Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

One Day at a Time: “Supermoon”

A lot of the episodes that I've seen of this series have been surprisingly meh, making me wonder what exactly TV critics saw in this show in order to make it a "critically acclaimed" series. I don't expect every TV show about Hispanics to feature characters who act like the Hispanics I know in real life -- especially since few of those Hispanics are Cuban-Americans like the ones in this show. On the other hand, I would like to see some type of recognizable emotion in the characters who do appear on the show as well as the commitment on the part of the writers to at least try to keep things interesting. But up until this episode, I've been disappointed in all that.

Then, toward the end of the episode, Lydia -- the mother of the lead character -- talked about visiting her home in Cuba and not feeling at home and then suddenly for the first time since I started watching this show, I saw something I could identify with. After all, when I last visited my hometown of Detroit back in the 1980s, I had a similar feeling. A feeling that, yes, Detroit will always be my home -- but not in the same way that Dallas was. Dallas was where I grew up. Where I first fell in love. Where I first met my best friend. For the longest time, I did not want to admit this. After all, I loved Detroit and I missed my kinfolk there. For many years, I felt closer to them than to anyone in Texas outside of my own family. And yet the last time I visited there, I found myself missing Dallas. And like Lydia, I was forced to face the fact that my former home was no longer my home.

I still don't yet know whether to regard this episode as a lucky fluke. After all, the writing is still very mediocre and while I have a strong affection for Rita Moreno and Justina Machado, I can't help but feel that both actresses have done better work on other TV shows. And yet part of me is starting to become optimistic about this show's future -- as odd as that seems in the Age of Social Distancing.

For Once, Everybody Lived

North Dallas, Garland and Richardson got hit by three tornadoes this past Sunday night. Fortunately, no one was killed or severely injured. However, more than a few buildings were destroyed and many local residents were left without power.

Yankee Weather

We're officially experiencing winter weather here in Dallas this week and it's not even December. I was just getting used to wearing jackets again and now I have to get used to wearing coats. And caps. And gloves. Maybe even scarfs.

On the bright side, it has not snowed yet.

Huracán Harvey

Well, we here in Dallas appear to have survived Hurricane Harvey okay but the good people of Houston were not that lucky. My prayers go out to all the people down there who having to struggle with floods and power outages and worse. Hurricane Harvey may not have been as big a storm as Hurricane Katrina but it was big enough.

Donald Does Dallas

Well, if Donald Trump's recent rally in Dallas proved one thing, it's that the guy really knows how to put a show. For that matter, he's rather shameless about sucking up to an audience as long as it's the right audience -- but then what politician isn't rather shameless about doing that?

That said, I still don't trust the guy and I would not be a bit surprised to find out that most of his "supporters" are just voting for him to yank the chains of the type of people who don't like Donald Trump. (And I'm not referring to people like me.)

I do find it interesting that though my mother and my middle brother both lean conservative -- indeed, my middle brother can be very conservative when it comes to politics -- neither one of them is a Trump supporter. But then Trump isn't interested in appealing to people like us so I'm not all that surprised.

Anyway, it sounds like it's going to be an interesting election year next year. And if nothing else, Donald Trump deserves credit for stealing Rand Paul's thunder -- which is probably the last nice thing I'll say about Mr. Trump this year.

No Re-Treat?

Seen in a local drugstore last October.

It's That Time Again

One of my Mexican-born aunts once told me that her local Catholic church had ceremonies like this back in her home town of San Francisco del Rincón, but I have never heard of such ceremonies happening here in Dallas until just last year. Even then, I had a little trouble believing that such a ceremony would take place at a Methodist church, much less a Methodist church in Dallas. Then again, I doubt Saint Francis of Assisi would mind and I'm sure that the animals themselves aren't likely to protest.

Indeed, given the number of self-proclaimed animal-lovers in Dallas, I suppose I should be more surprised that ceremonies like this are not more common.

The Fire Next Door

Yesterday we had yet another fire in my condominium complex. Fortunately it did not spread beyond one building -- and that building was not mine -- but it caused enough damage that the Fire Department and the Red Cross were quite busy yesterday.

Here's hoping that no one was hurt.

