About time America! I mean, well past time. I mean, what the fuck took so long? I mean, are you freaking kidding me?
What a long string of silver-haired, pasty white guys. Eureka! We have finally broken the string. How sweet it is.
I always thought America was a great place because of it's messy, all over the map diversity. And it never dawned upon me that it was called the "White House" for another reason.
And maybe we can retire that evil, tired old mind-set? Yes we can! I mean, I guess we have!
In my professional life (such as it is) I work in the Energy field. Very appropriate for me. Energy - it's invisible, you can't see it. It's like magic really. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus pushing an invisible boulder up a hill.
Now that I think of it, it's probably an invisible hill. Yes, that's right, I'm Sisyphus pushing an invisible boulder up an invisible hill.
Now that's hard work. Or if not hard, totally baffling, or at least not always fulfilling.
Anyway I work (such as it is) with some really incredibly talented and cool people. Why do they tolerate me? Who knows. One of them I'll call the Golden Girl. She is an amazing person, dazzling energy, mind like a steel trap - maximum integrity, great sense of humor - she truly has it all.
We were talking yesterday, still jazzed and buzzing about the new Obama era emerging before our hungry eyes. I could tell the Golden Girl was ready to join the team. We were talking about Rahm Emanuel (Motherfucking Change you Can Believe In) and what a great thing it would be to be one of those (Axelrod, Podesta, Jarrett) who will get a chance to work help craft and implement the Obama agenda.
I don't feel envy often. It's just not in my makeup. I figure I have a row to hoe. And I'm must do what I must do. Still after the conversation with Golden Girl, I too was a little wistful thinking about how cool it would be to be part of the Obama team. There is so much work to be done.
By the way, if I could make one suggestion, how about The Lovely Carla's dream candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. for head of the EPA. He is brilliant and has real passion for environmental issues. Now that would really be Change We Can Believe In! Someone who actually cares about the environment running the agency that make the rules and regulations and enforces them. What a novel idea!
I live in one of the Bluest of Blue neighborhoods in the country. There was a beautifully festive mood in the hood yesterday. Kind of like Hot Dog Day. That was the big day, once a year, when I was kid in Catholic grade school.
The Hot Dog Man would come to school and everyone would get a hot dog and a Coke. I remember watching in amazement when the Hot Dog Man would stand in front of the class and hand out the goodies. It seemed like a benevolent alien being had descended upon us to bring us joy.
That same feeling carried me through the day yesterday.
Yes it is thrilling and amazing that the Obama movement is blowing the doors of our Bleak House open wide. At the same time, as Paul Krugman describes it, the Monster Years are ending.
Joy. Pure unadulterated joy. It's hard to really put it all into words. It's not often, (it would be nice if it was oftener), that we get to ride that feeling.
Nationalism is a mug's game. Pride is one of the deadly sins. So I'm not gonna say I'm proud of America.
But I am extremely happy to be from a land that can elect a man the caliber of Barack Obama to it's highest office and ask him to serve. It's time to show the world the best aspects of who we are - for way too long we have shown the worst.
UPDATE II: I just got a call from a good friend who used to live in Chicago and who returned to his native land Poland a few years ago. He is happy beyond belief. The world really needed this too. The Bush nightmare (good riddance) is over.
I'm cautiously optimistic this morning. No scratch that, I'm wildly, over the top, out of my head optimistic. I'm figuring on a blow-out. A landslide. I'm expecting the pundits to be having conniption fits trying to explain how they missed it. I predict the Obama Tsunami.
Of course, I could be wrong. I keep going over to Nate Silver's site and salivate over his computer simulations. I have decided to believe that Nate has the hard numbers that validate my optimism. I guess we'll see.
I've voted in every Presidential election in which I was eligible to vote. My first vote was for Jimmy Carter vs. Gerald Ford. I've backed more losers than winners. Kind of like my record at Santa Anita. I certainly have voted more with my heart than my head. I figure, since I always have something to say, I better back it up by voting. Otherwise, I should just shut up. And that would be just too painful.
