The Barryfest Chronicles

A couple of weeks ago, I saw Into The Wild for the first time.  It was a pretty fascinating movie, and my fascination with the incredible cinematography and flawless acting was no doubt heightened by the fact that I hit the trees pretty hard before I popped in the DVD.  If the movie hadn’t been based on a true story, I would have called bullshit on the whole premise, and the extreme details of Chris McCandless’ ill-fated journey would have came off as completely overwrought sentimental cheese if the action in the movie (or at least a non-dramatized approximation of it) didn’t actually happen at some point in time.

Because not only were his travels unconventional to start with, but by the end of the movie I was convinced that they were also completely emblematic of a particular moment in history.  While the early 1990s are nearly two decades old,  Into The Wild isn’t exactly a period piece.  The setting is very familiar (it has cars, credit cards, fast food restaurants, television, etc) and yet the differences that exist are striking.

Alexander Supertramp was very likely riding the crest of the final, awesome wave of casual hitch hiking in the United States of America.  I’ve done my fair share of driving around this great country, and I have never – not once, not a single time in my entire life – seen someone on the side of the road trying to thumb a ride.  I am not even going to waste time to try to figure out how or why the practice is all but eradicated, because the mere fact that is does not seem to exist anymore proves my point.  What was unusual but plausible just a few years ago seems like science fiction in this day and age.  Especially when you are really, really high.

And it goes beyond Into The Wild.  I got to thinking and realized that the majority of the action in the movie takes place between 1990 and 1992, with also just so happened to be the  heyday of a novel concept know as MTV’s Rock ‘N Jock.  For those of you who do not remember Rock ‘N Jock, let me give you the rundown:  Professional athletes would team up with celebrities to play in pickup softball, baseball, basketball and football games.

These games were loosely officiated and featured people making millions of dollars a year at their day jobs muscling up to try to hit a 350 foot home run off a tee or launch a ball four stories into the air to score a 100 point basket.  If there ever was a high water mark of unnecessary risk, Rock ‘N Jock was surely it.

This type of shit would go over like a lead balloon nowadays.  The caliber of talent that would ostensibly be standing shoulder to shoulder with Dean Cain and Roger McDowell don’t even participate in the Home Run Derby or Slam Dunk contests of their actual professional leagues anymore for risk of injury or other negative effects the exhibitions may have on their form or function.  With the exception of Dhani Jones and his inexplicable quest to tackle the globe, the riskiest thing a modern day professional athlete does in the off-season is have sex with Madonna.

Another staple of the 1990s:  Seinfeld.  Now, Seinfeld isn’t exactly dated in the way that, say, a show like Deadwood is, but there are anachronisms in almost every episode that serve as constant reminders that the show originally aired in a different era.  The main characters aren’t rocking afros in apartments decked out with shag carpet, but there are no cell phones, people bring four carry-on bags to the airport and Jerry needs a blank VHS tape to record the evening’s Mets game.

Even later episodes like “The Nap” which aired in 1997,  Jerry called in a bomb threat to Yankee Stadium so George could escape from under his desk, where he had recently discovered he could catch a snooze during his work day.  It is a funny premise, but is there any doubt that a scene like that, if it happened on How I Met Your Mother, My Boys or any other show set in the present, would come off as completely improbable?  That type of shit (along with countless other instances of hijinx featured on the show) is just no longer a joke.

But because of the huge amount of  things I find completely bizarre about days not so far removed from the ones we are living in, I wonder if this is just the natural order of things when it comes to hindsight.  I mean, I am just reaching the age in which I can summon lucid memories of events in my life that took place over a decade ago, so maybe I am still getting the hang of this whole “retrospective” thing.

I can imagine that it won’t be long before we are all reminiscing about the strange days when Lil’ Wayne had a blog on ESPN.com and would show up on 1st and 10 and have debates with that contrarian prick Skip Bayless.  And history is already turning on the XFL, P. Diddy’s Making The Band and Sarah Palin, so I guess that sooner or later everything looks pretty weird when you see it in your rear view mirror.  I just didn’t realize it happens so quickly.

