I’ll give up my HBO when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers, but so far the cable channel’s executives have already pushed back seven or eight digits, and I don’t know how much longer I can hang on. When “The Wire” wraps next year, there had better be a new David Simon project in the pipeline, or I am so gone.

Never mind the hugely disappointing “John From Cincinnati,” which flopped in a season, but not before it took raunchy dialogue to a new level, and no, I’m not talking about f-bombs, or even the quasi-Victorian chop-chop salad of “Deadwood” profanity. I have never heard bowel movements (“dumping out”) discussed with such frequency, and I am a woman who has toilet-trained a child. It’s “Tell Me You Love Me” that I come to bury today, although I may not have the energy. This show, about the intimate travails of four different couples, takes it out of me.

Every so often you’ll hear water-cooler criticism of this or that popular entertainment, and someone will complain, “it’s just that there are no likable characters,” as though without a rooting interest, we have no reason to watch. I disagree. Is there a single character on “The Sopranos” that any person here would like to live next door to? (And don’t say Tony; for all the thrills he gives his square neighbors by his very presence, they think he’s guinea white trash. And they’re right.) Likable is what kills TV shows, as bored writers cave in to the demands of fan websites and network executives. All a good continuing character has to be is interesting. That’s the problem with “Tell Me You Love Me” — the characters are so boring they kill houseplants with their very presence.

HBO must know this. That’s why the show’s pre-premiere buzz was all about the sex, which is explicit but not plentiful enough to hold your interest, although my e-mail is funny enough: “Were my eyes playing tricks on me, or was that some guy’s ball sack on HBO last night?” Yes, yes it was. For the record, there were also erect wangers and one money shot, although it was done with egg whites and prosthetics. And you know how people say porn is, ultimately, boring? This is worse. At least in porn the actors say oh yeah oh yeah do me baby that’s so hot; these folks barely even breathe hard.

But that’s the point! the four or so fans of this show are saying. The sex is bad, because the couples are having problems! No, the sex is bad because the people are horrible. Also, incredibly dull. Actual line of dialogue, during a fight between the engaged couple: “This was like in Austin, when you bought a beer and you didn’t even ask if I wanted one, and then you flirted with that girl with the long arms!” This is what you hear when your neighbors are fighting. I remember once when my nursery monitor began picking up a cordless-phone conversation somewhere in the neighborhood. I leaned close, prepared to hear news of an upcoming drug deal, or maybe some phone sex. But no: “Are you getting the oil changed today?” “I don’t care; what do you want for dinner?”

The things that make people interesting — their enthusiasms, their secret fears, their sense of humor, how they choose to spend an idle Saturday — have been stripped away. I read an interview with the show’s creator, where she said this was deliberate, that she kept taking furniture and props off the sets until they were the upscale waiting-for-Godot moonscapes they are now, so that we’d concentrate on the actors, and their issues. But this isn’t theater, and the ShakyCam photography is telling us “documentary.” So, where are the unguarded moments? Does anyone ever tell a joke, bitch about a boss, fart while cuddling on the couch, study a box score? No.

Although I will confess this: Even in these minimalist settings, I couldn’t help but notice the therapist has a Noguchi table in her office. You know what I’d like to hear? Someone say, “Is that a Noguchi table?” I read an introductory text on playwrighting where authors were advised not to write “I’m so tired” if they could write “Has anyone seen my magazine?” and let the actor say it in a tired voice. What volumes could be spoken in a lively discussion of mid-century furniture.

Meanwhile, the sex is dwindling. There was only one boning scene this week, and it was done standing up in a restaurant kitchen, and needless it say, it wasn’t the chicken being boned, but the semi-nympho twentysomething character, Jaime. On the prep table! Which no one wiped down afterward! Check your salad carefully before you tuck in. I tell you this as a friend.

What was HBO thinking? They let Matthew Weiner go to AMC, where “Mad Men” is mopping the floor with them on basic cable, with commercials. While the people who are paying $10 a month get scrotums, and Showtime subscribers have “Weeds” and “Dexter.” Where is the next “Six Feet Under?” How soon can we get another season of “Big Love” on the air? “Entourage,” my friends, is not enough.

