Robert Plant

Plant is one of the most underrated blues singers of all time.  For all his fame, he's usually linked more with rock than blues.  But that's because he brought in the modern age of blues vocals, and because he was playing with hard rockin, electrified musicians... they called it rock.

To me, blues is about the emotion, the cadence, the riffs.  What he was doing was, in many ways, basic blues.  But his range, the high pitch, the nuances, the pleading, aching tone he brought was such a leap, it just wasn't often compared to the original bluesmen.  I guess the closest would have been Howling Wolf.

Listening to Plant today, as he's back now with his slap to Zep Band of Joy, makes me appreciate his early vocal performances all the more.  As with Aretha Franklin, Elton John and others, Plant has lost his chops over time.  Chops, at least for vocalists and guitarists, are the high notes.  They're harder than the low notes and, at least for vocalists, they take their toll over time.

I've gone through many of Aretha's videos, for example, and cannot find any recent performances where she demonstrates the chops she had in her youth.  She does not sing the songs the same way today that she did in the 60's and 70's, and neither does Plant.  I'm sure they'd love to do that, and we'd love to hear it.  But the throat is a delicate instrument and what they gave us in those years just can't be maintained indefinitely.

While Gospel always had it's high notes, and Aretha drew freely from that, blues was a chest voice genre... until Plant came along and gave the blues octaves it never had.  So, it's in honor of you, Robert Plant, I write my first blog post in several years because micro-blogging doesn't do you justice.

Quarter Note

Quarter Note
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Wine Party

Wine Party
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Connoisseurs Faire Menlo Park

Connoisseurs Faire Menlo Park
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Groove Kings

Groove Kings
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Connoisseurs Faire... lots of dancers!

Devil's Canyon Brewery

P1010016
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Big Crowd at the Brewery

P1010015
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

JackAces

JackAces
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Valentines Party

P1010016
Originally uploaded by Intervisions

Wine Party

American Idol

I don't dislike everything about this show, in some ways I actually like it because it gives you a chance to get to know the performers a bit. While video killed the radio star, TV certainly saved the pop idol. I agree with Martha Stewart's view of omnimedia and cross-breeding to make healthier stock. Music certainly needed something and the Brits (who gave us American Idol) and TV saved our asses again, just like they did after Kennedy died, when the Beatles on Ed Sullivan got us all happy and musical again.

So now every other new star is coming off this show, its ratings are huge. I'm happy to see music on TV, I'm happy to see singers on TV, at all levels... let people see how hard it is. As with the dance competitions, hearing the opinions of those with well-developed ears and eyes expands our own ability to appreciate the components of the artform. I used to think singing was easy too, for those specially gifted few. Now I realize how much of it is craft and hard work. It's been a real reality check and it has sharpened our artistic sensibilities. My 11-year old can barely tell the good singers from the bad ones. With five years of singing under my belt I'm becoming better at spotting the flaws and assets, but it can be tough, particularly when it's a capella and you've never heard the song before.

Mary J. Blige made an interesting comment about the Grammy attention she received this year. She said "When people can see you, they award you." Like Mary, we see these performers humanized, as imperfect beings, like us. We commiserate with the one with the baby daughter, the one who spent her career so far singing back-up, the one splayed on the internet. We watch their auditions, their dedications, their practices. We watch their joy when they make it through each elimination and by the time that winner is elected the whole country knows as much about them as their own family members.

The problem for me is that, ultimately, the show is exactly what Simon keeps saying it is... it is a singing competition. Personality is definitely a factor, but artistic expression and message are not. With this type of emphasis we would have plenty of Mariahs and Christinas dominating our airwaves (hello) but how about the Lennons, Dylans and Madonnas. Those artists went into music not because they had great vocals, in fact, Dylan in particular took a lot of flack over his vocals, they made music because they had something to say and music was the art they used to do that. So now the new music, the music of the 21st Century is fantastic, vocally. Kelly Clarkson has the goods, but, as I listened to Kellie Pickler last night singing something that Loretta Lynn could have written, I thank God for artists like Natalie Mains and Billie Joe Armstrong, both highly awarded by their peers, for standing up, speaking out and being unafraid.

We may enjoy vocals, but what we really need are voices.

The Grammys

Thank God I taped this crime against humanity or I wouldn't have been able to fast forward through the unending Carrie Underwood section. Watching her try to countrify Eagles music would have been most unpleasant. I mean, I know Don Henley is delusional, but couldn't someone tell him the Eagles wasn't a country band?

And while you're at it, have someone tell NARAS that Grammy night isn't supposed to be day of the dead. Although I appreciate their recognition of the Dead (more than they do, only the drummers turned up), the first in forty years, the rest of the show was basically for the walking dead.

I should have known the vibrance and recognition of fresh new artists was only a momentary reaction to free-flowing internet music. Now with all those settlements under their belt, they have a false sense of security and have returned to their little comfort zone. The best they could do by JB was Christina Aguilera's version of It's A Man's World, what an insult, not to mention missed opportunity.

If the if NARAS wants to educate, fabulous, make some documentaries, put it on DVD or another time slot, give it free to the schools. But if you want the public to embrace music again, then make your annual showcase entertaining and put the real talent and energy up there. I had such hopes for this new century, the past few years have been fine, almost good. Oh well, meet the old boss, same as the old boss. That's not a typo, I mean, these guys can't even make a show of a new boss. It's just the same old tired values, promoting the artists that fit the mold. Oh well, at least they stood behind the Dixie Chicks.

BTW, what is the deal with all the movie stars? It seems like there were more than ever, don't you have enough faith in the pull of your own industry? I don't see any rock stars up there on Oscar night. I know their industry dwarves yours, but have a little pride. Your job, NARAS, is to promote your industry and you fucking suck at it! And that's why it's continuing to shrink, unceasingly, year after year. It's heartbreaking, but, like the administration you stood up against, you just won't listen, there's nothing getting through and you'll go down the way they will, in deserved disgrace.

Oh, and to top it all off, you shafted Danger Mouse... you guys really are CRAZY!

Settling

I guess we all settle. While, on a certain level, we all create our own realities, we each, unless we're psychotic, operate in a "real world" which, for most of us, does not seem to be a warm, nurturing, loving environment, but a challenging place where we need to make our own way. We're all taught to be responsible, to make things happen, to not expect something for nothing.

From an early age we learn to compromise. We learn not to expect all we can dream of or hope for. Those would be "unrealistic expectations". Life is more manageable if we keep our dreams and expectations in check. We dare not dream for Candide's "best of all possible worlds". That's a pipe dream. That's Hollywood, baby... don't ever get caught up in dreams of fame, glory. wealth or you'll end up like Anna Nicole Smith or Marilyn Monroe. And don't get caught up in dreams of success through artistic integrity or you'll end up like Kurt Cobain. You'll be disillusioned, crushed, it's a one in a million shot. The best you can hope for is to "make it" and live a life being chased by paparazzi.

So, most of us take it down a notch at some point. We lose our imagination, our creativity, our dream of making a fortune doing what we love to do and find a respectable profession, or at least a decent , paying job. Maybe we hang onto our calling as late as college, only to end up in some dehumanizing corporate slot. Within a few years, it's no longer a dehumanizing corporate slot, it's your life, your career, your world... for many people around here, it's everything. By the time most people are in it, it's not considered settling, it's considered more like success. They have a sense of their role in the world of commerce or technological progress, they are surrounded by others with the same lives, and that is enough.

OK, so maybe we can't all be Christina Aguilera or Tiger Woods... only a lucky few can achieve so much fame and fortune following their calling. But how about even the more modest dreams, the American Dream, the white picket fence, Bobby and Susie, a Chevrolet convertible and, of course, the perfect, sexy, adoring spouse. No one buys into this dream either. Almost every news story you see these days has the same premise; this famous person or that has as many problems as you do. The lovely Brad and Jennifer are torn apart, the wealthy and powerful Donald and Rosie are so insecure they have to quibble in public... on and on it goes, in entertainment, politics, business... even the church has had its maggots exposed.

So we settle for loveless lives, free of illusion, free of passion, free of hope. We comfort ourselves by thinking that even the most famous and privileged among us has similar problems and challenges. But, do they? In a way, yes, no one makes it through life on all green lights. We're all human, all imperfect. But, in a way, no. There are people who face life with less fear, who welcome change and growth and challenge, who spend time looking within and creating and dreaming, who approach life with depth and passion, who risk themselves emotionally, who express themselves openly, honestly and creatively, who think for themselves, who question the status quo, who speak out, who don't surround themselves with yes-men and others just like themselves. These are the people I respect and who inspire me. These are the ones who don't settle for the loveless marriage, the bad relationships, the shallow, meaningless relationships, the contacts. These are the ones looking for something more real in their own lives and in their relationships with others. So, with Valentine's Day approaching, have a heart. Don't settle. There is so much happiness and love and available for you if you open yourself up to it and dare to let it in. Don't miss out, ask for what you want.

