With Friends Like These...

The guys at TVSquad.com have revealed that NBC is working on a series of one-hour specials starring the Friends cast. All six members of the original cast are rumored to be returning, which would give us the equivalent of a third of a season of new Friends episodes.

When I began exercising twice a day after my heart surgery, I entertained myself by watching DVD seasons of Friends as I was working out with weights. It took quite a while for me to catch up on the series--I didn't start watching Friends live until the end of season 7 or the beginning of season 8--but I was very impressed with what I saw. While some of the episodes ventured into formula, the characters were among the most personable I had ever seen on television.

I came to admire Matthew Perry and David Schwimmer in particular--each is superlative at physical comedy, but the chemistry when they're together is remarkable. Of course, Jennifer Anniston had an irresistible charm on screen and Courtney Cox-Arquette was endearing in a quirky way, but it was Schwimmer and Perry who gave the show its best moments. (Never cared that much for Matt LeBlanc's shtick-laden portrayal of Joey, which is why I was surprised that this character was chosen for a spinoff... but that may have been due to LeBlanc's savvy awareness that he had no other options. And I was absolutely bored by Lisa Kudrow's painful attempts at eccentricity in her portrayal of Phoebe, and I was glad that used her as more of a supporting cast member/foil than as a central figure in most of the episodes.)

I hated to see the series end; I was so interested in these people that I wanted to see where their lives took them next. I came to see the separation of these friends as sadly symbolic of the paths that our lives take--but I think we all hope that, unlike the show, our friendships will never change. I liked these characters--and that's a rarity for contemporary television, as far as I'm concerned.

So the news that they're coming back is quite welcome. Even better, though, is the rumor that a new spinoff might come out of this--a spinoff starring Perry, Schwimmer, and LeBlanc. Now what this means for Chandler Bing's marriage, I can't say--how could he remain married without Courtney Cox-Arquette in the series?--but what it means for NBC, I can say. It means that they can retire the flat, infrequently funny Joey and give us a quality ensemble-cast series that might continue the Friends legacy. And it means that NBC has a chance at recreating a bit of that "Must-See TV" magic.

It's too early to say it's a done deal, but let's hope so... for them and for us!

This Miss Is a Hit

Robin Fletcher also alerted me to a recent story about a former student who made good. Kandice Pelletier, a wonderful young woman whom I taught in the late 90's, was a contender in this weekend's Miss America contest. She was representing New York, where her post-high-school successes have taken her in the years since her graduation; an article in the Marietta Daily Journal mentioned that she had also been the model for a Radio City Rockette statue (she has worked as a Rockette for a while) and that she had a role in the recent film version of The Producers. Anyone who knew Kandice knew that she was destined for success; I expect to hear her name many more times in the coming years.

Norwood-Griffin

Long before I ever even heard of Service Merchandise or Ellman's, metro Atlanta's first major warehouse-discount-catalog-type stores, there was Norwood-Griffin. I bought Susan's engagement ring there in 1970; after we were married in 1971, we bought towels, sheets, dishes, and other items from the store. It's been gone for many years now, and it took a month or so of mental percolating before I even remembered the name.

Norwood-Griffin was a catalog store with a small showroom; my memory tells me that it was no larger than 500 square feet, a cubbyhole store a block off Broad Street in Rome, just a door away from the back entrance to Wyatt's Department Store. There were numerous items on display there--mostly high-quality home items, linens, small appliances, but some clothing, jewelry, and electronics as well--but there was nothing for sale. Instead, there was a catalog from which these items and others could be ordered. Each item was accompanied by a list price and a discount price; the latter price, often reflecting a 40%-50% discount, was the Norwood-Griffin price. The merchandise was always first-quality, the service always personable, the atmosphere always casual and customer-friendly.

I have no idea when Norwood-Griffin went out of business, but my memory tells me that it must have been after 1977, when Susan and I moved from the Cedartown/Rome area to Marietta. That's when we quit doing most of our shopping in Rome, so I lost touch of a lot of the local stores after that. I think I would have remembered had the store closed down prior to that time.

Norwood-Griffin is one of many stores that were a part of my life in Rome, and one of those that I particularly miss. It harkens back to a pre-big-box era of retailing that I miss.

Time Keeps On Slipping...

