Author: King Tom

Jack Bauer Has To Get His Honour Back

It’s been a while since the last episode of 24. When Jack Bauer disappeared in New York four years ago, I was ready to see him go. It was a great show, great concept, great characters, but it just wasn’t as great as it used to be.

But it’s been four years. It’s nice to have the ticking clock and the reminder that “events occur in real time” back on the TV. And it’s nice to have something to blog about again. It’s also nice that 24: Live Another Day brings back the concept and characters, but with less time to have to stretch things out in. Plus, this is the third time in the last three seasons (four if you count Jack’s adventures in Africa) that the show’s switched up locations. Through the early scenes, it didn’t look particularly English, but that changed in the second hour. And I have to admit I was keeping my eyes open for a TARDIS in the background.

It’s been hard not to compare this season with previous seasons. 24 is a different kind of show from season to season- the characters change but overall, the story doesn’t. And compressing the time to fit 12 hours instead of 24 means things move quicker, and hopefully fewer pointless plotlines.

The show’s tone hasn’t changed much. Although the real-world concerns (drones, leaking classified intelligence) have been updated for modern times, the plot devices (moles, presidential assassination plots) remain the same. And you still don’t want to mess with Jack Bauer. It took less than an hour and a half for him and Chloe to team up, so I’m a fan of the efficiency there.

So far, I can really get behind this new format. It gets right to the point, it seems like there’s less waste and it will take fewer times. So for right now I’m a fan of the new 24. And I’m glad it’s back. Until the cougar shows up.

Some other things:

  • Woah, where’s the countdown at the top of the show? It took them like six minutes to show a clock.
  • Nice to see Yvonne Strahoski (aka Sarah Walker Bartowski from Chuck) pop up in the world of 24. Hurts to hear that her husband was a traitor.
  • Heller is president with a Mister Rogers sweater and a bad memory (this raises an interesting possibility for this season’s mole..he’s the mole and doesn’t know it (although that’s something I would have expected from season six)).
  • Last I heard they use miles in England, not kilometers.
  • Didn’t the last season have drones in New York?
  • The chief of staff said he took care of Audrey for three years. I wonder if that was his only qualification for the job.
  • What kind of gun can go through concrete?
  • How does the CIA have access to English traffic/police information?
  • If I was the President preparing for a debate/discussion with an English audience, I would have the people prepping me speak in English accents for accuracy. Or at least quoting Month Python lines back at me.
  • Finally, I didn’t know that the U.S. Government had an official list of Jack’s kills. It may be official, but it’s missing a lot.

King Tom

Happy Birthday Hope!

Today, Hope has turned as old as a presidential term. To a former political nerd, that’s quite a milestone.  I realize I haven’t kept the Internet updated on her and Luke’s every move. But as both of them grow older, I’m finding that I enjoy spending time with them more than I do writing about them (and I need some recovery time after they go to bed!).

Hope still loves to hear and tell stories. She can sing and has a memory that rivals mine. She’s fully potty trained, and even better, can clean up after herself.

Three was a lot more fun than two. But it’s feeling like four may be the best year yet. Plus, she’s another year closer to watching Star Wars.

 

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Luke, I am Your Tom

LukeI’ve written before about when both my children first started using the word “dada” to refer to me (for the record, Luke used it a lot sooner than he did “mama”).

Luke would be turning 20 months tomorrow if February was like other months (but it doesn’t so he’s stuck at 19 months). His language keeps growing. The Civee and I estimate he has about 100 words. And I am two of them.

Recently, Luke will see me, come up to me and go “Dada…Tom. Tom. Tom. Tom.” And he’ll repeat the use of Tom for a while. It doesn’t bother The Civee or I at all (there are probably worse things he could call me). One of the important parts of speech development at this stage is communication. And knowing multiple names for something is a good sign.

Now if only I could get him to start using a King in front of that Tom.

King Tom

Edison the Hutt

A while back, I wrote about Hope’s love of storytelling.

If anything, she’s gotten more into stories. She makes conversations out of them and often I’ll find myself starting one story and finishing another. Hope will ask question after question and try to relate the ongoing story with something she knows about.

Last week, Hope watched part of the movie Hop. The next day, she asked The Civee and I to re-tell her the story of the movie (which we weren’t paying much attention to). So we mentioned the few facts we knew, starting with the Easter Bunny’s son going to Hollywood.

Hope: Where’s Hollywood?

Me: In California.

Hope: Why did he go to Hollywood?

Me: Because that’s where a lot of famous people live.

Hope: Why do they live there?

Me: Because they make a lot of television and movies out in Hollywood.

Hope: Why?

And at this point I saw my chance to get away from talking about Hop to talking about something I knew  about (thanks to my film classes in college). I told her the simplified, kid-friendly story of how in response to Thomas Edison’s attempts to control American filmmaking in the early 1900s, a number of producers went to California and started making movies in Hollywood.

She actually understood all of this. And then came up with an analogy which surprised me.

Hope: So Thomas Edison was like Jabba the Hutt.

(A few months ago, the music from the final scene of Empire came on and she asked about it, so I told her the Rebels were trying to save their friend Han Solo from Jabba, a greedy gangster).