I do think Barack Obama is head and shoulders the best candidate I've ever had the opportunity to back. I do believe he is the right man for the time. He has the chance to be one of the greatest Presidents we've ever had.
Who knows?
Go vote, except if you're thinking of voting for the other guy, then I suggest you just sit this one out. Your country, no scratch that, the world will thank you. GO OBAMA!
I'm not under any illusion that one man can solve every problem. Some of the problems we face are big - so big only a major change of consciousness is gonna give us shot to transcend. That takes a lot of brains, creative visioning and a lot of coordinated action.
If ants can do it, so can we.
I do believe one man can make a difference. Going with a Counter Factual Fantasy I am convinced that a President Al Gore would not have invaded Iraq, would not have built a Gulag at Guantanamo Bay, would not have committed war crimes, would not have tortured and spied on innocent people. I do believe that over the last 8 years George W. Bush consistently made wrong calls just about every time he was asked to make a decision on every issue that came his way. Bush has proven that one man can make a difference.
My good friend Kris has pointed out to me that we do have George Bush to thank for opening so many eyes. Maybe a President Obama would not be possible without the complete and utter wreckage of the Bush Presidency. If Gore had taken office maybe this transformative change would not be possible? Who knows? What happens is what happens I suppose.
Still, knowing what we know now, I believe Gore and his team should have fought tooth and nail to count every last vote in Florida. Constitutional Crisis be damned. The Democrats should not have laid down. But of course that is water under the bridge.
Tomorrow everything can change. I mean the sun and moon will still be up there, we will still be spinning around on this ball of confusion, seasons will come and go, people will die and be born, all of it will still just BE!
But the Doors of Perception, the Doors of Conception can be thrown open to a new reality in our hearts and heads. And everything can be different. YES WE CAN!
Dick Cheney emerged from his undisclosed location and put the knife in McCain's back yesterday. Kind of reminds you of that scene in Godfather II when Al Pacino kisses his brother Fredo and you know it's all over for the disloyal little weasel.
I think the death knell has finally tolled for the "real America." 3 days left. And hell, isn't it time we discarded that useless old picture?
If a McCain/Palin rally represents the Real America, then give me the FAUX AMERICA! I am a proud citizen of the Faux America! Faux Americans live in places like Chicago, LA, New York, San Francisco. We are a Rainbow Coalition.
We are informed, forward-looking. We don't believe in Torture, we don't think America is a Christian Nation, we don't think White Evangelicals have a monopoly on truth.
Check out a McCain/Palin rally. It's white, white, white. Old, old, old. There is very little diversity. It is rural. It is backward looking. I'll be happy to include them in our new Faux movement as long as they don't get in the way. The old reality has been a complete bust.
1. Like Willy Loman I sometimes believe I'm riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And really, I don't shine my shoes that often.
2. Like Blanche DuBois I rely on the kindness of strangers. And really, it turns out some aren't so kind.
3. Like Alfred E. Neuman I think "What, me worry?" And really, I do worry.
4. Like John Bradford I say, "There but for the grace of god goes John Bradford." And really, I don't even know who John Bradford is, I mean "me." Or I mean "I." And really when I say "god" I'm thinking something along the lines of the unified field in sub-atomic physics, or a harmonic in music, or the vibration of a color in light.
5. Like the teeming masses I'm always asking "What the Fuck?" And really, I mean it, what the fuck.
I recently heard the phrase, "low information voter." I guess that's another way of saying the dumb-shit vote. Seems that's who McCain and Palin are frantically trying to win over in these last desperate days. McCain is flinging so much putrid mud, he has totally besmirched any claim to his "Hero's Halo." Another myth bites the dust. Palin has gone rogue, she is a killer Stepford Windup doll. I think it was Jon Stewart who dubbed her "Bible Spice." What a complete horror-show. Counting down the days...
