Imitation of Life

I'll admit right from the start -- all I know about the Twilight thing is that it was a bunch of books written by a Mormon housewife, about some teenybopper vegetarian vampires. And now it's a bunch of movies that get adolescent girls (and, weirdly, their mothers) wet. Have I got the general thrust of this, erm, cultural phenomenon? Very well, then. Can someone explain this to me, per favore?

When Oprah Winfrey called all Twilight fans in April to submit stories about how the hit supernatural series changed their lives, Maria Mele knew she had to e-mail the daytime talk show host.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again -- Oprah Winfrey has probably done more than any other single person to turn Americans into a moony-eyed claque of simpering morons. From giving Sarah Palin far more face time than she deserves, to endlessly cultivating this sort of fan-club nonsense, Oprah's efforts in toto conveniently elide for her housewife cult the important differences between self-actualizing and self-indulgence, between knowing and understanding oneself, and merely flattering oneself for every fart and bunion.

Really, and not to get too heavy about it but there it is, it's the difference between being a spectator and being a participant in one's own life. Getting Oprah's favorite brand of bath beads at Occitane doesn't make you any better or happier, it just makes you an easy mark, because you'll shell out thirty-five bucks for a jar of pleasantly-scented sand and soap.

Back to the actual sentence, and what it really means if we take a second and think about it. Now, I know what it's like to be a fan -- it's just pure fun to be a fan of something, to enjoy the thing, whatever or whoever it is, in all its facets, turning it like a coveted jewel, finding nuances that only you can really perceive. This is a fine thing -- when you're in eighth grade. When you're an adult, it's kinda weird, moreso when it's clearly something aimed at, well, eighth-graders.

There is a transformative power to art in all its forms, of course. That's what makes it art. Thirty years on, I still recall the first time I heard Rush, or Zeppelin, or Pink Floyd's The Wall. I had only heard R&B, country, and AM classics (what would now be called "oldies" on your local niche-market station). I had internalized the conventional song format, and bands and albums like those quickly changed the way I heard and thought about music and the role of the musician.

Similar perceptive changes occurred the first time I saw the work of Magritte, or Kandinsky, or local hero Sal Casa. Or movies, ranging from Goodfellas to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, can have a profound effect on how you perceive form, motion, composition, or even the medium itself. That's pretty damned cool. But it's not "life-changing", so much as simply expanding the scope of things that you consider interesting or creative.

None of that, near as this outsider can tell, applies to the Twilight movies/books/franchise merchandise, no matter how much the Twi-tards wish it so, no matter how many babies [rolls eyes audibly] get named after the characters. It's just a love story with vampires, two of the most overworked themes in books and movies. This is nothing more than the sort of gushy fandom that is tedious enough in teenaged girls, but inexplicable in adults. Pattinson is a good sport for taking part in these goofy events, but let's face it -- he could have taken a dump on their front porch, and they would have put it in a jar. It's worse than sad, it's kind of disturbing.

The Honeymoon's Over

Articles such as this, while perhaps a bit early in the offing, are not entirely unexpected. I would agree with Watson in saying that unless Obama egregiously screws the pooch, he should be okay for '12. But that's primarily a function of how comically inept the Republicans have become. They can't get out of their own way; they're seriously debating whether Sarah Palin has a shot as their nominee in three years.

Certainly stranger things have happened, and the inherent stupidity of large swaths of 'murkins means that such a prospect can never completely be written off, but friends 'n' neighbors, let us stipulate for a moment that politics is a business, and businessmen expect a return on investment. Sarah Palin might be the Blessed Virgin Mary for her weirdo refuse-to-watch-anything-but-Faux-News fan base, but she's pure poison to the rest of the country. Why would anyone put their money on toxic sludge?

So she's taking an 18-month sabbatical to bone up on fundamentals in time for Iowa and New Hampshire, BFD. The only way this will fly is with the media's complicity in helping her rehabilitate her well-deserved image as a clueless, blustery dilettante who, after almost a full year of constant coverage, has yet to this observer's knowledge to say anything that is either true or substantive.

