Me Tarzan, you need watch?

Lately fate and professional obligation has moved much of my blogging to the Oregonian's web-borne identity Oregonlive.com. Mostly we're talking the day-to-day head-scratchy kind of stuff. Such as: What is the deeper meaning of the your spam filter? 

Here's how the first edition went:

Today's spam report: a critical analysis

[Posted by Peter Ames Carlin, The Oregonian March 12, 2010, 1:34 PM]

My spam filter report arrives just after lunch. Sometimes it's one of the real highlights of the day, and not just because it's so difficult to come across mega-doses of free Cialis in the real marketplace. And I've tried. Oh, how I've tried.

The thing is: the stuff that gets sold via shadowy mass-mailings, and the ways in which shadowy mass-mailers try to get our attention, tell us something about ourselves. Viewed in the aggregate it's like seeing a catalog to your own id. You may not like to confess your desire for a mail-order wife, instant riches and a romantic life far too ambitious to describe here. But the spammers know what you want. So does your spam filter.

Okay, the headline of the day comes from Stapletonfo, who comes right out of the box with I want to apologize first. Which puts us in the position of being forgiving/magnanimous enough to do some business with Mr. Stapletonfo.Or so they think.

Next up: several correspondents invite us to Be Tarzan in bed, which brings to mind the smell of jungle rot, banana peels and men who travel in the company of monkeys. Good luck, guys.

More promising: Your happiness is now free, which can't be bad. Nor can: We give your money back if you're not happy, which is more than I can say for my therapist, but it's a process, he keeps saying. A process.

Speaking of happiness, a whole slew of goods and services seemingly designed to do dishes, make meals, pick up kids and tidy up the living room. To wit: This is what she REALLY wants. Also: Never let her down again! Except that's never going to happen - see also: dishes, meals, child-tending, etc. Which brings us right back to: I want to apologize first.

I really, really, do.

Follow the jump for more Spam-centric observational riffitude!

By NICK GORINI
 
I am a sucker for a good redemption story. Of all the journeys protagonists routinely take, the redemption railroad is almost always emotionally satisfying. Even when the tale is a little forced or half-baked (as this episode was at times), I invest in the outcome because gosh darn it, I want to believe that we’re all capable of redemption.
 
Who would’ve thought that Benjamin Linus could pull it off? Who would’ve thought that he could deliver such a powerful, overwhelming speech about sacrifice, anger and shame?
 
What happened to Ben’s better half:

We start with Ben teaching his class about an exiled, island-bound Napoleon. Powerless and miserable. Obviously in reference to himself AND Smokey. Forced to monitor detention hall by the calloused jerk principal (wonderfully played by William Atherton, who has made a career playing calloused jerks. I’m going to bet he’s a nice guy in real life), Ben is frustrated, over-educated and lacking in backbone.
 
FUN FACT: William Atherton AND Jon Gries, who plays Ben’s father and also appears in this episode, co-starred in one of the best teen comedies from the 80’s, “Real Genius.”
 
Venting to Doc Arzt in the teacher’s lounge, Locke, who really seems more like Smokey in this scene (I believe this is intentional) butts in and encourages rebellion, appealing to Ben’s sense of justice, and his destructive ego. A great scene – we know that Ben has a soft spot for kids, and does want what’s right, but we also know that Ben desperately wants to be important, and it clouds his judgment. With Locke seeming so Smokey-like, I am even more convinced than before that we’re watching a single, split-soul with the characters who appear in both timelines. Smokey inside of Locke on the island is indirectly influencing kinder wheelchair-bound Locke.
 
Another character gazing at his reflection, this time with Ben and the reflective surface of a microwave. He’s making dinner for his ill father. Hey, this Papa Linus doesn’t seem to be half-as-messed up as the old one. It was an amusing reference when Ben switched his father’s oxygen tank – he’s still gassing his dad, only not to death this time.
 
