The New Feminism

I had a thought the other day. Am I the only person (in my respective age group anyway) that isn't understanding the public's recent fawning over Christina Aguilera? Pardon me, USO-Style Christina Aguilera: Limited Edition.

You remember the Dirrty Skank Edition? Or the Naked & Proud Edition. Or the X-Tina Edition. Those were fun, for a spell. Although the Naked Edition didn't have quite enough outfits with it to make it even nominally interesting after a couple hours. Certainly we all remember the videos. Or maybe some of us don't, depending on the strength of our parental blocking technology. As one friend described it to me before I had seen it: "You can smell the tuna coming through the TV screen." A rather off color visual; but then again, so is the video.

Isn't Aguilera just another on the long boring list of "Pop Princesses Gone Bad"? They're cute, and bubbly, and we collectively pinch their cheeks for a while. Then they grow up, get a nose ring, and start welcoming lower forms of cheek-pinching at clubs on Sunset, seven nights a week. Wait, didn't Christina have a nose ring during the bubbly stage? Then she essentially kicked it up a notch every year thereafter. Now she's the clean-cut, near appropriately clothed enough, 40's pin-up, USO Christina Aguilera. With "singing to the troops" action...trashy singing. Am I the only one that can still see the USED tag sticking out of the new white dress? It's like when bruised and tattooed porn actresses dress up like Lil' Bo Peep for Halloween. It's hard to believe someone with an I LOVE (picture of rooster here) tattoo does nothing more than "tend" to those sheep.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in redemption and also in forgiveness...but something just seems off about this whole Aguilera dog and pony show. Suddenly I'm supposed to take her seriously as a "musician" because she traded in the black lipstick for some more conservative red. Truth be told, I'm just waiting for her to rip off the sailor uniform and grind on a Marine in an American flag bikini. I'm sure this is what the real sailors even showed up for in the first place. So far, much to their dismay, she has remained suspiciously well-behaved. Call me a cynic, but I'm just not buying it. Something smells fishy...no pun intended.

Maybe I missed the boat on this argument. It's been a while since X-Tina...sorry, USO-Tina has been on the cover of Rolling Stone. For all I know, she's sporting a burqa now, as Jihad Edition Christina Aguilera.

I tend to be a week or so behind on issues relating to pop culture, for good or ill. I'm not a very exciting pundit when the conversation gets into who's walking out of Mr. Chow's and celebrity crotch shots. But I am Hell on wheels if someone happens to mention the works of John Cassavetes. How do I function in modern society? You might ask. Answer: with a great deal of difficulty, my friend. Sometimes I even find it near impossible to go out of my apartment. But at least I've got my health.

All sarcasm aside, I'd have to be living in some kind of cave not to have noticed the recent nose dives girlies like Britney Spears and Lindsey Lohan have been pulling off, in plain view of the public. Nay, it'd have to be one of those caves on Mars even...a warm, and comfortable cave of blissful ignorance. Unfortunately I live on a street sandwiched smack in between Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood Boulevard. In fact, if Norma Desmond could possibly pop a few in my back just after I publish this, that'd make my proximity to these ex-pop divas all the more worth it. Every time I hear a police siren out my window, it could either be responding to one of the million plus illegal immigrants milling around the city, or to Paris Hilton, speeding by my apartment building on a midnight diet of In & Out Burger, Margaritas and X. I pay the taxes on that police cruiser now, I should at least know what Party Girl they're after, and what she's being pulled over for this time.

Aside from knowing the boys down at the LAPD are keeping me safe from too many unsolicited crotch shots, I feel I know just enough to be justified in saying: "who gives a shit", when it comes to hearing another story about any of these chicks from this night forward (this would be a good cue for Norma to pull the trigger, but alas I'll continue).

Pop music's reigning Queen of alternative, punk feminism Avril Lavigne appears on the current issue of JANE magazine and is quoted on the cover as saying, "I'm not a party person, and I always wear underwear." Great, reassuring point. Now go forth and continue making horrible music. What does she want, a fuckin' medal? So now the standard for positive female role models, in our culture, is the girl who doesn't routinely display her vagina. The girl who doesn't go bottomless to clubs, shave her head, and make (not all that inaccurate) claims to being the Anti-Christ.

