Sons of Anarchy - 5th season

Katie Sagal and Ron Pearlman continue to amaze me.  Kurt Sutter has created  wonderful study in sociopaths. They really explain how some children grow up twisted.  Personally they’re great actors so it’s not them but the Biker Old Lady and ex Biker President they play.
All the lies and cover ups and betrayals.  All tribalism and empire. It’s better than any survival series.  This must have been the way early anthropological empires developed with racial gangs and territories.  I’m reminded of the Old Testament and Athens and Sparta.  Only here the only religion is money so it’s the new corporate America with the Roman Empire being the Feds.  The local police and CIA and prisons are all grey.  No one is black or white in this often racial drama.  Even one of the stars has to conceal his black father to be a member while the Irish and Italians challenge the Mexicans and blacks. All the while ‘legitimate’ business is being enacted in the mythical town of Charming, California without so many guns but just as much attitude.
I love Maggie  Siff as the Pediatric Surgeon mother whose in love with Katie’s son Jax , now the leader of the SONS, having taken over from Clay, played by Pearlman.  There’s cat fights and fist fights, murders, suicides, executions and mayhem.  Every minute there’s another bike chase or shooting with the sale of guns and the sale of coke.  Land deals and pornography.  I love all the locations, the street, the biker club house, the Sagal and Pearlman, old lady and ex press home and the Siff and Hunnan, now Pres, new home, the prison, the dockyards, the ex chief of police’s trailer, the call girl centre and the country.  It’s a truly moving adventure.
I’m in winter where sunny days are rare but I’ve been on a marathon watching this series in one sitting, with minor breaks here and there. The sun is setting outside and I think of all the errands I could have run, the things I could have done but here I’ve been, just eating up the action and drama.  I’m too old for this much "business" in life. It’s readily apparent watching the old guys and gals in this 3 age generation show,   that they’re all too old too.
Now if anyone asks, I’m just watching this as a ‘study’ in anthropology and social psychology. I’m not really loving this series. Every once in a while the gang is riding along on a nice road in summer. That’s when I can relate as a Harley rider.  I love the open highway and the maneuverability of the big machines.  I totally appreciate the lure of the big motorcycle and the attraction of the ride.  But being shot at, I’ll pass.
It’s like sailing in storms on the ocean. I thought that was more than exciting enough and when I thought of sailing vessels shooting cannon at each other I thought them crazy.  There’s more than enough to just riding a motorcycle on the open road without having to dodge bullets.  If there’s going to be bullets, give me a tank or an space craft escape vehicle.
But as a television series, from a biker perspective, it can’t be beat. I’ve yet to be able to just watch one episode.  All 5 seasons I’ve got in single seasons DVD and watched the whole seasons almost non stop. It’s definitely a marathon event when Sons of Anarchy is on. I don’t know how anyone can watch it on tv and wait for the next week to find out what happens to Bobby or Juice or if Katie stays with Ron or goes with the new latin lover.  I just loved the IRA blasting the 50 cal machine guns. The SONS have silencers for their pistons but that beauty was catastrophic in sound and damage.
The stuntmen in this series with bikes flying off roads, crashing people and cars, are incredible.  Great make up artists for the blood shots and body parts.
As I said, I’m not really watching this as entertainment. I may be entertained but this is really ‘serious’  educational material.  I just hope I don’t repeat any of the language I’m hearing.  That could prove very difficult in the wrong circles ( i.e. almost all circles).
And yea, I recommend it.  Totally.

Sons of Anarchy

I just watched the 4th Season of the biker drama series, Sons of Anarchy.  I watched the first three seasons when I bought them at out door booth at Sturges North in British Columbia.

Steppenwolf and Animals, playing on stage that weekend,  will forever be associated with that time.

The Hell's Angels were there along with the RCMP.  Alot of Vets had ridden in too. I loved best the Vets Run that week.  Made me proud to own a bike and ride with those Canadian guys who'd served in Kandahar.

Sons of Anarchy is this drama series with lots of motorcycles. I ride a Harley Davidson Electraglide.  It's almost mandatory that we watch Sons of Anarchy.  It's like ranchers watching Bonanza except the Sons of Anarchy are the bad boys.  They really are.  The women are 'old ladies'.  It's a weird 'matriarchy' with adolescent emotionally stunted men and biker mommas.  Lots of cultural and gang innuendos but the police forces come off looking shady and the town of Charmings, California business men don't look much better.

