Support Our Troops - 57th Overlanders Brigade

My Current Bumpersticker

A couple of years ago Breanne's boyfriend introduced her and through her, me, to Halo. I don't think it was an exaggeration to say that that was a life changing event for me. I haven't played a lot of games since (although Halflife 2 is probably my second favorite), but playing Halo was something that was for a time an obsession for me. I dreamt about it, I bought the music, I collected images. I still go back and play H1 from time to time (although my Dad has my copy at the moment) and I can shut my eyes and visualize almost every step. I liked H2, but not as much. I am currently playing H3 and to be honest I find it frustrating. Not because of the gameplay, per se (I am about 2/3rds of the way through) but just because of the way it is designed, I seem to run out of ammunition all the time and the game just seems to be 'running around'-I don't have a sense of purpose that I felt in Halo 1. The graphics are better on the one hand, but they are really designed for big screen HD TV's. Halo 3 doesn't have the intimate feel that Halo 1 has. Halo as an immersive entertainment and part of my psyche is deeply rooted. However, it has been some time since I felt an interest in something like it, but now I have a new obsession and that is the subject of this post.

Did you get the reference in the title? Does the reference to Browncoats Overlanders Brigade mean anything to you? if not, I would like to share my latest obsession, the TV mini-series (that's what it was) "Firefly"and the movie "Serenity".

Conversion Story
I had heard about Firefly in one of my podcasts, The Daily Breakfast , over a year ago. Fr. Roderick does a segment on Movies and Television and he is a hardcore SciFi fan. He had mentioned watching the series on DVD and he liked it very much. He had mentioned that there was even a cleric like himself in the series, which he liked. I didn't think too much about it at the the time, just squirreled the item away. Flash forward to January of this year. I had recently signed up to the beta site for Hulu (http://www.hulu.com/) and was trolling around the site. If you are not familiar with Hulu, the sites has movies and television series available for on-demand watching via the Internet. The movie selection doesn't approach the on-demand available from NetFlix, but the TV section is pretty good. Some interesting series from our past (re-runs of Remington Steele anyone), and one of the series available was the 14 episodes of Firefly.

The Firefly series originally aired on Fox in the Fall of 2002. Although it eventually won an Emmy, the series was botched by Fox from the very beginning (the pilot episode was not aired until December 20). The series didn't catch and was canceled, although a movie sequel ("Serenity") was release in 2005. Over the last few weeks I have managed to see all the episodes but one, in the order they were meant to be seen in, as well as watching "Serenity" via NetFlix. Oh, I should mentioned that "Firefly" was created by Joss Weadon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fame. I haven't bought the DVDs yet, but I am now subscribed to The Signal , a fan podcast and just subscribed to a story podcast. there are a couple of Darkhorse comics I want to get that rounds out stories of the Firefly 'verse.

So What Makes It Work

Firefly is a Sci-fi/Western about a group of smugglers flying a firefly class transport vessel called Serenity from planet to planet, avoiding the authorities and performing petty crimes. There is a strong Robin Hood/Jesse James gang feel to their activities, robbing the rich powerful Alliance to benefit the poorer planets they visit. Not only do they have to avoid the powerful Alliance forces, out 'in the black' are roaming bands of cannibalistic savages - the Reavers. (not to be confused with border Rievers) . Finally ship's captain, Malcolm Reynolds and second-in-command Zoe Washburne are both former 'Browncoats' - veterans of the losing faction when the Alliance fought to unify the galaxy under their control.

The technology is clearly Sci-Fi and the special effects won the 2003 Emmy for Best Special Effects in a Series. It is clearly a long way from the lovable colored light set design techniques of the Original Star Trek. However, the story line is so clearly indebted to the Western genre. The Serenity crew are, in one episode, literally cowboys. "Frontier justice", itinerant preachers, hookers with hearts of gold, wandering Confederate-turned-outlaws, mysterious and terrifying 'savages' - they are all there. The Firefly 'verse is morally ambivalent. More than anything else, I am reminded of the great Western movies of the 40s and 50s, especially "The Searchers".

