Task: Love and Death

Task concluded its seven-episode first season on HBO Max tonight -- and I hope it is the first of more than one season, because the series is an unusual and ultimately winning combination of love and death.

I don't mean only romantic love, though Task has some of that, too.  But this series has a love of what is, for want of a better word, nature.  Every episode has birds, feeding and chirping.  Crucial characters swim and connect to something greater in lakes and ponds.  There's a lush greenery that comes from the Pennsylvania wild that I'm familiar with, because I've seen a lot of it in New York and Cape Cod.

But the show is an FBI story, and the FBI in this story is looking into drugs and interstate murders, not white collar crimes.   And death is meted out in all kinds of ways, usually in bullets.  Any life, FBI or criminal, is possibly forfeit at any time.  But even in crime and its policing, there is a tempering element.  The lead person in the narrative, agent Tom Brandis (perfectly played by Mark Ruffalo), used to be a priest.  He's experienced death in both his personal and both professional lives, priest and agent.   His ultimate problem is not to identify and bring to justice the criminals he pursues, but how to forgive. Indeed, forgiveness is such an underlying, undulating presence in Task, Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter” could easily have been its theme song.

His counterpart is a criminal with many lovable aspects.  Robbie (perfectly played by another Tom -- Tom Pelphrey) is in effect a mirror-image, a counterpart, of Tom Brandis. The two even look somewhat alike.  Both are highly intelligent and empathetic, and seek to protect those around them, to the best of their flawed abilities.

And just about everyone in this story needs protection, because death is always close and at hand. Sometimes its killingly cold clutch is predictable, sometimes it's a shocking surprise.  Loose ends abound.  Most but not all are resolved in the end.

Hence my hope for a second season.  The birds are still chirping.  Nature never dies.

And So It Goes: The Extraordinary Billy Joel Documentary

My wife and I saw the second part of the extraordinary Billy Joel documentary last night, after seeing the first part last week.  I've been a big fan of Billy Joel since "Piano Man".  I thought and still think "Only the Good Die Young" was a masterpiece song, same for "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," and same for "Uptown Girl" which also has a masterpiece video.  In fact, I can't really think of any Billy Joel recording I don't like, and the same only applies only to a dozen or so other artists beginning with The Beatles.

But as to his life, the person who wrote and recorded all those great songs, I never knew too much.  I knew of course he'd been married to Christie Brinkley.  I knew he'd been touring for a while with Elton John -- another piano man -- but that ended on an acrimonious note (they later reconciled).  I heard him a few times on The Beatles Channel on Sirius/XM Radio -- talking about The Beatles and playing their records -- and I knew about his recent long run in Madison Square Garden.  My wife and I were going to a lot of concerts prior to COVID, and I had in my mind that we should go so see Billy Joel, but that didn't (yet) happen.

But I didn't know much about his personal life, and how that related to his music, and And So It Goes -- directed by Susan Lacy and Jessica Levin -- does a brilliant job of telling that true story.  Here are some of my takeaways (in no order of importance, because all are important):

• Billy Joel found writing lyrics somewhat of a burden.  Given that his lyrics were uniquely descriptive, setting scenes and telling stories that seemed to splash out as naturally as the rain, I (as a songwriter as well as a fan) found that especially interesting.
• Billy Joel's manager, his one-time brother-in-law, robbed him of millions of dollars.  As is clear in this documentary, Joel, in addition to being incredibly talented, is also highly intelligent, so I found that surprising as well.  It's well known that doo-wop groups were regularly robbed of their royalties by record companies in the 1950s, but Joel's misfortunates happened 50 years later.
• Billy Joel always loved classical music. (His father, who abandoned his family when Billy was a boy, was a classically trained pianist.)  I knew, of course, that Jeff Lynne and ELO did/do, but Billy Joel always seemed firmly rooted in rock 'n' roll.
• Billy Joel has always been quick to denounce his tone-deaf critics in the media.  Good for him.
• Billy Joel was spoken for in the documentary by a cavalcade of musical stars that lit up the screen:  Paul McCartney (who said Billy's "I Love You Just the Way You Are" was his answer when he was asked which song did he wish that he had written), Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Garth Brooks, Nas,  Sting, and Pink)
• Billy Joel has been beset by demons all of his life -- which makes his extraordinary accomplishments even more impressive.

All too often, these kinds of eye-opening, definitive documentaries happen after the subject is no longer with us.  Good for Billy Joel for giving that to us now.  His active participation in And So It Goes is itself a testament to what mind-blowing talent he has.

Creds to HBO for putting this on!  As I my wife mentioned, this is the second great documentary on HBO this summer, after My Mom Jayne.

