Joy Ray

Inauguration Day from 5,000 miles away... (continued)

We really wanted to see Barack Obama's inauguration with other people.  To our great excitement, we found out about an expat event happening at a place called Casa Bar in Recoleta.

Interested in trying the drink of the day - the Obama Mama with Bacardi, Everclear, Midori and Apple Pucker (among other things)?  Didn't think so....

Anyway we showed up promptly at 2, not wanting to miss anything.  The bar was virtually empty when we arrived so we snagged some prime seats.

The bar itself is pretty cool - it's a remodeled former house (hence "Casa" Bar) with an extensive imported beer list.  Jay ordered a Guiness and I got a Bass Ale. 

We waited for the festivities to start and watch the TVs, which we couldn't help but notice were set to Fox News (!!!).  The announcers were obsessed with Jill Biden's goof on Oprah the other day, and predicting a catfight with Hillary.  They also liked to say things like: "As Don Imus told me this morning...." or "I was talking to Karl Rove earlier and he says Obama has already made several key mistakes..."  We thought: the irony.  We're going to be forced to watch the inauguration on the one network that is PISSED about it.  Meanwhile more people were showing up and filling the reserved tables.

Luckily around this time someone convinced the bar to change the station to CNN.  This made me muy contenta.

The inauguration finally was on.  The moment we've been waiting for, phonebanking for, voting for!  Hooray!

Only there was one little snag.  The (by now substantial) crowd above was comprised not of Obama supporters, or even Obama haters, but indifferent, inebriated "study abroad" students on a class field trip.  They did fun stuff like play a drinking game during the speech (worse yet, it was so generic that they got to drink every time Obama said "America" or "Economy" - that kind of thing.  They could have at least tried to be clever about it.)  They also talked nonstop, making the TV impossible to hear, and milled around, which blocked the TV.  Occasionally due to the frustration of the standing room crowd behind them, they would momentarily shut up and pretend to pay attention.  But we really only got to hear Obama's speech later on, at home, online.  And it wasn't quite the big love-fest we'd imagined, celebrating with and hugging joyful strangers and so on.  Sigh.

We left after the final prayer, at which point it seemed like some kind of street fight was brewing between the students and the Obama supporters.  Which might have been cathartic...

We topped off our "expat" day with an icy lemonade at Mark's Deli, which is near our apartment in Palermo Soho.

We also got a sandwich and salad that were too mediocre to photograph.  Please don't go there! 

But all's well that end's well: we finally got our cry on late last night, seeing photos like this one.

 

It's kind of hard to understand the scale of what has just happened, but it sure feels good.

(Casa Bar is located at 1150 Rodriguez Pena between Santa Fe and Arenales.  Mark's Deli is located at El Salvador 4701, at Armenia.)

Dead Until Dark vs True Blood

   

As you may already know, I am really liking HBO's new series True Blood. So when I saw the first book that the series is based on in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport on Sunday, I had to buy it and see how the two compare.  The book is a fun read, and very similar to the series - with a few key differences that I won't get into lest it spoil anyone else's reading or viewing.  But I have come to the conclusion (with all apologies to Charlaine Harris) that I personally prefer the HBO series.  And so, while I could keep reading Ms. Harris' books and in so doing, spoil many of the plots of future seasons of True Blood, this will be my first and last Sookie Stackhouse read.

The importance of crazy shit happening

Sunday nights have so much good TV that the big question becomes what to watch first.  A few weeks ago, Mad Men was at the top of my list.  Now it’s either True Blood or Entourage.  The question is WHY? 

 

I have come to the following conclusion. Mad Men is all build and no bang.  Promising storylines are set up for weeks, then dissipate without anything really great happening.  For instance:

·         What happened to the priest who seemed a tad too interested in Peggy Olsen, the brainy copywriter chick?  There were forbidden sparks-a-flyin’…but then…nothing.

·         And what about Paul Kinsey, who went campaigning in the South with his African-American girlfriend a couple of episodes back.  Seems like he should have ended up in jail or at least gotten beat up or dumped.  But again…nothing.

·         Or what about when Miss Holloway got stuck reading TV scripts and was surprisingly great at it, until she got passed over for a man.  Shouldn’t she be plotting some kind of revenge?

Once you get used to drinking and smoking at the office, the non-plotlines wear a little thin.

Contrast this to True Blood, where not only does crazy shit happen in each episode, but crazy shit happens to each character in each episode. Just last night alone, Sookie lost her virginity to a vampire who also drank her blood, Jason went to a scary vampire bar, Tara saw her mom get exorcised, and a house burned down thanks to redneck arsonists.  Now that’s TV!

UPDATE: Well I saw the previews of next week's Mad Men season finale and it seems there will at long last be wrap-ups of at least 2 of the aforementioned plotlines...but dang, why the wait?  They're good but not that good, ya know?