Yes, yes…it’s one of those entries. A typical, end of the year, nostalgically self-absorbed menu of rehash and hodgepodge that seeks to define one’s future by exploring one’s immediate past under the pretense that we have any control over either. And I might as well tell you the end: I’ll find it in me, after much hedging and hand-wringing, to conclude that the trailing twelve months have been learning experiences and that, if I take each painful second to task, 2009 will be, at most, 51% positive. And then I’ll sign off with something wistful, lacing my words with the appropriate mixture of determinism and melancholy so that my caricature here remains slightly tragic, yet ever-so courageous.

Oh, fuck that. To be honest, it’s been a decent year of love, work and wonder and any disappointments seemed to fuel new adventures and fresh outlooks on what’s important and what’s not, what’s going well and what might need a tweak here or there. I tend to enjoy the turning of the new year in all of its predictably garish glory that sets awash over the human genome like so much spilled glitter on a bared, rosy tit. It’s a fist in the air, a solo out; none of it should count for the rest of it but some of it should count for something. Or something.

In any event, I’ll be spending it with a loved one and a few other loved ones and maybe having some exotically flavored dip. I could be persuaded to indulge in a cocktail or two, and if I’m feeling nasty, a bit of Wii bowling. If all goes as planned, I’ll miss the ball dropping due to watching the 8-ball drop into the side pocket, and when informed of the clock’s final tick and rewind, I’ll shake a few hands and plant a doozy on my Weezy. Then I’ll go back to doing what I was doing and considering more dip. And beer. And maybe a shot of mighty fine whisky.

Okay, so maybe a small list is in order: I wrote two books, read a few more, learned a lot, spent time with friends I hadn’t seen in a while, saw some gorgeous English countryside, watched a few horror classics and a couple of newer, non-classics, discovered Alien Worlds and other audio book magic, changed my sideburns, bought some awesome dresses that look fantastic on my woman, cured my cat of diabetes (sort of!), and got hardwood floors. On the negative side, I watched my favorite sports team play like poo with feet and my other favorite sports team win the world series. Wait, this is supposed to be all negative. Okay, let me try again…the economy blows, but Obama won the election. Sorry, one more time…we lost some real talent in the entertainment industry and a lot of good men and women died in a pointless war, but my family is healthy and I’ve got loads of great friends.

Shit, maybe I just can’t do full-bore negative. Let’s call it a character flaw and move on.

In the end, and more germane to this blog, I wrote a lot and did it listening to lots of good music and drinking a fair amount of good beer. I imagine I’ll do much of the same in the coming year, and it is my new goal to achieve the old goal that I failed to achieve in 2008: secure literary representation. Whether I accomplish that or not, I will have written hundreds of thousands of more words, each one in its place, doing work, baring my soul by some equation, and giving me countless hours of satisfaction and joy. In between, I will live my life much as I have done up to this point. The future is hopeful, good people. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground and with a little luck we’ll see one another on the other side with smiles, and stories and song. And whisky.

Before I sign off, please click the eye above and give some love to a woman who puts together a blog that is tireless in its offerings of the beautiful, haunting, frightening and purely unusual. Please? Cheers.

Have a wonderful new year, everyone. See you.

Having sat through six back-to-back episodes of HBO’s new Southern Vamp-Gothic series “True Blood”, I am reasonably pleased to report that there’s more to this Alan Ball infection confection (based on the Sookie Stackhouse book series by Charlaine Harris ) than I first believed. But we’re not home and safe yet, tenderloins, so don’t you put away that garlic just yet.

Let me first say that I’ve been guilty of bailing out on a number of TV shows before returning to them with my tail between my legs. Ball’s “Six Feet Under”, his first foray into the ultra-permissive theater of HBO, had me stifling a gag reflex at every melodramatic touch. There also seemed to be a statement being made about everything from gay sex to family dysfunction in every single narrative beat. It felt forced and self-righteous, and I began to wonder if Ball had any idea that other people besides himself lead real lives where some of these issues were serious, everyday matters and that he wasn’t being revolutionary and brave simply by dramatizing them in as graphic a manner as he could. At some point I was expecting one of his more depressed and neurotic puppets to start humping the scenery. To say the least, I switched off and waited for “The Sopranos”. Being from Jersey, that rung a little more true, even if it also tread a little heavily now and again.

