In 1846, in the midst of his Walden two-year experiment, Henry David Thoreau was arrested for back taxes (specifically poll taxes that he hadn't paid in six years or so. Thank you, Wikipedia). He spent a night in jail rather than pay the fines, though he was released when someone paid them on his behalf. The root of his refusal to pay the taxes was his opposition to slavery and its almost pre-ordained spread thanks to the utterly illegal Mexican War being conducted at the time. Throeau got the essay "Civil Disobedience" out of it, a powerful statement of his unwillingness to go along with laws or governments that he deemed illegal. He died in 1862, just as the Civil War was getting into full swing. It was the conflict that would forever end the injustice of slavery, though certainly our racial history since then hasn't done much to make many think that all our problems ended in 1865.
Throeau's essay lived on, as inspiration to the non-violent movements of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. It's not all non-violence (there was certainly enough there to suggest that Thoreau might not have been simply content with non-violent protest, though it's hard to see him as any kind of anarchist). It's up there with the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other important documents that try and formulate what kind of nation we are to be.
But Thoreau's protest, his actual arrest, did nothing to prevent the Mexican War from escalating. It did nothing to halt the spread of slavery. In short, while noble, it was at best a gesture. This isn't a criticism, just a statement of fact. It gave birth to a great thing ("Civil Disobedience" the essay, as well as the concept of non-violent resistence), but it didn't impact the immediate situation one lick.
I bring all this up as a way to justify (to myself, if no one else) my decision to refrain from watching any NFL games until Roger Goodell is no longer the commissioner of the league. No, please, hear me out...
Okay, it's a stupid and futile gesture, because professional football is the number one sport in the country, and one guy saying he ain't watching anymore isn't going to mean much to the league. But I'm tired of the way in which Goodell, since the inaugeration of his reign, has been arbitrary in his "punishments" handed out to players, and the way in which he personifies the arrogance of the league.
This has been building up for a while, but what put me over the edge was the Ray Rice "suspension" of two games for domestic abuse. I'm sorry, but when you hit a woman, a slap on the wrist does not begin to cover it. Goodell, like all corporate jackasses, tried to cover himself by saying that the legal process hadn't found enough to convict Rice or even press charges against him. These are fine words coming from the guy notorious for brandishing the suspension baton over his charges even though they've often been cleared or only held briefly for acts and conduct off the field. Goodell has a track record of handing out excessive punishments, often to players of the African-American persuasion. I'm not saying Roger Goodell is a racist, but have you heard his defense of the Washington team nickname (as much a slur on Native Americans as the n-word is for African-Americans)? Give me a break.
And so I am taking a break, from watching the NFL. Whenever it's game day, I'll find something else to watch or just turn off the TV entirely. I won't be immune to the various shows on ESPN that feature highlights, of course (I'm banning the NFL, not sports TV), and I'll hope for my Giants to shock the world and once again stomp them out. But the NFL games themselves, glorifications of the mindset that the NFL is trying to enslave us with (namely "I have to watch this!"), will have no appeal for me, not anymore. Not while Goodell is in charge.
While we're on the subject, why have one commissioner for a sports league? Why not have a panel of more than one person in charge? The whole idea behind sports commissioners was born of the 1919 Black Sox scandal and the subsequent fury of the baseball owners when the players who bet on the World Series that year were acquitted in a court of law. They gave over power to one guy, Kenesaw Mountain Landis, with the understanding that the players would be banned for life. Nowadays, it seems like it's the commissioners who should be banned. Absolute power corrupts absolutely; maybe it's time we said enough with the idea of one man or woman having all the power over the sport. What really makes all this seem ridiculous is that, if you are suspended by the commissioner of a sport, you can always appeal your sentence...to the very commissioner who suspended you in the first place.
Orwell would be proud...
So no, I don't expect too many other people to join me in this, not diehard football fans anyway. I'm willing to abstain from the NFL until some other hairpiece with a suit comes into office (who, I bet, will be even less palatable because he or she will be handpicked by Goodell, who was similarly handpicked by his predecessor Tagliabue). I went most of my life without succumbing to the lure of the NFL; I've only really been following the sport since 2007. Maybe I'm not the guy to be saying "down with Goodell," but I'm one of the ones saying it. And I'll continue to say it until he leaves. It's the absolute least I can do.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Saturday, August 16, 2014
A Sense of Where You Are
Yesterday morning, I really, really wanted to throw up...
I should explain: yesterday was the graduate student orientation for the English department at school, and I had a legit excuse to be on campus for the first time since I graduated. Walking towards my old haunts in my snug new pants (I have gotten to waist size 40 now, though I expect that to change as the semester wears on and I am likely to have to park far, far away), I felt a wave of nostalgia for all the times, good and bad, I'd had on-campus in the past. Then I felt a wave of nausea.
I didn't puke, thankfully, though I did hyperventilate a little (well, climbing to the fourth floor of a building will do that, too), and I had to break for the nearest bathroom upon reaching the fourth floor and give myself silent validations in the mirror (if I'd said them out loud, people might have looked at me funny. It was pretty quiet in the hallway). I made it on time to the meeting place and sat towards the back, trying not to make an ass of myself.
Yes, college version 2.0 (the grad school edition) is finally within reach, and even as I type this I can feel the urge to bolt towards safer climes racing through me (or maybe it's the Mountain Dew). After all the bellyaching I've made about the past two weeks of "freedom," I am literally terrified of taking that big step towards grad school. But that's a good thing.
In all honesty, I'm much more comfortable being a failure at things; I know the ropes of picking yourself back up whenever something, be it a job opportunity or a relationship with someone, goes off the rails or never got on the track to begin with. I've been there, done that. I know my strengths (obsessive mix CDs of "love gone wrong" songs, for instance, or fruitless job searches on the internet), but success, or the opportunity for success? Uncharted territory, baby.
It is all new to me, and new can be scary, but it can also be invigorating. Just make sure you don't eat anything you don't want to taste again, in case things are *too* invigorating.
