A Lament for Ted

I'm beginning to feel sorry for Ted Cruz. At least I feel like I should be. After all, I felt sorry for Jeb Bush almost immediately, seconds into the first time I saw him speaking on television, back when a lot of smart people still thought he was going to be the GOP nominee and all I could think was, No he's not! Look at the poor guy—

I feel sorry for Hillary now and then. Being married to Bill and putting up with all his indiscretions and then having him be the one everyone likes and you being the brittle, shouting, disciplined, ambitious bitch who is only going to win because the Republicans are going to nominate a real estate developer most of the party can't stand (though they like him better than Ted), as if this were a city council race. Anyway, everyone loves Bernie, no one loves Hillary, which is sad, except that compared to Ted, she's lovable, which is really sad, for Ted, and you'd think no one could be that unlovable, and that there'd be pathos there, but I'm dead inside for Ted, this while fully aware—and you might find this surprising—that I felt sorry for Richard Nixon after Pat died. Seeing him break down like he did at the funeral, sprawled over her casket crying like a baby. It wasn't the kind of thing you saw too often anymore, a former president, someone other than John Boehner, crying his eyes out. Never mind Vietnam, Cambodia, Kent State, Watergate, the Checkers Speech, I felt the pathos of that moment.

No pathos, yet, with Ted. And it's weird. Because you hear kind things said about all kinds of people who are generally considered horrible. Hitler, for instance. You hear it said that Hitler was kind to his dog, that his dog in all likelihood would have had a very high opinion of him had he been allowed to express it. Had Hitler and his dog been together a half century later, you can easily imagine some enterprising ghost writer penning a memoir from the dog's point of view, and you can bet the dog would have had more than a few nice things to say about the Fuhrer.

Stalin, for example. Franklin Roosevelt, of all people—not a Russian, granted, a goddamned commie-friendly liberal from New York, but still—purportedly said after Yalta, "I kind of like Old Joe."

There were people who probably thought Pol Pot was great.

On the other hand, you don't hear anyone, not a soul, coming out and saying, Oh now, I've known Ted Cruz for years, and he may get a little carried away from time to time with that Libertarian nonsense of his, all that Lord Jesus Christ stuff coming out his mouth every third sentence, even us Christians get tired of hearing a fellow go on like that, but really, you shouldn't take all that stuff his old college roommate at Princeton says too seriously, or John Boehner, calling him the most miserable son of a bitch he's ever worked with—what the hell does John Boehner, a government insider who smokes and cries over the goddamnest bullshit, know about anything?

Not one kind word, by anyone. Maybe his wife, if she wasn't so busy at Goldman Sachs. Which by itself is suspect. Don't get me started. I wonder if she's so inside she got to hear Hillary's speech? I wonder if she even told Ted about it. If she had, wouldn't he be talking about it? Or did she start to tell him and he just went La la la la la!!

Maybe his kids want to say nice things but aren't allowed. Maybe he's being kind, taking a tip from Obama, the cool guy all the comics like, the Kennedy to his Nixon, he imagines, though he's not even as likable as Nixon. Nixon's daughters liked him, loved their dad. Anyway, I'm pretty sure they did, that I heard or read it somewhere. And there was his buddy Bebe Rebozo. The staffers on that day he resigned, the speech he gave—a pretty decent speech, really, considering the day he was having—the tears welling in many of their eyes before he did that windshield wiper like wave to all of them and got in the helicopter and flew off to San Clemente or wherever it was they took him.

Maybe Ted needs to be president first. Which, someone please tell him, isn't going to happen. Even though he picked a running mate this week. A failed CEO who understands government, he says—rather bizarre for someone who this morning, on "This Week," said that the problem with Trump and Clinton and Obama is that they believe in government. Which is a little like saying the problem with the current Chief of Surgery and the two candidates with the best chance of becoming the next chief is that they believe in surgery. Which would be a ridiculous thing to say even if you weren't hoping to become the next Chief of Surgery yourself. If you didn't believe in surgery, why spend two years of your life campaigning to become lead surgeon? You'd have to be a self-aggrandizing prick who just liked the idea of being in charge no matter what you thought of the enterprise, which, possibly, answers a lot of questions, and wouldn't make him all that unlike a lot of other politicians, and yet it still is unseemly.

What Trump understands and Ted possibly—tragically, if anyone gave a shit or had a kind thought about him—doesn't understand: the base doesn't really much give a shit anymore about conservative government and/or principles.

They're just really upset.

A lot of people are really upset, and don't believe so much anymore, rightly or wrongly, that the answer to all their problems is less government, that government is the problem, that it is bad, that it needs to be done away with, that the beast must be starved, after which a golden age will begin and we'll all be happy again like the kids in Lord of the Flies.

Ted, who wants to be the head of a government he doesn't believe in, says that a majority of Republicans don't want Donald Trump to be the Republican nominee for president. What the brilliant debater from Princeton, the US Senator from Texas, doesn't seem to get, or want to admit, is that even fewer—a lot fewer—want Ted Cruz to be the Republican nominee for president.

