Alex Preston with The Come On and Rooster @The Nick, 02/23/2017

Alex Preston. Enjoy the one and only picture I managed to take.

Well, that was an interesting experience.

I am far from adept at the pub crawl. I go to plenty of concerts, but I have zero knowledge of where the local bands play or what their names are. If I know of someone I like around town that's playing, I tend to go (solo and often sans inebriation), but I usually end up at the local hipster clubs, and even they're a little less hip since Bottletree closed up shop. So this was a bit out of my comfort zone.

The Nick's been around since I was a teenager: it's been almost twenty years, so I guess it's about time I checked the place out. It's fairly proud of its reputation as a dive bar, as well as the fact that sub-millennials like me have no idea that is still exists (The tagline for the venue is, after, all, "Birmingham's Best Kept Secret"). Still, it seems mostly to cater to metal and hard rock acts. It's not really where one expects to see an acoustic act primarily known for his stint on American Idol.

(Speaking of Idol, Alex sort of went out of his way to avoid that particular topic, which is not something I've experienced when I've seen Idol alumni play at other small venues. He mentioned that he had only been to Birmingham once before, and I'm pretty sure that was when the Idol tour swung around these parts a few years ago, but he definitely didn't let on why he was here. I don't think anybody would have given him any flak for it, but who knows).

On that note, this was one of the least boisterous concert experiences I have ever had. The bar was mostly filled with regulars and I'm pretty sure only a handful of us were there specifically for the music. There was a raucous discussion between a sixtysomething low-level redneck and a hipster dressed in what I can only describe as Mad Scientist chic (purple hair, yellow trench coat, Santa Clause red pants, and spectacles that put my vision to shame) about various political issues that was allegedly to be followed up on at a later time, but even that didn't seem to have the potential of a bar fight. I might have been mildly disappointed, but I'm not sure the kind of music I was there for calls for that sort of thing, either.

Alex was in really fine form: the acoustic blues stylings perhaps play best to just him and a guitar, and he was fabulous. The guitar playing has gotten a lot better since Idol, and he was in really great vocal form. I see a lot of bands who are great live but have never, ever been accused of singing in tune, so I definitely appreciate someone who can sing great as well as put on an engaging performance. I only recognized about half of the songs from his 2015 album, but the new stuff was really good, too, and I'm hoping he puts out more. His cover version of Sex and Candy was one of the sexiest things I've ever heard, too.

Alex played a longer set than the other two acts (I think he did about 12-13 songs, and the next two acts only did about 7 each) and I wasn't going to stay for the duration of the evening, but the guy in the mad scientist get-up who had been sitting next to me during Alex's entire set turned out to be the lead singer of the next band, The Come On. I don't know why it took me so long to figure that one out (I guess not a lot fazes me these days). They were a quirky rock back in the style of They Might Be Giants or Cake: typical subject matter was cemeteries, Oliver Sacks, and black and white TVs. It wasn't really my type of music, but it was definitely entertaining.

I was set to leave after that point (it was getting close to 1 AM), but the final act, Rooster, turned out to be the same band . . . once the Mad Scientist frontman discarded his trench coat and the blonde girl on keyboards slapped on an acoustic guitar and proceeded to churn out the moody, decadent, funereal alt-country stylings that I love. Turns out Rooster and The Come On are the same band. The music livened up after a few songs, but I didn't mind. Things got a bit punk rock with the closer, with lots of screaming about bad men, too much whiskey, and ne'er do well relatives. I think that girl and I may be related.

Rooster and The Come On don't have much of a social media presence, but The Come On do have a few songs out on Spotify. As for Alex, the Spotify link is here if you care to give his stuff a listen.

2016 Sucked But There Was This, Music Edition

aka Frazzled's 2016 Sonic Misadventures

Fall

                                                                 It finally happened.

Well, we all knew we would end up here, didn't we?

I have to say that this was possibly my favorite resolution to any romantic storyline on TV ever, and one of the best TV episodes ever, from start to finish. I'm not that worried about Rory's plotline because we've seen it played out already, and it will end exactly this way. Which is the way it should be.

