And the end of the beginning draws near

Pardon me, gentle readers, if I am less verbose than usual this evening. We worked our way through every story today, stopping as often as was necessary to get everything set just perfectly, doing moments over and over like some terrifying Groundhog Day remake until the vehicle that is our show shone like those cars in the car wax commercials where after 50 washes the water still beads. Yes, we worked the hell out of that show because we have one more run-thru tomorrow before we load out and start tech. And the three days of tech are going to be tough. And so, gentle readers, like a baby with diaper rash, my ass is wiped. (I guess this whole first paragraph sorta belies the "less verbose" comment, don't it?) But the show is in far better shape right now. Though I wasn't sure I was going to get through Act 1. We worked the living hell out of Tell Tale, and that's a pretty draining story. (Who knew getting all psycho was so tiring? That's one reason none of you will ever have to worry about me going all batshit--it takes WAAAAAY too much energy)

Everyone's still getting along really well, and my hopes are high for the tour. There just seems to be a lot of...what's the word I'm looking for...sanity in the group. So, fingers crossed. I even think that Levitt and I can get along without too much trouble. It's really just a question of picking your battles, and giving the same amount of courtesy you expect, no matter how much of a nutjob those other people are.... Speaking of nutjobs (only in a most tangential way) I was watching the show "Fringe" online last night. I had heard about it, and it usually comes on after the new episodes of House (back when House's new episodes were on Tuesday) but I never watched it. So, I figured I'd give it a shot. It's very interesting, with it's premise of a bunch of high-level governmental investigators dealing with stuff that seems to defy science and is solved with delving deep into pseudo-science (or as they describe it in the show, "fringe" science. See what they did there?) And the kid from Dawson's Creek actually doesn't suck. I've now watched 3 episodes, and I am of the decided opinion that the show would work a lot better if they got rd of the overly sentimental and ultimately boring blonde female lead. I mean, I know we need someone for the kid from Dawson's Creek to have a thing with, but the character is generic and the actress is just plain boring. As a red-blooded American male, I would very much like to request that TV writers stop writing for blondes, because they do it really badly. It's like they figure that if the character is a blonde female, ten they don't really have to write anything particularly good for them, because, come on, she's a blonde. Isn't that enough to keep people coming back? Redheads and brunettes get better character development, possibly because writers don't think American guys are as obsessed with them as they are with blondes. Well, let me tell you, if that's the case, stop writing for blondes. Because the character you put on Fringe sucks. The rest of the cast is excellent and the show is very strong, but that character....oy. And it doesn't help that the insipid writing is delivered with a lack of emotion usually reserved for Vulcans and androids.

BUT that's not what I wanted to talk about. That is merely background so that you have a better idea of hat the situation was when I get to the actual subject. (Yeah, that "less verbose" thing really went out the proverbial window, didn't it?) When you watch TV episodes online, there aren't as many commercials, usually. Well, this one had a lot more commercial breaks. Which isn't that bad, except that for some reason it was always the same damn commercial. Even that wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been for the fact that the commercial was for whatever was sponsoring the online episode: something called G. The commercial gave no real indication of what G was. It merely asked (in a vaguely "street" accent) what G was, then rattled off a string of G words as various sports figures and other celebrities (I assume they were other celebrities, because two of them I didn't recognize at all, and the three-man mime-looking hip-hop group called Jabba Wock didn't strike me as anything to do with sports) slowly passed by the camera. At the end of the list of words, the commercial ended with "That's G." And that was it. What the hell is THAT? If it was supposed to be vague in order to make you want to find out more and go searching, it had the opposite effect on me. I just wanted to find the people responsible and hurt them in many varied and creative ways for being so stupid. But what incensed me more than anything was tat one of the sports figures they rolled past the camera was Muhammed Ali. And I don't mean a clip of Muhammed Ali or anything, I mean the actual Muhammed Ali, in argyle sweater vest, his palsied fists up in front of him, shaking as he held a fighter's pose, his eyes focused on nothing in particular as some anonymous kid looks at him and mouth "wow" as the disembodied voice says "It's the Greatest of all time." Now, i don't object to honoring Ali as the Greatest. But why would you put the guy in front of a camera like that? It's like seeing FDR in a wheelchair, or watching Elvis' last performance. He looked like a little old man (and I do mean little--as in frail and delicate) shaking and disoriented. You want to use him, use an image from either when he was in his prime, or at least still able to stand without looking like a stiff wind would knock him over. There are icons who have aged well, but Ali isn't one of them. And I know he's ill, and that he's still out doing things is supposed to be encouraging, and to a certain extent it is, but they guy in front of the camera the other night was NOT the Ali who was the Greatest, and if you're going to talk about the Greatest, then you owe that man, AND that icon, a little more dignity. Maybe I'm overreacting because I had to see this stupid non-ad over and over again for an hour and a half. But it made me slightly uncomfortable from the very first time, especially since it took until the second viewing for me to realize who the hell Ali was. Or maybe I'm just ooky about aging. I don't know. I'd delve deeper and figure out which it was, but like going batshit, it just takes WAAAAAY too much energy.

So before I head off to bed, I must say, I was more than a little disappointed that none of my gentle readers attempted to either guess or criticize my alias for our SM--Levitt. So, allow me to elucidate. Levitt was the name of the recurring character played by actor Ron Carey on Barney Miller. Officer Carl Levitt was a uniformed officer who would show up in the detective room every so often to deliver mail and otherwise do administrative tasks and take prisoners downstairs for processing. He also had a huge sense of his own importance and was constantly jockeying for position to get transferred up to the detective room. No matter how many time his sails had the wind removed (which was often) he always refilled them with the hot air he had readily on hand. He was a decent guy, just really full of himself and intent on advancement and exercising every last ounce of whatever authority he had. So.....see it now? Good. Anywho, I'm off. Thank goodness I was less verbose.