It's about time I wrote about Mikey DelCampo, aka, Sour Shoes, a Stern misfit. Unlike the Wack Pack, SS is talented and has a sense of pop history. I listened to his recent holiday show and broke out laughing so many times and had a smile on my mug I'm glad I was working alone. He's been a contributor to the Stern Show for a long time, but was only given his Sirius show fairly recently.
I don't suffer entertainers easily - I walk out on movies all the time. Folks, I listened to his show four times!!!
It's weird to describe what SS does - basically he can play classic rock/pop at the drop of a hat, some impressions, and some wacky voices. For me it's a combination of his deep play list, chops, cultural references, and manic delivery. He edits on the fly - one sec he's riffing on Alan Parsons, and all of a sudden Marv Albert is calling play by play, then without missing a beat Parsons is back. And he does it all impromptu, because callers make their requests and he just goes. In fact, the holiday show he produced had a girl call in who somehow had knowledge of an old 70's kids show, "New Zoo Revue." And he riffed on it!
The guy's also kind of a maniac; he's 30+, lives with his parents and is practically a virgin. No wonder he's got so many skills. But what's super funny is he'll call the Stern Show which airs at 7am EST and be wailing away, and Howard, Artie or Fred will just crack up and say, "Can you imagine what his parents must be thinking, listening to this ruckus this early in the morning?"
Seriously, the dude has issues; Stern said that SS used to follow him around NYC while he was doing his business, until one day he had to read him the riot act. Thankfully, SS continued to call in, evidently, constantly.
His Scotty Ferrall is indistinguishable from the real Ferrall. The guy is so entertaining, and kudos to Stern for giving him his show. Personally, I think he should just have Sour Shoes in the studio, kind of like what talk shows do with a band.
I'm a man without a corporation. ~Paddy Chayefsky
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Not My Idea, but I'll Take the Check, Thank You.
Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.
-T.S. Eliot
I've just watched Naomi Klein on her Charlie Rose book flacking tour, and I must say, while there's no doubting her good intentions, (here I go again), it amazes me how what passes for insight and incisiveness is "just another white liberal's discovery of (fill in the blank)."
Her take on "disaster capitalism" (I can see her editor chiding her, "You need a buzz phrase! You know, like, "The L word," to make it stick), which basically boils down to a catastrophe (natural or human-made), posits that when a population is in calamitous shock that it is a prime time for monetization, baby. So, bomb the fuck out of the Japs and then bomb them with credit cards.
What dope can't see that? What dope hasn't seen that, a loooooong time ago?
It gets better, folks. In 2005 she was evidently on some big fat list of "world's leading intellectuals" or some such poll taken on the net. Whoopee friggin' doo, now brainiacs have an Oscar show cum People's Choice Awards. And although Chomsky came out on top, Camille Paglia, I see, is still around, although she did come in behind Wolfowtiz. Gotdam, I don't think I could live with myself if the world said Wolfie was smarter than me. Oy.
Given her lineage, Klein's prominence is just the natural growth spurt of a pre-ordained chain of events. In fact, one would have been surprised if she had not been successful, what with her blue blood.
Her forte, evidently, is globalization, and I thought it amusing in the least when she was going on about the WTO protests in Seattle a few back. She said, and I paraphrase, that "the irony of it all was that protests were happening worldwide, facilitated by globalized networks... that the protests were really about the march of corporations..." And other such horseshit.
I suppose this marks the latest litcrit fad as a conflation of the mundane and the obvious. My, how out of touch I am.
It also points out how certain people have opportunity before them, and how most people these days really have nothing to say, then plagarize, steal and co-opt. Gladwell's "Tipping Point" is a perfect example; what marketer worth their salt isn't familiar with what he talks about? Even more pernicious is the way in which recycling takes an evil bent, as with Herrnstein & Murray's "The Bell Curve." (Which couched 17th century "scientific" eugenics in a modern-day take and aims its scope at "inferior" mud peeps. Stephen Jay Gould, god love him, blasted Murray [Herrnstein died shortly after publication from intellectual dishonesty] to smithereens. Ah, Gould, where are those who have sipped from your golden cup?)
To her credit, Klein talked about the way Bechtel was monetizing water (I believe in Bolivia) and the way water prices rose 300% and the evil way it was claiming unfair competition when citizens were capturing rain water! What she failed to deconstruct are the ways in which, when corporations install themselves, they are aptly positioned to lobby and institute the system of payoffs in order to leverage their monetary interests into political reality and then subsequent leverages. Talk about unfair competition.
But even more egregious, she passes this "discovery" of hers off as if she were Columbus. The truth is, Alan Snitow produced and directed an excellent doc, Thirst, in 2004. While Klein told Rose that she had been laboring for four years on her book, anyone who's produced a movie -- especially one as auspicious as Thirst which spans several countries -- knows pre-production not to mention research and then raising money (unless one is rich) begins way before production, much less release, the latter sometimes occurring years after production.
I don't fault Klein for putting the topic out on the table for discussion and in fact appreciate it; I do fault her not citing Snitow's work. Surely a non-fiction writer as acclaimed as her ("No Logo") must do hardcore research. How could she not mention Snitow's film? It's not like it was relegated to the doc ghetto, after all, in perfect poetic/ironic symmetry, it aired on PBS's POV, Rose's own network!!!
$ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $
Now the conversation on my part will shift gears, although it relates to Klein's theme, because I want to talk about recent history; the rise of global capital and, specifically, the way it was enacted via its audience. Is it wrong for Klein to say that corporations go forth and run roughshod over the world in the pursuit of capital expansion and profit? Of course not, but one of the "problems" of her kind of analysis is that she falls into the trap of examining symptoms, or re-labeling symptoms as causes, while positing the wrong things as causal agents. Yes, corporations are "bad" and "do bad things", but they are only the expression of what enabled them to do so - an American capitalist system.
For the individual, dis-empowered as they may be, I think it can be persuasively argued that macro arguments such as these obfuscate and further the illusion that there's simply nothing to do. Thus, the, "What can I do, I'm just one person?" syndrome remains unchallenged.
Now drill further; by what means have these corporations extracted their booty from the laity? For my money, that's the trillion dollar question.
First, we have to understand an axiom; that as a basic principle, and insofar as it concerns global capital, nothing is reified in this world without an audience. Global capital as mass consumption defined in absolute, demands large common denominators.
Second, what are the means of capturing said audience?
A brief historical look back is first in order. (I've actually mentioned this before in this blog) It's a favorite question of mine to ask friends, "Only 3 or 4 decades ago, the baby boomers protested against and helped stop a war, ousted an evil president, fought for civil rights, and women's rights. But in the 80's all of that began to radically change with the rise of the Yuppies, Wall Street and the `greed is good' zinger, paving the way toward the present day march of globalization. How did that happen in such a short span of time?"
[By the way, I'm no Marxist and think Marx ultimately got it wrong. And while I think some of his critiques of capitalism are spot on, there's no way Marx - or anyone then - could have foreseen the current manifestation of global capital and the rise of the mega-corps.]
Think about this before you read on for my take, because it is one of the most serious things to consider in our lifetime. It encompasses everything; colonialism, the rise of multi-nationals, foreign policy, co-opted mass media, group-think, mind control (seriously)....
Over the years I've heard many different answers, but the one thing I noticed amongst them all was that they never boiled down to specifics; how this system was funded. (Let's leave the system of state-funded corporate welfare and theft via taxes alone for now. For a roiling critique of that, see: David Cay Johnston's "Perfectly Legal" - highly recommended, although a tough read.)
Here's my take, and it's simplicity itself; I remember being in school in the 80's and walking down Bruin Walk at UCLA. Then, Visa and Mastercard and probably AMEX had tables with freshly scrubbed people handing out applications for credit cards. And they were easy to get.
Fast forward to today, and we can now see the residue of that insidious scheme; record numbers for credit card debt, and a system of slavery so far-reaching that it touches virtually every facet of modern life.
Eighty percent of American households have at least one credit card.
-Source: www.cardweb.com
Total credit card debt in the United States has reached about $665 billion on bank credit cards and about $105 billion on store or gas credit cards. According to the Fed's G19 release, the total is roughly $800 billion.
-Sources: www.cardweb.com and the Federal Reserve
I remember one spring, just before summer break, talking to a friend and asking what her plans were for the summer. "Oh, travel. Europe or Asia." I asked how she, a student, was going to fund such a trip. Her answer pre-figured this entry; "Oh, I'll charge it. You know, us college students, we're the privileged poor..."
And there you have it - too simple, you say?
On the face of it, yes, but when you think about the insidious way credit hooks each and every one of us consumers into the mix, I don't think it's a leap to see how the consumer conditioning finds fertile ground in this scenario.
What I really mean is, Marx got this completely wrong as well; religion isn't the opiate of the masses, it's the ability to get something, and get it now, "painlessly" ... that's the ultimate drug.
This is why it's much easier to punish the laity these days. Commit all kinds of horrendous shit and be the worst administration in history, but as long as the people have cable, McDonald's and their SUVs, they may groan and bitch, but they will not revolt. They will medicate by ... SHOPPING!!! Wasn't it dumbya himself who, after 9/11, urged Americans to go out and shop fer god's sakes? Read: suck on that crack pipe, and even though things are horrible, at least you'll feel better. The Boomers hadn't drunk the Kool Aid - yet - which helps explain why in the halcyon 60's/70's they got up off their asses and did shit, not just talked about it.
That addiction to a "vastly improved" consumer lifestyle provided the impetus for mass marketing on an unprecedented scale. Take Nike, for example. Their timing couldn't have been more perfect, pioneering out-sourcing in the 70's (cheap imports were already an American staple, marked by the, "Oh, `Made in Japan?' That's cheap," signifier), first in Japan, then all throughout Asia, because once the standard of living rose, labor became too expensive in Japan. Which raises another interesting question: What happens when labor has become too expensive everywhere? It's not like there are an unlimited number of undeveloped countries - we may not and probably won't see the end of this string in our lifetimes, but it has built in obsolescence.
The naysaying absolutist Friedman/Rand free-marketers point to raising standards of living for developing countries, completely ignoring business metrics such as total cost of doing business, a highly subjective but, necessary analysis when talking about something as impactful as out-sourcing. In an elementary equation, they'd say having a car(bon)-based transportation system, such as LA, is worth it because it raises standards of living. The immediacy of being able to get somewhere, pick up loads of stuff, then cart it back is, a high luxury. Despite terrible air. It's like saying you can have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but every day someone is going to show up and piss in it. BUT, you've got an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The problem is now exacerbated by longevity and intransigence; simply, the familiar. Go into the hood to any Walmart (China's largest customer, the world's largest corporation and with all of the heirs in the top ten richest people in the world) and you'll see the drug-addicted going crazy. Why? Because they can buy a sweatshirt for ten bucks.
