The World Series Down the Street

They're playing the World Series right down the street from my apartment.

I just have to say that because it's kinda the coolest thing in the world for me. The closest thing I've ever had to big-time sports in any town I've ever lived in is Syracuse University. Yeah, I know some people up there treat them like a pro team... right down to the idiots who are calling today for Doug Marrone to be fired after 8 GAMES as head coach. But it's college, and I always missed out on the NCAA basketball Regional games that would be played at the Carrier Dome, so I never saw any of those. When the Orange won the national championship in 2003... I was in Chambersburg. Wrong place at the right time, until now. I live in South Philly, walking distance from Citizens Bank Park. In fact, I often get off the train at the stop in front of the ballpark, and on a couple occasions I've been in the middle of the frenzy (or is that "phrenzy"?) known as Phillies postseason baseball. So it's pretty cool to be in a place with such electricity in the air (to borrow a well-worn TV sports cliche).

So naturally what were we threatened with as tonight's 3rd game of the Fall Classic approached? A transit strike. As I'm writing this, the Governor just managed to step in and convince the transit workers not to strike less than 2 hours before a major sporting event. However, if they cannot reach a deal with SEPTA, they're shutting down the buses and trains at some point soon. You have to give the union credit for having the balls to threaten shutting the city down at the moment when the eyes of the nation are upon it. It definitely gave them leverage. However, if this strike does happen (whenever it happens), I will now have to drive everywhere I go and pay for parking... on top of the money I already shelled out for the Transportation Pass that I cannot use now. So you can see my selfish interest in this whole situation. Of course, that may just prove I'm becoming fully integrated into Philly society... after all, self-interest is what causes Philly drivers to ignore you when you need to change lanes, and it is what causes people in this town to jaywalk like crazy.

So how crazy have things been in this town the last week? Well, let me put it to you this way... last Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer had on the front page, above the fold, a story comparing Phillies manager Charlie Manuel to corporate CEOs. Yeah. Seriously. Because he does such a good job handling personalities and keeping everyone on task. Have you ever seen Charlie Manuel? I would never associate the phrase "corporate CEO" with this guy! He looks like the uncle or great-uncle you tolerate at Christmas time because, well, he's having fun yukking it up and let's not ruin his good mood. So to say the least, hyperbole has been plentiful in this town recently.

To be honest, there may be only one person in Philadelphia who is not happy that the Phillies are in the Series yet again... Donovan McNabb. This is because his record is being contrasted with that of the Phillies to show once again that he can't win big games, which gives PhillyFan more reason to lament that this future Hall of Famer is their quarterback. If this is how PhillyFan acts when he's happy, I don't want to see him when he's upset. Although, when PhillyFan is happy, we get treated to spectacles like this one on TV, so I guess there's entertainment value.

And speaking of local TV (and hyperbole), we have all the local TV stations trying to outdo each other with puff pieces and how much team spirit everyone on the station has. The weather guy on Channel 10 already looks weird because he wears a BOW-TIE on the air, but Thursday night, he had the bow-tie AND a Phillies jersey on. You never saw this with "Doppler the weather cat" back in Syracuse. But hey, it's all in fun, and besides, the Phillies automatically become the good guys in my book (despite the intense Mets-Phils rivalry of recent years), because they are playing the Yankees.

This of course means we have to deal with the overwhelming obnoxiousness of YankeeFan. Because the Yankees are in the World Series, we've been subjected to an endless overplaying of the new Jay-Z/Alicia Keys song, "Empire State of Mind". Yeah, let's glorify New York City again because they haven't written A MILLION SONGS about the place. Well, this will not do in Philadelphia, so local rapper Neeko decided to change the song to make it about Philly, taking the Alicia Keys chorus and only substituting "Philly" for "New York." Is this part of the perceived inferiority complex that Philadelphians have? Perhaps. But it also gives NYC a nice FU as well.

And since it's a New York-Philly Series, the whole state of New Jersey is all abuzz as well. It's pretty much North Jersey vs. South Jersey. It's like I've said in the past, you could pretty much split New Jersey in half, and the North part is NYC's backyard, and the South part is Philly's backyard. And I'm sure a certain less-than-legal element of Jersey society is enjoying themselves as well. How do I know this? Because organized crime is apparently so much of a problem around here that Fox 29 devotes a weekly segment called "Mob Talk" to get you caught up on all the wise guys and shenanigans afoot.

So it's an interesting time to be living in this city... and that doesn't even cover what will happen if the Phillies repeat as World Champs. After last year's craziness, we've been warned ad nauseum of a police crackdown. Think I'll stay inside if the Phils get into a clinching situation. Of course by then, I may have no choice as I may not be able to go anywhere by bus or train...

