Monday, March 4, 2013

The Great Men of Ohio

Last Friday I was hit over the head with the greatest feeling of déjà vu I've ever felt in my life. Vagaries of my brain's information-processing system had little or nothing to do with it. This was a side-effect of pure great writing, characterization and biography, and just a touch of destiny meeting me on the grounds of the Ohio Statehouse.

A little backstory: This past weekend, I Greyhounded myself to Ohio to see college friends, carouse, adventure, relax and share memories. Before that, though, I made for Ohio's house of government to take a tour and see what it would be like to work there. (If I got the job I wanted, that is.) I love Columbus's downtown, by the way, especially after months in New York; the streets are wide and airy, the buildings aren't oppressively tall, there's plenty of green space and the people are happy to give directions or share a joke with a random stranger off the street. There's a park a block away from the statehouse with a light-up dance machine, and the statehouse square sports a giant stone billboard making fun of Christopher Columbus and his everlasting (and false) association with the city.

A little more backstory: for the past two months or so, ever since seeing Lincoln, I've been on a late-nineteenth-century history kick. I first went for Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals, which Lincoln was partially based on, then progressed to Candice Miller's Destiny of the Republic, about the murder (and murderer, and accidental abettors) of James Garfield. Then it was on to Bruce Catton's bite-size Reflections on the Civil War, the historical novel The Killer Angels, about the battle of Gettysburg, and most recently David McCullough's The Great Bridge, about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. All conspired to form a picture of a simpler, wilder America, a place for great men and greater dreams with plenty of room to grow. I came away deeply impressed with the era and those who had driven it, the politicians and the generals and the architects who shaped industrial America.

So there I was, idly wandering around the statehouse grounds and thinking of nothing in particular, when I was confronted with seven of the men I had been reading about for months, bronze statues on a pedestal and right in front of me. The feeling was indescribable; I had never met these men, never known or spoken with them, but in a flash I felt as if I had been their most intimate friend. Salmon P. Chase (Team of Rivals; Senator and later Ohio Governor, Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) was the one I saw first and who struck me the hardest. In one defiant moment, he had leaped off the page to confront me in person, looking as arrogant, stern and filled with righteous self-confidence as I could ever have imagined from Goodwin's prose. The sight quite literally took my breath away.

From left: James Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, Chase.

Here are a few of my notes, thoughts pictures as they relate to the men.

Chase: This brilliant and devoted politician believed unshakably that he was destined to be President of the United States. Convinced of his own victory, he believed it so strongly that he went to the 1861 Republican Presidential Convention without doing any of the necessary groundwork or trying to woo delegates, as they did in those days; he lost, of course, to Lincoln. Chase's statue stands tall, proud and confident, right hand tucked in his coat in a manner reminiscent of George Washington's portraits. His gaze is stern and uncompromising, seemingly possessed of messianic powers of foresight.

Hayes: This reform-minded President, who took office at a time of what we would consider astonishing corruption, is the only one I do not know. Holding a paper almost defensively in front of him, Hayes' gaze is one of tired, weathered bewilderment; his eyes peer out like mice from the deep cavities in his worn face. He seems to be wondering how it all went wrong.

Chase is on the right, Garfield in the center, and Edwin M. Stanton on the left.

Garfield: Viewed as a man of great talent and greater honor, the ludicrously un-ambitious Garfield was nominated for President against his will at his own Convention, over the candidate he had hoped to support. He was shot by an insane assassin-in those days, literally anyone could walk into the White House and ask to see the President, even after Lincoln's death at the hands of John Wilkes Booth, but Garfield was shot in a train station-and died in great pain at the hands of his doctors, whose contamination of his wounds eventually killed him. Garfield's statue is proud but troubled; one hand is hidden behind his back, while the other is balled in a fist as if to ward off the pain.

Stanton: Lincoln's Secretary of War, also a onetime political rival, also a turbulent and hot-tempered soul, also an indispensable talent in the prosecution of the Civil War. Goodwin did a hell of a job, as did the sculptor; like Chase, Stanton's statue captures him perfectly. He's looking down at a rolled paper in his hand as if going over his notes one last time before a speech. Again I feel as if I had long known this man, haughty, irascible, brilliant, precisely his portrayal in print and on the screen. His overcoat is slung open, revealing a long double row of buttons over a slight potbelly. He is preoccupied, I feel. Standing for the sculptor must have been simply a formality for him, and a mildly irksome one at that. Surely in another moment he'll stride right off the column and fall spluttering to the pavement. One knee is flexed restlessly; I swear his toe is tapping in impatience.

Stanton, center right; Philip Sheridan, center left.

