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Saturday Singalong: Hasta La Vista, Baby

I don't know about you - seriously, why aren't you commenting more? - but I've missed taking a little time to write about the music I like (and also the music I don't: I really owe a Worst Song Ever. Evil never sleeps). So, just because this whole thing popped into my head as I was waking up this morning... a few left field favorites by some of my favorite African American srtists (and as I looked for links, I realized you could also call this "The Soul Train Variations").

Jody Watley, Looking for a New Love. If we're planning to bring back the eighties - and I'm fine with it, really - I've realized that my objection to much of "best of the eighties" nonsense is ignoring crucial gems like this one that don't quite fit into the mass produced picture of what the eighties were. Watley, a Soul Train dancer from way back, was recruited into Shalimar, a dance music act concocted from within the show's operation. Chafing under excessive control, she went off and started doing her own thing. Which included, by happenstance, being in London at the time "Do They Know It's Christmas?" was recorded, and winding up on the record. Shortly after that, her first album dropped, and it was both hard to place and somehow definitive. From the first moment of Looking for a New Love's eerie whistle, you were in a different place that somehow made perfect sense in the world of pop. And that's before Watley delivered one of the most precise, angry woman takedowns heard up to that moment. All that and "Hasta La Vista, Baby." And this morning, I reaized I just missed hearing it.

Shalamar, The Second Time Around. ...that led me back to remembering the joys of Jody's first group. Shalamar didn't sound like a lot of other pop/dance efforts - even if the high ptched, slightly tinny harmonies were a natural fit for radio (and led, for instance to stuff like DeBarge and The Jets), musically, they were neither as bass heavy as much of R&B was at the time, nor quite like the rest of contemporary pop. Which may explain why they were both occasionally wildly successful, yet never quite defined the late seventies period. And which may explain why this fizzy, cheerful gem has sort of fallen through history's cracks, even with it's hard to dispute argument that if at first you don't succeed, you'll find love on the second time around.

Donna Summer, Love is in Control (Finger on the Trigger). Like many a gay boy my age (I do say that a bit, don't I? Well it's my experience, anyway), the Disco moment of 1978-79 was an awakening. Two of the first record albums(!) I ever received were the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever and Gloria Gaynor's Hot Tracks (the orginal "I Will Survive" - we wore it out, gurl). And though I never owned any of Summer's essential albums (I remember thinking Bad Girls was expensive), she was my Queen, too. Donna fits in an odd place in music history because Disco garnered her a white audience that turned out to be more lasting than her black one - Summer's had far fewer runaway successes on the R&B charts, comparatively, and became lass and less of a fit with the rest of black radio. After disco was declared dead, conventional wisdominsisted Summer's career was wrecked... and kept insisting that as, through the eighties, she released a string of successful albums and spun out a number of hit singles. Working with Quincy Jones, she escaped disco (musically) by adapting to the newest musical settings (Jones was also transforming Michael Jackson at this same time), and "Love is in Control" is one of the best examples of how she managed to pull it off. Sexy, playful, and slightly dangerous ("I've got my finger on the trigger... love is in control..... You'd better raise your sights up high, or I will blow you right away."), Summer was as hip, urban and cosmopolitan as ever. Though her hits of the eighties, too, tend to fall through that crack of not quite fitting any retro format.

The SOS Band, Take Your Time (Do It Right). The SOS Band's later hits ("Just The Way You Like It", "Borrowed Love") fit comfortably, even now, into retro R&B, mostly because they represent the height of a collaboration the band had with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, long before they made their mark working with Janet Jackson. But that work was actually a mid-career shift; prior to their eighties renaissance, the SOS Band was a near Chic-like disco operation, all throbbing bass and synth tones. "Take Your Time" remains a left field smash - I've never seen it fail at a dance party, a trick up a smart DJ's sleeve, among those "Oh my god, remember this one" moments people love to rediscover. Bouncy, also sexy... the fast moving song about doing it (yes... it) slow, Take your time is one of the perfect, just vague enough dirty metaphors that pop thrives on. Plus, I think Mary Davis, their lead singer, may be one of the most underappreciated lead voices ever.

