RIP the Beast, I Knew You Well

It’s official.  I’m no longer the owner of a 1992 Buick Roadmaster named the Beast.

It’s the end of an era, if an era could only last four years.  I received the Beast in 2002 from my parents, who were upgrading cars.  It had a huge dent in the passenger-side door because my dad side swiped a gas pump, but mostly, it was a good old car.  I practically lived in that car, and as a result, it was like a motorized dumpster when I finally cleaned it out last weekend.  I found an alarm clock in there.  There was a whole, unopened bottle of shampoo in there.  I found papers from my last semester of college (I graduated in 2002, remember,) towels, clothing, half of our Tupperware, a sombrero, and the box my new cell phone came in.  Travis told me that it looked like a homeless person was living in my backseat.

The Beast had really let herself go in the last couple of years, and it was apparent that I needed a new car.  I’ve told the story of how Pearly, my new car, came to me, so I won’t get into that.  Anyway, my cousin, Eddie, needed a new car for his daughter, and my dad told him I’d sell the Beast for five hundred dollars.  (Seriously, I wonder if she was worth even that.)  Eddie said he’d take her, and the rest is history.  Not fifteen minutes ago, he drove the Beast away from Lost Tree forever, after having put a new radiator on her.  I hope the car doesn’t break down on his way home, that would make me feel horrible. Also I hope there is enough gas in her to at least get him to the First Stop up on Bee Creek road.  

In other news, I just got a new second job!  I’m going to be working at the Lane Bryant Outlet that is going in right next door to the bookstore where I work.  It really is the most convenient thing, and I am really excited about it.  I worked there yesterday before my shift at the bookstore, and I like the other girls who work there a lot.  The manager is great, and I had a discussion about musical theatre with one of the girls.  She also put the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on the stereo while we were working, so I figure we’ll get along fine.  We’re getting the store ready to open right now, so there’s a lot of cleaning and putting things together to be done.  It’s neat, because I’ve never been involved with something like that from the very beginning before.  Not to mention I’ll get a generous discount on the clothes they sell there.  They might as well just pay me in clothes, for all the good a paycheck will do.  They make stuff for tall girls.  There’s nothing better.  

Today has been my day off, so I slept till one, watched a cheesy teen movie (Kids in America, it’s not great, but it had Gregory Smith from Everwood in it, so I couldn’t resist) and then drove up to Arby’s in Ozark for lunch.  I know that it’s stupid to drive twenty miles just for a roast beef sandwich, but I was craving it.  I justified my trip by filling up my car at the gas station there, which is cheaper than all the ones in Branson.  And it was a good sandwich.  This evening I plan on watching more movies and doing my laundry, and also cleaning up the kitchen.  

So there, that’s my boring day off.  I hope someone out there is doing wild and crazy things, if you are, leave me a comment on my blog, so I can live vicariously through you.  Till later,

Brianne <><

"Man, those Musicals were Pretty Sick!"

It’s going to be a short post today because I feel just horrible.  Last night I came down with some sort of stomach thing.  I’ll spare you the grisly details, but if you’ve ever experienced any sort of gastrointestinal malady, you can imagine what I feel like right now.  I even had to miss work today because I felt so horrible, and I hate that.  

I turn into an incredible baby when I’m sick.  I just want to call my Mommy and have her take care of me, but she lives four and a half hours east of here, so that’s kind of inconvenient for her.  I laid on the couch all day, only moving to… do what I needed to do.  I did want to comment on my Broadway-filled last couple of days, so here goes.

Sunday was the Tony awards, and it was probably the most boring Tonys I have watched in a couple of years.  No surprises that I’m most interested in the musicals, and there just weren’t that many good ones this year.  I did like the performances from The Wedding Singer and The Color Purple, but none of the other ones really rang my bell.  And I was also thrilled to see Norbert Leo Butz and Sara Ramierez and Brian Stokes Mitchell and Audra McDonald presenting awards.  It was just a mostly boring show for me.  

Danielle and I decided that it had been too long since we experienced any new musicals, so we went to Barnes and Noble to check out what they had there in the way of new musical soundtracks.  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but the Barnes and Noble in Springfield has the best musical theatre soundtrack section in the world.  Danielle got See What I Wanna See, The Color Purple, and The Drowsy Chaperone, and I got The Wedding Singer.   We listened to See What I Wanna See on the way home and it was fantastic.  Idina Menzel was in it, so of course she was amazing.  It was just really well-written and well-sung.  I would have liked to have seen it when it was running (I think it’s closed now.)

