Pretty Piano Sound Things Are Good Enough to Eat
Preliminary Review of 6 Feet Under
Well I'm probably halfway through 6 feet under and I've found it thought compelling.
I watch a lot of TV seasons, and I recommend a lot, not on this blog really but to friends because I've always felt that TV and movies were personal preferences. 6 Feet under isn't a show I'd recommend to my typical friends, they likely wouldn't see the appeal, in all honesty I don't think I'd see the appeal if I were watching it a year ago…
It's about a family of undertakers, the episodes center around generally 1 burial per episode. The episode format is just like House, in house the episode always starts with a person getting sick then it moves on to House getting their case. In 6 Feet, it starts with a person dying and then the family getting the body.
The show deals with sexuality a lot, which in the past year has become something I'm fairly comfortable with. It deals with elderly sexuality, teenage sexuality, homosexuality, and highly charged emotional baggage sexuality. But it honestly feels real. I don't think I could stand it if it didn't come off as legitimately authentic. Gay scenes in most TV shows generally put me off, in this it seemed so normal. The awkwardness of the gay brother hating his life and having a moral struggle with being religious and gay at the same time comes off as legitimate and never overplayed. If it were overplayed I'd be the first to be gone, I can't stand overplayed awkward. (One of the reasons why I had a hard time with the Office.)
What I really like about this show is the way the love comes across as honest, the grieving, the exploration of death and loss, and the shame of betrayal. It hasn't seemed contrived, and while it might seem boring or predictable to some I find I can't stop watching.
My verdict, if you're an HBO fan and you don't have emotional hangups with sex, then it's worth checking out. If you want to be shocked and have some action… go watch The Shield.
Thoughts of Death
Yesterday Tash gave me the first season of 6 Feet Under.
I never knew what it was about, but I picked it up and put it in the DVD player on a whim today. I didn't know at all what to expect and oddly I found myself liking it. It's about the effects of death on life, something I can't say I ever understood.
I'm no good with death… or perhaps life for that matter. Tash knows and understands this, she sees how awkward I am around people who've lost a loved one, she takes the lead and eases me out of the picture before I embarass myself. No one important to me has ever died, my Grandfather died, but it wasn't a really big deal for me… it happened during a very transitional period of my life and didn't seem that important in the big scheme of what was going on at the time. It was just a small event to me.
I don't get very close to people. When Kyle tells me I'm his most consistent and longest lasting friend I don't know what to say… when my friend's daughter lists me in her "Extended Family" on her facebook profile I'm dumfounded. It's touching to think about things like that, but I don't know how to deal with them. Friends for the most part have always been alliances of common interest to me. I never really thought so before, but now that there are a few legitimate people in my life that I genuinely care about no matter what they do or say or have to offer I can see the difference.
I don't get invited to many weddings, I attend even less of them. Funerals are like inverse weddings, I think that the number of weddings you attend is likely proportionate to the number of funerals you'll attend later on. It's like the amount of hurt you experience is on-par with the joy.
I think I like 6 Feet Under. I'll go watch some more.
Stuck in My Head this Morning
It's not musical crack. It's my favorite band… I've always found that their music isn't the type that you love instantly. It's more like you listen to a song three times and then realize 2 weeks later that you love it.
I Want Freedom of Information BACK!
This is the real damage that governments and the corporations they're in bed with cause.
"Effective Jan. 1, dairies selling milk in Pennsylvania, the nation's fifth-largest dairy state, will be banned from advertising on milk containers that their product comes from cows that have never been treated with rBST, or recombinant bovine somatotropin."
Monsanto spokesman Michael Doane said the hormone-free label "implies to consumers, who may or may not be informed on these issues, that there's a health-and-safety difference between these two milks, that there's 'good' milk and 'bad' milk, and we know that's not the case."
rBST is banned in Canada thank god, but what really gets my hackles up is that this is indicitive of a larger more encompassing problem in North America today. Freedom of information has been completely replaced. This is why I'm against the AMPTP, the big five control too much information and they spoon feed us what they want to. This story about how the media moguls have been using Variety to try and sabotage the WGA is an example of this.
Previous: When the strike is over, and one day far into the future that will be true, media critics may have a field day dissecting the slanted coverage and total fabrications which Variety is reporting in these early days of the strike.
But for now, I'll do it. How much longer is this going to be allowed to continue by parent company Reed Business? The trade's Jason Blairs — oh, excuse me, Josef Adalian and Dave McNary — keep inventing stories which purport to show that less than 2 weeks into the strike wither the WGA's resolve is withering, and/or its writers are going back to work, and/or even its late show iconic hosts are going to double-cross their teams of scribes. Just one problem: those stories are either totally fabricated or highly exaggerated, made worse by headlines which are not borne out by the content of the articles. The latest is Variety's bullshit article today that the late night hosts may be going back to work after Thanksgiving while their teams of writers walk the picket lines. I guarantee you this is not the case and no plans are underway. My info is that NBC is putting heat on Conan O'Brien to come back earlier than anyone but he's resisting. I hear no one is telling Dave or Jay or Craig what to do, and they're not even thinking about it. And I know that Jon Stewart is saying privately that he won't even consider coming back until 2008 at the earliest. At the same time, the AMPTP keeps taking out expensive full-page ads in Variety to state its case — as if the trade's editorial pages aren't doing a ridiculously good job of that already. I, for one, am perplexed but also sad to see the day-by-day destruction of Variety's credibility and trust (well, as much as a trade which has always been in the pocket of the Industry can engender…)
Frankly I'm suprised they're resorting to such despicable tactics against a group that makes their living showing the public who the "good guy's" and "bad guys" are. Do the corporations really think they can beat professional writers in a PR war by publishing lies? Do they think writers forget how to use keyboards when they're on strike?
I feel that my opinion resonates these days. We want to be informed about the bad too. The diefication of Al Gore and his Inconvenient Truth documentary is proving this. But do we really want to know all the gory details? (No pun intended.) Seth Godin thinks so. He recently posted this blog making his point.
A different technique is starting to gain traction, though. Working to reveal instead of conceal. My fish monger in Grand Central has started placing signs in front of each fish. They describe exactly where the fish came from, whether it's healthy and how endangered it is. You'll never see fine print saying "previously frozen." They don't have any fine print. The first few times you visit the stand, it's actually off putting. It takes the romance and pleasure out of buying the fish, because you realize that there's a cost to it. The meat guy across the way doesn't have pictures of cows being slaughtered, does he?
But after a while, because the information is out there, because smart fish buyers already know some fish is endangered, the signs give you power. They allow you to make smart choices. They send a message to the customer about the honesty and intent of the seller. They build trust.
When people find out that the wool is being pulled over their eyes they get MAD! And it's getting harder to keep the truth covered, and I'm proud to say I'm a part of that.
Woman’s Intuition
Have you ever met a woman who has deductive reasoning that surpasses logic and ventures into the realm of clairvoyance? I've had the pleasure of meeting a few such women in my lifetime thus far and I've always found their presence a boon.
My first exposure to the phenominon was about 10 years ago. My family had finally got internet at our home and I was experiencing the joys of ICQ for the first time. I was then very much like I am now, I would go online and let others seek me out instead of going looking for them. This passive approach was far more successful then than it is now, and people from my home town would find me would find me daily, however they had no idea who I was.
These days the concept of using an fake name online is certainly nothing odd, but back then it wasn't as prolific. I used the name Tain (and you can still find it on my skype profile today) and I enjoyed the game of "who are you and do I know you?" that I enevitably played with everyone.
One boy who'd I'd known from church when I was quite young contacted me and the game insued. I knew instantly who he was, even though it had been at least 4 years since I had seen him last. I wasn't throwing any bones to him, and he spent the next 3 hours wondering who I was. Suddenly he guessed correctly "TOE-KNEE!" He exclaimed through the ICQ window. And I confirmed it.
I later found out that it had been his mother Susan who had told him who I was. She had looked over his sholder for about 5 posts of random conversation then told him. I know for certain that I'd not seen Susan since I was a very small child, perhaps 4 or 5.
Kyle was never suprised by this. To him, his mother had always been a magical creature with powers no man could comprehend. To me she's one of the most dynamic women I've ever met. She's the only one of my friends' mothers who I can drink with and have a blast, and you really can't hide anything from her. Lying wasn't a big issue in her house because you simply couldn't do it. But it was always an odd place, things that would send other parents off the deep end were met with bemused smiles by her. I remember in the span of one week everyone in the house went from non-smokers to all smoking like they'd done it all their lives. Her, her husband to-be, her teenage kids, all of them started smoking at once. It was like they held a family meeting and decided that was going to be the new family activity.
I don't get to see Susan much these days since she moved out of town, but any time I do it's always a good time.
Not the Daily Show, With Some Writer
Okay… so I'm obviously pro-writers in this epic clash. So today I was alerted to this awesome piece. Watch and enjoy.
Opinions Wanted
There's been a bit of a development in the works for me to start writing for a blog with a "Fuck the System" theme, which is to be about independant ventures in business using online tools… and it's supposed to be fairly graphic. I'm supposed to be writing all sorts of articles for it, but I've had a pretty severe case of writers block (or lazyness) this week so this is the first one I've pumped out. Let me know if you like it, hate it, find it too graphic or just lame and cliche…
The RIAA is now looking to the Democrats for it’s next supply of roofies before it begins it’s weekly rounds to US campuses.
The College Opportunity and Affordability Act(PDF) is a pretty name, like a crack whore might be pretty after you’ve had 5 martini’s, but before your doctor diagnoses you with a dozen STD’s that won’t be so bad if you would just stop scratching.
Inside this bloated whale of bill (747 pages) is a quaint little smudge of lipstick sponsored by the RIAA that would force universities to disclose their polices and procedures relating to copyright enforcement and explore new and creative ways to “deter” students from piracy, or those universities lose federal funding…
The amusing thing about all this is that in another year all this will be for naught. Google and it’s other hunky online pals are coming together and will be hosting some parties where the RIAA and it’s grotesque buddies with their Rohypnol laden drinks won’t be invited. Students won’t NEED to download illegally! Instead their Android phones will simply line up a list of youtube videos with legitimate advertising already built in.
And where will the RIAA be? It’ll be on the outside looking in, with a sack full of roofies and no one to fuck.
Trip to Prince George
Last month I went on a trip with my girlfriend… there were some pictures taken. I figured I'd share some.
On the way over it rained constantly.
But even miserable weather can be pretty…
We stopped at bijou falls. My shaky hands betrayed me and I didn't get a good picture of Tash.
Our hotel was pretty nice.
As was some of the trip home.
But some of it was a bit disappointing. The pine beetle is rampant up in these parts and it's killing so many of the trees. The pine beetle is a complicated issue, it's nature killing nature, the natural way, but if it weren't for our our intervention in stopping forest fires these trees would have burned up by now and the beetles along with.
But life will go on…
Old Line 
