In A World Of Gutturals

 I Want What I Paid For

The first Presidential debate was a concentrated, painful display of one man's perversity and evil. Over 90 minutes on the stage at Case Western, Trump showed everyone exactly how he will behave over the election's outcome, and what he will do in a second term. 

Then, he 'suffered' through the most public, and hidden, case of Covid-19 in the history of the pandemic. He emerged (for the cameras) as the Strong Daddy, The Leader. I watched his choreographed return to the Whitey Haus from Walter Reed and felt a chill: the sequence appeared copied, nearly shot-for-shot, from Adolf's arrival at Nuremberg captured in Riefenstahl's Triumph Of The Will.

Since then, The Leader has gone on a social media rage, an almost nonstop public vomiting of bile, the usual lies and self-aggrandizement to Jack's Twitter and the Murdoch media, his enablers. His (presumed) case of Covid was a "gift from God" that regular Americans should not be afraid of. 

He wants Hillary, Obama and Biden arrested by 'his' Justice Department. He is all but silent about a militia plot to kidnap a sitting U.S. Governor. He demands that a Federal judge, with strong and deep ties to a bordering-on-evangelical-Protestant cult, be confirmed to the Supreme Court. He says all American troops will be Home For Christmas from Afghanistan, and the Taliban smile. 

He turns this way; he turns that way. He capers and spins. He is the focus and center of all disgusting things, the degenerate clown who drops his pants and exposes himself to show the crowd the anus mundi -- Well, at least they're all lookin' at me! And that means they're not lookin' at Sleepy Joe!

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Results of the debate were not what I expected. People reacted against Trump's behavior, seeing it as an embarrassment -- like watching a relative pick a fight in a restaurant for no reason, and voiding his bowels at the same time. Possibly, they saw the same thing I had -- that being steeped in a concentrated bath of Trump was like watching the capering clown; so disgusting, but you couldn't look away. The longer you watched, the more painful it became.  

Biden, by comparison, appeared sane -- and, also a little like the Geek kid whom a bully goes after. They may not like the Geek much (secretly, they think he's weak and should stand up for himself), but they liked the bully less for his behavior.  

In the world most people live in, which never got much more sophisticated after High School -- if the majority of Americans were the school vice-principal, they signaled in their rejection of Trump's display that he would get the three-day suspension. 

The second debate was cancelled. Because The Leader does not wish a virtual debate (due to Trump's own infection with Covid-19); he considers it a "waste of time." Perhaps the third debate will be held -- and by then, The Leader may be so untethered, his little piggy eyes squinched with hate and a desire to hurt, to dominate, that he will give America a show it will never forget.

I paid good money -- SARS-CoV2 money -- for the past eight months; the past four years; and I want to see this murderous, narcisstic jerk-off pull a China Syndrome, and melt down right to the bottom on national television. Gibbering, screeching, making monkey noises; voiding his bowels in public.

That's my right as an American, and a consumer: I want what I paid for.

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Vote Of No  =  Not The Same As A Vote Of Yes

At the same time, I'm clear that voting for Biden is a vote of No against all that. As my vote in 2016 was. As my vote for Obama was in 2008 and 2012. And so forth.

So I'm voting against a deluded grifter, a child-man caricature of a politician who is an empty suit for religious crazies and opportunistic proto-fascists -- who are just front persons for the monsters: corporations, and Our Fabled Wealthy.

I'm voting for Democratic empty suits, promising Americans a little more prosperity, a little social justice, but have ever only delivered a small fraction of that. Because to get it, they make deals with the front persons for the same monsters, same corporations and Fabled Wealthy. 

This time, the front men for the monsters have had a taste of all the money to be made, the 'christian' messages that can be delivered; a delicious taste of Power. They can see how easy it is to paint whole sections of the country as looters, Antifa; communists and Those In Rebellion Against God. They may not be in the mood to make deals with Democrats. They may decide to back Trump all the way to a coup -- when will they ever have as good a chance again?

"If you fuck around with us; if you do something bad to us; we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before.”  

      -- Trump, Interviewed On Limbaugh's Radio Program; October 8, 2020

The fix always seems to be in. The truth always seems to be just out of reach, obscured by alternative facts, by the Murdoch machine "flooding the Zone with shit", as Lil' Stevie Bannon says; because people have been treated like Rubes and Marks so long that many of them are, now. And because I know what I'm voting against, and voting for, I despair for my country. 

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Looking Over The Edge Of The Vent Block Roof

Most healthy persons can't take more than a few minutes of Trump at a time. To preserve our sanity, we've been forced to absorb him by spoonfulls over the past four years -- mostly, video clips of his speeches and press events. We know he's a liar, an infantile, insecure bully using taunts and threats to feel powerful. He responds to external stimulus through a narcissistic filter: he is the center of the universe.

Four years of clips, sound bites, and reported self-referential bully's chatter is the context for our understanding of Trump.  But we keep all those moments separate in our minds -- like the core of a nuclear device -- because experiencing all of Trump, suddenly bringing all those facts together, might be more discomfort than most people can stand. 

Doing that could mean the realization that Trump is the embodiment of every lie, every contradiction and half-truth about America that's woven into our national fabric. He's the personification of everything about America we have been trying as a society to avoid facing. He's Brutal Whiteman Daddy Who Doesn't Care, coming home drunk at 3 A.M., and fuck knows what will happen. 

And we know he will at least try to bully his way into rigging and stealing the election, to avoid prosecution, to rule America as a dictatorship. The past four years may be prologue.

The debate forced America to experience all four years of Trump, concentrated into 90 minutes of bombast, jeering, heckling, lying. It was painful to see just how good he is at it. It was frightening. What I found just as painful was watching Biden's response.

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The Minotaur And The Other Guy

Biden appeared to have prepared for a debate on the facts, to show his qualifications to be President (this strategy had been broadcast by his campaign, several times). Trump would appear weak and out of his depth.  

What Biden wasn't prepared for was Trump, acting in the tradition of a Joseph Goebbels / Steve Bannon Brownshirt. He went after Biden from the moment he opened his mouth -- interrupting, insulting; forcing the eyes of the cameras on him, making his behavior the focus of the debate.