It's part of that new 'family' as God cult in Hollywood these days. Following on the "Breaking Bad" tradition where dad is a chemist turned meth lab criminal.   Mafiosa adolescent thinking.  The kind of stunted emotional growth spiritually bankrupt material we have come to expect from Hollywood. Lots of questions about the 'message' and really questionable 'ethics' and 'morality'.  It's Dirty Harry except the bad guy has the glock and the message is always the same, me.  I don't know if it's got any 'reality' to it but it's way better than the pathetic  'reality shows'.  I sometimes watch the really good bike show where the family makes choppers and I like especially the two guys who blow up things as "myth busters'.  This has a little of that kind of feel but in addition it's  really great drama. That's mostly the product of the really great acting and characters of Katey Sagel and Maggie Siff.

I confess I love Hollywood for all the special effects and especially all of the variations on  chases. It must be the dog in me but something about chases in movies and tv gets me going.   Sons of Anarchy has one of best of all,   a Hearse chasing a Harley Davidson Motorcycle.  Not just a great and novel chase scene but marvellous symbolism even the stuck up European movie makers would envy.

Life is cheap in Charming.  Revenge is what it's all about.  Might is right.  There's no elevation of the soul.  This is knuckle dragging low brow brute crime drama made magnificent by creator Kurt Sutter.

Charlie Hunnan plays the protagonist "Jax" Teller whose mother is Gemma Teller Morrow played by the Oscar award deserving  Katey Sagal. Jax's girlfriend is neonatal surgeon Tara Knowles played by the talented and truly beautiful Maggie Siff. Ron Pealman plays Clay Morrow, Gemma's partner the motorcycle gang pres and the step father of Jax.  Episode to episode we see Jax twisting and growing while Clay gets rawer and rawer.

In the background historically is 'John" , Jax's father, the Vietnam Vet who began the motorcycle group and died questionably when he wanted to keep it out of the downward crime spiral of the Irish Republican Army.  The boys are fighting black gangs and mex gangs and each other and just generally being robustly juvenile with all manner of great motorcycle riding scenes. The real drama though revolves around Gemma a conspiring  mother hen.  Tara, brilliant and "loyal in love", a trule sensitive getting harder,  is brought into the orbit of Gemma and Clay by her love for confused  bad boy Jax. 

The show is a surprisingly complex entertainment with enough 'guy' stuff and 'girl' stuff to keep a highly mixed audience.  At times I feel like I'm watching the very best afternoon soap opera with Jerry Springer somewhere in the wings conspiring with Oprah then next thing I'm transported to the best guy drama expecting Schwartzenagger, Mel Gibson and  Bruce Willis to suddenly ride up on motorcycles to join in the latest Glock and Rocket Launcher fray.  

Alright I'm hooked.  4 seasons.  There's another to go and maybe one more.  All the characters are amazingly drawn and cast.  It's unfair just to mention the core ones because the sub plots with Jax 's friend Opie and his Porn Star girlfriend, the dirty land developer, the pot head  police chief in love with Gemma but dying of cancer, the scarred cool cat Cartel leader, the lonely intellectual US attorney, they're all really fascinating characters.  Rich and diverse personalities.  Great bikes.

I love it.  But it's not real.  It's Hollywood's fascination and promotion of the criminal.  It's the make a buck off the James Dean illusion, it's their fantasies of 'noble savages'.  What it comes down to is a lot of damaged people hurting alot of people and Hollywood the most damaged of all. But God it's fun to watch.  I 'm reminded of my first microscope and my fascination looking at the bugs in some dirt water. 

Sons of Anarchy certainly appeals to the psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist in me.  Makes me think that there's a lot more work for us in Hollywood than all the country could afford. As for the Sons, I love their bikes.  I love the tattooed old ladies.  I especially love  Gemma and Tara.

