The Open

I am a lazy tennis fan. I love the game, and spent many afternoons as a kid watching with the family, but I rarely get very excited each season until the quarters of Wimbledon. My good friend Rhonda is an active tennis fan. Once the Australian Open begins, she is off and running, and thankfully keeps me updated on what is going on. If I can get it together, I sometimes catch a few matches of the French Open, but usually completely space until things get rolling at the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club.

The 2007 US Open has ended. It was a blast this year, even though Roger Federer wins again (will anyone ever beat this guy? Sheesh!). I was worried that after Andre Agassi retired last year, I wouldn't be as excited about tennis this year, but there are plenty of great tennis players out there, and there was lots of great tennis played at the Open. Tommy Haas, James Blake, Novak Djokovic and Andy Roddick showed up and played amazing, fun matches. There were some good ladies matches too (hmm, do you notice a bias towards cute boys here?).

Due to all the rain last year, and a very generous Cousin this year, I was able to go three times the first week. I finally got to see Venus and Nadal play (and Jim and I were stalked by a Praying Mantis during our visit to Ashe). Rhonda clued me in to Djokovic and Santoro, and we got to see both of them play the day we went. They both played matches later in the tournament that made me happy I had seen them in person. They are both very entertaining in their own ways.

This week at work I had a guy tell me he turned down free tickets to go to the Open because he wasn't really a tennis fan. I tell you all right now. If you have any appreciation for sports, and you get a chance to go, DO NOT TURN IT DOWN. The US Open is a celebration of the solo athlete, and makes us New Yorkers very proud. It is not a snooty, exclusive experience. The USTA has made it fairly accessible to just about everyone, and even if you end up in the nosebleeds in Ashe, or get grounds passes, you get to see lots of great tennis and experience a friendly and communal atmosphere. They even let the Day Session people stick around and watch the evening matches on the big screens. Trust me on this, there are all kinds who show up for the fun.

I very much missed my comrade in arms, Fran, during my visits to the Open this year. Fran, I hope you know how much I missed you this year. And hopefully, last year was not our last time trolling the grounds for the hottest, AHEM, I mean, the most talented players we can find. Two of our current favorites:

As Rhonda would say: America, F*** Yeah! (Hee!!)

Tooting of the horn...

I would like to publicly thank Amy over at Remote Access for asking me to do a recap of Jericho, episode One If By Land, and for liking my South Park Jack Bauer enough to post it on her 24 site, Blogs4Bauer. She is a big fan of television, and two of my favorite shows, 24 and Jericho.

Well, Hello Ladies...

Let me start this off by saying this is all conjecture. I don't have any hard stats on any of this.

I am suprized by all the female fans of Jericho. Hm, maybe suprized is not the right word. Let's go back.


I am suprized by all the female fans of 24. Hey, this is a show that is marketed towards men in that juicy 18-49 year old demo. There is lots of fighting and blowing stuff up and driving around in big cars and shooting bad guys. But most of my female friends love 24. I mean, when you mention 24, their eyes get dilated and you can see them get all excited. I have had this experience with all fans of 24, they can't wait to talk about how much they love (or, in some cases after season 6, how much they are disappointed by) the show. At first, with the Ladies, I thought it was the hotness factor. 24 is never short on men that are easy on the eye. But once you get past the 'Kiefer is so my TV boyfriend' conversation, these Ladies are real and actual fans of The Show. My favorite TV related internet site has just as many women, if not more women than men, posting on the 24 forums. I found this curious, but never really thought about it much.


Then came Jericho. And then went Jericho. And then came the Save Jericho campaign. I met a lot of wonderful fans on the Jericho message boards that have popped up on the Interwebs (man, I wish I knew who first used this word, I love it), and it slowly dawned on me that most of the people I had gotten to know were women. So now, I started to wonder if this is maybe just an internet thing. Maybe women are just more likely to post on the internet message boards, being the chatty, social creatures that we are. But then CBS started running the reruns of Jericho on Friday nights, and I took notice of the commercials running during the show (yes, I am watching the re-runs; does this suprize any of you?). Among the expected ads for cars and electronics, there were ads for make-up and kitchen-related stuff that was clearly meant for the Ladies of the household. Veerrry interesting. Because while Jericho isn't as obviously an action-adventure type show as 24, it is still very male skewed in a traditional, stereotypical sense. Apparently I am not the only one who noticed the large female fan base, and female appeal of the show (lovely looking actors, once again, not being the only reason to tune in).


Obviously, 24 is not on the air right now (and who knows if it will ever make it back hearing about all those stops and starts of production), so I can't look in on their ads. I seem to recall the shows being heavy on Big Freakin' Car ads, though.


Anyway, I find all of this very interesting. After spending years deflecting odd looks when I confessed to liking action movies and being accused of being a Sci-Fi nerd because I've seen Star Wars a bajillion times and own at least four versions of the trilogy, looks like I am not a 'weird girl' after all. Looks like I have lots of female counterparts out there who like the rough and tumble stuff just as much as the boys. So maaaaybe, just maybe, we are all slowly inching away from the stereotypes and assumptions that we all have.

A Lady can dream, right?