It’s amazing how many people will argue so passionately against intelligent design when it comes to the evolution of a species but so many still refuse to recognize the same process at work in language. Contrary to popular opinion, there is almost no intelligent design behind the modern English language. It evolved into its current state through a series of mistakes, misquotes, and mispronunciations over the centuries and continues to change every time it’s written and spoken.
Some grammatical rules are so nonsensical that one has to wonder how they were arrived at in the first place. Splitting an infinitive, for instance, is a vestigial Latin rule that has no basis in English. Why does it exist and why does it continue to be taught and upheld by some as more than a stylistic preference? English has evolved beyond this silly rule, yet language traditionalists (or “creationists” believing in a grand design) continue to stem the tide.
The same is true for the phrase “begs the question.” This is a personal favorite. I’m forever perplexed by those who take pride in pointing out whenever someone uses the phrase incorrectly: With some rather grandiose flair, they’ll say that this tired cliché does not mean “raises the question” and so should not be used in place of it. These people, annoying as they all may be, are technically correct. In its original definition as coined five centuries ago, “begs the question” means to assume something is true based on nothing more than your own opinion. In other words, if you say jazz music is worthless because you never listen to it, then you’re “begging the question” regarding jazz since there’s no connection between its worth and whether or not you listen to it. However, when people point out this definition, I have to ask them the last time they used the word “begs” in this arcane manner that means “to assume improperly.” In fact, my feeling is if you don’t use this obscure definition of the word “begs” at any other time, then you don’t have permission to criticize people for using “begs the question” in the modern sense. Indeed, using it to mean “raises the question” is its new definition. What you’re witnessing is the evolution of the English language. It’s not wrong and it’s not a sin against the god who created it, but it’s the way language has always adapted to new environments and new uses. Even my joking use of the word “Nazism” in the opening paragraph reflects the way the term has come to mean one who is fanatically dedicated to controlling a specific activity or practice. Words fall in and out of favor; old phrases are recycled and redefined for the modern era. It happens all the time.
Language is an art form like any other, held together by a basic set of rules that will always be in a state of flux. Dragging out dead or dying definitions and insisting language remain unchanged flies in the face of its own nature and denies its evolutionary pedigree.
I saw the documentary Food, Inc. about a month ago. Definitely a must see film for anyone who eats mass produced food in the United States. And while it made vegetarian friends glad they didn’t eat meat, it made me want to go off food entirely. Health care needs a major overhaul and so does the food manufacturing process—two things incontrovertibly linked. It’s simple: awful food equals awful health.
However, the most surprising part was when it was revealed that a company could trademark a specific strain of corn that they had developed. Although this makes perfect sense on paper, in the real world, the wind is rather indescriminant about where it spreads seed. So if your neighbor is growing a trademarked strain of corn and it happens to blow onto your farmland, where it mixes with your untrademarked strain, you suddenly become liable for illegally growing trademarked corn. How can you police mother nature in this instance? The result is a farmer who had no control over what happened being sued, and if he can’t afford the legal fees like most farmers, he has to either sell out or go out of business. Wonderful! Who says the system is broken?
I’m not sure what the solution is here, but please don’t buy all the organic food hype the hippies are selling. It’s mostly a gimmick that ends up costing farmers more money in order to have their crops officially labeled “organic” and affixed with certain seals/certifications.
Jesse Ventura, former wrestler and governor of Minnesota, hosts a new series for the horrendously misinformed called Conspiracy Theory. In the promo he says, “I’ve been on the inside and now I’m ready to talk.”
That’s an odd twist. Now that he’s out of office, and can’t do anything about anything (though how much the governor of Minnesota could do in the first place is open to question), he’s ready to talk? And talk about what exactly? How long it took his state to put Senator Franken in office? Or the time he stumbled across a manila folder labeled “Classified State Secrets”?
Italian songwriter Adriano Celentano shows us what an American pop song sounds like to non-speakers by performing a fantastic song in English-sounding gibberish. This is brilliant in every conceivable sense of the word. Follow along with the lyrics.
Why don’t they call Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern what it really is: Fat Sweaty Man Eats Moist Food While Microphoned. *shudder* He could be eating a cheeseburger it would still be just as revolting. I’m almost positive watching this a recognized form of torture in Malaysia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. And, let’s be honest, they could feed this creature anything and he would find it appetizing:
Villager: This? This is a steaming pile of dog shit served in a bed pan. Zimmern: Fascinating. What do you use to season it? Villager: Whatever the dog has recently eaten. Zimmern (to camera): What I love about this is the texture and the nuttiness... Villager (to interpreter): This is one fucked up American slob. And why is he sweating so damn much? Can’t he stop sweating? I thought the dog shit was disgusting on its own, but then I started watching this moleman tunnel through it like it were the grounds of a POW camp and I can’t believe my eyes.
For anyone who still isn’t familiar with this, I give you The Andy Rooney Game wherein you take the first and last line of his weekly and nonsensical 60 Minutes segment and edit them together into one brilliant thought.
In fact, adding the phrase “in my pants” to the end of any sentence will work as a great failed pick-up line. It’s like that old gag about adding “in bed” to any fortune cookie fortune, only better: “Good health will be yours for a long time...in my pants.”
The Dark Knight was good for a movie that didn’t make much sense. Finally, someone has pointed out some of the plot holes in an easy to follow rap video featuring a pretty good Michael Caine impression. Certainly the best I’ve seen spit rhymes.
I don’t mind people who talk to god. It’s the ones who say he talks back that bother me. That’s an old joke, but I can’t remember who came up with it. (Moses? Hitchens?)
Maybe I’m just jealous of these people. The only thing a burning bush has ever told me is that it was time to see a doctor.
A fourth video made for one of my Poetry Meets Music tracks in astounding widescreen format (some clever filmmakers out there should grab these and make more interesting videos for them):
Does this still count? Why am I even posting every single day? I can probably count the number of people out there reading this on my elbow. (Hi, mom.) But it’s become more like a personal challenge now to see if I can keep it going. Judging from my past posting history, we may be in for an early defeat, but that’s a negativistic view. And what would the world be like without me believing I had made up a word only to discover it actually exists? You learn, I learn, and the world is just an iota better for it. How utterly cromulent.
Dan Savage’s comments about Obama’s track record on gay rights in this video hit the nail
right on the head. And sadly, nearly the same could be said for Obama’s stance on health care and the war—all things I considered when casting my vote last year. No one expects things to be fixed overnight, but if “hope” and “change” were the actual agenda, then things aren’t looking too good for our hero.
“You can look at me as a movie star or you can wipe that shit outta your head and think, ‘Steven Seagal can save my life’ because that’s why I’m here.”
Sometimes, you have to bow down to the TV gods and thank them for things like Steven Seagal Lawman. This interview with Seagal might help explain why this show is worth watching. Hell, even Howard Stern is a fan.
I can only hope A&E eventually gives us a Dog The Bounty Hunter and Steven Seagal crossover episode. These two minds must meet.
Someone please explain to me how a man who’s essentially been on the run for over three decades gets bail. Aren’t there some trust issues here? I guess the trick is to make a movie with Jack Nicholson first and then sodomize a 13 year-old in his home, not the other way around.
But at least the entertainment industry hasn’t been giving him awards left and right since he fled the country, and it’s not as though he was arrested on his way to yet another swanky awards ceremony to accept a prize. Oh, wait a minute, it’s Communists they blacklisted not rapists. Well, at least we know where Hollywood stands on its -ists.
In honor of World AIDS Day, I thought advocacy groups could us a new slogan to continue to raise public awareness. Over 33 million people are currently living with HIV, but the usual campaigns don’t seem to hit close to home with everyone like they should, very often because of intolerance or ignorance. So I’ve come up with a bit of marketing magic that really sells the point in black and white terms: “AIDS—It’s Not Just For Gay People Anymore!” I’m imagining bumper stickers and a whole line of underwear. But in lieu of donations to my cause, I hope you’ll consider giving a little something to utac.org or UNICEF. However you decide to raise awareness today, please don’t blow your W.A.D.
I don’t understand people who make a point of saying they love food. If anything, you should be telling people if you hate food because that would be unusual:
“Damn this biochemistry. I shall eat this meal begrudgingly and chew it with spite.”
“Chew it with Sprite?”
“No, spite. It’s much more sour and has twice the caffeine.”
“See one of the greatest actors of his generation in his best performance in years.”
This sentence is currently being used in a TV ad to sell a new Robert De Niro movie. What’s interesting about it is that only the first half of it (“one of the greatest actors of his generation”) comes from an actual review of the movie. The second half isn’t quoted on screen at all but is simply spoken in a voice over.
