Profanely Serious

Note: This is not the greatest post in the world. I wrote it, and then blogger ate it. This is just a tribute.

Writing is a revelatory thing. Use of ALL CAPS is a shout; use of profanity to me reflects unseriousness
-Some dude

Writing is a revelatory thing. The words chosen can demonstrate flippancy and frivolity. You can demonstrate passion and anger. Or you can wow with dispassionate analysis. That much I agree with, but can we please put to bed the notion that profanity renders an opinion unserious? This dismissiveness is both galling and lazy. (Speaking of dismissals, John Edwards has apparently told those like the above quoted to sit and spin. Good. And speaking further of dismissiveness, is calling him "some dude" dismissive? Damn right it is. Deal.)

I try to not swear a whole lot on this here blog. I'm not exactly sure why, since I've dropped an F-bomb or two in my day. Partially it's that my dad reads, but that makes so sense since he swears like a sailor, especially when driving. Partially, it's that I'm not entirely sure who reads this. (Hey Boss! I'll get those TPS reports to you just as soon as I finish some important business.) Mostly it's that given what I actually write ("have polemic" and all), I worry that full on pottymouthitude will push me from "angry, but in a cute and cuddly way" to "scary."

But

That's my preference, and I'm certainly not offended, shocked or scandalized when I four-letter word appears on my screen. Certainly a string of profanities can be inarticulate, but then so can posts attempting to use all kinds of $10 words that don't mean what you think they mean.
First

Second, the suggestion that profanity is not expressive, nor a means to conduct information is demonstrably false:


Third, we aren't writing academic papers, nor are we delivering speeches or testifying in court. We're blogging. Part of the appeal of blogging is the immediacy of "just talking". To signal this informality, we might slip into a more familiar form of address. By which I mean calling our friends assholes for continuously bullshitting us. It means we're relaxed and comfortable. As much as I might like to rise up on my hind legs in court and say "Objection: The witness is bullshitting, your honor" that might fall short of the standard of proper decorum. And maybe I want to leave decorum at my office.

This isn't to say that all or even a majority of the naughty words printed on these here intertrons are meant to signal clubbishness, or embody a chosen vernacular. Sometimes they are just expressions of raw id. Sometimes they are meant to wound. But the passion inherent in all of this emoting is can hardly be anything but serious.

"Oh, Indeed"

John Hollinger ($, bitches) came out with his top ten least improved players in the NBA this year, and, surprise, surprise:

2. LeBron James, Cavaliers

James was my pick for MVP a year ago, and like many I thought he'd pretty much take over the league this season. What we've seen instead is a surprising slip backward, including a dip in scoring numbers and a puzzling slump from the free-throw line.

It's easy to blame exhaustion from the world championship, but Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki played in the same tournament, and both are dominating. A better explanation might be Cleveland's lack of a real point guard, which doesn't allow James to play off the ball more.

Or...he doesn't really give a crap?

Indeed.

Litmus Test

When he asks "and what did dad get?"


There is only one acceptable answer as far as I see it: "Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeit"

Things I Know Are True

1. I was wrong, wrong, wrong about Vince Young. Good on you, son. Though I can safely say that I was 100% right about Eli Manning. Though Eli is not helped by his coaching being the biggest jackass this side of Bobby Huggins.

2. Ohio State. Give the points. Michigan. Give the points. Whoever is playing Notre Dame. Give the points and then some.

3. To quote myself on Wire #49:

Not to get all Bethlehem Shoals here, but 49 completely validated the agony any fan of the show has come to expect, dread, and crave in equal measures. In previous seasons, they've managed to spread out the heartbreak - this year, they dumped it on us all at once. In a way, it was a relief, because my expectations being what they were, I felt a great deal of foreboding as to what precise terrible things were about to happen.

Is there any way that Child Services lets Bunny take Namond in? Is the world only big enough for one of Michael and Bodie? How does the rug get pulled out from under Daniels?

4. Someone find me the YouTube of Carmelo going all Dr. J from this weekend...

5. I just got caught up on the first 3 shows of "DayBreak" this weekend. Surprisingly strong. Plus it has Jayne, playing, well, a guy just like Jayne. Good times.

Morning In America?

Look, I'm massively cynical about our political system. Perhaps painfully and counter-productively so. So don't begrudge me my morning of jubilation, okay?

Before yesterday, in my darker moments (becoming more and more frequent, and a major reason I stopped talking about politics in this space) I was wondering whether the American Experiment hadn't irretrievably failed. The Torture for Terror...er...Military Commissions Act was the last in a long line of straws by which we seem to have sacrificed our essential Americaness at the altar of...hell I have no idea what the purpose was unless I'm going to be completely cynical and say at the altar of political gain. To steal a quote from the (fictional) Jay Landsman, we did not cast off our ideals lightly. We hurled them away with great force.

