Baby Thoughts

My wife is pregnant and is due to give birth in a couple of weeks. We both generally don't like the attention that comes with being pregnant. She didn't want a baby shower and I told no one at my work that my wife was pregnant. Most of my life has been spent avoiding people asking me questions and when you have a baby people ask you all kinds of questions. I hate answering questions and having people stand in my office while I talk about my personal life isn't my idea of a productive day. My wife hates having the focus on her because she feels stupid that people will travel from all over to give her a baby shower. She's weird in that way. I have noticed a few funny things about baby preparation and some traits of future parents of babies through this whole process though.

Getting ready for the baby really isn't that hard. It's hard, in that you don't want to do it because you have other things you would like to do, but putting the crib up took 45 minutes and painting the nursery took half a day to do. I'm not mechanically inclined, but this baby stuff is pretty much idiot-proof to put together. The hardest part about the whole process has been having to adapt to my and my wife's new walking style. We both walk very fast and now she can't move as quickly as she used to. I'm still ready to burn rubber and speed-walk around, but she trails behind, so I have to slow down which really messes me up. Other than that, you just have to get mentally prepared for the baby, which entails daily reminders to yourself that you are having a baby, because there's no real way to get mentally prepared.

A lot of comedy in pop culture comes out of parents putting up a crib, a changing table, and the various other contraptions the baby will eventually ignore completely or absolutely despise, making the very effort spent putting these contraptions together useless. Other than the changing table, which briefly tested by ability to not just throw the parts into a living room bonfire and cackle while the entire house goes up in flames because I have no idea how to control a fire, it wasn't incredibly hard to put together the baby stuff. We have bought three different types of baby pacifying contraptions. She has the option of laying down, swinging, swaying, gently swinging, gently swaying, moving back in forth (not to be confused with swaying) or barely being reclined. So when the baby is crying or upset we have three options to put the baby in to pacify her (oh, we are having a girl). I have zero doubt she will hate all of these contraptions and be pacified most by being place on top of the television or placed in the freezer. Babies are weird that way. But overall, the hardest part about getting ready for the baby is trying to find baby furniture that won't fall apart when you place a baby on it. It's pretty easy to put this stuff together and I am not mechanically inclined. I'm sure other people have had the same experience.

Now I can be one of those "I'm too busy" people. This is the best part. For a few years now, I have tried to contact some of my friends and been hit back with the "Sorry it took so long to get back to you, things have been crazy around here. You'll find out when you have kids." There's nothing like being talked down to like that. I call these people "Children Snobs," even if they are often my best friends. It's great to join this club. Now I can use my children as a cover for why I don't keep in contact with my friends. I know raising a kid is hard, tiring and takes up time. Trust me, I get it, and I can't wait to be a part of this club so I can now treat everyone who doesn't have children like they work 10 hours a week at Starbucks and have absolutely no concept of having responsibility in life. The insinuation from these Children Snobs is that they are very busy and don't have the time you have to keep and maintain the relationship. You call them, but only because you have the time these Children Snobs do not have. Once you have a child, then you will understand just how busy you truly can be. There's nothing like being looked down on by the Children Snobs for daring to not have children and therefore being completely incapable of understand the responsibilities that life with children entails. I feel fortunate I can finally understand what it is to be truly busy. I've spent most of my life just sitting around doing absolutely nothing. I get to be a Children Snob, so expect to never hear from me again.

Future baby parents have everything planned. My wife and I went to birthing classes and it was hilarious to me. I'm not ever going to be a perfect parent and I realize that, but these eager first-time parents blew my mind. Some of these couples seemingly had their children's entire life planned. I'm pretty sure a few of the parents in this class were already working on college applications and buying long-term care insurance for their children. I get the feeling these parents will start picking up nursing home brochures for when their little one finally retires and needs a place to live. After all, this small child may never have children and how on Earth would the child understand the responsibility required to live his/her life without having children, so a nursing home is the best thing to look into at least 65 years in advance.

Hey, different strokes for different folks, but there were women who had "a plan" for their birth in these classes. I think that's cute and admirable. But...the shit is going to go down how the baby wants it to go down though. Just be prepared and roll with the punches. Have a birth plan, but don't go announcing your plan because you may feel stupid when it doesn't work out the way you planned. We haven't even named our child yet, though to our credit we have it narrowed down to four names (none of which are Justina Upton as I suggested). We were the only couple in the class who had not named their child yet. I have to see her first before I can name her. We narrow it down to two names and then whichever one we like (or the one she most looks like) that's her name. People ask me, "What are you going to do if she is born and she doesn't have a name yet?" Well, we would then name her. You know, she's not a dog. It's not like if we don't give her a name immediately upon birth she will wander off and find a new home.

There's nothing wrong with going ahead and naming your child, but I looked around the room and saw the potential for helicopter parents. I can see it already starting. Again, I'm not perfect nor do I think my way is always the right way, but I can see the control freak in some of these parents beginning with one mom explaining to the class "that she will not be having a C-section" or relaying stories from when their sister had a baby and that's why their child will have a natural birth with no drugs involved. I fear for these people who have a plan and I'm not confident they can roll with the punches. I can't imagine these people surviving at a restaurant when their two-year old is taking a crap in her diaper while hiding under the table. That is against the plan and is how heart attacks happen.

Pregnancy causes people to play guessing games. I'm guilty of this as well. Everybody just HAS to guess when the baby will come. "Here's when I think the baby will come" is what I often hear. I do it too, but it's like people can't resist trying to guess when the baby will be born. Pregnancy turns people into game show contestants. They have to take a spin at what hair color the baby will have, if the baby will have hair, whose eyes it will have or whether she will like sports or not (the answer: yes). My entire workplace has put in a guess as to when the baby comes. It's irresistible to these people that they accurately guess the date of birth. I also like when people constantly, and I mean constantly, ask if you have picked out a name. I have said repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly that no name will be picked out until either (a) the baby is born or (b) we are preparing for my wife to go into labor. We want to get this name thing right. Yet, we get texts asking "Any more baby names or have you come to a conclusion on the name yet?" No. There will be no more suggestions on baby names, and no, zero conclusions have been reached. Thank you, and I said good day. I started telling people we are naming her "Shi-teed Uh-sol-ee" which spells out as "Shithead Asshole." I'm thinking she would get picked on with that name. I could be wrong.

And of course people will suggest names, which isn't so bad, but at a certain point we got too many suggestions. I can't narrow down a list of 50-75 names. I have a hard time eating at Chili's because there are 20 menu items I could order, how do you expect me to pick out a name from 50-75 names? That's too much. Plus, people will walk up to my wife and act shocked she is due in a couple of weeks. "Wow, you are so small, I thought you were (fill in the blank) weeks" they tend to say. Thanks for saying my wife should be a much fatter than she currently is. I think she looks great, but her self-esteem isn't at an all-time high now that she struggles to tie her shoes and reminding her she could be so much bigger sounds great, but isn't exactly totally uplifting. Why can't people have come up to her before she was pregnant and say, "Wow, you are so small!" Now THAT would be a big self-esteem booster. Plus, don't ever watch the movie "Alien" and then have a child. If you are going to watch "Alien" then don't ever have kids or if you plan on having kids don't watch "Alien." It is a little creepy to see a baby leg/arm/foot/elbow/head causing my wife's stomach to extend oddly out to the right, left, or top. If the baby is busy getting comfortable and causing my wife's stomach to roll around I feel like a chest-burster is about to pop out. I'm scarred by that movie. Now if we were having a chest-burster and not a human baby then we would definitely need to name the chest-burster immediately. Those things do tend to run off immediately after birth.

"Man of Steel": My Review

I went to see "Man of Steel" this past weekend. It got me thinking about the direction movies based on comic books seem to be taking. Shortly put, I'm not so sure about the "Justice League" movie that Warner Brothers is talking about (and surely will be) making. If "Man of Steel" was the first step to this eventual Justice League movie then it wasn't the best of starts. My short review is that "Man of Steel" started off very promising and then compromised this in favor of the last hour being action that became mind-numbing and quite frankly a little boring. "Iron Man 3" was sort of this way too and it seems to be the trend at the end of a comic book movie to have a ton of CGI and long action sequences that eventually get a little tiresome. There's only so much "guys throw themselves into a building while fighting" you can handle in a movie. "Man of Steel" is almost like two movies. One movie that is about Superman's origin story and the other is an all-out action movie. I realize there has been action at the end of most Marvel's superhero films, but "Iron Man 3" and to a greater extent "Man of Steel" took the action at the end of a film to new levels.

I have never read a comic book, much less a Superman comic, but I have seen every incarnation of the movie (well, since 1978) and am not sure how "Man of Steel" fits in with them. Much like the character of Hulk, I'm not sure Superman is an easy character to put on screen. The only real way to make his story interesting is to throw kryptonite at him or have him face an alien of equal strength. I realize other Marvel characters like Thor have this same issue, but I feel like his story translates better to the screen than Superman's does. I've always enjoyed the Superman movies (there were even good parts about "Superman Returns"), but I'm never watching the films (even "Superman" and "Superman 2") and thinking "I can't watch to re-watch that movie." "Superman" from 1978 was very good, but then it had the whole "backwards time travel" thing at the end which basically served as a mechanism that Superman could use any time he wanted to change the past. It was kind of a lazy plot device in my opinion, even if it is completely within Superman's ability and range. I believe "Superman 2" (the Richard Donner cut) is probably a superior movie to "Superman." "Superman 3" and "Superman 4" were just not very good, there's no way to get past that. I think Superman isn't the easiest of characters to bring onto the big screen is my basic point.

