Girls Season 3

I have been reviewing Girls every year and now I am onto Season 3. Yes I know they are showing Season 4 now but I'm too cheap to get HBO and have to rely on Netflix (the DVD version). Anyway, I finally saw Season 3.

In this season the "girls" seem to be moving on from adolescence to adulthood. They are starting to grow up. Adam, especially, is becoming a more mature person (although "I must concentrate on being an actor" phase is a little much). Hannah had a real job working for GQ, Shoshanna is aging from a cute college kid to an annoying young adult, Marnie is becoming the musical one (I see her with a real career in sitcoms after her Peter Pan debut). Jessa is the oldest but also acts the most immature. Still she is the pretty one and the edgy one, the one who is always the center of interest in any scene she is in. One new character who is weird but loveable is Caroline, Adam's sister. Sorry Lena but she is directly out of a Woody Allen Movie. 

I guess not wanting to imitate Sex in the City, the summer place scene took place on the North Shore of Long Island rather than the Hampton's. One feature of that episode is we got to see Hannah in a bathing suit.

Editor's note: I wonder if this is product placement for a cellulite removal system. 

Young girl's living in New York is one of the standard genres of tv and the movies. Sort of like westerns. In the sixties there was That Girl and Breakfast at Tiffany's. In the 90's and early 00's there was Sex and the City. In the teens there is Girls and Broad City (I don't count Too Broke Girls).  To be young, hip, female and living in the city. Us older men have to watch tv to discover what life is like for this trope.

Girls season 2

Ray and Adam and dog

Thanks to Netflix, I have now season 2 of Girls. The seasons are only ten shows long, but that's modern TV I suppose. Some of you may remember when I reviewed Season 1. Season 2 is actually quite good. In an unexpected shift, the men, at least some of them, seem to have matured into real characters, while the women have shown themselves to be needy and problematic. I would definitely say this was the season of the men.

Ever since watching last season my self esteem has suffered. I have always defined life through television situation comedies and most of them lately seem to show men as being either weak or as assholes.  Today, according to Girls, it's okay to be a man again. I feel so much better about myself now.

Traditionally, in old movies, the solution to the problem of what do single girls do when they get to New York has always been solved by marriage to well heeled men. Ginger Rogers lived in a crappy room for most of the movie but married Prince Charming in the end. Such conclusions were played with in Season 2. All of the leads in one way or another got involved with older, richer men and seemed happy for a while but things fell through in the end. In classic movieland they would have married and lived happily ever after. It would be funny if in the series finale, Girls ends with marriage to men with good careers, suburbs, and babies.

Girls reaches its finale if not its climax

I can finally say I have seen all six seasons of the most influential television program of the 21st century, Girls. Here is a flashback to earlier reviews.  Now that we have reached the end the girls are no longer girls but women, if women of a sort. Here are some comments about how each has grown and predictions for the characters and the actors who played them:

Hannah: She got published, got a writing gig, got pregnant, and apparently got a full time professorial job at a posh college. She is a woman now. She is even past Adam, getting wise when he admitted she would have to pay the bills if he was to be the step-dad. Lena Dunham is not pretty enough to get major acting roles, rather she will write some hit screen plays and be the Nora Ephron of her generation.

Marnie was the girl next door cute one. She could sing but her looks have deteriorated so she is not as cute as she was. Allison Williams is destined to be a second rate star, perhaps perching on a CBS three camera sit-com in the future.

Shoshanna is another character who grew up. Joining the yuppie set, she has a new husband and better looking and richer friends now.

I don't know Zosia Mamet's future. Perhaps she will pop up occasionally on independent films. One thing she needs to do is get rid of the white hair and black eyebrows.

For me Jessa is the standout of the series. Sort of like a millennial Anita Pallenberg, she is the former classmate you hear about at parties. She joined a commune. She is in rehab. She is backpacking in Indonesia. She met a millionaire and is living on a yacht in Burma. Then one night she turns up at a party and you find out she is living with her mother.

I see a decent film career for Jemimah Kirke.

Adam Driver is the hot hipster who always gets layed at parties. Perhaps he will settle down with Jenna but the two of them will struggle, especially after she has twins.

Adam already has a decent film career.

I always thought the guitar player Desi had more talent than his partner Marne. Who knows, Girls tends to have weak male characters. At least Ray got the coffee shop and Elijah got a Broadway role.

So what do I think of Girls

Ever since it went on the air, the (hipster) media has been awash with stories about Girls. Being too cheap to get HBO I have become more and more curious about the show that has supposedly changed modern television. Recently I noticed it was on Netflix, so I got to view the first season of the show.

