Been watching the first season of Deadwood lately. It's a magificent thing, Deadwood, and all the comparisons to Shakespeare aren't stupid analysis based on the use of large words--the show is built on language, and populated by kings and fools enhancing the world by the words that come out of their mouths, the way Shakespeare does. It's a goddamn shame to read Shakespeare, you know. His language needs to be rolled over your tongue like a fine whiskey, needs to be heard in a human voice. You need to savor the smoke as it slides down your throat, and in its own way so does Deadwood. Jack Nicholson's gangster in "The Departed" ain't got shit on Ian McShane's Swerengen, ain't got shit at all, as he stares, eyes red rimmed, on this muddy hellhole he calls his kingdom, ain't got shit at all at the bombastic and sulfuric diatribe he casts at the end of episode 11, calling out all the dark parts of humanity while his dick is in a prostitute's mouth, the shades and shadows of his life erupting from his mouth as he comes, the villain swaying so quickly and violently between monster and such a simple study of the broken human heart.

McShane's a lucky man. A monologue like that doesn't come along twice in a lifetime, if at all. Most of us who think of ourselves as actors or writers are looking for one fucking moment like that.

I never got to play rage. I've always wanted to. Not a ranting, bile-filled mouthful of prose, but that raw-nerve moment when all the civility is stripped away and all that is left is heart and muscle and voice. When I've been lucky enough to be cast in anything, I've played innocence more often than not, played the good man more than once, but I've never had a chance to play the monster, and in case you've never noticed, most monsters have a reason for their madness. Rare is the unredeemable bastard. In the worst of us is a root cause for torment, a calculus of change and fury, and all we want is a way to tell the world we are angry, and we are sorry.

I'm trying to write a teleplay with Jenn. She wants to play the tired, and I want to play the jester. Writing for her is easy--not for her as a person, but the voice she wants to portray, the woman who has had enough of her own foolishness, yet can't quite let go of that foolishness, and so keeps returning to it. We've all done that. The jester is harder. The jester isn't quite so redeemable. Because, at its core, the jester must strip away what is redeemable in himself in order to point out the emperor has no clothes; the jester must be willing to throw away pride for humor. Maybe I'm trying to make the character I'd like to play, if this silly project ever gets off the ground, I want him to be Puck, cleaning up at the end of the show, telling the audience it has all, in the end, it's all been a dream.

But tonight, and most nights these days, I want to play Lear. I want fire and brimstone. If only because, like everyone else, I've got fire and brimstone in my heart, and the world isn't the sort of place to unleash it.

But don't mind me. The right combination of sake and whiskey makes me think I'm a poet, after all.