Sheridan: Beside Stanton is Sheridan in all his glory, ablaze with golden sash and medals and a cavalryman's mustache. One hand thumbs the sash; another hangs restless at his side, where a pistol would hang in its holster. Yet this is not the fire-eating cavalry commander who burned the Shenandoah Valley. His eyes are large, limpid and sad, and he stares out at the courtyard as if holding back a sob.

Right to left: Sheridan, Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman.

Sherman: He's rumpled, like his boss. Two buttons are undone on his jacket and his gloves are clutched forgotten in one hand, while the other rests on a saber hilt. He's clearly just come in from the field. For whatever reason, historical, artistic or human error, his head is gigantic. It dwarfs that of Grant next door.

Grant: In the center, framed by his commanders, is Grant. he's clearly uncomfortable; one hand grasps his lapel as if to hold himself upright, while the other is tucked sloppily in his pocket. His top two buttons are undone, then there's one loyal holdout, then two more deserters below; his shirt is as crinkled and crumpled as his pants, which don't seem to quite fit. His whole body seems rumpled--but his face! An old face, a wise face, lined by cares. Like Robert E. Lee, he appears haunted by old sorrows. And yet there is a quiet dignity to him, head up, shoulders straight, facing out at the world. Above him is Ohio herself and the inscription "These are my jewels".

And then this happened.

This entire thing had a lot of special meaning for me, and it makes my observation and writing purple. So let's end on a different note with a different statue. Know what didn't make any damn sense? William McKinley's statue. For starters, it's Greek; the U's in the inscription are replaced with V's, it's a marble mini-plaza instead of a simple statue, and tiny couples whisper into each others' ears about the great man standing in front of them on his gigantic pedestal. And to top it off, for whatever reason, McKinley looks pissed off. He has this righteous-wrath-of-the-crusaders expression upon his face like he's going to come down and unleash holy havoc. If anyone can explain that, I'd love to hear the story behind that one.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Why The Wire is So Awesome

I’ve been trying to put into words for some time why The Wire is so incredibly good, and I guess the biggest reason is that it doesn’t feel like a TV program at all. It is the most realistic TV program, for my money, ever filmed. Here are some of the ways:

-It’s the complete opposite of Terminator 2 or The Matrix. It looks like the product came out of any garden-variety video camera (an insanely high quality one, but not doctored at all).

-It is devoid of TV trickery. There are no flashbacks, no dramatic reveals from peoples’ pasts, no kitschy guest-stars, no CGI, few cold opens and little camera skullduggery. There’s not even any music on the show, for Pete’s sake; what little music you hear is completely digetic, meaning that the characters interact with it (like it was coming out of a boombox). The city is real, the characters refer to real-life political events, and it was filmed on location in Baltimore.

-The next, really big, reason is that the actors do not feel like actors. They feel like real people. Part of that is the writers having an amazingly, unbelievably good feel for what they can do with each character. I can’t think of a single time where a person has done something that wasn’t believable for their character to do. Certainly the characters have grown and changed and evolved over time, but it’s always natural, organic growth. You never have a just out-of-left-field change because the writers needed something to work a little better, and they rarely feel stagnant in their roles either. Even characters who would be “stock” characters on other shows—the angry, obstructive boss, the disgruntled cop who knows what’s best but can’t pitch it to the boss, the gangland drug dealers—are anything but stock on this show. Everybody is amazing.

That willingness to create characters and then work within those characters’ roles—both on the part of the writers and the actors—makes for just a stunning storytelling experience. When I got started on the Wire and was just getting into Season 1, I read somewhere that 1 was kind of a mediocre season, and that you just kinda had to push through it and keep going into 2 and 3 to get the full Wire experience. That didn’t mean that Season 1 was bad; it meant that any season of The Wire, standing on its own, didn’t mean nearly as much as it did as a part of the whole. Each season builds on itself and the seasons that came before it in the most incredibly organic, continuity-focused way I’ve ever seen. It’s brilliant. By season 4, which I’m finishing up now, the body of work that underlies the show just informs what you’re seeing on the screen in so many different ways. (And don’t think that they’re just recycling old characters and having them interact with each other in new ways, either; each new season has added another cast and taken on a completely different environment. Season 1 was the projects, 2 the waterfront, 3 Baltimore politics, 4 the school system, and 5 will be the newsroom. Each one came with its own new cast.)