Girls is loosely based on Sex in the City, except the women are younger and don't have their careers together like they did on SITC. The show is of interest to baby boomers, methinks, who have fond memories of their early twenties (living at home and selling hot dogs at Two Guys?) Well, at least we are curious to see how things have changed. In some ways things are similar (nobody had any money in the late 70's and life after college sucked) except there seems to be more sex going on nowadays.

Girls shows what it is like for women who don't have to live at home and live in an exciting if grungy place. The show centers around the trials and tribulations of Hannah. The main revolutionary thing I can see about the show is that it has a female star who isn't pretty. Ugly Betty wasn't pretty, either, but that's another story.

Because she isn't pretty, Hannah appears to be destined to have a crappy boyfriend (Adam) and go through a series of crappy jobs (although the sexual harassment job had its points). If she was pretty she could get a job as a go go dancer or a more influential boyfriend could get her a job as a gaffer.

Not wanting to be too revolutionary, the show has three comely co-stars. The other women are interesting, intelligent, but tend to have drippy boyfriends. I guess shows that are aimed at women audiences, (Parenthood comes to mind) tend to have strong women and pathetic male leads. Maybe this is how the world really is or maybe it is a female fantasy to live where all the women are strong and the men are good looking.

It looks like Season 2 is promising. Hope to see it soon on Netflix.

the kids on Better Things

I love Better Things. I watch it religiously when it's on and often watch the instant rerun that follows it to catch the nuances that I may have missed the first time around. I have often said that most of my experiences of family life comes from watching television situation comedies. In turn, most of what I know about raising daughters comes from watching Better Things.

Lately there has been some negative buzz about the show. It revolves around the behavior of the older girls. Do all American teenagers act like Max and Frankie? Granted, most middle class American girls are privileged, demanding, and view their parents as walking credit cards.  Such is life. Still, I predict that, although annoying as youth, they will succeed in the game of life.
My predictions for the girls:

Max is pretty and knows how to manipulate people to get money. She will do fine in life, she'll end up getting occasional roles and will  couch surf from upscale Hollywood apartments to mansions in the Valley with various male directors and producers.

Frankie will end up becoming a doctor. I suspect she is good at math. She has the personality of someone who is good at math. She will get a good job in a hospital but will not be known for her bedside manner.

Duke will get married and live in the suburbs of LA. She will be the one to cajole her sisters into visiting Mom for Mother's Day. She will be the only one of the girls to visit Grandma in the nursing home. When Grandma dies the two older sisters will turn up, demanding their share.

Girls weekends

As I have aged and have inevitably found myself with other people in the over 50 set, I have noticed a disturbing phenomenon, that of  "girls weekends". In this scenario, while the men are patching up the grout in the bathroom or trying out their  deck wash, the women are having "girls weekends". On these excursions the women get together and go to casinos, bars, garden shows, museums and antique shops while the men are left at home.

Yes men may go to the occasional car show or convention, but it seems that women are having more fun than we are. Why aren't men invited to "girls weekends"?   Is it because men of a certain age are bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons? 

Perhaps, alas,  it is because men of a certain age have become bossy, lazy, stay at home curmudgeons, Yes it is true that some of us haven't aged well. Well, off to Lowes. I need to buy some deck wash. 

Miss America

Yes, Sunday night, Miss America is back in dear old Atlantic City. I have many memories of watching this show on the old Philco as a kid. The different competitions were fascinating. We all had our favorites. My mother was always loyal to the girls from the South. "You know, Southern girls are prettier than those Northern girls."  The judges must have agreed with her.

I still remember the commercials where you got to see the contestants putting on Noxzema cold cream as they prepared. And at the end, the whole family would bawl as the lucky girl walked down the aisle with Bert Parr singing that same old song. It was one of the few times I saw my father cry. 

Now the major story is that one of the contestants has a tattoo. I know the younger generation love their tattoos. Mother would not have approved.  

Netflix Internet

Again, I have moved a bit further into the 21st century. I have given up the cozy system of getting red envelopes with a DVD every month and moved to the new world of online Netflix. I seemed to find less and less I wanted in the old system and I was tempted to explore the new Netflix. I wanted to see the Gilmore Girls a year in the life, Chelsey Handler, and lots of other things I've seen reviews for but not experienced. My favorite so far is Love, produced by Judd Apatow of Girls fame. I like Bossgirl too.