Obama has rolled out the humor on the campaign trail. God bless him. Maybe no better way to deal with the desperate arrows (they do no harm) from McCain, who is now starting to look like the Rodney Dangerfield/Don Rickles of politics. Is there a future for McCain in Vegas?
I guess I too was a secret communist in kindergarten. I remember sharing my cardboard bricks with the other kids who wanted to play with them too. And I remember sleeping with my comrades on the simple rugs we brought for nap time. Long live the Proletariat!
Certainly the Bush Presidency is a prime example of how deep is the well of human futility. Unless of course, the man was working for the Oil Companies. Which isn't out of the realm of plausibility. Everyone besides the Oil Execs have to be pretty disgusted with the last 8 years.
Even Richard "I'm not a Crook" Nixon in the sordid days of Watergate did not have "approval ratings" as low as the current President.
None of this is that surprising to me. The guy didn't win in 2000. It was the Supremes who tossed it to the Cowboy Diana Ross (Sorry Diana!). The guy shouldn't have won in 2004 - the Zombie-Voters were just sleeping-walking to the polls.
Bush is jet-trash on the side of the road. And all of us are just road-kill on another one of his careless escapades. But hell, that era is stumbling to a close. Every blooming thing is wrecked and reeling. The state of the nation is fucked. A smoking, teetering wreck.
Dare. I. Say. It? Worst. President. Ever.
Oliver Stone's movie may be worth seeing, but I just can't stomach it. There's no way I want to re-live the significant moments of that man's life. It's all too painful. I can't sacrifice another brain cell for that dude's inept existence.
A scary thought: the man actually thinks he's been doing a great job. The complete and utterly dis-functional delusional aspect of this thought is the essence of bat-shit crazy.
Anyway.
Perfect time for a new man, new era. I for one have a bottle of wine sitting in my kitchen waiting to be uncorked on that joyous Election Day. Do I also do a Jagermeister shot for every Battleground State that goes blue? Maybe too extreme. I don't want my bed to be spinning.
Still I wonder about those 23 percent. Who are the people out there who think that Bush is doing just a bang up fine job? Who the fuck are they? I mean it. WHO ARE THEY?!
Maybe they can get work as extras on the next Wes Craven movie or something?
Some folks have tried to make "liberal" a bad word. It's not.
There have been a few people who have been right about a lot of things these last few years. One of those who has been more right about more things is the recent Nobel Prize winner for Economics - Paul Krugman.
Last weekend we went to see the new movie What Just Happened? It's one of those flicks that seems to be about something else, something other, something deeper, than what it at first appears to be about. Those are the kind of movies I really like.
One of my favorite moments is when the Dire Straits song, Brothers in Arms starts playing. Almost brought me to tears. Here's Mark Knopfler one of the great guitar players (notice he doesn't use a pick which really enhances his killer tone) giving a superb rendition at a birthday celebration for Nelson Mandela.
What's great about life, some times the good guys really get to have it. And we all know it when it happens. A sweet lesson for us all.
This is brilliant and hilarious and oh so true. It may be the best two minutes I've seen yet.
8 years of Bush - Iraq, Katrina, Foreclosure, Unemployment, Spiraling Medical Costs, Stock Market Mayhem, Death of Capitalism, End of the Conservative Movement.
McCain and Palin are are just the last putrid emanations from the Zombie Party.
I recently wrote about hanging out with a bunch of old-timers in my neighborhood. There's a coffeehouse down the block from my apartment, and it is a great meeting place for people from all walks of life. I've made friends with some real characters.
I found out yesterday that one of my good friends passed to the other side. He was a tough old bird, light as a feather, always had something to say, always had a gleam in his eye. I made a point to keep up with baseball via the NY Times, just so I could talk baseball with the man.
He was a life-long Chicagoan, but also life-long Yankee fan, which he reminded you by the Yankee cap fixed to his majestic, hairless, dome of a head. It seems his boyhood visit to Wrigley field to see Babe Ruth play against the Cubs had something to do with it.
That dome was filled with humor and stories and wisdom. He had seen a world that is now long gone.