-Part of the show’s genius is allowing new relationships and old to just sort of grow towards each other. Picture a grassy field, freshly mowed. Each blade is a character with his or her own dreams, aspirations and life experiences. As the season progresses and the blades grow, they touch and interact with other blades, inspiring different scenes and experiences as the characters bounce off each other, cooperate with each other and wreck each other’s plans. By the end of the season, it’s a twisted, tangled jungle of brilliant, continuous storytelling. It can be hard to follow at times—the Wire is definitely a show that it takes effort and time to understand, and heaven help you if you drop it for a while and then pick it up again later on—but it’s worth every minute of what did he mean by that?

Friday, February 22, 2013

So-So/Too Soon To Tell

(9) Ernie Sims (ILB, Lions)
(13) Kamerion Wimbley (OLB, Browns)
(14) Brodrick Bunkley (DT, Eagles)
(22) Manny Lawson (OLB, Niners)
(31) Kelly Jennings (CB, Seahawks)

Whiff

(3) Vince Young (QB, Titans)
(10) Matt Leinart (QB, Cardinals)
(15) Tye Hill (CB, Rams)
(16) Jason Allen (CB, Dolphins)
(18) Bobby Carpenter (OLB, Cowboys)
(21) Laurence Maroney (RB, Patriots)
(26) John McCargo (DT, Bills)

Analysis/Trivia

-How good are the Ravens? They got three Gigantic Hits (Joe Flacco, Haloti Ngata, Ben Grubbs) and one Hit (Michael Oher) in their four picks. Nobody had a better ratio, although the Jets, Lions, Vikings and Niners all collected two Gigantic Hits each.

-In fact, the Niners had four Hits (Anthony Davis, Mike Iupati, Michael Crabtree, Joe Staley) to go along with their two Gigantic Hits (Vernon Davis, Patrick Willis); together with a So-So (Lawson) and a Whiff (Balmer), they led the NFL with eight first-round picks in five years. The Broncos were right behind with seven: Thomas (hit), Tebow (whiff), Moreno (so-so), Ayers (so-so), Clady (hit), Jarvis Moss (whiff), Cutler (hit).

-How awful are the Raiders? In five picks, they had one Hit (Michael Huff), two So-So (Darren McFadden, Darius Heyward-Bey) and two huge whiffs (JaMarcus Russell, Rolando McClain). I don't think anybody did worse.

-The Bears somehow had only two first-round picks: Greg Olsen (hit) and Chris Williams (whiff). They did give up two first-round picks to poach Jay Cutler (hit) from the Broncos, so I guess there's that.

-I was kind of stunned at the Browns, who collected a Gigantic Hit in Joe Thomas, plus two Hits in Joe Haden and Alex Mack. Yeah, Kamerion Wimbley was so-so and Brady Quinn was a bust, but you'd still expect them to finish better than fourth place in their division more often than twice in the last eight years. In fact, the last time they won their division was 1989, and the last time they spent two consecutive years better than fourth place was 2001-02.

-Sixteen "good" players have changed teams, including 15 of 68 "hits" (36.7%). The "hits" include Vontae Davis (Dolphins to Colts), Mario Williams (Texans to Bills), Reggie Bush (Saints to Dolphins), Donte' Whitner (Bills to Niners), Jay Cutler (Broncos to Bears), Antonio Cromartie (Chargers to Jets), Santonio Holmes (Steelers to Jets), Greg Olsen (Bears to Panthers), Joseph Addai (Colts to Patriots)*****, Jonathan Joseph (Bengals to Texans), LaRon Landry (Redskins to Jets), Marshawn Lynch (Bills to Seahawks), Adam Carriker (Rams to Redskins), Aaron Ross (Giants to Jaguars) and Reggie Nelson (Jaguars to Bengals).

-Ben Grubbs (Ravens to Saints) is the only Gigantic Hit to change teams, although Jake Long (Dolphins) and Joe Flacco (Ravens) are free agents this year. One can expect more players from '08-'09-'10 to do so as their rookie contracts expire; the bulk were from '06 and '07. In fact, 14 of the 30 "hits" from those years changed teams, a rate of 43% which may be closer to the NFL norm; from '08 to '10, among "hits" whose rookie contracts mostly either have yet to expire or expired this offseason, the rate is 2.6% (one player out of 38, Vontae Davis, who was traded last August).

*Now as later, players are listed as their college position, not what they subsequently converted to (safety, in McCourty's case).
**No. 32 pick in 2008; the Patriots forfeited their selection that year due to Spygate, so the first round had only 31 picks.
***Returning ability was treated as a bonus. If you have it, like Ginn, that's considered; if you don't, no big deal.
****I've never been a Hawk fan, but I couldn't justify downgrading him to "so-so".
*****Although he was cut before the regular season.

