Land Of Plenty

George W. Bush is big on male bondage bonding, ain't he? What with all the kissing and hand holding and rubbing the heads of bald guys, you gotta love his comments about Splash Day. From Bush and his coterie of GOP sissy boys, the Freudian slips just keep coming.

I think it's clear that these faith-based fellows are, at the least, thinking "impure thoughts" on a regular basis. They're so in love with power built on macho fantasies, so emotionally involved with the mostly male posses who enable their power -- and so tempted to cross over to the "dark side" once in awhile, just because they can -- that any latent bisexual or homosexual tendencies are bound to show up in their speech and gestures, if not their bedrooms.

Mike Malloy was pondering on his show this week, only half-jokingly, over whether we have our first homosexual president in office right now. He didn't mention Abe Lincoln or the other possibles, but he didn't have to.

***

During the time when that Gannon/Guckert creature was making his numerous mystery visits to White House, Bush's administation had sold a majority on Americans on bogus military actions, bogus security measures and bogus tax cuts. It had persuaded enough people that the president was a decent and strong leader when he was anything but. It got away with shaping reality with unprecedented Orwellian skill...so would it be a surprise if closeted members of Team Bush felt they could get away with inviting a gay prostitute over for some "hard earned" playtime?

With every day, those who said hubris would be BushCo's Waterloo are looking more prescient. And to have so much hubris that even our pathetic whore media can't completely cover for it, is arrogance that makes Richard Nixon look downright humble.

***

It's always interesting to note the viciousness of the contempt these jokers have for those who disagree with them. They love to create a straw man of the stunted, corrupt liberal who can't and won't accept their so-called flawless and clear logic. And they position their rhetoric in terms that exploit people's stupidity about the subject matter.

Take the mechanics of Social Security, for example: Many people (myself included) are dunces at financial math, and unless they have an inbred skepticism (as I do) they are vulnerable to fall for cheap wingnut word games about how privatization is inherently a better deal than government entitlement. (See Krugman, Paul for a detailed critique of Soc Sec privatization; also see Stock Market Crashes, 1929 and 1987.)

Fortunately, in the case of Social Security, there is a simple underlying flaw to Bush's privatization plans that most people can comprehend: When it comes to facing old age, it's better to have a guaranteed safety net than to rely on an unreliable investment market, even if the market might possibly yield a better return.

***

I don't think conserva-pundits like Krugman's colleague at the New York Times, David Brooks, have much skill anymore (if they ever did) in forwarding logical argument. What they do, what their brethren in the GOP propaganda machine do, is state what has the best chance of being believed by the most demographically advantageous of voters/consumers.

Color the bullshit upbeat, angry, professoral, moralistic...it all plays like market-tested opiates for the gullible. Corporations do the same thing with their advertising campaigns, and is it any wonder most corporations feel such a kinship with the master BS artists that the post-Reagan Repugs have become?

When you think GOP apologist, think of someone not unlike Philip Morris, which got away with decade after decade of selling to young people a known and proven killer.

***

Why haven't people yet thrown Republicans into a deserved state of disgrace and political exile?

Ronald Reagan messed with our minds, is one big reason why. He made a huge difference in how people see Republicans to this day. He was a very marketable figure, both during and after his presidency; under the Bushes (whose rise to power Reagan made possible) the Iraq adventures I and II were very marketable wars.

The 1970s era also messed with our minds. Since Nixon went to China and Carter failed to rescue the hostages, the National Security issue was one that many people became inclined to favor Republicans on, while the bodies of FDR and Truman rolled in their graves.

And, in a "land of plenty" (whether based on reality or hype) tax-cut ideas and other GOP economic plans generally don't get the kind of critical examination they deserve, and that works to Republican advantage.

***

It also works to Republican advantage that America remains essentially under the spell of the Christian religion. The Christian churches and the GOP share a lot of the same manipulative tricks, based on exploiting fear and ignorance, to make the sheep get with the program.

One of my main problems with Christian culture is that "Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven" is too often treated like an undeserved Get Out Of Jail Free card, and the various Xtian sects have done a piss-poor job of stopping this. In this context, it's okay to raise hell on Saturday as long as you give lip service to the Lord on Sunday.

Faith without works is dead, said the Book of James. Not everyone who says Lord will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, said Jesus of Nazareth. "Don't tell me you're a Christian. Let me figure it out." said J. Swadesh, formerly of Table Talk.

