November 3, 2006
TOOL TIME WITH GEORGE BUSHIf you grew up in America like I did, you probaly grew up fearing some dictator or despot from somewhere trampling on freedom. You had your nightmares of Hitler and Mussolini if you grew up during World War 2, the spread of communism during the Vietnam era or what Reagan called the Evil Empire during the '80s. Or our younger folks are growing up hearing about Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il and all the various oppressive Islamic regimes. Maybe you read 1984, Animal Farm, V For Vendetta, the Handmaid's Tale, Star Wars the official novelization. For life-long Americans, living under an oppressive regime is the stuff of cautionary tales. Thank God it's hard for us to imagine living in a country or a planet where you have to fear the police coming and taking you away at night for your political beliefs, for a misunderstanding, for a vendetta, because your neighbor accused you of being a traitor, or for no reason at all.
But with the continually snowballing monumental incompetence and belligerence of the Bush administration, with the Patriot Act parts 1 and 2 still on the books, with the Iraq war still spiraling out of control, Afghanistan still falling from our grip, Osama bin Laden still on the loose, bodies still rotting in the streets of New Orleans, North Korea going nuclear thanks to our Conan the Barbarian approach to diplomacy, and the republicans facing the task of convincingly rigging the mid-term election when the whole world expects them to be crushed into oblivion by the angry populace, it's easy to get paranoid about what these assholes might want to pull next.
What if, during all this craziness, the president decided he had the right to just lock up anybody he chose, for any reason, without a charge or a jury, and have them tortured while he sits in the corner jerking off? And what if Congress, in all their befuddling lack of wisdom, decided to pass that into law?
Well, there's no point worrying about WHAT IF because this actually happened last month. In case you missed it, the MILITARY COMMISSIONS ACT was actually debated and passed in Congress, and Bush signed it into law two weeks later. It's for real. The part about him jerking off is not specified in the legislation, but is implied.
Basically, the new law allows Bush or Rumsfeld to declare anyone an enemy combatant. That person will not have habeas corpus, the right to challenge their detention (which is a pretty major policy change for anyone who has lived in this country at any time during the Constitution or the 800 years since the Magna Carta). The suspect (or "terrorist" as they are now called [presumed innocent is now only a John Grisham novel and not a principle we live by]) can be sent off to the secret CIA prisons to be tortured, but it won't count as torture because the law allows Bush to define what constitutes torture, and how people can be interrogated. It specifies that Bush gets to interpret the Geneva Conventions however he wants, and since Bush can't even fucking read, that pretty much gives him free poetic reign to make up whatever shit he wants. (I guess the idea is we can trust that this guy will want to set a good example for other countries when they capture our soldiers - never too late to be thoughtful and far-sighted for the first time in your god damn life.) If anybody happens to get a trial, the prosecution can use "classified" information against them without them being allowed to see what it is. The law also makes all the torture, rape and murder that took place in Abu Ghraib, Gitmo and other American prisons retro-actively legal, and shields Bush and friends from being tried under the War Crimes Act. (Almost as if they believe they are guilty of committing war crimes. Weird.)
Finally we know what Bush meant when he kept saying "we don't torture" while people were passing around hundreds of photos clearly showing that we do torture. On the surface it seems hypocritical that they were saying "We don't torture, it was these bad apples, we locked up that white trash bitch so everybody is safe now," and then turned around and peddled this legislation saying "IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT TORTURE YOU ARE HUGGING THE TERRORISTS AND WHISPERING INSPIRATIONAL TALES OF TRIUMPH AND HEROISM IN THEIR EARS!" But we just didn't understand what was being said because when Bush said "we don't torture" he was speaking from a futuristic perspective. He knew in the future he would be able to retroactively legalize and redefine naked butt pyramids and sticking electrodes up people's asses as non-torture. It was like that part in BILL AND TED where they run into themselves from the future. Except less excellent, more horrifying. We didn't know it then but torture actually wasn't torture, it was freedom and compassion. Now we know.
Now, I've talked to plenty of people about this act and they had no idea it existed. If this is the first you've heard of the Military Commissions Act, I hope you are asking "What the fuck? How in God's name did this happen in America?" Well, it was the same old political bullshit. John McCain and some other "moderate/maverick" republicans "took a stand" and demanded that the part about torture be taken out of the legislation. (They were fine with all the other horrifying anti-American stuff, but they were against the torture). The democrats, instead of taking their own stand, thought it would be smart to sit back and let the republicans fight each other. Then eventually the media declared McCain the winner, Bush "compromised" by letting them take the torture part out, and everybody was happy. Then they put the torture part back in and nobody said anything and I guess McCain doesn't care anymore it was just a passing phase he went through, he doesn't care about that shit anymore now that the cameras are gone.
These guys are so great at coming up with euphemisms. In a press conference after the signing, Bush described the legislation as "a program that enabled us to interrogate folks." But more often him and his henchman call it "tools." Republican House Majority Leader John "seriously guys, it's not pronounced boner" Boehner said, "It is outrageous that House Democrats, at the urging of their leaders, continue to oppose giving President Bush the tools he needs to protect our country." Bush also used many variations on the "tools" theme, that they needed to give him the "tools" to fight the "war on terror." The guy just loves his tools, he's handy that way. I wonder if he ever visits Saddam in jail to talk tools. Because I seem to remember Saddam used tools too, he had all kinds of tools, and I thought we all agreed it was bad that he kept using tools like that.
Personally, I don't want Saddam to have tools and I don't want Bush to have tools either. Who am I, I'm just some dipshit who writes about action movies, nobody cares what my stance on tools is. Luckily I can back what I'm saying up with some other people and famous documents that are against tools. The Constitution, for example, is against tools. Benjamin Franklin was against tools. Thomas Jefferson definitely didn't want Bush to have all those tools. And those guys knew alot about America so I trust their take on it. They were into it before it was on the Old Navy shirts and all that.
I know, I'm no Constitutional scholar either (although in my defense I never put my hand on a Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution). However, somebody did loan me a 1997 Civics text book purchased at a garage sale. It has some information on the Declaration of Independence (I know, pre-911 thinking, but bear with me). By reading this book I was able to glean a few things on this topic that apparently the president and the United States Congress are not privy to.
Now let me explain something to you fuckos. Long ago in a galaxy far away and what not, America was merely a colony. But some wise Americans now known as "the founding fathers" wanted out from under the thumb of King George (no relation), so they declared independence and started this whole "America" thing that you guys claim to love so much more than the rest of us. I'm going to give you guys the benefit of the doubt and assume that you never heard of the Declaration of Independence before and were only unintentionally shitting all over everything that this country was founded upon. It was a faux pas and not a deliberate act to stab America in the eye and laugh at us.
If that is the case you should look up this declaration I'm talking about. You would be surprised. At the beginning it says, "We hold these truths to be self evident..." That means we Americans consider these truths to be obvious. They are common sense. You would have to be a fucking moron to not notice these truths. No explaining should be necessary, especially to a fucking United States Senator.
"...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
You see what that says, it says ALL MEN. It doesn't say all men who are currently United States citizens or all men that Bush or Rumsfeld have not classified as enemy combatants yet. Now, it is also self evident that they had a race problem back then, but we settled that shit later with a civil war. (Still, it's embarassing that it refers to "merciless Indian savages" in there. And that it doesn't mention women at all.) Despite those mistakes, you gotta look at what Mr. Jefferson meant, and what he meant was that
1. everyone has rights, no matter what
2. God made it that way so if you got a fuckin problem with it then take it up with him, asshole and
3. we all agree that you would have to be a moron to not know this.
It's right there in the Declaration of Independence. 230 years ago Thomas Jefferson had already called this Congress morons. Because they didn't see the truths that are self evident.
After the famous preamble, then it goes on to list some of the reasons why King George was an asshole and needed to be cut off. Some of them sound eerily relevant today. Like, "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury." Or, "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences." (Although in this case it's transporting people beyond Seas to be tortured in hopes that they'll admit to something.)
For today's politicians it is almost impossible to fathom, but back then these guys actually believed the things they said. The principles this country was founded upon were not just some bullshit they made up that sounded good. They wrote it down because they actually believed in it. They didn't want some 21st century dickheads to come along later and try to figure out loopholes or technicalities to get around it. Loopholes and technicalities are just fine for Freddy Krueger escaping justice for his child murders, but they are no way to treat the very principles of America. The Founding Fathers would probaly feel pretty shitty about it being changed to "some men are created unequal, endowed by their Commander with enemy combatant status so they can have a cell, no right to see the evidence against them, and have to run away from attack dogs while they're naked except for the bags or panties on their heads." I'm pretty sure even after 9-11 these particular guys would've wanted America to stay America. Although, to be fair, they would've been frightened and confused to see airplanes because I don't think they had airplanes back then when they were alive.
I had C-SPAN2 on while they were debating the bill, and that in itself was a form of torture. Sure, the usual democrats made speeches against it, a few of them even seemed passionate about it. And then the republicans would say how the democrats are defending the rights of terrorists.
I can't believe how many times these assholes actually referred to these people not as "enemy combatants," not as "suspects," not as "some Taliban soldiers and some random dudes who happened to be in Afghanistan at the wrong god damn time," but as "terrorists."
Well, I guess I have to send you jerks some xeroxes from the 1997 civics book, because you guys don't even know the very basics. It turns out in the United States we already had a justice system, it was actually a pretty important part of our whole deal here. It was based on the concept of "innocent until proven guilty." If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in America. By going onto the senate floor referring to people you know nothing about, who have never been charged with any crime, who have not seen any evidence against them, and who have had unholy things stuck up their butts in ways that are now considered retroactively legal and patriotic, as "terrorists," you have proven that you do not believe in one of the most basic concepts that make up America. And by voting for this bill you made it extra clear. America has a Congress that is literally anti-American.
I mean, the whole idea behind this bill blatantly ridiculous. Look it up, you will find that we already have a justice system. By making this bill, they seem to be openly admitting that they don't have a case against all these people they have locked up. So they have to make up their own alternate universe justice system where the rules are different so they have a chance. The Special Olympics of prosecution.
I've said it before about Bush and I'll say it again to this Congress. If you really want a country where the leader can just lock up the people he wants to without giving them a real trial, where prisoners don't have to be able to see the evidence against them or hear what they are charged with or even be charged at all, that's cool. Go find a country where they are into that, and see if you can be a politician there. But don't come to a country where it is fucking SELF EVIDENT that you don't do that kind of shit. Don't come to a country that was FOUNDED on the notion that you don't do that. I mean talk about pissing on a parade. We LIKED the principles of America, we were planning on always keeping them.
There is exactly one way you can justify the Military Commissions Act: we are scared of the spooky bad men, so we ditched our principles (they were weighing us down) and hid under the bed. If the republicans and Joe Lieberman (surprise! he voted for it) were gonna explain it that way, I don't think most Americans would agree with it, but at least we would see where they were coming from. Oh, I get it, you guys are pussies. We could maybe sort of understand how these people could just be weak-willed, unethical cowards. Maybe they really believe the big bad terrorists are coming to get us and we can only save our asses by crying like babies and throwing away 230 years of American values and traditions.
Let's say you really believe that. Well, not only are you a traitor, you're also misinformed. None of these things are going to make America safer. Just like our own intelligence agencies admitted with the Iraq war, these horrible tyrannies put us in more danger. All of the professionals will tell you that torture just gets you false information, they only tell you what they think you want them to tell you. Even if you magically got real information, you couldn't use it in a real court, only in this fake made up George Bush court, which will almost surely be declared unconstitutional, and if it's not it's even a bigger problem because it means our Constitution doesn't mean anything anymore.
Our problem is that we are perceived as tyrants around the world, and our response to this is... to make it legal to be a tyrant? How does that work? Do you people really believe you are sane? What the fuck happened to you people to get this way? How did you turn America into a place where you actually have to have a position on habeas corpus? Well guess what, you guys may be against habeas corpus, but AMERICA, by definition, is for it. So you're in the wrong place, fellas.
Some people tell me they like when I write these political columns, and sometimes I like to do it because it's cathartic for me. But really, I don't want to be worrying about this shit. I'm not a political junkie. I want to be complaining about BLADE: THE SERIES getting cancelled, not about the Bill of Rights being discarded. I don't want to be a "political blogger." I don't want to be an activist. But there are things that you can't be quiet about. It's like, I'm not a guy that's gonna be calling the cops on my neighbors for playing the music too loud or something. But if I looked out the window and saw a naked guy walking down the middle of the street holding a severed head, I would call. That's the situation we have here, there is a naked guy walking down the middle of the street holding a severed head.
But I don't know, it doesn't seem like most people have noticed this guy. They have pummeled us with so many outrages over the years that to most people this is just the latest chapter. If they even heard about it. It's not something I've seen discussed much on TV. If you read the Huffington Post, even they immediately moved on to the next outrage, whatever's in the headlines.
