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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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February 22, 2003
The Shield
[Morethings index for The Shield]
Season 2, Episode 7 �Barnstormers�
Air date: 2-18-03
Man, what a trip into Dutch headspace. I felt some anxiety that Dutch was going to take Vic's advice that sometimes you had to "make the evidence fit the crime." You could see how he's driven to the edge of foolish behavior by the professional pressure coming down through Aceveda, coupled with his own internal humiliation for having screwed up with Bob and Marcy.
Then watch how he displaces his own humiliation and social inadequacy, exorcising it and also using it to break down his suspect. "When was the last time you saw your own dick without a mirror?" Man, that's cold, if you have any empathy for the other guy- which Dutch totally does. Oh yes, Dutch understands this guy and his self-hatred only all too well.
The perp noted in passing that he worked at a rib joint. Of all the jobs in the world, what is someone like this whose life is TOTALLY dominated by weight issues doing working in a rib joint? It�s a perfect detail of his self-hatred.
A big part of what makes this series so good is the detail of the dialogue, such as here when Dutch explains exactly what happened- with all the suspect�s internal rage and despair over his weight issues. He sets up just that moment, where the gross fat guy is humiliating himself by making out with the gross fat blind date, then she has to get at that candy in her pocket even then. Yeah, his rage and self-hatred comes pouring out. His behavior has been very precisely explained, and all the shadings of personal meaning for Dutch just make it that much better.
********************
Shane also had a particularly interesting day. His woundedness and vulnerability over Tulips was really touching. His hurt and mistrust toward her were quite strong, and totally understandable.
Yet she was all about making up today, with no tricks. Mistrust and ulterior motives or no, Shane couldn't help but take some confused gratification from hearing her mocking the old lover by contrast to Shane, her new "big dick" boyfriend. Indeed, by the end of the show when she insisted on being "interrogated" she seems to be acting out of genuine affection for poor dumb Shane.
Either way, she's ended up with another "yammy full of Georgia joy juice." Wonder if Shane might not yet end up with that baby Vic was teasing him about.
**********************
Thank Shawn Ryan's muse for all the obvious stupid lame plot turns that we get spared in The Shield. I was dreading Connie's inevitable relapse into hooking and drugs. Hey, it ain't gonna happen now.
I dreaded even worse the possible plotlines where Julien's fiancee finds out about his homosexual background. There was every kind of cheap dramatic possibility there for Tomas to show up at a bad time, or spitefully out him, all kinds of stupidity possible.
Instead Julien does the rational thing and just tells her. They got a couple of episodes since his engagement out of Julien's internal angst over whether to tell her, and then they resolved it simply and quietly- and with reasonable adult behavior.
Now, just please don't give us some cheap "uncontrollable" homosexual relapse. Thank you.
posted by Al at 2/22/2003 03:38:00 PM
Good Old Boys, Randy Newman's masterpiece
In 2002 Rhino Records put out a newly re-mastered version of Randy Newman's 1974 Good Old Boys album. This now two disc package just got listed the Blogcritics site to which I am a contributing writer as one of the best re-issues of the year.
Newman made Good Old Boys as something of a mixed-feelings Valentine to the south. "Rednecks" begins the album on just that mixed note. He wrote a good stompin' barroom sing-along song, quite convincing for a well-bred Jew from a family of film composers. Even though they might theoretically sympathize with the lyrical sentiment, however, it seems unlikely that a bunch of rednecks in a bar would sing along to
We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
And we're keepin' the niggers down
Then it turns into in fact something of a defense of the southerners against liberal northern racial hypocrisy, with a bridge throwing back the northern ghettos where the black man is "free to be kept in a cage."
He manages to get at southern pride, heritage and dysfunction in all kinds of more obvious and more subtle ways, without much in the way of obvious southern musical styles. "Rednecks" might be considered country music. The bonus disc has a nice discarded gospel song from the original sessions, "If We Didn't Have Jesus." Other than that, the most obvious model of southern music seems to be Stephen Foster, especially on the sentimental "Birmingham" - which still manages to have a slight undertone of menace ["Get 'em Dan"].
Struggling against harsh fate, "Louisiana" makes beautiful use of slow rising waves of strings describing the rising waters of a terrible flood from 1927. He never wrote a more beautiful song, and none with a greater sense of helpless dread. This track was used very effectively at the close of the outstanding and underrated Paul Newman movie Blaze, about the brother of the legendary Huey Long.
Newman goes into Long's demagogic populism with a bragging song written in his voice, "Kingfish" - as well as a cover of Long's chirpy little commie campaign song "Every Man a King." The vulnerability of the crackers that makes them open to the foolishness of a Huey Long comes out in the humiliated begging of "Mr. President (Have Pity on the Working Man)".
This release comes as a two CD set. The first disc consists of the original album. The second CD has its own title, "Johnny Cutler's Birthday". It consists of the demo sessions that show how the album started out even more heavily conceptualized, with his narration explaining the concept and narrating the story of a cracker's birthday party. The piano demos of the eventual Good Old Boys trade the understated grandeur of the final orchestral arrangements for the intimacy of his solo performances. The songs work either way, but this might give you better appreciation of the power of the final arrangements.
