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Mad World

Season Three of Mad Men commences on Sunday night. We just finished Season Two on DVD. IMHO, the second season put this show on the level of the best television shows in history, right up there with The Sopraons, Seinfeld, and The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Mad on TV

I finished watching the first season of Mad Men the other day. I love everything about this show. It is extra-stylish and fabulously written, acted, and produced. On its face, it's a drama about the freewheeling advertising industry on Madison Avenue (hence, "Mad Men") in the early 1960s, with career-obsessed, promiscuous, unfaithful husbands, and emotionally repressed, deliberately ignorant (as the law defines that term), long-suffering, passive-aggressive, pre-feminist wives. Who said the sexual revolution started with the hippies? Thanks to the show being on AMC, the sexual aspects of the storyline are not shown explicitly, though there is one hilarious shadowboxing scene in one episode, where a janitor sees the shadows of two characters going at it through a frosted office window. Also, as DW pointed out, there is very little strong language used in the show. IOW, any gentle readers who are concerned about such things can actually watch this show without waiting for it to be sanitized a la The Sopranos on A&E.

Underneath its glittering surface, Mad Men about how we restless Americans are to a certain extent able to invent and reinvent ourselves however we choose and present ourselves to different people in different ways, sometimes genuine and honest; sometimes cynical and dishonest; sometimes all of those things at once. Don Draper, the main character, has actually invented Don Draper from someone else of very humble origins, and has become very accomplished in the cynical advertising industry. He's an astonishingly complicated and comparmentalized character with massive flaws and hidden insecurities, arguably the most fully realized character in television history. As a viewer, you can't help but love him, even when he's catting around while his terrific wife is depressed, lonely, and isolated at home. There is also a strong theme of longing for approval and validation in the show--particularly men seeking approval from other men--and that theme is played with great subtlety by several of the main characters. I can't wait to get to Season Two to see how these characters develop. I may have to download it from iTunes to tide myself over until the DVD set comes out next July.

You know your show has arrived when it is parodied on The Simpsons.

Don Draper, role model

The id of the American Male--drill baby drill

Your humble correspondent gave into temptation last night and picked up American Movie Classics' dramatic series Mad Men on DVD. I'd not seen any of the show, as the first season aired opposite Burn Notice, and we don't have tivo. I suspected that Mad Men would appeal to me, as several members of the production team of The Sopranos are involved in the show. Still, holy crap, this show is great!

Mad Men is all about the Freudian id and ego of the well-off American male, during the early 1960s--a period when the uninhibited desires of men pretty much had free reign--and the fallout that the male id had on the more inhibited women of the same period. The show is set in a glamorous Madison Avenue ad agency, in a time when the advertising industry was viewed as sexy and hip (except maybe when Darren Stevens worked there). The ad industry in Mad Men cynically sold an illusion of happiness, even if the product was toxic (cigarettes in the first episode, which made me think of the movie Thank You For Smoking). There is a ton of overt sexist aggression and a fabulously politically incorrect amount of cigarette smoking. There are glimpses in Season One of some of the social changes that were to come about later in the '60s (the Pill, for one, and a few strong female character), but only glimpses thus far.

One thing that hit home was the deluded version of happiness that the agency was selling. How many of us have looked around at our relative prosperity, good educations, decent careers, and otherwise pretty good circumstances, yet felt somehow empty and unfulfilled? It's like our inner, subconscious selves are out of alignment with what our conscious minds tell us we are, and even more out of alignment with what we show of ourselves to the rest of the world. Classic Jungian neurosis, I suppose.

The central character is advertising artist Don Draper (Jon Hamm), who has a lovely wife and family and a house in the suburbs. Yet, as an artist, he has a bohemian side, so he has an artiste girlfriend in Greenwich Village. He also puts the make on a female department store, to whom he is attracted by her strength and her understanding of his detached, nihilistic worldview.

In terms of intelligence and production values, this show is on the level of The Sopranos and Dexter. DW agrees, and she noticed that the sexual content of the show is PG-13 at worst, even though there is a ton of skirt-chasing going on. I noticed that Season Two of Mad Men will be ending this week. I look forward to picking that up on DVD also.

Daisies and Dexter

The sweet, whimsical Pushing Daisies is the Arrested Development of the past couple of television seasons, the best show that nobody watches. The show is a bit darker this season, to the extent that something so sweet and visually bright can be labeled "dark." Ned the Piemaker and Charlotte "The Lonely Tourist" Charles explore their emotionally formative backstories, which are balanced with the absurd homicide investigations and Olive Snook's hilarious spoof of The Sound of Music. This show might be just plain silly but for brilliant casting. Lee Pace, Anna Friel, Kristen Chenoweth, Chi McBride, Swoozie Kurtz, and Ellen Greene move effortlessly amongst the absudity, sadness, and hilarity of the show.

