OUR WORLD:
When all you do for a couple weeks is go to work, hang at home with a recovering VP (remember El Lumperoni? Yeah, that’s gone now), sleep and eat and okay, there was some other stuff too….(stay focused Jimmy, this is what writing takes!) THE POINT IS WE’VE DONE A LOT OF EATING AND WATCHING TELEVISION LATELY BECAUSE SURGERY IS A PERFECT EXCUSE TO DO JUST THAT AND NOT FEEL TOO GUILTY ABOUT IT! One of the few cool things about helping your wife recover from a surgery is that you kinda’ get to act like you’re recovering too and that means eating whatever you want and not going out and watching as much television as you want WITHOUT GUILT!!! I have descended into full-on “it’s okay if we don’t do that”-mode. So, in an effort to take a break from being completely useless in the name of solidarity (no, my ankle is still not fully whole, but I’m not a look-at-me-guy) I would like to provide some quick reviews for tv shows that you can watch when your mother in law is staying with you as your wife recovers from lumperoni surgery:
“The First” (Netflix)
Hand up, it was going to be nearly impossible for me not to love this show. It’s about space and Sean Penn is the star? Even if it turned out to be a rap-musical with Penn doing an Arnold Schwarzenneger voice, I would probably talk myself into loving it because “Sean Penn takes chances!” Fortunately, SEAN PENN USED HIS NORMAL VOICE AND IT’S NOT A RAP-MUSICAL! (For a second, I thought about just leaving my review for this show at that. Can you even imagine?!?! Aren’t I a GOOF?!?!?!)
This show is about Sean Penn trying to be a part of the first mission to Mars while repairing a fractured relationship with a college-aged daughter who likes doing the scary drugs sometimes. I know what you’re thinking: “Didn’t Sean Penn also play father to a college-aged daughter in ‘Mystic River’?” Uh, you bet your fucking ass he did! CAN YOU SAY WHEELHOUSE?!?! If you weren’t convinced yet that Sean Penn isn’t the best “I love my daughter, but I have personal demons”-actor in the game, this show settles that. Nobody walks the tightrope of love and struggle better than Penn, and that’s on display again in “The First”. Remember the “is that my daughter?!?!” scene in “Mystic River”? There are a couple of those scenes throughout the first season of this show, and they are not overacted, or overdramatic. They give you goosebumps as you shake your head and say “nobody is a better actor than Sean Penn.”
So like, have I driven home the fact that I love Sean Penn enough yet? K, got it. Aside from King Sean, this show is deliberate with it’s storylines and relationships. Nothing feels forced or manipulated or not completely realistic. For a show about going to mars 20ish years in the future, that’s not a minor accomplishment. The technological advances they show in society feel attainable and not silly. There are no flying cars, but there are self-driven cars and…uh…Jimmy likey (dude, 3rd person, really?) This is the kind of show that comes on five years ago and everyone is blown away by how well-done it is. TV is so crowded with fantastic shows now that the top tier don’t get the sort of adulation that they used to. “The First” belongs on that top tier.
Final Jimmyschair Verdict: Watch it and please don’t try to enlighten me about Sean Penn’s potentially sketchy personal life because I don’t care about that.
“The Voice” (NBC)
I used to be very ready to jump to the defense of this show whenever the HATERS would start to get lippy. “But Blake and Adam have real chemistry!” is definitely a sentence I have said in the past. Unfortunately, my muscles are tired from not working them out (isn’t that called atrophy? I SAID THEY’RE TIRED!) so I don’t have it in me to defend this show like I used to. Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson now sit in between Adam and Blake and everything in this show just feels kinda’ played out and pointless.
Blake and Adam pretend to talk shit to each other, but it’s hard to replicate genuine shit talk when you’re on NBC and can’t say things that real guy friends say to each other, like “oh yeah? How about you go fuck yourself?” I know these dudes have that in them too because Blake drinks a lot and Adam has been on Howard Stern. You know they’re dying to tell each other to “suck on deez nuts,” but they can’t because of the government so instead they gently make fun of their manicured wardrobes. Oh, and that’s another thing, can Adam cool it with the sweatpants? He’s gotta be almost 40 and is still not in a cool enough rock band to wear whatever he wants without consequences. He’s wearing sweatpants and Jordans and I, for one, have had enough.