I recently read a book that I'd had my eye out for and stumbled across at a used bookstore a couple months back. It's called A Sense of Where You Are, about Bill Bradley before he was a senator or a New York Knick, back when he was just the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen. Like a lot of things you might look forward to with anticipation, it didn't quite live up to the wait (I'd rate it three and a half stars, but the rating system on Facebook allows for no halves). But the title itself (about knowing where you are on the basketball court, where your teammates and/or opponents are) is a pretty good metaphor for life (and being an English guy, I love my metaphors). I'm not alone here, and I have plenty of things to look forward to as the semester begins. I just have to make sure I've got a good read on the layout of the court.
Or something like that.
It's not perfect, but it will fit for now. That urge to vomit (still have it, still haven't actually done so) will subside in time (or, with an ill-place dinner at one of the lesser-grade restaurants I might frequent, come spilling out in one glorious sweep), but mixed with the fear is some positive trembling. I think I'm ready, I certainly hope so (my current inability to reopen my Clemson email, moribund since my graduation in August 2008 not withstanding).
Wait, did I just write about wanting to vomit? And post it here? My apologies...:-p
I should explain: yesterday was the graduate student orientation for the English department at school, and I had a legit excuse to be on campus for the first time since I graduated. Walking towards my old haunts in my snug new pants (I have gotten to waist size 40 now, though I expect that to change as the semester wears on and I am likely to have to park far, far away), I felt a wave of nostalgia for all the times, good and bad, I'd had on-campus in the past. Then I felt a wave of nausea.
I didn't puke, thankfully, though I did hyperventilate a little (well, climbing to the fourth floor of a building will do that, too), and I had to break for the nearest bathroom upon reaching the fourth floor and give myself silent validations in the mirror (if I'd said them out loud, people might have looked at me funny. It was pretty quiet in the hallway). I made it on time to the meeting place and sat towards the back, trying not to make an ass of myself.
Yes, college version 2.0 (the grad school edition) is finally within reach, and even as I type this I can feel the urge to bolt towards safer climes racing through me (or maybe it's the Mountain Dew). After all the bellyaching I've made about the past two weeks of "freedom," I am literally terrified of taking that big step towards grad school. But that's a good thing.
In all honesty, I'm much more comfortable being a failure at things; I know the ropes of picking yourself back up whenever something, be it a job opportunity or a relationship with someone, goes off the rails or never got on the track to begin with. I've been there, done that. I know my strengths (obsessive mix CDs of "love gone wrong" songs, for instance, or fruitless job searches on the internet), but success, or the opportunity for success? Uncharted territory, baby.
It is all new to me, and new can be scary, but it can also be invigorating. Just make sure you don't eat anything you don't want to taste again, in case things are *too* invigorating.
I recently read a book that I'd had my eye out for and stumbled across at a used bookstore a couple months back. It's called A Sense of Where You Are, about Bill Bradley before he was a senator or a New York Knick, back when he was just the best basketball player Princeton had ever seen. Like a lot of things you might look forward to with anticipation, it didn't quite live up to the wait (I'd rate it three and a half stars, but the rating system on Facebook allows for no halves). But the title itself (about knowing where you are on the basketball court, where your teammates and/or opponents are) is a pretty good metaphor for life (and being an English guy, I love my metaphors). I'm not alone here, and I have plenty of things to look forward to as the semester begins. I just have to make sure I've got a good read on the layout of the court.
Or something like that.
It's not perfect, but it will fit for now. That urge to vomit (still have it, still haven't actually done so) will subside in time (or, with an ill-place dinner at one of the lesser-grade restaurants I might frequent, come spilling out in one glorious sweep), but mixed with the fear is some positive trembling. I think I'm ready, I certainly hope so (my current inability to reopen my Clemson email, moribund since my graduation in August 2008 not withstanding).
Wait, did I just write about wanting to vomit? And post it here? My apologies...:-p
Thursday, August 14, 2014
What Will Your Verse Be?
My sister texted me Monday night, asking if Robin Williams had died. I thought she might have meant Robbie Williams, former-boy-bander-turned-no-hit-wonder. Wishful thinking on my part, as it turned out.
When someone dies by their own hand, as Williams did, it tends to make their work or life before then seem like a "countdown to self-destruction." You go over their last hours, trying to make sense of what, often times, will never make any sense no matter how often you examine it. It's part of our hard-wiring to seek answers where none may reside; how else to explain how legitimate conspiracy theory turns into fringe obsession? Lee Harvey Oswald may not have acted alone, but we'll never really know the truth, so it bothers us. I imagine the same will be true of Robin Williams.
Much has been made of the "tears of a clown" thread in comedy, how performers make us laugh while masking their inner demons (or letting them out for all to see). I watched the Ken Burns documentary on Mark Twain when it re-aired recently, and his last years were full of turmoil and loss. It's no wonder that, in his last works, he was a misanthrope who held out little if any hope for humanity; he'd lost his wife, two of his three daughters (as well as a son when he was first married to Livy, who died a few months after being born), and much of his fortune (though he managed to pay off his creditors thanks to exhaustive world tours). Frankly, if you read about Twain's life, it's a miracle that he didn't kill himself.
Robin Williams, when I was a kid, was hysterically funny. Then, as I aged and he went into more family-friendly fare, his reputation became tarnished. Whether his later movies were really terrible or just had the reputation of being so, I can't say; I rarely felt that same excitement at seeing his name in the credits that I might have circa Good Morning, Vietnam or Dead Poets Society. Fact is, I'd thought that I outgrew him, and little that he did in the years since Mrs. Doubtfire really registered with me.
I guess that's why his loss hit so hard, not because I'd still treasured him but because I'd cast him aside. I have softened in my view of him of late, feeling like the good work he did from my childhood still holds up (and if you ever get the chance to see his stand-up, do). It's a little late, but still.
Depression doesn't care if you're rich and famous, or broke and miserable. It comes along to all of us, at some point, and sometimes it's just a passing phase. But sometimes it's an illness that needs treatment. I've known of two people personally connected to me who took their own lives, and let me say this: suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I'd like to fancy myself as a "humorous fellow," and if you'll allow that (not saying I'm fricking hilarious all the time, but I have a pretty healthy sense of humor at least), I can say from experience that there's a lot of truth to the idea that comedians can be the most miserable bunch of people in the world. But humor allows for an outlet for all the rage, anger, sadness and whatever else comes with it and with life itself. What's most heartbreaking about Williams' suicide, apart from the obvious pain his family is in, is that he couldn't use that gift to help himself, not in the last days.
It's eerie to me now, considering that Dead Poets is my favorite Robin Williams performance, how that film deals with a suicide, and how it tears apart the school where Williams is the inspirational teacher. From mythology on down, through James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, through Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain, through Ernest Hemingway and David Foster Wallace, suicide has taken too many creative voices. Robin Williams is now one of those, and he will be missed.
When someone dies by their own hand, as Williams did, it tends to make their work or life before then seem like a "countdown to self-destruction." You go over their last hours, trying to make sense of what, often times, will never make any sense no matter how often you examine it. It's part of our hard-wiring to seek answers where none may reside; how else to explain how legitimate conspiracy theory turns into fringe obsession? Lee Harvey Oswald may not have acted alone, but we'll never really know the truth, so it bothers us. I imagine the same will be true of Robin Williams.
Much has been made of the "tears of a clown" thread in comedy, how performers make us laugh while masking their inner demons (or letting them out for all to see). I watched the Ken Burns documentary on Mark Twain when it re-aired recently, and his last years were full of turmoil and loss. It's no wonder that, in his last works, he was a misanthrope who held out little if any hope for humanity; he'd lost his wife, two of his three daughters (as well as a son when he was first married to Livy, who died a few months after being born), and much of his fortune (though he managed to pay off his creditors thanks to exhaustive world tours). Frankly, if you read about Twain's life, it's a miracle that he didn't kill himself.
Robin Williams, when I was a kid, was hysterically funny. Then, as I aged and he went into more family-friendly fare, his reputation became tarnished. Whether his later movies were really terrible or just had the reputation of being so, I can't say; I rarely felt that same excitement at seeing his name in the credits that I might have circa Good Morning, Vietnam or Dead Poets Society. Fact is, I'd thought that I outgrew him, and little that he did in the years since Mrs. Doubtfire really registered with me.
I guess that's why his loss hit so hard, not because I'd still treasured him but because I'd cast him aside. I have softened in my view of him of late, feeling like the good work he did from my childhood still holds up (and if you ever get the chance to see his stand-up, do). It's a little late, but still.
Depression doesn't care if you're rich and famous, or broke and miserable. It comes along to all of us, at some point, and sometimes it's just a passing phase. But sometimes it's an illness that needs treatment. I've known of two people personally connected to me who took their own lives, and let me say this: suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
I'd like to fancy myself as a "humorous fellow," and if you'll allow that (not saying I'm fricking hilarious all the time, but I have a pretty healthy sense of humor at least), I can say from experience that there's a lot of truth to the idea that comedians can be the most miserable bunch of people in the world. But humor allows for an outlet for all the rage, anger, sadness and whatever else comes with it and with life itself. What's most heartbreaking about Williams' suicide, apart from the obvious pain his family is in, is that he couldn't use that gift to help himself, not in the last days.
It's eerie to me now, considering that Dead Poets is my favorite Robin Williams performance, how that film deals with a suicide, and how it tears apart the school where Williams is the inspirational teacher. From mythology on down, through James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, through Ian Curtis and Kurt Cobain, through Ernest Hemingway and David Foster Wallace, suicide has taken too many creative voices. Robin Williams is now one of those, and he will be missed.
Sunday, August 3, 2014
The Great Two-Week Hiatus Between Work and Grad School
Friends, Romans, countrymen...I am out of a job for the time being.
By choice, mind you, by choice...my tenure at Tigertown Graphics (yeah, I said it!) ended this past week, on a Thursday instead of Friday because Friday starts the new pay period and I graciously decided that a check for one day of work wasn't worth it. So let me say to those TTG folks that I'm friends with on the Book of Faces: thank you for putting up with me for four years. I can be a handful (i.e., a pain in the ass sometimes), but I did enjoy the times when I wasn't being made to do work (I am incredibly lazy) and if you're friend with me on the Book of Faces, it means that I want to stay in touch with you (some of my peeps don't have Facebook accounts, so holler at me via smoke signals if you must). There is one particular person I don't want any contact with because he was always licking on me and stealing my food and just being a real hound with my free time. I speak, of course, of Dundee.
(Dundee was the dog/mascot of the back-area printing crew. Dogs can't have Facebook accounts)
Anyway, I am now in that limbo between work and grad school (and the assistantship that comes with it: I got the gig I wanted - helping with the Literary Festival - now it's just a matter of harassing Jonathan Lethem enough to get him to visit us in SC). I have a lot of free time, more free time than I really need, I think (but I won't volunteer any of it away for fruitless causes). I have plenty of time to get online and make an ass of myself (again, perhaps too much time). Right now I'm staying close to home because my grandma is away on vacation and my grandpa wanted to stay put. I'm reminded of how awful summer TV programming is, but I'm doing more reading-for-fun than anything else. Right now I'm in the middle of a Steve McQueen biography. I just finished a book about the outbreak of WWI in 1914. I'm covering all my bases.
I need to spend as little money as possible, I'm okay but I don't get paid by the school for a while so it might not be a bad idea to be a little thrifty. I'm looking forward to it, scared to death by it, and just in general preparing myself for some uncharted territory. I'm grateful for the opportunity, and I just hope I don't screw it up.
So, enjoy the last few weeks of summer, my friends, because once school starts back it's on like Donkey Kong.
