We put the "boozh" in bourgeois.

G and I chose a walk down a dark, dark path last night. See, we got our hands on a copy of the season premiere of The Sopranos, and then watched it. This season. The current one. The one that began last Sunday. Now what the hell are we going to do?

Our Sopranos thing kind of snuck up on us, not unlike how, oh... crack does. I had seen the first one or two episodes when I had cable, right before I moved to NYC. But it wasn't enough exposure to get hooked, I haven't had cable since anyway. G had never watched a single episode (never 'tried it', if I'm going to keep going with this cheesy metaphor). So when the previous seasons started to come out on dvd and we kept passing them at the video store, our curiosity was piqued. Why was this show so popular (still)? And not just with the hoi polloi, but with our groovy well-educated super intellectual friends. The folks who actually read (and understood) that copy of Critique of Pure Reason on their bookshelf. I mean, everyone was doing it. 50 million Elvis fans can't be wrong. We brought home a few episodes.

Four hours later we were back at the video store for the next three. The next night? The next three. Within the span of a week we had burned through a whole season (not an uncommon phenomenon, others have confessed). In a few weeks we were at the end of season three, nothing left to rent, and season four was still in production, being aired, not to hit the shelves for another seven months or so.

You'd think someone had died. Long faces, shuffling feet. Loss of appetite. We, of course, went running to our cable provider right away, but when this freelancer and he the student took a look at what it would cost us for essentially ONE program, we couldn't justify the expense. We were going to have to wait.

Finally, at the end of last summer G came home grinning, hands behind his back. Flowers? I thought. Ice Cream? I wondered. He said, "Now, I have a paper due and I'm really behind on my reading, so I need you to know that we're going to have to pace this th..."

"Season four?! You brought home season four!!!!!" I guessed, screaming, grabbing at his fists. Pace, schmace. We burned through those babies in about a day and a half.

The withdrawal was a little better that time. I suppose it's easier to bounce back from a binge than a resumption of habit. We called the cable company again though, in expectation of and preparation for season five, using what logic I'm not sure. That the price would have dropped in a year? Again, too cost prohibitive, even when we factored in Six Feet Under. We would just have to put it out of our minds.

And we did, successfully. We put The Sopranos in the category of 'one of the things in life you just can't have', like when you find out that person you've always had the hots for has gotten married. No longer an option. So you tell yourself it wasn't meant to be, that you are now free to pursue your real destiny, or some other shit. You move on.

Two days ago G was telling a friend at school about our Sopranos obsession. How we prefer (a lie) to wait until the whole season comes out on dvd so we can consume it all at once, like a Thanksgiving dinner. How it's better (a lie) to watch them in rapid succession, for flow of story-line, for the instant gratification of not having to wait a week to see what happens next. "Really?" his friend asked. "Because I've got the season five premiere on tape right here, you know, if you'd like to see it."

Dude. A hook-up. And as is the tradition, the first one's free. But G knew the can of worms that would be opened if he were to bring the tape home. He even called to ask me if he should. "So...." he paused, letting the consequences hang around in the air a bit "...what do you think? What should I do?"
"You know what you should do." I said.
"I should get in a cab, right?"
"Yep."
"Fuck the train."
"Yep."
"See you in ten minutes."

Posted by Antigeist at March 10, 2004 02:10 PM