Category Archives: Popular culture

Aw, let ’em have the 16 lousy bucks

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Still making my way through e-mail, and I run across one from the musicFIRST Coalition, which is apparently "a partnership of artists and organizations in the music community who support compensating performers for their work when it’s played over the year. Anyway, the thing that grabbed my attention in the release was this:

S. 2500 was introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT). It would close a loophole in the law that allows AM and FM music radio stations to earn $16 a year in advertising revenue without compensating the artists and musicians who bring music to life and listeners ears to the radio dial.

So what — Jon Bon Jovi can’t let the poor radio stations make a lousy 16 bucks a year off his stuff?

Yeah, I know it’s got to be a typo. But hey, maybe they should stick to music if they can’t communicate any better than this.

I’m not alone in seeing Bistromathic principles at work in modern finance

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Did you think I was being a tad hyperbolic (just to throw another mathematical concept at you) when I cited Bistromathics in explaining my confusion over the nation’s economic problems?

Well, I had to laugh just now reading tomorrow’s op-ed page, which contains this Paul Krugman column.

Paul Krugman is, according to his billing, an actual economist. Most of his columns might read as though they were written by a summer intern at the National Democratic Party — he is my nominee for Most Partisan Writer Currently Published in Major Newspapers. In fact, I had to double-check to make sure this column was actually written by Paul Krugman, since it did not blame anything whatsoever on George W. Bush. But it actually is a Krugman column. And he actually is an economist.

Anyway, the part of his column that grabbed me was this part:

    The most important of these privileges is implicit: it’s the belief
of investors that if Fannie and Freddie are threatened with failure,
the federal government will come to their rescue.

    This implicit
guarantee means that profits are privatized but losses are socialized.
If Fannie and Freddie do well, their stockholders reap the benefits,
but if things go badly, Washington picks up the tab. Heads they win,
tails we lose.

    Such one-way bets can encourage the taking of bad
risks, because the downside is someone else’s problem. The classic
example of how this can happen is the savings-and-loan crisis of the
1980s: S.& L. owners offered high interest rates to attract lots of
federally insured deposits, then essentially gambled with the money.
When many of their bets went bad, the feds ended up holding the bag.
The eventual cleanup cost taxpayers more than $100 billion.

Did you get that? "Someone else’s problem…" As you and I and Zaphod and Ford all know, there is a concept involved in the understanding of Bistromathics called "recipriversexclusons," and recipriversexclusons are essential in the generation of an SEP field, or "Somebody Else’s Problem" field. What’s that? Must I explain everything? Oh, all right:

"An SEP is something we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t
let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem…. The
brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it
directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your
only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye."

So there you have it. And if you can’t see what I’m saying, just blame it on the recipriversexclusons.

New USC pres wearing Stephen Colbert’s tie

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Colbert

Remember last fall, when Emile DeFelice gave Stephen Colbert a special new South Carolina tie, and Colbert whipped off the tie he was wearing and tied the new one on perfectly, without missing a beat as he kept the gags coming?

Sure you do — I posted video of it and everything.

I was reminded of it today because I spoke over at Seawell’s to a meeting of retired federal employees, and a nice lady who had been present at the Colbert event gave me the above picture of myself and the "candidate." It was apparently takenPastidesshake when we were shooting the "Colbert endorses Brad Warthen’s Blog" video, which I KNOW you’ve seen.

Anyway, you can imagine my shock when the folks downstairs at thestate.com posted a picture of Harris
Pastides being congratulated as he was named president of the University of South Carolina today, and he’s wearing Stephen Colbert’s tie! The one Emile gave him?

Did Colbert throw it away as soon as Emile wasn’t looking? Did Pastides find it in a dumpster on campus? Weren’t we paying him enough before to buy his own ties?

This just raises all sorts of disturbing questions…

What stuff is really worth

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This is a test of age as much as anything, but I’m curious as to what y’all think stuff is actually worth.

I got to thinking about this looking at the receipt pictured back on this post, which showed that a diet Pepsi I bought for my daughter cost me $1.39. But that wasn’t the outrageous part. The outrageous part was that a bottle of water — and we’re talking tap water here, folks, not mineral water or holy water or something that the bottler claims was gleaned from an Icelandic glacier — cost the same amount.

Set aside the fact that we’re poisoning ourselves drinking from plastic. My beef is with the price. And my sense of injustice flows from an internal meter I have that says things are worth a certain amount, and no more. I arrived at most of these prices as a kid, when buying a PopSicle and a Mad magazine required a couple of hot summer hours spent combing the weeds along the side of the road looking for pop bottles, which back then were worth money when you returned them to the store (AND better for the planet).

