day off

Procrastination + Photoshop.

Web Side Story

I can't seem to embed this West Side Story parody, but do yourself a favor and watch it.

"Please God Make Me Not Queer"

David Lancaster, a St. Louis artist whose work I admire, is having a show. Quoting the gallery: "'Give me chastity... but not yet.' St. Augustine (354-430), Bishop of Hippo and one of the major figures of early Christianity, uttered this famous prayer in his struggle to gain mastery over his earthly desires. In the spirit of brazen honesty with which Augustine addressed his deity, David Lancaster proposes a collection of modern prayers, painted in oil on aluminum, designed to explore and question the nature of communication with the divine. Sad, bold, frank and funny, the prayers challenge our collective notions of supplication and gratitude--what we should ask of an omnipotent God and for what we should give thanks--and the very idea that prayer is a catalyst for divine action. Ten of Lancaster's studded aluminum paintings and sculpture will be on view in PHD's Portfolio Gallery June 27 through August 15, 2009 with an opening reception for the artist on Saturday, June 27 at 7:00 pm." David happens to be my uncle, but that should not in any way sway your opinion of my judgment in this matter. His stuff is great.

Michael Jackson died for our sins

When I heard that pop singer Michael Jackson had died, I could not help but remember what a staple he was in the late-night monologues. What would all the hacks, myself included, do now? Crypto-queer GOPers and philandering family-values types can only get you so far. Perhaps Roseanne Barr could be coaxed out of retirement and given the Ambassadorship to Iran. Perhaps Oprah could be slipped some chemical that turned her into a combination of James Brown, Wilhelm Reich, and Minnie Pearl. Even then, they'd be no Michael Jackson. Everything Jackson did was a set-up; everything he was, a punchline. For his entire adult life, Jackson was ridiculed in public by the best in the business. Think about that for a second. He knew what everybody thought of him--he must've known. At what point did all that weirdness change, from something inside of him, to something caused by all of us? Only he could know, if he ever did, and now he's dead. Some portion of this ridicule was earned: the compulsive plastic surgery, the persistent whiff of child molestation, the bizarre marriage to Elvis' daughter--these were, if not earth-shattering events, deviations from the norm reasonably worthy of a satirist's attention. But I think anyone not getting paid on a 13-week contract has to admit that at a certain point it became a peculiar kind of public torture. Most of the time that Michael Jackson made the monologue, he hadn't done anything genuinely newsworthy. Yet there he was, the butt of another joke about gayness, or pedophilia, or plastic surgery, or germophobia...I could go on, but there's no point. There never was. One of the biggest changes in American pop culture has been the demise of humor based on stereotypes (or at least its widespread concealment). This is a good thing, but as the humor of stereotype has waned, other things have had to step in. The things that have filled the void are a) celebrity humor; and for those intellectuals among us b) absurdism about "inhuman autopilots"--zombies, pirates, robots, ninjas, etc. Add in reflexive taboo-busting--sex and drug jokes--and you have described 99% of what passes for comedy in these United States. Most political humor is celebrity humor with a veneer of importance; it comes from no political viewpoint, only comments on behavior. Most of the NPR/New Yorker brand is absurdist autopilot humor, with enough celebrity to satisfy their timeliness fetish. All that is another post, so I'll leave it and finish this one. Unlike say, Cary Grant, Michael Jackson had the ill fortune to be a celebrity when nightly scrutiny of a pop singer's personal habits became what passed for incisive commentary. Precisely when American power needed all the restraining that satire could throw at it, satire became obsessed with celebrities. Coincidence? Surely not. Part of this was the entertainment industry's self-aggrandizing belief that nobody in the audience knows about anything but entertainment--which, after fifty years, has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. But even more powerful was simple risk-aversion. Any Jackson joke was risk-free. Since he was both celebrity and inhuman autopilot, the material flooded forth; and in that flood was protection, safety in numbers. That's why it all felt strangely impersonal, as if this "Michael Jackson" we were all laughing at didn't exist as a person. To the extent that anybody I knew spared a thought for the guy, the human being, they decided he deserved it for being so weird. Such is the compassion of the herd. But so what? you might say. Life's rough, and Jackson didn't have to be rich and famous. He didn't have to get nose jobs and sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. Well, here's what: It's inconceivable to me that all this concentrated ridicule did not drip down, poison-like, to the man himself, and make a difficult life even more difficult. And it would be one thing if the enjoyment generated as a result of this pain was in any way instructive, constructive, or substantial. It wasn't. It was just meanness. Occasionally Jackson deserved our scorn, but most of the time he didn't, and it says a lot about the culture in which we live that Michael Jackson--a pop singer--was the target of so much vitriol. Anybody who runs for President, much less does what it takes to win, is just as weird as Michael Jackson was. They simply hide it better. Here was a guy so terrorized by his father that he'd vomit at the sight of him; a guy whose talent robbed him of his own childhood; a guy who spent the rest of his life mutilating himself and possibly mistreating others in an utterly doomed attempt to release from his pain. Apportion the blame however you like, but what the hell is funny about that? The moment you stop to think about it--for one second--it no longer becomes fodder for humor. So when we laugh at a Michael Jackson joke, we should know: that's not laughter, that's keeping yourself dead inside. To accept that there is a limit to how much we can make fun of a celebrity, is to accept that certain behavior is more important than other behavior, and proportionality is a dangerous thought in our politicized times--if you want to get another 13-week contract. Yes everybody knew about Michael Jackson, and his existence as shorthand predisposed him to be joked about; but every second of airtime that he was being ridiculed, other much more worthy targets were escaping without critique. It's not a stretch to suggest that this, too, has created our troubled world. If satire has a salutary effect (which is debatable), its benefits come in proportion to the importance of the target: what sort of danger is being curtailed or avoided by the force of ridicule. In blasting away at Michael Jackson, American comedy did more than merely shoot a perfectly motionless fish in a tiny glass barrel; it ignored some authentic sea monsters cruising the coast. And for that, everybody in the satirical end of comedy needs to take a long, hard, look--not at the spectacle of Michael Jackson, but at ourselves. Which was maybe why we were so content to look at him in the first place.

