Happy Birthday

To the teen, who turns 16 today. In her honor, here are two vids from her two favorite bands --

Nine Inch Nails



Marilyn Manson



This may embarrass her, but I love you, sweetie. Happy Birthday!

Imussed

"[Imus] would have to lose everything before being that honest [about his racism], and even then it might be a stretch. But that's not going to happen -- not this time around, anyway. Despite all the ass-covering, tsk-tsk rhetoric, so long as American elites want him as their court jester, Don Imus's career is not only safe, it is sanctified."

So wrote the psychic Son on Tuesday. And what happens? Imus does lose everything. Far from being sanctified, the crusty court jester's cap and bells have been taken and torched in a highly-staged act of corporate "contrition." As CBS chief Leslie Moonves piously put it to his employees, "At the end of the day, the integrity of our company and the respect that you feel for CBS becomes the most important consideration." Oh yeah. Can't you feel the moral power? The Rev. Moonves went on to say that Imus "has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people," and that sacking him was the first step in "changing that culture, which extends far beyond the walls of our company."

Of course, Rev. Moonves didn't explain why CBS carried Imus's show for as long as it did, subsidizing countless hours of racist, sexist chatter, or why instead of just firing the old hack from the get-go, it placed Imus on a two-week suspension. But then, the road to Damascus is a winding one, and not everyone can see the hallowed light and convert at the same time.

The loss of significant ad revenue helped to clarify matters as well; and once MSNBC dropped Imus, that was it, for there was no way that CBS radio was going to be the sole hold-out. Besides, who would now appear on Imus's show and trade quips with the center of so much negative attention? More to the point, who would sponsor the show in the face of all this media-amplified hostility? I confess that I didn't see Imus getting hit this hard, but looking at the chain of events, it makes perfect sense. Mix in some high-falutin' bombast a la Leslie Moonves and the scenario is complete. In America, you can't simply say that you fucked up or tried to get away with something for as long as you could before getting slammed. That's too open-ended and morally vague. We require absolutist, hand-over-heart closures amid rippling flags and sacred light pouring down from Heaven. Most people see right through this, but expect and demand it anyway. In a nation of hypocrites, the emptiest gesture usually prevails.

So, barring a possible move to satellite radio, Don Imus is through, and we can get on with the other, many distractions from the real world that is the American way. Praise white Jesus!

If you desire some decent racial comedy, check this clip from "Hollywood Shuffle", featuring Robert Townsend:



And of course, the great Dave Chappelle, who is so well-spoken:



Especially in this scene. Imus, you haven't a fucking clue.

See. Hear.

Here's a docu on Vonnegut, I think from the late-70s. I saw this years ago. Worth the time, if you have the time. And I do remember Vonnegut's Hardware from when I was a kid. My Dad bought a hammer there, I believe.



And here, here, here, here, here, here, and --

So It Goes

Kurt Vonnegut has passed on, apparently from a brain injury caused by a fall. He was 84. No wonder he fell.

Thousands upon thousands of words will be typed and uttered on Vonnegut's behalf, most of them useless, many attaching grand themes to his work and philosophical outlook. But it's really simple: Kurt Vonnegut had a first-rate imagination, wrote clear prose, and proposed that people be kind to one another. He distrusted authority and painted those looking to rule us as clowns. He smoked for much of his adult life and did not suffer from emphysema or cancer. It happens.

Most Vonnegut fans praise "Cat's Cradle" and "Slaughterhouse-Five" as his greatest works, and indeed they are top-notch. But my sentimental favorite is "Breakfast Of Champions," a funny, tragic book that did not tickle the reviewers, and that Vonnegut himself believed to be among his lesser efforts, giving it a C. Not me -- the tangled tale of Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout still resonates with me whenever I dip into it, and Trout remains my favorite fictional character in American lit, just ahead of Myra Breckinridge.

Trout was a prolific but largely-failed science fiction writer whose better stories appeared in porn mags. One I still remember was "The Smart Bunny," about a rabbit born with a human-sized brain who hops to the city to have it chopped down, given that a human brain is useless to a rabbit. On his way there he is shot and killed by a hunter, who upon noticing the rabbit's large cranium believes him to be mutated and therefore inedible. So the dead rabbit is simply thrown away. The end.

There's a lesson there for all of us, I think.

I met Vonnegut once, in 1990 at some fancy lit gathering in Indianapolis, our mutual hometown. He was nice but a bit gruff, spoke quickly and wheezed when he laughed. He also reeked of cigarette smoke. We chatted about being Hoosiers in New York, where we both lived, and agreed that New York was a great city and there was nothing like it. He then excused himself to have another smoke.

