Footnotes to the TV series
RORY: The panelists are up there. We sit across from them and ask questions. What’s the problem?
PARIS: It’s boring and predictable and done to death. I wanted Charlie Rose.
RORY: To ask the questions?
PARIS: His style. I wanted us sitting at a round table with black backdrops.
Charlie Rose, previously discussed. Apparently Paris is a fan of his show, as well as Lorelai. This now the third time Charlie Rose has been mentioned in Gilmore Girls.
[Rory exits the diner and runs to catch her bus as Luke walks over to the table]
LUKE: Fast runner.
DEAN: It’s the coffee.
LUKE: Not your face?
Luke is very resentful of Dean for standing in the way of Jess being with Rory, which is what Luke wants for him. (That may suggest he’s not as thrilled about Jess being with Shane). Here he gets a dig into Dean, implying that Rory should be running away from him. I don’t think he ever really forgave Dean for breaking up with Rory early in their relationship.
RORY: I thought we could see a movie or something.
DEAN: You’re not free.
RORY: How do you know?
DEAN: ‘Cause you’ll be working on your application all weekend.
Dean is now experienced enough to know that when Rory says she’s free to spend time with him, that means, unless she has unexpected homework to do. Or a test to study for. Or Paris wants her to do extra work for the newspaper. Or she suddenly discovers she’s got to do volunteer work all summer. He can even anticipate it coming before she can. Instead of fighting with her over it, he’s learned to just accept it.
DEAN: Well, what else do you call house jobs?
RORY: I call them the stuff you avoid until the Environmental Protection Agency steps in.
The EPA, previously discussed. Apparently the Gilmore method of housework means you only do it when the house is so filthy it’s a health hazard – even though we’ve never seen their house look dirty or even very messy.
RORY: So, what are you doing Saturday?
DEAN: Just my usual chores.
RORY: Your usual chores, John-boy?
Rory refers to The Waltons, previously discussed (and mentioned as using the same set as the Dragonfly inn). John “John-boy” Walton, played by Richard Thomas, was the eldest son of the family, and the protagonist of the series.
Rory seems to think the word “chores” sounds very rural and folksy. Unlike Dean, Rory doesn’t have regular chores – as it’s just she and Lorelai (and they both have work/school), she takes an almost equal share of the household tasks. It’s never made clear how Lorelai and Rory divide up jobs around the house, but they’re rarely shown arguing about it or even discussing it, and they have a relaxed approach in any case.
RORY: Wax on, wax off.
Rory quotes from the 1984 martial arts drama film The Karate Kid, directed by John G. Avildsen, and written by Robert Mark Kamen, who had earlier success with his screenplay for the 1976 boxing film, Rocky. It stars Ralph Macchio as karate student Daniel LaRusso, and Pat Morita as his mentor, Mr. Miyagi. The film was a commercial success, becoming a sleeper hit, and the #5 film of 1984. It received positive reviews, and launched Macchio’s career, while revitalising Morita’s, who had mostly been known for his comedic role as Arnold on Happy Days. It has also been credited with popularising karate in the US.
Mr Miyagi is the handyman in Daniel’s apartment, and when he defends Daniel from bullies with his unexpected karate skills, Daniel asks him to teach him karate. However, to his dismay, at first all Mr Miyagi does is give him chores to do, such as waxing his car – instructing Daniel how to do so with the words, “Wax on, wax off”.
Only later does Daniel realise that all the chores (waxing, sanding, painting) are teaching him the hand movements for karate and giving him muscle memory. Thus he learns to trust his mentor, knowing that even the seemingly mundane tasks he is given are a valuable part of his training.
Rory says this line teasingly to Lane, to remind her that every line she puts in her band advertisement has to be paid for out of her wages, and that if she’s going to make the ad really long, she’d better start waxing more tables. Rory is being realistic – Lane’s advertisement is ridiculously long and expensive!
It’s possible that on a deeper level, this quote from The Karate Kid is also saying that Mrs Kim is the Mr Miyagi to Lane’s Daniel. Although Lane’s mother seems harsh and stern, she is actually teaching her daughter some valuable lessons. Lane is certainly not afraid of hard work, and has a strong work ethic, which can only be of help in learning and practising music. And the Kim’s house is filled with music – religious music, but at least Lane has been brought up to listen to it. This could be a tiny hint that Mrs Kim is not a complete monster, and has had at least some positive effects on Lane’s musical aspirations.
LORELAI: And what’s with Jackson Browne making the list?
LANE: Ah, see, cool people know that he’s more than a mellow hippie-dippy folkie, that he actually wrote some of Nico’s best songs and was in fact her lover before he bored us with “Doctor, My Eyes.” That will separate the poseurs from the non-poseurs.
Clyde Jackson Browne (born 1948), musician, songwriter, and political activist. A precocious teenaged songwriter from Los Angeles in the 1960s, he had his first success writing songs for others. As a sixteen-year-old, he wrote “These Days” for the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which became a minor hit for German singer Nico, previously mentioned as one of Lane’s music idols, in 1967. After moving to Greenwich Village, he backed Nico, and they were romantically involved. He was a significant contributor to her debut album, Chelsea Girl, writing and playing guitar on several of the songs.
Jackson Browne’s self-titled debut album came out in 1972, and this includes the track “Doctor, My Eyes”, an upbeat-sounding track about being world-weary. It was a surprise hit, reaching #8 on the US charts, and most popular in Canada at #4. It’s become one of his concert mainstays, but Lane seems to regard his debut album as the start of Browne being “boring”!
Jackson Browne continued to have successful albums, with his signature work being 1977’s Running On Empty, peaking at #3, and with the title track reaching #11 in the US (#4 in Canada). His success continued through the 1980s, and his most recent album is Downhill from Everywhere (2021). He is regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time.