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Football Post: NFL First-Round Picks Success Rate, 2006-2010

For a couple of years now I've been dumping my football posts on Oak Creek Patch, where I've been writing as a Local Voices blogger. Today, I decided to start reposting my football posts that I've done there on this outlet. Enjoy.

Last night I was wondering how often NFL teams "hit" on first-round picks, and how often they just whiff on the players that are supposed to be franchise cornerstones. Being me, I decided to measure it. I went back through the last five eligible NFL first rounds, 2006-2010, and rated the 160* players on a four-category scale. Best was a Gigantic Hit, a great player and talent who's one of the top players at his position. Second-best was a Hit, a solid or above-average NFL starter. Third was So-So or Too Soon To Tell, for "meh" players; fourth was a "whiff", or bust. GH and H were grouped together as "good" players, SS/TSTT and W as "bad".

I can’t stress enough that all definitions are subjective here, and that the five-year timeframe was picked arbitrarily. It’s also important to note that the “so-so/too soon to tell” column has thinned out as you go back farther, because players got more of an opportunity to prove themselves (even past the three-year evaluation period generally used by NFL teams). First-round picks often get multiple chances from NFL teams if the first team doesn’t work out, and many players have thrived in a different environment or scheme. I will say that most players fit fairly easily into "bad" or "good", and that most of the tough calls were on whether a player was "so-so" or a "whiff", or a "hit" or "gigantic hit".

The Data

Teams hit with 86 of 160 players, or 53.75%; the remaining 74 (46.25%) were so-so, still developing or whiffs. Eighteen players were judged Gigantic Hits (11.25% of total), 68 hits (42.5%), 40 so-so/too soon (25%) and 34 whiffs (21.25%).
2010 Draft:
GH: 3 (9.3%)
H: 14 (43.75%)
SS/TSTT: 11 (34.37%)
W: 4 (12.5%)

2009 Draft:
GH: 2 (6.25%)
H: 16 (50%)
SS/TTST: 8 (25/%)
W: 6 (18.75%)

2008 Draft:
GH: 4 (12.5%)
H: 8 (25%)
SS/TTST: 12 (37.5%)
W: 8 (25%)

2007 Draft:
GH: 6 (18.75%)
H: 13 (40.6%)
SS/TTST: 5 (15.6%)
W: 8 (25%)

2006 Draft:
GH: 3 (9.37%)
H: 17 (53%)
SS/TTST: 5 (15.6%)
W: 7 (21.8%)

-The best draft in that timeframe was judged to be 2006, when 20 of 32 players (62%) were graded “hit” or “gigantic hit”. The worst was 2008, which boasted four “gigantic hits” but only eight “hits”, for a total of 37.5% good players. It was the only draft to score below 50% in “good” players. 2007 boasted six “gigantic hits”: (2)** Calvin Johnson, (3) Joe Thomas, (7) Adrian Peterson, (11) Patrick Willis. (14) Darrelle Revis and (29) Ben Grubbs.

-However, it also tied 2008 with the most “whiffs”, with eight. ‘07’s “whiffs”: (1) JaMarcus Russell, (4) Gaines Adams, (8) Jamaal Anderson, (16) Justin Harrell, (17) Jarvis Moss, (22) Brady Quinn, (30) Craig “Buster” Davis and (32) Anthony Gonzalez. ‘08’s: (5) Glenn Dorsey, (6) Vernon Gholston, (7) Sedrick Ellis, (8) Derrick Harvey (unlucky run!), (14) Chris Williams, (19) Jeff Otah, (28) Lawrence Jackson, (29) Kentwan Balmer and (32) Phillip Merling.

Top Ten

Of the 50 examples, players drafted in the top ten broke down thus: 7 “gigantic hits” (14%), 20 “hits” (40%), 10 “so-so” (20%) and 13 “whiffs” (26%). Remember that in April; one in four of those highly touted top-ten picks will bust out, and two in five will not even make ‘solid starter’ status. Only fourteen percent of them per year will fulfill their pre-draft hype. Every year saw at least one top-ten whiff, and only 2010 lacked at least one top-five whiff.

By Position

Eleven quarterbacks were drafted, with two GH (Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco), three hits, one so-so and six whiffs.

Wide receiver was one of the most popular positions, with fifteen selections. Two GH (Calvin Johnson, Percy Harvin), seven hits, four so-sos and two whiffs.

Running back: 17 picks. Two GH (Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson), six hits, seven so-sos, two whiffs.

Tight end: six picks. One GH was the incomparable Vernon Davis; the other five were hits, one coming every year.

Tackle: Popular and safe. The nineteen picks boasted two GH (Joe Thomas, Jake Long) and thirteen hits, with just one so-so and three whiffs.