Biden's initial response was to laugh, but after a few minutes he reacted like any normal person would:  he was pissed; This is a Presidential debate! You can't act like this! But Trump isn't normal. He's pathological. And his political career is based on acting that way, a dogwhistling display of behavior that sends his Base into an orgasmic delight.

Two minutes in, it wasn't about facts. Trump was a bully in a bar fight, daring Biden to punch back -- and when one starts, it's not about principle; Woodrow Wilson's famous "there is such a thing as a man too proud to fight" only means you will take a beating.  Biden responded with a normal person's outrage -- exactly the way the media and institutions have reacted to this punk for the past four years -- and Trump didn't just keep stepping over the line, he pissed on it, on national television..

Biden's campaign has focused on his experience as Vice-President, and his empathy for ordinary Americans in the midst of a consuming national emergency. He wanted to show by contrast that he was a better, more qualified person than Trump. It didn't work. He didn't have the physical presence, voice, or quick responses to Trump's crude taunts. 

Chronologically, I'm only a few years behind Trump, and a few more behind Biden, but Joe seemed Old -- flustered, stumbling on occasion under Trump's relentless needling. In those moments he looked exactly the way the Rethugs want to portray him. Isolated clips of Biden on the nightly news didn't show this, aber naturlich. You had to be there.

From coast to coast, Trump's Base was drinking in bars and each others' homes, not wearing masks, bellowing their approval: Yeah! Yeah! We're ownin'; them libs! YAAAH-hoo!!  Itching for the opportunity to take their AR-15s and surplus gear and head for a polling place to Get in some lib's face, dare 'em to push back. 'Cause we're ready.

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Strong Daddy; Good Daddy

Then came the via Dolorosa of Trump, the Brave, Our Savior; whisked off to Walter Reed, walking -- no, striding resolutely to Marine One, apparently with a cannula hidden under his hairdo and cloth face mask, and a portable 02 unit in his right pocket. And there were reports that the celebration of Lil' Amy's announcement (of soon being able to speak in tongues from the highest court) turned out to be a Superspreader event.

In quick succession, his doctors prevaricated and threw magic pony dust in the eyes of the mainstream media. Trump spoke -- not through his Press Secretary, brave Lil' Kayleigh (who later tested positive, too) -- but through the Murdochs, telling their 'broadcast personalities' he was The Strong Daddy, the 'good genes' Daddy who was "in control".

Meanwhile, no one gave a damn about the White House staff or the "domestics" (i.e., the butlers, housekeepers, cooks and custodians). No guidelines were issued, no suggestions to be tested; no rules about wearing face masks -- which few people in the White House did; after all, they worked for The Leader, and all reality bends to His will. There would be contact tracing, but not by the CDC; a private contractor would handle it (wonder which cabinet secretary owns the company -- or, a friend of Javonka's?).

There were video clips and still photos released. Evil know-it-all Antifa sympathizers indicated they were staged, taken before Trump left the White House, minutes apart, using the same props in two different rooms. But they showed Daddy hard at work -- for you; all for you, in The Leader's America.

Then, a long, surreal weekend, culminating in a bizarre joyride -- and then, science and all persons bowing to The Leader's will, his triumphant return to Washington, jumping up the South Portico stairs, up, up to the balcony, framed by backlighting and American flags. Daddy was home; and for some all was well. Everyone else felt their stomachs clench, checking their cellphones: What crazed shit has he done now?  Just as he wants us to do. 

Always doing something new, our Daddy.  What will be next?

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Random Barking: Darkness On The Edge

 Edge Of America

I've done my best to live the right way
I get up every morning and go to work each day
But your eyes go blind and your blood runs cold
Sometimes I feel so weak I just want to explode
Explode and tear this old town apart
Take a knife and cut this pain from my heart
Find somebody itching for something to start

  --  "Promised Land" (From Darkness At The Edge Of Town /1978)

.. thinking about Bruce Springsteen. Not any specific music of his; just, how it's always reminded me of the America I grew up in: small-town, white boy America, next to the ocean. Not all that far from-big-city USA. Chamber of Commerce, Future Farmers, Boy Scout and Kiwanis America; Pleasantville. 

Bruce's music always felt more East Coast, for obvious reasons; the Beach Boys' music was supposed to be speaking for life at the edge of California. I liked Pet Sounds, thought "Little Deuce Coupe" was cool (though that got replaced by Hendrix and the Airplane and Mothers Of Invention soon enough). 

By comparison, Bruce's music isn't about L.A. culture. It's deeper and more generic. It's filled with the ambiguity of living, of longing for love; it's about betrayals and missed connections, being locked into class and locality and fate. Be True To Your School is a more naive take on America, and as close as Brian, Roger and the Boys got to exploring the darkness on the edge of town.

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Where I came from, we didn't have the Eastern version of mills and factories, but we understood working-class expectations. We knew where our families were in the local pecking order, and those who mattered in town -- the people you didn't want to make unhappy. We knew, without being told, that our experience wasn't shared by Blacks, Latinos, Asians; they weren't even part of the equation. And all that reflected the larger image of America, a larger pecking order, with so many layers above and below.

It was an America built on white privilege. It was built on a fantasy wrapped in a flag and accompanied by 'The Star Spangled Banner' and Semper Fiedelis. We had relatively stable weather, but the future disintegration of population, of air, water, soil and climate already apparent. The gulling and fleecing of Americans to feed the desires of the rich were yet to begin in earnest. All this is manifestly clear, now; only a fool would dispute it. But it was my world. 

Humans view their challenging present with times that by comparison seem safer, stable: so I think fondly of that old world in spite of all my present, hard-fought, earned knowledge.

That America of the late 1950's and 1960's is mostly gone; only scraps are left. Some people pretend it's still the One True Vision of who and what we are, but everyone knows that world has disappeared. The one we're in, now, is changing. In fact, it may be gone soon, too.

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I hope. But I come from people whose nations were ravaged by political grifters, murderous, quasi-religious zealots, war, economic disaster and revolution. I was raised to believe that more often than not, the dice do not fall your way, no matter how much you may wish for it. And when you hear a voice saying blood is about to flow -- run, you should pay attention.

I'm beginning to see a bad moon above the horizon, like an escaped balloon, baleful and drifting. Even with all the Dystopian thinking I've subscribed to, I never expected it to manifest in reality.

