Although it's virtually impossible to fire a tenured professor, deans and department heads often try to "prune the deadwood" by lowering the person's salary (or refusing to raise it), repeatedly moving the person's lab or office, assigning the person to lots of menial administrative duties, and in general making the person's life uncomfortable enough that they want to leave. Of course, such people rarely get offers from other places, so they remain more often than not.
"I wouldn't trust a man who didn't try to steal a little." - Al Swearengen
SPOILERS! WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
Now that Deadwood is apparently as dead as the title, and now that I've seen all three of what will apparently be the only three seasons ever made of this show, I thought it would be apt to try and tell you how magnificent I think this show is. I might go so far as to say it is the best thing I've ever seen on television. In fact, I would go that far if Season Three didn't have such an unsatisfactory ending. The last few minutes at the end of Season Two were so perfect and complete that I had the same expectations with Season Three. I feel quite sure that David Milch, the man behind the curtain of this wonderful creation, had big ideas for Seasons Four and beyond. Unfortunately, the viewing public seems to have had the same reaction as my wife. In her words, somewhere around the middle of Season Two, she said, "You go ahead and watch it. I'm just not that into it any more." I guess it shouldn't have surprised me that neither she nor enough other viewers would support something this far above the average entertainment option. Nothing I love this deeply seems to be appreciated in its own time, if ever.
When HBO first pulled the plug on this venture, there was a promise of two 2-hour episodes in order to let Mr. Milch tie up the story arc, but even that shallow promise of some sort of redemption seems to be waning as time goes on. I think it's safe to say that when I saw the last episode of Season Three the other day, that was the last new Deadwood show I'll ever see. And the world will be much the sadder for this. One day, when folks are smarter and more aware, they will watch these first three seasons and ask themselves, "Did the writer and director die? That could be the only explanation for the lack of further episodes of this marvelous story." That is, unless the future is the one Mike Judge predicts in Idiocracy (a horrible movie with a very funny beginning and a totally wasted and yet promising premise), in which case no one will ever be watching this show again. Ever. Because it is not for the uneducated or those with short attention spans. It is the closest thing to Shakespeare that I've seen on television since I, Claudius.
Allseeingeye lays out most of the characters for you in the other writeup here. He also summarizes the action of Season One. I can tell you that there are a few more characters who are introduced in the following two seasons, and there are other plot developments, but they are incidental to the acting and, most of all, the writing in this show. When the very language used in a dramatic effort means more to you than the story itself, you know that you're in for something special. At least, I do. If the human race does wind up going the opposite way of Judge's vision, there will be lines from this show quoted for hundreds of years. This show will be studied as a vision of what television could be if it tried hard enough, much as Rod Serling's Twilight Zone is treated today.
When I first started watching this show, I said it was "better than The Sopranos". In fact, it is The Sopranos. It just takes place in a different time and with a different tone. The foul language and the casual violence that drew so many viewers to The Sopranos should have done the same for Deadwood. However, it seems as if New Jersey mobsters reciting dialogue such as the following was much more popular:
Tony (on the phone with Paulie): Listen to me, this guy was a Russian green beret. He was in the ministry of the interior or something. He single-handedly killed 16 Chechen rebels. Be fucking careful. Paulie: All right. (Paulie hangs up the phone.) Christopher: What did he say? Paulie: He said the guy killed 16 Czechoslovakians, and he was an interior decorator. Christopher: Interior decorator? His apartment looked like shit.
Don't get me wrong, here. I loved that episode of The Sopranos, as I did most every other episode. I think it is a great show and deserved every accolade it received. I'm just sorely disappointed that Deadwood didn't get the same sort of recognition.