I also bought a Chromecast gizmo. This allows me to watch Internet programming on my TV. It took awhile to set up but it seems to be working now. Youtube also benefits from this new gizmo. So far I have seen over half of the Jeeves series this way.

So how are the shows? I guess so far it's a mixed bag. I was disappointed with the Gilmore Girls. Remakes are never as good as the originals. Remember the New Leave it to Beaver and Mayberry RFD?

So I am still sampling the new programming.  Some of the shows are pretty bad, though. Friend from College? Atypical? M'yeh. Clearly a lot of the shows are trying to appeal to that elusive millennial demographic. Still for ten bucks a month it's not bad. And now I feel like a member of the middle class again.

Los Angeles as shown on Netflix

Recently I've been alternating between two Netflix shows, Flaked, set in Venice, and the Girls Guide to Divorce, set in the swankier parts of LA. Both shows have lots of exterior shots of Los Angeles, and serve as a travelogue. 

Girls guide is entertaining and shows how upper crust 30-40 somethings navigate divorce and love while living in gorgeous digs and dressing well. The characters have difficult children and exes and problematic boyfriends. In this show average looking, not so youngish women are shown to be attractive to good looking young men. Perhaps this fantasy is presented to attract women viewers. We also get an inside look at the world of television, media and law for these privileged characters. 

Venice has always had a special place in most baby boomers hearts for its hipness and at the same time being a little rough around the edges. This show, like Tales of the City, shows what happens when aging hipsters confront the high rents as their neighborhoods gentrify. This is a likeable show, and makes you want to spend a week in Venice, just to soak up the ambience. The male female equation is reversed here, with good looking women being attracted to less than remarkable guys. Guess they are looking for a more male oriented demographic. 

Both shows have some hard to believe plot twists. Love the bicycle built for two in Flaked. 

Aunt Agnes opines on Cynthia Nixon

At first  I was happy and grateful that one of Richard Nixon's grandchildren wanted to run for Governor of New York. Brother, that didn't last long. Turns out she is of no relation to the great man at all. Instead she is that lesbian that I never liked on that dumb show about rich girls and their shoes and so called boyfriends, "Let's have sex in New York City".

Well I always thought those girls were more interested in each other than those unlucky men they hooked up with. Turns out they were all lesbians. At least one of them was. Now I hear tell that Cynthia Nixon wants to be governor of New York. Running on free love and gender free bathrooms and money for everybody who doesn't have a job. I'm glad I don't live there. Lordy mama, what is this world coming to.

Ron DeSantis and the battle of trans rights

 

Recently I went to my old job to attend a retirement buffet for my old boss. At some point I had to answer nature's call. I mentioned it and got giggles. I was warned that the bathrooms were all cross gender. I.E., there were no men's rooms or women's rooms. There were only rooms. Upon entering, I noticed that there was no difference in the facility since I worked there. Of course, the sign on the door was different. It said, "all gender restroom." I wonder how women navigate the urinals? 

It is this type of politically correct activism that the governor of Florida wants to save us from. He would not allow such travesties in Florida or the USA. Ron DeSantis has discovered the weakness in political correctness that he can exploit. In the old days he could fight against gay marriage. Unfortunately, gay marriage has entered the mainstream even in red states. Of course, there is women's rights. Again, equality for working women is now generally accepted. Cash poor states are allowing legal marijuana. That issue again waning. interracial marriage? Again, becoming mainstream.                 

The next frontier of liberalism that might scare the behooves out of suburban housewives?  Trans sexualism. He reads about a school in Philadelphia that has a drag queen story hour for kids. Trans gender rights. Here is a topic that is entering the political conversation. And one that people are ambivalent about. Most people never thought about this topic until recently, but Ron has instilled the fear in parents of girls who will have to compete in sports with boys who have sex change operations. There goes that scholarship. 

One of the great arts in politics is teaching the public to fear things that they never thought about before. It should be an interesting two years. 

Closing ceremonies

The closing ceremonies had their moments. The Ray Davies bit, not shown on NBC, was nice. I also like Eric Idle. If he had sang "Always look on the bright side of life" hanging on a cross it would have been great but perhaps controversial. Liked the Spice Girls too. In general, though, it was too long for me. Too many people I didn't know, overproduced, singing songs I didn't know. Like most of the events, NBC should have had it on live and then shown that show they wanted to promote, followed by a "best of presentation" starting at 9.

My summer job

Just reading Amy Poehler's article in the New Yorker on her summer job. Cute. It reminded me of my summer job. I got a job with the Board of Ed. I had the lowly job, that first summer, of scraping gum out of desks. It sucked, but the pay wasn't that bad ($2.50 an hour). It took a political connection to get me the job. 

