Everybody Hates Raymond

I had fun watching the last half of the Blogger/Reader Tourney last night, those railbirds are so rambunctious. Congrats to JoeSpeaker, well done.

I sweated a buddy of mine in the PSO FREEWSOP tournament last night and he beat 54 players to win a seat and a trip to the WSOP Main event. Congrats Zagnut! I've never seen a guy in so much shock after winning. For a $110 buy in that you can actually earn for free by doing a poker room promotion, that's the best deal in WSOP qualifiers if you ask me. There's a ton of overlay, and most of the players are REALLY BAD, because they got their entry chip for free. I would play but the seats are not tranferrable or saleable, and I just cannot play in the Main Event. I will be playing in the event on June 22, and I am happy with that.

And tonight is the last episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Wow, it's fashionable to say bad things about this show isn't it? What all those people neglect to mention is that the show is funny. It's not the funniest show in the history of television, and a lot of people have their underpants in a wad because of how much money it generates, but the show is, at times, DAMN funny.

I always appreciated the show because it's about a couple with kids, but the show is NOT ABOUT HAVING KIDS. I can't think of another show on television where it's a family with kids and having kids was not the focus of the show. Even shows like that horrible Paul Reiser/Helen Hunt show that wasn't about kids eventually became OBSESSED with children. But Everybody Loves Raymond said specifically at the beginning that it's not really about the kids.

And I appreciated that, because "Family" television pisses me off. I have a "Family." My "Family" doesn't happen to include children. But "Family" television is really a euphamism for CHILDREN'S TELEVISION. So am I to assume this means there's something WRONG with my family because it doesn't include CHILDREN?

I never went out of my way to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, but I never turned it off if it was on. Many times the show spoke to me, especially when the show concerned dealing with In-Laws.

But the PMS episode of Everybody Loves Raymond is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on television. First of all they do the cool Seinfeld thing where they don't actually SAY that they are talking about PMS, they just assume you know what they are talking about. They don't even euphamise "Masturbation" with "Master of your Domain." They just talk around the actual name, because that's the way people are when you talk about Menstruation.

I espeically liked the inside dig that Ray Romano was respoding to in a comedy bit that Rick Sheidner did about how to treat your wife when she has PMS. Sheidner says "Just give them a hug and tell them that you love them." In Ray's show his wife suggests this too. Raymond's response is "It's hard to hug someone when they are TRYING TO KILL YOU!"

He also says one of the funniest visual lines I've ever heard, and I've stolen it many times for my own purposes. Ray responds to his wife's denial that she has PMS by saying that she, for no real reason "Rips into him like a monkey on a cupcake." That is GODDAMN funny, especially when you picture it.

Ray tries everything he can to alleviate the problems he has dealing with his wife's PMS. He tries to get her to take some medication. He asks his friends if the drugstore has anything for it, and they reply "The drugstore has an entire WING devoted to that." His wife, of course, is offended by the assertion that her being upset is irrational, and he wants to keep her drugged up so he doesn't have to deal with her.

So Ray tracks her cycle on a calendar, and tape records her during one of her PMS tirades, and plays it back later when she insists that she was not PMSing. This, of course, only makes things worse.

They arrive at no solutions on the show, and there is no way to make things better. All we are left with is the realization that this is how things are going to be, and this is what we will have to deal with. It's our cross to bear. There's no easy solution, no magic pill, no magic incantation we can say to make PMS go away. The subject was dealt with in an adult, mature and yet HILARIOUS manner.

Everybody Loves Raymond always gave its viewers that type of respect. The jokes were never condescending and the situations were often very real, especially to married people who have to deal with their spouses parents. I understand why many people never got the show, because if you're not married or don't have to deal with exasperating In-Laws, you might not understand some of the issues the show used for its comedy. But those of us that do understand, will miss it.