By choice, mind you, by choice...my tenure at Tigertown Graphics (yeah, I said it!) ended this past week, on a Thursday instead of Friday because Friday starts the new pay period and I graciously decided that a check for one day of work wasn't worth it. So let me say to those TTG folks that I'm friends with on the Book of Faces: thank you for putting up with me for four years. I can be a handful (i.e., a pain in the ass sometimes), but I did enjoy the times when I wasn't being made to do work (I am incredibly lazy) and if you're friend with me on the Book of Faces, it means that I want to stay in touch with you (some of my peeps don't have Facebook accounts, so holler at me via smoke signals if you must). There is one particular person I don't want any contact with because he was always licking on me and stealing my food and just being a real hound with my free time. I speak, of course, of Dundee.
(Dundee was the dog/mascot of the back-area printing crew. Dogs can't have Facebook accounts)
Anyway, I am now in that limbo between work and grad school (and the assistantship that comes with it: I got the gig I wanted - helping with the Literary Festival - now it's just a matter of harassing Jonathan Lethem enough to get him to visit us in SC). I have a lot of free time, more free time than I really need, I think (but I won't volunteer any of it away for fruitless causes). I have plenty of time to get online and make an ass of myself (again, perhaps too much time). Right now I'm staying close to home because my grandma is away on vacation and my grandpa wanted to stay put. I'm reminded of how awful summer TV programming is, but I'm doing more reading-for-fun than anything else. Right now I'm in the middle of a Steve McQueen biography. I just finished a book about the outbreak of WWI in 1914. I'm covering all my bases.
I need to spend as little money as possible, I'm okay but I don't get paid by the school for a while so it might not be a bad idea to be a little thrifty. I'm looking forward to it, scared to death by it, and just in general preparing myself for some uncharted territory. I'm grateful for the opportunity, and I just hope I don't screw it up.
So, enjoy the last few weeks of summer, my friends, because once school starts back it's on like Donkey Kong.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
R.E.M., "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?"
I had an epiphany yesterday, as I was floating on a raft in my uncle Heath's pool on the fourth of July (flipping over sides from my back to my front as a precaution against too-severe sunburn): I'm on vacation.
Yes, in less than a month I won't be working at the place I'm employed currently, so I decided to use some of my vacation time while I still had it. I plan on saying adios to my current workplace around the beginning of August, and I was originally going to use all my vacation time then, to tide me over financially until I started grad school and the assistantship, but I needed a break and I figured unless I went overboard with my spending, I'd be good financially until I got my first paycheck from the Uni.
I have since spent all my savings on a diamond tiara...
Just kidding, I'm looking forward to next week, if only because I'm not beholden to anything until the Monday after this next one. Oh brother, it's been a while since I could say that...I already have the duty of babysitting my adorable niece tomorrow while her parents get a much-needed afternoon out of the house. But beyond that, I'm free as a bird.
I imagine I'll be making shoebox-airplanes and bored to death with ESPN's continuing yeah-America-is-out-of-it-but-dammit-we-paid-for-the-rights World Cup coverage. For my peeps who genuinely love soccer, I have no quarrel with you. But the incessant bandwagon-jumping seems...well, bandwagon-jumping. I didn't drink the Kool-Aid on this one.
I've been listening to the most recent "best of" of R.E.M., which is a two-disc bad-boy picking up some of the best stuff from their early years as well as their post-Bill-Berry alright-ness. I'm in the camp that thinks R.E.M. were best in the Eighties and early Nineties (not that they should've stopped then, but everything post-1997 is murky waters for me, at least). I remember "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" as being "the song about what that guy said to Dan Rather," as well as the video that introduced me to the Nudie suit (I was unaware of Gram Parsons or country music circa 1974's penchant for the Nudie suits at the time). Monster was heralded as the band's "rock" album, after the previous two were mildly acoustic affairs. And I so desperately want one of my friends to be named Kenneth, just so I can ask him what the frequency is. Anyway, on Thursday afternoon, after depositing my check from work, I blasted this as I drove around post-work-but-not-ready-to-go-home-yet (a condition I usually find myself in on Fridays).
Next week, I want to get all the paperwork that's still to be done regarding my assistantship out of the way. I also want to get a much-needed haircut. But most of all, I want to be able to relax. I already got that ball rolling at my uncle's pool party (and avoided a severe sunburn; there's a little redness on my shoulders, but otherwise I came out of it okay). Got a few books I can read (including one about the origins of the First World War, because I'm a history nerd), and basically if I can't relax anytime between now and the week after this next one, there's something wrong with me. But I'll do my damnedest.
Yes, in less than a month I won't be working at the place I'm employed currently, so I decided to use some of my vacation time while I still had it. I plan on saying adios to my current workplace around the beginning of August, and I was originally going to use all my vacation time then, to tide me over financially until I started grad school and the assistantship, but I needed a break and I figured unless I went overboard with my spending, I'd be good financially until I got my first paycheck from the Uni.
I have since spent all my savings on a diamond tiara...
Just kidding, I'm looking forward to next week, if only because I'm not beholden to anything until the Monday after this next one. Oh brother, it's been a while since I could say that...I already have the duty of babysitting my adorable niece tomorrow while her parents get a much-needed afternoon out of the house. But beyond that, I'm free as a bird.
I imagine I'll be making shoebox-airplanes and bored to death with ESPN's continuing yeah-America-is-out-of-it-but-dammit-we-paid-for-the-rights World Cup coverage. For my peeps who genuinely love soccer, I have no quarrel with you. But the incessant bandwagon-jumping seems...well, bandwagon-jumping. I didn't drink the Kool-Aid on this one.
I've been listening to the most recent "best of" of R.E.M., which is a two-disc bad-boy picking up some of the best stuff from their early years as well as their post-Bill-Berry alright-ness. I'm in the camp that thinks R.E.M. were best in the Eighties and early Nineties (not that they should've stopped then, but everything post-1997 is murky waters for me, at least). I remember "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" as being "the song about what that guy said to Dan Rather," as well as the video that introduced me to the Nudie suit (I was unaware of Gram Parsons or country music circa 1974's penchant for the Nudie suits at the time). Monster was heralded as the band's "rock" album, after the previous two were mildly acoustic affairs. And I so desperately want one of my friends to be named Kenneth, just so I can ask him what the frequency is. Anyway, on Thursday afternoon, after depositing my check from work, I blasted this as I drove around post-work-but-not-ready-to-go-home-yet (a condition I usually find myself in on Fridays).