The GOP, the ones who courted these angry disenfranchised people but aren't that angry or disenfranchised themselves, can't believe they're caught in such a pickle. It's goddamned unbelievable. Still, given a big boss man who's kind of funny, and a miserable son of a bitch who isn't, they're going with the first guy, count on it. Better that Trump hang out to dry in November as have to kiss that miserable son of a bitch Ted Cruz's ass for one second.

April in Halifax, or I'll Remember April

What? Where ... is that? And why are you there? What, exactly, will you remember?

Oh, but I didn't say I was here, or there. Or that I liked or did not like Green Eggs and Poutine. I'm not sure where I am. And it's only a title. As well one as another, as Molly Bloom hinted; as well that title as the more loquacious Senator Cruz or Lying Ted? Which One Is It? And Wby Not Just Call Him One of The Greatest Assholes of All-Time, Bigger Even than I Am, Though Not as Funny, Not as Entertaining, Not as Rich, So What's the Point?

Or the slightly tidier, Prince: How to Become and Remain a Great Artist Rather than a Stinking Celebrity

Or, going the other way, the more fulsome, TLC: Trump Loses to Clinton. Better to Realize It Now and Not Waste the Next Six Months As You Might Have Most of the Last Year 

If you enjoy the machinations of politics and its sensationally dramatic packaging by much of the media, if you are thankful, moreover, that it isn't all whipped up and finished within 45-60 days like it is in so many other countries—Canada, for instance—and are further thankful that there is plenty of private fortune to fund the extended-play, director's cut version, thereby keeping the better-looking, more telegenic and predictable journalists busy, economies in places like my home state of Iowa, and also New Hampshire, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, more flush than they otherwise would be, then by all means play on—

But if, like many, you find yourself saying, My God, I am so done with this, just tell me what I need to know to stay informed, so I can get back to working more, training more, reading Proust, monographs, motions, corporate reports, entertaining Craig, cooking wonderful meals for him, making sure he has coffee in the morning with a glass of water when he wakes up, rum or port to sip with his cigar, a television to watch sports on when he's done with his reading, his writing, his running around, well then by all means read the following, and be 100% guaranteed—assured—that come Wednesday of the first full week of November of this year, you'll look back and say, Wow, if only I'd bet my uncle Cecil $100 on each of these points (below), I'd be in so much better shape going into the all-important holiday season ...

Point #1: Trump is going to be the Republican nominee for president. Don't be surprised if he gets over the delegate hump with his win in California in June. Don't be surprised if the July convention ends up confirming the disaster, even if it ends up less exciting than many television series' finales. Don't blame Trump, blame the rest of them, and the wheat the GOP has sewed for a generation. Jeb was a schlub, Rubio a twerp, Carson better suited to inspiring sales for natural laxatives, Kasich won Ohio but remains alone, and kind of a bobblehead, and Rand Paul must have known that thriftiness across the board has never been popular with voters, half of whom at a minimum need to believe they're getting something for their contribution.

Point #2: Hillary is going to be the Democrat(ic) nominee for president. Sorry, all you impassioned Bernie supporters. You're going to have to take consolation in knowing that your guy was the greatest thing that could have ever happened to her rather than imagine what would have happened if the first Jewish Socialist from Brooklyn would have busted up the banks and made Manhattan affordable again. Maybe Hillary will pick Elizabeth Warren to be her running mate. Or maybe she'll pick her husband, and they'll be like Claire and Frank in "House of Cards," which everyone knows is about them anyway.

Point #3: Hillary Clinton isn't going to be brought down by the FBI or anyone else, not for her emails, not for Vincent Foster's death, not for the scandal the special prosecutor looked into and found nothing except that her husband had gotten a blowjob in the White House, not the cattle thing, not Iraq, or Libya, or screwing up the health care thing over twenty years ago now, none of it. She's going to win. But not until the 2016 General Election becomes more fun than "Celebrity Apprentice" on lots of Colorado dope. Needless to say, afterwards something like 40% of the country are going to be mad as hatters, which is understandable after eight years of the Muslim guy from Kenya whose name rhymes with The Terrorist Formerly Known as Osama.

Come November, you're going to say, Not bad for a guy who thought the Cubs were headed to the World Series back in 1969. Who figured the jury would convict OJ regardless of the glove. Who figured they'd find at least one or two weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Who thought AC/DC sucked back when he was a kid and still thinks they suck ...

And then there was Prince.

Cream shaboogie bop ...

Another deal entirely.

RIP

Peeing There

I was up early, around 5:00 AM, watching it snow and working on my novel and wondering who I would REALLY NOT WANT IN THE SAME ROOM WITH ME WHILE I'M PEEING ...

I counted the same number of people who, in my opinion, threaten my marriage with their questionable activities and life-style choices.

Still, I decided, after weighing out the pros and cons, the privacy issues, that if Caitlin (formerly Bruce, the two-time Olympic Decathlon Gold Medalist) Jenner wanted to pee in the urinal next to me even if she was in heels and a dress and I could glance over and sneak a look at her cleavage—which I wouldn't do, by the way, anymore than I would look down to check out her retained from former days "cash and prizes," as someone close to me once said—it would be okay. I'd be fine if Caitlin wanted to hold on and have an old school comfort pee beside me like she might have back when she was Bruce.

