Back to the Blood

by SARAH C. ROBERTS

Sookie Stackhouse, True Blood's blonde-haired, wide-eyed heroine, is telepathic. And naturally, since she can hear their lovely thoughts, she's not a huge fan of (human) men. Sookie's gift is just one supernatural element we as viewers are asked to accept as almost normal in this intense and dark dramedy. Alan Ball's new show True Blood on HBO is decidedly different than his last foray into the premium channel playground where anything goes, Six Feet Under, but his mix of heavy and light, death and love, fantastical and gritty is still present in True Blood.

Ball has an ability to strike a balance of humorous dialogue and scenarios with serious situations and themes. True Blood is certainly no different, taking seriously the idea that vampires are now out in the open and will be treated like minorities are in this country, especially in the South - not too well

Here, vampires exist and are immortal. As one who has never been a Harry Potter or fantasy/supernatural genre fan, I found the whole concept hard to get past. When I watch movies/shows I want to feel as though the story playing before me could actually take place.

The Japanese have created synthetic blood that fulfills all vampires' nutritional needs. It's called Tru Blood and sold in 4-packs like gourmet beers. It looks disgusting. Now that vampires do not need to feed on humans, they have "come out of the coffin" and are living amongst us, the living, so we better get used to it. They have a Vampire Rights Act that will be voted on (I'm guessing in a future episode) and an American Vampire League to push their agenda.

That's fine and good but some Joe six-pack Americans aren't all that open to the vampire agenda and think they're evil, sick and a blatant affront to Our Lord Jesus Christ. Sound familiar? This is where the larger - albeit obvious - metaphor begins to take shape in my head and that wink, wink I get what you're putting down Ball feeling makes the supernatural element easier to swallow.

True Blood is set in Bon Temps, a fictional small town in northwest Louisiana. The swampland of Louisiana as a setting lends itself to the supernatural (and to the horrible accents that populate the show) but it also sets up a portrayal of the Deep South that is relatively accurate.

The insanity has reached a breaking point. As the first season came to a close, I found myself more invested in and sympathetic to some of the main players, namely the male characters. The ladies are losing my affection. It is painful to say such things, but it is more unfortunate that the female characters are portrayed as self-centered brats, crazy hippies, unfortunante drunks, or "possessed" by demons.

Sam Merlotte, the creepy proprietor of Merlotte's Tavern, has come off as overprotective of his employees and judgmental of everyone. His love for Sookie is desperate and more than a little awkward. Now seemingly mild-mannered Sam is a shape-shifter (not a werewolf as I previously assumed) and Sookie just can't wait to learn more about her boss. It is hard to dislike someone whose parents just took off and left him to fend for himself when he was a young teen.

So sure, the shape-shifting is weird and a little off-putting but Sam and Tara as a couple? Weirder and majorly off-putting. I delicately hid my eyes every time they were shown in flagrante.

As Sam's plight is becoming more and more understandable, Tara pushes me further and further away. Their pairing just doesn't work and hopefully, that ship may have officially sailed. Worse was the blood-boiling pairing of Jason and former "free-spirit" Amy. Amy was... a naturalist? A slow food believer? Totally insane? All of the above?

Her legacy is Jason Stackhouse. Jason may be very pretty and a little dumb, but he means well. (In another case of major family issues as a source of bad behavior, Jason is convinced that his irresponsible behavior as a boy caused his parents' untimely death.) Tara's cousin Lafayette's schoolin' has impressed upon the chill young man that his recent actions have had and will continue to have some major consequences. His current imprisonment is upsetting, but his urge to take responsibility means he may have finally gotten it.

Amy was problematic. Yes, she's charming, smart, and hot, but she was also a vampire kidnapping (/draining/killing) psycho. I always hate when women are written as just inherently manipulative, with no background or explanation. It's certainly not better for Jason now that she's gone, and her character was most definitely entertaining. We'll probably never know exactly what she was doing down in Louisiana or who she really is.

Bill made a mistake defending Sookie's honor, and now all he wants is to mainstream and be with Sookie and hang out in Bon Temps. He'd rather not take part in vampire politics, yet he has no choice. With creative punishment from the tribunal, Bill became a maker for the first time and he does not appear to be a fan of the process or the new, bratty young vamp. I mainly feel sympathy because even when he missteps with Sookie, it seems he's just trying to do right by her, as chauvinistic as what he thinks is best might be.

He doesn't fit in with her modern world and she'll never understand the complexities and requirements of the vampiric life. This conflict between the two will surely cause an even bigger rift between their two worlds as a battle for the moral majority looms on the horizon.

Sarah C. Roberts is the senior contributor to This Recording. She lives in Georgia, and her tumblr is here.

Top Ten Battlestar Galactica Moments

by Jessica Gold Haralson

And so it frakking ends.

Seven years after Ronald Moore and David Eick transmogrified a cheesy late '70s space opera into a naturalistic speculative-fiction masterpiece, Battlestar Galactica ends with a bang -- literally -- on tonight's series finale, "Daybreak Part Two."

We're crying into our octagonal beer steins and wringing our replica Starbuck dog tags in despair, but we're happy that a show that wrestled international terrorism, torture, identity, and every-ism under the sun existed in our lifetime. With that in mind, here's a tribute to the best moments of this four-season opus.

The show is so complex (a robot-caused nuclear war, followed by deep space chase, followed by a corrupt election and a robot-human hybrid-God-baby, followed by an Iraq-like invasion followed by finding Earth a post-apocalyptic wasteland) that it's hard to lay out its genius in a listicle. But frak it, we'll try, in a way comprehensible to fanboys and the sci-fi shy alike. So say we all.

10. Secret Agent Boomer: Number Eight Shoots Adama[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.798458&w=425&h=350&fv=] The twelve (or maybe thirteen?) models of humanoid Cylons look like humans, act like humans, talk like humans -- are genetically identical to humans. And some are programmed to think they're human so they can shoot the military leader of the remaining humans at a critical moment. Our jaw was on the floor at this whammy of a season one finale. (Little did we know that compared to Season Two's, Boomer's Cylon-icity would look like a game of pattycakes.)

9. Chief Becomes The Man He Wants to Be[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.798446&w=425&h=350&fv=]"We're Cylons," Galen Tyrol - a.k.a. the Chief - says at season three's end, to three members of the Final Five revealed as Cylons. "And we have been from the start."

But does Galen turn to robot-mode, abandoning humanity forever? Frak no. And that's why we love him. "We have to be the people we want to be," he says. And as Season Four progresses, what were once moral quandaries become ethical convictions etched in stone, principles for a better way. He knows he's a Cylon. But he's going to keep being Galen Frakkin' Tyrol.

Galen's name is identical to that of a famous Renaissance physician who clearly mapped out human anatomy in a rational manner. I believe this to be no coincidence.