The real weak spot of the show though is that neither myself or The VP or The VP’s mom or your mom or anyone you know can think of one actual star that this show has produced. Quick, who is the biggest star to ever come from the contestant pool of “The Voice”? That, my friends, is what we in the biz like to call “a problem.” If you connect with a contestant and are rooting for them to become the next Kelly Clarkson, then there are stakes and a real pot of gold at the end of their rainbow. But when you’re rooting for someone to be as famous as that country guy who sang rock songs a few years back and no one has heard from since, it feels less critical. And speaking of Kelly Clarkson, who knew she was unbelievably annoying? She thinks everything she says is hilarious, she gets up and walks around on stage way too much and makes everything about her. Hey Kelly, please stick to singing songs that nobody I know actually likes that much and GET OUT OF MY FACE!
Final Jimmyschair Verdict: Welcome to Skipville, USA. This show has run its course and Adam Levine is beginning to realize it’s happening right before his band becomes the most unpopular pick to ever play the Super Bowl Halftime Show.
“Chopped” (Food Network)
This show is perfect background noise while you scroll Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and your group chat and GMail and espn.com and WE’RE ALL ADDICTED TO OUR PHONES! Did background noise shows like this exist before we were all more interested in staring at our phones? Or, did they come about because some twisted Hollywood genius was like “maybe we should create shows that are non-offensive and don’t take much attention so people can Instagram-stalk their co-workers overweight aunt with the weird hair.” Chicken or the egg, am I right?
Non-offensive background noise is a new category of television show that I believe is VASTLY under appreciated. Most of the time, when I ask The VP what she wants to watch, I’m hit with a “I don’t care” as she continues to not look at me, transfixed by her phone screen. I’m not throwing shade at that answer, either, because I know I do the same thing sometimes. When either of us are in that mode, we can’t put on a new cool show that takes concentration because we’ll get annoyed that one of us is constantly asking “wait, who’s that guy?” So instead, it’s easier to put on some non-offensive, minimum concentration required type of show that masks our new most glaring addiction. These types of shows are especially valuable when your mother in law is in town and staying at your place. (Real talk, I like when my mother in law stays with us. No snappy zinger coming, I just do like it.)
Oh, so “Chopped”? You know it. The show does what it’s supposed to do. So instead of evaluating specific aspects of a show that you’re watching to avoid needing to monitor specifics, here are some other shows that fall into the “Non-offensive Background Noise” category: All of Food Network, “The Office” reruns, “Parks and Rec” reruns, “Seinfeld” reruns, “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”, and regular season baseball games.
Final Jimmyschair Verdict: Put this on and get back to what you really want to do–watching videos of kids getting hurt on Instagram. Seriously, check out @kidsgettinghurt on Insta. It’s gold.
MY WORLD:
So I still need to finish my Ireland recaps, but I was starting to get self-conscious that the 7 readers of this blog were like “we get it, you went to Ireland!” Hitting the pause button on those for now. As I alluded to in the above section, the VP had surgery last week to get that lump out of her booby. It went well and our friends are amazing and I want to write about it but my writing muscles, like the rest of my body, are out of shape right now. Gimme a couple of days back in the gym (aka on my dining room table chair sitting and writing) and I’ll turn out a decent “my world”. If this section is reading like an excuse today, that’s because it is. Honestly only here.
LET’S LOVE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:
The new album from Metric is AMAZING. Here’s a live version of my favorite song off of it…
LET’S HATE THIS TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME:
That Cubs game last night.
JIMMY GAMBLES:
I have been an absolute fiend gambling on everything since I got back from Ireland. I got up over $400, so I pulled $300 out (a check I have yet to receive yet btw but I’m not even worried about it…not even one little bit that I haven’t received a check I asked for 11 days ago now). Feeling especially hot, I bet almost every college football game last weekend and lost every single bet I made. Not kidding. Every single bet. So, I made another deposit for NFL Sunday and, again, lost every single bet I made. Then I made another deposit last night before the Cubs game because the year they won the World Series I bet on them every game so it was really for luck’s sake. And the Cubs lost last night. In short, things have been going less than ideal.
(My account is currently at: $0.00)
K bye.
Jimmy's Chair 