FIRST DRAFT

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Ging Gang Goolie

 

It's hard being a corrupt Attorney General. Harry Daugherty is under investigation and his pudgy bag man, Jess Smith, has a meltdown at a Boy Scout shebang, which was probably caused by the Scouts rendition of the excreable dirt sleeping anthem, Ging Gang Goolie. I know that it gave me nightmares. My skin crawls at the very thought of camping. I am a city boy and damn proud of it.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, Nucky is pissed off at Harry who reciprocates by having the Nuckster tossed  in the hoosegow. Nucky chills in the cooler, and then is fined $5 at the night court by a judge who looks nothing like Harry Anderson.

The Nuckster runs into his old nemesis, Esther Randolph, who has been demoted to trying cases in front of Judge Not Harry Anderson. Hey, at least Dan Fielding isn't there to pinch her ass. Anyway, Nucky is concerned that Daugherty is planning to throw him under the trolley car and comes up with a plan to make this boomerang on the crooked AG. His attempt to sell this idea to Ms. Randolph flops. For now, for now.

Okey doke, on to some brief comments:

Seeing Double: Madam Mommie Dearest Jillian's life continues to suck ass. She catches Charlie Lucky encouraging one of her "hoors" (his word, not mine, Imam) to sell heroin to the johns. Jillian wants to run a respectable bordello and fires her ass after being mocked by Charlie Lucky for having "hoors" who dress like school marms. Roaring Twenties snap.

After her encounter with the future boss of bosses, she gathers Jimmy's pictures and puts them in a jar that she keeps by the door. What is it for? Oops, that's Eleanor Rigby, not Madam Mommie Dearest Jillian.

She hits the boardwalk, meets a young Hoosier named Roger who resembles Jimmy. She beds him and calls him James because "that's the name of a king." I shall call him Roger James.

Jillian is a fascinating, twisted and very disturbed character. Her sick and incestuous relationship with Jimmy was deeply creepy, and the new thing with Roger James is as well. I love casting the sweet faced and adorable Gretchen Moll as the skeezy, hopelessly messed up Jillian. And Gretchen rocks the part, y'all.

Scrapbooking with Richard Harrow: Speaking of creepily endearing characters, Richard has a new fixation. He meets a nice young lady when he helped her drunken lout of a father after he got his blotto butt kicked at the Legion Hall. Stomp. Hmm, that sounds like a country song; maybe something for George Jones...

Richard likes this woman because she'll look him in the eye, and not call him "half moon" like her drunken lout of a father did. Hereinafter referred to as DLOAF. DLOAF? That sounds like day old bread or well-worn, uh, loafers. 

Richard goes home, takes off his Guy Fawkes mask, and breaks out his scrapbook. Jack Huston is astonishing as Richard. He's a third generation thespian and has a silent film star vibe going on. He moves very gracefully, sort of like Charlie Chaplin and has that shell shocked John Gilbert look.  I hope Richard finds his Garbo.

Btw, if you'd like to see an *excellent* silent film, Gilbert is awesome in King Vidor's The Big Parade. It's the first great Hollywood war film, and it was fresh and contemporaneous when it came out in 1925. It's set in what Wilson called the war to end all wars. Woodrow was meshuggah when  he said that...

Striking Matches: It's the case of the burning greenhouse. Nucky and Margaret have a greenhouse? Who knew? I wonder if Teddy will eventually become the marijuana king of Atlantic City? Probably not. Enough with the questions, already.

Margaret suspects her creepily endearing pyromaniacal son of setting the blaze. Teddy loves matches but is not guilty: a "vagrant" did it. An aside: Not a word we use today but perhaps I should revive it. I got nothing better to do right now. Plus it rhymes with fragrant and flagrant...

Speaking of fire, Margaret and IRA Man Owen (I'm dead serious about this multiple name thing, y'all) reignite their smoldering passion in (where else?) the greenhouse. We didn't see much of Nucky's greenhouse: I wonder if it was anything like the one in The Big Sleep wherein Bogie sweated like Willard Romney during the last debate. Pardon the digression but what's a little digression among friends? The Crack Van is all about digression, yo.

I'll let the great Chris Difford have the last word with a croaky voiced rendition of a tune from Babylon and On, which is what I just did:

 

Sunday Morning Video: Devoman vs. Clevezilla

I've developed a lethal addiction to some of the SyFy channel's reality shows. This is an episode of Monster Man wherein a zany make-up artiste does some work for new wave legends, Devo:

 

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Chalky White Meets Eddie Cantor

I hate to be repetitive, but Nucky Thompson is still in a vile mood. Given the episode title, You'd Be Surprised, that probably shouldn't be so, BUT the man is in a world of shit. He's called on the carpet by Arnold Rothstein in the wake of the Taber Heights massacre and told he's acting like a lovesick schoolboy in carrying on with Billie the showgirl. She, however, fits neatly into Nucky's pattern of bringing home strays and rescuing damsels in distress. Speaking of distress, Margaret meets Billie in the company of Nucky at the snooty French boutique. Poor form, says Nucky.

On to this week's random notes and general nattering.

Denial Flows In Jersey: Speaking of deep shit, Jillian's venture into classy bordello land isn't going well. Making matters worse is her refusal to admit that Jimmy is dead. She writes the corpse a letter instead of having him declared dead so she can borrow money on the house, and make it an even bawdier house. Luciano is no help, I wonder if she'll turn to Gyp since mutton chopped Junior Soprano dude will not bail her out.

From Hunky Dory to Yumpin' Yiminy: We visit the Van Weirdo family in Cicero. They have a vistor, the corrupt agent who shook down former Agent Van Weirdo at the speakeasy. Van Weirdo and wife think that he's on to who he really is, so she whaps him upside the head, and insists that her husband finish him off. It turns out that he visited to return a really crappy iron Van Weirdo sold him weeks before. Oops.

This paved the way for Van Weirdo to hook up with Dion O'Bannon again. Who better to help you dispose of a dead body than a florist/wise guy? Nobody.

I'm glad that they moved the buxom Mrs. Van Weirdo out of movie Swede-land (anyone else remember the Swedish sodbusters in Shane?) and fleshed the fleshy former nanny out a bit more as a character. It's a pity that she didn't have Van Weirdo suffocate the guy with a slab of lutefisk. That shit could kill anyone...

Milky White: Chalky and his henchman pay a visit on Eddie Cantor at Nucky's behest. The latter is making like Charles Foster Kane and trying to prop up his doxy's failing musical, which was on the verge of folding during previews in Atlantic City. Nucky had already tried bribing and sweet talking the Vaudevillian into helping out but Eddie refused. For a good reason too: he was set to star in a show with music by Jerome Kern, the King of Broadway in 1923.

Now that Nucky is all gangster, he calls on Chalky and pal to "convince" Eddie to give in. After mildly humiliating him by making him perform a really goofy number, Eddie folds his weak hand to avoid getting his ass kicked. Wise choice, Eddie; especially since you thought Mr. White's nickname was Milky. Chalky don't play that.

We see Eddie and Billie at the end of the episode performing You'd Be Surprised. She thanks Eddie for helping but our boychick ungallantly mentioned the name of Lucy Danziger, Nucky's previous showgirl mistress. After seeing the blank look on her face, he said "The one before you. The next one will never hear of you either." Snap.

Kinky Gyp: Our boy Gyp Rosetti is on top of the world when the episode commences. He thinks, wrongly, that he's convinced Rothstein to betray Nucky. Arnold dislikes them both but would rather deal with the semi-predictable Nuckster than the crazy Gypster.

Speaking of crazy, Meyer and Charlie Lucky dispatch Benny Bugsy to whack Gyp at the end of the episode. Benny cackles while shooting 4 people dead but Gyp survives by using a human shield, the cute redheaded waitress who was, uh, restraining him when Benny burst in. Gyp is into some form of auto erotic asphyxiation like a proto Mick Hutchence. From excess to INXS, all in one episode.

I knew Gyp would survive since it's only mid-season but it's a full blown gang war now, and the bodies are only beginning to drop. I'm not sure whose will fall first, Rothstein or Masseria, but neither has much shelf life left if you catch my drift.

 

Weekend Question Thread: Big Block of Cheese Day

So yesterday on Twitter Leo McGarry asked us all for our ideas for Big Block of Cheese Day: 

The staff participates in "Big Block of Cheese Day", a fictional workday on which White House Chief of Staff Leo McGarry encourages his staff to meet with fringe special interest groups that normally would not get attention from the White House. Big Block of Cheese Day also is mentioned in "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail."

