I got lots to say about TV: I watch much too much of it; between it and the internet, I’ve lost everything I could have been.
OK, so that’s a bit over the top. However, I do watch alot of it, again, like the internet, for distraction, and entertainment of course. But more often than not, I’m hardly ever entertained.
Given that, some notes about the series CRACKER, a British Crime series mostly written by Jimmy McGovern (who later wrote another incredible series called “The Street”) that feature an alcoholic, gambling and philanderous criminal psychologst Dr Edward “Fitz” Fitzgerald, played by Robbie Coltrane. The series was clearly dated, you could tell that it was shot during the nineties, but the stories were incredibly complex in their emotional depth and impact.Â
Anyway, this recent episode really just blew my mind: it was very visceral, very hands on. The idea that 9-11 and the global war on terror drowns out, belittles, all previous terrorist activity that people who have suffered first hand almost on a daily basis (i.e. the UK and the IRA), is both fascinating and troubling. It’s intriguing in the sense that the world caught up in this drama that has the US as its lead, but as this episode tries to demonstrate, this is not the drama the world has been living, and the US has usurped the world’s fear, grief and anger for it’s own purposes.
As the antagonist of the episode points out, the US had no problems facilitating terrorism abroad before, but now, suddenly, the US has taken it upon itself to dictate the terms and focus of the war on terror. It is now THIS war, in Afghanistan. Now it is THIS war, in Iraq; etc. etc. How arrogant and selfish, as if before 9-11, there was no terrorism.
Yes, Fitz is an antihero: he is not good looking, slim, athletic or even faithful. He is not driven to discover the truth or to honor the dead. All that matters is finding the suspect and breaking him or her down, to crack them. The rush is not in solving the crime, but where he has to go in his head to figure the killers out. The episode opens with Fitz at his daughter’s wedding arguing about 9-11. Six years later, we’re in Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran wants to go nuclear while supplying Hezzbolah in its conflict with Israel in Lebanon. And, just like the gentleman whom Fitz was arguing with, when it comes to 9-11, we’re still frustrated, angry and, ultimately, speechless on the subject.
Monthly Archives: August 2006
and here i thought of nether regions
and here i thought of nether regions,
of dark places i would wonder just how soft, how wet, how dark
like lips before speaking, hands before kissing, something tense like a foot raised on its tippy toes
fingers to the lips, like praying, sudden like holding, to lock the eyes, to lock the jaw, to grit the teeth
passion like spit, like cursing, like mad as hell for being kept out of the dark, kept out of the wet, kept out of the soft
spent before anything else, anything further, like legs entwined, like a lazy hand on a breast, like a tangle of hair caught in the mouth
i oscillate like wild
i am the last frayed ends of some child’s dream. i am the lust that comes after denial.
i am the withered thing in the corner, i am the crawling sound between gasps.
i am the sweat and the euphoria. i am the swallowing of the whole and the pining.
i am the clasp of your hips, i am the unfulfilled desire.
i am the wounded tree, the tooth through the broken lip.
i am the snarling beast when you’ve said you’ve had enough.
no liquor apologies
don’t apologize.
never apologize for the liquor.
many a ramble on the liquor, many, many, many a ramble.
sometimes i think i’d like to see them all again when i’m on the liquor. the lost ones, the dead ones, the ones that i miss so terribly and i know they no longer know me. the ones that don’t remember. that’s the ones i want to see when i’m on the liquor, the ones that don’t remember.
that way they not remembering won’t matter at all.