http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005-2007 by the authors Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:44:09 EST http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/ Phillip WinnSunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding. Administration0@blogcritics.org Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/01/11/164409.php Jennie RoseIf tsunami had snatched the Cowell Theater off the San Francisco Marina Monday night, we would have lost some of the country's greatest optimists. Leaders in the global civil society movement-- David Korten, Randall Hayes, Jerry Mander, Fritjof Capra, Bill Twist, to name a few--convened at the theater for the release party of Alternatives to Economic Globalization,a second and beefier edition published in October 2004. 160 pages of new material have been added to this version--a blueprint for sustainability that lays out principles of economic practice for a day beyond globalization. Decades from now, historians will say the book foreshadows the end of the global corporation, and the rise of the civil society movement. This movement dug in roots at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio, and brought the WTO to its knees at the 1999 Battle in Seattle. It's no Fulbright scholar who sees that a global economy based on long distance trade is having seriously deleterious effects. Environmental catastrophe is inherent to the economic framework of globalization. The desperate hunt to find infinitely expanding resources has destroyed landscapes with developments in the Amazon Basin. Lands occupied by ancient societies have been decimated. The tremendous increase in long distance transport has led to climate change. In view of this dismal panaroma, the President of the International Forum on Globalization, Jerry Mander (also the author of In the Absence of the Sacred and Four Arguments in Favor of the Elimination of Television), launched the discussion on a surprisingly high note, calling this "the perfect political moment to be putting forth new and tangible ideas to move them into concrete expression." "Believe it or not, I believe these are very optimistic times," said Mander from the podium. "We think of this as a turning point. We are no longer willing to measure our success by how many people we can lay out in front of the WTO. The movement is more proactive and visionary. We can already see this in the turn of events, such as the World's Social Forum which will take place in a few weeks." One could say Mander is fiddling as Rome burns. The globalization model that looks so overpowering only a decade ago is falling apart. It's not only failing to live up to its advertisting, but it's becoming clear that it was doomed to fail. "If current trends are allowed to continue, they will bring a catastophic die back in the human population," cautions David Korten, a Stanford economist, and founder of the People-Centered Development Forum.While it's a fact that the system is crumbling, this is both the good news and the bad news. In the United States, we cling to our sinking ship, and to the hope that we will come out ahead on the globalization deal. But while we debate our fate, we're falling behind. Much of the world seems to have already caught on that compliance with global trade agreements is fruitless.It doesn't take a winter vacation in Paris to notice that our dollar doesn't mean very much internationally. In this country we are living so high on foreign borrowing to pay for our excess of imports, that our foreign debt is skyrockting. A fundamental tenet of trade theory is that trade amongst nations should be balanced evenly between imports and exports. We are flouting this law of basic economics, waving our 620 billion dollars of foreign debt like so much dirty laundry. Millions of people in dozens of governments have already given up the ghost on the flawed trade model pushed by the WTO. For intance, a coalition of 21 led by Brazil, India, China Argentina, Egpyt and South Africa refused to comply at the 2002 Cancun WTO meeting. Representing more than 60% of the world population, this coalition's refusal to cooperate blew the World Bank formula of compliance out of the water. Harking back to Seattle the WTO meeting at Cancun was shut down. Meanwhile, in other news, Uruguay's elected president Tabare Vazquez recently became the first in the world to officially outlaw the privatization of fresh water. It's not all bad news for us, though. A subtle economic shift is also underway in this country. For instance, San Francisco's Social Ventures Network recently gave birth to the Business Alliance for Local Economies, an association of companies and individuals organized regionally around the country to develop local, environmentally sustainable and socially responsible business practices. Alternatives... outlines principles to reign in those very bad "rogue" corporations (read: Enron and Exxon) when they run amok. Answer? 1. Strip them of personhood. 2. Give preference in laws for local enterprises to create local living economies. 3. Eliminate coroporate welfare.The book addresses different practices, and looks at questions such as how to change manufacture transport energy into agriculture so businesses can operate with a more sustainable orientation; How to get rid of the WTO and diminish global bureacracy? How to diminish the power of corporations? This second edition also gives examples of farm communities, forest workers, fisher people, and indigenous people who have siezed the moment to convert a piece of the system into direct local economic expression. With Battle of Seattle's fifth annivesary just past last November, and one week shy of Martin Luther King's birthday, it's more than cold comfort to hear, in the words of Dr. King, that "the moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice. " It's a crying shame that Dr. King couldn't be here to see the era of compliance come to an end. But stick around. Things are about to get really interesting. Books24134@blogcritics.org Tue, 11 Jan 2005 16:44:09 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/03/30/184905.php Jennie RoseMia Zapata was the neo punk diva of her time. Her band The Gits shared the bill with Ween, 7 Year Bitch, Poison Idea, Tad, and Nirvana. The band was in its prime with Zapata as their lead singer. A tragically small number of people ever heard her sing because she died in the chrysalis of her life; raped and killed by a stranger at 27. "If you can imagine running your finger around the rim of the most beautiful set of crystal glasses with sandpaper, that was Mia's voice," said Tim Sommers, an A&R guy for Atlantic said in 1995. "I have little doubt that she was the woman vocalist of the 1990s." Through the lens of the songs she wrote, ou have to wonder how many gouls Zapata had already faced down before she died. Given how frequently women are raped, maybe it's not so shocking a thought. Still Mia's work had an overlay of premonition-a sense of knowing her own fate-a sense she shares with contemporaries like Jeff Buckley and Elliot Smith. While violence against women was a subject punk bands like Fugazi tackled in songs like "Suggestion," Mia Zapata chased rapists down and pummeled them with her firehose of vocal power. Mia howls