And while everyone's implicated, you can't fault the working poor for wanting to pay less, but you can point fingers at mega-corps like Walmart for extracting capital out of local communities and concentrating it in a tiny fraction of the population.
The implications spread out further; schools and an educational system that's simply incompetent insofar as educating kids into the real world with even a basic understanding of real-world economics, mass media (who suck on Walmart's crack pipe) and politicians who are intellectually dishonest about the way globalization wreaks havoc, both here and abroad.
I've gone on too long here, but if you're still with me, the only way to fight back is to consider your dollars as votes, or even, as JT said the other day, as a representation of your energy. Where you place that energy is something to consider.
Beyond a ten buck sweatshirt, and beyond the Klein-esque macro view of globalization, and in an ironic twist, it really does boil down to agency.
Much to Ayn Rand's chagrin.
-T.S. Eliot
I've just watched Naomi Klein on her Charlie Rose book flacking tour, and I must say, while there's no doubting her good intentions, (here I go again), it amazes me how what passes for insight and incisiveness is "just another white liberal's discovery of (fill in the blank)."
Her take on "disaster capitalism" (I can see her editor chiding her, "You need a buzz phrase! You know, like, "The L word," to make it stick), which basically boils down to a catastrophe (natural or human-made), posits that when a population is in calamitous shock that it is a prime time for monetization, baby. So, bomb the fuck out of the Japs and then bomb them with credit cards.
What dope can't see that? What dope hasn't seen that, a loooooong time ago?
It gets better, folks. In 2005 she was evidently on some big fat list of "world's leading intellectuals" or some such poll taken on the net. Whoopee friggin' doo, now brainiacs have an Oscar show cum People's Choice Awards. And although Chomsky came out on top, Camille Paglia, I see, is still around, although she did come in behind Wolfowtiz. Gotdam, I don't think I could live with myself if the world said Wolfie was smarter than me. Oy.
Given her lineage, Klein's prominence is just the natural growth spurt of a pre-ordained chain of events. In fact, one would have been surprised if she had not been successful, what with her blue blood.
Her forte, evidently, is globalization, and I thought it amusing in the least when she was going on about the WTO protests in Seattle a few back. She said, and I paraphrase, that "the irony of it all was that protests were happening worldwide, facilitated by globalized networks... that the protests were really about the march of corporations..." And other such horseshit.
I suppose this marks the latest litcrit fad as a conflation of the mundane and the obvious. My, how out of touch I am.
It also points out how certain people have opportunity before them, and how most people these days really have nothing to say, then plagarize, steal and co-opt. Gladwell's "Tipping Point" is a perfect example; what marketer worth their salt isn't familiar with what he talks about? Even more pernicious is the way in which recycling takes an evil bent, as with Herrnstein & Murray's "The Bell Curve." (Which couched 17th century "scientific" eugenics in a modern-day take and aims its scope at "inferior" mud peeps. Stephen Jay Gould, god love him, blasted Murray [Herrnstein died shortly after publication from intellectual dishonesty] to smithereens. Ah, Gould, where are those who have sipped from your golden cup?)
To her credit, Klein talked about the way Bechtel was monetizing water (I believe in Bolivia) and the way water prices rose 300% and the evil way it was claiming unfair competition when citizens were capturing rain water! What she failed to deconstruct are the ways in which, when corporations install themselves, they are aptly positioned to lobby and institute the system of payoffs in order to leverage their monetary interests into political reality and then subsequent leverages. Talk about unfair competition.
But even more egregious, she passes this "discovery" of hers off as if she were Columbus. The truth is, Alan Snitow produced and directed an excellent doc, Thirst, in 2004. While Klein told Rose that she had been laboring for four years on her book, anyone who's produced a movie -- especially one as auspicious as Thirst which spans several countries -- knows pre-production not to mention research and then raising money (unless one is rich) begins way before production, much less release, the latter sometimes occurring years after production.
I don't fault Klein for putting the topic out on the table for discussion and in fact appreciate it; I do fault her not citing Snitow's work. Surely a non-fiction writer as acclaimed as her ("No Logo") must do hardcore research. How could she not mention Snitow's film? It's not like it was relegated to the doc ghetto, after all, in perfect poetic/ironic symmetry, it aired on PBS's POV, Rose's own network!!!
$ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $ = $
Now the conversation on my part will shift gears, although it relates to Klein's theme, because I want to talk about recent history; the rise of global capital and, specifically, the way it was enacted via its audience. Is it wrong for Klein to say that corporations go forth and run roughshod over the world in the pursuit of capital expansion and profit? Of course not, but one of the "problems" of her kind of analysis is that she falls into the trap of examining symptoms, or re-labeling symptoms as causes, while positing the wrong things as causal agents. Yes, corporations are "bad" and "do bad things", but they are only the expression of what enabled them to do so - an American capitalist system.
For the individual, dis-empowered as they may be, I think it can be persuasively argued that macro arguments such as these obfuscate and further the illusion that there's simply nothing to do. Thus, the, "What can I do, I'm just one person?" syndrome remains unchallenged.
Now drill further; by what means have these corporations extracted their booty from the laity? For my money, that's the trillion dollar question.
First, we have to understand an axiom; that as a basic principle, and insofar as it concerns global capital, nothing is reified in this world without an audience. Global capital as mass consumption defined in absolute, demands large common denominators.
Second, what are the means of capturing said audience?
A brief historical look back is first in order. (I've actually mentioned this before in this blog) It's a favorite question of mine to ask friends, "Only 3 or 4 decades ago, the baby boomers protested against and helped stop a war, ousted an evil president, fought for civil rights, and women's rights. But in the 80's all of that began to radically change with the rise of the Yuppies, Wall Street and the `greed is good' zinger, paving the way toward the present day march of globalization. How did that happen in such a short span of time?"
[By the way, I'm no Marxist and think Marx ultimately got it wrong. And while I think some of his critiques of capitalism are spot on, there's no way Marx - or anyone then - could have foreseen the current manifestation of global capital and the rise of the mega-corps.]
Think about this before you read on for my take, because it is one of the most serious things to consider in our lifetime. It encompasses everything; colonialism, the rise of multi-nationals, foreign policy, co-opted mass media, group-think, mind control (seriously)....
Over the years I've heard many different answers, but the one thing I noticed amongst them all was that they never boiled down to specifics; how this system was funded. (Let's leave the system of state-funded corporate welfare and theft via taxes alone for now. For a roiling critique of that, see: David Cay Johnston's "Perfectly Legal" - highly recommended, although a tough read.)
Here's my take, and it's simplicity itself; I remember being in school in the 80's and walking down Bruin Walk at UCLA. Then, Visa and Mastercard and probably AMEX had tables with freshly scrubbed people handing out applications for credit cards. And they were easy to get.
Fast forward to today, and we can now see the residue of that insidious scheme; record numbers for credit card debt, and a system of slavery so far-reaching that it touches virtually every facet of modern life.
Eighty percent of American households have at least one credit card.
-Source: www.cardweb.com
Total credit card debt in the United States has reached about $665 billion on bank credit cards and about $105 billion on store or gas credit cards. According to the Fed's G19 release, the total is roughly $800 billion.
-Sources: www.cardweb.com and the Federal Reserve
I remember one spring, just before summer break, talking to a friend and asking what her plans were for the summer. "Oh, travel. Europe or Asia." I asked how she, a student, was going to fund such a trip. Her answer pre-figured this entry; "Oh, I'll charge it. You know, us college students, we're the privileged poor..."
And there you have it - too simple, you say?
On the face of it, yes, but when you think about the insidious way credit hooks each and every one of us consumers into the mix, I don't think it's a leap to see how the consumer conditioning finds fertile ground in this scenario.
What I really mean is, Marx got this completely wrong as well; religion isn't the opiate of the masses, it's the ability to get something, and get it now, "painlessly" ... that's the ultimate drug.
This is why it's much easier to punish the laity these days. Commit all kinds of horrendous shit and be the worst administration in history, but as long as the people have cable, McDonald's and their SUVs, they may groan and bitch, but they will not revolt. They will medicate by ... SHOPPING!!! Wasn't it dumbya himself who, after 9/11, urged Americans to go out and shop fer god's sakes? Read: suck on that crack pipe, and even though things are horrible, at least you'll feel better. The Boomers hadn't drunk the Kool Aid - yet - which helps explain why in the halcyon 60's/70's they got up off their asses and did shit, not just talked about it.
That addiction to a "vastly improved" consumer lifestyle provided the impetus for mass marketing on an unprecedented scale. Take Nike, for example. Their timing couldn't have been more perfect, pioneering out-sourcing in the 70's (cheap imports were already an American staple, marked by the, "Oh, `Made in Japan?' That's cheap," signifier), first in Japan, then all throughout Asia, because once the standard of living rose, labor became too expensive in Japan. Which raises another interesting question: What happens when labor has become too expensive everywhere? It's not like there are an unlimited number of undeveloped countries - we may not and probably won't see the end of this string in our lifetimes, but it has built in obsolescence.
The naysaying absolutist Friedman/Rand free-marketers point to raising standards of living for developing countries, completely ignoring business metrics such as total cost of doing business, a highly subjective but, necessary analysis when talking about something as impactful as out-sourcing. In an elementary equation, they'd say having a car(bon)-based transportation system, such as LA, is worth it because it raises standards of living. The immediacy of being able to get somewhere, pick up loads of stuff, then cart it back is, a high luxury. Despite terrible air. It's like saying you can have an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but every day someone is going to show up and piss in it. BUT, you've got an Olympic-sized swimming pool.
The problem is now exacerbated by longevity and intransigence; simply, the familiar. Go into the hood to any Walmart (China's largest customer, the world's largest corporation and with all of the heirs in the top ten richest people in the world) and you'll see the drug-addicted going crazy. Why? Because they can buy a sweatshirt for ten bucks.
And while everyone's implicated, you can't fault the working poor for wanting to pay less, but you can point fingers at mega-corps like Walmart for extracting capital out of local communities and concentrating it in a tiny fraction of the population.
The implications spread out further; schools and an educational system that's simply incompetent insofar as educating kids into the real world with even a basic understanding of real-world economics, mass media (who suck on Walmart's crack pipe) and politicians who are intellectually dishonest about the way globalization wreaks havoc, both here and abroad.