***

It's relatively easy in Jesusland to sell the idea that liberalism is the cause of today's social evils. People associated as liberals were at the forefront of the sexual and rhetorical revolutions in the '60s, and because much of today's media has devolved into softcore sex porn and rhetorical "hate porn," the conservatives say we can trace the dots to a supposed liberal source. Many in the heartland believe the conservatives have a valid point, and thus overlook significant contributions post-'60s conservatives have made to the coarsening of dialogue and culture.

Mr. and Mrs. Kansas haven't yet figured out that there are worse things in the world than MTV-style porn and partisan political rancor...things like rampant greed and rank hypocrisy. Until Democrats can get them to realize that there are, conmen conservatives will have the upper hand.

***

It's time that Democrats try to sell the value of honesty again, like Jimmy Carter did in his brief shining moment of 1976. Granted that all politicians lie, but the difference in degree between Democrats and Republicans does matter.

The worst recent Dem lying has been about blowjobs, and perhaps about errant campaign contributions. The worst recent Republican lying has been about war and national security, about our economic and environmental future, and about the democratic process itself. It seems clear to me which degree of lying has done more damage to the America envisioned by Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Paine and Madison.

***

No secret that the current political rancor is rooted in sincere resentment on both the conservative and liberal sides. But I think liberals generally have a better sense why conservatives hate them, than vice-versa.

Reasoned libs know that conservative hate doesn't all eminate from Cro-Magnon stupidity. They recognize it also reflects long-term disappointment with the failed promise of post-RFK liberal leadership.

But conservatives, for the most part, are truly shocked by the idea that what they represent would create such vitriol. They see their movement, even when it falters (which they think rarely happens), as being pure of heart. They identify with the cartoon of St. Ronnie: "We love people so much we offer them true freedom from immorality and bureaucracy." And if someone dares challenge this, they better be as respectful as that nice Mr. Lieberman over there in the corner.

***

As for life in a post-Bush reality (if that's possible) I'm so far liking Wesley Clark best of all the potential 2008 presidential candidates. He started his '04 presidential run too late, and was a bit too green a campaigner. But overall he has a resume to rival John Kerry's, and enough poise & gravitas to make Dick Cheney look like a little girl.

I think it's good that the media is stupidly (or purposely?) forgetting him, in all their "Hillary mania." It'll make Clark's "Iowa surprise" that much sweeter, if he does indeed run. Whether the money men will give Hillary (or Kerry) enough later oomph to retake the lead, is still up in the air.

Kerry could play the "I came this close to unseating a popular wartime president" card, if the media lets him. He probably wouldn't even have to mention last year's Ohio debacle that likely robbed him of the presidency.

Disingenuous, sure. But depending on how well the others a.) play in Peoria; and b.) kiss media ass, perhaps effective.

Al Gore might also give it another shot in '08, but I'm skeptical about his chances. He has not only been "Gored" by the media, he's been "Deaned," due to his 2004 endorsement of the Doctor plus his recent firebrand speeches. It's unlikely he can overcome this.

Toon Tunes

Today's earworm: "Theme from Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" - Puffy AmiYumi

This regularly rotates with themes for other Cartoon Network shows like Sealab 2021, Tom Goes To The Mayor (Jefferton Alive! Shopping! Food!), Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends; and one of the best TV themes I've ever heard, whether from a cartoon or not, the super brass power jam that begins the anime classic Cowboy Bebop.

Puffy AmiYumi played Portland just last week, part of a tour sponsored by Cartoon Network. A couple of melodically clever Japanese pop-rock chicks who in real life seem noticeably different from the animated counterparts who portray them on the show. The animators go for an American teen (or pre-teen?) vibe when creating the toons of Ami and Yumi, not the vibe of late '20s/early '30s grown Japanese women that Ami and Yumi really are. Maybe the animated versions are considered a representation of the "inner American child" in each. In any event, both the real-life and animated versions are mighty cute, and their goofy enthusiasm is endearing.

Land Of The Giants

I recently picked up four of the Giants Of Philosophy tapes at the library: Spinoza, Kant, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. Narrated by Charlton Heston, accompanied by a crew of voice-over actors who read from the philosophers' works.

