I could write a small novel on this most recent holiday, but I don't want you fine people to think I have nothing better to do than sit in front of a computer all day long (Nay, it is the television that is my glowing comfort). So, here are my Christmas highlights -- bullet point style.
-- Lunch with Jasmyne -- lovely and thoughtful friend.
-- Documenting the creation of the Deines' first snow-penguin (see picture) while Brian enlightened Eileen on the subject of yellow snow.
-- Breaking down Mac's pool table (yes, it's the end of an era) and transferring it to Mike's developing bachelor pad.
-- Finding a way to get Andrew into the Cousin's picture (and he looked better than all of us).
-- Giving Uncle Joel his Thanksgiving picture.
-- Not crying, no matter how many times I had to hide in the bathroom.
-- 24 vol. 4, and Scrubs Vol. 2. Of course I had to mention some presents. It's Christmas.
-- Playing hopscotch with Eileen. I think she was crushing on me a little.
-- Using my brief time on the phone with Andrew to talk about the potential Mark Prior trade. Also, finally being able to ask him how he was, and hearing his response.
-- Being the first out at the Deines poker game, then coming back like a champ at the Rockwells on Christmas Day. Constantly raking.
-- Finding new and imaginative ways of blaming my Uncle Danny for my being laid off.
-- Bears v. Packers on Christmas Day. Beautiful win.
-- Having a five and six-way conversation on religion and politics with Norm, Dee, and their girls.
-- Learning that the best way to prevent religiosity in your children is to send them to Catholic school.
-- Finding out how much I can sweat standing still when Norm badgered me about my opinion of his daughters (for the record, yes, your girls are gorgeous, Norm. But I've also seen them in diapers, so it takes a minor adjustment to realize one of them is old enough to drink.)
-- Two families (Rockwells and Andersons crammed behind my recliner as I attempt to take our picture with the camera facing me. I would love to post that picture, unfortunately I ended up looking like Uncle Fester strapped to an electric chair. And after my admission in the previous bullet point, can you honestly expect me to volunteer such a horrifying representation of myself? If I had that little pride I would have kept the White Trash Stache (is it wrong that I kind of miss it?)
Of course all of these highlights are simply my effort to find something good in the first Christmas where I sat alone on my parents' couch to open presents. There was no stocking of silly Happy Meal toys. No evenly distributed presents. No snarky ribbing of mom and her militaristic Christmas tree ettiquette. We burned through that experience as fast as we could, as if the faster we went the less we would notice Andrew's absence. Needless to say, it didn't work.
Andrew, I miss you. If the amount of misdirected anger around here is any indication, I miss you a lot. But I'm proud of you and I admire your courage. Stay smart and come home safe so you and I can once again sit on the couch and give mom some shit; she needs it.
Merry Christmas, Baby Bro. And here's to a speedy 2006.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
Care Package
This is funny. Literally, two seconds after finishing up my previous post about jealousy I was hit with such a tremendous dose of it that I went straight past petty envy to seething anger. So, let's just look at that last post as being about my gratitude for my friend Jasmyne, rather than the whole jealousy thing.
This will be my jealousy post. I've been going slightly stir-crazy since I lost my job. My afternoon with Jasmyne and my Uncle Joel were temporary antidotes, but barely 24 hours later their affect has been negated.
This week leading up to Christmas, my mother has made the holidays all about Andrew. That's only natural. He's just gotten to Iraq. His absence here is glaring. We all miss him. But where I differ from my mother (in kind, and certainly degree) is, for her, Christmas has to be all about Andrew... for everybody else... all the time.
A few of the gifts I put together for my family were 8X10 photographs of my brother with various people at Thanksgiving. I didn't get a picture with every person who stepped through the door, but I got a few. And I'm sure the people who I got pictures of will appreciate the gift. But seeing this, my mother got it in her head that everybody needed a similar picture with Andrew.
So, I was given a handful of prints to take to Walgreens this morning to make copies of, but there was one minor difference. The pictures I printed and framed were taken with a thousand dollar digital camera at its highest pixel rate that I touched up in Photoshop. The pictures my mother sent with me to Walgreens were taken with a $5.99 disposable from Wal-Mart. These photos make Civil War etchings look hi-res. I understand the sentiment, but the presentation is (to my perfectionist eyes) almost offensive.
Plus they're all just things. Things. My mother is losing her mind about things. Like a photo is necessary to remember my brother. My brother is on my mind every waking moment, and I don't have one photo anywhere around of him. I don't need one. I don't need a reminder. He's in my heart. And nobody who gets those shitty, disposable camera blow-ups are going to need them either.
But I digress.
As I was writing my previous post, my mother came home from an afternoon of shopping and ripped into my dad for not going to the post office for more boxes to mail to my brother. We have two full boxes already sitting in our house, yet to be mailed, and my mother was absolutely furious that my father (who has slept most of the afternoon and is sick as a dog) did not go get more. Just based on her weekly tally thus far, my brother is going to return home with thousands of dollars of books and DVDs and other tripe that there is no way he will be able to use (he does have a full-time job over there).
My mother has seemed to equate these care packages with proof of her love. If Andrew doesn't get as many packages as the other guys, or as good of stuff, she's going to feel in her mind that he feels unloved. It's completely irrational. My father and I don't have those concerns. He knows we love him and never for a moment will he doubt that while he's over there. That's why we don't write him e-mails every day. That's why we aren't pulling our hair out over these packages. And that's why my fuse is getting shorter and shorter with my mother's impatience with anybody who isn't the zealot she is.
The row between my parents was only a primer for what finally set me off (in my own repressed, low-key way). My brother spent three hours at Wal-Mart this afternoon. She returned home with at least ten bags of shit, and no wonder she threw a fit about not having enough boxes. All ten of those bags were going over to Iraq.
But wait (INSERT GIANT RED X HERE), there's more.
As I walked through the dining room, I saw a row of eight gift bags lined up on the table in front of my mother with the names of the men from my brother's unit written on the side. As I felt my stomach turn to lead I watched as my mother carefully sorted a table full of gum, candy, playing cards, etc. and dropped them delicately, one-by-one, into each bag. I scoured the table and saw that this wasn't some random collection of things. My mother put a lot of thought and care into what she dropped into those bags. She spent an afternoon gathering the materials, God knows how long actually planning the whole thing. I can deal with the overstuffed boxes Andrew will be getting over the next year, but something about the love and care my mother was putting into these unnecessary packages for his men -- I lost it.
And again, it wasn't about the things. My mother did all of her shopping for the entire family in two hours last night, so I'm certain there won't be anything stuffed under our M.I.A. Christmas tree that shares a tenth of the thought and care those gift bags got. My presents will be pulled off my half-assed list with all the passion of a refrigerator post-it. No imagination. No desire. Just something to cross of the weekly to-do.
It hit me tonight that I need to leave this house. I don't care if I continue to live paycheck to paycheck, with no chance of putting money into savings. My mother is a zombie, essentially spending the year in Iraq with my brother. I can deal with being ignored, but not to my face. As much as I can, I'm living this year aware of my brother, but not chained to him. I have to do other things or I'll lose my mind. My mother is the opposite. She can't do other things, or she'll feel that she's neglecting her baby.
Hmm. Irony.
Fuck. Happy Holidays.
This will be my jealousy post. I've been going slightly stir-crazy since I lost my job. My afternoon with Jasmyne and my Uncle Joel were temporary antidotes, but barely 24 hours later their affect has been negated.
This week leading up to Christmas, my mother has made the holidays all about Andrew. That's only natural. He's just gotten to Iraq. His absence here is glaring. We all miss him. But where I differ from my mother (in kind, and certainly degree) is, for her, Christmas has to be all about Andrew... for everybody else... all the time.
A few of the gifts I put together for my family were 8X10 photographs of my brother with various people at Thanksgiving. I didn't get a picture with every person who stepped through the door, but I got a few. And I'm sure the people who I got pictures of will appreciate the gift. But seeing this, my mother got it in her head that everybody needed a similar picture with Andrew.
So, I was given a handful of prints to take to Walgreens this morning to make copies of, but there was one minor difference. The pictures I printed and framed were taken with a thousand dollar digital camera at its highest pixel rate that I touched up in Photoshop. The pictures my mother sent with me to Walgreens were taken with a $5.99 disposable from Wal-Mart. These photos make Civil War etchings look hi-res. I understand the sentiment, but the presentation is (to my perfectionist eyes) almost offensive.
Plus they're all just things. Things. My mother is losing her mind about things. Like a photo is necessary to remember my brother. My brother is on my mind every waking moment, and I don't have one photo anywhere around of him. I don't need one. I don't need a reminder. He's in my heart. And nobody who gets those shitty, disposable camera blow-ups are going to need them either.
But I digress.
As I was writing my previous post, my mother came home from an afternoon of shopping and ripped into my dad for not going to the post office for more boxes to mail to my brother. We have two full boxes already sitting in our house, yet to be mailed, and my mother was absolutely furious that my father (who has slept most of the afternoon and is sick as a dog) did not go get more. Just based on her weekly tally thus far, my brother is going to return home with thousands of dollars of books and DVDs and other tripe that there is no way he will be able to use (he does have a full-time job over there).
My mother has seemed to equate these care packages with proof of her love. If Andrew doesn't get as many packages as the other guys, or as good of stuff, she's going to feel in her mind that he feels unloved. It's completely irrational. My father and I don't have those concerns. He knows we love him and never for a moment will he doubt that while he's over there. That's why we don't write him e-mails every day. That's why we aren't pulling our hair out over these packages. And that's why my fuse is getting shorter and shorter with my mother's impatience with anybody who isn't the zealot she is.
The row between my parents was only a primer for what finally set me off (in my own repressed, low-key way). My brother spent three hours at Wal-Mart this afternoon. She returned home with at least ten bags of shit, and no wonder she threw a fit about not having enough boxes. All ten of those bags were going over to Iraq.
But wait (INSERT GIANT RED X HERE), there's more.
As I walked through the dining room, I saw a row of eight gift bags lined up on the table in front of my mother with the names of the men from my brother's unit written on the side. As I felt my stomach turn to lead I watched as my mother carefully sorted a table full of gum, candy, playing cards, etc. and dropped them delicately, one-by-one, into each bag. I scoured the table and saw that this wasn't some random collection of things. My mother put a lot of thought and care into what she dropped into those bags. She spent an afternoon gathering the materials, God knows how long actually planning the whole thing. I can deal with the overstuffed boxes Andrew will be getting over the next year, but something about the love and care my mother was putting into these unnecessary packages for his men -- I lost it.
And again, it wasn't about the things. My mother did all of her shopping for the entire family in two hours last night, so I'm certain there won't be anything stuffed under our M.I.A. Christmas tree that shares a tenth of the thought and care those gift bags got. My presents will be pulled off my half-assed list with all the passion of a refrigerator post-it. No imagination. No desire. Just something to cross of the weekly to-do.
It hit me tonight that I need to leave this house. I don't care if I continue to live paycheck to paycheck, with no chance of putting money into savings. My mother is a zombie, essentially spending the year in Iraq with my brother. I can deal with being ignored, but not to my face. As much as I can, I'm living this year aware of my brother, but not chained to him. I have to do other things or I'll lose my mind. My mother is the opposite. She can't do other things, or she'll feel that she's neglecting her baby.
Hmm. Irony.
Fuck. Happy Holidays.
Talking
Yesterday I had the pleasure of enjoying a rare lunch with the smartest girl I know, my dear friend Jasmyne. Naturally, coming off an earth-rattling e-mail from my brother, much of the early conversation revolved around those developments (thankfully our conversation did turn to less grave things like her allergy to the words "tits" and "bootleg" and my one Christmas wish, cuddle time with Kristen Bell). It was the first time I've had the chance to talk (face-to-face) with a friend about the changes in my life and my family since my brother left. As always, her insight was invaluable.
I have ties to many smart people. After lunch with Jasmyne, I spent three hours talking politics with my grandfather and Uncle Joel. I'm sure I could do the same with any number of my relatives. But it's always ideals and rhetoric and philosophy, which is remarkably impersonal despite our passions. My conversations with Jasmyne are different though. They're conversations about people, often about me.
I have a tendency to hide my feelings from even my nearest and dearest, and several years ago my friendship with Jasmyne was borne of that self-revelation. In the same moment she crushed my romantic advances, she became the first peer with whom I felt comfortable talking. In a peculiar way, I often viewed people's worry as condescension, like somehow people who offered me advice felt they were above me. Who are they to give me advice? I recognized the error in that judgment talking with her yesterday; sometimes people just care about you.
At one point in our lunch, Jasmyne asked me a rather perilous question: Was I jealous of the attention being paid my brother? Two years ago, I would have given an answer with more spin than an 80's DJ, but when I don't have to worry about somebody leaving me at the table or not returning my phone calls I can be more candid.
The answer is yes, but as I said to Jasmyne, it's not a "Look at me" sort of jealousy. Though I could never have walked the path my brother did, his life has had a consistant trajectory since he was 18 and got accepted into West Point. Two years my junior, my brother is doing something with his life, something honorable at that. When he leaves the Army (if he does), he will not have these years of transition, wondering what he's going to do. He'll have a job right out of the gates that will likely pay double what I've made in my best year (economically). Meanwhile, I have blown my savings during my year in Florida and have returned to my parent's home (no longer mine) to replenish my bank account and see if maybe I could finally find some direction for my life. Long story short, I'm not jealous of the attention; my brother deserves all the attention he gets. I'm jealous because I don't have anything remotely comparable in my life that would be worthy of attention. I remain a wandering dreamer, while my brother has his head down charging into the future.
There are many things in that confession that I wouldn't care for any girl I was courting to know. Jealousy is a particularly ugly trait, not to mention the admission of a lack of career direction and personal pride. So, it's hard for me to put into words how remarkable I find it to stare across a table at one of the most stunningly beautiful girls I've met and admit these things without worrying about how it makes me look or what she'll think of me. No longer worried about dating her (thank God her boyfriend Andy rescued me from that perilous pursuit), pretense becomes superfluous, and I'm a streamlined kind of guy. If there's no need for it, cut it.
At the beginning of what I hope is a therapeutic three days with friends and family, my lunch with Jasmyne was a great primer. I don't doubt if aftershocks of our conversation show up for weeks to come.
Smart, smart girl.
I have ties to many smart people. After lunch with Jasmyne, I spent three hours talking politics with my grandfather and Uncle Joel. I'm sure I could do the same with any number of my relatives. But it's always ideals and rhetoric and philosophy, which is remarkably impersonal despite our passions. My conversations with Jasmyne are different though. They're conversations about people, often about me.
I have a tendency to hide my feelings from even my nearest and dearest, and several years ago my friendship with Jasmyne was borne of that self-revelation. In the same moment she crushed my romantic advances, she became the first peer with whom I felt comfortable talking. In a peculiar way, I often viewed people's worry as condescension, like somehow people who offered me advice felt they were above me. Who are they to give me advice? I recognized the error in that judgment talking with her yesterday; sometimes people just care about you.
At one point in our lunch, Jasmyne asked me a rather perilous question: Was I jealous of the attention being paid my brother? Two years ago, I would have given an answer with more spin than an 80's DJ, but when I don't have to worry about somebody leaving me at the table or not returning my phone calls I can be more candid.
The answer is yes, but as I said to Jasmyne, it's not a "Look at me" sort of jealousy. Though I could never have walked the path my brother did, his life has had a consistant trajectory since he was 18 and got accepted into West Point. Two years my junior, my brother is doing something with his life, something honorable at that. When he leaves the Army (if he does), he will not have these years of transition, wondering what he's going to do. He'll have a job right out of the gates that will likely pay double what I've made in my best year (economically). Meanwhile, I have blown my savings during my year in Florida and have returned to my parent's home (no longer mine) to replenish my bank account and see if maybe I could finally find some direction for my life. Long story short, I'm not jealous of the attention; my brother deserves all the attention he gets. I'm jealous because I don't have anything remotely comparable in my life that would be worthy of attention. I remain a wandering dreamer, while my brother has his head down charging into the future.
There are many things in that confession that I wouldn't care for any girl I was courting to know. Jealousy is a particularly ugly trait, not to mention the admission of a lack of career direction and personal pride. So, it's hard for me to put into words how remarkable I find it to stare across a table at one of the most stunningly beautiful girls I've met and admit these things without worrying about how it makes me look or what she'll think of me. No longer worried about dating her (thank God her boyfriend Andy rescued me from that perilous pursuit), pretense becomes superfluous, and I'm a streamlined kind of guy. If there's no need for it, cut it.
At the beginning of what I hope is a therapeutic three days with friends and family, my lunch with Jasmyne was a great primer. I don't doubt if aftershocks of our conversation show up for weeks to come.