Next week, I want to get all the paperwork that's still to be done regarding my assistantship out of the way. I also want to get a much-needed haircut. But most of all, I want to be able to relax. I already got that ball rolling at my uncle's pool party (and avoided a severe sunburn; there's a little redness on my shoulders, but otherwise I came out of it okay). Got a few books I can read (including one about the origins of the First World War, because I'm a history nerd), and basically if I can't relax anytime between now and the week after this next one, there's something wrong with me. But I'll do my damnedest.
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Kanye West, "Gold Digger"
It might be only natural that, as I prepare to enter Clemson again in the fall, my thoughts turn back a little to 2006, when I started my undergrad career as a guy pursuing an English degree for some damn reason (I hope I have a little more specific reason to pursue a master's, mostly "I hate customer service jobs and would love to avoid having to return to one anytime soon"). Back then, Facebook was for college kids only (you had to prove you were enrolled in a college that accepted having the site on its computers. My, how things have changed), and when I logged in for the first time sometime in the spring of 2006, after sending out random "friend requests" to people I barely knew from all my classes, I started looking at the groups. I am a born joiner, and I enjoyed scrolling through the list of groups about God-Knows-What (Britney Spears was kind of a trainwreck at that point, so a lot of the groups were about her being a shitty parent or something). But the ones that stuck out were groups about gold diggers. Because you know they ain't messing with no broke...
Kanye West is a bit of a joke nowadays, at least in the circles I run in (note: I don't really run in too many circles, mostly keeping in touch with friends online and making pithy comments on their pages), but back then he kinda lived up to the hype. I remember first hearing "Jesus Walks" and thinking it was awesome, and then "Gold Digger" blew up. Fast forward nine years later, and West is married to an honest-to-God gold digger, Kim "I'm famous because of a sex tape" Kardashian. Bet he didn't see that coming!
I recently read Come Together: John Lennon In His Time, about (well) John Lennon, specifically about how he used his Beatles fame to promote causes that he believed in, especially in the politically divisive early 1970s (Nixon tried to run him out of the country, on the recommendation of segregationist and "secret black child-fathering" senator Strom Thurmond and noted cross-dresser J. Edgar Hoover, because Lennon was viewed as "corrupting" the youth of America). John Lennon and Yoko Ono turned their lives into performance art, most famously during their "bed-in for peace" campaigns when they invited the world's press to their honeymoon suite and then talked about the need for an end to the Vietnam War (journalists went because they thought "John and Yoko in bed" meant all kinds of things that it didn't, at least not while they were around to film it). Whatever else you can say about the Lennons, theirs was a marriage based on mutual love and a shared enthusiasm for causes that tried to make the world a better place.
If anyone can find a cause that Kim and Kanye are passionate about besides self-promotion, they are either a genius or fooling themselves. They are the John and Yoko of our time, however, in that they're annoyingly omnipresent thanks to social media (like...Facebook). They have a child together (who I think is a fake, or at least I hope so: I can't imagine either parent taking time away from looking at themselves in the mirror long enough to be there for their "child"). They got "married," because that's what Kim does. They will probably get a divorce in time for the next season of that stupid show that is on the E! Network (and which I know about because my sister watches it and clips of it figure prominently on The Soup). South Park took down Kanye quite a bit with the "Fish Dicks" episode, but it seems like they're unassailable and impervious to shame. Which is a shame, actually.
Because Kanye West (goddammit) is a pretty good musician. He *is* an artist, as this and quite a few of his hits can attest (except for the one about "since OJ had on Isotoner," that was just terrible). He has an impressive body of work without having to surrender his essence to the clutches of a reality-TV whore who quite honestly has nothing going on behind those hollow, soulless eyes. Oh Kanye, why?
I'm not going to shed too many tears over "Kimye," however. Those two arrogant fuckers deserve each other. And for Kanye's sake, I hope he really did holler "we want pre-nup." Because in two or three years, he's going to be looking for any loophole he can find to avoid paying child support. I bet the damn kid ain't even his, but he won't know that until North West's eighteenth birthday. You lie down with the Devil (or Kim Kardashian), don't be surprised when you get up with fleas, STDs, and several pounds lighter in the wallet area. You should've listened to your own damn song, you arrogant bastard...
Kanye West is a bit of a joke nowadays, at least in the circles I run in (note: I don't really run in too many circles, mostly keeping in touch with friends online and making pithy comments on their pages), but back then he kinda lived up to the hype. I remember first hearing "Jesus Walks" and thinking it was awesome, and then "Gold Digger" blew up. Fast forward nine years later, and West is married to an honest-to-God gold digger, Kim "I'm famous because of a sex tape" Kardashian. Bet he didn't see that coming!
I recently read Come Together: John Lennon In His Time, about (well) John Lennon, specifically about how he used his Beatles fame to promote causes that he believed in, especially in the politically divisive early 1970s (Nixon tried to run him out of the country, on the recommendation of segregationist and "secret black child-fathering" senator Strom Thurmond and noted cross-dresser J. Edgar Hoover, because Lennon was viewed as "corrupting" the youth of America). John Lennon and Yoko Ono turned their lives into performance art, most famously during their "bed-in for peace" campaigns when they invited the world's press to their honeymoon suite and then talked about the need for an end to the Vietnam War (journalists went because they thought "John and Yoko in bed" meant all kinds of things that it didn't, at least not while they were around to film it). Whatever else you can say about the Lennons, theirs was a marriage based on mutual love and a shared enthusiasm for causes that tried to make the world a better place.
