Clouds Away

• The Monologue:
• Lou Dobbs quit CNN. As a cost-cutting measure, he has been replaced by an illegal immigrant.
• The rumors of Aerosmith's demise were proven to be entirely untrue, as frontman Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry appeared together. They reunited to form a new band, Tyler/Perry, that promises to sing poorly-written one-note feel-good tunes.
• Wal-Mart has changed its rules for Black Friday to guard against any riots. It's their new "Let's try not to kill anyone this year, guys" policy.
• Random Pop Culture:
• How will the Amazing Race final leg not come down to a tight race between the surfers and the Globetrotters? It would be a big upset if they weren't the #1/#2 teams in some order.
• The first few minutes of the second episode of V were awful. Awful. I almost shut it off and stopped watching for good. It got a little better as the show went on, but the dialogue is cheesy and the special effects are cheap-looking. My big hope comes from the fact that ABC switched show-runners, so perhaps upcoming episodes will be better.
• I will say that V is exactly half as good as Spike Lee's movie, X.
• Thursday night football starts tomorrow, so get your picks and your lineups in. So early to start this; we have to be moving towards oversaturation, right?
• Random Music Video:
• Clearing off the DVR tonight (Amazing Race, House, V) and in between shows the channel happened to be on ABC, which tonight was broadcasting the CMA Awards. Not my cup of tea. However, the Zac Brown Band -- shocker, a country act I have never heard of -- was on and playing one of the great songs of all time, "The Devil Went Down To Georgia". Sick. Here's a different performance of their version of the song:

Quite A Day

I've had a very good fifty-three weeks or so for political speeches. On November 3 of last year, I was able to see Obama's last speech of the campaign, in front of 80,000 people in Virginia. Amazing. On January 20, I was downtown for the Inauguration and heard the speech, though I couldn't see him. One of the top days of my life. Today, I was able to see two of the great recent Jewish leaders, Natan Sharansky and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Netanyahu is, of course, the current Prime Minister of Israel. He spoke about the peace process and some other issues facing Israel, including the work to make the world less dependent on oil (and therefore funnel less money to Arab states) and the hope for Jewish religious pluralism in Israel (which is too complicated an issue to go into here but a very important one to me personally). Netanyahu, who lived in the US for a long time, has no accent to his English.

On the other hand, Sharansky, the new head of the Jewish Agency for Israel (the top funding agency in the country), is very hard to understand with his thick-as-pea-soup Russian accent. He is, however, the more impressive Jewish leader. Sharansky was jailed for eight years in Siberia for speaking out about human rights violations in the Soviet Union and for proclaiming his Jewish identity. He was the face of the American Jewish community's push to free the Soviet Jews and let them practice their religion. I'll link to his wikipedia page, because I can't possibly do his story justice. To not only see him, but to see him on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, was a great honor.

So I'll leave with a quick story of what a crazy day it was. I was trying to find a colleague to grab dinner and, walking through the lobby of the hotel, saw a bunch of men moving quickly through the far side of the room. I walked over to find out that I had just missed Ehud Barak, the current Israeli Minister of Defense and former PM. As I stood there, Sharansky walked right past me. What a day.

Wow

I admit it. I'm prone to hyperbole (or, as John Boehner would say, "hyper-bowl"). I try to keep myself in check, but nobody wants to read about how something is pretty good or okay. You hear hyperbole so often lately in various places because people want to be heard over the fray, they want their opinion to stand out. But what happens when something is truly deserving of hyperbole? It's a boy-cries-wolf situation.

I ask because I just finished watching the season finale of Mad Men. It's the best episode yet of that show, without a doubt. This isn't exaggeration. It just is. What the episode made me think of, though, is the short list of the best single episodes from any series of dramatic television. A couple that come to mind are two Sopranos episodes, "College" (in which Tony takes Meadow to look at schools and runs into a former snitch) and "University (the one where Ralphie beats the stripper to death). Another is the C.S.I.: episode "Grave Danger", the Tarantino-directed episode in which Nick is buried alive. A lot of people are partial to The Wire's "Final Grades", the final episode of the fourth season -- the most critically-acclaimed season in TV history -- and I also really like "Hamsterdam" from the third season involving Bunny Colvin's drug zone of the same name. Hmm, "Flashes Before Your Eyes" is the episode that saved Lost by beginning to show more of the picture, specifically the introduction of the time travel issue. The list is potentially long and I'm missing a lot.

I bring this up because, in terms of Mad Men, I'd put last season's "The New Girl" on the list and I'd put tonight's season finale, "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" near the top. It was as funny an episode as I can remember. It had more corporate intrigue than any episode has had, including our chance to see Cooper, Sterling, and Draper at work. It was heart-breaking, particularly the scene where Don and Betty tell the kids about their divorce. It was terrifying in its own way; the scene where Don comes home drunk and attacks Betty was so dark (for instance, the amount of Don's face that was in shadow). It was even romantic in its own way ("And if I say no, you'll never talk to me again?" "No... I'll spend my life trying to hire you."). All of this combined to make this episode delightful. Halfway through, I turned to my wife and said aloud, "This episode is so good." It just needed to be said. It was.