Bloggage:

Funky Winkerbean deathwatch: Don’t fear the reaper! Or is that the phantom of the opera? UPDATE: The Comics Curmudgeon takes note of Lisa’s imminent passing, as well as that of one of Lynn Johnston’s characters. What is it, seasonal depression week in the funnies?

I haven’t written much lately about Britney Spears, because…well, “I haven’t written much about Britney Spears” just says it all, doesn’t it? It seems fashionable now to say one isn’t writing about Britney because she’s obviously a young woman in great pain, and blah blah blah, wish her well, blah blah blah rehab blah counseling blah to the blah. If I’m taking a keener interest in her this week, it’s because of this: She’s lost her kids, and she seemingly doesn’t care. The judge says turn them over by Wednesday, and she turns them over on Monday, then goes tanning, then gets a big hotel suite. Yee-haw, freedom! We all know, intellectually, there are mothers like this in the world, but it’s still sort of shocking to see one up close. I wonder if the hotel suite was a “Leaving Las Vegas” kind of deal.

Newsday’s Pulitzer prizes are sold at auction, but no one knows how they got there. Psst, whoever bought them: Melting them down in the only possible ending to this story.

I was right about Flower. And I’m glad I was the only one in the house when the episode aired, not because I wept with despair (I didn’t), but because when we all watched it together the following day, Alan was disrespectful. He hates sentimentalizing wild animals, even though, to my mind, “Meerkat Manor” hits more notes in tune than out. And so, when a litter of three pups from the Zappa clan was introduced, named Axl, Slash and Rose, he wanted to know why they they weren’t named Axl, Slash and Duff.

“Because obviously they had a female pup and they needed a female name,” I said. “Now shut up.”

But no. Last year he made the paper’s TV writer say nooooo and hold her hands over her ears when he told her the season finale would include heartbreaking footage of Flower being run over by the research team’s Land Rover. That’s not how it went — Flower was bitten by a cobra while bravely trying to defend her litter — but Alan prefers his version, and openly speculated that’s what really happened, and the whole snake story was trumped up to cover the Land Rover’s tracks, so to speak.

Then we saw a heartbreaking final shot of Flower dying, her head swollen like a rotten melon. “She could probably breathe easier without that radio collar,” he said. I swear.

If I were a meerkat dominant female, I don’t think he’d be allowed to pick my fleas for a while.

However, I’m not a meerkat dominant female, I’m a suburban mother who must take a shower and be prepared to take her offspring to the orthodontist, where I will buy more rubber bands to sell on the street sit reading in the waiting room for the next hour or so. More in a bit.

As we have recently entered the Journey of Orthodontia, Alan signed up for a Healthcare Spending Account this year. I know, I know, we should have done it years ago, but we’re stupid. That big caveat they tell you at the informational meeting — all funds not spent by December 31 are forfeit — always put us off the idea, although in our defense that was before we knew the money could be spent on bourbon, as long as you filed a signed letter saying your doctor told you to relax more.

Once we took the plunge, it was a revelation. They sent us a debit card that we could use to tap the funds at will — pure genius — and I started toting it to the orthodontist’s office, where every month I use it to make a payment on our daughter’s steadily improving smile.

Then a letter arrived: Please document the following purchases, blah blah blah, or risk the deactivation of your card. Apparently the debit-card tapping from an orthodontist’s office sent up the red flags. I understand. I might have been trying to launder that $100 per month through a Roseville ortho’s office by buying little rubber bands, which I then might sell on the street and spend the cash on crack or something. You can’t be too careful.

At our next appointment, I trudged back to the ortho and asked the receptionist for a printout of all my payments so far, so I could make copies, highlight the disputed payments and fax everything back to HQ, so that I could go on spending my own money. She was familiar with my plight.

“This isn’t really bad, as these things go,” she said, indicating it happens quite often. “A lot of plans make it much harder. They’re hoping you just give up, so they can keep the money.”