If anyone can find a cause that Kim and Kanye are passionate about besides self-promotion, they are either a genius or fooling themselves. They are the John and Yoko of our time, however, in that they're annoyingly omnipresent thanks to social media (like...Facebook). They have a child together (who I think is a fake, or at least I hope so: I can't imagine either parent taking time away from looking at themselves in the mirror long enough to be there for their "child"). They got "married," because that's what Kim does. They will probably get a divorce in time for the next season of that stupid show that is on the E! Network (and which I know about because my sister watches it and clips of it figure prominently on The Soup). South Park took down Kanye quite a bit with the "Fish Dicks" episode, but it seems like they're unassailable and impervious to shame. Which is a shame, actually.
Because Kanye West (goddammit) is a pretty good musician. He *is* an artist, as this and quite a few of his hits can attest (except for the one about "since OJ had on Isotoner," that was just terrible). He has an impressive body of work without having to surrender his essence to the clutches of a reality-TV whore who quite honestly has nothing going on behind those hollow, soulless eyes. Oh Kanye, why?
I'm not going to shed too many tears over "Kimye," however. Those two arrogant fuckers deserve each other. And for Kanye's sake, I hope he really did holler "we want pre-nup." Because in two or three years, he's going to be looking for any loophole he can find to avoid paying child support. I bet the damn kid ain't even his, but he won't know that until North West's eighteenth birthday. You lie down with the Devil (or Kim Kardashian), don't be surprised when you get up with fleas, STDs, and several pounds lighter in the wallet area. You should've listened to your own damn song, you arrogant bastard...
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Johann Strauss, "Blue Danube"
I am a child of Star Wars: I came into this world in 1979, when The Empire Strikes Back was just around the corner. And I cannot ever recall having *not* seen the films; almost for as long as I can remember, I've known that there was Luke and Leia, Han and Chewie, Darth and the Emperor, Boba Fett and Yoda, and the two gay robots. I mean, C-3PO and R2-D2. My uncle Heath is probably to credit the most for my familiarity with the trilogy; he's as huge a Star Wars nut today as he was back when the films came out. I played with the toys when I was a kid (and played with an electronic "quiz book" that Heath bought at Wal-Mart for a few bucks a few years ago. I spent the bulk of a visit around Christmas time playing the game, and I know that if I'd bought a copy of it for myself, I wouldn't shave or bathe for weeks).
All this is a way of saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey is not Star Wars, nor should it be held accountable for not being more rip-roaring than (allegedly) snore-inducing. The state of science-fiction was far different in 1968 than in 1977, and the primary instigator of George Lucas' special-effects bonanza was seeing what Stanley Kubrick managed to bring to the screen with models and hardware (as opposed to the computer-generated imagery that owes its existence to Lucas, who in turn was influenced as much by Kubrick as he was by the Saturday-matinee serials of Buck Rogers and other space-dwelling heroes in the Thirties and Forties and Fifties). You can't have Star Wars without 2001, that's just a fact. Whether the movie itself holds up...is a matter of debate.
This past Tuesday, TCM aired 2001 and, due to a dearth of anything else being on TV (the usual summer doldrums seem to have come early this year), I left it on and half-watched it while reading a book about Adolf Eichmann. The film is long, looooonnnnnnnggggggg, and there are stretches where little if anything actually happens. I remember arguing with some film-major buddies during my college years that of course it was supposed to be boring, Kubrick was showing how space travel (blowing everyone's collective minds in the Sixties, with the space race and the desire to get to the moon ahead of the Russians) would one day be an afterthought, like the automobile, the locomotive, and other once-heralded "wonders of transportation" that changed the way we got around. It may have been a reach, and a retroactive appraisal through the distorting lens of swashbuckling space epics like Star Wars, but I think even today there's something to that view.
The thing is, back when I was around 17 until I turned 27 (roughly a decade, doing the math), Stanley Kubrick was my favorite director. He was the first director whose work I sought out simply because he was behind the camera; usually I was more in thrall with actors than the people behind the camera. I liked Woody Allen a lot then, as well (still do, really), but more for his onscreen presence (it was reassuring to see a guy with glasses get the girl). I sought out a biography of Kubrick when I was at USC and read it quickly, absorbing the details of his life up to that point (he would die a couple of years later, at the age of seventy). I read various books about Kubrick and his work after that, and I sought out his movies wherever I could (which wasn't hard, because a lot of them were favorites of the video-store crowd as well and could be found handily). Here's a brief breakdown of his major films, if you don't believe me:
Fear and Desire (1954-ish): decent if a little too student-film-esque war drama
The Killing (1956?) - Fantastic crime film that really should be sought out if you like crime films
Paths of Glory (1957) - Highly effective anti-war film
Spartacus (1960) - Never Kubrick's film (he was hired on after Kirk Douglas, star of Paths of Glory and producer of this one, needed a replacement for the fired original director). Not interested in it, myself.
Lolita (1962) - Too long (a charge that could be leveled against 2001) and kinda dull without Peter Sellers onscreen (the first of his two collaborations with Kubrick).
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Kubrick's finest hour, making the end of the world funny. Sellers plays three roles, and while the title role is the one that hooks you in, the grace and wit he gives to Group Captain Mandrake is probably the best performance of the film and of Sellers' career.
2001 (1968) - A film in which the computer (HAL) is more human than the humans, and apes throwing rocks into the air turns them into spaceships. More on this later.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - I think the first thirty minutes are some of the most hair-raising in all of cinema, not because of what the droogies do but because you're asked to identify with Alex, the main bad guy. And he *is* bad, very bad. But what the state does to him when they capture him, it's almost worse in a way. Such a controversial film that I feel dirty even admitting that I've seen it, much less own it on DVD.
Barry Lyndon (1975) - Never seen it, though I want to.
The Shining (1980) - You know the minute that Jack Nicholson walks onscreen, he's batshit crazy. And the Overlook Hotel does little to keep his manic side in check. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Considering that the original author of the tale (Stephen King) not only hated this film but made his own TV-miniseries version in 1997, it's weird that this is one of the most iconic of Kubrick's films (and one of the most popular of King's works when adapted for the screen).