Guard: Two picks, one GH (Ben Grubbs), one hit.

Center: four picks, one GH (Nick Mangold), three hits. Offensive line is safe.

Defensive end (4-3 only): thirteen picks, one GH (Jason Pierre-Paul), four hits, three so-so, five whiffs.

Defensive tackle (4-3 DT, 3-4 NT and DE): the most popular and by far the riskiest pick. The twenty-one players included two GH (Ndamukong Suh, Haloti Ngata) and two hits, but eight so-sos and nine whiffs.

Outside ‘backers (3-4 only): 11 picks, one GH (Clay Matthews), three hits, two so-sos, five whiffs.

Inside ‘backers (3-4 and 4-3 ILBs, 4-3 OLBs): 11 picks, one GH (Patrick Willis), six hits, two so-so, two whiffs.

Cornerback, another popular one: 15 selections, one GH (Darrelle Revis), seven hits, six so-sos, one bust.

Safety, one of the safest in the draft: nine picks, one GH (Earl Thomas), seven hits, one so-so.

Analysis and Trivia

-If your favorite team is drafting O-line, you have an 84% chance of getting a “hit” (21 of 25) and a 16% chance (4 in 25) of getting a "Gigantic Hit". Those are not bad odds.

-Conversely, you have just a 26% chance (9 of 34) of getting a “hit” with a member of the defensive line, including a stunning 19% chance (4 of 21) with a defensive tackle. Those are horrific odds. The four players that made it? Haloti Ngata (12^th in ’06), B.J. Raji (9^th in ’09), Ndamukong Suh (2^nd in ’10) and Gerald McCoy (3^rd in ’10). Everybody drafted No. 13 or later was so-so or worse.

-The positions at which players were least often selected—center, guard, safety, tight end—had by far the best ratios, probably because nobody feels the need to overreach for them. The four positions combined for just 15 selections, but boasted fourteen “hits” and four “Gigantic Hits” (26% chance of Gigantic Hit, better than double the average).

-Every position had at least one Gigantic Hit, which I did not plan on and was quite surprised to see.

-GMs made 74 selections on offense, 86 on defense.

-The Indianapolis Colts had four selections, one hit (Joseph Addai), one so-so and two whiffs. Admittedly, they drafted 30^th, 32^nd, 27^th and 31^st.

-The Packers will pick No. 26 in 2013, barring a trade. Players selected at No. 26 in the marking period include Green Bay’s Clay Matthews (GH), Dallas’s Anthony Spencer (H), Houston’s Duane Brown (H), Arizona’s Dan Williams (so-so) and Buffalo’s John McCargo (whiff). Other recent examples outside the marking period include Kansas City’s Jonathan Baldwin (’11), Houston’s Whitney Mercilus (’12), Seattle’s Chris Spencer (’05, later with Chicago), Cincinnati’s Chris Perry (’04) and San Francisco’s Kwame Harris ('03). (Those last three didn’t amount to much.)

-Green Bay had one GH (Matthews), three hits (Bryan Bulaga, Raji, A.J. Hawk) and one whiff (Justin Harrell) during the marking period. They did not have a first-round pick in '08, but made up for it with two in '09.

The full lists and more data will be available in a subsequent post.

*The 2008 first round had only 31 picks due to Spygate, so I included the Dolphins' Phillip Merling at No. 32.

**Numbers denote draft position.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Free Running in New York: First in Flight

For one ageless moment there is no sound, as I hang suspended in space. There is only bright color, splashes and whirls and hard clear shapes all around me. Blue steel for the water of the river. Dull brown for the cracked, hard trees. Shining silver for the fences, bathed in light so sharp you can taste it on your tongue. Crimson for the platform beneath me, the one I'm falling towards, another that I jumped from. There are no crickets, no bystanders, no passing airplanes or idle conversation or jagged earbud notes in my periphery. For a moment, time stops.

run free chase fly go faster go climb

Jog the first bit, slow and easy, warm-up on a day where toes turn blue. Running shoes going slap-slap-slap on the pavement. Nice and orderly, following the paths, slow painted lines on a gelid canvas before What's that over there? It's huge! It's awesome! Let's go! Left turn through a battered garden, over fences, past bundled-up grandmothers walking golden dogs in knit sweaters, up a stone palisade that becomes a balustrade upon which I balance, wide as a catwalk, up the hill to the colossal monument to the Soldiers and Sailors of the Union, built in an age where nobody did anything small. Mock-ups of naval guns face outward in final battle pose, ready to send Pickett's brave doomed boys tumbling back down the hill, all arms and legs and bloody froth. My companion walks up to the butt-end of the black smoking monster, presses her hips against the pommel. "My dick," she says, and grins.

