Megan Garber of THE ATLANTIC on Louis C.K.

It’s all part of another old story: semi-apologies that, in time, nullify themselves. The status quo, reassembling to its familiar, fusty order. Louis C.K., who has been treating cruelty as a game since long before this year, seems to be hoping that he can benefit from “hypersensitivity” in a similarly warped way—and in his new brand of comedy are the contours of tragedy: lessons unlearned, abuses unaccounted for, the people who truly deserve their anger written, once again, out of the story. You could read C.K.’s evolution as a gradual loss of control, as a wayward id winning out over everything else. You could read it, as well, as something more strategic: a calculation that his core audience, now, is the red-pill crowd, with humor that is marketed accordingly. Either way, C.K. has reason to have confidence in his new brand of comedy: In person, his jokes about the inconveniences of empathy have been commonly met with laughter. And with enthusiastic applause.

Louis C.K. punches down at Parkland school shooting survivors.

Louis C.K. is still rebuilding his stand-up comedy career after women stood up and made the unarguably true statement that masturbating and making people watch is high-level abusive behavior.

Now that he’s returned to venues like the Comedy Cellar in NYC,  Louis is flying the tired old aging-comic “F—- Political Correctness” flag.

Here’s an excerpt from a recent routine hammering some of the Parkland shooting survivors for committing the crime of activism:
“They testify in front of Congress, these kids? What are they doing? You’re young! You should be crazy! You should be unhinged! Not in a suit. You’re not interesting," he said, referencing the survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting. "Because you went to a high school where kids got shot? Why does that mean I have to listen to you? Why does that make you interesting? You didn’t get shot. You pushed some fat kid in the way and now I’ve got to listen to you talking?"

2018 Best of Films/TV: Second Draft

Films:
Black kkKlansman
The Little Stranger
First Man
You Were Never Really Here
Black Panther
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Disobedience
Eighth Grade
Filmworker
Wildlife
Shoplifters
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Roma
Honorable Mention:
Annihilation
Widows
A Quiet Place
Suspiria 2018
At Eternity’s Gate
The Favourite
Sorry To Bother You

Vice

First Reformed

White Boy Rick

Three Identical Strangers

Television:

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling

Patrick Melrose
Escape At Dannemora 

Making A Murderer Season 2

The Looming Tower

Sharp Objects

Rest In Power: The Trayvon Martin Story

A Very English Scandal

Misfires:

Mary, Queen of Scots

Gotti

A Wrinkle In Time

Hereditary 

Billionaire Boys Club

Ben Is Back
Halloween 2018

From NEW YORKER profile of Trump’s myth maker Mark Burnett.

Excerpted from Patrick Radden Keefe’s NEW YORKER profile of producer Mark Burnett—infamous for packaging the APPRENTICE version of Donald Trump which conned viewers into believing Trump should be President of the United Statrs:

“The Apprentice” portrayed Trump not as a skeezy hustler who huddles with local mobsters but as a plutocrat with impeccable business instincts and unparalleled wealth—a titan who always seemed to be climbing out of helicopters or into limousines. “Most of us knew he was a fake,” Braun told me. “He had just gone through I don’t know how many bankruptcies. But we made him out to be the most important person in the world. It was like making the court jester the king.” Bill Pruitt, another producer, recalled, “We walked through the offices and saw chipped furniture. We saw a crumbling empire at every turn. Our job was to make it seem otherwise.”

Did Burnett believe what he was selling? Or was Trump another two-dollar T-shirt that he pawned off for eighteen? It’s difficult to say. One person who has collaborated with Burnett likened him to Harold Hill, the travelling fraudster in “The Music Man,” saying, “There’s always an angle with Mark. He’s all about selling.” Burnett is fluent in the jargon of self-help, and he has published two memoirs, both written with Bill O’Reilly’s ghostwriter, which double as manuals on how to get rich. One of them, titled “Jump In!: Even if You Don’t Know How to Swim,” now reads like an inadvertent metaphor for the Trump Presidency. “Don’t waste time on overpreparation,” the book advises.