I would also be fine if Caitlin wanted to have a seat in a stall next to where my wife was peeing, if she was peeing, in a public facility where this is done, even if she, Caitlin, still had her original equipment, her cash and prizes, as it were, it would be okay—

All I'd want to ask Caitlin if she were peeing beside me was if, now that she had breasts, all she did was play with them all day. Did she? Because that's what most of us guys who haven't made that life-style choice imagine we'd do if we actually had our own tits to play with: that we'd do nothing but play with our tits all day.

I'm sorry, I know that's coarse, but that's what we call them when women aren't around to hear us. Imagine making a life-style choice where you go one day from being someone who says tits to someone who says boobs, from being disgusting and coarse and kind of okay with it to being, well—

Which is why I'd probably say boobs or breasts to Caitlin if I was peeing next to her and asking her that question, because my guess is, having made that life-style choice, she would probably prefer boobs and breasts to tits. It's only polite, her deciding to have a pee in the men's room, where all us coarse and disgusting fuckers gather, notwithstanding. Who knows, maybe she decided to come in and pee in the men's room because she didn't feel all that comfortable in the women's room. At least not yet. Frankly, it's not a stretch to imagine she'd be a little uncomfortable in both. Which makes you wonder why she made that life-style choice. Why after winning two gold medals and marrying the Kardashian girl with the ... well, that he had to go and complicate things.

People sure are funny ...

But honestly, my wife and I, we don't care. We don't care either way. We don't care who we relieve ourselves next to or who does the same next to us. Maybe because we're weird and aren't adequately fearful of the threat to our privacy, though it seems to us that maybe those of us who haven't made that life-style choice are a bigger threat to the privacy of those who have made that life-style choice. Which I know sounds crazy, and you're thinking, That can't be! It has to be the other way around!

But we figured if we ever pee'd in the same room with Caitlin, we'd probably—shit, who are we kidding, we'd absolutely—be talking about it with everyone we knew for days, maybe even weeks. And everyone else who pee'd in the same room as her that day and every day to come—I mean for a long time, at least until people quit thinking it was such a big deal—would be telling everyone, too!

It wouldn't be that different than not so long ago being that gay couple dancing at a wedding and having everyone at the wedding that hadn't ever seen anything like that before telling everyone they saw for weeks to come that they saw two queers dancing at a wedding ...

Earl, get out your IPhone, I just saw a tranny go into the toilet to pee ...

I know, things like that don't happen anymore. Hardly ever. And they'd happen even less if certain people didn't just decide to throw their life away and be weird in their life-style choices, and make it uncomfortable for those of us (not me, of course, or my wife, or my children) who are already pretty comfortable, but is it too much to ask to be more comfortable still?

For instance, what possessed Paul Ryan to grow that beard when he was hunting deer last year and then decide to be weird and make people uncomfortable by not shaving it off when he got back to Washington and being a respectable Speaker of the House? Who did he think he was, Abraham Lincoln? What kind of asshole does shit like that?

And Hillary. What are we supposed to call her husband once she becomes president? Did she think about this when she decided to, I don't know, become the first woman president? What if he decides, now that he's vegan, that for the sake of propriety and tradition, he's going to make another big life-style choice? Who's going to stop him? His Secret Service detail? Who is going to stop him if he decides he wants to be a full-on FLOTUS?

Named Billie.

"What's Billie the FLOTUS doing, Mrs. President?"

"He's playing with his tits. Which, just let it go, is better than a lot of other things he could be doing."

There are still three months until the middle of July, and the GOP Convention that's supposed to be such fun. Paul Ryan has categorically said that he doesn't want, and won't accept, the nomination, since (give him credit) he didn't run for the job. Privately, my sources tell me that if they push him he's going to grow a hipster beard and put his hair up in a man-bun. Which would show them.

So, we have that to look forward to.

One way or another it'll be a nightmare for about 40% of the land.

See you next Sunday!

Pissed Off Nation

I got a note from an old friend this morning wondering how I could resist opining on this year's General Election. Especially, he said, after all the smart and funny and highly entertaining stuff I wrote back in 2012. And 2008, for that matter.

It's a mystery. But, here are a couple of possibilities:

1) No one is paying me. Of course, no one was paying me back then, either. Perhaps the idea of not getting paid just irritates me more now that I'm older and haven't made as much money in the stock market as I'd hoped back when I sold my shares of Cisco for $77 back in early 2000. Also, I still haven't found anyone to buy my first novel, which is to say I haven't gotten paid to write that either, or the one I'm writing now, and by now you're probably thinking, well, he's probably just bitter and angry and depressed about all that, like a lot of us are bitter and angry and depressed about our own shit, and that could be.

