one million small television miracles

did you know that jetblue has a tiny television in the back of every seat? this is where my miracle takes place.
let me set the stage.

sometimes i get addicted to television.
both times that i lived with Gian we got to the point where we would watch Law and Order SVU three times in a day.
in Richmond i have been addicted to it a third time - even trying out criminal intent to satisfy the craving.*

in january i flew back from utah via new york and stayed with fashion designer Jeffrey. at this point i swear unto you that i had never watched reality television - i theoretically hate reality television. i was coerced into project runway...and i was hooked.

for those of you who don't know, Heidi Klum is the hostess.

whatever, that's not what hooked me. i think i like it because it's like a hyper cartoon of art grad school. the contestants are young, ambitious creators who have visions of "making it" in new york. they are given projects and parameters with limited time to produce. they frantically make a dress or something in a day before throwing it on a model while the teacher-figure, tim gunn, gives words of warning or encouragement. the models do the runway in front of the judges and then the artists are brought out to receive the most brutal critiques they may ever hear...or some praise. and then the reality t.v. thing, cutting someone out of the show blah blah until there are three finalists who will show at olympus fashion week in new york!
i had never heard of olympus fashion week before and still don't care, but somehow i am passionate about which characters get to go there.

so, you get the idea, i'm IN. and i start to watch wednesday nights at 10 on bravo. but then i got to go to L.A. the first week of February. the Wednesday before i left i had a dilemma. Eric and Rachael, knowing my parallel interest in music and shows convinced me that
A. good bands don't come to Richmond and
B. there was an excellent band playing that night at Alley Cats: Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings


it was IT (go listen to them). i felt like i was witness to something rare, something i missed-out on from the sixties, something of James Brown's soul.

So L.A. was hot and fun but i realized that i would also miss the next Project Runway due to my redeye flight back to New York on Wednesday night. I was talking to Broek about this and how i was doing well to keep myself ignorant of what had happened on the last show that i missed to Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Broek then accidentally spilled the beans:

Andre had been cut the week i had missed. i couldn't believe it. i thought Andre was going all the way. usually he is in the cream of the crop, but during this fateful assignment of making a dress out of plants, he had sewn e a mossy doormat dress.



well, Allan got me to Long Beach airport on time and i had an exit row next to two annoying old ladies. they kept bustling too much. but look what was on all at the same time. all my favourites.
1. Law and Order SVU (pictured atop) which, as you know, i will always watch.*
2. The Daily Show. i never plan around John Stewart, but i always stop if i see him on.

3. basketball. i had started watching pro games that month and was gearing up for march madness (i'm a legitimate Pistons fan)

4. Hugh Laurie! not only do i love House, but this was vintage Black Adder. a must see.


so there were all these television miracles. i just had to wisely channel surf. and then a serious dilemma presented itself. although annoying, the ladies had alerted my attention to Project Runway. they were playing both episodes i missed and would have missed. with so many favourites, especially the rare Black Adder find, a normally easy decision was complicated. but i went for the runway.
i never liked Nick. he got cut instead of Santino (to great controversy) but i'm glad it panned-out that way.


so Santino here is going to fashion week with his crazy overdone designs.

and this is golden boy daniel who also made it to fashion week and will probably win the game of Project Runway out of the three remaining.


then this made me laugh. Kansas


carry on my wayward son

there'll be peace when you are done, lay your weary head to rest, don't you cry no more.

i started to think to myself that they looked like pirates

and then they panned to this fatter gentlman. he turned his head toward the camera....EYE PATCH! the clincher! a pirate band!



and that ties us up to the present: i have joined BMG...again, in no small part to the pirates of Kansas. it's funny because i first starting buying music by getting greatest hits tapes through BMG in the early nineties, realizing later that i like to get the actual albums the artists put together, and here i am getting greatest hits again. not to mention funny because who falls for that BMG crap anymore? so michael and the femmes are obvious good things to have, but i took some risks and i am sad to report that the BeeGees let me down. i was hoping for some gems outside of the "stayin' alive" and "tragedy" falsetto classics. but i hated everything else on there. the Raspberries i had never heard of, but it seemed like i should have. my hopes were a little high - expecting the kind of experience of hearing Television, the Modern Lovers, or the New York Dolls for the first time. but they're not bad. and then there's Styx.

i've been into a couple of Styx songs for awhile. The most amazing dance duel/collaboration i ever wtinessed was Gian and Spencer Arntsen creating to "Mr. Roboto". but what really throttled my interest was the power of Freaks and Geeks.
Sam Weir asking Cindy to dance during the slow part of "Come sail away" only to have the rock pick up the pace before he can bear hug her. what a great pirate song. my favourite part is where he addresses his shipmates as "lads".

and then there's Nick singing a passionate "Lady" to Lindsay. that was in my head for two weeks and i didn't even mind.
man i love that show (thank-you Gian, Andrea, and Lisa Williams)

*i have, since the small television miracle, grown weary of Law and Order in all its forms and have got back on the wagon - or whatever metaphor you use to say you quit.