Rose & Crown

Rose & Crown
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

Donald Trump

It's gotten to the point where there is no avoiding this guy, unless you want to demediate yourself. Don't bother looking it up, I made up the word. It means to crawl in a hole and avoid the media, which is about what you'd have to do to avoid the media these days. I hope the word will gain as much traction as the economic term, disintermediation, which also flags a misspell, meaning it's not recognized as a word by spell check (so does blog, btw), but which has made it to Wikipedia (also a "misspell"). Disintermediation is big because so much of it is going on right now. It means, basically, getting rid of the middlemen, cutting short the supply chain, most of is made possible by the internet. I greatly enjoyed the effect on the music industry.

Anyway, demediation does not seem to be a trend here, quite the opposite, we've added numerous layers over this century. However, selective demediation could probably go wide. A sort of universal spam blocker... I simply type in "Donald Trump" and no images of the guy and his "wisdom", venom or indefensible hairdo will get through to me in any form. The TV would automatically change to a default station as I passively enjoy my Trump-free life, never having to see one of his infomercials about how to make it big like him (I hope his course comes with a developer dad, like he had). My magazines would come with appropriate references removed... ok, enough dreaming, it's years away, time to get on with my actual point.

I read Donald's book in the 80's, my kids and I are Apprentice fanatics, and, I have no real problem with his unabashed NY style, as a New Yorker, I totally get that. He came from wealth yet has the bravado of a self-made man, which is somewhat offensive. He lives in a shallow world of deals and yes-men, he makes deal after deal after deal, he writes books about the art of the deal. He won't let the deal go down. He is the deal. He makes no apologies. Is this man what we all want to be?

That is the crux of the question for me. Do you want to be Trump? Do I?? Do the millions of applicants to his show, the readers of his books, buyers of his water? Obviously. He is the American Dream..... or so I thought. Now I see him engaged in this Rosie feud. If all the money, fame, power, young wife etc. make him so happy, wouldn't he be above getting annoyed with a comedian's barbs? Is Donald Trump happy? And, if he isn't, why should we devote our lives to the goal of becoming more like him?

He certainly comes off like a happy guy, but, even his own kids seem to have a sort of business-like relationship with him. He doesn't strike me as a particularly warm or peaceful guy. Unlike most famous people, who achieve fame in the arts, Trump represents the average "successful" person, someone who is confident and used to being treated with a certain amount of deference. He's like the guys I see downtown all the time in pressed shirts with Crackberries on their hip, on important calls, taking important lunches, making important deals.

It's a shallow, temporal happiness at best, but that's not how any of these guys see it. It's mental state that's easily ruffled and it's a narrow comfort zone because, most of these guys have a tough time getting real with themselves or others. As long as they're talking about business or some other mundane feature of their lives it's smooth and easy, but ask why they do this or feel this or think this and there's a total sea change, now they're in the ocean in a rowboat looking for an island. When they sense the platitudes aren't working, it's even worse, now they're peeking within and seeing nothing, feeling nothing but mild fear and confusion.

They start to sense that there's a whole other level they are not tuned into and the reaction, sadly, is not to try and tune into it, but to ignore it in favor of terra firma. Your job will not support you spiritually, even your church will probably not sustain you. If you want true peace and happiness, you have to work for it. It's hard work. In many ways, much harder than career work. But, you shouldn't run from it. Hard as it is, and probably with little support, at least at first, it is so worth it. If you're not centered in yourself, if you're not facing yourself, the career, even at the pinnacle will never really satisfy you.

James Brown

I didn't expect Christmas morning to start with tears, but JB has been a huge inspiration for me, as a white woman. As for black men, what can you say? He was the first black man to get up there and be a black man, truly, thoroughly, genuinely. If you ever want to know what it means to be a real person on this earth, to be uncompromisingly true to yourself, look at the master. Rural, uneducated, coming from nothing, but he heard the music, never stopped. When James was coming up, the last thing you wanted to be was a black man, no matter the talent. I love Chuck Berry, and Little Richard deserves props too, but James came out as neither effeminate nor literary, nor with a whitewashed do-wop group. He was a fully sexual black man, right out there with it, at a time when that was so threatening that guys were getting killed all over the place.

I thought the man would go on forever, he was touring this year. I'll be covering some of his music this Friday and next Wednesday. Come out and listen, or at least go see Dreamgirls, with Eddie Murphy renewing his old SNL hot tub personality into a funky JB-esque homage to the performer. In a few more years there should be something even better; Spike Lee will direct and Brian Grazier will produce a biopic on Brown's life, production to start late 2007.

Take a look at what the man wrote in 1964:

This is a man's world, this is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

You see, man made the cars to take us over the road
Man made the trains to carry heavy loads
Man made electric light to take us out of the dark
Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark

This is a man's, a man's, a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Man thinks about a little baby girls and a baby boys
Man makes then happy 'cause man makes them toys
And after man has made everything, everything he can
You know that man makes money to buy from other man

This is a man's world
But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

He's lost in the world of man
He's lost in bitterness

James had his demons, hard childhood, and I don't apologize for the way he treated women, or men. But, at least there was awareness. I see lots of these workaholic men all over the place, so happily immersed in their world of deals, cut off from their kids, their hearts, their souls, their passions, and never even knowing it. They have the wife, they have the kids, and all their stuff, and they think they are men. They think that's what it means to be a man. Well check it out guys, cause it takes a hell of a lot more than that. Yeah, it IS a man's world... and take a look at it.

So, save yourself the pain and cut the fucking vapid, petrified carols today and do what's right... turn up the burn and funk out! Look at how much hip hop dominates music today and how many of those beats came straight off his cuts. Virtually every act making money today owes Brown a huge debt. I can't think of any artist who has had more of an impact on the sound of popular, lucrative music today. Bye JB. I'll miss you.

Streamcast Goes Down

Each of these P2Ps have fallen, one by one, folded, turned over everything they could put to together to the labels. Even wonderful Limewire, which just countersued, is on death's door. Now this, the Streamcast decision (link above). If that's not the death knell, I don't know what is. I guess things have come full circle. Now,Dianne Feinstein, my own Senator, just introduced legislation to screw digital radio in favor of the labels.

It was a good fight. The fight to free up music for the masses was like the Summer of Love, it was such a great idea, had so much promise, even worked for awhile. A small, temporary Utopia snuffed out by mankind's inevitable lust for money and power. I feel like Peter Finch in Network being told in no uncertain terms, you do not fuck with the forces of nature. Human nature, that is. I guess we all value money and control, so maybe I shouldn't blame the people who work at the labels... or Northrup... or Halliburton... OK now I'm cracking up.

Things have changed a bit, at least you don't have to buy the whole crappy album any more. You can now get label music (with tons of DRM) off the web legally. Music got better for a while. But, change will be much slower now and I think we will slip back to the status quo. In the end, people are essentially passive and prone to habit. TV is as strong as ever. People do want to control their media and kids are used to it but the mainstream media delivers a sophisticated palette and this idea of grassroots empowerment, is, in the end a red herring. Will these Echo Boomers, grown up on soccer teams, really rebel in any meaningful way? Not like the Boomers did, they don't have the same relationship to their parents.

At this point, there still seems to be a pretty sharp demarcation between the viral 'web junk" and commercial entertainment. Perhaps that line will blur. People should get paid for their content and there will be some opportunity for that, but, I think it will continue to be negligible compared to what the Murdochs and Bronfmans of this world will skim off.

YouTube/Warner Deal

Despite Bronfman's hard line approach during the Napster days, the guy, like Murdoch and Redstone, knows where we are headed and figures if you want to make a buck you've got to go with the flow and listen to the kids. So, like Murdoch who went for MySpace and now Snocap, and Redstone who sees the future in games, Bronfman, who has been heading Warner in an increasingly indie direction, sees the writing on the wall.

As Bob Lefsetz has correctly pointed out, the big problem the labels had with P2P was never as much about piracy as it was about control over the best acts, who they feared would not need the old line distribution channels. As Bob so tactfully put it, "99% of music is crap". Given that, the name of the game is about securing the rights to rape the few, the talented... the lucrative.

So, now you know what these deals are all about. Whether it will work remains to be seen. None of these start-ups have turned a profit and once they sell out, the kids, many of them real smart, may move on to purer pastures. Good luck guys.

Just Be True

The true profession of man is to find his way to himself.
-Herman Hesse

I was hanging out and singing with a friend the other day, someone who I had performed with, who I hadn't seen for years. Les used to sing with the band Cold Sweat and now produces and writes his own music as Just Be True. He said a lot of profound things that really made me think. The way he has found to himself is through his music, which, needless to say, really resonated with me. Singers wear targets on their back, they need to struggle, it's part of being a singer, a performer, an artist.

But, before I get too into the musical journey, I want to talk about the quote above. It's from the classic book Siddhartha, very popular since the sixties, when the first generation of Caucasians discovered hallucinogens and we had massive boomer interest in exploring the meaning of life, happiness and fulfillment. The story of Siddhartha is basically the Westernized version of the story of Buddah.

Unlike Jesus, a poor man and fervent revolutionary, Buddah was a prince and focused less on social change and more on methods to find inner wealth, inner peace. The two men were quite different but it's necessary to understand both together in order to get the truest picture of life, society and the path to God. Until there is social justice, our individual paths to fulfillment will always fall short. Until we all face ourselves and work on our inner path, there will never be social justice. We all need to look within and we all need to speak out for the legions of materially poor people who can never really get a leg up because the small group of wealthy and powerful people exert so much effect.

So many of my posts, like the last one, focus on social issues. But this one is harder to write. It's so difficult to express the importance of facing yourself in truth and making change from within. It's something I've tried to do all my life, often not very successfully. I was married for sixteen years and I think it was especially difficult during those years because I was focused on my husband and kids. And I'm glad for that. Spending a lifetime contemplating your navel is not what life, love and learning are about. But, there needs to be balance and I'm experiencing far more balance now.

So, self awareness, looking within, growing, changing... all necessary goals and the paths to them are many. There's yoga, meditation, dance, prayer, reading, communes, churches, fellowship groups, alone time, retreats, contemplation, communing with nature... all of which I've tried. Then there's art and expressing oneself. Taking the inner stuff out to the world. Music, for me, so far has been primarily about outward expression. I expressed feelings about my marriage, housewife trip and current interests through my music, or at least my lyrics. I express my love of music through performance.

But Les helped me understand how music can be an integral part of the inner journey. One thing he did was help me identify fears that I hadn't really recognized. I think of myself as such a fearless person now, relative to my housewife days anyway, when I feared the social consequences of doing what I felt like doing. Yet, there's still fear: fear of losing bands, fear of not sounding good, fear of people thinking I don't sound good, fear of music. Yes, fear of music. I typically describe myself as an intuitive singer. I really feel these songs when I sing them and it sounds that way. But, I've been in situations where I've been asked to take it down a third or what key something is in, and there's fear around that because I'm not a musician and I don't have a thorough understanding of the structure and mechanics of music.

There's always so much more to learn and I'm afraid I'll never learn it, that I'll never be able to hold my own with musicians. I'm afraid that even if I could learn it, it would be a waste of time because it's too late for me to have any type of career in music. Like 99% of musicians out there, I'm afraid I'll never be able to make a living singing or playing music. I'm afraid, or perhaps a more appropriate word would be convinced, that I'll never master Logic, never be able to produce music the way Les can. Anyway, Les talked about not running from the fear but facing it and continuing to try. I tend to do just what I really enjoy from the heart and know well, which is the singing, and run from the more technical aspects of making music, even though I know it will help me and give me more confidence and control.

Les also talked to me about looking within. As with many performers, there's a lot of ego involved, the desire for applause, approval and maybe even adulation. This causes me to look outward, to others, and I've typically put too much stock in the opinions of others. Les helped me to hear myself and have confidence in what I hear.

So, thanks Les, for sharing your journey with me and for encouraging me to face my fears and not run from them. Thanks for inspiring me to understand more of what music can be for me and do for me and to listen to my inner voice, not just the vocals. I hope to pass some of what I've learned to my readers. Your fears are probably very different from mine, but, you have them, and you will continue to have them until you address them. They will hold you back from your happiness until you look at them and decide to follow your true voice and desires despite them.

Ohlone School

Ohlone School
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

Forces Of Good And Evil

The irony, in these "long tail" times, when it's becoming increasingly difficult to have a hit, when box office was hit, hard... the biggest seller ever is about pirates. Kudos to the underrated Gore Verbinski, my friend Janine's brother.

It's not looking good for Grokster, looks like Wilson is going to grant summary judgment for RIAA. So check out the link above for a much-needed laugh.

Check this out for why YouTube hasn't been sued successfully for copyright infringement... yet. Though now we'll get to see it tested.

Why We Fight

The film that explores this issue just came out on DVD and should be viewed by anyone who wants to understand our activity in Iraq, our economy and our Empire. The director, Eugene Jarecki, began his interest in this issue prior to the Iraq War when he saw Eisenhower's farewell speech. And it is this speech that opens the film. The night before he left office, Eisenhower issued a straightforward warning to the American people, the speech was not for any other purpose than to alert the public that the war machine, the "military/industrial complex" was gearing up and, without a vigilant public we would see the rise of misplaced power.

This is exactly what has been happening, and is now ramping up more than ever. Unelected think tank elite rationalists like Scooter Libby, Ken Adelman and Richard Perle now have power without accountability. They drive policy with position papers like the Downing Street Memo which outlays the preemptive doctrine in place today.

Those elected also can have power far beyond the intended scope of their position. Dick Cheney, along with many others, moved seamlessly between government and corporate positions that changed him from a non-millionaire to a man worth $70M in a few years. He went on to become the most powerful Vice President in history and along with a small cadre of ideologues directs policy more or less out of his own head. He is a man who does not listen, can't tolerate dissent and makes bad decisions.

Eisenhower had written the military/industrial/Congressional complex but left out the "silent C", as it is referred to in the film, because he had enjoyed a good relationship with Congress. But, Congress is the key to solving this increasingly militaristic and expensive problem. They are the only gatekeepers we really have, but, they are much more attentive to the votes from their constituents who work for this huge industry, then they are from a fat and happy, duped and silent American citizenry.

Jarecki lifted his title from a series of Frank Capra propaganda films from WWII, but feels Capra would make a film like this today because of his sympathy for the common man, the average American, who is the biggest loser here. As Eisenhower pointed out, for every destroyer we build, 8000 homes could be built.

Instead we increasingly spend on the tools to protect our corporate interests and promote our consumption-driven economy by installing 860 military bases in 135 countries all over the world, spending a trillion dollars on a standing army, selling arms to anyone who will use them, no matter who they are used against, invading leaders who do not want our soldiers, calling them terrorists, toppling unfriendly leaders, propping up heinous dictators and spending one half of our discretionary tax money on weapons.

Jarecki did the commentary track with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who had travelled a journey from patriotism to cynicism and concern, as did a number of people featured in the film such as veteran Wilton Sekzer who almost fell off his chair when he heard Bush saying that Saddam never had any involvement with 9/11. "Oh really", he says, "Then what the hell did we go over there for?" This after his successful request to have his 9/11 victim son's name put on a bomb that fell on innocent Iraqis.

There was also the personal story of the orphaned, troubled inner city kid who joined the air force on the bullshit that he could fly helicopters, even though the recruiter knew he would never get to do that. But, he signed him up and drove him to the base, in his car. No busses full of recruits any more, it's personal, one-to-one as the silent draft of our poorest goes on.

In the film, 9/11 was explained as retaliation for our placing military installations in Saudi Arabia. This was described by Chalmers Johnson as blowback, payback for our imperialistic activities. Only thing is, their military action cost about $500K, ours cost $220B and counting. And of course, we killed many more innocent victims.

Also clarified is another fallacy we were told about precision air-strikes. 90% of the thousands of Iraqi casualties were civilians. Those huge bombs miss... a lot. We saw worldwide sympathy for us disintegrate into worldwide disgust as we blatantly lied to the world. At some point we will have to face the reality that the administration wants, and has wanted for decades, permanent installations in Iraq and lied to the world in order to get them. We will never leave Iraq.

We are also helped to understand that while we have seen a huge acceleration in build up since 2002, this is an endemic, systemic problem beyond any administration. Parts of the B2 bomber are made in every state, this is to ensure that no Congressperson will favor cutting the project. Projects must be huge to succeed. Wilkerson submitted a $400M plan for the Hummer for the 82nd Airborne and was told by a Congressional aide to make it bigger or get dumped. He made it into a $9B project, which was passed. The typical scenario is to underestimate costs and over-promise capability.

As this sector of our economy spirals out of control we see our ideals go along with them. Most developed nations spend 2-5% of GDP on arms, we spend 50%, more than all members of NATO, China and Russia combined. China, which comes in second, spends 16%. It's a good business, given the planned obsolescence of explosives, and the number of oppressive dictators and conflicts. But how much better off would we be if that money repaired roads and built libraries and hospitals?