We crossed paths again, kind of, in 1995, at Terry Southern's memorial service at the Unitarian Church of All Souls on 80th and Lexington Ave. Vonnegut was one of the speakers, as was my friend Nelson Lyon, who worked with (well, propped up, actually) Southern at "SNL", and was Michael O'Donoghue's screenplay writing partner and main inspiration for the character Mr. Mike. As the service wound down, Nelson and I went outside for some air, and just to our right stood Vonnegut, alone and puffing on a butt. He stared at us intensely.

"Nels," I said in a low voice, "Kurt Vonnegut is staring at us. What should we do?"

"One writer at a time, Den!" boomed Nelson in his robust voice. "Today we honor the late Mr. Southern!"

Vonnegut didn't go to the post-memorial cocktail party at George Plimpton's apartment. At least, I didn't see him there. Maybe he was outside, smoking.

Vonnegut said that early in his career, he almost became a writer for Bob and Ray, but didn't feel he was funny enough. Herman Wouk once wrote for Fred Allen, and I don't recall "The Caine Mutiny" to be a laff-fest. There are worse pairings. I think Vonnegut would've done fine. But we'll never know.

Kurt Vonnegut was a free thinker, an atheist who believed that instead of the Ten Commandments, public buildings and courtrooms should display the Sermon on the Mount. At the height of his lit fame, he said that he wrote as simply as he could so that his ideas could be grasped by Generals in the Pentagon. He cracked wise to the end, and now he's dead.

So it goes.

How It's Done

Last night, the teen watched George Carlin laying it down, and she smiled -- not laughed, not heartily, anyway. Just a steady smile of recognition and agreement.

"I thought you didn't like Carlin's stuff."

"I don't like that early crap you showed me," she replied, referring to Carlin's stand-up from the first episode of "SNL" in 1975. "All that observational stuff bores me. But this . . . this is the shit."

I watched along for 20 minutes or so, as I hadn't seen this particular special. And she's right: Carlin may be older and physically slower, but his present takes on our collective madness are razor sharp and merciless. As the great comedy writer George Meyer noted, Carlin must be the only American comic who can speak the absolute truth to an audience and be applauded for it. Not bad work, if you can get it. While everyone's wailing about Don Imus, Carlin rips through genocide, suicide, beheadings, torture, "reality" TV, human "civilization," and of course the utter depravity and stupidity of a large number of Americans stuffing their fat faces with fast food. While I have some thoughts about these and related issues, I'll let Carlin do the talking today.

Bad Boy Inc.

At our weekly political meeting at FAIR, where the group's business was discussed and our radio show planned out, items from the corporate press were tossed around, analyzed, critiqued. One week, someone submitted an editorial cartoon showing stereotypical black people dancing in a rain of welfare money, and we were trying to decide whether this was a racist cartoon, or a parody of racist images. When the strip was passed to me, I studied it for a moment, then shook my head slowly and said, "Well, one thing's for sure -- those are some crazy, shiftless Negroes."

The white people, who made up the majority of the meeting, froze, their faces slowly turning toward the two African-American interns to see what damage Mr. Loose Cannon wreaked this time. But the interns, a female and male, laughed, as did another staffer who happened to be Indian. My radio partner (a lesbian, since I'm categorizing here) smiled and flashed me the "What am I going to do with you?" look that I often received from her. Only then did the white folk relax a bit. After all, if the black kids were cool with it, then my crack must've been funny. Or something.

In retrospect, the "shiftless Negroes" line wasn't all that great. It was a sarcastic riff on a ridiculous image, whatever the editorial intent. But the fact that a white lefty didn't fear offending young black lefties cut through the unspoken tension that hung over the office. White guilt can become so self-consuming that the only "acceptable" means of communication to those of darker hues is a rigid condescension and humorless deference, which of course is insulting to any thinking person. My crack didn't tip-toe around racist thinking -- it lambasted it using its own language. (Also, the interns were used to me popping off one-liners, talking in different accents, and doing celebrity impressions. That context helped.) But white people trying to ridicule racism up-close risks all manner of misinterpretation. It's a very fine line, and as with all humor, a very subjective, touchy business.

None of this applies to Don Imus. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of his shtick knows that the I-man and his crew revel in mocking African-Americans, Arabs, queers, women, or anyone else who isn't an aging, craggy white man. Imus's latest outrage, calling the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," is all over the media, and while Imus professes guilt through stupidity, this racial scandal is a PR goldmine for him and his show. I mean, when was the last time Imus got this much attention? Yes, it's negative attention, but this is America, where publicity conquers all. And that Imus's "punishment" is two-weeks off the air tells us, as if we don't already know, that the corporate honchos at MSNBC and WFAN appreciate Imus's commercial "edge," and this suspension merely sharpens his brand. The old man is still a Bad Boy. A very naughty, profitable boy at that.