The rationale for the day, as recounted by McGarry (much to the consternation of the Senior Staff), is that America's seventh president,Andrew Jackson, had a two-ton block of cheese in the White House foyer from which everyone was welcome to eat. This symbolized the openness of the White House to the American people. White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler derisively refers to the day as "Throw Open Our Office Doors To People Who Want To Discuss Things That We Could Care Less About Day", and Deputy Chief of StaffJosh Lyman refers to it as "Total Crackpot Day".

White House Press Secretary C.J. Cregg meets with a group about building a highway for wolves, while Sam Seaborn meets with a citizen, played by Sam Lloyd, concerned about UFOs.

My random lunatic issue suggestion (you can read everybody's here) was mandatory lighting/glow-in-the-dark-ing of address numbers, because have you ever tried to find a suburban house with one of those lovely old-fashioned plates on the door with the numbers in a delicate brass font in the fucking dark?

You wind up looking like a stalker/cat burglar and/or being lost for hours, driving around peering up people's driveways. It makes me goddamn crazy. How hard is this? The numbers are there so visitors bearing food and beer can find your place. Or so paramedics can bring the ambulance to the right spot. Wouldn't you want those folks to know where you are? GRRR.

What's your Big Block of Cheese issue? 

A. 

Alex Karras, R.I.P.

Detroit Lions all-time great, broadcaster and actor, Alex Karras, has died after a long illness at the age of 77. Unfortunately, more people are mentioning his part on the junky sitcom Webster than his days as one of the fiercest and best defensive players of the NFL's early days. Karras' name also surfaced recently during the Saints bountygate clusterfuck since he and Paul Hornung were suspended for the 1963 season for betting on games but never against their own teams. That's probably why Karras is not in the football hall of fame but he should be since Hornung is in like Flynn...

If you've ever read George Plimpton's classic book, Paper Lion, or seen the Alan Alda movie based on the book, you know that Karras was an intelligent, articulate and funny man. If you're unfamiliar with Paper Lion, check it out: Plimpton practiced with the Lions, and even played QB in an exhibition game. No, not a pre-season game, they hadn't come up with that dread euphemism in the 1960's.

Since Karras was one of the first Greek-Americans to achieve national prominence, my late father offered his classic commentary about that fact: "He's Greek, you know. He's doing very well."

The main reason I am posting in honor of Alex Karras, however, is his indelible performance as Mongo in the Mel Brooks masterpiece, Blazing Saddles. I am prone to employ Mongo speak when it suits me, as I will now: "Mongo sad."

 

 

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Go buy a personality

Nucky Thompson is still in a bad mood when Blue Bell Boy begins. Beating the legal system hasn't improved his disposition at all. I'm not sure that being all-gangster works with his self image but it's been great for the show. The post title was said by the Nuckster to one of his lame henchman. Good help has always been hard to find, y'all. And it bites Nucky in his skinny Irish ass.

Okay, time to ramble. I'm feeling kinda like Dicky Betts, only without the tats, cowboy hat and coke habit:

V is for Vagina: The Margaret-Hospital story really clicked for me this week. The dialogue with the nun was hilarious as well as, uh, gravid. A word the sister liked better than pregnant. It's a medical term that only nerdy geeky science/medical types know. It sounds like a gravid image or something.

The sister also objected to the word menstruation, and to Dr. Pipe Smoker who had the audacity to remind her that it was a Latin word. She was unimpressed and called the word a "regrettable tautology" and the doctor a smarty pants. I hope we see Sister Weisenheimer again. That's probably not her name, sounds more like one of Meyer or Benny's kith and kin. Speaking of da boys:

The Mustache Pete as anti-Semite: Joe Masseria is a nasty piece of work even for a Mafioso, folks. He calls Charlie Lucky on the carpet for not wetting his beak *and* for having the effrontery to have Jewish partners. Masseria goes on and on about how "they have no heart" and "will stab you in the back." Actually, the latter is a Sicilian specialty as is the garrot, which is typically performed from behind, Italian doggy style.

Benny Bugsy is now, uh, bugging Meyer to have a "place at the table." What is he? A waiter in the Poconos? Meyer, in turn, is vaguely jealous of not having a double name like Charlie Lucky and Benny Bugsy...

That's Why They Call Him Greasy Thumb: Meanwhile in Chicago, there's a bullying epidemic. Capone's bagman, Jake Greasy Thumb Guzik, apparently, smells like a noxious mixture of garlic, dill pickles and onions. After Capone urges him to clean up, one of Dion O'Bannion's thugs cleans Jake's clock in a Southside speakeasy. Capone's Southside. Bad move, boy-o.

The other bullying victim is Scarface Al's young deaf son. Tough guy Alphonse tries to teach the boy how to box but the kid breaks out in tears. To Capone's credit, he hugs his son and foregoes punishment. The only ones who were disciplined were the viewers who had to listen to Capone's bad singing and crappy mandolin plucking.

Upon hearing that Jake got his ass kicked in the outfit's territory, Al goes to the bar, meets the Irish wiseguy and promptly beats him to death. In a sort of twisted hommage to Della Streeet the cat, the coup de grace is delivered with a bar stool. Okay, it had nothing to do with Della but she's really into stools...

I guess a therapist would day that Al's brutal beating of the Irish lackey was trasnference from his desire to beat down his boy's bully. What would Capone say? Fuggedaboutit.

Speaking of Lackeys Who Lack Brains: I mentioned before that Nucky has a problem with the help; especially with the dim braggart, Mickey Doyle, in charge of his bootlegging operation. Mickey is warned by Brother Eli that Gyp Rosetti is planning to ambush their trucks at Taber Heights. Nucky had ordered Doyle to stay off the main road but the moron did not listen, with disastrous results. You know you're in trouble when Eli is one of your smartest henchman. Little brother may be on the verge of a comeback.

The IRA Man, The Kid and Nucky In The Basement: One reason that Doyle is in sole command of the ill-fated Rothstein convoy is that Owen and Nucky have tracked down that pesky hijacker who stole an earlier Rothstein order. For a professional gambler, Arnold was sure an unlucky goniff...

They corner the kid and are, in turn, cornered by crooked prohibition agents who ransack the house for booze but, quite sensibly, only give the basement a cursory look-see. Everybody knows that basements are for ghosties, zombies and survivalists, and are often used as a burial place by serial killers and other assorted evil doers and no-goodniks.

The kid talks a smooth line and charms the hell out of the IRA man, Owen, who is usually immune to blarney. I think he sees something of himself in the rakish Irish youth and wants to spare the urchin's life. Said urchin reminds me of one of the Dead End Kids from the 1930's Warner Brothers gangster movies. They later morphed into the East End KIds and finally the Bowery Boys. Where have you gone Huntz Hall and Leo Gorcey? Yeah, I know. They're dead. I only hope neither is buried in a basement somewhere...

Nucky plays his cards close to his bespoke vest whilst he, Owen, and the Kid are stuck in the basement over night. He's vexed with Owen and is getting more paranoid every day. The only reason for him to mistrust Owen is that the latter is smart enough to mount his own personal Easter Uprising.

The Kid, alas, reminds Nucky of his late ward, Jimmy Darmody, and despite the Kid's convincing palaver about what an asset he'd be, his fate is identical to Jimmy's. A bullet in the back of the head. That, too, was a bit of projection, transference or whatever the hell they call it nowadays.

Owen is stunned that Nucky killed the Kid and says,"I thought you were going to let him go." Nucky eyes him coldly and says, "Where did you get that idea?"

Owen's meek reply: "I misundersood." But deep down, he understands that there was no misunderstanding and that his cranky boss is sending him a message. Holy projection, Batman.

My only complaint about episode-4 is that I'm suffering from a Chalky White deficiency in my diet. More Chalky, please, it's a Gyp without him...

I'll let Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford have the last word this week:

 

In Which I Cheat on Sherlock Holmes

Because don't get me wrong, your first fall is always the hardest and oh my GOD, the Three Garridebs and the Granada version and the BBC series and even Elementary isn't terrible, but in answering Melissa's question I have to go with Michael Jericho:

I've loved Robert Lindsay since the A&E Horatio Hornblower series, in which he took a character that I'd never thought much about and made him the weight and conscience of the entire program, such that the Internets invented elaborate and varying backstories for him and the fanfiction had fanfiction, we all gave that much of a damn. Watch "The Wrong War" (or "Frogs and Lobsters") when he says he stands accused by his own conscience, and just try not to feel it like a punch in the gut. 