Smart, smart girl.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
On a Dime
A little over a week ago I was contemplating a post discussing how frighteningly mundane life is. I didn't expect complacency to nestle into our happy home so comfortably, so soon. I was in the shower, where much of my best thinking is done (note to self: take longer showers), and I realized that nothing had changed since my brother went off to Iraq. We see Andrew so infrequently throughout the year that standing in the shower, gelling up with Prell, it felt like things were as they had always been. Andrew off in Georgia, or New York, or Hawaii. The family at home.
Well, things changed quickly with two e-mails. In the first, my brother documented the mortar attack that welcomed him to Iraq. They quickly fled from their plane to a bunker, but not before my brother made note of the bullet strikes alongside the AC-130 that dropped them into the war. As horrifying as this could have been -- the first attempts on my brother's life -- Andrew coloured the experience with a jocular bemusement that distanced us (and probably himself) from it.
But no amount of tongue-in-cheek could dispell the horror that befell my family with Andrew's next e-mail. His first mission in Iraq started as a retrieval of a High Value Target and ended up as a complete ambush of US and Iraqi forces. Despite the absense of any US casualties, the Iraqi forces were decimated. The bodies were piled into the back of a pickup truck and dumped in front of the aid station, where my brother spent the rest of his day doing blood transfusions, and IVs, as well as stitching up the wounded. As my brother put it "I must have aged 25 years in a matter of 25 minutes."
Our house has been crippled ever since that e-mail. At the tail end of it, my brother promised to call that evening or the next day, so my mother has hunkered down in the living room with her quilts for the past two days (Andrew's deadline has since expired), occasionally taking breaks to knock out a game of sudoku online. In a wonderful twist of the knife, we received an inordinate number of telemarketing calls -- a few even asking for Andrew. It's a special kind of heartache when it comes courtesy of Spanky McG.E.D. from Sprint.
I empathize with what my brother is going through. This house is similarly on edge, but instead of mortars and gunfire we have doorbells and telephones. The night after we got the ambush e-mail, I had trouble sleeping. It was nothing special, just one of those nights. Somewhere around one o'clock in the morning, as I finally started to make headway on dreamland, I heard a car door slam outside. My eyes flew open, and I lay completely still in my bed, waiting... waiting... for that ring. After a minute or so I got up and headed inconspicuously to the kitchen, telling my mother I was merely getting a glass of water. In truth, I was going to make sure there wasn't a car parked in front of our house. There wasn't, but I could still hear the doorbell waiting as I walked back to my bedroom.
The next day a friend of Andrew's came to visit my mother. She knocked. Nobody ever knocks at my house, so my anxiety immediately hit 10. When I got to the door I saw a car on the street, one I didn't recognize. It all added up to "not good." I was awfully friendly to Brandi when she walked in the door. I don't know if I've shared more than one or two words with her in my life, but I was schoolgirl chatty when I welcomed her inside. She must have thought I was nuts, but really I was just thankful she wasn't wearing green.
The mood has changed, and I didn't expect it to be so swift. I thought my brother would have time to get comfortable, as we got comfortable, in war. But we dove in headfirst, and we're already choking on the saltwater.
I've called my brother's deployment The Longest Year. Well, The Longest Year just got a lot longer.
Well, things changed quickly with two e-mails. In the first, my brother documented the mortar attack that welcomed him to Iraq. They quickly fled from their plane to a bunker, but not before my brother made note of the bullet strikes alongside the AC-130 that dropped them into the war. As horrifying as this could have been -- the first attempts on my brother's life -- Andrew coloured the experience with a jocular bemusement that distanced us (and probably himself) from it.
But no amount of tongue-in-cheek could dispell the horror that befell my family with Andrew's next e-mail. His first mission in Iraq started as a retrieval of a High Value Target and ended up as a complete ambush of US and Iraqi forces. Despite the absense of any US casualties, the Iraqi forces were decimated. The bodies were piled into the back of a pickup truck and dumped in front of the aid station, where my brother spent the rest of his day doing blood transfusions, and IVs, as well as stitching up the wounded. As my brother put it "I must have aged 25 years in a matter of 25 minutes."
Our house has been crippled ever since that e-mail. At the tail end of it, my brother promised to call that evening or the next day, so my mother has hunkered down in the living room with her quilts for the past two days (Andrew's deadline has since expired), occasionally taking breaks to knock out a game of sudoku online. In a wonderful twist of the knife, we received an inordinate number of telemarketing calls -- a few even asking for Andrew. It's a special kind of heartache when it comes courtesy of Spanky McG.E.D. from Sprint.
I empathize with what my brother is going through. This house is similarly on edge, but instead of mortars and gunfire we have doorbells and telephones. The night after we got the ambush e-mail, I had trouble sleeping. It was nothing special, just one of those nights. Somewhere around one o'clock in the morning, as I finally started to make headway on dreamland, I heard a car door slam outside. My eyes flew open, and I lay completely still in my bed, waiting... waiting... for that ring. After a minute or so I got up and headed inconspicuously to the kitchen, telling my mother I was merely getting a glass of water. In truth, I was going to make sure there wasn't a car parked in front of our house. There wasn't, but I could still hear the doorbell waiting as I walked back to my bedroom.
The next day a friend of Andrew's came to visit my mother. She knocked. Nobody ever knocks at my house, so my anxiety immediately hit 10. When I got to the door I saw a car on the street, one I didn't recognize. It all added up to "not good." I was awfully friendly to Brandi when she walked in the door. I don't know if I've shared more than one or two words with her in my life, but I was schoolgirl chatty when I welcomed her inside. She must have thought I was nuts, but really I was just thankful she wasn't wearing green.
The mood has changed, and I didn't expect it to be so swift. I thought my brother would have time to get comfortable, as we got comfortable, in war. But we dove in headfirst, and we're already choking on the saltwater.
I've called my brother's deployment The Longest Year. Well, The Longest Year just got a lot longer.
G.I. Joe and Mr. Jolie
Some of you may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in the past couple of days. It's true. I have been away, and honestly it's cause I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say to a bunch of guys who were thrilled, THRILLED at getting every Brad Pitt movie on DVD. Now, I like Ocean's 11 as much as the next guy, but Cool World? There's just no excuse for that. Although that might explain why he got 150 DVD's for a C-note (a hundred dollars for those of you not down).
Seriously though, I should say something about what's really important here. And that's the fact that my brother is finally going to partake and that holiest of holies... 24. Finally, after much grandstanding my brother and I can share in Jack Bauer's many adventures. Now, if I could just get a certain aunt and uncle (you know who you are) to finish up season 3 and get on to season 4. It's the best yet.
I suppose some of you would expect me to say something about my brother's trials in his first week in Iraq, but I don't need to.
He said it best: "I'm invincible."
I'd ask any of you who know him well to argue with his assessment.
Seriously though, I should say something about what's really important here. And that's the fact that my brother is finally going to partake and that holiest of holies... 24. Finally, after much grandstanding my brother and I can share in Jack Bauer's many adventures. Now, if I could just get a certain aunt and uncle (you know who you are) to finish up season 3 and get on to season 4. It's the best yet.
I suppose some of you would expect me to say something about my brother's trials in his first week in Iraq, but I don't need to.
He said it best: "I'm invincible."
I'd ask any of you who know him well to argue with his assessment.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
Babysitter
From time to time I've wondered whether I resent all the attention my brother is getting. I'm increasingly impatient with people who feel the need to involve me with every single thing they're doing for my brother. It's absolutely necessary that I collect newspaper articles for my brother. It's absolutely necessary that I choose the books to put into his care package. It's absolutely necessary that I help my grandfather pick cigars to send my brother's squad.
You're all adults people. These are your projects. They're not family projects. Andrew knows who is responsible for all these things. He knows that Mom is the care package diva, just as he knows that Dad has to mail it for her. I picked out his books and wrote a little preface in each one, but Andrew knows full well that my mom is going to be a slavedriver with these packages.
I know everybody has to deal with this year in their own way, but damn I wish they didn't all seem to conflict with each other.
You're all adults people. These are your projects. They're not family projects. Andrew knows who is responsible for all these things. He knows that Mom is the care package diva, just as he knows that Dad has to mail it for her. I picked out his books and wrote a little preface in each one, but Andrew knows full well that my mom is going to be a slavedriver with these packages.
I know everybody has to deal with this year in their own way, but damn I wish they didn't all seem to conflict with each other.
Checks and Bullshit
I'm not a political alarmist. I listen to my fair share of Air America, and while I enjoy listening to thoughtful people who come closer to my personal sensibility, so much of the liberal handwringing is ineffectual and often beside the point. Finding out how much congress and the American people were misled before the war in Iraq is irrelevant now. If it wasn't deliberate malfeasence on the part of the administration, then it was incompetence; pick one, they're equally troubling, and neither of them will help us solve our current situation.
Yet, Randi Rhodes and those like her on progressive radio will not let the past go (much like Right Wing radio returns to Bill's BJ whenever they're backed into a cornere). Liberals continue to pummel the dead horse of Bush's questionable election wins. They dwell on all of the administration's past mistakes without offering any solutions to our current quandries. We need visionaries right now. Not sour grapes.
And this week has revealed how dire that need is. Like I said, I'm not a political alarmist, but a number of stories broke in rapid succession this week (many hidden on the back pages) that intensified my malaise towards the next three years of W's rule. There's a sense of helplessness right now for many Americans. We're trapped in Iraq, at the will of the administration's obstinate rhetoric. Meanwhile, they continue to bend and break laws behind the immunity of power and secrecy, all in the the name of homeland security.
First this week comes news that officials at the Pentagon were secretly surveilling groups adversarial to the administration. Some of these groups, including an anti-war group gathering at the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, FL to protest military recruitment in high schools, were small neighborhood activist groups who were being observed under the pretense of home security. Another group, the (no shit) Raging Grannies, were also under surveillance. Well, I guess if they can't tell that Granny doesn't have a bomb in her shoes at the airport, why should the Pentagon be any different?
This week also showed that even when congress posts a win for personal freedoms, killing an extension to the Patriot Act, it is clear that the administration will continue to act as it sees fit from outside the purview of congressional approval. The New York Times broke a story that Bush authorized the NSA to spy on hundreds of Americans within the United States. Because of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed in 1978, domestic spying is unlawful without a warrant. What Bush did was essentially eliminate the need to obtain a warrant. This by itself wouldn't alarm me. As Bush stated, these wiretaps were mainly to observe people with ties to Al Qaeda, and I'd gladly give him the benefit of the doubt here. But paired with the Pentagon's secret database on anti-war groups, these stories reveal both the ability to circumvent the law and a desire to keep tabs on those who oppose this administration. As if that weren't enough, Bush then conducted a live radio address in which he praised the program, vowed to continue it, and then criticized the New York Times for divulging the existence of the program.
This response from the President is staggering. Not only does he admit to stepping around the law, but he also promises the practice will continue. Then the cherry on the sundae, the criticism of the press. I know the Bush administration is allergic to accountability, but they're not even being coy about it anymore. Of course, the free press is only free so much as it makes the case for Bush's myopic agenda (see the propaganda machine currently uncovered in Iraq). I guess covering your true nature for so long has to be hard (it's why I quit my bartending job), and the wolf is clearly starting to itch inside the sheep's clothing.
Three more years of the wolf. Three more years.
Yet, Randi Rhodes and those like her on progressive radio will not let the past go (much like Right Wing radio returns to Bill's BJ whenever they're backed into a cornere). Liberals continue to pummel the dead horse of Bush's questionable election wins. They dwell on all of the administration's past mistakes without offering any solutions to our current quandries. We need visionaries right now. Not sour grapes.
And this week has revealed how dire that need is. Like I said, I'm not a political alarmist, but a number of stories broke in rapid succession this week (many hidden on the back pages) that intensified my malaise towards the next three years of W's rule. There's a sense of helplessness right now for many Americans. We're trapped in Iraq, at the will of the administration's obstinate rhetoric. Meanwhile, they continue to bend and break laws behind the immunity of power and secrecy, all in the the name of homeland security.
First this week comes news that officials at the Pentagon were secretly surveilling groups adversarial to the administration. Some of these groups, including an anti-war group gathering at the Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, FL to protest military recruitment in high schools, were small neighborhood activist groups who were being observed under the pretense of home security. Another group, the (no shit) Raging Grannies, were also under surveillance. Well, I guess if they can't tell that Granny doesn't have a bomb in her shoes at the airport, why should the Pentagon be any different?
This week also showed that even when congress posts a win for personal freedoms, killing an extension to the Patriot Act, it is clear that the administration will continue to act as it sees fit from outside the purview of congressional approval. The New York Times broke a story that Bush authorized the NSA to spy on hundreds of Americans within the United States. Because of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act passed in 1978, domestic spying is unlawful without a warrant. What Bush did was essentially eliminate the need to obtain a warrant. This by itself wouldn't alarm me. As Bush stated, these wiretaps were mainly to observe people with ties to Al Qaeda, and I'd gladly give him the benefit of the doubt here. But paired with the Pentagon's secret database on anti-war groups, these stories reveal both the ability to circumvent the law and a desire to keep tabs on those who oppose this administration. As if that weren't enough, Bush then conducted a live radio address in which he praised the program, vowed to continue it, and then criticized the New York Times for divulging the existence of the program.
This response from the President is staggering. Not only does he admit to stepping around the law, but he also promises the practice will continue. Then the cherry on the sundae, the criticism of the press. I know the Bush administration is allergic to accountability, but they're not even being coy about it anymore. Of course, the free press is only free so much as it makes the case for Bush's myopic agenda (see the propaganda machine currently uncovered in Iraq). I guess covering your true nature for so long has to be hard (it's why I quit my bartending job), and the wolf is clearly starting to itch inside the sheep's clothing.
Three more years of the wolf. Three more years.
God Bless America
Wal-Mart is arguably the largest economical parasite alive in America today. It decimates local businesses and takes advantage of its workers (it is the largest employer of workers on welfare in the country and it does its best to keep workers there) all for the sake of low prices. Of all the things that Wal-Mart is guilty of this is what people are picketing the store for. This is the type of priority problem that put Big Brother in the White House for four more years.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Lost Midseason Report
What has happened?Oh, sweet Jesus. All right. Bare bones. After opening the hatch, Jack and Co. discover a lived in bunker where a mysterious Australian named Desmond is in charge of entering The Numbers into an archaic computer every 108 minutes. After Desmond bails, Locke and Jack set-up a rotating shift to take up the computer duties. Meanwhile, Jin, Michael, and Sawyer survive the attack on the raft only to land on the other side of the island where a handful of survivors from the tail section including Ana Lucia (a former cop with anger issues), Mr. Eko (a silent giant carrying a big stick), and Rose’s husband, Bernard have had a much different experience on the island with many of them being kidnapped or killed by The Others (including all the children). Because of Sawyer’s infected bullet wound (I think), the tailies decide to cross the island to where the rest of the survivors are holed up. Stalked by The Others the entire trip, the tailies are noticeably on edge when Shannon stumbles into their path and is swiftly shot and killed by Ana Lucia. All of the survivors reunite just in time for Michael to use the mysterious computer to speak to his kidnapped son, Walt. Or is it?
I know there are things I skipped, but I don’t want to write a novel. So, watch the show if you want all the minutae.
What’s good?
The mysteries continue to pile up. The reveal of the hatch did little to quell viewers appetites, because it only opened up a Pandora’s box of WTFs for those who thought they’d get answers. The mythology of the show, which has been pretty heavy for the first half of this season, has not disappointed, and that’s without so much as a whisper from “the monster.” Now that the survivors are all together again, the show has regained the dramatic weight that was its lifeblood last season. This has been a long prologue for a season that promises profound change. January 12 is a long way away.
What’s not so good?
One of the marvel’s of Lost’s first season was the remarkable distance traveled over the course of the year. Watching the show again on DVD, that became readily apparent as I realized the many things that were still to come. This season has very much been the opposite. Nine episodes into the season, it feels like we’ve moved very little. Though it feels like the show is set to put the pedal to the metal, it took a long time to get to that point. Also, while they are a staple of the show, some of the flashbacks have lost their magic. There are only so many secrets these people can have in their past, and already (Jin & Sun comes to mind) the flashback convention seems to be spread a little thin. Of course, there have still been some exceptional flashbacks including Hurley’s (with a tremendous performance from Jorge Garcia) and Shannon’s (that humanized the most shallow character in the ensemble right before they killed her).
