"We Are the Wo--" Fuck It--Here's Something Better

Since this is now totally mainstream, scroll down below for a much better story.



Okay, so at "work" one of the very, very young "clients" is Juno-esque. Got me? Here's how it was revealed to my co-worker/friend, who has their trust and can't break it.

Four clients show up during a break, close the door, and say, "One of us is Juno-esque." YEP! It's like the 80s TV mini-series Lace! They wouldn't say which one it was, just that "someone" in the group was 12 weeks. And that they want to know where "to go." Oh snap!

On the bright side, the movie Juno really is their point of reference. I'm totally not kidding. They have no other cultural text at hand to guide them with its carefully respectful take on "both sides" of "the issue" and thus were hoping that they could do like Juno did and go visit "the place" to "just see how it goes."



So folks, we'll have either a result that the clients home superiors know ZERO about, and probably will never know about until years later, OR another van shows up and whisks the client away to Utah. Wow. Just---fuck. Wow.

There Will be Old Men with Milkshakes--UPDATED post-Oscars

But seriously, the one that pleased me the most was a long-time fav:

Halo-Scientology?

You're looking at one of the many temples built by the Covenant, a conglomerate group of aliens who collectively decided to become warlike in their method of spreading their message of the Great Journey, a journey one can take by travelling along various terraformed rings known as halos. I know, I know: sounds like Lord of the Rings or even Christianity. May I suggest Halo as an allegory for Scientology? Keep in mind, analogies do not work when there is an easy 1:1 correspondence. In fact, the two things being compared need a degree of mismatch for it to work--two unalike things work best because they highlight where the comparison works while granting where it doesn't.

Having recently purchased Halo 3 and thus essentially portalled into another dimension, I'm probably no where near the head space as anyone reading this blog, but here goes.



The Spartan warrior who destroyed one of the rings in a previous storyline is now friends with The Arbiter, leader of the heresy against the Prophet of Truth, i.e. L Ron Hubbard, who deliberately deceives his people by not telling them of the greater dangers of The Flood, a parasite that turns all forms of life into its zombie-puppets (lets call Gravemind, their leader, "Xenu," noting, however, that Gravemind does not have the same Yahweh-like powers as Xenu). The Spartan warrior you play as can travel through many levels of gradual revealing of the truth--or the truth of the Prophet's lies. It's like going deep undercover as a Scientologist.




When I play the game and fight The Flood, I'm always scared that one of the little infection modules will facehug onto some dead body and animate it, which will then divert my attention away from more incoming infection modules. Kinda like fighting Scientology and The Twelve Tribes at the same time--I turn my back on one and miss a body-snatching. (OK, so I've involved the TT--remember, the Covenant is not a single race, but a conglomerate. Feel free to insert any zealous group.)



The humans have recently allied with the Elites, lead by The Arbiter. I see the Elites as Crusaders turned good Christians--doubters of a "single path" to enlightenment, unlike their orthodox former friends in the Covenant. To mix comparisons even more, it's almost like Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo. I fight alongside them, but wonder if they won't eventually give into their previous single-minded zealousy and forego their "common enemy" stance.



Last February 10 somehow became anti-Scientology day, with world-wide protests led against the church. What I don't know is if Scientology has drummed the whole thing up in order to appear the victim or if it's real. Apparently some hackers crashed the church's sites and have also made sure the Tom Cruise-is-batshit-crazy-videos don't disappear. What I do know is that some years ago The Free Zone dedicated itself to believing in the Hubbard-Xenuverse, but offered info entirely for free. What keeps me sane is knowing that I actually like it when humans believe in little fantasy worlds--I encourage it! I do it! It's when fantasy and reality merge at the corporate level--scary. I think I might actually like some of those Free Zone people--maybe. I like knowing that I am not like The Flood, an indiscriminate eradicator of all that stands in my way. Unfortunately, my TT and Sci family members think of me this way, as a Suppressive Person/the Devil, rather than as a defender of critical thinking, a destabilizer of orthodox, concrete, unwavering thinking. One of my ex's used to demand that I immediately make known my religious beliefs. I declared that I could, but that I also had an unconscious. She happened to be a pretty hardcore Christian, though she hid that from me for a long time. She accused me of being "patchwork" in my worldview. "You take a little of this and a little of that--but who are you?--what side are you on?"

