I will keep this short

and hopefully on point.

I wonder what will be the turning point.  I wonder what it will take to bring respect and civility to our nation's broad political discussion.  I wonder because I do not think what happened in Tucson yesterday will be the turning point.  Judging from the political football that is 9/11, I am starting to take the sadder, much more cynical view that there may never be a "civil" period again in this country in my lifetime, that inflamed partisan politics will, have become the new permanent status quo.

The Sheriff will take a beating for sure.  O'Reilly will call him a pinhead, no doubt.  But I have such empathy for him.  There is nothing wrong to suggest that in Arizona, perhaps the rhetoric is pitched too high.  Ms Giffords campaign this past fall was particularly nasty and her HQ was vandalized.  And Ms Giffords, of course, appeared on Ms Palin's infamous (and repulsive) "Target (crosshairs)" list.  The Sheriff was friends with Giffords and Judge Roll.  Senator Kyl, other GOP Reps and Senators, the awful blowhards on Fox News would be wise to save their breath to cool their porridge.  


But who believes that will happen?

Saw Machete last night.

I liked it v much, indeed.  It is pulpy, trashy, purposely bad (prob should be considered camp-lite, as opposed to being truly camp) and immensely fun.

I have a couple of observations and questions.  Why did they use a double for Lindsay Lohan so much of the time? Was she not showing up? Was she loaded and coul'n't work on certain days? Was she just impossibly double booked and Rodriguez could only get her for, say, one or two days? Was she in jail? Did Rodriguez use the double on purpose to emphasize his B-movie ethos?

And, staying with Ms Lohan, considering how she is one of the most over-exposed celebrities in history, I find it just a wee bit odd that she would not do the nude scene.  Have not we already seen Ms Lohan naked, so to speak? Have not we been forced to glimpse at every inch of her very soul already? I just find it odd.  I am most certainly not pining for a peek at Ms Lohan's private parts.  She means nothing to me.  She is an afterthought.  And, honestly, in Machete, she is an afterthought, too.


Some things I especially liked in Machete:  How a couple of times after someone has been killed the v recently deceased body vanishes the next time there is a shot where a dead body should reside; the B-movie editing, particularly during action sequences; the attractive but not actress/model types who play the nurses at the Network hospital; the whole, "It is a fact," intestines set-up was hilarious; and I thought the music was brill, as well.  

Pahlmeyer Jayson bordeaux blend.

The amazing tiny tiny chicken Renee made with spaetzle and broccolini.

Renee also made a terrific boeuf bourguignon with gnocchi.

The Rodriguez who has done Planet Terror, Sin City, and Machete reminds me v much of John Carpenter.  (Both Carpenter & Rodriguez often do the music for their films, as well.)  But I prefer Rodriguez.  Rodriguez has a better "eye", his films are much funnier than Carpenter's and they are paced waay better than Carpenter's films.  Carpenter is obv an influence, though, and I suspect Rodriguez is a huge fan.

The holidays are frickin' over! I will be posting much more frequently now.  Love you all, mwah!

The Thick of It S01E06 (2 pf 2)

The Thick of It S01E06 (1 of 2)

The Thick of It S01E05 (2 of 2)

Here we go, yet another

BCS trap game for Big Game Bob & the Sooners.  The Sooners are 2 touchdown favorites today & you know the UConn kids will be pumped up to knock off a good but not great Sooner team.

The Sooners must not turn the ball over early in the game & let UConn e'en think that they are in this thing.

The Sooners end the Big XII as champions, again.

All due respect to UConn but I want a blowout today.  I want OU to pulverize UConn and see the Sooners finish in the AP top 5.

Boomer Sooner!

Mercy, MERCY, mercy

So, here is the good stuff:  We will get to the Spy magazine deliciousness when I have been able to digest it.  In the meantime, I have two films to discuss, first, The Major and the Minor.  This was Wilder's first film directing & he co-wrote it w/ Charles Brackett.  The preposterousness of the premise of the script fairly shimmers on the page (& screen), yet I do not care.  This is the most delightful, wonderful, Lubitsch-inspired jewel of a Hollywood film.  What jolts me is how Wilder's mentor, Lubitsch, remained so uncynical in his art, how Lubitsch always kept the Champagne flowing.  Let us take a brief look at Lubitsch's life:  He was a famous German jew actor and director that had to flee Germany due to Hitler's rise to power.  His wife cheated on him & his daughter nearly died on a ship right before WW2 broke out.  And he ne'er got cynical like his amazing protege did.  Amazing.  