I went to sleep at some point in time and woke up to discover that the new feminism means not the right to vote, the right to work, or the right to sing; but the right to be voted on at a wet t-shirt contest, the right to work the streets, and the right to sing...dirrty. We're suddenly back to dragging our women around by the hair and tuning out if they use any phrases other than "hot" or "where's the party?" And the media is gobbling this up and spewing it out faster than Lindsey Lohan does on the corner of Camden and Wilshire on any given night of the week.

I can't help but wonder: if they just stopped turning the cameras on these irresponsible (socially or otherwise), self-destructive, talentless air heads...would they close up shop (or, at least their panty-less thighs) and go home?

Who knows? What came first, the chicken legs or the birth controlled egg? Maybe the demand for a reversal of feminist ideals in this country became so great that the young girls who could have had so much going for them back when they could still sing before the Marlboro menthols, decided to give the people what they wanted and drop the G-string. Or maybe we always wanted more out of our female role models for our sisters and daughters, but turned around one day to find they had grown up and have long since passed out at the bar. Whatever the case, they'll either go to rehab or escape...at this point, who cares. What's to become of our sisters and daughters?

Like anyone who has hung around a Party Girl long enough to eventually grasp the kind of pathetic concept, the media will inevitabley get bored and move on to something probably more boring and/or socially damaging. But the dust will have already settled on our unfortunate, and always impressionable, young girls. And it's up to us to convince them that there's more talent in their little fingers, and more feminism in their futures, than any one of the self-proscribed Party Monsters down the street from me that will hopefully go the way of Genie-in-a-Bottle Edition Christina by this time tomorrow.

God, I Love That Rock & Roll

I'm so excited, and I just cannot hide it. So, as seems to be the case on the internet, I will blog about it and no one will read it! How we vent into the unknown ether...

Next month is going to be a huge month for music. In my humble opinion, the hugest month so far this year. I won't even give you time to be the judge of that. Just sit back and read about why you should be as excited as I am. As is quoted from Tommy, which I'm listening to now (Live @ Leeds, the only way to listen to Tommy): Come on the amazing journey; and learn all you should know.

Three artists that exist on my all time Top 5 list of musicians are coming out with new albums, all in the merry month of March. Hopefully by the end of this, you'll be just itching to skip down to the local record store, and fork over the dough for all three of these joints. Maybe I'll even let you skip with me. Only maybe though.

First things first, the old farts who brought you the greatest hard rock albums of the 1960's and 1970's: The Stooges. March 6th will see the release of 'The Weirdness', their first studio album since 1973. I'll let Iggy Pop have the first word before I make an attempt to match his:

"The one thing that kind of amazes me is that it sounds like us. But it doesn't sound quite like 'Fun House,' 'Raw Power' or our first one. You put it on, and right away, you'd know, well, that's them. There they go."



Without going into all three masterful albums prior to 'The Weirdness', I'll simply state that they're all good, to say the very least. 'Skull Ring', which came out in 2003 was technically an Iggy album, although the remaining members of The Stooges played on some of the tracks. Even for his age (or their ages, in this case), and despite the ever changing musical times, it is proven time and time again that Iggy Pop is just one of those artists that really can't do much wrong (this is where people who aren't fans of Bowie will disagree with me slightly; you know who you are). He continuosly makes even new rock bands look like light weights by comparison. No one has really matched the raw power (no pun intended) of The Stooges since probably 'Fun House' (with the exception of Nick Cave and The Birthday Party, which I'll get to later). It all leads us to a fully formed studio album by these great pioneers of rock. Could it be one of the top ten rock albums of the current decade? If the old timers still have in, even, their little finger what they encompassed entirely in 1969 and '70, then I'd be hard-pressed to say 'no'.

One song off the new album, My Idea of Fun, is available to listen to on The Stooges official MySpace page (www.myspace.com/iggyandthestooges). If it alone is any indication of the rest of the album, then it sounds pretty promising. They certainly haven't lost their rough edge. If anything, the song sounds more stripped down than anything heard on 'Funhouse'. It suffers from the band's loss of original bass player Dave Alexander, whose licks were one of the premier draws of 'Funhouse'. However, with the addition of Mike Watt (from The Minutemen): who am I to complain? Not heard on this particular song is the saxophone of Steve Mackay (also one of the most essential elements of 'Funhouse'); however, even knowing that the guy is back for 'The Weirdness' is cause enough to purchase the thing just to hear what they do with him. Stranely enough, Pop's vocals sound younger and more juvenile than they did when he was in his 20's. Ironically, The Stooges were a huge influence on the Punk movement that would sprout up a little more than a decade after the release of 'Funhouse'; but the overall sound (primarily in the vocals) of My Idea of Fun is clearly heavily influenced by the Punk movement. Wrap your mind around that. What goes around, comes around I guess. Even for such heavies as The Stooges.

Buy this album and listen to at maximum volume in your car with the windows rolled down. It's been far too long the country's neighborhoods have gone without getting riled up over some good old fashioned noise.

While everything is quiet and easy
Mr. Grinder can have his way...
--Memphis Slim, 1941

Speaking of old timers getting their "rock" on. Nick Cave and three regular members of his almighty back-up band, The Bad Seeds, have teamed up to create the much anticipated side project known as Grinderman.

"Foul-mouthed, noisy, hairy, and damn well old enough to know better."



Anyone that knows me knows that I can't get enough of anything Nick Cave has done. I'm of the school of thought that 'Junkyard' was just an element or two shy of being as good as 'Funhouse'. It was definately the next best thing, and still is. The Birthday Party, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, even Nick Cave without any seeds...the guy is a giant among very small men. So mention of, not another album with all the Bad Seeds, but another album under an entirely new band name altogether didn't phase me in the least. Especially when I read above quote. And below quote:

"It is the howl in the dark of the Everyman."

And that was simply talking about one song! No Pussy Blues. The song and video can be found on the band's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/grinderman). Calling themselves "old enough to know better" is a gross understatement, after having watched the video. It's a rock video all current "young" bands wish they could make; or should wish they could make. If the members of Grinderman are too old to be making rock music as good as they are, then the only conclusion that could possibly be drawn from their statement is that the only people who know better are the over 40 crowd.

Jim Sclavunos doesn't so much play the drums, as he beats on them. Both sticks at the same time to match the shit he's kicking out of the bass drum. Raw also is Martyn Casey's continuous bass; it doesn't let go. Whatever kind of hell the other three instruments unleash, Casey is persistent in reminding us that this is a song that is going somewhere, but it may never get there. Warren Ellis drops the bow and treats the violin as if it were an electric mandolin...on several occasions...enough said. And the ringleader himself, Nick Cave, busts out some of the sickest thrashing he's ever dared to maneuver in his career. Some notes can be made out, but for the most part he puts up a solid wall of distortion that almost dwarves the rest of the band.

This is the garage band to end all garage bands. If you were walking past someone's house and heard a song like No Pussy Blues tearing up the driveway, you'd for sure think, "these kids are going somewhere." Luckily Nick Cave has gone there, done that, and then some; and now his band, Grinderman, have decided to show the "youngsters" a thing or two about how to play rock and roll.

If you didn't buy 'Grinderman' (out the same day as 'The Weirdness'!), you'd be missing out on one of the top five rock albums of 2007. And if you're a die hard Birthday Party fan like I am, this is as close as you're gonna get.



Last, but certainly not least, is my favorite band to date. So naturally I'm very excited about their much anticipated next album; and henceforth, the following words may be slightly biased and congratulatory. But fuck it. Modest Mouse is by far the finest rock band making music today and, arguably, in the last ten years.

I could write a blog a day about how and why they have been consistantly rising above any other professional band in the business since being signed by Epic in 2000, with 'The Moon & Antartica' (and even before being signed, with 'The Lonesome Crowded West' and 'This Is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About'). For the sake of this particular blog, however, I will attempt to reign it in, and keep to the task at hand.

"A nautical balalaika carnival romp"
--Isaac Brock

'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank' has been in a kind of limbo since before Christmas, with an original release date of December 19th. The group has been busy touring parts of Europe, Mexico, and The United States, so they can be forgiven for having to push the date a couple months. But it's enough already. The first single from the album, Dashboard, was played on 107.7 The End in Washington on New Year's Eve, and has since been made available on Modest Mouse's MySpace page (www.myspace.com/modestmouse). One of the first things evident from the single, not surprisingly, is the one thing about this Modest Mouse album that makes it their most talked about. The inclusion of The Smith's old lead guitarist, Johnny Marr.

Perhaps one of the most influential guitarists of the 1980's, Marr was originally asked by Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock to help out on a track. Brock rightfully thought to himself something like, "why would the guy who backed up Morrissey for all those years help out a couple kids from Issaquah, Washington for anything more than signing some copies of 'The Queen is Dead'?" But as a testament to the sheer talent that makes up Modest Mouse, Marr obliged to help out the band. And after jamming with them on their one track, Marr took to the road with them in order to fill out the sound for 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank'. It wasn't long before he was considered a full-fledged member of Modest Mouse.

I laughed a little after typing that last sentence. Never in my wildest musical dreams would I have imagined one of my favorite bands of the 80's becoming a piece of my favorite current band. If you consider the sound of the two bands however, and the dynamic of both group's lyrics and accompaniment...it makes perfect sense. Evident in almost every Smiths song was such a bittersweet sarcastic wit. Biting lyrics no one would want to be the source of, masked brilliantly by a barrage of snappy , infectious rock beats. Thanks to Marr, the electric guitar became a living soul that couldn't live without Morrisey; or Morrissey without it. Liken that to Modest Mouse. Brock's words transcend anything being written today about someone's girlfriend, or government, or whatever. Themes such as a vast and harrowing universe, the impact of our places of birth, and an ever-looming God consistantly crop up in his lyrics and trouble him into humbleness. It's like when someone asked David Byrne if he would ever write a love song and he wrote The Talking Heads' best song, Naieve Melody; it's as if someone asked Isaac Brock why he doesn't ever write a song about himself.

The difference between The Smiths and Modest Mouse however, is time. Rock has changed since The Smiths' self titled album hit record stores in 1984; Modest Mouse is a new band. They're a hard rock band, and anyone who has listened to 'The Lonesome Crowded West' even once can tell you that they aren't as modest as their name suggests when it comes to tearing down a conventional rock song and trampling it into the mud. Which is what separates them from most current bands today. Their sensibility of what makes a solid pop song, fused with the almost eerie personal relationship each member has with his respective instrument. Sounds like The Smiths. And the ease with which the two bands were married, aside from being justifiably philosophized here, can simply be heard by listening to one song.

Dashboard is just as good as anything you'd hear coming from Modest Mouse the first time you hear it. It's catchy, off the bat; it's clever, lyrically; and it tells a story. Telling a good story in song is something Brock is no stranger to. But telling a story with an instrument is not always an easy task (even for Brock, who is still mastering it quite well), which is why you need a seasoned storyteller like Marr. Modest Mouse was wise enough to pick up on this, and I'm sure this alone will make 'We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank' the best rock album of 2007.

Thus concludes my journey into March. The real "March Madness". All three of these powerhouse albums, coupled with the trechery and wanton all-day-drunk of St. Patrick's Day...I'll be suprised if April isn't just one big hang over under the rain. But if no other month resembles March, musically, in any way...I'm sure I'll recover.

Anatomy of a Traffic Jam

Being stuck in traffic in Los Angeles is much like taking the slow boat down the river Styx. After a while, whatever your destination (be it work, Hell, or otherwise) starts to seem pretty inviting.

It's a combination of the surrounding desert hills, endless palm trees, and persistent sun that make the solid bumper-to-bumper journey all the more maddening. The looks on the people's faces: confused, dead. Confused as to how they have died? Scared. And of course, the droning sound of the helicopters.

Helicopters?

Helicopters. Only in Los Angeles will every helicopter in the county buzz out to cover the chaos. No matter what the magnitude of the atrocity. I guess vultures circle for a dead lizard every bit as much as they do for a dead zebra. In my case, I was held up by a dead tzi tzi fly. After all the commotion, the hour hold-up, the helicopters, the digital reader board claiming "major accident, all lanes become one", the 0 mph, and the dead faces; it was all for glass. By the time I realized this, however, I had far passed the point of rage and frustration. That was how it started.

The psyche of a human being adrift in a traffic jam sea can be broken down into a few simple stages. No one's mind is safe from the torment. And if you can cut through the daze, if only for a moment of sheer will, you will notice that everyone around you is experiencing the same twisted mind fuck. I did just this. Before turning my head onward again, and re-entering the funhouse.

Upon realizing that I was slowing down, something akin to "oh, come on" was softly dispelled from my lips. Directed at no one, and heard only by me, this proved nothing aside from agitating some inner morning demon. He would proceed to convince me that "this can't be happening", at this moment in time.

After some time in a dead standstill, I found myself uselessly swearing into the empty cab of my truck. Swearing at no one at first; eventually turning the tirade to anyone I made eye contact with, anyone I couldn't see ahead of me (including the poor suckers involved in the accident), and anyone that came to mind that had pissed me off recently. Swearing seemed to make the truck crawl at around 2 or 3 mph (depending on the creativity of the word).

Then comes the acceptance of one's own fate. Looking around, I noticed everyone had reached this moment of zen at the same point in time I did. The guy behind me was tapping away on his steering wheel with a pair of drum sticks. An Asian woman next to me stared peacefully into the early morning sunrise. The music I had turned down, in order to better hear myself swear, suddenly became calming and every word poignant. "Even if things get heavy we'll all float on". Beautiful.

Fuck. The swearing seemed to be more effective. These traffic jams, they respond better to a little roughness. You've gotta grab 'em by the shirt collar and shake the hell out of them.

The closer you get to the incident, whatever it may be, the less you care about what it is anymore. I'll have to shift gears here for a second and revert back to the possesive "I"; because if "you" happen to be an Angeleno, then at this point in the jam you still care very much about what the incident is. In fact, as I would find out in this case, it was "you" all along that put me through an hour long inner struggle of fragile nerves and self doubt.

I understand the curiosity of an automobile accident. Death and injury aside, two or more large pieces of machinery entangled together on the side of a highway is a rather impressive display, and not something you see every day. However, in Los Angeles, the native's necks seem to be made of a much more pliable and liberal rubber than anywhere else in the country. I recall times when I would pass up an accident without blinking an eye. And they happen far more often in this city! But at this point in this particular jam, the crawl had gone on for the better part of an hour. So, morbid as it may be, I thought to myself, "this mother fucker better be good. Maybe I'll even wind down my window to get a better look at the carnage."

As I rolled into the vicinity of the veritable auto battlefield (as the digital reader board promised; and the helicopters implied) I realized the extent of my heartache and pain. As I said before...glass. Glistening in the sun, and crunching delicately below my tires. I wondered if the helicopters could even see the glass from way up there. If the cameras would be able to pick that up. They weren't anywhere to be found anymore, so I guess they got bored, and fluttered off. Clearly, either I had been in limbo for so damn long that the accident had occured, been responded to, humans rushed to the hospital, reported, and cleaned up, all before I reached it; or, I had been the butt of a very cruel LA joke. They were breaking me in, giving me a taste of what I can expect for the rest of however long I spend here.

If this, resulting from glass on the roadway, is any indication...then I'll be packing my bags tonight and hitting the 101 back North. But then again, I'd probably get stuck there too: plastic bag in lane 3.

Let's All Go to the Coliseum!

Dionysus to Gibson: Beware of Cat!

I've been reading the reviews of Apocalypto.

Did Mel Gibson kill some babies somewhere that I'm not aware of? This guy is getting such bad press, all of the time, you'd think he was personally raping every single film critic from LA to New York City, and then asking them to write a review for his next film.

I'll preface this by saying, I haven't yet seen Apocalypto. From what it sounds like, it is to the Mayan people what a cat-o-nine tails was to Jim Caviezel. An all out blood bath as a way of communicating the horrors of human sacrifice, and how said sacrificing of entire populations could be potentially damaging to a civilization on its way up. Or down, as I'm assuming the message is here. Aside from agreeing with Gibson that the Mayans were way out of line in their religious practices (many Leftist critics would probably berate me for the previous statement; who am I to judge a culture's religious rites?), I also agree that mass executions were, as far as I can imagine, rather messy indeed.