Public contrition is another regular American feature, and Imus played his part yesterday by appearing on Al Sharpton's radio show. The Rev. Al is no stranger to the media spotlight himself, and Imus's remarks serves his celebrity as well. Their conversation made for great radio, for here were two serious media pros playing this controversy for all it was worth. Each knows his role and performed accordingly. It couldn't have been better scripted. Imus knew that whatever punishment he would receive, it wouldn't end his career (far from it). Rev. Al knew and still knows that his calls for Imus to be permanently removed from the airwaves is a pipe dream, so Imus will remain a target of his broadcast ire, as will Imus's soft-on-racism bosses. Win/win all around. And while some legitimate points were raised during the show (Imus would never consistently refer to Jews the way he does to blacks), the noise level owed more to Jerry Springer than to a serious discussion of racism in the media. But then, that's showbiz.

I can't remember ever finding Imus funny, but I did yesterday as he informed Rev. Al of his charitable work for African-American children with sickle cell anemia and cancer. When Imus thundered to Rev. Al's guest, Bryan Monroe of the National Association of Black Journalists, "I bet I've slept in a house with more black children who were not related to me than you have!", I thought, man, that's not only a crazy statement, but a shameless one, too. Imus tried to water down his racist remarks by hiding behind sick and dying black children. And that he did so as the only white person on an African-American radio show was so twisted and absurd that I broke down laughing. If only "SNL" took those kind of chances.

Were Imus genuinely serious about dissecting his racial humor, he would have to admit that as a white person, especially of his generation, he was raised on racist imagery which molded his thinking about black people in general, as is obvious whenever he and his cronies cackle about "nappy-heads" and the like. There is nothing in his humor that attacks racist assumptions, for racist assumptions are the basis of his humor. Thus, he can't use the "satire" defense when caught spewing the garbage that is his act. All white people hold racist assumptions of some kind; we've been conditioned to do so, though, hopefully, this diminishes with each succeeding generation. If Imus copped to this and said, "Look, I've got a lot of racial stereotypes in my head, and I think they're funny. That may be sick, but it's the truth", then we'd be getting somewhere. But clearly, Imus isn't interested in that kind of confession, not while he still has a public platform and is backed by heavy-hitters in the media and politics. He would have to lose everything before being that honest, and even then it might be a stretch. But that's not going to happen -- not this time around, anyway. Despite all the ass-covering, tsk-tsk rhetoric, so long as American elites want him as their court jester, Don Imus's career is not only safe, it is sanctified.

ALSO: My pal Louis Proyect, who somehow manages to listen to Imus, weighs in on the controversy.

No Comment

Should there be a general, civil code of online commentary? Can there ever be a shared perspective on what constitutes "civil" exchanges? The bloggyworld is presently wrestling with these and related questions, which were given prominent play in this morning's New York Times. Fortunately for the Son, none of this applies to me. It's like watching a bunch of Speech Club wonks drafting constitutions that only apply or appeal to their little circles, while bloggers like me are off to the side draining beers and chuckling at the ruckus.

Actually, it's incorrect to label the Son a blog. I'm not part of any online tribe, party apparatus, ideological clique, or cool kids club. I'm always happy when someone links to one of my posts or blogrolls me. It's nice to be appreciated. But what is considered the blogosphere has very little effect on what I write. Age has a lot to do with this; temperament, too. While I love the widespread, direct access the Web provides, which truly is a revolution in human communication, I see no point in erecting structures that essentially limit what one can say to another based on political affiliation or outlook, which is really what these proposed "civil" codes are all about. Abusive, even threatening, comments or blogposts are being used to help harden ideological boundaries, for there are those who believe that sharp political disagreement with a certain host's stated views is a form of abuse, which in turn generates genuine abuse and nastiness, and soon becomes a flame war.

We've all seen this. Goes on all the time. Before I started the Son, and a few months into the project, I visited some of the more popular liberal sites and commented under a pseudonym just to get a feel for the crowd. The political statements I made were pretty much my own, with a few theatrical embellishments here and there, but nothing false or outlandish. Needless to say I was swamped with hostility from a given blog's regulars, especially if I said anything critical about the Holy Clintons or President-In-Exile Al Gore. I would try to reason with some of these people, but usually it was a lost cause. The Dems are the final word in human decency, and if one critiques the final word in human decency, then that person is indecent and worthy of abuse. If you doubt this is the general tone, take some of my arguments and post them at Daily Kos, Atrios, or Firedoglake, and see what you get in return.

