his new surf noir pilot "John from Cincinnati,"

This sounds terrible. Like 1980s-television terrible. I've kind of come to the conclusion that Milch is a hooplehead.

That said, I'll watch Deadwood to the last.

I'm glad those cocksuckers were able to come to terms.

Why cocksucker is a perjorative I've never understood.

Milch is a hooplehead.

Milch is a hooplehead, even though Deadwood turned out to be a great, great show. He had a strong vision, but what makes it brilliant is a combination of the writing and the very well-researched set design. I have to say, though, I was so much less impressed with David Milch after I watched his commentary track on the show DVDs. His insights were seriously shallow.

But I love the fuckin' show to fuckin' pieces. It's words like 'hooplehead' that keep me coming back for more. I cried when Wild Bill died. I love the whores with the hearts o' gold.

S-R: I think 'cocksucker' is only supposed to be pejorative because it implies that it's a man doing the cocksucking, to another man - makes some sad sense, given 19th-century prejudices. Not to mention 20th and 21st century prejudices.

Commentaries are usually for cocksuckers--not a good idea to judge an artist by them, in my experience. Here's a good article on Milch, which I've linked to before.

Thank God for fuckin Milch, Love Al Swearengen...and pussy's half price for the next 15 minutes.

Swejjun.

*flinty stare, clenched jaw*

Here's a little something on the word hooplehead. Incidentally, it contains a throwaway point which goes a long way toward what gets my goat about Milch:

It would not have been possible for Al Swearengen to have used the word in 1876, 40+ years before Gene Ahern invented the character and a hundred years before it was first recorded in print. The producer and head of the scriptwriting team, David Milch, has been reported as saying in essence that he picked something out of the air to serve as a suitable insult without great concern for its etymology .

Milch goes to so much trouble to create a true-to-life feel in so many ways...then lets the details escape. A lot of people praise the language in Deadwood, and it's all right, better than most such writing -- but if you've become really familiar with actual late 19th-century dialect and primary source material, the Deadwood word choices ring only almost-true. This is one good example of that, and another is the prevalent use of modernisms such as "he has no concept of..." Milch sacrifices accuracy for impact now and then. Which I suppose is ok -- it's a TV drama, after all, not a documentary. But since people often give it credit for being a documentary, I think he gets too much credit as a sort of lay historian, which he's not.

Anyone read Pete Dexter's Deadwood? I'm considering picking it up.

No, but if you do, please post a review. The show did make me want to learn quite a bit more about Western mining camp life.