hamlet, oedipus and a motorcycle club.

clay and jax.

sons of anarchy is in its second season on FX. this dark comedy centers around a motorcycle club/gang and its president, clay morrow (ron perlman), and vice president jackson “jax” teller (charlie hunnam).  clay took over when jackson’s father passed away, and jax was made VP.  oh, and clay also married jackson’s mother, gemma (katey sagal).  jax finds a book his father wrote with his ideas on what the “club”, samcro, should be like. sound familiar?  oh, yeah.  hamlet.

in the shakepearean play, there’s a ghost– hamlet’s father, king hamlet.  prince hamlet’s mother, queen gertrude, married a man named claudius shortly after her husband’s death.  the ghost of hamlet’s father pops up and tells him that claudius had killed him by poisoning him.  thus begins a horrible tragedy, and a difficult character to play (jude law is currently undertaking the role). “sons of anarchy” seems to loosely follow this plot line, although sometimes i am surprised at its references and imitations.

then there’s the oedipus complex– jackson’s interactions with his mother sometimes really make me uncomfortable. the “oedipus complex” is an idea in psychoanalytic theory that basically claims that there is a childhood desire to sleep with one’s mother and kill one’s father. certain looks that gemma and jax give each other tend to somehow just barely step over the line.  jackson doesn’t want to kill clay– or maybe sometimes he does.

here’s charlie hunnam and katey sagal:

jackson and tara.

and a little known fact: at 19, charlie hunnam was in the english version of queer as folk from 1999-2000.

finnish backpackers & “madcook”

a hugely popular show in finland, madventures, has come to our lovely travel channel.  they eat leeches and monkey brains and take DMT in the amazon.  it features two men from helsinki: the camera man, tunna, and a burly, tattooed riku.  riku spews most of the dialogue in a fashion i adore, and their “madcook” sessions are a source of queasy entertainment.  their main objective is to find the most taboo practices in the entire world… and then take part in them.  a kind of “bizarre foods” with two likable, strange finnish men.  tonight at 11pm they’re traveling to china, practicing kung fu and spouting philosophy.

for instance, a leech treatment center in st. petersburg:

NOSTRADAMUS AND THE FUTURE.

anyone been watching the nostradamus effect on the history channel?  it has absolutely captivated me.  any of these “doomsday” tales are just enthralling– the world is ending in 2012!  the third anti-christ is so-and-so! or the line “it’s a sign of the coming apocalypse” (best when muttered on network news)!

some believe that nostradamus was involved with the occult.  nostradamus did write a few things about “out of body” experiences, or about being in a trance when he became “possessed”.  it just sounds like he was ill, brilliant, and eccentric.  according to the believers, he predicted things like the fire of london in 1666, the kennedy assassinations, hitler, and the september 11th attacks. he is considered a “seer” and a “prophet”.

oh, nostradamus.  during his lifetime, the plague was killing europe.  he studied medicine, worked as a “healer”, and treated plague victims.  he eventually became “royal physician” for the french.  and then, he predicted his own death.  and died.

this is a picture of the pope riding a dragon. and fighting a bear.

there’s also a tale of the “gaelic” nostradamus, or the brahan seer. no one really even knows or believes that he ever existed.  he “predicted” falling out among clan families, and quarrels about land.

BURNED IN TAR?

ah, so about nostradamus– the nostradamus effect is on the history channel.  the show is actually impressive.  here’s a clip from one of the episodes: