Chateau Lloyd

Long-tine readers know that I've been intermittently acquiring vintage TV shows, which are a nice way to fill a bit of an evening before bed.  They don't require much engagement, have a nice nostalgic flavor and many of them have held up surprisingly well.

However, just about every TV series has its low points, and it was only recently that long-form plot arc were introduced to American productions.  This lends it self to high-grading the shows, watching only the best portions of the best seasons.

Typically, this is found in the second season, when the cast, crew and writers have found their rhythm.  I've been watching the second season of Miami Vice for this reason and it is outstanding.  This was the peak of the show, where its music, style, and action all achieved perfection.

The nice thing about having a library is that one has options.  I streamed Remington Steele and am thinking of adding that and Moonlighting to my collection.  One of my kids asked for all of MASH and I may dip into that as well.  Again, only the best years.

One of the themes of my criticism of modern entertainment is that while we may make fun of old shows and their tropes, they still had much better production values, acting and were more entertaining than what we have today.  Yes, the TV audience of the 1980s had less options, but competition was fierce to get those big numbers.  A #1 rated show would draw a minimum of 40 million eyeballs, which was a huge commercial opportunity.  It's interesting to see that with far more views, "hit" shows have half of that viewership.

As I pointed out during the Bleeding Fool Battlestar Galactica Wars, for all the critical acclaim of the reboot, its numbers were objectively terrible.  It would not have survived to a second season in the broadcast television era.

Over the weekend someone recommended this lengthy essay about mental illness in general and delusional behavior in particular.  It is a long, repetitive read, and the summary version is that an increasing number of people seem unable to deal with reality and resort to creating delusions as a way of avoiding reality.

I think there are two reasons why this kind of behavior is even possible.

The first, and probably the easiest to fix, is that we live in a secular society driven by materialism.  As the pandemic lockdown showed, most of our elites regard religion as a secondary thing rather than a first thing.  Religion to them is a form of self-help, fine so long as it doesn't challenge the secular materialist worldview.

This is why the UK feels it appropriate to ban prayers near abortion mills.  Prayer is not a human right, it's a thing you are permitted to do only if no one else objects (unless you are Muslim, of course).

Restoring religion - and in particular, Christianity - to its rightful place at the center of Western civilization has seemed like an insurmountable challenge, but we are now seeing a wide-ranging revival, in part because Christians have ceased trying to be "nice" and are returning to moral language and moral condemnation.

Surging Bible sales are another indicator that people feel the "faith of things" has failed.

To bow before God is to be humble and remain grounded.  Christianity teaches a rational and ordered worldview, and also that good people can - through no fault of their own - experience bad things.  The key is to understand why, to learn from them, and continue in the faith.  I will say that I am having the worst Lent of my life.  Between sickness, a painful medical procedure with lengthy recovery, and the normal fasting, I'm not having a good time.

On the other hand, I'm having a great time, because this is some serious Lenten suffering.  What a blessing to offer up all this misery to God!  I have taken so much for granted and as I heal, I rejoice in so many small things.

This leads us to the larger problem, which is that society is increasingly alienated from actual work, and our connection with the natural world has been severed.  The woman in the essay is a programmer, which means her labor has no direct connection to her pay.  She pushes buttons and gets (digital) money in return.

This is a far cry from tilling a garden and watching it crow, or raising livestock.  All of her relationships are built around an artificial Californian society that was built in a couple of generations without any roots or continuity.  It is no accident that Hollywood dwells so much on suburban alienation.  Few, if any, have the sense of rootedness one finds in middle America.

As the lockdowns slowly lifted, I went to northern Michigan and sat on the beach at Rogers City, watching waves come crashing into the shore via a strong north wind.  I sat there for about an hour, watching the sun set over a vast sky and darkening horizon.  The enormity of it all exposed how futile it is think that we are worth of CIA surveillance or trans-national hit teams.  In the greater scheme, we are as insignificant as one of the rocks on the shore, and as fleeting as a frothing wave.

When you are in the world, interacting with it, you become aware of how many other stories are taking place around you.  The prayer intentions at Mass sketch out other hardships, deaths and illnesses.  The baptismal announcements and weddings also point to new things emerging, seemingly spontaneously.  You didn't will them, had nothing to do with them, yet there they are.