I've Lost a Step

There's a moment we reach at some point when we realize that we aren't as sharp as we used to be, we don't do what we're best at quite as well anymore. For many who play a young man's game (like sports or entertainment), it happens at some point in your 30s. You realize you've lost a step, you're not as quick as you used to be.

I'm about to turn 31, and I've lost a step. So to speak.

I've kinda made the focus of my life's work to follow popular culture. First it was for the purposes of show prep when I was on the radio as a DJ, then when I started this blog in its original form 9 years ago. More recently, I've become a media scholar, which really means you have to follow what's hot and have a sense of what is going on so you can apply the obligatory theories and worldview to these trends and events. As someone who for the last two decades has been in that prime target market for pushing new pop culture trends, I liked that I could spot the new things before anyone else. I could catch bands that were under the radar before they got huge, I heard about websites and other trendy things before it became part of the vernacular.

So it kinda took me back a little when I recently saw all my friends from SU making various "fail" and "win" references on Facebook and I had NO FRIGGIN' CLUE what they were talking about. Turns out, it's about FailBlog, the blog that points out all the various goof-ups, "epic" or otherwise, that happen in everyday life. Then I found out about "Stuff White People Like" by seeing it on a T-shirt someone was wearing on a train. And I find myself asking myself, "How did I not know about this sooner?" FML!

Oh, that. Yeah, I knew about FML over a year ago, and now everybody is saying that. So I have one out of three. But I used to be better than that!

Now don't get me wrong, there are some things in pop culture that I see and frankly I'd rather not know more about them... because they're stupid. Like how I see all these people around Philadelphia wearing hats and shirts that only have the "ill" part of the "Phillies" script logo. I swear the first time I saw that, I wanted to ask the guy, "So where are your two friends with the shirts that say 'Ph' and 'ies'?" But I'd really like to not be coming late to the party on so many things. Like TV shows. I was late on "Mad Men", "Scrubs", and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", and aside from the time it takes to get caught up on these shows, it's just aggravating in general.

And the other thing that comes with the realization that you have lost a step is the realization that this will only get worse as you get older. It won't be long before I am out of the prized 18-34 demographic and in some respects, it really doesn't go that old anyway. I mean, really, when they come up with shows like "Glee" and "Vampire Diaries", do you think they're targeting that to all the 18-34s? No, more like 18-25. So I'm either seeing new shows I have no interest in but might have when I was younger, or shows I take an interest in but I should be "too old" to do so.

I'm about to become a college professor, and I really fear coming off as the professor who tries too hard to be "down" with his students on what's new and what's hot. Incidentally, do young people still use the word "down"? See, this is what I'm talking about! I want to know this stuff so I can at least be relatable to my students, who aren't THAT much younger than I am... at least for now they're not. And beyond that, I like looking for new music from up-and-coming bands. I don't ever want to feel like I'm too old to like a band of 20-somethings who put out something I really like. At least when I was in radio, I had the "Peter Pan" syndrome and I wasn't gonna grow old. Not avoidable when you're an academic. So for those of you considering grad school to study the media like I do, there's one more reason for you not to go. That and the thousands of dollars in loans you'll have to borrow.

At least I still have my youthful good looks...

State of the Tube 2009

Ah, mid-October... chilly winds in the air, snow falling across the Northeast... wait a minute. I said mid-October, right? Not December? Yeah, that's what I thought... what is up with this weather? My Philadelphia friends are accusing me of bringing Syracuse weather with me. But tell me again about global warming...

Anyway, we're a good month or so into the new fall TV season and we have had a chance to sort out all the new shows and the new time slots, and for some shows, that has resulted in cancellation (sorry, "Beautiful Life"). And somehow, Jay Leno hasn't been canceled yet, which means he can relax knowing that he managed to outlast the record for late-night comedy futility known as Chevy Chase. But we'll get to Chevy later...

If you're familiar with these "State of the Tube" addresses that I give each year, then you know how this works. I only care about the shows I watch, and I only watch shows that I like. So if any other shows get mentioned here (like the aforementioned "TBL" and Leno), it's only for the purpose of ridicule. Nothing like picking the easiest targets, right?

Starting with Sunday night, here's how things stack up. "The Simpsons" is not going anywhere, but I still believe that the show has passed its prime. Good for the occasional look but it seems like the only way they've managed to keep the show interesting is either by latching on anything that's in the news or by making the characters more and more ludicrous. I guess that works, kind of. I saw the pilot episode of "The Cleveland Show." I didn't get it. I haven't been back. If someone tells me that the "Family Guy" spinoff has gotten better since, I might come back for a look, but otherwise, I'll stick with the original, which hasn't lost a step. Yeah, they already had to go to the well for another "road" episode, but the scenes where Stewie and Brian landed in the Walt Disney universe and the "Robot Chicken" universe were worth it. The big star of Sunday nights for me, however, is "Mad Men." It's compelling, well-written and acted, and continues to take those sudden turns that you just don't see coming... how many shows do you know of where a guy gets his foot cut off by a riding lawnmower in the middle of a corporate office?

