Al Springs Back to Life

I watched more episodes of Deadwood last night. What a relief to see Al Swearengen, diminished since the finger lopping he received by Hearst, back in grand form as he delivered a massive shit-kicking and throat slitting to one of Hearst's Pinkerton minions.

There was an almost tender moment between he and Alma Ellsworth after she took shelter in The Gem following being shot at, presumably by the same Hearst flunky to later meet a violent end. Swearengen acknowledged that she had ample reason to distrust him (he engineered the murder of her first husband in an attempt to get at his gold claim, which she continues to own and acts as the backing of her Bank of Deadwood) but urged her not to play into Hearst's hand by striking back. Over the protest of her second husband she agree to continue her normal routine and clearly terrified, walks alone to the Bank of Deadwood, under the watchful eye of Swearengen and his crew.

The murky relationship between Joanie Stubbs and Calamity Jane has become clear; the two are lovers. I had to learn more about this and did some research. The writers of Deadwood have apparently taken great liberties with the characters, which is fine by me. I like their version better. Charlie Utter as a dandy?! Hell no! Calamity Jane wore dresses? Again, no. What I like about her character is that like many (if not all) butch lesbians, full of swagger and bluster, just beneath the surface is a giant marshmallow that weeps at the drop of a hat, competent femme Joanie there to take care of her. Sweet. I only have one disc left in the series and then it is all over. I saw some web chat about possible feature films, but I guess that is what people always speculate when a series ends.

Today I was chatting with a neighbor in the laundry room and she told me that my building used to have a swimming pool, which the owners filled in a few years back. I had a momentary pang for the Melrose Place-style life I could have had.

Professional Critic to Go Why Fie

I have a little actor crush on Ian McShane, who plays Al Swearengen on Deadwood. Sort of like James Gandolfini, McShane makes a brutal and self-interested character so damn likeable that you're willing to forgive just about anything, even when he refers to the female characters on the show as "loopy cunts." If you've seen the show, then you know this is fairly typical language--every other word out of just about every character's mouth is some variation of 'fuck,' but after the first episode it seems perfectly normal. If you haven't seen Deadwood yet, what are you waiting for? Go rent it already.

Today I saw a preview for a new show on Fox called New Amsterdam about a New York cop who is immortal. Interesting--a few weeks back I read a great book called Forever by Pete Hamill about a New York journalist who is .. immortal. Hmmm. Some threads on IMDB raise this coincidence. Someone posted that Pete Hamill "licensed" the idea to the show. A sweeping epic of a read, especially if you're interested in the history of New York, although a touch heavy on the witchy Celtic wisdom and wonderment. (The connection will make sense whe you read it.) I'm sure the show will be terrible but I'll give it a whirl in honor of Pete.

I'm pleased to report that I just purchased a laptop. Now I can join the legions of people tap tap tapping on their keyboards while you're trying to read your paper in peace at the cafe. I apologize in advance to those I'm certain to annoy. Buying the computer was easy enough. With a Mac the choices are limited: wow that's expensive, who pays this much for a computer and I'd rather buy a new car. But the accessories! It took me forever to pick out a case and I completely bagged the wireless router thingie for now, hoping I can ride on the coattails of a neighbor's network. There's got to be some benefits of living in urban density.

Our Limitless Capacity To Be Abused

What is the deal with Hell's Kitchen? Chef is such an asshole. This is part of the reason I am generally not a fan of the reality show. Except Top Model. And, okay, I did like the haircutting show with Jacklyn Smith. But she was incredibly gentle as she gave them the boot: "I'm sorry. Your style is not a cut above." And she did seem truly sorry.

