Army Wives Season One – A Review

Ex-Wives Club. Starter Wife. Footballer’s Wives. The Real Housewives of Orange County. Desperate Housewives. Army Wives. I’m not sure, but I think someone senses a demographic that needs to be tapped into. Truth be told, I hadn’t heard of this show (and probably couldn’t find the Lifetime channel with a color coded guide on my cable menu) until Presidential candidates started doing commercials for it. However, once I heard the premise, I couldn’t help but think of my friend who’s a recent army wife as well as my sister who is also an Army wife (though her husband is a Navy husband – both taking turns serving overseas).

“Human life isn’t about perfection. It is about accepting the flawed, the misguided parts of ourselves.” –CJ Holden

Executive producer Mark Gordon and creator Katherine Fugate based the show on a journalist’s book about Army wives, so the show features an ensemble of richly developed characters. Claudia Joy Holden (Dana Delaney, whose sexiness is derived from her strength, is at home in this role as she was on NYPD Blue; a much better fit than her brief stint on CSI: Miami) takes charge as the wife of Colonel Michael Holden (Brian McNamara). Roxy LeBlanc (Sally Pressman) is the white trash intruder bearing two kids from two different men who marries Trevor (Drew Fuller) after only knowing him a few days. Denise (JAG’s Catherine Bell), wife of larger than life hero, Major Frank Sherwood (Terry Serpico), is left to fend for her home despite an abusive son Jeremy (Richard Bryant). Not all the Army wives are women as Roland Burton (Sterling K. Brown) is the spouse of a lieutenant colonel wife who suffers post-traumatic stress syndrome after having served two years active duty in Afghanistan. This group of diverse people thrown together bonds over one of them—ex-cop Pamela (Brigid Brannagh), who acts as a surrogate to earn some extra cash—giving birth to twins while on a pool table.

“Maybe there are higher orders we should be following.” –Dr. Roland Burton

The easy comparison to make with this type of show would be to The Unit. Without the action driven focus, Army Wives allows the extra dimension of exclusively exploring the world of military wives. The wives aren’t wilting flowers either, having to hold together marriages/families largely in the absence of their spouses. Yet in many ways, their world is largely like ours. A world where image counts for more than it should, a world ruled by gossip, where families struggle with all matter of money issues, and the basic crisis of fitting in and finding community.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe. The pain is the same.” –CJ Holden

The thing that struck me was the idea of counting the cost of the life you choose. To join the Army means adhering to a chosen way of life. Military life can be every bit as much a calling, not for everyone, where a chosen few are called out for a special purpose. They choose a way of life, with its own code, to serve others, which sometimes runs contrary to both the needs of their family as well as their personal code. And their families are along for the journey. To be a part of such a group requires sacrifice, faith, and a community of relationships to support you during those inevitable dark and trying times.

“War does horrible things to people but it shouldn’t stop us from being human.” –Dr. Roland Burton

While Hollywood movies have struggled to make relevant movies with the Iraq War as a backdrop, television has had more success. Army Wives achieves a balance of being sexy, smart, and compelling without being condescending to its audience. The writing is on point, though I hate the trend of season climaxes that are too “big” (I lead a fairly interesting life. I haven’t witnessed any explosions nor has anyone I known blown up, unlike half of the season finales from last year. Although, a car caught fire in a Chick Fil A parking lot the other day, so that’s close). The stories, when they are “small”, dwelling on the everyday matters of life, are when the series fully hits home.


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Profound Simplicity – A Few Questions

“I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” –Psalms 16:8

It’s easy for us to slip into autopilot and call it our lives. The busyness of our routines blinding us, even if it’s good work. We still need to find that quiet place, that Sabbath, when we can direct most of our thoughts toward God and abide in him. So a few questions:

-Where do you find yourself most aware of God?
-What do you think is your greatest distraction?
-What hinders you from noticing God in the every day?
-Has there been a point in your life when God seemed to communicate with you?
-What was it like? How did you respond to it?

“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” –Psalms 16:11


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Timmy!

