In Which We Hate The Way We're Speaking To Each Other

Post Mortem

by DICK CHENEY

It's not polite to say who died on Downton Abbey. Most people don't even know. Their lives haven't changed as a result. We love people, especially wealthy individuals, in the specifics, since we sense we may become them. In the abstract, they disappoint us.

this guy

My other favorite show is Sons of Anarchy. Except for the Exorcist-like horror involved in watching Gemma Teller (Katey Segal) have sex scenes with Jimmy Smits, who plays a pimp on the show, it's fantastic. I spent the entire hour flexing my knuckles and lamenting that I'm too old to get on a bike. It would probably end more like this:

The first rule about Fight Club is that you never get on a motorcycle with someone wearing a Duke t-shirt. But we were talking about the death of Opie.

It's impossible to connect the phenomenon of a maudlin young motorcyclist (Ryan Hurst) dying in prison to save his boyfriend with the economy, except to say that watching the members of the MC mourn their large, closeted friend, all I could think of was how much money they saved on the funeral by having it themselves.

basically, your father is an idiot Lady Mary

I was gchatting with someone the other day who was telling me how boring they find scripted television. I explained that was probably because they couldn't see the sychronicity between Branson putting his wife between himself and the British government, and the president doing the exact same thing with Hillary Clinton.

She signed off in a huff and e-mailed me the entire Supreme Court opinion on Roe v. Wade. Having friends on the other side of the aisle is like being married to Lady Mary (tell me when you tire of these comparisons). Everything they think of is completely without regard for the economic realities of the world.

I can't even imagine what it would be like to gchat with Matthew Crawley, probably like sucking on a tootsie roll pop that has asparagus at its center.

branson, you disgust me

No one has done more to diminish the cause of Irish independence than Julian Fellowes. I haven't been this mad since South Park eclipsed the boundaries of bad taste and did a storyline making fun of how Bane sounded in The Dark Knight Rises.

Sorry, my mind is wandering a lot lately. It's a function of old age, and the relentless attacks on Mormonism in the mainstream media. I really don't understand this. One group of people believes in a supernatural human being who is supposed to return to Earth and save the world, and another believes a slightly different version of this myth, but is absolutely crazy for thinking this way.

The only thing worse than that is how many times I'll be writing, "The only thing worse than that" in this essai. The only thing worse than that, though, is how every single joke on Mike & Molly is still about how fat the male in the relationship is. It's bullying, and I find it disgusting. That's his natural build.

buy a large bed please

Doesn't it feel like they're making the bed look especially tiny? My only real problem with scripted television is that every single person on it is completely caucausian. Last night I found myself rewinding the trailer for Alex Cross just to interject a little diversity in my existence. The idea of Tyler Perry as a hardboiled cop hunting Jack Shephard from Lost is beyond my dreams. It makes me think of a Jhumpa Lahiri short story, that's how completely amazing it is.

the answer to Lost was a bright light coming out of a cave. Never forget.

Once I was in a country club where the hazing ritual involved watching all of the Madea movies in chronological sequence while you kept getting messages on your phone saying, "They passed another tax on capital gains!" The fact that no one finds it the least bit strange that Matthew Fox could convincingly play a serial killer should tell us something.

"Brickleberry"

The mere idea of Lost usually reduces me to tears. To cheer myself up I watch this show Brickleberry, which takes place in a national park. The point of Brickleberry is to be offensive, and make jokes about subjects that other shows won't touch. In theory this is an interesting concept but (1) Family Guy has been on the air for over two decades and (2) 90 percent of the jokes are simple racism. (The black character is named Denzel. Haha. Get it? If you don't, you're a fucking square.) (The other ten percent of the jokes are about women and gays.)

You start to understand why my liberal gchat friend hates scripted television. That is, until you watch the finest show airing on any network, The Thick Of It.

Malcolm Tucker and Rebecca Front on "The Thick Of It"

You know how Parks & Recreation pretends to be a show about politics, but is really just a larger forum for the writers of the show to copy down all the funny jokes they read on the internet and have comedians act them out? I can't believe they did an entire election storyline with Leslie Knope, and then occupied her time with solving the obesity problem in Pawnee and feuding over a bathroom. Not even I have that little faith in government.