Anyone else think this both misleading and a little more than insulting to De Niro? They’re basically saying that while he sucked in his last few movies he’s actually pretty good in this one for a change so you should check it out.
Not quite the angle I would expect the studio to take or one De Niro would necessarily agree with—although anyone who’s seen his hislastfewmovies certainly might.
Today, a doctor asked me if I was pregnant before taking an X-ray.
Believing I misheard her, I politely asked, “Huh?” She looked me dead in the eye and repeated the question.
I replied, “I don’t think so.”
She said, “Okay” and never cracked a smile.
It was either a very troubling moment or the single greatest thing a doctor’s ever said to me. Either way, she may have missed her calling. But I am leaning toward taking that pregnancy test.
“A woman at my polling place asked me do I believe in equality for gay and lesbian people. I was pretty surprised to be asked a question like that. It made no sense to me. Finally I asked her: ‘What do you think I fought for in Omaha Beach?’” An emotional public statement from a WWII vet on Maine’s marriage equality bill.
Jim Carroll has died. This is turning into a depressing year of lost talent. This one hits a little closer to home for me than any other. Although my own poetic interests have diverged over the years from the New York/Beat style Jim wrote in, he probably influenced me more than any other writer early on and I’ve always held a special regard for him. His music also had a huge impact on me and I still think he penned some of the best songs to come out of the New York scene. I’ve been looking forward to his always-in-progress first novel The Petting Zooand hoped he might make it out to do a reading near me soon so I could say hello as I’d always missed him when he came around. Perhaps he at least finished a draft of his novel and it’ll be published along with the rest of his finished writings in the near future. Not much else to say now. Time for some radio silence. Bye, Jim.
By far, this is the finest death scene in episodic television history. (Um, spoiler alert for anyone catching up on their Dawson’s Creek.) Interesting note: This is precisely what you deserve for listening to a crappy cover of a classic song and singing along instead of instantly and angrily switching stations to signal your disgust to the gods of ‘70s rock. They are watching.
You’ve certainly heard the news: Michael Jackson is dead. I realize I’m probably mourning more for the entertainer he was than for the man he has been in recent years, but I’m not ashamed to say I’m a fan with most of his hits on my iPod. This news is indeed depressing. Probably won’t hit for me a few more days.
Telling us a Michael Bay movie sucks is a lot like telling us the sky is blue—we can easily figure it out for ourselves just by looking at it for a few seconds. But it’s not always the message that matters so much as the manner in which it’s conveyed. To wit, Roger Ebert’s review of Transformers 2: “The movie has been signed by Michael Bay. This is the same man who directed The Rock in 1996. Now he has made Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Faust made a better deal.” Snap.
“Almost all our beer knowledge comes from Budweiser, Miller, and Coors. It’s as if all we knew about food we learned from McDonald’s.” A brilliant quote from Jim Koch, the founder of Boston Beer Company.
If you love good beer and haven’t seen Beer Wars yet, please do so as soon as possible. It’s put me off mass market beer for good and there are a lot of insights in the documentary about how much of the U.S. beer market is made up of independent brewers (less than 5%) and just how many beers are actually owned by the same three companies (Anheuser-Busch InBev, Miller, and Coors). Some beers I was surprised to learn were sold/owned by “The Big 3” include Bass Ale, Stella Artois, Blue Moon, Hoegaarden, Boddingtons, Spaten, Franziskaner, and Killian’s Irish Red.
Tell the conglomerates selling their hop-flavored water to put it back in the horse it came from and support craft brewers who are out there making some of the best beers in the world!
At long last, the countdown draws to an end and President George W. Bush leaves the White House for good this Tuesday at noon. There are any number of ways to commemorate this event, but I thought a few choice links gathered over the past few months would be best.
Farewell To All That: An Oral History Of The Bush White House
Vanity Fair’s sometimes frightening collection of memories from Bush administration insiders, spanning the opening days of Bush’s presidency in 2001 to the economic collapse of fall 2008. A must-read.
My Dinners With Dubya
Another piece from Vanity Fair, this time an amusing and bizarre twentysomething’s account of hanging out with the first family both before and after 9/11.
The Final Days Of The Presidency Of George W. Bush
This New York Times Magazine article was printed during the ‘08 campaign and the first half focuses on Bush’s relationship (or lack thereof) with John McCain. The second half, however, is the more interesting bit and is a fascinating look at the closing months of his presidency.
A President Forgotten But Not Gone
Frank Rich has provided some of the best opinion columns in the New York Times over the last few years. This swan song to the Bush presidency is a fitting close.
I’d be remiss not to share some links that also give us a better look at the upcoming president. One interesting fact is that Obama will take his oath of office on Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural bible and, surprisingly, will be the first to do so since Lincoln himself in 1861.
Barack Obama: How He Did It
Newsweek’s extensive look at the 2008 presidential campaign with insider stories from the people who were there. This impressive 7-part feature covers the Obama, Clinton, and McCain campaigns. A great read.
White Like Me
Frank Rich (once again) on Obama’s upcoming inauguration and the issues of race still left unsettled more than 40 years after the Civil Rights Movement.
Joe Biden On Iraq War Resolution
When I first started supporting Joe Biden for president in early ‘07, a lot of friends asked me why (most were either supporting Clinton or Obama at the time). This video from 2007 is probably the best short answer to that question and why I like to call him Fightin’ Joe Biden. Obama couldn’t have picked a better VP.
Since March, I’ve been hoping Obama would have the good sense to choose Joe Biden as his running mate, and Joe would likewise have the good sense to accept. No one’s better on foreign policy or tells it how it is better than Fightin’ Joe Biden. Despite what Clinton fans may have believed, this is the real dream team. Here’s to watching Joe hand Mitt Romney his ass in the VP debate this October.
August 29th Update: Damn. So there’s no chance for a Biden/Romney debate this fall since McCain has chosen Alaska governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. After the initial “Who?” reaction, the next question is whether undecided female voters will actually be swayed by this choice, or if they will see through McCain’s obvious attempt at manipulation—choosing a woman half his age that no one has ever heard of (and whom he had only met once before) for simply being a conservative woman and half his age. At least it should still make for an interesting fall campaign, if not one as entertaining as a McCain/Romney ticket (the GOP’s own Oscar Madison and Felix Unger) would have provided.
Today’s series of posts is brought to you by the number 8, also known as China’s luckiest number. Conveniently, the Beijing Olympics also start today. Or have already started. I’m not keeping track. Does anyone actually make a point to watch the Olympics or just sit through them because nothing else is on? I’d like to see the TiVo numbers on that.
A little while back, I wrote a follow-up to my original bloggish essay on climate change. For reasons still unknown to me, I never posted it. So I’m doing it now. In the sequel, starring the likes of retired Oregon Climate Center Director George Taylor, Richard Feynman, biofuels, and McCarthyism, I try to address the notion that doing “something” is better than doing “nothing.” In fact, I believe the opposite is true. You can read all my nonsense here: “The Missing Debate On Climate Change.”
Penn & Teller also recently aired an episode of Bullshit! that tackled the silly idea of buying “carbon credits” to off-set your carbon footprint. A fad shockingly similar to indulgences (great name) once pettled by the Roman Catholic Church as a way for sinners to save their immortal souls—for a fee. It seems we may need a modern-day Martin Luther to help cease this carbon credit practice soon or we’re all going to wind up paying into these scams in one way or another.
The other big issue I have with global warming activists is how much emotion has overtaken fact at nearly every turn. I mention this in my follow-up piece, but to take one example, it seems we’ve all gone a little biofuel crazy lately—insisting we burn food to save us from burning the planet. But this is exactly the sort of thing that happens when you make arguments based more on emotions rather than facts. You arrive at impractical solutions driven by impulses that simply make you feel better and which don’t have a real impact on solving the energy crisis.
With scientific evidence going out of style, emotional arguments and anecdotal data are ruling the day. The media subjects us to one frightening image of environmental nightmare after another, linking each to global warming. Journalists and activist scientists use hurricanes, wildfires, and starving polar bears to appeal to our emotions, not to our reason. They are far more concerned with anecdotal observations, such as the frozen sea ice inside the Arctic Circle, than they are with understanding why it is happening and how frequently it has occurred in the past.
