{"id":15470,"date":"2019-11-30T19:12:17","date_gmt":"2019-12-01T03:12:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=15470"},"modified":"2019-11-30T19:12:17","modified_gmt":"2019-12-01T03:12:17","slug":"atypical-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2019\/11\/30\/atypical-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Atypical"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Do you fit in? Do you have the answer to everything? Are you always happy, always on the up and up?<\/p>\n<p>Then &#8220;Atypical&#8221; is not a show for you.<\/p>\n<p>What blows my mind about Netflix shows is there&#8217;s no hype. That&#8217;s reserved for movies. Have you read the Friday arts sections in the &#8220;New York Times&#8221; or the &#8220;Los Angeles Times&#8221;? Films you will never see made by people thrilled they completed a movie. That&#8217;s how far we&#8217;ve sunk, it&#8217;s easier to make a movie than get a show on Netflix.<\/p>\n<p>But usually the Netflix shows are more interesting.<\/p>\n<p>And at least they get a fighting chance, sort of.<\/p>\n<p>I read about this movie on Netflix, now I can&#8217;t find it. There was a review somewhere, but despite having the best streaming interface, unless you want what&#8217;s popular, good luck finding it.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve changed my policy, now if I read about anything good I&#8217;m making a note on my phone, my iPhone, did you read the story about Roger McNamee in the &#8220;New Yorker&#8221;?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/magazine\/2019\/12\/02\/big-techs-big-defector\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Big Tech\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Big Defector<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You should. He says Android has too many privacy problems. So now privacy is just like the rest of America, there are the haves and the have-nots, the rich and the poor, those who can afford an iPhone and those who cannot.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t even know there was a new season of &#8220;Atypical.&#8221; I just stumbled upon it after firing up Netflix.<\/p>\n<p>No, I don&#8217;t want them to send me an e-mail. E-mail is broken, no wonder kids don&#8217;t use it, too many people sending you unsolicited stuff trying to convince you that what they have to say is important. (This newsletter is opt-in, if you want out, just click the link at the bottom.)<\/p>\n<p>Used to be you didn&#8217;t know when your favorite acts were playing in town. Now you don&#8217;t know when your favorite TV shows are on!<\/p>\n<p>The media has to stop this focus on movies. It&#8217;s kinda like music streaming. The war is over, theatrical lost. Oh, it&#8217;s good for event pictures, otherwise the experience doesn&#8217;t square with modern day life, where you want it on demand and you don&#8217;t want to be interrupted\/affected by others if you don&#8217;t choose to. People DVR their favorite TV shows, they stream what they want, but we&#8217;re supposed to drive to the theatre at an appointed time to overpay for what is usually a disappointing experience? I don&#8217;t think so.<\/p>\n<p>Why is it all legacy media refuses to die. Kinda like terrestrial radio, which is on a disinformation campaign, telling us how healthy it is when I&#8217;ve yet to find someone under twenty who listens.<\/p>\n<p>These old media outlets die very slowly, then all at once, like Kodak. Or record stores. I&#8217;m living quite fine without Tower Records. And why go to a bookstore, when everything available is just a click away?<\/p>\n<p>Funny to see the baby boomers try to hold on to the past, refusing to admit it&#8217;s nostalgia, always saying it&#8217;s better. It&#8217;s not.<\/p>\n<p>And now the tone of this is completely different from what I intended.<\/p>\n<p>I guess it&#8217;s modern life. There&#8217;s no one to complain to anymore, there&#8217;s no help online, you&#8217;re in the wilderness, so you express your frustration online.<\/p>\n<p>And then everybody becomes frustrated with you. Play and you&#8217;re excoriated.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why &#8220;Atypical&#8221; is such a pleasure. It reflects regular life. Without the division of politics, without the hungering for bucks. Michael Rapaport is an EMT and he pays for a whole house in Connecticut. Is that truly possible anymore? I think not.<\/p>\n<p>So Elsa, Jennifer Jason Leigh, grew up with a distant, critical mother so she coddles her kids, trying to give them the upbringing she never got&#8230;AND THEY HATE HER FOR IT!<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s the boomers. They&#8217;re there for their kids, praising them, helping them to the point they can&#8217;t stand alone, they&#8217;ve got to call to deal with a hangnail. Yup, my father worked all day, weekends too, he brought home the bacon, and I was allowed to roam free on my bike. Heresy, I tell you!<\/p>\n<p>Sam Gardner is autistic, but he doesn&#8217;t resemble any autistic person I know. But now it&#8217;s the third season, and we accept this.<\/p>\n<p>His younger sister Casey, who always seems older, is cool, but confused. Even sexually.<\/p>\n<p>And Sam&#8217;s girlfriend struggles in college.