Every so often, in my health-care news farming, I come across an editorial in which some conservative airily dismisses all concerns about our current system by saying, well, this is what happens when consumers are divorced from the true cost of things, by having everything paid by their insurance. The Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed last year in which the writer praised those savvy Amish, who don’t have insurance and don’t carry debt, and hence go doctor to doctor haggling for the best price on having a rotten tooth pulled or some other elective procedure. What to do when the patient has crushing chest pain is conveniently not explained, nor is the Amish fondness for Mexican border-town doctors, herbalists and other low-cost options that may or may not quack like a duck. The last grafs of these pieces are generally spent genuflecting in the direction of “the market” and its holy healing power.

I wonder what the line item for “abandoned funds” is for this particular company. I wonder what accountant crunched that number. I wonder who came up with the idea. I wonder how they sold it in the meeting.

OK, Grumpypants rant over. It’s a gorgeous day.

Shall we wrangle some bloggage? Get along, little bloggies:

I really don’t want to get into the habit of deconstructing op-ed columnists at my alma mater; Tim Goeglein is enough for me. But I read this piece with a sense of deepening wonder, trying to guess how long it would take the writer to get to the point. I imported it into Word so I could nail it precisely: 582 words. Talk about Grumpypants.

A nice NYT op-ed on what happens to Detroit factories when they close down. Short answer: They’re exported. The longer answer is much more interesting:

In the Budd plant, “press” means stamping presses, and many of them still stand, a couple of stories high, in numbered lines of half a dozen presses each. A Spanish auto supplier, Gestamp, has bought 16 Line for one of its Mexican plants. A couple of Mexican engineers from Gestamp, along with German engineers from Müller Weingarten, the press maker that Gestamp contracted to oversee the 16 Line’s installation in Mexico, have been observing the disassembly. “Their role is to stand there, in awe, and hope they can put it back together when they get it to Mexico,” said Duane Krukowski, General Rigging’s electrical foreman.

For moms only, every word that comes out of our mouths in 24 hours, distilled to two minutes and set to the William Tell Overture. A YouTube link, of course. Funny. Wholesome funny.

There’s nothing a staff writer likes more than an in-joke. In newspapers, we make elaborate fake front pages when people leave or retire. For TV shows, scenes that won’t be shot, but should. For fans of “The Wire,” with a new catch phrase (“meta motherfuckers”), thanks to Ashley.

I’ve come to believe that any movie with Chris Cooper in it won’t let me down, but man, when the NYT calls “The Kingdom” “‘Syriana’ for dummies,” dude, that is cold.

Anyway, if I’m movie-bound at all this weekend, it’s to see “Eastern Promises.”

Lance Mannion takes a look at “On the Road,” and does a better job of it than most people paid to do so.

And that is all. Have a swell weekend.

Well, peace has been restored in the valley — the autoworkers are back on the job and the spin on the contract is, it’s Watershed City and the D Will Rise Again. Before I make you read another sentence of this paragraph, let me assure you a) this won’t be a 500-word thumbsucker on the fine points of the UAW contract; and b) I’m as astonished as you are that I actually give a crap about this stuff now. But that’s living in a company town; you’re all in the same boat.

I always thought one of Hollywood’s genius moves was making box-office figures the new box score, the sort of thing ordinary folks would talk about at the watercooler on Monday. I once wrote a column expressing amazement that I knew more about green-screen special effects than I did about the commodities market, when the former is just entertainment and the latter is intertwined with the food I put on my table day after day. What is a pork belly? Why is corn detasseled? It was all a mystery to me.

(This column brought in some of the best reader mail I ever got, and the answers are “bacon, basically” and “to ensure genetic parentage in seed corn.” One woman drew careful diagrams of the corn plant, demonstrating the tassel’s relationship to the silk on the developing ears. Another reader painted a vivid picture of the misery of detasseling duty, an important supplement to the farm kid’s summer income, and every dollar is drenched in dew, sweat and chapped hands.)

So it is with car-making in Car City. You don’t care, but you oughta know.

