Monday, August 22, 2005

I Just Wanna Celebrate (Another Day of Living)

6ft. Under ended last night. Possibly my favorite show of the past five years (excluding Scrubs and Arrested Development) followed a group of flawed and incredibly realistic people. I am still sad and a little teary from last night's final episode. I just wanted to share a few thoughts in my ever popular bullet point style. I feel that this show will be greatly missed and that television might not ever do better to me.

Thoughts:
  • So, David finally learns to love himself the way Keith has always loved him.
  • I applaud the show for its attitude about adoption. It can be hard, but the process is probably the most rewarding thing you'll do.
  • Anthony and Durrell ended up being the Sons of "Fisher and Sons". And they both ended up as happy as their dads.
  • The new American family is gay, minority, multi-marriage, and not vanilla.
  • Claire's blindness at the end was nicely forshadowed by the use of the show "Just Shoot Me" (about fashion photography) and the song "Doctor my Eyes".
  • Billy finally talked Brenda to death, and the humor of her death was a nice palette cleanser.
  • Keith's death was tragic, but he got his dream of his own security company and had many years to have the family he always wanted.
  • The ambiguity of the ending helped so that we could create our own stories for the character and for the characters whose names were not in the lead credits.
  • Claire's journey was the essence of the show and her changes were always real and always funny.
  • I will probably have more later, but this ending had a roomful of adults sobbing last night. I felt like the show gave me everything I wanted, including a weird Peter Krause music video.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Go Ask Alice

So, kids are getting their required reading and several schools are requiring "Go Ask Alice" by Anonymous (aka Beatrice Sparks, RN). This book was dated when I read it. Full disclosure, the reason I hate hippies is that I used to be one. Not a dirty hippie, just a generic peace and love and classic rock hippie. So, I read "Go Ask Alice" because it was about a square girl who becomes a hippie acid freak.
So, the whole gimmick of the book was that this girl who became a drug addict and dealer and delinquent tried to get her life together and then ended up relapsing. She died and we all go to read her "found" diary. I later found out through various sources that "Go Ask Alice" was a completely fictional book written by a nurse to keep kids off drugs.
I picture kids in Harlem who are being assigned this book basically laughing and saying "crazy white girl" as they try to understand the dated slang, descriptions, and various old fashioned drugs. It seems like the dumbest book to read. But, don't get me started on the school that had "Flowers in the Attic" on their required reading list.

Monday, August 01, 2005

The Smells of Summer

I have the distinct pleasure of working in Harlem in the summer. The thing that really sets it all off nicely, not the fat Spanish guys in tank tops, is the smell. Because Harlem is a (cough,cough) under-served neighborhood, the trash usually forms into a nice living sculpture. And, with the heat languishing at the stately 170 degrees its been for the past few weeks, the garbage is fermenting on schedule.
The mix of Chinese, chicken, and fast food, mixed with diapers, old milk, and other garbage stand-bys has made this a summer my olfactory senses could not have imagined.
Whiff it, it's the smell of summer.

Recommended Reading

I just thought I would place a small list (5) of books that I've read over the past year that have been really great.

Jonathan Lethem The Fortress of Solitude
Curtis Sittenfield Prep
JK Rowling Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Charles Barkley Who's Afraid of a Large Black Man?
Jonathan Leland Hip: A History