I've gone on too long here, but if you're still with me, the only way to fight back is to consider your dollars as votes, or even, as JT said the other day, as a representation of your energy. Where you place that energy is something to consider.
Beyond a ten buck sweatshirt, and beyond the Klein-esque macro view of globalization, and in an ironic twist, it really does boil down to agency.
Much to Ayn Rand's chagrin.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Zero Degrees of Separation
Beware of those in whom the urge to punish is powerful.
-Goethe
Zero Degrees of Separation looks at the Middle East conflict and the Palestinian Occupation, through the eyes of mixed Palestinian and Israeli gay and lesbian couples. Ezra is against the Occupation, yet he’s an Israeli. His partner, Selim, is a Palestinian whose protests against the Occupation landed him in jail at age 15. Ezra is a simple plumber whose courage and cheek take on prophet–like proportions as he travels across the country risking his life to protest the walls, fences and military checkpoints that divide them. Interwoven with their stories is footage of Elle Flanders' grandparents, who were intimately involved in the founding of the state of Israel. Through these home movies, Flanders artfully retraces her grandparents’ travels as they tour a fledgling nation brimming with pioneering joyous youth, immigrants, refugees and endless open vistas of the Holy Land, contrasting the ideals at the birth of the “holy land” with the reality of today’s Israel, a country mired in the rubble of Occupation.
Just saw this on Sundance and if you can, see it. Beyond the usual rhetoric of Zionist/anti-Zionist dialog, it was really interesting to see the way just regular folks were dealing with the madness of the situation.
It may not be earth-shattering to hear their stories, but anything outside of the mainstream bullshit here in Amerika is a breath of fresh air. The fact that they are gay/lesbian adds another layer.
I recall the first time I heard (either through my friend, Don Bustany, or Ha'aretz) about the faction of Israeli soldiers who are protesting the occupation by refusing to serve. They have of course been suppressed by being thrown in prison. That only furthered my thought that I'd bet the average Israeli and Palestinian just wants all the insanity to stop.
I've been witness to beatings, and they surely don't rival the madness of the Israeli occupation, but I remember the way it made me feel watching it. This is where Fanon's (psychiatric) take on colonialism is incisive in the way it critiques the colonizer's psyche, how it becomes "bestialized." But what happens to those who witness?
If it's a Newtonian given that "For every action..." then one has to ask what indeed happens when someone brutalizes. I mean outside of the given emotion - feeling sadistic, being pissed off, seeking vengeance, feeling bad, etc. Is there another dimension to this situation? What happens to witnesses? (again, outside of feeling?)
I'm reminded of the scientific discovery of the act of observation; that scientists discovered, when observing sub-atomic particles -- the very essence of matter, that the very act of observation changed their behavior. Therefore, Newtonian symmetry mandates that something happens to the observer.
The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.
-Arundhati Roy
While I love Roy's quote, the fascinating thing to consider here is that something biologically concrete takes place beyond the socio-political construction - within (Without? Both?) the observer.
Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but in this proposition, is it the only refuge?
-Goethe
Zero Degrees of Separation looks at the Middle East conflict and the Palestinian Occupation, through the eyes of mixed Palestinian and Israeli gay and lesbian couples. Ezra is against the Occupation, yet he’s an Israeli. His partner, Selim, is a Palestinian whose protests against the Occupation landed him in jail at age 15. Ezra is a simple plumber whose courage and cheek take on prophet–like proportions as he travels across the country risking his life to protest the walls, fences and military checkpoints that divide them. Interwoven with their stories is footage of Elle Flanders' grandparents, who were intimately involved in the founding of the state of Israel. Through these home movies, Flanders artfully retraces her grandparents’ travels as they tour a fledgling nation brimming with pioneering joyous youth, immigrants, refugees and endless open vistas of the Holy Land, contrasting the ideals at the birth of the “holy land” with the reality of today’s Israel, a country mired in the rubble of Occupation.
Just saw this on Sundance and if you can, see it. Beyond the usual rhetoric of Zionist/anti-Zionist dialog, it was really interesting to see the way just regular folks were dealing with the madness of the situation.
It may not be earth-shattering to hear their stories, but anything outside of the mainstream bullshit here in Amerika is a breath of fresh air. The fact that they are gay/lesbian adds another layer.
I recall the first time I heard (either through my friend, Don Bustany, or Ha'aretz) about the faction of Israeli soldiers who are protesting the occupation by refusing to serve. They have of course been suppressed by being thrown in prison. That only furthered my thought that I'd bet the average Israeli and Palestinian just wants all the insanity to stop.
I've been witness to beatings, and they surely don't rival the madness of the Israeli occupation, but I remember the way it made me feel watching it. This is where Fanon's (psychiatric) take on colonialism is incisive in the way it critiques the colonizer's psyche, how it becomes "bestialized." But what happens to those who witness?
If it's a Newtonian given that "For every action..." then one has to ask what indeed happens when someone brutalizes. I mean outside of the given emotion - feeling sadistic, being pissed off, seeking vengeance, feeling bad, etc. Is there another dimension to this situation? What happens to witnesses? (again, outside of feeling?)
I'm reminded of the scientific discovery of the act of observation; that scientists discovered, when observing sub-atomic particles -- the very essence of matter, that the very act of observation changed their behavior. Therefore, Newtonian symmetry mandates that something happens to the observer.
The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There is no innocence. Either way, you're accountable.
-Arundhati Roy
While I love Roy's quote, the fascinating thing to consider here is that something biologically concrete takes place beyond the socio-political construction - within (Without? Both?) the observer.
Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but in this proposition, is it the only refuge?
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Charlie Wilson's War, Screechy Todd and An Unreasonable Man
Two more screenings: CWW was Monday with Aaron Sorkin guesting, ST was tonight, John Logan guesting. While I'm all for ignorant Amerikans wising up, there was something missing from CWW. It was kinda flat, and in that sense, reminded me of American Gangster - it just wasn't that interesting. AG was about a really ruthless muthaphuka. That's about it. And while DePalma's take on Scarface is classic and also about a ruthless mutha, I think it very much points out the differences first in directors and then in renderings. What I mean is, AG, as derived from a biography, is pretty straightforward and Scott treats it as such, but Scarface is fictional, and the bombastic rendering is in perfect hands with Depalma. For instance, given Depalma's movie brat pedigree and reverence for Il Conformista, Nando Scarfiotti's production design is no mistake. Neither is the violence.
Anyway, you'd think a story about a reprobate like Wilson coming around (as much as one of his kind can) would be at least kinda interesting, but - NO surprise - it never considers the pov of mudpeeps. All of the choice reaction shots are reserved for Hanks, for instance, while scanning - replete with mouth agape - at an Afghan refugee camp. (Mike) Nichols then eventually closes out the scene with a panoramic shot of this enormous camp - with Hanks in the foreground. It's still the same as it ever was - all of the suffering in the world of mudpeeps don't mean a gotdamn unless white people think it does.
And I'm a Nichols fan. Although I question his taste in mates, but damn if he didn't cast Emily Blunt who looked kinda annoying in The Devil Wears Prada, but HOT DAMN if she doesn't turn up for this one. I don't know what she did, but she is smokin' here, and I normally don't go for white broads... Evidently she shares Nichols' affliction of choosing bad mates, cuz she's with Michael Boobly. Anyway, the Nichols of CWW needs to ask the Nichols of "Virginia Woolf" and of course, The Graduate, as well as, Catch 22, what time it is.
Oh yeah, Sorkin was a bore.
Here's a gratuitous pic of Blunt to make me feel better.
Screechy Todd made my skin crawl. First, let me just say unequivocally that I grew up on musicals, shit like West Side Story was in our blood in the hood, mainly because we saw mudpeeps on screen. But Singing in the Rain for sure is one of those films that so perfectly captures a feeling, a mood, and certainly one of the golden ages of Hollywood. And it helped that I was in love with Cyd Charisse.
But watching live theater for me has always been a challenge. Beginning in middle school when we had assemblies and they'd stage shows, to grown-up fare.
My brother was a kid when our cousins, who were living with our family at the time and young teens, went to see Phantom. When my brother found out he raised such a stank that they bought tickets and made me take him.
During intermission we didn't say anything except for this:
Me: You liking this?
Bro: (looks down) Uh...
It was excruciating sitting through that shit.
This doesn't mean that live theater can't be extremely moving, but here's where "the play's the thing" truly comes home. Jarry, Pinter and Beckett have managed to make me think of them as artists, while Albee and Williams are so ingrained in the American zeitgeist, that alone is proof of having "good stuff." But even lesser works, such as Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath have their charm. With that name-dropping out of the way, it's also clear that that last batch of writers don't write musicals.
So it was, O Dear Reader, that I wanted to pull my hair out about ten minutes into Screechy Todd. At 30 minutes in I'd clawed my ears off, and at an hour I fired an RPG at the screen and left. How I lasted 60 is beyond me - I could have been listening to the second installment of The History of Howard Stern fer god's sakes.
Gotdamn, I want my hour back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On to An Unreasonable Man, which I saw on PBS' Independent Lens.
Where do I begin? I can remember extremely heated discussions during the times of Ralph Nader's two presidential bids. And while the filmmakers do a good job of presenting both sides - yes, this is one of those times when it very much is a binary situation - for me, the bottom line is the incompetence of the democraps.
Oh well, nothing to do but post another gratuitous pic of Emily Blunt to feel better.
Anyway, you'd think a story about a reprobate like Wilson coming around (as much as one of his kind can) would be at least kinda interesting, but - NO surprise - it never considers the pov of mudpeeps. All of the choice reaction shots are reserved for Hanks, for instance, while scanning - replete with mouth agape - at an Afghan refugee camp. (Mike) Nichols then eventually closes out the scene with a panoramic shot of this enormous camp - with Hanks in the foreground. It's still the same as it ever was - all of the suffering in the world of mudpeeps don't mean a gotdamn unless white people think it does.
And I'm a Nichols fan. Although I question his taste in mates, but damn if he didn't cast Emily Blunt who looked kinda annoying in The Devil Wears Prada, but HOT DAMN if she doesn't turn up for this one. I don't know what she did, but she is smokin' here, and I normally don't go for white broads... Evidently she shares Nichols' affliction of choosing bad mates, cuz she's with Michael Boobly. Anyway, the Nichols of CWW needs to ask the Nichols of "Virginia Woolf" and of course, The Graduate, as well as, Catch 22, what time it is.
Oh yeah, Sorkin was a bore.
Here's a gratuitous pic of Blunt to make me feel better.