Ben and December

Here is what all the punchlines on Parks & Recreation revolve around: Leslie is energetic, Ron eats free-range meat, Chris is depressed, Andy is stupid, April is a bitch, Adam Scott has a large head for his body.

You know, it's okay to have a person who has more than one aspect to his personality. It's called a fully-fleshed out character; the show's writers might have seen it in passing during the ninety seconds a day they peel their heads away from their iPhones. The only thing more embarrassing than this season of Parks & Recreation is having to read pathetic Emily Nussbaum essais about how much she worships Amy Poehler or how she doesn't want Parenthood to get canceled. Grow up.

Peter Mannion's aides on 'The Thick Of It'

I guess now that I am "retired", politics just bores me. Art lasts for a substantial duration, blog posts slightly less long. Does anyone remember the Whigs? Or what a dick Andrew Jackson was? I can't muster the energy. It's easier to just look to television for escape. That's why there is no better place to rest your head than the considerable problems of the British.

Unfortunately, most of middle America can't understand a single word said in Malcolm Tucker's Scottish accent, so they watch The Walking Dead instead.
 

The only thing worse than that is. There are people everywhere, when I wake. I have no right to judge them. Wake me up after the election.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here. He last wrote in these pages about intercourse between Lady Mary and Matthew Crawley.

"Fear Is A Man's Best Friend" - Field Music (mp3)

"Heart" - Field Music (mp3)

In Which The Past Is Dead To Us

Wishcasting

by DICK CHENEY

Magic City
Starz
creator Mitch Glazer

The pilot of Magic City ends with a corpse floating through the ocean, perhaps the dumbest cliché in crime fiction. That the offending dead body is the head of a powerful labor union is no panacea on this insult to my intelligence. I lived through the sixties twice, well, three times if you count the four hour brunch I had with George Lucas where he said "In those days" over 450 times.

Nostalgia for the past permeates almost every aspect of society. It is the defining characteristic of a declining civilization, and it is all the more pervasive in the midst of technological or industrial revolution. I hate this attitude, that things were better before x, unless the x you're referring to is the HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones. Thankfully, Starz's new series Magic City is so completely overwhelmed with ridiculous cliches that it's difficult to imagine anyone wishing to return to the Miami of 1959.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan's ever-expanding neck (on loan from Tom Hanks, who presumably no longer requires the device) portrays Isaac Evans, the manager of Miami's Miramar Hotel. His backer Ben Diamond (Danny Huston) is a member of organized crime, and the remaining details are copied verbatim from Martin Scorses Casino.

Isaac has two sons and a daughter by his first wife Molly, and he remarried a Gentile woman his daughter disapproves of and his son creepily observes sunbathing in the nude. Since there is no XBox, his eldest son spends the vast majority of his time having unprotected sex, In the pilot alone there are three blowjobs received, all by men. Actually, it is grammatically correct to refer to a blowjob as a "bowjob" if the sexual act in question has occurred thirty years or more in the past. Once in Magic City a woman tries to give another woman a bowjob, but it all goes so predictably wrong.

the ice queen

It gets to the point where you're actively praying for a powerful female character to enter the mix, with the brains and bravado of my wife Lynne and the prominent forehead of an Angelina Jolie. It happens near the end of the second episode, and when you find out she's a tall, icy blonde you just sigh. After striking union members toss Isaac's wife's poodle off a hotel balcony, he doesn't even even respect her enough to tell her the dog died. He just replaces it with a new snarling poodle. This is what amounts to comedy in Magic City.

the abused mob wife

I made a list of the show's clichés so they can fix them:

- Cranky old man with a secret heart of gold

- Bowjob while driving a convertible and the car crashes

- Purportedly religious politician is actually a corrupt buffoon

- Witness has to be intimidated but ends up killing himself anyway

- Young girl has a bat mitzvah and chooses a Judy Garland theme

- Insensitive rich woman can't hold onto a man to save her life, they don't "deserve her"