Hey if there's a pie and 1% of the people get the largest slice, and 90% of the people get the smallest slice, well, hell, isn't it obvious that things aren't gonna turn out so well for any of the pie-eaters? Gated communities gated against the hordes can't make gates tough enough to withstand hungry, angry folk.
I mean, didn't Kings and Czars, lose their jobs and heads for this kind of unjust disparity?
It wasn't supposed to work this way. At least that wasn't the American Dream we were sold. Did Karl Marx write a song about this?
It is fascinating to the watch the conservative movement devolve into a laughingly bad Clown Show. There are all these over-stuffed clowns, some very highly paid, who just spew the most ridiculous venom and frankly just completely stupid shit.
It used to be these guys would talk in code. See Nixon (The Dark Prince of American Politics) and Reagan (the smiling Grandpa of American Politics) for how to appeal to the fearful, racist, and frankly hateful silent masses without being so blatantly overt.
The media is crawling with these Conservative Clowns: Hannity, Limbaugh, Bennet, Hewitt, O'Reilly.
Some of them actually pretend to be serious political analysts. The best antidote to this stupid shit is to get a healthy dose of Jon Stewart, or Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, or now the fabulously cool Rachel Maddow. Here's Rachel easily deflating the Conservative Clown Balloon...
I found an IPOD just sitting there on the running path like a little sparkling treasure. Some poor soul lost their IPOD. And I am now a member of the IPOD Nation. Yes, it is freaking cool. I guess I'll be retiring my Walkman.
I'm a runner, which means I cover a lot of territory on the Lake Front. I find all kinds of things. Money, jewelry. I actually did a series of paintings (I'm not really a painter!) using objects (toys and thing-a-ma-bobs) I have found on my jaunts.
I did think of Ling Ling, I did wonder where I was on the Life Line. What if I just wiped the IPOD clean and loaded up my music and carried on like it was my IPOD all along? Was I closer to Love or Fear on the Life Line?
What did I load up first? Electric Lady Land from Jimi Hendrix, every Sigur Ros disc I own, and Beatles, lots and lots of Beatles music. All head music.
Anyway, back to Ling Ling. If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, you probably never saw Donnie Darko. You should.
Over the weekend I cruised the channels streaming on the Idiot Box. What complete madness.
It doesn't matter which channel you land on, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, the Chattering Idiots are legion. The lies and disinformation comes in a never-ending stream. Looks like we have dismantled the Tower of Babel and reassembled sections of it in TV studios through-out the land.
In St. Louis Missouri 100,000 people came out to see a young Senator from Illinois talk about what would do if he was given a promotion to the new job he was seeking. 100,000 people in St. Louis Missouri!
UPDATE: I think there are three islands of sanity in TV Land - The Late Show with David Letterman, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and the Rachel Maddow Show. The rest is pretty much complete dross!
As my little adventure continues, I sometimes wonder when it will all start to make sense. Does it make any sense to try to make sense of the wave you're riding - or is it best to just let go and ride? Is life just a long letting go?
If you know anything about Chicago, you know that the Chicago Tribune's editorial page is a solid fortress manned by a full contingent of die-hard, rock-ribbed, midwestern Republicans. The Trib always endorses the Republican for President. ALWAYS! 160 years of always.
Yesterday they endorsed Barack Obama for President. Of course in many ways a total no-brainer. But this is significant. I mean seismic. I'm sure some Republicans choked on the their morning muffins when they opened up the paper yesterday!
A clarification regarding my previous post. There's no sin in growing old. Or if there is, it's the original sin that we all carry with us (which of course is total hooey! "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine..." etc). Once you get on the merry go round there's no stopping. The genetic program kicks in, and well, it's a wild ride - hold on for dear life.
Some of my favorite people are old guys and dead guys - "old timers," or long time "dead and goners."
I pal around with a bunch of old guys. I'm heading there myself. I always wince when I hear people say "aging actress," or "aging rocker" or AGING ANYTHING. It's meaningless.
