CR: Sir Chauncey K. Ramsbottom, University of Bootle (moderator)
HW: Harry Wanadoo, theologian and visiting scholar, Universtiy of Tirukkalukunram
DE: Dame Elsie Camano (Seattle)
MN: Mr. Natural (Tompkins Square Park)
LL: Mlle. Louise Louise, etudiante de la cinema a la Sorbonne
ZB: Herr Doktor Zascher Bingo, genetic epistemologist (Stuttgart)
RB: Ross Bender, University of University City Village (secretary)
CR: Welcome and introductions
CR: Second season, Episode 2. Heavy topical political drama -- are we going in the proper direction here?
RB: Topical, up to the minute, and so twenty seconds ago. Terrorist cells, radical Muslims, bad guy Fed agents leaning on the Philly PD, computer idiot savants hacking into FBI databases -- am I missing anything?
MN: *Two* babes, man -- ex-nun and the pro-bono lawyer. Two *definite* babes. I say bring em back on, man
CR: Yes, Cindy Katz. Have we heard of her? Would someone like to google her?
MN: Heh
DE: Cindy has some screen credits; the movie database is right up to date, has her listed in Hack 2.2
RB: A welcome addition, although not that much comic relief. I thought we were supposed to get a humor
LL: Peut-etre ca doit venier. Some good lines in this show. My chief concern is wess ze cinematographer, a definite rookie who has juste discouvert ze slow-mo and go-really fast buttons and is tres enamore wees zem
DE: Slow-mo intro, and practically freeze-frame early on, on the face of the bad guy. You just know he's a Fed -- turns out to be Agent Claymore
RB: Claymore as in the land mine
CR: Do we have an established meme finally -- corrupt Fed agents leaning on the noble Philly PD, corrupt Fed agents leaning on the noble Philly PD?
RB: Perhaps, although this Claymore doesn't seem so much corrupt as misguided -- somebody tell me why the FBI has such a bad rep
CR: New meme -- nice straight goodlooking black guy who's converted to Islam. He's a Temple grad, working as a janitor to put himself through school:
NSGLBG: After six years of scrubbing toilets I'm done with that place
Marcellus: (putting on the cuffs) Not too smart for a college grad
ZB: Speaking of handcuffs, we have a disturbing sadomasochistic meme rearing its ugly little head here -- if you can call it a meme:
Mike (as Marcellus puts on the cuffs): Enjoying yourself?
Marcellus: You have the right to remain silent
ZB: Disturbing because according to the DSM-IV SM is still a disorder, especially between two men
DE: So not
ZB: I mean, I'd be more convinced of that if we saw Mike putting the cuffs on Liz Garza
MN: Hubba hubba, whatta babe! Nice goobers, man!
RB: Speaking of babes, what price Bebe Neuwirth
DE: Slept with Mike last season
LL: Was eet -- how shall I say eet -- sensuelle?
DE: Woke up in bed together -- no full frontal nudity, no oral sex, no sweat
RB: Family show
CR: So it does seem that the babe meme is worth probing. On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being extremely hot, how would you rank Cindy Katz?
HW: 10
ZB: 8
RB: 9
MN: 7, can't dance to it
LL: Abstain
DE: Abstain. Also, all this talk of googling women is so not humorous
CR: Right. Now let's delve a bit into the political content. Arresting a man on minimal evidence, no habeas corpus, holding him as a material witness, searching his apartment, impounding his hamster -- how realistic can *that* be:
Claymore: The guy's a radical. Protests, demonstrations -- he's reading about Islam, the Taliban, looking at radical websites --
Marcellus: You been checking his library card? That's a *racial* profile
Claymore: If he was white he wouldn't be reading the Koran and learning how to build bombs --
Marcellus: Like Timothy McVeigh?
RB: All true, unfortunately. Claymore's reference to the "new laws" is a direct ref to the "Patriot Acts"
CR: Here in Britain, of course, habeas corpus is alive and well
RB: Right. And Britain is the primary locus of the 21st century Panopticon. How bout them massive surveillance camera nets, Sir Chauncey?
LL: Note: Lobby cam/2 at beginning and end de plus en plus -- plus which ze surveillance cameras in the prison. If zis is no a meme, sacre bleu, zen I don't know what is a meme
CR: Point taken. Massive video surveillance. Is this a threat to democracy?
DE: Threat to good taste
RB: Perhaps. Quis custodiet ipsos custodiens -- who will watch the janitors, much less the plumbers. If the guy on the street had the opportunity to watch surveillance cams and their operators, plus the guys who give the orders, on streaming video on AOL, what a wonderful wonderful world this might be
CR: Cinematographical reference?
LL: Zis one est difficile et tres subtle. The "business" with Hack disabling the cable and posing as a cable repair guy has been done, although eet was a cable repair gal I believe:
Dude: I thought you was a cable guy -- all of a sudden you Dick Tracy
Italian Job, pout etre?
RB: Hollywood Homicide featured Harrison Ford commandeering a cab …
CR: Liz Garza -- Jacqueline Torres -- a babe, but is she a goer?
HW: You mean, does she travel?
ZB: Left the nunnery because of the orthopedic shoes; that and the no-sex thing.
MN: Hot chick man! Nice goobers, too. I say let's get it on, man!
CR: Well, well, well. Ex-nun next door, quite distressingly horny. And you say Bebe slept with Mike last season?
LL: And Bebe is quite distressingly one babe chaud. Ees she coming….back?
DE: Precisely my question. Although if this distressingly sexist chatter doesn't cease pretty damn quick I'm so gonna blow this fucking Popsicle stand
CR: Right. Uptight. Outta sight. We haven't paid much attention to the smart-ass white kid and the hacker meme. *He* obviously isn't a Temple grad …
RB: Dartmouth or Brown maybe. Anyhow, he's starting to get on my blinging nerves
ZB: Note his obsession with prosthetic limbs. Admittedly they do come in handy when Mike is kung-fuing the bad guys
DE: Plus which SAWK remarks: This looks like a job for the mighty Olshansky
RB: Mighty Mouse
CR: Perhaps we should move toward a resolution. Harry, religion; Zascher, psychoticism
HW: Most obvious is the African-American trend toward Islam. Islam is far from "just" an Arab religion, a misconception many Americans have. It was a sophisticated world religion by the end of the first millennium CE; its cultural center in the Caliphate of Baghdad embraced a world culture extending from Spain to India. This at a time when the Franks and Goths buttered their hair and bashed it out with blunt instruments, and the Christians weren't all that far ahead of them, notwithstanding the decadent Merovingians and Charlemagne and what not
ZB: The sadomasochistic motif still disturbs me. The confluence of pain with sexual pleasure both on the part of the giver and the receiver strikes me as fundamentally dysfunctional, a remnant of 20th century fascism, yes, but historically it obviously goes much much deeper, to the psychic roots of the conceptualizaion of power itself. The caveman dragging "his" anorexic woman around by her long, flowing, seductive, sensual, sexually-stimulating hair still makes me cream in my jeans, and I'm a relatively civilized Nazi myself
MN: Know whereof you speak dude. Plus which those fine firm round …
CR: And perhaps we should let Mr. Natural have the last word. Just a quick poll in conclusion -- does HACK need to "get a humor"? Harry?
HW: Get a humor
RB: Definitely
MN: Look at me, dude! I'm the fucking Good Humor Man, man!