Midseason MVP
Much has been made of the casting discoveries on this show -- Evangelline Lilly, Terry O’Quinn, and Josh Holloway -- but none has stood out more for me than Jorge Garcia. Hugo “Hurley” Reyes with his robust girth and understated eloquence (“Dude”) started off as a delightful comic presence in an intensely grave situation, but quickly moved to one of the more complex individuals in the cast. His throwaway one-liners and talent for physical comedy (the Jin sea urchin incedent was brilliant) are some of the most memorable moments of the series. His remark to Jack about Rose’s husband being white “Didn’t see that coming” was hilarious, but this season has also deepened our sympathy with Hurley’s position as fate’s whipping boy. Arguably the most resonant of the flashbacks was Hurley’s, as we see him trying to enjoy his life before the changes of his lottery win corrupt his future. Hurley's the heart and soul of the island.
Sixth-Man Award
This is hard to do on an ensemble show where over a dozen characters are treated equally within the story, but at this point in the season the honor has to go to Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s (yes I cut and paste that) Mr. Eko. As enigmatic as John Locke and the most physically impressive of the cast, Mr. Eko promises to be the most interesting discovery this season. With his carved stick and self-imposed forty days of silence, it’s unclear where this guy is coming from. In addition, his biblical exchange with Locke and accidental (?) discovery of the director’s cut of the orientation film this Rookie of the Year has jumped right into the middle of the island’s mysteries and I can’t wait to learn more about him.
Best Episode
While the last episode before the holiday break felt like Lost back in top form, it wasn’t my favorite. That honor goes to “Everybody Hates Hugo,” the Hurley-centric fourth episode of the season. Not only did it start off with one of the weirder teasers in the show’s history featuring a chicken suit, a Korean speaking Hurley and an English-speaking Jin ("Everything is going to change"), it had one of the more dramatically resonant flashbacks of the year. Made responsible for the stores of food in the hatch, Hurley flashes back to the day after winning the lottery. More confident in other’s resentment than his own good fortune, Hurley lives it up as best he can before coming forward. He quits his job. He asks out his crush. He does everything he can to assure himself that things won’t change with the money, but he knows better. On the island, he deals with the same sort of suspicion, knowing that his good fortune with the food will be resented by the other islanders. I’m sure there were some mystery components to the episode, but I honestly can’t remember them. But I’m one of those weird people who loves this show as much for its human drama as its mysteries. And everything in this episode, from the interactions of Rose and Hurley to the peanut butter to Hurley’s chosen resolution to the food issue, was Lost drama at its best.Final Decision
Much more uneven than last season, Lost has still been a thrill and it promises to get better. The first seven episodes felt like a necessary primer for what’s to come. The episodes after the uniting of the survivors have felt more and more like the best of last season: The pairings of different characters within the ensemble (Eko and Locke, Sayiid and Kate, etc), the quiet, sentimental moments (the removal of Jin’s handcuff, the gift of peanut butter), the nasty twists (the film in the Bible, Walt on IM). The show has its orientation again, and thankfully that usually means we’re about to lose ours. B+
Fun With Folicles
When you work in a freezer where -2 degrees Farenheit is considered a balmy day, you'll do anything to keep warm. I have at least $500 dollars of different cold weather gear in my closet that I bought to keep my toes and fingers from breaking off amidst the Popeye's chicken. And in addition to the clothing, I discovered that a shaggy beard is quite efficient in keeping the cheeks toasty. So, up until I got laid off this week I had not shaved since the middle of November. Part of shunning of the razor was for warmth, and part of it was some lazy/inspired decision that I was going to go hobo for the year my brother was away: not shave or cut my hair. I don't know what kind of perverse dedication this was, but it offered me some good cheer.
So, after nearly a month without shaving I had developed quite the Grizzly Adams, but in the two days I've been unemployed I realized that there were at least a couple reasons why refusing to maintain my hair would be ill-advised. First, I had to look nice for prospective employers. Second, and most importantly, over the holidays I will get to spend time with two of the most stunning and remarkable girls I've had the pleasure of knowing in my life. I only get to see them once (if I'm lucky twice) a year, and there's no way I'm going to leave them with a Shaggy dog image of me till next Christmas.
So confronted with this monstrosity of a facial forest and an extremely boring Saturday, I decided I was going to have some fun. So, here is what I came up with to cheer my brother's spirits in his first days in Iraq. I call it the Trailer Trash Stache, courtesy of Trucker Phil.
I'm sorry if I may have to depart with this magnificent specimen before I see many of you at Christmas, but like I said -- two beautiful girls. Still, I think I'm going to keep it for a while just because it makes my dad really, really uncomfortable. And that always makes me laugh.
Oh, and Brian. I know you're having a problem with that disappearing chin. Well, from the looks of that photo I have one to spare, so we'll see what we can work out on Christmas.
Yeehaw!
So, after nearly a month without shaving I had developed quite the Grizzly Adams, but in the two days I've been unemployed I realized that there were at least a couple reasons why refusing to maintain my hair would be ill-advised. First, I had to look nice for prospective employers. Second, and most importantly, over the holidays I will get to spend time with two of the most stunning and remarkable girls I've had the pleasure of knowing in my life. I only get to see them once (if I'm lucky twice) a year, and there's no way I'm going to leave them with a Shaggy dog image of me till next Christmas.
So confronted with this monstrosity of a facial forest and an extremely boring Saturday, I decided I was going to have some fun. So, here is what I came up with to cheer my brother's spirits in his first days in Iraq. I call it the Trailer Trash Stache, courtesy of Trucker Phil.
I'm sorry if I may have to depart with this magnificent specimen before I see many of you at Christmas, but like I said -- two beautiful girls. Still, I think I'm going to keep it for a while just because it makes my dad really, really uncomfortable. And that always makes me laugh.
Oh, and Brian. I know you're having a problem with that disappearing chin. Well, from the looks of that photo I have one to spare, so we'll see what we can work out on Christmas.
Yeehaw!
Thursday, December 15, 2005
House, M.D. Midseason Report
What's happened so far?
Dr. Gregory House continues his weekly forays into healing and harrassment, curing and castigating. As his complicated relationship continues with his ex-lover Stacy, Dr. Cuddy further complicates his life by promoting Dr. Foreman (if temporarily) over him. Meanwhile Dr. Cameron and Dr. Chase deal with the ramifications of a drug-induced one-night stand as well as Dr. Chase’s suspension (indirectly caused by the death of his father).
But who are we kidding? This show isn’t about long-term character arcs. It’s about House and his patients, and it that regard House still rules the… well, house.
What’s great?
Only Veronica Mars rivals Dr. Gregory House when it comes to great one-liners. The dialogue on this show remains some of the best on television, and though I had concerns about House becoming a pardoy of himself (as often happens with distinct characters) Hugh Laurie continues his streak of great work. Sela Ward’s Stacy Warner is a tremendous boon for the show; her scenes with house are some of the best of the season, and House’s actions towards her illuminate this character's complexity. He loves her (for which we empathize), but he expresses that by stealing her file out of her therapist‘s office. Brilliant, but flawed. How many great characters are born out of that description.
What’s not so great?
House is not a perfect show, but I don’t really have any complaints about it. That’s really quite amazing. If I had any complaint it would be the procedural (and often predictable) plotting of the show. But that predictability serves the show tremendously when it decides to go off the rails as it did last season with the Emmy winning “Three Stories” and last week’s “The Mistake.” So, even the show’s flaws pay off. Remarkable.
Mid-Season MVP
Duh. House. Without House there is no House. And the writers have done a magnificent job of revealing the complexity of Gregory House without sacrificing the savage wit that hooked us into the show in the first place.
Sixth Man Award
Robert Sean Leonard’s Dr. Wilson seems to be the unsung hero of this show. The only friend House seems to have, the two share an almost brotherly bond of respect and rivalry. Wilson is the only character who takes House’s shit without batting an eye and who seems to understand the pain of House’s existence. Equal parts admiration and sympathy, their relationship is so blithely comfortable that, just like House’s relationship with Stacy, it humanizes House even as he’s asking Wilson to pay for a pack of gum. Also, this season we’ve gotten brief glimpses into the unfortunate home life of Wilson, whose history with women has had more than it’s share of indiscretions. I hope we see more of Wilson’s life in the future.
Best Episode
Like last season’s “Three Stories,” “The Mistake” broke from the usual formula of the show, skillfully interweaving (and reweaving) a number of flashbacks as Dr. Chase prepares to go before a review board in the case of a deceased patient. The story relies on House and Chase’s culpability in the case, and has more twists and turns than the usual procedural episode. When it’s ultimately revealed that it was Chase’s error, and that error was caused by the death of his father, it’s a fairly dramatic blow. But nothing compared to the blow House gets when he’s put under the charge of his former underling, Dr. Foreman
Final Decision
No show this season has been more consistently entertaining than House. Sure it doesn’t have the complexity of Lost or Veronica Mars, but damn if it doesn’t deliver everything it promises. And occasionally it breaks the mold, and then we really get a treat. Great, great show. A-
Dr. Gregory House continues his weekly forays into healing and harrassment, curing and castigating. As his complicated relationship continues with his ex-lover Stacy, Dr. Cuddy further complicates his life by promoting Dr. Foreman (if temporarily) over him. Meanwhile Dr. Cameron and Dr. Chase deal with the ramifications of a drug-induced one-night stand as well as Dr. Chase’s suspension (indirectly caused by the death of his father).
But who are we kidding? This show isn’t about long-term character arcs. It’s about House and his patients, and it that regard House still rules the… well, house.
What’s great?
Only Veronica Mars rivals Dr. Gregory House when it comes to great one-liners. The dialogue on this show remains some of the best on television, and though I had concerns about House becoming a pardoy of himself (as often happens with distinct characters) Hugh Laurie continues his streak of great work. Sela Ward’s Stacy Warner is a tremendous boon for the show; her scenes with house are some of the best of the season, and House’s actions towards her illuminate this character's complexity. He loves her (for which we empathize), but he expresses that by stealing her file out of her therapist‘s office. Brilliant, but flawed. How many great characters are born out of that description.
What’s not so great?
House is not a perfect show, but I don’t really have any complaints about it. That’s really quite amazing. If I had any complaint it would be the procedural (and often predictable) plotting of the show. But that predictability serves the show tremendously when it decides to go off the rails as it did last season with the Emmy winning “Three Stories” and last week’s “The Mistake.” So, even the show’s flaws pay off. Remarkable.
Mid-Season MVP
Duh. House. Without House there is no House. And the writers have done a magnificent job of revealing the complexity of Gregory House without sacrificing the savage wit that hooked us into the show in the first place.
Sixth Man Award
Robert Sean Leonard’s Dr. Wilson seems to be the unsung hero of this show. The only friend House seems to have, the two share an almost brotherly bond of respect and rivalry. Wilson is the only character who takes House’s shit without batting an eye and who seems to understand the pain of House’s existence. Equal parts admiration and sympathy, their relationship is so blithely comfortable that, just like House’s relationship with Stacy, it humanizes House even as he’s asking Wilson to pay for a pack of gum. Also, this season we’ve gotten brief glimpses into the unfortunate home life of Wilson, whose history with women has had more than it’s share of indiscretions. I hope we see more of Wilson’s life in the future.
Best Episode
Like last season’s “Three Stories,” “The Mistake” broke from the usual formula of the show, skillfully interweaving (and reweaving) a number of flashbacks as Dr. Chase prepares to go before a review board in the case of a deceased patient. The story relies on House and Chase’s culpability in the case, and has more twists and turns than the usual procedural episode. When it’s ultimately revealed that it was Chase’s error, and that error was caused by the death of his father, it’s a fairly dramatic blow. But nothing compared to the blow House gets when he’s put under the charge of his former underling, Dr. Foreman
Final Decision
No show this season has been more consistently entertaining than House. Sure it doesn’t have the complexity of Lost or Veronica Mars, but damn if it doesn’t deliver everything it promises. And occasionally it breaks the mold, and then we really get a treat. Great, great show. A-
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
True Blue Collar
Finally, after years of trying I have joined the American workforce. Sure, I've worked since I was 17, but now I've followed in the traditions of GM and Case by getting laid off. Yes, TPC sadly couldn't find the business to keep me on hand, so it's back to the classifieds for new and exciting adventures.
Merry Christmas -- you're unemployed.
At least I got a free ham out of the deal.
Merry Christmas -- you're unemployed.
At least I got a free ham out of the deal.
Monday, December 12, 2005
John Spencer (1946-2005)
This is a sad day. Two of the major factors in my current love affair with television were the first two masterpiece seasons of The West Wing. As extraordinary in its casting as its writing, a key cog in the machine of West Wing's ensemble was John Spencer, who died this morning of a heart attack. Spencer's warm and witty Leo McGarry was often the heart and soul of the show, keeping a collected idealism amongst the storm of political manuevering. Spencer embodied McGarry with sage-like intelligence and a snarky sense of humor. Even as The West Wing became more dour in its later years, Spencer elevated every scene he was in. There's nothing greater in entertainment than seeing a great actor in his greatest role. This was one of the great matches in the history of television, and it's a great loss.
I came across this picture on my cousin's site, and it nearly made me cry. This was my favorite moment of the Thanksgiving holiday. Two pairs of brothers -- Andrew and myself, Lee and Brian -- four extremely thoughtful, eloquent young men talking politics, sharing some Cubans Brian brought back from his honeymoon. That is what I'll miss most.
As far as my peers go (I have to exclude uncles and aunts, etc. in this or I'll undercut my point), I can count on one hand the number of people who I simply enjoy talking to. Not chatting with. But talking. Hours and hours, late into the night. Deep stuff. Not so deep stuff. My cousin Brian is an extremely intelligent guy, and yet his blog title refrences the quality of a good shit. That's a wondeful mind.
My brother has a great mind too, and one distinctly different from my own (probably why we didn't get along in high school). I think many people who know me think that I am quite narrow-minded when it comes to people with whom I disagree. Not so. They just have to be thoughtful. I have to see evidence in their dialogue that they aren’t just espousing what their parents said, or what the media said, or what the Bible said. My brother and I have very different minds, and we do tend to disagree. But I’ll always listen to him because of his knowledge and his thoughtfulness. I wish more people possessed those qualities.
As far as my peers go (I have to exclude uncles and aunts, etc. in this or I'll undercut my point), I can count on one hand the number of people who I simply enjoy talking to. Not chatting with. But talking. Hours and hours, late into the night. Deep stuff. Not so deep stuff. My cousin Brian is an extremely intelligent guy, and yet his blog title refrences the quality of a good shit. That's a wondeful mind.
My brother has a great mind too, and one distinctly different from my own (probably why we didn't get along in high school). I think many people who know me think that I am quite narrow-minded when it comes to people with whom I disagree. Not so. They just have to be thoughtful. I have to see evidence in their dialogue that they aren’t just espousing what their parents said, or what the media said, or what the Bible said. My brother and I have very different minds, and we do tend to disagree. But I’ll always listen to him because of his knowledge and his thoughtfulness. I wish more people possessed those qualities.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Distraction
The thing about being blessed with an exceptional self-awareness is it's usually accompanied by a generous dollop of self-loathing.
This morning was one of those. I woke up to an e-mail from my brother and since I wasn't feeling particularly motivated this morning, I delayed in posting it to my blog.
Later on in the morning, my mother demanded that I post it so that she could print it out and take it to my grandparents' house. I was in the middle of a project when she asked, and I asked if it was really necessary. Of course, this provoked a rather unpleasant response.
My way of dealing with my brother's absence is considerably different from my mother's, and that's been causing problems. Everything dealing with my brother has a sense of urgency for her. We're preparing our first care package for Andrew, and my mother wanted it out on Friday. She isn't pleased that it's still sitting on our kitchen table.
My brother's first line of today's e-mail was "So in honor of my brother and all he's doing to keep himself busy(yet playing it off as if he's trying to help me out)," and that illustrates the main difference between myself and my mother. My brother's right. The blog, the books, everything I do is simply cosmetic. I know it doesn't mean anything, practically, to my brother in Iraq. It's simply cosmetic. I'm not doing it for me, or my brother, but for friends and family. If I had an insatiable need to do something that mattered for my brother, I'd go mad. Because I can't. Nothing I do here will protect him. Nothing I do here will have but the most fleeting influence on his morale when mortars disrupt his sleep and bullets whistle past his ears.
My mother has that insatiable need. And that's why everything feels so urgent for her. The care packages must get out yesterday, because Andrew needs them. I'm sure he'll enjoy them, love them. But they're just distractions from what's really going on. I think the difference between myself and my mother is that I know that at pack of gum isn't going to protect him. She seems to think otherwise.
This morning was one of those. I woke up to an e-mail from my brother and since I wasn't feeling particularly motivated this morning, I delayed in posting it to my blog.
Later on in the morning, my mother demanded that I post it so that she could print it out and take it to my grandparents' house. I was in the middle of a project when she asked, and I asked if it was really necessary. Of course, this provoked a rather unpleasant response.