This week’s Stupid Award goes to the writers for taking a good scene and forcing too much “State Out Loud What We’re Thinking Dialogue!” Papa Linus telling Ben that they never should’ve left the island, their lives would’ve been so different, who knows what we would be like, etc. Writers, we know this already. Isn’t worth mentioning at all, really. The old writer’s adage, “Show, don’t Tell” applies here.

For way, way more insight, plus also a bunch of really funny one-liners by our man Nick, hit the jump...

academic politics are always the most brutal...

The contrasting lives and travails of our two Bens - alt-Ben in L.A. and original recipe Island Ben - takes us back to the headlines in the morning newspaper right here at home. In a land where partisan battle takes precedent over policy; where each side is so convinced of its own moral authority that they can focus only on destroying the other side; where it's not just expected, but perfectly acceptable for ordinary folks to shed blood and even die while their leaders feud among themselves...suddenly the struggle for the "Lost" island seems far more familiar than its population of monsters, polar bears and walking, talking dead folks would lead you to expect.

The common thread, of course, is the seductive, often destructive, quest for power.

Island Ben, the leader of the Others and the acknowledged conduit to the God-like Jacob, never actually met his leader, and thus could only interpret His wishes and demands to protect the island. Most often, this led to carnage - the slaughter of the Dharma gang (including his own abusive-but-still father); bloody fights against other Others, perpetual war against Widmore & co (who may in fact deserve it) and the insta-persecution of the Oceanic survivors.

But to what end? the feud between Jacob and the Man in Black, in all their forms, continued unabated. Sacrifices were made - including Ben's own beloved daughter. Lots of blood, lots of suffering. And nothing ever changed. For al the talk of power and glory, for all the brutality meted out in pursuit of being proven right -- how many factions were led to proclaim, at one point or another, "We're the good guys"? -  each character's internal struggle continued unresolved.

Until we got to the alternative life in L.A. Unsurprisingly, the alt-life of Ben Linus -- a high school history teacher, rather than a leader of men - takes a particularly sharp turn. Away from the grand stage of Island leadership he can focus on his own humanity. Now he's a caring son for his elderly, sickly, but no longer abusive, dad (Roger, who he personally gassed to death back in the Dharma initiative slaughter). He flirts with a grand power play - using a sex scandal to oust his truly odious high school principal - but backs away when the boss threatens to take vengeance on favorite student (if no longer his adoptive daughter) Alex.

Away from the allure of glory, Ben opts for the smaller, yet arguably more fulfilling, victories of tending to the specific needs of the people he values the most.

I'm still not certain if all of "Lost"'s many philosophical/political/subtextural themes will ultimately add up to a tidy moral package. It could be that these threads serve only as dramatic enhancement: the conceptual fuel that pushes the action to a higher emotional pitch. But what seemed particularly evident to me last night was the deepening shadows surrounding all of the show's leaders. Jack's heroics often seem triggered by a combination of impulsiveness and stone-cold suicidal tendencies. Locke was/is driven by fear. Jacob, for all his fair-haired sweetness, comes off as manipulative and, possibly, wicked. The man in black, now best seen as NotLocke, simply destroys everything in his path. And God (or Jacob) only knows what Widmore and his submarine crew have in store for the Island and it's paranormal powers.

Whatever's going on between the Island reality and the Los Angeles reality, the quest for enlightenment seems far less complicated, and more fulfilling, the further you get from attempting to define, and control, the terms of right, wrong, truth and justice. Where the debate over health care policy matters less than rolling up your own sleeves and comforting the person nearest you.

An amazing week in NYC and Asbury Park came to a terrific end over the weekend with an afternoon chatting with guitar hero Sonny Kenn at his studio;  night seeing John Eddie at the Stone Pony (turned into a late, beery, hoarse-voice-in-the-morning kind of night) and then a wonderful morning touring Freehold with town historian/writer/walking civic resource, Kevin Coyne.

follow the jump for a real screed about my break-up with the GPS lady....