Screechy Todd made my skin crawl. First, let me just say unequivocally that I grew up on musicals, shit like West Side Story was in our blood in the hood, mainly because we saw mudpeeps on screen. But Singing in the Rain for sure is one of those films that so perfectly captures a feeling, a mood, and certainly one of the golden ages of Hollywood. And it helped that I was in love with Cyd Charisse.
But watching live theater for me has always been a challenge. Beginning in middle school when we had assemblies and they'd stage shows, to grown-up fare.
My brother was a kid when our cousins, who were living with our family at the time and young teens, went to see Phantom. When my brother found out he raised such a stank that they bought tickets and made me take him.
During intermission we didn't say anything except for this:
Me: You liking this?
Bro: (looks down) Uh...
It was excruciating sitting through that shit.
This doesn't mean that live theater can't be extremely moving, but here's where "the play's the thing" truly comes home. Jarry, Pinter and Beckett have managed to make me think of them as artists, while Albee and Williams are so ingrained in the American zeitgeist, that alone is proof of having "good stuff." But even lesser works, such as Bruce Jay Friedman's Steambath have their charm. With that name-dropping out of the way, it's also clear that that last batch of writers don't write musicals.
So it was, O Dear Reader, that I wanted to pull my hair out about ten minutes into Screechy Todd. At 30 minutes in I'd clawed my ears off, and at an hour I fired an RPG at the screen and left. How I lasted 60 is beyond me - I could have been listening to the second installment of The History of Howard Stern fer god's sakes.
Gotdamn, I want my hour back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On to An Unreasonable Man, which I saw on PBS' Independent Lens.
Oh well, nothing to do but post another gratuitous pic of Emily Blunt to feel better.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
The Kite Runner
Well, this is the "Academy rush" and the screenings are piling up. So, Fish and I saw a screening of The Kite Runner Wednesday, with screenwriter David Benioff participating afterwards. Now, I'm a sucker for films about kids, particularly mud kids. Salaam Bombay, Pixote, Sugarcane Alley, the early childhood segment of Farewell My Concubine, and, above all, the great Don Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados. While too much has already been said about this beloved book, I'll refrain from talking about plot, there is one particular thing I do want to mention.
That is how much the scene of the child Hasan, (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), in the aftermath of trauma and holding onto the chased after and caught kite, is the embodiment of tragedy.
Kids will, if ever, be the last group to be liberated.
That is how much the scene of the child Hasan, (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), in the aftermath of trauma and holding onto the chased after and caught kite, is the embodiment of tragedy.
Kids will, if ever, be the last group to be liberated.
nuno
Short one here on Nuno - saw an exhibit on them and was impressed. In a documentary on the company, it showed the meticulous, artisanly approach combined with an (apparently) old school Japanese mentality.
One sterling example of the above; two lil obasans take a long sheet of white fabric (silk?) and spread it on the ground, laying it over a large press type contraption. They take a bucket of nails and pour them out over the fabric, take another sheet of fabric, lay it over the nails, then lock the whole thing down in the press contraption. Next, they take a water hose and wet the entire thing.
When they come back (some days later?) the fabric's dry, and they unlock the press. As they pull the fabric up, we see the method to the madness's fruits: a beautiful abstract pattern of rusted nails.
It somehow seems to me to be a cool blend of old school ways meeting modern design.
nuno exhibit
One sterling example of the above; two lil obasans take a long sheet of white fabric (silk?) and spread it on the ground, laying it over a large press type contraption. They take a bucket of nails and pour them out over the fabric, take another sheet of fabric, lay it over the nails, then lock the whole thing down in the press contraption. Next, they take a water hose and wet the entire thing.
When they come back (some days later?) the fabric's dry, and they unlock the press. As they pull the fabric up, we see the method to the madness's fruits: a beautiful abstract pattern of rusted nails.
It somehow seems to me to be a cool blend of old school ways meeting modern design.
nuno exhibit
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
The Great Debaters, remembering Hollywood
One of the fortunate things about living in LA is that if you're into movies, this is the place. Well, truth be told, les enfants de la cinémathèque would say otherwise, but that's left to a soon to be posted piece on a legend of the cinema.
If you know how to work it, you can go to tons of screenings and previews, many of which will have principals come out and talk afterwards. I don't want to give away all of the secrets, but two of the top film schools in the world are here, and one houses one of the largest preservationist archives in the world. They run stuff all the time.
Which is to say that Fish is on the inside track with Townhall LA, and got us into Miramax's - OKAY, "The Weinstein Company's" - very first screening of The Great Debaters. While the movie was fairly straight-ahead and predictable, given that it was inspired by a true story, it was really "enlarged" and embellished as screenwriter Robert Eisele himself said in the post-screening.
This may seem superficial, the fact that I like this junk, but understand, I was born in Hollywood, right on Sunset Boulevard. And I was an asthmatic kid, so Ma would run me into Kaiser so I could mainline adrenaline and breathe. Trouble with that is that I was speeding out like a meth freak. Ma always felt bad for me, so she'd run me to the nearby Thrifty's to get ice cream, and then we'd stroll down Hollywood Boulevard.
And this is the way it was one time; I'm licking my wounds by licking my ice cream, kinda oblivious to the afternoon sun but, all in all, happy to be out of the hospital. (I can't stand it when people use the "proper," "...glad to be out of hospital.") Out of the corner of my ear, I hear Ma say, "Oh, there's Mercedes McCambridge." Not looking up, I ask who that is. "Oh, just an actress."
I didn't pay it much mind as I was just a kid, but years later while in film school we watched the great George Stevens' Giant. And I remembered what Scorsese said about McCambridge on the stallion, and the way Stevens cut from the long shot to the close up of her spurs... and sitting there, in the dark, I remembered that walk on Hollywood Boulevard. In that moment, I was in two places at once.
And that's why it's corny to say but weird how Hollywood is in my DNA. I've many stories like this, and I recall them fondly. That's why, despite all of its brutality, I love LA.
If you know how to work it, you can go to tons of screenings and previews, many of which will have principals come out and talk afterwards. I don't want to give away all of the secrets, but two of the top film schools in the world are here, and one houses one of the largest preservationist archives in the world. They run stuff all the time.
Which is to say that Fish is on the inside track with Townhall LA, and got us into Miramax's - OKAY, "The Weinstein Company's" - very first screening of The Great Debaters. While the movie was fairly straight-ahead and predictable, given that it was inspired by a true story, it was really "enlarged" and embellished as screenwriter Robert Eisele himself said in the post-screening.
This may seem superficial, the fact that I like this junk, but understand, I was born in Hollywood, right on Sunset Boulevard. And I was an asthmatic kid, so Ma would run me into Kaiser so I could mainline adrenaline and breathe. Trouble with that is that I was speeding out like a meth freak. Ma always felt bad for me, so she'd run me to the nearby Thrifty's to get ice cream, and then we'd stroll down Hollywood Boulevard.
And this is the way it was one time; I'm licking my wounds by licking my ice cream, kinda oblivious to the afternoon sun but, all in all, happy to be out of the hospital. (I can't stand it when people use the "proper," "...glad to be out of hospital.") Out of the corner of my ear, I hear Ma say, "Oh, there's Mercedes McCambridge." Not looking up, I ask who that is. "Oh, just an actress."
I didn't pay it much mind as I was just a kid, but years later while in film school we watched the great George Stevens' Giant. And I remembered what Scorsese said about McCambridge on the stallion, and the way Stevens cut from the long shot to the close up of her spurs... and sitting there, in the dark, I remembered that walk on Hollywood Boulevard. In that moment, I was in two places at once.
And that's why it's corny to say but weird how Hollywood is in my DNA. I've many stories like this, and I recall them fondly. That's why, despite all of its brutality, I love LA.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
It's not easy being green, but they sure can flap their yaps about it.
I forgot to mention I went to this thing. Kucinich, Hilary and John Edwards showed up out of all the candidates on both sides of the aisle. I think you can watch it online here.My thoughts:
-Does anyone seriously think that solving the massive damage on the scale of "global warming" lies in the hands of a president? If so, holy ghost help us all.
-Assuming that it's at least important what the candidates think about global warming, given the fed's track record with handling disasters in light of the Katrina fiasco, what possible action plan can we even reasonably believe makes sense and is do-able when addressing such an imposing topic?
-Kucinich came on first. Says some okay things. (particularly about impeaching Cheney, but that's outside of this forum) He doesn't stand a chance.
-Hilary was next. It was weird, because as someone who is a native Angeleno, I don't get starstruck. Two exceptions were when I met Scorsese and Magic Johnson. And this isn't leading to being starstruck by Hilary, no way. But before her entrance the intensity level rose at least two levels, and it was palpable, like waiting for the band to come out. The Wadsworth Theater is a stately, intimate theater that holds a few thousand, and when Kucinich was talking the aisles were empty. With Hilary, the aisles filled; pr flacks, aides de camp, assorted indie reporters (mainstream ones got seats, of course), and the rest of the assorted plebes.
-Hilary, chugging along, then had the misfortune to have a heckler stand up and begin a tirade that went on until they bounced him on his ass. What was interesting was to watch her and her escalating reactions; 1) She just kept talking! No shit, as the crazy heckler was shouting away with all eyes on him, she just kept right on going. 2) Then, she got her hard-ass on. Leaning an elbow on the podium, she stared this dude down. This of course made every male in the audience grab his balls while images of Bubba, cowering on his knees in front of her danced through the air. 3) Finally, she blurted out, "Were you invited to speak today?"
-John Edwards - a decided letdown, came on and proceeded to put his hands in his jacket pockets while he spoke. Weird move, that. But the weirder thing is that the dude was frumpy. I mean, for all the dough he has, you'd think he'd have duds that are hand tailored. Oh yeah, a lot of peeps left after Hilary.
Basically, it was mildly entertaining, but for anyone at all interested in global warming, yer better off reading a book.
I also think that this is a critical time in our history, not just because of the environmental challenge, but because of whatever response we put up. Because part of the reason we're in the mess we're in - and I mean everything, not just the environment - is because we place the potential power we have in synergy into leaders. To be fair, part of that equation is by default, because the powers that be have rigged a really hard game to unravel.
It's gonna take strategic, hard work, something that scares both left and right alike.
You reminded us that new worlds do not come delivered on silver platters. New worlds, new ways of living do require getting the hands dirty. New worlds require more than lip-service and appearances.
-Essex Hemphill, to Audre Lorde
Friday, November 23, 2007
Hurry up and slow down!
Something that I think is important to be inculcating our young folks with are the ramifications of our actions as consumers. While certain of the baby-boomers have begun rolling their own balls, the problem of market share looms, and speaks to some fundamental historical forces that aren't necessarily in alignment.
