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One Loser, Three Winners

Yeah, Another Blogger139 Comments

As I’ve mentioned any number of times before on these pages, streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video helped keep me sane during the days when the COVID pandemic wreaked havoc with humankind. Even though the worst is behind us, COVID-ly speaking, my addiction to the streamers hasn’t abated in the least. Man, five or more nights each week my wife Sandy and I tune in to one series or another for an hour or two. This practice pleases the hell out of me, an entertainment hound. Basically, I love it!

Sandy and I enjoy nearly all of the series we watch, partly because we do a fair bit of research before hitting a production’s Play button. We’re not about to look at anything that gets less than a strong rating on IMDB, for instance. Nevertheless, losers occasionally pass before our eyes, such as the Netflix series Marcella, a detective show whose first season we dialed up a few months ago. It’s beyond me how Marcella has garnered a 7.4 on IMDB. With way too many plotlines and riddled with ludicrous situations, it started rubbing me the wrong way in a very big way after two or three episodes. At that point I said “F*ck this!” and, with Sandy’s blessing, tossed the series aside. I’m not fabled for making good decisions, but saying bye-bye to Marcella was the indisputable proper move.

There were no complaints from me or Sandy, however, earlier this month as we polished off, consecutively, three series that kept our eyes glued to the TV screen and our emotions running high.

First up was season one of The Night Agent, released this year on Netflix. In this tale, Peter Sutherland (played by Gabriel Basso), a low-level FBI agent, becomes involved up to his neck in a murder investigation that in no time has him questioning whom he can trust. It all starts when Sutherland becomes the unwitting protector of Rose Larkin (portrayed by Luciane Buchanan), who has witnessed the assassinations of her aunt and uncle and is on the run from the killers. Why were the aunt and uncle killed? Who was behind the murders? Will Peter and Rose solve the mystery and not get whacked?  I can be a dumbshit, but by the end of the final episode I had a pretty good understanding of what the hell had been going on, which is not always the case with me and thrillers. Sandy and I hope that the already-promised season two will fly as high as the initial run does.

Next on the bill was The Diplomat, another new Netflix series (its season two also has been OK’d). A drama starring Keri Russell as Kate Wyler, the newly appointed U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, the show deftly, and in a stylized manner whose wryness agreed with me, douses its viewers with political maneuverings and negotiations.

Wyler isn’t sure she’s cut out for her new job. But from the get-go she proves that she’s got what it takes. Adept at getting her points across, she helps to avert an international crisis and likely a war by convincing the U.S. president that Iran, the presumed culprit, was not behind the attack on a British naval vessel that killed dozens of sailors. As a result, the cagey British Prime Minister, for now neutralized, doesn’t retaliate against Iran. But murky waters lie ahead nonetheless. Things are not what they seem to be, Kate learns more than once. And a seemingly innocuous situation leads to a cliffhanger of major proportions, guaranteeing that Sandy and I will return for season two upon its release.

You know, I’m a rock and roller at heart. I would have loved living the life of a rock musician. There was and is one problem, though: I have zero musical talent. So, I’ve lived that life vicariously, and continue to do so even now at my ridiculously advanced age. All of which means that I was smitten with Daisy Jones & The Six, a ten-part Amazon presentation released this year and based on the novel of the same name by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

The (fictional) saga of the titular band that, during the 1970s, rose to lofty heights and then fell apart, Daisy Jones & The Six has all that you might expect: sex, drugs and heaps and heaps of rock and roll. The series chronicles the group’s history and brings the story into sharper focus by including interviews — conducted 20 years after the band’s dissolution — with band members and their inner circle, none of whom had spoken publicly before about why the implosion took place.

Armed with good scripts and actors who do justice to the words written for them, Daisy Jones & The Six has a lot going for it. What’s more, much to my astonishment, the series made me think . . . about love’s complexities, for love in various stages of development and strength lies at the heart of the show. Billy Dunne and Daisy Jones (brought to life by actors Sam Claflin and Riley Keough, respectively), the leaders and vocalists of the band, have a contentious association at first, which mellows with time and then morphs into something far more nuanced and intimidating. I’ll say no more, except to reiterate that love and relationships damn sure can be complicated.

Thanks for reading, boys and girls. Sandy and I would be happy to learn about the shows you recommend. We’re always on the lookout for series to watch. We thank you.

Streaming Services, Where Would I Be Without You?

