Toob Notes The Wire ended early in the month, and while it didn't end on a high -- this was the weakest season -- it was still the best show on TV. (No real spoilers follow, but I am assuming you watched the show.)

The proper theme of this season was fakery. Both the police (McNulty at first, then others) and the Sun reporter invest themselves in lies. These lies did not arise in a vacuum, however. McNulty spins his web in reaction to the lies of the city's governors in an effort to win the drug war which, as becomes clear, is itself mired in falsehoods. The reporter, in contrast, lies partially out of laziness and partially out of desperation, but the institutions surrounding him fully support him since it is to their benefit.

This season featured perhaps my favorite moments in the series. The FBI is called in to profile the serial killer, which the viewer knows to be a fiction created by McNulty. The camera stays on McNulty's face as the FBI agent describes the serial killer in terms that exactly fit McNulty personally. Flawless comedy. Also we got a lot of time on Lester Freemon, the Sherlock Holmes of the 'hood, who was probably my favorite character in the series. And we had a web of dependent, self-perpetuating lies so intricate that it became a thing of beauty in itself.

But there were big problems this year. There was an over abundance of cameos of previously featured characters and a mess of contrived "full-circle" finishes in an orgy of closure. Many of the characters seemed to become mere plot devices at the expense of their humanity. And, as much as they probably tried to avoid it, there was the sound of a grinding axe running in the background as the creative team eviscerated the newspaper industry from whence they sprung.

Meanwhile, in real life, creator David Simon took every opportunity to engage in barking political crackpottery to anyone who put a microphone in front of him, as if he was Barbra Streisand or something, culminating in an embarrassing berating of viewers and critics for "not getting" what he was trying to say. Poor David suffers the fate every other pseudo-great thinker in history -- he's so wise and insightful, yet must live in a world of blind, thoughtless rabble who cannot understand or appreciate him.

One of the enduring mysteries of art is that great works can be created by people anywhere on the spectrum of humanity -- young, old, weak, strong, good, evil. Clearly loudmouth crank falls somewhere on that spectrum because despite all Simon's ancillary nonsense, The Wire was a remarkable achievement. The core idea -- the story of a dying city as a Greek tragedy with institutions in the role of the gods was brilliantly conceived and beautifully realized.

If the The Sopranos was the last word in mob drama (except for the inevitable "courageous" film about two gay wiseguys) and Deadwood was the last word in westerns (except for the...oh, never mind), then The Wire will likely stand as the last word in cop shows. True to the theme, but so very much more. Time to move on to new paradigms.

And perhaps that is exactly what HBO has been trying to do, but with little success. In Treatment, a show which I came to late, just finished its first season and I have a sneaking feeling that's all it's going to get. The show was about people in therapy and the gimmick was that it ran each day of the week with a different patient on each day. It was decently done and the dialogue was never mawkish. The challenge was to hold a viewer's attention through a half-hour show that consisted almost entirely of a conversation between two or three people. In some ways it was reminiscent of classic TV drama from the fifties, when the actors and the dialogue had to carry the entire production. I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it again, but it was about as well done as that sort of thing could be.

Less successful is John Adams, a Tom Hanks' guided dramatization of the bestseller by David McCullough. This entire production comes off as little more than a retelling of key scenes from the book, no humanistic background added. Really, it is very sterile and quite aimless from a character point of view. A huge backslide from the superb Band of Brothers he did a few years back. Give it a miss.

Following HBO's lead, other networks are taking risks on more interesting projects. AMC followed up its excellent Mad Men (season 2 can't come soon enough for me) with Breaking Bad, about a high-school chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with a nearly hopeless case of lung cancer and so takes up cooking meth with a sleezebag ex-student so as to have something to leave his family. Over time the motivation morphs into having enough money to pay for exceedingly expensive uninsured treatments in an effort to stay alive. At the close of the first season it is clearly heading towards a conflict where he is trying to make money to survive cancer and if he lives he will find himself to be a drug dealer, living on borrowed time. Good supporting cast of a ball-buster wife, a kleptomaniac sister-in-law, and a DEA agent brother-in-law leave open lots of possibilities. If these guys can keep the plotline tight, the direction fresh, and the conflicts uncontrived, Breaking Bad will continue to be a winner. Another season 2 I am anxiously awaiting. Well done AMC.

Dexter, from Showtime, is my most recent guilty pleasure. Dexter Morgan is a serial killer who only kills other murderers, who he has ready access to through his work as a forensic blood analyst for the Miami police. It has completed two seasons and I have been through both on-demand. While there were occasionally tedious back stories, it was very well done on the whole, and the acting and concept seemed to improve over time as everyone involved got into a groove.

I could tell you that it is really a thought-provoking parable about Man's need for morality and rules (the Code of Harry, in this case) to channel his dark, fallen nature into something good, but that might be a bit of a stretch. I'll stick with guilty pleasure for my purposes. During my viewing of both seasons, once I reached about the half way point I ended up so engrossed that I stayed up until about 3 AM to finish in marathon sessions. The following mornings were brutal. Dexter killed me.

'Bout a Hundred Dollars: I've been guzzling Diet Pepsi at an alarming rate to get Pepsi points to buy MP3s from Amazon. The problem is the only some MP3s are eligible. When I went to buy the latest Fountains of Wayne (Traffic and Weather -- awesome) I couldn't buy the whole album at once, I had to download each individual song. Can't complain if it's for free, I suppose. Thievery Corporation's Mirror Conspiracy wasn;t available on MP3 so I actually had to order the used CD. I also picked up Firesign Theatre's comedy classic from the sixties, Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers. The album consists of two tracks, one for each side and Amazon had them priced like individual song tracks -- 99 cents each; so I got the entire album for $1.98. (This is me high-fiving myself.)

Zune let me down for the first time. My latest CD purchase, The Avalanches' Since I Left You is gapless. That is to say, each track runs seamlessly into the next with no silence in between. Zune (the player, not the application) apparently doesn't support this, so as I listen I get an annoying instant of silence between each track. The Zune application does support gapless playback, so I'm hoping MS will update the player software also, eventually.

I'm generally very pleased with my music situation at the moment. I stumbled into something good with my $99 refurbished Zune. I snagged the Zune off Woot, the semi-famous, one-sale-item-per-day site, and since then I have been checking every day. Sure enough, another offer came up that I jumped on.

I have been looking for a cheap-ish point-and-shoot camera. My Nikon DLSR is still dear to my heart, but there are times when I just don't want to risk it -- like out on a wet and wild catamaran ride off Key West -- or lug it around, like an evening out with friends. Well, what should appear on Woot but a refurb'ed Kodak 10mp point and shoot for $99? That's perfect. I snagged one -- coffee colored, for no good reason. Now, if I lose it - oh well, I'm out a hundred bucks. Sad, but I'll live.

In fact, $100 seems to be about the sweet spot for gadgets in my life. My cell service is T-Mobile prepaid. I drop a hundred dollars up front and at .10/minute voice and .05/text message, it gets me through about six months. So my entire phone service costs me about $200 per year. I recently picked up a new cell phone when my five year old discontinued Siemens gave up the ghost. I got a keen-looking (I can say "keen", I'm old enough) Motorola RAZR on special for, yeah you guessed it, $99.

To you folks targeting spam, you now know the number that will get my attention.

Luggage is the Enemy: I was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that many of the big airlines now allow only a single piece of checked luggage per passenger. That's checked luggage, not carry-ons. Although why I was shocked I don't know, since they seem to work so very hard at making flying as miserable an experience as possible.

I rarely need to check more than one bag, so it doesn't have a big effect on me directly, but what this is going to do is force people to stuff as much as they can into their carry-ons. Carry-on luggage is the single greatest impediment to efficiently boarding and exiting a plane at the gate. Some of the most pleasant flights I can remember were the ones I took shortly after the big "no liquids" policy went into effect. Passengers were forced to check through all their personal stuff, so they mostly said screw it, and just checked everything through. The overhead bins were half empty; everyone got to their seats with a minimum of fuss; fastest deplaning ever. Now we are going to get the opposite; it's going to take that much longer to get on and off the plane. Plus, everyone is going to try to scam the system by bringing a carry-on that is too big and then checking it at the gate in the hopes they won't get charged.

The claim is that extra piece of luggage is so expensive at the current cost of fuel that they have to charge for it. I call B.S. on that: prove it. Of the major carriers, it looks like Northwest, United and US Air have already switched to a one-bag policy for coach fliers. A second bag will cost $25, although it looks like Northwest is letting the frequent flier members skate on the second bag charge. American and Delta seem to still be letting 2 bags through for the time being.

Between the security environment, fuel costs, legal liability and their own monumentally stupid reactions to these things, I am amazed the airlines continue to function.

And speaking of luggage disasters, have you been following the chaos at Heathrow? 19,000 lost bags -- system failure -- sorting through them by hand. You can now play a Mario-esque baggage handling flash game. Surreal. It's enough to almost make you feel sorry for Naomi Campbell. (Ok, no it isn't. Not even almost.)

Ain't So Bad: And just to end on an high note for a change, I would like to point out how good things are.

If you spend any time reading the newspapers or watching CNN or wandering the Internet, you would think that we are on the verge of apocalypse; as if there was a race to see what tragedy will befall us first: financial, social, or environmental. In fact, on balance, the world is better off (especially here in Western civilization), than at any time in history and there is no reason to expect it won't get better. But you can't tell people that. The loudmouths of the world are so wholly invested in doom and dire predictions that they will take grave offense and protest indignantly.

Personally, I find this confounding. I can only assume it is because they don't have enough drama or interest in their personal lives so they make some up to fill the hole. Or perhaps they do it as a way to make themselves feel that their problems are not their own fault but stem from the curse of living in these horrible times.