Pebbles, Mercedes Boy. For me, this song was the summer of 1988, in many ways a zenith moment for pop radio, the crest of the New Wave that had started around 1982, the perfect time for a boy like me, who could love this and Def Leppar's Pour Some Sugar on Me and hear them pretty much back to back on the radio. Unlike many fantasies of wealth and success, Mercedes Boy puts you in the position of having the toys already - "Do you want to ride in my Mercedes, boy? ...There are so many things that I'm gonna do to you" - and using them to get, well, sex. Pop retro radio doesn't play Pebbles much anymore, even though she enjoyed a string of hits which Mercedes Boy was about in the middle of. Not reviving her hits, too, seems like a shame.

Sabado Gigante!

There are various ways to assess the health of retail sales leading into Christmas - my own tends to be the kind of unscientific observation of just trying to be out and about, watching shopper habits. How hard is it to find parking? How many people laden down with bags? What's on sale in the stores?

My sense is that this is an okay, but not great, Christmas, nowhere near the retail madness of the bubble years. People seem to feel a little less economically insecure, but retailers were banking on a real explosion of pent up demand, and so in the final weeks therehas been a lot of desperation selling. There are insane markdowns. People crowd around sale items, but a lot of regular priced items sit undisturbed. Things are crowded... but not wildly uncomfortable.

I've been working a cash register in the final days of holiday madness a few times (okay, a heck of a lot), and this year... is not so madness. I've seen worse, much worse ("The Christmas Wars", this week, on History), and though some of my newer baristas are a little freaked out, most of the expereinced hands aren't getting more than they can handle.

And so, this past weekend, the last weekend before Christmas, came and went without much fuss. I closed Friday and Saturday night - usually two of the most hectic, least organized nights of the year... and not much happened. We were a little busier than last year... but not off the charts. Sunday night, I spent the evening with my friend Red, darting through Soho (like a lay-ser), picking up a few last minute things. As bad as Soho has become - it's all tourists and bargain hunters - we weren't especially crushed, and the whole thing was over pretty quick.

So why am I telling you all of this?

Just to tell you that Saturday, as I was getting ready to start work, Bill Clinton walked past my coffee shop on his way to his car. He looked in, smiled, and waved at me. Bill Clinton.

Yeah, it was pretty awesome. Merry Christmas!

Seventeen, Again

Apparently, I decided to take some time off after Thanksgiving.

It's a lot of things - the holiday season is upon us, and apparently, I've decided to try and make a serious go of working in the coffee biz, with the encouragement of my boss and her boss as well. The weird thing is, it's not that I have nothing to say; I'm feeling particularly energized, just now. Just too busy to write.

Also, Chanukah was early this year.

So, getting back to it has been a challenge, but here I am, for the weekend, visiting my old pal J. in B.

It's always weird, coming back to my old home town; sitting in the mall food court - which didn't exist when I was in high school - seeing the familiar expressions and atiitudes of what it was to be a teenager in this neck of the woods. I don't live this life anymore - not exactly - but the familiarity of it was both odddly reassuring and thoroughly disconcerting.

I've been thinking, a bit, about my high school experiences, particularly in these days of worries about gay teen suicides and the appeal of "it gets better" (when, honestly, I'm not sure it does; it gets different... but not necessarily better). It's easy for gay people - especially my age or a little older - to rewrite the years of teen angst as, well, angst-ier than they were. It wasn't necessarily fun being weird and gay and different... but truth be told (at least when I try to be honest with myself about it), mostly things were pretty okay and, in retrospect, nothing all that bad actually happened.

The thing about visiting J - or writing over e-mail, as we do, mostly, these days - is finding a kindred spirit. We didn't know each other during our high school experiences, but the commonalities still shine through. Towson, gay, preppy... too smart for our own good.... these things define us, join us. It's not all of who we are, especially these days; but those touchstones are what help make us who we are.

It's easy and reductive to say this is all "old friends... aren't they great?" It's more than that, for me, anyway. It feels like, well, I'm seventeen again; like I'm looking not at life as it is today, but the shadows of a life I led twenty, thirty years ago - with all these ghosts hovering around me. I can say that now, and oddly, it doesn't sting like they said it would (that said, I can't imagine turniong 50, as I will, in 5 years).

