Destroy All Fear: Jay Adams

As a kid I had a skateboard, but we never screwed around with them in creative ways like the legendary Dogtown boys clear on the other side of LA did. They were the arbiters inventing the modern-day phenomenon and big biz it is today. Which is to say that while I liked skateboarding, I didn't love it. Basketball and football were my things.

Some years later I discovered that movies could be "different" after plunking down in my 10th grade English class late and loaded, right in the middle of Nichols', Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. Thereafter I went on a tear, and in my consumption I came across Bruce Brown's, On Any Sunday.

Why mention OAS in a piece on Jay Adams when I'm not even crazy about skateboarding? Well, for one, I've always had a fascination with people who really got into what they were doing, almost irrespective of the pursuit. That's where OAS comes in, because it gets into motorcycles and the men who ride them from many different angles and digs deep.

It is also full to overflowing with affection, and conveys the unique freedom that riders feel. In its own way, On Any Sunday is a very moving film. When I saw Stacy Peralta's, Dogtown and Z Boys, a few years back I remember thinking that it evoked the same feeling that On Any Sunday does.

So it is we come to Jay Adams, virtually a consensus lock for the most creative and free spirit to have skateboarded back in the formative days.

The following article first appeared in that legendary melding of street, punk, sport, and art known as Thrasher Magazine. I remember picking up Thrasher back in the day and riffing through it to find stuff on Black Flag, the Jerks, X, et al, and, even though I wasn't a skater, admiring the aesthetic. Corporate Amerikkka had no place there.

The article - in excerpt - is written by another of Jay's fellow Z Boys, Stacy Peralta, said director of Dogtown and Z Boys. Reading what he has to say about Jay, some thirty years later, reminds me of what Michael Bloomfield said about seeing and hearing Jimi the first time, how revelatory and transcendent it was. Peralta's words convey staggering admiration, and, yes, deep affection.

Maybe even love.

================================

Here's something about Jay Adams: Jay was not the greatest pool skater, nor was he the greatest bank skater, or the greatest slalom skater or the greatest freestyler. The fact is, Jay Adams' contribution to skateboarding defies description or category. Jay Adams is probably not the greatest skater of all time, but I can say without fear of being wrong that he is clearly the archetype of modern-day skateboarding. Archetype defined means an original pattern or model, a prototype. Prototype defined means the first thing or being of its kind. He's the real thing, an original seed, the original virus that infected all of us. He was beyond comparison. To this day I haven't witnessed any skater more vital, more dynamic, more fun to watch, more unpredictable, and more spontaneous in his approach than Jay. There are not enough superlatives to describe him.

In contests, Jay was simply the most exciting skater to watch. He never skated the same run the same way twice. His routines were wickedly random yet exceedingly tight and beautiful to watch: he even invented tricks during his runs. I've never seen any skater destroy convention and expectation better. Watching him skate was something new every second: he was "skate and destroy" personified.

I believe this photo of Jay is the most stunning and strikingly clear representation, of any photo ever taken, of modern skateboarding. It contains all the elements that make up what modern-day skateboarding has become: awesome aggression and style, power and fury, wild abandon, destruction of all fear, untamed individualism, and a free-spirited determination to tear, shred, and rip relentlessly.

Jay Adams may not have been the world's best skater, but he was the man, the real deal, the original, the first. He is the archetype of our shared heritage.
---Stacy Peralta

Sundance Channel's, "The Green"

Only a few months ago I wrote about the new trinity which is inclusive of sustainable practices and green technology feeding into and supporting healthy communities. As loose as that sounds, it isn't, but I don't have the time now to go into it. Suffice to say that at this moment I understand how that is vague because of its over-arching reach. (For elucidation, go here: I wrote last year on sustainability in my take on EDENS LOST AND FOUND)

At any rate, I just caught my first viewing of Sundance's "The Green," (corny name) in all of its starbucksy feel. Actually, the program was "Big Ideas for a Small Planet," which I guess flies under the over-arching moniker. I dunno. But it was good. So, I give 'em props here.

The one company that stood out was Bart Bettencourt's and Carlos Salgado's Scrapile. While they make cool furniture from wood scraps, at one point it was suggested that the company change its name to something more "elegant." But they declined.

Good call.

Some Scrapile stuff...

