Where is Johnny Drama in 2023?

Dear reader,

There was a time in the past. A time in the past in which things were... different. When television wasn’t the same as it is today. It used to be that there was The Sopranos, and then shows that weren’t The Sopranos. Now most TV is The Sopranos, but James Gandolfini is no longer with us. What I’m trying to get at, is that there was a time, not this time, not the now time, but a time before that. And in the before time television could be four guys. And those four guys could be called Vincent Chase, Turtle, Johnny Drama, and E. And these guys could be not very nice, or barely characters, but it didn’t matter – because it wasn’t important.

Now we are in an after time. And when I’m debating whether or not things in general are bad, or I just have a few screws loose that month, I can watch Entourage in 240p and know that things will probably work out pretty well. Or, as often happens to my boys, things won’t work out the way they planned, but it turns out that what actually happens is definitely the best thing. I’m not defending the things done and said by these fictional ragamuffins (they are often disgustingly chauvinist, and the only non-man I know who likes the show is Liz Lemon from 30 Rock, who is fictional) but, I am asking a question. Where is Johnny Drama in 2023?

It seems to me, dear reader, that everyone and their dog’s brother is pretty anxious these days. Now Johnny Drama was also pretty anxious sometimes (often about the shape of his calves) but he expressed this anxiety pretty well. And he always had his brother Vinnie Chase to reassure him. Perhaps there’s a lesson here. The world is what we make it (not for everyone, for most people on Earth it likely sucks hard and you’ll die in poverty, but for the demographic reading this, things are pretty good and will likely always be pretty good) and why be anxious, if we can just decide that whatever’s happening is actually fine. I’m not saying we embrace denial. Let me tell you a story. When it seemed Vincent Chase’s movie career may come to an end due to his artistic choices, he tells his agent that ‘he likes the toys but he doesn’t need them’. A blue-eyed Hollywood Siddhartha Gautama. Earlier I posed a question: where is Johnny Drama in 2023? Probably with the boys, cutting down on his meat and dairy consumption, staying active, and honing his craft. He knows the world may be about to change, and whilst he’ll miss the way things were, the future is one big ol’ steam train and there’s no stopping it.

So, conclusion time. Entourage is pretty zen, even if a lot of what is done and said is maybe evil, and TV is different than it used to be, and also worrying doesn’t really help anything very much.