Incidentally, at this very moment I have on "LA City View," a channel devoted to programming by and about the City of LA. The show just beginning is, "Women in Entertainment," moderated by City Controller Laura Chick. In her prolegomena, she mentioned that for the first time, in 2001 the City of LA appointed a woman to one of the top 3 City positions - that was her (Chick).
This is a succinct illustration of the odds of grabbing even a slice of the pie from the power mongers. Dolores Robinson, mother of Holly Robinson-Peete and an entertainment manager, just right now said that "things are pretty much the same." I couldn't agree more. Over the holidays I happened to see a ceremony that our Chicano Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, presided over. It celebrated "Native American History Month" by citing the usual; X number of NAs in LA, how "vital" (whatever that means) their culture is, how they were the first Americans, blah blah blah.
The young NA girls come out in tribal garb and proceed to dance for whitey. And so, whites are entertained, feel enlightened, progressive even, by looking at their brown mayor, their brown ceremonies... and yet remain blissfully ignorant of probably the largest concentration of Mexicans/Mexican Americans outside of Mexico, East LA, where, of course, the social barriers and challenges are long-entrenched. Despite all of the ceremonies.
Now, I am all in favor of civil disobedience as public communication display, but generally don't think it's a very practical tool for substantial change - it's a demonstrative tool, but here we are, forty years after the halcyon 60s & 70s, and Laura Chick was barely elected.
This also supports what I have experienced with the left, how they love the pomp of demonstrations, their Weberian charismatic leaders and mob-think. This of course applies in equal measure to the right, but oddly, leftist orgs are always embroiled in "the good fight" and strategy is this fuzzy cloud never to be broken down, deciphered and deployed in practical, concrete, logical, business-driven and grounded ways. Thus, unless you're the NAACP, ACLU or GLAAD, these orgs typically fall in to the "begging syndrome" where they are devoting large resources toward raising money, typically, fundraisers or grants.
Let's be straight: Begging.
And if begging is not one of the most embarrassing forms of infantilization, I don't know what is.
Back to the aside fork in the road I took... For NOW, one white woman in half a century isn't even tossing someone a bone. It's table scrap. Think about women of color, long-subjected to seeing the fight for "women's rights" in this country boiled down to white women's rights.
This aside is providential, because it supports what I feel and preach about indies; that the fight is indeed with the "powers that be," but that fight can only be meaningful if strategic ways are employed to gain market share. It's also as basic a principle as there is in this fight; after all, what is the definition of "conglomerate," and "consolidation"?
Take the mass-media congloms who've concentrated unprecedented media power; whose side is the FCC on now? Whose concerns will the FCC take lightly or not? More importantly, what are the hard realities for indie media practitioners?
So, to be utterly crass, I think it's silly to think that a local indie paper can fight a Rupert Murdoch or a Viacom. Yes, ultimately, that's where the problem lies, but the fight is not to be fought strategically by indies there - you don't even rate the attention of a pimple on Murdoch's ass. And even if you did, there's the FCC, there're the lobbyists with deep pockets, and ... well, you get it.
Now the segue,; because of Turkey Day yesterday, and our annual ceremony of stuffing birds and ourselves silly. So it's apropos that this turns to the Slow Movement.
There's plenty on the web about Slow, but one of the interesting manifestations of it is in food, and how it is proposing and practicing ways to combat agri-biz. One of the champions of the Slow Food movement is Alice Waters - there's a link to her in my sidebar, and her award-winning eatery, Chez Panisse. She also happens to be a big-wig of the Slow Food movement internationally, as I recall.
She really is something else, and an indie triumph of taking one's passion, plugging in where they can on the local level, and along the way, forming synergies and building out toward the bigger picture. Indies of any stripe, take note.
Btw, for those interested or who missed it, check out Nick Geyrhalter's, Our Daily Bread, a great documentary on food production that has the bonus of being very well made aesthetically.
Incidentally, at this very moment I have on "LA City View," a channel devoted to programming by and about the City of LA. The show just beginning is, "Women in Entertainment," moderated by City Controller Laura Chick. In her prolegomena, she mentioned that for the first time, in 2001 the City of LA appointed a woman to one of the top 3 City positions - that was her (Chick).
This is a succinct illustration of the odds of grabbing even a slice of the pie from the power mongers. Dolores Robinson, mother of Holly Robinson-Peete and an entertainment manager, just right now said that "things are pretty much the same." I couldn't agree more. Over the holidays I happened to see a ceremony that our Chicano Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, presided over. It celebrated "Native American History Month" by citing the usual; X number of NAs in LA, how "vital" (whatever that means) their culture is, how they were the first Americans, blah blah blah.
The young NA girls come out in tribal garb and proceed to dance for whitey. And so, whites are entertained, feel enlightened, progressive even, by looking at their brown mayor, their brown ceremonies... and yet remain blissfully ignorant of probably the largest concentration of Mexicans/Mexican Americans outside of Mexico, East LA, where, of course, the social barriers and challenges are long-entrenched. Despite all of the ceremonies.
Now, I am all in favor of civil disobedience as public communication display, but generally don't think it's a very practical tool for substantial change - it's a demonstrative tool, but here we are, forty years after the halcyon 60s & 70s, and Laura Chick was barely elected.
This also supports what I have experienced with the left, how they love the pomp of demonstrations, their Weberian charismatic leaders and mob-think. This of course applies in equal measure to the right, but oddly, leftist orgs are always embroiled in "the good fight" and strategy is this fuzzy cloud never to be broken down, deciphered and deployed in practical, concrete, logical, business-driven and grounded ways. Thus, unless you're the NAACP, ACLU or GLAAD, these orgs typically fall in to the "begging syndrome" where they are devoting large resources toward raising money, typically, fundraisers or grants.
Let's be straight: Begging.
And if begging is not one of the most embarrassing forms of infantilization, I don't know what is.
Back to the aside fork in the road I took... For NOW, one white woman in half a century isn't even tossing someone a bone. It's table scrap. Think about women of color, long-subjected to seeing the fight for "women's rights" in this country boiled down to white women's rights.
This aside is providential, because it supports what I feel and preach about indies; that the fight is indeed with the "powers that be," but that fight can only be meaningful if strategic ways are employed to gain market share. It's also as basic a principle as there is in this fight; after all, what is the definition of "conglomerate," and "consolidation"?
Take the mass-media congloms who've concentrated unprecedented media power; whose side is the FCC on now? Whose concerns will the FCC take lightly or not? More importantly, what are the hard realities for indie media practitioners?
So, to be utterly crass, I think it's silly to think that a local indie paper can fight a Rupert Murdoch or a Viacom. Yes, ultimately, that's where the problem lies, but the fight is not to be fought strategically by indies there - you don't even rate the attention of a pimple on Murdoch's ass. And even if you did, there's the FCC, there're the lobbyists with deep pockets, and ... well, you get it.
Now the segue,; because of Turkey Day yesterday, and our annual ceremony of stuffing birds and ourselves silly. So it's apropos that this turns to the Slow Movement.
There's plenty on the web about Slow, but one of the interesting manifestations of it is in food, and how it is proposing and practicing ways to combat agri-biz. One of the champions of the Slow Food movement is Alice Waters - there's a link to her in my sidebar, and her award-winning eatery, Chez Panisse. She also happens to be a big-wig of the Slow Food movement internationally, as I recall.
She really is something else, and an indie triumph of taking one's passion, plugging in where they can on the local level, and along the way, forming synergies and building out toward the bigger picture. Indies of any stripe, take note.
Btw, for those interested or who missed it, check out Nick Geyrhalter's, Our Daily Bread, a great documentary on food production that has the bonus of being very well made aesthetically.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Nunna daul Isunyi, or, Gould is God
Nova, the long-running PBS series, is running Judgement Day, a fantastic doc on the controversial Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case. Not only is the doc well-produced, but I think it clearly illustrates the war of ideas at work in my country and how that penetrates to the very bedrock.
Let's be dead honest about it folks, "my" country is, after all, founded upon the principles of greed, genocide and theft.
Outside of superior technology (and the will to use it), Christianity was a pillar in the preamble to slaughter and re-construction via indoctrination. Easy enough to see.
With that bit of a preamble of itself out of the way, it's weird to think that we're coming up on the two year anniversary of this case. It drives home my point about how this fundamental war is indicative of tectonic shifts now, hundreds of years after the establishment of the colonies.
On a personal note, I've raised my daughter to be analytical about everything, from the schools she attends to the kind of music she consumes. To do any less is, methinks, a crime, because to not be so is to be lazy. It also makes one a doormat. And I'll be damned if my daughter's gonna drink the Kool Aid of American-easy-living-through-not-worrying. Or, like crazy liberals, worrying about the wrong things, or even the right things, but doing stupid crap in the name of good causes. Fuck that.
I say this in light of encouraging discussions we've been having about the church. Renee's a teen now, and she's coming of age.
[written to X; particularly, Johnny Hit and Run Pauline, White Girl, Universal Corner, Adult Books, The Once Over Twice, and one of my all time fave X tunes, The Unheard Music]
Let's be dead honest about it folks, "my" country is, after all, founded upon the principles of greed, genocide and theft.
Outside of superior technology (and the will to use it), Christianity was a pillar in the preamble to slaughter and re-construction via indoctrination. Easy enough to see.
With that bit of a preamble of itself out of the way, it's weird to think that we're coming up on the two year anniversary of this case. It drives home my point about how this fundamental war is indicative of tectonic shifts now, hundreds of years after the establishment of the colonies.
On a personal note, I've raised my daughter to be analytical about everything, from the schools she attends to the kind of music she consumes. To do any less is, methinks, a crime, because to not be so is to be lazy. It also makes one a doormat. And I'll be damned if my daughter's gonna drink the Kool Aid of American-easy-living-through-not-worrying. Or, like crazy liberals, worrying about the wrong things, or even the right things, but doing stupid crap in the name of good causes. Fuck that.
I say this in light of encouraging discussions we've been having about the church. Renee's a teen now, and she's coming of age.
[written to X; particularly, Johnny Hit and Run Pauline, White Girl, Universal Corner, Adult Books, The Once Over Twice, and one of my all time fave X tunes, The Unheard Music]
Monday, November 19, 2007
Amazon's Kindle (& Darabont's "The Mist")
I was going to write about Frank Darabont's film of King's The Mist, but it just got trumped for the lead. I saw the front bumper for The Charlie Rose Show on Jeff Bezos'/Amazon's "Kindle." Intro'd today via Newsweek's cover, it promises the future for digital reading.
