edg | Apr. 8th, 2004

I hesitate to say it, but it's true - at the beginning of this year, I wasn't a very good citizen. I knew very little about issues, civics, politics, or government, and - perhaps worst of my transgressions in the area - I didn't know that I didn't know. I'd forgotten most of my high-school civics, government, and history classes, and I wasn't really aware enough of that for it to bother me; I knew that I was registered as a Democrat, and that I wanted to oust the Republican Presidential administration, but that was pretty much it. Even as recently as the primary, I knew who I wanted to vote for in the presidential election (Edwards), but I didn't even recognize most of the names in the other elections.

Reading Obsidian Wings (

gehn tells me that there's a syndicated feed at

obsidian_wings), Moe Lane's political weblog, has changed that somewhat. At the very least, I'm more aware of the political situation than I used to be; on the other hand, it hasn't done a whole lot to make me want to get involved, and since most of the people there already know what they're talking about, I have to do some leg-work to keep up with them. (It was only today that I figured out what a "wingnut" was, in a political context.)

And then...

Well. There's a story here, of sorts; it starts back in the summer of 1999. At home with my parents after my second year of college, I happened to catch a television show called Sports Night. I didn't know then what it was called, and the only real impact it left on me was that it was a behind-the-scenes look at a sports show with great writing. That added to the fact that I had no idea when it was on - I wasn't paying enough attention the first time - meant that I usually only caught the last five minutes as I was skimming through (badly-received; my parents hadn't installed the satellite dish yet and we still can't get cable) channels looking for something interesting. Still, it made an impression, however slight.

Fast-forward to 2003. Sometime at the beginning of the year - I remember it being January, but my first mention of it in my journal doesn't happen until March, which might not actually mean anything - I found out that Sports Night had come out on DVD - all two seasons of it. (Special thanks to

curiousangel, by the way, for pointing that out to me.) So I bought it and brought it home and watched it and loved it.

Fast-forward to 2004. Last year in the autumn, Dave had lent my copy of Sports Night to a mutual friend in Indiana, and when he got it back from the friend several months later promptly lent it to his parents in New Jersey, so when I started wanting to watch the show again around mid-February it was nowhere to be found. After a bit of pestering I got the DVDs back, and watched them beginning-to-end in about a week. The difference is that this time I spent some time actually paying attention to details, and one of the things I noticed was that I really liked the music. I did some research and found out that W.G. Snuffy Walden had written the music for the show; although the show didn't have a soundtrack, he did have an album out (Music by...), which had some songs on it (notably "Big City" and "New York/Melting Pot") that were featured in Sports Night. "Music by..." also had the theme that Walden wrote for The West Wing, as well as a sample of the background music used in the show.

This piqued my interest - as did the realization that Aaron Sorkin had created both shows. So last weekend Dave picked up the first season of The West Wing at my behest, and I've spent the last week watching it in chunks. It's really, really good. Not always perfect - it is, after all, the first season - but very good. It also inspired something in me; I suddenly have an interest in politics, and government, and civics, and issues. It's like someone knocked down the wall between me and high-school social studies.