However long I live, in my mind, every penny I spend on such items above these prices is a penny I’ve been cheated out of. For that and other reasons, I seldom buy these items any more. Here is a partial list, just to get the discussion started:

  • Soft drink — 10 cents. That’s 10 wheat pennies, or a dime if you get it from a machine. This is in 12 oz., returnable bottles, so you get two or three cents of that back. Preferably a real Co-Cola of the kind they don’t make in this country any more (did they really think they’d fool us with that "New Coke" scam, followed by the "return" of "Coca-Cola Classic" in which corn syrup substituted for cane sugar? we know only the Cokes from Mexico taste right any more) or a Nehi grape. Or maybe a Teem, or an Upper 10.
  • Comic book — 12 cents. Mind you, that’s the inflated price, from a dime. I am not opposed to theSgtrock_2
    folks at DC Comics making a couple of pennies, and even though I thought the two-cent increase a great injustice at the time, I made the adjustment at a young age, and now accept the higher price. Of course, the "specials" — the ones with "imaginary" stories in which Perry White gets super powers, or an all-red kryptonite edition or some such, which had the content of about three regular comics — were well worth a quarter. Mad magazine was also worth a quarter. Anyway, this price consciousness has prevented me over the years from buying my son who still collects comics as many as a good Dad probably should on special occasions.
  • A computer — gazillions of dollars, especially if it had the computing power of the one the Man of Steel kept at the Fortress of Solitude, which had a voice recognition program and could tell you anything about anything. As for real-life computers, only a big gummint agency like NASA could afford one, and then only if it was a supreme national priority to go to the moon or something. So this is one area where we’ve come out ahead, even if we don’t get to go to the moon any more.
  • Water — free. Oh, sure, Mamanem might have paid a monthly bill or something, but what concern was that of mine? Even when I lived in South America, and we never drank straight from a tap, and every drop we drank had to be boiled and put into a gin bottle first (the bottles were hand-me-downs from the guy my Dad replaced; I don’t know what they cost originally), I don’t remember having shelled out any of my money for it. I did spend money there on Cokes, which in Ecuador at the time cost 40 centavos, which was the equivalent of two cents back in the day when a sucre was worth a nickel. (Which is way back before the sucre went all Zimbabwe and the country switched to the U.S. dollar.)

You get the idea. And as for you wise guys who are going to tell me that a newspaper’s never been worth more than a nickel, I beg to differ. My sense of what a newspaper is worth formed as an adult, and as an adult I’ve always been aware that the person who buys the paper is paying a small percentage of what it cost to produce it. I will say, though, that 5 bucks for a Sunday New York Times is too much, even if they put gold, or even Mexican Coca-Cola, in the ink.

Happy REAL Independence Day!

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Adamsjohn

When I returned from Memphis, the first episodes of the HBO miniseries "John Adams" had arrived from Netflix. I’m saving them for the weekend, but in anticipation, I felt it proper to honor my favorite Founder by noting that, as he said at the time, July 2nd is the day we should mark as the date upon which our independence was declared. That’s the day the vote took place in Congress.

As he wrote to Abigail on July 3, 1776:

    But the Day is past. The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.
    I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
    You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Declaration_committeeAdams did the heavy lifting that led to our declaration, fighting for independence before the Continental Congress. When the matter was sent to a committee (shown at right) that included him and Ben
Franklin, Adams urged that Jefferson should do the writing of the version for posterity — not because he had done anything to bring it about (Jefferson had sat like a lump through the debates), but because had had style as a writer.

Adams would live to see the wrong day celebrated with "bonfires and illuminations," and Jefferson lionized as the Author of Liberty. Which wasn’t fair then, and isn’t fair now. Short, chunky, irritating, brilliant Adams always deserved infinitely more credit.

Declaration_draft
We people who can occasionally turn a phrase get way too much credit in this life. My moderate skill in that regard enabled me to B.S. my way through school whenever an essay test was given (I dreaded a well-crafted multiple-choice, which measured factual knowledge rather than mere verbal razzle-dazzle), and Jefferson’s has made him way more of a hero than he deserves to be.

So let’s pause today to honor John Adams, who did far more to lead us into nationhood.

Get into the blues — WAY into the blues

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I‘ve been driving around in Memphis today, having made it across Mississippi and all those other states, listening to the all-blues WEVL, which has some great sounds.

If you’d like to hear it, too, you don’t have to drive 10 hours the way I did. Just click on the link here, and choose an application to play the live link (I’m using RealPlayer.)

Enjoy.

Will these fare better than ‘Nailed?’ Let’s hope so

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As you may recall, we have questioned whether the money  S.C. spends trying to lure movie productions here is well spent. The Commerce Department does not question it, however, even after "Nailed" had to leave town after running out of money several times. You have to wonder whether an employer that keeps failing to pay its employees is the kind of business you want in town, even if one of the employees it brings in is a total babe.

But the Commerce Department doesn’t wonder. Here’s a release I got today:

S.C. Department of Commerce Announces Two New Feature Films Approved to Shoot in the Palmetto State

