Bleep My Dad Says

Over the weekend I was at Tara's brother's apartment assembling some Ikea furniture and I had the absolute pleasure of watching like 6 episodes of Shit My Dad Says. My God, this show is pretty awful. I liken it to a train wreck. It's terrible, but you can't look away. But, I really think we can make this a learning experience and I will discuss ways the show could improve itself.

I remember earlier in the Fall when this show was about to premier. I was actually a little excited about it, feeling it had some potential. Then Phil and Jordan watched the Pilot and said it was bad, so I never attempted to watch it. I don't remember what they said they didn't like about the show, but I would say the son Henry is the weakest part of the show, both the actor and the character. The actor isn't good and a bit stiff. From my research (wikipedia) a different actor played him originally in the pilot, but was recast with the current actor. At first I thought maybe the actual guy who started the Twitter site was playing himself, which would account for the bad acting, but that is not the case. I don't understand why the show went with this guy if they could cast pretty much anyone they wanted. I've seen performers at the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theater who could do a better job.

Next, the character of Henry isn't very developed. Really the only thing he has going for him is that he's always butting heads with his father, played by William Shatner. I didn't see the pilot during my marathon, so maybe this it's mentioned there, but I really don't get a sense of who this guy is or what his ambitions are. I guess he wants to be a writer. I think he needs to join a bowling league or something. Also, I know the show is about the relationship between him and his father, but I feel like that's preventing Henry from growing. His story-lines are too dependent on the dad and I think that will really wear thin and they'll start to run out of fresh ideas. If the character of Henry were eliminated from the show, I don't think we would miss too much.

The other characters I feel are pretty decently developed for a sitcom. William Shatner is pretty good and I think a wise casting choice. And then there is Henry's brother and sister-in-law played by Mad TV alumni Will Sasso and Nicole Sullivan, respectively. These characters are fairly developed. My criticisms with them is #1) in most episodes they seem have their own separate story and don't really feel part of the cast. They're just a B story. It seems like the writers tried to fix this by having them sell their condo and moving in with the Dad too, making them interact more with the rest of the family. I can see why they did this, but I'm not sure if it was a good idea or not. #2) I've never been a big Mad TV fan, I've always been an SNL man, but I believe Sasso and Sullivan are considered to be two of the best cast members. However, I feel like there's a lot of missed comedy opportunities in having them play these boring characters. The characters should be a bit more wacky to take advantage of that. It's like casting Jim Carrey to play Ben Stein. Why would you do it?

Lastly, my other criticism is the jokes are mostly bad. The writing could be a lot better. But what can you do? Hopefully as the show continues, the writing will pick up.

2009, 2010, wanna make a record of how I felt then.

Best Accomplishment:

Moving in with Tara. Definitely.

Best CD:

This year was a great year for music. New stuff that came out:

Jenny and Johnny/I'm Having Fun Now

Spoon/Transference

Tim Kasher/The Game of Monogamy

Broken Social Scene/Forgiveness Rock Record

The National/High Violet

Two other albums that came out that I haven't listened to yet:

Belle and Sebastian/Write About Love

Arcade Fire/The Suburbs

There were even a few other albums that came out I'd like to check out like Sufjan Stevens and Menomena.

My album of the year (oh, oh) for 2010 is:

Tim Kasher/The Game of Monogamy! I wrote an entry about this earlier this year. I also liked The National album a lot. And I'm really looking forward to the Belle and Sebastian and Arcade Fire albums.

Worst CD:

Spoon/Transference. The album wasn't really that bad, it just seemed kinda boring and forgettable. Their last album, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, was really good. I also wasn't that thrilled with Jenny and Johnny. It's grown on me a bit, but definitely the weakest of Jenny's solo albums.

Best Concert:

Since Tim Kasher was my album of the year, it makes sense Tim Kasher would be my concert of the year. I saw him at the Barbary in Philly. I wrote about that earlier this year.

Other concerts from this year:

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (I wrote about that too)

Scissor Sisters

Yikes, I really need to go to more concerts.

Best Movie:

Inception

True Grit

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Hot Tub Time Machine

MacGruber

MegaMind

Cyrus

Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and the Magnetic Fields

I was pretty impressed by Inception, so that's my Best Movie.

Worst Movie:

Nothing really comes to mind, but I thought Cyrus was going to be a little better.

Best Book:

I really sucked at reading books this year. I read Lowboy by John Wray. It was disappointing. I also read Sal's novel.