Homage a Don Luis Bunuel: Cet Obscur Objet du Desir @ 30

As a young person I was always searching. Knowledge, beauty, the mad Freudian drive for sex... in that sense I was certainly like the billions of other kids who've walked this earth. But about the age of 15 I stumbled over Surrealism in the form of Dali. I was intrigued by the "outlandishness" of his paintings and public persona. It'd be only a few years later that I'd find out what a buffoon he was; excommunicated by Surrealism's pope Breton, and castigated by said pope in typical Surrealist fashion who dubbed the Spaniard "Avida Dollars," an apt anagram derived from Dali's name. To this day I don't care for his ideas which come off as facile.

His fellow Spaniard Luis Bunuel is another story. Is anyone's life ever the same after seeing this:



What was so amazing about Don Luis was the consistency of his morality and the way it infused everything, his entire life. Though he'd eventually leave the movement that launched him into history, he never forgot - nor forsook - the skies of his youth.

And so it is that I pay homage to one of the most sublime things ever spawned by this wretched, magnificent world, Don Luis' "Cet Obscur Objet du Desir." (1977)

It's useless to say anything about it from a critical standpoint that hasn't been psyched up in books and articles. What's remarkable about COOOD (besides it's beauty) is that Don Luis made it, his last film, at the age of 77.

The few times I've been lucky enough to see interviews with Don Luis I've been captivated by his joi de vivre. A real raconteur, it's easy to see why his free spirit couldn't be held down by something obscene like a studio system. (For a brief moment he attempted to work at Warner Bros. as I recall, and tells of a sad and yet revealing story of von Sternberg during this time).

It would be Bunuel himself who would provide, I think, one of the best definitions of Surrealism: it was a poetic and moral movement. Now, many years later, after the blush of my youthful romance with Surrealism has long faded, I couldn't agree more.

He was legendary in his lust for life, smoking and drinking all the way through, and yet I've never encountered a more lucid and intoxicating person. Deneuve once said that don Luis was "more than a director."

There's a scene at the end of COOdD where Conchita and Mathieu stop in front of a window. There, they see a seamstress sewing a bloody lace mantilla. Conchita and Mathieu stare at the seamstress; Bunuel comes in tighter on the darning, Conchita and Mathieu exchange words, but he shoots it from the perspective of the seamstress, inside the shop so we can't hear what they're saying. Suddenly the conversation heats up. And then...

The scene, for some unexplainable reason, is strangely moving. And like much of the Surrealist adventure, that's apropos.

The Colonizer's New Clothes: Who BETTER to Lead Diversity Initiatives, than...

...white guys.

Yup.

Basically, the following WSJ article (courtesy of a poster on the AA Drama list) shows how crazy the diversity/outreach landscape is. The gist of this latest "development" is that some companies have adopted the strategy of installing white guys as heads of their diversity programs.

Yeah. If, like me, you scratch your head, roll yer eyes, furrow your brow or raise an eyebrow at that logic, stay with me.

I sent this out to my list and got some interesting replies; here're a couple...

"It's amazing how these guys are all about me, me, me. And yes they should feel defensive. The whole basis of diversity is to disrupt the 63% status quo, right? That is so bass ackwards."

"As the Who so aptly put it in "Won't Get Fooled Again" - meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Abe Lincoln had it right. You can fool some of the people all of the time. Some of those people? Apparently us, people of color, if we're fool enough to fall for this one."

Rather than spend the next half hour picking apart the article, let me just add on to the last comment by my down brotha, Paris; I find it absurd that us mud peeps get our lather all up about Imus when the very foundations of our society are crumbling beneath our feet. The laundry list is too large but anyone who knows me has had an earful for the past few years so I'll spare you.

But here's an important distinction; do I blame the mud peeps who get all worked up over Imus (or Michael Richards)? Not really.

The state of media relations in this country is appalling, specifically, understanding things like the structural relationships of mass media by the plebiscite, "structural relationships" constituting such things as vertical alignment (ergo, Sony buys the rights to "Spiderman," produces the movie, develops the game for its gaming platform, and then throws up its spam onto Columbia - a Sony owned-corporation - produced TV show time slots) . Someone once brought up to me that counter information's there, it's just that people, particularly us mud peeps, are just plain lazy. And I understand that - but is it the "laziness" that's the by-product of hopelessness? After all, Said, Herman, Zinn, Ehrenreich, Chomsky... have been around for decades chasing the devil.

Check out the Eddie Bernays quote to the right along my wall of quotes. His take on the 4th estate is right on.

All of this is to say that while I think for us mud peoples of the world to make big stinks about sensationalist stuff while the devil is running buck wild is just as crazy as white guys running diversity outreach programs. At the same time, I don't blame the mud peeps who go this way because they've been conditioned and trained very, very well.