Having not seen the film, let's assume for a moment that, as several critics and bloggers have labelled it, the film was overtly exploitive. Then what we have on our hands here is a collection of critics who have forgotten how to watch a movie. These are the same people who will probably tell you that Joe D'Amato was a genius of horror, or that Wes Craven (in his youth) really knew how to make pulling a teenage girls intestines out and raping her repeatedly say something poignant about the war in Vietnam better than any war movie could. The exploitation flick has been around for as long as film has been considered an art form (or in this case, entertainment). And for the most part, with the exception of very conservative groups, they have been roundly accepted by the film community as either clever satires of the human condition, or just great fun. Be that as it may, if when I sit down to watch Gibson's latest "shocking" and "offensive" filmmaking effort, and find myself sitting in front of a horror-fest about the Mayan civilization, then I'll probably have as good a time as I did when I sat down and accepted Deodato's vision of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon in 'Cannibal Holocaust'.

Now let's assume that Gibson meant not to be exploitive, but to be literal. Let's say, he put on film what anyone can see the Mayans painted on their buildings what we know to be historically accurate: that the high priests of this particular region of Latin America were tearing a lot of hearts out of people's chests. It has been argued that none of this is true. That the Mayan people were very mathematically inclined, that they were architects centuries ahead of their time, and that they were brilliant strategists beyond their years. How could they possibly be blood-thirsty monsters? But none of their achievments of society and art is being denied. To bring it into current terms: am I to believe that the Muslim people are a group of prehistoric sand-dwellers, hijacking planes and blowing up Israel all of the time, in the name of Allah? I'd be ignorant to accept this notion. But not ignorant to accept that a vast number of highly influential religious zealots within the Islamic community could very well erase both the struggles of that community to grow, and the perception of that community's people by the rest of the non-Muslim world; possibly for the rest of all of history. From what it sounds like, Gibson isn't saying "look at these lunatics, The Mayans"; instead he is saying, "look at what these lunatics did to their people, The Mayans". If I find no exploitation of that fact, and merely a historical account of this message, then who am I to decry the movie's violence any more than the blood that was shed in films like Schindler's List, or Saving Private Ryan. Both very violent films, justifiably in every way; also both exceptionally entertaining as movies. But what critic in their right mind would call either exploitive? For all we know, Apocalypto could visually have looked exploitive simply for the fact that none of us has ever seen someone's heart cut out of their chest with a sacrificial flint knife and handed to them before the sun god. But we've all seen the atrocities of the gun. For all I know, the critics who saw Apocalypto as exploitive just can't imagine such a thing as mass human sacrifice outside of the cinema, and they aren't mature enough to allow someone like Mel Gibson (gasp) to handle such a topic (exploitive or otherwise).

Which leads me to the man himself. As far back as I can remember, the evolution of the Mel Gibson Witch Hunt goes something like this (beginning with his success as a Hollywood Hunk):

Lethal Weapon saw Mel fighting crime as a smart-ass, devil-may-care heartthrob with lucious locks and an itchy trigger finger. We all loved him, even through a good chunk of the sequels. Then he made a series of rather weepy, cliche message tales of strong will and the endurance of the human spirit. We still loved him though. He peppered these with some light-hearted comedies and a run of questionable chick flicks. For the most part, he remained "cool" in the eyes of the Hollywood community. Braveheart won the hearts of the academy, but had some Wallace historians scratching their heads (if for anything else, not recalling if their Scottish ancestor looked that good in a kilt). America felt pumped, like it did after Rocky ran up those steps, and we all gave Mel a collective pat on the back. Using this momentum, he made The Patriot. Adhering to his rather elementary interpretation of historical events (though not altogether inaccurate), he gave us another group of underdogs (The United States of America) as heroes, and a very clear-cut adversary of evil (England). The fireworks shone just a little brighter that summer. At this point, we were still giving our Hollywood Hunk History Hero our thumbs up, and a "go get 'em Tiger" fist to the jaw.

Until he dared announce his affiliation with a Western religion. The day Mel told us he was a Catholic, and that he would be producing a big budget movie about the death of Jesus Christ, a hush fell over the Los Angeles area so still you could hear a rosary drop. Everyone looked around nervously. Then came a veritible hail storm of back lash that hasn't quelled to this day. People who hadn't even seen The Passion of the Christ were going after this movie like it was a positive biopic about the life of Hitler. These were the same people who, a little more than a decade prior, were attacking the Christian community for not even having seen The Last Temptation of Christ before laying into it.

