We Need to Talk About Some Things: An Early Week Fiver

We need to discuss some things. Some of them important, some of them not.

1. Why aren't you updating your blog, Jocelyn? Listen, you should expect that for the next several months, at best, I'm checking in once or twice a week. There's a lot going on that some of you know about and some of you don't. Huge professional opportunity that I don't want to miss or under-perform at. New developments with the boy on the scene that change the whole game. Things in real life to focus on, and some of them, for various reasons, while they would be great storytelling, must be left off of the blog. I'm probably setting something up privately somewhere for some of that, but here will be sparse for some time to come. I'm sure I'll be back in full swing by the holidays, because I would not want you to miss a single holiday retardedness story.

2. Thing Number One That I Hate Myself for Loving: The New 90210. Okay, listen. I don't pretend for a moment that it compares to the original, and I'm not even sure I'll care about it for the entire season. Mostly, I don't think that it will hold up because none of the actors they've hired have 1/3 of the charisma of a Jason Priestly or a Luke Perry or a Tori Spelling (say what you want, when she was on screen you couldn't take your eyes off of her). But there were some freakingly brilliant things about the first episode.

a. The replacement cast in general: It is kind of neat how every original cast member has a more or less replacement in this cast. The siblings who move, the journalism geek (though this time it's a man), the troubled rebel, the troubled rich girl, the wanna-be celeb. I appreciate the theme on the original variation, and yes, I just said that about 90201.

b. Erin Silver: Remember when Kelly Taylor's mom and David Silver's dad had a baby in season three or four and named her Erin? She's now a character on the new show. She calls her self Sliver and wears dark eyeliner and has a video blog. You see, because the video blog is the replacement for the morning radio show. Awesomeness.

c. The shout-out to Andrea Zuckerman: Possibly the best moment of the show, when the morning tv news anchor for the high school comes on and introduces herself as Andrea Zuckerman Garcia and then the show cuts to a teacher in a classroom who looks up at the tv and says, "How old is that girl anyway? Like 30?" This is all hysterical if you watched the original and know that Andrea Zuckerman was a Jewish girl played by a Latina girl/woman who was already 30 years old when she got cast on the show.

d. The shout out to Dylan: At the end of the show, the "troubled rebel" character who will replace Dylan emerges from the ocean wearing a wetsuit and carrying at surfboard just like Dylan did in the first episode. It was hot. Inappropriately hot.

e. Oral sex: We never had implied or obvious oral sex in the original.

f. Jennie Garth & Shannen Dougherty: Thank you, ladies, for making this special.

The only place the show entirely failed, in my mind, was in the casting of the parents. One of the things that worked so well in the original is that the parents looked like parents, and like parents who might not fit in so well in LA. I love Lori Loughlin and I LOVE Rob Estes (remember Silk Stalkings of late eighties fame?). LOVE THEM. But nobody has ever had parents that are that hot, ever, in the history of parents. EVER. Kelly's mom wasn't hot. Dylan's parents were old hippies. And for sure, Carol and Jim Walsh were not hot. I don't like the hot parents. That is all.

3. Thing Number 2 That I Hate Myself for Loving: The NKOTB & Ne-Yo Single: So. Brilliant. Let's list the ways and reasons that I love and can't stop listening to and watching the video for this song.

a. It's a mother-fucking colaboration between the New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo. Right there, that should be enough for you.

b. My boyfriend Joey Mac is on lead vocals.



c. The video takes place in Jet, which is just not-hot enough to be the landscape for a NKOTB vidow.

d. These are the lyrics:
Pretty mama if you're single...single
You don't gotta be alone tonight
So while the dj play this single...single
Just pretend that I'm your man tonight
So you don't gotta be alone
Baby ill be your boyfriend
Be your boyfriend til the song goes off (Mmmm)

BRILLIANT.

4. NFL: Is finally back. The public was on the Lions today. The public was way wrong on that one. My Steelers looked like the best team ever to take the field. I mean, it was against the Texans, and at home. But I'm going to take it. I'm going to take it because I made this unfortunate bet that I could imagine regretting. I bet $50 that the Steelers would have a winning record at the bye week (which for them is week six), but I gave my opponent 3-1 odds on it. So if they can't eek out 3-2, I'm out $150. I love my Steelers. There's turmoil in Steeltown though, and I may be out some cash.

Also, that Jets/Miami game was very exciting to watch. I still don't like it though.

5. The Last King of Scotland: Briefly, that movie is disturbing, and it leaves you feeling unwell at the end, and it doesn't even really begin to touch on how horrible and sick and twisted Amin was. If you're going to watch the movie, be mentally prepared.