Mark Twain and 'Lost,' and a graduation

The best story in television is over.  It ended, for the audience, in much the same way it began: with all of us discussing and sharing the exhilarating mystery of the experience.  I'll not dive into a massive dissection of the finale of 'Lost,' nor discuss where it ranks among other notable shows, as I have missed many of the 'other' stories that have received such high praise over the years.  I've never had HBO, so I'm excluded from the original airings of 'The Sopranos,' 'Six Feet Under,' 'Deadwood,' and the like.  Nor did I watch 'The Shield,' or the most current award winners, 'Mad Men,' and 'Breaking Bad.'

So yes, I suppose my view is a bit narrow and naturally biased, but as the Man in Black suggested, in my own space and time I've made my own rules.

The 'Lost' finale was perfect for me.  The conclusion was an extremely appropriate resolution for the characters involved, deeply emotional, and beautifully acted.  More importantly, the themes that developed throughout the past six years paid off in a very powerful, mentally engaging two and a half hours.  I'll not discredit those who claim it fell short and left too many questions unanswered, or moved too far from the show's more mythological and paranormal chapters.  During the six year telling of this story, there were certainly some lackluster episodes, certain characters that weren't completely developed, and certain ideas that weren't explored as exhaustively as some would have preferred.  Many had a different reading and appreciation of the finale than I, and that is completely fine.  They appreciated the journey, but perhaps disagreed with the final destination.

However, those who feel the entire 'Lost' experience ruined due to short-sighted writing are complete and utter fools.  Several sites I visited for my weekly 'Lost' discussions overflowed with the reactionary loudmouths who proclaimed rubbish such as this:

"...they really wrote themselves into a corner..."
"...they had no idea what they were doing or where they were going..."
"...this is evidence they made things up as they went..."
"...simply lazy writing..."

Know this, oh nations of people poring over these words:  Any of you who happened to be invested members of 'Lost' and agree with any of the above, get the hell off my lawn.  You're a damned fool, and you don't know your ass from a hole in the ground.

Writers Cuse and Lidelof had a story they wanted to tell because it was important to them.  They didn't scrap things together week to week, drawing what connections they could as they went.  This story, as illustrated by the finale, is one that was extremely personal to them, and one they felt would be important to many others as well.  For me, the show has had a tremendous impact on my heart and mind, and will continue to do so for many, many years.  I am saddened to see the story close, but incredibly thankful to have been a part of the audience for this beautiful tale.

And, for those concerned with the unanswered questions, I'll offer this:

"We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that the savage has because we know how it is made.  We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that..."

-Mark Twain

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My son finished his first year of preschool today, and there were celebrations and food and cheering.

I watched him smile and quietly eat his lunch, interact with his friends, play in the grass and summer winds beneath the trees, and I saw it happen.  He is thinking longer.  Growing.  Aging.  Moving fluidly away from a dependence on us and becoming his own.  I watched this happen today as I held onto my youngest and felt the parental sadness of time swallowing things.  He sat back down on the plastic blue chair with his preschool diploma and smiled out at us.  The smile was big and reassuring.

As much as he grows and learns, it said, he'll always be my little boy.

The Finish Line

Two hours, ten minutes.

13.1 miles.

I finished a half marathon on Sunday as I hoped, without stopping.  The run went, more or less, as I expected it would.  As they always went.  I ran alone with thoughts and sounds and sights and memories washing ashore in my head, and I did my best to have a conversation with each as I moved.  Pain arrived, and I moved along with it, felt it, moved with it.  Severe pain blossomed in new places, and I heard people in my heart telling me it was going to be okay and that I didn't need to stop just yet.

The clapping and smiling from the faces at the finish line weren't there, for I was somewhere else completely.  I finished, and was happy with myself.  Somewhere in this necessarily isolated, and somewhat selfish exercise, down no specific road, I'd convinced myself that I could do this.  That no matter what, I could accomplish this one thing, this finishing, and the emotion that burned in my chest when I stepped over the line was the best surprise of all.

I learned some very important things about myself, and what I am capable of during the past five months.

And, until my body yields, I will continue to run.  I will run to find those new places inside and answer those questions that have yet to be asked.

A time machine and a Villain

I considered myself extremely lucky yesterday.  Lately, the boy with the yellow hair who is an artist and gentle and a thinker doesn't bring his work to anyone's attention unless they ask.  But yesterday, he slid a piece of paper across the table and asked what I thought of his time machine.  I looked it over and asked him to tell me about it because he was very excited and smiley.  And to be clear, I'm not making this stuff up.

