for July 20, 2010
It's no secret that many think the American health care system
is criminally callous -- albeit, less so since reform passed. Last
year, I wrote a hip hop song about it called "Stealin' Medication"
and finally got around to posting it online today. If you wanna
hear it, just click here:
stealinmedication.vox.com
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I flew over the Gulf of Mexico a few days ago
and, as the plane neared the New Orleans area, could see
brownish patches in the water. Don't know if that was oil
or some other element. But the Gulf farther to the south
is still vividly blue, and let's hope it stays that way.
Here's a shot I took of the Gulf on Friday:
[photo by Paul Iorio]
___________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 18, 2010
I came up with a few brand new songs last month and
earlier this month, recorded them at my home studio
in Berkeley (Calif.) a couple weeks ago, and have
just now posted 'em here for your listening pleasure. Enjoy!
fourbrandnewpaulsongs.vox.com
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 12, 2010
McCartney's California Dream Concert
Paul McCartney's massively entertaining show
last Saturday night at AT&T Park in San Francisco was drenched
in Californiana. And the enthusiastic crowd acted as if he
were a local hero from the Haight or Marin playing a
homecoming concert.
For the first encore, for example, McCartney strolled onstage waving
both the California state flag and the U.K. banner before launching into
a thrilling "Day Tripper," which, on this night, sounded sort of
like the very first arena rocker ever written, what with that
booming riff that fits a ballpark so perfectly.
Earlier in the show, he talked from the stage about his previous S.F.
gigs with the Beatles at the Cow Palace and at Candlestick Park (where he
had last performed, in '66, in San Francisco, though he has
given other area shows through the years). And he even played
a special song just for this show, "San Francisco Bay Blues," which
had boaters in McCovey Cove -- where I heard and saw the gig --
blaring their boat horns in appreciation. (AT&T Park is an
open-air venue right on the Bay.)
The highlights of this meaty, generous two-and-half-hour set,
which had fans dancing till nearly midnight, are too numerous
to mention here. The astonishing surprises included "I'm Looking
Through You," which unfolded so naturally with a crisp spare
beat (and with one of the greatest bridges in the McCartney catalog);
an unexpectedly brilliant "A Day in the Life"; a perfect
version of "Paperback Writer" that makes you wonder why the Fab Four
could never get that one right in concert back in the day; and a
"Something" so faithful to the original that I briefly thought
George Harrison had just walked on stage for a star turn.
Of the non-Beatles tunes, "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five," an
overlooked Wings gem, had the energy of a classic (I heard it performed
live a year or so ago by a Canadian band called The Golden Dogs (opening
for Feist), who made me see the track in a different light).
And "Mrs. Vanderbilt" was a lot of fun.
McCartney played half of the "Let It Be" and "Band on the Run"
albums, but (alas) none of "Ram" and very little early
Beatles material. Also missing in action were his very
first post-Beatles singles: "Maybe I'm Amazed,"
"Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and (especially) the very
underrated "Another Day."
One of the thrills of a McCartney show is that he almost always
throws in a wild card Beatles tune that nobody sees coming (at this
show he did a ska-ish version of "Ob-La-Di"; at a set I saw at
Madison Square Garden in '89, it was "Things We Said Today").
When he does an obscure Beatles track, it's sort of like
(to mix a metaphor) seeing a deep memory jump from your brain
and dance in front of you.
Those wild cards should be the starting point for a new kind of
McCartney tour in the future, one that focuses exclusively on
the hidden gold on Beatles albums, the non-hits. Imagine
Paul concerts, at venues like the Beacon in New York, in
which he plays only deep cuts like "For No One" and "Every
Little Thing" and "Rocky Raccoon" and "Honey Pie" and even
"Wild Honey Pie" (fancy that!) and "Mother Nature's Son" and
"I'll Follow the Sun" and "Her Majesty" and others that he has
never performed before.
Until then, we have this fabulous tour, a must-see.
* * * * *
* * * * *
Later this week, the Berkeley (Calif.) Art Museum (BAM) is
unveiling a new exhibition called "Hauntology," a
collection of works, by various artists, in which there is
a sort of "haunting" of the present by the past. A couple
weeks ago I was able to take a quick look at some of
the paintings in the exhibit (before they were put on the
walls) and snapped this shot of them. Looks promising.
Works in the "Hauntology" exhibit, whichopens July 14th at BAM. Through Dec. 5.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for July 6 - 7, 2010
The New Yorker magazine just published a satirical piece that
very strongly resembles something I wrote in this space on April 21, 2010
(just scroll down to the word "Friedman" to read it).
.
In my April 21st piece, I played off a New York Times column by
Tom Friedman -- in which he quotes bin Laden saying, “When people
see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong
horse,” as if that were some sort of pearl of wisdom -- and jokingly gave
examples of similar vapid aphorisms.
The writer for The New Yorker did exactly the same sort of thing.
Back in April, I made fun of the bin Laden line this way:
"When people see a new car and an old car, by nature they will
like the new car." Or like a psychotherapist saying: "When people
see a sick woman and a healthy woman, by nature they will be
attracted to the healthy woman."
The New Yorker made fun of the bin Laden line the same way,
using different, albeit more self-consciously elaborate examples:
"Let’s say you see two kittens. One’s nimble and fast and cute. The
other one is dead. My experience is that people...by nature go for the live kitten...If people are given a choice between a nice lamb sandwich with pesto mayonnaise on warm pita bread and having to define the word “rheostat,”
the vast majority will go for the sandwich every time."
The only difference is that I was trying to show examples that
mocked and mimicked bin Laden's simple-mindedness. (What
kind of simpleton do you have to be to say something as stupid
as: When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature
they will like the strong horse? And I guess it takes a billionaire
accustomed to the unchallenged platitudes of the pricey lecture
circuit to think that's a good line.) The New Yorker writer used
baroque examples that seemed to be more the product of research
than of imagination (I wonder how many Google searches it took
for him to finally settle on the word "rheostat" for his not-funny line).
Further, the writer John Kenney ignores the first rule of humor:
it has to be, uh, funny.
Woody Allen used to write in the style that John Kenney badly
imitates in the New Yorker, but the difference is this: Allen is
funny, Kenney is not. (And lemme paraphrase someone: I've met
Woody Allen, I've interviewed Woody Allen. Sir, you are no
Woody Allen. [And neither am I!])
Anyway, my piece was a unique satiric concept (as opposed to, say,
a joke such as calling Tiger Woods a "Bootyist," a jokey
coinage a lot of people came up with simultaneously).
Though the writer did not exactly plagiarize my piece, he did
apparently take my original idea, or so it seems.
What do you think?
The article in The New Yorker is posted on its website
(it's called "No One Ever Said It Better") -- and my blog
for April 21 is posted below.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I emailed TNY about this; just received an email
from the magazine saying, "I will investigate the origins
of our column and report back to you as soon as possible."
[Today's blog entry for 7/7 (above) updated at 5pm.]
____________________________
[My interview with Barbara Billingsley just added (6/29) as MP3. Just click here: ioriointerview.vox.com]
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 26, 2010
Pavement, Live and Reunited in Berkeley Last Night
Pavement, together again.
[photo (of an earlier Pavement gig) from songkick.com; photographer unknown.]
Though the main part of the U.S. leg of the Pavement reunion
tour doesn't begin until the Labor Day weekend, the band played
a couple gigs in its hometown area last night and the night
before. (There are no other upcoming domestic Pavement shows until
September -- except for the one at the Pitchfork fest in July.)
If last night's gig in Berkeley was any indication, fans are
in for a real treat. Drawing heavily from its "Slanted and Enchanted"
and "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" albums, and playing some
rarities that only true aficionados know, the band has almost never
sounded better, recalling nothing so much as The Replacements
in its prime.
This particular gig was clearly angled for the locals. Pavement
auteur Stephen Malkmus talked from the Greek Theatre stage
about the first show he'd ever seen at the Greek (a rained-out
R.E.M., Third Eye Blind), thanked "Aristotle, Socrates and all
the usual Greek punks" and even chatted about a former Cal quaterback.
At another point, he talked about nearby Stockton, where he
grew up but had never played until the night before.
"Do any of you worship Satan?," Malkmus asked as the crowd
cheered. "I was in Stockton yesterday and nobody worships
Satan in Stockton. In Linden, they worship Satan. In Stockton,
no Satan."
And several songs later, he performed a song about tiny Linden,
Calif., "Lions (Linden)," a rarity from the "Luxe and Reduxe"
edition of "Slanted and Enchanted."
As if all that local color wasn't enough, the band then brought
on Stockton's own Gary Young -- the band's original drummer, who
left the group just as Pavement was going to Matador -- for the
final songs, including another early obscurity, "Box Elder."
Of course, all the material they performed was from the years
when they were active -- from '89 to '99 -- though some of it
sounded like it'd been written just last month or last year.
A track that sounded notably ahead of its time was
1992's "In the Mouth a Desert," which seems to have
been the model for Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #1." (Anyone
not knowing it'd been penned in '92 would have thought
Pavement was influenced by AF rather than vice versa.)
And its lyrics seem soo 2010 ("Can you treat it like an oil
well/when it's underground, out of sight?").
Then again, as original as the band is, they can sound remarkably
like The Replacements (Nirvana seemed to use the 'Mats's
aesthetic as a starting point, too).
Remember, Malkmus and Cobain were virtually the same age (the former
is 44, the latter would have been 43 this year), so Westerberg, now 50,
must have seemed sort of older brotherish to both of them. (It was telling
to hear Malkmus sing the line "She knows what it's like to be 45 or
53," which he wrote when he was 32.)
By the way, it's more obvious than ever that Westerberg, who still
hasn't gotten his full and proper due (inexplicably, he hasn't
yet been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame), has
been a huge influence on Nineties and Oughties rockers. (I'd
love to hear Westerberg sing "Gold Soundz" -- a highlight
last night -- or listen to Cobain belt out "Stereo" -- and
I hate the fact that a Nirvana reunion tour is never gonna
happen. But I digress.)
Pavement was and is every bit as thrillingly audacious as
the 'Mats and Cobain. On songs like "Unfair," the sound is
pure you-can't-do-that and the lyrics take no prisoners ("Let's
burn the hills of Beverly" -- sort of the opposite of Death
Cab's "Grapevine Fires").
Plus, Malkmus has a great sense of humor. For example,
on stage he started the intro to "Shady Lane" -- "Blind
date with the chancer" -- to wild applause and then
jokingly broke it off.
"Thank you very much," he said. "Good night." The crowd
laughed. Then back to "Shady Lane." And a few minutes later,
he did some humorous a cappella crooning.
Opening the show, which I heard from the hills above the Greek, was
Quasi, a worthy band from Portland, Oregon, that will be kicking
off a few dates for Pavement in September.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- [This P.S. added on June 29th] By the way,
the movie "Airplane!" was released 30 years ago this week, and
while it's not exactly my favorite film comedy, it does have
its funny moments.
To commemorate the anniversary, I thought I'd share a bit
of an interview I conducted with actress Barbara Billingsley,
who memorably appears in the film as The Jive Lady. I spoke
with Billingsley one-on-one in July 1997.
Hear the MP3 here:
http://ioriointerview.vox.com
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 23, 2010
Elias is In, Barnes is Out
Just saw President Obama's address on the change of
command in Afghanistan. Tough, decisive, wise, smart,
pragmatic. If I had written that speech, not a word would
have been different. And Petraeus is the perfect replacement.
Congress should confirm him today.
And now's the time to stop the "Platoon"-ish internecine fighting.
Barnes lost, Elias won. But the enemy is still Osama
bin Laden and his followers. And while we're bickering,
they're plotting.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Congrats again to Rolling Stone for its seismic scoop.
(See what a freelancer can do!) Amazing that a magazine with
over forty years of scoops has just had its biggest yet.
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 22, 2010
Fire McChrystal
Obama has tried nice with the military, many
of whom don't respect him prima facie because
he's not a vet. Now he has to make sure they
fear him, too. If Stanley McChrystal is allowed
to stay on, he'd be a walking reminder to everyone
from generals to privates that there is no penalty
for borderline insubordination and for undermining
government policy. Make an example of him.
Oh, I know: McChrystal has his supporters (Karzai
among them) who would be demoralized or alienated
if he were fired. Replacing him would disrupt the
ecosystem of the war in Afghanistan, some would say.
OK, then give him a lateral transfer, put him in
charge of something irrelevant (like the drawdown in
Iraq). That way everybody saves face and is
sharply reminded that the U.S. military is ultimately
under the sole command and control of civilians.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Ah, so that seems to explain Barack 'n' Joe's
"golf game" the other day. Get a clear head in the open
air, away from all eavesdroppers and mikes (golf courses
and beaches are great for that), and make a really, really
tough decision.
Then again, maybe it was just a golf game!
P.S. -- Kudos to Rolling Stone for reporting such
a major scoop.
______________________________________
for June 19, 2010
Stuff About BP That Nobody is Telling "the Small, Small People"
Around the time that Lord John Browne, then-CEO of BP, was
having ultrasecret sex with his gay "escort," fifteen BP workers
in Texas City, Texas, were killed in a refinery disaster that
was the firm's fault.
The deaths and injuries -- over 170 were injured -- were
ghastly, resulting from a geyser of extremely flammable
chemicals spewing from an overloaded tower. (Suffice it to
say the people who died did not die well.)
This was March 23, 2005. Tony Hayward was
Lord Browne's lapdog assistant at the time, pre-occupied with
making sure no one found out about his boss's whoring.
And BP's corporate culture was such that Lord Browne was
not forced to resign from BP because 15 people died due
to his screw-up. No, he had to go because of issues related
to his sexual affair.
Because BP -- convicted of felonies and fined
a record sum in this case -- had done its job so
incredibly well in Texas, the firm was now promoted to
its next job: drilling for oil a mile underwater
in the Gulf of Mexico, which nobody had really done before.
Of course, BP handled that job equally well.
And when Browne did quit, most of the papers called him a corporate
giant, a great lion of industry. "Browne was one
of the most respected business leaders of his generation" went
one typical piece of puffery in a news story.
Never mind that Browne's bad practices caused fatalities
that could have been prevented. Never mind that
many of the workers who died and were injured
that day in Texas City had been working 12-hour shifts
without a break for a month, according to The Washington Post.
No, Browne had done a heckuva job, according to industry analysts
interviewed by some folks in the media.
The grisly 2005 deaths caused by BP were so outrageous
that even the now-disgraced Rep. Joe Barton of Texas vented
his anger on the House floor about the firm, saying: "This comes
from a company which prides itself in their ads on protecting
the environment. Shame! Shame! Shame!"
Of cour$e, one ha$ to wonder what cau$ed $uch a change
of heart by Barton about BP.
Anyway, when Browne resigned, Hayward took over.
And all the biz analysts played cheerleader in the press:
"Hayward has made a good impression so far," Fadel
Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer & Company, told the
New York Times. "He is more of a technocrat and a hands-on
guy. He's worked all over the place, so he knows. " (Knows what?)
And Hayward immediately announced he would bring
a new personal style to BP:
and I take all my holidays," Hayward told a newspaper.
And as soon as he became CEO, Hayward said all
the predictable things: there has to be more communication (has a
CEO ever taken over a firm and said "There needs to be less
communication"?); the top brass has to talk more with the
small, small people; safety is our number one
concern; yada yada yada.
Of course, Hayward meant none of it. He evidently just
wanted to sail his yacht all day while the peons
handled the greasy stuff.
And my guess is that BP won't fire Hayward, no matter what
he does. Because Hayward, Browne's former assistant, knows
too much about Browne and (probably) other top execs
at BP. ("Escort," by the way, is what used to be called
a "whore.") And Hayward could very easily, uh, spill.
Sure, Hayward may be bought out (read: bribed) for some
exorbitant sum in the future. But he won't be canned,
because those in the know probably know ho Jeff Chevalier
wasn't Browne's only one (if you catch my drift).
In the private sector, that's the only sort of job security that's
really real.
But I digress. "Lord" Paul
P.S. -- [added June 21, 2010] And now, inevitably,
comes the revisionist history about BP and Lord Browne, which
apparently isn't being revised enough. In one newspaper,
a writer praises Browne in the way he had been
(inexplicably) praised in the pre-Gulf spill era, but
admits: "In retrospect, though, it seems clear
[Browne] presided over the creation of a dangerously
weak safety culture."
Uh, "dangerously weak" doesn't quite cover it. Try
"criminally negligent safety culture."
Some industry analysts are essentially saying:
"Browne was great if you overlook the 170 people
injured and 15 killed because of the negligence he
was responsible for." Which is like saying Capt.
Joseph Hazelwood was a first-class ship captain, if
you subtract the Exxon Valdez disaster. Or like
saying Jayson Blair was a terrific reporter, aside
from his plagiarism, fabrications and factual errors.
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 16, 2010
The Rise of the Fist Bump Epoch
(or, Why My Ethnic Group Isn't Groovy Anymore)
The High-Five Era ended with Borat Sagdiyev's memorable
ridicule of the high-five greeting in the "Borat" feature
film of '06. Taking its place is The Fist Bump Epoch,
inaugurated when Barack bumped Michelle on stage in
St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 3, 2008.
The Fist Bump Era has brought us many good things, don't
get me wrong. Hey, you can now arrive bloody and
uninsured at the ER and be automatically enrolled in
Medicaid, if you're eligible. Saves some folks a lot of
bucks. Also, we now have a president whose nouns and
verbs agree -- a good example for everyone.
But with the Fist Bump Revolution has come the scourge
of Identity Politics, a my-ethnic-group-right-or-wrong
attitude in which people of a particular ethnic, racial
or religious group support someone from their own faction
just because he or she is in that group.
Generally, not a good thing. Lately, it seems, the
truth and the facts don't matter nearly as much as
the promotion of a favored ethnic group.
To be sure, every group is guilty of blindly standing
by their own, to some extent. It seems that whenever
a, say, beloved Puerto Rican politician is convicted
of corruption, many in that community will stand by
him or her. When an Italian-American mobster is collared,
some Italian Americans will stand by their man. And when
an African-American commits some indefensible crime, some
blacks will twist the facts into a pretzel to justify it.
Identity Politics among African-Americans seems to be on
the rise lately. Look at the recent Supreme Court case
Ricci v. DeStefano (aka, the New Haven firefighters case),
which seemed to many to be a case of unfair racial bias.
Look at the appointment of Roland Burris to the U.S. Senate,
which happened despite the fact that most pros thought he
wasn't up to the job and occurred only after the
Congressional Black Caucus played the race card.
Prior to the Fist Bump Era, my Italian-American ethnic
group used to be groovy. Back in 1988, when Mario Cuomo
looked like he might become an American Churchill, when
Frank Zappa was courageously taking on Congress over
free speech issues, when Martin Scorsese was making
his best films, Italian-Americans were riding high.
We had heroic cultural forebears back then. Like Mario Savio,
founder of the free speech movement of the 1960s. Like
Felix Cavaliere of the rock group The Rascals, who
refused to play segregated concert venues and paid a
high price for his principled stand. (And on a personal
level, I am so glad and proud my late dad, born in Italy,
fought against Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany
back when, unlike many of his generation.)
And remember how Richard Nixon was so bigoted against
Italians? Nixon was caught on tape saying, "We should do
something for Italians, of course they smell bad and they
are all crooks." I must admit I was filled with pride
knowing that my own ethnic group was despised by such
a clinically paranoid loser and lowlife.
Today, not so much. Crass guys like Rudy Giuliani and
Al D'Amato -- not to mention the buffoonish prime minister
of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi -- have helped
to make Italian-Americans seem deeply uncool.
Meanwhile, it's a great time to be African American. In
almost every precinct, favoritism has been shifting that
way -- or at least it was in 2009 and early 2010 (though
in the run-up to the '10 elections, there has been a bit
of a rollback of Fist Bumpism). In politics, we have
seen the phenomenon of people backing a mediocre black
political candidate (e.g., Burris, Kendrick Meek, Alvin
Greene, Jesse Jackson, Jr., etc.) mainly because he's black.
On television, there have been countless commercials that
show dramatizations in which a black character is large
and in charge and a white dude is a clueless oaf.
A corrective, some argue, to years in which blacks were
oppressed in America.
And there's some truth to that. Or more accurately, there
was some truth to that prior to, oh, November 2008, when
Barack Obama proved beyond a doubt that racism and bias
are not as prevalent or as debilitating as we once thought
they were. The 2008 election showed an African-American
progressive can win amongst white voters in red states -- even
against a strong conservative opponent. It's harder than
ever to make a case that racism is the obstacle
it used to be.
Meanwhile, the propagandistic aspect of Fist Bumpism
has also had an impact on non-race related phenomena
(culture and language, for starters). For example,
in the past year or so, the word "Cadillac" has
taken on an entirely new connotation.
When I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies, anybody
with any semblance of smart taste (or hipness, for that
matter) used the word "Cadillac" strictly as a pejorative
reference. It was used to define something tawdry or
someone who had lots of money but no taste.
Today, even though the Cadillac aesthetic hasn't changed much,
there seems to be a sort of forced upgrade of the stature
of the name -- as in the ubiquitous phrase "The Cadillac
health plan," used to describe an upscale, quality health plan.
Frankly, the first time I heard the phrase "Cadillac plan,"
on the "PBS NewsHour," I was genuinely perplexed. I honestly
thought they were trying to describe a tacky,
gaudy, expensive but cheap plan -- whatever that would be!
To me, the name Cadillac has always had firm and
fixed connotations (like the word Edsel).
But it seems the government and the media are just trying
to promote the ailing American car industry during this
recession. Because if you truly wanted to use the
name of a car to evoke high quality, you would say Rolls
Royce or Mercedes or Jaguar -- but then those aren't
American brands. Truth is, the U.S. does not make a car
that can compete with the excellence of certain foreign makes,
so there's an element of propaganda involved in using the
term "Cadillac plan."
Surely, this Fist Bump Epoch will soon be supplanted by -- who
knows? -- the Group Hug Era (maybe after a female presidential
candidate does a group hug on stage). Or a Shadow Boxing Era
(after a macho presidential contender who likes to
playfully shadow box with people at campaign stops). And maybe
the ethnic flavor of future months will be...Icelanders, or
New Zealanders (hey, the Flight of the Conchords might
help to make that happen!).
Or maybe Italian-Americans will become cool again. After all,
a new Cuomo is ascendant in New York -- Andrew, this time -- and
Fiat is again the pride of the auto industry.
But one things's nearly certain: in 2020, we'll look back
at video footage of the Fist Bump Era and it'll all look
so obviously propagandistic.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I have to say that there's something a bit touching
about Gary Faulkner's brother dropping him off at the airport
so he could go to Afghanistan to find and kill Osama bin Laden.
Faulkner, as you've probably heard, wanted to give his last
full measure for an undeniably worthy cause: killing
bin Laden.
Faulkner's heart is in the right place, but his strategy for
killing Osama was a bit off. First, bin Laden is likely
hiding in the Bajour province in the FATAs on the Pakistan
side, not in remote Chitral. See my own original research
on this here:
http://iorioinvestigation.blogspot.com
(For starters, bin Laden wouldn't have been been able
to get his videotapes to al Jazeera in a timely manner as he
has been if he were located in the Himalayas. (All routes to
and from the region are impassable in the winter.) He also needs
easy access to the sorts of medical supplies (for his kidneys)
that you'd usually find only near big city hopsitals.) Second:
let the drones handle it. Obama, not W., is directing the war
now and knows what he's doing.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for a drone to do the
deed (and I still have a nice bottle of Chianti that I'm
saving for the day Osama dies), here's an MP3 version of a
song I wrote a couple years ago called "I SHOT OSAMA BIN LADEN."
http://bailey.typepad.com/blog/2009/07/i-shot-osama-bin-laden-by-paul-iorio01-track-110composed-performed-produced-by-paul-ioriolyrics-and-other-info-at-www-1.html
Enjoy!
__________________________________
for June 14 - 15, 2010
[new material added at bottom at 6pm (PT) 6/15!]
the 65th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War
The Fascist-o-Matic!
I was recently reading contemporaneous magazine accounts
about the rise of Adolf Hitler's regime, which fell 65 years
ago last month, and thinking how similar some of the Third
Reich's fascism is to the practices and policies of
autocrats today.
From Kim Jong-il's dictatorship in North Korea to Mullah
Omar's former regime in Afghanistan to religious
totalitarians enforcing their dogma via asymmetrical
means, the resemblances are eerie -- so similar in fact
that they began to mesh and merge in my mind. I started
thinking: was that Hitler who banned dancing except on
Saturdays between 7pm and curfew, or was that the Somali
fundamentalists? No, the latter have just (effectively)
banned music on Somali radio at all times, but
they're not the same ones who forced Hindus to wear yellow
badges on city streets, which is not to be confused with
storm troopers forcing Jews to wear yellow stars in public.
As I researched various fascist rules over the decades, I
found all sorts of peculiar (and oddly specific) bans
and prohibitions that started to seem interchangeable,
which they actually are, in many ways.
Proof of that is in this Fascist-o-Matic (below), by which
you can mix and match various totalitarian rules past and
present to create your own custom blend of oppression!
Just take one clause from Column A and mix it at random with
another clause from columns B and C. (Ex.: "Hindus
must...have a sun tan...under penalty of a forced haircut.")
Of course, each line, read straight across, describes an
actual regulation imposed by an autocratic state or group.
(See the "links" section (below) for more info on each
totalitarian regulation!)
[click to enlarge!]
NOTES ON EACH FASCIST REGULATION:
1) Hitler lifted his total ban on dancing in July 1940, allowing it only Wednesdays and
Saturdays between 7pm and curfew.
2) One of the reasons Ayatollah Kazim Sadighi of Iran has cracked down on women with
sun tans is because a female tan might cause earthquakes.
3) The Islamic extremist group Hizbul Islam has forbidden radio stations in
Somalia to air music (and the stations, fearing violence, have complied, much to the chagrin
of some in the Somali government).
4) Kim Jong-il has declared that all men in North Korea must wear their hair short (or face a
forced haircut).
5) In August 1940, Hitler forbade Jews from entering a store or market, except
between four and five pm.
6) Sharia law in Pakistan and other Islamic countries forbids people to play the tambourine,
except at circumcisions and weddings.
7) In 2001, Mullah Omar's Taliban regime in Afghanistan forced Hindus to wear a yellow
badge in public.
8) Islamic radical group The Shabab have banned the ringing of schoolbells in parts of Somalia.
9) Sharia law in Pakistan and elsewhere forbids people to play the mandolin, flute or lute.
10) In August 1940, Hitler decreed that Jews were not allowed to use a telephone, except to contact
a doctor or hospital.
11) Islamic militants worldwide have used deadly violence to stop people from showing
pictures of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and other religious figures.
12) Under Kim Jong-il, blue jeans are banned in North Korea.
13) Hitler banned Superman comics, which he considered too Jewish.
14) In the Third Reich, Jews had to wear a yellow star on their clothing in public.
15) Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the autocratic president of Indonesia, banned
protesters from bringing buffaloes to demonstrations (he felt the buffalo might be seen as
an unflattering caricature of himself).
* * * * *
LINKS
1. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,772395,00.html#ixzz0ot3nPqhc
2 http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/2010/04/28/2010-04-28_tehran_police_chief_iran_to_crack_down_on_suntanned_women.html
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/world/africa/14somalia.html?scp=1&sq=somalia ibrahim&st=cse
4. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jan/12/broadcasting.koreanews
5. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764406,00.html#ixzz0ot9TxiNj
6. http://www.muhammadanism.org/Government/Government_Sharia_Music.htm
7. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1346354.stm
8. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/world/africa/16somalia.html
9. http://www.muhammadanism.org/Government/Government_Sharia_Music.htm
10. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,764406,00.html#ixzz0ot9TxiNj
11. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article725158.ece
12. http://books.google.com/books?id=JwWutQs5jUwC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=north+korea+%22blue+jeans%22+ban&source=bl&ots=P4Bb6CBSfg&sig=DBhtYXy99JxScAdVjK63tque_y4&hl=en&ei=go8CTIffM4yINvm7gbYK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CDYQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
13. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/03/18/superhero.history/index.html
14. http://www.chgs.umn.edu/museum/exhibitions/fragments/theStar.html
15. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/indonesia/7156371/Indonesia-bans-buffaloes-from-political-protests.html
But I digress. Paul
P.S. --
The Fox News version of President Obama's Oval Office Address?:
"I just saw Obama's address, his first from the Oval Office.
It was a balanced speech. He had the American flag on one
side and the Indonesian flag on the other. And he made it
clear -- absolutely clear -- that he's completely open to any
suggestion from any socialist anywhere. And he will not
tolerate any delay in restoring and rebuilding Port-au-Prince.
Further, he's meeting with attorneys tomorrow to see whether
the spill can be upgraded to a hate crime."
* * * * *
* * * * *
POST-ELECTION NOTE: Everybody's talking all about
how Nikki Haley came out on top in a tight three-way. But
I've heard rumors she's had experience with that sort of thing,
[Ba-dum ching!]
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 13, 2010
"The Maltese Falcon" Turns 70 Next Year
Time for a Sequel?
"Give 'em Cairo!"
John Huston's 1941 version of "The Maltese Falcon" is turning
70 in several months and still soars and endures like few
other films in American history. But remember: the great
bird is still at large -- and it may take a sequel to find
it (more on that later).
At the time of its release, it was seen as a sort of Hitchcock
thriller, American style; today it's more rightly viewed
as the father of U.S. noir. Back then, it was seen as the
first film by the son of the far better known Walter Huston
(who, by the way, has a cameo as the man who delivers the
phony falcon to Spade's office). Today, John is the only Huston
anyone is likely to remember in fifty years.
Dashiell Hammett's novel "The Maltese Falcon" was made into a
movie three times in the decade before the Second World War,
but not before or since. And a fresh viewing of it reveals why
the tale held such sway in that era.
After all, those were the years in which nation after
nation fell to a powerfully evil force (named Adolf
Hitler), so it's no wonder a story about strong and
savvy men falling for an irresistible, deadly seductress
struck a nerve.
It's pre-war in sensibility in other ways, too. There are
at least three scenes in which Humphrey Bogart's character
(private eye Sam Spade) is held at gunpoint by an adversary
but manages to wrest the weapon away, only to give the
pistol back to the bad guy, who proceeds to use it on
Spade again.
Which is much like the way the world treated Hitler in those
years. I mean, Hitler tried to stage a coup d'état in Germany
in '23, a crime for which he probably should have been executed
or imprisoned for life or, at the very least, banned from ever
holding public office. But instead he got five years in a
relatively cushy cell. In Sam Spade style, we gave Hitler back
his gun, chuckled and said, "We'll make sure he doesn't hurt himself
with it."
Contrast that to the deadly serious tone in the next Bogart
flick, "Casablanca," made in the thick of the war, in '42.
When someone pulls a gun in that picture -- a very serious
action, by the way -- hands and blood pressure go straight
up. There's none of the laughter in the face of a gun barrel
that there is in "Falcon" -- and ain't nobody bluffing, either.
When Huston set out to re-make "Falcon," he had to deal with
the fact that the two previous "Falcon"s were not bad at all, though
not as great as the one he'd direct. If you watch the '31 film
expecting a stilted early talkie, you'd be pleasantly
surprised. It's sexier and a bit grittier than Huston's flick.
(I never thought the repetitive rhythm of a spent 78 record
on a turntable could sound so sexually suggestive!)
And the '36 version with Bette Davis -- "Satan Met a Lady" --
seems almost campy today. (If you think Wilmer is an indelible
character, check out his equivalent in the '36 flick, a homicidal
wuss named Kenny Boy.)
But if you see the '36 film before seeing Huston's "Falcon," you
start to wish Bette Davis was in the role played by Mary
Astor, who, truth be told, is the only weak spot in Huston's
otherwise nearly flawless film. I still can't picture someone
as wispy as Astor gunning down anyone. (As Bogart so memorably
puts it: "If you actually were as innocent as you pretend to be,
we'd never get anywhere.") Davis is much more convincing in
that sort of plot.
Plus, it doesn't fully make sense that Astor would shoot Archer
to frame Thursby. Why not simply have her shoot Thursby
directly, since she's already getting her hands bloody, rather than
take such a circuitous route to eliminating Thursby, who (as far
as she knows) might have an alibi for the hour in which she
killed Archer? (And, truth be told, Astor's part at the end is
remarkably incomplete. Wouldn't she be vehemently asserting her
innocence to the detectives in the final frames rather than
silently walking off with them to prison?)
But then, noir isn't supposed to neatly parse, its stock in trade
being fog and mystery at the edges. One of the only major noir
films with a plot whose every twist and nuance make perfect
sense is Roman Polanski's "Chinatown," which both draws from and
actually flies higher than "Maltese" -- and features a far older
John Huston in what is arguably his greatest acting role.
And both films share the marvelous element of
having characters talk up successive theories about
a murder that prove, in the end, to be completely wrong.
("Your first idea that I killed Thursby because he killed
Miles falls to pieces if you blame me for killing
Miles, too," Bogart smartly says to detectives who are barking up the
wrong tree.)
Likewise, Jake Gittes in "Chinatown" floats numerous mistaken
theories about the killing of Hollis Mulwray before finally
arriving at the unspeakably ugly truth. ("The Godfather, Part 2,"
has this element, too; Michael Corleone, trying to find out who
attempted to kill him, tells Roth that Pentangeli set up the
hit (and reads Roth's facial reaction). And then, separately,
he tells Pentangeli that Roth arranged the hit (and reads
Pentangeli's face).)
Everyone associated with "Falcon" has been dead for a long time
(and only the actor who played Wilmer lived long enough to see
the dawn of the Internet era). So there are no more first-person
stories to tell about the making of the flick.
Still, there's plenty of room here for a sequel that I'm astonished
has not been made yet, After all, at the end of the film, the
falcon, which has eluded celluloid adventurers since 1539, has
still not been found. The movie ends with the immensely valuable
bird still in the hands of someone in an Istanbul suburb, which
is where "The Maltese Falcon 2," if there ever is such a picture,
starring, say, Johnny Depp (or George Clooney), should take up the tale.
In such a sequel (not a re-make), the authorities are forced
to release Gutman, Cairo and O'Shaughnesy, due to lack of
evidence in the Archer/Thursby murders. Gutman and his
gang, on release, immediately fly to Istanbul to find the
bird. And Spade, still seeking both justice for the murder of
his partner and a cut of the loot (should they
actually find the falcon), jets off after them. With prequel
flashbacks to 16th century Malta and Spain to show the
origins of the falcon and its disappearance. (Also starring, in
this idea, Jack Nicholson as Kasper Gutman, Olivia Williams
or Scarlett Johansson as Brigid O'Shaughnesy, Christoph Waltz
as Joel Cairo. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, or -- better
yet -- Roman Polanski, who, if his legal issues were behind him,
could conceivably start making films in America again, if he
wanted to.) In an era when we're (rightly) pre-occupied
with finding Osama bin Laden, a story about an interminable
search for the elusive falcon might resonate.
Such a sequel would be, ahem, the stuff dreams are made of (to coin a phrase).
can you imagine...
The Maltese Falcon 2
starring Johnny Depp as Sam Spade
Scarlett Johansson as Bridget O'Shaughnesy
Christoph Waltz as Joel Cairo
and Jack Nicholson as Kasper Gutman
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 8, 2010
Election Prediction: At Least Six Tea Partyers Will Win Tonight
The NICE/Tea Split in the GOP
The interesting thing about today's elections is
that the Gulf oil spill and the topic of oil drilling
in general are not the main issues in any of
the twelve states where voters are going to the polls.
Perhaps that's because none of the twelve is a Gulf state,
perhaps anti-Obama fervor among the GOP has eclipsed that
issue.
Whatever the reason, the main trend in this set of
contests is the presence of a Tea Party candidate in almost
every race. In fact, there are so many Tea Partyers
that they're canceling each other out in some instances,
allowing more moderate Republicans to prevail.
I mean, even in Jersey there's a Tea Party candidate for
Congress (ex-NFL player Jon Runyan), and in red states there
are numerous ones: Boyd and Loyola in Virginia; Haley in
South Carolina (by the way, what is it about adultery and
South Carolina?); LePage in Maine; Graves in Georgia; and,
most significantly, Angle in Nevada (easier pickings for Reid
in the general).
The big headline of the night is likely to be the triumph
of several Tea Party candidates. Off the top of my head, it
looks like at least six Partyers will win tonight: Angle,
Haley, Runyan, LePage, Loyola and Graves.
And Robert Hurt will win in Virginia only because a couple
TP candidates are splitting that vote. (The GOP split
everywhere is between the TP and NICE (Not-Intensely-Conservative-Enuff)
candidates. And the NICE versus Tea split will be seen again
in August, when NICE McCain goes against (and probably wins against)
the Tea partyish J.D. Hayworth, and in November when NICE indie
Crist faces off against Tea's Rubio (with an increasingly
irrelevant Meek in the picture, too).
On the less volatile Democratic side, the trend in a couple
races seems to be incumbents having opposition from the
left (Blanche Lincoln will probably lose to the more
liberal Bill Halter, but Jane Harman will win against Marcy
Winograd).
Anyway, time for me to get to the polls, which open at 7am,
and vote in the California primary!
By the way, I'm writing this a little after 6am and
posted it at around 6:30 on June 8th.
the ballot where I live.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- I know my blog is obscure, but it does have original
content. If you are going to echo my ideas, please
credit me. Thanks.
P.S. -- [This P.S. added at 8:45am.] Just back from the polling
place. Very low turn-out here in Berkeley, Calif. I was the
16th voter after around 90 minutes of voting. And no wonder:
there's no significant state-wide race in Calif. that's really
competitive.
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 1, 2010
Many thanks to Marshall Stax and KALX radio for playing
my new song "If It's Tuesday, It Must Be Susannah" last night
on The Next Big Thing!
Just click here to hear the tune: ifitstuesday.vox.com
Enjoy! Paul
____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for June 1, 2010
Even the 72 Virgins are Saying to al-Yazid, "You Wish!"
Celebration day: the al Qaeda guy who handled the
financing for the 9/11 attacks, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid (aka,
Sheikh Said al-Masri), is finally dead, killed by an
American drone strike in the border area between
Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At last, we have a president who is pointing American rifles in
the right direction: at the planners of the '01 murders.
Obama's success just underscores how clueless Bush was.
Bush had his missiles aimed a thousand miles away at
irrelevant targets -- in Iraq! No wonder W. was never able
to get al-Masri or anyone at his level.
One has to wonder whether the Saudi Binladin Group paid Bush
laundered campaign contributions to divert firepower away from
their wayward son Osama. What other explanation could there be?
At least today, and on most (but not all) days, I am so proud
Barack Obama is the president of the United States.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Remember how stodgy conservatives in the mid-1960s used to
miss the cleverness of the name The Beatles and say, "Ooo, they can't
even spell. Beatles is spelled Beetles." And they used to
(how devastating!) make "jokes" like, "No, I haven't heard Meat
the Beetles yet!"
Well, a friend of mine from the old days seems to think that I
actually misspelled the name of the duo The Flight of the Conchords
in my previous column. Conchords is actually spelled
Concords, she notes.
In the words of David St. Hubbins (named
after the patron saint of quality footwear), "There is
a fine line between clever and...." Well, you know the
rest!
* * * *
I caught this pooch looking at himself in a truck mirror
the other day and snapped this shot!
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 29, 2010
Last Night's Flight of the Conchords Concert
The Flight of the Conchords (aka, Jemaine Clement (l) and Bret McKenzie).
[photo (of previous concert) from BrooklynVegan.com;
photographer unknown]
"Save the whales, 'cause they're out there, they're drowning,"
joked Jemaine Clement of the folk comedy duo Flight of the
Conchords last night in Berkeley, Calif.
"The problem is they're mammals -- they really shouldn't be in
there," added Bret McKenzie, the other half of the Conchords.
The crowd roared. And the duo, in song after song and bit after
bit, proved they're as musically funny as anyone out there,
even Tenacious D and the current cast of SNL.
The Conchords, originally from New Zealand, had a hit HBO
sit-com until around a year ago and have been releasing albums
for several years, the latest of which, "I Told You I Was Freaky,"
has been out since around last Halloween.
Last night's highlights included a magical singalong in
which the duo had thousands of people singing "I love epileptic
dogs"; a song about a racist dragon and how "dragon tears turn
into jellybeans"; Jemaine's hilarious impression of David Bowie;
and electric songs like "Too Many Dicks on the Dance Floor,"
"Inner City Pressure" and "Hurt Feelings."
Opening for the Conchords -- and nearly stealing the show -- was
Indian-American stand-up comedian Arj Barker, who use to
play Dave on the HBO series.
"You don't even have to go to a doctor anymore because
of the Internet," said Barker, starting one particularly
uproarious sequence. "I just go to webmd.com. Pain in the
lower abdominal [area]?...Thanks to webmd and my instant
diagnosis, I'm already taking steps to treat my swollen uterus.
I'm feeling better every day. I do get a little tired of
cranberry juice."
At another point he made fun of bucket lists, mocking someone
who says, "I want to touch a dolphin before I die."
"Well, Vallejo's right over there," he said. "A real bucket list
wish would be, 'Before I die, I wanna slap an adult grizzly
bear in the face!' Now that's something you do before you die!
Right before you die!"
And here's Barker's take on "Avatar":
"'Avatar' is crazy. The night I saw it, I think they
turned up the 3-D too high. Lemme tell you, that movie was
getting too close to the people sitting four rows in front
of me. I thought, This is a safety issue."
Kicking off the whole concert -- which I heard in the hills
above the open-air Greek Theater -- was another regular on
the HBO series, Eugene Mirman, who joked about the Tea Party
movement and religion.
All told, a tour well worth catching.
But I digress. Paul
xxxx
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 29, 2010
"All he wanted was to be free/and that's the way it turned out to be"
-- Roger McGuinn
____________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 26, 2010
Based on my analysis of new GOP campaign ads and
other political info, I suspect the Republicans
are thinking this way about the 2012 presidential
race:
romney/rice '12
let's take our country back
Makes sense. Because the RNC powers-that-be, in their post-mortem
analysis of '08, must have concluded that the '08 ticket failed
largely because Palin was so obviously unqualifed and McCain was so
obviously over the hill.
Mitt Romney and Condoleeza Rice have no such issues -- and Rice
solves two demographic problems at once while cutting into
two key Democratic constituencies: women and African-Americans.
The Republicans could, meanwhile, claim to have greater diversity
on their ticket than the Democrats have on theirs. And the
Democrats will, once again, trot out two middle-aged men,
vice president Biden and president Obama, the latter now
a fiftysomething guy with lots of oil on his hands, not
the vigorous fortysomething he was in '08.
Further, with Rice on the ticket, a slogan like "Let's Take Our
Country Back" will have no possible racial overtone; it would
merely mean, "Let's wake up from our socialist dream."
Betcha that's the strategy. Romney and Rice are both appearing
in at least one political television commerical in
California, a tell-tale sign.
* * * *
Regarding my comment that Freud is best
appreciated if you view him as an insightful
philosopher ("Who Created Nothingness," May 18, 2010),
I should add there are other lesser reasons why his
stock has dropped in academia and elsewhere
in recent decades. Perhaps some are also put off
by his unbecoming immodesty. (Freud once called
himself "an archaeologist of the mind" -- if he should
say so himself! In my waning schooldays, I once knew
a plagiarist who tried to claim that "archaeologist" line
as his own -- but I digress.) Anyway, the main reason for his
devaluation is people have come to realize that
Freud was sort of like an early cartographer whose
first maps have since been improved upon by subsequent
generations.
* * * *
The Program Director at radio station KRNG FM in the
Reno area sent me an email to let me know that:
"One of your song titles is obscene."
He was referring to a brand new track I wrote and
recorded titled "Back to Jackin' Off," a fun tune not likely
to be played at any decency rally or Tea Party convention
anytime soon.
My response? "Back to Jackin' Off" is not nearly as risque as
Mozart's "Leck mich im Arsch." (That, by the way, translates
to something timely even today: "Lick my Ass.")
Hear the tune here:
ifitstuesday.vox.com
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Any other radio people who think my new song is
obscene can write to me and tell me so at pliorio@aol.com.
And I'll be glad to post your email!
P.S. -- Clearing up misconceptions dept.: People
sometimes ask, Do I come up with music or lyrics first in
writing a song?
Answer is: sometimes the music comes first (examples,
"Endgame," "Married Too Young," etc.), sometimes
the lyrics come first ("I Was Young Until Fairly Recently,"
"You're Gettin' Played," etc.) and sometimes both come
simultaneously ("Hey There, Watcher," "Something in the
Sky," etc.).
Sometimes I come up with just a guitar riff -- and a song
blooms from there (examples, "Love's the Heaven You Can't
Reach," "Nothing is Something," "Life's Just a Single Blast,"
etc.). Often, a song begins with just a rhythm (e.g., "The
World Blew Up," "If I Were a Beautiful Woman Like You,"). Other
times, I'll come up with a song concept that suggests a
melody/lyric (e.g., "Scruples," "Back to Jackin' Off," etc.).
Several songs or parts of songs have come to me in dreams
or were running around in my head when I woke up (e.g., "Endgame,"
"Something in the Sky," "Dontcha Sleep," etc.).
And some of my songs start as nothing more than a shape -- I don't
how else to put it. A shape. I sort of visualize a shape
and the song evolves from there (examples, "Love's the Heaven,"
"Can You Hear Me 9-1-1?," "Paradox," etc.).
Some people have the wrong assumption thinking, "Oh, Paul is
a writer for newspapers and magazines, too, so he must be
primarily a lyric-driven composer."
That assumption couldn't be more wrong. Wayy off. More often
than not, I come up with melodies and have no lyrics for them.
I currently have a couple dozen melodies that I've composed
that I've not yet written lyrics for.
And in fact in most cases, I write lyrics based on their sound,
not on their sense, and based on how well they fit my melodies.
The next time I write or record some songs, I'd love to
have a press or radio person here as a fly-on-the-wall to
witness and to document how I do it. Because the
misconceptions out there among some people are
sometimes downright nauseating.
There was a video shot by the tech support guy (William)
for long-ago sessions in '05 (sessions for a previous
group of tracks that have since been scrapped). It's
somewhat interesting, if dated, footage -- but keep in mind
that the tech support guy made sure his own camera was
running and pointed at himself every time
he made even a minor suggestion.
So watch that '05 video carefully, if you have a
chance And you should note that not one -- not one -- of
the tech support person's suggestions was ultimately
used in the final versions of my songs. Look at that
'05 video and show me one single frame in which he
made a suggestion that I actually used in the final
recordings. If he had, he'd have been credited.
Sure, two months after -- after -- those '05 sessions, tech
support guy overdubbed a "background bass" track (his own words!)
to my songs. "Do you like the background bass?," he wrote in a note.
"If not, feel free to delete the bass. I've never played bass before."
Uh, let's just say that his bass overdub in '05 was counter-productive.
Didn't work out. The bass track was deleted long ago -- years
ago. Hey, these are my songs and I'll do what I want
with my songs, thank you very much.
And, yes, I also solely own all the registered copyrights for
every one of my songs (meaning all the songs on the "130 Songs"
album and others), so I'm the only person authorized to
give the final word on any matter related to any of
my songs.
Tech support guy William has had his own career, completely
separate from mine, of writing and recording his own separate
group of songs that are not my songs. And he has been none too
shy about releasing and performing his own tunes over the years --
and if you want to find his separate song catalog, you can
find it on the Internet and elsewhere. His songs are on
his own albums and sites. Don't look for any of his
stuff on my sites, because it ain't there. And he is the
"director" of his own material that is on his own separate
albums -- and I am the "director" of my own material that
is on my own separate albums. Period.
In any event, that's long ago stuff. Those sesssions
have nothing to do with songs I've been releasing in
the past few years or the new ones I've just posted.
And he hasn't even been on the field of play
in any capacity since.
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 25, 2010
OK, folks, I've just come up with a few brand new songs
and thought I'd share 'em with you here.
Just click here ifitstuesday.vox.com
to listen to the MP3s for free!
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Got an inadvertent compliment the other day. Someone
asked, "Who's your drummer on "If I Were a Beautiful Woman" and
"Nothing is Something"?
Wow! Am I such a good drummer that people think someone
else must be doing it? Cool.
Yes, Virginia, all the drumming (and everything else) on all of
my songs was done by me. And my "drum" is a home made thing
that I'd be embarrassed to describe.
The writing, performing and producing of my songs couldn't
possibly be a more solo thing. And I'm flattered when
people think others must've been involved!
I don't even use the tech support guy (William) I used
for sessions five years ago on an earlier batch of
my songs. Since '05, I've not even had an
engineer or count-off guy in the studio.
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 23, 2010
I predict "Lost" will end with....a commercial for Disneyland!
* * * *
If Democrats have a replacement for Richard Blumenthal
in the Connecticut Senate race, they should roll him out now.
Because his Vietnam combat lie is eclipsing everything
else about that contest.
I think the public is tired of seeing politicians act like
they can erase or create history just by talking. The insulting
implication is that we the public are such oafs that we'll
believe any bio they put out there.
Blumenthal's lie resembles Hillary Clinton's, who infamously
said she was once pinned down by sniper fire in the Balkans,
a fib that probably cost her the presidential nomination. (By
the way, if there hadn't been videotape of Hillary's actual
arrival in Bosnia, you know for a fact she would have
defended her lie to the last breath. And the "sniper" incident
would have become part of her established life story.)
Problem is, the liar robs other people, honest people, of their
rightful level of accomplishment. Because if you're falsely
claiming to have done something rare that I actually did do,
then that devalues my achievement.
I mean, I traveled alone by local train deep behind the Iron
Curtain during the Cold War as a teenager -- and was even detained
by authorities in Zagreb -- and did so twice. Though I didn't
exactly face sniper fire, there was considerable risk involved in
making that trip. But a lie like Hillary's sort of devalues all
stories -- even true ones -- of risk in a hostile international
environment. (How dare I compare the two experiences? How dare
you compare the two!! Hey, I was met at the Bulgarian
border crossings by brutal soliders with rifles and shoot-to-kill
orders. She was met at the airport by a little girl with a
flower.)
Equally wrong and damaging is the reverse phenomenon: someone
wrongly and willfully casting doubt on another's accomplishment.
Swiftboating someone. The namesake of the practice is, of course,
the swiftboating of Sen. John Kerry, a real war hero. Richard
Jewell was also a hero who saved many lives, yet it only took a
single liar -- a disgruntled former employer -- to undermine
his accomplishment and make him look like the opposite of what he
was.
My late great dad, a genuine combat veteran who had the wounds to
prove it, always use to quote Ben Franklin to me as a kid, but with
a twist. He'd say, "Paul, remember: Franklin said, 'Honesty is
the best policy.' He didn't say honesty is the most
moral course or anything else. He said, 'It is the best policy,
the most practical course, the best way to police yourself.'"
If Blumenthal had heard that advice at a formative age, he'd
probably be on his way to the Senate right now.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
or May 22, 2010
Wanna check out the latest official photo of
Kim Jong-il? Here it is, with annotations.
http://dprkguide.blogspot.com
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
for May 19, 2010
Why Isn't "Me and Orson Welles" on DVD Yet?
Linklater film portrays Welles the year before he caused
a national panic with "War of the Worlds."
One of last year's best movies, Richard Linklater's "Me and
Orson Welles," was released last Thanksgiving weekend, so we
should be expecting the DVD any time now, right?
Not unless you're in the U.K. or Sweden or a handful of other
nearby countries. Because the DVD isn't currently available
in the States -- and there's apparently not even a domestic
release date set yet.
And this comes after it was unfairly snubbed at the Academy
Awards, where it should have picked up at least six
nominations (at a minimum, Christian McKay should have been
nominated for best actor (or supporting actor) for his
masterful performance as Welles).
I mean, "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" had more
nominations!
Anyway, thanks to, uh, a "friend" from, uh, somewhere, I was able
to get a DVD copy of the Swedish edition of "Welles," and I
must admit I was knocked out by it. I've already seen the
flick three times -- and you really do have to give it
a couple viewings to get all the clever asides, small
poignancies, period details, cross-currents.
Like a few other Linklater films, this one is like an
underestimated bottle of Stolichnaya: it goes down easy
like water at first, but then you feel the unexpected
wallop.
And what a spot-on evocation of Welles by McKay! He's
so convincing in the role that you leave the film
feeling like you've actually met the man himself
and witnessed his tyrannical genius at full velocity.
The movie shows Welles just before his "War of the Worlds"
(and its faux extraterrestrial invasion) created a national panic
in radioland and made him a household name.
This is 1937, four years before "Citizen Kane," the year
in which he directed a radically reimagined version
(with ukulele!) of Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" for the
Mercury Theatre.
Linklater tells the story of how Welles muscled that
production onto the Mercury stage, braving a flood,
fights with actors and innumerable rivalries (damn that
Lunt!) to create a supremely triumphant opening night.
In the process, he fired...everyone, cruelly hurt the
feelings of others, ignored bureaucratic rules
and -- oh, yeah -- created a work of brilliance.
As always, Linklater captures romantic heartbreak like
few other directors, showing Welles stealing the
girlfriend of an actor (Zac Efron) who proceeds
to confront Welles in a particularly explosive sequence.
(The girlfriend, played by Claire Danes, is irresistible
enough to attract almost anyone on the Hollywood
(and Broadway) A+ list, including David O. Selznick,
John Houseman, Brooks Atkinson and Welles himself.)
Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, do so -- even
if you have to find a friend in London or
Stockholm who'll send you the DVD!
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 18, 2010
Who Created Nothingness?
Dick Cavett, smart as usual, asked an interesting question
about dreams in a recent blog in The New York Times: Are you
the author of your dreams and nightmares?
To which I ask: are you the author of your breathing? Are you the
author of your heartbeat? Yet your heart beats whether you want it
to express that impulse or not. It's your heart, right? But if
I wanted my heart to beat to the tune of, say,
the opening notes of Beethoven's fifth symphony, I would not be
able to get it to do that. My heart has, er, a mind of its own.
One can also ask who is the author of so-called "automatic"
works by writers like Coleridge and Blake who wrote poetry
that came to them in dreams. Who is the author of
"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," for instance?
The author of "Rime" is...Coleridge, or more precisely
Coleridge's unconscious mind. (Some discount Freud's ideas but they
remain insightful; one should look at his writings as the work of
an extremely perceptive philosopher rather than of a scientist.
When people talk of brain circuitry and the like, they are
really just referring to the unconscious by other terms. Today,
some seem to be put off by Freud's unbecoming immodesty -- he
once called himself "an archaeologist of the mind" (if he should
say so himself!) -- but that's another issue.)
In creating your dream, your unconscious wasn't improvising
like a jazz musician who doesn't know where his jam will lead,
but rather it had a set of imagery (arranged from start to finish)
that it deliberately wanted to bring up to your conscious self.
(The start implies the finish, the same way the start action
of dropping a ball from a skyscraper defines the end action
(i.e., its hitting the ground). [Incidentally, I wrote about
that last idea in the East Coast Rocker newspaper in 1990, long
before the movie "Minority Report" expressed something
suspiciously similar. But I digress.]
The mind has a mind of its own. If you are, say, mugged violently
by someone wearing a hoodie, you might very well be unreasonably
fearful, for the next month or so, of people wearing hoodies. You
might tell yourself that such a fear is irrational, but your mind
has a mind of its own. The association is fixed -- an automatic
survival mechanism.
For some people, the logical endline of the question "Who authored
my dream?" is to ask the next question, "Who authored the
mountains and the Milky Way?" As if all things must have an author.
But that's only if you take the anthropomorphic view that
existence has to have a creator.
OK, you ask, if existence doesn't have a creator, than how did the
universe come into being?
It came from nothingness, which an infinite span of time
transformed into being and existence. What we experience today
is nothingness transformed by countless billions of years.
Remember, before the Big Bang, there was nothingness for an
infinite span. Nobody ever asks, "Who created
nothingness?"
Yet for trillions of years, nothingness was all there was. Would a
deist seriously claim that there was a deity during that time who
created and then lorded over only nothingness? Would someone
seriously assert that a god would create nothingness?
("Create nothingness" is almost an oxymoron.) And then
"god" suddenly became creative after the Big Bang?
More likely, nothingness, over an unimaginably vast period of
time, evolved. Nothingness plus time -- trillions and trillions of
millennia -- equals matter (and anti-matter, which is not the same
thing as nothingness), because (as I've noted before) time
is transformative. So nothingness over infinity will
inevitably produce some sort of minuscule irregularity -- a
wisp of gas, for instance -- that, in further time, will
lead to another bit of matter and then another, setting in
motion the unfolding of the universe we have today.
The element that most thinkers leave out of the
equation when discussing so-called "Creation" is time, which
is really another form of nothingness and merely
our own contrivance, a way that we organize successive
instances of being (i.e., events) and place them
next to each another to create order, something.
But I digress. Paul
[Above, drawing of Cavett from "Rock Icons" DVD cover;
artist unknown.]
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 16 - 17, 2010
Two very funny pieces in The New York Times today -- one
intentionally funny, the other not.
First the deliberately humorous one, Frank Rich's op-ed column
("Heaven-Sent Rent Boy," Feb. 16), in which he writes about
yet another hypocritical anti-gay holy roller -- Baptist
preacher George Rekers -- caught in a homosexual tryst.
Here's a graf from the column (which had me laughing for around
ten miniutes):
His only mistake, he told the magazine Christianity Today, was to hire a “travel assistant” without proper vetting. Their travels were not in vain. The good minister expressed gratitude that his rent boy “did let me share the gospel of Jesus Christ with him with many Scriptures in three extended conversations.”
* * *
Now for the inadvertently funny piece, an A-1 pull-quote from
the Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, that had me
chuckling -- and slightly angry. Here's the quote:
"Can you tell me a way to save the oppressed? And a way to
fight back when rockets are fired at us and Muslim blood
flows?" -- Faisal Shahzad, in an email message to friends.
Let me make sure I have this right: Shahzad is the
"oppressed"? Is that some sort of joke?
Keep in mind that Shahzad, up until fairly recently, owned a
$273,000 house in Connecticut. So I'm not sure that he exactly
qualifies as a member of the underclass. (By the way, I
don't begrudge anybody's affluence if the person
has actually done something notable (like writing a great
hit song or directing a brilliant film) to earn it. But
why did the marketplace reward Shahzad?)
By contrast, I busted my ass in NYC for nearly two decades in my
youth -- and (in some years) wasn't in a position where I could
afford a $273,000 house in the tri-state area (though, to be sure,
there were other years in that period when I was quite affluent and
made nice money for companies that didn't share the wealth).
I must admit that while I was doing consecutive all-nighters
on Wall Street in my early twenties, I was able to afford
only a Manhattan apartment that was so overrun by mice and
rats that every morning I'd wake to find how they'd died
in the traps I'd set the night before. (I remember one mouse
was hit on the head by a trap but not caught, and it
wandered off and died bloody a few feet later. The rat that
"guarded" the basement laundry room was almost the size of
a Bearded Collie, but not nearly as cuddly.)
So let's see: several years after I worked on Wall Street
(at a job I didn't want to do), the well-to-do Mohamed Atta,
working for the filthy rich Osama bin Laden, was plotting
with other wealthy trash to slam a commercial airliner into
my workplace neighborhood in order to kill other underpaid
workers like me.
And some of the 9/11 plotters (and those who supported
that and other jihadi conspiracies) are now hiding in the
Federally Administered Tribal Areas. (Gee, I can't
imagine why we're sending drone missiles over there, he said
ironically.)
As for calling jiahdis in the FATAs "oppressed": would
you have called the Nazis being bombed in the Bulge the
"oppressed"? Muslim militants are not the American
blacks of the 1950s; they are the Germans of the early 1940s.
* * * * *
Fans of director Robert Rodriguez have two new films to look
forward to: the Rodriguez-produced "Predators" (with Adrien Brody),
slated for release on the 4th of July weekend, and "Machete,"
directed by Rodriguez and starring Robert De Niro and Jessica Alba,
due around Labor Day. In the meantime, check out Rodriguez's video for Bob
Schneider’s “40 Dogs (Like Romeo & Juliet)” http://vimeo.com/11505610
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 13 - 14, 2010
Dave 'n' Nick Take Over in the U.K.!
(David) Cameron and (Nick) Clegg in younger days?
* * *
Drone, Baby, Drone!
Predictably, the drum beat has begun at the political fringes
against the drone war in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas,
even though it's the smartest and most surgically precise
military strategy in recent memory.
But some are citing the stated motivation of the Times Square
bomber -- frankly, the guy seemed equally motivated by the recession
that took his house away -- and jumping to the wrong conclusion that
the drones are causing home grown militants to step up their attacks
on the U.S.
That theory ignores the evidence. The underwear bomber wasn't
motivated by the drones. Neither was the Fort Hood shooter. In fact,
none of the recent domestic militant attacks and attempted attacks
(except Faisal Shahzad's ) was motivated by anger over the drone strategy.
Here's a chart that shows all the major militant plots since last
September and each jihadi's motivation:
JIHADI: Faisal Shahzad (aka, the Times Square Bomber)
HIS PLOT: He wanted to set off a car bomb in Times Square on a Saturday night.
HIS STATED MOTIVATION: Those pesky American drones!
