Saturday, September 25, 2004
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? I must give big ups to elementropy on this post concerning the poisonous confluence of art and propaganda. I hope Retardo will not mind if I quote his quotation of Christopher Hitchens -- from back in his more lucid days -- concerning Norman Podhoretz' ravings against Norman Mailer:This is not just boring and tenth-rate. It is sinister. Like Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's literary enforcer, Podhoretz doesn't content himself with saying that a certain novelist is no longer in favour or no longer any good. That would be banal. No, it must be shown that he never was any good, that he always harboured the germs of anti-party feeling, that he was a rank rodent from the get-go. Then comes the airbrush, the rewritten entry in the encyclopaedia, the memory hole. But even Zhdanov's hacks would have made the effort to employ some new phrases and new disclosures. We've been around this mulberry bush before, but I will have another go. For a while, back in the 90s, the culture war was salutary, bracing, tonic. It caught people's attention, perked up artists, and got the juices flowing. But these are different times. The big political machines have extended their tendrils so deep into every aspect of our lives that it is impossible to refer to any aspect of society without some Scrutinizer ascribing it a value, plus or minus, left or right.
The by-now old-fashioned term, P.C., never very meaningful, has been rendered utterly irrelevant by numerous flying squads of rightwing Kulturkommando, whose overreach in these matters is gloriously exemplified by Rod "Flanders" Dreher's denunciation of The Hours (yes, that innocuous little movie about Virginia Woolf and stuff) as an "apologia for evil" on the grounds that one of its characters, who leaves her husband and son, is portrayed sympathetically. (For God's sake, nobody tell Flanders about Medea!)
Not to say that the squads' efforts are all negative. At OpinionJournal yesterday, some guy tried to make the case that a Lebanese reality-TV show indicates the future of democracy in Arab nations -- at least, democracy of a sort:To be sure, over the past century many Arab nations have experimented with democratic reforms, some going so far as to establish constitutions, regular elections and institutional checks and balances. But in the end the overwhelming tendency has been to assume the rhetoric and rituals of democracy without actually putting it in place.
Into this environment comes an independently produced TV program that both celebrates personal achievement and puts Arab audiences at the center of the decision-making process. "Super Star" encourages, in fact depends on, the active involvement of ordinary Arabs in a "democratic" endeavor with real-time, mutually beneficial results. If the Arab people cannot choose their political representatives free from coercion, at least now they can select a cultural representative to champion their musical tastes. I'd like to believe that any person of normal intelligence would comprehend the crucial difference between a simulacrum of democracy -- e.g., the "thumbs-down" of the Roman Coliseum -- and the real thing. But the new culture war -- much more savage and damaging than the old one; a total culture war, to avail an old phrase -- will probably, soon enough, render all such fine distinctions imperceptible.
Then art will not exist, except as an arcane misnomer popularly applied to the circuses glorifying whomever is in charge.
It is embarrassing to have to say it aloud, but some things are more important than politics.
1:33 AM by roy edroso
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Friday, September 24, 2004
SIMON DRINKS THE KOOL-AID. I had a feeling this would happen.
Professor Glenn Reynolds used to tell people he was not a conservative, using a pro-gay-marriage stand as his trump non-con credential. But once he had descended sufficiently deeply into the Bush tank, he felt it necessary to issue this post (much longer than usual, because the need for obfuscation was so great), in which is explained that arguing for gay marriage was the worst thing its advocates could do ("that sort of thing can only serve to alienate Republicans"), and told his no doubt astonished gay readers that Bush's plan to amend the Constitution to exclude them was "not worth getting too excited about."
Now it's Roger L. Simon's turn. He has said that Bush's stance on gay issues "make[s] me cringe." Well, he ain't cringin' no more (not in that sense, anyway)! The tone of his Damascene conversion is less tortuous than Reynolds' and, as befits one who has shed some confining principles, more liberated and breezy:Sure, [Bush] doesn't support gay marriage. But hardly anyone even talked about gay marriage in the whole history of our country until a few years ago. Relax. Gay rights are on extraordinarly fast upward curve. Take a slight breather to give the Islamic world a chance. En otras palabras: Relax, bitches, we're goin' to Mars!
How long, do you figure, before Andrew Sullivan comes around?
