Sunday, August 2, 2009

Friends Project

Originally Posted 3-23-08

During the 1990s, I distinctly remembered that the '80s were a constant source of derision. While I have a certain fondness for that decade, since it was the decade of my childhood, I understand that the '80s are ripe for the pickin’ when it comes to that sort of thing. At the time, I had figured that this is the sort of thing that happens. It didn’t matter what decade it was, everyone would make fun of the decades that preceded it. I was looking forward to making fun of the '90s. While wearing the same flannel day in and day out seemed like a good idea, the Gin Blossoms never made sense to me. I was looking forward to a time when I was able to make fun of Alison Road.

Here it is, 2008. By my calculations, in less than five years, we should be making fun of the '00s, however we’ve still yet to rip into the '90s as much as we could have. I mean think about Vanilla Ice, the Backstreet Boys, and everything in between. No one wants to get in on this? Fine, suit yourself.

For reasons that escape me, I recently got a hankering to see some episodes of Friends again. Now Friends is one of those shows that is always on TV. However, I don't actually watch TV that much anymore. Any television entertainment comes through Netflix or sites that allow me to see whole episodes with minimal commercial interruption. But if I'm going to watch the show, how do I choose where to start? Do I start randomly? Should I start at the very beginning, and just put the whole series on my queue to watch whenever I choose?

In a moment of impulse, I decide that I should, actually, do just that. I should have every episode of Friends delivered to my house.

This would be my secret, only to be shared with the people at Netflix.

Except that day I made the addition, I told my friends. “Okay, so I added something to my queue. It’s a total guilty pleasure. It’s a shit-com, but you know what? It’s a good shit-com!”

As it is with Netflix queues, it took a couple of weeks for Season one, disc one to get to the top of the disc to get to the top of my list.

Finally, I got the first disc. That’s when it hit me that I should probably get this down. I should keep some sort of journal of this. I’m embarking on a journey of six friends that apparently did something and something or other.

Look, I’ll be honest, I enjoy the show as a guilt pleasure. I’m hardly a fanatic. I know that in the last episode, “she gets off the plane.” I’m aware of most of the things that happen in between.

I know that Friends was heavily influenced by popular culture of the time and vice versa—unlike, say, Seinfeld, which I’d say that was more of a one-way road.

So, this is my pet project for now.

I'm not out to change the world or to have Friends viewed as something it's never been thought of before. I'm not sure what it is. It's just something I'm doing.

Join me.
Or don't, I don't care.

UPDATE: 8-1-09

Blogs are traditionally posted in reverse chronological order. I figured since this has a beginning and an end, it wouldn't make sense to read about the series backwards, so I figured Blogger had a way to have the posts go in reverse-reverse order
—aka, in order—but when I completed everything, I came to find out there isn't a way to do that. If I wanted to do that, I'd have to change the post date in all of the entries, so that it appears that I wrote the first post most recently.

So that's what I did, because I'm ridiculously anal-retentive. I assure you, I didn't bang out this entire thing in one day, publishing a post once every 29 minutes. (Why 29 minutes? Again, because I'm ridiculously anal-retentive.)

Don't think about how confusing it is to find newer posts when you click on 'Older Posts.' I know it's a little nutty. Just go with it.

2 comments:

Leslie said...

I am VERY VERY VERY much enjoying this!!!! SO FUN!

Robyn said...

You could have just created a bar along the side with links to all the posts in order.

And Friends is not a shit-com. It's a hit-com. Or something more clever if it were not me thinking it up.

Robyn