'TIL MY BITING WIT BITES LIKE HIS

Well, the good news is, I didn't do any NyQuil last night. The bad news is, I've got sinus drainage like you wouldn't believe, and my night visions still seemed chemically altered: I dreamed of Humphrey Bogart stalking Gertrude Stein Most Dangerous Game-style. Does that make any sense? From what possible part of my subconscious did that arrive?

So I guess my point is, don't look for any cogent analysis of anything around here. Between the watery eyes and the runny nose and the hacked-up phlegm, it's all I can do to type. But I'm going to bring some entertainment, dammit, from one of my favorite bands, Sparks, with a song from their most recent album, Exotic Creatures Of The Deep.

Someday I'll get around to writing about just how great a band Sparks is, and why. But first, a pointless personal aside: Many years ago--so far it seems like a whole other life--I spent some time with, to use her phrase, a recovering Goth chick. At least, she said she was recovering, but she still wore black mascara and wore a The Queen Is Dead t-shirt. And, needless to say, was obsessed with Morrissey. Not to the level of her obsessions with Kate Bush, Anne Rice and The Bell Jar, but still, she had a mini-poster of The Sainted One over her bed, which was a bit of a buzzkill. We only dated for a little over a month, and ultimately my feelings for her were as ambiguous as her sexuality, but still, this song makes me think of her.

The title? Lighten Up, Morrissey.

HELLO? HELLO? HELLO?

Here's the thing: Last night I took NyQuil for the first time in...um, what? Sorry, lost my train of thought. Might be the NyQuil. I took some last night and...wooo. Did you hear that? It's like an echo chamber in here. It's like an echo chamber in here. Did I say that? Hello? What?

Anyway, so I took some NyQuil last night--I haven't mentioned that, have I?--and everything is just, um, weeeiiirrrd. I'm crazy lightheaded, and my ears feel like somebody shoved mashed potatoes into them, and they solidified. The potatoes solidified, that is, not my ears. They're already solid. HAHAHAHAHA!

Wow. This is worse than being stuck inside an early seventies TV movie trip sequence. If my mind functioned properly, I'd say something about the release of all those secret memos from the Bush administration, including a plan (never implemented, as far as we know) to use the U.S. military as a sort of private police force within America itself, able to conduct search and seizures on anyone the Bushinistas may have determined to be "suspicious". In other words, Sith Lord Cheney sought legal ways to set up his own stormtroopers and...ah, a Star Wars analogy! Didn't I say I'd stop doing those?

I think so, but I can't quite remember. Did you know I took some NyQuil?

ALWAYS WEARING A FROWN

Typical of me, eh? I had a pretty good (if painfully abbreviated) vacation, but rather than dwell on the good, I come back here and write a lengthy piece about the one moment of melancholy during the whole trip. Why dwell on the negative? Why not accentuate the positive?

It's just what I do, I guess. A friend of mine told me yesterday that I spend too much time worrying, an echo of words spoken to me by several therapists, a string of ex-girlfriends and, well, pretty much everyone who has ever known me. If I could just overhaul my entire personality, my life would be so much better.

But, dammit, somebody's gotta be cranky and whiny. Somebody needs to complain incessantly. The world needs a guy to bust out convoluted Star Wars analogies, who can't shut up about the greatness of Meet Me In St. Louis, who is ready with an obscure Steely Dan reference at a moment's notice. And my pledge to you, dear reader, is to continue to be that guy.

Oh, and due to popular demand, I'm always willing to bring you more Lynda Carter clips!

RESCUED AND CARRIED ALONG

Rain. I stand at the window, watching it fall. It's late February, but this looks and feels like an October rain, cold, relentless and melancholy. This is my vacation.

I've been spending some time in a town I once called home, a town I still recall with great fondness, with well-stocked bookstores, a lively music scene and countless wonderful restaurants. I love this place, and I love coming back, but as the afternoon blends into my last night here and my thoughts turn to the trip home, the skies darken and the rain falls. How nice--every vacation should come complete with its own heavy-handed metaphor.

Between the weather and the fact that I've done most of what I wanted to do, I've been holed up in my room for the last two hours, watching Almost Famous on HBO. I'd only seen it once before, in the theater when originally released. It was a Monday night, and I was with my wife, because I was married then.  And it was strange that we were there, because we seldom went out during the week. It was a big deal for us if we stayed up until nine.

Why did we go to a movie that night?  Was there a reason for it?  Had we dropped off one of our cars at the shop? Did I pick her up after work, and was there a reason I would have done so? Or did we just go out because we could? Was it a date night? Did we go out to eat first? Did we talk, did we laugh, did we have fun?

How has it come to this? How can I remember the experience of seeing a movie, the time and the place, but not the real life surrounding the event? It's not like Almost Famous is a movie I even care that much about.  It's not as important to me as she was.  Right?

I'm finding a lot of that on this trip: Memories of places I went with her, things I did with her, only she's no longer there. The physical locations now exist independent of her. Trace amounts can be found, of course: in this alley we kissed in the rain, on this doorstep we argued, at this now-shuttered record store we first met. But these memories are brief, they flicker and are gone. The town is its own reality, the shops and the restaurants. I love it here, and it has nothing to do with her.

Which is good, of course, but...strange. This is a person I lived with every day for several years. We ate and bathed and slept together. We joked and we fought. I know we did these things, even if I can't quite recall them. Sometimes the whole marriage feels like something I only imagined, or something that happened to somebody else, a story told so often it takes on its own reality, a sitcom only experienced vicariously.

Yes, forgetting is necessary. No one should be defined by their past. After all, one subsequent relationship I cared about very much was derailed in part by my inability to let go of the past. And yes, maybe it's true: all that matters is to live for the moment. But who would want to live for this moment: Standing in a motel room, looking out the window in a daze?

Cars prowl the parking lot, the squish-squish of tires on wet asphalt louder than the roar of engines. This place is starting to fill up now, mostly guys, mostly alone, some couples, no families on a weeknight. So many people staying here for one night, or two, or who knows how many. Are they pilgrims on a longer journey, or is this their destination? When morning comes and they move on, will they remember their time here at all? Or will it be forgotten, like a passing, dreary rain?

HAVIN' LOTS OF FUN, GOD WILLING

I'll be gone for awhile, because..well, I'll let Connie Francis explain:



Yeah! That's exactly what my vacation will be like. Except for the huggin' and kissin' and love letters in the sand. Also, probably no dancing. And it's not summertime. Actually, it won't be anything like this. In fact, go to hell, Connie Francis!

The point is, no new posts until next week, most likely. TTFN!

YOU CAN BANK ON IT, MY FRIEND

1) A nonsensical Larry King quote used for a title? It must be a Random Thoughts post--the greatest placeholder this side of a clip job!

2) As I believe I've mentioned, posting has been light around here because...well, just because, that's why. Partly I've had other things to do, partly I've been planning other things to do, partly I've been incredibly tired. Mostly, though, it's ennui--I'm finding I just don't care as much anymore. I've gone through these periods before, so presumably I'll be back more regularly. I may put something up tomorrow morning, but after that, it'll be dark here at least until the weekend, and probably until next week.

For both of you regular readers, this news is surely devastating.

3) Here's an interesting slip: When I first tried typing ennui, I inadvertently typed emu instead. As in, the large, flightless Australian bird. As in, also, the large, flightless birds raised on a farm not far from here, several of which escaped one night seven years ago, one of which my oldest brother Keith smacked into with the vehicle he was driving, the impact blasting him out of his seat and through the back of the minivan. There's no way to tell a story that involves running into an emu without it sounding like the setup for a joke. Unfortunately, there's no punchline--my brother was killed immediately.

4) Man, that turned depressing, didn't it?

5) Speaking of depressing, hey, how 'bout that economy, folks? Specifically, how 'bout those Republican governors threatening to refuse any money earmarked for their states as a result of Obama's stimulus program? I know if I happened to be a newly laid off worker in, oh, say Louisiana, and Gov. Bobby Jindal refused federal aid money that might help me get back to work simply because it's part of a program devised by the opposition party, I'd be calling for a special election to remove Jindal's sorry ass from office. Most likely, I wouldn't be alone.

6) Due to the fact that this site frequently offers some sort of pop culture commentary, I feel duty-bound to offer some sort of comment about Sunday night's Oscar ceremony. But really, what is there to say?