I love the European theatre come-ons; the little sister smoking, knowing much better, Ginger Rogers' Mum playing her Mum; it is a perfect Lubitsch copy, in the sense that it is just a copy & not the real thing.  

What happened to Wilder? Where did he get so ugly & bitter? Lubitsch, ne'er in his lowest points e'er got bitter or cynical or ugly in his art.  

Winona, young & beautiful.  I was in a band bearing her name.

Then there is Fran.  Fran Lebowitz is my new favorite person.  I know I know, I guess I should have read her books.  I checked on Amazon & since there is a new movie oot aboot her all her books cost a thousand dollars each, which means: Very soon her books will be published w/ her most recent picture on the cover & a mention of the Scorsese film, Public Speaking.  In the meantime, I would just like to say:  I could listen to that woman talk forever.  No one in the media talks aboot books anymore, or authors, I mean, really.  

But, the best thing she said was aboot the AIDS endemic in the 80s.  She says, Not only did we lose thousands of amazing artists, but we also lost their (our) audience.  

She is right.  She would know, working for Warhol, in the early Interview days.  When AIDS happened, it removed a slice of critical thought & appreciation & passion that has crippled us since.  In many ways, the best of us, critically, have soldiered on, knowing deep in our hearts, that those who have passed on, knew better, know better than us.

And that is a sad thought.  

Yet, we must move on.  Demand the most from our artists, ne'er let them slide by on fame or celebrity.

I am not one who believes there is a difference between "art" & "pop".  They are all and the same.  

Happy New Year! I LOVE YOU ALL!

Review of reviewers, nothing might have made me more who I am.

ZOMG! Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year! What was on my doorstep today when I got home?

My December 1989 back issue of Spy, the New York Monthly.  What did I turn to first? What I always turned to first; back in the day, back in boo-tiful Austim, when I used to buy Spy at The Record Exchange (of all places) on "The Drag", opposite the Dobie;  the Review of Reviewers column, this time written by Henry "Dutch" Holland.  

Winona young

There will be pictures galore, plus my parents did a cuter than cute video which I must share, & Fran Lebowitz & the Major and the Minor, & & & &, etc, ... 


More later, much more later.


Everyone have a v safe, wonderful New Year.






















Go Sooners!

The Thick of It S01E05 (1 of 2)

The Thick of It S01E04 (2 of 2)

The Pretenders - "Message Of Love" (Fridays 2 of 3)

Oh, my frickin' goodness,

I have so much to write aboot & once agin, so little time.  I have seen slightly more than a few movies recently that I would like to discuss.  And if I were any kind of real writer I would link the "reviews", if you will, Pauline Kael-New Yorker stylee.

I will try my bestest.

First, I have another correction for my blog:  Benedict Cumberbatch & Olivia Poulet are not  married.  They are long-time partners according to commenter Anonymous.  And if any fucking person is taking the time to make a comment on my sorry-ass blog, I am taking their correction as gospel.  So there.  


I fucking nearly cried (has got to be the worst paragraph link in history) when I watched Soderburgh's Spalding Gray "doc" OnDemand (for the second time) last night.  Soderburgh nailed it.  No voice-over, no "history" whathaveyou, just Spalding Gray telling his life story through his monologues & interviews.  Some would say (on Fox News), "What about his suicide?" Well, Soderburgh was smart enough, and disciplined enough, to proclaim through his film, 'That if Spuddy di'n't tell that story or appear in that interview then it does not make my film.'


(SPOILER ALERT! STOP NOW IF YOU ARE UNFAMILIAR W/ GRAY'S ANATOMY!) Of course, Soderburgh makes us cry at the end, w/ the howling dogs and the home movies. But the other, more crucial thing aboot this excellent film, basically aboot death and suicide, is how alive it makes me feel.  