COLUMBIA, S.C. – June 25, 2008 – The South Carolina Department of Commerce today announced two new feature films have been approved to begin filming in South Carolina in 2008.  Both productions are quality family entertainment that will offer a positive reflection of South Carolina.
     “Band of Angels” is a Hallmark Production directed by Bill Duke.  The film traces the history of the Fisk University Jubilee Singers from their roots as a struggling opera company to their early success as gospel and spiritual singers.  It is set post Civil War and will be shot primarily in and around Charleston.
     “Dear John” was written by Nicholas Sparks and is a New Line studios production with Production Designer Sarah Knowles.  New Line studios and Knowles both worked on “The Notebook,” which was filmed in South Carolina in 2003.  “Dear John” will be directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who directed Julia Roberts, Dennis Quaid and Robert Duval in “Something to Talk About,” which was also shot in South Carolina in 1995.
     “Dear John” is the story of a soldier who falls in love with a conservative college girl who he plans to marry, but time and distance take their toll on the fledging relationship.  If the production company opts to move forward, the film will be shot in multiple locations along the South Carolina coast.
     “Both of these productions were recruited under the incentive guidelines revised by the Department of Commerce and the Coordinating Council for Economic Development.  As a result, the state did a much better job of utilizing our crew base in South Carolina. The film recruitment success this spring should end the debate that South Carolina needs to pay more to recruit more films to the state. The goal relative to film recruitment should be to lower the negative fiscal impact and create jobs for South Carolinians.  The productions recruited since the first of the year are a step in the right direction to achieve both goals,” said Joe Taylor, Secretary of Commerce.
     “Even with the national writers’ strike slowing productions around the country in the fall of 2007, South Carolina enjoyed its strongest spring of film recruitment ever.  With four feature films and a television series, our resident crew base has been virtually fully utilized.  The focus of film recruitment should be employing South Carolina residents and keeping the South Carolina crew base working is the strongest measure of film recruitment success,” said Daniel Young, Executive Director of the Coordinating Council for Economic Development. 
     “The New Daughter” completed filming along the coast in May and “Nailed” has completed production in the Columbia area.  “Army Wives” is still in production filming in Charleston.
     “Band of Angels” is currently in preproduction and is scheduled to begin filming in South Carolina soon.  Individuals interested in applying for work on the production should contact the South Carolina Film Commission or visit www.filmsc.com.
     “Dear John” has been approved for film incentives by the Coordinating Council for Economic Development.  The production company is still finalizing details concerning the production including the exact schedule.
                -###-

Notice how Commerce worded that: “Nailed” has completed production in the Columbia area.

That’s a funny way of putting it, in light of the facts.

Of course, I’m sure that there was some positive economic impact while the production lasted. I hear, for instance, that a certain underground bar across from the State House got so much business from cast and crew — including at various times Paul Rubens and a guy who was in "X-Men" — that they recently they had to shoo out some of the "Nailed" folks so they could close the place.

But as much as I love movies — and I do — we on The State‘s editorial board remain unconvinced that money spent in this sector is worth it.

What’s a ‘Good Old Boy’ to you?

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By BRAD WARTHEN
EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR
MORE THAN THREE decades ago, I saw a “B” movie that was a sort of poor cousin to “In the Heat of the Night.” It was about a newly elected black sheriff in a racially divided Southern town, and the white former sheriff, played by George Kennedy, who reluctantly helps him.
    At a climactic moment when the two men seem to stand alone, a group of white toughs who had earlier given the sheriff a hard time show up to help. Their leader gruffly says that they’re doing it for the sake of the old white sheriff, explaining that, “You always was a good old boy.”
    Or something like that. Anyway, I recall it as the first time I heard the term “good old boy.”
    It got a good workout later, with the election of Billy Carter’s brother to the White House. But the first time I recall hearing it used prominently as a pejorative by a Southerner was when Carroll Campbell ran against the “good old boy system” in the 1980s.
    The usage was odd, a fusion of the amiable “good old boy” in the George Kennedy/Billy Carter sense on the one hand, and “Old Boy Network” on the other. The former suggests an uncultured, blue-collar, white Southerner, and the latter describes moneyed elites from Britain or the Northeast, alumni of such posh schools as Cambridge or Harvard. Despite that vagueness, or perhaps because of it, the term remains popular in S.C. politics.
    Which brings us to Jake Knotts, who represents District 23 in the S.C. Senate.
    Jake — pronounced “Jakie” by familiars — could have been the prototype for that George Kennedy character, had Hollywood been ready for something with a harder edge. He is a former Columbia city cop who by his own account sometimes got “rough.” He offers no details, but a glance at his hamlike hands provides sufficient grist for the imagination. According to a story said to be apocryphal, he once beat up Dick Harpootlian for mouthing off to him. (The mouthing-off part gives the tale credibility, and longevity.)
    After Jake was elected to public office, he further burnished his “rough” reputation with a legislating style seen as bullying by detractors, and tenacious by allies.
    This newspaper’s editorial board has always been a detractor. You see, we are high-minded adherents of the finest good-government ideals. Jake’s a populist, and populism is common, to use a Southern expression from way back. In our movie, we’re Atticus Finch to his Willie Stark. (See To Kill A Mockingbird and All the King’s Men.)
    We were against video poker; Jake was for it. We were against the state lottery; Jake was for it. We were for taking the Confederate flag off the State House dome; Jake was against it.
    We were for giving the governor more power over the executive branch; Jake was against it.
    In 2002, we endorsed a candidate for governor who agreed with us on restructuring, and didn’t seem like anybody’s notion of a good old boy. He styles himself as the antithesis of back-slapping, go-along-to-get-along pols, to the extent that he doesn’t go along or get along with anybody.
    That’s fine by the governor, because his style is to set forth an ideological principle, see it utterly rejected by his own party, and then run for re-election as the guy who took on the good old boys.
    Jake’s notion of the proper role of a lawmaker isn’t even legislative; it’s helping — he might say “hepping” — constituents on a personal level. This can range from the unsavory, such as helping out a voter charged with a crime, to the noble, such as paying out of his pocket for an annual skating party for kids who’ve gotten good grades.
    Jake’s slogan is “for the people,” as simple an evocation of populism as you will find. To him, theJake_sign
proper role of the elected representative is to make sure government “heps” regular folks rather than working against them.
    That means he will take a bull-headed stand against the concerted effort to undermine the one aspect of government that does the most to help regular folks — public schools.
    This brings us to what caused us to do something we thought we’d never do — endorse Jake Knotts, the sentinel of the common man who doesn’t give two figs for what we think the proper structure of government should be.
    We’re endorsing him because he stands against the Old Boy Network (see how different these terms are?) of wealthy out-of-state dilettantes who don’t believe in government hepping folks at all, and want to make our state a lab rabbit for their abstract ideology.
    We are not comfortable with this. We’ve had some terrific arguments about it on our editorial board. It was not one of your quick decisions, shall we say.
    Occasionally, when we have a really tough endorsement in front of us, I quietly call a knowledgeable source or two outside the board, people whose judgment I trust, to hear their arguments.
    On this one, I talked to three very different sources (one Democrat, two Republicans) who shared values that had in the past caused us to oppose Jake. All three said he had won their respect over time. All said he was a man you were glad to have on your side, and sorry to go up against. All three said that between Jake and his opponent who is backed by the governor and the Club for Growth and the rest of that crowd, they’d go with Jake.
    Not that they were proud of it. All three spoke off the record — one got me to say “off the record” three times. I complained about this with the last one, saying it was all very well for him to urge us off-the-record to endorse somebody on-the-record, and he said all right, he’d go public.
    It was Bob McAlister, Carroll Campbell’s chief of staff back in the late governor’s glory days of fighting “good old boys.”
    “I don’t agree with Jake on a lot of issues,” Mr. McAlister said, but “at least you don’t have to wonder where he stands on anything, because he’ll tell you.” In the end, “There’s a place in politics for his kind of independent thought…. I think Jake Knotts has served his constituents well.”
    In his own staid, doctrinaire-Republican kind of way, I think Bob was saying he thinks Jake is a good old boy.