It was the first time I watched the thing in three or four years, and honestly, the only way I got through it was with the help of The AV Club's live blog, which was funny and occasionally erudite (eight minutes into the thing, they were already making Takashi Miike references), something the ceremony itself most certainly was not. It wasn't anything; not good or bad, just kind of there, existing for no reason. Oh, Steve Martin and Tina Fey were funny together (I still think Martin remains the least-appreciated Oscar host of recent years), and there was the odd spectacle of watching Hugh Jackman duetting with Beyonce (he sang live, she lip-synched) and, um...that was about it. Three and a half hours of pure tedium.

But again, The AV Club was hilarious.

7) Since it's a Random Thoughts tradition, I should finish with a mention of the cats. I had a guest over yesterday, a female--No, nothing happened. No, nothing is going to happen--and the usual pattern occurred: Monika merely ignored her, but Delmar growled and hissed.

If I ever brought a woman over and Del immediately took to her, would it be some kind of sign, would it mean I've found my true love at last? Or merely that Del found a dark soul mate of his very own, and soon the two of them would band together to gouge my eyes out?

I DON'T LIKE A PHONY

It's perhaps worth mentioning that I'm on vacation this week, which means posting around here may be even more erratic than it has been lately. I've got things to do, and perhaps even places to go, so no way of knowing whether I'll be frequenting this space much. I guess we'll find out, won't we?

Anyway, the Oscars are tonight, and mostly I couldn't care less, but hey, they're giving one of those honorary "Sorry we've ignored you but we're glad you're not dead" awards to Jerry Lewis, and I always tune in to all things Lewis-related. I admit it: I'm a fan.

I used to think my appreciation for Lewis was ironic, somewhat akin to my fondness for bad seventies variety shows, but that's not true. For one thing, when he's on, Lewis is absolutely, side-splittingly funny. And all those claims auteurists have made about his genius as a filmmaker? They're true. Admittedly, he's never made a movie that was an artistically successful whole--and his self-directed efforts tend to be notably light on laughs--but it's hard to deny his sharp visual sense, his masterful deep-focused compositions, brilliant staging and razor-sharp editing skills.

Of course, Lewis wasn't a born auteur; he learned how to do it from one of the best comedy directors of all time, Frank Tashlin. Manohla Dargis writes about this scene from Cinderfella at some length in her excellent piece on Lewis in today's New York Times, but I would just add that, the jaw-dropping brilliance of Lewis' performance aside (honestly, I could watch him spazz dance all day...and sadly, I have), the formal brilliance of this scene is obvious. That dazzling shot from the top of the staircase, the couples parting as Lewis descends, the camera gliding along Lewis and Anna Maria Alberghetti as they zip madly across the floor, the camera's sly retreat as the two assume a more romantic form, swallowed by the crowd, Lewis' final mad dash up the stairs as those ominous balloons descend--if Vincente Minnelli ever directed a Jerry Lewis vehicle, it would have looked exactly like this.

AS HAPPENS WITH ALARMING FREQUENCY AROUND HERE, I GOT NOTHIN'

Just not in writing mode lately, and I don't know why. Sometimes it seems like I spend too much time here, trying to find something to say, when I could be doing something more productive, like (considering the time) sleeping. Posting on a semi-daily basis has always been a goal around here, but lately it seems like a burden, like cleaning the droids in the garage.



Ah, Toshi Station, how I long to be there!

Incidentally, even in the writing of this brief, time-killing placeholder, I wasted ten minutes researching the correct spelling of "Toshi". (Turns out, there's no consensus.) The things I do for this site--I just knowingly and willingly spent time at Wookiepedia!

Sad, really.

THE MOST ADORABLY SWEET TRANSVESTITE OF ALL

Okay, so the other day Tabbatha posted a meme on her Facebook page listing 113 apparently randomly-chosen movies, with the premise being that the person posting it would check off the ones on the list he or she has seen. Which is how I came to discover that Tabbatha, who is, after all, the woman I once wanted to marry, had never seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Which just kind of floored me, because I just sort of assume anyone in my immediate orbit has seen Rocky Horror. (She'd also never seen Airplane, and when I expressed my disbelief, she admitted she'd never even heard of it. I wanted to say, "Surely you're not serious," hoping she would inevitably respond, "I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.") I'm not one of those people who dresses up and goes to the midnight shows, but then again, this movie is basically in the mainstream now, sort of a Wizard Of Oz for a new generation, something I can freely quote from with the belief everyone will get it.

The point is, this got me to thinking about my deep love for Rocky Horror, which as a movie is crushingly underrated even by some of its most ardent cultists. So I planned to write a piece exploring my admiration, not only of the film (which I think is clearly one of the best stage-to-screen adaptations of all time), but also of Richard O'Brien's amazing score, which has also never really gotten its critical due.

Sadly, YouTube, my go-to option for all things clip related, currently had no clips available I intended to use to make my points, so the whole thing fell apart. I did, however, find a clip somebody had cobbled together of Littlefoot, the plucky dinosaur protagonist of the terminally upbeat Land Before Time series, apparently singing Rocky Horror's signature tune, Sweet Transvestite. The lip synch isn't really very good, and the joke wears off after half a minute or so, but hearing it in this weirdly wholesome context only makes the playfully Goth sensibility of O'Brien's hilarious lyrics stand out in sharper relief. Something about Littlefoot inviting us up to the lab to see what's on the slab just makes me happy.

BIG LIKE AN OCEAN, OR IMPORTANT LIKE A MOUNTAIN, OR TALL LIKE A TREE

Three years ago. Three years today.

In the hallway outside my apartment, heading back to the hospital. A phone rang somewhere, I paused, realized it was mine, raced back and answered. My sister Ann said, "Mom passed a few minutes ago, she's gone, oh Eddie, she's gone," and I said, "No?" phrased as a question, and she said, "Yes, just a few minutes ago," and I repeated it, louder this time,"No!" as if that could make it true, as if I could change reality by simply wishing it away.

In a way, I did. At that moment, part of me simply stopped being a part of the real world, stepped outside my corporeal form and floated above, watching, never participating. My body shambled through life for the next few days and weeks and months, but the essence of me--whatever it may be--was no longer there. It observed dispassionately, a reserved audience at a Strindberg play, noting all the emotional beats without ever once feeling them.

The most important thing in the world had been taken from me. I had been in denial as Mom's health faltered, but the reality of death couldn't be denied, so all I could do was ignore it. And the only way to do that was to stifle all feeling, any feeling, pain, yes, but also joy, or love, or anything.

Time passed. I rejoined the world. Feelings returned, though perhaps in a more muted form. And I realized my time spent wandering in the emotional desert had been productive. I matured, I grew, I became a different person, a shade more confident, perhaps, a bit more emotionally aware.

I healed, mostly.

But no matter how hard I try, I can't wrap my mind around what was lost three years ago. After all this time, I still can't feel it. I cry when I remember my beloved cat Scotchie, I cry for my much-missed German Shepherd Elinore, I cry when I hear John Lennon sing Julia, hell, I even cried at the last scene in Revenge Of The Sith. But for Mom I can only wait, wait for the tears that will someday fall.

REPUBLICANS TO AMERICA: DROP DEAD

The Republican party is going all-out to make sure Al Franken can't be named as the winner in the Minnesota senate race. Though the votes have been counted and re-counted, and the numbers seem to favor Franken, his opponent Norm Coleman has filed a lawsuit challenging Franken's legitimacy, and if that doesn't work, Republicans intend to filibuster or do anything they can to keep Franken out of office.

Yes, this is the same party that went to the Supreme Court to stave off Al Gore's challenge to Bush's presidency, claiming it was more important to get down to the business of running the country than making sure the process of democracy was allowed to play out.

But the hypocrisy isn't even the most infuriating thing here. The party is throwing away obscene amounts of money on Coleman's campaign, at a time when money is in short supply in the real world. They're doing this for the same reason they fought Obama's stimulus package: Because they can.

I should point out that I'm no Obama partisan, and my feelings towards Franken border on outright contempt. In particular, the efforts by Obama's brain trust to jumpstart the economy have been dismayingly similar to Bush's late-term efforts (which were also largely opposed by Republicans), with a curious determination to help out the bankers and Wall Street barons that helped get us into the mess in the first place. Still, at least it was an effort to do something; Coleman's cohorts have absolutely nothing to offer. Many in the party have openly agreed with Rush Limbaugh's claim that he wants to see Obama fail. They can't see that Obama's failure could well mean the failure of the entire nation.

