Vivaldi had four seasons, can't LA have two?

There is a rigidness that I don't like about television. The strict seasonal aspect, with pilots at a certain time each year, then "mid season replacements", then nothing in the summer. It's gotten a little bit better in recent years, the whole "mid season replacement" idea is actually pretty new, and the major networks have taken to trying out new shows in the summer sometimes. The cable networks, of course, don't really subscribe to the "season" that the broadcast networks do and in the past 3-5 years the cable networks have been busy filling their schedules with original programming. It's getting better, and now the president of NBC has vowed to abolish the traditional pilot development season, but there still exists this weird sense that television is somehow bound and beholden to the season.

The recent writers strike is, in part to thank for the NBC decision to eliminate pilot season, but it also has served to highlight the bizarre and seemingly random television season. Production has restarted on most shows in the last couple weeks, but many are altering story lines, and working at a frantic pace, and still planning to only put out a fraction of the number of episodes they would have had it not been for the strike. It seems to me that while the strike made any orders for certain numbers of episodes void it would be in the best interest of the companies that produce these shows, and the networks that air them, to put on a full "season" even if it meant airing new episodes well into the summer (which is normally a barren wasteland of re-runs and the occasional reality show).

I read today on Huffington Post that the planned storyline for Josh Jackson on Grey's Anatomy had to be scrapped due to the strike. My love of Josh Jackson and the characters he plays is well documented so it should come as no suprise that I was really looking forward to seeing what the Grey's writers had in store for him. Now I'll never know. The Office has scrapped what was supposedly a hilarious Christmas Episode because of the strike. Part of that is that they, like all shows, are trying to condense their season to finish at least close to the same time they would have had there not been a strike and a Christmas episode would logically be easy to cut since it would now be airing in April instead of December. Perhaps some of their actors also have other gigs lined up for the summer hiatus already, but I think the majority of the reason these shows are trying to condense is that they don't know how many episodes the networks would be willing to take.

All the highest paid members of the casts and crews of these shows (i.e. the stars, and show-running writers) who likely had enough in the bank to hold them through the strike feel terribly for their lesser paid colleagues, especially the non-union crew members or those who belong to other unions that weren't on strike (like teamsters). Many people were put out of work and had no union strike fund to help them through three months of unemployment. So, if the networks said they'd like these shows to complete their full 22 (or however many) episode seasons, I suspect that everyone involved (be it writers, actors, crew members, etc) would jump at the chance to do that (barring other things they're already committed to). Sure it might leave them with a cliffhanger in mid-July which people will only have to wait two months (instead of three) to find out the conclusion of, but I can't imagine that would matter to many people.

I can't imagine why the networks wouldn't just put these shows on the air well into June or July in order to finish out the story arcs they had in the works. Viewers will be happier with completed story lines. I suppose there are nuances regarding the advertising (which was largely paid for "up front") and possibly summer schedules (of crappy reality tv) that the networks may already be committed to, but it seems to me like the networks are hanging on to a broken system out of, I can only assume, pure nostalgia.

It seems like advertisers would be happier (and therefore pay more money for air time) if there was new original programming on year round, with no breaks (people don't stop buying in the summertime). If advertisers were happier, and paying more money for air time, that would make the network execs happy as well. If they had to fill twice as much time with original programming that would also make producers, actors, writers, agents, etc. (everyone else who makes their living off of television) happy as well. They could still have a full season be 22-24 episodes giving the creative workers several months off to work on film projects (or take vacations). Just run one show in a given time-slot from September thru February and a different one from March thru August.

Television fans would also be happy because there would be more content for them to choose from. It also might mean that shows with rabid fan bases that end up getting cut, might be given a longer chance to gain an audience because the networks would have a lot more time to fill and might not be so willing to cut great shows just because they were under performing right out of the gate.

