A few months ago, the up and coming Seattle rap duo, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis dropped a track called “My Oh My” honoring the memory of the late Niehaus. Shortly after its release, they were asked to perform it during the commencement ceremonies on Opening Day.

You may recall my beautifully executed interview with Lewis himself a few months ago, during which I learned that this producer is precise with his music; he doesn’t like to create catchy tunes, he wants things to sound epic and on point – to give emotions a sound. Predictable for his stickler-for-perfection-like character, he invited live musicians to join their performance.

Two trumpets, one trombone, one tuba, and four strings players later, all Lewis needed was something to push the whole performance to the utmost edge – toes hanging over but feet   still planted firmly on the ground. He needed a drumline.

Through some act of fate, Lewis was told about the Garfield drumline, so he called Tony Sodano and asked them to fill the silence of that missing piece with the boom of their drums. Sodano told the drumline, who told someone on Messenger staff, who told me and somehow through all these connections and hearsays, I found myself at Safeco Field on what would have been a typical Thursday night with a yellow pass hanging from my neck, my name and picture plastered to its front.

I walked onto the field to the sound of tuning instruments and mic checks. Intimidated by the headsets and clipboards, I quickly spotted my boys. Fellow true dog seniors Desean Mahonie and Josh Markowitz, and junior puppies James Bauermister, Nick Franko, Garret Hopper, and Peter Beery made up the chosen six from our drumline to perform in front of a sold out stadium of 54,097 onlookers.

Throughout the rehearsal, I couldn’t help but feel proud of these boys I’d gone to school with for years. Despite the obvious distractions – the lights, the cameras, the view of the stadiums actual size, the starting and stopping, the weight of how important it all is – they hit it every time.

When Opening Day came, and the stadium seats began to fill, Macklemore, Ryan Lewis, and the Garfield Drumline took place in the players’ entrance. By the end of the song, they had fulfilled the ultimate goal any performer has – to make someone feel something – leaving the entire stadium in tears.

Barring a brutal 12–3 loss to the Indians,  the 54,097 fans who assembled at Safeco Field that day exited the stadium with contentment of their ticket purchases.

For people with families like mine, there is nothing more boring than perfection. Drama and entertainment stem from the mishaps that we endure every day. Imprecision is what brings audiences to their feet.

Production teams have created a formula for what makes a successful show or film. It is as follows: normal people + psychological disorders / rational decision making = $$$$$

This formula is the key to their six figure pay-days, their European cars, and their children’s private school educations. It’s so perfect that we never realize how planned and purposeful it is. They will guard this equation with their lives.

In the beginning of family programs, the main conflict of an episode was Betty Anne getting a “C” on her English paper or the dog, Buddy, running away. Today’s conflicts would be Marissa Cooper over-dosing in a Tijuana alleyway, or Jimmy Brooks being shot in the spine and crippled from the waist down in the hallways of Degrassi. Happy endings don’t exist anymore because the demand for them has disappeared. We are all bitter and unhappy and that’s what we like to watch.

The average American doesn’t like to watch perfect Ashley and her perfect boyfriend Brad fall perfectly in love, in their perfect world where everything is perfect and pleasant and nothing ever goes wrong. We hate these kind of people. Ashley and Brad didn’t work for anything; they didn’t struggle. We hate Brad and Ashley’s perfect life because things don’t happen that easy in reality. We reject the dehumanizing aspects of fairytales and strive for something to relate to.

But when did we start routing for tragedy?

Nowadays, the likelihood of finding a successful TV show whose premise doesn’t include the main character having some kind of psychological problem is about the same as finding a Rihanna song that doesn’t make my ears bleed. Snookie is a raging alcoholic with weight issues. Dexter is a psychopath detective who kills bad guys. Bella is obsessed with danger and is in love with a vampire. To be blunt, everybody’s [buck]ed up.

But at least we’re not alone.

We’ve come to treat these programs as group therapy sessions. We watch religiously because we find comfort in our similarities but what gives us more satisfaction is the secret sweetness of knowing that we aren’t as bad off as other people. That feeling is addicting. So we search for more.

That’s where TV producers come in. They profit from our sick habits and put money into encouraging us to watch other people fail. They know it makes us feel better and sell it to us week after week like a drug. They’re feeding off our self-destruction.

We like to watch screwed up people do screwed up things because we can relate to their imperfections, which, in itself makes us more screwed up. Girls who are sixteen and pregnant justify their actions by comparing their lives to other sixteen year old girls who are pregnant on MTV. The idea almost becomes glorified.

