Before My Eyes

I can understand why posts I've written would lead readers (Ha!) to believe that all I do is sit around watching defunct television shows. But two nights ago I went into the city to spend the night carousing and drinking, which is the first other activity of mine I will hint at on this blog.

I was a little lightheaded driving into town down I-95, I was getting lost in Dinosaur Jr.'s new album 'Farm,' particularly the song Plans. It was excellent but the subject matter, of break-ups and broken hearts, was hitting a little close to home. I arrived in town unsure of myself, not in the least because my chosen attire was an orange vintage Philadelphia Flyers jacket. I met up with my friend and we proceeded to walk about town, the entire time with me half in the conversations taking place. 

It was about 15th and Walnut when I thought I saw a high school friend of mine walking ahead. I was so out of it that I wandered straight into the street, apparently. I'm going to have to take the witness's word for it, because I wasn't paying attention at all. The car that nearly hit me was a silver GMC Envoy, or possibly a Pathfinder Armada, with tinted windows. The window rolls down, and I'm staring at the hardest looking dude I've ever seen, and he gives me the most serious "Are you shitting me? I know you're shitting me" face, while I stumble over explanations as to what made me walk out into the middle of the street against traffic, which I myself am unsure of. 

After my companion explained to me what exactly happened, I was overcome with a fit of the shakes and the sweats, even though I never knew I was in any real danger. I spent the rest of the night thinking, "What if I'm dead and I just don't know it?" I'm still thinking that.

Moderation

It has come to my attention that anyone who reads this would have reason to believe that all I do is sit around and watch irrelevant television shows.

That sentence was too long. 

Problem is, I know that isn't true, but I have an immense amount of trouble defending that truth, the truth that is the opposite of the previous conjecture. The one about me.

I haven't been running lately, that's the reason I'm sort off kilter. I'm going to run tomorrow. Thing is, I've been working out my glamour muscles. That is a reference to the last episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," in which Corey from "That 80's Show" accuses Mac of "Only working out [his] glamour muscles." I've been doing that, and believe me, this is not a vain comment. If anything, I have low self-esteem, I'm not trying to inflate my own ego here. Thing is, I've only been working out to the end of improving this muscle group. The fucking title of this thing includes the term "run," I feel like I should get back to it. I'm going to do it tomorrow, whenever I can. As long as it's before 6PM.

What color is my Piss going to be tomorrow?

Carnivale has my favorite style of character division. Since the show is composed of two parallel story lines, the cast of characters is roughly divided in half, as I like to refer to it the Nick Stahl half and the Clancy Brown half. This also means that the run time of the show is also halved, which is perfect for impatient people like me.

Nick Stahl is the reason I started watching Carnivale. I was riding high of my viewing of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, which starred Mr Stahl as John Connor. The first adds for Canivale, the Season 1 package cover, hit the streets almost simultaneously, and my interest was piqued. It took until the 2004 DVD release, a Christmas present, for me to see a second of the show, but until then I followed it loosely via reviews, primarily those published in Entertainment Weekly (I mention this so that those reading know that I was not overcome by fits of research prior to asking for a sight-unseen television box set for a Christmas present.) I viewed the entire first season and then shelved the show, relatively underwhelmed. This let down feeling also went along with season 2, which I was watching on air concurrently in January 2005. The best thing I can say about what that did for me was get me into Deadwood, which was re-running the first season at the time. These episodes would lead me to my favorite show of all time, Deadwood. I did however drop out of viewing Carnivale season 2 around the fourth episode, so the first ever show I watched on HBO was officially discarded. During a what would become to be routine home invasion in 2006, the set was stolen. and I never gave the show a thought after that.

I proceeded to do something odd for my birthday in 2007. I had asked for Season 2 of Carnivale on a whim, got it, and then asked for a Season 1 replacement Christmas. I re-watched Season 1 over January 2008, but inexplicably stopped 11 episodes in when my mother retired that same month around that same time. 