But to me it seems like this one is at least as historic as when those chump senators and congresspeople signed off on that "we trust you, you can go to war without asking us" nonsense. Another day to go down in infamy. Well, there is a chance of a good day coming up next week. Assuming we can somehow prevent all the voting machines from getting hacked or the votes from being thrown out and if enough voters have not been illegally purged from the voter roles, there is a good chance that democrats will be able to have the majority in at least one house of congress.
Now, I do not consider myself a democrat. I'm not a fan of all of them. And I wouldn't put my hopes in them for doing everything we want them to do to save our country. But that's not even relevant here. If democrats have a majority, that means republicans no longer have the unchecked power they've had for the past 6 horrifying years. No more pushing through unprecedented assaults on American values and human decency like the Military Commissions Act. No more leaving the voting indefinitely open until enough votes have been bribed or threatened to pass a bill and then immediately closing voting. No more cancelling or postponing or stonewalling every commission or committee that wants to investigate what went wrong on 9-11, what went wrong during Hurricane Katrina, where the billions of dollars disappeared to in Iraq, why we were given fake intelligence before Iraq, etc. etc. I'm not saying they would definitely do it but at least they would have the OPTION to impeach Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the club. Most of America wants it, right now it is not possible, after next week it might be.
Alot of people, even the left-leaning comedy shows, like to make fun of democrats for supposedly not standing for anything or not having solutions. But I think that's bullshit. You may not be hearing about them on TV but you don't hear about me on TV either and I exist. Nancy Pelosi has already said what she hopes to do in her first 100 hours if she becomes the majority speaker: 1. new rules to break connections between lobbyists and legislators 2. finally enact the recommendations of the 9-11 commission 3. raise the national minimum wage to $7.25 4. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half 5. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients. 6. allow federal funding to be used for more types of stem cell research.
That's the first 100 hours, after that I'm sure they could find time to throw some bones to the environment, the troops (maybe some body armor, I'm hoping). We'll see what happens. The thing is, at this point we are in emergency mode, they wouldn't even have to stand FOR something to improve our country. We need a congress willing to stand AGAINST all the shit being thrown down from the top. The solution to taking away habeas corpus: don't take away habeas corpus. The solution to spying on Americans: don't spy on Americans. They got solutions.
So please, if you're an American who is registered to vote, you know what to do. Don't flake out on us. If there's long lines, that's what they want, they want you to give up and go home. Don't do it. We need you. The more decisive the victory, the harder the cheating us out of it.Be brave, everybody.
--VERN
p.s. Keith Olbermann from cable had two really good takes on the Military Commissions Act. There's the funny version before it was signed and the angry version after it was signed.
p.p.s. Long time reader Josh R. asked me if I could write something about this John Kerry "botched joke" horse shit. I don't really want to feed into the pathetic attempt to turn one of the most miniscule issues ever created into some kind of scandal or thing worth spending more than five seconds talking about it, but oh well. If you were lucky enough to miss out on it, here's the score: Senator John Kerry (who, it turns out, is still a Senator, although when was the last time you heard his name before this?) was making a speech. In the speech he meant to make a lame joke about how if you don't study hard in school you might become president and get us stuck in Iraq. But he said it wrong and it sounded like he was saying that the soldiers stuck in Iraq are the ones who didn't study hard. So the republicans took time out from defending their failed policy in Iraq, their coverup of anti-gay closeted gay pedophile senators, the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, etc. etc. to put on their "WHY, I NEVER!" phoney outrage hats and try to force Kerry to apologize for what it sounded like he was saying.
One thing Kerry did right, he stopped just short of telling them to stick up their asses in his press release and pointed out that everybody involved knows what he actually meant to say and that it is an insult to the intelligence of whoever they are pretending to cry to. I mean Jesus, even if he HAD said that soldiers were uneducated, we all know that HE was a soldier, and at least he now knows that it was a mistake to send these soldiers to war in Iraq (without body armor!). The guys who are pretending to be mad about what he said are the ones who still say with a straight face that they think Rumsfeld is doing a good job.
And by the way, when did John Kerry become the leader of the world to you guys? Last time you were talking about him wasn't it trying to convince us he was a nobody has-been? Now all the sudden he's the symbol for all the democratic senators who (unlike him) are running in the midterms?
So basically the point is this: every politician, pundit or media figure who is still talking about what Kerry said as if it is any more relevant than Paris Hilton losing her dog in one of her shoes is either a complete fucking moron, or believes that you are one. But probaly both.
12/29/06
First, a little about James Brown dying on Christmas.
God damn, JB. That one took me by surprise. I gotta figure he's one of the great geniuses of our time. Nobody could ever deny him as a performer, a singer, a dancer, a songwriter. But to me it's the music that gets me high - all those tight as hell, stop-in-the-exact-center-of-a-dime bands he had over the years. One time in 1969, James had a sold out show in Georgia, but most of his band quit. So Bobby Byrd took a Lear jet to Cincinatti, picked up a young band he'd seen called the Pacemakers from an empty bar gig they were getting paid $15 for. They flew directly to Georgia, came out onto stage with their hero who they'd never met, and still were the baddest band ever. That's how 17 year old Bootsy Collins got in James Brown's band.
Giving James credit as the producer of all that music, obviously you gotta keep in mind he's not playing those instruments (although I saw him do a smokin organ solo one time) and he's got hundreds of amazing musicians playing with him over the years that need to share that credit. But if it didn't take genius to put all those people together and make that type of funk then how come nobody else did it? And if you ask me nobody to this day has matched the JBs. You wanna be blown away, pick up Pass the Peas: The Best of the JBs. I have had it in my head for years that if Skander Halim ever makes that Vern Tells It Like It Is movie the opening credits have to use "Hot Pants Road," because I want that to be my theme music. I guess you can't go wrong having theme music from the same people who did Black Caesar and Slaughter's Big Ripoff.
I know it's a cliche but you can't get around the fact that if you took away the existence of James Brown, you'd have no hip hop. Or at least, half the songs would have no beats. Public Enemy wouldn't have that blaring horn on "Night of the Living Baseheads." They wouldn't even have their first song, "Public Enemy #1," because that's all "Blow Your Head," James going nuts on that weird synthesizer. Think about the "Funky Drummer" beat, man. Or the "Papa Don't Take No Mess" beat. And they were sampled from James and then resampled from other samples and then other people added different samples but used the same rhythm from the Funky Drummer. Those beats have more children than Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
"Papa Don't Take No Mess" kind of sums up my complicated feelings about James Brown. The whole song is kind of a glorification of papas spanking their kids. James proudly sings "when we did wrong, papa beat the hell out of us" and I don't think he's exaggerating. The idea is the whole "spare the rod and spoil the child" theory but of course, you can't help but notice that when James grew up he was beating wives right and left. He was not exactly a nice man. If papa not taking no mess was a good thing then shouldn't James have grown up a little better? Shouldn't he have learned not to give no mess? Shouldn't that beating have prevented James from pulling a steak knife on that repairman he called to his property to fix the power? "You see this suit, that means I'm a government agent and I can lock you up, you son-of-a-bitch white trash, for trespassing and sneaking around on my property." So the song kind of makes me sad.
And yet, it's one of the funkiest damn songs of all time. Laid back funk, it's kind of slow, it knows it doesn't have to impress you with speed. Just... pling - pling - bup - bup ba bup... pling - pling - bup - bup ba bup... They used that song real good in the movie GET ON THE BUS. And that's kind of what that beat is like: sit back and take a long ride on this beat. Don't worry, we'll get there.
It's not just hip hop of course, James had a seismic impact on soul and funk, he's the Godfather to half the music I listen to. If somebody besides JB invented funk it must've been some Tesla type betrayed by history, because I never heard of the motherfucker. Hell, most of the other funk geniuses idolized JB too, all the way from George Clinton to Prince. He taught the theory of the One to Bootsy, Fred and Maceo and they brought it to P-Funk. Who knows what would've happened if it wasn't for his theories? That spaceship never would've flown straight.
I saw James live a couple times, the older James, I guess probaly in his last decade or decade and a half. Last time I saw him I remember staring at him up close and just thinking holy shit, this guy looks like an alien. Giant head, impossible hairdo, bizarre proportions. Is he wearing his pants wrong or is his waist really right there? How old is he now? And HOW is he still dancing? It was very clear he was not one of us, he came from somewhere else with advanced funk technology, most of it invented and developed by him. His people I'm sure will be happy to have him back.
To be honest I thought he was older than 73, but it also never occurred to me that he'd die any time soon. He seemed like a flame you couldn't snuff out. Remember in the '90s when he got busted he led the cops on a chase through multiple states, and he still kept driving with all his tires blown out. Doesn't matter what happens, he's gonna keep going. So it's no surprise that he kept performing all the way 'til the end. I have no doubt if he made it to 110 he'd still be up there on stage, poor Bobby Byrd bringing him his cape. Hell, part of me thinks he'll still be up there even now that he's dead. That's all you got to stop the Godfather, death? You're gonna have to do better than that.
Well, you know what they say about all good things etc. etc. I don't know if I'd say this if I had to be around the guy, but it's sad to see him go. Wish he could've stayed around longer. Pass the peas. And free James Brown!(p.s. I can't believe they locked his non-legal wife off the property. Hasn't she been through enough? Jesus you people. Give her something.)
THE FILMS OF CINEMA 2006
So, here's the end of 2006, time for a little wrap up. A couple people asked if I was gonna do a top ten list or something like that. Well, I don't usually do that on account of being an outlaw, marching to my own drummer, lone wolf etc. In fact, I not only don't usually do top ten lists, I do something that no critic, reviewer or Writer on the films of Cinema ever does: I don't even usually point out that I don't do top ten lists.
Hell, I don't even write grocery lists. That's how fuckin better than all other people I am. I'm listless.
Nah, just kidding. Unlike many non-listers, I don't got a problem with lists. I like reading them, comparing notes, grumbling, etc. I'm not gonna be that guy who has to make a point of noting that everybody is doing top ten lists but I'm not because I think that's self indulgent and it belittles the art of the cinema to put it into a ranking system and really if you study numerology there's no such thing as the number ten anyway there's only one through nine. And I'm definitely not one of these guys on an all out crusade against top ten lists (check out this lovable gentleman who explores many variations on the metaphor of top ten lists being a circle jerk. Extending the metaphor, I like to picture him as a puritanical slasher running around in a nun's habit and ski mask chopping people's dicks off to punish them for masturbating).
If I tried to do a list this year I'd be even less qualified than usual. I mean, there's a whole bunch of movies still in theaters I still want to see - ROCKY BALBOA, APOCALYPTO, THE GOOD GERMAN, CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER - plus I gotta see PAN'S LABYRINTH when that comes here in a week. And I saw CHILDREN OF MEN just the other day so it would be kind of stupid to put it on the top of the list, even though it probaly deserves it. But how can I know, I've only had 3 days to process it. There's also a load of movies people recommend to me all the time that I still haven't caught up with, THE PROPOSITION and DEAD MAN'S SHOES being the most requested.
So instead I'll do this, I'll do some informal best of the year type choices, just for the hell of it. Fuck it. Let your hair down. Etc. These are not the Outlaw Awards. This is something less prestigious, like the Blockbuster Consumer's Choice Awards or something. But better.I would point out that this whole thing is self indulgent, but unfortunately pointing out that you are about to do something self indulgent does not cancel out the self indulgence. In fact, not even pointing out that pointing out something is self indulgent changes the fact that the original thing is self indulgent, in my opinion. For that reason I will not mention it at all (personal note - delete this paragraph later thanks)
okay let's get started gang, further ado etc.
(here imagine there is a hilarious monologue by the host, probaly Rudy Ray Moore or somebody. There is no wacky movie parody clips where they put him in acclaimed 2006 movies, like "PETEY WHEATSTRAW'S LABYRINTH" or "DOLEMITED 93" or something 'cause Rudy don't play that shit. Then they quit fuckin around and start giving out the awards. I think the oscars starts out with a big one like best supporting actress or something so I'm goin straight to horror movies)
BEST HORROR:
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be obvious and go with THE DESCENT. I liked the seriousness, the claustrophobia, the darkness, the Weird Underground Fuckers, and the fact that an ordinary woman was reduced to screaming like a mad sasquatch after crawling out of a pond of blood and guts to beat a Wuf to death with a bone. These are the sorts of scenarios we want to see in movies. That's the magic of cinema. You will believe a woman can beat a mutant cavedweller to death with a bone.