And for that, I do not have an answer. I may not always know what I'm for, but I know that I'm against Scientology and the Twelve Tribes, and take great pleasure in imagining them as little AI beings that I can kill. I love not taking things literally.

No Country for Vigilantes

Just watched The Brave One and recently finished a review of The Searchers--two revenge films (athough, properly, one melodrama and one western). I've always loved The Searchers because it divides audiences right about the moment when "Look" (the "squaw") is kicked down the hill. It's also one of those films that uses visual irony pretty consistently: John Ford's signature long shot flattens the hunting party against the buttes and the desert, each element a complement of the other, as if these white guys actually belong there, as if they are "integrated"--while in other shots they stick out like sore thumbs. In real life, Ford was politically the opposite to John Wayne, too, which is interesting. The film is critique of the white man's genocidal impulse, but John Wayne's mere presence in the film is an obstacle for many viewers. I'm reminded of how Faulkner's critique of Southern orthodoxy is also overshadowed by his uncomfortably harsh depictions of racism.

The Brave One takes all the obstacles away and makes sure you don't miss a single message. In fact, there's no subtext to the film at all. If you even try to imagine the film as a "comment" on the death penalty, there's an elevator scene to assure you that it is indeed: two people argue over endorsing the vigilante--"So you are FOR lethal injection, too?" snaps one. Foster's, a talk radio DJ, answers calls from listeners who pretty much sound like they are reading an after-school play about smoking--only it's vigilantism, of course. And if you try to think of the film as a conflict between the head and the heart, too bad: a scene between the detective and Foster spells that out too. Cut to Foster "dancing" with the memory of her murdered boyfriend, who also somehow plays guitar, both diegetically and extradiegetically. The film screams the message at you: you can't "feel" one way and "think" another, not in the end. You've got to make a choice. You've got to be John Wayne or better yet, the John Wayne of our times: Jack Bauer from Fox's 24. Even if you are rooting for Foster and just want to see her kick butt, Lilith fair den mother Sarah Mclachlin de-adrenalizes all her screaming and shooting with soft ballads throughout, as if to say "this is the real woman here-the one with the gun was just 'acting'. She didn't want to be the monster."

So give me John Ford. Give me something interesting, like, how did he deal with not being able to show the massacre of the whites in the beginning of The Searchers? The film begins from within the cool and dark safety of the cabin and then moves outward into the bright sublime desert--Ford bars us from re-entry.

Or give me the Coen Brothers, give me Faulkner. Give me subtext. Otherwise, art is simply a political cartoon. Since there was no real complexity to the art (I mean c'mon, Neil Jordan--taking lessons from Ron Howard?), I'd image one could encapsulate its content with something similar to this:



Or give me no art and politically laughable messages. Give me Charles Bronson in Deathwish III. Make it exploitively hilarious. Give me so much lack of subtext that I, the viewer, must invent it. One good thing The Brave One had going for it--Bronson and Foster have the same haircut!

Ten Reasons I Love to Hate HBO's Tell Me You Love Me

In anticipation of Valentine's Day, the most godawful of holidays (except maybe Thanksgiving--and Christmas is really a "season"), I've been watching HBO's Tell Me You Love Me. I knew that there wouldn't be any personal identification going on, that it'd be the exact opposite: pleasurable disidentification: l love feeling smug and self-satisfied that I'm not one of "those people." (I doubt this show is very high on anyone's Netflix queue, so don't worry about spoilers. The show is lame. Read on.)

So who are "those people," anyway. Well, first of all they are 30-somethings, most of them. Late 30s or early 40s trying to appear in their 30s. Yes, I'm aware of my own age, but 30-somethings belong to a culture, one to which I don't belong at all. These people have pretty much given up on all their "childish" hobbies and taken up child-rearing only or simply become ultra-serious. There's no joy left, no playfulness in their personalities. They are Uber-adults.

Okay, so there's one youngish couple so far, but they're the "immature" couple who uses sex as a way to cover up their real issues. What issues are they?







