StandingWater Creations

Okay, let me talk TV for a moment. There are a handful of shows I will watch over and over again. Depending on the mood, I will watch different things. Specifically, a melancholy (that I can’t pull off as attractive, by the by) is often accompanied by my watching Sports Night. I absolutely love that show. It is by Aaron Sorkin. He did The West Wing and wrote the screenplay for The American President. I don’t like the politics of either show, but I have to tell you, he is an amazing creative presence and I have waited for a long, long time for him to come out with something that was as groundbreaking and funny and everpresent as Sports Night.

When Sports Night was on the air I would literally scan the channels to find it. Some weeks it would play on a Tuesday; other weeks Wednesday; it seemed like time slots kept getting shifted around. Really, it was a show that was shot in the foot and left to die a very painful and agonizing death before it was cancelled. The show was amazing from the get-go, and yet, when it become even more amazing and even more interesting, the network people said, “Okay, we’re done,” and off the air it went.

So, I get melancholy (remember, I can’t pull off melancholy) and in goes Sports Night and I get to walk through the life of a cable sports channel as they produce their headline show. I don’t like sports, I don’t care for sportscasters, and yet, I can watch that show over and over and over again and enjoy every little nuance and episode almost every time because Aaron Sorkin is a genius among television and movie writers and creators and because he has a pulse on dialogue and sophisticated storytelling that most people would give their left ventricular artery to achieve.

As an additional note: It is said that he broke his teeth on Sports Night before moving on to bigger and more prominent projects. The man really is that good. Every actor from Sports Night, through searches on IMDB.com have worked very consistently since being on that show. Felicity Huffman, wife to super-actor William H. Macy stars in the show, stars in ABC’s Desperate Housewives. Actors have gone on to star in other shows, HBO’s Six Feet Under. These actors really are everywhere and it’s fun to have seen them cut their teeth with Aaron Sorkin.

Now, all of that was so I could say that he (Aaron Sorkin) has created another comedy TV series called Studio 60. This is so exciting to me. Granted, I have been watching way, way, way too much television of late. I admit that. It’s always on, except for where I am now living because… well… I can’t watch what I don’t have. However, there is a reason why people tune in and tune out every single day of their lives when it comes to new programming in shows that somehow speak to the human condition. Granted, I agree with people who say that there is very little positive or uplifting coming out of Hollywood or across Television; however, at the same time, it is entertainment and when you can find something worth watching, I say, do it. Don’t let it run your life, but do it.

So, Studio 60 is coming in the fall. It pulls Matthew Perry, a Friends alum in to play one of the leads. There are other faces you notice but not necessarily with names you’d know. But who really cares. It’s Aaron Sorkin.

Now, with all of that said, and out of the way, here’s a link to a six minute preview. Don’t click if you don’t have broadband.

I am really, really, really looking forward to this show.

Posted by smokingpen at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tonight’s episode of Bones dealt with the legend of Assateague Island. Now, most people aren’t going to know what that legend is. Truth told, I didn’t know what it was until a coworker, come friend, The issue is that the show reignites, or will probably do more to do reignite the fervor behind the myth of Blackbeard’s treasure than anything else.

The problem I have with the episode, or with the myth, isn’t that Blackbeard didn’t hide treasure on the island in an old weapons cache, but that he dug it down two hundred feet, one hundred feet, or even seventy five feet. The problem is that the water table, due to elevation above sea level is only about thirty to thirty-five feet beneath the surface. What that means is that you go beneath that mark and the hole fills up with water. That’s how a well works. Hit the water table and seepage from ground water fills the hole.

Blackbeard may not have known about water tables, or he may have been a freaking genius, it doesn’t matter, either way, to me. What is true is that for his crew to have created traps that allowed seawater to enter this hole he would’ve had to create long channels from his cache to the sea to allow water in. On top of that these channels would have to remain watertight for, what, three hundred years. That means that no water can seep through until the traps have been tripped. Sounds a lot like an Indiana Jones plot more than actual pirate treasure.

Continue reading "Marco: Blackbeard's Treasure, Bones, and Assateague Island" »

Posted by smokingpen at 8:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We've become a sophisticated people.

I was watching the trailer for a new movie, Brick, coming out in the very near future. I want to see this movie.

It deals with Crime Noir. As anyone who's followed what I've been reading of late knows, I am really digging crime noir.

It's got a life, in lit, that is so surrealistic you can't believe what is being written about, and at the same time, you are drawn into the plot and story so fully you want to believe that there really are women and men out there like what is being written about.

I'd imagine it is how the world felt before Hollywood, television, and people trying to turn smut into art.

Nudity is smut.

Nudity is art.

Nudity in movies is never necessary and is always smut.

I like smut.

I try not to watch it.

