I'll be seein' ya, Bean Blog.

I'm moving my blog over to Wordpress. A full blown explanation is located on the new site, but the main reason I'm leaving Blogger is adaptability. I feel that Blogger is (surprisingly) getting left behind in terms of social media and Web 2.0 capabilities, and as a future information professional whose career is based on evolving and forward-thinking, Blogger just hasn't stayed as relevant as I might've hoped. So hop on over to my new site and give it a look-see. And as Bilbo said, "I regret to announce...this is The End [of Blogger]. I am going now [to Wordpress]. I bid you all a very fond farewell [until you click the link below]. Goodbye!"

Wordpress blog.

-Jon

Steve Jobs: 1955 - 2011

The passing of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs came as quite a surprise to me. I knew he had been battling cancer for many years now, and his resignation as Apple's CEO got many people wondering if his health was significantly failing. I looked at his step down as just a way to slow his pace of life down, to get away from his job and focus on things that were more personal to him. So I was a little shocked when I saw the headline announcing his death.

And I'm surprisingly saddened by the news. I don't find myself mourning the death of strangers too often. The news of someone's loved one passing or of a soldier killed in battle or a young child dying in a tragic accident is always sad to hear, but I'm rarely personally affected. While I certainly wouldn't say I'm personally affected by the passing of Jobs, I do feel more sorrow than I would expect.

I think it's because of this man's legacy. Steve Jobs was an original. His work was groundbreaking and changed the shape of information and how we take it in and experience the world around us. He played a far bigger role in popular culture of the last thirty years than most people would think to attribute to him. A musician or actor can do their craft well and move people and affect change by their status or societal role. But Jobs did more than that. His creativity has changed the scope of an entire industry forever.

Jobs' work in personal and portable computing has essentially defined how I listen to and digest music. That blows my mind. When I became a legitimate musical consumer, it was early on in the decade. That's when Apple released the first iPod. And while I didn't have my own personal iPod until about five years later, the invention of iTunes and its subsequent ubiquity on computers created the essential music listening experience for me. When I think of the absolute best way to really listen to and take in, to digest and absorb and consume, to really engage in a new album, the perfect scenario for me is in my apartment after 9 pm, one lamp on the lowest notch, room temperature about 68°, window open, light breeze, rum and coke in hand, and my laptop hooked up to my Bose computer speakers playing music from iTunes. I love to see those play counts increase. Adults who grew up in the '70s mourn the loss of analog formats and are sad to see so many people not listening to turntables anymore; in fifteen or twenty years I'm going to be sad to see that my kids are listening to music on whatever the new hip thing is rather than on iTunes.

In essence, Jobs provided me with a fundamentally important part of my life experience. Music is so important to me, and I listen to it with his program and his devices. I owe a great deal to his legacy.

Aside from that, it's rare to see such a perfect mix of talent, creativity, business savvy, innovation, and personal and professional aesthetic in our culture today. It's sad to see such a creative mind leave the world. Thanks for everything, Steve. You gave my musical world a home.

-Jon

Martin Sexton.

EDITED (9/07/11): Found this amazing video of Martin performing his song "Hallelujah" live. Please watch. His voice makes my heart feel things.

Last night we had the pleasure of seeing Martin Sexton play a solo show at the Iowa State Fair. I haven't seen a show as good as his in years.

I've known about Martin for a long time. I think my first exposure was probably about 10 years ago, when a cool older kid in youth group who liked weird music introduced Joel and I to the song "Candy." I've listened to him on and off since then, never really falling in love a particular record but enjoying a variety of his songs. This concert opened up a whole new side of his music that I'd never really caught before.

This guy has absolutely one of the most soulful sounds around. His stuff is very Americana without crossing over completely into just straight folk music. I don't want to call it "rock," but that seems most fitting. It's like heartland rock and roots rock and blues rock all jumbled with just the slightest pinch of jazz (he scats from time to time). A lot of songs are very anthemic, but not Coldplay anthemic, more like pre-Born To Run Springsteen anthemic. Very everyman music, like music you'd listen to driving in a dusty old pickup truck, driving towards the Rocky Mountains on a lonely two-lane highway as dusk sets in. It's stuff to sing along to.

He pulls this sound off perfectly in concert. It is incredible to see him perform; he transforms his guitar into the most rhythmic machine and pulls sounds out of it I can't describe. The first thing I noticed when he started to play was just how percussive he was able to make his guitar. He didn't need anybody along with him because he made his one instrument sound like seven instruments. And this was no convoluted guitar pedal manipulation, he just manages to coax an insane array of sounds, both rhythmic and melodic, out of his guitar, as he's singing some crazy lyrical rhythms. With just his voice and guitar, he creates these incredible musical atmospheres that pour over you. Really amazing stuff.