Either Seth Bullock or Al Swearengen make a better "mob boss" than Tony Soprano. Either Trixie or Joanie Stubbs make a better "kept woman" than Carmela. Dan Dority makes a better Number One than Paulie or Christopher. Cy Tolliver (played by Powers FUCKING Boothe, for Chrissakes) makes a better "rival mob boss" than Johnny Sacramoni. Doc Cochran is ten times a more interesting character than Dr. Jennifer Melfi. While Deadwood really doesn't have anyone in the Big Pussy role that is nearly as good, The Sopranos doesn't have a Calamity Jane. That role played by Robin Weigert is so perfect and compelling that it is the one thing I will never get out of my head. Well, her and Al Swearengen, played by that midget with a huge dick, Ian MacShane. Those two, along with William Sanderson's portrayal of E.B. Farnum, seem to get most of the meat on the bone of the writing in this show, but there's plenty of leftovers for almost everyone. I don't know of any one character on this show that I would have removed to make it better. I cannot say that for The Sopranos.
However, compare that previous dialogue from The Sopranos with some of this:
Al: Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back.
Or, this:
Wild Bill: Some goddamn point a man's due to stop arguing with his-self and feeling twice the goddamn fool he knows he is 'cause he can't be something he tries to be every goddamn day without once getting to dinnertime and fucking it up. I don't want to fight it anymore, understand me Charlie? And I don't want you pissing in my ear about it. Can you let me go to hell the way I want to?
Ellsworth: Well'm, I've got myself a working gold claim. Joanie Stubbs: Well, sir, is that a damn fact? Ellsworth: A hell of a working gold claim, and if we knew each other better I'd throw "fucking" in there somewhere. Joanie Stubbs: If you did I'd try to catch it. Ellsworth: A working fucking gold claim, Joanie, and thank you for allowing me my full range of expression.
E.B.: Some ancient Italian maxim fits our situation, whose particulars escape me. Wolcott: Is the gist that I'm shit out of luck? E.B.: Did they speak that way then?
Or, a soliloquy by E.B. while scrubbing the floor:
You have been tested, Al Swearingen. And your deepest purposes proved: "There's gold on the woman's claim." You might as well have shouted it from the rooftops. (Speaking as Al:) That's why I'm jumping through hoops to get it back. Thorough as I fleeced the fool she married, I will fleece his widow, too. Using loyal associates like Eustace Bailey Farnum, as my go-betweens and dukes. To explain why I want her bought out, I'll make a pretext of my fear of the Pinkertons. I'll throw Farnum a token fee. Why should I reward E.B. with some small, fractional participation in the claim? Or let him even lay by a little security or source of continuing income for his declining years? What's he ever done for me? Except let me terrify him every god-damn day of his life 'till the idea of bowel regularity is a forlorn fucking hope? Not to mention ordering a man killed in one of E.B.'s rooms. So every fucking, free moment of his life, E.B. has to spend scrubbing the blood stains off the god-damn floor. ...to keep him from having to lower his rates. (As himself again:) GODDAMN! Motherfucker.
Goddamn the motherfucking cocksuckers who took this show away from me. For me, this was sturdy timber contributing to a solid vessel. I suppose it was only "useless material" for the average Nielsen viewer.
E.B. Farnum: Be brief. Calamity Jane: Be fucked!
Deadwood got me into some trouble when it was on. First of all, I soaked up a lot of bad language watching it. I soaked it up so much that if mentally squeezed, all that would come out of my mouth was a stream of paint-blistering profanity. I became so used to hearing people referring to each other as pussies, cunts, cocksuckers, and worse that it raised the bar on what sounded really profane to me (as opposed to usual), and lowered the bar in terms of the sorts of things I'd actually say without blushing. This was kind of a problem because I was at this Latin camp full of proto-priests at the time.
I was watching a lot of Deadwood that summer. A LOT. What a shrink would probably call a "maladaptive coping mechanism quantum shit-ton" of Deadwood. At least two episodes a night, every night. And those aren't CBS episodes, friend. Those are HBO episodes. The difference is like human years are to dog years. We're talking just about 120 minutes a night. Most "hour long" shows are actually 41 or so, after the commercials are cut out. So Cussing Up A Storm was kind of my secondary immersion stream that summer. Stream one: Latin. Stream two: every curse word in the English language, married by David Milch and his writers to the exquisitely formal wit and structure of 19th century prose conventions.
