No Wonder the British think Americans are Shitty

How can you blame them when the BBC is making great, watchable documentaries focusing on shitty Americans.

The Phelps family is well known in Topeka. Everyone has seen them picketing. Everyone is embarrassed by them. I almost wish people would stop giving them media attention (yes even you, Tyra) but fuck if it isn't fascinating car wreck quality Americana.

Clearly the saddest aspect of The Phelps agenda is the effect on the kids. It's true, they are shunned and ostracized. This fact basically ensures that their inculcation is complete. If your last name is Phelps and you live in Topeka, people will be leery of you until they know for sure you aren't related to the Westboro Baptist Phelps family. Anyway, happy Friday.

Gatsby's American Dream

Panties are in a bunch over the news that occasionally-schlocky-epic-film director Baz Luhrmann (Austraila, Moulin Rouge) has purchased the rights to The Great Gatsby. Anxiety over his possible treatment of Fitzgerald's dissection of the American Dream and one of THE WORLD'S BEST WRITTEN books is, I suppose, appropriate. Luhrmann says he wants the movie to be, in part, a commentary on the greedy free-for-all that precipitated our current economic disaster, and his detractors have relished pointing out that The Great Gatsby was published a few years before The Great Depression. This point makes absolutely no difference save for the fact that Fitzgerald's critique of his time wasn't done in the spirit of post-hoc finger wagging, so Luhrmann must avoid simplistic, showy nods to the idea that excess inevitably leads to tragedy. Besides, the tragic context of a Depression in the wake of The Roaring Twenties is a value people have placed on the book after the fact. Gatsby is more centrally about how mansions are built, wars are waged, men are destroyed all in the effort to impress girls.

In this way The Great Gatsby was archetype creating; arguably on par with the star crossed lovers of Romeo & Juliet. The story of a man seeking fortune and influence in order to win over the idealized object of his affection shows no signs of fading from American reality. I'm not too hung up on Luhrmann's Gatsby. He'll make it huge and colorful, he'll indulge in the imagery (the billboard in the Valley of Ashes, seems right up his alley). It'll be of interest, without having to serve as the definitive version. Years from now someone else will come along and make another version (American neo-realism, contemporized MTV/ADD, or some new style that hasn't even been invented yet) and we'll all be able to debate which we like best.

In honor of the above: Gatsby's American Dream covering The Cure.

Carlin Lives!

Part of a 3 hour interview totally worth sitting through. This section touches on the craft, but in its entirety it covers his entire biography.


I like it here when he talks about his failed TV show being a necessary detour he "had to make". Sometimes you do shit that doesn't suit your nature, just because it's there and you feel compelled. Like ass fucking. I also like how he says he wouldn't act again unless Sean Penn asked him to play "a bartender who strangles six children". Alas.....

some reading

A column by Paul Krugman on how the failed policies of the GOP were energized by the overarching policy it has employed in courting voters for the last 40 years: capitalizing on racial backlash. In doing so Republicans have painted themselves into a corner because the only folks still buying into this strategy is a shrinking population of whites from the South and Midwest over the age of 50. This is the group referred to by Sarah Palin as "the real America" and I suppose she's right considering that America has been predominantly white and racist throughout its history.

Germans and their rocking

Once, I lived in Switzerland and watched butt loads of German MTV. These are some of the gems I took home from that experience.

The Beatsteaks - Hand In Hand

Not bad right? Back to back guitar solos and everything!

And even though I can't understand the words at all, Wir Sind Helden won me over, over and over.

Wir Sind Helden means We Are Heroes. Super strong name. In 2004 they were putting out the most kick ass product in German music: an album that went four singles deep and quality vidoes for each. The above song was the 4th single, which is is the correct time for the "we're a popular band that goes on tour" video.

more proof

probably hilarious if you read german.

Songs I like

The winter is a time for apartment parties (formerly known as house parties).

Mobius Band - Friends Like These

"There's lots of grey shades, but that don't make black the same as white."

The winter is also a time for the greys, which is fine.

Frightened Rabbit - The Greys