The new closet for deceased Old Hollywood stars.

Someone who I respect overall has a podcast I follow (and authored a book I’m currently reading).  The podcast is being carried through Slate.com, which advertises a new episode as follows:

Rumors have circulated for decades, but the business of outing long-dead celebrities can be complicated and even harmful.

Apparently, the new rule with biographers is to re-create the kind of closet celebrities stayed in during the era when there were all kinds of professional and personal penalties for daring to come out (an exception is the new Rock Hudson bio ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS by Mark Griffin).  Oft-rumored bi-or-gay actors such as Barbara Stanwyck and Spencer Tracy are now written about as thoroughly heterosexual (with Tracy’s latest biographer, James Curtis, doing a long, loud denunciation of gay rumors in the acknowledgements section of allegedly intimate book SPENCER TRACY).

As a corollary to this form of apparent straight-washing, biographers make a public show of sticking out their literary tongues at authors who, for better or worse, write extensively on the subject of deceased closeted actors (prominent among them are Boze Hadleigh, Darwin Porter and Scotty Bowers).

In closing, the podcaster/author balks at too much discussion of “long-dead celebrities” in the midst of doing a series arc debunking the mostly-untrue salacious myths of Kenneth Anger’s first HOLLYWOOD BABYLON volume.  And this person is, at the same time, promoting a book which keeps the apparently “complicated” sexual life of its subject quite hetero-simple.

It may be one thing if surviving descendants of a celebrity wish to keep certain private incidents eternally hidden from public/media scrutiny.  But it’s quite another for authors to produce inaccurate/accurate within limits (but commercially appealing) history which treats readers as if they’re uniformly infantile bluenoses who want books to be as adoring and stress-free as promotional shorts for TCM.

New Poem: Thistletown

click off the light switch
click on the 16mm projector
rattle the silent black-and-white film
hold that frame still when I fail
to cross the line with everyone else
walking through Thistletown
>
in need of special treatment
given private tutorials
made to feel as if I have power
to destroy the obedient and confident
if I don't cross the line sooner
verbal knives slash hard in Thistletown
>
student teacher can achieve only so much
until public humiliation takes over:
holler at me, shame me,
send me to study hall,
glue me to a bench
it's character building
it's attitude changing
it's all on you, son,
you keep saying--
instead, my border wall grows taller
>
but I keep quiet, try to move proper
pick up my feet, point my toes
eight steps for every five yards
count the days, months, years
before I can leave Thistletown
and learn how to walk
without looking to my left and right
to cross the line perfectly

Poem ODE TO A DEAD POETRY VENUE

The Midnight Special bookstore
Shined its light on me
By way of a calendar listing
In the back pages
Of a free poetry magazine
So I drove through Friday night El Niño rain
Walked into the back room
And stood because all folding chairs were filled
Everyone actually listened to everyone else
>
It was the best possible first time
And I kept returning for two years:
Watching, learning, workshopping
Glad to find somewhere welcoming
Until changes were made,
Hosts were fired from volunteer positions,
Store owners wanted to be right all the time
>
The Midnight Special wasn’t immune
From hubris and personal/poetic politics
And I confronted that truth several times
At different venues as years and decades disappeared
And good memories turned sentimental ,
Painful ones eroding into resignation and acceptance

Poem: February 9, 1988

February 9, 1988 (revised version)

I went forward
Into a slightly charted land
Planting my flag in a suburb
Occasionally wrapped in smog
>
Some people took advantage of me
Others were amused by me
A handful befriended me
As I met Los Angeles
In all its guises and poses
>
Drove to Culver City Target
For a cheap answering machine
Almost got lost in Venice
But I knew I’d find my way eventually
>
Swore to the City of Glendale
That I wasn’t a Communist
Got a three-day-a-week library job
Performed repetitive tasks
Co-workers held a body-length mirror
For me to view every inch
Of my social maladjustment
>
Took a walk down Hollywood Boulevard
And discovered Larry Edmunds Bookstore
Where I bought trade papers
And decided to be a movie background actor
>
Which eventually opened a door to
Volunteering for the American Film Institute
Where I learned even more about
How movies get made
And the different types of people who make them
Plus whether it’s worth submitting
When filmmakers court danger
And drag their crews along
>
Thirty years gone
No more circular agony
Over opportunities missed
Amid fears of disappointing others
In professional and personal ways
>
I did find my way eventually
Then True Love came and never left
And I believe I’m better off
For embracing risk instead of
Preparing for Civil Service
To throw me a safe lifeline