Knottsjake_001

Those two-timing politicians

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In The Know: Are Politicians Failing Our Lobbyists?

A reader who is also a political consultant enjoyed this dig at lobbyists, and brought my attention to the above video from The Onion, titled "Are Politicians Failing Our Lobbyists?"

Personally, I prefer the print version of the The Onion. This particular clip’s not all that funny to me, because it’s no more stupid than the actual talking head discussions I hear whenever I’m tied down and forced to watch 24/7 cable TV "news."

Top Five movies adapted from TV (original cast)

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This is a category that kept popping into my head back when I was doing this post and this one. With "Sex and the City" fans all atwitter about their gal pals being back, I thought first, "would a Sopranos reunion on the big screen be a good thing?" I decided not, as a large part of its appeal was its serial, episodic nature, day-in, day-out, life goes on (except for those who are whacked).

But this raises the question, "Can any TV series yield a movie worth the price of the popcorn (which, when you think about it, is a pretty high standard)?"

And the answer is yes — just look at "Serenity." So I compiled this list. Admittedly, it’s a pretty restrictive list, and doesn’t contain any movies that would make even a Top 100 list from among films in general. And I’m not allowing movies inspired by TV series, but with a different cast — a la "The Untouchables," or "The Addams Family." So the list is what it is. And what it is is an excuse to urge you to see "Serenity" if you haven’t. The rest is just a nod to the Top Five art form, in keeping with the Nick Hornby standard:

  • "Serenity" — I saw this without having ever seen "Firefly," upon which it is based, which means I was like most people in the known ‘verse. "Firefly," probably the best sci-fi series ever, lasted less than a season. I now own the whole catalog on DVD, including several episodes never aired. How to describe it? Basically, it’s a classic western translated to outer space (in the vein of the "Outland" remake of "High Noon," only wittier), complete with the residual tension of the Civil War thrown in. The protagonists are a motley ship’s company built around a captain and exec who were Browncoats (rebels) back in the war. Their side lost to the Alliance, which rules all the core planets in the settled universe, and their ship (a Firefly-class relic named "Serenity," after the pivotal battle in which the Browncoats lost the war) bounces around the frontier fringe planets (where Alliance authority is shaky), making an iffy living off of smuggling and other shady enterprises. There are all sorts of cool little side notes in this future world, including the fact that their Old West diction is laced with Chinese-derived profanity — when they’re not resorting to such everyday epithets as "gorram," and "ruttin’". The characters are a lot of fun, especially Jayne the mercenary, and Kaylee the mechanic. And the best news of all is that you can see and enjoy "Serenity" without ever having seen the series, and it gives nothing away. But after you see the movie, you’ll want to see the series. Oh, one more thing — the Browncoats are essentially libertarians who just want the authoritarian Alliance to leave them alone. But I enjoyed it anyway. It was shiny.
  • "The Simpsons Movie" — It lived up to the standard set by the series, which is all you can ask.
  • "The Blues Brothers" — This one’s kind of obvious, to the point that I’m almost embarrassed to include it. Everybody picks this one.
  • "The Naked Gun" — A fitting translation of "Police Squad," it is what it is (just to thoroughly overwork a phrase).
  • "Batman (1966)"  — Give me a break on this, too. I was 12 years old, and it was everything I expected.