Season One of Pushing Daisies is out on DVD. Check it out.


Dexter has let go of "the only God [he] ever worshipped," his foster father Harry, and the Code of Harry by which he had lived every moment of his life. Ironically, though, he finds himself needing to follow Harry's code more than ever, thanks to an accidental killing. Jimmy Smits guest stars as a politically ambitions assistant D.A. who befriends Dexter in a most unusual circumstance. Smits's character, Miguel Prado, is becoming increasingly stalker-like as to Dex, and we saw with Doakes what happens to Dexter-stalkers. However, Miguel is a friendly stalker, and one wonders whether he may have dumped a few bags of bodies into the ocean himself.

HDTV--the ultimate revelation?

I love Howard Beale's sermon in Network about the power of television, even as I love watching my selected shows--that season finale of The Office was great, and I can't wait for season two of Pushing Daisies. Network is one of my favorite movies, and it was downright prophetic about the blending of news, commentary, and entertainment. It was somewhat less prophetic about the quality of programming generally; IMHO, the proliferation of cable channels has led to better, less formulaic programming across the board.

All that said, we got our HDTV receiver from Direct TV on Saturday, and the picture quality is astonishing. I watched a rerun of Top Chef just to marvel at the resolution.

Water and Sky

I took my kayak out on Saturday morning, paddling down Cane Bayou into Lake Pontchartrain and back. It was a fabulous day for paddling, with a temperature in the high 60s and a gorgeous blue sky. We're going through the fabulous sci-fi Western Firefly on DVD at home right now, and I thought of the theme song to that show as I lay back in the kayak, floated along, and looked up at the sky:

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Leave the men where they lay
They'll never see another day
Lost my soul, lost my dream
You can't take the sky from me.

I feel the black reaching out
I hear its song without a doubt
I still hear and I still see
That you can't take the sky from me.

Lost my love, lost my land
Lost the last place I could stand
There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity

And you can't take the sky from me.

A few hours later, I was at the theater watching There Will Be Blood. One can't spend an entire Saturday lazing around outside.

The Dark Passenger is busted

Love the calmness of the Dark Passenger when his vehicle, Dexter, is caught red-handed.

Old English in 3D & CGI

We were in need of some mindless entertainment yesterday, so we saw Beowulf in 3D at the local IMAX theater. The writing and acting are mediocre at best, but seeing the movie was great fun nevertheless. I don't usually give a hoot about special effects, but the effects in this movie are spectacular. Also, it was funny how they played with the scenery to keep Beowulf's private parts from being seen when he was nekkid. Check it out.

I wonder whether some classic films with great action and scenery could be retrofitted in 3D? I know, I know, it's not nice to mess with the artists' vision, and, heaven knows, Ted Turner's colorized versions of Miracle on 34th Street and Casablanca were abominations. But wouldn't, say, Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago be fabulous in 3D?

International Boob Tube

I've noticed a few U.K. flags on my site counter recently, and I just happen to be working through the BBC version of The Office on DVD. It's a brilliant show, and one that was able to be adapted for American TV with few major modifications--it's more like NBC fine-tuned the show a bit and even improved on it.

My question to the gentle puddle readers who live outside of the United States this: What American shows do you watch, and what do you like about them? To you gentle readers inside the United States, what non-American shows do you like? Just curious.

ETA--my own favorite imports from Britain are Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers--which may be the funniest show ever made--All Creatures Great and Small, and To the Manor Born. I really should watch BBC America for some newer shows. I've never even seen the Helen Mirren cop drama. From Canada, I've liked Second City Television and Kids in the Hall. SCTV's Way to Go Woman! feature about Mother Theresa, and its Battle of the PBS Stars, are as funny as any of Monty Python's famous skits.

Fun New Show

DW and I watched "Pushing Daisies" last night on ABC. I pretty much forgot that network even existed. Anyhow, it's a clever show that reminds me of Showtime's most excellent-but-cancelled "Dead Like Me." The main character of the show can revive the dead by touching them, but only at the cost of someone else dying. He strikes a deal with a private detective to revive murder victims, discover who killed them, make them dead again, then collect any reward money. The show takes a romantic twist early-on, and I kind of wonder whether they can sustain it for long under the circumstances--but then, they kept Jim and Pam in a state of sexual tension for three seasons on "The Office." The colors on the show are vivid and fantasyland-ish, and the voiceover reminds me of old Christmas movies.

Dexter, sharpest knife in the drawer--updated

Season Two of Showtime's very dark comedy "Dexter" begins this coming Sunday night. The first season featured Dexter's journey of self-discovery, starting off very comfortably faking emotions he didn't have, then gradually becoming uncomfortably human and emotional as the Ice Truck Killer led him to the truth about his being "born free" of everything that is human. There were some moderately uncomfortable moments for me as I noticed similarities between Dexter and myself--though, I must point out, I am not a serial killer. No doubt other somewhat socially maladjusted people felt the same way.

Evidently, Season Two will consist mostly of an investigation of Dexter's own kills. The interaction between Dexter and Sgt. Doakes, a killer himself, will be fun to watch, and Keith Carradine should be interesting as the lead investigator. I wonder how much Dexter's cop sister Deborah will figure out, and I'm curious as to where the show will go with Dexter's internal monologue--and that monologue was a major feature of Season One--now that he knows himself better.

ETA--watch the first episode of Season Two for free here. "Bowl 'til you bleed." Hee!

Great N.O. Music Video

Local musician Clint Maedgen made this fabulous video in the lower French Quarter shortly before Hurricane Katrina:

Thanks to gentle reader Cajun Boy for the heads-up.

Don't stop

Here it is, the most controversial ending in television history. It's grown on me since the initial shock. There's a big buildup of tension, chock full of symbolism from past episodes, then . . . nothing happens.

Shortly before that final episode, I had my oldest son at WalMart, and I needed to divert him from a very expensive home remodeling magazine he wanted me to buy (he likes looking at pictures of home interiors). I put my hand on "The Sopranos, the Book," which he grabbed off the shelf. It has quite a few photos of post-industrial North Jersey, with lots of bridges, trucks, etc. Anyhow, I was reading the text, and a couple of paragraphs sum up a couple of aspects of the show that always apealled to me:

By grafting the trapings of a gangster film onto a domestic drama, all set in end-of-the-millenium suburbs, [David] Chase had created a character who was both unique and entirely recognizable. When Tony famously told Dr. Melfi, "Lately I feel like I came in at the end of something. The best is over," he might have specifically been talking about the downfall of the Mafia, but he could have been speaking for any number of baby-boomers who woke up one morning to find themselves with a good job, a beautiful house, a nice car, and a queer sense of emptiness. He might as well have been talking about the failings of the American dream.

Such acute monitoring ot the national temperature has always been a feature of The Sopranos throughout its run. The show has dealt with issues from the gentrification of gay rights to the various ripple effets of September 11. The latter has been evoked both literally--when FBI Agent Harris is transferred from the pork store beat to counter-terorism work in Afghanistan--and more subtly in the ever-increasing sense of dislocation the characters seem to feel. It's hard to watch Tony resolve to change, only to revert to his old ways, without thinking of the countless resolutions of change made--and gradually forgotten--by many Americans in the wake of September 11. "That's thematic in the show," Chase says. "We all do it. I do it. We wake up and say, 'I have to do a better job of living my life. I have to be a better person. I have to do something.' And then, we don't."

I'm on a big self-improvement program at the moment, but it sure is easy to just sink back into avoidance, procrastination, overeating, distraction, and blogging (no, wait, that one's okay).

Knock, knock, knockin

Last night's excellent "Big Love" episode ("Kingdom Come") ended with two characters knockin' on heaven's door to Bob Dylan's song. Polygamist prophet Roman Grant, who had been shot by followers of a rival polygamist sect, was lying on the sidewalk, full of blood. Meanwhile, teenager Ben Henrickson was receiving his family's version of the Aaronic Priesthood from his father. The backstories to those little Dylanesque dramas constituted the main plotlines of the episode.

Ben's mother, Barb, who grew up in the regular LDS Church, was manipulated into accepting polygamy by her husband Bill; would in her own heart want to drop polygamy and return to the LDS Church; but remains loyal to her family, including her sister-wives, both of whom make their own side arrangements with Bill. Ben, meanwhile, has been having sex with his secular temptress girlfriend on a regular basis. After the parents get him to 'fess up, he proposes marriage to his girlfriend so he can "make it moral" in his parents' eyes. Back at home, Bill asks whether this girlfriend is "the one." Ben looks at Barb and coldly replies that he doesn't know; she's the one for now, and if that changes, he can always marry a second wife. Writer Lance Black explains that this conversation is really a conversation between Bill and Barb, about Barb's own choices and about whether the kids should be encouraged to be polygamists. Barb, aghast at the words that have come out of her son's mouth, cleverly convinces the girlfriend to break up. Evidently without Barb's knowledge, Bill ordains Ben to the priesthood and suggests that the son's life as a plyg will be easier than his has been. I'm guessing Barb is going to find out.