(Potential spoilers ahead) So I came into "Man of Steel" ready to be impressed and excited, yet without any preconceptions or worry it would not meet what I expected from it. The first hour or so of the movie, which I know many reviewers hated, really got me into the story. I thought the idea of Superman trying to fit into the world was compelling and the way it was presented made you believe that a person like Clark Kent who never felt entirely like a member of Earth would have issues with his powers and what to do with these powers. Clark Kent was lost as a child and seemed lost as an adult as well. He's told by his father that he can't reveal himself to the world because they aren't ready and won't accept him, but he keeps running into situations where he can help others with his capabilities. So while Clark knows he isn't like other people, he also doesn't know whether he should reveal who he really is, despite the obvious benefits to Earth if he did.

Clark Kent is lost for most of the beginning of the movie and I know other reviewers have found this part of the movie to have too much gravitas, but I enjoyed Zack Snyder (more on him in a minute) giving a different twist on Clark's story before he became Superman as an adult and showing how he really wouldn't feel like he was part of Earth. He was born on a different planet and the only thing he has in common with humans on planet Earth is that he looks human. He can do things others can't and he can't really show everyone who he truly is because he doesn't feel he would be accepted. He's not like Batman in that he can run around Gotham City as Bruce Wayne and live some sort of fulfilling life outside of his role as Batman. Clark is a reporter (well, not in this film) and he doesn't have much else that gives him meaning to his life other than being Superman. Being Superman seemingly shades everything he does. He doesn't have a double identity like other superheroes, but lives as Superman all the time and tries to keep this from nearly everyone he meets.

Clark isn't extraordinarily wealthy so he doesn't have a bunch of cool toys screenwriters can use to further the plot. As exciting as Superman is, Clark can be equally as boring. Money can't buy happiness, but it certainly does make it easier for a screenwriter to write about a comic book character's life when he isn't being a superhero. So I enjoyed the first hour of the movie and thought we were on pace for something good. Clark/Superman would find his place in the world, defeat Zod, and then we could get to a sequel in 2016 or 2017 where we learn more about Superman and he recovers from the villain he helped face in "Justice League," which I assume is coming out in 2015. It was pretty clear what would happen and I assumed they were taking the Marvel track to creating an entire universe of characters that could be spun off and huge profits would be raked in and the studio and moviegoers would be happy. Then it fell apart for me. All sense of gravitas feel apart and the action started.

The last hour was just too action-oriented. I realize a person complaining about the action in a Superman movie is a person who is probably a moron or has unrealistic expectations for the movie. The entire last hour of the movie was action though. It was straight action all the way through and General Zod and Superman collided into buildings approximately 30 times and the military was called so there was shooting and fighting to where I wasn't always sure what was happening. People died, Superman/Zod never got bruised, and then I found myself wishing these two would just stop fighting and we could find a way to go back to furthering the plot of the movie. Except there was no more plot. Superman was lost in this world and eventually chose the citizens of Earth over Zod during the climax of the film, which I came to believe was supposed to be a dramatic moment. I'm sorry, was that ever in question that Superman would side with Earth over Zod? Was the moviegoer supposed to think Superman would side with the guy who killed his father and then tried to kill him? Plus, it's not like Superman had any memories of Krypton, so he has no emotional ties to the planet other than seeing his father through a hologram (or a download of some sort), but again, his father is dead. Superman can see his father when he inserts a key and downloads Jor-El, but Superman has no ties to Krypton. So of course Superman favors Earth over Krypton. This conclusion lacked a sort of drama for me.

Superman snaps Zod's neck, which inexplicably is what killed Zod considering these two had just flown through dozens of buildings. I guess crashing into a building and getting the shit beaten out of him isn't enough to kill Zod, but a quick snap of the neck does it. Also, why didn't Superman just snap Zod's neck as he flew quickly towards Zod? He tackled Zod dozens of times, couldn't he just snap Zod's neck while tackling him? That's right, Superman didn't want to kill Zod. He just thought Zod would stop destroying Earth out of the kindness of his heart. Comic book lovers and Superman fans know that's just how Superman is, but it just seemed silly to me. The action of the last hour was as mind-numbing as the first hour of the movie was exciting for me. I grew bored with the action, which is never a good thing when watching an action movie.

The actors did a good job and it was well-cast. Henry Cavill was pretty good considering he isn't playing a character, but an archetype. It's not incredibly easy to play Superman and display some emotion. Superman is not like Iron Man who can crack wise and be snarky. Frankly, Superman is kind of a boring guy. He doesn't have a ton of personality, so Henry Cavill does a pretty good job with the role because he does show some personality in the role. Amy Adams is dogged, which is seemingly all the role of Lois Lane involves. She was dogged, so that's doing a great job in the role of Lois Lane. I'm mixed on Michael Shannon as General Zod. I didn't buy into him much during the action scenes (of course I didn't buy into much during the action scenes), but I thought he did a decent job. When I heard he was cast as General Zod I thought we would be in for a treat with Shannon in that role. It wasn't really a treat, but Shannon wasn't bad. Not to mention, there wasn't one "kneel before Zod" during the movie, which disappointed me a little bit. I have this weird Kevin Costner thing where I didn't like him when he was a younger actor, but now I seem to really enjoy him as he has gotten older. I thought he did a really good job as Jonathan Kent and I wish we had seen more of him in that role. Diane Lane did a good job with a pretty non-descript role while Russell Crowe matched up well with Michael Shannon in early scenes as Jor-El. The casting was actually pretty good overall. I generally liked the movie and much of the reason for this was the casting.

Now Zack Snyder as the director. I had very low hopes for Snyder when I found out he was directing this film. I am not a fan of his really. What we got is pretty much what I expected from him. His filmography includes "300," "Sucker Punch" and "The Watchmen." I probably wouldn't dare let him near a rebooted superhero franchise, but I'm not the brilliant decision makers in charge of "Man of Steel." I simply didn't trust him as the director based on the amount of crazy CGI his movies seem to involve. Snyder did a good job in the beginning of the film, but the action sequences are really just a clusterfuck. I could barely see what was going on at times and there was just a lot of fighting that basically involved the characters flying through buildings. I thought two years ago when Snyder was announced as the director he wouldn't have the vision required to reboot the Superman franchise and I feel pretty confident I was correct. Still, he did a great part in the beginning of the movie setting the mood he was trying to set and engaging the audience, but he just couldn't help himself and turned the last 60 minutes into a CGI-fest.

There were no exciting Easter eggs and there was no postcredit scene. I thought Warner Brothers was using Superman to set up a "Justice League" film, but they didn't seem to try and do that. Rather than move forward the overall idea of a greater universe outside of Superman, they more teased that there was a greater universe without going into too many specifics or trying to show they had any interest in investigating that greater universe during the "Man of Steel" film. There were a couple views of Lexcorp trucks and the Lexcorp building. That IS something, but not a whole lot. There was also a Wayne Enterprises satellite that was shot down by General Zod, but this was explained in interviews by Snyder as an homage more than a hint of things to come. I don't think the lack of exciting Easter eggs or a postcredit scene is necessarily a knock against the movie, but I was hoping there would be more of an introduction to the overall potential "Justice League" universe. I've read there were Easter eggs all over in the film and while it appears there were a few, where Marvel succeeded in their films leading up to "The Avengers" is they managed to hook the casual viewers who saw their standalone superhero films into getting excited for "The Avengers." It was a bit of a disappointment "Man of Steel" didn't tease a larger universe and I think if Warner Brothers wants to really do a "Justice League" movie they need to tease the overall universe in their standalone superheor films. Maybe they don't need to do this and Marvel has spoiled us.

So just looking at Superman as a standalone movie, which is how we are supposed to view it, I think it was a decent re-re-introduction to Superman. If there was a sequel I would probably watch it depending on the plot summary and who is cast as the villain. It's hard to read criticism of Henry Cavill because there isn't a lot of emotional depth involved with playing Superman/Clark Kent. He's kind of an aloof guy and weird guy, which is how the script forces Cavill to play the role and I thought he did a satisfactory job. My biggest issue is that the action felt stale. It felt like it had all been done before and seemed very by-the-numbers. I can accept those who didn't like the downer emotional aspect of the first hour of the film, but I thought it made sense for Clark Kent/Superman to question his place in a world that didn't initially know who he truly was and would have treated him like the villain Jonathan Kent thought they would see him as.

"Man of Steel" was a good re-re-introduction to Superman, but I think Warner Brothers is more focused on promises of bigger things ahead, but for a movie that is supposed to be standalone, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to me if a sequel to "Man of Steel" is never made (which I doubt a sequel won't be made) and "Justice League" is never made. If a sequel to "Man of Steel" is never made then the film would be an improvement on "Superman Returns" and the series would probably get re-booted sometime in the future. I would remember the 2013 reboot and how a different view of the Superman was shown. I will remember it was a movie that tried to humanize Superman and then delved into excessive special effects. If a sequel is made (which probably will happen) and "Justice League" is also made then I will remember "Man of Steel" was supposed to be a standalone film that only seemed to serve the purpose of re-re-introducing the character of Superman for the purpose of making more superhero movies and expanding the franchise. I have no problem with that, but the movie seemed to initially want to have a different take on Superman and then decided against going all the way. It wasn't a disappointment, but it was a movie that managed to disappoint me in some ways. I will just wish that wasn't all "Man of Steel" ended up being to me.

Four Reasons Some People May Be Disappointed in the Season 4 "Arrested Development" Episodes

I have been reading some complaints about Season 4 of "Arrested Development" in comments online. I was responsible for a few of these complaints myself on Twitter after watching the first two episodes. I didn't think they were up to the previous standard set by Seasons 1-3 of "Arrested Development." I haven't changed my mind completely, but now that I have watched the majority of Season 4 I can see why some people are disappointed in a way by Season 4. I think there are four reasons some people have been disappointed and it isn't entirely the show's fault, but some reasons for the public's disappointment are the fault of the show. Don't get me wrong, I have really enjoyed the majority of the episodes, and comparing Season 4 to Seasons 1-3 is probably going to be a losing battle. Seasons 1-3 were superior television and it isn't easy to duplicate these seasons. It's probably near impossible. I think there are four reasons the new season of "Arrested Development" could not measure up to Seasons 1-3 and these could be a few of the reasons some fans have been disappointed. 