Best TV Show:

I caught up on a lot of old TV shows this year. I watched the new Battlestar Galactica series in its entirety, finally finished Veronica Mars season 3, all three seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, seasons 4, 5 and 7 of Curb Your Enthusiasm, two anime shows Cowboy Bebop and Trigun, and watched almost all of Dexter, just finishing the current season now in January 2011. Earlier in 2010 I caught up on Community, watching the first half of the season in 2 days.

2010 also brought the final season of LOST, which overall, was pretty disappointing.

Best current comedy: Community

Best current drama: Dexter

Favorite New Place:

The Creek and the Cave in Long Island City. Close to home and free comedy!

Best Celebrity Encounter:

I saw the lead singer of The Scissor Sisters on the street near my office in July. I only knew it was him because Tara and I had gone to show 2 days earlier.

When Jordan and Melissa visited in September we walked around Central Park and we saw a sweaty Al Roker jog by us.

Ron and I went to a comedy club and we saw Colin Quinn, Darrell Hammond, Jim Norton and Nick Dipola perform. I also saw Reggie Watts at The Creek and the Cave. He's a big up and comer.

Best Trip:

The trip Tara and I took to DC in November was a lot of fun. The people we stayed with had a house party and we played games and drank. Going to Atlanta for Christmas was fun too, we got to see the Coke Museum, the Aquarium and Stone Mountain. I made a few trips to Philly, the Banyan reunion in March was pretty crazy. We also spent the 4th of July with Phil and Catie in Boston and again with Jordan and Melissa. And in April I went to Florida for my cousin's wedding.

Random Thing I Learned:

All in the Family was set in Astoria.

Best Blog Entry:

My Skip Day blog entry was pretty fun, I'd like to write more like that. I didn't write too much personal stuff this year.

Person of the Year:

Tara Zoltek of course! for changing my life.

Douche Bag of the Year: I added this category last year cause I was really pissed off at Glenn Beck. I don't really have anybody in my life who really pisses me off, so I'll just saw Sarah Palin this year.

New Friend Award:

Uhhh, this is tough. I don't think I really made any new friends this year. We hung out with Tara's friends Kristen and Sonya a bit, as well as the people in Tara's book club. 2010 was a pretty boring year for me, haha. Oh, and I hung out with Brian Small's roommate Tabitha a few times.

Party of the Year:

The Banyan reunion was crazy and a lot of fun. St. Patrick's Day in Hoboken was a good time too.

Biggest Disappointment:

One thing in particular that stands out is I wish I had gone to the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros show in July. Someone posted on Facebook about going to the show and that tickets would sellout pretty fast. I wish I had gone.

Greatest memory of the past year:

The Christmas trip to Atlanta was a lot of fun.

Theme of the Year:

Growing up. Moving in with Tara, being responsible, having a job, and all that.

Quote of the Year:

"You look me in the eye and tell me that's not a sandwich."

and the best quote is "I sent you a bottle of sparkling apple juice to your house. Did you get it?"

Biggest wish for 2011:

Find some employment. And watch all of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Anything to look forward to:

Phil and Catie's wedding! I'll be going to a few weddings next year. Tara gets her Masters. Possibly going to Austin. Possibly going to europe (finally!)

Politics 2011

What a great time to finally post some political thoughts then the day the 112th Congress is sworn in. I'm still pretty upset the Dems lost the House. They had a lot of missed opportunities, and I definitely think they should have won a few more Senate seats.

I predict the Republican's Health Care repeal won't pass.

The 2012 Presidential race will be heating up soon. I really wonder if Palin will run. She has absolutely no chance of winning. As of now, I think Obama can still be re-elected. As long as the economy is better, he will. I think some Republicans underestimate how popular he still is. I'll try to write more about the 2012 race soon. I will say I predict Rick Santorum will be the first Republican to announce a bid for Presidency.

I never written about The Tea Party, but I really despise them. They are nothing more then a bunch of uninformed, racist liars.

More thoughts soon.

2010 was a bastard of a year.

Another gone forever. Another year of wasted potential. These are due by December 31st, and I mean it this year people!

I am adding two new categories this year:

Best Trip and Random Thing I Learned.

Best Accomplishment:

Best CD:

Worst CD:

Best Concert:

Best Movie:

Worst Movie:

Best Book:

Best TV Show:

Favorite New Place:

Best Blog Entry:

Person of the Year:.