Then, several years later, I returned. I’m not even sure why. Prompted by nothing whatsoever I switched it on and began to notice the color schemes of the various scenes. Then for some reason, the dialog began to hum and refresh like a finely tuned water pick. Maybe my life had gotten more interesting over the gap years, or maybe the show had loosened up a tad. Whatever it was, I started tuning in from the first minute it kicked off, and once I saw what was probably one of the most hilarious opening death scenes wherein a family man accidentally runs over his own head while trying to retrieve the paper without leaving his SUV, I got it. The uncomfortable high humor, the tragic and twisted honesty, the unbridled passion and love – I got it all. It became my favorite hour of TV, and yes, I had all the air crushed from my lungs when the last episode showed me it had been holding my heart in the mortuary refrigerator the whole time and then proceeded to bury it in an avalanche of blessed and perfectly pitched melancholy. Damn you, Alan Ball. I’ve not been as tough in any way, since.

So after loving American Beauty, and now Six Feet Under, you could imagine my delight when learning that Ball was at it again, and this time with a series about vampires. I could scarcely believe my good fortune. It had taken me at least a year to properly mourn the Fisher family, and even though a part of me still wanted them all to come back to life (except for maybe Billy, who nearly drove me and Brenda to will ourselves to death), serving up a tasty portion of the undead was the next best thing. Anna Paquin only sweetened the pot. Sure, vampires had been done to death by then, but I knew that Alan would find a way to steal my soul again. And there I was, leaving the doors and windows unlocked, waiting as one does for it to happen.

The opening, as are most of HBO series’ openings, was as appropriately interesting and mouth-watering as the food photos on a Friday’s menu. But once I took my first taste, I spit it right back out. I was horrified, alright, but not from the danger of a vampire’s hunger, but instead from the thick “I do declare” southern dialog that rolled off the character’s tongues – not like freshly withdrawn blood – but more like warm chocolate milk. It was Tennessee Williams as envisioned by the Podunk Senior Center doing a play written by third graders from Podunk Elementary. And then came the nudity and sex, slathered over top like extra butterscotch on a butterscotch sundae with butterscotch morsels. In short, I thought it was a gratuitous mess that seemed to have no point but to present yet another allegory for fringe societies done with a paint-by-numbers grid. I’m mean it: I was confused, and more than a little pissed-off.

Shaking off my initial reaction and recalling how I’d made the mistake of bailing too early before, I got stuck in and waited for the second episode. Then the third. By the middle of that one, I’d switched over to something else and to be quite honest, forgot the damn thing was even on. I didn’t want to admit to myself – someone who had taken a year to catch on to the wondrousness that is “Battlestar Galactica” – that this time I’d gotten it right. True Blood was just bad. Ball had failed me. Finally. Badly.

So after a few weeks of saying as much in as many online horror forums as I could find, I began to listen again to those who had agreed with my initial reservations but had stuck it out and had come to find that there was something here besides hokey blood-sucking humor and overwrought performances. There were “surprises” apparently, and things had taken a turn for the bizarre. Some had even mentioned that, despite the wicked humor, they’d felt “disturbed”. And as I took it to mean in a good way, I decided to take the weekend, retrace my steps and take the show into another few episodes. And that’s what I did. Having gone all the way to episode 6, I’m hear to tell those who may be curious about this series a secret…

…the magic number is 5. I’ve yet to go back to SFU and see if the same holds true there, but it would appear that by episode 5 I forgot I was watching a new show and started to feel something for some of the characters. A good sign is being a little annoyed with the cumbersome way one needs to download the next episode in order to keep the train rolling. And I can tell you now, I was annoyed – take that to mean in a good way.

So, I’ve three more episodes to go before I’m all caught up, and I reckon I’ll be watching at least one of ‘em tonight. Possibly two if I get started early on my supper. I still don’t know if I’d pay two bits for a peek at the rest, but daggone-it, somethin’s tellin’ me I need to stick it out fer a coupla more.

*spits*

Hmm…maybe a bloody mary whilst viewin’ would spice things up a notch.