As you can see, a very restrictive category. I would have included "Wayne’s World," but I wasn’t going to allow more than one SNL spinoff (and as long as I’m being absurdly pedantic, I probably shouldn’t have included either of them, since a skit is not a series). "Star Trek" fans would probably have included one or more of those films, but I was never really into that ‘verse.

Super Gilda

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Colbert_106

You probably read in The State today about Gilda Cobb-Hunter being increasingly lonesome as an uncommitted superdelegate, now that Jim Clyburn and others have finally declared for Obama.

Here’s some more about Gilda from The Washington Post. The story elaborates upon the miseries of the situation:

    The novelty of famous suitors and media interviews long ago eroded into exhaustion, and now state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter of South Carolina is just plain sick of all this. An undecided superdelegate to the Democratic National Convention in August, she opens her e-mail inbox each morning and deletes a handful of threatening notes sent by strangers. Campaign followers call her incessantly. She struggles to find time to run her own campaign for reelection…

Gilda could have spared herself a lot of aggravation if she had just declared back in October for the "Democrat" with whom she is pictured above (the one who gets all his South Carolina news from Brad Warthen’s Blog). By the way, I was supposed to send Gilda a copy of the above photo and forgot. Sorry, Gilda — I’ve been busy. Would you still like me to e-mail it?

And oops, here’s another one…

Colbert_105

My wife says I’m a big, fat hypocrite (actually, to be honest, she didn’t call me ‘fat’)

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Sex_and_the_city

While I was driving us up to Greenville on Saturday — meaning that I was a helpless captive at the time — my wife mentioned having looked at my blog, something she seldom does.

I thought, UH-ohhh, but out loud, I said, "Oh, you did?" I could tell she was about to light into me for something.

Sure enough, she called me a hypocrite for having called "Sex and the City" "trashy," because I watch and enjoy "The Sopranos." (On DVD, that is.) She submitted that there had never been, and never would be, anything in any episode that was anywhere near as bad as the fifth-worst thing that happens in the most family-values-oriented "Sopranos" episode ever produced. (She didn’t say it in those words exactly, but that’s the gist.)

"Of course, you’re right, dear," I said carefully, the way Tony spoke to Carmela at the end of episode 33, "Second Opinion." You remember — Tony comes home to find Carmela curled up on the couch, and she informs him that they ARE giving $50,000 to Columbia, and he starts to lay down the law, and she tells him again that they ARE giving the 50 Gs to their daughter’s college, and Tony wises up and realizes he’s being made an offer he can’t refuse, and starts try to think of what he can possibly say to get her to stop talking to him like this…

At one point, I did try to assert myself by noting that she watches "The Sopranos" with me — it actually kind of surprised me when she started watching it with me; I think she got pulled in because she sort of identified with Carmela (and she leaves the room whenever violence seems imminent) — but this was a tactical mistake on my part. It seems that that was neither here nor there; SHE had not publicly called anything "trashy."

So I thought hard about WHY I had written that post to begin with, and then I remembered, and it seemed exculpatory. So I explained that calling that lovely show with the nice ladies "trashy" had not been MY idea; I was simply reacting to a headline in the WSJ that raised the question of whether "Sex and the City" — actually, the fashion inspired by "Sex and the City" — was "empowering" or "trashy." AndLingerie I had just said, of course, it’s trashy; isn’t that the point? I mean, look at the title. (Extra points question for those who dare: With which program is the picture at right associated? Hint: This is not a dancer from the Bada-Bing!)

Yes, she understood that, but that was no excuse to go on and on in a holier-than-thou way about protecting children from "trash" like this, that a guy who watched all those naked women with their fake boobs at the Bada-Bing! doing nasty and degrading things in between the bloody murders had any room whatsoever to talk about such things. She explained that three of the women on "Sex and the City" are actually looking for love, that there was only one woman on the show who was an actual slut, and she recognizes herself as such, and that in any case sex was nowhere near as bad as violence, and for that matter the sexual content of "Sex and the City" wasn’t nearly as horrible and twisted as the sexual content on "The Sopranos." All of which, I’m quite sure, is true.

I sort of tried denying that the dancers at the Bada-Bing! were attractive to me — which they’re not; they’re too plastic-looking — and talked about how necessary it was for the viewer to be reminded how sordid Tony’s business was, so that we never start to think that the way he made a living was OK and start sympathizing with him too much, but I was not going to win this argument; it was fixed going in.

Then when we got to Greenville, I found out my sister-in-law had had a rare night away from the kids the night before — she’d gone to see "Sex and the City." Then this morning, I see a comment from Laurin Manning back on this post, in which she noted with amusement that no women had been a part of the discussion of this year’s biggest chick flick.

At which point, it’s probably a good idea for all guys present to stick our hands in our pockets, stare at the floor, shrug and go silent. I mean, Whaddaya gonna do?

Sopranos

Of COURSE ‘Sex and the City’ is trashy; isn’t that the point?

