Wednesday night found me saying completely straight-faced to a room of my friends: "Did you ever see Ramona or Avonlea on the Disney Channel?" I was trying to share a disturbing anecdote about child actress turned indie director Sarah Polley, who starred in both of those programs. I was laughed at, and it was pointed out that frequently I say things that are not very masculine. Speculation occurred as to whether I had a vagina.
On my way home I remembered an exchange I'd had six months ago with my old roomate JC. One day JC passed through as I watched a man having his throat cut on The Wire (best show to ever air on American television). JC had also seen me watch some other similarly grim, hard-boiled things about cops and poverty and the drug trade and socialism, not to mention the big gun fight in the second half of Heat. And JC said, "Andrew, it seems like you're such a sweet natured peaceful guy, but you sure do watch some depressing, violent stuff on television."
It's amazing how different people know you in different ways. I don't know if my friends who laughed over Avonlea would ever call me "sweet-natured," but they have long questioned my masculinity on the basis that I watch thirtysomething. JC didn't know me as well at all, but I much prefer his view of me as the "lovable teddy-bear masking a bloodthirsty avenger of societal wrongs," to my friends' version, the "whiny, opinionated, and sullen douchebag with the tastes of a twelve year-old-girl."
JC also didn't think it necessary to involve genitalia, which I thought was classy of him. I think I might call him up and see if he wants to hang out.
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4 comments:
I just started watching The Wire last night. The first four episodes of Season One are spectacular. The scene where McNulty and his partner investigate that crime scene and only communicate by saying "fuck" is the awesomest thing ever.
Sarah-
I know that Ramona came on PBS. I know this because I have the VHS tape and I have seen it fairly recently. I didn't mean to confuse you. I meant "Ramona and Avonlea. Avonlea came on the Disney Channel."
My pulse quickens every time someone I know tells me they started watching it. Once they do they're hooked. It's like 8-8 at this point. Oh wait, 8-9 because Courtney Marlowe doesn't really watch it that much.
Hey Courtney, remember the other night at Penny Lane when we had that awkward conversation about how you didn't like it that much, and I maintained it was because you tried to start in the middle? It's cause you tried to start in the middle. Remember how you kept acting like you had no idea what I meant? It's cause you started in the middle. Start at the beginning. They call it that cause it's where you start.
In my earlier comment, where i refer to "watching it," "it" is The Wire.
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