Everything and everyone is aging. As one of my favorite old guys once said, "rust never sleeps."
Age can bring humility, wisdom, and of course, experience. We are born with all these incredible gifts, and then things change, morph, evolve. Some of the changes are cool and some not so cool. You just have to ride the wave.
Or not. It's up to us, what we bring to the show. I'm always inspired by those who stay open, alive, curious, with a wild, crazy ass sense of wonder and humor. That's the kind of old guy I revere and hope to be.
Is it better to "burn out than to fade away?" Dealer's choice. But it certainly makes for a good song. Here's Neil when he was a younger old guy. Neil has been an old guy since he was a young man. Maybe he's been around the block a couple lives already.
I'm so glad we don't have to watch any more debates, although, I do think they have been very enlightening. One man seems ready to assume the role of world leader, the other seems to be playing a "demented lunatic."
Probably not a good sign for the old guy if the Undecideds (who are those freaking people anyway?), are laughing at you.
I'm not one of those who believe that everything is pre-determined, I believe we dance with destiny and we can call out the tune as we go, but I also think there are forces at play bigger than us.
Isn't it sort of weird to know that the newly sworn-in President is scheduled to rededicate the Lincoln Memorial on May 30th, 2009? If you were a script-writer, you couldn't plot it anymore perfectly.
I think Matt Taibbi is my new journalistic hero. He writes about Karl Rove in the latest Rolling Stone. I haven't actually purchased a Rolling Stone magazine in a long, long time, but I'm thankful for the "internets." I do remember when Rolling Stone was a true countercultural touchstone. I loved those searingly great issues from the early 70's when Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman graced the pages.
Here's Taibbi on the the current Fox Political Analyst, the "boy genius," also known as "Bush's brain."
"Rove is not a genius, or even very clever: He's totally and completely immoral. It doesn't take genius to claim, as Rove ludicrously did last fall, that it was the Democrats in Congress and not George W. Bush who pushed the Iraq War resolution in 2002. It doesn't take brains to compare a triple-amputee war veteran to Osama bin Laden; you just have to be a mean, rotten cocksucker."
It's so refreshing to read something so plainly, perfectly true. Thanks Matt.
No this is not a post about Bill Ayers. The weather man tells us it's to be sunny and 80 degrees today. But there are clouds everywhere you look. Can't trust the priest, can't trust the banker, can't trust the weather man. Seems the list is getting shorter or longer, depending on whether it's the Trust List, or the Can't Trust List.
Note: Dylan tells us to "trust yourself." But this is freaky. Dylan with a dangly earring! If I can't trust Dylan to know how to accessorize appropriately where oh where do I turn?
The last few years, the Lovely Carla and I have had a running conversation about how the world as we know it, has to change if we are all going to be able to live happy, fulfilling lives. We are both eternal optimists and we do buy into the ideal that all of us can "have it." Life is not a business or a contest with winners and losers.
Being born is a winning ticket. Or at least should be.
We do think this "change of consciousness" is coming. The bubbles are bursting before our eyes. Not sure how it will play out. It may be painful. It may be fun. Probably a wild ride. But it will be essential, primal, and most likely beautiful (Wow, the coffee is good this morning!).
Those people open to change will find it much easier to handle than those clinging to the old pictures. Some of us will probably spontaneously combust, heads will explode. There will be ugliness. No doubt.
We have seen this change emerge first in the fringe communities, like in the creative community, the writers, artists, poets, singers-songwriters. They are kind of like the canaries in a coal mine. Then there are spiritual leaders and political leaders who are emerging, pointing us in a new direction, (see the Dali Lama and Al Gore and of course Barack Obama for prime examples).
I think this global economic meltdown is just a manifestation of this shift of consciousness. It's ironic that the keepers of the Temple of Doom, may hasten the new era. Not by design, but by the inevitable running out of the string of a false picture of the world. Unlimited economic growth, just like any unlimited growth in nature is a CANCER!