I try and jump over the next cannon. Miss by just a few inches--catch myself with my left palm, swing my legs to the right, accidental vaulting. A rogue videographer for some documentary catches my eye, waving black mittens, anonymous behind the lens. "Nice one!" "I'll get the next one," I say, and take a running start, climbing invisible stairs, tucking knees upward and soaring like... well, anything but a cannonball. There's room to spare. I jump off another banister, brace myself to air-kick off a bench, step right over a table where Russian grandfathers no doubt play chess in the summertime. It's time to run again.

faster faster play go play run jump run

Over a playground fence, over a glistening rock that was young when the glaciers were old and tired, around and over and through like all good shoelaces, we weave through the park like traceur bullets. Off-road, off-path, off-map, headed for the Sanctuary. Our ears turn red, crinkle and hide from the cold in the folds of gray hoodies. Massive inscrutable landmarks wander slowly by on our right, tattered wooden pilings surrounding an iron portal to nothingness, a rusted scrap of a bridge. Where did it go? Inscrutable New York artwork dots the landscape, an apple core or an inside-out face, no way of telling which. Cold wind sweeps out of the river, blasting against our puny sweats like an atmospheric fire hose. Huge red platforms rise out of the land ahead of us. It's here.

climb

We fiddle around on the ground for a while, practice clumsy rolls and flips and invent remember-when childhood games of jumping from marble slab to marble slap, but the real meat of the Sanctuary is in the red iron sunshades rising above it all. I can't keep myself down any longer. I clamber up one of the wooden chairs and grab onto the rim with gray-black borrowed gloves. Support ridges and struts offer purchase. I claw and hoist and grab until somehow, tentatively, I'm up on top of the world. The view must be great, but I'm too nervous to look around. I walk around the tops of the four platforms clustered together, glancing at the ground through the holes in the floor. Four platforms together... one apart. My heart, clichés be damned, is drumming rat-a-tat-tat. My eyes, my legs, my entire attention are all drawn to the gap; five or six feet, maybe seven, and two feet down over endless space. My brain assesses trajectories and rings up warning flags.

fly

A still, small voice is heard from the ground. "I'm already super impressed with you. You don't have to do that."

Three blade-quick thoughts rustle through my brain. Well screw it I'm gonna do it anyway is the first. I've never broken a bone, and that's partially because I don't do things like this is the second. I imagine the fall to the ground, sharp pain in arm and shoulder, my first real battle scar. No fear. Third is a hot sweet rush, creamy and delicious, pure conviction. There is no countdown, no running start, no drama. I pick my landing spot and jump.

fly!

Red metal clangs and rebounds under me as I land with a crash, triumphant atop my goal. I scream in victory, great primal wordless yells and cusses, scaring the shit out of my groundbound companion (who thinks for a second that I broke my ankle or something). Time starts again. I'm king of the world in my gray sweatpants, a sheikh of the sunrise, lord of the bright red platforms and the steel river and all the rest. Titles don't matter. I have flown.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

My Top 11 TV Shows of All Time (1-5)

Editor's Note: This is Andy Tisdel, proprietor of Tisdel's Tirades, talking. This post probably has nothing to do with FEMA Corps, and does not reflect the opinions of a majority of FEMA Corps Team Summit 5; it is nothing more or less than an ordinary blog post. It's also been sitting around on my computer for several months, and it's far past time to release it into the wild.

5. No show has inspired me to write quite as much as Doctor Who, whether in analysis, praise or condemnation. Doctor Who flips a giant middle finger to the idea of easy categorization; it is by turns uproarious fun and heart-melting sadness, splendid drama and utter camp, carefully plotted storytelling and oh-well-what-the-hell freewheeling zaniness. No show on this list is as bad as Who at its worst, and almost none of them can touch it on its best days.

Part of this schizophrenia is due to Who’s jerky, unpredictable behavior offscreen. Despite having two or three lead actors (the Doctor and his Companions), the show has had three Doctors and seven Companions (counting Mickey and River) in seven years. It’s also had two main showrunners and underwent a drastic remake of the production staff, and consequently the overall look of the show, between seasons 4 and 5. Things have settled down considerably under Steven Moffat, but viewers of the early seasons will have many changes to digest. However, it’s such a fantastic show—the dialogue is always strong, and while the stories may strain belief, the actors are almost always on point—that I’m more than willing to overlook its flaws.