They can't see, or more likely don't care. Sure, the last eight years may have been hell for the nation, but it's been a great time for Republicans. Their sense of entitlement seemed to be validated by the haplessness of the Democrats and their ability to silence any meaningful opposition. And they'll keep doing what they've been doing, because it feels so damned good. Let the world go to hell, because even though everything else has changed, it hasn't changed for them. It's still 2002, and things couldn't be better.

I CAN MAKE LOVE DISAPPEAR

Valentine's Day, and you really don't want me whining about my non-existent love life, do you? Of course not. But the only way to avoid such a topic on a day like this is the clever use of my favorite fall-back option: A clip job!

In the spirit of the day, here are two of my all-time favorite love songs. First up, a Rodgers & Hart classic, and who better to sing it than Frank Sinatra? A perfect song, a gorgeous Nelson Riddle arrangement and, man, that voice.



This next song I've posted before, but in a different performance. This is Richard Thompson with a stark, elemental rendition of his classic expression of desperate longing, Dimming Of The Day. This is much more than a simple love song, but hey, who said love was simple?



Not to be cynical but--the hell with love. It's just an illusion anyway, a cheap parlor trick, and not always a very good one. The late, much-missed Warren Zevon offers an explanation.



And when it's all over, as Cab Calloway can tell you, there's nothing to do but sing Blues In The Night.

YOU'D SAY TO THE WIND WHEN IT TOOK YOU AWAY: "THAT'S WHERE I WANTED TO GO TODAY!"

The deep blue of the sky somehow emphasized by the skeletal branches of the trees along the street, moving slightly, daintily in the wind, somehow sorrowful in their leafless state, as if knowing they are incomplete, as if missing something.

This is what I saw as I stepped outside this morning, a beautiful February day, clear and warm. Nothing unusual about that, normally a welcome sight, except it conjured a memory of a nearly identical day almost exactly three years ago, when the two of us passed through this very neighborhood.

Mom had a doctor's appointment, and I'd taken the day off from work to give her a ride. When I arrived at her home that morning, I was horrified by what I saw: Not just the large, tumorous bump on her head from a fall the night before, but the slight, fragile spectre of her former self. She'd been in and out of the hospital the previous summer, and I'd seen her look vulnerable and weak, but I'd never seen her look so...old.

Since her appointment wasn't until mid-afternoon, we tried to enact the regular rituals of the morning. She had her usual breakfast of donut holes and weakly-brewed tea, and we watched the next-day repeats of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, though Mom didn't laugh much. I played with her dog and cats and took a short walk while she watched The Young And The Restless, then it was time to leave.

She hallucinated the whole way to Des Moines. Odd. She wasn't on any new medications I was aware of, and though presumably her cancer grew worse by the day, I didn't believe it was a thing that could cause a person to hallucinate. But she saw the ghosts of long-dead pets along the roadside and mazes in the cornfields and castles on non-existent hills, warning me at one point not to run over the scarecrow in the middle of the highway. When we continued moving forward without hitting anything, she realized there was no scarecrow, and, strangely, seemed comforted rather than terrified by the knowledge that the things she viewed weren't real.

The doctor's office was in the basement of Methodist Hospital, right in my neighborhood. We drove down my street along the way, and she commented how pretty it looked on a day like this, how welcoming, how homey. I asked if she saw any things that weren't there, and she said no, it looked like it always looked, she'd just never taken the time to appreciate its beauty before.

We sat in the waiting room, joined shortly by my sister Ann, who had talked to Mom the night before and was prepared for the sight of the bump on the head, but who was taken aback by the news of hallucinations. "Could be meds," she said vaguely, and I wondered if she knew more than she was telling.

Finally, after the doctor examined her vitals, some good news, or at least somewhat reassuring--her blood pressure was alarmingly low. Mom had spent decades on medication due to high blood pressure, but apparently her current meds conflicted with the chemo she'd undergone recently, and put the whammy on her. Serious and unfortunate, but it explained the hallucinations: Blood wasn't flowing to her brain.

The doctor cut off the meds she'd been taking, ordered a different prescription and sent her on her way. She was noticeably more cheerful on the way home, full of jokes and funny asides, acting very much her usual self. I dropped her off at home while I ran down to pick up her new prescription. When I got back to the house, she sat watching People's Court, making fun of the participants as she always did. Surely she was okay now. Surely she was back to normal. Wasn't she?

The next day, she fell again, landing in the hospital. The day after that, she died. After that, nothing could ever be normal, not quite, not like it had always been, as I imagined it would always be.

FARCE? TRAGEDY? DOES IT MATTER?

Like pretty much everyone else who takes up space on the Interweb, I had the Pavlovian reaction to the video that surfaced of Joaquin Phoenix, uh, rapping: I wrote about it.

Speculation ran high at the time as to whether Phoenix, who had announced his intention to quit acting in favor of his music career, was joking. This was, after all, a pretty dire performance, and Phoenix is, if nothing else, a professional.

And now there's this, his appearance last night on David Letterman's show:



So this was a joke, right? He's merely affecting a clueless persona; no publicist would allow their client to appear that zonked out on national television. And he gives the game away--doesn't he?--by breaking character occasionally, as when he laughs at Letterman's Unabomber reference.

But if it's a joke...why? If he's doing some sort of conceptual comedy piece, he's merely treading the same ground as Andy Kaufman and Crispin Glover, who not only did the same sort of thing better, they even did it on Letterman's show. Isn't a smug, self-amused prank kind of an insult to whatever fans Phoenix still has? And isn't pretending to be a zoned-out guy on a downward spiral kind of tasteless (and supremely unfunny) when his more-talented older brother famously overdosed on heroin?

Which leads to the other possibility--maybe it's not a joke. Maybe this guy really is a casualty waiting to happen, and Letterman's treatment of him was unbearably cruel. But no, I think Letterman got it just right. After all, if Phoenix is on some sort of death trip (and he certainly is career-wise), he deserves to be called on it. Whether he's joking or dying, he's clearly not doing it alone, and either way, his appearance here reveals him to be thoroughly detestable, entirely worthy of Letterman's scorn and everyone else's.

CRY, CRY, CRY

Hey, remember election night and the inauguration and those vague, shiny feelings of hope?

Remember thinking how great it was to have a president who wasn't a stooge to his Sith Lord second-in-command (and remember when I said I'd stop making Star Wars analogies?), who could form a coherent sentence, who seemed, dammit, presidential? Remember thinking things will be, at least a little bit, better?

But then came the cabinet stuffed with Washington insiders determined to cling to the same old ways, an economic stimulus package and a bank bailout scheme that are indistinguishable from Bush's similar efforts (and, like Bush's, presented by an administration staffer who was an active part of the problem when the whole meltdown began) and, most depressingly, a defense of Bush's use of torture.

Maybe things will turn around, maybe the new president will see the light. But for now, Obama's stated intention to turn the nation around seems like just another empty campaign promise, and all that hope, all that change has gone.

DAMN KIDS WITH YOUR JITTERBUGS AND SWING MUSIC AND WHATNOT

At some point while finding clips from yesterday's post--The Who and The Jam, for those of you who missed it--I realized I should probably include something somewhat more contemporary in the mix, just to prove that I do indeed listen to music recorded in this century. I hastily attempted to find a clip of the New Ponographers song Sing Me Spanish Techno, but the official music video is one of those self-consciously oblique affairs that actually detracts from the music, and the live clips I found were substandard, and well, you may have been left with the impression that I'm some cranky old guy who doesn't give a damn what the kids are listening to these days.

(And just to clarify, The Jam's In The City may have been released in '77, but do you think I was actually listening to anything like that back then? I was a farm kid in the middle of nowhere, and the local pop stations offered either The Bee Gees and Shaun Cassidy or Styx and REO Speedwagon. Me, I was too busy listening to the Star Wars soundtrack for the millionth time to be aware of any other kind of music. Fact is, my musical tastes have always existed somewhere out of time.)

Anyway, though I pay very little attention to whatever's popular at any given moment (though this might be a good time to sheepishly admit that I kinda like Britney Spears' Womanizer), I find my musical tastes are fairly wide-ranging. I like what I like, regardless of its age, popularity, coolness factor, whatever. In that spirit, here's TV On The Radio with Dancing Choose--



--and Bernard Herrmann's Concerto Macabre, written for the film Hangover Square.

