Peace, and to be left alone.

I had occasion to watch the first few episodes of season 3 of Deadwood. I've watched all the preceding episodes in the DVD and I love the hell out of this show. And I've reached a startlingly obvious conclusion about the central dynamic of the show.

Seth Bullock, erstwhile lawman, statesman, and entrepreneur is at loggerheads with Al Swearengen, full throttle crime boss, murderer and whore monger. But through the end of season 2 they reach an accommodation that slowly morphs into an alliance against the encroaching government and Hearst concern. And why is that? (I asked myself) Why did these two enemies find friendship?

Because they each in their way are holders of the secret and devotees of the dream of the American West. They want to be left alone. Their morals might be polar opposites, but their ideology aligns. They want to be left alone.

That is the whole point of the American West. Solitude and self-preservation, the freedom to left to one's devices. Outside influences seek to control Deadwood the town, and pigeonhole Deadwoods people into the American model of commerce and government. A model that each person in Deadwood had actively sought to avoid in coming to that remote and lawless corner of the world.

It's an ethos that has dominated that part of the world--this part of the world, I guess--for centuries immemorial. Bracketing the 1870s in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, I have two pieces of historical information.

First, and most recent, I have my own family's history. My folks came to Colorado to get out of the Rust Belt. Jobs were drying up and neither wanted the life of secretary and an assembly line worker. And even those lives were few and far between in Detroit in 1975. So they came to Denver, where there wasn't much infrastructure, just work and potential for work. It's how they became business owners and parents: the opportunity presented by the American West.

Second I have the old ways that reigned over this continent before the coming of settlers and colonist and white men with their dead savior. "To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place in hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written on tablets of stone by the iron fingers of your god so that you could not forget. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors." That's Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and Duwamish--yes, they named the city after him, right after they killed all the injuns on the site. "We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone." That's Crazy Horse, warrior of the Oglala Lakota giving up the dying prayer of his people. But we white men would inherit that prayer and Seattle's pragmatism too.

The whole point of the West is to lose yourself and reinvent, better than before.
That harsh god that the white men brought over has no real sway here. That Sumerian sky god, with his demands of sacrifice and obedience is not the god of this land. That Great Spirit is. This is not the land of obedience and sacrifice, it's the land of being left alone. Maybe old Jehovah has his talons in the rocks of the east, but out West the Great Spirit still reigns.

And that's what made Bullock and Swearengen see eye to eye. Out here the only law is peace, and to be left alone.

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Studio 60 on the Implausible Premise

So I was watching Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip. And it's pretty bad. I watched it when it first came on because I enjoyed The West Wing (Studio 60 is made by the same people). The West Wing wasn't the best show ever, but it was pretty good--best thing on on of the Big Three anyway. But now that Studio 60 officially cancelled, and NBC is just burning off the last few episodes, it's so bad it's gone around right past good and back to bad again. And watching Studio 60 has taught me two things.

First, WW was good in no small part due to the actors. Martin Sheen, Allison Janney, Dule Hill, John Spencer, and Stockard Channing were carrying the show on the strength on their reading and rhythm. This is significant over and above the significance of quality acting on other shows because WW and Studio 60 were both Aaron Sorkin shows, and Sorkin was seen, and let himself be seen as the animating force behind both shows. As though it was his writing that made the television, and not actors. You can see it in the lines. Sorkin writes with one voice: his--and he sticks it in the mouth of every one of his actors. The whole universe contained in one of his shows is just Aaron Sorkin's interior monologue working itself out.

And this leads me to the second thing that I learned: WW was good and S60 sucks because Sorkin isn't a good writer, he's just good at creating chaos and resolving it in pretentious ways. This works for the White House with the chaos of world events being ably portrayed, and the high drama of real world stakes in politics and high rhetoric of statesmanship ably cover the pretentious whining and self-regard.

But TV itself just isn't that important. So a behind-the-scenes look at a fictional SNL type show just isn't the proper stage for Sorkin's bluster. Thus does Studio 60 fail.