In the Bible Cain slew Abel

And East of Eden he was cast,

You're born into this life paying,

for the sins of somebody else's past,

Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain,

Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame,

You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames...

("Adam Raised A Cain")

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Something In The Night

As I scan Trump’s tweets, speeches ... the thought occurs to me that this must be what it would have been like had former Alabama governor George Corley Wallace Jr. won the presidency in 1968.  Read Wallace’s rhetorical choices during the ’68 campaign and you will quickly learn that Trump has been channeling him.

Wallace sought the presidency at a tumultuous time of protest, civic unrest over deeply rooted racism and the Vietnam War. With his “Stand Up for America” slogan, he played to the growing White backlash against the marches and acts of civil disobedience. Backlash is also the heart and soul of Trump’s campaign war against “anarchists” and the media.

Hear Wallace in a 1968 Toledo speech... : “I want to say that anarchists — and I am talking about newsmen sometimes — I want to say — I want to make that announcement to you because we regard that the people of this country are sick and tired of, and they are gonna get rid of you — anarchists.”

(Colbert I. King, "There is no vaccine for our deeper national sickness" , Washington Post)

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Bark Bark Bark Bark

Trump gets away with being a despot because we allow it. When he crosses some new Red Line of conduct, we collectively say But that's just not done! It's an Outrage!! 

It's the functional equivalent of saying, "Well! I never!" as someone commits an act of unspeakable rudeness. We act as if commonly-understood rules of public conduct are still in force for him, for the political Right -- and that with a broad, public show of disapproval, he will be forced to conform.

The media have done this with Trump even before he came down the escalator. They act as if he could be politely shamed in print or online to change his behavior. He didn't. When it became clear he lied, daily, outrageously, unbelievably, they could have called him a liar -- but, no. To be seen as practitioners of honest journalism, to be oh-so-neutral, they would 'fact-check' him. 

He was allowed to lie on Twitter (not a journalistic medium; but, still) until its own users pressured Jack into putting a sticker on a couple of Trump's Twits that they were 'bad'. He continues to lie on that platform, and they continue to let him.

They allowed Kellyanne Conway to screech that there were such things as "alternative facts", and then said nothing -- as if facts were debatable; truth a matter of whoever is holding the gun.  Politicians on the left made the same mistake, and continue to do so (read on below).

We keep playing the game with These People by the old rules -- as if normalcy would return any minute, like parents coming home early to find the maskless party in full swing, and say What in the world were you thinking? 

We refuse to stoop to the same behavior as These People. We believe we're morally superior -- and we believe that even as they kick us to the curb, over and over again, and take our wallets. Even as they abuse children in detention facilities, lie about the pandemic, steal and scheme to steal, push their AR-15s in our faces and tell us they're patriots and do what they say. 

And when the media, the politicians on "our side" respond with a "Well, I never!" -- Trump's reply is always Yeah, you never, bitch.  I always.  And this is why he continues to appear to win, liar and thief that he is.

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Factory

When you have at least 40% of the population wanting to believe irrational things, and another 40% wants a logic which is not functional, there is a great deal of logically valid and scientifically correct data which will not be allowed as a given.

In short, we argue over things that have already been proven to be true. I do not need to listen to President Trump to know that he simply lies. However, his overt lies are a result of the fact that there has been for 40 years a gradually building consensus for a covert set of lies.

The system which created the confluence of events which led to him taking the oath of office is in no way related to any system of reality worthy of attention.

(Stirling Newberry, "The Theocratic Mantra Of Our Age", Ian Welsh blog, September 17, 2020)

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Racing In The Street

Many of our most influential editors and reporters are acting as if the rules that prevailed under previous American presidents are still in effect. But this president is different; the rules are different; and if it doesn’t adapt, fast, the press will stand as yet another institution that failed in a moment of crucial pressure.

In some important ways, media outlets are repeating the mistake made by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller. In his book about the Mueller investigation, True Crimes and Misdemeanors (and in a New Yorker article), Jeffrey Toobin argues that Mueller’s tragic flaw was a kind of anachronistic idealism—which had the same effect as naivete. He knew the ethical standards he would maintain for himself and insist on from his team. He didn’t understand that the people he was dealing with thought standards were for chumps. 

Mueller didn’t imagine that a sitting attorney general would intentionally misrepresent his report, which is of course what Bill Barr did. Mueller wanted to avoid an unseemly showdown, or the appearance of a “fishing expedition” inquiry, that would come from seeking a grand-jury subpoena for Donald Trump’s testimony, so he never spoke with Trump under oath, or at all. Trump, Barr, and their team viewed this decorousness as a sign of weakness, which they could exploit.

Something similar is going on now with many members of the press. They’re behaving like Mueller, wanting to be sure they observe proprieties that would have made sense when dealing with other figures in other eras. But now they’re dealing with Donald Trump, and he sees their behavior as a weakness he can exploit relentlessly.

(James Fallows, "Media Mistakes", The Atlantic (September 2020)

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Badlands

MARK LEVIN :  Recall that in June, acting Defense Secretary Mark Esper publicly warned Trump against invoking the Insurrection Act, against the riots, spread across the country. That would let Trump use military troops to quell the violence...

And ... should Donald Trump get reelected, God willing, he needs to fire this Secretary of Defense. This Secretary of Defense doesn't get to dictate to the commander-in-chief. And no, it's not illegal, it's not unconstitutional, it's not unethical, it's not immoral for the President to use the Insurrection Act to put down insurrections. Other presidents have done exactly the same thing. 

And if what you see in the cities isn't an insurrection, I don't know what the hell is. These are Marxist, anarchist groups. And if they plan to continue what they're doing in even worse form, multiply by five or ten, they need to be put down. Are you hearing me Media Matters? Mediaite? Yes, we need to retain a civil society and a republic. 

("Fox's Mark Levin calls Donald Trump 'to use Insurrection Act' ", Media Matters, September 15, 2020)

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Prove It All Night

Attorney General William Barr told the nation’s federal prosecutors to be aggressive when charging violent demonstrators with crimes, including potentially prosecuting them for plotting to overthrow the U.S. government [i.e., sedition], people familiar with the conversation said.

