Recliner Potato: Abandoning The TV Ship

This is my first entry under the heading "Recliner Potato," where I'll provide commentary on TV shows and my personal TV viewing habits. Why Recliner Potato? Because I don't own a couch.

Let's face it, I watch too much TV. I spend so many hours every week watching TV that it really doesn't leave me enough time to do all the other things I want to do... like watch more movies, go to more concerts, or write this blog.

The problem is once I start watching a show, I tend to stay loyal to it far longer than I know I should. It's the reason I watched GLEE well into its third season, probably two seasons after I should have stopped watching. You know, when the show went from entertainingly bad to disturbingly awful. It's why I continue to watch THE OFFICE even though it's been on a four-season-long downhill slide, though at least that show has rebounded a bit in its current, final season.

It's gotten to the point that I now greet the news that a show I like has been cancelled with a sense of relief (ahem, LAST RESORT, FRINGE, 30 ROCK). As much as I hate to say it, I'll breathe a sigh of relief when PARENTHOOD gets cancelled, and I love that show to death.

Just off the top of my head, here's a list of shows that I am currently watching every week: THE WALKING DEAD, THE TALKING DEAD, HOMELAND, THE AMAZING RACE, THE SIMPSONS, BOB'S BURGERS, CATFISH: THE TV SERIES, TOSH.0, NEW GIRL, THE MINDY PROJECT, HAPPY ENDINGS, DON'T TRUST THE B- IN APT. 23, PARENTHOOD, TOP CHEF, KEY & PEELE, AMERICAN HORROR STORY, MODERN FAMILY, MYSTERIES AT THE MUSEUM, 30 ROCK, THE OFFICE, PARKS AND RECREATION, ELEMENTARY, FRINGE, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, THE DAILY SHOW, THE COLBERT REPORT, and BILLY ON THE STREET. And this isn't even counting the shows that I'll just watch on a whim, mostly reality stuff like AMERICAN PICKERS, STORAGE WARS, HOUSE HUNTERS, and anything involving ghosts.

That's over 22 hours per week! Well, 16 hours if you cut out the commercials, which I do diligently. But 16 hours! Every week!

And then there are the shows that are about to begin their new seasons: DOWNTON ABBEY, JUSTIFIED, COMMUNITY, GAME OF THRONES, BREAKING BAD, GIRLS, ENLIGHTENED, SOUTH PARK, VEEP, THE NEWSROOM, and probably many more I'm forgetting right now.

Here are some shows still on the air that I used to watch, but have stopped watching: REVOLUTION, LAST RESORT, BEN AND KATE, FAMILY GUY, RAISING HOPE, DEXTER, and of course GLEE.

Obviously, if want to continue devoting time to this blog, I need to add some more titles to this last list. It shouldn't be too hard. I somehow managed to abandoned WEEDS, HOUSE, CAPRICA, and E.R. while they were still on the air, and I never looked back.

There are some shows that I'll continue to watch, but which I can just keep on in the background while I do other stuff. I've been doing that with THE DAILY SHOW and THE COLBERT REPORT for years. I can add THE TALKING DEAD, CATFISH, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, and MYSTERIES AT THE MUSEUM to that list. Those are all shows that don't demand much attention. I've even taken to doing other stuff on my iPad during THE AMAZING RACE, TOSH.0, and TOP CHEF.

I need to drop some scripted shows, though, if I'm going to make this work. The first show on the chopping block is AMERICAN HORROR STORY... but not until the end of this season. I've just invested too much time in the current season, and I have to see how it ends. The first season was entertainingly awful, but awful nonetheless, and I'd originally intended to quit the show at the end of that season. But then I watched the second season premiere out of curiosity and got sucked right back into Ryan Murphy's web of gleeful awfulness. Well, no more. After this season, anyway.

The remaining shows I've decided to cut are a bit more painful, but here they are: Goodbye, NEW GIRL, THE MINDY PROJECT, and DON'T TRUST THE B- IN APT. 23. Goodbye, occasionally amusing Zooey Deschanel quirkiness and annoying Schmidt subplots. Goodbye, cartoonishly stupid and ever-shifting side characters surrounding Mindy Kaling. And I guess if I want to see more of Dreama Walker, I'll have to go and watch COMPLIANCE again.

That just leaves about 8 hours of programming a week that requires my undivided attention. I can live with that.

Maybe I should go delete the Season Passes for those shows from my DVR right now. I really should do that if I'm really going to stop watching them cold turkey. Or maybe I'll let the DVR keep recording them, and maybe I just won't watch them. Maybe.

