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via justjared.buzznet.com

That's not Tyra! Too busty, too brunette-y. I literally imagined it as Wonder Woman but with Tyra instead of traditional Wonder Woman.

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Critically lauded by many as the best portrayal of marriage on television because of its realistic rendering of what it means to love someone for better and for worse, Eric and Tami Taylor, as played by the Emmy-nominated duo of Kyle Chandler and Britton, have managed to capture the many dichotomous moments in the life of a marriage. Where other TV series tend to focus either on the bickering or the saccharine, "Friday Night Lights" has thrived on nuance, creating domestic moments that simultaneously reflect adoration and frustration; tenderness and sarcasm; respect and fatigue.

I pulled the above quote from a pretty good LA Times article on FNL that focuses on the Taylor marriage.  I've written before about this aspect of the show and how it has inspired me to think about my own relationship with David, the birth of our son Lev, and the kind of wife/mother/friend I want to be.  Someone remarked that FNL brings out from me these personal reflections in a way that few other things do.  I'll make no apologies or excuses for this.  It's a credit, I think, to the stellar writing and acting that has shaped these characters.  Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton insisted early on that the writers steer clear of the common dramas that befall TV families: "Connie and I didn't want them to get divorced or have alcohol problems or sleep with other people because when that happens in the story of a marriage, you're limited. Once that trust and faith is broken, the magic is gone, and the audience doesn't care."  But don't these things happen in marriages?  Sure, but marriages also weather, every single day, all sorts of tensions and fractures.  It is constant (sometimes, exhausting) work, and I appreciated that this show was willing to show the Taylors go through a typical day experiencing the very real highs and lows of a life together.  And doing so through compromise and negotiation, with love and restraint.

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If you live life on the edge, like we do, then you'll probably just got a text, phone call or email inviting you to a Superbowl Party. If you cook at home quite a bit, I'll bet you have nearly everything you need for this, if not, I'll bet your corner bodega has the rest. For us, football only recently has had meaning in life. Sorry to all the long-time fans & a healthy, 'you really are missing out' for our friends that are grumpalumps about football.

Friday Night Lights the TV show is partly to blame for our new found interest. Super bowl parties come down to a few things, that for us, parallel pretty well with the meaning of life. Sharing good times, heartbreak in upset, joy in success, tasty food, and all in the company of friends. The game doesn't make or break it, but it takes a lot of bullshit out of pretenses for getting together.

2 Thai Bird Chilis, whole
1 1/2 Cups Jacob's Cattle, Dried Bean
1 Cup Pink Beans
12 g Salt
1tsp Cumin
Water

First, pick through the beans real quick, best accomplished on a wide surface (sheet pan) and then rinse them well. Then, combine ( yes salt included) and cook until very tender. No soaking method, cover with twice as much water as beans ( at least) and put it all on high and reduce to simmer once up. Cooks for about 1 1/2 hours, depending on your beans ( don't blame me for your old goods; ).
Puree beans reserve cooking liquid. add as needed to desired consistency. I use all of it.

Season/ Finish with:
Juice of 5 Limes
Juice of 1 Lemon
1 tsp Paprika
1/4 tsp Cayenne Pepper
1 Serrano Chili w/ seeds, minced to paste ( knife skills yo)
2Tbsps Olive Oil ( or Fat of your dreams, maybe excluding butter

Make it Purty:
Cilantro, Fine mince, sprinkle over dip & serve cold
Or top with the herb or spice of your choice. Smoked pimento is nice.

(via @angrywayne )

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As the credit music played after this recent episode of FNL, I remarked to David that it's incredible how Tami and Eric's trajectory parallels, in many ways, our own life.  I am referring specifically to the dynamic of their marriage and how it has weathered, for better or for worse, significant changes in this, and past, seasons.  This season begins with the (agonizingly slow) departure of Julie, leaving Gracie Belle at home, at a time when Eric and Tami where probably expecting (and maybe even hoping) to be empty-nesters.  We had Lev this summer and still feel pretty overwhelmed with the sudden transformation of our life from one that was pretty self-centered to one that, well, just doesn't center around us anymore.  We're also at a professional crossroads, trying to figure out how to balance a fulfilling and ambitious professional life with the responsibilities and demands of parenthood.  Also, having Lev really has underscored how crucial it is to develop and continue to work on a strong foundation as a couple.  Marriage is constantly evolving but it's not always clear where it's headed.  The question of boundaries came up again this season with Epic and Vince.  Both Tami and Eric take their work personally but when it shows up at their home in the middle of the night, you can see them struggle with space and availability.  Where do you draw the line?  Work, partner, kid--it's a lot to keep in balance while also keeping yourself intact.  In the end, I think, I am talking about integrity.  What Coach Taylor says about football applies to home: "a celebration of teamwork and cooperation when executed properly."  (spoiler after jump)