As Galactica's chief repairman -- and a literal machine himself -- Galen's journey has a special meaning. After figuratively dissecting himself, he doesn't let biology determine his destiny. He's a Cylon, but he's also an ex-husband, a father, a Chief. He is finally the man he always wanted to be.

8. Cylon-Invaded New Caprica: Flipping the 9/11 Script[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.798452&w=425&h=350&fv=]The creators of Battlestar Galactica were recently part of a United Nations panel (yes, you read that right) about the show's grappling with "real-world" issues. One year after the newly elected President Gaius Baltar takes his people to their "New Caprica," a group of Cylons show up to imprison the humans: in order to "win" their love. "This is the only way," say the invaders. "We want peace and harmony -- on our terms."

Sound familiar? It should. When the Cylons nuked the human's world, Caprica, the echoes of Al-Qaeda and 9/11 were obvious. Yet by acting as invaders and captors and turning the humans into insurgents doing anything to escape invasion, the show asks us to identify the Cylons -- the enemy! -- as Americans. "New Caprica" may as well be New Iraq.

BSG's ethical shades of gray are remarkable. The Cylons really, truly believe that imprisoning the humans will "free" them -- that they can somehow create freedom from the top-down. And they sound reasonable when they say so. But once you hear from the horrified humans, it's clear that occupation is no answer, making you question the viability of America's real world colonies.

7. Earth Was a Lie: What the Frak Now?[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.798453&w=425&h=350&fv=]Guided by a vision from their holy Book of Pythia, the thirty-thousand odd remaining survivors Roslin to a vague promise of their original home: Earth. The final episode of Season Four's first part -- "Sometimes A Great Notion" -- showed the ecstatic crew waiting to meet their new old homeworld.

Ron Moore has said the show provides the characters with "everything they want," but in the worst possible way. This moment was no exception. The survivors found Earth -- as a post-apocalyptic, nuked-out wasteland. Just like Caprica. "Earth," Roslin says, with the same grit as if she were cursing their Cylon attackers.

Everything you want. In the worst possible way.

6. Starbuck's Return[vodpod id=ExternalVideo.798455&w=425&h=350&fv=]Gandalf the Grey becomes Gandalf the White, BSG-style.

After we witnessed the death of Kara Thrace via explosion in the latter part of season three, she shows up for the season finale in a newly minted Raptor, to the strains of "All Along the Watchtower," saying she found Earth and would take everyone there.

Mind. Blown.

(Oh, and later? She finds her own dead body on the nuked out planet Earth. Frakkin' Hell.)

5. The Ghost Pirate Saul Tigh: "We're the Devil's Men"

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QVXIXrHTVw]

We're the devil's men, spreading death and destruction wherever we go.

-- Saul Tigh

If "Cylon-occupied New Caprica" is a direct Iraq parallel, Saul Tigh is the leader of the band of insurgents. He commands his faithful to commit suicide bombings against Cylons -- an act considered horrendous in our world. Here in New Caprica Tigh's reasoning makes perfect sense.

If you were imprisoned by unjust rulers with no options, no freedom, no escape, what would you do? Are there moral justifications for terrorism? What is "right" when it comes to fighting for freedom? Instead of drawing old lines in the sand, Battlestar nukes them, redraws them, turns them into circles, and changes the sand's color entirely. What other program has shown the ambiguities so clearly?

4. Adama Rescues Everyone Off Frakkin' New Caprica

Before his ship FTL-jumps in a blaze of fire into the atmosphere to save the New Capricans, then-Admiral Adama says this to his pilots:

This is the Admiral. You've heard the news, you know the mission. You should also know there is only one way that this mission ends: and that's with the successful rescue of our people, off of New Caprica. Look around you. Take a good look at the men and women that stand next to you. Remember their faces, for one day you will tell your children and your grandchildren that you served with such men and women as the universe has never seen. And together, you'll accomplish the feat that will be told and retold down through the ages, and find immortality as only the gods once knew. I'm proud to serve with you. Good hunting.

3. Ellen Tigh is the 5th Cylon

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPZ5_h7V32s]

Who'd expect that Saul Tigh's drunkard floozy of a wife -- affectionately titled "Lady MacTigh" by fans -- would turn out to be the fifth Final Fiver and the original architect of eight Cylon models? We sure didn't.

We're not surprised that the Tighs have been married for two thousand years. Despite their drunken caterwauling and Ellen's cheating and Tigh's rampant alcoholism, those two have the best love story on the whole damn show. Scratch the surface and BSG is a typical episode of Jerry Springer. With robots.

2. Lee Adama Breaks It Down: "We're a Gang on the Run"

This case, this case is built on emotion, on anger, bitterness, but most of all it's built on shame. It's about the shame of what we did to ourselves back on that planet. It's about the guilt of those of us who ran away, who ran away. And we are trying to dump all of that guilt and all that shame onto one man, and then flush him out the airlock, and just hope that that gets rid of it all. So that we can live with ourselves. But that won't work. That won't work. That's not justice, not to me. Not to me.

-- Lee Adama

After Gaius Baltar signed a death warrant on New Caprica -- at gunpoint -- the civilians wanted his head once they had escaped occupation. And heck, they've got a point. But despite hating Gaius' guts, Lee points out that the vestiges of their civilization are gone -- and if Gaius gets the axe, so should everyone else.

"We're not the human race, we're a gang on the run," argues Lee in a surprisingly passionate defense of a Saddam-esque Baltar. The younger Adama points out that Laura Roslin rigged an election, that Boomer's twin Athena is forgiven despite, you know, attempting to murder Bill Adama, that everyone's doing what they need to do to get by. To survive. And that sometimes results in terrible acts that would land any person a death sentence in easy times. But these aren't easy times -- this is survival.

Gaius walks free, then turns into metaphorical Jesus, then writes a Hitler-like manifesto titled My Triumphs, My Mistakes. Oh, show.

1. Adama's Final Call to Arms: Taking a Stand, Choosing to Fight

After Helo's daughter Hera is kidnapped by Boomer for dissection by the evil Cylons (as opposed to the good Cylons - Season Four has those), Commander Adama appears to have lost the will to fight in last week's "Daybreak, Part One." He orders the decommissioning of a crumbled Galactica, which seems unrelated.

In this show, however, everything is related. And packing up his boxes, Adama realizes that he's giving up. That his years of survival, of leading his flock, of looking for a home -- will crumble away like Galactica's hull if he doesn't take a stand.

And so he draws a line in the ship's bay and calls a volunteer mission to rescue Hera. To take back a child. To stand up to the Cylons once and for all. This wouldn't seem special on such a drama-filled show: but it is, because the fleet is no longer running, escaping, and avoiding - they're going to take the Cylons on, mano a mano.

In Season Two, a defiant Boomer is asked why the Cylons nuked Caprica. She answers to the effect of, "Why should humanity survive?" No one ever offered a convincing answer.