The Secret Policeman's Ball(s)

As some of you know, I celebrated my 40th last weekend with a viewing of several rare versions of "The Secret Policeman's Ball" series. It's really worth seeking out for anyone the least bit interested in that great Oxbridge generation of British comedy (from Cook to Cleese to Atkinson). Film critic Gregory Weinkauf was there, too, and here's his round-up for HuffPo.

New Dirk!

Funny new vid from Dirk Voetberg and friends. So many great touches...

More Adam Curtis documentaries

The Living Dead 1 of 3: On the Desperate Edge of Now This documentary explores how the narrative setting up World War Two as "the good war" required significant parts of the past to be buried, ordinary Germans to be made into unfathomable monsters, and the experiences of the soldiers to be forever at odds with the accepted myth. The Living Dead 2 of 3: You Have Used Me as a Fish Long Enough A history of brainwashing and mind control, and its mutation into artificial intelligence. The Living Dead 3 of 3: The Attic Margaret Thatcher's use of, and imprisonment by, Winston Churchill's patriotic but problematic vision of Britain.

The Century of the Self

I am currently working through a wonderful BBC documentary on how the ideas of Sigmund Freud have been used to control the masses (don't worry, it's anything but dry). It's called "The Century of the Self." The four episodes are below; I highly recommend it. Part 1 of 4: Part 2 of 4: Part 3 of 4: Part 4 of 4:

Talk: JFK and the Unspeakable

This is a talk by Jim Douglass, a peace activist and the author of the book "JFK and the Unspeakable." Perhaps I will get a copy for my birthday. From everything I have read about "Unspeakable," I think it gets closest to explaining why I've always been fascinated with the JFK assassination (from the age of seven or eight!), and why I think it is a keystone event in our national life. It is always very difficult to discuss this topic, because spoken or unspoken it becomes clear that any deviation from the "Oswald did it alone" story is an indictment of our entire shared reality, and hints at a level of ineptitude and/or corruption and/or outright evil that is almost impossible to live with. This is why the mass media has come down so firmly in favor of the Warren Commission over the years; from Life in '64 to CBS in '67 to ABC in '98, and on and on, the self-appointed shapers of public opinion have relentlessly toed the government line, and resented the public's determination to believe differently. People want to believe in the lone nut template, not only in this case but in all political murders, because it requires no action from them. It is only the vastness and depth of the evidence which keeps the pro-conspiracy viewpoint from dying off. It is, after all, a profoundly uncomfortable place to be. But there are greater virtues than comfort.

Interesting video (JFK and Vietnam)

For those (like my commenter) who desire a more conclusive discussion, one can be found in James K. Galbraith's article here.

Attention Orgasm Experts!

Author Mary Roach is here to tell you some things you didn't know.

Strangely, this is exactly what my apartment looks like...

...I wonder if it means anything.

Bit from Letterman (1982)

Dennis Perrin forwarded me this great bit from the early days of Letterman. Dennis sez, "Starting at the 45 second mark, you'll see Letterman writers Max Pross, Tom Gammill, George Meyer (in the Dallas Cowboys shirt, sporting an Amish beard), and then Andy Breckman, in the glasses and secular beard. And at 1:31, that's head writer Merrill Markoe."