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Just for a moment, I stopped to glance over this piece in the WSJ today, headlined "The ‘Sex’ Effect: Empowering To Some, Trashy to Others."

I guess you’d have to put me in the "others" category. What I have to wonder about is how any rational adult with the slightest trace of maturity or propriety — or, to put it another way, anyone who has daughters — could see that program (now, I’m told, also a major motion picture) as anything but trashy. (Of course, I have trouble following the reasoning behind a lot of elements of feminism, and "Do-Me Feminism" makes the least sense of all.)

It’s hardly alone. On the rare occasions that I stumble across prime-time broadcast fare in recent years, I’ve run across programs — from "Friends" to the one with the two gay guys and the woman, the name of which escapes me at the moment — that seem to be largely devoted to sniggering about sex. (I once heard someone assert that Jennifer Aniston’s character, supposedly a girl-next-door sort, had 37 sexual partners during the course of the show. I took the speaker’s word for it, although perhaps he was wrong.)

But "Sex and the City" put the point right in the title. And nothing I have ever heard about the show has seemed to contradict the impression the title intentionally gives.

Mind you the point of the article that started me on this reflection was fashion, so it quickly lost me. But I got the gist — it was about whether or not trashy fashion was a good thing.

We live in a trash culture. We have for a long time. We live in a culture that fights against parents every moment in the never-ending battle to try to raise children who respect themselves and others.

That’s the way things are, and as near as I can tell, there are no compelling arguments for any alternative way of looking at it.

People don’t usually say this, because they’re afraid of being labeled prudes. To hell with that. The truth is staring us all in the face.

Top Five Harrison Ford flicks

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Lost_ark

We had a list in the paper Friday, compiled by someone with Newsday, that purports to be of Harrison Ford’s 10 best movies (among which, sadly, I hear his latest would not be a contender). The list had its good points and bad points. Basically, it lacked discipline. With Harrison Ford, you only get serious when you try to come up with a Top Five List. Here’s mine, unranked:

  1. Blade Runner — The one de rigueur item on the list, for aesthetic reasons if none other. The film buff’s Harrison Ford movie, if not his most popular (and not my favorite).
  2. Star Wars — A.K.A. "Episode IV: A New Hope." Note that I include this rather than The Empire Strikes Back. Sure, the plot of the latter is built more around Han Solo, but he defines the character in the first film. After that, the freshness, and the fun, is gone. Han is at his best before he becomes heroic, when he is the brash rogue who had not yet decided to do the right thing.
  3. Air Force One — My kind of president, with my kind of foreign policy set out in the "Be Afraid" speech: "Never again will I allow our political self-interest to deter us from
    doing what we know to be morally right. Atrocity and terror are not
    political weapons. And to those who would use them, your day is over.
    We will never negotiate. We will no longer tolerate and we will no
    longer be afraid. It’s your turn to be afraid." And don’t forget Gary Oldman’s villain — his best line is when he says "smart bomb." Like many action movies, this requires suspension of disbelief, but Wolfgang Petersen makes that easy and pleasurable.
  4. Witness — In this one, Ford represents Modern Man with all his violent foolishness, the "English" among the Amish, and this is what he’s good at — Regular American Guy out of water. Also featuring Danny Glover as a bad guy, which was running against type, but he carries it off.
  5. Raiders of the Lost Ark — The Regular American Guy resplendent, letting it all hang out in a story based in an All-American story-telling form — the old-style adventure cliff-hanger serial. East meets West in a most stark fashion — Indy comes up against the masterful scimitar-wielding opponent, gives an "I don’t have time for this" shoots and shoots him. He’s scared of snakes, and just making it up as he goes along. As regular as a guy gets.

Close contenders for the list: "The Fugitive" and "American Grafitti" But the former is more a showcase for Tommy Lee Jones’ talents, and his part in the latter just isn’t big enough. I also liked "Regarding Henry."

Let It Be

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There has long been a significant hole in the catalogue of Beatles films available on video — "Let It Be."Let_it_be

My son brought to my attention a few days ago the fact that you can watch it — in its entirety — at MilkandCookies.com. Here’s the link.

Admittedly, it’s not the polished work of cinematic art that is, say, "A Hard Day’s Night." And it’s rather sad, since it’s an unvarnished portrait of The Beatles at the moment they were breaking up. Finally, the music is far from finished form (I’ve got it playing as I type this, and my wife in the other room is providing commentary on its harmonic shortcomings).

But any true Beatles fan should see it at least once…

Arrgghhh! It was painful enough the first time

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Among those who lived through the Florida Long Count in 2000, who would want to live through it again? Not me. But HBO is betting I’m in the minority:

REVISIT
THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN U.S
HISTORY

AS
KEVIN SPACEY LEADS AN ENSEMBLE CAST IN RECOUNT

PREMIERING
SUNDAY, MAY 25TH AT 9 PM ET/PT ONLY ON
HBO

Two-time
Oscar® winner Kevin
Spacey (“American Beauty,” “The Usual252x190_synopsis01
Suspects”) leads the ensemble
cast of HBO Films’ RECOUNT, debuting
SUNDAY, MAY 25 (9:00-11:00 p.m.
ET/PT) on HBO.