Charlie Utter: "I see you have that big knife and hid somewhere on your person you probably got some sort of pussified shootin' instrument, but I am good at first impressions and you are a fucking cunt, and I doubt you fought many men, maybe one. "
The first time I crossed the two streams, I accidentally let loose on a guy named Rod. He was all mad over his girlfriend not obeying him and we were waiting for him to cool off so we could all go see Batman Returns and I said Rod, have a drink to settle your nerves and Let's GO! And he upended a bottle of blackberry brandy into his piehole and I called him a fucking pussy, more or less by accident. One of those moments where your whole brain is too busy being astonished to keep a tight rein on the I Love Lucy Chocolate Factory Conveyor Belt which is the stream of data your mouth is always wanting to say out loud, but your brain keeps swallowing or stuffing in its pockets and its funny hat.
Rod wore football jerseys as actual shirts. Often. So I was really that surprised about the fruit brandy.
Calamity Jane: Maybe I will have a fuckin' drink, for sociability's sake and 'cause I'm a fuckin' drunk. Joanie Stubbs: What's your preference? Calamity Jane: That it ain't been previously swallowed.
I could also mention here that the same summer, Deadwood made me think that whiskey might seriously help me with my priests: living with them type issues. I drank a great deal of whiskey. Quantities of whiskey that a shrink would probably call a "secondary maladaptive coping mechanism metric assload" of whiskey. Most nights I was just doing shots with Al, see, but by the end I was keeping up with Calamity Jane.
Sol: Guidance for me, before you turn to your numbers? Trixie: Tread lightly who lives in hope of pussy.
Deadwood also led me to purchase several pairs too many of prairie boots with louis heels, the sort we call granny boots because we didn't know until Deadwood that they should have been called stripey-stocking-goldcamp-whore-boots. Which is what I now call mine.
And Deadwood made a pirate out of me. A really committed pirate. Being a graduate student, I have no fancy cable television. I don't even have tinfoil on bunny ears. I saw my first episode of Deadwood when I was visiting family. I saw my second at home, on my monitor, after spending nearly a full day learning how to bit-torrent, with the port forwarding and the router and the blah blah blah and picking a program (uTorrent, for the record) and experimenting with speeds and blah technical etc. blah. But it worked. And I was Officially A Pirate. I was getting my Deadwood, and not paying $80 a month for it, either.
The first letter came a few weeks later. It said:
Dear Student, You have been busted downloading an HBO show called DEADWOOD and HBO actually pays attention to stuff like that unlike ABC which is just grateful that someone wants to see the crap they're making and HBO pays someone to trace IP addresses and threatens to prosecute your provider, which is us, because you were boneheaded enough to forget to log off the VPN before doing crime. Now we are being barraged with hostile emails from their lawyers and had to promise to punish you and possibly take away your internet privileges at Moo U, which would make it real difficult for you to do that whole doctorate thing. So please take this easy online quiz to show you know the rules, kthx? Love and puppies, signed, Dean of Student Academic Affairs. P.S. If you do this again we are going to bust a cap in your ass student-dean-style for rizzle.
The above letter has been paraphrased because I lost the original and this way is shorter and true to the spirit of the text. The second time it happened (yeah, I know - not the brightest bulb, etc.) I got this letter:
Dear Student, You really disappoint Papa Bear. You must now come to the office of the Dean of Student Academic Affairs in order to be properly chastened. There will be records in your records and stuff. You are VERY NAUGHTY. Please call this office to schedule your official chastening at your earliest. If you don't, no more interwebs for you. Grrrr, Dean of Student Academic Affairs.
This letter has also been paraphrased. I did, however, tell the nice lady who answered the phone that I was calling to schedule a chastisement. She said "What?" I said "I'm naughty." She said "What?" and then I told her blah blah blah downloading tv shows blah. Whatever.