House Party

• Random Politics:
• Alone at home, I spent the entire evening watching C-SPAN to see the tail end of the debate and subsequent vote and passage by the House on health care reform. It is a huge victory for progressives and for the President. I'll refrain from making sweeping statements about the country's future and its karma. You know where I stand. It passes with an attached amendment that bans the use of any federal funds for abortions. I think I'm okay with that. It's one thing for people to have their tax money to go to help the sick and another to have it go to perform a procedure of which nearly half the country disapproves. I'm especially okay with it if that amendment means that the bill can be passed more easily into law, as it convinced Joseph Cao of Louisiana to cross the aisle and support the bill.
• It's sort of fun to see all the parliamentary shenanigans that go on in a debate on the floor. Especially fun when the only people the GOP runs out there are a bunch of angry white men (most old) and Michelle Bachman. She wore a lei during the debate tonight. A lei!
• Random Pop Culture:
• The cold open on SNL tonight was pretty good, but I mistakenly stuck around for the monologue and the first skit. As far as host/performers go, Taylor Swift is no Justin Timberlake. Her Kate Gosselin impersonation consisted of her wearing a wig and just speaking in her regular voice as she stared a hole through the cue cards.
• Flash Forward continues to have some story problems, but it's solidifying a bit. I think the writers are trying to be coy, but maybe they should make a bigger deal out of the fact that people's flash forwards lack continuity.
• I am happy that I watch NBC's Thursday night comedies a day or two late on Hulu due to my DVR being overly occupied on that night. If I were to watch them as they air, I might enjoy 30 Rock a bit less than I thought I would. It's not that it's not funny -- this week's episode had some great stuff including Jack's begging on the subway -- but it might not live up to Community, as good as that show is right now. This week's episode of Community again had a number of great lines, including the musical battle between Vaughn and Pierce.
• NFL Week 9 (Last week, 6-7; overall, 65-50-1):
• Miami (+10.5) at New England: I've had a rough couple of weeks and I may be way off because the Pats are coming off the bye, but Miami has acquitted itself well lately.
• Jacksonville (-6.5) vs. Kansas City: I would maybe rather watch three more hours of health care debate than watch this game.
• Baltimore (-3) vs. Cincinnati: Very surprising that the Ravens, who lost to the Bengals in Baltimore, would give points in Cincinnati. I'm hoping against hope, but the Ravens team I saw on the field last week is capable of being the best team in the league.
• Green Bay (-10) at Tampa Bay: Green is a better bay than Tampa right now. Shoot, Michael is a better Bay than Tampa right now.
• Arizona (+3) at Chicago: Over/under on "they are who we thought they were" references regarding this game: 392.
• Atlanta (-9) vs. Washington: With the Falcons coming off of the loss Monday night and the Skins coming off of a bye, I might pick Washington if this game was at FedEx. But it's not, so the Falcons run all over them.
• Houston (+8.5) at Indianapolis: Yes, I'm going against my "don't pick against Peyton Manning" rule. But he didn't win by much last week and the Colts lost half of their secondary for the year this week.
• Carolina (+13) at New Orleans: The Panthers beat the Saints in New Orleans last year and thirteen is a lot of points, especially after the unexpectedly taxing victory on Monday night.
• Seattle (-10) vs. Detroit: I fully expect this to be the biggest blowout of the day.
• Tennessee (+4) at San Francisco: I am fully on the Vince Young bandwagon! Thankfully, I'll now have health care when it explodes and I am badly burned.
• New York Giants (-4.5) vs. San Diego: This isn't so much a vote of confidence for what looks to be a hugely overrated Giants team, so much as a statement about how San Diego chooses to not show up for big games.
• Philadelphia (-3) vs. Dallas: This should actually be a heck of a fun game to watch.
• Pittsburgh (-3) at Denver: This should be the most fun though. I have no clue who will win this. Not even a feeling. Pittsburgh doesn't lose on Monday night, but Denver has played big all year, especially at home.

Worst of the Worst: #55, The Celestine Prophecy

The Celestine Prophecy is such an inane waste of time that I hesitate to even review it. One can tell from even the first couple of minutes that the movie is going to be poorly written, poorly directed, and slightly less exciting than watching grass grow. The production values and acting are so inferior that, combined with the fact that it seems to fade to black every few minutes, one might expect that it was a made-for-TV movie. Perhaps it should have been since it only made $615,000 in theaters domestically and less than $1 million worldwide. Of course, it only played at a maximum of nineteen screens in any given week. I expect those theaters are defunct now for the lack of business sense they showed.

The movie, based on the bestseller of the same name, revolves around some New Age garbage and some trip to Peru and some auras. There is the threat of violence in the film, but absolutely zero tension whatsoever. You never get the sense that anyone is in any actual danger, not that you'd care if they were. The major factor in the inanity of the movie is that it is only a vehicle to get the mystical nonsense out there. Any arguments that characters have against The Nonsense are quickly made and not well constructed. Because the writer has bought into The Nonsense so much, he is unable to create any sort of Socratic dialogue that would help us to see its value. I compare this to the same monotone preachiness you might find in much modern religious fiction, such as the Left Behind series, although those books were at least about a real religion and were only trying to reach a certain target market. Better arguments are even made in The DaVinci Code, and when I'm saying you're not as deep as a Dan Brown story, well, you must really stink.