I’ve had a dog in the fight for four of the last six Super Bowls.  I know there are scores of people out there that would give any number of appendages or offspring to see their favorite NFL team play in a Super Bowl let alone have the luxury of a semi-legitimate reason to root for teams from both Chicago and Boston, but I want to assure you it is not all hand-pounds and reacharounds.

At the risk of sounding like a total ingrate, I think it is worth pointing out that there are actually a few negatives of having more than a passing interest in the outcome of The Big Game:

You have to sweat the small stuff. Anytime that any of my favorite teams in any major sport are involved in a game of any sort or significance, I spend most of the day worrying about how crowded the bar is going to be, or how big of a television my friend has, or whether or not I bought enough booze, etc.  I am growing increasingly neurotic as I get older, so if you combine that nervous energy with any doubts about the actual outcome of the game in question, I am pretty much whipped by the time live coverage starts.

This year, I spent Sunday evening alternately squished on an uncomfortable couch, perched on an armrest and leaning against a doorjamb.  For some reason the game was tuned to the standard-definition feed for the entire first quarter, and even after that problem was rectified, my view was partially obstructed as a result of my bad posture and one of my friend’s huge noggin.  Additionally, there was no room in the refrigerator for the 12-pack of High Life I brought so by about 7:30 I was drinking tepid beer.  But you know what?  I couldn’t care less.

Regardless of the outcome, Monday morning is going to suck. Super Bowl XXXIX fell exactly on my 21st birthday so my friends were gracious enough to organize an enormous viewing party/birthday celebration ostensibly somewhat on my behalf.  Dozens of my closest acquaintances filed in to a cozy off campus apartment and took part in cold beer, Buffalo Joe’s, and a football shaped birthday cake.

I am sure I would have really enjoyed the shindig if I wasn’t boxing out the keg in the corner of the room with the only other Patriots fan in attendance, nervously pounding chicken wings, Camel Lights and pitchers of keg draft at a superhuman clip because I was too locked into the game to enter into any meaningful interpersonal interactions but needed to do something with my piehole to cut the tension.

By the start of the third quarter I was nearly blacked out and had no voice after going apeshit during Paul McCartney’s rendition of “Hey Jude” and, after the game had ending with the Patriots on top, I proceeded to stretch my drunk into the wee hours of the morning celebrating many happy returns.  Even through the sheen of a Super Bowl victory, thought, the heartburn and hangover made Monday morning pretty hard to endure.

I spent the first few hours of last year’s Super Bowl XLII in a similar way.  Although I was in a bar in New Orleans as opposed to an apartment in Evanston and I was pounding Abita Amber instead of Miller Light, all the important details are the same:  the other Patriot fans and I were glued to the set, stuffing our faces with greasy food, soaking ourselves in booze and chain smoking heaters.  When it was all said and done, I still drank until the wee hours of the morning, but this time it was in commiseration, not celebration.  Suffice it to say, Monday morning was rough.

This year I cut myself off before the fourth quarter and made it back home in time for the outrageous hour-long episode of The Office, which I watched perfectly buzzed and from the comfort of my bed.  I still felt like shit on Monday morning, but then again, I always feel like shit on Monday morning.

Gambling loses all its fun. Between pool squares, strip tabs, mulit-spot props and side bets, Super Bowl Sunday is best day for gambling ever.  It is kind of a shame to have such a huge focus on the final score that you are are forced to ignore the outcomes of the dozens of other wagers you may have placed, ranging from the length of the national anthem performance to how the NFC teams’s score compares to LeBron James’ point total from that afternoon’s NBA action.  I mean, how much consolation is hitting the halftime square if your hometown team is on the receiving end of a shellacking?  And what good is winning $100 on the coin toss if you end the night with a tally in the loss column?