What we need to remember is that no matter how relatable these characters and their problems are, the half an hour you spend watching an episode is not a valid setting for a forum to discuss your issues.

Seeing as that description fits roughly 30 percent of the 206, it is not an unfathomable place for us Seattleites. But to the rest of the country, the hippie/hipster infested land above seems like fiction. They clearly haven’t been to Portland.

Confused? Don’t worry I was too. Other than the beautiful perk of no sales tax and…well that’s about it, I knew nothing nor thought nothing of Portland. But a little sketch comedy show on the Independent Film Channel (IFC) called Portlandia put everything into focus.

Created, written by, and starring Saturday Night Live comedian, Fred Armisen, and Sleater-Kinney guitarist  (not to mention Seattle native), Carrie Brownstein, Portlandia is a vignette-style TV show centered around the strange people one would find living in Portland. Depicting all sorts of eccentric characters from feminist bookstore owners and over-conscious/cultish diners to social networking addicts and members of an adult extreme hide and go seek team, the show is three-fourths of the way through its first, hilarious six episode season.

In an especially memorable scene, Armisen is siting at his desk surrounded by just about every type of iTool (pod, pad, MacBook). While fighting to keep up with the constant alerts and messages all he can manage is the occasional plea of “help” in a wobbly, overwhelmed voice. The show does a brilliant job of exaggerating situations that people, especially us Northwesterners, can relate to.

What started as a series of low production internet video sketches known as “Thunderant” in 2005 soon grew a big enough fan base that Armisen and Brownstein decided to pitch a full show to the IFC network, bringing in SNL writer Jonathan Krisel with a budget just under $1 million for production of the whole season. Since the only billed regulars in the cast are Armisen and Brownstein, a good chunk of their budget goes to the actors they bring in for guest spots like Kyle MacLachlan from Sex in the City, Selma Blair from The Sweetest Thing, Heather Graham from The Hangover, and Steve Buscemi from HBO’s Boardwalk Empire.

A truly indie piece of work, Portlandia spends the time other shows waste on product placement, focusing on their characters. And characters they are in the rawest sense—honest, quirky, intricate, and most importantly, perfectly comfortable in the reality of their weirdness.

I can understand that Portlandia may not be everyone’s cup of tea—some people (freaks) are intimidated by the strange and unknown. But I think its humor is something we folk in the upper left are bred to be drawn to because there are certain aspects of the ridiculousness that hit close to home. And if you’re still afraid of the unknown, you might want to consider moving to Southern California. Watch Portlandia Friday nights at 10:30 on the IFC.

As February 27th approaches, my fellow (*lesser) movie fanatics try to engage in conversation and discussion—or in Sam Heft-Luthy’s case, debate—with me on this year’s nominees and prospective winners. These people are fools.  Although I have publically announced it using various forms of media, some people don’t quite seem to understand the ground rules for talking to me. They are as follows: (1) if what you have to say is stupid, don’t say it at all, (2) no matter what, I am always right, and (3) educate yourself in the subject matter before conversing.

For those of you feeling ballsy enough to attempt what so many before you have failed to achieve, I’m in a giving mood so I’ll help you on your social homework. Here are the answers to some childish questions you may be asking yourselves.

Who is Oscar?

In truth, this is a stupid question, but I realize that most of you are not as passionate about the topic because, unlike myself, you will never have one sitting in your trophy case, so I’ll answer it kindly. The original gold-plated statuette formally known as “The Academy Award of Merit” was designed by the Chief Art Director of MGM, Cedric Gibbons, and sculpted by a Los Angeles artist, George Stanley. The Academy officially adopted the nickname of “Oscar” in 1939 after The Academy Librarian (and eventual Executive Director) Margaret Herrick commented that the statuette looked just like her Uncle Oscar.

To this day, Oscar stands a whopping 13.5 inches tall and weighs precisely eight and a half pounds. Oh yeah, and he has 2,701 twins living in the homes of  some of the most talent people all over the world. He holds a crusaders sword and stands on a reel of film with five spokes, each representing the five original branches of The Academy.

Who makes up The Academy?