That leads me to Smugness # 1: I Am So Glad I Will Never Have The Conversation About...what the mother-in-law's power trips are doing to the relationship. Bride-to-be wants no cake; groom wants his mom to be happy and have her way--to be thrown a bone and allowed SOME decision-making; they argue; they fight; they don't resolve it; they fuck instead. Ah yes, I can sit back and relax knowing that I would never marry anyone who allowed their parents to control shit about us. Period. Have fun with THAT tug of war.



Smugness # 2: I'll Never Have to Worry About Jealousy Over The Other One's Masturbation. Indeed, what has increasingly a primal scene in Hollywood is the straight female's wanting sex, the male's rolling over and feigning sleep, her leaving, the guy secretly masturbating under the covers, and the girl accidentally walking in on that--usually without being seen by him. Classic! And hilarious, too, because it suggest that for the years and years that they've been married, they've actually held to some kind of contract that each person's entire sexuality is funneled into the other --or perhaps, they've believed masturbation is resorted to when the other is absent for a long time (supporting fantasies, of course, feature the other as the main attraction, right?).






Smugness # 3: I ALready Had the Whole, "Do You Think I'll Be The Last Person You're Ever Attracted To?" conversation at like, 19 years old. How can any adult 30-something human being pretend that they don't have an unconscious? And yet on Feb 14 of this year alone, thousands and thousands of couples around the world will break up precisely over this sticking point. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Jealousy is so fucked anyway, but that kind of jealousy is just petty.








Smugness # 4: I get to make fun of Coupledom in general. The show loves close ups of faces and all the "little things" that couples do that also say "I Love You"--without the actual words. Words are so...trite. Like this is a lesson people STILL need to learn!!!!! Cue "More Than Words" by Exxxxtreme. Got it folks? Body language says so much more! Except that yet ANOTHER 10,000 couples will, on Feb 14, break up precisely because one of them didn't use those exact words. Or include a Pooh bear with a Valentine sewed on to its nappy fur. That's right folks, I've actually been there AND received such a gift, which was then bitterly snatched from me when I dared to debate the semantics of that trite and meaningless phrase. Looks like I'm actually allowing the show to make a good point...




Smugness # 5 (by now simply an extension of # 4): I will never stare nonchalantly at my wife's peeing upon a pregnancy testing stick. HBO is heralded for showing the "frank" and "mundane" aspects of couples' lives. But before you accuse me of being squeamish about bodily functions--I'm not--at least consider that if you've gotten to the point at which the sight of your partner taking down her underwear, peeing (while possibly yawning and talking about the weather) and then pulling it back up is somehow boring, you've definitely left the initial passionate phase far behind. And this can be a good thing, I suppose. But I'm willing to bank that this couple's sex life is as vanilla as the Febreeze that they spray when they're done. There so damn domestic. BTW, she had a airline runway pube-doo. What's with these people who are boring in every way but that way, who try to "spice it up" with a hip pussy-shave? Another episode will probably feature the V or the Hitler, which one of them looks at but totally doesn't say anything about because he's chewing on a ham sandwich. Oh Brenda of Six Feet Under, where are you? I need you "Tell me Your Not Serious With Your Shaved Balls" running commentary during these moments. That show was so fucking awesome, HBO. You totally blew it going in this new direction.

The show has one good thing going for it: the queerest couple in it is... old. Not to old. Post retirement age. They aren't too lusty or too domestic, just perfectly attuned to each other in a way that you don't see much on TV, either because it really IS rare or because the U.S. can't handle senior citizens' sexuality. Yes, as love objects they are hetero, but as characters, and in the context of all these other cringe-worth straight couples, they practice a queer lifestyle indeed! And NO Viagra necessary.

#6: I'm Not a strict Monogamist. The drama of the show is built around Compulsory Monogamy and the problems that monogamists face because they have to spend so much extra time structuring themselves around the always already structuring demands of monogamy. They can't get too involved in something because they have to do one of the thrice daily "check in" phone calls; they can't share too many perverse desires because someone will be left out and have to experience a temporary shattering of self-esteem; even intimacy itself becomes equated with monogamy, endlessly mirroring, mirroring, mirroring..... I wonder how many other Eager To Be Normal viewers watch intently at how one couple manages to have sex without ever ceasing to passionately kiss each other. No other physicality takes place but the kissing and the penetrative copulation.