As for the contract, all I’ll say is this: General Motors committed to fund a trust that in turn will fund retiree health care, a financial obligation estimated at $50 billion over 80 years. That won’t all be paid in cash, of course — some will come from stock and some from growth of the seed money. But they will pay at least 70 percent of that to get the ball rolling. This, we’re told, will lop $800 to $1,000 off the cost of building each car and take a giant step closer to returning the General to competitiveness. Just roll those numbers around in your head a minute or two: 70 percent of $50 billion, and that’s for retiree health care. (There are two retirees for every GM worker these days, and maybe a fraction more.) And it won’t bring them to real parity with what Toyota pays in wages and benefits, even in this country, although they’re getting closer. Never mind the companies that build cars overseas, who have an edge why? Because western governments overwhelmingly pay for health care. And they can afford this why? Because they’re not flushing a billion dollars a month down Iraqi toilets. Yes, a gross oversimplification. Still.

That is all.

So. Is “The War” over yet? I have no idea. Alan’s watching it while I work in another room, and the boom of howitzers is still intrusive, but not as much as what I’ve come to think of as the Full Ken Burns — sonorous narration, a snip of exquisite music, an old voice telling a quavery story. I was fully seduced by “The Civil War,” but I weary of his one-trick-pony approach to history. Wake me up when “Vietnam” airs, if he manages to get it on the air before 2050 or so.

Actually, that’s the war story I’d like to see, and I’d like to see it before the voices get any more quavery. How many times can we go over the horror of World War II and give our lasting gratitude to the brave men and women who saved the world from genocidal fascism? It’s not like it’s unplowed ground. Meanwhile we’re fighting Vietnam II, and it might help to look again at Vietnam I. Just a suggestion from someone who’s seen enough Pearl Harbor to last a while.

In other TV news, I’m worried about Flower.

The promos for this week’s “Meerkat Manor” have been as subtle as crushing chest pain: It’s the end of an era when tragedy strikes and the Kalahari loses its favorite rose, reads the promo for Friday. And the coming attractions last week featured shots of a puff adder. I don’t think she’ll survive the season. (Although I look forward to the memorial montage, set to stirring meerkat music.) Damn these Animal Planet puppetmasters, making me care about weasels half a world away!

No bloggage today — busy morning — but there’s this: God, I love these West Virginia birth stories.

Later!

The headline for today’s post has been running through my head all weekend, since I heard it in the mix on Old-School Saturday, my favorite radio show in the whole wide etcetera. Remember the rest of the line? …and then she goes back. Bye bye bye bye there. Sly & the Family Stone, taking you all the way back to the summer of 1969. I was 11. Let us speak no more of time’s terrible swift sword. Labor Day has that effect on me.

But it was a wonderful summer, all things considered. I spent the last two weekends reconnecting with old friends, last weekend in Wisconsin and this weekend in Ohio. My old demi-roomie Jeff Borden was invited to a big nuptial throwdown in the state capital, so I brunched with him and his wife Joanna and dinnered with ol’ pals Cindy and Mark. All concerned knew me back in the day, so the whole weekend had the taste of fine old wine, along with plenty of the newer variety.

Jeff reminded me of a Christmas party we had once. It lasted past 3 a.m., and on a weeknight. At one point, Jeff said, “I came out of the bathroom, and of the nine people in my living room, every single one was talking.” Ah, the ’80s. It was a talkative time. It was also a time when you could stay up until 3 or so, rise at 8 and head on in to work without requiring hospitalization afterward or IV fluids beforehand. Time’s terrible swift sword, chapter 2.

But now buckle-down season arrives, and frankly, I’m ready. At some point this week, Kate will go back to school. Tomorrow, I believe, but they don’t want the little darlings to stress too much, so it’s a half day. Schools are required by state law to begin no earlier than the day after Labor Day, but the GP throws in a travel day. I love my little girl so much it makes my teeth ache, but to say I am ready for school to begin again is an understatement so vast it cannot be overstated. (Wha’?)

So how was your weekend? Also, has anyone ever made a cardboard boat in one of those team-building exercises? What’s the secret of a winning cardboard boat? Some readers of this blog want to know, but don’t want to be revealed, because it would reveal that they know the cardboard-boat team-building exercise is coming, and that would be cheating. Which may be Lesson 1 in successful cardboard boating: Whenever possible, cheat.