I’ve just completed a South Park marathon of seasons 4 – 10. In my continuing efforts to annoy the Internet, I’m declaring today a South Park Day. All correspondence will be responded to with “Timmy!”

In fact, I encourage all of you Internet readers to do the same with all of your interactions.

(This probably isn’t the best day to pour your heart out to me in an e-mail, offer me a book deal, or ask me any deep questions. In fact, this is exactly why I don’t get the pulpit on Sundays.)

In fact, I may just back away from the Interwebz while I’m in this mood.

TIMMY!!!


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What Shall I Tell My Children Who Are Black - A Poem

By Dr Margaret Burroughs
What shall I tell my children who are black
Of what it means to be a captive in this dark skin?
What shall I tell my dear one, fruit of my womb,
of how beautiful they are when everywhere they turn
they are faced with abhorrence of everything that is black.
The night is black and so is the boogyman.
Villains are black with black hearts.
A black cow gives no milk. A black hen lays no eggs.
Storm clouds, black, black is evil
and evil is black and devil's food is black...
What shall I tell my dear ones raised in a white world
A place where white has been made to represent
all that is good and pure and fine and decent,
where clouds are white and dolls, and heaven
surely is a white, white place with angels
robed in white, and cotton candy and ice cream
and milk and ruffled Sunday dresses
and dream houses and long sleek cadilacs
and Angel's food is white... all, all... white.
What can I say therefore, when my child
Comes home in tears because a playmate
Has called him black, big lipped, flatnosed and nappy headed?
What will he think when I dry his tears and whisper,
"Yes, that's true. But no less beautiful and dear."
How shall I lift up his head, get him to square
his shoulders, look his adversaries in the eye,
confident in the knowledge of his worth.
Serene under his sable skin and proud of his own beauty?
What can I do to give him strength
That he may come through life's adversities
As a whole human being unwarped and human in a world
Of biased laws and inhuman practices, that he might
Survive. And survive he must! For who knows?
Perhaps this black child here bears the genius
To discover the cure for... cancer
Or to chart the course for exploration of the universe.
So, he must survive for the the good of all humanity.
He must and will survive.
I have drunk deeply of late from the fountain
of my black culture, sat at the knee of and learned
from mother Africa, discovered the truth of my heritage.
The truth, so often obscured and omitted.
And I find I have much to say to my black children.
I will lift up their heads in proud blackness
with the story of their fathers and their father's fathers.
And I shall take them into a way back time
of kings and queens who ruled the Nile,
and measured the stars and discovered the laws of mathematics.
I will tell them of a black people upon whose backs have been built
the wealth of three continents.
I will tell him this and more.
And knowledge of his heritage shall be his weapon and his armor;
It will make him strong enough to win any battle he may face.
And since this story is so often obscured,
I must sacrifice to find it for my children,
even as I sacrifice to feed, clothe and shelter them.
So this I will do for them if I love them.
None will do it for me.
I must find the truth of heritage for myself and pass it on to them.
In years to come, I believe because I have armed them with the truth,
my children and their children's children will venerate me.
For it is the truth that will make us free!

Dr. Margaret Burroughs founded of the DuSable Museum of African American History and Art in Chicago, IL, the first Black museum in the United States


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Juneteenth and July 4th

Frederick Douglass, in his speech "What To The American Slave Is Your 4th Of July?", said

“Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony.”

Sometimes I feel sorry for America. Told from birth about how it is the embodiment of a Dream with a Destiny to fulfill. To be an example to others, that burning light of freedom – a story so mythic that it’s message must be spread from nation to nation.

It’s early childhood proved brutal as it tried to divine its messianic mission. Despite its Puritanical upbringing, it stumbled through the tragedy of the Native Americans followed by the national shame of slavery. Adding to its dysfunctional development were two world wars separated by a Depression, all of which shaped its consciousness and worldview.

The 1960s were like its teenage/college years, filled with rebellion, freedom, experimentation and a searching for itself. These were quickly followed by a cynical wave of disillusionment. By the 1980s, it was taking the first steps toward adulthood and now, despite a brief return to its mother’s basement, attempts to step forward to navigate a new millennium.