We've all heard the Seinfeld story. It originally aired in the summer (premiered July 5, 1989) because the network didn't have a lot of confidence in it. It didn't get huge ratings at first and was shelved. NBC brought it back in 1991 as a mid-season replacement and it went on to become the highest rated sit-com in history. Both of Seinfeld's chances came at times that were non-traditional. Obviously the network executives had taken a personal liking to it, enough that they were willing to give it a second chance, but not enough to risk their television "season" on it. Aren't we all glad they gave it those chances? Even if they were in the summer and then the "mid-season"? Should I get into a list of wildly popular shows that premiered at mid-season because the networks didn't trust them to launch the season with (Grey's Anatomy, for example). Or I could list some great shows that didn't make it but might have if they'd been given a chance to build an audience rather than being cancelled after half a season or less (like Firefly and Kitchen Confidential).

I know it's sometimes hard to tell in LA but there really is more than one season. According to Vivaldi there are four, but I'll settle for two.

Perhaps Queen said it best

Lately I've had a tendency to fixate on things. I'll hear something, or read something and it will suddenly dominate my thoughts. Last night, just after I'd finally purged myself of my fixation on disengaged youth, a friend of mine sent me a short story he'd written. Now, he's a remarkably talented writer so it's not uncommon that he'll write things that strike a chord with me, but this story did more than that.

It did strike a chord. I have a deeply held belief that we learn the most important things about love and relationships from our parents, primarily by the example they set for us, but ideally they tell us important things about love and relationships as well. The parents in the story are described as best friends in addition to husband and wife and they impart the message to their kid that it's imperative to be best friends. My own parents were divorced, and I now realize that their friendliness toward each other was a facade but they seemed like good friends. From them I too learned of the importance of friendship. That's not why the story has me so fixated though.

I am by no means a relationship expert (though people sometimes treat me like one) and I've never been married, but in my life I've had one serious relationship and the hardest part of the break up was losing my best friend. He's still a friend, but not my best friend anymore.

By all accounts I took that break up remarkably well. He's the only one who really saw me break down about it (because he was there when it happened and because he's the only one that I really let my gaurd down with anyway), but by the next day I was fully on the it's-for-the-best bandwagon and it wasn't just a facade. I really believe that it was for the best. I think he's happy (happier than he was or could have been with me) and I think I'm happy (happier than I was with him). Not that we were unhappy together, but it's relative.

If you asked me I would tell you I'm honestly and truly over it and have been since very soon after it happened. There's one thing though that still hurts and that's the fact that I lost my best friend.

I met him when I was 18 years old and fell in love right away. Not like love at first sight. Lets be honest, when you see someone and immediately think you're in love that's usually more lust than anything else. The first time I saw him I didn't think I was in love, I thought he was going to be a very important part of my life, that I had to get to know him, and that I would always have him in my life somehow. It took three meetings (the first two of which resulted from small-worldy coincidences because I was too shy to actually talk to him in the class we had together) before he started to actually remember me, and about eight months for him to decide he wanted to be with me. During those eight months we became best friends. People who didn't know any better often thought we were already a couple because we were always together and very affectionate (he always had his arm around me, or we'd be holding hands, sometimes we slept together in the literal sense, etc). He's the one that took me out on Valentine's Day, and my 19th birthday. We used to say that we shared a brain.

When we finally broke up I was 26. He'd been my best friend for 8 years and I was beside myself about losing that. It took me about a day to reconcile myself to losing my boyfriend, but it was probably a year later by the time I got over the impulse to immediately e-mail him whenever I had news to share. It's been about three and a half years since we broke up and now we probably e-mail each other once every couple of months, but occasionally I still see something or hear something and have the impulse to call him or e-mail him because he's the only person that would get it in the same way I do.

I've talked a few times about dating and how I hate it and how the guys that like me are rarely the guys I like and even when they are there always seems to be something missing. I'm not the type to compare new guys to my old boyfriend. If I did though, they wouldn't be falling short on looks, or intelligence, or sense of humor, or kindness, but it's hard to compete with best friends. I mean, my other best friends could but they're all women and I'm not attracted to women (even attractive women).

Why should I care?

I read an article yesterday in the New York Times and I can't stop thinking about it. The head line was "News Isn't Wasted On the Young" and the gist of it was that the presidential candidates and the news outlets are trying to reach a younger audience and succeeding. Young people are interested in politics (and news in general) more now than they have been in decades, but that is not because today's youth are more interested in the news or more engaged, it's because an effort is being made to reach them.