Today I had cause to open the show up again. After some Rome viewings a few days back, I decided that my Winter should be made up of finishing my cancelled HBO shows, namely, Deadwood and Carnivale. SInce Carnivale is a show only I am into in this household, I am using my time during the day to consume the mythology choked show. Like I said earlier, the show is divided into two halves. The Nick Stahl half does battle against the Clancy Brown half. Nick Stahl plays an isolated southwest kid whom we meet burying his mother. A bulldozer driven by the bank destroys his home, and a traveling Carnival takes him on as help. We meet Clancy Brown, a pious minister who begins to be tormented by his past and his own internal demon. Over the course of season 1, it becomes apparent that a battle between these two men who have never met is imminent, with the Nick Stahl, or Ben Hawkins, as good and Clancy Brown, or Brother Justin Crowe, as evil. It also becomes clear that the man who runs the Carnival had the same relationship with Ben's father, the elusive Henry Scudder. Set against the biblical backdrop of the 1930s dust bowl, Carnivale is as cryptic as they come but lent an air of urgency via setting and the music, which sounds lifted from the horror genre, with a touch of religious grandeur added to give a certain weight to it. 

I found episodes eleven and twelve of season 1 very rewarding, and now plan on diving head-first into the second, final season. I seem to always be doing this, getting into shows that I know full well end too soon. I wonder what that says about me psychologically, a question I plan to leave to the professionals. It does show, evident to anyone, that the premium cable networks need to give their shows more of a chance.

Kalends of February

HBO always does the same thing to me. Right when a series gets either interesting or great, they cancel it. Deadwood, one of the best Westerns ever, canceled. This was the worst for me, because the tease promise of two 120 minute movies were constantly being promised. I have made my peace with that, still sitting on the third, final season, waiting for the coming winter to experience it. Carnivale was another one, with one of the most hair-pulling cliffhanger endings ever shown.  

The toss-up is Rome. Conceived and executed as a historical look at Rome right around the fall of the senate, the first season sped through Caesar's rise and fall as Rome's first dictatorial ruler. AFter the season ended, rumblings about ballooning costs and ridiculously extreme sets gave way to HBO's announcement that season 2 would be the shows last. This gave way to ten episodes that barreled through the rise of Octavian and fall of Mark Antony. The second season moves at a cranked up pace, covering the rise and fall of numerous characters that could have provided the show's Wire-like sprawling cast with deadly loose ends. Normally, such a rush works to a show's disadvantage. The pressures of ending plotlines can lead to a massive decline in creativity and depth. This did not occur on Rome, the timeframe was larger but the pacing remained the same, choosing to jump time periods rather than an abridged view of them all strung together.

There are flaws as well. The casting switch of Octavian was necessary but poorly executed. An occasional battle is skipped, but this is understandable as the battle between Cassius and Brutus against Octavian and Mark Antony is epic. There was really no need to splurge on another battle scene that large a scale within ten episodes. The conclusion shall not be spoken of here by me, suffice to say it ties together in a very satisfying way.

My point is, C'mon HBO. Let your shows breath.

Bleak Master

I'm about to watch the final episode of Showtime's "Brotherhood." The series ran 29 episodes from 2006 to 2008.

I got into it on a whim, a foolish impulse buy while I was a sophomore in college. I watched an hour or two, and gave up on it. I had reason to come back to it in a fit of minor depression, and ended up watching the first season in two days.

The show revolves around two Providence, RI brothers, Michael and Tommy Caffee. Michael is a gangster with psychotic tendencies that always come out in misguided attempts at justice. He has not been seen in Providence for seven years. Tommy is a politician, a state rep prone to corruption. The first hour begins with Michael Caffee reappearing in Providence after a mob soldier with a hit out on Michael is beaten to death at a construction sight. From there, "Brotherhood" tells the following story of the Caffee family, and all of those with the bad luck of being involved with them.

The third season, billed as its final, recently came out, and I've been sure to consume them slowly. The first season was fast and angry, the second slow to an extreme and bleak. Season three is a different sort, eight hours running almost as a mini-series, bound to the other two seasons in terms of plot and character, but containing its own story, begun and concluded within. I am on the cusp now of finding out how it all ends up for the Caffee brothers.