Television, Of Course

I've been mentally developing a list of best television episodes of all time. Here is the beginnings of draft one:

1. "Restaurant Wars" - Top Chef (any season)
There is something about the restaurant wars competition that makes for the best episode of reality television ever conceived by a team of high-powered producers. There is something so inherently dramatic about this competition that even the cheesy music and slow-motion action shots that the editors use to pump up the drama, feel suddenly warranted and appropriate.

2. "Blink" - Doctor Who (series 3, episode 10)
This is a strange episode of Doctor Who, because the Doctor has very little screen time, and it mostly focuses on a one-episode character named Sally Sparrow. I usually hate that. I watch Doctor Who for the Doctor, not for some random running around London like an idiot. But, Blink is an amazingly written story and one of the absolute best time-travel stories ever, ever created. It's clever, it's smart, and the parts with the Doctor are also some of his funniest bits all season. So, even though it's a bad, bad intro to Doctor Who, it's the only episode of a tv show that focused on one-episode characters instead of the main characters that I actually enjoyed.

3. "Mac Bangs Dennis's Mom" - It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia (season 2, episode 4)
I just started watching this show like three days ago, and I'm already near the end of the second season, and the whole show is hilarious, but this episode is my favorite. There is not one dull scene, not one missed line, not one lame b-plot, and the running jokes in the episode are the best example of that kind of cyclical and referential comedy writing that's my favorite to watch.

Dream Speech

This morning, on the way to work, I turned on the top 40 radio station to hear some Britney Spears and T-Pain before transcribing horrible stories of child-kidnapping for Dr. Phil. But instead of "Shorty Got Low" my radios station was playing the entirety of the "I Have A Dream" Martin Luther King Jr. speech. I had never heard the whole thing, so I stayed tuned in. Some things I noticed:

1. MLK Jr. uses a ton of metaphorical language in the speech, these really grand and beautiful metaphors, which I found to be extremely effective.
2. MLK Jr. aspirates his 'h's in "wh" words. As in, when he says "what," he doesn't say "wut," he says, "hu-wut," you know what I mean? Pronouncing your "wh" sounds like he does is generally considered, especially at the time he was speaking, a characteristic of "proper" speech. Most English-speakers don't do it now, unless English is their second language or they have a high-class British accent.

It Dings When There's Stuff

Almost a full month later, my friend Erica harasses me a bit and here I am again. Sorry, two people that read my blog, about being gone so long.

It's been an eventful month, but let's skip all that and talk about comic books. I dove heavy into a Warren Ellis phase last week, far more powerful a phase than when I powered through the first three trade editions of Transmetropolitan in one day. I read his new one-off called Aethric Mechanics [I think that's how you spell "aetheric"] and then powered through all forty-one issues of his webcomic in one day. I'm feeling very in love with Warren Ellis right now, despite the fact that he's a balding man who lives in London.

I'm moving also, from Santa Monica to West Hollywood in February. Moving sucks. Wish me luck.

Shorty Got Low

Today, I went into Whole Foods at 7:30 am to pick up a coffee before work, and they were playing "Low" by Flo-Rida and T-Pain. That was a really, really good start to my day. (Additionally, I didn't get that Flo-Rida was a pun on Florida until I had to type it out just then. Good for me.)

My lovely Claire has contracted some kind of minor deadly illness and canceled her Friday evening birthday party, which means that I'm going to be going to the star-studded Dr. Phil Holiday Party before flying away from Los Angeles for ten days. I hear that at the party, Dr. Phil gives all of his staff a gift. I'm retardedly excited for this. I think I'll get drunk and hook up with a runner.

Girl With The Broken Face - Part 7

On Friday, I went to the dentist to get my permanent fake teeth put in. Lord in Heaven. Nothing is easy. Firstly, I'm a fucking baby about novocaine shots, so I had to get the laughing gas just to get the four regular shots. And then one of my teeth would not, for the life of it, numb up. So after the first four regular shots of novocaine, I had to get two extra shots on the left side of my face. I was numb and swollen up to my left eyeball, which was a really special experience. Before I left, they gave me a mega extra strength Motrin.

Then, I went home. My dentist instructed me to eat, and take a viccodin if my teeth hurt. The novoaine wore off and my mouth didn't hurt that bad so I ate and had a beer. Which was probably a mistake, but whatever. Then, later, my teeth started to hurt so before I went to bed I had a viccodin.

So I woke up Saturday morning, sick as a dog, vomiting up my stomach acids. Apparently, the amount of novocaine itself could've had that effect (according to the internet), but I certainly didn't make it better. Sorry, body.

Names

New boss-of-me at The Amazing Race. I do not know this man's name. I will try to avoid ever having to admit that I don't know his name. In my defense, he did not introduce himself.

Milk

Okay, after my jerk-off, now something of substance.

I saw Milk last night with my friend Emily, the new Gus Van Sant one about Harvey Milk, the gayest gay to ever be elected to public office. While mostly about that man, and how gay he was, the movie was also about James Franco being attractive, and Emile Hirsch dancing during celebratory parties.

To jerk-off some more (I guess no substance after all): it was, as you've probably already heard, pretty haunting to watch this movie just a month after Prop 8 got repealed. Though the gay rights movement has made so so so many advancements since 1978, the time does resonate in a few strange ways to 2008. I think overall, gay people are much more accepted now on a personal level, but the movie was about politics and the political arguments that politicians were having in the movies - the debates, the arguing about various gay rights statues and amendments and such - were pretty much the same arguments that people are still having today. Nobody gets on TV and says "gay perverts" anymore, but the same points are still argued in the same way, just with PC-ed-up terminology.

Slow and steady wins the race, I guess.