And it's not like these actions were the result of a popular mandate. The President is unpopular, and has been almost continuously since America more or less decided he didn't suck quite as badly as does John Kerry - and the fact that it's even a question is a rather sad commentary on whatever conventional wisdom got JK the nomination in the first place. Giving massive new powers to a guy no one even likes that we know or at least suspect that he has no idea how to actually use constructively = bad times.

The rest of the world was watching, and this felt like out last chance to convince them that the worst things said about us aren't accurate.

It was in this frame of mind that I started hearing about various shenanigans yesterday morning. Being both a Red Sox fan and having only really followed politics since 2000, I was already expecting the worst. And then, it happened. I really can't describe it any other way than that. I guess the turning point for me was the first batch of Senate exit polls followed quickly by the canaries falling like dominoes in Indian, Kentucky, Pennsylvania and upstate New York. After that I felt pretty ok - the early reports of voting problems were overblown, and I was perhaps a little bit paranoid.

And now, with the human gift for turning history into narrative, I can see the TfT act as being the nadir, and maybe we can bring it back. I'm actually feeling a bit optimistic today. But that doesn't mean it's time to rest on laurels. The Dems may or may not have "had a plan" before today, but now they need to get on it, toot suite.

To go back to "The Wire" well, "gettin' clean is the easy part. Now comes life." Last night was the easy part, the new Congress has a mandate for change. Not for "change," but to put the work in and do it right. When it comes down to it, I think that the public is going to demand competence above anything else at this point. I'm prepared to accept (some) policy outcomes I don't like as long as we the people get what we pay for.

I don't know exactly what this "competence" means substantively, because that's above my pay grade. But I know what it doesn't mean, and that's more politics for politics sake. I'm all for investigations, but not witch-hunts. It's no longer enough to talk about how the current administration and previous Congress got it wrong. Show me something better, don't just tell me about how great it would be if you did.

So, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Reid, and the presumptive '08 candidates, you're on the clock. Don't let us down.

Update: See also, Ogged:

For as long as there have been liberal blogs, there's been a dastardly Republican majority in both houses of Congress. The blogs are voices of anger, opposition, and witness. So now what? Those things aren't the things we need anymore. I can't be the only person who looked at Eschaton this morning, saw that the Wanker of the Day was Rahm Emanuel, and burst out laughing. But I won't be laughing for long if the blogs don't adapt, and we have the activist blogs turning their anger toward moderates, and the wonky blogs having good faith discussions about precisely how to calibrate the COLA.

Where I Be

So, it may not have been noticed, but I've been...lax in posting recently. Mostly that's because I've been lax about pretty much everything. You see, I'm on extended vacation, my clerking job having ended around Labor Day and my new, corporate-whore, employment not beginning til October. So aside from my trip to the homeland of Monday Night Football Free Beer (Sally's in Dinkytown Minneapolis. Try it...) I've been doing a whole lot of nothing. And in the words of Peter Gibbons, it's everything I thought it could be.

Though we'll be back with our regularly scheduled book-blogging, plus some commentary on the nascent fourth season of The Wire, this fall's crop of new shows (Studio 60 and Heroes are the two I find most intrigueing), and well whatever else I feel like.

"The Best Show in the History of Television"

I agree with Yglesias - "The Wire" is the best show on television. TV history might be a bit hyperbolic, (how soon we forget the early years of The Sopranos or West Wing) but it is damn good.

For a while there has been opinonating from Jim Emerson (Roger Ebert's guest blogger) on the opportunities presented by "long form" dramatic TV:

Movies, due to their limitations of length and inability to plunge freely into the depths of their subject matter (whether that involves the character's thoughts or pasts or whatever the writer wants to throw into his work), are equivalent to short stories in literary terms. Films based on great novels, no matter how well done, always fall short of the source material for those familiar with it. Yet for some reason, ambitious filmmakers are constantly trying to adapt novels, even though they are demonstrably not great sources for films. (Of course, I am making a generalization here--anyone can come up with plenty of what they feel to be exceptions).

Long-form television truly has the potential to give "moving pictures" a novelistic scope. In American television, market forces have previously hampered this potential: the pressure to crank out a highnumber of episodes each year and rake in as many advertising dollars as possible have usually caused declines in focus and quality. What's disturbing about this is that people come to expect their weekly fix regardless of qualtity: I am shocked every time I see someone who should know better whine in print that new season of "The Sopranos" is delayed too long or that "Lost" shows too many re-runs and should have a new show EVERY week. Do they just want it to descend into unwatchable nonsense like "Twin Peaks," "The X-Files," or "The West Wing"?