Yeah, Another Blogger152 Comments

A few months before the COVID pandemic erupted in early 2020, my wife Sandy signed us up for Netflix, a streaming service. She immediately dipped into its vast catalog of offerings, but I didn’t. This was predictable, since, for years, I’d been watching very little TV. However, when the pandemic halted the activities that until then had shaped my life significantly — such as going to concerts, movies, museums and restaurants — I was in need of high doses of entertainment. So, I turned to Netflix and HBO, another streamer, in order to fill the gaping void. (We already were HBO subscribers, because Sandy loves Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.) I’m damn glad that I did. Man, it became a five-to-seven-nights-a-week ritual, which has continued to this day, for Sandy and me to watch an hour or two together of one series or another, or sometimes a movie instead.

And the selections available to us expanded luxuriously about a year ago when we decided to give Jeff Bezos some needed cash by becoming members of Amazon Prime, one component of which is Prime Video, a streamer supreme. Around that time, too, we transitioned from HBO to HBO Max, as Max offers shitloads more series and movies than traditional HBO does. Holy crap, my mind was and remains blown by the nearly infinite mass of scripted, ad-free visual content a few clicks away from me. Though the world in many ways is a nightmare, its streaming realm is f*cking miraculous.

It was a good move on my part, at the start of my infatuation with streamers, to begin compiling a list of the series that Sandy and I jointly watch on television. After all, in a way the list is a partial record of our lives. The list also includes the series that she and I have viewed individually, but there aren’t many of those. Well, I ain’t lying when I say that the list has become really long. The number of productions that we’ve seen in tandem absolutely astounds me: 87, comprising limited series and also multi-season series of which we’ve taken in one or more seasons. Yup, though I don’t spend an inordinate amount of time in front of the tube, I’m a freaking streaming addict nonetheless. I haven’t partaken of scripted fare to this extent since I was a kid ages ago, when I feasted regularly on innumerable network-television series: Bonanza, Have Gun Will Travel, and Peter Gunn, to name but a few.

A good indication of the strength of my addiction (and Sandy’s too, it must be noted) is the fact that, as a team last month, we polished off every episode of Mo, A Very English Scandal, Entrapped, and Wednesday. We also devoured season one of The White Lotus and the first two seasons of Catastrophe (we’ll watch the remaining two seasons in February). I liked all the shows, one especially so.

The standout is Catastrophe. It initially ran on the United Kingdom’s Channel Four, ending in 2019. Prime Video started carrying it somewhere along the line. A rip-roaring rom-com that isn’t all fun and games, Catastrophe tells the mid-life tale of Sharon Morris, an Irish lass living in London, and Rob Norris, an American who hails from Boston. At the start of the show, Rob is in London on business. Friendly, frisky and 40-ish, Sharon and Rob like what they see in each other when they meet by chance in a pub, and lose no time in getting it on, repeatedly, over the next week. Rob then returns to the States where, some weeks later, Sharon phones him to announce that she is pregnant. Well, though they barely know one another, Rob moves to London, Sharon decides to have the baby, Rob proposes to Sharon, who says yes, and a married couple they become. A few hours after the wedding ceremony concludes, the unborn child silently proclaims that it is ready to meet the world ahead of schedule.

I won’t say any more about the plot. I will add this, though: Catastrophe (created by, written by and starring Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney, who, as best I can determine, were/are not romantically involved) leaves me breathless. Its eight or so principal characters are beautifully drawn and played, its dialogue whip-smart. The show, however, is not for anyone who isn’t up for getting drenched with candid sex talk and robust sexual situations, all of which, mind you, Catastrophe presents with a twinkle in its eye. Catastrophe truly is something else.

So, that’s the latest on the TV-viewing front from my abode. Seeing that Sandy and I always are on the lookout for series and movies to watch, we’d love to learn what you recommend, on streaming services or elsewhere. Thanks!

Shopping, Black Friday, And Yours Truly

Yeah, Another Blogger114 Comments

If the clothing and footwear industries depended on me for financial sustenance, they would be shit out of luck. I don’t buy their goods very often. I mean, most of my attire is between three and about 45 years old. Yeah, I said 45. That’s the approximate age (I wish I could pinpoint the year in which I bought it) of a sweater that I want to be buried in when my bucket-kicking time arrives. The deep blue garment, which I treasure dearly and wear pretty frequently, still looks damn good to my eyes. Any coffin worth its salt would be proud to encase it.