But Michael Jericho ... it's not just the hard-boiled thing. Those are a dime a dozen. It's the compassion he shows towards victims and the cruelty he displays towards himself and those who love him the most, it's the intense race and class consciousness of the show itself. I've got a whole post somewhere about Law and Order: UK and the ways in which British crime shows deal honestly with divisions Americans like to pretend don't exist. (I've been watching Prime Suspect for the first time and holy shit.) Servants and employers, black and white, immigrant and native-born, gay and straight, the show jumps right into it and chews it all up and finds no easy answers.

Mostly, though, it's that Jericho is a story about people coming back from the war, and if you've been reading here since the Galactica days you know there's nothing I love more than a story about the aftershocks. Jericho and his partner, Clive Harvey, came back from World War II and the world they left didn't exist anymore. Jericho's one true love married someone else. Clive's wife and kids lived through the Blitz, but barely. All around them boundaries are blurring and the old rules no longer apply.

And everything they do, everything that happens to them, everything they do to one another, comes from the absolute disorientation you feel when it wasn't the world that exploded, it was you. The world is the same. You're the different thing. 

A. 

Name Dropping

MSNBC host Laurence O'Donnell is a world class name dropper. He has a hard time getting through his show without name checking Pat Moynihan or mentioning his time as a technical adviser and producer on The West Wing. I don't object to name dropping, actually. Gore Vidal was a world class name dropper who could drop world class names at the drop of a world class hat. I've been known to drop a name or two in my day but I'm a piker compared to Laurence.

Anyway, there was a whole lotta name droppin' goin' on last night on the Last Word. The West Wing's Toby, Richard Schiff, did a turn segment announcing and discussing Mitt's Big Bird hokum. I'm abashed to admit it but I'd forgotten about the Muppets appearance on The West Wing. Woe is me, bop.

Anyhoo, here's that very amusing segment featuring a bird, a name dropper, an actor and a robot:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

Breaking: Mittbot Wants To Fire Big Bird

Yeah, I know it's not breaking news that the Mittbot likes to fire people but Muppets? Who would even consider shitcanning Big Bird?

Hope the Obama campaign dresses some dude up like Big Bird and sends them to stalk Mitt like this Clintonite chicken that followed Poppy Bush on the trail in 1992:

Time for some Mitt/Muppet psychedelia:

Via the Guardian.

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Bone For Tuna

The ghost of Jimmy Darmody haunts the third episode of Season 3.Nucky sees a very young and very blonde Jimmy several times throughout the episode. He's a cute youngun with a bullet hole in his head. Notice the picture above wherein Nucky looks as if he has seen a ghost and he has: the Jimmy apparition is one of the boy's choir.

We see Nucky and Jillian together for the first time since the former whacked the latter's son. But only at a distance: Jillian glares and Nucky glowers as he drops my man Gyp off at her fancy bordello. Nucky declines Gyp's invitation inside and we know why.

Richard Harrell is feeling the Jimmy geist too. In the episode's best scene, the sniper confronts Mickey Doyle over the latter's bragging that he'd killed Manny Horvitz. Richard, of course, was the one who did the deed. He abducts the sniggering bootlegger who starts simpering as he's dragged to Nucky's suite at the Ritz, which gives a whole new meaning to the term putting on the Ritz. 

Richard forces Mickey to admit that he did not whack Manny and the sniper nods gravely when asked by Nucky if he did so. Nucky is scared shitless so he asks if Richard's wrath extends beyond Angela Darmody to Jimmy. Richard essentially told Nucky not to shit himself by saying, "Jimmy was a soldier who lost." Dr. A and I have been wondering if Richard would move against Nucky now we know. We also knows that he knows, know what I'm saying?

That's my cue to move on to some quick-but probably not hard-hitting comments on the episode:

Jolly Jokers: Former Agent Van Weirdo is a solemn humorless sort. That's why his Chitown co-workers love busting his chops. They actually felt bad about it and took him to a speakeasy, which is promptly raided by the Prohies. Former corrupt agent Van Weirdo buys his way out of the situation. Betcha $10K that he goes to work for Dion O'Bannon.

No Rubbers: Margaret continues to be the *real* politician in the Thompson family by conning the pompous bishop into ordering pompous Dr. Landau to open a women's clinic at the hospital with the injunction "it's a Catholic hospital." No birth control or Johnny hats, y'all.

Mr Sensitive: Gyp Rosetti continues to have skin thinner than Olive Oyl's ankles. He gets Nucky to sell him some hooch directly but gets all pissy about picking it up from Owen, Mickey and Eli in Nucky's absence. The. best line on the subject came from the Nuckster to the Gypper: "You can find an insult in a bouquet of roses." Yo, Nuck, roses have thorns and Gyp is on record as thinking you're a skinny Irish prick.

This time Gyp's flip out is provoked by Owen Sleater's phonetical pronunciation of bon fortuna: the episode title, Bone For Tuna. In the manner of all bullies, Gyp waits to flip out until he's away from the former IRA man.  Owen, of course, is heavily armed. Gyp is not only sensitive, he's a bit on the literal side. He takes the term combustible temper to heart by dousing the corrupt rural sheriff with gasoline and setting him ablaze in a full tilt psychotic Cody Jarrett moment. Why? The crooked copper wished Gyp good luck. In the immortal words of Rick Haircut, "oops."

I'll let Gyp have the last word, uh, picture:

Sunday Morning Video: WKRP- Les's Groupie

Dr. Johnny Fever plays a Dr. Johh tune at the start of the episode and then gets a call from Les's fan. Hilarity ensues:

 

 

Boardwalk Empire Thread: Coffee and Spaghetti Talk

Nucky Thompson has gone full gangster in Season 3 of Boardwalk Empire. That means that he's insulating himself from day-to-day bootleg sales. It's causing him all sorts of problems with the man on the right above, Gyp Rosetti. You know, the guy who called him a "fucking bread stick in a bow tie." Gyp is now obliged to buy booze via Arnold Rothstein. Gyp is not amused and he's one scary motherfucker when he's not amused. 

Okey doke, on to this week's random and discursive comments on episode 2, Coffee and Spaghetti:

Eli's Coming (Home) Nucky's feckless and rather dim brother got out of jail and immediately fell prey to the insulation-no, not pink fiberglass-campaign. He was met by the Jewish gangster with the Irish name, Mickey Doyle, and not his big brother. Eli was not amused. He's also gone to work for Doyle and his annoying laugh. Eli is a ticking time bomb and his first eruption could involve putting a bullet through Doyle's derby...

Chalky's Back and Badder Than Ever: We see Chalky presiding in his roadhouse/speakeasy. He meets the squeaky clean, and terribly boring, med student that wants to to wed his daughter. Chalky, a hustler to his core, green lights the notion, seeing in it a chance for his family to rise. His daughter would rather marry a tough guy like her dear old dad. Conflict ensues.

In the best scene of the season so far, we learn that Dr. Dull is in touch with his inner hard ass. He gets into it with a thug at Chalky's joint who slashes the Doctor wannabe's face with a switchblade. After Chalk's lackey beats the attacker down, Dr. Dull insists on doctoring his assailant. Chalky was impressed. I was too. He may be one of DuBois' "talented tenth" but he got game as the kids would say. Not then but now...

Nucky's new nookie: Our anti-hero has a cute and adorable new show girl. She sort of a cross between Margaret and his former show girl mistress; you know, the one that got knocked up by Agent Van Weirdo. The Nuckster and Margaret seem to be living separate lives after she gave away part of his fortune to the Catholic Church. There are more hints that she and Owen the IRA dude may hook up again. I hope he doesn't wear his gat to bed...

Gypped:  My new favorite character brings an air of menace to everything he does and says. I was afraid that he was going to stick an icepick through the gas station attendant's head during their brief chat. He did not but he brings that Sonny Corleone vibe to BE and that's a good thing.

I got a kick out of Gyp's ordering spag and meatballs at that Anglo diner in North Jersey. Guess it wasn't too bad since he didn't spit it out. He did, however, spit out and return Nucky's booze shipment to Rothstein. Mr. Thompson will rue the day he fucked with the Gypper...