I just don't have a lot of interest for living in the past; I don't want, or need, to go back and revisit this past life, those old feelings. It's not uncomfortable, it doesn't dredge up a lot of bad memories... but I left this place and went on to do other things. In the conversation we're having (real time!), about how rambling and all over the place this piece seemed as I began to write it (i.e. a few sentences ago), J asks, "is the point of this piece that it's great to have lots of good sex in your twenties?" Yes. Yes, it is... but that's not all of it. Not exactly, anyway. I mean... if that were all, I too, would go on You Tube to tell the kids "It gets better!" And how. But that - like the mythical gay land - is not the whole of this story, not the whole of my story. I live in a different place now; not the physical place.... but the life of the mind, and the heart, I thought, for a long time, that I liked feeling, always, that I was still seventeen. And here it is, feeling like I'm actually seventeen, again... and I don't think I need to stay here that long.

(And, at this point, I must say "Thanks!" to J for his attentive edits to this post; he's offered to provide the service full-time, for a small fee.... when I can afford him.)

Burlesque: Give 'Em The Old Razzle Dazzle, And They'll (Barely) Catch On...

Let's all agree: it's challenging, to say the least, for a singer/entertainer to make the transition to film. Many have tried, many have failed - Madonna, Britney, Mariah are really only recent examples of a problem that goes back, no kidding, all the way to Ethel Merman.

So perhaps one can't entirely blame Christina Aguilera (and her team) for an excess of caution; she's waited years for the right project, long enough to have a hand in building it herself. She's learned the lessons well: Surround yourself with top talent. Don't play a contemporary singer. Be sexy, but stay dressed. Out of all that and more... what a project she's helped to build: Burlesque, the best Kander and Ebb movie musical in the tradition of Chicago and Cabaret that Kander and Ebb never wrote.

Christina is no Liza (and even more to the point - no Renee Zellwegger, either)... and I don't mean that (either comparison) in a bad way: Aguilera's combination of singing chops, solid dance skills and capable acting put her far closer to Judy than Liza, talent really capable of blowing the competition away. There's a powerhouse in there. And while Burlesque is a solid, if derivative, piece of entertainment, the shame of it is that I suspect it barely taps the deep wells of possibility that Aguilera has within her. There's more to her than a pale copy of Kander and Ebb can contain.

Burlesque is a walkinag (perhaps more precisely, an all singing, all dancing) anachronism, full of those numbers that evoke old, seedy stage shows of a bygone era done in a fading theater that's seen better days. The movie is shameless from the get go - though it scales especially brazen heights by having Alan Cumming hang out just long enough to do a complete rip of "Two Ladies" with him as Joel Grey and two conrtortionist dancers to assist... what, no one could score the rights to a new film version of Cabaret?

Writer/Director Steve Antin does what he can to breathe new life into the "you're going out there an ingenue, but coming back a star" plotline for Aguilera's Ali (did I mention that Antin has stapled the plot of 42nd Street to the musical numbers of Chicago and Cabaret?), but it's pretty creaky. The better moments are when Antin stands back and lets the music and dancing shine through - I'm surprised more musical makers don't mine the Kander/Ebb catalog for all the derivative glory they can; audiences do, still, eat this stuff up (Baz Luhrmann, at least, gets this). It's true that Kander and Ebb are themselves derivative of twenties and thirties era dancehall jazz... but the work endures for a reason.

in her performance, Aguilera is fine - natural, largely unforced, she's a charming presence as an actress (even more charming when the film isn't tying too hard to make her adorable). And she's more than able to carry the weight of most of the show's musical numbers - anyone who enjoyed the plethora of musical styles she attempted on "Back to Basics" will see the payoffs here.