 I've got a bottle of Rose - Let's try it.

In Asbury Park the line between reality and myth is hazy. Just ask Hazy Davey, or the guy who might be Hazy Davey, except for that was never his nickname, and the guy who actually is Hazy Davey is actually in Virginia, and doesn't seem to have been present at the moment the song in question was actually being inspired. Unless he was, but who knows? There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of people here who were definitely part of moments that loom large-ish in the Springsteen corner of the American story/mythology. A lot of warm hearts and really cool, fun people. I'm happy to meet and hang with them all. There's a long road ahead (and a thin white line, I think you heard that before) and lots to learn and disabuse and so on, but I'm in for the long haul and happy to be here, and can only thank the long suffering family (and publishers) for letting me take the ride.

What else is going on? I don't even know anymore, and at this point I'm happy not to know. Checking the headlines this am it was all breathless and bad and full of scandal and ill-intentions. D. Patterson, the Republican memo, the spinning of Patterson and the Republican memo. The important thing to remember is that everyone's evil and has wicked intent, and Christ, how has it all come to this?

I prefer to turn my mind to Hazy Davey and co, and to that mythical night out at Greasy Lake. Which also has a literal address and description, it turns out, along with a very distinct incident. Word is it was a long night, and dark, and someone threw some mud and Davey got hit in the head with a rock, and was pissed, but the Mission Man and Janey were long gone, in the pines, possibly making love in the dirt. I dunno, it could all be nonsense. But it's so much more interesting to contemplate. And right or wrong, myth or reality, you've got this great ass-kicking tune that tells a story everyone's experienced for real in some way, shape of fashion. I've known a Hazy Davey or two. I've been Hazy Davey once of twice. Not recently, but I still like to think of those times. And it's those feelings that matter to me, more than anything. The rhythm and the groove and the feeling of release. It felt just right. Together we moved like spirits in the night.

Too much stinkin' thinkin'?

By NICK GORINI

Hatred is an ugly thing. Like many ugly things, it can be powerful, overwhelming, unsettling. It can dictate lives, instigate change, and even alter the course of history.

Self-hatred is, if possible, even uglier. Unlike regular old hatred, it is self-contained. Un-influenced from any positive outside force. Warped, destructively narcissistic, it is nourished only on what serves its purpose: To destroy its source.

The rub? That self-hatred is such a strong, singular force, it is almost unstoppable. It's aim is small, contained. But oh, the havoc it wreaks. The Horror. The Horror.

Folks, welcome to the mind of Sayid! We sure like visiting Sayid, by far the ass-kickin'est of the bunch. But we wouldn't want to live there.

Where's Stuart Smalley when you need him? Look in the mirror and repeat after me, Sayid: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me."

TIMELINES (I MEAN, ARE WE EVEN THINKING IN THESE TERMS ANYMORE?)...

WHAT HAPPENED TO HALF OF SAYID'S SOUL:

We see freshly-scrubbed but more jheri-curled Sayid reluctantly stepping out of a cab to meet the woman/unattained ideal he seeks known as Nadia. Before she opens the door, we see Sayid's reflection, but instead of seeing himself (like Jack, Kate and Locke before him), he looks straight past any self-reflection to the eyes of what he seeks.

Nadia greets him warmly, but before we can get the gist of their new alt-relationship, two cute kids come tromping up the lawn to greet "Uncle Sayid!".

His wimpy, can't-kill-a-chicken-but-can-try-and-take-credit-for-it brother Omer pops up before things get too mushy. Hey, Jealousy!

Sayid is back from a boring business trip in Australia "Translating oil deals"  (READ: Killing people, right? I think...). So, brother Omer ended up with Nadia, having kids, and running a dry-cleaning business. Even though we last saw Omer as a boy, we can see he's still kind of an ass. He's bossy and distant with Nadia, who clearly still wants a piece of Sayid, respectfully. Sayid's got  boomerangs for the kids, and Nadia wants to know why he never responded to her letters...