In a conference call with U.S. attorneys across the country last week, Mr. Barr warned that sometimes violent demonstrations across the U.S. could worsen as the November presidential election approaches. He encouraged the prosecutors to seek a number federal charges, including under a rarely used sedition law, even when state charges could apply, the people said.

The call underscores the priority Mr. Barr has given to prosecuting crimes connected to violence during months of protests against racial injustice...  Federal prosecutors have charged more than 200 people with violent crimes related to the protests, most of whom face counts of arson, assaulting federal officers, or gun crimes... police officials say they are alarmed by the presence of armed fringe groups from both sides of the political spectrum. Mr. Barr has blamed much of the violence of leftist extremists including antifa, a loose network of groups ... which Mr. Barr has described as a movement advocating revolution.

(Digby, "Barr Takes It Up A Notch", September 16, 2020)

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Streets Of Fire

So, what was the trade-off that fueled Trump and his administration's decision to downplay the deadly seriousness of the virus to the American public? What was the specific panic they wanted to avoid?

Trump's economic advisors Peter Navarro and Larry Kudlow and Steven Mnuchin, among others, made it abundantly clear that the administration's main concern was stock market values. The Trump administration's principal measure of its economic success has been the rising stock market. Trump himself boasted the other day about the record highs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average as evidence of what a good job he is doing. Understandably, they did not want to see a stock market panic a la 2008.

So, let's look at the numbers on both sides of the trade-off equation. Currently, the U.S. has roughly a quarter of the world's deaths (~195,000) even though we only make up about 4% of the world's population. Worldwide deaths stand at ~905,000. 

So, doing back-of-the-envelope math, if Trump had acted responsibly and truthfully, not downplayed the severity of the threat, and the U.S. had performed on par with the averages of other countries in the world (not better, just average), we should be at ~36,000 deaths (4% of 905,000). That's ~160,000 additional deaths due to Trump's neglect and public lies about the deadly severity and spread of the virus.

So the question we need to ask is how many points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average were salvaged by this policy? And how many lives were sacrificed in trade-off for each point on the Dow?

(Wisdom Of The West:  "Panic vs. Pandemic: Doing The Hard Math", September 10, 2020)

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Lies And The Lying Liars Who Lie

“Americans reelected our majority in 2016 and expanded it in 2018 because we pledged to work with President Trump and support his agenda, particularly his outstanding appointments to the federal judiciary,” McConnell said in a statement Friday following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

He added: “President Trump’s nominee will receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.”

"McConnell Vows Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee Will Get Senate Vote", WaPo, September 19, 2020

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At Sunset I Saw The Chickens Swooping In For A Landing

Inequality and polarization have not been this high since the nineteenth century. Democrats are certain that if Donald Trump is reelected, American democracy will not survive. Republicans are equally certain that if Trump loses, radical socialists will seize the wealth of elites and distribute it to undeserving poor and minorities, forever destroying the economy of the United States. Both sides are also convinced that the other side intends to change the democratic ‘rules of the game’ in ways that will make it impossible for them to compete effectively in future elections.

-- Mathematician Peter Turchin (quoted in "Ginsburg's Passing May Worsen The Crisis Of Our Democracy"; Max Boot, WaPo September 19, 2020)

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Reprint Heaven: Old

The Only Serious Thing In The World

(From 2018)

Harry Bertschmann, "Stuttgart No. 6", 1957  (Bertschmann Studio / NYT 2017)

The New York Times recently presented a showcase article about an artist, a painter living in New York City. They've produced a body of work and it's clear they have some chops, a vision -- but they're still trying for that Big Break to achieve recognition. And they're 86 years old.

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American culture really has no idea what to do with the Old (and 'old' is a plastic term; so, anyone over 55, say) beyond separating them from the most important thing in American culture: their money. In that, Olds are no different than any other segment in our population.

In the brave new 5G world, everyone is a unit or resource, part of a demographic group to be influenced, led, monitored and monetized. To the Powers, what people do with their little lives isn't so important -- it's what percentage of their income can be shorn from them during those lives that's key.

In 2016, The New Inquiry webzine dedicated an issue to aging, and in an editorial comment noted

In the ... capitalist core (that is, those regions which have long since sundered the multigenerational household as the central economic unit), old age isn’t held in the public esteem it vaguely remembers it should be due...

But ... (m)any of the indignities of old age are, on inspection, the indignities of being socially discarded — feelings of isolation, a fall in status, loss of autonomy. That is, these are not organic facts of the body but outcomes desired, at some level, by someone. Why that is, and who benefits, are both painfully obvious and logically obscure.

The general assumptions made about old age have to do with physical changes, a reduction and a diminution. Older people "retire", leave the jobs where they labored and the homes where they lived and (possibly) raised families, and slowly disappear from public view.  Who cares what they did in their lives? They're no longer vital or real contributors to the world. That's all in the past.

And journey's end is death, the ultimate reduction and mystery.  Olds are a reminder of The End of everything our spiritually crippled culture asserts is most important. Small wonder most people are almost eager to ignore them, unless of course there's money to be made.

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People with a desire for artistic expression make efforts to translate their insights and experience, birthing them into the world through whatever medium. American culture takes art seriously, and boasts of the achievements of our artists, but doesn't support those artists and won't take them seriously unless there's money involved (if so, Jeff Koons is the greatest artist humankind ever produced).

Often the image of that effort is connected to youth --  the young artist, the unheated garret; trying for recognition and fame, the "big break". Most people wouldn't connect being a "struggling artist" with being an Old -- but I'll bet you lunch that it's more common.

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When the New York Times published Harry Bertschmann's story, it was a reminder that artists frequently make trade-offs between creative time and material security, Working The Day Job. Bertschmann was no different; he worked for decades doing advertising art, and making that choice affected Bertschmann's path as an artist.

In that review, the NYT story took a traditional perspective -- an underlying assumption that art must result in financial success and name recognition to have any intrinsic worth: Bertschmann knew Rothko and Kline and Motherwell; they got famous and rich, and he didn't.

The usual conclusion of a storyline like this will depict the unrecognized artist, aging, living in solitary poverty -- a cold-water, sub-basement apartment; a description of finished canvases stacked beside the pallet and mattress, the stained, pathetic hotplate.