Meanwhile, Bill plays Roman Grant against a rival plyg group, evidently without realizing that the other group has turned to murder, or, as they call it, blood atonement. Bill wants to buy a video poker company out from under both groups and walk away unscathed. Bill's mother reveals that some of the money her brother invested in Bill's project was stolen. Bill griped at his mother and brother, but I noticed that he did nothing about giving up that money. Oh, and Roman got shot. I'm guessing someone is going to find out that Bill is indirectly responsible.

So Bill continues along the road to hell that is paved with good intentions, a road that may lead to him becoming the next incarnation of Roman, the man he has vowed to crush.

One thing that strikes me as mildly interesting is that these polygamist groups are organized, for the most part, as relatively small groups following a strong and/or charismatic, dictatorial figure, who may or may not be benevolent. In one of these groups, they actually refer to a principle of "one-man rule." The LDS Church, from which these groups split, has evolved into an organization with a bureaucratic structure and, essentially, a collective leadership at the top. The understood rules of decisionmaking are such that the organization is institutionally conservative; the structure, collective leadership, and decisionmaking rules--and, contrasted with these other groups, a very large membership base--are such that it seems highly unlikely that the main church will march off the proverbial cliff at the behest of one individual.

How will it end?

Damn, no Sopranos this week. I've read a few spoilers as to how the show will end, but the show is about as secretive as the Bush Administration, so I doubt any of those spoilers are nearly 100% accurate. I do think we can discount Meadow ending up as da boss. Been there, done that, in Godfather III. Anyway, here's my guess as to how it ends. I figured I'd put it up so I can see how wrong I am come June 10:

Phil Leotardo's underling insulted Meadow Soprano last week, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that Phil would go after A.J. Phil seems obsessed with killing a close relative of Tony's as retaliation for Tony cheating him out of killing Steve Buscemi (aka "Diet Tony" on TWoP). Now that Christopher is gone, there aren't any mobster relatives left except Uncle Junior, and it's not like Tony would care if Junior got capped. I don't count brother-in-law Bobby here, but maybe I should. Anyway, Tony's children are civilians, but that doesn't seem to matter to Phil. One spoiler has A.J. beating Phil to death with a metal pipe. Perhaps the New Yorkers will kidnap A.J., and he will escape after killing the NY boss. That would be consistent with the Lincoln and Kennedy references in the past two episodes. Moreover, having a "civilian" like A.J. take out a boss would be a sort of cosmic revenge on an audience that identifies a bit too closely with the mafiosi on the show, an issue that has bothered David Chase since the show premiered.

Phil gives an order to "whack New Jersey," much as Lucchese boss Vic Amuso did in the 1980s. After several of his guys are killed, or to find A.J., or both, Tony turns to the FBI's Agent Harris, and ends up relatively impoverished in the witness protection program. He may actually become Kevin Finnerty of Kingman, Arizona, just like in the coma dreams early in Season Six. It's possible that Agent Harris--who is personally fond of Tony--may begin this process by tipping Tony off about Phil's extermination order (I had to use that phrase). At the end, Tony will have lost his arrogance like the Tibetan monk told him to do in one of the coma dreams.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Carmela will pick up again with her curiosity about Adriana's disappearance. She did see the ghost of Ade in her Seven Spirits dream at the very beginning of Season Six, and that ghost has hung around throughout the season. At the end of the show, Carm will be left with "Sekhu, or the remains," of her life of luxury and wealth as First Lady of the Mob.

I don't see Tony having a "life goes on" ending as the boss of the New Jersey crime family. His coma dream showed him a little of what an alternative life would be like. Also, he did not enter the house of the dead when Steve Buscemi tried to show him in. In the last episode, he spoke with Dr. Melfi about there being something undefinable, but "more" out there. He also spoke about how mothers are like buses that drop you off, but you keep getting back on the buses. Could Tony's subconscious be telling him to get off the Livia bus and out of the Mafia? There are only two ways out for a guy like Tony--either in a body bag or in the witness protection program. One of the themes of Season Six seems to be reducing the alternatives available to the major characters.