By-the-way, this is Locke's neighborhood they live in - I'm sure of it.

Later, we see Sayid asleep on the couch. When his brother goes to wake him, half-asleep Sayid nearly snaps him in two, which is further confirmation that "Translating oil Deals" is code for 'I eat Chuck Norris for breakfast'.

Omer is urgent. He borrowed money from b-a-d people and needs his little bro Sayid to lay some smackdown. Sayid offers his money, but Omer says he needs Sayid to be the "Man I know you are." He guilt-trips Sayid by dangling the responsibility and accountability of his wife and kids to help. However, unlike the original Sayid, who is more than willing to put morals aside in order to help others (he really has been by far the most unappreciated core member for all the violence, killing and sacrifice he's been through), this time Sayid tells his brother that if he won't accept money, than it's on him to solve the problem. Sayid's out of the killing biz.

The next morning, we see Sayid walking his niece and nephew (and we know that he longs for these children to be his) to the school bus, but the serenity is interrupted by a teary-Nadia. Omer has been mugged and brutally beaten. To the hospital, which is of course, Jack's hospital. I guess Sayid and Jack exchanged glances for two seconds, which I missed, because I was writing the very freaking notes you are now reading.

Omer has a punctured lung, a broken this, a fractured that, but he'll pull through. Sayid gets that 'Sayid Look', but our dear Nadia (she's dear because she's sweet, and we've watched her die and get tortured numerous times, poor girl) stops Sayid and asks him to watch the children. Be good, Sayid! Not only do I need you, but I need you to be the good man I know you are! The scene ends, but it tugs: Nadia, if only you'd been on the island with Sayid. You could've been Sayid's Stuart Smalley!

follow the jump!

Definitely not a sunny-side-up kind of guy.

Mercenary, mobster, whatever, Martin Keamey has got the real evil flowing in his veins. During his island days a couple of seasons back he tromped the underbrush like a squared-away psychotic. Killed everything in sight. Murdered a terrified little girl while her father watched. Blew up the boat and crew that had delivered him, as a kind of backwards gratuity. (he had other reasons too, but still)  Q'uest que ce? Run, run, run away.

So no surprise that parallel Keamey, now a gleeful mobster in Los Angeles, has his goons deliver parallel Sayid to some kind of spotless industrial kitchen, where he greets him warmly, offers to make him eggs any way he likes, with toast. Sayid refuses, so Keamey shrugs and eats alone, promising to murder his guest's brother, sister-in-law, children and dog (implied) if he doesn't see to brother's ongoing debt payments. So this isn't going well at all for Sayid, particularly since he already turned down brother's earlier plea that he mete out some two-fisted justice to these same thugs in order to avoid this very eventuality. Parallel Sayid said no way - he's a different man now, no longer close to the Iraqi Republican Guard torturer he once was, hey, didn't he set up his brother with his own beloved Nadia? For whom he still visibly, painfully, yearns?

The point: Parallel Sayid has kicked the darkness. He doesn't do evil shit anymore, not for any reason, not even to protect his loved ones.

But may be he really doesn't like eggs? Sayid certainly didn't want to be threatened by Keamey and friends, he's got this survival impulse like no other. And so whiz-bang-boom, suddenly things go quickly sideways for Keamey: Sayid thumps one mobster, snatches his gun and kills the other guy while said other guy accientally drills mobster #1. Keamey, no longer hungry, seems to kneel: Slow down! Let's just forget about this, okay? Debt forgiven. Life goes on. We'll just forget about this, okay?

Sayid: "I can't." 

Kablammo.

