TV Review: True Blood

The commercial and critical success of the now classic HBO series "The Sopranos"  has inspired a new generation of great television that some critics believe even surpasses today's film world as the most important artistic influence on mass American culture. With such milestone shows as "Weeds" and "Dexter" joining the Showtime lineup, (accompanied recently by the fabulous entrance of the brilliant show "Mad Men" to  AMC) I would tend to agree with the critics that television is entering a new golden age with some of the most compelling, and often risky stories out there. 

The only risk that HBO's new show "True Blood" takes is the risk of being REALLY over the top- which it exceeds with glee. A high content of sex, language and violence can be integral to a well-plotted show, but on "True Blood" it is just gratuitous and pointless. The story of a psychic young woman in love with a vampire is set in a rural town in Louisiana but the characters are so exaggerated in their redneckery that you can only guess creator Alan Ball's prior knowledge of the "deep" south was watching a certain special scene in "Deliverance" over and over again. 

But everything about this show is horribly executed so that even a plot-line as complex as a newly out-of-the-closet race of vampires who drink synthetic blood instead of human blood called True Blood so that they can be accepted by society and can be found as easily as a can of Red Bull at a gas station- (breathe!) seems cliched and boring. My recommendation: if you want great over-the-top television, watch "Ugly Betty".  If the story of "True Blood" intrigues you, read the book. 

if pigs and pugs can live in harmony, so can i live among the french canadians

there ya go...

I think I have to re-name this blog, make it more "spicy" sounding

Here are the highlights of my first week in Montreal:

I get lost on le metro. 

Hasidic children form a line on the sidewalk and silently salute their father on the other side of the street. The father then climbs on top of the family car and takes a huge conch-shell out of his coat pocket- and blows it (making a thunderous foghorn sound throughout the city that no one on the street seems to notice but me). Despite my Jew-ish roots, I have no clue what's going on.

 I get lost on le bus. 

A man in shorts and smoking a cigar at 11 in the morning tries to sell me on an apartment right out of Animal House- complete with empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans for decorating and mid-30 year old unshaven boys eating cold pizza and watching reruns of Entourage on the stained fuscia couch for roommates.  When I decline the offer he confesses that the "fine dining restaurant" he had earlier told me he owned was actually a "trap to exploit American tourists like me by selling horrible 'American Style' cuisine aka: with bacon on everything".  He shows me one of his restaurant's laminated place settings picturing a technicolor map of the United States you might find in your 4th grade history class and I immediately fall for him. 

I get lost on the street. 

ALOT:

 I go looking for the Apple Store to buy a laptop (on the fancy street 1600 St. Catherine) and end up on 1600 St. in the gay GAY Village. I burst crying into a middle-aged gay couple's patisserie shop who lets me wipe my tears away with one of his delicious croissants and recommends I take a left past the dildo n things shoppe across the street. 

I visit another apartment and it becomes immediately clear that the roommate who came before me was either a dominatrix homicidal maniac or a dentist from the dark ages because the blood red (communist red, big sharpee red) room is up to the brim with jars full of unidentifiable floating objects, francis bacon paintings hang from the walls, and a saw (I can only hope it's a musical one!) is nailed to the doorway. I tell the seller I just don't think I could live up to that and leave. 

But all this aside Montreal is amazing! Besides the incredible arts and culture scene, the friendly people, and that french but not TOO french european flair- there are bagel shops on every corner just like starbucks in america! And in the end, is there anything better than bagels?