As of late, my proclivity towards gambling has been inching closer and closer to “degenerate” territory, so I was pretty excited by the prospect of indiscriminately laying money on any number of lines without even a second thought about how may illicit activities may interfere with the cosmos or tip the karmic scales.

Dear Toby,

Whenever a new season of Top Chef hits the airwaves, it moves right to the top of the list of my favorite TV shows.  Everything else on my DVR queue moves down the priority list, even though it happens to be one of the few shows I have ever made a conscious effort to watch during live on a regular basis since acquiring time-shifting capabilities.  The program is nothing short of a masterpiece.

My fascination with cooking shows began back when I about six or seven and spent many Saturday afternoons watching The Frugal Gourmet with my grandpa, and then it was only a matter of time before I was sucked in by the scourge of reality-competition that saturated the airwaves around the turn of the century.  So when Top Chef was plucked from the ether – a reality show that exploited both my love of epicurean television and the guilty pleasure I take in watching people endure real-time criticism before being given their walking papers – it took approximately one quarter of one episode for me to get hooked.

Now, my taste in television is suspect at best, so just getting me to tune in doesn’t exactly speak volumes for any particular show, but anyone who has watched even a single minute of Top Chef can tell it easily rises above the fray of mediocre reality-competition smut that saturates the airwaves, and I think that the substantive and insightful commentary from the judges is a big reason why.  In a stroke of genius, the producers of the show bucked the trend of including a prickly British douche bag on the panel and instead opted for well-spoken industry experts completely devoid of any axes to grind.  That is, of course, until you took over for Gail Simmons.

You have been nothing short of a complete shitbird in your short tenure on the show.  To be honest, I didn’t really expect much from a guy who made his name bragging about how many people he pissed off while failing as both a magazine editor and a screenwriter, but you still managed to catch me off guard.

Something was different this week, though.  For the first time since arriving on the panel – and very possibly for the first time in your life – you weren’t a total dickhead.  For some as yet unexplained reason, you decided to dial it back and actually act civil towards the talented chefs cooking their balls off in a break neck competition.  Hell, you even indulged the batshit “taste the love” nonsense Carla throws around every time judges table rolls around.

This is a far cry from the trite one-liners you have been delivering for the past few weeks; generic one-liners that, to be perfectly honest, only served to make you sound like a total nerd.  I am not saying everyone should pull a Ben Lyons and lavish hyperbolic praise on all the I Am Legends of the world, but reciting condescending canned soundbites doesn’t offer any real insight into either your alleged intelligence or what, exactly, you found unacceptable about any particular offending dish.

Until recently, the only thing you added to Top Chef was a weird tension every time Tom and Padma were put in the precarious position of getting the conversation back on track after you talked out of your ass.  Now you seem to contributing something relevant to the discourse, which is probably a lot harder work than piling on with a biting metaphor that is neither creative nor funny, but I have to think it is also at least marginally more satisfying, right?

If there is one thing I have learned during my four plus years of maintaining a blog on an on-again, off-again basis, it is that topical, nondescript potshots are the currency of a bankrupt critic.  That was pretty much all you could find in the first edition of The Barryfest Chronicles, a site a I started around my junior year in college that did little more than answer the age-old question of “What would a drug-addled college student with nothing to really complain about complain about if given a forum to do so?”, so I know who satisfying they are to deliver but also how stupid they ultimately make you sound.

Anyone can hop on the pot and take a dump, but it takes skill and expertise to offer criticism while not simultaneously coming off as a piece of shit.

Top Chef is my favorite show on television and I just ask that you take what happened this week and build on it.  If I wanted to hear a snooty douchbag make himself look stupid by being a complete asshole to masters of the culinary arts, I wouldn’t turn off Iron Chef America everytime Jeffrey Steingarten grabs the mic.

Dear Kanye,

I spent Saturday night at my first holiday party of the season, so I unfortunately was not able to watch the original airing of the most recent Saturday Night Live, in which you were featured as the evening’s musical guest.  No worry, though, as I have been DVRing that shit since I first equipped my audio/visual set up with DVR technology almost two and a half years ago in my apartment back in Minneapolis.

