When you spend six hours on a roundtable (which still needs to be edited), Dona goes into panic mode and starts her cry of "Short pieces! Short pieces!" So we're dipping into the mailbag with some e-mails from last week and two before that Ty thought to save for this feature when it was needed.
Last week's poem "Bacon" resulted in 17 e-mails all pointing out that Jess was a vegetarian. He is. He doesn't eat bacon. Sunday nights are awful. We're dragging from the all night sessions. We're trying to decide if we've got it in us to go out to eat. And what usually happens, for the core six and sometimes Kat, is that Ty's taken to saying, "I'll fix something if someone else cleans up." He fixes bacon. We eat bacon sandwiches. For Jess, he fries up tomatoes. This poem started out because C.I. had just gotten back and was going to fry up some bacon but there was none. There were other things but bacon was all C.I. could taste and the more the rest of us heard the talk, the more we wanted it too. Except for Jess, he is a vegetarian.
Noting our career retrospectives on Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks, Marcus wondered if we were planning to do anymore of those?
We actually thought we'd be doing Diana Ross this edition. That was before the never ending roundtable. In addition to Ross, we're also considering an exploration of Dolly Parton. By the time 2007 concludes, we hope to have offered both. (Dona is obsessed, the last few days, with The Essential Dolly Parton vol. 1 and vol. 2.)
On the same topic, Don wonders about other artists and includes 15 names that "you must consider." Sorry, Don, no, we mustn't. All the names on Don's list are male. We think there are enough people looking at the careers of men. We're an alternative. That doesn't mean we try to turn out yet another piece on Bob Dylan or any of the other things covered at length. We will do at least two more of those this year. If we do more than that, rest assured, we'll probably continue to stick with women. Our whole point of existance is not to be doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing. In addition to many sites online, Don can check out Mojo which shares his obsession with all things male.
Rodney notes a review by Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times. He writes, "See, feminists like King of Queens." We're not linking or even providing a date to that tired shit. Ava and C.I. actually had read that review because a friend pointed it out to them, a friend who was offended by it, a friend who works on King of Queens. Read it closer, Rodney, and tell us where the feminism is? Ava and C.I. note that it portrays Carrie as manipulative and scheming and Doug as an innocent good 'ol boy -- and they can provide you with the titles of many episodes where Doug is scamming and scheming throughout. How about when he fakes a heart attack? There's one. (They're listing more but this is a short feature and Wally recognized the title to the heart attack episode.) The point is, the lowbrow Virginia Heffernan always manages to endorse stereotypes. If that's your idea of feminism, Rodney, you need some help. Ava and C.I. say they'd wonder if Heffernan was just so tickled by Doug's last name that she found the show amusing if it weren't for the fact that low-brow and sexual stereotypes are all she has to traffic in? They also note that they write "a feminist look," not "the feminist look" -- and that even "a feminist look" would be hard to squeeze Virginia Heffernan into.
Robert wants us to know that, "Impeachment doesn't matter. If Nancy Pelosi says it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter." All hail Our Lord Pelosi, apparently. But in the real world, it doesn't matter what Pelosi wants or doesn't want. Congress is supposed to represent the people. We know that's confusing because so few do. But demanding that they do their jobs is one way to change that.
Kelli passes on that she loves the roundtables and loves Betty especially in them. She writes: "When she guest blogged, I loved it. Both at Rebecca's site and at Kat's. Betty's always putting her writing down, so you tell her I think she's smart and funny and I'm always interested in what she has to say." Betty replies: "Thanks for writing, Mom." Seriously, Kelli, we agree with you. You left out one point about her though, you never know what she will say. We're serious. What Cedric first called her Deep Wisdoms from the Deep South always bring a new layer to the discussions. That's true of the non-roundtable pieces here as well.
Ava and C.I.'s review of Ugly Betty resulted in more e-mails than anything else. Their commentaries always get the most e-mail, so let's clarify that, the number of e-mails are right up there with the response to Prison Break and other commentaries that generated a near obsessive outpouring. Sue Lynn noted that, "I thought, what's the big deal about Thursday. Everyone knows Rebecca Romijn is joing the cast and she's going to play the woman that's supposed to be dead. Then, in the final moments, when it turned out she was playing a dead character but it was Daniel's brother, my mouth just dropped. Thank you for the heads up. I may yet forgive you for not spelling out in your heads up to That 70s Show that Eric would be in the last episode."
Dennis wonders why child actors are not reviewed by Ava and C.I.? Because they're child actors. They're not adults. That's why they didn't review Malcomn in the Middle, though they really wanted to. To have done that would have meant either skirting their own rule or barely noting the show.
Supreena wonders if there's a show that's gone off while they've been covering TV that they wished they'd caught? Yes, Still Standing. They wanted to review that. They never got around to it. Partly because Jim kept giving them "assignments" every time they'd planned to review it. It's also true that the print edition contained a review of Twins (which also ran in the gina & krista round-robin). They had worked on that and needed to finish it (two paragraphs more, at least, they say now) but Jim "assigned" another show once we started the writing edition and they didn't have time to finish it. So they tossed it in the print edition so it could go out and worked on the review Jim had assigned.
Noting the media reform entry that appeared at all the community sites that posted Monday, DunDude deems it "powerful" but wonders if we worry about "not getting the shouts" and we'll assume he means shout outs. We don't worry about shout outs. We don't worry about links. Not long after we started, when we tackled a watchdog, we got hate mail from one with the watchdog and many from the one's friend telling us that we were "dead" and blah blah blah. We're still around. He's gone. Funny how life works out.
