Da Dominion: Home of DOMINIONCAST!

Any show that lasts three seasons on Fox has to be pretty good, given their flighty nerves regarding programs that may not have mass appeal. As punishment for canceling Firefly, The Tick, and Family Guy the first time; We (royal we) don’t recognize Fox save for Sunday nights, 24, and Hell’s Kitchen. ( “You can’t cook pasta, you bloody ass fuck!?!?” Gordon Ramsey is as ugly and volatile as my darker side — Darth Chef.) Given the popularity of forensic cop shows, Fox “entertainment” now has the balls to present Bones, a unique “drama” I caught for the first time channel surfing.

We’ve seen this jello mold before: guy-girl investigator team with that Odd Couple polarity but heterosexual tension (tell me the neat guy wasn’t code for bottom, fool). “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel) is a scientistette with geek appeal, walking encyclopedia too uptight to let her hair down Polly Prissypants. Her counterpart is street-savvy FBI Agent Booth, a laid back guy’s guy played by David Boreanaz (Angel, whom still gets vampire-pimp props for turning out The Slayer, but without the stake-up-his-ass emo-intensity).

Rounding out the team is a combination of scientists/pathologists that continue the nerd appeal with Andy a dorky tech, Jack know-it-all House-ish forensic chemist, Angela hot tomboy asian chick (not sure of her job role, don’t care), and Camille fine black boss lady pathologist (they work for the Jefferson Institution and the boss is a Sally Hemmings-like redbone, coincidence?). Out of your league smart chicks in proximity with quirky boys cultivates hope in the heart of the bookish slob viewer (Sit Com 101).

These characters aren’t ground breaking, but their interactions are the selling point. For a TV drama there’s a lot of adolescent joking going on back and forth over gender roles with kiloliters of sarcasm. The repartee is very Joss Whedon styled, with references to pop culture, girls teasing the awkward boys - yet brainy like Aaron Sorkin (the West Wing for scientists, not liberal arts Phds - if those existed). You know it’s drama only because once in a while people give tearful mourning of the dead or remorseful confessions of murder, accompanied by those ever so helpful sad piano cues that say “This is the serious part, dummy”. It’s a goofy show with dramatic relief.

A successful mix of Seinfeld with Law and Order: SVU is hard to find. Check it out before it’s cancelled for being elitist and anti-American (I mentioned it was on Fox right?).

Star Trek XI (11 for the latin impaired) is a bit more than a year from release and I’m eager like a cranked-out beaver for it!

Some  casting choices are great: Zach Quinto as Spock (Sylar on Heroes, the only TV villain I actually hate) and Karl Urban (Eomer of Rohan and the MacBethian Vaako in the Chronicles of Riddick) as Bones. Urban seems kind of seasoned amongst the younger cast, but McCoy was a bit older than the others too. Bruce Greenwood as pre-beep-box Captain Pike is another great call. The all important big chair will be filled by Chris Pine (a virtually unknown pretty boy) as Kirk. He has said he’ll be bringing a Harrison Ford-like quality to the role, which I think can work as a novel approach. “I thought these Klingons … smelled bad …on the outside!”

Some others have me wondering: Simon Pegg as Scotty (dude from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Funny sure, but do we want this much schtick from our favorite high-functioning alcoholic ethnic stereotype engineer?) and John “Harold who bitched all the way to White Castle” Cho as Sulu (is a rabies spewing tribble gonna attack the helmsman?). I can see they’re aiming to capture some of the camp of the original series, which is beautiful — but fills my Trekie heart with dread colder than an Andorian winter.

J.J. Abrams’s directing I’ve got confidence in (Lost was good before the tangled story twists caused my eyes to hemorrhage, and Cloverfield is my favorite Godzilla movie despite literally sickening others), but the writers/co-producers Orci and Kurtzman are from the Hercules and Xena school of fiction (formally the Corn Ball Academy of TV Writing). Decent action shows, but can they meet the standard we fans have for this savior?

There’s not much Trek to sustain me. The Next Generation and Deep Space 9 are my methadone (crossing drug metaphors here, if you noticed seek treatment), but crappy Voyager and Enterprise are what’s always on being the most recent. These latter two along with the suicide-inducing Star Trek: Nemesis movie (links not included for your safety) are making 11 the emergency adrenaline shot to the heart of an O.D.ed Trek.Should this new endeavor fail, it’ll be a generation before the next one comes along — the same summer as Star Wars Episode 7: How Solo Got his Groove Back.

Yesterday was Sunday, so my immediate family met up for the customary dinner because we cant all afford to move that far away from each other and free eats are free eats.Pop culture portrays this as a black thing, but actually it’s very southern and may be the case across culture — so non-black readers please continue to read, this is likely only different from y’all being not holiday dependant and spoken in ebonics.

The reason this is done is to cement the bonds of our family, which sounds sweet but translates into reinforcement of the matriarchal pecking order via verbal sparring with the only male (me) serving as referee. We got four generations here (in order of authority and age — not a coincidence): grandma the reigning queen in her eighties; my mother and aunt — heirs apparent in their 60’s; my cousin and myself — her early 40’s, me early 30’s, we‘re not near bitter enough to compete rendering us mostly neutral; my cousin’s kids are teenagers — the boy cleans the plate and leaves (wisely), the girl sits and asks questions, learning how to rule when her queenly reign begins in 2062.

