The Yakkings of Melmoth

In This, The First Hour of the Post-Muammar Era...

2011-10-20T13:34:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: Before The Excrement Hit The Ventilation System

Obama was only 8 when the movie 'The Assassination Bureau' came out, but that's an age when we get our coolest ideas, isn't it? I think he's modeled himself on the Telly Savalas character.

The Bureau's really kickin' ass, huh?

Sometimes Love Is To Be Found Only In An Album Of Remembrance

2011-08-25T10:20:00.001-07:00

Fig. 1 The darling and her defender; image credit: Wonkette (who else?)

There's really some quite delightful satire coming out of the psycho/sociopathic crew from the Bush Dark Age.

Wonkette is perhaps the leader in purposefully showcasing these examples, as this LINK demonstrates.

It's the precious discovery that Muammar (Gh)(Qu)(Kh)addafi had a cherished spot in his heart for Ms. Condi, our inspirational National Helper for many of those Dark years.

To which I add:

You know, there's really kind of a poignant side to this: the lonely fuhrer, who's really got a dainty side, quietly and tastefully worshiping a truly 'strong' gal, who's just a little bit 'alternative'. One could get wistful in a 'Springtime For Hitler' sort of way...

Muammar would've been a pretty hip 'guest villain' on Condi's 'Girl From U.N.C.L.E.' show...

Rick Perry Presents: The New, Improved Fascism For Century 21. A Fascism You Can Live With, Because It's What Everyone Really Wants (TM)

2011-08-16T16:12:00.000-07:00

A CALL TO ALL CITIZENS:

We need someone to come up with a suitable term by which to Google Rick Perry. That is, we found one that applied to that other 'presidential Rick', (e.g. santorum: a frothy, etc.). Now, what dysfunctional bodily function might we 'perry-up' the public's Googly-goo-goo-goo-ing? I vote for something having to do with mucus, pus, bile, or any other unpleasant discharge.

This is a time of Great Outspeaking. Rick Perry is continuing in that tradition.

But take Warren Buffet: the CEO Club knows that Uncle Warren's gonna die before long. Don't be surprised if you hear a news flash that says 'BUFFET FOUND DEAD FROM EATING HUGE CREAMPUFF CAKE AFTER DELIVERING BLISTERING ANTI-RICH PEOPLE SPEECH'. Corporate media will say that he just wanted to spend more time with his family - IN HEAVEN.

These are the times of the Ricks (DinglePerry, Fecal froth), the Scotts (Gutterwalker), and the Rick Scotts (proper Google misdirectional tag NEEDED URGENTLY)

I would never vote for anybody named Rick, or Scott or Rick Scott.

Quite An 'Ah-HA!' Moment:

2011-05-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

From Democracy Now!:

"Report: U.S., Pakistan Had Longstanding Deal Permitting Capture of Osama bin Laden

The Guardian newspaper reports the United States and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil. Under the deal, Pakistan would allow U.S. forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of bin Laden. Afterward, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion. On Monday, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Gilani addressed the National Assembly for the first time since U.S. forces secretly entered Pakistan to kill bin Laden.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani: "Let no one draw any wrong conclusions. Any attack against Pakistan’s strategic assets, whether overt or covert, will find a matching response. Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force. No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland."

Meanwhile, new details have emerged about last week’s raid. President Obama reportedly insisted that the assault force hunting down bin Laden be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if confronted by hostile local police officers and troops."

In This, The First Mini-Nanosecond of the Post-Osama Bin Laden Era...

2011-05-02T22:15:00.000-07:00

Plate 1: Explanatory text just below.

Indeed, Obama's Bob Oppenheimer A-bomb Sanskrit-quote-moment is writ large on his Yes-I-Did! visage. The majesty. The power. The coming glory.

Fruit Salad fellow next to him is the only Mac user in the room (direct clouding to Julian A).

Mike 'You-Guys-Want-Anything?' Mullen's ready to go for beverages.

Youngish New Frontier guy in the blue shirt to the right of Fruit Salad's dreaming of Whole Foods opportunities in newly-discovered Abbottabad, perhaps in a possible suburb of Costelloabad.

Hillary: emesis imminent. Tart, sour stomach spray comin' up.

Only Bob Gates exhibits true wisdom via his Genial American ambiance. Look at him! No head examination necessary.

In This, The First Day Of The Post-NPR Era...

2011-04-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1 Ed, by Bouché

Sorry to ruin anyone’s post-Simonized glow of a Saturday, but here goes…

Yeah, I skimmed that limp ‘defense’ of NPR that Ms Shepherd made (even though she insists she doesn’t defend anyone but herself). Typical wimpy sullenness from a network that’s never been known for toughness or grit, except when self-promoted. (Aside: I find it curious that supposedly hip NPR retains the term ‘Ombudsman’ “with Alicia Shepherd”!!! - she does kind of talk like a guy - instead of the more PC ‘Ombudsperson’; their true conservatism is showing!) As usual (s)he sounds like a spoiled child whose ice cream cone has dropped in the dirt. Very NPR… The Om has spoken! Does anyone really care?

As usual, I’m left with the ‘how low broadcasting has sunk’ cliché. That’s why I’m not bothering with direct NPR contact anymore. It’s tedious and boring, and so predictable. OF COURSE NPR’s gonna be lousy. That’s what they ARE.

I have to keep reminding myself: irreplaceable time is better utilized elsewhere. I would brand their home station as WOT (Waste of Time, natch). Right now the only thing NPR has going for it is their stranglehold on accessibility – the quick turn-on of the radio. But so what? You can get the NYT in Tuttle, ND, but readership is still tanking. People are moving on to other stuff.

In NPR’s case it’s content: cheesy personalities who aren’t lovable in the least, who now face irrelevance and unnecessary presence. Why should anyone be loyal? For the longest time they enjoyed a comfy little niche, but then they made the bid for the fast lane, where there just isn’t room enough for a diversity of players. NPR never was up to the task of posing as one of the Big Boys. They don’t have the ‘stuff’, either journalistically or in the sleaze department. Indeed, they’re sleazy, but not ‘smart’ sleazy. They think they’re smart, but in fact they’re just tiresome products of privilege that feel entitled to be regarded with not only respect, but astounding success as well. They rely on a reputation for ‘excellence’ that’s based on very few examples of quality. Even more glaring is that their alleged success has actually ruined them. High salaries have ensured that mediocrity runs from management all the way down.

What’s more, NPR has become a very expensive operation to sustain. They used to be a good little earner of ‘alternative prestige’, with very low overhead. We know how readily this appealed to the Corporates as an avenue into ‘thinking people’s minds. However, it’s 2011 now. Cheney-ist no-sin deficit spending is vaporware, and Lloyd Blankfein & Co, still demand their bonuses. If the BBC has made massive cutbacks, and ABC hacked off a huge percentage of its news staff, why should NPR remain sacred? Time to dunk a tea bag in their Morning Edition mug and squeeze all the life out of it, as it were. Not even the Koch Brothers are gonna wanna fund some ramshackle outfit just for ‘prestige’ when they’ve got Fox News – or whatever OTHER, more odious mutation comes down the block - as more effective vehicles that reach far more people. That’s one of the very few good things about ruthless capitalism: sometimes the true rubbish withers and dies of its own accord.

NPR is fast becoming a mere annoyance that serious listeners won’t even bother with. With new apps appearing hourly via other devices (I’ve said it before), why would you even bother with NPR anymore? And with their supposed agent of rebirth and reinvention, Viv Shill-er now gone, who’s gonna be able to keep ‘em in the Promised Land high-rent district? Any upcoming clever media person with exciting ideas wouldn’t touch an NPR opportunity with an insulated hundred foot pole, except possibly as a Friedman Time Unit ‘learning experience’ before dumping it and moving on. What’s the alternative? Even MORE mediocre management, before it’s down-the-drain time, you can be sure.

(If I was an NPR exec, I’d at least have covert talks with Amy Goodman or equivalent, for ideas, if nothing else – and there WOULD be nothing else, I’m certain.)

Prediction for a future Wikipædia entry: ‘NPR was a mainstream media clip-joint that ran from c. 1970 to 2012…’ Or something like that. Of course the NPR superstar stalwarts will be bitter, and feel cheated, and wonder how it all happened. That’s the curse of NOT admitting that you’re in a competitive, commercial game: vanity, entitlement, and thinking you’re ‘special’ are all self-delusional. I almost feel sorry for them, but they as a unit – with very few exceptions – have failed. Time to get on with it.

So that’s my send-off to you, NPR. No bitter obscenities necessary. No Ed Murrow sign-offs with good wishes, either. Lots more could be said, but you already know it all.

And ye who peruse this wobbly blog, strength to all for the job ahead, and best of Murrow luck!

NYC Utterly Replaces NPR In My Acronym Reference List

2011-03-30T17:25:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1 These are they who guard the treasure of the Globalisms. No, this is NOT the re-staging of an old vaudeville routine

Fig. 2 See? Note the location. Click on photo and enlarge to see what the Big Guy guarding the treasure is doing (photos: mine own)

Hey folks, I just got back from a couple weeks in NYC (one acronym that actually stands for something), without a single Nothing Public Radio moment. I’m chipper as a Central Park squirrel, and more mature than ever to dump NPR for good.

While it is a certainty that the corporate media is a corrupting force, one can survive quite readily and be immune from it while being in the very center of its headquarters (Times Square excepted). Capitalist monolith that it is, the Big Apple’s diversity has sewn the seeds of that very system’s mutation into something yet unknown. I get the feeling that things is gonna be somewhat different in the near future.

Plutocrats have been circling the wagons ever since Reagan gave them the go-ahead, but them axles ain’t as properly greased as has been estimated. One gentleman in the subway was heard to vent his frustration and anger thusly: ‘This town needs a tsunami. Washington DC needs an earthquake.’ I think we know what he meant, eh?

A few amateur media observations (with apologies to infinitely more hip native New Yorkers): In the general city scene, almost no newspaper presence. A few had the Daily News in the subway. I saw ONE person reading the NYT – and that was in Newark! Bob Herbert told ‘em where to stuff it and is moving on to more purposeful things. No WSJ mightiness either, and I hung out for a time in the canyons of Wall St.

No, anyone who is anyone has a pod/phone device, and I’ll bet the percentage of people utilizing any old NPR app at any one time is severely low. Why would you even bother with an NPR? Can you imagine commuting to Queens while listening to – gulp – Melissa Blockhead?? NPR’s for scared middle and upper class white folks who are scared that poor and angry people are going to take everything away from them. This, while being fleeced and zombified by the corporate edifice they think is their comfort zone.

I’ve had a hunch that NPR’s on the way out for some time now. Like newspapers. I’m convinced that, despite the flaunted PR that their listenership is bigger than ever – along with their influence - all such advertisement is grossly over-produced in fine MSM fashion.

One pallid bright spot: CBS’ Early Show on Sunday still has some elements of Good Television in it. Not cutting edge, but easy to take traces of the CBS of old. Of course, their audience is literally dying out.

NPR’s, on the other hand, doesn’t necessarily need NPR anymore. I mean, taking NPR seriously is like believing every word that some nobody like Ann Coulter says. Beyond preposterous. They’ve even got Inskreep tossing in little National (self)Promotional Radio maxims like ‘Not letting go of older stories – that’s the kind of thing you get on NPR…’ or some such desperate BS.

Listening for about a minute after two weeks’ sanity, it’s just too painfully obvious what a godawful thing NPR is - just to HEAR, let alone ‘consider’. Even with agendas aside, NPR is a failure. Empires that are late in their cycles brush aside such failures, which are quickly forgotten.

So, to paraphrase Snoop Dogg, I’m taking this ‘New York minute’ opportunity, to consign NPR to da project dumpster’s bottom, where it belongs.

Staying untuned…

2011: ARAB WORLD IN CRISIS - CAUSES NPR TO GO INTO CRISIS MODE

2011-03-10T10:52:00.000-08:00

As everyone knows by now, our beloved NPR has been gripped by those who would commit war terror within these here shores. The following is a headlong compendium of yakkage that attempts to find some 'narration' to explain NPR's fall from sacredness.

To chart a way through this, the Reader will already have to be aware of the events themselves, as I can't possibly provide all the relevant background details during such a time of storm and stress, tribulation and equivocation, not to mention boils and tears.

WARNING: Please forgive me for not providing hip links to the URLs below. In our former cut-'n-paste culture, a few more steps in reaching the goal seemed to be the ultimate in magical realism, but alas, I am regularly left in the dusts of regret for having been out of step, as usual. Please, forgive!

- So here goes:

NPR was going on as usual. Their prize-winning fussbudget, Ari Supremo, was at his constricted-vocal-cords best (I always have to turn down the treble control when he comes on). Feeling his freedom in playing NPR's token 'out' role, he's getting a little too gooey-swishy for comfort. However, he's just complying with the house rules to indulge in word porn for the thinking masses.

Meanwhile, the conceited social club that is NPR continued with the fluttery vanity of Blob Siegel making verbal love with DAVID BROOKS, who 'cares most about education'. He's always at his worst when he's posing as a 'liberal intellectual'.

Then, there's FRANK LUNTZ, facilitated by Neil Conman, eager to sell yet another NYT year-long best seller. He actually has the audacity to mock Charlie Sheen. Like the Neocon superstars, Luntz is a poster boy for the great American comeback. Another lovey-dovey lovefest between club members. During the interview, I was wondering how Frank's hair is doing. I hope it's OK.

I think I'm more comfortable with a Charlie Sheen than I am with these offensive, pompous fakes. Speaking of comebacks: Goebbels-ism flourishes in the midst of mediocrity.

How I weep for the decline of my country!

- OK, nothing unusual there. BUT THEN...

This just in:

"NPR ‘appalled’ by former exec’s comments"

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thecutline/20110308/ts_yblog_thecutline/npr-appalled-by-former-execs-comments
3/8/11 11:07 AM

AND:

Ron Schiller, Viv Schiller. Supposedly 'no relation'. Uh-huh. Very collegiate.

All sorts of uniformed discussion about NPR erupting. Hillary didn't include NPR in her critique of US media. Bob McChesney praises VOA! Teabaggers think NPR is 'National Palestinian Radio'! Squabbling about how much fed money ACTUALLY goes to NPR (News) Uh-huh again. And so on, too many examples to cite.

NPR Check is needed more than ever to clear up all this bozo talk.

Michael Moore got it right without even naming any news outlet: the corporate-controlled media plays the same program all the time: don't rock the boat because some day you too may be rich, so don't harm the rich for providing that possibility. The US media constantly implies that you too can and should be rich if only you'd just be more 'American' in going about it.

Result: passive population, ripe for permanent exploitation.

I agree with Ron Shill-er: sever fed funding from NPR. It's a scam anyway, no matter what teabaggy types say.
3/8/11 11:21 AM

PS: Interesting 'appalling' video. When Ron takes his NPR hat off, no wonder NPR is appalled. Check it out...
3/8/11 11:28 AM

AND:

MEMO TO WYNHAM/COCHRANE: LEAD WITH VIVIAN SCHILLER RESIGNATION

She’s OUT, baby, OUT.

Welcome to the Post-Schiller Era at NPR. Ron out, Viv out (and they insist there's 'no relation'!)

Nevertheless, the on-air talent is above such things. ME was bouncier than ever this morn. Inskreep of Cairo was able to crow 'From Cairo,' (pause) 'this is Morning Edition'. (Haven't those poor people suffered enough under Mubarak?). Blob Siegel's positively bubbly in a promo for his latest hobby: chatting with 'philosophical' authors about pop/kitschy book promotions, and Ari 'n Renaay are as breezy as ever.

Larry Abramson gave absolutely NO connective background as to why Viv resigned. Their strategy is to just show what a traitor the Schiller with some honesty (Ron) has been to the mother organization. Viv will be portrayed as a victim - who was 'squeezed out' and all of that. Plus, even though rightwingnut James O'Keeffe staged the Ron sting, it's the MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD factor in said sting that will be retained in the minds of NPR's thinking masses. Mission accomplished with style and panache.

There will of course be no change in tone or agenda to be detected on the air at NPR. Schillers come and go, but the Imperative will remain the same. Why wreck a good thing?

AND EVEN…

FYI: (no joke):

At Al Jazeera, I did a search:

'npr vivian schiller'

Results:

'Did you mean "npr vivian shiller"?
3/9/11 2:09 PM

AND:

Diane R. has the fabulous TUCKER CARLSON, who broke the story!

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-09/nprs-ceo-resigns
3/9/11 2:05 PM

AND:

Listen to the way Alicia Shepherd TALKS; she's a real Nurse Ratched.

AND:

One more FYI:

Viv Schiller's dad is named RON!

(Source: Wikipædia)

AND:

OK, one more:

Wonkette's take:

http://wonkette.com/440099/
breaking-npr-person-a-human-being-has-personal-opinions-on-politics

AND:

http://wonkette.com/440168/tea-party-racists-will-all-start-listening-to-npr-now

AND:

A significant moment on the Diane R. show though:
Brooke Gladstone asserts that liberal commentators are not in the majority at NPR.
Interesting what comes out when the gun’s to the head.

AND

Typically, like any decent corporation in need of corporate welfare, NPR wants it both ways. They say that only 1-2% is what they get from gub'ment, and it's no big deal. Then they say they can't survive without it.

James O'Keeffe takes notes from NPR's playbook.

Solution: dump your salary hogs (the NPR superstars) and go grassroots. Sure, sure they will...

The Diane Rehm show was a predictable waste of on-air time, with the guests filling it up with gobbledygook. Viv as victim, of course, as she's done SO MUCH for NPR. And naturally 'Lisa' Shepherd was distancing herself cuz she's 'not influenced' by NPR in any way.

Another average day in the decline of the empire.

Since Broder blew out, why not nominate Mara Liarsson to take up the mantle? (She may need the gig...)

AND THIS to 'Wonkette', in order to help Wonkettes understand just what NPR is:

Nationalist/Narcissist Propaganda/Pentagon/Palestinian Radiation/Relations (aka 'NPR') is the ONLY possible news outlet for America's Thinking Masses. The purse-lipped intellectual wit of Blob Siegel, the smoky sexiness of MeeShill Norris, the brilliant motormouthing of Steve Inskreep and the urbane mall-rat perspectives of Renaay Mundane are guiding lights for the future saviors of the American Empire, who pant for fun, even cheerful digestion of the world today.

NPR is America's Storyteller. People, if you'd only BELIEVE!

Hope This Helps (TM)

AND:

All of this discussion (on its many levels) strikes me as valid because, like Wikileaks, genuine facts about NPR are being tossed out into the public sphere.

And, as Julian Assange so simply put it, the embarrassment that results is gigantic. The truthinesses that previously existed concerning NPR are now being replaced by notions that listeners will have to decide on. That is, if they choose to.

AND:

Who then, shall we get to take up the great Broderian mantle?

Well, how about that soon-to-be NPR orphan, Mara Liarsson? She's smart, sexy, savvy, wears turtlenecks, and makes pop-eyed grimaces on Fox 'n Friends. Plus, she has an attention-getting speaking style that suggests she's masticating her own vomit.

AND:

This, the first day in the Post-Schiller(s) Era, has been a real jungle.

I'm writhing off to bed now. Bedtime reading? Perhaps some Schiller. Friedrich Schiller. No relation. 'Ode To Joy'....

AND:

Thoughts on Ron Schiller's closed doors as the Aspen Institute reminded me of the Dodge Aspen, which was Lee Iacocca's bid to revitalize the MoPar Corp. However, I nominate the following as Worst Car Ever: Leave us not forget: the Chevy Vega. The only car that worked up to being totaled via natural causes.

AND, THE NEXT MORNING:

The Peter King 'hearings' are keeping the great HUAC tradition alive.

As we know, ever since the Commie/Soviet Industry went out of business, things Muslim have been the perfect elements for a segue into a #1 Enemy, whose mission is to infiltrate and destroy the American Way of Life. Soon an Evil Caliph will emerge from, say, all-American Chiggston, Iowa, with a new jihadist cry: 'WE'LL BURY YOU!'

Thus, a Prime Directive to justify our preeminence as a meaningful Empire. It's that loony. Glenn Beck's a children's birthday party entertainer in comparison.

I mean, the US talks a lot about North Korea having to have an enemy in order to justify its existence. Pot calling kettle black, naturally.

There's no reason to tie in NPR to any of this. Their influence is waning by the moment. At Wonkette, I loved Ken Layne's description of NPR as:

"... a dull yuppie news network primarily funded by the industrial food and chemical conglomerates that keep the Tea Party people so plump and diabetic, so of course NPR is catering not to its listeners (liberal yuppies who ignore the Archer Daniels Midland sponsorship messages that bookend basically every NPR program) in this situation, but to Tea Party people and their cynical performers in the House of Representatives. Tea Party people don’t listen to NPR news, obviously."

AND:

Can't resist this one:

According to NPR's Standards & Morals:

- Juan Williams can't make bozo statements on another channel.

- Ron Schiller can't offer his personal opinions at a private lunch.

BUT, Dina's Temple of Doom CAN:

- Refer to an ethnic Chinese man (who converted to Islam) as having a 'Fu Manchu' beard.

I don't know, it all seems kind of, you know . . . funny. I guess it's just entertaining trivia. No big deal. I'm forgetting about the 'new' NPR, and what that means.

What it means is that NPR WENT COMMERCIAL a long time ago. We all know that. And after you go commercial, you can't expect to keep playing this 'moral high-ground' BS trip that NPR purports to exploit.

You've been 'Wikileaked', NPR. Now the public has more of an inkling of your true nature. Judging from the many comments I've scanned, from Wonkette (yes, there are plenty of serious comments there), to HuffPost, C&L and NPR itself, it seems like there are significant numbers of listeners who are fed up. Indeed, many have been for some time, and this latest dust-up just confirms it.

And those commentators who defend NPR as the liberal beacon that it is? Hey, they NEED that NPR gig. They'll say anything in order to keep getting that easy 3-minute segment at NPR HQ, plus maybe a free lunch - or if it's cocktail hour, a designer martini. Keep an eye out for a James O'Keefe 'stinger' though. (No doubt a future cocktail name...)

Meanwhile, back at on-air NPR, the oblivious party continues. Never show any weakness. Ari tries to outdo Chris Rock in the jokey dept (fails - Rock prefers to do it straight), and Dave Greene's still doing those smiley-talk travelogues from 'colorful' Tunisia. Way-too-valuable Gjelten was just there for a show-off cameo, y'know. He's safe back in Chantilly now, but got in a fun junket to 'colorful' N. Africa, 1 to 2% of which was paid for by US taxpayers. Did we get our money's worth, gang?

Oh, and Barbie's not that popular in China. Oh, oh, and the late Dean Broder gets a tacit nod for doing 'shoe-leather' journalism as an old fart.

And stay tuned for DAVID BROOKS, who's getting a full hour of book promotion on Diane Rehm, as is his birthright.

- Leave us leave off there, shall we?

From Doha Comes . . .

2011-03-04T11:10:00.001-08:00

Hillary speaks the overwhelmingly obvious (from DN!):

"Hillary Clinton Praises Al Jazeera as "Real News"

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has surprised many after she praised the news programming on Al Jazeera, while she criticized the over-commercialization of news programs in the United States. Speaking before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton said the United States is losing the "information war."

Hillary Clinton: "Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news, which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners."

While Al Jazeera English is broadcast to more than 200 million homes around the world, it is hardly available in the United States due to what critics have described as a media blackout by U.S. cable and satellite providers.
"
(end quote)

We all know about NPR's contributions to commercial on-air clutter, so subliminally ushered into our brains by Frank Tavares' supposedly 'neutral' but extremely nasal pestering. However, I'd just like to mention the hours of wasted filler time that NPR (and the US MSM, natch) spends MAKING SURE we know who's speaking/reciting/acting/performing for your show biz pleasure at any one time, in their terribly important roles as America's Storytellers.

I mean, a perfect example is news reciter Craig Wyndham's crusade to 'personalize' his news slot by being chummy with his fellow creative writers. This morning, in the few seconds allotted to her segment, Craig said 'Tamara' four times: introducing Tamara Keith, exiting Tamara Keith, and 'communing' with Tamara Keith twice in the brief soundbyte 'report'. He of course is most famous for doing this with his inseparable workhorse buddy, Paul Brown. (e.g. 'Thanks Paul. That's NPR's Paul Brown'). I know, it's meant to imply collegiality, but to me it's the collegiality of Wall Street CEOs. Plus it makes for extremely tedious listening. I mean, who ARE these people?

OK, this is getting a little neurotic in the hair-splitting department, but the accumulated CLUTTER is in itself neuroses-inducing. Of course, with a passive public, they just absorb it all, then blow out down the line, I suppose.

BBC and Al Jaz hardly bother to be control freaks about making SURE that you know precisely at every second who the star personality of the moment is who's delivering the news. Their business isn't to keep you distracted into hopefully buying something. US media hates this reasonable neutrality, cuz they're convinced that 'personality-izing' the news brings in audiences, which naturally bring in money. You might say they're horribly addicted to this (Planet) monkey on their backs: win ratings or die.

This is not only a failed policy, it has made for some of the most worthless broadcasting ever to be conceived, and it's getting worse.

Al Jazeera, like the Jasmine Revolution movement (a current label of convenience), is a big threat to the US MSM, and you can bet there will be some pathetic attempts to 'Al Jaz-ize' their outfits, while others in the shadows will be plotting Al Jaz' demise (consultants: Wolfowitz, Perle, Xe & Partners, etc.).

Al Jaz chief Wadah Khanfar made an outstanding statement at TED, which makes meatloaf out of Hillary's obviousness:

http://english.aljazeera.net/
indepth/opinion/2011/03/20113341535651130.html

PS: Patty Culhane, Al Jaz's WH correspondent, makes anybody from NPR seem like a sick joke. Yes, I know her name, but she's cogent, serious, non-distracting, and plays no games.

That's all this child wants and needs in his news-gathering.

Actual Contents Of An NPR Diaper Considered

2011-03-03T11:00:00.000-08:00

A full diaper-load on Morn Ed this morn. Forgive the onslaught, please.

OK, two US airmen were shot dead in Frankfurt, presumably, says NPR, by an Islamofabulist. An act of terrorism, certainly. Match this with the Davis affair in Lahorror, Pawkeestawn, when our ‘diplomat’ shot two creeps who were ‘trying to rob him’. Interesting how each situation is couched. Terrorism is OUR tool to use, not the other side’s. WE get to use terrorism to explain our M.O., while the Pakistanis get completely freaked out by a guy just defending himself from ruffians. National Praetorian Radio must serve the Imperium at all cost.

Personal: I myself have walked the streets and alleys of Lahore in depth. It is a sophisticated, cultured and fascinating city. And friendly, too, at least when my wife and I were there. A privilege to be there. As safe and as dangerous as New York. Any CIA/mercenary who packs heat in such a place is just looking for trouble. If Davis mucked up his ‘mission’, it’s just another example of US failure in the region. Dean Martin as secret agent Matt Helm would NEVER be so bumbling. In all seriousness, I hate Davis and his employers all the more for trashing the privilege that I once enjoyed.

Who knows, is the CIA involved in bumping off more western-sympathetic Pak officials, so as to stoke the crusade to deliver nukey-nervous Pakistan from sharia terror?
AND
Bill Ford of FoMoCo was interviewed by a typically casual Renaay M. He sounds like a Whole Earth Catalog nerd. I hope he is. He seems like he would be an enemy of the oil companies, but Renaay conveniently forgot to ask Bill if maybe the oil companies were having a problem with Ford’s uppityness in tilting away from fossil fueling. Amy Goodman would of course have asked that question. But she’s Amy Goodman and not mundane. NPR, in all its civilized behavior, does not make CEOs tapdance.

AND

Incredibly, today Renaay referred to Zimbabwe’s Bob Mugabe as ‘somewhat of a despot’. SOMEwhat? I mean, where has she BEEN? Mugabe is more universally despised than Gaddafi. (Muammar has oil. Bob doesn’t. Oil-less despots are more convenient to despise.)

Anyway, Renaay is final proof that NPR must have airheaded brains hosting their shows, as they are impervious to reality. Propaganda-ready mouthpieces cannot be moved to humanity, even though they’ve witnessed, firsthand, all sorts of hot spots. (Chris Hedges, hardline reporter, always has been a humanitarian.) Their job is to serve the specific sectors that their employers have defined, not to go off on some humanitarian bleeding heart lovefest.

But Renaay, honey, it’s official: MUGABE IS A DESPOT. Inflict your dumbass personality elsewhere, STARTING TONIGHT. Even Mattel’s PR dept. couldn’t use you.

AND

Morn Ed saves their cheerful crap for the end of the show, so as not to appear too disrespectful to the dark side of US imperialism. And in their ongoing service to America, they’re still helping us know what is really stupid in American pop culture, as opposed to what ISN’T really stupid in American pop culture.

For example: Barbie (and Ken)=good. Anna Nicole Smith=bad.

In London, Philip Reeves profiled the new opera, ‘Anna Nicole Smith’, and he didn’t apply any mockery to the story, just straightforward reporting. NPR HQ obviously disapproves of Anna Nicole, so they can smirk around Reeves’ story all they want. I daresay, Anna Nicole’s life is just as operatic as Lucia di Lammermoor’s. What’s wrong with giving it the Donizetti treatment?

Renaay: What’s a Don A. Zetti, Steve?
Inskreep: A pizza sold by an insurance agent! Har har!
(See? I kin doo kulturul eleet all by myself now!)
Inskreep’s own contribution involved him saying that Anna Nicole Smith being discussed in a British accent was so much better. Or something like that. (See why I get sarcastic?)

Even though Reeves has been sidelined on stories like this, he and Quist-Arcton still warm my heart. (Hey you two, they could use you both over at Al Jaz…)

We’re all little NPR-influenced pop culture critics now, aren’t we?

AND

One more NPR pop culture nightmare.

More examples: Justin Bieber=stupid/childish. Scott Simon=not stupid/not childish – but funny!
Our Morn Ed team was making gentle fun about a lock of Justin Bieber’s hair being auctioned off. Scott Simon wasn’t mentioned, but his spirit was there.

At any rate, they made it clear that the Bieber hair thang was sort of, you know, silly. They even implied that the charity the auction money would go to was sort of - silly.

My local morning hostess always likes to join in on the NPR HQ fun. She’s skillfully adopted the Inskreep Punchline Pause ™ wholesale, and today she expanded on the Justin Bieber mockery by deliberately calling him ‘Justin Timberlake’. Really funny stuff for the new listeners who are just discovering NPR!

It’s also funny how Bieber, a virtual Michael Jackson knockoff, gets the National Public Ridicule, while Jackson himself always seemed to get uncertain but ‘respectable’ treatment. Yeah, he’s dead and all, but is this because of some below-the-radar racial policy confusion, or just the fact that Michael was one sick puppy and Justin (Bieber) is jes’ plain wholesome and fun, so he can take a bit of harmless joshing?

Bieber=good, safe influence (so far). Jackson=dangerous influence, but so damn popular (proceed with caution).

White boys who just wanna be black will always be treated better on NPR than black boys who wanna be white.

Let NPR become just as stupid as they think they need to be. Because, to paraphrase architect Ralph Adams Cram, ‘the sooner we accomplish the destiny it so perfectly shadows, the sooner we shall be able to clear the ground and begin again.’

Wow, what a humungous burden it is to be America’s Storyteller. So much to decide on! So much to dictate! To paraphrase Harold on the ‘Red Green Show’, NPR is the ‘smartest person in the whole wide room’, as it were.

That’s our NPR – always doing their part to enforce a cultural elite (of dubious, dubious quality) on we the living.

NPR is so monumentally ‘stimulating’, it makes me digress within digressions. Shameful, I know.

AND finally, but most importantly:

Bradley Manning (admittedly erroneously labeled 'a marine' on NPR) is getting slammed further.

Get it from here, not NPR:

http://action.firedoglake.com/
page/s/manning_enemies?
source=em2011032b

We Can Relax, And I Can Get Busy: Paul's Back

2011-03-01T10:12:00.000-08:00

The Neocons are primed for a renaissance. My good buddy Paul W.(olf-o-whatever) is ready to hang his comb in public again. Like Cincinnatus of old, he shall serve once more, out of sheer duty to democracy, if called.

He was treated with the respect he deserves by Fareed Zakaria on CNN recently. Interesting, huh? America's famous for giving psychopaths second chances. And hey, with Paul, it's about his tenth second chance. What a swell country!

Wolfie was at his best scoff-laughing through the interview w/o offering anything of value whatsoever. He's already signed his 'Saddam Moment' letter, demanding a repeat of history, with all its attendant failures.

More on my good buddy, just below.

AND

How did you like Debbie Amos’ little tour of Al Jazeera English? Finally deigning to fully acknowledge their importance, and defying the Olympian declaration from the Wolfowitz Center for American Strategic Wisdom that ‘Al Jazeera is no friend of the United States’, Debbie nevertheless ventured in to see what the ‘young Turks’ in Doha are up to. Her post-production narration was delivered with her typical ‘savvy woman’ dryness, but her on-the-scene voice was implying, ‘Do you guys REALLY think you’re a news organization to reckon with?’, or even ‘Now just WHO do you think you ARE??’ Meanwhile, at home, sitting in a REAL news organization, InskreepMundane were too cool to take it all seriously, and indeed, surrounded the story with trivialities. I’m sure they’re seething with professional jealousy. I’m sure Debbie’ll share a lot of snickers with the gang when she returns with relief to NPR Intergalactic HQ.

