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Forget Madonna for a minute- |
Sometimes I’d cook fajitas for the group or make them chili; we’d order pizza or brownbag it. The get-together was more fun for the company than the idiot plots in 90210 we took such great pleasure in jeering. Bickering and friendly banter was par, as you’d expect from a group of writers. Occasionally we would have a “guest” viewer — another writer from the Chron we’ll call Len, and, equally rarely, the leading rock critic at the local daily, whom we’ll call Yikes Crawford, who showed up for the NBA Finals and Larry Sanders. Was it the witty repartee of the young literary lights, sharp wits being honed with every printed word coming from these young, bright minds, or the sense that I was presiding over a little Austin version of the Algonquin Roundtable? Nah. It was just that none of them could afford cable.
Al was becoming bitter about the deterioration of 90210, the unspoken agreement being that it all went downhill after Shannen Doherty (Brenda Walsh) left, which was the season before we began watching as a group. It was obvious Al secretly tolerated the show just to get to see Dream On. Randy, on the other hand, liked 90210 for the girls, especially Tiffani-Amber Thiessen (whose character is named Valerie Malone but whom we dubbed “Titsy” from the first episode she was on). Like Weezer, Randy was a die-hard 90210er but was likewise disillusioned in the downward fun spiral. “You people talk too much!” he’d huff as we guffawed when Jennie Garth struggled to act. We’d shut up until he turned back to the screen, then snort with laughter. One time Yikes Crawford left his precious personal notebook on the coffee table. We read every word before returning it to him.
Finally, the Dream On run ended, and Al took a stand. He openly hated 90210 by now, and knew I would happily re-run Larry Sanders, which I also faithfully taped, on the weekend. (I had also a stash of Dream Ons taped but what he really liked was my tapes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on Nickelodeon.) Al officially bailed out of the Wednesday night lineup, getting a new roommate and cable not long after that.
I had made the fatal mistake of trying to lure the two remaining boys into watching FOX’s Models Inc., which quickly became “Model Stink” but only Randy would make any pretense of interest — he liked the girls. Weez categorically refused to watch it, and would go find a ball game on the little TV in back. Randy stuck out the Wednesday nights a little longer, more and more for Larry Sanders, and pretty soon he only showed up for that. Eventually, Randy too moved into a new apartment with a roommate and cable. Now there were two.
Weezer and I still had a thing for the Wednesday night lineup but we also loved FOX’s Melrose Place. Randy and Al had loathed Melrose Place and refused to join in any more group viewing so Weezer and I quickly embarked on MP as a Monday ritual. Next up, we added The X-Files on Fridays to our viewing schedule followed by NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets. Eventually, I relented and went with Weez’s beloved Friends/Seinfeld/ER NBC lineup on Thursdays because Weez still didn’t have cable so I taped it for him, and I liked Seinfeld even if Friends made me gag. I then got hooked on ER. Weez and I now had four solid nights of TV viewing booked. Plus, we watched a lot of MTV — my Beavis and Butt-head fixation can definitely be attributed to Weezer.
This schedule got seriously bollixed when FOX moved The X-Files to Sunday nights, something I still chafe at, but the new night vastly improved when King of the Hill debuted. Now, the ’96-’97 season is over and only the upcoming episodes of the campy Pacific Palisades on FOX offer respite from the humid reruns of summer.
It’s good to have a friend to watch television with. Watching TV is one of those great equalizers. It can be common ground for strangers, company to the loner, a bonding point for friends, a ritual for lovers. The bond the four of us had developed reminded me of being with my three younger brothers when we were kids and we’d get plunked in front of the TV. I miss the 90210 gathering but can still count on Weezer parking on the couch with regularity.
When Weezer dropped by for fajitas on the Memorial Day holiday, he found Bugsy Siegel, Audrey Hepburn, and Bonnie & Clyde in my living room. A&E’s day-long special of their flagship series, Biography, had my complete attention — I’d already watched segments on John Dillinger and Rasputin.
These looks at the famous and infamous have long been personal favorites, and, judging by the show’s 10-year history, they are clear winners with A&E’s audience. Five nights a week, Biography is presented twice nightly (7pm, repeats at 11pm), re-runs of previous shows. On weekends two new episodes of Biography: This Week spotlight current figures in the news (Saturdays, 7pm; Sundays, 2pm). On June 2-8, Biography highlights five fascinating women: Lucrezia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, Mata Hari, Eva Peron, and Marie Antoinette as part of their “Bad Girls” week. They join Judy Garland (6/9 and 10), Kathie Gifford (6/12), Mary Tyler Moore (6/19), and Dr. Ruth Westheimer (6/30) as other personalities featured throughout the month of June. Also up on Biography is Wayne Newton (6/11), G. Gordon Liddy (6/17), Al Capone (6/23), and Alfred Hitchock (6/27).
What the A & E Network has created in this ven-erable series are genuinely entertaining 60-minute portraits. They skirt the sometime-seedy aspects of their subjects but still deliver informed, memorable profiles of people who, like it or not, shape the world in which we live. Tune in.
This article appears in May 30 • 1997 and May 30 • 1997 (Cover).