In the beginning, the 36 members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences represented five branches of filmmaking: actors, directors, writers, producers, and technicians. Today, there are over 6,000 artists representing 15 branches: actors, directors, writers, producers, animators and short filmmakers, art directors and costume designers, executives, documentary filmmakers, makeup artists and hairstylists, composers and songwriters, public relations specialists, cinematographers, sound artists and engineers, film editors, and visual effects experts.

Membership into The Academy is strictly invitation only. All professionals nominated for an award are considered for invitation. Without a  nomination, one has to be sponsored by two members of the branch for which they would qualify, and be endorsed by the executive committee of that branch before being invited. So if Miley Cyrus wanted to join The Academy, Tom Hanks and Annett Benning would have say its cool first. Fat chance, druggie.

How do movies get nominated?

Come Oscar season, it’s a studio’s publicist’s number one duty to make sure that as many (if not all) of the 6,000 members see their movie. They’ll set up private screenings, mail free DVDs to members’ homes, or offer free admission to see the film. Then, members of The Academy will make nominations for their corresponding categories (i.e. writers nominate screenplays, costume designers nominate costume design, etc.) Members can only nominate artists in their own categories but all members may nominate films for Best Picture.

How do they vote?

In late January, the members are sent ballots with the five most nominated artists and the ten most nominated movies. They are  instructed to mail the ballots back on the Tuesday before the awards ceremony  so PricewaterhouseCoopers, the accounting firm that has tallied the Oscar ballots since the 7th awards ceremony in 1934, can determine that year’s winners.

I am proud to say that you are now smarter than you were five minutes ago when you began reading, and maybe this February 27th, you can educate those with whom you are watching The Oscars. And most importantly, I now permit you to speak to me – just as long as you uphold to my other two rules.

Cally Shine: How do you usually start making a beat?

Ryan Lewis: There isn’t really a formula. My process usually depends on if I’m using a sample or not, and over time I think that most producers stop using samples. I’ve been sampling less and less; I barely sample anymore. When you have studio musicians that are down to work with you, those kind of become your samples.

CS: When you’re working with live musicians, how do you decide what they play?

RL: So much of this is the process not the result. The things I value greatly are who I’m working with, what they’re ideas are, and the substance behind each project we do.

Take ‘My Oh My’ the most recent song we put out. That began months back with Noah Goldberg. He’s Ben’s family friend so he was at Ben’s parent’s house playing this classic motion picture, moody, sports piano where it’s the last 20 seconds of the ball game and they score a touchdown and the movie ends on a positive note, and Ben heard it and wanted to flip it.

He didn’t really know what he wanted to do for it, and then Dave Niehaus passed. He and his brother are both around that age that Niehaus as a sports announcer is such a memorable voice of his childhood and here we have this sporty piano idea.

CS: So what was the recording process for that like?

RL: So we had a session with Noah and ended up recording it on this 1920s rare piano that was just grimy. And I wanted to make it grimy-er. So recording the piano, I compressed the sh*t out of it. A compressor takes anything that’s really high, and brings it down – puts a ceiling on it – and takes anything that’s really low, and brings it up. Essentially anything you do is going to hit the ceiling, and anything you don’t do is going to rise to that ceiling. And you’ll hear that in ‘My Oh My’.

That’s why you can pick out all the little subtleties, like when he stops playing, you can hear little thumps in the background – those are his foot pedals, which were actually very quiet. I had two microphones in the room and two on the piano that are all being compressed, so when he’s not playing it pulled up the noise of the room which makes it feel old.

I put drums on top of it and invited in our trumpet player, a trombone player and the violinist I work with. I had pre-recorded fake instrumental ideas that I had and they played the compositions that I wrote. In the end it sat on that fine line that had that emotion and that nostalgia while still sounding sincere.

CS: How has your musical interests influenced your personal style?

RL: I’ve actually never really been a Hip Hop Head. It’s probably not the majority of the music I listen to in terms of just bumping. I have a pretty wide interest in music and I think that’s reflected in wanting to work with live musicians. We work with a violin player, a trumpet player, trombones, drums, all this stuff. So I’ve always had an interest in incorporating that but making a sound that doesn’t necessarily sound like a “beat”, but sounds like a composition. And I think that led to  Ben’s [Macklemore] interest in doing a collaboration with me because he wanted to make songs.

CS: What was the idea behind the Vs. EP?

