Category Archives: Popular culture

Big Brother, we hardly knew ye

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As time goes by, I get less and less comfortable with the culture in which I live.

This morning, got an unsolicited alert from the Realplayer folks inviting me to check out a link called "Big Brother live video feeds!"

I thought it was an Orwell reference (which, I suppose, in a tacky-distant-relative kind of way, it is — just not the way I was thinking). I figured maybe it was live feeds from one of those observation cameras so many communities have been putting up in public places. I thought it would lead me to a lively discussion between privacy advocates and those of us who are just fine with such augmentations of law enforcement capabilities.

Imagine my disappointment.

Hey, it’s not that I’m some sort of culture snob or anything. I hate opera, and I like action movies. Last night, I kept groaning because the womenfolk in my house wanted to watch some sort of "reality" show involving a dance competition, just when I was getting into a Firefly episode that I hadn’t seen before. I own the series on DVD, and have been making my way through it slowly. The ladies made the perfectly valid point that I could find out what happened to Capt. Reynolds later, so after griping for a few minutes, I just went to bed early.

We all have our tastes in junk. It’s just that the stuff I like gets canceled before it completes its first season (I will admit I only became a fan after the fact, when my son persuaded us to go see "Serenity"), and the gorram "reality" shows go on and on and on.

As Jayne would say, "Where does that get fun?"

Technical difficulties

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Yes, I know the display on the main page of my blog is messed up. I’m trying to fix it. So far, none of the usual stuff is working. Basically, every change of format in a post — indented type, or italics — is imposing itself on every item below it, and never switching off. The coding and everything looks fine, but it’s fouled up.

The good news is that for the first time ever, pictures are displaying on the main page. I don’t know why that’s happening, either.

As I say, I’m working on it, but under difficult conditions, including:

  • The fact that I’m very busy today doing my real job, the one I get paid for.
  • You know how maddening it can be to have a song running through your head, and you can’t get rid of it. I have that, only with aggravating circumstances: It’s a song by a fictional band (Stillwater in "Almost Famous") running through my head:   

    "FEE-VAH DAWG, bah-bah-da-buh-BUM-BUM
    Scratchin’ at mah back daw….ba-DUM-BUM…"

A colleague suggested I get professional help, but I don’t have Lester Bangs‘ phone number, and anyway, I think he’s dead.

Now, let’s see how all those format shifts I just did further complicate my problem…

The Kingpin moves in

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In response to my last rant about the governor refusing to debate, one of my readers referred to his opponent as "Doc Ock."

Well, the governor may not be afraid of Doc Ock, but if you ask me, the whole gang of them — Doc Ock,Kingpin_1 Spider-Man and the Green Goblin — ought to be very afraid that The Kingpin is trying to muscle in on this very same territory. He’ll stop at nothing, and he’s just about as strong as Spidey.

He says he only interested in casinos, but that’s just the start of his strategy. He’s made no secret of his wish to run the entire state.

He is pictured at left at the offices of The Daily Bugle, where he was threatening Editor J. Jonah Jameson.

He’s running under an assumed name, but you can’t fool an old Marvel fan.

W is Gilligan; Al is Mr. Howell

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I’ve gotta say, there is an interesting and (largely) thoughtful conversation going on between the political extremes via comments on this post.

I should say though, "bud," going by objective standards of comedy, Al (and I call him that because, Goretuxway back in 1984 when he was running for the Senate, he kept telling me to call him that) is doomed to be funnier than W. W may be infuriating, he may seem dumb, he may mangle the language — and the latter two are good comedy fodder, no question — but you just can’t beat a pompous smart guy. Al’s funnier just out of the block. He gets a head start, and W can’t catch up.

Let’s use the Gilligan’s Island standard (which I just made up). I never found Gilligan to be that funny — average guy, although stupider. Infuriating in the way he kept throwing away opportunities to get off the island. "Infuriating," to me, isn’t funny.

But Mr. and Mrs. Howell were a complete hoot. Why? Because they were so upper-class and pompous and impervious. You couldn’t hurt them by laughing at them; it didn’t matter. (Mr. Howell would dismiss W. with his ultimate expression of derision: "A YALE man!!!")

Al is Thurston Howell, with a good dollop of the Professor thrown in (the pedantic manner; having to be the guy who knows it all, etc.). By himself, of course, the Professor isn’t funny; but combine him with Mr. Howell and you’ve got something special.

Sure, reasonable people can disagree. Some will find Gilligan funnier. (And yes, I know W is just as blue-blooded as Al, but he doesn’t seem to know it, and he doesn’t act like it. He’s a Gilligan. And Cheney is the Skipper, as played by Brian Dennehy.) I just think they’re wrong.

Note that none of this is to be confused with the eternal argument over whether Ginger or Maryanne is hotter. (Obviously, it’s Maryanne.)

