Friday, October 26, 2007

The Gifted Few

Sundance Channel's been spamming about their "Iconoclasts" series which is in its third season. I'm catching the beginning of the first ep which has Sean Penn and John Krackauer going up to "the wild" in Alaska.

What horseshit.

You shoulda heard these guys wacking off in their preambles, about how one considers himself a good writer, but not an artist "like him." About how hard it is to make a morning call as an actor because he's "just not there for a couple of hours, no matter what I've done the previous night," and how that's really hard because he has to comport his art with a limited economic timeframe. Krackauer humbly boasts [sic] about how when he mountain climbs he feels so connected blah blah blah.

This is all true, I tell ya.

The whole thing smells like this intellectual fart party, and even when it doesn't - like when Penn admits he can afford to go to Iraq as a journalist - the smell lingers. And it's made just as pretentiously - poignancy jerkoffs will have a field day orgasming dry over meaningful close ups and cutaways replete with new age-y soundtrack. But that's not even it's raison d'etre'.

The studio jerkoffs have their pr flacks get their hands in it as well.

Oh yeah, Penn made a movie about that other jerkoff - another crazy white liberal - who left everything and lived off the land. So Krackauer wrote the book, Penn's a fan of Krackauer ("he's my Jack London") and you get the picture. (pun intended)

This reminds me of one of those flashbacks from the "Kung Fu" series where, in my mis-spent youth, I once heard a very wise person say: "You know, you can sit on the floor cross-legged for a hundred years and never meditate."

Which is to say that it's fascinating the way people fool themselves into thinking that they are somehow enlightened, but what's equally fascinating to me is this grand machine - politics, media, business... all anchored of course by cash flow and reified by marketing. And that last point is not less significant to any other here because if it's true that the politicos operate this huge pr machine then it's equally true that the machine which manufactures consent on "art" or rather, what constitutes legit art, is in full effect.

And man, do people love that notion of art by the few. That's what made rock 'n roll, the punk "movement" and work of the early hip hop DJs so interesting, so vital and electric; it was something from nothing. Not codified, uncharted.

That's what makes Duchamp's R. Mutt urinal thumb in the eye to pretentiousness so great, so timeless as a reminder. A forgotten reminder.

With this single piece of "creation" Duchamp spat in the eye of elitists and said, no, art is all around us and it's also not what you're told it is. It's ready-made. It's done by "everyone." Because I say so.

That's pretty defiantly rock 'n roll, and modern to a fault.

And the value-added point that art, creativity, enlightenment, wisdom, meaning, light... despite what the machine constantly spams forth, is certainly not the sole province of the gifted few. Maybe not at all.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

What do you do when a child is on fire?

Like so many events throughout America’s past, the story of the Camden 28 has virtually been forgotten. Today, two filmmakers, Anthony Giacchino and David Dougherty, are working to save this history. I am supporting them because I believe that one of the worst things about the way history is taught is that it ignores or minimizes those times in history when people who are apparently powerless have gotten together, organized themselves and accomplished remarkable things. And something remarkable happened in Camden. The Camden 28 action and trial is worthy of being remembered because it will help educate the American public about civil disobedience, the importance of protest, and the citizen's role in a democracy.

- Howard Zinn

This doc on PBS' Independent Lens was ok; The Camden 28 were some crazy muthaphukas; well-intentioned, crazy white liberals but in this case at least the type of crazy white liberals who move to action that leads to infamy. In their case, they were breaking into draft boards and destroying draft notices. That's some crazy shit!


We are twenty-eight men and women who, together with other resisters across the country, are trying with our lives to say “no” to the madness we see perpetrated by our government in the name of the American people – the madness of our Vietnam policy, of the arms race, of our neglected cities and inhuman prisons. We do not believe that it is criminal to destroy pieces of paper which are used to bind men to involuntary servitude, which train these men to kill, and which send them to possibility die in an unjust, immoral, and illegal war. We stand for life and freedom and the building of communities of true friendship. We will continue to speak out and act for peace and justice, knowing that our spirit of resistance cannot be jailed or broken.