This particular episode struck an additional personal chord.  Tami, after years working "as a counselor in a small Texas school," has received an offer of employment from a good university.  The prospect of jumping from guidance counselor to Dean of Admissions is both daunting and flattering.  Tami is clearly one of those people who can turn difficult situations around through sheer tenacity.  She respects her work and brings a real love and commitment to it, even when she is, arguably, overqualified.  But there is a subtle conflict underlying the prospect of taking on this job and it's not geographic.  If we look at professional careers linearly, we can argue that for both Tami and Eric, working at a college or university is an advancement.  It's also a validation of the hard work they have put into their high school careers.  But do they need it?

I think about this all the time.  When I started applying to graduate schools, a former professor and mentor told me very plainly: "Don't do this if you are expecting a tenure-track position at an Ivy League college in the end."  I thought about this for a few months, while I traveled in Europe after three complicated years in Israel.  I had acceptances from a number of programs and needed to make a decision.  I had a lot of questions to consider: Why did I want a PhD in Comparative Literature?  What kind of career did I want to have?  What kinds of compromises was I willing to make?  I could do it only if I could accept the process as the reward.  In Venice, on a rainy night, I left my hostel and took a long ride around the city.  The fog and rain had obscured everything.  As the vaporetto approached each dock, the outlines of buildings and streets would come into view only to recede again when it pulled away.  There was no way to know what would happen and that was okay.  I had to trust my preparation.  I made my plans and started graduate school that fall.  A semester later I met David, now we have Lev.  After four years of applications and rejections, I have a fellowship but what will happen next is anyone's guess. Things in my life become clearer as I approach them.  Sometimes they are part of the plan, but another lesson from this episode is that you have to be prepared for the unexpected.  You need to be fit.  I keep working on this part.  

As Vince was preparing for that final drive in the regional playoff game, David turned to me and said "I have bad feeling about this."  "Me too," I confessed.  That play tested Vince's fitness.  As he called the play with the fluency of an experienced quarterback, I stopped thinking about the touchdown and enjoyed his confidence.  He dove into the line and bounced off.  It was time to improvise.  And so Vince took a chance, trusting that his and the team's hard work would pay off, and started to run with joy.

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2010 Banquet Non District Part 2 from mojovideo on Vimeo.

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But I love these two images, from an episode earlier in season 5. Here's Billy Riggins, drinking a beer in his backyard, with a baby strapped to his chest, while Luke (who he is ostensibly "coaching") struggles through some exercise involving a home oil drum and some launch furniture. Read this scene: we have family, football (of course), hard work, alcohol, class, and so many things to say about these characters and how they found themselves in this situation. What's motivating Luke? Why does Billy Riggins act that way? Whose baby is that?

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Since becoming a victim of Friday Night Lights I’ve often wondered just who else can relate to this show. And if you are a fan you know what I mean by victim. Glances at the TV screen, iPad or computer screen can lead to yearnings for that edge of the seat crush that could come out of a  near half hour of FNL. 

But as I’ve said before, generally I haven’t forgiven the show for their inability to seriously integrate some Latinos into the show. Texas is mostly Latino now, ok? David has said, that well, the book did focus on that and one of the Latino characters that disappears from the show to prison was in fact one of the few to return and be a successful lawyer. Ok, but why the hell isn’t that something the producers and writers can deal with on the show? How come it is mostly just poor Whites and African-Americans? Is that the FNL audience? Whose heart strings are really being tugged by this show, what kind of audience has it really reached?

Beyond ethnicity or race, I was thinking about what the larger appeal of the show is. Is it family values? Is it leadership? Is it small town dwellers? What is it? Is there one thing? Who hates it and why? 

I mean, going back to why we started watching it, David Jacobs’ nagging, my Texas heritage and the appeal of the Texas twang (fake or not), the explosions in the sky emotion, was it just one thing that hooked us? I doubt it. I mean Tracie heard the first four or five episodes while she was diligently working on projects for her new company in our bedroom, back before they landed their cool desk and space in downtown Brooklyn. 