The Ays of March

It's official. March came in like a lion this weekend and judging from the number of wrecks I saw this morning when I was taking a friend and neighbor to one of the local hospitals, local drivers still have not got the hang of driving on snow and ice. (Not that it helps much to be able to drive on snow and ice if someone else's vehicle is sliding into you and you don't have room to avoid them.)

Anyway, I thought last week's cold spell would be our last for this winter but apparently I was wrong. We actually experienced temperatures in the teens here in Dallas last night. For that matter, we experienced so much sleet and freezing rain in the early afternoon that again I had to use one of my car keys to help open my gas cap cover because the cover was too frozen over with ice to open automatically. And of course, when I woke up this morning, the ground outside was still covered with ice and snow.

Anyway, spring can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned. And yet despite last week's cold spell, Dallas was already experiencing temperatures in the 80s before the end of February. Just imagine how hot it will be in this city come August.

Merry Fucking Christmas!

As if a fire and a snowstorm this month were not bad enough, now one of my neighbors is facing eviction today. Her landlord already had people removing her furniture from her condo unit when she found out about it and she had to quit work early just to make sure that her son -- who was at home, being watched by one of her cousins -- was okay and that her furniture did not get stolen.

Ironically, the neighbor in question had just started a new job this month and she had already received her first paycheck last Friday. She was working hard to earn enough money to pay her bills but unfortunately for her, it was not hard enough to appease her landlord.

Of course, if the landlord had been patient enough to either accept installment payments or else wait a little longer, he might have gotten all his back rent from the neighbor in question. However, I guess he did not want to risk being perceived as playing favorites.

Anyway, it is depressing to see yet another real-life sad story unfolding before my eyes this close to Christmas Day. No wonder people get so cynical during the Christmas season.

Fire and Ice

Just a few days before my mother's birthday, we had our first big snowstorm here in Dallas. The ice was so thick the day afterward that I had to wait until mid-afternoon (i.e., 3:30 p.m.) before I could get my car free enough of ice to go anywhere. In fact, it seemed like it took twenty minutes just to get my car to the point where I could open a car door. And when I went to the gas station to get some gas, I had to use one of my car keys to scrape the ice off the edges of the little door that covered my gas cap because there was so much ice on it that it would not respond to the automatic gas cap door switch inside my car.

Then again, it could have been worse. My mother, who lives in a suburb of East Plano, lost all power in her house for several days. Fortunately, she had a fireplace but still. My novia also lost power in her apartment but fortunately, her outage only lasted a few hours, most of which she spent under the covers with her two dogs.

Meanwhile, a neighbor of mine admitted the next day that he had fallen down some stair in a building across the street from his condo unit because neither the complex manager nor the maintenance crew had taken the trouble to deice the stairs in our complex.

Even yours truly was not exempt from disaster. When I went out driving on the Saturday before my mother's birthday, I had my first fishtail of the year when my car slid out of control of Forest Lane. Fortunately, traffic was light and the other cars stopped in time to avoid hitting me but the incident very easily could have had a less happier ending.

And speaking of unhappiness, a far greater disaster happened last night when a fire broke out in one of the buildings of my condominium complex. As far as I know, no one was hurt but only because the people who dwelt in that building were evacuated in time. At least one family I know is staying at a local hotel at their landlord's expense. Where the other families who lived in that building are staying, I do not know at this time.

In the meantime, the way to that part of the complex is being blocked by police cars which means everyone who lives beyond that point can not drive their vehicles either in or out of that area, even if their home is not in the area that was struck by fire. Even if you depend on a ride to get to work and back, you have to walk past the blockade to get to a point where your ride can pick you up since no vehicle save for ambulances, fire trucks and police cars are getting through at this point. Granted, that problem is minor compared to the fate of those whose homes are now ashes but still it is not a problem I would wish to trade for any of the troubles in my life.

In any event, it is supposed to rain tomorrow, and with any luck, that should put paid to any burning embers that still linger in the half-burned building. I hope to have happier news later in the week.

Pensamientos Acerca de Televisión

Red Dwarf: “Tikka to Ride”

Given much of the hypocritical rhetoric that has surrounded John F. Kennedy in recent years -- what with conservatives who would have hated his guts crying crocodile tears over his death and liberals who would have denounced many of JFK's policies pretending that he was a kindred spirit -- it would be nice to think that this one episode -- one of the few episodes in any science-fiction show, British or otherwise, to reference the JFK assassination -- was a refreshing piece of satire. But it is not.

