Life is a Carnivale

Song Lyric of the Day:

Take my photo off the wall / If it just won’t sing for you / ‘Cause all that’s left has gone away / And there’s nothing there for you to do

Jet / “Look What You’ve Done”

9:30AM.
Just took a quick break to read the news only to discover that HBO cancelled “Carnivale.” So that really stinks. Admittedly, the show was not for everyone, but Rich and I liked it. The second season in particular was really impressive.

Set during the Depression, the series revolved around a travelling carnivale and a parallel story about a preacher and his sister. The characters were all unique, but the heart of the show was Ben Hawkins (Nick Stahl), a mysterious young man with unusual healing powers. His archnemesis, Brother Justin (Clancy Brown), initially struggled with the darkness within him before whole-heartedly embracing it. The entire series’ premise was the ultimate showdown between the two, good versus evil, which we finally got in the second season (now series) finale.

Why didn’t this show catch on like other HBO shows? Because, even for HBO, “Carnivale” was a bit different, the supernatural vein being but one aspect of its uniqueness. Almost the entire first season was the set up for the second season. We were introduced to characters and watched relationships evolve, with only a hint of plot to move the story along, all at a snail’s pace. This book-style pacing worked well, though, keeping us coming back for more (the show runners referred to each installment as a chapter, not as an episode). The production values were amazing, perfectly recreating the era, Dust Bowl and all. The acting was excellent, the two leads being no exception. It’s hard to single out other individual performances from such a large cast (almost 20 regulars), but Clea Duvall (Sofie), Cynthia Ettinger (Rita Sue), Tim DeKay (Clayton “Jonesy” Jones), and Toby Huss (Stumpy) stood out in that their performances were always interesting, always fearless, and never false.

So I say a fond farewell to “Carnivale.” I had really been hoping for a third season, wanting to see if/how Ben healed, if Sofie was now truly evil, and if Brother Justin was brought back from the dead. But I will have to settle for the two wonderful, weird, and completely engrossing seasons we had. I’ll take quality TV wherever I can get it.

10:12PM.
My Farewell Virginia Friends week continues unabated.

Last night, my old cubemate and friend, Sam, picked me up so we could grab dinner with Bob and his wife, Jeanne. Sadly, our other cubemate, Lee, could not make it; it would have been great to have him there, too. So we ended up having a quasi cube reunion. Dinner was at Red Lobster. After horrifying Sam, Bob, and Jeanne with the revelation that I’m not all that nuts about seafood, I ended up ordering a surf-and-turf meal to humor them (and me). The steak was cooked to perfection, and the shrimp was delicious. Mostly because it was fried.

It was great seeing Sam and Bob again, finally getting to meet Jeanne, and just catching up and trading stories. That was the best thing about where I worked–I made great friends that I plan on staying in touch with. Everyone should be lucky enough to have had such wonderful cubemates; we really did have a blast in there. That’s one of the things I miss the most now that I work from home. Sigh.

Tonight, another work friend, Brigette, picked me up (remember, I’m carless right now) for dinner. I finally got to meet her absolutely adorable little boy, Ayzreon; he really is just too cute for words. Brigette treated me to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, where we had fun talking and catching up. The pizza was really good, too. After dinner, we walked over to Cold Stone Creamery for some dessert. I picked the Love It size, which was a mistake. I’d been counting on little Ayz to help me eat the Birthday Remix ice cream I got, only to have him decide he’d rather get another flavor. Even though I didn’t come close to finishing it, it was absolutely delicious. It was like eating frozen cake batter.

I look forward to Brigette and Ayz visiting me in Tennessee someday. Ayz, a typical five-year old boy, is intrigued by the fact that Rich and I have two dogs and four cats, so I’m pretty sure he’s on board with visiting. And I’m also pretty sure that he trusts me now–I removed a splinter from his hand after dessert.

After finishing up our dessert in the plaza at Virginia Beach’s Town Center, Brigette dropped me back off at the house.

FYI, I would’ve posted last night about my dinner with Bob, Sam, and Jeanne, but thanks to my friend and broker, Donna, I had to see who won “The Amazing Race,” so I ended up glued to the TV. I haven’t even seen an entire episode and I don’t normally watch reality TV, but I had to see if Joyce and Uchenna pulled it off and won. And boy, was it exciting–it was really touch and go for a while there. Joyce and Uchenna managed to remain civil to and supportive of each other throughout their travels (and travails), and kept their dignity throughout. Being literally steps away from winning a million dollars, they still chose to beg for money to pay their cab driver and leave things square with him. Now that’s a kind of class we just don’t see in reality TV these days. That’s one of the many reasons I’m happy they won the million dollars. And that’s why I had to call Donna the second the show ended so we could celebrate.