Our friend was in town and we tortured her with an episode or two while she was here. I say tortured, because it seems she didn’t get it, didn’t want to have anything to do with it. Maybe she was above it, maybe I’m just reading into things. But I detected a strong lack of affinity on her part for the show, because of its centering on stories around high-school football. She was a band geek, football was meaningless to her. She went on to attend Wellesley and get a degree in Architecture and Urban Design. But why the hell is it that it doesn’t appeal to her? I mean, she appreciates good dramas and good stories. What is it?

Perhaps it is something personal with her specifically. Or, perhaps it is because, she hasn't ever been a leader in a public situation. And I don’t mean to pick on her, I think this applies to anyone that hasn't been a parent or a part of a cohesive team and been to some extant a leader in their group. I think if you haven’t been a part of that, then you may have an excuse to not pay attention to FNL. Maybe that is why you hate football too, you haven’t got it yet. 

Could it be that FNL is itself just an advertisement for friendly competition and leadership? Is there something more to it than that? Over the holidays, I mentioned the show to my Mom and she said they tried to watch it but “fell asleep” and “never got into it”. But they watch ‘House’ and ‘Monk’ and crap like that. Is it that we enjoy thinking about hard situations in life and they don’t? Could it be that FNL doesn’t appeal to those looking to ‘veg out’ and escape into another world they could never be a part? Could it simply be it hits a little too close to home? 

I love it for that. As we try and turn more and more friends to it, I think that is the under-arching reason for doing so. I want to see what they have to say when they see these issues, often issues we’ve all been through or maybe are going through right now, acted out on the screen in one iteration. We need it played out so that we can be better people and make the right choices. Am I really saying that a TV show can do this? Yea, I think I am. 

And you see it [CAUTION: Spoiler]...

...and you see it when Vince in Season 4 finally gets his Mother into rehab, only to find out a split second later that he’s traded a part of himself for her. 

That’s some serious shit man. I guess it only appeals to people who could get into shows like M.A.S.H. And that is the good thing, back when TV writers were on to something. Reflecting the strain of the political and daily lives of Americans. We aren’t that clear cut. We bleed and cry and shit hits the fan sometimes. But overall, overall we deal with it man.

Texas forever.

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Wayne and I spent New Year's Eve doing an FNL marathon, we're almost halfway through season 4 now. I do consider the season premiere to be perfect - Coach Taylor is now the underdog and he has to start completely from scratch with an at best hostile team, and the whole town basically hates him (and Tami soon after). The writers must've said to themselves, "how can we set up the plot to maximize the melodrama?" BOOM. I'm totally hooked. It's also a pretty good device for introducing new characters now that half of them have gone off to college and the other half is most likely on the way out (sort of like Smash and Jason Street last season). Luke seems like a good kid but a little bit high on himself. Vince is still a bit flat for me - right now he's coming off as a caricature of a kid from the projects with a drugged out mom. I'm hoping that with time we'll get a bit more depth. And I have to admit - maybe this is horrible - but I HAVE NO IDEA what the two new female characters' names are. They just haven't been very memorable and they've only been presented in relation to the main male characters that have been around for three seasons. The pageant girl is obviously Tyra's goody-two-shoes replacement but she's super irritating to me right now. PLEASE STOP THROWING YOURSELF AT TIM RIGGINS. And the other girl who's showing Landry some punting moves is just there for the writers to embody all Race and Class Tensions. I sort of wanted to stab Matt's whole subplot with the artist guy - it was just so clichéd with the "artist as lonely crazy genius" bullshit that gives artists such a bad name. But all was forgiven when the news came back that Matt's dad died. I was sort of waiting for that shoe to drop, I mean how could the writers NOT have his dad die? "How can we make everyone watching the show break down into heaving sobs?" There you go. And for all that Matt was freaking out about giving a eulogy, he gave one of the most eloquent eulogies I've ever heard.

And that's one of the aspects that I love about the show. When any character is in their darkest hour - they've hit bottom emotionally, they're totally in despair, they've done the dumbest thing ever that doesn't deserve to be forgiven - another character comes in at just the right moment and says the most perfect, from-the-heart thing that only in your wildest dreams would you ever come up with if you were in that situation. I'm hoping that the new characters work their way into this rhythm that the writers have set up.

Happy new year and GO LIONS!

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Wayne and I have been watching FNL on the d&l down here in Maryland, mostly because his mom and stepdad haven't really watched it and we didn't want to go back to the beginning. So it's been lots of "oh, we're going to bed early" and propping up the iPad in bed and bawling our eyes out. I've been trying to keep a tally of who's made me cry the most, but I think it's pretty even between Tyra and Matt. 

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Chauncey torn up over Coach Taylor's relationship with Tami. Cat's love FNL too people. 

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