Yes Debbie, many of us in the US are accessing Al Jaz online. You might have implied that that says something: that US Media coverage of the region is propagandistic and largely worthless. But I know why you didn’t say it.

Warning to US Media: HANDS OFF Al Jazeera. No meddling or corporate weaseling-in allowed. Murdoch: don’t even THINK of a hostile takeover.

AND

I know I get stuck on style as far as on-air delivery is concerned, but here we have Juan Forero, covering the extremely important beat of S. America. I mean, does this guy sound like he’s just discovered Playboy magazine, and he’s telling us all about it while in a back alley, or what? Who would ever think that his orgazmatronic, ‘I’m-about-to-climax’ manner of speaking enhances his reportage? Well, I’m sure it’s the ‘CIA Thrill’ that turns him on, and he just can’t help himself.

Yeah, and I gotta bitch about Beardsley yet again. She’s really going into Freedom Fries mode now, adding a particularly sneering tone to her usual me-cool quack. Seems she’s in a mood to scoff at the nation that has been rather good to her these long years and imply that they haven’t been Neocon enough towards Libya. Cuz France has been in bed with Muammar (as if the US hasn’t), and so now France has got soufflé all over its face. Our Eleanor can really see through those Frogs’ BS, can’t she? My beloved dog produces excrement more aesthetically appealing that this horseshit.

Speaking of Wolfie, he’s all ready to repeat history, what with signing a ‘letter’ demanding an invasion of Libya to rescue its people from a tyrant. Sound familiar? Oh Paul! Deliver us from this current situation with your high intellect and proven success! Next stop: starring roles for Wolfie on many an NPR segment??

In the feature department, Susan Steeamberg wisely decided to ditch her gooey, overripe ‘sensuality’ in favor of doing a Best Behavior ™ interview and letting Jane Fonda take center stage for the segment, where she belongs. One of NPR’s many failures is to have decided to be ‘the nation’s storyteller’ by making its own personalities paramount instead of making them invisible, or as facilitators only. Instead we have Inskreep’s (or any other NPR star’s) virtual version of the world. To my mind, that alone is why the US Government should get out of the news biz, as NPR as it is now makes impartiality impossible.

Dumping The Corp For Pub B'casting

2011-02-22T11:18:00.000-08:00

I think that the US Gubmunt should get out of the public broadcasting biz. There’s just too much corruption potential in action to make it work any more. If we still had the Fairness Doctrine, there’d be hope, but we’re now seeing the full flower of its abolition, and the product (NPR) is rotten and toxic. Sorry Member Stations, a new architecture will have to emerge, and through this reinvention, new opportunities will develop.

As usual, ignorant hacks like the CPB-hating Republicans (and most everybody else in Congress) are barking up the wrong tree. It’s two failed wars and a morbidly obese Defense Dept. that should be hacked at FIRST. Uh, duh!

The Brits may have been able to pull off the BBC for over 80 years, but they’re laying off people right and left. The Beeb is being cut past the bone. I was in BBC’s Bush House in London recently and there was a hard-to-explain but palpable feeling of impending doom there. Americans may not know that citizens in the UK pay hefty fees to support their BBC. I remember paying 17 pounds for a black and white TV license in the early 80s. Colour TV cost about 45 pounds – a huge sum back then. That was just to HAVE a TV. (Those damn Brit socialists! Never mind that fees were an incentive for the BBC to conscientiously provide high quality news and entertainment to a fee-paying public.)

No, I think that the US is just stuck in their ongoing adolescent behavior as far as public funding for broadcasting is concerned. And here’s the wringer: if the Congress has allowed NPR to become what it is today, they are complicit in propaganda production, the whole of which needs to exposed. (But probably never will be.)

AND

Indeed, Inskreep was at his majestic-powerful best today, trying to (subtly) rip the Wisc. Dem senator a new one. He makes sure that his rapier verbiage takes pride of place, especially when talking to a cowardly runaway pinko with his diminished cell-phone voice and all. And then the I-kreep trademark: leave ‘em twisting in the wind at the end by the little pause and the fake cordiality at the end. And the interviewee, wondering if he/she’s just been screwed (via creative editing), is nevertheless obliged to offer up the now standard parting: ‘My pleasure’. The pleasure was all I-kreep’s. You can imagine his smile as he wipes his sword off with a satin sheet. Oh, but he’s way too suave to be a ‘gotcha’ dude. He’s more like ‘I believe I just sautéed the nuts off that, that, conceited (fill name in blank)’. That’s maybe giving him too much credit for any sophistication, but standard NPR smugness can cover it on all occasions.

‘My pleasure’ they say, even after covering a drone party in Pak. Everybody’s high on ‘pleasure’ at NPR. Of course, the difference between pain and pleasure has always been a bit of a blur.

These are among the tools that help keep NPR on the winning side (they think).

I actually wonder how big people at NPR (e.g. Viv et al) actually, truly, privately, regard Inskreep: insolent prick or genius hip journalisto? Amphetamine-popping goldmine or potential quick burnout, entirely dispensable? Sexy boytoy or closet perv?

Who could have foretold that US media would have ever sunk so low in the sewer?

Now That NPR's Under Fire, Some TOUGH TALK

2011-02-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

If commies, hippies, Jews and Islamofashionistas can wage a War on Christmas, then by golly (as Rummy would say) the Republicans can wage jihad on NPR (and PBS - but that's not our concern here; I simply never watch it no more...)

War, war, war, that's all we ever hear about anymore. If I hear 'war' cried once more, I'll just scream!

But there is a sound of war in the camp. Holy war, righteous war. And woe unto NPR for ever, EVER having fired Juan the Yawn Williams.

Now just hold on a minute.

Here's a LINK! to a particularly handy summary that brings us up to date on the NPR that's supposedly a hotbed of anti-Fox liberalism that the GOP is so rabid about.

Mytwords (of NPR Check), thanks for the helpful digest that illustrates NPR's true identity. I'll refer others to it. I particularly needed it yesterday when I was discussing NPR with friends I trust, and sadly, they gave me that 'he's over the top' look regarding NPR. As has happened many times before, they got very quiet. No debate resulted because they didn't want to hear that 'their' NPR wasn't what they thought it was. I've never wanted to evangelize anybody on this matter, but just provide food for thought.

The American public is more vulnerable to propaganda than ever before. NPR, which appears so trustworthy, enjoys high standing, especially among those whom Hedges rightfully quotes as 'progressives' and 'liberals'. (Quotes implying a dubiousness...)

I include a timely Chomsky quote from Truthout:

"To understand why independent journalism is vital to regaining our self-governance and breathing life into our democracy, we turn to renowned philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky. Speaking recently about the way politicians fear the wave of democratic revolution in the Middle East, Chomsky said:

"We should remember there’s an analog here. I mean, it's not the same, of course, but the population in the United States is angry, frustrated, full of fear and irrational hatreds. And the folks not far from you on Wall Street are just doing fine. They’re the ones who created the current crisis. They're the ones who were called upon to deal with it. They’re coming out stronger and richer than ever. But everything's fine, as long as the population is passive."
(End quote)

Indeed, I've long held that NPR as it is now should be dissolved. It's developed past its useful purpose, and it behaves like the commercial enterprise it is but denies being. And other reasons regularly show up on this blog.

Of course, like GM, I don't expect NPR to disappear. However, if its budget was drastically cut back, perhaps there's a chance that it could be reinvented. As illustrated in the helpful comments above, if their cost-heavy trophy personalities were fired en masse, funding would not be so acute an issue, and NPR could evolve into a leaner, meaner, and even exciting info source. But not under the current personnel roster. No way.

This is a 'scorched earth' approach, but I agree that most of the current staff are hopeless as a result of their ambition, indoctrination, and their perverse, narcissistic versions of journalism are concerned.

Sorry to get 'Old Testament-like' here, but the children of Israel couldn't get to the promised land until all the 'golden calf' generation WAS CONSUMED. (I love that line towards the end of DeMille's 'Ten Commandments'!)

I mean, if CBS wants to blow 30 million on Katie Couric because she's 'good', so be it. They're a wholly commercial enterprise, and ratings are all that matters. When NPR aspired to get into that league, they became an instant failure.

Another problem is that NPR, in all their puffery and Neocon connectivity, aspires to do too much. They think they can do it all, and do it well. They want the gravitas, the comedy, the show biz and the concern, to be packaged in a 'creatively-written' and easy to pop pill - for the 'thinking masses' as I like to call them. Then they can posture as being above everybody else, whether it’s NBC or 'The Daily Show'. (They've never taken on Fox because they're so much alike - just a different wardrobe.)

But look at Al Jazeera. They don't want to do it all. They've basically kept their coverage pretty specific. They touch on 'magazine' issues when they have time, but they're obviously lower priority. I get the feeling that NPR is not only jealous of Al Jaz, some within NPR might think, 'that's what WE used to be like...'

NPR also adopted the classic commercial tactic of 'you can't live without us - you need us on every day, all the time.' And of course they're being so noble and all by providing such a 'service'.

Ultimately though, there really isn't much point in revamping NPR, as their monopoly is becoming rapidly meaningless. In the 90s it could have been done, before the raw corruption of the Bush Era fully set in. But NPR was too ripe a plum to be plucked by the Corporatists, and NPR, in its vanity, solicited the plucking most willingly.

But now it doesn't really matter. Viv might do her darndest to keep the vitality going, but as the baby boomer-plus generation (who still rely on the services a structured radio apparatus provides) age and disappear, there just won't be much point for an NPR anymore, and no one will want to pay for it, even as a propaganda tool, unless it goes wholly commercial. And Fox already exists, so why bother?

NPR is famous for being late on the scene for the story, and in the wider sense, it's too late for NPR to be saved from itself.

If doofus Republicans in a doofus Congress wanna get tough on NPR, fine. They don't know anything about it anyway. True alternatives have already emerged.

Another, Grander Kind Of Donald

2011-02-14T10:22:00.000-08:00

Fig. 1 His favorite jammies

Ages after his confessional was published, NPR finally got access to The Donald Rumsfeld's dance card.

What resulted was a dueling of the egomaniacs. Inskreep was determined to 'do a McNamara' on Rummy, and Rummy used his incredible charm to imply that Inskreep was somehow 'strange'. His trademark feistiness, which only made his voice sound reedy once, was kept in check, though he seemed to regard Steven as a pesky insect.

It made for gigantic radio.

Inskreep's big innovative, bottom-line question: was it worth all the mess just to bump off Saddam? Well of course Rummy's gonna say yes.

My big bottom-line question: how many book sales resulted in this NPR interview? I ask Rummy: was it worth it?

PS on Rummy’s addition to the Bush/Blair/Feith Library of True Neocon History: in gangland etiquette, it is always acceptable to bump off your pals if they double cross you or get uppity or don’t stay bought. Former pal Saddam had it coming after he refused offers he couldn’t refuse. The Don was in the thick of all that, as we very well know.

It’s also good gangland manners to let your supposed enemies escape. Rummy accidently revealed to Inskreep that he’s on a first name basis with Bin Laden. The Don to Osama: ‘We’ll bomb the shit out of Tora Bora, which’ll cover your getaway… Then I’ll dump the blame on Tommy Franks, who always follows orders.’

Osama needed The Don as much as The Don needed (and still needs) Osama.

PPS: In the Inskreep interview, I'm surprised Rummy didn't take credit for the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, having paved the way for the heathen after 'liberating' Iraq and all. (Assange in comparison is a punk nobody.)

But, being the good honest Neocon that he is, and as a leading soldier against democracy, he couldn't possibly do so.

However, he may have wished that he had taken credit, as the domino effect in the region opens up all sorts of Neocon dreams. The advent of Greater Israel might be at hand, what with the Prophet Glennbeck's forecast of The Caliphate's certain return!

Rummy may have to reinvent himself for a 4th Act.

Stay tuned for the big new movie version, starring Arnie Schwartzenegger in his triumphant return to acting as the Evil Caliph, and Chuck Norris as the Avenging Angel.

In This, The Post-Pharaoh Hosni The Last Era . . .

2011-02-12T10:43:00.001-08:00

I did a few minutes of the Simonizer this morn, and he's really been discombobulated with post-Mubarak Egypt. Usually swaggeringly confident, the SS, like the rest of NPR, acts like they've just lost their patriarch.

What to do? Before Israel kicks in with their persecution trip, best to be a little condescending to all the euphoric Egyptians, but then get down to work on the negative. Like, stay tuned for the Brotherhood and all that.

Then it was with much relief that the SS could turn to mocking streetcars in American cities with an Eleanor Beardsley-style snottiness (she's a great influence, doncha know).

These are obvious times to trash most American media as not only worthless, but more harmful than ever.

One question though: it took 30 years for the long-suffering Egyptians to dump their patriarch. How long will Americans put up with their crappy media?

A dear friend of mine, a passionately progressive-thinking person through and through, thinks that the media are all-powerful and that they have the American public permanently under their thumbs. I disagree. I certainly agree about their power, but I just don't think it's what it was. Like the US itself, their power has peaked. Egypt has proven that things will go in different directions now. That's what's so exciting about the here and now.

I was also elated when Al Jazeera had that awful, awful Nicholas Burns on to comment on the Egyptian situation. The interviewer just didn't buy Burns' lullaby-voiced 'gentle' words, and made him look like the worthless 'kindler, gentler' imperialist that he is.

On the other hand, on the recent Al Jaz 'Empire' show with Sy Hersh, Thomas Pickering, old-school American imperialist that he is, was nevertheless hip to fact that change is in the wind, so get on board. At least he was posing as more progressive.

As for NPR, despite Viv's futile attempts to make them the hippest cats on the block, NPR's dinosaur fate is really showing. She's gonna have to sack all the old farts and go commercial if she wants to save that mess.

I mean, if you're mocking streetcars, which work astoundingly well in cities from Calcutta to Riga to Zurich to Portland (all of which I have personally used with great satisfaction), you're not only a bozo, you're not long for your position of 'influence'. Sorta like Pharaoh Hosni The Last.

WELL . . .

2011-02-07T16:13:00.001-08:00

Fig 1. He Was Ahead Of His Time (image courtesy of The Stranger - Seattle's Only Newspaper™)

My favorite Reagan anecdote:

RR happened to be on the Royal Yacht and he was being served coffee by members of HM The Queen's staff. Presented with steaming java served in a tankard that Henry VIII had quaffed out of and spit up in, the Gypper asked QE2, 'Is that decaf?'

Well . . . (as RR himself was wont to say!) I guess that after Tom Gjelten definitively proclaimed Ronald Reagan to be a genius (present tense, now and forever), all I need add is the following link to cap things off:

GENIUS - SHEER GENIUS

Also:

Thought I'd make a couple contributions to the Reagan Legend:

I heard a rumor that there's a team of 'experts' currently embalming the Gypper for installation in a mausoleum to be built in the Mall that'll make the US capitol look like a gopher hole. Eat yer hearts out, Comrades Lenin & Ho & Kim Il Sung, and Chairman Mao, too!

After Warner Bros. dumped his contract, RR amazingly succeeded in getting selected for the US presidency thing. To show Hollywood a thing or two, he also succeeded in getting an allowance for a Cult of Personality to be authorized by the US Gub'munt on the occasion of his 100th birthday, and to celebrate 30 years in the Oval Office.

Happy First Century to Our Permanent Leader And Teacher!

And finally, for your LOL pleasure, one of the most famous secrets in the Reagan Legend:

Fig. 2. I always bust a gut with this one! NOTE: This sequence was filmed before they knew how to properly synchronize sound and pictures; 'The Jazz Singer' had just been released, and the Vitaphone hadn't been perfected yet; your patience is appreciated

BONUS: A Few Non-Reagan Cult of Personality Notes, Comin' At Ya!

Yup, and on 'All Thinktanks Considered', Blob Siegel seemed far more interested in 'considering' euphemisms for excrement than anything else today. Very telling.

He was at his double-dipping, unsavory best, posing as the bemused professorial type, daintily curlicu-ing his icky curiosity around his guest's (scholarly?) book on euphemisms, poking about in a sticky box of dainty words with naughty meanings, as if he were salivating over second hand lingerie or something.

Of course, wasn't it all very amusing and droll, and all that rot. Another fine NPR smugfest, with the host as the winner in every respect.

Oh, and he prefaced this encounter by giving us an almost Simonized sermonette about how he learned that the term 'retarded' really wasn't very acceptable, (apparently that process took many years!) despite poring over his dad's books that gave proper definitions for 'moron' and other feeble-minded conditions.

I tell ya, it's getting harder and harder to lampoon NPR, mainly because they're doing most of the lampoonable work themselves. I long ago overcame the Blobert Siegel Projectile Vomiting Reflex, but I imagine I'm in constant danger of it returning full force. All this is is BAD BROACASTING, BAD BROACASTING, BAD BROACASTING.

Oh, and Missy M'lissa Blockhead was especially squirty-cute today. She got positively juicy and squishy with all her scrumptious inflections and nuances, and yes, it's enough to make you puke stomach lining chunks.

I know, it's because everybody's 'fed up' (a la Hosni) of yucky old Egypt, with all their screaming Muzlumanians, bitching, bitching, bitching, spitting on stability and expecting big gub'munt to bail their sorry asses out. And everybody’s always YELLING, just like all those other Islamidextrous places – you know? They’re always yelling and pushing and busting up stuff. Because I heard it all on NPR!

I mean, don't they know they've got a perfectly Reaganesque leader to take care of them?

NPR sets an example to live by. All we need do is listen and obey.

AND

At Dina's Temple of Doom, the buzz is that when you get down to it, Al Qaeda's an EGYPTIAN thingie, and that, hint-hint, if we dump Mubarak, they'll BE BACK. Uh, no mention of Saudi Arabia at all. A Gjeltenian conclusion if there ever was one.

But we all know that NPR-niks don't wanna hear about gravitas shit. Their bubbly comfort zone will forever be populated by Gyppers with sunny personalities, strong Pharaohs, dysfunctional hosts 'n guests, and cheerily peppered with fun euphemisms, word & soundbyte porno, and Barbie fantasies.

Where Is Egypt? Show Me The Way!

2011-02-04T17:59:00.000-08:00

Fig. 1. This is NOT Hosni, but the most excellent Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the role of Pharaoh Sethi in Cecil B. DeMille's Technicolor production of 'The Ten Commandments', in VistaVision

I join in solidarity with the pro-democracy movement in Egypt, as any right-thinking person would or should. Surely they can come up with a better government than we have here in the USA. Egypt deserves the chance to reinvent itself, which they haven't been allowed to do in this modern world.

Mubarak said of Obama (paraphrase), 'He is a good man, but he doesn't understand Egyptian society. If I leave, chaos would result.' I add: 'Yes, an Egyptian society that YOU created, influenced, coerced. It stands to reason that you doth protest.' A dictator may address a 'weak' president in terms both condescending and haughty.

His is the classic failure of a dictator whose time has run out. His slaughter of the innocents shall not be forgotten.

The imminent departure of Pharaoh Hosni The First and Last must and shall be - imminent.

To quote Yul Brynner in 'The Ten Commandments', 'The royal eagle has flown unto the sun' (e.g. Saudi Arabia). No Moses awaits at the Red Sea to provide an avenue, but any number of US-supplied aircraft can be scrambled at a moment's notice. Beverages served.

So shall it be written, so shall it be DONE.

I've found Al Jazeera, Democracy Now! and Link TV to be valuable sources throughout this intense situation. BBC wasn't too bad, either, for more mainstream audiences.

On a more banal plane, I haven't been wasting time with NPR, but here's a little news item of interest:

Tom Ashbrook had a classic Neocon approach to Egypt on 'On Point' this Fri.

That is, David Sanger and - get ready - Tom Gjelten. Uh-huh. And yesterday he had Nick Burns on, whose lullaby-voiced BS has caused a lot of trouble in the world. (One caller-in astutely labeled Burns 'part of the problem' of Mubarakism (my term).)

Anyway, just an observation about Gjelten (who deserves sustained criticism for the foreseeable future): on this show, he said absolutely NOTHING. Not only nothing of value (naturally), but nothing but filler words parroting what's already known. And he got paid for it.

My point: when he's got a CIA-approved script in front of him, he's Mr. Gravitas, but when he's semi-off the cuff (he couldn't survive without a 'cuff' of some kind), he's as vacuous as Sarah Palin.

Thus, as we know, Gjelten is the perfect vessel to fill by others then pour out onto Neocon Public's airwaves.

Prediction: these overpaid blab-heads in their comfort zones will really start to lose their audiences, because their audiences have already figured out this stuff and have advanced past it. They will get their info from other sources, making things like NPR irrelevant, unnecessary, and prohibitively costly.

Gjelten's most profound statement in the show: 'Ronald Reagan's genius was his sense of timing. He sensed that the Berlin Wall was about to fall...' etc. Spoken by a true believer.

And not bad for an Alzheimers' dude! They can have epiphanies we can't even guess at - I guess. Viz: Ron Reagan's insights on his dad's illness; Gjelten & Co. will no doubt deny Ron's 'skewed' outlook. Conversely, it's like The Don (Rumsfeld) blaming the rush into Iraq on his son's drug abuse. If you were The Don's son, you'd do drugs, too. And there’s no one better to blame a war on than a druggie.

Or, what I meant to say was: believing that Reagan 'sensed' that the Berlin Wall was coming down is like Rumsfeld going along with BushCo's Iraq war desires because he was 'distracted' at the moment by his son's drug problems.

Psychotic reasoning is always a criminal's best defense.

Job opportunities for otherwise disenfranchised sociopaths are always available in top leadership positions in this world.

From The Maw of Mara: Marring Politicized Non-Greek Tragedy

2011-01-13T10:27:00.000-08:00

Fig. 1 Serenity - Wisdom - Leadership. And she doesn't really NEED to wear a turtleneck, either! (image courtesy of my friends at Fox)

Fig. 2 And this is how she got that way (image courtesy of Mytwords at NPR Check)

When you’re a National Correspondent (whatever that is) at NPR, just think of the power you have, and the power trip you can go on.

Mara Liarsson weighed in on the Tucson tragedy this morn, politicizing it to an offensive degree, and then having the audacity to imply that others are doing the politicizing, but of course, she isn’t.

Well, that’s unkind of me. She was just commenting on how presidents respond to great tragedies. Uh-huh.

Predictably, she invoked the Greatly Exaggerated Communicator. I was a bit shocked though, when she said that Reagan’s Warner Bros.-scripted tribute to the Challenger astronauts was ‘beautiful’, while to me it sounded more like a Ding Dong School/Sunday School competition than a eulogy.

And then Mara picks the new millennium’s defining moment: Dubya on the national altar of rubble, the ‘America Hears You’ funeral oration. Mara as publicist doesn’t even have to say much, as we all fervently believe that speech to be our young nation’s finest moment. Yeah well, I think it was the weakest, limpest performance by a national figure ever. Sophocles, had he been there, might’ve asked, ‘Who’s the comedian with the mega-horn? Get me someone who can SPEAK!’ Alas, Olivier was no longer with us. Elia Kazan wasn’t there to direct, either.

Then Mara, supreme Clintonian critic that she is, mentions Bill’s hopelessly inadequate attempts to restore his political capital after Timmy McVeigh’s patriotic gesture in Oklahoma City. She spent quite a bit of time on that analysis. She now awaits Obama’s upcoming (andcertain) failure in that department in Tucson, as well.

The life of a National Correspondent! The awesome and majestic duty of dispensing power and influence, and doing it wisely! As Mara looks down from her Olympic heights, she grows wiser and more powerful every day. She and Gjelten are the visionaries, who reside above the fray, who descend unto the rest of us because we need help and guidance. They also get to choose their own stories and don’t have to do fill-in host duties and other peasant jobs.

And Mara, comfy both at NPR and Fox, would never, ever be stupid enough to ‘do a Juan’, though no doubt she has considered a cleaner angle in order to score that juicy Fox contract money she so covets.

PS: I used to waste considerable irreplaceable time by catching some ‘Fox & Friends’ clips over at Crooks & Liars, just to see how bad things were. I never, EVER heard Mara say ANYTHING of value, even Foxified value. She was so utterly worthless that her contributions made even Bill ‘The Bloody’ Kristol look like a quarter-wit instead of the eighth-wit he is. At least Kristol’s a-hole beliefs are unabashed, while Mara works the ‘dark side’ of power, influence and profit. And when you’re a media egomaniac, you’re in it for yourself, and yourself only.

Guess What, What, What?

2010-12-28T15:27:00.000-08:00

Aren't you getting sick of me bitching about NPR? Well, I am!

As for myself, the perniciousness of NPR has once again fried my (critical) tolerance of that outfit.

Again I have to jettison its wearisome infiltration of my relative well-being.

The Neocon (to use a generic term) agenda continues unabated at NPR, but it is particularly the increasing vapidness, banality, and downright insulting hodge-podge of sick-making ingredients that's causing me to eject their noise this time. What with the little 2-3 second sound bytes of, say, a snowblower in action (stock library sounds, or actual on-the-scene recordings in snow-struck NYC??), or some frikkin' 'report' about a part of the brain that makes it possible to talk with Awful Uncle Ed at Xmas, I've once again HAD IT with Nauseating Public Reaction. (The 'Awful Uncle Ed' epithet is an actual term employed by a particular second-string NPR smartass. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID. And the problem remains: what if you love your old Uncle Ed? People with beloved Uncle Eds should bombast NPR with mockery.)

NPR tries to be breezy, blithe and savvy, with a touch of the swagger, so as to appeal to the hipster quality that less discerning listeners respond to as they might the latest Mall trend.

And then there's the quality of the 'ho-ho' in the ho-ho news. I'm not the only one who thinks it's abysmal.

NPR's just trying to be funny, ya know. What are they trying to be FUNNY for? Audiences love comedy, but why the hell would you ever go to NPR's news people for comedy? Oh, I know, it softens all the otherwise depressing news. But for anyone who's depressed by the news, try to DO something about it, even in your own tiny way, or don't complain. One of the best tiny ways is shutting off NPR. With the Net, there are many, many other more reliable sources to get one's (depressing) news than depressingly-bad NPR.

(The most obscure Groucho Marx joke is infinitely more hilarious and memorable than ANY attempt our NPR lifers have made to make me crack a smile.)

Anyway, this is all nothing new of course. But the new, dumber-ed down NPR is not-so-mute evidence that Viv & Co. are wasting no time in new audience capturement, so they're radically ramping up the 'ho-ho news' as they used to call it in the post-Spiro Agnew Speech era.

This is of course a blatant misuse of the public trust, as any amount of vapid, shallow and silly radio can be found elsewhere just by twisting the dial. In fact, commercial radio, which found its place long ago, is basically less sickening than NPR, because at least it’s not subverting our expectations.

NPR's continued decline into audience pandering is blatant evidence enough of NPR's commercial/corporate mandate: increase ratings for corporate sponsorship, otherwise, what corporation in their right mind would want to waste the money? I suppose there are enough austerely Neocon organizations who would continue to hone NPR's propaganda potential, but if listeners decline, you can't propagandize them as widely.

Anyway, I'll continue to peruse here, but NPRadiation Exposure is restricted to the occasional newsreading - at my peril.

It's A Brilliant Season

2010-12-23T15:41:00.000-08:00

(Image courtesy of Mytwords @ NPR Check)

On DN!, Chris Hedges unreservedly declared Obama 'a disaster'. Wow.

It's still difficult for me to accept our fate, our Great American Curse: Ye Shall Be Ruled By The Skilled In Corruption.

Merry Christmas all, IN JAIL!

It's Winter. Cold Duck Time - I Mean, Cold War Time

2010-12-20T12:55:00.000-08:00

Yes indeed, eNdtimes Public Radiation seems to be getting more whacked out than ever lately. Even Frank Browning (in Paris) sounds like he's been commanded to drink NPR's Happy Kool-Aid, so as to get more 'expression' into his delivery, so as to keep the young people from texting distractions. I really think they're getting that desperate.

Some of the druggy reactions don't seem to be going that well, though. Auntie Liane sounds depressed, Beardsley sounds like it's a real hassle just to say 'in Paaaris', and Jack Speer recites his last name as if it's the most boring thing on earth (he may have a point).

I know, these are tinkertoy details, but to my mind, very telling as far as what's going on behind the scenes. I would imagine that there's a certain terror about losing corporate funding, and the looming doom from Juangate that awaits in the next Congress.

Whatever...

Q: When you have a hole in a regular old axis of evil, how do you fill it? (One word answer, please.)

A: Belarus!

OK, I'll try to keep it brief, but it's been pretty hilarious (pathetic, is more like it) to hear NPR's limp attempts to paint Belarus as a citadel of neo-Soviet satanism. Never mind that the US is in tight with Uzbek and Turkmen 'leaders', there's a Stalin wannabe in Minsk, and he's bound to go viral before too long.

David Greene, perhaps the greatest master of smug-smile talking at NPR, wasn't smiling so much during his 'coverage' of the election there though. Seems somebody on his crew had a Prince Charles moment amongst some protesters, and I'll bet that really pissed him off.

Anyway, Greene's been doing yeoman work in the former USSR, what with the hubbub in Kyrgyzstan, which he just happened to turn up in time for, and who knows what else. He probably can't get access to Putin, so he's working on 'containment' from the fringes. Sort of takes me back to the good old Brezhnev days.

Auntie Liane, her quirky voice sounding more world-weary than ever, tried to rev up a little Cold War zing, but Greene didn't have much to give, though Linda Wiesenheimer got a bit of action out of him today.

Here's a possible future scoop from NPR: David Greene discovers that all the dictators/tyrants of the world (you know, Chavez, the Kims of N. Korea, Morales, Castro, and that guy in Minsk) all share Facebook pages. That'll knock that smartypants Assange guy out of the headlines all right.

NPR Thoughts That You Don't Even Have To Have Heard On NPR To Know What I'm Talking About

2010-12-16T10:48:00.000-08:00

In a recent report, some NPR reporter explained how you can add phosphates to your dishwasher in case they've been banned by the state in which you reside.

Unbelievable. Typically unbelievable. More proof that NPR will stop at nothing to establish itself as Definitive Explainer for the alleged Thinking Masses.

Ever since it was determined that there was money in that there Journalism (remember all the Ron Baillie schools?), becoming an American Storyteller was doomed to corporate capturement. It's obvious that nearly every NPR-oid is an ambitious egotist, whether in the faux-intellectual showoff department or the blatant moneygrubbing department (lots of overlap there).

And speaking of Alicia's Shepherding of we the listeners, did anyone happen to catch her on On Point a few weeks ago? It was at the height of Juangate (remember that?), and it was the first time I'd actually heard her voice. She was just another snot-nosed narcissist that fit perfectly into the haughty halls of Beltway broadcasting. More than 'nuff said on that miserable subject.

Just a thought on NPR's witty commentary and supremacist humor (I get kind of tired of using quotation marks for what is already over-obvious). That is, whenever Inskreep & Co. crack a little levity before daintily diving into Ivory Coast or choleric Haiti, the implication is that the humor usually describes some stupid act by stupid people, and that everybody stupid is OUT THERE someplace. You know, that such stupidity could never apply to the lofty hosts & literate readers of NPR. And you the listener can join in and parrot these stories of stupidity to your co-workers, so as to prove that you yourself aren't stupid at all, and you never will be because you're smart and listen to smart people. And then you can crown your moment by saying, 'I HEARD IT ON NPR'. 'Nuff said again.

Of course, this is part of the success story of NPR creating its own elitist flock. Like the GOP: you're welcome to support us, but you will never really become one of us.

Egads! I'm guilty of 'doing an NPR': WORDINESS!!! AAAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!! Help me!!! Somebody help meeeeee!!!

National Public Responsibility: To Be Perfect So As To Be Trustworthy

2010-12-15T15:38:00.000-08:00

Despite all mine criticism, doesn't NPR seem like it would be just the gee-whiz-iest FUNNEST place to work in the universe??

Why, everyone's so polite, civil and merry with one another, I'll bet they don't have a single soap opera amongst themselves to gossip about, especially now that Adenoid Andie C-brook's married up.

They're all so damn supportive of one another! How possible is that? Perhaps it's all due to the free allowances of Ambien, Xanex, Angadrene, certain selected anti-psychotic medications, and other prescription nightmares, generously (and quietly) supplied by Big Pharma. That’s gotta be it.

Steve, Happy 'Kreep that he is, just plain gets along with EVERYBODY. Donny Gonny, the 8th Dwarf, seems to be having a ball, what with all the 'witty commentary' and taking the opportunity to grandstand his illustrious service to the nation as Certified Dubya Sycophant, and all.

Because, when you're part of the In Crowd of Smugly-Smile-When-You're-Talking-At-The-Great-Unwashed NPR All Stars, you have ARRIVED, baby!

Hell, I'd rather witness Sen. Mitch McConman hawking up his collective viscosity than having to suffer one minute of NPR cuteness as one of the gang.

Mitch, who of course should be ditched, always reminds me of some fussbudget nobody who's playing an elderly maiden aunt in drag in a high school play. Prim, priggish, and pole-up-the-ass. And sitting in the audience, I have plenty of rotten tomatoes at hand.

PS: In order to con us and keep conning us, NPR must come off as strong, united, resolute, and most importantly, NON-DYSFUNCTIONAL. And don't forget DOWNRIGHT HAPPY as a requirement.