But this story has a Cinderella ending: good news, that Bertschmann is becoming known, late in life, with a promise of financial reward: the NYT article was timed to appear a week before a solo show of his selected works at a prestigious, upstate gallery. There's lots of buzz and potential for sales.

Don't misunderstand: I'm all for Cinderella endings. I'm glad Bertschmann and his wife will have more money, more security -- and, that his work will be shown. People will see it -- and whatever alchemical magic happens when we see, hear or read art can take place. That's why Art gets done. I would suggest that if Bertschmann were here, he'd say that's what he's been doing for 60 years; it's why he's on the planet.

At the same time, there's a reminder that perspectives and assumptions about art, about aging, and life and death, served up by our culture are terrifyingly inadequate. In spite of itself, the NYT article of Bertschmann's story gives a glimpse of that -- and that sometimes, in this world, there are happy endings.

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MEHR, MIT EINE NACHWORT:  Harry Bertschmann passed away less than a year after the Paper of Record published his story. In September 2019 -- a world away from Covid and Trump and the brink of the Something we're standing on today -- everything in the co-op apartment he shared with his wife was sold at an estate sale. Everything.

I don't suggest that loss of material possessions, or a lifetime spent working for someone else's enrichment, and creating art that went unrecognized, is the point of living; as if public acclaim and financial wealth were the reasons behind creative acts. I don't know what the point of living is, any more than you do. But the conscious act of making is powerful in our species, and stands as an absolute good whether the tree falls in the forest when no one is around, or if it amazes a crowd with its grace and power.

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Reprint Heaven: End Of The World As We Know It

(This, from 2012, when I actually spent more time and energy writing and posting.)

Over the long weekend that everyone took, I went to see 2012. It didn't help that I began coming down with a cold right there in the theater, but it wasn't a bad film, really -- and as a friend warned me over Thanksgiving dinner, "You'll only go to see the special effects": They were spectacular, true; but Woody Harrelson's fuzzy-wacky Pabst-Drinking conspiracy radio host, broadcasting from the edge of the Yellowstone caldera as it erupted, almost eclipsed the digital magic...

Will Smith as The Man, and Abby (Or Kona), as Sam The Pooch

Back at home, lying around with The Cold, I flipped through some of my 200 DVDs and found the 2008 release of I Am Legend with Will Smith -- which was a fairly good film, but only in it's alternate release version. I glanced at the Criterion edition of Fritz Lang's M; I ran a finger across the cover of Beetlejuice; I considered Pixar's The Incredibles (Dudes!! Where's the SEQUEL???). But it was "I Am Legend" that gave me pause.

Ahnold's (Supposedly) 'Final Film', Canceled By Voters

Smith had been offered the starring role as Dr. Robert Neville, because the first Star cast, Arnold Schwarzenegger, had become the Governator. I strongly considered watching Smith (a more than decent actor), but finally passed on it to check out the simple, unexpected wonders of the Teevee, and I was glad I did.

Here in San Francisco, a local cable public access channel occasionally runs films when they need filler for a spare ninety minutes or so (occasionally, they don't even run the full feature). The prints are always bad, and the sound worse, but it's interesting to see what the kids down in the studio will pick. A few weeks ago, they put up Romero's original Night Of The Living Dead; this weekend, it was The Last Man On Earth -- which is, aber natürlich, the earliest version of 'I Am Legend'.

There have been any number of End-Of-The World-As-We-Know-It stories and films based on the elements of I Am Legend: 28 Days Later; The Stand; the late-70's BBC series, Survivors (certainly, "Shaun Of The Dead"); in an odd kind of way, even The Puppet Masters and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

These stories involve a nuclear war/alien incursion/mysterious plague (sometimes man-made) which kills and/or radically alters its victims; somehow, they turn into Zombies/Vampires/Unemotional Communists Alien Replicants; and, there is a single person/small band of plucky survivors, trying to find others who survived as well and get on with living in the Brave New World.

(Photo: The Incorruptable We Worship: Canada's dvdbeaver.com)

Last Man was released in the U.S. in 1965. It began as a property owned by Hammer Films in England, with Richard Matheson writing a script after his classic 1954 novella, "I Am Legend".

A Bantam Paperback: Forty Cents.

(Matheson later wrote another novella, "Bid Time Return", which became the 1980 cult film, Somewhere In Time; later, another novel, "What Dreams May Come" was turned into a fairly good movie about life in the Afterlife, with Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr., Annabella Sciorra and Max von Sydow.)

(Photo: You Will Sing 'O Canada': dvdbeaver.com)

Hammer Films passed on turning the acquisition into a film, but sold production rights to the 'concept' (without Matheson's script) to a cut-rate American producer who filmed it quickly in Europe to save costs. It was directed by Ubaldo Ragona, whose only other films were Fiesta In The Caribbean and The Virgin and The Bastard -- fortunately for Ol' Ubaldo, "Last Man' is a cult classic, the only work he'll be remembered for.

"By night they leave their graves, crawling, shambling, through empty streets, whimpering, pleading, begging for his blood!" Said the film posters. How they signed Vincent Price to play the title role and add the voice narration, no way to know -- except, he did get a European vacation!

Nope; It's Not The L.A. Coliseum... Price, Hunting Vampires In The Amphitheater At 'Eur',

The Rome Suburb, Home To Mussolini's 'Architecture Of Fascism'

As a kid, I'd read Matheson's novella, set in a post-apocalypse Los Angeles. As a sort-of Southern Californian, it was easy for me to visualize L.A. after a Zombiesque, vampire plague. However, Last Man wasn't shot in SoCal; it was filmed in and around Rome, the Eternal City: The architecture, the landscape, the foliage was supposed to be American -- but in college, as I sat getting loaded and watching this thing on teevee, it looked... well, Jeez; it was Italy, for cryin' out loud. Even after several bottles of Chateau Du Safeway, the bunch of us watching the film could spot most of its really obvious 'goofs'.

Wandering West Covina In Search Of The Undead? Nope; Still Eur.

(Photo: The Sublime: dvdbeaver.com)

My favorite "production errors" were seeing vehicles driving in the far background in a number of shots of 'deserted America'; or, Vincent Price (who has been out hunting vampires for two or three years), needing to stock up on garlic to keep vampires away -- and stopping to pick up a few garlands in an abandoned grocery store. Garlic won't last in my kitchen for two weeks, let alone three years.