Runner up is WOLF CREEK. Great villain, great atmosphere, thrilling chases, gets your heart beating as they try to escape. When it's working it's really working. I am tempted to choose this as number 1, but the ending is so anti-climactic and THE DESCENT doesn't have anything as stupid as the gratuitous explanation scene where one of the victims finds videotapes and photos to explain the killer's methods. So ultimately THE DESCENT is a more satisfying movie.
Also I want to give an honorable "whatup" to the flawed but respectable HILLS HAVE EYES remake. I have a religious outrage at remakes alot of the time so I gotta give credit where credit is due. This one stays true to the serious themes of the original while escalating the crazy mutant cannibal fun. I would hold it in much higher esteem if they just cut out that bullshit where the guy in the wheelchair explicitly states some of the themes of the movie (it sounds so stupid when you say it out loud), but oh well, that's life. This one is good enough that I am starting to get excited for the sequel. Even though the sequel to the original sucks. (note: that didn't stop me from watching it more than once, though.)BEST MUSICAL OR COMEDY:
Are you kidding? I haven't watched DREAMGIRLS. The winner is definitely BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS ETCETERA ETCETERA. I never wrote about this one because I didn't feel like I had anything new to add, and actually I was sick of fuckin hearing about it before the movie even came out. But it doesn't matter, that is the most I ever laughed at any movie ever. I was in tears more times than I could keep track of. At times my stomach hurt, I felt like I'd been doing a bunch of situps. In fact, every once in a while there would be a scene without big laughs (like when Azamat has abandoned him and stolen his bear and he is crying on camera like it's BLAIR WITCH or something) and it's kind of a relief to not be laughing hard, you need that to get through it. Plus, it was a packed theater and the gal sitting next to me never laughed once, which made it more uncomfortable and more funny. I think Mr. Baron Cohen should get an Oscar for that shit, he conveys so many emotions, apparently not breaking character in front of actual individuals, and somehow makes an ignorant bigot seem strangely lovable.
Second place would go to TALLADEGA NIGHTS and, coincidentally, Baron Cohen was my favorite part of that one too. But BORAT is by far the more revolutionary and painful of the two. And also there is no second place allowed in this category, there is only one winner. Sorry, losers.
MOST UNDERRATED/MISUNDERSTOOD:I would have to say SILENT HILL based on the hostile audience I saw it with, who literally were holding torches and pitchforks throughout the screening, and then they stormed the projection booth, pulled the print off and lynched it during the end credits. If I remember right. Then they started chanting "USA! USA!" and beating the empty film canisters with a shoe. I tried, but it turned out it wasn't the appropriate forum for me to argue its merits.
Even I had a hard time with the stiff dialogue (though I am positive it was a deliberate stylistic choice) and the giant lump of exposition at the end, but I consider this one of them flawed masterpieces, like a really smart kid born with a big lump on his forehead and one leg four or five inches shorter than the other one. But he's still a good kid. I mean, try as you might, you cannot deny the raw cinematic power of this motherfucker - the foreboding atmosphere, the bizarre imagery (Pyramid Head, man!) and the relentless lack of human logic. Plus some types of gruesomeness not seen on multiplex screens since HELLRAISER 2. This is an actual nightmare captured digitally and uploaded to celluloid. Good job frenchman and Tarantino associate.
Also there is a very worthy runner up and that is MIAMI VICE. This one is real divisive, I hear it's been making all the ten best lists as well as all the ten worst lists. Somebody told me Michael Mann had "boiled everything down to pure macho energy" and I said "Exactly!" but it turned out he meant that was why it sucked. Although I was not fond of the Bacardi product placement or the horrible cover song on the end credits, I thought this was a great achievement of atmosphere, minimalism, realism, and attitude. I guess if you wanted the TV show I can understand being disappointed but I think what we got instead is much more interesting. People who hate it seem to talk about it like the way the movie is was an accident. Like Michael Mann had meant to give the traditional character backstories and villainous schemes and running jokes and shit that people expect in an action movie, but he forgot. I'm not saying this is deep in any way - remember, I think Michael Mann is a pretentious jackass. But this, I think, is an exceptional movie. Good job. (I'm going by the theatrical cut, by the way, I haven't seen the new DVD.)
MOVIE NOBODY BELIEVES ME IS GOOD:WASSUP ROCKERS. Not to be confused with SORRY HATERS. Okay, so you gotta get past the usual pervy Larry Clark closeups and what not, but then this is a fun movie. It's hard not to love these Hispanic skateboard punks from South Central having their rebellious teenage adventures in Beverly Hills. It's a fish out of water movie except there's like 7 or 8 fish that are out of the water, and they are basically real people playing themselves put into cartoony situations. Larry Clark has always been good at finding strange people and getting them to act crazy on camera, but this is the first time where he made a movie about people who are really likable. Also, Janice Dickinson gets electrocuted in a hot tub.
MOST SURPRISINGLY ENJOYABLE:FAST AND THE FURIOUS TOKYO DRIFT. At first I thought maybe I was crazy, but I know a whole bunch of people who saw this after me and agreed it was fun. Completely dumb, but somehow setting grown up Lucas Black and Regular Sized Bow Wow loose in Tokyo to do fancy car tricks is a good time at the movies. Plus, Sonny Chiba is in there.
Also I gotta give a nod to WWE Films' SEE NO EVIL just because when I first saw the trailer I was convinced it would literally be the worst horror movie ever made. And I read a plot summary that made it sound like it was written by one of those kids you see on the bus with the giant pants and the evil clown makeup. It is even dumber than TOKYO DRIFT (by about ten miles, actually) but also a good time at the movies, highly recommended for all audiences and creeds.BEST SEAGAL PICTURE OF 2006:
This is gonna be controversial, but I'm gonna go with ATTACK FORCE. Most people seem to think it's alot worse than the other two competitors, MERCENARY FOR JUSTICE and SHADOW MAN, but I enjoyed the weird alien powers of the bad guys and the strange minimalism of the ending (after most of the characters die in battle, Seagal and his last surviving attack force mate just leave, saying nothing and not resolving the poisoned water supply plot).
BEST PICTURE, DTV:There is not a standout winner, but I lean toward ROAD HOUSE 2. It's no ROAD HOUSE 1, but does a surprisingly good job of re-capturing the goofy seriousness of the original. However, if ABOMINABLE is eligible I would definitely go for that. I actually saw it in a theater, but it was one of I think two or three screens in the world that played it and it was crappy digital projection, it would've looked better at home. Anyway, that's a good solid '80s style horror movie with some enjoyable Yeti-Sasquatch type mayhem.
BEST DVD EXTRA:David "The Demon" DeFalco's tour of the L.A. coroner's office on CHAOS. But mainly because it got me challenged to a wrestling match. Only the very best bonus features get you challenged like that.
MOST BADASS:This is a tough one and could definitely change if I saw those movies I mentioned.
Kind of slim pickings actually, but from what I've seen I think it's between (in alphabetical order) CASINO ROYALE, THE DEPARTED, FEARLESS, and MIAMI VICE. MIAMI VICE definitely has alot of badass attitude, I think it was actually shot with a digital camera powered by rechargeable attitude batteries. There are shootouts and chases , but not a whole lot of fighting. But that's good because these guys still seem badass by sitting at a table having a tense verbal confrontation with some drug dealers and shit like that. Badass sitting down - that's true badass. THE DEPARTED is completely different but it has an equal or greater amount of badass attitude. Plus people getting thrown off roofs and shit. And Mark Wahlberg assassinating somebody while wearing booties.
Then you got FEARLESS which is the best all around story about fighting, or not fighting. The fight scenes are good but the thing that kept me hooked was the story about this guy learning that beating everybody up all the time is for assholes. A nice take on the ol' badass with the heart of gold routine.
But I think I may have to give it to CASINO ROYALE for this reason: 75% of the success of this movie is based on Daniel Craig's excellent Badass Performance. The other 25% is of course the actual movie, the stripping down of James Bond, the tweaking of the old formula and the better than usual love story. That gets the ball rolling but Daniel Craig pushes it to the top of the mountain. You guys knew he was a standout in LAYER CAKE, I thought he pretty much stole MUNICH, now here he is re-inventing an icon for a mass audience that doesn't even know his name. To them he's just James Bond, and by the way James Bond is now a bad motherfucker. Count me as one of the many people who for the first time are excited for the next James Bond movie.
But maybe THE DEPARTED though.
BEST INDIVIDUAL FIGHT SCENE:The 4+ minute uninterrupted tracking shot fight in THE PROTECTOR/TOM YUM GOONG. The movie had its story problems but I still think the fights are incredible, especially that one. I want to see more martial arts filmatists trying to take it to the next level like that. Trying to show you something you haven't seen before.
BEST OVERALL MOVIE:
TIE: UNITED 93 and BENCHWARMERS
The two best films of 2006 could not be more different. One is a comedy with an all star cast, the other a documentary style historical drama full of faces you aren't supposed to recognize, except as a reflection of the everyday people we meet throughout our lives. Paul Greengrass (director of United 93) is British, while Benchwarmers's Dennis Dugan is American. But a common cultural thread bonds these two exquis--
Nah, just jerkin your chain. I noticed that that nutbag Armond White put NACHO LIBRE at #5 on his top ten list, and I wanted to one-up him. Actually I never saw either of those movies, so scratch that.
This is probaly a weird choice but I think my favorite movie this year was DAVE CHAPPELLE'S BLOCK PARTY. It works as a slice-of-life documentary, as a concert movie, as a comedy, as an examination of Dave Chappelle trying to figure out how to feel good about being rich and famous. It's got interesting characters (the director of the marching band, the old hippie couple in the converted crackhouse), great music, funny shit and unexpected insight (like when Chappelle plays "Round Midnight" on a thrift store piano and encourages comedians to study Thelonious Monk's timing). These are all good things but what has made this movie really stick with me is the straight up positivity of the whole thing. Chappelle wanting to use his money to do something nice, bringing together all kinds of people for a free concert, bringing together all these artists for the music and the friendship, not just being rock stars, people of all different ages and backgrounds enjoying it together. If you think about it, all this is done with the backdrop of the Iraq war and Chappelle's impending breakdown, but the power of the music overcomes that. I love this movie because it makes me feel good about the world and about humanity.
Hell, I sound like Michael Medved. I wonder if that asshole has this on his list? I don't think he has a list yet, he's probaly busy still looking for hidden gay people in that penguin cartoon.
[Note: I just checked some web sight collecting top tens. Didn't see Medved on there but it turns out that both Mike Del Angelo (big time critic who bought one of my t-shirts years ago) and Bilge Ebiri (cool guy who quotes me all the time on his 'blog' web sight) have BLOCK PARTY at number 1. Good job fellas. We did it. We showed 'em.]
the end
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION 2007
So now it's time for my New Year's resolution. As you know, two years ago I did A Commitment To Excellence, which was pretty successful, so this year I did Striving For Excellence. Well, at this point I think I'm ready to take the plunge, I'm ready to settle down with excellence. I feel that I should strive for excellence always and not just in yearly installments. Therefore, I am taking a permanent Vow of Excellence which I hope to live by indefinitely.
So my resolution will be a little more concrete here. I'm gonna finish Seagalogy, come hell or high water or 2008. Here's the update on that. I got all the chapters written but they're not all top shelf material, I am rewriting and rewatching and continually updating. Meanwhile, the dude puts out a new movie every three or four months. It's like trying to eat a carrot that's still growing. But I got a couple ideas for where I can cut it off, that shouldn't be a problem. (I can always do a second edition or book two down the road if he keeps making em at this rate.)
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL. I gotta challenge myself so I will attempt to have ANOTHER book also finished by the end of the year. I don't know what book, but some book that is not about Steven Seagal. Can I do it? We shall see. We shall see.anyway thanks everybody for reading this year and sending me nice emails and crap, Happy New Year, I hope you drove safely, and everything else like that
2007: May the Democratic Congress not blow it
--VERN
G'HOUSE AND THE SECRET OF THE MISSING BEES
April 21st, 2007
Okay, I got a new column for the first time in a couple months, so everybody's gonna assume it'll be about the recent tragedy in our country, the school shooting where some crazy asshole doubled the body count of the previous worst gun massacre in our history. It's true, whenever something like this happens you feel like you sort of should say something, not just pretend like nothing happened. Even if right after it happens somebody else kills 150 people in Iraq.
And I have to admit, I looked at those pictures the killer sent to NBC, and as soon as I saw him posing with a claw hammer I thought, "Oh great. Now somebody's gonna blame it on OLDBOY." People are already talking about that (not that anybody's buying it) and I think it's only a matter of time before some dipshit politician starts talking Korean cinema on the floor of congress. When something like this happens that hits everybody in the gut you gotta try to make politics out of it, but it's gotta ignore any actual causes (poor treatment for mental illness, easy access to guns) and blame everything on movies, video games, maybe ringtones. The old "in serious times, give them nothing but moronic horse shit for babies" technique. Also known as Liebermania.