I’ve always been a huge SNL apologist, keeping faith in the show even through the doldrums of the turn of the century with all it’s Jimmy Fallon-tainted misery.  Even then, when the majority of each broadcast featured Horatio Sanz in a variety of ill-fitting get-ups trying in vain not to break character and laugh while delivering terribly written lines, I found it amusing enough to keep watching whenever the mood struck and my schedule cooperated. Read the rest of this entry »

“That was the sweetest, but also the saltiest, victory ever.” -Kenny

Another season of RW/RR Challenge is in the record books, and I don’t know about you, but I have this bizarre urge to quit smoking and join the Army.  And although I find the “Sunny Side of truth” and “Army Strong” ads equally asinine, I have to admit that the media buyers vying for MTV airtime have got the viewing demographic at least half right.  But how effective can even a well placed anti-smoking campaign really be when, right after the corny PSAs air, they cut back to a bunch of hip young derelicts looking cool as they grill heaters while getting shitfaced on a beach?

And I have to think that the mere presence of Dan on this challenge has the bean counters in the US Army marketing department wincing each time the camera shifts to him during an episode.  All the money they are spending to underwrite the production of the show and buy ad time during the commercial breaks can’t change the fact that the one member of the cast who is a actual veteran of the Armed Forces has shown himself to be nothing more than an alcoholic with a notable track record of violent mood swings and piss-poor performance when he gets the chance to win a key.  I sincerely appreciate his valiant service in the defense of our country, but I haven’t quite figured out what “core Army characteristic” is exemplified by getting into an absurd argument and then passing out in a drunken stupor every night for a solid month. Read the rest of this entry »

The 2008-2009 NBA season is upon us, and for the first time in 10 years I will be intently watching “NBA Premier Week” on TNT.

See, my relationship with the NBA has been very rocky over the last decade or so.  I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago during the absolute apex of the Jordan years, and his departure and the subsequent decline of the Bulls franchise sent me on a downward spiral that was the equivalent of a spoiled teenager going off to college and suffocating under a pile of dirty laundry that develops a mind of it’s own and starts devouring DVD cases and half-opened packets of ranch dressing to feed it’s insatiable desire to expand beyond the corner of the dorm room.

As a 13 year old who spent his formative professional sport watching years following the greatest basketball player to ever put on a uniform win six titles and then leave the game as his team was being dismantled by an egomaniacal owner, I lacked the cognitive and emotional capacity to continue to support a losing, unglamorous franchise.  And my usual trump card – an allegiance to both Chicago and Boston sports teams springing from the fact that my dad spent the first 43 years of his life in Beantown and I was born at none other than Brigham and Women’s – did me no good as the Celtics were at the crest of a wave of misfortune that was eradicating their place as one of the most storied American sports franchises in the history of man. Read the rest of this entry »

“Let the girls braid the hair, let the boys tie the knots.” – Paula

I had a really hard time picking which quote I wanted to feature as the header to this particular post, as this was without a doubt the most entertaining episode to date.  Not only was the entire hour peppered with some of the greatest dialog I have ever heard on an MTV program, but starting around the 0:23 mark, there was about four or five minutes of solid gold.

This huge concentration of hilarious material took place as the remaining cast members started putting some heavy work into the building of the two boats.  And, as could be expected, Robin’s paranoia, Johnny’s megalomania, Kenny’s ironic detachment, Dunbar’s inferiority complex, Ev’s slowburning rage, Derrick’s valiant struggle with verb tenses and the plural form, Colie’s desperation, and Paula’s opportunism came to a head in one of the most satisfying programming segments MTV has broadcast since Krist Novoselic wielded a squeeze box during Nirvana’s Unplugged rendition of “Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam.” Read the rest of this entry »

“I gotta play my game.  I gotta play smart.  I gotta play ‘what’s gonna get me on that boat with a couple of dudes… who know how to tie some rope together… with a couple bamboos?’”  -Derrick

I may have said earlier that most of the people on these shows seemed locked in time, but – as with any rule – there are going to be some exceptions.  The most obvious (and heartwarming) exception to this rule I have found is Key West’s Paula.