Shot on location in Jacksonville and Tallahassee, RECOUNT revisits one of the most dramatic moments in U.S. history, portraying the turmoil of the 2000 presidential election in Florida

.  The film also
stars Bob Balaban (“For Your
Consideration”), Ed Begley, Jr.
(“Living with Ed”), Laura Dern
(“Year of the Dog”), John Hurt
(“The Elephant Man”), Denis Leary
(“Rescue Me”), Bruce McGill
(“Cinderella Man”) and Tom
Wilkinson (“Michael Clayton”).

RECOUNT follows the Florida recount from Election Day in November 2000 through the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of George W. Bush over Al Gore five weeks later.  This illuminating, hugely entertaining film pulls back the veil on the headlines to explore the human drama surrounding the most controversial presidential election in U.S. history.

Kevin Spacey portrays Ron Klain,
Vice President Al Gore’s former Chief of Staff.  Tom Wilkinson portrays James
Baker III, who was previously Secretary of State to President George H. W.
Bush.  Denis Leary plays Michael
Whouley, national field director during the Gore campaign.  Laura Dern portrays
Katherine Harris, Secretary of State of Florida.  Bob Balaban portrays Ben Ginsberg, national counsel to the
Bush-Cheney campaign in the 2000 election.  John Hurt plays Warren Christopher,
former Secretary of State to President Bill Clinton.  Bruce McGill plays
Republican lobbyist Mac Stipanovich.  Ed Begley, Jr. portrays attorney David Boies, who represented
the Gore campaign before the Supreme Court.

For more details on the film and to
view the trailer go to: http://www.hbo.com/films/recount/

252x190_synopsis02_2
Laura Dern as Katherine Harris?!?! Have mercy! Please, let me remember her as she was in "Wild at Heart
" — or almost anything else you can name…

Tell you what — why don’t y’all watch it, and tell me about it…

Dissed by ‘Foreign Policy’

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Foreign Policy magazine is inviting readers to vote for their Top Five Public Intellectuals. Here’s the link. As you can see, there are 100 "intellectuals" listed.

One Hundred. And yet, I didn’t make the list. Tom Friedman — sure, HE made the list. And the Pope, too — and you know, I don’t even like this Pope as much as the last one…

I’m reduced to being like one of those pathetic celebrity freaks at a premiere, standing alongside the red carpet, hoping to see an intellectual I recognize: "Oh, LOOK, there’s Salman Rushdie! I know him — I met him at a reception over at Andrew Sorensen’s place! I had my picture taken with him (and I’m still waiting to get a copy, I might add)!"

It’s sad. So then I pore over the list, looking for the biases of the compilers. Hmmm. I see four guys who are mainly known for being famous atheists, so is that … no, there are several religious types other than the Pope. Wait, what’s this — how can you have a "Muslim Televangelist," since "evangelist" refers to a proclaimer of the Gospel? No way. They could have put me in that guy’s place…

Oh, well. At least I can pick my own Top Five. Here they are, in alphabetical order, with the rather thin rationales for each:

  1. Pope Benedict XVI — As I said, no John Paul the Great, but a smart guy, whatever you think of him. And he has one of the world’s bulliest pulpits. I figure if you’re looking for public intellectuals, we’re talking potential for influence, right?
  2. Umberto Eco — Did you read The Name of the Rose? I did, and was impressed. (Not so much by Foucault’s Pendulum, though.)
  3. Tom Friedman — Hey, I had to give a nod to somebody in the trade. And he has potential to have more public influence (and for the good, I’d say) than almost anyone else on the list.
  4. Vaclav Havel — Based on the cool factor. Both a playwright and a paradigm-busting political leader.
  5. David Petraeus — There is no more practical or unforgiving testing ground for an idea than the battlefield. By applying his ideas, he turned around both facts on the ground and the political momentum in this country. No mean feat.

I almost put Robert Putnam on there, just to get somebody with communitarian cred. But you can’t have everything in a Top Five list. In fact, if you don’t shoot from the hip, you can’t get your list done. Reflect too much and it doesn’t work.

And believe you me, the most famous names of the moment are likely to dominate here — unless the Foreign Policy readers ALL go esoteric, just to prove how smart they are, which is a distinct possibility.

But this list was compiled with an eye to celebrity, and provocation, for that matter. For instance, I find Robert Samuelson more intellectually impressive than Paul Krugman, but Krugman made the list (provocation) and Samuelson didn’t. And I’ve had the privilege of engaging in long conversations with both Al Gore and Lindsey Graham, and guess what — while Al’s no slouch, Lindsey’s smarter. But with his Nobel and his Oscar, of course he was chosen (also, in defense, he’s WAY more influential, thanks to that celebrity).

Have I ticked off enough people yet? I’m sure I have. OK, smart guy — who’s in YOUR Top Five?

I feel like Batman

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And not even a cool, respectable sort of Batman, like the one in "Batman Begins," or even the quirky-hip Michael Keaton Caped Crusader in the first big-budget movie version (best moment — when he answers the crook who demands to know who he is with an edgy "I’m Batman!" that lets you know our hero’s wound JUST a bit too tight).

I’m talking Adam West here.