So that's it for Keamey, again, and that's interesting enough 'til this muffled thumping comes from a walk-in freezer, in which alterna-Jin is inexplicably tied up and walk-in-freezing. WTF?  A real bad-ass would just drill this mystery Korean and get on with his far-less-complex life. But you just know he's going to rescue this stranger, and give him his freedom.

Thus the essential conflict in Sayid's soul: He's extremely good at violence, and has used it against legions and legions of people, not always in the service of the most moral ideals. But Sayid is a moral person at heart. Or at least he really, reallly wants to be: He knows right from wrong, he yearns to save the innocent. It's just that life keeps throwing him Keameys. When bad people come to town the good ones turn to Sayid and ask him, pretty please, to do some righteous ass-kicking.

For most of "Lost" Sayid served as a human animation of the US's war against Iraq and (arguably) every armed conflict any self-described moral society has entered. We all know war is essentially brutal and ugly. Once you unleash the darkness you can never keep it from destroying the innocents.  And yet we do it again and again, cloaked in vibrant red, white and blue, with spotless white hats and the true conviction that God is on our side.

You aleady know the contradictions at work here: Can anyone use darkness in pursuit of justice? And once you do it once, is it ever possible to scrub the blood from beneath your ragged fingernails?

One of the most compelling things about "Lost" is that it doesn't seem to know for sure. It's a dramatic thriller that certainly wields the catalytic thrill of redemptive violence. But it also understands and makes (painfully) clear that the true toll of those battles can't really be known or understood. Because even the victors lose something when they take out their antagonists. You kill a piece of your own soul when you extinguish someone else's. And as Island Sayid -- already pegged by Guru Donen as unredeemably evil -- lost all grasp on his moral compass, eventually opening the gates of the temple to the true embodiment of evil (NotLocke/Smokey, Crazy Claire and probably worse) he really did believe he was acting as a liberator: Saving the innocents, killing their leader and his aide-de-camp (Lennon, whose round glasses and center-parted hair were clearly intended to evoke the peace-singing Beatle whose own divided heart was pierced by another psycho killer). 

"I always do what I say," NotLocke/Smokey promised crazy Claire. So does the USA, we like to believe. We storm in, kill the leaders, burn the villages and wait for the terified locals to shower us with flowers and thanks. And when they don't -- often because they're too busy suffering the consequences of our redemptive violence -- we shrug, declare victory and forget about it. It's morning in America: Time for eggs, toast and a long, hot shower.

As if you could scrub the shadows from your soul. As if you really were light and verity, free of even a wisp of darkness.

I quote again from my song of the moment, Kasey Anderson's beautiful, cihlilng "I Was a Photograph.": "I was numb back then/I ain't even numb no more." 

Ever wonder where Nick gets his insights into "Lost"? And no, he's not telling you where it is.

By NICK GORINI

Hello, folks! Once again, I have successfully procrastinated in bringing you my recap of this week’s Lost episode, ‘The Lighthouse.’
 
Why the delay? I’ve been spending too much time starting at myself in the mirror with the sound of running water in the background. You know, like all the characters on our show (Jack, in particular, seems to do this an awful lot).
 
Before I begin, two real-life Lost-related incidents to share with you:

1.   Earlier this week I was watching that Michael Bay masterpiece known as ‘Con Air’, or as I call it, Crap. I mean, rarely do you get a pop-culture moment with so many talented people (Cage, Malkovich, Cusack, Rhames, Buscemi, etc.) dumpster-diving for dollars in one dingy flick.
 
Anyhow, there’s a scene where the convict-plane pilot, played by Frederic Lehne, is booted from the cockpit. Frederic Lehne plays Kate’s caustic pursuer, Marshall Mars, on Lost. Well, when he steps out of the driver’s seat, who steps in? A swarthy convict by the name of Swamp Thing, played by the great character actor M.C. Gainey… Who was Mr. Friendly, original face of ‘The Others’ on Lost! One Lost character gets replaced by another Lost character in a movie over ten years old. Whoa!!!
 