But this? This is convincing. This is the evidence of humanity's crowning triumph: the urge to do what's right, to rescue a child, even if it means losing the fleet, even if there is no personal gain, even if nothing comes of it. To have the courage to speak truth to power and refuse to accept victimization. To stand up and fight. To refuse cowardice and seek the face of the enemy. I have never been prouder of this show's characters.

We'll find out if the fleet survives on tonight's finale. I hope they do. But if not, I will have no doubt that humanity ended with a triumphant bang -- not a whimper. That rallying cry is more than I could ever ask for from series television.

Jessica Gold Haralson is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in New York. She tumbles here.

"Faking the Books (Dntel remix)" - Lali Puna (mp3)

"Alienation (Alias remix)" - Lali Puna (mp3)

"Grin and Bear It (To Roccoco Rot remix)" - Lali Puna (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Molly came to the defense of Diablo Cody.

Alex finally came around to Bon Iver.

Will kinda came a little on Jane Birkin

Crank Dat Lost

by Dick Cheney

Winston Churchill tried to spend most of each day in bed. He took his meals there, read the newspaper there. He was a man like any other. Getting name-checked on last night's Lost was the finest moment of his life after death.

Never trust a man who thinks reading is a waste of time: Jack Shepard clearly isn't aware of how common illiteracy is among island populations when he chastises LaFleur for reading appears to be a biography of Merce Cunningham. Come on, Jack. You're against reading?

For example: I have heard Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is functionally illiterate. What other reason would he have for not knowing that he gave AIG a blank check to compensate the executives that destroyed their company? Meanwhile, things are better in Iraq than ever. Vindication baby, one time.

Our leaders can be called a strange bunch. When I first met George W. Bush, he was a snotty undergraduate at Yale. He called all his male friends 'cowboys' and he called all the girls "puppies." There was little evidence of the man he would become. Who knew that someday he would ask Vladimir Putin to kill a thirty rack of Milwaukee's Best with him? The world is a strange place; I shot and killed a guy and nothing came of it, for example.

Cool and calculating, James LaFleur is more Winston Churchill than George W. Bush. He's made the strongest move in the book: he forced one chick to watch him get with another. Although this did not work in the seminal Ryan Reynolds film Just Friends, it did indeed work in the seminal Ryan Reynolds film Definitely Maybe. In either case, we have so much to learn from Mr. Reynolds.

Doug Feith dropped by the other day, and he asked me why it was that women responded so much better to him when he was getting regular action. Did they subconsciously know they had to go out of their way to take him from another? Soon enough, he was able to demonstrate this principle. (We were in a Cracker Barrel and the waitress was practically gargling his testes at the table.)

Since my name recognition among loose waitresses at chain restaurants is better than Doug Feith's, getting ass outside of my marriage is difficult. LaFleur has a similar conundrum.

If he starts fucking around on Juliet with Kate, he's going to start a shitstorm with a former doctor doing janitorial work, and sporting a kewt little flash of gray. Is it really Sawyer's fault that women are drawn to his khaki Head of Security jumpsuit?

never trust an asian billionaire

Making yourself the center of the action ensures complications. Ben got an oar to his head after he found Sun a way back to her husband.

the tasty little treat behind sun needs a bigger role

Women want to be around exciting men, but once things get too exciting, they bail and take up with Seth Rogen's character from every single one of his movies.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUM6NLeWQDc]

Note: I am waiting for someone to do a YouTube remix of Sun cracking Benry over the head with "Crank Dat" as the soundtrack. Don't let me down internet.

Ben and Sun made tromping through the woods reminded me of the two dogs in Homeward Bound. But back to our hard talk about LaFleur the leader and the two women that cherish his long con.

hold meeeee

Here's my advice, guy: raw, sweat-laden charisma can only take you so far. The second you start showing a woman you're actually a person, you'll be watching her cozy up to some d-bag named Kurt who's super-into moe. and dumped his girlfriend to take yours. Whoa, sorry. I had a bad experience and now everytime I meet someone named Kurt I want to scratch his eyes out. Meow. You know.

bitch you don't want to fuck with me

LaFleur has to decide between two very different pieces of tangy woman. Kate provides the thrill of ex-convict baby-abandoning intercourse - she wants a new fetus in her stomach so bad you're likely to catch her poking holes in your Dharma-brand Magnum condoms.

girl you ain't nothing but a slut to me

With Kate, the foreplay is awkward. She's used to having guys never say a bad word to her in the sack, and as a result, she's strange and salty-tasting. Her skin is worse than you can imagine up close; on the other hand, her vagina is shaped like a perfect circle. She still loves to run.

Juliet provides the thrill of ex-doctor baby-delivering intercourse. She's openly admitted to wanting a child as well, but she's already told you she's on the pill, so no worries until you wake up in a cold sweat one night and realize that the pill might not have been invented yet.

She's like all doctor types in bed - quiet, thorough, devoted and onstage. Scientists never quite let go: you can always see the analytical part of their brain turning and turning as they guzzle your swizzle stick. Juliet's vagina is shaped like a question mark, lending credence to the theory she may indeed be Mysterion.

How to decide? I think it's way too soon to dismiss Horace Goodspeed's betch from the equation. With her lazy attitude and proven fertility, she could make this a three way race. Her post-pregnancy hormones are still going high, and she's clearly the kind of woman who is invested in her own pleasure, the mere fact of which is a turn-on to the male of the species.

She's a dark horse in this competition, kind of like American Idol's Megan Corkrey. Fortunately when you bang Amy, you don't have to look at a godawful tattoo descending down her right arm. Due to natural childbirth, Amy's vagina is now shaped like a capital O. I guess what I'm saying here is I like Oklahoma to win it all.

Dick Cheney, the former vice president, is the senior contributor to This Recording. He previously discussed Jason Mesnick-Sawyer LaFleur concordance here.

"Everything Reminds Me Of You" - Emmy the Great (mp3)

"Bad Things Coming, We Are Safe" - Emmy the Great (mp3)

"Hold Onto What You Own (for Colin)" - Emmy the Great (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Punk Rock Purity With The Jonas Brothers

Archie And Friends On The Internet

David Foster Wallace On John Updike

Harry Potter Has An Inexpensive Outlet for His Sexuality

by Eleanor Morrow

Secret Diary of a Call Girl
creator Lucy Prebble

Being a star in England is sort of like being a mobster in New Jersey - your influence ranges far and wide, but it ends at the Holland Tunnel. In the case of Billie Piper, that notoriety takes her as far as the Chunnel.

Yet the one-time pop singer chose a fairly gratifying career trajectory. Once she began acting in earnest she starred in the remake of the long-running science fiction program Doctor Who. The only thing more baffling than people enjoying Doctor Who was the inexplicable popularity in the same quarters of Heroes.

Then she went from scifi babe to taking her clothes off every week on Showtime. It would be like if the telepath from Star Trek: The Next Generation did DVDA. (Did she?)