Then, last night, I watched The Light in the Piazza on PBS.  It was really neat.  I had never been that interested in learning more about it, for some reason, but what I watched last night was great.  I liked all the actors and the music was really dense, it did a good job of weaving the Italian lyrics with the English ones and making it all interesting and easy to understand.  There was one really great tenor-soprano duet that I want to sing with Daniel someday, and I really liked all the soprano songs.  None of the roles were belter roles, which, as a non-belter, I also liked.  And yes, I cried at the end.  That’s the mark of a good musical for me.

So, anyway, since I feel like crap, I’m going to cut this one short.  Adios!

Brianne <><

Requiem for Everwood

Well, it happened.  The finale of Everwood.

I know that it’s been so long since I blogged and now there’s only one person in the world who is interested in what I have to say in this entry (hi, Jess!) but since I promised her, I am devoting the majority of this post to the masterful family drama Everwood, 2002-2006.

I didn’t start watching Everwood right away.  I don’t know what I was doing instead.  Maybe I was still in college, I don’t know.  Whatever, I remember reading about it in some magazine and thinking, “man, that looks good,” but for some reason I didn’t ever watch until I graduated and only got three stations on the TV in my new apartment and the local WB was one of them.  That was also about the time that Jess and I reconnected, and she was telling me about this awesome show that dealt with real issues in a responsible, realistic manner, that was well-written and well-acted.  I realized that this was the show that had made me cry the first time I ever watched it (the episode where Andy was in the church, crying to God that he missed his dead wife and was only half a man now that she was gone) and decided to watch on a regular basis.  And I was hooked.

This is why I love Everwood.  They take real issues that real families face every day and deal with them that involves relationships, talking, and truth-telling.  I mean, these aren’t easy topics: infidelity, death of a parent or loved one, a student having sex with a teacher, teen pregnancy, abortion, depression, drug abuse, more teen sex, suicide, homosexuality… and these are just the things I can think of off the top of my head.  

The real story is the relationship between a man and his son.  At the beginning of Everwood, Andy didn’t even know his son, Ephram.  Andy had been a workaholic, absent father for most of Ephram’s life, and when his wife died, he was suddenly saddled with raising his two kids (Delia was Ephram’s younger sister.)  Imagine that scenario from both sides.  Andy didn’t know how to be a father to his kids, and Ephram had been so used to being the adult that it’s hard for him to be a kid again.  The road was hard for them, too, just as it would have been in real life.  One of the best TV moments I can think of is Andy and Ephram’s very first fight, when Ephram screamed at Andy, “I wish you had died instead of her!” and Andy screamed back, “I wish I had too, you little bastard!”  I mean, you can’t make that stuff up.  That’s a real fight that real people have had.  So often on TV everything is sanitized to make you feel better about watching it.  I think that the best stories are the ones that make you a little uncomfortable, and hearing a man call his son a “little bastard” is uncomfortable.  Just as things started to get better in the second year, Andy told his son a huge lie and almost ruined things forever.  (Andy found out that Ephram’s ex-girlfriend, Madison, was pregnant with Ephram’s child.  Instead of telling Ephram, he kept the news from him and paid Madison to leave town and either have an abortion or have the baby somewhere else.)  Ephram melted down when he found out, but slowly, eventually, came back to where he could confide in his father again.  That brought us to the beautiful moment in the fourth year when Ephram said to his father, “it’s like I’ve got a hole inside me that I can’t fill up…” and Andy said, “I can’t fill it, but I can be here as long as you need me.”  Again, you can’t make that stuff up.  It was such a beautiful moment.

The writing on this show was amazing.  I’ve already given a couple of examples of that.  The writers just had an excellent grasp on the story and where it was going and where it had been.  They used the history they had created to tell the story, and that’s awesome.  Also, they put Andy and Ephram’s relationship through its paces without making it seem contrived.  The characters all underwent tremendous growth, which is the mark of any good story.  I mean, if the characters are static, they’re not interesting, right?  So Bright when from being a shallow, brutal, bully to a kind, hardworking, clever man with a heart of gold.  Ephram went from being an awkward, confused, manga geek to a confident young man who finally knew that his passion was to help kids who hand been just like him.  I could go on and on, but you get my point.  Also, and this may just be one of my hang-ups, but the characters were not perfect, and I liked that.  Sometimes I hated Amy.  She made me so mad with her self-righteous anger and the way she treated Ephram, but it was realistic.  She could also be sweet, she cared deeply about her friends and family, and I think she would do anything for them.  She had flaws without being a total social pariah.  If you think about it, most people are like that.

