In Which I Watch One Tree Hill and Then Comment On It

Yes, it's been a very long minute since my last visit here. Six-ish years of pandemics and democracy-destroying hell and emptying of the nest and returning to college. Busy times, to be sure.

Somewhere, in all of this, I first watched the twenty-aughts WB/CW hit teen TV series One Tree Hill. And having enjoyed it very much, I recently embarked on a re-watch. This time, however, the feels are desperate to burst out of my brain, so here I am, at the one place where I can put it all out there to be read or ignored. Either way, it's outta my head and into my car^*.

For those who have never seen One Tree Hill - hereafter known as OTH - either because 1) you were way too old for twenty-aughts WB/CW hit teen TV series (as I was) when it first aired back in 2003, or 2) you have been busy doing other more soul-enriching things with your time than watching twenty-aughts WB/CW hit teen TV series (as I have not), I will give you the elevator pitch.

It goes without saying that everything written about this topic will contain SPOILERS from this point on. 

OTH is a show that follows five main character teens in the small, fictional town of Tree Hill, NC as they navigate first high school and then their early adult years. Half-brothers Nathan and Lucas Scott begin as enemies and become the closest of friends and true family. Lonely Indie girl Peyton Sawyer learns to trust and finds lasting love. Fabulous Brooke Davis discovers she is, in fact, fabulous. And all around perfect girl Haley James just barely keeps from being a Mary Sue of the first order. Secondary characters show up to be supportive and/or cause mayhem from week to week, some with growth and stories all their own.

As all mainstream network teen shows do, OTH contains its fair share of love triangles, parental/teen angst, jocks, cheerleaders, brainiac nerds, and unrealistic portrayals of teen sex, booze, and party-culture. It also contains some serious topical issues, such as school shootings, drug addiction, pregnancy scares, death of a parent, and genetic heart conditions. And then there is the crazy. Teen marriage. Fratricide. Stalker Prom Night. Heart-eating dogs. Loan sharks and psycho nanny seducer-slash-kidnappers. 

Over the next few weeks, I'm planning to post discussions (aka: my internal monologues, shower thoughts, and the unheard groans of frustration uttered while viewing) about the people and goings-on in fictional Tree Hill, NC. 

Specifically, some of my musings include:

• Early season Brooke Davis...true victim of best-friend betrayal or the worst BFF ever?
• Peyton Sawyer...guilty of heinous cheating crimes or no jury would convict if she burnt the whole place to the ground?
• Lucas Scott...hero, cad or too full of love for just one woman? 
• Haley and Nathan's successful teen marriage...relationship goals or fantasy of the highest order? 
• Marvin "Mouth" McFadden...original toxic Beta hero or genuine nice guy?
• Four year time jump...brilliant story telling technique or great idea, disappointing execution?
• Dan Scott...redeemable jerk or crossed the moral event horizon miles back?
• Peyton, Brooke or Lindsay...obvious choice for Lucas's end game or heart-wrenching dilemma?
• Jake Jagielski...Peyton's legitimate backup plan or just her Lucas wannabe?
• Haley's hair...dear God, what were they doing to that poor girl?
• Jamie Scott...the only truly cute kid on TV. No debate. For real.

I know I'll have other topics to ponder, but these are the ones that won't stop knocking. 

See you soon.

*If you got this reference, then you were definitely too old to have watched OTH when it first aired! But just remember Beverly Hills, 90210 and Melrose Place and you might find the appeal.

The Last Laugh: A Letter to Mr. Trump

Dear Mr. Trump - 

I won’t honor you with the title of President because you haven’t earned it. Not in votes. Not in behavior. Definitely not in respect on any level. Indeed, the “Mr.” is merely the result of years of devotion to Miss Manner’s daily newspaper column

I know you will never read this letter. I’m going to write it all the same. 

Because I’ve come to realize something that I don’t think you know. Or perhaps you do know it very deeply inside the darkest corners of your mind. Perhaps it is the reason for your mental illness.

You see, you may have connived your way to the pinnacle of power, the epitome of all success. But I will get the last laugh. 

I am younger than you. My children are younger than you. If my math and the 2010 US Census are correct, 87% of Americans are younger than you.

Odds are very good that you will die long before I will. Definitely before my children.