A very good friend, Robin Fletcher, just dropped me an e-mail to let me know that the engagement of a former student, Brad Johnson, is mentioned in today's Marietta Daily Journal. Brad and his twin brother Beau are two of the small handful of students I remember most vividly from my many years of teaching; although different in their intellectual approaches and attitudes, they were both among the most analytical, introspective, creative, and gifted people I have ever known. I enjoyed many a conversation with both of them, both during their years as students and afterwards. I still hear from Beau every now and then, but haven't seen Brad in a while; it was good to see that his life is progressing well and he's finding the happiness he deserves. Robin commented--as have many others--that Brad and Beau seemed like they could have been my sons, we had so very much in common. I've always taken that as a compliment!

100 Years Ago...

Until my good friend Charles Rutledge reminded me, I had forgotten that today is the centennial of the birth of Robert E. Howard. My first introduction to Howard's visceral prose came via the book pictured at left: Conan the Adventurer, a Lancer paperback that featured a stunning cover by Frank Frazetta. I had become a fan of Frazetta's work thanks to the ERB Ace editions, had begun picking up and CreepyEerie because of his cover art there, and was keeping an eye open for other Frazetta art--and there it was, a stunning image of a muscular, barbaric Conan in his prime. Thanks to that cover, I picked the book up and was immediately drawn into Howard's dark, savage world. I was captivated and began searching out every other Lancer Conan book I could find; I still have all those well-worn paperbacks, although I have many other editions of REH's work that I am more likely to read.

Like many others, I stayed with Conan through the non-REH tales; I expanded my reading to encompass virtually every sword-and-sorcery pastiche I could find (and in the process discovered such works of distinction as Fritz Lieber's Fafhrd & Grey Mouser, C.L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry, Michael Moorcock's Elric, and even the more derivative Kothar by Gardner Fox--one of my favorite comic book writers--and Thongor by Lin Carter).

From Conan, my appetite for REH's prose led me to Bran Mak Morn, Solomon Kane, and eventually to the many other types of weird and adventure fiction that Howard wrote during his all-too-short lifetime. Howard never failed to transport me into a lush, colorful world far removed from anything I had found in any other writer's works.

Happy birthday, Bob! Your life should have been much, much longer...

"The Molar, the Merrier"

About that trip to see Doc Sturn: just to play it safe, he made not one but two molds of the tooth that needed the permanent crown. That meant two mouth-loads of that ooky purple stuff with its plastic-and-chemical taste... you know, the stuff that hardens into a quasi-superglue so strong that you begin to wonder if the dentist will ever manage to get your teeth unclenched. He was confident that the bubble that had marred the original impression was not present in the new castings, so I should have a permanent crown cemented into place in about a week and a half. That'll mean that I get the permanent crown in just about a month before I go back to Doc Sturn for my next six-month checkup, where he'll inevitably find something dentally awry...

"The Highlight of My Week..."

I've mentioned before that we do YuGiOh tournaments at the store every Friday night at 7pm. We have a pretty large group of regulars for those tournaments, ranging in age from about 9 up to about 45 (we have some parents who turn YuGiOh night into a family event). What I hadn't realized was just how big a thing YuGiOh night was to a lot of our players, both old and young.

"This was an awful week," one ten-year-old said with a sort of world-weariness you'd expect from someone five times older. "School started back, I got in trouble at home, my television quit working...." His voice trailed off with the implication that the litany could continue for quite a while. "This is the only good thing about the whole week!" he said with renewed vitality.

"I know what you mean," a young regular in line behind him said. "I start looking forward to this on Monday morning!" Hard to believe that a pre-teen's life is so demanding, but apparently it is... and apparently the chance to spend a few hours playing YuGiOh is their primary respite.

The conversation continued, and it became clear that several of the kids built their whole week around YuGiOh. A parent admitted that the tournaments were such a big thing to their kids that they used the tournament as an incentive for good behavior--if the kids didn't do what they were supposed to, they wouldn't get to go to Dr. No's on Friday night.

I knew that our players had a good time, which is why they kept showing up week after week--but I had never considered just how important the tournaments were. Thinking back on my childhood, I remember events that were probably insignificant to others but had tremendous impact to me; I now realize that these tournaments, which none of us think all that much about, are the sort of moments that many of these kids are going to remember for years and years to come. It's not the game itself, it's not the store itself--it's the magic of the moment, the excitement of being with a group of people who enjoy the same thing, the entertainment of spending three or four hours playing a game with kids like you and with adults who don't think there's anything odd about the game that you're playing.

Sometimes we do Very Good Things and don't even know it.

The Tooth and Nothing But...