This is why I don't have comments at the Son. I have no interest, much less the time, to oversee and referee those looking to burn down a thread with whatever is sizzling in their brains. If people wish to react to something I've written, pro or con, they are free to email me and I'll usually respond (though with my readership climbing, it takes me a few days to get through my mail), depending on the intelligence of the reader or the relevance of his or her comment. I've had some pretty stupid people email me with all manner of bait, and by not having a comment thread, their idiocy doesn't muck up the Son's home page. Only I see it, and trust me, I'm doing you all a favor by keeping it off the main stage. There's room for only one raving nut at the Son, and that's me.

Happy Colored Egg Day

Been busy offline, so Easter apologies for the lack of posts. A few things are happening, and soon I'll reveal some of that. For today, we must go with an obvious, but classic, bit of Biblical cinema. Bright sides ain't what they used to be, but some are still worth looking at.

Live With Us In Forests Of Azure

Some days it pays to start drinking early, and keep drinking until bedtime. This, so far, is decidedly one of those days, but familial responsibilities prevent me from getting hammered and listening to loud, annoying music at brain lesion levels. So instead, I'll bitch and rant at you good people. I'm sure you won't mind.

Flipping through the cable news nets this morning meant endless chatter about the 15 British Royal Navy and Marine personnel just released by Iran. Now, I know this is the story of the day, and it will be interesting to hear from the servicepeople just how well they were actually treated by their captors. But some of the anchor and pundit reactions to their release brought new meaning to self pity, when they weren't waxing sanctimonious about our "superior" values. And naturally, there was the standard ignorance, as when a reporter for Rupert Murdoch's Sky News, being simulcast on Murdoch's Fox News, spoke about the horror that Kaye Turney must have endured when forced to wear that "Arab get-up" of a scarf on her head. Thing is, Iranians are largely Persian, not Arab. But for devoted viewers of Murdoch's channels, those goat fuckers are all the same -- Arab, Persian, Klingon, whatever. Just bomb the bastards already. Christ, what are we -- pussy faggots or something?

Think I exaggerate? Following the idiotic Sky segment was the ubiquitous William Kristol of the Weekly Standard. Kristol is one of those "Downfall" bunker-types, like Hitchens, who still think the Iraq war is going quite well, more or less. But today, Kristol was sullen. Seems the West has been bitch-slapped by the shifty Iranians, while Nancy Pelosi went Neville Chamberlain with Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and no one is doing anything about it! Clearly, seeing this mini-crisis end peacefully, with no apparent signs that the British personnel were tortured, hurts Kristol no end. Wimp sadists like him get off on imperial violence, so long as he's not on the frontlines, of course. That Iranian cities weren't hit with cluster bombs is a clear sign that the West is losing its nerve. As I watched this sack of shit drone on about reprisals and the like, I thought how pleasing it would be to break his knees with an aluminum bat. THWACKK! THWACKK! "How's that workin' for ya, Bill?" But being a self-hating Western pussy faggot, I immediately erased this image from my mind, and looked to the glorious day when Americans are speaking Farsi under the North American Caliphate.

My liberal friends must be saying, "But Dennis, those are rightwingers. What do you expect?" And they would be right -- no one forced me to watch Fox, so I got what I deserved. But when driving the teen to school right after this, I tuned to the local "progressive" radio station to catch Stephanie Miller's noise machine that passes for a liberal talk show. I have to hand it to Miller and her colleagues -- they don't waste a second of airtime. Every instant is crammed with cackles, crashes, explosions, sirens, buzzers, bells, rim shots, cement blocks falling on high school marching bands, and God knows what else. Then there's the comedy, which I'm guessing is pre-written, but it's hard to tell, given how horribly mangled the bits often are. Miller apparently loves ethnic humor, since everytime I listen to her show someone is speaking in funny fer-ign accents. Today was a two-fer -- first, an extended Kim Jong-il routine done in a "Ah so! Me likey!" style that was so painfully bad, it would embarrass Jerry Lewis.




Well, maybe not.

Then came the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad impression, which sounded more like Apu from "The Simpsons" than the actual person being lampooned. Even Miller got into the act, popping off a few "I am veddy pleased to be tanking you!" lines before guffawing at her own performance. Hey, if Miller won't laugh at her own stuff, who will?

I have to keep reminding myself that Anne Beatts once wrote for this woman. It's a long way down from working with O'Donoghue, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi. Did I happen to mention that American comedy is in a regressive stage?

As Rodney Dangerfield would say to Johnny Carson after doing his five minutes of panel jokes, "That's it." Enjoy your day -- stay away from TV and radio!