Out of Focus

The seventh annual birthday post (and my first Jack Benny Birthday!): Happy World Peace Day!

Over the past six-and-a-half years, I have filled this space with plenty of thoughts, rants and ramblings, and over those same six-and-a-half years, I have also allowed this corner of the interwebs to sit dormant for extended periods of time. However, I've remained (somewhat ironically) consistent with one feature: I have never missed a birthday post.

I say "ironically" because during these past six-and-a-half years, these posts have really been the only way I have celebrated my birthday. For the vast majority of my 30s, which too quickly near their end, I have not been a fan of birthdays; or at least, not a fan of mine. I love other people's birthdays, but I have not generally enjoyed celebrating my own. I'm sure some might find the psychoanalytical underpinnings for this little factoid quite fascinating, but I'm going to disappoint them and refrain from that discussion. Besides, it's my birthday, and I'll suppress my emotions if I want to.

Still, for whatever reason, regardless of how much attention I've paid to this space, I have written a birthday post every year without fail. I'm not completely sure why. The posts have remained pretty similar, mostly discussing the interesting people who and events that share my birthday. (This annual search for new people and events has prompted me to consider developing a documentary that focuses on individual dates … sort of. At the rate I'm going, you should see it on the festival circuit by the time I'm writing my 30th birthday post. Not the post for my 30th birthday mind you; that would require some backwards time travel. Then again, H.G. Wells was born on this date 144 years ago, so maybe a time machine is in my future? Wait … where was I?)

So with that in mind, I hereby recognize, and maybe even celebrate, my first Jack Benny birthday. (For those of you who have no idea who Jack Benny was, thank you for making me feel even older than I am especially since it's not like he was a contemporary entertainer for my generation.) I even like the idea of this being my first 39th birthday.

That's right; it was 39 years ago, at Children's Hospital in San Francisco that I entered this world. I'm convinced that my late-night birth is why I remain a night-owl, more productive after the clock strikes 11 p.m. than any time before.

SHE ONLY LEARNED A LITTLE BIT FROM DAVID AND FARRAH

This makes sense. Yesterday was such a slow news day -- I mean, the New York primary elections weren't until today right? What else was going on? -- that it was possible for some major celebrity news to come down the pike. Specifically, Eva Longoria decided to reveal that while she's not leaving Desperate Housewives, she won't do another TV series once this one has ended. Whew! Thank goodness. This means that we shouldn't have to watch her mediocre acting except maybe on Lifetime movies. Oh sure, what she means is that she plans to embark on feature film stardom, but I'll put money down that other than the woman-in-distress, woman-out-for-vengeance, woman-in-a-loveless-marriage made-fors, Longoria will exist at best in second-tier roles in third-tier films that don't prove too demanding.

I don't mean to be so hard on her, but Longoria is just the latest example of an actor being in the exact right place at the exact right time and believing too much of his/her own hype. Longoria is a very attractive woman who has enough acting talent to get by, but beyond that she has never been able to stand-up next to any of her three Housewives costars. In fact, I think she further benefited from having her husband played by Ricardo Chavira, regularly giving one of the worst performances I've ever seen from a regular on series television. Chavira was, in my opinion, the shows one major flaw from the beginning.

In the mean time, Longoria is the youngest member of a group of established actresses. As much as I used to crush on Teri Hatcher around the same time I was able to interview her for Soapdish (and as great as she still looks when not appearing nearly anorexic), Longoria is the "young hot" one. The show became a pop culture phenomenon. Of course she's going to hit most of the magazine covers. But is she a draw? Absolutely not. Nor will she be.

Of course, the most famous recent case of an actor believing his TV hype is David Caruso leaving NYPD Blue after its first season. It only took eight years, but he came back to TV and luckily he did so in the kind of show that was virtually talent/personality proof in today's television landscape. Longoria may be much prettier, younger and sexier than Caruso was, but he's got slightly more acting chops (key word, slightly: he actually doesn't seem to have too much range after all) than her. Come to think of it, maybe she has more in common with Farrah Fawcett, who also felt destined for bigger things after a year of Charlie's Angels. Maybe by 2015, she'll either be the new Meredith Baxter/Judith Light/Sean Young, or we'll see her on CSI: The Next Generation. Either way, I hope her handlers don't let her head get that big, cause in 10 years, she could be the new Teri Hatcher, on another hit television show watching her late-20s costar get most of the hype. Although, even Farrah hasn't managed that feat.