Malcolm channels John Wayne quite a bit, really. Laconic, impulsive, with his own sense of right and wrong, Mal and his crew are not above the level of violence in the world they live in. Mal and Zoe are perfectly willing to shoot first and ask questions later. Even Shepard Book, who acts as the moral compass for the crew, rides with the group on occasion and shows himself no stranger to non-lethal violence. he is like the town preacher in the movies who rides along with the posse. In the Firefly 'verse, there is no Prime Directive. And the villains are less noble than the Romulans or Klingons ever thought to be.
The frustrating part about the history of Firefly is that if it had been given a chance, the show could have rivaled any of the long running ensemble series. There were so many stories that were left untold. And although I loved the movie, Serenity, there were doors closed (no spoilers) that made it typical for TV series going to the big screen - what can we do to make this bigger, more global in scope, more life altering for the cast than a television episode? There could be a sequel to the Movie (let's hope!), but it won't be the same as having a dozen seasons of weekly episodes in the can. In part, of course, I blame Fox network for not getting behind this show. there have been any number of great, innovative shows on Fox that have died after a few seasons (think Millenium) for every quirky show that managed to survive (think X-files).

So my favorite character? - Kaylee Frye, the ships engineer. She is a sweet, sexy brainiac who is the soul of the ship. Flower Power with a Wrench.

On the Hard

Dawn asked me the other day what I meant by 'On the Hard' and I thought I would take a post to explain. It is a term I first heard on the Furled Sails podcast. Each week, Christie and Noel talk to and about the 'sailing lifestyle'. That is, builders as well as cruisers . . . . weekenders and well as live aboards. . . . Ship captains and boat sailors. They always end their podcast ' see ya on the water'. One of their guests referred to his time on land as the opposite of on the water - on the hard. So here I am.

It's not like I came from a long line of watermen. Certainly most of the men in my family have been pretty earthbound - farmers and cattlemen. My uncle was in the Navy, but he returned to Aroostook and has never left. In Maine there are several dichotomies. There is the Maine south of the "FBI " in Freeport and the 'real' Maine. There is 'The County', which is the northern third or so of the state, Aroostook County. And there is also a strong dichotomy between Maine as a maritime state and as a wooded, mountained farmland - the last frontier before the West. There was a huge argument about the Maine State Quarter because it was set on the coast and didn't (to some minds) sufficiently emphasize the lumbering and agricultural heritage of the State. )

I come from a long line of farmers, the last time a Boutilier spent a significant amount of time on a ship it was on their way from France to Nova Scotia. We are a family of homestead and the 'Prairie Farm' (My great grandfather's farm, confiscated during WWI to serve as a listen post on Germany.) Even now, I refer to my own boyhood home just as The Farm (as in, "I'm going over to The Farm to help Dad get the chains on the 520.") although it has a name and a heritage. When my father and mother finally leave the land, it will no doubt be "the Boutilier Farm" or Maple Lea Farm (its registered name), just as my parents live on the Duncan Farm, and to some always will.

I remember as a kid going with my Grandfather over to "The Homestead" where he grew up to check on his garden. We would hike across overgrown fields and light forest back to his garden. We would eat sun-warmed cucumbers off the vine before returning to the house where I would shyly stand around the kitchen with the slate sink and the handpump while he talked with his bachelor brothers. On my paternal Grandmother's side, there was the dairy farm with its milk rooms and attics filled with trunks and old equipment and World War I uniforms hung from the rafters. And of course, My maternal Grandfather's farm in Westfield. The smell of grease and chickens and the cold, baleful mountains of potatoes in the potato house where I would climb to the tops of the bins and watch the people sort and bag far below me. So here is my Grandfather in March of 1960, out on the land. What were his thoughts then? Or was he just appreciating the beginning warmth of Spring after five months, the smell of the mud and the promise of a better harvest? I wonder if he felt he owned the land or the other way around?

My introduction to a body of water was Mattawamkeag Lake, fishing with my grandfather Boutilier and something just clicked. Maybe it was riding up in the bow in the dark, coming back from the Lower Lake, crouched down trying to stay warm as the hull thrummed with the sound of water rushing by, a quarter of an inch away? Or the smell of the lake permeating the air or the lap of the waves against the shale beach rocks at night?

But I feel the same way about the sea as well; the swell and movement, the smell, the power of the water. The glorious indescribable blue of the Stroudwater cove in the hard, bright light of winter?

As much the water, I am attracted by the economy of a boat. Everything in its place. Nothing kept that is not useful or required. Simplicity and complexity. I have been lucky enough to have spent a few glorious afternoons on friends boats and relive the moments over and over. What can compare to the heel of a boat in San Francisco Bay? Or the beauty of Long Island sound? Or making way under Portland Head? So here I am, on the hard . . . . for now.