Courage and Alan Ball back on the bus

Courage. Not what I would consider my strong point really. Courage to overcome adversity, insult, being dumped by your fiancé for someone stupider, shorter, less attractive and less educated (whoops! Where’d that little toad come from?) Of course she did not have my scintillating intellect which the vast majority of men are really not interested in waking up to day after day, year after year. That's what I tell myself people, gotta find some way to sleep at night. But I digress. Because this is my blog and I can so – Phhhthttt!

Anyhooo – what I am trying to do is work up to a retraction without it being an outright apology. Wish me luck with that. This all to do with my previous comments about the TV show True Blood and Alan Ball (exec prod) being off my bus based on a rather difficult episode of said TV show. Now I did not abandon, boycott or in any other way abandon my viewing of the show, this despite my previous assertion that I was going to give all future episodes a pass in support of my Line. Fortunately for me, I draw my line in the sand, which as we all know is a very mutable substance subject to the vagaries of whatever wind is blowing.

I have watched and enjoyed fully the two episodes following the one in question and fully enjoyed them. My writer’s mind supplying the reasoning is that is because they were both far superior to the icky episode in question. My scientist’s mind laughing all the while into my hand with a little cough, “Rat ionization! Rationalization!”

It is an admission I make with a touch of chagrin that I love Vampire Lore and I read it all and watch most of it too. Finally I am beginning to foment my own take on the mythology so look the hell out people, something wicked is definitely this way coming.

But I digress again. Okay fine. I’m sorry Alan Ball and the writer/producers of True Blood, though I still think you crossed the line with that episode I can now appreciate where you were going and choke on my early censure. Sort of. Cause taken in isolation I still don’t think I was wrong. It was over the line. But I respect that you’ve got to flirt with your line the same way that I’ve got to flirt with mine. And while I suppose in the scheme of the universe it matters little as I am to you-no-one and nothing;I do hope you appreciate how much even this half assed apology cost me. I hate being even a little wrong. Because I am never wrong. Well. About men maybe. Stories, never.

The Line.

The Line.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the line. You know, The Line, the one that we individually and collectively should never cross. It is tough being an artist in that you are always flirting with The Line. Sometimes you cross it. Sometimes you respect it. Sometimes crossing can lead to ruin. Sometimes crossing can lead to riches.

I have before stated and will state here again for the record that I have no morals, only ethics. In the Cocoverse, morals are sets of rules and strictures placed upon you by others, while ethics are the rules and parameters that you develop for yourself, reasoned and rationale choices made after analysis and reflection. Additionally, the philosophy dominant in the Cocoverse is neo-pagan in its insistence that one is responsible for ones own actions and if it harm none, do what though wilt, and it harm some, do what thou ought.

That brings us to the place where I announce that I am boycotting a TV show that was previously a favorite. True Blood and its producers are off my bus. This pretty much goes against everything that I have hitherto been about. Free speech and all that. And those of you that know, know that I have been a nearly life long connoisseur of vampire and horror fiction. Not slasher flicks though, which in general are devoid of artistry. I never like being hit in the head repeatedly with a shovel, and the movie fan corollary to that is that I don’t like everything graphically laid out every second in the same way that I hate reading scripts where all the characters say exactly everything they mean all the time. Cause people don’t, almost never. Even a conversation in the elevator about the weather is colored with what people were thinking about before they go into the elevator and by their thoughts of what they are about to do after the elevator. That’s why good acting teachers insist that you, as an actor better know the before and after of the scene – otherwise the scene is YAWN inducing. As a writer, you better know even better!

I can deal with the graphic sex and a certain amount of gore, but this most recent episode had a pair of vampires having sex in a bloody bed while a human victim bled to death beside them – with blood pumping from her ripped out throat. A her I’d like to point out. The far less attractive husband had been neatly dispatched with a broken neck. It was ugly ugly ugly and revolting and disgusting. It crossed my way out there Line and became pornography, poorly written, poorly made up and poorly shot pornography I might add. And while if taken in isolation I may have put it down to poor choices by the episode director however, coupled with –and the word coupled is a deliberate choice – the town wide orgy scene later in the episode… I turned off the TV and I thought about it for a few days. Talked with some of my friends about it and realized with some surprise that this group of TV writers, producers and directors had finally helped me find my Line. Further, despite my ambitions related to writing in the field, I felt strongly that I had to speak up. Alan Ball, this was not okay, nor was it good. The only remotely interesting character interaction was Jason and Sarah getting it on in the choir loft because Sarah convinced him it was God’s will. The rest was getting hit in the head with a shovel, which I just realize is kinda an unfortunate image choice given your fabulous work on Six Feet Under, but there it is. So, thank you Mr. Ball, I will no longer be joining you on that side of The Line, you and your TV show True Blood are off my bus.