I wasn't that enchanted with Lorelai's nature misadventures, apart from the #Parenthood cameos. It was very kind of Lauren to give half of the cast of her last show a job. Peter Krause in particular cracked me up: it was very amusing to watch Lauren attempt to flirt shamelessly with Lauren Graham's real-life boyfriend (thankfully, they still have no romantic chemistry whatsoever).

Fun fact: Jason Ritter not only played Lauren's love interest on Parenthood but also Alexis Bledel's love interest on the doomed sitcom Us and Them (so terrible they never bothered to show episodes) and Scott Patterson's prospective son-in-law on the doomed The Event (also fairly terrible, though since I stopped watching after four episodes I couldn't tell you if it got better or not). All of this pretty much proves that Sarah Braverman really needed to end up with someone her own age.

Summer

                                                 Luke in overprotective dad mode is the best.

I know a lot of people hate April and blame her for ruining Lorelai and Luke's relationship, but nothing that happened was that kid's fault. It's not her fault her father was an idiot about relationships, or that her mother kept her hidden away from him for so long. (On the other hand, it is absolutely at least half Christopher's fault that Lorelai was an idiot about relationships). It certainly wasn't her fault that the writers and Lauren Graham seemed really keen to have Lorelai embark on a relationship with Christopher (although in retrospect, I think that was mostly PR on Lauren's part). I'm probably a bad judge since I watched so little of the kid's originaltime on the show, but I didn't mind her return appearance.

I really did like the semi-blended family dynamic here, even if it's not as blended as perhaps it needs to be. As someone got got folded into a blended family after my parents split up when I was an adult, the interaction between April and Rory felt very true to how I interacted with my stepsisters, especially before we knew each other that well. Rory calming April down while their parents watch TV in the next room is something that's straight out of my life, although in my case it's usually our parents choosing to hide while my stepsisters and I discuss #WalkingDead theories. They didn't grow up together and they've probably only seen each other a couple of times, but there's definitely dramatic potential there. You know that April has heard a gazillion stories about how accomplished Rory is over the past nine years.

Spring

After six years, we finally have the eternal mystery solved. Mr. Kim exists!

 

I kind of can't believe it myself.

I guess he was just hiding from Mrs. Kim this entire time. Can't say I blame him.

The whole episode in the Black White and Read theater was perfection. All the townies with their multiple snacks, Kirk in cosplay, Kirk and his weird short film. Luke telling Lorelai he'll be fine with having to hold her during the movie (Aw, y'all are the cutest). On that note . . .

Oh, Luke and Lorelai and their web of lies. In the long run, this isn't really relationship-ruining drama, but it does open up past bad patterns of behavior. This probably would have really worried me if I hadn't checked the spoilers for all of these episodes first.

Winter

              A gorgeous scene that this Alabamian will never be able to relate to

I think I loved this episode almost as much as the finale. It wasn't until I had watched it that I realized that despite quitting due to shipper rage, there really was so much I loved about the show other than the main couple. The family relationships, the witty repartee, the townies, all with their own little dramas and foibles and quirks . . . it was really wonderful being in that world again.


The fact that Luke was so proud of Rory that he ordered extra copies of her New Yorker article and plastered them on the back of the diner menus (as well as meeting her forgettable boyfriend) really puts into focus on how he has essentially become her official surrogate dad. He always danced around that in the original series, in part because he didn't want to get in Lorelai's way and due to the ever-changing status of their relationship, but he's really settled into that role now and I heart it.

A Post on the #GilmoreGirlsRevival, the revival I never wanted to happen and yet somehow was everything I didn't think was possible.

                Disclaimer: these little rants are spoiler-heavy and not recaps. I still think it's crazy I'm even doing this, but I spent a lot of time on the TWOP forums back in the day and I didn't realize until I watched this again how much the show had meant to me, how much I had missed it. I've got a lot to say and I don't really have anyone to talk to about it, because the forums are gone, Tumblr and Twitter are still too aghast at not getting the resolution to Rory's love life that they wanted, and no one in real life is going to get this. I also had lots of fun collecting the GIFs and captions. I spent years dissecting Luke and Lorelai's relationship, so expect lots of shipper talk. Strangely, after years of being indifferent to Rory's love life, I am now solidly #TeamJess. So take that as you will, and enjoy my random thoughts and pop culture musings.