And then there's the talent around her... most notably Cher, who's got a tailor made part as Tess, the club owner and aging star of the show, who gracefully stands aside so Ali can have her turn at the spotlight. It's to Cher's credit that she makes being Cher look this easy, but after all these years, the fact that it looks easy and assured is yet more testament to just how amazing her work is. The wonder is why no one thought of tailoring a role to Cher like this sooner... 20, 30, hell, 40 years ago; never mind her assured acting, or the burlesque moves and figure she's working at age 64... consider that, at her age and after years of touring and playing Vegas, Cher still manages to belt out her numbers with all the power she's ever had as a singer, in her patently unique style. And she probably has just performed this year's Oscar winning song "The Last Of Me," making Diane Warren's generic-as-always lyrics sparkle.

The rest of the cast is also quite talented, though not necessarily left with a lot to do. As Ali's main love interest, Cam Gigandet is easily one of Hollywood's best lookers, and smolders quite nicely. As Cher's main costar, Stanley Tucci continues to give good aging gay, even though he isn't. Peter Gallagher (as Tess's ex) and Eric Dane (as the man who's wrong for Ali) would be fine as well... but neither one gets the time to prove it.

At its best, Burlesque is everything Nine wasn't: a fun, stylish aping of other, better shows with plenty of sass and skin to make up for its weaknesses. The showgirl numbers are terrific, and achieve that pure burlesque quality of being sexy without seeming dirty, tarted up or cheap. There's no egregious nudity, and the use of carefully placed pearls and feather fans does appropriate homage to the history of burlesque itself. If the music and lyrics of the modern creations don't quite muster up to the classics they emulate, there's Aguilera, holding court at center stage. It's pure showmanship, brilliantly done. And all that, without breaking a sweat. I wish she would. I hope she does, soon.

The A List: All The Pretty People At The Shallow End Of The Pool

I've been trying to avoid this, but it just has to be said: I have become enthralled with The A-List:New York, Logo's new reality series which does a "real Housewives" like gloss on gay men in New York City.

Partly, this is pure shallowness: there's so much toplessness and buffery on display that it's just ridiculous (I think "notices buff men in filmed entertainment" is the new shorthand form of gaydar; if you can name the cute ones, you are one of us)... and confirms my own taste-o-meter for reality TV: from Paradise Hotel to Temptation Island to that brief Bravo series on picking America's next male model... if they wear a bathing suit, count me in.

But The A-List is, if possible, shallower than that: it's every "oh my God, did you see his boyfriend" story ever told, every overly dramatic queen's dream of everyday life. It's all hair and clothes and bitchy comments  and buff bodies and the 6 to 10 other things that make for the most shallow conversations imaginable.

And it's utterly fascinating, and utterly true.

The A-list's conceit is that the young men on camera represent some sort of urban gay elite; like the other shows, it's more "legend in my mind" than The Real Thing, but it makes perfect sense: if you can dine out on being Britney's hairdresser, if doing Beyonce's makeup makes you a somebody, if anyone cares that you do the flowers in Ivanka Trump's office.... it's gay men in Manhattan who can somehow make that seem important.

The most "famous" face on the A-List is probably Reichen Lemkuhl, a former Air Force officer who gained some notoriety dating Lance Bass, one of the men in N'Sync, and the only American boybander (so far) to come out. Next most famous is probably Austin, who was part of a messy series of relationships Marc Jacobs pursued since kicking drugs and buffing up into a new Gay Icon. There's also Derek, a modeling agent who apparently knows Lindsay Lohan, and Ryan, a hairdresser who married well (a much older, black banker who is rarely seen), and Ryan's friend TJ, who is also his Personal Assistant.

All of these boys, and Reichen's new boyfriend Rodiney (the requisite Brazilian model), do a credible job of representing what passes for gay social life: heavy on the arts, fashion and the visual, cute and young. It's a literal "Logan's Run" where it's rare to hang around much past 30, or maybe 35 if you push it (Mike Ruiz, also known to Drag Race fans, adds some grace to the image of the aging boytoy). Everyone's a little too young, a little too immature. Put it on camera... and it shows.

