Next time, a transcript of yesterday's Fear Factor

I can't believe I'm typing this; if I remember correctly, in the last ten minutes:

Chandler and Monica get a call from the hospital, notifying them that one of their twins has been diagnosed with encephalitis, which, gaging their reactions, is not good news. After some deliberation. they decide to give away the healthy baby to her birth mother, since the one baby will already be a lot of work as they try to build a life and home in the suburbs.

Joey proposes to the birth mother, but obviously, having never met him before his proposal, she declines. But, she has no ties in NYC, and decided to move out to LA with him, though how largely she will figure in his spin-off is hard to tell.

Ross and Rachel reconcile, and are going to give their relationship another college try, this time for good.

Mike (?), the Paul Judd character gets an offer from Médecins Sans Frontières (not as a doctor, but as an engineer or something), and Phoebe decides to move to Africa with him; in their own small way, they want to pitch in against HIV, malaria, malnutrition, etc etc.

Then the random Jefferson Airplane song, fade out.

~~

Also, this isn't helpful at all for the White Album exercise, but I still kind of agree with Paul's comment from the Anthology (documentary): "I think it's a fine album...I mean, it's great, it sold, it's the bloody Beatles White Album! Shut up!"

I agree partly because I think weak songs are necessary and inevitable. The White Album has many b-sides, certainly, but that’s just what happens when you make an album. Allow me to explain. If (and only if) you consider an album to be a closed off, self-contained unit, there will always be weaker songs, relative to what one considers stronger songs. A natural hierarchy, almost like a bell-curve, just kind of puts itself into place. It just happens when you throw together a bunch of songs and close that little universe off: a strange order or homeostasis is achieved through comparison. Track 1 through 13, when thrust together, start to define themselves (in terms of their value, or 'good'ness) comparatively. Obviously, this has no bearing on the song when it stands alone or how you felt about it before or will ever feel about it in the future, out of the mix/compilation/album context. But I think this is why you can set out to make a flawless mix (every song is a '10' to your ears), but it's not really possible -- after a while, and probably immediately to others’ ears, your mix is littered with a 4, a 5 and a 7, their value organized around the best track, which need not be a 10. (I don’t actually give songs these numerical grades…for the record.)

According to this theory of relativity, Honey Pie is a ‘0’ for sure, but put it next to twelve Creed songs, and we have a ‘8’ next to thirteen ‘0’s. (Honey Pie, I hope we can agree, can never be a 10, even next to white noise).