I'm late to the party on Slow Horses, but better late than never. If you subscribe to AppleTV and haven't watched, it'd be a lot cooler if you did.
Based on the Slough House series of novels by Mick "don't call me Gil Scott" Herron, the show follows the adventures of a small group of MI5 agents from London's Slough House station. Unlike a typical spy series where agents are practically superheroes, Slough House is a land of misfit toys nicknamed the "Slow Horses," hence the show's title. All these agents have at least one fatal flaw that prevents them from being real MI5 field agents, so when they do try to solve case or catch a criminal they fuck it up and sometimes hilarity ensues. It's a proper spy show though, so sometimes there's tragedy instead of hilarity. People die.
The Slow Horses are captained by Jackson Lamb, a legitimately bad-assed field agent, at least when the spirit moves him to crawl out of the bottle and off the sofa. Gary Oldman is amazing as Lamb, playing him as a cross between Roy Kent, Perry Cox, and Roger Sterling.
Only gassier.
Other great quips include "You're about as useful as a paper condom" and, to a recovering alcoholic, "You wouldn't have lost him if he was a bottle of gin." Each season is only six episodes, each of which is about 45 minutes long, so it isn't as much of a commitment as trying to watch Lost. Give it a go!
You've been waiting years for this one and now seems like the time to let it rip.
A recent G:TB comments discussion involving the classic Jhoon Rhee Tae Kwon Do commercial (featuring FoG:TB Chun Rhee delivering the now famous "Nobody bothers me either!" line) prompted Zman and me to go down a rabbit hole of local ads from our childhood in the NY/NJ metro area.
zcommentary is in blue. I had a blast exchanging these vintage ads with Marls. We dug up some serious gems. It started as a 10 Best list so of course it now has something like 12 entries.
The Nevele:
This was a great pull by Marls. I recognized the song the minute the beat dropped, and it's a pretty bangin' disco beat.
Mount Airy Lodge: Have a fling in the spring in the Poconos!
The Nevele reminded me of another resort commercial, beautifuuuuuul Mount Airy Loooodge. Although the Nevele had the harder beat, the Mount Airy Lodge ad makes it clear that it's the place for lovers to make their lovin'.
Children's Aid Society:
Hands down my favorite pull of the text exchange, Marls always adds value. I recognized every second of this ad, including the girl who starts singing poignantly at the 0:30 mark, because I used to get psyched when it came on. It made me wish I got some children's aid and it still swings. No idea why no one combed their hair before filming though.
Coronet Baby Furniture: This one features the tag line "no talking orangutans" which Z mentioned in the aforementioned Jhoon Rhee discussion. TR and I may have been the only ones to pick up the reference, but nevertheless, these commercials are classics. Low production values, porn staches, and cheesy outfits all scream Long Island in the mid-80's. Um, when was the last time you went to the Island? There are plenty of guys out there with the same staches and Mets Starter jackets they were rocking when this ad first aired.
Grand Hotel (aka TWICE MORE!!!):
Another gem. Every class evaluation I wrote at W&M included "I loved it, I'm going to take this class two more times as soon as I get tickets, my husband works in the area." I guarantee no one got the joke and I still don't care. I bet this lady knew Doris from Rego Park (but probably not Sapphire, the hidden jewel of the Bronx).
Tommy Tunes:
Undoubtedly my best pull. Tommy Tunes was the place to go in Bergen County if you were looking to pimp your ride in the 1980s/90s. The woman in this ad is the epitome of North Jerzy beauty circa 1989. Marls was so taken with this commercial that he found himself deep in an internet wormhole researching the guy who owned the store.
Sasson Jeans (Featuring the NY Rangers):
Tight designer jeans, late 70's hockey hair, a disco soundtrack, synchronized skating, off key singing and awkward hand gestures made this ad an instant favorite. In fact, the slogan "Ooh La La" became a nickname for Ron Duguay - the ranger with the longest hair in the ad. In his second season with the Rangers, Duguay parlayed his new sex symbol status into relationships with Bianca Jagger, Cheryl Tiegs, & Kim Alexis.