The A-List, like other reality shows, doesn't necessarily tell anyone anything they didn't already know: gay men can be shallow, and too caught up in what's pretty and of the moment. Since Stonewall, there's been a long line of books (Dancer from the Dance and Faggots, most famously) and plays (The Boys in the Band) and movies (Lots, but start, say, with Jeffrey) to make much the same point. Still, the A-List does climb up and under an image of gay life that I've rarely seen represented so fully, so unashamedly, and yes... probably so badly for the cause: this is a reminder that while we talk about "gay rights" and make gay men seem like saints... we often forget about the boys who, well, go to The Saint (a legendary nightclub, dear... look it up).

As well, the A-List climbs under and around the gender issues that the Housewives programs can't seem to address (or at least... that's my line and I'm sticking to it, to try and seem deep): bitchy and queeny they may be... but these are definitely men, and that complicates dismissing their emotional issues and social problems in quite the same way as the women of the Housewives' shows. This is a world that, up til now, was not necessarily visible to those outside of it. Trying to explain the "gay world" of clubs and parties and Fire Island to outsiders often seemed, like, well, trying to get people to believe in a mythical place (it's why, for instance, all this stuff about "the gays" and the SATC world of straight women's NYC can seem like the real thing... when those in the know can tell you, firmly, it isn't the same at all). The A-List is warts - well, not warts - and all: the "telephone, telegram... tell a fag" world of gossip and cuteness and relationships built on little more than looks and air.

And sure, it's about the small, petty details: watching Reichen lie to others, and himself, about his attractions and his wants; about shallow friendships like Derek's and TJ's and deciding whether or not to like Austin, and watching a pretty boy like Rodiney try to "make it" as a model in New York. But more than the housewives shows, I suspect that what gives the A-List some emotional punch is the breadth of relationships on display: friends, enemies, lovers, business partners. It's intimate, and a little incestuous, and oh so pretty to look at. And, as Malone said, beautiful is all it is. It takes a while to realize there might be more to life than that. Here's hoping these boys find that out.

Girl on Girl on Girl on Girl on...

Okay, I can't entirely stop... after exploring for some more info on Da Vinci's Notebook (they're from Maryland! Of course!), this was the very next song I chose. I now think they are all that and the bag of chips. Without further ado... Internet Porn.

 

 

And Although I Know It's Strictly Taboo...

Over the past couple of weeks, I think there's been a couple of turning points in the upcoming midterm elections. One of them, which I'm still working on, has to do with the dismal cloud surrounding the Obama Administration and the clear weaknesses they're bringing into the home stretch for Democrats and the left more generally. But the other, for the right, can be summed up in the primary win and subsequent flameout of Christine O'Donnell in Delaware.

O'Donnell was considered one of the fringier Tea Party hopefuls, until a combination of forces - her string of especially negative ads against Mike Castle, the presumed nominee, as well as Castle's and the State GOP's ugly responses, along with the fact that Castle had never actually faced a GOP primary in his 40 year career - swept O'Donnell to a surprising, easy victory in Delaware's Republican Senatorial primary. Castle, the state's longtime Congressman, was expected to easily win statewide election, since he has done just that over and over. O'Donell, on the other hand is something of a religious activist who already lost once to Joe Biden (in 2008, after failing to win the GOP primary for Tom Carper's seat in 2006).

Much of the political calculus is irrelevant, though, now that Bill Maher has released a string of footage (which he vows to continue) culled from O'Donnell's appearances on Politically Incorrect in the nineties. The most striking, so far, is O'Donnell's apparently unforced admission that she was familiar with "witchcraft" and had a first date "midnight picnic" on a Satanic altar.

Asked about it after the clip broke wide, O'Donnell fell back on the "didn't we all do something crazy in high school" defense, which is a good demonstration of at least her press savvy, neither running away from her past, nor especially interested in rehashing or defending it.

But the damage was done, and it was damage with some wider implications, since it pretty much forced the national Republican Party into drawing some lines - admittedly late and well past where they need to be - around just how much Tea Party madness the GOP Establishment should have to embrace. And in that moment cam e a reality that's been quite clear as "Tea Party Insurgency" became the storyline of the right: that in many ways, this was about extreme, fringe efforts on the right finally getting the reins and taking control. And the longterm results may not be especially good.