Only then can the powers of propaganda, persuasion, and snake oil dispensation be properly applied, and in perpetuity.

Rove-ism in action. The Neocons knew the Bush Administration might not last. But a propagandistic news organization - now THERE's a plan!

A Neocon Wetdream Named Julian

2010-12-08T10:05:00.000-08:00

Tom Gjelten just LOVES Julian Assange. To him, Assange is heaven-sent. There, in the form of one person, is proof positive that a New, Colder War ™ is not only necessary, it’s already started, and Gjelten has been there from the start, warning us and warning us again, his patience wearing thin. And now, there’s triumph in his warning us yet again – this time with conclusive proof. He’s going into turbo Bruce Willis mode now. And today, he doesn’t even sound all that constipated either. Julian’s given him a whole new lease on life. Cyberwar is what he pants for, and now that he’s got it, he’s going to be there more than ever for us, leading the charge. Like Wolfowitz, Gjelten’s a True Believer, just what the shadowy Neocons want for their publicity campaign.

Conversely, Philip Reeves’ report on Assange’s current legal situation was well measured and indeed, cautious. But that’s typical of Reeves, who has never fallen for NPR’s ‘Creative Writing’ BS. Strategically, NPR editors placed Reeves’ story BEFORE Gjelten’s so that the awesome horror of looming cyberwar, in which the evil menace of Assangism will be utterly annihilated, can be dangled before the good honest folks that tuned into NPR this morning.

NPR seems to be ‘trying out’ Reeves on the London beat, perhaps because they can keep a closer eye on him. He and Quist-Arcton are about the only international ones I trust at NPR. Times are tough. Reporters need gigs. I don’t look down my nose at them for that.

I mean, when you’ve got Juan Forerro, who always sounds like he’s been sampling the choicest Columbian, or maybe even the best crystal meth from the back alleys of Sao Paulo, or the Condescension Story Time from Gwen Thompkins, or the anger-management mutterings of Michael Sullivan (wow, haven’t heard from the last two for some time; still on NPR payroll?), what’s the point of trusting America’s Storytellers to deliver the goods?
Speaking of bizarro spew from our American Storytellers, wonder-boy Guy Raz took time out from his cooking class on ATC yesterday to ask a guest about a particular vet who had his legs blown off in Afghanistan. Seems the vet is kind of mad at the Fred Phelps church psychos who plague the funerals of slain soldiers. (Kind of understandable, huh?)

So Raz gets to the point in the interview when he gingerly asks if the vet MIGHT BE SUFFERING FROM PTSD or something. Not even an inkling of insight that maybe it's the Fred Phelps zombies who are the ones who are utterly and horribly insane.

It was a brilliant thematic link to Auntie Liane's 'gotcha' psychoanalysis of Julian Assange. You see, it’s really these lone Oswaldian weirdos that we must fear. And you WILL fear them, because that’s what the media commands you to feel. Because they’re entirely reasonable and objective about their duty to warn you of the imminent threats we face. (Never mind their falling down in light of all the pre-9/11 warnings that were so freely available…)

NPR's Inevitable Progression Towards Irrelevant Entropy

2010-12-07T10:32:00.000-08:00

One of the reasons I carp about NPR on this blog is because of what NPR SHOULD be: a truly open forum to examine current events and their effects with as much care as possible, and with the best minds available.

But because it isn't anything close to that, it's important to be aware of what 'thinking' people are being led into.

More and more I resent NPR News for their assertive role in dominating the notion of what listeners think is the only 'sane' option out there. That is, by coming across as the ONLY alternative to so-called commercial news organizations. They have the luxury of utilizing an already-existing network of stations that they have co-opted (why not say hijacked?) for their own purposes. In my book, that's a case of gross misuse of public opportunity under the guise of a Murrow-like integrity.

(No, that's not parroting Gingrich or Palin or O'Reilly-speak. Their NPR critiques were nothing more than bozo blather of the moment, a limp display of ersatz rage that was about as effective as Jesse Helms' tantrum about public broadcasting. We've seen just how sincere Tea Bagger whining turns out to be...)

Meanwhile, the true alternatives, like Democracy Now!, GritTV, LinkTV, the News Dissector, and other excellent sources are on the upswing. They haven't achieved NPR's accessibility yet, but if they can sustain their independence (with further success, they risk hostile corporate coercion), they will increasingly make NPR News irrelevant.

That's not only my hope, it's my expectation.

AND - BONUS ENTERTAINMENT SECTION FOLLOWS:

Boy, it's becoming increasingly apparent that NPR's really going for the laughs these days. It could be in order to foster a bit of seasonal cheer, but I detect that it's part of Viv Schill's circling of the wagons.

This morn Inskreep was about as chucklesome as he could get. Oh, he was careful to sidestep any Assange humor, but at just about every break, he was there with what Blob Siegel calls 'witty commentary' for us to brighten our existential day with.

After NPR's notre dame de Paris, Eleanor (d'Aquitaine) Beardsley gave a little postcard sketch of Paris's bookstalls along the Seine (perfectly accurate, but fitting as filler for Fresh Air or whatever), Inskreep made a barrel of monkeys quip about 'books, a famous river, and dogmeat', and that NPR was the only place where you might hear such a combination.

Aye, the Schill-er Era is a desperate one, tis true.

You know, some listeners may find Mme. Eleanor's spoiled (ugly) duckling quacking to be sort of charming, but... but... I've said it before, and sorry to be tiresome, but it's so STUPID sounding! So utterly distracting!

I mean, they've got the very nondescript Frank Browning covering the Paris beat, but obviously someone in DC has the hots for cutesy deBeardsley. How can NPR afford to have all this overlap coverage? I know they're both contractors, but where's the moneysworth in such a rinkydink setup?

I'm not a Paris snob, but I do harbor lots of pleasant Parisian memories, and I can't stand how this Beardsley person portrays things Parisian or French via her show-offy teenage snot tones, as if French stuff is essentially really stupid or something. She's a Freedom Fries relic, a perfect example of Narcissist Personality Radio in action: SO distracting, SO worthless.

A Priceless and Pithy 'Get Your War On'

2010-12-02T10:07:00.000-08:00

http://www.mnftiu.cc/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/gywo_5of7.gif

Does Anyone Else Find Julie McCarthy's Pronunciation of 'Pakistan' Sort Of, Well, You Know, DISTRACTING???

2010-12-02T09:56:00.000-08:00

This morning on Morning Edition, Renaay Mundane played a dainty game of softball with 20-star Field Marshal Richard Mills, our Viceroy of Particularly Troubled River Valleys in Afghanistan. Their helpful dialogue was one of the most preposterous field reports yet heaved onto the rubbish heap of Af-Pak propaganda yet. Giving Mills some benefit of the doubt, I can imagine that he exploded in laughter after hanging up on Renaay. 'Well, that's another bucket 'o BS I just dumped on NPR...' he might have said... 'They always buy it and sell it without us even trying.' Or whatever.

And it's as if every NPR-oid in the region is nervous. They've even brought heaviest of weights Corey Phlintoff to fabled Kabul to help out! His singular methods of expressive news-reading should be most helpful in keeping Talibanians and other assorted Insurgentioids at bay.

Our Miss Julie McCarthyism even seems to rush through her unique trademark pronunciation of the nation she's a guest in - say 'POKK-ee-STAWN' as fast as you can!

Sorry for the ongoing ditzy name-twisting. Now that I am a more 'serene' occasional monitor of NPR, such trivialities help get me through the torture sessions.

(Suggestion to Cheney & Associates: for a dandy NEW torture technique at Gitmo, just play a medley of the best sermons from the Simonizer to all the terrorists in residence. At top volume, especially during tears and guffaws. Repeat as needed. Satisfaction guaranteed!)

PS: That reporter who suffered through kidnapping at the hands of insurgents in Af-Pak is making the marketing rounds. He's on Diane Rehm today, but that's one torture that others will have to endure without me.

A Follow-up To Blob Siegel’s Prize-Getting

2010-11-30T10:17:00.000-08:00

Didn’t Siegel get some prize or whatever, a while back? Or am I thinking of somebody else?

Yesterday he was ‘considering’ a new film that deals with the speech problems of King George VI, and Colin Firth, the lead actor in the picture, was there to explain. He did so quite well, despite the fact that Siegel was more interested in the king being some sort of out-of-date figure, or whatever.

Faced with yet another Brit accent on his hands (Firth, an excellent actor, full of integrity and depth), the always too-cool Siegel elects to come across as a street-smart American. He is more comfortable dumbing down the subject – not because of any (possible) mandate from Viv Schill-er, but because that’s what he’s capable of. That’s what he DOES. So much for coming off as an intellectual, so as to create trust and maintaining the ‘quiet elitism’ that is so vital to NPR’s reputation!

I’ve lived for some time in the UK and believe me, the media and pop culture there put upper-class-ism/elitism in its place MUCH more than in the US.

In his discourse, Firth was simply displaying the sort of standard intelligence that a grown-up in public life needs in order to be credible, while Siegel, with his limited pursed-lipped tools, is used to lording-it over his interviewees, whether it be thinly-disguised condescension when dealing with a ‘commoner’, or a ‘you don’t intimidate me one bit’ ego-confidence when dealing with some head of state.

The term ‘middlebrow' used to be widely employed to pigeonhole poseurs like Siegel, where mere iron-assed longevity can pass as implied quality and trustworthiness. Well, I’d say he and his kind (i.e. Gjelten and other ‘heavyweights’ at NPR News), are, shall we say, ‘lower middlebrow’. And there’s the all-important shill-factor. As Voltaire and company proved that the Enlightenment needed publicists, so Siegel & Corp. are vital to publicizing whatever it is that NPR ‘stands’ for... (Fill in the blank, mostly under ‘Propaganda’.)

If H.L. Mencken were around, he’d hound such phenomena as ‘Siegelism’ for the disgraceful thing that it is, until they fired Siegel’s inflated ass – and not because of any bozo issues like those involved in Juangate, either. Mencken hung out at the foundation of things, not at some fashionable sushi bar.

When delivering his prize-win speech, I would guess that, like Paul Wolfowitz, Siegel probably punched it up with genial anecdotes and crackerbarrel wisdom, so as to display his ‘real’ talents as a multi-purpose media guy of the people (besides being a ‘really neat guy’, and all that), but also like Paul, any smugness passing as humor always betrays a gloat factor.

Radio being the instantly-disposable medium that it is, despite archiving on the net, Siegel’s type of ersatz intellectualism thankfully becomes disposable and quickly forgotten (I shall continue to TRY and forget, anyway…). Thus, he fits in perfectly with NPR’s increasing flakiness and irrelevance.

(I noticed that just this morning, NPR got up the courage to finally tell America about Bradley Manning and the ‘Lady Gaga CD’…)

I keep coming back to Mike Wallace’s famous putdown of NPR, in which he had no intention of getting lost in the wilderness of National Public Radio. (Also a veiled putdown of former colleague Dan Schorr, I should think. Dan who…?) In spite of NPR News’ new standing (for nothing), the wilderness is more intact and denser than ever.

PS: I heard that, when sending cash to WBUR Boston, you can specify that no funds will go to ‘NPR’. I assume that means NPR News (?). Thanks Sarah the P, Newt ‘n Bill-O!

This Just In: There's Quite A Bit of Bullshit To Be Found In Political Advertising. Source: NPR

2010-10-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Part One: Helpful Insights

Well, I’m relieved to know that NPR has just discovered the extent of the BS factor in political advertising. If Overby & Seabrook hadn’t pointed this out in their recent ‘series’, in which they exposed all the legal hankypanky going on in the poli-advertising industry, I would have continued to believe everything I heard and saw in paid political advertising.

I think DN! knew that Crossroads GPS & Co. were Karl Rove creations about an hour after they were indeed created. NPR follows up at a ‘dignified’ distance, when the coast is clear, of course, and when the facts are so glaringly obvious. Even the MSM, guided by Murdoch-ian boilerplate of declaring facts at the last possible moment (e.g. when they are irrefutable) is usually way ahead of NPR’s slug-slime-slow outreach. NPR’s excuse is probably that they’re doing a story more ‘carefully’ or something, no doubt with an ‘intellectual’ approach.

Plus, since turbo-wonk Peter Overby and Gen-X-Appeal 'Adenoid' Andie Seabrook are on the case (with smarts to rival that oh-so-clever Adumb Davidson and crew), we can take anything they say as gospel. It’s all so clear to me now. What a brilliant decision to partner Overby (bald & slinky, possibly gay, and with a lisp that assures his validity, because if they put someone with lousy delivery on the air, they MUST be good), and Seabrook (with built in tools such as a Monsterfat Cowbelly body and a voice of a smarty-pants 'Star Wars' fan, designed to simultaneously soothe and intimidate interviewees, thus 'fleshing out' a dandy story) on this pregnant and timely subject, surely bound for a crypt in the Peabody Awards columbarium.

Part Two: Unquestioned Majesty

And yes, one more comment on He Whom I Cannot Think Of Without Fuming: Tom Gjelten. Like Cheney, Gjelten gets – nay, COMMANDS the entitlement to be the lord of gravitas at NPR. That is, any pronouncement he makes must and shall be taken as an ultimate. We can’t get any higher than Gjelten, can we? I doubt Gjelten knows who Eric Sevareid was, but even if he does, and even if he tries to emulate him, he ain’t no Sevareid. While Eric could have a twinkle in his eye when the BS meter red-lined, Gjelten’s stony voice soldiers on in the service of propaganda, his opportunism taken over by his own self-delusion. Head puffed up by Pentagon fawning and favoring, his pontifications indicate a combo of egotism and monomania, which he is by right entitled to inflict on the public. He may even be more worthless than that other mighty Tom: the Friedman variety.

I find it interesting that Juan Williams was fired over voicing his opinions (on another network), but Gjelten, doing the same thing regarding Wikileaks, and on NPR itself, wasn’t. How now, Viv Schiller? Well, that’s an easy one: Juan’s a mere cabin boy on the good ship Fox, while Gjelten, Lord of Gravitas, shall not be questioned.

Part Three: Postscript

Regarding that other, hipper Juan at NPR, Forero, I think NPR retains him not only because he speaks their kind of propaganda lingo, but because they think he's good at sexing up a given story. No doubt the white breads at NPR think his schmaltzy delivery brings a bit of 'Latin rhythm' to their pathetic lineup. Much better than Julie McCarthy's blue-blooded drawl used to.

AS for the late Nestor Kirchner of the Argentine, may he RIP. Murdoch-ian media can never forgive him for telling Oliver Stone about Dubya's 'war is good for an economy' statement, told to him by Dubya himself.

Now That The Really Not Very Interesting Case of Juan Williams Has Wigged Everyone Who Matters Out...

2010-10-22T11:19:00.000-07:00

Bill-o finally got to steal a ratings boost away from his rival Frankenmonster, the Beck-oid. The rest is nothing but the MSM Silly Circus in action.

Nonfiction entertainment ratings will continue to tank. Tweeters 'n Texters and other Future Demographic Participants don't give a rat's sphincter about yawns like Juan (who?).

I thought Alec Baldwin's mission to destroy NPR, supposedly a bit of satire for Pledge Week, says much more about eNdingPR than any other professional reactor voice.

In the meantime, choleric discharge is clogging the sewers in Haiti, and I imagine they've lost count of how many empty coffin funerals there are in Af-Pak, due to bodily atomization from the droning that goes on and on...

The Ever-Surprising Evolution of N.othin' P.ublic R.elations

2010-10-13T10:18:00.000-07:00

Pentagon-Approved Soriyasahaddinelson gave an 'Entertainment Tonight' style chitchat coverage of Ahmadinejad's visit to Beirut this morn. Always suave Linda Wertenheimermuller asked her, with just the right touch of annoyance in her voice, 'What's he 'doing' there?' The report was a classic hangover from the old Cold War days, when it was Khrushchev who was the all-purpose bad boy.

Condi Roundup: in today's Publish or Perish mania, big news: CONDI HAS A BOOK COMING OUT. Like MeeShill, who beat her to it, Condi's cashing in on the Birmingham ferment, revealing that she did indeed have a bad-ass dad of her own. Problem is, at least MeeShill has a faux-sexy voice, while Condi is nothing but shallow dreariness. She still uses the very same condi-scension she used in a 60 Minutes interview years ago when she referred to the 'little girls' who were blown up in the church bombing, a detachment that served her well in being in on pulling off two indescribably horrible wars. Betcha though, that Condi's bad-ass book outperforms pipsqueak MeeShill's.

A blatant sign that NPR is severely anxious about declining ratings: the local stations are being FLOODED with promos from even the more obscure NPR superstars. Even superstar Jean Cochrane is stepping up (Jean who?) by doing the tedious work of customized promos. We salute her!

Also a bad sign for NPR. The other day NPR tied into an 'enemy' resource: an AL JAZEERA reporter!! Horrors! Weren't they working for Bin Laden and in on 9/11, or what? When Murdoch seizes control of a dying NPR, such practices will STOP, ya hear?

In spite of all this worthless rubbish, Philip Reeves gave what I thought was a wonderful profile of Billingsgate fish market in London. It's not hard to distinguish the rare gems in the NPR gutter. I think NPR maintains Reeves as an 'exotic'. You know, a sort of old fashioned guy like Andy Rooney who appeals to the geezers, So the management can say that yes, indeed, we are diverse, and we allow Reeves to do his thing unimpeded. Or whatever. Talk about condi-scension.

There’s Something About Sarah: Her Voice, Her Name

2010-09-02T12:47:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: They've both got 'presence' . . .

Sarah the P. may not be related to Michael Palin of Monty Python fame, but the very cartoonyish-goonyish-loonyish quality of her VOICE and her ENUNCIATION make her a terrific candidate for a 4th-string comedy pageant, like a back-row support voice on the Tennessee Tuxedo Show, for crying out loud. The proof is in the pudding in any of the Al Jazeera clips covering Glenn Beck’s holy hallucination tent show on the Mall recently. Incidentally, Glenn looked fabulous in the new specs, and that sleek belly suit to keep his gut from scattering was hot. Bill Kristol should be so lucky!

I always thought that after his ‘guilty’-plea of resignation, Dick Nixon should’ve headed straight to Vegas to get going on his true destiny: stand-up comedian on the Strip. Surely Rip Taylor and Shecky Greene were just waiting for him to show up, so as to advise. Rip’s proven gimmicks of glamé robes and handbells should have at least been tried by the ex-Pres, and Shecky certainly could’ve road-tested some goy schtick on the Quaker mama’s boy to rustle up some laughs from the blue-haired ladies. But dammit, he didn’t show, preferring to grandstand for Frostie so as to provide future acting ‘meat’ for Frank Langella instead of Anthony Hopkins. But there’s always ‘Milhous: A White Comedy’ to sigh over.

And soon-to-be-ex-Senator and GOP turncoat Arlen Specter? You know, he’s pretty damn good in front of a brick wall with the hand-held and the spotlight. In fact he’s downright hilarious in his dry ‘n dried-up shaky-old-geezer routine. Much better than Bob Dole’s Viagra act. By a longshot, baby. So Arlen? When it’s time to hang up the Beltway borscht routine, head on out to probable-soon-to-be-ex-Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Mormon-founded valley. Hang out with Jerry’s Kids this Labor Day weekend. Lasso some gags. Next thing you know, you’ll be opening at the Copacaboo Room. Vegas audiences, burnt out on the over-produced turbo-shows that have ruled the Strip ever since Roy’s neck got torn open (or was it Siegfried?), will flock to your Great Tradition gigs. Marty Allen LIVES!

And Tony Blair, now that he has an imaginatively titled ‘auto’-bio coming out (I’m sure he scrawled every word of it, just like Churchill actually did), can next join the panto circuit (the UK’s version of rubber chicken fun shows - most of which are expertly produced, BTW), to finally allow his plummy elocution to swish over appalled audiences, which is what it was always meant to do. Sorry Tony, no Old Vic (or Young Vic) or West End for you. Nor even ‘No Sex Please, We’re British’ farces. Nope, thou shalt tour the seaside resorts as thy 20-year apprenticeship, before you can even think about Archie Rice status in, say, Redcar or Cleethorpes.

But Sarah, Sarah the P. . .

Wait a minute. Problem with the name. (An ‘Esther Blodgett’ moment, to be sure!) ‘Sarah’ is too lefty-sounding. Reminds me of Ava Gardner’s Sarah versus George C. Scott’s Abraham in ‘The Bible’; still lookin’ good, but left of center. Man, some kind of left of center, with the beads and the tents and gettin’ knocked up . . . And for chrissakes, ‘Palin’ sounds, well, pallid, dainty, British . . . (Sorry Michael, this has no bearing on you, I’m a true fan.)

Gotta come up with something else for the show. How about: just S.P.? You know, initials? S. and P. Should go over big with sympathetic Big Oil word-associators: S.P. . . . B.P., get it? But instead of British Petroleum, it’s Sarah’s Petroleum. Huh? Kids’ll love the wordplay.

But the show, the show’s the big deal. Let’s tack on something like Billo’s ‘factor’, but not so faggy-sounding. How about IMPACT? ‘THE S.P.-IMPACT!’ All in caps, all the time. Yeah! I’ll even throw in the exclamation point for free. And on the show, she doesn’t even have to have a proper name: it’ll just be ‘S.P.’ Cue announcer: “And now, the hostess of the ages, with ageless advise for all, the one and only S! P!” Killer. OK, we got that outa the way.

Prob is, when Sarah tries to be funny, she just isn’t. Remember her SNL gig with the REAL Sarah P., Tina F.? So, any premise for her in showbiz will have to be resolutely serious – as, admittedly, has already been the case – so that her comedy can shine. But Fox is going about it all wrong. Her management (get Mike Ovitz on the phone, NOW) should try the ‘indirect’ approach. Get some decent gag writers who know how to shift the blame from the performer to the audience. We gotta turn this thing around so the joke’s back on the audience, where it belongs, and not on Sarah – I mean S.P.

We all know her Miss Lenscrafter looks are soon headed for the Maybelline/Breck dumpster, so we gotta act fast. There’s still some decent damage control outlets to be found in Vegas, and they’d better be tapped, but pronto.

Tricky Dick may have missed his chance, but S.P.’s on the verge of skippin’ up the steps of the showbiz pantheon. Somebody, please, help her. Before someone better comes along. Because it’ll happen. Just you wait ‘n see.

Harry Shearer Presents: 'NPR - The Initials Stand For Nothing'

2010-08-30T15:48:00.000-07:00

Check this out:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harry-shearer/npr--the-initials-stand-f_b_697670.html

HORDES of comments are in full agreement, including a kick-off comment linking to the NPR Check blog! How refreshing.

New NPR lows:

- Blob Siegel's ad, in which he educates us on the fact that NPR's reporting 'costs money', is STILL being played relentlessly.

- Paul Brown and Craig Windham do first name-basis chit chat during the news updates. Crappy idea!

- A whole host of new, younger (and cheaper) names are getting into the NPR 'reporting' act. Who the hell ARE these people?

- Julie McCarthy did some innocuous humanitarian reporting on the Pakistani flooding, but she's said absolutely nothing about the man-made failures that contributed to the disaster, like Deforestation, (capital D) for one. As in Harry Shearer's expose, the media is insisting that the flooding is totally a 'natural disaster'. Oh, and she's still doing the most annoying pronunciation of 'Pakistan' to be found in the mainstream media: 'pawwk-ees-stawn'. If she’s after authenticity she’s after, I'm waiting for her to give the proper guttural pronunciation of the 'gh' in 'Afghanistan'.

- And as most everybody knows by now, Saturday's ageless superstar, the sermonizing Simonizer is bawling his way through all the NPRadiation belt, exploiting his 'beautiful' wife and his consumer-item kids, but with utmost 'propriety' and supreme mawkishness. At least Glenn Beck admits he's got a 'big fat mouth'. As for Scottie, he gets every green light to show off his inherent talents as an egomaniac.

- Juan Forero's taking a break from picking on Hugo Chavez and doing a few 'cultural' features, and with a voice that's a constant orgiastic climax wave, so schmaltzy and insipid that even a high school drama teacher would dismiss it as too hammy. But that's classic NPR: where sickening personalities get to inflict themselves on the audience in the name of being 'the nation's storyteller'.

- Finally, I have to admit that I'm 'sample-listening' to NPR these days, but it's UNDER CONTROL. There's one thing that I've noticed is really increasing at a frightening pace: practically EVERYONE on the air now is marketing a book. Yes a BOOK. More than ever. It's a total racket. Not only is NPR a corporate shill, they're now fully engaged with all conglomerate publishers to aggressively market books, because NPR listeners are, uh, book readers, ya know. This strategy is nothing new, but I swear the pitch of it is now feverish. Thing is, who's actually buying and reading all this crap?

Motioned Pictorials

2010-07-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

I now invite, as FDR said at the '39 World's Fair in NYC, for 'all humanity' to comment on any and all cinematic-type films that mean anything at all to you and yours, in hopes of rattling the persistence-of-vision apertures, so that we who love cinema might comment on any life-changing experiences encountered thus far in the filmic mists. Now's your chance. Line up: single file, one at a time, please! Let’s talk picture shows!

The Power Of The Leak

2010-07-26T12:01:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: No illustration necessary

Now there comes a time when heavy oils, salt water, and cyber non-molecules shall come together, and in the resulting admixture, certain unpleasant truths may be examined and accepted.

It hasn't even been 36 hours yet, but the WikiLeaking of the US reports on the 5001st Afghan War has been of the very highest significance.

Yeah, those in the loop are minimizing the impact, but those of us who were signally opposed to the war BEFORE IT EVEN BEGAN can take some sense of grim vindication in welcoming this all-too-obvious evidence of consistent failure in the Afghan venture. There's nothing like low-level evidence to indict high-level secrets.

It is indeed a wearisome enterprise, pounding out the tiresome fact that a long and high-priced war is an abject failure, but even the most arch of hawks (who might be less insane than others) know that sooner or later, the truth will out. Especially via cyber techniques. This stuff isn't hard to figure out at all. The trick is making the lie last as long as possible. And it is a credit to the warmakers for making it last as long as they have - even in this cyber age. That fact alone shows how they're keeping up, intending to outwit even the most skilled of hackers. Cheney was right: to beat 'em at their own game, ya gotta be more devious than even the worst of them are.

It is indeed a deep disappointment to have the Obama Administration embrace this blatantly Neocon war with so much dedication. It should never be forgotten though, that once planned and implemented by said Neocon interests, contingency factors were deeply integrated. Such as, should the opposing party (e.g. Obama) win, a fully activated war in Afghanistan would be virtually impossible to end on Inauguration Day. In short, ANY administration would automatically be pre-addicted to an Afghan war as surely as a high-potency dose of heroin jabbed into an 8th-grader's arm (to wit: instant addiction). That's part of the genius of the Neocons. So, Obama's stuck, and the Neocons knew it would happen this way. Talk about vindication! And the fact is, Obama is neither heroic enough or larger than life enough to make the epic gesture and enact a will to power that would end the conflict with dispatch. It would instantly be regarded as radical, but perspective would prove it to be the right thing to do. Such a gesture would of course be made late, very late, in the game, and its sentiment irresponsibly conservative, regardless of being monumental dawdling under corporate and Neocon intimidation, but there's nothing else for it now. Banal, but oh-so-true.

That's where leaked documents come in. Daniel Ellsberg, on DemocracyNow! sagely commented that this WikiLeak is of the same caliber as his Pentagon Papers leak. To which I might add: expect change, some sort of change, in the whole Afghan War's course of action. It is inevitable, but we should not expect revelatory decisions to be made in its immediate cessation, naturally. Nevertheless, something's got to give in this doomed war's immediate future.

So now we have a bunch of info that even the Masses will be able to grasp. But if they choose not to grasp it and to seize this better-late-than-never opportunity to shut down a failed mechanism, then they're more worthless than would have been thought. I'm talking about Congress too, who damn well better dip their bread of protest into this elephant-in-the-room gravy while it's still hot.

Gross abuse of power is one of the easiest things to pull off in this, our very own era. Preventing it is one of the hardest. It will be most interesting to see what real political effect this current leak (hopefully the first of many) will bring about.

PS: I salute WikiLeaks for their act of high conscience and high consequence, and may those who wield the power to make sanity possible agree.

Tony! Tony!

2010-07-26T11:33:00.000-07:00

Plate 1: There he is again, really crying this time

Yes, the future Lord Hayward of Greaseshire will be fading into the safety of a complimentary flight on Emirates to join the stalwart expats on the shores of another, grander Gulf, where the infinitely more attractive titbits of Khayyamic breadfruits and winejugs shall replace putrid Cajanic hog-chitlins and batpiss-lager.

But touch your pleasures lightly, tip top Tone, for your legacy shall be a lasting one. Of course, you could do what that other tip topper with the same casual diminution of Anthony, Tony Blare did: turn your knees toward Rome and swear fealty to Pope Ratz, and he will exonerate you from this point on.

No longer satrap of BeaPee, your name will join Gen. Dyer's and others in the Hall of Dubious Fame, and, unlike the victims of the Gulf Disaster, at least you know what your destiny is to be.

UPDATE!

At least the Mainstream Media seem to be treating Tony with deserved contempt, though they do so now when it's safe. He's a Bernie Madoff, to be sure, but let's hope that when his Russian Exile gets to be oppressive, he'll rat on all the slimekicks below his throne who were the actual players in BP's Titus-Andronicusian trail of carnage.

Developing A Taste For Sacrificial Lamb

2010-06-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: Oh no, he's gonna cry! Too many visits to the Gulf might cause distraughtness

(NOTICE: Funny, but JUST AS I WAS WRITING THE FOLLOWING, word has come over the Internets that Tone ISN'T SO TOP ANYMORE, but, for historical purposes, I am leaving the original text intact.)

How dreary it would be to be BP CEO Tony Hayward! And not necessarily because of the justified broasting he just received from some very responsibly-performing Congresspeople yesterday. What is obviously a boring personality, with a tedious faux-aristo accent (e.g. bland, no character, etc.), just a haughty, toffee-nosed prig, with pre-moulded hair, capillary-shattered cheeks, and rheumy eyes, yet with a standard ‘fit’ physique that enables him to buy Saville suits right off the rack . . . Well, he just happens to be the perfect whipping doll to prop up in front of such a hearing, so that he can make sedative-assisted replies to pissed off 2-year termers properly held in contempt by such superior persons as the newly distraught ‘n devastated Tip Top Tone Hayward.

(One wonders if they perchance called him Wayward Hayward at school. Oh, probably not. He’s a bore, I tell you. A BORE.)

Oh yes, but I’m sure he’d be a barrel of ‘tony’ laughs once he got a few Pimm’s cups in him, but thank heavens we don’t have to undergo any such vulgarity. It’s a bit of fun poking the barbs at him, but he’s essentially such a crashing bore that the dalliance wears thin in mere minutes rather than half-hours.

Will he become a Lord after he’s sacked? No doubt. With precedents like his predecessor, the scandalous Lord Browne, no doubt, indeed. Loyal readers of this blog know that I am a selective Anglophile, so I feel eminently qualified to proclaim Tony Hayward (even if he had nothing to do with BP and was merely a numbers chap at your neighbourhood Ladbrokes) as The Worst of British.

Of course, why would the puppet-ized ‘leader’ of any creep-corp be a likable, even fun person? BP might just as well have hired Creep Emeritus Paul Dundas Wolfowitz for the job. Nope, part of the New Strategies for corporate mask-wearing is to make the personalities as invisible as possible. It’s all part of Neoconning going underground: dump the attention-getting ego-based personalities and go with the covert stuff, which is where they flourished anyway, before the vanity trip that so effectively sidetracked them.

But to the issue of sacrificing a lamb. I’m not at all referring to Tony, who could be regarded as a sacrificial lamb by the shadows above him, and of course he is easily dismissable as a mere bit player in this whole tawdry drama. Dispensable, certainly. No, I’m talking about the Gulf of Mexico: the lamb sacrificed to enable the collective dumbo-ism in the US to clear, if only by small increments, in order to show the wages of fear and death now being realized by our erroneous ways. You all know what I’m talking about.

If Tony gets his comeuppance, fine. And ‘the others’, too. But remember who and what’s really paying the price here. And no one’s even talking about the effects the mess will/are having on Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Belize, and divers other Caribbean lands. Perhaps there are those who hope the whole slop will be channeled unto the shores of Cuba, so as to unseat the Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyite/Maoist/Mensheviks there. But I don't think that's what will happen.

Shears In The Throat REVISED

2010-06-03T10:01:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: He's safe in Dubai...

Fig. 2: Copycat

Fig. 3: Too Late The Emigrant

For some bizarre reason, today's silly 'semi-demi-victory' of BP's sloppy severance of the mucked-up exhaust pipe down there on the Gulf floor reminds me of a line in the classic Don Knotts comedy, 'The Ghost And Mr. Chicken' (1966), in which the Knotts character, underdog Luther Heggs, is giving a tour of a supposedly haunted house. Pausing before a portrait of the former lady of the manor, who was the victim in a gothic murder-suicide case, Heggs strikes metaphysical certitude in telling the terrified old ladies he's guiding that the lady died from 'SHEARS IN THE THROAT'.

To be clear, this is no indictment of Luther Heggs, who ultimately becomes an admirable hero, despite the fact that he has a menial job in a typesetting room and drives an Edsel. Indeed, 'Chicken' is a sophisticated satire of small town mores and mistrust aimed in wrong directions. Indeed, it carries an anti-corporate, anti-conventionality statement, in which success should be allowed to come from unexpected quarters and from alternative characters.