Margaret Sullivan on “balanced” news in the Trump era.

Excerpted from a WASHINGTON POST op-ed column:

The news media continues — even now when it should know better — to be addicted to “both sides” journalism. In the name of fairness, objectivity and respect for the office of the presidency, it still seems to take Trump — along with his array of deceptive surrogates — at his word, while knowing full well that his word isn’t good.

When major news organizations publish tweets and news alerts that repeat falsehoods merely because the president uttered them, it’s the same kind of journalistic malpractice as offering a prime interview spot to Kellyanne Conway.

Best Films of 2018: First Draft

This will likely change after seeing more of the end-of-year releases.

In no specific order:
Black kkKlansman
The Little Stranger
First Man
You Were Never Really Here
Black Panther
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Disobedience
Eighth Grade
First Reformed
Wildlife
Shoplifters
The Eyes of Orson Welles
Roma
Honorable Mention:
Annihilation
Widows
A Quiet Place
Suspiria 2018
At Eternity’s Gate
The Favourite
Sorry To Bother You

Frank Rich on 2019 Academy Awards

Excerpt from Frank Rich’s recurring column for NEW YORK magazine:

At some level I must say I just don’t care [who hosts the Academy Awards]. Old media, especially print media, still think the Oscars are a big deal and cover them as if they matter culturally and commercially. But it’s not clear the public cares much anymore. The precipitous decline in Oscar ratings says as much about the decline of Hollywood movies as a centerpiece of American pop culture in the digital age as it does about the tedium generated by the awards show itself.

It certainly doesn’t help the cause that the Academy is about as well run as the Trump White House most Academy members despise. A particularly bizarre move was the attempt — now rescinded — to create a new category for “popular” movies that would have had the effect of segregating a blockbuster like Black Panther from the other contenders at the very time the industry is trying to address its many shortfalls in racial and gender diversity. No wonder it is as hard for the Oscars to recruit a host as it is for Trump to find a chief of staff.

Given that a campaign has been brewing on Twitter for a Muppets-hosted Oscars, I would propose as an alternative Triumph the Insult Dog, whose riotous, Joan Rivers-esque appearance as a commentator on the red carpet at the Tony Awards a decade or so back was as enjoyable an awards-show entertainment as I can recall. Meanwhile, the deposed Kevin Hart might yet be a candidate to succeed John Kelly in the White House. With his history of homophobic tweets, he would fit right in.

Trump Poem FROM STEREO TO MONO

[Originally written last April; posted here in wake of Chief of Staff changes and other catastrophes in Trumpworld.]

FROM STEREO TO MONO

Regulations tossed onto the bonfire
Old textbooks shrivel and crumble
Man of God fired by Man of Dry Ice
>
CEO of USA primal screams on FOX NEWS
Just wait a few moments
For another Oval Office outrage
>
Not-vetted-enough President
Keeps pushing forward unvetted people
For important public service positions
>
This is not what we were promised
This is not what we deserve

Re the undoing of Kevin Hart as Oscars host

It’s a more inclusive, less mocking world than it used to be.  One would have thought Kevin Hart, Disney/ABC and the Academy would have foreseen the potential consequences of old homophobic tweets or gay panic stand-up routines before Hart’s announcement as Academy Awards host was made public.

And it’s back to Square One for an institution and a television network trying to land an all things to most people host, instead of accepting the realities of audience fragmentation and the Academy Awards ceremony in classic form as an institution in irreversible decline.