Instead, it seems like one long and unfunny exercise in bad taste. Granted, the show Red Dwarf was not above employing a lot of dark humor prior to this episode. Nor did I ever object to such humor in the past. Morever, I hardly expect British writers to show the same reverence for the Kennedy Administration that most Americans of my generation do. Then again I hardly expected the show's writers to come up with a plot as awful as this episode's either.

Anyway, this episode involves protagonist Dave Lister going back in time to 1963 Dallas in order to get supplies for a good curry, only to find him and his companions inadvertently preventing the Kennedy assassination by accidentally killing would-be JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. When they return to the future, they discover that the world has been conquered by the Soviet Union as a result of Kennedy's having survived his infamous trip to Dallas. In order to change things back to the way they were originally, Lister and his pals track down the real John F. Kennedy and convince him to assassinate himself in 1963 Dallas. Along the way, Kennedy asks Lister if he will be remembered as a good man and Lister assures him that he will. Unfortunately, all that would have been a bit more convincing if Lister had not just convinced said good man to martyr himself in order to correct Lister's mistake.

I normally like Red Dwarf and this episode marked the first time that I really found myself hating the series. Not because I hate dark humor or because I consider JFK to be some sacred cow who can't be approached in a less than serious fashion but because the show's writing just did not seem to up to par and the writers' attempt to have things both ways -- playing the JFK assassination for laughes while at the same time pandering to Kennedy worshippers on both sides of the Atlantic -- really did not work. Perhaps if the writers had taken a cue from Terry Gilliam's Brazil and used this episode as a way to satirize human foibles in general, it might have worked. Then again, since the writers never quite made a convincing case that Kennedy's surviving Dallas would have been a disaster, maybe it would not.

All I know is that this episode did not work for me. And not just because my parents voted for Kennedy.

R.I.P. John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I mentioned that today was the anniversary of the day Kennedy died to a neighbor of mine today and at first said neighbor was confused. Then he realized that I was talking about John F. Kennedy and the penny finally dropped. However, it seemed obvious to me that the anniversary of Kennedy's death had not been much on his mind as of late and it probably never has been. Then again said neighbor was born decades after Kennedy's death so it would be a bit surprising if it were otherwise.

Anyway, it would be nice to say that Kennedy's death was much on the mind of my fellow Dallasites but to be quite frank, I have yet to hear anyone say anything about it apart from that one neighbor I mentioned above -- and he, of course, needed a prompt. Perhaps this is a good thing. Given Dallas's reputation as the infamous "City of Hate", it is perhaps better that I heard no comment about the late president today rather than the negative ones that were heard so often during his lifetime. Some of my fellow Catholics used to joke back in the 1990s that one was more likely to hear pro-Kennedy comments in Boston than in Dallas, so I really can't expect much to have changed in that department.

Still, it would have been nice to hear something good about JFK from someone who was not writing for a local newspaper...

Something I Should Have Mentioned Way Earlier than This

Some time between the day I posted this item back in 2008 and the end of last year, the City of Dallas finally named a local street after Mexican-American labor organizer César Chávez -- surprise, surprise, it was not Ross Avenue. It says something about how rarely I go downtown that it took me a long while to pick up on this but I finally did.

I know I should have mentioned this news far earlier than today but a lot has been going on this past six months. Lo siento.

Bringing Glass Into It Again

Hey, remember that broken window I had to deal with last winter?

It turns out that I was not the only person in my complex who had a window broken that day. A lot of other people also had windows broken in their condominium units -- and no one ever fessed up to doing it. The current theory was that it was just kids but even kids need to take responsibility for their actions -- especially when their actions affect others. And while one can argue that anyone who owns a condominium can well afford to replace a broken window every once in a while, that's not the point.

It's not like most people who live in my condominium complex get free window panes every time they ask for them. While the complex's maintenance people will do a lot of things for free, they generally balk at fixing broken window panes on the grounds that fixing such items is the responsibility of the condo owner. And while one can argue that most condo owners should be able to afford that, it should be noted that many people in my complex live on fixed incomes. Moreover, some people who own condos there sublet their units through Section 8 (i.e. the government pays their maintenance fee aka rent).