O'Donnell - endorsed by Sarah Palin - has been simply the best worst example of squandered opportunities in the Senate races for the GOP this year. The other extreme examples, like Sharron Angle and Rand Paul, share her penchant for gaffes and extreme rhetoric. But even Linda McMahon in Connecticut and Carly Fiorina in California share some of this sense that they are second best choices in races where stronger candidates could easily prevail (you could throw in two time loser Dino Rossi, now chasing Patty Murray's seat in Washington state). The angry national mood, we thought, would be a boon to Republicans. But as so many have said, me included, anger alone won't solve the Republicans lack of a good message and great candidates to deliver it.

The GOP can't run away from O'Donnell, because admitting that she's too weird and fringe-y to be viable would throw the whole Tea Party movement into relief: given her background at the edges of GOP social causes and cultural conservatism, as well as actually having run for office already, O'Donnell is in many ways a more conventional candidate than many others the Tea Parties have produced (and, like some conservatives, she seems mostly to be riding the Tea Party as her latest train to success). That's why the revelations of nuttiness can be so damaging: the "anyone can play" nature of Tea Party openness, the lack of rigor to set up some base criteria for viability, is killing them. And in this free for all, it's no surprise that telegenic opportunists like O'Donnell, or her mentor Palin, can rise to prominence on good looks and a talent in front of the camera.

Of course, putting this all in big picture context tends to ignore the aspects of the story that really drive it: the reason O'Donnell's tossed off asides about witchcraft took off is because what they reveal is not minor, or casual. A lot has been made of the quick response of Wiccans, denying connections to Satanism and blood altars (and what a world we live in, when even the Wicca have spokespeople at the ready the moment bad PR crops up), but no one, really, would mistake O'Donnell's witchy past for the more recent surge of interest in Wicca's vaguely upbeat, pro-nature paganism.

Having been a teenager at the same time as O'Donnell, this story caught my eye because I remember that era all too well: and there was, among a subset of the "fast kids" in junior and senior high, a fascination with various aspects of dark, Satanist leanings. It was the period when Heavy Metal bands dabbled in Satanic visual and lyrical images, and a slew of books capitalized on salacious details of blood rituals and Satanic rites. Knowing about it was hard to avoid... but actually getting out there and joining in was not, really, just some foray into youthful hijinks. Indeed, the whole episode of O'Donnell's foray into "witchcraft" probably explains the extreme swing she's taken to fervent religiosity and moralism. It's the zeal of the convert, the desperation of a sinner made good.

Most voters, really, won't be using "witchcraft" as their deciding factor in the Delaware election, or most anywhere else. O'Donell's failures as a candidate don't begin or end with the witch story, but the story does encapsulate her problems and those of the Tea Party right more generally: the "loose cannon" comments and the out of the mainstream actions and views that make them less than successful i appealing to wide swaths of the public. Wicked witchcraft, it seems, turns out to be the bridge too far. But those outer limits were reached months ago. And from here, I tend to doubt that Republicans can find their way back to turning this "angry election" into the blanket rejection of the left they craved. Of course, there might be a spell for that, too.

It's Not A Woman Problem... It's A Funny Problem

The thing about the "there aren't enough women on camera or writing The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" brouhaha that developed this week is that it's really kind of beside the point. Anyone with a passing interest in feminist issues and TV comedy could give you 25 years of the exact same argument in relation to Saturday Night Live, David Letterman's work in late night across his whole career, or any number of others. This whole "Dudes Are The Ones Controlling Sketch Comedy" line is utterly true, utterly depressing, and the exceptions tend to prove the rule.

So why is Jon Stewart suddenly such a bellweather of sexist intolerance?

Apparently - to read the Jezebel piece which provoked much of the drama - the argument is that Stewart, somehow, represents some sort of liberal, progressive ideal on TV; that since The Daily Show (so I've heard) is popular with lefty leaning progressive types (who, we now discover, are mostly dudes) we should expect some sort of "higher standard.

And also, apparently, they hired some very attractive woman who's been doing these sort of odd sexually humiliating bits on other shows and on the web. I'm soryy... I just don't really keep up with the kind of stuff that makes it into Maxim or onto Spike TV or is really popular with straight teen bvoys who really like video gaming.

