“Parenthood” is back, yay!”. Two 9/11 stories worth your time. And the Chicago teacher’s strike

It’s officially fall TV season, although the show I’m most eagerly anticipating, “Homeland” on Showtime, doesn’t start for another three weeks (Sept. 30, you can’t get here fast enough! Once again, this show is incredible for those of you who haven’t seen it).

Still, I was excited Tuesday night that “Parenthood” is back. I have sort of a love-hate relationship with “Parenthood,” if you’ve been reading my blog awhile. Sometimes it’s fantastic, moving and well-acted and funny and all that’s good about television.

Other times, it’s so ridiculous and far-fetched with its plotlines and how its characters behave, that I get mad at it and throw pillows at the TV (not really, but my fiance has restrained me a few times so I almost did).

But the good parts outweigh the bad, so I came back to the show eagerly Tuesday night (SPOILER ALERT. IF YOU HAVEN’T YET SEEN IT, SKIP DOWN TO THE PHOTO OF THE PICKETING TEACHERS).

I thought it was a pretty good episode. I’m not sure how Ray Romano is going to fit in; this show has enough trouble finding screen time for its huge cast, so one more person (actually two, if we count Joel and Julia’s newly adopted son Victor) just makes it more complicated. But I liked he and Lauren Graham together; they seemed to have good chemistry. Poor Mr. Cyr; you just know things won’t go smooth for this engagement.

I thought Haddie’s departure was sweet; I bet she’ll be back home from Cornell and going to Berkeley by Christmas (and wasn’t it weird that neither parent flew with her to drop her off at college? Seems like a big deal). And I loved Max putting olives on his fingers at family portrait time; such a Max thing to do.

Happy to have “Parenthood” back.

**As someone about to officially enter the teaching profession (I wasn’t able to land a full-time classroom position in NYC this fall, but am hoping to start substitute teaching in a few weeks), I have to weigh in on the continuing saga that is the Chicago teachers strike.

Here’s a terrific little summary of the issues involved, from the Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post.

I have to say that of course I side with the teachers here, but this strike isn’t as cut and dried as “politicians bad, teachers good.” Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his team seem to be willing to at least work with the unions a little here, and clearly Chicago teachers have dug in their heels. (I actually agree with the city that laid-off teachers shouldn’t be “automatically recalled” when jobs open back up.)

I also think it’ll be fascinating to see Barack Obama tap-dance around this one, being that Emanuel was one of his top aides and Obama himself is a big fan of the kind of education reform Emanuel is pushing.

Will be very interesting to see, if this goes on for a while, if it hurts Obama in the campaign.

**And finally, I hope everyone got through 9/11 and the memories of 11 years ago OK. Here are two stories I saw Tuesday that are worth a read. First, a story of an incredible 9/11 artifiact: a note from one of the victims of the World Trade Center attack was found, and 10 years later returned to the man’s wife.

And the second story knocked my socks off; it’s a letter written by Frank Culbertson, an astronaut who was aboard the International Space Station on 9/11. He talks about what he saw, and felt, being so far away and yet being so attached as an American. Truly a perspective you’ve never seen before.

Remembering 9/11, always. Andy Murray wins a pulsating U.S. Open. And the keg that looks like R2D2

Today is September 11, the 11th anniversary of the most horrific attack ever on American soil. There has been much less hoopla about it this year than last, though it strangely comforted me hearing thousands of motorcycles roaring through the streets of Manhattan Monday night, all on their way to a memorial this morning.

I know each person commemorates this awful day in their own way; some people don’t even like to think about the tragedy, while others (like me) want to be reminded of it.
I always try to watch a brilliant HBO documentary called “Telling Nicholas” on this day every year, and I also always point you to this amazing slide show created a week after the towers fell by a man named Jason Powers, called “Can’t Cry Hard Enough.”

Good luck getting through this day however you can.

**Man, professional men’s tennis is an embarrassment of riches these days. We keep getting these scintillating Grand Slam finals, one after another, with the plotlines changing faster than in a John Grisham novel, and the story keeps getting better and better.
Monday evening, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic battled hellacious wind, and each other, for nearly five hours and five sets. It was thrilling, heart-pounding stuff, as each man pounded the ball and fought the stiff breeze, trying to make the other submit.
In the end, history was made, and I think people in the UK will never forget where they were when it happened. Murray became the first British man (well, OK, he’s Scottish) since 1936 to win a Slam title, winning 6-2 in the fifth set.
It was sensational and entertaining tennis; Djokovic played such terrific defense to get in the match, and it surely looked like Murray would wilt after blowing a two sets to love lead.

After the 4th set I tweeted, only half-jokingly, that if Murray loses this after being so close he should never pick up a racket again. But I can’t imagine how crushing it would’ve been if he had lost.

But finally, the UK has a tennis champion again. Murray absolutely deserves it; he’s a worthy champ no doubt.

Man, what an incredible year in men’s tennis; four Slams, four different winners, one each for the “Big 4″ in the game.

We tennis fans are so lucky to be living in this golden age.

**Finally, this needs no introduction but it’s something you should see. At LSU, they have a keg that looks like R2D2.

Yep, God bless America.

