I'm new to this whole TV-watching thing

Source

1996 was the last year I had cable.  There has been a month or two since that I've done some viewing via rabbit-eared antennae.  But otherwise, whenever I've been in the presence of someone else's TV and remote, I've sought out The Simpsons reruns, baseball games, and SportCenter.  And Food Network, to see if there are any cleavage-baring cuties peeling cucumbers.

Last year, to my wife's joy, I agreed that we should get cable television in our home.  We each have been doing some catching up with series on Netflix so that we're in the proper episode-viewing window for our chosen shows.

So after binging on drama series for the last few weeks, I have decidedly changed a long held stance.  Anyone who writes for contemporary audiences in ANY medium must watch television.  If he brags about not doing so, then he is an a$$hole.  If he fully avoids it, then he is a fool.  And I have an a$$hole and a fool.

Aside from the novel, there is no better opportunity for subtle character development and complex plotting based off multi-tiered conflict.  Feature films cannot compete.

Once a show is picked up for a season there is considerably less meddling by studio/network brass than in major features.  Not that there isn't some heavy note-giving, but there isn't time to work out those external criticisms in time for airing.  A bunch of writers are hired and they build the ship with the show runner(s).  A feature screenplay can undergo two or three years of rewriting, but television episodes need to be worked out within months or weeks.

And then there's the actual breadth of storytelling time.  A feature film has to get in and out of the story within two hours.  A cable drama series gets over ten hours per season (minus ad space).  Network dramas often have over sixteen hours (minus ad space) per season.  I don't care how many sequels one gets to release on one's feature, there just isn't the same opportunity to tell an expanded story.

And television is how people have been primarily consuming stories for over a generation.  They pay for it so that it's pumped into their home like electricity.  Because it's a steady monthly billing process, no one feels like they have to dish out $10 or $15 for individual viewing experiences like cinema.  It's there, in front of their couch, ready to deliver lifetimes' worth of tales for consumption.

That's not to say that all of the product is good.  Most is not.  Having more canvas doesn't make one's art better.  It's very easy to get lazy with so much room to maneuver.  Beautiful things can be honed within small spaces.  But the chance to develop a new epic, week by week, as an almost live experience is worth all of the failures leading up to it.

A lot of television drama is just closed procedural, each episode solves a conflict within an hour without any further development from show to show.  Some of it is much more open, developing a larger story bite by bite, cliffhanger by cliffhanger, as Dickens and his contemporaries used to.  Some incorporates both closed and open storytelling, having conflicts presented and solved in individual episodes while gradually revealing a much larger story each week.

I know that this has been the equivalent of me saying, "So that color in the sky there is blue.  And the white fluffy stuff is clouds."  But there's a difference between understanding this in theory and appreciating it for the evolutionary storytelling process that it is.

I'm new to this whole TV-watching thing.  And though I'm largely doing my viewing under the guise of an obsessed researcher in a foreign country, I can understand why humans enjoy this stuff.

I hope to do some ramblings on my chosen shows later this week...

Single Malt Ramblings: 6 Whiskys with the LA Scotch Club

I went to my first LA Scotch Club event last night: Scotch and Crepes at Jack 'n Jill's Too in Beverly Hills.  We kibbitzed, noshed, and drank, and not necessarily in that order.  I continued my renewed love affair with Nutella (via the dessert crepe), confirmed that Willet is bottling some awesome rye, and tried to make my pursuit of a screenwriting career sound sensible.

We samples six whiskys, but due to all of the socializing, no full reports were completed.  So these will be brief thoughts (read: ramblings).

Highland Park 12 - Two years ago the peat level on this was too much for me.  Now it's mild as a breeze.  Highland Park whiskys are known to have a great balance of many malt characteristics: peat, sweet, vanilla, grasses, dried fruit, etc.  This one seemed a bit shy to me. I still like all of its angles, but it was a little on the sleepy side.

Balvenie Doublewood (previously reviewed in my very first report!) - A sweetie compared to the HP12.  Very morish.  Honeyed and smooth, though we picked up a bit of bitter black pepper in the finish that I'd never noticed before.  Otherwise, easy quaffin'.

