So, in the old-school manner of these things (thank you, Mr. Stephen Colbert): first you tell them how you're gonna kill them, then you kill them, then you tell them how you killed them. I shall cover three issues of non-import here: The Impending Doom of the Gilmore Girls, the case of one razor blade too many, and . . . oh hell, I don't know. I'm just riffing here. Riffin' and Rantin'. Rantin' and Riffin'. (Along with RE-gurgitatin', these make up the three R's of the modern American edumacational system.)
Where was I? Oh yes, The Gilmore Girls. So, as most of you probably DON'T know, we have only two more weeks of real, gen-u-wine Gilmore Girls to go, before the network hacks ruin yet another well-written drama. Being one of only six heterosexual North American homo sapiens with a penis who actually like this TV show (Hi Roger, Dave, Lenny, Bruce, and the other Bruce (None of us talk to Mike these days, ever since he decided that he actually LIKED Rory and Jess together.) (JESS, for Christ's sake!)), I feel uniquely qualified to rant when it is being ruined by corporate suits. OK, the Girls were conceived, and largely written, by a woman named Amy Sherman-Palladino, who is basically the Lorelei character, just with a drug habit (kidding, I'm kidding, but I'm not sure about which part.) Ms. Sherman created the show with a complete arc in mind, even up to knowing what the last sentence of the seven year series would be. She would write about a grandmother, mother and daughter up to the point where the daughter graduates from college. The mother, Lorelei (the fantabulous Lauren Graham) is a talkative, pop-cultural-reference-dropping hottie with a brain, and the daughter, Rory (played by the almost as fabulous, but slightly longer of hair, Alexis Bledel) are one of the best comedic riff teams of all time. Just a couple dialogical examples:
Rory: Do something to make me hate you! Lorelai: Um, go Hitler?
(For the record, Godwin's law don't apply to comedy.)
Another example:
[Lorelai has gotten stuck modeling in a charity event for her mother's Booster Club] Lorelai: Ugh, they totally just snuck that modeling thing in. Rory: Hmm, my mom's a model. Maybe you'll get to date Leonardo DiCaprio now. Lorelai: Plus, now I have to plan the whole stupid thing. Rory: Lorelai Gilmore. Nope, doesn't sound model-y enough. You need something that stands out more. How about Waffle. We could call you Waffle and say you're from Belgium. Lorelai: Okay, Now I'm crabby.
Priceless. OK, we have this show, we have a talented writer, directory, editor, creator (Ms. Sherman) and her nearly as talented co-writer husband Dan . . . and they've been working their butts off for 6 years creating this show for the WB. The WB, the network that uncharacteristically is airing this quality show, is about to be rolled into a single combined network with UPN to form something called the CW network. (The Conventional Wisdom network? The Crappy Writing network? The Creative Wasteland? I honestly have no clue what it stands for, but it can't be good.) The CW needs programming. Between UPN and the WB, they have maybe three shows that don't suck.) In a long interview with TV Guide, Ms Sherman has explained her side of why she and her husband have been kicked off the show. It's a heartbreaking interview for fans of this show and of good writing on television. She sounds exactly like Lorelei . . . just with a lot more swearing. The bottom line, they Aaron Sorkin'd them . . . . well, without the cocaine bust. They took the creator/writers, and kicked 'em off the show!! The BASTARDS. The following lines from the interview annoy the hell out of me:
Ausiello: What happens to your seven-year plan now? What happens to the last two lines of the show that only you know? Amy: Well, I think that you have to look for another two lines now.[Crickets]
Ausiello: So, there's no hope that your story... Amy: It's not my story anymore, honey.
So I was taking a shower this morning, trying to figure out how to give the entire management of Warner Brothers the ultimate giant wedgie, when I realized something else. Razors have gone all to hell lately. Here, in yet another thing, I'm old school. I like the old non-electrical <scritch> <scritch> razors. You know the ones, buy the razor cheap, and they sell you replacement blades for four HUNDRED and thirty seven dollars . . . each. But that's how I shave.
What the hell is up with the multiplying razor blades on these things??
It used to be you had one blade. That lasted for many years. Gillette did it. Schick did it. They all had one blade. Then somebody started the arms race of razor blades. Two would be better. And it was. Two blades WERE better than one. Smoother, better shave. Fewer nicks. It was nice. But, see, they had momentum. If TWO were good, then THREE would be better! Then four! Heck, now I think they're up to 17 or something. The problem is, now with 17 blades on your razor, you can't get the base anywhere near your face. It's being held away from your face by a platform of razor blades. The pendulum has swung so far that I now get a worse shave from my 17 blade Sensor Ultra Mega Nuclear Fusion razor blade than I used to with my old one blade Bic disposable. (OK, not really, but it SEEMS like it some times.) I'm sure the pendulum will swing back the other way. There's always a pendulum in these things. (Hell, this whole community is counting their entire hopes, dreams and lives on the fact that the country will swing back toward rationality, responsibility, and good government. It remains to be seen whether we're on a pendulum or a Slip'n'Slide.) So, anyway, the razor technology will come back to rationality. It'll shift back to three blades, then two. I just hope we don't do what we always do, and I find myself in five years, shaving with a razor that has zero blades, wondering why the hell I'm growing a beard when I'm shaving every day. That would be just so totally like us. The magic number: TWO. Two blades will do it. Now settle people.
Hmmm . . . well I was going to rant about three things. . . What to do, what to do?
Oh, I know . . . WHO the HELL cares about the god-damned Duke Lacrosse team??? Bread and Circuses, people. Natalie Aruba, American Idol, Lacrosse, the entire state of Texas, and the little 38 color graph in the bottom left corner on the front page of USA Today . . . Hell, ALL of USA Today . . . It's all just bread and circuses (Except the Gilmore Girls, of course . . . at least for two more episodes) . Bread and Circuses . . . They just forgot to give us the bread.