I WANNA COME HOME ALL COVERED IN MUD

Sure, recent posts around here have been a bit abbreviated and hastily-written, but dammit, I haven't resorted to a clip job for, gosh, days. So I'm overdue, don't you think?

Here's The Who in '66 (NOT '67, no matter what the graphic on the video frame below claims), from the brief period when they (like The Kinks) could make a legit claim as being the greatest band in the world. Of course, that was the year The Beatles released Revolver, so it wasn't a claim they could make for very long, but still, I'm A Boy, with its furious instrumentation, instantly memorable melody and lyrics that play like a depraved version of one of A.A. Milne's odes to childhood, is a perfect pop song.



Incidentally, the original UK 45 of I'm A Boy had a song called In The City as its flip side, and that title, of course, would be picked up by Paul Weller a decade later when he began his run of churning out classic after classic for The Jam, a band that, unlike The Who, broke up when the time was right. Weller also managed another trick Pete Townshend has never pulled off--he's still a fantastic songwriter decades after the height of his career. But here he is back at the beginning, with In The City.

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS

Paul and I went to a birthday party yesterday, after which we came back to my place and hung out until he decided it was time to go to bed. As per tradition, he got the bed while I slept on the floor, cats guarding either side of me.

This morning I woke up before him and flipped channels absent-mindedly. He stumbled out of bed just as The Road Warrior happened to be coming on. I asked him if he wanted to go to Krispy Kreme--his usual breakfast place of choice--and he said, "No. You still have cookies, right? Why don't we have those for breakfast and watch this? It looks pretty good."

So we did--the R-rated movie played uncut on a premium channel, so I just made him look away during the one inappropriate scene--then we hung around some more before heading off to Barnes & Noble, which happened to have the latest issue of Shock Cinema in stock. I told Paul he could get something as long as he kept it in the five dollar range, so he found a book about Boba Fett(!) and it was time to drop him off at his Mom's. After that, I relaxed at the neighborhood Chinese restaurant with the Sunday New York Times, and just got home in time for a quick nap.

Maybe I'm getting old, but much in that description--chocolate chip cookies, a Mad Max picture, bantering with a quick-witted (and proudly weird) nine year old, Chinese food, reading a newspaper and taking a nap--suggests a nearly perfect day. And so it was.

YOU THINK THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE

I hope to write about it in more detail later (I say that a lot, don't I...and usually never follow through), but for now just a quick note expressing my unreserved enthusiasm for Henry Selick's amazing stop-motion animated fantasy Coraline.

Though promoted as some sort of kiddie film, it is more accurately a film about childhood, and it presents the title heroine in all her complexity, plucky, funny and courageous, yes, but also spoiled and self-absorbed. When she enters a parallel dimension in which her life is so much better and her parents so much cooler, she's all too eager to ditch the real world, and Selick is canny enough to seduce the audience as well as Coraline, presenting us with a world of astonishing delights. Even when the mask is dropped and she realizes the price she must pay to live in this world, the movie never cheats--when she returns to reality, it's every bit as boring as before. Now, she must make her own enchantment.

Whether in the mundane real world or the enchanting fantasy one (in which glowing plants bloom in the moonlight, mice perform in a circus and Scottish terriers act as ushers), every single frame of this film is a hand-crafted delight. It has a tactal pleasure, a human element CGI simply can't convey. Though there is dialogue, it is mostly unnecessary (Selick adapted the script from Neil Gaiman's children's novel), as the character's movement alone tells us everything we need to know about them. This is the essence of animation, and maybe the essence of art: It shows us things in ways we've never seen before.

There is so much great stuff here (the only movie I could compare it to while watching was Michael Powell's Tales Of Hoffmann, which is really saying something), from the creepiest opening credit sequence since Seconds to a drop-dead beautiful score by Bruno Coulais to a lengthy sequence (that mouse circus) that seemed to be a tribute to George Pal's Puppetoons. It demands repeated viewings simply for the level of its craftmanship.

But my favorite thing about Coraline? It clearly presents cats as serene, other-worldly creatures, smarter and more sensitive than humans, loving and resourceful and maybe a little bit creepy. A movie like that is completely on my wavelength!

IT TAKES SO LITTLE TO MAKE ME HAPPY

This post could have been nothing but me whining about this terrible headache I've had since yesterday afternoon, or relating two particularly incomprehensible dreams I had last night (both of them featuring guest appearances from mellow song stylist/professional irritant Jason Mraz...and I have no idea why), but then I stumbled across this headline from London's The Times

VLADIMIR PUTIN FLIES IN BJORN AGAIN FOR ABBA TRIBUTE CONCERT

and suddenly I feel all giddy. This is the type of over-the-top eccentricity that cements Putin's resemblance to a James Bond villain, especially since the accompanying story also involves a menacing henchman and strategically-placed snipers. Nothing in real life should ever be this goofy, but when it is, it's a cause for celebration. At least in my world.

ABSOLUTION

I'm in no way knowledgeable of the byzantine bylaws of the Catholic Church, but I'm pretty sure I can be condemned to Hell for saying this: The Pope is a liar.

Or, more accurately, an anonymous Vatican statement claiming Pope Benedict XVI was unaware of the Holocaust-denying tendencies of rogue Bishop Richard Williamson when Benedict rehabilitated him and welcomed him back into the fold is simply unbelievable.

The Vatican wishes to make it clear that Williamson's rehabilitation hinges not only on his fidelity to the teachings of Catholicism, but to his ability to keep his mouth shut whenever anybody brings up Auschwitz. Nobody for a minute believes it's possible to change Williamson's mind, but he doesn't need to go around embarrassing the church.

Isn't that what it all comes down to? Williamson and three fellow breakaway Bishops are basically being told if they follow the party line, everything will be okey-dokey. I would hate to think a person's core beliefs could be so easily altered or denied, but then, I'm not a Vatican spokesman, so what do I know?

But to me, this isn't about Williamson, it's about Benedict. To think he was unaware of Williamson's rabid anti-Semitism at the time of the rehabilitation is simply unbelievable. Heck, I was aware of it, and I spend amazingly little time parsing the philosophical underpinnings of breakaway Catholic sects. Such a blatant untruth--and the Vatican's desperate attempt to put a smiley face on it--should certainly call into question any notion of the Pope's infallibility.

More than likely, though, Williamson will say a few Hail Marys, Benedict will quote from the Talmud, and Catholics and Jews will go back to doing what they do best: Hating Arabs. It's a beautiful world, isn't it?

MY MIND IS FAR FROM FARMIN'

I had a detailed piece in mind tying the numerous gaffes Obama has made in picking his cabinet members, highlighted most spectacularly by the Tom Daschle episode, and this story about the spectacular failure of Shrek: The Musical, and how both of these display epic hubris, an arrogant belief that bad ideas can somehow be justified and made right...but the more I thought about it, I realized the two stories had very little in common.

Fine. So here's another old Electric Company clip, this one featuring Skip Hinnant and Judy Graubart, probably my two favorite performers on the show when I was a kid. Having stumbled across this clip, I can say with some certainty I'll have this song in my head for the next several days. Maybe you will, too.

IF YOU THINK IT'S LONESOME WHERE YOU ARE TONIGHT

I can't move. I stand, paralyzed by grief and something else, something unidentifiable, moored to this spot, unable to move, not yet, not yet. Stay here for awhile until the mourning passes, stay here surrounded by the dead.

From the beginning, this day that didn't go as expected: My car wouldn't start, the alternator blown, and when trying to find an alternate way to work didn't pan out, and after a brief emotional meltdown, I wound up having the car towed to my usual garage. They fixed it, but to be reimbursed for the towing cost, I'd need to see my insurance agent, whose office is twenty-some miles west of where I live, all the way in Perry.

Obviously, I could have done business with any number of insurance agents after moving to Des Moines, but I stuck with this one because...well, for the longest time, traveling up to Perry to pay a premium or receive a reimbursement check was also an excuse to swing by and see Mom, a good time to visit for awhile.

It still is.

Over a year, at least, since I'd last been to Perry, and even then, I only passed through. This day would be different. After dropping off the towing bill, I knew I'd drive out to the cemetery, I knew I had to see Mom's gravestone, and Dad's. As I drove down Highway 141 I felt almost as if I could remove my hands from the steering wheel, as if being pulled by some larger force, as if this trip was predestined.