(I have this fear that these will be my nephews in  few years. Oh God, the fear and shame.)

In any case, I'd let this one pass, but I do think the problem - the point everyone is getting beside - is in the premise: this notion that Jon Stewart, or The Daily Show represent something wonderful for lefty politics and thus should be held to some sort of standard of expectation. In truth, and I said this back in 2008, I think The Daily Show has struggled since Barack Obama's election to figure out how a show written for sarcastic liberals can find a way to be both thrilled and critical of a Democratic Presidency... much the way Bill Maher's Politically Incorrect was brilliant satire... until just after 9/11.

I know lots of bloggers (Talking Points Memo is especially guilty of this) who let Daily Show pieces stand in for actual commentary on this or that issue of the day, and I generally think it's lazy and kind of weak to lean so heavily on the writing of someone else's professional staff; but I'm struck, very often, by the way that much of what Stewart's been doing lately is... not very funny. And also, more sadly, not necessarily all that insightful or deep on the politics we're living through, these days.

It may seem churlish and old fashioned to point out that what the Dauily Show does is not news, but I think that reminder is often necessary and not laid out frankly and clearly enough. Jon Stewart isn't journalist and what happens on TDS is not news and informational program - even if, which I also tend to look askance at, the claims that many people go to him first for information is true (at this late date, I think not).

Indeed, Stewart is no more news, and not all that different from, what passes for "prime time news and opinion" on MSNBC, meaning both Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. All three have perfected (*along with, arguably, Ed Schultz of the earlier "Ed Show" as well) some sort of bizarre antidote to the rise of deeply cynical, sarcastic commentary that started in earnest from the right under Bill Clinton - Stewart et al now offer a similar, snark-filled, but somehow "factual" reading of the day's events meant to make conservatives look foolish and lefty opinions look brilliant. And as lefties do, they've struggled to figure out how to be both thrilled and unhappy with Democrats who don't quite live up to every (unrealistic) expectation. Which, as Obama's increasingly muddled Presidency wears on, is getting more and more challenging.

What we need, really, is more news, and better news content, done by reporters who will follow stories where they lead, not trying to protect one side or another or preserve a simplistic left/right view. We need less snark, less sarcasm, and less "why be so serious." We could use serious. And maybe it's unsexy and maybe it isn't funny and maybe it doesn't sell; I remain convinced that done right, serious can be interesting, even sexy, and still manage to inform.

I've never particularly seen the need, or the popularity, for the Daily Show. Stewart is, clearly, a charmer of a host, as cool and with it as Johnny Carson at times, or more likely, Jack Paar. But the show itself is little more than an extension of the news segment bit of SNL which itself is little more than the topical bits scooped up out of Laugh In. I'm more impressed, still, by the kind of smug seriousness in the satire of Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report which really climbs under the puffery of Bill O'Reilly types and finds the joke without dropping the facade. Stewart, really, has never managed to satirize the kind of puffed up solo anchor at a news desk seriousness he trades on to give himself authority, not enough to undermine it.

Given its progenitors, I don't then find it surprising that The Daily Show is like them: traditional joke writing done, as these things mostly are, by a bunch of guys - and pretty much only guys - mining familiar topics and setting up similar punchlines. Some of it is funny, always has been, always will be; and a lot of it, over time, is getting less funny, as fat jokes and fag jokes and much of what involves smugly feeling superior over an inferior other becomes mostly insulting and demeaning to someone. There are other ways to be funny. We could use more creativity in seeking that out.

But still. If I have a problem with The Daily Show - and I do - "you don't have enough women on staff" is really the least of it; not because the inherent sexism isn't so obviously a problem, but because the problem with The Daily Show goes really to the heart of what's been making it so popular, the snarky, sarcastic dismissal of so much of what we're dealing with in government and politics. Or maybe it's just that we're seeing the limits of topical political sketch comedy... or maybe, as with other shows, it's just the Daily Show moment has passed. I'm not sure we need to figure out which of these truest to know it's time to move on to something else. And maybe the solution is not a Daily Show with more women, but actually developing that new show whewre funny women rule. I know I'd love to watch that one.