The show in question is Secret Diary of a Call Girl. It airs on Showtime in "The States" as Europeans term our country, because otherwise no one would be able to understand their pronunciation of United. Sorry! I think the wounds from the whole taxation without representation thing are still a bit raw.

Nevertheless, this is an export that is much appreciated. Belle/Hannah is a lady of the night. She used to have a very well-mannered female pimp who still calls her from time to time. She also keeps a journal, which I can't think is a good idea for any reason. In one episode, she was even approached by a reporter -- as if not cooperating with one would actually bury the story of her banging a married politician! Things are so much chiller in London -- the weather, for example.

Then she struck out on her own, and through the course of the show she's gotten herself into plenty of sticky situations. Although you never get to see whatever it is that comes out of men's penises when they're excited, you do get to see quite a bit of Billie Piper. She reminds me of your too promiscuous college roommate, or she reminds you of your mother. Neither is a flattering comparison.

As with any person's naked self, this begins to grow a bit boring after awhile. Belle is always sexing herself up in some new way. She really makes sex for money a colorful affair, kind of like a detective getting all the interesting cases. And yet, the rest of the time, she's seemingly normal, usually crowing about just how normal she is except for her job.

Then she meets Alex. She introduces herself to him in a hotel bar thinking that he is a trick she's supposed to bang. Her forward-thinking approach works well on the young doctor, before she opens the envelope of cash he's given her and realizes its his passport and identification for a job interview.

He asks her for her number, and she relents. They have an awkward first date and before long they are a regular couple. The handsome young doc and his Belle. Soon enough, it begins to haunt her. She must tell him. She must tell him. She must tell him.

In the season's climactic moment, Alex walked in on her having sex with a paraplegic. Instead of recognizing the nobility of finding your girlfriend engaged in such an act, he freaked out a lot. He calls Belle a whore, as if she had been unaware of what she was. He is disgusted by her.

I'm not sure I could ever be reconciled to a person who behaves like Alex did, and I'm sure Belle should know better. Worse than being a prostitute it seems, is disapproving of them. It's a one-two punch that might not make these two the perfect couple, but hey, they're trying.

Eleanor Morrow is a contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in New York. She last wrote in these pages about another Showtime series, The United States of Tara.

"Ready, Able" - Grizzly Bear (mp3)

"I Live With You" - Grizzly Bear (mp3)

"Two Weeks" - Grizzly Bear (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Games without frontiers.

You need to stop it now.

The age of the avant-garde.

A Generation of Canadian Media Culture

by Melanie Strong

Up here, where the secretive and unassuming Canadians live and breed, generations have been raised on Saturday morning cartoons and after dinner sitcoms. In that, myself and my fellow Canucks are no different than any other Westernized country.

In fact, much of our collective cultural consciousness has been permanently altered by the broadcasted American stations to which we all tune in. Our childhoods and our childrens' hoods are filled with NBC, HBO and Dan Rather's eyebrows.

Knowing full well that a country is only as patriotic and tax-paying as its media makes it, a lovely concept called Cancon was created to feed 50-60 percent Canadian content down our collective gullet on any Canadian broadcasting station.

This content often took the form of cheaply produced drama series, hastily concocted news programs and and even sketchier sketch comedy programs. Many of these attempts by our entertainment industry have been largely forgotten. It has become the shorts in between these and other shows which would come to define us as a culture. Our childhoods predominantly featured renditions of the song "Don't Put It In Your Mouth" and the awareness that drugs are sometimes bad and that we should ask our mom or ask our dad.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNOeiLFeUsc]

Don't you put it in your mouth / Don't stuff it in your face / Though it might look good to eat / And it might look good to taste / You could get sick / Real quick / ICK!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhgoXZDA7ig]

Drugs, drugs drugs! / Which are good? /Which are bad? / Ask your mom or ask your dad!

Such sage advice can be attributed solely to an organization called Concerned Children's Advertisers. The CCA is responsible for over thirty public service announcements that predominated my awareness of the dangers of the world around me. If it weren't already known that the 1980s were drug-fueled (see: He-Man), I would have guessed it anyway from the amount of anti-drug advertising that seeped into my brain. Speaking of drugs and brains, check out your brain on drugs:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_1sf5hhR60]

Perhaps, for me, one of the most touching commercials of my youth comes from the CCA and also deals with the effect of drugs. Using The Hollies' "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother", this public service announcement (PSA) shows the difficulties of dealing with a drug-addicted friend:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhASy4GgCmQ]

Still makes me all girly-eyed.

As well as all of these anti-drug commercials mave have worked on us (they didn't), the PSAs also focused on bullying, self-image and abuse. Check out more here.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9hJK4fCq4U]

Not everything on TV is real.

The War Amps of Canada are an organization originally created to help veterans who had lost limbs in the line of duty. It eventually evolved to provide financial and social support to all amputees. As part of this, the War Amps took it upon themselves to do educational outreach about safety, to hopefully reduce the amount of accidents experienced by Canadians each year.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GN9dANKe_Y]

"I am Astar. I am a robot. I can put my arm back on. You can't. Play safe."

Our government, in an effort to prevent obesity and heart disease (so as to not clog up our wonderful universal health care - NB: didn't work) created a program, in association with Health Canada, called Participaction.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMLmBKbwfJo]

There's nothing quite like vintage claymation.

Get it?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7bYZKTRzb8]
Keep fit and have fun, with Hal Johnson & Joanne Mcleod!

Aside from warning us of the dangers of our lifestyle, Canadian advertisers and the government decided to educate the toque-wearing masses.

Hinterland Who's Who catches a frazzled mind's attention immediately with its haunting lone flute introducing the latest indigenous animal deserving of thirty seconds of undivided attention.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-aoWSpFor0]

The beaver. We used to hunt 'em some good.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhaCTxO_PAo]

The Muskox, Canada's ton-ton.

And, ahhhhh, Canadian history. Heritage Moment quotations can still be heard echoing through drunken kitchen parties from Vancouver to Cape Breton (that is, coast to coast).

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5HO44sFRFI]

"Dr. Penfield, Dr. Penfield, I smell burnt toast!"

Guess what you didn't know about Canada?

Superman was created here.

The first wireless transatlantic communication came through Newfoundland to Marconi.

The Medium is the Message.

We invented basketball.

Winnie the Pooh was named after a Canadian black bear named Winnipeg.

We made a crazy airplane that never saw the light o' day.

We (my own city of Halifax) had a massive explosion, the biggest in the world's history until Hiroshima.

We had an Underground Railway for freeing slaves.

Finally, the National Film Board --long a saviour of independent filmmakers and animators nationwide - is responsible for the epitome of the Canadian mythos:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfhAbHmmzo0]

The Log Driver's Waltz: This is rendition performed by the McGarrigle Sisters (Kate McGarrigle is the mother of solo artists Martha Wainwright and Rufus Wainwright.)

Melanie Strong is the senior contributor to This Recording. She can be found here and here and especially in Canada.