But you know what, that dude put together a fuckin portfolio of publicity stills and promotional clips. To him those Columbine kids were some cool symbol like James Dean or Che Guevara on a t-shirt, and now he's made himself into that for some future fucked up individual. Of course NBC is gonna use the photos, they're not gonna throw them away. But now that asshole gets what he wants, we're all talking about him. And future murderers are gonna send in their press kits too. That's just fuckin great. So that's it, I don't want to write about that asshole anymore. Let's talk about, uh, Tarantino.
(sorry. I was working on this topic before.)
So, that double feature GR***HOUSE looks like it made about $45.23 (before taxes) in its first couple weeks, and it makes me realize how far removed I am from the average American moviegoer. For me this was the anticipated movie event of the year, for the average American moviegoer they would rather watch just about any other movie, preferably worthless garbage, possibly involving Ice Cube hanging out with kids destroying both a house and his own legacy. And possibly somebody's balls at some point, would be my guess, but I was watching G-HOUSE so I wouldn't know.
Apparently it's the middle part of the country that didn't watch this, G-HOUSE did very well on the coasts, which explains why it can be a huge flop and also one of those one or two movies a year where just about every person I know who watches movies saw it right away. Alot of them two or three times, and going out of their way to see it at a drive-in, which it turns out we still got a couple of. Most movies you try to see it at the Cinerama or Imax, or that 3-D theater out in the boondocks where applicable. This one you want to see in a rotted out old drive-in.
Of course, I don't care too much if it lost money. It's not coming from the fund to rebuild New Orleans, it's coming from the Weinstein brothers evil bank account. Those dirtbag motherfuckers have had this coming for years. Every day they wake up and do three things that would cause them to deserve this before their filthy movie-destroying feet even touch the carpet. If it's a just world this will help run them out of business, they'll die penniless in a shack out in the woods somewhere, and the whole thing will be turned into a depressing riches-to-rags biopic, but an Asian company will buy it out and leave it sitting on the shelf for 15 years before cutting it down to a 2 minute cell phone commercial, dubbing it into Cantonese, rescoring it and calling it THE SOLDIER or THE WARRIOR or THE POLICE OFFICER.
So if G-HOUSE loses money for those fuckers, that is a good thing to happen in this world. As far as cinematistic repercussions, well, I figure they'll probaly make MACHETE anyway (it'll be cheap and DTV, why not?). I was looking forward to other G-HOUSE double features, especially if they did an action one, but at least now I don't have to worry Tarantino will lose interest and farm his slot out to Eli Roth or somebody.
Still, it does make me sad that people didn't want to see this. Like it, don't like it, whatever, but the figures they're throwing around show that people didn't want to see it in the first place, they got no clue if they like it or not. Here are these two very popular directors whose movies normally would be an event anyway. And they actually use their clout to make it so we only have to pay once and we get to see both of their movies. They have done the impossible, they have made multiplexes show a double feature, without charging extra. It goes against the laws of nature. These are places where they even got ads on the fuckin urinals. The movie is only there as the cheese in the middle of the mousetrap. They don't care if we watch movies, they want us to look at slides and watch commercials and listen to the CD that promotes the latest releases from their music product division. To them it's more of a medical experiment than an act of entertainment.Strolling right into the heart of this wickedness are these two guys actually trying to give you a good deal and use showmanship and give you a whole evening of carefully programmed fun, complete with these fake trailers, basically short films for added value.
I'm not surprised it ain't making TITANIC bank but jesus, NOBODY wants to see this? There is this movie that came out last week called REDLINE, starring Eddie Griffin. I never heard of this movie, never saw a single ad for it, don't know what it's about, the only reason I know it even exists is because I read that Eddie crashed and completely destroyed a rare Ferrari related to the movie. It made a pathetic $4 million coming in 11th place at the box office. Ahead of G-HOUSE. There are more people that would give Eddie Griffin's crashed Ferrari movie a chance then would gamble 9 bucks on two movies by Rodriguez and Tarantino.
How is this possible? I can't even comprehend it. If they had released it NC-17 so it couldn't play in most theaters and had limited advertising possibilities it still would've done at least this good. Or if they had taken it on tour like in the old days. Hell, it seems like any generic movie, as long as it looked horrible and had a small amount of advertising, would double that amount. We are in an age when any god damn movie can make money. NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM was a smash hit. WILD HOGS was a smash hit. If there was a movie that came out this year starring David Spade or Dane Cook as a gay porn star, ice cream man or air conditioner repair man, I guarantee you it was a smash hit. Unless it was good. Here is something that actually looks good, actually is good, got great reviews, is a little something different but by no means uncommercial or over most people's heads... and it's an unprecedented flop. It's so fuckin weird. And you can't even pin this one on the Bush administration.
I don't think it can be explained with some marketing bullshit like "polls show that consumers avoid awesome movies, they prefer GHOST RIDER" or "there is no time in modern American life for a double feature, Americans want to check their phone messages every two minutes then download clips off of youtube and try out their new ringtones and watch the first 12 minutes of LOST in fast speed on Tivo then text message somebody then go for half of a coffee then watch the rest of LOST then go for the other half of the coffee then forget where they were going and go to the store and buy a new cell phone then remember that they have to check the messages on their other cell phone then go to bed."
No, this is something deeper, something mysterious, something X-Files. Man is abandoning his own interests (the pursuit of awesomeness) to wander off into oblivion. It reminds me of something else going on in the world, something I am much more concerned about. I'm talking about what's going on with the honey bees.
We've had alot of crazy, apocalyptic shit goin down these last handful of years, ranging from a diaper wearing astronaut assault to game show contestants winning Oscars. But the spookiest, most ominous thing I've heard about lately is what's going on with the bees. Have you heard about this? I'm not joking. Starting in the U.S., and now spreading across Europe, worker bees have started abandoning their hives. Nobody knows why. They just don't return, leaving only the queen bee and the babies and the whole place goes to shit. Are the bees getting lost? Are they turning into beatniks, saying "fuck this worker drone shit" and hitting the road? Are they dying of some disease? We don't know.
There are alot of guesses as to what could be causing it. Global warming, obviously. Some sort of parasitic mites. Pollinating genetically modified plants - but since it's happening in the UK now, where genetically modified foods are banned, that might be crossed off the list. One group of scientists now is thinking it might be cell phones. They put cell phones near hives and found that the bees don't come back. They think maybe the phones and other types of radiation are fucking up their navigation so the bees get lost.
The creepiest part is that bugs and animals that normally eat honey from dying hives - your Winnie the Poohs and what not - according to an article I read they "won't go near" these abandoned hives. Like maybe they know something about the honey that we don't.
I thought maybe it had something to do with Candyman, but this was not mentioned in the article.
Now look, nobody's really sure what's going on here, and I'm no scientist, maybe the problem is being exaggerated. I wouldn't know. If it is real, nobody likes bees, except for those weirdos with the bee beards. I'm not gonna miss the little bastards if they don't stop by my picnic anymore. But bees serve a pretty god damn important purpose in the world, they spread the pollen around. Apparently if all the honey bees died there would still be other types of bees and insects that would pollinate our crops, but honey bees are used commercially because they're stand up bugs, the best bugs for the job. So there would definitely be some problems. I don't care how many illegal immigrants you sneak in here, you are not gonna be able to find a work force to spread the pollen like the honey bees do. For hundreds of years they have pollinated our crops and made our honey, and never complained. Those are the real heroes right there, the honey bees.
Let's say it really is cell phones. How would you feel about that? Would you feel that the text messages you've sent have been worth it? Imagine we learn conclusively that the bees are dying off because of cell phones, and the only way to save them is to stop using cell phones. What do you think would happen? Would people stop using them?
I honestly don't think they would. Shit, they'd probaly start using them more, just to show off that they don't give a fuck. Why must everything be so politically correct? Who needs pollen. Fuck pollen. I gotta take a picture of my friends at the club and send it to my friends after they get home from the club so they can see the picture I took of them at the club. And they can use it as their wallpaper if they want to. It's a really cute picture.
If bees were an endangered species, Paris Hilton would carry a jar of bees around with her. She'd probaly purposely get stung, her face would be all swelled up and it's cool because she killed one of the last remaining bees in order to do that. Poor people can't kill bees. And rappers will start doing it too. They'll have special jewel encrusted bee jars with their initials in diamonds. And a little spout so you can just hold it up to your face and shake it around and the bee will get pissed off and sting you. You gotta understand, they grew up in the projects, they couldn't afford to be stung by a bee. So now that they got money they want to be stung by a bee. To show how far they've come. L'il Jon will have a bee beard and carry a jeweled honey jug with a leak in it so he can carelessly leave a trail wherever he goes. Maybe Leon Del Caprio and Alec Baldwin will say something about the bees but everybody will make fun of them and call them hypocrites because one time somebody saw Al Gore eating an organic animal cracker that was sweetened with honey.
I'm just kidding about G-HOUSE. I mean, I really am surprised by all the crap that is more popular than things that I would think people would share my enthusiasm for. I am feeling more and more alienated from the American public. But oh well, that happens when you're a lone wolf with high cultural standards in the form of a Vow of Excellence. I'll live. This bee thing though, this really creeps me out. It's unnatural. I'd like to live in a world where we don't have to figure out some new artificial way to spread pollen. And I'd like to live in a society that I really believe would give up those Bluetooths if that's what it took to have plants on earth. But I'm not sure we're there yet.--VERN
4/28/08
VERN VS. THE DEMOCRATIC PRIMARYYou know, if there was ever a time when humans and dinosaurs co-existed like they used to do in caveman movies it would've been unfair. A t-rex comes by your cave and starts eating your clan, you're gonna get pissed. You go out there and start throwing rocks at the fucker, poking him with sticks. Doesn't do anything. You go back inside, paint some unflattering cave pictures. When he's far enough away you go out and beat on a drum, trying to rile up the other clans. If everybody throws rocks at that thing, everybody pokes it with sticks, then we're safe and we're all gonna eat steak tonight.
So the next day everybody throws the rocks and sharpens the sticks. And again the next day. And the next. But no matter how many times you do it that asshole keeps coming back, keeps biting off heads. Eventually you get tired. You're not afraid of that thing anymore, but you don't feel like you can defeat it. So you go back in your cave. Not cowering in fear - worse. Trying to ignore it. Stay in here, wait it out. Eventually a comet will hit or something.
Sadly, that's where I'm at with George Bush, and that's why I haven't written about politics in a long time. After the dinosaur eats a certain amount of people you become desensitized. But the wait is almost over. On a clear night you can see the comet headed this way. 2008 is here and the campaign is underway - time to find a president to fill the all time smallest shoes. Whoever they get will probaly feel like a comedian going on after Michal Richards' infamous n-word breakdown. It's uncomfortable, and there's a mess to clean up, but you're gonna come out looking pretty damn good by comparison. Even if McCain wins it'll probaly feel good.
I had some people ask if I would write a column about the primaries. I do have some opinions, but I'm no expert. When I write about politics usually it's not because I really want to, it's because I can't stand to be quiet anymore. But when we had the Washington State primary here back in February I decided to go to a caucus and see what the deal was.
THE CAUCUS
For years Washington has had a unique primary where you vote for the candidate you like, regardless of party affiliation. But those 2 parties like the scam they got going so a couple years ago they took it to court and got it struck down as unconstitutional. Now instead we have an asinine, legal primary system. Our taxes pay for sending out ballots, and you can fill them out, but they don't mean anything. It's a "symbolic" mass mailing and counting of poetical non-binding votes. To actually affect how many delegates your candidate gets you have to show up at a caucus, which for us was held on a Saturday. On Friday the head of the state democratic party was asked on the radio what he would say to someone who didn't want to come to a caucus. He said he understood the hesitation, but people need to leave the house and meet their neighbors.
And I said "fuck you." The problem is not shyness or agoraphobia, it's that people have lives. And those lives include jobs. It is true that many people have weekends off. During those weekends I invite them to observe their surroundings. I suspect that everywhere they go there will be businesses full of working people. Remember when you bought coffee, groceries, or other items? Remember when a guy was working on your lawn or fixing your plumbing or pressure washing the puke off your sidewalk? Remember the loud clang of the garbage collectors interrupting your democratic morning slumber? I know it is almost impossible to even fathom, but that isn't just something they do for fun on the weekends when they're on their way to brunch or caucusing. They actually have to do that to pay the rent so they don't freeze to death.
Even if you declare a holiday during elections (which some people have proposed) those businesses will be open. They might even have a sale, and then more people will have to work. And I hate to say it but normal people don't take a day off to vote. And if they have the day off, not all of them will be willing or able to go to a designated spot at precisely 1 pm to wait until 1:30 pm for a discussion which will last an unspecified amount of time.