<\/p>\n<p>And Casey&#8217;s boyfriend has no future and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Casey wants to go to UCLA, for the opportunity, to leave Elsa and Connecticut behind.<\/p>\n<p>Sounds like a drama, right?<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s not. It&#8217;s more like a comedy.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s only realistic in its essence. Not in the events of the show. Those are artificial.<\/p>\n<p>But I can&#8217;t turn it off.<\/p>\n<p>And I couldn&#8217;t figure out why. Was I just a sap? I&#8217;ll admit I liked the early &#8220;Full House,&#8221; and I don&#8217;t even have children!<\/p>\n<p>I asked Felice, she said it was &#8220;cute.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But when Casey is torn between two lovers&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>When Elsa and Doug&#8217;s marriage is teetering, when it could go either way&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Come on, you&#8217;ve been there. You&#8217;re in an intimate moment, you&#8217;ve decided to try again, it was good once, wasn&#8217;t it? And then the other person doesn&#8217;t want to. Whew!<\/p>\n<p>I just can&#8217;t recommend &#8220;Atypical,&#8221; you&#8217;ll laugh at me. Then again, you already are.<\/p>\n<p>Life is confusing enough. You don&#8217;t know where you&#8217;re going and everything ends and you&#8217;re connected all the time&#8230;<br \/>\nI leave my phone in the other room when I watch television. It&#8217;s a religious rite, I&#8217;m not trying to pass the time, I want to be engrossed, taken away to real life, be reminded of the situations I&#8217;ve been in and the ones I&#8217;m going to experience in the future. That&#8217;s what art does.<\/p>\n<p>Marvel movies are like pop music. Here today, gone tomorrow. No matter how much they&#8217;re gussied up, they lack an essence, of humanity, of real life. The makers are playing it safe, in an era where you can play it anyway you want to. That&#8217;s why Netflix burgeoned, it gave artists a chance to exercise control&#8230;enough with listening to network notes, that&#8217;s like listening to the record label, which you shouldn&#8217;t! A label can tell you what it thinks works, it can educate you, but you&#8217;ve got to do it your own way, try to get your humanity across, hits are not easy to predict.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t fit in. Almost never have. There have been moments, mostly far from home, but they&#8217;ve always expired.<\/p>\n<p>I go to the shrink and try to figure it out.<\/p>\n<p>But when Chris Robinson said he was an outsider, that rang true.<\/p>\n<p>Then I&#8217;m watching &#8220;Atypical&#8221; and everyone&#8217;s got issues, they feel alone, like no one is paying attention, or trying to lean on someone is worthless, a waste of time.<\/p>\n<p>Can you tell people your truth?<\/p>\n<p>Hell, there&#8217;s not even truth in the fact that everybody in the movies is beautiful. Making us desire something we all cannot have. Building up these two-dimensional characters to the point where we believe they&#8217;re something they&#8217;re not. But life&#8217;s got to be better than it is right now, right?<\/p>\n<p>I want to go down the rabbit hole, dig down deep as Marc Cohn once sang.<\/p>\n<p>But that was thirty years ago, they don&#8217;t make that music anymore.<\/p>\n<p>Or people with less talent try, and it&#8217;s not worth paying attention.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s very hard to get it right, there&#8217;s a balance, a mood.<\/p>\n<p>You try to capture it, and then you veer off course, even though you&#8217;re trying so hard, even though you can see it.<\/p>\n<p>And art is about an individual vision. Sure, you need people to help you achieve that vision, but when art is compromised, it doesn&#8217;t resonate.<\/p>\n<p>I think Roger McNamee will make a difference. Because he&#8217;s not giving up, he&#8217;s staying on message, one person can move mountains.<\/p>\n<p>And being imperfect is no crime. That&#8217;s what Sam Gardner proves.<\/p>\n<p>And Zahid is completely unbelievable but warm and fuzzy nonetheless, at least until he completely misreads the mood of a party.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Atypical&#8221; is light. Which makes when they get heavy resonate.<\/p>\n<p>You know, you&#8217;re just bopping through life and you hit a roadblock, everything changes, sometimes it&#8217;s even you. You can&#8217;t keep going down the same path, even though it&#8217;s the easiest one. You&#8217;ve got to grow up, you&#8217;ve got to confront your demons, you&#8217;ve got to be honest with yourself.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what &#8220;Atypical&#8221; is about.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you fit in? Do you have the answer to everything? Are you always happy, always on the up and up? Then &#8220;Atypical&#8221; is not a show for you. What blows my mind about Netflix shows is there&#8217;s no hype. That&#8217;s reserved for movies. Have you read the Friday arts sections in the &#8220;New York [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-television"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-41w","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15472,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15470\/revisions\/15472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}