I've been thinking about it for a day and a half because something about it rubbed me the wrong way. I finally realize that it strikes me as wrong that the news media should have to cater to young people, to make the news more appealing to young people. The article refers to the 18-29 demographic as "supposedly disengaged" and goes on the say "maybe the news gave up on them not the other way around". The last part of that statement acknowledges that young people weren't always disengaged and puts the blame on the shoulders of the people reporting the news.

I just don't think that's an accurate reflection. The news and the way it's reported didn't change until recently (in an effort to court, or rather hold on to, the younger demographic). The reason kids are interested in politics and the news now is that there are issues that they feel concern them. There's a war on and guess who fights when it comes time to go to war. That's right, people between the ages of 18 and 29. So, the people at war and all their high school and college buddies back home are concerned, they are paying attention and they are voting. That makes sense, and I suspect if you look at the statistics you'll find that young people suddenly became more interested in politics and news every time their countries went to war.

What bothers me is that it takes a war to get young people interested in politics. I know it's human nature to care more when you feel like something affects you, but what I don't understand is that young people think the issues that politicians discuss all the time (health care, education, social security, civil liberties, etc) don't affect them. The people who are receiving social security benefits right now don't need to care what happens to the social security program in the future, their benefits are ensured. It's people between the ages of 18 and 29 who should care what happens with social security because while it may not affect them right now, they are the ones that will be affected, when they retire, by the changes made to social security today.

The article says of this demographic, "they don't read newspapers, they don't watch news on television, they don't care about politics", but that "a long dormant civic reflex in young people is roaring to life". It concludes with a question, "can old media take this current round of speed-dating and convert it into something that lasts". Putting the onus on the media to appeal to young people, but I think the responsibility should be with parents, and educators, to instill that "civic reflex" and to teach kids that these issues that the politicians are talking about may seem like they don't affect them but they do, or the will. It shouldn't be too hard, it's a similar refrain to a standard lesson parents and teachers are always trying to teach kids: the choices you make today will have an affect, possibly for years to come, that may not be immediately apparent.

I feel obligated to mention that I am still part of this much discussed demographic, at the tail end, and that I've been interested in politics since well before I could vote. I remember debating the merits of Dukakis versus Bush Sr. in 1988 (when I was 10). What made me interested in politics at such a young age? Someone taught me that it was important to pay attention to the world around me and to care about things even if, on the surface, they don't seem to affect me because they might and even if they don't they affect someone and I should care about that too.

The world is my oyster...or actually my Valentine.

Yesterday was Valentine's Day. Of course, I am a big fan of Valentine's Day despite the fact that this makes four in a row that I've been single. As someone who values love, of all kinds, I appreciate a day specifically designed for celebrating it. Even if Valentine's Day is often viewed as a celebration of only romantic love, I chose not to see it that way and celebrate all kinds of love.

However, in honor of Valentine's Day, I'm going to explore romantic love a little. Actually not just romantic love, but that kind of love that seems to be all the other kinds combined. Sometimes you meet someone and you have a definite romantic feeling for them but it doesn't seem to be enough because you want it all. Okay, I want it all. I want someone that I can connect with on an emotional level, but also on an intellectual level, on a physical level, on all levels.

It's elusive, and it usually comes in stages. Sometimes the physical first, sometimes the emotional first, sometimes something else first. For me it's often the intellectual first. I'm a sucker for smart and funny guys. They say something that strikes a chord with me, they make a joke, they know about and like the same things that I like. Then the physical. My heart starts racing when I see them, and it gets to the point that I start shaking like a leaf just sitting next to them not out of nerves so much as...I don't know...excitement. Then it's the emotional, I realize in a flash, that they make me feel something.

The problem with finding someone that you feel all of those things for is that relationships are fragile and even when someone does feel the same things for you it doesn't always make a lasting relationship, or they may not ever feel the same thing for you. I've talked before about having faith that if you confess your feelings to them that either you'll be one of the couples that makes it or that at least you won't lose the friendship if the relationship fails or the person doesn't feel the same for you, but what about after that. Your relationship has failed but you're still friends, or you confessed your feelings and were rejected but you're still friends.