I don't know if it's on purpose or if it's just your typical situation of people being so far up their own ass they don't realize it, but this system is ridiculous. It excludes working people and normal people. It seems designed to scare away all but the people who dedicate their lives to party politics. Here's a movie analogy: it's like if the people who dress up as Darth whatsisdick and camp out for days to see a new STAR WARS movie were the only people who were allowed to see the movie. Most people would say "I'd like to see that new STAR WARS movie, but it's too much trouble and I want to punch the other people who are there in the face and I got priors so I'm just gonna stay home."
But for some reason this time there were alot of people like me who said fuck it, I'm going anyway. In my neighborhood all the caucus sites were overflowing with lines out the door. There were far more people than were supposed to show up so they had to move people into emergency backup buildings. Think about it - having a high level of participation was problematic for this system. What does that tell you?
Pretty much everything was wrong with the caucus. It was an overly complicated system with very few people who seemed to know what the hell was supposed to be going on. First we fought our way to a table where we signed in and wrote down who we were voting for. Then we crammed into classrooms by district where we sat and waited for the teacher or whoever to show up. After lots of boredom and confusion a gentleman decided to start addressing the class in an attempt to get things rolling. Later when an actual election official showed up and said we needed to elect a chairman everybody pointed at the guy who was talking. I was afraid to think about what might be happening in other rooms where they had multiple candidates for chairman. Voting within voting.
Next we went through various activities such as passing around a sheet of paper to write our names and who we were voting for on, and having a discussion of isn't it redundant to be doing this when we already did it, which of course ended up wasting more time than the actual passing around of the paper. I know I said this about waiting in line for SERENITY but truly I was looking at the windows thinking about how to escape.
At one point when somebody in my group seemed to speak authorititavely about what we were supposed to be doing somebody else asked, "Do you know what you're talking about? I mean seriously, I can't tell if you do." And I couldn't either.After more than an hour we were asked to divide ourselves into groups by candidate. I had read this would happen and I pictured there would be about half Obama, half Clinton, with a few stragglers for Edwards (even though he had recently dropped out of the race), maybe a Kucinich or two. Instead it was 2 for Edwards, maybe 5 undecided, 11 or 12 for Clinton, and the other 60 or so for Obama. It was overwhelming.
At this point we had a discussion about whether or not there was supposed to be a discussion, and if so what it would be about exactly. Slowly this evolved into a back and forth Phil Donahue style soundbite debate about our candidates. There were some good points made and some bad ones. But should we really be making our voting decisions based on this classroom discussion? In fact some of the undecideds, and even a Clinton supporter, moved over to the Obama camp during the discussion. That's real nice, but I know you people could've heard all of these points, and more, and better, and in way more detail, if you would've done your research beforehand.
At one point one of the undecideds was offended that people were talking like she should choose a side. Somebody asked innocently why she was there then, and she was offended by that. "No no no," they said, "I'm not saying you shouldn't be here, I'm just trying to understand what your reason is for being here if you don't plan to take a side." As far as I could tell she never gave an answer.
Eventually everybody wrote "OBAMA" on some pieces of paper, plus a couple of "CLINTON"s, and probaly a "BOOBS" or a "POPEYE." Then we waited around longer for somebody to calculate whether or not our votes had changed and how many delegates we got and how the delegates would be divided. Then we had to vote for delegates.
If you are not familiar with this system, here's how it works. Instead of voting, and having your vote be counted, you are given some people called delegates. Those delegates later go to the state convention and vote for Obama on your behalf. Hopefully. There is no way to really know. I heard a story about somebody being a delegate for Clinton and deciding to change her vote to Obama. I don't get it though - why is that allowed? We were in a classroom, some people we never saw before went to the front and said one sentence about why they wanted to be a delegate, and then we wrote somebody's name on a piece of paper. I believe Dolemite would ask "Bitch, are you for real?"
So I'm glad I got to see what it was all about, but I'm against it. As far as I can tell there's not a single good reason to do it this way. We shouldn't be caucusing, we should be voting. If the voting system is this ridiculous how are we supposed to have faith in the people we're voting for?
Speaking of which...
TURNS OUT OBAMA HATES WHITES AND STUFF?
Like I said, I sort of have to get fed up before I'll write about politics. So I wasn't exactly planning on writing about the primaries at all. But then this thing about "Obama's reverend" came up. The racial shit. It really got me going, caused me to "Hulk out" as my nerd colleagues would say.
If you haven't figured it out yet I should say upfront that I want Obama to win. Of the candidates he has the closest politics to mine, but he's also the least compromised. I meant it when I said, on that Black Thursday that the senators voted to let Bush invade Iraq, that they had blood on their hands. In this day when most Americans have long since agreed that that war is a disaster it would be a profound "FUCK YOU" to the American people to give us a choice between two chumps who voted for the war.
Clinton supporters, please don't patronize me with that "if she knew then what she knows now" bullshit. Would you have voted for the war back then? Of course not. You fucking knew what was going on. I knew. Everybody I know knew and if they didn't then it's a good thing they're not running for president. Clinton and McCain are both intelligent people so by definition they also knew there were shenanigans going on and that voting for the resolution meant war even if it did not specifically state it. But they were listening to the "Conventional Wisdom" that making the right vote would be political suicide because 9-11 9-11 freedom 9–11. People who do dangerous, stupid shit because the TV said they had to should not become presidents.
One of the Clinton arguments against Obama is that he's inexperienced. I can't believe how many people I've heard parrot that bullshit line. When Clinton ran for senator 8 years ago everybody complained that it was a transparent move, that she was obviously planning to run for president in 4 years. Turned out it was 8 so now everybody acts like she's been doing this shit since the civil war. Now all the sudden 8 years in the senate is a veteran stateswoman, but 4 years in the senate + 4 in state senate is like a young kid plucked off the streets with stars in his eyes and thrown into the oval office. The only person in this race with a long track record in politics is McCain, and where has that got him? After a hard-earned rep as "the maverick senator" Karl Rove used racist attacks to kill him in a primary, then he bit his tongue and enabled Bush's policies for years to appease the party machine so he could get another shot this year. And even that didn't completely work because the right wing pundits still claim he's not conservative enough! So he doesn't have integrity or a good strategy.
Plus, if you saw his speech after he got the nomination, you can see how his great experience means "you know what, let's keep doing it the same way." Let's keep telling people there's a 9-11 under their bed and we can only protect ourselves if we have a republican in office. (Sorry about the plane hitting the Pentagon, that's the exception that proves the rule.) I mean how can they still think you can make that argument out loud? It was all fine and good when it was a hypothetical but, dude, the republican "strong military stance" didn't stop the first 9-11, you can't pretend it's a magic force field against a second one.
Maybe worse, in the economy part of the speech McCain started talking about deregulation as the obvious smart answer to our economic woes. Even his crowd seemed to have trouble swallowing that. You never heard of Enron? The California energy ripoff? The Bush years? Any of this ringing a bell?
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe McCain could possibly be as bad as Bush. That would take some serious villainy and incompetence. So that's a good reason to be optimistic about the future. As long as we change presidents - or even if we just get rid of this one and put a "HELP WANTED" sign on the front of the White House - it's a step up. There's reason for hope. But I think we should take this opportunity for a big step up, not a small one.
(white flashes, Avid farts, etc. as we flash back to the year 1989)
1989 doesn't seem like that long ago to me, but I do feel like we've come a long way. It's almost hard to imagine now that Spike Lee's still-best-movie DO THE RIGHT THING caused some white people to tremble in fear. Not one but two well known writers worried in New York Magazine that it would cause black people to riot. David Denby wrote that "if some audiences go wild, [Spike Lee]'s partly responsible." Joe Klein wrote that “If Lee does hook large black audiences, there’s a good chance the message they take from the film will increase racial tensions in the city." He continued that the movie causing violence "can't be ruled out" and that "If black kids act on what they see, Lee may have destroyed his career.”
Of course, nothing remotely like that ever happened (phew - that was close) and these days the movie has a badass Criterion DVD and a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. But back then it was different. Some white people couldn't understand why "the nice kid Mookie" would be angry enough at the police beating Radio Raheem to death to throw the garbage can through the window. This was before Lee had made MALCOLM X, so Malcolm was still a boogie man in the eyes of Newsweek or US News and World Report. The very fact that he was quoted in DO THE RIGHT THING was hugely controversial.
Public Enemy had a similar effect. Their name was smeared in publications local and national. "Rap" was beginning to catch a bit of mainstream acceptance, for example DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince had won the first Best Rap Album Grammy. But Public Enemy spoke loud and their music was louder, an overwhelming blast of thunderous beats and blaring horn samples sounding more like bomb sirens than the James Brown tunes they came from. It was a musical attack with such complex construction that it would actually be illegal to release today without hundreds of thousands of dollars for sample clearance.
Put that sound behind a booming voice that talks about Huey Newton, Louis Farrakhan, the FBI tapping his telephone, and he's got some guys in fatigues and berets marching around him... this was disturbing to certain people. What happened to that nice kid whose parents just don't understand? I liked that kid. He never made me look up who Joanne Chesimard was. Why don't we listen to more of his raps instead of these Public Enemy raps.
When PE played Seattle's Paramount Theater in 1990, police in riot masks closed off the entire block around the theater and rode around on horses. Almost a decade before WTO and before the ROBOCOP-ization of the police force this was a shocking sight. What did they think was gonna happen? Even the Seattle Times music critic Patrick MacDonald, who had written more than his share of attack articles claiming the group were anti-white, mentioned the police department's overkill in his review.
The anthem at the time was "Fight the Power," written for DO THE RIGHT THING. In the movie it's Radio Raheem's song. He loops it all day long on his boombox, it's heard 15 times in the movie. Radio Raheem was a nightmare for certain white people at that time. Although Denby's review referred to then-36-year-old Bill Nunn's character as a "boy," he was huge, black, serious (i.e. "angry"), and accompanied by this song. So when stupid arguments escalate to a police situation they get too scared of him and they strangle him to death on accident. But even after he's dead, even after his radio has been burned like Joan of Arc inside Sal's Famous Pizzaria, there's "Fight the Power" echoing through the embers. Fire proof.
And now, nearly 20 years later, it still echoes. If you forgot it was that old the first line reminds you of its exact time: "1989 - the number, another summer..." But it's questionable how much power has been fought on its behalf in the intervening years. Despite David Denby's worst nightmare of boys going wild, despite what the cops at the Paramount may have been told, despite what we as fans may want to think, "Fight the Power" is only a song. Chuck D was brilliant at making slogans, at mentioning old ideas to make them fashionable again, and most of all at conveying a spirit of rebellion. I thought of songs like "Fight the Power" and "Shut 'em Down" more than once while marching against this stupid war. But I still didn't know how to stop the war. The songs didn't mention that detail. So I'm not sure what those people were so afraid of.
Those things have been on my mind ever since this "Reverend Wright controversy" came up. I kept seeing references to the preacher at Obama's church supposedly being anti-white. I didn't catch the original story so I was trying to look it up to see what they were talking about. I found an article about the republican response, which quoted as experts various moral-free scumbag pricks like the guy who compared Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden in a commercial. One explained how he first learned of the preacher's comments from a Youtube video called "Is Obama Wright?" And the article mentioned that the video was set to "Fight the Power."
Man, watch that video and you'll see what I'm talking about. After some Max Headroom editing to try to ridicule things that Obama and his wife say they show a bunch of clips of Reverend Wright's sermons and then "Fight the Power" comes in. And I'm guessing it's not because "NHale Media" who made the video want you to fight the power. They're using it because to them it's scary music. It's the equivalent of normal non-racist people using the HALLOWEEN theme. One of the Wright quotes they use is when he said that "the chickens have come home to roost," meaning that American foreign policy had caused or helped cause 9-11. When I heard about that I figured he was probaly referring to or copying Malcolm X, who caused controversy by using the same phrase to describe the JFK assassination. NHale picked up on this too because they show the Malcolm X clip. And then you realize wait a minute... they're trying to associate Wright (and by extension Obama) with Malcolm X - as if that's a bad thing!That's why we got a BATMAN and an INDIANA JONES coming out this summer. It's 1989 all over again!
What surprised me about the video though was that none of the stuff at least in that video was actually all that offensive. Arguably insensitive if what he was saying was right after 9-11, but I didn't hear anything that threatened me as a whitey or as an American. But I guess he said something before (and repeated it recently) about the government creating HIV. Seagal tried to write a script about that once. I know people say that sometimes and I'm not sure where it comes from, if they claim to have evidence or what their story is exactly. But hey, you know what? If it's not true maybe when Obama becomes president he'll be able to prove it to the Reverend. We didn't create HIV. I'm the president. I would know.