It is strange to hear "Moses" talk of Nietzsche's Overman, and how God is dead. And one does have to set aside the Chuck Heston of Airport '75 and Bowling For Columbine for a moment. The content is at times hard to grasp, but whatever practical philosophical value I get will make it worth the effort.

I also checked out the following books: The Essential Neruda, a collection of vivid poems by Pablo Neruda; Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (it's good to recall, while noting the pathetic persona of his later years, how skilled a writer he really was); and In Contempt, Christopher Darden's remembrance of his time working for the prosecution in the infamous OJ Simpson trial, 10 years ago now.

Earlier I'd read Jeffrey Toobin's and Vincent Bugliosi's books on the OJ trial (both laying out persuasive criticisms of the way Darden and Marcia Clark presented the prosecution's case), and I wanted to get Darden's side. More on this later, after I finish the book.

Love Field

Major props to my wife Pam, for fixing our old Whirlpool dryer (for now) and saving us dog knows how much in repair/replacement costs. Had it been left to me, I would've been clueless and had to rely on repair shop estimates and laundromats. From back to her days as a theatre stage manager and before, she's always been solid on the fix-it front, and I'm fortunate to have that in my life.

Our 11th anniversary was a couple weeks back. It happened to fall on the same day that Elvis Costello played Portland, and I was in a situation where I wished I could do two things at once: go out for an anniversary dinner with my wife, and see the legendary EC live for the first time ever.

Pam, sad to say, didn't want to go to the concert. But as I found out too late, it would've been okay with her to postpone our dinner until the next day...except that she thought I'd be going with my brothers, and she didn't like the thought of me supposedly choosing my brothers over her. Which wasn't the case, as I explained to her: it was Elvis I'd be going for, not anything else.

Oy veh. My brother Mike and several of my friends have seen EC at least once, and I still haven't. I've been a big fan since 1981, and this state of affairs sucks, especially considering that he still reportedly puts on an excellent show. He turns 51 this year, so hopefully I have a good 15-20 years left to see him on stage, but I have to accept that maybe I'll never get to see him at peak form.

Oh well. At least Pam and I had a tasty dinner out, and a nice time exchanging gifts and snarky comments.

Laughing All Day Long

He has a bone to pick with Fortress America. Several bones in fact. Welcome back our own Chester Magpie, underground pundit:

"The polls drop. The people start to hear some kind of sound. The rotting Christian corpses smell up the joint, and Jeb looks like a goober car salesman even on CNN.

It's funny that in the end these sons a' bitches have to cast votes and those are still public record. But watch out you eastside hippie stoners, the Bush/Cheney crime family will kill every single one of us to save their butts! History has proved that bulldozing Jews into pits is no big thing at all.

Can you imagine them getting away with this dictator grip during the Cronkite years? No way a guy like John Bolton would've existed. And once Air America completely sells out and starts laughing all day long we will have a nice Saudi Arabian US government on our hands and the rednecks will be their obedient fodder. America is a breeding ground for mindfuck politics, a test market for the rest of the world. The 'democratic experiment' -- yeah right.

Mainstreet beware, BUSH is here!"

Revenge Of The Metrosexuals

Saw Sideways on DVD last week.

I've had a crush on Virginia Madsen since she played Mussolini's young mistress in the George C. Scott TV biopic about Il Duce. ("After we make love, Benito, what need will you have for the others?") It's great to see her gracefully age (while still being plenty hot) to a presence so mature and wise -- aging like fine wine, as a matter of fact, which director/screenwriter Alexander Payne may've had in mind when casting her in a movie centered around wine tasters.

The movie shows just how far good acting and writing can go, even when one is suspicious of the whole premise of the thing from the git-go. In these perilous BushCo times, Revenge Of The Repressed Metrosexuals doesn't top my list of worthwhile subject matter, and in my bitter old crankiness I see any fictional schlub's ability to romance a Madsen or Sandra Oh-type as being too "Hollywood wet dream." But I was charmed, and by the end, moved.

I'm relieved to report that Sideways is more than just a wet dream for stoner intellectuals. It's also about trying to free oneself from bonds of the past, and the mixed results that take place in real life, away from Hollywood fantasy.