So Obama's worst enemy is not Sarah Palin, or any of the other trolls on their bench. It's Obama himself, not doing the things he said he was going to do, having more than sufficient numbers of fellow Democrats to get things done and yet failing to keep them disciplined, leaving people to wonder yet again why voting for Ralph Nader is such a terrible bad awful idea. Sixty Democrats in the Senate, a substantial House majority, a clear popular mandate, and still he's handed the economy back to the people who wrecked it so they can re-inflate and re-crash it -- and recharge us for the privilege. Health care reform is already doomed to be an industry-written abortion. We're finally getting out of Iraq, but nothing will ever be done about the people and lies who got us in there, while we're simultaneously getting more entrenched in Afghanistan.

So if Obama fails in 2012, it will be because enough Americans realized that he has his chance right now, and is failing to take it, despite all the high hopes and high-minded rhetoric. Yes we can, but for some reason, "we" have chosen not to, and if not now, with all the political stars and opportunities very favorably aligned, when? I mean, really, we can bitch about the apathy of the American electorate, but this is exactly why they don't bother to fuckin' vote. And it's getting harder and harder to blame them.

Bonfire of the Inanities

Maybe I'm just too cynical for my own good, but I think the Susan Boyle "story" is less an indictment of the implicit "looksism" of our society (fucking duh), than a perfect example of how frequently the line between supposedly "legitimate" media entities and tabliod fluff is willfully blurred by its more institutional players.

Seriously, I have no doubt an article of this grade could be found quickly in People or Entertainment Weekly. The primary difference between the Times and Redbook is that people reading the former probably think they're too smart to bother with the latter, even though they frequently end up reading the exact same sort of shit. There is absolutely no logical reason a contestant from some indistinguishable limey reality talent show should merit this (or any) attention, whether she looks like Shrek or Heidi Klum.

Since I get up an hour or so early to get on the treadmill and lift weights before heading in to work, I've had the stark misfortune of acquainting myself with the morass of morning teevee. Christ, what a stinking butthole of broadcast manure these shows are. Commercials for bizarre fourth-generation People's Court knock-offs and mortgage-lending scams, bookending the most trivial, asinine, sensationalized nonsense passed off as "news".

It's the sort of shit TMZ and the E! Channel specialize in, but without all the irony. I honestly don't know how (or hell, what sort of) people sit through the first hour of the Today show, much less the fourth. If this is not a deliberate conspiracy to condition viewers to the docility of cattle, prodding them occasionally to some manufactured hot-button issue, I don't know what is.

I've found that going through my DVD collection for the morning workout, throwing on some old Ben Stiller or Mr. Show, or Motörhead or Rush concert videos, to be a much better solution. Feel the burn!

Get Over Yourself

He's a decent enough actor and comes across as fairly reg'lar on his Dinner for Five appearance, but apparently this hapless interviewer caught ol' Billy Bob when his Aunt Flo was visiting. If I had been the interviewer and someone had talked like that to me, I don't care who the fuck they are, I'd have cut it dead right there.

And, you know, Tom Petty seems like a nice enough guy and has amassed a certain body of work through sheer longevity, but like the Rolling Stones, Petty hasn't done anything to make most listeners' jeans too tight in about twenty years. Not to mention that Thornton has done a lot of critically acclaimed work in a lot of movies, where Petty has a bit part on King of the Hill. Not an especially astute comparison, even for a cracker named Billy Bob.

Still, it's always good fun to watch C-list celebs get douchey beyond their proper spot in the food chain. He might as well have screamed indignantly, "Don't you know who I used to be?!?" The bragging rights from banging Angelina Jolie for a couple years must have worn off by now.