The Sopranos arguably is the most significant phenomenon in American pop culture in the past 10 years. The mobster aspect of the show is the tip of the iceberg as far as I'm concerned. The show works with symbolism, subtext, metaphor, and the subconscious mind better than any popular entertainment I've seen. C.G. Jung could be on the writing staff. And has an actor ever nailed a part any better than James Gandolfini has nailed Tony Soprano? This go-around, "The Sopranos" has pretty much blown everything else out of the water.

Dharma Warrior and "The Mormons"

I actually found myself watching most of PBS's "The Mormons." On Monday, we were channel-surfing, and I put it on an A&E rerun of "The Sopranos." However, it wasn't one of the better epsiodes, and DW turned it to PBS. Last night, I got back from the Zen center and found DW watching part deaux. She commented about how she had forgotten much of the early history of the LDS Church. She is a multigenerational Mormon, so that history is her history. I'm a second-generation Mormon, so I can't personally lay claim to that history. Moreover, it's a fascinating history, the bad along with the good, and it's a shame more people don't know much about it.

The post I originally drafted about part one used a comment by feminist Mormon Margaret Toscano as a jumping-off point to discuss how, since my early teens, I've been tied up in knots over specific personal issues that somehow got whooshed up with the Church in my mind. On the drive home last night, I remember that a Zen author--I think it was Kosho Uchiyama--described zazen as a sword that cuts through the knots in one's mind. I was pleased by the image of myself as a dharma warrior, chopping away at my own mental knots.

Not even part two of "The Mormons" could mess with that image, and a number of the issues that have bothered me about the Church were discussed during the segments I saw. That's not to say I've changed my mind about any of these things; I guess I've just gained enough distance from them that I can look at them without investing much emotion into them. I suppose it helps that I never experienced first-hand the pain of people like Trevor Southey and Margaret Toscano, who were formally expelled from the LDS Church and were rejected by their loved ones, while I just slowly drifted away. Were I in the position of people who had been kicked to the curb on the basis of my scholarship (Toscano) or my sexuality (Southey), I'm sure I would still feel very hurt by it. Come to think of it, I'm still a little stung by the way my family was rejected by the local congregation. So, with the metaphorical sword of zen in my right hand, I walk the path of the dharma warrior, chopping away at those metaphorical knots. Now, the thought of me carrying a sword of any kind is pretty damn ridiculous; it's just one of those zen paradoxes.

ETA: The photo of Kosho Uchiyama I originally posted here disappeared, so I replaced it with the hand of Uma Thurman.

Family gathering?

Apoligies to gentle reader Bill, but this is what I feared would happen last weekend at our Utah gathering:



I love DW's family and all (and my own family-of-origin collectively is batshit crazy), but I was on my guard to keep DW from getting sucked--or jumping--into any controversies that might have arisen. Fortunately, none did, so I had myself a "whew!" glass of Cutthroat Ale at the hotel bar last Saturday night, where I was busted by two brothers-in-law in search of late night chicken wings. Oops.

Sadly, "Rome" comes to an end tonight:



I've always loved historical fiction, and "Rome" has done that on a grand scale--so grand that TPTB had to pull the plug on it. It's probably for the best--the BBC's "I, Claudius" covers the post-Augustus period. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are many what-ifs during the period covered in the show, but I suppose the biggest what-if of all is the question how western civilization would have been different but for the ultimate triumph of the boy wonder and his establishment of the Roman Empire. Rome obviously had a powerful cultural influence on the nations that later formed in the imperial territories, and the commercial/trading system that developed undoubtedly facilitated the spread of a certain tiny religious sect from Palestine into the West, despite fierce persecution early on from the Romans themselves.

Edited to add--the final episode was okay, but one thing messed it up for me. How the hell did Pullo get the dying Vorenus all the way from Egypt to Rome in that little cart before Vorenus, you know, bled to death? That was utterly ridiculous. I loved the way they handled the Antony & Cleopatra suicides. IIRC, they killed themselves about 12 days apart, and Cleopatra did negotiate with Octavian until she realized that he intended to have her dragged through the streets of Rome like a bag of potatoes. I loved Maecenas's snarky line to Octavian after Cleopatra's suicide: "you have that effect on people." Hee!

King of Creepy

For my fellow "Rome" watchers--my oh my, what an icy, creepy reptile Octavian has become. Ewww! But the highlight of last night's episode had to be Servilia's spectacular public suicide outside of Atia's house, and Antony's "now THAT is an exit!" immediately thereafter was the line of the evening. There was some good dark humor in the ep., and Antony usually gets the best lines, even if he will end up dead at the end of the series.