The best pizza in the US?

GQ sent somebody around looking for it. Though I might trust their judgment a little more on matters of hair gel viscosity or length of beard stubble, both Sally's and Pepe's did make the list, which suggests it's at least creditable. Notable omission: LA's Pizzeria Mozza, which my wife swears by.

All Your Base Are Belong to Us

I clicked on this expecting nothing, but I enjoyed it. As Samuel Johnson said, "If you're tired of mindless internet memes, you're tired of life."

Michael Caine

Michael Caine is quintessential Sixties cool, and I love him (and the National Health glasses he wore in The Ipcress File). Here's a brief but interesting interview from New York magazine. Included is John Wayne's acting advice, and why famous people should never wear suede shoes.

Expert Opinon: Flu Virus (So Far)

The excellent UK science magazine New Scientist has published an expert opinion on the "swine flu" virus that emerged recently in Mexico. It's not long, and well worth reading, particularly if you're a little freaked out. My take-away was optimistic--the currently terrifying death rate may return to a more normal range after more cases are discovered--but that may be because I have this cold I just can't seem to kick. (At left is a computer model of the virus. Handsome little jerk, eh?)

You gotta listen to this...

...You Tube vid. It's a woman named Susan Boyle, on Britain's version of "American Idol." Quite inspiring, as I lay here wondering whether this cold is actually swine flu.

In Heaven Everything Is Fine

I've blogged about Peter Ivers before, the musician and provocateur who cut a legendary figure at late-60s Harvard, and was a confidant of Doug Kenney. I'd run across Peter in my reading every so often, and always suspected that there was an interesting story there. Now I know for sure thanks to a new bio, In Heaven Everything Is Fine, written by Josh Frank with Charlie Buckholtz. The book (very wisely I think) identifies Ivers' still-unsolved murder as the hookiest part of the tale, and their emphasis on this gives In Heaven a pretty interesting structure. First there is a chapter of Ivers' "unsolved life," told in standard chronological fashion; then a few pages of quotes about that period from friends famous and otherwise; then finally a few pages of quotes about the murder investigation, from the detectives and friends involved in it. I usually get irritated by gambits like these, feeling that they're gimmicky, hiding flaws in the life and/or the telling, but I have to say that in this case, it works. When it doesn't, which happens once in a while, it's due to something that the authors could not control. When the glamor of a subject is unrealized potential rather than mature achievement, one is stuck with a parade of assertions. These are ultimately unsatisfying--even if notable people are making them. Everybody thinks their friends are geniuses, everybody mythologizes their college years, and if Peter Ivers had gone to Michigan instead of Harvard, this book wouldn't exist. But that is not the fault of the authors (or Ivers), and since it does exist, I'm glad they did it with such skill. The one persistent annoyance I felt as I read was a reticence to really dig into Ivers' flaws; after all, this was a man who was murdered, probably by somebody who knew him well. Obviously not everybody was charmed by his mercurial genius; obviously he didn't treat everybody well. But since this book depended on access to Ivers' friends and family, it's not surprising that it is 97% positive. It's a credit to the authors that there is any negative at all, and if In Heaven is a bit of the anti-Wired, well, so be it. At book's end, one is not only left with a sense of what might have been, but also of the cruelty contained in peaking too young. From the doubly lofty heights of Harvard in 1968, it seemed a foregone conclusion that "the Three Musketeers," Doug Kenney, Peter Ivers, and Tim Mayer would change the world. Out of those three, only Kenney did, and even Doug's success, as prodigious and rapid as it was, could not have existed without the efforts of many other, less celebrated talents. National Lampoon would've collapsed in 1971, mostly unlamented, had it not been for Henry Beard; and it would've made Doug and Henry a lot less rich had O'Donoghue, Kelly, Hendra, McConnachie, McCall, Miller, and O'Rourke not been on board, just to mention eight off the top of my head. Not to mention Belushi, Ramis, and Chase, each of whom had their own genius, and had been living their own lives, which just happened to cross Doug's in the right way at the right time. And of course there was Matty Simmons, who for all his flaws, was the reason the opportunity existed in the first place, not only NatLamp but also Doug's great launching pad Animal House. So perhaps what Peter Ivers was, was Doug Kenney without that beautiful piece of serendipity named National Lampoon. Both men died mysteriously, by the way, and a leading theory of each is a drug deal gone bad. The role of drugs in distorting and dismantling the dream of the Sixties is a theory I explore deeply in this novel I just finished, so I'll leave it there. In Heaven places great emphasis on the LA punk/New Wave scene of the early 1980s, and Peter's role in it. In my humble opinion most of that has turned out to be a dead end, both artistically and as a larger cultural force. Every generation since the Beatles feels it needs a cultural movement to define itself, but that's a structure imposed on reality to keep us consuming media. Applying a little historical distance, it's difficult to ascertain which is more dubious, breaking time into generations, or looking to guitar players to sum up the zeitgeist. So John Belushi liked Fear. So what? More people in 1981 listened to Shostakovich, to pick a name at random, and that doesn't mean that Shostakovich played a huge role in defining the art and music of that time. Whatever impact Fear might've had came from the fact that its listeners were between 16-30--and that's the footprint of marketing, not art. Punk and New Wave were surface changes, not structural ones, and any claims of vast impact are immediately and profoundly gainsayed by the quality of our current culture. Which is not to say that people can't enjoy them, only that people need to be more aware of the great hustle that's being run--"we'll give you media, but we'll keep all the money and power." And within media, the commercial imperative of the constant new thing, and the political effects that this has had. Ever-shifting cultural change--rebellion as fashion--gets in the way of the broader structural changes human society needs. Attention paid to hairstyles is attention not paid to other things. Don't get me wrong, that doesn't mean there wasn't something there only that, like the comedy of the Seventies, punk and new wave was no match for the assimilative abilities of those who control our culture. In the case of the comedy, I can see what was lost, and mourn it; but I'm not surprised it was lost. I'm more surprised that something new and authentic existed for as long as it did. In the case of the music, I like Devo and USA's "Night Flight" as much as the next guy, but to me their influence is limited to one small tidal pool (or, if you prefer, market segment). Since Frank and Buckholtz clearly love that time, that scene, I recognize their love, even if I don't fully buy its larger significance. The Church of the Sub-Genius is a fantastic artifact; satirically brilliant; if it didn't exist, it would necessary for someone to create it. But its aggregate impact is probably smaller than one single mega-church in Texas. Artists don't like to hear stuff like that, but it's the only thing (besides original sin) that explains the mess we're in. Still, if you're interested in any of the worlds Peter Ivers touched--Harvard in the 60s, LA in the 70s, bands like Fear and Devo, David Lynch--In Heaven Everything is Fine is well, well worth reading. Pick up a copy.