LA Mary mentioned in the comments yesterday that she watched a “Mad Men” marathon to stay out of the SoCal heat wave this weekend. Back then, they built teams the old-fashioned way — with alcohol. No more. Time’s terrible swift sword, etc.

I forgot to mention the weekend’s capper: John and Sam are planning a last-minute fly-by visit tonight, so I can’t tarry. They’re old friends, too, old enough that when I said, “Sure, come visit, but the dryer’s broken, so I can’t give you clean sheets. That OK with you?” John said, “No problem.” Now those are old friends worth having, I’d say.

So, bloggage:

“The Wire” wrapped production on its fifth and final season. As one of the 1.6 million Americans who watch and love this show, I can only strangle a sob and lift a virtual glass with the other 1.599999. If you’re not watching, go to your library and find a previous season on DVD. Just so we have something to talk about after the last season starts to air. (There’s also a video, if you’re interested, but it reveals nothing about the upcoming season and nothing a dedicated Wire fan doesn’t already know, so be advised.)

I’ll say one thing for the current Bush administration, it sure is giving the world better books than the last one. And it’s so fun to see Karl Rove shanking his fellow travelers, isn’t it?

And just to round out our trio with yet another WashPost link, how about some postcoital Diana remorse? Gush, gush, gush! Funny.

You all know I spend four hours each night farming news from the health-care field. Last night’s headline of the evening came from Bloomberg:

‘Designer Vagina’ Surgery Is a $5,500 Danger, Gynecologists Say

If you ask me, “designer vagina” is almost as much fun to say as “ample bottom.” You want to hear it in a song lyric:

Design-a vagina, nothin’ is fine-a / So let’s pour another glass of wine-a…

OK. Sorry for the late post, Danny. You’re not the boss of me, Danny. Actually, I’m not goofing off or anything like it, Danny. I’m working. But since you insist…

My schedule got all discombobulated this morning; I had my eyes checked for a new pair of glasses. It was an interesting experience; the optician took my old ones and led me into the exam room before disappearing with them. A blur entered and introduced herself as the doctor. She asked me to read what I could from the chart.

“And where, exactly, is the chart?” I asked. This is what we call a baseline reading. I was finally able to make out the single-letter line: “That’s an O, unless it’s a C.” It’s official — I’ve turned into Burgess Meredith in the Twilight Zone. Next step is a white cane and a golden retriever, no doubt.

I came home and had to put my nose directly to the grindstone, and am just now coming up for air. Just in time for the end of summer. My brain is already on vacation, as you can plainly see. Since we’ve been trifling all week, let’s keep up the theme, eh?

Today in anorexia: Really, Keira, you look great in that dress. And what man wouldn’t prefer the rag-and-bone Renee Zellweger over the plumper one in the red dress? That picture is horrifying — you can see veins in her shins. Scroll down from Keira’s lollipop figure to Joely Richardson, who appears to have recently returned from a long stay in a country with no food. You could chip your tooth if you tried to kiss her shoulder, but who would?

Meanwhile, I got a note from a fellow fan of “Mad Men” who says the redheaded secretary played by Christina Hendricks is his new dream girl. That picture’s just a headshot, but trust me — she’s got it goin’ on, upstairs and downstairs. Her clothes don’t “hang” well, because in the ’50s they weren’t made to hang; they were made to cling. Clothing designers then acknowledged women have waists and hips and what’s more — crazy to think of — men might appreciate seeing them once in a while.

I was three years old during the era this show depicts. Once again, I miss the boat. Story of my life.

No wonder women feel they need a designer vagina these days. Once upon a time, tits ‘n’ ass would do. Have a great weekend. I’ll be traveling down Columbus way. Marcia, drop me a line if you’re not working. The rest of you, back whenever.

I guess I’m not surprised to hear “John From Cincinnati” isn’t being renewed. The show really was a disappointment. (Did I watch all 10 episodes? Of course. That’s how I know.) I preserved high hopes to the end, thinking perhaps the promo guys were telling the truth when they said “all will be explained” in the final episode.