Last week's poem "Bacon" resulted in 17 e-mails all pointing out that Jess was a vegetarian. He is. He doesn't eat bacon. Sunday nights are awful. We're dragging from the all night sessions. We're trying to decide if we've got it in us to go out to eat. And what usually happens, for the core six and sometimes Kat, is that Ty's taken to saying, "I'll fix something if someone else cleans up." He fixes bacon. We eat bacon sandwiches. For Jess, he fries up tomatoes. This poem started out because C.I. had just gotten back and was going to fry up some bacon but there was none. There were other things but bacon was all C.I. could taste and the more the rest of us heard the talk, the more we wanted it too. Except for Jess, he is a vegetarian.
Noting our career retrospectives on Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks, Marcus wondered if we were planning to do anymore of those?
We actually thought we'd be doing Diana Ross this edition. That was before the never ending roundtable. In addition to Ross, we're also considering an exploration of Dolly Parton. By the time 2007 concludes, we hope to have offered both. (Dona is obsessed, the last few days, with The Essential Dolly Parton vol. 1 and vol. 2.)
On the same topic, Don wonders about other artists and includes 15 names that "you must consider." Sorry, Don, no, we mustn't. All the names on Don's list are male. We think there are enough people looking at the careers of men. We're an alternative. That doesn't mean we try to turn out yet another piece on Bob Dylan or any of the other things covered at length. We will do at least two more of those this year. If we do more than that, rest assured, we'll probably continue to stick with women. Our whole point of existance is not to be doing the exact same thing everyone else is doing. In addition to many sites online, Don can check out Mojo which shares his obsession with all things male.
Rodney notes a review by Virginia Heffernan of The New York Times. He writes, "See, feminists like King of Queens." We're not linking or even providing a date to that tired shit. Ava and C.I. actually had read that review because a friend pointed it out to them, a friend who was offended by it, a friend who works on King of Queens. Read it closer, Rodney, and tell us where the feminism is? Ava and C.I. note that it portrays Carrie as manipulative and scheming and Doug as an innocent good 'ol boy -- and they can provide you with the titles of many episodes where Doug is scamming and scheming throughout. How about when he fakes a heart attack? There's one. (They're listing more but this is a short feature and Wally recognized the title to the heart attack episode.) The point is, the lowbrow Virginia Heffernan always manages to endorse stereotypes. If that's your idea of feminism, Rodney, you need some help. Ava and C.I. say they'd wonder if Heffernan was just so tickled by Doug's last name that she found the show amusing if it weren't for the fact that low-brow and sexual stereotypes are all she has to traffic in? They also note that they write "a feminist look," not "the feminist look" -- and that even "a feminist look" would be hard to squeeze Virginia Heffernan into.
Robert wants us to know that, "Impeachment doesn't matter. If Nancy Pelosi says it doesn't matter, then it doesn't matter." All hail Our Lord Pelosi, apparently. But in the real world, it doesn't matter what Pelosi wants or doesn't want. Congress is supposed to represent the people. We know that's confusing because so few do. But demanding that they do their jobs is one way to change that.
Kelli passes on that she loves the roundtables and loves Betty especially in them. She writes: "When she guest blogged, I loved it. Both at Rebecca's site and at Kat's. Betty's always putting her writing down, so you tell her I think she's smart and funny and I'm always interested in what she has to say." Betty replies: "Thanks for writing, Mom." Seriously, Kelli, we agree with you. You left out one point about her though, you never know what she will say. We're serious. What Cedric first called her Deep Wisdoms from the Deep South always bring a new layer to the discussions. That's true of the non-roundtable pieces here as well.
Ava and C.I.'s review of Ugly Betty resulted in more e-mails than anything else. Their commentaries always get the most e-mail, so let's clarify that, the number of e-mails are right up there with the response to Prison Break and other commentaries that generated a near obsessive outpouring. Sue Lynn noted that, "I thought, what's the big deal about Thursday. Everyone knows Rebecca Romijn is joing the cast and she's going to play the woman that's supposed to be dead. Then, in the final moments, when it turned out she was playing a dead character but it was Daniel's brother, my mouth just dropped. Thank you for the heads up. I may yet forgive you for not spelling out in your heads up to That 70s Show that Eric would be in the last episode."
Dennis wonders why child actors are not reviewed by Ava and C.I.? Because they're child actors. They're not adults. That's why they didn't review Malcomn in the Middle, though they really wanted to. To have done that would have meant either skirting their own rule or barely noting the show.
Supreena wonders if there's a show that's gone off while they've been covering TV that they wished they'd caught? Yes, Still Standing. They wanted to review that. They never got around to it. Partly because Jim kept giving them "assignments" every time they'd planned to review it. It's also true that the print edition contained a review of Twins (which also ran in the gina & krista round-robin). They had worked on that and needed to finish it (two paragraphs more, at least, they say now) but Jim "assigned" another show once we started the writing edition and they didn't have time to finish it. So they tossed it in the print edition so it could go out and worked on the review Jim had assigned.
Noting the media reform entry that appeared at all the community sites that posted Monday, DunDude deems it "powerful" but wonders if we worry about "not getting the shouts" and we'll assume he means shout outs. We don't worry about shout outs. We don't worry about links. Not long after we started, when we tackled a watchdog, we got hate mail from one with the watchdog and many from the one's friend telling us that we were "dead" and blah blah blah. We're still around. He's gone. Funny how life works out.