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Friday, March 16, 2007

Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream

posted by on March 16 at 11:24 AM

I was watching TV, and a new show came on.

It was about a guy who left his working-class hometown to become a novelist in New York City.

His first novel was entitled Turtle on a Snare Drum, and it made him a blockbuster literary sensation. It also sullied his reputation with his old hometown, which the young novelist apparently portrayed as a pitiable den of hicks in the book.

When a teaching gig requires the young novelist to return to his long-lost hometown, he’s forced to reconnect with all he left behind.

Old friendships are resurrected, complete with kooky secret handshakes. Air-bands are re-formed, with long scenes of guys passionately rocking out together in slow motion. The novelist character is the kind of writer who discusses things like “Did you intend a deeper allegorical nihilism?” Several major plot points hinge on the fact that ”All Garrett men suffer from nut allergies.” And the whole thing is played with a dewy-eyed emotional seriousness that makes it seem like Grey’s Anatomy for dudes, but without humor.

Did anyone else have this terrible terrible dream?

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1

Yes.

For the first 15 minutes, anyway, at which point I said to my beloved (who was watching it solely due to an unfortunate yen for Laura Prepon), "I'm sorry, this is utter crap. I can't even begin to enumerate the ways in which is it is crap." And my beloved laughed and looked relieved and changed the channel and the horrible dream turned into a "quirky" and not-very-good one in which a detective who looks like Jeff Goldblum talks to dead people.

Posted by stresskitten | March 16, 2007 11:24 AM
2

I had almost the exact same dream only I was naked and hadn't studied for my final exams.

Posted by monkey | March 16, 2007 11:28 AM
3

I too had this dream.

Wherein I also had flashbacks to the early years of the OC since the young novelist in question was once a basketball playing teen father.

He's pretty yummy. He makes me want to go around proclaiming that I don't like jelly.

It may have helped that I only paid attention for parts of the dream.

I did catch the Goldblum dream as well, but I am afraid that might quickly fade into memory so I am reticent to give that too much attention yet.

Posted by Nay | March 16, 2007 11:31 AM
4

THIS IS HOW WE DO IT IN THE OCTOBER ROAD, BITCH!

Posted by Some Jerk | March 16, 2007 11:50 AM
5

Eyes still covered in syrup. Must paw at the keyboard to type this...

Posted by andy niable | March 16, 2007 11:53 AM
6

I started to have that dream but it switched over to a dream about a man's last day before he's sent to prison, which, as it turned out, is my favorite Spike Lee joint to date.

Posted by keshmeshi | March 16, 2007 11:53 AM
7

I too had that dream for about 20 minuets. Then I realized I had already had that dream and called it "Ed." The first dream was quirkier and generally more entertaining. And did not once have anyone rocking out to songs by "The Gin Blossoms" or the "Goo Goo Dolls."

Posted by The_Pope_Of_Chili_Town | March 16, 2007 11:55 AM
8

there are virtually no people I know left there. they've moved to other bedroom communities perhaps.

in the dreams, I remember the secondery and tertiary street names I can't remember when I'm awake.

Posted by Lloyd Clydesdale | March 16, 2007 12:36 PM
9

You expect too much from TV. Just relax and let the blinking colored lights wash over you. Every once in a while you'll be reinforced with an image of violence or someone you'd like to fuck, resulting in a tiny burst of adrenaline or testosterone that helps you feel alive.

Move toward the light.

Posted by pox | March 16, 2007 12:39 PM
10

my dream involved clive owen, daniel craig and a bottle of lube...

Posted by michael strangeways | March 16, 2007 12:43 PM
11

i wondered, why the flashbacks included songs by reo speedwagon and kids dressing like nirvana... as someone who lived on the east coast and graduated high school at the same time as the cast, i can honestly say, that never happened.
i give it 3 shows max. it was awful.

Posted by mike | March 16, 2007 1:04 PM
12

I turned it at the scene where he's driving his car across the bridge to head home (for some teaching thing) while lip synching to some classic rock song. I thought I was going to give it a chance after seen Laura Can't-act-worth-shit Prepon. But I just couldn't handle all the classic rock lip sync crap (like in the first scene where he leaves home).

blah. It'll be cancelled quick just like Six Degrees and other crap

Posted by Faux Show | March 16, 2007 1:08 PM
13

Michael @ 10: I haven't seen Casino Royale, so I don't have a Daniel Craig opinion yet. But after seeing Children of Men, I totally appreciate the Clive Owen. (And I think that movie may have given me a Clive-Owen-specific foot fetish...)

Posted by David Schmader | March 16, 2007 1:23 PM
14

Sorry, I had the one where I'm Arnold Schwarchenegger, and I'm married to some woman (she didn't look like either Sharon Stone or Jamie Lee Curtis, so I dunno), and we're attacked by terrorists or evil military types, & I'm captured & think she's dead, and then they start turning me into a cyborg, ala "RoboCop", and they train me to become a ninja assassin or something, ala "Universal Soldier", and then I go on a mission with a black dude and another dude who looked vaguely like a more buffed out Randy Quaid, and we infiltrate an industrial complex where I start throwing lots of power switches, and then there was a terrific gun battle in which the wife is the leader of some sort of resistence cell opposing the cyborg ninjas, and -

- then I woke up, so I have no idea how this terrible, terrible nightmare ends.

Um, sorry. Were you talking about something else?

Oh. Nevermind.

Posted by COMTE | March 16, 2007 1:45 PM
15

I'll have whatever Michael @ 10 had before his dream. Make it a double.

Posted by Jez | March 16, 2007 2:17 PM
16

Christian Bale...mmmm. And Clive Owen.

'though why Bale straightened his teeth I don't know. They were way hotter before.

Posted by Nay | March 16, 2007 2:18 PM
17

I watched most of this last night, mostly because I realized that this show is marketed directly at my demographic (which also means that I have a small secret crush on Donna from That 70's Show).

I went to my hometown last week for a friend's going away party (he's moved to Cairo) and saw about 20 of the kids I went to high school with that never moved away. The show pretty closely mirrored my experience. That said, why not just watch Garden State? Same story but they can swear, get high, and Natalie Portman is in it...

What I got out of the show is that apparently I've entered the demographic that people want to sell things to. That's weird.

Posted by sucker | March 16, 2007 3:01 PM
18

I tend to forget my dreams within 10 minutes of waking up unless I make a point of obsessing over them rather than go back to sleep.

They often involve me being nude in public places (sometimes I wonder if it is because I sleep in the nude. If I wore pajamas, would I be wearing pajamas in my dreams?). The depressing part is that no one seems to notice I am naked.

Occasionally I dream about girls I used to have crushes on in my youth, and just as things start to turn romantic, my brain tells me "Wake up asshole, this can't possibly be real).

I'm a sad panda. :(

Posted by elswinger | March 16, 2007 4:40 PM
19

Nope, Bryan Greenberg isn't from "The O.C.," but "One Tree Hill" (and "Unscripted"). I'm embarrassed to know this stuff, but I write about TV for a semi-living. And yes, he's pretty easy on the eyes...although "October Road" looks like shit. Also, "Six Degrees" is on hiatus, and ABC says they'll be bringing it back, although that might just mean burning off produced episodes.

Posted by Kathy Fennessy | March 19, 2007 12:59 AM

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