"Heroes" has been moved to 8:00 on Monday nights, which means I now have to DVR "How I Met Your Mother" and watch it later. At least it won't conflict with "24" come January. "Heroes", despite its many detractors who can't stand their superheroes having human emotions and problems, has gotten back in a groove this season. Yeah, there's a couple new gimmicks... Claire's college roommate has a lesbian crush on her, they seem to blowing out the special effects budget on this deaf woman who can "see" sound as vibrant waves of color, and you have to wonder if the only purpose of the tattoo woman is to get some extra skin on the show. However, the plot lines are very engaging this year: Will Hiro live? What's the deal with this circus that pops up out of nowhere and why do they want evil Sylar back?

"Mother" continues to do great shows, even though it's gotten really frustrating with the central question of the show: When the hell are we FINALLY going to find out who the "mother" is? This season's episodes so far have focused mostly on the new relationship between Robin and Barney, and they have definitely mined some comedy gold out of that. Fox has placed "Lie to Me" in the Monday 9:00 spot for the fall, and I don't know if that means this show will only run 13 episodes per season, but as long as they don't do any other screwing with it, that's fine by me. It's a great show, and Cal Lightman is one of the best characters on television.

At this point, Tuesday is a vast wasteland. Nothing interests me on any of the networks on this night. I'm not interested in NCIS, the original or the LL Cool J knock-off. I'm not interested in "Shark Tank", I sure as hell don't care about "Dancing With the Stars" or "The Biggest Loser," and if I wanted to watch "90210" or "Melrose Place", I would build a time machine and go back to 1994. The real problem here is that networks take shows that are perfect for their original nights and stack them all up against each other, leaving their original nights... well, a vast wasteland. Aside from "Sports Soup" on Versus... while I was never really interested in any of the stuff that made up the fodder for the original "Soup", I ALWAYS enjoy laughing at sports people making asses of themselves.

Wednesday isn't much better, but ABC saves the day with some of their new sitcoms. I wasn't sure what to expect from "The Middle", but Patricia Heaton and Neil Flynn pull it off. They're more than Raymond's wife and the janitor from "Scrubs", and the show oozes with small-town Indiana charm and screwiness. Plus they gave Chris Kattan a job, and let's face it, he's needed a job pretty much since "Corky Romano." After that, you have "Modern Family", which is easily the best new sitcom of the season. Ed O'Neill gets to be the screw-up dad again, only now an older version with a young Colombian wife and the grown-up offspring of his first marriage trying to make it work with their own families. It has the faux-documentary style of "The Office" (which I've warmed up to recently but still isn't appointment viewing for me yet), and the similar style of characters who say and do the wrong things and they don't realize it. Definitely worth a look if you haven't seen it yet.

And then there's Thursday. "Flash Forward", on ABC at 8:00, is a breakout hit. It's easy to jump in at any point because the premise is pretty simple: the FBI trying to figure out why the world blacked out for 2 minutes and 17 seconds and saw 6 months into the future. However, the action and intrigue is worth watching every minute. Will the things the main characters saw (or didn't see) happen? Well, since everyone saw the events of April 30, 2010, I'd say it's a fair bet the season finale will air on that date and tell us everything. Or they may find a way to make this work longer than one season. At the same time over on the CW is "The Vampire Diaries", which takes the super-hot teen vampire love story genre (if you haven't heard of "Twilight", you've been living under a rock) and goes darker and more intense. But it's a CW show so the same formula that has worked since "Dawson's Creek" is still there. Plus, they now seem to love building new shows around former "Degrassi" cast members. If they're going to keep doing this, I have one request: give Spinner his own show next season...

One Thursday 8:00 show I will not be watching is NBC's "Community". I thought it might have a chance, but I saw the pilot and was not impressed. Plus it has Chevy Chase. He's pretty much the kiss of death for anything he's been in since "Fletch Lives." On we go to 9:00, where "Fringe" has landed on Fox. The second season has been just as good as the first, as they continue to come up with crazy scientific phenomena that make you think, "Could someone really do that?" Also, they still manage to work the cow into every episode, even though it hasn't been central to the plot since the pilot. "30 Rock" is back in its 9:30 slot on NBC, and the season premiere was perfect. They seem to find a way to make everyone talk about something on that show each week; this time it was the "Cheesy Blasters". Ask someone who saw the episode to explain if you missed it. They also finished the episode with a well-placed cheap shot at the show that follows them.