Like some other HBO dramas (Treme and Game of Thrones spring to mind) there's sometimes too much going on in Boardwalk Empire. There are a few too many characters BUT unlike Treme there aren't any I'd flush down the terlet along with the fish from the opening moments of the episode. I wouldn't say the same about Fake Davis and his unmagical musical misery (for the tourists) tour. A sombrero? Really, dude?

Deep Treme Thought

Not the neighborhood, the HBO show. I'm a bit underwhelmed by the Season 3 premiere. What was up with the celebrity chef dinner? It seemed gratuitous to me. Hope the show's staff got some decent eats out of it.

I'm sticking with the show but the short scenes and choppy editing style have got me calling it "short attention span theatre," and that's not a compliment.

That is all.

Boardwalk Empire Thread: A fucking breadstick in a bow tie

I've been meaning to blog Boardwalk Empire since season-1 but life kept getting in the way. I'm going to bitch slap life and tell her to get the hell out of the way. End of semi-useless introductory paragraph.

Okey dokey, time for some random and discursive (do I make any other kind?) comments on the season-3 opener, Resolution.

Viva NYE: Showrunner/auteur Terence Winter seems to love New Year's Eve. This is the second time he's opened a season with a party scene replete with folks drinking Nucky's booze and getting paid off by him.

This time there was an Egyptian theme reflecting Howard Carter's discovery of King Tut's tomb, which eventually resulted in Steve Martin's hit tune in the '70's and a shitload of movies featuring dudes running around wrapped a bit too tightly for their own good if you catch my drift. Apologies for that long sentence. Please don't diagram it. Okay? I mean it...

The reel meets the real: One of BE's strengths has always been the interreactions between real people (Rothstein, Capone, Daugherty et al) and Winter's creations. In this episode, we met the dapper Chicago Irish gangster/florist, Dion O'Bannon who knew how to push Scarface Al's buttons and was eventually whacked by one of the latter's button men. The guy they cast to play O'Bannon is a dead ringer for the real, uh, dead guy.

It looks as if former federal agent Van Weirdo may end up working for Deanie. He's not got much of a future as a salesman, after all. He looked like Lurch on acid as he toted those grips around Chitown.

Meet Gyp Rosetti: Speaking of fictional characters, we met Gyp for the first time. He is so angry that he makes Capone look like Mr. Rogers. I kid you not. He beat a man to death for a perceived slight whilst broken down on the road to Atlantic City. He also spoke the awesome line that is the post title. It was addressed to Nucky who is a skinny Irishman played by a skinny Italian. Rosetti is also big on ethnic slurs. I think he and Rothstein are gonna be bosom buddies...

Poor Richard's Almanac: Richard Harrell is the maimed Great War sniper who became Nucky's late protege Jimmy Darmody's right hand man. Part of his face was blown off so he wears a face mask/prosthetic of sorts that makes him look downright demonic.

Richard finds himself caring for his murdered friends' kid. (Plural because both the kids' parents were killed in the course of season-2.) He tries telling the boy about his late mother, Angela, but runs afoul of Granny Dearest, Gillian Darmody. Gillian is now curating a classy brothel in the Commodore's mansion. Gillian is one of the great dragon ladies of all time, even though she's played by the adorable and cute as a bug Gretchen Moll. I have a major crush on Gretchen. Gillian not so much.

Just say no to Italian ethnocentrism: One of my favorite things about BE is that it accurately depicts the  ethnic mix of American gangsterdom back in the day. There was a certain point that Hollywood became fixated on the Sicilian crime gangs and turned Mafia into the sole synonym for organized crime in the pre-Coulmbian era. (No, not Christopher Columbus, the country named for him.)

Boardwalk Empire revels in the rich ethnic complexity of prohibition era thuggery. Jews, Italians, Irish and Polish crooks walk together hand in hand until, that is, they feel the need to stick an icepick in someone's skull.

The only thing missing in this episode was is the great Chalky White, the black gangster/political boss, who is played by Michael K. Williams of Omar in The Wire fame. I'm sure he'll turn up next week. You cannot erase a great character like Chalky simply by banging two erasers together...

Margaret and the Aviatrix: In between busting the chops of pompous doctors and channeling the Queen of the Nile, Margaret is fixated on the exploits of aviatrix Carrie Duncan. Duncan was the first woman to fly across the US and A and serves as a proto-feminist inspiration to the increasingly independent Margaret. Is it just me or does anyone else love the word aviatrix? It rolls off the tongue: aviatrix.

Jimmy, we hardly knew ye: Resolution only briefly touches on the shocker that ended season-2, Nucky's, uh, liquidating his quasi-son/ally/frenemy, Jimmy Darmody. It was where Nucky crossed the line from corrupt political boss to stone cold gangster. At some point, he's going to regret his actions and it may come at the hands of Richard Harrel who killed the Manny (Horvitz) who killed Angela Darmody. Vengeance thy name is Jack Huston...

Sunday Morning Video: Jennifer Granholm On The Dating Game

Genuine weirdness via Josh Marshall. Dig her big hair:

 

Pulp Fiction Thursday: Spook Show Detour

I've gotten hooked on a show on the Syfy network: Collection Intervention. It features History Detective, appraiser and Tulane alum Elyse Luray. Elyse works with obsessive collectors in an attempt to reign in their collections and to make a few bucks along the way.

In a recent episode, Elyse worked with a guy in LA who collects all sorts of oddball pop-culture items. You know, the stuff that I like. The collector had a bunch of spook show posters. A spook show was a live performance that was usually done at a movie theatre from the 1930's to the 1960s. The posters are clearly pulpilcious:

You Do: The Newsroom Thread

CALLED IT. JUST SAYING. 

Spoilers within. 

Would you all still love me if I just wrote it, already? I mean, come on, the two of them playing strip poker in some shithole in Southeast Asia, drunk on the cheap shit and thinking about their respective assignments? They're just too grown-up and sad and Charlie loves her too much for that to have been anything but the way it happened. 

Convention Crack Vans

I am NOT watching the RNC without y'all. 

So here's the schedule of the vans, beginning at 7:30 EST: 

Monday, August 27, 2012 – PRIMETIME LINE UP

• Governor Nikki Haley (SC)
• Governor Mike Huckabee
• Governor Jeb Bush

Tuesday, August 28, 2012 – PRIMETIME LINE UP

• Mrs. Ann Romney
• Mrs. Luce Vela Fortuno, First Lady of Puerto Rico
• Governor Chris Christie (NJ)

Wednesday, August 29, 2012 – PRIMETIME LINE UP

• Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
• Governor Susana Martinez (NM)
• Vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan

Thursday, August 30, 2012 – PRIMETIME LINE UP

• U.S. Senator Marco Rubio
• Governor Mitt Romney

Come for the mockery, stay for the HAMZ.

(BTW, can somebody who can't get into the van please e-mail me about what happens when you try? I'm trying to figure this out.)

A. 

Throw Out The Rundown: The Newsroom Thread

How. HOW.

What You Don't Get to Talk About

What it's like for you as a gay guy, unless you are one: 

From the first episode, this otherwise stellar season keeps letting us down when it comes to its own blindness to privilege. Tara's empowerment is always knuckled under by Pam in the end; Newlin's sexuality continues to be a pretty ugly punchline to a five-year joke. But you have to know how lucky you are when you can look at any unequal situation and claim to see a level playing field, as long as you're the one on top: Tara "just happens" to be black, Newlin and Russell "just happen" to be hooking up. That's how it looks on the other side of privilege.

And that proceeds to give you the right to make jokes about it as though you were an honorary minority, just because you've labeled yourself a "gay ally" -- whatever the fuck that means -- or post-racially color-blind, or whatever it is. Except it doesn't. The whole thing falls apart because the whole thing was set up as a tactic by you to get out of examining your own fucked-up attitudes.

At the end of the day you're still Otherizing Tara at best, and taking her on a "reverse-racist" trip at worst, which is painfully destructive. At the end of the day, no matter how much you think you like gay people, you're still putting them in a gross fetishistic box when your favorite things about the show are Russell and Lafayette's "campiness," or Newlin taking Talbot's place as Russell's catamite Birdcagebottom.