There's no reason to say that I don't particularly enjoy going to the dentist. No one enjoys going to the dentist--including, I suspect, dentists and their families. However, I have to make a confession: I don't hate going to the dentist as much as I used to.

Have I succumbed to oral masochism? Nah--it's just that, somehow, I've come to realize that while there are parts of dental work that I really don't enjoy, overall it's nowhere nearly as bad as I had convinced myself that it was. I don't know if dental procedures have just improved since my visits to Dr. Cromartie in the early 1960s (I would walk to the dentist and reward myself after the visit by walking to the nearby bakery and buying brownies... somehow it seems self-defeating in retrospect). A couple of years ago, I picked a nearby dental office and made up my mind to go regularly; imagine my surprise when I walked in and discovered that the dentist I had chosen was (drum roll, please...) one of my comic shop regulars!

Doc Sturn (Dr. Ian Sturn, to be precise) is a superlative dentist--amiable, meticulous, concerned, informative, helpful... and best of all, he knows how to give me that inevitable shot of novocaine without rendering my jaw sore for the rest of the day.

By the way, this is probably a good time to mention that I have horrible dental problems, some inherited and some related to a medical side-effect that causes some calcium loss, rendering my teeth more succeptible to breakage and other damage. So I spend more time undergoing dental work that most folks. Susan, for example, has great teeth, so she hardly ever has to have anything more than a routine cleaning. Me... it's rare for a six-month checkup to pass without the discovery of at least one problem that needs further attention. *sigh*

Tomorrow, I have to see Doc Sturn again--not for any major work, but to have a new dental impression made for a permanent crown. Seems the lab somehow did something wonky with the old impression and isn't confident they can properly fit the crown now--so I get to experience that uncomfortable fifteen minutes with rubbery goop in my mouth. Not what I'd choose to kick off a Saturday morning, but it could be a lot worse...

At least I'll have a chance to ask him if he finished Infinite Crisis #4 yet--and if he did, I can find out if he was impressed with it as I was. See, you can have fun at the dentist's office!

(If you're keeping count, my cardiologist, my dentist, my accountant, and one of my bankers are regular customers at Dr. No's. Don't know how I ended up so lucky, but I like this system!...)

Crisis Contemplations

While I have nothing but kudos for DC's superlative Infinite Crisis series, I do have to point out one area where DC has fumbled the ball: tie-ins. While a number of books have carried Infinite Crisis Tie-In banners on the cover, the tie-in ID's have been handled in a haphazard manner. Some books that have carried the banners seem only marginally connected to the story, while others--such as the current JLA storyline or the final issue of The Flash--carry no tie-in banner at all, but have such an integral link to the storyline as a whole that they should be read by every Crisis fan. I know that DC is still a bit gun-shy about over-hyping tie-ins after the problems with Crisis on Infinite Earths two decades earlier (some books that were hyped as tie-ins contained only a panel or to of oblique reference to the core series), but by letting crucial books slip past the readers sans tie-in banner, they're selling themselves short and leaving some readers out of all the fun!

Earl's Well That Ends Well

It's very rare for me to actually laugh out loud at a television comedy--but My Name Is Earl makes me laugh a lot. Week in and week out, this remains the funniest show of the year, surpassing even my old fave, Scrubs. It's not that Scrubs got worse--it's just that Earl managed to punch all the right buttons for me.

Jason Lee's performance at Earl, a ne'er-do-well searching for karmic balance after coming to a moment of semi-cosmic awareness, is absolutely brilliant. Making viewers like such an inherently unlikeable character is a challenge, but Lee pulls it off remarkably well. Ethan Suplee's portrayal of Earl's slow-witted brother Randy is equally good; Suplee plays Randy as a small-town Lenny type, likeable and dim-witted and not truly bright enough to be evil. Eddie Steeples gives Darnell, aka Crab-Man, a charming goodness that seems surprising when you consider that he's the man who stole Earl's former wife. And that former wife, Joy, is played to perfection by Jaime Pressley, who chews the scenery with such comic abandon that she steals almost every scene in which she appears. She's greedy, manipulative, amoral, and absolutely self-centered--but even with such negative qualities, she still has a perversely endearing charm.

I never imagined that My Name Is Earl would hold my attention for a single episode--but I didn't allow for the superb writing that makes a quartet of should-be-repugnant characters come across as likeable souls on a winding path to betterment. There's nothing else like Earl on television--and I hope that no one tries to imitate it. It's too quirky and distinctive to serve as a model for derivation.