* * *
JIHADI: Raja Khan
HIS PLOT: He wanted to bomb a U.S. stadium during a concert or sports event.
HIS STATED MOTIVATION: To strike a blow for his idol bin Laden.
* * *
JIHADI: Colleen LaRose (aka, Jihad Jane)
HER PLOT: She tried to assassinate a Swedish journalist/cartoonist.
HER STATED MOTIVATION: She was offended by his drawing of Allah.
* * *
JIHADI: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka, the Underwear Bomber)
HIS PLOT: He tried to blow up a commercial airliner with 289 people on it.
HIS STATED MOTIVATION: To wage jihad. (Specifically, he wanted revenge for an attack against al Qaeda in Yemen by the Yemeni government that was aided by the U.S.)
* * *
JIHADI: Nidal Hasan (aka, the Fort Hood shooter)
HIS PLOT: To murder as many "infidels" as possible with his handguns (he shot 43).
HIS PROBABLE MOTIVATION: Pressure over his upcoming deployment to a war zone.
* * *
JIHADI: Najibullah Zazi
HIS PLOT: He wanted to detonate bombs at the very busy Grand Central Station subway station.
HIS STATED MOTIVATION: His general opposition to the Afghanistan War.
* * *
I can't help but wonder how many more Times Square
bombers and Fort Hood shooters there might be right now if the
U.S. drone war against al Qaeda hadn't eliminated some
influential jihadis.
Take Hakimullah Mehsud, for example, the late leader of the
Pakistani Taliban. Charismatic guy, by all acounts. Able to
mobilize lots of militants in the FATA, who have also
trained American-based jihadis.
If drones hadn't killed Mehsud, he might now be well on his
way to toppling the Zardari government in a few years, taking
control of both Islamabad and that nation's nuclear arnsenal.
To those who oppose the missile strategy in the FATA, a
question: would you rather that we let someone like
Mehsud live another year so that he could later command
the Taliban to take over the Pakistani government, thereby
putting nuclear weapons in the hands of a bin Laden ally?
Are you aware of how difficult it would be for the U.S.
to extract a Mehsud from the presidential palace in Islamabad
after such a coup? Because the moment the Taliban unseats
the president there, we would automatically be at war
with a nuclear power.
And we'd have to act immediately, too -- before
the new leaders become firmly entrenched, before they're
able to get their hands on the nuclear levers. Or else we'd risk
the unthinkable: a nuclear power allied with bin Laden.
Better to use drones now than risk such a catastrophic
conflict later.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- By the way, don't get the wrong idea about my
previous column about Hendrik Hertzberg's blog on newyorker.com.
I read his stuff all the time and was just having a
little fun with one of his previous pieces. But he's
always worth reading.
[Above, photo of Nick Lowe and Dave Edmunds from
the cover of the Columbia single "Nick Lowe and
Dave Edmunds Sing the Everly Brothers" (1980).
Photographer unknown.]
______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 8, 2010
Why Obama Will Lose the 2012 Election
Do you realize that in a matter of months we will be referring
to the 2012 elections as "next year's presidential election"?
And the outcome of "next year's election"? Well, let me put it
this way: U.S. president Scott Brown (or another Republican)
will have a like-minded partner in prime minister David Cameron
of the U.K. during most of the 2010s.
Because Obama won't be the re-elected. He probably should be,
but won't.
Why? Because Obama failed to prevent the next 9/11, which will
happen sometime between now and 2012. How do I know that? Because
he already hasn't prevented the string of mini-9/11s or
attempted-9/11s that have cropped up since last September -- all
on his watch and after his policies (e.g., his rollback of wiretapping
and surveillance of domestic Muslim militants) have had time
to take effect.
Obama's garden is sprouting mushrooms -- i.e., active jihadi
terrorists -- that hadn't been sprouting in previous years. And
he must stop the policies that are creating fertile
ground for these people to plot and kill.
Obama's emphasis on promoting positive images of
Muslim-Americans and debunking religious stereotypes and reaching
out to the domestic Islamic community is all very well and
good, noble and p.c. (Though, frankly, the focus should
be on creating PSAs and campaigns that say things like: "You
have the right to be offended; you don't have a right to
get violent" and "Please be tolerant of the person reading
books that you disagree with." But I digress.)
But that is no way to stop the next 9/11. His priorities
should shift to surveillance of mosques in which imams preach
jihad and of university Islamic societies, hotbeds of militancy.
That's only if he'd like to be elected again.
Obama's conciliatory emphasis has been creating one militant
plot after another since last Fall, from Najibullah Zazi's
Grand Central Station subway scheme to the Fort Hood massacre
to the underwear bomber to the Times Square bomber. Muslim
militants in America appear to have been emboldened by the
fact that, under Obama, the police car that used
to be parked outside a militant's home is now gone, the tap
that used to be on a jihadist's phone is now off. The religious
killers are now free to kill at last. And they laugh at the
olive branch Obama has extended to them.
Muslim militants say, "The Jew Obama is a fool. The Jew Obama
has loosened our handcuffs so that we can now build the
acetone bomb we've been dreaming of detonating." (It's sort
of funny: the religious right of America thinks Obama's
a Muslim; the religious right of Islam thinks he's a Jew.
And Newt Gingrich thinks he's an atheist!)
And by the way, Obama can't count on a deus ex machina
event like the collapse of the economy to miraculously
whisk him to victory in '12 the way it did in the old days
of '08. The dive of the economy mere weeks before the
election was an incredible fluke, and he can't expect
that to happen again.
How will we know when Obama's anti-terror policies are
working? When we see the stream of militant attacks and
attempted attacks stop.
But I digress. Paul
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for May 7, 2010
Separated at Birth?
Remember the witty dialogue in the movie "Four Weddings and
a Funeral" in which characters played by Hugh Grant and
Andie MacDowell riffed on the word "skulk"? Here's a bit of
that film:
HUGH GRANT: Maybe we could just skulk around here
for a bit and then go back down.
ANDIE MACDOWELL: That's a thought. I don't usually skulk, but I
suppose I could skulk if skulking were required. Do you skulk
regularly?
GRANT: No. No, I don't normally think of myself
as a skulker but...
MACDOWELL: Well, why don't you come in
and skulk for a while and we'll see?
Could this have been the (uncredited) inspiration for some of
today's Jon Carroll column in the San Francisco Chronicle?
Here's a part of it:
"Unless the bomber was skulking. I'd probably skulk, in his
shoes. I suppose they have a class in "Not Skulking," and
I hope it's taught by a different guy than the bomb-making
class."
Perhaps there should be a new rule for writers: any future riff
on the word "skulk" should at least make a passing reference
to the king of skulking riffs, "Four Weddings and
a Funeral."
What's next for Carroll? Maybe something about the amusing
differences between baseball and football?
* * * *
* * * *
Hendrik Hertzberg recently wrote in The New Yorker about
how he thinks political debates should be re-structured
(April 29, 2010; "Debate, British Style"). Each
presidential candidate, he wrote, should sit on a stage next to
an aide, who is allowed to pass him or her notes throughout the
debate. (He cites a Swedish precedent for this.)
I know, I know: some of The New Yorker's satire and humor is
played so brilliantly straight and dry -- and without its being
labeled as satire -- that it's occasionally difficult to tell whether
a writer is pulling your leg or not.
Whether or not Hertzberg was trying to be funny, I must admit that
all I could think of while reading his account of such an
"ideal" debate was how it somehow resembled a famous scene
in Woody Allen's "Take the Money and Run." That's the scene
in which a chain gang escapes from prison but isn't able to
break free of the chains that bind several of the cons together.
Everything the gang does, from going to the bathroom to having a
private romantic phone conversation, has to be done as a group.
Funny stuff.
Perhaps Hertzberg, too, was trying to describe something comically
cumbersome.
I can see it now: "PBS presents a debate between Obama's committee
and Palin's committee."
And imagine the primary debates, where eight Democratic hopefuls
and their eight aides fill a crowded stage, with memos being
drafted and passed back and forth as the speakers speak. While
we're at it, let's also let them bring their attorneys (and their
laptops, fax machines and smartest relatives) onstage. And perhaps
there might even be a few internecine disagreements between
candidates and aides, creating sub-debates within the main debate.
No doubt about it, Hertzberg's idea would work perfectly -- on "Saturday
Night Live."
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 27, 2010
I've just seen a couple movies and videos, and here are my reviews.
Roman Polanski's "The Ghost Writer"
The best movie released so far this year -- and Polanski's
best since "Chinatown," though its plot isn't quite as airtight as
"Chinatown"'s, even if it surpasses that flick in visual
originality.
I wouldn't be surprised if it earns, oh, seven Oscar nominations
come January -- for best picture, director, actor (Pierce
Brosnan's best work yet), actress (Olivia Williams has a
blue-blooded gravity that is convincing and authentic), supporting
actor, adapted screenplay (great dialogue) and the best
cinematography this side of an Antonioni film.
The trademarks of Polanski's genius are on display here: his
gift for drawing even minor characters vividly; his
marvelous habit of showing the action in one room through
the action in another room; the striking visual
composition of certain scenes (we see Brosnan's
character leaning up against a large picture window so that it
appears as if he's holding up the sky, which, of course, is
falling on him); resonant enigmatic images (e.g., a fantastic
broom made of what looks like straw); a noirish paranoia; and
acting that always shows the characters (not the actors) sweating
under pressure.
The plot is about former British prime minister and ex-actor
Adam Lang (Brosnan), a cross between Tony Blair and
Ronald Reagan, who hires a ghost writer to pen (or to re-write)
his memoirs. Lang's previous ghost died mysteriously in a
drowning incident that, we later find, was probably murder.
The new writer (Ewan McGregor) starts to suspect that Lang, now
being officially investigated for war crimes by the ICC, had
the previous ghost killed because he uncovered damaging information
about Lang. The ghost, acting increasingly like an investigative
reporter, discovers Lang knew a CIA agent in college who
facilitated his rise in politics. The film treats this like
damning evidence of some sort of criminality.
And that's the one plot flaw, the one element that keeps
this picture from equaling "Chinatown": the fact that it
all turns on Lang's link to the CIA as a young man.
Suppose the worst was true of Lang, that he did know a CIA
agent in school who later helped him rise in British politics.
Or that he (or his wife) had once been an agent. So what?
The CIA is, after all, a legitimate (if often denigrated)
agency of the U.S. government. It's not like he has
uncovered evidence that Lang had links to organized crime
or to al Qaeda. Keep in mind that the U.S. and the U.K.
have been long-time allies whose foreign policy positions
have been almost identical in most decades. So it's
not like Lang had been moonlighting for the FSB.
And for those who already know the ending, let me note, by
way of analogy, that James Carville and Mary Matalin have been
husband and wife for years -- and that hasn't made Carville more
Republican or Matalin more Democratic or either one any less
loyal to their own parties.
A far better plot would have resulted if Lang was found to have
had ties with the bin Laden family's construction firm, which paid
campaign contributions so he would suppress intelligence
about where their wayward son Osama was hiding. Now
that sort of secret would have justified all the cloak
and dagger intrigue. But the CIA-phobic element doesn't quite
add up, though it also doesn't seriously diminish the film.
To his credit (and as is his style), Polanski never gets
polemical, always allowing even evil folks (like Lang and
Noah Cross) to have their say and humanity. And Lang does
have persuasive moments in defense of his hard-line
policies on terrorism, at one point contrasting two types of
airline flights. "On one flight, you infringe on no one's bloody
civil liberties, use no intelligence gained by torture," says Lang.
"And on the other flight, you do everything you possibly could to
make it perfectly safe. And then we'd see which plane the
Rykerts of this world would put their bloody kids on! And you can
put that in the book." (Lang is referring to Robert Rykert, a
government official who set in motion the war crimes charges against
him.)
The film works as a straight thriller, too (the ghost's
escape from the car ferry is gourmet popcorn suspense).
Nearly halfway through this year, we finally have a 2010 film that
is refreshingly, defiantly un-3D, its only special effect unforgettable
beauty.
And "The Ghost Writer" is a sharp reminder, if we needed one,
that Polanski is one of the five or six greatest living film
auteurs. Let's hope he's being treated in a way that will
withstand scrutiny by future generations (though,
unfortunately, I hear that's not the case).
* * * *
Hanna Barbera's "Saturday Morning Cartoons, Vols. 1 and 2"
...................Touche awayyy!!
For baby boomers, watching Hanna Barbera cartoons
of the 1960s is sort of like viewing videos
of early childhood dreams. One has to sometimes stop
and wonder whether creatures like Atom Ant and
Dynamite Kaboom were images from REM sleep or from the tube.
Probably a little of both. Most kids saw this
stuff and then likely dreamt about it. So seeing the
cartoons again as an adult has a strange sort of
nostalgic power.
Half-remembered or completely forgotten animated characters
keep parading from these discs: Snooper and Blabber,
Secret Squirrel, Morocco Mole, on and on.
Among the surprises is Breezly and Sneezly, an
imaginative series with an engaging visual style
(with no less than Mel Blanc voicing Sneezly).
And the charming Touche Turtle and Dum Dum, about a turtle and his
dog (the most adorable pooch in the Hanna Barbera stable), is
engaging from the opening credits (where Touche fences with
a lightning bolt!). The retelling of "Moby Dick," with
Touche and Dum Dum assisting Capt. Ahab ("I didn't lose my
leg in a card game!"), is a classic.
There is some eccentric stuff, too -- like the one in which
Augie Doggie travels to Mars to hunt Greeches (don't ask).
Or the Jetson's episode in which young Elroy ends up on
the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.
The collection spans three DVDs -- and if you can only
rent one, get the first disc.
* * * *
Recently heard on KALX radio: very terrific "Old Ladies Reading
the Bible" by Collisionville; the amusing "The CIA Made Me Sing
Off Key" by The Fugs; and the very, very obscure Kinks track
"No More Looking Back" from the underrated "Schoolboys in
Disgrace" album. (By the way, another overlooked track from
the Kinks catalog that never gets played (there are so
many) is "The Way Love Used to Be." And "Live Life."
I'm surprised that one never became a hit.)
* * *
Shameless self-promotion dept.:
Yes, my latest album, "130 Songs (Parts 1 to 6)," is
now available as a limited-edition release. It spans
six discs and includes 130 songs -- and every song was written
solely by me (except for two tracks: "Must Call Love,"
which includes around ten words from a Grace Paley short
story; and "You Won't Be Burying Me Now," which is based
on a trad folk melody). Yes, all 130 songs were written
by me (except for the two tracks mentioned above). You can
request a copy at pliorio@aol.com.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 23, 2010
Remembering the First Earth Day, 40 Years Ago
What April 1970 was Really Like
When Earth Day was born in 1970, I was attending one of
those quasi-experimental private schools that cropped up in
the 1960s, the Independent Day School (still around, by the
way), so the day was celebrated school-wide, or at least by
the kids in my 7th grade class.
I think I even wore a button with a picture of the Earth
on it (in between wearing my Student Mobilization Committee,
New Party, Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh and Impeach Nixon buttons).
It was April 1970. The Beatles had just broken up but nobody my age
really believed it. (After all, there had been rumors that the
band had broken up in '66, '67, '68 and '69, so the new one in
'70 had little credibility or impact. But I digress.) The band was
more important to me and my friends at the time than any
environmental cause (though I was involved in politics
to an extraordinary degree back then).
Unfortunately, the eco movement didn't have
a galvanizing charismatic leader behind it like Abbie
Hoffman or Tom Hayden or Bobby Seale, who were like
rock stars to me in '70. I remember that the students
who were most into the first Earth Day were generally
the kids who aced science classes.
And I don't think there was a single eco-anthem
of note from that period. "Abbey Road," last fall's album,
was still on my turntable. Led Zepppelin's "Whole Lotta Love"
was on the radio 24/7 (though the much-maligned "Livin' Lovin' Maid"
was actually the bigger airplay hit). Freeform radio was just
beginning and was still on the AM dial (where I could hear
Thunderclap Newman, "Kreen-Akrore," CCR, Steppenwolf's underrated
"Monster," Cream, Hendrix, obscure Beatles b-sides, Sly and the
Family Stone and "Time Machine," the first single by Grand Funk
Railroad, who I had tickets to see in concert in May). And
pornography in those days was a picture of Michelle Phillips
in Hit Parader. The word "green" still meant money or naivete.
Remember, this was April 1970. May was a whole different
smoke. All environmental issues were completely eclipsed by the
Kent State massacre -- America's mini-Tiananmen -- which
happened on May 4th and caused young people to shift radically
to a more harder edged approach on all fronts. They really
were shooting us down. More extreme action was required.
The post-Kent State mood was reflected on vinyl, definitively,
within a year by CSNY's "Ohio" and by The Who's "Won't Get Fooled
Again" (which was on an album that also included the first
anti-environmentalist lyric: "I don't care about pollution/I'm
an air-conditioned gypsy/That's my solution").
But back to April 1970. I and my pal Richard (who I still
see every now and then; he recently played a jazz concert
in Berkeley, Calif.) didn't talk about the first Earth Day
nearly as much as we'd discuss the clues in "Revolution 9" and
on the cover of "Abbey Road" about whether Paul was dead.
("Wow, tonight WFSO is gonna play "Revolution 9" backwards!"
Big event.) This, of course, was in between listening,
ceaselessly, to this new band Led Zeppelin that had even
longer hair than the Beatles and was sort of hated by the
older generation (so it was ours, all ours!). And, of
course, there were the ubiquitous singles of '70: "Everyday People,"
"Ma Belle Amie," "Maybe I'm Amazed," "Love Grows
Where my Rosemary Goes,' "Spirit in the Sky," etc. Not one
eco-themed, as I recall.
Anyway, it was against this backdrop that the first
Earth Day occurred. At the time, it had a sort of
anti-pollution angle. If you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the pollution -- the slogan of the hour.
I think the TV ad showing an American Indian with a
tear in his eye was being aired.
It was really Anti-pollution Day. The big issue back then
was that car emissions were making the air in big cities
unbreathable. (Even the Kinks were singing, with
provocatively ambiguous pronunciation, "the air
pollution is a-foggin' up my eyes," in "Apeman").
I think there were pollution discussions ("rap sessions" as
they were called back then) that day in classrooms that
had wall posters like "War is not healthy for children
and other living things."
And I remember being driven home from school through
the 'burbs and seeing a classmate riding his bike
while wearing a gas mask on his face. Very cool, I thought.
The irony, however, was that many eco-activists lectured
about air pollution while smoking cigarettes (or pot)
and creating a second-hand smoke hazard for everyone
in the room! Ah, 1970!
Today, Earth Day is more like Earth Day, Inc. And this year's day
comes in the wake of the exploding volcano in Iceland, a reminder
that all our meticulous environmental planning can be upended by
a single belch from inside the planet.
Still, a very worthy cause, but a couple notches below nuclear
proliferation on my priority list.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 22, 2010
exclusive
The (Possibly) Tell-Tale Publication Date and Other Circumstantial Info
By Paul Iorio
Awalki's copyright for much of his life's work. Was
he summing up and getting his affairs together, a few
weeks before 9/11, in anticipation of some sort of upheaval?
Anwar al-Awlaki, the Islamic militant known to have met
with two of the September 11th hijackers, spent the weeks
prior to 9/11 collecting much of his life's work for publication
and copyright.
The proximity of his work's official publication date to the
9/11 attacks arguably gives the appearance of someone summing up or
getting one's work and affairs in order before an anticipated upheaval or
interruption of some sort.
It's worth noting that defendants are often convicted of
serious crimes based solely on circumstantial evidence. (An
analogy: the Securities and Exchange Commission often launches
investigations and even indicts based on this level of
circumstantial evidence (i.e., increased business activity preceding
a dramatic market downturn or upturn).)
According to the online records of the U.S. Copyright Office,
reported for the first time here, Awlaki has filed for a copyright
only twice in his career: for a 22-CD audio compilation of his
lectures that was published on August 15, 2001, and for a cassette
tape version published months earlier. (The formal copyright for
both works was registered in subsequent months.)
Awlaki's copyrighted oeuvre -- "The Life of the Prophets," an audio
anthology of his speeches spanning some two dozen discs and
18 cassette tapes -- was published by the Denver, Colorado-based
Al-Basheer Company For Publications & Translations, which
shares the copyright with him. (The company has not yet
responded to a question about whether it still pays royalties
to Awlaki and, if so, who it now pays.)
The Al-Basheer Company initially promoted the CD-set prominently
on its website's front page but has since removed it from its
online catalogue altogether. However, the publisher does
currently publish and promote works by another jihadi, Bilal Philips,
who the U.S government has called an "unindicted co-conspirator"
in the World Trade Center attack of 1993. (It was previously
thought that Philips' works were only available at the few
western libraries that hadn't yet removed them from the shelves.)
In the period before the 9/11 attacks -- from August 24 to August
27, 2001 -- Awlaki and Bilal Philips both appeared at a Da'wah
Conference at the University of Leicester in the U.K. with
other Muslim activist speakers, including Rafil Dhafir, now
in prison in the U.S. on terrorism charges.
When the circumstantial evidence about Awlaki's activities
in the weeks before 9/11 is put together, one has to wonder
and ask about the possibility that Awlaki had
foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks.
First, as has been widely reported, Awlaki knew two of the
hijackers -- Hawaf al-Hizmi and Hazmi's roommate Khalid al-Mihdar --
in the months prior to the hijackings. (A third, Hani Hanjour,
attended the mosque where Awlaki was the imam). Second, as
reported exclusively here, Awlaki spent the months and weeks
before the attacks getting his life's work together, assembling
together a sort of 'collected works' retrospective of his
lectures (though he had never before and hasn't since
copyrighted his material). Third, in the week before the
hijackings, he was participating in a seminar with a militant
involved in the World Trade Center bombing of '93.
(It should be noted that a cassette tape edition of Awlaki's
work had been published in January 2001, and even this date
supports my theory that he was tying up loose ends. After all,
the hijackings were originally scheduled for early 2001 and
then for July 2001, with the final date of 9/11 decided only
at the last minute. So if hijacker al-Hizmi had confided
in Awlaki in 2000 about the upcoming attacks, Awlaki would have
come into 2001 knowing only that the hijackings would take
place some time that year.)
For the record, the conventional wisdom has it that Awlaki
publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks at the time. But
close scrutiny of his statements reveals that he almost always
talked about 9/11 in highly ambiguous and almost sneaky terms
that could easily be read as an endorsement of either side.
For example, Awlaki was quoted by The New York Times in '01 as saying
the following about incendiary jihadi talk that leads to violence:
''There were some statements that were inflammatory," Awlaki told The Times --
while not specifying whether he was referring to statements by
Muslim radicals or by the so-called infidel -- "and were considered
just talk, but now we realize that talk can be taken seriously and
acted upon in a violent radical way." (Again, his meaning was
slippery and could have easily been along the lines of:
'now we realize that blasphemy and anti-Islamic talk must be
taken seriously and should be combated with violence.')
By the time of the 9/11 attacks, al-Awlaki had already been under
investigation for a couple years by the F.B.I. for suspected al Qaeda
ties. (The myth that he was a moderate then and has become an
extremist only recently is evidently just that: a myth.) He is currently
thought to be hiding in Yemen and is considered a high priority target
by the U.S. government.
Awlaki's collected lectures, prominently promoted
by its publisher, Al-Basheer, in '01.
* * *
Awlaki's publisher has gone on to publish
books by other jihadists like Bilal Philips,
who helped plan the bombing of the twin towers in '93.
* * * *
Awlaki and Bilal Philips both shared the bill
at a conference at the University of Leicester a couple
weeks before 9/11.
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 22, 2010
To the religious rednecks who are threatening "South Park"'s
Matt Stone and Trey Parker because of their very funny recent
episode about religion, I have two words for such religulous
folks: shut up. We're sick of your threats and your violence.
Fundamentalists, Muslim and otherwise, have the right to be
offended, but don't have the right to get violent about a cartoon.
And keep in mind, "infidels" have pistols, too.
This is as good a time as any for an "I am Spartacus" moment in
the west.
The people threatening Stone and Parker are like the Islamic
Ku Klux Klan, except worse in some ways. A lot of
American progressives would see this issue much more
clearly if they simply substituted the word "Ku Klux Klan"
every time they heard the words "al Qaeda" and "jihadists."
(Examples: Cindy Sheehan has expressed sympathy for
the Ku Klux Klan; John Walker Lindh joined the Ku Klux Klan
just prior to a major lynching; Steve Earle wrote a song from the
sympathetic point of view of a Ku Klux Klansman; Noam
Chomsky thinks we should not bring in the police to stop
the Ku Klux Klan lynchings; George W. Bush diverted
resources away from battling the Ku Klux Klan so he could
chase down possible Klansmen in Mexico (and the New Yorker
magazine agreed with his decision!); the Ku Klux Klan
was violently offended by a newspaper picture of one
of their members without his hood, so papers across
America pulled the pic and promised never to show
such a photo again; The New Yorker magazine wrote an
editorial calling the Ku Klux Klan "rational actors";
politicians talked about the virtues of showing respect
for the Klan; etc.)
Hey, this isn't 2004, when America had a president
with a soft spot for fundamentalists and decided
to pointlessly chase down Saddam Hussein
instead. This is 2010, and we now have a president who is aiming
squarely at the fascist threat -- with drone missiles.
At last.
Note to news organizations: you should refer to
Muhammad as "the Muslim prophet Muhammad," not
"the prophet Muhammad." He is a prophet only to believers
in that sort of supernatural stuff, not to all others. Likewise,
when reporting on other mythic religious matters like, say,
the "resurrection" of Christ, you should always cite your
source (e.g., he rose from the dead, according to the Old
Testament, etc.).
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Could this be Muhammad's high school yearbook photo?
[by Paul Iorio, using photo/text from
"The National Lampoon High School Yearbook Parody"]
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 21, 2010
There are writers -- both evil and not -- that have a
knack for coming up with perceptive or memorable one-liners.
Like Mao. You don't have to agree with Mao to feel the force
of such aphorisms as "Political power grows out of the barrel
of a gun."
And you don't have to agree with Stokely Carmichael to appreciate
how memorable some of his language was ("Violence is as
American as cherry pie!").
But unfortunately for fans of contrarianism or jihad, Osama
bin Laden, murderous son of a construction mogul, has never
had a talent for coming up with incisive or weighty lines.
And I'm not saying that because I despise the guy (I also
detest Mao, but have to admit Mao wrote some great
stuff). It's just that everything bin Laden says and writes
is sort of along the lines of "Allah (pbuh) is the way and
the light and if you don't follow the light you will be
condemned to an eternity of yada yada zzzzz."
Frankly, the guy's a bore (as a writer).
Today's column by Tom Friedman in the Times is yet another
(inadvertent) reminder of what a dull writer bin Laden actually
is. Friedman, probably trying (a bit too hard) to be contrarian
or provocative, serves up a quote from bin Laden that is...really
pretty dim, when you think about it. “When people see a strong
horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse,”
Friedman quotes bin Laden as saying, acting as if that's some
sort of pearl of wisdom.
That's a good line?! Think about it for a moment. It's
exactly like a used car salesman saying, "When people see a new
car and an old car, by nature they will like the new car." Or like a
psychotherapist saying: "When people see a sick woman and a
healthy woman, by nature they will be attracted to the healthy woman."
Wow!! What an insight! What penetrating perception (he said
ironically).
It's funny that when you quote something that has the structure
and the cadence of an epigram but is actually banal and vapid, many
people will mistake it for wisdom. (Now that's a good aphorism!)
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________
for April 19 - 20, 2010
New Book About the Lethal Concert That Ended the Sixties
Jagger, after the disastrous Stones show in Livermore,
Calif., Dec. 6, 1969. (Who knew that "Under My Thumb"
would spark a murder?) [photo by Ethan A. Russell,
from "Let it Bleed"]
Finally got around to reading an interesting
book released last November about the Rolling Stones's
1969 American tour, "Let It Bleed" by Ethan A. Russell
(Springboard Press).
Of course, that was the tour that effectively
climaxed with what was originally supposed to be
a free Stones show in San Francisco, where the band
was going to debut a brand new tune called
"Brown Sugar."
As many know, that gig was moved forty miles
east to a remote speedway near the Altamont Pass,
where a day of free music ended up having a huge
price tag: one murder, numerous injuries, widespread
violence and bad vibes resonating for decades.
As it turned out, "Brown Sugar," still around 18 months
from release, was performed for the first time around ten
minutes after the killing of a teenage fan in the
front rows.
The book has hundreds of revealing photos from the
tour and fascinating observations as well ("The '69
tour was the best tour until then, which gets completely
overshadowed by what happened at Altamont," Bill Wyman
says in the book). Worth checking out.
* * * *
* * * *
Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself...
Jagger meets former president of Poland
Kwaśniewski at the Beacon in "Shine a Light."
[photo of "Shine a Light" by Paul Iorio]
Also re-watched the Rolling Stones 2005 concert film
"Shine a Light" the other night. The part where
Bill Clinton introduces Jagger to former president
of Poland Aleksander Kwaśniewski before the band's
Beacon Theater gig in '05 meant something different
this time, given the tragic death of ex-president Lech
Kaczyński.
Surely, we all mourn Kaczyński's death, but there is
(nonetheless) the reality of a Polish election coming up
in a couple months. And I couldn't help but wonder why the
progressive Kwaśniewski, who is only 55, hasn't stepped
in to run for president. (Perhaps there are term limits in Poland
that I don't know about.) In fact, there seems to be more
talk about a candidacy by Kwaśniewski ally Włodzimierz
Cimoszewicz. Stay tuned.
* * * *
Moody's is Either Corrupt or Incompetent. Period.
Bravo to California AG Jerry Brown for taking Moody's
Investors Service to court. He wants Moody's to answer a
very simple and very crucial question: why did Moody's give
triple A ratings to worthless securities before the '08 crash?
The company was either incompetent or corrupt. There's no
other credible excuse.
By the way, TV news producers seem to love putting Moody's Mark
Zandi on the air. But how come nobody ever asks him the question
(above) that I'll repeat again here: "Mark, why did your firm
give triple A ratings to worthless securities before the crash?"
And why would tv news shows give podium to a guy representing a
discredited ratings agency?
While I'm on the subject of Jerry Brown, I found this bumper
sticker from his '92 presidential campaign the other day:
* * * &
Today is the 15th anniversary of the tragic Oklahoma City
bombing, which killed 168 people and injured hundreds.
At the time, it was an unprecedented horror, though
now it is, of course, dwarfed by the savagery of the
9/11 attacks. In fact, the anniversary makes me see
the enormity of the 2001 mass murders all the more vividly,
given that the September 11th body count was exponentially
higher.
