It’s 4:35 AM.

I’m still awake.

We had a record-breaking day for the site yesterday.

I’ve got nothing with which to follow it up today.

You should click on the categories on the side of the page.

View all the Lonely Socks.

Read all the TV Draft stuff.

I’m going to see something on Broadway in less than 12 hours.

I’ll post tomorrow.  Maybe.

The 2008 TV Character Draft, Part Three.

For the record, we had another draft this Friday with additional teams and a less serious focus.  I can’t believe I just wrote “a less serious focus” in reference to this.  I will not be posting the results of that draft here.  Yet.

ROUND SEVEN

19.  Team SCS selects Bubbles, The Wire – and much like the Emmy Awards, the draft manages to ignore The Greatest Show in TV History for far too long.  I am thrilled to get the best acting performance in recent memory with the 19th overall pick.  (A note for those of you who have seen Passing Strange–the sister in this clip is played by none other than Eisa Davis.)

20.  Team Kittredge selects Sayid Jarrah, Lost — Around this point, I start feeling like a complete pop culture ignoramus, because this is another show I have never seen.  I take solace in Kitt’s admission that she’s making this pick as much to get an attractive male on her team as for any legitimate reason, making my Dark Angel pick that much less embarrassing .  But still embarrassing.

21.  Team Deeeluxe selects Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report — At the beginning of the draft, we made it clear that Jon Stewart, as an example, was ineligible to be selected, because he’s a newsman, not a character.  Barry Bonds made an excellent point here with Mr. Colbert, who was clearly eligible due to the fact that he is, indeed, a character played by an actor.  This pick would open the door for quite possibly the greatest pick of the draft in the next round.

ROUND EIGHT

22.  Team Deeluxe selects Frank Drebin, Police Squad! — Another “off-the-board” pick for the Deeeluxers, Frank Drebin brings not only a strong, historically impressive television career, but the undeniable added bonus of the Naked Gun flicks.  Mr. Bonds likes to test the boundaries, as you can see.

23.  Team Kittredge selects Heathcliff Huxtable, The Cosby Show – So I mean, if you’re doing this draft for real, and you really want to take the best possible first round pick, I think you’ve either got to go for Kermit or this man.  For folks of our age to let Bill Effing Cosby slip to Round Eight is just inexcusable…by all rational standards.  Barry Bonds and I (both Cosby Kids if there ever were any) could only applaud this American Girl’s selection.  (And the clip?  Best ending to a sitcom ever.  Second best ending to a television show ever, after, of course, Six Feet Under.  Second-best sitcom ending ever? I Married Dora, of course.)

24.  Team SCS selects The Rock, WWE Smackdown/Raw — I had been stewing this pick over since the beginning of the draft, but didn’t think he’d be eligible.  As soon as Colbert was selected, I knew the path was free for me to take the most electrifying man in sports entertainment.  I know a lot of folks are biased against pro wrestling, and usually that’s not an unfounded bias, but the performances this guy put on when he was at the top of his game really can’t be topped anywhere on television.

ROUND NINE

25.  Team SCS selects Dwayne Wayne, A Different World — I knew someone would go for Cosby or one of the Cosby kids, and I promised that I’d grab somone from A Different World in the round immediately after.  This is one of the most important shows I ever watched — people of color in college, and a wide variety of backgrounds and personality types — this might be the most progressive sitcom I’ve ever seen.  Dwayne was the nerd who grew up and won, even if he didn’t end up with a Huxtable.  (It’s hard to find A Different World clips online, so I went instead with my other favorite Kadeem Hardison acting performance.)

26.  Team Kittredge selects Jem, Jem – And here’s Kitt’s Dark Angel pick.  Kind of.   I’ve got to say, reading the Wikipedia entry for this show makes it sound a lot more interesting than I would have imagined.

27.  Team Deeeluxe selects Barney Stimpson, How I Met Your Mother — I’ve head great things about Neil Patrick Harris on this show, and Barry forced the first season DVDs into my hands when I mentioned I had only seen bits and pieces of the series.  You gotta love getting Doogie Howser into the draft without having to actually pick Doogie Howser.

Next post, we start to move into the SPECIAL CATEGORY ROUNDS!!!

Oh yeah…way too much time went into all this.

The Lonely Sock Project, IV.

So one night, I’m walking through Grand Army Plaza when I spy this:

This sock is lonely.

That picture gives you a good look at the sock, but without context, it’s hard to capture the loneliness.  So here, without further ado, I provide context:

Shying away from the spotlight.

We all get lonely at night in Brooklyn.

All in all, a successful night of sock scouting, I’d say.  But wait–we’re not done.  The next day, about 21 hours later, to be exact, I was once again walking through Grand Army Plaza when I saw something out of the corner of my eye:

Still there.