How about, “Let’s Beat Up Burnett and Beckerman?”

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You know that stuff that Sweet Virginia needed to scrape right off her shoes (sorry, no links, you have to get it)? They must have been hip-deep in it when they thought up this one.

By far the most unlikely star of a prospective fall situation comedy
is that still-active lead singer of the Rolling Stones, who has signed
on to an ABC pilot for its fall schedule. Just to increase the degree
of unlikelihood, Mr. Jagger shot his scenes for the New York-based
pilot in a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand, last week.

That
was the culmination of a saga at least as whimsical as the premise of
the show, which, for now, anyway, is titled "Let’s Rob Mick Jagger."

The writing team that came up with the idea, Rob Burnett, long David Letterman’s
executive producer, and his partner, Jon Beckerman, had previously
created the NBC comedy-drama "Ed." As Mr. Burnett outlined the tale in
a telephone interview, he and Mr. Beckerman "wondered if there was a
way do a serialized comedy — something like a comedy version of ‘Lost’
or ’24.’ "

Hatched in numerous meetings, the concept centered on
a janitor for a prominent New York building, to be played by the
character actor Donal Logue.
Down on his luck, the janitor sees a celebrity on television wallowing
in his wealth during a tour of his new Manhattan penthouse. Enlisting a
crew of similar ordinary but frustrated accomplices, the janitor
conceives a plot to rob the big shot’s apartment, a story line that
would unfold over a 24-episode television season.

Well, for one thing, serial comedy’s been done. Check the original BBC version of "The Office," which is highly unlikely to be topped by this high-concept freak.

For another thing — and this is the awful part — if I thought Mick would be nearly as much fun in this as he was in "Freejack" (which is on a list I haven’t yet completed of "Top Five Cheesy Movies that are Fun to Watch"), I might even tune in. For the pilot, anyway.

Morbid curiosity will take one a long way. Television counts on that.

Lennon’s distinction

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    "The journey was terrible, but the trip was all right."

— John Lennon, responding to an interviewer who asked how he had enjoyed his trip to see the Maharishi. I heard it today on "Beatles Brunch" as I was driving to Mass. Of course, the interview clip was connected to their just having played "Sexy Sadie."

I don’t know what it means, either. Trite drug reference? A statement that the whole meditation scene was OK? Meaningless wordplay of the kind that Lennon reveled in? Dunno. I just liked the sound of it.

Maybe that’s why I bought all those records.

Mau-Mauing the Flak-Throwers

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My post earlier today linking to something in The Wall Street Journal reminded me of another piece that I never shared with you. It was in that paper (and yes, I do read other things) a week ago today: An interview with one of my all-time favorites, Tom Wolfe.

Have you ever wondered about the politics of the man who wrote Kandy-Kolored, Tangerine-Flaked, Streamline Baby, The Right Stuff, and other brilliant, thoroughly enjoyable works of journalism/social criticism before he turned into a somewhat-painful-to-read novelist? Well, if you read The Guardian, you wouldn’t wonder.

That’s all right; I don’t read The Guardian, either. But thanks to what he’s written in the past, there were no surprises for me in this passage from the WSJ:

Mr. Wolfe offers a personal incident as evidence of
"what a fashion liberalism is." A reporter for the New York Times
called him up to ask why George W. Bush was apparently a great fan of
the "Charlotte Simmons" book. "I just assumed it was the dazzling
quality of the writing," he says. In the course of the reporting,
however, it came out that Mr. Wolfe had voted for the Bush ticket. "The
reaction among the people I move among was really interesting. It was
as if I had raised my hand and said, ‘Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell
you, I’m a child molester.’" For the sheer hilarity, he took to wearing
an American flag pin, "and it was as if I was holding up a cross to
werewolves."

George Bush’s appeal, for Mr. Wolfe, was owing to his
"great decisiveness and willingness to fight." But as to "this business
of my having done the unthinkable and voted for George Bush, I would
say, now look, I voted for George Bush but so did 62,040,609 other
Americans. Now what does that make them? Of course, they want to say —
‘Fools like you!’ . . . But then they catch themselves,
‘Wait a minute, I can’t go around saying that the majority of the
American people are fools, idiots, bumblers, hicks.’ So they just kind
of dodge that question. And so many of them are so caught up in this
kind of metropolitan intellectual atmosphere that they simply don’t go
across the Hudson River. They literally do not set foot in the United
States. We live in New York in one of the two parenthesis states.
They’re usually called blue states — they’re not blue states, the
states on the coast. They’re parenthesis states — the entire country
lies in between."

The wonderful thing about this is the way Wolfe catches modern "liberals" out in their own lack of self-awareness so neatly: He sneaks up on them. Just, as Wolfe chronicled, Ken Kesey took the steam out of an anti-war rally with a harmonica and a couple of verses of "Home on the Range," the King of Coolwrite sneaks up on liberals by being an artist and intellectual. They think they are among their own, and then "… UHHH … Ohmigod! YOU voted for BUSH?" Once his prey is paralyzed, he slices and dices it. He makes jullienne fries out of ’em.