Canadian Content for This Recording:

"Far Away" - Martha Wainwright (mp3)

"Mostly Waving" - Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton (mp3)

"Consumption" - Laura Barrett (mp3)

"Kennedy Killed the Hat (Dance Remix)" - MSTRKRFT (mp3)

"You Can Heal" - The Heavy Blinkers (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Molly explored the fifties TV angle.

We gave you a lil’ mixtape.

When you’re with me, I’m free.

One Is Perfect Where The Other Falters

by Dick Cheney

Lost

executive producers Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof

Choosing between two women is what God put man on this earth for, and it is what Jacob put Sawyer LaFleur on this island for. And who can't sympathize with the plight of our handsome, beneficent rehabbed con man leader?

how do I love thee until kate gets back to the island? let me count the ways

I mean, two women desire the ripeness of his savory island cock. That's absolutely terrible. How long has it been since the hedges were trimmed on that bush? Nevermind.

jason and his true master: abc's reality tv guru

Bachelor emeritus Jason Mesnick was presented with a similar dilemma this week. He proposed to Melissa, a super hot sales rep. Then they spent six atrocious weeks together where she acted like a possessive biatch and generally ruined his life. He retreated back to ABC's clutches, where, like Gollum begging for the one ring, he asked for his preshush Molly back.

melissa: you were borderline down syndrome, but we still wanted jason to stay with you out of some silly obligation to the outdated concept of marriage

Molly was a little bug-eyed, and a lot retarded. She made a book about the story of her and Jason's love, which straddled the insanity of The Shining and the affectionate nature of Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs. When he put her in her limo after dumping her, she told him, "You're making a huge mistake."

women give Jason strength

He then launched into what I refer to as the Jason Mesnick face, which is a little like the Peyton Manning face but with more crying and you jerk your head back suddenly as if you were epileptic, or just regretful. He thought he wanted no tan lines, but he learned that actually wasn't as important as is commonly believed.

"this should end well"

Every man comes to a fork in the road sometime, unless he's the fabulously lucky Bill Hendrickson. Don't think my path to chening Lynne was such an easy decision. I had another limber hottie on retainer, but there was just something about the glow in Lynne's eyes when I described my dream of making billions from mining the natural resources of invaded sovereignties. It was like a lightbulb was going on in Lynne's vagina.

could it be any more obvious her IQ is in the 70-80 range?

Similar situation for Sawyer, and Jason Mesnick. No matter how much you try to quench your thirst with a conventionally hot-looking obstetrician who devotedly snuggles against the deepest fibres of your chest hair, you're always wondering what kind of pussy might get time-transported thousands of miles to the deserted island you're on.

"hey sawyer, your daughter is now the new bachelorette--that's what you wanted me to do in the real world, right?"

In one of my favorite books, Neil Gaiman's American Gods, the main character -- Shadow -- is released from prison only to find out his wife is dead. He attends her funeral, and later in his hotel room, he finds her sitting on the edge of his bed. He has the briefest of hopes until he tastes her tongue. Smoky, salty, full of bile and vomit; still dead.

jack's in a suit, she's in a wife beater

When Sawyer sees Kate for the first time after three years, his heart leaps. He's been funning the jungle scientists and jacking off while he watches young Charlotte frolic in the sunlight. But when he finally goes to her, and figures out that she gave up Aaron, and has been doing Jack (but just in the butt so she can remain what is referred to in canon as a Sawyervirgin). Her mouth will no doubt taste just as bad.

As creepy as it was seeing Elizabeth Mitchell be so hopelessly devoted to the master of the long con, you wish they hadn't set it up and paid it off in the same hour. Why on earth did the blonde-blonde pairing have to wait until the very episode of Kate's return?

internists were such morons in 1974

By the way, it's not wholly true that when two blondes reproduce the child always looks like Ryan Seacrest. That's a filthy old wives' tale that was last invoked during the marriage of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid. (Though it did limit the output of their coupling to an only child, as one might have hoped.)

Lost has so far not let us enjoy the primary fun of time travel. We didn't even get to hear Juliet speculate on all the tremendous things she could do if she took the submarine to Tahiti and went back into the real world.

To get a proper handle on how awesome and/or depressing it would be, I recommend my homeboy Ken Grimwood's classic time travel novel, Replay, in which the same thing happens, but instead of getting married and setting up a cute house in a weird island cult, the protagonist decides to win gajillions betting on the Dodgers sweeping the World Series.

So far the show has avoided the number one cliché of time travel, what is referred to in the trade as 'I am my own grandpa' syndrome. Still, Sawyer is Aaron and this predictable twist is on its way as surely as a Daniel Faraday-Sayid-Hurley facial hair love triangle will envelop the remaining castaways.

Finally, though, the castaways are going to need some mechanism to return to their own time. We know that Daniel Faraday never quite accomplishes the feat, since he's planning on seducing a preteen Charlotte.

My remaining question is this: whatever happened to the rest of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815? The show has always had a perilously hard time keeping track, and maybe Richard Alpert's salvo on the beach killed Rose and Bernard? At this moment the only chance such a couple would have to retire would be washing up in an island paradise after a plane crash.

In fact, it really hasn't hit anyone how good their fortune is just yet. Even if they are unable to alter the timeline except in ways they already have, the money they have in their pocket hasn't been reduced in value by a certain Democratic president from the Midwest yet. And hell, Gennifer Flowers hasn't even warranted an entry in wikipedia yet, and our new Keanu Reeves has yet to make the centerpiece of his presidency a balding, overweight conservative talk show host who is far richer than Obama will ever be. And you thought my administration was inept and unfocused!

Let's face it: everything is better in 1974. No jackasses are talking on cell phones while they're in public bathrooms and confusing the hell out of you, the name A-Rod is purely a part of plumbing terminology, and you really don't have to choose between your hot but possibly anoxeric wife (Elizabeth Mitchell's sternum appears to want to burst Alien-style out of her body) and your definitely anoxeric runaway. You can just let them work it out between themselves.

Hopefully the show's writers will solve Sawyer's tender conundrum several seasons from now by flashing several thousands years forward in the future to a massive stone statue of both women going down on the Long Con.

leave any woman who forces you to wear that shirt, LaFleur

Yes, the most important island secret ever, if you go by Entertainment Weekly's fanboy coverage of the show, is what the four-toed statue that Sayid and Sun glimpsed on their mini-island cruise so many seasons ago. It looks like it's the foot of Anubis, the jackal god of the dead. In that case, can they see their way to bringing back Michelle Rodriguez? Her sex with Sawyer was the best sex with Sawyer.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He will never tell you where exactly he lives.

"Cover the Windows and All the Walls" - Grouper (mp3)

"Down to the Ocean" - Grouper (mp3)

"Follow In Our Dreams" - Grouper (mp3)

"Heart Current" - Grouper (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

Cheney, week two.

Cheney, week four.

Cheney, week six.