1. These episodes are only intended to be a prologue to a movie

The reason Mitchell Hurwitz did Season 4 of "Arrested Development" is because he is intent on doing an "Arrested Development" movie. He found it too difficult to catch viewers up with what each of the major characters had been doing in a short span of time when writing the movie, so he decided it made sense to do an entire season to catch the viewers up on the Bluth family's adventures since we last saw them at the end of Season 3. So a lot of Season 4 consists of catching up with the characters and furthering the plot at the same time. It sounds easy to do, but 5-6 years time for each character must be covered in a 30-something minute episode. It can be quite difficult to cover a lot of time plot-wise and still maintain the situational comedy. Granted, "Arrested Development" isn't entirely a situational comedy, but a lot of the comedy comes from situations and dialogue that exists between two or more characters. The show has to speed up to catch up with the characters while also slowing down enough to maintain the humor of an ostrich running around loose in a room or a swarm of bees stinging a group of people. Therein lies a lot of the reason why I think Hurwitz chose to do each character's plot separate from each other. It allows time to fill in the narrative, but also jokes that don't seem like much in the first place can turn into a punchline down the road. The jokes begin to accumulate and make more sense as the season wore on. Basically Hurwitz has his cake and eats it too, but potentially at the expense of the audience being lost initially. Of course with a dedicated audience like "Arrested Development" seems to have, Hurwitz knows they will wait a couple of episodes for the punchline to come.

So these Season 4 episodes serve as the beginning to what (hopefully) will be a movie. The purpose of these episodes seem to be to catch the audience up on what the Bluth family has been up to. I'm not a writer, but I imagine it is hard to further the narrative over a few years while still giving enough time for running jokes and situational comedy.

2. The production schedule

One of the issues with getting all of the actors back for Season 4 of "Arrested Development" is none of the actors are essentially committed to the series anymore. They have other acting jobs that are more permanent, so they weren't all available at the same time to shoot the episodes. So the actors each ended up having their own episodes that almost feel too character-specific heavy to be "Arrested Development." We get 37 minutes of Lindsay Bluth in one episode, partly because Portia de Rossi's schedule did not necessarily allow for her to shoot scenes with the other principal actors. It's sort of like if Led Zeppelin promised a reunion album, but first we had to listen to each band member (minus John Bonham of course) do a solo album. Obviously this isn't the best analogy, but we have to learn about each principal character on their own before we get to see them shoot a movie where they will (hopefully) interact with each other more. The production schedule and the actor's availability prevented the episodes from featuring all of the principal cast members in all 15 episodes. So what we have are essentially 15 episodes which feature one specific actor/actress in each episode with cameo drop-ins from the other principal cast members. It's sort of not fulfilling to watch at times because I don't personally care to watch 37 minutes of Lindsay Bluth and then 34 minutes of Tobias in back-to-back episodes. It's what the production schedule called for though and so that's what we got. This leads me to my next point. 

3. The strength of the series is the characters can't carry an entire episode

The strength of "Arrested Development" isn't in the single characters of the show. Each character has attributes many people find to be funny. Michael is sarcastic, G.O.B. is an idiot who makes bad decisions, and so it goes. These attributes work very well together when the family interacts with each other. The problem lies in Season 4 of "Arrested Development" when you take these characters away from interacting with each other and make them single characters in a 30 minute long story. Yes, as I said above, the production schedule necessitated this, but the strength of "Arrested Development" lies in each of the characters interacting and playing off of each other and that wasn't able to happen as much during Season 4. Tobias' character works well when he is the comedy to Michael Bluth's straight man (no pun intended). Tobias can feel like just another closeted homosexual actor wannabe when his story isn't combined in some part with Lindsay or his latest adventure takes up a good portion of the screen time. His antics don't get old, but they tend to wear on the viewer and aren't quite as funny when put on screen in a 30-plus minute episode. Don't get me wrong, his story is still somewhat enjoyable, but it's more fun to have members of the Bluth family pop up and play off of each other rather than have to carry their own storylines for a full episode.

Isn't that what makes an ensemble comedy so great? It's not the individual characters, but how the parts of the characters as individuals don't add up to as much as the parts of the ensemble as a whole. Unfortunately, "Arrested Development" isn't the Avengers. They all aren't strong characters on their own who come together for one great purpose or carry an entire movie or episode. Their great purpose is for each of these characters together and being together while playing off each other makes them exciting and funny to watch. One of the major issues I had with Season 4 (and again, it was really good to have them back) was these characters I really enjoyed weren't always in the same room or plot line as each other. Lucille and George Bluth are funny characters, but they also need grounded characters like Michael Bluth to play off of each other. So I think a lot of the problems that some had with the show had to do with the characters of "Arrested Development" not always being in the same room as each other. The so-called "magic" during Seasons 1-3 had to do with these characters being around and interacting with each other and Season 4 didn't always allow for that to happen. So that could be disappointing for some fans watching the new episodes.

4. Nostalgia hurts the new episodes

My wife and I used G.O.B.'s theme for his magic act, "The Final Countdown" by the band Europe as the entrance song at our wedding reception. I love the show. I still say "Arrested Development" quotes at times and it's one of my favorite shows of all-time. So to an extent, the new episodes just simply weren't going to match up with my memories of the show. I don't want to project my feelings onto other people, but I have a feeling this goes for others as well. A lot of really good comedies aren't entirely funny until they have been re-watched a few times and the jokes start to sink in a little bit more. That was the case for Seasons 1-3 and could be the case sooner or later for Season 4. I do like "Arrested Development" and Mitchell Hurwitz didn't try to replicate the past or continuously use old jokes in the new episodes. There were callbacks, but not as many callbacks as could have been forced into the episodes. This was a good and bad thing. It was good because I have a feeling time may be more kind to the show when the new jokes start to take hold on the fans. It's a bad thing because fans could see Season 4 as a new show with new jokes, where the characters don't interact with each other, and the episode format doesn't feel as connected to the Seasons 1-3. But again, "Arrested Development" has pretty dedicated fans who probably won't mind giving the show the time necessary over the 15 episodes. It's not like these new episodes were made for casual fans of the show anyway.

I think the nostalgia for the earlier episodes (me included) hurts Season 4 a bit. It's almost like nothing was going to live up to the memories I have of the original three seasons. It's not fair, but it's also not very good writing to simply tell the same jokes that have already been told. I'm glad the writers didn't go in that direction, but Season 4 probably wasn't going to live up to my memories. I think if I am patient with Season 4 I could learn to like it as much as I have loved Seasons 1-3. Well maybe, but I think I will end up enjoying Season 4 of "Arrested Development" the most when some enterprising person edits all 15 episodes into 22 shorter episodes with each character's story mixed in together so that each episode doesn't focus on just one character. I'm betting it happens and it's probably not a terrible idea to give it a try. Of course, having any "Arrested Development" to watch beats the alternative.

10 Pieces of Pop Culture I Seem to Enjoy More Than Everyone Else

Just a few weeks ago I made a list of pieces of pop culture I seem to dislike more than everyone else, so I figured I would go ahead and make a list of 10 pieces of pop culture I seem to enjoy more than everyone else. It's easier to make a list of things you hate than a list of things you like, especially since some of the pop culture items I like more than other people are somewhat embarrassing to me. 

1. A Perfect Getaway

You probably have never heard of this movie. It actually got decent reviews and I really enjoyed this movie probably more than I should have. If it shows up on television then I always end up watching it. Very embarrassingly, I tend to enjoy Timothy Olyphant in nearly everything he does. He is in this film as is Steve Zahn, but it probably doesn't encourage anyone watch it to hear Zahn's name. It's like hearing Nick Cannon is joining a television show. Sure, you know his name, but he isn't ever the reason you watch something. I wasn't entirely sure what this film was about when I got it on Netflix and even halfway through the movie all I knew was that there was a killer loose on the island and there was probably only 7-8 people this killer could be.

I recommended this movie to a friend of mine and after he watched it he told me it was good, but not great. Perhaps I enjoyed it because I am sucker for shorter movies that tell a story, don't waste time (there isn't much that happens in parts, but this is part of building the tension), and then have some mystery about them. Anyway, I shouldn't like this movie as much as I do. I realize that, but if it were on television now I would watch it again. As long as you don't figure out the ending it has tension. To tell you anymore might ruin the ending if you ever did watch it. Is it the presence of Olyphant, the fact the scenery is beautiful or why is it that I really like this movie? I like it and recommend it way more than I probably should.

2. Gordon Ramsey cooking shows

I can't cook for shit. I haven't tried to learn to cook and my idea of adding ingredients to something is usually throwing some cayenne pepper on top of whatever it is I am eating. I eat too much cayenne pepper because I like my food spicy. Yet I love to watch "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hell's Kitchen" (I won't watch "MasterChef" because even I have my limits) and judge the food being made as if I can do better. I watch zero other cooking shows and have no interest in other cooking shows. I'm not sure why, but I like Gordon Ramsey's shows the best. I have very little cooking skill, but that doesn't stop me from constantly exclaiming criticism and judging what others cook by yelling things like,

"Come on, that's raw. It's raw. How the hell do they think they can get away with serving that?"

"I can't believe these people can't cook a simple risotto." (I have no idea what risotto is, but I know these contestants on "Hell's Kitchen" should be able to easily cook one)

"You always date and seal your product in the fridge! You can't own a restaurant and know nothing about cooking, even I know that. How do you expect to have fresh ingredients if you don't date your product? That's Restaurant 101."

"You can't slip something like that past Ramsey. He'll catch it every time." 