Paint It, Black

There are reasons I tend not to go into New Jersey, mostly to do with driving. Nowhere - not even California, now that I've experienced it, is a place so pointlessly paved over as northeastern and north central NJ, and getting around is almost never a simple prospect.

Still, off I go, at least once a month or so, convinced this time that it will not defeat me, that I will find my way, that maps don't lie, that daylight will make the difference. It doesn't. Nothing does. I still get lost. I still wind up the wrong way on a road where no turns can be made, and going back is worse than going forward... if anything is moving at all.

All of this went through my mind - again, stuck on the Pulaski Skyway (that's Route 1 to the rest of us), heading toward the Holland Tunnel when I wanted to go north. The overpass and railings of the Skyway are painted black - I think it's easier to ignore the soot that way - and it's a look that isn't doing the road any favors...but it is striking to see it, looming above, as you race up or down the New Jersey Turnpike, itself not much to look at or contemplate, except, I think, to marvel at just how much road, and how many lanes, can still be overused.

I've been in a down mood the past few days; not depressed, or miserable... just down and a little lonely. Driving to NJ - I know, but bear with me - was meant to help, and the trip, once complete, actually did. Even the driving home part, thrown way off course, crossing the Skyway, looking up at the black girders, thinking... "well, I'm not that depressed." Whatever that means.

I'm a different person than I was when I started this blog - a different writer, thinking differently, and, in many ways, more at peace. That's certainly the case the past few days, where a sad turn of events, though unfortunate, does make me remember to be grateful, more, for the good things. I didn't expect to be living back at home, on starving artist's wages when I quit my job and started this blog... go figure. But more than that, I never expected to say, seriously, this is what I'm doing, and I love it, and I am, seriously, happy doing it. Happy enough that losing a friend is not the end of the world. And happy enough to drive around, lost and exploratory, on the maze-like roads of New Jersey...get home in one piece, and say... you know, as difficult as it is... I was pretty much having a ball doing it... black bridge and all.

There Are No Words

There are errands into the maze of the Intertoobz that I don't usually do - I'm not on Facebook (I know, I know), I don't visit the fanblogs of TV shows I'm obsessive about or fansites of hott movie stars... and I don't usually visit the bizarre parallel universe of "celebrity" gossip blogs. Sure I know about Perez Hilton and the rest, and I still read Page Six in The Post as any good New Yorker should. But going further requires a level of commitment I just can't make, a commitment of time and energy and actually caring about this stuff that I just can't muster (despite, given my casual read of Page Six, convincing my Mom that I am a shallow, celebrity obssessed simpleton).

So don't ask me why I spent a good hour and a half this morning exposing myself to the eye-scalding tidbits of uselessness of The Dirty and the D-Listed. I can't tell you what got me started (it's just embarrassing), but the net result is that I got a glimpse of an entire world I knew was out there but never really look into: the world of aging sexpots who get by on looks alone, the world of semi-celebrity social events like the Las Vegas "Pool Patrty Scene" that just mystify me with their appeal (outside of, I get it, bathing suits and booze), and following the exploits of seventh level TV performers. Oh, and a lot of stuff about Lindsay Lohan's personal problems.

In any case, after all this exploring, aside from feeling dirty and rather used, I had little to show for the looking... until I came upon the photo above, a "caption this" photo contest at D-Listed that just, almost, made the whole diversion worthwhile. One of my friends in college got a new car his senior year - a Dodge Omni, heh - and he took us on an excursion out into the farm country around school to show off his ride... where, just in passing, we caught a bull trying to mount a cow; which, like that elephant, involves the male hurling itself onto the female's back. And there the cow stood, patiently waiting for the bull to get it right.

There's a metaphor in there somewhere... but Im not looking for it. To me, caption contest or no, there just are no words - maybe it's just contemplating the size of elephants, maybe it's the smiling expression of the elephant in the back. But to me, there's a joy in this picture that you just don't find much trolling the world of online celebrity gossip, where it's more just being those people out front, doing the sad spectacle of playing voyeur. You can't help, sometimes, but to stop and stare... but I'm not sure that's reason enough to put it there. Or to stop and look.