The entire article is worthwhile reading. And unlike another retired astronaut in the news recently, Cunningham’s arguments certainly make a lot of sense and he has the credentials to back them up. It’s funny, but all the debate between alarmists and those not giving in to emotional arguments reminds me of the recent Democratic presidential nomination. Hillary Clinton supporters (including her husband) went so far as to claim that those who didn’t vote for her were reacting based on some sort of covert/overt sexism. The truth, however, was that those who didn’t support Clinton didn’t necessarily oppose a female president. They simply opposed her being that female president. It’s a similar situation with the environmental debate. Those who don’t buy into all the Chicken Little hysteria over global warming aren’t doing it to side with the oil companies or because they want to drive enormous SUVs guilt-free or because they hate the planet. We’re just after the unholy, unbiased, and unemotional truth—a tricky task given the emotions often charging arguments that are either patently false, misinformed, or grossly exaggerated.
Bill Knott has been posting an eclectic mix of rejection letters—some even made into collages—on his website recently. It’s pretty amusing to read what some editors have to say to a poet who has written some of the most unique and challenging poetry in the last 30 years. I even have some of the very same rejection letters hanging on my wall at the moment. I was once told it was a good idea to save them, and I’ve since kept every last one as much as I’ve wanted to burn them. Maybe I’ll make my own collage in 30 years’ time, or wallpaper the bathroom with them as I’ve often threatened.
When I first spotted the headline on this “story” by Amy Chozick at the Wall Street Journal, I naturally avoided wasting my time. It read: “Too Fit To Be President?” and was a 1400-word article on the question of whether or not Barack Obama’s thin frame would be a detriment to winning the presidency. Please take a moment to let this idiotic idea sink it. And yes, that’s one thousand four hundred words. Now, thanks to a post at MetaFilter, we can make fun of it with some real passion. For it seems that Chozick tried to get some of her hard-hitting facts from an Internet message board. What’s more interesting—nay, hilarious—is that all of the responses to her anonymous question, “Is Obama too skinny to be president?” were jokes suggesting anyone asking that question shouldn’t be allowed to vote. But Chozick, being the emblem of good journalists everywhere, actually used one of those joke responses in her article. To quote:
“I won’t vote for any beanpole guy,” another Clinton supporter wrote last week on a Yahoo politics message board.
Now, for the sake of actual journalistic integrity, let’s look at the whole quote from that Yahoo politics message board. Here it is:
Yes I think He is to skinny to be President. Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her. I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.
Chozick then responded to this post by asking the poster to email her so she could ask “a few more questions.” What?! Clearly this wasn’t a genuine response from a Clinton supporter. (At least I hope it wasn’t.) And while sarcasm can sometimes be difficult to pick up on in writing, I think it’s pretty evident here despite the misspellings and no punctuation. So the question then arises, how is Chozick employed by the Wall Street Journal? And just how did she get 1400 words in the paper with this claptrap? Then it hit me. Rupert Murdoch bought the newspaper last year.
Coral pointed out this Newsweek humor piece to me the other day since we both hate crocs. But, personally, if I were to go on a rant about a particular shoe, it’d be the flip-flop. I know you probably love your pair because “they’re so comfortable,” but I fucking hate them. Get your feet away from me, brah. “No shirt, no shoes, no service” should certainly apply to a thong between your toes and a slab of cardboard clip-clopping against your soles that you have the nerve to call a shoe. Humans have spent a millennia developing comfortable footwear and the only thanks you can give is strapping a flip-flop to your foot? Please, show some respect for your ancestory. Even Native Americans, centuries ago, who prided themselves on living simply off the land had the decency to wear moccasins. Why haven’t mocs made a comeback yet?
It seems they’ve finally figured out what the Antikythera Mechanism was used for by Ancient Greeks. I mention this only because Antikythera is one of my favorite words to say and one of my least favorite to spell. So it’s a bittersweet affair that I have so few occasions to use the word. Unless, of course, I move to Antikythera. An idea I will never fully rule out.
Despite my many disagreements with Comrade Putin (previously), I just may have to move to Russia if the country actually succeeds in banning emo music. A world without emo—oh would that it were true!
In light of the sad news of George Carlin’s death this past week and his famous “Seven Dirty Words” bit, this story about Canadian comic Guy Earle being brought before a human rights tribunal for some crude coments he made on stage seemed entirely appropriate to mention. After reading the linked article, watch this video of Earle describing the events from that night in his own words. I can’t speak for Earle’s stand-up because I’ve never seen it, but like most, I’d go to the mat for letting him say whatever he wants so long as it’s not meant to incite violence or a disturbance (i.e. yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre). He was making fun of some hecklers in the front row and decided to attack them on the basis of their sexuality. He may have gone a little far, but what’s to stop these women from never going back to that club again or from telling their friends to never go there? Or what’s to stop Earle from being fired by the club? Does the law really need to step in and determine what can and can’t be said in public in case it offends someone? As Earle says in his defense, when did it become illegal to be an asshole?
As much as the story seems to echo the Michael Richards racist tirade (Earle jokingly refers to himself as the Canadian Michael Richards), I don’t believe Earle was screaming and calling these women awful words with no humor behind it. As he explains, he was making jokes, which is what you do when faced with a heckler. They’re being rude and offensive to you so you spit it right back at them. It’s what anyone should expect when they start heckling a professional comedian on stage. Earle was being offensive in order to be funny. Isn’t that what edgy humor is supposed to do? Isn’t the idea to go too far and say the unexpected? Earle was just doing his job. But like others before him, he’s being thrown into legal trouble for it.
I’m not entirely sure how the law works in Canada, but in the States I believe it would depend on whether or not the comments were intended to incite hate or were merely part of his act. Under U.S. law, intent is a large part of any speech case. In the overused example I mentioned of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, it’s illegal to do so if you want to convince people there’s a fire when there isn’t. However, it’s perfectly legal to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre if everyone knows that there is no fire and you’re just being an ass (it’s also legal to do so if there really is a fire—in fact, it’s encouraged). My feeling is if this case were to come before a judge in the U.S., it would never have gone as far as it has in Canada. Indeed, the only court Richards ever faced for his racist comments was that of Al Sharpton’s radio show.
Now I know this is an old story. Cases like this come up all the time, going back to 1961 when Lenny Bruce was arrested for saying “cocksucker” on stage. (See my previous post on Bruce.) But given the timing with Carlin’s death in the news at the same time as this, I thought he would have appreciated that I shed some light on this story rather than offer some trite tribute to him here. Still, his humor will be missed.
Update: Jonathan Kay over at the National Post wrote up a nice piece on the similarities between Carlin and Earle that appeared a day after I originally wrote this (I tend to post some things late). Check it out for some nice comparisons between the two comics and one Canadian’s view on the whole debacle.
It’s often said that death comes in threes. In January, Heath Ledger, Brad Renfro, and Christian Brando all died within two weeks of each other. This month, we seem to be going for a record in famous deaths. In the last 30 days, George Carlin, Cyd Charisse, Stan Winston, Tim Russert, and Yves Saint Laurent have all died. This isn’t to say that only famous people matter but that their deaths are reported in the major news outlets and, as such, have been a running theme in the headlines this month. Maybe it’s the heat? Or to quote from a Cyd Charisse movie: “It’s not the heat, it’s the humanity.”
Incredible. This recent news item is definitely something I never expected to read. It would appear that someone has rediscovered a complete print of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film masterpiece, Metropolis. (In, of all places, Argentina.) This is on par with discovering a priceless painting in your grandparents’ attic or a previously unread chapter to a great book. The term “holy grail” would be apt.
For decades, it was believed the original, complete film had long since disappeared for good. It was only screened a few times in Berlin in 1927 before it was re-edited and chopped down from its original 210-minute running time to something closer to 90 minutes. Over the years, small bits of footage have been found, and in 2002 the most complete version of the film to date—running at only 118 minutes—was released on DVD. Now, it seems the original 210-minute film will be seen once again after 80 years in hiding. This is mind-boggling to a film geek like me. Metropolis is a classic film even in its edited state. Restoring it to its original running time will be monumental. So now that we have the complete Metropolis print rediscovered, who’s going to dig up that other long lost film from 1927, London After Midnight?
Or, while we’re at it, how about Orson Welles’s original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons (a longer post on Welles is likely to come in the future) or Jerry Lewis’s The Day The Clown Cried? Though, technically, the latter film isn’t lost but merely locked away. It’s said to be so bad, that the original producers refuse to allow its release. Still, how bad could a movie about a clown who entertains children during the Holocaust and then helps cart them off to the gas chambers be? According to Harry Shearer, who saw a rough cut of the film in 1979, it’s as bad as we might imagine:
With most of these kinds of things, you find that the anticipation, or the concept, is better than the thing itself. But seeing this film was really awe-inspiring, in that you are rarely in the presence of a perfect object. This was a perfect object. This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is. “Oh my God!”—that’s all you can say.