For years a man we will call Dick lived behind us in Hackensack. He liked to cut through my parent's driveway on the way to O'Neals tavern and he often stopped by and visited with dear old Dad. Years later my father admitted he never cared much for Dick but he put up with him for the sake of my summer job. 

The things my father did for his children. 

7:30 AM was starting time. That was the most painful part of the job I think. I was assigned to the high school, the same place from which I had just graduated. When I arrived, they looked my skinny frame up and down. I would not be helping carry sheet rock for the construction crew. I would not be carrying the boards to repair the seats in the football field. I was assigned to the janitresses (lady custodians), given a putty knife, and told that my job was to scrape gum out of the bottom of desks for all the desks in the school. One of the teachers recognized me and wanted to hijack me. He wanted me to take his car for inspection. He was told where to get off. 

I got along with the janitresses. I didn't fib on them when they snuck into the girls rooms for smokes. I kept to myself and my gum. I scraped a lot of gum out of desks that summer. The last two weeks I got to clean desks, and as a reward, go to help put the liquid finish on them. By Labor Day the desks were ready for a new group of scholars. And I was ready for college. 

In the Senatorial debates, Lonegan talked about how he, unlike Cory Booker, worked when he went to college. I guess I can run for Senate, if that is the requirement. 

I ran a small business

I watched pieces of the the Republican convention. I learned how a woman with a child with Alzheimer's husband started making upholstery. Her family built that business, so they say. If you listen closely you might notice they sold to the Defense Department (government) the Little League (municipal government) Israel (had to be coordinated through the State Department) but they did it on their own. Well they wold have gotten a tax break if they had a handicapped child. Anyway, I began to think that  I have never run a small business. Then I remembered Tasty Maid.

My one experience of operating a small business occurred when an older guy on my block came up to me with an idea. "Look", he said, "the kids around here love Lik-m-Maid but they can't buy it on their own."  This was because they, unlike us, were not allowed to go on Essex Street, the commercial boulevard one block over.  "We can buy it at Breslow's and sell it to them at twice the price!"

My contribution to the business plan was twofold. We would put a cute label over the Lik-m-Maid label and call it Tasty Maid. We would also take the names of all the purchasers and put them in a contest. At the end of the month we would have a drawing and pick out a prize. I don't remember what the prize was.

On the fateful day, we put all the names in a jar and pulled out two names. The first was random and the second I cheated because my mother wanted to make sure one of the girls who had bought too much Tasty Maid would at least win a prize.

Here I learned the basic rules of business. Have a product people want. Repackage it to make a profit. Market the product. Keep your landlord happy. I wonder how my story would have gone over at the Republican convention.

Editor's note: The Republican convention had that pseudo patriotism that reminded me of the Art Linkletter show. That's what we all want. The return of Art Linkletter.

Lousy jobs

There is an old country song that goes, "the girls always get prettier at closing time". This can also be said to be true for people who desperately need a job. An article in the Times opinionates on how even having a lousy job is better than no job at all. According to the piece, even a crappy job presents the recent graduate a valuable learning experience.

I graduated into a lousy job market in 1974 with a BA degree in English. I finally landed a job selling hot dogs at Two Guys on Route 4 by concealing my degree. I did learn a lot at that job.

The most useful thing I learned is how to steal money. The secret is not to be greedy and make your pilferings moderate. You wait for the hurried customer who rushes away after giving you exact change. You give him his hot dog but you don't ring it up on the register. Then you discreetly pocket the money. This information is invaluable later on if you find yourself supervising clerks in an environment where money changes hands.

I also worked for temporary agencies. Here some of the jobs were okay and some were pretty awful. The worst jobs are the ones where you show up at the agency (I fondly remember Handy Andy in Hackensack) for the early morning shape-up. Nobody feels more miserable than a hung over 21 year old college graduate sitting in a hard chair waiting to be put on a crew.

Finally I found a job courtesy of family connections through CETA. Family connections are the deux ex machina of modern life.

Mother at breakfast

It may be hard to believe, but I was never the most fun person to be around in the morning. My mother worked until 11PM at the hospital and woke up the next morning to her two grumpy children needing breakfast and to go to school. I would sit there staring at dry cold cereal and it was then that I was treated to Mother's stories of growing up in East Texas during the depression. 

Once she surprised me when she told me, "You know, when I was a little girl I had a friend up the street and she had this old woman living with her family who had been a slave."