I've never heard a guy sing like this. He has almost a Jack Black-ish voice, but if Jack Black was about seven times better and had the most incredible falsetto ever. Seriously, I don't know how Martin does it, but his falsetto is just so solid. Not a hint of waver, he is as solid singing falsetto as he is singing with his gut. A fitting example would be the song "The Way I Am." In this song, he does this part that is very nearly a yodel, but he transcends into this stirring amalgam of breath and melody, hitting notes just shy of lederhosen. He's actually released two recorded versions of this song, one on his debut album In The Journey and another on his 1998 album The American. I enjoy the earlier version better because you can hear less production on it. He went into a booth and played his guitar and sang into a microphone and behind him you can hear the silence in the studio. He turns a great song into a chilling performance.

I would absolutely recommend going to see him if you get the chance. Something else I noticed in his show was how socially minded he seems to be. A lot of his lyrics have a slight spiritual undertone, and they seem to be very much pro-love. Only a few of his songs hit a bit of a political tone, but without getting overtly pro-left/right he hits more on this social theme of making the world a better place. Depending on what side you fall on, you can interpret it as either right or left. But rather than taking sides in a futile debate of "Which party is better?" his songs promote love and peace and the well-being of humanity. In a society where that worldview might be often touted but rarely acted out, it's refreshing and inspiring to hear these songs.

Martin is phenomenal. I hope you get a chance to see him, or buy a record, or somehow get his music in your head. And I'll leave you with this song, which was his encore at the show we saw. As much as I hate fan-made videos, this song is too good to pass up.

Enjoy.

-Jon

Friends don't let friends....*

I've been dying for something to write about lately and all of a sudden I am buzzed and I thought, duh, why don't I write about why exactly I am buzzed?

Kind of a long story. Since I have a University of Iowa email address, I occasionally get emails from them telling me about research studies that are being conducted. So about a month ago, I got an email from the National Advanced Driving Simulator** calling for people within the ages of 21-35 who drink moderately to participate in a research study about drinking and driving. I thought to myself, "Self***, you are between the ages of 21 and 35 and you drink alcohol in a moderate fashion, you should sign up for this study and see if you get in."

Crazy thing. I emailed back, signed up, and got a call back. I answered all the health/drinking screening questions and lo**** and behold, I was an acceptable candidate for this study. I set up an appointment for an in-person screening and went, did the urine test, a driving sign recognition test, they took height, weight, resting heart rate, asked me some questions about my driving habits and my drinking habits, and then we spent some time on this driving simulator. This is really what the study is all about, and they wanted me to get used to the simulator.

The sim itself is pretty cool, it is made up of four screens, 3 high-def HP computer monitors and one crappier computer monitor with no logo on it. 3 of the screens are on top where a car windshield would be, and the 4th crappy one is where your dashboard instruments would be, and that is what is displayed on it. The 3 high-def screens display the actual simulation environment where the subject is driving. I must say, for a simulator, it's pretty realistic. Obviously the graphics are not real life, you are driving a simulator, but the way your brain interprets the 3 computer screens is crazy, it actually feels like you are driving. When cars pass you, you hear their motor get loud and then recede into the distance, thanks to effective mimicking of the Doppler Effect (nice .gif) by the simulation program. Plus they recreate the environment pretty well. The subject (for this study) drives along a rural country road at 55 MPH, and there are hills, nice cloud formations, the occasional Ford Taurus or USPS truck passes, and one or two lovely country farmhouses. Real great programming.

So the study consists of the subject coming in, driving the sim for 10 minutes to get used to it, then "dosing." The dosing consists of putting on a nose plug and drinking two tall cups of Hawaiian Punch in 10 minutes. The trick is that they may or may not have put a certain amount of Everclear***** into the cups. You're not supposed to know so as not to affect the results of the study. Ha. Give it three minutes and you know whether or not you've consumed their awful liquor. Plus the nose plug is horribly painful to wear, especially on a schnoz like this one.