Television Reviews from a Sick Body and Mind

I don't tend to watch much tv.  However when I have the flu or am ill it's a godsend.  This winter and early spring, thanks to overwhelming work  stress ,environmental stress, karma, divine retribution, a big nose that attracts bugs,forgetting a flu shot, smoking as a young man, tsunamis, earthquakes and tyrannical governments in the middle east, I've been bedridden with Upper Respiratory Infections off and on.  As a result I'm now an authority on television series.  They're all incredibly good.  There's only so much reading one can do with headache, back ache, fever and running nose.  The tv is a saniety saver.  I actually watched a bonanza and a matlock episode and realized, it's always been.  Commercials have got better over the years. The mute button on the remote is technological wizardry.
Now to the shows themselves.
NCIS is great.  I love all the characters.  Can't remember their names. The ex Mossad agent is just so hot.  The goth chemist is darling. The computer geek is so believable. The playboy is endearing and the old doctor, duckie and his side kick are just wonderful.  This family has a silent mysterious father and he's just fine too.  There's bosses behind him but the team is really a great school grouping that makes all the intriguing scenarios that happen each week quite wonderful.
I like NCIS Miami too. Mostly because of the black guy and white guy military types but the best is the old lady. She's a great actress and it's a joy to see such wit and charm and age appreciated. The young pair are a delightful combination and this family with a smart mommy character works just great. Maybe the stories are even better. The odd girl in this one is the communication computer hacker as opposed to the chemistry chick from the other NCIS.
The UNIT is the best.  Laura and I watch this even when we're not sick.  It's the best combination of  military 007 Spike guy thing couple with army brat wives chick flick thing.  All the characters have depth and the plots are sensationa,
I love the Mentalist.  He's believable and his partner is gorgeous and bright and they make the kind of team that Dianna woman was part of in the early 70's. It's got that great boy girl working together with touch of romance thrown in. Great stories too.
The Closer is terrific. I like this cop team. She and her FBI boyfriend are a hoot. I love her female Colombo style.  I like the irreverent old cop and the smart chinese guy.  It's just a good cop show.
Chicago Code is real cop material.  Believable. Gets to the corruption. The regular cop and the head of the police fighting the corruption of city hall and the gangs on the street is thrilling. It's real like the Unit is real.Serious drama.
Burn Notice is slick. The guy is smart and it's got all the McGivor 007 and Diesel xxx smarts too it.  I like the commentary.  Love the killer ex girlfriend. The buddy is a good balance but the mother is a show stopper. Love that she was written in. Brings this whole thing home. We never did know 007's family.  I like the cozy home feel of this.
Pretty Little Liars is intense and twisted and smart camera. Everything that soap opera aspires to in the making. But too much information.  Everything is drama.
Insecurity the Canadian spy series is really funny.  Makes me proud to be Canadian when I see such good drama.
I love Stargate and Stargate Atlantis. I'm a big sci fi fan. This isn't star trek but it's the next best thing and I love it.  I like the doctor to and the wild man and wild woman and the blond leader is so believable and the guy leader is so believable and the bright guy is so believable and I just think I should have my own personal star gate. This is going on at Rockwell right now.  And the government isn't telling us about it.!
Criminal Minds is dependable. I like the team.  I like the leaders and I like the whole unit.  The smart guy is my favourite.  Good drama.
Law and Order is still as good as ever. It's been around for ever and it's always just good informative drama.
House - I don't tend to watch doctor tv much anymore.  I love the information on House. The stuff they're dealing with is usually really good medicine. They've obviously got some good consultants but I just can't accept the drama. Maybe in the US this goes on. But here all the doctors are required to be without personality and there is no drama allowed or someone complains and they're up on charges for being colorful.  When I started in medicine I learned from a few House like characters but they've been killed off and I mourn their passing.
In the wilderness doc series seemed too flakey. I've done the wilderness medicine stuff and the plot and scenarios were just too weak for me.
ER was a terrific doc series.  Michael Creighton consulted and it was at times just like it was in real life.  The police told me Barney Miller was fairly representative of alot of time in Canadian police activity.  The Hill and things like that in New York and LA just didn't seem to be relevant to Canadian police activity. Cold Squad was brilliant and better than Quincy.  But today given all the gang wars in Vancouver and meth labs blowing up down town maybe it's time for a new Vancouver cop series.
Nothing has come along to even come close to Seinfeld and Friends.
I dont' get the Discovery or History channel here.  BBC news beats out everyone else.  Manbridge is still good though.  I wonder if the girls felt about him the way the guys feel about the BBC news announcers. The main men and women on CNN seem flat in comparison to the Brits and Canadians.  More like corporate brands than real people.