My way of dealing with my brother's absence is considerably different from my mother's, and that's been causing problems. Everything dealing with my brother has a sense of urgency for her. We're preparing our first care package for Andrew, and my mother wanted it out on Friday. She isn't pleased that it's still sitting on our kitchen table.
My brother's first line of today's e-mail was "So in honor of my brother and all he's doing to keep himself busy(yet playing it off as if he's trying to help me out)," and that illustrates the main difference between myself and my mother. My brother's right. The blog, the books, everything I do is simply cosmetic. I know it doesn't mean anything, practically, to my brother in Iraq. It's simply cosmetic. I'm not doing it for me, or my brother, but for friends and family. If I had an insatiable need to do something that mattered for my brother, I'd go mad. Because I can't. Nothing I do here will protect him. Nothing I do here will have but the most fleeting influence on his morale when mortars disrupt his sleep and bullets whistle past his ears.
My mother has that insatiable need. And that's why everything feels so urgent for her. The care packages must get out yesterday, because Andrew needs them. I'm sure he'll enjoy them, love them. But they're just distractions from what's really going on. I think the difference between myself and my mother is that I know that at pack of gum isn't going to protect him. She seems to think otherwise.
Thursday, December 08, 2005
My TiVO 2006
The November sweeps have come and gone and while most of my favorite shows take a brief respite to allow the American consumers to push their credit limits, I thought it would be a perfect time to look back at the first half of this television season and see what we can expect from the second half.
We Hardly Knew Ya
After last year’s amazing new crop of shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars) this year's pickings were pretty slim. There were, however, a few oasis in this creative drought. Unfortunately, some of them would not survive. The only new comedy that I took a shine to, Kitchen Confidential, saw itself paired with the genius, but anemic-rated Arrested Development on Monday nights, and sadly for Bradley Cooper and crew, this sardonic and sexy ensemble (Jamie King, why must you leave so soon?) saw its fortunes mirror its mate. Both shows will air their final episodes this month before going on to that great static field in the sky.
On the drama side, Carla Gugino once again lands material that’s too smart and quirky for your average nimbiscle American viewer. Anyone who needs proof that there isn’t a God need only look at Gugino’s TV career. Horseface Paris Hilton I can’t get off my set, but the stunning and exquisitely intelligent lead of Karen Sisco and Threshold gets ripped away from me every other year. Of all this year's new shows that tried to imitate Lost’s intricate mysteries, Threshold came the closest. The alien invasion story has been told many a time (twice this season), but Threshold changed the game. We’re following the conspiracy this time around -- not the ones trying to uncover the conspiracy. We’re with the Cigarette Smoking Man, not Mulder and Scully. There were some serious chills to be had here (human teeth growing out of a tomato?) and with Gugino teamed up with Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek, but here closer to his mad scientist in Independence Day) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) pound-for-pound the most charismatic actor alive today, this show had a lot going for it when CBS pulled the plug. Sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs get to keep their prime time hour, but something smart and interesting. Pah!
As Homer Simpson once put so eloquently “Boooooooobies.”
Speaking of boobies -- actually not really, but where do you go after that? Though we got two and a half seasons of Arrested Development, we’re still losing it well before its time. Many in the mainstream media have hailed this show to no avail, so doing it myself seems especially futile. But the show will live on on DVD (and if life is fair, cable) so I have to at least give a fair eulogy to this brilliant program.
How funny is this show? So funny, you won’t realize how funny it is. The jokes are so layered, so rapid-fire that it’s impossible to catch every joke the first time around. Not only that, but this comedy has a mythology of its own. Jokes from the first and second episode are referenced twenty episodes later. In one of the first episodes ever, Lucille Bluth winks at her son, and its one of the creepiest laughs I’ve ever had. And then, this past Monday we see it again, but this time from her daughter and then her son’s fiancee. It’s funny by itself, but together with previous knowledge of the show it’s hilarious.
As good as the writing is, the impeccable cast takes it to another level. Jason Bateman’s straight-laced Michael Bluth may be the best straight man in the history of comedy. His muted reactions to the lunacy around him often gets deeper laughs than the broader gags. The rest of this remarkable ensemble is similarly perfect from Jeffrey Tambor’s George Bluth, Sr. to Tony Hale’s Buster to Alia Shawkat’s Maeby. The casting is so spot-on that even the star guest appearances are stellar including Henry Winkler as the Bluth’s inept lawyer and Liza Minelli as the cradle-robbing Lucille Austero.
It takes a lot to get me to cry laughing. It happens too rarely. Friends got its share. Scrubs (RETURNING SOON!) gets a lot. But Arrested Development, I laugh just thinking about it. All anybody ever has to do to get a smile out of me is say “Swoop me!” “Ready, Aim, Marry Me” may be the funniest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen. And the rest of the episodes are not far behind.
This is truly a comic tragedy.
Not so tragic was the demise of Reunion, an inspired concept that did everything poorly that Arrested Development did so well. Casting -- pretty, but vapid. Writing -- obvious rather than clever. Just bad, bad, bad. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean bad tidings for the reason I gave this show a chance in the first place: Alexa Davalos.
I mean come on. Give this girl a job.
I Gave You My Heart…
We Hardly Knew Ya
After last year’s amazing new crop of shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars) this year's pickings were pretty slim. There were, however, a few oasis in this creative drought. Unfortunately, some of them would not survive. The only new comedy that I took a shine to, Kitchen Confidential, saw itself paired with the genius, but anemic-rated Arrested Development on Monday nights, and sadly for Bradley Cooper and crew, this sardonic and sexy ensemble (Jamie King, why must you leave so soon?) saw its fortunes mirror its mate. Both shows will air their final episodes this month before going on to that great static field in the sky.
On the drama side, Carla Gugino once again lands material that’s too smart and quirky for your average nimbiscle American viewer. Anyone who needs proof that there isn’t a God need only look at Gugino’s TV career. Horseface Paris Hilton I can’t get off my set, but the stunning and exquisitely intelligent lead of Karen Sisco and Threshold gets ripped away from me every other year. Of all this year's new shows that tried to imitate Lost’s intricate mysteries, Threshold came the closest. The alien invasion story has been told many a time (twice this season), but Threshold changed the game. We’re following the conspiracy this time around -- not the ones trying to uncover the conspiracy. We’re with the Cigarette Smoking Man, not Mulder and Scully. There were some serious chills to be had here (human teeth growing out of a tomato?) and with Gugino teamed up with Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek, but here closer to his mad scientist in Independence Day) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) pound-for-pound the most charismatic actor alive today, this show had a lot going for it when CBS pulled the plug. Sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs get to keep their prime time hour, but something smart and interesting. Pah!
As Homer Simpson once put so eloquently “Boooooooobies.”
Speaking of boobies -- actually not really, but where do you go after that? Though we got two and a half seasons of Arrested Development, we’re still losing it well before its time. Many in the mainstream media have hailed this show to no avail, so doing it myself seems especially futile. But the show will live on on DVD (and if life is fair, cable) so I have to at least give a fair eulogy to this brilliant program.
How funny is this show? So funny, you won’t realize how funny it is. The jokes are so layered, so rapid-fire that it’s impossible to catch every joke the first time around. Not only that, but this comedy has a mythology of its own. Jokes from the first and second episode are referenced twenty episodes later. In one of the first episodes ever, Lucille Bluth winks at her son, and its one of the creepiest laughs I’ve ever had. And then, this past Monday we see it again, but this time from her daughter and then her son’s fiancee. It’s funny by itself, but together with previous knowledge of the show it’s hilarious.
As good as the writing is, the impeccable cast takes it to another level. Jason Bateman’s straight-laced Michael Bluth may be the best straight man in the history of comedy. His muted reactions to the lunacy around him often gets deeper laughs than the broader gags. The rest of this remarkable ensemble is similarly perfect from Jeffrey Tambor’s George Bluth, Sr. to Tony Hale’s Buster to Alia Shawkat’s Maeby. The casting is so spot-on that even the star guest appearances are stellar including Henry Winkler as the Bluth’s inept lawyer and Liza Minelli as the cradle-robbing Lucille Austero.
It takes a lot to get me to cry laughing. It happens too rarely. Friends got its share. Scrubs (RETURNING SOON!) gets a lot. But Arrested Development, I laugh just thinking about it. All anybody ever has to do to get a smile out of me is say “Swoop me!” “Ready, Aim, Marry Me” may be the funniest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen. And the rest of the episodes are not far behind.
This is truly a comic tragedy.
Not so tragic was the demise of Reunion, an inspired concept that did everything poorly that Arrested Development did so well. Casting -- pretty, but vapid. Writing -- obvious rather than clever. Just bad, bad, bad. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean bad tidings for the reason I gave this show a chance in the first place: Alexa Davalos.
I mean come on. Give this girl a job.
I Gave You My Heart…
I look back at all the love affairs I’ve shared with fictional leading ladies -- Laura Harris’ Ashley on “Fifteen,” Jenna Von Oy’s Six on “Blossom,” Emily Procter’s Ainsley Hayes on “The West Wing” -- and none of them hurt me more than Jennifer Garner’s Sydney Brystow on Alias. I have not been back to visit my favorite wig-wearing super-spy since the disastrously hurtful and offensive season premiere. Vaughn’s dead (or not, who cares now?) and Sydney’s playing Mr. Miyagi to some new agent while Ben Affleck’s demon seed gestates in her womb.
Man, I’m bitter.
I’ve never been good with break-ups. I moved to Florida after my last one. Not because of the girl -- at all -- but it certainly made things easier on me. I’ve employed the same strategy with Alias. I just don’t want to see it anymore. I’ll hear about the show, or see commercials that’ll entice me to give it another chance -- like small-town gossip in the grocery line -- but I know better. You broke my heart, Alias. I don’t care if you’re sorry. I can’t go back to that. You’ll just hurt me again.
If Alias was a long-term relationship that didn’t work out, Desperate Housewives is the one-night stand that I tried to get a little more mileage out of despite my better judgment. For those who haven’t seen it, Desperate Housewives’ first season is a masterpiece of sly, satirical mystery with tremendous character work by the entire cast. It’s one of those unfortunate cases with American television that when something is a success, it must be stretched for every dime. Housewives concluded its central mystery with such a tremendous, cathartic finale that it should have ended there. Nice and sweet. Clean break.
But along with Lost, Housewives was the other breakout for the resurgent ABC, and no way in hell they were letting it off into the sunset just yet. So, the writers got back to the drawing board, and the first episodes of the season could have been a handbook on the sophomore slump. Characters we’ve come to love acting either completely out-of-character (Bree getting dirrrrrrrrty with the pharmacist a matter of months after her husband’s death) or turning an endearing trait into a grating bother (Susan’s frazzled pratfalls). The worst place for a once-smart and savage satire to go is into self-parody. Unfortunately, that’s where the residents of Wisteria Lane are currently stuck.
Welcome to the Block
So, they killed Threshold and Kitchen Confidential, but a few of the new kids in town showed greater staying power. I was initially intrigued by the quirky procedural Bones (starring Joss Whedon alum David Boreanaz), but it sadly did not survive my final round of cuts. I still recommend it highly, but I had to curb my couch potatoing at some point. In fact, for most people I’d probably recommend Bones more than my favorite new show this year: Invasion.
Invasion takes the “television series as novel” concept that Lost started with its large cast and slow-developing mystery and pushes it even farther. I’ve endorsed a lot of television to friends and family over the past several years. It started with 24 (my DVDs are still circling through my family). Then Alias. Then Firefly and Lost. But I would be hesitant to recommend Invasion with the same passion. Not because I think it’s quality is lesser than those others, but because it does suspense in a very different way. It’s not the bomb-under-the-table suspense. It’s creepier. It’s the type of fear that slowly burrows into your heart, your mind. It stains where you live. As ridiculous as it may sound when referring to a show about an alien invasion, this show isn’t fantastic. It’s about the slow, subtle corruption of your home.
This show has developed with such a brutally deliberate pace that I was five episodes in before I realized how much I enjoyed it. One of the things I always liked about The Sopranos is how lived-in the show feels. The way Tony lumbers around in his robe, slurping up his cereal, vegging out in front of the television. Invasion has that same feel. The dialogue is plain and direct, the way real people talk, and much of the drama comes from the failed marriage of its leads. They live on top of each other in a small town. The kids are exchanged on weekends. And that world gets really small when one of them is now married to the town sheriff. This is enough to build a show around, but then there are the lights.
Invasion’s pace is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it is slow. God, is it slow. People flip out about Lost and it’s stingy doling out of secrets. It has nothing on Invasion. But that slow, almost mundane pace, lulls you into a calm just before it slams you with something completely unexpected. Not only that, but these surprises aren’t ones that make your jaw hit the floor; they’ll make you curl into a ball and call your mommy. 24 or Lost make you scream with surprise. Invasion wil make you whimper.
Like I said, I can’t recommend it for everyone, but for people who like more chill in their thrill, Invasion might be a great one to try.
The other rookie I have less trouble recommending. It’s pure visceral, no excuses entertainment. And of course, that means it is completely ludicrous. Prison Break starts off with a totally ridiculous premise. Michael Schofield robs a bank so he can break his death-row bound brother from a prison which Michael designed. If you can get past that, you’re in for a fun ride. This show twists and turns like 24 at its best, and over the course of its young season it has put together a very strong ensemble of heroes and villains. The six inmates who attempted the escape during the fall finale could all carry their own show, and that’s not including the one who dropped out in particularly violent fashion (no spoilers here). Of course, now we have to wait until March for new episodes, but when it comes back it gets paired up with 24.
I’ll say it.
Holy shit.
Big Returns. BIG Returns.
Like finding an unopened Christmas present a month later, 24 returns from its best season ever in January. Ever since the show went to its “Non-Stop Season,” I’ve spent the fall completely oblivious to one of my favorite shows (Lost and 24 are incomparably the best at what they do). I get into the shows I have like Lost and House and Veronica Mars. And then somewhere around November, the promo hits with the gold clock counting down and Keifer Sutherland’s unmistakable growl -- and I lose it. It happened during a Bears game this year.
Oh yea! The most exciting drama you’ve ever seen hasn’t even started yet!
Unfortunately, previewing this season would spoil last season for some of my family who are a little slow with the DVDs. So, I’ll just say it’s already a mystery exactly how Jack will come back this year, but angry Communist China will probably have something to do with it.
On a completely different note, Scrubs, the most delightful comedy on television returns with new episodes that we’ll get two-at-a-time because NBC’s comedy offerings are so embarrassingly grim. I have a special place in my heart for this show, because I got to do a photo shoot with the cast during my internship in L.A. before the show premiered. Every one of them was extremely personable and funny (karma does get you somewhere. Serves those snobs at “Inside Schwartz” right), and I immediately wanted to see them succeed (especially John C. McGinley who became my idol that day). As much as I liked those people, I was thrilled to see that the show was also very, very good. That nobody from this show has been nominated for an Emmy (especially McGinley and Zach Braff) is criminal.
Finally, my last “new” show has been going since September, but I haven’t been watching. And frankly, I owe Smallville an apology. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Smallville since I first sampled it in its second season. At the time I thought that it short-changed the ample mythology that Superman had to offer in favor of a Dawson’s Creek teen dramedy with monster-of-the-week storytelling.
Then I bought Season 1 on DVD, and suddenly it had a new life. I don’t know how I’ll do watching this show in a weekly context, because so much of the character relationships develop slowly and stew for long periods of time. On DVD, the momentum of Lana and Clark’s relationship and Lex and Clark’s tension is more readily sustained; on television, it can feel like it’s all just a bunch of wheel-spinning. Upon closer (and faster) viewing, there’s some really crafty stories being told here.
This show is good, but it somehow masks its quality with its pretty cast and exceptional production values. It lets you believe it's a guilty pleasure. I’m sure much of it has to do with the high school drama played out by very attractive young people (it came on the heels of Dawson’s Creek) and perhaps the aw shucks nature of the Kents, but the twists on the Superman legend are constantly surprising and never quite as we would suspect. This show is consistently entertaining (my dad has watched many episodes with me), and there are those stand out episodes where it reaches truly stellar heights (see Season 3’s Memoria).
I haven’t watched a single episode of this season because I wanted to catch up on the mythology, but everything I’ve heard has hailed season 5 as the best yet. Considering how much I’ve enjoyed the first three seasons (I’m just starting on season 4 today), I can’t imagine how good it must be.
Too much for words
So, those shows (aside from Smallville) are basically my B-list. The shows I’m fanatical about will get their own in-depth write-ups in the future. Those would include Lost, House, Veronica Mars, and The O.C. All of them have been on top of their game this fall, and promise to continue the trend into 2006.