At 10:00 on FX is this year's Show On Which I Came Late to the Party: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia." Well, naturally I was bound to start watching this one since I AM in Philly now (and my earlier comments on the weather prove it is NOT always sunny here), but I got sucked in by another show where the lead characters are horrible people but you can't help but enjoy the things they do. And it has Danny DeVito. And it is kinda cool watching the on-location scenes and knowing exactly where those places are cuz you've been there. Never had anything like that in Syracuse...

Friday continues to improve, but I'm unhappy with the CW getting out of the sitcom business, especially axing "Everybody Hates Chris" (although I do like how they ended the series with a spot-on copy of the way "The Sopranos" ended). Anyway, this time slot is now taken by "Smallville", moved over from Thursdays, and the show is really hanging on for dear life. Each season lately, I've found myself saying, "I really hope this is the last season." Maybe this year I'll get my wish so it can finish strong. Fox renewed "Dollhouse" and that makes a perfect complement in the 9pm slot. Finally, the networks are making an effort again on Fridays. Of course, they still aren't on Saturdays. It is truly rerun central now. I guess that serves a purpose to allow people to catch up on shows they can't watch during the week, but that's also what a DVR is for.

And there you have it, my picks and pans for this television season. A nice evening inside catching up on my recommendations on Hulu might just make you forget that for the moment we appear to have skipped fall and gone straight to winter. But at least here in Philly we'll be back in the 60s by Tuesday... just in time for Phillies fans to go apeshit over the results of the NLCS. After all, it's not worth rioting if it's cold and rainy...

As God is My Witness, I'm Playing Fantasy Hockey

So yeah, I haven't posted in a while. It's not that I've been too busy with work; I mean I do a lot of work now that I'm a Ph.D student, but if I really wanted to, I could sit down and bang out one of these entries really quickly. And yes, there are times when I think I should write an entry but I just don't feel like it. I have no obligations to anyone with this blog, I don't even think very many people read it, so from the start I've decided this would be an outlet I would use when I was able. And I haven't been able...

Or it may just be that I was distracted by the Seahawks' new day-glo uniforms.

Actually what has happened is procrastination. Rather than this blog serving as something I could use to channel my creative energy instead of, oh, doing work, I've come up with so many other reasons to not do work that this blog has been neglected. It almost feels like the more work I have now, the harder the work becomes, the more avenues I find to do something other than work. It's definitely not a healthy thing.

At first I just had the Internet to distract me, and Facebook especially. Then I added Twitter. Then came Facebook applications, specifically Mafia Wars. Then I got dragged into Farmville, and believe me, these things require a lot of time and attention. After all, I have achievements to earn, crops to harvest, ugly ducklings to adopt, and so on. Also, since I live in an apartment with two people and one television, this means TV watching is rationed. Saturdays (like this) are my day off so I can catch up on some things.

For example... I just stopped for 40 minutes to catch up on this week's "Fringe." In the middle of this entry. I'm getting distracted from my distractions. But other shows require me to use the Internet... and how am I gonna do that when I need the Internet to whack mobsters and harvest crops? By the way, that reminds me, I need to do a "State of the Tube" entry soon... I've been putting it off...

Also the Internet has made it easier to be sucked into the world of fantasy sports. I started with baseball, which I know a lot about so that's not too difficult and after 4 years (and 3 2nd-place finishes in my league), I know how to field a winning fantasy team without it running my life. Then I added fantasy football, but I've pared it back to being in a salary-cap league. I only have to do something with that one day a week, that being the day the salaries reset. But then I added another baseball game, on Facebook (of course) and that requires me to look at it once a week or more. And finally the capper... the sign that you know you've gone overboard with these things... I signed up for fantasy hockey.

Yeah... I know. But at least it isn't fantasy NASCAR. I know people who do that, and believe me, that's pretty sad. Not to mention puzzling because how do they get Internet in the trailer park? Anyway, this is a sport I have become much more interested in the last few years because of the Sabres, but I still admittedly know little about. Also, the rosters are huge and they don't play everyday, so I have to make personnel decisions almost everyday depending on who has a game that night.

Oh, and I may have signed up for TWO fantasy hockey leagues...

To those of you who are concerned about my well-being, let me assure you that I am getting my work done. Even when my laptop crashed last week and I thought it was dead (turns out it's not... yet), I went to campus, worked until everything was done, and I am doing well in my classes, so there's no need to worry. As for this blog, it will continue on its irregular schedule, which means that whenever I feel like writing, I shall.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to accept some new topiaries for my farm...