Incidentally, shouldn't 9/11 have been classified as
a hate crime? Wasn't it, after all, a crime motivated
by religious bias, committed by Muslim militants
against non-Muslims? Likewise, shouldn't the Ft. Hood
massacre be considered a hate crime? Nidal Hasan did shout
"Allahu Akbar" before he started slaughtering the "unbelievers,"
thus revealing religious bias as his motive. (Instead,
apologists said, "Oh you poor man, did they rip a bumper
sticker off of your car? No wonder you shot 44 people!"
When they spoke of Hasan, too many media people sounded
like Frank the novelist addressing Alex in "A Clockwork Orange":
"Oh my poor boy, you're a victim, a victim of the modern age!")
I know that after 9/11 the emphasis at the U.S. Justice Department
was on watching for possible hate crimes against Muslims
by people out for revenge against Islamic terrorists. But let's
be real: in the nearly nine years since 9/11, has there been even
one hate crime against a Muslim in the U.S. that resulted in
that person's death? I mean, has there been even one?
Yet there have been numerous hate crimes by Muslim
militants against non-Muslims in America resulting in mass murder
(e.g., Ft. Hood) or attempted mass murder (ex., Najibullah
Zazi's plot to bomb the Grand Central Station subway). (And there
are less serious hate crimes, too; I recently was nearly assaulted by
a religious fanatic while silently reading books on Salman Rushdie
at a desk in a remote part of a library.)
Shouldn't law enforcement priorities reflect this? Shouldn't
America be more on the look-out for hate crimes committed
by Islamic fanatics against "the infidel" rather than vice
versa? Mainstream non-Muslim Americans, for the most part, to my eye,
are surprisingly tolerant of diversity, taking a "to each his
own" sort of attitude. Sure, there are a few bad apples at
the fringes -- for that matter, there are still rednecks
who hate Catholics and talk derisively about
Eye-talians -- but that's at the fringes.
Let me be so bold as to say that a nation that just elected a guy
named Hussein president shows signs of being really tolerant
and unbigoted. And it's sort of insulting to non-Muslim Americans,
who have to dodge the bullets and conspiracies of fundamentalists
on a regular basis, to say that they somehow have to be watched for
tendencies that are actually more prevalent on the other side of
the divide.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 14, 2010
OK, today's column is just photos and a new cartoon.
I recently went through some original archival photos
that I'd shot years and decades ago and have never posted
until now. Thought I'd share a few here.
A very early morning shot of folk club Cafe Wha? in
Greenwich Village. Circa '95. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Very rare view of New York's World Financial Center, as
it was being built in early 1985, from atop a
not-yet-completed building. Yes, that's the skeleton
of the Winter Garden (bottom left) and one of the twin
towers (top left). (I gained special access to the
site because I happened to be working as a
writer/photographer for a company
that was a WFC tenant.) [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Another American city that also isn't as it used to be.
Here's New Orleans in early 1976. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Someone raises his hat at an outdoor speech by
Bill Clinton. Liberty State Park in Jersey City,
August 1, 1994. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Remember all the anti-Clinton fervor of the 1990s?
Well, here's an example, via a kid holding a sign his
parents probably gave to him. Same rally as prev pic.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Ah, the Berkeley, Calif., hills.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Berkeley gets very foggy on some mornings.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Blurry photo of singer Marti Jones performing in
New York for the very first time (at Irving Plaza).
Late '85? Or early '86? [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Dawn at Kerouac Alley in San Francisco.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
The Mexican border, 2000.
[photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
And here's a cartoon I came up with the other day:
[cartoon by Paul Iorio]
But I digress. Paul
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 5 - 9, 2010
MP3 of my Latest Song "Backfire" Streaming Here
Many thanks to Marshall Stax at KALX Radio for playing
my song "Backfire" a few hours ago on his show The Next
Big Thing. (And sorry that my album cover erroneously
lists "Backfire" as the 4th track on my new CD when
it's actually the second one -- that'll be corrected
in future editions).
Anyway, I wrote "Backfire" in 2004/2005 but didn't release
it until late March 2010. I composed, performed and
produced it -- and recorded it at my home studio in
Berkeley, Calif., a few weeks ago.
Listen to it here:
http://backfire.vox.com
And here're the lyrics:
BACKFIRE
Music and lyrics by Paul Iorio
You've gotta take a little smallpox
To get rid of the smallpox
You've gotta take a little polio
To get rid of the polio
You've gotta light a little backfire
To get rid of the main fire
To get rid of the main fire
You've gotta light a little
Backfire
You've gotta take some medication
To get rid of medication
You've gotta take a step backward
To take another step forward
You've gotta light a little backfire
To get rid of the main fire
To get rid of the main fire
You've gotta light a little
Backfire
Sometimes you've gotta get high to stop a high
Sometimes you've gotta get low to stop a low
Sometimes a little bit of peace will stop the peace
Sometimes a little bit of war will stop the war
You've gotta light a little backfire
To get rid of the main fire
To get rid of the main fire
You've gotta light a little
Backfire
Sometimes you've gotta get high to stop a high
Sometimes you've gotta get low to stop a low
Sometimes a little bit of peace will stop the peace
Sometimes a little bit of war will stop the war
You've gotta light a little backfire
To get rid of the main fire
To get rid of the main fire
You've gotta light a little
Backfire
"Backfire," by the way, is included on the latest (and the ultimate)
Paul Iorio album, "130 Songs."
Six CDs. Nearly six hours of music. 130 songs composed,
performed and produced by Paul Iorio. Available starting
in late April 2010 via pliorio@aol.com.
* * * *
Here's a cartoon I came up with this morning:
[cartoon by Paul Iorio]
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for April 2 - 5, 2010
Pure pop in the last year (1981) before promiscuous sexwas wiped out by the threat of deadly disease.
[photo: Getty Images]
It's official: Squeeze has reunited -- or at least three of
its five members have -- and is heading out on tour while
developing new material.
Here's what to expect.
First, the band plays the Glastonbury and Isle of
Wight fests in June. Then, songwriters Chris Difford
and Glenn Tilbrook take off to Italy for the summer
to -- hold on to your skinny ties! -- write brand new songs
together. For the first time since the 1990s.
Come November, the group returns for a one-month tour of the U.K.,
playing around two dozen shows that will culminate with three big
holiday season concerts in London, their hometown. Dates in
Wales and Scotland are scheduled, too, but no U.S. gigs are
planned yet.
I'm sure some fans are hoping the band plays at least
a few shows at which they perform one of their classic
albums ("Cool for Cats," "Argy Bargy," "East Side Story")
from beginning to end. Or that they at least bring out
neglected gems like "Slightly Drunk" and "His House, Her Home."
Those who can't catch the band in the U.K. can check
out a fairly terrific recent DVD ("Essential Squeeze")
that includes a 1982 Squeeze concert film.
1982, of course, is just slightly off-peak Squeeze, but it's
good enough. I was lucky enough to have seen the band at its
true zenith, in July 1981, at the Ritz in Manhattan, on their
"East Side Story" tour. And it remains one of the most
enjoyable power pop concerts I've ever seen.
I also attended two of the shows on its far less
impressive 1982 tour.
The difference between Squeeze in '81 and Squeeze in '82 is
substantial, like the difference between a high and
a hangover.
I'll never forget the part of the '81 show in which
every standing member of the band was spontaneously
tapping his foot in unison as they played "Piccadilly" --
the very picture of harmony.
Contrast that with '82. I was fortunate to have gotten
tickets to a show at the Peppermint Lounge in New York where
the band played for a small crowd packed in a relatively tiny
space. It was a sort of glorified rehearsal before
their first-ever gig at Madison Square Garden later that day.
Up close, I could see a great group disintegrating
before my eyes. More than one bandmember seemed unmistakably
drunk (drummer Gilson Lavis, no longer with Squeeze, was
alarmingly soused, judging by his appearance). And
Difford and Tilbrook could be seen openly sparring on
stage.
It was also obvious that they were putting the
finishing touches on their setlist, nodding to
one another when one song or another went over
particualry well, as was the case with "Cool for Cats,"
which the crowd loved (the song was subsequently moved up
to the opening slot for the Garden gig).
The DVD captures the band on a better night than the
one I saw at the Pep in '82. My first thought while
watching the video was: is there any way they can
re-form and bring back that wonderful sound of octave
harmonies and McCartneyesque melody? I mean, "Labeled
with Love" is a thing of real poignant beauty and other
songs from albums two to four are unfailingly exuberant
and thrilling.
And thirty years later, I still can't figure out
how they came to create a piece of magic like "Another
Nail in My Heart."
Even so, there's sometimes the sense on the DVD of a band not
handling pressure well, of Tilbrook rolling his eyes in the manner
of someone being forced to sing something a certain way.
Still, the concert film makes me wonder why the band
isn't a top draw in the States. (Maybe because
they created only three A-level albums before breaking
up.)
Let's see if Difford and Tilbrook can re-capture their
chemistry this summer in Italy. The combination of
Tuscany and Chianti has inspired lots of artists and
writers through the centuries. (Isn't that how the
Renaissance happened?)
A Squeeze concert film is included on the "Essential Squeeze" DVD.
* * * *
Dropped by the Berkeley (Calif.) Art Museum (BAM) yesterday
afternoon and caught an impressive collection of
William T. Wiley's paintings and sculptures (and even a
pin ball machine!). Absolutely loved his "Shark's Dream"
('67) and "& So On" (below) paintings:
William T. Wiley's art is on display at BAM
through July 18th. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
By the way, the Abstract Expressionists now have their own
set of commemorative postage stamps. Terrific idea. Ten
stamps, each featuring a work by a different
artist, are being offered by the USPS. Among the
paintings: Mark Rothko's "Orange and Yellow" ('56),
Jackson Pollock's "Convergence" ('52) and Willem de Kooning's
"Asheville" ('48). You can buy 'em online on this site:
https://shop.usps.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10052&catalogId=10001&productId=10006680&parent_category_rn=&orderItemId=212593275&rn=OrderItemDisplay
Mark Rothko's "Orange and Yellow," now on
a commemorative stamp.
* * * *
The public option? I think lots of women might've
viewed him that way! [photo: thisislondon.co.uk]
* * * *
Bad original joke of the day
The Mexican drug wars are getting serious. Yesterday a battle between
the Jalapenos and the Serranos was interrupted by a natural gas
explosion. (Ba-dum-ba!)
* * * *
Every time there's a major earthquake in southern
California, everybody says the same thing: it's the
biggest temblor since Northridge. But what about Hector
Mine? Does anybody remember Hector Mine, a 7.1 that
struck at around three in the morning on October
16, 1999? I was living in L.A. at the time and felt
the quake, which was a doozy and had everyone up and
awake and pacing outside at 3am. Virtually the
same magnitude as yesterday's Mexicali quake, too.
* * * *
Some folks are in a tizzy about new websites like
Unvarnished that allow people to post their opinions
about other people. Well, what's so new about people
talking about others?
I vividly remember the ancient pre-Internet days of
'94 and '95 when a scurrilous rumor could go viral via
word-of-mouth -- and the victim of the rumor would have
almost no way to counter it. But today, if a false or misleading
bit of misinfo gets around, a simple blog can allow you to
post a rebuttal and get the truth out, complete with
primary documents!
What a relief! In the old days, what could you do? Call a friend
and say, "Uh, hey, there's this, uh, rumor that's going 'round that's
not true and I, uh, thought I'd let you know"? Yeah, right.
In the pre-web age, some of us resembled Jason Alexander on "Seinfeld"
trying to debunk hearsay by talking up his theory of "shrinkage" to
anyone who'd listen!
Truth is, the powers-that-be hate the fact that the Internet
gives regular people the potential to spread their own viral
info -- a power that used to be only the privilege and domain
of rich folks who could drop a piece of well-placed slander
at a corporate luncheon or confab and wreck someone's
reputation with ease and impunity. The Internet, thankfully,
has democratized that part of life.
* * * * *
Name of a Chinese restaurant in the Castro just waiting to happen:
Homoszechuan
* * * *
Bumper Stickers I've Yet to See
[graphic, photo, text by Paul Iorio]
[graphic, photo, text by Paul Iorio]
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 27 - 28, 2010
Raja Knows Where to Reach Lala. Lala Knows Where to Reach Osama.
Chicago cabbie Raja Khan, friend of Osama associate
Ilyas Kashmiri (above), was apparently planning to a blow up
a packed American stadium this summer -- for the love of Osama! "Boom,
boom, boom, boom," he said in a wiretapped conversation.
[photo from images.bt.dk]
The latest U.S.-based al Qaeda militant to be caught
by the authorities is Raja Khan, a Chicago cabbie who
is a big fan of Osama bin Laden's. Wiretapped conversations,
recently revealed in a federal indictment, show that
Khan claimed to have been in regular contact with someone
who currently deals with bin Laden: Ilyas Kashmiri, who
Khan calls "Lala."
Lala has quite a bloody resume. Tried to kill Musharraf in '03.
Recently plotted to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten
newspaper. Leads a group of Sunni militants that is always
threatening to commit mass homicide.
Plus, Lala apparently knows where bin Laden is. Check out this exchange
between cabbie Khan and an undercover agent in a wiretapped
talk:
KHAN: I love that Osama bin Laden, he says the last fifty
years we have been, you know, tasting...now America will
taste that.
UC1: Yes...now they're afraid.
KHAN: Then he gonna feel...then he gonna feel to know...
UC1: Feel our pain...
KHAN: Yeah, feel our pain
UC1: ...yes, feel our suffering
KHAN: Yes, that's what he did in Kenya
UC1: Yes
KHAN: ...Nigeria and uh somewhere in Yemen, you know, that boat,
you know?
UC1: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Together we can do it...with, with,
with Osama bin Laden...with him being our leader, he has helped
us so much.
KHAN: Yeah, I asked the Lala about him. And he says he's healthy,
he's leading...
UC1: He's good
KHAN: He's good and uh
UC1: Inshallah, inshallah
KHAN: You know I was think he was, uh, they say he was...
UC1: Was sick, yeah sure...
KHAN: yeah [unintelligible] but he says no. He's perfect, healthy
and he's leading, he's giving the orders...
UC1: Inshallah
KHAN: [unintelligible] hurndallah [phonetic spelling] he's,
he's OK, he's in safe hands
UCI1: [unintelligible] good
KHAN: That's what Lala said to me, you know...
* * *
So let's add this up. Khan the cabbie knows how to
reach Lala, right? And Lala knows how to reach bin Laden.
That means our goal should be to use whatever leverage
necessary to get Khan to give up Lala. From there,
finding Osama would be much easier.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 27, 2010
I'm starting to think the Obama team sort of resembles the
Rolling Stones: Obama is Jagger, Rahm is Keith, Axelrod is
Charlie Watts, Gibbs is Brian Jones, Plouffe is Ron Wood.
Biden is Andrew Loog Oldham. Hillary is Marianne Faithfull.
(Infinitely better than previous WH occupant Hank Jr.)
By the way, I wonder what various despots are making of
the video of Obama browsing at a bookstore and checking
out works by political arch-enemies Mitt Romney and Karl
Rove. Imagine footage of Saudi King Abdullah at a
Borders, smiling and flipping through Salman Rushdie's
"The Satanic Verses." Dream on.
One other thing: has anyone noticed that soon-to-be
ex-Senator John McCain has been proved wrong about Iraq?
Remember during the '08 campaign when McCain
repeatedly said the U.S. should not set a date for
pulling out of Iraq because the "bad guys" would simply
wait us out and then attack? Well, we're already
virtually out of Iraq -- and the insurgents are
no more aggressive or militant than they've ever been.
(Less so, probably.) A pointless war is winding down
without helicopters crashing or refugees streaming
or bombings escalating.
* * *
I just saw a few movies and videos, and here're
my reviews:
Joel and Ethan Coen's "A Serious Man"
One of the ten best movies of last year, probably the tenth
best. Love the film's multiple levels of everyday hell, the
cascading flow of quotidian misery. You never know which
layer of small hell will turn up in the next scene, whether
it will involve problems at work, with the family or
with a very persistent guy from the Columbia Record Club.
And some of the dialogue is the best written for a feature
released last year; the conversation about tenure between Larry
and the head of the tenure committee -- who tells Larry that
he has received anonymous letters denigrating him -- is priceless
and rings completely true. ("Are they, are they idiomatic?," asks
Larry about the letters. "No, the letters are competently -- even
eloquently written," answers his colleague. And at that
moment you realize that it was probably Sy (and not the
disgruntled South Korean student) who wrote them.)
It's also a brilliant evocation of American suburbia circa
'66 to '71ish, pointing to an even greater film that has
yet to be made about life in the 'burbs as the boomers
knew them in the sixties and seventies.
There are, however, a couple plot turns not taken in this
film that could have been. For example, it would have
been a great twist at the end if Larry had discovered
that the money on his desk was actually an envelope
of Arthur's gambling winnings that had inadvertently gotten
caught up in papers he took to the office. Also, rather
than have Sy commit suicide by car accident, I would have
had him try to arrange the (unsuccessful) killing of
Larry via car accident. (More motivation, better plot
possibilities.)
All told, most of the flick is excellent, though it also
feels like it's missing both a chapter and a satisfying
resolution. An "A" film, though I'm still tempted to give it
an Incomplete.
* * *
Bruce Springsteen's "Wings for Wheels" and "Live at Hammersmith Odeon, '75"
Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" was the first album that
I bought after arriving at college to live on my own for
the first time in the fall of 1975. The LP came to mean a
lot to me, though at first I tried to get my money back.
You see, when I brought it back to my dorm room and put
the needle on "Thunder Road," I thought it sounded warped
and didn't know whether the cause was the vinyl or the actual
music. So I went to the returns counter at The Hub and told
them I wanted a refund. But they'd only give me an exchange,
so I got another copy and went back to South Hall with it.
I tried "Thunder Road" again. It still seemed a bit warped,
like it had been left out in the sun too long. This doesn't sound
anything like Dylan, as the critics said it did, I thought. And
I was a huge Dylan fan at the time.
As the album progressed, I remember thinking that I couldn't
make out what they were playing, that it was sludgy and dense
and lacked definition.
At the time, in that month, my ears were used to the trebly Byrds and
the Beatles. And the way the crits were talking, I was expecting the
springtime freshness of "Blood on the Tracks." But this album was more
like the clogged oil pan gasket on the '73 Plymouth I'd rented to
drive to school.
Still, I grew to love the album and it remains one of my all-time
favorites.
Now that we're approaching the 35th anniversary of the release
of "Born to Run," I decided to finally, belatedly watch the
DVDs released in '05 to commemorate the disc's 30th birthday.
One video is about the making of that album, the other a concert
film from '75 --and both would have meant a lot more to me 20
or 30 years ago than they do now.
Today, I and everyone are so overly familiar with Bruce's
schtick that it no longer seems as astonishing and exhilarating
as it did back then.
In the docu, Bruce claims he wrote innumerable
drafts of the song "Born to Run" and spent months
recording it. Frankly, in retrospect, it sorta feels that way.
Overworked, overthought, overwrought. Left in the sun too long.
To me, it doesn't have the unstoppable momentum of "Thunder Road,"
parts of "Jungleland" or even "Night."
Today, the track "Born to Run" feels less like a song and more
like a contraption.
The months that Bruce spent in the studio on it weren't
used to invent new production techniques or to innovate;
rather, the studio time was spent learning how to overdub and
layer in the manner pioneered by Phil Spector and Brian
Wilson. (With the clout of John Hammond and Columbia
Records behind the project, I can't help but wonder why
they didn't bring in Spector himself to produce the thing.)
Also, Bruce is damn lucky the post-release period wasn't
dominated by a "Tiny Dancer"-copyright infringement suit.
As for the show, Bruce didn't yet fill his cap -- literally
and figuratively. Onstage, he wore this cap that was too
bulky and clearly didn't fit him -- and it kept falling
over his eyes and off his head, which required him
to constantly re-adjust the thing. If it had been red and white,
he could have passed for Santa Claus.
Like his hair under the hat, some of the live versions
of his songs sprawled ineffectively in endless twists and
curls (see: "Kitty's Back," brilliant on vinyl, but awful
in concert here, aspiring to an almost ELP-ish prog rock).
That said, I'm a big fan of his early multi-part compositions
and wish he'd taken them in a more Queen-ish direction.
But on the way to making Bruce more musically effective,
Jon Landau also made him more formally conventional,
shifting him from a poetic framework to prose.
I actually attended a show on his next tour, in 1978, which
was much better than both the '75 London gig and the '73
Ahmanson show on these DVDs. By '78, Bruce had pared away
his songs, sheared off his hair, thrown away that cap, and
rocked like a combination of Presley and a less lithe Stones.
At the time, his pre-'78 concerts must have seemed more
awesome than they do now. Today they're more like the
promise of a spectacular rock 'n' roll show -- a promise
fully kept in the concerts of '78 and (especially)
of '84/'85.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 23, 2010
Use Google, Boycott Bing
Imagine if the Internet had existed in the late-1930s
in Adolf Hitler's Germany. And suppose there had been
a search engine then -- and every time you put the word,
say, "Judaism" into the engine during the Third Reich,
you'd get no search results but only government
propaganda savagely denigrating all Jews.
If such a search engine had been operating under the
Third Reich's censorship rules of the 1930s, it's
fair to say that that search firm would have been
complicit in distributing Nazi propaganda and furthering
Hitler's totalitarianism.
Such is the case, analogously, in the modern-day People's
Republic of China (which, to be fair, is not nearly
as tyrannical or genocidal as the Third Reich, though it's
still unusually oppressive).
By operating in the PRC, Bing has become a de facto partner
in government propaganda in China. By that I mean: Try looking up the
Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 on Bing in China and see if
all search results aren't scrubbed of any mention of the
government's slaughter of protesters. Try looking
up, say, Ai Weiwei on Bing in China and see if your search
results don't get blocked (or perhaps you'll get a government
site calling the dissident artist a traitor).
I've heard Bill Gates's defense on this. Gates says you have to
operate by the rules of the nation in which you're doing
business. And to a certain extent that's true, but only to
a certain extent. In countries where the totalitarianism is
indefensibly extreme, where human rights violations are rampant
and intolerable, a search engine ceases to become a tool of inquiry
and research and free exchange of information and becomes
merely a megaphone for the government line.
In his defense, Gates likes to cite the example of
modern-day Germany, which outlaws the display of the swastika
and blocks it from most search results in that country. But
Gates knows that that's an atypical and isolated example in
a nation that otherwise encourages free speech and allows
dissidents to be heard.
Let's not let Bing gain advantage because Microsoft isn't
willing to take the same principled stand that Google has.
Until it pulls out of China, boycott Bing.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 22, 2010
"Thunderingly" Embarrassing Revelations About Hu's Regime
If more proof were needed that Google made the right
decision by pulling its operations out of China, it came
in the form of a censorship list recently and secretly issued
by the Chinese government. The list, which has since leaked
all over the Internet and was reported yesterday by The New
York Times and others http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/asia/22banned.html?src=twr,
includes 17 people, newspapers and scandals that
Hu Jintao's regime is trying to keep the public from knowing
about.
Here is my own (partially pictorial) guide to some of
the subjects the Chinese government is trying to
censor. (And don't worry, Hu, I won't let any
of this get out!)
He poisons thousands, gets new gov job! (Shhhh)
Some call him a baby-killer. He's Li Changjiang,
a government official partly responsible for deliberately putting
melamine in the milk in China, causing six deaths and 300,000
cases of sickness. The Chinese government doesn't want
you to know he's got a brand new government job! (We won't
tell anyone!) [photo from Life magazine]
* * *
Truth-teller, dissident. (Hu Jintao says, "Don't mention him!")
Ai Weiwei, dissident artist, pain in the ass to
the Chinese government. The powers-that-be don't want you to
talk about him. [photo from artintern.net]
* * *
This picture is banned in China!
The youtan poluo flower. Don't write about it. Don't
show its picture. (It's making people superstitious.)
[unknown photographer]
* * *
Hu Sez: Liu's SUV Not Prole Enough for Mongolia
Psssst! Prosecutor Liu Lijie used to drive a very expensive,
very snazzy Volkswagen Touareg SUV to work everyday. Not very
prole. She was canned but has a new job. Don't tell a soul!
* * *
Hu Jintao Sez: "Pay no mind to the newspaper called 南方周末 ."
南方周末
The main editor at popular liberal newspaper Southern Weekend,
Xiang Xi, was recently demoted and replaced by an "editor" from
the government's Propaganda Department. (To be sure, this
sometimes happens at Rupert Murdoch's "newspapers," too, or
at least some people seem to think so!) Don't talk about this at all!!
* * *
And definitely don't print anything about Han Feng, a disgraced government
tobacco official who was caught taking bribes.
* * *
Oh, also: don't use the word "thunder" or "thundering."
* * *
Here's the original list of things the Chinese government wants to
censor:
两会期间网络审查之一周指令
作者：何贝 文章来源：维权网 点击数：156 更新时间：3/7/2010 2:24:03 PM
（维权网信息员何贝报道）2010年3月6日，值两会召开之际，有网友曝光了3月第一周以来中国网络监管部门向网站下达的各种监控指令。以下是网络监管部门向某网站下达的“本周网监管理要求”汇总：
1、两会关于选举法的新闻只能用新华社和人民日报的稿件。
2、关于社会各界要求官员进行财产通报的新闻不报道。
3、国外评南方周末主编为十大风云人物的新闻不报。
4、局长日记的新闻不推荐。新闻中不能出现相关人物图片，或者人肉搜索等涉及个人隐私的内容。
5、负面信息不上两会要闻区。
6、转载或者发布两会文章时不出现“雷人”、“雷议案”、“雷代表”等字眼，不用雷的概念定义两会的相关内容。
7、优昙婆罗花的相关新闻删除。
8、海南毒豇豆事件只用新华社、人民日报及海南当地官方媒体的稿件。
9、两会期间关于北京的重大报道事件不推荐。例如“西单图书大厦物业员工砍死经历”及“顺义4S店事故，一人死亡”的事件不要炒作，不推荐。
10、两会期间上访的新闻不炒作，不推荐。
11、艾未未等艺术家绝食的事件不报道。
12、13家媒体联合推进户籍制度改革的新闻不炒作，不推荐。
13、两会各地的负面新闻谨慎发布，会造成重大影响的新闻不炒作，不推荐。
14、邯郸一次提89名干部的新闻不推荐。
15、某地看守所囚犯睡觉死的新闻不报道。
16、内蒙古开豪华车的女检察官辞职后官复原职的新闻不报道。
17、李长江、孟学农两人重回两会的新闻不炒作，不推荐。
文章录入：ye_1989 责任编辑：chinesemz
上一篇文章： 十年砍柴：晚清四大日记比不上韩局长的原生态日记
下一篇文章： 第82届奥斯卡颁奖揭晓 川震记录片未获奖（组图）
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 21, 2010
one (of many) adoring posters of President Obamain shop windows in the Bay Area, this one in Oakland
[photo by Paul Iorio]
I was walking around Berkeley, Calif., this afternoon,
just as the news was breaking that the deal was done,
that health care reform was going to pass the House. And
just about everybody downtown was smiling, opening doors for
each other, saying you go first, go ahead, on this
blazing green spring day.
Underneath it all was the unspoken feeling that we did it,
we realized the dream, or part of the dream, that had
been beyond our grasp for more than a century.
If Barack Obama does nothing else in his presidency,
and doesn't otherwise mess up, he is on his way to
becoming the greatest U.S. president since JFK.
And here's hoping the great Barney Frank revives his
attempt to repeal the 22nd Amendment. A president
this effective requires a few more terms to put his
complete vision in place.
* * * *
OK, since everyone's in a good mood right about now,
here are a couple jokes I came up with the other day:
Q: What did the Hindu carpenter in the West Bank say to his
Arab and Jewish clients?
A: "Epoxy on both your houses!"
-- Sarah Palin is lately spending a lot more time out of Alaska
and on the mainland U. S. (the "lower 46," as she calls it).
* * * *
Here's a photo I shot the other week of the aftermath of
a student party in Berkeley, Calif. (looks like it was
an "Invictus"-themed bash!).
[photo by Paul Iorio]
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 18, 2010
Hey, he met us on Earth instead! A better place.
Very sad to hear he's gone.
[photo of Big Star from bbc.com; photographer unknown]
____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 10, 2010
Reading "Jihad Jane"'s MySpace Site
The Stuff Other Reporters Missed
She's so bored with the U.S.A.! [photo of website by Paul Iorio.]
As everyone knows by now, the latest Jihadist plot, this one by
Pennsylvania resident Colleen R. LaRose (aka, "Jihad Jane"), targeted
Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who she was allegedly planning
to kill for drawing a cartoon some Muslims consider
blasphemous.
Jihad Jane had a wide online presence, with videos on
YouTube and a sprawling MySpace page (at
http://www.myspace.com/BeyondPrincessForEver,
now deleted). The cached edition of the site
has already been covered by news organizations.
But some material on the actual (as opposed to the cached)
web page has not been written about anywhere, probably because
content on the site (prior to its being completely deleted)
was blocked by graphics and the words "photo deleted." In fact,
the "photo deleted" message made it impossible to read the
site -- unless you did what I did and used the "select
all" function to highlight the entire page. By doing that,
I was able to read the website in its original form, which
included active links and information not available in
the cached version.
It turns out there was intriguing material being
blocked from view. And I'm reporting some of it here exclusively.
First, on a personal note, near the top of the site, she lists
her favorite movies. "Braveheart, Troy, Gladiator, Moulin Rouge,
Helen of Troy, Joan of Ark, Kingdom to Heaven," she writes.
"Religulous" and "Borat" did not make her list.
Janey's Jihad Movie Picks include many flicks bythe Infidel! [photo of website by Paul Iorio]
Then, in her blog, she cites the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan
65-years ago as a primary motivation and justification for
current jihadist violence. (As we all know, Tokyo is a
hotbed of al Qaeda activity.) Here's her (unedited) rant:
"If America is not a terrorist state, then I dont know
what is. One only deserves to be in a mental asylum to
not call America a terrorist Government whilst knowing
of all these atrocious crimes she committed."
Then Jane weighs in on the 9/11 attacks:
"And when 9/11, an act of retaliation for Americas terrorism, is
done and kills 3,000 people, it seems that America is no longer
the terrorists (and Im not saying that she was even called a
terrorist state beforehand!!!) and that she never committed a crime
and was totally innocent like a newborn baby. Now that is what
you call good brainwashing by the media...."
Of course, she blames plenty on -- you guessed it! -- the media:
"Its [sic] absolutely amazing and fascinating that the media
can cover up the atrocities of America so well such as the
dropping of the atomic bombs on the helpless women and children
of Japan and focus heavily on how the Mujaahideen are
terrorists when in reality, they were retaliating (just as
America retaliated upon Japan, but in a more sick way)."
