Hafta say Allyson's take is mine as well, all the way down the line.

Harrington says he also read Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia," based on a famous Los Angeles murder case.

Beg to report: anybody who read that book got a much better idea of James Ellroy's fetish for pairing off L.A. cops* ** than of anything to do with deranged crime.

I mean, unless you consider James Ellroy to be committing deranged crime every time he puts fingers to keyboard, a theory I can get behind.

* All cops have a dark twin, if only they could find each other, preferably in the boxing ring, with attendant contrasting nicknames.

** Ellroy can't quite bring himself to pair these cops off in the explicit sense, and usually punishes one of the twain with death or dismemberment in the denouement. Still and all, I am regularly shocked that he is not slashed on the internet like a Zorro emblem.

I am regularly shocked that he is not slashed on the internet like a Zorro emblem.

Heh. I'm going to have to start referring to Chandler's similes as Nuttyesque.

I am undecided on the question of whether Strong was homosexual or heterosexual, really. Certainly something about Brandt snapped him into a place where the sexuality itself became much less important than the expression of power that it represented, and self-hating attraction is certainly something that could have that effect. But I'm not sure it's what it was, exactly.

One theory I rather like is that Strong, being rather screwed up himself pretty clearly, had some experience with rape or abuse in his past that has been stewing inside his brain looking for an outlet. When approached by the initial "victim," his jaws closed down around the case as an opportunity to revenge this past wrong on somebody who got off on the expression of power in his sexual experiences, somebody who could easily be seen as a surrogate for whatever rapist Strong was hoping to get his revenge on. When the case fell through, he couldn't let go, and attempted to get his revenge anyway by raping others of Brandt's ladies, hoping he could get Brandt the easy way by slapping him into jail. But that didn't work. Eventually, the obsession with the revenge became an obsession with the idea of expressing power over Brandt, which he expressed through the rape and murder of the women, in two different ways.

First, he used them as a surrogate for Brandt, raping them with short hair and his cologne, probably calling them by his name as he beat them. But he acknowledged that they were surrogates for Brandt, not Brandt himself, and kept the hair as personal evidence that he was more than Brandt. He went further than Brandt ever would in his lust for sexual power; he took it all the way, and with women that Brandt himself had failed to finish. He was more than the man he was revenging, better at what he perceived as their shared, disgusting perversions and that made him powerful enough to finish the job. He knew all along he would kill himself once it was complet: he hated that he liked the power trip, as he hated that Brandt liked it. But he had to bring Brandt down in the only way he could before he put himself out of his misery.

Tim's mom is a TV critic? Like a professional...or in the same way that I'm a TV critic?

Also, I hate the neighbors and their damn smoking right outside my window.

!!!!!!

Speaking as a smoker who's sensitive to other people's issues with smoke, why not just let them know it's coming in your window? If I knew, I'd find another place to smoke.

I've tried telling folks that their smoke is blowing up my ass, but it never seems to help.

Tim's mom is a TV critic? Like a professional...or in the same way that I'm a TV critic?

I believe Cindy was making a joke about the critic's massive praise of the Timster.

Yeah, jengod, what P-C. The article said Tim was one of the five premier writers in TV, today (or something equally as lovely).

The article said Tim was one of the five premier writers in TV,

One of the five best minds.

In short, Tim = spicy brains.