Does anyone else remember how she spent her time in the Keys?  In case you forgot, here is a recap:  When she wasn’t refusing to eat and having panic attacks after a long night of drinking, she was picking all the scabs off her arms and legs.  She was bulimic, anorexic, addicted to diet pills… exhibiting all the classic symptoms of being absolutely batshit crazy.

And sure, it was easy at first to maybe think that her psychosis could have been the product of creative and malicious editing on the part of the producers.  But then shortly after her season of The Real World aired, she was arrested for domestic violence in the actual world. Read the rest of this entry »

You can tell a lot about a television network or program’s actual or intended audience by the type of commercials that run during the time-slot.  MTV gets most of their money from Clearasil and anti-smoking promos, the Food Network regularly shills kitchen appliances and household chemicals, and afternoon court shows are underwritten almost exclusively by bankruptcy and personal injury attorneys.

I remember back when I was much younger, I found myself inexplicably engaged by a made-for-TV movie on Lifetime.  I am not sure exactly how old I was at the time, but I had just started expanding my media consumption horizon beyond TGIF, SNICK, Cubs games on WGN, and of course The Real World, so I was relatively new to basic and extended basic cable channels.

And being unfamiliar with the target demographic of Lifetime, I allowed myself to get wrapped up in the story of a family having a hard time coping with the loss of their teen-aged daughter without even a twinge of embarrassment or guilt.  This is, until a network promo informed me I was watching “Lifetime.  Television for Women.”  I quickly shut off the TV, made sure no one had witnessed this emasculating episode and slowly backpedaled out of the room with a mortified look on my face.  Of course, hindsight being 20/20, I should have been suspicious when all the commercials were for osteoporosis treatments and hormone replacement therapy. Read the rest of this entry »

“You’re going to reap what you sow.” – Johnny

I’ve got to hand it to Evelyn.  She really flipped the script on Johnny with her win in the challenge and decision to steal his key.  And I am going to give her enough credit to believe that no other decision even crossed her mind, yet she was clever enough to get all the current keyholders to show their hands and subsequently spread some sensitive info as far as she could.  I’m really impressed.

But as impressed as I am with her dirty dealings, this is one of many examples of how the strategy employed by this particular group has become so fucking complex that almost the entire hour-long program has to closely follow every single clandestine, late night, hush-voiced interaction in it’s entirety just to keep everyone up to speed.  Shit, there was even a minute or two during the deliberation where I lost the plot, and I watch each episode at least twice while taking detailed notes so I have something to write about here.  I’m not sure if this is a good thing.

I know it wasn’t too long ago that I was saying just the opposite, that I would prefer more substance in episodes that were otherwise filled with nothing more that people fucking (with) each other when they were shitfaced, but I think the pendulum has swung a bit too far in this case. Read the rest of this entry »

“That’s the best docking station on the market right now, for sure” – TJ Lavin

Looking back, I don’t think I have ever been part any elite groups of rabid followers of groundbreaking shows during their original broadcast run.  I just got into The Wire this summer, have never seen a full episode of Lost or Heroes or Weeds, and got on The Sopranos bandwagon late and fell off in short order.

So last summer, when HBO started pumping their new drama John From Cincinnati, I cleared my schedule for the premier and – even though it left me wholly confused and underwhelmed – was determined to struggle through the boring exposition of the contrived and nonsensical story so a few years down the line when the show was sweeping the Emmys (or being triumphantly snubbed), I could say I was there from the start.