Did Thomas Haden Church, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, outact Paul Giamatti (snubbed in the Best Actor category) here -- by a nose, so to speak? (Inside joke, if you haven't seen the film.) I'm tending to think he did, although I'd have to agree that Giamatti wuz robbed of his Oscar nom. I haven't yet seen Million Dollar Baby, but it's hard to imagine Best Actor nominee Clint Eastwood giving a better performance than Paul's nuanced, funny and poignant turn here.

Gregland


Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin: a wild ride through
the back alleys of toontown! The only ride
with a PG sense of humour in the G rated world
of Disneyland, you are zany, wild, and a little
bit of a loose screw. Energetic and colorful,
you go at full speed, even though your taxi-car
vehicles actually have four flat tires!
Despite your older humor, you are a kid at
heart and kids most relate to your cartoony
world and like you the best. You've been know
to make the adults a little queasy and a little
bit dizzy. You leave your visitors dazed, a
little confused, but more often, extremely
amused. You take us to the places we'd never
see in a ride featuring the straight-laced
Mickey, but somehow you're still all Disney.


What Disneyland attraction are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I remember riding this with my son in 1996, when he was about four months old. I was hangin' on to him for dear life, because of the wild (and unexpected) twists & turns the car took. But he seemed to like the "Car Toon Spin," or at least not mind it.

Last time we were at Disneyland, in 2001, the ride was closed for repairs. Hopefully it'll be in operation when we go there again this November.

Had I answered "American history" instead of "art" (which I'll say would include popular music) for my favorite study subject, I would've been the Mark Twain steamboat instead. Had I answered differently a couple other questions where my answers were really coin flips (between playing basketball and going bowling, for example), I would've been the Parking Tram (?!).

So consider me a cross between Samuel Clemens, Roger Rabbit and a convenient form of passenger transport. Therein lies my essence.

Chronicles

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war," wrote John Adams during his presidency. He was referring to the danger of a possible confrontation with France, in the days of the early Republic when others in government (some in Adams' own cabinet) were itching for war. Adams advocated military buildup, but abstained from the decision to go to war, seeking instead the route of difficult diplomacy with a disdainful foe. This created political hardship for him, and likely helped lead to his defeat to Thomas Jefferson (and Aaron Burr) in the disputed presidential election of 1800.

Would that our current president had taken to heart the words of Adams, when he supposedly read David McCullough's best-selling biography "John Adams" (a fine, if perhaps too reverential, book I recently finished) during his first year in office. But by then, in the months before 9-11, Bush and his cronies were already hellbent on doing whatever it took to ram through a Gulf War II versus Iraq, to seize the convenient Iraqi bogeyman Saddam (who did, after all, try to kill Bush's daddy) and to secure a larger military presence in the Middle East and control over the Iraqi oil fields.

Had Bush really taken in McCullough's work, he might've been inspired by Adams' strong commitments to integrity, intellect, and the noblest aims of humankind. He might've been touched by the sincere and time-tested love between Adams and his wife Abigail (by the standards of the day practically a feminist), and between the Adamses and their children. He might even have found Adams' New England-style passion for work and purpose and public service inspiring, in a John Kerry sorta way.

But apparently Bush digested the book only enough to get that his family and the Adams family share one important historical feature: they both feature a father and son who reached the highest office in the land. They are the only two families in American history who can say such a thing, and with Bush's dry-drunk passion for vainglory this fact must've appealed to him greatly. In another book I recently finished, Kitty Kelley's controversial best-selling bio from last year, "The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty," Kelley states (in her usual provocative but take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt way) that Bush okayed the construction of an Adams Memorial in Washington D.C. because official tribute to the two Adams presidents (John and John Quincy) offered reflected glory for the two Bush presidents, George and George Jr.

I'm all for a new Adams Memorial, and would've said so through the years, from before the time I attended John Adams High School in the late '70s. I first learned details about the Adams family in 1976, when I enjoyed the PBS miniseries The Adams Chronicles with George Grizzard and William Daniels. It remains one of the best historical dramas I've ever seen, and I wish it were more easily available on DVD and VHS so I could nab a copy.

I was attracted to Kelley's book because a.) I'm a sucker for choice gossip, particularly when it's about people I don't like; and b.) I found Kelley's book on Frank Sinatra one of the best "trashy" reads ever. Also, I'm fascinated by the childhoods of the two Bush presidents, and what made the Bush family the corrupt assholes that they are.