All this reminds me that I really need to see M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening in order to get what I can only hope is a similar feeling to what Shearer is describing. Sometimes a movie is so bad, you have to see it and revel in its misguidedness. To quote my favorite review of the movie to date:
Unfortunately, the finished film feels more like the sloppy, chunky afterbirth of a message film from a man who used to impress me as a filmmaker. I truly hope this is as bad as it ever gets from Shyamalan. This is the kind of movie that kills careers; it certain murdered my spirit for most of a day. It’s almost worth seeing just to see how poorly executed every aspect of the work is, but even I’m not that much of a sadist to say that’s a reason to watch any movie.
Happy days are here again. The new season of Top Gear starts this Sunday, June 22.
But in some disappointing news, it looks like NBC is going ahead with plans to air an American version of the series this fall. After much talk that it wasn’t going to happen, it seems they’ve had a recent change of heart. I wonder if it has anything to do with Adam Carolla’s recent appearances on Dancing With The Schmucks? (Yet another reason to hate that show.) Carolla, along with two people I’ve never heard of, will be hosting the American version. The biggest problem the show faces, aside from featuring Carolla, will be the on-air chemistry between the hosts. How the hosts interact is the best part of the UK series and will be impossible to replicate. Jay Leno was even approached by NBC to host the American version and declined it, explaining his decision in a sharp op-ed titled, “I Hope We Don’t Ruin Top Gear.”
I feel the same way about most Americanized versions of UK shows. They just miss the mark time and time again. A lot of people enjoy NBC’s version of The Office, but it’s just an inferior version of a much more innovative show to me. The American version has taken the traditional sitcom route to get some over-the-top laughs (thanks to Steve “Everything’s Funnier When I Yell” Carell) while Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant purposefully avoided going in that direction in order to come up with something unique. And does anyone remember that terrible American remake of Coupling that only lasted one or two episodes?
Another solid UK show, Life On Mars, has gotten the American treatment and will begin airing episodes this fall. Unfortunately, the trailer doesn’t look too promising. Please track down episodes online of the original UK series if you can. It’s one of the better dramas I’ve seen in a long time with some great performances by John Simm and Philip Glenister. Obviously, being a fan of the original I’m going to resent a remake, but it’s another question of chemistry that can’t be replicated. Even the UK sequel series, Ashes To Ashes, doesn’t hold up as well as the original.
I should stress that this isn’t some Anglophile thing in me. I would resent British remakes of Lost, Dexter, Californication, or The Sopranos just as equally. When you’ve already got a good recipe, why alter the ingredients? In one promising turn, Showtime will be airing the UK series The Secret Diary Of A Call Girl without remaking it as an American version much the same way HBO aired Extras in its original form. Though I’ve heard the HBO version changed some jokes around in order to make more sense to an American audience. Still, if you don’t know who Billie Piper is (you will if you watch Secret Diary) or what a “minge” refers to, both Wikipedia and the Urban Dictionary can help. Plus you’ll gain some helpful cultural diversity in the process.
The New Yorker has an interesting piece on Keith Olbermann up. More than a dry profile, it looks into the whole area of cable news and how objectivity has been tossed aside in favor of programs that push a specific point of view. But the most surprising revelation in it is that Olbermann actually believes his show “is a newscast with commentary and analysis, the way most really good newscasts used to be.” I’m sorry, but isn’t Olbermann just the left’s version of Bill O’Reilly? (Perhaps a saner version.) I always thought KO knew this and played on the comparison as an amusing antidote to the right-wing commentators who saturate radio and television. But in a surprising turn, it seems that Olbermann believes he’s an objective newsman in the vein of his hero, Edward R. Murrow. Of course, as the article explains, simply quoting Murrow at the end of every broadcast does not make him a torch-bearer to Murrow’s brand of objectivity and commentary. Olbermann has also let his “special comments” fall into near parodies as he fumes over the smallest and largest political transgressions equally, making it difficult for an audience to decide just what should get their attention or what makes one comment more or less “special” than the last.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Olbermann’s leftist vitriol. I’m glad to have him on TV. But the idea that this style of “journalism” (re: commentary) should replace objectivity or is even the same as traditional journalism in his mind is disturbing. I’m also surprised to see Olbermann along with Chris Matthews covering the presidential primaries on MSNBC. When did these guys become newsmen who could remain objective? They’re commentators. They don’t uncover news or do any analysis, reporting, or investigative work. They find a news story somewhere else and offer their opinion on it. It seems a dangerous precedent to bring these kinds of hosts to mainstream news coverage and not leave the Olbermanns, the Matthews, the Abrams, the Tuckers, the Dobbs, and the O’Reillys where they belong: in the op-ed section.
It’s funny that Tom Brokaw tries to keep things in line by repeatedly reminding Olbermann and Matthews to stay objective while on the air. Perhaps Brokaw is the only one in the news business who still remembers the 2000 election fiasco. But so long as cable news producers go after ratings first, real journalism takes a back seat. MSNBC’s problem has been making their biggest ratings draws their lead newscasters for political coverage. They should have instead found some real news reporters and left Olbermann and Matthews to offer commentary on their respective shows. I don’t fault someone like Olbermann for doing what he does, but please don’t try to convince me it’s old school, objective news reporting or I’ll be forced to issue my own “special comment.”
In keeping with his tradition of doing things long after they matter, Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama yesterday. Woo! Thanks for the heads up, Al. Not since your stirring speech after the 2000 Florida election or your interest in the environment and green technology years after you left public office (and could have helped make alternative fuels a focus of the Clinton administration) has a statement mattered less. Keep up the Johnny-come-lately work, Uncle Al!
Here’s a convincing and detailed explanation of The Sopranos finale and just what happened in the final scene. Or at least what creator David Chase likely wanted the audience to pick up on. Grab a big cup of coffee for this one. Rewatching the last scene might also help.
I had the misfortune this past week to read “RFK For Twentysomethings” by Simon Maxwell Apter over at the Huffington Post. In addition to the condescending title, it features one of the worst sentences I’ve ever read. Prepare yourself. Here it is: “But myths are mythical, and legends are legendary.” Wow. I bet that also means tyrants are tyrannical and air is airy. I can only assume that Apter was desperate to find a trite ending to his Wikipedia-researched article since the sentence that follows is also the article’s last. It simply reads, “There will only be one Bobby.” A phrase that reads more like a movie tagline than a clear-headed summation.
However, earlier in the piece, there’s this little gem. Apparently sourcing his information from a funny quotes website (what could be more reliable?), Apter attributes the following to RFK:
But the man had an acid tongue. “How do you tell if Lyndon is lying?” he once asked rhetorically. “If he wiggles his ears, that doesn’t mean he’s lying. If he raises his eyebrows, that doesn’t mean he’s lying. But when he moves his lips, he’s lying.”
An amusing line, but there’s no proof it was ever said by RFK. It was actually a well-known running joke in Washington circles due to LBJ’s penchant for embellishment. RFK may have repeated it to friends in private (there’s no proof of that either), but he certainly never said it during a documented speech or interview. It looks like Apter fell victim to a classic blunder: believing everything he reads on the Internet.
But, to get back to Apter’s larger point, just who has elevated RFK to political sainthood? Apter says that RFK “has been beatified by the American left” as a tragic hero. Yeah, it’s amazing what assassination can do for your career. The fact is that Democrats use him as an example to follow because he made civil rights a centerpiece of his campaign and opposed the war in Vietnam five years before Nixon ended it. He was also related to one of the most popular presidents the country has ever known and, to this day, the Kennedys hold political clout. There’s a tremendous amount of respect for what RFK tried to do and rightly so. His assassination obviously brings out the notion of an opportunity lost that resonates with many in the Democratic Party. (Let’s not forget that instead of Robert F. Kennedy, we got Richard M. Nixon in 1969.) But I don’t see misplaced deification in respecting RFK’s legacy. Few politicians since RFK have been so willing to stick their necks out for a cause. Obama did so when he opposed the war in 2003. This year marked the 40th anniversary of RFK’s murder and it was a convenient excuse for Democrats to mention his name along with their own. The same is true for Martin Luther King, who was used by both Democratic and Republican candidates as another example to follow (mentioned here previously).