I’d love to see him do the same to modern "conservatives," but dressed the way he is, they’re liable to spook before he gets close enough.

What do I have against both of these groups? They quit thinking. They bought their values off the shelf years ago as a complete set; they’re completely unprepared for anything that doesn’t fit in their little boxes. The Wolfe scene above reminds me of a passage in Bridget Jones’s Diary (yeah, I read it; I wanted to know what the women in my family were going on about). I mean the bit in which Bridget has already fallen for Mark Darcy, and they’ve gotten together and are dating (actually, maybe this happened in the second book), and she finds out quite inadvertently that he votes Tory. She is aghast: How could he? When he asks what’s wrong with being a Tory, she is unable to come up with a coherent answer. Why? Because she hasn’t really thought about it, ever. It’s just that everyone she knows takes it as gospel that all decent, caring people vote Labour. What is this? Mark’s a human rights lawyer, for goodness’ sake…

Between Bridget and Wolfe, I prefer Wolfe, who by contrast told The Guardian:

"I cannot stand the lock-step among everyone in my particular world.
They all do the same thing, without variation. It gets so boring. There
is something in me that particularly wants it registered that I am not
one of them."

There’s a character flaw in there somewhere (one that I’m afraid comes out in his novels), but he’s so refreshing, I’m willing to overlook it.

The Burning Questions

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A colleague brought to my attention this quote from NAA Chairman Jay Smith on McClatchy‘s Gary Pruitt and his contributions on
the NAA Executive Committee:

Treasurer Gary Pruitt — the
tennis-playing, philosopher-quoting aging rocker (The Ramones still rule in his
world) and head of The McClatchy Co. in Sacramento — blends hisPruitt_crop_2 varied interests
with a cool, calculated approach that believes readers will always want quality
first. The go-to guy when consensus building is required, Gary is right about
readers, as he is about so many other things.

Yeah, but which is his favorite Ramone? And what about The Clash? And how could The Ramones rule a world that has Elvis Costello in it?

So many burning questions. I guess we’ll just have to wait until this all shakes out to learn the answers.

But I’ll mention it here

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A colleague and I were having lunch today with Tom Davis, whose title I’m always forgetting but who was described in a recent news story as "the governor’s deputy chief of staff and his top liaison to the
General Assembly" (see why I forget it?).

Most of it dealt with the rough couple of weeks he had had with the blowup between Gov. SanfordDavis and House Republicans over his spending cap, and the defeat Sanford forces suffered over the billboard issue.

But it strayed when he admired my discipline (after all, it’s a Friday in Lent, and he and I are both Catholic) in not only abstaining from meat, but forgoing dessert. Unwilling to take undeserved praise, I reminded him of my severe food allergies, and he said something about how I was kind of like Meg Ryan’s fiance in "Sleepless in Seattle." I suppose that’s right. (You ever notice how often allergies and asthma are used in the movies as shorthand to indicate weakness of character or lack of attractiveness as a mate, which is how it was used in this one — completely at odds with my own experience, I might add? Let a character take a quick puff on an inhaler, and you know that sooner or later, he will be found wanting.)

Anyway, Tom (shown above, in a photo that doesn’t do justice to his Pullmanesque qualities, but is the only picture I have) then mentioned something about that character having been played by Bill Pullman. At that point, I  exercised great restraint by not observing how much Tom looks like that actor. I was proud of myself. I mean, you never know — Tom might have been insulted. I would never, ever wish to embarrass him or make him feel awkward in public over such a trifle.

Of course, the blog is another matter.

Dances with Pretension

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Yes, Mark, of course we despise "Dances With Wolves!" It’s pretentious, silly, boring, condescending, tedious and intellectually offensive. The worst thing about it was that Hollywood thought it was profound, and that just confirms so much about Hollywood, doesn’t it?

You see, this "epic" — which I believe lasted about 14 hours, but it may have been longer — was intended to teach Deep Lessons to us hicks out here in Flyover Land all about the Noble Red Man. It seems that Hollywood had just discovered the American Indian, and learned that he was treated badly by the white man, and was going to teach all of us about it, because of COURSE we couldn’t have heard about it out here.

Never mind that the theme of the Noble Savage had been done to death in the early 19th century by James Fenimore Cooper, as any literate person (a category that, as near as I can tell, does not involve anyone in Hollywood) would know.

Or that the theme had become so passe that Mark Twain brutally satirized it later in the century. And remember, Twain was a very liberal, free-thinking sort, but he could not abide pretension.

Or that Hollywood — John Ford, no less — had decades previously given the subject serious, respectable treatment, in a way that might make even John Wayne feel guilty about the white man’s role.