I have trouble after the fall. Knowing what it's like to feel all those things for one person I'm just not willing to settle for anything less. I meet my fair share of guys that I like who like me and maybe I even feeling something for them, there's something there, but I just can't go for it because it's not enough something. It's not that I'm pining because frankly after my part has played out, I've made my confession and been rejected, or I've put everything I have into a relationship and it's failed, as long as I haven't lost that person from my life, if I can maintain the friendship, I'm happy with that. I'm just not okay with settling.

If it had only happen once, where I'd met someone that I fell for on every level, then my faith might be shaky enough for me to settle. I might think I'd had my one chance and had failed, or lost, and that it would never happen again. The thing is, it's happened to me more than once. So, I have to assume that it could happen again, and if it's not a once in a lifetime feeling then I have to keep looking for it and, being a person of faith, I have to believe that I'll find it again.

In the meantime I have lots of people I love in lots of different ways and I choose to celebrate all of those kinds of love on Valentine's Day.

Electability, Electability, Electability

I have some issues with this post on the Slog (the Stranger's daily blog). While I thought portions of this argument were well and passionately stated I don't think that they are especially well thought out.

My first problem is that when you talk about and think about politics as a fight and the desire to win that fight you're really talking about, and should be thinking about two different issues, two different fights. There's the fight to win elections and then there is the fight to get things done (to pass legislation). When Mr. Nelson says, "shouldn't we want a fight", he's talking about the election exclusively and maybe it's at least partially true with regard to an election but he's only partially right in that case and completely wrong in the case of the fight that starts when the election is over.

In an election, who cares how much republicans hate Clinton...well except that republicans hating her would likely bring more of them out to the polls which, yes, would make her less electable and I really can't comprehend why he doesn't think electability is legitimate concern. What does it matter how well a candidate can "carry the news about democratic values" if they can't get elected. If they can't get elected that's a loss not just for that candidate, but also for those values. So, yes we should be concerned about which candidate is more electable, though I agree that we shouldn't use polling data as the exclusive indicator of it nor should we use how much republicans appear to hate one candidate or the other as the exclusive indicator.

Putting aside the issue of Clinton being unelectable because republicans hate her (and it's not just republicans by the way, its many swing voters as well, in fact I've even been known to say that I might seriously consider voting for McCain if Clinton ends up winning the nomination and I'm solidly a democrat), she would also be ineffective as President because she's polarizing. She's alienated a lot of people who's support she would need to get things accomplished (again, not just republicans, David Brooks wrote an interesting op-ed piece about how badly she's alienated Jim Cooper, a Democratic congressman). Electability is the first fight, effectiveness is the second and encouraging the other side to fight your agenda is the last thing you want if you want to get anything done. You most certainly don't want someone in the top office of the country who's going to inspire people to try to block his or her legislation just because they don't like him/her.
I know that Sean Nelson wasn't actually advocating for Clinton in his Slog post, in fact he's doing somewhat the opposite, but to advocate ignoring electability is irresponsible (unless you wouldn't mind another republican administration).

My second qualm is this,

"Let’s just say hypothetically: if there were a democratic candidate with an authentically liberal agenda, who spoke to us in language that stirred our souls (not just comparatively), and who was honest the way even forthright-seeming politicians simply can’t be, would it not be worth getting behind him or her not only if but because it made the other side—which, as you rightly say, really is the other side because they want truly different things—upset"

My problem with it is that I don't think anyone, including Mr. Nelson, would vote for this hypothetical candidate because a candidate with an "authentically liberal agenda", if they are "honest the way even forthright-seeming politicians simply can't be" would have to admit publicly that they weren't going to be able to get that authentically liberal agenda put into practice no matter how hard they fought for it and that, therefore, they would have to compromise once elected. The reason politicians can't just be honest is that no one would vote for them if they said, "I'd like to do all these things, but it depends on the House and the Senate and I have little to no control over those things so it might not happen and when push comes to shove, if I have to compromise some of these things to get others done I'm going to do that because the alternative is getting nothing at all done simply because I stuck to my ideals too closely"

