It’s a sprawling, demanding, uncompromising piece of work that does not give the Fu of the first flying Fuck about how soon you’d like to know who the hell anyone is or what the hell they might be up to - the central characters (all nine million and sixty-six thousand of them) flit about the screen for days, weeks, before you catch any of their names or learn what their relationship might be with anyone else. All you know up till then is that they’re a bunch of funny bastards, that they like to insinuate that one or the other of their number might be gay, that they’re very concerned about this rumour that J-Lo has died…
Now and then they shoot something or someone or blow something or someone up - great tarantula plumes of red and black and grey erupting about the skyline; buildings toppling; far-away faces exploding - all the while with cameras aloft, all the while scrabbling for the most sensational, CNN-baiting footage.
Making a note of this, and St. Talbot eyeing the screen, scratching at the barbed-wire gash on his chest, saying “It looks like that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That thing. What’s this that you call it…”
“I don’t know.”
“You know rightly. Of course you know, everyone knows. The thing that’s on there sometimes. Ach for fucks sakes what is it is the name of the hoor…”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“I don’t! I don’t know, damn you, what the thing is that this looks like! I don’t!”
The Bit About The Thing That It Isn’t
For the weight of the Sin, Sir. Jesus, but the weight of the Sin.
That weight so immense, so insufferable, that the curve of my spine swore my spine to flee in protest, that the hole of my arse swore no arse a more to pot, that the tongue in my head decreed no further utt’rance carry till such times as I was rid of it, y’unnerstann, rid of the weight of that Sin lain upon me.
So it is that hunched and hacking and wheezing I fell afore a man of the cloth, and did spill the measure of my Sin o’er the wink of his winklepickers - the all of it, sixty-hundred sins-worth in width and breadth the bastard sprawled - and did say “Father! Father for the love o’ Lucy’s Chuff will you absolve me here now of this Sin, for I cannot eat, Father, and I cannot sleep, and it’d be the rare sight indeed would be the sight of me raising this head here of mine the first inch past my bollocks, and -”
![Generation Kill [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qZO7-EfdL._SL120_.jpg)
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
ah, a duke by any other name...
what I found intriguing about the show is how during the fog of war everyone seems to being engaged in a war of their own. sure, there are frequent intersections, but never for too long. the actor who played Capt. America seemed to revel in his character's unadulterated jackassery.
now, go rent The Wire
2 - Aaron McMullan
Sir Bicho, i have promised to myself if no-one else that i will finally get to The Wire sometime in the next couple months. Also, I'm intrigued no end by - The Corner, is it called? The pre-Wire drug dealer number? But one thing at a time, and any Thing involving Steve Earle is always going to be the priority.
The private wars - yes, that struck me also, and what it arrived on the back of - the sense of each individual being absoloutely, totally removed from the ernormity of what they were doing - that was often fairly terrifying.
Few more chilling scenes have I spied in these past whiles, for example, than that in which the Whopper Jr. business was explained.
3 - El Bicho
The Corner is very good as well, and less of a time commitment. A year on the streets of Baltimore that will no doubt take the wind out of your sails from a devastating gob-smack as the last episode hits the final sequence before the credits.
re: the removed from the enormity bit. I think what that comes from is how can any training prepare them for what they find. They have to step back to protect themselves rather than risking becoming part of the chaos that surrounds them.
A scene that sticks with me is when they are in Baghdad and the solider tries to fire a warning shot at the oncoming car. brutal.
4 - Mary K. Williams
Well Duke - your Priest would be all over my --- if he knew that I too, have never seen The Wire. Nor Generation Kill for that matter.
Although your views on the latter are as entertaining as always - hilarious even - I have no inclination to see either project.
Now, El B - don't yell at me! : )
5 - Aaron McMullan
Sir Bicho - that sequence stuck with me also, although the one that has blazed the fiercest is the encounter with that shell-shocked soldier wandering half-mad about the roadside. An instance of What The Hell Are We Doing puncturing the fugg amidst the fog, to fairly devestatin effect.
Sir Mary - maybe we could set up a support group of some kind for such lamentable cases as we. On the Facebook - Dammit I Have Never Seen The Wire Just Yet! Who would be brave enough to join us? A rare one indeed.
6 - Aaron Fleming
Excellent, and welcome Aaron McMullan to the world of blogcritics. A young chap such as yourself, with energy such as your own, and a pen razor-sharp and inked with mighty imaginative insight, will fit in quickly and without obstacles to the ways of BC. Always good to discover fellow northern irish writerly folks, especially ones living out their lives in London, contributing to this dear site. We must get together some time to discuss our common neglect of the Wire. Are you familiar with the Salisbury on Green Lanes, perchance?
7 - Aaron McMullan
Heh, well thank you Sir Fleming, and do you know this, i HAVE encountered that tavern - many's the squad o' holligans - googleigans - i have encountered therein. i dare say we could show them a thing or two about what Sister Act was called in Mexico, them crowd.