Amalgamation and Fuckin' Capital: The Case for David Milch's "Deadwood"

The blood. The mud. The pigs. The despair, sickness and misery. The sudden, violent and brutal deaths, often delivered with shocking detachment and callousness. And all that cursing.

I understand why people are turned off by the HBO series "Deadwood", even times within minutes. It is not an easy show to watch. Even I was taken aback at first, when in the series' opening scene the dialogue came fast and furious, much of it unintelligible except for the words fuck and cocksucker, and ends with Sheriff Seth Bullock snapping a condemned man's neck when the rope he hangs from proves too short. This is followed by fifty or so minutes in which no less than six others are murdered, including a family with two children, around 20 characters are introduced, all with deep, complicated and individual story lines (many of whom are real historical figures, two of which we are immediately familiar with) and dialogue both as elevated as a Shakespearean drama and as obscene as a Kevin Smith film. Just watching the show is a workout, not to mention a walk through hell, albeit a hell that is often quite funny. It sounds depressing, tedious, it sounds, for lack of a better word, "hard", and it also sounds quite pretentious. So why watch?

Well let's start with what "Deadwood" is. It is a televised drama which ran for three seasons on HBO, created by David Milch, the man best known for "NYPD Blue" and many of the best episodes of "Hill Street Blues", who is also a Yale graduate (and later English professor) who holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Iowa. So...he's a smart guy. He is also a former heroin addict and was briefly enrolled in Yale's law school, but was then expelled after he shot out a police car's siren with a shotgun. So...he's complicated, too.

"Deadwood" is set in real-life mining camp of Deadwood in the year 1876, in what would later become South Dakota. Custer's last stand is fresh news, and the U.S. government has recently made a treaty with the Sioux nation to let them have the land east of Montana. Problem is, there's gold in them hills. Whenever you hear that expression, by the way, that's what they mean. Deadwood was the atypical mining town of those days, leaping from a few trappers in tents to a bustling metropolis with a population of hundreds and soon thousands. It was, for a time, as geologist and "specialist" Francis Wolcott put in season two: "The most forward-looking gold operation in the world."

And so come the outlaws, which everyone there was, by technicality if not legal merit. Deadwood was on Indian land, forbidden for whites to settle on, and anyone caught living there was subject to arrest by U.S. marshals, as well as scalping by the Sioux. It was a civilization on the edge of the world, where death could come at any moment from the "dirt-worshipers", bandits (called "road agents"), other settlers, or even just the harsh, unforgiving terrain of the Black Hills. But it also could make you fabulously rich, or just rich enough to be able to afford some liquor, gambling and prostitution at day's end.

Enter Al Swearengen , owner and operator of The Gem Saloon. He cusses like a sailor, slams back whiskey all day long, hustles anyone with a dollar in their pocket, runs his whores, and occasionally cuts a throat or two. He is assisted by his #2 Dan Dority, thickheaded Johnny Burns and from late in season one on Silas Adams, as well as his crippled cook/cleaning lady Jewell. His whores are cheap and comely and mostly anonymous, except for the fiery Trixie, who sleeps in Al's bed most nights. Down the road there is the #10 Saloon run by Tom Nutall and the slightly classier gambling joint The Bella Union, run by Cy Tolliver, card shark Eddie Sawyer and madame Joanie Stubbs. Other town regulars include the tormented Doc Cochran, big-hearted gold-seeker Ellsworth, A.W. Merrick, publisher of the Deadwood Pioneer newspaper, Grand Cental Hotel owner E.B. Farnum, town preacher Reverend Smith, and head of "Chinaman's Alley" Mr. Wu.

At the start of the show, three new groups roll into town: former Montana Sheriff Seth Bullock and his partner Sol Starr plan to set up a hardware business, young New York couple Brom and Alma Garret come armed with Brom's parents' money and look to make a fortune of their own, and legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickock just wants a new place to settle down, with his friends Charlie Udder and "Calamity" Jane Cannary.

That's my setup; there won't be much more in the way of summary from me.

So, now, what make show worth watching/why is it so good?




The answer will come in the next post...in the writing of this I discovered it was running way too damned long so posting it in installments will probably be better...after all I'd like y'all to actually read it and I know I wouldn't if I was you if it was presented uninterrupted. So, tomorrow, read my first reason to watch the show: the writing.

Get busy livin' or get buy dyin' indeed.

I find that remarkable and enjoyable.

So this is my new blog.

I had one earlier, but haven't posted on it for nearly two years and figured a new one was appropriate.

Haven't got much to say right now, except that here's what I'll be posting about in the near future:

-Best Movies of 2007
-Best Records of 2007
-A defense/introduction to the HBO shows "Deadwood" and "The Wire" (separate posts)
-The latest short story I've written
-Anything actually happening in my life worth discussion
-Some posts from my old blog, if they merit either repeating or updating


Finally,

Reading: Cannery Row-John Steinbeck, Sins of the Fathers-Lawrence Block (I'm usually reading a "literary" book and a "genre" book at once), Generation Kill-Evan Wright (which I'm enjoying so much I'm deliberately reading slowly)

Song of the day (or post): A Ghost to Most by Drive-by Truckers (it's off their soon-to-be-released album "Brighter Than Creation's Dark" but available on their MySpace page)