I’ll devote one short paragraph to the acting, because it pretty much speaks for itself.  Across the board, this cast was fantastic.  The “adults” on the cast made their stories interesting and well-rounded, bringing compassion to characters who sometimes were not that sympathetic.  And the young cast on the show (Gregory Smith, Emily VanCamp, Chris Pratt, and most recently, Sarah Drew) were beyond amazing.  They made the flawed yet likeable characters they played realistic, like someone you knew in college.  I hope they have lots of work lined up now that Everwood is done.

Everwood ended pretty perfectly.  I won’t line out the entire finale because I’ve already waxed poetic for long enough, but let me just say: nearly all my dreams came true.  Nina and Andy are getting married, and Amy and Ephram are back together.  Also, Hannah decided to stay in Everwood.  I’ve talked to a few people who don’t agree with her decision, but I do, and I’ll tell you why.  If she had decided to leave Everwood, Amy, Ephram, and Bright, then she would have known what came next.  There wouldn’t be any surprises. Bright had already said that he would be there, waiting, her best friend.  But by staying in Everwood, she opened up a whole new realm of possibility.  What if she and Bright decided to get back together?  They didn’t have to, just because she decided to stay.  Also, it wasn’t set in stone.  People transfer schools all the time.  She didn’t have to stay there forever.  There’s also the point that if something’s working, why change it?  She had a wonderful, supportive network in Everwood, a place to live, job opportunities… just because something is new doesn’t automatically mean it’s better.  I think she had a lot of courage to stay.  So, there.  That’s my opinion.

All in all, it was a good four years with one of my favorite shows.  There were good times (you go, Andy, for telling Ephram that you didn’t want him to move to New York with his grandparents!) and bad times (I hate you, Madison, you cradle-robbing slut) but, you know, that’s life.  That’s what Everwood portrayed.  So, thanks for listening to my incredibly long fan-wank.  Like I said, this post is mainly for Jess, anyway.  <><

TV Yarn

The TV season is finally over (except for Everwood, which is over tomorrow night,) so my life can finally get back to normal.  I don’t know what I’ll do with myself.  Maybe I’ll take up knitting.

My season finale roundup:

1. Alias:  Okay, here’s the deal.  Way back in the winter, when we found out that Alias would be ending this year, I told Jess that I had a fantasy ending for the show.  (This was before Vaughan had been confirmed alive- I always thought he was alive, by the way.)  I told her that I imagined a beach at sunset (or sunrise, I’m not that picky;) Syd and Vaughan are there with the baby and they walk off down the beach into the sunset/rise.  And you know what?  I got my fantasy ending almost to a tee.  It was like I had gotten a great big late birthday present.  Of course, there was a total trail of dead along the way (RIP Tom and Jack, Burn In Hell Irina, and Sloane’s spending eternity pinned beneath a rock in some basement somewhere) but otherwise, there was no better ending to the show.  Hey, any time we get to see ActionMarshall! I’m cool with it.


2. Without a Trace:  They told the story all backwards-like, Jason Preistley (?) shot up the FBI office, and Mary Elizabeth Matstrantonio is having Jack’s baby.  I’ve been a little bit frustrated with the story arc on that show lately because they had all this “Martin’s on drugs” drama at the beginning of the season and then they dropped it like a hot coal right after the episode where Ben Harper’s “Reason to Mourn” played over the last scene.  Maybe they have plans for that story next season.  I hope so.  We all know how I loves my Eric Close.


3. Grey’s Anatomy:  Holy freaking crap.  For one thing, it was three freaking hours long.  After the first hour, which was in its regular slot on Sunday night, I was so distraught that I almost couldn’t see straight.  Izzy stopped Denny’s heart!  Burke was shot!  And then, on Monday night, they completely devastated me.  Meredith and McDreamy had sex!  Burke can’t move his hand!  Why the snot won’t Cristina go to him?  And Denny died!  I thought that I was going to have a stroke.


4. Veronica Mars: Jessica told me all about this season finale before I even watched it, and what she told me disturbed me so much that I had nightmares that I was Veronica and Beaver was trying to kill me.  It was even more disturbing after I watched it.  Beaver crashed the bus?  For the love of Pete.