out "I'm full of rage" in "Spear And The Magic Helmet," a song about her friend's rape, and it's even spookier since her demise.Mia Zapata was raped and strangled near the Comet Tavern in Seattle in 1993. Last week the small music community learned that the man who robbed them of Mia, faces 22-30 years in prison for the guilty verdict he received on Friday 3.25.04, eleven years after her death. Jesus Mezquia was found guilty of murdering Mia Zapata after DNA linked him to the death. The case remained unsolved until a year and a half ago when DNA taken from bite wounds on Zapata's body, and preserved were submitted to the state crime lab and matched to Mezquia. The break in the case -- one of the area's most notorious unsolved homicides - came after Seattle police decided to again run DNA evidence from the scene through a national databank of convicted criminals' genetic profiles, and came up with Mezquia.Seattle-based organization Home Alive was established in the wake of Zapata's death. Co-founded by Zapata's friend Maria Mabra and 7 Year Bitch drummer Valerie Agnew, Home Alive provides women with affordable self-defense training and raises awareness about violence against women. Mia Zapata is buried at Cave Hill cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the places where she grew up. She welcomes visitors. Music14229@blogcritics.org Tue, 30 Mar 2004 18:49:05 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/12/15/003832.php Jennie Rose'My life had stood - a Loaded Gun- in corners - til a day/The Owner passed identified-And carried Me away/Though I than He - may longer live/He longer must-than I- For I have but the power to kill/Without-the power to die-' My Life had stood--a Loaded Gun by Emily DickinsonWhen he took both the power to kill and to die by stabbing himself in the heart on October 21 2003, I began to think almost daily about Elliot Smith. Around the same time, I watched the documentary "Loaded Gun: Life, Death and Dickinson" and began imagining Elliot Smith in love with Emily Dickinson. I see him leaving flowers at her headstone (died: 1886). I glimpse him studying this fierce scribe in Amherst's gloomy caverns-- the Massachusetts town where locals referred to resident Miss Dickinson as "the shadow," because she was such a total recluse. Coincidentally, Hampshire College in Amherst is where Elliot Smith's began his education in Philosophy, and where I'm certain, he read all the poems by his lyrical soul mate."Defiantly unknowable;" "a killer poet;" "Private person;" scholars say this of the life and works of Emily Dickinson. The same words could apply as easily to Elliot Smith. I interviewed Ellliot Smith in the spring of 1997, the day before the album Either/Or was finished, and we talked about books. Elliot said his reading list was not out of the 19th century yet. He added, "I'm usually reading something that someone's giving me shit for because it's not Gen-X." I believe now that Elliot Smith professed his love for Emily Dickinson's 19th century poems, and I wish I had picked up the cue. So, I've turned something Elliot Smith said more than five years ago into a wing-nut theory. It's the revisionism typical of the bereft. It's typical of the living to piece together scraps left by the dead; a refusal to let the unanswered questions go to the grave. I believe Dickinson's poems are as parchment paper over some of Elliot Smith's lyrics. The song "A Question Mark" on XO speaks to Dickinson's potent inscription to God or the great unknown: /Giving back a little hatred now to the world/Cuz it treated you bad/You couldn't keep the great unknown/From making you mad. There's a grudging and irritable agnosticism in many of Dickinson's poems. Take 'Poem 1552': Those--dying then/Knew where they went/They went to God's Right Hand/That Hand is amputated now/And God cannot be found/The abdication of Belief /Makes the Behavior small/Better an ignis fatuus/Than no illume at all-- .While Dickinson personified death (Though I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me), she also wrote about hope. ("Hope" is the thing with feathers-- That perches in the soul-- And sings the tune without the words-- And never stops--at all--). I thought he just seemed more reserved and droll than most, but Elliot Smith may have been sadder even than Emily Dickinson.There's little of the chirping bird of hope in Elliot Smith's lyrics, who used to say he felt more like himself when he was depressed than when he was not. Unlike Dickinson, Elliot Smith's songs were largely about relationships: Got a broken heart/and your name on my calf/ ("No Name No. 5"); I'll be forever/with my poison arms/around you ("Angeles"). Maybe those relationships were his undoing. Dickinson spared herself the heartache, for the most part, by remaining a spinster and a recluse. Perhaps that's why she lived 56 years to Elliot's 34. Elliott Smith lost all hope, and told us in a gesture so tragic, it should be unreal. I still wonder why so few can survive the depressing medication of drink and drugs he was taking. I also wonder how many times the Belle of Amherst's poems had already saved him in the years before. Sunday, December 14th at the Curb Cafe in Nashville, The Elliot Smith Memorial Fund Tribute Show featured residents covering their favorite and most valued Elliott Smith songs. See the Elliot Smith web site http://www.sweetadeline.net/ for more information on his sixth full-length release, which at the time of his death, was tentatively titled From a Basement on the Hill. The Emily Dickinson documentary LOADED GUN airs nationally on December 16, 2003 at 10:30 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). Music10971@blogcritics.org Mon, 15 Dec 2003 00:38:32 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/09/16/125951.php Jennie RoseMau Mau Sex Sex, a full-length feature documentary is a classic case of "It's not how it looks." At first pass, it appears to be a expose on the sexploitation industry. Nuff said. It turns out, however, that Mau Mau Sex Sex is a pleasantly disarming character study of two old men, Dave Friedman and Dan Sonney, who also happened to be purveyors of porn back in the day of the "nudie cutie" flicks."I was cloaking a profile of two old men with some sex and comedy. If I had not put those exploitation movies in it, do you think anybody would have watched this one?" Mau Mau Sex Sex, a full-length feature documentary is a classic case of "It's not how it looks." At first pass, it appears to be a expose on the sexploitation industry. "Nuff said. It turns out, however, that Mau Mau Sex Sex is a pleasantly disarming character study of two old men, Dave Friedman and Dan Sonney, who also happened to be purveyors of porn back in the day of the "nudie cutie" flicks. As producer/director Ted Bonnitt says, "I was cloaking a profile of two old men with some sex and comedy. If I had not put those exploitation movies in it, do you think anybody would have watched this one?"You could say the Mau Mau Sex Sex story begins in a San Francisco dumpster where co-producer/writer Eddie Muller found a vast collection from the 'grindhouse' era; that is, posters and lobby cards advertising "Adults Only" movies of the 1930s. That discovery led to his first published book "Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of