Like the Hell's Kitchen cooks that grovel and scrape before Chef, do people generally line up to be abused so readily in real life? This brings to mind my downstairs neighbor. I haven't blogged about him yet, but my four or so loyal readers have probably heard me talk about my downstairs neighbor, Cracky McCracken. Cracky seems to suffer from an explosive rage disorder. Or possibly some kind of drug-induced mania since he could easily be a meth addict. Maybe a dealer, too, as he has a brand new BMW yet seems not to have a conventional job of any kind. Since moving in some two or so years ago, I have been lucky enough to overhear more conversations than I can count that tend to go like this:

Cracky McCracken: (muffled yelling) ... fuck you! No, fuck you! (slight pause) Fuck you, you fuck! I said fuck you! (beat) Bitch! You fucking fuck! Puta! (repeat ad nauseam)

The most amazing thing to me is not that Cracky can dish this out--he's got the lung power, stamina and lack of vocabulary needed for such a tirade. No, what's amazing to me is that anyone would stay on the phone to hear him out. I can only conclude that Cracky's "friend" must also be on drugs, opiates of some kind, that render him very slow to respond. Or some kind of blunting drug that permits him to believe that a sentence not containing a permutation of "fuck" must be just around the corner.

A few months ago I noticed I hadn't heard Cracky in a while and concluded that he must have gone to rehab or finally been appropriately medicated for his volatile mood disorder. How naive you are, Professional Critic! One warm dry night, I didn't turn on the dehumidifier and my optimism was rewarded with a 2am fuckfest--not the kind I wanted to experience. Turns out the dehumidifier was drowning Cracky out. So much for "whisper quiet" operation. It's more like curling up with a Cessna engine, but far better than hearing Cracky rage.

What Everyone Knows

Wow, what a blow delivered yesterday to the Bush administration. Judge Motz (Clinton appointee, natch) ruled that the US cannot hold civilians in this country as enemy combatants indefinitely. Aside from sporting a horrendous haircut, the guy in question Ali al-Marri is definitely not good news. His ties to Al Qaeda don't seem too much in doubt. Capital B bad. There is a part of me that can see the appeal of getting all Israel-ish on his ass and ordering a clandestine execution. But you know, I did see Munich and that method doesn't seem work out that well, either. An eye for an eye, both blind etc.

Once you eliminate the easy answers (kill 'em or lock 'em up and throw away the key, ignoring our own judicial principles and oh yeah, the Geneva Convention, too) where does that leave you? In the trenches, doing the work. You know, all the work that the 911 Commission discovered wasn't done. Intelligence 'n stuff. The slogging work that's often tedious and sometimes dangerous. What Lester in The Wire calls "good po-lice." But, in true-blue American fashion, between 1998 and 2004 our military was too busy firing all the Arabic speaking linguists because they were gay to be gathering intelligence that could thwart terror plots. And even if someone uncovered intelligence, who was left to translate it? A proud moment for America.

So instead of being deported or booked on charges in a civilian court, this bad-haircut-up-to-no-good guy is held for four years, the first 16 months of which had no contact with his family or attorney. Everyone knows you can't do that. Judge Motz wrote, “The president cannot eliminate constitutional protections with the stroke of a pen ..." Everyone knows you can't do that! Don't they?

Moms and Dads

At the farmer's market today, while trying to decide if the strawberries I usually buy from a little organic stand staffed by nice crunchy girls looked a little tired***, I overheard the following exchange:

Dad (observing two-ish year-old son, unmoved by the surrounding cornucopia of beautiful produce, chucking stones into the crowd of people walking by): Don't throw rocks at people.

Mom (paying for asparagus, without missing a beat, retorts): How about not throwing rocks?

Isn't that just moms and dads in a nutshell?


***They were pretty exhausted. I guess strawberry season might be coming to an end. Instead I bought some pluots, which are just fantastic. I don't like apricots but somehow in the plum hybrid process, it all works out to be delish.

The farmer's market can cause some consumer anxiety. Most stalls have the same stuff, so who to buy from? I buy organic if it isn't really expensive, but then I also want to buy from the little mom and pop farms that maybe can't afford to have their farms certified organic and instead have a banner that says "certified farmer," which as far as I know means nothing, but it's sweet. Mostly I think that any farmer who really wants to make a living raising food deserves my business, but how many bags of baby lettuce mix do I really need?