9:39 AM by roy edroso
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Thursday, September 23, 2004
RETURN TO JIMBO. Say, I haven't looked in on James Lileks in a while. Wonder what the crazy old sonuvagun is up to? Hmm, says here he's noticed Jimmy Swaggart wants to kill a homosexual. Why, Jimmy Lileks is commencing to speak on it!...anyone who uses him to discount the extraordinary and largely unheralded impact of religiously inspired philanthropy is a fool. I have no problem with atheists; if that's what they've come to believe in the end, then fine. But I have no time for atheists who look at the good works of churches, and nevertheless feel superior because they don't believe in a Magic Book... Haw! Jimmy Swaggart makes a death threat, and the atheists get the lecture! Old Jimbo's still got that -- what'd you call it, Ed? "Ida Fixy"? Yeah, crazy as a loon, bless him.
11:04 AM by roy edroso
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FUNNY GIRL (DISCLAIMER: FANNY BRICE REFERENCE DOES NOT GUARANTEE ANTI-SEMITISM). The claim that being anti-neoconservative is the same thing as being anti-semitic has been brought to its logical apotheosis by Julia Gorin:When a member of the enlightened classes, or Pat Buchanan, makes reference to a "neocon," what he's saying is "yid." That's right, "neoconservative," particularly in its shortened form, when employed by a nonconservative (or by Buchananites) and therefore meant derogatorily, is the modern, albeit more specific, word for "kike" that the left can say--and it has been doing so liberally (no pun intended) ever since American conservatism became yet something else that Jews have managed to benefit from--the conquered, final frontier of that famous Jewish manipulation. I am aware that Gorin is supposed to be a comedian, though the absence of actual laughs in this and her other material argue against that impression. If this piece is intended as "satire," it is of the Ann Coulter variety -- you know, the kind where you make an outrageous assertion, your followers beat their chests and yell "boo-yah," and you ask the people staring at you in horror, "What's the matter, can't you take a joke?"
What's the tipoff? Special pleading, for one thing. Juvenal and Swift didn't take time out from their work to moan about how unjust it all was, whereas Gorin buffs up the alleged link to real anti-semitism ("Jews jokingly called one another by their Ellis Island designation 'keikle' [Yiddish for 'circle']..."). Neither did the masters cite the authority of contemporary pedants to justify their bagatelles, while Gorin cites bloggers and columnists in defense of her thesis.
The big problem, though, is that Gorin isn't really joking at all. Her outrageous thesis, the when-they-say-neocon-they-mean-yid idea, is something she believes -- or, at least, wants us to believe, so that we'll restrain our anti-war complaints for fear of appearing anti-semitic.
But maybe I don't I just don't get conservative humor. And maybe Swift really was trying to get the Irish to eat their children.
UPDATE. Much funnier than the alleged comedienne Gorin are readers' responses to her article. Lots on non-Jewish cons declare themselves neos in solidarity. (Brave, brave lads! They don't care if they never get another letter from Norman Lear!) One guy says he became a neocon when he realized Al Gore wanted to be dictator. Another says liberals aren't using the "neo" label to call attention to conservative Jews, but to make them look like Nazis. Aside from a few voices of sanity (most notably Steve Sailer's), this is as batshit crazy an assemblage as we're likely to see all day, or until the Rush Limbaugh Chorale holds its next rehearsal of The Foster Barton Song (T-shirt high, ranks closed...).
9:59 AM by roy edroso
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Wednesday, September 22, 2004
PERFECTLY KERNED BULLSHIT. When the kids ask me, "Why, Uncle Roy, what do you mean when you say that the rightwing attack machine greases its gears with excremental journalism?" I never have to reach far for a quote, as planted, massaged, and/or managed stories are as plentiful in the conservative press as sunshine in Florida.
Let's take a story making the rounds today, which has received so far the imprimatur of Jonah Goldberg ("SOME COWARDLY S.O.B. beats up a US soldier for wearing an Iraqi freedom shirt") and Professor Reynolds ("new climate of fear in America... not anti-war. Just on the other side"):A local soldier back from the war in Iraq said he was beaten at an area concert because of what was printed on his T-shirt, NBC 4's Nancy Burton reported.
Foster Barton, 19, of Grove City, received a Purple Heart for his military service in Iraq. He almost lost his leg last month after a Humvee he was riding in ran over a landmine.
Barton said he was injured again Friday night in a crowded parking lot as he was leaving the Toby Keith concert at Germain Amphitheatre. The solider was injured so badly that he can't go back to Iraq as scheduled...