2) I already know who is going to win. Hillary is going to win. I know, I know, at this point you're either saying A) thank you! Of course she is! or B) Fuck you! Fuck YOU!!! If she ends up being the next president I'm fucking moving ... I have friends in both categories. In fact, on a visceral level, I pretty much feel the same way about Donald Trump and (especially) Ted Cruz. But they aren't going to win. Hillary is going to win. And here is more or less how that is going to play out: She is going to win New York on the 19th, as she sure as fuck should, given that she was a senator for the state, during which time she cast a Yes vote, along with John Kerry and that weasel no one hears about anymore, John Edwards, along with virtually every Republican you can think of who was in office back then, to go to war in Iraq back in 2003—arguably the biggest foreign policy disaster in the history of our nation—but, you know, the people who don't flat out hate her for that and other reasons, many (though not all) irrational, would argue that she did her penance for that rather egregious sin back in 2008, which is why Barack Obama is president and she's still waiting. Anyway, Bernie Sanders, as James Carville, then the mastermind of Bill Clinton's campaign, said of the late Paul Tsongas back in 1992, after his victory in New Hampshire, [he] isn't going to win shit. That said, he's put the screws to Hillary in a way no one thought anyone would during this our extraordinarily long economic stimulus package we call our primary season. In effect, he's been a first-rate sparing partner for her—and she needed one, since she might be smart and more qualified on a positions held basis than anyone who's ever run for the office, but unfortunately she's not a very good politician. It doesn't come naturally to her like it does, say, her husband, or Barack Obama, or, if you prefer, Ronald Reagan. Fortunately for her, however, she is going to be running against one of the following: Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, or Paul Ryan. This after the Republicans proceed deeper into their already relentlessly dissected (if poorly medicated) nervous breakdown, after their quite possibly "contested" convention in July (no party in modern times has ever emerged well, or won a General Election, after going through a sideshow-style convention, not in 1976, not in 1968, not in 1924), out of which nothing good, only further clarified disaster in November, is going to come. This despite their running against a Democratic candidate with "high negatives," who (finally) could barely get past a Democratic Socialist Independent Senator from Vermont, who, by the way, would also win against any of the three possible Republican candidates, Trump still being the most likely, though he isn't a Republican anymore than Sanders is a Democrat, which would make for an interesting set-up going into the fall, but, regardless, not going to happen, and Hillary is going to win. And to my mind, when something is so obviously a foregone conclusion, it's hardly worth writing about for free. So there's that.

Still, assuming I haven't alienated you completely already, I'm a writer with an out-sized ego or why the hell would I persist in something so obviously quixotic and (economically, at least) disastrous? And to have one of my oldest friends, a very smart friend, petition me to write my thoughts out here on my blog, well, it's hard for someone who craves approval as much as I do to say no ...

However, the glow of seeming approval was dimished when I went back to look at some of my admittedly smart and funny posts from back then (you should check them out, too, cuz I mean, Wow), I saw on many of them ZERO comments. Which isn't to say that nobody read them, or nobody found them interesting, only that it seemed to me that nobody was either reading them or found them as interesting as, say, "The Walking Dead" that night. And you might say, well, I was reading them, I just didn't want my name associated with your foul language and outlandish sentiments, or, if I did, I didn't want anyone to know I agreed with you, or I was too squeamish to tell you to go fuck yourself, or, frankly, I don't want my name out there for Google and Facebook and the Chinese to exploit, better that you do that on your own, Craig, Mr. Rattle & Hum Guy, on your own, and for free, you fucking dumb ass.

It's a lot to sort out, as you can imagine.

Anyway, given the season (and to see that you all read this far), I'm going to conduct a little poll and then take it under advisement, as the lawyers say ...

To the question, Should Rattle & Hum and its author consider a return to form, if no more than once a week, now that the General Election may as well be upon us, even though the author already knows who is going to win?

Please select one of the following:

I. Sure. What the fuck else is he going to do? Write another novel? Give me a fucking break!

II. Fuck that, and fuck him! If he thinks Hillary is going to be the next POTUS he must be insane, and belongs getting a job like a normal person, and then maybe he wouldn't have such fucked up ideas.

III. It doesn't matter, I'm supporting Bernie Sanders.

Post answers either as a comment here, or on FB, or on Twitter,  as a secret handshake, telling nod, when you see me, I really don't care where or how so long as you all tell me what you think I should do.

And don't worry, I promise not to share your address with anyone trying to get at your money.

Don't wait, do it now ...