It is of course a bit of a stretch to align a Don Knotts film with the ongoing disaster in the Gulf, but I have to admit to a distant association of 'SHEARS IN THE THROAT' with BP's ongoing bozo-ness in dealing with their little problem. While Heggs' declaration was simple and conclusive (and, in that little drama, perfectly true), we are being strung along by this oil company, which is barely under control right now, despite the cool, over-produced web videos (none of which actually show the black discharge in any of their pristine animations!), and the blithe statements from CEO on down, all of them positively writhing with deception, as if we couldn't guess. Can we imagine the tension and plotting behind the scenes? I think I can. Right now BP's still riding on the reverence over those who died in the initial blowout, but there will be other victims in there somewhere, when those who were truly responsible will naturally assign guilt to others, hopefully who are conveniently dead.

For media coverage, all I need is Democracy Now! (Link always over there on the left.) I did catch a few snatches from worthless NPR, where the dainty/ditzy morning people, obviously 'weary' of this un-suave story, continue to almost chuckle their way through it, (this being radio, we can't see their smug smiles and feigned seriousness). And then there's disgusting old Blob Siegel on 'All Thinktanks Considered' (coined by b!p!f!b!), whose pursed-lip blabberings have riled this child for what, centuries now. The other day he sounded really disappointed when some scientist told him that the current Gulf disaster IS PROBABLY GOING TO BE MUCH WORSE than the shallow-water mega-leak near Mex-Tex back in '79, the factoid of which The Blob juicily revealed to us with a definite 'relax, the one today isn't so bad' tone, as if he were some petulant teen letting us view - and view only - a secret condom he was jealously guarding, in order to amaze us.

Anyway, I guess I'll have to drop any attempts to link a movie line with the too-awful oil-spill stuff now unfolding. Those mega-shears a mile beneath the waves did indeed make a cruddy cut of a supposedly key pipe, but the rinkydink parade of techno 'solutions' staged by the company ring hollower and hollower. Even if they achieve some sort of 'success', the trashing process is more than complete. Now the avenues lie open for 'investigations' and maybe even show trials.

The US government is of course complicit, but I can't get around the notion that it is Big Oil that tells the government what to do behind the scenes, and not the reverse. With such a permanent mafia-like apparatus in place, it doesn't really matter who the US president is. Whether they cooperate or not, presidents are replaceable - Big Oil interests aren't. George W. Bush was a mere messenger boy for Big Oil, who also happened to be preoccupied with his own vanity - the distraction of which was very convenient for corporate/neocon interests. Can anyone imagine Dubya, even as Pres, standing up to the Big Boys if a little friction developed between them? Of course not. Good little presidents do what they're told, and under a faux 'Democracy' snake-oil act. Indeed, Obama, whether he is a collaborator or not, is vulnerable to become a sacrificial chicken in this affair, a possibility which no doubt pleases many. He made a thoroughly unwise statement of bravado by declaring that HE was responsible for the mess, or at least its management. Yeah, right. I'm sure he's in on all the high-level BP privileges, and is getting his way all the time. And the reality of collaborators in the US Congress and other gov't agencies with Big Oil is so mundane, it need not be referred to again.

Like it or not, Ike's 1960 Military-Industrial Complex speech still resonates, more than ever. Who in power would make such a speech today? And remember, the term 'Congressional' was once publicly included with the 'Military-Industrial' label.

Also remember: as I yak, there's a coupla wars going on too, in two theatres NOT near you. Always good for biz. Disasters of all kinds are always welcome distractions from the misfortunes of war. And it's turning out that Israel's militants are doing their part in keeping the toxic cauldron properly swirling. (But oh the calumny - that is another . . . another story . . .)

As we all know, Big Oil is Big Power. Why would anyone even consider, especially in this desperate age, that Big Power would EVER want to downsize or acquiesce to any intruding influence, especially one of populist proportions?

Finally, a proverbial notion of hope, however obtuse. Back in 1984, most people who were alive at the time had some inkling of what happened in a chemical factory in Bhopal, India. In a catastrophic malfunction, deadly chemicals were dispersed from the factory, killing and injuring hundreds and hundreds (ultimately thousands) of people, mostly the poor and disadvantaged. A perfect entry in the Life Is Cheap Dept. Well, to be brief, Union Carbide, the American corporation responsible, was duly and justly (though not justly enough) eviscerated as a result. While it did not consummately 'go out of business', it was never the same again. Truly, a once mighty corporation was brought low, and for all the right reasons, as those reasons were blatant in the first degree.

A personal addendum: I have in fact passed by that sinister and tragic site in Bhopal twice. In brief discussions with locals, who were nothing but civil, there was nevertheless an accompanying tone of collective guilt which was applied to me, as a native of the land by which Union Carbide was allied. I could not argue with this, nor would I want to. Collective guilt is not a cliche or a convenient assignation. We as consumers of risky corporate products must all review how we want to proceed in living with what we elect to do.

The tragedy of these horrendous events becomes consummately Greek though, for the victims who gave (or give) their vitality or their lives within their effects. Whether ducklings in a coastal marsh, cleanup crews mislead, squatters in a slum near a factory, or life-giving plankton just going about their daily business, MANY SHALL DIE. And I almost forgot to mention the environment itself. Silly me.

BP and their associates stand warned.

PS: We have yet to hear much about Halliburton's involvement in the current oil-change party, but from his extradition-free pet-house in fabled Dubai, H-burton CEO and Cheney-slave Dave 'Davy' Lesar (whose proud portrait so effectively introduces our latest yak), represents what a real winner looks like. But I imagine his pockmarked cheeks are getting pretty darn tired of smiling due to his mockery of the BP biggies for not having had the sense to 'do-the-Dubai' before the cops arrive. Cuz they in a heap 'o trouble.

PPS: I guess it’s rather insipid to add Erik Prince’s ‘gone yellow’ portrait just below the mighty Lesarian face of the sun (both which now grace our yak), but as everybody now knows, Erik The Christian is most likely making a bid to head on over to the candy-ass Elysium of the faux-Muslim UAE (he may choose second-string Sharjah, or even a boot camp in the dunes, instead of now-out-of-fashion Dubai, with its faggy skyscrapers that appeal more to the Dainty Davy-types), so as to rat on out of that stovetop he finds himself on. Go ahead, my Prince, better git a goin’, the brackish water is rising.

PPPS: Tony! Tony! Our poor bland fellow seems to have missed the boat to that further Gulf, as his Styx-like craft is sure to go down in Tex-Mex waters. But he must be considered in a yak all his own, rather than a mere footnote (which is in actuality what he is) at the bottom of this yak’s Davy Jones lock-up.

When Power Tools Jam

2010-06-02T12:44:00.000-07:00

As anyone who's ever used a circular saw knows, when cutting a pipe, you risk binding the blade when the bit that hasn't been cut yet shifts in order to compensate for the bits that have been removed by said blade.

I saw BP's miracle-making diamond circular cutter in its stalled position, after the feeble attempt to cut the top pipe of the Horizon oil-cum-gas hemorrhage, supposedly to prep it for capping. We know that they knew it was going to fail, because experienced circular saw users know that you have to approach cutting such a pipe from more than one angle. Is this bozo carpentry, or what?

Whatever Dark Purpose this mega-blunder is part of, we can easily conclude that it is fully integrated with what Naomi Klein has correctly identified as The Shock Doctrine, and thus is uniform with the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, as well as every other bonafide Neocon strategy now in play in the world.

After their public disgraces, the Neocon players have gone into the deep shade, so as to reorganize, become smarter, and less dependent on their egotistical publicists. Their acts are now played out on oceanic floors, behind cooperative media outlets, well away from the formerly-sexy limelight, fully utilizing the deceptions of 'Beyond Petroleum' and soft-sell words like 'sustainability' and the particularly effective posture of painting their facades ersatz green.

Let the pinwheels like Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and Co. (remembah them, kids?) float in the Viagra-dependent prestige of think-tanks. In the meantime, a newer, smarter, leaner neo-Neocon management has assumed control of the edifice. And they mean to win this time - and stay won.

A Bit of Wisdom From Jerry Lewis: An Open Letter to Catholics of All Nations

2010-04-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

OK Catholics, it's time to talk about Joe Ratz. You know, Pope Fascist the Forty-Second.

How long, oh Lord, will you people tolerate the blatantly corrupt, fascist and self-interested corporate entity that is the Catholic Church Ltd.?

Here's a MUST-READ article that you will no doubt not like, but you have to appreciate the message therein:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/dear-catholic-church-excommunicate-me/Content?oid=3799091

It's about time you supposedly powerful Citizens of the Church stopped being such weenies and told the Vaticanos where to stuff it.

I forget which artist did it, but there's a great cartoon that shows a pope wearing a see-through robe, and underneath it is a devil's forked tail. That goes for most of those other doily-wearing, lace-draped hypocrites, too. I think it's safe to say that homoerotic horndogs are absolutely rife within the protective fabric of the Church. And there's plenty of straights gettin' some action, too. They are protected because they are at all levels, and they look after their own. Nobody can deny this. You know it's true. It's just unthinkable to admit it.

It's fire hose time. Target: any padre who has drool letting from their wrinkled lips when oogling a choirboy, deaf or non-deaf. Oh, and a whole bunch of others, too. The Vatican has files on them all. The evidence could be easily accessed.

This is not a homophobic issue. It's all about where supposedly chaste wangs are being exercised under the opportunistic world of an institution that can exploit people as much as it can help them.

If you want to save your church, you damn well better get women ordained while there's still time.

There are few things more disgusting than hearing Catholics (or other Westerners for that matter) say how misogynistic, say, Muslims are. That's just one example. They can't see the forest for the trees.

(For the record, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and India have all had women prime ministers as well as women in countless key positions. Muhammad's daughter (and only offspring) is revered almost like the Virgin. We all know there is misogyny in most cultures, but the Catholics are at the bottom: you got Pope Joan - a mere legend.)

As Woody Allen once said, if Jesus knew of all the things that were done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up.

And Jerry Lewis once got condemned for saying 'God goofed' when he was referring to the fact that muscular dystrophy occurred in this world. Well, if Joe Ratz is God's Vicar, we might be tempted to use the same utterance that such a thing could come to pass. Same goes for the whole Catholic edifice that is corrupt. I'm not referring to the goodnesses that are there, but they are rendered invisible by all this other crap that is so disturbing. And you Catholics are the ones who should be taking swift action about it, otherwise you are complicit.

Plain 'Jains' At CPAC

2010-02-22T11:38:00.000-08:00

Somebody (and it really doesn't matter who) at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference convention said that 'all forms of life should be respected' or something like that. What a freakin' ripoff!

The Jains of India (some of whom I know personally, and many of them wear the proud name of 'Jain') have been saying that since P.B/ (Pre-Buddhist) times.

In contrast to the Jains, in both their sects (Digambara - 'sky-clad' - they wear no clothes; or Svetambara - clothes-wearing, but just as pious though less austere), I'd challenge anyone who speaks at CPAC to truly respect all forms of life in ways nearly so profound.

The Jains are among the most civilized persons on Earth. Many of them wear masks so as not to accidentally inhale an insect. Some gently sweep the path before them so as not to unintentionally step on anything living - ANYTHING - that might happen to be under their feet. They also run animal hospitals, support charities of all kinds, and are conspicuously successful in their lifetime endeavors. Most Jains are well off financially. Some are extremely rich. In Jainism, wealth is OK, as long as it is managed and shared judiciously.

I have my doubts about many of CPAC people, though. I doubt we can take it very seriously when they say 'respect for all forms of life' or some similar wording, just to grandstand the abortion issue (as if abortion were some kind of pastime or blood sport entertainment drooled over by Pro-Choicers!). Personally I feel that most CPAC-oriented people are extremely conditional about the forms of life they respect. I have serious doubts if many or any of them could approach an ancient concept such as Jainism and truly understand its tenets. Even if any of them could, they would surely reject what they discovered because of conditions that would instantly pop up.

Today talk is cheaper than ever. Freedom of speech is misused more than ever. Not everything that is spoken freely is worth taking seriously though, and in the face of that fact, critical thinking, the skills of personal analysis, and the discipline of editing-out certifiable rubbish are needed more than ever.

In A Better World, We EarthThings Get Our Comeuppance

2010-01-28T18:14:00.001-08:00

When an Indic term is employed for the title of a major Hollywood motion picture, it is not a trite assumption that its projected audience will be a tad, if not adequately, educated. What is Avatar anyway, the name of some planet? Sounds like it could be. Tolkien relied on a dull epithet (Middle Earth) for the world he created, but fanciful names have more ‘pull’, don’t they? Well, in this case it’s not at all a planet’s name (more on that later) that makes the title. In this case, the Indic meaning of the word is indeed employed. So we sort of have to know what it means. Plus, when such a film ascends to first place - at least for a time - as far as box office receipts are concerned (mainly due to ticket prices of $10.00 and above; ‘Gone With The Wind’ remains far ahead in cumulative viewings and popularity), then, well, it is due a view and review so as to at least find out why.

Such a film is of course James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’ (20th-Fox), and I saw it over a week ago.

Does anyone remember when Jim got the Best Director Oscar ™ back in ’97? He stood there at the lectern, brandishing his new Cedric Gibbons-designed statuette, and, through that ragged stubble, with a posture that showed he might be in his early 80s instead of half that age, he crowed, ‘KING ‘A THA WORRRLD!!!’, just like Jack, his lead character, as played by Leonardo diCaprio. Since he scripted that very Best Picture, I think he had a right to use his own line, but good God, it was a horrible, horrible thing to do, and it made him look wretched and icky. (People, beware of films that have blithe romantic leads named Jack. Sclerotic cloying readings will red-line as a result…) Needless to say, that little Academy act did not endear him to me or many others. By it, he was just showing that egomania is probably harmful to a director’s future projects, because they’ve probably peaked at such a moment. Otherwise, why would they be acting so godawful stupid? But it was not to be. In spite of having squawked to the world that his dick was as big as the Titanic, Jim has clearly moved on to more mature and thoughtful film creation, as ‘Avatar’ shows. Thanks for growing up at last, Jim. No, it is hardly a perfect film, but taken as a whole, it is deserving of worthwhile examination, albeit with a wisp of tongue-in-cheekiness, as this is a big action picture with more than a few cartoonish aspects. It is also a serious message picture, and I find that the seriousness is not strained. Instead, it is actually pretty soft-pedaled.

Another thing I like about Jim Cameron is that he provides an alternative to the predictable Spielberg/Lucas solar system of schlock. Now don’t get me wrong, Jim was well and truly caught in that very yoke-like gravitational pull with his floating junkyard, ‘Titanic’, the outrageous success of which I imagine generated more than a tad bit of jealousy from others used to being ‘kings of the world’. However, with ‘Avatar’, Jim’s a founding father of his own planetary neighborhood. (One of ‘Avatar’s cornball aspects is the moon/planet’s name – Pandora. Sticking with Greek-based planet names is a great tradition – even though most of ours are Romanized – but for storytelling’s sake, I assume the name was given by the cynical grubbers of the Earthen mining corporation that does the mineral pillaging, a name more apt than they could have known; Pandora’s Box was not a cool discovery. I imagine that to locals, the planet’s name should sound something like Cczxc’cqu, but that’s not very sexy to American audience’s ears; ‘Pandora’ is sexy. Mysterious and edgy, too!) But if a director is going to be stratospherically successful, and have a dozen franchises hanging around his neck along with his viewfinder, then at least he or she should be damned interesting – if only for a while. As a director, Jim is officially interesting, I’d say, and while those old Indy/Yoda dudes try to reinvent themselves in order to acquit themselves of any schlock that came before (sorry guys, it’s a little late), and while Scorsese continues to willfully bury himself under increasingly crappy films, Cameron’s at least coming up with some interesting stuff, and I hope he continues to do so. So-called ‘foreigners’, from Otto Preminger to Anatole Litvak to Mike Curtiz to David Lynch (yes, he’s the Man in the Planet, you know) have always had some great successes in Hollywood, and Jim, who probably speaks Canjin better than he can Pandorean, because he’s from Ontario, is the latest in an illustrious line. Peter Jackson’s been in there too, if only via studio relationships, though from what I’ve seen of clips from ‘Lovely Bones’ – clips that look like commercials for Mercedes or any number of beverage alcohol products (I’ll take a classic Magritte painting any old day!) - he seems set up for his first major failure as a director. No matter, both these guys have used New Zealand for locations in their big films. Certainly Jim studied Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ for jungle tips. Which reminds me, ‘Avatar’ has touches of both ‘Lord of the Rings’ and ‘King Kong’ in it, and not just via the scenery. But Jackson’s ‘King Kong’ was indeed a remake, and ‘LOTR’ had mandates from fans to fulfill. ‘Avatar’ seeks and succeeds to open a new door in story ideas, and that’s almost an impossibility in mainstream filmmaking today. Jim’s one lucky Canook.

It is a no-brainer to compliment the visual texture of ‘Avatar’. It is high-level computer art, used wisely and with superb dramatic purpose. It is also credible to the point of not interfering with the story. Out in Pandora’s marches, we accept the horrors that gradually give way to wonders, whatever their risks, so that we can get on with absorbing the story. For it is the story that takes and keeps pride of place here. What a refreshment from a picture like ‘Titanic’, where most everyone just wanted to see how the ship sank, and could give a rip about the very sub-plot-ish love story. So, the visual appointments achieved for ‘Avatar’ are, as everyone has said, unimpeachable and sublime.

Some spoilers ensue.

To just dive in…

There’s no doubt that some of the dialogue, fortunately confined to the humanoid side of things, is very silly. It is also grounded in the 2000s, and will not age well. But I realize that Jim had to compromise to his audience just a bit. Besides, it makes the noble savages all the more elevated and epic, because that’s what this picture finally agrees to let itself proclaim: that it is a full-blown epic, and that it's really okay to BE epic!

One question: why, in the latter part of the picture, is Neytiri (Nefertiri? 'The Ten Commandments’? What the – Sorry, too many epic digressions right now…), in the native Na’vi people lead role, suddenly wearing a chaste tank top-ish thing, when before that teen boys in the audience were slurpingly thanking Jim for presenting her ‘National Geographic’ style, with just a trace of discrete tribal hair providing modesty panels for her pertnesses? Is this post-mating wear, or battle armor? Curious!

The blue cat people have very, very slim torsos, perfect for modeling Pandoran fashions and to instill anorexic dreams in young teens. But teens take note: the blue ones are what, ten feet tall? Think how thick they are in comparison with your scrawny teen asses, okay? Keep all of this in proportion. (Blue body paint is bound to emerge somewhere along the line, and not only at fan conventions. Goggle-sized amber contacts, too.)

Susan ‘Sigourney’ Weaver has, I’ll admit, been in some decent pictures. She has even put in some decent performances. I’m one of hordes though, that find it hard to get past the inherent snotty face and demeanor that she can’t help but bring with her. But in ‘Avatar’, not to worry. It’s official: Sigourney is under control. Director Jim, who knows her panties well, tells her how to do it, and she obeys. Pretty soon, we forget who she really is and happily get submerged in the story. Who cares who the actors are or aren’t. Well, in her case anyway.

For us Earthlings still incapable of aesthetically ascending without question to the Na’vi peoples’ lifestyle, there is one yummy babe to marvel at: Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy the (Traitorous) chopper pilot. A built-in heroine, Trudy is as feisty as she is sexy, and she don’t take no shit. That’s why she does what she knows is the best thing in life she ever did: to go over to the other side. When I saw her suddenly wearing her blue-cat-people war makeup, it was so wonderful, so glorious, I almost started bawling. Of course though, the beauty could not last. She must be sacrificed, along with others. Ms Rodriguez effortlessly succeeds in a role that might have been a mere caricature. I wish Jim had given forth a bit more of her for us though. Can you insert a sub-plot with her in the six-hour Director’s Cut, oh Jim?

Giovanni Ribisi, as the cocky corporate asshole who commands the planetary conquest, steals every scene he’s in. A splendid performance, and though brief, quite three-dimensional. He ponders momentarily on the ethics of his actions, but unlike transcendent Trudy, he remains a corporate slave to the end, when he really IS a slave.

Stephen Lang is another bit of perfect casting. Whether in 600BC or far into the future, hardasses will always be hardass, and Lang’s capture of the type will go down into cinema lore. We do not hate him so much as we want to carve more Mau Mau trenches onto his skull until he gets his muhfuh-ing troops out of Afghanistan (yes, there’s a corollary there). His final rage-parade is almost as drawn out as Frodo and Gollum’s at scenic Mount Doom. Gung-ho, fat boy!

I can only yak about the Earthling actors with specificity but those who played blue catlike Na’vi peoples were all damn good in their rather challenging roles. If Jim sought inspiration from the Watusi tribe in crafting his race, well and good. He obviously took many elements from many sources and combined them, wisely pushing the limits of representation just far enough to be ground-breakingly different, yet keeping a leash on we overly grounded groundlings in the seats of the picture show. So, features of Zoe Saldana, CCH Pounder, and Laz Alonso clearly mold their appearance, but the CGI takes over from there.

I’d better wrap this up before it joins the ranks of wannabe dissertations now being offered for 400-level college courses in the growing field (and subject heading) of Jim Cameronology and Avatarology. But first, notes on the score.

There is another James involved at a high level in this production, another Jim. James (The Second) Horner, reprising his ‘Titanic’ collaboration with the director, composed the score. Like Cameron, Horner has come a long ways in providing a score to reckon with in a film to reckon with. It does all the right things, and it has many merits, but in these ears’ opinion, it doesn’t go far enough. While I give credit for Horner being fairly free of the once respectable but now agonizing John Williams Effect, and somewhat avoiding the soul-less sound walls of the Hans Zimmer Music Machine, his ‘Avatar’ score stops a number of steps short of being really great. I think what was needed was just a little bit of blatant Russian-style passion and some Mittel European-type zing in pushing, pushing, pushing the score past its conventional borders. Now that gets into Cameron territory, because Cameron doesn’t want his lovingly-created sound effects compromised. But listen, Jim (the First), when Jim (the Second) has gone to all the trouble to compose a vast symphonic foundation to your stunning visuals, don’t shortchange its power for yet another doomship’s explosion. If the producer side of Cameron happened to have, say, more early 20th century immigrant Jewish qualities, he might have let Horner’s inherent Alfred Newman or Miklos Rozsa potentials play themselves out at key moments, but I fully understand that this is the metallic 21st century, and such a thing would be too ‘over the top’, so alas, less emotion, more THX eruptions, I guess.

That said, there’s no doubt that Horner achieves some very fine and genuine heartfelt emotion and genuine epic effulgence in some sequences. Especially during the end title crawl, the score is unleashed, and it sounds damn hot. Another thing to credit Horner: his score was also possibly diminished by not only Cameron’s preferences but by certain sound engineers who are more attuned to car chase blow-outs than they are symphonic power. After all, Rozsa’s score for ‘Quo Vadis’ (1951) was virtually hijacked because of the incompetence of MGM’s sound engineers.

One more thing, James the Second - just a friendly suggestion. Not EVERY gigantic third act mass movement in cinema has to be scored with a baleful wordless Orff-like chorus in order to justify itself. I don’t care if that’s what the director wanted, next time, TALK HIM OUT OF IT, or walk.

And Jim (the First), why does the credit for the composer come way down the line, like, after the Assistant Associate Executive Producer, or whatever? What kind of respect is that??

In closing, another of ‘Avatar’s virtues. There’s virtually no cussing. I’m no prig, but the tacked-on shit-talk in pictures today can get awfully gratuitous after awhile. I’m only so glad that there was nowhere to be found in ‘Avatar’ anyone like that awful sewage-mouthed (and Cameron-like?) ‘scientist’ who finds the Titanic in the modern prologue in ‘Titanic’. You’ve come a long way up from the depths, Jim Cameron. Keep going.

‘Avatar’ takes its place as a truly impressive and original tour de force in cinema.

Q: Where's The One Place That You Can Always Hear A Pin Drop?

2010-01-28T09:45:00.000-08:00

Fig.1 Google Images says this guy with the hearing aid - is David Brooks. I'm not kidding!

Fig.2 OK, let's try again. Google Images says THIS IS DAVID BROOKS. End of argument. (Both images courtesy of Google Images)

Q: Where's The One Place That You Can Always Hear A Pin Drop?
A: A bowling alley.

Oh, and in the House of Representatives last night, while Obama was winding up his State-'a-th'-Union speech. Once his politicalizations were out of the way, he got lecture-ish with his elected audience, and that was fine by me. Remember that bit? He was calling the bullshit of the games people play. The games of Congress, Wall Street, 'n the Media. In the reaction shots showing various Congress people, the whisperings and titterings ceased. Expressions froze. Yes, you could hear a pin drop in the pauses. What could some of their thoughts be? 'This uppity Negro can't lecture ME!' 'WHO'S playing games??' 'I made you; and I can destroy you!' 'Why that miserable -!', etc. I won't speculate too much. If I can think sadistic 4th grade thoughts about a French teacher who slammed a yardstick down on his desk to make a point of honest discipline, you can well imagine the quiet rage going on in the minds of these superior governing people. Whatever you think of Obama, he can do this sort of lecture very well, though the media will never give him proper credit for it, let alone take up the value of what he's saying. They'd just ape what Former President of the United States of America George W. Bush said to Tim Russert that time (and I just howled with Vegas-quality guffaws when he said it): 'The political season has begun.'

[INTERVAL I: I hope that it's not for the last time that I now give my stark opinion of Obama: I think that he is at heart a conceptual reformer and reviser of vast potential, but the simple reality is that he faces mafia-style forces - yes, ORGANIZED CRIME-style forces - every minute of his being president. Such forces are merely tolerating him, and his whole presidential dance is to compromise with these forces, as he hasn't a prayer in transforming or disempowering them. End of somber interval.]

One thing about viewing such Stately extravaganzas in HD, all the tawdry details that used to be shaken out in low-res transmission are here in pore-close detail. In these crowd sequences, we can clearly see what 'everyday folks' these players are, what with the goofs in simply moving around, the meanness of the expressions, the shortness of statures, the things plainly unsaid, the body language of touchy-feelies, Harry Reid's ancient yawn, the breathy ear-talk, the bad make-up, the full-figured gals still dressing like Nancy Reagan, and on and on... (One cinematic gem of a vignette: Michelle Obama's Cecil Beaton pose, tacitly acknowledging applause from under peek-a-boo bangs.) In general, this variety hour ain't no carefully staged DeMille mob scene. It's more like a Waterpik sales convention at a freeway-side Holiday Inn. Or even a Howard Johnson's. Plus, the physical makeup of the House itself is all too painfully present. Why, this august chamber appears no more than a basement Rec Room in a split-level suburban palazzo, c. 1975, pitifully kitted out in cheap dark paneling accents, with plaster reproduction fasces mounted on either side of the dais to provide a bit of Better Homes and Gardens class to the Formica marble behind. (Mussolini would cry 'copyright infringement!' if he knew...) Quite frankly, I found the Great Hall of the People in Beijing to have more charm, if not raw might. Both chambers of Parliament in London are much more cozy and bookish (e.g. learned). No wonder our Congresspeople are increasingly dreary: their nest sets the tone. Looks like their design team is a combo of experts specializing in small town clinic waiting rooms and holy roller church interiors. Hasn't anyone there seen any of those gay 'make-over' shows? (Perhaps Mark Foley could have been good for something on-site, besides cruising...)

[INTERVAL II: Stay tuned for some DAVID BROOKS items, coming later. End of an interval full of promise.]

Speaking of dreariness, Obama is totally correct on another thing. His well-placed slam on media pundits is, as we all know, all too true. The institution of said pundits has never been so powerful or prosperous. With few exceptions, their candy-assed smugness betrays their egomaniacal self-reflection as the smartest minds in the whole wide room. Some, of course, are worse than others. Currently, NBC is probably the least offensive. Brian Williams is actually quite dignified and restrained, don't you think? And this David Gregory fellow is such a distracting oddball. CBS is hardly worth mentioning, except that Katie's stagers seem to have ceased (IDEA!!) bathing her in that bizarre footlighted presentation that made her look like a plastic puppet in a cheap exploitation flick, and Bobs Schieffer, folksy old Tex that he is, is, for all practical purposes, about as irrelevant as the Sage of Nationalistic Pentagonical Radiation, Dan Schorr. ABC? Well, Kid George and the withered beldame known as Diane (Diane always seems like such a youthful name!) have become unspeakable. (Elizabeth Vargas, I would've gone the full route of devotion to you!) Diane's methods of expressive speaking and facial reactions are hallmarks of very bad and insipid theatre. I imagine her big excuse is that she's 'relating' to audiences or something. You're getting it ALL WRONG, DIANE. (Bawdy Diane story from an old 'Penthouse' of my youth: At a party, a male associate of Diane's becomes drunk enough to say to her, 'Diane, you've got a flat ass!' Her reply: 'What do you mean? I've got a GREAT ass!' See what I mean about smartest asses in the whole wide room??)

Anyway, that brings us to PBS. (I haven't had cable since 1991. Sorry Fox, CNN, C-Span...) Aging Jim Lehrer is fine by me, I guess. He's so damn neutral, but that's what he's sticking to, and I can't fault him for that. Besides, my wife thinks he's cute. Mark Shields, staunch old Marine that he is, is a bit wobbly now. His triumphs are past him, so it seems that he's just saying stuff to please others, rather than vent his belly acid that surely seethes below that anchorperson desk. I honor Mark, but when he says stuff like 'Ronald Reagan was a MASTER at (fill in the blank)', I get, well, sad for him.

What's left? Or, who, rather. David Brooks, of course. Snaggletoothed, chucklesome, beaming with fake modesty so as to showcase his punditty capital, touches of distinguished grey at temples framing a still babyish face, sensibly balding, turgidly winning a fat-race with Bill Kristol but keeping his lower arms in tone by his Valley Guy hand gestures, David is in high gear, a man at the summit of his influence and achievement, with more summits to come, no doubt. But I'm not sure about proceeding with critiquing him, as his success in the pundit industry indicates some serious evidence of the decline of American civilization. Types like Glenn Beck need no explanation or indeed, interpretation. But taking Brooks and his mediocrity seriously is a very bad sign indeed. And another dead giveaway about Brooks is that it is obvious that he doesn't believe in what he supposedly propounds. There just isn't any conviction there. Sort of like Sarah Palin. He duly rattles out his required pronouncements to fill the time, then grinningly hands the floor back to Mark with oily grace. Such a nice guy, too. How could you really get mad at him, especially when he spouts stuff like 'people should pray for President Bush'? (Will he invoke his Lord on President Barack Hussein Obama, as well? Oh, David will you? It might help!) Like most of his kind, Brooks is a very bad actor, and after the show, you can be sure that the money is counted, followed by the Big Dinner and then a sound sleep. Any deep thinker worth his or her salt spends most of their time suffering, either from conscience or from idealism. David Brooks is the apotheosis of the self-absorbed consumer posing as Vox Populi for the yuppie (still a term worth circulating) lifestyle. He is corporate narcissism achieved.

Added feature:

I like Matt Taibbi. He's one of the most worthwhile reporters today. But forget further praise. None needed. Here are his own thoughts on Brooks, regarding Haiti:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2010/01/18/translating-david-brooks-haiti/

Michael Moore On Democracy Now!: Clarity Without Question

2010-01-27T15:51:00.000-08:00

An excellent interview, to say the least.
(Approx. half an hour.)

We all know why people can't stand Michael and say he's 'over the top'. They're jealous because he tells simple truths, and they wish they could.

A Few Well-Chosen Words About The Special Election In Massachusetts

2010-01-20T13:02:00.000-08:00

(Courtesy via Wonkette)

The Teachings of the UK

2010-01-07T10:24:00.000-08:00

(photo: YakkiDoodlings)

I recently approached the UK in person with the absurdly naive notion that, by this stage in the first (and pretty much worthless, as seen from 2010) decade of the 21st C., the old Kingdom might be pretty much Americanized to the point of no return.

It is true that, after quite a few decades of exchanging bodily fluids, as it were, with those forces, both seductive and capitalistic, across the pond, the UK did in fact become more Americanized than it would ever care to admit.

Yet, after so much whoring to US temptations, the UK has weathered the onslaught with its cultural garments intact. It's almost as if the poodle-ization of Toni Blare became a focal point by which to awake to common sense. That is, to steer a more 'French' route in maintaining British identity. By French I mean, a concerted effort to remain confident that a given society, culture and identity are all worth preserving, upgrading and projecting, especially in the face of a superpower's global effects. France, in seeing its cultural and linguistic influence fade on the world scene, has nevertheless seized the pragmatic opportunity and strengthened its own culture and identity within France itself. To put it simply (for this is a subject worthy of numerous theses and think-tank grant studies), based on my wholly unscientific findings, the UK has wisely followed the same course, whether consciously or as a natural progression.

Aside from Starbucks sightings on practically every other corner in London (as well as directly across from Windsor Castle!) I can amateurly but officially announce that Britain as we know it to be, still exists. Why, Morris Minors can often be spotted trundling through the CCTV-canvassed streets!

In this, my own Restoration of sorts, I learned many things whilst in the UK. One of the most significant involves media coverage of current events. But that's a subject that will trickle out in a future bit of yakkery.

