#92 - leery of denis.

it's no secret that this past year, i've been doing my share of tv watching & have declared my undying love for a number of fx series--damages, it's always sunny..., sons of anarchy, the shield--but until recently, i've held out on rescue me. i have a love/hate relationship with denis leary. back in college, i chose to read no cure for cancer as part of my american humor class. it's pretty funny, but the shtick bores me & sometimes annoys me. i decided to give the show a shot regardless. i took in the first season over the last few weeks, but yesterday, i barreled through the second season & um, HOLY CRAP.  the shtick doesn't bother me at all.             

i really like it. the show focuses on a firehouse in manhattan just after 9/11. peeps are having all sorts of issues exacerbated by the 9/11 baggage. leary's character is in a marriage that's fallen apart & he starts getting it on with his cousin's widow (via 9/11). the other members of the crew include a guy who starts writing poetry, a guy who falls for the only female member of the crew, the chief, whose son is a gay firefighter in boston & whose wife is suffering from alzheimers, a guy who falls for a "fat chick" (a girl who i definitely saw in my hood this weekend) & a guy who perpetuallly wanders through hookups. there are a number of other stories going on at all times, told through reality, religion, ghosts, hallucinations & dreams. it has a manly feel, but gets into the feelings of men.  for those interested in men, um, hot firefighters talking about their feelings.

my dad's father was a fire chief in chelsea, mass, just north of boston & logan. he definitely saw people die in the line of duty & his loyalty to the people he worked with is evident in the stories he tells. i've gone down the white collar tract, but there isn't a month that passes where i don't wonder what it'd be like to know a trade--welding, firefighting, anything in construction--instead of spending my weekly 10-6 in an office. to be honest, i didn't really consider my grandfather' profession until i started watching the show, but damn...the shit these characters on a tv show deal with, i'd be a mess.

luckily, i have two and a half more seasons to keep me busy, because i'm hooked. it's funny & smart & stupid and when it tiptoes into sentimentality, it's usually in a good way. my mom's mom died after a bout with alzheimer's, so by the end of the eighth episode of the second season, at the end of a bbq for his son's boyfriend, when the chief is accepting of the circumstances & dancing with his wife and his son & boyfriend are dancing beside them & all the crazy shit that alzheimers thrusts upon families is set aside for the moment, i totally broke down. oh the crumbling human body & oh to grow old with someone.

#92 - leery of denis.
snack: madhouse munchies fire sweet mesquite bbq chips
drink: anchor steam summer beer


how friggin coincidentally perfect that the only snack left in my cupboard saturday night was a bag of madhouse munchies fire sweet mesquite bbq chips. it's got "fire" & "madhouse" in the name, so that's rescue me in a nutshell. i'm usually skeptical of anything mesquite, but these had an appealing sweetness to them & were actually pretty good. they're kettle cooked, which seems to be the way to go these days.  it gives the chips ten times the crunch of a lame lays potato chip.

a bonus: these chips aren't all greasy & smeared with flavor like some other kettle chips.  this is slightly weird to me, given that they're made in colchester, vt & most of the people i know from that area are wicked greasy & smeared with flavor.  jk vermont!  lol!  one thing i do know about colchester...winooski broke away from it back in 1922.  those crazy secessionist winooskians.  go spartans!

as for tonight's beverage, the anchor steam summer beer, it's not as firefighting related as i'd have hoped for, but it's out of san fran, a city which, given the attention that the show pays to male identity & the way it deals with homosexuality, it seems perfect anyhow.  it's a wheat beer that has a light, summery taste & a smidgen of flavor to it.  i could definitely drink a few of these on a hot summer day...perfect for both the gay & non-gay beer drinker.

luckily, it's almost summer & it's going to get so hot out here in the nyc any day now that things will start bursting into flames right on the streets...& firefighters will be there.  down in lower manhattan, at ground zero, there will still be a hole in the ground, but you will be able to get a t-shirt that shows you what used to be there.  you can probably get a bootleg FDNY cap there too.  final destination of proceeds is unknown.