Barton and his family said he was beat up because he was wearing an Iraqi freedom T-shirt. We know Goldberg and Reynolds, like the hundreds of Fighting Keyboarders who will flog this tale over the days to come, do not practice journalism, and now it appears that they do not exercise, or credit to others, even the basic sort of reasoning popularly known as common sense.
They imply that a guy who went to a Toby Keith concert and got into a fight -- which sounds like a normal, red-blooded American knucklehead's perfect Saturday night to me -- was motivated by leftist politics. (Even Goldberg's colleague Kathryn Lopez is confused by this; as confusion is the NRO denmother's natural state, however, this leads to no further questioning.)
Some witnesses say the assailant was "screaming profanities and making crude remarks about U.S. soldiers." While this seems to shout "leftist political operative" to our new Woodwards and Bernsteins, observers even mildly acquainted with waking reality would rank the possibility that the ruffian in question had once been rejected by the Army (or had an asshole father who once served, or had just been listening to "War Pigs" while availing a bong) much higher.
Other aspects of the story smell. For instance, it appears that the assailant has not been arrested. As one of the witnesses is described as "a friend of the alleged attacker," it cannot be that the cops are unable to locate him. If this assault is as the victim describes it -- unprovoked and severely damaging -- why isn't the perp in jail?
As my phony angle is as good, or as bad, as anyone else's, let me offer this: perhaps the bounder in question is a loyal Bush supporter and, having gotten a bellyful of Toby Keith's testosterone entertainment, went around looking to pounce on anyone who fit the profile of the enemy: i.e., a veteran with a Purple Heart.
Hell, if Barton were a multiple amputee, the guy might have killed him.
UPDATE. The story inspires the usual reasoned analysis in the blogosphere:
"Did John Kerry teach you guys anything? Oh, yeah, I suppose he did at that..." -- Weapons of Mass Destruction
"Apparently, 6 assailants, who are no doubt peace loving anti-war loyal oppositionist fans of [Ted] Rall, who attacked this soldier at a concert , didn't feel to surpressed..." -- Infidel Cowboy
"Nice to know Kerry hasn't lost it -- He can still get the loons to hate our bravest!" -- Life Trek
"...the angry anti-war rhetoric coming from leftists in this country -- yes, that includes John Kerry, Howard Dean, moveon.org et al -- has reached a point where it is no longer distinguishable from the propaganda of our enemy .. and it is inciting the type of actions last Friday night at the Germain Amphitheater." -- Merry Mad Monk
"Peace-loving liberals: Yeah, those people you see at peace rallies really are the type that support our troops... Profanities. Crude remarks. Yeah, that sounds like our war protester-types." -- Hoy Story
Etc. Funny, I didn't get the memo from the Kerry campaign telling us to skulk around Toby Keith concerts looking for soldiers to beat up, did you guys? Ah well. It takes a Reichstag... actually, it doesn't even take that.
9:45 AM by roy edroso
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Tuesday, September 21, 2004
ON THE INTERNET, NO ONE KNOWS YOUR STORY'S A DOG. Andrew Sullivan prefaces an alleged letter from a solider, linked from Hewitt, this way:I can't "authenticate" it, and I hope Hewitt vetted it. (Hewitt is, alas, a pure partisan -- his own site's motto is about the destruction of Democrats, whoever they are -- but the email rings true to me.) Sullivan doesn't know if it's real, the source has a grudge, but he's going with it anyway, and then commenting on it as if it were revealed truth. Advantage: Blogosphere! That'll show Rather.
(Earlier, Sullivan had refused to even visit the Iraqi Body Count page -- which is extensively sourced -- because "its biases are so blatant and so hostile to the liberation.")
I'm sure the Bush people will forgive Sullivan his (probably temporary and certainly unconvincing) apostasy. Anyone who can torture reality like that is too valuable to lose. Besides, they can always trot him out as some sort of "diversity" figurine -- until such time as they don't have to worry about appearing diverse at all.
9:51 AM by roy edroso
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BIG STIFF ON LATE NIGHT. Only saw a bit of this, but Kerry looked looser than usually, by which I mean that the stick up his ass seems to have been broken in several places, allowing great flexibility of movement.
I will say that his explanation of "voted for before I voted against" makes sense. Wonder how I missed hearing it before? Hey, look over there -- inappropriate kerning!
