Saturday at last. You spend the whole week longing for some free time, and when the weekend finally comes around you’re so exhausted you sleep in till midday. What a waste…
I’ve been thinking more about Fun Bobby’s descent into not so fun sobriety. And whether drinkers really are more fun? A Real Live Friend, who used to drink way too much, once expressed the opposite opinion. In a rare moment of clarity they shared that drinking made spending time with people they found dull more tolerable.
Maybe that was Fun Bobby’s real problem? He just had nothing in common with the Friends™?
(Although you have to question why anyone would spend time with people they don’t like.)
Fortunately I don’t seem to have it quite as bad, I’m still enjoying spending time with people sober. Despite being easily bored... My dad, similarly, has told me of his low boredom threshold. With his genes and the perpetual distraction of the internet I sometimes feel I’m living a nightmare, jumping from one distraction to the next.
When I was a child people used to say people who were easily bored were boring people. But now I’m an adult I like to think it’s just that I require a higher standard of entertainment.
With all the distraction available to us I switch off at the first sign of someone expressing something I’ve heard before.
Fortunately I had no time for boredom this week as I had a wedding of my own to attend to.
“The One With the Not So Lesbian Wedding”
I do enjoy weddings. Especially those with a great band! There wasn’t a string quartet in sight (or worse: an ugly naked guy playing the cello…)
It was the grooms own band, so we were treated to an impressively drunken keyboard solo late in the evening. Maybe it’s that British drinking spirit again but it seemed a much more raucous affair than Carol and Susan’s lesbian wedding.
The only thing letting the side down was a distinct lack of flirting compared to Friends™. No doubt a result of our much higher relationship to single ratio. I have nothing to compare to Chandler’s awkward flirting or a (bizarrely) possessed Phoebe letting (even more bizarrely) Big Boo from Orange is the New Black buy her a drink!
I’ve been thinking more about Fun Bobby’s descent into not so fun sobriety. And whether drinkers really are more fun? A Real Live Friend, who used to drink way too much, once expressed the opposite opinion. In a rare moment of clarity they shared that drinking made spending time with people they found dull more tolerable.
Maybe that was Fun Bobby’s real problem? He just had nothing in common with the Friends™?
(Although you have to question why anyone would spend time with people they don’t like.)
Fortunately I don’t seem to have it quite as bad, I’m still enjoying spending time with people sober. Despite being easily bored... My dad, similarly, has told me of his low boredom threshold. With his genes and the perpetual distraction of the internet I sometimes feel I’m living a nightmare, jumping from one distraction to the next.
When I was a child people used to say people who were easily bored were boring people. But now I’m an adult I like to think it’s just that I require a higher standard of entertainment.
With all the distraction available to us I switch off at the first sign of someone expressing something I’ve heard before.
Fortunately I had no time for boredom this week as I had a wedding of my own to attend to.
“The One With the Not So Lesbian Wedding”
I do enjoy weddings. Especially those with a great band! There wasn’t a string quartet in sight (or worse: an ugly naked guy playing the cello…)
It was the grooms own band, so we were treated to an impressively drunken keyboard solo late in the evening. Maybe it’s that British drinking spirit again but it seemed a much more raucous affair than Carol and Susan’s lesbian wedding.
The only thing letting the side down was a distinct lack of flirting compared to Friends™. No doubt a result of our much higher relationship to single ratio. I have nothing to compare to Chandler’s awkward flirting or a (bizarrely) possessed Phoebe letting (even more bizarrely) Big Boo from Orange is the New Black buy her a drink!
You have to feel a little sorry for Lea DeLaria, typecast as a lesbian for over 20 years…
But the real cameo of this episode is Marlo Thomas as Rachel’s mother. I have to admit I was perplexed as to why her entrance was greeted by such rapturous applause and had to look her up on Wikipedia.
This gives us two very different pictures of fame. One: a sixties sitcom star, guest starring in the biggest show of the nineties, then forgotten twenty years later. The other: a stand-up who appears as a bit part player with one line, before finally gaining a lead in a hugely successful show almost two decades later!
But Marlo puts in a great turn as Rachel’s mother, grappling with her jealously of her daughter – who, unlike her, had the courage to NOT marry her Barry. At this point I caught my partner giving me a look.
“Hey, you’re trying to decide if I’m your Barry!”
“I am not, anyway, you’re not my Barry… you’re not rich enough.”
Touché.
At least I know she’d still love me if I were only in rags.
So far as I’m aware none of my Real Live Friends have seen their parents’ divorce in their twenties. Rachel Number Two has gone through the opposite, as her parents recently got married after a life-time as a happily cohabiting couple! Ultimately the episode leaves us hanging over whether Rachel’s parents are going to get divorced, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. If only there was some way we could find out ahead of the next episode…
Along with Rachel’s mother, Friends™ also deals sensitively (for once) with the issues facing Carol and Susan as a gay couple getting married. This gives Ross a chance to shine as he, not only grows a little in attending the wedding, but rises to the occasion and gives Carol away after her parents refuse to attend.
This is one of the things the show does exceptionally well. Those episodes where it goes beyond the humour, and nails those “aw” moments, without descending into schmaltz.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
One of the luxuries of my current job is that I can dress however the hell I want. So a while back I decided to dye my hair darker for a bit of a change. This turned out to be a mistake for two reasons:
But the real cameo of this episode is Marlo Thomas as Rachel’s mother. I have to admit I was perplexed as to why her entrance was greeted by such rapturous applause and had to look her up on Wikipedia.
This gives us two very different pictures of fame. One: a sixties sitcom star, guest starring in the biggest show of the nineties, then forgotten twenty years later. The other: a stand-up who appears as a bit part player with one line, before finally gaining a lead in a hugely successful show almost two decades later!
But Marlo puts in a great turn as Rachel’s mother, grappling with her jealously of her daughter – who, unlike her, had the courage to NOT marry her Barry. At this point I caught my partner giving me a look.
“Hey, you’re trying to decide if I’m your Barry!”
“I am not, anyway, you’re not my Barry… you’re not rich enough.”
Touché.
At least I know she’d still love me if I were only in rags.
So far as I’m aware none of my Real Live Friends have seen their parents’ divorce in their twenties. Rachel Number Two has gone through the opposite, as her parents recently got married after a life-time as a happily cohabiting couple! Ultimately the episode leaves us hanging over whether Rachel’s parents are going to get divorced, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see. If only there was some way we could find out ahead of the next episode…
Along with Rachel’s mother, Friends™ also deals sensitively (for once) with the issues facing Carol and Susan as a gay couple getting married. This gives Ross a chance to shine as he, not only grows a little in attending the wedding, but rises to the occasion and gives Carol away after her parents refuse to attend.
This is one of the things the show does exceptionally well. Those episodes where it goes beyond the humour, and nails those “aw” moments, without descending into schmaltz.
Real Live Sitcom Moment:
One of the luxuries of my current job is that I can dress however the hell I want. So a while back I decided to dye my hair darker for a bit of a change. This turned out to be a mistake for two reasons:
- The festive chill forcing me to wear a hat almost every day. Rendering the whole exercise pointless.
- Finding out my partner’s mother uses exactly the same colour.
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