2.   If that wasn’t enough, I took my family for a fun weekend hike around Sauvie Island. On the far Eastern tip, away from the farms, corn mazes and bike lanes, there’s a three-mile dirt trail that is the only island path leading to… A lighthouse! Knowing what was coming up on Tuesday night, and (while looking at the map) realizing that in all the times I’d gone to this island I NEVER knew it had a lighthouse, I had to check it out. Maybe it would give me wisdom or insight into this week’s episode and what was to come. Or maybe it was just a beautiful, sunny winter day in the Great Northwest.
 
 
THE 'SIDE' TIMELINE AND THE ORIGINAL TIMELINE – SIDE BY SIDE!:
 
(If you’re curious why I’ve now combined the two, it’s because there aren’t two timelines! Ha! Read more about it at the end of the post.)
 
Jack wakes up in his nice, antiseptic apartment (hey, this other Jack doesn’t sit on his dirty apartment floor drinking whiskey and dreaming about frequent flier miles!), and stares all deja-vu-like at his reflection while water runs out the sink (see?). He sees his appendix surgery scar (you know, when he wanted to operate on his damn self until Juliet and Kate tricked him?). He has NO memory of any surgery, even after a quick phone call to his mom (welcome back, Veronica Hamel! Loved you in ‘Hill Street Blues’) reveals that he had it removed when he was a boy. Oh yeah, your dad wanted to do it, but the hospital wouldn’t let him. Just like your old island self, Jack! A chip off the old whiskey barrel..
 
Jack gets ready and we briefly see the same exer-cycle that Desmond had in the hatch. In fact, I believe this cycle has shown up at least three times this season. I believe the cycle officially has a SAG card now.

Follow the jump for a wide array of mind-bending revelations. . .
 

Kasey Anderson in Portland, in person: Tonight, Feb 25: Music Millennium, 6 pm, Berbati's 9 pm.

UPDATE: Check out Ryan White's terrific feature on Kasey in today's Oregonian. I would have linked to it here but it's either not on OregonLive, or else I couldn't find it despite looking for minutes on end, which means even if it is on Oregonlive, it might as well not be. Buy the Oregonian; it's a great story.

I'm listening to this song right now called "I Was A Photograph (Blake's Song)," the lead single from "Nowhere Nights," the most recent album by Kasey Anderson, a Portland boy who has spent the last decade or so developing into one of those striking American voices; a whole new combination of folk, country, rock 'n' roll and all those lit/philosophy/social studies classes we took. We all know that stuff, but how many of us shrugged off the dates and facts and liner notes and actually felt the emotional impact of what they were absorbing?

All I can tell you is that Kasey has this "I Was a Photograph" tune ('Photograph' download, for free) about that poor kid in Iraq, the handsome guy with a filthy face and a (somewhat ironically) clean, white cigarette in his mouth, made a hero in the papers for a day or so, which made so little sense to him in the context of the horrors he'd seen and had been made to commit that returning to the warmth of home and family - the stuff of humanity - was the thing that eventually did him in.

"I was numb back then, boy/I ain't even numb no more..." 

It's a fictional version of the guy's life, but don't think it's not true. Maybe more true than anything the real media reported on the war during its glorious/hellish heyday.

It's not all grim in Kasey's world, he's got so many other stories to tell - so many fun house reflections of the sweet, slinky and perpetually soggy world we've all lived in out here. 

"So he's standin' neath the window reading lovesick poems/Like somebody died and made 'im Leonard Cohen. . ." 

That's "Hometown Boys," which also contains the memorable observation, vis-a-vis growing up, that "Sooner or later our blood runs cold/And fuckin' up starts gettin' real old. . ." 

These are great songs; real songs; the stuff of life and art and the existence you feel in your bones even when you can't see it through your eyes. You can hear it in Kasey's records, though. And you can hear him do it live tonight in Portland (he'll be back for another show or two in the next few weeks too), at SXSW in the next few weeks and all over the USA in then next few months. Check him out. Someday you'll be able to tell your friends that you actually saw him back when he was playing clubs.