Adult-Only Cinema," and next to a film collaboration with Bonnitt. Muller, a writer and Film Noir czar, says "It's so perfect when you think about it that the genesis of all of this was pulling stuff out of a dumpster, and finding this hidden subculture." Eddie Muller does the lineup for the Castro and American Cinematheque Annual Noir Fests, and recently helped the Oakland Parkway Theater's Noir Festival with its line-up. Muller's latest book is called "The Art of Noir: Posters and Graphics from the Classic Film Noir Era." JR: Did you and Dave Friedman know each other from before Mau Mau Sex Sex (MMSS)? Eddie Muller: Dave was a huge resource for "Grindhouse." I read his book "Youth in Babylon" as part of my research and I interviewed Dave several times during the course of writing that book. JR: Mau Mau Sex Sex is not meant to be a comprehensive look at the exploitation business, correct?EM: It was Ted's stroke of genius to tighten the focus and have it be about the relationship of these two guys. We made a good team because Ted kept that as his guiding principle. And because I had written "Grindhouse," and was versed in the background, I was able to help weave all the historical stuff in and out and give it structure and context.JR: When did meet you Ted Bonnit? EM: Ted was interested in a book I had worked on about the Kennedy assassination and conspiracy theories. We had talked in general about the whole phenomena of conspiracy theories and how it applied to many things.JR: Are conspiracies still a pet hobby of yours? EM: I hate to tell you, but I think reality has outpaced the conspiracy theorists. We're living in one giant conspiracy. There's no way out. Nobody bats an eye anymore. This is really off the track, but when you stop and just think about what has transpired in the last five years or so, it's mind-boggling. It turns normal people with normal questions into lunatic freaks when you say something like "that guy in the White House stole the election," people might call you a crank. It is a conspiracy. JR: We do have to live with stunning contradictions. How about Dan and Dave? It seems, on a more personal level, that they lived with a few glaring contradictions.EM: Yes, Dan being a devout Catholic with all girls in his family, yet here he is in a business where everything in their life is paid for by the exploitation of women. We're not there to excoriate. We want people to question it in themselves. We don't want to point fingers. I'll be quite honest with you. I don't really know how I feel about it. I met Margaret, Dan's wife, and I do not know if she was fully aware of what Dan did for a living. It's a different generation. In some respects, it's a portrait of men and women of that generation. If she said "Well I don't know how I feel about that," then Dan's answer would be "Well how do you feel about the food on the table?" That would be the end of the conversation. Dan was a bear in his younger days. He could just steamroll people. We're making a movie about a guy like that who has mellowed out. The thing about Dave that made him so fascinating was his relationship with Carole. That was a successful marriage. The other thing that was fascinating is that Carole and Dave were very different. Politically, they were 180 degrees opposed. Carole was a liberal, thinking woman. Dave is a real conservative republican. Carole was the nicest, most articulate, intelligent woman married to a sleaze-meister. Dave is a bright articulate guy, but Dave just knows what he likes. He likes being a bad boy. He knows what he can get away with, and he'll do it. Dave might be offended that I'm saying this, but the dynamics of exploitation are really interesting to me. It's a fine line. Let's say you're a young woman and you want to be in the movie business and you meet a guy like Dave Friedman and he says "Honey I'll put you in the movies." And then, you start shooting a movie and he says "OK take your top off." They go through all that, and the woman might start thinking, "OK. Did that. It wasn't horrible, the money's good. People pay attention to me. Not a bad way to make a buck." Now, the dynamic is virtually the same if you're talking about a guy pulling a woman into prostitution. It's the same, yet it's totally different. Dave just operates on this whole other level where there's a camera involved, as opposed to the direct exploitation as "OK, you go with him. I take the money."Then, he's just pimping, but with a camera, it's different. It leaves you scratching your head. JR: What if I approached him and said that I wanted to be in the movies, but instead of in front of the camera I wanted to work behind it?EM: He'd say, "Can you tell one end of the camera from another and how much do you cost?" He wouldn't have a problem with that at all. JR: So you couldn't say Dave was sexist, and more an opportunist. His opinion of women, on a personal level, must have been different because as we see in the film, his wife Carole is competent and intelligent.EM: Carole could think circles around most people As it turned out, she was reaching the end of her life, and she did have some minor concerns about Dave's place in the social/cultural history of the U.S. She would hate to think that he contributed to some of the moral decay that she saw afflicting our fine nation. JR: Dave's work seems very benign compared to many things these days. EM: I always say that nothing you've seen in my book or MMSS remotely approaches the decadence and miserable quality of anything you'd see on MTV. I watched the MTV awards the other night and thought, "It's over. This is like the dance of death on the grave of culture." It's fascinating the way the media plays into that. I'll steer you toward Morris Berman's book "The Twilight of American Culture." It's invigorating because he's saying This culture is done." He says there's a role to play in being part of the underground, so that when everything falls, you can be sure the stuff worth keeping isn't lost and buried.JR: Would you put MMSS in the category of preserving culture in the "twilight of American culture"?EM: (Laughs) If it has any subversive quality to it at all, it's combating ageism in this society. I find older people infinitely more interesting than young people. On a viewer's level, I find it interesting to see all this flesh contrasted with these two old guys struggling with the trials of the flesh themselves. I find it pretty poignant. You see the home movies of the guys in their prime. The message of the movie is very subtle. We didn't want to bring in a sledgehammer. The point is to have 80 fun minutes. The thought- provoking part - well I'm not going to say it's secondary, but clearly this is not a work of academia.My way of thinking is I like to leave a little bit of something in people's heads. You can't really ask for a whole lot more than that. Generally, you accomplish that by being accessible, intelligent, and funny. It may not set their brains on fire, but it will stick with them. My credo that I work by is "Barroom not classroom." People will listen if they feel that you're telling a story in a barroom. The minute your story starts to sound like something in a classroom, they shut down. They really don't want to hear it. My entire approach to everything