In this time of relative crisis and personal depression, I decided that serious issues needed to be discussed.
Rachel and Joey were a much better couple on Friends than Ross and Rachel.
I went to Northwestern all four years that David Schwimmer who played Ross was there.
My best friend from college’s ex-wife is still in his Looking Glass theater company.
He brought me into Schwimmer’s apartment in Chicago once when he had something to do with running it. It was a pretty nice spread.
I have no idea if I met him or not. I dated a girl who was also in that theater crowd at Northwestern. They really weren’t for me except for one dude I loved who left college to attend Ringling Brother’s clown camp. I saw some stuff that was going on with John Cusack and Jeremy Piven in Evanston and was way more into that type of entertainment at the time.
I wanted to watch the “Young Ones” not see Bertolt Brecht even if the Doors took that “Whiskey Song/Moon of Alabama” from “Man is Man,” which was one of the few real dates I had in college.
I remember almost tipping over my chair falling asleep, which is apparently a big faux pas at those kinds of events.
My friend used to refer to the drama majors as the “twisted unfortunates.”
When I took improv classes my Senior “quarter” I did it downtown at a place called the Players Workshop that was associated with Second City.
I found that whole crowd to be kind of pretentious and depressing. They all wore black and smoked.
Right after performing on the main stage at Second City (we had a sketch that I was in that was exactly the Adam Silver movie “Click” although I don’t see any money ever coming to me from it even if I still had the videotape of that show) I had bowel surgery and decided I was sick of going to college took my credits, graduated and spent the last two quarters playing basketball, and telling major financial institutions there was no way I was interested in working 80 hours a week for them in various absurd interviews.
Years later I used to write goofy recaps and I did some on Friends for a while. There was some dude in England who would produce like 150,000-word analyses of each episode that must have taken hours and hours of research. One is posted elsewhere on my site under “The Most Obsessed Friends Fan Ever.”
My recaps were sort of my opinions of where shows were going and then half appreciation, half mockery.
I was the king of the Felicity recappers for a short time and had a predominantly female fan base that I cherished. Most attention from women I’ve ever had in my life to be honest about it.
Now Friends is like Seinfeld for me.
I watched every episode of both shows on the first run. After they were over no one could have beaten me at trivia about those show, but since syndication and my lack of rewatching interest in the ensuing years almost anyone beats me at both now.
You really do have to keep your skills sharp.
At the beginning of the show, Joey’s character was by far the least developed. Friends was really the first sit-com where three legitimately was no star or main character. This made the cast a ton of money went they ganged up and went union together.
I rooted for the early Ross and Rachel relationship even though Ross was way too mopey and droopy for me. Nevertheless, I sympathized with the dude with an infatuation of having a chance at the beautiful girl out of his league actually finding love when she decided to stop dating attractive, dumb jerks.
Their breakup was really well written, plotted, and just sad. I still back Ross’ we were on a break argument, but you could understand how things were still unrepairable in the short term.
Eventually, though Ross was no longer the same guy. It just got too insane and he was just a dude with a lot of issues, who had done a ton of desperate silly things.
Joey meanwhile became my favorite character on the show by a large margin.
I am usually not a fan of dumb, but Joey was sweet and loyal dumb and that goes a long way.
Joey was always fun. I cannot remember him having any serious long-term angst during the entire series. Everyone else had drama and Joey was just always Joey. He was the rock.
Monica telling him how to please a woman when he can’t please himself due to some paying sperm gig he had is still one of my funniest moments ever, as well as Joey’s pretty crass immediate decision to no longer follow up in that matter again no matter how successful it was after he no longer had to do so.
Rachel moved in with Joey after Monica and Chandler finally were outed, and there was a time where it looked like they would hook up, but it was just another excuse for more Ross angst to finally get the fable R&R back together.
I wish Joey and Rachel got together in the end.
They always had fun together. I found them a delightful pair. The drum set ruled!
Neither were rocket scientists and neither cared. They accepted what was shallow about themselves and were comfortable being who they were. This was also true of Phoebe. The rest were neurotic messes.
Why have a kid with droopy Ross, and deal with his years of psychosis? That sounds like a miserable life. That pairing is still having arguments about their past at 60.
Joey and Rachel would have just had a great life. They probably wouldn’t have had any kids. They would have spent their entire life going to fun parties or staying at home doing something amusing. A marriage where you are friends first and you fall in love is just a way better plan that a dope who was in love with you when he was 14 and has another kid with two lesbians.
It goes without saying that even selfish Joey is a better lay than Ross on his best day.
Rachel should have picked Joey.
I think right now that needs to be said.