As an avid reader, this thing sounds really cool, but a couple things worry me: (1) It's $400, and (2) It's still too big.
So, given Moore's Law, price should fall. Size? Well, hopefully they did their focus groups.
But let's give Bezos/Amazon the bennie of a doubt here. Let's assume mass-traction happens. What are the implications?
The obvious things that Bezos cites (saving trees, ready access to about 90K books and no doubt growing, publishers not having to guess at book runs...) are cool. What I'm interested in knowing is will this open up the barriers to entry for indie writers in the same way that MP3s and portable players (no people, believe it or not, Stevie Jobs did not invent the MP3 player) did for music? That's not just a tech question, that's a business question. In other words, having the technology's one thing, but having access to it as a distribution platform is quite another. Bezos seems like a cool enough guy. So time'll tell.
There's also a difference maker here in that unlike music and unless you have bank, books are a muthaphuka to digitize. However, contemporary writers (I'm factoring out the Luddites) write on computers, so their stuff's already digital. So, score one for the current crop. (Boring note: Truth is, any analog media is a bitch to digitize.)
With that stuff out of the way, something Bezos said stuck out:
How do I know that we have the best customer experience?
1. Price
2. Get it fast
3. Huge selection
I disagree; Amazon's customer experience is great because it is highly "intermational" - interactive and informational. (Well ain't I the clever marketing jerkoff?) One of the things I like to talk about to peeps when it comes to business is to find out what their customer experience was like. This is a big part of the reason that I think Yelp is far and away above other social networking sites.
And it's also why I think Amazon's retail experience is so satisfying, because before you know it you're knee deep in relevancy. Truth is, tons of consumer-oriented sites give you recommendations, but Amazon was a pioneer in relevancy in regards to recommendations. Then they hit upon the idea of tying in your likes to those of others through their lists - thus, it became an intermational experience.
That's what Yelp has done by synergizing the social networking model with the intermational model of Amazon.
Bezos said that as tech advances that more power is being transferred to consumers. I think I know what he means, but we're still a long way from home insofar as the control of all this cool stuff, let alone a true democracy where young and old folks alike can have an equal chance of entrepreneuring their way to the next big thing.
ps: I haven't forgotten about Frank Darabont's The Mist. If, like me, you're a fan of suspense flicks, see The Mist. I'd planned on writing a diatribe on why this kind of flick blows movies like Saw or Hostel out of the water, but I'll spare y'all. Just check it out; a real popcorn movie. It's good.
As an avid reader, this thing sounds really cool, but a couple things worry me: (1) It's $400, and (2) It's still too big.
So, given Moore's Law, price should fall. Size? Well, hopefully they did their focus groups.
But let's give Bezos/Amazon the bennie of a doubt here. Let's assume mass-traction happens. What are the implications?
The obvious things that Bezos cites (saving trees, ready access to about 90K books and no doubt growing, publishers not having to guess at book runs...) are cool. What I'm interested in knowing is will this open up the barriers to entry for indie writers in the same way that MP3s and portable players (no people, believe it or not, Stevie Jobs did not invent the MP3 player) did for music? That's not just a tech question, that's a business question. In other words, having the technology's one thing, but having access to it as a distribution platform is quite another. Bezos seems like a cool enough guy. So time'll tell.
There's also a difference maker here in that unlike music and unless you have bank, books are a muthaphuka to digitize. However, contemporary writers (I'm factoring out the Luddites) write on computers, so their stuff's already digital. So, score one for the current crop. (Boring note: Truth is, any analog media is a bitch to digitize.)
With that stuff out of the way, something Bezos said stuck out:
How do I know that we have the best customer experience?
1. Price
2. Get it fast
3. Huge selection
I disagree; Amazon's customer experience is great because it is highly "intermational" - interactive and informational. (Well ain't I the clever marketing jerkoff?) One of the things I like to talk about to peeps when it comes to business is to find out what their customer experience was like. This is a big part of the reason that I think Yelp is far and away above other social networking sites.
And it's also why I think Amazon's retail experience is so satisfying, because before you know it you're knee deep in relevancy. Truth is, tons of consumer-oriented sites give you recommendations, but Amazon was a pioneer in relevancy in regards to recommendations. Then they hit upon the idea of tying in your likes to those of others through their lists - thus, it became an intermational experience.
That's what Yelp has done by synergizing the social networking model with the intermational model of Amazon.
Bezos said that as tech advances that more power is being transferred to consumers. I think I know what he means, but we're still a long way from home insofar as the control of all this cool stuff, let alone a true democracy where young and old folks alike can have an equal chance of entrepreneuring their way to the next big thing.
ps: I haven't forgotten about Frank Darabont's The Mist. If, like me, you're a fan of suspense flicks, see The Mist. I'd planned on writing a diatribe on why this kind of flick blows movies like Saw or Hostel out of the water, but I'll spare y'all. Just check it out; a real popcorn movie. It's good.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
He's listed as day to day, but then again, aren't we all?
With all of the bluster about the way "new media" is changing the info landscape, the real challenges to the old guard seem to be - surprise surprise - in music. Witness Radiohead's latest distribution play. Go ahead - Google it - there's tons of stuff, from major mass media to pundits like Gerd Leonhard or Chris Anderson.
As someone who exists on the margins of this, pontificating till I was sick of it to so-called indie filmmakers, it's all quite amusing. Many of the principles remain the same between music and film and indeed with any artistic medium on the indie level.
But music has a different dimension than most others, and that's concerts. For musicians, this is where the money is. This is why the Stones, who by now are probably mainlining Geritol, are still touring and indeed in their recently completed world tour set a new gross record of over half a billion. That's a ton of Geritol.
So while all of the talk about the "innovation" (hint: it's not) of Radiohead's distrib strategy is bringing this discussion to more public light, the key thing to get is that recorded music (herein, "records" or, "a record") in the new age of new media is, in the purest marketing sense, collateral. Think of it this way: If a company takes out an ad for its latest widget, its sales expectation on the ad is based upon market research, and the price for the ad is a marketing cost. The difference is split between the two models, stone age and new media. What the mass media congloms of the stone age fail to understand is the stone age media's aside but a new media bedrock: the model of records = marketing cost in the age of new media; they are stuck in the stone age where, first and foremost, records were a revenue generator, instead of a cost center, ie: marketing cost.
In its most basic light, the stone age media's failure is in their out-moded, out-entrepreneured thinking, their perspective, the way they look at, perceive and understand the world. It's the Peter Principle all over again. (from the citation: This is "The Generalized Peter Principle." It was observed by Dr. William R. Corcoran in his work on Corrective Action Programs at nuclear power plants. He observed it applied to hardware, e.g., vacuum cleaners as aspirators, and administrative devices such as the "Safety Evaluations" used for managing change. There is much temptation to use what has worked before, even when it may exceed its effective scope. Dr. Peter observed this about humans. [emphasis mine])
And not to cast aspersions, but new media has its long list of wacko tries - witness the dot-com boom, but that's not un-expected. However, when a would-be king such as Yahoo goes and hires an old stone age patriarch like Terry Semel, (from the largest stone-age conglom on earth! No doubt the Yahoo-ers thought that was a great selling point, but in reality, their thinking as well was stone-age) it more than raised eyebrows with me. (Although I have no eyebrows to brag of) My expectation at that point was for Semel to not get it, and sure enough, in a re-tread of John Sculley at Apple, (Yes, even the mythic Steve Jobs had to re-tool his thinking. Remember his now legendary pitch to Sculley at the time? You want to sell sugar water or change the world?) Yahoo has "failed" spectacularly. I say this in light of the fact that Yahoo could have been the kings - they were positioned to be so, but then their lack of innovation killed their chances, and in a confluence of now history, Google out-entrepreneured them.
As someone who exists on the margins of this, pontificating till I was sick of it to so-called indie filmmakers, it's all quite amusing. Many of the principles remain the same between music and film and indeed with any artistic medium on the indie level.
But music has a different dimension than most others, and that's concerts. For musicians, this is where the money is. This is why the Stones, who by now are probably mainlining Geritol, are still touring and indeed in their recently completed world tour set a new gross record of over half a billion. That's a ton of Geritol.
So while all of the talk about the "innovation" (hint: it's not) of Radiohead's distrib strategy is bringing this discussion to more public light, the key thing to get is that recorded music (herein, "records" or, "a record") in the new age of new media is, in the purest marketing sense, collateral. Think of it this way: If a company takes out an ad for its latest widget, its sales expectation on the ad is based upon market research, and the price for the ad is a marketing cost. The difference is split between the two models, stone age and new media. What the mass media congloms of the stone age fail to understand is the stone age media's aside but a new media bedrock: the model of records = marketing cost in the age of new media; they are stuck in the stone age where, first and foremost, records were a revenue generator, instead of a cost center, ie: marketing cost.
In its most basic light, the stone age media's failure is in their out-moded, out-entrepreneured thinking, their perspective, the way they look at, perceive and understand the world. It's the Peter Principle all over again. (from the citation: This is "The Generalized Peter Principle." It was observed by Dr. William R. Corcoran in his work on Corrective Action Programs at nuclear power plants. He observed it applied to hardware, e.g., vacuum cleaners as aspirators, and administrative devices such as the "Safety Evaluations" used for managing change. There is much temptation to use what has worked before, even when it may exceed its effective scope. Dr. Peter observed this about humans. [emphasis mine])
And not to cast aspersions, but new media has its long list of wacko tries - witness the dot-com boom, but that's not un-expected. However, when a would-be king such as Yahoo goes and hires an old stone age patriarch like Terry Semel, (from the largest stone-age conglom on earth! No doubt the Yahoo-ers thought that was a great selling point, but in reality, their thinking as well was stone-age) it more than raised eyebrows with me. (Although I have no eyebrows to brag of) My expectation at that point was for Semel to not get it, and sure enough, in a re-tread of John Sculley at Apple, (Yes, even the mythic Steve Jobs had to re-tool his thinking. Remember his now legendary pitch to Sculley at the time? You want to sell sugar water or change the world?) Yahoo has "failed" spectacularly. I say this in light of the fact that Yahoo could have been the kings - they were positioned to be so, but then their lack of innovation killed their chances, and in a confluence of now history, Google out-entrepreneured them.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
LHOOQ: Kang Youwei Readymade, Even
Here's an example of a readymade I found that I did while in school. I remember the circumstances: It was a class on China's transition into the twentieth century, and was quite boring. Not because China's transitions aren't fascinating - they are - but the instructor was run-of-the-mill. But I did come across Kang Youwei, an interesting character during this period.