I love watching these shows and judging these chefs for not knowing how to make meals that I myself don't know how to make. It's fun to stand in judgment of others I guess. Either that, or I just like to hear people get berated, kicked out of the kitchen and called a "fat cow" for cooking a dish incorrectly. It's weird because I watch no other cooking shows and haven't ever watched Food Network.

3. Ryan Adams' "Gold"

Every album that Ryan Adams puts out is inevitably compared to "Gold," which I think is ridiculous. For me, this one of the best albums of the 2000's. I probably like this album more than many other people do. It's mopey, bitter, and a good example of what my college friend called "pussy pop." Either way, I think this is a brilliant album and I don't care if Adams ever tops it. I listened to the hell out of this CD while I was in college because angry songs like "Nobody Girl" spoke to the angry part of me and songs like "LaCienga Just Smiled" or "Harder Now That It's Over" spoke to the part of me that occasionally like to listen to sad music about drinking and making mistakes. It's drunk, sad/bitter/angry music. What could be better?

This album is probably more famous for being released on 09/11/2001 and the lead single being called "New York, New York," which is of course a song about New York relative to Ryan Adams being bitter at himself for a love that did not work out. Most of his songs tended to go in that direction, especially on this album, except these songs were really well-done so it was bearable. It's one of the few albums I can listen to no matter what mood I am in. Plus it has the line intended as a put-down, "If your horses could talk, I wonder if they would complain." This is part of a rodeo analogy where this unnamed girl apparently has late night hookups because she is such a bad person. The whole album screams of yearning for or expecting self-destruction to come. It seems I really like that type of album. My wife hates Ryan Adams because she hates his voice and thinks he's whiny. I find this opinion is shared by quite a few people, but I love the album "Gold" way more than most other people do.

4. The Faces

I favor the Rolling Stones over the Beatles and I favor Rod Stewart's work before he became a saccharine balladeer. So what would is better than a combination of Rod Stewart's voice before he became classy/sophisticated and a bar band version of the Rolling Stones? The answer: nothing. That's the Faces for me. They spent most of their time drinking and carousing and got in the studio to perform music in their spare time. They are one of my favorite bands of all-time. In fact, the Faces were Rod Stewart's backing band on most of his early (really good) solo albums.

They put out four albums, the later ones actually messier and less produced than the earlier ones and had a few hits on those albums. They are also the reason I get pissed off when someone refers to "Stay With Me" as a Rod Stewart song. It is not. It was written by the Faces and is on their "A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Blind Horse" album. That slide guitar isn't a studio musician, it is Ron Wood. Though they got compared to the Rolling Stones out of pure laziness, the Black Crowes were completely like the Faces on their first album until they pussied out and became whatever you consider them to be today.

The albums the Faces put out weren't as commercial sounding as Rod Stewart's solo material and the blues they played wasn't as accessible as what the Rolling Stones played. If haven't heard them then listen to their live version of "Maybe I'm Amazed." It's not the best version, but is the only version I could find. It's messy, feels disjointed and really isn't a song that fits their style, but it still sort of works. I think it is more popular to cite the Faces as an influence than it is to actually claim to like their music. I really like their music.

5. The Middle

So ABC has a Wednesday evening comedy that seems to get all of the accolades in terms of Emmy nominations and attention from the press. That show is "Modern Family," which is beloved by the media because it features a funny gay couple and a Hispanic woman with huge boobs. Yes, it is funny, but it isn't the best Wednesday night comedy on ABC. For one, "Modern Family" isn't really indicative at all of a modern family. The money never runs out to go on expensive vacations, one of the lead characters is a realtor who apparently did not suffer at all during the housing crisis, and each "family" features a spouse that does not have to work. That's not really a modern family. The most modern part about the show is there is a gay couple and the show isn't shy about showing their relationship. I like the show, but a modern family generally has money issues, two parents in the workforce, and family that doesn't live within a short drive of each other's houses. Maybe that's my experience.

The real modern family is on "The Middle." It's a show where there is clearly a budget, the kids are kind of weird/losers, and the family sometimes hates each other. It's also a better, more consistent show than "Modern Family" in my opinion and even does certain gags better than "Modern Family" has done. The whole "Our daughter is clearly dating/friends with a young man who hasn't realized he is gay" was done on "Modern Family" and "The Middle," but consistently done with much more success on "The Middle." I'm talking about Brad, Sue's ex-boyfriend, who appears as a one-note joke that hasn't quite stopped being funny yet.

Patricia Heaton is one of the parents and Neil Flynn (the nameless janitor on "Scrubs") is the other parent. I'm not a big Patricia Heaton fan, but she works on this show. It's a very well-written show about parents that sometimes dislike their children and really have no idea what they are doing when parenting, but do a great job of pretending they do. Their kids' names are Brick, Axel and Sue for God's sake. I tend to enjoy well-written shows (or shows I believe are well-written) and "The Middle" does a good job of showing a middle class family and the weirdness that goes on with the family. If I were to rank Top 10 television shows for 2013 this show would come close to making this list, yet I feel it gets no love.

They even have Norm McDonald guest star sometimes, which is always a good thing.

6. Alias

This show could be a disaster at times and Seasons 3 and 4 are sort of mixed up and a little confusing. Go figure, a J.J. Abrams television show that gets caught up in its own mythology and gets confusing. Who woulda' thunk it? There were definitely more girly parts of this show, but the ass-kicking parts and the plot really made it worth watching to me. The show was canceled after Season 5 (granted, after Jennifer Garner said she wasn't interested in doing the show anymore) and it never got great ratings, but I always enjoyed it. I even got my wife into it by forcing her to watch the show on the DVD because I own the---I mean---because I borrowed them from a friend of mine.

7. Gnocchi

I had never tried gnocchi before I went to the food tasting for my wedding dinner. I was hooked. Gnocchi is actually pasta, but it tastes like potatoes, and it was put on the wedding dinner menu simply so that I could eat it. Now whenever I go to a restaurant that has gnocchi I have to try it. It's better than spaghetti and many other pastas in my opinion. What person in their right mind would choose a ball of tiny potato-looking pasta over a real Italian dinner? Me. I would.

8. Halloween series of films

I know. You say, "Ben, everyone like 'Halloween.' It's a classic horror movie and probably one of the best horror movies ever made." True, but I like every single "Halloween" movie in the series. It's my favorite serial killer horror series. I will not watch "Halloween 3: Season of the Witch" because it is the bastard child of the series, but all of the other movies I either own on Blu-Ray or will own on Blu-Ray when they go on sale again. I have a hard time watching the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series because it gets silly at times, but even when the "Halloween" series got silly, it was super-serious about being silly and played it straight. Michael Myers didn't crack jokes, every movie didn't have a very similar plot (every "Friday the 13th" seemed to have the exact same set up until they threw Jason on a boat and took him to Manhattan), and in what other series can you watch Paul Rudd run away from a serial killer? Yes, he was in "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers."

Plus, there was Dr. Loomis in nearly every movie muttering under his breath about how no one would believe him that Michael Myers is pure evil. He's like a crazy person running around Haddonfield chasing a crazy person. That's what I enjoyed most about the series, that Dr. Loomis really seemed like a crazy person when he warned the sheriff and various other law enforcement officials about Michael Myers. Would you believe a guy who worked as a doctor at a psych ward, carried a gun, and always seemed to be wide-eyed and panting about how you need to pay attention to him because one of his patients is on the loose? I probably wouldn't...or wouldn't until the fourth or fifth time and he was right every time. I refuse to watch Rob Zombie's "re-imagination" of the "Halloween" series, but these are another set of movies I will always watch when they come on television. I will even watch "Halloween: Resurrection," if only to watch Tyra Banks get killed.

9. Shows like "MysteryQuest" and "MonsterQuest"

These two shows used to appear on the History Channel and I watched every single one of them, even when I knew they weren't going to find anything substantial. MonsterQuest searched for such cryptozoological creatures such as:

Birdzilla
Giganto: The real King Kong
The Russian Apeman
Mega Hog
Real Dragons
Ohio Grassman
Mysterious Ape Island
Hillybilly Beast

The episodes all sound like bad Syfy movies don't they? They probably all are bad Syfy movies.

MysteryQuest searched for mysteries like:

The Lost City of Atlantis
Jack the Ripper
The Zodiac

In fact, a critic said of the show:

"...it sometimes seems like the writers go into a particular mystery with a preconceived idea of what happened and only look at evidence that supports that idea." 

YES! That is exactly what happens. The show only found out some interesting facts about a skull that was supposedly Hitler's skull, but otherwise never found anything. Yet I continued to watch. It probably says a lot about me as a person, but I will re-watch them when they come back on television. I love shows about mysteries, even when I ended the show knowing they didn't find anything I always thought, "...but that one person did make a pretty good point."

Yes, I'm an idiot. You put a show about a long-unsolved mystery on television and I will probably watch it.

10. R.E.M. "Automatic for the People"

This is probably one of my desert-island albums. Most people state that "Out of Time" is their favorite R.E.M. album, but "Automatic for the People" is easily mine. It's (here's a shock) kind of depressing and mostly acoustic. After this album R.E.M. finally delivered on the pure "rock" album they had been promising for almost a decade. If "Out of Time" was the happier, acoustic album by R.E.M. that focused on slightly more upbeat pop songs, "Automatic for the People" was the more depressing, acoustic album that has more than one song about death contained in the 12 tracks. The album does get a bit lost in the middle with "Monty Got a Raw Deal," "Ignoreland," and "Star Me Kitten," but then ends the album with "Man on the Moon," "Nightswimming," and "Find the River." That's a great set of songs to end the album.

