"Friday Night Lights"
Everyone is always telling me to see this show. "You have to see Friday Night Lights. You've never seen Friday Night Lights?" They said it was a little jewel, and I believed them. Friday night, I watched for twenty minutes. Here is what I saw:
Boys squaring off in fights.
Men menacing boys.
Men protecting boys.
Men fighting men.
Sometimes boys don't know how to express their thanks to the men who protect them. That is okay.
There are complex codes of honor involving boys and girls, as you can imagine, even though these girls are clearly played by starlets in their late twenties, while some of the boys really do appear to be teenagers. It doesn't lessen the power of the message of not date raping.
Ironically, the boy who stops a date rape in progress is unjustly accused by the coach of attempting to take advantage of the same girl. This girl is the coach's daughter, and the coach has just stood up for this boy in a conflict with another coach. It is the boy who thanked him awkwardly, almost wordlessly. One wishes he could find the words now to tell the coach that what he thinks he did to his daughter is in fact what he just stopped someone else from doing, but one understands why he can not. In some future episode, perhaps the coach will learn his accusation is false, and his apology to the boy will also contain so few words but so much power.
Driving in the car today, Isa said, "You know what's a manly sport? Noodling for catfish."
"Really?"
"Oh yeah."
"Noodling is fishing?"
"It's fishing by hand. These guys are in the water, and they reach into holes and the catfish bite them, and they pull them out by the gills, and there's bites all over them. Sometimes the fish is a hundred pounds."
"The fisherman uses his own hand as bait?"
"Yep."
"And you think that's manly?"
"Oh yeah, it's manly, it's about as manly as it gets."
That's how I feel about Friday Night Lights.
Labels: Isa, kids say the darndest things, unsolicited criticism
posted by John Levenstein at
3:56 PM
39 Comments:
no one wants to defend this show? come at me! i'll take you all on!
I can't defend it because I haven't seen it. It did strike me that it's hard to judge a show by a single episode, much less 20 minutes of one.
The 20 minutes did seem very packed with incident though!
As for the catfish, when I read that I got excited and thought that I'd be totally into noodling. For real.
Yes, yes, I know. I'm back, and you're oh so glad.
Okay, John, I'll be your Huckleberry. (you get bonus points if you know what that means, and what movie that quote comes from)
Friday Night Lights is better than the derisive and sarcastic brush with which you've painted it. I went to school in Texas and was around these guys. This show captures them very accurately. The coach, as portrayed by Kyle Chandler, is about as spot on as you can get. These Texas football coaches are more than coaches to these kids. They are defacto parents, psychologists and generals to their troops. And the teenagers actually are drawn pretty accurately as well. These kids are more respectful and use the word "sir" more than in any other part of the country.
Perhaps in its second season the show has gone off the rails a bit due to network insistence that it become more "sexy and melodramatic" (thanks, Ben Silverman). I watched in horror at the opening segment of this season's premier episode as there was an entire sequence of gratuitous bikini shots during an equally gratuitous pool scene. It felt nothing like the tone of the previous season, but when I heard about the edict handed down from NBC it made perfect sense.
Go and get the DVD to the first season. If you are still skeptical after that, then we can agree to disagree. But as I said, if only for the way Kyle Chandler plays that coach, this show definitely captures something about small town life that I haven't seen before on TV.
if i get it, can we watch it together in a manly fashion and speak rarely, with repressed emotion?
in many states, noodling for catfish is against the law.
I'd be more willing to participate in manly activities if you knew the very manly movie that my quote came from.
Have you ever felt the sharp, stinging pain of a catfish whisker stabbing you in the hand? I have. Noodle all you want, I'll watch Friday Night Lights.
Oh, and in what manner do you propose we speak rarely at this proposed gathering? Perhaps I shall speak with a Danish accent whilst you parlance in a series clicks and clacks. That would be rare indeed.
dammit, i don't know the movie. chris, what's going on with the rain? has your sunroom literally fallen apart
Robert, how could you possibly be interested in sticking your hand into a muddy hole, trying to catch a very nasty creature with extremely sharp spines? Chris is right, the barbs of catfish are very painful. Why is it illegal?
you've hit the limit of my knowledge
I'm not sure why it appeals to me. I have a similar take on poison oak: I've never experienced it, and I wanted to know what it was like, so on two separate occasions I rubbed poison oak on my ankles to see what would happen. I'm immune apparently, though they say you lose the immunity with repeated exposure.