The beginning of the flick was cool, because the narrator--one of the 28--posed a question in light of the famous Nick Ut pic of the Viet girl (Kim Phuc) running naked down the road due to a napalm attack:


WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN A CHILD IS ON FIRE -- WRITE A LETTER?

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Valerie Plame

First and foremost, it was a great betrayal of national security.

-Joseph Wilson on his wife's treasonous out-ing by Cheney, Rove, Libby, Armitage, and Novak.

60 Minutes ran Plame's interview a few weeks ago, and so I thought I'd run Joseph Wilson's op-ed that got that ball rolling. Also, I love how Gotti was referred to as the teflon don. Well, if that's the case, what is it when you have a bunch of devils like this current administration running hog-wild, doing whatever, but Bubba got impeached for a bj???

Laughing from crying...

New York Times
Sunday, July 6, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What I Didn't Find in Africa
By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th

WASHINGTON -- Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Eagle Rock Music Festival

This past weekend was the 9th Annual Eagle Rock Music Festival, and I can say unequivocally that this was the most fun I've had in the longest time and all in all, it was SUPER entertaining.

But that's not even the punch line. Here it is: IT'S FREE, peoples!!!

Now, before I get into more, let me give big ups to the LA denizens. There must have been 100K swarming the fest, in every nook and cranny. Colorado is on a slope, so that when you're at the eastern most portion of it, you can look back down, and it was a teeming swarm of humanity. It looked like a mini Woodstock west!!!

Okay, with that outta da way...

FACTS, HIGHLIGHTS, ETC:

1. It's advertised at 40 bands
2. It covered at least 5 or 6 blocks long
3. There must have been at least 10 stages/music venues. It was unbelievable...
4. Some of the acts JP saw:
a. Dengue Fever
b. Black Shakespeare
c. The Mama Suki
d. Hecuba
e. The Sirens
f. The Curs
g. "Special Guests"

Bummer: I missed Jessica Fichot, but think I might've lost patience with her in the end.

I thought the punk stage was the most entertaining and clearly was my link back to the halcyon LA of the 80's. The Sirens - an all gal Latina band - was kicking it pretty good, and the Curs were the most musically inclined, had the best sense of humor and displayed the most intelligence of the night. Surprisingly (pleasantly so) they were young kids blending punk and rockabilly in a power trio with an upright bass, quasi surf dos and matching blue leotards. But the most fun was watching the mosh pit - the look of glee on their mugs...

There was one lowlight; Dengue Fever is one of those hybridized, LA fusion bands that hipsters fall all out over. I hate "Morning Becomes Eclectic" but imagine they're a big hit there.

They're alright - long on gimmick, short on ... well, you get it. I mean, they're entertaining for about 15 minutes but you definitely get their schtick within seconds, at which point it becomes how much you can tolerate. Hey, I'm Asian, and I can only take so much of tinny, whiny, nasally vocals. I must say though that the contrast between lead singer Chhom Nimol and bass player Senon Williams is a riot - he's about 2 feet taller.

They were one of the headliners on the main stage and were churning ahead, when out of the corner of my eye I saw them: CRAZY WHITE LIBERALS!!!

As DF were in the middle of one of their patented Farfisa-led jams, these stupid broads sashayed across our proscenium, doing this goofy faux belly dancing, mimicking Chhom Nimol's hand movements and the like. Yeah, I called them stupid broads but trust me, I want more.

On a side note, the LA Weekly, that ode to everything "me" that is SO my city, was running on the very same night their own fest in downtown. It looked very mersh, as The Minutemen used to say. (SHOUT OUT: Mike Watt, now with The Stooges!!!) With this one event Eagle Rock, their Center for the Arts and the City of LA supports a lot of indie bands, the local merchants have a field day and the community has a great event.

So, minus the dose of Orientalism, let me say that if you love indie music y'all need to mark your calendars for next year.