part one. [a full grown man can't escape the grip of the Disney channel]
Teagan requested that we tape a kids movie she saw advertised on Disney channel called Brink!, about a group of inline skaters (that includes a girl) who are ’soul skaters’ and all is good until one of them gets sponsored. So we tape it for her. Saturday morning she wakes up ready to go at 6 am, finally at 7 we got up and started watching Brink! After about an hour Teagan is bored so I turn off the tv. Later that night… I am sitting on th couch wondering what happens to Brink and his crew— this alone would be embarrassing but when you factor in the fact that I occasionally bop around the house singing Hana Montanna songs and you can feel my shame. Damn that daughter of mine, infecting me with all that Disney syrupy sweet shit. I swear they use some kind of mind control.
part two. [the four year old sounds like she hosts a reality TV show]
Teagan and Karen took me mini golfing as part of the fathers day extravaganza. As we are golfing Teagan excitedly looks at Karen after a good shot and says: “Congratulations mommy you are part of our top ten!” Now that alone would be funny but this morning at breakfast she blurted out some thing like: “that would be freakin’ crazy wouldn’t it? I mean, thats just like… crazy!” She also now refers to all of the people on her favorite shows/movies by their real names as opposed to their character names and tried to start calling Karen and I by our first names.
Filed under: entertainment., family, life, personal., reality tv, tv
April.23.2007. • 12:41 PM
Admittedly I have already decided that I am over the Sopranos. Last year I strategically planned the beginning of our Directv subscription so that our free premium channel upgrade period would last through the Sopranos season. Like any dutiful fan I watched all last season waiting for something to happen. This year I didn’t even think about subscribing to HBO, I thought “if I hear that its good again, I’ll find it on one of those sites” so far I haven’t had to go looking.
Last night I had the opportunity to catch the new episode, and watched all but the first 5 minutes. I don’t feel like I am missing much. The entire episode was depressing—
dealing with the emasculation and humiliation the accompanies the aging process. Tony seemingly contemplating taking out Paulie and me contemplating changing the channel, neither of us able to actually pull the trigger. Karen made a noble effort to stay awake, but failed with 15 minutes to go. She slept through some of the biggest action moments, watching uncle Junior get the shit beat out of him after pissing himself in the previous scene. The only thing that ultimately kept me from changing the channel (or falling asleep) was the fact that Entourage was on next. Watching the aging and incontinent Junior on the screen for nearly an hour made me realize just how emasculating and humiliating it is to watch something that used to be both strong and powerful piss, itself and talk about ‘remember when’.
Filed under: entertainment., thoughts, tv
April.18.2007. • 11:18 PM
Fare thee well fair Sanjaya. I will miss you. Your 15 minutes have run out and it has long been time for you to go. You couldn’t sing to save your life, but I loved to hate you and really looked forward each week to your pearly smile, your characterless, colorless, common, and vanilla vocals and of course…
the hair.
Thank you for giving all of us something to talk about.
wait…
Do you think the producers might have pulled him out using their “the producers reserve the right to blah blah blah” card? I smell a conspiracy.
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, pics, reality tv, thoughts, tv
April.10.2007. • 10:02 PM
This week even the 2-and-a-half glasses of wine can’t solve all of these Idols performance problems. Karen and I were in agreement this week most of the performances were boring and all of the contestants sounded like karaoke— with good reason, NONE of them are Latin. It truly was a battle of the mediocre tonight and Blake barely managed to come out on top and Sanjaya was NOT NEARLY the worst this week. I had a lot of time to think (drink) during the uneventful performances and I was wondering…
1. How does Melinda even sing without a neck?
2. How many sets of tits does Lakeisha have, exactly? ‘Cause in that dress it looks like she has two sets in the front and one set in the back.
3. How many different ways can Phil find to tuck his Dumbo ears away?
4. Why did the stylist paint every girls lips hooker red?
5. When did Karen and I turn into Statler and Waldorf from The Muppet Show?
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, random, reality tv, tv
I have managed to avoid television entirely since Thursday (4/5) the affect has been a regained momentum in the studio and lots of alone time for Karen and I. It helps that we still have 9 inches of snow on the ground and that the temperature is hovering in the high 30’s and low 40’s, the low temperatures suggest sitting in front of a fire and on the nights when we aren’t in the studio, that is exactly what we have been doing.