Short Takes

• Been Netflixing the recently released Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and there's even less doubt in my mind that, between this and the barely-ran Andy Barker, P.I., Richter has pound-for-pound been hosed out of more quality projects than anyone else in recent memory. You look at the shit that clogs up the airwaves night after awful night, year after miserable year, and you wonder how things that are actually somewhat innovative and creative just get dumped after a handful of half-hearted jumps around the schedule. We all know that shows with actual actors and writers cost more to produce than some asinine "reality" dick-skinner, but I don't think Harve Presnell or Paget Brewster would have broken anyone's bank with insane salary demands.
  
  Anyway, ARCU holds up pretty well. The only people that are ever going to Netflix a reality show probably also wish for Home Shopping Network reruns. They can suck on it. They've fucking ruined television as a genuinely creative outlet, for the most part. The only chance a new project sneaks through is if it can get tagged as "gritty" or "uncompromising" or some such, and even then only on basic cable. We're probably just a couple seasons away from a decade of Oww! My Balls!, once the brain trust at NBC decide they're not covering their desired nut on 30 Rock and The Office.




• The first time I heard Blood Mountain, I got the same feeling I got when I first heard Back in Black, or Moving Pictures, or Ænima, that something new and substantial had arrived, something that would quickly prove to be canonical to its genre of music. Sure enough, Blood Mountain ended up on many fans' all-time lists, and vaulted Mastodon into the top ranks of metal bands. As with any other group attempting to follow up a critical success without simply cloning itself, Mastodon faced a challenge, and they succeed for the most part with Crack the Skye. Lyrically it's as all over the place as it can be -- astral travel, ethereal possession, Rasputin, tsarist political intrigue, cult divination -- all sorts of weird. But good weird.
  
  Crack the Skye doesn't quite have the furious vitality of its predecessor. For the most part it's slower, even sludgier in areas, reminiscent of Sabotage-era Sabbath classics such as Megalomania or The Writ. But the breadth and ambition are evident in the album's scope, the musicianship is top-notch throughout, and while the bizarre thematic underpinnings are most present in the epic-length tracks The Czar and The Last Baron, there are bona-fide potential radio hits in Ghost of Karelia and Divinations. Mastodon fits well in that prog-metal niche that bands such as Tool occupy, and there's no reason they can't go as far, creatively and commercially.



• Remember the old Chris Rock riff about how in the '80s, there was the "Prince or Michael Jackson" debate and "Prince won"? Of course, Rock was talking in terms of personalities and relative weirdness, that as odd as Prince's gyrating ambisexuality and ball-tightening falsettos might be, they were at least life-affirming, encouraging one and all to get their sweaty freak on, just as James Brown and Al Green preached in the salad days of r&b/funk. That stood in stark contrast to Jackson's soul-deadening passions for tween boys and zoo animals, eschewing truly childlike energy and imagination for overproduced, committee-written hackery that was musically as much a Madame Tussaud's piece as its singer's ruined visage was.
  
  But what Rock neglected to say was that Prince really wins on the merits of music, that he writes and plays his own stuff where Jackson neither plays nor writes, that Prince's best work far outshines Jackson's best work, that even Prince's middling efforts over the years have at least been the product of a fertile creative pursuit, of indefatigable ambition and a serious work ethic.
  
  While Jackson spent decades inflicting his emotional retardation on his equally stunted celeb pals and an increasingly indifferent planet, Prince churned out records almost annually, and was banging Sheena Easton and Sheila E., among others, grooming a pulchritudinous stable of practically interchangeable (yet, you know, freaking hot) dance-hall queens. What did Jackson have, a show marriage with Elvis' goofball daughter, followed by an expensive, homely beard/surrogate for "his" offspring? On top of all that, Prince is a seriously underrated guitarist, a tone demon with a passion and melodic sensibility usually found in giants such as Jeff Beck or Jimi Hendrix.
  
  And the main disc of Prince's 3-disc effort (available at Target), Lotusflow3r, is certainly evocative of late-period Hendrix, practically dripping with references to Electric Ladyland and First Rays of the New Rising Sun, without being derivative. Prince's guitarwork is all over this disc, weaving seamlessly throughout laid-back efforts such as Love Like Jazz, and uncorking fat riffs in Boom and Dreamer. The only real clunker here is $, a decent dance number with an unfortunate choice of vocal style.
  
  The other Prince disc, Mplsound, and the third disc (Elixer [sic]), by yet another young female protégé (Bria Valente), are more dance-oriented, and thus not really my thing, but are well-produced as far as that goes. Mostly it's the kind of "Quiet Storm" shit dickless yuppies use to seduce each other after a long night of Red-Bull-and-vodkas and aimless groping, though there's a nice throwback solo in the crunky chug of Ol' Skool Company. But at $11.99 for all three, the main disc is worth the price of admission alone.



• I keep reading good things about The Decemberists, so I figured I'd finally give The Crane Wife a shot. And I wanted to like it, I really did. There are glimmers of promise in tracks such as When the War Came and The Perfect Crime 2, competent prog riffs anchoring the first half of The Island, only to be undone by reedy, nasal vocals and twee, overly bookish betcha-can't-tell-I'm-still-working-on-my-MFA-at-Oberlin lyrics. Coffee-house shit is okay at the coffee-house or farmer's market or whatever, but otherwise, not so much. It's not completely terrible, and maybe some of their other stuff is worthwhile, but in the end, it's the musical equivalent of Kegel exercises, and I had to throw on some Blood Mountain afterwards to get the vital fluids flowing again to the necessary appendages.

They Die

Bastards. It ain't broke, why this urge to fix it? If they can do it without screwing it up -- and it is possible with some tight casting and writing -- great. (This may actually turn out to be the case with the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Guess we'll find out Friday.) Otherwise, leave a sorely underrated cult classic alone. Does anybody write anything original anymore, or are we just spinning endless reams of remakes and comic-book franchises?

They don't even have a writer yet, which kinda makes me wish I had the chops to drop a spec script stat. But James Gunn might be an interesting choice there, since he would keep the sardonic humor of the original intact.

The most difficult thing to preserve would be the patience that Carpenter had in developing the narrative. Even when the pacing worked against it at times, the way they stuck with it and let the scenes unfold and breathe really made it a unique movie. If it's just a bunch of smash cuts and blood spatters, they already did that shit with 28 Weeks Later and it was just fine. No need to belabor it.

The Shield

Tim Goodman, who has championed The Shield since day one, has a typically fine wrap-up on the series finale. Heavy stuff, but a fitting end to an excellent show. Pound for pound, probably the best ensemble cast this side of The Wire, and even then it's close. Chiklis was an absolute force of nature throughout, but there are a half-dozen actors in this cast deserving an Emmy nomination. Of course, that's also true of The Wire, and the fact is that they'll all be passed up for James Spader (and I like Spader, but guys like Chiklis and Wendell Pierce pwn his ass) or some shit, because the people who vote on awards shows are politically-motivated morons.

Some of the side plots were resolved a bit weakly, but it's a minor beef in an otherwise powerful ending. Some of the storylines actually could have kept going a bit, but unlike NYPD Blue or ER or some such, The Shield writers knew when it was time to go. And the show itself created a viability for basic cable content, a small oasis in a sea of infomercials, shopping netwroks, "reality" chum, and pseudo-celebrity ass-sniffing.

The FX channel has real potential in the biker drama Sons of Anarchy (created by Shield writer Kurt Sutter), but its comedy series (including, sadly, the formerly excellent It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) are practically unwatchable, so there's a ways to go still toward building a real network.

But The Shield managed to breathe new life into a well-worn genre, taking a direction away from the tedious prodcedurals and shock-value lab-tech dramas. (I've seen exactly three episodes of CSI over the years, and every one of them had lurid descriptions of blood and semen spattered everywhere. Not to be a prude but, why is it on the networks that you can't say "asshole" at any hour, but you can describe in detail the qualities of various bodily fluids and violent crimes during the "family hours"?)