After you've consumed the drinks, you sit for about an hour to and constantly take breathalyzer tests until you've reached a certain BAC. Once you hit their projected BAC (you aren't supposed to know how much you've taken in for a particular session), you get to drive the sim. And not just drive it, you are put through a divided attention test. The sim looks like the windshield of a real car, and that includes both rear view mirrors. Right next to each mirror there is a little box, and occasionally through your drive there appears an orange arrow. If the arrow is pointing left or right (corresponding to the side it's box is on), you are supposed to press a button on the steering wheel. It an arrow appears that is pointing up, you are supposed to press nothing, just keep driving as normal. Quick recap, you are driving along a rural country two-lane highway, cars occasionally pass, you are supposed to keep a steady pace of 55 MPH, as well as stay in your lane, and whenever an orange arrow appears that is pointing left or right you are supposed to hit your corresponding button. And I did mention that you are buzzed out of your brain correct?

And then after you drive the sim, you wait. And wait. And wait. Since you are picked up at your residence by one of the researchers in the study, for legal reasons, you can only leave when you are dropped off by one of the researchers as well. And they don't let you leave until your BAC is back down to a level of 0.03, which takes approximately 140 hours. Exaggeration, for my first dosing visit it took me about 3-4 hours to get my BAC down to an appropriate level to leave. So really what they're paying you for is the waiting time.

Did I mention this is a compensated study? If a person successfully completes all four dosing visits, along with the initial screening visit, they are paid 365 doll hairs. That's right, three hundred and fifty donuts******! So as Colleen and I are both participating in this study, we will end up with over $700. I have nothing else to say but cha-ching.

So to those who read my blog yet do not approve of drinking, let me implore you that this is in the interest of science and the results will be put to good use by NADS and the University of Iowa. And we get paid, which is a HUGE bonus. Colleen and I are actually funding our Celebratory 2nd Anniversary Trip to Chicago through doing this study together. So not only is this study good and safe for the study of drunk driving, it is essentially funding love and romance. Who can honestly say no to that?

-Jon

*This blog has been written and edited completely while under the influence of alcohol over the course of 3 weeks. Please keep this in mind while noticing any *'s and spelling/grammar errors.

**The first guy you see on the home page is Omar. He has the most intense facial hair I think I've ever seen. Looks like Fred Flintstone.

***I did not actually think these exact words. Referring to the phrase in bold, when people say this in real life, I feel more rage in my body than I do about most things.

****NOT "low"

*****Everclear, NOT Everclear. One time Colleen and I saw Art Alexakis perform a solo acoustic show at Coe College. It was surprisingly good. Not Martin Sexton good (shameless plug) but he was good.

******Here's the thing, this is a reference from the 1979 movie The Jerk starring Steve Martin. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a video of the scene from which this line comes so here is another funny scene. I love how he jumps when he exclaims about the arrival of the new phone book.

?uestlove.

Another blog courtesy of "drinking" and "driving." Pitchfork recently interviewed ?uestlove and as always, it is an entertaining and incredibly informative read. The guy is an absolute music genius, one of the few of our generation whose music references I take very seriously and view as must-adds to my music collection. He's got this intense knowledge of music; today's various music scenes as well as a deep intimacy with soul music of the '60s and '70s. It blows me away.

This blog is inspired by two interviews with ?uest that I read today. One is from 2003, and one is from yesterday (8/19/11). The guy is this mad scientist/chameleon/jack-of-all-trades of music. I certainly would not want to restrict him to a hip hop box because he clearly knows the world outside of it, even though his band (The Roots) is a hip hop group. He makes music references like all he does all day long is listen to music. It's amazing. I want that job. I want the music research job, where you listen to records all day long, read liner notes all day long, figure out who played drums on what record while producing another record, how music connects, how musicians align, continually grow the big picture view of this giant web of music of the last 100 years. It's obvious by how he talks that ?uestlove has this kind of over-arching, encyclopedic knowledge of music.

But what I love the absolute most about ?uestlove is when he talks about D'Angelo. ?uestlove was integral in the creation and production of D's landmark album Voodoo and all I've ever wanted is for a musician to put out something as good as Voodoo in the last ten years. I think some have come close, possibly even matched it, but so, so few. This album is just out of control good. I am talking a kind of good that percolates. Good that sneaks up on you. Good that shows up after the fifteenth listen and gets better every single time. I still hear stuff on this album that I haven't caught before. I've never heard anything as layered as this.

But this isn't the time to actually write about Voodoo in a review sort of way.* What I want to highlight here is how important ?uestlove is to the current music scene. The first interview is eight years old now. ?uestlove and the interviewer chat about the then-current state of black music and how sociopolitical aspects of the day play into black music, but the good stuff comes when they start to chat about working with D'Angelo during the recording of Voodoo. It's such a cool concept; Voodoo was made on the principle that music is art and should be made with the utmost respect to those pioneers who have come before and the unknown visionaries that are to come and always with respect to the art itself. All of these incredibly musical people came together and made this mind-blowing album. It wasn't about money or gaining fans, it was about releasing a product, this work of art that could change how someone listened to music. "If creating music were a political party, then we were sort of being socialists." Why can't more artists think this way?