Some of you may be wondering why I don't just give up on THE SIMPSONS. If you have to ask that question, then you really don't know me.

I estimate that this is my view during 25% of my waking hours:

I should probably also mention that I still have Ken Burns' THE DUST BOWL sitting unwatched on my DVR. And the DVD box set of THE WIRE: THE COMPLETE SERIES, which I haven't even started.


#ReclinerPotato

Concert Report: Bucket List Concerts 2012

I still have many bands and musicians I hope to see in concert before I (or they) die. The Rolling Stones, for example. And Elton John, whom I've only seen once, performing a duet of "Greek Song" with Rufus Wainwright at UCLA's Royce Hall. The Holy Grail would be the surviving members of Led Zeppelin, but that's not likely to happen.

This year, among the 70 or so bands I've seen so far, I've managed to see three bands I never thought I'd get a chance to see. Each proved to be a minor adventure.

Pulp - Coachella Music Festival (second weekend) - April 20, 2012

I've seen Jarvis Cocker perform solo twice, including at the 2007 Coachella Music Festival, and both times he refused to play any Pulp songs. At the Wiltern Theatre in July 2009, when someone shouted a request for a Pulp song, he went off on a rant about how you can't go back to the past because the past is gone. It really didn't sound like we'd ever hear Jarvis perform Pulp songs ever again.

Which made the band's (probably soon to be over) reunion a top priority to me, culminating in THIS:

Since 2005, I've missed Coachella only twice, and this year I went on the second weekend, hoping that the bulk of the annoying teenagers and hipsters would converge on the first weekend in an effort to be first. My logic may have been somewhat sound; the festival did seem less crowded, pushy, and irritating than in recent years (expect for 2008, which seemed deserted and was downright pleasant). Of course, that may have been due to the fact that while it was cloudy, rainy, and even chilly during the first Coachella weekend, on the second weekend it was 106 DEGREES WITH BLAZING SUNSHINE every day of the festival. The festival may have been sold out, but I got the feeling that a lot of people just didn't bother arriving until the sun went down.

I managed to stake out a spot the railing in front of the main Coachella Stage at about 3:30 in the afternoon and proceeded to watch James, Jimmy Cliff, and the Arctic Monkeys before experiencing the main reason I even went to Coachella this year:

In fact, you can watch my playlist of their entire Coachella set here:

Pulp's entire set at the second weekend of Coachella 2012

I'm also especially glad I didn't go to the first weekend of Coachella. I watched the live stream of Pulp's set on YouTube the previous weekend, and it was a bit of a debacle of time management. Because of a late start time AND an introduction involving a digital ticker that dragged on forever, Pulp managed to only play for about 45 minutes before they were forced to finish. They didn't even get a chance to play "Like A Friend"! By the second weekend, all of those problems had been rectified.

Oh, and at the end of Pulp's set, I made the impulsive decision to stay at my spot on the railing and watch The Black Keys. It turned out to be fortunate decision, because THIS happened:

That's John Fogerty joining The Black Keys on a cover of The Band's "The Weight" in honor of Levon Helm. I guess I would call CCR a bucket list band, so maybe this counts?

Patti Smith - Wiltern Theatre - October 12, 2012

I didn't listen to the audiobook of Patti Smith's wonderful memoir JUST KIDS until this past summer. She's always been one of these rockers I knew I'd have to see someday, and listening to her reminisce about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe only made me more eager to see her perform. I was thrilled when I found out that she was going on tour with Neil Young, another musician I've never seen live. And then it was announced that for Neil Young's LA tour date at the Hollywood Bowl, instead of Patti Smith the opener would be... Los Lobos.

Sigh.

And then Patti Smith announced a one-off headlining show at the Wiltern, and I even got the password for the presale on the Wiltern's website, and all was well with the world again. But then it turned into its own special clusterfuck, because Live Nation suddenly and inexplicably started the presale two days early. I got very lucky, though, because I happened to go to the Wiltern's webpage to check on ticket prices for the show and saw that the presale had already begun. It was all reserved seating, and other lucky fans had already managed to buy all the tickets to seats in the pit section (tickets must have already been on sale for a couple of hours before I stumbled upon the presale), but I snagged an aisle seat in the fourth row of the second floor section. I went back to the webpage an hour later, and by then they must have realized what had happened and halted the presale, but my ticket was still valid.