"Automatic for the People" is one of those albums that most people need to be in the mood to listen to, but I am usually in the mood to listen to it. Considering R.E.M. had put out a hugely successful album just a year before, it was kind of surprising they not only followed up a commercially successful album so quickly, but followed "Out of Time" up with a downbeat album. I think what I like most about "Automatic for the People" is it seems like a sort of reaction to the sunny pop of "Automatic for the People" and an album the band wanted to make before they did their long-awaited (at least by R.E.M. fans) "rock" album. I think I love this album more than most people do. I think it is R.E.M.'s greatest achievement as a band...well next to knowing when to quit.

I Blame Cancer (and Maybe Randy Johnson) for My Father's Death

I posted this on Bottom of the Barrel a year ago and figured I would re-post it here since my personal blog is a more appropriate place for this type of writing. I'm not big on re-posting something I have previously written, but figured I would make an exception today.

My father passed away 9 years ago today at the age of 55. He died of a very aggressive form of prostate cancer. Prior to him being diagnosed, the only thing I knew about prostate cancer is it seemed like a nicer way of saying “ass cancer.” Clearly I was way off on what prostate cancer was and where the hell the prostate was exactly located. Of course I also thought the word “prejudice” was spelled “pregidous” until I was 12 years old. My 6^th grade paper on Martin Luther King, Jr. was probably a great source of laughter among the teachers at my school. I found out my freshman year of college that he was diagnosed with this type of cancer when my sister called me in my dorm room and said my parents were going to call me and tell me some bad news. My sister then told me the bad news. She decided to tell me before they could get to me because she knows my mother and father always found a way to deliver bad news in the worst way possible. Generally, my parents’ way of breaking bad news to me was saying something like, “I know you hate going to West Virginia for Thanksgiving, so we have good news! You don’t have to go to West Virginia for Thanksgiving anymore because your grandfather died!” Maybe that’s just the way it would have sounded to me.

Let me go down a rabbit hole really quickly and allow me to explain this better. A few years after my father’s diagnosis (that’s what we called it because it sounded better than “was told he was going to die sooner than he thought he would and it wasn’t going to be of natural causes”) my parents had discussed with me the idea of putting to sleep the dog I had since I was five years old. He was old and could barely walk. It didn’t help our “new” family dog took great pride in knocking him over like a bowling pin at every opportunity. When my parents and I had this conversation, I requested they call me and I would come home from college to say my last goodbyes to my nearly-lifelong pet when they made this decision. I only reiterated I wanted it to happen this way probably five times. Naturally, they decided to go ahead and put him to sleep two weeks after this conversation and NOT NOTIFY ME AT ALL. I got no call saying they were taking him to the hospital, no one calling to ask if I want him to bark at me one last time, asking whether I prefer they cremate him or bury him in the backyard…nothing. So 24 hours after the dastardly deed was done, my mother calls me on my cell phone and asks to speak to my roommate while we are at a party. She tells him they put my dog to sleep and to break the news to me tomorrow after we get back from the party. Anyway, my roommate immediately told me they had put my dog to sleep and I proceeded to have a conversation with my parents about the appropriate way to break bad news to a person.

This is why my sister called me regarding my father's bad news first before my parents could find a way to make this already bad news even worse. For all I know they would have called in a bomb threat to my dorm so I could see the bad news along with everyone else plastered on the side of a blimp hovering over the Appalachian mountains. I put nothing past them in their inability to deliver bad news appropriately.

So I am told by my sister that my parents are going to call me and tell me the bad news, which did happen maybe five minutes after I hung up with her. My dad was very positive about his diagnosis and said it wasn’t known if it had spread or not but the doctors knew it was malignant. He said he had known the doctors found the tumor during Christmas three weeks earlier, but he didn’t want us to worry until we got a full diagnosis about whether it had spread to other parts of his body or not. I’m not sure how he and my mom got through Christmas keeping this news to themselves. I was obviously worried after speaking with my father, but optimistic it was caught in time since my father had gotten his PSA checked just six months prior. A week or so after the original bad news, I received another phone call from dad saying the cancer had spread to three places in his body, but he said there was a possibility they could do surgery and remove the cancer. That sounded great. There’s still a chance all would be well. Still feeling somewhat positive. Another week or so later we find out surgery isn’t a possibility because the cancer was in the bone. I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure chopping into a patient’s bones to remove cancer is a highly dangerous medical procedure. This was it. This was the final answer. There wasn't anything the doctors could do to stop the growth on a permanent basis. He was given 5-10 years to live. He lived for 5 years and 4 months.

It’s a funny thing, as I am sure many other people can attest to, how a terminal prognosis works. Once the initial shock of the prognosis wears off, the person with the terminal illness becomes the voice of reason and everyone else around him/her starts freaking the fuck out. Life becomes this ticking clock where you know there is a budgeted time left over, but you don’t know how much time has been budgeted. Sure, life is permanently that way, but it’s different when it is someone you love who has that ticking clock on their life and you try to fit everything you can into an uncertain amount of time. You think of all the things your parent will never participate in that will be big deals in your life. That’s how it selfishly worked for me. It is selfish, but I thought about these things. I thought he won’t see me get married probably (which he didn’t), he won’t see my sister get married (which he won't), he won’t meet his grandchildren (which he didn’t), and my mom will be a widow (which she is). All of a sudden your life becomes a countdown of sorts until something you know will happen, but really don't want to happen, actually does occur. It’s a very bizarre feeling and I know I am not the only one to ever experience this.

After the initial prognosis, we started going down the list of things he also wanted to do, but never got a chance to. I guess we’d call it a bucket list. My family went on a cruise, he traveled with my mom a lot and just generally got a much healthier outlook about life. It’s funny how that works too. Once he saw the end coming he was able to throw out all the other crap that most healthy people spend most of their life worrying about. It becomes sort of a “I know I’m going to die, so I really don’t give a crap” outlook on life. I think it liberated him in some ways to be able to focus on what was important. Another ironic part is he looked healthier than ever the first 1-2 years after his cancer diagnosis. He used to work out like crazy when healthy and he was in good shape, but probably too skinny and wiry for his own good because he didn’t have time to eat enough to properly maintain the workout he was keeping up. So after he was diagnosed with cancer he gained some weight, worked out less and looked a lot healthier, despite the fact he was dying of cancer.

The first couple of years weren’t so bad. I say that as a person who didn’t have terminal prostate cancer of course. I think he would agree, especially when compared to the last few years of his life. He got tired more quickly and had some pain at times in the beginning, but he was still able to work. I committed myself to coming home every summer from college to spend time with him, always mindful of that constant ticking clock which told me I didn’t have much time to see him. It’s that clock that was the worst for me. It was the intangible feeling THIS could be the last time for us to watch the MLB playoffs together, next time I see him he could have difficulty getting up the stairs or he would have trouble doing something he has always been able to do.

I honestly would be lying if I thought I could give you a timeline for his cancer in a medical sense and how the cancer progressed medically. There are two reasons for this. The first is I was away at college and he did not want me distracted. I wasn’t given complete information at all times other than being told how he felt. The second is I didn’t concern myself how the progression was going in a strictly medical sense. I wanted to know (a) how long he had left, (b) what the doctors had said at his recent appointment and (c) how he was feeling physically, emotionally, mentally. I don’t know the exact date he started chemotherapy, but I know how it made him feel, the effect it had on him, and when it stopped. Part of not knowing the minute details was a selfish desire in the hopes if I learned less about exactly what is happening, then it isn’t real. I was guilty of that. I was away at college and it was easy to compartmentalize it while I was worried about my grades.

There’s a magic number called a PSA, which stands for Prostate Specific Antigen. It tells the doctors how the cancer is growing and it can fluctuate even if you don’t have cancer. This is what I’ve been told. Basically PSA is relative for everyone and my father’s PSA stayed stable for two years. It didn’t go up for those two years, which was awesome. I would come home during the summer and he would be pretty normal, taking his medications and going to work. The problem is you don’t know how long this will last. Every doctor’s visit could bring bad news of a PSA increase. What was irritating was the next doctor’s visit could tell us if the increase from the previous doctor’s visit was permanent or just a slight increase that will decrease over time. I’m a person who likes definitive answers and this didn’t sit well with me. I hate uncertainty. He dealt with it fine though. He was upbeat (at least to me) and all was well at the doctor’s visits. “Well” being a relative term of course. Dad retired in October 2001, got a nice retirement party and was happy to be able to do what he wanted all day once he retired. This was the most liberated I can remember him being. He woke up, had coffee, spent the day running errands with my mom and enjoying life. He took a photography class and became a good photographer, researched our family’s history and became a really knowledgeable Civil War buff. I was happy for him, but always knew there would come a day when things changed.

Things changed around Winter 2001. His PSA began to go up slightly and the doctor said the cancer was growing. It had begun metastasizing. Long story short, the response to this growth was going to be chemotherapy, which is basically poisoning the human body to kill the cancer. This was the answer to combating the metastasis. I hated this answer. To me, this was like complaining of your arm hurting for a few days and the solution to be cutting off your arm. I saw chemotherapy as what happens when a terminally ill cancer patient doesn’t have any other options left over and doctors are just buying time and making the patient comfortable until death occurs. Maybe that was my non-medical expert opinion of it. This was the beginning of the end and we all knew it. He was given 5-10 years and it had been less than three years. That meant he would have to undergo chemotherapy for almost two years possibly even to meet the five year mark for survival. I was thinking the 5 year mark is where things would start going downhill. Damn me for being an optimist.