AMPAS and Disney/ABC now have to endure the inevitable fallout from comfortable-with-prejudice viewers sneering at the “political correctness” of Kevin Hart’s enforced departure.

Final comment via Owen Gleiberman in VARIETY:

The fact of Hart’s tweets, and his defensiveness about them, boils down to this: He’s someone who‘s still essentially on record as thinking of people who identify as LGBTQ as “those people.” And that couldn’t be further from the defiantly inclusive spirit of Hollywood today.

Poem: THE WHEEL TURNS SLOWLY

state your case

make your complaint

fill out all the forms

double-check for mistakes

listen to the man say:

sure, I’ll look into it

prepare for no response

get no response

call and e-mail

and listen to the machine say:

please hold (music) please hold

(music) your call is valuable to us

hang up after an hour

days later, call and e-mail some more

get e-mail saying:

we have a backlog of complaints

we’ll get to you shortly

go to the office in-person

hear the administrative assistant say:

he’s in meetings all day

and he’s leaving town tomorrow

give up calling and e-mailing

accept loss

months later, receive text message

it says:

we’ll resolve this through arbitration

the date will be announced soon

thank you for your patience

have a great day!

Via CULTURAL WEEKLY: ALOUD Ad Hoc Committee Update Statement

Disclaimer: I haven't been to literary functions at the Los Angeles Public Library's Downtown location since the Newer Poets readings ceased.  But I've followed the ALOUD purgings (apparently due to wanting allegedly less staid, younger and/or larger-attendance author interview gatherings similar to those sponsored by Skylight Books and Live Talks Los Angeles) with interest and concern over marginalization of a significant segment of the local literature community.

Here's a link to an ALOUD Update statement published today on the CULTURAL WEEKLY site:
https://www.culturalweekly.com/aloud-update-ad-hoc-committee-statement/

A relevant paragraph:
Three people testified before the Library Commission on November 8, but were told the Commission could do nothing about the Foundation’s personnel decisions. At that time, we were informed that the Foundation had hired a PR firm specializing in crisis management. The week before Thanksgiving, we began to see the results of their campaign. The Foundation issued a statement saying that they had asked for and gotten a temporary restraining order against one of the group of people who had been protesting at ALOUD events. The statement claimed Foundation President Ken Brecher had been “attacked” by this protestor; the statement then quoted Board Chair Gwen Miller as saying that we petitioners had also been attacking and intimidating the Foundation by sending emails to members of their board and to their supporters. This attempt to portray the Foundation as the victim and those protesting their decisions as out-of-bounds illustrates the mindset of those in charge.

ESQUIRE’s Charles P. Pierce on George H.W. Bush

Bush needed to shake up the [1988 presidential] race. To provide it, because the Bush family always hired out the dirty work rather than do it themselves because my dear young man, that simply is not done, Bush turned to a prominent political media guru named Roger Ailes and, between the two of them, they set up the situation in which, on live TV, while [CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather] was pressing Bush on the latter’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal, Bush shoved back by citing an episode in which Rather, in a snit because a tennis match had run long, delaying his newscast, had walked off the air. Bush had dope-slapped Dan Rather. The Wimp Factor was dead. 

I recall watching that and thinking how contrived Bush’s anger was, how different it was from the genuine anger that he had flashed at that Boston anchorman eight years earlier. I thought it was cheap theatrics and, in retrospect, it sums up a great deal of George H.W. Bush’s political career—the pragmatic insincerity, the subcontracting of the hatchet job to a hired hand, the willingness to play a role, no matter how clumsily, in order to keep and maintain power. Oh, and as it happens, while he was play-acting the bad-ass, Bush also was lying his hindquarters off about Iran-Contra. He’d been hip-deep in that criminal conspiracy, as we subsequently learned in 1992, when he pardoned anyone who could tie that can to his tail on his way out of Washington. He always was a more interesting man than he always felt that he had to pretend to be.