For a time, people are able to function in the abstract, God-free environment, usually because they are preoccupied with building up their wealth and status.  They are worshipping the god of the two-car garage, and it can be quite fulfilling at first.

But after a while, the pursuit of things and status rings hollow and is no longer fulfilling.  Without any spiritual formation or connection to tangible things, the mind will start roving, seeking meaning in any way it can.

The author stresses that people can't be forced out of a delusion, but there are two answers to this.  The first is that one can't replace something with nothing - you cannot take away one vision without another to replace it.

In addition, modern American society has uniquely evolved to cater to these people through cheap transportation, easy movement, and our boundless affluence.  Whether one mooches off of wealthy relatives or exploits public assistance, it's remarkably easy to start over, and repeat the cycle without learning anything, and the essay shows this quite clearly.

The American obsession with individualism - even when it is deeply harmful - buttresses this.  We used to lock people up for their own good, but that became viewed as totalitarian.  It is now seen as better to tolerate sidewalk encampments than put people in supervised living where they do various chores to renew their understanding how work is connected to fulfilment, and labor can have a tangible, immediate result.

Society itself now labors under several delusions regarding fantastic Russian conspiracies, hidden Nazi cells, and the notion than men can actually become women.  These beliefs substitute for actual faith, and lead to still further fantastic notions that allowing one's lawn to grow wild in May will please Gaia or something.

And yes, there is a spiritual aspect to this as well, because demons love souls in torment.  The wrath and energy that comes with these delusions helps sustain them.  It is like a drug, and a great many people are addicted to it.

The upshot is that these people don't have a single thing go wrong, and many of them have multiple factors that drive them into insanity and keep them there.  Reason is useless, and in many cases I think an exorcist is more effective than a therapist.

Val Kilmer has died, and it is not particularly surprising.  The image he put forth in his documentary a few years ago was not one of a healthy man.

In many ways, his appearance in Top Gun: Maverick was something of a final sendoff, and the scene of his final farewell to Tom Cruise's character is deeply moving, in large part because the vocal limitations on Kilmer were real.

In many ways, the end of "Iceman" paralleled that of the actor who played him.  In his prime, Kilmer was outstanding, but more than anything else, his illness destroyed any attempt at him making a comeback.  The contrast between Kilmer and Cruise was remarkable, and again, added to the gravity of the moment.

As I wrote before, Kilmer professed to be a Christian, but it was not much in evidence, even in the documentary.

Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that he died in Christ and that he and his family find some measure of comfort through that.

It has taken a long time, but my DVD collection has finally reached maturity.  It is at the point where I have films from multiple genres, multiple periods and while there is still some room for expansion, I'm able to find something to watch without much effort.

Ironically, it is far more comprehensive than streaming services like Amazon, since these days they have a few classics and mostly box office failures and second-rate streaming shows.

Building any collection can be a painstaking process, and it is easy to veer into undisciplined or speculative buying.  I've avoided that for the most part, instead going with known quantities or - when I do take a risk - ensure that it's one with more upside than downside.  Storage is becoming an issue, but DVDs are still quite compact, easier to store than books or VHS tapes.  An entire season of a show takes up less space than a single VHS cassette, which is helpful for those of us who go that way.

Most modern entertainment is garbage warmed over, but there are faint signs that there is talent within Hollywood that could re-emerge if conditions permitted.  It is not that long ago that shows like Justified were on the air, and the production teams are surely still capable of turning out quality work.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying the ability to sift through an embarrassment of cinematic riches whenever I please.

Back in 2013, we still had a dish, and watched lots of the various streaming channels.  That was supposed the new Golden Age of television, thanks to programs like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Justified, and so on.  While Hollywood was busy getting woke, the streaming services and networks were able to produce long-form dramas without being bound by a 22-episode season.  What was more, it was easy to catch up on a sleeper hit, and when each season was released, one could binge-watch it in a week or so.

That time has passed, but it produced a number of shows available on DVD, and one of them we liked was The White Queen, a series based on Philippa Gregory's historical novels of the Wars of the Roses.