Even if the majority of the viewing audience happens to enjoy these things, and that's why the writers keep pushing these buttons over and over in a neverending HBO circle-jerk, well... It's called "the majority" for a reason, isn't it? People don't "just happen" to be objects: You make them that way when you treat them like this. Not sure we'll ever be at a place where these things are okay to fuck around with, but tell you what.We'll let you know.

(Some background: I watch True Blood, like True Blood, think Bill is the third-worst boyfriend on TV behind Fritz on The Closer and Dr. McDouchebag on Grey's Anatomy, and generally this season is equal parts batshit and amazing and sometimes both at once. But you all know how I feel about Jacob, anyway, like I read his recaps of shows you couldn't pay me to watch.) 

This sort of thing, though, comes up a lot, in our discussions of political gaffes and pop-culture horrors: Why can't *I* say the things Chris Rock says about black people? Why aren't rape jokes hilarious? Why don't I get to tell you how to feel about how the current debate over whether women are people is going (right now, not well, FYI)? Why can't I treat you like a pet if I think you're super-cute? Why can't your struggle give my life meaning? Why is anything out of bounds for anyone to say at any time? 

And it basically boils down to this, that other people are not FOR YOU, and their experiences are not your TV. It is one thing to learn from knowing about someone else, and another to make that person your zoo exhibit, after which you can loudly proclaim that you've been Forever Changed. The difference is in whether you love the other person, and the experience of growth and change belongs to both of you, or whether you are the leading lady and the Different Friend is your supporting character who is only lit by your reflection. 

I think we don't like being excluded from things, privileged people in general, and I think as much as it is about wanting to SEEM open-minded (as even racists these days get crabby when you call them that), it's also about not wanting to admit there's a system from which you benefit or by which you are punished. If you admit that you don't control everything, then you're admitting that you don't control everything, and take it from a middle-class control freak, fucking NOTHING freaks us out more. I would rather be locked in a car with a spider. 

There are so many ways to fuck this up, and I'm not saying I never have. I said plenty of cringeworthy things to people in my 20s when I was being busted out of my segregated shell. I still say stupid shit without considering who's listening. Luckily I get smacked down by smarter people than me when I do it. It took me a long time to understand that it was about ownership, and no matter how many experiences I can claim, I can't have anybody's experiences but mine. 

A. 

Just This Side of a Snuff Film: The Newsroom Thread

TWO PHONES, ONE HEAD, MOTHERFUCKER.

Dan Rather, from a while back: 

Things I especially liked (and know to be true based on my own experience): How a newsroom springs to life when a big breaking story hits. (The example they used is the Giffords shooting in Arizona.) How it's nearly always true that some good reporter gets fixated on some "way out" story (The example for this is the "Big Foot" story that won't die.) The sleepless nights of anchormen (and women), who, if they are any good, have more of them than most people—sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for trivial ones.

Because that's it, you know? The passion's right. The rest of it, forgivable, fixable, whatever. But this gets the dynamic right. 

Robert Hughes, R.I.P.

I'm feeling a bit like the Grim Reaper lately, y'all. But I needed post about this one. What may be the last generation of public intellectuals continues to drop like flies. Robert Hughes, the acerbic, witty and brilliant art critic and historian has died at the age of 74.

Hughes was an Australian emigree to the US and disdained the g'day mate/Crocodile Dundee stereotype of *his* countrymen so beloved by *our* countrymen. He was the author of a brilliant history of his native land, The Fatal Shore. It also became a teevee documentary series, as did several other of his tomes including Barcelona and The Shock Of The New. The latter series was Hughes' ode to 20th Century modernism, and featured my favorite art historical quote from the Futurist Manifesto, "Oh, maternal ditch." I refuse to provide any context because, as Tom Stoppard once wrote, "my art belongs to Dada."

Here's episode one of The Shock Of The New:

 

NBC Drives Me Usain

Usain as in Bolt, the world's most eccentric fast man. Or is that fastest most eccentric man? Whatever.

As we all know, NBC tape delays all the biggest-n-sexiest Olympic events and airs them on prime time so Bob Costas, not Al Michaels can introduce them. That's not why but that makes as much sense as the policy itself. We all know who won via the interweb so the only reason to hold something is viewership levels. This may be semi-defensible on a week night but the 100 Meters took place on Sunday. Everyone else in the world but us watched Usain run but us. This is taking American exceptionalism a bit too far for my taste...

NBC compounded the error by lollygagging in showing the race. I eventually gave up and watched my hero Russell Edgington on True Blood. It was more satisfying than canned events or the fake Saints game...

I actually think, on the whole, NBC does a decent job with the Olympics. Yeah, there's a bit too much flag waving but people are going to root for their own countries athletes withour prompting. The Wimbledon crowd howling for Andy Murray is evidence of that. BUT they need to drop this "tape delay everything awesome" thing or we might need to put some ferrets down their trousers.

Finally, this post title has given me an earworm. Mercifully, it's a pretty darn good late '80's pop tune:

 

 

Finest Hours: The Newsroom Thread

Spoilers within.

Sunday Morning Video: Gore Vidal on The South Bank Show

Vidal week continues with this 2008 British teevee show:

  

I Was The Bully: The Newsroom Thread

Yes. Yes you were. But that's the thing. You're always the bully. And you're always the victim. And you're always trying to navigate a world that doesn't make any sense at all, because if the world isn't monstrous, if the world makes sense, then why did this have to happen to you? 

Something like that marks you, and you spend your life negotiating with it. That doesn't make you good or bad, or the person who did that to you good or bad. It makes you alive, and just like everyone else. I'm writing a novel about this now, about how we're all getting over something. 

Spoilers, comparisons to comic book movies, and a conversation with Mr. A about sexism, inside. This one cut pretty deep. 

Sunday Morning Video: The Ring Of Wax

Here's an episode of the camp classic Batman teevee series with the shamelessly hammy Frank Gorshin as the Riddler:

 

The Jersey Scene: The Newsroom Thread

He's such a total badass.

Spoilers within.

Sunday Morning Video: The Lost Zappa Collage

This is a very cool story from the first episode of the current season of History Detectives:

Watch Frank Zappa’s Lost Collage on PBS. See more from History Detectives.

 

 

YOU'RE A FUCKING NEWSMAN, DON: The Newsroom Thread

MAGGIE. And other women I love: 

Alison Pill’s meek Maggie, who is pushed around by her newsbeau on the show, and once hid under a dorm-room bed while the guy who stashed her there had sex with an old girlfriend — is a more annoying version of Donna from Sorkin’s West Wing, someone we’ll get to watch grow, and who will probably grow on us.

Or must all the women on the show be strong as well as brave? To those who complain about how often the male characters tell their female counterparts what to think and do, I’d just say that’s been known to happen in real newsrooms, too.

Not every female character must carry the banner of the sisterhood in just the same way, be a heroine or a villainness, but always strong. I remember the same complaints about Donna and CJ (who is my motherfucking homegirl) and especially Dana Whittaker because of what a train wreck her personal life was, but they were all exponentially more interesting than anybody on the Walking Dead. 

Sunday Morning Video: The Blancmanges v. The Scotsmen

I considered posting this Python episode before the Wimbeldon finals last week about the fictional Scotsman who won it but didn't want to jinx Andy Murray. He lost so here it is:

 

"We are V.I.P."

The interwebs have been both agog and abuzz about Mitt Romney's fundraising exploits on the Hamptons. One of Romney's supporters got impatient waiting in line and enunciated the post title.

A woman in a blue chiffon dress poked her head out of a black Range Rover here on Sunday afternoon and yelled to an aide to Mitt Romney. “Is there a V.I.P. entrance? We are V.I.P.”

Joan Walsh had some fun with the "We are V.I.P" thing by pointing out that it could work to the tune of  We Are Family the old Sister Sledge hit that was the unofficial anthem for the 1979 World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. Yes, Virginia, Pittsburgh used to have a good beisbol team. Of course, that family was so extended that coke dealers joined in the good times and the team collapsed the very next season. Now where was I? Oh yeah, Mitt's peers.

One would think that after all the bad pub Mitt Offshore has gotten for being a snooty, clueless, dressage loving plutocrat, his handlers would figure out how to stage an event such as this. His fellow second-generation plutocrat, Ronald Perelman, should have held the fundraiser in Manhattan at a fancy schmancy hotel instead; that way the donors would have arrived in discreet black limos instead of Ferraris, Bentleys and the like. I, however, am glad that they did not. We all need comic relief and plutocrats on the Hamptons are *always* funny. And the anti-Mitt protesters were even funnier but they intended to be funny. Hmm, I wonder if there were any nail ladies among them?