And we are the keepers of your legacy. 

After you are gone, we will remain to write the history books. We will tell the truths and report the facts. Not your mind’s twisted, distorted alternative facts, but the cold, hard realities. We will choose what gets remembered and what gets forgotten.

You will not be remembered as a great man. You will not be recalled as having been beloved or popular. The adjectives “admirable” and “respected” will never be attached to your name. Your attributes will not ever include “wise” or “compassionate”. 

Your meager successes will fade beneath the bright light we will shine on your failures. The name that brings you so much riches and pride will become, once again, the punchline of a bad joke, the short-hand slang for a corrupt, morally bankrupt politician. “He’s a real Trump,” we’ll say, and that will explain everything we need to know about a person.

We will not build monuments in your honor or remember you on holidays. The company you keep will be Hitler, Putin, Hussein, and Chavez. You will receive credit for bringing on the darkest time in America’s history. A host of ills will be placed at your feet.

We will openly mock your tiny hands, your ridiculous spray tan, the bad toupee. We will speculate how small your manhood must have been to warrant such overcompensation. We will point at the pictures that demonstrated how few people supported you and how many hated you. We will watch the videos and we will mock you, as you once mocked a disabled reporter. 

And the best part?

You will be powerless to do anything about it. You won’t be able to tweet your outrage. You won’t be able to force your surrogates to try to sell us your lies. You won’t be able to threaten and bully and abuse your power.

You will be gone, but we will remain, and we will be laughing at you. We will teach our children and our grandchildren to laugh as well. 

That will be your legacy and your hell. Doomed for all eternity to be laughed at.

Call it Karma.

Please Mr. Hollywood Producer, Make This Movie For Me

There are a handful of books I remember reading in my youth, ones that really stuck with me such that thinking about them - or rereading them - puts me back in a very specific time and place in my life. One such book was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, which I read when I was around 13 years old and remains my all time favorite book ever to this very day.

But a close second is the classic Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. The edition pictured above is the one that I read when I was young, and I still own this book today. The pages are yellowed and the cover is so worn it's cloth-soft. There are more recent editions with way cooler covers, but I prefer my copy. The other day, at the library, I found Johnny Tremain on CD which I checked out to listen to in 10 minute bursts in the car as I zipped here and there during the week. But these snippets were too much of a tease, so I broke out the book and reread it again.

And again, I was completely captivated by the story of Johnny and his experience during the early days of the Revolutionary War. If you haven't read this book, do so. You won't be sorry.

Disney made a movie. It was horrible. Well, maybe not horrible for the time - 1957. But now, it's excruciating to watch a single second of it. The acting is amateurish, the dialogue just silly. The colors are over-bright and over-saturated. The costumes are laughably inaccurate (check out Johnny's Davy Crockett fringe jacket). The depiction of mid-1770s Boston is too clean and sanitized. And the Disney-fied version holds none of the dark, haunting undertones of the book. It's like what would result if Disney created an amusement park ride called The Wonderful World of Revolution!

Which leads me to beg anyone who reads this and who has any connection with the Hollywood Movie Making Machine (6 degrees of separation put into action), please, please, please - this movie is begging for a remake. It needs the Last of the Mohicans or The Patriot treatment. It needs to be made real, with dirt and blood and brooding.

Mostly, it needs a fantastic actor to play Johnny Tremain. Because Johnny (along with Ponyboy Curtis) is the first fictional character who ever haunted me for days and weeks after I'd finished his story.

Heck, years and decades later, I think about Johnny Tremain. I remember when I first read this book oh so many years ago, the song Into the Night by Benny Mardones was in rotation on the AM radio dial. To this day, when I hear this song, I think of Johnny Tremain. Not that the song or lyrics have anything at all to do with a young man in the time of the American Revolution. Just that the book made such an impression on me at the time, other aspects of my life latched on and became permanently connected with the experience.

That's one powerful character.

(Side note, and nothing to do with Johnny Tremain, but the song My Eyes Adored You by Frankie Valli reminds me always of Laura Ingalls Wilder because I was reading These Happy Golden Years when it was popular on the radio. Am I really weird?)