The show itself was everything I hoped it would be. Patti was as intense and wild as ever, Lenny Kaye was incredible, and they played all of the songs I wanted to hear.

Oh, and just to make things even more weird, Flea and Johnny Depp (dressed as Keith Richards) showed up and played a few songs with her:

Fun note: I've never seen Red Hot Chili Peppers live (they're not one of my bucket list bands), but this was the second time I've seen Flea show up as a surprise guest at a show. Three years ago at the Winston Calling Benefit Show at the Echoplex, still one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life, he showed up to fill in for an absent Kim Deal with the Pixies during their performances of "Vamos" and "Where Is My Mind?'

I'll probably write a future blog entry about that show, which was an epic 5 1/2 hours of music that cost less than $20.

The Afghan Whigs - Fonda Theatre - November 9, 2012

Here's another band, like Pulp, for which a reunion seemed very unlikely... until it happened. And unlike Pulp's reunion, which may come to an end next month with S.S. Coachella, The Afghan Whigs could very well be back for good, and for that I'm very grateful, especially after the blistering, high-energy set I witnessed at the Fonda in Hollywood earlier this month.

I'd seen Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan's The Gutter Twins twice, and I've never seen Dulli's other band The Twilight Singers, but I knew that they'd be nothing compared to a full-on Whigs reunion.

The Fonda Theatre isn't exactly my favorite venue. It's a beautiful theater, especially after a recent renovation, but it's hard to get to from my home, parking can be hellish, and to top it off, the sound can be awfully muddy at the front of the stage. In recent years, I've preferred to watch from the balcony, where the sound is excellent, or from the risers on the side of the floor, which used to be the old VIP section before the renovation.

I don't know why, but I had a good feeling about the sound at The Afghan Whigs show, so I ended up at the railing in front of the stage, just right of center. And the Whigs sounded great.

There WAS one minor glitch that threatened to ruin the evening. Just before opener Van Hunt started his set, those of us at the railing were accosted by a loud, tragically drunk young lady (and her ineffectual friend) who pushed her way through the crowd to the front and tried to wedge herself between people so that she could be at the railing. And we weren't having it. Then Van Hunt began his set, and Drunk Chick decided to not stop talking loudly about how the people at the railing were mean assholes for not letting her push them aside.

Then she spilled her drink, so her ineffectual friend went and got her another one.

Eventually, security came over to see why so many people were yelling at her to shut up. To our horror, the security guard's first reaction was literally: "It's a concert. People talk. Deal with it." Fortunately, Drunk Chick didn't seem to realize that the guard was taking her side and decided to respond by reaching over the railing and dumping her full drink into the photographer pit. THAT got her kicked out, but not before her ineffectual friend finally spoke up and asked us what our problem was. Then she left, too, and the mood at the front of the stage suddenly became a hundred times sunnier.

So with that final obstacle to musical bliss out of the way, Greg and the band came on the delivered nearly two hours of magic.

Driving home from the show, I ran into heavy traffic on Sunset Boulevard, so I cut over to Fountain Avenue and ended up stopping at the traffic light at Fountain and Fairfax... just a half an hour after seeing The Afghan Whigs perform "Fountain And Fairfax." It made me smile to myself just thinking about it.

I kind of regretted not going to second Whigs show at the Fonda the following night, when they played a significantly different setlist, including some of my favorite Whigs songs, but I already had tickets to see The Monkees at the Greek that night. But that's another story.


#ConcertReport #Coachella #Pulp #PattiSmith #TheAfghanWhigs

Let's do this thing!

I see so many movies, watch so much TV, buy so many DVDs, go to so many concerts, and listen to so many audiobooks that I've often been told I should blog my thoughts about the overload of pop culture that is my life.

I'm going by the name "UnreadEd" because (a) my name is Ed and (b) I'm not expecting anybody to stumble across my rantings and ravings for months... possible years. Occasionally I'll probably link to some of these posts on my Facebook page. So let's begin.

Two things I got in the mail yesterday...

This was the result of waking up in the middle of the night just in time for one of Amazon's Cyber Monday 4:20 am lightning sales. I'm not even sure if I purchased it ironically or not.

To be honest, I had it in my Amazon wishlist.

Later, this arrived via UPS:

Admit it, you're jealous.

I saw Sarah Silverman perform at Largo last month. If I go see her again, I might bring this along.

All right, I see I'm off an to auspicious start here. Really, this will probably just become a place to post my top ten favorite songs and movies of the year.


#Battleship #WreckItRalph