So, jump into your private jet and watch Rachel Maddow's brilliant piece about Mitt doing the full Thurston. Howell, that is:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

Based on Logic: The Newsroom Thread

Is it wrong to want fanfic of her and Charlie in the Vietnam years? Because you know that happened. 

Spoilers within.

Be Grateful You Weren't Facing The Other Way: The Newsroom Thread

First of all, I have to talk about this, because I spent the first part of last week being actually really upset and ill about it: 

“Listen here, Internet girl,” he says, getting up. “It wouldn’t kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.” I’m not sure how he’s forgotten that I am writing for a newspaper; looking over the publicist’s shoulder, I see that every reporter is from a print publication (do not see: Drew Magary). I remind him. I say also, factually, “I have a New York Timessubscription and an HBO subscription. Any other advice?”

He looks surprised, then high-fives me. Being not a person who high-fives or generally makes physical contact with interview subjects, I look more surprised.

“I’m sick of girls who don’t know how to high-five,” he says. He makes me try to do it “properly,” six times. He also makes me laugh; I’m nervous, and it’s so absurd. He loves it. He says, “Let me manhandle you.” Then he ambles off, hoping I’ll write something nice, as though he has never known how the news works, how many stories can be true.

Sunday Morning Video: Sorkinisms

Even the best writers recycle material:

  

I Remembered, I Run A News Division: Newsroom Thread

I mean it, it's different this time. It's really special. You wouldn't understand. 

I'm going to take a page from Aaron Sorkin's book and tell you why smarter people than I am are absolutely wrong. Pierce: 

Cronkite did his famous "We are mired in a stalemate" in 1968, which was about six years at least after said stalemate was obvious to people like Neil Sheehan. A year after Cronkite's broadcast, a solid plurality of Americans polled were still in favor of "total military victory," whatever the hell that meant, and the war groaned on for four more years, more than 20,000 more dead Americans, and god alone knows how many more dead Asian peasants. Murrow certainly contributed to Joseph McCarthy's downfall, but not as much as Joseph Welch did, and Murrow did it while still hosting a show where he had to ask Liberace when he was planning to get married. Sorkin is so attached to his own personal Great Man theory that he applies it retroactively to events most of his audience is old enough to have lived through, and, at those moments, he seems to be relying on the general American historical amnesia so many of his characters spend so much time decrying.

Spoilers within.

Sunday Morning Video: James Lipton meets Don Draper

I know I'm not the only person suffering from Mad Men withdrawal symptoms. Here's a  wee antidote: the cast on Inside The Actors Srudio:

 

Mad Men Thread: The Phantom

Season 5 of Mad Men was a wild ride but the finale was a bit of a soft landing. I say that not as a criticism, I disagree with the members of the MM punditocracy who think it was a let down after the previous two uber eventful episodes. How could they have possibly topped Lane's suicide, Joan's acceptance of the indecent proposal and Peggy's departure? They could not. Instead, they summed up the season and circled back to the premiere. I, for one, was captivated by this coda.

On to my usual random and discursive comments:

The Title: There were *many* phantoms in the episode. Don kept seeing his brother Adam complete with neck ligature as a reminder of the guilt he felt over Lane's choosing the same exit strategy as Whitman the younger.

Another phantom was Lane himself. Joan remains stunned by his death and did a fine job of channeling Lane's penny pinching style at the partner's meeting. I loved, loved, loved the scene between Don and Rebecca Pryce. He was somewhat proud of himself for delivering the $50K check, which Rebecca accepted but sneered about: nothing, of course, could replace her husband. The best moment of the scene belonged to Rebecca when she denounced Don for putting ambitious ideas in the head of a man in a gray flannel suit such as Lane. How very British circa 1967. As far as she was concerned, Lane should have known his place and remained a functionary and minion. Did ambition really kill Lane? His Tory wife thinks so but Don knows that it was his sticky fingers and stiff necked pride.

Marie Calvet swooped back onto the show and declared Megan's ambitions to be-you guessed it-a phantom. I'm not sure: we haven't seen enough of Megan's acting chops as opposed to her rather large choppers. I do, however, know a bitter person when I see one and Marie is as bitter as rhubarb. Megan collapses into a ball of defeat whenever she's around so perhaps Marie should stay with Roger the heavy breather the next time she invades Manhattan.

There were so many phantoms in the episode that I halfway expected Duck Phillips' abandoned Golden Retriever to find his way to the office...

You've Come A Long Way, Pegster: Glad to be right that our Peggy is not off the show. I loved seeing her barking orders to her male underlings whilst wearing an awesome red Chanel power suit. She's definitely missed at SCDP (soon to be SCDC?) where a client lamented not having a "girl's perspective." Don should hire a chick copywriter: If things don't work out Megan could be available.

It was swell seeing Don be gracious to Peggy at the movies. Looks like his Draperness misses her and would love to have her back but she'll need to experience more of Teddy Chaough before coming home.

Pete's Punchable Face: Yet another phantom was the post-shock "treatment" Beth. Pete may not be in love but he *was* all shook up to be forgotten so quickly. It led to a classic Pete pout where Beth's being McMurphyized was all about him. Her hubby Howard is indeed a disgusting creep but so is Pete. Pete continues to be the world's worst fighter but Howard was nearly as bad. The conductor was the only one to land a solid punch. It was Pete at his worst: sneering contemptuously at a "little person." I was raised to think that one can judge someone's character by how they treat the "little people" and Campbell consistently fails this test. Heaven help him if he ever runs into Game Of Thrones' Tyrion...

Whither Don and Megan: I'm still pulling for them, There's been a fair amount of chatter about whether the last scene of the season means that Don is about to resume tomcatting around Noo Yawk. I not only hope not but think not. Why? It's too conventional for Weiner and his merry band of pervs. My money is on Megan straying if she ever makes it to New Haven for a play tryout thingamabob. (Btw, did anyone else think Megan had an inner backstabber before this episode? She knifed her friend Emily as part of her campaign to get that, uh, part. Ouch.)

Windows: Cast members staring out windows was a recurring and very cool motif that has bupkis to do with Bill Gates or the pearly gates for that matter. The picture at the top of the post begs to be on one of Season 6's promo posters. We also saw Roger's butt as he looked out the window during the sequel to I'm Roger, Fly Me. An even funnier image was Peggy seeing Richmond street dogs fucking outside her hotel window. Since it's Richmond, the pooches probably had a smoke after doing it doggy style...

Finally, I'm already experiencing withdrawal symptoms now that Season 5 has concluded. Presumably, we won't have to wait as long as we did after Season 4. The soft landing that I referred to at the beginning of this seemingly endless post has me hungry for more. It reminds me of musicians who end their sets with something languid and tranquil to send the punters on their way wanting more. Frank Sinatra loved to close with the torchy saloon song, Angel Eyes. Since a Nancy Sinatra song ended the season, I'll end this post with a quote from Angel Eyes:

Pardon me but I got to run
The fact's uncommonly clear
I got to find who's now the number one
And why my angel eyes ain't here

Excuse me while I disappear.

 

Sunday Morning Video: Peabody and Sherman meet Beethoven

Mr. Peabody liked puns. So do I:

 

Mad Men Thread: Catching Up

I've had a case of writer's block the last few weeks but Season-5 of Mad Men continues to be exceptional so I'm going to throw some verbiage against the wall and see what sticks. First, a few comments on The Other Woman aka Campbell's Indecent Proposal.

Pete The Pimp: Not only is Campbell sleazy, he's a slippery weasel. (Apologies to A's weasels.) The way he circled back to pimping Joanie was nearly as bad as the idea itself. Lane, however, had a better pitch and helped to finally land the Jaguar account as well as landing Joan in bed with that odious car dealer dude.

The reactions of the partners were quite interesting. Don was outraged and dismissive but didn't stand and fight. The most horrifying reaction was that of Roger who claimed to be against it but in the end signed off if he didn't have to pay. Don's reaction at the end of the episode is less about morality and more about wanting to land the account because of the work and his pitch.

Joan will eventually rue the day she made what she considered to be a pragmatic decision. It's bound to leak out and it will lead to her being treated as someone who slept her way to the top. The double standard is still alive and well in 2012 and it was much worse in 1967.  It's particularly unfair as the account guys have taken clients to brothels and strip clubs before. What is it with the Jaguar people and nookie?