Even if this were not true, most condo owners don't put up with broken windows forever. Eventually if the police fails to locate the culprits who do such things and their windows keep getting broken, many of those who can afford to do so will move to a location where their windows are not as likely to be broken. Which mean the condominium complex will eventually be left to those residents who either won't or can't afford to move elsewhere.

Yes, it is tempting to dismiss this issue as the type of minor thing that only uptight senior citizens worry about but then again, this is how neighborhoods start going bad. Not because a lot of poor people move in but because a lot of people who don't really care about their neighbors start breaking stuff and making life hell for everyone else who lives around them, eventually forcing the more respectable residents to move and ensuring that equally respectable people won't move in and replace them.

It's not like breaking windows is a typical activity of the poor. I grew up around people who grew up poor and some of my best friends have firsthand experience of such a life. Though I grew up hearing many stories about poverty and discrimination, I was never taught that it was right to go around breaking other people's property -- for fun or otherwise -- and the notion that other people weren't taught likewise is depressing.

Even more depressing is the fact that my neighborhood's downward slide just didn't stop with broken windows. Just a few weeks ago when my mother and my middle brother came to visit me, my mother spotted a broken bottle on the sidewalk just a few feet away from my condo unit. Since the bottle was a malt liquor bottle, it seemed obvious that the bottle in question had been dropped by either an adult or a person who fancied himself or herself an adult. And yet even though the person who had dropped it lived in a condominium complex where many of the residents have children -- children who could have been easily injured by the bottle's broken glass while they were walking or playing on that sidewalk -- he or she did not consider it his or her responsibility to pick up that bottle's broken glass. In other words, they considered themselves mature enough to drink alcohol but not to clean up after themselves. And if I had not swept up that glass soon after my mother had told me about it, that glass would probably still be there today.

This Is Depressing

The same local movie theatre where I first saw La Femme Nikita, Como Agua Para Chocolate and Run, Lola, Run is now showing the grade-Z drug comedy Your Highness. And to think that there was a time back in the 1990s when said theatre actually bragged about having too many good foreign films and art movies for one theatre to show alone.

On the bright side, the same theatre will be showing The Muppet Movie soon.

Wow!

I did a quick errand run around 5 p.m. and was surprised to see how many businesses had already closed down by then. Fortunately I have enough groceries to last a while but still it seems like a long while since I saw business shut down this much. Apparently Mother Nature has a way of persuading business owners to close early that most major holidays just don't have anymore.

For that matter, I'm glad I filled up my gas tank Monday night because it took so long just to warm up my car to the point that I could clear my windshield. Apparently Mother Nature is determined to make us pay for all those warm weather days we enjoyed last week.

A Broken Window Is Always a Pane

The only thing more annoying than finding out yesterday that someone or something broke a hole in my kitchen window was the fact that not one of my neighbors stepped up to take responsibility for it. No “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do it; please let me know how much it costs to fix it.” Not even a “that sucks.”

It is as if the baseball-sized hole in my window came about through an act of nature -- one that was committed by, say, an angry squirrel or a rampaging acorn -- rather than through human error -- which seems unlikely -- and that it is essentially just my problem now and not that of the person or persons who broke it.

Almost as annoying as that is the run-around I have been getting from a glazier a friend recommended. I get that repairmen have busy schedules and that on weekends, people who repair windows have especially busy schedules. But it seems like it is taking forever simply to get the guy to come out and give me an estimate.

In the meantime, a friend's spouse is recovering from an operation he underwent to remove an aneurysm so I keep telling myself I could have worse problems.

Primavera!


You can tell it's the first day of spring here in Dallas because it's so cold outside.

All week we've had temperatures in the 50s, 60s and even 70s. Then along comes the vernal equinox and suddenly we have temperatures in the early 30s and white flakes coming down from the sky that look suspiciously like snow.

It's enough to make me nostalgic for Detroit. At least up there the seasons don't act up so much.

Nieve on Wednesday

Apparently we had a record snowfall here in Dallas the Thursday before Valentine's Day and now we seem scheduled to have yet more snow tomorrow. Of course, we were supposed to have snow today but -- er -- for the sake of the local weatherpeople, let's not make a fuss about that...