On top of which, this includes a half dozen songs that he didn't use in the 1974 release at all. The best songs made the original album, but you've got some really good songs that are still not good enough to make it onto Good Old Boys.
Song for song, this is Newman's best and most emotionally nuanced album. It also comes out as the most cohesive album statement, playing together in the contrasts of style yet consistency of effect. You need this album.
[CLICK HERE for a particularly good vintage review of the original album.]
posted by Al at 2/22/2003 01:50:00 AM
February 21, 2003
Blogcritics music awards
Hey, hey, our first Blogcritics music Critiquee awards are in. The choices are better than the Grammy voters or the lame Rolling Stone magazine list. Check 'em out.
Album of the Year
Song of the Year
Songwriter of the Year
Rock Album of the Year
Country-Americana Album of the Year
R&B Album of the Year
Jazz Album of the Year
Electronic Album of the Year
Soundtrack Album of the Year
Reissues and Collections of the Year
Best New Artist
posted by Al at 2/21/2003 09:15:00 PM
A Spinal Tap skit gone horribly wrong
Criminy, what a terrible, awful tragedy transpired at the Great White show in Rhode Island.
I mean no disrespect for grieving families, but this looks like a Spinal Tap skit gone horribly wrong. The latest drummer went up in flames, and took the whole club with him. It has all the inanity of Spinal Tap. I mean, Great White, for crying out loud. What a worthless excuse for a band to start with. Their entire claim to fame is one decade old cover of what was a dumb, mediocre song to start with.
It's bad to get killed in a stupid accident. How much worse is it to get killed in a stupid accident going to see Great White? Getting killed going to see the Who was bad, but it was arguably an unforseeable situation. This is just plain ignorant. Years from now their orphans will be hunting down Great White albums. Dad got killed going to see THIS?
Having absolutely NO musical talent, they aren't going to just come out with instruments and play a damned song. Oh no, we have to set off pyrotechnic crap in some little bar. Hell, they don't have the imagination to be Spinal Tap. In fact, the Spinal Tap album has much better and more clever songs than anything from this stupid hair band.
Nearly a hundred people died for pure foolishness. People are going to prison. I find it unlikely that anything less will be considered acceptable- nor should it be.
Prediction: members of this band absolutely go to prison. They want to claim management at the club told them they could use the pyrotechnics, but that wouldn't excuse them for actually doing it even if their claim were true. They simply can't claim ignorance.
Besides which, there are now multiple other club owners coming forward to say that the band set off this crap in their venues without informing them. That would seem very likely to cover the Station owners with at least some reasonable doubt against criminal culpability. They'll be six kinds of broke from civil liability, but not likely to be convicted of felonious criminal offense.
I'm looking for a clever punch line to finish this thought, but there isn't one. This just plain sucks.
posted by Al at 2/21/2003 08:38:00 PM
I think I have a solution
OK, so it is well established that Michael Jackson has lost whatever mind he once had. Other things aside, what was he thinking telling the documentarian that he STILL sleeps with children? Even if this didn't involve any inappropriate touching, how whacked out of his mind must he be to talk about it in public, given his history? Could he possibly not understand this? How?
His big special on Fox last night didn't help. He might besmirch the character of the documentary maker Martin Bashir. The big point of defense was that gee, this Bashir guy was sucking up to him while he was filming, and he didn't say anything to indicate how weird Michael would look in the final production.
Yeah, and your point is...? Michael came off like a freak because of the things HE HIMSELF said, not because of some "trick" from Bashir. On top of which, Mr. Jackson has been telling real obvious BIG FAT LIES in public in recent months, starting with the Tommy Mottola stuff, and continuing with his ridiculous claims of having only a couple of little bits of plastic surgery. Right. At this point, you simply can't believe a word the guy says. The big question when he talks now is how much of it he believes himself.
All hope is not lost, however. I think I have a solution for his accumulating mental and financial problems.
posted by Al at 2/21/2003 08:04:00 PM
February 20, 2003
It's really about Aceveda versus himself
[Morethings index for The Shield]
Season 1, Episode1 �Pilot�
Written by Shawn Ryan
Directed by Clark Johnson
Air date: 3-12-02
How perfectly does Ryan set up the most basic relationship of the series? The first scene shows Captain Aceveda putting on his smooth press conference giving exposition on his tenure as new boss. He brags to the media on the new improved crime statistics for this rough neighborhood. All of which gets cut with a scene of how exactly those results are achieved: Our first sight of the principle protagonist shows big ol� scary white Vic Mackey chasing a black dope dealer through a Mexican grocery at the same time Aceveda is speaking to the press.
Aceveda: With the continued support of community leaders and ordinary citizens, we can make the Farmington district a safer home for all of us.
Which cuts immediately to Vic kidney punching the cornered and non-resisting dope dealer, who falls down doubled up in pain.
Vic: That�s for running, asshole.
Vic proceeds to strip and humiliate the perp in broad daylight and plain sight of the neighbors, reaching down to confiscate the guy�s �third nad� full of dope.