Anyway, if you are one of those folks who is all end-is-nigh, you might gain some insight into why you feel that way by reading Journalist Bites Reailty, Steve Salerno's brilliant exposition on why the media is so deeply invested in the horrific. Then you may want to pause and consider how lucky you really are to live now.

The Month That Was - February 2008: February flew by, highlighted by the most exciting Super Bowl in history (after one of the more tedious seasons) and a spur of the moment long weekend in Hilton Head/Charleston SC. Give it a read; it's short with lots of pictures linked. Apart from that, I can't for the life of me think of what else happened in February. Actually that's not true. I got through a full revision of Misspent Youth, now a little more than half way complete, and I have ideas for more. I also made some progress in getting my investment portfolio sorted out more intelligently -- something that had needed doing for years. (Would it be tedious for me to expound on my stock market investments? I'm guessing yes, but I'll give it some thought.) Speaking of finances, this weekend is reserved for doing taxes. Joy.

Missing in Action
Spirit of Detroit
Principled Apathy
Time Off

Missing in Action: Tube Notes takes a break this month. The Wire ends in early March. Same with Breaking Bad. And I've latched on to Dexter, which is a (very) guilty pleasure. Next month for sure.

Also, no Movie Round-Up. I really didn't see anything worth writing about. The only think that sticks out in my head is The 300 which made its HBO premiere. It was visually striking in the action sequences, but it wasn't very good otherwise. Disturbia has hit cable also, and I'm mildly anxious to compare it to Rear Window, the a bona fide classic to which it is an homage. Again, maybe next month.

And to complete the theme, no book commentary either. I am still crawling through the lovely and difficult Tender is the Night, and I have started Unknown Quantity, a history of algebra by John Derbyshire. It's not as compelling as his previous Prime Obsession which I read and discussed many months ago but it is at least challenging me to do some algebraic thinking which I probably haven't dome since I was an undergrad. Possible comments next month, but not likely.

Spirit of Detroit: Of course, who needs The Wire when you have Detroit. John Conyers, Detroit's U.S. Congressman has long been known to be a high-end nut job, but his wife, president of the City Council, may take the cake, telling an aide to the Mayor that she would get a gun or get her brothers to whip his ass. The government of Detroit is about on par with some corrupt third world hellhole. And, of course, they have the standard of living that goes along with it. If it wasn't for fear of the country having enough and the National Guard taking over, Detroit would probably be engulfed in a shooting war between the Kilpatrick junta and the Conyers guerillas, with the BBC running videos of starving citizens begging for U.N assistance, and Bono flying in for a humanitarian photo op. It's that bad.

Last month I mentioned the infamous (alleged) party at the Manoogian Mansion, the Mayor's official residence, which (allegedly) featured strippers and catfights. It seems now there is a big to do about the (alleged) interference of the Mayor's office in the investigation of the drive by murder of a stripper who (allegedly) was at the party. A whistle-blowing ex-cop has suggested that she was killed by a Detroit cop at the behest of the Mayor or someone in his administration. Among other things, there was some confusion about whether she was shot three times or eighteen times. Easy to get those two numbers confused.

Of course, not even the city government could be as fundamentally fubar as the Detroit Lions. Matt Millen's picture is next to the word "assclown" in the dictionary. Or at least it would be if "assclown" was in the dictionary. Recently fired offensive coordinator and Super Bowl winning coach Mike Martz observed of the Lions management: "I can't explain anything they do. I can't." The team's response to being the whipping boys of the NFL for, oh, fifty years or so? Raise ticket prices. That, my friends, is Detroit logic.

I feel mildly ashamed at how fascinated I am by the slow, steady degradation of the city to depths unknown. I am anxious to see where the bottom is. I'm guessing it will be when there are only a couple dozen people left and they have to resort to cannibalism. But that's just a guess.

Principled Apathy: I have pretty much decided not to vote. I figure it like this. People should vote when they have a clear sincere belief that a certain candidate will be better for the country than the others. Although this may surprise you, I do occasionally have an opinion or two, but if there is one big thing I have learned in life, it is that I am wrong a lot. I suspect I am not wrong much more often than anyone else but, if I can be allowed a moment of pure ego, I think I do a better job of admitting it and accepting it than most. When faced with an outcome other than what they expected, human nature is to simply spin the results to show that they weren't wrong after all (make excuses), or maybe they'll say that everybody was equally wrong (mitigate the damage), or, most commonly, not even consciously acknowledge the connection between their formerly fervently held opinion and an outcome that was just the opposite (avoidance). They will have already moved on to their next unshakable belief.

Not me. I am wrong a lot. I can turn my way-too-numerous years of experience, graduate level education, and reasonably high IQ to an issue, arrive at a conclusion that seems blindingly obvious and unimpeachable -- then turn out to be stupendously wrong. As the various candidates drench me in their inane drivel, I occasionally hear something from one of them that makes sense and I think that's a good reason to cast a vote in a certain direction. But then, with the full knowledge that my opinion is as likely to wrong as right, I reflexively justify the counter-opinion and become suspicious of my own motives for thinking that way. As result, I end up figuring it's a dice roll whether one or the other will work out better for the country, and ergo, my vote will add nothing of value.

As I pointed out last month, our government is so entrenched and stable that we could probably pick a president at random from the phone book and suffer little more than mild annoyance. So, really, what good would I be doing by voting? Of course the same can be said for everyone. Why, then, would anybody vote? The answer is that you should vote if you sincerely see one of these clowns as being significantly better for the country. A tiny fraction of you may be right, but the vast majority of you will just be voting along the lines of your preconceived prejudices -- more often than not, we hold the opinions that justify our biases, and fool ourselves that they are the result of reason. At least you will feel good about yourselves and besides, someone has to pick a president; it might as well be you. I'll save my energy for other more pleasurable things.

Put it all together and it makes a decent case for apathy. But if I were to vote, I would vote against Obama. Can't stand the guy. Can't stand his Bob-the-Builder, "Yes we can!" inanity. Nobody who has slogged through middle management in corporate American has avoided a session with some moronic motivational speaker who spews out rah-rah blather like "Yes I can!" or "Make it happen!" or "Seize the Day!" The higher-ups consider arranging those kind of sessions "leadership" and slap each other on their enlightened backs. Half the HR department gets to check off "Improve Workforce Engagement Level" on their annual goals list. Meanwhile, everyone who has to sit through it is that much closer to buying an Uzi. Now CNN gets to pummel us with that tripe thanks to Obama.

What about Hope? We don't need no stinkin' Hope! Are people so infantile, so helpless, that they need someone to come along and with a wave of his blessed hand, anoint them with Hope? If it is the case that the majority of the most prosperous and pampered people in the world, when confronted with the complexities and challenges of life, can do no better than flop back on the couch and cry out for someone to give them Hope, then Oprah has her final victory.

Still, wouldn't even vote against Obama. My Mom (who is a saint, by the way) is a big Obama fan, and what kind of son would cancel out his own Mother's vote? So that's really why I'm not voting. 'Cause of my Mom.

Time Off: My day job has revised its policy on vacation and sick time for this year and the upshot is that I have to take a ton of use-it-or-lose-it time off before 2008 is out. Of all the problems I have ever had in my disturbingly long life, this is probably the best one ever. So I'm starting to line up destinations. Among the potential targets for yet-to-be-visited areas:

• Pacific Northwest. I have been to Portland Oregon, which marginally qualifies. But Seattle and Vancouver/Victoria/Whistler have been on my list for a while. I've even priced them out previously. Truthfully, the big goal for this area would be trolling around the Pacific Northwest for a few days, then making my way, either by car or ferry, up to Alaska for a week. That would be a blast. Expensive as hell, though.

• Southeast Asia. Specifically, the standard Singapore/Bangkok/Hong Kong triumvirate. I have never been to Asia and I would guess this would be a good starter tour. Actually, this is mostly because Anthony Bourdain goes to these places and eats the amazing food that I can only imagine. I'd also bet these places would be have just the right amount of visual and cultural shock, enough to be challenging but not enough to drive me insane. Relative frequent flights are available from Detroit. The big problem is that you can easily burn a day and a half of travel time each way, which I would have to come to terms with. Now, if I could afford Singapore Airlines...

• Newfoundland. Certainly not a place everyone thinks of, but I understand it is quite beautiful. This would be few days with a car to tour the island and maybe even take a side trip up into Labrador. There is not a lot of tourist stuff so it would be low-key, which is fine. Some of my favorite vacations have been about finding interesting, out-doorsy places and just tooling around with my camera.

• Unusual Caribbean. I was thinking something along the lines of Saba/Montserrat/Dominica/Grenada. The islands the most people don't visit. I would do this in summer when nobody is in the Caribbean anyway. The fact that I could do this on the cheap off-season is not the least of its attractions. An alternative would be the out islands of the Bahamas.

• Greenland. No really. Greenland. Same direction as Newfoundland, but only more so. There are direct flights from BWI now and they are just getting the tourist industry kicked up. I bet I never hear, "Greenland? Should have been there 10 years ago." A tour is probably the only way to go with this one since infrastructure is uncertain and logistics troubling. Top of the world, Ma!

• Mexico. I've never really been but I'd sure like to go. Everyone I know who goes there loves it and it is right next door (so to speak). I have no excuses. Mexico is a big place. I'd narrow starter trips down to Playa Del Carmen or the Puerto Vallarta area. I wouldn't argue with that train ride through Copper Canyon either.

For repeat destinations:

• New York City. OK, this isn't really more than a long weekender, but it's been a while since I've been to Manhattan and I really, really need to get back to the center of the universe for a couple of days.

• Hawaii. Specifically the Big Island. I love Maui and Kauai but I've yet to visit the Big Island. My priorities for a Hawaii trip would be 1) a good long time on the Big Island, 2) the Kauai north shore (I was on the south shore last time), 3) Lanai just for a night or two.

• California Parks tour. Only partially a repeat, but the idea would be to fly into Reno, spend a couple of days around Tahoe, then head down eastern California hitting all the parks along the way including Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and my beloved Death Valley, then finishing up with a couple of nights in Vegas and flying home from there.

• Hit the Spa. One of the Canyon Ranches or Mirival. There's also a Green Valley in Utah that I have had my eye on for a while. It's been a couple of years since I hit one of the killer Spas and not only would my body be grateful for the temporary drop in toxins, I could probably get a ton of writing done.

The fact is, just the planning of a serious trip is enjoyable so I'm looking forward to a fun year on that basis alone. If I knock off two of these (three including NYC), I'll declare victory.

The Month That Was - January 2008: I think this is the first month is years when I didn't do any travelling. Not even a weekend or an overnighter. That must not continue. In the meantime, I finished my Death Valley trip report. There are some good photos in there, but it's amazing the difference a good monitor can make when looking at photos online. Viewed through my cheapy 14" Dell LCD at work, they look rather bland, but in my spankin' HP 23" external monitor at home they are striking.

With my football column on hiatus, all that is left is for me to return to fiction. About time. But I do not want to let February slip away without at least a brief bit of travel. Suggestions are welcome.

Tube Notes
Detroit Low Down
Tender is the Night
Zune, Zune, Zune
Insane Clown Politics

Tube Notes: As usual, a quick rundown of some idiot box viewings that caught my eye.

The Wire -- Last month I feared that David Simon had let The Wire turn into a personal platform for forwarding his (somewhat sophomoric) socio-political philosophy. I'm glad to say it looks like I was wrong about that, or perhaps it was mostly isolated to the first couple of episodes. It's pretty clear now that this season is about lies; specifically about one big lie that spirals out to ensnare just about everyone in the city of Baltimore. Like they said in episode one, "The bigger the lie, the more they believe." Maybe. Still, I don't detect the heightened level of humanity in this season that I have in the previous ones. It's mostly an extended series of plot mechanisms so far.

Another interesting theme is how prime drug dealers get offed once they start deluding themselves that there is something logical or civilized about what they are doing. Chaos and evil rise up to destroy them. I'd go into this in more detail but I don't want to be a spoiler. More to come.

Breaking Bad -- This is AMC's new original series, following up last year's excellent Mad Men. Like Mad Men, it's clearly got boundless potential, but at episode two it has yet to hit its stride. Alternately harrowing and comic, it's the story of a high school chemistry teacher who discovers he has inoperable lung cancer and so gets involved cooking up crystal meth with a druggie former student. The situation is complicated by his stuck-up, pregnant wife and a DEA agent brother-in-law. Murder and mayhem ensue.

Bryan Cranston (the father from Malcolm in the Middle) plays the lead exceptionally well: a straight-laced, meek, inhibited guy, faced with a suddenly limited lifespan, goes off the deep end. It seems to be playing out in a 24 sort of format where we get a day or so with every episode. Of course, the storyline of comically inept drug amateurs can only go so far. If the characters flesh out and we witness some big picture enlightening, this could turn out to be a winner. I'll let you know.

No Reservations -- I hate Anthony Bourdain. He travels around the world, eats incredible food, then writes and hosts his TV show about it. Bastard. I should be doing that. Bourdain brings something to travel and food shows that is sorely lacking. Specifically: wit. With so many whitebread cooking shows and dry-as-sand travel shows hovering around, No reservations just jumps out as something special. A smarty-pants guy who's not out to further cultural empathy or sell recipes, just have some fun experiences and not take himself too seriously. That's all you need to be a cut above in the current market. For me, No Reservations is a mixed blessing. It's a cool and interesting show to watch for a while, but then I get all angry that it's not me. I repeat: Bastard.

Detroit Low Down: Just when I thought Detroit had hit rock bottom, it blasts through the mantle and burrows deeper.

First, to the litany of "worsts" for the city we can now add Worst Place to Have a Baby thanks to Fit Pregnancy Magazine. My favorite quote: "Detroit received its best grades, D's, in the amount of access to hospitals..." If his best grade is a D, Kwame Kilpatrick needs to get called into Dean Wormer's office and put on double secret probation.

Second, speaking of Motown's good Irish mayor, let's review the timeline of his achievements, courtesy of the Detroit News:

• January 2002: Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick takes office.
  
• Fall 2002 : As the Manoogian Mansion remains unoccupied while renovations are being completed, rumors begin to surface of a wild party there and the mayor's wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, showing up unexpectedly and slapping a stripper.
  
• March 2003 : Police Officer Harold Nelthrope, after being transferred out of the mayor's Executive Protection Unit, contacts the Police Department's Internal Affairs division about allegations of misconduct involving mayoral bodyguards Mike Martin and Greg Jones, as well as the Manoogian Mansion rumor.
  
• March 2003 : Shortly after making the complaint, Nelthrope is called at home by Martin. Nelthrope said he begins to fear for his life.
  
• March 2003 : Internal Affairs, headed by Deputy Police Chief Gary Brown, makes preliminary investigation into Nelthrope's allegations.
  
• May 2003 : After a request from the mayor's of chief of staff, Christine Beatty, Brown prepares a two-page memo outlining misconduct by Martin and Jones. It does not mention the Manoogian rumor -- which is never substantiated -- but, in a separate memo, Brown writes he is prepared to look into those allegations if directed to by then-Police Chief Jerry Oliver.
  
• May 2003 : A day or two after getting the memo from Oliver, Beatty claims she received a short, unsigned note saying Brown is not to be trusted. She shreds the note. The mayor, without consulting with the police chief, demotes Brown.
  
• June 2003 : A whistleblower lawsuit is filed against the city and Kilpatrick by Brown and Nelthrope.
  
• August 2007: Both Beatty and the mayor testify during trial that they did not have a romantic relationship.
  
• September 2007 : Following a trial -- and testimony alleging misbehavior by the mayor as well as his bodyguards -- a jury awards Nelthrope and Brown $6.5 million in damages.

The latest: After swearing under oath that he was not dallying with his Chief of Staff, Christine Beatty, thousand of text messages surfaced featuring a lot of dirty talk and tryst arranging between hizzoner and Beatty. Beatty has resigned and Kwame went into hiding for a couple of days then emerged to say, "Hey, sorry, man."

Beatty's replacement, Kandia Milton, brings a bit of baggage himself. Again, per the Detroit News: "According to the bankruptcy records that Milton and his wife Lisa filed in August 2006, they owed more than $388,000 to a variety of creditors, including mortgages on three properties, a $1,305 bill from DTE Energy, $18,000 for 12 credit cards, $1,080 in Detroit parking tickets and more than $1,000 in Wayne County property taxes." Even after bankruptcy, they are still over $9000 in the hole in back taxes. Yeah, this oughtta work out well.

Just in case you were wondering, this is not a treatment for a new screenplay from David Simon. It's actually happening.

Next, just to add a little bit of weirdness, the only recent organization to relocate into the city is the Scientologists. This will be the ultimate challenge for the followers of L. Ron. I don't hold out much hope for them. The City of Detroit has devoured far more worthy and dedicated tenants. I'd lay odds they all end up in psychotherapy.

Lastly, to add absurdity on top of weirdness, Eminem, the most successful Detroit singer since Diana Ross, has apparently taken to shoveling cake down his pie-hole at an alarming rate, ballooning to over 200 pounds. I guess we can start calling him the Real Fat Shady. Guess who's fat? Fat and round. Shady's fat... (I'm having too much fun with this.)

Ah yes, Detroit just keeps on giving. Onward and downward!

Tender is the Night: I've been strolling slowly through F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night. What's fascinating so far is how he presents a group of people -- good-timing, well-heeled, mostly American friends/acquaintances traveling in France just post WW1 -- and slowly peels away the facade of each of the characters especially the alpha male of the group who starts out heroic, but in time, buckles under the strain of being the rock to which the others are tethered. It is intricately done, often using close descriptions of seemingly trivial moments to set the stage.

Here, Fitzgerald describes the atmosphere of a dinner party thrown by the Divers (the story's alpha male and his wife).

The table seemed to have risen a little toward the sky like a mechanical dancing platform, giving the people around it the sense of being alone with each other in the dark universe, nourished by its only food, warmed by its only lights. And, as if a curious hushed laugh from Mrs. McKisco [a guest] were a signal that such detachment from the world had been attained, the two Divers began to warm and glow and expand, as if to make up to their guests, already so subtly assured of their importance, so flattered with politeness, for anything they might still miss from that country well left behind. Just for a moment they seemed to speak to everyone at the table, singly and together, assuring them of their friendliness and affection. And for a moment the faces turned up toward them were like the faces of poor children at a Christmas tree. Then abruptly the table broke up - the moment when the guests had been daringly lifted above conviviality into the rarer atmosphere of sentiment, was over before it could be irreverently breathed, before they had half realized it was there.

There is so much in that single paragraph -- the sensitive description of a transcendent moment in the midst of a commonplace event that most everyone would just briefly feel, partially appreciate, then let pass only subconsciously understood; the reference to "poor children at a Christmas tree" to indicate that the Divers were of a deeper, primal emotional significance to the group, beyond being perfect hosts and admirable friends -- great stuff.
Ol' F. Scott had some chops, he did. I'm taking my time reading Tender is the Night, sometimes only a few paragraphs at a sitting. I don't want to miss anything.

Zune, Zune, Zune: I realize it makes me horribly uncool to have a non-iPod mp3 player, but I love my $99 30-gig Zune. I know it's big and heavy for a music player, but really, we're talking about ounces here. It's not particularly attractive on the outside -- black plastic with a hint of blue, but the interface is as slick as the iPod, if not more so. My music collection has a long way to go fill it up so I end up carrying every piece of music I own around with me.

One interesting thing I realized about my music collection is that there is very little commercial rock in it. Not that I don't listen to commercial rock, it's just that I don't own much. It makes sense, I suppose. My buddy Sirius has one classical station and maybe 2 or 3 jazz stations, depending on your definition, while roughly half their gajillion music stations are playing some variation of rock, so why would I need to own any.

For the record, here is a short list of some of the more prominent recordings on my Zune right now. I defy anyone to claim to have more eclectic music taste than me.

• All the Cats Join In, Benny Goodman Orchestra
  
• Bach: The Art of the Fugue, Juilliard Quartet
  
• Bach: The Well-Tempered Klavier, Rosalyn Tureck
  
• Ballads, John Coltrane
  
• Barometer Soup, Jimmy Buffet
  
• Classic Essentials Goa Mix, Paul Oakenfold
  
• Compact Jazz, Stan Getz
  
• Dirt Track Date, Southern Culture on the Skids
  
• Discovery of a World Inside the Moon, Apples in Stereo
  
• G. Love and Special Sauce, G. Love and Special Sauce
  
• Into the Labyrinth, Dead Can Dance
  
• The Look of Love, Diana Krall
  
• The Men From Uncle, Ray Gelato
  
• Nightfly, Donald Fagen
  
• Nomad, Aqua Velvets
  
• Playboy & Playgirl, Pizzicato Five
  
• Safe as Milk, Captain Beefheart
  
• Simple Things, Zero 7
  
• Synchronized, Jamiroquai
  
• Welcome Interstate Managers, Fountains of Wayne
  
• Written In the Stars, Bill Charlap

There's more, but I didn't want to totally blow your mind.

Insane Clown Politics: I am probably the least political person in the world. I have zero interest. I thank the gods of technology for my DVR so I can skip seeing these clowns ram their messages home to the lowest common denominator every commercial break. I am constantly changing the channel on the TV in my health club from MSNBC to ESPN. I weep for the trees killed to make all the flyers they leave on my door. Every couple of years I have to take sites like Metafilter and Reddit out of my RSS feeds because their little subcultures tend to go stark raving insane during elections. Every possible permutation of human irrationality gets shouted from the rooftops. What's worse, it often gets praised as "involvement" or "awareness" when in fact it is just acting out.

I can't stand the noise, so I don't listen -- at least to the extent that is possible. As a result, I know very little about what the current group of politicians is trying to say other than the odd sentence or comment that happens to slip through my filters. One quote that slipped through and stuck in my head was from Rudy Giuliani:

I get very, very frustrated when I...hear certain Americans talk about how difficult the problems we face are, how overwhelming they are, what a dangerous era we live in. I think we've lost perspective. We've always had difficult problems, we've always had great challenges, and we've always lived in danger.

Do we think our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents didn't live in danger and didn't have difficult problems? Do we think the Second World War was less difficult than our struggle with Islamic terrorism? Do we think that the Great Depression was a less difficult economic struggle for people to face than the struggles we're facing now? Have we entirely lost perspective of the great challenges America has faced in the past and has been able to overcome and overcome brilliantly? I think sometimes we have lost that perspective.

Now, I have no idea what stance Giuliani is taking on any issues (although I am a big fan of New York City), but that may be the only time in the last 20 years that I have heard a political express any such sense and perspective. Anyone with any reasonable world view would see this era as being amazingly stable and prosperous, and blissfully uneventful in any historic sense. We should be delighted by this. It means we can get on with our lives, devoting ourselves to personal relationships, spiritual fulfillment, commercial advancement, artistic or scientific achievement, and other activities vastly more valuable and important than politics. Instead, we wring our hands and convince ourselves the end is nigh unless we CHANGE or DO SOMETHING.

I suppose part of it is a combination of politicians needing to convince you they are essential to your life for the sake of their power, and journalists needing to convince you to watch cable news or buy a newspaper for their livelihood. And there are probably other reasons more deeply-seated in human neuroses. The net result is everyone goes insane. As I write this we are nearly done with 2 weeks of similar insanity in the sports world leading up to the Super Bowl. That's bad, but at least it ends. The political version of this insanity never does.

The older I get, the more it seems that the news is on a strange sort of tape loop. The nouns change, but the verbs stay the same. Look, if you were living at a pivot point in history, you wouldn't know it. You (historians) could only see it long after you're dead. Oh, you might predict that you are at a pivot point; and you might be right, but it's like any other correct historical prediction -- a lucky guess. That fact is we are so far away from any sort of real trouble that we could survive a president selected randomly from the phone book with little difficulty beyond a few years of petty annoyance.

Statistically, you (we) are extremely likely to be living in a historically uninteresting and uneventful time. Play the odds: stop fretting over politics and get on with your life. Don't bother going insane, it just makes you crazy.

(This is likely the only thing you will ever see on politics here. My apologies for causing you to suffer it.)

The Month That Was - December 2007: And we kiss yet another year goodbye. I had hoped to have my Death Valley write-up done, but I didn't get there. Alas. Next month for sure. I'm down to the last couple of football columns and I won't have months of reworking my novels this year -- although I am trying to get them on the Kindle, and I have reworked the preview sites to make them more readable -- so maybe I can make some fiction progress. I have also reworked the free preview pages linked to left, to enhance readability. If you have ever wondered whether you should buy my novels, go there for a taste.

The Wire begins to end
Movie Round-up
Dash to D.C.
Juvenile Thiller, Unintentional
Juvenile Thiller, Intentional
Credit Card Follies
Michigan Death Watch?
Frosting on the New Year

The Wire Begins to End: I have seen episode one of the fifth and final season of The Wire. The episodes are coming out week ahead of time on HBO On-Demand. It starts out with a standard boilerplate police interrogation, which is weak and obviously there to give voice to David Simon's social commentary, but it picks up a bit from there. The bigger problem -- which may be isolated to the first episode -- is that everyone is talking to position themselves vis-a-vis upcoming developments. There's none of the naturalistic dialogue we are used to from this bunch.

Also worrisome is that the high-powered media types who have had advanced viewings, and the bloggers who have pirated copies, of most of the series are not responding all that well. After four seasons, and with the end in sight, The Wire was finally getting something similar to hype. Maybe it was better off obscure. Next month I should have a better take, with four or five episodes out.

It's good to see Homicide alum Clark Johnson back as the City Desk editor at the Baltimore Sun. Fine actor.

Movie Round-up: Lot's of quality comedy on view thanks to the 9 million movie channels I get.

• Mr. Warmth, Don Rickles -- He is now in his 80s and I assumed he had retired or at least let up a bit in the face of decades of increasingly virulent political correctness, but man was I wrong. He still marches out on stage and absolutely savages every religion, ethnicity, race and sexual orientation he encounters.
  
  He still does his Sambo voice for every "colored guy" in the audience. He makes fun of Martin Scorcese's asthma. To a Japanese audience member: "I spent 4 years chasing your grandfather through the jungle!" To David Letterman: "Who picks out your clothes, Stevie Wonder?" To Frank Sinatra: "Make yourself at home. Hit somebody." To Ronald Regan: "Mr. President, try to listen...he keeps looking around saying, is George Bush the president, or am I still in charge?" To no one in particular: "I have a Jewish wife who just lies in bed and says 'Help me with the jewelry.'" To a fat guy: "Is that your wife? Oh, look at her face. She's in agony." Queers. Wops. Spics. Eye-talians and ay-rabs. Trey Parker and Matt Stone have nothing on the Merchant of Venom.
  
  It's the delivery that makes it work. Michael Richards (Kramer) is a pariah, but people pay to get insulted by Don Rickles. Rickles has developed a chink or two in his act -- he does a sincere James Cagney impersonation that is bizarrely out of place -- but apart from the occasional slip, he hasn't let up throughout the course of my lifetime, and he hasn't quit getting away with murder. The child in me that stayed up late to watch him on Johnny Carson is grateful for that.
  
  
• That's the Way I Like It -- Singapore teens in the late '70s are entranced by Saturday Night Fever and find their lives mirroring the movie including a climatic dance competition. I can easily see Singaporean kids exiting the theatre laughing at and energized by the enthusiasm and silliness. The production values are second rate at best but you get the sense that everyone involved was having a good time. Even the hopeless looking John Travolta knockoff seemed to be enjoying himself. Delightfully well acted. Pure fun. More heart than any ten Hollywood films.
  
  
• One-Two-Three -- The funniest Cold War movie ever made. A frenzied, screwball, Billy Wilder-directed guffaw factory, set in 1960-ish Berlin when you could still get through the Brandenburg gate between East and West, and featuring a manic (and tongue-in-cheek) performance from James Cagney. Cagney is a high-power Coca-Cola exec charged with overseeing his boss' seventeen year old daughter. The daughter (Pamela Kiffin is a sublime antebellum airhead) sneaks away to the East and marries a full-on commie pinko. Hijinks ensue. Cagney goes all out, first to get the marriage annulled, then when he finds the girl is pregnant, to transform the commie into a perfect son-in-law, and along the way, save his own marriage.
  
  The entire film is a flawless example Billy Wilder's unerring sense of comic timing. Other directors should take notes. Not a wasted scene, word, or moment. Yes, it's farce and it can seem supercilious, but it's vastly superior to the overrated, adolescent snarkfest that is Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War comedy everybody seems to think is a work of genius. (I am of the opinion that it's OK to worship Kubrick when you're in college, but then you have to get over it.) One-Two-Three is old school comedy at its best.
  
  
• Extras: Series Finale -- I liked the series Extras, but it got a little tedious after a while. Every episode seemed to be about finding new ways to humiliate Ricky Gervais. I stopped watching early in the second season. The recently aired series finale was top notch, however.
  
  Andy Millman (Gervais) is now a third rate lead actor with a catch phrase on a cheesy yet extremely popular sitcom, but he yearns to be taken seriously; he would sacrifice his fame for dignity. Except it turns out he really likes fame. He likes getting the choice tables at the hot restaurants. He likes being interviewed by the fawning press and having his picture taken. He just doesn't want to pay the price of indignity. As Andy morphs into everybody's clich‚ of an arrogant celebrity and alienates all his friends, he is confronted very bluntly with a fact, paraphrased as follows: "There are a handful of people who can have both artistic integrity and fame and fortune. You're not one of them. Which do you want?" Andy picks fame and fortune.
  
  The ending where Andy sees the error of his ways while filming a British reality house show called Big Brother leads to a beautifully dramatic (and artistically integral) moment, with a convincingly ironic result and a wonderfully uplifting ending. Expertly done -- there is no doubt of the validity of sentiment, yet no loss of comedy. I'm not sure how it would play for people not familiar with the series, but it was as well conceived and realized as a series finale could be.

Dash to D.C.: I took a weekend in DC for two reasons. One to see the Hopper exhibit at the National Gallery, and two, to accompany Miss Kate and Miss Anna and Anna's current beau to a high-falutin' French restaurant that everyone raves about. Some notes in brief:

• The Hopper exhibit is fabulous. If it travels to a museum near you, go see it. Hopper's goal (achieved) was to make normalcy interesting, to find a pleasing aesthetic in the mundane. I would love to be able to do with a camera what he did with paints.
  
  
• Also at the National Gallery is an exhibit of J.M.W. Turner, who painted in the very late 18th century and the early 19th. He was a true original and his stunning landscapes were very much ahead of their time. You can consider him the start of impressionism although no one had any idea of such in his day.
  
  
• The National Gallery is free, just in case you were wondering. Well, as free as any tax sponsored institution can be. I always try to have lunch there when I go just to give them a bit of revenue.
  
  
• I made a quick stop in the relatively new Museum of the American Indian. I expected it to be a full-on Wounded-Knee-weep-for-my-people affair, but it wasn't quite that. I gather that they are still fleshing the place out a bit, but my guess is that it stands pretty well as a catalog of what is known about Native Americans of all sorts -- history, habits, present status. I realize it makes me something of a bigot, but I don't see what the big deal is about Native American culture. To my eyes, there isn't much there. I find the simple stories and creation myths rather childish. The primitive survival skills are fine and all, but is that really culture or simply craft? And the dubious and vague claims of being in tune with nature are downright foolish. I tend to think most people get worked up about it because it validates their need to feel culturally aware or empathetic, something which I am too cold-hearted to worry about. Good food in the cafe‚ though -- tasty buffalo chili and flatbread.
  
  
• I stayed at the Hotel Helix, one of the many DC properties of my beloved Kimpton Hotels. It had all the usual trappings -- free wine happy hour, nicely styled (and good-sized) rooms, top-notch staff. The only downside to Helix is its location. It's in the Logan Circle area of DC which is sort of caught in the middle of nowhere, although it's growing. It's healthy hike from the Helix to the Mall or Dupont Circle. In fact it's a half dozen blocks or so just to the nearest Metro station. Because of that I can't really recommend the Helix in winter or if you are not inclined to do a good deal of walking. You're probably better off with one of the other Kimpton properties in the area.
  
  
• The fancy-schmancy restaurant was L'Auberge Chez Francois. Situated in what could easily be mistaken for a private home is the very upscale suburb or Great Falls, VA, you'll need a coat and tie to try this full-on formal six-course Alsatian dinner joint. The food is rich and tasty and excellently prepared. In true Alsatian tradition you can get your game fix here -- four legged mammals of all sorts are available as are a variety of our feathered friends. It was as good as any meal I've ever had. Is any dinner worth in excess of $100 a piece (once you add in drinks and souffles)? Probably not, but that's why you don't do it every day.
  
  
• Lastly, a travel tip. If you do a lot of two-three day trips it might behoove you to pick up a SkyRoll. It conveniently carries a suit and a change or two of shirts and slacks without much wrinkling. There are compartments inside the core of the roll for a pair of shoes, travel kit, socks and underwear and so forth. It was all I needed for two nights in DC, including dress-up dinnerwear. Nifty.

Juvenile Thriller, Unintentional: Shibumi, by Trevanian, is one of the silliest books I have ever read. After completing the entire Aubrey/Maturin series and shocking myself with its polar opposite in Kerouac's On the Road, I was looking for a little escapism. In the past I have turned to Ian Fleming's James Bond for a well-crafted, masculine, but undemanding read, but I have finished those and his successors hold little interest for me (with the exception of the one by Kingsley Amis). At some point in my surfings I came across a recommendation for Shibumi as a thoughtful spy thriller. I looked it up on Amazon and the reader reviews were fives, so I made the plunge. And it was truly silly.

It starts out fairly well. We are introduced to a sinister oil cabal called the Mother Company that essentially controls the world -- standard 1970s spy stuff. During one of the Mother Company's operations, a woman who should have been killed escapes. She flees and seeks the assistance of one Nicholai Hel, a retired professional assassin of superhuman abilities who owed a mortal debt to her uncle. However, it turns out, deep in the past, Hel had killed the brother of the Mother Company operative who was in charge of the failed operation. Revenge and honor are set to collide. A pretty well-wrung plotline.

Trevanian is a good stylist, and he has a talent for character sketches, which helps to suck you in a bit. But he does go on. The book is approximately 60% bloat, whether it be superfluous characters or inconsequential events or excruciatingly detail. Dude, omit needless words. Hell, omit needless chapters.

Nicholai Hel, the lead character, starts out with a good back story told as a flashback. Born to a displaced Russian aristocrat in pre-war Shanghai, he is taken under the wing of one of the Japanese occupiers and eventually gets an excellent upbringing in Japan. This all falls apart when the Japanese empire is defeated. We are treated to excellent non-standard descriptions and judgments of occupied Japan and good set-up of conflict between traditional Japanese cultural and the inevitable Westernization; a very promising start.

Then it spirals down the toilet in short order. Behavior stemming from this cultural conflict leads Nicholai to spend 3 days getting tortured followed by 3 years in solitary confinement. He gets out by performing a government sanctioned assassination, and thus finds his life long career. When we then rejoin Nicholai in the present he has developed a super-human proximity sense (he knows when you're nearby) that gives him tremendous advantages over any individual opponent, and he is a master of a martial art called "naked-death" which emphasizes the use of everyday objects as deadly weapons. There is even a line to the effect of it being estimated that in an average room he has 22 means assassination at his disposal, or something like that. Really? But can he turn back time by flying backwards around the Earth? Worse yet, we are treated to multiple expositions on his unmatched sexual prowess. Apparently he can bring a woman to unknown heights of ecstasy just by thinking about it.

OK, that may be slight hyperbole. But he has been known to punish women by pleasuring them, but only once, forcing them to live the rest of their lives in longing. I am not making that one up. I felt like Jim Kelly confronting Dr. Hahn in Enter the Dragon: "Man, you are right out of a comic book."

But even worse than that is the speechmaking. Everyone in this book is constantly pontificating about the failings of others (from character flaws, to immorality, to outright perversions) and all of it is bracketed with agonizing, cringe-inducing cultural/national/sociological context. No nationality or ethnicity is given a break. Characters seem to be assigned a cultural heritage based on whatever convenient prejudice was close at hand to the author. The condescension is thick as a brick, and it's all delivered lecture style. Virtually every character in this book is a shallow, arrogant prick.

I have learned my lesson: I need to seriously discount Amazon reader ratings from now on. Actually, I should stop trying to find readable spy stories. Authors seem to use the genre as a way to act out their unfulfilled teenaged fantasies rather than actually write a novel (apart from Fleming, and then only the best of him). In an interview, Trevanian once said that Shibumi should be the last word in the "super spy" genre. God, let's hope so.

Juvenile Thriller, Intentional: I happened across a copy of The Three Investigators' The Secret of Terror Castle, by Robert Arthur, which I read and loved back when my age was a single digit. If you have boys up to, oh, 7-9 years old, this is about the perfect book to read them. Older than that they can probably read it to themselves. The plot is well worn: young investigators get mixed up in a supposedly haunted castle which, over time, proves only to be haunted by misguided adults who just need a helping hand. But knowing the clich‚ is not necessarily a negative for kids. They don't have so much confidence in their conclusions that they are bored, and they are happy when proven right.

The Secret of Terror Castle, as with the entire Three Investigators series, mixes straightforward sentence construction and linear timelines with just enough style and idiosyncratic characters to be considered a stimulating read. Here we see the Three Investigators team formed by Jupiter Jones; Sherlock Holmes transformed into a portly adolescent boy. His Watson consists of a pair of compatriots Pete Crenshaw, the smart mouthed athlete who is his right hand man, and Bob Andrews, the bookish library worker who is in charge of records and research. They have a hidden headquarters in a junk yard and, thanks to a clever victory in a jelly bean counting contest, access to a Rolls Royce with a chauffeur.

What you end up with are nicely paced adventures featuring children of generic enough type that kids will identify, but enough personality to seem like actual people -- people of the sort most young boys would like to have as friends. No doubt, most young boys could easily imagine living these adventures themselves. (It's more realistic than Shibumi, anyway.) Each chapter ends with open questions and should have kids begging to continue. If they are anything like I was at that age, they won't rest until they finish the series.

Credit Card Follies: My sole telephone is an old T-mobile pay-as-you-go job. It doesn't have a touch screen. It doesn't browse the web. It doesn't play music. It doesn't have a camera. It allows me to make calls easily and text message people very awkwardly. I buy prepaid cards -- 1000 minutes for $100, which last me about a year. So imagine my surprise when I saw a charge from T-mobile.com for $81.82 on my credit card.

After a solid hour in responding to automated questions, listening to hold music, and speaking with reps who can't figure out where the charge came from, they finally left me with, "You are going to have to dispute that through your credit card issuer." Amazing. A dispute from the card company costs them a charge of some sort, but apparently they would rather incur that than do the leg work. What a very strange company.

But that's easy to deal with. At least T-mobile is an actual valid business concern, however illogical their system is. And it took me all of three minutes with a polite, English-speaking rep at U.S. Bank to dispute the charge. Worse is a company that variously goes by the name of Reservation Rewards or WLI*Reservations or something like that. They had dinged my card for $10 for 4 straight months before I caught on. Stated plainly these people are known scammers.

I called their customer service to ask what the hell was going on, and I got a sales pitch. That's right, they are so certain that you are calling about why you are getting billed that they immediately throw you into a sales pitch for a product you supposedly already bought.

They claimed that I signed up for their subscription on-line when I placed an order for tickets from some ticketing site. No, I didn't. In fact I don't even remember ordering any tickets online. I am not so deeply in the throes of Alzheimer's that I would approve a subscription on line without realizing I did. I started asking probing questions about how they got my credit card number. The woman immediately offered to cancel my subscription.

Maybe that's the ploy, the get you for a small charge or two and when you call to complain, they cancel your subscription, but pocket what you've paid so far. I pressured her for a full credit and she gave in. We'll see if I actually get it. If I don't, it's yet another bunch of charges to dispute. Scammers like this deserve to horsewhipped. They pray on the meek who will let small charges slide to avoid confrontation. Scum, pure scum.

By the way, if you happen to be a Reservation Rewards employee, I realize that you probably just answered an ad in the paper and you are just doing your job as your employer wants. My advice to you is to find another job and get out of there as soon as you can. However honest you may be, working for dirtbag scam outfit like that will scorch your soul.

Anyway, just in case you find yourself with charges from "Reservation Rewards" or some variation of that, call their customer service and you will likely get out of it. Make sure you tell them you never heard of them and have no idea what they are talking about when they claim you subscribed. Hint at credit card fraud by saying things like, "I don't understand. Some web site gave you my credit card number without my permission?" Tell them if they don't issue you a credit, you'll dispute the charges through your card company (if they lose the dispute, the credit card company charges them a fee).

If you have more trouble, Google "reservation rewards" and it will turn up a number of consumer oriented sites that can give more info about the scam.

Bastards. They should be skinned.

Michigan Death Watch?: I'm thinking of starting a regular Michigan Death Watch posting. The latest from the Detroit News indicates Michigan population dropped by 30,500 people last year. Unreal. That's an entire good-sized town. For perspective, nationwide the population rose 1%, and the only other state with a drop in population was Rhode Island which was down 3800. Traditional backwaters like Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana are gaining. Even West Virginia posted a gain.

If you are long-term bottom fishing in real estate, you could do worse than start picking up land here for a song. I suggest just inland from Lake Michigan, maybe up around Ludington, or on the far outskirts of Traverse City. If you're really adventurous you could try the Alpena area, or the U.P. Just be sure you're looking long term. It'll be a while before anything gets turned around here.

Frosting on the New Year: I am not a big fan of very cold weather, but I have to admit it can get very beautiful just after a snow storm. Here are a half-dozen pics from New Year's Day, just outside my door in Dexter, Michigan. (1,2,3,4,5,6)

The Month That Was - November 2007: When I left town at the end of October to head to the Islands, I noticed on the way to the airport how we were at the peak of fall colors in my neck of the woods and I vowed to run around with the camera when I got back to see what I could capture. By the time I got back the trees were mostly bare. Winter was just outsie the door. Now we are getting highs in the 20s and are under a winter storm watch as I write this. Can I go back to the Islands yet?

Actually, I did take my usual Thanksgiving trip to Vegas (and won, wee-hee), but this time it was just a bracket for three days in Death Valley. More on that next month. For now, you get the write up on last month's trip to St. John, USVI.

Sorry for being so late, and so brief, this month. I am currently bogged down with the football column as I will be through the next couple of months.

Inside the Glove
On the Road at 47

Inside the Glove: Here in my beloved home state, things are still screwed up and I am not just talking about the weather. Detroit was recently named the most dangerous city in America, with it weak sister to the north, Flint, coming in at number 3. As I have discussed before, whenever something like this surfaces, Detroiters, including the media, fly into a fits of indignation and denial. To wit:

"It really makes you wonder if the organization is truly concerned with evaluating crime or increasing their profit," said [Police Chief Ella] Bully-Cummings, who noted the complete report is available only by purchase. "With crime experts across the country routinely denouncing the findings, I believe the answer is clear."

That has to be one of the stupidest responses in history. Does she suppose that naming Detroit the most dangerous city was going to make them more money than naming, say, Baltimore or Pittsburgh the most dangerous? This is mentality of the chief of police of the city.

And we have:

"What I take exception to is the use of these statistics and the damage they inflict on a number of these cities," said Mayor Robert Duffy, chairman of the Criminal and Social Justice Committee for the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

In other words, it may be true, but how dare they say it. Really, the mindset of the responders tells you pretty much all you need to know about why cities like Detroit and Flint are in the toilet. They believe it's all a matter of perception. It's nothing that a big marketing campaign or the proper spin in the press or just not saying anything about it can't fix. No doubt that they would just use the phase all defenders of Detroit have used for decades now: "It's not that bad." Sorry, it is.

While we are on the topic of quotes about Detroit, here's Jack Kerouac from On The Road describing a Detroit during a visit in the late '40s.

"If you sifted all Detroit in a wire basket the beater solid core of dregs couldn't be better gathered."

Some things never change.

And get this, over in the Wall Street Journal, Jake Halpern writes about Buffalo, NY, making some of the same arguments I have in the past about Detroit, specifically: the devotion to finding high-profile projects that generate good press is a detrimental distraction because the only thing that will really change things is when the environment for all businesses is attractive, not just the fancy ones who you've bribed with tax breaks and hold press conferences for. Anyway, it is obvious from reading this that Buffalo is in bad shape, but then there is this throwaway line:

"[Buffalo] is the second-poorest major urban area in the nation, just behind Detroit."

Yes, Detroit is even pitiable by the standards of Buffalo.

Statewide things are not much better. We still can't attract businesses here, but every once in a while the Governor bribes a high profile company to relocate here with egregious tax breaks, which she can do without disrupting the government revenue since she recently slapped a service tax (essentially a sales tax on services in addition to goods purchases) on the citizens. But at least she gets some good press and that's what counts.

Economically, Michigan is pretty much doomed. We are at the start of the "taxes chase business away/economic activity drops/government revenues fall/government raises taxes to make it up/more businesses leave" spiral; same one the killed Detroit. There will be a crisis -- it may take two or three more tax increases -- but it will happen. Only then will things start to change for the better.

Although to give credit where due, some Detroit suburbs actually made the top 30 for safest: Troy and Sterling Heights, for to name a couple. For those of you not interested in being employed here, that actually works out pretty well. Outside major metro areas, Michigan is one of the most beautiful places you can imagine. It can be full-on backwoods outdoorsy, there's as much shoreline as either coast, it's quite inexpensive, very safe and rarely crowded (and getting less crowded every day). I have pointed out how it's a perfect alternative to a family Disney trek.

In fact, speaking for the tiny minority of us who have a secure Michigan-based income, it's kind of nice not having to worry about sprawl or squalor affecting our upstate paradise. So do come visit, we need your money. But mind the deer.

On the Road at 47: Yes, I know On the Road was published 50 years ago. The "47" refers to me. I am that old and just read it for the first time. Is that sad? On the Road is, among other things, a book entirely possessed by the youthful spirit of its author. Could it possibly have any relevance for a man my age?

There is little plot in On the Road. Jack Kerouac, in the character of Sal Paradise, recounts his travels around the country, primarily in the company of Dean Moriarty (real name Neal Cassady). They barrel around the continent -- New York, Denver, California, and finally into Mexico -- with no real plan or specific intentions. They are just compelled to be in motion. They are searching for something spiritual, but what it is they do not know, nor can they describe it. Yet they dash about the country in beaters or borrowed cars, live hand to mouth, impose on friends and strangers, chase women, indulge in drink and tea (marijuana), all the while reveling in the world and the people they meet. As Dean Moriarty would put it, they are searching for "It."

Here's the famous quote that sets the tone:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles..."

Now you tell me: Is Kerouac really searching for "It" or is he just looking to be entertained by the world?

This is, of course, what youth is all about. You have no idea what you are doing or why, but the compulsion to move and search is irresistible. And, as in most youthful endeavors, people get hurt in the process, generally wives and girlfriends, and innocent bystanders are usually left to clean up the mess. Such actions are shallowly acknowledged then almost immediately rationalized away in the standard manner of post-adolescence. For the middle-aged, this book is a sincere look back past 20 or 30 years of personal development; all the energy, madness, hubris, frustration and pain are there to see.

To anyone old enough to "look back" at youth, this is old news. But what I found most interesting about it was the sincerity and, to a lesser extent, the naivete. As Sal and Dean dart about the countryside, they truly open themselves to the people they encounter. Some of these are people who would eventually become that core of what was known as the Beat Generation. Others are standard workaday folks. A few are real low-lives. But in all cases they listen, watch, and speculate on these people -- their inner natures, their dreams -- all done with the expectation that there is something in there worth learning, something they don't already know.

One of the attractions of On the Road is nostalgia, although the American landscape described is not all that much different. Yes, things are more convenient and homogenized now, and no one hitchhikes anymore, but speaking as someone who has done a number of road trips out west, it's still easy to get off the beaten path. What is really lost from those times, and probably never to be retrieved, is the unaffectedness of the people. I know twelve-year olds who are more cynical than Sal and Dean. These guys sit and chat with drunkards, petty operators, and a variety of other marginal characters and try to intuit something from them, some sort of deeper understanding. Most of the young people I know are too affected by sensory overload and way too drenched in irony for any such thoughts. They would pass these people off with a disdainful "whatever" and some snidery. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. Although it seems cold, a natural skepticism protects those who aren't necessarily experienced enough to spot troubling circumstances reliably. The fact of the matter is, a lot of what Sal and Dean engage in is childish self-delusion and fantasy. On the Road could not be written today because we are too wise, too young.

In time, most of the real world counterparts to the characters in On the Road revealed themselves to be the lost causes that a middle-aged man like me would see them for. William Burroughs (Old Bull Lee) spent most of his life drugged and wasted, eventually accidentally murdering his wife while "playing William Tell." There is a section of the book where Dean and Sal bunk at the house of Old Bull Lee/Burroughs and his wife. It's very creepy to read this knowing her fate. Neal Cassady managed to inspire many fringe types well into the '60s eventually driving the bus for Ken Kesey and his band of freaks, although in his old age, he fretted over the life he'd led and the mess he had made of his children. Alan Ginsberg (Carlo Marx) faired pretty well. He gained fame (or perhaps infamy) for his poetry, eventually turning to activism, devoting his creative energy to the transient socio-political concerns which, given the scope of what Kerouac and Cassady dreamed of, seems a bit small.

Kerouac himself never fell for the infantile lunacies of the '60s counter-culture. If he was just hoping to be entertained, he eventually went beyond that. He continued writing, completing several more books. His quest for the spirit of things quite logically turned to Buddhism. It seems Keroauc was the only one who came to see that there was no "IT" to find, or that the journey was the "IT." He drank himself to death in 1969.

As with any book, what's left when you strip away the cultural baggage is the writing, and the writing is worth far more than the price of admission. Whatever you may have read about the energy and poetics are true. The book begs to read through in long intense stretches. What's even more remarkable is that when you step back and think about the events that transpire, they are often very prosaic -- an extended and uncomfortable car trip, a dingy job to come up with enough money to move on, a meal in a diner -- and yet it all becomes very compelling.

The Beats, and Kerouac especially, were probably the last real literary movement. Journalists like Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson took the style to heart and brought about the primacy of non-fiction we have had since. After them the world moved on to film and video as its primary source of cultural cohesion. Because of its powerful influence On the Road may not seem all that special, the effect having been diluted by decades of progeny, but it still stands out and still arrests your attention.

Even if you are a middle-aged, you should read it. I may have seemed a bit put off by its juvenile excesses, but I am very glad I did. It's all well and good to look with distaste on the shameful behavior of youth, but I can't help but acknowledge that 25 years ago, if Dean Moriarty pulled up in a beat up old car pointed west and asked me to get in, I'm sure I would have. Or regretted it if I didn't.

The Month That Was - October 2007: October was not only busy as all get out, but it was especially busy at the very end, which made for some madness. At the tail end of the month I got simultaneous hammered at work (yes, I have a day job), and with the football column resuming full speed, and with the wedding of a good friend in St. John, USVI. A perfect storm of deadlines. As always, you can keep up on the football columns over at Blogcritics. The St. John write up is going to have to wait until next month.

This month we have a heavy focus on film and video. Next month I'll try to have more on the written word -- I should have finished On The Road and I'll have lots to say. Also, no technical difficulties this month. How cool is that?

One last thing. If you are a user of a newsreader (which I am, they are super-convenient) note the Atom feed link available just under the site title. No need to keep checking each month for my updates anymore.

Florida Gulf trip
Tube Notes
Movie Round-up

In the Gulf: Early in the month I managed to squeeze in a short family visit down to Sarasota, including a not entirely planned stay slightly north in St. Petersburg. Sarasota remains quite lovely, and also quite busy. I stayed at a terrific place right out on Lido Beach called (not surprisingly) Lido Beach Resort. Big suites, two pools, koi garden, tiki bar, and walking distance to St. Armand's circle where they have my all time favorite chain restaurant, Tommy Bahamas.

I spent an interesting evening their in the thrall of a Rainman-type character who was amazing everyone at the bar with his ability to identify the day of the week of everyone's birthday in between pontificating about the need to apply probability curves to universal constants to resolve metaphysical dilemmas. He was faily entertaining until he got so drunk on chocolate martinis that the bartender had to cut him off and he staggered away.

Lido beach itself has a great reputation but I don't think it's all that. It's a bit seaweedy for my taste. The Gulf beaches are better further south, in Sanibel or Naples, but there is no arguing with the sunset views.

The "new adventure" for this trip was a lunchtime cruise around Sarasota Bay on the Marina Jack cruise boat. It's a bit of a disappointment food-wise, but Sarasota Bay is a sparklingly beautiful setting, and cruising along within about 20 yards of the super-expensive mansions on Bird Key and under the picturesque Ringling Causeway makes up for the bland fare.

Up north across the Sunshine Bridge live the sister cities of Tampa and St. Pete. Tampa is the serious sister; the serious commercial center. St. Pete is the prettier sister who gets all the longing looks. I had never been to St. Pete before and it's a decent place. There are bits of college town, bits of historic village, and bits of tourist center on display.

St. Pete is situated on a peninsula that reaches south, meaning one side of the city faces the Gulf and the other faces a Tampa Bay and looks across into the city of Tampa. Interestingly, most of the commercial area is on the bay side. St. Pete is quite large and very affected by its big city relationship with Tampa, so there are only hints of seaside community here. But the Mediterranean style architecture stands out, and there are sweet little touches, like the trolley that will take you throughout the city for a quarter, including narrated history.

The Pier is a center of tourist activity. Here you can sit by the bay and eat and drink to your heart's content. You can rent watersports equipment, you can feed the pelicans. There is unpretentious little public aquarium on the top that only costs $5 (and that price is about right). Nice place to hang out on a sunny day.

The artsy gem is the Dali Museum. Highly recommended should you be in the area. Dali is not always considered a serious artist, because of the commercial appeal and bombastic nature of his work. Dali was also refreshingly non-self-destructive and more than a little religious, which also probably kept him on the outs the elites of the salons. I think some of his work is absolutely mesmerizing. Specifically, the Hallucinogenic Toreador is one of my favorites. The displays are nicely done and correspond to Dali's life in roughly chronological order. Excellent doyens. Getting in on the (free) tour is worth it here.

St. Pete wouldn't be my first choice but I could certain hang there for a while and there is a good deal of exploring left to do there. Might be a nice gateway for an extended South Florida trip. As far as the Florida Gulf Coast goes, Sarasota remains my favorite city, but I prefer the beaches further south, Naples in particular, although that might change if I took some time to do some serious beach trolling on Siesta or Longboat Keys. Oh, well. It's not like I won't be back.

Oh, I almost forgot: pics.

Sunset on Lido Beach
Bridge over Sarasota Bay
Flower at Lido Beach Resort
Pelicans on the St. Pete Pier
Why they hang around
Architecture snippet
Get funky; get purple

Tube Notes: HBO is in the doldrums. The Wire doesn't start until January, but checl out the teaser at YouTube. More Deadwood is less likely every day. But there is new stuff coming.

True Blood, a series based on the Southern Vampire books written by Charlaine Harris, should work well with Alan Ball (Six Feet under) as the head cheese behind it. I read the first book in the series in anticipation. It was entertaining escapism, think of them as a wry, ironic take on Ann Rice themes. It should work well as an HBO series.

In Treatment, in from Mark Wahlberg, who was behind the fast failing Entourage. It's a riff on an Israeli series with stories told from varying points of view between therapists and patients. I'm dubious on this one. One wrong move and it turns in to a dramatic version of "Oprah." We'll see.

Anatomy of Hope is a series about cancer patients and their battles. It is going to have to tread a thin line to avoid becoming a sentimental weepfest. Strangely, this is coming from none other than J.J. Abrams of "Lost" and "Alias" fame. Maybe the cancer patients get involved in a conspiratorial organization far more secret than the CIA. Or something.

12 Miles of Bad Roads, about a large, wealthy, eccentric Dallas family has comedy potential, and star power. But a "portrait of eccentrics," while nice as a one shot deal, can't sustain a series. They'll need a direction and an ultimate goal to avoid going soapy.

Whitney is sad. A Sex and the City rehash with the four promiscuous women in Miami instead of NYC.

So of the known new series I am truly optimistic about one, and reservedly optimistic about another. Not good.

On the bright side, David Milch appears to be moving on from the mess that was John from Cincinnati back to the cop genre and is working on a show set in the 1970s about the Knapp Commission that looked into police corruption and begat Serpico. That could be cool. And David Simon is looking into setting his next series in New Orleans, focusing on musicians. So there is reason to hope.

One more HBO thing. The last word on The Sopranos comes from an interview with David Chase. He strongly indicates that Tony was killed in the diner and also said it doesn't matter, which I was right about. He is less pessimistic about the fate of Meadow and A.J. claiming that, while they are certainly messed up because of their father and his criminality, at least they didn't fall into it. They may suffer throughout their lives because of it, but at least they are out.

Over at AMC, Mad Men came to a close. The finale was a mixed bag. Don's uncertainty about the fate of his marriage worked well. Peggy's pregnancy did not. But I am extremely optimistic for next season. I really get the sense this show will hit its stride. The character of Don Draper is one of the most complex on TV. I also hope that they are already contemplating how to end the series because as I have pointed out before, having the end in mind is what stops you from meandering into mediocrity.

Meanwhile, in January AMC is going to give us Breaking Bad a dark comedy in which, "a high school chemistry teacher takes a match to his straight-laced existence - turning a used Winnebago into a rolling meth lab." Ha! Bring it!

Movie Roundup: More movies that I happened to see on the nine million movie channels I get.

Capote -- The buzz around this was Phillip Seymour Hoffman's portrayal of the title character. He most certainly nailed it but that's not a surprise, the dude is unquestionably one of the best actors alive. His Capote is an effeminate, snooty troll who sticks out like a sore thumb anytime he steps outside his Manhattan milieu. Yet, Capote does not take offense or degrade the work-a-day types he engages in the course of his investigations for In Cold Blood, he unselfconsciously uses his alienation as a bridge to understanding the alienation of others, specifically the murderer Perry Edward Smith.

Over the course of research into the murders, we follow Capote as he gets himself more deeply intertwined with Smith. Capote is so overwhelmed by the emotional conflict of his sympathy for the regretful outsider Smith and his repulsion at the savage killing of a family of innocents and perhaps a bit of shame as the way he is going to benefit from the situation, that he suffers a breakdown. In real life, Capote did little else of value after In Cold Blood. He got involved in jet set celebrity jackassery and, of course, drugs.

If Capote has a failing, it is that it is too narrow a slice. It is a brief portrait of a particularly emotional time in the life a Truman Capote, but we lose the larger context. Hoffman portrays Capote's conflicts exceptionally, but the script allows us no insight into where they come from or what the personal consequences might take.

Brick -- Movie like this are one of the reasons I am glad I have nine million movie channels. Near as I can tell, this won a ton of festival awards but only had a limited theatrical release last year. But I guarantee you it is better than 97% of the clap trap you saw last year.

Brick is a real film noir, hard-boiled detective story -- the kind you would expect to star Humphrey Bogart -- but it is transposed to a modern day high school. The dialog is amazing and the young actors readily slip into the metre of the old school Raymond Chandler worthy script. Everything is pitch perfect form the camera angles to the pacing to the sound. Just a great movie.

It is not, however, High School Musical, there is a real darkness to it, and despite the youthful cast and the high school setting, it is more appropriate for adults. Do watch it. Its reputation can only grow in the upcoming years.

Gothic -- a Ken Russell psychotropic drugfest horror (horror as in the horror genre, not as in horrible). Ostensibly about a night of laudanum induced hallucinations with Lord Bryon, Percy Shelley, and Mary Godwin (who would become Mary Shelley) that eventually led to Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein. It also served as the germ of another horror story called The Vampyre to be written by one of the other guests, Dr. Pollodori. Thus this one extended acid trip had far reaching literary consequences.

(Interestingly, to me anyway, part of the impetus for this was the weather. This all occurred in "the year without a summer," 1816, when Mount Tambora erupted and filled the atmosphere with enough dust that there was frost and cold all through the summer in Europe. Since it was too cold to spend much time outside, this group hung around in indoors, bored, and thus turned to drugs for recreation.)

There is some good insight about creations of any sort reflecting the flaws and evil in their creator, but it is predominately about the hallucinations, petty cruelties and emotional games played among the characters. It also gives director Ken Russell a nice backdrop for all the freaky and salacious visuals he can think of. But the characters are utterly pretentious and a bit on the superficial side, and their portrayal is grotesquely overwrought. It's a better choice for a horror flick than any ten slasher films or formulaic serial killer flicks, so it might be worth a look for something different.

Eragon -- Fantasy epic tripe. A lame riff on Lord of the Rings or some such. Without heart or soul. I gave it 45 minutes, which was more than I should have.

The Big Lebowski -- Yeah, yeah, I know. I've seen it a dozen times but it still holds up. There have been few better acting turns than the one Jeff Bridges took in this film. He should have won an Oscar. I'd like to see that happen, just once: someone get an Oscar for some absurd, farcical, comedic role, instead of some dire character that they had to gain fifty pounds to play. The Dude abides.

The Month That Was - September 2007: Finally, the story of my Black Hills trip is up. Lots of photos in that one, including the one I'm currently using for my desktop background. I also updated my guided tour of upstate Michigan, Dodging Disney, which I re-read and hated and so decided to make it even longer.

This month is highlighted by more technological misadventures. Sorry if I went on about them, but I do permit myself a bit a catharsis now and then, and frankly, it's how I spent my month.

The End of Aubrey/Maturin
Movie Round-up
Everything is Broken
Re-Switching
Comcast is on Crack

Bon Voyage Jack, Stephen, and Patrick: I am about to start the 20th, and final (except for a partial rough draft of 21 found after his death, which I doubt I will read), book in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series, and O'Brian clearly running out of steam. Or maybe I am. He had an excuse though: he was near the end of his life, and even if he wasn't, for God's sake, he had written 20 novels with these characters. He lost a lot of the beautiful subtlety and delicate dramatization that informed the earlier novels and was meandering into minutiae and irrelevant sidebars -- basically just taking the characters through the motions; motions we had seen before. Still the decline in quality is not so steep that I am going to stop. And the fact that the series was well into the teens before it started to tail off is amazing in and of itself.

Should you read these books? Maybe. Certainly anyone with a dedication to exceptional literature should. Until the last few, they are striking well written. They are certain to quicken the heart of anyone who really loves masterful writing. But the fact is, they are not remotely colloquial. The formal style may make you feel as though you are reading Jane Austen or Anthony Trollope. Which is to say, they won't do as a casual read for most people.

And if you are looking for a nice, expository, linear narrative -- A does B that leads to C and makes D do E, and so forth -- you'll be frustrated. Passages, and whole books, are meant to be appreciated only when they are over. Often characters are introduced without fanfare, they hang around on the periphery of the attention of Aubrey or Maturin, and only many scenes later do we see their significance. Events, people, even inanimate objects must regularly be tracked by the reader until they are revealed in full. I found this to be an attraction once I got used to it. O'Brian trusted his readers to have patience and allow uncertainty to temper their assumptions about the nature of things for extended lengths without bailing. That takes guts in the modern world of congenital ADD. And talent.

Yet another thing that stands out against the modern world is that the way of the universe in these books is very much ancient Greek. For centuries now, we have been in the thrall of Shakespearean heroes and anti-heroes who guide events and set their own fates for better or worse through their own decisions. Although Aubrey and Maturin are certainly men of action who take stands and fight good fights, they are, at all times, dependent upon luck and providence. The gods of their time are not Zeus and Apollo, but the weather and the Royal Navy -- both are arbitrarily beneficial or detrimental, both are destroyers of design and granters of wishes, and both will not be denied by the puny acts of men.

Part of the reputation of these books is that O'Brian fills them with technical details of sailing in early 19th century. That, I'm afraid, is true. O'Brian knew his audience and there was a portion of them -- perhaps a large portion -- who were mavens of historical dramas of the Horatio Hornblower genre. You'll have to either get comfy with the language or get comfy skimming over the particulars of shipboard life. Either way, the stories will not suffer.

If you saw the movie and liked it, is that a good indicator? Uncharacteristically, I think yes. I found the movie to be excellent and true to the spirit of the books. You should be advised that the movie, complete title Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, is based on an amalgam of events from several books. Master and Commander (book 1) and The Far Side of the World (book 10) are just two of them.

Lastly, and in contrast to the majority of contemporary literature, these are books about, and for, men of a certain type. Courage, honor, and duty play major roles in the motivations of many characters, to an extent that is no longer seen on the 'new releases' shelf at Borders.

As a final warning, I reiterate that there are 20 novels, all fairly dense. If you get hooked, plan on partitioning off a healthy slice of your life for them.

As for me, I now find myself snickering at the people who are having Harry Potter withdrawal after a whopping six plainly written books. You have no idea. I have decided to move on by going in the opposite direction as a shock to my senses. I'm thinking of returning to some Peter DeVries satires. I have also been thinking about reading Kerouac's On The Road, since it would be about 180 degrees in contrast from Patrick O'Brian.

Movie Round-up: I managed to catch a number of movies on some of the five billion cable channels I now have.

• The Departed -- The latest Scorcese gangster flick. It reminds me of Gangs of New York: flashes of brilliance, but poorly cast and it brings nothing new to the table. Jack Nicholson is only fair. Matt Damon is way off. Martin Sheen sticks out like a sore thumb. Dicaprio does well; I am actually getting to like his work. Alec Baldwin takes a great turn as well. He's found a niche as the arrogant, annoyed hard guy. In general, I get the impression they just decided to take a fair-to-middling mob script, make everyone talk in nearly indecipherable Boston accents instead of like Sicilian wise guys, let Scorsese bring in the big names, call it a movie, and bathe in the resulting money and Oscars. Can't blame 'em, I suppose.
  
  
• Hollywoodland -- The story of the suicide of George Reeves (Superman from the old TV show). Excellent performances from Ben Affleck as the handsome and good humored, but ultimately bland, Reeves and Diane Lane as his desperately aging sugar mama. The story was sold as a murder mystery but there really isn't one. It's the story of a cynical man (Adrien Brody) who, for personal gain, trumps up a murder mystery where there was none and the consequences that follow. Nicely done.
  
  
• Wonderland -- A harrowing, and a little gory, account of the Wonderland murders that were likely set up by a desperate and drug addicted John Holmes (pornstar Johnny Wadd) who may or may not have been involved in the actual murders. There's a presentation of differing views of the events, Rashomon-style, but in the end there is little doubt what happened. Like most films about low-lifes, it's probably more sympathetic to the characters than it should be, but Val Kilmer does a good job of capturing the combination of self-delusion, desperation, and naivet‚ that characterizes most pornstars and ultimately leads them to hell. The fall of Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights was obviously heavily influenced by this story. It moves well and holds your attention thoroughly.
  
  
• Superman Returns -- A handful of cute moments, but otherwise worthless. Half way through I was jumping back and forth with Seinfeld reruns.
  
  
• Miami Vice -- Pathetic. I gave it twenty minutes, then I realized life was too short.