Blood Feud
Angel has been sucking my soul for a while. Sorry.
My friend, Scott, who is as critical a viewer of film and television as I know and still speak to, got sick a couple of years ago. He was home in bed and turned on the TV, and he discovered "Buffy The Vampire Slayer."
My wife found that show years ago, and subsequently my daughter. I stayed away, as I didn't need another habit, but what little I saw made me understand. This was amazingly good stuff, humor and darkness and Big Questions about Good and Evil.
So Scott became a Josh Whedon devotee. When he discovered that here in the U.S. they were dribbling out "Buffy" episodes on DVD in bits and pieces, but they were all available in Europe, he bought a European DVD player and got the lot.
Same thing with Whedon's next effort, "Angel," the spinoff from "Buffy." For those of you unaware, Angel is into atonement. Angel is a vampire from 18th century Ireland, a once evil creature who was cursed by a gypsy with the inconvenient installment of a soul. Now he has the memory of a lifetime of evil and the remorse, regret, funny looking clothes, etc., over that, so he moves to L.A. with a mission statement: Help the helpless. Sort of like Batman, except he has to drink blood. Although he restricts himself to pig blood, which he gets from a friendly butcher, who should have his own spinoff if you ask me.
Sorry. I'm not real good at explaining this. But Scott owns the first four seasons (the fifth and last just ended; coming soon to DVD, at least on the other side of the Atlantic) and he brought them over one night when Beth and I were home alone, so we could have a little marathon. The two of them fussed and worried over what to show me and when, so I got some background scenes from "Buffy" and then selected  episodes. Really, it was like being in school again.
But I got hooked. And when I get hooked, I get obsessive. So I've been trying to watch all 88 episodes. In order. Which takes some time. So blogging suffers. But perhaps the blogosphere rejoices, I dunno.
I still read, though, and visit my cohorts on the left side of this page. Christopher Key over at The Barbaric Yawp posted a pretty passionate piece (so sorry) on what he saw as revisionism on the death of Ronald Reagan. There's been a lot of this, actually, the other side of history being alive and well and keeping us on our toes.
But it's controversial, of course, and pisses people off who disagree or have fond memories or whatever. Someone commented on his post and called him a socialist, which cracked me up. It's been a while since "commie," "socialist," or (my personal favorite) "pinko" have been tossed around. Usually they're content with "liberal," the current catch-all phrase for someone who disagrees with your view.
Anyway. Chris wrote a piece on a subject near and dear to my heart, i.e., political labeling, and you should check it out. I'm like him; call me whatever you like, makes no difference nohow, but if you see the world divided into "C" and "L" boxes, it might make you question some of that. We've got a lot of sides, most of us.
Unless you're a vampire with a soul. Then, that's pretty much what you are. But that's just pretend.
10:34:16 AM 
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