Photos from Occupied France

These color photos taken from the time of France's occupation by the Nazis really struck me. Not because they show things that are terribly remarkable--precisely the opposite. Photos like these transform a much-mythologized period into a reality we can relate to. History should be an empathic enterprise, where the facts of the past are turned into the malleable gold of self-recognition; but the world being what it is, all that emerges is justification, leaden as a handful of bullets. Here's a pretty woman putting on makeup. I wonder who she was, and what happened to her?

An "overopinionated and underinformed little book"

I knew there was a reason I disliked The Elements of Style. This professor tells me why. I once had a girlfriend with a similar attitude; it was like making love to Strunk and White without the frisson of a three-way. Though she never came out and said it, I suspect she believed I was to a "real" writer what a three-legged dog is to the usual variety. I, naturally, disagreed. We broke up before Barry Trotter came out and proved us both right.

The Joy of Squirrel

A friend of mine at a party said that she had an old Joy of Cooking which showed how to prepare squirrel. I must've had a disbelieving expression (prosecco makes my face slack) because she just sent me the page, which is below. Click to enlarge. I love the squirrel's little closed eyes; it looks like it is dreaming.

Introducing...Owl Jolson!

Quite randomly I ran across this old cartoon, which I love. I spent large chunks of my childhood watching old movies and cartoons, which made me old-fashioned while I was still new. Not the easiest way to be in our day and age, but full of peculiar joys and secret treasure. ...and yes, I do love to singa.

"I AM Woody Guthrie!"

Last Wednesday, I witnessed David Carradine's public implosion at my home-away-from-home, the Aero Theater here in Santa Monica. (Favorite bit: Carradine declaring "I am Woody Guthrie!" and an irate audience member shouting back "No, you're not!"). My pesky Midwestern politeness prevented me from blogging about it--though not from performing it for my wife when I got home. Luckily Hollywood Elsewhere has a full report. To be frank, it was quite harrowing to watch someone so clearly out of control. And it was a double shame, because it followed Carradine's superb performance as Woody Guthrie in the Hal Ashby film Bound for Glory.

TALF = "Take another loss, f&$#ers"

For that line alone, I had to post this rant from Wallstreetpro. NSFW, and I laughed and laughed. Reminded me fondly of some relatives of mine. Go git'm!