Best wishes for a super 2000000000000000000010! GTR (Geologic Time Reckoning)

When A Protest Fills Trafalgar Square, It Is Serious Business Indeed

2009-10-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1 We marched from Hyde Park, and the numbers swelled... (all photos mine)

Fig.2 Bill Patterson reads protest poetry and Corin Redgrave is justifiably outraged.

Fig.3 Hetty Bower is 104 and still marching.

Fig. 4 They tried to bar her, and then gave in

Just by a chance encounter, I took part in a major protest to mark the EIGHTH anniversary of the Afghanistan invasion yesterday in London. In the vanguard, I witnessed all the procedures from start to finish, and all were executed with integrity and high purpose. The route from Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square lay open to us, traffic being entirely diverted. Once in Trafalgar Square, a succession of speakers eloquently stated the essentials of the protest, which indeed reflect the growing disapproval of the war in newly overwhelming numbers. A UK soldier who was refusing to return to Afghanistan spoke, as did a Gitmo survivor (who said that Bagram is worse than Gitmo; indeed, those in Bagram would RATHER be in Gitmo...), the eminent Tony Benn, and the always-on-target Tariq Ali, among others.

Personally, I felt connected to all of them, as I too, in my own tiny way, had been completely opposed to the 2001 invasion. It was a vindication, I suppose, but without a unsuccessful outcome as of yet. The emphasis was on the fact that awareness must be spread, and unremitting pressure to be brought on all politicians. Gordon Brown was heavily indicted.

We concluded with a lively march on #10 Downing St., where a lady from Liverpool, who had collected 30,000 signatures opposing the war, was able, after some tension, to present her petition to the Prime Minister. I was chagrined (but not surprised) to see that Downing is now a fortified compound. One used to be able to stroll by #10 at any time. At any rate, the woman had success in offering up her contribution to the quest for peace.

London Has Called

2009-10-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

I am enjoying the season in London. Naturally, there's a lot going on. I shall try to enter here, as I can. Wandering in this city has a tendency to produce world-class 'product', so to speak...

This'll Take More Than Just A Tweet

2009-09-23T12:58:00.000-07:00

At NPR, 'National Correspondent' Maw-ra Liarsson and Juan 'The Yawn' Williams make obeisance to Fox News. Why shouldn't NPR's Most Serious And Credible Correspondent, Tom Gjeltin, get a piece of the action, too?

Gjeltin is currently doing a 3-part series on natural gas exploitation in the US. He is an evangelist for the newish technique of blow-jobbing millions of gallons of water into stingy shale strata below the Keystoned State (and anywhere else that is eligible within the Homeland), so as to deliver the US from smack-like addiction to heavy oils as pedaled by candymen in hostile countries.

OK, that's a noble cause - on the surface. Who WOULDN'T like to be free of any addiction? Thing is, Gjeltin's angle ain't quite what it seems to be. You see, there are many aspects to this extraction process that make for unpleasant side effects. Naturally. Like, harmful chemicals, seismic side effects, uncertain safety, etc. Stuff like that.

Gjeltin appeared on the Diane Rehm Show this morning, to do a little junketing, supporting the NatGas company men. His appearance on the Rehm show proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he is an advocate for the natural gas industry. Dismissing any sort of criticism as 'anecdotal', Gjelten's embeddedness within the industry is nothing short of blatant. Several of the callers, especially an attorney in Ft. Worth, provided a wealth of contradictions, to which Gjelten responded with restrained huffiness, which says more than words can in these situations.

What's in it for Gjelten? Realistically, I can only speculate that, if it isn't kickbacks, it's the egotistical notion that he can say, down the road, 'I helped save the nation from oil-dealing Antichrists like Hugo Chavez' - or some such.

This is a cardinal example of corporate forces tapping into the NPR networking system. You can imagine in a given board room, the conversation: 'It is imperative that we get NPR in the loop on this. They have some credible-sounding people there who know how to sell a story. Tom Gjelten's got a gravitas that people respect and don't question. Let's give him a call...'

And Gjelten, good, high-level shill that he is, takes up the cause with enthusiasm.

[Superficial note: Gjelten is well within my list of NPR-niks who are officially difficult to listen to. That over-serious, dry voice has 'constipation' written all over it. He should go back to the toilet and finish now what he couldn't finish then.]

In the Rehm show many other issues and concerns about this nouveau gas culling were brought up by other guests and callers, to which Gjelten and the company men stonewalled.

But Gjelten & Co. bank on the fact that the audience who listen in detail to these talk shows are only a fraction of those who catch the PR package on the ME and ATC drive hours. It's all very slick and calculated.

Another Gjeltinism thought: beware those who are aggressively sober in their presentation. The Becks and Coulters are easy for the opposition to brand as 'over the top', while the wily Gjeltins are getting much more done in their quieter 'establishment' ways. Just like Cheney did, all those years before and during his presidency.

And Gjeltin's resume is there for all to see, if we choose. From his NPR bio:

"His new book, Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: A Biography of a Cause (Viking), is a unique history of modern Cuba, told through the life and times of the Bacardi rum family. Since joining NPR in 1982 as labor and education reporter, Gjelten has won numerous awards for his work. His 1992 series "From Marx to Markets," documenting the transition to market economics in Eastern Europe, won an Overseas Press Club award for "Best Business or Economic Reporting in Radio or TV." (quote courtesy of NPR)

Talk about an agenda! I suppose his next book will be: 'Unjustly Ripped Off: How The US Lost Cuba Because Hyman Roth Was Kicked Out'.
(To non-'Godfather' fans: Hyman Roth was a mob leader who was exploiting pre-Castro Cuba via underworld activities. His character was based on multiple real life mobsters. How could Bacardi NOT have been involved??

Finally (for now), a thought on PR technique. During the Rehm show, Gjeltin, in the face of considerable opposition, reverted to the old maxim that Bob Moses used when he was ruthlessly transforming NYC into an automobile-dependent metropolis: 'to make an omelet, you gotta break eggs.'

The dignified Gjeltin didn't use such coarse words of course, but his wussy 'rebuttal' used the same damn theme.

Public Relations is a craft, not an art, and sometimes you don't even need to know how to operate a soldering iron to effect proper attachment of wires in order to make a communication network operative.

Some Urgently-Needed Spit-Up Concerning NPR

2009-09-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

So much to deride this morning. I heard the whole crappy Mourning Edit show, and it didn't help my PRE-EXISTING stay-at-home bellyache, naturally.

Inskreep had a glee-moment when he actually had the nerve to exhort the name of GEORGE ORWELL. Seems an eatery in evil old Moscow was compelled to change its name from 'Anti-Soviet' to 'Soviet' cafe, but folks still tend to call it by the old name. 'George Orwell would be thrilled', uttered our Steven, no doubt rubbing his hands with a 'touche for Free Market Capitalism' flourish. NOW will you use the word 'torture', Steven? If you pretty-please do, George Orwell will be thrilled.

He already is, Steven. He already is.

Inskreep still must writhe on our front burner. His parlay with Best Foxy Friend Liarsson about Obama's AfPak dilemma was outrageous. HOW DARE these, these, self-loving FREAKS make qualified statements about a president's handling of such a f-ing monstrous war? It was as if they were treating it like some K Street gossip or something. Mawra's imperiousness has reached new heights of megalomania. Even Inskreep seemed in awe, hearing such words from a goddess, who lives on Mt Olympus, herself. She has spoken, and she's wiser than Athena, folks. And like most egomaniacs who are getting away with all they do, she's coming across as softer, more serene, and more SURE than ever that what she's saying has metaphysical certitude (as McLaughlin would say...)

Then we've got Miss Julie (McCarthy) giving absolutely worthless hearsay reports from Islamabad, and the increasingly controversial Jaysuck Bobo-bian, worshiping his beloved Gramps from far-off Ciudad Mexico.

(However, until further notice, I will heartily defend good Quist-Arcton in her reports from DAKAR, if only for the stylish way she says that word - just about the only style that appeals to me on Neurotic Public R.)

And speaking of imperious, you can’t get much higher in NPR royalty than Dame Linda (Werthenweisenwhatever). Her too-cool banter with the clearly enlightened head of the Mayo Clinic seemed to spoil her morning because all she could do to try and trip him up was that tasteless bit about there being no poverty in the upper Midwest. Like my good buddy Paul Wolfowitz, who stated that there were no sacred sites in Iraq (because they weren’t sacred to HIM), Dame Linda does not have the scope to recognize things she doesn’t – and can’t - understand. Typical, oh-so-typical dismissive NPR-ism.

More gigantic evidence that these NPR-niks are in the world WAY over their heads. They never seem to have grown as individuals. But what am I thinking? Shills simply don't grow, they can't grow. They are in denial of their puppet strings because their egos are constantly being jacked off by the very fact that millions (?) of people are listening to them, and that they think they're doing 'journalism' and all that rot.

I can scarcely think of anyone now at NPR who has any of that classic and healthy skepticism that made Mencken so wise or Murrow so perceptive. All their academic accomplishment (totally conventional and mainstream) hasn't helped much, either. It's just made them into a rinkydink elite class - a fact they would of course vehemently deny.

Once every five centuries or so I dedicate about two seconds to actually feeling sorry for NPR. They're so hopelessly mixed up, and I'd brand them as a failure. They often come up with interesting subject matter (methods totally copied from BBC's much longer tradition), but to my mind, the botch-up frequency in handling said interesting subject matter is plainly unacceptable.

I'll revive an old war cry: Scrap NPR. Start over.

I could even adopt a Teabaggy point of view: I don't want no government in broadcasting!!!!

(I wonder what entity Mawra's & Yawn Williams' health insurance is with: NPR or Fox? I know, stupid question...)

Lost In Place

2009-09-18T09:27:00.000-07:00

Fig.1 Dreaming of his own planet (nothing against chimps; I respect simians!) Image courtesy of Mytwords

We have duly noted here, repeatedly, how much NPR is relying on its in-house mutation, Planet Money/Monkey/Moneygrub/Monkeygrub, WHATEVER. With its' lousy - but whimsical! - mascot: a Mr Magoo astronut suit, all topsy-turvy, so that you have to rotate your head to see who's inside, and it is...... one-buck George Washington!!! Ha ha!

Here's the point though. As a self-appointed Style But No-Substance cub reporter making a pest of himself, scratching around this blog, I have to tell you that Adumb Davidson's fatal flaw as a money guru can actually be distilled down to one very telling characteristic.

(Yes, he was on Mourning Ed with Renaay Mundane, explaining some more about how Narcissistic Capitalism - my term, not his - works.)

And what is that telling characteristic? (If we were tweeting, I could ask for a multiple choice quiz...)

On with it!

It's that little quasi-laugh - almost a suppressed snicker - or a titter - or a scoff-laugh, that Adumb strategically applies to various words and phrases that immediately and permanently makes him invalid as any sort of source for information. He is, of course, a veiled apologist for raw, untreated capitalism, no matter what he says or implies, but that's not my point.

To dissect on a nano level, this little Davidsonian laugh or smirk indicates that he, the wise one on all things, considers himself above and beyond the stupidity of things lower than himself, so he betrays this attitude by these little mirth punctuations, just to remind you that he is just so cool and hip. beyond that it gets harder to explain.

You can tell he actually succeeds in stopping short of outright guffaws when talking about things that he particularly considers stupid or absurd, so listeners might actually characterize him as a clever but well-mannered gentleman who knows how to reign himself in.

Bottom line though is that, giggles or not, Davidson is difficult to listen to, difficult to absorb, digest, eliminate. The verbiage is delivered by bulk mail, supposedly ingenious, but not worth the VU readings its carried on.

See what you think when you listen to him. One of my favorite bits of observant wisdom is from Wally Shawn, and I paraphrase him: these people, these media people (and Neocons, essentially), they CHUCKLE as they're talking about death (or in this case, money).

I interpret such chuckling as indicating a superior-minded detachment, a smug knowledge of profiting from the game. But you know, Davidson is actually quite a tinkertoy player in such a league, as compared to the Richard Perles of the world.

OK, I plainly don't like this Adam Davidson person. neither do many of us, for varying reasons. At least Glenn Beck is a certified loony and Jim Cramer is an obvious fake and Lou Dobbs is plainly an abomination. But Davidson & Co. smirk their way through a Cheneyan dark side, relishing their self-delusions that are facilitated by public broadcasting, laughing all the way to the bank.

I, uh, don't like that sort of thing at all.

Where Michael Lieth

2009-09-04T09:19:00.000-07:00

I, your host, have indeed stood in the Court of Honor, deep inside the Great Mausoleum in fabled Forest Lawn (Glendale), in the year of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust Tour.

While that was many a summer ago, I still have the eerie, unsavory, and unclean feeling of that experience, which, out of sheer common sense, led to quiet mockery on the part of myself and the two friends who accompanied me on that edgy expedition.

There, above us in the so-clean-it's-sterile but so-icky-it-can't-be-ignored environment of expensive stone from quarries around the world (despite the fact that much of the building's jumbled and incoherent exterior is covered in standard LA stucco, with sober Gothic accents tacked on for propriety's sake) was the candy-colored and sexed-up rendition - in stained glass - of Leonardo's 'Last Supper', for all those who would never bend their steps to Milan, to wonder at.

Aggressively regarded as a sacred trust, the management (hereafter referred to as 'The Builder' - the avatar of 'Dr.' Hubert Eaton, the all-but-canonized godfather of the empire that became Forest Lawn) obviously feels that this stained glass masterpiece is more better than the original, because it's new and improved, and it lights up at all hours. Quality-wise, it's a conventional exercise in Middle American small town churchiness, but there's a kind of comic book vividness to it that's more Archie & Jughead than Classics Illustrated.

Anyway, it's this Last Supper mixing bowl that serves as lobby for the nether galleries that house some of the VIPs of our cinematic lore, and there are some dandy ones there. I can't help but think though, that thank God Gable & Co. aren't alive to see the package that contains them.

Of course, I'm pretty much odd man out in my tastes. People seem to be duly impressed, and feel confident that Forest Lawn 'does it right'. America is a democracy, but most everyone wants a royal monument to themselves. They at Forest Lawn can give you just that. (e.g. Do it not for yourself, but for your family! Our Wide Range of payment plans can be readily negotiated by our alert team of Councilors, housed in the sinister Vaguely Tudor offices next our heavenly front gates...!)

I must say, the bread-and-butter stretches of Forest Lawn Glendale, with the mandatory flat markers, are pretty tasteful and routine. Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills, with its rather well thought-out 'patriotic' American theme works much better; Old North Church knockoffs in the hills are reminiscent of a movie set - most appropriate for cinematic Hollywood, instead of the botched and bilious Christendom of Forest Lawn Glendale... But alas, the Hills are not secure enough for Michael...

Back at Glendale, the climax features crown the hill, like the Great Maus, Das Wee Kirk 'o the Heather (Ronnie's knot-tying #1 site; Nancy would NEVER have chosen such a ghastly concoction...), and, most troubling, the Hall of the Crucifixion/Resurrection, which looks like Sister Sharon's doomed tabernacle in 'Elmer Gantry'. In the latter are housed two mega-paintings, 'The Crucifixion', a worthy work by Jan Styka, in Cinerama proportions, which is the best thing about the Glendale site (at least it is a work of academic competence) and 'The Resurrection' by '?', (no artist credit was given when I was there), a really awful panorama of sickening colors, not even worthy of a fourth-rate Sunday School circular. The worst Brigade Painting from the Stalinist era has more comfort, more character...! Anyway, you sit in a vast auditorium while these paintings are presented, with full narration, instructive tips, and musical cliches: I ask you, what else would/could accompany the unveiling of this 'Resurrection' painting than Handel's 'Hallelujah Chorus'? A bit of muffled stage machinery operation was heard as the set changes occurred. I think that the big Vegas showrooms studied here for automated stagecraft tips.

Let us hasten back to the Great Maus before things really get out of control. Even the Columbarium at Paris' Pere Lachaise cemetery, itself a disturbing contrast to the surrounding lively and varied tombs overground that positively throb like one big jabbering conversation, is downright homey compared to the tedious and disappointing galleries that extend past the Last Supper's public point. Like the Closed Stacks of an elitist library, those privileged enough to access their Loved Ones back in there can shed uneasy tears amidst the brain-dead aesthetics designed to impress. Oh, how one pines for a country churchyard under sweeping skies and fresh air!

But no, the Loved Ones here are supposed to conform, like good little shades crossing the River Styx in orderly fashion. Yet there is no mythos, no Poe-poetics, not even any cinematic qualities present. Why, given the opportunity, Tim Burton could really make something cool out of this depressing repository!

The bottom line resources for any sane overview of Forest Lawn and its kind remain Jessica Mitford's 'The American Way of Death' and, most rewardingly, via satire, like Evelyn Waugh's 'The Loved One', brought to the screen in perfect fashion by Tony Richardson, Terry Southern et al, and starring everyone from Jonathan Winters to Bob Morley to Ayleen Gibbons (as Mom Joyboy!) to Liberace (as Council Starker) to Ed Reimers. It is a masterpiece of a film, and it brings us back to earth with a refreshing and satisfying belly laugh.

But right now, this is about Michael Jackson, you know. Yesterday he entered unto this exalted but disquieting environ, shut away from the palm and pine in the mellow smog-tinted LA sun...

Yet! A cinematic - if not apocalyptic - backdrop to the King of Pop's wrapup: the tragic and malevolent doomcloud of the Station fire, which has been raging in the further hills these many days! A sign - of farewell and disapproval for the King's untimely and now homicidal departure?

Not to compare this procedure with the recent and very great loss of Ted Kennedy, but how appropriate, inspiring, and classy was the farewell to the great man of the Senate, from Hyannisport to the JFK Library, to stately Arlington. The American way of death can still be noble and well done.

But I did compare the two, didn't I? Well, Arlington is East Coast and Forest Lawn is West Coast. No further explanation is necessary. Condolences to all. Requiescat in pace.

I can only wish anyone who interacts with Forest Lawn well, for if they are comforted by such an environment, and they think it's right for their Loved Ones, so be it. Because, when you get down to it, Forest Lawn themselves make no bones about what's up with their scene. Their motto (at least when I visited) ran: FOREST LAWN SERVES THE LIVING. Fair enough. After all, the Dead have gone on before us. What care they for the earthquake-proof halls and The Builder's Creed? Michael can lie in private, with the rest of them, and shall tread in Neverland nevermore. I never knew the guy, but I hope it all turns out okay...

(Hollywood Gothic can really hook one, can it not?)

I can only end by paraphrasing Mark Twain's wonderful maxim concerning dogs: 'If there are no dogs in heaven, I'm not going.' (My puppy loves that one, too!)

Thus, if paradise be Forest Lawn Glendale, I'M NOT GOING.

Dogs of Straw and Dogs of Plasticine

2009-09-02T10:28:00.000-07:00

Question: which film is more violent:

A) 'Straw Dogs'

B) 'Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit'

?

Answer: B), of course.

I really didn't care for either one, although the cinematography in 'Straw' was intriguing, and the animation in 'Were-Rabbit' was of course brilliant. Thing is, when a film is off-target from the get-go, and all the elements are considered, chances are iffy that it will get better.

'Straw' hasn't aged well. Dustin Hoffman's character is a vacuum-brain type, but he's actually very 21st century in his self absorption, narcissism and simple selfishness. He's supposedly a 'pacifist', but seems more interested in smoking cigs than anything else. He FINALLY blows up at the intruders who are closing in on his house, though he doesn't even know that his wife has already been raped repeatedly. Poor but Brit-pretty Susan George does her best, and David Warner (unbilled) does what he can with his greasy hair, but everyone else is a tedious contributor, and not much more than a parody.

Now I think Peckinpah is an interesting director, and not just because of the much-hyped violence factor. 'Major Dundee' was truly a different kind of western - edgy and uneasy, in the guise of a mainstream vehicle for Chuck Heston. But with 'Straw' Sam P. doesn't seem to know if he should do a 'Wuthering Heights' approach or play it as a 'Sky West And Crooked' (i.e. bucolic Englishness) gone horribly wrong. I for one know firsthand how off-putting rural Cornwall can be. (I spent a bleak midwinter there), but, except for some action with Dustin's Triumph Stag and some interplay with a neat old beater lorry (a Commer?) driven by the hooligans, the scenery could just as well have been cardboard. Any Cornish bleakness was squandered in favor of cig smoking and chalkboard backgrounds.

While 'Straw' of 1971 is of course a period piece that was breaking awkward new ground in pushing the borders of violence, 'Were-Rabbit' of 2005 was manufactured (because it is a construction first of all, and a film second) well within a mainstream where violence is a foundational ingredient in roping folks into picture shows, because even more than sex, violence always sells - and for all ages, too!

But wait - the premise of 'Were-Rabbit' may be quasi-spooky, but the application of the violence therein is so aggressively done with gentleness that any Great British censor, like grumpy old Lord Harlech, would have to find it unimpeachable in its kiddie appeal. It's in the Road Runner category where its non-stop action is concerned, but without the brevity of wit.

This kid-friendly picture aspires to be 'very British' (or more accurately, 'very, very English' - or even Home Counties-ish) in its' appeal, but I'm afraid it doesn't do that very well at all. Charm-wise, this ain't no 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' or 'Genevieve'. Any Englishness that it tries to extol is cut and pasted into the fabric with ham-fisted forcefulness. Like Shostakovich was said to say about the final movement in his Symphony #5, it's 'forced celebration; we ORDER YOU TO CELEBRATE. WE ORDER YOU TO CELEBRATE.' This may sound a bit cruel to apply to a DreamWorks animation masterpiece for the whole family, but I swear, the assertiveness of the film ruined any chance it had to be a winning bit of now-vanished Albion. An Austin Seven does not a Penguin Book-perfect portrait of postwar Britain make.

In Peter Greenaway's 'Drowning By Numbers', a remarkable ambience of Englishness is presented in multiple ways, most memorably in a nighttime scene of lovemaking amidst a fall harvest's bounty. The strange comfort of that scene was so perfect, so accurate, and completely genuine. Not that I expect it to be reproduced in a Wallace & Gromit adventure...

(I wonder if 'Were-Rabbit' director Steve Box is related to the stellar John - David Lean's premier production designer, or Betty, one of the most durable of rare women producers of the 40s-70s...)

Actually, I really shouldn't push the violence issue with 'Were-Rabbit'. That isn't the main thing that rankled me about it. It was simply too much - as in, excessive. Excessive cleverness, excessive skill, excessive frenzy, excessive anxiety to top the previous scene with eye-popping ingenuity. 'Were-Rabbit' tries - oh, how it tries - to make something of its opportunities, but it suffers from a lousy, unfunny script. Ralph Fiennes's character is supposed to be THE butt of jokes and slapschtick, but like John Candy, I was waiting in vain to crack a smile. Ten seconds of Terry-Thomas is better than the whole of this strained affair.

The music score is, well... pretty dreadful, I think. But I know that the makers were very pleased with it. I suspect they were hoping for a bit of grand old Arthur Sullivan or Eric Coates, or even Ketelby, but to me Julian Nott's music inspired a sort of biliousness that some of the visuals merely completed. Why? Excessiveness! Trying too hard. American brashness instead of English understatement. Missing the target, old boy.

I just can't get away from being repulsed by the makers' standards of human or animal appearance: the polished eyeballs and tooth-baring mouths (easy for animators to rotate, easy to reach all the teeth...), which constricted the individuality of the characters, so that only hairstyles or 'Freaks'-inspired craniums seem to be their standout features. The Vicar and the Lady Totten-whatever characters possessed hair that looked like some sort of ghastly glandular discharge that has been coagulated and modeled. I know, it was supposed to be bizarre and funny and over-the-top. A satire on the aristo classes. But... but... very off-putting, chaps. Laid on a bit thick, eh?

In the grand scheme of W&G lore, it is, I'm afraid, a fatal mistake not to have Gromit able to talk - even in dog language. The poor pup doesn't even get to have a mouth! Instead we are too dependent on Wallace (voiced by saintly/beloved Peter Sallis, who does the cliched old brick routine ad nauseum). And somehow, I just can't leave behind the Gromit/Vomit word association. Who would name a nice puppy something like that? Gromit is of course a can-do hero, and his makers chose to make him the strong, silent type - a shocking bit of cruelty, as far as the way they do it. I'd take the wise-cracking Charlie Dog any day.

There's no doubt that 'Were-Rabbit's intentions are sincere. Yet it's as if the freedom of its technical abilities has ruined any chances of deftness or wistfulness or even quality entertainment. I admire the makers' skill of course, but I feel sorry that they couldn't combine with, say, a John Mortimer or a Harold Pinter (both now, alas, no more) or a Bob Larbey or someone who wrote for 'Red Dwarf' or 'The Brittas Empire', for crying out loud. Get your ingenious script FIRST, then apply your ingenious animation to it. I really did want 'Were-Rabbit' to be a stunner. I just couldn't lie to myself that it was.

Finally, I confess, I didn't finish watching 'Were-Rabbit'. I forget exactly where I left off. Oh, I think something fantastic and carefully animated was happening. That much I know. (I assume the bunnies who were trapped in the Dyson-ish vacuum chamber were cheerfully rehabilitated...) I actually made it through 'Straw' though, but emerged, as Sir Walter Scott would say, unamused and unrefreshed. Sometimes I'm just out of step with films, (I never bought into the whole 'Star Wars' wonder-package) but I readily own up to such a responsibility. On the other hand, some films, despite their craft, have no art. To have art, you have to have a soul, and some films just don't have one.

A Hoonta Is A Hoonta Is A Hoonta

2009-08-31T09:49:00.000-07:00

This morn I encountered a really beautiful example of what might be a new Viv Shill/Always On (TM) motto for NPR: 'By Sounding like Dumbshits, We Learn'.

Renaay was chatting with Mike Sullivan about Burma - uh, you know, MEE-anmarr, Mee-ANNmarr, or whatever the Junta wants - and she was, you know, doing her 'I'm just an all-American gal - despite my Frog name - and you know, there's this wacky country over by Sullivan somewhere that has some problems, or whatever...' act, and Mikey was in casual mode, too. Renaay was like, 'what's WITH those crazy MEE-anmarr dudes, anyway?' (Sounding ditzy can really be quite effective in reaching today's ADD-oriented listeners - trust me, Viv knows!)

Anyway, Mikey almost sounded droll, as if over a latte in Starbuck's, gently educating his ding-dong 'host' at the other end, about Burma in a nutshell, and how warfare can be harmful to citizens in the way of it, and other silly time-filling thoughts. Apparently, there are a bunch of refugees who've crossed over into China. Apparently, Renaay thought that the Junta tightly controls everything within the Burmese borders. (Honey, nobody's EVER tightly controlled everything in Burma. You have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it...)

It was as if they were talking about a high school football game that they were hardly interested in.

(Speaking of which, there followed TWO school football tales afterwards, both which involved death, and both of which were dealt with in utter seriousness. Never mind the hundreds - more likely thousands - of Asiatics who've perished beyond the purview of NPR, where life is cheap and icky and, well, way far away...)

Is it any wonder that NPR can be enraging?

For his part, Mikey, in his new conversational (but just as boring) style, seemed anxious to file this routine filler report and get back to the hi-rises and fleshpots of Communist Hanoi, which, rumor has it, make tiresome old Bangkok look like a gopher hole.

Cushy gig, Mike. Spinning Burmese speculative chat from the comforts of the Hanoi Hilton. Enjoy it before Viv gets to your neighborhood and dumps you, replacing you with texting tweeterers on the local scene, who are much more hip - and cost-effective - than you'll ever be. If that actually happens, I'll applaud her.

Forty Years After

2009-08-17T11:36:00.001-07:00

Fig. 1 Wavy Gravy (photo courtesy of Mike M.)

A friend brought over the 40th Anniversary Director's Cut DVD package of 'Woodstock' this past Friday night. Now even though I worked in the music business in the 70s and had crewed-and-cleaned up in many a mini-Woodstock, I hadn't the awareness that this was the anniversary weekend or that anything should be done about it. But with the prospect of any Director's Cut viewing of any picture of consequence coming down the pike (hell, I'd consider a Director's Cut viewing of 'Myra Breckenridge' if I thought it's reveal anything of value... but maybe not...), how could I say No?

You could tell that the folks at Warner Bros. (probably Hollywood's most competent and respectful presenter of past classics on DVD, known and unknown) were, in this case, not of the Woodstock Generation, because of certain kitschy aspects to the packaging. The whole kit is contained in a custom-fitted buckskin-fringed suit, and there is a completely worthless paperweight thing included, with tilt-'n-look pix of the 3 days of peace, love and music.

However, it's the film itself that counts here, and the extras. The offerings are superb: masses of extra footage reveal underknown gold. There's no running commentary through the film as a whole, but at the end of the extras, there's a modest bunch of reminiscences about making the movie from some key players, including director Michael Wadleigh, who's interviewed by Hef (with the legendary Barbie Benton in their presence) on the dangerous-sounding 'Playboy After Dark' in 1970.

Speaking of Wadleigh, he mostly disappeared after Woodstock. In the recent interviews, he seems rather fragile. It could be as a result of any number of things, but no doubt his confidence was shaken, as Woodstock was a pretty tough act to follow. For those of us who like to follow the tech side of filmmaking, Wadleigh's rundown on using the Eclair cameras to film the event was fascinating and enlightening. I had thought they used Arriflexes, and in 35mm too, but the Eclair was the bold alternative back then. I think Kubrick used them for 'A Clockwork Orange'. The blowing up of 16mm clear up to 70 was stunningly successful, a process that was repeated with 'The Concert for Bangladesh'.

Anyway, when it comes to the music, the film is just simple, head-on documentation, but very close-in and so intimate that the epic DeMille-ness of the audience's mass has to be remembered. We are indeed reminded of their presence regularly, but because of the basic setup of the stage, no straight-on master shot of the performers could be attained from out front. So, the camera is either right in there with the music, or is way out in the fringes. It doesn't really matter though, as such conventionality of predictable structure is not to be expected at an event like Woodstock.

The general feeling is that 'Woodstock' was so successful it prevented Warner Bros. from going under. There was gold in them thar hippies, and no doubt conservative/hardass old Jack L. Warner was thanking his lucky stars for the Maharishi, Joe Cocker, and Sly Stone.

Too many memorable moments to list here, but a few: Canned Heat's lead singer's gigantic yellow t-shirt, the stormy skies above the threatened lighting towers, Grace Slick's BLUE eyes and her straight, straight nose, lookin' so neat in that white fringe outfit, Wavy Gravy's Tom Mix hat and toothless grin, the cheerful septic sucking service guy, the gorgeous girl in the water shaving her armpit, Country Joe's Vietnam anthem, Joan Baez' humbleness, the Dead's long, dark middle-of-the-night prowl, and of course, Jimi Hendrix's transcendent, symphonic genius in closing down the show.

The coverage of the weekend's 'racier' side - you know, the nudity and the free love - is unavoidably voyeuristic but never prurient. After all, this was an event where people were electively choosing to reveal behavior that is, well, attention-getting. There's no evidence that anybody with a camera was threatened to get his head busted for aiming it at them (something that would most likely happen today... meth does terrible things...), and this is remarkable because there was bad acid circulating around. The reportage of interviews, casual encounters, and comments from all types, is random and a very mixed grille. It is also familiar to me personally as well, and in almost a generic sense. At most any rock festival one can encounter similar exchanges, even unto this day. The Woodstock Effect lives!

The film holds up well. It is not belabored or pretentious. There are a few period quaintnesses - how could there not be, what with John Sebastian's far-out-correct speech, The Who's off-color performance, and so many performers wearing fringe outfits (Grace Slick can wear all the fringe she wants - all the time!), but there's virtually nothing for later, superior-minded viewers to mock or deride.

'Woodstock' is a document of social and historical value, but it is also, first and foremost, a helluva concert film.

Tweetworthy Movie Thoughts #1

2009-08-14T12:36:00.000-07:00

Just to get 'em out there...

- Truffaut's 'Jules et Jim': Deeply thoughtful, but not quite what I expected. I thought it would be more like Rohmer than Bergman. That's not a negative criticism. One thing is sure: Oskar Werner was one of the greats.

- 'Black Books' BBC series. A new favourite. Inspired tweakiness, consummately gut-busting.

- 'Monarch of the Glen' BBC series. What a series SHOULD be. People you care about. When will Richard Briers receive his deserved knighthood? Get QE2 on the phone!!!

- 'Mad Men' It really IS that good. People you don't like, but done with style and patience. For adults, at last.

- 'Duel in the Sun' Never get tired of it. I've been gawking 'Duel' long before it got the Scorsese endorsement. Solemn, grand and unabashedly sexual. High 40s art.

This Hasn't Been...

2009-08-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

...a very 'posty' summer here at Yakky Doodle Hall, has it?

Everybody's probably getting mighty sick of that Madoff picture, just below. Madoff-who?

Well, there's too darn much to yak about!

Rest assured, after the puppy days of summer have eased a bit, there will be a medley of verbiage spewing your way. So, patience!

Beware Of Madoff Coverage

2009-07-02T16:44:00.000-07:00

Fig.1 Leonine Wintriness: Who is this, exactly? A distinguished and strategically-melancholy writer? Of Mailerian standing, perhaps? A distinguished neurologist or historian, maybe? NO! Merely a temporarily-distinguished small-time swindler (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Within this, the Post-Michael Jackson Era, begins another new epoch: the Madoff Service Era. It's not quite 20,000 years in Sing Sing, but Bernie's perch in his cage is likely to get pretty guano-encrusted.

