Good weekend here in the land where purple and orange is a natural skyscape, and not just an NBA fashion statement. Beck and I (and the DC Train) made it an all sports affair, with smatterings of Deadwood, karaoke and a well-placed stethoscope.
Friday was the usual biz - Tutorbin5000 was closed, so I spent the day going for a quick 5 mile run and finishing Rabbit, Run, a nice little thoroughly depressing anti-heroic account of America in the 1950s. And dashed dreams, has-been-ness, and the death of communication. Pretty heady, pretty good - real review pending - and I've since marched on into American Pastoral by Philip Roth, another cynical take on the American Dream involving a star high school athlete. THEME! And it's impressive, only 50 pages in. Good times.
Beck got home in the evening, and we watched the 9th and 10th episodes of season 2 of Deadwood - hmmmmmmmrumblenumblesumblbutt. Definitely still entertaining, but the constant politicking over the annexation of the camp is reminiscent of all of the politico-talk in eps 1-3 of the Star Wars series: pretty dry, and distracting from the more thrilling cursing and murdering to be done. Al remains a great character, even if his kidney stones deprive him of a couple episodes of dialog. Bullock, though, seems painted into a corner w/r/t his wife / Miss Garret issues. In other words, the second season is a bit of a slide - now that the shimmer of the shocking dialog and general histori-stylized dynamic has worn off, our focus has turned more toward the plot, and the season gets so wrapped up in the statehood narrative that some other aspects feel rendered peripheral. All that said, still a good watch, and it's always fun to experience the ridiculous pomp of formal 1870s social interaction against the backdrop of constant whiskey and whorehouses. (Speaking of whiskey - shudder vehemently at the prospect of an Al Swearengen drinking game. Either his drinks are watered down, or that guy has a Livertron 2000 installed).
Saturday, beck and I both worked - my center director showed up late due to a mysterious closing of the 101, so I spent the first 30 minutes of the working day discussing Rob Zombie's Halloween with a 13 year old.
Him: Rob Zombie's Halloween is the best movie ever!
Me: Really? I heard it was just gory and disgusting and debase.
Him: Naw, it's the best!
Me: Why is it the best? What makes it so good?
Him: It's awesome!
Me: Yeah, but what's awesome about it?
Him: It's the best movie ever!
I'm fairly sure that's an iPMM-approved instance of begging the question. Spent the rest of the working day increasing kids' vocabularies beyond "awesome" and "the best" and even spent a little time on "how to construct an argument." One day at a time, ya know. I got home just in time to see the Brewers lose to ATL in extra innings - wahoo! Cubs are up 3 as of today (Tuesday), so we are set for the every-five-years-or-so vomit-inducement that is the Cubs in the playoffs (see 1998, 2003).
Saturday night we drove across town to watch an AWESOME preseason hockey game b/w the Coyotes and the Dallas Stars (who were kind enough to not play Mike Modano - thanks, dudes). One of The Senior Partners in Beck's vet group had sweet tickets - four rows behind the penalty box - that he sold to us at discount, and it was fantastic to watch the psychotic speed of the NHL from up close. It's almost too fast - the rink is much smaller than it looks on television, and things generally look much more chaotic when viewed from the side than when given that nice bird's eye angle. There were a ton of goals - the Coyotes won 6-5 - a ridiculous number of penalties, and the highlight of highlights, an A+ hockey fight that occurred about 10 feet from our faces. The Beck mightily approved of the silly violence. But really, it was a good preseason game with plenty of fast-paced action - so much that we forgot to look across the ice at the coach's bench to spot a glimpse of the Great One. Oops.
But why talk about the game when you can cite the pageantry of idiocy SURROUNDING the game? Dan made the following comment about Sunday's DBacks game, but it applies easily here: "I'd be more entertained if they weren't trying so hard to entertain me." Every stoppage in play required two bozo DJ-types to address the crowd over the jumbotron, giving away prizes and playing idiotic games and making the white folks dance. The Coyotes also, thank something, have a dance team, whose members saunter down the aisle and dance asynchronously to miscellaneous beats after coyote goals. It's bizarre - 25 different interpretations of "do a cheer." And fear not, none of the dancers were bleached blond or otherwise took up accoutrements to look like strippers on an off night. (Though honestly, no high quality stripper would pass up a Saturday night's tips to perform at a hockey game, so we can be assured that these were ladies authentically living their dreams). The dance team also performs during the second intermission, though not on skates - weak. The remainder of the time of the game is spent chasing free t-shirts and then taking off said t-shirts and gyrating for a coveted appearance on the aforementioned jumbotron. And the guy in front of us taunted the players in the penalty box with the full spectrum of his wit, ranging from "you suck" to "you stink." In short, it was remarkably like a minor league hockey game, only the players were better. Sigh.
Oh, and it also turns out that the stadium is cold - that's why they call it "ice" hockey - and Beck chose to improve this condition by eating ice cream dots. Unflappable!
Having started our evening watching the height of athleticism in the lowest of athleticism-watching-brow settings, we continued on to a miscellaneous Glendale Mexican Restaurant Bar to meet up with some of the techs from beck's office for some solid Karaoke-ing. Or weird karaoke-ing - no stage, just a pair of mics that got passed table to table. Or stayed at the same table, as it were, since ours was pretty much the only occupied one in the run down joint. Some of Beck's colleagues can SANG, some cannot, and I broke up the country pop marathon with a painfully bad rendition of Bobby Z's "Subterranean Homesick Blues." The backing music was odd - the rhythm was off, it was seriously chincy in the guitars department, and on top of that the screen was flashing up incorrect lyrics. I think my brain was infected by all the drawls, so I ended up twangifying my Dylan impersonation. Tragic. We deserted the deserted desert scene to head home to our happy dogs, and fell asleep after a good Saturday.
(Cont'd).
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