I wouldn’t exactly call this plan successful, as John From Cincinnati quickly went from bad to worse and was canceled immediately after the last episode of the first season aired.  But I survived a brutal test of patience and mettle, and I think I am a better man for it.  For those were the qualities that I was calling on during the first two and half episodes if The Island, and they did not fail me. Read the rest of this entry »

“It’s gonna take that heart to sail that boat” – Robin

I have been following The Real World franchise since it’s grainy, poorly lit inception over 16 years ago.  And while I have been pretty adamant about the recent decline of civilization in the last few Real World houses, I realized last night that I have been overlooking a very important fact that has undoubtedly bended my perception over the years.  I’ve grown up.

See, I still consider The Real World: Seattle the undisputed high water mark of MTV programming.  My memories of the show are filled with authentic interactions between dynamic people in real-life circumstances.  There is no doubt that these memories may be entirely accurate.  An equally likely scenario, though, is that at the time the series aired I was a 14 year dork who didn’t even know what “authentic interactions,” “dynamic people,” and “real-life circumstances” actually were. Read the rest of this entry »

“You know what?  You didn’t help, so you can have a chicken bone.” -Johnny

It finally happened.  As I mentioned before, the relevancy and realism of the whole Real World franchise has been eroding exponentially since the producers finalized the blueprint of the last full season in Hollywood.  But last night, the levee may have broken once and for all.

I always expect the cast members to reemerge more vapid and self-centered each time I see them.  No surprise there.  But in this week’s episode, a few of the inhabitants of The Island exploded into characters that were suddenly hyper-aware and alarmingly self-referential.  Two particular exchanges stuck out and seemed like they would have been right at home in a Charlie Kaufman/Spike Jonze meta-surrealist mindfuck:

• Dave claimed that he has watched all the previous Real World/Road Rules Challenges on television so he has a good idea of how the game should be played.
• Kenny is given a hard time by the rest of the cast because he “wasn’t even on a real show” before making his debut on Fresh Meat Read the rest of this entry »

“In the olden times, they used to take the most beautiful man in the village and make him king.”  -Kenny

There were plenty of things that made the last season of The Real World interesting.  Not least of which was the fact that MTV was finally admitting (or at least acknowledging) the recent devolution of what used to be their most relevant brand.  Starting around the time they got the cameras rolling in Key West, almost every cast member of every season since has entered the Real World house with only one goal: cultivate a memorable persona to push back the “Sell By” date on whatever new found celebrity they emerge with after the series airs.  Whether they were forthcoming about this or not, they all wanted to be famous.

So when I found out the premise of The Real World: Hollywood – all the roommates are fully disclosing their aspirations to be actors/producers/models/music artists/TV personalities right off the bat and their “job” for the season involves little more than taking improv lessons from the woman who set Andy Dick loose on the world and making show biz connections – I was not at all surprised that MTV was voluntarily yanking whatever wool remained from over the eyes of the small population that still watched the network’s shows in earnest.  Although I ended up enjoying the season, I was a bit disappointed and missed the artistry required of the producers and host city to devise hokey jobs that serve no public good and only offer a thin semblance of responsibility. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Scott Van Pelt,

I only became a regular listener to sports radio since I have come down here to New Orleans, as my morning commute changed from the six block walk I had in Minneapolis (a trip just long enough to expose you to the extremes of Minnesota weather but too short to help you fully shake off a hangover from the night before) to my current 15-20 minute drive to the office.

The only other time in my life that I regularly listened to any radio at all was back in high school, which was the last time I regularly drove before the invention of iPods.  And for a variety of reasons, I did not listen to sports radio back then.  In a major sports city like Chicago, the radio waves are full of local sports talk shows hosted by fat, obnoxious, bigoted homers hailing from the South Side.  You even find these fucking mopes for a few hours here and there on the ESPN affiliate, so there is really nowhere on the AM waves to hide from these shitbirds.  And besides, I was perfectly happy rocking out to The Drive, probably the best radio station on the planet (although WWOZ here in New Orleans gives it a serious run for it’s money). Read the rest of this entry »