On a final note, I was playing tennis with Dave yesterday and we commented on how gas was now marching inexorably toward the $4 a gallon mark. I told him exactly how I felt; that we deserve it, and how, in the 2000 election I even scared myself when I told anyone who'd listen: "You watch what happens when you put two oil men in charge." But I never, NEVER in my wildest dreams, imagined it'd be like this. And now we've reached the sad, tragic and utterly pathetic state as a country where we need to get some freezing cold water thrown on us, because at this point that's what it's going to take - and that I hope gas goes to $7 a gallon if that will get us to wake the fuck up. And so it goes with race relations. Somewhere out there in infinity, there is a critical point, a threshold, where things will change. It isn't theoretical, it's real - we just haven't crossed it yet. Evidently.

Meanwhile, put it this way: Cesar fiddled while Rome burned.

But at least Cesar had a Rome to begin with.

-jp

The Wall Street Journal
THEORY & PRACTICE

Diversity Programs
Look to Involve
White Males as Leaders
Goal Is to Get Efforts
More Into Mainstream,
Create 'Sustainability'
By ERIN WHITE
May 7, 2007; Page B4

As a white male, tax partner Keith Ruth was surprised last year when he was asked to help lead PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP's diversity efforts. Some employees questioned his qualifications. But Chris Simmons, PwC's chief diversity officer, insisted. "A lot of the people we want to hear the message are white males," Mr. Simmons says.

The unusual tactic -- enlisting white males to foster diversity efforts -- is gaining currency at U.S. companies. White men run the diversity programs at big employers such as Coca-Cola Co. and Southern Co.'s Georgia Power unit. Coke last fall brought in a consultant to talk to employees about "engaging white men in diversity efforts." PwC and others have given white male managers part-time assignments to promote diversity alongside their regular jobs.

It's part of an effort to get diversity programs off the sidelines and into the mainstream of the business. Having a white man champion diversity efforts -- particularly one who works in operations rather than human resources -- can help bring other white males on board, the theory goes.

Too many diversity initiatives make white men feel defensive, says Frank McCloskey, a white male operations veteran named Georgia Power's first head of diversity in 2000 after the company was sued for allegedly discriminating against blacks in hiring and promotion. He believes firms must engage white men to change the company culture.

When Mr. McCloskey was appointed, 63% of Georgia Power's employees were white men. "How can we ever create sustainability if you don't have 63% of your work force feeling that there's something in it for them?" he asks.

[the preceding paragraph has to be one of the craziest I've come across in a while... -jp]

At PwC, Mr. Simmons, who is black, heads a diversity program that includes mentoring, conferences, and one-on-one talks between partners and staffers who are women or minorities. Mr. Simmons comes from operations rather than human resources. Most recently he oversaw PwC's mergers and acquisitions. In July he will become managing partner for the region around Washington, D.C. The firm's new diversity chief will
be tax partner Roy Weathers, who is also black.

Mr. Simmons became diversity chief in 2004 with a directive from PwC U.S. Chairman Dennis Nally to shift diversity concerns from a "side topic" to an integral part of operations. About the same time, the firm named diversity leaders for each of its four business units. These are senior executives with other jobs, who also are charged with integrating diversity concerns into routine business decisions, such
as client assignments and promotions.

None of the diversity leaders was a white man. But Mr. Simmons believed that white men might pay more heed to diversity concerns if they hear them from a white man. "We really have to get away from this model of it just being white women and minority people," he says.

Mr. Simmons approached Mr. Ruth, an enthusiastic supporter of a tax group employee-diversity council. Mr. Ruth, who grew up in rural Georgia, was running PwC's tax practice for the southeast U.S. Mr. Ruth spent three weeks reading books Mr. Simmons recommended, including "It's the Little Things: Everyday Interactions That Anger, Annoy, and Divide the Races," by Lena Williams.

After the appointment was announced, Mr. Simmons says a few employees asked why he had placed a white male in the role. "I said it sends the message that we think all kinds of people can be committed to diversity," he says.

Early on, Mr. Ruth asked the tax practice's regional leaders to periodically review client assignments to make sure projects were being distributed equitably. He also ordered a review of performance evaluations to make sure women and minorities received sufficient feedback and career advice. He asked the other regional leaders in the tax practice to form employee-diversity councils like the one he had helped run in the southeast. And he is organizing a conference focused on career issues for women.

Mr. Ruth says he has learned from the job, too. Through one-on-one talks with younger accountants, he realized that minorities sometimes lack the alumni network that can help advance careers. "It's little things like that which I don't think most partners knew," he says.