I've alluded to this before, but it's the writing, stupid. It could be self serving, but everyone from Shawn Ryan (creator and exec. producer of The Shield to Sorkin to J.J. Abrams has talked about the storytelling options writers are given when they have 12+ hours to work with.

Combine this with the artistic freedom allowed by cable television, (and HBO's boldness or realization that controversy = substribers - take your pick) and it's really no surprise that cable is the best medium. You can certainly get away with a lot more if you aren't worried about losing ad revenues...

But even with these freedoms, The Wire is exceptional - standing above all but the very best of the Sopranos and the first season of Deadwood (and far superior to, for example, Rome. Cue Yglesias:

It's an extremely demanding show offering no flashbacks and very little exposition despite a sprawling cast of characters and very complicated, years-long plot arcs but the rewards to people who watch closely and pay attention are incredibly large. I don't know anybody who's sat down to watch it and not been incredibly impressed.

With time to map out a whole season at a time, the creators are able to maintain consistent themes and put on screen a modern rareity - a three-dimensional character. At times it's heartbreaking, at times bitingly funny. There is also a very strong subtextual commentary about life in a modern American city.

Additionally, they somehow have either the foresight or the pull to cast quality talent in even the smallest of parts, knowing the might be revisted. (See especially the small "Senator Clay Davis" arc in Season 1 and the even smalle "Bunny Colvin" appearance in Season 2, played by standouts Isiah Whitlock and Robert Wisdom, respectively.)

With Season 3 arriving in stores soon and Season 4 starting next month, I cannot recommend this show highly enough.

This week's playlist

This is important stuff to memorialize, so...

1. Work - Gang Starr. I'm a sucker for hip-hop with jazz-style background.
2. The Last Time. Blind Boys From Alabama. First heard of these guys when they did the theme song for the first season of The Wire.
3. Juicy - Biggy. And it's all good baby-BAby...
4. Apache - FatBoy Slim Instrumental version. not sure why, but its there...
5. Key to the Highway (live accoustic) - Clapton. Or, as Liverpudlians call him, God...
6. Time Is On My Side - The Stones. Just watched the underrated Fallen again recently, so naturally, this one is in my head.
7. Lost At Birth - Public Enemy. Fear of A Black Planet and Apocalype '91 remain two of my top 10 favorite rap albums of all time. Amazing how some stuff (PE, early Will Smith) holds up and other stuff (DAS EFX, Mystikal) doesn't...
8. The Troglodyte Song - Jimmy Castor Bunch. Goofy funk shit like this kills me for some reason.
9. California Dreamin' - Me First and the Gimme Gimmies. As do punk covers...
10. Wait [remix] - Ying Yang Twins. At least they played good music to get stuck in my head at the crappy club we ended up at on Saturday

Pooh's Tube

Mostly because I need a place holder for the index over yonder ------>

The non-sports TV shows I watch on the regular:

• The Wire: Gritty, dramatic, funny at times, well-acted, topical, massively quotable (when the new season starts, I might have to run an "Omar Line of the Week").

• Deadwood: See above, but replace "Omar" with "Swearengen".

• The West Wing: At this point, I'm just playing out the string, I've made it this far, I'm in til the bitter end, especially since rumor has it that Josh and Donna are gonna, you know, do it...

• The Shield: Hyperkenetic, largely amoral and perhaps immoral lead character, but he gets you to go with it. The fact that the series opens with a cold-blooded murder of a colleague by the protoganist, and you're still with him is unsettling.

• Lost: Definite growing pains in this, the second season.

• Daily Show/Colbert Report/Bill Maher.

Posts by Show

• Battlestar Galactica 2.0
  
• Boondocks, The
• Colbert Report, The:
• How Full of Crap is Colbert?
• Illinois Gov. not in on the Joke
• Colbert Goes to Whitehouse
• Cohen Doesn't Get Jokes - Still
  
• CSI, all 3.
• Deadwood
• Better than Rome
• Season 3 Last Season?
• Inside the Actors Studio:
• Dave Chappelle
• Lost:
• General Theorem of Lost Episodes
• What Kate Did
• Re-Pilot: Tailaways
• Lost & Found with Sun & Jin
• Real Time With Bill Maher
• Skewering Victor Davis Hanson
• Rome
• Shield, The
• Badass Vic Mackey
• Thief
  
• West Wing, The:
• Winding Down
• The Long Goodbye
  
• Putting an Old Dog Down
• Broken Wing - The Live Debate
• West Wing Juvenation?