So I'm officially starting the petition. With all of the remakes and remakes of remakes out there, Hollywood is clearly hurting for ideas. Johnny Tremain is a fascinating story about an amazing time in our country's history. It contains tragedy and heartbreak, love and romance, war and violence, villains and heroes, oppression and victory.

No car chases.

But there are a couple of close calls with pitchfork-and-torch-bearing mobs chasing down Tory carriages that might appeal to that male ages 13-25 demographic.

It's a guaranteed blockbuster. I promise.

Davy, You Will Always Be My First

RIP Davy Jones.

You were my first ever crush. The first guy who made my knees melt.

When you sang I Want to Be Free, I believed you were singing to me.

Oddly, you became a teen heartthrob the year before I was born, but I found you in afternoon Monkees reruns. You opened the door to the world of harmless, celebrity crushes.  Shaun Cassidy. Christopher Atkins. Rob Lowe. Boris Becker. So many others came after you.

But you were the first and the one I'll always remember.

You will be missed.

The Perfect Heroine

If I could be any fictional character on a televisions series, it would be Amy Abbott (Emily VanCamp) from the canceled family drama, Everwood.

To anyone who has ever watched the show, pointing out that Amy has Ephram Brown's (Gregory Smith) undying love and devotion would probably be enough explanation of why I'd love to be her.

But Amy Abbott is a great character in her own right. She's extremely smart but does stupid things. She's pretty and popular but still insecure and grounded. She's from a privileged background (father is a doctor, mother is the town's mayor) but isn't a spoiled, entitled shop-a-holic. She loves her older brother, Bright (Chris Pratt) but fights with him like real siblings do. She's a great friend without being too saintly. The girl makes mistakes, but she can admit when she was wrong and apologize sincerely.

For the four seasons that Everwood ran, Amy endured a lot of pain and drama - her first boyfriend languished in a coma for months after a car crash left him with a severe brain injury, she suffered from a bout of depression, skirted on the edge of the drug scene while dating a bad-boy, discovered that the love of her life had fathered a child with another woman, watched her mother battle cancer - yet Amy never came off as pitiful or martyr-like. And when the show ended and Amy earned her (presumably) happy-ever-after, the satisfaction of a story well told was profound.

The writers of Everwood did a great job creating a well-rounded heroine in Amy Abbott. She's a great model for how to create a flawed character who is likable and realistic.

And I'd kill for her wardrobe.

A Song of Ice and Fire

I didn't watch Game of Thrones when it aired on HBO. To be honest, I'd never heard of this book, nor of the uber-successful fantasy series by George R.R. Martin, A Song of Ice and Fire. On the whole, I'm not a huge fantasy reader. Other than the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I can't think of any other fantasy series I've ever read in its entirety. Well, except Harry Potter. Does that count as fantasy?

Anyway, it came to pass in mid July that my children were going to the movies, specifically to see a show that I had no desire whatsoever to watch, and I found myself needing to kill two hours before I had to pick them up at the theater at the mall. I took a tour of Target where I spontaneously picked up a copy of Game of Thrones. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I headed to Portillo's and treated myself to a chocolate cake shake (okay, it was my birthday, so I felt justified) and cracked open the giant brick of a book.

And now I'm totally hooked. What a fantastic story.

Mostly, I'm in awe of what an amazing writer George R.R. Martin is. His ability to pace such an astoundingly long and epic story with a cast of hundreds is an inspiration. Every single chapter - which is told from the point of view of a different, key character - moves the story forward by leaps but never feels rushed. Specifically, Martin has some preternatural gift of knowing which POV character to use to make the narrative edge-of-your-seat fascinating, and at the end of each chapter, I'm turning pages like crazy wanting to know what happens to that particular person next. But by then, he's already turned my attention to someone else and the process is repeated.

Oddly, as well paced as this series is and as much as I'm always wanting to read more, even into the wee hours, it is taking me FOREVER to get through these books. Seriously, it took me a full month to read Game of Thrones. And that was with reading at least some of the book every single day and buying a smaller, mass paperback copy to take with me on my beach vacation. I picked up the next title, Clash of Kings, immediately upon finishing GoT and have been working on it diligently, yet I'm only about half way through the book.

Part of this slow reading is because the books are long. I'm talking close to 1,000 pages each. And they are dense, with so much information you can't afford to skim. Too much happens in too short of a span of pages. Not that I'm even tempted to skim - the story is great and completely engrossing. Perhaps Martin's descriptions of castles and dark forests get a bit windy, but there aren't too many paragraphs I haven't read every word of.