So Dad would go to chemo and then come back absolutely exhausted. It was around the beginning of 2002 that I started to see small signs of where this was ultimately headed. He started calling me the wrong person’s name a little more frequently. He called me by his twin brother’s name occasionally, but it got worse around this time. He referred to me as “Dad” (his father was still alive at this point) or even called me by my sister’s name. I’ve gotten called a girl’s name a few times in my life, but I never thought my father would be the one doing it. He did not make this mistake overly frequently, but it became noticeable. He grew tired (as well he should) doing everyday activities and he had to hire someone to take care of the lawn since he didn’t have the energy to do it. He and I always took care of the lawn together and he was adamant that no one was going to take care of his yard but him. Sure, our yard was mostly weeds with divots from me practicing golf, but it was our weeds and our divots. We mowed the weeds and forgot to replace the divots, that's how it was supposed to be. I knew that was a sort of turning point when he couldn’t do yardwork anymore. It was hard to see and I probably didn’t come home as often as I could/should from college. It wasn’t because I didn’t love him or didn’t want to be with him. I got depressed going home to see my family. I got excited to come home, then got depressed while I was there. I spent the summer after undergraduate graduation before graduate school renting an apartment at Appalachian State and basically having the time of my life. I was running away though. I knew it at the time too. My dad always claimed to understand when I spent a weekend at home that summer and then went back to the mountains even though I had nowhere specific to be.

I wasn’t a bad son and didn’t treat anyone poorly, but while my mom worked that summer taking my father to chemotherapy and my sister spent time with him, I wasn’t there as much. I’m still not sure if I feel guilt about this or not. The end didn’t scare me. It was the lead-up to the end that scared me. Just as you take joy in watching your child’s first step, first word, and the slow progressions of that child becoming more and more mature and adult-like as he/she ages, the very opposite of this progression is devastating and crippling in some ways. The man who used to play me at one-on-one basketball and throw the baseball with me in the front yard now needed a ramp instead of stairs to get up on the porch and couldn’t drive a manual transmission car anymore. Yeah, I knew this would happen at some point, but he was barely 50 years old and I had just gotten out of college. It felt like this was all happening a bit too early. I couldn’t see these things on a daily basis.

I recall coming home from school one weekend in Fall 2003. My mom had been mentioning about how my father would always talk to “Sam” while they were both undergoing chemotherapy. I had heard this “Sam” guys name from my dad a few times and had frankly paid enough attention to know the guy’s name, but not enough attention to delve further. My father’s best friend’s was named Sam and he had brain cancer, so I thought at first maybe it was that Sam. Anyway, that one weekend when I came home my mom informed me that “Sam” was Sam Mills, ex-Carolina Panthers linebacker and current coach for the Panthers (he sent my family a card after my father passed away and took the time to write something personal in it. Sam Mills was just a good guy). Sam Mills had recently been diagnosed with intestinal cancer. His prognosis was grim, much like my father's prognosis. While my mom wanted to talk about Sam’s personal life, I was thrilled he got to see one of my favorite Panthers players (while in chemotherapy…I was thrilled to know my father could attend chemo with Sam Mills. It sounds insensitive to think and write down) and started peppering my dad with questions about the current season from Sam Mills' point of view, none of which he could answer. You are sitting in a room with Sam Mills, why aren’t you asking him questions about the current team, about his experiences in the NFL, or pretty much anything sports-related? The idea was unfathomable to me.

My father explained to me they had never discussed football once while at chemotherapy. They always talked about their respective experience with cancer, life in general, and about their families. Sam Mills was an NFL position coach (Linebackers coach at the time for Carolina) and my dad didn’t talk about the current season (in which Carolina was eventually headed to the Super Bowl) or his career with him? Sam Mills? The same passionate guy I saw on the field for several years with Carolina and New Orleans didn’t bring this up? My dad never really explained to me, but I figured out pretty quickly why they never discussed football or Mills’ career. It wasn’t important really. What was important was coming back to chemo the next week and the week after that and the week after that and seeing the same people at the same time on a weekly basis. Monotony and repetition became a form of progress. If you are back the next week, that means you are winning the battle at that point and that’s all that matters. You are present. I remember people used to tell my father it was good to see him and he always responded with, “It’s good to be seen."

By Winter 2004, that’s all that mattered to him, just being seen. The chemotherapy wasn’t working as much anymore. He missed the second half of the Carolina-New England Super Bowl due to physical complications from the chemotherapy during the week. He no longer responded within a day or so to my emails about possible job opportunities I found. It was decided by his doctors that continuing with chemotherapy was probably going to be counterproductive at this point. Ultimately though it was my dad’s call to stop the chemotherapy. The cancer was growing and wasn’t going to stop. He was tired and didn’t want to deal with chemotherapy anymore. At this point he no longer could go upstairs. His daily devotional still lays on his office desk bookmarked to March 2004, the date when he last made it upstairs to his office to read it. He had a hospital bed moved downstairs and moved around the house in a wheel chair. When I graduated from grad school in May 2004, he wasn’t able to attend my graduation because he couldn’t travel at that point. I came home May 10, 2004 after graduation and he could barely talk. Hospice was making visits nearly every day to help take care of him. Cancer had beaten him at this point. We all knew that. He knew that. Time was his enemy. We just had to be around in order to be with him.

May 18^th was a Tuesday. We had dinner and my father could barely move his mouth at this point. He still could make faces at the prospect of eating my mom’s cooking though…a 24 year long running joke continued until the end. My father’s corny jokes became more creative at this point given the degree of difficulty in physically being able to make the joke. After dinner, my mother informed my sister and me that my father was hanging on because he thought he had to. That he was ready to die, but was waiting for some approval from us that we will be fine. I have no idea how she came upon this information. I don’t know if my father told my mother, if it was information understood between them in only a way people who have been married for 26 years can understand or the hospice nurse told my mom. Either way, it wasn’t happening. I wasn’t giving him permission to die. “Fuck that,” I said. “No way, I’m not giving him permission to go. I will absolutely not do that. I’m not ready.” That's a direct quote. My sister said something to the effect of, “But Ben, he is ready.” These words touched me so much, I stormed out of the room, went back downstairs, ignored further attempts to talk about it and finished watching Randy Johnson of the Arizona Diamondbacks throw a perfect game against the Braves with my dad somewhat focused on the game in front of the television in his wheelchair. Yeah, after a lifetime of watching Braves games together, the last game we saw together the Braves didn’t get a runner on-base.

Ultimately, at the end of the baseball game I saw where he was at physically. I was holding back words and preventing my father from achieving some sense of complete peace with his fate. I was doing this because I was more scared than he was. He needed to know we’d be fine without him and I needed to lie to him and say he had my permission to die. Well, he didn’t have my permission but I had to give it to him anyway. So I did. I went downstairs with the idea of speaking to him and giving him permission to die. I thought he would fight me when I gave him permission and he would say, “I’m not ready to go. I’ll be around next week.” Then he would have a bold look in his eye and I would know he was still ready to fight. Maybe that’s what I hoped. A part of me also thought he’d look at me and start yelling at me for wanting him dead. I could see him screaming at me, “I RAISED YOU AND NOW THINGS GET A LITTLE ROUGH, SO YOU ASK ME TO DIE SO YOU CAN MOVE ON? SCREW YOU! BY THE WAY, YOU WERE ADOPTED, WE LAUGHED AS WE PUT YOUR DOG TO SLEEP AND WE LOVED YOUR SISTER MORE THAN YOU!” Granted, he couldn’t speak too much at this point, but there was an outside chance this was the worst practical joke ever played on someone. It didn’t happen that way. He was ready to go and I spoke to him telling him it was okay to be ready. During the end of the conversation, he whispered to me, “I’m sorry for leaving you with the Braves.” One last joke about Randy Johnson’s perfect game and the Braves seeming ability to frustrate us at times. I told him it was fine, but I was lying. I preferred he did not leave me with the Braves. I went upstairs and spoke with my sister for an hour and eventually went to bed. I thought we’d have another week or so of my father around the house. It wasn't to be that way.

My father passed away the next morning at 10:34am. I was woken up and was told if I wanted to talk to him while he was still conscious I needed to do so now. So I got up and we stood by his hospital bed downstairs as he took his last few breaths. It was really sad and there was no last words really, he just slowly stopped breathing. When the funeral home came to get his body our family dog, Toby, refused to let them take my father’s body. He sat on my father’s legs and intermittently howled and barked at their attempts to take his body to the funeral home. Apparently Toby did not ever have the “It’s all right to die” conversation with my father and didn’t feel okay with it all. The funeral was planned by my father, so there wasn’t much my family had to do. It must be difficult to plan your own funeral and think the next time you see the casket you picked out, you won’t see it because you will be dead. That’s why I want to be cremated and have my ashes thrown in Kim Kardashian’s face at a social event. I figure I won’t have to be buried and can get my 15 minutes of fame after I die.

I got the opportunity to speak at my dad’s funeral. Honestly, I enjoyed it. It may sound weird, but the opportunity to speak about my father and what he meant to me was a chance I would never pass up. I spoke for 10 minutes. It didn’t feel that long and fortunately the organist did not start to play me off stage at the five minute mark. People tell me they could never speak at their parent’s funeral, but I wanted to talk for two hours. You see how much I write here. I love an audience, especially when discussing a topic close to my heart. I hated the circumstances, but I enjoyed sharing memories of my father.

Not to do much navel-gazing, but it isn’t the big events anymore where I miss him the most. You do, but for really big events I tend not to think about things like that because you are pretty busy. It is the small things you miss the most. This sounds stupid, but I really wish he could have seen the movie “Anchorman.” He would have loved that movie. I thought about him just a bit on my wedding day, not much more than that mostly because I was so focused on the ceremony going well, making sure I didn’t have to visit the restroom during the wedding (it’s the little things, but if I had to piss or crap during the wedding I can’t imagine how awkward/uncomfortable that would have been). As we all know, when life is going fast, there isn’t much time to think. The little reminders over the last 8 years are the hardest. I want him around to meet my wife, to help my mom decide between a shower door or shower curtain, to help her replace the front door and to see his grandson. If he were here I wouldn’t have to answer the question from a five year old about why his grandfather isn’t coming up to visit him with his grandmother. There's no solid answer in preparation for that question.

