Rescue Me and A Great Moment in Seinfeld

"Can't you see that I'm lonely?"

Although I have known of this classic in soul music for several years, I never knew who Fontella Bass was until listening to "Theme de Yoyo" by Art Ensemble of Chicago. Bass has an amazing voice coming out of the church. Listen to her pleading voice for someone's tender charms on "Rescue Me" and you will hear what I'm saying. And that funky bass! She's pure soul, and undeniable talent. 

Also, a friend shared this clip of Seinfeld from season 4 when Kramer was mistaken for a murderer in Los Angeles. This scene actually predicts some of the callous and childish behavior of the Seinfeld crew that kinda makes the disappointing series finale plausible. Even this far back in the show, the group realized they were not quite good people, celebrating the fact that the murderer struck again while Kramer was in custody. But I always loved this mini story arc in season 4! It's nice to see Jerry, George, and Kramer outside of New York and 'living' it up in LA. 

A Show About A Show Making a Show About Nothing

My favorite story arc over the long life of Seinfeld remains the season-long tale of Jerry and George pitching a sitcom based on their own lives to NBC. Watch this clip for one of my favorite moments, where Jerry explains to the actress playing Elaine Benes why she cannot date his butler. The show is a show about nothing, and is based on their own lives as fictional characters, which is meta or self-referential in that George and Jerry are based on real-life creators of Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who wrote the show for NBC themselves! This kind of meta-humor from the 1990s is quite entertaining and provides hilarious commentary on how the show's writers perceived their own project whilst working for NBC. One must wonder how this likely impacted sitcoms in future years embrace of metafiction and, in some cases, breaking the fourth wall. Watch season 4 of the show to see this brilliant season-long story arc play out. By the way, this is definitely my favorite season of the show, alongside season 5.