The concept of telling history through the eyes of women is nothing new, and goes back to the beginning of writing.  For every story of a king or warrior, there are parallel tales of the women who influenced them.  Feminists like to pretend that The Patriarchy silenced women, but most have never bothered to read the Bible or Homer or any other ancient work.

Anyhow, the story of Elizabeth Woodville lends itself to this approach and it is one of those remarkable historic events that turns everything upside down.  For those who don't know, one day King Edward IV is riding along after having won a battle  and sees a beautiful young woman waiting by the side of the road for news of her husband, who was a knight on the side opposing Edward (the Lancastrians).  She learns she is a widow, but the King offers to "comfort" her.  Remarkably she refuses his advances and insists that he marry if he wants to get it on.  So he does.

This completely upends the power structure in England, because it is bitterly divided between competing factions vying for control, and Edward was supposed to make a political marriage, not a romantic one.  Anyhow, drama ensues.

This is not a lavishly produced show, but it does a good job of conveying the period, and there's some battles and sword fights because leading characters did die in the conflict.  In fact, the Wars of the Roses were something of a sideshow for the commoners but a bloodbath for the nobility, and many royal lines were 'pruned' from the family tree.

The show has excellent performances, and follows the history reasonably well, but does veer into the all-to-familiar conventions of showing secret witchcraft influencing events and indulging in pretty graphic sex scenes, which at this point my life I find really boring.  It get it, they had sex.  Why is this is any way interesting to watch?

If one knows the history well, it will be maddening at times, but it does try to keep things reasonably close to accurate, and the various personalities are presenting in interesting ways.  The dynamics of the York brothers is well done, as is the way the various factions maneuver for control. 

I will particularly single out Amanda Hale's Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, who comes across as an absolute fanatic.  Given that her son was something like 10th in the line of succession when the story starts, I'm not sure I buy the notion that she thought he could somehow overcome Henry VI, his son Edward, the three York brothers (Edward, Richard and George), and their sons and potential sons.  It think in reality it was more of a "Well, who is left?  You're up, Henry!"

Anyway, I've watched it through a couple of times, and it still holds up well.  Folks who like Game of Thrones will particularly enjoy this, in large part because the ending makes sense.  Indeed, once you see it, you'll realize who derivative George R.R. Martin's work was.

One of the Youtubers I watch, The Critical Drinker, recently highlighted a TV movies I'd never heard of before: Threads.  This apparently the British version of The Day After.  Both films attempt to depict what a nuclear conflict would actually be like with the not-so-subtle subtext that the US government would be in large part responsible for any nuclear exchange.

To put it another way, better Red than dead.

Anyhow, I never saw The Day After and feel no need to do.  I'm of the same mind regarding Threads, because I find the topic somewhat pointless and based on a stack of false premises, the most important one being: the worst thing in the world is death.

Again, I haven't watched either movie, though I have read plot synopsis, and the thrust of both is that lots of people dying is bad and it's terrible to not have nice things anymore.  Both overemphasize the lethality of nuclear fallout (very common, the same thing happened in the HBO Chernobyl series), and put great emphasis on the breakdown of society.

The thing is, we know how functional societies response to catastrophes.  We've had Hurricane Katrina and actual atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Guess what?  Both Japanese cities are healthier and safer than Detroit or Chicago, which remain dangerous because of existing social conditions, not a one-time event.

Hollywood continues to push narratives where the only thing standing between our current sense of order and prosperity and utter bloodthirsty anarchy is some weird investment in the police or something.  Once the fear of punishment is withdrawn, even the inhabitants of quiet rural towns will suddenly start slaughtering one another.

This tells us far more about the authors than it does about society.  Remember, The Lord of the Flies was based upon the author's insecurities, not observable reality.  It turns out that a bunch of Christian boys ended up shipwrecked during WW II and they turned out fine.  They worked together, dividing up tasks and continuing to pray.  It could be a good story, if only someone wanted to tell it.

This brings me to another trope, which is that in a crisis, the militia/reservists/National Guard will immediately transform into SS Einsatzgruppen, lustily shooting their family, friends and neighbors because reasons.

I mean, at a certain level I get that these are horror films, wild fantasies designed to scare otherwise bored people out of their minds.