Hightown 1.3: Dirty Laundy

Another standout episode of Hightown - 1.3 - in which dirty laundry figures prominently.  Not the Don Henley song (which is also excellent), but Krista's suitcase, filled with it, which Jackie and a reluctant Junior retrieve.

This first leads to Jackie telling Junior not to call them "panties" - she prefers "underwear" (my wife agrees with Jackie, I'm with Junior) - and then to a silver lining discovered by Jackie in the suitcase, a list that leads her to some connection Krista has, or business she was doing, in Wareham, just off-Cape.

We pass by Wareham - that is, my wife and I - every time we drive up to the Cape, and never knew it could play a role in Jackie getting to the bottom of Sherry Henry's murder.   And, actually, so far, at this point, she's making better progress than Ray, who is progressing only with sleeping with Frankie's wife Renee, and only because Frankie asked her aka ordered her to do.  The only hope for Ray, if this keeps going this way, is that Renee falls in love with him and tells him what's really going on.  That's possible, but not very likely, because Renee has to be very afraid of Frankie, not to mention Renee needing above all else to protect her little boy.

It's a suitably tense, frightening situation that never lets up, and is always on the verge of getting much worse when Osito is on the scene.   There's something about him that's genuinely unsettling, which means that Atkins Estimond who plays the role, and I've never seen him before, deserves a lot of credit for a fine performance.  If he keeps this up, he could enter the pantheon of memorable villains.

As I said after seeing the debut episode, Hightown is way at the top of new cop shows, and thus aptly named, and I'm looking forward to more.

See also Hightown 1.1: Top-Notch Saltwater and Characters ... Hightown 1.2: Sludge and Sun

Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice: Perfection

My wife and I finally had a chance to see the CNN documentary Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice last night.  It was just perfect - in terms of the time it devoted to Ronstadt's many performances, the sheer range and power of them all, and the many people, after all these years almost as famous as she, with whom she interacted and changed their lives.

I think my favorite part was at the very end, when Ronstadt, unable to perform since 2009 when Parkinson's caught up with her, sings harmony in 2019 with her cousin and nephew.  She insists she isn't really singing, just piecing notes into the harmony, but the beauty of her voice comes through nonetheless.

That ending segment shows that not only she, but her capacity to bring the world pleasure through the sound of her voice, is still very much alive.  All of us, famous and anonymous, sooner or later suffer the ravages of old age.  The only way they can be avoided is via A. E. Housman's "Athlete Dying Young" or the tragic death of Kobe Bryant today.

It was great see Emmylou Harris, J. D. Souther, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, and so many others on the screen, now, and through the decades in which they had such mutually beneficial relationships with Linda Ronstadt.  I was especially pleased to see Peter Asher, long Ronstadt's producer, who now hosts one of my favorite shows on Sirius XM's Beatles Channel, From Me To You.

The good thing about great musical performance, ever since Edison invented the phonograph in 1876, is that we can have them to hear forever.   Add to that the invention of YouTube in 2005, and we now have the visual performances, too.  I know that I and millions of others will continue to enjoy them.


Welcome Up: Songs of Space and Time: digital, vinyl, CD

Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming The Beatles 6 of X: The Case for Ringo

Rob Sheffield makes the case for Ringo in the next chapter of his stellar Dreaming the Beatles, putting the question regarding Ringo as whether he was an all-time genius drummer who made the Beatles possible, or "a clod who got lucky, the biggest fool who ever hit the big time".  Sheffield puts his chips on the genius.

So ... let me first say that, as a self-professed expert in time travel (that is, I write it in fiction, and about it in nonfiction, and can't, alas, do it), I readily acknowledge that every event major or minuscule that ever took place might not have happened if even one exceedingly minor ingredient had not come before, and therefore the Beatles might well not have amounted to much if Pete Best had remained their drummer, and not in fact been replaced by Ringo.

But there's a big difference between being a necessary ingredient and a quintessentially great drummer, and Sheffield wants to shoot for both for Ringo.   Towards that goal, he presents two arguments: One, that Ringo's infectious presence inspired the other Beatles.  And two, that Ringo did incredibly good drum work in various songs like "Rain" (one of the my all-time favorites - I like the song and rain itself so much that I often include "Rain, I don't mind" in lists of my favorite quotes) and the cowbell for "Drive My Car" (which as I mentioned in an earlier review, is also one of my favorite songs).

The great drum and percussion work in specified songs is of course easier to prove than Ringo being an inspiration, and Sheffield does a pretty good job of the first.   But for Ringo to be as great in his own right as, say, drummers Phil Collins and Don Henley, I would've wanted to see Ringo do equivalent work on his own, which I don't think he did.   And if he didn't manage to do that on his own, I think this makes Sheffield's claim that Ringo did such great work for the Beatles a little harder to demonstrate. So Sheffield's convinced me only partially, at most, though I much enjoyed his chapter.