Exeunt Pegster: She did the right thing. Don has been taking her for granted for quite some time. I'm glad she was reminded that Don was not the one who gave her her first chance: it was Freddie Rumsen. Don may have been her mentor but Freddie is her Dutch Uncle. I'm hoping that Ms. Olsen isn't leaving the show completely but joins the ranks of recurring characters; especially since she's gone over to the enemy. I always enjoy seeing Don's nemesis, Teddy Chaough. He makes the Draperman look good, after all.

Okey dokey, on to the most recent episode, Commissions and Fees:

Lane Pryce, R.I.P. This was simultaneously stunning and unsurprising. The superficially unflappable Brit has looked and acted increasingly desperate since the embezzlement. Many Mad Men pundits have blamed Don's reaction for Lane's death. They *could* be right but in the context of the time, Don's reaction was compassionate as well as self-interested: it was his autograph that Lane forged so his neck could have been on the line as well.

Lane's decision to kill himself makes me wonder if this is the *only* time he has stolen money from SCDP. He immediately fessed up to Don about the forged check but declined to answer when asked if this had happened before. He could have just been overwrought but Don's decision to cover up the theft gave Lane a chance to land another job and start anew. Of course, we're not all as tough as Dick Whitman...

I'm sure I'm not the only one who enjoyed the sick humor of Lane's failed attempt to top himself via carbon monoxide in his new Jaguar. I knew someone who had a Jaguar and every time I saw him I asked "Is it in the shop?" The answer was often yes. Some things never change.

In the end, it was better that Lane killed himself at work so his wife didn't discover the body. It didn't make it any easier on the SCDP gang though. Apparently, the Mad Men actors did not see Jared Harris hanging on the door until the scene was shot. Mr. Weiner and his merry band of pervs wanted to get their spontaneous reaction. They did. Pete was totally flummoxed but combat vetereans Don and Roger have dealt with death before. Hell, Don has faked his own death...

I'm interested to see how Don deals with Lane's suicide in the next episode. It's bound to conjure up memories of Adam Whitman's hanging himself way back in Season-1 after being rejected by the man who used to be Dick. We saw the old ruthless Don in his dealings with the napalm gang but the new Don is apt to be devastated and blame himself for Lane's death. Me, I think that Don was partially responsible but Lane was the one who couldn't face recreating himself. I guess that Lane took literally Scott Fitzgerald's aphorism about American lives not having second acts. Don never has: he's Gatsby, after all.

Parenting Tips with Betty Francis: We saw Betts at her worst and best in the same episode. The worst: dumping our Sally on Don instead of "ruining" her ski trip complete with the classic line about locking Sally in the trunk. The scary thing is that I can imagine her doing it.

The best: Betty consoling Sally about having her first period. Of course, she can't resist taking a shot at Don's "child bride" by triumphantly telling Megan that Sally needed her mother. Once Betty finds out that Weird Glenn was on the scene, she'll revert to form but let's celebrate her acting like a decent human being for a change.

Finally, I *loved* the ending with Don letting Glenn drive himself back to school. It was Mad Men at its best, which sums up Season-5 as a whole. I'm alternately looking forward to and dreading the finale. It's bound to be awesome but it's the end of an exceptional season. Hopefully, the wait won't be so bloody long this time...

Locking An Empty Safe: Game of Thrones Thread

First of all, take a look at this. The first is a young Michelle Fairley, our Catelyn, found here. The second is Maisie Williams as Arya. 

 

Second, there be spoilers inside for the finale. 

Sunday Morning Video: Jon Hamm's Taxi rap

The star of my current favorite show, Mad Men, raps to the theme music of one of my all-time favorite shows, Taxi. You haven't lived until you hear Hamm do his Iggy impression:

 

Mad Men Thread: Hare Kinsey

I loved the latest episode, Christmas Waltz. It had a Season1 or 2 feel with the return of Kinsey and the flirtfest between Don and Joan. All it lacked was the return of my homeboy, Bryan Batt, as Sal. I have renewed hope that he'll be back, perhaps in time for the company Easter egg hunt or something...

Lane Returns: I'm not quite sure what to make of this sub-plot. I know he has that stiff upper lip thing going on but if he'd gone to Don or Roger, he might not have had to resort to embezzlement. Hell, Roger has been the personal banker for half the cast this season. The skill that Lane showed whilst tracing the Draper autograph gave me pause. Has the seemingly mousy Brit stolen from work before? He *was* so mistreated by his former employers that he ripped off the old school tie and joined the SCDP uprising, after all.

Roger and Joan: I've been surprised that more of the Mad Men commentariat haven't focused on the news that Roger knows that Kevin is the fruit of his loins as it were. They keep teasing us with Roger and  Joan and we saw, that despite the obvious chemistry between them, it's over between them. I guess Joan doesn't approve of Hawaiian shirt wearing men who get bombed on Pearl Harbor Day. Banzai, Roger.

Don and Joan: This was one of the best Mad Men sequences ever as Don rescues Joan from her rage over Dr. Dick's dumping her. Don also saved the dingbat receptionist from the wrath of Joanie. Fly little birdbrain fly...

The interplay between Don and Joan at both the Jaguar dealership and the bar was in a word, scintillating. Don was at his suavest and Joan at her most fetching. The air crackled with sexual tension, which led nowhere. Good. I would hate for them to get horizontal. The tease is much more fun than the consummation on a teevee show like this: Moonlighting anyone? Also, if it happens Megan will throw more food against the wall and that would be wasteful. Temper, temper. Don hasn't fallen off the fidelity wagon YET and I, for one, hope he doesn't.  If someone in Draperville cheats, I hope it's the Missus...

Hare Harry, Hare Lakshmi:  I halfway expected Kinsey the pot smoking boho/beatnik wannabe of Sterling Cooper to turn up with as a radical lefty with hair down to his ass. But that would have been too predictable. Instead he was a shaven head, tambourine banging Krishna motherfucker. Brilliant. I laughed for at least 2 minutes when I saw him looking like an Ivy League Buddha.

The episode showed the best and worst of Harry Crane. Harry may be a jerk but he's a good friend to Kinsey. SCDP's bumbling media maven handled his old pal with exquisite tact and consideration. Except, that is, for boning Paul's beloved Lakshmi on his desk. Bad boy, bad move. That was one thing that didn't ring true in this episode: if Lakshmi was trying to manipulate Harry, it would have been more effective to string him along and tease like the latest incarnation of Blaze Starr. She was a Hindi Goddess, right? Maybe not. I did, however, enjoy the solid punch Mother Lakshmi landed to the Crane jaw. Ouch.

I'm not sure if Kinsey will ever sell a script to Star Trek but I'm glad he's fled the Hairy Fishnuts. They're creepy and annoying. He did, however, look pretty good with the shaved head and pony tail thing; not everyone can pull that look off...

I'll let George Harrison have the last word: Hare Kinsey, Hare Harry.

 

A Girl at the Edge of the World: Game of Thrones Thread

Spoilers within. 

Mad Men Thread: Dark Shadows

Dr. A and I saw the Burton/Depp Dark Shadows reboot on the very day this Mad Men episode aired. The movie had 2 good acts and a semi-crappy third act but how can one not love a movies that uses Jeepster? This may have been lesser Tim Burton but lesser Burton is still pretty good. I'll let him keep his troll doll...

Mad Men's Dark Shadows had considerably more depth and showed our man Don at both his best and his worst. Roger's comeback continues and he had the best line about the Manischevitz people: "Fiddler on the Roof: audience or cast ?" Yeah, it was ethnically insensitive but it was better than when he loudly berated the Japanese car people. Oy such a kamikaze...

Okay on to a bit of commentary laced with a bit of hilarity:

Betty's Back: The character I love to hate tried to  make like Governor Deadeyes and divide and conquer Sally and Megan by bringing up Anna Draper. Betty assumed that Don hadn't told Megan about his Dick days and his first wife but Don is a reformed deserter and Megan is in the know. 

In dealing with Sally, Megan yet again showed her phenomenal people skills: she figured out how to handle Sally and convinced Don that Betty *wanted* an angry phone call from him. Don. I'm not sure if Betty is having a case of divorce remorse or second wife envy but she wants Don to notice her. Not a good thing in my book,

The scene where Don explains the whole Anna thing to Sally is the old maestro at his best. He treated her like a "young lady" and not like a little kid. It's what Sally responds to even if Don forgot to buy the colored pencils.