I have a problem with certain kinds of authority. That will come as a surprise to absolutely nobody.
On my scheduled day of chastisement I attempted to present myself to the appropriate building, but I couldn't find it right away. I walked all up and down 7th street. I looked in the buildings, I looked around the buildings, but I could not find the Office of the Dean of Student Academic Affairs for love, money, all the tea in China, etc.
Finally I went back into a building which had no sign out front. The first floor entrance was as liberally festooned with PC anti-everything posters as a teenaged girl's room would be with Justin Timberlake Tiger Beat centerfolds. They were layered on each other at vertiginous angles that made me feel like I was falling down a moralizing rabbit hole. Don't: Sexually Harrass! Discriminate! Assume things! That is Stereotyping! Don't: fail to make sure your date says YES three times and also: get it in writing! Don't: use profanity! Or slang terms that might have ethnic connotations! Don't drink! Don't drive! Don't lie! cheat! steal! Or use harsh language! All noble and good policies, truly: words to live by, at least most of them most of the time if not all of them all of the time. But definitely not all in my face at the same time in large print, please. I mean, there were so many posters. It was wallpaper for the parallel universe which is a cross between 1984, A Clockwork Orange, and Lady Beebee's Finishing School for Acting Like Nice Boys and Girls Who Don't Ever.
But it was the only building left to try, so this time I actually braved a corner, and asked a lady where I was, and she said to me: you are in the right place, this is the office of the Dean of Student Academic Affairs. And I said: Great, I'm here to be chastised. And she said: Oh it's you, you're late. And I said: Yes, I got lost. There was no sign.
That was when the dean showed up. I hated him immediately, and with a fiery, visceral passion. I wanted to punch him in the nads and run away. Because he was the most horrible and intolerable sort of academic: he was a Hey! Look At My Amusing Tie And Countercultural Gray Ponytail! Academic, also known as a Hippie Who Needs To Move On.
And the Dean of Student Academic Affairs said: "There is no sign because frat boys stole it."
You know how in old Mel Blanc cartoons where there's a hunting dog it sproings into a quivering arrow of attention when it sees a wabbit? Broiiiinggggg!
The only thing I hate more than a HLAMATCGPA is a HLAMATCGPA hypocrite.
"How do you know it was frat boys?" I queried mildly, tilting my head at him as girlishly and innocuously as I could.
Dean:"Of course it was frat boys." AM:"But how do you know it was frat boys?" Dean:"Someone saw them." AM:"And how did they know that they were frat boys?" Now he is starting to look annoyed. Dean:"Because they were wearing suits." AM:"Frat boys don't wear suits as a rule. How do you know it wasn't a group of Mormons? Or possibly bankers." Dean:"Because Mormons don't steal signs. Frat boys steal signs." Pause. AM:"There is an irrational climate of hatred, bigotry, and stereotyping against the Greek system that you are perpetuating by making groundless attacks against an entire cohort of undergraduate students with NO PROOF whatsoever, and I am truly shocked to hear this kind of insensitive, bigoted talk in this office. I am sure that no student who is also participating in the Greek system feels they can receive fair and equable treatment at this university if that's the sort of thing the dean feels comfortable saying to students." Stare-off.
Then he ran away. No, really. Without another word.
Al Swearingen: Yankton cocksucker!
I love Deadwood. It's the most beautifully written TV ever, even including the Whedonverse (and I loves me some Joss Whedon). The ensemble cast is amazing. Every episode is worth watching. Every. Single. One. And I loved it for being a bad influence. It might bring out some latent anti-authoritarian frontier roughneck in you, too.
And since these days most of us are citified Yankton pussies who haven't fought many men, maybe not even one, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Dead"wood` (?), n.
1. Naut.
A mass of timbers built into the bow and stern of a vessel to give solidity.
2.
Dead trees or branches; useless material.
© Webster 1913.
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