A few 9/11 pieces worth your time. Federer loses another classic. And football football football! is back

I won’t hit you with a lot of words about 9/11 today. If you’re like me, you’ve seen and read plenty about the 10th anniversary in the last few days.
Instead, I want to point you toward some of the great stuff I’ve come across. If you don’t want to see any of it, I understand. But some of this is truly extraordinary.
– I’ve written about this before; it’s a slideshow video put together a few weeks after 9/11 by a graphic artist named Jason Powers. It’s beautiful.

– An extremely moving piece in the New York Times “Reckoning” series, this one about the artifacts people saved from 9/11, and how much they mean.
– And finally, a photo collage of iconic images from that day 10 years ago when our world changed forever.

**These crushing losses by my man-crush Roger Federer are getting old.
The greatest tennis player of all-time doesn’t just lose matches anymore; he loses epic, Greek tragedy-type matches. For the second year in a row, Fed lost to Novak Djokovic in a scintillating five-set U.S. Open semifinal.
It was almost an exact replica of last year, with Djokovic rallying, Federer having two match points and blowing them, and then Djokovic winning 7-5 in the fifth.
It was splendid, remarkable stuff, everything that could make a person love tennis even more.
But this is now three horrendous five-set losses for Fed in the last year. His year will be Grand Slam-less for the first time since 2002 (which is freaking amazing).
The decline has been slow for Federer, but clearly it’s happening. Two years ago he’d never fail to close. Now, he just can’t seem to finish.
All props, too, to Djokovic, who continues to grow up so much this year. What a fantastic player he is, and his match with Rafael Nadal Monday will be all kinds of fascinating. Can Djokovic beat Rafa for the sixth time this year? Can Nadal strike back?
Also, one more reason why I love Rafael Nadal: The kid oozes class. Skip to 1:20 of this video and watch him, unprompted, pay tribute to 9/11 just a few moments after finishing his match.

**Football’s back! My absolute favorite way to spend a Sunday in the fall is at a sports bar watching six of seven NFL games at once. I eat fried food that’s bad for me, I nurse one drink (bars don’t love me, but hey, I’m not a drinker), and I revel in the joy (and agony, if I’m watching the Jets) of NFL football.
This year is weird for me because I won’t be going to my favorite bar in Daytona Beach where I used to live, Houligans. I’m quite certain at some point Sunday afternoon at Houligan’s Sean the firefighter will turn to Bennett the construction worker (in five years I never learned their last names; they’re not necessary at bars) and say “Hey, where the hell is Mike the crazy Jets fan?”

We were a small but devoted band of fans who saw each other for a few hours every Sunday, and then went our separate ways. But I loved those guys because they were always there and they shared my passion.
Anyway, after intensive Internet research I found a new sports bar near my new home in Queens. It looked OK when I scouted it out last week, but until you’re actually there for games, you never know.
Good news is, my Jets don’t play until 8:20. So my day won’t be ruined until at least, oh, 8:45.
Happy first Sunday of the NFL, everyone.

The TV crawl and how it’s changed our lives. The World Beard Contest. And Donald Duck is a dirty, dirty duck (maybe)

This weekend, one of the world’s strangest competitions is being held. That’s right, it’s the World Beard and Moustache championships, where the heavyweights of the hirsute set meet to compare notes and ask each other questions. I’m guessing one of those questions is “Does your wife hector you about cutting the damn thing off already, too?

Seriously, I love these guys. To take this much time and effort into your facial hair, while you know the rest of the world is mocking you, just to try to win this competition, has to be admirable.
Right?

**This thought has been pinging around my cranium for a few days. Ever wonder just how much the bottom of the screen crawl/ticker thing has changed our lives? It was an ESPN innovation at first, so they could update fans on sports scores a lot quicker than the previous “:28/:58″ every half-hour crawl they used to use. (anyone else remember the great “:28/:58″ updates on ESPN? I would sit there waiting with breathless anticipation for the Rangers or Yankees score to come up.)
After 9/11, CNN and all the other news networks started using it, since there was so much news going on in the weeks after the terrorist attack.
Now, the crawl is everywhere, at all times of the day. And while it can be annoying to some (I dislike it once in a while), it’s completely changed how we watch TV.
I find myself reading the crawl on CNN just as often as I watch and listen to the main broadcast. I anxiously check the crawl for sports scores and get mad if I just missed the score I’m looking for. (“What, I’ve got to wait FIVE whole minutes for it come back on again?”).
It’s an innovation that has transformed TV, giving us the news instantly, as soon as we want it.
And I think it’s taken for granted. So I just wanted to say I appreciate the crawl. And I’m glad to be alive in 2011.

(This only tangentially applies, but writing about the crawl and the 28/58 thing got me thinking of one of my favorite Bill Simmons columns ever (back when he was still a writer, which he hardly is anymore). It’s an open letter to 1982 Bill, explaining the future of sports television. I laughed pretty hard at it.

**Finally, Donald Duck got exonerated this week. The lovable mallard apparently was charged with fondling a customer at Epcot Center in Florida last year, while taking a picture with her.
Well, OK, so he didn’t really get exonerated. He settled the case out of court with the woman he allegedly groped.

Donald, Donald, Donald. You know better than that. Touching customers is not nice.
If you’ve got to get handsy with someone, well, I’m sure Cinderella is free on Saturday night.