Glenfiddich 15yr Solera Reserve - I'll admit this was a part of a scouting mission.  I was on the lookout for my next reasonably priced go-to single malt.  The 'Fiddich 15 was a candidate, but I'd actually never tried it before.  And while it's totally inoffensive, and has a nice thickness and sherry sweetness that the 12 is missing, I will bypass purchasing this bottle for now.  I'm looking for something better than inoffensive for my dollar.

Ardmore Traditional Cask - I hadn't had an Ardmore in five or six years, so I was looking forward to this one.  This bottling includes some quarter cask whisky which has been can't-miss for me so far.  It turned out to be the peatiest (but agreeably so) of the six and packed a good punch at 46% ABV.  A couple of the guys at the table noted its "sharpness", which I caught too.  Possibly due to young malt.  It's not an easy one, but still decent for peat and strong oak fans.

Laphroaig 10yr (previously reviewed here) - This one keeps getting better every time I try it.  It was sweeter than I'd remembered it. A lot of nice cinnamon too.  The 40% ABV keeps it mild and almost refreshing.  Wow, I've done a complete 180 on this one.

Tamdhu 10yr - This was an unannounced surprise malt.  It was okay, kinda forgettable, but then again I forget stuff all the time.  It's a major element within Famous Grouse and Cutty Sark.  In fact, I might have thought it was a Sark-like blend had I been blindfolded at the tasting.  Edrington mothballed the distillery (wisely?) three years ago, then it was bought up by Ian MacLeod Distillers who may be reopening it in a year or so.  Good luck to MacLeod, who did some good work after they bought Glengoyne.

So, Laphroaig wins the day, with Ardmore's Trad Cask following close behind.  The peaters!

Many thanks to the LA Scotch Club for the good dinner and scotchin'!

NOT Single Malt Report: Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey

The Personal Classics, Part 2:  Powers Irish Whiskey

Distillery: Midleton
Brand: Powers
Type: Irish Blended Whiskey
Current Owner: Pernod-Ricard
Age: likely minimum 3 years
Alcohol by Volume: 40%

I took to Irish Whiskey first.  I originally drank Scotch blends because they were considerably better than cheap gin, rum, tequila, and vodka.  But I loved the Irish first.  So I always have a soft spot in my heart (probably quite literally) for lovelies like Powers.

It started during the Ireland/Scotland trip of 2002 that I spoke of yesterday.  Two-thirds of the excursion was in Ireland, most of which was in the Irish countryside.  That was before the massive financial boom doubled the prices of everything there.  The Euro was still young and only 96 cents!  So, though the pours were small, sometimes you could get a whiskey at the pub for under 3 dollars!  And I tried every one I spotted -- Jamesons, Tullamore Dew, Paddy's, Michael Collins -- each splendid in its own way.  But Powers was love at first sight.

Ireland is beautiful, even when it rains.  Even when it is near freezing and soaked with the smell of wet sheep.  I would walk through the rain, over fenced and non-fenced land all day.  At night I'd go to the pub and order a hot whiskey.  (Recipe here!)  Roving musicians would settle in with fiddles and flutes and drums and cigarettes and stout.  They'd play and play and play for hours.  Between the music and the whiskey and the Guinness and the people's faces, the universe would warm and embrace everyone at once.  Time itself would settle in for a drink, and we'd all be held in the sway of the evening miraculous.

One can't recreate it here in The States, but the memory fastens itself to the soul.  It's always there to access, to get lost in for a moment or two.

Did I mention that Powers also tastes good?  It has a high pot still element and a low grain whiskey level.  I can't prove that other than that's what my nose and tastebuds tell me.  And Powers likes to advertise its "Distinctive Pot Still Character".

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  A little Powers history:

James Power first started making whiskey on John's Lane in Dublin in 1791.  The company, later known as John Power & Sons, became so successful that they had to massively expand their distillery and add their own bottling plant (a first for an Irish distiller).  They used a gold label to distinguish it from the white-labelled independently-bottled versions of their whiskies.  Eventually they had to expand further and moved out to Midleton, Cork where they would have enough (cheaper) land to build a massive whiskey complex with an output almost twice the size of the largest malt distillery in Scotland.  In the 1990s they released a 12 year blend.  And last year they released a Single Pot Still bottling that I covet more than any other whiskey.