While I agree with Apter that Nigel Hamilton’s wildly-optimistic assessment of a world where JFK, MLK, and RFK had all lived betrays an enormous amount of naïveté, it’s also something the NY Times published five years ago. Why does Apter bring it up as if it were the majority view or even relevant to the current view of RFK? Admittedly, some of the praise RFK has received over the years may be rose-colored but that has more to do with his great potential than some misty-eyed hero worship. It doesn’t change the fact that RFK should be among those looked to as Democrats decide which direction they wish to take in the future.
In a related note, I don’t believe the Huff Post pays its writers, which is both disappointing and, in this case at least, a relief. While I wish writers didn’t so willingly give their services away for free, I can understand some wanting exposure, and I would certainly allow something like this post to be published there gratis (it’s not as though I’m being paid to post it here). But at the same time, why is something like Apter’s article being published at the Huff Post in the first place? Apter’s flawed logic, inaccurate research, repeated references to Achilles, and poor writing style makes the rest of the site look worse by comparison. Perhaps the lack of payment makes quality guidelines at these sites less stringent. A fact that probably won’t help journalism in the long run but does go a long way to proving that old adage about getting what you pay for.
Now that Obama has finally been recognized as the winner of the Democratic nomination and Clinton has suspended her campaign, discussions have moved on to who Obama will pick as his vice-president. My vote, as I mentioned back in April, is for Joe Biden. At the time, Biden said he wasn’t interested in being VP. Since then, Obama has recruited Biden to help with his general election campaign, and now when asked if he would accept a VP offer Biden says, “You’d have to say yes. I don’t know how the hell you’d say no at this historic point.” Booyah. The good news here is that even if Biden isn’t offered the VP spot, he’s still likely to play an important role in Obama’s administration. Looks like Fightin’ Joe Biden is back. Update: Coincidently, one of my favorite columnists, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post, happens to agree with me.
While the continued rising taxes on cigarettes and the desire to ban some flavored varieties are unlikely to stop new smokers, they are helping create a new black market as this NY Magazine article reports. It’s bad enough that many states have stripped private businesses of their right to allow smoking, but now we’re gearing up for a complete ban on the substance. Can’t Congress focus on keeping the rights we have intact rather than stripping more away? One would also think we learned something constructive from the Prohibition era aside from an appreciation for cocktails and moonshine. But maybe we should look on the bright side of a possible ban: homemade tobacco should yield some interesting results.
As someone who still wears a watch, I appreciated reading this story about a British man’s reunion with his long lost Bulova. It also helps explain why automatic movements are preferable to quartz. After 67 years underwater, the watch still works.
Today would have been James Bond creator Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday. I was originally going to write up something small about it since I have an interest in the subject, but my head got the better of me and, as sometimes happens, it ballooned into a much larger piece: “Bondage: Keeping Ian Fleming In His Place.”
In addition to releasing a new Bond novel in time for Fleming’s centenary, which has the decidedly Fleming-like title Devil May Care, the Imperial War Museum in London is hosting an exhibit on the writer, Penguin is reissuing all his Bond books in new hardcover editions, and two former James Bonds are releasing their memoirs.
You can also watch this rare film of Ian Fleming discussing his creation during a 1964 interview with the CBC just before his death. In it, he comes across as an open and amusing chap who doesn’t take himself too seriously. It is among the only known footage of Fleming in existence and you get a good sense of the gentleman behind 007.
Last week, I attended a screening of student films at RISD. Thanks to YouTube, I can show you two of my favorites. One was a mockumentary short directed by Andrew Fogel called Working Stiffs. (“It was horrifically inappropriate.”) The other was an animated look at the workshop environment by Ivan Sayon that’s just dead-on called Claire’s Chair. Props to the filmmakers.
Obama once again proves that a politician can look hip and be smart all at the same time. Anyone else comforted by the fact that he’s reading this book? Despite claims that he would announce victory on May 20, Obama is playing nice and likely won’t state the obvious until Clinton officially drops out. The most distressing news? Clinton’s statement that she would be willing to take her campaign all the way to the Democratic National Convention in August, effectively delaying Obama’s general election campaign until then. While it doesn’t seem like the sanest thing to do, this is coming from the same woman who recently made a tasteless reference to Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination when explaining why she was staying in the race. For the completely biased view on that incident, check out Keith Olbermann’s latest televised rant and his great play-by-play on all the Clinton mistakes we have forgiven over the course of her campaign.
At last, it seems that Barack Obama has convinced the remaining political holdouts that he will indeed be the next Democratic nominee for President of the United States (except one, of course). Word is that he will claim the win officially on May 20 after primaries in Kentucky and Oregon put him ahead in every conceivable category.
All these distracting contests since early March—especially the six-week Pennsylvania primary nightmare—have only succeeded in building Democratic opposition toward the inevitable nominee, distracting from general election issues, and hammering home what anyone with a passing mark in elementary math has already deduced: There’s no way Madame Clinton can rightfully win the nomination. I say “rightfully” because she’s been trying to steal the nom using whatever political shenanigans her campaign can muster up for the past three months. For a hilarious overview on Clinton’s many vain attempts to redefine winning, Keith Olbermann breaks it down.
The only disturbing part about Obama moving on to the general election is that we’ll now be forced to listen to what John McCain has to say on a more regular basis. What disappoints me most about McCain, aside from his atrocious national and international policies, is that he is so willing to win the presidency he doesn’t care who he has to step on—including himself.
First, there’s the line he’s been spewing over the past three weeks that Hamas has “endorsed” Obama and that voters should make up their own minds about what that means. Wha?! A Vietnam war hero who himself was the victim of several smear campaigns is now putting out a connection between Obama and a terrorist organization? Wow. And I thought Bush’s campaign had balls for accusing McCain of treason in 2000. Move on to just the other day when it’s revealed that McCain admitted to a group of people that he didn’t vote for Bush in 2000. Which makes perfect sense. If someone accused me of being a traitor after serving six years in a POW camp and being constantly tortured, I wouldn’t vote for the idiot either. McCain had a legitimate gripe with Bush and I wouldn’t fault him for voting for the Democrat in 2000 or 2004. At least John Kerry actually served in Vietnam. But of course now McCain denies the story and says he voted for Bush in 2000 and 2004 and worked hard to get him elected. Certainly he did! You don’t want to isolate that all-important 20% of Americans who still support Bush and will likely vote for the Republican candidate no matter who it is.
Why is he doing this to himself? Dyed in the wool Republicans have no choice but to vote for McCain this year. He is in the perfect position to deliver that “straight talk” he’s so fond of bandying about in his campaign. In fact, he should proudly say he didn’t vote for that swill-spitting Texan and would never vote for him if given the chance again. Then he could at least have a chance at grabbing some Democratic or Independent voters who remember the McCain from 2000. Though this isn’t to say the 2000 McCain is really any better than the 2008 McCain. He was just a little less desperate.
In other political news, I meant to post this last month when it first came out, but I kept getting distracted by other news. The New York Times Magazine published a fascinating insider’s look into modern news media with Mark Leibovich’s profile of Hardball host Chris Matthews. It’s an uncompromising glimpse full of ego, gossip, competition, and politics. My favorite quote in the piece comes from Fred O’Regan, an old friend of Matthews who describes watching him argue about Nixon and Vietnam in 1969: “It was just like watching his show today. Chris would ask a question, then he would answer it himself and then the person was invited to comment on Chris’s answer to his own question.” And if you’ve ever watched an episode of Hardball, this is exactly what Matthews does.
A brief follow-up to my last post about Vladimir Putin. It looks as though Putin’s patsy—sorry, protégé—Dmitry Medvedev was sworn in as Russia’s president this week, followed by Putin’s appointment as prime minister. This effectively gives Russia an unusual co-presidency for the first time in its history and Putin has managed to place himself back in power for the foreseeable future. Anyone else feel that breeze blowing? I think a cold war front is starting to move in.
Good news for Procol Harum fans. Gary Brooker won back his rights to the song “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” last month. This song is, in a word, fuckingbrilliant. One of the best to come out of 1967—the same year as the summer of love, Sgt. Pepper’s, and The Doors first album. If you haven’t heard it since the oldies station in your city went off the air, you can check out the original version here. Or for a trippier time, there’s the original, slightly hypnotizing, 16mm film made for the single. But if you’re in the mood to really be creeped out, watch Sarah Brightman’s uber-bizarre rendition. It’s more disturbing and mesmerizing than anything the Phantom of the Opera could have conjured up. Martin Scorsese even made a short film based around the song. So as I type this under rain-soaked grey skies, it only seems fitting to make “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” the day’s unofficial theme.