Happy viewing kiddies.
My TiVo: Spring 2006
The November sweeps have come and gone and while most of my favorite shows take a brief respite to allow the American consumers to push their credit limits, I thought it would be a perfect time to look back at the first half of this television season and see what we can expect from the second half.
We Hardly Knew Ya
After last year’s amazing new crop of shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars) this year's pickings were pretty slim. There were, however, a few oasis in this creative drought. Unfortunately, some of them would not survive. The only new comedy that I took a shine to, Kitchen Confidential, saw itself paired with the genius, but anemic-rated Arrested Development on Monday nights, and sadly for Bradley Cooper and crew, this sardonic and sexy ensemble (Jamie King, why must you leave so soon?) saw its fortunes mirror its mate. Both shows will air their final episodes this month before going on to that great static field in the sky.
On the drama side, Carla Gugino once again lands material that’s too smart and quirky for your average nimbiscle American viewer. Anyone who needs proof that there isn’t a God need only look at Gugino’s TV career. Horseface Paris Hilton I can’t get off my set, but the stunning and exquisitely intelligent lead of Karen Sisco and Threshold gets ripped away from me every other year. Of all this year's new shows that tried to imitate Lost’s intricate mysteries, Threshold came the closest. The alien invasion story has been told many a time (twice this season), but Threshold changed the game. We’re following the conspiracy this time around -- not the ones trying to uncover the conspiracy. We’re with the Cigarette Smoking Man, not Mulder and Scully. There were some serious chills to be had here (human teeth growing out of a tomato?) and with Gugino teamed up with Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek, but here closer to his mad scientist in Independence Day) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) pound-for-pound the most charismatic actor alive today, this show had a lot going for it when CBS pulled the plug. Sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs get to keep their prime time hour, but something smart and interesting. Pah!
As Homer Simpson once put so eloquently “Boooooooobies.”
Speaking of boobies -- actually not really, but where do you go after that? Though we got two and a half seasons of Arrested Development, we’re still losing it well before its time. Many in the mainstream media have hailed this show to no avail, so doing it myself seems especially futile. But the show will live on on DVD (and if life is fair, cable) so I have to at least give a fair eulogy to this brilliant program.
How funny is this show? So funny, you won’t realize how funny it is. The jokes are so layered, so rapid-fire that it’s impossible to catch every joke the first time around. Not only that, but this comedy has a mythology of its own. Jokes from the first and second episode are referenced twenty episodes later. In one of the first episodes ever, Lucille Bluth winks at her son, and its one of the creepiest laughs I’ve ever had. And then, this past Monday we see it again, but this time from her daughter and then her son’s fiancee. It’s funny by itself, but together with previous knowledge of the show it’s hilarious.
As good as the writing is, the impeccable cast takes it to another level. Jason Bateman’s straight-laced Michael Bluth may be the best straight man in the history of comedy. His muted reactions to the lunacy around him often gets deeper laughs than the broader gags. The rest of this remarkable ensemble is similarly perfect from Jeffrey Tambor’s George Bluth, Sr. to Tony Hale’s Buster to Alia Shawkat’s Maeby. The casting is so spot-on that even the star guest appearances are stellar including Henry Winkler as the Bluth’s inept lawyer and Liza Minelli as the cradle-robbing Lucille Austero.
It takes a lot to get me to cry laughing. It happens too rarely. Friends got its share. Scrubs (RETURNING SOON!) gets a lot. But Arrested Development, I laugh just thinking about it. All anybody ever has to do to get a smile out of me is say “Swoop me!” “Ready, Aim, Marry Me” may be the funniest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen. And the rest of the episodes are not far behind.
This is truly a comic tragedy.
Not so tragic was the demise of Reunion, an inspired concept that did everything poorly that Arrested Development did so well. Casting -- pretty, but vapid. Writing -- obvious rather than clever. Just bad, bad, bad. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean bad tidings for the reason I gave this show a chance in the first place: Alexa Davalos.
I mean come on. Give this girl a job.
I Gave You My Heart…
We Hardly Knew Ya
After last year’s amazing new crop of shows (Desperate Housewives, Lost, Veronica Mars) this year's pickings were pretty slim. There were, however, a few oasis in this creative drought. Unfortunately, some of them would not survive. The only new comedy that I took a shine to, Kitchen Confidential, saw itself paired with the genius, but anemic-rated Arrested Development on Monday nights, and sadly for Bradley Cooper and crew, this sardonic and sexy ensemble (Jamie King, why must you leave so soon?) saw its fortunes mirror its mate. Both shows will air their final episodes this month before going on to that great static field in the sky.
On the drama side, Carla Gugino once again lands material that’s too smart and quirky for your average nimbiscle American viewer. Anyone who needs proof that there isn’t a God need only look at Gugino’s TV career. Horseface Paris Hilton I can’t get off my set, but the stunning and exquisitely intelligent lead of Karen Sisco and Threshold gets ripped away from me every other year. Of all this year's new shows that tried to imitate Lost’s intricate mysteries, Threshold came the closest. The alien invasion story has been told many a time (twice this season), but Threshold changed the game. We’re following the conspiracy this time around -- not the ones trying to uncover the conspiracy. We’re with the Cigarette Smoking Man, not Mulder and Scully. There were some serious chills to be had here (human teeth growing out of a tomato?) and with Gugino teamed up with Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek, but here closer to his mad scientist in Independence Day) and Peter Dinklage (The Station Agent) pound-for-pound the most charismatic actor alive today, this show had a lot going for it when CBS pulled the plug. Sure, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s boobs get to keep their prime time hour, but something smart and interesting. Pah!
As Homer Simpson once put so eloquently “Boooooooobies.”
Speaking of boobies -- actually not really, but where do you go after that? Though we got two and a half seasons of Arrested Development, we’re still losing it well before its time. Many in the mainstream media have hailed this show to no avail, so doing it myself seems especially futile. But the show will live on on DVD (and if life is fair, cable) so I have to at least give a fair eulogy to this brilliant program.
How funny is this show? So funny, you won’t realize how funny it is. The jokes are so layered, so rapid-fire that it’s impossible to catch every joke the first time around. Not only that, but this comedy has a mythology of its own. Jokes from the first and second episode are referenced twenty episodes later. In one of the first episodes ever, Lucille Bluth winks at her son, and its one of the creepiest laughs I’ve ever had. And then, this past Monday we see it again, but this time from her daughter and then her son’s fiancee. It’s funny by itself, but together with previous knowledge of the show it’s hilarious.
As good as the writing is, the impeccable cast takes it to another level. Jason Bateman’s straight-laced Michael Bluth may be the best straight man in the history of comedy. His muted reactions to the lunacy around him often gets deeper laughs than the broader gags. The rest of this remarkable ensemble is similarly perfect from Jeffrey Tambor’s George Bluth, Sr. to Tony Hale’s Buster to Alia Shawkat’s Maeby. The casting is so spot-on that even the star guest appearances are stellar including Henry Winkler as the Bluth’s inept lawyer and Liza Minelli as the cradle-robbing Lucille Austero.
It takes a lot to get me to cry laughing. It happens too rarely. Friends got its share. Scrubs (RETURNING SOON!) gets a lot. But Arrested Development, I laugh just thinking about it. All anybody ever has to do to get a smile out of me is say “Swoop me!” “Ready, Aim, Marry Me” may be the funniest half-hour of television I’ve ever seen. And the rest of the episodes are not far behind.
This is truly a comic tragedy.
Not so tragic was the demise of Reunion, an inspired concept that did everything poorly that Arrested Development did so well. Casting -- pretty, but vapid. Writing -- obvious rather than clever. Just bad, bad, bad. Hopefully, this doesn’t mean bad tidings for the reason I gave this show a chance in the first place: Alexa Davalos.
I mean come on. Give this girl a job.
I Gave You My Heart…
I look back at all the love affairs I’ve shared with fictional leading ladies -- Laura Harris’ Ashley on “Fifteen,” Jenna Von Oy’s Six on “Blossom,” Emily Procter’s Ainsley Hayes on “The West Wing” -- and none of them hurt me more than Jennifer Garner’s Sydney Brystow on Alias. I have not been back to visit my favorite wig-wearing super-spy since the disastrously hurtful and offensive season premiere. Vaughn’s dead (or not, who cares now?) and Sydney’s playing Mr. Miyagi to some new agent while Ben Affleck’s demon seed gestates in her womb.
Man, I’m bitter.
I’ve never been good with break-ups. I moved to Florida after my last one. Not because of the girl -- at all -- but it certainly made things easier on me. I’ve employed the same strategy with Alias. I just don’t want to see it anymore. I’ll hear about the show, or see commercials that’ll entice me to give it another chance -- like small-town gossip in the grocery line -- but I know better. You broke my heart, Alias. I don’t care if you’re sorry. I can’t go back to that. You’ll just hurt me again.
If Alias was a long-term relationship that didn’t work out, Desperate Housewives is the one-night stand that I tried to get a little more mileage out of despite my better judgment. For those who haven’t seen it, Desperate Housewives’ first season is a masterpiece of sly, satirical mystery with tremendous character work by the entire cast. It’s one of those unfortunate cases with American television that when something is a success, it must be stretched for every dime. Housewives concluded its central mystery with such a tremendous, cathartic finale that it should have ended there. Nice and sweet. Clean break.
But along with Lost, Housewives was the other breakout for the resurgent ABC, and no way in hell they were letting it off into the sunset just yet. So, the writers got back to the drawing board, and the first episodes of the season could have been a handbook on the sophomore slump. Characters we’ve come to love acting either completely out-of-character (Bree getting dirrrrrrrrty with the pharmacist a matter of months after her husband’s death) or turning an endearing trait into a grating bother (Susan’s frazzled pratfalls). The worst place for a once-smart and savage satire to go is into self-parody. Unfortunately, that’s where the residents of Wisteria Lane are currently stuck.
Welcome to the Block
So, they killed Threshold and Kitchen Confidential, but a few of the new kids in town showed greater staying power. I was initially intrigued by the quirky procedural Bones (starring Joss Whedon alum David Boreanaz), but it sadly did not survive my final round of cuts. I still recommend it highly, but I had to curb my couch potatoing at some point. In fact, for most people I’d probably recommend Bones more than my favorite new show this year: Invasion.
Invasion takes the “television series as novel” concept that Lost started with its large cast and slow-developing mystery and pushes it even farther. I’ve endorsed a lot of television to friends and family over the past several years. It started with 24 (my DVDs are still circling through my family). Then Alias. Then Firefly and Lost. But I would be hesitant to recommend Invasion with the same passion. Not because I think it’s quality is lesser than those others, but because it does suspense in a very different way. It’s not the bomb-under-the-table suspense. It’s creepier. It’s the type of fear that slowly burrows into your heart, your mind. It stains where you live. As ridiculous as it may sound when referring to a show about an alien invasion, this show isn’t fantastic. It’s about the slow, subtle corruption of your home.
This show has developed with such a brutally deliberate pace that I was five episodes in before I realized how much I enjoyed it. One of the things I always liked about The Sopranos is how lived-in the show feels. The way Tony lumbers around in his robe, slurping up his cereal, vegging out in front of the television. Invasion has that same feel. The dialogue is plain and direct, the way real people talk, and much of the drama comes from the failed marriage of its leads. They live on top of each other in a small town. The kids are exchanged on weekends. And that world gets really small when one of them is now married to the town sheriff. This is enough to build a show around, but then there are the lights.
Invasion’s pace is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that it is slow. God, is it slow. People flip out about Lost and it’s stingy doling out of secrets. It has nothing on Invasion. But that slow, almost mundane pace, lulls you into a calm just before it slams you with something completely unexpected. Not only that, but these surprises aren’t ones that make your jaw hit the floor; they’ll make you curl into a ball and call your mommy. 24 or Lost make you scream with surprise. Invasion wil make you whimper.
Like I said, I can’t recommend it for everyone, but for people who like more chill in their thrill, Invasion might be a great one to try.
The other rookie I have less trouble recommending. It’s pure visceral, no excuses entertainment. And of course, that means it is completely ludicrous. Prison Break starts off with a totally ridiculous premise. Michael Schofield robs a bank so he can break his death-row bound brother from a prison which Michael designed. If you can get past that, you’re in for a fun ride. This show twists and turns like 24 at its best, and over the course of its young season it has put together a very strong ensemble of heroes and villains. The six inmates who attempted the escape during the fall finale could all carry their own show, and that’s not including the one who dropped out in particularly violent fashion (no spoilers here). Of course, now we have to wait until March for new episodes, but when it comes back it gets paired up with 24.
I’ll say it.
Holy shit.
Big Returns. BIG Returns.
Like finding an unopened Christmas present a month later, 24 returns from its best season ever in January. Ever since the show went to its “Non-Stop Season,” I’ve spent the fall completely oblivious to one of my favorite shows (Lost and 24 are incomparably the best at what they do). I get into the shows I have like Lost and House and Veronica Mars. And then somewhere around November, the promo hits with the gold clock counting down and Keifer Sutherland’s unmistakable growl -- and I lose it. It happened during a Bears game this year.
Oh yea! The most exciting drama you’ve ever seen hasn’t even started yet!
Unfortunately, previewing this season would spoil last season for some of my family who are a little slow with the DVDs. So, I’ll just say it’s already a mystery exactly how Jack will come back this year, but angry Communist China will probably have something to do with it.
On a completely different note, Scrubs, the most delightful comedy on television returns with new episodes that we’ll get two-at-a-time because NBC’s comedy offerings are so embarrassingly grim. I have a special place in my heart for this show, because I got to do a photo shoot with the cast during my internship in L.A. before the show premiered. Every one of them was extremely personable and funny (karma does get you somewhere. Serves those snobs at “Inside Schwartz” right), and I immediately wanted to see them succeed (especially John C. McGinley who became my idol that day). As much as I liked those people, I was thrilled to see that the show was also very, very good. That nobody from this show has been nominated for an Emmy (especially McGinley and Zach Braff) is criminal.
Finally, my last “new” show has been going since September, but I haven’t been watching. And frankly, I owe Smallville an apology. I’ve had an on-again, off-again relationship with Smallville since I first sampled it in its second season. At the time I thought that it short-changed the ample mythology that Superman had to offer in favor of a Dawson’s Creek teen dramedy with monster-of-the-week storytelling.
Then I bought Season 1 on DVD, and suddenly it had a new life. I don’t know how I’ll do watching this show in a weekly context, because so much of the character relationships develop slowly and stew for long periods of time. On DVD, the momentum of Lana and Clark’s relationship and Lex and Clark’s tension is more readily sustained; on television, it can feel like it’s all just a bunch of wheel-spinning. Upon closer (and faster) viewing, there’s some really crafty stories being told here.
This show is good, but it somehow masks its quality with its pretty cast and exceptional production values. It lets you believe it's a guilty pleasure. I’m sure much of it has to do with the high school drama played out by very attractive young people (it came on the heels of Dawson’s Creek) and perhaps the aw shucks nature of the Kents, but the twists on the Superman legend are constantly surprising and never quite as we would suspect. This show is consistently entertaining (my dad has watched many episodes with me), and there are those stand out episodes where it reaches truly stellar heights (see Season 3’s Memoria).
I haven’t watched a single episode of this season because I wanted to catch up on the mythology, but everything I’ve heard has hailed season 5 as the best yet. Considering how much I’ve enjoyed the first three seasons (I’m just starting on season 4 today), I can’t imagine how good it must be.
Too much for words
So, those shows (aside from Smallville) are basically my B-list. The shows I’m fanatical about will get their own in-depth write-ups in the future. Those would include Lost, House, Veronica Mars, and The O.C. All of them have been on top of their game this fall, and promise to continue the trend into 2006.
Happy viewing kiddies.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Perspective
My job has been a nightmare virtually from the beginning. Joining the TPC warehouse as they adjusted to the corporate mandates of their buyout, I've run into more laziness than adaptibility.
In a period of major change, that lack of adaptibility has created a constant unease amongst the employees, and while the majority of TPC's workers have over 15 years of experience (and union ties), newbies like myself are on the bottom of the food chain; we'll be the message kills, the ones that say "We mean business."
At just about any other time in my life, it would be easy to suck it up and accept the ineptitude of my superiors, but with my brother in Iraq it all seems so ... I just don't give a shit. And I have no patience for it. They say life's too short, and it's impossible not to feel that platitudes real weight with Andrew gone. So, when my manager tells me that instead of working four days a week (I'm part-time), I'll now be working five, and when he tells me that instead of coming in at 7AM, I must now come in at 5AM, it's very hard for me not to just say "Fuck it" and walk out the door.