For his part, Mr. Simmons says Mr. Ruth has been "bringing some people into the fold that I probably would have a harder time" reaching.

Write to Erin White at erin.white@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117848919730093796.html

Nikolaus Geyrhalter's, "Our Daily Bread"

By chance I came across a postcard for Nikolaus Geyrhalter's, OUR DAILY BREAD, which I saw a year ago at the LA Film Fest. Don't know what happened, but for whatever reason I didn't write about it. Anyway, I highly recommend this flick.


A digression - I stopped reading fiction over ten years ago. I made one exception about three years ago when I re-visited Ellison, but that was it. Rather than go on some moralistic high-horse blathering about non-fiction versus fiction, I'll just say that I don't read fiction anymore and leave it at that but with this; I think there's plenty of dumb or over-rated and marketing hyped non-fiction shit. "Tipping Point" and "Freakonomics" lead the current crop. I say this about my reading proclivity because I find this disdain for reading fiction bleeding over into my movie viewing. 


Geyrhalter was the cinematographer as well as director, and he's got a keen eye. His most obvious influence is expressed in his Kubrick-ian symmetrical compositions...











But Geyrhalter has a great compositional eye, period...





The movie deals with agri-biz's approach to food mass-production and uses it as a touchstone for the viewer to launch into an inquiry about the modern world. In this way, it's like what the late, great Tati did with films like Playtime.  The "Kubrick-ian gaze" extends beyond the visual; it infuses the feeling of the flick, and it works. It's not the hit you over-the-head moralizing that the majority of filmmakers would fall into. And it's not the full of crap "Look, I'm a great artist" stuff that Fred Wiseman does. Instead, ODB (no, not Wu Tang) is shot through with integrity and tempered by a keen aesthetic sensibility - and that's a top-notch combo.


There's not an ounce of dialog as I recall, but it's easily one of the best flicks I've seen in the past two years. This guy's one to watch for.

Ruth Asawa

Aside from Noguchi, Ruth Asawa is one of the few APA artists that stands as someone who could compete on a mini-major level. Little known outside of the "art world," I disagree with her politics, having said of the concentration camp experience, "I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am."

Yet, and yes, I understand this. I think. As I've said, my mom's side of the family is salt o' the earth folks. She was, and still is in many ways, a country gal, raised on a farm. As such they needed hands and grandpa & grandma had a gaggle of them - 9 in all (one aunt would tragically die as a child). Many of them feel the same way as Asawa about the camps.

When I was a kid, I of course didn't know a whit about psych nor gave a fig about it. Life was about playing. As I grew older the "Nisei conciliation" annoyed and then would irritate me. Now, with a bit more livin' under me, I think I get it. But I still don't agree. So if it seems contradictory to like an artist but disagree with their politics, so be it.

At any rate, the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) is exhibiting Asawa, and I'd never seen her work in person. While I think her stuff can be easily attacked, there's a naivete about it that, if viewed in the right state of mind and circumstances, is pretty cool.







The exhibit mentions her tenure at the legendary Black Mountain College. It makes me jealous that places like BMC aren't everywhere, unleashing all kinds of creative mischief, and that I can't spend my life visiting all of them so I can participate.

I went to the exhibit with Abukur and there's a part of some exhibits that I really dig; often there will be a separate room, fairly intimate, that shows videos and films. They had one at the exhibit. Coincidentally, I was also with Abukur at the Hammer Museum where they have a similar film room - we saw a really cool and funny film by David Shrigley and Chris Shepherd there, "Who I am and What I Want."

There's something about it being day outside, but dark inside, with a thin sliver of light coming in from the entranceway, a small group of people, and a film about art. Bunuel talks a bit about this feeling in relation to watching matinees and then emerging into the daytime, how it's a shock, but a really cool one.

One photo that I would have liked to shown you is by Asawa's friend, Imogen Cunnigham. It's of Asawa, probably in her late 20's in the snow. In medium close up, she's turned almost away from the camera, lending a dimension to the picture that it otherwise would not have, similar to when Magritte paints his bowler man from the back.

So, instead, I'll post this one of her and her kids. I like it because I think kids are better off when exposed to art consistently, and in some ways I'm jealous of those who were raised in such an atmosphere. I had books and music, which of course were great, but I can't even imagine how great it must have been to have been raised in a Neutra house, or surrounded, immersed in art the way Victor and Sally Ganz satiated their apartment. Granted, like I said, parents can have screwed up politics, but I guess what I'm saying is that regardless, if there's a lot of cool art around then that's a good thing.