I finally added some new work to the prose section of this site. Updates include stories from Skope Magazine on Adam Green, Carina Round, The Rapture, Zox, Mobile, Paolo Nutini, and the Russell Simmons Green Initiative. I recommend them all obviously, but if you’re in a hurry, Nutini and The Rapture will probably be the most entertaining, while the Simmons piece is more straight-up journalism. I also fixed links to two older stories, namely essays on Craigslist and Yanni. Enjoy.
A journalist recently asked Vladimir Putin if a newspaper story about his plan to divorce his wife and marry a younger woman was true. An annoyed Putin said no. Later that same day, the offending newspaper was suspended “for financial reasons.”
This news, along with Garry Kasparov’s arrest and thwarted presidential campaign last year, and the unsolved murders of 14 Russian journalists who were anti-Putin over the last 8 years, not to mention the bizarre poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, all seem to show that the bad old days in Russia have certainly returned. Throw in Putin’s novel concept to give up the presidency (in the name of democracy) but still retain power (in the name of czarist Russian history), and we’ve got a genuine dictator on our hands.
Watch this PBS Frontline video for more disturbing details on present day Russia. I hope I’m not being too stereotypical when I say that no one else has looked or acted more like a real life James Bond villain than our pal Putin. In fact, he bears a striking resemblance to this Bond character.
Speaking of 007: As these depressing photos show, even James Bond (or, in this case, his stunt driver) needs to be more careful when driving a $250,000 Aston Martin in the rain near a cliff overlooking a lake. Luckily, the driver managed to get out before the car went over. (“Ejector seat? You’re joking.”) For reference, here’s a photo of the same car, pre-crash. And if you dig this pricey piece of engineering as much as I do, check out Top Gear’s review.
This is disappointing. Joe Biden says he has no interest in being Vice-President or Secretary of State under either Clinton or Obama. My only question to Biden, Edwards, and other former candidates who have said the same thing is why did they really run in the first place? One imagines it was not only to be head honcho but also to have a meaningful say in the direction this country takes over the next four years. So even if you can’t be the one behind the Resolute Desk, why wouldn’t you at least accept a high-level position on his or her team?
Doing my part for science: Expelled. (Explanation here.)
For anyone who doesn’t know, Expelled is a Creationist propaganda film made by Ben Stein. (Yes, that Ben Stein.) What’s hilarious is that in the trailer Stein says he’s “better known as a writer, public speaker, social activist, game show host, [and] speech writer for Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.” Now call me silly, but I thought Stein was best known as either Ferris Bueller’s high school teacher or, for later generations, the Clear Eyes guy? (“Wow.”) But I suppose if you were a speech writer for Nixon and freely admit it, you must be suffering from some illusions of grandeur.
Stein seems to be trying to do for Creationism what Al Gore did for Environmentalism—namely twist the facts in his favor and convince everyone that they must repent or the world will come to a fiery end, despite the fact that he is not a scientist and has done no real research himself. I can’t be the only one who sees these similarities. (Note: This topic might make for an intriguing sociology paper if there are any PhD candidates out there. Just give me a heads up in the acknowledgements.) The only question is whether or not Stein will win a Nobel Prize for his efforts. Methinks no.
In a related feature, here’s an amusing story that made the rounds last month from PZ Meyers, who actually appears in the film, trying to attend a screening of Expelled last month and getting kicked out. He also discussed the experience in more depth with Richard Dawkins.
Chuck Klosterman raises an interesting economic question about the $4.2 billion the music industry lost between 1999 and 2006: Where’s the money being spent instead?
It looks like there’s another celebrity sex tape out there, kids. And this time it’s Marilyn Monroe. Wait, what? According to a New York Post article delicately titled “Hardcore Marilyn,” a researcher named Keya Morgan claims to have discovered and then sold for $1.5 million a 16mm film of the late actress performing oral sex on an unidentified, but very lucky, man. (Whoever the buyer is, he must be serious about his adult films. Could this be the most ever spent on a single porn title?)
The obvious big question—if the film does, in fact, exist—is if it’s really Marilyn Monroe. My gut tells me no. For one thing, why all the secrecy around the footage and its sale? I suppose the sensitive nature of the material might make one wary about a big public auction, but then wouldn’t the seller be interested in getting the most for it if it is real? (Though if he was so interested in keeping it private, why sell it at all?) Secondly, and more importantly, how did they determine it was really Monroe? It’s no secret that porn films routinely play on movie titles and adult film stars use names similar to celebrities to make sales. There are also plenty of websites claiming to have sex tapes of nearly everyone who’s ever appeared in a movie. So what’s more likely: Someone shot a graphic film featuring a woman who was the biggest sex symbol of her generation and it’s gone undiscovered and unseen for decades since her death and without any of her many biographers, fans, researchers, or family members discovering it, or it’s a generic porn flick made using a lookalike of a famous celebrity? One big factor in all this has been the FBI files which apparently mention a “French-type” film featuring Monroe. (I don’t suppose they meant New Wave.) In fact, all the FBI files really discuss is an informant who claims to have the film and what he told some agents. So all the information we have comes from one man and now this so-called researcher who claims to have brokered the film’s sale and who’s using the story to promote his own conspiracy-laden film about Monroe’s death. Unfortunately, few in the media have even suggested that, if the film exists, it might not be Monroe and that there’s been no proof. Rather, they’ve given this unknown researcher with no evidence to back up his claim the benefit of the doubt in order to cook up the easy, attention-grabbing headline. (Dan Abrams being one exception.)
For fun, let’s break it down: If we go with the story that has been told, we have some silent, black and white, 16mm footage from the early ‘50s, possibly filmed in a room with poor lighting. We’re not sure if Monroe was aware of the camera (Morgan claims she never looks at the lens), but the male seems to have known about it since he’s careful to keep his face out of the shot. Given the position Monroe would have to be in while performing said act, and in order to keep the camera out of her view yet remain in focus if she was unaware of it, would anyone watching the film be able to tell it was actually Monroe—especially if she never faces the camera? How would they know it’s not Mamie Van Doren instead? If the film truly exists, only two possibilities remain: Either it is Monroe and it was filmed with her knowledge, which raises the question of just where it came from and how a nameless “informant” was the only one to ever discover it. Or it’s simply a lookalike in a forgotten ‘50s porn. If this researcher and the collector who purchased the film really wanted to protect Monroe’s legacy as they claim, they would have someone examine the footage to either prove or disprove its authenticity. It’s more than a little amusing that although Morgan didn’t want to let the film out to “protect” Monroe, he will gladly go on television to describe the footage in graphic detail and say it’s definitely the famous star. Hmm. Something just doesn’t jive here.
Now that I’ve become reacquainted with Google Reader, I hope this sort of thing won’t slip by my radar again, but I only recently learned that the Hitchens brothers debated each other on April 3rd at the Hauenstein Center in Michigan.
It’s no secret that I’m an admirer of Christopher and his contrarian wit, despite disagreeing with him on several issues. He’s famously had many disagreements with his younger brother Peter over the years and the two refused to speak for a while before coming to a taut reconcilliation. They continue to publically disagree on many topics, certainly to each other’s benefit, and as a result the debate was set up almost like a prize fight—complete with a pre-debate press conference.
Both brothers cautioned, however, that this sort of thing was unlikely to happen often if ever again. As Chris says during the press conference, he doesn’t want to turn it into “a dog and pony show.” The entire debate was streamed online and is now available on YouTube. If you’ve never watched either Hitchens debate, it’s a golden (glove) opportunity to see them both. The debate focuses on two topics sure to keep anyone on speaking terms: politics and religion.
It’s also Chris Hitchens 59th birthday today. So drinks and smokes all around.
Today is opening day at Fenway Park and the day that the Boston Red Sox receive their shiny new championship rings. At the close of the 2006 season, I wrote a piece about baseball titled “Going, Going, Gone!” which detailed my tumultuous relationship with the sport. Well, like any complicated romance, another chapter has been written. I felt in fairness I should give it equal treatment. So here’s the latest installment: “A National Pastime Reconsidered.”
The Boston Globe recently published an article by Drake Bennett (can you think of a better name for a soap opera star?) titled “House Of Cards” which details some of the factual inaccuracies in Ben Mezrich’s book Bringing Down The House and the new movie based on it, 21.