It doesn't help that the man clearly has such a high regard for himself that he's imbued his protagonists with every aspect of his own character without seeing the flaws in their (his) personality. Which make his leads completely unsympathetic. It also doesn't help that he's so self-serious that he isn't funny. Since the eponymous show within the show is supposed to be funny, this is a problem for reasons of verisimilitude. I mean, really, are we to believe that Sorkin couldn't russel up a couple of proven comedy writers willing to do touch-up work in L.A.? Shit, I have a couple names I could give him.

Sorkin has this idee fixe that the effort one puts in one's job to create truly great work is a transcendent experience. This is well and good, and a good chunk of people would agree with Sorkin. This is even a great theory for the making of good television: the pride people can take in their labor, and the struggle to find honor and meaning in their work. But the problem, again, is that Sorkin can't see beyond his own nose.

See, Aaron Sorkin seems to be of the opinion that we live in a meritocracy, and that is silly. All of his people in high places are honorable and good and smart because their virtue is what propelled them to high places. Also, everyone on a Sorkin show is in a high place. When on a recent episode of S60 the prop-masters for the show when on strike, they were never shown, their reasons were never given, the audience only knew that their union had called a strike and that one of the protagonists (Danny Trip, inably performed by Bradley Whitford) was dealing with them harshly. The message was: "How dare these prop guys strike, they should grovel at the chance to work with geniuses like the cast and producers of S60." See, in Sorkin's world, the actual labor of things is not considered the real work. Only the collaborative creative process that sets policy and makes decisions is work. So writers, lawyers, producers, executives, Presidential aides, are all heroes in their work; but prop guys, teamsters, factory workers, and local cops are peons whose petty concerns about money and hours (the philistines!) are ruining America.

It doesn't occur to him that the prop-master makes a fraction of what the writers, cast and producers of a show make. That the prop-master is concerned about doing a good show because he cares about doing good work, but that he is more concerned about his daughter's college tuition, or his son's case of the measles. This doesn't enter the Sorkin's calculus. And that's a shame because that would have been a good show. If you want to go behind the scenes, go behind the scenes...tell me something about the production of a television show that I don't know, tell me about the logistics and the drama inherent in the conflict of all those people, all those egos. Instead we get how great everyone is because they are all geniuses and awesome at everything, yay! Ever been to legal staff meeting or a reception for students an faculty at an elite college? It's boring. Ever been to a cowboy bar, or heard dirty jokes told at a job site, or listened to union men tell stories about strikes? It's awesome and entertaining.

Sorkin is what we call a limousine liberal. He thinks all the right things and says all the right things, and cares about the environment and health care and affirmative action. But he can't see that politics transcends biography. If it meant realizing that there is not a meritocracy, that wealth and income and talent and virtue do not always line up, but rather must be aligned through often unsavory means that include taking 37% of Sorkin's paycheck every year (which he has complained about on his shows--the liberal ends are okay, but not the means, that would mean Sorkin himself must contribute to society beyond his terrible television scripts). If that were so, and it is, Sorkin would be lost because he sees people as the sum of their resumes. He doesn't show that person to be good, or sympathetic, or sinister, or caring, he just reads you their resume.

All of the lawyers on Sorkin's shows went to Harvard or Standford law schools, because that is where all good lawyers come from. All the actors went to Northwestern or Yale drama programs. The President is religious (as even Sorkin realizes he must be) but he's a liberal Catholic, not an evangelical Protestant. And he went to Notre Dame, but Sorkin makes clear that he got into Harvard and Williams, just so you know he's not shanty Irish or anything.
All the Doctors went to Johns Hopkins, and all the military personnel are the best fucking fighter in their squadron with like 8 medals of honors or something.

In real life half the senior partners went to Loyola or U of Miami. Most successful actors went to high school, the Presidents do disproportionately attend Harvard, that's true, but Truman and Lincoln never went and Reagan and Nixon, I don't even know the names of the two-room colleges they attended. And a lot of dudes in the military (like in every job) are dicks and losers. That's what makes them good, or sympathetic, or sinister. Their actual lives, not their resumes.