I've read the three Madoff Saga entries in 'Vanity Fair' and found them to be clearly stated and non-sensational. That's the extent of my foray into Madoffology, and I think it might be sufficient to make the following comments.

The thing is, I have a hunch that Madoff, even though he's billed as the biggest-time swindler ever in the history of the universe, is actually pretty small potatoes. Plus, he turned himself in. It's not that he got caught, though it was only a matter of time. Nevertheless, Madoff ain't the only game in town. Not by a long shot.

To those who haven't been caught in their fraudulent enterprises (and never will be, as Madoff has been a very handy warning to regroup, hunker down and obfuscate further) Madoff is the latest poster child, whipping boy, and chosen one to take the fall, while the media drools over the very audacity of this - this - outrageous Ponzification brought upon the privileged masses who trusted him unto doom. But Madoff the man is essentially a bore. A control freak who did some dainty hanky-panky with masseuses a few times.

This is not to minimize the Madoff deeds, but his career choice shows how easily fraud fits in with raw, untreated capitalism. Much of the time, the two are synonymous. Madoff was merely a rather dutiful and successful practitioner of the arts that make up the concepts of private profit in our honor-system-based modern world. A cheapie auto mechanic can pull off the same shit on a single customer and get away with it time after time. Bernie, on his Olympian pinnacle, was nothing but a common opportunist. The media has made him a superstar, but star quality is not in this man's ken.

The Allen Stanford SwindLingThing is also swooping about the media. Another diversion from the Lurkers - a candy-colored clown swaying from a hangin' tree in a sombre landscape is more noticeable than the camouflaged snake that inhabits the same tree, but the snake flourishes in its deadly invisibility. Stanford is a noisy buffoon - quite a different critter than the ultra-low-key Bernie. Both are perfect for the larger purpose: to steer attention away from the grander, more sinister - and smarter fraudsters, opportunists, and corrupt masterminds. Those who are too canny to 'do a Madoff' will continue to ply their trade, to benevolently suffocate the grannies out of their savings, and do it with new and improved techniques, while Bernie awaits his possible Jeffrey Dahmer moment in a toilet stall in need of cleaning.

RecessionDepression or not, there're still giga-tons of money out there that need to be managed. Those who Lurk behind the media-made scenery of Madoff/Stanford showtimes stand ready to maintain their quality of work - and their quality of life.

A Silent Technicolor Extravaganza - With Sound - And Music

2009-06-04T16:47:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1 Romanza: Loretta in the delightful fruit tree sequence; imagine it in Technicolor

Fig. 2 A perfected color process worthy of the painterly compositions to come

Henry King (1886-1982) was a pioneer director whose capability in delivering solid and well-crafted motion pictures is often overshadowed by his contemporaries. John Ford comes to mind because both directors took on many of the same subjects. Ford is immediately more of a stylist, but King's competence and sensitivity indicate that he was concerned with substance over style. Both made westerns and pictures that dealt with bygone Americana, but no further comparison is necessary.

As a mainstream studio director (predominantly at 20th Century-Fox), King's diversity was remarkable because, pretty much anything he took on he did extremely well. C.B. DeMille may have mastered the Hollywood epic, but King's production of 'David and Bathsheba' (1951) signaled an alternative style of epic depiction, meant for more adult and intelligent audiences. His handling of musicals (e.g. 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' (1938) and 'Carousel' (1956)) was mature, intelligent and classy. His forays into Hemingwayland ('The Snows of Kilimanjaro' (1953) and 'The Sun Also Rises' (1957) are less successful, but one of his greatest achievements, 'The Song of Bernadette' remains as one of the most compelling and powerful examples of sheer storytelling in the studio era.

Randomly picking a title out of King's oeuvre, one can always find something of interest. I had never seen 'Ramona' (1936) before, but I did last night. It was glorious, and not only because it was filmed in glorious 3-strip Technicolor. It is the tale of a half-caste girl (Loretta Young) who falls in love with an Indian youth (Don Ameche) whose sincerity and fidelity make him respected by all. Rejected by the aunt who raised her, Ramona and her lover run off, are wed, and seek out a pastoral life in the arcadia that surrounds them. The ending is tragic but uplifting.

King, like Ford, was a Catholic, and in this picture, Catholicism is a saving grace. King may go for the sentimental in his films, but never the sappy. The plot may sound operatic, but it is really quite humble in its aspirations. It is, after all, a Romance, not a romantic comedy or an operetta, or a kitschy dalliance. Romance as a genre was much more defined and developed in that era, and the original book, by Helen Hunt Jackson, was a perennial favorite, having been filmed previously by Griffith and others.

The storyline is not new, of course, but some of its attitudes are refreshingly contemporary, if not revisionist. The white folks in the drama are basically depicted as prejudiced, greedy, opportunistic and suspicious, while the persons of color are shown to be honest, hard-working and virtuous, and with considerable dimension. There is nothing pat about any of the characters because their motivation is quickly and economically made clear. The Indians are driven off their prosperous land by whites who have taken advantage of legal loopholes. The matter is not skirted, but it is dealt with straight-on because the drama demands it. Looking back to the film's era, that's not bad for a mere romantic entertainment. Amongst the love-drama are to be found humanitarian notions.

The musical score of 'Ramona' is a milestone. One of the happiest factors in the studio system's workings is that, due to contractual arrangements made by the moguls, creative personnel of exceptional talent could, by sheer assignment from the head office, regularly collaborate, and with brilliant results. Such a case is the stellar roster of Henry King films scored by Alfred Newman, Hollywood's consummate film composer.

Darryl Zanuck, recent emigre from Warner Bros., felt, like Jack L. Warner, that his most lavish productions should have equally lavish scores - nearly wall to wall music, that increased the given picture's prestige. (Conversely, MGM had a much weaker music department at this time.) And because of the corollaries that exist in the film business, greatness in film music could flourish. In this case: Newman was a youthful conductor on Broadway. Irving Berlin heard him and used him for one of his shows. Berlin went to Hollywood and thought Newman would be perfect for scoring talkies (1930). Newman took up Berlin's invitation to Hollywood. Sam Goldwyn heard him and put him under contract. Along with Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Newman consequently forged the theory of film scoring as we know it today. Zanuck then tapped Newman for the 'Ramona' score, based on his soulful scores for Goldwyn. And Newman delivered. The score for 'Ramona' is ultra-romantic, touching, and full of longing - and fulfillment. Poignant, ecstatic, and moving, it is perfect for its purpose.

But in the cinema, the score is always subservient to the more attention-getting aspects of imagery. In this, 20th's first Technicolor outing, all stops were pulled out in fully showcasing the crowd-pleasing (and very expensive) attributes of the process. William Skall, who would later contribute to such vast color mural-storytelling as 'Quo Vadis' and 'The Silver Chalice', was behind the camera, and he well qualifies himself as one of the great 'painters of light' in the cinema. The cameras were huge and bulky, the lighting required was fierce and hot, and the demands from the Technicolor Corp on the creative side often severe, but Skall captures the moods and subtleties of Old California in an almost Mission Style manifestation of pictorialness.

It has long been fashionable (if not the general default) of successive generations to mock such productions as 'Ramona', but my appreciation of this picture is not at all 'revisionist'. No need. I think that many such films might be compared to the effects brought forth by, say, Puccini's 'La Boheme' or Charpentier's 'Louise'. That is, audiences do not laugh them off the stage because they are too syrupy or too kitschy. No, audiences luxuriate in the romantic/dramatic aura and emerge moved, touched, and yes, entertained. If romantic opera gets such respect and appreciation, its' poor cousin, Romance picture shows, might still be eligible as well. So I guess I approach pictures like 'Ramona' with the same expectations I would apply to 'Madame Butterfly' and the like. It is indeed liberating to take a given film for what it is and not for what one thinks it should be in the eyes of others. It is indeed right that audiences should be opinionated about films, or anything that is placed before the public for their absorption, but the conformity of reaction to certain genres gets to be tiresome, to say the least. There's something out there for everybody, and for everybody's moods. Why worry about being embarrassed about actually liking something that is not likable in the conventional sense?

That said, I don't regard 'Ramona' as a guilty pleasure. It is simply an excellent example of its genre, a genre that audiences once loved intensely, otherwise it would not have been made.

Henry King's 'Ramona' is a unique work: the aesthetics of the silent era are given their last presentation, as it were, by a director schooled in the silent style, yet yielding to the obvious benefits of spoken dialogue, original music and postcard color. It represents the closing of one era, and the inevitability of another.

Oh, Hello Guy

2009-05-27T11:31:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1 Rear projection with purpose

Alfred Hitchcock broke new ground in 'Strangers On A Train' (1951), his most in-depth psychological exploration of psychopathic behavior passing as normality, to date. Consequently, 'Strangers' might be called Hitch's creepiest picture. 'Shadow Of a Doubt' (1943) was the director's first foray into disturbingly quiet innuendo, with mild-mannered Joseph Cotton as one of the screen's most balefully nuanced characters, but Hitch loved the limitations of trains - nowhere to go but over the edge - and 'Strangers' is all about being cornered by such rail-bound limits.

The plotline is simple: a genial chance meeting between two men on a train leads to, well, murder. And quid pro quo.

As some critics have pointed out, 'Strangers' is also Hitch's development of a homoerotic subtext. Bruno (Robert Walker), 'comes on' to Guy (Farley Granger) on more levels than just attraction. Several viewings are necessary to explore the film's multiple levels, and the experience is always compelling.

No spoilers here, but it must be mentioned that the merry-go-round disaster is one of Hitch's most violent and startling sequences. The special effects, all done up in nightmarish monochrome, introduce a most unexpected sense of loss of control, not thought possible in light of the calm control of the picture up to this point.

Dimitri Tiomkin's score is subtle except in the right places, such as the triumphant movement of great trains out of great stations, and in one of the picture's finest 'psychotic' moments, when Guy's mom reveals the painting she's been working on: a horrific portrait that perverts deKooning's 'Woman' series. The scoring behind the climactic tennis match is lightly-stringed and empathetically worried - perfect for Hitch's to-and-fro tension.

Hitch was in top form with one of his favorite cameramen, Bob Burks. Their exploitation of the murder victim's obnoxious and face-distorting glasses, the progression of the merry-go-round operator under the raging contraption (played by Harry Hines, who was Mr Miggles in 'Harvey') and Bruno's extremely 'normal'-appearing close-ups, are among the most memorable shots in the film.

I know of people who can't sit through this picture because it is too creepy. Hitch would perhaps be pleased with such an effect, though the resolve at the end is neat and complete. For the viewer, it is always a pleasure to brand a film as a masterpiece, and in this case of 'Strangers On a Train', it is also a cinch.

Swatted Down

2009-05-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

I am one of those who thinks that the current elevated misfortunes of Pakistan are a direct effect from the US/NATO failure in Afghanistan. The droning and bombing, the slaughter of the innocents, the twelve kids who were blown up when they were playing with an undetonated bomb, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the general intensifying of stability issues, and now, the tragic exodus of the embattled residents of the beautiful and traditionally peaceful vale of Swat and its district, and hundreds of other outrages, none of these and many other events need have occurred but for the encroaching crises exported from an occupied Afghanistan, inflaming Pakistan's vulnerabilities and enabling them to expand.

When I was in Peshawar years ago, I checked into visiting the Khyber Pass. I was told it could be done, but an armed escort was necessary. Not for protection against the Taliban or al Qaeda (or drones - or even friendly fire - from our NATO 'peacekeepers'). No, back then it was for protection against mostly smugglers and tribesmen, people who have never been under any greater power's control, whether they were Mughal, British, or Pakistani. It was an exciting prospect, but rather an expensive one, so I passed. Peshawar was a charming city, full of Arabian Nights magic, cordiality, and excellent green tea.

Granted, political instability has been a way of life in Pakistan. Death in front of the mob was perhaps Bhutto's destiny all along (witness the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty's precedents in India), and there has long been an uneasy Pak-Talibanian association. But the aggressive actions in Afghanistan, and US (et al) blunderings, have clearly exacerbated Pakistan's issues to the boiling point.

Finally, an entirely selfish point to make, but one that is at least peaceful in its intent: I always wanted to visit Swat. When I was near to it, I turned back, in the interest of other threads to follow in the region. I figured, 'it'll always be there, so I'll get there next time.'

Alas, alas for Swat...

Showbiz Econ 101

2009-04-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

Yes friends, it’s TREATISE TIME!

You know, such as when you have to make statements and back ‘em up, like them Ivory – I mean, Ivy League scholars do, though they be brutalized by the hideous specter of Publish-Or-Perish™, but churning out bales of esoteric gobbledygook does wonders for tenure tracking, plus it does a body’s ego good.

So now we have TREATISE TIME. And why? Well, a yak is a yak (good ‘n cheap), but sometimes the cheeping has to abate for a spell, so that one can spout a tad bit of theory instead. What follows aims to be fairly serious, and I hope that it will be considered in that light. No Keynesian or Krugmanian authority here, but there might be a bit of tap dancing of some quality. It is not meant to add to the already burgeoning silage stew that bubbles and pops with expertness and analysis in the melted down media – concerning our blown-out economy. (Although I don’t see how it couldn’t.) Notwithstanding current conditions, I’m just offering up some cultural aspects that might be bitter food for thought as to why some personalities of power led us into this rather unpleasant and kerosene-tasting pickle – in which we now find ourselves.

At any rate, it’s my blog and I’ll ramble if I want to, ramble if I want to, ramble if I want to, and you’d ramble too if it occurred to you . . . So, here goes . . .

Part of the problem with today’s economic meltdown is that a whole culture of what I call ‘Lunge Economics’ has been built into the financial systems of contemporary (free market) capitalism.
‘Lunge’ meaning: those who have major control, or are key participants in the global world of money, have desired to get all they can out of its opportunities, and what’s more, they endeavor to do it as fast and as completely as possible. The preceding may be a run-on sentence that purports to substitute itself for one word: greed – but that’s not the whole of it.

In our accelerated consumerist world, where time has been crunched from blocks into filaments, the prevailing attitude is that the obvious is undeniable: that time passes quickly – more quickly than ever, because we are carried along with the packaging of it, and that means it’s all about impatience and superficiality – and with ever-increasing speed. Therefore, the old saw, ‘get all you can while the getting’s good,’ though it be hardly utilized any more, is nevertheless the banal but standard modus operandi of any smart money controller, whether they be a top CEO, or money-poor conservatives who are sympathetic to capitalists because they aspire to be one (but never will be, for someone has to serve as the ruling elite’s bedrock of pre-hornswoggled constituents).

By this simple phrase: ‘get all you can’, etc., stark mortality becomes a chief incentive for greed, more than heightened pleasure or mere power ever could be.

No longer do turbo-capitalists think and act in long-term frameworks. The imperative has been to seize (I think the term ‘lunge after’ is better) opportunities so as to maximize profit – ostensibly under the guise of honestly slaving for stockholders, while the true goal is to maximize personal acquirement, with the rest being ego-erotic gravy to slather on the soul’s nakedness before the altar of Mammonic Achievement. (Corny, but that’s how these primitive dick-size-obsessed organisms think, I should think.)

Of course there has always been a built-in tradition and expectation of carpe diem in free market capitalism – to be filed under the category of ‘competition’ – but never has that supposedly stimulating concept been firmer entrenched in the general image of the engine that powers the entity of money. Behind the perceived scenes, what proven money controller has not been tempted by the simple dream of monopolistic, center-of-the-universe-type mastery over all that lies below the Olympian upthrust he (or not very often, she) occupies? It is only natural that high stakes players think in absolute elimination terms regarding their rivals. Darwinism when applied to elites has to be an exercise in evolution achieved. Anything else would be a mockery to the progress of the human race.

Nevertheless, the steady institutionalizing of a Lunge Economy was clearly established in the Reagan Era, that liberalizing and legitimizing epoch of greed, under the friendly premise that, well, anyone and everyone can achieve monetary success without actually having to resort to old fashioned . . . greediness. If anything, the prospects were that financial windfalls would descend unto everybody who was worthy – you wouldn’t even have to work that much (enter entitlement complexes and the resultant sullenness that inevitably waits down such a road), as its powers were as yet undefined. The simple license was to just let the markets spread their beneficence over all. Even financial dumbos would be provided for, though way up there somewhere, the true masters would be far beyond mere peasant-expectations, in a realm where superstars of pecuniary power could not help but enjoy the bliss they deserved, free of all unsightly and dirty bits of the Great Unwashed. And in this rarefied atmosphere, power and product would only expand – exponentially. To the naïve but lucky participant: prepare to be blown away by the possibilities.

As a proper sobering notion, like the old man who rode with Emperors of Rome to remind them that they were only mortal, and to keep the lesser folk in willing thrall, the mass publicizing of Mutual Assured Destruction (M.A.D.™) betwixt the armed ‘n ready superpowers at the time, was at its height, and ready to brake the upstart intentions of any haughty comer who intended on muscling in on the Lungers’ Elysian domain.

Thus, a corollary: we live in apocalyptic times, therefore, since U-Haul trailers are not usually seen behind hearses that are still in undertaking service, and with the decline of mainstream religious faith (à la Western tradition beliefs) once prevalent in the upper moneyed classes (if much of it was never there at all, perhaps a touch of conscience was), and even psychology’s failure to convert society with its cause/effect-cum-environment premise, because the society had grown too ‘smart’ for any such massaging, due to the dearth of any serious philosophy to rival money as a principal raison d’être, license must logically and plainly be given to the goal of ‘get all you can while the getting’s good’. Simple as that. And the boom of the 90s, plus the Great Fear of 9/11 and its resultant wars of opportunity speeded up the lunging with real exponentiality, as it were, and indeed, legitimized it in the public’s mind (with the aid of Neocon publicizing, by the way).

However, the actual range of the lunging could not last. Though there were many Houses of Usher in numerous ghettos within that urine-gold city of Reaganopolis on the hill, their doors were not marked with conscientiously-applied lamb’s blood. Corruption tends to be chameleon-like in its adaptability and craft. It would take more years of milking the still bloated cow by the lungers to drain the essentials of growth that the snake-oiled public naively thought built for the ages, and whose buttermilk they would surely partake of, any day now. Collapse must, by the laws of physics, necessarily occur, due to the sheer weight of the lunged effect and its’ consequences (e.g. pillaging, for one), made chaotic by incompetence and greed-based mismanagement, as enacted by super-powered financial controllers. Thus, one person’s (me) hunch about the current econ crisis.

And there’s another thing, another part of the problem of today’s meltdown, and it’s an aspect to Lunge Economics that’s pretty important. It does not ‘legitimize’ the dizzying greediness, but it does serve as an understandably reasonable possibility in explaining any existing non-greed-based veering toward catastrophe in the state of capitalism, based on the sheer instinct of capitalism to multiply upon itself. And that aspect is: ‘The Showbiz Model’, I’ll call it. (I don’t at all like the overused and lazy-trendy term ‘model’ as a catch-all for imitative and non-creative emulation based on, say, ‘what experts tell us’; it sounds really cheap, but I suppose it’ll have to do . . . Blah, blah, BLOP, Frank Luntz!)

This – this Showbiz Model goes back to the 1960s-70s. It doesn’t exactly matter who was president at the time. The thing was, in Hollywood, the moguls who had founded and still ran many of the studios were aging or dying off, and had either been discredited due to flop productions (Spyros Skouras at 20th-Fox, due to ‘Cleopatra’; MGM’s ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’, which ‘they’ blamed on Brando!) or had sold out to the newly hip Wall St. corporate interests (Warner Bros., Paramount, United Artists). Those being the cases, studios were indeed picked up, basically for pennies a serving, by those new pioneers in globalism, the conglomerates. Such as Transamerica (United Artists), Kinney Services (Warner Bros.), Avco (Embassy Pictures), Gulf+Western (Paramount), and later, in the second great wave of corporate acquisitions, Sony (Columbia and TriStar), Matsushita (Universal), Rupy Murdoch’s News Corp. (20th-Fox), and Time-Warner (Warner Bros.), later AOL-Time-Warner (Warner Bros. again, plus New Line), Disney (Miramax and ABC) and Viacom (Paramount, again). Incidentally, people should remember that Viacom started as a spinoff of CBS, for the handling of its’ syndicated product – they succeeded in creating a monster, who tried to eat its mom . . .

(Quiz: what does AIG stand for? American International Group. You mean, American International Pictures is part of that ‘group’ – y’know, the studio that brought you ‘Beach Blanket Bingo’, ‘Sergeant Deadhead’, and Roger Corman’s Ed. Al. Poe series? Not this time, no. AIP was a profitable ‘minor’, and Sam Arkoff sold it to Filmways for a fortune. AIG is another matter entirely, and without benefit of Frankie Avalon, Annette Funicello, and Vincent Price . . .)

The essential fact with the Showbiz Model is that canny suits in Wall St. discovered that motion pictures, having entered the Blockbuster Age, could be good little – strike that – good big earners, because box office receipts meant cold hard cash in the till the very night of the show. No waiting months for transactions or decades to make a profit. Booms were possible, if not overnight, then certainly over the weekend. Granted, more people have seen ‘Gone With The Wind’ than ever saw ‘Love Story’, but with inevitable inflation of ticket prices, ‘Love Story’ turned out to be a monster – hit, which helped confirm the importance of the golden eggs to be laid in Hollywood for the studios’ conglomerational (sic) masters. Ali McGraw’s dying on Ryan O’Neal thus made Charlie Bhuhdorn of Gulf+Western (or as Mel Brooks wagged it, ‘Engulf+Devour’) a king of Hollywood for a time, and he didn’t even know what a dissolve or a glass shot were. (I say ‘a’ king, because there is room for many kingdoms in Tinseltown, though not too many. Besides, musical crowns are a tradition, baby.)

On the other hand, Blockbusterism indeed became a restoritative success that led to some wising up on the part of those who toiled in front of the cameras and who also happened to have celebrity status – plus, more than a few smarts. The suits and/or producers weren’t the only ones who got hip.

It is well known that showbiz is full of stories of artists who were ripped off of their just monetary dues. The most blatant cumulative example being numerous black artists who were shut out of their royalties by sleazy, lying shysters, managers and record companies (i.e. ‘That’s what it says in the contract, and you signed it!’). Among many others, Dorothy Dandridge and Doris Day were shamefully taken advantage of. Lots of kid actors, too.

But it was the unprecedented and mind-boggling profits from the new blockbusters in the early 70s that illustrated the naked contrast between performers and corporate profiteers. Film stars with clout, like Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Sidney Poitier and Steve McQueen got organized and formed their own company, the humbly-named First Artists, with the intention of controlling their associated finances and fates, from high concept to box office totals. (United Artists, formed by cinematic pantheon members Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith, was of course the inspiration, the source of the famous phrase, ‘the lunatics are now running the asylum’, until acrimony and lack of will turned UA into an entity that was conventional in its corporate structure, but consistently adventurous in its projects, until they were ruined by corporate pressures and preferences. ‘Heaven’s Gate’ didn’t help much, either.)

First Artists did not have staying power as a company, but the legacy of the point it made is still with us today. That is, if a star or stars provide a guarantee or at least a promise of big B.O., that star or stars shall successfully negotiate a contract in which either a salary commensurate with the presumed receipts of said picture is secured, or else a percentage of the profits from said picture shall be delivered. The best example of the latter is perhaps Jack Nicholson’s humungous percentage of the take from the first resurgent ‘Batman’ picture of 1989. As Jett Rink, played by James Dean, said with a vengeance in ‘Giant’, ‘I’m RICH!’

Inspired by these glamorous and well-publicized achievements, the suits of Wall St. (and other financial climes), knowing of their own stardom in their own minds, embarked on their own lawyer-facilitated efforts to secure bigger and better pieces of the ‘take’, whatever their business entailed. There could be stars in the armaments industry just as much as their could be on the flickering screen, and hell, their numbers made the receipts from ‘Jaws’ look like housefly feed. But it was the Model that counted.

This eureka trend was/is particularly appealing to Baby Boomers, who, inculcated with their own rights to specialness and entitlement, usually seem to seek out and attempt to capture notions that promise fulfillment of their own aggrandizement (mostly as consumers, not contributors), with the expected side benefits of (inferred) sex, (prescription) drugs, and a bit of tasteful rock ‘n roll (but not too loud any more).

Most of them, of course, have not realized such success, but to the few who have, the disease of greed and its co-pathology, the notion of ‘enough-is-never-enough’ have infiltrated their personas to a potentially world-shaking extent.

Meanwhile, back on Wall St., the supreme lungers who attained M.U. (Master of the Universe) status, have, through their lunging and grabbing, brought the financial world to its bony knees. How else could the collapse of ’08-’09 be explained, free of ‘experts’ and media hacks, or of Bushistic Neocons? Those Neo-conservative strategists and egomaniacs were themselves key players in this Lunge Bowl, for they stood in the shadows of advantage, behind the movie stars and the vain spinning pinwheels of Young Executives in Wall St., a brotherhood rooted in Darth Cheney’s ‘dark side’, who expanded the playing field way past Boomed-but-Busted mundaneness and into some really nasty shit. For example, Dave Leasor’s ugly mug rules Halliburton from a discreet and extradition-proof citadel in Dubai, but he ain’t no fun-lovin’ Eagles fan, out for a good time. He and his kind are into war profiteering and related sick ventures. That’s what they do. Dave’s a lunger, ‘big time’, but he’d never admit it, not even to the mug in the mirror. He and his kind represent the full flower of toxic exploitation of the vulnerabilities of the human condition, in the name of, well, helping, or something. With mentors like Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and anyone else out of the American Enterprise Institute, lunging even degrades into grabbing, clawing and trampling, for there is plenty of dusty death in Mesopotamia and greater Bactria to show for it. But there are capitalistic/corporate psycho-sociopaths, and there are common opportunists. I’m mainly talking about the latter here.

There are stars in all walks of life, of course. And the more important and/or glamorous the field, the more its stars have a right to shine. Even though the shine is decidedly dubious. Remember Malcolm Forbes? He was supposed to be making out with the babes on his Harley into his 100s, but he blew out years ago. Yeah, but there’s Kirk Kerkorian, now in his 90s, still mucking up American institutions, like MGM and Chrysler, and still doing more diabolical dinking around in Vegas than Howard Hughes ever dreamt of. At least H.H. was a genuine original. A lunger if there ever was one, Kirk has always toyed with, then devoured, then shat out whatever remains, then moved on, ever on. (Prediction: K.K. will be the prime agent in harvesting marble from US state capitol buildings for use in their serf-built castles by the New Warlords of the New Feudalism – when he’s 130 years old . . .)

Remember when General Motors was ‘the biggest company in the world’? That moniker lasted a long time. That’s when the deals with the unions were made. Like a movie studio being obliged to dish out fair profit sharing (to those who had negotiated it), the unions got a fair-ish chunk of GM’s profits. But now that the behemoth might be going belly-up, there’s no contingency plan in the event of fallen-into-the-cistern profits. None was created because profits were never designed to fall. Contracts are re-negotiable, but the same terms of profit and the sharing of it will still render any outcome exclusive of the possibilities of company failure. GM will blow out, reorganize, become successful again, and any profit sharing will be on management’s strict and discriminating terms. Take it or leave it. While unions are indeed guilty of their own corruption and hoggishness (like the management above them), blaming them for the downturn/collapse of, say, GM is a sour and absurd choice, though an easy one. But that’s like pre-blaming the unions under Exxon-Mobil for high gas prices. Never mind E-M’s unprecedented profits – the starkest example of Showbiz Econ ever – as gasoline is similar to box office profits for its instant gratification.

Oh, but let’s not cast GM adrift in the waters of Assured Bankruptcy without mentioning (newly former) CEO Rick Wagoner. Having presided over GM’s decline, the White House asked him to leave his office – but with 25 mil in tow. Not a bad U-Haul. Poor misunderstood Rick . . . There have been quite a few voices that thought he got a raw deal! Regardless, I notice that he went quietly. Smart guy. He could read the handwriting on the wall, because, with his divine powers, he wrote it himself. (Interesting trivia: there are more Lincoln hearses today than there are Cadillacs, though Jimmy Suburbans still do a lot of pre-embalmed body-hauling.)

Free market capitalism provides for many variations though, because the seeds of its destruction are permanently sown into the bedrock below it all, and growing seeds can crack and conquer stone. Thus, maybe the Epic of Money is cosmic in its destiny, way beyond even those who merit an M.U.

So, while it isn’t just successful movies that caused the present money crisis (experts will advise you to get hung up on stupid folks gittin’ involved in bad mortgages, ‘n stuff), the fact remains that, as great cinema inspires an audience, the tantalizing profit from blockbusters inspired those whose sole purpose in life it is to make money, and in maximum terms, with unlimited prospects.

It’s not a question of blame. Actually, it is a tribute to artistic creation. But, creation of what? Successful films are products of invention, and at least they give something back. Their success means that people like the movies, and are willing to access them by paying money up front. And to those who profit from the peoples’ tastes, they are supposed to reinvest their receipts into the system, for its perpetuation, naturally. But those who are apart from it, profiting through other means, but basing their technique on the Showbiz Model, have no intentions of giving much, if any, of their gains back into a culture of caring. Not even caring for the culture of capitalism, which got them to where they could leverage their destiny, no less. Their operations are not intrinsically charitable, of course. They are, to use an old fashioned term that is no longer very powerful, simply selfish.

What-ish?

These are not people who are burdened with ‘sin’ concepts, such as selfishness, greed, or hypocrisy. They are free of such limitations and repressions of behavior. That’s what’s handy about employing the term ‘sociopath’ here.

One thing about showbiz though, is its sincerity. There may be a lot of cynicism in entertainment, but compared to pure plutocratic endeavors, a money man who supports a tap dancer is saintly when compared with a financial lunger.

After all, lungers are only out for themselves. A tap dancer at least offers a diversion. But nothing can divert the lunger’s attention from the ultimate goal: to cheat death by sheer bribery. Hell, if you can buy a president, or a dictator, or even a religion, a creaky old rinkydink Grim Reaper’s got to be for sale. Probably cheap. So they’ll hitch that U-Haul to the hearse that will no doubt bear their pathetic remains (but without their egotistical expectations), not to any Valhalla, but to complete and utter oblivion.

The Maurice Of Maurices

2009-04-02T16:16:00.000-07:00

It is only fitting to say a few words as a tribute to the great Maurice Jarre, who departed this globe at the refreshingly antique age of 84 earlier this week. (I still don't think of people born in the mid 1920s as all that old - witness Paul Newman...)

Along with Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, Leonard Rosenman and John Barry, Maurice Jarre helped forge what film music connoisseurs call the Silver Age. That is, not as foundational as a Golden Age, but just as good in different ways.

At any rate, Jarre proved that, in spite being a young Frenchman with an almost Poulenc-like sound, he could score any picture that came his way. His first international splash was of course 'Lawrence of Arabia', with its very British premise and its Ottoman/Bedouin settings. It was a stroke of genius on David Lean's part to hire the very facile Jarre - and keep him - for the remaining pictures in his career. I daresay, Bax, Walton, Malcolm Arnold or John Barry could have made something splendid with 'Lawrence', but here was Jarre, taking an alternate path: the film spoke to him and he replied with pure film music, a perfect meeting of the arts, gimmick free, and with great themes, to boot. The 'Desert' theme everyone knows, but I like the Main Title the best, with its earnest aspiration, dignity and promise.

Lean's under-appreciated 'Ryan's Daughter' is elevated to a higher plane by Jarre's unexpected score, and 'A Passage To India' could hardly be scored with more originality, as it is entirely lacking in stereotypical expectations. 'Doctor Zhivago' is a score where everything works effortlessly, even Lara's rinkydink-sounding semi-striptease for heavy-lidded Rod Steiger.

The wonderful thing about Jarre though, is that he had an immensely rich career past Lean. What he did with 'Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome' was an absolute triumph of epic scoring, and 'The Train', 'Is Paris Burning' and 'Isadora' are all sterling works.

His profound and sensitive score for Zeffireli's 'Jesus of Nazareth' ensured him a place beside the greats like Alfred Newman, Miklos Rozsa and Franz Waxman.

Like Goldsmith and Bernstein, permanently confident in his style, Jarre never lost his touch. Though the greatness of the films he scored came less often, Jarre's music stands out as artistic integrity that is exemplary.

One example of later Jarre that is plainly a masterpiece is his score for 'Tai Pan'. In this film, that should have been better than it was, Jarre creates harmonic excitement that is free from token exoticism, yet it is evocative of Opium War-era China in ways that only a wholly original composer can come up with. The lengthy End Title music is Jarre at his best. As the camera slowly zooms out into a tremendous panorama of Hong Kong as seen from the Peak, Jarre lets all his powers loose to form a triumphant paean to an idealism that the film itself didn't touch, a pure flight of glory that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with 'Tai Pan' at all, and is more of a tone poem than specific program music. Like many of the finest film composers, Jarre regularly transcended the film he was hired to score

(While I will always prefer the Main Title to be at the beginning of a film, the End Title credit crawl has been a gold mine for film composers to show what they've got, which is reason enough to be the last one to leave the auditorium if the score is a good one...)

There is always something high-flying and free about a Jarre score, as if his music is up in the atmosphere, but, ever mindful of the job it has to do - to support the film that is its reason for being - a grounding in drama and tone is always present as well.

Thus do I salute Maurice Jarre (1924-2009) as one of the all time great film musicians.

