The Last Third Of This Post Is Going To Be Really Confusing If You Don't Have HBO
Your regularly scheduled nonsense has been interrupted by the fact that I just found out via Yahoo News that Peter Jennings is dead. In the aftermath of this tragedy, I am surprised by two things: 1) the strength of my reaction. I'm literally stunned. Should I be this agitated by the death of a man whose show I never watched? Is this how I'll feel when Matt LeBlanc dies? and 2) man, things sure get updated fast over on the Wikipedia. For those who don't know, Wikipedia is an online "free content" encyclopedia where potentially anyone can log on and edit the information on an existing topic or create entire entries for topics if none already exists. Without fail, as soon as something happens--anything of any kind of note--there is already a Wikipedia update on the topic. If you click on the above link on the Peter Jennings entry, it already includes the details of his death and reads like he's been dead for a hundred years.

I imagine there must be a whole subsection of the population whose sole purpose in life is to be the first one to update a Wikipedia entry when some new shit happens. All caffeined and nicotined out, hands shaking, ready to type, fifty browser windows open to every available internet news source (no matter how fringe), cycling through all of them, wearing out their 'Refresh' buttons, just hoping and praying that something unspeakable will happen to somebody somewhere so that they might have a shot at being the first one to update it.

You know they already have their space-shuttle disaster entries all pre-typed up just in case there's another glorious--sorry, tragic break-up on re-entry.

You know who these people are. You work with these people. They're the ones who can't wait to tell you that they heard Keith from human resources totally got a blowjob from Diane from marketing in his car in the parking lot behind Smitty's after Howard's post-layoff going-away-party back in June, even though you don't know Keith or Diane and you always thought Howard was an incompetent fuck who deserved to get fired. They don't care if you're interested. They just thought you should know.

Oh yes, and Peter Jennings... very sad.

...

I think it's probably clear by now that my apparent blog obsession with Brad Pitt's dick isn't really about Brad Pitt's dick at all: it's about attention. For me. It's pathetic to admit it, but I'm hoping that people come here looking for something as popular and mysterious as Brad Pitt's dick and then stay for the jokes about people with cancer and the space shuttle breaking up.

The point is that I like the attention and I'm more than willing to accept it, even on false pretenses.

That said, I would very much like to both welcome and warn those who have found their way here from a trackback link from something called the Opinion Times, a conservative Christian online news resource.

They had this long post about how it was evil that Jessica Simpson was all sexily dressed in The Dukes of Hazzard movie and how people shouldn't see it. Lots of righteous indignation and moral outrage in the post, at the bottom of which it said (with a link) "See also: Pops' Bucket".

Wha?

Look, like I said, I don't turn away eyeballs, even if they have been drawn here by mistake. But I think it's fair to warn you that I don't... um... I'm not... uh... well, if the material about Brad Pitt's dick didn't give it away, there's nothing I can say that will make our cross-purposes seem any more clearly crossed.

I mean come on, my last post included a full color chart that visually displayed my fondness for seeing boobies in movies. I don't know that any position I've ever taken on anything ever would qualify as support for your lovely anti-partial-nudity post.

Still, welcome. Feel free to look around. Have some cake.

...

Lastly, as I'm typing this, my Dish Network Digital Video Recorder (it's like the Betamax of the TiVo generation) is recording the latest episode of Six Feet Under for Mrs. Pops and I to enjoy at a later date. Preferably one where the kids are in bed and we have a spare minute in the same room together where neither of us is asleep. These are rare.

We'd let our Six Feet Under viewing go for a few weeks because... well, because the show sucks. It's really terrible. Surprisingly, a show that is centered around death is kind of a big giant downer, especially after six years. Five years. How long has it been? However long it's been, it feels like a year longer than that.

Anyway, as has been discussed elsewhere (too lazy to find the exact link, but it involved SJ), I'm watching this year purely out of inertia (I watched it last year, so...) and the fact that this is the last season ever. Now you know.

WARNING: IF YOU GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THIS SHOW AND HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE THAT FIRST RAN JULY 31, THE NEXT PART OF THIS POST IS REALLY REALLY AWESOME. GO AHEAD, READ MORE

I kept hearing buzz on the internet about this show all of a sudden. People kept mentioning it on bulletin boards and in chat rooms all over the place. So I knew something interesting had to have happened.

I talked my wife into watching the three neglected episodes we had saved. All twitchy with anticipation, we watched as 2 3/4 episodes rolled out with all sorts of boring shit that I predicted would happen about two shows into the season (my wife loves that magic power of mine, by the way... she says she hates it and will throw things at me, but I can tell deep down she admires my powers of prognostication). And then, at the end of that last episode (not the one that's on right now), Peter Krause's character Nate... died. He just died. Just like that. No warning really, just collapsed, coma, woke up briefly, was an asshole to some people he'd forgotten to be an asshole to just before the coma, and then died.

I sat there thinking, "Wow..." Just that: "Wow". I'd invested four (five? Goddammit, this is bothering me) years in this show and these characters--principally this character around whom much of the central storyline ran and all I could think of when he finally expired was: "Wow... I'm amazed at the extent to which I don't give a shit."

My third reaction was guilt, brought on my second reaction, which was happy, happy relief. Finally, no more Peter Krause's horrible shouty, mannered overacting, especially opposite some truly genius people like Frances Conroy and Rachel Griffiths. Perhaps that isn't fair because his character only existed to argue, complain and then be shit on by life in general. Believe it or not, that can get somewhat tiring.

It was like watching the HBO version of the Sipowicz character from NYPD Blue where everything around him falls to shit and everyone he loves dies horribly. Except: a) he was allowed to say "fuck" [bonus!] and b) Peter Krause ain't Dennis Franz [HUUUUUGE negative] and c) no redemptive qualities to cheer for in any way at all ever.

So Nate's dead. The only thing I regret about it is that there are only 3 episodes left to enjoy without that giant life-sucking fun-hole at the center of everything draining away my enjoyment of what is otherwise a fine show manned by an exceptional ensemble of actors.

So adieu, Nate. Sorry it didn't happen sooner.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 6.5


Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:15 PM