What I love is how he reinforces this ideal. He mentions going into the studio to record with John Mayer around the time of the interview (?uestlove played drums on "Clarity" off of the Heavier Things album in 2003). And ?uest actually says it was the most fun he'd had playing since recording Voodoo. He said he went in to record the one tune and they ended up jamming out like six new songs. That's incredible. It makes me so excited to know that these two musical brains have collaborated in the past and they are both still making music today, albeit not together. It is a giant relief to me, and it's one of those moments I have so infrequently nowadays when I think "Oh yeah, John Mayer used to be make amazing music and still has the potential to put out a completely life-altering record." Here's to hoping.

Also equally as interesting in this interview is how he profiles the breakdown of D'Angelo. How releasing "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" as a single off of Voodoo contributed to a very sexualized public persona that D'Angelo found hard to overcome. How the tour to support Voodoo quickly unwound because of all of this public hype. It's a sad story, but one that is pretty common in genius artistic circles, as ?uestlove puts it, "...they sabotage their shit."

Fast forward to August '11. In this interview with Pitchfork, ?uestlove speaks a lot more about The Roots and where they are, what it's like to be a house band of a late night host, etc. He does delve into the Soulquarian era a bit at the end, but overall this whole interview shows less his involvement with D'Angelo and more his ground-level view of rap over the last 20 years and how it has changed. This guy has been an integral part of hip-hop for over two decades now, and he has been in various circles as that time has gone by. This is a really interesting read for anyone who likes music, and especially anybody who likes hip hop.

I'm happy we still have ?uestlove around. I desperately hope he continues to coax D'Angelo out of semi-retirement, but at the very least, I hope he keeps collaborating. That is where I think he comes up with the greatest stuff. He has this uncanny ability to pull real music out of artists; he is our generation's Quincy Jones and D'Angelo is his Michael Jackson. I just hope they eventually reconnect and make their Bad.

-Jon

*Not sure I ever will, only because it's hard to write about something that good. All it seriously would be is me repeating over and over how awesome the whole freakin' album is. Each track, "Wow this one is amazing." Doesn't make for the best read. What I should do is accumulate every time I've mentioned it in passing in another post and you'd have basically my every thought about the insanity and genius that is that album.

Les' talk t'som peple.

What I love about culture is that there is always something new to discover and enjoy. A few months ago, Norm MacDonald debuted his Comedy Central effort, Sports Show with Norm MacDonald, and unfortunately, it aired for nine superb episodes before some monkey at Comedy Central didn't see it making the same ratings as second season Tosh.0 episodes, and it got canceled to be replaced by what? Reruns of Tosh.0. Shame on you, Comedy Central.

That's a tangent though. This is about Norm, or rather, what Norm exposed us to. On one of his early episodes, he introduced his "nephew" Kyle and a remote segment he did at a UFC event. It was one of the funniest non-Conan remotes I'd ever seen. Thankfully, it must have gotten a great response, because Kyle was back a few episodes later to do another one.

Kyle's segments are basically him at a sporting event, interviewing athletes or spectators. His interview style is incredible though, it's as though the character he's playing is a person with high-functioning Asperger's syndrome. His speech patterns are so forced, he intentionally slurs his words and doesn't ask fully-formed questions or even speaks with fully-formed sentences, leaving the interviewee struggling to guess what Kyle is saying or asking them. He is completely socially inept, often hugging people unnecessarily or mumbling his words and then really enunciating when asked to repeat himself. He makes everyone feel awkward and uncomfortable during the exchanges, and wow is it funny stuff. Take a look.

His intro to the segment is one of the funniest things I've seen in my life. I found it so funny, in fact, that I went on YouTube to try to find the Kyle remotes once I found out Norm had been canceled. My only luck was that first UFC segment, but on a whim, I clicked on one of the suggested videos on the right sidebar, which I very rarely do. I don't trust YouTube's suggestions, but I'm glad I took the risk this time. What I actually found was a video that Tosh had shown as one of his viewer videos of the week. I remember liking it but not until I watched it again that I realized the main funny guy in it is Kyle! So I watched some more videos uploaded from the YouTube user GoodNeighborStuff.