I turned onto the gravel road, rutted and muddy from melting snow. The cemetery sat calm and disinterested on the landscape, dotted at all corners by shabby-looking pine trees. I pulled in, stopped, sat in the car for awhile and finally got out, making my way to the small markers indicating the remains of Mom and Dad and little Paul, my would-have-been older brother, who died in infancy. Mom's grave had plastic flowers cast upon it, covered by snow and ice.

The markers have only names and birth and death dates, nothing more. They can't reveal any secrets or offer words of comfort. They are only stone, mute, cold, implacable, telling me nothing I don't already know--Mom and Dad are dead.

It's a beautiful sunny day, but cold, the perfect blue sky tinged ever so slightly with a steely gray, and my tears when they arrive sting like ice. I look around me, at the snow-covered fields and lonely houses and occasional tree--a barren, unforgiving landscape, but it's part of me, I grew up here, it's in my DNA.

My car shudders in the driveway, its motor still running, pumping out exhaust, offering a means to escape this moment. But where can it take me? I've lived in six different places in the last twelve years, but have never stayed put, have never been anything more than a traveler. Maybe my whole life I will be fated to return here again and again, an ongoing reminder of the life I once led, in the only place I have ever truly called home.

JUST WHEN YOU THINK IT CAN'T GET WORSE

The ongoing efforts of Twentieth Century-Fox to produce a movie adaptation of The A-Team have gone unremarked upon here, because, honestly, who cares? Another adaptation of a fuzzily-but-fondly-remembered TV show? Sure, fine.

But recent events suggest this movie will be a loser for the ages. According to Variety, the film is currently being produced by Ridley Scott (quick--name a good movie he's made since Blade Runner) and directed by Joe Carnahan (auteur of Smokin' Aces, who has takin to referring to himself online as Smokin' Joe--as pure an example of douchebaggery as we are likely to witness in our lifetimes). These gentlemen are going forward with the project after an earlier attempt failed, presumably because making a movie out of a cheesy eighties action show is a delicate process.

And what is Smokin' Joe's take on the material? Well, he intends to "make a film that reflects on the real world without losing the great sense of fun and the velocity of action in a classic summer popcorn film." Thanks, Joe, for that dazzling insight, and also for confirming your douchebag status. To "reflect on the real world," The Smokin' One is updating the members of the titular group from 'Nam vets to Iraq vets, and his intention for the movie is to "make it as real, emotional and accessible as possible without cheesing it up."

Uh, Joe? It's The A-Team. Nobody wants real and emotional. Cheese is par for the course--the show starred Mr. T, for crying out loud. It was never anything more than an agreeable time-killer, but at least it was watchable and entertaining, and knew exactly what it was supposed to be. Best of all, the show's creator, Stephen Cannell, would almost certainly never have used the phrase "velocity of action" when describing it.

This is what it's come to, folks. Studios are spending millions and millions on adaptations of things they don't even understand. What's next? A remake of Duck Soup without the comedy ("We wanted to explore what life in Freedonia under a benevolent dictator like Rufus T. Firefly would really be like.") or a feel-good adaptation of Notes From The Underground ("We felt it was important to give the character a full emotional arc, which also allowed us to add a part for Kate Hudson.")?

One shudders to imagine.

ALL ADORABLE, ALL THE TIME

No more gloom and depression around here, no more unpleasant things. From now on, this site is dedicated to all things cute, cute, cute.

For instance, here's a sleepy kitten. Awww...



And here's a sneezy baby panda.



And--Hmm, what have we here?



Wait. Maybe I'm not doing this right...

SOMETHING ABOUT GOING HOME

Hey, sorry, running late, overslept, gotta get to work, blah blah, the usual. But absent anything else, here's one of Lyle Lovett's greatest songs, She's Already Made Up Her Mind. Lovett is at his best as a songwriter when he drops his sometimes jokey persona and hokey big band arrangements and concentrates on small, perfect details, as here, and this great song, combined with his weary, lived-in voice and a beautiful arrangement...Well, just listen.

THE BIG ENNUI

That horrible sense of disconnectedness continues around here, now yoked to a new chum--tiredness. Yesterday was my day off, and I spent much of it sleeping. When I woke up (at two in the afternoon), I puttered around for awhile, ate dinner (such as it was--a peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and...went to bed.

And slept. But not a nice, refreshing sleep. I woke up at my usual time, but I still feel cranky and out of sorts, as though I've gone several days without catching a wink. When I sleep, I dream, of course, but even my subconscious is uninteresting--last night I dreamt I mixed a nice chocolate shake, only once I poured the milk, I discovered I was using buttermilk! Oh, the hilarity! Oh, the humanity! Seriously, a dream like that is boring enough to put a person to sleep. (And a stupid gag line like that is so lame even Milton Berle wouldn't steal it. And a Milton Berle reference is so out of date even Jay Leno wouldn't use it. And a Jay Leno joke is---AARRGGHH!! Stop it!)

Anyway, as any commercial for mood elevating drugs can tell you, being tired and disinterested in things is one of the symptoms of depression, but that doesn't seem likely, considering how sunny things always are in my world. (Note: HA!) Usually whenever I enter what an old girlfriend used to call "depressi-mode" I pass out of it eventually, generally without the aid of therapy or, God knows, meds. I've tried both, and they don't help. (The aforementioned girlfriend's method of getting me out of it was...well, let's just say she gave great succor.) All I can do is resolve to get better, to battle this with steel-eyed determination. It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, risin' up to the challenge of--say, I feel a montage coming on...

At which point I'd normally go to YouTube and look for a lame Rocky III clip to post, but I'm too disinterested to do even that. For that, at least, we can be thankful.

DECONSTRUCTION

First I direct you to yesterday's post. (Go ahead, scroll down. It won't take you too long.)

Next, I offer an entirely unrequested and largely self-indulgent explanation of its creation. Not because the details of my creative process are so interesting, but because I think there's some insight to be had into how a work of imagination--fiction, film, music, whatever--comes to exist, and how maybe the final version is never truly the best.

In this case, the writing was easy. The first paragraph popped into my head more or less fully formed. I didn't know who the unnamed "she" was, to whom she was speaking, or to what she was responding negatively. It could have been anything, but as I sat down to write, it became another dispute between two lovers, a depiction of a relationship in stasis. (Write about what you know, I say.)

But what you can read isn't what I originally wrote. The most obvious difference is, the piece was originally written in first person, the events filtered through the male protagonist's view. As I wrote, I abandoned this voice for two reasons: 1) Since most of the (non-fictional) posts around here are written from my point of view, and sometimes get painfully personal, I felt anyone reading this might assume I transcribed an actual occurrence in my life, and 2) I didn't like the tone, which was too judgmental of the female's point-of-view.

That change, though, altered not only the tone of the story, but the actual events. When I switched to a third person voice, I rejected the notion of an omniscient narrator, so the descriptive passages only suggest the character's attitudes, but can never describe what they're thinking. (I cheated slightly at one point.) Because of that self-imposed limitation (generally, I dislike the use of the omniscient third-person voice in what I read as well as what I write), I couldn't allude to past events in these characters' lives unless they brought them up. But why would they come out and say things both of them already know?

They wouldn't, of course. And so, I tried to keep them from doing that. But that became a limitation, because I had very little to build upon, and the piece became a sketch, not a fully-formed story. Which is fine, and obviously it's the version I chose to post, and on the whole, I think it's more consistent. Its original form was messier, and maybe it had a little more depth, and at its best was better...but I couldn't quite make it work.

This, I know, is what writing is--sometimes you sacrifice the very thing that inspired a piece because it no longer fits once you get into it. Sometimes you start something, but you realize your own limitations, and fall back into the familiar (which is what I think happened to the late Donald Westlake with his ambitious but ultimately unsatisfying The Ax) and sometimes you plow ahead into a realm in which you have no discernable talent (which is what happens whenever Stephen King tries writing "serious" fiction). Sometimes it all comes together, and you make a masterpiece.

But however great they are, even those masterpieces might have been improved. Consider this:



That, of course, was George Harrison's original demo for While My Guitar Gently Weeps. This isn't, obviously, the version that was originally released, the version that features the other Beatles. That song became a cornerstone of The White Album, surely one of the greatest works in the rock & roll canon...but isn't this version better? Or at least different--dreamier, languid, fluid, less hard-edged than the version we've always known.

On the other hand, should we have ever heard this? Isn't there something to be said for the official version being the only version? Though Harrison might have preferred the original, the fact is, he and his bandmates only officially approved one version for release. For better or for worse, shouldn't that be the final statement?