Or that Hollywood, in a more thoughtful era, had even satirized that. In fact, let’s consider "Little Big Man" for a moment. It had fun with almost every Western cliche you can think of, including that of the noble, mystical Red Man (and yes, that was, is, and always will be a cliche, which is my point here — the people making "Dances with Wolves" were not sophisticated enough to know that; they actually thought they were breaking new ground, and that is what is so embarrassing and offensive about it).

"Little Big Man" paid the American Indian the compliment of treating him as a human being, rather than as a stereotype, positive or negative. Director Arthur Penn had the good sense to give his Indians — who, appropriately enough, referred to themselves collectively as "the Human Beings" — the full range of human attributes. They were brave, silly, wise, stupid, tragic, comic and so forth.

The best bit in the whole movie was when Chief Dan George, the wise, earthy Grandfather, decided it was "a good day to die," and went out and lay down to do just that. Of course, the viewer thinks, "Wow, Indians can really do that? I guess it’s because they’re just so much more attuned to the universe than we are." A few moments later, raindrops hit his apparently lifeless face. He opens his eyes and asks Dustin Hoffman whether he is dead yet. A relieved Hoffman says no, so Grandfather gets up with the younger man’s help, shrugs and says something to the effect of, well, maybe some other day would be a better day to die. Or so I remember; I don’t have it at hand to check.

It was so down-to-earth, real, fallible and human. And for those reasons, Grandfather actually is noble — unlike the cardboard cutouts of "Dances With Wolves."

Do you see what I’m saying?

As for "Apocalypse Now" — I’ll deal with that, at least in passing, in my next post. As it happens, my thoughts on it are sort of the opposite of Dave’s.

Such excellent bad cinema!

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Ow! Ow! Those are some awful ones! As Count Floyd would say, "Really, really scary! And in 3-D!" In fact, y’all have reminded me of so many wasted hours, and raised so many bad-movie vistas, that I’m going to have to think awhile, and maybe come back tomorrow with my own list. (Besides, I just got in after 10 hours on the road driving back from Memphis.)

How will I ever narrow it down? In fact, I’m wondering — should we have two categories? One could be, "movies that you would expect to be awful," such as "Plan 9" or anything from Ed Wood. I think "Night of the Lepus" and some like that would fit in that category. (I mean, as opposed to those Bruce Campbell vehicles that should have been bad, but turned out to be such classics.)

Second category would include such big-budget, much-anticipated flicks as "Dune," "Waterworld," and AAAUUGGHHHH "Dances With Wolves." I had forgotten some of those movies, they were so bad. Those are some great suggestions. In fact, I can see a whole wonderful SUBcategory of "books you liked or even loved, and looked forward to the movie for years, but were excruciatingly disappointed." "Dune" would by no means be alone there. Think, "Bonfire of the Vanities." (I’ve got a really bad feeling Tom Hanks may be about to repeat that mistake in "The Da Vinci Code." You know who should have played the lead in "Bonfire?" Kelsey Grammer. He has the chin, the accent and the precise pompous air that the character needs.)

Oh, and in a whole other field, here: Extra points to Uncle Elmer for coming up with "Pi." Excellent choice, my friend. It shows an excruciating dedication to seeking out the worst in cinema.

Oh, one other thing: As a golfer, I must defend Mr. Costner for having made "Tin Cup," and for his goofy turn in "Silverado." And I enjoyed "The Untouchables," although the largest credit for that belongs to Sean Connery (AND Charles Martin Smith AND Andy Garcia). But "Dances with Wolves" pretty much threw away any merit those performances got him. I’ll bet that one made more sense in German, Herb, nicht wahr?

In fact, let’s kick him again for one nobody mentioned: "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves."

Distraction

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Well, here I stand, in the same spot where I stood when I wrote this, and in complementary circumstances. Consider this one a bookend to the other.

The last one was written two or three weeks after I started the blog. It reflects energy and excitement at playing with my new medium. It also reflects the fact that I was just beginning my caffeine fixation at the time, and a single grande cup of Starbucks House Blend could set my brain into creative (or at least, fanciful) overdrive. Also, that earlier flight of fancy was an attempt to distract my mind from the fact that I was here because this is where my mother-in-law lived, and she had just a few days before fallen and hit her head and gone into a coma.

As I write this one, I am weary. I’m still pretty much devoted to the blog, but without that initial excitement. Caffeine has become a thing I need to function, rather than a rare treat. I just finished my second grande of the day, and there is no creative rush. The problem with my shoulders (perhaps intensified by the caffeine) has become a more-or-less constant pain, which becomes worse when I lie down, making a full night’s sleep nigh impossible. I just took a muscle relaxer, which I washed down with coffee, but I still remain self-deceptive enough to hope it works. And yesterday, we buried my mother-in-law, whom I loved very much.