# 7: (extension of 6) So far, the show has depicted not a single queer act of love: no untraditional erogenous zones touched (say, an elbow), no fingering as its own means and end, no oral sex for a woman that is its own means to and end, no means without an end, no blurred lines between talk and sex or music and sex, no discussion of the politics of what their doing--no 'meta' talk, that is. Oh wait, one couple sneaks away during dinner and has sex without the dinner guests even knowing!!!! Okay, that's slightly perverse. It was unplanned, didn't occur in their own bed, and involved more laughter than serious eye-gazing. But ultimately there's nothing yet queer about the show except that one senior couple. And of course no gay sex occurs at all, vanilla or queer. HBO wouldn't want to step on Showtime's toes!

# 8 The dad whose TEN year old daughter got her period finds himself STILL reading bedtime stories to her. Glancing from the book to the Kotex on her dresser, he swallows nervously. Ha! Even I, the non-breeder, wouldn't lose a wink of sleep over the whole "daddy's little girl ain't a little girl no more" bullshit. I wouldn't be able to wait until my kid was older because then we'd finally be able to talk like adults--precisely the point of me not liking kids so much, I guess.

# 9 I'll never experience the fear surrounding that oldest of dictums: No Matter What, You Always Sleep in The Same Bed. Even if you're flu-like, or simply need some space, or just "want to." These monogamists steel themselves at bedtime! The awkwardness, the monotony, the dressing ritual in silence--all because they can't break habit or simply sleep away from each other for a while so that, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's unthinkable!

# 10 I laugh and cringe as the 30-somethings take a lesson from the Baby Boomers and decide that they can perhaps patch up their relationship by either sailing or gardening together, even though only one of them is good at either at any given time. Throw that trowel down in a huff! Aw, go inside and find out what's wrong, dude! She's never had an orgasm and her therapist found out before you did! And all this right before your twilight years start to come around the bend!

#11 Ah hell, I'll save the rest of the bashing for Valentine's Day. More to come kiddie-winkies!

Um...In Your Face?

I'm immensely happy that a jazz artist FINALLY won a Grammy for Album of the Year. It's especially gratifying that Winehouse didn't get this one because a) she's good, but overrated, b) soul is just a more pop-friendly Black art form, no matter how good you are, c) she beat out FOUR women of color (okay two had already won in previous years, so maybe this isn't racism). But let's not call her the "Queen of Soul" okay? Most people that own her album don't even own any other soul records, let alone New Soul Records, like Me'Shell or Jil Scott, etc.--they just like the whole "badass girls who can sing" thing. True, a small percentage of her fans will indeed subsequently purchase Stevie Wonder's Inner Visions or perhaps the Best of Aretha.

Unfortunately, Herbie Hancock is a "crossover" jazz artist, and The Joni Letters songs are very palatable: smooth and short (radio-friendly), with lots of guest artists (sort of like how Santana made a comeback). The only other time a jazz album won this award was in 1965 for the Getz/Gilberto collaboration ("The Girl from Ipanema"--you know this one), and even THAT was another palatable, bourgeois record. When, oh when, will BE-BOP jazz actually win? I guess never, since, pure musicality, especially the "I can't understand it--meh!00it make my brain hurt--meeeh!--I can't dance/fuck to it--meh!" kind of musicality never wins (see: every classical music record every made).

So, I wanted to say, "In Your Face!" to everyone who voted for the hipness and the cool-factor over, you know, musical ability or something, but Winehouse's record is just better--because Hancock's is ust not that great of a record, folks. If you wants you some Herbie Hancock, buy Maiden Voyage--anything with his post-Miles Davis group. Just not this. And certainly not the "Rockit" album or that horrible "Cantaloupe Island" song!

Urgh. It's fucking cold out. Urghhh.

"You're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat!" -- Hatchety-Mudery Honors Roy Scheider

Portal

Thanks to MrTreeTop, I've been playing this insane new game called Portal in which you are a test subject/lab rat who must find you way out by solving tests of geographic and task oriented logic, all the while being nagged by the disembodied voice of Big Sister. Sound like fun?

Ah Am Vereh Busy. State Your Business!