is "We're hanging out in a bar and I'm telling you story. Listen to this, I'm going to entertain you." I believe they will remember that story where they will forget the one they heard in the classroom. --------------END OF EDDIE INTERVIEW-----------------------------------------------JR: Saying "I like elders," as you have, is almost a culturally subversive thing to say. Ted Bonnitt: Well in a culture that worships youth like ours, it is a little unusual. But most cultures do at least honor the elderly. One of Dan's great gifts is he had this great life and got to a point where he could look back on it. The charm of this was it was two old guys recalling their careers and we could illustrate it with footage to back it up. One of the reasons this country is as twisted as it is right now, is that it's upside down. it's letting inexperienced children rule the media. Where's the balance and grounding right now? JR: According to "The New York Times," Dave Friedman said, with a "hint of disappointment," that the film is more of a character study and less about the business. What do you think of Friedman being disappointed that it was a character study? Ted Bonnitt: These guys aren't terribly comfortable being examined. Dave is a showman. He likes to examine people. He doesn't like to be examined. Through the process of making the movie, they never understood what the hell we were doing. When I was shooting footage of Dan around the house, he kept saying, "What the hell are you doing this for? Who the hell wants to see a goddamn old man?" I'd say "Dan, it's the ultimate home movie. Don't worry about it." The reason we did that footage of him doing the laundry and the dishes was to show how one guy was the ultimate family man, and the other guy was the ultimate dog. JR: What would you have done if Dan and Dave hadn't been likeable characters? TB: I would have moved on to another project. I met those guys before I saw any of their films. They did a tribute down at the New Art Theater here in LA for Dave in honor of Eddie's book "Grindhouse." And they screened She Freak. Like most of the movies, it was really a chore to get through. I like elders and Dave was very amusing. Then I read his book "A Youth in Babylon," and it was hilarious. I come from a radio background. I've been doing producing, and hosting a comedy show in NY for 10 years The comedy show I did in New York was on a Pacifica station. It was a character improv show and I was the host, and played an unscrupulous talent agent "Bernie Fleshkin, agent to the stars." It was sort of a situational, surrealist, political comedy show. Bernie basically handled anybody whose phone number he could get a hold of. I did the character for about 15 years, and he was a scam artist. I put Bernie behind me when I moved to LA. I'd been out here a few months, when I met Dave, read his book, and I realized Dave's book was written by Bernie. Not only did Bernie exist in reality, but he was far more funny and more imaginative than anything I could have thought of. Because I did Bernie for something like 500 shows, I knew Dave's beats. I went down to Alabama where Dave lived, met his wife, to you know, present myself. Dave liked my journalism credentials and we got along, so he agreed to do the movie, even though they'd done a million of them, but he was into it. I knew I had to meet Dan, but from Dave's book, his business partner Dan seemed like a really nasty son of a bitch. I was really scared to meet him. I knew he was in LA somewhere, I just didn't know where. A few months after I went to Alabama, a very dear friend of mine from radio back east had moved out west and lived 3 blocks down from me called me up and said "Hey you know that guy you went to meet in Alabama, in the exploitation business? Well, my landlord was in that business. His name's Dan Sonney." I said, "Dan Sonney's your landlord?" She said "Yes, and I told him about you, he lives down the street and he wants to meet you." He found me. I walked down my street, knocked on the door, and Dan was waiting for me. I immediately fell in love with him. He was just like the grandfather I don't have anymore. He was so cool. Where you going to meet an 86 year old guy who's funny and cool? And he was a rascal. I just loved him. We became very dear friends in the last couple of years. We played cards every week. He went out owing me about $25. About two weeks before he died, I said "Well, damn what if I get ahead here?" He said, "give it to my wife." He was the luckiest guy. He always got what he wanted. Once I had the two guys, it was like "oh man I gotta do this." They were quintessentially the odd couple. Then I was really on the spot. I had it, and then I had to figure out how to shoot it. It was another year before I figured out how to shoot it with DV cams finally emerging and taking a chance against everybody's advice, to shoot with it. Nobody was doing it yet. And that's how I did it in 1998. I went ahead and took a shot, and did it before I negotiated the rights to the films. I thought if I got held up on the movies, I could get them on camera, and become friends with them, and then say "look guys, I need a deal. There's no money in this business. I'm not NBC." It was all serendipity. It was all "Just believe, just go for it, give it a shot," and it all worked out.JR: It's good to be the first, isn't it? TB: If we look at ourselves like, I wouldn't say as Lewis and Clark, but like pioneers in the covered wagon stage, there's still no IHOPS out there. So when you get there, it's cold lonely and you're hungry and you have to start everything on your own. That worked against us in many respects, but at the same time we benefited. There's always perks associated with being first. On balance, I'm very happy with how things are going. The Greencine VOD is another example of trying something new. Part of the idea of this project was it's a first movie. We're not doing it for the money. We're not going to take on anything we can't afford to lose, and it's all about experimentation and having fun with it. And we're not getting uptight over money. That design has held up well, and it's still a pleasure. JR: But what if Dave Freidman and Dan Sonny had, in fact wanted to be taken seriously as filmmakers? TB: I did the movie because they were funny. They were refreshingly unpretentious filmmakers. Since my forte is comedy and I did a documentary because of the limited technology and funding I had, I thought the early DV technology was much better suited for nonfiction programming, still do. But I really wanted to make a comedy, so what the piece is really is a radio piece, an audio piece. It's really tightly edited to their comedy. Because I now that character from Bernie. I knew how to cut to time their beats. Instead of having a voice over or a serious UCLA professor telling us what we should know, the approach was to use music to drive it without a narrator, and then have Frank Henenlotter (director of cult classics Basket Case and Frankenhooker.) who knows more about these movies than anyone else, but still keeps it safe for the audience, and has fun with them, was perfect. The guys aren't going to talk about their movies. That's the whole point. They're not going to reflect on disappointment, or reflect on their movies