Turns out Kyle is part of Good Neighbor, a comedy group out of L.A. that does random sketch comedy. Granted, lots of their stuff is weird, a prime example being the end of the following "Toast" video and all of the transitions from Kyle's interview segments. I get that they add to the low-budget, randomness aspect of the segments but I could do without them. But ultimately, Kyle is really the breakout star of this group. Even in the group's actual sketches he plays a watered down version of his bad interviewer character and it is hilarious. For example:

This whole sketch gets very kooky. Colleen pointed out that it veers mildly into the realm of performance art/slam poetry, which neither of us are crazy about. The best part is Kyle's struggle to toast to his friends. I'm not sure if I'm laughing more at the outdated phrases he uses like "mofo" and "pimp" or the tone he uses; it's so earnest in wanting to sound cool and aloof and it comes off completely opposite.

Here are the other videos I found of Kyle and his bad interviewer character. Really funny stuff. I hope he can find another place to showcase this character, because I seriously cannot get enough of it.

Favorite moment: 0:30

Favorite moment: 1:20

Favorite moment: 1:06

Favorite moment: 1:36. I can't stop laughing at the face face he makes at the end of that little blip.

-Jon

The Wire

I just finished up what was, possibly, the best show I have ever watched. Gritty, real, suspenseful, and complex, HBO's The Wire has more to offer the average TV viewer than nearly anything on TV today.

The show primarily follows the Major Crimes Unit of the Baltimore Police Department as they try to crack several high-level cases. This is as simplistic of a description as you can possibly get. The show is incredibly layered, and in reality, it is about the overall social institution of the modern American city and the competing institutions within it. There are several aspects of this show that blew me away as I watched, mainly because it was very challenging. This is no network cookie-cutter TV show. As the viewer, you are thrown into a world you might know nothing about, and expected to keep up with the lingo, a huge array of characters, a deep web of plots that continually intersect and affect each other. I don't think I've ever been challenged so much by a television show, just simply to keep up with what's going on. With this in mind, it's certainly a tough show to get the hang of, but once that is accomplished, once the language is learned and names are remembered, you dive into the world headfirst and are shocked by what you see.

We begin with Jimmy McNulty, an alcoholic murder detective in the Baltimore Police Department, and the story follows the events that occur due to his desire to bring in real criminals. From there, you're introduced to police officers, police commanders, politicians, drug dealers, drug soldiers, drug addicts, longshoremen, stick-up boys (I had never heard the term stick-up boy until I watched The Wire), elementary school kids, journalists, prisoners. This barely starts the list of the cast. You meet so many characters, all of them different, fighting the particular system they are in, trying to change it rather than be changed by it. That's the difficult part about watching this show. Each season deals with a different urban institution: the police department/drug trade, the harbor union, the local political structure, the school system, and the media. Each system is made up of individuals who are figuring out how best to survive. To me, that is what is most hopeful/depressing about the show, that at the core, it is about survival, and how Americans can do nothing but do their best to survive with what they've been given. No one chooses to be born in the poor neighborhoods to parents who don't stick around or who can't provide. Often, the people that we see are people trying to get out of their particular situation, and by doing so they compromise ideals or blend into their system in order to find their way out. It rarely works. This show breaks down the stereotype pushed on us by the American Dream, that if you just push, work hard, keep your nose to the grindstone, you will eventually succeed and be happy. This show takes that concept of success and completely turns it on its head. There are characters who you think find success, but what have they given up to get there? How do they view that success once they find it? The natural instinct in every human being to survive is shown to be innate yet flawed, as so many of us don't have the means to survive, or the concept of survival is far different than we originally expect.

There is a realism in this show that I'd never seen before. Right out of the gate, you are thrown into this world. There is no set-up, no checklist of character names/professions/relationships that are marked off in the first two episodes to ground the viewer into the environment. From the very first episode, the viewer is treated like just another citizen on the streets of this Baltimore, as someone who has lived this life and understands the names and the looks and the language of these people. Which is definitely a difficult thing to wrap your mind around when you're a white, male Iowan. It was a challenge to keep up with this show. We constantly had to pause and discuss what we just saw, or rewind a scene to catch dialogue. But if you can catch up and learn to follow along, holy cow is it rewarding. I've never seen a show that felt so raw. There isn't sugarcoating in this show. It's violent, it's visceral, it's authentic. Nothing feels out of place, or made-for-TV. And that's why when things happen that you don't expect or didn't think could happen, it's jarring. It's easy to look at a city's low-income school system and hope that the teachers are all just trying their best to teach the kids, or that the politicians are actually attempting to make good on their campaign promises to bring reform. Is it really happening that way? It shocked me to see assumptions and conventions I had in my head about how society runs flipped and turned around, and the reason it was really shocking was because I believed the show. There isn't any doubt as you watch that this must be how things are done. Obviously, it's still a TV show, so real life will prove itself to be somewhat different. But it's a testament to the show how incredibly real you feel it all is. Things don't seem faked in The Wire.