Here are details on his Tour.

Here you can stream half a dozen of his songs for free on his site's Music page.

Mama said knock you out!

Talk about feeling lost: parents never really know what's going on with, or what they've done to, their own kids until it's too late to do anything about it. I just listened to a song by Okkervil River, "Savannah Smiles," that captures the feeling. Tune is "Savannah Smiles," the narrator a divorced dad contemplating what he'd just learned by (accidentally) reading a page of his teenaged daughter's diary. In that moment he realizes he can't reconcile the smiling photos he keeps on his wall with the feelings she records by hand.

"Is she someone I don't know at all? Is she someone I betrayed?"

So back to "Lost," and another haunting episode describing the emotional discord haunting its characters: the disconnections between parents and children; the terrors of a failed parent; the scars borne by lost and confused children. Particularly when they become parents themselves, and realize how their wounds now define the unhappy relationships they have formed with their own children.

"Just cannot believe, could do that to a child," the song continues, far beyond the point where feelings trump words. "A child, a child."

It's easy to forget how crucial the emotional side of the saga has been; how easy it is to get so caught up in the action we barely notice how we keep coming back to these particular headwaters. It's the one undertow that never, ever loses its grip.

"Lighthouse" was a Jack-centric episode, toggling between Island Jack in 2007 and alterna-Jack in Los Angeles, 2004. Island Jack, we recall, lives in a jungle of his father's creation. We've always known how fraught/broken the relationship between Christian and Jack Shephard has been. It is Jack's most primal experience: of loving and fearing his dad; the tangled strands of admiration and resentment; the love and the hatred; the need to be nurtured, and to destroy. Jack was bringing his (alcoholic) dad's body home from Australia when he stepped onto Oceanic #815, and when the plane crashed the impact seemed to revive Christian's soul: He kept reappearing, silently, only to lead Jack further into the depths of a literal/figurative jungle that presented far more questions than answers.

As the series continued it seemed that Christian had some connection to Jacob. He appeared in Jacob's stead. He delivered (or claimed to deliver) Jacob's instructions. But now that Jacob has stepped in himself, in both real and spectral forms, the connections between the Island's Good Father and Jack's bad daddy have grown murkier. Is there a reason why Christian and Jacob have never been seen together? And if the Man in Black has the power to animate the bodies of the dead, doesn't it make sense that Jacob would, too? Has he been walking in Christian's burial suit for all these years?

What seems clear now is that Jacob plays the role of Father of Fathers. From his perch on the Island - and in that groovy, previously-unseen lighthouse - he has been keeping track of his charges, monitoring their lives and stepping in when it seems they need a gentle push to keep them moving in the right direction.

Jacob's vision of a right direction, anyway, which opens up an interesting can of worms: For all his clear-eyed, seemingly warm-hearted affection for the Losties, has Jacob's presence enriched their lives, or simply made them much, much worse?

Consider that alterna-Jack in L.A. - the Jack who never went to the island and seems untouched by Jacob's presence - is actively breaking the cycles of dysfunction that "broke" him (as the other Jack tells Hurley on the island). So while his relationship with his own teenaged son (who didn't even exist until now) bears the marks of his own disconnection from Christian, Jack is growing and changing on his own. He comes to terms with his own feelings for his dad, admits his failings as a father and these revelations lead him to reconnect with his own son.

We've seen this again and again in the alterna-Losties in Los Angeles: From Locke to Hurley and now to Jack, the bonds between fathers and sons seem far more functional than it is in their island alter-egos. And now that Jacob presents himself as a kind of father-in-general. . . . God the father. . . what are we to make of how screwed up the Jacob-influenced Losties are? Why are the Jacob-free characters so much more able to control, and find satisfaction, in their lives?