But here we're talking about the original Gold Label blend.  And here are some notes:

NEAT:

The color is a lovely full gold, probably due to some caramel colouring but it's perfect to behold.  The nose is a little grainy, but very light and fizzy, with some bourbon cask vanilla.  The pot still character shows up in the palate; vanilla bean, brown sugar, mulled wine, custard, and a teeny bit of anise. It has a very pleasant medium brown sugar and molasses finish.  Splendid.

WITH WATER (about 35% ABV)

Adding the water sweetens the nose, brings out a little sherry, and a spritely molasses note.  The palate gets creamier, full of cookie dough and vanilla extract with a light bready yeast note.  The finish is still nice and moderate with more vanilla than brown sugar.

But this one really needs to be appreciated straight up or via a good hot whiskey recipe.  No ice.  No soda water.

Grading this throws the whole objective approach out of whack.  It is by no means a complex, sophisticated, brooding whiskey.  It is happily straightforward.  It has been my favorite go-to for almost ten years for a good reason.  It is simply delicious.

Pricing - Excellent at $16-$20
Rating - 88

NOT Single Malt Report: Black & White Blended Scotch Whisky

The Personal Classics, Part 1:  Black & White

Original Producer: James Buchanan & Sons
Current Owner: Diaego (they don't even show it on their site)
Brand: Black & White (no brand website)
Type: Blended Scotch Whiskey
Age: minimum 3 years
Alcohol by Volume: 40%

This the first in a small series of Reports covering whiskies that are of historical import to me.  These are the whiskies that that greatly influenced my whisky love.  And I'm starting with the rarely seen (in the US), but always cheap, Black & White.

---

Personal History
In mid-October 2002, I left my job at a talent agency, took a bunch of cash I'd saved up and headed east towards the British Isles.  I spent over three weeks wandering across Ireland and Scotland, staying in cheap hostels, walking five or six miles a day, soaking up the rain, coming to terms with my failures as a human being, embracing being lost, and drinking copiously with hostel-mates from around the world.  I also ran up a credit card debt that took three years to pay off.

It was the loveliest three weeks of my life.  Not only did I sort through considerable personal issues, but I developed an internal connection with Ireland and Scotland that has never left me.

At that point my Scotch drinking had been minimal.  I drank all sorts of stupid stuff in college, but I had enjoyed the Scotch that my cousin Jon had introduced me to a few years before.  Otherwise, there was a lot of vodka shooting in my then recent past.

My brother was working in Dublin at the time for the Irish government.  Perhaps that influenced me to travel that direction, I really don't remember the full reasoning.  But I stayed at his place in Dun Laoghaire for a few nights at the start.  Then we met up at Killarney National Park (Ireland) for a couple of days.  Also staying at the cheap Killarney hotel was a NUTTY Scot, John, that I'd just hung out with in Galway.

One night the three of us headed down to the hotel pub for a drink.  I asked John what working folks drank where he came from.  He surveyed the whisky bottles and ordered me a Black & White on the rocks.  I continued to drink Black & White throughout the trip, in between gallons of stout.

When I returned to The States, Black & White was nowhere to be found.  I once found a big ol' 1.75liter handle of it in a liquor store in Maryland in '06, but then it was gone the next time I went back.  Then, this past December, I spotted a caseload of 1 liter Black & White bottles sitting high on a shelf at Mission Liquor in Pasadena.  I bought a bottle of this old friend for the new year.

---

Whisky History
There's very little information about this blend online and the little that can be found is debatable.  For instance, Wikipedia says that it's not available in the UK.  It certainly was when I was there, plus one can find Scots reviewing it online.  What does seem to line up is this:

James Buchanan created this blend (called then Buchanan's Blend) in the early 1880s and through a level of influence obtained the contract to supply the House of Commons bar.  It became the only scotch blend they served there, thus it became known as Buchanan's House of Commons Scotch Whisky.

That contract wasn't going to last forever, so Buchanan started selling it at public grocers.  People knew the whisky by its black bottle and white label, thus he labelled it Black & White.  In the 1890s, Buchanan added the Black & White Highland terriers to the label to create a recognizable logo.  One hundred twenty years later, those dogs are still on every bottle.

---

The Whisky
Most blended scotch whiskies contain 30-40% malt and 60-70% grain whisky.  The cheaper ones tend to have more grain, the pricier ones have more malt (and they usually advertise that element).

Black & White falls on the much lower end of that scale.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there was less than 30% malt in it, as the grain whisky is so prevalent in its nose and palate.

I'll admit some level of disappointment when I poured my first neat glass of this in January.  It was extremely difficult on first nose and taste.  Instantly, I realized that I'd always had it on the rocks nine years ago.  All the cold and water tampers down the rough young cheapy grains.

What a sensitive little American you have become.
Shut it.

First, let's drink it neat.  The color is a hay-like light amber.  The nose is sickly sweet at first, bourbony, musky, fleshy, and ultimately quite like old vinegar.  The palate is heavily grainy, salty, has lots of smoked cardboard, no sherry, just bourbon, with a creamy texture.  The finish is "gross then gone" at first, then later the grains and vanilla show up upon further sips.

With water, I lowered the ABV to about 31%.  The nose shouts "harsh cheap whisky", pencil lead, sour, oaky, damp cardboard.  Plastic bottle Bourbon is strong on the palate, followed by some dried fruit sweetness, and some rotten cream.  The finish still brings a little heat before it fizzles, leaving behind something quite like chlorine.

Sounds palatable, huh?

Actually, it's not bad in a highball, as it's been my whisky & soda choice for two months.  The soda water curbs all of that vinegar and cardboard while bringing out a pleasant sweetness.  So I recommend it that way.  Try two parts soda to one part Black & White for your first one, then tinker with it from there.

Yes, this was tough at first, but the highball saved it for me.  Will I buy Black & White again?  Maybe, but not if I'm trying to recapture the romance of the past.

Pricing - Good at $20-$25 (for a liter!)
Rating - 73

Cons and Pros of the New Phone: MyTouch Q

Last Thursday I rid myself of my BlackBerry Bold 9700 (BBB 9700) for a new LG myTouch Q.

Old and busted

New hotness?

My list of issues with BlackBerries is endless due to almost 5 years of labored usage.  I will not enumerate these issues as I fear that I'll sound like that Cell Phone Guy who Louie CK always ridicules.

Instead, as a mini-phone review, I'll list the Cons and Pros of the LG myTouch Q when compared to the BBB 9700:

CON - The myTouch is bulkier, but that's largely due to the protective case I've added.  Yet BlackBerry Bold was inconveniently wide in order to allow for the full alphabetic keyboard.

PRO - Because it's bigger, I won't carry it around in my pocket, thus avoiding further risk of genital cancer.

CON - myTouch Q sounds vaguely sexual.

PRO - myTouch Q sounds vaguely sexual.

CON - The actual phone part of the phone is much more difficult to use, and oddly so.  For general device usage, the user can set the screen to shut off automatically after a certain short period of time in order to save battery power.  The BBB 9700 had the same option, but the screen remained on during a call to allow the user to multitask or see call information.  The myTouch does not keep the screen on during a call.  It shuts off, thus ending a call is at least a two step process.  Perhaps a first in the history of the telephone?  Also the 'End' on-screen button is small and surrounded by a bunch of other call options, making the call ending process a precise procedure.  Weird LG fail.

PRO - The Google-run Android software is beautiful to behold and runs very smoothly, most of the time.  The BlackBerry software looks embarrassing and antiquated by comparison.

PRO - The myTouch Q camera is 5 megapixels, shoots solid 720p video, and has a bunch of easy to use onscreen photo options.  The BBB 9700 claims to have had a 3.2 megapixels camera, but the results appeared considerably worse than that; also its level of focus was poor and the video was, technically, sh*t.

CON - A multiple non-intuitive process to get photos from the myTouch Q to a computer via the very USB cord that's charging the phone.  Perhaps this is a Mac issue, but it doesn't appear so.

