Fading to Black

1. Thirteen years ago, I bit the bullet and added HBO to my satellite network. For a long long time, I resisted the lure of the luxury channel; I didn't need no stinking recycled movies, or pretentious hyper produced telly series, no sir,  I was having none of it, holding the bull at bay, and keeping the change in my pocket for other amusing hobbies, until...The Sopranos. For those of you who missed the wedding, the six season run of the greatest series that ever laced them up under cable lights, it's not too late for you to re-live the moments. Whatever came after The Sopranos, touched the cloak, but never the master. The Sopranos, my friends, danced every dance, and hit all the fucking high notes. 'The Wire,' 'Six Feet Under,' 'Deadwood,' etc etc emulated, genuflected and kissed the ring. My brother in law once wondered out loud if he wanted to invite the series into his living room every week. The truth was that The Sopranos brought droves of men to the Sunday night viewing. The writing was superlative. The camera work richly composed and lit. There was something for everyone. And when the opening chord of 'Woke up this morning' by Alabama 3 fired up the show, it was money. The most successful cable series, eva. James Gandolfini was a man (bada bing!) among the boys. Tomorrow night the lights on Broadway will dim for one minute in his memory...the ultimate thespian accolade.

2. Mad Men. Close but no cigar. See above. Season finale left no stone unturned. The final 10 seconds close again, but...

'You load 16 tons, and what do ya get..'

1. With apologies to Tennessee Ernie Ford and Lena...uh, if you're a woman, you make exactly .77 cents to the 'man's' dollar while you're grinding away elbow to elbow in the salt mines. Don't have a college education? A woman of color? Hispanic or Black? Hey babe you're earning approximately .68 cents, retro, to the buck. Yesterday, was the 50th anni of the signing of the equal pay act. And no, we haven't come a long way; the gender gap is still held hostage by the prickly zipper. A seminal moment for me: a printing job I stumbled upon down in the western Oakland warehouse district; a stone's throw from deFremery park, site of the Black Panthers rally's. The shop was youthful, filled with vibrant, brash individuals who believed in equal 'everything' much to the owner's outrage and chagrin. My first day on the job, I heard the tapping of a razor blade on a light table.  And knew illicit adventures beckoned. Unionized, every contract negotiation was brutal. In the end, equal pay, a concept, which never existed before for any of us sparked and burnt like wild fire. It was the 70's.

2. Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer. HBO. A documentary. Somewhere in the Gulag deep in Mother Russia, Nadia and Masha are serving out their 2 year sentence for 40 seconds of theater in a Moscow Cathedral before a shocked congregation. With one act, three women belonging to the Pussy Riot collective exposed Putin and his government as draconian neanderthals, scared shitless, by masked neon balaclava'd women engaged in guerrilla punk music and going all H.A.M on them...the thing is, now more than ever, the whole world was, and is still watching.

3. Game of Thrones. It was the shizzil. Good summer reading if you can't wait for next year.