And that's the big question on this one: what are these people so afraid is gonna happen? Let's say that since this guy who knows Obama said something insensitive or stupid or whatever that means Obama HATES white people (even though his mom is one). I mean just fucking hates us. Total reverse Klansman. Even in that scenario that only a complete ass would actually believe, what is the VERY WORST thing you can imagine happening from this anti–white racist becoming president? I mean seriously dude. Lay it on us. In your craziest, most paranoid racial nightmare PLEASE tell us what it is that a black president could do to harm white people if he wanted to. Because I can't think of a god damn thing and I would absolutely love to hear some descriptions because I have a weird fascination with hearing crazy people say stupid shit.
If you can give us this description of what you fear from this fictional anti-white President Obama then we'll talk, but if not I would ask that you and the stupid media please refrain from bringing up that ridiculous topic and acknowledge that only silly, paranoid, out of touch people would preoccupy themselves with it. Thanks racists. I mean fellas.
LOOK OUT THERE IS A BLACK PERSON BEHIND YOU, I THINK HE HAS A BOW TIE AND A BRAND NUBIAN TAPE... THIS COULD BE THE BIG ONE
Not really, just testing.
One thing I wonder about is where this racism charge comes from, what is the goal here. It seems like if it was the Republican Swift Boat teams they would want to hold off until close to the election. That way people can get all afraid and vote and then go hide under the bed before they have time to think it through and realize how asinine it is. If it is the Republicans spreading this stuff it supports my suspicion that they want Hilary Clinton to be the nominee. Because they have a better chance of beating her. People tend to like Obama, but there is a whole cottage industry of people who hate Hilary Clinton going back many years. And it's more acceptable to hate women than black people too. They could get away with more nasty stuff. This could work.
On the other hand it could be Clinton's people that are trying to smear Obama, and that would be more upsetting. I mean obviously they want to win this (and it's a long shot) so they gotta run with any desperate idea they can think of. But you know, call me naive, but I thought democrats would try to not play that Karl Rove dirty tricks shit. I do like some things about Clinton, one of them being that she wants health care. Since she's been pushing for that since the days when it was unpopular it seems like maybe she really does care about helping people and making our country stronger. But jesus, what is this about? She lost. She cannot mathematically beat him in delegates. She has to come up with specific ways of counting to make it seem like she has any argument for still being in the race. And she keeps trying to throw these bullshit charges at Obama to see if anybody buys any of it.
Like this one about him being an "elitist." Apparently he made a comment in a speech about people in small towns in middle America not having enough jobs, being bitter and "clinging" to religion and guns. If you are in a small town and offended by this comment I have news for you. This is what all politicians think of you. The difference is that Obama brings it up sympathetically, discussing your economic problems and wanting to solve them. Many other politicians believe the same thing but they don't see it as a problem, they see it as a hook to trick you into voting for them. Look at any republican who uses gun control or phony religious controversies to stir up votes. Or look at Clinton, who started talking about religion and shooting guns in all her speeches to prove that she's "one of you." Which one do you think respects you more?
Well, according to exit polls (which I thought they said weren't reliable, because they seemed to indicate voter fraud in the last two presidential elections, but now somehow they're citing them again, hmmmm, wonder what's going on here) the "elitist" thing didn't stick at all, people weren't that stupid. But damned if Clinton didn't try. Considering how far behind she is, and the fact that she can only win if she can convince enough (apparently not elitist) super delegates, it's clear that her campaign is all about her. I think she doesn't want to appear to be giving up so that when she runs again she seems like a contender. But by using these sleazy tactics she's likely not helping herself in the primary, she's just hurting Obama in the general election. She would rather see McCain win than a democrat besides herself. Then she can run again in 4 years instead of 8.
It's too bad, because after all this I don't think I could possibly support Clinton if she did become the candidate. I've had enough of this shit. I would love to see a woman in office (when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated I thought holy shit, how did Pakistan have a woman president before we did?) but sorry, I can't get behind somebody that dishonest and condescending and willing to do that much damage to democratic causes in a desperate attempt to win an election. She was too middle of the road and corporate for me anyway, and I really don't like this idea of a Bush or Clinton having been in office since fucking 1980 if you include the vice presidency (8 years of Clinton would make it a 36 year dynasty) but I still thought she was better than McCain. After this I don't think I could take sides on that one. It's AVP - whoever wins, we lose.
This whole campaign paints a sad picture. At that caucus more than one person said something along the lines of "I haven't felt this way about a candidate since Bobby Kennedy." I've heard this from so many people it's become a cliche. I've talked to people who have switched parties to vote for Obama. I've talked to young people who have never believed in any politicians until Obama. The first time I saw an Obama speech was that one he did at the Democratic National Convention and I remember somebody on whichever channel I was watching said, "I think we may have just seen a future president." This is all just my experience, yours may be different, but to me it seems like Obama represents something we've been missing for years: a leader who people trust and believe in, who inspires people, who makes people less cynical about America. For so many years there has been a hole, we have not had that kind of leadership. And for years people have lamented that we didn't have anyone like that. And now that we finally found one, it is Hilary Clinton's job, and John McCain's job, and the media's job, to convince people that no, this is not a guy you believe in. This guy is a racist and an elitist. It is their job to make up some stupid bullshit like he forgot to wear flag underwear one day or he farted during a memorial for firefighters or he rhymed his own name with Osama in a freestyle rap battle or who knows what kind of childish garbage these fucking pricks will come up with next, and then they will repeat it over and over and over again until people who watch TV are lulled into accepting it as being an actual, reasonable thing that adults of an average or higher intelligence level should actually waste their lives discussing. Partly because there are people who need to assassinate his character and partly because they got alot of god damn shows on those cable channels, they gotta have something to talk about. Might as well be the firefighter farting scandal.
I'm not saying I know a better way but it's depressing that this is what the American system comes down to. Sorry, fuckers, if you want to believe in your president, you're gonna have to get through us first.But I don't know. I think we can probaly get through them. We'll see.
--VERN
2008 POLITICAL CONVENTIONS
Wow, I'm looking back at my column archives, it's like a logbook of political burnout. For a while there in the early 2000s I couldn't stop raging about the latest headlines. By last year I only wrote 2 columns including the one on January 1st. I guess that's the power of Bush and friends, you start looking at what they're doing you either turn crazy or turn away.
But now it's election time, the Ewok celebration song is cued up so the needle can drop the second Bush shuts the door behind him, and I'm getting excited enough to follow politics a little more than I was last year. As usual I'm not an expert, I'm just some dude, and I could be wrong. These are just some impressions from the parts I watched and read about the two political conventions.
By the way, I never been to one of these conventions, or to a comic book convention. But I read about them so much I started to wonder if they're the same. Do people dress up as their favorite politicians? I'm not sure. Did either of the conventions show exclusive footage from Tron 2? Probaly the republican one. Shine up a rehash of the crappy '80s and call it CHANGE.
OBAMA'S DNC ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
Well, it won't surprise anybody (including me) that I liked Obama's speech. He's a good speaker, he seems very sincere, he emphasizes the positive but also takes some strong swipes at McCain's policies.I liked when he said "America, we are better than these last eight years. We are a better country than this." And not only because addressing us as "America" reminds me of the late Bernie Mac. Republicans love to accuse those of us on the left of hating America or not being patriotic. They claim the flag as their party's exclusive trademark, as a militaristic symbol, they do everything they can to make it unappealing and then accuse us of being anti-American for not draping ourselves in it. One obvious politician response is to overcompensate, wear a big American flag pin, put American flags on everything you can, throw in three extra "God bless America"s for every one sincere one.
I don't see Obama doing much of that phony bullshit. Many politicians speak to people who get riled up by the symbols, he's speaking to a guy like me who gets riled up by the meaning behind the symbols. There are people who think any criticism (besides their own) or any fight for progress is anti-American. But the America I know is not some sissy that's gonna throw a tantrum or start crying if you don't walk on eggshells around it. My America can take the heat. It's a tough-as-nails set of ideas that can be questioned but shouldn't be betrayed.
My America lives by a code of honor created by The Founding Fathers. This code doesn't include a "you know what, let's just start torturing, see how that works out" possibility. It doesn't have a high tolerance for "is there any way we could work this so the Constitution is not against wiretapping everybody?" When somebody says they are "Proud To Be An American" they might just mean that they are proud to have been born on this particular land mass within the borders that were drawn on the map, but I would like to think they are talking about that code. They're proud to be part of a Democratic society that tries for freedom and equality. They believe in our system. I do, so it bothers me when I feel elections are rigged, that the leaders are not following the will of the people, that they are deliberately manipulating and terrorizing us into getting their way, and that they have rigged the system in order to not be accountable for what they've done. That's not hating America, that's loving America and not wanting some dumb assholes to fuck up this good thing Ben Franklin and the boys had going.
To me the last 8 years have been anti-American, so a line like Obama's riles the patriotism in a guy like me. These years have been demoralizing and I know alot of people who have already given up and assume McCain will win, that this is the shithole we're stuck in and we're never gonna climb out. But for some of us Obama gives us hope. I know that word has been overused to the point of undeniable corniness, but fuck it. It's true.
Of all the discouraging things that have happened during the Bush years the one that shocked me the most was the complete failure to handle Katrina. I know people have a million excuses for what happened there and I can't agree with them on those things but it's kind of irrelevant anyway. The point is that I never would've thought our government would not be able to handle a situation like that. Corrupt - yes, incompetent - yes, that incompetent - I didn't think so. So Obama's talking to someone like me when he says we don't need to have a government "that sits on its hands while a major American city drowns before our eyes." That we can do better. God damn, we better be able to. That sucked.
And I liked the section that was basically asking for political discussions to not be as moronic as usual:
"Because one of the things that we have to change in our politics is the idea that people cannot disagree without challenging each other's character and patriotism. The times are too serious, the stakes are too high for this same partisan playbook. So let us agree that patriotism has no party. I love this country, and so do you, and so does John McCain."
And then he went on to list some things that most people should be able to agree on despite different politics, for example both pro and anti choice people should agree that we should do what we can to cut down on unwanted pregnancies.
As good as the speech was, it was hard not to watch without being distracted by the HISTORICNESS of it all. The speech was held, not coincidentally, on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It says something about our world that in 45 years we have gone from King's dream floating over a segregated country to a very real possibility of a black man becoming the president of the United States. But sadly I gotta note that while King's speech was made on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial - our nation's tribute to the president who fought a war (and died) for the end of slavery - Obama's was at a place called "Invesco Field." So we have progress, and we have, uh, other things too.
SORRY BUT I GOTTA GO ON A TANGENT ABOUT MUSIC NOW
Anyway it was a good speech, and it was a good idea to take him out of the usual convention setting and put him in a giant stadium where more people could see it. I didn't see what was going on throughout the day but I did tune in about an hour before the speech, so I have a question for the Democrats.
MICHAEL MCFUCKINGDONALD? THAT'S REALLY HOW YOU PLAN TO INSTILL HOPE IN AMERICA? MICHAEL MCGODDAMNDONALD?
Yes, in the hour before what was expected to be one of the most historic American speeches in decades, they thought they would get a guy to play "America the Beautiful," and the guy they chose was Michael McDonald. And after the speech they played a song called "Only In America" by the modern country duo Brooks & Dunn.
Okay, I know there must be some kind of thinking behind this that I'm not privy to, but let me rant a little bit. As some people have no doubt noticed, Obama is an African-American. African-Americans happen to have created all the greatest music of the modern age. They created jazz, blues, rock and roll, hip hop. They created funk and soul. Of course Obama is not a musician, it is not his responsibility to recognize those particular contributions to the world.
But come on, this had to have been intentional. You can't tell me given the choice Obama wanted the same horrible white people shit every other politician always wants to use. What kind of thinking goes into ending such an inspirational speech with the same cornball bullshit that George W. Bush used as his campaign song for his tragic 2004 re-election? I looked it up, he used the same song. What does that tell us?
Somebody chose that song, I want to know why. Is it a sampling or pirating philosophy, stealing Bush's horrible garbagey music and claiming its lyrics for our own? Kind of ballsy, kind of funny, like that scene from Top Gun where he flies upside down and flips a guy off?
Or was it genuine pandering? Obama makes this truly inspiring speech and we believe in it but just in case they throw some bullshit out there thinking "rednecks love this shit, they'll eat it up"? Isn't that a dishonorable note to end on?
Attention panderers: just as there are some people who enjoy that music, there are many people who hate it. You know how certain segments of society think rap music is just "noise" and "talking"? There is an equal or greater segment of society who hears any modern country music and imagines some dudes driving around in NASCAR with pinups of farm animals on the dashboard. I personally don't think those redneck stereotypes are fair, but I do happen to have an allergic reaction to any and all modern country music, and especially when it's a patriotic one like that my instinctive reaction is that whichever politician is playing it is insincere.