Say what you will aboot Gray's neuroses & hypochondria & desperate pleas for attention & fame, yet Gray told a kind of straight white-man truth that so many of us can identify with.  & do identify with.  & he did it through near the most esoteric, pretentious sort of way; monologues, performed on-stage, part of the off-Broadway, avant-garde (&, gawd, does not this country hate the avant-garde [especially if it originates from New York, like his performances did.])    


I worked w/ a woman who knew Gray.  She proclaimed to me aboot numerous late-night phone calls, what a nuisance he was.  I di'n't believe her then & I do not believe her now.  


Gray was an incredible talent who did something I honestly believe I could do, as well.  He was so fortunate to be in Manhattan, w/ the Wooster Group, just when he discovered what his talent was.  He was a fragile fragile soul; exposed, seduced, and intoxicated with, yet terrified of fame.  


It was my buddy, Chris (I had made him watch Swimming to Cambodia & Monster in a Box) who told me that Gray was missing.  Everyone knew.  I knew.  Even then.  Everyone knew he had taken his own life.  


But Soderburgh shows all the wisdom, hilarity, depth, & heart that made Gray such a great (albeit troubled) soul.  


Gray, from Rhode Island, was really a New Yorker, a Manhattan-ite, living there, working there for a great period of his fame & livelihood.  Well, if the Gray's Manhattan art scene is something to be admired, reached for, the Manhattan art scene of the film, Tiny Furniture, is something I would like to avoid like the plague.  


Do not get me wrong, I liked the film.  But it is so New York, so, "My Dad writes for TV," if you know what I mean.  Some of the pop culture references fall completely flat, they are utilized way way too soon to resound w/ any kind of serious mainstream audience.  (Let us face it, if you are showing your fucking film in Fresno or, say, Tulsa, where this film will play, then it had better play, no matter whatever your college-kid intentions were.)  


I am flipping back & forth.  I loved the Charlotte character.  I loved the party scene where our protagonist is exposed as an attention whore.  I loved how we are expected to love this contemptible, self-hating woman.  I loved the film's depiction of the New York art scene as empty & blind to the new wave of media.  


But, I cannot get over the fact that she cast herself in the starring role, of a film she directed, w/ her real-life Mom and real-life sister playing those roles.  Even Plath's satiric, The Bell Jar, does not make me cringe like this film does.  


The sex scene in the tube? Is it a reference to Fast Times? & why am I not believing it anyway? 


Honestly, this director could grow & become a Todd Solondz-like master, or could fade away in to avant garde video theater & be never heard from again (except for cultish chick-y, gay types in the Village.)

Spalding Gray, made me change my mind what theater was.

OKAY, Fran Lebowitz, the Major & the Minor tomorrow.  

The Thick of It S01E04 (1 of 2)

The Thick of It S01E03 (2 of 2)

The Thick of It S01E03 (1 of 2)

The Austin Lounge Lizards...Brain Damage

You know, I ne'er thought aboot

Superstar! (written by Okie Leon Russell, who just got inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.)

It as a child actor.  But my parents, bloody sick of hearing me sing, Sing a Song (that awful, so boring song made famous by the Carpenters [do not get me wrong, I like the Carpenters]), trained me to sing This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie for auditions in Baptist Dallas, TX for jobs that were mostly religious programs, films, cartoons, whathaveyou, ... 


That is right.  Lil' Michael Tankersley (that was my name at the time) was rolling in to Baptist Dallas auditions in the late 70s singing songs by that dirty Okie, commie pinko Woody Guthrie.  


Now that is subversion!


Here is Sing a Song, yuk!  If you were a child actor back in the day you had to know this awful song backwards & forwards.  Of course, now, I see why.  It is v simple but is a good measure for dynamics, projection, & vocal scales.  In fact, now, it almost seems as if that crappy song was written just for children's auditions!


Sorry I have not posted much lately.  Watch the The Thick of It videos, really.  They are not available in the US yet and the show is so terribly brill.  


We invent rock and roll.  The English make it better.  We invent TV.  The English, ... you get where I am going w/ this.

Merry Xmas, all!

(& some of you have kissed Tiny Tim!) 

Woody Guthrie-This Land Is Your Land