But I’m not here to write about that. I’ll continue the Hemingway thing to that extent. (As Jake said to Lady Brett near the end — and I just went to the bookstore’s shelves to check the quote — "You’ll lose it if you talk about it," to which she responded, "I just talk around it.") Since I was not alive to be there on June 6, I have to say that yesterday was my Longest Day. It will take some time for me to digest the years of profound experience packed into those few hours. The digesting, and the unpacking of the memories, will be something for me and my closest loved ones, not for a public blog.

No, I’m here to distract myself. So I went skimming the New York Times site, and ran across this. Which brings up the question, was or was not David Lynch’s "Dune" the worst film in history? I mentioned this point in passing in a previous post — this seems to be a self-referential day for this blog — but the topic didn’t really take off that time.)

I’m quite sure it was, but I’m open to any interesting — and distracting — arguments to the contrary. If it was NOT, in your mistaken opinion, the worst film ever, tell which one you think was, and give me the reasons why. (And I’ll be glad to elaborate later as to why Lynch holds the title.)

Better yet, to return to an earlier, abortive attempt to start a new and fun category, give me your Top Five Worst Movies Ever, with short explanations on each. After you’ve jogged my memory a bit, I’ll come back with my own list. And yes, you may include "Plan 9 From Outer Space," if you insist. But don’t you think that one’s a bit obvious?

Sure, this is silly, but work with me here. If you want substance, go back to this one. Cindi’s doing substance for me today. I’m doing trivia.

You gotta believe

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So I see there’s this guy coming to Columbia to talk about how the Church can win back Americans lost in "soulless materialism." That sounds good. Then I see the guy is described as a "priest." But I see that in his picture that he doesn’t look like a priest.

Then I see that the Rev. James Allen is an Episcopalian, and retired at that. Oh. That explains the civvies. Okay. Anyway, maybe this is just my own prejudice as a Roman, but I’d just as soon see the Church wither away as save itself by the means he suggests.

Basically, it’s that same old depressing mantra you hear more and more these days: Here’s his way of putting it: "The emphasis on ‘right believing’ is what divides people, and it is only one theme of the Bible," opines the Rev. James Adams, founder of something called — and this is a heads-up in and of itself — "The Center for Progressive Christianity."

Well, maybe that’s so, if you’re speaking from your Cambridge, Mass., home. But down here among the great unwashed, among folks who’ve actually read the Bible (or, in my case, large swaths of it — remember, I am Catholic), it strikes a very dissonant chord.

Excuse me, but isn’t that what a religion is: A certain set of beliefs? If you don’t subscribe to those beliefs, you don’t subscribe to that religion. It’s a free country, and the door swings both ways. It’s up to you. If your goal is to be a megachurch, then you take the marketing approach and give the "customer" what he wants: Entertainment, gymnasiums, child care, coffee bars and the like.

But if you really want to discern and follow God’s truth, you’re going to have to be a grownup and accept a few "thou shalts" and "thou shalt nots" that you didn’t get to vote on. In other words, you’re going to have to be humble enough to submit to something greater than your own capricious will.

As for the Bible — yeah, there’s some parts in there about parting seas, and massacring one’s enemies, and a Lion’s den, and some songs of praise, and quite a bit of fornication here and there, but the fundamental heart of it is mostly about what we’re supposed to believe and do. In fact, it’s hard to imagine it being the continuing best-seller it is without those parts. Without the morals, it would pretty much be a collection of curious ancient literary antiquities like the Epic of Gilgamesh or some such.

He says that to be more welcoming, the Church needs to be a place of "open, free discussion where nobody has to be made wrong."

Now I find myself wondering: Would no one be wrong? How about somebody who decides that all that "love thy neighbor" and "judge not lest ye be judged" stuff was for the birds, and that it was OK to hit people over the head with a hammer if they didn’t agree? I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with such a Church, and I sort of doubt that Rev. Allen would, either.

Hubba-hubba on the obit page

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I was really glad to see our front page follow up on the death of the former pin-up girl out of Myrtle Beach.

My eyes really lit up when I saw the image at rightJewel_evans_2 Wednesday. I’ve been in this business more than three decades now, and I had never seen anything like that on an obit page. My first reaction was, well, sort of like in those old cartoons, when Bugs Bunny’s or Porky Pig’s face turns into a reasonable facsimile of the Big Bad Wolf, complete with drawn-out whistle, eyes bugging, and tongue hanging.

My second reaction was, "What happened? She looks plenty healthy to me."

My third was to realize that this was a 1940s style pinup, of the type that used to appear as nose art on WWII bombers — an art form I’ve always appreciated. I wasn’t alive then, but somehow my tastes — with regard to some things — seem to be very compatible with that period. Some of my ideas do, as well. I was extremely disappointed
when 9-11 failed to produce the kind of nonpartisan national unity that Pearl Harbor did. I’ve always wanted to experience that.

