If you missed any episodes of "Deadwood" or just want to count f-bombs, here's your chance on June 7.

From HBO:

Deadwood Marathon!

Catch 12 episodes of the show the New York Times called "as absorbing and addictive as The Sopranos"-over four straight nights!

Episodes of Deadwood's second season air back-to-back-to-back, from 9pm to 12pm, starting Tuesday, June 7. Only on HBO2!

(Cross posted to S.D. Watch.)

As many of you know, I love the HBO series "Deadwood."  While I think the show's, shall we say, "salty" language lends authenticity to it, the number of F-bombs and other swear words is at times almost overwhelming.

A reader sent me a link to a "free form" radio station WFMU's blog that has edited a "Deadwood" episode.  Their point: in the 60 minutes allotted for the show, it "ONLY" has 7 minutes of swearing.  I think it is a hoot.

Here is the link.  PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT IF YOU ARE OFFENDED BY SWEARING, ETHNIC SLURS, AND STRONG LANGUAGE, DO NOT CLICK ON THIS LINK. 

The funny thing is, in the excerpted episode, "Mr. Wu," even reduced to 7 minutes of swearing, I could still follow the plot.  That to me says that the language is intrinsic to the program. 

(Cross posted to S.D. Watch.)

David Milch didn't leave us with a major MAJOR cliff hanger at the end of HBO's Deadwood Episode 24, but Season 3 does have some interesting issues to resolve nonetheless. 

Here's my list:
(In no particular order).

1. Will Alma give birth and survive?
2. Will Hearst get the Garret claim?
3. Will Alma and Ellsworth live happily ever after?
4. Will Martha and Seth live happily ever after?
5. Will Cy Tolliver survive?
6. Will Mose get revenge on Cy should Cy survive?
7. What happens in the election?
8. Will Marth teach?
9. Will Alma and Seth get jiggy with it?
10. Does that warrant finally catch up to Swearingen?
11. Will E.B. go nuts now that he doesn't own the Grand Central Hotel?
12. What does Joanie do with Chez Ami?
13. Who does Garret Dillahunt return as?

I'm sure I've missed some.  Please feel free to add your own "unresolved issues" in the comments.  Can't wait for next March to roll around for S3!

Season two of HBO's "Deadwood" wrapped tonight with two weddings and a hanging.

In stunning news just telegraphed in from Washington, DC, the Fort Realignment and Closure Committee (FRAC) announced it list of U.S. Department of War Forts and Camps that are slated for closure.

Included on the list, in a great blow to western Dakota Territory, was Ft. Whitewood, a large resupply fort for the U.S. Army's 7th Calvary.

Next to the Hearst Mine, Ft. Whitewood is the second largest employer in D.T. It has played a critical role in the defense of the Black Hills from the Cheyenne and Dakota/Lakota nations, who still claim title to the region.

Last year, Thune, a Murdo Republican, promised the Dakota Territorial Legislature that if it selected him to be its non-voting Territorial Delegate to Congress in Washington, DC. he could keep Ft. Whitewood open under the FRAC process.

Last fall at the Legislative Assembly in Yankton, Delegate Thune said, “[Electing me] It puts Ft. Whitewood in a lot stronger position than having someone who's going to be in the minority and someone who doesn't have a relationship with the president of the U.S.” [Yankton Press and Dakotan, 8/16/1876]

In fact, President Rutherford B. Hayes even made an extraordinary appearance at the Territorial Capitol in Yankton to lobby for the tall and handsome ex-baseball star.

With news of today's disastrous news from the FRAC panel, however, Delegate Thune was trying to distance himself from his previous bravado.

"Frankly the law is clear and very plain that this is insulated from politics," Thune said. "This administration took a very hands-off approach, and allowed the military to make these decisions."

Telegraph blogger and Democrat activist Micah David Epp of Yankton decried Thune's turnabout, after promising the Territorial Legislature and Dakota citizens so much and delivering so little.

"Thune either knew he couldn't influence the decision making process or he was  were naive and thought you could," Epp said.  "Either way, it is a major chink in his credibility."

In the last FRAC round in 1868 after the Civil War and the so-called "Reconstruction Dividend," once a fort or camp was placed on the FRAC list, only 15% were taken off in the final determination.

*This is obviously satire, it is not true, it has no basis in history, and if you believe it, you need to read a good history book. 

Exclusive to Not the Deadwood Pioneer!

The ever studious Dr. Amos Cochran, the camp's bright light of humanity and science, says from what he has read in some fancy German medical journals, if he could see young William Bullock's injuries, he could guarantee saving the young boy's life.

"There is this German scientist named Wihelm Conrad Rontgen who has a theory about radiation being used to see through objects.  Radiation is like light, only invisible," Doc Cochran said.  "Oh forget it.  Your readers are too stupid, too illiterate, or too uneducated for even a simplified explanation," the good doctor snorted.

Nonetheless, Doc Cochron says the implications for for the use of these new fangled "X Rays" for medicine are boundless.