RL:We weren’t trying to make remixes. Remixes are essentially throwing raps upon something that, for the majority, is the original with maybe some heavier drums on top. What we were trying to do was reimagine songs, for the Vs. EP at least, by taking fairly recent, contemporary, independent samples like Anthony and The Johnsons, Beirut, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Killers. Ironically, they’re not necessarily playing a huge role in the song – they just kind of add to it and are in the balance with all these other elements. Now, we’re working on a full length record that doesn’t have any samples at all.

CS: You did a video called Fake Empire. Where did that come from?

RL:I think I was realizing the stuff I was trying to say in ‘Fake Empire’ while I was in Cape Town just observing a culture and an incredible social change without Twitter and Facebook and all those things.

From a musician’s perspective, Twitter and Myspace and Facebook are all things we use here to locally promote ourselves to our community. In Cape Town, people are still seeing each other, printing and pressing mixtapes, and physically duplicating flyers and passing them out. It reminded me of how Seattle Hip Hop operated 10 years ago. Music and how musicians are operating is really just a small example of something much much bigger which is the social change. And that’s what brought on Fake Empire.”

Ryan is currently filming the “Otherside remix feat. Fences” music video and working on production for his next record with Macklemore which has an anticipated Fall 2011 release. If you can’t wait till then to see what Ryan’s about, check him out when he headlines with Macklemore at the Showbox on February 25^th.

As a skeptic Irish Catholic, it is a rare occasion to see me in a church on a day that isn’t Christmas, Easter, or St. Patrick’s Day, but I find myself frequenting this sanctuary regularly. Resting on the corner of 43rd and Fremont Ave. is a 9,000-square-foot, renovated Lutheran Church built in 1914 that now serves as a non-profit, non-religious arts center, the Fremont Abbey.

I first wandered into the Abbey on a Tuesday night last year for an event called The Round. Founded and hosted by Nathan Marion, Executive Director of the Fremont Abbey, The Round is a collaborative multi-arts performance event consisting of three songwriters, two slam poets (usually one adult and one YouthSpeaks poet), two painters, a mix of backing improvisational musicians—all at the same time.

It works like this: all musicians share the stage for the entire performance, while the painters do their thing bordering the stage—still in clear sight—and the poets watch from the side. First, the painters will set up their materials and get started usually as Nathan is making his “thank you all for coming” speech. And as soon as Nathan is done, The Round begins.

One of the songwriters will start to play, and within the first 16 bars of the song, the other musicians on the stage will jump in and jam along. Each songwriter takes their turn starting and the audience watches as the newly made house band performs more and more cohesively. After the third songwriter ends his piece, a slam poet will step to the front of the floor. These poets have the option to ask the Round band to back them or not. As soon as the poet spits their poem, the first round of The Round is complete.

Each show has two halves of three rounds each with an intermission, often used as a smoke or tea break for all the art cats that inhabit the Fremont Abbey. But to all the other audience members, the ones who wandered in, or came for the first time with a friend, intermission acts as a time to catch their breath, to lift their recently dropped jaws, to think. It takes the whole ten minutes to realize and understand that they are experiencing something so unique and so fleeting that only the people joined together in the Abbey on that particular Tuesday will ever know what was created that night. It’s true the next month it’ll all happen again, but not with those same artists or people. During each piece, only one of the (maybe) seven artists on stage knows where they’re going—everyone else is just following that one artist’s lead. It comes together like magic; the least cliché “once in a lifetime” experience you could find.

“The whole night is absolutely moving,” says Garfield Senior and YouthSpeaks poet Troy Osaki.  “As someone who has performed for the Round, I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet and share the stage with some of the illest poets, musicians, and artists. This sh*t is fire.”

Nathan Marion and The Fremont Abbey staff make it a point to feature another non-profit organization at the Round,  like Global Visionaries, Teen Feed, and Heifer International to name a few from the long-running list.

The Round almost always takes place at the Fremont Abbey on the second Tuesday of every month, but sometimes jumps around to different venues to share the love. The next event, The Round Holiday Party is on December 14, 2010 at 8 at the Fremont Abbey.

These days, all art forms have their own grading scale—a signifier that each piece has purpose. It is a universal norm that poetry slams have point systems and performances have stars and ticket sale statistics passed out by reviewers to act as palpable proof that the art was good—that it meant something to someone.

These reviewers and judges speak for the masses. They publish their opinions and rating as if they were absolute. And as I discover others’ processes of creating, I constantly find myself questioning were their merit comes from. What does a writer for the The Stranger know about producing a Shakespeare play? What do I know about writing songs and mixing beats? Nothing.