Once again, June 19th—Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day as it commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas—went under-celebrated. But I also value the Fourth of July and the dream of the nation and continue to work toward seeing that dream realized. So much has changed since Frederick Douglass’ day, so many things haven’t, but I wouldn’t live anywhere else.


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Don Pendleton’s The Executioner – A Review

“A Gun Toting Angel”

Written by: Doug Wojtowicz
Drawn by: SL Gallant
Published by IDW Publishing

“I have given up any chance at sedentary life, the privilege of being protected and cared for. When Animal Man destroyed my family, I sought out my own way to defend society, to protect those who cannot fight. And the surest lesson I learned as a protector is to place myself between the violence I seek to end, and those who would be harmed.” –Mack Bolan, the Executioner

I’m not a fan of the Punisher. One note and one dimensional, I doubted that I would have any more luck with the character who inspired his creation. Don Pendleton’s The Executioner—especially under the pen of Doug Wojtowicz, popular writer of The Executioner series (which numbers in the hundreds)—has an 80s/90s Punisher feel to it, with a couple of his inherent flaws.

The Executioner remains every bit the cipher he began the story as. We know his name. Mack Bolan. It even sounds like an action movie character’s name (a strong, one syllable name; I guess “Steel” or “Hawk” were taken).We don’t get inside his head at all and it’s hard to relate to someone you don’t know. We’re told a lot about him—though we’re never sure how much is true—and he becomes essentially a ghost in his own book, little more than a boogeyman for the criminal underworld.

In addition to that, you don’t get the sense that he’s ever in any sort of jeopardy. Bolan is so prepared and good at what he does, his campaigns come off as akin to Batman vs. a gang of muggers: a page or two of that is pretty much all you need.

“If anyone’s that god’s priest, it’s Bolan.”

We live in a world where terrible injustices are perpetrated against innocents and evil-doers go mostly unpunished. We pray for God’s justice, even longing to be His hands of justice. During those times, we want there to be a God, both just and wrathful, who would smite the evildoers with pain, suffering, humiliation (and, if so led, toss in death and eternal punishment). Figures like the Punisher or the Executioner appoint themselves God’s Angel of Death, doling out His punishment. The problem is that they often lose sight of His compassion and mercy. They lose sight of the power of forgiveness and redemption. It’s a delicate road to walk. While there is room for laments and imprecations in our prayers, I don’t think I’d trust in people to dole out justice.

"The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates. On the wicked he will rain fiery coals and burning sulfur; a scorching wind will be their lot. For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face." –Psalms 11:5-7

The Executioner has a pulp novel feel, a beach read romance for the testosterone set. In fact, it might be the cause of my main criticism of the book. In the transition from pulp novel to comics, the book suffers from information overload and could probably lose half of the exposition/running commentary. The unclear storyline—involving the Border Steel Cartel, arms deals, and a covert government agency—becomes an excuse for constant shooting. But stripped of words, the “romance” is strictly reduced to action porn. But you know what? With this book, it works. It delivers what fans of The Executioner want.


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InConJunction Junction What’s Your Function*

I forgot to mention that I’m a guest at this year’s InConJunction. You can find me at a couple of panels:

Friday, July 4th, 2:00 p.m. Suite 3
Bionic Woman vs Sarah Connor Chronicles - What worked and what didn't?

Friday, July 4th, 5:00 p.m. Suite 6
Religion and Science: Can there ever be peace between the two? - The differences and similarities and where they meet

I’ll be floating in and out of the convention all weekend. In fan con logic, this is on a holiday weekend (says the man who scheduled this year’s Mo*Con on Father’s Day weekend) and I have family obligations (read: my youngest expects me at his birthday party). I’ll have copies of Orgy of Souls available at a dealer’s table and I’ll be around so seek me out.

*Yeah, now get that Schoolhouse Rock song out of your head!