This, of course, raised some philosophical questions for me.  Why did I awesome these socks would somehow move on from their spots by the next time I came around?  If I’m not picking them up and taking them home (I gotta draw the line someplace), who is?  Why would I think someone is going to come throw the sock away?  If that sock is there, it’s staying there.  It’s unloved.  It’s lost.  It’s alone.  It can’t dig itself out of its metaphorical hole.  It has no powers of ambulation.

How is this sock supposed to be anyplace else?

22 hours after this picture was taken, I went back to Grand Army Plaza.  The sock was gone.

And my world was changed forever.

Next week…believe it or not, I’ve still got more socks to show.

I’m Officially Old.

I say this every year on my birthday.

This year, I turned 31.  I celebrated it with rounds of Wii Bowling, followed by The Dark Knight (I’ll write about that at some point during the week–there’s a lot to process), and lobster bisque.

I’ll say I did okay.

Women’s Project Announces Their Season.

I’m particularly interested in the season that the good folks over at The Women’s Project have put together for 08-09. My buddy Saviana kicks off their season with Aliens with Extraordinary Skills, a play I’ve gotten to see in development and really dig. Then they’re doing Freshwater, the bizarre Virginia Woolf play that I think I mentioned here way back at the beginning of the blogging days. The play has a marmoset in it–as a character, people. SITI Company has never been one of my favorite theater groups, but I have a feeling they’ll be able to do something really worth watching with this thing.

You can find more info here.

A little-seen play by Virginia Woolf toplines the 2008-09 season at Off Broadway’s Women’s Project.

Woolf’s 1923 play “Freshwater,” which has never been professionally produced in the U.S., follows a group of artists spending a summer evening in a Victorian garden. Staging is helmed by Anne Bogart, whose troupe SITI Company co-presents the production, running Jan. 15-Feb. 15.

Before that, Saviana Stanescu’s “Aliens with Extraordinary Skills” will have its world preem at the Women’s Project this fall.

A black comedy about emigres in search of a green card, the play by Romanian scribe Stanescu will be directed by Tea Alagic. Production runs Sept. 22-Oct. 26.

Also on the Women’s Project bill is a site-specific piece called “Global Cooling: The Women Chill,” skedded for May.

The 2008 TV Character Draft, Part Two.

This needs no further explanation/introduction.  Let’s continue:

ROUND FOUR

10.  Team Deeeluxe selects Optimus Prime, Transformers. — It’s kind of shocking that it took Barry Bonds this long to select a robot.

11.  Team Kittredge selects Buffy Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer — Staying sensitive, but with some serious ass-kicking potential.

12.  Team Smichovsky selects Simon Adebisi, Oz — This pick inspired the most inappropriate jokes.  By far.  I won’t repeat them here, but if you’ve watched the show, you can imagine.  Think Peter Schibetta.

ROUND FIVE

13.  Team Smichovsky selects…okay, before I tell you who I selected here, let me just explain myself.  In retrospect, I know this was a horrible pick.  I outthought myself.  I wanted more good-looking woman representation, so I started thinking of good-looking women, and ended up going for one who, at the time of her show, seemed to be as good-looking a woman I could imagine.  And so, ill-advisedly, I selected…Max Guevara, Dark Angel.  I would do it over if I could.

14.  Team Kittredge selects Veronica Mars, Veronica Mars — I have never seen this show.  Kit seemed pleased with her pick though.

15.  Team Deeeluxe selects Christopher Turk, Scrubs — GOD DAMN IT.  This made the Dark Angel pick that much worse.  Turk is one of the better characters in recent sitcom history, I think (not that I watch enough TV these days to say for sure), and he effectively killed any opportunity to choose anybody else from Scrubs.  Personally, I’d have gone with Ted if I couldn’t get Turk, but that would just be even sadder than it already was.  Phenomenal pick.  Maybe the best value of the draft…so far.

ROUND SIX

16.  Team Deeeluxe selects Sydney Bristow, Alias — Another show I never watched, but knew other people swore by.  Jennifer Garner was probably a better choice than Jessica Alba, I’ll say that much.

17.  Team Kittredge selects Jemaine Clement, Flight of the Concords — ANOTHER show I’ve never seen.  This pick is notably for setting off tensions between Kit and Barry, and the results of those tensions would be felt throughout the ensuing twelve rounds.  Yes.  There are twelve more rounds.

18.  Team Smichovsky selects Gob Bluth, Arrested Development — This guy fits with Homer and Cartman, that’s for sure.  Will Arnett happens to be responsible for two of my favorite comedy bits ever, both as Gob, so here they are:

and

The 2008 TV Character Draft, Part One.

So on Saturday night I found myself up at the Deeluxe (apartment in the sky) with Barry Bonds and Kitt Kittredge (some names have been changed to protect the innocent). Usually Deeeluxe procedure is to play Wii and/or various other games that encourage community building and inappropriate yelling. With just the three of use in attendance though, we decided to take an alternate route to the night’s entertainment. A particular bizarre strain of conversation jumping led us to a discussion of our all-time favorite sitcom characters, which immediately turned into what you’re going to read about today.