And when she talks about Her Homeland, she apparently is not
referring to suburban Philly:
"[America] comes to our lands to spread her filth,
disbelief and criminal activities and if one soldier
rapes a Muslim sister, we judge the entire
Army and not just him alone..."
Janey's blog, which might as well be titled "Yes, We Kampf!" [photo of website by Paul Iorio],
And she also "friended" lots of people on MySpace, and here're
some of the fucks -- I mean, folks! -- who appeared on her site:
Wasn't he the bassist in Uriah Heap?
[photo of website by Paul Iorio]
* * *
He's with the band!
[photo of website by Paul Iorio]
* * *
Ubiquitous on Janey's site!
[photo of web page by Paul Iorio]
* * *
Was Janey driven to homicide by a mere cartoon? (Such
delicate sensibilities!) Here's the Lars Vilks
drawing that got Jane in a murderin' mood!
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 4, 2010
The verdict seems to be in: people really think
the movie "Crazy Heart" is using one of my distinctive
melodies without my permission.
And "Crazy Heart" didn't use "my" melody just once,
but at least four times in the film (at the 23, 40,
41 and 49 minute marks), making it the most repeated
musical hook in the whole film.
Thanks to the Austin 360 website for posting my
contrast of the two songs (see below):
Listen to the two songs here and judge for yourselves:
http://crazyheartplagiarism.vox.com
For the record, I wrote "Is The Rushmore Bridge Falling
Down" in 1989 and sent it in '89 to my regular editor
at Spy magazine -- who is now, by the way, an editor at
The New York Times -- so he could consider it for a flexi-disc
project.
I revived the song in early 2004 for my album "About Myself"
and sent it to a wide range of music industry professionals,
including T-Bone Burnett, the movie's music director, and
executives associated with New West Records, the label that
has released the soundtrack album.
Yesterday, I checked my previous computer, which is
in perfect working order, and saw that I emailed the
song to myself several times in 2004, when I was
preparing it for "About Myself." The actual emails
still exist (and, as we all know, the hard drive
does not lie!).
For anyone interested, here's the history behind my song
that is similar to the one in "Crazy Heart":
My song "Is the Rushmore Bridge Falling Down" began right here,
in 1989, in this proposal for a flexi-disc project for Spy
magazine. The melody that is similar to the one in "Crazy Heart" is
in the part titled "How Many Exiles?," the end of the suite
"Is the Rushmore Bridge Falling Down."
* * *
Here's page one of a (still active) email from
April 24, 2005, that I printed out just yesterday (see print out date
on the bottom). On this page, I listed the forty (or forty-one) best
songs I'd composed (which I was planning to include on the upcoming
CD version of my album "About Myself"). "Rushmore" is the 41st song
listed.
* * *
Here's page two of that (still active) email from April 24, 2005.
On this page are the lyrics of "Is the Rushmore Bridge Falling Down."
(Note the part three-quarters of the way down the page in
all caps that reads: "ORIGINAL VERSION FROM 1989.")
* * * *
Here's page three of that (still active) email from
April 24, 2005. This page has the rest of the "Rushmore" lyrics.
* * *
I'll keep you posted on how this situation progresses.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for March 1, 2010
Just saw a couple new movies and here're
my reviews:
Martin Scorsese's "Shutter Island"
This resembles the high-concept B-movies that Scorsese
used to love when he was growing up in the 1950s. It's
sort of like an "Island of the Insane!"-type populist
crowd-pleaser, with more unexpected twists than Lombard
Street. Better than usual late-Scorsese, with lots of
visual magic.
Also, more than a half-century after "Wild Strawberries,"
Max von Sydow may be enjoying the greatest commercial
success of his career with this film (if it surpasses
"The Exorcist"). The most memorable performance by an
octogenarian in memory.
Because the finale makes you view everything that preceded
it in a completely new light, I bet lots of moviegoers are
returning to see this one again.
* * *
Scott Cooper's "Crazy Heart"
No doubt about it, Jeff Bridges will definitely win the Oscar
this Sunday for Best Imitation of a Kris Kristofferson Performance.
It's such a spot-on impersonation, I occasionally had to do a
double-take, thinking I was either in the middle of "Lone Star" or
"Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
Central problem with the film is that Bad Blake has
all the demons and torment of The Artist but not much
artistry, all the cliches of ravaged genius with none
of the content. Blake's music rarely rises above
generic country stuff that you can hear in a thousand
bars across the country on any weekend night, country
music wallpaper. There's nothing on the level of "Tender
Mercies"'s "Over You" or "Nashville"'s "Idaho Home."
What we're left with is the story of a wash-up without
a prior career that was distinctive or interesting.
The guy's merely a martyr to the roadhouse cliches of
whiskey and cigarettes and rehab. (And after rehab he starts
sounding like a country Leonard Cohen.)
And Maggie Gyllenhaal's character is badly conceived.
Let's see: she's writing about Blake for a local newspaper,
sleeping with him and then breaking with him after he loses
her four-year-old son while boozing in a bar. (Gee, I sure
hope losing her kid didn't affect the write-up!)
And then the movie ends on a heartwarming note, when Blake
passes what amounts to a bribe to the reporter!
Bridges's peak remains "Tucker." And T Bone Burnett has written
far better material and been associated with greater films than
this one.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Issues of plagiarism in "Crazy Heart" discussed below.
______________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 28, 2010
Is "Crazy Heart" Guilty of Plagiarism?
Finally got around to seeing "Crazy Heart" last night
and immediately recognized that somebody had apparently
ripped off the distinctive melody of my 1989 song
"Is the Rushmore Bridge Falling Down."
In the movie, my melody is used, without my permission,
in the song "Fallin' & Flyin'," credited to the late
Stephen Bruton and Gary Nicholson. It's used in the
film at least four times (at the 23, 40, 41 and 49
minute marks) and is probably the most repeated
musical hook in the whole film.
For the record, I wrote "Is The Rushmore Bridge Falling
Down" in 1989 and sent it in '89 to my regular editor
at Spy magazine so he could consider it for a flexi-disc
project. I revived the song in early 2004 for my album
"About Myself."
For 21 years, I've regarded that as one of the best melodies
I've written, and I really don't appreciate the fact
that somebody appears to have stolen it for use in
another song.
Here's an MP3 that lets you contrast both songs. Listen
here and judge for yourself:
http://crazyheartplagiarism.vox.com
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 25, 2010
Making the Workplace Religion-Neutral
Suppose a cashier at a clothing store were to say that she had
joined the Ku Klux Klan, which (let's say) had recently
reconstituted itself and redefined itself as some sort of
sick religion, and that her faith required her to wear a sheet
to work. (A nauseating scenario, to be sure!)
Anyone would fire that employee, right?
Of course. For obvious reasons.
How about this. Suppose I were running a store and one
of my salesmen came to work with a large button saying
"Scientology is Better Than Christianity," and refused
to take it off, saying that his religion required him
to wear it.
I'd probably want to fire him, too.
Why? Because I don't want to be in a position where
it appears that I, through my employee, am tacitly
endorsing a religion that I don't want to endorse.
And thanks to the Establishment Clause, I'm not forced by
the U.S. government to choose or support a religion.
But if I ran a shop, and one of my employees wore religious
garb that you simply could not miss visually, wouldn't that
employee's clothing constitute an endorsement of a
particular religion? And because it's my shop -- and he's
my staffer -- doesn't that constitute a sort of surrogate
endorsement of a faith by me? (After all, there's no way
to issue a disclaimer or rebuttal in that sort of retail
context.)
And when that surrogate endorsement is backed by the EEOC,
then effectively the government is violating the Establishment
Clause, because it is forcing me, de facto, to endorse a
religion that I might completely disagree with.
After all, when the government steps in, via the EEOC, and
says I have to allow that employee to continue to endorse
a religion in a shop owned by me, then the government is
requiring me to create the unmistakable appearance that I favor a
particular faith.
Shouldn't my rights under the Establishment Clause take
precedence in such a situation? Shouldn't the EEOC be
interceding to enforce religious neutrality in the workplace,
rather than allowing a particular employee to turn a secular work
environment into a virtual place of worship?
On a personal level, if I owned a clothing shop, I'd
have a blanket policy: leave your crucifix, yarmulke,
burqa, veil and "Jesus Loves You" button at the church,
temple or mosque before you come to work.
If I were a store owner, I'd tell my employees that we're not
in the business of promoting, or even appearing to promote, a
political agenda or a religion.
Perhaps the EEOC should revise Section 12 of its Compliance Manual
to further factor in Establishment Clause protections to make
sure that the secular private sector is as religion-neutral
as the public sector is.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 22 - 23, 2010
Reading Bob Herbert's column, just posted. I usually marvel
at his evenhandedness, unpredictability (and hey, he wrote
really smart things about the first (but not the latest)
Afghanistan war).
But then I came on this line in today's piece, written as
a criticism of a school:
"When I asked one boy why there were no fights in the school,
he replied, 'Because it’s not allowed.'”
Aw! Such deprivation! (Readin', writin' and assaultin'
people. Curious curriculum.)
Y'know, back in '01, Herbert had strokes of brilliance.
In 2010, I think he's had a stroke.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
This next item is directed to a small group of people
who know what I'm referring to. And this is what I wanna say:
Have we forgotten all about the connecting-the-dots thing that
we supposedly learned after Ft. Hood? Have we forgotten that
it was our collective timidity in blowing the whistle on a
Muslim fundamentalist -- a timidity stemming from an overabundance of
political correctness -- that was exactly what helped to cause the
Ft. Hood massacre?
I wouldn't be surprised if within nine or 17 months, there is
violence by Islamic fanatics against "infidels" in academia
in the U.S., just as I've been warning. (And I wouldn't be
surprised if the guys involved in a particularly ugly
recent incident in Berkeley (and some of you know what
I'm referring to) eventually end up on tv screens and
newspapers across America after killing a non-believer
or three.)
How do I know that's going to happen? Because it already
did happen last week; it was just an unsuccessful attempt.
[Do I know something you don't know? Actually, you should
know exactly what I know (you editors and others to whom I
explained the situation in writing and on the phone). Unless
you're stupid or biased, it's obvious what happened. And
I have correspondence written to me from university officials
that fully corroborates my story. By the way, sincere thanks
to the police and university officials who have been both
smart and helpful in this matter.]
And then I'm gonna shove that fact down your throats. (Down
the throats of some (not all) officials and editors who
doubt there's a problem with Muslim fundamentalists, to be specific.)
I'm gonna say, "I warned you about the possibility of secularists
and others being targeted on college campuses by militants back
in 2010. But because of a p.c. mindset (and identity politics),
you didn't put the fundamnetalists under a microscope. So the
blood is on your hands."
And then I'll make sure everybody knows I warned you, way
back in 2010, about the very real possibility of
Muslim militants attacking those who teach or study
works by the "infidel." (At the very least, libraries
across America should post signs, directed at religious
fundamentalists, that say: "Please be tolerant of those
who are reading books with which you disagree."
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
For some time, there has been an exceedingly wrong-headed
view out there that fundamentalist militants are, for some
mysterious reason, worthy of respect. Automatically. Without
having to earn it.
Hmm. Let's take that idea apart.
Should we also respect, say, pedophiles? No, of course
not. Should we respect...rapists? No way. Should
we respect swindlers like Bernie Madoff? Mass murderers like
Charles Manson? Not a chance.
Already, in around 25 words, I've defined a sizable
number of people who we can all agree do not deserve respect.
So let's expand that population a bit.
Should we respect, oh, people who try to blow up airplanes in
the name of their god? Obviously, no. Should we respect people
who support people who try to blow up airplanes in the name of
god? No way.
After all, you certainly wouldn't say we should respect people
who support blowing up innocent children while also saying
that we should not respect those who molest children?
What would be the logic, the consistency there? (If you're saying
that, then you're saying that murdering a child is a lesser
offense than molesting one.)
So you're not saying that, are you? Being reasonable, you have to
conclude that suicide bombers and their backers (and that includes all
of al Qaeda and much of the Taliban) are not worthy of respect.
Because respect should be earned, should be based
on some level of admiration for, or at least tolerance of,
another person's actions or beliefs. And there is no reasonable
foundation for respecting a religious fanatic who deliberately blows
up (or tries to blow up, or supports blowing up) an airplane
with children and other civilians aboard. That's common sense.
People should really think through the nice-sounding
platitudes they say before they say them.
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 20, 2010
I'm really glad people seem to be enjoying my new song
"Taliban Virgins."
I had a lot of fun writing and recording it, and the song
seems to bring a smile to those who hear it.
And I can't imagine that it would be offensive to any
reasonable person. It is, after all, a satirical song written
in the first person from the point-of-view of a religious
suicide bomber.
Every single line in the song is something militants themselves
have said or implied repeatedly (e.g., they want to die so they
can go to paradise and have dozens of virgins at their disposal,
etc.). And what precisely do you think they want to do with such
imaginary virgins once they get them? Do you think they merely
want to stare adoringly at them from afar? No. The whole suicide
bomber fantasy is based on the idea of being rewarded with sex
from numerous virgins (which, I suspect, would involve taking
off their clothing).
A ripe target for satire, if anything is!
Unless you're in favor of suicide bombings by Islamic
militants, my song could not possibly be offensive to you.
(And I think it's irresponsible to let sympathizers of
fundamentalist bombers decide what the limits of freedom
of speech are in the United States. And I believe it shows
poor judgment and a disrespect for the first amendment to
cave in to jihadists on free speech issues.)
I thank the radio people who have already played it and
hope more of 'em do in the future!
Haven't heard "Taliban Virgins" yet? Listen here:
http://www.vibecat.com/paul
* * * *
* * * *
The way I felt a few days ago...
[cartoon from The New Yorker magazine; I don't know who drew it.]But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- To those who know what I'm talking about: I
said, "No, I haven't seen the person you're
referring to -- sorry." That was the tone and
context.
-------------
P.S. -- I've just added new material to my column on Cash Box
magazine (see the Feb. 16 - 17, 2010, column, below).
_____________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 18, 2010
I finally got to see Clint Eastwood's "Invictus"
and here's my review:
Clint Eastwood's "Invictus"
I sat around with Joseph Shabalala of Ladysmith Black Mambazo,
talking with him one-on-one in the 1980s, and one of the things
that struck me was he was sincerely and deeply generous and
kind, despite having been victimized for so many years by
the apartheid regime in South Africa. There was no trace
of bitterness whatsoever. It was as if the oppression made
him appreciate everyday wonders like beautiful rain and
melody all the more.
Some of those same personal qualities -- generosity of spirit,
dignity, a pacific disposition -- also characterized Nelson
Mandela, who served 27 years in prison for his anti-apartheid
activities.
Morgan Freeman does a magnificent job of capturing Mandela's
dignity and all the president's mien, and he's the best
thing about this movie. There is magic in the picture,
though it's not a wholly magical or successful work.
What Clint Eastwood leaves out of "Invictus," which takes
place (more or less) after Mandela has already ascended
to the presidency, are scenes from the apartheid
era itself. If Eastwood had given us a glimpse of the
terror and persecution of the period before
Mandela's presidency, his audience might better appreciate
how extraordinary Mandela's forgiveness of his enemy was.
I sometimes wonder whether Mandela was too forgiving. I
sometimes wonder whether 27 years in prison took its toll,
made him identify on some level with his captors. I can't
help but see that his response to being a political prisoner
was the opposite of, say, Fela Kuti's in Nigeria. Fela, who
I spoke with one-on-one shortly after his release
from the brutal Maiduguri prison in Nigeria in '86, emerged
from his cell defiant, unbroken, more opposed to the military
regime than ever, even ready for a little vengeance (though
it should be noted that Fela served far less time in prison
than Mandela did).
Part of me says that Mandela is a better man than I am. Because
if thugs had put me in prison for 27 years for (essentially)
political reasons, I would, upon release, insist that my
oppressors be brought to justice before there could be any
reconciliation or forgiveness.
You can argue that Mandela's way has worked out, so maybe
he knows more than I do. Then again, you might also note that
too many blacks in South Africa still live in abject poverty,
that cultural apartheid has merely been replaced by a de facto
economic apartheid. You could argue that more radical
strategies were necessary to undo the injustice and
impact of decades of segregation.
But back to the movie. The problem with it is focus, the
awkward split screen of a flick about both political
revolution and a rugby match (albeit, a rugby match with
considerable symbolic value), with an emphasis on the latter.
Unfortunately, if you didn't know any better, you'd come out of
thw theater thinking that Mandela was the head of the International
Rugby Federation, a sports figure from South Africa, so absorbed
is he in the events leading to the World Cup.
In fact, parts of the film are completely given over to
footage of a rugby match, though without any play-by-play
commentary, creating an almost empty effect, as
if some of the audio track is missing. (By the way, what an
odd game rugby is, played with all the roughness of American
football but with none of the protective gear. And if you're
allowed to kick the ball forward, why not allow players to
throw the ball ahead? Arbitrary.)
Anyway, in my opinion, a better way for Mandela to have
gained black support for the Springboks would have been
to encourage the team to enlist black players -- to integrate
the team. And then the South African blacks would have had
something to genuinely cheer for.
That said, Matt Damon's "This is it! This is our destiny!" pep
talk to his teammates (as the national anthem is sung by
the crowd) is going to go down in Damon's highlight reel
forever. Undeniably stirring.
Unfortunately Eastwood tries to create some false tension
near the end with a subplot about The Plot to Assassinate
Mandela, a narrative line that isn't really
supported by the rest of the story onscreen.
All told, not exactly Eastwood's "Graceland," but a noble
try and well worth seeing.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 18, 2010
Update on peripheral issues related to my music:
http://latestonpaul.blogspot.com
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 16 - 17, 2010
First, many thanks to the great Marshall Stax at
KALX for playing my latest songs "If I Were a
Beautiful Woman Like You" and "Taliban Virgins"
last night! (Particularly thrilled he played the
latter.)
I really admire the aesthetic courage of his
show (and of other programs on KALX), a quality
shared by people at a handful of other stations like WFMU,
KCRW, etc.
And I have to say that every time I come up with
something I think is terrific, I listen to KALX or FMU or
Morning Becomes Eclectic and realize there are other
new recording artists out there who leave me in the dust.
And that spurs me to write even better stuff.
By the way, last night Marshall noted the death of Doug
Fieger, who led The Knack, and I'm sorry to hear that he
died.
Fieger will be remembered for creating one of the
most irresistible pieces of candy in the history
of power pop, and that, of course, is "My Sharona."
When I moved to New York City in June 1979, I vividly
recall that the boomboxes on the Upper West Side were
playing two songs constantly: Squeeze's poignant "Up the
Junction" and The Knack's "My Sharona."
Both songs satisfied an almost insatiable appetite for
a Beatles reunion, which was the big hope among twentysomething
New Wavers (and others) in '79 -- a hope extinguished forever,
unfortunately, the very next year.
Though Squeeze's work has endured far better than the Knack's
over the decades, the former never had an era-defining
hit (or at least a summer-defining hit!) on the order
of "My Sharona," a track that has inspired subsequent
generations of rockers and power poppers and tuneful
punks (including Nirvana, which covered it live)
and will likely continue to do so in the future.
Wanna hear "Taliban Virgins" and "If I Were
a Beautiful Woman Like You"? Click here:
http://ifiwereabeautifulwoman.vox.com
* * * * * *
The Real Reasons Why I Left Cash Box All Those Years Ago
I'm hearing apocryphal and inaccurate stories about why
I left the music trade magazine Cash Box a couple
decades ago, so let me, here and now, correct the record.
I left Cash Box in 1987, after two years as a writer/reporter
at the magazine. By the end, I had become successful enough
as a music journalist that I was regularly fielding offers
from other, better publications. And I started to see that
I could make a lot more money writing as a regular freelancer
for two or three magazines than as a staff writer for Cash Box.
Besides, there were aspects of Cash Box that were a bit unethical
that I didn't want to be associated with. For example, if an
album was advertised in Cash Box, there was pressure from
the business side of the publication to give it a good review,
whether it deserved it or not. And I wouldn't go along with
that. I would call it as I saw it in my reporting. And that
caused friction between me and the business side.
For example, when I'd write an honest story that happened to
go against the interests of advertisers, I'd find that
the magazine's receptionist, working under the gun (literally!)
of a vice president who sometimes brought a gun to work, would
suddenly lose my phone messages. Major sources would call
me and say, "Didn't you get my phone message?" I was clearly
being undermined by the business side of the mag, which
was using the support staff to do their dirty tricks.
Things came to a head in August 1987 when Epic Records paid the
magazine lots of dough to advertise the upcoming release of Michael
Jackson's "Bad" album. I did a news story in which I interviewed
people in the industry about the hoopla surrounding the album,
quoting them saying things like 'the Beatles
CDs were causing more buzz than 'Bad' was' and 'the hype was
greater than the demand for 'Bad.''
My honest reporting went to print, and I immediately got
a phone call from the hatchet man in the home office in
Los Angeles, furious that I had dared to report facts that
were contrary to the interests of Cash Box's advertisers.
After he finished his tirade, I knew I'd probably be sacked
within a week, so I called an editor at another magazine and
accepted his offer of steady freelance work. I then wrote a
letter of resignation, saying that I had taken a job at another
publication, and presented the letter to the boss as soon
as he (inevitably) called me into his office to discuss my
continued employment at the mag.
There was no dispute about these basic facts at the time. My
work for the magazine was excellent, impeccable and (I'm not
going to be falsely modest) groundbreaking (i.e., I discovered
more than a few unsigned bands and recording artists who had
not been written up by anyone and probably would have remained
unknown if I hadn't covered them). Further, I worked in the
office seven days a week. And three in the morning was sometimes
mid-day for me (when I was covering clubland).
Today, of course, it's all too easy for rivals to distort the
record. And the magazine was very careful to hire a replacement
who they knew would ascend the ladder of music journalism -- and
they made sure that that replacement, who was young and only
stayed a few months at the publication, heard every false
rumor and smear about me. And I'm certain the business guy
at the mag used support staff, who he'd intimidate, to
carry out most of the smears. (Can't wait to see him launder his
retaliation (for my revealing this) to his friends at various
newspapers and magazines! Gee, guys, seeking out the other side of
the story is so passe, eh? Y'know, I could bring up the fact
that the magazine's corruption at one of its bureaus led to
the murder of one of its honest employees, and that very few
of the magazine's staffers or former staffers (besides
me) condemned and investigated that situation, but that's
a whole other story for another day.)
After all, the business end of the publication was pissed
at me because I wouldn't play their corrupt game and automatically
give favorable coverage to those who advertised in the mag. Some
of them, apparently, still hold a grudge after all these years and
are implying things that they know are not true.
But I digress. Paul
[this column of Feb. 17 was updated on Feb. 21, 2010.]
_________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 11, 2010
Here it is, the online debut of my newly-minted
songs "If I Were a Beautiful Woman Like You" and
"Can You Hear Me, 9-1-1?"
Just click here to hear the MP3s!
ifiwereabeautifulwoman.vox.com
I wrote 'em last month and recorded 'em last week.
Enjoy! Paul
P.S. -- read about peripheral, day-to-day issues related to
my music here:
http://latestonpaul.blogspot.com
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 11, 2010
Just about everything that's wrong with America is in that
video of a girl being brutally stomped by a thug in Seattle
while several security guards stand and watch and do absolutely
nothing to stop it.
The by-the-book idiocy, the bureaucratic mindset,
the blindness to common sense and context: it's all
there in the video.
But those stupid, amoral security guards were really
only doing what the U.S. government does everyday,
as it stands around debating the rulebook of health care while
sick people who are uninsured writhe in pain, unable
to afford proper treatment or medication. The footage
is a metaphor for the unique callousness at the core of
American society today.
The video also shows that the U.S. has created a subculture
of workers who have no talent except the talent to fill out forms
and memorize a rule book.
To the dopes at Olympic Security: here're three
more rules:
1. Always use common sense
2. You're a human being first, an employee second.
3. "I was only following orders" is no defense against misconduct.
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 9, 2010
The Joker of Waziristan is Dead. The World is Safer.
>
I guess he must be with his virgins right now.
To celebrate the death of Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud (and
"celebrate" is the right word), here's another new song that
I wrote last month. It's a little ditty you all might enjoy
called "Taliban Virgins":
http://yourlisten.com/channel/search/?q=%22Taliban+virgins%22#top
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 8, 2010
New Paul Iorio Song Censored by Microsoft?
Is "Draw Me a Picture" Too Hot for Bill Gates's People?
Whenever I write new songs, I usually send them to people
at a wide variety of radio stations and elsewhere. Sometimes
I'll even try to reach across a cultural or political
divide to send, say, a satirical song about religion to a
religious radio station, or a left-wing ballad to a
conservative station.
And occasionally, I'm taken aback by how good-natured
the response is to material that is antithetical to their
beliefs. You'd be surprised to see that some absolutists
actually do have a sense of humor!
And if it sparks controversy, all the better. Controversy
leads to dislogue, dialectic, which is part of the
point. (Hey, I'm a writer, not a diplomat or a politician.)
As we've seen over the years, if we let absolutism
fester without challenging it, it continues to feater,
like an infection, sometimes for centuries (as with
religious absolutism).
Last month, I wrote a new song that I'm proud of called
"Draw Me a Picture," an irreverent humorous tune,
sort of in the spirit of Tom Lehrer's "The Vatican Rag," though
it's about the famous Jyllands-Posten cartoons that sparked
protests and unrest several years ago.
I decided to see what the response would be if I sent a
copy of "Draw Me a Picture" to several radio stations in
Islamic countries, asking if they would consider airing the
track.
What I discovered is that Bill Gates's people are apparently
more of a threat to free speech than Ahmadinejad is. After sending
the song to several stations via Microsoft's Hotmail service,
my Hotmail account was suddenly blocked by Microsoft
with this warning:
"This account is currently blocked from sending messages. If you
don't think you've violated the Windows Live Terms of Use, please
contact customer support."
And when I tried to contact Miscorsoft's customer support department,
there seemed to be no way to send a message to appeal their
decision. (And, by the way, the lyrics of my song include
no obscenities.)
This sort of blocking action, while minor, seems to
be of a piece with Microsoft's willingness
to play by the oppressive rules of the Chinese
government when it comes to its disappointing search engine
Bing. The word from the top of the corporate ladder at
Microsoft is apparently: "We will let the Chinese
government censor Bing's search results, and
we will allow Islamic reactionaries to determine who
is fit to send Hotmail."
This experience of mine with Hotmail seems to underscore
the fact that Microsoft values freedom of speech less than it
values an obscene level of corporate profiteering.
Yet another reason for all of us to choose Google instead of Bing.
For those who want to hear the song is question, I've
posted a link to "Draw Me a Picture" below. (And I'll
soon be posting three other new songs -- none of
them controversial, all of them better -- that I wrote
and recently recorded. Stay tuned.)
http://www.vibecat.com/paul
But I digress. Paul
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 8, 2010
I've just finished writing and recording four brand new
songs; will be posting lyrics and MP3s as soon as I
solve website software problem (Feb. 8, 2010).
___________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 2, 2010
The other day I mentioned (in this space) a humorous
feature story I'd written and reported for Details
magazine in 1994 called "Choosing My Religion," and
some are wondering how they can get a copy
of the piece.
Well, look no further. Here is the story I wrote, as I
originally wrote it, for the magazine. Enjoy!
http://iorioonreligion.blogspot.com/
* * * *
As many of you know, I was the first journalist anywhere to
have conducted an audiotaped interview with Phish bandleader
Trey Anastasio (it happened in January 1989).
One reader wonders how certain I am that my interview
with Anastasio was conducted in January 1989.
My answer is: I'm 100% sure that it was done in January 1989.
How do I know? Easy. In the taped interview, you can clearly
hear Trey talking about shows that he and has band have
just performed and concerts that are coming up. So, for example,
he says, last week we performed at the so and so cafe (and
research shows that gig happened in January 1989). And
Trey says, next week we'll be performing at the so and so club
in Boston (and research shows that gig happened in
February 1989).
Thankfully, the Q&A is loaded with such date references, which
make it easy to figure out when I did the interview.
My Anastasio interview was ultimately published in the
December 25, 2003, issue of Miami New Times (so it, of course,
went through a rigorous level of fact-checking and verification
by the editors at New Times before it was published).
I've posted an edited transcript of the interview at
http://www.paulliorio.blogspot.com and have some of
the audio posted at http://www.myspace.com/paulioriooo.
* * * *
As some of you know, my main music website is at
www.pauliorio.blogspot.com. But I've just launched
another music site that has more informal, day-to-day
info and messages about my music. It's at
http://latestonpaul.blogspot.com
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for February 1, 2010
exclusive
The Death of J.D. Salinger
What the Townspeople in his Hometown Thought About Him
J.D. Salinger has died, at age 91, meaning he lived
in the tiny U.S. town of Cornish Flat, New Hampshire, in
seclusion for 57 years. By all accounts, he was as
reclusive in the end as when he was when
he first moved to town on January 1, 1953, back
when President Truman was still in the White House.
The author moved there around 17 months after the release
of his first and only full-length novel, “The Catcher in the
Rye,” at a time when he was “tremendously relieved that the
season for success of ‘The Catcher in The Rye’ is over,”
as he told the Saturday Review magazine in 1952. Little did
he know the season had just begun.
The townspeople of the Cornish Flat area grew
accustomed to him and usually left him alone to live
his day to day life with his wife, a quilt and
tapestry designer around half his age, in a house
near a covered bridge (how fitting it's a covered
bridge!) that leads to Vermont. (He moved down the
road to his current Cornish house after divorcing
his previous wife in 1967.)
Most people in the area do not talk about him,
but some do. Or at least they did in
2004, when I conducted the interviews
for this story, unpublished until now.
"People know who he is, yet he acts like nobody
knows who he is," says Lynn Caple, who runs the
nearby Plainfield General Store, where Salinger
and his wife occasionally used to stop in to buy the
New York Times and other items.
"Very straight-faced guy," says Caple. "I've only seen
him smile once. I've been here four years."
Other neighbors, like Jerry Burt of Plainfield, have
actually been to his house, which he says is at the
end of a long driveway and atop a hill on hundreds
of acres owned by the author. "We would
go over to watch movies in his living room and have
dinner with him," says Burt, who claims he hasn't
seen the author since 1983.
"He's got a big living room with a deck that looks out
over the hills of Vermont, way up high, very private,"
he adds.
Burt recalls one dinner party at Salinger's house
twenty-some years ago at which Salinger, who is said
to enjoy health food, served meatloaf. "No Julia
Child," he says of Salinger's cuisine. And
the conversation was rarely literary. "He talked
about movies and the gardens and his children," he says.
The books Salinger usually talked about were not novels
but non-fiction works related to “health, being your own
health provider -- and gardening."