We would then be able to walk beyond our protected shores into the world and be proud to be part of a country that stands for something more positive and sustainable than greed, war and endless violence. The American Empire is distinguished in its exportation of ideas, but what ideas? Notions of fame, glory and a life like Trump and Britney which, if lead by all of us, would turn our planet into a barren rock? But, it looks so good and we fall for it, without apology. Who, after all, would we apologize to? Our kids? The oppressed masses?

No, we'll turn to them and say we didn't know and we didn't want to know. So, we didn't go protest the war or write our Congressperson and we drove SUVs around a lot and we were part of the problem. Why do we fight? Everyone Jarecki asked said the same thing, "freedom". However, he felt that in a free society, there should be a variety of answers so he probed people about how we were fighting for freedom, and inevitably those same people with the spoon-fed media answer were at a loss to actually explain how we fought for freedom.

We think we live in a free society but our media takes rhetoric unquestioningly from leaders in order to continue to have access to them, they all work for one of a handful of large corporations that control content. Activity goes on in Congress every day to take away access to alternative sources of information. We are now in danger of losing the open internet we have, we've already lost rights to time-shift content and share content that we previously held.

After Vietnam the military began training all personnel in how to answer media and how to present its message in a way the American public would support. So, they, and our media, wave the flag and talk about mom and apple pie and how we represent freedom and that's why we fight... and if you still believe that "we fight for freedom" after reading this review, see the film and decide for yourself.

Freedom

So, it's Independence Day. The airwaves and our skies are filled with expressions of pride in the United States and what it stands for in terms of freedom. We've been conditioned all our lives, not only by media but by our media influenced families and friends to believe that the US stands for freedom all over the world. Our country is filled with people who came here looking for the opportunity to live in a society where they could practice any religion, or no religion, where there was a fairly elected President, where they could work hard and prosper.

When our government sends our soldiers out to die, what is it in the name of? Not America, freedom. We don't kill others to convert them but to free them, right? Well, not according to George Clooney, if I could make heads or tails out of Syriana. But what I'm getting so far, from this film and from another great film, Lord of War, with Nicholas Cage, is that our government needs to be looked at as an arms corporation. Donald Sutherland, in Oliver Stone's JFK comments that the primary organizing principle of any government is war.

In Syriana, we see an arab prince commenting that if their country won't buy enough arms they are faced with embargoes and being called terrorists. In Lord of War, we see the arms dealer get off in the end because they are needed to get small weapons sold in Africa and elsewhere. We pay big money for oil and we need it back. What we offer up are guns and rifles and grenades and land-mines and rocket launchers.... it goes on and on. We enforce our monopolies on all this stuff as we do our others, the copyrights, with any force necessary.

How free are our choices, even as Americans, when we get all our news from corporate-owned sources? I read recently in Rolling Stone (RS 1002) how Bush not only stole the 2000 election, but the 2004 election as well, by focusing on critical states, mostly Ohio in 2004 and thwarting the electorate on a precinct by precinct basis and also by installing right-wing zealots as Secretaries of State, particularly in "battle ground states". Heard much about this? Seems like it should be a pretty big story when some 11 key precincts have results that differ so dramatically from exit polls that pollsters can't explain it... all going inexplicably to Bush.

Why don't the media cover stories like this, or stories about arms dealers, or the laws passed every day rolling back our rights to enjoy copyrighted material, essentially, all material? Why doesn't the media talk about how Americans who venture outside into the real world out there are embarrassed and mortified to see how we are perceived around the world?

Sure, we have freedoms here, freedom to shop at any Wal-mart we want, eat at any McDonalds we like, as long as we have the gas to get there. And don't worry, Bush will make sure you do. Do you have the freedom to lead a good life, a simple life, a healthy and balanced life? Kind of. It's hard, cause the government wants you working and consuming. If you try to slow down and enjoy your life, and listen to your heart and body and soul, you'll find freedom curtailed.

Patsy Ramsey

Sometimes the synchronicity of names amazes me. This woman spent all her life trying to be the perfect Patsy, and maybe she succeeded. But there is no doubt about one thing. She was the perfect patsy. Unlike Lee Harvey Oswald, who used his airtime to proclaim himself the patsy, Patsy never used her ample time with a mike to the public to play the victim. She was completely unfocused and confused by the public's venom for her.

She never turned the cameras back at the press, who demonized her while raking in billions off the images of her dolled up daughter. I can just see the rich and powerful men who control content in this country saying, "We've got to use these images over and over again because each time we run them we gain a percentage point in viewer-ship, and if we don't, Fox will. But, hmm, we can't just keep running them with no reason or story so let's focus on this bungled police case and whip up some venom for an arrogant, rich, white woman who sexualized her daughter for some mommy-pride contest."

So, goodbye Patsy, you're right up there with Patty Hearst and Karen Silkwood. Now you can be with Jon-Benet, it was all you ever wanted. You started dying when she did. If ever there was a victim, it was you. Going from the richest bitch in town, buttered up the yin-yang, to losing your beautiful little daughter, and all your fake friends, and fake status and your insulated illusions, and ridiculous values. You learned more than you ever wanted to... but what have we learned from you, from your story?

I learned a lot. I learned, once again, how much sexuality is feared, especially when we see it in women. We won't tolerate exploited sexuality, on the public level anyway. Things are different in our souls and bodies, not to mention the internet. Don't doll up your daughters and put them on display, because there are too many people out there are looking for relief from the corporate, work all day, de-sexed life they live.

Like Princess Diana, Patsy Ramsey enjoyed a life of privilege and money she did little to earn, and they both saw some of those things stripped from them in a very public way. They were criticized and attacked as women and as mothers. As for Patsy, many believed, and still believe she is a murderer. I think she's a victim of circumstance and showed little of Diana's insight. Her story is a sad one of the superficiality of status and the way our society views women and sex.

Block Party

Block Party
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

Blue Chalk Cafe

Blue Chalk Cafe
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

POPaganda: The Art And Crimes Of Ron English

In this endless stream of images, that we exist in, in a world where kids are growing up where their entire visual landscape is bought and sold and entirely co-opted, you can either have an acquiescent, passive approach to it and sort of enjoy the spectacle or you can try to confront it in some way.
-Carlo McCormick, editor Paper Magazine

In American society where art isn't a part of people's lives, I feel like I'm almost on a mission to bring art back to people. Everywhere I looked, I saw billboards, so I started co-opting billboards to put my art on.
-Ron English

Corporations don't deserve free speech, people deserve free speech.
-Ron English

These are some of the quotes that open the film Popaganda: The Crimes and Art of Ron English, along with quotes of passers-by who say things like, "This is truth, ads are lies", and the kid who observed that the billboard satirizing Joe Camel will make kids laugh the next time they see a real Joe Camel billboard. And there were lots of cigarette and alcohol billboards in the poor neighborhood that black kid lived in. Camel faced the pesky problem of its customers dying off and it became increasingly desperate to capture the youth market. They made their models younger but it still didn't appeal to kids so they began a campaign using a cartoon character, Joe Camel, which was hugely "successful", for them anyway.

Ron English didn't like this, none of us do, but Ron actually did something. He went after their billboards (and all cigarette boards) using their look, logo, taglines, like "Smooth Character", or “Salem Spirit” but incorporating his own ghostly, garish images that show the death and lies these images really represent. He also twisted their tags into things like "Cancer Kid". He would change the warning label to stuff like, "Courting kids leads to early retirement", or ask “Hook any new kids today?”. Camel did indeed discontinue the billboards, and Joe Camel, after a while.

He also went after Apple which, at the time, was appropriating the images of great, but conveniently dead, artists and thinkers like Einstein, who may or may not have wanted to endorse Apple products. They were using the motto "Think Different". So did Ron English, who put up similar billboards, only with faces of Charles Manson and Bill Gates. If you want to attack Apple, fine, but at least do it for the right reasons. Ron himself makes a living appropriating images and has been sued by Disney and the company owning the rights to Charlie Brown. So, it's a bit hypocritical to criticize Apple for doing it, even if for far less savory reasons.

I think the common images of our culture should not be sold off by heirs like crown jewels to big companies who extort huge fees for their use. Copyright law is one of our biggest enemies to free speech and English should have focused on this for Apple, which is extremely litigious and aggressive in protecting its IP. It had Ebay remove artwork by someone who offered an iPod altered to highlight the fact that U2, with whom Apple had joined, sued Negativland for parodying their songs. The story on that incident is in my blog.

One of Ron's favorite targets is McDonalds because, like the cigarette companies, it targets children. He has attacked them many times with numerous images such as the one of a bloated Ronald McDonald pictured on this blog below. He paints each public piece individually on canvas to hang in front of a billboard, almost all of which are dead ads, meaning the advertiser up there has received the time on the board he has paid for. Once the time is up, billboard owners typically just leave it up there for free because blank boards indicate to potential advertisers that it's not a location that sells well.