4. I have no idea what it’s like to work inside a real police station, but thanks to The Wire, it feels like I do. Never has there been such a detailed take on the difficulties, dangers and bureaucratic infighting inherent in police work, and never has there been such a comprehensive portrait of a city’s criminal underworld. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear it isn’t populated by actors playing parts, but by honest-to-God people doing what they do. They’re that good.

Now, The Wire is a harsh mistress. There’s little explanation in the premiere for the confusing sub-dialects spoken by both police and criminals; you have to figure out things like “product”, “narc” and “Crown Vic” on your own. And the majority of Season 1 is basically setting the stage for seasons to come. But it builds and builds on itself like no other television program. Later seasons are so much richer for having taken the time to develop characters and relationships and history. The show is no longer a collection of performances, but a living entity unto itself. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort required—this is not a show for passive viewing—it’s incredibly rewarding.

3. The only anime on this list, Ghost in the Shell is a touching, sometimes despairing, always postmodern view of the human condition. It has special relevance to me because everyone in the show is a cyborg, essentially, but there’s plenty here for anyone. The animation is beautiful, the plots are labyrinthine and exquisite, and the blend of action, philosophy and whimsy—especially in the case of the Tachikomas—is tough to beat. The far-future, post-WWIII-yet-still-getting-by world, reminiscent of Akira in style if not content, is also a huge plus.

I seem to be listing greatness first and flaws second in this format, and Ghost in the Shell does have the latter. There were times when I felt like the show’s plotting or premises were resting on Japanese cultural assumptions that I didn’t share and consequently struggled to understand. The plots can be too hard to follow at times (rare is the time when I complain of that) and there’s not as much development of minor characters as you might see elsewhere. But for pure visuals, story, style and philosophy, Ghost in the Shell is tough to beat. It’s bursting with ideas, even if it can’t always express them clearly, and I do love that.

2. Before this current season is over, Breaking Bad may very well claw its way into the top spot on this list. Never in television has there ever been such a dominant, compelling performance from a lead actor as Bryan Cranston’s Walter White—and it’s lasted four and a half seasons with no signs of slowing down! Never has there been such a transformation of one character over the run of a show! Although they’re often overshadowed by Cranston’s greatness, there is scarcely a weak link on the show’s amazingly solid recurring cast. Almost nobody feels like an afterthought. The directing, settings and set design are consistently tremendous as well, including showrunner Vince Gilligan’s signature “point-of-view-from-someplace-weird” shots. Notable examples have included the back of a microwave, inside an air vent, underneath a floor covered in blood and staring up from the bottom of a toilet.

This show has everything—great characters, innovative directing, a distinctive visual look, incredible character development over time, incredible continuity and realism, the ability to just capture the viewer and draw them into the story. From the very start to the present day, it’s been fantastic television. My only regret is that the story will eventually end.

1. BSG, as it’s affectionately known, is the best science-fiction drama I’ve ever seen (and I’ve seen most of the great ones). I fell in love after the first episode, the exhausting “33”, and never looked back. BSG has a distinctive atmosphere, which pervades the show like none other. Doubt. Fear. Terror that fades to a dull gray core of resignation. Hope. Inspiration. Love. The challenges of living on the same tin can of a ship with the same people for God knows how long. BSG is able to sustain its incredible atmosphere through great sets and good-looking CGI, through innovative directing that gives every place its own distinctive look and heightens every emotional moment, of which there are so many.

The last, as it has been so often, is the characters. Like Breaking Bad and The Wire, you’d swear that the actors and actresses were just being filmed going about their lives. And what a group of people! The depth of this cast is rivaled only by The Wire, but the variety of people within it tops even Lost. Lee. Commander Adama. The incomparable Starbuck. Felix Gaeta, Dee, all of the Cylon cast and Gaius frakking Baltar are just tremendous. This show won out over Breaking Bad because like Doctor Who, it makes the viewer think. The uncertainties, the relationships between characters and what they might become, the fabulous grandeur of the plot and its slow expansion over four seasons… these inspire endless speculation and conjecture and controversy. Yes, there are some plot twists that made me throw verbal brickbats at the screen; yes, it can be frustrating and it doesn’t explain things and on and on. But that gets my brain working like nothing else, going why the hell did they do that? You can’t borrow, buy or steal a feeling like that. That’s why BSG heads my list.