I'm now wanting very much to see the HBO interpretation. We don't have HBO, and I have no desire to pay for HBO just so I can have access to 10 hours of its programming. It doesn't appear HBO has any intention of putting GoT on DVD any time soon, so I guess I'm out of luck. I'm just going to have to wait.

Then again, it's going to take me a year to read all the books, so it's not like I don't have a way to kill the time until then.

In The Dark

We've just spent the past 48 hours without electricity after a powerful storm rolled through our area on Tuesday evening and knocked down trees, branches and power lines.

The first 24 hours in the dark are always kind of fun. We dig out our No Electricity Box that contains candles, flashlights, oil for our old oil lamp and a Coleman camping lantern. The kids light candles all over the house and my husband and I fret about someone starting a fire. It's like camping out, and we joke about how hard it would have been to live 150 years ago. We wonder how we would have spent the time and marvel that people functioned as well as they did. I always marvel at the fact that it's only around 150 years we've been living with better lighting in our homes.

The kids wonder what to do and think it's a great boon to dig out the board games for entertainment. They actually read real dead tree books and interact with each other face to face instead of via text. And when things get really boring, they - gasp! - head outside to take a walk or play a game of basketball. Both my husband and I think perhaps it would be a good thing for the electricity to go down a few times a month.

The second 24 hours aren't so much fun. The storm hit just as I was in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, so I had a dishwasher full of dirty dishes. I also hadn't yet run the garbage disposal which meant one of my sinks wouldn't drain well and I worried about odor.

Also, after two days, the laundry had begun to pile up. My daughter and I headed to the laundro-mat this morning. I have to say, there is something nice about investing two solid hours to get ALL of the laundry clean, dried, folded and sorted rather than the days-long process of doing one load at a time. Maybe not as convenient, but now I don't have to worry if we'll run out of clean towels until at least the end of the weekend.

Then there is the problem with charging. Cell phones. iPods. iPads. We have charging units that work off a running car engine, but you can only drive around so much. For years now my husband has been saying we need to get rid of our land line phone since we all have cells. But it's times like this when I feel vindicated for pushing back - once all the cell phone batteries run out, we're completely incommunicado. 

Not so cool was emptying out my fridge and freezer. I didn't bother trying to salvage any of it save some condiments, potatoes, onions and a bit of chicken that had remained frozen. I hauled six full garbage bags to the bin and felt tremendous levels of guilt for all of the bottles and plastics I failed to recycle. Without a working garbage disposal, there was no way to properly empty and rinse out the bottles to save them, so I threw things out whole. I hope future generations will forgive me.

As time consuming (and expensive!) as it was to purge the fridge, it's amazing how nice it is to start from scratch with an empty and clean unit. I've made my husband vow that we will not buy anything to put into it that we don't plan to use within a day or two because I'm not going to clutter it up again with half a dozen half-empty bottles of BBQ sauce or 13 varieties of salad dressing and ice cream sundae toppings. Gone, also, are those "experiments" we always manage to pick up at Trader Joe's or other high-end grocery stores, things that sound good on the label but either aren't a big hit or don't get used often enough such that three years later we still have a 3/4-full jar of roasted red pepper and artichoke tapinade buried in the darkest corners. Either we love it, we eat it all up or we hated it and out it goes immediately.

While I was the first one doing the happy dance when ComEd finally managed to give us back the power, I have to say that living in the dark has some real benefits. Last night, after eating dinner out (couldn't cook!), the entire family sat down and played a game together. We had a lot of fun, and my husband and I remembered how we'd always planned to have a family game night once or twice a month. Usually, we all go our own ways to plug ourselves into whatever electronic entertainment we've chosen for the evening, and no one wants to be bothered to spend time laughing and talking together.

Makes me wonder if the decline in western culture and the bonds of family might not be the fault of the light bulb. Way to go, Mr. Edison.

BTW, if you are looking for a fun, family game, I recommend Apples to Apples. While the Family Edition is great for older kids (and my kids do fall in the right age group), I actually thought the Junior Edition was more fun. But it's a great game that provokes lots of laughs.