Note that Lane has no problems telling Lorelai that she has been lumped in with the uncool “poseurs” for not knowing about Jackson Browne and Nico – even though Lorelai has helped form many of Lane’s musical tastes (this seems very believable from a teenager). Viewers may find it amusing that Lane sees herself as having the ability to separate the poseurs from the non-poseurs, considering she’s quite the musical poseur herself.
LANE: Okay, I just crunched the numbers and at two thousand words and twenty-five cents a word, this stupid ad’s gonna cost five hundred dollars! That’s five months worth of Minwaxing end tables at my mom’s store.
Minwax is a company founded in Brooklyn in 1904 by Arthur B. Harrison. It’s currently headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. They make Minwax Wood Finish Stain, so Lane is staining end tables (small tables designed to sit next to an armchair or sofa).
This solves the mystery of where Lane gets the money to buy music and other paraphernalia – she gets paid $100 a month (around $25 per week) for staining furniture at the antiques store. It’s not a lot of money, but Lane is thrifty.
Lane refers to it as her “mom’s store”, even though she has a father as well (or she did at the start of the show, anyway). I don’t know if Mrs Kim is the actual sole owner of the store, or if Lane refers to it that way because she sees her mother as the “boss” of the store, being there all the time while her father is mysteriously absent.
By the way, if the antiques at Kim’s Antiques are genuine, staining them would destroy all their value, as they would no longer be authentic. This seems to further call into question the Kim’s dubious business practices as antique dealers.
LANE: But this is the cut-down version. I mean, just from the letter A, I excluded AC/DC, the Animals, and A-Ha, footnoted as a guilty pleasure.
AC/DC: Australian rock band, previously discussed.
The Animals [pictured]: English rhythm and blues and rock band, formed in 1962. They were known for their gritty, bluesy sound and deep-voiced frontman, Eric Burdon, most famous for their signature song and international #1, “The House of the Rising Sun”, as well as hits such as “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”, and “Please Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood”. After a new line-up, they moved to California in 1966 and achieved commercial success as a psychedelic and hard rock band, with hits such as “San Franciscan Nights”, and “When I Was Young”, before disbanding at the end of the decade. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
A-ha: Norwegian synth-pop band founded in Oslo in 1982 by Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitar), Magne Furuholmen (keyboards/guitar/vocals), and Morten Harket (vocals). Their 1985 debut album, Hunting High and Low, is their most successful – it yielded international hits such as “Take On Me” and “The Sun Always Shines on TV”, and went to #1 in Norway, #2 in the UK, and #15 in the US. They are the most successful global pop act to come out of Norway, and the first Norwegian band to be nominated for a Grammy. Their music has often been included in music soundtracks, they performed the theme song for the 1987 James Bond film The Living Daylights, and are one of the highest-grossing bands of all time.
I feel as if the commercial success and international acclaim of these bands might be what caused Lane to cut them from her extensive list. A-ha is probably a “guilty pleasure” because it is pop, rather than rock.
RORY: Let’s see – “Drummer with strong beat seeks band into the Accelerators, the Adolescents, the Adverts, Agent Orange, the Angelic Upstarts, the Agnostic Front, Ash . . .”
The Accelerators: Rock band from Raleigh, North Carolina, formed in 1982 by singer Gerald Duncan. They released three albums, and broke up in 1991, but Duncan recruited new musicians and brought out another album before retiring in 2000, then making a comeback in 2007 for a final fifth album. They had a bit of a following on college radio, and received some positive reviews.
The Adolescents: Punk rock band formed in Fullerton, California in 1980 by bassist Steve Soto. Part of the hardcore punk movement in southern California in the early 1980s, they were one of the main punk acts to come out of Orange County. They went through constant line-up changes, and released nine albums before Soto’s death in 2018, then another in 2020. Their self-titled debut album was one of the best-selling from the California hardcore scene, selling 10 000 copies.
The Adverts [pictured]: English punk band who formed in 1976 and broke up in 1979 after the accidental electrocution of their manager. They were one of the first punk bands to have chart success in the UK – their 1977 single “Gary Gilmore’s Eyes” reached #18 on the UK charts, and was considered one of the best punk singles of the 1970s. Bassist Gaye Advert (born Gaye Black) has been described as the first female punk star, which might be another reason Lane is drawn to them.
Agent Orange: Punk rock band formed in Placentia, California in 1979 – like The Adolescents, they were leading lights in the 1980s southern Californian hardcore punk scene, and were also founded by Steve Soto. They were one of the first bands to mix punk with surf rock, for a distinctively Californian punk sound. They brought out three studio albums, and are still going, despite the deaths of three of their bassists.
Angelic Upstarts: English punk rock band formed in 1977, described as one of the most politically-charged and thought provoking of the era. Their politics are anti-fascist and socialist working class, pioneers of the Oi! subgenre that unites punk and skinhead cultures. They have released twelve studio albums, with the most recent in 2016. Their debut single, “The Murder of Liddle Towers”, was included in Mojo‘s list of the best punk rock singles of all time.
Agnostic Front: Hardcore punk band formed in New York City in 1980 by lead guitarist Vincent “Vinnie Stigma” Cappuccio. They are considered an important influence on the New York hardcore scene, as well as pioneers of the crossover thrash genre that fuses thrash metal and hardcore punk. From the beginning, they have had a strong connection with skinheads, like the Angelic Upstarts. They’ve had twelve studio albums, most recently in 2019.
Ash, previously discussed. This is now the third time this band has been mentioned. It is a favourite of both Rory and Lane.
Just from the bands starting with A, we can see that Lane’s favourite bands tend to be hardcore punk and alternative/indie rock.
The Annotated Gilmore Girls 