One of his McDonald's billboards was the inspiration for Morgan Spurlock's excellent film, which I reviewed on this blog, Super-Size Me. Morgan noticed the billboards in his neighborhood. Ron has inspired other artists who are featured in the DVD such as the Billboard Liberation Front, who wear bandanas and disguises and paste up messages on public spaces, including billboards, where they worked with English to put up the mileage statistics on SUV ads along with comments on how pleased Saddam would be, such as, “Saddam’s SUV Oil Dependence Day Sale.”.

Speaking of Saddam, Ron learned that he is the living person with the most songs about him, many probably written at gunpoint. Ron, while not at all competitive with his fellow renegade artists, did apparently want to best Saddam here and implored similarly minded musicians to write songs about him and his art. These little ditties run all through the film, and are pretty funny, as are the sayings on Ron’s billboards, in a sad sort of way. Mostly, they just make you think about the corporate messages that are usually up there in a different way. Here are a few:

The media is the massage.

You are what you own.

America: Home of the homeless

Your apathy is our strength. (image of the Capital)

Shop while they drop. (image of bombs)

Ron tackles all the sacred cows and powers that be, including the church and Bush administration. His goal is to take back the media and the message from those who have the only real access to most mediums of communication in our society. People have asked why Ron risks the arrests and doesn't just rent the billboards. The boards, owned by huge conglomerates like Viacom, Clear Channel and Ted Turner, who made his fortune off billboards, won’t sell the ad space to Ron.

Sure, you can paint your little painting and hang it in the gallery, or your studio, for a few eggheads, but people like Michael Moore and Ron English have no real access to media that has any sizable audience. Those entities take too much money from McDonalds and gas guzzling car companies. Independent film, fine art and internet, which is currently in grave danger from big telecom who would like to destroy net neutrality, are the only avenues open to those who oppose the messages bombarding us constantly.

There’s a commentary track with Ron English and the film’s editor saying that they had no idea that the director, Pedro Carajal, would ever actually make a film out of all this. Apparently, he just followed them around with a camera a lot. There’s no shortage of footage of these illegal capers, or anything else. Being an indie filmmaker myself, I’m pretty sure why Ron and the editor, not the director, did the commentary track. It’s all in the editing people! It’s the most under-appreciated endeavor there is, and the most necessary. And as art becomes more and more accessible (I got the photos of Ron's work for this blog from Flickr in a few minutes) editors will rule the world. They already do.

I’m sure it was a huge job on this project because you could make a four-hour film just showing Ron’s art at a pic a second. Talk about prolific, he works twelve hours a day and is a very popular and strong selling fine artist, hanging in galleries all over the world. Originally, he just wanted to bring his art to the people and put his incredibly detailed photo real pop/surrealistic art up for free. After a while he realized he could raise awareness of social and political issues in a big way and do what any good artist is supposed to do, encourage free and original thought.

The beauty of this art form is that you get something immediate and real. The artist just goes up there and plasters their message, like graffiti art. No editors, no censors, just the comment of someone willing to stand up and be counted. Ron puts his website address on all his boards, he doesn’t live in hiding and in fact refers to himself as a soccer dad. He does brag about coming from a family of outlaws though and says he didn't make the rules and sure as hell isn't going to follow them.

I have nothing but respect and awe for Ron and all artists willing to be that .01% of the population daring to say that the Emperor has no clothes, that consumption is costing us our planet, and we need to think about how much we really need, what we’re eating, what we’re doing to our bodies and minds and spirits and souls. They are competing with corporations that have the only meaningful “free” speech in this world and whose existence depends on our continued consumption.

We’ve come a long way since Andy Warhol replicated soup cans to show how mundane our lives had become. Ron has replicated Andy and his muse, Marilyn, over and over and over. They are some of his most requested pieces. Even art dealers want what is familiar. Of course, Ron’s Marilyns have Mickey Mouse boobs… but doesn’t everybody? We all live in the house of mouse, for now, but with a little more satirical, low-brow art, we at least have hope.

The Art

Ron English preview
Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

Son Of Pop

And Subversion Of

Ron English
Originally uploaded by Marco Tsai.

Anti Imperialism
Originally uploaded by Palestine Pictures and Cartoons.

Disney = Franco = censoring dictators

Multinipples

Multinipples
Originally uploaded by Eric in SF.

This is one of four Billboard Liberation Front/Ron English billboards that appeared in San Francisco over Memorial Day weekend. What is it says in black, if you don't feel like clicking on the pic, to enlarge it, is "Recombinant Growth Hormone injected cows are". BSTpasses through to the milk we drink and is in all of McDonalds dairy products. It is associated with everything from breast cancer to premature adolescent development in children.

6-6-06

Jesus Returns
Originally uploaded by squidish.

Jesus Returns. Look Religious!
POPaganda: The Art and Subversion of Ron English

Get Rich Or Die Trying

He's smart and absolutely driven. If he was born to Fred Trump, he'd be The Donald. Instead he was born to an alluring and adept NY drug dealer who was murdered when 50 was 10, and an unknown father. Instead of living in a penthouse on Central Park South, he lives on an immense estate with the proceeds of his first album, which sold a mind-boggling twelve million copies. He earned $41M last year, largely through branding deals for clothes, video games, ringtones and Reebok sneakers. He's about to sign a deal with Apple to brand low-cost computers. He was #8 on Forbes celebrity 100 List last year. He's 50 Cent, born Curtis Jackson, he's an artist, a multimillionaire, a drug dealer and an ex-con. He's been shot nine times and lived to tell about it.... in this movie named after his album and his philosophy.

It's the American dream; no matter where you start, with enough hard work and dedication, you can make money, lots and lots of money. If the American Dream was to find happiness and peace of mind maybe we wouldn't be facing the inconvenient truth that we squandered our planet in a few generations. But that's not the American dream. The American dream is wealth and now it's not just the American dream, it's the dream of everyone, all over the world.

It's all about making smart deals and giving your customers what they want. Trump's customers want the best quality New York housing available, 50's wanted crack. Like any other successful entrepreneur, 50 worked long hours and managed his crew well. Dr. Phil says the difference between winners and loser is that winners do things that losers don't want to do. Other dealers didn't want to take coins, or go to the trouble of ironing bills in order to give crisp change, but 50 did.

Now, I would argue that people who spend a lifetime doing things other people don't want to do isn't necessarily a winner, no matter how rich and powerful their sacrifice makes them. But, again, in this country, in this world, with the values we've developed, wealth is considered success and the lack thereof is considered failure... and this is the subject of this post.

Looking at 50 Cent begs the question, what is success? Anyone trying to argue that 50 Cent is not successful would have a hard time of it, yet, the guy is an unapologetic criminal... a Gangsta. Not only is he unapologetic about it, it's vaunted. Unlike Usher, who went with a traditional vanity project, In The Mix, to capitalize on his fan base, 50 went the route of his mentor, Eminem, and did a story loosely based on his life. He made this choice because he knows what sells, it's not just the melodic, hypnotic raps, it's his story, and his reality, his cred.

He's the real deal, a true artist. A true artist, in my book, is one who can expose. Exposing one's pain, particularly in an aesthetic way, is one of the hardest things in the world to do. Very few do it. John Lennon was brilliant at it, how can you listen to his music and not realize the deep pain he felt all his life over the lack of his mother? People have pain, all of us do, but we often don't know how to understand it, process it, heal it. Artists help us do that, or are supposed to. When an artist really exposes their pain, it helps us relate to our own pain and heals us, makes us feel that we are not alone in our human situation.

Who buys 50's albums? Twelve million black kids? Hardly. He sells big all over the world. It's your own suburban white kids, folks. Why do they buy it, relate to stories from the inner city? Because it's real... like their pain. The pain they feel from parents who see them as little success machines, who must rep them well to the neighbors with stellar grades and lots of extracurricular activities. Unlike adults, who get used to the idea of living in an unreal world of getting paid to be a cog in the wheel, kids want a life that feels immediate and meaningful.

They want to live for today, be in the present, feel their emotion and struggle and humanity. 50, with his close relationship to his maker, the one he encountered after being shot, and his unwillingness to alter his image or himself inspires kids to be real, to be genuine. Kids are battened with morality and rules every moment, some of which don't even make sense to them, there is no room for them to go outside the lines. But, 50 gives them permission and safety to do that, or at least experiment with boundaries.

What's interesting to me is how modest 50 is as an artist. Lennon knew his ability to expose and write music was genius. Though lacking parental love, John had full confidence in his identity as the tortured artist. 50 sees himself as a businessman first, something almost unique to hip hop and rap artists. He credits his ability to sell to white America to his scary image, not his art. So does Disney, that's why there's always a scary scene in their movies. In his own words, he thinks kids go into the store looking to pay $17.99 for a fear thrill. They want a dangerous thug image to pretend to, in order to make themselves feel tough and cool.