In the end S60 failed for two reasons: 1) it was a comedy show that wasn't funny, and 2) people were okay being preached at by the President, they even want it, it felt like actual intellectual leadership from the White House (even if a lot of Sorkin's politics appeared to be kind of naive); but they sure as shit weren't going to be preached to by some schmucks on a comedy show that isn't even funny. If you're going to exalt work above all else, and make resumes more important than personalities, you have to make sure you are doing a good job in the first place.

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Guess Who's Right

I'm beginning to think that the Paris Hilton schadenfreude may have gotten out of hand. I mean, yeah, she's one of the worst people in world (I'm serious about that too, Hannah Arendt taught us that true evil is banal and not spectacular) but while throwing her in jail is what would happen to anyone else that doesn't change the fact that it is still unjust. We toss folks in the slammer entriely to casually in this country and doing it to a truly loathsome person doesn't make it any more just.

Also, as much as I hate Paris Hilton for a number of admittedly silly reasons I can't help but notice that a lot of dudes are getting misogynistic in their criticism, and that's unacceptable. Hate Paris Hilton, not women. And finally, I think the whole thing has gotten out of hand because O.J. Simpson has come out as a voice of reason. Yeah, I know, we're through the looking glass on this one.
Quoth the Juice:

"When Paris Hilton was going to jail last week, more people knew about that than knew that we were sending people into space that day," Simpson said in a phone interview from Miami. "It has replaced what is real news. There was always a place for it, but it was [gossip writer] Rona Barrett. Now it is the equivalent of Edward R. Murrow reporting it today.
...
"It is about time that the news media point out that they are not doing their job," he said about why he agreed to the interview. "Things have changed a lot from my trial until today. It is all about ratings, unfortunately.

"When I was growing up, to watch guys like Walter Cronkite and Huntley and Brinkley, I didn't know what they thought of the news," he added. "Legitimate news people are giving their opinions. It is hard to tell the difference between legitimate news people and Nancy Grace and Bill O'Reilly."

So there you have it. O.J. Simpson: more level headed and thoughtful than the news media.

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Two things...

1) You may now enjoy Nerdarts on the side bar. I give you permission.

2) I advise you to bask in the glory of female beauty throughout the history of Western Art. Bask you ungrateful swine, bask!

Now, there. That was nice wasn't it? I hope we've learned something together today: ladies are pretty.

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Things that are unacceptable

I'm not going to really talk about this because I don't have anything constructve to say and it fills me with rage and shame and neither of those things are conducive to quality thinking on any subject. All I'm going to do is write a sentence with links to two things in that sentence, and then you can follow those links and figure it out for yourself. My only commentary is in the form of a disclaimer: No historical analogies are to be taken literally, I'm not calling anybody anything specific, I just think that we should think about the road we've apparently chosen to go down. Anyway, here you go:

We are doing this, and we are doing it here. I'm honest-to-God sick to my stomach right now.

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Parthenogenesis Strikes!

I'm a little late to this, but the undersea menace has gotten real, people. The advent of an army of tiny killing machines in the form of shark messiahs has become fact.

"Yes, indeed this is a virgin birth," Shivji said in an interview, adding that
this could help explain why other sharks have suddenly been born in captivity,
like a bamboo shark that appeared in Detroit's Belle Isle Aquarium in
2002.
"We have now demonstrated that sharks are actually able to use an
alternative, previously unknown reproductive pathway, which is parthenogenesis.
The problem here is that this alternative reproductive pathway results in
offspring that have much lower genetic diversity," he said

This cartilangenous Jesus-fish is a herald of the coming Sharkocalypse. Now, even in isolation a determined matri-shark may brood an entire army of swimming teeth like so many grey-eyed Athenas with glinting spears from the hammer-head of a Jawsian Jupiter. Will this new threat from our as yet unconquered oceans be an isolated affront to human-kind's rightful sovereignty over the whole of the globe, or will the sharks wait and join with their fellows of the perfidious depths, the dolphins and the squid? Time will tell, time will tell. I propose a surface world alliance. Send our armored bathyspheres and deep-submergence Marines in a pre-emptive strike on the enemy in their abyssal layers.