It wasn’t. As far as I can tell, God sent JFC to earth to save a surf-gear business, but I could be wrong. The show sort of went off the rails for me after John made his speech at the barbecue a few episodes back, a sermon that sounded like it was written, but not delivered, by potheads on the fifth day of a smoke-a-pound binge. A commenter at Television Without Pity said it best: Dear Mr. Milch, Please, put the drugs away. When the series was debuting, he (David Milch) went on Craig Ferguson’s show and said, “The wave — which I’m told is what surfers ride — is the only visible embodiment of what physicists tell us all matter is composed of, which is particles held together by some kind of magnetic or molecular force, and that’s what makes the waves move. And if God were trying to reach out to us, and teach us something about the deepest nature of man, he might use some drugged-out surfers.”

My gut reaction to this was: What b.s. But I wanted to believe. And I didn’t learn much about the deepest nature of man, except that Milch really needs to lay off the pottymouth dialogue and if I never hear the phrase “whippin’ his skippy” or “dump out” again, I can die happy.

Ah, well. “The Wire” will be with us eventually. Some compensation. And “Big Love” is really hitting its stride this season. I’ll keep HBO another year, I think.

You know what day we got digital cable with HBO? September 11, 2001. I could hardly bear it when the cable guy had to disconnect service briefly to get us hooked up to the ones-and-zeros feed. I told him as much when he got it reconnected, and said to just leave it on CNN, I’d show myself around the premium-channel landscape later. He said, rolling his eyes, “Yeah, man, this stuff” — gesturing to the carnage in New York — “it’s crazy.” Not the word I would have used, but OK.

A little pre-weekend bloggage, then?

Is she really going out with him? Not only that, they’re engaged. Jenna “the drunk one” Bush snags a pasty-faced fiancee. Let’s hope they don’t wind up on that John Waters show.

Make cruel fun — you know you want to. Back later.

So he did:

The caller lost his cool, but hang on after the hangup for the smirking. 4dbirds, you’ll love this.

I try not to make this blog too political. Probably should have saved it for the bloggage. But there isn’t going to be much of that today, because I’m empty as a cup and need to get a lot of work done by this afternoon, when Alex arrives for his stay at NN.C Central. It’s Stay With a Blogger Weekend, didn’t you know that? Photos when we get them.

I was talking about local driving habits with someone who grew up here, and he made the argument that yes, sure, Detroiters all drive like car thieves and favor moves like the Six-Lane High-Speed Cutover Without Signaling, but by and large, people drive with a decent baseline level of skill. I disagreed, but it was a boring argument and we don’t need to recount it here. However, I offer some proof of my position today. There was a huge water main break on a major freeway yesterday. I mean huge — a 48-incher — that erupted in a geyser and then abated to a mere waterfall, swiftly flooding the freeway. And I mean swiftly — a couple of cars were left on the road, water to their rear-view mirrors, drivers sitting on the roof waiting for rescue. That must have been some flood, I thought, stupidly, until I saw the victims on the late news and learned: Yes, they saw the water ahead of them and thought they could drive through it.

I mean, speaking of stupid.

I’m hoping nothing this exciting happens to Alex on his way here today.

L.A. Mary e-mailed to say the Comics Curmudgeon has opened her eyes to the thrills of “Gil Thorpe,” the strip so stupid it’s not even on the comics page in many papers. Editors save it, and “Tank McNamara,” for that problematic ocean of gray, the sports agate page. I never paid much attention to it, either, but the CC knows what he’s talking about:

Ha ha! Oh, man, the Gil Thorp summer hijinks are getting started even more quickly than I could have hoped! I’m totally in love with Gail Martin, the “rock and roll Carole King,” as she was called yesterday; truly, nothing shouts “rock and roll” like a collared shirt and a long braid that you clutch dramatically to your chest while you belt out your non-hits and your banjo player grooves behind you.

The art in this strip is almost comically bad. Fitting, I guess.

After five eps of “John From Cincinnati,” I think James Wolcott has it right: If this guy can heal the sick, the first thing he needs to lay hands on is this show. Although “I got my eye on you” is a new catchphrase here at NN.C Central.

OK, Alex just e-mailed and said he’s “leaving soon.” Which means I have to go banish dog hair, and pronto.