1:24 AM by roy edroso
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Monday, September 20, 2004
TIGHT NOT TOUCHING. The CBS memo thing seems to have worked out adversely for Dan Rather et alia. I imagine this link will give a good view of the bloggers' chest-beating denouement for quite some time. Their enthusiasm is wilder now than at their last victory party over Trent Lott, because, as I observed at the time, most of them didn't so much care about Lott's racism as they did about the prospect of a scalp to call their own. But, while Lott lost some accoutrements of power, Rather seems to be keeping his job. So for the moment effigies will have to do.
The next phase of the operation seeks to establish a link between the memos, CBS, and the Kerry campaign via Joe Lockhart. But the notion that Democrats and Big Media are mobbed up is received wisdom among the bloggers and their constituents -- right up there with the sanctity of gun ownership and heterosexual marriage -- so it is hard to see what hearts and minds are left to be won in that regard.
There are other options. Representative Christopher Cox has called for a Congressional investigation of CBS. This is probably just an attempt at leverage against an ancient enemy, but you never know where wildfire will get to once the flames have been fanned.
Some who remember the various bullshit stories floated about Clinton in the last decade might wonder at the fuss. Technology is a marvel, friends. Not only can it extend power to an unprecedented degree; it can also make the powerful look like underdogs, if there is a purpose to be served by it.
11:15 PM by roy edroso
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AND BESIDES, IT'S ALL ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS! Guess I wasn't the only serious political journalist watching the Emmys. Brent Bozell clone Tim Graham announces that "giving Emmy awards to 'Angels in America' is transparently political and anti-religious." Boy, I don't know why the nets don't turn their Emmy beat over to the guys from Fox and Friends -- soapbox cranks on awards shows are a barrel of laffs!
Even laffier, not to mention taffier, are the linked ravings of the original Bozell on Angels in America: "Artistically," he bravely begins, "it's a sprawling mess... a parade of blasphemy and profanity, a concerto of conservative-bashing... It’s exactly what playwrights and actors love – self-consciously writerly, intellectually preening, over-emoting..." Oh, and "Theologically, it’s even worse." Just in case you thought theatre criticism was Bozell's only stock in trade.
Part of the problem with these guys on art, any art, is that they confuse John Simon's old Tonight Show appearances with Hazlitt and Dr. Johnson. They think dyspepsia and outrage are criticism. And they think ideology is an artistic standard. Maybe in the journalistic schoolyard they inhabit, that kind of slipshod work passes, but not 'round here, sir.
And they wonder why artists don't like them.
9:21 AM by roy edroso
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Sunday, September 19, 2004
EMMYS. I spent most of Garry Shandling's monologue adjusting the color on my TV. It's amazing they found him a tux that fits so well, since he's been obviously been living on a sidewalk in L.A. for a couple of years. He's still pretty funny though.
Since I don't have cable and just watch the same few things over and over again (mostly test patterns, infomercials, and that episode of "Seinfeld" with Molly Shannon), I can't possibly judge what's going on here. I see they're sticking skits in between awards. I don't know about that. We'll see if the tabloid coverage tomorrow includes big pictures of the skits.
UPDATE. I kind of like the skits. It's you're going to be derivative, derive from quality. Speaking of "The Larry Sanders Show," it was nice to see Jeffrey Tambor up there. I really believe Hank Kingsley was one of the greatest comedy characters since Tartuffe -- an immediately recognizable type and completely unique and idiosyncratic at the same time.
Hey, is that Jon Stewart theme really "I Feel So Good" by Richard Thompson?
UPDATE 2. Elaine Stritch has the music people scared. Well, who wouldn't be? There goes the big flourish -- they have a trap door, I assume.
UPDATE 3. I think the Democrats should have nominated Jon Stewart. And while we're on the subject, I should be writing for his show. I make lots of jokes about politics. Perhaps I'll send them some of my humorous meditations on Professor Glenn Reynolds and Roger L. Simon, with a letter of introduction from Kevin Drum. Pure comedy gold!
UPDATE 4. I've got to see that Sopranos show sometime. I hear it's pretty good.
UPDATE 5. I can't wait for the tearful farewell episodes of "World According to Jim" and "CSI Miami."
UPDATE 6. Well, I guess Mary-Louise Parker and her dress will be in the papers tomorrow. That's a good combination: serious Broadway actress and vertical cleavage.