By offering any kind of opinion on the relative merits of released versus unreleased material, aren't we, in effect, second-guessing the artists themselves? Sure, democracy is great, but what gives us the right to do that? And can't that lead to artists second-guessing themselves? We know where that leads--George Lucas' awful attempts to improve the original Star Wars trilogy or, more seriously, the disaster known as Apocalypse Now Redux.

It's hard to keep from thinking what might have been. What we have is all we have, flaws included, and is perhaps all we should have. I find Huckleberry Finn maddeningly discursive, am less than satisfied with the second half of The Threepenny Opera, and dearly wish The White Album had been shorn of at least a quarter of its songs. (Mostly Paul's.) They could all be improved, yet they're all legitimately great, and maybe whatever problems they have are like fingerprints, signs of individuality, a reminder that even god-like creators are, after all, human.

THE LIFE WE FOUND

"No," she says, the words spoken with the casual indifference of somebody opening a box of crackers or folding socks, something requiring no thought at all. Clearly this subject is of no importance.

Surprised, he essentially repeats the question in the form of a statement. "We used to talk about having a kid."

She flips channels, TBS, Discovery, Lifetime, TNT. "We used to talk about a lot of things."

"Yeah, but specifically, we used to talk about this. It was something we were always going to do."

She stops on AMC, then sets the remote down on the slightly-widening gap between them on the couch. "It was something...Do you really want to talk about this?"

"Well, I don't know. It's just something I've been thinking about lately."

"But do you want to talk about this? Or is it enough to know that I don't want to have a kid right now. Or ever, probably."

"Ever?"

"Not...I know you think I can be flighty or unfocused or ditsy or whatever you want to call it--"

"I've never said that."

"--but this is something I'm certain about: I don't want a kid." She sighs heavily. "With you."

"Me? I'm...What...does that mean?"

She sighs again, sitting absolutely still. "Look. Okay. It's like this. In all the time we've been together, I've never quite known...how I feel, exactly. It's not that I don't love you. I do. And I know you love me, but with us...it's all on the surface, you know? It's nothing grand, nothing passionate, if you left tomorrow, I'd maybe cry a little, but I'd basically be okay.

"And that's...kind of what I wanted when we first met. I wanted a relationship that was committed but...disposable. I wanted to feel like I could pull up roots at any time and go away, start all over, be a whole new person. And if that didn't happen, if I didn't do that, I wanted it to be because I'd fallen deeply in love."

Her eyes stare at him, mercilessly but not unkindly. "Two years. I didn't plan on being with you this long. And after all this time, I'm still not sure how I feel. About you, and everything else. The same job, the same town, the same friends. It's not how I imagined my life, and I don't know...anything right now. But I do know if we started pumping out kids right now, I'd resent them, and I'd resent you, and I'd blame you for making me choose a life I never wanted." She begins to cry, and he makes no move to comfort her.

Her tears play out, and all is silence, except for the TV: Kevin Kline is smugly self-important, Jeff Goldblum is self-consciously eccentric, Glenn Close is whiny. "Jesus," he says at last. "Are we actually sitting through The Big Chill?"

"Yeah," she says, wiping her eyes. "I just noticed that myself."

"Maybe we should shut it off." He forces a half-smile. "We need to talk."

HORROR LOOKS YOU RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES

I noticed it last night when I got home from work--creeping apathy, a sense of not caring about anything. I fixed something to eat, I messed around on the computer, I even watched an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, usually a guaranteed mood-lifter...but I still felt numb.

I still do. Not sick, not depressed, just disconnected somehow, like I'm not quite here and don't quite care. And this sense of detachment is so strong that I didn't even react with the expected sense of horror to the story in today's New York Times that they're turning Michael Jackson's Thriller into a Broadway musical. No creative team is set, and Jackson may or may not be involved, and this probably is the final nail in the coffin of the Broadway musical, and a clear demonstration that some forms of popular art are even more creatively bankrupt than the movie business.

But...whatever. Nothing more than a shrug from me.

On the other hand, this news ought to cheer everyone up. Not me, but all regular readers. (That's right...both of you!) As the dancing Ewoks indicate...



...with the end of the Bush administration, I'm officially retiring my tendency to use labored Star Wars metaphors whenever I write about politics. The Sith Lord Cheney has been vanquished! The rebel alliance has triumphed! A new day is dawning!

(Meanwhile, in New York, the senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton is filled by Kirsten Gillibrand, who calls herself a Democrat but spends most of her time hanging with her Republican cronies. Will she secretly manipulate her colleagues in the Democratic party to her own evil ends? Is she merely a front for a shadowy cabal, or could she actually be...The Phantom Menace?)

ONE VAST AND ECUMENICAL HOLDING COMPANY

It's been suggested by many friends and co-workers that I...well, that I like to complain.

Fine, yes, granted: I do complain a lot. But it's not something I enjoy. It's not as though I view the world as somehow failing to live up to my lofty standards. Let's face it, living in these interesting times, anyone who is awake and paying attention can't help noticing how far out of control things have spiraled, and I consider it my duty to point this out, thank you very much. Far too many of us have been bred for cynicism, have noticed all that is wrong with the way we live and responded with a passive shrug. Me, I'd rather rage. Even if I know that rage will be ultimately impotent, I'll know that I by God fought instead of submitting.

Trouble is, sometimes I complain even when others see hope. Take Obama, for instance. Yes, he's doing some good things, he's making the right moves. For now, that's all very inspiring. And I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but...

The fact is, nothing susbstantial will change. Obama's just a tool, a cog in a machine he and his supporters may not fully understand. They still think in terms of nations and peoples, but...Well, let's let Paddy Chayefsky break it all down, in this classic scene from the 1976 film Network. There is much valid criticism to be made of this movie--none of the characters are characters, just mouthpieces for the author's points of view, and the thing as a whole is bitterly misanthropic and borderline misogynistic--but its impossible to argue with Chayefsky's fundamental point, best expressed in this beautifully written scene, and expertly delivered by Ned Beatty. The fact that some of the particulars may have changed, that ITT and ATT have been replaced by newer entities only underscores the point: There is no entity, only a system. To which I would merely add, complaining about such a system is the least--and maybe best--we can do.

WHAT, YOU'RE GOING TO BE ARTHUR GODFREY?

1. Somehow, use of a random quote from Larry King as a title became my trademark for another Random Thoughts post. This isn't up there with "Morgan Fairchild is a special, special lady," but honestly, what could be?

2. I'm still not fully onboard the Obama bandwagon or anything (for one thing, he signed off on the continued use of remote-controlled aircraft bombing the hell out of Pakistan, allegedly targeting terrorists but routinely killing civilians), but holy crap: the quick move to close Gitmo, and explicitly banning torture and removing Bush's ban of federal funds to groups that provide abortion and striking Bush's revisions of the Freedom of Information Act--this guy hasn't even been president for a week, and already he's made this country into something somewhat resembling the America I used to know.

3. Understatement of the week, courtesy of The New York Times: "The economic record of President George W. Bush was largely a disappointing one."

4. Ex-Hitler Youth member Pope Benedict has welcomed back into the fold (or "rehabilitated" in Vatican-speak) a rogue bishop who had previously rejected efforts to modernize the Catholic Church. Though Richard Williamson is on record as saying, "I believe the historical evidence is hugely against six million having been deliberately gassed in gas chambers as a deliberate policy of Adolph Hitler," Our Boy Benedict is A-OK with him now, since he's agreed to hew to whatever the Vatican says. And if he makes a few more anti-Semitic statements, eh, what are you gonna do?

5. Movie producer Charles H. Schneer has died at the age of 88. He learned at the hand of B-movie expert Sam Katzman, and his films were always produced on tight, tight budgets. Though he did other things (Ronald Reagan's Hellcats Of The Navy, for one), Schneer will always be beloved by millions as the guy who partnered with stop motion animation god Ray Harryhausen for a string of matinee classics, from 1955's It Came from Bemeath The Sea to the 1981 semi-classic Clash Of The Titans. Sure, some of the movies they made together are incredibly dull or silly whenever there are no monsters on screen, but without Schneer's involvement, Harryhausen likely would never have gotten the chance to strut his formidable stuff for so many years. And along the way, the Harryhausen/Schneer team produced the 1958 epic The Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad, which is simply a milestone in the annals of fantasy filmmaking and the movie that gave the biggest imaginable mindfuck to several generations of ten-year-old boys. That's a legacy worth celebrating.