At the caucus I attended on Saturday a woman argued passionately for Clinton because she'd attended both rallies and Clinton laid out a timeline for when she was going to accomplish each of her campaign promises where as Obama simply said he would like to accomplish certain things. I think the certainty Clinton offered, while it may be comforting to some, is wildly dishonest. She can't possibly know that she will be able to accomplish those things at all much less within a certain time period. She can say she wants to, and that she'll fight for the things that matter to her (and to us), but she can't say that within 30 days, or 6 months, or a year, she'll have passed any legislation because that's not up to her exclusively and (as previously noted) she may be less able to deliver on those promises because there are more people in Congress and the Senate who might vote against her legislation just because they don't like her (or because she alienated them when she was First Lady). I get the impression that Clinton thinks she, through sheer force of will, can get whatever she wants accomplished, but that's unrealistic. She needs other people to work with her, but working across party lines to get things done is, if anything, a peripheral part of her rhetoric. Where as it is a, if not the, central component of Obama's rhetoric. He talks about getting both sides together to get things done, there's still a possibility that he won't be able to do that but at least he wants to try.

My third problem is that Nelson talks about race as a factor that makes Obama less electable without acknowledging that sex is a factor, in the same way, that makes Clinton less electable as well. Nicholas Kristof, in his editorial about electability, quotes Shirley Chisholm as saying that she's encountered more discrimination for being a woman than for being black and goes on to say that both polling data and psychological research support the fact that sexism is more prevalent than racism in America. Not that racism isn't also prevalent, but that sexism is more so.

If you're having a discussion about electability, the current polling data says Clinton can't beat McCain but Obama can, this country's sexism outpaces its racism, and Clinton's polarizing effect on both the general population and her fellow elected officials, all point to her being less electable than Obama and, unlike Mr. Nelson, I believe that it's a very important factor to consider, if not the most important one. We come to the same conclusion, he supports Obama and so do I, but I have to disagree when he says that electability isn't a stirring reason to back a candidate. It's not the only reason to back Obama, not nearly, but it is definitely a stirring one.

Like I said, the argument is well stated, but while it contains some logical components it is essentially an emotional argument based on a idealized political landscape that is far from reality. Would it be nice if there were political candidates who's ideology lined up precisely with your own? yes. Would it be just great if you could vote for them in a primary (or caucus) based solely on that ideological agreement without any regard to whether or not they could carry the general election? yes. Would it be wonderful if idealism were all it took to get things done once elected? yes. None of those things are true though. You have to think about which candidates are closest to your ideals, and of those candidates which one(s) stand a good chance of getting elected and of those which one(s) would be able to put more of those ideals into practice. In a primary (or caucus) it really comes down to the last two (electability and potential effectiveness) because the candidate's ideologies are very similar, where they primarily differ is in their ideas about how to go about achieving their ideological goals.

That bowl is just super

I didn't watch the Superbowl. I know it's un-American, and I should count myself lucky that McCarthy's gone, but I don't really like football or even commercials really so what's the point. I did watch it once, when the Seahawks were playing.

The thing is, I think I could see myself liking football, if I understood it better. In fact I loved football when I was in middle school and through my sophomore year in high school even though I didn't understand it at all. I think I could have continued loving it into college if the college I first went to had a football team or if, when I went back to college (at a school that did have a football team) I hadn't been working all the time.

I think for me football was always about community. I lived in a really small town as a kid, so small that it didn't even have its own middle school and high school. We went to the next town over for middle school and it was combined with the high school. Football was a big deal there, as it often is in very small towns, and our high school had a pretty good team. So, when I was in 7th and 8th grades I went to the football games almost every week, or at least when they were home games. Everyone went to them and I don't just mean everyone at school, but everyone in town, in two towns. I didn't understand it at all, but I loved it anyway.

Now that I'm an alumni from a college with a pretty good football team maybe I should get back into football again. I could go and tailgate, and enjoy being a part of the alumni community. Maybe I could even learn a little bit about the game and enjoy it on its own merits. Then I could watch the Superbowl and enjoy it and not have to worry about the ghost of Joe McCarthy coming for me in my sleep. Or at least I could participate in the national conversation the day after.

Sex and Logic?