Douche Bag of the Year:

New Friend Award:

Party of the Year:

Best Celebrity Encounter:

Biggest Disappointment:

Greatest memory of the past year:

Theme of the Year:

Quote of the Year:

Biggest wish for 2010:

Anything to look forward to:

December Checklist

It's that time of year again when I realize there's only one month left of the year and I haven't accomplished very much. Here is a list of things I would like to do before the end of the year:

Finish writing the rough draft of my Pilot. I have about 17 pages written so far.

Write at least 2 sketches.

Write my long overdue politics blog entry.

Actually finish my 2010 year in review blog on December 31st.

Try standup open mic again, and this time be more prepared.

Go to Atlanta for Christmas. Since we already bought our plane tickets, I'm pretty sure this one will happen.

Can I do it all? Only time will tell!

Skip Day

I've had this recurring dream over the past few years. It's a bit bizarre. I dream I'm back in high school and it's a Friday. It's 5th period. And I'm skipping Band class. And it feels so good. haha. Why do I keep dreaming this? What does it mean? Lately the dream has changed a bit. The setting is earlier in the week, like Tuesday. And it's just me realizing Friday is Band Day and I'm going to skip it. And it gives me such hope. Then I wake up and disappointingly realize I'm 26 and I won't be able to skip Band on Friday.

Back in high school, I didn't even skip band that much. I think I only did it twice and I was senior. Once I got a pass to go work in the computer lab on my Computer Programming class work (nerd!) and the 2nd time I just didn't go to band, I probably also went to the computer lab. It was hard to get work down at school. Phil and I both foolishly sacrificed our study halls halfway through the school year for Creative Writing and to be Computer Lab monitors.

What does this dream represent? That I long for something to look forward to? That I had really grown to dislike Band during my junior and senior years? I don't feel very unhappy in my life. I'm not one of those people who are constantly looking forward to the weekend. One thing that irks me is when people will post Facebook statuses asking 'Is it the weekend yet?' and it's only Monday. These people must be really unhappy with their lives and jobs. Don't get me wrong, I totally understand being excited for the weekend if there's something significant coming up.

I also think about sick days. If I remember correctly, I only skipped days of high school a handful of times. Once in 9th grade, the day after our weekend performance of The Wizard of Oz; once in 11th grade, and twice senior year. Senior skip day was fun. I went to school that day, and since the majority of my class was missing, we didn't do much the whole day. Then I skipped another day later in the week. haha. I had two days off that week. The other day I skipped was the Monday after Anything Goes.

Skip Days were fun. I had a tradition of having a coke float when I was home all day. But high school was my only chance at skipping. In college I hardly skipped at all. In fact, the first time I skipped a class in college was during the spring semester of my junior year. I can't believe I had gone through 5 semesters without missing a class. And the only reason I even missed that first class was because we were filming the Intro for The Too Late Show. By the time I got back to campus, it was already 20 minutes into my Wednesday night class, so I felt it would be too awkward if I went in.

As the demands for The Too Late Show increased, classes often got sacrificed. One morning we were having huge technical issues with Joey Heid's computer and I stayed with him, missing my Intro to Computer Science class. Luckily that class was really easy and don't think the Prof took attendance. Another time I skipped it so I could make a Rilo Kiley mix CD. haha.

Senior year came, and one time I skipped my boring Anthropology class because I had to walk all the way down town to the post office to buy stamps to mail my electric bill. And another time I had to skip my Political Science classes because Dr. Mendoza was on the verge of a heart attack.

It's such a shame there's no skip days in real life.

Church of Tim Kasher

October the 4th I traveled to Philly to see Tim Kasher play at The Barbary, a renowned hipster bar. The show was pretty great and the new songs sounded awesome. I forget the opening guy’s name. He was kinda weird and probably drunk. Tim played practically the entire album as well as ‘Driftwood’ and ‘You’re No Fool’. My only complaint about the show was his album hadn’t been released yet, so I didn’t really know the new songs. But they still sounded really good live. I bought the album at the show though, for 10 bucks and 2 days before the release!

Here is my review for Tim Kasher’s first solo album “The Game of Monogamy”.

The album starts off with the Monogamy Overture, an instrumental piece, followed by A Grown Man. A Grown Man is an alright song, it sounded better live. The album really starts with the 3rd track I’m Afraid I’m Gonna Die Here, where Tim spews out everything that’s been on his mind.

The next song, Strays, it probably my favorite song on the album. Cold Love, the first single off the album, isn’t a bad song, but it was meant to be a single and is one of the weaker songs on the album. And finally, Monogamy is a pretty interesting song that gets right to the heart of what the album is about.

I feel like this album will only get better as time goes on and as I get older I’ll identify with it more and more. I like this album a lot.