5. House:  Best.  House.  Ever.  My friend, Jenn said, “You always say that.”  Well, it’s usually true.  Every week, it totally surpasses my expectations.  I’ve watched the season finale like, four times since it aired.  I mean, it’s just a piece of storytelling genius. These people deserve not only an Emmy, but an Oscar and a Tony as well.  In the very first scene, House is shot by a former patient.  He lives, but some very strange things start to happen, like him being able to walk without pain now.  Eventually, you start to realize that things are not as they seem, and that the action is actually happening inside House’s head as he lies on the floor of his office, bleeding to death.  This episode had so many different levels.  First off, it’s a procedural, as House not only tries to figure out why his leg doesn’t hurt, he also works to solve the case he and his lackeys were working on before he was shot (Swollen-Tongue Guy.) Second, it’s pretty much full of action- lots of medical stuff, plus the fact that House is shot in the very first scene.  Third, and my favorite, it’s a character study.  House basically talks to himself the entire episode.  In his dream, the man who shot him is wheeled into the ICU next to House, and tells him all this stuff about his character.  When you realize that it’s a dream, you also realize that these things that the shooter is saying to House is things he knows about himself- that he doggedly pursues truth no matter what the human cost, that he acts the way he does because it makes him feel superior, that he’s constantly second-guessing himself, that his greatest fear is losing his intellect, that he feels like things would be easier if he was less than human.  I am confident that the writers would not have been able to write that episode if Hugh Laurie wasn’t such a fantastic actor.  He was in every scene except like, two. This episode may be the best TV show I have ever seen.  I’m serious.


6. Lost: For Jess’s and my musings on the Lost season finale, visit thelostaways.blogsot.com .  I live-blogged it, sort of.  Some of my thoughts aren’t correct (that’s not Locke’s dad, it just looks like him, and there are a few other little inconsistencies here and there.  Forgive me, I was simultaneously watching and typing.)


7. Everwood:  The series finale of Everwood is tomorrow night, so I will devote a complete blog to it after I get to watch it.  I am still stinging from the indignity of Everwood being cancelled in the first place, while crap like  7th Heaven and One Tree Hill will live on at the CW.  It just goes to show that ratings will always prevail over quality.  I would boycott the CW altogether if Veronica Mars wasn’t going to be on there.  Everwood will just go to join the ranks of other quality TV shows that were snuffed out in their prime (RIP Firefly, Space: Above and Beyond, and the first season-never the second season- of Dark Angel.)  And let me say, if they don’t release the rest of the seasons of Everwood on DVD soon, my head may explode.  I’ve watched that episode in season one where Ephram remembers his dead mom about sixteen times.

Well, that’s it. If I missed anything on my TV review, let me know.  Like I said, I don’t know what to do with myself this summer while I wait for my shows to come back.  There are some good movies coming out this summer (Superman Returns, Pirates of the Caribbean 2,and A Prairie Home Companion, are the most memorable of the bunch.)  The downside of watching a movie every weekend is that it gets expensive, while TV is for free, if you have bunny-ears like we do.  Next time:  my take on X-Men 3 and the Everwood finale.  Let’s hope that Everwood is more satisfying that X-Men was.  Serously.  Till then,

Brianne <><

Party Like it's 1998

Erin had this survey in her blog, so in the spirit of being an enormous copycat, I’m going to do it, too.  Also, I’ve never talked much about my hometown of Malden, Missouri, or what I was like when I was a teenager.  Also, my brain is a little dry when it comes to New Blog Ideas.  So, sit back and be prepared to be horrified.

1. Who were you best friends?  Jeremy and Laura (now married,) Michelle, and Jonce (of course)
   
   

2. What sports did you play? Um… is Quiz Bowl considered a sport?  Because I was really good at it.

3. What kind of car did you drive? I didn’t.  I didn’t get my license until I was nineteen.  However, I learned how to drive (at fifteen) in my parents pea-green, mid-70’s model Grenada.  I called it the Vomit Comet.

4. It’s Friday night, where are you? If it was during the fall, I was playing in the marching band.  If it was during the winter, I was probably watching TV with my Mom.

5. Were you a party animal?  Didn’t you just see that previous answer?  I was a total geek.  (I guess some things don’t ever change.)


6. Were you considered a flirt? No way.  I would have been too embarrassed to flirt with anyone.

7. Ever skip school? Nope, never.  My mom was a teacher.  If I had set foot off the school grounds during the day, she would have “activated the homing device in my molar” (as Veronica put it.)