My favorite bits were the cars Price drove -- which, between cuts in the same sequence, would change from Chevrolets to Fords and back again. I hadn't seen goofs that obvious in a film since spotting a dead slave wearing a wristwatch in the slow-pan-over-the-battlefield shot in the last reel of Spartacus.

"Not tonight, Bobby; I have a headache... be a dear and get me

one of our daughter's pet rats, a razor blade, and a straw?"

(Photo: The Inscrutable: Canada's dvdbeaver.com)

Following the line of Matheson's novella, Price played Robert Morgan, an ordinary man, uninfected (apparently due to a natural immunity) by a plague which arrived from Europe. In a series of flashbacks (also from Matheson's novella), Morgan's daughter becomes ill with the plague, but he and his wife try and nurse her to health. The daughter goes blind; his wife becomes ill with the plague; but he believes they can get through this... until first his daughter, then his wife, dies.

Vincent Price As Morgan, One Step Away From Cracking Up

(Photo: Your Best Friend: dvdbeaver.com)

Now he has a problem; he knows they'll become vampires. Morgan can't bear to stake-and-garlic his own wife and child, so he buries them a long distance from their house. As he knew they would, they return to their old home, every night, standing on the overgrown front lawn and calling out to him. In a grisly way which he can't even admit to himself (They'll come back, man -- and you want them to), Morgan can't bear to be completely separated from the ones he loves, his now Zombized Vampire family, calling to him out of the night.

"We Got 'Glow In The Dark' Play-Doh, Baby... It's So Koooool..."

(Photo: The Scrumptious dvdbeaver.com)

Even his best friend (also seen through pre-plague flashbacks) appears with them to taunt Morgan, crooning for him to come out and join them... strangely, his Sta-Press hairdo remains the same after he goes over to join the Legion Of The Undead... and occasionally, he tries the ol' White House State Dinner Gate Crash through the front door...

"We Want To Meet The Obamas And Suck their Blooooooood!!

(Photo: Canada's dvdbeaver.com, who shall not be named.)

But, he does more than fight the vampire-survivors just to stay alive; he actively hunts them, day in and day out. He broadcasts on radio, looking for other survivors, without an answer. Suddenly, he comes across an apparently uninfected girl, after not having seen another 'normal' human for years -- and slowly, Price discovers that she's one of them ... part of a developing new society -- of vampires.

Price Staking His Claim As King Of The Vampire Hunters

They've developed a serum which keeps the weird, bacteria-like contagion that results in vampirism at low levels in the blood, which prevents them from lusting for it to survive, and to venture out in daylight. It allows the girl to pass for 'normal', and to get close to Price so that he can be neutralized. Because they see themselves as victims of Price's relentless vampire hunting.

"Don't Talk Trash To Me About The Dodgers -- Ever!!"

This is the masterstroke role-reversal Matheson slowly introduces into his story: We initially see The Man as lonely hero, lost in a decaying, shabby world and surrounded by infected, homicidal monsters. But from the perspective of the New Vampires, trying to create order and structure in a world changed by a disease without a cure, they've adapted to survive -- and to them, Price is no hero: He's the Outsider, his daytime staking and killing the threat to their existence.

"But -- But I Can't Be The Monster -- You Are !!!"

(It's The End Of The World... And You're Wearing A Tie?)

Their serum liberates them from most of the aspects of Vampyrism -- enough to build a New Order. Price is their monster, the thing New Vampire parents use to frighten their children before going to sleep, a boogeyman who comes in the daylight with garlic and a stake. And, he has to die, so that they can live without fear.

Irony: A Bus In Rome (Where The First Version Of Matheson's Story Was Filmed), Advertising the Latest Version, "I Am Legend" (2008)

The next take on Matheson's story, The Omega Man, was released in 1971 with Charlton Heston -- who made Planet Of The Apes in 1968, and would go on to star in an honest classic, Soylent Green, in 1973. Oddly, in a bit of deja vu, 'Omega' was made after purchasing the rights from Hammer Films -- which still had been considering making a film from Matheson's script.

In Hammer's vision, the property had a new working title -- "Night Creatures" -- but British censors considered the concept of an empty world with decayed corpses and vampires too graphic for 1970, and again sold the production rights to Americans... but the plot wasn't entirely okay with censors here, either (there was plenty of real gore on the nightly news, courtesy of the war in Vietnam), so some changes had to be made.

Omega Man was set in L.A., and Heston's character was named Robert Neville -- both points identical to Matheson's story. But the plague survivors in Neville's Los Angeles were not nocturnal vampires -- just albino, deranged paranoids, wearing black monk's cowls and Ray-Bans, suffering from a terrible sensitivity to sunlight. They were Luddites, to boot, organized around an anti-technological dream in a group called "The Family".

ZERBE: These wigs itch. How long does it take to set up a camera?

KIRKPATRICK: Got that right. It's fucked up, man.

ZERBE: Hey, Lincoln; we wear these shades all the time. Right?

What the hell -- let's get high! Who's gonna know?

KIRKPATRICK: I'm down with that, man. You holding?

ZERBE: I think those two chicks who say, "More! Burn it more!" have

some pretty decent shit. Let's go ask. Not like we don't have time.

Heston's nemesis was the leader of the Family, a former L.A. Teevee news commentator named Matthias ("You -- you creature of the wheel!"), played by Canadian actor Anthony Zerbe (a strong supporter of Werner Erhard's 'est' training, back in the day). Before this, Anthony had a small, supporting role opposite Heston in 1968, as a ranch hand in the western, Will Penny. And, Matthias' right-hand 'Family' member, Zachary ("Just let me put some explosive to him, brother -- just a little nitro!"), was played by Lincoln Kirkpatrick -- who in 1973 would appear opposite Heston in Soylent Green as a Catholic priest tortured by the secret of Soylent after it was revealed to him in confession by Joseph Cotton.

Anthony Zerbe, Character Actor Par Excellance --

A Softer version of Anthony Hopkins, in the 1990's

I wonder if Zerbe, Kirkpatrick and Heston ever talked on set about prior shoots working together, or if that wasn't considered appropriate when you worked with someone whose credits included playing Judah Ben-Hur and Moses and Andrew Jackson and Michelangelo.