At the risk of taking sides in what must be the episodic-television wuss-out of the decade, let me just say the more I think about the last Sopranos installment, the less I hate it. It was a bold gesture, and a hard truth: Nothing really changes, especially with people who don’t want to change.

Tony and Carmela have arrived in middle age, failures in the one thing they strived to do (besides make money) — raising their children to escape their parents’ lives. Meadow’s on her way to being a mob wife and lawyer, having laid aside the one “pure” career path that would have set her apart. AJ’s the self-deluding, shiftless little shit he was always destined to be. (And how ironic, that by saving him from the Army, they’ve drawn a target on his back that will be hit sooner or later. Never mind Tony and Carmela’s support for the war and the president, but not when it comes to actually fighting the thing. Sure, he’s going to be an officer. And learn Arabic. Right.) In fact, the kids aren’t even sheltered anymore; they both know what DefCon 3 is, and discuss FBI protection at yet another family funeral the way they might talk about parking at the Meadowlands. Carmela has sold her soul so often she’s not even bothered by it any more, as long as there’s another house to divert her attention, or a nice piece of jewelry, or an Hermés scarf. Janice is ready to break up Bobby’s poor orphan children, in the name of being a “good mother,” so the next generation of lunatic killers is well under way.

Paulie’s a whack job, still. Sil’s in a coma. Junior’s getting off easy, wasting away in a poor farm with his glasses held together with duct tape. Everyone else is dead. The envelopes are lighter than a rejection letter. The party’s over, and seven years of therapy didn’t make a dent. Sounds like hell to me. As the song on the jukebox says, Oh, the movie never ends, it goes on and on and on and on…

I’d say more, but I know you all want to dis–.

[Twenty seconds of black.]

Oh, my, it was a nice weekend. Perfect weather. Alan went on a man-date with himself Friday night. It was fully in keeping with my secret to a happy marriage: Space.

You gotta give one another a little room to be something other than Mr. or Mrs. Better Half. Two become one, but before two became one they were two ones on their own. I was, anyway. So when Alan called late Friday afternoon, at the hour when we begin calibrating the closing of the Features section with whatever I’m making for dinner, and said, “The Sun Ra Arkestra is playing a 10 o’clock show in town, and I want to go,” of course there was only one answer: “Have a nice time.”

He didn’t say “without you,” but there was no chance of getting a babysitter at that hour, and on the subject of Sun Ra, we’ve agreed to disagree. I happily acknowledge I am not cool enough to fully appreciate a jazz musician who claimed to have been teleported to Saturn in 1936, where he was given instructions to drop out of college and speak to the world through his music. The show was at a building in southwest Detroit I’m actually familiar with, the Old Bohemian Hall, a relic from the early 20th century, when your tribe was your life. I did an interview there last fall. There was a scraggly art party going on downstairs, and the interview was up, on the second floor, where there’s a stage about the size of something you’d find in an elementary school. The owner showed me the bronze hooks recessed into the floor, where they set up the gymnastic equipment on Saturdays. I kept looking at the stage.

“You can almost see John Reed up there, talking to the crowd about one big union,” I said. Exactly.

Anyway, the place was a mess. It was one of six buildings the owner bought in the ’90s, he said, for a combined price of less than he paid for a Jeep Cherokee a few years later. Of course, the expense in real estate in places like this is not the purchase but the demolition and/or stabilization. You pay $1,500 for the building and put $100,000 into the roof. Alan said it was still a mess, very Fabulous Ruins. The stage lights consisted of a pole lamp with the shades removed, some clip-on work lights from Home Depot and, of all things, a trouble light in a cage, like you use to work on your car. The Arkestra does a bit where they stand up and walk around the hall playing their instruments, and they looked mighty vexed with the un-railed, unlit and crumbling steps they had to use. Did I mention most of these guys are in their 60s and perhaps 70s?

So what was the music like? “Oh, it was good,” Alan said. “Imagine Duke Ellington’s band in tinfoil hats and on acid, and with one guy playing a ram’s horn.” As I said: Not cool enough.