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It's Confession Time

I'm tired of living the lie: I like Tom Clancy.
Though they are squirreled away in a paper bag in my closet (seriously, I'm that embarrassed, and now I'm embarrassed that I'm that embarrassed) I am the owner of dog-eared copies of The Hunt for Red October, The Sum of All Fears and Patriot Games. I've seen all of the movies that have been made of Tom Clancy's books. The Hunt for Red October starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin is one of my favorite movies. I have played Splinter Cell on the Xbox more than is okay.
I'm not embarrassed because they aren't "literary" fiction (the Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft is on the shelf for all to see--and I think Graham Greene's spy novels are every bit as good as his more serious work, even if he didn't), I'm embarrassed because they are hack-work. But, by God in heaven, they are brilliant hack-work.
I should also admit that I find the ham fisted Cold War hawkishness of the early Jack Ryan stuff silly, but its just so compellingly written. Seriously, many a "literary" novelist could learn a thing or two from the pacing and characterization in Tom Clancy's novels. I think one of the things that makes Michael Chabon such a great novelist is his internalization of the pacing and flow and characterization of "genre" fiction.
Tom Clancy throws in enough verisimilitude to really hook you. He knows enough about how these nuclear incidents and Cold War stand-offs would actually work that the shear plausibility of his scenarios is enthralling. And the message underlying the plots of his books is actually quite admirable. Clancy's books speak to a boundless sort of optimism that good works and good policy will actually achieve positive ends. That smart people working hard can make the world a better place. He isn't naive, he understands how complex this all is. Indeed, in the aftermath of 9/11 he was a sought after commentator, the events of that Tuesday were exactly the sort of complex tactical scenario that Clancy has made a fortune accurately gaming out in terms understandable to millions of readers. And what did he say. He said the terrorists have material grievances, the actions of the Great Powers in the region had caused a certain amount of blow back, the NSA and CIA had been on Bin Laden for years and needed the resources to bring him in, that Islam itself has nothing to do with it (except in as much as it's a plausible excuse) and that nothing about the religion dictates tyranny and terrorism, but a lot about the deprivation of the Third World does.
And then you realize that Clancy might be a hack-writer (he now licenses his name out to ghost writers in the strongest of paper back traditions), but he's a smart one. He's got his craft and he's the best at it. If you can't get behind a compelling thriller (it doesn't have to be Tom Clancy) because it isn't written by a "good" writer, then you, my friend, have a problem.
Also, Tom Clancy is a homeboy. He's from Balmer (educated at Loyola along with Mark Bowden and Jimmy McNulty, there's something in the water in North Baltimore) and he puts his heroes there (though The Sum of All Fears is set in Denver in the book and I always like that) and his heroes are always Irish Catholic boys from the neighborhood. And I have respect for homeboys.
I like paperback writers, and I like genre fiction. I don't think that they're better than the literary writers and I don't think that the literary writers are better than the genre folks. I just wish they'd learn from each other. I think Orson Scott Card is shit, but that Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury should be celebrated as the great early postmodernist writers they were. Guys like Aldous Huxley and Thomas Pynchon and Kurt Vonnegut are the model to look to here. J.R.R. Tolkein knew more about language and epic form than James Joyce could even hope to have learned. And Raymond Chandler wrote a novel that bordered on the sort of experimental plotting and perspective and moral/philosophical dilemmas that Dostoevsky and Sartre only saw from a distance. Aronofsky and Gondry are arthouse filmmakers and screenwriters that could only hope to write a Neil Gaiman or an Alan Moore comic book.
So I salute genre. And I like Tom Clancy.

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