Anyway, back to the pinup: My next reaction was to go to the Web and see whether this woman really had been a big-time pinup. In my haste, I typed "’Jewel Evans’ pinup" instead of using what was apparently her maiden name, "Jewel FLOWERS." The first search pulled up an entirely different sort of image, the kind I won’t link to on a family blog.

I did find her, in connection with Vargas-style artist Rolf Armstrong. The image reproduced above seems to have been the favorite, although others can be found.

If I had been one of those WWII soldiers (something which, if reincarnation is for real, I probably was) who wrote to her, I probably would have told her I liked her better than Betty Grable. I think that’s because Betty’s most famous pose tends to call attention to assets beyond her legs, while Jewel’s is all about her pins (well, and her face, which was also more attractive than Betty’s). You see, I disagree entirely with Jerry Seinfeld, who famously said:

"A leg man? Why would I be a leg man? I don’t need legs. I have legs."

Not like those you don’t, Jerry.

Are transvestites so bad?

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This first struck me in reading Wednesday’s letters to the editor (if you follow the link, it’s the first letter), but when I saw the very same argument being made in a letter in today’s paper (in this case, the last one), I had to say something.

Both letters complain about our having run a Pat Oliphant cartoon making fun of all the hoo-hah overOliph_2 "Brokeback Mountain." For those too lazy to follow the links, here’s an excerpt from the first letter:

The comment from the “cowboy”: “Of course, they’re pearls, silly — what
else would I wear with basic black?” is what puzzles me. I know a
thousand gay men, including many in Darlington County, and not one of
them speaks this way, owns a set of pearls or has any interest in
women’s jewelry. That’s quite a slur.

It is?, I thought. Anyway, I set that aside until the Thursday letter, which in part said:

The cartoon appearing on the Saturday Opinion page regarding the harm
done to the cowboy image by the film “Brokeback Mountain” was a cheap
shot aimed at perpetuating insulting stereotypes of gay people.

Do you see the common thread (aside from the fact that neither writer is overly blessed with a sense of humor)? In both cases, the cartoon supposedly insults gay people by associating them with transvestites. This suggests that there’s something wrong with a man who wants to wear women’s clothing (or in this case, accessories).

This seems kind of judgmental to me. Did it seem that way to you?

This forced association of homosexuality and transvestism, which Mr. Oliphant is obviously using to ironic effect to mock the controversy (stereotypes are a fundamental part of the language of cartoons; the more absurd, the better), reminds me of a previous work of humor. I’m thinking of a particular sketch in Woody Allen’s "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But were Afraid to Ask)," the one titled, "Are Transvestites Homosexual?"

It certainly wasn’t the best bit in the movie. I vaguely recall Lou Jacobi being mildly amusing when, having snuck upstairs to the master bedroom, he pranced about in great delight wearing a dress belonging to his hostess. I don’t recall the putative question ever being answered, except that it seemed obvious that he was not supposed to be gay, but was a "regular guy" who got off on cross-dressing.

But that title, which I suppose came directly from the original book, seems in retrospect to contain a judgmental suggestion aimed not at transvestites (comical as they may presumably be), but at homosexuals. In "Are Transvestites Homosexual?," there’s a certain hint of, "Is there anything really wrong with transvestites?"

That was 1972 — well before it became unacceptable in Hollywood to suggest that there’s anything wrong about being homosexual. Much has changed since then. Today, we’ve got folks sticking up for homosexuals (defenders of tolerance, in other words) who call any suggestion of transvestism — even an ironic one — a "slur."

Is this progress?

And you thought Vegas couldn’t get any tackier…

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I’ll give you a little rest from writing your own captions. Here’s a real-life photo and caption from AP. Leave it to an operation with Myrtle Beach ties to teach tacky to Las Vegas. Maybe this could be taken to the next level if they made a "reality" TV show about it, but that’s about the only way I can think of.

Hooters

Bartenders gather at the bar area for training at Hooters hotel-casino
in Las Vegas on Wednesday, Feb.1, 2006. Hooters’ first ever
hotel-casino, featuring 696 rooms and a 30,000 square foot casino with
more than 200 Hooters Girls, officially opens on Friday. (AP Photo/Jae
C. Hong)

New category! Top five lists

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So I was reading our special section last week on this year’s "20 Under 40," and thinking what a fine, upstanding groups of youngsters this was, when I got sidetracked — I started checking out what they listed as their "favorite movie," and suddenly the popular-culture snob in me came out for a romp, and I started looking only at that criterion, and began to judge them much more harshly.

Note that I realize full well that what this illustrates is shallowness and misplaced priorities on my part, rather than reflecting negatively upon our 20 honorees. Obviously, these folks spend their time and energy on more serious matters. This is why they are on a "20 Under 40" list, and I never was.