Best—R&H

And The Nominees Are

One may as well begin with American Hustle. Like six of the ten nominated movies this year, American Hustle, about a con artist with the most memorable comb-over in the history of the movies, who is caught between (or playing?) the mob and Washington, and, perhaps more interestingly, Amy (isn't it funny how the Halstonesque space between my understated breasts is more sexy than all the fastidiously trimmed mons pubi featured in another movie up for consideration this year?) Adams and Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle is Based On A True Story—which is to say: a dramatic shaping of factual happenings that have themselves been redacted to serve the purpose of making a good story, one that is very much a creation by the time you see it, and with any luck feels true, and entertains, and makes some bank for its makers. Jennifer Lawrence's character, the true one, for instance—she is the very Jersey girl wife of Christian Bale's comb-over con-artist in the movie—was, word has it, fifteen years older than the hustler she was married to. Unless the con artist with the comb-over is Benjamin Button in the third grade, some factual alterations needed to be made if the movie was to accommodate the casting of someone like Jennifer Lawrence in the role, as opposed to, say, Edie Falco, or, better yet, putting some makeup on Carol Burnett and have her be the sort of shrewish nag she played on her variety show back when I was in the third grade. But that would have been a different movie, and I loved Jennifer Lawrence in the part. I loved her in Winter's Bone, and she was the only reason to bother watching last year's Silver Linings Playbook, by the same director, David O. Russell, who made a much better movie on this go round. If it won Best Picture—it could, but I'm thinking it won't—I wouldn't complain. Jennifer Lawrence, however, will probably win as best-supporting, though I worry it might be too much success too soon for the young actress, and am thus rooting for the old, dumpy-looking, hilarious June Squibb, from Nebraska. Amy Adams, who was great, and dark, in last year's overlooked The Master, could shoot the gap between Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench and surprise as best-actress. I would also give it the award for costume design. It or The Great Gatsby, which I liked, but then again I saw it at noon on a Sunday with Donna after two martinis.

Captain Phillips. Also Based On A True Story. I liked it, and so did my kids. It's a good movie. A good story, well-told. I am not among those who think Barkhad ("I am the captain now") Abdi, who, good for him, was plucked from obscurity at a casting call in Minneapolis, deserves to win an Oscar for his performance. While he was very good in the role, and stood out in the movie, and perhaps deserves the nomination, the bigger praise ought to be for the casting director. Moreover, Mr. Abdi memorably delivered a line that someone else wrote, and, being a first-time actor, was directed to play a character that someone else initially imagined with human dimension, rather than a summertime blockbuster caricature of a bad-assed Somali pirate. He was good; but his performance does not match Jared Leto's in Dallas Buyer's Club, or Michael Fassbinder's outstanding, if little noted, portrayal of a sadistic slave owner in 12 Years a Slave.

Dallas Buyer's Club—my choice for best picture of the year. It has pathos in spades, it's funny, the sex is raunchier, and more unsettling, than anything in Wolf, and it has two of the best performances of the year, one of which—Leto's—was, for my money, the best of all, in any category. Yet it won't win, and I'm not really sure why, except that it's my favorite and that's usually a bad sign, a contrarian indicator if you're laying down bets. Directed by Quebec's mostly unknown Jean-Marc Vallee—who, again, for my money, might have easily replaced Gravity's (by all accounts warm and approachable at the pre-Oscar pitch parties) director, Alfonso Cuaron, in the Best Directing category—the movie, Based On A True Story, except word has it that Matthew McConaughey's character might have been a bisexual in addition to being a prostitute-banging, bigot bull rider from Texas in the 80's, features McConaughey as the endearing bigot (with no low-down tendencies in the movie) who contracts AIDS and befriends, initially for business reasons, Jared Leto, a drag queen with pluck, and a drug problem—a light that burns bright and fast. These are performances you've heard of regardless of whether you care a whit about the movies, the sexual habits of Texas bull riders, the FDA's drug approval process, or whether it's okay to be a straight guy and still think Jared Leto was hot in the movie, before he got really sick. Matthew McConaughey, who (as we've now heard a bit too much, perhaps) could have easily maintained his income and his weight by sticking to movie star roles rather than pushing himself toward odder, more interesting material: in Bernie, Magic Mike, Mud, the delicious cameo in Wolf, and even in his Cosmic Skanky Man Murder Cop role in the new, underwhelming HBO series, True Detective, stands the best chance, in a strong field, to walk off with the best actor Oscar (though if someone upsets him, I hope it's Bruce Dern), and, I'm sorry, but if anyone upsets Jared Leto for the best supporting Oscar, it's a travesty.

Gravity. A movie, refreshing if only for its thin story not being Based On A True Story, that arguably deserves the prize in the Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Visual Effects categories, though I'm wondering if the whipped backs in 12 Years a Slave (not nominated, as it happens, in the Best Visual Effects category, nor in the Best Makeup and Hairstyling category) won't stick with me longer than the storming space debris or tumbling Sandra scenes in Gravity. The script is a dud. Unlike 2001: A Space Odyssey or even Planet of the Apes, the movie leaves your mind as quiet as space afterwards. Someone has already suggested that a better way to watch it would be to turn down the sound and substitute Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" as a soundtrack (see: YouTube, with The Wizard of Oz). For me, the most memorable bit from the movie is actually a line Tina Fey and Amy Poehler delivered at the Golden Globes: that George Clooney would rather die in space than sleep with someone his own age. The movie begs for lampooning, a Mystery Theater 3000 (does anyone remember?) treatment. Ms. Fey and Ms. Poehler, and possibly Will Farrell, or David Sedaris, sitting together at the IMAX, in rear-view silhouette, ad-libbing a better sort of dialogue for George and Sandy.