I never wanted this revival to happen.

I have a long and complicated history with this show. I watched it happily during the first two and a half seasons, then quit because I was so over Rory's man issues. I started watching again when Lorelai and Luke got back together at the end of season 4, but I stopped watching quite so much when April showed up in season 6 and Christopher started sniffing around again. I could see the writing on the wall and by the time Lorelai threw her ultimatum and slept with Christopher, I was over it. I have seen about three episodes of the last season. I know Lorelai ended up with Luke at the last minute and that was all the resolution I needed. I have not-so-secretly thought for years that the writers always intended to have Lorelai run off with Christopher and that the only reason why that ended in the last season is because the story got away from them, and someone new came in and eventually fixed what they had ruined. I was fine with the ending and didn't want them to screw it up again.

I'm so glad I was wrong.

This particular shipper experience is a repeat of my angst over Doug and Carol in the first few seasons of ER, something that again got fixed at the last minute and left them in the perfect place. I never wanted the writers to revisit that again because I didn't trust them. I don't know if suffering through Lorelai's marriage with Christopher would be worse than watching Carol have Doug's babies alone while the writers try to convince us that the shoehorned-in love interest is superior, but I've never been interested in finding out. My shipper hopes kind of died with this Gilmore Girls experience, and I've rectified that by becoming attached to TV shows where so many character die that I don't have to worry about getting attached to anyone.

                    Well, except for this guy, #ZombieJonSnow forever, y'all. And if Daryl dies, I will riot.

However, much like ER, this show did prove me wrong. In that case, I got a tidy epilogue that showed that Doug and Carol were married, domesticated and happy nine years later. With this show, I got much of the same, although there were some kinks and disappointments to work out. I knew there wasn't much danger in either case given that it was all but stated as such in the advance publicity, but I was still a little anxious. This shipper is happy, although I still haven't forgiven the writers for what happened before. Even as much as I love this revival, I doubt I'll go back and watch season 7.

I am pretty convinced that I don't want new episodes. Some of the things the Palladinos have said about Rory's future choices have really disturbed me and kind of tarnished my respect for that crazy ending. I'm also not crazy about the fact that Amy Sherman-Palladino has almost nothing to say about Luke and Lorelai but still gushes about how gorgeous Christopher is. They've written such a beautiful, thematically consistent ending, and then they have to ruin it all by opening their mouths. Jerks. I'm sort of horrified by some of the stuff they possibly envision for the future, so I'm more than content to leave things where they are.

I do believe that this incident in pop culture is pretty good evidence that it's untrustworthy to idolize writers and showrunners. Their visions are not sacrosanct: sometimes they're terribly, horribly wrong.
If the show had ended the way it did in 2007, it would have been a disaster, but updated to 2016, it does make sense . . . if you leave it the way that it is and just go with the interpretation that most fans have from that ending. I'd rather not hear what the showrunners have to say about it at this point. It is what it is, and it's best left alone.

Overall, I don't think that showrunners/writers really understand how passionate the fans are about the characters. To them, it's not any more significant than moving puzzle pieces around, and they don't get how hard the fans root for these characters and view them as real people. Television fandom is very different than it was ten years ago. The whole industry is catered to the fans and their obsessions: heck, there are elaborate aftershows these days where people just sit and talk about what happened for an hour. Actors are much more comfortable in that space than writers are: after all, they're the ones who have to answer these questions over and over. They go to the cons and root for their teams and while this enterprise probably isn't terribly healthy, I much prefer it to the era when showrunners were treated like gods who could do no wrong.

But regardless of all of that, this was the most fun I had watching TV in a long time and I really enjoyed it.

Winter

Spring

Summer

Fall