either. They're not going to go there. Dave talked a little bit about it, he said 'I'm not ashamed of anything I did. I wouldn't apologize to anybody.' That was defensive. He was talking about the totality of his career. He was the one who called me on the phone about "The Pickup." He said 'get a copy. I'm in it, and he's getting a blow job in this movie, and I was thinking 'wow. I guess it's OK to use this.' As he says, he was one of the founding fathers of the sexual revolution. He likes to brag that he used to call Hefner at Esquire when Hefner worked as a writer over there. JR: There is historical significance here with the Legion of Decency, for instance. TB: There is a serious side to some of their repercussions of what they did. They pushed the First Amendment, and laid the groundwork for mass media like no one else. The studios those days kowtowed to the Hayes Code. And the day the Hayes Code was enacted was the day exploitation was born, and these guys blazed the trail. So they fought the good fight, in their minds. With every publicity kit and release, they had lawyers prepare packages to send to theaters to prepare for any legal intervention, like police busts. They don't talk about that stuff, and we could have gone there, but it's not funny. And this was never intended to be a comprehensive look at the exploitation genre. I was cloaking a profile of two old men with some sex and comedy. If I had not put those movies in it, do you think anybody would have watched this one? JR: What are the signifiers of the exploitation genre? TB: These guys broke the nudity barrier with the nudist camp films also called 'volleyball epics,' for obvious reasons. When they got tired they went to more exposition in the "nudie cuties. These were basically adult pictures for children: "I'll turn into a frog so I can see the girl undress." Then they shifted really weirdly from nudie cuties to the roughish. Then things went explicit and hardcore, which they dabbled in briefly and then they gave it up. JR: Did they talk about why they gave it up? TB: As Dave explained it in the movie, his wrap on it was, 'we're carnie guys. We promise and don't deliver. We give you the sizzle not the steak. The minute you raise the curtain you give away the third act, and what's the fun in that?" Plus, they were getting old. And video production was coming around. It was too much for them. They were used to shooting grinders and shipping prints to theaters. They didn't know anything about this home video. They were tired. They were done. They had the money they needed. Hardcore was an entirely different revolution, with different younger players. It's like me at my age trying to hang out with rappers. JR: Dave said their work brought down barriers. Do you think he meant this in earnest, or was it just a good marketing angle? TB: Dave is the ultimate carnie. He'll come up with a line of bullshit before he comes up with the idea itself. That's why he said he'd write the trailers and posters before he wrote the scripts. Dan would say, 'boy if Dave doesn't know the answer, he'll make one up and it'll be better.' But Dave is proud of what he's done, and he ought to be. He was a pioneer. He is regarded by many people as A Great. I'm glad he's happy about his life. JR: You've said this is a wonderful time for anyone to be making movies. Do you really want to see more people making films? TB: To me, it raises the bar. It doesn't lower the bar. If more people can make them, they're going to have to be better. Everybody should be able to exercise freedom of expression, if they want to. Think of all the people who weren't able to get near any kind of equipment to tell a story. I think it's wonderful that technology is being democratized through shrinking costs. When the I Mac came out with DV Cam and final cut pro, I was thinking I wished I was 16 again. I was shooting and trying to do sound on super 8. If there's a will there's a way. And that was one of the things for us we heard was 'you can make it on your own, but you're not going to get into the theater system.' Well, we stayed out of the theater system because we couldn't get a fair deal. We had distribution offers. I turned them all down because they were going to rip me off because they thought I had no leverage. I used to work in a theater so I wasn't intimidated by what it took to get into a theater. I knew half of the distributors who were interested in me weren't big enough to do anything with it anyway. They would've taken a quick hit and sold off the video, and I never would have seen a dime, and probably it would never have seen the light of day. But then, each successive year over the four year period, that I was shooting editing, then posting it, distribution it, were major technological leaps. Not the least of which was the advent of these low cost LCD video projectors, which were totally portable. So I self distributed it in the same style that Dan and Dave did with new toys. I'd mail this 15 lb projector to the theater that filled up the big screen, and told the theater to bring in their DVD player from home. That's how we played all the major theaters, got all the major reviews. It was a road show slight of hand. If others can do it, I can do it. That was the spirit of experimentation that really paid off for us. All I really wanted to do was to play the 15-20 top American cities to get my reviews for the box art for the video. JR: This film was shot in 5-7 partial days? TB: Over three months, yes, in 5-7 partial days. It was a very efficient process. And we had to do that because Dan and Dave's batteries would run out. Dan needed to go back and take a nap. But they're showmen, so they were ready to go and they were a lot of fun to work with. There's one shoot in the car where we drove for three hours. It was early on in the project, so the camera didn't have any accessories. I had to jerry rig a wide-angle lens. That scene came out great. We were just lucky. Republished courtesy of GreenCine. Video8413@blogcritics.org Tue, 16 Sep 2003 12:59:51 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/15/122005.php Jennie RoseIn November 1999, the U.K.'s NME reported "A London Metro Police spokesman confirmed that ex-Pogues singer Shane McGowan (sic. NME should have spelled it "Mac") was arrested on suspicion of a controlled substance or so called 'Class A drug' after officers found him unconscious in his flat. And according to a report in The Sun, they were tipped off by Sinead O'Connor. The report in the paper quotes 'a source' as saying that Sinead did what she did out of genuine concern for the well being of her friend."In the life of Shane MacGowan, at least what we see in "If I Should Fall From Grace," this debacle is typical. For those who only know him as the ugliest guy in music, Shane MacGowan is a genius torch songwriter. He played Irish music in London clubs at a time when London vehemently hated the Irish for IRA bombings. MacGowan wrote one of the best Christmas tunes of all time "Fairy Tale of New York," with one of the best opening lines ever written. Pogues frontman and founder outlasted the breakup of his band in 1991, and he survives today in spite of his self destructive habits.Charles Bukowski said what matters is how well you walk through fire. As the other most