I love the English and Australian drama but it's a bit low key for when I'm sick. The American pizzaz for making fast action and multiple cameras is best for the sick person.  I'd rather read a book but I dose alot.  Movies are too involved so these TV Series are really the best for sick people.  I found I like watching the two guys myth busting a blowing up something while at the dentist. Loved watching big fish catching with my nephew.  I think all round tv has got a whole lot better. That's not even with PBS and the HBO mini series.
That said, the general population is given a real skewed view of law enforcement, crime labs and such.  I think that's part of the propoganda of Big Brother is all powerful and watching you. It's really so much myth and entertainment. I can't imagine any crime except maybe the shooting of a senator or such that would get the millions of dollars of investigation time and resource each NCIS series would cost.  It's even more fanciful than Sherlock Holmes.  But great drama.
Criminal Minds is all this profiling stuff. It's fun psychodrama but it's utterfly far fetched. My field.  But it's better than Freud.  Lots of stereotypes and psych 101 but really.  Good drama though.
Mentalist is however in contrast believable in a real way. The "book of tells" is about those little things people give themselves away with. He's over the top but the stuff he's based on is well founded.  It draws on years of hypnosis research and is really valid. Irritating but it's what the circus carnies do their stuff with and why the best tarot card readers read you more than the cards.  I like it. I like the character too.  But mostly I like the girl.
So it's all about team playing. The girls, like Nikita, are the killers. So we're tv is long beyond the feminist  dichotomy - men are bad, women are good. There's a real balance of good and bad characters and a balance of believable female and male leaders . There's lots of black representation, some oriental and even some latin, some Russian, but not that much first nations.  It's a long way from vanilla for sure.
The other propaganda item is that the world is on the brink of disaster and every week there are dozens of terrorists the US is protecting everyone from.  This is probably going to end up like the War on Drugs, with all the Homeland security measures as much begetting terrorism as protecting us from it. It's got that feel. However the propaganda is there. Every series has a terrorist being caught about to blow up a city. The other thing to propagandize to the women , especially the silly girls, is that Big Brother is protecting you from a daily serial sexual predator. The pig farmer was the biggest news here in Vancouver. They're rare but watching tv land they're everywhere so that's major fear mongering.  Terrorists and serial sexual sadists behind every door. I preferred the good old commie scare. So I'm aware I'm being fed this constant message of good government in the end, the bad guys get caught but I haven't heard of any convictions over 911 or the recent banker regulation scam.  I appreciate the purpose of tv as opiate for the masses. When I'm sick I enjoy being anesthetized.  Somebody like dirty harry is out there fighting for me the little guy whose sick right now and couldn't defend myself from a wet noodle.  I like Bat man and Superman some days too.
I know the lie though. I still appreciate the propaganda.  I probably was benefitted from watching Bonanza and the goodness of the Cartwrights.  I wish there were more westerns.  There sure are alot of cop shows and Big Brother and stuff.  I like the guns and car chases.  That diner canadian comedy in Saskatchewan or the north somewhere is good but it doesn't have the guns and car chases you need when youre sick and dozing.
Right now I'm thankful for the tv.  I'm hoping to be well before I know all the names of all the characters.  Oh yea, Oprah really is good. Her talk show is the best. I fall asleep before the late night ones especially when I'm sick.  But after David Letterman there really isn't anyone out there.  I figure if I get a slice of David Letterman coupled with Fox news I've just about got the full spectrum of what's important in the news.
Glee is great too but the music has become American Idol made like the Monkeys since the earlier ones so it lost me.  I wish there was more godly and Christian programming.  I like the televangelism on Sunday but it loses me when it seems like the product is a used car.
The reality series suck for me. I'm a survivalist and all the stuff they do and the way they act is just not the world I know.  Too much phony adrenaline and testosterone with downright nastiness.  People in difficult times in my experience usually pull together a whole lot better than those prima donnas so I've just not got into them.  Apparently office workers with cutthroat office politics love the reality series.  Man and girl made
That said, television rocks.  There's so much really good tv out there. The commercials are a whole lot funnier too.  The motorcycles are awesome. The acting is terrific.  I'm just really thankful and really impressed.  The dancing is phenomenal.  Channel surfing the music series is always a buzz.  So much happening in so little time.  Great video.
Now I'd rather be outside doing stuff but if you have to be inside and if you're sick tv today is the best!