"For example, if I could see young William's vital organs and his bones and see if there is a break or a disturbance, I could better diagnose and treat the poor boy," Dr. Cochran said.  "Right now, all I can do is palpate or open him up or guess.  That's a hell of a way to practice medicine."

The good doctor said that if one could build an "X Ray" contraption, young William's chances for survival after the horse accident "would rise considerably."

"I have asked Hostetler, who's largely to blame for this tragedy, to go about getting plans together to fashion such a machine," Dr. Cochran said.  "I've requested funding from our wealthier businesses, including The Gem, The Bella Union, Star and Bullock Hardware, and Widow Garret's mining operation."

Doc Cochran said if he wasn't the only medical doctor in Deadwood, he would make the trip to Germany to meet with Professor Rontgen.

Contributions to both William Bullock and the "X Ray Gizmo Fund" can be made at the First Bank of Deadwood, located at the Star and Bullock Hardware store.

Always eager to make this blog even better, the editor of Not the Deadwood Pioneer believes reader Dan Dority has an excellent "point" about the speed of which ball scores make it into Not the Deadwood Pioneer.

The editor of this fine publication now knows that Dan does not simply want to knife through the scores, let alone stale scores. But please allow me to explain, under threat of pain.

Up until the last week, ball scores arrived in the mail from Sioux City (which has received them via telegraph from Chicago ). From Sioux City , the mail is put on a train to Yankton. From Yankton, the mail is placed on a stage, or depending upon the season, upon a river boat to Pierre .

Given the weather, mud, Indian attacks, road agents, sick or lame horses, etc. it can take a week or more to get the correspondence. Sometimes, the mail never arrives and Dan is completely deprived of his ball scores, whether prompt or otherwise.

Now, however, with the telegraph apparatus located in the Not the Deadwood Pioneer office, ball scores come directly from Sioux City , Chicago , or even New York . Then, it is just a matter of deciphering the Morse Code, setting the type, composing the pages, and printing the pages by hand.

Thanks to technology, Dan, you'll have your ball scores more promptly. And if you're really antsy, Dan, please come directly to the Not the Deadwood Pioneer office anytime.  Now, Dan, will you quit staring at me when I walk through The Gem?

The Editor

Noted telegraph show host Larry King paid Deadwood a visit and filed this dispatch for his column in USA This Month.

Did you realize it isn't just water that makes the streets of Deadwood so muddy? . . . I bet if Jack McCall were to ever come back to Deadwood, he'd come back as someone completely different. . . Maybe it's just me, but has any one else noticed the high level of hygiene the prostitutes practice in Deadwood compared to other red light districts?. . . That Al Swearingen, boy, you don't want to make him mad!. . . I know I'm already kosher, but yeow, one visit to Mr. Wu's pig pen and you'll never eat the "other white meat" ever again. . . Is the widow Alma Garrett a babe or what! Hubahuba!. . .  I know he can sometimes be a real pain in the patooty, but E.B. Farnum really knows how to fawn all over a guest at his Grand Central Hotel. . . Sheriff Seth Bullock is a man I wouldn't mess with, but he ought to see Doc Cochran about that walk of his--he walks like he's got a bad case of the piles!. . . Well, kids, that's all the time I have dot dot dot dash dot dot dot!

The Homestead Miners defeated The Gem Hookers 9 to 3 in Deadwood camp baseball league action last night at Brom Garrett Memorial Field.

The Miners (4-0) dominated play, with the German and Cornish players learning the American past time surprisingly quickly.

"We have unique training methods," said John "The Enforcer" Johnstone, Homestake's team manager and mine manager.  "Let's just leave it at that."

The normally volatile manager for the Hookers (3-1), Dan Dority, was unusually subdued after a rare loss.

"Leave me alone," Dority said.  "I have a lot on my mind right now, with Al's gleets, that Silas s.o.b., and keeping tabs on Trixie."

The Miners travel to Yankton to play the Legislators in a non-league three game stand this weekend while the Hookers mosey on just down the trail to Central City tomorrow to play the Goat Ropers (0-4).

 

Karl Marx, a German philosopher and economist, is rumored to be contemplating a visit to Deadwood, D.T. to view the excesses of capitalism.

"My collaborator and comrade Friedrich Engels has a cousin who works for the capitalist running dog George Hearst at his mine in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory," Marx said.  "Professor Engels' cousin says the working conditions are terrible, that they are beaten and shot like dogs."

Marx, who is working on what he calls his magnum opus, Das Kapital, says the research is necessary to show that imperialism breeds man-exploiting-man capitalism, even in the pristine New World of America.

"I wish to observe the proletariat striving at the feet of their masters then enlighten them that through my theory of dialectical materialism, they have nothing to lose but their chains if they engage in class warfare against the capitalist pigs," Marx said.

The social theorist also said he had heard of a legendary capitalist named Al Swearingen and wanted to interview the saloon keeper and petit bourgeois as an example of the futility of establishing a middle class in even a new setting like Deadwood.



The German intellectual also commented that he heard the bracing weather of the Black Hills would be good for his sometimes troublesome constitution.  He also said he wanted to explore first hand the exploitation of women in The Gem and the Bella Union, especially the specialty acts.