PRO - Complete connection with all things Google.  So if the user has a Picasa page, then he or she can post the phone pics directly there without taking up any computer hard drive space.

CON - I have a couple of Gmail accounts for work purposes and though the phone runs on a Google platform it rarely notifies me of my new emails, even when I've set it to update or Sync hourly.

PRO - As I was typing that last message, the myTouch informed me of a new email just received.

PRO - Very easy to turn on/off the WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

PRO - The BBB 9700 had two side buttons that were placed awkwardly resulting in photos of my pocket and constant demands that I "Speak a Voice Command".  myTouch doesn't have these buttons.

PRO - Fewer pocket dialings.  Yay!

PRO - Google Maps looks beautiful and has a great navigation setup.  Google Maps for all BlackBerry devices is clunky and at times totally nonfunctional.

CON - This may not be the phone's fault, but a 4G data connection isn't that super.  As 3G was only minutely faster than EDGE, 4G's not consistently better than 3G.  Thus the beautiful Google Maps requires a considerable wait.

CON - The vertical scrolling on the myTouch is not as smooth as it is on certain Apple products.  This results in all sorts of options being selected when the user is just trying to scroll downwards on the myTouch screen.

PRO - Non-iOS touchscreen typing software has improved significantly since my ill-fated brief usage of the Samsung Sh*t, two years ago.  Plus the slide-out keyboard has much bigger buttons than the BBB 9700.

CON - The alarm.  Ugh.  I've been using my cell phone alarm almost every morning for over 9 years.  I set my alarm, I shut off my phone.  My phone turns itself on for the alarm.  The phone I was using 9 years ago could do that.  The myTouch Q cannot.  If you set the alarm and shut off the phone, then you are sleeping in, my friend.  The software doesn't know how to turn the phone on for the alarm, nor does it have an option to allow for this.  The only workaround?  Leave the phone on, turn off the sound, switch on Airplane Mode, and let the battery slowly drain all night.  Serious LG fail.

CON - Most people use an alarm to wake up.  Thus when the alarm goes off, the shut off or snooze button should be very visible for a pair of discombobulated sleepy eyes.  It should not be one of a number of fingertip-sized choices on a screen.  LG fail.

PRO - The screen is beautiful and allows for a lot of customization.

CON - All of the beautiful screen stuff and great Android features run down the battery within hours, even after all sorts of battery-saving actions are taken.  I am constantly recharging the myTouch.

PRO - I can compose blog entries on my phone! (But not this one because I didn't want to run down the battery.)

Ultimately the myTouch Q is better device than the BBB 9700.  The unintuitive antiquated clunkiness of the BlackBerry software, the hideous camera, and the awkward buttons that caused all matters of unintentional comedy were all dealbreakers on both of my BlackBerry devices.  (Yes, there was once another.)  The myTouch Q looks good, runs on decent software, and has a usable camera.  Now if only the phone part worked well... 

Tulisa Contostavlos?

In other news, a video has been leaked that may or may not show a woman I've never heard of from a show I don't watch providing a man I don't know with an act of oral satisfaction.

Nevertheless, I've read 15 articles on the matter.

My only takeaway:  Your BlackBerry?  You filmed it on your BlackBerry?  Was that to make certain the act would never be clearly viewed again?  For shame.

Monday Miscellaneous (Home and Prometheus)

Good morning?

1.  We have a brand new dishwasher.  Our brand new dishwasher melted a plastic lid.  The melted plastic lid filled our condo with acrid toxic plastic smoke last night.  Last night, I spent a number of hours trying to get the acrid toxic plastic smoke out of our condo.  Between the sleep deprivation and poisonous odors, mye brane not werking.

2.  Kristen, who slept through last night's plastic meltdown, did some awesome wall painting.  I intend to post some of these pictures soon.

3.  And we have new windows being installed early this AM.

4.  Do you like-a the movies?  Then you need to watch these two trailers for Prometheus, Ridley Scott's (probable) prequel to Alien.  Even if the film itself were to fall short of expectations, these trailers are good.

The first:

The second:


Happy Monday to you!