My favorite sweater

I definitely haven’t been nice to the aforementioned industries in 2019. The only clothes I’ve purchased so far are underwear, socks and a sweatshirt. And as for shoes, none. That’s because I’m not too interested in regularly updating or freshening my look. Also, I seem to have excellent luck on most of those rare occasions when I do go shopping for apparel or accessories, which makes it unnecessary to shop very often. For example, three or four winters ago, upon entering a Macy’s department store near my home, I immediately found two winter coats that fit me perfectly and looked terrific. I whipped out my credit card and made them mine.

And one day seven or eight years ago, at a Sears department store, I hit the jackpot, leaving with about eight pairs of jeans that I’m wearing to this day. I could cite several more examples of this kind, but you get the picture.

Yes, I’m satisfied with the clothes and shoes that I own. So, when Black Friday (an annual, mega-hyped shopping day in the USA that unofficially kicks off the Christmas buying season) rolled around last month on the day after Thanksgiving, as it always does, I ordinarily would have avoided like the plague the indoor shopping mall near my house. I had no desire to check out the wearables on sale. And the same went for the non-wearables. And yet, mall-ward I directed my car at 11:30 AM.

Why? Hell, basically I didn’t want to enter a coffin some day without ever having experienced Black Friday firsthand. Despite being nearly as old as dirt, there are times when I can prance around the altar of pop culture better than just about anyone from my old f*ckers demographic. And if Black Friday isn’t a major player in pop culture, I don’t know what is.

Black Friday at the mall near my house.

Yup, the mall was decently crowded. Yup, most stores had Black Friday sales going on. Nope, I didn’t feel even the slightest urge to examine any merchandise. Still, I liked being at the mall. I always do, though my visits are only occasional, because the mall strikes me as a wonderland. I like its three levels of winding avenues, its airiness, its colors and sounds. And the overabundance of merchandise in the stores, though easy to criticize as excesses of the capitalist system, amazes and captivates me. Mankind, though flawed as hell, sure can turn out products like nobody’s business.

Black Friday at the mall.
Black Friday at the mall.

One thing for certain is that I was the sole visitor whose purpose was not to spend cash, but to observe. And also to record scenes with his or her smart phone’s camera. After an hour and a half of doing exactly that, I got the hell out of there.

“I ain’t much of a shopper, that’s for sure,” I said to myself as I drove back home. But a few hours later I realized how imprecise that thought was. You see, when it comes to food markets (of which there are none in the mall), I love to shop, and spend two or more hours every week in that pursuit. This pattern began somewhere in the 1990s, when it became apparent to me that the variety and quality of food stuffs available in the USA were a whole lot better than they’d ever been.

Food nerd that I’ve become, I get a charge examining olives, relishes, juices, grains, yogurts, you name it, on store shelves. The numerous types of each blow the mind. Who in the USA ever heard of quinoa, farro or Kalamata olives until fairly recent years, for instance? Nobody that I personally know.

Whole Foods breads. Many loaves had already been sold.
Some of the cheeses at Whole Foods.

In my area, the store that excites me more than any other is a Whole Foods supermarket. (Whole Foods, by the way, is part of the Amazon/Jeff Bezos empire that is engulfing the world.) I can’t stay away from its coffee, cheese and bakery sections, each of which contains products that make my life better. Farm Loaf bread and other breads, all baked on the premises, are swell. So are any number of the cheeses from around the world that Whole Foods carries. And two varieties of Allegro coffee (Rainforest Blend and Extra Dark French) have found strong favor in my household.

Some of the coffees at Whole Foods.

I suppose that you could do far worse than having food shopping as one of your hobbies. It gets me off my ass, for one thing. And it has given me something to write about here. That’s all to the very good, considering that I’m chronically semi-constipated when it comes to coming up with story themes. Maybe prunes would help. Prunes are a staple of many old f*ckers’ diets, right?

(As I frequently mention, please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this essay on social media. Mucho gracias.)

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Jeff Bezos Spoke With Me! (An Amazonian Story)

Yeah, Another Blogger128 Comments

I was mad as hell. You would have been too if the monogrammed boxer shorts that you ordered from Amazon came with incorrect initials. My initials are NSS, not ASS, for crying out loud! And the manufacturer got it wrong not once, not twice, but thrice. And so I decided to give Amazon a piece of my mind before returning defective goods to them once again. They needed to know that Underpants R Us, based in Crotchonia, Bulgaria, is a firm that does not deserve to have its products handled by the world’s largest online retailer!