Bloggage:

There was so much good stuff in the papers over the weekend I can scarcely get to it all. Joel Achenbach on Red Meat Politics in the WashPost, along with a satisfying thumbsucker on cultural genocide by someone other than Americans, and the NYT did a short piece directing me to TrashTheDress.com, a website dedicated to a new wrinkle in wedding photography — the post-wedding dress-trashing session. Some gorgeous photographs. I wish I’d done this. Of course, my dress was off the rack and not Vera Wang.

But for pure knee-slapping humor, though, nothing matches the Bambi-vs.-Godzilla clash of this priceless interview of Jack Kevorkian by none other than Mitch Albom. Two of the nation’s leading hucksters of death go mano a mano, but the contest ultimately disappoints:

What do you think happens when we die?

“You stink. You rot and stink.”

No soul?

He laughed. “What’s a soul?”

It’s like watching Strawberry Shortcake in a steel cage match with Ted Bundy.

Regular readers have long ago given up hope of seeing even a glimmer of self-awareness from either of these guys. Kevorkian thought there would be riots in the street when he was sent away these last seven years, and Albom long ago accepted the job as the national expert on death and dying (Good Morning America Division). Still, it would’ve been even funnier if Kevorkian had messed with Mitch’s head a little bit, and instead of saying death leads to “rot and stink,” if he could have given a more Mitchlike answer:

“I think, Mitch, that when we die we find ourselves irresistibly drawn to a bright white light. As we step into the light, we suddenly find ourselves in an old-time drugstore, with a soda fountain. Sitting at the small tables are all your loved ones who preceded you in death; your father is the soda jerk, putting the finishing touches on a root beer float, which he places before you as you sit down. All your dogs, cats and other pets are there, too, waiting to be petted, although I think there’s some dispute about pet reptiles — they may be in a different facility. But definitely the dogs and cats are there. OK. So you sit down, and everyone is smiling at you. You may be confused. If you were taken quickly, say by a car crash or explosion or something, you probably are. You’re all like, “How did I get to this soda fountain, and why is my dad wearing a paper hat?” But you’re not afraid, because you’re suffused with the light, and also you have a nice root-beer float to enjoy. Then, the door opens again, and a guy who looks a lot like Wilfred Brimley walks in. This is God. Yes, God is Wilfred Brimley, but Wilfred Brimley is not God. It will all make sense to you as you experience it. Then–”

“Excuse me for a moment please, Jack. I need to go make some notes.”

It’s another lovely day. Enjoy it.

I seem to have stepped in it today. In about three hours I have to a) chaperone; b) drive to; and c) cater yet another end-of-year party for one of Kate’s school things. (These are the safety/service kids, the ones with a future in law enforcement.) I see that I’ve signed up to bring a salad, and a quick look in the fridge confirms that yes, once again there’s no food in it, much less an already prepared salad appropriate for a picnic on a 90-degree day. So it’s off to the store to find something with a wide age-group appeal and no mayo.

What I’m saying is this: Don’t expect much from ol’ Nance today. (As usual.)

Watched part 1 of “John From Cincinnati” last night. I imagine Tim Goodman has his reasons for calling it “a mess,” and I won’t argue too much — it’s weak out of the gate — but I remain hopeful. For those of you who were “Deadwood” fans, I can tell you the show continues two of David Milch’s big crowd-pleasers — cascades of profanity and a certain mannered style to the dialogue. There are other pleasures. Rebecca DeMornay was born to be photographed in golden-hour light, and the surfing is lovely without being that “Point Break” fantasy crap.

Parts 2 and 3 are on the menu for the weekend, and I can tell you more then (of course, you’ll have seen part 1 for yourselves by then, too). But I’m still optimistic. I didn’t think it sucked out loud; it was just a bit self-conscious and, sad to say, no “Sopranos,” alas. Or even “Six Feet Under.” But I’m optimistic, because in the history of HBO series, they’ve only flat-out disappointed me twice. (And those are, boys and girls? Yes, “Mind of the Married Man” and “Carnivale.”)

Time, she slips by whether we want it to or not. In this order: Shower, grocery store, school, park. It’s a lovely day. I’m not complaining.