So, is the deal with The Forgotten that Julianne Moore is really dead, or that everyone else is dead, or that everyone including Julianne Moore is dead, or that we are all the dream of a sleeping giant?
I don't mean to brag and it's certainly nothing to brag about, but I figured out The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis first met the kid. After that it was very funny. I kept expecting Willis to say to people, "Oh, so you won't talk, eh?" and "Givin' me the old silent treatment, are ya?"
Boy, I'd hate to be George Lopez' otolaryngologist.
UPDATE 7. Oh, now, that isn't fair -- Tony Kushner wrote that play already. What do they do when a Shakespeare play wins a writing award? Get Larry Gelbart come out and say how sad it is Bill couldn't be here because he would have been thrilled?
UPDATE 8. I don't know anything about reality shows. My Mom likes all of them, so I guess I have to go with the one with the midget, if only as a sort of cryptic tribute to Michael Dunn's great Dr. Loveless on The Wild, Wild West. I will say that the whole show should be presented by ordinary people who don't know what's going on. Or maybe it should be presented, like the craft awards on the Oscars and the Best Musical Program awards tonight, at ceremonies held earlier in San Luis Obispo, and mercilessly excerpted. Then they could run a whole bunch more more Kmart commercials, and Shandling could do improv with people in the first five rows.
UPDATE 9. I'm sure Pacino was great as Roy Cohn (one day I'll see if he was as good as Ron Liebman) but he's a terrible award-winner. He needs some writers, but hell, so does Kerry, what are you gonna do? I'm amazed what a robot Mike Nichols has turned into. Mike Nichols of Nichols and May! I guess that comes from being a one-man major entertainment institution for ninety years; after a while that tan seeps right down into your soul.
UPDATE 10. It's nice that they're talking about Danny Thomas, and so sad that he isn't around today to come out here with a big cigar and say, "Everything on television today is sex! They got 'Sex in the City,' sex in the country, sex in the bathroom, the living room, everywhere except in the bedroom, where it belongs! With two beds! You think Desi and Lucy woulda been funnier if they were sleeping the same bed? They'd both be lucky to wake up alive, lemme tell ya! And don't get me started on that rap music..."
If the cops were doing their jobs the Raveonettes would be in jail for that Jesus & Mary Chain ripoff.
UPDATE 11. Now, it's too bad that Patricia Heaton didn't win because I really had a premonition that this would be the year she just flipped out and started screaming about abortion and what a bunch of murderers everyone in the audience was. Plus, Sarah Jessica Parker isn't that good.
UPDATE 12. Conan is so funny. Not so funny is Kelsey Grammer. It's weird that the new Bob Hope is an actor obviously perfectly suited to play a blowhard, so much so that I'm sorry I didn't see his Macbeth -- it must have been hilarious.
These dead-people things are so weird. First of all, there are the lulls (who is that guy? He's Jack Elam, you stupid fuck, he was in Once Upon a Time in the West). Then there's the added weirdness of film people in the TV necrotribute. It seems almost presumptuous -- like the Fat People of America doing a tribute for Peter Ustinov and Brando. (Glad they showed a clip from "Roots: The Next Generation" though.) And the people who died latest get the biggest claps. In heaven right now, Tony Randall is doing a little victory dance around Alastair Cooke.
UPDATE 13. James Spader kinda walked into TV like a CEO who'd been squeezed out and decided, fuck it, I'll go run a little shop on the boardwalk like I don't give a shit because I don't. And the little shop is a major success.
UPDATE 14. I used to wonder if the absent nominees get to choose the pictures that are shown when their names are called. Emma Thompson convinces me that they do not. Meryl Streep was very charming. Mike Nichols' grin is getting creepier, like a Bond villain's: yes, yes, everythink is going accordink to plan...
UPDATE 15. It must suck to work on a mini-series for thousands of hours and then have "Angels in America" come out the same year. Goldfinger delivers a suitably downbeat valedictory.
Hey, now we're moving. "Arrested Development" lets Opie claim a much-deserved Emmy to go with his are-you-joking Oscar.
UPDATE 16. Thank God, we're almost done. Hey, everybody love-a "The Sopranos"! David Chase is a much more manicured type than I expected. But what do I know about real writers? Thank you and good night!
8:22 PM by roy edroso
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