I remember this one too. Bamberger's! Marls will always take an opportunity to dump on the Strangers to the Cup.
The Money Store:
We couldn't do this post without at least one spot featuring Phil Rizzuto for the Money Store. And how about these interest rates?
Crazy Eddie:
We couldn't do this without Crazy Eddie either.
And nobody beats The Wiz! This was a great place to buy stuff that fell off the back of a truck, or that was stolen off the back of a truck, or that was old and used but presented to the buyer as a "floor sample." I bought one such deeply discounted "floor sample" at The Wiz in Paramus, a Yamaha pre-amp for the Unit M stereo (why the hell did we have a Carver amp with no pre-amp?) that survived for maybe two months before self-destructing. More importantly, their jingle inspired Biz Markie.
Newmark & Lewis:
Seaman's Furniture gets the nod because (1) "See Seaman's first!" was ubiquitous even if no one particular ad is memorable, and (2) it provides context for Phife's line "Bust off on your couch now you got Seaman's Furniture." Perhaps they're affiliated with Dr. Seaman from a previous post.
A friend recently suggested the series "Babylon Berlin" from Netflix. It's great. Much like Peaky Blinders or Boardwalk Empire, it's about shell-shocked WWI veterans assimilating back into normal life (but in Berlin, not Birmingham or Atlantic City). One of them is a cop investigating a murder which spirals into a whole kerfuffle.
I'm halfway through the third season and, like most modern TV shows, you have to give it a few episodes to set everything up but once you do it pays off. Turns out Berlin was pretty wild in the 1920's, lots of booze and prostitution with a little cocaine and fluid sexuality to boot (Das Boot?). Despite being a relatively straightforward procedural it occasionally veers off into Teutonic Lynchian weirdness, which I enjoy greatly.
It's also very literary, with aspects of The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises coming through.
Any excuse to use that video again. At some point I thought to myself "This must've been a book originally, there's no way a television scriptwriter came up with this" and sure enough, it's from a series of books by a guy named Volker Kutscher. So I got the first book and started reading it. So far so good. Check out the show or the book unless you're Dave, in which case you already read the books.
I've been to lazy to write any posts but I've had lots of ideas. Here are a few.
1. Colin Quinn: The New York Story is on Netflix and it's funny. New Yorkers will love it and people from outside New York will understand why New Yorkers act the way they do. It's worth 60 minutes of your time.
2. You should watch The Chi. Sometimes it's like The Wire, other times it's like What's Happening!!, at all times it's good. It's written by Lena Waithe (from Master of None) and it stars Kima from The Wire, Ronsel from Mudbound, Mister June from True Detective, and a kid who is Rerun's spiritual successor.
3. Malcolm Gladwell! Eddie Alterman! Autonomous cars? Keep an eye out for "Autonomy," coming soon to iTunes.
4. You should read The Bulwark. It's a website full of good writing by smart people who maintain a pre-2016 conservative worldview. Bill Kristol is the editor-in-chief. I estimate that 90% of the articles involve grinding axes against Donald Trump and his bootlickers. There are also well-reasoned think pieces addressing things like flaws in Elizabeth Warren's Medicare for All plan and Middle East policy. These pieces are thoughtful and respectful. Taken together with the other left-leaning stuff I read it's a decent approximation of the Washington Post op-ed section 15 years ago. I miss that.
5. You should sign up for The Dispatch. It's a daily email newsletter written by a couple of guys who defected from National Review when it went full Trump. You can sign up here for free. It's completely self-funded by the authors and by donations from readers. Bare bones, no pictures. It's like The Bulwark only it covers a broader range of stuff.
6. You should listen to Roy Ayers. He's been buried in my iPod for years without getting any run. zson wanted to listen to something he never heard before so I put it on. Everybody sampled him. His shit is dope.
7. X Clan still holds up. Speaking of sampling Roy Ayers, I haven't listened to X Clan in over 20 years until this weekend and they still bang.
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