Three last little points -

• Sheffield cites Robert Christgau in support of Ringo's importance.  While I don't disagree with Christgau's assessment - that Ringo was like a member of the audience, one of us, being in the band - I can't let a mention of him go by without objecting to Christgau's peevish attack on McCartney (Paul's first solo album) once again.
• Sheffield mentions Paul's famous kazoo solo in Ringo's "Sixteen" - but Wikipedia cites someone who says Paul is really singing the part, making his voice sound like a kazoo, even though the liner notes credit Paul with playing the kazoo.  I'm just wondering who is right?
• And speaking of Paul and Ringo, I just want to say that there once was a time, when the White Album first came out, that a lot of people were saying that the voice on "Good Night" was Paul doing his Ringo voice - I assume this has now been settled as the voice actually being Ringo.

And I'll be back soon with another review, writing as best I can in my own voice.

See also Review of Rob Sheffield's Dreaming the Beatles 1 of X: The Love Affair ... 2 of X: The Heroine with a Thousand Faces ... 3 of X: Dear Beatles ... 4 of X: Paradox George ... 5 of X: The Power of Yeah ...  7 of X: Anatomy of a Ride .. 8 of X: Rubber Soul on July 4 ... 9 of X: Covers ... 10 of X: I. A. Richards ... 11 of X: Underrated Revolver ... 12 of X: Sgt. Pepper ... 13 of X: Beatles vs. Stones ... 14 of X: Unending 60s ... 15 of X: Voting for McCartney ... 16 of X: "I'm A Loser" ... 17 of X: The Split ... 18 of X: "Absolute Elsewhere" ... 19 of X: (Unnecessary but Brilliant) Defense of McCartney ... 20 of X: "All Things Must Pass" ... 21 of X: Resistance ... 22: The 70s Till the End ... 23: Near the Science Fiction Shop ... 24 of 24: The Last Two

And here's "It's Real Life" -- free alternate history short story about The Beatles, made into a radio play and audiobook and winner of The Mary Shelley Award 2023

 
lots of Beatles in this time travel

12 Monkeys 1.5: The Heart of the Matter

12 Monkeys 1.5 was edgier and more profound than usual - which is saying a lot, seeing as how most of this series so far has been edgy and profound.  But 1.5 starts with in many ways the most profound question of the series: what are Cole, Ramse, Jones, et al doing in the future - why are they there - if Cole is being sent back to the past to stop that future from happening?  Every instant of their existence in the 2040s, in other words, shows that what Cole tried to do in the 2010s failed.  Right? Or doesn't it?

And the episode touches this paradoxical nerve repeatedly, culminating in Cole apparently destroying the deadly plague virus, being unceremoniously yanked back to the future - which is the only way he ever gets back to the future - only to find he's returned to something not quite the place in the future from which he departed.  Does this mean he succeeded? Probably not.  But we're certainly given a little taste of success not being as sweet as Cole and Jones may have imagined it to be, even though they never quite spelled out what that would be, and sweet seems mainly out of the question here.

Jones does give a good defense of why she ripped apart so many bodies to perfect time travel - still not very perfect, though at least it works.   Mozart, great literature, the cream of human culture is what she tells Ramse she's bent on saving.   We also get some good pictures of Jones when she was younger - Cassandra's age - which I suppose means she's not Cassandra, though I'm still thinking on some level she is.

Jennifer Goines has her best episode so far, including her rendition of Bill Clinton's "I did not have sex with that woman," which has to be a first for a television science fiction drama, hats off to 12 Monkeys and SyFy.  And Cassandra learns that Cole killed Henri, and handles that pretty well: she's angry and all that, says she doesn't want to continue fighting against the fate of plague, but she rises to the occasion and helps Cole try to snuff it out with flame anyway, before she's kidnapped by the man with the scar played by Tom Noonan.  His identity clearly holds one of the big keys to this puzzle.

And, just for good measure, we get some good insight into Cole in this episode, too, when, sounding like Don Henley in "The Heart of the Matter," Cole says what he wants most is "forgiveness" (even if you don't love me anymore - no, he doesn't say that, but it's strongly implied).

Looking forward to the next episode in what is now clearly the brashest, savviest time travel show ever on television.

See also 12 Monkeys series on SyFy: Paradox Prominent and Excellent ...12 Monkeys 1.2: Your Future, His Past ... 12 Monkeys 1.3:  Paradoxes, Lies, and Near Intersections ... 12 Monkeys 1.4: "Uneasy Math"

podcast review of Predestination and 12 Monkeys



 three time travel novels: the Sierra Waters trilogy


three time travel stories (with more to come)


The Chronology Protection Case movie 

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#SFWApro