Is this my life? That is what I keep asking myself. I'm not one of those people who can say that I feel my brother is fighting in Iraq to preserve my own life, but just knowing that his life is on the line every hour of every day, I can't help but feel that I am wasting mine. Everything feels immediate. There's been an urgency to every second of my life since my brother left. That's really the crux of it. I have no patience for this. The money I spent in Florida really hurts now. My finances are not dire, per se, but it wouldn't take much to push them that way. So leaving this job wouldn't be prudent at this time.
I hate feeling like I'm using my brother's situation as an excuse for leaving this job behind, but there has to be something better out there for me. It bothers me that when I get to talk to my brother, who has all the faith in the world in me, I'll have to admit that I'm not living up to his sacrifice. Should things go wrong for him, nothing would make me feel worse than knowing that had he had my time he would have made much greater use of it.
In a period of major change, that lack of adaptibility has created a constant unease amongst the employees, and while the majority of TPC's workers have over 15 years of experience (and union ties), newbies like myself are on the bottom of the food chain; we'll be the message kills, the ones that say "We mean business."
At just about any other time in my life, it would be easy to suck it up and accept the ineptitude of my superiors, but with my brother in Iraq it all seems so ... I just don't give a shit. And I have no patience for it. They say life's too short, and it's impossible not to feel that platitudes real weight with Andrew gone. So, when my manager tells me that instead of working four days a week (I'm part-time), I'll now be working five, and when he tells me that instead of coming in at 7AM, I must now come in at 5AM, it's very hard for me not to just say "Fuck it" and walk out the door.
Is this my life? That is what I keep asking myself. I'm not one of those people who can say that I feel my brother is fighting in Iraq to preserve my own life, but just knowing that his life is on the line every hour of every day, I can't help but feel that I am wasting mine. Everything feels immediate. There's been an urgency to every second of my life since my brother left. That's really the crux of it. I have no patience for this. The money I spent in Florida really hurts now. My finances are not dire, per se, but it wouldn't take much to push them that way. So leaving this job wouldn't be prudent at this time.
I hate feeling like I'm using my brother's situation as an excuse for leaving this job behind, but there has to be something better out there for me. It bothers me that when I get to talk to my brother, who has all the faith in the world in me, I'll have to admit that I'm not living up to his sacrifice. Should things go wrong for him, nothing would make me feel worse than knowing that had he had my time he would have made much greater use of it.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Lost 2.9: "What Kate Did"
Two caveats before we start looking at the last Lost of 2005:
1. Lost is still the best show on television.
(but)
2. Lost has not been itself this year.
I’m fairly certain that every essay you’ve seen me write about this unbelievable show expresses curiosity about the mythology, but praises above all the writing and the character drama above everything else. And that has been something that has lacked in the first seven or eight episodes as new characters and new mysteries were introduced and the survivors slowly pulled themselves back together as a group. It’s been easy to forget the tremendous ensemble that this show has put together, because so many of them disappear for weeks at a time. Of course this only makes you appreciate them when they come back, but do they really have to go is my question.
Well, in the last episode of 2005, Lost found its identity again, mixing intriguing enigmas with entertaining and interesting character drama. If this is the starting point for 2006, it’s going to be a very good year.
What Kate Did
Lots of people dog on Kate for being the least interesting of the original castaways as far as her backstory goes, but I’m not one of those people. Sure the big reveal of Kate’s deep dark secret wasn’t a “Walkabout” scale shock, but it added a completely new dimension to her relationship with Sawyer, one that certainly portends an ugly end. I also had fun watching Kate lose her mind as she was stalked by a mysterious black stallion from her past. Probably the most shocking moment of all the Kate-centric drama was the stunning release of all that sexual tension between her and Jack. It came out of nowhere, and the aftershock was played perfectly by Fox and Lilly. Speaking of Miss Lilly, I want to give her some credit. For somebody as accessibly cute as she is, she does some very subtle things as an actress that keep you wondering just how much murder might be in this character’s heart. I think the people who are frustrated with Kate are the same ones who get frustrated with the show: there’s a lot of mystery there, and even when we get answers they only lead to more questions.
Deceptive Editing
So, it looks like the Orientation film strip may have fallen victim to some careful cuts. Seems Mr. Eko ran across a strip of film hidden away in a Bible on the other side of the island. When the two mysterious shamen, Eko and Locke, splice together their director’s cut, it reveals that the computer is not to be used for anything but enterting the numbers or else they risk another “incident.” Sadly, nobody got this info to Michael before he started an online chat with his missing son. Or did he?
One Happy Family
For the first time all season, everybody was together again at camp. The opening moments with Jin and Sun snuggling while Sun sadly watched Sayid dig Shannon’s grave. The removing of Jin’s handcuff. The random interaction of Jack and Hurley: “Dude… so Rose’s husband is white. Didn’t see that coming.” These little moments are the lifeblood of the show. The chemistry of the ensemble. Adding the deliriously entertaining duo of Locke and Eko to the mix is a great early Christmas present. Finally, Lost seems to be back to its bread and butter: the people.
1. Lost is still the best show on television.
(but)
2. Lost has not been itself this year.
I’m fairly certain that every essay you’ve seen me write about this unbelievable show expresses curiosity about the mythology, but praises above all the writing and the character drama above everything else. And that has been something that has lacked in the first seven or eight episodes as new characters and new mysteries were introduced and the survivors slowly pulled themselves back together as a group. It’s been easy to forget the tremendous ensemble that this show has put together, because so many of them disappear for weeks at a time. Of course this only makes you appreciate them when they come back, but do they really have to go is my question.
Well, in the last episode of 2005, Lost found its identity again, mixing intriguing enigmas with entertaining and interesting character drama. If this is the starting point for 2006, it’s going to be a very good year.
What Kate Did
Lots of people dog on Kate for being the least interesting of the original castaways as far as her backstory goes, but I’m not one of those people. Sure the big reveal of Kate’s deep dark secret wasn’t a “Walkabout” scale shock, but it added a completely new dimension to her relationship with Sawyer, one that certainly portends an ugly end. I also had fun watching Kate lose her mind as she was stalked by a mysterious black stallion from her past. Probably the most shocking moment of all the Kate-centric drama was the stunning release of all that sexual tension between her and Jack. It came out of nowhere, and the aftershock was played perfectly by Fox and Lilly. Speaking of Miss Lilly, I want to give her some credit. For somebody as accessibly cute as she is, she does some very subtle things as an actress that keep you wondering just how much murder might be in this character’s heart. I think the people who are frustrated with Kate are the same ones who get frustrated with the show: there’s a lot of mystery there, and even when we get answers they only lead to more questions.
Deceptive Editing
So, it looks like the Orientation film strip may have fallen victim to some careful cuts. Seems Mr. Eko ran across a strip of film hidden away in a Bible on the other side of the island. When the two mysterious shamen, Eko and Locke, splice together their director’s cut, it reveals that the computer is not to be used for anything but enterting the numbers or else they risk another “incident.” Sadly, nobody got this info to Michael before he started an online chat with his missing son. Or did he?
One Happy Family
For the first time all season, everybody was together again at camp. The opening moments with Jin and Sun snuggling while Sun sadly watched Sayid dig Shannon’s grave. The removing of Jin’s handcuff. The random interaction of Jack and Hurley: “Dude… so Rose’s husband is white. Didn’t see that coming.” These little moments are the lifeblood of the show. The chemistry of the ensemble. Adding the deliriously entertaining duo of Locke and Eko to the mix is a great early Christmas present. Finally, Lost seems to be back to its bread and butter: the people.
Therapy
A week ago my brother left for Iraq. To help his family and friends I set up a blog where I could keep a journal of my own thoughts and opinions during this time, while I relayed any communication we got from him. But the combination has already proved problematic.
I've never been one to hold back my opinions, but something about having a loved one thrust into the midst of the situation I always philosophized about -- it felt unseemly to talk as I once did. Perhaps it was out of sense of helplessness. Perhaps it was a mask for my anxiety. I can't say. But since he's been gone, I've been overcome with speechlessness.
That's not to say the thoughts aren't there. I'm drowning in my thoughts. I need three hours to get to sleep at night because my brain won't stop spinning with thoughts -- ugly thoughts, selfish thoughts, horrifying thoughts. It's relentless. Ironically, I hate my job for its mindlessness, but it seems to be my only respite from the barrage of my own sick imagination.
I've considered seeing a therapist while my brother is away. The chatrooms for military families are largely bitter and ugly, and I'm more thoughtful about this situation than most of the people in there. The few close friends I have are miles away, and I grow impatient with the phone.
Sometimes you just need to look somebody in the eyes. I have much to say, but no suitable ears. If I weren't such a cheap bastard I would already have a therapist. Money is the only thing keeping me from seeking one out. That and I generally think I'm smarter than everybody else, and I would most likely be deconstructing my therapist as they deconstructed me. There are so many ways that could turn into a disaster.
So long story short, a blog is free. I know that the blog I set up for friends and family isn't going to cut it. Already my mother has chastised me for being too "gloom and doom" on there. So, I'll maintain that site with the basics, the essentials, the daisies and kitties, but this site will be much more important for me.
I need a place to be ugly, because it's very hard for me to think in any other terms right now. My mother has to see things in terms of the good my brother is doing, and I wish, for her, I could see things that way.
But the horror for me is simply this: how can I ever reconcile losing a brother to a war, a cause, I don't believe in. I can't. Losing him in Iraq would be as senseless and nihilistic a death as getting hit by a drunk driver.
Of course, I hope for the best, but you can't help but think the worst.
Let the doom and gloom begin.
I've never been one to hold back my opinions, but something about having a loved one thrust into the midst of the situation I always philosophized about -- it felt unseemly to talk as I once did. Perhaps it was out of sense of helplessness. Perhaps it was a mask for my anxiety. I can't say. But since he's been gone, I've been overcome with speechlessness.
That's not to say the thoughts aren't there. I'm drowning in my thoughts. I need three hours to get to sleep at night because my brain won't stop spinning with thoughts -- ugly thoughts, selfish thoughts, horrifying thoughts. It's relentless. Ironically, I hate my job for its mindlessness, but it seems to be my only respite from the barrage of my own sick imagination.
I've considered seeing a therapist while my brother is away. The chatrooms for military families are largely bitter and ugly, and I'm more thoughtful about this situation than most of the people in there. The few close friends I have are miles away, and I grow impatient with the phone.
Sometimes you just need to look somebody in the eyes. I have much to say, but no suitable ears. If I weren't such a cheap bastard I would already have a therapist. Money is the only thing keeping me from seeking one out. That and I generally think I'm smarter than everybody else, and I would most likely be deconstructing my therapist as they deconstructed me. There are so many ways that could turn into a disaster.
So long story short, a blog is free. I know that the blog I set up for friends and family isn't going to cut it. Already my mother has chastised me for being too "gloom and doom" on there. So, I'll maintain that site with the basics, the essentials, the daisies and kitties, but this site will be much more important for me.
I need a place to be ugly, because it's very hard for me to think in any other terms right now. My mother has to see things in terms of the good my brother is doing, and I wish, for her, I could see things that way.
But the horror for me is simply this: how can I ever reconcile losing a brother to a war, a cause, I don't believe in. I can't. Losing him in Iraq would be as senseless and nihilistic a death as getting hit by a drunk driver.
Of course, I hope for the best, but you can't help but think the worst.
Let the doom and gloom begin.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Just Be Quiet
The best thing anybody said to me after learning of my brother's deployment was quite simply nothing. I've developed an intensely bad attitude as this news set in, and nothing stokes that fire like placation. Though I'm sure most of my friends would rather see me positive and upbeat, that's just not tenable now. I'm a realist, and the reality of our situation is not one that inspires mirth. So the last thing I want to hear in a conversation about my brother is any of the cheery platitudes of encouragement that might work on the more naive and the less thoughtful. Don't tell me things are going to be ok when you have no more insight into the future than I do. Don't get upset with me because I'm hanging onto my melancholy like Linus' hanging onto his blankey. My melancholy is genuine. If I wanted fanciful optimism, I'd be a Bush supporter.
This situation sucks for my brother and everybody who cares about him, and really that's all I need to hear from my friends. We crave empathy, not salvation. Feel for us; don't try to cure us of our worries. It cannot be done, as uncomfortable as that may be for some of you to hear.
"That sucks." Not particularly eloquent, but it's blunt. It's honest. And that's all I want from my friends.
This situation sucks for my brother and everybody who cares about him, and really that's all I need to hear from my friends. We crave empathy, not salvation. Feel for us; don't try to cure us of our worries. It cannot be done, as uncomfortable as that may be for some of you to hear.
"That sucks." Not particularly eloquent, but it's blunt. It's honest. And that's all I want from my friends.
Friday, September 30, 2005
The Elephant and The Powder Keg
I am my father’s son. Most days that knowledge thrills me. I love my father. I have him to credit for my sense of humor, my pragmatism, and my diving-board nose trick. I can’t help but delight in seeing my heritage manifest itself physically. We both cross our arms the same way. I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I start rubbing my hands together when I get excited.
Unfortunately, I also inherited some of his less desirable attributes, the most destructive of which is his penchant for repression. Our stunted emotional expression was on full display this past Wednesday when a devastating bit of news came our way. We have started counting the days. After five years of “Will he? Won’t he? What if he does?” the first two questions have been answered, leaving my family to contemplate the repercussions of the last.
In 44 days, my brother ships to Iraq.
A healthy family might have talked out the meaning of this news, but my father and I sat in opposing recliners in front of a television that might as well have been off. Both of us were too mindful of the two-ton, red, white, and blue elephant that had trudged its way into our home and left a monstrous shit in the foyer. God bless America.
My brother is a master of a special kind of doublespeak. The entirety of his dialogue is split fifty/fifty between his mouth and his ass. I’m compelled by what comes out of his mouth. Girls are compelled by what comes out of his ass. I understand the source is sometimes difficult to discern. I’ve been fooled more than once, and I’m a bright guy. So, I can’t fault some of the dim bulbs he’s snared.
But I digress.
My brother’s path to the Middle East has been one of fits and starts, uncertainties and contradictions, mouth-speak and ass-speak. At one point we expected him to be headed overseas this past March. Then for a while we thought he might actually avoid deployment. His immediate duties after West Point were very non-soldier. He taught calculus and coached girl’s basketball at Fort Monmouth, the West Point prep school, for six months before transferring to Fort Benning, Georgia for several months of mechanized training before Army Ranger School. But after several uneventful months, my brother had exhausted Ft. Benning’s curriculum and learned more than enough to dissuade him from pressing ahead with Ranger training.
So, he packed his bags and headed for Fort Carson, Colorado where he will be stationed until the end of his five year commitment to the Army. Unfortunately, he barely got his welcome mat out front of his new apartment before he learned that he was being transferred from his mechanized division (that would be returning from Iraq in October) to an armored division currently training for winter deployment. One slip of a pen and my brother went from a division that would be going on leave post haste to a division that would be vacating the states poster haste. The switch was so vicious it’s remarkable he didn’t snap his neck.
At home, the Rockwell family dealt with the news as they always handle bad news. My father tried to get as much information as possible, as if more information might somehow make our situation more tolerable. My mother became a ferocious busybody – working late, sewing like a flesh and blood Singer, and arranging to ease the practical issues of Andrew’s deployment. She made sure that every family member at my cousin Brian’s wedding this past weekend etched their vitals into an inappropriately playful notebook. That sparkly red pad haunted me throughout the ceremony. After making its way around the cousin’s dinner table, it sat at my elbow while Brian’s brother Lee made his toast as Best Man. I sacrificed a fair amount of enamel to keep from breaking down at the table.
Aside from that one moment, I’ve handled the news with my typical mixture of external stoicism and whirling gray matter, and for the first time I have the self-awareness to see what a powder keg that makes me. Unfortunately for my mental health (and again my poor enamel), there’s something about that state – the tightly-packed kinesis of anger and fear and uncertainty squeezing on each other – that has stirred my creative juices to an unprecedented degree. I don’t talk to my family about the machinations going on between my ears. I’d expect their minds are engaged in the same sort of deliberations and I dare not exacerbate their sensitivity with my prattling. I don’t much leave my workroom (aside from my actual job) now that I’ve finally got it feng shuied for maximum brooding. I just stand in front of the dry erase siding I’ve installed on my walls, spider-graphing character relationships and squeaking out chapter outlines like some neurotic mad scientist.
Mad, indeed.