6. Whenever I crank out one of these Random Thoughts things, I usually wind up mentioning the cats. But--ssshhh. They're sound asleep, and if we're very quiet, maybe they'll stay that way.

IN WHICH I USE THE ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS AS A CHEAP EXCUSE TO INDULGE MY GRUBBY LITTLE FANTASIES

There was a time--I guess--when the annual Running Of The Mediocrities known as the Oscar nominations had a certain mystique.

Not just because there were fewer award shows back in the day, or because in the pre-wired world it was much more rare to see celebrities on your home entertainment delivery system, though there was that, too. But once upon a time, the Academy Awards really were a celebration of what Hollywood perceived as its best.

True, they got it wrong nearly every time out (Mrs. Miniver? Seriously?), but the award was never really meant to represent artistic excellence, but to celebrate Hollywood professionalism. Oscar winners from the thirties, forties, fifties and sixties nearly always exemplify the industry's ability to turn out competent, uninspired entertainment.

The New Hollywood revolution of the seventies caused an unusual number of truly great films to get the Best Picture nomination for a decade or so--Taxi Driver, All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, both Godfathers--and occasionally win. That wouldn't last, and with the back-to-back Best Picture wins in '81 and '82 for Chariots Of Fire and Ghandi, it was clear that the Academy was back to celebrating dull respectability.

All of which is a long-winded prelude to observing that this year's list of Oscar nominations is one of the most boring on record. While there are some nice surprises in the acting categories (it's always nice to see some love for Richard Jenkins, Melissa Leo and Michael Shannon), the main nominees represent typical Oscar Bait. All right, I admit I haven't actually seen any of the Best Picture nominees, but if you had to make a template for a list of dull, respectable Oscar nominees, this batch would surely be it: Long, sentimental weeper (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button), unadventurous adaptation of a middelbrow play (Frost/Nixon), biopic of a safely dead liberal icon (Milk), moderately edgy psuedo-indie (Slumdog Millionaire) and of course, Holocaust drama featuring Kate Winslet naked (The Reader).

If I had to see one of these movies, it would be Milk. I'd see The Reader just for the opportunity to see Kate Winslet naked, but really, pretty much any of her movies will suffice for that.

(But not, sadly, her best movie, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind. She alternates between blue and bright red hair in that movie, and I wanted to see if she was commited enough to her characterization to dye the carpet to match the drapes. The one movie in which her nudity could give us insight into the person she played, and she kept her clothes on. Go figure.)

I don't care about the Academy Awards, and I care less and less about movies in general these days, but if I have a point to make, it's that I do respect the Academy for nominating Winslet for movies in which she appears naked. And I'd like to take this opportunity to suggest that Lauren Graham and Thora Birch, two wonderful but underused actresses, ought to use Winslet as a role model. Abundant nudity is clearly the way to go to get awards attention, and I for one would applaud it.

UH UH UH

PBS this week trotted out a show called The Electric Company. Here are two clips.





Pretty standard fare for current "educational" kid's shows. Bland, freshly-scrubbed multi-culti cast, dull flash animation, a level of professionalism but not a trace of wit or invention. There are songs, too, mostly hip-hop lite, the kind of thing designed to be as inoffensive (oh, and instructional, of course) as possible.

Which is fine, I guess, but why call the show The Electric Company? Why claim it as an updated version of the coolest kid's show ever? Produced in the early to mid-seventies, but shown in reruns until the eighties, the original was designed to teach kids simple language and grammar concepts, but what it really did was showcase a variety of comedy styles, a wide range of animation design and a whole lot of ultra-cool music.

Like its Children's Television Workshop partner Sesame Street, The Electric Company was ostensibly designed for inner city kids, children research claimed lacked basic English skills. Many aspects of the show seem designed specifically to an "urban" audience. Yet those very same elements blew the mind of at least one Iowa farm kid, who had no conception of the wider world beyond his own small area and the white, white kids he knew. So, sitting in his first grade class, watching Morgan Freeman's unbelievably funky Easy Rider strut onto the scene and duet with Rita Moreno--my mind was officially blown.



Leaving aside the retro-cool vibe ("Is that heavy? IS THAT HEAVY?") and slight salaciousness ("He can't seem to get enough"--even as a six-year-old, I understood these two must have had some kind of, uh, history), this is just a kick-ass song. And by the way--Morgan Freeman! Rita Moreno! What an awesome cast The Electric Company had, and not just in front of the camera. Satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer was lured out of retirement to pen a number of tunes, including this absolute classic.



Much of the animation was produced by the great John Hubley and was very individualized. Notice how precise the movement is in this sequence, something that would be impossible with the flash cartoons used in the new show.



Here are a few more brief animated sequences showing the astonishing range of visual and musical styles this show routinely deployed.







Hard to know if other kids were as struck by this wide range of visuals, by the sophisticated wordplay, by the way it combined a funky urban vibe with Borscht Belt shtick. (Did I mention Mel Brooks was an occasional contributor?) Me, I was transported by this show, taken to places I'd never been. It seemed designed to be different, to introduce viewers to new ways of looking at the world. The new Electric Company is clearly intended to be...an educational show. Kids may learn basic grammar from it, but they won't learn anything else, if you know what I mean.

IS THIS GOING TO BE A WHOLE WEEK OF CLIP JOBS? NOOOOOO!!!

What can I say, folks? Some days inspiration (well, maybe not inspiration so much as the ability to write lengthy screeds attacking George Bush or praising Vincente Minnelli) strikes, some days it doesn't. Today, I got nothin' Could be a whole week like this.

But in the interest of providing some kind of diversion, here's Joaquin Phoenix rapping. Was he serious when he said he'd quit acting to pursue a music career? Was he sober? Are we watching an elaborate Andy Kaufman-styled joke here, or a guy on the verge of a breakdown? What controlled substances has he likely ingested? Will they lead him to follow his brother in death? If so, can we still make fun of this?

ENOUGH WITH ALL THE POLITICAL HOO-HA, IT'S TIME TO GET BACK TO WHAT THIS SITE IS ALL ABOUT

...namely, Lynda Carter clips.



Yes, the drive-in screen practically explodes from the combined charisma when Marjoe Gortner joins Our Lynda on a rebels-on-the-road car-chasin' shoot-'em-up. Presumably AIP honcho Sam Arkoff decided he wanted yet another redneck action movie, and when Peter Fonda and Claudia Jennings weren't available it was decided to call in the B Team.

I've actually seen this and though I remember absolutely nothing about it, it at least hasn't seared itself into my brain like the horror of Lynda's variety specials. So, you know, that's something...

MAYBE...

No, I've never really believed the hype, and realistically, I know things won't really be much different for people at the bottom of the heap.

But as the cold blue sky loomed over the National Mall, in a city that was once the epicenter of the slave trade, as a man whose very existence as the product of a racially-mixed relationship would have until very recently marked him as illegitimate in many states was sworn in to the highest office in the land...once I tuned out the inane babble of the clueless network know-it-alls and finished laughing at the Blofeld-like sight of Cheney in a wheelchair, then the images of all those people gathered to witness this historic event began to get to me. Reality and image and expectation ceased to matter. I started crying like a damned baby, is what I'm saying.

We can kid ourselves all we want that we live in a society where race is no longer an issue, but it still is, and will always be. It will be something that divides and unites us, will be the source of pride and shame. But it's there, and our reactions in times of crisis and joy will always be dictated by cultural factors. We will always be what we have always been. Human nature can never be transcended.

And Obama, after all, he's just one guy, and the reality of his presidency signifies nothing. He's surrounded by sycophants and business-as-usual types, and all along received the backing of corporate donors who will naturally expect a return on their investment. Hope? Change? Surely these are just buzzwords. Surely they are meaningless.

Except...that crowd. So many faces of a darker shade than usually seen at such events. So much love, such a feeling that maybe, just maybe, there's finally something to believe in, that there's a future that might include them. So many people filled with a spirit, a sense they can make something happen, a feeling the world has changed. So many questions--if this can be done, what else can be done, what else can be accomplished?

It will dissipate, of course, this moment in time. But it will always be remembered that it was here. It happened, and can happen again.

NO KIND WORDS

As the final minutes of the Bush administration tick away, I'll rush to throw one final dart. One of the things the few remaining Bush supporters try to salvage from the ashes of his reign is the notion that he kept us safe. That is, after 9/11, there have been no more attacks on U.S. soil.

