Be Seeing You

Patrick McGoohan's dead. Long live Patrick McGoohan.

By chance, or fate, or boredom, whatever, I only discovered The Prisoner a couple days ago when channel hopping (for the first time in about two months I sat in front of a television with spare time on my hands and let happen what comes naturally) and saw the last half of the episode 'The Chimes of Big Ben' on ITV4.

It blew me away.

The whole shebang - the sets, clothes, writing, acting, directing, premise - it's all phenomenal. So, me being me, I got obsessed, downloaded all 17 episodes and researched the shit out of it. McGoohan (who conceived the show as well as starring in it, writing 6 episodes and directing a few too) summarises it as thus:

"I think progress is the biggest enemy on earth, apart from oneself… I think we're gonna take good care of this planet shortly… there's never been a weapon created yet on the face of the Earth that hadn't been used…

…We're run by the Pentagon, we're run by Madison Avenue, we're run by television, and as long as we accept those things and don't revolt we'll have to go along with the stream to the eventual avalanche… As long as we go out and buy stuff, we're at their mercy. We're at the mercy of the advertiser and of course there are certain things that we need, but a lot of the stuff that is bought is not needed…

…We all live in a little Village… Your village may be different from other people's villages but we are all prisoners."

Seriously. That's the kind of shit no-one can judge me for getting obsessed with right?

I've been in a Village of my own making recently. At the mercy of forces beyond my control. I haven't been living my life for me but for someone else. What's worse is that I haven't minded this one iota. The not writing, the flaking out on friends, the not getting to wear jimbly-jambly's (pajamas for all those not versed in Sazztalk™) and catch up on my beloved Gossip Girl. It's all been my own choice that I made in the hope of giving enough life up for someone else so that they would want to live again. I'm still struggling with this idea - how much to give versus how much I need for myself. There's no handbook that answers questions like this for you.

Anyway, regardless, I'm still not ready to start writing these feelings down. Instead watch where (I'd put good money on) David Lynch got a whole bunch of inspiration:



Now go hunt down the rest of it for no other reason than Patrick McGoohan's dead.

Long live Patrick McGoohan.