Of course, none of the guests dared to mention
“Catcher.”
"You'd never even think to do that if you were around
him," he says. "He'd just give you a look. He's a
very tall man and stern looking. You just know not
to do that. He'd probably show you the door and
say, 'Don't come in.'"
“He never talked about his work except to say he wrote
every morning faithfully,” he says. “And he said if I was
ever going to be a writer, I would have to do that.”
He also says Salinger had a big safe -- like a "bank
safe" -- where he kept his unpublished manuscripts. "I've
seen the safe, I've looked in it. And he told me that he kept
his unpublished [work] there....It's huge," says Burt. "You
could have a party in there."
At one get-together in the 1980s, Salinger screened Frank
Capra's 1937 film "Lost Horizon," about a group of people
who find a paradise called Shangrila tucked in a remote
corner of the Himalayans. "He liked all those old things,
those old silents, Charlie Chaplin," he says. (His
description of the Salinger party almost resembles the
scene in the 1950 movie “Sunset Boulevard” in which a
has-been screens old movies for friends in a remote house.)
Another neighbor, this one in Cornish, is much more
circumspect about what she says about Salinger and
takes great pains to defend him. “He has been a wonderful
neighbor,” says Joan Littlefield, who lives close to
him. “The minute we moved into the neighborhood, he
called and gave us his unlisted number and said,
‘We’re neighbors now.’”
Littlefield spontaneously defended the author against
some of the allegations in the memoir by Salinger’s
daughter Margaret A. Salinger, “Dream Catcher: A Memoir”
(2000). That book claimed, among other things, that
Salinger was involved in offbeat health and spiritual
practices, such as drinking urine and Scientology.
“This thing about telling him to drink his own urine
or something that I heard that somebody wrote about,”
said Littlefield. “...I think that if any of these
reporters did some research into Ayurvedic medicine
or the medicine of China or the Far East, they would
probably find out that the medicine people over
there recommend this sort of thing.” (Ayurvedic
medicine provides alternative health treatments -- including
urine drinking -- that have origins in ancient
India.)
Littlefield defends Salinger on smaller issues, too.
“Absolutely ridiculous things have been written about
him, like that they had two Doberman attack dogs,”
she says. “For Pete’s sake, they had two little
Italian hounds of some kind that looked like Dobermans,
and they were skinny and tiny as toothpicks!”
(My request for an interview with Salinger went
unanswered over the years, though I did speak
with his wife, who was not at all pleased that I was
writing this story.)
The author was, of course, famous for not granting
interviews and gave only around six interviews,
some of them brief and grudging, to reporters since
the release of “Catcher."
Most other people in the area saw Salinger only when
he was out in public, if at all. “He’s great looking for his
age,” says photographer and area resident Medora Hebert,
who has spotted him twice. “He’s dapper, very trim.”
“It was a long time before I could actually recognize him
because he looked so ordinary,” says Ann Stebbens Cioffi,
the daughter of the late owner of the Dartmouth Bookstore,
Phoebe Storrs Stebbens.
But Salinger himself once said that he thinks others don’t
see him as ordinary. "I'm known as a strange, aloof kind
of man," Salinger told the New York Times in 1974. And
some agree with him: "He's a very strange dude," says
Hanover resident Harry Nelson. Burt agrees: “He had a
weird sense of humor,” he says.
What emerges as much as anything is that the
author was a serious book lover and serial browser
who shopped at places ranging from Borders Books to
the Dartmouth Bookstore. “He was uninterrupted
during his hour or two of browsing for books,” says
a person answering the phone at Encore! Books in West
Lebanon, New Hampshire, describing his own Salinger
sighting.
“He does come in reasonably frequently,” says someone
who answered the phone at the Dartmouth Bookstore in
Hanover, New Hampshire, around 20 miles north of Cornish.
“He’s a pretty good customer here but doesn’t really
say anything to us.”
"He frequented the Dartmouth bookstore," says an
employee of Borders Books Music & Cafe in West Lebanon.
"I talked to people who worked over there one time;
they say he wasn't very nice, wasn't the most cordial
person. So I kind of keep my eye out for him
here, go my own way."
Adds Medora Hebert, "One of my daughter's friends
was a cashier at the Dartmouth Bookstore. And they warned
him, 'If J.D. Salinger comes in, don't talk to him,
don't acknowledge him.'"
And there had been many reports of Salinger
browsing the stacks at the Dartmouth College
library. “I’ve talked with people who have met
him in the stacks and whatnot,” says Thomas
Sleigh, an English professor at Dartmouth College.
Salinger was also said to enjoy the annual Five-Colleges
Book Sale at the Hanover High School gym, a springtime
sale of used and antiquarian books that raises money
for scholarships.
In Hanover, as in Cornish, he kept to himself. "My
wife [says] Salinger always said hello to Phoebe
and no one else," says Nelson, referring to Phoebe
Storrs Stebbens, who was a year older than
Salinger (and incidentally shares the same first
name as a major character in “Catcher”).
And area booksellers say Salinger’s books are
displayed just as prominently as they would be
if he were not a local.
Then again, Salinger didn't have many books to
display, since he published only three besides
“Catcher,” all compilations of short stories or
novellas that had been previously published, mostly
in The New Yorker magazine. His last book,
“Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and
Seymour, An Introduction,” was released in
January 1963. His previous books were the bestsellers
“Franny and Zooey” (1961) and “Nine Stories” (1953).
By the way, The New Yorker magazine actually
rejected "The Catcher in the Rye" when Salinger
submitted it as a short story/novella that was
substantially similar to the novel, according to
Paul Alexander's book "Salinger: A Biography."
In 1997, he had planned to publish a fifth book,
essentially a re-release of his last published
work, “Hapworth 16, 1924,” which appeared in The
New Yorker in June 1965. The book’s publication
was ultimately scuttled.
But “Catcher” eclipses everything else he’s
done -- by a mile. It’s one of the most
influential 20th century American novels, a
coming-of-age odyssey about high school student
Holden Caulfield, who wanders around New York
after being kicked out of prep school. And
it's arguably the first novel to convincingly capture
the voice of the modern, alienated, American
teenager.
"Catcher" was successful in its initial run but not
nearly as successful as it would become by the end
of the 1950s, when it started to turn into a
freakish cult phenomenon. To date, it has
sold more than 60 million copies worldwide and
continues to sell hundreds of thousands more each year.
Over the decades, the book has appealed to a wide
range of readers that even includes certified
wackos (John Lennon’s killer had a copy on him
when he was captured). So it’s not surprising that
Salinger had to fend off obsessive
fans even at his private Shangrila in Cornish
Flat, which has a population of under 2,000.
“People approach him a lot,” says Burt. “And they
stole clothes off his clothesline. They stole his
socks, underwear, t-shirts. And they’d come up on
his deck. It’s a huge picture window that
goes across the front of the house looking out to
Vermont...And he said he’d get up and open the
drapes and people would be standing there looking in.
It really pissed him off.”
And there was also a much publicized scuffle outside the
Purity Supreme grocery store (which he used to jokingly
call “the Puberty Supreme,” according to two biographies)
in 1988, in which Salinger reportedly mixed it up with
a couple photographers who tried to take his picture.
But for the most part, people in the area didin't bother
him.
“People in Cornish are quite protective of him,” says
Cioffi. “I can’t think of anyone who will tell you
a word about Salinger,” says a woman who answered
the phone at the Hannaford Supermarket in Claremont.
Apparently, Cornish is the perfect place to go if you
vant to be alone. “This is also a part of the country
where [writer Aleksandr] Solzhenitsyn lived in his
enclave -- and his kids went to public
schools,” says Bob Grey of the Northshire Bookstore
in faraway Manchester Center, Vermont, referring to
the Nobel laureate’s former home in Cavendish,
Vermont, which is around 20 miles from Cornish.
“It’s the kind of place where, if you’re going to move
to be left alone, it’s not a bad place to be.”
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 30 - 31, 2010
It's official: my song "Love's The Heaven You Can't Reach"
is the song of mine that (lately) is most ripped-off by other
songwriters. I wrote the song in 2008 and it first got
radio airplay some weeks alter (for which I'm grateful! My spiel
here, by the way, is not at all directed at the great radio people
who have played my stuff, and I hope they continue to play it).
Currently you can hear the song for free on MySpace here:
http://www.myspace.com/paulioriosongs
Look, I don't wanna be a spoilsport and name names (which I'm
not gonna do). But hey, I'm the small fish here. And when
better-known musicians steal one of my ideas, it devalues my
original tune. Someone who is more affluent than I am ends
up making money off of my idea without compensating me. And I
don't know how you call that fair.
As I said, I ain't naming names but the most prominent people
who have ripped that song off are: a late night TV talk show host
and his house band (stealing it so flagrantly that I could probably sue
them, but I won't); and a singer-songwriter I admire, who merely took
my idea and modified the song's main line. (Even one of my old
friends is sort of trying to rip the song off retroactivbely,
trying to make it look like one of his own old songs was
kind of about the same theme (when in fact his own song had
nothing to do with the theme of love-being-out-of-reach and
was merely a psychedelic tableau).)
There are other songs of mine that have been nicked by other
recording artists in recent years (I'm not going to go through
the litany, but suffice it say that the idea for my
2000 song "Wait for Girls" was stolen by (you can guess
that one!) and my 2008 song "Bang, Bang, Shoot, Shoot" was ripped
of by (I bet you can guess that one, too). I generally post
my songs online as I write them so that people can enjoy
'em, but I might have to rethink giving out cyber-freebies
in the future. I mean, my music site is apparently becoming
a backwater where some musicians-on-deadline feel they
can easily steal an idea or two.
Three reasons songwriters and performers shouldn't steal
from my songwriting catalog are: 1) I have a good attorney,
and if anyone crosses the line and lifts a substantial
part of one of my songs, that person will be sued; 2) if anyone
steals one of my songs but cleverly does so in a way that
is just outside the boundary of formal copyright violation,
I'll merely publicize the theft on this website and
elsewhere, and you'll have the reputation you deserve; 3) it's
not fair.
Here's an idea: next time a performer likes one of my songs,
write to me at pliorio@aol.com and arrange for permission
and payment to use it. What a concept!
Thankfully, I have had a longstanding habit of
sending my songs to myself in an email shortly after
I've written them (I've been doing this via email since '97). Hence, I
know exactly when I came up with almost all of
my songs. And my email and hard drive say: I finished
"Love's The Heaven" on August 9, 2008, at around 9:30 AM.
(Studio version is from an August 19, 2008.) For anyone
interested, here's the top of the email I sent to myself:
The song is about my belief that we fall in
love with those who are just out of reach,
probably because they are just out of reach,
and (absent first-hand contact with the person)
we tend to imagine that she (or he) is heaven.
* * * * *
Exposing an Apocryphal Story
One of the great things about blogs is you can
address persistent nasty rumors or false stories
about yourself (or others) in a way that one never
could before the invention of the Internet.
So I'd like to clear up one particular false and irritating
story about me that I've heard echoed over the years.
In 1987, when I was a writer/reporter for a music trade
magazine in New York, I struck up a conversation with a
publicist who had recently been fired from her job. She
seemed to be unusually loquacious, which might have been
motivated by the fact that she trying to get me to say
something embarrassing that she could later quote (I think
she was pissed about something I had written about one
of the artists she represented).
Anyway, the talk turned to my schedule for that evening. In
those days I would regularly attend a couple concerts a
night -- a night -- in between attending an industry party
or conducting an interview. Very busy sked in those days.
That night there were around two concerts and another event
I had to cover in Manhattan, where I was based. And that
meant I had to miss a big David Bowie concert out in New
Jersey that night. (That particular Bowie tour had already
been reviewed by the L.A. bureau of my magazine some time
earlier, so (for obvious reasons) I wasn't going to cover it.) But
this publicist hooked on to the fact that I wasn't attending
the Bowie show. Why not?, she asked. And I explained that
the magazine had already covered his tour -- and besides, I
joked, it was going to rain and I might melt.
Admittedly, not a good joke. But a joke nonetheless.
Ever since then, a willfully distorted version of that story has
gotten around in order to make me look like 'Paul's-not-a-hardy-reporter,
he can't even brave a rainstorm.'
Well, excuuuuuse me! For the record, I've covered stories during
bomb threats, death threats, blizzards and earthquakes.
Besides reporting on an unsolved murder that almost cost me my
life, and venturing alone behind the Iron Curtain during
the Cold War, I've also braved more ordinary inclement elements on
the job (like getting a bad case of clinical frostbite while
reporting "Choosing My Religion" for Details magazine in
late December 1993, as I had to walk around from church to church
in Manhattan when it was 30 below zero. And, by the way,
I'd gladly get frostbite again to do a story as humorous
as that; thanks to the people who were at Details then
who understood what I was doing and let me do it!)
Twenty-three years later, I can finally put an end to a
distorted little story that misleads people about who
I am.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 27 - 28, 2010
Underwear Bomber's Islamic Group Once Posted Pro-Jihadist Writings
Muslim Organization More Extremist Than First Thought
Before he decided to become an international underwear model -- burned
in his first turn in the spotlight, alas -- Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was an
Islamic top banana at University College London (UCL). Elected president --
president -- of the college's Islamic Society in 2006, he ran the
organization until 2007, even organizing an extravagant week-long
conference on the war on terror at one point.
Today, of course, he stands accused of trying to blow up a plane that had
nearly 300 passengers on it -- and of doing so in the name of Islam.
In the wake of the attempted bombing, there has been a widespread
perception that UCL's Islamic Society was a moderate Muslim
group devoted almost solely to humanitarian causes, academic issues
and charity.
But this reporter has uncovered postings on the Islamic Society's website
that contradict that impression and show the group has posted
pro-jihadist commentary over the years. In 1999 and thereafter, the
Society posted an editorial advocating religious warfare, leading
with this unambiguous line: "With respect to Jihad, O my brother, in
this time and before this time it is fard ayn." (The phrase "fard ayn" means
individual duty and obligation. )
Elsewhere, the author -- identified as "Al-Albaanee" -- advocates driving
Israel "into the sea." "For here we have neighbouring us, the Jews who
have occupied Palestine, and not a single Islamic country has moved
to establish the obligation of making Jihad with them, and evicting
them and throwing them in the sea...," he writes on the site of the
group that Abdulmutallab once ran.
This sort of extremism is consistent with reports from The Guardian
newspaper and others that fundamentalist Muslims (and Christians) at
University College London have been virtually insisting that professors treat
religious myth as if it were scientific fact and on the same
level as scientific explanation.
As The Guardian reported in 2006, noting that both
Muslim and Christian students were advocating the teaching of
creationism in science classes: "There is an insidious and growing problem,"
said Professor [Steve] Jones, of University College London. "It's a step back
from rationality. They (the creationists) don't have a problem with science,
they have a problem with argument. And irrationality is a very infectious
disease as we see from the United States."
Of course, the Islamic Society's site has also published material
on many other subjects over the years, ranging from
restaurant guides for Muslims and information on where to go for Happy
Hour after Friday prayers to explanations of why women are
deprived of rights under Islamic law.
Interestingly, the postings during Abdulmutallab's tenure seem to emphasize
a Lonely Guyish pre-occupation with social activities. (Even a
charity walk for earthquake victims is (almost callously) billed as
"a great excuse to have a fun day out with sisters to see
the famous sites of London..." And the site abruptly juxtaposes an
announcement about the deaths of two colleagues with a notice
about a Paintball event.)
Here are some excerpts from UCL's Islamic Society website during
Abdulmutallab's tenure and before. (All punctuation and spelling is
exactly as it appears on the site; some of the material quoted here
was posted directly on the site, some was linked to it.)
"With respect to Jihad, O my brother, in this time and before this time it is fard ayn."
(The phrase "fard ayn" means individual duty and obligation. ) (titled: "Al-Albaanee on Jihaad," '99)
-- "Brothers: Happy Hour after Jumu'ah [Friday prayers] in Conference room, 2nd Floor
Bloomsbury." (main website, 2004 and beyond)
-- "For here we have neighbouring us, the Jews who have occupied Palestine, and
not a single Islamic country has moved to establish the obligation of making Jihad with
them, and evicting them and throwing them in the sea..." (titled: "Al-Albaanee on Jihaad," '99)
-- "Always keep in mind the reason we are here studying, and remember that every
action we perform should be for Allah." (main website, 2004 and beyond)
-- "It is obligatory upon the father when [his daughter] reaches the age of nine or greater
that he asks for her consent [before marrying her off]."
("Fataawa (Legal rulings) for women," '01, also posted on Univ. of Essex Islamic Society site)
-- "Any woman who perfumes herself and passes by some people that they smell her scent,
then she is an...adulteress." (from "The Obligatory Conditions For An Islamic Hijab," with the
quote attributed this way: "On the authority of Ad'Diya Al-Maqdisi, the prophet (pbuh) said...", '01)
-- "Brothers please do not use the toilets in the Henry Morley Building, these are for
SISTERS ONLY" (main website, mid-Oughties)
\
-- "[Smoking] is most spread among the low-class immoral people. It reflects blind imitation o
f the non-Muslims. It is mostly consumed in bars, discos, casinos, and other: places of sin. A
smoker may beg or steal if he does not have the money to buy cigarettes. He is ill-mannered
with his friends and family, especially when he misses taking his necessary "dose" at the usual time."
. ("Smoking: A Social Poison," by Muhammad al-Jibaly, posted in '01)
-- "Cut the moustaches and grow your beards. Be different from the Magians (followers of a religion
that dominated in Persia)."
("Shaving the Beard: A Modern Effeminacy," by Abu`Abdillah Muhammad al-Jibaly, posted in '01)
-- "The fast is valid for any person who wakes up in a state of sexual defilement "
(from "The Rulings of Ramadaan: A Comprehensive Guideline, adapted from the Hudaa magazine; posted in 2001.)
-- "Smoking refers to the action of lighting a cigarette, a pipe, a cigar...The object is then
sucked on with the lips to extract smoke...'Smoking' is now used to refer to the action
of producing this smoke in English, Arabic, and other languages."
("Smoking: A Social Poison," by Muhammad al-Jibaly,posted in '01)
-- "Ankaboot...A MUST try restaurant for every muslim." (main website, 2004 and beyond)
-- "The beard is defined as the hair which grows on the cheeks and the jaws."
("Shaving the Beard: A Modern Effeminacy," by Abu`Abdillah Muhammad al-Jibaly, posted in '01)
-- "Downloadable Quran recitations from around 50 choices of Sheikhs." (main website, mid-Oughties)
-- "Dua [Prayer] for Distress:...Do not leave me in charge of my affairs even for a blink of
an eye..."(main website, mid-Oughties)
-- "Dua [Prayer] After Studying: "Oh Allah! I entrust you with what I have read and have
studied..."(main website, mid-Oughties)
-- "You are a former British heavyweight boxer. The women are chasing after you, you've got
the muscles, you've got the money and the cars, you're making the back page headlines.
Why turn around and become Muslim?" (main website, 2006)
-- "Stairway to Heaven - Cruciform Lectrue Theatre 2...A solo tab for Led Zeppelin's
guitar hit? Nope, think again! This is an uplifting talk by Abu Aaliyah...Come down
and let's take the stairway to Heaven." (main website, 2006)
-- "thank Allah for a successful year, and pray that this coming year will follow in similar vain [sic]".
(main website, posted '01)
-- "He who raises his hands during the prayer, there is no prayer for him."
("The Prophet's Prayer," by Shaykh Muhammad Naasir-ud-deen al-Albaanim posted in '01.)
-- "Are the rulings for wiping the same for women as for men? Or is there a difference?"
("Rulings regarding wiping over the socks," by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih 'Aal-Uthaymeen, posted in 01)
-- "I was suffering from haemorrhoids (piles), so I asked the Messenger of Allaah...and he
said, Pray standing; if you are not able, then sitting down; if you are not able to do so,
then pray lying down." ("The Prophet's Prayer," by Shaykh Muhammad Naasir-ud-deen al-Albaanim posted in '01.)
-- "Anyone who ridicules any aspect of the religion of the Messenger of Allaah [saw],
or any of its rewards or punishments, becomes an unbeleiver."
("Ten Things Which Nullify Ones Islaam," undated, no author credited, on main site.)
-- "The beard is a major distinction between men and women. Shaving it removes
this distinction, and is thus a means of imitating women."
("Shaving the Beard: A Modern Effeminacy," by Abu`Abdillah Muhammad al-Jibaly, posted in '01)
-- "More than 5,000 people were killed, and thousands injured by the earthquake
that struck Yogyakarta, South Central Java [in[ 2006....UCLU Islamic Society has
organized a sponsored a walk around central London to raise money for this
deperate cause. This is a great excuse to have a fun day out with sisters to see
the famous sites of London..." (main website, 2006)
The new logo of University College London's Islamic Society?[all writing, reporting, research by Paul Iorio. Graphic by Paul Iorio
based on UCL ISOC logo and Kurt Westergaard drawing.]
* * * *
essay
A Fresh Look at Islam, Circa 2010
In the spirit of Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame,"
in which Murrow both reported his findings and provided
commentary on his subject, here is what my reportage
tells me about Islam...
When it comes to Islam, I'm with the late Norman Mailer.
Mailer once appeared on Charlie Rose and, as usual, made
clear and audacious sense, saying -- as Rose tried to
shush and sanitize him -- that the whole posture of Islam
is completely wrong, that to have your ass in the air
and your nose on a floor is such a negation of all
the beauty of existence.
It was liberating to hear Mailer, a leftist and progressive,
say such a thing flat out, not caring what the consequences
were, speaking without fear or favor, the way good
journalists do.
I had seen Mailer in person earlier, shortly after the fatwa
against Salman Rushdie in February 1989. And I was impressed,
even energized by his bravery in the face of a bomb
threat that temporarily emptied the pro-Rushie rally at
the Manhattan venue where he was speaking. Quoting Jean Genet,
Mailer addressed the person who made the threat: "Blow out your farts."
But getting back to Mailer's opinion of Islam, I have to admit
that the posture of Christians and Jews to the world -- on their
knees, with their eyes closed -- is no better. Why not celebrate
and worship the world by standing upright in a forest,
or in a great city, amidst a beautiful landscape, or enjoying
sex face-to-face with another person? Why negate all the
beauty out there by having your face on the floor or your
knees on the ground. (They have a song about pants on the
ground; how about a tune about how you look with your
nose on the floor?)
I used to think there was a larger centrist faction of
Islam in the world, but my recent research has taught me
that faction is smaller than I thought. In researching the
case of the underwear bomber, I read the past editions of
the University College London's Islamic Society website (UCL ISOC)
and realized that even there -- where you would expect a more liberal
and secular Muslim viewpoint -- it was virtually the 15th century.
On the UCL ISOC site were postings (that I've
compiled above) advocating jihad, giving advice about forced
marriages to girls who are nine years old and older, etc.
Backward stuff. And this is what passes for progressive
academic Islam in 2010? (Wanna see for yourself how
backward some of these postings are? Here's one -- posted
on the websites of at least two academic Islamic
Societies, where one would expect (in vain) a more
modern version of Islam. Read for yourself (if you can
stomach it) here how they defend "forced marriages"
to girls as young as nine years old: http://womensrightsissues.blogspot.com.)
I can only conclude that the difference between moderate
Islam and orthodox Islam is that the former is only 150 years
behind the times (before Darwin, the abolition of slavery,
women's rights, etc.) and the latter is around 500 years
behind the times (even reaching back before Galileo and Copernicus).
According to newspaper reports, Muslim and Christian
fundamentalist students in the U.K are bringing
their religious irrationalism into the classroom,
posing a problem for professors. For example,
students who are Christian and Muslim literalists are
answering science questions on exams with religious
answers -- and are rightly being flunked as a result.
On science exams, students are asked questions like:
The earth is around _______ years old.
The correct answer, of course, is 4.5 billion years old.
But devout Muslim students are answering:
"5,000 years old, according to Allah (pbuh)."
A professor would of course have to mark that answer wrong.
The professor might also suggest that the student save his religious
beliefs for religion courses, and apply his scientific knowledge in
science classes.
After all, you don't teach astrology in astronomy class in the
name of diversity. (You might however include a (brief)
discussion of astrology in a course about, say, Hindu folk
traditions.) And one wouldn't teach that the earth-is-flat
is an alternative scientific theory that some believe is true.
Problem is, many fundamentalists, both Christian and Muslim,
come to college expecting a church or mosque, not a classroom.
They expect a preacher, not a teacher. They want dogma,
not verifiable knowledge or dialectic.
And isn't there an implicit intimidation factor involved
when a student answers "the earth is 5,000 years old,
according to Allah (pbuh)," an answer that is hostile to
what the professor is teaching and doing? Will
intimidation tactics cause more than a couple professors to, maybe,
tamp down their teachings of Darwin or Copernicus? Isn't this
a dangerous slippery slope?
First, the fanatics try to murder a novelist (Rushdie)
because they are offended by his novel. Then, they
murder a van Gogh because they are offended by his
film making. Then, they try to kill Kurt Westergaard
because they are offended by one of his cartoons. The
other week, in Malaysia, fundamentalists decided to
forbid non-Muslims from using the word "Allah." How long
before they start targeting professors who have the
nerve to teach that the earth is around 4.5 billion years old?
I must say, what a sensitive bunch, these religious fanatics.
Let me get this straight: these religulous souls are not the
least bit offended by burning people jumping to their deaths
from skyscrapers (see: 9/11) but they're suddenly reduced
to tears and anger over a mere cartoon.
Of course, Muslims (and Christians and Jews) have every right
to be offended by whatever they want to be offended by. Nobody
is saying they don't have the right to be offended by anything
or everything. What I am saying -- and emphatically -- is that
mass homicide is not the way to respond to being offended. Killing
is not only immoral and unacceptable in this context, but very
illegal, too. It's not a culturally protected practice or
defensible because of cultural relativism.
You see, when you're offended by something, you can respond
with lots of different tools. One tool is a boycott. Another tool
is civil disobedience. Another is picketing. Another is publishing
an essay in a newspaper (or on a blog).
But Muslim extremists, when offended, too often reach for only
one tool: homicide. They don't boycott Rushdie; they try to
kill him. They don't picket van Gogh, they murder him.
And that is precisely where the problem is with regard to
the Westergaard, Rushdie and van Gogh situations and
other similar ones. The problem is not that some Muslims are
somehow being offended or disrespected (everybody gets dissed
every now and then); the problem is the tool that the
devout use to respond to a perceived insult.
As I said before, Muslim extremists have the right to be
offended by whatever offends them. But they do not have
the right to get violent about it. An entire subculture,
it seems, needs anger management.
Let's not feed the sickness of religious literalists by
giving in to their irrationality. It truly is a slippery
slope. If they force us to ban a cartoon (or to self-censor),
then why not also ban (or discourage) non-Mulims from saying
"Allah"? It offends many of them, after all. And (using the
logic of the self-censors), why not encourage professors
to pass students who flunk tests because they have given
religious answers to scientific questions?
In most of the U.S. and in Western Europe, we try to let a
thousand flowers bloom. But absolutists want only their
own flowers to grow. And they want the flowers of others to
be replaced by their own flowers. They return our tolerance
and our attempts at diversity with no reciprocity.
Still, it's important to lead by example, to show Islam that
we don't silence voices that we disagree with. That's why it
was a correct decision by the Obama administration to grant
Swiss Islamist Tariq Ramadan a visa for entry into the U.S.
Though I disagree with Ramadan, and am even offended by
him a bit, I say, let him speak.
Now will you fundamentalists reciprocate and allow Kurt
Westergaard to express himself freely and live in peace?
If not, why won't you respect diversity and practice
reciprocity?
(By the way, I encourage questions, answers and comments
from my Muslim readers (and others) at pliorio@aol.com.)
* * * * *
Again, a few people are wondering about how I came up
with particular songs, namely "Hey There, Watcher,"
"You Know It Shows" and "If One Rainy Night."
I wrote "Hey There, Watcher" alone in my Berkeley, Calif.,
apartment one afternoon in August 2009. It came to me at
the end of a four or five hour solo jam session in which I
was coming up with riffs and ideas, and suddenly the
main chord progression of "Watcher" came flowing out.
I began singing whatever came into my head, which was
"Hey There, Roger," about a long-time pal, but then I
started thinking of that 1960s hit "I'm a Girl Watcher"
and changed it to "Hey There, Watcher," with lyrics
about an urban street tableau. That one eruipted very
quickly.
I wrote both "You Know It Shows" and "If One Rainy Night"
in the late fall of 1980 and early winter of 1981, while I
was living on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and working
for Delacorte Press. I penned and developed both songs
on the rooftop of the Beacon, 26 stories above NYC. "You Know
It Shows" has not changed a bit in the decades since I
wrote it. From the opening chords (influenced by a G.E. Smith
album I was listening to then) to the hook "and I'll show you why,"
the song has remained as I wrote it at the Beacon.
Even though I wrote it almost 30 years ago, I could probably
pin down the hour that I came up with"If One Rainy Night."
Because its genesis came after I watched a Dick Cavett
show in late '80 or early '81 on which Cavett said to a guest,
Oh, you protest too much!" That phrase stuck in my mind and
I immediately went to my guitar -- it must have been close to
midnight -- and wrote: "Don't protest too much/You'll give
yourself away/you still love that girl/no matter what you say."
And then I came up with the rest of the song, about an
off-and-on girlfriend I had at the time. That one also
hasn't changed at all in 30 years.
_
BE AWARE! An ex-friend from my long-ago high school days threw some money at my music career a few years ago and now appears to be
going around dishonestly trying to grab credit for little bits of a few
of my songs that he didn't have anything to do with writing. For
the record: he wrote exactly zero percent of my stuff.(By the way,
by "my songs," I'm referring to the more than one hundred songs
that I've posted on my website pauliorio.blogspot.com (plus every
song on the "About Myself" albums, and many other songs I've not
yet posted), all of which were written solely
by Paul Iorio [click here http://www.pauliorio.blogspot.com
While I'm appreciative of the person's financial backing, there never
was a deal to give him credit for material he didn't write. We've never
jammed together, much less written a song together. And, further,
his memory is fine, and so is mine; he's merely lying. Those who
know who I'm talking about: please don't let this person's lies go
unchallenged. It's irresponsible (and unfair to me) for people to
tolerate this guy's dishonesty. Anyone who lies (the way he appears
to be lying) needs psychotherapy. Guide him to that, please.
Problem is, this guy wanted to be a songwriter when
he was a teenager, but failed at it as an adult. Now he wants to
piggyback on my own late-breaking musical work.
I've thanked this person over the years for financially putting in motion my long-ago (now-shelved) "About Myself" album of '05; but, frankly, I never would have allowed him to invest his money in my music if I had known he would try to take credit for bits of material he had nothing to do with writing. As I've said before, every song on my site -- from its initial idea to its finished version and everything in between -- was written solely by me.