People who've had poison oak tell I'm an idiot. I may be being as idiotic about the catfish. It does appeal to me though, in the same way a polar bear swim does. Like, you try it once, you have an interesting somewhat painful experience, and then you get bragging rights for the rest of your life. Still, a few shots of tequila beforehand and maybe a percocet and how bad could it be?
Plus catfish - yum!
Here's an excellent New York Times article on noodling:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2006/04/21/travel/escapes/21noodle.html
And here's Snopes:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/noodling.asp
It's illegal in all but 4 to 11 states (different articles say different things) because of danger to the noodler (being drowned by the catfish; finding an alligator or poisonous snake in the catfish hole, etc) and because it contributes to the threat of catfish population depletion.
Or so the articles say. Chris, have you noodled? Do you know people who do?
why don't you ask me if i've noodled? my answer might surprise you.
OK, I'll bite. (pun intended).
Have you noodled?
I would bet $100 the answer is "no" and that you're just baiting us.
(Pun also intended!)
I actually have a few noodling friends here in Arkansas (as you may imagine). Being drowned by a large catfish is pretty rare but having your arm "broke" by a real biggun ain't kindly so rare.
John - the only noodling you've ever done is for your own little trouser trout.
Oh, and by the way, catfish whiskers won't stick you - it's their spines that will. The spines are located in various spots; the closest ones to the whiskers are, I believe, attached to the gillcovers.
This may be the most replied to comment thread in the history of Salt In Wound.
John, the movie is "Tombstone." Val Kilmer's best performance in my opinion. As Doc Holliday he steps in for Wyatt Earp to face off against Johnny Ringo (played by the menacing Michael Bien) in a duel. Val delivers that line brilliantly.
Rain is the mortal enemy of all homeowners. I've battled it for many a long night to little or no avail. We sprung multiple leaks, but were able to stem the tide with giant sheets of plastic.
This may be the most replied to comment
thread in the history of Salt In Wound.
Not even close.
if you want a real commenting frenzy, you have to wait for the next math puzzle
I have found noodling is always a great lunch topic.
Damn... I just got back from lunch and all we talked about was the Patriot Act. We were even eating noodles.
I've been struggling with lunch topics lately. My unit has group lunches on people's birthdays, roughly once a month. The dominant topics are baking, cooking, and programming on the Food Network, mostly the latter. I try to sit next to the two or three other non-cable subscribers, but it never seems to work out.
is participation mandatory? can you lobby to make it once per year?
I need to come to terms with the fact that I am in a field dominated by women of a certain age.
no one understands what field you're in, frank.
Is the "certain age" between 35 and 50, and are any of them single?
Yes, I'm looking. My intentions are honorable.
I always thought Frank's field was dominated by men.
My field is cancer statistics, but more broadly, public health. Both dominated by women. 6 to 1 ratios in a meeting are not unusual. At the national meetings I go to, menopause humor is rampant.
Robert, if you went to one of these national meetings I suppose the odds would be good. I'll be in Denver in June.
is it okay for robert to attend as a concerned citizen?
My favorite menopause joke, which as far as I know is original, and not all that funny to anyone but me, is "Why do they call it menopause? Why don't they call it woman 'o stop?
You're welcome to use it. Be careful.
Chris's comment earlier in the day about this being the most-commented-on-post is on the verge of becoming true.
chris' statement about this thread having the most comments could turn out to be prophetic.
JINX!
You can't post until I say your name.
Yes, but Frank's FIELD is geography, right? Frank? I mean if you make cancer maps, I would still think it's geography.
This post has been removed by the author.
This post has been removed by the author.
in case anyone was wondering, the last two deleted comments weren't me trying to post with a jinx on me.
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