Dissociative Identity Disorder

by ELEANOR MORROW

United States of Tara
creator Diablo Cody

Let's face facts: the pro-life lobby had a bunch of stripper-era Diablo Cody photos and they forced her to write Juno lest Ramesh Ponnuru publish the illict photos in his secret Republican porn webblog.

diablo and steven...they have obviously at least eskimo-kissed

There was every reason to expect United States of Tara to exist along those same lines. Every character in the pilot was a whining composite of Ellen Page's quirky yet optimistic preteen. They all talked in the same overwrought California lingo -- at first, it's annoying, but then you start to miss that level of sophistication in other shows. After the pilot, where Tara's most irritating alter took the stage, it's been all uphill from there.

tara and her sister charmaine

Without the fanfare accorded her earlier project, the Steven Spielberg produced Tara has quietly become one of the most entertaining shows on television, largely for the reason that it explores territory that serial television has never before touched.

marshmallow's fellow cream puff

Ironically it now seems like Tara's predicament has taken a crucial backseat to her brilliant surrounding cast. Start with Tara's less well-liked sister, Charmaine. Rosemarie Dewitt deserves the Oscar that Kate Winslet stole through Nazi sex. Last episode she had her off-center boobs corrected surgically while Tara's alter Buck ministered to her every need. He even conditioned her ends. It was the most brilliant, touching television since Tony Soprano's first panic attack.

Tara's children are equally gut-busting. Brie Larson is damn near perfect as Tara's daughter, and while the show flirted with teenage rebellion storyline for her, it soon found more amusement in teaching her gay brother how to get guys and making out with her geeky boss from Barnaby's (a transcendent Nate Corddry). This show is so well cast it doesn't even have time for Patton Oswalt- Rosemarie DeWitt sex jokes.

Tara's youngest is Marshall, an uptight high school feglia who's more adorable than Ellen Page and her bare stomach combined. Marshall's cannily seducing another youth by playing hard-to-get and damn if it isn't working, Marshmallow. His participation in a Xtian Hellhouse performance was funnier than all seven seasons of Two and a Half Men.

You just don't see this stuff on television, and yet the Kansas-set show isn't looking to surprise all the time. Like Gus Van Zant and Harmony Kormine's depictions of the lives of young America, Tara is at its most shocking when it bares the humanity and decency of people you wouldn't expect it from. Like mothers, for example.

"you don't think you did sarah jessica parker in a past life, do you?"

This is perhaps best done with Tara's husband, Aidan on Sex in the City, the groom in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, John Corbett. It would be so easy to paint him as the saint or the pure straight men to all the crazy people his wife contains, but there's something understandable about every moral conundrum he faces. We can barely live even if we are ourselves alone, says Max's face as Tara moves seamlessly into one of her alters.

she'll probably win an emmy for this show after it's canceled

In a recent episode, Tara's parents came to Overland Park intending to take the children away. Instead, Tara's newest alter -- a poncho gnome that pissed on things -- made her father think his lack of bladder control was proof he was no longer equipped to raise children. Tara looks like a better parent put in that kind of perspective, but her failings towards her children are obvious. She gets a light hand from the show's writers, because no one could sympathize properly with someone they believe to be a bad mother.

I think people have a hard time empathizing with Toni Collette's Tara, even though she is doing the acting equivalent of the five minute mile every week. It's easy to pull a Winslet and flop your tatas around for giggles, but Collette's range is so breathtaking it really is fun to watch, even if most struggle to connect with Tara's level of mental illness. As difficult as it is for the person with the illness, there's something exciting about it for her family and friends. In the end, there's always another Tara to feel bonded to.

Eleanor Morrow is a contributor to This Recording. This is her first appearance in these pages. She is a writer living in New York.

"A Daisy Through Concrete" - Eels (mp3)

"I Like Birds" - Eels (mp3)

"Something Is Sacred" - Eels (mp3)

"Estate Sale" - Eels (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

What can you say now.

Robots in disguise.

Where he would live.

Molloy and Malone

by Alex Carnevale

Quietly and unobtrusively, like an elephant tiptoeing through a church, the No. 1 comedy in television is a show about which you'll never hear critics crow. Highbrows phonies disdain the laugh-tracked adventures of philanderer Charlie Harper, his chiropractor brother Alan Harper and Alan's son Jacob. For most of its audience, Two and a Half Men is a bunch of belly laughs from a bygone era where sexual innuendo and wry put-downs were enough to entertain a generation.

charlie and his nephew jake

But there is something deeper and more disturbing going on in Mssr. Harper's shiny Santa Monica beach house, more Paradise Lost than The King of Queens. With a bare minimum of sets, props, and actors, the milieu emerges comfortably from knowing banter between familiars. Much of it is cheerful babbling between likeable fops, but there's just as many vicious insults and moments of utter darkness. Without it, there would be little reason to watch the lives of spoiled whites.

alan and kandi

The show is really about Alan Harper, played by veteran sitcommer Jon Cryer. After his wife kicks him out of the house he spend years working to own, he moves in with his brother to create the latest version of Neil Simon's battle of opposites. Alan is a desperate weasel, with an attitude towards sex that would push most men to abandon the idea of not paying for it. He loves being a father, but he's not a very good one. And, burdened with alimony payments, he depends on his brother for most things.

On the surface, it's a game setup. Alan is fastidious and repressed where his brother is loose and free. Each has something to learn from one another.

But they never do. On most shows, months pass, things are learned, life goes on. On Two and a Half Men, upwards of ten years has passed, with Alan's son Jake turning from a cute kid to a pudgy preteen to a slim, handsome teenager to prove it. And yet even he has learned barely more manners than he began the show with. Though he has lost the pudginess that typified his character, neither his uncle or his father have noticed. For them, he is forever eight.

As a result, a strange Beckettian tone has taken over the proceedings. Many of the episodes have similar plots, and yet the characters learn nothing. It is the furthest thing from the expectations of traditional drama, and yet it happens again and again.

Charlie Harper is a boozer, and in one episode he even learns the word for what he really is: misogynist. He has to look it up in the dictionary, granted, but at least he is permitted to know what he is.

He's taken the brief vagaries of a career in jingle-writing, and turned it into an existence that most men with a pulse should envy. If a beautiful woman walks and talks, Charlie Harper can wriggle his way into dumping her at some point down the road after the novelty of sex with her has faded into the bother of a relationship. He is constantly vacillating between two essentially male state of minds -- the moments before sex, when a man will do anything to have it; and those moments after sex, where no matter the place, the woman, or the future you have with her, the man wishes she was still and lifeless between thousands of pounds of seawater and fresh air.

Between the bars, he has been given a chance to remedy the error of his ways. His first real chance came with a storyline that had him cozying up to his real-life squeeze, Denise Richards. You can wager a guess as to how that ended, although to be fair it was a good deal better than it did in real life.

