MW: Probably a Waste of Your Time

I wish that it was acceptable to take a picture of the teacher at the front of my class right now. She looks like a younger version of Mrs. Finkle from Ace Ventura and talks a little bit more like she might shower with chardonnay. That being said, if she happens to read Brahsome, I absolutely love this class. Eh.

But even though Alice Drummond is apparently now teaching North Carolina history, she is vastly better off than Lois Einhorn. Sean Young has reportedly checked into rehab following her shoutout to Julian Schnabel during the Directors Guild of America Awards (which no one really gives a shit about) and while there’s absolutely nothing humorous about substance abuse whatsoever, the idea of a shitcanned Young screaming at people onstage kind of cracks me up. Perhaps that makes me a bad person. Whatever. I learn at least twice a week about morality, so why not tack on another day.

Usually those two days are Sunday and Thursday. Because, no, I don’t currently have On Demand and, yes, I get my morality lessons from The Wire and Lost. Again, bad person? Possibly. Or maybe it’s not that I get my morality lessons from the shows so much as I find the inherent morality in each of them fascinating.

First of all, they are two completely different shows. Setting wise, it’s ridiculous. Lost takes place on a fictitious South Pacific island. The Wire takes place in the ghettos of Baltimore, conceivably the most “real” place on the face of the planet (think Chappelle style “keepin’ it real” of course). Lost is predicated on the cinematic notion of flashbacks and mystery keeping the reader involved. The Wire is heavily abusive of dramatic irony – there are plot twists, but for the most part, we know what’s going to happen; we can see the fall coming a mile away (staring right at you, Jimmy, Scott and Lester).

But more importantly, both offer questions of morality, and I think that’s what makes both shows so attractive to “us”. Lost doesn’t so much offer up any realistic questions about everyday choices in life, but it does force us to look inward and wonder what would happen if ended up somewhere that juxtapositionally healed our physical flaws while exposing our emotional scars. Meanwhile, The Wire, and writer David Simon, seem to ask what would happen if we can’t escape…as opposed to being forced into the position of being removed from the alleged drama that imposes itself on us throughout a daily basis, the Baltimorian characters are more a part of a world that is inescapable, as shown my the talk between Cutty and Dook; half the people in this world don’t even know what else is out there.

Does any of this mean anything? No. And maybe I’m wrong. But, um, look: little footballs.

Tagged as: Ace Ventura, Alice Drummond, Lois Einhorn, Lost, Sean Young, The Wire