Tuesday, February 12, 2013

My Top 11 TV Shows I've Ever Seen (6-11)

11. I’m going to start out this list with some candy. Top Shot is, by my estimation, the sweetest, most delicious reality show I’ve ever seen (not that I’ve seen many). It’s like basically any other skills-based elimination competition, except with a mind-exploding amount of weaponry. Pistols. Rifles. Shotguns. Machine guns. Sniper rifles. Knives. Atlatls. A freaking cannon. There’s not a whole lot to the show itself--yeah, there are interesting people and people you root for, but the airtime they devote to rivalries and in-house fighting is just so much wasted space--but who even cares? The meat of the show is in the unbelievable shots that everyone is required to make. The show prizes versatility and adaptation to different weapons and conditions, and it’s really fun to watch everyone adapting (or not). And seriously, the things they’re required to do look both incredibly fun and absolutely impossible.

10. The what-might-have-been of nerds and cosplayers everywhere. I loved it, during its half-a-season run, for its strong characters, excellent dialogue and superb universe-building. Firefly is a far-future space Western with a dark, morbid underside. Creator Joss Whedon loved taking classic Western plots—cattle rustlers, the gunslinger riding into a small town, the heist off a moving train—and putting a sci-fi spin on them. It works pretty well for the most part, but the best of the show (as with most of these shows) is in its characters. Firefly would’ve ranked higher, but this is a tough list; I downgraded it for a limited runtime and the nagging sense that it didn’t quite figure itself out until the show was almost over. Nerds everywhere wish it had.

9. File this one next to Firefly under “what-might-have-been”. Lost was by far the most infuriating show on this list. After two solid seasons of character development and tantalizing plotlines, it veered off the rails in early Season 3 and never quite recovered. At some point in the S5 series finale when Juliet was hitting a nuclear bomb with a rock to make it blow up so that the characters could all go thirty years in their future, I just thought “What on God’s earth is going on here?" Lost had plenty of strengths as well, though. Sawyer, Sayid, Ben, Hurley, Desmond, Locke and a dozen others were all fantastic characters. The pacing was slow but the directing was innovative, enabling Lost to have a totally different narrative style in its flashbacks and flash-forwards. Even when Lost went batshit crazy, it was generally a well-done batshit crazy. And hey, it got me to stick with it for six seasons; I don’t think any show has ever set such effective hooks to keep its fans coming back week after week, nor inspired such fervent message-board rage.

8. I’ve never watched zombie movies, so I have no idea if The Walking Dead is subverting clichés or retrofitting them. All I know is that it emotionally draws you into the story like nothing else on TV. Nobody else even approaches the level of genuine pulse-pounding terror that comes from seeing Our Heroes get chased by zombies. Part of it is fantastic makeup and acting on the part of the zombies, part of it is the dead-eyed but terrified acting of the humans, and part is just because the show made me care so much about all of its characters. I don’t know why, but if I could bottle it, I’d make millions. There are genuine-looking relationships and there's snappy dialogue and great scenes aplenty to go along with all the aforementioned good stuff. The Walking Dead is at No. 8 because of a sometimes slow, soap-opera-y second season, but there's much more good than bad here. Definitely an emerging favorite of mine.

7. Fantasy shows, meet Game of Thrones, one of the best ever. I’ve written before about how the HBO format makes it great, blending down-and-dirty reality with highfalutin’ fantasy. Like most of the other shows on this list, I love its characters; unlike most others, I’m in it largely for the plot. I love to watch the Lannisters and the Starks and everyone else bounce off each other, and there are great-character moments aplenty. (Tyrion, Tywin and Jamie Lannister, I’m looking at all of you.) But watching the overarching movement of the plot, and doing so from the very down-to-earth perspective that you see in the show, is why I really enjoy this one. Game of Thrones excels at world-building, although I would like to see more about how Westeros is connected to the rest of the world. Then again, it was already doing quite a bit; the show had a busy second season, developing characters in unusual ways while juggling several wars, a lengthy Daenerys subplot and unspeakable horrors coming out of the North. I’m not convinced that it succeeded with everything, but I love the ambition.

6. This is basically a review of The West Wing’s first four seasons, because I have not seen the last three. As I understand it, they were produced by a different showrunner and were essentially a different show with the same characters. Aaron Sorkin’s four-year effort was a wonderful look inside what the White House might be, filled with a lot of mundane business livened up by people I enjoyed watching go about their business. The West Wing could be a tear-jerker and it could make you laugh helplessly, which is what you get when there’s a master of dialogue writing the script and good actors acting it out.

There are plenty of things to ding the show for. The West Wing tended to go off-message during the first and second seasons, as well as early in the fourth; instead of being an entertaining TV show, it pontificated on the problems of a liberal Democratic administration. My favorite (read: least favorite) of these was the narcissistic fourth-season stint where the staff wondered if President Bartlett was simply too intelligent to reach average voters around the country. And for much of Season 1 it felt as though the show was still trying to find its groove. Late Season 2 through most of Season 4, however, can stand with anything else ever put on television.