I think kids know what's real. You just can't fake it to the kids cause they're at school all day talking to each other. Now, with the internet, the buzz goes faster, stronger, and wider than ever. Kids don't just follow trends, they make them, and they are the only ones to make them, that's why advertisers seek them out. They loved Lennon, they loved Cobain, and they love 50 because those guys put their pain and weaknesses and mistakes out there for all to see.

So, is 50 successful? Hell yeah, but not because of the money, or even the drive, but because, like Lennon and Cobain, he was transformed by the love of his child to be a caring human being and expresses himself as a true artist.

Sweet Sweden: Pirate Bay Lives

I've always loved Northern Europe: socially progressive, aware, clear thinking and proactive. While most Americans haven't got the slightest clue about what RIAA and MPAA have been doing to curtail their access to and control of content, even content they "buy" (lease, rent, get to listen to twice....), the Swedes aren't gonna take this shit lying down.

RIAA has been closing down or responsible for revamping every fileshare site online during the past few years, even stalwart Limewire has taken all the fun out of downloading. Not one significant protest has been launched in response to this... until MPAA messed with Sweden.

Lots of pirate flags waving over there, and it's not for the premiere of Gore Verbinski's sequel to the Disney ride derivative. MPAA had the local police do its usual thing show up at the servers with handcuffs... what, did they forget the dogs? They confiscated the servers and successfully shut down The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent site showing file locations, for a few days. Dan, Mitch, Cary, and Dean were all happy again, until..... they fought back.

There was protest in front of Parliament with hundreds of people waving pirate flags, hackers broke into the computers of the Swedish police and disabled their site and The Pirate Baywas put back online with the following message, which was a bit different from what the Grokster assholes put up, here it is:

"Only torrent files are saved at the server. That means no copyrighted and/or illegal material are stored by us. It is therefore not possible to hold the people behind The Pirate Bay responsible for the material that is being spread using the tracker. Any complaints from copyright and/or lobby organizations will be ridiculed and published at the site."

Also, sites all over the world mirrored The Pirate Bay, making the site, which already gets some fifteen million hits a day, stronger than ever.


Dean Garfield, MPAA's legal director, was instrumental in getting Swedish police jazzed about the big raid. It amazes me that corporate associations like RIAA and MPAA are able to mobilize police departments this way for, at best, civil infractions, but they have been doing it successfully all over the world, and getting away with it. Dean has been outed doing some very nasty things, like paying hackers to break into the emails of people working at TorrentSpy.

It's like McCarthyism, the law now is all about intent so finding emails and evidence of specific intent to contribute to infringement is what it's all about, so anyone working in this field at all is likely to be subject to intensive spying. This is supposed to deter anyone from even thinking about P2P, and it's been fairly effective. People all over the world have been taking this lying down, but not the Swedes. So, hopefully, citizens in other places will be alerted and emboldened by news of this. It won't make any mainstream newscasts, that's for sure, but, that's what citizen journalism via the internet is for.

Why Internet Beats TV

This is from Current TV, Al Gore's baby. Between this and An Inconvenient Truth, the Hillary future is starting to look a bit murky.

Downtown San Francisco

Downtown San Francisco
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

King Thai in San Francisco

King Thai in San Francisco
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

RIAA VS XM

The link above is one of the best I've seen so far, not only because of the sardonic tone, which I always appreciate, especially when applied to the anathema of the earth RIAA, but its links and intervision. McKenzie picks up on why these vermin so undermine the fabric of our society, dragging us back to the dark ages of overvalued music. It's music! Not fucking gold bullion that spawns like fruit-flies for your endless profit.

I also liked this report, the first I saw, a few days ago, that show what liars these guys are.

And of course you can always count on the Extraordinary Freedom Fighters for a good assessment of the issues.

So, go XM! Save the world for democracy, freedom, music, Apple pie and all we hold dear! Let's hope they stay strong despite their set-backs, having dropped off 50% this year.

The New World

Some of the Native Americans that participated in this film objected to the title. It's not a new world to them. Their culture has been around for some 10,000 years here. They have lived in ecological harmony with this land for a long time and lead a lifestyle of grounded simplicity and joy in the natural world. To native, indigenous societies it is certainly our world, based on raping the planet for riches, that is the newer one. The old one was working just fine for thousands of years, how is this new one working for us? Global warming and its resulting hurricanes, heat waves, landslides of ravaged hills, $3. gas.... not to mention a world of people cut off from their connection to nature and their god-given instincts and intuition.

Before I launch into a review of this exquisite film, I must disclose my deep affection for Terrence Malick and his 1978 film Days of Heaven. I saw Days Of Heaven in the theater, back when I used to go to the movies a lot. I had returned from a three month car trip through this country earlier that year and watching his film filled me with so much longing for the American landscape that I packed up my car, saw the film again three days later and then took off the following day for another long car trip West.

The setting for Days of Heaven was Texas, in my view, not nearly the most beautiful part of this country, but Malick has an absolutely unparalleled genius for bringing out the peace and majesty of nature. There is no one who can put nature onto film like Terrence Malick and I would hate to think of this world, old or new, without him in it. Ansel Adams captures some beautiful forms in little black and white pics that enhanced our appreciation of what's out there, but Malick understands the color, the movement, the scope. I can't even use the word capture for Malick, he presents, he embodies, he translates something that is one of the hardest things in the world to duplicate on film... the absolute awe-inspiring feeling of being entranced and encompassed by nature.

I really regret not seeing The New World on the big screen and will look for it in art theaters, though the DVD is definitely worthwhile because there is a long section on the making of this film. Malick, who was strangely absent from the documentary feature must have spent the last eight years from Thin Red Line looking for financing for this project because it sure doesn't look like they spared much expense. Jamestown, the entire settlement, was completely re-created for the film, Native Americans were brought in to act and consult. Every attempt was made to be completely authentic; using a few journals from the time.

The story is basically a love story, about John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas. The latter is played almost silently, but strongly, by fourteen year old Q'orianka Kilcher and she does a good job of conveying a girl completely in touch with herself and the world around her, even after she is removed from her tribe to be, in effect, a hostage of the English. She is well treated and eventually marries, even has a son, and goes to England to be feted by royalty, but never loses her center or her love. For most of the story she loves John Smith, even though he returns to England without her and has her told that he is dead.

She later discovers he is still alive and with that her love for him re-blossoms. She is honest with her husband and, unlike most men, he acts in a very loving and selfless way. He re-unites the pair to see where it goes. She realizes, when she re-connects with Smith, that what she has with Rolf is actually truer and she returns to loving him. He was very wise to let her follow her nature and allow her to love freely. He realized that love can't be forced. Maybe living close to the land, with Pocahontas, taught him that.

Days of Heaven also featured a love triangle and a woman who loves two men interwoven into such an incredible natural landscape that you really don't even need a story or plot. I remember in Days of Heaven about twenty minutes into the film I was saying "Wow... a plot too!" It was like an extra bonus. I would have been more than happy spending two hours just watching how Malick films water or wheat.

It's sad to me that this film, while receiving lots of critical acclaim, went unnoticed by viewers and the Academy. In my mind this film does everything a film is supposed to do. It's stunning, enchanting and engrossing even on just a visual level. It educates our minds about important events that changed the course of history. It speaks to us about love and its difficult choices, its pain and confusion and longing, its deep and unchanging nature that has no pretense to rhyme or reason. It shows clashes of cultures and ideas and their resolution. And this film also does something that very few films can do, it viscerally engages our deepest spirits and brings us a sense of what nature can do to our souls when given half a chance.

I remember on a lot of my young travels watching the tourists who would pull up to the Grand Canyon or some other magnificent natural wonder and say, basically, wow, that's amazing, what's next? They weren't really living and breathing it, they were watching it, like TV. Take the kids, let's visit some museums, some mountains, write a few postcards and there's your vacation. There are tourists, and then there are travelers. Malick is for the travelers, the learners, the experiencers. That's why the film didn't draw crowds, most people are tourists and will miss what Malick is really about, will miss what the world God gave us is all about.

For most, this world is one of offices and cell phones with little spots of beauty and nature thrown in to keep it from being unbearable. How unbearable would life be if we all realized how shallow and detached our lives really are? God gave us so much. And we stupidly decided we could do better. Never satisfied, we grasp always for more and better and newer. Did the British see the world anew when they met the natives? Not really, progress marches on and much of what has been brought is indeed better, making life on this planet more comfortable, predictable and safe... but, at what cost?

To me, the new world is indeed the world seen anew. When we wake up in the morning and see the world a bit differently than we did before, it is an achievement. When we keep our minds and spirits young and fresh and open, full of love and wonder; that is the new world. Watching this film refreshes our world-view if we let it.