Yes, Hope. Thomas Edison was exactly like Jabba the Hutt.

King Tom

Weezer’s Pinkerton Still Brings Home The Turkey And The Bacon

Seventeen years ago I was a sophomore in college. On this day back in 1996,  I walked a few miles between classes to the one record store near Seton Hall University to pick up a CD that was coming out that day, Weezer’s Pinkerton.

Once I purchased the only copy of the CD in the store, I walked/ran back to my dorm room, but was only able to listen to the first three songs before my next class began. All I remember about the class was not being able to wait to hear the rest of the album. Pinkerton was so different from the Blue Album (which was by then, my favorite thing to listen to), but not in a bad way.

The sound of Pinkerton was more raw and the lyrics more emotional, which were a bad news/good news thing for the album’s fortunes. The rawness and emotion, combined with the public’s changing musical tastes meant the album didn’t do well commercially. In the year after Pinkerton’s release I was incredulous as songs like One Headlight and The Freshmen were played constantly on the radio, while Pinkerton‘s songs were ignored.

At the same time, fans loved this approach and the public rediscovered the album a few years later after word-of-mouth and file sharing attracted more listeners, leading to the band’s resurgence in 2000.

But by then, it was too late for Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo, who abandoned the approach that made Pinkerton what it was and sought out a more generic way of crafting the perfect pop rock song (this approach, which led to the Green Album, also was responsible band’s fascinating, yet vague (and too minimal) output in 1998). The band has also embraced (or re-embraced) the album, even releasing Pinkerton Deluxe Edition three years ago.  The highlight of this special edition was Tragic Girl, a song originally demoed at the last minute then promptly forgotten.

After my class, I rushed back to my room and listened to the whole of Pinkerton. I realized it was no Blue Album, but that was not a bad thing. It was an amazing, personal, rocking album. And it’s still amazing all these years later.

King Tom

Dinnertime Stories With Hope

Hope has graduated from asking for stories to telling them.

Her stories entertain everyone, including Luke. Tonight, we were having ribs for dinner and Hope started telling a story about mastodons (her favorite thing at the Ohio Historical Society Museum). I wasn’t able to record the first part (which started with “once upon a time”), but here’s the rest of it, until Hope gets distracted by some ribs. But then Luke chimes in with a song, which inspires Hope to sing too.

Oh, and usually dinnertime at our house doesn’t look like Medieval Times, but hey, we were having ribs.

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Weezer in the Rain

I found out something important last week. If concert tickets say ‘Rain or Shine,’ that means the concert will take place outside.

Also, that means there will be rain.

Last Friday, I saw my 12th Weezer concert outside the casino in Cincinnati (the outdoor concert was across the street from the county jail). The Civee graciously accompanied me despite the rain, which started as the opening band (Cincinnati’s Daap Girls) got their set underway. The Daap Girls weren’t the worst Weezer opening band I saw, nor were they the least memorable, so that’s a bonus. Although, the most entertaining part of the Daap Girls set was the dancing of the world’s biggest Daap Girls fan who was standing next to me. The rain let up for a bit before Weezer got started, but ramped back up to torrential levels about four songs in.

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Even with the rain, I enjoyed the show. The set list was along the lines of the greatest hits set they’ve been playing lately (don’t they have a new album they should be working on?) with the addition of No One Else, which was great to hear. They sounded good, and changed up arrangements on some of the songs, including (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To. Plus, they played No One Else.

Something different about this show- the crowd felt older. A lot of the people around us were talking about their kids. There was a family right in front of us, with two kids who looked to be about eight or nine. Seeing that made me think that I may be able to bring Hope to the next show, although I may not be able to get as close as I did Friday night.

Even though we was soaked by the end of the show (more accurately, soaked after standing there for 10 minutes), it was a fun show. The outdoor area of a casino across the street from a county jail made the location interesting. And while I could have done without the rain, it was certainly a memorable show.

King Tom

Old Fashioned TV Schedules

Back before Hope and Luke, the most blogged-about topics here at the Kingdom were 24 and Lost. I was a near-obsessive fan of both shows, and when both shows ended in the spring of aught-ten, so too did my TV viewing habits (not to mention production here on the blog).

I was so entranced by the mysteries of Lost and suspense of 24 that I wanted to give weekly TV a rest. Sure, I watched sitcoms and Chuck, but I didn’t want to get drawn into a new show again. I figured I would wait until a serialized show had either ended its run or had a few seasons under its belt before watching. That way, I could check it out on DVD or on Netflix at my own pace.

I stayed true to the plan. Only recently did I re-enter the realm of the hour-long drama, when The Civee and I started watching Fringe earlier this summer. Created by JJ Abrams and bearing elements of Alias and Lost, I was told by more than one person that I would like it. They were right. While I felt the first season was slow with its mystery of the week structure, once it started getting into its mythology in the second season, I was hooked. We barreled through the first four seasons on Netflix and ended last week. But Netflix won’t have the final season available until Thursday.

This isn’t on the level of seeing Jack Bauer shipped off on a slow boat to China or a bearded Jack screaming at Kate that they have to go back. But it is something I wasn’t expecting to face under the new plan. At least I won’t have too wait a few months to find out how Walter stops the Observers.

King Tom2 Comments