The Closer

http://www.tnt.tv/series/closer/

I just watched episodes of The Closer from First Season and loved them. I'd watched several episodes over the last few years as a result of surfing on regular tv but was fortunate to get the First Season on sale because of a missing disc. Great cop drama. Terrific plots with a marvellous soap opera of characters who I really warmed to.

Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson and her Major Crimes Division. Kyra Sedgwick is the amazing star. So complex and captivating.

At first I thought of Clint Eastwood, then Mel Gibson, then Sandra Bullock and finally Meryl Streep and Angelina Jolie. But genetically I'd have to say Bruce Willis is in there somewhere as well. Well done, Kyra Sedgwick. Thanks for the entertainment!

CSI - The Complete Fifth Season

I am gaga googoo over CSI - the Complete Fifth Season. There's 10 plus seasons and Laurence Fishbourne is now a part of the show. There's a New York and a Miami show. There's a fan club.
I'm a tv idiot. I know I've seen CSI in the past. I watch tv, really. I used to even channel surf, you know, once in a while. I've had a remote for decades. Don't touch my remote.
But it was the second or third season of Friends before I 'really' watched that show and knew I was missing a whole lot of entertainment. Then I binged on Friends buying a couple of complete seasons.
I didn't have to do that with Star Trek or Seinfeld. I think I got them all first time round or on re runs. Maybe when you're trying to watch all the Star Trek and Seinfeld you tend to miss new things like the early CSI's. I know there's this other show called 24. I've watched a few episodes of that too. And yes, I know the Family Guy. There's a lot of television out there and I probably don't watch as much as alot of people. No doubt I watch it more than some.
I'm a movie buff. When I had cable I loved the movie channel. Friday or Saturday nights were often a great time for pizza and the latest DVD from the video store. Now I'm without cable tv and the CBC channel I get is snowy and breaks up.
I joined a mail order video rental and so far have enjoyed the first movies that have come out.
That said, I'm really enjoying CSI, complete season. I think TV on DVD is the next best thing to velcro. Commercials are really disruptive. I appreciate that people need to make money but couldn't they be between shows. For instance couldn't the advertisers just have had Kramer dress like a Nascar driver every episode.
I don't think I ever really appreciated CSI because there's so much happening and often it's subtle with lots of interplay between these great psychological characters and commercials broke it up. Without commercials I'm fascinated by the stories, not just the story of the crime but the people.
And what's great about these 4 or 5 episodes to a dvd is that you don't have to watch tv all night. I watch alot less tv than national averages because I have other things to do....study, read, play guitar, write, work on boats, dance, motorcycle, the whole other thing called life, that's not watching other people live but living myself. So I really like that I can have an 45 minute fix of 'tv' and then go on to something else. Much as I love movies they're a lot longer investment of time and one movie takes an evening. Better to go to the movies if one can.
I remember I got my first vcr with the idea that I could tape shows and watch them when I wanted and fast forward through the commercials. I do admire those who take control of the tv and have it serve them. I did that at one time but didn't keep it up. It was just a hassle to pre program the vcr when exhausted at the end of the day eating alone it was easier just to turn on the boob tube and watch whatever was playing around supper.
Years later I have this CSI complete season and what am I doing, what I set out to do originally. There are other complete seasons and I can see myself picking up another just to have them on hand for when I want to 'watch tv' without the tv 'controlling' me.
700 channels and not a single one worth watching is what I remember thinking sometimes when I sat mindlessly channel surfing. I'd rather play electronic chess on the iphone or scrabble solitaire.
TV is a 'parallel' play activity whereas video games are 'interactive' and a step up in terms of mental processing. Then there are those admirable sorts who watch only the Discovery channel and program their minds by being highly selective about what they watch. We are what we watch.
It was once said you could judge a man by his books but today one can better be judged by the 'quality' of entertainment one partakes in. For now I'll stand by CSI. There's propaganda for sure. But no more or less than Star Trek and Seinfeld. But all of these shows are educational in their own way.
Of course I once knew Gray's anatomy mostly cover to cover and could recite the periodic table and draw the structure of insulin. However if I hadn't watched the scene with George screaming 'shrinkage' I'd not be able to relate so entertainingly with others who appreciate the 'common' culture that tv offers us. Metaphors like the "Borg" and a "Ross"that everyone today seems to know are as much part of the language of today as "lucy in the sky with diamonds" once was.
And I absolutely love Dr. House even though he'd lose his license in a flash in Canada for his brilliance and lack of political correctness. Now the Dr. House complete season would be a treasure. One could learn alot of medicine that way if the terribly true politics displayed in the show didn't make it all seem too much like work. The ER series did that though when I was learning all that stuff. I loved the doctor shows as adjunctive education. Maybe CSI appeals because I know alot of the testing and theory but it's sufficiently different to not be like work. The politics is entertaining considering everyone seems to have the idiots and sweethearts to deal with. Makes one's own world seems more tolerable seeing the universality of the human condition.
Whatever flaws television has it's humanizing. I'll stand by all the tv programming I have experienced over the years.
But the soap commercials and tampon ads, what have they done to my brain? Could somebody do a study on the effects of watching hundreds of ads of comparison testing of laundry soaps by equally stupid people. I could use the proceeds from a class action suit just about now.
CSI, without commercials, rocks!!http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/ And much as I like alot of PBS, without the pledge times, of course, but we'd not have CSI or House, or Seinfeld or Star Trek or any of the great tv were it not for the very folk who put up the money. All power too them but I'll take the complete season on DVD thank you. And frankly, I'll probably opt for free tv on the internet rather than take the risk exposing my brain to more commercials. I've seen what repetitive concussions has done to some of the football players. There's got to be a toxicity to repetitive exposure to some of the really stupid commercials.