One huge element of the show that really adds to that feeling of authenticity is the music. Aside from five instances in the entire run of the program (a song played over season ending montages), all music in the show is diegetic, or environmental music. If you hear a song in a scene, it's because the song is coming from a character's boombox, or from the speakers of a passing car on the street, or the house music from a strip club. There is no atmospheric music, no musical score in the traditional sense. And even more so, the music supervisors of the show added that much more credibility by choosing songs that would legitimately be listened to by citizens of the city. There is a lot of rap in the show's soundtrack, and very East Coast, Washington D.C. area rap. Not lots from New York. The program showcases popular songs from Baltimore artists, things that the people of that city would be listening to. I didn't notice it for a long time either, which is really interesting seeing how much music can add or subtract from the video medium. It just adds an entirely new layer of realism to the show that I love. And the theme song, holy cow it is an awesome one. The song is Way Down In The Hole, originally by Tom Waits, and it is performed by a different artist for each season of the show*. It is a powerful song, and one that wouldn't necessarily be thought of as the best choice for this show's theme song. But that's what makes this show great, there are parallels and painted pictures and metaphors all over the place. As the viewer, you're encouraged to piece things together and make your own opinions about how things are done, how the characters interact and live their lives, and catch on to a vague sense of what the show is trying to say. There is no easy solution or wrap-up at the end of each episode. There are symbols that just barely point to what the show might be trying to communicate; it's up to the viewer to really bridge those gaps.

On the whole, I'd classify this show as a bit of a downer. There are moments where hope shines through, but this is a show where characters (main and peripheral, there is no invincibility spell even for some of the show's most important characters) meet untimely ends, characters fail, efforts to do good or to succeed or to survive absolutely fall flat. This is a show with very few heroes, yet at the same time you find yourself rooting for a wide variety of the characters at different times. The Wire takes the normal procedural cop show format and turns it inside out. In those shows, you have good guys and bad guys, and the good guys are the cops who have to solve a crime perpetrated by one of the bad guy criminals. And at the end of the hour they've solved it and somebody is in jail. Nothing like that in this show. You know how as you grow up, you begin to see things less in terms of black and white and more in terms of a gigantic spectrum of colors and circumstances and finding real truth is difficult? In The Wire's Baltimore, characters seem to be born with that knowledge. And having that knowledge doesn't make life any easier. These are all people who are just trying to find personal success in what they do, and it is very nearly impossible to do so, because in life, there are almost always things that keep people down. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're born, or what you try to do, there are forces beyond your control against which you constantly have to battle. McNulty wants to solve crimes, he wants to be "good police", but what can you do when the mayor puts pressure on the police chief to juke crime stats so that it looks like there is less crime than there really is? The police are told to whatever is necessary to make the stats look good rather than solve real crime. Go for the low-totem, easy-to-bag criminals and make good numbers rather than bring down the kingpins who are responsible for the real, society-affecting crimes. Everybody is looking for a way out of their own personal hell, their own undesirable situation, and the lines begin to blur on who is really succeeding. It's powerful stuff you see in this show.

And that's why I'm labeling it the best show I've ever seen. It tells the best story, and in the best way. This is a story that really matters to people, because whether they know it (or believe it), these cultural issues affect them. It shows how important survival is, but really tests you to figure out what is acceptable to give up in order to survive? We clearly cannot do it on our own power. I think this is a very alien concept to the modern American mind; we can't do it ourselves, we require some outside power to come to our aid. We grow up being told that we can do it, we can achieve all our dreams, as long as we just work hard and apply ourselves. And I think the message that we are incapable of that on our own is a tough concept, but ultimately, a real truth in life and important to remember. It's a struggle to work through too, because the next question is inevitably: where do we find our help? None of these characters ever seem to hit upon it the right way, but it's incredibly entertaining and challenging to see them struggle with the question. Also, there is lots and lots and lots of sex, violence, and language throughout this show. Like I said, no sugarcoating. Be forewarned.

-Jon

* The version by the Blind Boys of Alabama (Season 1) is far and away my favorite.