Ted Lasso and his Epic and Often Hilarious Quotes

 

Jason Sudeikis is Ted Lasso, an American football coach with a relentlessly positive can-do attitude and a “down home” demeanor who talks a mile a minute and smiles 24x7 — and also somehow gets hired to coach a British soccer team despite zero knowledge of the sport. 

The reason for that has to do with the new owner, a divorced woman named Rebecca who becomes owner as a result of the divorce and wants to make the team as horrible as possible to get back at her ex. Rebecca might need a life coach, not just a soccer coach.

It’s really an ensemble cast with several supporting characters, all of them developed and explored in some depth over the two seasons released so far, and almost all of them very likable. Except Nate. You’ll see why if you watch it.

It’s my favorite type of show: comedy with real human stories woven into it. Like real life: comedy and tragedy all mixed up in a stew.

His quotes have become one of the centerpieces of the show. Here’s a list of 65 Ted Lasso quotes from which I pulled a “Top Twelve” of my own below.

Since he’s a coach, the main themes are leadership and putting the team first, but he delivers them with self-deprecating humor so it hits a little different. 

This video shows examples of his leadership.

Some of the best scenes from season 1.

He does a few quotes in every show and at first they catch you off-guard because they seem so random and odd but after a few episodes you start looking for them in anticipation. 

Top Twelve Ted Lasso Quotes

1. Taking on a challenge is a lot like riding a horse, isn't it? If you're comfortable while you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong.
2. I feel like we fell out of a lucky tree, hit every branch on the way down, ended up in a pool full of cash and Sour Patch Kids.
3. Be honest with me. It's a prank, right? The tea? Like when us tourist folks aren't around, y'all know it tastes like garbage? You don't love it. It's pigeon sweat.
4. On Rebecca attending team branding meetings: I always feel so bad for the cows, but you gotta do it; otherwise, they get lost. That was a branding joke. If we were in Kansas right now, I'd just be sitting here waiting for you to finish laughing.
5. For me, success is not about the wins and losses. It's about helping these young fellas be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.
6. If I didn't have any confidence, I never would've worn pajamas to my prom and ended up in jail the rest of that night.
7. You two knuckleheads have split our locker room in half. And when it comes to locker rooms, I like 'em just like my mother's bathing suits. I only wanna see 'em in one piece, you hear?
8. You know what the happiest animal on Earth is? It's a goldfish. Y'know why? It's got a 10-second memory. Be a goldfish.
9. I'm not sure what y'all's smallest unit of measurement is here, but that's about how much headway I made.
10. On scones: It's like a muffin, except it sucks all the spit out of your mouth.
11. Boy, I love meeting people's moms. It's like reading an instruction manual as to why they're nuts.
12. Guys have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I was driving my little boy to school, and I saw this quote by Walt Whitman, and it was painted on the wall there. It said, 'Be curious, not judgmental.' I like that.

One of the Greatest Movies You’ve Never Seen: “Secondhand Lions”

Secondhand Lions from 2003. Here is the trailer.

Sometimes you watch some movie you’ve never heard of and wonder why it isn’t much more widely known and admired, this is one of those.

Set in the early 60s, it stars both Michael Caine and Robert Duvall as a couple of crazy old (and apparently rich) uncles who take in a young boy relative (played by Haley Joel Osment) — whose mother manipulates and abandons him — and teach him what being a man is really all about: courage, honor, sacrifice, and virtue.

The story is timeless and classic — it feels like it was lifted straight from the 1950s — and you grow to like the characters you’re supposed to like and dislike those you’re not. 

The uncles have led quite the adventurous life, if we can believe all their stories — we’re never quite sure, and various people float rumors about their past and where they got their cash, but then we slowly realize it doesn’t really matter if a story is strictly 100% true or not if it inspires people and captures their imaginations and teaches them about what they should aim for and what is important in life.

Family-friendly, with life lessons and humor and larger-than-life characters. Did I mention that Robert Duvall and Michael Caine are in it?

Quote from the Robert Duvall character “Hub”: 

"Sometimes, the things that may or may not be true, are the things that a man needs to believe in the most. That people are good, that honor, courage and virtue mean everything, that power and money, money and power mean nothing, that good always triumphs over evil, … that love … true love never dies."

Here’s that scene.

A wonderful tale, masterfully told, with excellent acting all around, and a real throwback to when movies instilled valuable life lessons.

It’s available to buy or rent on YouTube and Amazon along with other ways to watch it, and does play on cable occasionally (that’s how I first saw it about 10 years ago).

