poet, interviewer, musician, traveler
I Just Rewatched The Episode In Which Kanan Jarrus Dies
The first time I watched it was with you.
He dies in a big explosion at a fuel depot.
I didn’t realize at the time it was a metaphor.
Other than my parents I think you’ve caused
the most damage. Well, maybe other than my parents
and me, of course. Two and a half years later,
I’m waiting for the flames to die down.
/ / /
26 March 2023
Charlottesville VA
I’m talking about a large circular object
discovered in Egypt, currently residing
at the bottom of a missile silo
/ / /
12 October 2022
State College PA
A “found” haiku. This is a line of dialogue from the Stargate SG-1 episode “Point Of No Return.”
Leave a Commenttiny people on a tiny screen
even through headphones
I can hear the rain
/ / /
1 October 2022
State College PA
talk about pop music
Max Headroom pitches New Coke
two blank walls before me
/ / /
15 April 2022
Pittsfield MA
Jimmy Stewart On The Tonight Show In 1989
Jimmy Stewart is talking to Johnny Carson about flying.
It’s 1989. Jimmy is 81. Johnny is 64.
Jimmy is wearing a dark suit with a reddish tie.
His hair looks a little blond, but it could be the lights.
Jimmy tells a story about getting to ride in a barnstorming plane.
As he tells it I’m reminded again of how much I love this man.
Jimmy talks in interviews just the way he does on the big screen.
Not that I’ve ever seen one of his movies on the big screen.
Jimmy has that accent you can’t quite pin down.
He’s from Indiana, Pennsylvania, but I think the accent is his own.
Jimmy gestures with his right hand.
I can’t even tell you why I love him, exactly.
Jimmy reminds me a bit of my grandfather.
And of course I realize he was acting in all those movies.
Jimmy just seems like a good man.
I used to drive by a sign for his museum on the way to a job I had.
Jimmy’s museum is in his home town.
I never went, but I always meant to.
/ / /
31 March 2021
Latham NY
Crocs crunch
ice-topped snow
TV capturing the street
/ / /
13 February 2022
Latham NY
59 minutes in
time to kiss
Hallmark
/ / /
19 December 2021
Farmington NY
one of the characters on Gilmore Girls
is telling her friend how much she misses
the boy she broke up with on an earlier episode
does that mean I have the emotional maturity
of a high school student or at least
the emotional maturity of what a television writer
thinks a high school student is like?
because my partner and I split up more than a year ago
& all I want is a Very Special Episode on which
we get back together after an unlikely series of events
that culminates in the realization
that we made a terrible mistake in our living room
on that hot desert day in August
I talk fast like these characters do & that seems to be
all they need to fix things but it isn’t working for me
maybe I can get a team of comedians in here
to punch up the script
/ / /
6 December 2021
State College PA
I came to Doctor Who fairly late in life. I saw some Tom Baker episodes as a kid, but it wasn’t until the reboot in 2005, when I was 32, that I really fell in love with the show.
In 2013, I got a job answering phones in a car dealership. I sat at a counter and had very little to do. My bosses said as long as I answered the phones, greeted the customers, and topped up the coffee pot, I could do whatever else I wanted the rest of the time.
This seemed like a perfect opportunity to watch all of classic Who, and that’s just what I did. I watched every episode, even the shows that are nothing but still photographs with a soundtrack.
Before I finished, the 50th anniversary of the show rolled around, and thus my first exposure to Paul McGann, whose turn as the 8th Doctor in the TV movie I hadn’t reached yet. McGann starred in a short episode call Night Of The Doctor, and he was brilliant. Emotions right on the surface, McGann’s Doctor commanded every second of the episode in a way that left me desperate for more. Eventually I got to the TV movie, and while McGann was certainly good in that, the film as a whole wasn’t as strong as he was.
That’s when I discovered Big Finish.
Big Finish started making fully dramatized Doctor Who audio adventures during the years that the show was off the air. They’re fabulous at it. Smart scripts, great acting (including by many members of the cast of the TV show), and wonderful effects and music.
Big Finish have finally given McGann a canvas worthy of his skills. The Eighth Doctor Adventures, and the shows in Big Finish’s Main Range that preceded them, are completely engaging. McGann’s Doctor is in many ways the epitome of “New Who” — a moral, determined adventurer with a glint of the puckish spirit of many of his classic predecessors.
Whether you’re a fan of the current TV show, a devotee of classic Who, or just a fan of audio drama, you can’t do better than falling in love with the Eighth Doctor. And if you’re a completist, like I am, here’s a post that gives you the complete listening order. Enjoy!
Leave a CommentTonight I’m falling down the YouTube rabbit hole, and I’ve arrived at this lovely clip of Billy Crystal talking about Robin Williams two months after Williams died. Robin Williams was the first comedian I ever loved. He’s why I started watching stand-up.
Leave a CommentMy favorite TV show is Stargate SG-1. I’m also a big fan of Stargate Atlantis, Stargate Universe, and the original Stargate movie. Given how many episodes of those shows there were, I’ve noticed that nearly every English-language studio movie of the past 25 or so years, and nearly every sci-fi TV show, has somebody in it who appeared on a Stargate property. And if you include crew members, it’s even easier to make connections. It rarely takes more than two steps. In this new “Everything Is Stargate” series, I’m going to post photos from films I’m watching that contain people from Stargate.
This weekend my sons and I watched Wreck-It Ralph, a charming animated movie we’d all seen before and enjoyed. Martin Jarvis provides the voice of Saitine, pictured on the right here:
Jarvis played Davos in an episode of Stargate Atlantis titled “The Seer.” Here he is (with Firefly‘s Jewel Staite on the left):
Previous posts in the “Everything Is Stargate” series.
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