My mom has his office the exact same way that he left it. It doesn’t take an amateur psychologist to figure why she hasn’t packed his stuff up or cleaned the desk off. It actually sounds sad to think his stuff hasn’t been touched, but it is actually pretty disgusting. You’d be surprised at how much dust can accumulate over a few years. Even the spiders and cockroaches avoid his desk for fear their legs will get stuck in the film of dust laying over most of the objects still on his desk. The pens don’t write anymore, but still that desk is there with a book about dealing with impending death and the grief that goes along with it sitting on the left side. As far as I know, he’s the only one who ever read it. The bookcase has awkward pictures of me and my sister as we were growing up, pictures of our family, and plaques for all sorts of events/achievements. I’m not sure how he could even do any work in his office without laughing at the picture of me as a late blooming 15 year old with spots of acne on my face. Perhaps he got his laughs in when I wasn’t looking. Still, the desk sits there as a dusty memorial of sorts.

My father and I used to watch as many Braves games together as possible. He would get home from work and I would ask him if he was going to be able to watch the Braves game with me. It wasn’t a “thing” at the time, but in retrospect it sort of was a “thing.” I preferred to watch games with him more than I enjoyed watching them with my friends. Even to this day, sometimes it feels weird watching a Braves game without him around. You would think I’d be over that by now. He told me towards the end of his life he regretted we never had a beer together. Beer just tore his stomach apart by the time I got to legal drinking age and it was one of the drinks he had to avoid later in his life for that reason. I told him we did have a beer together when watching the Braves game, but just not in the literal sense. It was a terribly cheesy line, and I do realize that, but I only think of my really good lines after an hour or two of thinking about them some more.

Even 8 years after his death, I feel silly for still missing him. He’s been gone so long, so much has happened. Everyone’s moved on but you. At a certain point you tell yourself you should stop thinking about it. It sounds reasonable in theory, but hard to do in practice. When NC State made the Sweet Sixteen this year, I couldn’t help but think how excited that would have made dad. He would love Lorenzo Brown and C.J. Leslie, while being petrified Mark Gottfried was in some way cheating or working around NCAA rules to bring in his great 2012 recruiting class. We used to talk sports a fair amount and even to this day I see a sports story and think “Man, I wish I could talk about that with my dad.” Sports have tied us together permanently in that way. I will think of him during a sporting event and wonder what he would have thought.

My dad wasn’t my best friend. He was my father and of course I think he was awesome. There are many quirky/funny stories I could tell you about him, but 90% of people think that their dad is awesome and have similar stories. That’s why I will spare you these stories. I’m not Bill Simmons. I didn’t call my father after every victory or defeat waiting for him to say something funny so I can tell everyone. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, of course. He spent most of my youth working hard, I spent much of my teen years wanting to be away from any parental oversight, and I spent most of the years he had cancer in college away from home. We did play golf together quite frequently throughout college and when I was younger. So we did play sports and attend sports together. We attended Game 3 of the 1993 Conference Semifinals between the Hornets and Knicks. It was a double overtime game and probably rates as one of my top sporting events attended. It definitely rates as the loudest crowd I have ever heard live at a sporting event. I saw a replay of the game on NBA TV a few months ago and just couldn’t stop watching. While watching the game on television I kept thinking this is what cancer robbed me of, while also having a great memory of being there with my father. This is the time we would both have had to attend these sporting events. I’m out of college and he would be retired. Would we attend a bunch of sporting events together? I don’t know. It’s entirely possible, but I wish the option was still there.

I hate prostate cancer. I hate it with a passion. No one really likes cancer, so that sounds obvious. I am tied to prostate cancer in a way though. The odds of me getting prostate cancer are really, really high. My dad had it, his twin brother had it, and their father had it. Only my father died from it. So I have a good chance of surviving it if caught early enough. I am having my PSA checked every two years until I’m 40, even though my doctor says this is overkill. It doesn’t matter to me. If I am unlucky enough to receive a prostate cancer diagnosis at some point in my life though I am going to absolutely kick its ass. I’m going to kick its ass for my father, for myself, for my wife, for my sister and my mother. I will retire with my wife, meet my grandchildren, and talk sports with them until they are tired of talking to me or my mind starts to go and I become convinced Brian McCann was a pitcher. I couldn’t do anything for my father in helping him beat the disease, but I’m going to ensure it won’t defeat me the way it defeated him. This is the best way I know to honor him, knowing I was able to do anything and everything that cancer robbed him of participating in with us. I’ll take my children and grandchildren to a game and have a beer with them. Maybe I’ll even buy an extra one.

"Chasing It": Where Good Writers and Directors Go Bad

"The Sopranos" is probably one of my favorite television shows of all-time. The worst episode during the "The Sopranos" run was undoubtedly "Chasing It." That's my opinion of course, but if this were the first episode of the show I watched then I probably would not have watched the rest of the series. It's not that it is bad, plot-wise, but it is bad in that the writing is just so terribly inconsistent, lazy, and completely different from anything other episodes in the series. I remember watching this episode and wondering how I happened to watch a "Sopranos" episode that was so disconnected from the rest of the series. I didn't recognize some of the characters and their motives didn't make sense. Mostly, I am talking about the detour of Tony Soprano into a hardcore gambler, which I feel was contrary to the Tony Soprano we had come to know over the previous/following 80+ episodes. Major spoilers ahead, naturally.

What's even more interesting to me is this episode was directed by Tim Van Patten who has directed every really, really good HBO show at some point (Game of Thrones, Deadwood, Sex and the City---I know...women liked it and the show was well-made, The Wire, The Pacific, Boardwalk Empire) and he helped write the script for my favorite "Sopranos" episode ever, "Pine Barrens." The guy knows how to direct. Then to make matters worse Matthew Weiner wrote this episode. He executive produced, and is the head-writer and show-runner for "Mad Men," a show that is known for being very well-written. He wrote for "The Sopranos" and he's always seemed like an excellent writer to me. Yet, he is responsible for the worst sack-of-shit script in the history of "The Sopranos." How can that be? I can't answer that. What I can do is point out the inconsistencies and why this is the worst episode in the history of the "Sopranos" series.

Some background on this episode for those who don't recall "The Sopranos" episodes by heart, and really, only losers like me probably do. "Chasing It" was the fourth episode of Season 6 Part 2 (the reason this wasn't Season 7 makes sense only to only HBO and possibly some accountants, since I am assuming there was a financial reason of sorts to not call the last nine episodes of the series Season 7 instead of Season 6 Part 2). The previous episode was "Remember When" where Tony realized he hates Paulie, but keeps him around because Paulie showers him with great gifts like a new cappuccino maker. Tony was becoming more and more narcissistic and separated from his captains and the rest of his New Jersey crew. Through the entire previous episode it appears Tony wants to kill Paulie and there are flashbacks and callbacks to previous hits Tony and his crew had performed through the series as if Paulie is destined for death by Tony's hand. Tony doesn't kill Paulie, but Tony is still only out for himself. That's always clear. The turn Tony takes in "Chasing It" still doesn't make sense in the context of this previous episode. Here are my issues with this episode:

1. Tony becomes a degenerate gambler in "Chasing It." Tony has always hated degenerate gamblers and he has never shown that he could somehow have a gambling addiction or problems with money as it relates to gambling. Part of Tony's business is to take advantage of others who need money and then weasel his way into their business by becoming a "partner" in the business and eventually sucking the life out of that business. There is even a storyline in Season 2 where Tony allows a sporting goods owner with a gambling problem play a high-roller game of poker until he is severely in debt (the sporting goods owner is played by Robert Patrick). Then Tony destroys his business, ruins his professional and personal life, and the guy eventually completely moves to the other side of the country. The point is that Tony is a huge hypocrite, but he never showed the propensity for becoming addicted to gambling or chasing after gambling wins during the entire run of the show, except for this episode. Season 4 finds him getting very involved in horse racing, but only because he thinks he is good at picking horses, he wants to fuck with Ralphie's cash flow (if you haven't watched the show I won't explain this because you are probably already really lost), and because he is infatuated with animals. Tony never has a gambling problem before or after "Chasing It."

2. Nancy Sinatra makes a cameo appearance signing a song that (surprise!) just happened to be on the latest CD she was releasing. Her serenading of Phil Leotardo was disturbing in nearly every sense of the word. It felt tacked-on and a cheap way to promote her new CD. This show needs to be better than this. This was worse than David Lee Roth showing up at a poker game or Eric Mangini happening to be eating at the same restaurant as Tony Soprano.

3. Tony wants to use $300,000 of the profit from Carmela's spec house sale to fund a "sure thing" gamble because the kicker for an NFL team is injured and the backup kicker (more on this in a minute) is starting. She denies this request for Tony to use his half of the money and then they later get in a very heated exchange. Wikipedia says they eventually reconcile, but I don't remember it that way exactly. It seems like their reconciliation takes place off screen and I don't remember them actually having a reconciliation. This further speaks to the bizarre nature of this episode in that I don't recall Tony and Carmela ever making up. What's worse is that for a show that is always doing callbacks and different characters are holding anger or grudges over entire seasons, in the very next episode ("Walk Like a Man") Tony and Carmela are perfectly fine with each other. It's like the incredibly heated exchange just never happened and not in the "it never happened" way that Carmela and Tony usually treat events, but like it really never happened. The first time I watched "Chasing It" I felt like I was dreaming and this wasn't the real "Sopranos" episode for the week. I can't explain the feeling. Then in the next episode A.J. started whining more and in the episode after that Tony kills Christopher. It was a rough three weeks for me. This episode was like being drunk and trying to watch "The Sopranos" for the first time. It didn't make sense to me.