Next was ballet dancer Mia. No woman was more reluctant to agree to Charlie's advances; as a result winning her was even more special a prize. And yet at the final moment of embrace, Mia demanded he cut loose his brother on the world so that they could make a life together -- and he refused. What could be a zanier version of ourselves?

Charlie at least has the barest reason not to want to change his life -- it's pretty great, even if the hangovers are dissipating a lot slower than they used to. But his brother navigates, in many ways, the same worn path. And yet he manages to choose even more disastrously than Charlie Sheen. This is a feat indeed.

Alan Harper's last two serious girlfriends were castoffs from the freight train that is the Charlie Harper experience. The first was the lush, brilliantly opaque 22-year old, Kandi, whose limber body and less-than-limber mind took Charlie mere seconds to tire of. Alan was endlessly entranced by Kandi's willingness to pursue intercourse with him, and he even married her. Divorce predictably came shortly after.

Next was Alan's chirpy receptionist, a small little sprite who charmed her way in and out of his brother's pants. She then "chose" Alan, and things were going on quite swimmingly until he ate a pot brownie and hooked up with her mother (Carol Kane). You see, these characters resist change in every form it offers itself. It reminds them suspiciously of their mother, who also wanted to change them, and is portrayed by Holland Taylor.

The gifts of modernity are empty to these two brothers. They never use the internet - Charlie is once amused to find there's a defamatory website about his exploits with the fairer sex, but that's all. Sometimes they watch television - Alan sipping wine and sampling his brother's private jacuzzi plasma while he's off on his latest conquest.

There is nothing of these two lives we would want, and yet they exist all the same. Like two sons of God, Alan and Charlie carry on completely differently, and yet neither is satisfied. No matter what we do, this riddle of a show tells us, we are doomed to be dissatisfied. When we are closest to our own idea of happiness is when we are farthest from it. Such creatures, humans, can never truly be balanced, lest they make up a fiction they can enjoy better than the pitter-patter of time coming to claim where they live, up against the ocean.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He lives in Manhattan, and tumbls here.

"The Magpie" - Bishop Allen (mp3)

"The Lion and the Teacup" - Bishop Allen (mp3)

"The Ancient Commonsense of Things" - Bishop Allen (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

We taxied out in a storm.

Aren't you here tonight?

This is love.

And You Said You Wanted To Go Back To The Island

by Dick Cheney

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

-- John 3:16

Life is full of important questions. Jack Shephard is the biggest control freak I know, so he has to take on the vast majority of life's crucial queries. For example -- if an Arab of indeterminate origin passes along his condolences before you board a flight with him to Guam, do you alert the authorities, or at the very least Benry Gale? Also, if you have sex with distraught Kate after she's abandoned Aaron to a well-meaning Los Angeles-area Jewish family, it's rape, right?

I can't start throwing stones in glass Dharma stations. Let's be honest: rape is a small price to pay. This is the island we're talking about. It is coveted, and to get something that great, like intercourse with a hot doctor, you have to pay a price.

pre-rape kate

A pendulum traverses the continents -- we presume of this world, but we don't know for sure. "The island is moving," Faraday's hot mother tells them. Uh, yeah. The entire earth is moving, old lady. It's called orbit, you daft witch.

Eloise Hawking's secret plan to get them back on the island includes "taking a flight" and "packing a nice pair of shoes." This is what my grandmother told me every time I visited her at the home, and yet I didn't act all weird like it was fate. RIP Grandma Chene-ster.

Of course, Mama Faraday is by no measure the wackest bitch to occupy Lynne and mine's television on a typical Wednesday night. That honor goes to American Idol's Tatiana, whose dreams of fame and stardom with her patented "international" renditions of songs we've all heard before. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tatiana was also the name of the whore tiger who attacked some people at the San Francisco Zoo a couple of years ago. I believe my boss pardoned the tiger, but not the atrociousness of this blabbering wannabe. See ya, betch.

saving all my love for this crazy betch

Still, Tatiana is way better than Danny Gokey who is (a) 28 and (b) using his wife who passed away for cash purposes, much like George Constanza did on Seinfeld when he showed one photo of Susan to models in the meat-packing district to elicit their sympathies. Also, who the fuck sings "Hero"? He's lucky Chris Brown isn't his boyfriend. He's also lucky he didn't pick Jack Shephard's bed to sleep in. NO MEANS NO JACK.

As Jack is giving Kate a capital R and then pouring her orange juice and coffee (together?!?) before leaving to steal his grandfather's shoes and kiss Locke's bald head in his coffin, we can't help but feel sympathetic. Has one man ever had to handle so much?

it is traditional to make the lady a post-rape breakfast jack

Give the guy something to do with himself, and he's clean-shaven and purposeful. Give him a reason to doubt and he's whimpering "Jeremy Bentham stole my mojo" in an Austin Powers accent and Benry is holding him as he whines, "It's not your fault" in a even gayer version of that classic scene that ruined Good Will Hunting.

you're just so facking special Will

It took a man with real balls to write something this perverse and wrong. Actually, it took two big men to write this episode: executive producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. (Although, to be fair, even Michelle Rodriguez is one bang away from getting an exec producer credit on this show. The opening titles now run into the half-hour mark.)

Does it make you feel tough to ruin Evangeline Lilly's career, guys? It wasn't enough that she dated a hobbit, now she's just another statistic in Joe Torre's Safe at Home Fountation? For shame.

J/K Carlton, we know you're a Red Sox fan. The real reason they needed the honchos to write this one is that their devious plan to get the Oceanic Six back to the island proper was to break out the rarely used Ocho Ex Machina, wherein eight implausible plot threads are glossed over because the guy who is supposed to keep track of continuity is too busy being interviewed by The New York Times and fucking the continuity chick on Life on Mars.

Maybe Carlton and Damon can record a cryptic podcast with hints for subplots that will later appear in the show as coy literary references. Wow, Ben's reading Ulysses. Is he majoring in English at Hampshire College at the tender age of 48, or did leaving the island simply sprout a vagina in his pants?

wait a second bro -- is benry gale actually james joyce? that would totally explain Finnegan's Wake

Hey assholes, do you really think we're just going to sit back and accept that your show has more loopholes then Obama's Retarded Bailout '09?

One of the messageboards I lurk on had the following point:

I don't think you can buy 78 seats on a flight and insist that the airline keep them open. I thought the rule was that if a passenger doesn't check in 10 minutes before take-off, the airline can give the seat away. I can see Hurley booking 1 or 2 extra seats because of his size, but not 78.

That is what you are questioning?!? People like this are out there, and a chimpanzee that just wanted some ass gets shot to death. Go sit in the dunce chair, internet user. God I hate what this nation has become when I stopped controlling it for just a single month.

clearly Good Will Hunting was more seminal than we thought

Let's focus on what we do know. We now know that it's Hurley's voice repeating the numbers from the radio tower to the Frenchies, years after/before he strangely heard his lucky ones muttered on the frequency.

this is the bare minimum, i hope you toned up since you had jin's baby sun

We now know that Jin has slept with nearly every woman in the Dharma Initiative, and when Sun gets ahold of his ass, he's going to have a lot of 'splaining to do!