But I digress. Paul
___________________________
for January 22, 2010
Late Notes on the Remastered Beatles Albums
Things You Might Not Have Noticed
Wanna hear something on a Beatles album that you
almost certainly haven't noticed before? Check out
the recently remastered "Rubber Soul" album and
put on "Norwegian Wood." Listen to the part
right after John Lennon sings the cleverly
suggestive line, "She asked me to stay and she told
me to sit anywhere."
A couple seconds later you'll hear somebody cough -- yes,
somebody is heard coughing in the background -- as if
to underline the cleverness of the preceding line (the way
Warren Zevon sort of grunted after the great lyric
"His hair was perfect" on "Werewolves of London"). On
the previous edition of the CD, superfluous handclaps
covered up the cough.
There are lots of little discoveries like that on the
remastered mono Beatles albums, which were released last
fall (though I'm just now getting around to them).
The full impact of the mono remasters comes through only if
you're as familiar with the band's work as you are with
your own face (as I am) and if you're able to contrast
the new versions with the previous CDs. And then you can
hear how radically different some of the production is.
My main questions are: who made the final production
decisions about the remasters? Was it George Martin,
or the surviving Beatles, or a combination of both?
Would those decisions have been different if John Lennon
and George Harrison were still around? Would Harrison, for
example, have insisted that his sitar-playing on "Norwegian
Wood" be remixed at a volume level equal to Lennon's
vocal? Is Ringo's drumming given greater prominence
on certain tracks because he is still around to influence
the final decision?
I'm assuming that by "remastering" they mean remixing
as much as remastering. By that, I mean, for example,
making sure the French horn on "Penny Lane" (analog
track overdub #3, let's say) is recorded at a higher
volume for the new final master. Or seeing that the overdubbed
cowbell on "Drive My Car" (analog track #2, maybe) is
reduced in volume to near-inaudibility on the final
master. (I've read that the masters were "cleaned up,"
but doesn't "cleaned up" really mean remixed? Doesn't it
amount to a de facto remix if, for example, a cowbell is
reduced to inaudibility or a harpsichord is put in
higher relief?)
Whatever they did and whoever made the decisions, this
feels like a masterful restoration of a great painting
by Leonardo or Raphael. The remastering does not correct
errors in sound (thankfully) but restores what is already
there, putting all the elements in the best mix and balance.
Highlights are everywhere. (I've only listened to three
of the mono CDs so far, but here goes!) The harpsichord track on
"Fixing a Hole" is higher in the mix, creating brand
new textures and interplay. The bouzouki-like guitar playing
on "Girl" is now beautifully marbled into the sound. The second
orchestral cacophony on "A Day in the Life" sounds different
from the first cacophony, the former sounding like the
gathering of a swarm of locusts in the sky, the latter recalling
the acceleration of a powerful jet. Vocal harmonies on many
tracks are a cooler smoother blend (check out "In My Life"
and "You Won't See Me," for example).
The remastering also makes flaws more evident.
Yes, the blunt cowbell on "Drive My Car" is now
either gone or reduced in volume, a good thing.
But that means we can hear the very uncertain
tambourine playing (and I bet the cowbell
was used to blot out the flawed tambourine,
which was probably part of a track they
couldn't get rid of). There is overuse of
unison clapping on "With the Beatles" and
overuse of tambourine on "Rubber Soul." And
is there too much reverb on Lennon's guitar
on "I Wanna Be Your Man"? And I wonder whether
putting the harmonica higher in the mix -- maybe
even distorted, Little Walter-syle -- might
have elevated "Little Child"?
The remasters also provide a good excuse to relisten
to this stuff again, and the Beatles oeuvre just
gains gravity with time. Those who compare Lennon and
McCartney to Gilbert and Sullivan, underrating the Beatles
in a back-handed way, are way off. McCartney is more
like Irving Berlin or even Franz Schubert, though I'd be
hard-pressed to cite a Schubert melody as beautiful
as "Hey Jude" or "For No One." (And name
one Gilbert and Sullivan composition that comes
within fifty miles of even "Mother Nature's Son" or
"Golden Slumbers.")
I've said it before and will say it again: McCartney
is the world's greatest living composer. In any genre.
The magic of the Beatles is partly explained by the
fact that they came of age in the first full decade in which the
possibilities of what used to be called sound-on-sound (now called
overdubbing) were available to the human race. And they
were the first group with multiple brilliant composers
to fully benefit from overdubs.
Keep in mind that 90 years before "Sgt. Pepper," Thomas Edison
hadn't yet recorded sound for the first time. There might have been
95-year-old codgers in 1967 who had first-hand memories of the first
recording of sound and of the release of "Sgt. Pepper," that
massive triumph of the overdub.
I can't help but think of all the McCartneys and Lennons
of the 19th century and before who couldn't preserve
their musical inspirations on tape. Imagine all the
"Hey Jude"s and "If I Fell"s that were lost because
the composer didn't know musical notation and couldn't
save his or her ideas. Remember: the greatest pop
composers of the last 75 years, from Berlin to Dylan,
couldn't read or notate music -- and neither could
McCartney and Lennon.
Paradoxically, tape recorders (and higher tech recording equipment)
have brought composers closer to more low-tech natural writing. What I
mean is: a melody comes into your head as you hike through
the hills; you hum or sing the melody into a tape recorder.
Prior to the 20th century, that melody would have disappeared
into the air like smoke (unless you knew notation). Thanks
to recording devices, the magnificent melodies of "Eleanor
Rigby" and "In My Life" survive forever. And because of
overdubs, we have "A Day in the Life" and "Strawberry
Fields Forever" -- and not just from the more formal
sorts of composers who happen to know notation.
But getting back to my point about McCartney's
place in the pantheon of composers. Perhaps
comparisons to even Mozart aren't out of line.
Look at the greatest opera of all time, Mozart's
"Don Giovanni." If you see it fresh, it's just a
series of two and three minute songs (they call 'em
"arias"), inspired discrete bits unified, sometimes
tenuously, by lyrics (they call it a "libretto")
written by a guy named Da Ponte (so why isn't it
called Mozart/Da Ponte's "Don Giovanni"?).
So hail the two-minute song! Even Mozart did.
Were Da Ponte's "lyrics" of sexual braggadocio really
superior to the lyrics of "A Day in the Life" or
"Eleanor Rigby"? Were Mozart's best melodies ("Gio vinette
che fate...," "la ci darem la mano...," etc.) greater
than the Beatles's best, or were they just as great?
That's up to future generations to decide. The oldest
of Lennon and McCartney's songs were written only
fifty years or so ago. But every indication says
they'll last for centuries.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 21, 2010
My list of the top ten films of 2009 (below) won't be complete
until I see "Me and Orson Welles," which I haven't had a chance
to catch yet. Everyone tells me it's excellent. By the way,
I saw Claire Danes, who stars in the film, on Letterman
last night and couldn't help but think she seems to get more
desirable with the years. Reminds me of a great cathedral.
All the more reason to see "Welles."
* * * *
Watched "Up" again last night and enjoyed it even more
the second time. It may be the most moving animated
feature ever made.
* * * *
Woody Guthrie's "This Land" seems to be the most ubiquitous
folk song of 2009/10. It's at the end of the docu "Food, Inc.,"
opens "Up in the Air," and was covered at a few concerts I've
attended in recent months (Adam Duritz sang it at the Greek
Theater in Berkeley, Calif., last summer; Tom Morello sang it at
the Hardly Strictly fest in San Francisco last October). I wonder
when people are going to petition to make it our national
anthem.
* * * *
Google should be praised for refusing to censor
Internet search results in China. Bravo. All the more
reason to use Google instead of Bing.
* * * *
Looking forward to the new graphic novel by Daniel Clowes,
"Wilson," due in May. I'm told this is completely
new material that has never been serialized in "Eightball."
* * * *
Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats, whose exhibitions are
almost always fascinating and novel, is about to unveil
his latest work, this time in NYC: a movie theater for
house plants, a cinema where "house plants can watch
foreign travel documentaries." Read more
about it at www.artcurrents.org.
* * * *
Here's a cartoon I recently came up with:
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 19, 2010
No, the Daily Digression is not going 3-D...
* * * *
Many thanks to Hollow Earth Radio in Seattle for playing
one of my new songs, "I Was Young (Until Fairly Recently),"
and for writing about it on its website a week or so ago. If
you haven't heard Hollow Earth, you're in for a treat;
here's a link to their site: http://www.hollowearthradio.org
And here's what they (very generously) wrote about
my new song:
And thanks -- again -- to Marshall at KALX for playing my
new song "Something in the Sky" a few weeks ago.
(His show, The Next Big Thing, always features great
music by obscure artists, and last night's NBT
was no exception: he played some amazing stuff by
a new band called For Fear the Hearts of Men are
Failing. I might even check out their upcoming show
at the Super Secret Circus in Berkeley, Calif.)
Also, thanks to the bloggers who have been enjoying my
songs and writing about them! Recently a blogger from
Bristol in the U.K. wrote this very nice review of my '09
song "Kim Jong-il":
Wanna hear my latest batch of songs? Here's a link:
* * *
* * * * *
Things are so bad at NBC that there are rumors that Haitians
are now texting donations to Jeff Zucker.
But seriously....Zucker did appear on Charlie Rose last night
and actually insisted to Rose -- and he was emphatic about
this -- that the situation at NBC was not as bad as what
was happening in Haiti. Which I'm sure reassures everyone
at the network.
One of the things (that nobody has brought up) that contributed
to the Leno-O'Brien imbroglio is that NBC abandoned the
practice of having guest hosts on the Tonight Show after
Johnny Carson's tenure. The guest host idea worked so well
under Carson, allowing everybody to see who was most
successful in the Tonight format, who filled the chair --
and soon NBC had more than a couple contenders who
could sub well. And with repeat guest hostings, you could
even become acclimated to the replacement, almost
preferring him or her to Carson.
Whatever happens -- and nobody is bringing this up either -- Leno
is near retirement anyway and -- as funny as he is -- is not
the future of late night (or prime time) television. NBC is now in the
process of reinstating a host (Leno) who it will have
to replace (yet again) within five years, probably within three.
So perhaps NBC should stop being so short-sighted and
cut to the chase: get rid of both Leno and O'Brien,
and then immediately and decisively hire Jon Stewart as
the new host of Tonight. Make him an offer he can't refuse
(to coin a phrase).
Meanwhile, I feel sorry for Conan. In television history
he goes down as the first failed host of The Tonight Show
since the dawn of television. What worked at 12:35 didn't
work at 11:35. NBC is letting him go so easily because it
now knows what it didn't know in early '09: Conan doesn't
work in the 11:35 slot. So let Fox have him, NBC thinks;
why would he work any better there? Viewers attracted
to quirky and less mainstream late night humor will tune
into Letterman, who does it better than Conan.
If O'Brien had been allowed to guest host Tonight several
times over several years, everyone would have seen it
was a bad fit. As it turns out, "Late Night" was
his destination, not his stepping stone.
By the way, I predict...Conan will grow a beard in the
near future.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- OK. folks, I posted that joke (above) about
Jeff Zucker getting charity from Haitians at
8:45am (PT) on January 19, 2010. Let's see
how long it takes before someone rips it off
without crediting me!
___________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 17, 2009
.
[the story I posted on today's Digression is generating unusual interest; I am temporarily taking it down from the site pending discussions with people who are interested in it.]
____________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 13, 2009
Still haven't seen "Crazy Heart," "Me and Orson Welles,"
"A Serious Man" or "Star Trek," so this list might
still change. For now, here's my top ten of '09:
The Ten Best Films of 2009
1. Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds"
(Number one only because the first twenty
minutes stand as the greatest film making
by anyone last year -- and it's Tarantino's all-time best,
too. The rest of the film, unfortunately, not so much.)
2. Pete Docter's "Up"
(The vivid balloons alone are enough cause to fall
in love with this one.)
3. Lee Daniels's "Precious"
(Number three because it changed the way I view
people I pass on the street.)
4. Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story"
(Moore has been ahead of his time for some time, and history
proved him right last year. Here's his victory lap.)
5. "Nirvana Live at Reading"
(This never had a theatrical release but I'm
including it anyway because I enjoyed it immensely.)
6. Neill Blomkamp's "District 9"
(The imagery is startlingly original and
believable -- and it takes nothing from "Dances with Wolves.")
7. Michael Mann's "Public Enemies"
(Last summer in this space, I called this
a "symphony of violent light," and it is.)
8. Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker"
(It has everything a great movie
should have -- except well-drawn characters. Still, it's
better than every feature that I've ranked ninth or lower.)
9. Kenny Ortega's "This is It"
(This will take you by surprise. A terrific concert,
and inadvertently revealing about MJ, too.)
10. Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant!" I hesitate to put this on the list, and it'll
probably end up being replaced by "Crazy Heart" or one of the
others I haven't seen yet, but the first forty minutes are
fantastic. The last half is unwatchable.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 9, 2010
I finally got to see the movie "Up in the Air"
this afternoon, and here's my review:
Ivan Reitman's "Up in the Air"
It may well be the most overrated film of 2009.
This is a movie for people who are more impressed
with immaculate craft than with genuine expression or artistry.
It's so scrubbed and neat and scripted to within
an inch of its life that it makes me want to rent a
couple of untidy semi-improvised movies by John Cassavetes
or Robert Altman to counteract its effects.
And the film also presents a jarringly pre-9/11 vision
of air travel as a cozy and completely safe ride, with
almost no hint that jetliners are the flashpoint of a war being
waged against us by religious lunatics. (American
Airlines, featured prominently on screen here, is
(coincidentally, I'm sure) promoting that very point of view,
too! American Airlines wants to assure its passengers
that there hasn't been an attempted terrorist attack
on a U.S. jetliner since, uh, well...a few weeks ago!)
In the wake of the failed bombing over Detroit last
Christmas, this film seems like even more of a throwback.
(Yeah, I know the odds of a bomb blast are long.
But in this era, anxiety about such an attack accompanies
every single flight. In fact, it is the main fact of
air travel in the 21st century. None of that is on screen.)
It sometimes feels like a late-1990s dotcom-boom comedy,
despite its clever use of various 21st century tech gadgets.
And despite the downsizing theme, the film, oddly, doesn't
capture the spirit of this recession. In fact, sometimes
the firings feel like they're played for yucks by rich film
makers far removed from the nasty realities of the
job market. In that sense, Reitman's timing couldn't
be worse.
The tantrums and tears of the fired start to seem formulaic.
And the film doesn't truly capture the outrageous unfairness
in the marketplace. (Among the truths left out or
glossed over in this film: brilliant players are dismissed
while the untalented nephew of the boss gets to keep his job;
rich employees who are fired don't face any of the
financial trauma that fired poor employees do; corrupt
bosses who should have been dismissed remain to slander
the honest employees who have been downsized; the
truth does not always out in the workplace (never
forget: Jayson Blair came shockingly close to getting
away with his malfeasance and, if he had, probably would
be virtually running the paper right now, in a position to
smear the ethical people trying to expose him); very often,
a boss will write a letter-of-recommendation because
he or she fears the employee knows too much dirt
about him or the company; a letter-of-recommendation
is often withheld for petty or vindictive reasons
(hey, Jayson Blair wouldn't have written a LOR for
a subordinate who had (rightly) accused him of plagiarism);
employers break contracts whenever it is expedient for
them to do so; an employer will assure you your job is
safe on Thursday and fire you on Friday; if a
company wants to fire you because of, say, a merger,
it will first try numerous dirty tricks and set-ups
to besmirch your reputation, so that axing you
seems more defensible to other professionals; the pension
you were counting on may have disappeared, etc.).
If you want to see, without Reitman's corporate
gloss, how job loss really affects people, check
out Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story,"
"Sicko" and "Roger and Me," and watch the unemployed
get evicted on Christmas eve, watch them lose
their teeth, watch them die prematurely.
And this film shows almost none of the after-effects
of the firings, how the lives of the downsized play out.
Reitman misses a huge opportunity to ingenuously
weave their lives into Clooney's. (There could have been
a plot twist in which someone who Clooney fired ends
up becoming Clooney's boss, or a finale in which Clooney
himself is downsized and has to take a job working for
someone he once fired, or scenes in which one
of Clooney's victims targets him for revenge. A lot of
promising plot possibilities weren't explored.)
Then, suddenly, at the one hour mark, the downsizing theme
disappears and the flick becomes something like
"Rachel Getting Married," with an irrelevant and
unintegrated sub-plot about a wedding.
Don't get me wrong: I liked some of this, and Clooney
is generally fun to watch. But all told, "In the Air"
comes off like the airline food served in first class:
tasty in a bland sort of way, but overcooked, unmemorable
and without much nutritional value.
* * * * *
The other day I posted my list of the best films of
the past decade, but I neglected to include three
that I absolutely loved: Larry Charles's "Borat: Cultural
Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan"; Larry Charles's "Religulous";
Michael Moore's "Sicko"; and Paul Haggis's "Crash."
I've integrated the three films into the mix, expanding
my list to 19 films, and here it is:
The Nineteen Best Films of the Decade
1. Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic"
2. Roman Polanski's "The Pianist"
3. Rodrigo García's "Nine Lives"
4. Woody Allen's "Match Point"
5. Richard Linklater's "Before Sunset"
6. Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks"
7. Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler"
8. Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans"
9. Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds"
10. Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood"
11. Larry Charles's "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America
for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"
12. Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt"
13. Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men"
14. Larry Charles's "Religulous"
15. Michael Moore's "Sicko"
16. Paul Haggis's "Crash"
17. Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River"
18. Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale"
19. "Nirvana Live at Reading"
But I digress. Paul
_________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 5, 2010
The Fifteen Best Films of the Decade
With the decade done, the Oscars nearing and the
critics summing up the Oughties, I've
finally decided what the best films of the past
decade were. Here's my list:
1. Steven Soderbergh's "Traffic"
2. Roman Polanski's "The Pianist"
3. Rodrigo García's "Nine Lives"
4. Woody Allen's "Match Point"
5. Richard Linklater's "Before Sunset"
6. Woody Allen's "Small Time Crooks"
7. Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler"
8. Andrew Jarecki's "Capturing the Friedmans"
9. Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds"
10. Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood"
11. Alexander Payne's "About Schmidt"
12. Joel and Ethan Coen's "No Country for Old Men"
13. Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River"
14. Noah Baumbach's "The Squid and the Whale"
15. "Nirvana Live at Reading"
Coming soon: my best films of '09 list.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for January 4 - 5, 2010
I've just seen a few new movies and here're
my reviews:
Nancy Meyers's "It's Complicated"
This is a smart and funny -- sometimes very funny -- romantic
comedy that will make you laugh, tear up and become wiser
about the joys and pains of adulterous (and non-adulterous) affairs.
It's sort of like a late-Oughties variation on Woody Allen's
great comic love stories of the Eighties and Nineties, and it
succeeds in a way that will probably have audiences
coming back to theaters for seconds.
And Meryl Streep -- is there a more intelligently attractive
woman on the planet? -- is as great as ever, playing the
role of a divorced mom (having an affair with her ex) so
naturally and effortlessly that she'll likely be
nominated for a best actress Oscar.
The script and plot are very knowing about
relationships and their afterlives. When
Streep's character and her former husband (played
memorably by Alec Baldwin) re-unite, the
same patterns and cycles of their past start
to repeat themselves. And she soon discovers why
she wanted him in the first place and, ultimately, why
she left him.
And Steve Martin had me laughing out loud at several
points, particularly in the scene when he's stoned
on pot at a party and can't find a way to
control his laughter.
As a sidenote, the flick explores baby boomers's
relationship to marijuana more entertainingly than
any film since "American Beauty." (Like most boomers,
the characters here had a lot of fun smoking pot decades
ago but haven't touched the stuff since. Until a
magic joint arrives in their social circle. "I
don't know what they've done to pot in the last 30
years," says a very stoned and happy Streep.)
The movie is a good ride. And anyone with an appetite
for romantic comedy will come out of the theater
fully satisfied.
* * * * *
Ang Lee's "Taking Woodstock"
It's no wonder this movie flopped with both moviegoers
and many critics. It's -- what's the technical term
for it? -- awful.
Up until the one-hour mark, "Taking Woodstock" could easily
pass for a film about preparing for Bethel's outdoor LGBT
Film Festival rather than for the Woodstock rock fest (and
not because there's a mini-concert subplot).
Characters are more enthusiastic about a live Judy Garland
album than about any of the performers who actually
played at Woodstock -- and that's typical of Lee's
failure to authentically capture much of the true spirit
and zeitgeist of the era. (FYI, Garland wasn't really
a gay icon until years after her death.)
This is revisionist counter-culture history, sort of like
making a movie related to the Stonewall uprising of '69 that
focuses almost exclusively on, say, the drug-dealing
subculture at the periphery of that community. Or like
telling the story of the Stonewall riots from the
angle of Italian-Americans involved in the San Gennaro
festival in Little Italy -- with Stonewall seen as a struggle
against anti-Italian defamation.
Or like telling the story of Stonewall from the
angle of the feminist movement, emphasizing figures
like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan to the exclusion of
gay activists -- with Stonewall seen merely as part of the
overall struggle for women's liberation. Call it
"Taking Stonewall."
After all, Lee is not blending cultures
here -- that would have been admirable -- but
artificially superimposing his own
culture atop Woodstock, which, contrary to the
wishful distortion seen on screen here, had
virtually nothing to do with the gay rights movement.
In terms of Lee's own oeuvre, the director captured
the 1970s in "The Ice Storm" so much more realistically and
poignantly than he has evoked the Sixties here. In terms
of gay-themed cinema, "Taking Woodstock" makes "Milk"
seem like "Citizen Kane." (Hey, I know of only one
person who absolutely loves this film, and he's
also a fan of Charles Nelson Reilly's and has a bit of
a fetish for the mediocre.)
This flick ranks with "Pirate Radio" as one of the great
missed cinematic opportunities of the year -- and as one of
the worst films of '09 made from a promising premise.
But I digress. Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 29, 2009
Thanks to Marshall and KALX radio for playing
my new song "SOMETHING IN THE SKY" last night.
(I'm proud to say it was the Next Big Thing's
final song of '09!)
And I also love the fact that people are
connecting with a song whose chorus
I wrote completely unconsciously (the
chrous was running around my head, fully
formed, when I woke up one morning in
late October '09). That has happened several
times before in recent years, but it doesn't
occur often. (For the record, I wrote the rest
of the song awake!)
You can listen to "SOMETHING IN THE SKY" right
here for free: http://ioriopaul.vox.com
I must confess Marshall's show spurs me
to write more and better new songs than I
normally would. Hope I'm able to write new
stuff in 2010 that's right for the
NBT and for all the other great radio stations
that have aired my stuff. Happy new year!
Paul
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 28, 2009
Farther below are my film reviews of "Avatar," "The Blind Side,"
"Up," "Fantastic Mr. Fox" and other pictures.
But for now, let me show you some photos that I shot
in 1976 and haven't shown to anyone in decades.
* * * *
I Traveled Alone Behind the Iron Curtain During
When I traveled alone by local train behind the Iron Curtain
thirty-three years ago, I shot several pictures from the
train -- and developed them as slides, unfortunately. Because
they were slides, I haven't been able to share them with others
over the decades the way I would a set of prints.
Until now. The other day I found a way to convert the
slides to digital prints (and you can try this at home, too!).
Just scotch tape the slide next to a white light bulb and then
shoot the transparency with a digital camera, using the close-up
feature and with flash off. Then print out the digital
snaps. Voila!
Granted, the quality of the pictures would be considerably
better if I had a professional transfer the image from
slide to print, which I will do some day. But for now, you
can get a fair idea, via pictures, of what I went through
in my trek behind the Iron Curtain when I was a teenager.
I've since incorporated the pics into my story about
my journey, and you can read that here: ironcurtaintravels.blogspot.com/
But in this space, let me share several of the new photos
that I shot in 1976:
My trip began here in Florence, Italy, and here I am around the time of my trek.
* * * *
This is how downtown Belgrade, Yugoslavia, looked in '76 from my vantage point on the train (you can see the word "Beograd" on the building to the left). [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Deep behind the Iron Curtain, August 1976. Here is downtown
Sofia, Bulgaria, which I shot from my train (even though
Bulgarian soldiers warned me not to take pics). [photo by
Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Just before I crossed into Bulgaria, five
Serbian guys absolutely insisted that I take their
picture! This was shot in southern Serbia, south of
Belgrade, west of Bulgaria, east of Kosovo. [photo by
Paul Iorio.]
* * * *
After the gray Balkans, western Turkey came alive in
Technicolor. Bright yellow sunflowers stretched for what seemed
like miles in this part of Thrace, and here's one patch of
sunflowers, west of Istanbul. [photo by Paul Iorio.]
* * * *
A wooden neighborhood in Istanbul. [photo by Paul
Iorio] After I shot this photo, the man in this
picture in the street chased me with a stick,
apparently because my shot partly included a
veiled woman (she's at right).
In retrospect, I now see that the larger risks of my trip
came not behind the Iron Curtain but in Islam (not only
did that guy chase me with a stick, but another man
almost became violent when I didn’t bow and scrape
at Istanbul’s Pavilion of the Holy Mantle, where
the Muslim Prophet Muhammed’s hair and teeth are
on display).
But what's also interesting is the diversity within
an Islamic city like Istanbul. The same neighborhood
-- the Sultanahmet district -- that included this
poor wooden fundamentalist section also
included a far smarter neighborhood slightly to the
east, centered around the legendary Pudding Shop
(which, as many of you know, was not primarily
known for selling pudding in the swingin' Seventies,
if you know what I mean). There, more liberal
and secular Muslim hippies would listen to banned
music like Cem Karaca and talk about western rockers like
Clapton and the Beatles.
* * * *
Istanbul's Galata Bridge, over the Golden Horn, featuring
a staggering parade of diversity. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
* * * *
OK, how about a few more shots, these with nothing
to do with the Iron Curtain or Istanbul? Here goes:
The Palio horse race in Siena, Italy, from the front
row. I was so close to the track that clogs of dirt
from the horses hit me in the face. If I could have
transferred the slide better, you would see that the
blurriness creates a nice effect. [photo by Paul Iorio]
* * * *
Olympia, Greece, with sunrise streaming through the
ruins. (By the way, my trip to Greece was completely
separate from my Iron Curtain/Istanbul trek and
occurred three or four months later in 1976.)
Again, if I had been able to transfer
this from slide to print properly, you'd probably
appreciate this one more. [photo by Paul Iorio]
____________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 27 - 28, 2009
I've just seen a few new movies and
here're my reviews (posted below: reviews
of "Avatar," "Up" and "Fantastic Mr. Fox"):
James Cameron's "Avatar"
Overpraised, overpriced and unsatisfyingly
convoluted, James Cameron's "Avatar" is like
a film version of Roger Dean's cover art
for pompous 1970s albums by the prog band
Yes. Albums like "YesSongs" and "Tales from Topographic
Oceans" (see below). In fact, the resemblance to Yes
album art is so striking that one hopes Cameron
has paid him for his inspiration before Dean sues.
If you're into that sort of very detailed
fantasy stuff, gorge yourself here. But
if you're looking for something truly
original in a new sci-fi flick, go see
"District 9," which has a lot more wit,
a livelier imagination and more plausibility.
When "Avatar" is not busy imitating a
Yes album, it sort of resembles an
extraterrestrial version of "Dances
with Wolves," in that parts of its plot are about a
soldier going native and joining the army of an
enemy he is supposed to be fighting against
(even the blue skin of the aliens looks
like the face paint of Native American warriors).
Further, Cameron's anti-war allegory is trite,
obvious and heavyhanded.
As for the 3-D gimmick, it's now obvious, if it
wasn't before, that 3-D is not the future of
cinema or of anything else. It has cropped up
in almost every decade since the 1950s,
always pretending to be the new wave of cinema --
and flopping each time out. I have never been to
a 3-D movie in which the extra dimension added
anything except the feeling that I wanted
to take off the damn glasses and pop an
Advil for an oncoming headache.
Think for a moment: Can you imagine how tacky it would
have been had Stanley Kubrick turned "2001: A
Space Odyssey" into a 3-D feature? He
could have done it that way (and was probably
advised to do so by crass movie execs), but he didn't
need to do it in 3-D because his visuals were so
brilliant that they required no such enhancement.
That said, there are moments of visual magic
here (e.g., glimpsing, from Pandora, the planet that
Pandora orbits around; birds that look like
jellyfish in the sky; and mountains floating like clouds
over Pandora).
But the flaws are numerous, too: the dialogue sounds
written not spoken; the last half-hour is packed
with tedious battle scenes that look like
generic summer blockbuster action fare;
Sigourney Weaver's bossy persona is annoying and
not very interesting; Stephen Lang's character
is a cliche; etc.
All told, this is more a work of extravagance than
of imagination. And a few top critics should
explain their inexplicably excessive praise of this film.
Look familiar? Is it a Yes album cover or is it "Avatar"?
* * * *
Pete Docter's "Up"
Is "Up" the best movie of 2009? It may well be. At
the very least, the film includes the single cinematic
visual image of '09 (outside "Avatar") that is most likely to
resonate down the decades: thousands of vividly
multicolored balloons that lift a house across a
magical and amusing animated landscape.
It's the most beautiful collection of balloons I've ever
seen, onscreen or off, well worth the price of admission
just to see them. Like candy in the sky.
One of the most gorgeous creations in the history
of animated features.
I don't know if that makes it the best movie of 2009.
But keep in mind that this praise is coming from someone
who didn't like "Wall-E" at all (which, of course, was
also created by the folks at Pixar). "Up" has everything
"Wall-E" does not, particularly fully humanized cartoon
characters (and humanized animals) instead of automatons.
And what a bunch of characters! There's Russell the stowaway
kid, Kevin the bird, a dog who's the most adorable cartoon
canine since Huckleberry Hound and, of course, the main
character: codger Carl Fredricksen (voiced by Ed Asner),
a lovable grump reminiscent of both Asner and late
Spencer Tracy.
I wouldn't be surprised if, in future decades, scenes
from "Up" are considered as iconic and indelible as
classic moments from the "Wizard of Oz" and "E.T."
* * * *
Wes Anderson's "Fantastic Mr. Fox"
Not so fantastic.
The animation is clunky, stiff, not fluid at all. Most of
the time, it's like the director simply filmed a series of
stuffed dolls and teddy bears (a la Mr. Bill on SNL). Even
the best of the celebrity voices (Meryl Streep's) can't
save this, as the film weaves in and out (mostly in) of boring
material.
If you must see it, wait for the DVD and watch
only the good parts (and there are around three minutes
of 'em!) at the 63 and 30 minute marks, and at the end,
when the great Marshall Crenshaw's "Let Her Dance" plays.