 The top ladies table 75% of the debate (and produce 90% of the volume) mostly over whose aches are the worst, whose had to deal the most that week, and arrangements for our upcoming family reunion (the Olympics of Commiseration). My cousin and I interject occasionally to break ties and chuckle (dreading when we’ll ascend to their station) in between our safe discussions of topics, mostly dealing with cable TV, movies, and pop culture, which the matriarchs are ignorant of (sometimes, mention Barack and learn how the white man will take him out).

One of my favorite professors once said: “Marriage is a house with no toilets.” Prophetically true it appears to me, don’t most divorces begin with  “I’m sick of your shit” ? Could this be the nature of all relationships to a degree? Romantics may object to this as cynical, I invite them to a dinner here with a group of older divorced or widowed women whom after a tasty meal dump their emotional septic tanks on the table and challenge each other on whose pile is biggest.  

I wonder why I’m single?

Give her jewelry. If you give her cash, that’s prostitution.” – Anonymous guy

Are whores wrong because they exchange sex for money or because they have multiple patrons? Some combination of the two? (That’ll cost you extra.)

Many say the former, elaborating that these women are cheap and self-destructive. Sometimes this is accurate, other times it’s not. Drug-fiend woman on the corner, yes; Five-Diamond pro with healthcare and a six figure salary, not so much (definately NOT cheap). Desperate single mom on the stroll, yep; Chief of Staff for the City of Detroit, no. The five-diamond is parleying her ill-fame into a new career, ain’t that constructive. The Chief of Staff (former) was damaged by betraying the sisterhood, had her man been single (and not the highly-scrutinized corrupt mayor of a stigmatized city) it would’ve been gravy. When premarital sex is common as it is now in our culture, and women are encouraged to play the field before settling down (or after, like a desperate housewife), I’m not seeing this as so much of an incriminating discriminator (say that three times fast, whore).

Is it the multiple partners? Many say yes, and I’m among them. Marriage as the preferred relationship between sexual partners goes back to the first concept of property. “My hard work for my land is going to my kids by my wife, my heirs.” Note the possessiveness. Primitive to our minds now, but the foundation of family as we have known it. A man’s kids not with his wife are bastards, outside of the family and no economic threat to it. We pay child support now, but this is a very new concept. Wife’s children by another violate the property contract. Who’s a rightful heir and who isn’t, are any? (“Abraham, over the matter of little Ishmael, you … ARE the father!”)

DNA tests and reliable birth control have mitigated this problem greatly, but still the stigma stays. A never married women with five kids from the same father is seen much better than a women with three children by three men even if she was married to all of them. Commitment is intimacy which is the reason to have sex many believe … those with vaginas believe … some of those with vaginas don’t believe, the whores!

The moral: brand loyalty is invaluable, shopping around is slutty; unless you‘re a guy … then either one is good. Really, aren’t we evolved enough to dump these Puritanical labels? A scarlet letter would just become another tramp-stamp, and an “A” is easy to misread there.

Not the movie studio; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is doing OK, and I look forward to the release of Valkyrie (Tommy Cruise as a Nazi, what a stretch).

I mean master game master (MGM): that kid who had to run the game so everyone could have fun, and years later, is the verbal equivalent of Scorsese, and yet still does it for free, unlike Salvatore. His masterful mastery of games has ironically made him a slave to the role amongst his gamer friends and his own commitment to style. I’ve enjoyed DeNiro’s The Good Shepard and loved Washington’s The Great Debaters. Actors can assume the big chair as players can. Yet, we never see Spike Lee starring in a Ron Howard joint, nor Howard in Jungle Fever 2. Why? Outside of Lee’s inability to act and Howard’s good sense … and inability to act, I say it’s because of a surrendering of control.

Some GM’s make excellent players that feed fun at a table, like me, but others find it hard to submit to another’s direction … like me. The need to be a player has made me seek out new groups to join where I can slip off the shackles. I’ve recently joined a new group who play in a very simplistic style that I feel is kind of adolescent (yes, gaming can done maturely). I aim to create stories with characters and plots worthy of publishing or filming. They’re just happy to be gaming with the scenario A to B to C plotting and roll-hit-roll-miss narration.

I’m dealing with it, the way an epicurean can live on fish heads Survivor style but not really thriving. Beggars cant be choosers, unless they start beating people with their change collecting cups, but by then they’re bandits — whom can choose a whole lot. Must I start sapping GMs with my dice bag, is D-bagging the answer?

Nah. The answer is to lead by example. I’m going to method act my character, as I love to do, and narrate my actions as much as the DM will allow. Seeing how much fun I’m having will hopefully inspire the others to emulate me. It’s in human nature to do what others are successful with, even chimps do this — so the average gamer can with effort. Each group is like a micro-culture with traditions and practices that can be altered over time with patience. Gamer Ghandi.

Eventually, I may be asked to GM and another group will enter my dominion … then I’ll be back to where we started.