Thus, before the first opening credits for the series roll, he�s set up the basic situation. Here�s the politically ambitious Latino police captain who needs the badass rogue Mackey behind the scenes busting asses to get control of this rough part of town and win him favor with the public.
The biggest ongoing plot conflict of the series comes not exactly as Aceveda versus Mackey, but as how much Aceveda dislikes Mackey and fears blowback from his tactics versus how much Aceveda needs the results that Mackey gets so as to further his political ambitions.
As the politician expecting to answer directly to the voters, Aceveda most closely of any character represents the viewpoint of the public in the series. Much like the public in general, Aceveda badly wants results, but mostly would just rather not know how they are achieved. He might think he does for a minute, but more and more Aceveda will come to see Vic's status and his own have become joined at the hip, and he will not be nearly so anxious to know everything.
posted by Al at 2/20/2003 10:44:00 PM
Sharing my favorite obsession
Those what know me will tell you that I'm a big fan of the FX network police drama The Shield. I'll admit to being a little obsessive. However, this is only because this show shines a brighter light on the human condition than anything else on the television. Ryan et al are on a truth mission, working to keep it real, leaving it for the viewers to make moral sense of the result.
Well, you can see how this could turn into a longwinded dissertation, which is exactly what's going on with my new morethings fan page. There you'll find a nice photo gallery from the show, and my ongoing notes, which will be added to as inspiration strikes.
So if'n you start noticing a lot of Vic Mackey related postings, be not alarmed. I am but sharing my favorite obsession. Did I mention that Claudette Wyms is H-O-T?
posted by Al at 2/20/2003 09:55:00 PM
February 17, 2003
What's important
Thirty-six years ago today, on February 17, 1967 the Beatles released perhaps the greatest two-sided single in the history of the rock music tradition: "Strawberry Fields Forever" paired with "Penny Lane." It was a beautiful moment for humanity.
Hopefully, 100 years from now people will regard the Beatles and Stanley Kubrick as more important historically than Richard Nixon or Vietnam. They're the best side of history. It counts to the good that most people today would know more about the characters in Shakespeare's plays than about the insignificant politicians of those days.
As Kubrick once quoted Robert Ardrey,
"We were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles and our irreconcilable regiments? For our treaties, whatever they may be worth; our symphonies, however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres, however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams, however rarely they may be accomplished. The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses."
Here's hoping that our times will be better remembered for The Simpsons, The Shield and Harry Potter rather than for Hussein, anthrax, and duct tape.
posted by Al at 2/17/2003 04:28:00 PM
February 16, 2003
Why is all this the fed's responsibility?
The main point of this Time story on homeland defense seems to be that nearly every locality in the country is waiting anxiously on the federal government to give them money for emergency preparedness and security improvements.
Some of these things may be appropriately federal functions. Some of the security around airports and shipyards may be legitimate federal items, as they are national and international, and perhaps more closely related to the idea of military defense.
However, why would it be assumed that the federal government should buy the hazmat suits for every local fire department? What, your local county budget is strapped? Well, redo your budget, change your priorities. Raise your local taxes [and take the heat for it] or -God forbid- cut some stuff out. Maybe the library doesn't get a new branch for a year or two, or you trim some welfare programs.
Also, local governments could get voluntary fund raising in the community. Local churches and scout troops and such would jump at the opportunity to have bake sales to raise money for equipment or training for local emergency response. Instead of throwing more billions of charity to the widows of rich New York stockbrokers, they could donate to emergency preparedness in their local community.
Of course, while they're baking those cookies and writing those checks, it might occur to them to wonder what the hell is happening with all the tax money they've been paying out, and what it is being spent on that is more important than this.
posted by Al at 2/16/2003 06:12:00 PM
Perhaps we could add arsenic just to make sure
Born this day in 1942, today is Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il's 61st birthday. And wouldn't the world be a better place if the bastard choked to death on his birthday cake?
posted by Al at 2/16/2003 05:28:00 PM
Stupid or clever?
Check out THIS ENTRY over at Little Green Footballs on yesterday's anti-war rally. He's got this Reuters photo of thousands of peace marchers behind a guy bearing a sign reading "PEACE IN OUR TIME."
Holy Jeebus. This was the infamous tagline of Neville Chamberlain's infamous September 30, 1939 statement announcing his agreement with Germany allowing them to get away with swallowing Czechoslovakia. It is perhaps the most infamous document of appeasement EVER.
This strikes me really curious. Is it possible that not just this guy holding the sign, but everyone around him is that stupid? Like not ONE of these people had any clue of the connotations of the phrase?
Is it possible that this guy was a patriot infiltrating the appeasers, constructing this sign as a bit of clever mockery? That would almost make more sense. It's something I might come up with on a clever day.
For example, I've thought a time or two about recruiting a nice conservative gal to show up at a pro-choice rally with a sign saying something like "IRRESPONSIBLE SLUTS FOR CHOICE." I have assumed that such an attempt would be nearly immediately sussed and suppressed, but maybe I overestimate.
What kind of slogan might you come up with to slip into one of these "peace"rallies, aka Hussein appeasement conventions? Holler back with your best shot.
posted by Al at 2/16/2003 05:18:00 PM
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