- Vicious and heartless mob boss uses elaborate metaphors copied from episodes of Bones to suggest depth of field (watching him relate the story of the Frog and the Scorpion with a straight face was more painful than getting a new heart)

- Peggy comes up with a campaign and Don takes credit for it

- Girl tells boy not to call her by pet name, later reveals she prefers the nickname

- LeBron James is afraid of commitment

Don Draper was able to ever so briefly be interesting because of how ridiculous every single word out of his mouth and woman he slept with was. The writers of Magic City have tragically misunderstood the fact that he is meant to be ironic. The officious Isaac is never funny, he does not joke, he simply ribs, like the backup quarterback on a football team. He has no friends, not even his boss or his wife. He gets along with his father, but only because he needs help disappointing the labor unions of the world.

Don's shame at his mysterious origins was obviously a light parable of the Jewish self-hatred of Matthew Weiner, and of course Don really had nothing to fear. Isaac, who is an agnostic Jew, endures slurs and various difficulties related to his ethnicity, but he himself and his family make Ace Rothstein look like David Ben-Gurion. There should an inset displayed during the show of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's circumcised penis as verifiable proof he is what it seems he isn't.

the maid

Isaac's younger son, law student Danny, is infatuated with one of the hotel's maids. As Frank Sinatra prepares for his New Year's Eve concert, Danny sends his intended the gift of a lavish red dress. (Her massive eyebrows are nicely set off by the gown's elaborate fringe.) Women are either servants or whores, and there are about 20-25 prostitutes in the pilot alone. It's a woman in 1959, what else could she be?

Isaac's eldest son Stevie Evans starts an illicit affair with Ben Diamond's tragically abused wife Lily Diamond. At first the sex is completely unprotected and fun, but after the fifth time, she says, "Can you please just hold me Stevie?" To kill time takes a bunch of indecent photos of them having sex. Over seven times she asks, "Did you burn the photos?" If I have to tell you the answer, you don't yet understand the familiar appeal of Magic City. It's like slipping into the second asshole where David Chase forced Terence Winter to put all his bad ideas.

Alex asked me to review the second season of Game of Thrones ("You won't believe what happens to Tyrion!" Fuck you.) I said no. He asked me to review The Hunger Games. I said no. He asked me to review Magic City, and I said, "Only if I can use the word shiksa over twelve times." I must simply be getting old. The past and the future both seem equally boring. All around me in the real world I see things that have never existed before, that are never described in our art or media. I turned this disaffected feeling into a screenplay titled Vaginal Space Program. It has a huge part for Holly Hunter and it was purchased by a savvy executive at Paramount. Look forward to that. What else is there to look forward to?

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording and the former vice president of the United States. He is a writer living in an undisclosed location. You can find an archive of his writing on This Recording here.

a prostitute

"Four Hours Away" - Young Prisms (mp3)

"Runner" - Young Prisms (mp3)

"Outside" - Young Prisms (mp3)

In Which We Taste The Balls Of The Bear

A Whole New World

by DICK CHENEY

Game of Thrones
creators David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

Peter Beinart ended the war on terror yesterday, which was nice of him to do. Does he have a solution for the White Walkers of the North? He should just ask Marty Peretz whether the war on terror is over; the response he receives will be something along the lines of "PALESTINIANS?!?!"

If I have to hear one more person talk about the death of the big guy, I am going to walk around pouting everywhere like Ned Stark. You didn't know him the way I did.

Pocahontas saved John Smith by throwing herself on the very rocks that would have been used to dice his face. She got her way and was renamed Rebecca for her trouble. Catelyn Stark is into bold moves like that. She possesses so much faith in her husband that she secretly follows him to King's Landing, and let's face it, doesn't appear to be very interested in meeting up with him or even visiting her kids. This makes her later behavior at Robb Stark's wedding all the more unsettling.