4. It's even more telling the worst part of this episode where Tony is given an addiction he has never had before is the description of the sports games Tony is gambling on. At least get the details right, which Matthew Weiner failed to do. So along with making Tony addicted to gambling, about 10 minutes of research went into detailing the type of gambling Tony was participating in. Here are the errors in this episode in regard to gambling and sports:

-An NFL team was starting its backup kicker. NFL teams don't have a backup kicker unless it is the punter. If an NFL team has an injured kicker they will replace that kicker with a free agent kicker during the week between games and most likely not replace the place kicker with the punter. Also, "a rookie kicker?" It's such a lazy bit of writing. Teams don't have backup kickers and starting a rookie kicker wouldn't change the line as much as Tony claims the line changed. Eventually, the game was a blowout, which means the kicker had nothing to do with the team winning or losing, unless he missed seven field goals in the game.

-Anyone who watched Seinfeld knows the Puerto Rican Day Parade takes place during the summer. A.J. was broken up with (very randomly I might add) at this parade, and yet, the NFL games that Tony was betting on took place during the Fall. How long does it take when writing a script to ensure that two events you are portraying in the show take place at the same time as each other? Apparently this research takes longer than Matthew Weiner had to turn this script in.

-To make matters worse, Tony bets on an NBA game (which one I don't recall), which also takes place during the Fall/Winter/Spring months, so the Puerto Rican Day Parade would not take place during these months. A little research is all I ask.

-When they show Buffalo-Tampa Bay playing on television, neither team has even close to the uniform color the teams have in real life. Again, it's small, but when the entire storyline of Tony becoming addicted to gambling revolves around these bets, shouldn't the bets come off as somewhat realistic? It's bad enough the viewer has to accept that Tony has randomly become a gambling addict.

5. Hesh, who is an advisor to Tony and was also an advisor to Tony's father, has a girlfriend apparently. We've never met her, but they appear to really love each other. Naturally, because we just met her she ends up dying at the end of the episode. Tony then pays Hesh back some money he owed Hesh (you know, because Tony is now the one who has to take out loans rather than playing the role of the loan shark that he had played during the entire series run) and isn't sensitive enough to Hesh's girlfriend dying. Tony is a mean person seems to be the lesson. In defense of Tony and the audience, this girlfriend is just thrust upon us all simply to die. She isn't a character but a plot point. So it's hard for the audience, and therefore Tony, to feel great sympathy for Hesh since we never met this girlfriend of his prior to this episode.

6. Then there is the storyline where A.J.'s girlfriend (Blanca) breaks up with him and this begins a downward spiral where he goes from a useless, annoying character in the background to a useless, annoying character in the forefront. The show always played the "surrogate son" role better with Christopher than it played Tony's relationship with his own son. A.J. went from an example of Tony Soprano having to deal with personal bullshit caused by his family to a character the writers often had no clue what to do with. The same thing went for Meadow's character. She would show up randomly and go to the pool or warn Tony and Carmela that A.J. was depressed and then exit stage-left for the rest of the episode. A.J. eventually tried to kill himself after Blanca breaks up with him, but this storyline is a great example of the show not knowing when to get rid of characters who had outlived their usefulness for plotting purposes (Dr. Melfi is another great example).

I read the AV Club for most reviews of television shows and here is a review of this episode that semi-defends it's presence in the television universe. I can't defend this episode's presence since the main premise, Tony's gambling, runs counter (in my mind) to everything we have learned about him. Here's what a generous "B+" review of the show says about "Chasing It." And yes, I am sort of reviewing a review of a television show. And another yes, I usually really like how Todd VanDerWerff reviews television shows. I just think he graded this one incorrectly.

Of the nine episodes that make up the final batch of The Sopranos, “Chasing It” is the only one that I’ve heard even mild criticism for from the show’s fan base. 

These complaints are based on the fact this episode portrays Tony Soprano in a way the series never had portrayed him until point. I'm not even including the whole "waste of our time" component where the show is six episodes from ending and we get an episode that barely moves the main plot ahead.

Indeed, it’s quite a good episode of The Sopranos.

If "good" is defined as "shoddily researched," "poorly plotted," and "takes the main character and changes his personality for one episode-only" then this is definitely a good episode.

The chief criticism of the episode is that Tony would never have gotten involved this deeply in gambling. (Indeed, at one point earlier in the show’s run, he cautions against how gambling can take over your life and make you do stupid things.)

Tony several times cautions against how gambling can take over a person's life. He was prone to hypocrisy, but he was always the loan shark not the other guy taking the loan. That was the entire character of Tony Soprano. He was a shark who ruined people's lives around him and rarely ruined his own life. He would not have gotten this deep into gambling because it goes against his character. In the words of Jason Segel, that's the only argument I need. Tony isn't a degenerate gambler. He makes his money off other degenerate gamblers.

This is a criticism I’ve never bought.

Well, pony up some cash because you gotta buy it. Tony is the one who makes money off gamblers, not the one who gets deep into gambling debt.

The show has so successfully established that at this point, the Tony who survived being shot by Uncle Junior is a rasher, more impulsive Tony that I largely buy his giving in to this particular vice.

True, except for the fact his impulse in the previous episode was to kill Paulie and he didn't act on his impulses. In the very next episode Christopher rails on his own father, Dickie, for being a drunk and drug addict and Tony just lets Christopher criticize his dead father even though Dickie was Tony's hero. Tony loved Dickie Moltisanti and he allows Christopher to call him a druggie and drunk. If Tony were impulsive he wouldn't have let these words stand. In addition, in the same episode Tony sits Christopher down and talks to him about how he needs to stay on top of his crew and stop being frequently absent because people are noticing. There were beefs erupting because Christopher wasn't around enough. Rather than knocking the shit out of Christopher, Tony sits down and talks to him. Tony also doesn't beat the shit out of his son and gives him time to bust out of the funk he is in after Blanca broke up with him. Tony even allows Carmela to convince him that therapy is a good idea for A.J. despite the fact Tony doesn't think much of his own therapy sessions with Dr. Melfi and had a bad experience when Meadow (their daughter) went to therapy during an episode. Meadow's therapist tried to convince her to drop out of college and this pissed Tony off.

So Tony is impulsive and more rash, but he's only more impulsive and more rash when it serves the purposes of the writers. That's part of my problem with "Chasing It" and that's why I never buy Tony would give in to this particular vice of gambling. He's supposedly more impulsive, but he is only impulsive in regard to matters he has always been impulsive on...of which gambling isn't included.

Plus, look at the things he’s wagering: The horse he bets on in the race is named “Meadow’s Gold,” something he considers a lucky omen, even if said horse eventually loses. Tony is betting that he’s built up such a large lead that the universe can never come calling,

While part of this may be true, this one bet isn't what got him in gambling trouble. It was a string of bad gambles that I find outside of his character.

that his survival—and, indeed, his continuing to thrive—is a “sure thing,” as sure as that Chargers quarterback with the hairline fracture in his leg going down.

While I can buy this, Tony has never shown any interest in gambling on football prior to this, other than to find out how much Paulie/Christopher were making per week that could be kicked into his own pocket. Again, gambling was a source of income for Tony, not a vice. It always had been that way until this episode came around.

If those first 12 episodes are about a man who desperately tries to change, who tries to hold off his own worst impulses to become something “better” (whatever that means for Tony Soprano), then these last nine episodes are about how that man, having realized how much less exciting it is to be that responsible adult and to commit himself to his marriage and the prospect of change, cycles into self-destruction.

I perceive these episodes the same way, but it doesn't change the fact Tony's gambling addiction is a one episode addiction. It shows up and disappears in one episode. He isn't cycling into self-destruction, but the writers are randomly assigning him a self-destructive behavior for one episode only and then moving on. A person doesn't cycle into self-destructive gambling and then just magically stop without some major change in attitude or invention, neither of which Tony undergoes.

In that sense, a gambling problem is incredibly appropriate: Tony Soprano is gambling with his life, and he’s building up a bigger and bigger debt to the house. 

It's incredibly not appropriate because it is a temporary cycle of self-destruction motivated by what the writers want and not caused by any character development. I can buy cycles of self-destruction, but the cycles must continue to be believed and not resolved magically in a single episode.

Hesh, more than anyone, understands how deeply Tony could be burying himself with gambling and his lifestyle. (At one point, he rants to his girlfriend, Renata, about the cost of Tony’s boat, which is massive.) Yet Tony doesn’t want to hear it. He’s not interested in the ways he could be dooming himself, not when there’s a great big present to go out and live in.

So where does this Tony that is deeply burying himself in gambling go after this episode? He pays Hesh back and then this deeply indebted Tony disappears and goes back to the Tony Soprano we know from the other 85 episodes.

Throughout, he keeps coming up with new funds, then losing them on bets. What he’s doing here isn’t really addiction, per se, nor is he really desperate to find a way back to solvency. 

So Tony has a gambling problem (as acknowledged above), but not an addiction? I'm sure there is a difference but I fail to understand it. It's still a new Tony Soprano for one episode.

He promised Marie he’d help out where he could, but he bristles at giving her the substantial sum it would cost to go to Maine, both because his gambling losses would make a payout of $100,000 hurt more than usual, and because he just doesn’t care all that much, beyond the theoretical. I really do believe in an earlier season, Tony would have hemmed and hawed and eventually given Marie that money. (Then again, in an earlier season, he wouldn’t have lost so much gambling.)

Because it wasn't in his nature to develop a gambling problem. Tony never had a gambling problem before or after this episode. See the issue? The gambling is just a random character issue the writers lazily threw into one episode. VanDerWerff knows this episode has an inconsistent characterization of Tony Soprano even if he can't admit it. It's such lazy writing on the part of Matthew Weiner.

This is still an okay episode of "The Sopranos" (it's just a great show), but I can't pretend it is well-written or doesn't have major flaws simply because it is probably my favorite show. There's no defending this episode and I have always been surprised critics don't absolutely hate it. I don't hate it (because I love the show), but the characterization and writing is shit. Some would disagree with me I guess.