When The World Ends, You Get To Use Automatic Weapons.

It wasn't a terrible movie; it was Heston's second science fiction film, after Apes and before Soylent. It had a typical look-and-feel of back-lot production values possessed by many Columbia, 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers films from the late 60's and early 70's. Watching Heston's acting (he seemed to be playing Robert Neville as if it was his Michelangelo from Agony and the Ecstasy) made me feel his career had to be headed for the toilet. The end of the film has Heston's Robert Neville dying in a posture that is too obviously like that of Christ on the cross, and no one watching could fail to feel the weight of the Ham we were being asked to bear.

Chuck; Ah, It's About The Symbolism, Man. Painful; Ya Know?

I felt excruciatingly embarrassed for him -- Heston, who had played so many great roles in film, was doing burned cheese sci-fi?. But, I took all of that back retroactively when he became the public face of the NRA -- and I've been an NRA member.

( I'm a fan of end-of-the-world films -- and, hey; you really want to be frightened? See the 1984 BBC production, Threads, which was the UK's version of 'The Day After'. I guarantee you won't sleep for a week. No shit: I Guarantee It.)

(In fact, if you look carefully at the film's poster, down at the bottom, below the credits in very small type is the simple statement, "This Film Will Not Just Frighten You; It'll Fuck You Up For Life". )

---

Laugh It Up

Because Freedom

(From a long-ago March in a time before Trump and Disease, and a diseased Trump. Actually, this has nothing to do with Freedom. It is in fact my favorite joke, containing a willfully stupid grocer, a passive-aggressive waterfowl, and the tantalizing promise of nourishment.

(It's also a good general example of how The Universe treats us. It has a has a habit of returning, with the same questions, until we solve them -- and then hits us with a change-up at the end: Wow! Didn't see that coming!).

A LITTLE DUCK walks into a grocery store. He waddles up to the grocier and says, "Hey -- got any duck food?"

The grocier thinks. "Um, no," he says finally.

The Little Duck looks up at him. " 'kay," he says, and goes away.

The next day, the Little Duck was back. He waddles in, looks up at the grocier and says, "Hey -- got any duck food?"   The grocier looks down at him; is this duck nuts? He was just in here!

"No!" the grocier says.  " 'kay," says the Little Duck, and he goes away.

The next day, the Little Duck was back. He waddles in, looks up at the grocier and says, "Hey -- got any duck food?"   The grocier spins around, looks down at him and says, "NO! I told ya -- I gots NO DUCK FOOD ! You come back in here askin' about duck food again and I'm gonna nail your little webbed feet to the floor!"

" 'kay," says the Little Duck, and he goes away.

The next day -- the Little Duck was back. He waddles in, looks up at the grocier and says, "Hey -- got any nails?"   The grocier thinks. "Um, no," he says.

The Little Duck shakes a little. "Ooo!  Okay ! Got any duck food?"

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Random Barking Sunday: Cognitive Dissonance Division

How We Live Now

I'm the product of a middle-class white family from a small town, born not very long after the end of WW2; college-educated, male. This past January, in my small, lower-mid-tier level in my occupation, I went off to work daily as I have most of my life, and put up with whatever was necessary to pay for basic expenses; to get the pension, to maintain the healthcare. I dutifully set aspects of things aside for someday, and in the meantime for everything else, it's SITFU, and I enjoyed living as best I could. This has been my daily frame of reference for a long time.

Observing the world beyond, I generally tuned out politicians (politics = ultimately, lies and compromise, limited benefit to people), external wars (an obscenity; and I've had mine, thank you), domestic violence; mass shootings (no end), police shootings.

And no matter how Left my views might be, I did little beyond donations, attending the occasional march, to show my solidarity in the political stream: and I did these things, not out of anger or desperation or necessity, but because I could afford to.

And I understood my participation did little to acknowledge, and nothing to change, the disproportionate agony of people below me in the food chain -- mostly people of color, still taking the blunt end of the culture, 400 years after the arrival of America's first African slaves.

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The High School Civics Class view of America: myths which, when assimilated, were reflected all around us in the culture, ensuring we grew up as compliant members of society, good consumers.  We accept a consensus view that things aren't perfect, but I'm getting by. But we know it doesn't reflect reality.

And we understand -- questioning the difference between what we've experienced and observed to be true, versus reality-as-consensus, is a Red Pill / Blue Pill situation that most people explore at their peril. Supporting the consensus model has been the chief feature of stability in America for as long as I can remember. Everything about our culture -- particularly corporate media -- echoed that.

In the mid-1990's, that changed. The FCC under Reagan had eliminated the 'Fairness Doctrine' in 1984; broadcasters were no longer required to provide equal time for opposing political viewpoints. Over the next twelve years, Limbaugh, Wiener, and thousand wannabes sprung up on radio in the U.S., and built a public vomatorium.

Limbaugh -- just a bully, but now with a megaphone -- spewed his hate and mockery into the air, to be eagerly lapped up by right-wing listeners. They, in turn, vomited the same hate to others around them. And, 'hate radio' caught on as an organizing tool for not only mainline, GOP conservatism, but a wide spectrum of Rightist causes. Limbaugh, Wiener and other hate hosts didn't care what damage they were doing to the culture; suddenly, they were popular. And they were getting rich.

Rupert Murdoch, whose tabloid newspapers in Australia, the UK and America used a 'tits-n-tattle' formula that treated its consumers like children, saw the trends in the U.S. A cynical, opportunistic right-wing type himself, Murdoch believed there was plenty of money to be made in television, pushing right-wing conspiracy theories to a disaffected, conservative audience. Lil' Rupert saw an ocean of 'Joe Six-Pack' Rubes in America that advertisers would pay handsomely to reach.

Murdoch launched Fox as a cable channel in 1996 as part of a broader business model -- to coordinate his media as the propaganda arm of the English-speaking political Right. Helping elect more Rightist politicians would mean favorable treatment to expand operations when the Right came to power. It worked in the UK, the US, Australia; and eventually, the model would make his family empire indispensable to the racists, white nationalists and neo-nazis growing in the heart of American conservatism.