public artist cum alcoholic, Bukowski would know. But how well can you walk through fire when you can't hardly stand up? What's astonishing about this film is there is not a single sober moment with the subject. It is possible that Shane did some sober interviews during the year of filming, but I don't know if they appear in the final edit. Yet, in spite of this train wreck in front of us, the narrative stucture is absent judgement and moralizing. What you take away, primarily is a sense of the director's affection for him. At first, Sarah Share does seem to be a little under the spell of MacGowan's personality. By the time we see MacGowan's mockery of Johnny Rotten snarling "No Future" (interlaced skillfully with live footage of Rotten's own rendition) you can see for yourself that he's charming.But Share sat with him for hours, watching him floating out to sea with his demon alcohol. Is it really plausible that she did nothing about it except film him and talk to him? You know this director lost some sleep over the classic question documentarians face: To intervene or not to intervene? Imagine it's your quandary. If your friend had failing health, seemed frail for his age, fingers stained orange from nicotine, and sat in a London flat awash in empty Bombay gin bottles, would you be able to do nothing but film it? Everyone around him, including this director, seemed to learn that MacGowan will always be faithful to his muse, and as long as he thinks booze is tied up in it, no one can dissuade him of this.MacGowan was situationally disturbed, as he puts it, well before he started using those Class A drugs that made Sinead snitch. From the film, we learn the move from MacGowan's Irish town near Borrisokane North Tipperary to central London set his life spinning off axis, never to regain balance. The move turned him into a "degenerate, a drunk and a thief," he slurs in an interview. It's unclear which move MacGowan meant: away from North Tipperary or back to North Tipperary? Someone off camera, asks him what makes MacGowan happy. On the verge of alcoholic oblivion, his face is comically stricken as he struggles to focus on the question. Just as you think he won't speak, he says that he can't put his answer into words. Then, with disarming candor, MacGowan adds that his native tongue has a larger vocabulary and would make a question like that easier to answer. People say a lot of things about MacGowan. Fellow songwriter Nick Cave said MacGowan was the "master of opening lines," MacGowan's girlfriend Victoria said he "doesn't think like other people do. He's not logical. He allows the music to come through." Of himself, MacGowan says, "All I did was play old fashioned Irish music...Jigs, reels....lyrics about drinking, fuckin, fighting," snigger, snigger. "Romantic lyrics like 'I met a damsel both fair and handsome/She took my breath away/' I mean, it's not exactly that," snigger, snigger. It's a hilarious contradiction to what people seem to believe about him. My favorite moment is when MacGowan goes from one impulse (altruism) to another (criminalism) in just one city block. Outside a bar, MacGowan hands bills to a homeless guy. A few steps later, he rattles a bike locked to a yard gate. All he needs is a hacksaw to steal it, he says. "This would get a 13£ bag for a junkie," he says with that slurry snigger that's totally degenerate and endearing.Opens at the Roxie Cinema in SF AUGUST 22nd. For city dates in the US and elsewhere, contact Doug Zwick at Poptwist or email him at dzwick@poptwist.com. Video7565@blogcritics.org Fri, 15 Aug 2003 12:20:05 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/11/233419.php Jennie RoseAn actor can do it. A porn star can do it. Why not a punk for governor of this godfersakin state, this place that's so way out west, we all have tumbleweed in our teeth? In my homeland "California" (uber alles, yeah right), our next governor could be Jack Grisham. The name Jack Grisham has a Capra-esque quality to it like Robert Montgomery or James Cotton. This seems like a right fit, if you think about the high/low moral terrain of films like "Sullivan's Travel." You have the same pleas for humaneness, simple human decency, in both the themes of Capra's films and Grisham's platform."Abolish the government," so says the song by veteran punk group TSOL (true sounds of liberty) with frontman Grisham screaming it in the clubs of LA. Now, of his change of mind, Grisham says:"For years I was always, 'F--- the government. F--- the government. F--- the government.' I was always bitching and not doing a thing about it... And the other day I said, 'Now I am.' I just got tired of seeing people hurt, that was the biggest thing. I got three sisters who are teachers, two brothers who are police officers, a bunch of friends who are labor workers, dock workers. I work with undocumented alien immigrants all the time and I got tired seeing what they go through and no one caring. And they put this new budget out and the first thing they slash is health care and the first thing they start screwing is the people." Politics7521@blogcritics.org Mon, 11 Aug 2003 23:34:19 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/08/01/162127.php Jennie RoseThere are so many layers and references in this movie, the New York Times called it both an inchorent mess and possibly a masterpiece. Last night, at a San Francisco screening, director Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Curb Your Enthusiasm) jokingly called it a 'mess-terpiece,' and warned the audience "You will not catch all the references, and that's OK. It's a show. Let it wash over you, and see how wet you get." The screenplay is credited to Sergei Petrov and Rene Fontaine, pseudonyms for Mr. Bob Dylan and Larry Charles. Given this tip-off, the central character of Uncle Sweetheart can only be taken as Larry Charles' alter ego. Uncle Sweetheart (played by John Goodman in a sky blue tuxedo) is the concert promoter/ring master who helps promote a benefit show with a venal and world weary chick promoter (Jessica Lange). Together they sell it as a world-wide cable-cast event, and jump through major hoops to arrange for the perfect headliner: Jack Fate (Bob Dylan's alter ego played by none other.)Larry Charles is either in the middle of a mid life crisis, or his vision for the future of cinema is apostatic. Although Charles says his body of work is consistent with this sci-fi/documentary/comedy/musical, it seems he is turning the medium on its ear with this marginally narrative cultish film made outside--or in spite of--the Hollywood juggernaut. Masked and Anonymous was made in 20 days on a ridiculously low budget, which is evident from the skanky, futuristic set, shot entirely in LA. Parts of LA can tend to look third world anyway, so it's not much of a stretch to create a civil war in Babylon by slapping up wall-sized posters of a generic dictator and putting an uzi in every extra's hands. It feels like a message movie, yet the only big message, near as I can tell, is that 'things fall apart,' as Fate says in voice over. And they fall apart even quicker when the inmates are running the asylum.Charles says they shot in digital video, sometimes getting through 8 pages of script a day. Inspired by the Cassavettes and Godard style of loose scene