The thing that’s got me feeling this way is that I’m in the middle of candidate interviews for the June primaries — legislative, county council, etc. — and the same characters keep cropping up.

And no, this is not a plea for term limits. It’s the challengers, some of whom are perfectly normal people, but some of whom have these, um, idiosyncrasies that stick out a mile, and they keep coming back, no matter how many times they’ve been defeated. It’s like:

It’s you! the Joker! Again!…

… or the Riddler or the Penguin or Catwoman or whoever. No, wait, Robin, not that Catwoman — let’s bring in Julie Newmar!

On the one hand, it’s sort of comforting and homey. On the other hand, you keep thinking NEW people will crop up to challenge these candidates. And they do. But then, as soon as your guard is down — "YOU! Again!"

Oh, and by the way — if you’re a candidate who’s run before who’s about to come in for an interview — this post is NOT about you.

Eagerly awaiting ‘The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt’

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When I was looking for a link for this post, I ran across some really good news I had not previously heard. Martin Scorcese is making a movie based on Edmund Morris’ The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, which I happen to be reading.

Now folks, this is what we call exciting movie news! Why didn’t the Real Message Center send me a pop-up about this one?

I’m so pumped — or DEE-lighted, as Morris tells us Ted would have said — that I don’t even mind that young Mr. Roosevelt will be portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind anyway, after the excellent job he did in "The Departed." And "The Aviator," for that matter. Sure, he may not be Harvey Keitel, but then who can imagine Keitel as TR?

Basically, Scorcese has turned DiCaprio into a highly respectable entity, "Titanic" notwithstanding. It even strikes me now that they teamed up to do a movie about New York from the days when TR was police commissioner there, and police HQ was on Mulberry Street in Little Italy. OK, so, it was a generation before, but it was the right century.

I haven’t looked forward to a film production this much since I heard HBO was going to do Band of Brothers…

But you’re probably wondering what Katon means to ME, Al Franken…

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As the Rolling Stone correspondent to the 2004 Republican Convention, I know that S.C. GOP Chairman Katon Dawson, like Sgt. Hulka, has a heck of a hip sense of humor. Here’s further proof:

    After weeks of bad news for Al Franken, even other state Republican Parties are getting into the act. Franken, who earlier this year agreed to a $25,000 fine for failing to cover workers’ compensation insurance for his employees, has also been stung in recent days by an acknowledgment that he owes up to $70,000 in back taxes in several states in which he performed.

    In a letter to the South Carolina Department of Revenue, Palmetto State GOP chairman Katon Dawson last week asked director Ray Stevens to make sure their state received full payment from Franken’s company, Alan Franken Inc., which received payment for services there.
    "South Carolina faces an uncertain economic environment," Dawson wrote. "It is incumbent upon us to ensure that every individual and corporation lives up to its obligations to report its income, and pay its fair share of taxes." In the letter, Dawson requests a full review of the company’s activities in South Carolina since its inception in 1991.
    "I don’t think people are going to believe Al Franken’s good enough or smart enough to be a U.S. Senator because, doggone it, he doesn’t pay his taxes," Dawson told Politics Nation. "But I have a punch line for the Democrats’ star comedian-turned-candidate: show some personal responsibility and pay your fair share."

    Franken last week said the blunder came when his company’s accountant overpaid taxes in New York and Minnesota, where the comedian and satirist has lived, instead of paying taxes to the states in which Franken performed and was paid. Still, if even other Republican Party chairmen are having fun with Franken’s lax accountant, one can bet the Minnesota Republican Party won’t let the issue go so easily.

By the way, if you didn’t get the headline, you’re probably either too young or too old to remember the Al Franken decade, to wit:

Jane Curtin: Well, the 1970’s are in their final month, and with some thoughts on this decade and the one we’re about to enter, here’s Weekend Update’s Social Sciences Editor Al Franken.

Al Franken: Thank you, Jane. Well, the "me" decade is almost over, and good riddance, and far as I’m concerned. The 70’s were simply 10 years of people thinking of nothing but themselves. No wonder we were unable to get together and solve any of the many serious problems facing our nation. Oh sure, some people did do some positive things in the 70’s – like jogging – but always for the wrong reasons, for their own selfish, personal benefit. Well, I believe the 80’s are gonna have to be different. I think that people are going to stop thinking about themselves, and start thinking about me, Al Franken. That’s right. I believe we’re entering what I like to call the Al Franken Decade. Oh, for me, Al Franken, the 80’s will be pretty much the same as the 70’s. I’ll still be thinking of me, Al Franken. But for you, you’ll be thinking more about how things affect me, Al Franken. When you see a news report, you’ll be thinking, "I wonder what Al Franken thinks about this thing?", "I wonder how this inflation thing is hurting Al Franken?" And you women will be thinking, "What can I wear that will please Al Franken?", or "What can I not wear?" You know, I know a lot of you out there are thinking, "Why Al Franken?" Well, because I thought of it, and I’m on TV, so I’ve already gotten the jump on you. So, I say let’s leave behind the fragmented, selfish 70’s, and go into the 80’s with a unity and purpose. That’s what I think. I’m Al Franken. Jane?

Jane Curtin: Thank you, Al. That’s the news. Good night, and have a pleasant tomorrow.