We've suffered 35 years in an America where truth and facts are whatever The Murdochs -- speaking through Hannity and Carlson, and an endless stream of blondebots -- say they are. The Murdochs have done more to divide America, to make it easier to exploit and weaken us into tribes over three decades than any other aspect of America's recent history.

They have made America a place where they, and the political Right wing, literally just make shit up -- and there are no repercussions. In Steve Bannon's quip, the Murdochs "flood the Zone with shit", and facts are lost in a sea of confusing half-truths and outright lies.

It's easier to lead the Rubes that way. And the Murdochs have personally benefited from it; they're very rich; and they do not care what damage they've caused to actual human beings in the process of that enrichment. Ask the family of Milly Dowler.

Obligatory Cute Small Animal Photo In Middle Of Blog Ogg Ogg

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Comes Trump: The endless parade of MAGA, the triumphant apotheosis of stupid. Fox broadcast it all, like an endless Leni Reifenstahl film; flags and chanting (Lock her up! Lock her up!). There was nothing Trump could do or say that wasn't allowed. And he lied; constantly, daily, about everything. The right-wing media and its talking faces amplified Trump's lies, and presented them as facts.

People were stunned at his brazen racism, his craven love of authoritarian figures like Putin, his dog-whistling to white nationalists and 'christian' dominionists.  We watched America disintegrate in the international community as a result of Trump's personal statements and incoherent political decisions; Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller laughed and laughed -- destroying America has been their goal, and they feel proud.

We were horrified, and laughing. There seemed to be no end to it, and no repercussions -- not even impeachment; the fix in the Senate was always in. The intelligence community as much as declared Trump an active asset of the Russian government -- but it all meant nothing; Trump doubled down, tripled down. He laughed at us. He strutted and preened and capered, and just kept on: Teflon Don.

Additional Cute Animal Photo For Right-Wing Media

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It requires a significant amount of cognitive dissonance -- between the facts we know, truth, our experience; and myths we accept -- in order to be American. To live and work in this culture. How much cognitive dissonance you deal with depends where you are, and who you are, in America.

Then, two things happened that couldn't be spun, dismissed, or lied about -- although the entire political Right, and Murdoch's propaganda, have tried:  The Covid-19 Pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd.

Trump, aided by the Right's media, ignored Covid, dismissed it. He ignored it for six weeks -- then, even after suppressing testing for infection, when the case rates and deaths began climbing; when Trump showed no leadership whatsoever and threw everything in the faces of state governors -- when the Republicans could see their political repercussions in a collapsed economy and 200,000 dead by July... they did an about-face.

They used the Joseph Goebbels - Murdoch formula. They simply lied.  They said they had too cared, they had too been prepared and taken decisive action, all along. They asked us to believe whatever they said, even though it was utterly false. Because they made it up, and said it was 'true'.

And they pushed for America to Reopen Again! The Leader said everything would be back to normal in no time. Inconvenient medical spokespersons who said it was too soon, that it invited another spike in Covid cases; that there would be a likely 'second wave' of the pandemic in the Fall and Winter several magnitudes worse than the February-May wave we'd just experienced... Trump ignored them, too. He suggested people drink bleach.

And, America went back to work. Beaches were opened; the summer weather began in many places. And Covid cases are beginning to rise -- but there was another reason for that.

___________________________________

A black man was arrested by four police officers on a street in Minneapolis, Minnesota, apparently for using a counterfeit $20 bill. One, a white officer, put his knee on the man's neck to restrain him. And, despite consistent protests from the man that he could not breathe, the officer (aided by the three others) did not relent and asphyxiated, murdered, the man, George Floyd. This took roughly twelve minutes, during eight of which the officer's knee was pressed down on Floyd's neck. And all of it captured on multiple cellphone videos.

If you were trying to find a metaphorical image for the black experience in America, an image of a prone black man with a white man's knee on his neck seemed brutally apt. That it was a white police officer was an added layer of metaphorical irony.

Weeks of marches and demonstration -- including rioting and civil disobedience and looting, but primarily peaceful -- followed. Their focus has been on violent actions by militarized police departments, primarily against people of color.

Videos from those demonstrations showed scores of examples of violent and brutal behavior, by police against those ... ironically, protesting brutal police tactics. As if many individual officers and departments didn't care what those optics would do, or the repercussions of their behavior in the broader context of This Historical Time.

___________________________________

It's a defining, fork-in-the-road, Moment In America.  It's a national consideration of Race in America -- and everything connected with it around the distribution of wealth, power, and privilege. Where all this goes, and what actually happens, is hazy -- but the moment has started. Each of us, as individuals, have some responsibility for where it ends up.

____________________________________

The single takeaway I hope for in all this is, that the burden of maintaining conflicting perceptions about our society and culture has finally become too much for the majority of us. That we can't tolerate the cognitive dissonance any longer, reject 'alternate facts' and demand truth -- in public affairs, in science, in our relations with each other. That we can't suppress our lived experience and accept lies in its place.

I hope that people reject being so grossly lied to and manipulated, treated like children, Rubes and Marks. I'd hope Murdoch's media, and its business model based on brazen lies and manipulation, is finished in America and around the world.

And a part of this Moment has to mean confronting automatic assumptions about people of other races, gender and identification; the assumptions of white or heterosexual superiority, or of wealth and ownership. Is it the truth that all persons are equal, or are some more so than others?

Because this is all intimately connected to the distribution of power, and inequality of wealth in America, I don't have any illusions of how quickly this dialogue can result in meaningful change. Or that what's been triggered by George Floyd's death is anything more than a single step; others will have to follow.

James Fallows of the Atlantic recently noted that the story of America is about getting out of trouble, of facing and overcoming crises. America's current crisis has both a Leader utterly unfit to lead, supported by an entire political party in the Republicans; this, he agreed was unprecedented in our history. The question, Fallows went on, was whether our country had a sufficient counterbalance to the harm caused by Trump and the political Right -- that the sum of all things positive in America would be enough to overcome the damage, allow us to find a better resolution than division, exploitation, despair and death.

I'd like to think this moment is a wild card in that equation. That the sum of our best intentions as people will contain the weight needed to swing us in a different direction. I'm not often positive about the future; quite the opposite. But I'm willing to suggest that hope is not a bad thing.

We'll see what does happen. Hang on.

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