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Lots of probably unintended comedy there. I've never quite understood the heterosexual panic over infidelity. To pay attention to the mass media, you'd think that either every married man in America is a cheat, or else that many married women are paranoid to the point of distraction. Some of the signs that your husband might be gay strike me as a bit...odd. A strong preference for anal sex Yes, because as we all know, only gay men have an interest in anal sex. Overreacts to anything concerning gay men -- extreme homophobic behavior Unusually high percentage of male friends who are gay I'm kind of curious to know how these to go together. "Hey, honey, you know that disgusting god-damn faggot at work I told you about? We're going to be working late tonight. And don't forget, this weekend I'm going camping with that filthy perverted queer from my all-male gym and the shit-stabber I met at that bar you're not allowed to ask me about." Watching gay porn on the Internet Answering personal ads on gay Web sites Cell phone bills traced to gay escort services or gay personal dating services Yeah...at this point you may as well just go ahead and add "Likes to have sex with men" to the signs that your husband might be gay...
So...the Mark Foley thing. I'm a bit worn out of the media fascination with closeted gay men at the moment, and more than a little frustrated at the lazy and homophobic "gay=pedophile" slant of the majority of the coverage. Think Progress has a nice summary of the wing-nut wings attempts to frame the debate as "gays are bad" instead of "corruption in politics and protecting sexual predators is bad." John Walsh, of all people, even briefly addressed this. There are aspects of the situation that I'm strongly in two minds about. Thinking back to my own sexually precocious teenage years, I have to say I have some skepticism regarding some of the "oh, those poor boys who don't know how to turn off their instant messages and were exposed to this degeneracy completely and utterly against their will" hand-wringing. But that's not really the issue, since the real story here should be Foley's ethical misconduct in engaging in any kind of inappropriate behavior with a minor, and one he was in a position of authority over at that. Which is not to mention the cover-up. Or the cover-up of the cover-up, as Fox News now seems determined to rewrite history and make Foley a Democrat. And, call me cynical if you must, but there's a part of me that doubts that the story would have made it past the weekend if Foley were chatting inappropriately with seventeen year old girls.
Short Reviews
The second issue of Savage Brothers continues the comedy. Overall, it's a good and entertaining comic. The writing by Cosby and Stokes is sharp and Albuquerque's art is distinctive, attractive and complementary to the tone of the story. There's a certain point, though, about half-way through the book, where you realize that the issue is going to be pretty much all schtick with a few scattered scenes of cartoony mayhem to punctuate the jokes. It's not a bad approach to take with material like this, and it does fit the book, but the all-shtick approach can become wearying.
Second Wave #6 has a similar wearying effect. I still find the art and story enjoyable, but the slow pace of events is starting to become tiresome, especially with the speed that characters are dispatched and introduced. That the majority of the characters are, at this point, written in a broad and generalized fashion, rather than an indepth way, only accentuates the effect. Like Savage Brothers, it's a stylistic approach that, for the most part, actually fits and works with the book, but there's little feel of forward momentum and no indication that the storyline can be indefinitely sustained either.
Dorian Watches Television
I saw the first two episodes of Heroes. Overall, I liked it. There were a few rough patches here and there, but it's already far ahead of...other sci-fi serial dramas in the fact that we're only two episodes in and a) things have actually happened (as opposed to people standing around and talking about things happening), b) an actual plot is in motion, with multiple angles (as opposed to people standing around and waiting for the plot to happen) and c) there's an actual time-line the characters are working under, namely the whole "five weeks before New York goes buh-bye" thing (and, as opposed to an interminable torturing of the audience as they wait patiently for the two or three things of actual import to happen at the 45 minute mark of each episode because the writers and producers are now quite clearly just making this shit up as they go along and have no plan to speak of). No, I'm not planning on watching Lost this season, why do you ask? Anyway...I did notice some grousing amongst the comicratti about their feeling that Heroes isn't sufficiently different from actual comic book storylines. That, basically, they've seen all these tropes explored before. And, yes, these tropes have been explored before. In comic books. This isn't a show for comic book fans. This is a show for everyone else.
The other new show I sampled and enjoyed was Showtimes Dexter, based on Jeff Lindsey's novels about a serial killer working for the Miami police department. It's definitely not a show for everyone, and it requires a certain mindset amenable to the darkest of dark comedy to really get into the show. There's a strong satiric element, both in the inversion of the standard mystery structure to have the killer as the protagonist/investigator, but also of the entire genre of "heroic cop/clever forensics" that have come to dominate the American television detective novel. Instead of brave, relentless cops determined to track down every lead and bring righteous justice to the world, we're given a police force so inept, corrupt and mired in politics that they can't even recognize that they have a serial killer working amongst them.
Your Reward
To thank you for reading all that, here's a picture of Bud Counts.
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