But at the same time they are only scary to people with no knowledge of God, people for whom death is the ultimate horror rather than merely a transition.

We all are going to die.  In fact, we will be dead far longer than we will be alive, and that's why religious people spend so much time in preparation for the life to come.  I think a lot of the horror of these films is that people might survive and then have to live for 30+ years until someone reinvents DVDs or something.

Over the last few weeks I've intermittently been watching Nobel House, a 1988 miniseries based on the best-selling James Clavell novel.

The book was originally set in the 1960s, but was seamlessly brought into the late 1980s, and as such the 1997 handover of the Crown Colony to the Peoples' Republic of China loomed large.

This is a classic tale of corporate raiding ala Wall Street or Dynasty, but with a unique Asian twist.  Hong Kong is a fascinating place, and it dominated Clavell's thoughts for good reason.

In many ways, it is very much of its time, a Miami Vice set in the far east.  There are multiple levels of intrigue and of course remarkable shifts of fortune.  Pierce Brosnan, fresh from his Remington Steele work, is outstanding as Ian Dunross, heir and CEO to Noble House, a British firm founded along with the colony during the Opium Wars.  Noble House has moved on from opium and has weathered the Pacific War and Chinese Civil War, but struggles amidst the wild west 1980s environment of corporate raiders.  As the "Tai Pan" of Noble House, Dunross holds a special place in Hong Kong society, which is modern, cosmopolitan, but still beholden to Chinese traditions.

One of these involves a favor granted by a previous Tai Pan, signified by a broken coin.  Amidst corporate intrigue, the possession of this favor becomes a tale unto itself, and the notion of a modern multi-national business being locked into such agreements seems impossible today.  There is of course an American angle, which is naturally of the Gordon Gekko "greed is good" mentality, but one of the joys of the show is watching the naiive Americans get completely lost in the maze of Hong Kong corporate politics.

Opposing Brosnan is none other than John Rhys-Davies, a rival CEO pledged to destroy Noble House, and I took great joy in this show of Welsh-Irish animosity.  Go Celts!  It is my firm intention to snag this on DVD because it was fun to watch and I'm sure I missed a few things.

What is one to think of the British Establishment's fanatical attempt to stamp out pro-life prayers?

Even silent prayer is being treated as a criminal act.  Setting aside the fact that the constables should sure have more pressing matters, does this obsession with stopping prayer not attest to its potency?

British society is far more secular and far less Christian than ours.  The Church of England is a hollow shell, reduced to holding raves and silent discos in its otherwise empty cathedrals.  Catholicism is slowly returning, but Catholics remain a small minority.

Note also that there is almost no part of the Establishment that objects to abortion.  The "Conservative" Tories are just as supportive of it as Labour.

All of which is to say that there is no rational explanation for caring whether random people pause on the sidewalk near an abortion mill and think things.  Atheists must surely regard these antics as pathetic, pointless, and silly, and therefore no noticed should be taken of them.

But notice is being taken, a lot of notice, to the point that this is regarded as a serious matter regarding a strong police response.

More than anything else, this convinces me of the power of prayer, and its importance in spiritual warfare.  Otherwise, why would anyone care?  Clearly someone can sense what is going on, and they want this praying business stopped right now.

Our British cousins like to pretend that they are the wellspring of liberal democratic government, but they also have a sordid history of killing people for their religious beliefs.  The British Empire emancipated slaves before Catholics, and even today, Catholics are subject to constant slander and abuse.  Just about every British period piece shows Catholics as corrupt, self-flagellating weirdos.  (Seriously, they insert scenes of self-flagellation for no reason.  It's weird.)

Clearly the slow growth of the Catholic faith and the restoration of ancient shrines like Our Lady of Walsingham is raising some hackles and as with other persecutions, I think this will also ultimately prove self-defeating.

Creating new martyrs has never worked.  If burning people at the stake failed to stamp out British Catholicism, harassing pensioners is hardly going to move the needle.  But what it will do is cause people to wonder why these victims are so willing to suffer for their cause.  Why do they chose a prison cell over the comfort of their home? 

Once the questions start, people become more open to the answers that they previously overlooked.