By the way, Johnny Cash you can get away with, everybody likes Johnny Cash, but I'm not sure we should be talking about shooting our wives after that speech. So good call not using him I guess.
But let's go back to that "I Have a Dream" speech. I'm not sure if they played music after it. Bob Dylan played before it. Not soulful, but at least good. The Civil Rights movement did not associate itself with Brooks & Dunn. You know who Martin Luther King's favorite singer was? Curtis Mayfield. You want to give people goosebumps, end the speech with "People Get Ready"! I guess it has spiritual connotations, but so did the speech. I just think when you have a speech that signifies a major landmark in American history, that promises a change, that hopes to inspire and move people who have had trouble with the last 8 years and want to believe in America again, you have to find a song that matches that feeling. Not a crappy leftover from Bush, the same asshole we're getting rid of.
It's not like I'm asking you to play "Mighty Mighty Spade and Whitey." Or "Fight the Power" or "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" for that matter. This is not a threatening song or a protest. It's not gonna menace anybody. If anything I bet it is enjoyable to a wider audience than the country song and musically offensive to a much, much, much smaller group. How many people can't stand Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions?
Michael McDonald, if you're not familiar with him, was in the fucking Doobie Brothers. He co-wrote songs with Kenny Loggins. I believe some of his songs have been used in truck commercials. They call him "blue eyed soul" but it's hard to trace where the soul part comes from. To be fair his rendition of "America the Beautiful" was fine, it was not as awful as I associate with the guy. But where is the "change" and "hope" in the same old pandering to the most middlebrow, inoffensive mainstream old white people music? I thank you for not choosing Kenny G, but come on.
All I could think when they introduced him was "Are you telling me Stevie Wonder wouldn't do it? You could get anybody!" I thought of Stevie because personally I consider him pretty much the greatest of all time. I literally do believe that Songs In the Key of Life is the greatest album ever recorded. He has more songs that make me a little misty-eyed than anybody. He's funky and soulful as hell but don't worry consultants, he doesn't scare white people. And I don't think he's a wifebeater like James. Stevie's a god damn saint, everybody loves him. As long as you stay out of his '80s stuff his music is pretty much universally appealing. He loves Obama, he sings and preaches about many of the same themes, and he's even relevant to this historic date because his campaign (and great song "Happy Birthday") made Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.
Of course, I later found out that Stevie was actually there, they had him play earlier. Warming up for Michael McDonald.
Just think about it, Democrats. This is a perfect opportunity to inject a little soul into campaign music. Stevie, Al Green, Marvin Gaye... their words stir us like those country music ones are meant to, but their sounds do the job too. The best music is not just about words, the sounds move you too. Shit, at least get Wynton Marsalis or somebody out there. Or is jazz too "elitist"? All I'm saying is America, we can do better than Brooks & Dunn.
THE RNC
I didn't get to watch as much of the RNC coverage as I wanted to, but it was pretty interesting to see what went down. For example it's nice to see after 8 years of a Republican administration that it's so unanimously agreed to be disastrous that even the Republican Convention was trying to distance itself. And cancelling their plans because of a hurricane - well, we at least know that they understand that it looked bad last time. That's progress of some kind.
From the parts of speeches I saw one of the themes that really pissed me off was this anti-city bullshit. Sarah Palin was the mayor of a town in Alaska. (According to the 2000 census there were 32 black people there. The Wu-Tang Clan alone has almost a third as big a population of African-Americans as Wasilla.) So the idea is to set up this phony battle between "Small Town Values" and what Rudy Giuliani called in his speech "cosmopolitan" values. (That's weird, I could've sworn Giuliani was associated with some sort of large American city... I have this memory of him saying "greatest city in the world" every time he opens his mouth... can't think of where it would've been though. He's a small town guy. Must be thinking of some other mayor.)
I guess these politicians don't know this, but big cities by definition have more people in them than small towns. People who sometimes vote and shit. So especially since you are obviously pulling this shit out of your ass to pander to these people you've never met, who you picture looking all noble in their farmer outfits, you might want to cut that shit out or face our wrath. Yes, people in small towns contribute to the world, as do people in large cities. We also help the environment and the traffic by not living out in the suburbs and then driving into the city every day to work. In Seattle we pay most of the taxes and then have to send them out to the rest of the state so they can build their projects while our transportation system continues to be fucked. We're pretty cool, we deserve some respect.
THE CONTRADICTIONS OF SARAH PALINWell, nobody saw this coming. McCain couldn't get people excited even passing out free iPhones wearing an Obama mask. But his vice presidential candidate did it. People liked her speech. If you really look at it though, and at the other messages coming out of the campaign, there's alot of contradictions there.
They tell us both that Obama is inexperienced and that he is "a Washington DC insider." McCain has been in Washington for more than 25 years, but apparently has not made many connections there yet, it sounds like, still a real outsider. But experienced.
They tell us that Obama has been twiddling his thumbs for four years, which implies that McCain has been legislating six ways to Sunday. But they also say it's not gonna be "business as usual" anymore and it's gonna be "change" and that we have to change everything in Washington, which I guess must mean that all that incredibly awesome legislation he's been doing is at risk. He did amazing things, but now it's time to throw that shit out. Palin refers to "the do-nothing Senate" - does she know that her running mate is a Senator? Isn't she polite enough to at least say "present company excluded"?
One of the ones that pissed me off the most was the people at the convention holding up signs saying "SERVICE!" while every one of the speakers laughs and belittles Obama for his community service. That Rudy Giuliani prick especially. This is a pretty clear representation of the true face of some of these assholes. The word "service" doesn't mean anything to them, it's just a cool slogan. What kind of a worthless shitbag makes fun of a guy for spending his mid-twenties driving around in a Honda Civic organizing 20 churches to try to improve their troubled neighborhoods? It's exactly the kind of thing that all of us believe in and very few of us do or would even know how to do. And that smarmy piece of shit says it like some school bully calling everybody "faggot." Palin also had a sarcastic community organizer line in her speech trying to brush it off as small potatoes compared to her being Mayor of a tiny Alaskan town (which by the way sounds like it could've used Obama's help - I read that it's considered "the meth capital of Alaska").
They say that although it may appear based on reading about her experience that Palin is much less experienced than the guy they have been telling us for months and months is too inexperienced, actually she has the only experience that is important, "executive experience." Governors technically make "executive decisions" which is not only a pretty good movie but apparently more important than being in the do-nothing Senate. And it goes without saying that John McCain would've been governor a long time ago but nobody told him about the whole executive experience thing because they were too shy to approach him because he is a war hero. Also because he's a Washington outsider, they could never find him. They would look for him in the inner circle but he was always out doing maverick shit in the DC outskirts.
THE PALINS: SEASON 1
When I first read about Palin I thought McCain had lost his god damn mind (or as that dumbass Diddy put it, he was "buggin the fuck out"). But as it's playing out I'm starting to think it's demented, cynical brilliance. The Palin family - with it's silly names, teen pregnancies and outrageous imagery (gun–packing moms, redneck hockey players putting on suits and hugging John McCain at the airport) - is a reality TV show waiting to happen. You can picture the opening montage already with Alaskan scenery, some mooses, Governor Palin bustin off shots from an AK-47, babies crawling around in the governor's mansion, hubby going off a jump in a snowmobile, stylized portraits of each family member sliding across the screen with their first names (Piper, Track, Trig, etc.) written in glitter. In less than a week they were already replacing the Britneys and friends for gossip headlines. Apparently the daughter's boyfriend got a new tattoo! I was gonna say something about how despite what Palin said in her speech Obama's tax plan actually lowers taxes more than McCain's for 95% of the country, but fuck that, let's find out about this tattoo!
At first it seemed like they chose Palin as clueless pandering to Clinton voters, not understanding that most of them are not stupid enough to vote for a candidate who stands for the exact opposite of everything they believe. But actually they are pandering to the low quality and sick obsessions of the pathetic media culture we currently live in. Columnists and bloggers like to columnblog about troubled young girls who are famous only for being related to someone who's famous. It's even easy to call them by their first names because they got weird ass first names. What better way to get attention in 2008 than to appeal to the grown men who make a living being high school gossips?
And then there's the matter of the trap. The whole thing is a trap.
Obama is right to take "The Obama High Road." I think he's completely genuine about not wanting family gossip to enter into a campaign. He doesn't want his daughters ending up in some gossip rag shit or having their lives put under a microscope because of him. And he doesn't want people to do it to Palin's family either. And as he pointed out his own mother gave birth to him at 18. There have been many great teen mothers and it sucks to treat their lives as scandal or sleaze.
But that's the sinister brilliance of it, because the hypocrisy is so god damn blatant that there's no way everyone on Obama's side can resist it. It's a huge fuckin brick of gouda sitting on a rat trap. How can you not point out that Sarah Palin promotes abstinence only education, which clearly her daughter did not follow? That she beams about her daughter's "choice" in a press release and yet is against you and your family having a choice? That she herself slashed funding for helping teenage mothers like her daughter? I don't want her poor daughter to have to get dragged through the media and yet how can you not point out hey lady, fucking look, right then in your god damn house is exactly why you are dead wrong about all of these things? These are policies that affect actual human beings, people you know and love, and the respect and privacy you correctly are asking us to give your family is the exact same respect and privacy we are asking you to give ours. Except we really want it, it's not just a campaign gimmick, and you won't give it to us. If one of your kids wants to get gay married you're gonna say that's her decision too even though for our family you think it's not.
And since Obama correctly said that he wants no part in criticizing the family, and since he said he will fire people in his campaign if they do it, of course the Republicans will make those things the issues. Abstinence education, contraception, abortion - let's discuss these issues but HOW DARE YOU mention that they affect my family, have you no SHAME? Are you a MONSTER? Of course someone on Obama's campaing will slip-up and say something that the Republican pundits will feign outrage at and they will either be fired or Obama will be criticized for not firing them.
And God forgive me for even mentioning this one but I know they're going to be waving around that story about her newborn baby with Down's Syndrome. When I heard about that I thought about how hard that would be and that anyone who can do that is a strong and admirable person. But then I thought, wait a minute... isn't she, like, running for vice president? Flying around the world making speeches every day, doing interviews, having meetings, also being governor of Alaska I imagine, and possibly hunting mooses? And if so doesn't that mean that, um, somebody else is, uh, raising the... well, never mind.
I mentioned this to somebody who pointed out that if it was a man running for office when his baby is only 5 months old he wouldn't be criticized. Which is true. But shouldn't he be criticized? I mean what kind of father or mother are you if you aren't home when your baby is a god damn baby? You only get one infancy. It just seems like you either have a baby or run for president, not both. And if you run for president while your baby is at home you don't use the baby as a selling point for your candidacy.
When she said in her speech that she would look out for families with special needs I thought that was good, that is a good thing. But on the other hand, Dick Cheney didn't look out for families of lesbians. And veterans groups don't seem to think McCain looks out for veterans. So I guess if it comes down to it we'll see if she means it or not.
NEGATIVE FEEDBACK ON EBAYEven aside from her supporting cast, the Sarah Palin persona of her speeches, the Governor Who Plays By Her Own Rules, is a fictional character. In her speeches she tries to blow your mind with boasts about her Dirty Harry style Stickin It To The Man governing. I'm sure you've already read about how saying "no thanks" to the "Bridge to Nowhere" actually means she supported it, defended it, said she wouldn't back down on it, then eventually cancelled it after it became a national scandal, but never actually gave the money back. (whoops.) And built a road to the empty beach where the bridge would've gone. The Road to the Bridge That Would've Gone to Nowhere. Bragging about that one is a whopper, but another great example of her phoniness is the "jet on eBay" story.
In her acceptance speech (and since repeated in many other speeches) Palin talks about becoming governor and thinking the taxpayers were paying too much for her luxury. "That luxury jet that came with the office? I put it on eBay!" McCain has also told this story, saying she sold it on eBay for a profit.
The truth is more complicated. I guess Palin is right to brag that she didn't want the jet, but the eBay story is clearly designed to promote this idea of a Maverick Governor who comes up with crazy plans... and they work! People love these kinds of stories. The redneck sherriff who carried around a 2x4 to intimidate organized crime, the inner city principal who carried a baseball bat to keep gang members out of his school. You hear about the unorthodox methods and you're hooked.
But in this case the unorthodox methods weren't Palin's - Alaska already had been selling off expensive items, including two other aircraft, on eBay. More importantly it didn't work - nobody ever gave the minimum bid so they eventually had to end the auction and bring the jet to a broker who sold it at a loss.
So if you're serious and want to talk about your accomplishments you don't bring up this story. If you're trying to build a fictional persona though you bring it up every time there's a microphone nearby.
