Rushfield Babylon
Month
Network executives actually start to believe the critic quotes and even love to put them in promos for the show. Here’s the problem…..those Chiefs fans who were out of their minds in ecstasy on Sunday could give a flying fuck…..and it appears that most of America was of the same mind set. We have evidence and data up the wazoo that critic’s quotes don’t matter and, in fact, are a turn-off to the audience and yet we do them….more for ourselves than for any increase in viewer interest.
Now here’s where it gets to be fun: Rather than “Hey maybe we just missed the mark on this one” The critics, twitics and pundits look for reasons why the network fucked up because how can the rest of America reject a show that we love….oh wait we’re better than them….they’re idiots and they deserve Snokie and Bristol Palin etc……and FOX executives should listen to the twitics because they are more knowledgeable as to how to schedule and market LONE STAR to guarantee its success.
I don’t read all the analyses of why this show didn’t work (remember I have a second guess job) but here was my fear from the beginning:
We have just suffered through an horrific economic crisis brought on by excess and illusions, we saw the devastating environmental impact of an oil spill and the resulting lack of response and indifference on the part of a large corporation as well as the government. The last thing that every day Americans want to see right now is a good looking con man who is fucking over two innocent young women who have done nothing wrong other than to love him. A con man who eventually will leave these two women and their families in ruins. This is where it has to go….anything else is bullshit and, had we kept it on, would have lead to some major eye rolling by the very people bemoaning its demise. You can’t redeem this guy and everyone around him has to suffer….just ask Rita, Carmela or Betty. Dexter, Don and Tony were family men and that informed their actions…but they never looked for redemption. If we want to do a cable show than do a fucking cable show but anticipate cable ratings. Sorry critics, LONE STAR was never going to be a “hit”. We took the gamble and we moved on. So it goes. There’s a big country between the coasts. There was no way that enough viewers were going to condone bigamy even if the lead is the offsprig of what would happen is George Clooney married George Clooney and they had a kid. The audience was not conned.
”—- The mysterious Masked Scheduler on the cancellation of Lone Star.
Seriously, calm the h down on this people. There are plenty of occasions to rise in outrage against the entertainment industrial complex, this isn’t one of them.
Come on, Sunday afternoon JFK American Airlines terminal. You guys are a bunch of corpses. Where’s the spirit, travelers?
Based on a day and a half of walking around and looking at things.
(Margin of error +/- 18 %)
• Americans, myself included, are much fatter than most Londoners these days. On the other hand, they have rounder heads.
• They also have bigger ears and no chins.
• This is not a generalization but an absolute law. The black leggings/black tights thing on ladies has become universal here. Which is to say that everyone is required to wear them with short skirts. By everyone, I mean, every singing woman in the city. I’m all for the look, but I just am concerned about what they did to the women who refused to adopt it, apparently shipped them to some prison camp. Someone should consider calling Amnesty International or the UN and having them investigate and make sure they are being treated humanely.
• The only exceptions are women in the full body, face covering ghost bhurkas. I must say, religion is fine but it’s really unnerving to see people dressed as ghosts in public. And I’m all for religious freedom - build a mosque whereever you want for all I care - but really, once you’re riding the tube and hanging out at Starbucks, haven’t you pretty much surrendered the war against modernity. How many years does wearing a sheet over your head really buy you?
• On the tube the exit signs say “Way Out” instead of “Exit.” Less jargonistic and a jollier way of putting it all in all. Makes a person feel relaxed and not just a cog in a machine.
• Charles Dickens house was a pretty darn cramped space for a decent sized family. The rooms are tiny. If that’s all you get for being the most famous author of the entire 19th Century, you gotta wonder if it’s worth the trouble.
• Every person behind every cash register in London, every cleaning person, every busboy, is Eastern European. All of them. Interesting phenomenon. A warning to us all not to choose the wrong political and economic system or our great children will be manning the night shift at the bubblegum kiosk on the Piccadilly Line platform.
• The Porchetta sandwich sold at some guy’s cart by the Embankment is preposterously good. So much better than that thing you New Yorkers stand in line for in the East Village that I demand you New Yorkers surrender all pretense to cultural superiority forever.
• They give a lot of lip service to this biking culture thing including a loaner program they have. But in the end, I don’t see many more people on bikes here than I do in LA even.
• Pretty much every street is ridiculously pretty and picturesque. These people know how to keep power lines, bill boards and architectural travesties under control. That mix of the old and new thing is pretty powerful.
• Also it’s very clean. You see very little trash or vomit on the sidewalks. Or graffiti anywhere.
• And very little profanity. People don’t swear every word that comes out of their mouth at full volume and walk around with obscenities all over their t-shirts and tattooed into their foreheads.
• It’s all very pleasant and appealing and makes on start thinking that you wish your grandfather hadn’t left the old country and we could be living in Krakow cafe society now. But on the other hand if he hadn’t left Europe, he would have been killed by the Poles or the Germans or the Russians, so I guess it evens out.
• But if my fellow Americans on this sacred holiday could pledge in the name of freedom not to treat the streets like a wastebasket and not to swear every other word and treat the Mother Tongue like a garbage dump we could probably close at least half the gap of liveability with these darn Londoners.
I was going to write a post about how Labor Day morning seems to bring out only travelers suffering severe mental handicaps or emotional unbalance. And then I thought that would be too mean. And then a man just attempted to charge through a closed gate five minutes after the plane pulled away and has been screaming with the ground crew to let him in for five minutes. Even though the plane is gone. So now I think the original statement might be fair.
For no reasons I can articulate, but if you’ll just trust me on this, you’ll find the world will be a much better place.
In addition to the previously discussed “bro” the following words and phrases should not be used, ironically or straightforwardly:
• – assed, (bareassed, halfassed, etc)
• I (laughed, screamed, cried, ran, jogged, texted) my ass off.
• Not so much
• I love me my —
Thank you for your attention to this matter. An internet is a terrible thing to waste.
I saw a movie and I’m not allowed to say what it is or reveal any details because its embargoed but I just wanted to warn you all that you are all going to see it because it is great and its going to bum you out like you haven’t been bummed out since..that really bad thing happened to you that years later you’re still not over.
So all I’m saying is this is a good time to get your emotional house in order because this is happening and its going to hit you hard. In a good way. But still.
Forewarned is forearmed.