"Really, I said where did she sleep?"

"In the kitchen."

Then there were the stories of nursing school. Apparently they had some wild times in nursing school. Once they tried to call Eleanor Roosevelt on the phone. The next day the girls were visited by someone from the Secret Service. 

They drank bottles of Coke in the morning, trying to beef up for a long day at Charity Hospital. Charity Hospital was in Shreveport and didn't have air conditioning in those days. 

Of course making fun of Papa's family also came with the orange juice and frosted flakes. As an eight years old I knew what were the natural color's of all of my aunt's hair. 

So here's to all the mothers out their with their testy charges. Enjoy your presents. 

The return of the Gilmore Girls

Apparently the big news is that it's coming back. One of the great cultural institutions, a television series that sums up the hope and aspirations of  21st century Americans, is returning. Apparently it will surface on Netflix on line.

The guessing games are starting. What will they do about dear old granpaw now that Edward Hermann has hit the bucket? Will Luke's daughter come back? Will Luke and Lorelei be an old married couple by now?

I'm sure Christopher will make an appearance. And the daughter with the cute glasses. Kelly Bishop I'm sure will be featured and just as feisty, and Paris will make an appearance, even though she is in a hit show now.

Lane will be managing her mother's store since the old lady had by-pass surgery. Jess will be recently out of prison and managing the diner while Luke is the cook at the inn and will be living there. Melissa McCarthy will come back for the Thanksgiving show.

The hardest character to place will be Rory. Although the actress can use the work, the character will have gone on to a news job at WGBH in Boston. It would be tragic if she was home, living with Mom after all her fancy schooling. She will visit on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter so we'll get to see her.

I telescoped my prediction. The shows (there will only be four, albeit four long shows) will be based on holidays. Each show will take place around a holiday where people not living in Stars Hollow will be around, visiting family.

There will be a Thanksgiving show, a Christmas show, an Easter show and a Fourth of July show. Luke and Lorelei will be married but living up the street from each other.  Those are my predictions.

MacDonald's coffee

I've been meaning to try the new MacDonald's coffee and so this morning, with money in my pocket, I drove to the closest MacDonald's. It was crowded and there was a line. Some of the regulars were there, the older men that congregate at MacDonald's in the morning and make a social occasion out of the deal.

There was one man who kept hitting himself on the chest and going, "86!". One of the old timers responded with "Is that your golf score or your cholesterol?"Ha ha ha's were heard from the crew.

I often wonder if a shy person like myself will turn into a garrulous old character when I start collecting Social Security. When you are an old guy you can tell everyone at MacDonald's your age and you can pinch teenage girls in the rump. What would be annoying or even illegal for the young becomes "cute" when you are old. It must be fun. Bring on the Lipitor.

Incidentally, the coffee wasn't bad. MacDonald's coffee used to be terrible. Now it tastes like diner coffee. Definitely an improvement.

Hobo Jack

One of the nice things about cable television is that occasionally when there is nothing on the regular channels or you've already seen the show, you can flip channels. Usually you come up with Gossip Girls or a religious show in Spanish but occasionally you come across a real gem. Monday night, for example, I discovered American Pickers, which was featuring an old codger named Hobo Jack. Hobo Jack lives "off the grid" in the woods, surrounded by collectible junk. Signs, old carburetors, 19th century lamps, etc. They are in barns that are hard to get into or scattered around the countryside.

Like many people we know, he is reluctant to part with anything. He always has plans for an item he is "going to use". Of course, we know that he will never rebuild that motorcycle or build a house out of elk antlers but he thinks he will. They do give him good prices for what he is willing to part with. He's not dumb, just a bit countrified.

The world needs more people like Hobo Jack. At least cable tv could use more of them.


Editor's note: I'm waiting for someone to tell me that Hobo Jack is a phony. He lives in a condo in Springfield and is really a retired professor from Cornell. He made a fortune in private equities, and sells stuff on E-Bay under a different name.

Stop hiding your aging neck

It's that time of the year, at least for those of us who are too  cheap for premium channels, when the pickings on tv are pretty slim. It seems every night when I glide across the cable offerings I come upon "Stop hiding your aging neck". This show is starting to interest me.

When I think about problems I have, hiding my aging neck does not seem to be one of them. Perhaps it should be.  Is that why I spend Friday nights alone? Is it my aging neck? Perhaps it is an avant garde program disguised as a bad infomercial. I will have to watch it.

Editor's note: Finally watched "Stop hiding your aging neck". Especially liked the never before aired bondage scenes from the Gilmore Girls.