Continue reading "Click. Click. Spin... Bang!" »

Posted by smokingpen at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes life seems like playing Russian Roulette with a semi-automatic handgun. You know when you pull the trigger you are going to die, but for the brief moment before you pull the trigger the notion that maybe this squeeze won’t be the one that done me in crosses your mind. And, lightly at first, and then more strongly, you squeeze the three pound trigger and listen as the hammer pushes the air before hitting the back-end of the firing pin, which in turn will hit the back end of the round, the mechanism irrevocably on its course, before the rapport of the bullet leaving the barrel and flash of fire and smoke reminds you that Russian Roulette can only be played with a revolver, and safely played not at all.

Yeah, that’s the right kind of imagery.

Morbid.

Delightfully so.

Posted by smokingpen at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve decided to take a few minutes out of my day and just sit here contemplating things.

Things: what are they?

Who really knows.

I mean, I was reading an article on Evangeline Lilly, the main hottie on Lost ABC’s sleeper hit last year and the only thought I had was that she is on a sinking ship. Sure, she’s hot and, yes, the show may make a turnaround and find a pace that keeps with audience expectations, but truth told, when you can go in excess of a standard 22 episodes and still only get approximately 30 days into a plane wreck and the basis of reason still doesn’t exist, well… J.J. Abrams turns into a George Lucas in my mind. He’s got great ideas and, unlike Lucas, he may be able to execute the first stage of some of those ideas, but in the end, he should executive produce his little machinations and not try to helm them as closely as he has.

That’s my opinion there.

Continue reading "Marco's World: Odds-n-Ends-n-Thoughts" »

Posted by smokingpen at 11:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sometimes you just have to follow your gut. In this, I mean, follow what is working to help alieviate problems and listen for people who have more experience than you do in other areas.

With that said, I went to the follow-up appointment with the doctor today. I found out that he’d only done one test on one marker for Celiac Disease and not all four as I’d asked him. The one thing that I’ve heard and read, multiple times, is that you have to test all four markers or you don’t, necessarily, get an accurate test. The other thing that is important, in this, is that you have to be eating gluten to get a positive test for Celiac when the tests are performed. I stopped eating gluten about a week and a half ago, I am feeling better, and the doctor didn’t test for all four markers with the one he did test for coming back negative.

What came back positive, however, was a marker for Type II Diabetes.

Congratulations John, you are the winner of a life threatening disease that can be controlled through diet and exercise. My cholesterol is fine and I am a little low on Iron, but beyond that, he thinks I am suffering from IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and prescribed some medication to help with any discomfort. He has missed, repeatedly, that I am feeling better not ingesting gluten and as such I am wondering whether or not I should to IBS seriously or keep on the regime I am on.

Continue reading "Like: Diabetes" »

Posted by smokingpen at 9:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The History of the World…

This weekend: I went to Colorado, down to Cortez, for the weekend. My intention (successful, by the by) was to register my car and look into getting another vanity plate to replace the one I was losing by registering in Colorado. The cost is not a great deal more than what I paid in New Hampshire.

My intention was to go down early Friday morning, get there in the morning hours, take care of what needed to be taken care of, then go and see Denton (he owns a used bookstore) and then make my way to the property where I would be sleeping and doing… you know… whatever.

I was supposed to be reading Hamlet this weekend and, for whatever reason, didn’t.

Friday I got up and hit snooze about a dozen times and then got up and packed my bag and, in the process, talked to J.D. for a while before he took off and then I took off. I think I left Springville somewhere around 9:30 a.m. rather than 8 a.m. or 6 a.m. I got to Cortez around 2:30, had the VIN Inspection (the place that did it didn’t charge and didn’t actually look at the VIN on my car) and then registered the car.

First objective (and principle reason for going) – check.

Continue reading "Marco Returns" »

Posted by smokingpen at 10:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The History of the World According to Marco

Who is Marco? I don't know. He is a secondary character you catch glimpses of in High Fidelity. Marco Polo was an explorer. And the game Marco Polo is played in a pool with someone wandering around, eyes closed, yelling, "Marco," and all players, not tagged, responding, "Polo."

However, the History of the World According to Marco is merely a non-sequitur that came to mind as I was plugging in the address for the website. I looked and noticed that I haven't updated in a few days and that I probably needed to think about doing an update, and so, here is my poor attempt at actually doing an update.

Yesterday in Honors 200: Wilderness Writing, we were set to do a "Rush Write". A rush write is someone giving a topic and then you taking five minutes and writing about that subject without really thinking about it. Reminds me, a lot, of "Finding Forrester," where William Forrester (played by Sean Connery) says, "Don't think, write," and then he sits down at his typewriter and starts to pound away at the keys producing, in a very short time, one page that he pulls and hands to Jamal.

Continue reading "The History of the World According to... " »

Posted by smokingpen at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)