I recently had the chance to speak with former MIT Blackjack Team member David Irvine (article forthcoming in Pulse), who admitted that no one on the team was ever physically assaulted for being caught counting cards and that the Micky Rosa character (played by Kevin Spacey in the movie) is actually a composite of a couple people—none of whom was ever a professor at MIT. Sure, the way the book and the movie lays the story out makes for an entertaining ride, but as Bennett’s article suggests, when you creatively blur the line between fact and fiction and still tout the work as “based on a true story,” there has to be more behind the word “based” than simply an implication. In other words, I could write a story “based” on World War II that says the Nazis won the war, but I’d be justifiably called out for not being exactly truthful. However, should I still be able to say it’s based on a true story? What’s most irritating is that Mezrich says that this sort of thing is common practice for journalists and nonfiction writers. Really? Inventing entire scenes that never happened is the work of a real journalist? Perhaps Mezrich has been getting all of his news from Page Six.
The other thing that bugs me on a personal level about both the book and the movie is that a number of the real life participants in the MIT Blackjack Team were Asian-Americans—including prominent members like John Chang and Jeffrey Ma. Chang was one of the people used to create the Rosa composite and Ma was the inspiration for the book’s main character, Kevin Lewis. Yet in the fictional recreation of the events, they’ve been turned into generic Caucasian characters. While their ethnic backgrounds have no bearing on the story or the events, one has to wonder why they were changed at all. I suppose Mezrich would claim it was to help conceal the actual participants identities, but my guess is that he believed it would help sell the movie rights if all the characters were described like cast members of The O.C.
Today, people are commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King (at 7:01pm EST to be exact). What this offers, aside from a period of somber reflection, is the opportunity to laugh at some politicians. My favorite by far being poor John McCain. (I say “poor” despite his wife’s beerillions.)
You see, once upon a time (1983), McCain being the out-of-touch old white man he so clearly appears to be, actually voted against making King’s birthday a national holiday. That’s right. Given the opportunity to chalk one up for civil rights, McCain decided, “Nah.” Please do yourself a favor and watch McCain desperately try to explain to a crowd of African-Americans in Memphis that he was wrong to vote against MLK Day. (Notice that he not only repeats the phrase “I myself made long ago” for no reason whatsoever but also says “a day in member of Dr. King.”) What’s even funnier is that McCain claims to have only realized how good King was in 1990(!) and says part of the reason was the fact that he was in Vietnam from 1967-1973. Of course, King gained his national recognition during the bus boycott in the 1950s (when McCain was in his 20s) and then during the civil rights movement of the ‘60s, which began in earnest several years before McCain left for combat duty. But honestly, this old bastard is so out of touch, he freely admits that he only came around to King’s side in the ‘90s! Wow. If he wasn’t a Republican, a statement like that could actually affect his chances of winning.
Maybe McCain was hoping to add another V-J Day to the calendar instead. I realize that Rhode Island lost a fair amount of soldiers at Pearl Harbor and thus remains the only state in the union to proudly celebrate Victory Day every August, but isn’t it time they at least renamed the holiday something a little more respectful to the Japanese people slaughtered in the process of achieving “victory”? I don’t mean to sound like an overly-sensitive hippie, but those last bombing runs in Japan leading up to the atomic bombs dropped over civilian targets were far from a shining moment in American history. Are we truly so unevolved that we need to record our victories on the calendar like some pagan war tribe? How about renaming it “Who Bombs Hawaii? Day” or “You Sunk My Battleship Day”? Maybe it’d be a tad insensitive to the soliders we lost, but so is “Victory Over Japan” insensitive to the hundreds of thousands killed by the Tokyo firebombings and Little Boy and Fat Man. I don’t mean to change the holiday’s name or drop it from the calendar altogether in order to spare someone’s feelings, but I think we’d be much better off remembering, as we do today, the lives we’ve lost instead of the lives we’ve taken.
In other political news, Hillary Clinton also gave a pretty poor speech—in a very quiet voice that showed she was being solemn—which centered on how upset she was when she heard King had been killed. She was so upset, in fact, that she stormed into her Wellesley dorm room and threw her book bag across the room. Whoa. I’m touched. She clearly understands the plight. But at least she stayed awake. In fairness, I should also chide Barack Obama for shamelessly quoting King in his speech several times for some cheap applause. He’s better than that. But Obama gets a pass for the kickin’ 40-minute speech he gave on race last month. I can’t think of another politician who would have the nerve to be so insightfully honest. He basically said, “We’re all a little racist and we need to work on it.” Damn. I don’t even have the balls to say that to friends, nevermind millions of potential general election voters.
Speaking of Madame Clinton, it’s high time she went home to Arkansas or New York or wherever her politically-motivated decision to live next will be. As David Brooks so aptly described in his piece “The Long Defeat,” Clinton has about a 5% chance to win the nomination. (Brooks’ piece is a nice addendum to Frank Rich’s earlier op-ed, “The Audacity Of Hopelessness.”) There are rumors once again of Florida and Michigan being counted, but my gut tells me if anything happens—and thankfully it’s a big if—it won’t affect the results. Meaning they’ll split things evenly down the middle. Still, the very notion that she would try to steal the election from Obama makes my blood run cold. Each time she says something like, “There’s no such thing as a pledged delegate” or if someone gets the nomination without Michigan and Florida being counted it can’t be “considered legitimate” I want to drive nails into my ears. Is she really going to try to steal this thing from Obama like Bush did from Gore by contesting, of all state elections, Florida? Is she really that determined to win? And of course the answer is yes. Obama routinely talks about “the old politics” and while it’s a standard campaign line, it’s actually true. He’s out there discussing issues and the Clintons keep trying to bring him down to their level by discussing non-issues like Jeremiah Wright or saying things like Obama’s not a Muslim “as far as I know.” Swell. This is clearly what we need. Has Obama brought up Whitewater or Ken Starr in his campaign speeches? He hasn’t even implied them. Someone on Obama’s team called Clinton a “monster” in a moment of frustration, the reporter decided to print the statement for the sake of sensationalism (while I don’t agree with a lot of what Tucker Carlson says, he did take the British journalist who wrote the “monster” story hilariously to task), and the advisor is fired immediately. Clinton has a member of her campaign make some astonishingly racist comments (Olbermann made a great special comment on it) and Clinton denied that she was even a member of the campaign. And rather than apologize or resign immediately, Farraro insisted everyone else was being racist. Boy, well-to-do white women really do have it hardest of all. While Ferraro’s comments, like Wright’s, should have no direct bearing on electing a candidate, a candidate’s response to the controversy does matter. In a word, Obama’s was applaudable; Clinton’s was just embarrassing.
One last thing. I can’t let Clinton off the hook for her disturbing lapse in memory about her claim to have been under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996. Christopher Hitchens, no fan of the Clintons, wrote an excellent if controversial op-ed for Slate on the lie heard ‘round the campaign trail.
The issue goes right to the heart of whether or not she should be elected. This was not, as she claims, a simple gaff or slip of the tongue. She had told the same story numerous times since January. Watch her disgusting display on The Tonight Show as she cheerily mocks being under sniper fire and then proceeds to deliver her stump speech as if we should all laugh off the fact that she was caught in a lie. But I guess if you can’t laugh about war and lying to the American people, what can you laugh at?
I would say I’m surprised and disappointed that the mainstream media hasn’t given her character a much-deserved assassination over this mea culpa, but I’m not. Afterall, the media doesn’t want to appear to be pro-Obama. Despite the fact that some journalists were writing pieces about who Clinton would choose as her running mate back in 2007. She’s had all but the red carpet rolled out in front of her and she still manages to blame the media for her losses. I suppose the media’s love affair with Obama is why Reverend Wright was hardly mentioned these last few weeks and why Pat Buchanan’s racist tirade in response to Obama’s speech was all over the news. (Dear NBC: If Don Imus was fired from your television programming for being a racist, why is Pat Buchanan still a regular contributor to MSNBC?) But I digress. Being disappointed with the media’s inability to deliver the news fairly isn’t anything new. It’s just no secret that it has an impact on votes and seeing a candidate like Clinton openly lie and have the nerve to laugh about it on late night TV is sometimes more than I can handle.
I first supported Joe Biden when the primaries began for his foreign relations expertise and his ideas for dealing with Iraq, but after he bowed out, Obama seemed the nearest front runner I supported. Were I more of a Bidenhead, I suppose I would still write his name in on the fall ballot, but now I’ve started banking on an Obama/Biden ticket. Obama needs someone with experience to tackle that argument against McCain and he can’t do any better than my man Joe. It might not happen, but we can be sure of at least two things: Obama’s running mate won’t be Clinton and it won’t be John Edwards. Maybe John Kerry?
In 1976, filmmaker Claude Lelouch strapped a camera to his Mercedes-Benz and drove through the streets of Paris at 5:30AM without stopping. A brilliant 9-minute film entitled C’était un Rendez-vous, dubbed with engine noise from a Ferrari 275 GTB, was the result. Watch it below.