interpretation, the brand name ensemble cast went a little crazy with verbose monologues, which have the same rhythm and poetic mysticism of the auteur Dylan.Dylan's performance with his band is tight as a drum, and almost as much fun as having front row seats to his show. The soundtrack features many tracks that appear in the scenes of Jack Fate 'rehearsals' plus some novel covers of Dylan tunes in Italian and Japanese. A Larry Charles labor of love, the soundtrack is worth a listen, if only to hear The Ramones cover of "My Back Pages." In some ways, Larry Charles represents so many of the things I hate about white culture mavens: He is a 46 year old man with a bunch of high placed friends, he's a scene-ster baby boomer (the worst kind in my opinion) with a strong sentimentality for the 60s, who seems to think the best thing that happened here was Woodstock. At the same time, he has the cojones to collaborate on a project that exposes him to harsh criticism. He has the talent to inspire the cast of huge names to spend 20 days in a kind of drama workshop on steroids. One reason I respect the effort is that by pouring his Dylan fantaticsm into a film collaboration he has, in this instance, transformed the typically passive act of fandom into something else. This may not be considered quite the masterpiece, but who can tell what groundwork he's laid for fans everywhere? Video7374@blogcritics.org Fri, 1 Aug 2003 16:21:27 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2003/06/16/170415.php Jennie RoseThink bioterrorism is scary? Who would have thought that the counter measure -- large scale smallpox vaccine programs -- would turn out to be sinister too? This is a story of falling on your own sword. Or when bioterrrorism preparedness goes asunder. The public health scare of smallpox vaccines is way up there in the top 10 Bush snafus of 2003. But except for New York Times editorials on the subject (ie: "Missing the Smallpox Goal," May 12 2003) here and there, the media is mum about it. As a parent, or a citizen, or a teacher, what do you do when the remedy is perhaps as fatal as the disease? Break out the vaccine reference guides, and start checking the facts. Unfortunately, you may not like what you find out. Who is BD?"Almost 50 years ago, BD developed the first disposable syringes for mass delivery of the Salk polio vaccine" begins a full page ad in Scientific American. The ad shows a Depression-era photo of a white man in a white coat giving the small pox vaccine while some sad eyed, stricken-looking children wait their turn with rolled-up sleeves."Now [the ad continues], BD is partnering with governments worldwide to challenge the threats posed by bioterrorism. From the earliest civilizations through most of the last century, smallpox claimed the lives of untold millions. By 1980, this virus had been eradicated. Yet today, the threat of smallpox looms once again as a possible weapon in a bioterrorist attack." "And, [the chirpy ad copy goes on] in the United States, New Jersey has become the first sate in the nation to pilot the BD® Bio-Terror Preparedness Network, an innovative system for centralized tracking of smallpox vaccinations."This enthusiasm for so called "Bioterrorism Preparedness" was before people started dying from the smallpox vaccine. In March 2003, the Associated Press reported that three people died of heart attacks linked to the vaccine. To paraphrase, health experts began to investigate a possible link between the vaccine and heart problems that occurred in 17 people, including three fatalities. Two of those were health care workers in private hospitals. The third, announced by the Pentagon, was a 55-year-old man.Caveat EmptorSince then, most health professionals concluded that the risks of the smallpox vaccine greatly exceeded the immediate benefit and suggested taking precautions. The immunization program was greeted with cautious skepticism very early in the vaccine program (Jan. 2002), when health professionals warned against the vaccine, publishing articles at the New England Journal of Medicine and registering their concerns with the CDC. These days, even West Wing staff are unwilling to roll up their sleeves for team smallpox. John Marburger, Bush's science advisor told SEED Magazine that he will not be getting a shot because "I am not a first responder. I don't expect to come into contact with smallpox." Part of the problem may be with the efficacy of the vaccine. The smallpox vaccination is older than those polio syringes BD supplied. In the past 200 years, it hasn't really changed. This is not a case of 'it ain't broke, so don't fix it,' either. The cowpox virus in the vaccine has become altered through many years of culture, and now has the name vaccinia virus. The vaccination procedure has been to pierce the skin and insert the live cowpox virus into the lesion, which sounds a touch medieval. Clearly this vaccine could use fine tuning before letting loose on the masses.The Vaccine GuideDr. Randall Neufstaedter, OMD and author of The Vaccine Guide--Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults, recently adds to the consensus of opinion by saying "I do not recommend that people get the smallpox vaccine unless a local clinic can supply vaccinia immune globulin (VIG) in the event of severe adverse reactions to the vaccination." The Vaccine Guide's recently published revised edition specifically addresses the threat of bioterrorism as well as the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in the preface. Information on this Act and other warnings about the smallpox vaccine can be found at the CDC website.In general, Dr. Neufstaedter's risk assessment is off the CDC grid, and may call for other sources to give family vaccine decisions more balance. Still, Neustaedter's assessment of the smallpox vaccine echoes the rest of the medical community, especially with regard to young children. For instance, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) advises against non-emergency use of smallpox vaccine in children younger than 18 years of age. More excerpts on the smallpox vaccine can be found in his book The Vaccine Guide. In light of the resistance from the medical community, it makes you wonder about the real goals of this government immunization program. I suppose they never guessed that a scant few months later, the threat of a deliberate outbreak of smallpox would seem puny next to the threat from SARS or influenza or, god forbid, monkeypox. Now the big rush for a large-scale smallpox immunization program seems, well, kinda suspicious. At the very least, with a vaccine reference guide and the CDC's published information, you can start to connect the dots on your own. Dying for your country over a lousy shot is not something the government should recommend for millions of Americans. And that's why the smallpox vaccine is one of the top 10 of Bush snafus of 2003. But then, the year's only half over. Books6231@blogcritics.org Mon, 16 Jun 2003 17:04:15 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/12/13/164634.php Jennie RoseWhen my husband and I reached the full-year mark of life without a full night's sleep, the common wisdom about parenting a newborn (ie: "He's still not sleeping through the night? Have you tried giving cereal before bed?") had a sinister