The movie is topped off at the end by a slow crawl, pre-credits, of the crap we were supposed to learn about The Nonsense in the film. As the movie fades and the crawl begins, there is a short burst of music but then it goes to complete silence. Indeed, the ending is even more inane and boring than the rest of the film. It is a true accomplishment of the people who made this and who are now presumably getting ready to shoot a Bar Mitzvah tomorrow morning. The Celestine Prophecy, #55 on Rotten Tomatoes' list of the worst movie of the decade, the ninth one I've seen on said list, and a movie that I would very much like to forget I ever saw. Luckily, I think that might actually happen.

The Tribe Has Spoken

• The Monologue:
• No jokes. Call this a stern talking-to instead. First of all, it's disappointing that the world was much more abuzz about some kid in a balloon than they are about a soldier shooting up an army base. Second, the fact that the shooter is a Muslim and has an Arabic name means that some people feel they have the right to outwardly prejudice. Amazing how a quick search of Twitter shows people knocking Muslims or saying that this shooting was the obvious by-product of Obama's election. Disappointing.
• Survivor Analysis:
• So what the hell happened on tonight's Survivor? Once Laura won immunity, there were four obvious targets for the vote: Jaison, Monica, Russell, and Erik. Russell scrambled and talked to everyone, as did Erik, so the targets moved squarely to the both of them. Both laid themselves bare, both were too outspoken and too overconfident. Russell's fortune came in his idiotic move of showing too many people the idol. Idiotic, unless he knew he was going to play it all along. Once everyone knew he had it, they couldn't vote for him. It's not worth getting the idol out there because any one vote in any unexpected direction could swing things. Erik's problem was then that nobody knew that he had his. If they can't go to Russell, Erik had to be the choice. If they knew that he had the Galu one, then Jaison or Monica would be going home. Erik was way too overconfident, never really thought about playing his idol, and paid the price.
• So did Russell show everyone the idol because he meant to play it at Tribal all along anyway? It's hard to believe that's the case. Immunity is just way too important. He's overplayed his hand too many times. Everyone knows that he's scrambling. With the idol gone, the target will be on his back from here until the next time that he doesn't win individual immunity. Yes, with the numbers the way they were, Russell needed to do something dramatic. The problem is that it's not like Erik going made it even close to even yet. Russell is on his way out soon.
• It's hard to say that any one player is the "best Survivor ever" because there are so many different styles of playing the game. The best physical player ever was Tom. The best strategic player ever was Richard (I'm tempted to go Yul, but I know I'd just be taking Richard for granted for how he revolutionized the game). It's quite possible that JT was the best all-around player ever, but even he needed Stephen to help him get to the end. Maybe Russell is the best underhanded player yet, but he's in trouble pretty early. He might not make the jury. Fairplay and Rob C. both made it to the final three.
• I've said it before and I'll say it again: How freaking good is this season?!?!?!?
• Random Music Video:
• From the album American IV: The Man Comes Around, released seven years ago today, here's Johnny Cash with what has become one of the classic covers. Pure haunting brilliance.

A Year In The Making

I hold these truths to be self-evident:

• Congrats to a Yankees team that is much more likeable than their past brethren. I found myself even a little happy for them at the end. No Clemens, no Mussina, no Giambi, no O'Neill. Even with A-Rod and Teixeira, it's sort of okay because they didn't have much to do with the actual Series win. Mostly Jeter, Damon, Matsui, and Rivera. Could have been worse.
• The Yankees had only five more hits and four more runs than the Phillies in the Series, but the secret to their victory was timeliness. It seemed like every time the Phillies scored, the Yanks would score the next inning, no more noticeable than tonight when Rollins' sac fly made it 2-1 and the Yanks scored two more in their next at-bat to essentially put the game away.
• My biggest question for the Phillies, besides how did Howard and Ibanez disappear so completely, is: Why did they barely use J.A. Happ in the Series? Maybe he would have started Game 7 if he didn't have to pitch tonight, but he was their best pitcher throughout the regular season and he should have gotten the ball at some point, especially to start tonight if Pedro was sick.
• So congrats again to the Yankees and their fans. Considering the current state of the Rangers, Knicks, Giants, and Jets, I'm sure they're all very excited about Spring Training in three or so months.
• The current major sports title holders are the Yankees, Lakers, Steelers, and Penguins. Front-runner's dream.
• Otherwise, turned away from the game after it was out of reach (only turning back to see the very end) and watched Dexter. It can be an up and down show, but this week's was an up episode. Just enough of each of the supporting characters and some good humor thrown in.
• Where were we one year ago tonight? I'm writing this sentence at 12:13. One year, one hour, and thirteen minutes ago: