THE DEMISE OF DEADWOOD

Tonight is bittersweet for me, and a significant number of HBO original series viewers. The amazing series, Deadwood, shows its last episode tonight and ends a brilliant three season run. I can't even express my disappointment and frustration at the loss of such a show, especially when the networks seem not just content, but enthused to show endless mind-numbing and cliched crapisodes of other shows that run on, and on, season after season. Yes, I will name names of shows that I think completely suck, and they exist at the behest of lame, risk-averse television executives, less than brilliant viewers, and at the expense of creative shows like Deadwood: Grey's Anatomy (Doctors are not amusing, glamorous, heroic, or intriguing...they are soulless, conceited, self-righteous vampires, same level as lawyers, who make money off your misery), House (See what Doctors are not), DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES (get a brain, a life, and a skin mag if all you want to see is hot chicks, people), Entourage (shows about how "awesome" Hollywood life is are for the desperate and pathetic who either won't pursue their own dreams, or waste their time wishing their lives were different. All Hollywood shows should focus on the realities that exist like how nobody is real, they are all drug-addicted, plastic-surgery using, cliche, name-dropping, self-deluded, backstabbing scumbags who'd sell their own mother for more fame), Prison Break (male himbos on a fox network, which hasn't offered anything substantial since the first couple of seasons of XFiles), not to mention the lame-ass "reality shows" likeAmerican Idol, Dancing, Singing, and probably Desperate Ass-Kissing with Celebrities.

I feel almost the same bitter hatred (a Vendetta) towards network television that V felt for the government, but perhaps worse, since I've never longed for entertainment from the government, and they've never shown moments of brilliance that make you hope for more. I can't hold the cast of Deadwood to blame, a brilliant ensemble including Ian McShane, Brad Douriff, Brian Cox, Gerald McRaney, and Timothy Olyphant among others, since none of them are pulling a David Caruso with the producers, and the mortality rate in Deadwood makes no one's continued existence a certainty. 2 two-hour movies were "announced" that would wrap up the 3rd Season's storyline, but no dates have been set, or scheduled...so it might be just a Hollywood pacifier (a giant lie) meant to keep people positive about the last episodes of the show. HBO is certainly losing its good series and picking up crap, as Six Feet Under wasn't good since Season 3, and is now over, Rome will end after this season, Lucky Louie is awful, Entourage makes my list above, The Comeback was ridiculous, and Sopranos is ending. They did bring back The Wire, another fantastic show, for a 4th Season, and I applaud them for that, but they also cut Carnivale after 2 Seasons, and that was a mistake.

No, I don't blame HBO for Deadwood's demise, I blame David Milch. He created Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, and now Deadwood: that's lighting striking 3x, and 2 were awesome (NYPD Blue & Deadwood). Now his energies are focused on a new drama about some surfer......from the man's man world of Deadwood to a drama about a surfer. Yes, folks I believe that I'll be skipping another HBO show in the future, and perhaps Mr. Milch's work will never be on my viewing schedule again, aside from my dvd sets of Blue and Deadwood.

ORIGIN OF "THE JAMES"

I've always thought that names were like clothes...you put some on for a while and they fit, but you eventually grow out of them. I also have never understood why people are named at birth, before their personality is known, or before they have "earned" a name from deeds done. I remember reading that Uncas, from Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans, was waiting to earn a name, and Uncas was what they were all called before this right of passage. I agree with that whole system, and it might be that this (the whole absence of "rights of passage" in our culture) is why so many young people don't understand how they should act. You can drive at 16, watched adult films at 17, vote, fight & die for your country at 18, but you can drink alcohol at 21...all of this seems like mixed signals to me. You should clearly know when childhood ends, and adulthood begins...and a name that is earned is one ancient way to symbolize this. While I also believe that I have created myself, in all ways except biologically, "The James" was given to me by my friend, Craig Zablo. I like that it makes me sound like an entity or presence other than human, and with a certain significance...like Batman. I have gone by other names before, some great and others not so much, but this one suits for now.

FIRST POST

Can't say this will be the wisdom of Yoda or the prose of Dickens, but it will be the thoughts, ideas, and narratives of the adventures of one misanthropic, reclusive, narrow-minded s.o.b. This is the first post of "The Way Of The James."