Should we really let a weaselly-looking particle accelerator like Peter Beinart end the war on terror? Ask Khal Drogo if the war on terror is over; he will likely answer by grunting and having newly consensual sex with his wife Daenarys. Poor Cersei Lannister. There's a mounting army to destroy her husband rounding up adherents across the Narrow Sea, the Starks think she tried to kill paralyzed Bran, and a bunch of wild direwolves are constantly biting her children. Cersei Lannister isn't paranoid - she has more enemies  than Julian Assange, which is no coincidence seeing as they use the same wigmaker.

ask the forest people for a new weave

I view Daenarys Targaryen as something of a feminist pioneer along the lines of Audre Lorde, Susan B. Anthony, or Kat Dennings. It makes sense that she doesn't want to eat horse anymore, given that her husband goes by the Great Stallion, which I suppose opens up a paternity question of some sort. With their steely albino countenances, the Targaryens look more likely to be schtupping each other's siblings than the Lannisters, but perhaps all such tendencies were scrambled during the tyrannical reign of the Mad King Aerys.

Game of Thrones is a veritable fountain of wisened, crackly wisdom. Someone is constantly advising someone else of something, although the resulting lesson isn't as good as those of my TR colleague. Here is basically what I have learned so far: 

- Always check your bowl first before packing a new one in case there's something left

- Jon Snow is an extremely forgiving swordsman

- It is a capital crime that Matthew Broderick was not cast as Littlefinger as God demanded of Moses, although I guess theoretically he could still play Samwell Tarly

- Howie Rose really needs to grow up

- Do not greet your plumber with the phrase "hello giggles" and even "aloha giggles" is pushing it

- Despite living in a wintry castle with them for the past decade, Ned Stark is only surface-level familiar with his daughters' names or likes/dislikes 

"can someone get my daughter a fucking barbie doll? varys?!?"

- Congratulations to BO, but who needs friends when you have the NYT?

- Dornish women are known for the spiky teeth that emerge from their nether regions

- Varys uses children as spies

Were you in the mood for seventy older men suggestively telling Tyrion Lannister about the threat from the north? That's basically what the little guy's trip to the Wall amounted to. Trust me, you don't want to walk into the Pentagon and start quizzing generals about the odds against the enemy. They always want more money to fight him, just as Yoren wants more men to fight whatever's worse than the wildlings.

The only group of people more clueless than a karass of generals are Khal Drogo's people. Game of Thrones posits that people are just not as smart in a desert climate, which makes sense if you've ever been to San Diego. I'm too tired to find all the articles about Game of Thrones being racist. The world is racist, have you examined the voting on American Idol lately or watched TBS in the last three years? Why should Westeros be any different?

Having a communal television experience is all very well and good, but it's hard to imagine Game of Thrones appealing to an older demographic. They were on that wall! I still feel young at heart, though just like Robert Baratheon, I get a little flimsy after my second keg of wine.

Ned Stark's idea of bonding with his daughter is admiring her sword, which is a metaphor too disturbing to contemplate in a recession. He gets her a Braavo swordfighting instructor who is perhaps also there to watch his daughter's back and may be more than a simple teacher. We have no idea how Ned either purchased a doll for Sansa or found an instructor for Arya, which makes sense because he spent most of the episode tearing down Jaime Lannister for saving King's Landing from a fiery death, and a shopping montage didn't fit with that.

He thinks heart-to-heart talks with his daughter are tough? Let me provide the rough transcript of when my wonderful daughter Mary chose a particularly busy moment during GWB's first presidential campaign to inform me she was gay:

MARY: Ellen DeGeneres -

ME: I know, why isn't With Friends Like These on DVD? I was almost a hundred percent that Jeremy Piven was gay after watching that show. He was always skipping everywhere.

MARY: Speaking of gay -

ME: Don't start criticizing Lost again! I can't fucking take it!

MARY: If it turns out that Jacob's power comes from a yellow light in a cave, will you admit I'm right?

ME: DAMN YOU!

I never had a chance to have one of those "When you sit on the Iron Throne..." talks with my keeds. Although the other day I did stop by The Potomac School to see my grandkids and take a shit on Al Gore's old front lawn. He knows what I did. Whenever children ask me what to do, I simply tell them to fuck off.

Dick Cheney is the senior contributor to This Recording. You can find last week's Game of Thrones recap here. You can find the rest of his work on This Recording here.

"Long Nights" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)

"End of the Road" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)

"Rise" - Eddie Vedder (mp3)