I find that often reviewers judge what they don’t and couldn’t understand. Their biggest mistake is making comparisons when no two pieces of art can be put in the same category. There are different circumstances and personal liberations that are rooted deep in each detail that cannot be overlooked.

In biology, we were taught about the different theories of evolution. Charles Darwin introduced the idea that survival of the fittest progressed a species to evolve. But does great art derive from the same sense of competition or is inspiration found in depths of personal experience? In terms of artistic evolution, Darwin got it wrong.

Creativity comes from the desire to express the lessons of one’s life. It is a god-given talent, not a skill. Art is a passion, not a task. It cannot be taught or acquired and it cannot best someone else’s.

I am a poet because I like to write not because my poems get scores of 9’s and 10’s. The point should never be the points; the point should be the poetry. The number of stars a movie receives in Rolling Stone doesn’t reflect the amount of passion that went into the making of it. Artists are people who try to make sense of this world by displaying their personal truths and hoping someone out there can relate—that someone feels it too, that they can speak for those who can’t find the words, to restore a little faith.

But when it becomes about a score, artists try to please instead of tell the truth and thus projects become less passionate, and people stop caring. This is when art becomes a nine-to-five responsibility. This is when words loose their meaning. This is when dead poets begin to roll over in their graves.

I can’t begin to explain a solution for this problem. It is so past a point of possible widespread salvation that you could call it hopeless. But that’s the beauty of art isn’t it? There is always hope—nothing is impossible.

We all just have to follow our creative impulses. Sing in the shower if you want to. Dance in front of your bedroom mirror if you want to. Paint murals on the side of your house if you want to. Write love poems on your ceiling if you want to. Aim to ease the restlessness of your own soul through the art of creating.

It may sound selfish but providing answers for others is only a perk of discovering your own main prize—understanding. Honor your artsy outlet and never take it for granted. Never let the potential disapproval of others discourage you from destiny.

You are Picasso. You are Michael Jackson. You are Shakespeare.

Light-years later, in the fall of his third year as Drama Department Head here at Garfield, Mr. Stewart Hawk directed students in those same roles. Accompanying them were numerous peers, but also Mr. Shaunette and Mr. Mandleman, creating a true student-teacher collaboration.

That second production of Much Ado About Nothing acted as both the christening of the Quincy Jones Performance Center and the reintroduction of Shakespeare to the Garfield stage.

The following year, Mr. Hawk tackled Romeo and Juliet. Joining the teacher portion of his cast in the modern/gothic take on Shakespeare’s classic love tragedy were Mrs. Taylor, Mr. Hamilton, Ms. Harris, and Mr. Kahn.

Students, you may now close your  textbooks.

Thursday, November 4, 2010, marked the opening of the third installment of Garfield High School Drama Department’s resurrected annual “Shakespeare Show.” As You Like It tells the comical love stories of all the inhabitants of the Forest of Arden, including that of Rosalind, a cross-dressing girl who finds refuge in the forest after being banished from her uncle’s dukedom, and Orlando, who seeks counsel on how to woo Rosalind from her cross-dressed male identity, Ganymede.

The cast included usual “Shakespeare Show” suspects such as Eli “I ripped my clown pants” Zavatsky (as seen on the Garfield stage as Benedick, Romeo, and now Touchstone), Mr. Hersh “I roll around on the floor a lot” Mandleman (seen as The Friar, Old Capulet, and now Adam), Josh “see me in my GHS wrestling uniform” Davids (seen as Don John the bastard, Benvolio, and now Orlando); and newcomers senior Maddie “I pray you do not fall in love with me” Lee, Mr. Michael “I marry a senior in high school” Berkenwald and senior Madeline “please don’t hate me Mrs. Berkenwald” Knight, to name a few.

After watching multiple of Mr. Hawk’s shows, whether it be Shakespeare or Louis Sachar, you’ll notice he’s all about keeping up tradition. From the beginning, the quality of his “Shakespeare Shows” has continued to improve while remaining visually consistent and simple; there is little set, costumes, or elaborate concept. In fact, most of the costumes look as though they came straight from the actors’ personal closets. These could be considered vital attributes to a good play, but that is a vast misconception.

In the theatre, all you need to create a compelling piece of work is actors, a script, and an audience. Mr. Hawk seems to recognize these three necessities and devotes himself to them.

These “Shakespeare Shows” are all about the kids—both those on stage and in the seats—and the verse. The relationship between the two is beautiful.

