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Strange Bedfellows

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul cozying up to Al Gore & Paul Begala? Dianne Feinstein & Lindsey Graham siding together. NeoCons snuggling with big government Dems. Unlikely couples sliding down slippery slopes. For those who hold security more sacred than civil liberties, monitoring our records is great. Depends who has control of drones over our homes. Could be found on GoogleEarth, anyway.

So, who is more intrusive, private sector advertisers or the NSA? If you have a phone and a computer, you can’t hide under the bed anymore.

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Sang Froid

Viewer frenzy. Season 3 Game of Thrones, too gruesome grotesque. Did they see Season 1? Brutal porn. Beheadings, heart-eating, animal skinnings. Season 2 starts with baby-cide. Hard to believe it could get gorier. Usually eschew blood & guts. But, characters are compelling, acting good. Soldiering on.

MadMen. More Megan foreshadow. Sharon Tate-esque bandana this week. Real-life murderers. MadManson like MadKing Joffrey. And 5th anniversary of Jodi Arias’ fatal attraction throat-slicing frenzy. Froid. Sang. RFK. Hmmm.

Weather too perfect for this. Out to the garden. Red roses poised to pop.

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Mad Cap

Betty is back. So is the show. She’s lookin’ good again, and Don falls for her during a nostalgic night at Bobby’s summer camp. But, Betty has learned that Don punishes women who love him. She smartly stays happy with Henry.

Don tries to reconnect with Megan, but she’s also figured him out. At work, Joan is in charge and gives Roger the heave-ho. Her young white knight is spreading kindness wherever he goes. We get another glimmer of Pete’s heart. Peggy is petulantly uncreative. Ted thinks so. Don knows her best. Everybody seems more true to character, though. Just in time for the season’s bow.

Rainy TV~ PBS: The Bletchley Circle. Based on true story of four women who cracked a code in WWII England. Suspend disbelief as they become sleuths. Dirk Gently. Quirky detectives. Laugh out loud with a jaundiced view. CNN: Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown. Remote world food with soul.

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Arrested Development

Never a show fan, its reprise seems apt. Everyone in government is infected with the disease. Including the White House. IRS chief, Lois Lerner, pleaded the 5th on our local law school commencement speech the day before. Whatta mess.

Weiner’s name a deal-breaker. If that’s your moniker, pick a different deviant behavior than package tweets. Can’t even say he played stick ball.  Jodi jury deadlocked. How are they going to seat a new one that hasn’t seen her on every television outlet? And, how do you say ‘fried chicken’ in Spanish, Sergio?

Good arrested development. Cancer patients’ survivor longevity and improvements in post-treatment care. Congrats to E. Gould on 5 years as patient editor of MSKCC’s award-winning Bridges newsletter.

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May Ville

photo-29May in New York. Sunny and seventies? No. Friday was beautiful, though. Supper al fresco on Park Avenue South.

Then over to the Lunt Fontanne for Motown. Berry Gordy’s homage to himself. For good reason. He merged music and ethnic cultures. Changed society.  Jesse Nager & Co. entertained with lightning talent and costume changes. All the hits. Dancin’ in the aisles. A really fun show. photo-26

Maysville on 5th & 26th. Bourbon bar? Yes. The food is the real reason to go. After the Derby or the Preakness, this is a Saturday culinary winner. And Dr.Husband did love the whiskey. Atlantic Grill was a Sunday cluster-brunch. But, Betsey’s Tipsy Donuts were born. Powdered sugar. Familial giggles.

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Brothers Karamaz Off

A tale of brothers struggling with morality, religion, ideology? Or, one brother whose psychology emanated from an unbalanced family dynamic influenced the other? I believe the latter. Russia, Chechnya, Islam are peripheral to this story. Elder son coddled by an obsessed mother, who seems a bit off. Her shoplifting conviction a case in point. As her first born began to behave like an angry bully, she tried to steer him away from evil booze and drugs. He dragged his young brother into an ideological excuse for escalating a violent nature into an act.

It could have been just guns, like other recent mass murders. But, the Boston Marathon Massacre had the added firepower of bombs. Yet, it was still a plot born of psychology and not ideology. Apologies to Dostoyevsky.

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Daffo Dilly

Daffodils up. Finally. Welcome distraction from bombs, cowardice, guns. Explosions, more blood. Ted Cruz gets scarier every day. Turning off the tube to take long-awaited refuge on the porch. Until Sunday night.

Lured back to MadMen. Once more, Creamer nails it. His hero is Ted Chaough, the real Ad Man. Ruthless, shrewd, but not morally corrupt in his personal life. Peggy has escaped to an agency where boundaries are defined by the office door. Not sullied by unseemly relationship spillover. SCDP the whorehouse, with no clear pimp. Hard-drinking, bad-living aging johns in an ever decaying brothel. Still want to see more triumphant Joan for a modicum of redemption.

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PrinTemps

Springtime weekend. Masters class. Tiger, Sergio, Phil navigating azaleas and pine straw. A fourteen-year old phenom from China. Lindsey Vonn wearing a Megan hat. Speaking of whom, Matt Creamer’s MadMen premiere recap is here. Agree, death is the theme, but not enough emphasis on the juxtaposition of Vietnam doom and gloom against tacky Hawaiian tourist escape. More ad biz, less location shots. And, am I the only person who missed the Sylvia Rosen tryst?

Check out this great Brooklyn via Northampton folk-rock band. The Sun Parade. A musical Girls-esque video. Great strings, production. Beautiful young talent.

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Side Bar

Talk to the judge. Every time she says “approach” we go to commercial break. Sidebar obsession. Jodi Arias’s court show has consumed my brain. O.J. trial was tame by comparison. Or, I’m just hallucinating, anesthetized by a polyurethane haze. Fumes aloft are feeding my stupor. When Dr.Husband gets “19th Century Authors” answer in Final Jeopardy and I don’t, synapses are not connecting. Hope it’s a temporary phase. But, hardwood floors do look better.

Sister JeanJean came to my rescue and dragged me into the fresh air at Chesterfield Gorge  yesterday. Gorge-ous early Spring glistening white water flow. So, can’t even blame stop at a real bar for this butt post.

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Mad Men 6

The return of Don. He’s still with Megan. I want my story. The one where Don does Megan’s betrayed friend. Weiner & Co. are still on vacation in Hawaii. What did that have to do with anything? It’s as if last season didn’t happen. No transitions. Fast-forward to somewhere boring. A disjointed, erratic script.

Megan as  soap actress, wanting more scenes with Victor. Must be Y&R. Joan looked like a bloated clown in her purple outfit. The long sideburns on the men were revolting, if authentic of the day. Peggy has become silly strident. Betty has morphed into her mother-in-law, capped by the black hair. What was with the St. Mark’s Place sojourn and Sandy? Random. Not cleverly so. Don has disappeared into himself. Hope they wake up from their sunburns and next week is better.

No offense, MadMen. It was 2 hours of ads and very little show.