All of this time that has been invested in myself, rather than being squandered is beginning to pay off in the studio. Things are moving forward again with my memory vessel installation pieces and Karen and I are working on another new series of collaborative paintings in a smaller, more intimate scale.
this is the test piece for the series. we have abandoned this pallet for a more subtle and understated blue, gray, white, ivory and aqua
Filed under: art+photography, artsy., life, personal., pics, thoughts, tv
Beyond the pure joy of watching two chefs battle to create haute cuisine within the 60 minute time limit, and despite the at-times-extravagant ingredients, ICA (Iron Chef America) serves as an culinary inspiration for me. I love watching the cooking techniques that are used and each week I take away some new ideas in this regard. But for me, I am most interested and inspired by the way that each chef pairs flavors and textures and the way they finish their dishes (plating + saucing). These are the things that I feel like are often overlooked when it comes to home cooking— these are the things that take a meal from expected to exceptional. I love to eat as well as cook so I guess its not surprising that I have become increasingly interested in creating more that a mere meal. Favoring the fabrication of phenomenal eating experiences at home. It doesn’t even mean that the meals take more time to create, just more thought, care and attention to the three Ps: plates. presentation. portions.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: cooking, eating, entertainment., food., iron chef america, personal., reality tv, thoughts, tv
Binging on tv and internet entertainment, puking out posts and dry heaves in the studio.
This is my week in a nut shell.
I could blame it on my daughter and her ‘change of season cold’ or supporting Karen’s (as well as my own) nightly need to decompress (with mindless tv and cocktails) after a particularly stress-filled week, but the truth is I think I am avoiding dealing with the issues arising in my art/studio practice.
In a typical week we watch maybe 5 hours of tv, excluding the fast-forwarded commercials. I think I watched my normal weekly intake last-night. When I am not watching tv, I am surfing the web; reading headlines, blogs and watching podcasts. All of these are a normal part of my routine just not quite in the quantities that I am consuming lately. Last night I went from a yawn inducing episode of Idol (which I watched almost entirely in fast-forward) to last weeks episode of House, followed by last nights new episode of House and topped my evening off with Miami Ink and went to bed only mildly satisfied with my evenings indulgences. No matter how repetitive House is I just enjoy watching Hugh Laurie play the character.
After last-night’s tv binge all I am left with is this virtually-void-of-content post and a list of unresolved artistic issues. I think it is time to re-structure my time usage. I have not been practicing Yoga since we returned from nyc and am definitely feeling a profound lack of focus and clarity in its absence. I need to re-introduce some structure to my routine, bring back meditation and yoga and cut the fat out of my media diet in order to nurture creative freedom and face the reality that my art is leading me further from my comfort zone.
—that was supposed to be the end of this post, but I am left here thinking about the kind of social anesthetic that tv provides when consumed in large quantities. It seems to provide a fairly strong disconnect from your daily life and ultimately yourself when its consumed binge-style. There is something very powerful and dangerous when something can capture your mind so completely and do absolutely nothing real for you in return.
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., life, personal., reality tv, thoughts, tv
There are not many shows that I feel I need to watch on the night that they air. This season American Idol roped me in with the whole Sanjaya drama and the obnoxious New Jersey girl with the slutty internet pics. (who incidentally, represented all that is wrong with the state we successfully fled from last year) And Idol is a show that you have to watch the night that it airs so that you can be part of all the conversations the next day. But on Sunday nights, my television belongs to foodtv. That’s right the ultimate food geek showdown based on the classic Japanese show— Iron Chef America. It lacks the poor over-dubbed voices and the overly-dramatic theatrics of its Japanese counterpart but still delivers about 35 minutes of intense cooking action.
For me this show signals the end of the weekend and is the last opportunity for self indulgence before the work week officially begins. The show requires little-to-no-thinking and is a great show to vegitate intfront of. Usually our DVR clicks on as the show is beginning and we prep ourselves a snack and a grown-up drink that usually involves lime juice; Belvedere gimlets, or margaritas with Herradura tequila are the most commonly consumed Sunday night cocktails. So, drinks mixed and snack-less we sit on the sofa to fire up this weeks episode of ICA and skipping the Iron chef intros to get straight to the action.
To our surprise the challenging chef is José Andrés the head chef at our absolute favorite DC restaurant Jaleo. This is the restaurant that I give credit for opening up my palette and truly beginning my love/passion for food. Now the illusion of the show is that the challenging chef gets to pick who they will face in kitchen stadium (in reality they are picked weeks before the battle takes place) I thought for sure that he was going to ‘pick’ Mario Batali but instead calls out Bobby Flay— our favorite NYC restauranture and the person whose cookbook taught me some of the best cooking techniques for pairing and extracting big, bold flavors. We are sitting on the sofa hot with anticipation and the affects of the gimlets and for a fraction of a second we were in food geek heaven— head chefs from 2 of our all-time favorite eating establishments are about to face off. And then the words that provoked a simultaneous “what the fuck?”—
“the secret ingredient is… Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: american idol, entertainment., food., iron chef america, life, reality tv, tv