I Feel Nothing For You, Paris

Paris goes back to prison. She should take a page from the book of Martha Stewart in how to handle incarceration gracefully.

Should we be surprised that a a medical researcher who testified about the safety of Avandia in 1999 disclosed that he was harassed and threatened with legal action by an executive from the the manufacturer of the diabetes drug? I guess not. The FDA just released a safety alert that the drug may raise the risk of heart attack and on Wednesday called for the strictest warning (the "black box") for the same reasons ... which is what the medical researcher testified to in 1999.

It's been a while since I mentioned Knut, the "ice bear" cub living in the Berlin Zooo. He's getting big. In just a few months from this to this to this. Not as cute as when he was a wee one, but I think the same thing about myself when I look back at my baby pictures. Damn, I was cute.

If you're a Sopranos fan, you're probably one of many people predicting what the final episode will bring. Salon features an article today with many such speculations. This one from Lisa Lutz is my favorite:

I stopped predicting what would happen with "The Sopranos" after late last season when I became convinced there would be a spinoff called "Vito in Vermont."

I can relate. I was so happy for Vito when he stumbled into the idyllic New England town full of antique stores and hunky short order cooks/volunteer firemen. Oh! Maybe he can break away. Would that be so bad? He won't blab. He's found love. Like all things with the potential for personal fulfillment and happiness on the Sopranos, this went down in flames. If Phil gets whacked, all I can say is: he had it coming.

Oh No They Didn't

From The Onion:

"This Week: Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays."

Oh yes they did.

And this:

There's No More Reassuring Voice In Retirement Planning Than Dennis Hopper

There's no denying it anymore: I'm getting to that point in my life where I should start thinking seriously about my retirement. I'll be living on a fixed income, so careful management of my assets will be crucial. That's why Dennis Hopper's television spots for Ameriprise Financial are so reassuring. Retirement planning means a lot of decision making, and thank God I have the soothing presence of that amyl nitrate–huffing, obscenity-screaming, psychosexual lunatic from Blue Velvet to guide me through it.

There's more, but you get the picture. No, I don't think I'll write anything original today. Ta ta.

Crab, Interrupted

I woke up on the crabby side of the couch this morning. Perhaps because the weather has been relentlessly grey and cold for what feels like months. As you Bay area people know, when you make the deal with the devil (move to the East Bay) and agree to a ridiculous commute you're supposed to get cheaper rent and better weather. I've been holding up my end of the deal by diligently sitting in traffic every day, so where's my sun at? A resentments builds.

But, fortified by many cups of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, I forced myself out the door to run some unexciting errands, and a quick stop at the library where I picked up Anne Lamott's new book Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. Since the weather stunk, there was no incentive to dawdle, and besides I had Haagen Daz coffee frozen yogurt that needed the freezer, so I went back home and made myself a fabulous lunch: three rounds of moroccan olive bread, lightly toasted and dabbed with mayo, with cheddar and peppered turkey, a side salad and a glass of Trader Joe's low sodium Garden Patch (it's V-8 but without the tinny taste). Heaven. Then I curled up on the couch with Anne's book and devoured that, along with some dark chocolate.

I haven't been a huge fan of Anne Lamott's fiction, and have felt scared off of her non-fiction books about faith, fearing they'd be too Jesus-y for my taste. But I heard her on NPR a few weeks back, reading an essay from this book (called Nudges), and she was hilarious and honest. I don't even know what to quote, since I laughed out loud so many times. How about this, from The Muddling Glory of God.

I wish grace and healing were more abracadabra kinds of things; also, that delicate silver bells would ring to announce grace's arrival. But no, it's clog and slog and scootch, on the floor, in the dark.

I suppose that if you were snatched out of the mess, you'd miss the lesson; the lesson is the slog. I gew up thinking the lessons should be more like the von Trapp children: more marionettes, more dirndls and harmonies, But no: it's slog, bog, scootch.

This I can get into. Lamott captures so beautifully the neurotic messes we all are, loves herself and us in spite of it, or because of it. Two thumbs way up, as they say.