Him:  The time thing is in a jet!
Me:  Huh?
Him:  The time thing is in this jet.  Inside.  There.
Me:  Huh?  Oh.  The time machine is a jet.
Him:  Yeah!
Me:  So, what are these things floating here?  Jellyfish?
Him:  Those are missiles.
Me:  Why would a time machine need missiles?
Him:  Because jets have missiles.  So they can shoot 'stuth' if there's bad guys.
Me:  Good point.
Him:  Yeah.
Me:  What's this thing behind the jet time machine?  A schoolbus?
Him:  Gahhh...you don't know anythiiing!
Me:  (Silence)
Him:  That's where the other people who aren't flying the jet can sit and relax.  (Here he anticipates my next question, a common one, for all of his creations have one fatal flaw.)  And there's no bathroom!  So they all have to poop on the floor!  And whoever does has to clean up their own mess.
Me:  Well, yeah.  That's only fair.  (Me, trying to steer away from the giggles of the bathroom talk) So, tell me how your time machine works.
Him:  Well, the engine is made of all the car engines in the world, but only they're smaller and then they put them all together like one big machine and put it in the jet.
Me:  Gotcha.  What about the fuel?  What kind of fuel does it need?
Him:  All three kinds of gas combined.
Me:  Like, from a gas station?
Him:  Yeah.
Me:  So you just have to park this jet and the back part with the people in a gas station and then mix all the gasses together and it's ready?
Him:  Yup.
Me:  Nice.  So, I have to ask.  Your time machine jet is ready to go.  Where would you go?
Him:  Huh?
Me:  You can travel back in time, forward in time, see dinosaurs, see pirates and knights...where would you go?
Him:  Legoland.

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Villainy!
Brick Top, Snatch

"You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm.  They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes.  That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute.  Hence, the expression, 'As greedy as a pig'."

Prior to his explanation of his corpse-disposal methods, the audience understood that Brick Top was a powerful gangster who controlled the unsanctioned, bare-knuckle boxing matches of the London underground.  He employed a varied amount of witless thugs, and snarled darkly humorous threats of castration or death to anyone who happened to piss him off.  However, once he ranted about the benefits of pig farms, Brick Top became intensely remorseless and much, much more dangerous to our protagonists.

Fully self-aware that he was the film's nemesis, he also provided many of the film's laughs, uncomfortable as they may have been.  The source of much of his anger, I would argue, was due to the idiocy and haplessness of his employees, clients, and enemies.  Brick Top wants to run an efficient, sustainable, and profitable business, and all of the players that find themselves 'in his pocket' never make things easy.  They botch the simplest of requests, and then have the audacity to act surprised that they're being punished.

Thus, the need for a pig farm.

The taser thing and another Villain

He ran, he dropped, he twitched:
17-year old Philly fan jumps onto the field, runs across the outfield, eludes the grasp of the bumbling and wheezing stadium security guards, traipses in circles waving his t-shirt, and shortly thereafter is blasted by a Philadelphia officer's taser and drops like a sack of rocks.  People on the radio and television are still wondering if the use of the taser was appropriate or excessive, and the Philadelphia police department has issued their support of the officer's decision.

This one was quite easy for me to categorize.  If anyone should be foolish enough to jump onto the field of play during any major sporting event, the use of tasers should be allowed at the officer's discretion.  Unless ballparks start filling their security ranks with the fastest, most athletic guards capable of running down any on-field violater, there isn't much recourse.  The officers are trained in the use of this equipment, and as stated in the Philly case, the weapon was used because the initial attempts to tackle the kid were (quite humorously) unsuccessful.

Will the prospect of getting filled with 50,000 volts be the ultimate deterrent to someone who really wants to get on the field?  No.  Will it always stop a maniac from racing to the first or third baseman with the intent to harm the players?  Probably not.  But, it should remain an option.  It allows the police force a way in which to trump the usually less-than-agile crack security forces manning the field, and hopefully, keep the length of the disruption to a minimum.

Also, there's the added bonus of being able to watch those foolish people twitch, face down on the grass, the following day on the internet.

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Villainy!
Teddy 'KGB,' Rounders

Identifying the one, true antagonist in Rounders is difficult.  On the one side is the devilish side of Mike's conscience, his long time friend and newly-paroled cheater, Worm.  Worm is the voice in Mike's ear, urging him back into the hazy poker rooms filled with the tourists who desperately need someone to take their money.  Furthermore, Worm doesn't insist that they play the game on the straight, but thirsts for the rush that accompanies hustling.  One could certainly argue that Mike himself is part of the problem here, due to his exceptionally poor decisions.

However, the most solid and identifiable villain of this film would be that of the Russian poker madman, Teddy KGB.  Malkovich's KGB lies at the end of each debt, and every bad decision Mike fumbles his way through, culminating with one final game that should Mike lose, the Russian won't let him walk away with his hands in his penniless pockets.  Mike simply would not be heard from again.

The beauty of Malkovich's many roles is that you immediately feel that you're watching a tangible, complete character develop on screen, rather than watching the actor John Malkovich play a character.  Beneath each of his creations is a roiling emotion that inevitably explodes at some point, and the fun is precisely that anticipation of when the explosion will happen, and what the outcome will be.  In Rounders, we are immediately close to Mike, and desperately hope that when KGB bursts that Mike will make it out in one piece.