...he could never muster enough political gumption to overcome his own ambition. And so, to me, that will be history’s verdict on George H.W. Bush—that he, as the late Richard Ben Cramer put it, did What It Takes to be president and never seemed to realize how brutal a price that was.

From GUARDIAN coverage of George H.W. Bush funeral

The 41st president has been remembered fondly in the media – particularly in the American media – over the past few days. Many have praised Bush Sr’s warmth and diplomacy, comparisons which seem particularly pertinent given Donald Trump’s convention-defying approach to the presidency.

While Bush undoubtedly deserves praise for his decades of public service, and he has been credited with steering the US and aiding Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed.

But the eulogizing has struck a discordant tone with many. While respecting Bush and his family, it would be remiss to ignore the [racist] dog whistling of Bush’s 1988 presidential campaign and his inaction in the midst of the Aids crisis.

*****

Here’s Donald Trump arriving at Bush’s funeral. He and Hillary Clinton – and Bill Clinton – fail to acknowledge one another, while Melania Trump shook Bill Clinton’s hand and waved to the former first-lady.

Rebecca Solnit describes Donald Trump

From a GUARDIAN column:
He has lived his life in a world without consequences – his father’s money smoothed the way for a life in which he made messes and others cleaned them up.  He appears to be one of those people who was so rarely told that what he was saying was wrong, boorish, or inane that he has no sense of how he’s perceived or what people are thinking or, often, how things work. Feedback is what steers most of us straight, and power and privilege mean that you can avoid it if you want. When you’re a star they let you do stupid things, and he has done so many.

Links to articles on plagiarism poet Ailey O’Toole

Kat Rosenfeld in NEW YORK: https://www.vulture.com/2018/12/poetry-twitter-erupts-over-plagiarist-ailey-otoole.html

Kristian Wilson In BUSTLE: https://www.bustle.com/p/a-puschart-prize-nominated-poet-has-been-accused-of-plagiarism-by-numerous-poets-13234488

Toronto GLOBE & MAIL: Why is poetry so vulnerable to plagiarism? (subscription required)
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books/article-why-is-poetry-so-vulnerable-to-plagiarism/

Books I’ve read (or am still reading) this year

In no particular order:
1. SEDUCTION by Karina Longworth
2. ROBIN by Dave Itzkoff
3. SELECTED POEMS by John Updike
4. DAVID BOWIE: THE ORAL HISTORY by Dylan Jones
5. MAXIMUM VOLUME and SOUND PICTURES (George Martin biographies)
by Kenneth Womack
6. BEING JOHN LENNON by Ray Connolly
7. THE CINEMA OF JOSEF VON STERNBERG by John Baxter
8. IN PIECES by Sally Field
9. THE BEATLES ON THE ROOF by Tony Barrell
10. ELVIS: THE ILLUSTRATED RECORD by Roy Carr
11. MY ZOCALO HEART (poetry) by Mary Torregrossa
12. ON SUMMER SOLSTICE ROAD (poetry) by Jerry Garcia

John Cassidy on George H.W. Bush

“Especially compared with current occupant of the Oval Office, George H. W. Bush was a dignified figure who served his country steadfastly in war and peace. He represented a center-right, internationalist strain of Republicanism that barely exists today. But it doesn’t make sense to canonize him.”

John Cassidy in THE NEW YORKER, on Bush 41–getting the National Day Of Mourning which, if I recall correctly, even the more sainted Ronald Reagan didn’t receive.

For a more realistic assessment of George H.W. Bush, look these up on your search engine: April Glaspie, Gulf War, Willie Horton, Roger Ailes, Lee Atwater, Dan Quayle, Highway of Death, Iraq, massacre of Kurds after Gulf War—and, to Bush’s credit, the Disability Rights Act, his break with the National Rifle Association, his rightful calling out of Reagan-embraced supply-side economy theory as “voodoo economics.”

Hello Again, Blog

After Tumblr, my blogging home since March 2017, decided to overreact to an issue involving sexual content on the site (which caused it to be pulled from Apple’s App Store), I decided to return here.

Content will continue in its recent vein—notable quotations and occasional poems.