Her. It isn't often that we get a picture of the future that isn't dystopic, where, in uncluttered, bright, vaguely pastel surroundings, the men are pulling up their pants again, and Amy Adams—doing excellent work twice in one year, and this time without makeup—is there to console you, sort of, after Scarlett Johansson's voice has taken you up and down the arc of love as it is generally idealized by educated people in their twenties. But still, popping an O with Scarlett is nothing to scoff at, whether mediated by a machine or not. Perhaps I am getting old, but I wish it had excited me more. Yet I liked the movie overall. It was smart (in a young sort of way), with a big heart. It was nice to see Joaquin Phoenix (however out of place he seemed) expand his talents toward characters who aren't unhinged, battling demons most of us, blessedly, can't understand. He is one of those actors one worries about, since February 2nd.

Nebraska. One of my favorite movies of the year, and by inference another also-ran in this year's collection of nine. To be fair, I saw it with Donna at the Denver Film Festival, at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, which is a fine place to see a movie, especially after a martini. One of my favorite lines from any movie this year: a woman at the sweepstakes shop in Lincoln wondering if Bruce Dern was a little touched, suffering from Alzheimer's perhaps, and Will Foote, his son, replying, No, he just believes things people tell him, the lady rejoining, Oh, that's too bad. Alexander Payne, from Omaha, who co-wrote the script and directed, is well on his way, along with Wes Anderson, to becoming a national treasure: the kind of person who gets you through the crazy. Either Her or Nebraska should win Best Original Screenplay, but I'm happy to say it's a strong category, with five very different screenplays, all of them good. I'd go to sleep smiling if June Squibb walked home with the Oscar for best supporting actress, and Bruce Dern the Oscar for best actor.

Philomena. About a woman from Ireland who fifty years earlier gets pregnant out of wedlock and is forced to give up her son by nuns who look after her in exchange for getting lots of free work out of her, though not all the nuns are rotten—it is a theme shared to some degree with another movie nominated this year and Based On A True Story, 12 Years a Slave, except that with the nuns you're free to go when you're of legal age, and they might pull your ear but they don't whip the shit out of you if you misbehave, and the movie, Philomena, despite its many heartbreaking moments, is funny—and not entirely because of Steve Coogan, who happens to be the perfect tonic for the skeptical, free thinker's soul. Judi Dench's mellifluous, prolix recaps to him of the pulp novels she's recently finished, and would happily lend him, are virtuosic, and give lilt to a story that, with different casting (without Dench and Coogan), and without director Stephen Frears (not nominated), might easily have been oppressively dour.

12 Years a Slave. Based ( no more unbelievably than Philomena) On A True Story, about a free black man of considerable refinement who, after too much celebratory drink, wakes up shackled, sold into slavery, where the brutality he endures and observes, in the lovely, bucolic South, is shocking. The two much remarked upon whippings are whippings to end all whippings—I am not the first to suggest that the scenes overpower the rest of the movie, or that the characterization, with the exception of Michael Fassbinder's slave owner, lacks range and nuance. The movie shares with Gravity an overwrought preoccupation with survival that could have been counterpointed more imaginatively. Are these small complaints about an otherwise powerful movie, worthy of this year's Best Picture? I'm not sure. It's been remarked that the story is so powerful in its broad strokes that it was wise that Steve McQueen (ostensibly) directed by not directing much. Perhaps. The movie is beautifully shot, and costumed, but so was The Color Purple. Like many of the movies nominated this year, there is something not altogether right in the balance and brilliance of its parts. Still, and despite its imperfections, it is a worthy, powerful counterpoint to the mythology helped along by the likes of Gone With The Wind. There is now a good antidote should one suffer for those wistful days of longing for wisteria and a life kept languorous and rich by the sweat of unpaid bodies.

The Wolf of Wall Street. Had the movie been about a someone interesting, on a subject that isn't by now tiresomely banal, this picture, directed by the great Martin Scorcese, might have, with its romping, epic feel, taken Best Picture. As it is, the movie, Based On A True Story, is a boosted, baroque, better-shot version of Scorcese's Casino—also Based On A True Story, though with more interesting characters, a better branching story, not quite as long. Those who "don't get" The Wolf of Wall Street apparently see the film as a glorification of booze and drug-addled misogyny as practiced by two-bit shitballs with piles of money—guys like Jordan Belfort, the movie's protagonist, played excellently, I should add, by Leo DeCaprio, who has been excellent going all the way back to What's Eating Gilbert Grape—though I don't count myself among that crowd. I don't think the movie glorifies anything. If anything it's a send-up of pieties, a noisy, in your face reminder that the Jordan Belforts of the world are, if anything, less redeemable, and do more harm, than (one ought well conclude, after the unending wallop we get) the Humbert Humberts—the other pedophiles—of the world. Anyway, I get all that. I just found it long and noisy and boring. This in spite of all the female pudenda on display, Leo snorting coke out of the crack of some woman's ass, Margo Robbie showing us all her stuff, and the great scene on the yacht with the cop trying to snag him. This movie, too, was Based On A True Story, a memoir by the protagonist, in the motivational speaking line now (never down for long, these guys, unless one lines them up against a wall … they will be back). A couple of hours into the movie I found myself wondering: why, with all the tits and ass and pussy on display, don't women demand some cock? In the name of even-handedness, to assuage claims of misogyny, to push that envelope if nothing else, why didn't Marty insist that Leo and Jonah show their junk? So the women would have something to talk about afterwards other than having to agree, or not agree, that Margo Robbie ... yup, she sure was hot, and maybe I should shave my pussy, too … Rather than, "OMG! I never would have thought Jonah Hill's cock was that big! Or that Leo's doglegged left like it did—to his left, I mean. He must be quite a wanker!" And the gay guys in the apartment. Weren't there plenty of gay guys watching who might have wanted to see something other than ass? And women too? I'm a straight guy, but I like to watch lesbians get it on. Why wouldn't a perfectly normal Christian woman want to gawk at a variety of well-built, flouncing men, schlongs-a-schwinging, gay or straight (who the fuck cares?), and then talk about it with her friends? Is it wrong of me to think that one of the reasons we haven't had a woman president can be gleaned from their getting naked and not having the good sense to insist on a quid pro quo in the Show Me Your Junk department? That, rather amazingly, the majority gender hasn't reared up and shouted, Fuck um! If they want to look at our stuff, we're going to look at theirs—all of it. Seth wants to sing a song about our boobs, well, we're going to have Amy and Tina sing a song about your junk. And you're going to be a good sport about it, and laugh, or you're going to be jerking off to The Song of Bernadette for a long, long time …