We decided to hold a fantasy draft of favorite television characters. The rules were simple (and often made up as we went along). Today, I’ll post the first three rounds of the draft, along with comments. We’ll proceed like this for a few days, then get to the final analysis, which will be based on actual conversations we had about the proceedings.

A final note before we begin: when Kitt Kittredge and I were crashing on Barry Bond’s L-shaped couch that night, falling into the kind of deep sleep one can only have after a night full of hard fought silliness and time-wasting, she calmly stated “I’m not sure whether it is sad or awesome that we’re over 30 and this is our life.” Neither am I, Kitt. Neither am I.

ROUND ONE

1. Smichovsky selects Claire Fisher, Six Feet Under — those of you who know me know that this is entirely to be expected. If this was a for-real fantasy draft, this pick would be a horrible reach, as it’s unlikely that either of my foes would have selected her at all, let alone within the first few rounds. At this point, we had no idea how long the draft would be going on, let alone why the hell we were doing it (well, we still don’t have an idea why), so I went for my all-time favorite character on any television show ever.

2. Team Kittredge selects Kermit The Frog, The Muppet Show/Sesame Street — this pick was greeted by oohs and aahs. I mean, you start to think about the all-time greats, and somehow, the average mind doesn’t go to perhaps the all-time great himself. Unless you’re Kitt Kittredge, of course. Barry Bonds and I knew the game had gotten serious after just the second pick.

3. Team Bonds (or Team Deeeluxe, if you want) selects Angus Macguyver, Macguyver — a name I never would have even thought of, especially this high, Macguyver would prove to be a very successful pick when all was said and done. In fact, I don’t even know much about the show, other than that Macguyver would, well, Macguyver stuff he needed out of paper clips and chewing gum. This clip makes me think I missed out (or maybe it’s just that song).

ROUND TWO

4. Team Deeeluxe selects Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: The Next Generation – a pattern was beginning to develop here already for this team, as a second intelligent, resourceful leader made the squad.

5. Team Kittredge selects Alex P. Keaton, Family Ties — Family Ties feels like a forgotten TV show to me. It hasn’t been on in reruns for a while, has it? I feel like there are entire generations of kids who don’t know what a huge star Michael J. Fox was while doing this show. I never loved Family Ties when I was growing up, but in retrospect, I think that’s because I missed a lot of the politics at work in the show’s basic premise. I think I’d really come to appreciate it more if I watched it now.

6. Team Smichovsky selects Homer J. Simpson, The Simpsons – remember when this show started and it was about Bart? The switch to Homer as focus turned this into one of the best damn shows of all-time. Sadly, this pick would, much like the Bonds pick of last round, establish a pattern to my selections.

ROUND THREE

7. Smichovsky selects Eric Cartman, South Park — So I end up selecting fat, goofy losers to combat the powerful leaders and worldwide icons of the other squads–and I’m happy to stand behind these picks. Cartman has got to be the most ridiculous, awful, and hilarious character I’ve ever seen. (It’s virtually impossible to get a youtube link to South Park stuff, so you’ll have to go here.)

8. Team Kittredge selects Kevin Arnold, The Wonder Years — And the patterns continue. Kermit + Alex Keaton + Kevin Arnold = sensitivity (c) Ralph Tresvant. Of course this team was picked by a girl.

9. Team Deeeluxe selects Al Bundy, Married With Children – the fearless leader thing goes out at the window. Pure, sheer FOX hilarity. The everyman. A heck of a pick.

More soon. Lots more soon.

Golden Age Hip-Hop.

So the Bert and Ernie video from the last post (along with a discussion of “old school” vs. “new school”) led me to search for Golden Age era hip-hop videos. I figured I should share my journey with you.

So we started here:

Which led me here:

Then here:

And here:

And I finally had to stop here:

I will probably start doing these posts semi-regularly so I have an excuse to spend all day watching videos.

Bert + Ernie = M.O.P.

Many of you have probably seen this already.

Actually, knowing my readership, most of you haven’t seen this already, nor will you fully appreciate how genius this actually is.  But whether or not you are fans of the M.O.P. classic Ante Up, I think you might still enjoy Bert and Ernie’s rendition of it.

The Lonely Sock Project, III

So I’m keeping my eyes open for Lonely Socks left and right, and then one day I’m in the Atlantic Avenue train station, and I see this:

And of course, this changes everything. I realize that while socks can be lonely, so can almost anything that comes in a pair. So of course there are going to be lonely crocs as well. It’s possible, however, that this particular croc wasn’t so lonely after all:

Now, there are a few ways to view this picture. One, and this is my initial reaction, is that Croc #2 is lost and alone down on that lower step, and Croc #1 has given up hope and is prepared to go it alone. That’s the sadder view, although it is, again, some kind of commentary on the indomitable human (Croc) spirit. The other way to see this, I think, is that Croc #2 is just hiding from Croc #1.

It’s a glass half-full/half-empty kind of thing. Or a Pop Tart gun vs. Twinkie gun kind of thing.