Mel Gibson made a film that was a literal adaptation of the age old book of Luke? For shame, Mel. If only you had been more like Martin Scorsese, or Ron Howard, and made a film based on philisophical interpretation of the life of Jesus from "scholars" still alive today, then maybe we would have been more receptive to your vision of the Mayan people. But you broke the one rule too true in this town of tinsel and flash bulbs. You admitted to being a Christian. You might as well of just put a big dunce cap on, and packed your bags for the Mid-West. This is Hollywood, Bub; we're an advanced culture, open-minded and progressive, and we have no time for anyone who lays claim to a belief in the God of Abraham. That's so 2000 years ago, man. If only you had announced that you were converting to Islam, and were producing a big budget movie on the death of Mohammad. Then maybe the people down at the LA and NY Times would have slapped their Leftist seal of approval on your ass, kissed it, then hailed you as "daring" and "intelligent". But you had to be "controversial", didn't you? You had to play by your own, whacked out, Right Wing, Scary, Christian Fundamental rules. For shame, Mel...for shame.

The man got drunk in Malibu! He was pulled over for it! He had pictures taken of him with his arms around girls!

If this had been Mick Jagger, or Robert Downey Jr. (and it has), we would have either A. thought it was awesome, dude. Or B. Forgiven them after some half-assed apology to the nation. Mel Gibson made such apology (minus the half-assery), but was neither forgiven nor given "awesome" status. If we were to put a tape recorder up to half of Mel's critics at a crowded bar in Malibu on a Saturday night, we'd most likely have to bleep much of the recording out, and a lot of thick-framed glasses-wearing hipsters would have a lot of explaining to do. But they probably wouldn't have to. The man has struggled for years to escape an embarassment of a white supremicist upbringing (which is probably way more blown out of proportion than any of our own kind-of awkwardly intolerant uncles or fathers drunkedly fearing an onslaught of Spics from the South). He has, himself, denounced both his father, and his unpopular view of the Jewish people. One drunken slip and the man is Himmler for the rest of his natural life; despite his apology, despite his regret. Where was Jerry Seinfeld on Letterman allowing Mel to say his piece? Too risky. The man might come on and sieg heil at the audience. Hell, worse, he might try to convert everyone to "his side". The things Mel Gibson could do to us all makes Hollywood shudder to think. One reporter ventured out to his ranch to interview him about the DUI arrest; probably scared to find empty Jack Daniels bottles and dead Jews. He prefaced the article by admitting, he didn't know what to expect. What he found was a very sober, coherent man, sorry for what he had done and (like so many Americans, Left and Right Wing) still battling alcoholism. Surprise, glib reporter! Who remained appropriately glib about the whole situation, so as not to fall out of grace with all the other reporters who still believe that Gibson Ranch is akin to Auschwitz after a night of heavy Rumplemintz drinking. And all the reporters who won't give the man an inch under any circumstance because he simply can't shake that whole Christianity thing.

So where does a man like Mel go now? What will become of his cinema? Will there be any left? A man can only handle so much critical torment before throwing in the towel. And despite what one may think of the subject matter of a Gibson film: he really isn't such a bad filmmaker, cinematically speaking. He's just, by outing himself as a Christian, inadvertantly entered himself into the political coliseum of fun and games; and found himself face to face with a very enormous lion.

Come Into My Sleep

Who knows why I decided to start a blog. Seems everyone has something to say now days; or else, now they have a platform on which to say it from. I guess I just saw that it could be done easily, so I thought I'd do it.

I've seen others (even people I know) start the damn things, for reasons maybe even better than mine, and then not follow through with them. These words have the possibility of existing throughout the English-speaking world at large. What's the point of having a URL with nothing to say for it? It'd be like publishing a book with a cover, but pages with nothing on them. A blank book, so to speak, speaks volumes for its author(s).

So my New Years resolution to myself will be to keep this journal up to date. Whether or not I tell anyone immediately about it, or if I do (and then, whether or not they read it) at all, remains to be seen. I'd like it first to be at least moderately interesting before broadcasting it to my peers. I don't want them to think about me when I go, "he had nothing to say". I'd instead much rather them have found me memorable.

This will be, in a way, a chronicle. And much later, memories. And maybe, after everyone I know has gone into the afterlife; a time capsule.