Freaks and Geeks

★★★★
Executive Produced by Judd Apatow, Freaks and Geeks follows Lindsay and Sam Weir as they figure out how to fit in at William McKinley High. Lindsay, ex-mathlete star and goodie-two-shoes, has recently decided to try and fit in with the school “freaks” who smoke pot, go to rock concerts and cheat on tests. Sam, a freshman, eats lunch at the same table in the lunchroom every day with his two best friends Neal and Bill (the jew and the nerd) who redefine “geek.” Freaks and Geeks aired in the 1999–2000 season and was one of the first shows to tell the stories of high school kids who weren’t known as the “pretty and popular.” Production was completed for 18 episodes, but only 12 were aired before the show was cancelled.

Best Episode: “Beers and Weirs”

Firefly

★★
From the creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Joss Whedon, Firefly is an American space-western set in the year 2517. It follows the missions and travels of the crew of the spaceship Serenity. Captain Malcolm Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, and his right hand woman Zoe Washbourne (Gina Torres) both fought with The Independents—the losing side—in their world’s civil war. Now they use their ship to transport stolen goods for money, while harboring a pyschic fugitive and Fina’s doctor brother. Firefly aired only 12 of its 14 produced episodes before being cancelled in 2002, but still won an Emmy for Visual Effects in 2003. The movie Serenity was released in 2005 to wrap up the series.

Best Episode: “Our Mrs. Reynolds”

Harper’s Island

★★★
What was supposed to be a happy return to his childhood summer vacation home in Harper’s Island, Washington, soon turned into a murder mystery for groom Henry Dunn and his bride-to-be Trish Wellington. Seven years prior, serial killer John Wakefield reaped havoc on Harper’s Island, killing Henry’s best friend Abby’s mother and seven other locals. When Abby, Henry, Trish and all their friends return to the island for the first time since the murders, the wedding guests begin to be picked off on by one. Each episode is it’s own mini horror movie where at least five people die.Though Harper’s Island was expected to be picked up for a second season, it was cancelled shortly after the season one finale.

Best Episode: “Sigh”

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

★★★
The Pilot episode opens with a live broadcast of the fictional sketch comedy show Studio 60. In the middle of the opening sketch, Executive Writer and Producer, Wes Mendel, storms the stage and makes an impromptu speech bashing the quality of his show and it’s network. Matt Albi and Danny Tripp, who were controversially fired from the show a few years prior, are re-hired to take his positions. Together, they work to resurrect the show that gave them their breaks in Hollywood. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a behind the scenes look at sketch comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, from corporate, to writing, to acting, to production but mostly, it makes you appreciate time.

Best Episode: “The Cold Open”

Dead Like Me

★★
Eighteen year old Georgia “George” Lass’s first day of work ended abruptly when she wass struck by a space shuttle’s toilet seat rocketing down from the sky, causing her to blow up into thousands of little tiny pieces. The day of her untimely death also acts as George’s first day of her new job as a grim reaper. In the afterlife, George’s job is to takeas persons soul before other mystical forces do the actual killing. After a soul is freed from it’s body, George has to guide it to “the lights”, each individual soul’s resting place. Dead Like Me aired for three full seasons—the longest contender on this list—before being cancelled and was wrapped up with the release of the movie Dead Like Me: Life After Death.

Best Episode: “Dead Girl Walking”

The Black

★★★★
Set in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, The Black Donnellys follows the lives of the Irish-American Donnelly brothers: Jimmy the addict, Tommy the fixer, Kevin the gambler, and Sean the pretty boy as they grow increasingly involved with New York’s petty and organized crime scene. A new and humanistic story of the Irish against the Italians, the show is narrated from the interrogation room by the Donnelly boys’ childhood friend Joey, as he talks about all their criminal exploits and reveals their darkest secrets. The Black Donnellys was unexpectedly cancelled by NBC but continued to hold the spot for the second most streamed show on the NBC website, Heroes being the first. I bet NBC feels stupid now.

Best Episode: “The Pilot”

Pushing Daisies

★★
When pie-baker Ned was a little boy, he brought his dog, Digby, back to life. One minute later, a squirrel dropped dead in front of him. Being a little boy and overjoyed with his best friend narrowly escaping the Jaws of Death, Ned didn’t link the two occurrences. So when his mom unexpectedly died from a brain aneurism, Ned used his magic touch (literally) to bring her back. As Ned got older he learned the rules of his special gift: touch a dead thing once, bring it back to life; touch a dead thing twice, kill it forever; keep a dead thing alive for more than one minute, a living thing must die to take its place. After winning multiple Emmy Awards, Pushing Daises was cancelled when its second season projected a downfall in ratings.