That’s why I dialed 888-280-4331 last week, Amazon’s customer service number in the USA. I wasn’t sure where my dissatisfaction would take me. Turns out that the call resulted in an experience that in a million years I wouldn’t have expected.

“This is Anna, in Amazon’s customer service department in beautiful Kennewick, Washington. Whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with, and how are you this fine day?” were the words that greeted me. Ah, such a lovely tone. Anna seemed so agreeable, so gentle over the phone, I almost decided not to burden her with my complaint. But complain I did, succinctly explaining the situation without ever raising my voice.

Anna listened attentively, confirming all pertinent information and asking appropriate questions. Then she took me aback.

“Mr. Scheinin,” she said, “I am pleased to let you know that there is a special visitor in our facility today. He stops by several times each year, being a very hands-on individual. He has been listening to our conversation and has indicated to me that he would like to talk with you. He will provide you with the highest level of customer satisfaction. If it’s all right, then, I’m going to place Mr. Bezos — Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO — on the line.”

“Why, yes, that is absolutely all right, Anna,” I said. “Thank you.”

A few seconds passed. And then I heard the voice of the world’s richest person. (He’s worth well over 100 billion American dollars.)

Photo of Jeff Bezos by Tom Stockill/Redux

“Neil! This is Jeff Bezos. I’m so sorry that you’ve been having problems with some of our merchandise. I don’t quite understand what the situation is, though. Something’s wrong with your ass, is that it?”

“Well, not exactly, Jeff. You see . . .”

He cut me off. “Neil, if your derriere isn’t feeling right, I have just the product for you. I totally swear by it. I tell you, it’s provided me with wonderful relief many times in recent years. Preparation H, Neil. Preparation H. It’s been around forever, and that’s because it works. Hemorrhoids begone! Neil, Amazon will be glad to sell you a case of this magical concoction, enough for many years, for a mere $109.99. And shipping, it goes without saying, is free. What do you say, Neil? May I process your order?”

“Mr. Bezos,” I said, “you’ve got it all wrong. Let me start from the beginning. You see, I’ve been having enormous difficulty obtaining properly-monogrammed boxer shorts . . . oh, it’s a long, boring story. Who really cares? I’ll just keep the ones with ASS stitched onto them. My wife thinks those initials are appropriate, anyway. Listen, do you have a couple of minutes?”

“Indeed I do. Wassup?”

“Jeff, you’ve climbed to the top of the mountain. You have achieved success and wealth to a degree that boggles the mind. Obviously you are a man with a plan. On the other hand, I’m a chap with no map. Jeff, all my life I’ve been bouncing through life like a pinball, rarely finding satisfaction, unable to smell the roses because of my intense sinus condition. Hire me, Mr. B! I want a job that I can throw myself into.”

“Neil, I liked you the moment we started talking. But I have to probe a little deeper to make sure that you’re the right individual for the position I have in mind. Spot quiz: Spell hemorrhoid quickly!”

Wham! The convoluted letters flew off my tongue like bullets.

“Excellent! Another spot quiz: How many writers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?”

“Jeff, that depends on how deeply they want to analyze the situation. Writers, you know, can be complicated.”

“Right on, Neil! You’re the first person to get that one correct. My man, I can’t believe my good fortune in meeting you today. I want you to join Amazon as my sounding board. I have so many ideas to bounce off you. For instance, I’d like to create a chain of restaurants that serve nothing but LOL sandwiches — liverwurst, onion and Limburger. Man, I love me a good LOL! And I have the perfect slogan for the sandwich: It surely does smell, but what the hell.”

“That’s brilliant, Jeff. Brilliant.”

“Thanks, Neil. And how about this one? Amazon gas stations manned by robots who give you the best hugs of your life before and after they fill up your car’s tank. Customers will drive away bursting with happiness!”

“Bravo, Jeff! You have your finger on humanity’s pulse. It will be an honor to work for you. What’s my salary going to be, by the way? Eighty grand a year sounds about right, don’t you think?”

“Salary? Who said anything about a salary? This is an unpaid internship, Neil. Despite the lack of remuneration, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. When, my boy, can you start?”

That was a good question. I don’t encounter good questions all that often. And when I do, I usually don’t have good responses to them. This time I did.

“Later, Jeff,” I said.

(Please don’t be shy about adding your comments or about sharing this piece. I thank you.)