This, supposedly, makes everything okay--the abuses of Gitmo, the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the illegal wiretapping and suspension of civil liberties. It's all good, or at least forgiveable, because, dammit, it helped protect us.

Except...relatively few of the prisoners in Gitmo could be tied to terrorist cells in any meaningful way (most were transparently innocent), the prisoners in Abu Ghraib were Iraqis who posed absolutely no threat to America, and it has yet to be demonstrated that any of the sweeping constitutional changes brought about by the Homeland Security boys have had any impact on the war on terror whatsoever. (Most likely, warrantless wiretaps were used to keep tabs on political enemies.)

But even that pales beside the obvious fact that The Decider's apologists choose to ignore: HE DIDN'T KEEP US SAFE! 9/11 happened on his watch, after all, nearly a year after the al-Qaeda- backed bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, an act designed to prompt a response from the U.S., an act that was not forthcoming. Though the Cole bombing took place during the waning days of the Clinton administration, the aftereffects were up to Team Bush...and they responded by doing nothing. They took no action against Bin Laden, and they ignored intelligence reports suggesting an attack on U.S. soil was imminent.

As a result, nearly 3000 Americans died. The Bushinistas like to claim everything they did was done to keep us safe, but they did nothing when it counted. They failed us, as they failed us in every other way. This was, surely, the most callously unfeeling regime in the nation's history. None of them will be missed, and their absence should be celebrated.

NO, REALLY, I HAD A LENGTHY, COHERENT PIECE IN MIND

...but I overslept--aren't you sick of hearing me say that?--and I have no time for writing, so this is what you get.

Which is to say, not much.

The lengthy piece I intended to write was about Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino, and then not so much about the movie as the somewhat clueless critical reaction to it. Maybe later.

And of course, I should probably say something about Our Beloved President's last full day on the job. Mere hours remain. Can he use his limited time to screw the country over one last time? Come on, Decider! I know you can come through!

As far as Obama goes, man-o-Manischewitz, am I glad I don't live in the D.C. area anymore. Yeah, because it's going to be crowded for the inauguration and all, but mostly because you never know when Bono might be stopping by the White House, filling the very air with the noxious fumes of self-regarding douchebaggery.

OH, TO BE BLESSED WITH SUCH A VOICE

The more I think about that whole John Mayer variety show thing--and yes, I spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about it--I wonder how bad it could be.

Yeah, it'll suck--that's a given. But could this faux-hipster American possibly crank out something as bad as a German variety show? A German variety show guest starring Telly Savalas? A tuxedo-clad Telly Savalas inexplicably warbling a Don Williams shitkicker classic? Forget it; Mayer's a pisher, an amateur, a fool. But Telly...now this is how you do a crappy variety show.

I THINK I'LL TAKE A WALK AND LOOK FOR HER

My friend Julian tried putting it in semi-poetic terms. "Why do you worry so much about the women that left you? They're gone, but that's okay. How many more are out there? Hundreds, thousands, millions? More than you could meet, and so many of them looking for someone. Many of them just like you."

Which sounds good, but after awhile, it becomes difficult to inflict the misery on myself. Women, it seems, don't want to be with me. The relationship will be going along, just fine as far as I can tell, then, KAPOW, I'm sucker-punched by the old "Can't we be friends?" line. And that's if I'm lucky; sometimes they just stop returning my calls.

It's hard to keep from taking these things personally.

Clearly, there must be something about me that initially attracts, then repels. I don't have looks or a smooth line of patter, but I have a sense of humor and a sense of empathy, which is enough, but only for awhile. Once I'm comfortable enough to finally be myself around a woman, she decides she doesn't like who I really am. (Apparently, women aren't charmed by impersonations of Phil Silvers or Woody Allen. Maybe I should stop developing impressions of Great Jews Of Comedy, though my Lou Jacobi is coming along quite nicely.)

Katie and I broke up in May (or, more accurately, she broke up with me), and I decided okay, that's it. I vowed to spend my entire summer free from all attempts at pitching woo with the ladies. (Also, I've discovered most women don't particularly like being called "ladies" and are unamused by my hyper-ironic use of archaic terms like "pitching woo".) My plan was so successful, it stretched into autumn and, now, winter.

And I must say, I'm getting tired of it. I want to be in a successful relationship. Or even an unsuccessful one, just for old time's sake. Hell, I'd be grateful for a weekend fling at this point. Yet...the fact is, the last time I succumbed to the pleasures of the flesh (you don't want details), I honestly couldn't wait to get her back home so I could get back to my place to be annoyed by my cats. (True, the fact that I had no particular feelings for her beyond base physical desire may have had something to do with it...but again, you don't want details.) And maybe that's my ultimate fate: I'll be a crazy old guy who lives in a rotting house with dozens of cats.

Of course, the economy being what it is, it seems unlikely I could afford even a rotting house. Still, that scenario seems more probable than the notion of me ending up in a loving, mutually supportive relationship. But I still crave that, and the desire to go in search of love has reasserted itself. One could almost say that ice is slowly melting. I wouldn't say that, of course, because the only Beatle lines quoted around here are John's (this post's title, for instance), but metaphorically, it works. All hesitations and doubts have fallen away, and I'll state it boldly: I want to give love, receive love, and above all, share my Lou Jacobi impression.

Okay, that last part is optional, but you get the idea.

AT LAST, THE END

Seriously: applause?

I knew The Decider's farewell address to the suckers out there would be given before an invited audience of cronies and lickspittles, but the full implication of that had somehow eluded me. I knew there'd be a parade of half-truths and outright whoppers--although I admit, one last attempt to link Iraq to 9/11 came as a surprise--but the standing O he received as he came out, and the wave of adulation when he finished...AARRGGHH!!

It had all the credibility of the enthusiasm greeting Jay Leno when he walks out in front of his pre-hyped audience every night, only Bush can't even match Leno's level of smirking mediocrity. What should have been a somber farewell to the nation was instead turned into some bizarre Shock Treatment-esque commentary on itself, Our Beloved President providing himself with the tears and clapping he otherwise would not have earned.

Lies wrapped in dishonesty--the perfect end to the Bush era.

MERCIFULLY, I DON'T KNOW ANY APPROPRIATE LYRICS TO USE AS A TITLE

Though I was pretty much raised on network TV, I admit I barely watch it these days, so who am I to second guess the wisdom of the programming poobahs at CBS? Nonetheless, I don't feel like I'm going too far out on a limb when I say their notion of giving John Mayer a variety show is a profoundly bad idea.

For one thing, you can't do variety shows anymore. Yes, I'm a devotee of the form at its worst (and watch out, I could bust out a Lynda Carter clip at any minute), but that's just it: The variety show is essentially a relic of a bygone era, a corny joke-and-music machine produced without any sense of irony whatsoever. To even attempt such a thing now--as we learned from that Rosie O'Donnell stinkburger a month or two ago, and that Jessica Simpson/Nick Lachey horror from a few years ago--is to admit to propping up a dead horse, a pointless effort in giving us a form of entertainment we clearly no longer want.

But the even more mystifying aspect of this concept is its host. John Mayer? Really?

Does anybody, anywhere, care about John Mayer? Isn't he mostly famous for boning Jennifer Aniston, when he's not boning a parade of anonymous supermodels? Beyond that, what? He seems like an affable enough presence when he has a guest spot on someone else's show, but so what? Is bland likability all it takes to get you a TV deal these days?

But presumably, the focus of the show would be on Mayer's music, which is...Let me put it this way: I used to date a girl who had a copy of Heavier Things on her kitchen counter, where it always seemed to stay. When I asked her if she ever listened to it, she said no, she'd ordered it through a record club and only played it once and never bothered giving it another spin. She'd left it on the counter to remind her to drop it off at Goodwill, but somehow always forgot. That's John Mayer's music: So utterly dull you can't even remember to dispose of it.

But hey, the ladies seem to like him (well, not any ladies I know, but apparently CBS has demographic studies suggesting they do), and he's vaguely telegenic, and maybe if he has a show he can persuade Aniston to guest star (which would be ratings gold, because her post-Friends career has gone so well) and presumably he knows other famous people who could stop by and hang out and...what? Be famous?

The very existence of this show could be more than just a portent of the End Of Days, it could be The Big One itself: The day the world is finally bored to death.