Barthelona, With Vicky And Crithtina

2009-03-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Late, or medium late Allen (Woody-type) is turning out to be a particularly sophisticated phase in the director's career. With 'Match Point' being a pretty potent version of 'Crime and Punishment' themes (I saw it in a small town in Sweden, and the audience was just as respectful as they would be for Bergman or Troell), 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona', powered by its three starring muses, is a wonderful contribution to the cinema of the personal-level short story, told in layers.

Perhaps this picture stands out as particularly admirable because of its comparative rarity: character development is equal with story-telling. Even the scenery is secondary, though it is a welcome ornament. Many filmmakers today deliberately avoid getting too 'scenic' in location-shot films, as if they are too cool to stoop to mere situational grounding, as that would give too much clarity and suppress cleverness. 'Slumdog Millionaire' which is a remarkable film, nevertheless missed the boat as far as capturing Bombay is concerned, as most of its scenes could have been shot in any large Indian city.

But Barcelona is just too tempting to resist, and Woody provides just the right doses of locale to support his characters and story. And the characters! Predictably (and happily) you can depend on Woody's characters to be attractive - at least physically. Three of the most fetching women in pictures today are in it, and Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, and Penélope Cruz have never looked better. Plus, their craft ain't bad, either. But there's a flaw: not enough Cruz! Her role, Oscar-winner that it is, is comparatively brief. Almódovar knows how to use her (e.g. 'Volver'), and now, so does Woody, but more, baby, MORE!

As the sole and pivotal male in this ménage à quatres of sorts, Javier Bardem holds his own with Cruz, Hall and Johansson, and indeed, he might be considered the star of the picture.

More than ever, Allen is a true auteur - one of the few active in film today. As contemporary audiences have basically lost their way in appreciating auteur-authored films, Allen's audiences and box office and production deals have shrunk, but into a size that in no way inhibits his creativity, while in fact it is enhanced. He also wisely chose to go overseas for locations, into more inviting and sympathetic surroundings. (He's doing more London-based films.)

'VCB' need not be pigeonholed as 'a Woody Allen film'. It is an original work, and it leaves you with unique thoughts.

Jones-ing Over Carmen

2009-03-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

Fig.1 Turn this poster on its side, and you almost have the CinemaScope aspect ratio; Saul Bass' design always works, whether vertically or horizontally

Two of the best things about director Otto Preminger are: 1. He knows how to handle a camera, and 2. His fearlessness. John Huston said, 'Time and again (Otto) has demonstrated his courage, his morality and his fearlessness.' He was also famous for shrieking at people on set, but that needn't concern us here.

Preminger's 'Carmen Jones' (1954) has guts, integrity and high quality in its every aspect. Based on Bizet's opera (with new lyrics by consummate Broadway man Oscar Hammerstein II), the settings are WWII North Carolina and Chicago, and what's more, the whole thing works.

All-black cast musicals were nothing new, but 'Carmen Jones' is an entirely different kind of vehicle: mature, nuanced, and generally non-stereotypical, because its drama transcends race. If it is a novelty it is because its drama possesses equalizing forces, yet the talent who realize them happen, in this case, to be African-American. Otto facilitates, but the work is transformed by the ensemble cast.

That said, the film itself is exceptional. Every performance is excellent. Harry Belafonte is somewhat restrained, due to Otto's choices to keep him relatively static, but on the other hand, nothing gets in the way of Dorothy Dandridge's completely dynamic Carmen. She is wholly engaging in the most intimate and invitational ways, and though we may be intimidated by her initially, her humanity becomes embraceable and ultimately moving.

In a later era, Dandridge would have been allowed to become a great star, but we should feel fortunate to have what we have of her.

The immediately recognizable Brock Peters kicks off his illustrious career with a supporting role of consequence, and Olga James, in a gem of solid performance, creates a strong presence as an alternative to the fiery Carmen.

Sam Leavett's camerawork, guided by Otto's fluid style, is particularly elegant and logical and displays some of the most exciting use of the wide screen, even when seen fifty-some years later. CinemaScope was at its widest (2.55:1 - before it was squared off to 2.35:1), and instead of balking about it, Otto takes advantage of its real estate with quasi-expressionistic narrative purpose.

The musical direction by Herschel Burke Gilbert, ably assisted by Jester Hairston and even Dimitri Tiomkin, is Hollywood professional musicianship at its best. Bizet is well served, with all dramatic flames lighted full blast, all the way through.

One thing about Preminger as a director: he delivers the goods, and with 'Carmen Jones' the delivery is high-powered, and as a consequence, becomes cinematic time well spent.

The Wonder Of Werner

2009-03-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

Guess what? I'm doing a mini-Herzog festival!

The liberating concept of acquiring used DVDs of esoteric classics is something hard to resist. First up: 'Fitzcarraldo'.

What a deep joy this picture is! So rich, so giving, so much to grab on to! I saw it when it first came out, but I swear, the DVD viewing was better and more meaningful for me. Perhaps because I am mature enough for it now. Plus, back in '82, cinema was populated with much more exciting product, so 'Fitz', which was derided for being indulgent, didn't stand out so boldly, despite its utterly bold premise.

I'm so glad Kinski got the part. Jason Robards, in the first version, is an institution, but nothing can match Kinski's grandeur and facial expressions and enlightened optimism, so perfectly wedded with edgy sweat in an out of muddy reality.

And what could be a happier screen relationship than Claudia Cardinale's and Kinski's ecstatic approach to life? Every moment they share is zestful, passionate and mutually understanding and supportive. What a refreshing concept!

Even the one fakey bit - the quite reasonable decision to capture the boat's passage down the rapids in miniature, has a compelling sweetness to it. The giant water drops look like protective nectar that will see the ship through, in spite of all threats.

(Spoiler follows:)

And what a triumphant ending - not an anticlimax at all, as Fitzcarraldo does indeed bring opera to the city in the jungle, as he promised.

Next: 'Nosferatu'!

Inadequate Hearting And Minding

2009-03-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hearing Gwen Thompkins' and S.S. Nelson's reports this morn from E. Africa and the Afghan-Pak border respectively, I couldn't help but detect some classic American earnestness in action. In all their torrent of words (Ms Gwen seemed to use ProTools to morph her voice to squeeze into its allotted slot) I learned much less than a more mature and concise reporter such as Ofebia Quist-Arcton or Philip Reeves would give (both of whom I've praised in the past, and who are 99% BBC and 1% NPR in their journo genetics). It sounds strange to say, but I find that American reporters (not just uNPR-oids) in these and other locales just don't 'get it'. I'd need a thesis to explain, but hell, I've learned more about the Sudan from the film 'Khartoum' and Robert Young Pelton's 'The World's Most Dangerous Places' (various editions - I'd recommend it for any on the ground research of trouble spots), and of the Afghan Pak frontier from Kipling and Olaf Caroe's seminal 'The Pathans', not to mention old National Geographics - than I've ever gotten from US NPR-niks. (Plus, bumbling around Peshawar as a tourist - way before today's troubles - was pretty cool; I've never heard anyone on NPR really capture what an incredible city Peshawar is - or the region, for that matter...)

In my opinion, Americans make pretty poor hearts-and-minds imperialists, while they obviously excel in the military/industrial version (at least ostensibly - recent evidence shows 'Fiasco'-level flops there, too.)

In WWII, my recently late dad fought for a Marshall Plan-innovating, UN-assisting, peacemaking USA. I still foster that ideal.

Let The Follies Begin

2009-02-25T08:38:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, National Peep-peep Radio was positively abuzz this morn, jiggle-dancing over Obama's speech last night.

There's a new glee at NPR: that Obama's gonna be pretty big pickin's as far as NPR slop-generation is concerned. Republicans can now be unashamedly coddled and given a forum to pout, as they are now suppressed minority underdogs, and the smirking and bemused condescending from Inskreep 'n Mundane can be flaunted without hesitation.

And GO, DON, GO!!! There goes Don Gone (I used to refer to him with the vulgarism 'Don Gonorrhea', but I needn't stoop to such wordplay any more...), who's ALL OVER THE PLACE doing mop up on Barry's stern oration, having the time of his life. (The Don's speech rhythms still make me barfing-seasick).

And the Reagan comparisons - made, by the way, as if O'Bama could never approach the majesty of the Great Communicator! Well folks, I vividly remember all about the Reagan years (when Baby Stevie and Renaay were still squeaking in their kaka-lined cribs), and that was when I first realized that America as a humanitarian organization was doomed. Romancing over that sick era is something I can't abide. All the seeds of the Bush Dark Age were sown then...

You know, taking a furlough from NPR really gives you a neat perspective. When you resume listening, the stark realization looms: that NPR is about the most rinkydink, stupid-sounding source for information imaginable, with doofus personalities who will never be ready for prime time, populating a front for sinister and contemptible agendas.

Silly me - having to learn that all over again!

Things Are Just Fine The Way They Are

2009-02-14T16:26:00.001-08:00

I haven't wasted any irreplaceable time yakking about NPR (UnPR) on these here pages much lately, as it is a futile business at best, but I have some DEFINITIVE statements to make about it.

That is, I don't care if such types as Yawn Williams or any Heritage Foundation critter happens to babble away on NPR. Because, that's standard procedure these days. I shall not pine for anything that NPR was or should be. (What I really want is for them to be OFF THE AIRWAVES.) You see, I don't want them to 'get better'. I don't trust NPR now,and I don't think I could ever again. As the saying goes, when you lose your keys in a crack of molten lava, man, they're GONE.

That's what one does when one truly writes something off: no trust involved.

Just felt a need to reiterate the obvious. Maybe it has something to do with Valentine's Day: make love, not crappy journalism...

RESTORATION

2009-01-20T10:36:00.000-08:00

It is done. The 800-year Bush Dark Age. As Howard Cosell said, 'IT'S OVAH! IT'S ALL OVAH!'

Now the tough part: how to heal.

I'm hearing lots of voices on the Net, saying that Obama's just the same as BushCorp and that he's already slipping into predictably sleazy behavior. Well, about an hour ago he just became president. (Never mind that Plain John 'Android' Roberts mucked up the oath; puppets are rarely ready for Prime Time...) My default is to give the man a chance.

Why not be suspicious? Because I am weary of the conditioning which the Bush Dark Age has inculcated us with. In other words, we have been forced to inflict our own thoughts, our own minds, with the hideous rot spawned by BushCorp and its Neocon interests. When sociopaths are in power, they produce strains of subtle and insidious thoughts, notions, and opinions that, when ingested, retard and pervert even healthily critical-thinking minds. Propaganda has a way of doing that. It's great to be feisty and skeptical, but when the show runs on and on, and the task looms daunting and never-ending, the resistance erodes and the depression takes over. That's what a Dark Age is.

But, on this day, a Dark Age has just officially ended. It really has.

How then, to negotiate this historical fact and embrace it? How can we mature with it?

These are the inner questions which we must ask ourselves, again and again.

I shall of course remain wary, and ready to leap into critique mode When and If. But for the present, if only for a day, the liberated mind cries: Peace! Restoration! A saner path has been opened! An end now to suppression! An end to insanity! An end to fascist manipulation!

Better a flawed nation with sincere intent than a false and dangerous empire. History has not ended, as was the Neocon dream. We are still its subjects, and we'd better restore our wisdom from its lessons if we intend on navigating the future. Obama's address touched on this and other issues. Purposeful words they are, and hopefully, not just words.

In short, I would rather now regenerate as a somewhat hopeful naif than remain in the toxic mud puddle of dreary expectations that, when chosen, cement the mind with their fastness.

What We Need Right Now: Neil Hamburger!

2009-01-15T19:54:00.000-08:00

The Upper Lip Perspiration Factor

2009-01-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

Everybody who is anybody remembers one of Tricky Dick's most blatant giveaways: that when he was in the hot seat and lying about something, his upper lip would noticeably perspire.

Well, ever since them days, every self-aggrandizing Republican knows one thing: don't let 'em see your upper lip EVER perspire - not one lil' ol' pore's worth!

Don't miss 'Vanity Fair's latest issue, which features a stinging preliminary oral history of Dubya's Thousand-Year Reich, complete with life-size (and kissable) portraits of all the essential sociopathic egomaniacs in the Bushy cabal. (And not one trace of sweat! I notice though that my good buddy P. Dundas Wolfowhatever's character-laden mug is conspicuously absent . . .)

Some of the players in this oral porn saga are obviously trying to acquit themselves, a la Dougie Feith, but at least they're going on record, confirming what we already know.

Leadership is everything in mass media. VF's editor, Graydon Carter, has long pursued critical and exposing avenues concerning BushCorp. He's no firebrand, but at least he's using his leverage to allow for intelligent discussion. This, from what is supposedly a style/fluffball/glam mag. Contrast that with the supposedly 'thinking' NPR and one has no choice but to surmise that NPR = Nationalist Propaganda Radiation - yet again.

What We Need Right Now: The Back Porch Majority!

2008-12-29T19:53:00.000-08:00

Shoe-beating At The Highest Level

2008-12-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

Fig.1: A new line of fashion footwear...
Fig.2: Say it with shoes: one of Dubya's best portraits, degraded somehow. (image courtesy of the Beeb)

Consider this quote (via BBC) from a Syrian newspaper:

GHAZI AL-DADA IN SYRIA'S TISHRIN

"When it became evident that George Bush, the outgoing US president, is incapable of understanding all that is being said about his rash policies, in all the languages of the world, it was necessary to invent a new language that Bush might understand, and it was the language of shoe-throwing."

The language in this editorial is restrained, quite witty, and really rather reasonable. Bush himself said (after he skillfully dodged the projectiles like a pro): 'I don't know what his (i.e. the shoe-flinging journalist's) beef is.' Thus the incapability of understanding that the US President so blithely advertises. Does he not think that perhaps SOMEONE in the nation he conquered might have a bit of a gripe for his policies in the generic sense, to be displayed by the obviously crude but effective 'language of shoe-throwing' that the journalist enacted? Never mind that beefs can be somewhat generalized. That is, uh, Mr. Bush? Uh, you did some stuff to Iraq. You think you dun good, but uh, a lot of hellish turmoil resulted from your 'well-meaning' invasion and conquering. So I guess we might consider his beef as having something to do with that kind of stuff. Besides, he said his gesture was on behalf of the widows and orphans of Iraq. it was in Arabic, but I think you had a few translators around...

Again, Bush's own words incriminate himself. He called the incident a stunt, made in order to get attention. No doubt, but what about the substance of said stunt? That is, Bush's policies have not exactly gone well for a great many Iraqis (a massive understatement). Thus the attention-getting stunt, a token statement at best, but illustrative of the deep resentment for this imperialist president and his agenda. How strange that he is so unpopular!

Indeed, this shoe-beating was a rather (or 'rawther' as Dubya would say in his Connecti- I mean, transplanted-Texan accent) gentle, even gentlemanly effort. Sort of like the foppish slapping of one's gloves in one's opponent's face as a prelude to a duel. Because the Iraqi journalist could not hope to achieve that close a contact with his chosen adversary, he had to effect it by remote control. Well, perhaps a flying plastic penis would have been more whimsical (as happened in a news conference in Russia recently), but I'm afraid that Iraq's ghastly turmoil really doesn't allow for much whimsy. It's a crushing tragedy, and pretending it doesn't exist is worthy of more than a mere toss of shoes. In the real world, war criminals are duly prosecuted under the rule of law.

Leaders have been bumped off for doing acts of far less consequence than BushCorp's in Iraq. The current occupant of the White House should consider himself blessed that he was on the receiving end of such comparatively lightweight projectiles. A creme pie would have been amusing, but the gravitas of Iraq would have made it a parody. No, it had to be shoes. Standing within Arab culture, even a president has to be subject to an environment much larger than he.

Back in the States, and during the 2004 election, I was privy to a comment made by a neighbor regarding George W. Bush. The neighbor was and is a kindly woman in her 70s, a dedicated churchgoer and volunteer, and a credit to her community. At any rate, she confided in me that her objections to Bush had been sustained at a very high level. So much so that she, a mild-mannered and responsible citizen, could only long for one solution: 'I hope Bush has an accident,' she said. 'A fatal one'. This, from no mafia criminal, or gang member, or drugged out wacko, but a little old lady of sound and sensible mind.

Why would she think such a violent thought? Why throw a pair of shoes at someone? Simple: frustration at the conduct of leaders seeks out solutions that aspire to solve the given problem quickly and permanently. It's a totally natural human reaction. Otherwise we all be sheep.

Basically, our little old lady just wished Bush would go away, or that he had not happened at all. Is that not the same sentiment as a shoe-beating? Both are completely appropriate in the face of such outrageous, egregious and uncivilized policies.

And while we're at it:

http://play.sockandawe.com/

Crude, but most fitting.

According To The Mainstream Media, A Railway Station Is A Railway Station Is A Railway Station

2008-12-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

Fig. 1: Is this 'just' a railway station?

With standardized methods in dumbing down audiences, the mainstream media (MSM) have energetically employed practices that deliberately omit specificity in locations when reporting news stories. In other words, generic terms are usually used instead of specific names when referring to locations of newsmaking events. Apparently, this is an effort to not encumber the audience with too many details. To do so would disorient and dizzy up the average audience member, driving them elsewhere, to other sources, resulting in ratings loss, corporate sponsorship, and ultimately, the possible expiration or reorganization of the news providing organization itself. So the stakes have been made high, but by the MSM itself.

A perfect example of this trend is the recent attacks in Bombay (or Mumbai, for you Shiv Sena fans). In the vast majority of the reports from news organizations, Bombay's gigantic main railway station, the scene of one of the horrendous attacks, is referred to as - simply that: a 'railway station'. Now officially titled Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or CST (also a Shiv Sena accomplishment), though consistently referred to by its original name, Victoria Terminus, or VT, Bombay's premier railway station is one of the busiest in the world, plus it is housed in one of the grandest structures imaginable, and is most beloved by the populace. Yes, it is a creation from colonial times, but it has been wholly Indianized in its character and utility.

Perhaps the varied nomenclature of the station is a bit complicated, but is it too much for news people to figure out? I doubt that Grand Central Station would ever be referred to in the news merely as 'New York's railroad station'. Besides, the Bombay example is only one instance of how the MSM has reduced points on a map or places where events happen as - well, just that: points on a map . . . but without individual identification. This, in an age when pinpoint specificity via digital presentation is not only possible, it is the norm. Nevertheless, the MSM has chosen to neutralize identities, unless it is absolutely necessary to open them up, or unless it's an example in their own back yards.

Not referring to extremely important sites like VT/CST by their names, whatever the variations, seems an intentional strategy by news organizations to limit specific information for the reasons stated above. It's all in the ratings. If they wanted to, they could really help out in reducing geographic illiteracy. Instead, they choose a lower common denominator. Such a practice only decreases general geographic knowledge, as well as recognition skills and the importance of landmarks in everyday life. Plus, particularly for western audiences, it reduces places like Bombay, one of the world's great cities, into an anonymous urbanity without character or soul. There is even a racist aspect. The two luxury hotels, the Taj Mahal Palace and the Oberoi Trident (not 'Trident Oberoi' that many western sources insisted on saying) were referred to with perfect specificity repeatedly, probably because there were international - read: western - persons involved. Whereas the railway station, the presumed domain of the Indian masses, was not given the privilege of proper identity, even though it is vastly more important than the hotels.

This practice is not going away. Indeed, it is intensifying. I am not the only one who will continue to seek my news from other sources than the corporate entity that is the mainstream media.

And Now We Come To The E-Day

2008-10-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

Well, after a long hiatus of busy-busy-busy, what is one to say at the threshold of a new era?

Because, we have to muster the courage to face the fact that, whomever wins on Nov. 4, there's going to be a newness everywhere. If Obama wins, a newness of identity, and the possibilities therein. If the old Bob-Dole-recycled other guy wins, there will be a new coming-to-grips as far as this nation's true fate. That is, the realization will be made that this nation is truly in decline, due to a stagnation of ideas and an institutionalization of selfishness.

With Obama, at least there is the theoretical (and mathematical) probability that things will change, hopefully for the better. The best scenario within this probability may not happen, given the obscene mess he'll be facing on many fronts, but at least the notion of improvement presents itself, and hope may again return as an instinct rather than as a manufactured construct.

McCain represents the retrograde aspect of the decline of the US, but under the vocal premise of ongoing strengths. His recessional approaches to an empire prematurely exhausted due to squandering by the Bush Machine, will not be enlightened enough to revitalize the world-grasping goals of the Neo-cons and their ilk. The banality of McCain and the poverty of depth of Palin - he being a crippled puppet and she being a wind-up doll - represent the full flower of decline of the American hegemony. They are figures in a sunset, who can only attempt to woo a country by their limp and unlovable pronouncements. McCain is plainly dottering, while Palin would be perfect, starring in a two-season sitcom, but no more than that.

Obama may not be lovable, but he stands a good chance to revive the President as Gentleman concept. This is important, as gentlemen and players are better equipped to enact the ruling class' mandate of power much better than the cardboard figures of emotion and opportunism that are McCain/Palin. The sobriety of Obama is vastly preferable to the creaky emotionalism of his opponents. His pragmatism infers that America need not be hegemonic in order to be a force for good in the world. Conversely, talk about outdated, McCain can't even appeal to seniors, as he doesn't want to be one of them, but he can't fit into the younger crowd either, as he hasn't a clue as to how to cater to them or their world-view.

Not surprisingly, Ralph Nader has trenchant things to say about both candidates, and Nader tells it like it is. I think though, that it would be far preferable if Nader applied his skills toward something more do-able than the lost cause of running for president. He is a brilliant mind, and he speaks the truth, but if he can't apply his words in practical ways, he is only speaking to the wind.

I highly respect what George Carlin said about voting (i.e. the pointlessness of it all), but in this, the year 2008, we must at least attempt to recognize and sharpen the points that there are, lest they who would continue to hijack this country, continue to do so without resistance.

So now, hordes of the nation, GO VOTE!

Those Lazy Crackers 'n Beer Days of Summer!

2008-08-18T09:53:00.000-07:00

Fig.1: After awkwardly dreaming of groping Misty May and Kerri Walsh, the President of the United States of America, just another doofus face in the crowd, OK's a North Korean diver's performance. (Image courtesy of the internets.)

Boy, I'm not posting very much here, am I?

Thing is, I'm putting most of my chips in over at that there NPR Check blog because, well, there's so much to comment on!

For the turbo-millions of fans I have let down, I say: sorry! I will endeavor to shape up in future. But check out NPR Check on the side menu. Good, tart stuff there.

NPR's Mixed - Very Mixed - Grille

2008-07-17T08:50:00.000-07:00

I was so pleased with Philip Reeves' nice little unpretentious portrait of New Mumbai on Morning Edition that I sent NPR a cheerful compliment. But you know what? Even though I was indirectly flattering them, they still only responded with their generic reply to hate mail. Go figure! I guess NPR's too lofty to even acknowledge fan mail that is positive but not quite fawning. But come to think of it, maybe they didn't fancy the bit about Inskreep.

(Message follows)

"I'd like to enthusiastically praise Philip Reeves' portrait of Navi (New) Mumbai as intelligent, concise and edifying. In just a few minutes, Reeves succeeded in capturing gigantic concepts with objectivity, balance and pictorial flair. I have not been to Mumbai in some time, but Reeves' economic and substantive coverage brought it all back with quality and style.

In contrast, Steve Inskeep's 'examination' of Karachi was show-offy, belabored, and dare I say, dim-witted.

Thank you for assigning this story to Mr. Reeves. It is refreshing to have someone who really understands South Asia to be covering the region for NPR."

(End Message)

In BIG contrast to Reeves, or even Inskreep, is, well, Gwen Thompkins. I know, I know, I pick on her quite a bit, but this morning I heard the next city to get an NPR invasion was to be Khartoum. 'Oh no,' I thought, 'I hope Gwennie's not there.' Sure enough, she was. I won't dissect that flea-like story with a hatchet, but I have to say, her strenuous efforts to Americanize Africa for delicate NPR listeners are nothing short of offensive. This time she had the bright idea of likening Khartoum to something out of the sitcom 'Green Acres', and it went downhill from there. The people she interviewed were credible enough, but like Inskreep in Karachi, it's her packaging that squanders and strangles any sort of decent journalism out of these pieces. And then she speaks at us with exaggerated affectation as if we're in a kindergarten class and President Bush is there reading a picture book upside down.

Awful.

And finally, Jamie Tarabay's back! Unfortunately, the DC-region air seems to magnify the effect of her speaking: as if she has a mouthful of unswallowed gummy bears, which mangles all aspects of an Aussie accent. Difficult, so difficult to listen to.

One of the many tedious nut and bolt chores of dealing with Enn Pee ARRRRGH!!!

PS:

I humbly offer this retread of a critical mess I made a few weeks ago, (see "Spying Out The Land: NPR Scouts Potential Markets and Opportunities For Their Corporate Masters, And With US Taxpayer Money", below) as a response to Inskreep of Karachi's strolls through that city:

"Now, if Philip Reeves were doing this series (and he has done many fine reports in similar environments), I daresay, we'd be getting a more essential picture of what the series is trying to accomplish. But it wouldn't be juiced up enough or sexed up enough, or sensational enough, plus, it wouldn't lack the perspectives that Inscreep can't even pick up on, because he's so busy motormouthing that he can't be anything but the most superficial of reporters. So Phil, be glad you didn't get slapped with this assignment. Let Inscreep do his dance so we can put it all behind us and move on. Fortunately, much of radio is pretty forgettable, and it slides into obscurity pretty fast."

Wow, you think they took my advice and sent Philip to Bombay? You think NPR might grudgingly consult my very own blog and then appropriate its fabulous ideas?

Note: Many Bombayites still say 'Bombay'. The renaming to 'Mumbai' was largely a regional (Maratha) gesture in order to show cultural independence from New Delhi. It was political, but not so much political correctness. I digress...

Nationalistic Pollution Radiation Can Be Fun!

2008-07-15T08:37:00.000-07:00

A glowing example of NPR wit came prancing out of my weary bedside radio today. In the midst of a purportedly serious public news program, (on the Morning Edition flagship) a bit of fun. Steve Inskreep presented, with that just-under-control glee of his: a session with 'environmentalists' who are 'speed-dating'. Yeah, it was a real 'send-up' all right, and was about as funny as a wet box of Cheerios. Some stuff about tree huggers who drive SUVs, and other ho-ho gags. I don't know, I guess some of we peasants in the audience just don't have the refined sophistication that is required to appreciate the advanced level of 'smart' humor for which NPR is so famous.

Truly, an NPR WTF?? moment.

PS: George Carlin or Richard Pryor or Jon Stewart could have made a masterpiece of satire out of something like this, but NPR entirely lacks the talent required. But really, WTF is something like this even doing on Morn Ed in the first place, except to pander to some slobbery sitcom appeal? So much for NPR's desire to be taken seriously. Yet again.

From One Express To Another

2008-07-10T10:45:00.000-07:00

Fig.1: A coupla Bubbas contemplate the meaning of straight talk (image courtesy of Mytwords)

Did you hear about what happened to John Mc-I-Need-A-Cane's Double Talk Express bus down in the Florida forest country? (See Fig.1 above) Wow, that was quite the party they were having on board. The driver was pretty ripped, from Cougar Cindy's beer. The old man, who can hardly handle his sippin likker any more, had been babbling and cracking Iranian cigarette jokes as the bus careened into a thicket of trees after a wild journey overland. SWAT teams moved in and the Jaws of Life did their thing. Our future president was rushed to the nearest shack, where a Seminole witch doctor tried to sober the old guy up with coral snake testicle tea. Unfortunately, he found that the Senator was just too dizzied up by his usual regime of prescription drugs to respond to treatment, and discharged him. The bedraggled party then invaded an adjacent village, hot-wired a '69 Econoline van - now dubbed the Cheap Talk Express - and resumed campaigning.

(I meant this as a joke...)

A Reason To Vote For McCain?

2008-06-12T09:53:00.000-07:00

Fig.1: I didn't know he went for stuff like this

To McC, the only green he knows are Arizonan golf courses kept fresh by high-priority water from the trickle of the once-mighty Colorado River.

A President's Elegy: Farewell! Farewell To Thee, Europa!

2008-06-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

Fig. 1: A President's Gentle Threat

Pres. George Skwalker Bush is Grand Touring in the Europeans, taking the waters in what promises to be a brilliant Season.

Part of BushCorp's post-Soviet strategy has been to exploit the 'nutcracker nations' - those between Russia and 'Old' Europe - i.e. Slovenia, Czech Rep., Poland, not only driving a wedge to prevent more European hegemony, but to fiddle with things like missile sites and CIA prisons. BushCorp, treating them like Central American nations, baits and switches. I am very fond of these 'nutcracker' nations, and I don't want to see them getting screwed over. For example, Bush has bribed his way into Lithuania: I saw a plaque in the square of Vilnius, the capital, which commemorates Dubya for having made some stupid speech there. It didn't honor the USA as a nation, just Bush as a visitor, an agent. Of course, that's how BushCorp operates: exploiting the US for their own interests. Fortunately, Lithuania is now in the EU.

Meanwhile, in the fastness of Windsor Caste, an unamused Queen awaits.

Today's Word

2008-06-09T09:14:00.000-07:00

Fig.1: See what I mean? (Image from Brightcove.tv)

To borrow from Colbert, The Word today is:

Vomit

I think BushCorp chose Crocker to be their front man because of that 'I Look Like I'm Going To Vomit Any Moment' expression he always wears. Anyone who looks like they're going to vomit any moment couldn't possibly be telling lies. When someone vomits, they're not lying, are they? If someone is in the process of vomiting or has just vomited, they can't say, 'I didn't vomit just now'. He or she'd be called a liar.

Vomit is truth.

It's official: Ryan Crocker looks like he's going to vomit all the time, big time. Can you imagine this guy conceiving actual policy and then ramming it through? No, he takes orders. That's what he does.

So, by APPEARING like he's going to vomit, Crocker projects his credibility. Plus, the trembly voice and slightly Milquetoast personality are huge assets. The whole package is perfect for all this nasty skulduggery of masking imperialistic strategy in the Eastern Middle East. So that's the word: Vomit.
(Thanks, Stephen)

Spying Out The Land: NPR Scouts Potential Markets and Opportunities For Their Corporate Masters, And With US Taxpayer Money

2008-06-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

NPR is doing a series on big cities. You know, ones that US investors don't know anything about. Places where they can get their hooks in, in order to keep their 'edge' in the global economy, before China et al get there first. Ever the servant of the powerful and Bush-ish corporate mechanism that has made them flourish, NPR has obviously been obliged to publicize heretofore underknown places in the world, where the pickins' might be pretty promising in order to make a killing. First stop: Steve Inskeep of 'Morning Edition' perches in Karachi, Pakistan. Am I suspicious? Damn right.

After some radio listening . . .

I'm actually sampling a bit of Inscreep's Karachi findings, and getting a bitter kick out of his 'Renee, you won't believe how they DO things over here!!' approach. Lots to dissect, but I won't bother except to say that he profiles the corruption and the mafia nature of Karachi's administration as if it only applied to Karachi. Funny, everything he showed as dysfunctional in Karachi has been known to crop up in many, many American cities. Of course, when NPR discovers stuff for the first time, that means that it didn't exist before NPR discovered it.

And then . . .

One of the covers for the mission: to expose the violent corruption and illegal land and contracting deals going on in the Pakistani metropolis. A courageous local lawyer has already announced that her city is run by creeps and the mafia, but NPR gets to drill this fact in and take credit for discovering it. I'm so happy that, by way of doing 'This Old House' and examining some of these corrupt building sites in Karachi, Inscreep is finally discovering that yes, poverty does still exist, but just outside the rim of his privileged, jet-set, elitist world. It was a huge blow to him, and it really bummed him out. Bouncy Renee's keeping his spirits up though, because when he comes back to DC, he'll be light years away from all that nasty stuff that goes on in bad old, mad old Karachi.

Here's a guy who gains access to the Mayor of Karachi, then squanders the opportunity by reducing his statements to a couple of soundbytes, leaving the mayor as a one-dimensional nobody, and then he wraps things up by making some disapproving comments about a hapless group of individuals who are, yes, poverty-stricken. Welcome to the real world, Stevie. And when I say world, I mean it's a world-wide condition.

I pray that the pavements of Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Calcutta, Rangoon, Bangkok, Jakarta, Hanoi, and the South Bronx will not be darkened by this Inscreepy entity. He and NPR are all WRONG for this kind of reporting. Their method is like picking at scabs via robotic control while sitting back in an isolated, germ-free environment, pontificating in 'Entertainment Tonight' terms about how screwed up everything is (while trying to sound terribly intelligent about it all, of course).

Now, if Philip Reeves were doing this series (and he has done many fine reports in similar environments), I daresay, we'd be getting a more essential picture of what the series is trying to accomplish. But it wouldn't be juiced up enough or sexed up enough, or sensational enough, plus, it wouldn't lack the perspectives that Inscreep can't even pick up on, because he's so busy motormouthing that he can't be anything but the most superficial of reporters. So Phil, be glad you didn't get slapped with this assignment. Let Inscreep do his dance so we can put it all behind us and move on. Fortunately, much of radio is pretty forgettable, and it slides into obscurity pretty fast.

My point of this caterwauling? Pots love to call kettles black, but the doofus entity that is NPR doesn't seem to know what that means.