(By the way, when is Crenshaw going to be inducted into
the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame?)
But I digress. Paul
____________________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 20 - 21, 2009
Just saw a few new flicks -- here're my reviews:
John Lee Hancock's "The Blind Side"
This is like a two-hour version of those soft focus,
warm glow dramatizations in television commercials for
long distance phone service, Hallmark cards
and the Seventh Day Adventists. You've surely seen
those ads, the ones where there's always
a manipulative, heartwarming scene of incredible
altruistic generosity, forgiveness or camaraderie,
a depiction of a thoroughly idealized, retouched
and unrealistic view of reality. As in
"reach out and touch someone." "Because your dreams
matter to us." Such ads are also seen during the
Sunday morning talk shows ("Night baseball?! That'll be
the day!") Or in corporate commercials
that reenact the moment when Pitney first met Bowes
at the polo grounds, or when Merrill met Lynch at
the friendly neighborhood pawn shop.
Watching "The Blind Side" is also, at times, like
watching Yuletide logs burn in the fireplace on tv.
Or like listening to Christian rock that tries too
hard to be bad.
And occasionally, the movie is like "Precious"-lite, very
light, with lotza cream and way too much sugar and sticky
molasses.
Meanwhile, Sandra Bullock, playing the main character, looks
and acts so much like Kathie Lee Gifford that I caught
myself wondering where Hoda was.
Yeah, it's all very heart-tugging that Bullock's character
takes in some poor homeless kid named Mike. But one has to
wonder why Mike seems to have none of the behavioral
problems or mal-adjustments associated with such a hard
scrabble background. He seems way too un-angry and
un-neurotic for someone subjected to a broken home,
abuse and abject poverty. I don't buy it. The film makers
seem to be glossing over the flaws and imperfections
that a character like Mike, coming from his background,
would surely have. (See "Precious" for a far more
realistic take on this.) True story or not, it doesn't
feel true here. (This is a feature not a documentary,
after all.) And Bullock even trusts him with her
kids -- with no supervision. (I don't know a
parent who would -- or should.)
To their credit, the film makers take some unpredictable
turns and keep your attention throughout. And it features
Bullock's most memorable performance to date, particularly
when she morphs into Sarah Palin later in the flick and
spouts dialogue that sounds like the lyrics
of a Gretchen Wilson song ("I'm in a prayer group with the D.A.,
I'm a member of the NRA, and I'm always packin'").
To be sure, the anti-racism of this movie is satisfying
and, obviously, very welcome. But this is 2009. One
has to wonder where these sorts of people -- the Mitt
Romney types, the white holy-roller suburbanites (aka,
the modern-day cultural equivalents to those who
opposed Martin Luther King back when) -- were in 1972
or 1962, when the civil rights movement really could
have used their help.
All told, this is the sort of thing the "Friday Night Lights"
TV series does so much better and more artfully. (There's
more truth in any two-minute scene featuring Buddy Garrity
(Brad Leland) on "FNL" than in the whole two hours of "Blind Side,"
whose secondary characters are mostly just smiley faces.)
And it left me with an appetite for a feature film based on the
new "FNL."
* * * *
"Nirvana Live at Reading"
This may be the most exciting movie I've seen this year, showing
as it does Nirvana in fullest bloom, performing a concert from
start to finish near the end of its "Nevermind" tour. Like
a dream concert. Just the great stuff from the second album
with very little of "In Utero," which, frankly, doesn't wear
so well today.
With just three players and a stack of amps, Nirvana had
as much force and power as Led Zeppelin and the Stones
in their primes, using basic elements more resourcefully
and magically than any band since the Ramones.
And the DVD shows a group already comfortably on rock's
Rushmore, though its breakthrough album had been
released mere months earlier. We're simultaneously
watching a band just after one of the most
breathtaking and unexpected rises in recent rock
history -- "Nevermind" was expected to sell around
50,000 copies and went on to move over 10 million -- but
also a group at the dawn of a sophomore slump. After around an
hour and ten minutes, Kurt is clearly out of musical ideas
and starts repeating himself (using "Polly"'s bridge for
"Dumb," recycling the "Teen Spirit" riff to lesser
effect, etc.).
The DVD also shows Dave Grohl was being truly
underutilized by Kurt; when they harmonize or trade
vocals on "Been a Son" and "Dumb," it sounds so
terrific that one wishes they had collaborated more than
they did (and as we've since discovered, they could
have written together, too). Grohl, who powers this
stuff beautifully, would have been forever known as
the Ginger Baker of grunge, had he not eclipsed
his own fame by forming the Foo Fighters (another
unlikely, thrilling ascent) and Them Crooked Vultures
(lightning strikes yet again!).
The highlights are everywhere; the opening chords of "In Bloom"
sound like spring itself bursting out; "Lounge Act" is
irresistible; "Sliver" is funny; "Smells
Like Teen Spirit" has a strange sort of inimitable power.
And it's sort of humorous that Kurt delegates the Jaggeresque
dancing onstage to a guy named Tony, who dances expressively through
most of the show (he seems to be especially enjoying himself
during "Lithium").
Up close, Cobain, who appears to be having some sort of
problem with his jaw on this night, seems not fragile but
sturdy, though deeply angry and deeply introverted, a lethal
combination, as we now know.
All told, one of the very best live rock concerts on
DVD by anyone.
* * * *
Werner Herzog's "Bad Lieutenant"
The best American cop flick since the underrated "We Own
The Night" (and what a great double bill that would make at a revival
house).
Nicolas Cage plays a hallucinating crooked cop in
post-Katrina New Orleans, where corruption permeates
the city like stifling Gulf humidity. Cage's
performance is audacious and over-the-top and
somewhat redolent of the acting in "Chinatown" in the
sense that one sees the character, not the actor,
sweating bullets and under stress. On the downside,
Cage is, repeatedly, in perfect make-up when he
is supposed to be sleep-deprived and in a cold sweat.
Love the ending in which Cage's misconduct and
criminality result in -- you guessed it -- a
promotion to captain. Happens in journalism, too.
This should be spun-off into a television series.
* * * *
"The Jackson 5ive" Cartoon TV Series
What with all the interest in Everything Michael Jackson these
days, it's surprising the "Jackson 5ive" cartoon
TV series of the 1970s hasn't been released on DVD yet. A couple
weeks ago I was able to buy a copy of all 17 episodes of the
first season, which aired almost entirely in the Fall of 1971 (another
six episodes ran the following year as "The New
Jackson 5ive Show").
It's not as entertaining as, say, the Monkees TV show, though
it does thrive on the occasionally amusing high-concept
idea (e.g, all the members of the Jackson Five disband
and release separate albums as the Jackson One; there
is a Jackson Island; someone invents a Groov-o-tron; etc.). But
the execution is usually flaccid, the animation slightly
derivative of the Beatles's "Yellow Submarine" movie. Still, there's
at least one good joke or pun per episode.
The real value here is that the episodes are packed with
obscure tracks from the Jackson Five that aren't on
greatest hits compilations or easy to find elsewhere.
A series more fun to hear than to watch.
But I digress. Paul
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 17, 2009
Wanna hear four brand new songs I wrote in
November 2009 and recorded a few days ago?
Just click this link ioriopaul.vox.com to
listen for free! Enjoy!
* * * *
Why "Precious" Will Win the Best Picture Oscar
It now seems clear that Lee Daniels's "Precious: Based on the Novel
'Push' by Sapphire " will win the Best Picture Oscar on March 7. Not
necessarily because it is the best picture, though you could make
a case that it is, but because of the addition of five nominees to
the best picture category this year.
What might happen in the Oscar voting is the same thing
that occurs in politics when there are multiple candidates
in a winner-take-all contest in which there is no
run-off. And that is: factional or niche dark horses, who
otherwise would never stand a chance of winning, triumph
because more mainstream contenders cancel each other out.
It's like Meryl Street running against Meryl Streep (as she
is at the Golden Globe Awards this year); there's a chance
Streep will split the Streep vote, resulting in her losing and
allowing a long-shot to win.
Analogously, if the war movie "The Hurt Locker" runs
against the war movie "Inglourious Basterds" -- and
they would have likely been the two favorites for Best Pic
under a five-nominee system -- they might
end up canceling each other out. With a ten movie
ballot, the mainstream votes might be siphoned
by several contenders, allowing a unified
bloc of avidly enthusiastic fans of (in this case)
African-American cinema to prevail. Hence,
"Precious" might well win at the Kodak.
I say "in this case" because in the future the
ten-nominee structure will surely favor other
marginal genres and subgenres. For example, there may
be a fringe horror flick or a religious movie that
will win if the other nine nominees divide
the serious cinema vote. The ten-nominee
system, after all, benefits the cult film backed
by a small but unified band of voters. The intensity of
support for a film is a larger factor.
Or, more likely, a comedy might easily sneak through
if it's running against nine dramas -- and
comedies have rarely won for best picture.
There might also be a situation in subsequent
years in which two African-American-themed
films cancel each other out (perhaps denying
poor Spike Lee a much-deserved Oscar once again!).
When ten nominees were last allowed by the Academy -- between
1936 and 1943 (and also in 1932/33) -- it caused
such travesties as the defeat of "Citizen Kane" by
"How Green Was My Valley" in 1941 and the defeat of
"A Star is Born" by "The Life of Emile Zola" in 1937.
And it also let lighter fare like "You Can't Take it With
You" win over weightier films like "Grand Illusion."
(To be fair, there were also years in which such mainstream
quality pictures as "Casablanca" and "Gone with the Wind"
triumphed.)
Further, between 1931 and 1934, the Academy tried
eight and then a dozen nominees for best picture -- and
the results? A comedy, "It Happened One Night," won over
DeMille's "Cleopatra"; and "Mutiny on the Bounty"
defeated "David Copperfield."
In recent decades, up until the current year, one
could guess with reasonable accuracy who would win
awards in major Oscar categories. All one had to
do was look at the winners of trade awards that are
traditionally predictive (e.g., the awards given by the
DGA, PGA, SAG, the Golden Globes, etc.).
Not anymore, at least not when it comes to the
best picture category. Why? Because the
Academy's ten-nominee rule is unique to the
industry and changes the chemistry of the contest.
The 10-picture idea was born in the wake
of the egregious injustice (as some saw it)
of last year's Oscars, when top films like
"The Wrestler" and "Gran Torino" were inexplicably not even
nominated for the top prize. And, of course,
many Hollywood moguls saw the new rules as providing
an easier path to a such a coveted nomination, which can
give a film lots of prestige and box office oomph.
But it appears as if the law of unintended consequences
is now taking hold. Somebody didn't think this all
the way through. Undeserving fringe contenders -- summer
action flicks, a splatter film, an exploitation pic,
a Scientology project -- could conceivably end up
with the crown some day. And future generations
of film students and scholars might read all
about how, say, "Saw 7" was the best picture
of 2012, or how the most celebrated film of
2015 was "Police Academy: Reunion."
For now, this year's expanded list of nominees may well
produce a thoroughly benign result -- and a worthy winner
(in "Precious"). But the shortcomings of the new rule
are starting to become obvious.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 9, 2009
The Ongoing Phenomenon of Dick Cavett
Have you been reading Dick Cavett's op-ed pieces for
The New York Times? Fascinating stuff, some of it. It
would be great if a publisher compiled the best of
'em for a book (though it's hard to know who
would buy the book rather than read the individual
pieces for free via Google).
Cavett's most interesting recent column is the one about
his being targeted by President Nixon in the early
1970s. And the official Oval Office tapes do indeed
reveal that Nixon talked about Cavett, always disparagingly,
several times in 1971.
So when you're watching Cavett interview John Lennon, as
he did a few times on his ABC-TV series, you're seeing
two entertainers who the president of the United States
was actively trying to take down.
I recently re-watched Cavett's 1972 interview with
Lennon, and all I could think was: Look at how Nixon
destroyed Lennon.
By that '72 appearance, Lennon appeared to be unraveling and had
let himself go both physically (he was overweight and out of
shape) and psychologically (he was unusually defensive, insecure).
At the time, the former Beatle was understandably preoccupied
with the Nixon administration's attempt to have him
deported from the U.S. In fact, it was his main
topic of conversation.
Thanks to Nixon's Justice Department, Lennon was
no longer sure where he'd be living in coming
months and years and unable to plan for the long term.
And you could sense that Yoko Ono, who had longstanding
roots in the New York area, was not at all thrilled about
the prospect that she, too, might have to leave
Manhattan for sleepy London town for the sake of her
husband. (Child custody issues were another
complicating factor.)
A mere year earlier, in his 1971 appearance on the
Cavett show, Lennon was at peace and in good humor,
clearly enjoying his post-Beatles existence.
But on the '72 show, you could see Lennon had begun the
slide into the toilet that culminated with the 1974 incident
at the Troubador in West Hollywood, when Lennon, drunk and
out of control, punched a few people and otherwise
caused a scene during a reunion concert by the Smothers
Brothers.
Sure enough, Nixon had turned one of the great
composers of the 20th century into a puddle. Or at
least that's the way it looks from a distance.
Anyway, Cavett's interviews with Lennon (and with numerous
other pop culture icons) have been available on DVD for
years and are well worth watching and re-watching.
One of the great things about the Cavett DVDs is that
they include complete shows rather than edited clips (though
no contemporaneous commercials, unfortunately).
His ABC series of the early seventies can truly transport
you to the era of bucket seats; of people lighting up
cigarettes without even thinking to ask, "Do you mind if
I smoke?"; of the Noxzema advertising jingle being played
or sung every time someone removed an article of clothing;
of people showing up drunk on national TV.
Ah, the early 1970s! Seventy percent of what people did back
then is now considered unhealthy, taboo or illegal.
Even the second tier guests on his show are interesting
in Cavett's hands. Check out a surprisingly charming Debbie
Reynolds humorously imitating the fine difference between
the accents of Zsa Zsa Gabor and Eva Gabor. Or former
Senator Fred Harris, a sort of rough draft of what
Bill Clinton would later become (a mid-western progressive
with presidential ambitions). Or Gloria Swanson,
looking so dignified in contrast to a feral Margot
Kidder. And an impressive Dave Meggyesy, a former
football player who wrote a book about how football
is little more than organized assault that is physically
destructive to its players (here's a
link to Meggyesy's appearance; http://youtube.com/watch?v=9TrKSLQSinE).
When interviewing rock stars, Cavett came off like a
guy with an essentially pre-rock sensibility who
jibed remarkably well with rockers (who were relieved
that they no longer had to deal with a square like Ed
Sullivan). Still, I sometimes wonder whether
Cavett actually liked the music by the rockers he had
on his show or whether he preferred another genre.
I met Cavett around a decade ago in Mill Valley,
California, and interviewed him for an around an
hour for a newspaper article. I think the most
striking thing you learn about him from meeting
him (that you wouldn't really know for sure from
merely seeing him on television) is how spontaneously
funny he is. On TV, you can't always tell whether something
is scripted or staged or made to look spontaneous. But in
person, you can see how Cavett comes up with good jokes
right on the spot (for example, when an employee of a
rental car company asked to see Cavett's
driver's license, he responded with: "Can't I just
describe it? It's rectangular with my name and picture...").
Now that he's writing on a regular basis, for the Times,
I can't help but wonder what would happen if he tried his
hand at scripting a comedic feature film or play. Maybe
there's another Cavett incarnation yet to come.
But I digress. Paul
__________________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 7, 2009
The Five Best Movies of 2009 (An Incomplete List)
No feature film of 2009 that I've seen, and I've seen
most of the major ones, has been great from start to
finish. Quentin Tarantino's new one is brilliant -- for
the first twenty minutes (as I noted in my Digression
of August 27). Steven Soderbergh's latest is amazing --
for the first forty minutes (see my column of November
5). And "Precious' is riveting -- but only for an hour
or so (full review in previous Digression).
So my best-of list includes mostly fragments of
films, because those are the only things worth raving
about this year. (My list is incomplete because there
are still a few important films I've yet to see.)
1. Ari Marcopoulos's "Claremont."
This short film reminds me of one of the best
sequences in Dennis Hopper's "Easy Rider":
when Hopper and Peter Fonda imitate birds while
riding their motorcycles through the countryside
as Peter Stampfel croons his marvelously
eccentric "If You Want to Be a Bird." Almost no
other piece of cinema captures the sense of
pure frontier freedom, American style, or the
liberating spirit of the late 1960s the way
that scene does. And it also stands as the most
resourceful use of cinematic elements in an
American film since Orson Welles used hand
shadows on the wall in "Citizen Kane."
And "Claremont" captures that same feeling of
thrilling liberation and unlimited possibilities,
this time using skateboards instead of motorcycles.
The 11-minute film, which I saw at the Berkeley
(Calif.) Art Museum the other day (and is posted
online at http://www.vimeo.com/1654340), follows a
skateboarder as he rolls at high speeds through the hills at the
eastern edge of Berkeley.
Marcopoulos, known mostly as a photographer (and one-time
assistant to Andy Warhol), has a great gift for making short films
that you simply cannot stop watching, and this is one of them.
And his sense of motion and of the rhythms and shapes of motion
are masterful. Hollywood moguls should take note and hire him
to make a feature film.
2. Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds":
Again, the first twenty minutes of this flick are
better than almost anything else released this year.
But the rest of the picture ranges from boring to obvious.
3. Kenny Ortega's "This Is It":
Surprisingly engaging and well-made documentary
about Michael Jackson's rehearsals for what would have
been his 2009 concert tour. The most consistent film
of the year and a rarity (for '09) in that it actually
gets better as it progresses.
4. Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant":
Following the cinematic pattern of 2009, this is half
of a terrific film. If only Soderbergh had been able
to sustain the brilliance of its first forty minutes.
5. Lee Daniels's "Precious":
This picture made me see everyday people on
the street in a new way, which is why it made
the list. But its first half is considerably
better than its second.
All for now. More to come after I see a few more key films.
* * * *
Blue Rondo a la Clinton
Fifty years ago, Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" album
was released -- and it's still going strong.
Last month, I went out to the Trieste in Berkeley to
hear one of my friends play with a jazz group and the
highlight of the evening was "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (my
friend played the piano figure on electric guitar and it
sounded great).
The piece makes 9/8 seem as natural as 4/4 (which, of
course, it is in Thrace and western Turkey). But my
favorite version is not on "Time Out" but on the live
album "Dave Brubeck and Paul Desmond: Live Concerts
From the Late Fifties." Hard to find disc, but worth
checking out.
Anyway, I bring this up because last night,
Brubeck, Robert De Niro, Mel Brooks, Bruuuce and
others were honored at the Kennedy Center in D.C. And
according to a report in The New York Times, Bill Clinton
is a big fan of "Blue Rondo a la Turk" (Brubeck even gave
him a chart to the song, which he reportedly still has and
proudly displays). (Brubeck, by the way, turned 89 yesterday.)
Would love to hear a band play "Blue Rondo" with Clinton
on sax, Obama on guitar and Brubeck on piano. Now that
would be a bootleggable moment!
* * * *
The Amanda Knox Case
Whether Amanda Knox actually plunged the knife
into Meredith Kercher or not, she deserves to
serve at least 10 years. At the very least, Knox
is indisputably guilty of several secondary crimes.
As for the murder itself, Knox was either nearby
plugging her ears as Rudy Guede and her former
boyfriend killed Kercher, or she helped to do it.
Knox is at least an accessory. And what she did (or tried
to do) to tavern owner Patrick Lumumba, a completely
innocent man, is unconscionable. She tried to frame him,
knowing full well he had had nothing to do with the
killing. And that sort of criminal mendacity, which
shreds lives and can get a person killed, should be
punished with prison time in most cases. (False
accusation is the great underpunished crime of
our time.)
Did Knox think Perugia was Duke University, where
she could make a false accusation and have half the
population believe her bullshit?
What would be fair for Knox? Ten years, no parole, no
transfer to an American prison. Because even under
the defense's best case scenario, she has committed
major crimes.
Keep in mind Knox would have had no pang of
conscience about causing Patrick Lumumba, who
she knew was innocent, to serve life
in prison for committing no crime. Sympathy should
be directed to Lumumba, who had to endure two weeks
of false accusation and imprisonment, and to the
Kercher family.
On another issue: I'm getting a bit sick and tired of
the anti-Italian bias and hostility of some
American reporters and anchors. Some media people
have been sounding like this lately: "Oh, those
Eye-talians have these strange laws against
such obscure 'crimes' as sadistic murder. Can you
believe it? And their evidentiary standards are so
bizarre that -- get this -- if they find your DNA
on the murder weapon, they'll put you away! Grody!"
By the way, reporting on another subject a few
months ago on "World News," ABC's Charles Gibson
actually called Italy a "permissive nation."
I had to laugh out loud when I heard that one! Truly
ignorant. Anyone who has lived in Italy for any
length of time knows the Vatican is massively
influential in most parts of the country, creating
a much more conservative climate than you might
expect.
I've also heard lots of ignorance about Italy's
siesta structure of the business day. Let me
defend it this way. At Chrysler in Detroit,
Americans have worked eight and twelve and
eighteen hour workdays at a heart-attack
pace for decades. For all their trouble, they
have created only bankruptcy and cars that no
one wants to buy.
At Fiat in Italy, Italians have worked hard, but
with a three-hour siesta in the middle of the day
(which gives them two mornings of concentrated
productivity per day). As a result, Fiat's workers
have created a prosperous company and practical cars
that people truly enjoy driving.
And last I heard, Fiat now controls Chrysler.
Nuff said.
But I digress. Paul
_______________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for December 2, 2009
To those who oppose the Afghanistan War, saying
Obama is trying to fight the war Bush should
have fought eight years ago, I offer this
analogy:
A bone broken ten years ago, since untreated,
remains a broken bone ten years later. It still
needs to be set and fixed. And, ten years later,
it probably comes with attendant complications
(i.e., inflammation, infection, ancillary
fractures, etc.).
The al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan is like
such an untreated medical condition (actually
more like cancer, but let's not mix metaphors
here). George W. Bush may have neglected the
broken bone in Afghanistan for eight years but
his neglect did not correct or cure the break.
Obama is saying, "That bone remains broken in
Afghanistan because Bush didn't fix it. So we're
sending in a team of doctors to set the bone,
clean up any infection and then leave."
To those who think the al Qaeda threat is not emanating
primarily from the greater Khyber Pass region, I have two
words for you: Najibullah Zazi.
To those who draw false parallels with Vietnam, I ask:
who is the homegrown mainstream populist a
la Ho Chi Minh amongst the Taliban? (Answer: there is none.)
To those who voted for Obama but oppose the
Afghanistan war, I ask: didn't you listen during
the campaign when Obama said repeatedly and
unambiguously that, if elected, he would
wind down the war in Iraq and step up military action in
Afghanistan? Did you think he was joking?
To Osama bin Laden: there is no longer
a fundamentalist in the White House who is soft
on fundamentalist criminals like yourself. You'd better run.
(And don't forget your dialysis cycler.)
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- If McCain had been elected, we'd still
be pointlessly bombing Tikrit.
______________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for November 30 and December 1, 2009
Just heard Obama's speech. All I can say is that I
agree with every syllable and word he said this time.
If I were president of the United States, I'd have
made an identical decision about the Afghanistan
War and delivered a similar speech. On this issue,
Obama is not merely 99% right. He is 100% correct.
* * * *
Let me change the subject to movies;
here're my reviews of a few new flicks:
Lee Daniels's "Precious"
The generous view of this film is that it is, quite simply,
the best picture of 2009. The ungenerous view is
that it starts like an episode of "Jerry Springer" and ends like
an episode of "Oprah."
The truth is closer to the former than to the latter. And it
probably is the frontrunner for the Best Picture Oscar in
this recession year.
It's scalding, disturbing, unflinching, relentless and will
make you see people on the street in a different way the
next day. It will grip you within the first minute and make
you wish Obama had another three terms to undo the
damage done to the underclass by decades of economic
deprivation.
The movie should also rack up at least a few
Oscar nominations in acting and writing categories,
too (there's even a surprisingly credible performance
from Mariah Carey).
If I can find fault with the film, it's that it's too
unrelentingly bleak and depressing in its first 70 minutes;
after that, it loses some of its tension and steam and
starts to resemble one of Oprah's daytime tearfests (Winfrey,
by the way, is the film's executive producer
and -- surprise! -- is even mentioned a couple times by
characters in the film).
Come February 2, I predict it'll receive at least four
Oscar nominations, probably more.
* * * *
Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story"
Michael Moore is so ahead of his time that
"Roger and Me," released twenty years ago,
could easily pass for a 2009 documentary
about economic hard times in Michigan (or Ohio,
as Bruce Springsteen calls it!) and beyond.
Having been proved completely correct by history, Moore
returns to the themes of his first film with a renewed
spirit of insurrection and righteousness. There's
something refreshingly punkish and dangerous about
this particular Moore project, as befits the tough
times in which it was made.
He has also never been funnier (Jesus, in a voiceover, says
he can't heal the sick when there's a pre-existing condition)
and is as fascinating as ever.
Highlights include: telling clips of Regan with Reagan;
Moore putting "crime scene" tape around Wall
Street buildings; an interview with Wallace Shawn (who
has aged quite well); clips of Bush Jr. that remind us
how stupid this Harvard/Yale alumnus was; and footage of
Captain Sullenberger -- the main hero of 2009 -- showing
courage in testifying before Congress about the plight
of underpaid pilots.
The message of this film is the message of this era: hey,
corporations, you've gotta split your abundant money more
equitably.
Moore makes so much sense that you sometimes
wish he'd move to Berkeley or Vermont and
win himself a seat in the U.S. Senate or House.
(Don't laugh -- Al Franken did it.)
Anyway, I'm going to see this one again and write
more completely about it later (the audio on my DVD
konked out near the end).
* * * *
Richard Curtis's "Pirate Radio"
There is a great movie to be made along these lines,
but this is not it. It's too long by half, tedious
throughout and almost unwatchable at the end
when -- like "2012" -- it decides to become "Titanic."
And it doesn't really capture 1966 -- and that's not
just because some of the songs on its otherwise
awesome soundtrack aren't from that year ("Jumpin
Jack Flash" is from '68, "Won't Get Fooled Again" is from
'71, etc.).
What is really missing here is the exhilarating sense of
radio people breaking new bands and records, the sense
of pride that someone was the first to air, say, the
Box Tops or the first to play a Beatles b-side in
the U.K. I mean, the Pirate radio people
of that era were genuinely changing pop culture -- and
there's no real feeling of that here.
That said, the soundtrack is gourmet pure pop: "Lazy Sunday,"
"Judy in Disguise," "The Letter," "The Happening," "She'd Rather
Be with Me," "Eleanor," "All Day and All of the Night,"
etc., some of the greatest pop songs of the last fifty
years. Missing in action: The Hollies's "Dear Eloise,"
Wadsworth Mansion's "Sweet Mary," The Kinks's "Picture Book,"
Herb Alpert's "Whipped Cream" and The Monkees's "You Just
May Be the One" (all '66 in spirit if not in chronology).
So buy the soundtrack CD, skip the flick.
To the film makers: I'm your target audience for
this, and you missed.
* * * *
Roland Emmerich's "2012"
With all the countless crevices and fractures of the
earth's surface in "2012," it seems this movie has
more cracks than a Swedish porno flick.
At first, "2012" is a fat greasy bag of popcorn that
you can't stop munching on. But after finishing
the first half of the bag, the thrill is gone.
Emmerich begins to run out of tricks within forty-five
minutes and starts repeating himself. We see John
Cusack's character outrun the latest crevice (again)
as he hops on another in a seemingly endless supply
of airplanes (again) made available to him to fly
above the destruction of a cratering planet. By
the fourth time an airplane barely outpaces an
erupting crevice, it becomes a bit of a bore.
Don't get me wrong, there is the occasional gap of around
twenty minutes between showing new cracks and fractures -- we'll
call that a "crack gap" -- but not many. Occasionally,
Emmerich will dutifully inject a bit of obligatory
"characterization." But then it's back to the cracks!
Even Michaelangelo's painting of the creation of man
on the Sistine ceiling is -- how convenient! -- fractured
neatly between god and man! I mean, what're the chances?
Then the movie gets sucked into an even more
derivative vortex. It suddenly threatens to turn
into "The Poseidon Adventure." And then it threatens
to turn into "Castaway." And then it threatens to
turn into "The Wizard of Oz," what with little Toto
barely escaping a crack. And then, inevitably,
it tries to turn into "Titanic."
It's a cinematic echo chamber. Or like a highlight reel
of clips from classic blockbusters. There are echoes
of "Cliffhanger"'s opener. Echoes of "Armageddon."
At the end, the film finally decides it wants to be
"Titanic," but then changes its mind and opts for
an upbeat "Apollo 13"-ish finale -- sort of an
underwater "Apollo 13" (and I, too, didn't
think that was possible!). The only element missing
from this second-hand stew is...a school of sharks.
(I'm sure that'll surface in the DVD's deleted scenes.)
Apparently, the way to create a hit film in 2009 is:
Let's combine blockbusters! Let's have a ship sink
at the end and have all the passengers ripped apart by
sharks! "Titanic" meets "Jaws"! Or let's have the
Eiffel tower toppled and add a "Slumdog"-ish
dance number as a coda! We'll call it "Armageddon
Millionaire"! "Apollo Titanic"! Or "The Wizard of the
Titanic"! Wowee! Film making is fun! Watching such
stuff -- not so much.
But I digress. Paul
P.S. -- Because the photo of me at the top of
this website is (intentionally) blurred, a
couple people have been curious about what
I actually look like. Well, to anyone who
cares, here's a photo of me several weeks
ago, in October 2009.
* * * *
P.S. -- Suggestion to Time magazine: this year's Man of
the Year should be Sully, an unsullied model of
how to conduct your life and work with innovative thinking,
modesty, dignity and a social conscience. Plus, he saved
lots of lives, didn't he? In this era of partycrashers,
balloon boys, snoozing pilots, and reality stars grabbing
every spotlight in sight, Sully stands out as a genuine hero.
________________________________________
THE DAILY DIGRESSION
for November 27, 2009
Ambassador Salahi and his wife sure looked the part, didn't
they? His trophy wife was gorgeous enough to have
the "power to cloud men's minds," or at least the minds of
the Secret Service and of the top brass of the United
States government.
Perhaps we've found our secret weapon against
al Qaeda: a woman so attractive and persuasive that she
just might be capable of penetrating (among other things)
the inner sanctum of Osama bin Laden himself. Let's set her
loose in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas with a
budget and see what she finds and what Taliban
parties she can crash!
Keep in mind that al Qaeda has surely heard about this
party crashing incident, too, and might realize that the
the secret to getting past security anywhere in the U.S.
is...to look like a supermodel.
But I digress. Paul
_____________________________________
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