We'll see how that one trends.

Next time you see Based On A True Story attached to the movie you're about to see, just stand up in the theater and shout: ARGO FUCK YOURSELF!

Enjoy the Oscars!        



 

What, Me Worry?

The president wrapped up a speech in the Rose Garden, essentially comparing the tea-bagger fringe of the Republican Party to terrorists, a bunch of lunatic ideologues he isn't about to negotiate with (and I certainly hope he is serious, but we'll see), over a law that was passed by both houses of Congress, signed by the president, and upheld by a conservative Supreme Court.

All three branches of government have given their blessing to the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare—and yet there are certain members of Congress—politicians, getting paid with tax-payer dollars—who just can't accept it.

So they're holding the government hostage. A small portion of it. That portion which would otherwise have these cynical show-boating opportunists' heads on a stick, that portion is being left alone.

The military, Obamacare, anything that's expensive and would have the least potential to take this latest cheap piece of theater by these reality-show types to something affecting, truly consequential, forget it.

If you don't believe me, check out part two of this month's double feature, coming October 17th: The Debt-Ceiling!!!

Be assured that the government is not going to default on its bills, the ones Congress created. Powerful people would not be happy about that. Still, as obvious as that seems, before it's over, all of us paying attention to "the story" will wonder. Remember how you thought for a while, even if you weren't watching the story exclusively on Fox News, that Obama was going to lose the election to a guy like Mitt Romney? Hell, I was even worried.

Some advice you can take or leave: if you see the word "Countdown" on the screen, you can be sure that whatever is waiting at the end of the countdown isn't going to amount to much.

So, I'm not too worried. Anymore than I was about The Taper—the last sort of ongoing bit of theater. Of course there wasn't going to be a Taper, I thought. We have an economy that is growing at sickly rates in spite of zero percent interest rates and the Federal Reserve buying $85 billion dollars in treasury and mortgage bonds every month. To give you an idea of how much that is: with the same amount of money you could afford to pay 30 million people 50 thousand dollars a year. Instead—and perhaps in the universe of poor remedies to a quite possibly intractable problem, this is the best of the poor—we are in effect giving the money to the banks to speculate with, or to at least do what they think best with it, they being bankers and all. This rather than leave it up to 30 million people, randomly selected, in what could be a very exciting lottery, to decide what best to do with an extra 50 thousand a year!

Still, we here in Peyton Place know that it's best not to be too certain, that things can go horribly wrong just when you think, with only a minute left in the game, it would take a miracle ...

Just when you think "Lincoln" is a lock for Best Picture.

But this isn't sports. Or the Academy Awards. It's politics.

Easier to predict? Usually. But we'll see.

Lexi, The (Baby) Bird Killer

Every year, in the spring, as with the swallows return to Capistrano, the robins build a nest in a small hideaway above our back deck. It is always constructed in the same place, directly above the north post, insulated on the sides by sturdy 2X8s and over the top by a slanting, shingled roof. We—the boys, Donna, I—watch the nest come together, the eggs laid, the baby birds nourished by Moma and Papa Robin, through our kitchen window. It is one of those rare sweet things that we, the parents, can get excited about and our boys don't give us a look suggesting that if we think it's cool, it can't be that cool.

What was different this spring—different from the previous five, since our last dog died—was that we had a dog again. A dog whose home is our backyard (where there are fewer socks for her to eat). A backyard previously safe for young birds just born, assuming our neighbors' cats hadn't jumped the fence for a visit, which they used to do from time to time, though, to my knowledge, not since we got a dog.

Perhaps you can see where this is going.

For the last week or two we saw the little beaks popping up above the rim of the nest as Mom flew in worms to feed her young, while Dad, from the maple tree, looked on and chirped, his emotions mixed, thinking, no doubt, that life as he knew it was over; meantime Lexi, the dog who up until now hadn't seemed terribly interested in squirrels dashing along the top of the fence, jumping from limb to limb in the trees, who, we sometimes joked, resembled more a stuffed animal from a fair than a predator, lay off in the grass, indifferent to it all. Even as Mama and Papa Robin occasionally ate from her food.