But indulge me here (which, come to think of it, is something you do every time you waste valuable time reading this blog). I mean, don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed "Red Dawn." I’m not one of those left-wingers who dismiss it as mere right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda. (Of course, it was right-wing Cold War paranoid propaganda, but that was part of its charm; it wasn’t afraid to be what it was.) But favorite movie of all time? I don’t think so. Still, this young gentleman should get points for taking a risk with his pick (something I utterly fail to do with my own list below, I’ll admit), and that’s worth something. But risky choices need to be defensible.

Far more impressive was Mary Pat Baldauf‘s esoteric selection of "A Face in the Crowd." Now there’s a film buff. I mean, even though I’ve heard great things about it, I haven’t even seen it myself (although I just got it from Netflix and hope to watch it this weekend), but it’s got great snob appeal. Think about it — Andy Griffith, before he was famous, shining in a serious, dark role. And don’t forget it’s got Patricia Neal in it. So way to go there, Ms. Baldauf. And please note, she dared to list "old movies (especially from the 1950s and 1960s)" as a personal passion, which raised the bar on the discriminating reader’s expectations. So this was quite a high-wire act, and she pulled it off beautifully.

I would applaud Cynthia Blair‘s choice of "The Usual Suspects" (although, being more obvious, it’s not as cool as Ms. Baldauf’s), but it’s listed as "last movie," rather than "favorite," which just doesn’t count for as much.

So where am I headed with this? Well, as an ardent admirer of Nick Hornby‘s masterful High Fidelity — and as one who also thoroughly enjoyed the film adaptation (in spite of their having moved the setting from London to Chicago, it was rescued by a stellar cast, with Jack Black turning in a mind-blowing performance as Barry) — I have been tempted for some time to start a "top five" category on this blog.

What’s stopped me? Well, fear, I suppose — fear of being savaged by the real pop culture snobs, because I know my own tastes are fairly pedestrian, truth be told. There are an awful lot of Barrys out there ready to tear into my picks the way the original Barry dissed Rob’s and Dick’s. But ultimately, as a reader-participation exercise, this could be fun. So let’s do it.

I had wanted to start this with something less obvious, such as "top five movie endings," or "top five cover songs that feature the original artist singing backup," or some such. But since I just got on the under-40 crowd about favorite movies, let’s start with that very vanilla sort of list:

1. "It’s a Wonderful Life."
2. "The Godfather."
3. "Casablanca."
4. "The Graduate."
5. "High Noon."

Or maybe number four or five should have been "Saving Private Ryan" or …

Yes, I know. I’m stretching the concept of "vanilla" until it screams. Barry would call that list "very …". Well, never mind what Barry would call it, since this is a family blog. But hey — the best movies of all time are obvious, if they’re really the best. I could have thrown in "Life is Beautiful" or "36 Hours" or "Office Space" or something that had a little individuality to it. But I had to be honest.

I promise to do something a little more intriguing the next time I visit this category.

Meanwhile, I’m anxious to know what y’all think — not only your own "top five movies," which I’m sure will put mine to shame. I’d also like your suggestions for future lists.

Assuming, of course, that you dare…

Did I miss anything?

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In spite of all the hype — something that usually puts me off and makes me choose to spend my time in other ways — I had intended to watch "The Book of Daniel" Friday night, and completely forgot.

What I want to know is, did I miss anything? I sort of suspect not. I see that The New York Times pretty much panned it. The reviewer was unbothered by the overdone dysfunctionality (and it’s really ridiculous, when you read a one-or-two-paragraph synopsis) of the characters or perceived mockeryDaniel of faith, but basically thought it just wasn’t very well done:

The real mark against "The Book of Daniel" is not any antipathy it
might show toward the family or sympathy for the devil. The real
objection is that it’s just not very good.

Only one thing had made me want to watch it. In the promo I saw on the boob tube, the title character is having a chat with Jesus, and complains, "Aren’t you supposed to comfort me?," to which an amused Christ replies, "Where did you read that?"

I liked the understanding that seemed to show of the concept that Christian faith is supposed to challenge us, not make us feel comfortable with ourselves.

Of course, I strongly suspect that was the best bit in the show — although I’ll wait until I have a chance to see it before assuming that’s true. That’s often the way with promos and previews. In fact, that was the case with the movie I watched on DVD Friday night instead of watching "Daniel."

That was "The Island," and the line that pulled me in — and unfortunately, by implication pretty much gave away the plot — was when Steve Buscemi said to Scarlett Johansson, "Well, excuse me, Miss I’m-So-Smart-I-Can’t-Wait-to-Go-to-the-Island." (At least, I think that’s what he said. I’ll check the DVD when I get home and correct as needed.)

Mr. Buscemi was good as always, and all things considered, it wasn’t a bad bit of escapist entertainment, once you accept that it’s little more than an updated version of "Logan’s Run" with higher production values.