Best Episode: “Pigeon”

Slings and Arrows

★★★
At The New Burbage Theatre in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, there is a company of Shakespearian actors who have set out to put on a long-waited production of Hamlet with an American action movie star in the title role. The night before the first rehearsal, the show’s Director and the theatre’s Artistic Director, Oliver Wells, is hit and killed by a pig truck. The board of New Burbage then hires Oliver’s ex-protégé and Stratford theatre legend, Geoffrey Tennant, to take over his duties while being haunted by his ghost. Truly an actors show, Slings and Arrows lasted three short seasons of six episodes each, focusing on a new play each season; Hamlet, Macbeth, and King Lear.

Best Episode: “Playing the Swan”

You’ll know what I mean when you use it he said over his shoulder as he strolled to the idling Cadillac, the one with the tinted windows.

His brother is always saying things like that over his shoulder as he slides into strangers’ cars. He handed it to him roughly, but he knew that his brother had made sure it wasn’t loaded.

Now it lies inconspicuous and mute in the net of his perspiring fingertips. He wonders why guns always look guilty, even before their silence is shattered into fits of rage. He raises his arms and turns slowly to the mirror above his dresser and admires his reflection. He flips his hood over his head so it covers his eyes and curls his lip into a sneer. He is startled and pleased to see the image of his big brother refracted back to him. The reflection speaks:

You’re a grown ass man now, huh?

A million balloons soar in his chest and it doesn’t seem so heavy anymore. The gun covers his face as he cocks it and says bang.

It used to be a lot harder for us to kill each other. In the Stone Age we used rock-headed spears to combat our opponents, and before that we used our bare hands. Only a few decades ago we were fighting each other with pocket-knives and baseball bats. But since automatic weapons and easily concealable hand guns have become more accessible and popular in our society, we’ve learned to kill each other in a split second, a blink of an eye, a flex of a finger, the click of a trigger. To our generation, murder is rolling down a window, taking aim, and driving away. It’s easy to be efficient and impersonal when we kill each other. It’s easy to be a coward. Do we close our eyes when we pull the trigger?

The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that in 2006, 3,184 children and teens died from gunfire in the US. That’s 61 young lives lost every week. Nine young lives lost every day. One young life lost every 2 hours and 45 minutes. Those 3,184 lives lost are more than enough to fill 127 public school classrooms with 25 students each, one and a half times the entire student body of Garfield High School. From 2008 to 2009, stray bullets added seven more to this statistic and left Seattle streets strewn with seven more sidewalk memorials.

One. On January 4, 2008, two unknown gunmen crashed a back-to-school party at Studio One-Sixty in Lower Queen Anne hosted by two Franklin High students. As the two men began firing, 17-year-old Cleveland High School student Allen Joplin was struck by bullets several times and died at the scene.

Two. Around 9 PM on January 10, 2008, South Seattle residents Cris Turner and Robert Mathis heard “two loud bangs” outside their home. The next morning 14-year-old Cleveland High freshman, De’Che Morrison was discovered half a block away. His body was found behind a car where he had lain all night, bleeding out from a gunshot wound. If he had survived, he would have graduated this year with the class of 2011.

Three. Fifteen-year-old Pierre LaPoint was walking along Rainier Avenue South to a bus stop that would have taken him home on the night of August 5, 2008, when he was fatally shot in the stomach. Despite his godmother’s word that Pierre was not gang-affiliated, the Seattle Police Department made a statement saying his death was “likely gang-related.”

Four. At what was supposed to be a normal house party in South Seattle January 26, 2008, Police found 18-year-old Perry Henderson slumped in the back seat of a beige Cadillac Coupe deVille in the arms of his girlfriend who was attempting to apply pressure to his many gunshot wounds. Perry died 14 days later in Harborview Medical Center.

Five. Sixteen-year-old Diaquan Jones and three friends were at the Westfield Southcenter Mall in Tukwila when they engaged in a fistfight with another group of boys that ended in a 21-year-old drawing a gun and fatally shooting Diaquan in the stomach. Today, there is no memorial in Southcenter Mall to mark his death, only shiny white floors that hold shoppers’ reflections.