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Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out – A Review

“Cybernetic Angels”

Riding the crest of popularity from last summer's movie comes Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll out. There are now several groups of fans who won’t be pleased: fans of the Michael Bay movie, fans of the comic, and fans of the original series. There have been character redesigns and changes to the mythology folks have come to know in order to reboot the property as a cartoon series. Nothing fatal, much like when we first saw the manga-style versions of the Teen Titans and were caught up with apprehension.

“You ever get the feeling you were programmed for something more?” –Optimus Prime

The movie felt like three episodes of the series masquerading as a movie (handy since that’s the way it will probably be cut when aired on television). It opens with a clip for the original show (Generation 1) and has a younger Optimus Prime lamenting his place in the greater scheme of thing. He’s a recent graduate of the “Autobot Academy”, not the experienced leader we’ve come to know. Like the Cylons vs. the Humans in Battlestar Galactica, the war between the Autobots and Decepticons has been over for a long time and no one knows where the Decepticons are. Through a series of events, including the discovery of the AllSpark and the arrival of Megatron, the Autobots end up in Detroit, the robot manufacturing capital as fifty years from now robots become the new slave labor. We’re introduced to Sari in the Shia role as well as Optimus Prime’s team of fellow heroes: Ratchet, the medic and old war veteran; Prowl, a loner, dark ninjabot; Bulkhead, the team big bot on campus; and Bumblebee, the youngest and “innocent” member. The band of heroes battle an Earth created threat (the second “episode”) to be regaled as heroes and then they square off against Starscream, who has been delightfully highlighted in this movie.

“But remember, we’re all cogs in the great Autobot machine. A machine that’s stronger as a whole, than any one component part. Together we can move mountains.” –Optimus Prime

The spiritual heart of the series remains the same as the movie. The Autobots vs. Decepticons plays out like the battle between angels and demons largely unseen by humanity, except that in the future, the reality of both is brought to the forefront. Megatron, as well as the backstabbing Starscream, comes off as the prideful first among equals who leads a faction of his host in a rebellion which costs them their home. He would be a created being, the most powerful of the spiritual "principalities and powers," the highest of what some cultures would call a god. Yet, like his Autobot brethren, the Transformers are free moral agents who also make choices and have actions which have manifold consequences in our world, as what we see as evil is the collateral damage of humanity and creation being caught in a cosmological battle of cosmological forces.

“Heroes are the ones who make the hard choice.” –Ratchet

The Autobots then set themselves up, and are welcomed as guardian angels for humanity, living by their code of respect the source of life and protecting it at all costs. They go about their mission, as a reporter describes, of “repairing damaged structures and damaged lives with their reassuring presence.”

There is plenty of action in this re-imagining, enough to cover a multitude of sins. It’s not great, but it’s certainly entertaining. In fact, this review would have been posted sooner, but I didn’t even get to touch the DVD for a week. My eldest son saw me take it from the package, snatched it from my hands, and sequestered himself in his room (posting his little brother as lookout). “When do we get more?” was his only question. Squarely aimed at the under-teen set, Transformers Animated: Transform and Roll Out seems to hit its target demo.


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Wanted – A Review

“The Spiritual Journey of Wesley”

This.
Movie.
Rules.

Wanted is an unholy mess of a movie. It features a ridiculous defiance of the laws of physics, an over-the-top edge, and moments that make you want to jump out of your seat to high five a buddy. It’s high energy, testosterone driven fantasy and was everything Hitman didn’t have enough of. You expect a certain amount of idiocy out of a “guy”/popcorn movie, and this movie didn’t disappoint.

Sadsack office worker bee, Wesley Gibson (Atonement's James McAvoy) hates everything about his life. The meaningless routine, his cheating girlfriend, his leech of a best friend, his boss – nothing seems to be in his control. Enter the heavily tattooed Angelina Jolie (whose butt we hadn’t seen since Beowulf, but what guy movie would be complete without gratuitous nudity), the assassin known as Fox, who disrupts his life with a legacy he didn’t know he had.