This is a poem Kang wrote while overseas, in Canada, desperately by some sources, trying to raise funds for his pro-emperor aspirations. The poem - written in August 1899 for the celebration of the imprisoned Emperor's birthday - speaks to the incipient dominant culture and the longing for stability, familiarity, conservatism... represented in his endorsement of the monarchy. Oddly enough, Kang would go on to champion very progressive social ideals. Here's his poem:
Far across the seas we celebrate Your Majesty's birthday,
The dragon banner unfurls above the white men's buildings.
White people, clinking their glasses, assemble grandly beside us;
While the yellow race squeeze, with lighted lanterns,
through narrow lanes.
The Lord on high grants You life, and has pity on us here below.
A petty official, prostrate, in tears, lies in bitter obscurity.
Far from this distant Canadian island I gaze toward Beijing:
Waves around the Emporer's palace-prison; how often I return
in my dreams.
I recall being struck by this poem at the time by the conflict, and its economy; there's quite a bit going on here within two stanzas.
At any rate and at this time, I'd been deeply ingrained in Surrealist principles, so I thought I'd make a readymade. Here it is:
Far across the sea I celebrate her
the banner unfurls above buildings
there is no clinking of glasses assembled grandly beside us
while the race proceeds with lighted lanterns through narrow lanes below us
Life on high has pity on us below
A petty official, prostrate, in tears, lies in bitter obscurity
From this distant island I gaze toward her
Waves around her palace
How often I return
-11/13/89
While I don't think Kang's poem is bad, (my only knock is that it's a tad obvious, but on the other hand Surrealists can be really abstract and obscure, while the creme de la creme is very lyrical and sometimes, a'la' Peret, funny in ways beyond recognition by traditional "umor" - [sic: yes, this is an obscure allusion for my benefit]) bad poetry is particularly good insofar as readymades are concerned. At least that's been my experience. In fact any bad text will do, poetry, songs, proclamations, transcripts, lectures, speeches, essays... blogs...
Orale pues, Marcel, ella tiene una cula calor, verdad!
This is a poem Kang wrote while overseas, in Canada, desperately by some sources, trying to raise funds for his pro-emperor aspirations. The poem - written in August 1899 for the celebration of the imprisoned Emperor's birthday - speaks to the incipient dominant culture and the longing for stability, familiarity, conservatism... represented in his endorsement of the monarchy. Oddly enough, Kang would go on to champion very progressive social ideals. Here's his poem:
Far across the seas we celebrate Your Majesty's birthday,
The dragon banner unfurls above the white men's buildings.
White people, clinking their glasses, assemble grandly beside us;
While the yellow race squeeze, with lighted lanterns,
through narrow lanes.
The Lord on high grants You life, and has pity on us here below.
A petty official, prostrate, in tears, lies in bitter obscurity.
Far from this distant Canadian island I gaze toward Beijing:
Waves around the Emporer's palace-prison; how often I return
in my dreams.
I recall being struck by this poem at the time by the conflict, and its economy; there's quite a bit going on here within two stanzas.
At any rate and at this time, I'd been deeply ingrained in Surrealist principles, so I thought I'd make a readymade. Here it is:
Far across the sea I celebrate her
the banner unfurls above buildings
there is no clinking of glasses assembled grandly beside us
while the race proceeds with lighted lanterns through narrow lanes below us
Life on high has pity on us below
A petty official, prostrate, in tears, lies in bitter obscurity
From this distant island I gaze toward her
Waves around her palace
How often I return
-11/13/89
While I don't think Kang's poem is bad, (my only knock is that it's a tad obvious, but on the other hand Surrealists can be really abstract and obscure, while the creme de la creme is very lyrical and sometimes, a'la' Peret, funny in ways beyond recognition by traditional "umor" - [sic: yes, this is an obscure allusion for my benefit]) bad poetry is particularly good insofar as readymades are concerned. At least that's been my experience. In fact any bad text will do, poetry, songs, proclamations, transcripts, lectures, speeches, essays... blogs...
Orale pues, Marcel, ella tiene una cula calor, verdad!
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.
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?
- 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 PrÃncipe; 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.
-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 PrÃncipe; 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.
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.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Hat's Off to Jim Jarmusch: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
I like JIm Jarmusch. I think his Stranger Than Paradise is brilliant; it's in my top 15 desert island films. Alongside STP, I have to throw in Ghost Dog.
The reason I'm writing about GD now is because one of the movie channels was showing it while we were eating dinner. My daughter was quite young when it came out, and she showed quite a bit of memory about it, probably because I bought the DVD and played it a lot back then.
It is one of the singularly holistic films I know of, overflowing with the stuff that makes this world so terrifyingly beautiful. Jarmusch accomplishes this in a number of ways, and he doesn't need a ham-handed big concept, over-the-top special effects or marquee names to accomplish his task. Instead, he creates a world and populates it with interesting people doing entertaining things. It's the kind of movie that escapes the typical dunderheaded American meathead.
I took a run through Youtube and found the requisite - and expected - number of clips from GD; car jackings, RZA beats, Hagakure stylings, hits... but I didn't find any that included those moments with then little Camille Winbush, who would find steady work later as a teen on the Bernie Mac show. What a face! And what a presence; her dialogs with GD, kinda droll but shot in that beautiful New York afternoon light, perfectly capture two actors and a filmmaker who are committed to something greater than themselves.
Isaac de Bankole is also great, sharing moments with GD and Pearline (Winbush) that transcend their lack of verbal communication. Their relationship is indeed one of the major metaphors of the movie, infused with all the irony - and comedy - it can muster.
And although she only has a few short scenes, Tricia Vessey's dry delivery is perfect, matched only by the brindle pit bull with his blank stare.
If I don't give a lot of ink to the mobsters - Henry Silva, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman... - it's only because they are the obvious ones in this flick to give praise to. They are indeed scene stealers, particularly Gorman, who's hilarious delivering his limping mafioso take on PE's "Cold Lampin'".
Ghost Dog is a romantic film, that is, among other things, about a forgotten era and its parallels to a modern day phenomenon. That Jarmusch invokes many disparate contexts - bushido, cosa nostra, hip hop, racism... - and creates one of the most singularly unique visions in cinema is an homage to those old school ways and a triumph of the creative spirit. That Ghost Dog is entertaining, funny and poignant as well is, I think, one of those singular achievements in art by a mind on fire with the creative spirit.
Oh, and my favorite among many others is the black bear scene. I remember one of my music teachers once opined that musicians these days don't know how to end a song, that a fade out isn't an ending, it's an engineering technique. While I don't always agree, as I like fade outs and think they can be kinda ghostly, Jarmusch very much is a filmmaker in command and with GD he composes one of the most sublime endings in filmdom.
This is some wallpaper I made shortly after I saw the film many moons ago.
The reason I'm writing about GD now is because one of the movie channels was showing it while we were eating dinner. My daughter was quite young when it came out, and she showed quite a bit of memory about it, probably because I bought the DVD and played it a lot back then.
It is one of the singularly holistic films I know of, overflowing with the stuff that makes this world so terrifyingly beautiful. Jarmusch accomplishes this in a number of ways, and he doesn't need a ham-handed big concept, over-the-top special effects or marquee names to accomplish his task. Instead, he creates a world and populates it with interesting people doing entertaining things. It's the kind of movie that escapes the typical dunderheaded American meathead.
I took a run through Youtube and found the requisite - and expected - number of clips from GD; car jackings, RZA beats, Hagakure stylings, hits... but I didn't find any that included those moments with then little Camille Winbush, who would find steady work later as a teen on the Bernie Mac show. What a face! And what a presence; her dialogs with GD, kinda droll but shot in that beautiful New York afternoon light, perfectly capture two actors and a filmmaker who are committed to something greater than themselves.
Isaac de Bankole is also great, sharing moments with GD and Pearline (Winbush) that transcend their lack of verbal communication. Their relationship is indeed one of the major metaphors of the movie, infused with all the irony - and comedy - it can muster.
And although she only has a few short scenes, Tricia Vessey's dry delivery is perfect, matched only by the brindle pit bull with his blank stare.
If I don't give a lot of ink to the mobsters - Henry Silva, John Tormey, Cliff Gorman... - it's only because they are the obvious ones in this flick to give praise to. They are indeed scene stealers, particularly Gorman, who's hilarious delivering his limping mafioso take on PE's "Cold Lampin'".
Ghost Dog is a romantic film, that is, among other things, about a forgotten era and its parallels to a modern day phenomenon. That Jarmusch invokes many disparate contexts - bushido, cosa nostra, hip hop, racism... - and creates one of the most singularly unique visions in cinema is an homage to those old school ways and a triumph of the creative spirit. That Ghost Dog is entertaining, funny and poignant as well is, I think, one of those singular achievements in art by a mind on fire with the creative spirit.
Oh, and my favorite among many others is the black bear scene. I remember one of my music teachers once opined that musicians these days don't know how to end a song, that a fade out isn't an ending, it's an engineering technique. While I don't always agree, as I like fade outs and think they can be kinda ghostly, Jarmusch very much is a filmmaker in command and with GD he composes one of the most sublime endings in filmdom.
This is some wallpaper I made shortly after I saw the film many moons ago.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
House of Cards: Amerikkka's False Economy
Most progressive economists can see through the smoke and mirrors bilking that is the ponzi/pyramid-scheme American economy. Many moons ago when taking sociology 101 I came upon that staggering stat of over 90% of the world's resources as being controlled by 5% of the population (or whatever it is). At first I couldn't believe it, but this was, after all, a text book. It just had to be true.
Aside from the stuff we can detect relatively easy, our economy really is about marketing. After all, for stuff to be this bad, on this many fronts, with one of the gloomiest and unprecedented futures in history ahead with no form of massive revolt is a triumph of marketing. My favorite theme in life, illusions, is playing out big time. I think that's easy enough to see, and, as the title quote by Farber here says...
This then explains the major theme in my life. Ever since Bertolucci's masterpiece, Il Conformista, I've been more or less pre-occupied with the theme of illusions; how they're manufactured, propagated, reified in art. Ellison's Invisible Man is the bible, but it also explains why I like Hitch's Vertigo and Arndt, Farris & Dayton's Little Miss Sunshine.
But here's another element, what I'll call, "This modern life." It's characterized by the "I'm so busy," syndrome, and it plays into the feeling that our lives really do have meaning and are worth a damn. In fairness, who was it that said, "Being poor is very time consuming"?