For those who can’t spend nine minutes listening to a car engine: Snow Patrol did a nice job soundtracking the same footage in music video last year. But beware, this sort of clip makes one eager to break several European traffic laws.
I originally planned to post a little diatribe on climate change here, but it soon ballooned into a much lengthier essay than I had originally planned. So for the sake of saving space on this page, brew a cup of your strongest coffee and click here to read it. I highly recommend it. Plus there are plenty of links and videos to make it a bit interactive, which is always a good time.
Recently, I was gifted with a small collection of Christopher Hitchens books which my bookshelf was sorely lacking—available space on which is similarly afflicted. While I certainly don’t agree with everything Hitchens says, I do admire his wit and appreciate him on the several levels on which we do agree. (Such as Henry Kissinger.) Among the books was a slender volume published in 2007 on Thomas Paine. It amuses me to no end that Hitchens chose to write a book on Paine only a year after I originally wrote a piece on him for our nation’s 230th birthday. Paine is an immensely important founding father who has been inexplicably shoved under the covers of American history and, I urge anyone reading this to either revisit or read for the first time my piece on Mr. Paine, cleverly titled by an editor, “No Paine, No Gain.”
My brother was the one who first put this thought into my head several years ago when I was surprised to learn he had “adopted” two children from a third world nation and donated to them every month through a charity. So after researching charities that would tackle some issues I felt strongly about, I quickly became a big fan of UNICEF and try to donate whenever I can. It’s not much, but it also doesn’t take much to pay for mosquito netting, vaccines, and other medical supplies. There are certainly many worthwhile charities out there, but the work I’ve seen UNICEF do around the world—providing impoverished children with shelter, food, medicine, and education over the longterm—was something I could easily support.
But another cause, if that’s the word, that I’ve always felt strongly about is HIV/AIDS awareness and research. While it may seem like an old story to some, the truth is that there are still many people at risk for the virus both in the U.S. and around the world. Over 33 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS and while it’s not quite the epidemic that was feared in the 1990s and medications have gotten much better thanks in large part to research funding over the years, there are still many misconceptions out there about the disease.
A BBC documentary I watched a few months ago, titled Stephen Fry: HIV & Me, revealed how HIV/AIDS was handled by those in the U.K. I believe a similar program would be worthwhile for U.S. audiences, but there haven’t been any recent programs I’m know of on the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Despite its silly title (thankfully the brilliant Mr. Fry does not suffer from HIV), it is a serious look at the disease and public reaction to it in the U.K. in recent years. The complete 2-part doc is available on YouTube at the moment, split into 10-minute chunks.
One HIV/AIDS awareness group I have recently supported is Until There’s A Cure. They’ve essentially picked up where the 1990s’ red ribbon campaign left off and found celebrities to endorse their bracelets in an effort to raise public awareness and raise funds for AIDS research. While the phrase “raise awareness” tends to make me wary—as in the Save Darfur Coalition which uses all of its funds to simply “raise awareness” about the genocide in Darfur rather than offer aid to those in Sudan. (In the case of Darfur, a specific region in crisis, one would hope donations would at least be used to help displaced families and refugees now living in Chad. But no, Save Darfur just wants to tell people about it.) On the other hand, HIV/AIDS awareness is a big part of helping fight the disease since prevention is still the best solution. HIV seems to be seen almost like a treatable disease today because there are many drugs available to stall its progression to AIDS, but it’s far from an easy disease to live with due to its impact on the immune system and has killed 25 million people since 1981.
If there’s one good thing President Bush has done, it’s urge Congress to spend $30 billion to combat HIV/AIDS over the next five years. One little snag was when it was reported that Bush and Republican supporters wanted a third of that money to be used solely on abstinence programs. An idea that might sound nice in the pews on Sunday, but one that just doesn’t work in the real world. Thankfully, Congress said no and then upped the amount to $50 billion.
If you haven’t grown too bored by all this prattling, there should be more to come in the future as I once again find the energy and the interest to post more regularly. I find keeping this site updated gets the creative juices flowing better. Besides, there’s really nothing quite as depressing as an unupdated website. (That may be hyperbole.) Also, all the posts that were previously listed here have been moved into the archives section. Links are at the bottom of this page.
September 13, 2007
| hey-la, day-la |
There’s an R in the month, which can only mean two things: It’s oyster season and it’s also been a long while since I’ve updated this page. But these things happen. I went on a trip. I came back. I got a new phone. I sold my car. Pavarotti died. And the “Scarlett Letter” (see last update) generated some attention on the interweb. All in all, it’s been a cumbersome few weeks, and recently writing’s been made more difficult thanks to an especially potent case of existential crisis.
However, in other news, there are plenty of people I know who are doing some interesting things with their lives and it’s about time I gave them a shout. A small sampling follows.
Last year, I posted some images of what my brother had been doing with his free time. Recently, the sonofagrunt found a job in sunny Australia and promptly moved his ass across the Pond Pacific. Sydney seems like a nice town and they hate Bush even more than Keith Olbermann so it can’t be all that bad. Anywhen, you can check out his portfolio and demo reel at www.nelsonsousa.com and see what he’s worked on. Just don’t expect it to be updated again anytime soon. He’s a busy feller these days.
Jeff Edwards is a photographer. I interviewed him for a story once and we might work on a project together in the near future. His new website is up at www.jeffedwardsphotography.com. Find it filled with all his dark room deeds.
I went to college with Olivia Kate Cerrone and she’s one of the few I’ve managed to stay in touch with since graduating. She’s a serious writer who keeps a work ethic I admire. Here are two of her more recently published short stories: Babydoll and The Licorice Men.
The last book I finished was Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great: How Relligion Poisons Everything. It’s a fun read and a nice political addendum to Richard Dawkins’s more science-based tome The God Delusion. In a clever move, The London Times asked Dawkins to review Hitchens. Perhaps even more clever is the review’s title: “Bible Belter.”
Francis Ford Coppola has a new film coming out in December. It’s his first since The Rainmaker which I still remember making a point to go see in the theatre in 1997. (Does this make me a bonafide film buff or just the world’s #1 Matt Damon fan?) I haven’t seen the movie since then, but I don’t recall being too impressed by it. An opinion which only bolsters my argument that Coppola hasn’t made a film that lives up to his ‘70s hype in decades. But seeing the teaser trailer for Youth Without Youth actually gives me some hope—something I thought Coppola could only offer me with his next Pinot vintage. But in this piece from The New York Times, the director explains how his newfound approach to filmmaking involves making films like he did when he was younger, and while it sounds like the usual string of Coppola-spiel (anyone remember how layered Dracula was supposed to be?), I seem to have fallen for it. I’m also impressed by his willingness to finance the film soley on the money earned through his winery. Coppola making independent films like he did decades ago? This could be good.
Happy days are here again. The new season of 
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate Olbermann’s leftist vitriol. I’m glad to have him on TV. But the idea that this style of “journalism” (re: commentary) should replace objectivity or is even the same as traditional journalism in his mind is disturbing. I’m also surprised to see Olbermann along with Chris Matthews covering the presidential primaries on MSNBC. When did these guys become newsmen who could remain objective? They’re commentators. They don’t uncover news or do any analysis, reporting, or investigative work. They find a news story somewhere else and offer their opinion on it. It seems a dangerous precedent to bring these kinds of hosts to mainstream news coverage and not leave the Olbermanns, the Matthews, the Abrams, the Tuckers, the Dobbs, and the O’Reillys where they belong: in the op-ed section. 
Today would have been James Bond creator Ian Fleming’s 100th birthday. I was originally going to write up something small about it since I have an interest in the subject, but my head got the better of me and, as sometimes happens, it ballooned into a much larger piece: 
At last, it seems that Barack Obama has convinced the remaining political holdouts that he will indeed be the next Democratic nominee for President of the United States (except 
First, there’s the line he’s been spewing over the past three weeks that 
A journalist recently asked Vladimir Putin if a newspaper story about his plan to divorce his wife and marry a younger woman was true. An annoyed Putin said no. Later that same day, 
It looks like there’s another celebrity sex tape out there, kids. And this time it’s Marilyn Monroe. Wait, what? According to a New York Post article delicately titled 
Now that I’ve become reacquainted with 
You see, once upon a time (1983), McCain being the out-of-touch old white man he so clearly appears to be, actually voted against making King’s birthday a national holiday. That’s right. Given the opportunity to chalk one up for civil rights, McCain decided, “Nah.” Please do yourself a favor and 
Maybe McCain was hoping to add another 