Links

• Wikipedia 
• IMDB
• YouTube

Getting Ready to Cut the Cord

Our Comcast Xfinity bill recently jumped to $180+ (bundled with internet service) after 2 years of $140-ish and we’ve been planning to “cut the cord” soon after our two year agreement ran out, so there’s no time like now.

Both YouTubeTV and Hulu plus Live TV seem like good alternatives and both offer a free 7 day trial so we will start that up shortly and see what we think about it all.

As part of that effort we need a Roku device loaded with streaming apps for TV and music since two of our TVs are “dumb” (as in “not smart”). It arrived today. 

This switcheroo also means we have to call Xfinity and negotiate an Internet-only deal, or switch to some other internet service provider. That should be fun. Who doesn’t love talking to those people, with their relentless routing you into their deals that are allegedly good for you but definitely good for them?

Our needs are pretty basic, I think: local and national sports, a little network TV, some Netflix and one or two other apps, a little Spotify and Pandora for music. 

I’ll provide an update in a couple of weeks.

And away we go! 

My Latest Favorite Show Ever: Homestead Rescue

A few days ago as I was scrolling through our cable channel listing I happened upon a show I had never heard of, called Homestead Rescue.

Since I was feeling adventurous and had a bit of time to kill, I clicked on it.

I liked it immediately. We watched the full episode and part of another, and then I watched a couple more the next day, and the day after that. 

It’s pretty unique. A family of born-and-raised homesteaders — father Marty Raney and his two adult children Matt and Misty — helps families in trouble who have tried to make homesteading work for them but failing in some key way that threatens their physical and emotional health related to crops or livestock, a reliable energy source, drinking water, predator or wildfire problems, etc.

Homesteading means living off the grid and eating only what you kill and grow. Every essential safety and survival skill is provided by you and your family.

That means that bears and wildfires are serious business, existential immediate threats rather than distant theoretical threats as seen by pampered city dwellers who depend on others for every survival need.

In the wild, you actually need firearms and chainsaws and knives to survive. 

From the show’s website:

In the last decade, two million Americans have attempted to leave behind civilization in favor of life off-the-grid - but most have failed. For the hundreds of families who decide to become homesteaders, the learning curve is a steep one. On Homestead Rescue, struggling homesteaders across the country are turning expert homesteader Marty Raney - along with his daughter Misty Raney, a farmer, and son Matt Raney, a hunter and fisherman - to teach them the necessary skills to survive the wilderness. The stakes are high, but the Raney family is determined to prepare these families for nature's worst and set them up for success. Each family faces the ultimate decision: will they tough out their first year or pack up and return to civilization?

So the basic premise of the show, obviously, is teaching these people basic survival skills — hunting, farming, power generation, water for drinking and irrigation, keeping your family safe while surrounded by threats 24x7 — thus enabling them to survive and ultimately thrive.

But as I watched it something else became clear — growth as people and within families, and committment to the lifestyle are essential parts of the puzzle, too. Buried emotional family drama is frequently uncovered when — as in one episode in season 2 — a dad decides to move the family from an urban setting to a remote wilderness when kids are young, and those kids may harbor resentment over living someone else’s dream, but they also feel needed and don’t want to let dad down, so they are conflicted and therefore not fully committed to the lifestyle. 

Then by learning new skills which permits them to feel more comfortable with the lifestyle, they can let go of the resentment. The more skills you acquire, the better prepared you are to help others, not just with practical life skills, but with emotional support too. 

And the problem-solver inside me loves the different ways they hack together water-delivery systems, greenhouses that trap heat during the day and release it at night even in cold climates, and all kinds of other clever things.

I’m not sure if I’m cut out to live that lifestyle because I like my R&R too much, but it’s fascinating to get a glimpse of modern-day people living an 1880s lifestyle and not just making it work, but thriving. 

 

Yellowstone: One of the Best Shows on TV

Streaming or Otherwise, Does Not Matter

Trailer for season one:

Videos at IMDB.

The scenery ... Holy Moses. Unbelievable. It’s like taking a trip out west, which of course has always been part of the appeal of any story set in the West. 

Costner is very good as the Old West patriarch of a powerful ranching family but so are all three (remaining) kids, with wildly different personalities and capabilities. Several ranch hands play big roles, especially Rip, also very good. 

Plenty of storylines involving tensions with local Indian leaders, land developers, politics, and of course land and livestock. This story could easily be from 1933 (mostly). Timeless, in other words.

Worth watching a few episodes to get the flavor and see if you want to continue or not. 

It’s Friday Peeps

Let’s Catch Up on TV Viewing

We finished watching The Kominsky Method this week so now there is a hole in our TV schedule that is shaped a lot like this show. 