I had an experience recently where I caught up with some old friends and observed them with the objectivity of time in-between us. And while I still think they're "nice" enough people, I found myself being quite bored and dis-interested in them. Again, they're not bad people at all, but there's nothing at all that distinguishes them as analytical and critical thinkers. This doesn't mean someone should have a standard according to a particular canon, but that one has the wheels turning. Sojourner Truth, that homespun critic of great importance, laid it out flat for all to see, and her words were more cutting, prescient and incisive than all of the post-modern bullshit I read in and out of college. She didn't have book learnin', she had brains and used them. That's all I ask.
Where is this going? I think it explains in part why the great swindle that is the Amerikkkan economy is so successful at extracting capital from the majority economic bottom and funneling it up to the small percentage of economic elites. Factor in conglomerated mass media, replete with CNBC that "explains" all of the casino games being run (mutual funds, 401k, pensions, hedge funds, derivatives...), a consumer market rife with a myriad of choices (that some capitalists equate to an obvious expression of "freedom"), a material standard of living that's the highest in history, pacification through mindless entertainment (again, dominated by conglomerated mass media oligarchs), the monetization of everything, and perhaps the greatest of all elements, the myth of America, of freedom... and you have a confluence, a system, a perfect storm of exploitation.
It's not brain washing, it's something else, in scale, unprecedented. We, the unwashed masses do our part as well. Notice, all of the oligarchs, from professional sports, to politicians, to the mega corporations and conglomerates, they're all organized. But the public isn't, outside of the game of "republican and democrat." Instead, we're atomized, each in our individual cells, like larva, apart from one another except for the most superficial, ineffective and illusory of ways. That's a major strategic and tactical flaw.
Aside from the stuff we can detect relatively easy, our economy really is about marketing. After all, for stuff to be this bad, on this many fronts, with one of the gloomiest and unprecedented futures in history ahead with no form of massive revolt is a triumph of marketing. My favorite theme in life, illusions, is playing out big time. I think that's easy enough to see, and, as the title quote by Farber here says...
This then explains the major theme in my life. Ever since Bertolucci's masterpiece, Il Conformista, I've been more or less pre-occupied with the theme of illusions; how they're manufactured, propagated, reified in art. Ellison's Invisible Man is the bible, but it also explains why I like Hitch's Vertigo and Arndt, Farris & Dayton's Little Miss Sunshine.
But here's another element, what I'll call, "This modern life." It's characterized by the "I'm so busy," syndrome, and it plays into the feeling that our lives really do have meaning and are worth a damn. In fairness, who was it that said, "Being poor is very time consuming"?
I had an experience recently where I caught up with some old friends and observed them with the objectivity of time in-between us. And while I still think they're "nice" enough people, I found myself being quite bored and dis-interested in them. Again, they're not bad people at all, but there's nothing at all that distinguishes them as analytical and critical thinkers. This doesn't mean someone should have a standard according to a particular canon, but that one has the wheels turning. Sojourner Truth, that homespun critic of great importance, laid it out flat for all to see, and her words were more cutting, prescient and incisive than all of the post-modern bullshit I read in and out of college. She didn't have book learnin', she had brains and used them. That's all I ask.
Where is this going? I think it explains in part why the great swindle that is the Amerikkkan economy is so successful at extracting capital from the majority economic bottom and funneling it up to the small percentage of economic elites. Factor in conglomerated mass media, replete with CNBC that "explains" all of the casino games being run (mutual funds, 401k, pensions, hedge funds, derivatives...), a consumer market rife with a myriad of choices (that some capitalists equate to an obvious expression of "freedom"), a material standard of living that's the highest in history, pacification through mindless entertainment (again, dominated by conglomerated mass media oligarchs), the monetization of everything, and perhaps the greatest of all elements, the myth of America, of freedom... and you have a confluence, a system, a perfect storm of exploitation.
It's not brain washing, it's something else, in scale, unprecedented. We, the unwashed masses do our part as well. Notice, all of the oligarchs, from professional sports, to politicians, to the mega corporations and conglomerates, they're all organized. But the public isn't, outside of the game of "republican and democrat." Instead, we're atomized, each in our individual cells, like larva, apart from one another except for the most superficial, ineffective and illusory of ways. That's a major strategic and tactical flaw.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Sassy: Once in a While
Unlike most, I love Scorsese's, "New York, New York." In it, Liza Sings a very good version of this tune, one of my favorite standards.
La Mejor
Here's yet another regret; I never saw The Divine One. Without waxing on, she's my favorite.
Sunday, September 02, 2007
The Bad and the Beautiful
A while back I wrote about how while Les Paul performed accessible pop music, his genius was apparent to musicians and engineers. But believe it or not, there's another dimension, a "secret level," if you will, that is the infinite world of music.
The popular thing to say is that if America has given the world one truly original thing, it's jazz.
This then is jazz at it's most sublime, musician's music, if you will that has its lay following but is truly appreciated when one has at least a working knowledge of music, instrumental technique, history, and just plain creativity in their spirit. And among the many regrets of my life, there are a few jewels; one of them is having seen Tony Williams perform several times, a few of them at very small clubs, before his tragic death.
More, I have to say here once and for all that I think it says a lot about our world when mediocrity trumps true spirit and artistry just because it has a big marketing budget.
I'll write more later, but for now, enjoy Mr. Ron Carter (on upright), Mr. Wayne Shorter (on tenor), Mr. Herbie Hancock (piano), Mr. Tony Williams (probably still a teen or early twenties here!!! God, what a life...), and the one and only Mr. Badazz himself.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
The Source
With all of the adulation I've been showing Amy lately and lest any of you doubt that I have foresaken my roots.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Spam: Corporate Shit = Your Annoyance
Shepard Fairey was on The Henry Rollins show this past week, and while I think he's an ok dude, I think his art is just kinda eh. Though he does have a cool pic of Jay Adams:
I digress. The point Fairey (man, did HE get picked on as a kid) made that's worth echoing is the one about spam. Basically, why is it that he has to take shit for his graf when just because corporations pay all of a sudden their spam is legitimized, and moreover, we just accept it or shrug our collective shoulders.
Good point. One that Robbie Conal has been making for way longer than Fairey. And of course, the poster boy, Keith Haring.
But isn't it interesting that white dudes like Conal, Fairey and Haring are celebrated as art iconoclasts and even sometimes go on to commercial success, as Fairey admitted? Point: Graf is a staple where I came up, on the Old English tip and beyond.
The above is probably one of, if not the most notorious and steeped in East LA lore barrios: Cerco Blanco (White Fence). As a kid, I grew up near their arch rivals, Varrio Nuevo Estrada (VNE), but was always more taken with the lyrically named White Fence. Although I probably have it wrong, the way their name was handed down to me was that their founder was shot and fell over a white fence. My pops came up in Boyle Heights, steeped in White Fence.
And graf was everywhere in East LA. My favorite restaurant, Largo's Mitote, (RIP) had a back alley that was littered with spray paint way before it got going as "art" on the east coast.
Cholos - the prototypical/stereotypical "Mexican American gangbanger" - also had tats fired up decades before the current trend. Indeed, I remember being with Jerry Ortiz and going down to the Pike to get tatted. In the end, I chickened out because I just plain hated needles; as a kid I was always getting stuck because I had asthma and allergies. I hated needles.
But a cholo's placa isn't seen as art by the mainstream. And they certainly aren't getting on Hank's show.
I digress. The point Fairey (man, did HE get picked on as a kid) made that's worth echoing is the one about spam. Basically, why is it that he has to take shit for his graf when just because corporations pay all of a sudden their spam is legitimized, and moreover, we just accept it or shrug our collective shoulders.
Good point. One that Robbie Conal has been making for way longer than Fairey. And of course, the poster boy, Keith Haring.
But isn't it interesting that white dudes like Conal, Fairey and Haring are celebrated as art iconoclasts and even sometimes go on to commercial success, as Fairey admitted? Point: Graf is a staple where I came up, on the Old English tip and beyond.
The above is probably one of, if not the most notorious and steeped in East LA lore barrios: Cerco Blanco (White Fence). As a kid, I grew up near their arch rivals, Varrio Nuevo Estrada (VNE), but was always more taken with the lyrically named White Fence. Although I probably have it wrong, the way their name was handed down to me was that their founder was shot and fell over a white fence. My pops came up in Boyle Heights, steeped in White Fence.
And graf was everywhere in East LA. My favorite restaurant, Largo's Mitote, (RIP) had a back alley that was littered with spray paint way before it got going as "art" on the east coast.
Cholos - the prototypical/stereotypical "Mexican American gangbanger" - also had tats fired up decades before the current trend. Indeed, I remember being with Jerry Ortiz and going down to the Pike to get tatted. In the end, I chickened out because I just plain hated needles; as a kid I was always getting stuck because I had asthma and allergies. I hated needles.
But a cholo's placa isn't seen as art by the mainstream. And they certainly aren't getting on Hank's show.
Way to Go
Ha HA!!! PassiveAggressiveNotes.com
And peeps have to STILL ask why old media doesn't get it, let alone why it's struggling and/or dying. Oy. Hope I die before I get old...
Brilliant.
And peeps have to STILL ask why old media doesn't get it, let alone why it's struggling and/or dying. Oy. Hope I die before I get old...
Brilliant.
Monday, August 27, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Golden Ears
I've been doing this gig at a major broadcaster (one of the big four) and happened to bump into an old audiophile friend, "Andy." Andy's a really bright guy when it comes to audio stuff as he works with state-of-the-art rigs in sota studios. We're talking Meyer Sound monitors (for the ultra audiophiles, they're industry standard for near-field monitoring), bass traps and RPG Diffusers.
This is about what I feel confident in saying was not just a near-singular experience while I was living it (because after all, aren't we all living those?) but one that was great.
Andy began telling me how he had a copy of the Alan Parsons quadraphonic mix of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and he not only had this but had the hardware and the environment to pump it through.
Needless to say, I imbibed. One of the best hours of my life, aesthetically speaking.
Now, before all of you audio freaks get it twisted up, I'm gonna tell you a thing or two.
On second thought, screw it.
This was a really cool experience. Leave it at that.
This is about what I feel confident in saying was not just a near-singular experience while I was living it (because after all, aren't we all living those?) but one that was great.
Andy began telling me how he had a copy of the Alan Parsons quadraphonic mix of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and he not only had this but had the hardware and the environment to pump it through.
Needless to say, I imbibed. One of the best hours of my life, aesthetically speaking.
Now, before all of you audio freaks get it twisted up, I'm gonna tell you a thing or two.
On second thought, screw it.
This was a really cool experience. Leave it at that.
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