8. Ever smoke? Nope, my dad smokes.  That was all the nicotine I needed.

9. Were you a nerd? I liked to think of myself as a geek rather than a nerd.  I had a few friends from the band and choir, but not many, and we couldn’t really go out during the nights.  Also, my graduating class was incredibly competitive.  I did all right, but grades weren’t the most important thing in my life.  I just wanted to do the best I could to keep myself from being embarrassed in front of my peers.  You know, the whole “people-pleasing” thing.


10. Did you get suspended/expelled? Never

11. Can you sing the Alma Mater song? I could have then, because the choir sang it for basketball games, but I don’t remember any of the words or the melody now.

12. Who was your favorite teacher? Mrs. Brenda Pinkley, my choir teacher for life.  She was my children’s choir leader at church and also the church choir leader when I got to be grown up.  I like to think of her as my “musical mother.”

13. Favorite class? I enjoyed English (I had a fantastic English teacher, Mrs. Helen Rascher for three years) and of course, the music classes I had.

14. What was your school's full name? Malden High School

15. School mascot? The Greenwave.  Are you kidding?  What the hell is a Greenwave?


16. Did you go to prom? Yes, I went three times.  Aren’t I special?



17. If you could go back and do it over, would you? Not a chance.  High school was the worst four years of my life.  Sure, there were redeeming moments, but for the most part, it was a study in cruel melodrama.  If the years between fourteen and eighteen weren’t so important to a person’s social development, I’d say that you should skip it all together and go straight to the good stuff, which is college.  That was the best time of my life.

18. What do you remember most about graduation? Playing in the band… Keith Dortch’s last night as the band director… singing “He Never Failed Me Yet” with the choir… it’s interesting that they’re all musical moments, aren’t they?

19. Favorite memory of you Senior Year? My senior year was completely heinous.  My band director was arrested for sexual impropriety with a student, and he was also my Sunday school teacher.  My best friend had graduated the year before, so I didn’t have him.  The only good thing I can think of is being in the choir “musical” with my sister and getting to sing a relatively nice solo (Okay, it was “How are Things in Glocca Morra?” but the year before I had only gotten to sing one line, so I thought it was pretty great.  I didn’t realize until later that “How are Things in Glocca Morra?”  is an incredibly stupid song.)  

20. Were you ever posted up on the senior wall? No, I wasn’t popular and I didn’t play any “real” sports.  I was picked as a Rotary student, but I think it’s because they ran out of popular kids earlier in the year.

21. Did you have a job your senior year? No, my mom didn’t really want me to work while I was in school and besides, I couldn’t drive.


22. Who did you date?  I didn’t date anyone my Senior year, but earlier in high school I dated a guy named Kevin for like, six months.  He was nice, a choir geek like me.  He came over to my house on Sundays and we watched movies.

23. Where did you go most often for lunch? There wasn’t any off-campus lunch at Malden, so I most often went to the last table on the end nearest the glass doors, by the trophy cases.

24. Have you gained weight since then? Not really.  I think I’m basically the same size.  I wear the same size of clothes, anyway.  So look at me now, and imagine me with frizzier hair and braces and no idea how to apply makeup, and you’ll have a pretty accurate picture of what I looked like back then.  Also, I now have wrinkles and bags under my eyes.  I’m only twenty-six.  When I’m forty, I’m going to look eighty.


25. What did you do after graduation? I went riding around with my friend, Jeremy.  We went to Casey’s to fill up his car and there was a wreck on the highway right in front of Casey’s.  Also, a girl in my class had her baby in the school parking lot after graduation.  Really.  I couldn’t make that up if I wanted to.


26. When did you graduate? Late May, 1998.  It was a Thursday.  I don’t remember the exact date.

27. What was most important to you? Choir and Band.

28. Did you hang out in the parking lot, or did you leave right after school? I rode with my schoolteacher mom, so my sister and I walked over to her classroom when I didn’t have choir or band rehearsal.  



29. Hall of fame? What is that?

30. Senior pranks were?  We didn’t have any, because the year before, several seniors broke into the school and vandalized the place so thoroughly that the school had to be shut down in the morning while the janitors cleaned it up.  (that made me sad, because our janitors were all really nice.)  We still lived out in the country then, so Jenny (she was in eighth grade) and I had to ride into town with our mom so she could go to work.  We walked over to Sonic and got drinks, and we sat in the teachers’ lounge until they let us go to school.  We may have walked over to Santie’s, too, to buy candy.  Anyway, my class was threatened with penalty of grievous bodily harm if we pranked, so we behaved.  I don’t think I would have been involved in any prankage, anyway, because I didn’t really associate with the popular people or… anyone else in my class, come to think of it.