Unlike anything I’ve seen in a long time with very likable characters — we’re all imperfect, let’s not forget — and excellent storytelling with a perfect blend of funny and touching that strikes all the right notes. 

Funny sometimes, touching and emotional sometimes, always believable. 

Comedy and tragedy. A lot like real life.

This is a difficult balance to achieve and as a result most shows and movies don’t even aim for it. This show aims for it and hits it, dead center.

At the same time I don’t want to undersell the comedy, or Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin, who are both terrific, as always. Two old pros — Arkin turned 87 in March and he could easily pass for someone 25 years younger, Douglas is 77 later this year — together on screen a lot. The show is worth watching for that alone (although Arkin is in seasons 1 and 2 only).

Paul Reiser is also very good as an aging hippie retired teacher and love interest of Sandy’s daughter, 30 years her senior. He plays Paul Reiser, bascially, but for me that’s usually pretty good in small doses. He also achieves the tricky comedy/tragedy balance and does it well.

The full cast is here and also includes Jane Seymour, Emily and Haley Joel Osment, Lisa Edelstein, and many other recognizable names.

You could easily binge-watch the entire series, 22 episodes, in a weekend or two, but this show is good enough you could also spread it out over a few months by watching just 2 or 3 episodes per week. It’s more impactful that way, at least for me. 

As for other shows we were watching, we’ve kind of checked out on those. Fargo ... eh, it’s a bit too murdery and dark for summertime viewing. I did watch a couple more episodes of Formula 1: Drive to Survive the other night and have completed season 1. Other than that, a lot of sports including of course Formula 1 Grand Prix.

Enjoy the weekend — it’s starting off cool for us and for a July 9 I will take that every time.

Streaming Updates and Other News

We finished watching a good short series yesterday, “Manhunt: Deadly Games” (Netflix, possibly others) about the pursuit of the Atlanta ‘96 Olympic Games bomber Eric Rudolph, and the incompetence and hubris of the FBI and the media in portraying the man who alerted law enforcement to the bomb, Richard Jewell, first as the hero he actually was and then as the primary suspect who was tried and convicted in the media for months. 

The phrase they keep coming back to in the show is “don’t judge by appearances”, and this whole case is Exhibit A. 

It’s far from a 100% factual account nor should we expect it to be. Never ever assume that you know exactly what happened down to the last detail from one TV show, movie, documentary, or news article. 

But getting every detail right is unimportant as long as the big picture is correct, and the big picture here is the mendactiy, hubris, and incompetence of the FBI and the media, followed by a refusal to admit mistakes even when it was beyond obvious that they had started down the wrong road by working together to destroy Richard Jewell.

It’s 10 parts but we easily watched it over 3 nights. Good performances by all, and I particularly liked Arliss Howard as the grizzled old veteran ATF bomb detective that first uncovers the bombing signature connection to the later bombings which rule out Jewell as the suspect in the Atlanta bombing. Highly recommended. 

Other News 

My highly debilitating vertigo episode of last week suddenly disappeared Friday evening within 20 minutes of taking the first sip of Friday night Guinness. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not. I do feel a lot better, although I have noticed the spins when I am lying down and move my eyes quickly, so something is still not quite right in there. Still — much much better. 

Weather this weekend was still very cool, highs in the 50s and breezy, and it’s 42° F right now at 7:30 am, with a high today of only 50 expected. Highs in the 60 all week it appears. But that’s ok with me — I like cooler weather in Spring and Fall. Keep the 80+ and high humidity days for June, July and August where they belong.

Enjoy Natalie Cole with a good version of the jazz standard “It’s Only a Paper Moon”.

We might have been the last people on Earth to start watching streaming TV, but we are fully committed now. We are on board.

More or less in order: Prison Break, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Queen’s Gambit, Ozark, Afterlife, and a few more that we just sampled and may revisit again someday. Some pretty good stuff in there, but everyone knows about all of those shows already.

I want to mention a show we’re watching now that we really like and that you may not know about: Last Chance U (Basketball).

Last Chance U started a few years ago and focused on football programs at community colleges around the country, the kind of places where players go when they had bad grades in high school, or tried a year of college and it didn’t work out for some reason. Key point: nobody wants to be there, they want to be somewhere else better but need to start there. 

Last year they did a basketball version for the first time, about East L.A. College. We found all the coaches and players likable (some presented a bit more of a challenge in this area) and easy to pull for. It’s a view of young men, and of college sports, that you never ever see unless you know someone personally in one of these programs.

Eight episodes, around 50 minutes each, on Netflix. Worth checking out. Here’s the official trailer.

Tomorrow: another show we like called The Kominsky Method.