If I break down my present emotional state to its purest form, anger owns all. God would be mighty useful right about now, but since I can’t be pissed at something I don’t believe in that leaves a lot of angst with nowhere to go. I get some out through my writing (I’m on my third case of dry-erase markers), but like a Crip at a Klan rally, a part of me just really wants somebody to start some shit. Please, somebody, give me a reason to break out my Al Pacino, scenery-chewing, asshole best. I got loads of material. Working a mindless warehouse job gives me plenty of time to stir up myriad priceless riffs, and not all of them can go in my stories. Please God, somebody, tell me now that if I don’t support the war then I don’t support the troops. That would thrill me in so many ways I well up at the thought.
After all that bile, it’s going to seem kind of silly for me to admit that I’m not all that worried about my brother’s safety. No, it’s the sanity of my family. Though we tried to keep the news a secret through Brian’s wedding, the secret was too big and my brother told too many people. So, I got to watch as my mother told my grandparents over bacon and eggs just hours before the ceremony. Watching my grandfather hide his grief with a thousand different iterations of “Fuck Bush” and watching my grandmother try to talk herself out of the truth, losing control of her fear as she lost her grip on denial, the sting of it still sticks me. My mother has been brave to this point, but she’ll eventually have to breathe and acknowledge what is happening. My father will probably feel the heaviest weight from this, but he’ll show it the least. As much as I’m riding this angst for the productiveness it’s afforded me, my father has no such outlet, and I worry about him more than just about anyone.
As for myself, I’m a pragmatist, and a pragmatist needs a plan. I’ve spent much of the past week trying to find a way that I could support my brother in some practical fashion – something better than yellow ribbons and rubber bracelets. My mom has the care-package market cornered. My father will spearhead the financial and real estate matters. Me? Well, I’m going to do what I do best: I’m going to write.
If one aspect of my brother’s personality feels most disparate from the rest, it’s his love of fantasy fiction. Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, and the like have been filling his shelves for well over a decade now. Well, it’s time I added my own tale to his shelf. So, in the next forty days I’ll be preparing a weekly serial to entertain my baby brother in the desert. At a chapter a week, I should be able to churn out my first novel in the year he’s away. It’s not as much as I’d like to give him. Most of my continued frustration comes from my inability to do much of anything for him in the coming year. I’d like to give him a hundred grand for his West Point education, but I don’t have that kind of coin at my disposal. I’d like to supply him with a Batsuit to make him invincible. I can’t help but feel useless watching him head into a warzone. I’m humbled by what he is about to undertake, and humility doesn’t come naturally to intellectual elitists like myself.
It has just now passed midnight. Another day has been crossed off the calendar. Another day until we say good-bye to my brother. It’s 43 days now.
I’m exhausted.
Time to hit the whiteboard.
Unfortunately, I also inherited some of his less desirable attributes, the most destructive of which is his penchant for repression. Our stunted emotional expression was on full display this past Wednesday when a devastating bit of news came our way. We have started counting the days. After five years of “Will he? Won’t he? What if he does?” the first two questions have been answered, leaving my family to contemplate the repercussions of the last.
In 44 days, my brother ships to Iraq.
A healthy family might have talked out the meaning of this news, but my father and I sat in opposing recliners in front of a television that might as well have been off. Both of us were too mindful of the two-ton, red, white, and blue elephant that had trudged its way into our home and left a monstrous shit in the foyer. God bless America.
My brother is a master of a special kind of doublespeak. The entirety of his dialogue is split fifty/fifty between his mouth and his ass. I’m compelled by what comes out of his mouth. Girls are compelled by what comes out of his ass. I understand the source is sometimes difficult to discern. I’ve been fooled more than once, and I’m a bright guy. So, I can’t fault some of the dim bulbs he’s snared.
But I digress.
My brother’s path to the Middle East has been one of fits and starts, uncertainties and contradictions, mouth-speak and ass-speak. At one point we expected him to be headed overseas this past March. Then for a while we thought he might actually avoid deployment. His immediate duties after West Point were very non-soldier. He taught calculus and coached girl’s basketball at Fort Monmouth, the West Point prep school, for six months before transferring to Fort Benning, Georgia for several months of mechanized training before Army Ranger School. But after several uneventful months, my brother had exhausted Ft. Benning’s curriculum and learned more than enough to dissuade him from pressing ahead with Ranger training.
So, he packed his bags and headed for Fort Carson, Colorado where he will be stationed until the end of his five year commitment to the Army. Unfortunately, he barely got his welcome mat out front of his new apartment before he learned that he was being transferred from his mechanized division (that would be returning from Iraq in October) to an armored division currently training for winter deployment. One slip of a pen and my brother went from a division that would be going on leave post haste to a division that would be vacating the states poster haste. The switch was so vicious it’s remarkable he didn’t snap his neck.
At home, the Rockwell family dealt with the news as they always handle bad news. My father tried to get as much information as possible, as if more information might somehow make our situation more tolerable. My mother became a ferocious busybody – working late, sewing like a flesh and blood Singer, and arranging to ease the practical issues of Andrew’s deployment. She made sure that every family member at my cousin Brian’s wedding this past weekend etched their vitals into an inappropriately playful notebook. That sparkly red pad haunted me throughout the ceremony. After making its way around the cousin’s dinner table, it sat at my elbow while Brian’s brother Lee made his toast as Best Man. I sacrificed a fair amount of enamel to keep from breaking down at the table.
Aside from that one moment, I’ve handled the news with my typical mixture of external stoicism and whirling gray matter, and for the first time I have the self-awareness to see what a powder keg that makes me. Unfortunately for my mental health (and again my poor enamel), there’s something about that state – the tightly-packed kinesis of anger and fear and uncertainty squeezing on each other – that has stirred my creative juices to an unprecedented degree. I don’t talk to my family about the machinations going on between my ears. I’d expect their minds are engaged in the same sort of deliberations and I dare not exacerbate their sensitivity with my prattling. I don’t much leave my workroom (aside from my actual job) now that I’ve finally got it feng shuied for maximum brooding. I just stand in front of the dry erase siding I’ve installed on my walls, spider-graphing character relationships and squeaking out chapter outlines like some neurotic mad scientist.
Mad, indeed.
If I break down my present emotional state to its purest form, anger owns all. God would be mighty useful right about now, but since I can’t be pissed at something I don’t believe in that leaves a lot of angst with nowhere to go. I get some out through my writing (I’m on my third case of dry-erase markers), but like a Crip at a Klan rally, a part of me just really wants somebody to start some shit. Please, somebody, give me a reason to break out my Al Pacino, scenery-chewing, asshole best. I got loads of material. Working a mindless warehouse job gives me plenty of time to stir up myriad priceless riffs, and not all of them can go in my stories. Please God, somebody, tell me now that if I don’t support the war then I don’t support the troops. That would thrill me in so many ways I well up at the thought.
After all that bile, it’s going to seem kind of silly for me to admit that I’m not all that worried about my brother’s safety. No, it’s the sanity of my family. Though we tried to keep the news a secret through Brian’s wedding, the secret was too big and my brother told too many people. So, I got to watch as my mother told my grandparents over bacon and eggs just hours before the ceremony. Watching my grandfather hide his grief with a thousand different iterations of “Fuck Bush” and watching my grandmother try to talk herself out of the truth, losing control of her fear as she lost her grip on denial, the sting of it still sticks me. My mother has been brave to this point, but she’ll eventually have to breathe and acknowledge what is happening. My father will probably feel the heaviest weight from this, but he’ll show it the least. As much as I’m riding this angst for the productiveness it’s afforded me, my father has no such outlet, and I worry about him more than just about anyone.
As for myself, I’m a pragmatist, and a pragmatist needs a plan. I’ve spent much of the past week trying to find a way that I could support my brother in some practical fashion – something better than yellow ribbons and rubber bracelets. My mom has the care-package market cornered. My father will spearhead the financial and real estate matters. Me? Well, I’m going to do what I do best: I’m going to write.
If one aspect of my brother’s personality feels most disparate from the rest, it’s his love of fantasy fiction. Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan, and the like have been filling his shelves for well over a decade now. Well, it’s time I added my own tale to his shelf. So, in the next forty days I’ll be preparing a weekly serial to entertain my baby brother in the desert. At a chapter a week, I should be able to churn out my first novel in the year he’s away. It’s not as much as I’d like to give him. Most of my continued frustration comes from my inability to do much of anything for him in the coming year. I’d like to give him a hundred grand for his West Point education, but I don’t have that kind of coin at my disposal. I’d like to supply him with a Batsuit to make him invincible. I can’t help but feel useless watching him head into a warzone. I’m humbled by what he is about to undertake, and humility doesn’t come naturally to intellectual elitists like myself.
It has just now passed midnight. Another day has been crossed off the calendar. Another day until we say good-bye to my brother. It’s 43 days now.
I’m exhausted.
Time to hit the whiteboard.
Serenity
I’ll say this for Joss Whedon -- the guy knows how to close. I wasn’t even a fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when I watched the finale, but watching the passionate and appropriate conclusion of the show sent me back to the beginning to watch the whole tale. And while Angel’s finale was not as well-received as Buffy’s, I found it superior in its own way. There’s something admirable about a group of people going to war with a foe that will always return, going to battle knowing that for one night they can deal evil a serious blow, even if its means they‘ll die in the process.. Plus, Angel’s last line (Whedon is my idol in regards to dialogue) was so perfect it brought tears to my eyes.
If we look at Serenity as the final act to the short-lived Whedon series Firefly, it follows in Whedon’s tradition of tremendous finales. Fans are going to appreciate the chance to visit these characters again and see the hanging threads of their prematurely cancelled program tied up. But what of the rest of humanity -- those not familiar with Firefly? What will they think of the film? Can any layman jump in and have a good time with Captain Malcolm Reynolds and crew?
I can’t really answer that question, because I am a passionate devotee of the show. And after seeing the film, I feel how I suspected I would feel when I headed to the theater this morning: I miss the show. That’s not a knock on the movie, necessarily, but the medium. The plot of Serenity tells in two hours what Whedon probably would have taken two seasons of television to tell. Whedon makes good use of time when he has lots of it. In a way I think he and I have similar storytelling faults. We write big stories. Cutting them down is like killing our children. I can’t imagine the agony he suffered scripting Serenity. Cutting down nearly thirty hours of television plotting down to two? I don’t envy that.
I can’t talk about this film without getting rather spoiler heavy, so I’m going to give my abbreviated recommendation here before getting into the guts of the film. I highly recommend the film for fans of the series. For people contemplating heading to the theater cold, without any knowledge of the Firefly series, I would say don’t. While I appreciate Whedon trying to open Serenity to a wider audience, it’s a lose-lose situation. Whedon has to pull back to let the broader audience in, and in turn the audience does not get a full sense of what us Browncoats are so passionate about. So don’t see the film. Watch the show. If the show rubs you the right way, you’ll watch all fourteen episodes and be stoked to see the film. If the show doesn’t tickle your fancy, the movie won’t convert you.
Speaking of conversion, as Serenity’s release approached it became clear that there were two groups of Firefly boosters trying to pull people into theaters. The first group, the group of which I am a proud member, are the Whedon fans. I love this guy’s imagination, I envy his dialogue, and I miss his presence on weekly television. The other group which I abhor are the Whedonites -- think Trekkies crossed with Jerry Falwell. These people will beat you over the head with Firefly and if you don’t like it, well you’re stupid and wrong. That’s not me. Now, I’ve done my share of Serenity promotion, but I’ve had very selfish reasons. I want to see the story continue. I want this film to put up a monster number this weekend, but not because I feel the show needs mass affirmation. I just want the chance to visit this cast once every few years in a new adventure. Granted, I think people who give Firefly a shot will enjoy it, but I could really care less as long as Serenity gets its ten bucks in the coffer.
And that poses the big question for fans: what do they want out of this film? Do they want millions of conversions? Do they want Serenity to become the next Matrix or Star Wars? I’ll be the first to say that’s not going to happen. This film doesn’t have mass appeal written all over it. When its hero is described as “Han Solo if he had taken his reward and run,“ it’s not going to be your typical ride. It takes a certain sensibility to “get” Whedon’s genre work, and Serenity is very, very Whedon. Perhaps because of his TV roots, or perhaps its simply the writer he is, Whedon does stuff in Serenity that we don’t see in most mainstream action/adventure fare of late. Who knows how that will fly with laymen? Again, I can’t say. But for those laymen, I’d still point them towards the best episodes of the television show (Ariel, Out of Gas, or even Our Dear Mrs. Reynolds) to see what this franchise is really all about.
So, did I love this movie? Eh, not quite, but I’m certain I eventually will. Firefly did not immediately endear itself to me. It took me a few episodes to fall into the groove of the show, but when I did I was hooked. And now, watching those first episodes again, I don’t know how I wasn’t immediately smitten. Whedon’s storytelling is so dense with relationships and story that it’s hard to get everything first time around. Only upon multiple viewings can you appreciate everything that is going on. Serenity had the same sort of development for me. It took me a few ticks to find the groove, but once I did it was a great ride. And I can only assume the next time I watch it, I’ll be able to absorb much more.
The other thing that caught me off-guard was how much the transition from television to film would effect Whedon’s storytelling. And this is why I would tell people to watch the show, rather than going into the film a ‘verse virgin. The television show got an entire hour (actually three) to introduce its impressive ensemble to the audience. The film gets about ten minutes, and in those ten minutes every character has to turn their persona volume up so that its understood who everybody is. Wash is very Wash -- silly even in great peril. Jayne is very Jayne -- dim and macho arguing over whether he can take grenades on a job. Kaylee is very Kaylee -- bright, optimistic, and lively. You get the idea. About the only person who doesn’t seem to be “trying too hard” in this sequence is thankfully, Malcolm Reynolds, who leads us in a long-take through Serenity’s innards, getting us acquainted with the ship just as we are acquainted with its crew. Any writer will tell you that exposition is the most painful thing to deal with, and Whedon does the best he can here, but I would have much rather jumped right into the action and let people figure out the rest.
Regardless, once the introductions are taken care of, Whedon gets his ship rolling right off the bat. A standard robbery goes wrong when Reavers, savages who have gone mad on the edge of space, appear to rape and pillage the town where Mal and his crew are… well, pillaging. The Reavers were very much a mystery through the series so to see them appear so early in the film (in broad daylight, no less) was a bit of a shock. The pacing of big moments like that, which took weeks during the show’s run, was the first difficulty I had with the film. There are quite a few major revelations piled so quickly on top of one another that there is hardly any time to absorb them, to understand the magnitude of what has just been revealed. As interesting as it was to see River Tam fall into a trance before wiping out a barful of people, including some of her shipmates, we quickly move on to the next major plot point. Had this been revealed on the television show, there could have been weeks of episodes dealing with River’s sudden threat to the crew of Serenity. There was a lot of story to tell there, but this is film and we only have two hours to tell our tale.
As much as time effected the pacing of the plot, it effected the characters to a much larger degree. Firefly was very much an ensemble show featuring nine fully-realized, complex characters with an intricate web of interpersonal relationships. Everybody on that show meant something to everybody else, but here we get only the basic overtones. Kaylee’s adoration of Simon. Mal’s unspoken love for Inara. Jayne’s slightly mutinous feelings towards Mal. We don’t have time for those little moments like River “fixing” Book’s Bible or Inara braiding Kaylee’s hair (seriously, that was a great scene). We can’t flush out these characters. There’s no time.
And that’s the main reason I don’t want people to see this movie if they haven’t seen the show. They just won’t appreciate what they’re seeing. When River first goes nuts in the bar, they won’t understand how shocking it is when she goes after Jayne and pulls a gun on Mal. They won’t understand what a twist the Reavers origin is. It won’t truly hit them when people die.
That’s right. If you’re still reading and haven’t seen the show or the film yet, this would be a good time to stop. We’re gonna get pretty thick into spoilers here. You’ve been warned.
Joss Whedon has never been shy about killing major characters off. In the last season of Angel, he killed off three. One of the best episodes of Buffy involved the death of Buffy’s mother. This is tricky business as a writer, killing characters we’ve grown to love. Yet, Whedon has been consistent in his execution over the years. The deaths are always powerful and never gratuitous. But the deaths in Serenity are not as successful as the ones in Whedon’s past, because for the uninitiated audience they’re going to feel abrupt and more than a little cold.
When I first learned that a major cast member would die in the film, I immediately thought it would be Shephard Book. Sure enough, Book dies defending a distant outpost where he apparently retired in between the show and the film. Book’s role in the film is little more than a cameo, and even though his brief appearance speaks volumes of his philosophically contentious relationship with Mal he doesn’t have enough screen time to warrant much empathy. In fact, the empathy is more likely going to be for Mal, who is traumatized a great deal by the loss. That’s unfortunate that such a consistently surprising presence on the show would be lost this way.