We now know that Locke is destined to come back to life as a druid. He is the one who built Stonehenge; another mystery solved! They're in the Bermuda Triangle! Locke is a Decepticon! Michael Bay is helming Lost's season finale! Shock! Surprise! Rape!

jesus' wounds feel like a pussy, true story. it's in the bible

The hits just keep on coming. Ben r's Penny, Jack r's Kate. Eloise Hawking watches Locke kill himself after he gets in a last bang with the chick who escorts Sayid to the flight of doom. Eloise is pretty much Thomas the Apostle. In fact, due to time travel, she is the original Thomas the Apostle. And Locke is actually Jesus. Shit, now that the show is up against American Idol, how else are they going to appeal to the Christian demographic? That jackass Danny is a church choir teacher? We have Jesus.

Dick Cheney, the former vice president of the United States, is the senior contributor to This Recording. His location can only be reached through Al Ajira flights.

hell yes i put my finger in her asshole, what do you think?

THERE WERE NO SURVIVORS, NONE LEFT ALIVE

"Red Tide" - Neko Case (mp3)

"Prison Girls" - Neko Case (mp3)

"Don't Forget Me" - Neko Case (mp3)

"The Pharoahs" - Neko Case (mp3)

THE PAPER SAID SEVENTY FIVE

Cheney's Lost so far:

Observing your favorite betch covered in your own afterbirth is even worse. The only thing harder to get out of your mind is the image of Hugo Reyes in an orange jumpsuit.

Lynne wheeled me in front of the television for last week’s two hour premiere of Lost. I was more confused than Larry Summers at a wedding shower, or Rahm Emanuel if his penis accidentally got inside a woman.

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

We came from the mountain.

Georgia puts a book down her pants.

From clay to stone.

the lamp post

Don't Be Afraid, It's Only Love

by Alex Carnevale

Big Love

creators Mark V. Olsen & Will Scheffer

So quickly does this third season of Big Love bounce from dilemma to dilemma, conflict to conflict, that it is easy to miss a small scene that typifies the best show on television.

Cleaning up after dinner Bill Hendrickson, husband to three going on four, drops a plate. It shatters on the ground. "Watch your hands," his wife Barb tells him. They've just heard honest testimony from Kathy Hendrickson, Bill's sister-in-law, of what she endured under the iron rule of the prophet Roman Grant. She was compelled to marry at 14 and fuck her husband. And so was Bill's second wife, Roman's daughter Nicki Hendrickson (Chloe Sevigny).

"It's evil," Bill says, and you know he's never admitted it before. He left Juniper Creek as a young runaway, but he never left the idea of the Principle. And indeed there's nothing wrong with polygamy in theory, only in practice.

We must all allow each other to live as each individual chooses. This is the difference between Bill and his wives and Juniper Creek, and also the difference between Bill and the rest of the world. This summer the government spend untold millions to prosecute a way of life, not the law.

There is much behavior we are permitted to disapprove of. But saying polygamy is the same as a rape is doing no justice to rape. Blurring the lines of morality is an affront to morality, and this is what Big Love runs up against so masterly.

When Bill's first wife took sick, he took on Nicki against her wishes as a second. Nicki nursed Barb, and they became a family. Then Bill fell in love with Margene, the babysitter, and the family expanded again. The most truly good of his wives, Margene is the moral core, with the sexual soft insides of the peach.

Now Bill has fallen in love again, a courtship he called off when he found Serbian immigrant Ana taking up with another man. He and Barb were shocked, but Ana came to Barb to explain. She accepted Ana's apology, and urged her husband to continue taking up with this other woman. "I like her," Barb told Bill outside her mother's house. "And I like that I like her."

Ana is a polarizing figure for the show. On one hand, she represents everything that is wrong and corrupting about the Principle, reminding the audience that Bill is never truly satisfied. He should be happy by now, the secular audience cries.

This isn't the way Bill sees it. The larger his family grows, the larger his prize in the Kingdom of Heaven. And it makes sense to grow the family for his wives. Sure, they're on the receiving end of one less night of sex, but they get one more woman to look after the kids. And surely Ana is a deserving kind of woman.

The children are the victims, if you are looking for one. Bill barely makes it to Ben's profound moment as flag-bearer, and the rest of the children recede into the background of a life too complicated and torn asunder for any innocence to survive in its wake.

Most every character on Big Love is a Mormon, but this is a show intended for atheists. We may acknowledge that there is likely no evidence of an intelligent creator, but we all know something made the universe, whether we decide to worship it or not. I have no belief in God, though I have often wondered whether that lack of belief was for good or ill. For me it is no matter, but I do know that I have no desire to live in a society where the idea of God has been abandoned to cranks and liars.

We want to be surrounded by believers, true believers, for it is easier to trust the motives of those with faith. We love living in a country of these people. Liberal pussies who watch HBO need these folks. They are good insurance if there is a God, and they are not so mindful of birth control, ensuring they'll reproduce like rabbits so we don't all die off. (Gay couple and show creators Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, below, are particularly fond of this joke.)

Big Love reminds us that we are not Gods any more than God is. It is not within our power to judge the good and evil that lies in others. When we do so we pretend we are better, sitting behind a judge's stand, as the secular court did this week, starts to look just like a throne. This is the way of disaster. We must never judge others

Bill's children are kind creatures, much better equipped than their forefathers to run up against the cruelness of modernity. They are wide-eyed, and some even wish to be free of Utah. Sarah is now pregnant because her family preached abstinence instead of birth control. A boon this will be once in heaven, but here on Earth it is a terrifying crutch. She tells her brother Benji on prom night, as they both watch their childhood vanish.

The rest march on in relative anonymity. The lives of adults are not meant for children in this world, and perhaps that's as it should be too. In the sickness of Juniper Creek events touch all equally, but Bill's children may yet be spared some of that, for as long as it can be done.

"I need you to protect me as I once watched over you," The Prophet Roman Grant tells his daughter Nicolette, through a glass partition. Last night, she had trouble deciding whether or not to follow his instructions. Before long the children are digging through the sins of the father quite literally, and it's a hard thing to watch. What else is there? The young are the only hope for the West, and what a miserable chance they have.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He last wrote in these pages about Stephen Daldry's The Reader. He tumbls here.

"Gallery Piece (Jon Brion remix)" - Of Montreal (mp3)

"Gallery Piece (instrumental)" - Of Montreal (mp3)

"First Time High (Of Chicago acoustic remix)" - Of Montreal (mp3)

PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING

The Annotated/Condensed Society Of The Spectacle

Part One: You Know Nothing Of My Work

Part Two: Chew Bubblegum And Kick Ass

Part Three: You Are As Human As The Rest Of Us, If Not More So