The Sno Ball Affair: This bit of business chicanery was Don at his worst. He could have and even should have pulled rank and told Ginsburg: "You work for me and we're presenting my sinfully devilish pitch." I objected more to the sneakiness of it all, if that's the worst thing that one of Ginsburg's bosses ever does to him, he'll be on easy street, y'all. Hey, at least Don didn't steal Ginsburg's work and claim it as his own. Bosses have been doing that sort of shit for time immemorial. Instead he left it in a cab to be found by Alex Reiger or Iggy...

I have a confession to make.  I dislike Ginsburg. He's a snide little shit. He has a preposterously high opinion of himself and I thought he was patronizing Don when he praised him for shaking off his copywriting rust with his sno balls chance in hell idea. Ginsberg got a stern look and an eye roll from Don well before the latter's mendacious "I don't think of you at all." Don thought about Ginsburg a great deal during this episode, which is why he put on his copywriting fedora and came up with a saleable idea

Now for  a few theoretically concise comments: I'm beginning to think that Pete Campbell may die in a car wreck with some nuble Nutmeg Stater (nutmegger?) attached to his, uh, peter. There wasn't as much foreshadowing in this episode but things are adding up: his recklessness, references to his insurance policy and his very bad driving. Will Pete be featured in the next version of Red Pavement? Beep, beep.

 Finally, where have you gone Lane Pryce?  A nation turns its lonely eyes to you. Ooh, ooh, ooh or is that woo, woo, woo?

The Weight of Our Choices

I've not followed the HuffPo's advice to not watch The Weight of the Nation, in no small part because I was hoping it would focus more on this: 

The fourth section:

"... CHALLENGES, examines the major driving forces causing the obesity epidemic, including agriculture, economics, evolutionary biology, food marketing, racial and socioeconomic disparities, physical inactivity, American food culture, and the strong influence of the food and beverage industry."

This part of it is FASCINATING, though short shrift is given to the inherent race and class distinctions in health-related amenities in rich and poor communities. I could watch a whole series just about the disparity in parkland between lower-income communities of color and wealthy, primarily white communities, in the profit margins between soft drinks and bananas and how that figures into where they're sold. There are a billion Dunkin Donutses and fried chicken places on every corner one neighborhood east of me and swanky little local organic lunch places one neighborhood west. If the store on the corner only stocks one kind of thing, that's the kind I'm going to take. 

I talk all the time about how my grocery store is badly lit and sticky and the produce is less than appetizing while the Jewel one town over is practically a Whole Foods and you could eat off the floors. Same with the park sitch: I run in the mornings in a park that has a walking path and a sledding hill and baseball diamonds and all kinds of jungle gyms and stuff. I take the train downtown in the afternoon past vacant lot after vacant lot, rusty chain link fences, busted, littered sidewalks. And I'm lucky enough to live in an urban hellhole where running and walking to and from the train and biking around is the norm, where there are several grocery store chains to choose from and if one store sucks I CAN go one town over.

Forget paying to go to a gym or a boot camp or whatever; what if it's not safe to go outside after dark where you live? Then your excercise hours are limited, especially if you're working long hours. Forget that, even; what if your neighborhood is safe as houses but you have no sidewalks and it's dangerous to run or walk your dog in the street? It's not that it makes healthier ways of living impossible; it's that when you make one thing inconvenient of course people are going to choose another. 

Assuming your body can tolerate typical amounts of physical activity (another "choice" that's often overlooked), one thing people usually don't realize is the investment of time in serious exercise. A friend who does triathlons was getting up at 5 a.m. to put in hours of workouts every day before work. When I was commuting an hour each way in my old job, or when that job stretched to 18-hour workdays, I was eating fast food in my car all the time and the idea of spending another hour at the gym made me itch. As people work longer and longer hours at jobs (that are not primarily physical), the amount of time they have to devote to their own health deteriorates. And that's before we get into wingnuts calling anybody who eats an organic apple an American-hating pansy. 

It's easy to talk about making better choices, like of COURSE we should all have more bananas and zucchini and go swimming three times a week, and another to face the reality of not being able to make those choices because society has dictated we live another way, has rewarded developers who create walk-less communities, has subsidized farming conglomerates that overprice healthy food and underprice unhealthy, has rigged the game and then pitted us all against each other in it. 

A. 

Trust and Honor: Game of Thrones Thread

 

Spoilers inside. Hold on to your direwolves because Jaime Lannister is about to become awesome. Yeah. Don't worry, it blew my entire fucking mind the first time around, too. 

Mad Men Thread: Tomorrow Never Knows

The Sixties Zeitgeist has permeated Mad Men this season. I think it's a good thing but some of our commenters were less certain last week. But how could it be otherwise? We have the two most self aware generations in US history on a collision course: the World War II generation and the baby boomers. We hear a lot about boomer entitlement but less about the absolute certainty of Brokaw's "greatest generation" whose motto could have been, "We won the war so we don't have to listen." It didn't work out very well in Vietnam did it?

On to Mad Men's latest, which was sort of a table setting episode. Some major things happened but they're most likely to bear fruit down the road. But how could I help but love an episode that featured the Beatles' trippiest song? In fact the trippiest song this side of Pink Floyd, man. The lunatic is on the fucking grass...

Enough navel gazing, onto my, hopefully, relevant comments about Lady Lazarus:

 The malakatude of Pete Campbell: It's exploding week by week. Pete has always been an entitled pouty narcissist but it's getting worse. The whole thing with his train buddy's wife was creepy to begin with and then morphed into stalking. I think Lane needs to administer another thrashing to Pete. Speaking of Lane: where the hell has he been the last two episodes? I wonder if Jared Harris was on Napoleon of Crime sabbatical and combating Sherlock Holmes when he should have been kicking Pete's ass again.

Megan the natural: I for one wasn't surprised at Mrs. D quitting SCDP. Seeing her pompously pedantic pere seemed to have reactivated her acting bug. Don and Peggy, however, were both stunned. Why? Because Megan was so damned good at the ad game, that's why. They're both baffled because it fulfills them in a way that it obviously never will for Megan.

I gotta give Don credit for being a trooper and letting his spouse troop off to join the grease paint brigade. He's puzzled because as a child of the depression the idea of following one's dream was something that only happened in the movies. Damn you, Fred Astaire. I loved Don's line about his childhood dream being indoor plumbing, which is, of course, a very nice thing indeed.

The generation gap is reopening like a chasm, which is one interpretation of Don's staring down into the elevator shaft. Some viewers and pundits think it, and clues in earlier episodes, foreshadow someone's suicide but I'm dubious since most of the speculation centers on Don or Pete. The former is the ultimate survivor and the latter is too much in love with himself to cut his life short. Would it surprise me if they offed Campbell in some other way? Nope. But if Don dies so does Mad Men. It would be like The Sopranos without Tony. Any thoughts, readers?

Turn off your mind, turn on the tune box: I adored the collquy between the rock challenged Don and his hip young wife, "When did music become so important?"

I'm inclined to agree with Megan that it was always important: the first wave of Beatlmania style fandom happened in the Forties with a skinny Italian singer from Hoboken. But people had more money and more leisure time for fangirl/boyism by 1966, which resulted in people like me spending far too much time and money on music.

Finally, Megan urged Don to play the last track on Revolver, Tomorrow Never Knows, to be in touch with "kid's today." Don didn't get it and neither did many people both then and now. If she wanted him to *like* something on the elpee, Eleanor Rigby or Good Day Sunshine would have been better places to start (the greatest generation usually preferred Macca to Lennon if obliged to choose) but not as thematically appropriate as the psychedelic banshee wail of Tomorrow Never Knows. After all, Don and Megan came together in the Season 4 finale Tomorrowland.

Of the beginning, of the beginning:

 

Prove Yourself: Game of Thrones Thread

Spoilers within.

Sunday Morning Video: The Laff Box

Here's a cool appraisal from the Antiques Roadshow of a laff box; that's right a laugh track machine. I gotta get one of these in order to have self administered rim shots when I'm on a roll:

Watch Appraisal: 1953 Charlie Douglass "Laff Box" on PBS. See more from Antiques Roadshow.

 Via Ken Levine.