The Ledger

The time has come once more for me to apologize for the lack of updates around these parts lately, but this time, at least the radio silence comes with good news — I started a new full-time gig last Monday, and the days since have been filled with a lot of training, documentation, and getting up to speed with my responsibilities. This is one of those situations where you feel like you're never going to be able to get a firm grasp on it all, which is to say that even as I white-knuckle my way through, I'm never less than sure it's temporary. The difference between head above and head below water is rarely as profound as it feels.

Which is, funnily enough, what I've been thinking about while making my way through Task, the new HBO drama starring Mark Ruffalo as Tom Brandis, a possibly alcoholic priest-turned-FBI agent who's hunting Robbie Prendergrast (Tom Pelphrey), a sanitation worker who's been spending his nights robbing drug money from the local biker gang. The promotional materials trumpet that this show is "from the creators of Mare of Easttown," which probably tells you everything you need to know — and if it doesn't, well, that promotional blurb is shorthand for "we are about to show you some very sad people doing some very bad things."

Mare looked like misery porn to me, so I skipped it; the only reasons I tuned in to Task are that I'm a big Ruffalo fan, I enjoyed Pelphrey in Ozark, and, well, I didn't know it was from the same people who made Mare. Five episodes into the season, I'd say that if you're allergic to misery porn, then this might not be the show for you; on the other hand, the acting is superb, and the narrative is constructed smartly enough to dull some of the show's clumsier blows.

But back to what I was saying. Like a lot of cat-and-mouse crime thrillers, Task presents its two protagonists as different sides of the same coin, albeit subtly enough that you might never really realize that's what it's doing. (This isn't Heat, in other words.) Tom is haunted by grief and guilt, and so is Robbie; it's only how they choose to deal with it that separates them, and as the show wends its way toward its conclusion, you can increasingly see that the separation in question isn't anywhere near as wide as one might think.

There's a scene in particular I'm thinking of, and it takes place several hours after Tom and Robbie finally meet. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say that they end up eyeing each other across a clearing, and Tom's posture in that moment — stooped, tired, beaten down — says everything the dialogue doesn't. He's got the weight of the law on his side, but it isn't even close to the spiritual and emotional weight he's bearing. Robbie, on the other hand, is rigid with determination, but his eyes betray the panic of someone who feels the consequences of his actions piling up, even as he believes he's too far in to change course. They're on opposite sides of the ledger, but not by much; a few different steps in either direction, and the ground they're standing on could feel very different.

You don't need to think about this kind of thing to enjoy Task. I mean, really, if you're in the mood for a show about FBI agents trying to figure out who's been knocking over local drughouses before a gang war goes off, this show will scratch that itch without any extra thought involved. I'm just thinking about it because a month ago, I was still in a year-plus-long search for full-time employment, and felt like I was no closer to reaching my goal than I'd been when I started. It isn't a good feeling — and yet it only took a single series of events to wipe it away, and replace it with a completely different set of concerns. Things that feel permanent and insurmountable often aren't, and I'm happy for that reminder, particularly at a time when it feels like all the wrong people hold all the cards.

Listening: Since this is mostly a music blog, I'm not going to get into too much detail here lest I spoil posts that are simmering on various burners, but let me just tell you that out of all the Blindspotting posts that have vexed me into extended listening periods in search of something worth saying, the one I'm currently cooking has absolutely taken the cake. I will also say that I'm actually sort of glad that I ran out of time to finish the New Music Friday post I framed out last weekend, because it saved me from having to come up with anything to say about the new Taylor Swift album. Every fucking music critic on the planet tossed their two cents into the pile; you don't need that from me.

Here's what I'll tell you, though: I really dig ...and the Mermaid, the latest from Dave Hause, as well as The Things You Don't Know Yet, my first brush with Adult Leisure. They're very different records — Hause, as explored here in previous posts, is a bloody-knuckled rocker on the Springsteen/Frank Turner axis, while Adult Leisure is a band that channels sax-frosted '80s pop about as well as I've heard anybody do it recently:

Reading: You guys, I'm still working my way through the Dortmunder Series, and still not even close to being tired of this cast of characters. I've got one more book to go after I'm done with the one I'm reading, and I'm not looking forward to having to say goodbye. If we aren't counting Stephen King's sprawling Dark Tower universe, I haven't read a collection this lengthy since I was into Piers Anthony's Xanth series as a kid — and even then, I don't think I made it past the 14th book.

The novel I'm currently in the middle of writing isn't a caper, but it led me to Dortmunder because I was looking for funny crime stories to read while I cooked up the project I've been describing as "Chinatown with jokes." What's truly (not) funny is that I've been in the mood for just this sort of thing for quite a while now, but it took me a lot of searching to find it. I don't know why more people aren't aware of Dortmunder. Perhaps because Hollywood missed the mark so badly when it took its stabs at adapting the books: 1972's The Hot Rock stars Robert Redford as Dortmunder, a guy who's perpetually described as the saddest of sacks, 1974's Bank Shot stars George C. Scott, 1990's Why Me? stars Christopher Lambert, and 2001's What's the Worst That Could Happen? stars Martin Lawrence. (There's another Dortmunder-inspired movie, 1982's Jimmy the Kid, but the character is played by Paul Le Mat, an actor few remember.)

As for me, I'd cast Glenn Howerton, but I don't get to sign those checks.

Elsewhere: Hoo boy, it's been a long time since I did one of these, and I've kind of published a bunch of stuff in the interim. I haven't talked about it much yet, but I've been doing a lot of work for a community/music commerce platform called Harmonic this year, and a lot of that work entails interviewing interesting people. You can see a list of those interviews here.

I've also been back at Ultimate Classic Rock over the last couple of months, writing various things, including a number of anniversary/story-behind-the-album posts about records by Squeeze, America, Ratt, Warrant, FireHouse, and Duran Duran. Lots of links here.

Around the Corner: A New Music Friday post, god willing, along with that Blindspotting that's been bedeviling me for several days. But first, a good night's sleep.