A Diversion: What If I Were To NOT Turn Off NPR? Would It Wreck My Day?

2008-05-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

Buoyed by the spirit of the late Utah Phillips, who wrote the wonderful 'The Talking NPR Blues':

http://www.utahphillips.org/talkingnprblues.html

I thought I'd add the following. Bit under the weather today, so took day off. Experiment: let NPR roll and see if it really wrecks my day (stupid, but a distraction). Well, it didn't, really, but I got to hear 'Day to Day' for the first time. It reminded me of 'Entertainment Tonight', but even fluffier, under the premise of everyone having their NPR thinking caps on. 'Sex and the City' was all the rage. Fashion talk about shoes. There was some serious stuff, but don't remember. Earlier, Morning Edition's more of carnival than ever. No disrespect to Harvey Korman, but his passing got more airtime than Arthur C. Clarke, it seems, and with unremarkable soundbytes to boot. In their storytime segment, I was touched by the poignancy of a woman who told of the death of her son, but then realized that the exploitation of her grief was yet another NPR slimeball stunt: to pepper their creamy show with 'serious' stuff, just to remind us critics that NPR is still a 'serious' operation. Sleazebags!

Also, NPR's really, really getting its rusty hooks into Asia. They just discovered it, you know. Recently, Tom Ashbrook of 'On Point' did what I thought was a decent series on contemporary China, from Shanghai. Not to be outdone, we now have Inscreep mucking about in Karachi (and he can't decide what the city's actual population is), probably for purposes of reconnaissance for corporate interests who want 'in' to another burgeoning market. I'm amused that NPR has finally gotten around to acknowledging the existence of this major city, but I'm horrified at the prospect of hearing their interpretation of it, so I'd damn well better skip the upcoming series. I know Inscreep wants to get some tough on-the-road reportage to bump up his street cred, but the hell if I want to be his enabler.

And this Robert Smith, who's been subbing for Inscreep (and outdoing him in motormouth capabilities - the only reason he got the gig, I'll bet), well, he's a certifiable idiot, giggling and joking his way through the show like he's Howie Mandel or some other godawful 'host'.

And our - I mean NPR's - very own spoiled child in Russia, Grigory Feifer, delivers a patently awful bit of gibberish with snotty-voiced disapproval, from Georgia. It's about their separatist problem, but you'd never know, as Grig is just so preoccupied with how stupid things are in that part of the world - as if it were all explainable because Stalin was from there (Gori, actually).

Is there no one at NPR, in listening to these winners, who thinks, 'these guys really suck'? Probably not, as they almost ALL suck!

Then, a lot more 'Sex and the City' stuff, natch.

Finally, Mikey Sullivan's still on the Burma case, and the metallic drone of his boring voice got emotional yet again, as he just can't figure out why the paranoid ruling junta won't let in aid workers and supplies. FYI, Sullivan: we're dealing with a PARANOID RULING JUNTA here. Understand that. They're insane. That's a given. Burma has been ruled by insane persons since 1962. But here's one reason why they're kind of touchy: (no, I'm NOT defending them, pal) the junta has always thought that the western powers are out to overthrow them. They could be right. There's a little thing called Iraq going on just across the way. Afghanistan, too. Oh, and to them, Iran's next. Maybe even Pakistan. India won't defend 'em, and China's got its hands kind of full right now. They're stupid, but they aren't that stupid. Besides, to them, those rural people out in the Irrawaddy delta are entirely disposable. Peasant trash. There's a class system and many racial issues in the Union of Burma. (Shades of Katrina, maybe? You think?) Anyway, all the junta cares about is that there are American warships on their threshold. That's making them MORE paranoid. I saw an email from an Army Corps of Engineers source that said the warships were waiting for the opportunity so that "our armed forces could land" (actual wording). What sort of signal does that send? Americans are often No. 1. That includes No. 1 in the blundering department, too.

And finally, I might add, up the Bay of Bengal a ways, Bangladesh endures a regular regime of disastrous cyclones, most of which end up as footnotes in the western press, and thousands of people regularly perish. True, Bangladesh is not ruled by a junta per se, but that doesn't make their sufferings any less. A cyclone is a cyclone. Burma has considerable resources, including oil. Bangladesh only has people. You better believe the west wants into Burma. An Axis of Evil candidate, ripe for regime change? A neocon dream. OF COURSE Aung San Suu Kyi should be freed and allowed to form a government, but that isn't the point of this argument.

So, did NPR ruin my day? I don't know, but it made me spew quite a bit. Sorry for the length.

Later...

On the mend already! And it started when I flipped the 'off' switch. No kidding. That's why I call it National Pollution Radiation. I guess my experiment proved something.

So, here goes:

HEAR YE, PEOPLES OF AMERICA! CEASE LISTENING TO NPR, AND YOUR HEALING WILL BEGIN IMMEDIATELY!

Man, I never thought I'd be saying that, but it sure feels good.

No Sir, I Do Not Care Much For That Robert Siegel Fellow, Not Very Much At All

2008-05-18T10:01:00.000-07:00

I've both (mildly) praised and critiqued NPR's China quake coverage, but I have to say in all seriousness, I find Blob Siegel's reports most distasteful. I can see why someone stuck him into the host slot (to frustrate and torment us!), rather than having him do field work, because he's absolutely the wrong type of person to be covering something like an earthquake. It's as if he's strolling through a stamp collection fair or something, making urbane little comments peppered with his stylish 'um's and 'er's and other pause-fillers, trying to be suave.

His attempts at sympathy or empathy aren't very believable, either. Not that a reporter should be troweling on the emotions or anything. I've been hearing very good objective reports from BBC World Service, delivered without any personal baggage. On the receiving end back in DC, the Simonizer's putting on his respectful choked-up voice, while in old Chengdu, the unflappable Blob sounds like he's just wrapping up another brilliant edition of All Things Considered, and having a swell time doing it. His sign off had 'I'm doing just fine, thank you' written all over it. The story is tragic enough without us having to put up with such annoyances.

To me Siegel's the proverbial puffy guy in the corner at the local Starbuck's, pontificating to a small coterie of dumbos, regaling them with self-satisfied slop. And the dumbos? They think he's just great! So smart, so witty, so refined - someone to trust and to be charmed by, even as he speaks of a catastrophe. At the very most, Siegel should host some hoity-toity chatshow about antiques or something, for a equally tiny audience to cringe at.

Burma: In Need Of Understanding

2008-05-14T08:53:00.000-07:00

I wish someone other than Michael Sullivan was reporting from Burma right now. I don't trust his mechanical statements. It's too bad that Doualy Xaykaothao isn't there. She's a much more perceptive and understanding reporter, but I'm sure Big Mike got the gig for a wide variety of reasons. (Maybe because he's a guy. Never mind that for centuries in Burmese society, women have had nearly equal status as men.)

I've said this before, but I have a pet peeve about the media choosing 'Myanmar' or 'Burma'. The US and other governments, as well as the BBC have wisely stuck with 'Burma', while the rest of the media, fearful that they'll be accused of cultural imperialism or something, goes with the name chosen by an utterly corrupt and paranoid military junta. To me, this is similar to the Pol Pot regime's changing 'Cambodia' to 'Kampuchea'. Both 'Myanmar' and 'Kampuchea' are historically valid names, but it is their appropriation by repressive governments that makes the usage spurious. Besides, western media people don't even agree on how to pronounce 'Myanmar'. Is it 'MEE-anmar', 'M-YANmar', or some other poppycock? Pronounced correctly, 'Burma' and 'Myanmar' sound closely alike, thus the original anglicizing of the name.

When they start calling China Chung guo, India Bharat, Greece Hellas, and Italy Italia, then maybe I'll take them seriously in their attempts at accuracy. Just stick with Burma, folks. Believe it or not, it's the politically correct thing to do.

As for the paranoia of the Burmese junta, the only bit of background that I've heard on NPR as to WHY they're so paranoid has been from Doualy Xaykaothao, who took the time in one of her reports to investigate the matter (i.e. the junta is paranoid about western attempts to overthrow their regime, etc.).

Russia Is Just SO RIPE For US To Return To The Cold War - Indeed, A COLDER War - So What Are We Waiting For??

2008-05-07T08:50:00.001-07:00

PART 1

It's now official: NPR longs for a return to a cold war with Russia. I heard a segment this morning from Grigory 'Rasputin' Feifer, scoffing and sneering his way through lousy coverage of Russia's new president, whom he paints as a sort of 'false Dmitri'. Know ye all that Feifer of NPR DISAPPROVES of all the things going on in Russia today. And because he's giving us the green light to acknowledge that Russia is such a screwed up place, it'll be OK if we scoff and sneer about Russia too, just like those smart NPR guys.

So, here's the truth about Russia, proclaimed by this NPR reporter. Resolved: Russia is a third world country, ruled by a Stalinist dictator named Putin, with a new puppet president named Medvedev.

If these aren't good enough reasons to get a cold war going, I don't know what are.

Never mind that this Harvard-educated Moscow-dwelling dude (Feifer) apparently knows very little about Russian history and that authoritarian rule in Russia is a given, and any understanding of its subsequent development as a nation must be predicated on that single notion. But no, NPR has to 'Americanize' every aspect of their non-objective reporting, just like their mafia overlords want them to do.

I'd swear that Murdoch secretly bought NPR years ago.

PART 2

AND... this morning, the tireless cold warriors at NPR aren't gonna let up one iota on the eternal war against the commies.

Tom 'Perfectly-Sane-Voiced' Gjelten keeps on reminding us what a gulag Cuba is. He profiles a repressed Cuban writer, and that's fine, but it comes off as an old-time anti-Cuba tract, couched in gentlest Gjelten terms. Wearily then, do I mention that any grown-up adult type person knows that Cuba is such a mixed bag of often contradictory issues that it is impossible to make sweeping statements about it, which our man Tom (and so many others) is so hot to do. But of course, if you happen to be in with the Florida mafia, you're not interested in 'contradictory issues.'. Tom goes to great lengths in describing the repression, but I notice that, here he is, freely broadcasting from Cuba, telling the world about this writer's situation, and Raul Castro didn't lift a finger to stop him or censor his report. There's something missing in there somewhere.

And then, right after that, our hand-picked man in Russia, Grigory 'Douglas?' Feifer (sorry, I got him confused with Feith for a second), delivers a 'postcard' from darkest Siberia. Poor orphan Greg tells us all about his persecution as an American in some small town because he missed his flight. Oh, but how he suffered! The cold, the lack of entertainment, and things were so expensive! And boy, there was so much to sneer at and mock! A gold mine really, for a dandy NPR filler, to prove how disgusting Russia and the Russians are, and that it's all Putin's fault. Well, he doesn't say that directly, but in his soul, I know he feels it! Poor Greg, lost in podunk Siberia, all dressed up and nowhere to go. He doesn't think people are very 'friendly' there. Why, they can't treat a powerful and influential and totally mucking smart and savvy NPR reporter that way! He'll show them - he'll file a report excoriating small town Siberia, and the NPR folks listening will be SO glad they're in America. You dodged a bullet, Greg. Come home!

Funny, I've experienced similar things in America's 'heartland'...

Inadvertently though, Greg's 'postcard' has delivered us a precious example of the ideal NPR staffer/ NPR target audience: touchy, snotty, entitled, self-absorbed, and judgmental via NPR indoctrination. Greg makes no bones about hating Putin, but I imagine that those people in that small town in Siberia were relieved to see him off on the plane that finally did come. Amerikanski, go home!

PART 3

Greg's grumpy Russian adventures continue. This morning he was in Red Square, listening to missiles rumbling over the cobblestones, apparently for the first time since Soviet days. Greg wants you to know that he disapproves of such shenanigans, and he says so in his best nasally, haughty style. So come on NPRepublicans! Get angry! Greg can't lead the charge all by himself into the Colder War, you know. Down with Putinism! If the US gets going NOW (heeding Greg's advanced warnings), we'll be greeted on those same cobblestones with candies and flowers.

So, in order to outdo the old Cold War with a slam-bang moniker folks'll come to swear by, I dub this new, grander, and more high tech (and asymmetrical, too!) war THE COLDER WAR, because, heck, it's COLD out there! Remember, you saw it here first.

A Daring Proposal For NPR

2008-04-29T09:33:00.000-07:00

When daring to dip into NPR I find it impossible not to become a self-appointed Style Critic, not for my own amusement, but because the general persona of NPR is so damn intrusive and obnoxious.

(When I listen to BBC, which isn't what it used to be, but is still light years ahead of NPR, I tend to listen to WHAT they are saying instead of HOW they are saying it - a process that strikes me as perfectly appropriate, and is what radio should be.)

So, a question: has anybody else made note that the delivery of both Renaay and Inscreep on Morning Edition has become EVEN MORE affected? It's as if they want us to be amazed at everything they say - every sentence has an exclamation point after it. It's like, 'you've just not gonna believe what I'm about to tell you', - that kind of thing. I know, it's all obviously part of the grand strategy to get America's young people on board and NPR-ize them while the iron is hot. It certainly worked for Fox, while CNN (which has their own 'fair and balanced' issues) was left in the dust. I can just imagine that Roger Ailes is a 'silent consultant' to NPR.

Also, has anyone checked out Auntie Liane's new 'Sunday Soapbox' (really condi-scending title, huh?) bloggishness on Weakend Edition Sundae? She can sound very pouty on the air sometimes, and she sounded VERY pouty when she was talking about the new blog. Perhaps she anticipates a shitstorm of criticism from listeners who would have the audacity to question NPR's perfection.

I'll end with a dare: hey, someone at NPR, are you listening? Why don't you assign one of your reporters to review the cogent blog: NPR Check? (Link at side.) Why can't someone like John McChesney or Daniel Zwerdling do a story on it?

Cat got your tongue? I'm not surprised. The timidity of NPR is a dead giveaway for their role as a mouthpiece for corporate interests, plus it exhibits a BushCorp-like contempt for the blog culture.

Sizing-Up Pint-Sized NPR

2008-04-26T22:12:00.000-07:00

For anyone still believing ANYTHING the Bush Administration might be 'announcing' these days, I would refer you to NPR News, as they and their crack team are ready to swallow any ejaculation BushCorp might chance to spew from any orifice of humiliation. Because, the mighty folk of BushCorp always know that the good grovelers at NPR will always line up at the slop trough to take the leavings and the droppings left as tantalizing bait. Because they know that NPR is just stupid enough to snort up said droppings in order to show them off as trophies, as if they're breaking new ground, or something. Little do they know that BushCorp surely rolls their eyes and scoffs behind their backs at the thing that is NPR. Because, if they did the same thing with those faith-based outfits that thought BushCorp would HELP them (i.e. mock them in their absence), why wouldn't NPR be mocked in their absence, as well? It would take a mucking thesis to explain what I'm trying to say properly, but hopefully, you'll know what I mean.

NPR no doubt prides itself on being 'savvy', but how come they usually end up being the stupidest dumbshits on the block? Can they not conceive of the fact that they might be taken for a ride on a REGULAR basis? If I'm sitting out here in, say, Weeping Water, Nebraska, figuring this stuff out, how come these things evade the Beltway vets of NPR? Huh? Why? - because they're STUPID, and they've lost their way, long ago, if they even WERE on the right track. The rantings of a dissatisfied listener? Hardly. It doesn't take too much sophistication to figure out what a bozo operation NPR is. Just scan this blog to consider their record of disgrace and worthlessness. Tune in elsewhere!

And considering some of the latest Nepali developments:

Well, all I have to say is that I've been to Kathmandu and I have grave doubts as to whether many of these NPR reporters are actually in touch with many of the places they are supposedly reporting from. Why, even a Fox News reporter can bring more life into a given locale than these supposedly 'intelligent' but boring NPR hacks can. They can spin suppositions for their sponsors and their prospective audience, but THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO REPORT STORIES because they are so preoccupied with their spin assignments and how they're going to 'creatively write' their assignment, so they're unable to objectively observe and communicate. You know, like reporters are supposed to do. They think they're (a right wing) Joseph Conrad instead of what they should be: a relatively anonymous conveyer of news.

I might add, it was a member of the royal Nepalese household who bumped off most of the royal family. Their genes are deleterious. Move on to a republic, despite it being branded as 'Maoist'. What does 'Maoist' actually mean any more, anyway? Perhaps a movement that selects a name from a neighboring country to imply CHANGE? Keep in mind, in China, the official line goes something like: 'Mao was 30% right and 70% wrong’; however, from the Nepalese side, Mao is a figure who actually made change happen, and it has lasted. But Mao was a commie, wasn't he? Americans have to realize what a mixed bag events in history are. I doubt if anyone at NPR could explain that very fact with anything less than a smirk. For this and so many other reasons, I cannot bring myself to forgive NPR for the damage they've caused. Rather like the Bush Administration (ALL of 'em!)

Uh, Uh, Uh, Uh, Um, Uh, Uh, Uh - Uh, Um

2008-04-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

Fig.1 Do NOT adjust your monitor! This is an actual, un-retouched photo of Dave 'n Ry, showing the appalling effects of Green Zone Blood-On-One's-Hands Malaise, which has all sorts of awful symptoms, the least of which are these horrible blood-warts. Notice how Ry's actual hands apear bloodless! 'Tis the deception of the Malaise - one of its most insidious qualities! Thus, BEWARE OF THESE PEOPLE!!

I wish I could say something - anything at all - about the Field Marshall Petraeus/Sidekick Ry Crock Show, which just wrapped up...

Ah! I thought of something: Ry said 'uh, uh, uh, um, uh, uh' a LOT. Nervous, perhaps?

The September go-round was much more fun. I don't think anyone's even going to revise or revive the 'Leave Gen. Petraeus Alone' parody this time. Pity.

It's a bleak, bleak house we've inherited, folks...

When I Grow Up, I Wanna Be A Critic Of Campaign Ads! Really, I Do!

2008-04-09T17:24:00.000-07:00

Boy, I just heard a segment on NPR's 'All Thinktanks Considered' where Mee-chele Norris and some doofus named Kenny Goldstein 'reviewed' new ads put out by the Obama and Clinton campaigns in PA. I think 'disdainful' is perhaps an adequate term to describe their sophisticated picking and poking at these ads, as if they were rotting caviar samples on burlap crackers, or something worse. Their disapproval reached toffee-nosed proportions, because, heavens above, there just wasn't anything at all that these two seasoned individuals could find of value in those darn ads. No 'information' or anything! So, there was plenty of fussin' and snortin' over such media nonsense.

In one simple sentence, these wiseapples could have covered their flat asses at least by saying something like, 'In the campaign ad world, it's a cynical biz, so all sorts of wacky things are tried..' Or something to bring us back to objectivity, rather than leaving us with the obvious conclusion that these dilettantes have it out for both the Dem candidates.

Just a little bit of snottiness leaked through poor Mee-chele's usual solemnity, but it was delivered with just a dash of smoky seductiveness. Snotty can be sexy!

Narcissist Priggish Radio at its best.

I'm sending NPR a bill for the necessary steam-cleaning of the vomit spray that my pet hyena made when he heard this tidy little segment.

Douglas Feith Is A Contemptable Bastard, BUT, He's Out There Slugging While His Fellow Neocons Tremble In Their Protective Privacy

2008-04-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

NPR, in order to form a more perfect bond between its corporate and military/industrial patrons and its needy audience, remarkably offered up an interview with the worthy Douglas Feith, former Undercover Sec. of War, just in time for his tell-it-like-it-was/cover-his-ass-NOW memoir to be laid before the public by Rupert Murdoch, via his HarperCollins hack-house.

You almost have to give Feith credit for being audacious enough to step up to the media circuit (in order to sell a committee-written 'memoir') and doing damage control before other Neocons beat him to it. Feith is one of the most perfect examples of how this country has been overtaken with deeply, deeply flawed and mediocre personalities, who have been allowed to run the show. Sort of like what happened to Germany in the 1930s.

But that's what psychopaths are good at: spreading their own appalling delusions. If I were in his neighborhood, I'd be making a citizen's arrest of this hideous excuse of a person.

As for NPR, they're just as complicit. They're so tied into the book-selling racket, it's just a case of one hand washing the other.

One of the many reasons to weep for this country, and what it could have been...

Part 2 was just as much a vacuous waste of time as Part 1 was. I got a huge kick out of Inscreep's 'impatient' approach, as if he's the righteous one standing up to the much-hated Feith. And the trading of gobbledegook between them, like sharing the same foul wad of bubblegum, was DC-Speak at its finest: Luntzian legalisms aplenty. That kind of talk, with its ersatz terms and its obfuscation, is a key factor in the hijacking of the nation by the few and its ruination for the many.

Repeat After Me: Juice Is Sexy, Juice Is Sexy

2008-03-31T10:54:00.000-07:00

Dabbling with NPR is a hazardous business, so I often try to keep things superficial, otherwise grim rage becomes dominant. So, to keep things light and fluffy, I frequently notice form rather than content (as content is usually a lost cause). I tend to notice HOW things are said and not necessarily WHAT things are said. I know, it's a perverted form of amusement, but I swear, I don't put as much time or effort into this as it sounds.

Well, it seems that lately, many of the NPR lifers have been told to juice up their manner of speaking. You know, to get all emotional and affected in order to bring 'interest' to a segment on, say, the Fed's strategy for regulating title insurance restrictions on two-year guarantee loans made on leap-year days, or whatever. NPR wants to retain its 'serious' reputation, but with a sexier guise, so as to keep the SUV-ers transfixed with 'driveway moments', before hauling ass in the Mall.

People like Inscreep and Renee de la Mon-tayyne perform a whole routine to keep our attention, feigning amazement, speaking in 'valley' cadences, and general motormouth tricks of the cheapest kind. Most of the 'experts' they interview go along with their act, but when someone like Helen Mirren shows up, it doesn't take much to expose how ditzy/dopey (or if you prefer, dopey/ditzy) Renee comes off as, and Ms Mirren was the model of understatement and kindness.

Anyway, there's a BushCorp/Condi quality to this business that grates and gets in the way of what information radio is supposed to be about: access to said information.
To me this increased affectation junk is all just bad acting (in a media source that should confine acting, bad or otherwise, to feature shows), and it is representative of the what the NPR powers that be want in order to boost ratings, in order to satisfy corporate sponsor expectations (duh, just like in commercial radio, ya think??).

Conversely, I heard a segment this morn from our old reliable Parisian gamine, Eleanor B.(eardsley) of Aquitaine, that gave me a start. In her little piece there was practically NO affectation - none of her bizarre misfires of delivery - just flat phrases. No champagne bubbles or boulevardier fun. Nothing. Eleanor! Are you ill? Tired? Or did you get a talking to: to knock off the cutesy crap? Sadly, without her gimmick, EB is just a bore, enough to make you snap off the radio and head on in to Macy's.

The Definition of a Defining Moment

2008-03-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

I can't imagine a more worthless source for truthful information about Iraq than Nonfunctioning Public Radio. Fox News is worse of course (if not synonymous), but at least you know where they stand. NPR attempts to play the game of 'safe' cleverness, so that they'll be taken seriously. Boy, how they crave the prestige.

And what the hell is with this 'defining moment' crap? OK, it's just another Luntzy product from BushCorp. But why would any thinking person take such a vague statement seriously? Just the fact that the media repeats such a banal pronouncement with a straight face is enough to invalidate any news source's credibility. And now, with NPR's new gals (Dina+Lourdes) delivering steady-voiced updates about the New Iraq from Bombproof Vault #345, deep beneath the billion dollar US Embassy, and with a 'less emotional' and fully-clothed Annie G. to guide them, their team's putting the propaganda back into NPR with a capital 'P'.

(NOTE: I think it was Susan Steeammberg who made it clear though, that Our Lady of Lourdes had indeed been 'on the streets of Baghdad' or somewhere or other, just so Lourdes’ statement that those streets were deserted could be taken as a sort of eyewitness fact. I found it interesting that the anchor in DC would make a statement that the reporter on the scene (or in the general region) should be making. Hell, I could make the same statement just by using Google Earth...)

NPR should just stick to doing feature shows and leave the hard edge reporting to other, more independent agencies. I don’t care if this was an extremely liberal administration and NPR was spinning things to the left all the time. The truth is the truth, and NPR is in the thrall of non-truth and truthiness. They aren’t valid enough to do the job, and they’ve proven it, time and again.

The Splurge Before The Flood

2008-03-20T08:45:00.001-07:00

I'm finally hearing some references in the media that, yes indeed, since the Surge, there has been a significant gap in on-the-ground Iraq coverage. Uh, I noticed that in the first weeks, folks. No wonder Winter Soldier testimonies are being repressed. Things are shitty in Iraq and everyone knows it, but won't say so because everybody's waiting to see what Bush does while he still has a chance. Fasten your seatbelts: Admiral Fallon's out, Spitzer's no longer in the way to thwart bank robber Bernanke, and there's still 8 gruesome months to pull some nasty surprises out of the sewer.

Check out Greg Palast's report on the Spitzer/Bernanke caper:
http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

Meanwhile, the Neocons, quiet and industrious of late, are futzing with a majestic playbook of wetdream dimensions (which is probably the only sex they ever get: self-inflicted). Boxes of toxic bon bons are circulating amongst them, containing the following: 1) Greenlighting imminent for Operation Take Back Iran. A no-brainer. 2) Full speed ahead in foundation work on Operation Take Back China - via covert infiltration from the Afghan/Pak corridor, which will set the west of China ablaze, spreading to the South China Sea; thus, Taipei is poised to return in triumph to the Forbidden City.

OHMIGAWD! Brilliant, brilliant, Field Marshal Perle!

OK, doughty Neocons, wash-up now! Nighty-night!

The Impatience of the Chattering Classes

2008-03-19T09:19:00.000-07:00

This morning on that show they sensibly call 'Morning Edition', I heard relentlessly upbeat Renee interview an Iraqi fellow in Baghdad who works for NPR, describing life in the city 5 years after the invasion. I got the sense that he wanted to gush with all the bloody details, but knowing NPR as he no doubt does, and knowing of their hi-tech editing skills, he delivered a pretty much G-rated rundown. Toward the end he was sufficiently warmed up to start gushing, but that's when the editing no doubt kicked in. When he mentioned a detail regarding a tiny improvement of some kind, Renee responded with something like: 'Well, then things are just a LITTLE better, aren't they?' As if, 'What have you REALLY got to whine about, you poor thing? Raw, untreated sewage is no longer drying in the street. Can't you just be happy with that?', and it was delivered with all the slightly bemused impatience of a Bev Hills soccer mom who's tut-tutting her Filipina nanny for being five minutes late so that she can rush off to the mall.

I don't need this crap. I want my news delivered soberly and without all this 'magazine' approach. I know this is 'NPR Critique 101' stuff, but I'm getting demoralized again.

I'd really like to see how Renee would handle her trips to the mall if LA were being bombed daily and occupied by invading troops. I know, it's a banal comparison (warfare of a different kind exists in LA, don't we know), but her ditziness, so willingly and proudly displayed, is wholly representative of her type and class.

Because of their increasing exclusivity of audience targeting, NPR should be banished to the wilderness of satellite radio, where it can atrophy and thus expire. Even Murdoch wouldn't bother with that.

At NPR, The Hits Just Keep On Coming . . .

2008-03-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

If anyone was able to slog through two hours of prizewinning fussbudget Ari Shapiro's drainpipe voice on Sunday, they would have to conclude that this guy has taken it upon himself to be an apologist for the US 're-invention' of Iraq. Substituting for Auntie Liane, Amazing Ari proves that he's pretty darn diverse. Why, he's all over the map, going to plays, bopping over to Baghdad, and hell, doin' the Sunday breakfast gig as easily as gossiping up on the Hill. Yes, Ari's got the makins' of an NPR superstar. But that voice! That awful, awful, NPRepugnant voice! Can't the engineers de-tweak it so that he doesn't sound like he's talking through a 89-cent crystal-set mike? And that talking! Jabber-jabber-jabber! He almost beats out Inscreep in the speaking-faster-than-he-can-
think department. Oh, but Ari's far more brilliant, isn't he? Thus, the haughty confidence. That sickening confidence that got him busted for his trademark snottiness-that-passes-for-
journalism that FAIR pointed out recently. Can a Dan Schorr prize be revoked?
I'm happy to announce though, that I didn't suffer through all two hours of Ari's spring fling garden party. I couldn't do that to my dog, who looked at me as if, 'you are one sick puppy, man!'
After Ari's chummy little giggle with Nina the T, my dog threatened to lift his leg over the radio. A walk with him in the non-NPR fresh air cured everything.

OK, OK, one more thing: again, again, again, I just have to carp about that troublesome Eleanor Beardsley person, who's been popping up disturbingly often recently, despite some other more normalish reporter covering things France-ish.
E.B. sounds like some busted up plastic doll (that still thinks it's cute) to be found in a yard sale's 'FREE' bin, with a pull string that recites goofy lines about French people in a wobbly voice that doesn't know what notes to hit.
Of course, since she's describing the antics of those wacky Frenchies, what better than Ellie Bea to deliver their news with clownish dreariness? 'Thiszis Ellleneknyorr Beeaerdleah en Paaareeass...' (Did that transliteration really work?)

You know, if some of these NPR-oids really had style and class, like distinctive voices such as Katherine Hepburn or even Jimmy Breslin, it would be one thing, but NPR gets these not-even-ready-for-hammy-acting types, and their 'creative' journalism sucks, too. We as a public deserve much, much better, don't we? Of course, I blame NPR management for letting this bozo patrol get out on the air, but when it's stacked with BushCorp flunkies, there's no accounting for taste.

OK, pretty superficial stuff to complain about, but I ask you, where the hell does NPR GET all this lousy, lousy - really lousy - on-air 'talent'? Probably from the offspring of CEOs, and other power people in bed with NPR who have journalistic stars in their eyes... or whatever. In Britain, 'public' schools are really the very private, elitist establishments that take care of their own. National 'Public' Radio is actually a similarly elitist (well, middle-to-upper class) outfit that only cares about itself. Thus, my battle cry: Rupert - take what is rightfully yours: NPR!!

Randoms: Q: What Does 'NPR' Really Stand For? A: Well, All Sorts of Funny Things!

2008-02-29T16:57:00.000-08:00

I just heard a puke-making interview in which Blob Siegel bids a fond farewell to Nicholas 'Nick' Burns, Undersecretary of State for Condescension, after a distinguished career. It's a doily-delicate affair, as one prig to another.

Do people like Burns actually make any difference? It makes one wonder what such a person really thinks they DID all those years of diplo 'service', because he offers no explanation of his role in the current, deliberately constipated mess in foreign affairs today, perpetuated by the worthless Condi & Co. I guess Nick's just too modest a guy to take any credit for it. Oh, he talks about the need to 'repair shaken bridges' or sumpthin'.

Blob let him down nice and easy at the end, via a gently whimsical Red Sox parachute. (Nick's a fan!) Diplomats and broadcasters are ever so civilized, aren't they?

A Bosnian friend of mine still marvels over how middle-class oriented NPR is.

***********

The dementia at Nationalist Perverted Radio grows deeper. NPR is dabbling in the 'controversy for controversy's sake' vat. They'll bungle such a venture, of course, but the damage is done.

You know Glenn Beck? That guy who wants to get your attention by all that wide-eyed jibber-jabberish he turbo-motor-mouths all the time? You know, he's just another baby-boomer who's exploiting his substance-abuse, just like our president.

Well anyway, Steve Inscreep of 'Morn Ed' interviewed him as part of their trenchant 'What Conservatives Think' series (which was almost as good as their recent 'Crunch Time' triumph).

Glengarry Beck is nothing more than a peepshow geek who, if Fox Newsishness didn't exist, couldn't even get work cleaning spittoons at a 5th rate carnival. So why does NPR pick up on him? Because there's an untapped audience to be found in the middle class' latent hunger for the horrible and the twisted in life!
So why not go the Naturally Prurient Radio route, if only for a day, and see how the ratings perform? Very Inscreepy!

If Beck can invoke Churchill and (gasp) Santorum in the same sentence, then I can paraphrase Sir Winston in regard to Rick: he (Rick) is a perverse man, with much to be perverse about...
Same goes for Beck.

Personally, I'm delighted NPR is stooping this low. Might wake more people up.

**************

NPR's logo is a cheap rip-off of BBC's logo. (BBC cheaply ripped itself off a few years ago when they converted the rather nice logo of 'italic' boxes, as in: BBC , to boring right-angle boxes, like, as in: BBC.) Anyway, NPR's logo has nice bright colors that get quite a bit of attention when attached to public mike stands. They scream: 'NPR is HERE!' Yeah, well, who cares if Mara Liarson or Dondi Gonorrhea is at the other end of the mike's wire. Damn! I WOULD have to bring those dreary names up!

Candidate Review! I Have A Scheme . . .

2008-02-29T15:24:00.000-08:00

Dreams live in the hearts of patriots, just as sure as Bobby Russell wrote 'Little Green Apples'.

And because the Splurge in Iraq is such a success, you just know that hagiographed McCain and Field Marshall Petraeus are dickering right now over the future division of the spoils.

Here's their Swing Into Spring '08 'To Do' list:

1. Take and Hold 1600 Pennsy by means of the following lineup

2008-12 Generalissimo 'Panama Jack' McCain
2012-16 Citizen Jebber 'Die-Nasty!' Bush
2016-?? God-Emperor and Chief Martial law Administrator Davidvs 'Dave' PETRAEVS

2. Sieg heil, baby!

And that's just the getting warmed-up part!