Rumor Has It

I like the fact that this film advances and draws on popular culture while remaining thoroughly original. If you read my blog, you'll see how often I bemoan the way the RIAA has appropriated our popular music, a deep part of our culture, and essentially, held it hostage by charging exorbitant rates to use past hit songs in films, mash-ups and other art forms. This film talks about The Graduate, and incorporates lines and plot points without running afoul of our excessive copyright protections much as Nora Ephron used Bewitched, the TV series, in her eponymous film. The convention worked better in this film because it brought in the real world more successfully.

Whereas Ephron's film felt farcical, this romantic comedy was handled better. I hate to compare Nicole Kidman unfavorably to Jennifer Aniston but the latter brings heart to her parts. Costner, portraying the real life Benjamin Braddock, is playing the same role I've seen him play in the last twenty films and Shirley MacLaine has also atrophied, though at least she didn't try to play seductive, she remains stuck in her Steel Magnolias mode. Some Charity Valentine would have been much better here, but maybe Rob Reiner stuck her in Bittertown. Too bad Anne Bancroft's dead. The Graduate, though it made Dustin Hoffman's career, was all Anne.

I mean, really, she plays an alcoholic who seduces the son of her husband's partner, literally luring him into a room and cornering him stark naked, then telling her daughter that he raped her. Charming... yet she makes us love her anyway. It's not easy to make a story like that work. So, anyway, this film also brings in the aspect of uptight suburban, rich Pasadena and the urban legend that surrounds this tale and its writer, Charles Webb.

Since there's no commentary track, I don't know if Charles Webb grew up in Pasadena, or wrote The Graduate based on a real story told to him by a prep school friend. Maybe that's some of the mystery that makes this film fun. I liked the contrast between these mothers and granddaughters who freely intergenerate and the hausfrau gossips that speculate from the sidelines. OK, I made up "intergenerate" but isn't it a great term to describe those who don't confine their dating and sexual pleasure to those who are the same age?

I'm all for it. The three great loves of my life are all 6-8 years older than me. When I was younger, I had almost no interest in men in their twenties and preferred older guys. As long as they're in good shape, I still prefer men who have interesting life experience to draw on. But now I see all sorts of things in younger guys that I really didn't appreciate before such as openness, enthusiasm, access to emotion, integrity and sexuality etc. They're not so beaten down and pussy-whipped, they don't carry all the bitterness and baggage. They're freer and more idealistic and creative.

So I liked this romp through the many configurations of younger/older and fun/serious relationships. I guess the message we're supposed to get is that sexual experimentation and exploration is great but "building a life together" requires more. Hell yeah, it requires the rock guys, not rock like rock and roll, but the rock, the guy who you can have kids with and depend on. OK but just remember, that's how Mrs. Robinson ended up in her sorry state... by marrying the rock. Not the rocker, the rock.

So, let's look forward to Rumor Has It Two when we see Jen twenty years later hitting on her son's friends...

Munich

This is the story of a group of Israeli men who were given the mission of executing those responsible for killing eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. Although Golda Meir publicly ordered the execution, the mission was essentially covert. The events of the hostage-taking and subsequent killings in Munich are covered through flashbacks that I found distracting, especially since Avner, the guy having them, wasn't even there at the original crime. The story arc would have been better had Spielberg kept a tighter chronology. I also thought a lot of the violence was gratuitous. The film seemed too consciously paced for the typical young male ADHD theater goer.

At times it just seemed to go mindlessly from one bungled bombing to the next. It's hard to believe they couldn't find one skilled bomb-maker in Israel. One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the way it addresses some of the larger moral issues concerning justification for war and killing. Some of the group have a hard time with what they are doing, on a moral level. Capital punishment is not used in Israel, so these executions violated their own laws. These men were not captured, for trial, they were killed, with bombs, to get press and terrorize the terrorists.

Another creative twist was showing how immorality and violence take a toll on the human being. Avner's wife is seven months pregnant when they approach him and he loves her. At the end, while he is making love to her, you see all the worst flashbacks of killing the athletes. Even as he makes love to the woman he loves, a woman he has missed for months as he was away on his mission of death, he thinks only of violence. How many men think of work as they have sex with their wives? His life had become about killing, justified or no, and it was a part of him, irrevocably.

Then there's the "meet the new boss same as the old boss" aspect. You can go on killing the bad guys forever, and even worse guys will take their place. One of the agents had this response to offer, "Should I stop clipping my fingernails because they will grow back?" So, there are a lot of opportunities to ask moral questions about what is happening in the Middle East and elsewhere. How much violence do we need already? Does endless retribution serve any purpose? When does it end? Every side has it's justifications. The Palestinians want a homeland, and are sick of being mistreated. Their tactics are meant to show their desperation. It's a bit astounding to me that a Jewish director would be so even handed in his treatment of this issue. It's an extremely difficult line to walk, especially in such a public way.

If these Israelis have trouble justifying killing those who plot against innocent athletes, how the hell do we justify killing thousands of Iraqis and Americans for oil? What are we doing to promote peace in the Middle East? I commend Spielberg for smelling blood in the water and being a part of the Hollywood and musician uprising against Bush, which I think accurately describes this film. That guy is gonna stink so bad by '08 that wise to wait Hillary will have smooth sailing.

Did this film deserve a nod for best picture? No, there were far better films made last year. Spielberg feels that whenever he uses his obscene power as the world's most famous film director to shed light on a social issue he deserves an Oscar. We have never seen a director, in all film history, with the power to bring viewers into a theater like he has. He is truly the first rock star director, a phenom. I recently started watching Terrence Malick's The New World and it's been an interesting contrast because, while both are great directors, their approach is so different.

With every frame of Malick's, you see art, you see the artist, you see a man who wants to put beauty up there for people, you see a man who wants to paint the natural world in an awe inspiring way. You see the restraint, the eye, the artistry. When you watch a Terrence Malick film, you see the highest form of what a director can achieve as a visual artist. Spielberg is a disseminator, a populist, a panderer. In his films you see the conscious manipulation of emotion, the pacing for heart-racing, the story, the charm. In his mind he's a storyteller surrounded by kids at the campfire.

So, whether you think Munich was one of the five best pics of '05 depends partly on what you want out of film. For me, I don't look to film to be my thrill ride. If I want to get my heart racing, I don't do it sitting in a dark theater. I want film to be beautiful, I want it to bring me in and capture my emotion and soul and take me to some new knowledge and feeling. On the other hand, as I said, it's not easy to take the unwashed masses and try to teach them a little something. He definitely had to chop a few million off his back end to do it, not to mention all the dough he had to spend to promote himself into the race. But Spielberg already has the dough and fame, he wants to be considered a great director, which to me, means artist, even though he's not.

I'll be the first to agree though that, in art, beauty is only half the story. Art is equally about communication and bringing people in and changing attitudes and culture. This is where visionaries like Spielberg, Jobs & Gates excel. Of these, Spielberg is the only one who could call himself an artist, and can do so with his head held high. He is an artist, but in a more general way. A lot of his skill set is more business than art and while I have great respect for what he does, Malick compromises less and achieves more to further the art of filmmaking by showing what can be achieved in the art form itself.

American Banned

American Banned
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

The Greatest Game Ever Played

Golf? You want to tell me golf is the greatest game ever played? Why, because Francis Oumet rose from lowly caddy to businessman on the strength of his game? If that's the criterion I guess I'd have to offer the very obvious fact that far more men, and even women, have moved from poverty to prominence in basketball than golf. Even football, violent as it is, as least offers the chance to move up and earn money. For basketball, it moves fast, can be played almost anywhere, offers ten guys the chance to play at once, demands stamina, strength and grace. All this makes it great for spectators and participants alike. It can easily be played indoors, making it year round and all-weather. It requires strategy, quick thinking and an ability to read people and their bodies.

Tennis also offers a lot of these same qualities, which is why I love to play it. Like golf, it offers the chance to hang out with three friends and get some exercise outdoors. Golf, not to mention baseball, is too slow and non-athletic to even be considered a sport. And BTW, the reason Bonds, Sousa and McGwire are breaking long-held batting records is not because of the steroids. That's just what helps them build up more muscle by letting them inflame less from workouts. What's really making the difference are drugs that aid their reaction times. The reason I know this is because I dated someone who helped develop the drugs. They're not used by many, and are known about by even fewer.

Since golf isn't even arguably the greatest game ever played, except by wealthy men looking for the longest possible time away from their wives, what's the deal on the title? Are they saying this particular round of golf, the last in the eighteenth US Open, was the greatest game ever played? Well it may have been the greatest game of golf ever played, at least for American players, because it completely energized the game over here. It was a huge upset for the Brits, who dominated the game, particularly since the title went to an unknown player. Francis Oumet, and his ten year old caddy, did have enormous celebrity after the game. Tiger Woods, black, a phenom since age 5, has certainly had a big effect on the game.