I logged on to myspace the other day for the first time in a while and I actually took the bait on the whole myspace-multi-media-experience thing. I clicked on the featured books link because Prude was the featured book and I've been hearing about it so I thought it might be interesting to see what myspace had to say.

The consensus that I've heard and that myspace has endorsed about the book is that it's got a good message (i.e. girls are having sex too young and they aren't prepared for and don't understand the emotional issues involved or the potential consequences and that the problem is likely a result of the focus American culture puts on sex and being sexy), but the message gets lost in political rhetoric (i.e. the author of this book would like no one but married couples to have sex and thinks we should consider the possibility of legislating it because that may be the only way to change our national narrative to something slightly less sex obsessed).

I have to admit I haven't read the book, I've only read about the book. I'm not really planning to read the book either, and I'm not actually planning on writing a lot about the book itself, more about it's premise.

The thing is that I agree with the book's tag line ("How the Sex-Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America, Too!)") and since I can't speak to the rest of the book I'm going to talk about that. Maybe I don't agree with the last bit. I mean there are cultures out there far more sex obsessed than America's, and I'm not sure it's so damaging to the nation or the national identity, but I agree it's damaging to girls. I might also argue that it's damaging to boys too though this book, I suspect, isn't so concerned about the boys and may even go so far as to claim (or at least imply) that it's natural for boys to be obsessed with sex and to seek it out even at very young ages placing the responsibility for stopping it on the girls. It's a fairly commonly held belief that boys are supposed to be constantly trying to get in a girls pants but the girls don't have to let them.

Leaving that aside, I agree that girls are damaged by having sex too young and even sort of agree that the sex obsessed culture is partly to blame. Of course the sex obsessed culture is only really responsible for about half the girls that have sex too young. The other half have sex too young because of the bizarre need girls have to compete with each other, but that's another story (and one I've already dealt with). So for now let me just deal with the first half.

Yes, the culture is sex obsessed. Case in point, a couple nights ago I was watching the Colbert Report and he had on Tim Harford, author of The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World. Somehow the interview devolved into a discussion about unprotected sex. The logic man's response to Colbert's claim that unprotected sex is irrational was that, yes, it is, but that as it's become more and more risky to have unprotected sex people do the rational thing and turn more and more to oral sex. Which is so much better right? Is it, really? Maybe the physical consequences are lower with oral sex though that's debatable (new research is pointing towards HPV, which is spread just as easily through oral sex, as a leading cause of mouth and throat cancers, outpacing even tobacco). So, maybe the physical consequences are lower but the emotional ones are just as harsh (if not more so). If I had a young daughter, lets say 12 years old, would I, or should I, be glad to find out that she'd just blown half of the guys in her 7th grade class because at least that way she can't get pregnant and her risk of catching something is lower (though certainly not non-existent)?

Surely the consequences that ensue in the short term for girls when they have sex too young (both physical and emotional) are bad, but I'm more concerned about the long term consequences and the negative feedback loop that's created. Kids that have sex too young grow up and become adults who are desensitized to sex or view it purely as entertainment or as a weapon which just leads to an even more sex obsessed culture and so on and so on. How do you convince people that the idea that it's "just" sex is harmful? Somehow I doubt this book is going to convince many people who didn't already agree so what can I say that would change people's minds? I can't advocate legislating it, passing a law that only married people can have sex. First of all because I think outlawing sex would be as ridiculous and ineffective as outlawing marijuana use has been, but more importantly because I don't think it would be right to say only married people can have sex unless people were legally allowed to marry anyone they wanted and that's not the case yet.

I'd say that the answer lies with parents but as Keanu Reeves (as Tod) said in Parenthood, "you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell you need a license to catch a fish! But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father", and the same holds true for mothers. Even if you have great parents who teach you all the right things about sex there's no guarantee. Circumstances intervene sometimes. What I said about girls being competitive, sometimes even the strongest, most well adjusted girls fall prey to that trap. Not to mention which people, especially kids, will almost never take anyone's word for something when they could find out for themselves.

I don't think I have any answers to this one. I don't think Carol Platt Liebau does either. All you can do is, if you have kids, teach them that sex is more than just physical and then hope. Hope that they listen and hope that in this one case they can learn from the mistakes of their predecessors rather than having to make their own.