The sordid details emerging from the arrest of music impresario Sean Combs (variously known as "Puff Daddy" and "P. Diddy") highlights the fact that the hedonism exemplified by Hollywood is much worse than the public knows.

This should not be surprising since we have a steady stream of escapees with lurid stories to tell.  Show business has always been sordid and the refuge of perverts, but in large part because of residual World War II patriotism and shrewd marketing, the film industry maintained the illusion that while their morality was certainly looser than that of the mainstream, it was still within the outer bounds of decency.

The infamous casting couch, for example, was in large part consensual.  Yes, young women (and men!) could be pressured to trade sex for money and fame, perhaps even compelled to, but entertainment is always a Faustian bargain.  

To put it another way, if your a sexually chaste, modest person, show business isn't for you.  It belongs to the amoral and ambitious.

For a while, folks thought that there was a floor to the depravity, but as with every human society freed from moral restraint, there are no naturally stopping points.  Adultery yields to orgies which include sodomy and then rape, incest and pederasty all become possible because there is no underlying morality to deny them.

It's not surprising or implausible that Combs could launch massive orgies involving every possible vice and that much of Hollywood attended them.  Like the ancient pagan cults, membership was a mark of distinction and initiation into the sacred mysterious necessarily involved moral outrages to bind oneself to the group.  This the same thing, and it is no accident that the most closely held secret in the world is the Epstein client list.  They protect their own.

Like everything else, the sports world is in something of a strange place.  The elites in society have decided that a person's sex is now unknowable, hence the spectacle of men dominating Olympic women's boxing.

The Olympic authorities confess that they are at a loss to find a reliable "scientific" way to tell men and women apart.  This is nonsense, but that's the official lie.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote how honesty is in short supply, and this is a great example of it.

Another example also emerged this week as the NCAA finally released the report of its earlier investigation into the University of Michigan's football program.  For those not following the story closely, there are two scandals at the university, the first involving impermissible recruiting during the Covid period, the second involving on-field cheating via prohibited in-person scouting.

The report for the former offenses is finally available and it is quite telling.  To many commentators, recruiting rules are an annoyance and violations regularly occur.  The NCAA digging into this is therefore a "nothingburger," unworthy of much attention.

However, the antics of now-former Michigan Head Coach Jim Harbaugh elevated it to one of national importance, in part because Harbaugh claimed the whole affair was the result of him buying a hungry kid a cheeseburger.

As the report makes clear, this was a bald-faced lie.  In the first place, Harbaugh bought two recruits (and their fathers) meals one two different occasions.  The only cheesburger consumed was the one Harbaugh himself ordered for breakfast.  Far more significant was the fact that this was during a national "dead period" for recruiting which was imposed to try to limit Covid exposure imposed in 2020.  Harbaugh violated this, brought recruits on campus, worked out with them, and in the end was rewarded with one of them joining his team.

Two other schools (Arizona State University and the Air Force Academy) also violated these rules, but what set Harbaugh apart was how he not only lied to investigators, his program as a whole did as much as possible to obstruct the investigation.  Indeed, Harbaugh (a self-identified Catholic) out did St. Peter by lying four times rather than three.

Moreover, they were stupid, easily disprovable lies.

The significance of this is the reaction to the University of Michigan and its fanbase: they are 100% behind Harbaugh, so much so that he has been invited to be an honorary team captain for their season opener in three weeks.

This is a truly remarkable development.  Not long ago, someone this publicly dishonest would be shunned by society.  

Instead, he is venerated and the reason is that in his final three years as Michigan's head coach, he defeated their hated rival Ohio State, and won three conference titles and a national championship.

These achievements are tainted by allegations of cheating, and the initial report into that is due shortly, but apparently cheating no longer matters.  Winning is what matters.

In fact, media reports indicate that while the university is willing to admit wrongdoing and accept various penalties, vacating the games is not among them.  They desperately want to cling to a tainted record which absolutely no one else will respect.

I am curious as to how the academic side of the university feels about this, especially their schools of medicine and law, which are widely respected.  Surely the faculty and alumni would not want to be associated with a school that believes cheating is okay so long as it works, but these are strange times.