But since I missed "Daniel" while watching it, help me out: What did y’all think of it?

Don’t be a FREAKIN’ IDIOT!

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While most of my readers seem to get more into Serious Issues of The Day, I try to leaven my offerings with a little fun. Sometimes that falls flat. But I’ll try once again, by sharing this item, which a colleague brought to my attention, knowing my fondness for the movie in question.

It seems that lawmakers in the state of Idaho — which doesn’t really spend a lot of time in the national limelight — passed a resolution showing their appreciation to the makers of "Napoleon Dynamite," the phenomenally successful little indie film, set in a tiny Idaho town, about a geeky high school student who finds acceptance by following his heart. At least, I think that’s what it was about. If you ask the makers, they’ll probably say, "It’s about what I FEEL like makin’ it about, what do you think? GOSH!"

I realize this is gibberish if you haven’t seen the film; it may be gibberish if you have seen it. Anyway, my favorite part of House Concurrent Resolution 29 is this:

WHEREAS, any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN’ IDIOTS!"

Hence my headline.

The Idaho Falls Post Register‘s report on the legislative action ended with this:

The only "freakin idiots" in the Senate, by the way, were Davis and Assistant Majority Leader Joe Stegner of Lewiston.

It DOES mean something, Mr. Natural

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Totally off any subject at hand, and probably not worth reading, but I’m still reeling from having wasted two hours of my life, so why should you be spared…

In a post toward the end of last month, I made a completely superfluous reference to underground cartoonist Robert Crumb’s Mr. Natural character. I won’t be making such casual links in the future, at least, not to that individual’s creations. Last night, my wife and I watched "Crumb," the David Lynch-produced biographical documentary. We had sort of enjoyed "American Splendor," in which Paul Giamatti managed to make Harvey Pekar‘s excruciatingly mundane existence interesting. Since that oddball flick was based in the "reality" comic book illustrated by Mr. Crumb, we thought (no, I thought; I take full responsibility) the 1994 film about him might also be engaging. We were (I was) wrong.

I came away from the film with one overwhelming impression:

Boy, that R. Crumb is one twisted (expletive).

Excuse my implied language, but I just had no idea. And yet I should have. It’s right there in his work, and if there’s ever been a better illustration of the truism that "by their fruits ye shall know them," it is the work of Mr. Crumb. (And yes, I read the part of that chapter that said "judge not," but read on.)

I never was a fan of Zap Comix or any of Mr. Crumb’s other work, but I was exposed to some of it at the time (although not much more beyond the ubiquitous "Keep on Truckin’" thing, and the Janis Joplin/Big Brother and the Holding Company album cover and such). And back then, I just thought this was a guy whose imagination was a little out there on the fringe of the kind of countercultural stuff that shocked our parents but that I tended to shrug at. I didn’t embrace it, but I wasn’t all that horrified, either. I was very young, and had not yet figured out that in one sense of the word (see sense 2), "discrimination" can be a healthy thing.

If the documentary got it right, the stuff in those comics was not just the product of a warped, hyperactive imagination with a penchant for mocking social mores. The problem was, he wasn’t entirely making this stuff up. According to those interviewed for the film, those twisted characters acting out abnormal, fetishistic sexual obsessions with a complete lack of regard for the human objects of their perversions actually were R. Crumb, in a real sense. As former wife after former girlfriend (one of them a professional pornographer) after family member, and Mr. Crumb himself, repeatedly asserts in the film, he not only thought like that, he acted like that. At one point, he acknowledges that he doesn’t think he has ever actually loved any woman. His relationships — or what we learn of them — tend to bear this out. As for some of the other twisted stuff — such as the drawings that pushed extreme racial stereotypes far beyond mere satire — the viewer is left without any satisfactory explanation.

All of that said (and here’s where I get to the "judge not" part), the film also made clear that the tree that is Robert Crumb was severely bent as a twig. No, it’s not an excuse, but it does appear to be part of the explanation. As Mr. Crumb and his brothers related, their father brutalized them (breaking the artist’s collarbone one Christmas) and their mother was an amphetamine addict who attacked the father (to the point that he wore makeup to work to cover where she had clawed his face). Both of the brothers were withdrawn and dysfunctional — neither was able to make his way in life in even the unconventional manner that their famous sibling has. One of them, who lived with their mother, never ventured forth into the world and spent his days in a psychiatric prescription drug fog, committed suicide a year after the filming.

There were also two sisters, but they declined to be a part of the film, indicating that at least someone in the family was capable of making good decisions.

It was profoundly depressing. And if I ever found anything in Mr. Crumb’s work even mildly amusing before, I won’t in the future, knowing where his "art" comes from.

Come to think of it, the fact that I watched the film all the way to the end makes me wonder a little about myself. And if you read all the way to the end of this, I sort of wonder about you, too.

Back to work.