conspiritorial tone to me. It was if everyone was privy to some silver lining that I didn't know about. I really was looking through a glass darkly and still going through the days smiling brightly. Why would I do such a masochistic thing? Because I thought everyone else knew how to make parenthood easy, and that I was just maladjusted to the role of mommy. Maladjusted, maybe. But what I didn't know is that many of the mothers around me also struggled with their new role. As long as we kept our mouths shut about our sorrows; for example, if we had a 'traumatic' birth, or felt the glares from fellow shoppers who resent a noisy babe in arms; if some days we were just fed up with the fecal incidents, or if we were gradually losing our grip on reality from sleep deprivation, then the hardest thing about it all--the isolation--grew. If you think about it, for many women, becoming a mother is the biggest identity shift since adolescence. And remember how easy that was? Never mind the struggle of becoming a teenaged mom, which is a whole subject unto itself; even fully grown women face countless difficult changes that mothering a very young child brings. The most obvious is for the woman who defines herself through her profession, and on entering motherhood, finds herself redefining her whole identity. And what about the artist who, in her previous life, painted for comfort and now finds that making playdough turtles at the kiddie table has to be enough of an artistic outlet? I think we are rewarded for our complicity in what I like to dramatically refer to as "the conspiracy of silence" with an absence of dialogue at the national level about maternity leave, child care, postpartum depression, and more. When we do talk about motherhood, we like to talk about all the good stuff, like how rewarding it is, and how motherhood really 'suits' this woman or that one. Kept quiet, perhaps because of a taboo, is any talk of when motherhood doesn't seem to 'suit'--about the woman who really is more comfortable in a business suit (hard to imagine). But even more hush-hush than that is our collective low esteem of motherhood as bona fide work. Take this oft-heard comment, for instance: "Gee, it must be nice to stay home all day with the baby." [read: "Must be nice not to work."] Nice? It's many things, let's just say it's very "the-Agony-the-Ectasy," but to say it's nice trivializes how mothers spend their days working at the most important (and some might say, the hardest) job in the world. One of the most interesting things about adversity, in my mind, is how people react to it. Naomi Wolf reacted to her own jarring experience of maternity by writing a book: "Misconceptions" about the myth vs reality of pregnancy and childbirth. Still others deal by going to the gym compulsively. And Bay area former punks, Racheal Yellow, Karen, Soulmine and La (short for Paula) reacted to the isolation, sleep deprivation, and boredom by forming a band called the Lactators. "All the crap that moms endure is pretty much fodder for punk songs," says the band. A rolling bass line, joined after a couple measures by a fuzzy guitar riff lifts off a Lactators song called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my Best Friend." when the kid's in bed/another long day's come to an end/tv is my drug of choice now. Sometimes a sudsy bath of Calgon "take-me-away" soap bubbles is less satisfying then singing along to a visceral, in-your-face record. i would rather be standing on the hellmouth fighting demons/than screaming 'get out of the toilet'/one more time. Erstwhile punks-turned-mamas hear their deep sighs of fatigue transformed into a righteous shout. When I'm looking for some "me time,"a hot bath is sometimes not enough. These are times when books like the "The Mask of Motherhood," and "The Time Bind" begin to seem too contained and scholastic. And if I just can't bring myself to get to the gym to let the cork out of the bottled up frustration, then listening to a punk rock band like this one is my drug of choice. Music2263@blogcritics.org Fri, 13 Dec 2002 16:46:34 EST http://blogcritics.org/archives/2002/10/27/151446.php Jennie RoseWe don't have much in common with Brazil. Maybe it's all that political oppression, but for one thing, Brazilians have a rep for being passionate, fiery, alive. For another, while in the U.S., we may respect artists as national treasures, how often do we think of them as heroes? Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso is a bona fide political hero in his homeland. With just one song "Tropicalia," Veloso spearheaded a dissident movement in the late 1960s, called "tropicalismo," which led to his exile during the country's military dictatorship. By way of explanation, Veloso says that during those years, "Brazil was very serious about its music." *Very* darn serious. Imagine if "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was the catalyst for an actual political movement in this country. What if Kurt Cobain was exiled for writing anthemic rock? Sure, we have our "hardcore" subcultures that nourish dissent, a portal to them found through punk rock record labels, like Dischord. Still it's almost impossible for me to imagine any type of American music as a nationally recognized political movement.To add to my confusion, I couldn't believe the total adoration of the San Francisco audience for Veloso when he took the stage at the Masonic Auditorium Friday night. In the warm glow of a good reception to his 2 CD set "Live in Bahia," and the English translation of his memoir "Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil," Veloso slid lithely into the spotlight and with his messianic crotch-grabbing jungle cat moves, he simply put, rocked.I call Veloso's set the "give-a-little-sugar-give-a-little-salt" approach. He used the tool of juxtaposition to such effect, Dada artists around the world would gleam with paternalistic pride. The Brazilian contingent were happy to sing along with covers by Joao Gilberto and Brazilian pop artist LuLu Santos. We all mellowed with Veloso's languid delivery of "Stars Fell on Alabama," which convinced me that Veloso channels the ghost of Billie Holiday. But lest we be pacified into the romantic swells of bossa nova long songs, Veloso steered us into his experiemental 'difficult listening' territory every fourth or fifth.Veloso's use of both vocal and instrumental dynamic range controlled the crowd like a cat dancer with a kitten. Hear a pin drop as his voice fades to whisper; Hear the crowd roar in a frenzy as the rhythm of the bongos section fills up the auditorium after ebbing off into a barely pulsing beat. Flash to the present. The Brazilian dictatorship has faded into the woodwork, Brazil is days away from electing a progressive presidential candidate, and "tropicalismo" is woven into Brazil's culture, as well as ours. (For instance, The New York Times honored Veloso as "one of the greatest songwriters of the century." Beck cites Veloso and strangelings "Os Mutantes" as an influence). At 60, Veloso is peaking and as outspoken as ever. The love of music, he says, ever more intense. With his courageous cajones and massive talent, Veloso is the classic Brazilian export.For more on Veloso see here. Music1529@blogcritics.org Sun, 27 Oct 2002 15:14:46 EST