It doesn't surprise me to hear that both Poppy and Dubya come from households with strict parental figures. In Poppy's case, it was father Prescott; for Dubya, it was mother Barbara who cracked hard the disciplinary whip. Nor does it surprise me to learn of the Bushes existing for many years in the most insular and conservative of blueblood bubbles. They are the very essence of people who considered Franklin Roosevelt a "traitor to his class" for advocating the New Deal. It would be delicious irony indeed, if Junior's failing attempts to privatize Social Security, the heart of the New Deal, mark the beginning of the end of his political mojo.

More Than Funny

Add another feather to Harry Shearer's cap: it's not enough that he has arguably the best radio show on the air (Le Show), that he continues to provide crucial, quality voice-over work for perhaps the greatest TV show ever (The Simpsons); that he has recently shown, at Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo blog, he can guest blog with the best of 'em; or that he seems in far better physical shape at 61 than I am at 42, while married to one of the most ethereal babes in music today (Judith Owen.)

No, all that and Spinal Tap and Saturday Night Live and having worked as a child actor with Jack Benny aren't enough for Our Harry, for he also is currently doing some of the best commercial voice-over work ever, as the voice of the TV Land channel.

I heard Shearer again this evening, as TV Land ran a two-hour block of the comedy classic SCTV. (See Phil Nugent's article on TV sketch comedy in the new High Hat, where two DVD collections of SCTV episodes earn a richly deserved A+.) Tonight was the first time I'd seen the show in years, and it did not take long to be transported back into the state of obsession I had with SCTV during its run on NBC in the early '80s. Enough, I think, to make me go out and get all three volumes of the show that are available on DVD...as soon as I have enough money for it, which sadly could be awhile yet.

Like in the '80s, mine was a somewhat lonely obsession: I was again the only one in my household digging on it. One of Shearer's promos for the show captured this well: There are two kinds of people in the world. Those who "get" SCTV and everyone else.

Each SCTV actor fascinates me in their own way. Even people from the syndicated, pre-NBC years of the show, like Robin Duke and Tony Rosato and a young Harold Ramis, have moments of advanced comic flair you don't often see in TV land. I saw an episode this evening circa 1977-78 which prominently featured Ramis, and it made me chuckle a bit to think that there was likely a brief moment when he was being positioned as the breakout star of the cast. He in fact has had as much post-SCTV success as anyone from the show, save perhaps Rick Moranis and John Candy, if you count his solid screenwriting and directorial work. But as a comic actor, he too often can't rise above a certain blandness, a certain trying too hard, and that sunk his chances of being anything other than a second-banana type.

I love the comic artistry of SCTV's Catherine O'Hara, but I share Pauline Kael's fascination with another SCTV alum, Andrea Martin, who consistently reaches a realm just beyond O'Hara's able reach, and who has been a criminally underused performer in movies and TV.

To me, Martin goes further than being "merely" funny, into a kind of entrancing performance art that is so rich in humanity and nuance that I'm often gobsmacked by it. I can think of only a small handful of female performers in her league: Carol Burnett, O'Hara, Jan Hooks, perhaps Ellen DeGeneres. It's quite the comic actor who makes the delightful SNL trio of Gilda Radner, Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin seem somehow a step behind.

I Report, You Deride Decide

"Many valid criticisms of astrology can be formulated in a few sentences: for example, its acceptance of precession of the equinoxes in announcing an 'Age of Aquarius' and its rejection of precession of the equinoxes in casting horoscopes; its neglect of atmospheric refraction; its list of supposedly significant celestial objects that is mainly limited to naked eye objects known to Ptolemy in the second century, and that ignores an enormous variety of new astronomical objects discovered since (where is the astrology of near-Earth asteroids?); inconsistent requirements for detailed information on the time as compared to the latitude and longitude of birth; the failure of astrology to pass the identical-twin test; the major differences in horoscopes cast from the same birth information by different astrologers; and the absence of demonstrated correlation between horoscopes and such psychological tests as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory."

- Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World

***

"If Your Child Is Born Today...you will soon find that you have a very brilliant child on your hands, one who will ask intelligent questions and expect sensible answers. The memory will also be extraordinary and adults will be highly impressed. However, teach early to concentrate upon one thing at a time or adult life can be spent aimlessly hopping from one thing to another."

- Carroll Righter, Los Angeles Times, 6/3/62