As to the greatest game ever played in terms of whipping up US emotion, that would have to go to the last game of hockey in the 1980 Olympics where the US, a team of college players took the gold over the Soviet Union. In fact, this "miracle on ice", immortalized in the film Miracle, was voted the greatest sporting event of the 20th century by many in 1999. If you're looking for the greatest game in terms of upsets, that would have to be 1969 the year the amazing Mets won the World Series.

If you're looking for an event that radically changed a sport, I would have to point to "the thwack heard round the world" when Nancy Kerrigan took a whack from Tonya Harding's thugs. As has been said, every skater out there today ought to be bowing in Tanya Harding's direction five times a day because whereas before, Olympic champs could barely make a living, now, just about any skater with a name can earn millions. Billie Jean King turned tennis around for women in terms of what they could earn. Certainly her game with Bobby Riggs garnered almost as much attention as the 1913 US Open, which did attract some 25,000 people to the course.

Now I'm not saying this was a bad movie or anything. It's well worth buying on DVD because it's uplifting, inspiring, historical, socially aware and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features. One of them is by Bill Paxton, of Apollo 13 fame, who directed and took an interesting approach highlighting the tactical features of the game as well as making a lot of visually interesting shot choices.

Cinco de Mayo

Cinco de Mayo
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

American Banned

Rosie's Cantina

Rosie's Cantina
Originally uploaded by Intervisions.

Shopgirl

Steve Martin adapted this screenplay from the novella he wrote in 2000. During the height of the bubble he must have noticed the class differences in LA going full throttle. So he brought to the fore themes he had let lie since LA Story. That ensemble clearly showed us how Martin sees the world, his outsider eye always brings such delightful perspective whenever he presents it, from The Jerk on. I've been a fan of Steve Martin since King Tut, the zany dance meant to spoof the millions of spectators lined up to see the gold of the boy king.

Here he shows the contrast between rich and poor LA. We go back and forth from Ray's aquatic, modern mansion to the austere Silver Lake apartment of Mirabelle (Clare Danes), a young average girl with 40K in student loans and, for some reason, a job selling gloves at Saks (doesn't a college degree get you more than that?). Martin plays a wealthy older man who is attracted to her and they begin to date. The plot is pretty simple, he likes the sex but she starts to get needy and he realizes she doesn't have much else to offer, so breaks up.

She cries but moves on, grows from the experience and by the time all that happens, the younger, more appropriate, I guess, guy (Jason Shwartzman) has a little more maturity and takes her off into the sunset. Ray finds a nice gynecologist his own age and everyone lives happily ever after. I guess we're supposed to see two dynamics at work here, the class differences as well as the age difference, and how they play out.

In anther film that just came out on DVD, which I didn't review but maybe now will if I find a lot to say on this issue, is Prime, where the gorgeous Uma Thurman plays the older woman to a 23-year-old guy. She tells him at the end that she will give him the biggest gift of all by letting him go find someone his own age... she doesn't need his sperm to have a baby that bad, thanks. At least in Prime there's a little twist on on the stereotype, Martin's is pretty true to form. The older guy seems pretty dead emotionally. It's hard to see what he really wants in a relationship. Though he's somewhat enchanted by Mirabelle he doesn't know how to relate to her on an emotional level and since she's clinically depressed, she doesn't have much to offer him in that department to help him understand his emotions and help him grow.

I feel sorry for Ray. He's got lots of money and security but no real passion, no real compassion and doesn't seem to have much going on spiritually. Mirabelle excuses all that because she's poor and young, she probably sees her prospects mostly in terms of marriage. Since she needs help in almost every way, someone who at least offers money, offers a lot. Money can buy a lot, not everything, but a lot. Someone older and wiser would find a lot lacking in Ray. Even if we assume he's pretty good on a mental level, we've still got emotional, physical & spiritual to deal with.

Lots of women, particularly young women do see men in terms of money and security. Guys know this, especially guys with money, and they need to know they are loved for themselves. It's hard to know this when the lady has no dough of her own. Yeah, Ray can see she really cares for him, but would she care so much if he were poor? Maybe not, after all, she blew off the artistic Jeremy until she sees him in a snazzy white suit, and doesn't give him a second look till Ray dumps her and it starts to look like Jeremy might do OK as a provider.

What it gets to for Ray is that all he can get from her is physical, he doesn't see her as a source for anything else. So, at the end, Mirabelle has seen another slice of life, courtesy of Ray, and is a little more worldly and sophisticated but still has a long way to go. I wish her well but don't pity her the way I pity Ray. This guy is well into his fifties, if not 60's and, really, should be a lot further along. I don't get the sense he's ever shown real commitment or known real love. That's what gets me. When I see people waste their lives, that's the stuff that really saddens me.

We are so much more than our intellects, our mental achievements, no matter how much power and money they give us. But, because they give us so much, they can be distracting, alluring, deceptive and addictive. The world, not to mention, Palo Alto is full of guys, and even some women, who are what Antoine St. Exupery calls mushrooms, big heads without much underneath. Their emotional, physical and spiritual sides are like deformed little appendages that never grew, just lying there. But unlike with limbs, most people never see these handicaps, unless you look close up. I have and it's sad.

There are a lot of sad, empty men out there looking for glove salesgirls, and confidantes and intimacy but never really finding it because there's always some deal around the bend. So, Steve's personal comment is on the loneliness and emptiness not only in the lives of young, poor salesgirls but wealthy, powerful men... and everyone in between.

The Family Stone

More like the family stoned. Most of the all-star cast portrays a liberal Northeastern family contrasted against Sarah Jessica Parker's overly uptight, conservative, or maybe just asinine, potential in-law to be. Luke Wilson plays the affable, mandatory stoner. After his stint in the even weirder Royal Tenenbaums, he may corner the market on quirky family dramedies. In this one he sleeps with the aforementioned prig, or at least passes her the duchy, and, well, she does loosen up a bit. Of course you can see the happy ending coming a mile away.

The liberal yet rigid, judgmental clan learns not to be prejudiced against the clueless yuppies of the world because, hey, sometimes they show some sensitivity and throw you off completely. The blind ambition tour realizes there's more to life than career, realizes she's a mere cog in the corporate machine and marries her new fun dealer. The original date also needs some loosening up via the sister and by the end, everyone's happy. Anyway, there are even more issues than this. What with a cast of seven principals above title, there's a lot of dialogue, a lot of issues... including the meandering nature of the plot, if there is one.

Maybe it's just a warm heartfelt exploration in family dynamics, or at least that's what they probably had to tell Diane Keaton to get her involved. She certainly wasn't thinking clearly when the hair colorist came around, that's for sure. I preferred her in her last major role in 2003, with Jack Nicholson, in Something's Gotta Give, where she was at least vibrant & healthy & had some actual interests, other than matriarchy. As for the rest of the cast, Clare Danes is far better in Shopgirl. Rachel McAdams was better in Red Eye and Parker, you got it, her sex was much better in the city.

This is the place in the review where I normally veer off into my personal views on some social issue and use the film to buttress and reflect my views. Unceasingly unwilling to let my readers settle for mere plot summations and erudite twaddle on film history or something, I offer full out propaganda and incitement. So, my choices are (1) a discussion of liberal vs. conservative values (no need to wonder where I'll come down on this one), (2) the difficulty of fitting into a different social group, especially someone else's family (3) the complexity of interpersonal relationships, or... (4) the results of my recent personality tests.

So, one thing they said was that while I was unlikely to become the president of a company I would very likely become president of the revolting faction the company. Therefore, I will avoid going off on item #1 above. It also said that because I have really high intuition about people, I often think others see into me, when, in reality, they don't. Since people so rarely see anything hidden (or even unhidden) in me, much less my film reviews, let me just trot this out for you (and watch how I, as usual, bring this back to the film at hand). Prejudice is bad.

Whether you're a liberal or an unthinking, unchanging, stick with the status quo cause I'm rich or scared, conservative, we should keep an open mind because, as we see in the syrupy epilogue to this film, you just never know your friends from your enemies and which will make you grow more. To wit, by the next Christmas Mom is but a memory, two babies are added, and the new people making the kids happy have both been brought in by the uptight conservative asshole and even she has found redemption in the form of a stiff joint and flexible guy.

So, as they say in the movies, this only happens in the movies. In real life people stay in their own little worlds where things are safe and predictable and everything labeled different ends up on the scrap heap. But, if you're in a Christmas-y mood in May, check this one out cause it moves well and has lots of commentary tracks and other bonus features.