“Your long awaited destiny to join us.” –Sloan (Morgan Freeman)

His father, whose gifts Wesley has inherited, was a premier assassin, a member of a secret society of good assassins, The Fraternity, which his killer is out to destroy. These good guys get their targets from the Loom of Fate, the targets names needing to be interpreted from the cloth spit out by the loom. Okay, maybe this plot works better as the comic book, written by Mark Millar.

“Insanity is wasting your life as a nothing.” –Sloan

Wanted is this year’s entry for “we want to be like the Matrix … except different”—sort of The Matrix as a revenge movie—with Angelina as Trinity, Sloan as Morpheus, and Wesley rounding out the Trinity as Neo. Wesley begins his journey locked into a life of repetitive minutiae, the tedious ordinary, suffocating under the mediocrity of his days wasting his talents. He sees signs all around him—in fact, everything in this movie tells a story, from newspaper snippets, to store signs, to flying keyboard keys, to the tattoos—that there is more to life than he’s been led (or been deadened) to believe.

“This is not me fulfilling my destiny.” –Wesley

Wesley’s journey finally kicks in once he has his end of self moment which leaves him lamenting “I’m finding it really hard to care about anything these days.” He recognizes the “shit life” that he has, and that he has been essentially living a lie. The identity he thought he had was a false on, so intricately built up yet meaningless that he’s left thinking that “I don’t know who I am.” He needs someone to come alongside him, point to the caged lion trapped inside him and provide a key to unlock it. Because as Pekwarsky (Terence Stamp) eventually tells him, “Your father wanted a different path for you to go your own way.”

Wesley: What do you repair?
The Repairman: A lifetime of bad habits

The journey of discipleship doesn’t have to begin with having your face smashed in, as much as that would cut to the chase of matters. Wesley wants to step into his father’s shoes rather than continue to piss his life away. His life becomes about finding a connection to his father, a new way of life, and a Master-Teacher for that life. Wesley decides that “I have to prepare. I have to become his student” in order to become a true apprentice.

So he begins a regimen of study and preparation; to learn the history of this called out group, this ekklesia or Fraternity, until he is ready to snatch the pebble from his master’s hand (or in this case, the shuttle from the loom). The key to any sort of discipleship relationship is that you have to make sure that the chosen Master-Teacher is the right Master-Teacher. The best ways to tell are by examining what kind of person you are being formed into and by asking questions.

“I think you owe me some answers.” –Wesley
“Are you sure you’re ready for the answers.” –Sloan

The Fraternity, which began around the simple truth and way of life, had an entire institution built up around it. The Loom of Fate provided the Scripture, the interpretation of their faith. Sloan set himself up as the apostle with a prophetic gift of divining what the Scriptures have to say. Wesley became the disciple who executed orders which supposedly maintains the balance; or as Sloan tells him, “Like an apostle, your path is not to interpret but to deliver.”

“We’re supposed to take it on faith that what we do is right.” –Wesley

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt, but certainty. Too late in his journey, though better late than never, Wesley questions his calling and path. On the surface, there is a lot of truth in the Fraternity, they do a lot of good things, but there are also a lot of lies. One has to keep questioning in order to make sure the institution they serve/follow hasn’t become corrupt or that a thug who can use the Scriptures to his own ends installs himself. You have to go to the Scriptures yourself, decipher them for yourself, ask the tough questions and search out the elusive answers no matter where they take you.

Sometimes the only way to get to the spirit of the law is to deconstruct the letter of it. And sometimes the institution needs to say “I’m sorry.”

“What the fuck have you done lately?” –Wesley

Director Timur Bekmambetov brought us the great film Night Watch (and its follow up, Day Watch) and brings his mayhem to an American film. Nothing quite a new as bullet time, but more of a combination of a variation on it and the gun fu from Equilibrium, and there are plenty of “think of the fuzzy bunnies” moments. Wanted is strictly about visceral thrills, a hot chick with guns, dizzying stunts. It does everything you want out of this kind of movie, so turn off your brain and enjoy the ride.


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