Observations from Re-Watching The Shield

I re-watched a couple episodes of The Shield last night after a considerable hiatus (and a dream that Dutch and I were at nightclub dancing to Kei$ha, probably prompted by the Kei$ha record--yes, vinyl--that Eeon quite randomly and charmingly sent me) and I have a few observations:

Much Better

1) Shane looks great in a tight grey tee-shirt, but the button-down worn open over it makes him look sloppy.  I much prefer when he starts wearing the cowboy shirts tucked into those skin-tight jeans around season 3.  Also, his hair is too short, making his forehead too big and emphasizing the fact that he has very small eyes.  Still hot as an Oklahoma August, though.

2) Vic Mackey does not hold up in second viewings.  His character is based entirely on unpredictability, so when you know what his next move is, it gets boring and you just .  He doesn't have much of an arc and he's just kind of an asshole to everyone.  I mean, really, why did he have to steal Dutch's Ding-Dongs?

That is the face of
a man with wicked
intentions

3) Dutch is the character to pay attention to.  His law-and-order b-story tends to get lost in the first viewing (after all, a plain old procedural isn't as exciting as a car chase or a beat down) but he's masterful to watch the second time around. Pure detective bliss. The fact that Jay Karnes is 6'3" and terrifyingly sexy doesn't hurt either.  He's got a great voice; I want him to read me a bedtime story.  He makes me shiver.  I want to see him play Phillip Marlowe and wear a belted trench coat and a fedora in a non-Brooklyn way.

In Dreams

When I'm not lying awake and panicking or having wake-up-screaming nightmares, I tend to dream very cinematically and, if I'm lucky, can remember the dreams when I wake up.  I've gotten some of what I consider my best work out of dreams, and I credit this to three of them starring Walton Goggins.  It's like getting to watch my favorite TV shows while I'm asleep, and sleeping is something I love even more than watching TV.

Nice of you to invite me into
your dreams

The third, which I wrote over the weekend while trying to avoid writing an article about the devestating flood that washed away Middleburg and Schoharie, (I grew up in Schoharie County, two towns over) was inspired by the one dream I didn't have about flooding.  No, in this dream, I got shot while during an interview and wound up in Purgatory, with Walton Goggins and Jay Karnes playing my roommates (but not as themselves or any of their characters) 

I wrote it in a very different way than I've written any of my other dreams.  The narrative is very short and the whole thing comes to 912 words and is written with minimal description and dialogue much like "Hotel Jesus".  It made me rethink how stories are written.

Traditionally, fiction is taught in that Raymond Carver school--long, plenty of dialogue and description, a slow build to a climax, a short story as we all picture a short story.  But in flash fiction, there isn't room for that.  And I suppose I could have written "Purgatory Blues" the same way I wrote "Keyton's Keys" (which also came from a dream and also starred Walton Goggins")  which clocked in at just over 6K.  I could have described Purgatory in full detail, but for whatever reason (laziness, I imagine) it called out for a more compact format.

So I began to wonder--do we choose the story's format, or does it write itself?  I have a friend who refuses to write anything under 15K.   He just doesn't think he can.  Never mind that most places won't pay for and publish that length of work anymore, and although plenty of online lit mags (like Tin House) will publish longer work, he wants to get paid.  It's fair, I suppose, but do all stories need to be told in long form?  Is more description, scenery and dialogue required in order to tell a proper story?

I didn't set out to write a flash fiction piece.  If anything, on "Hotel Jesus," I actively tried to avoid it for fear of becoming a malcontented douche.  But after what seemed like a hundred false starts, I settled into the form of "movements" and short scenes that became the Pank-published piece it is today.  All without becoming a malcontented douche.  Let's hope the same works on "Purgatory Blues"