Before long we could see the birds' heads. Pretty soon they were standing in their nest, wing to wing, as it were. It was getting crowded in there, and yesterday the first baby bird leapt from the nest.

Zachary came into the house distressed, cupping the bird in his hands, having apparently taken the small creature from the mouth of Lexi. The bird was still alive, though exhibiting clear signs of PTSD, trauma we could only imagine. What were we going to do? the boys wondered. Could we keep the bird, build him a cage, hutch him like a rabbit? What if we at least got him out of the backyard, away from Lexi's mostly good-natured teeth, to a safe place, a hideout—one where (I felt guilty, picturing) the neighbor cats could have fun with him.

I quickly discovered that trying to explain Darwinian principles to children isn't any easier than trying to explain them to thirty percent or more of the adult population of this country. I suppose it's understandable. How are you supposed to maintain a cheerful, optimistic outlook in a world like that?

"I think we need to hand this one over to God," I finally said, nearly adding, inanely, "It is what it is."

The boys, wary of such abstractions, as if in possession of a preternatural understanding that the handing of this particular problem over to God wouldn't be any wiser than, say, handing over one's backed up sewer to Him, appeared terrified, not to mention disappointed—crestfallen—in our, their parents, inability to rise to the occasion and prevent this beautiful thing we had been witnessing for weeks now—the cycle of life—from ending in tragedy.

Instead, I took the boys with me to karate, and corraled Lexi on the deck, in theory giving the youthful birds a good two hours to parachute to the grass, to learn to fly in idyllic circumstances, without being harrassed by a dog who was just learning how much fun it could be to get in touch with her animal instincts. If the birds jumped out of the front of the nest rather than the back, and landed on the deck, well, there was only so much God could do. As to the traumatized, though still alive, bird—the boys had named him Kevin—he was carefully placed in thick ground-cover at the corner of the yard, where, for all I knew, a giant snake was waiting, but at least he'd be out of view of the hawks, and not agitate our dog, locked on the deck on a day when the temperature was closing in on one hundred degrees—a covered deck, admittedly, though not as cool and comfortable as, for instance, the shaded ground-cover where I'd placed the bird.

We came home to find Kevin—we guessed it was Kevin—dead at the opposite end of the yard, another bird in the process of being harrassed to death by Lexi, who had figured a way while we were gone to open the deck gate. There was one bird left in the nest, gazing heavenward, its beak open as if trying to draw limited oxygen, perhaps due to an anxiety attack. The fourth bird was MIA. We hoped—and are still hoping—that he was the clever, resourceful, lucky type. If so, his parents had chosen nonetheless to dwell on the fates of the other three, chirping, hopping from branch to branch, occasionally flying menacingly over the head of Lexi, who remained obdurate in the attention she was giving the baby bird on the ground, the bird terrified, squealing, looking up in the trees: "Mother, Father ... why??"

I was able to stealthfully scoop up poor Kevin and drop him into the compost bin before the boys found him. The second bird, at last harrassed to death despite our stern admonishings to the dog to stand down, was picked up by Zachary and brought into the house in the hope that Donna, a nurse, after all, could help him, but the free sway of his limp neck suggested otherwise.

The boys were insistent that we give him a decent burial, not toss him into the compost as I had suggested. "Would you do that to me," Zach remarked indignantly, "if I died? Throw me into the compost—"

Ian dug a hole in the dirt by the fence with the spade (Donna wondering: "What if he hits something—cables, a gas line—"). All the neighbor kids showed up for the service. I waited for Ian (surely it would be Ian) to start in with the invocation, picturing for some warped, godforsaken, terrible parent sort of reason the preacher from "Blazing Saddles"... Oh Lord, deliver onto Heaven this our cherished bird, whose life was brief, Hobbesian, really, in its final particulars ... 

I took the previously kind and decent dog for a long walk then, bumping into Andre, our neighbor, on the way. He said the cats had dispatched their birds, who also built in the same spot every year, so precise were their instincts. He tried putting a couple back into the safety of their nests, but they kept jumping back out. There were feathers all over the yard. Cats. What is one to do?

I stopped downtown for a beer, giving the bird who was still in the nest time, the one who was missing but not yet confirmed dead a chance. Or so I hoped. I didn't get home with Lexi until after dark. Mama and Papa Robin were once again chirping like mad. Back in her yard again, Lexi was rooting around in the spot where I'd earlier hid one of the birds. I told her to get away. She did, then went back. I finally went inside.

This morning, heading outside with my coffee, I saw another dead bird, on the brick padding not far from where Lexi had been rooting the night before. Mama and Papa Robin were still making noise though not as much. A kind of resignation, I suppose. I put the dead bird in the compost before the kids woke. I expected they would have a lot of questions when they woke up, but they didn't. "You're a bird murderer!" Zachary remarked, letting the dog inside and playing with her. Dogs will be dogs. What were we doing today? he wanted to know.