THE PALIN VOTER
The other day I was going to the grocery store and I was stopped by a volunteer for the ACLU. He mentioned torture and spying, but obviously he didn't have to sell me on anything. I already support the ACLU in spirit. I don't have the money to be contributing every month, but I thought about that movie AN AMERICAN CAROL and how it apparently shows ACLU lawyers helping terrorists get weapons through airport security.
Few things get my blood boiling like the dickheads who wrap themselves in the word FREEDOM and then turn around and belittle civil liberties - i.e. 'freedom' - as some silly liberal bullshit. They call us traitors and America haters and then turn around and openly ridicule the actual American system and the values it was founded upon. Palin even had a line in her speech, "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights?" Well, no, I don't remember Obama ever worrying about that, but yes, we do have laws and we do follow them and that's why we're fucking Americans. Because we have civil liberties, we have rights, we have a system that we try to follow so that SUSPECTS can get a FAIR TRIAL because we FOUNDED OUR GOD DAMNED COUNTRY on this idea. And then if this hypothetical terrorism suspect is guilty then he goes to jail and we don't have to admit we railroaded him and then let him out. Have you learned nothing from Freddy Krueger?And why is it always the people who don't believe in America pointing fingers at us?
They say we do nothing but criticize our country, then criticize us for standing up for our country. They say we hate America for not plastering flags on everything but then they openly hate the very things that the flag actually stands for. The ACLU are so scrupulous about their belief they even defended Rush Limbaugh after decades of ACLU-bashing when they thought his privacy was being violated.
I thought about that and I realized I want to be one of those "Card Carrying Members of the ACLU" Limbaugh and whichever Zucker brother it is like to complain about. So I gave the guy what little cash I had and signed up. And maybe I'll send them a check when that movie comes out.
Anyway the volunteer talked to me about his kids and how they make fun of him, they say it's his fault because he voted for Bush. Twice. To me it was a great bonding moment because I cannot imagine anything dumber than voting for Bush that second time. I could never even picture who these people were who would do that. But here was one of them, and he seemed like a nice guy, and he had thought about it and not only decided he had made a mistake, but was out there spending his afternoons trying to do something about it.
After Sarah Palin's speech I think she represents the other road for the people who voted for Bush. Convince yourself it wasn't a mistake, it was somebody else's fault besides the people in charge. Continue voting against your own interests.We're used to politicians who send other people's kids to fight unjust wars, here's one proud to send her own. In at least one interview she promoted drilling in Alaska as an alternative to a war that's "in many [ways]... over energy sources" and now she brags about her son being deployed. She brags that he's being deployed on September 11th (actually not true, he had a ceremony today and gets deployed later), and I'm sure we will later discuss how it never occurred to her that she was making a connection between the September 11th attacks and the Iraq War - oh my goodness, no, that is just the date he happens to be deployed on, it never occurred to me or my speechwriters that anyone would read any meaning into it.
She stands for abstinence only education even though her own daughter has proven scientifically that it doesn't work. She talks about reform and standing up to politics as usual and all this shit, and moments later says she wants to hand over her precious Alaska to oil companies. Take THAT, status quo! I guess she's made executive decisions, but not on deadly ground.
THE HECKLER
As for McCain's speech, I didn't see the whole thing and from the clips it seemed kind of sad. That part at the end, he pretends to rev up the crowd, they pretend to clap and then he pretends to smile. Oh well, it is possible that you could be a terrible speaker and still be a good president. Hard to lead though if nobody pays attention to anything you say.
One interesting moment was when the Iraq veteran held up the sign that said "MCCAIN VOTES AGAINST VETERANS" and "YOU CAN'T WIN AN OCCUPATION." He wasn't a leftie, but a Ron Paul supporter who was there legitimately on a guest pass from a Ron Paul alternate delegate. The crowd drowned out his point by chanting "USA! USA!" In other words, they suppress disagreement the same way you used to welcome "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan to the ring. So that was a highlight I guess.
DIRTY POLITICS
But now that I've finished this column the conventions have been mostly forgotten. Now it's all about what is the new ad and what is the response to the new ad. It's too early in this part of the game to know how it will go, but so far I've been impressed by Obama's ability to keep his dignity. As I write this the big "controversy" is that Obama described McCain's "change" platform as "putting lipstick on a pig," and the McCain campaign made a moronic ad pretending to think he was referring to Palin as a pig and to be offended at this outrageous sexism.
Obama's response:
"They'd much rather have the story -- this is the McCain campaign -- would much rather have the story about phony and foolish diversions than about the future. This happens every election cycle. Every four years. This is what we do. We've got an energy crisis. We have an education system that is not working for too many of our children and making us less competitive. We have an economy that is creating hardship for families all across America. We've got two wars going on, veterans coming home not being cared for -- and this is what they want to talk about! This is what they want to spend two of the last 55 days talking about.
You know who ends up losing at the end of the day? It's not the Democratic candidate, it's not the Republican candidate. It's you, the American people. Because then we go another year or another four years or another eight years without addressing the issues that matter to you. Enough.
I don't care what they say about me, but I love this country too much to let them take over another election with lies and phony outrage and swift-boat politics. Enough is enough."I mean, that sounds like one of my columns after you cut out the "god damns" and the "fuckin"s and improve some of the grammar. Obama is taking the bold step of treating Americans like they are not morons. He's calling bullshit when necessary (which is every day, sadly) and so far not stooping to the current state of politics. This is why I believe in the guy.
Some of my friends have been saying that Obama needs to fight back, he needs to play dirty too or he's gonna lose. I'm not sure I buy that. Because when has anybody ever tried not doing that? What if somebody really did try to have an honorable campaign? How do we really know it doesn't work?
I like what he's doing. Maybe my buddies are right, maybe it doesn't play to the cheap seats or something. But from where I'm standing it looks like he's winning this by staying on track with an occasional aside to point out that the McCain people are not treating this seriously or respecting your intelligence.
Well, there I go again. Months and months with no column and then I gotta write one that nobody's gonna read in one sitting. So I better cut this one off. But thanks for reading.
--VERN
10/4/08
THE FLURRY IN MISSOURI
Riding the bus home everybody was talking about it. What do you think's gonna happen? Did you hear what she said this time? Do people really like her? Young women carrying their potluck meals to get-togethers, or calling home for somebody to preheat the oven. Never in my life have I seen - or felt - such excitement for a fucking vice presidential debate.
But I think most of them were expecting a blowout, like Gibson vs. Palin, or Couric vs. Palin, or The View vs. McCain. But honestly I knew better. Yes, she's a moron who in recent interviews could not name a single magazine or newspaper that she's ever read, or a Supreme Court case besides Roe v. Wade, or a reason why the things she's been saying in dozens of speeches or in other interviews (like the one about she knows foreign policy because she lives close to Russia) have any meaning or logic behind them. But I figured they could train her for this carefully planned debate structure. After her interviews made her look like the least qualified person to ever run for office (including Dolemite), the expectations were real low. Not to mention the lowered bar set by Bush, who made so little sense in the 2004 debates that to this day I believe the "conspiracy theory" that he had an earpiece and was confused about who was saying what to him. And he still won.
So as long as she comes out there with two shoes on, no drool on her chin, and never says the n-word, obviously everyone is going to say she did better than expected. And to be honest I was very impressed by her poise and eloquence.
Just kidding about that last part. I was pretty right about the "she wasn't as bad as I expected" reaction, but it looks like we're not an Idiocracy quite yet. Right wing pundits might argue that it's not about substance and that she "connected with the people" and all that condescending bullshit, but I don't think the trick worked that well. Maybe she did better than people expected, but very few people are pretending she won the debate.
Palin was well trained enough not to fall on her ass, but not quite enough to sound like she was answering the right questions or had heard of any of this shit two months ago. She seemed to begin each answer with a brief sentence implying that she had an answer but was in too much of a hurry to get into details, then changed the subject to something she'd been coached on. To me her worst moment was when Biden talked about ending the war and she said, "Um..." and took a long pause searching through her notes. For a second it seemed like this was it, the part where she was gonna blow it. Then she blurted out something about "you're raising a white flag of surrender" that sounded so unnatural you had to wonder if there was more to it when they wrote it for her or if that was seriously the best thing they could come up with, recycling some bullshit that Bush used to get away with before some people knew better.
I mean think about it. Not only is it a stupid "what are you, a sissy?" argument just like the ones that got us into this mess in the first place, but it even insults our intelligence on the basic level of assuming we don't know what waving a white flag means. Like she's worried if she didn't specify "of surrender" we would say, "What? What is this white flag you're talking about? The American flag has other colors besides white, this must be some other-- which flag is it you're talking about?" Like we haven't seen a fuckin Bugs Bunny cartoon before.
But I guess even without that it's obvious that they think - or at least hope - that we're stupid. The whole Palin gimmick is that she's "like us," and we would rather have somebody like us in charge of the country than some "elitist" who would know what to do. It's this whole idea that it's bad to be intelligent or educated, that a political candidate shouldn't talk about substance unless it can be boiled down into a funny catch phrase, because otherwise it's boring.
Of course we're all cynical and we all know politics are phony, but they're so aggressively phony these days that it's hard to take. It kind of makes me mad to watch a lady who would only agree to one debate with 90 second answering periods to pretend to be frustrated by not having enough time to answer, and then at the end says she wishes there were more opportunities to talk like this. Well, what do you expect on a team of mavericks, they're gonna be rebelling against their own wishes, making demands that they themselves disagree with.(speaking of mavericks, I couldn't help but picture all the drunk people around the country because "maverick" and "nuke-yoo-lar" were the most obvious drinking games for this debate and she far exceeded expectations for both words)
I wonder if what they're going for even works on their target demographic, though. How many people really are charmed by that cartoonish schucks, by golly you betcha persona? Here is a vice presidential candidate literally winking into the camera. I'm surprised they didn't arrange for a DING! sound effect. And she actually referred to "Joe Sixpack." You know Joe, that hard working guy in Wasilla who hates snowmobiling so he's bored as hell and just sits around drinking beer all day and thinking about killing himself. Used to be married to Wendy Winebox before she left him for Johnny Methlab.
I don't know man, I feel like Palin and alot of people who are watching this whole thing are underestimating the intelligence of the Sixpack family. I think more than you realize will be uncomfortable with this business. It's like a high school teacher trying to impress his class by using hip hop slang. Or that notorious Subaru commercial where poor Jeremy Davies tried to explain that Subaru was like punk rock, but a car. Sure, "hockey moms" are not as inherently cynical as young people and punks, they're not as worried about being advertised to. But they're not all imbeciles, is my guess.
I don't know, anybody out there got a kid on a hockey team? Do you feel like a respected adult when she looks into that camera and winks at you, or do you feel like a dog being babytalked to? Let me know.
I still don't get that thing about "I voted for Bush because he seems like a guy I'd want to have a beer with" thing, but I believe in 2008 most Americans will not fall for that type of shit. We'll see, I guess.
As for Biden, I thought he did pretty good. He mostly answered the questions, and even the one that shouldn't have been asked because obviously no politician is gonna answer it ("What is your Achilles heel?") he at least acknowledged the question, unlike Palin. One highlight was when he talked about his working class background but then acknowledged that he does well now, gets a good salary as a senator and owns a nice house. That part struck me as an unusually honest statement and an important difference between the left and right views of the world. It seems to me like people on the right look to the poor and say "shame on you, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, that's what I did you lazy fuck" while the left says "believe me man, I've been there, I'll see what I can do to help you out."
One moment I felt really proud was when it came to the question about gay rights, and without hesitation he expressed his full support and listed in detail what was important. Unfortunately I lost that pride when the followup question specified gay marriage and he immediately said he was against it. Of course this is what you have to say if you're running for vice president, but I can't be down with that stance because it's more political bullshit. The government has no business interfering with marriage. If your religion doesn't want to marry two women or two men guess what - you don't have to! From the government's perspective though marriage is not religion, it's a civil union just like both candidates claimed they were in favor of.
I gotta say, I don't agree with my libertarian friends, but I sure understand them more than republicans. You're always talking about freedom and about how you hate big government and you quote Ronald Reagan's oneliner about "we're the government and we're here to help," but then you turn around and want the government to tell people who they can't marry because your religion disagrees with theirs? It's silly enough I oughta be able to laugh it off, but I take it personally because I feel like you're attacking my family, telling my family what to do, and I don't like that shit. And even though Biden was promoting gay rights and Palin was being careful to keep homophobes in the fold, her and Biden end up having the same stance on gay marriage.
But then there was that moment at the end when Palin did her little spiel about being a mom, and Biden took it as an implication that he doesn't know what it's like to struggle, and then she was in trouble. Her marketing pitch accidentally inspired genuine emotion, so you had the two to compare side by side. And I think most people know the difference.
--VERN
here's what seems to me to be a fair fact check of the debate