Full Metal Jacket (1987) - It would be fair to say that the two halves of this film (the boot-camp sequence and the tour in Vietnam) could be different movies in and of themselves. But Kubrick was trying to show that the knocking-down of character in boot camp (in order to build better soldiers) has unintended consequences. And you need the Vietnam section to show that.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - A shame that his career ended with a movie more well-known for being Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's last together. I never had much interest in it, even as a postmortem on Kubrick's career.
So there...anyway, what brought me to talk about 2001 was the fact that J.J. Abrams is helming new Star Wars films, set to premiere sometime before the beginning of a new presidential term. Chances are, they'll be big (huge, even). But I wonder what a new, up-to-date 2001 would look like, through the lens of recent history and advances in technology that the film could only hint at (and some unforeseen circumstances that would have really stretched believability with 1968-era audiences, such as the demise of the Soviet Union and computers in every home, even on phones that we could carry around on our person).
Such a reimagining would likely eschew the moments that make 2001 unique, the languishing on space travel shots set to classical music (like two whole different sequences set to "Blue Danube Waltz"). In 1968, audiences weren't used to such lavish production on what was deemed a child's genre; today we're up in arms if filmmakers cut corners with such details. In our CGI-soaked universe, alien beings are never really "there" in the same space as their unfortunate victims. It's easier to separate ourselves from the spectacle onscreen not because we think it's happening but because we know that it isn't, not really. This isn't an argument for more hands-on special effects (CGI can do things that it would be dangerous to ask a human being to do), but it does seem as if we've lost something.
My take on the film, originally, was to embrace it as the "anti-Star Wars," though this is ignorant of the cultural forces that shaped both films. In 1968, no one had heard of Boba Fett or the Millenium Falcon. By 1977, every two-bit director of cheap flicks and sci-fi knock-offs had had their turn at turning 2001 into a treasure trove of visual cues that could suggest the classiness their films lacked; now it was George Lucas at the helm for a movie that dared not only to venture out into space but to have a damn good time doing so. Not for him the problems of a homicidal computer or an ancient artifact that may have birthed human intelligence.
2001 has long been seen by some as a film best enjoyed while stoned, and I think on some level the hippies and potheads may have a point: as straight-ahead narrative, it leaves a lot to be desired. When I was younger and trying to separate myself from my peers with delusions of intellectual pretensions that I didn't quite believe myself, I could say that they just didn't "get" Kubrick's vision. Now I kinda wonder if I was the one who wasn't "getting" it.
Point is, I still love 2001 and Star Wars, though as I've gotten older my love has changed. I can see the reasons why some people (not mouth-breathing philistines, but honestly good and intelligent people) might not be as enamored of the slow build-ups and beautiful shots of spaceships docking to nineteenth-century waltzes as I once was (and to some extent, still am). The use of classical music in movies is a bit like cheating, anyway; it's sonic shorthand for saying "ain't I sophisticated?" and plays as such when the visuals or story don't match the music. Star Wars, of course, is the domain of John Williams, and you couldn't imagine a film better suited to its music than the three original films. If J.J. Abrams is right for the role (and I think he is, having enjoyed his 2009 reboot of Star Trek), he's also smart enough to realize that Williams has already done the score; it's just a matter of making sure he records it in time. Our reactions to things that we loved pop-culture-wise should change as we grow and mature, even if they're for the negative. I see now the connection between the room where astronaut Dave spends his last hours before being reborn as a star-child and the eerie opulence of Kubrick's haunted hotel in The Shining. Having realized that for the first time this past Tuesday, I can say it deepens my appreciation of both films.
2001 may not be your cup of tea, but it does have a sequel floating around out there (2010, directed by I Have No Clue But Not Kubrick), which is the oddest thing about the whole endeavor to me. As self-contained as the movie is (and as lacking in any obvious taking-off point to continue it, like a lot of sci-fi films that aim for sequel or even trilogy status), I understand the idea behind trying to do more, because Kubrick left a lot of unanswered questions. But I prefer them to stay that way.
All this is a way of saying that 2001: A Space Odyssey is not Star Wars, nor should it be held accountable for not being more rip-roaring than (allegedly) snore-inducing. The state of science-fiction was far different in 1968 than in 1977, and the primary instigator of George Lucas' special-effects bonanza was seeing what Stanley Kubrick managed to bring to the screen with models and hardware (as opposed to the computer-generated imagery that owes its existence to Lucas, who in turn was influenced as much by Kubrick as he was by the Saturday-matinee serials of Buck Rogers and other space-dwelling heroes in the Thirties and Forties and Fifties). You can't have Star Wars without 2001, that's just a fact. Whether the movie itself holds up...is a matter of debate.
This past Tuesday, TCM aired 2001 and, due to a dearth of anything else being on TV (the usual summer doldrums seem to have come early this year), I left it on and half-watched it while reading a book about Adolf Eichmann. The film is long, looooonnnnnnnggggggg, and there are stretches where little if anything actually happens. I remember arguing with some film-major buddies during my college years that of course it was supposed to be boring, Kubrick was showing how space travel (blowing everyone's collective minds in the Sixties, with the space race and the desire to get to the moon ahead of the Russians) would one day be an afterthought, like the automobile, the locomotive, and other once-heralded "wonders of transportation" that changed the way we got around. It may have been a reach, and a retroactive appraisal through the distorting lens of swashbuckling space epics like Star Wars, but I think even today there's something to that view.