The other death in the film will probably be the big watercooler topic for Firefly fans. After piloting Serenity through a mind-boggling gauntlet of Alliance and Reaver ships, Alan Tudyk’s Wash is impaled on a spike launched from a pursuing Reaver vessel. I can’t properly articulate how shocking this moment was. How it came out of nowhere, in a moment of relative quiet. How it could happen to such a beloved character. I’d imagine some people are going to be pissed, but to a large degree I understand it. In fact, I don’t think the climax of this film would have been nearly the thrill it was if not for our dinosaur loving pilot’s unfortunate demise.
Whereas many writers know how to build mystery and intrigue, few know how to pack a punch with their resolutions. I stopped reading Stephen King because I realized, for all of his mastery of build-up, his conclusions are ass. Whedon had built himself quite a mystery with Firefly and I’m pleased to say his conclusion doesn’t disappoint. Every surprise in this film comes from a place I did not suspect. The secret River carries does not disappoint, and from the moment it is revealed the film hits a gear that only Batman Begins approached in the past year. The end of this film is phenomenal.
No writer can be tongue-in-cheek and wet-your-seat terrifying in the same breath like Whedon. More importantly, nobody can change gears so seamlessly. His writing by its very nature keeps you on your toes; he can do so many things well, predicting where he’ll go next is impossible. This is the writer who did an entire episode of Buffy as a Broadway musical and turned his vampire with a soul, Angel, into a puppet for an episode (then proceeded to have said puppet ripped to shreds by a werewolf). The guy’s imagination is staggering. I mentioned his witty dialogue, and Whedon is renowned for the savy pop culture references and surprising humor he brings to shows with extremely dark themes. Yet when Whedon throws the gauntlet down, it becomes very clear that great things are at stake.
Buffy was an extremely funny show, but look at its final few episodes and there is very little funny about them. Buffy had seen her fair share of apocalypses before her seventh and final season, and sometimes these end-of-the-world deals start to get a little old hat. So Whedon raised the stakes. In one of the most shocking moments I’ve ever seen on television, a supernaturally powerful priest (played by Firefly’s Nathan Fillion) presses his thumb into fan favorite Xander Harris’ eye. Very much the heart of Buffy’s team, we had a naïve belief that his sense of humor made him invincible. That one moment of simple, blunt violence changed everything. Suddenly, nobody was safe.
That’s what Wash’s death did for the climax of Serenity. It was that one blunt act of violence on a beloved character that removed any sense of security for us as viewers. As the Reavers backed Serenity’s crew into a corner, I was certain the body count would not stop at two. Then the crew begin to take hits, and not graceful pretty movie wounds (see Scarlett Johansson in The Island) but nasty, mortal wounds: a sword through the stomach, a poison round in the neck, a bullet in the chest. Battling against mindless savages, that’s how things should be. It felt real. It felt honest. It was terrifying. I loved seeing Malcolm Reynolds walking out of his battle with the Operative with his face pummeled and blood vessels broken in his eye. The battle was hell for its participants and they looked like it on the other side. I struggle to think of another film that gave its heros such an ass-whooping. It made the last twenty minutes of the film quite harrowing for everyone in the theater, and all because of one carefully chosen death.
The only objection to Wash’s killing is we never really get a chance to mourn for him. In the middle of the battle, there was no time for it. It was very cold, and we fans would probably ask for something better for our plucky pilot. Yet, it makes sense. Even Zoe’s stoicism made sense to a point -- she’s a soldier and they were in the midst of a war. Nevertheless, something was missing for Wash at the end of the film, and that’s unfortunate. Perhaps it was another time issue. I don’t know. Still, that doesn’t take away from what Wash’s death did for the intensity of that final sequence.
I want to see more of this crew, but its clear I’m not going to get as much as I would like. There was a time I hoped that this movie would be a break-out for many of its performers, but then I realized that’s not really what I want. However much I think these actors deserve great roles in the future, I don’t want them to vacate Serenity. Adam Baldwin is always going to be Jayne. Jewel Staite is always going to be Kaylee. And Nathan Fillion, you have leading man charm, but you were born to play Captain Malcolm Reynolds. I believe an actor is never as great as their breakout role, and this cast is terrific as the crew of Serenity. So why not stay at your best?
That being said I really don’t care to see them on film again, where their story is truncated and their relationships shallow. It’s wishful thinking, but I’d love to see them reappear on television (ala Family Guy) on FX or Sci-Fi. Film’s fine for sci-fi archetypes and grand mythologies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. But Firefly is different from them in that there are no grand quests, no great meaning. It’s about people -- regular, blue-collar folk -- making their way through life as best they can. The appeal is in getting to know them, living and growing with them. I love these characters and their stories. It’d be a shame to only see them every three or four years.
Final Grade for Serenity: B+
If we look at Serenity as the final act to the short-lived Whedon series Firefly, it follows in Whedon’s tradition of tremendous finales. Fans are going to appreciate the chance to visit these characters again and see the hanging threads of their prematurely cancelled program tied up. But what of the rest of humanity -- those not familiar with Firefly? What will they think of the film? Can any layman jump in and have a good time with Captain Malcolm Reynolds and crew?
I can’t really answer that question, because I am a passionate devotee of the show. And after seeing the film, I feel how I suspected I would feel when I headed to the theater this morning: I miss the show. That’s not a knock on the movie, necessarily, but the medium. The plot of Serenity tells in two hours what Whedon probably would have taken two seasons of television to tell. Whedon makes good use of time when he has lots of it. In a way I think he and I have similar storytelling faults. We write big stories. Cutting them down is like killing our children. I can’t imagine the agony he suffered scripting Serenity. Cutting down nearly thirty hours of television plotting down to two? I don’t envy that.
I can’t talk about this film without getting rather spoiler heavy, so I’m going to give my abbreviated recommendation here before getting into the guts of the film. I highly recommend the film for fans of the series. For people contemplating heading to the theater cold, without any knowledge of the Firefly series, I would say don’t. While I appreciate Whedon trying to open Serenity to a wider audience, it’s a lose-lose situation. Whedon has to pull back to let the broader audience in, and in turn the audience does not get a full sense of what us Browncoats are so passionate about. So don’t see the film. Watch the show. If the show rubs you the right way, you’ll watch all fourteen episodes and be stoked to see the film. If the show doesn’t tickle your fancy, the movie won’t convert you.
Speaking of conversion, as Serenity’s release approached it became clear that there were two groups of Firefly boosters trying to pull people into theaters. The first group, the group of which I am a proud member, are the Whedon fans. I love this guy’s imagination, I envy his dialogue, and I miss his presence on weekly television. The other group which I abhor are the Whedonites -- think Trekkies crossed with Jerry Falwell. These people will beat you over the head with Firefly and if you don’t like it, well you’re stupid and wrong. That’s not me. Now, I’ve done my share of Serenity promotion, but I’ve had very selfish reasons. I want to see the story continue. I want this film to put up a monster number this weekend, but not because I feel the show needs mass affirmation. I just want the chance to visit this cast once every few years in a new adventure. Granted, I think people who give Firefly a shot will enjoy it, but I could really care less as long as Serenity gets its ten bucks in the coffer.
And that poses the big question for fans: what do they want out of this film? Do they want millions of conversions? Do they want Serenity to become the next Matrix or Star Wars? I’ll be the first to say that’s not going to happen. This film doesn’t have mass appeal written all over it. When its hero is described as “Han Solo if he had taken his reward and run,“ it’s not going to be your typical ride. It takes a certain sensibility to “get” Whedon’s genre work, and Serenity is very, very Whedon. Perhaps because of his TV roots, or perhaps its simply the writer he is, Whedon does stuff in Serenity that we don’t see in most mainstream action/adventure fare of late. Who knows how that will fly with laymen? Again, I can’t say. But for those laymen, I’d still point them towards the best episodes of the television show (Ariel, Out of Gas, or even Our Dear Mrs. Reynolds) to see what this franchise is really all about.
So, did I love this movie? Eh, not quite, but I’m certain I eventually will. Firefly did not immediately endear itself to me. It took me a few episodes to fall into the groove of the show, but when I did I was hooked. And now, watching those first episodes again, I don’t know how I wasn’t immediately smitten. Whedon’s storytelling is so dense with relationships and story that it’s hard to get everything first time around. Only upon multiple viewings can you appreciate everything that is going on. Serenity had the same sort of development for me. It took me a few ticks to find the groove, but once I did it was a great ride. And I can only assume the next time I watch it, I’ll be able to absorb much more.
The other thing that caught me off-guard was how much the transition from television to film would effect Whedon’s storytelling. And this is why I would tell people to watch the show, rather than going into the film a ‘verse virgin. The television show got an entire hour (actually three) to introduce its impressive ensemble to the audience. The film gets about ten minutes, and in those ten minutes every character has to turn their persona volume up so that its understood who everybody is. Wash is very Wash -- silly even in great peril. Jayne is very Jayne -- dim and macho arguing over whether he can take grenades on a job. Kaylee is very Kaylee -- bright, optimistic, and lively. You get the idea. About the only person who doesn’t seem to be “trying too hard” in this sequence is thankfully, Malcolm Reynolds, who leads us in a long-take through Serenity’s innards, getting us acquainted with the ship just as we are acquainted with its crew. Any writer will tell you that exposition is the most painful thing to deal with, and Whedon does the best he can here, but I would have much rather jumped right into the action and let people figure out the rest.
Regardless, once the introductions are taken care of, Whedon gets his ship rolling right off the bat. A standard robbery goes wrong when Reavers, savages who have gone mad on the edge of space, appear to rape and pillage the town where Mal and his crew are… well, pillaging. The Reavers were very much a mystery through the series so to see them appear so early in the film (in broad daylight, no less) was a bit of a shock. The pacing of big moments like that, which took weeks during the show’s run, was the first difficulty I had with the film. There are quite a few major revelations piled so quickly on top of one another that there is hardly any time to absorb them, to understand the magnitude of what has just been revealed. As interesting as it was to see River Tam fall into a trance before wiping out a barful of people, including some of her shipmates, we quickly move on to the next major plot point. Had this been revealed on the television show, there could have been weeks of episodes dealing with River’s sudden threat to the crew of Serenity. There was a lot of story to tell there, but this is film and we only have two hours to tell our tale.
As much as time effected the pacing of the plot, it effected the characters to a much larger degree. Firefly was very much an ensemble show featuring nine fully-realized, complex characters with an intricate web of interpersonal relationships. Everybody on that show meant something to everybody else, but here we get only the basic overtones. Kaylee’s adoration of Simon. Mal’s unspoken love for Inara. Jayne’s slightly mutinous feelings towards Mal. We don’t have time for those little moments like River “fixing” Book’s Bible or Inara braiding Kaylee’s hair (seriously, that was a great scene). We can’t flush out these characters. There’s no time.
And that’s the main reason I don’t want people to see this movie if they haven’t seen the show. They just won’t appreciate what they’re seeing. When River first goes nuts in the bar, they won’t understand how shocking it is when she goes after Jayne and pulls a gun on Mal. They won’t understand what a twist the Reavers origin is. It won’t truly hit them when people die.
That’s right. If you’re still reading and haven’t seen the show or the film yet, this would be a good time to stop. We’re gonna get pretty thick into spoilers here. You’ve been warned.
Joss Whedon has never been shy about killing major characters off. In the last season of Angel, he killed off three. One of the best episodes of Buffy involved the death of Buffy’s mother. This is tricky business as a writer, killing characters we’ve grown to love. Yet, Whedon has been consistent in his execution over the years. The deaths are always powerful and never gratuitous. But the deaths in Serenity are not as successful as the ones in Whedon’s past, because for the uninitiated audience they’re going to feel abrupt and more than a little cold.
When I first learned that a major cast member would die in the film, I immediately thought it would be Shephard Book. Sure enough, Book dies defending a distant outpost where he apparently retired in between the show and the film. Book’s role in the film is little more than a cameo, and even though his brief appearance speaks volumes of his philosophically contentious relationship with Mal he doesn’t have enough screen time to warrant much empathy. In fact, the empathy is more likely going to be for Mal, who is traumatized a great deal by the loss. That’s unfortunate that such a consistently surprising presence on the show would be lost this way.
The other death in the film will probably be the big watercooler topic for Firefly fans. After piloting Serenity through a mind-boggling gauntlet of Alliance and Reaver ships, Alan Tudyk’s Wash is impaled on a spike launched from a pursuing Reaver vessel. I can’t properly articulate how shocking this moment was. How it came out of nowhere, in a moment of relative quiet. How it could happen to such a beloved character. I’d imagine some people are going to be pissed, but to a large degree I understand it. In fact, I don’t think the climax of this film would have been nearly the thrill it was if not for our dinosaur loving pilot’s unfortunate demise.
Whereas many writers know how to build mystery and intrigue, few know how to pack a punch with their resolutions. I stopped reading Stephen King because I realized, for all of his mastery of build-up, his conclusions are ass. Whedon had built himself quite a mystery with Firefly and I’m pleased to say his conclusion doesn’t disappoint. Every surprise in this film comes from a place I did not suspect. The secret River carries does not disappoint, and from the moment it is revealed the film hits a gear that only Batman Begins approached in the past year. The end of this film is phenomenal.
No writer can be tongue-in-cheek and wet-your-seat terrifying in the same breath like Whedon. More importantly, nobody can change gears so seamlessly. His writing by its very nature keeps you on your toes; he can do so many things well, predicting where he’ll go next is impossible. This is the writer who did an entire episode of Buffy as a Broadway musical and turned his vampire with a soul, Angel, into a puppet for an episode (then proceeded to have said puppet ripped to shreds by a werewolf). The guy’s imagination is staggering. I mentioned his witty dialogue, and Whedon is renowned for the savy pop culture references and surprising humor he brings to shows with extremely dark themes. Yet when Whedon throws the gauntlet down, it becomes very clear that great things are at stake.
Buffy was an extremely funny show, but look at its final few episodes and there is very little funny about them. Buffy had seen her fair share of apocalypses before her seventh and final season, and sometimes these end-of-the-world deals start to get a little old hat. So Whedon raised the stakes. In one of the most shocking moments I’ve ever seen on television, a supernaturally powerful priest (played by Firefly’s Nathan Fillion) presses his thumb into fan favorite Xander Harris’ eye. Very much the heart of Buffy’s team, we had a naïve belief that his sense of humor made him invincible. That one moment of simple, blunt violence changed everything. Suddenly, nobody was safe.
That’s what Wash’s death did for the climax of Serenity. It was that one blunt act of violence on a beloved character that removed any sense of security for us as viewers. As the Reavers backed Serenity’s crew into a corner, I was certain the body count would not stop at two. Then the crew begin to take hits, and not graceful pretty movie wounds (see Scarlett Johansson in The Island) but nasty, mortal wounds: a sword through the stomach, a poison round in the neck, a bullet in the chest. Battling against mindless savages, that’s how things should be. It felt real. It felt honest. It was terrifying. I loved seeing Malcolm Reynolds walking out of his battle with the Operative with his face pummeled and blood vessels broken in his eye. The battle was hell for its participants and they looked like it on the other side. I struggle to think of another film that gave its heros such an ass-whooping. It made the last twenty minutes of the film quite harrowing for everyone in the theater, and all because of one carefully chosen death.
The only objection to Wash’s killing is we never really get a chance to mourn for him. In the middle of the battle, there was no time for it. It was very cold, and we fans would probably ask for something better for our plucky pilot. Yet, it makes sense. Even Zoe’s stoicism made sense to a point -- she’s a soldier and they were in the midst of a war. Nevertheless, something was missing for Wash at the end of the film, and that’s unfortunate. Perhaps it was another time issue. I don’t know. Still, that doesn’t take away from what Wash’s death did for the intensity of that final sequence.
I want to see more of this crew, but its clear I’m not going to get as much as I would like. There was a time I hoped that this movie would be a break-out for many of its performers, but then I realized that’s not really what I want. However much I think these actors deserve great roles in the future, I don’t want them to vacate Serenity. Adam Baldwin is always going to be Jayne. Jewel Staite is always going to be Kaylee. And Nathan Fillion, you have leading man charm, but you were born to play Captain Malcolm Reynolds. I believe an actor is never as great as their breakout role, and this cast is terrific as the crew of Serenity. So why not stay at your best?
That being said I really don’t care to see them on film again, where their story is truncated and their relationships shallow. It’s wishful thinking, but I’d love to see them reappear on television (ala Family Guy) on FX or Sci-Fi. Film’s fine for sci-fi archetypes and grand mythologies like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. But Firefly is different from them in that there are no grand quests, no great meaning. It’s about people -- regular, blue-collar folk -- making their way through life as best they can. The appeal is in getting to know them, living and growing with them. I love these characters and their stories. It’d be a shame to only see them every three or four years.
Final Grade for Serenity: B+
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