first place too—a shirt from a guy I really care about.  Its cheesiness makes it all the better too, as he is the kind of guy who won’t let you get sentimental, will mock you for being hokey and emotional, and will never let things get too serious.  It is the perfect shirt for a recovery. It is the perfect shirt, period.