The thing is, back when I was around 17 until I turned 27 (roughly a decade, doing the math), Stanley Kubrick was my favorite director. He was the first director whose work I sought out simply because he was behind the camera; usually I was more in thrall with actors than the people behind the camera. I liked Woody Allen a lot then, as well (still do, really), but more for his onscreen presence (it was reassuring to see a guy with glasses get the girl). I sought out a biography of Kubrick when I was at USC and read it quickly, absorbing the details of his life up to that point (he would die a couple of years later, at the age of seventy). I read various books about Kubrick and his work after that, and I sought out his movies wherever I could (which wasn't hard, because a lot of them were favorites of the video-store crowd as well and could be found handily). Here's a brief breakdown of his major films, if you don't believe me:
Fear and Desire (1954-ish): decent if a little too student-film-esque war drama
The Killing (1956?) - Fantastic crime film that really should be sought out if you like crime films
Paths of Glory (1957) - Highly effective anti-war film
Spartacus (1960) - Never Kubrick's film (he was hired on after Kirk Douglas, star of Paths of Glory and producer of this one, needed a replacement for the fired original director). Not interested in it, myself.
Lolita (1962) - Too long (a charge that could be leveled against 2001) and kinda dull without Peter Sellers onscreen (the first of his two collaborations with Kubrick).
Dr. Strangelove (1964) - Kubrick's finest hour, making the end of the world funny. Sellers plays three roles, and while the title role is the one that hooks you in, the grace and wit he gives to Group Captain Mandrake is probably the best performance of the film and of Sellers' career.
2001 (1968) - A film in which the computer (HAL) is more human than the humans, and apes throwing rocks into the air turns them into spaceships. More on this later.
A Clockwork Orange (1971) - I think the first thirty minutes are some of the most hair-raising in all of cinema, not because of what the droogies do but because you're asked to identify with Alex, the main bad guy. And he *is* bad, very bad. But what the state does to him when they capture him, it's almost worse in a way. Such a controversial film that I feel dirty even admitting that I've seen it, much less own it on DVD.
Barry Lyndon (1975) - Never seen it, though I want to.
The Shining (1980) - You know the minute that Jack Nicholson walks onscreen, he's batshit crazy. And the Overlook Hotel does little to keep his manic side in check. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Considering that the original author of the tale (Stephen King) not only hated this film but made his own TV-miniseries version in 1997, it's weird that this is one of the most iconic of Kubrick's films (and one of the most popular of King's works when adapted for the screen).
Full Metal Jacket (1987) - It would be fair to say that the two halves of this film (the boot-camp sequence and the tour in Vietnam) could be different movies in and of themselves. But Kubrick was trying to show that the knocking-down of character in boot camp (in order to build better soldiers) has unintended consequences. And you need the Vietnam section to show that.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) - A shame that his career ended with a movie more well-known for being Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's last together. I never had much interest in it, even as a postmortem on Kubrick's career.
So there...anyway, what brought me to talk about 2001 was the fact that J.J. Abrams is helming new Star Wars films, set to premiere sometime before the beginning of a new presidential term. Chances are, they'll be big (huge, even). But I wonder what a new, up-to-date 2001 would look like, through the lens of recent history and advances in technology that the film could only hint at (and some unforeseen circumstances that would have really stretched believability with 1968-era audiences, such as the demise of the Soviet Union and computers in every home, even on phones that we could carry around on our person).
Such a reimagining would likely eschew the moments that make 2001 unique, the languishing on space travel shots set to classical music (like two whole different sequences set to "Blue Danube Waltz"). In 1968, audiences weren't used to such lavish production on what was deemed a child's genre; today we're up in arms if filmmakers cut corners with such details. In our CGI-soaked universe, alien beings are never really "there" in the same space as their unfortunate victims. It's easier to separate ourselves from the spectacle onscreen not because we think it's happening but because we know that it isn't, not really. This isn't an argument for more hands-on special effects (CGI can do things that it would be dangerous to ask a human being to do), but it does seem as if we've lost something.
My take on the film, originally, was to embrace it as the "anti-Star Wars," though this is ignorant of the cultural forces that shaped both films. In 1968, no one had heard of Boba Fett or the Millenium Falcon. By 1977, every two-bit director of cheap flicks and sci-fi knock-offs had had their turn at turning 2001 into a treasure trove of visual cues that could suggest the classiness their films lacked; now it was George Lucas at the helm for a movie that dared not only to venture out into space but to have a damn good time doing so. Not for him the problems of a homicidal computer or an ancient artifact that may have birthed human intelligence.
2001 has long been seen by some as a film best enjoyed while stoned, and I think on some level the hippies and potheads may have a point: as straight-ahead narrative, it leaves a lot to be desired. When I was younger and trying to separate myself from my peers with delusions of intellectual pretensions that I didn't quite believe myself, I could say that they just didn't "get" Kubrick's vision. Now I kinda wonder if I was the one who wasn't "getting" it.
Point is, I still love 2001 and Star Wars, though as I've gotten older my love has changed. I can see the reasons why some people (not mouth-breathing philistines, but honestly good and intelligent people) might not be as enamored of the slow build-ups and beautiful shots of spaceships docking to nineteenth-century waltzes as I once was (and to some extent, still am). The use of classical music in movies is a bit like cheating, anyway; it's sonic shorthand for saying "ain't I sophisticated?" and plays as such when the visuals or story don't match the music. Star Wars, of course, is the domain of John Williams, and you couldn't imagine a film better suited to its music than the three original films. If J.J. Abrams is right for the role (and I think he is, having enjoyed his 2009 reboot of Star Trek), he's also smart enough to realize that Williams has already done the score; it's just a matter of making sure he records it in time. Our reactions to things that we loved pop-culture-wise should change as we grow and mature, even if they're for the negative. I see now the connection between the room where astronaut Dave spends his last hours before being reborn as a star-child and the eerie opulence of Kubrick's haunted hotel in The Shining. Having realized that for the first time this past Tuesday, I can say it deepens my appreciation of both films.
2001 may not be your cup of tea, but it does have a sequel floating around out there (2010, directed by I Have No Clue But Not Kubrick), which is the oddest thing about the whole endeavor to me. As self-contained as the movie is (and as lacking in any obvious taking-off point to continue it, like a lot of sci-fi films that aim for sequel or even trilogy status), I understand the idea behind trying to do more, because Kubrick left a lot of unanswered questions. But I prefer them to stay that way.
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