The new paradigm will emphasize living within one's means, living in harmony, living with less. Unplugging from the grid. Living with love for the planet. Renewable, sustainable, and with maximum grace. This utopia will not be imposed upon us, it will emerge from us.
Maybe we should have been spending less time worrying about that dude with a beard and turban sitting in a cave somewhere in Pakistan, planning the fall of Western Civilization, and more time worrying about that Ayn Rand Acolyte on Wall Street with the glasses, the shiny shoes and the three-piece suit, promoting unregulated derivatives. Death by Derivative? What you don't see can kill you!
I think I finally get "trickle down economics." The Big Time Money Boyz get drunk on "abstract instruments" like Credit Default Swaps (Question: Just how many credit default swaps can dance on the head of a pin?), they fill their fat, greedy bladders, and then well, they end up trickling down on the rest of us.
Wow, carnage on the street. And really maybe it's not so much a panic, more like people just woke up and realized the Emperor was stark raving naked! And of course, there must be a reckoning.
What's the song from the Brazilian Girls? "We just want to have a good time. All the time. Some people have nothing and want nothing and are free."
The man who gave us Platoon, The Doors and Scarface tells us: "Money was worshiped and continues to be worshiped, maybe that will change now." - Oliver Stone
Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't count on it, unless the money no longer holds the value of the ink printed on it.
Although I admire Mr. Stone and I did appear in one of his films (I was an extra on Natural Born Killers - I played a dead guy!), I recall he did make Alexander a stinker of epic proportions and he actually cast Angelina Jolie as Colin Farrell's mom. Poor Colin ran around in a little white toga with a really ridiculous blond hairdo.
So Mr. Stone's judgement is not infallible. Still, I think he may be right about the money cult. Maybe, just maybe it has run out the string...
This little profile of Chrissie Hynde in yesterday's New York Times is just the ticket. Chrissie is still the leader of the Pretenders one of the great bands out of Akron Ohio. Chrissie has always been a supreme rock and roller. She was in London during the punk explosion in the 70's hanging out with Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten.
I saw her on tour with Neil Young a few years ago. She just exudes complete confidence and edgy cool. I was happy to find she's a fellow vegetarian, (TAX MEAT!), and she just just recently opened the first ever vegan restaurant in Akron.
Here she is on the rumblings in America. I agree a "A Change is Gonna Come." It's gonna be a rocky ride, but that's when the fun begins.
Chrissie Hynde: "Believe me I don't feature any false optimism, I'm very realistic about things. But I can sense that change is coming, and a lot of it is because people will have no choice."
Last night our theater company Black Forest rose from the ashes. It was oh so Phoenix-like. We did the Thorn and the Rose our new performance piece at the Ravenswood Art Walk. Our goal was to present something beautiful, haunting, mysterious - slow, stately, shimmering. It's nice to have a target.
We played to a full house - the audience seemed to hang on every note and word. Rousing applause at the end. Maybe a free show allows an audience to just open the door to new things? It was all so unexpected and gratifying.
I do think our world is too stuffed with facts and prose and plot. We are bombarded with facts which come from every corner and these facts twist and turn and contradict each other. It's all so maddening - probably makes us number and dumber.
Maybe we need more poetry. Maybe we need more stuff that doesn't "make sense?" Someone said to me after the show - "That was so avant garde." Which doesn't really mean anything. And that was music to my ears.
Okay, Melissa, here's my first attempt at the "making a sentence from titles of books hanging about the apartment" game:
The dream life healing back pain, rotten, naked, on the Rez.
I think this is a game that might appeal to militant librarians, former English Majors or anyone with lots of books laying about. Anyone else want to try? Paula?God?Kris?
Watched the Veep debate. I was looking forward to a complete train wreck. Kind of disappointed. But seems to me defending the Iraq war, modeling the VP job on Dick Cheney's shining example, and promising that every problem we have will be solved with more tax cuts is complete balderdash. I don't want to get over-confident but seems to me that the McCain/Palin freak-show is toast.
The Republican Party lies to us. Over and over. And I guess a lot of Americans want to believe the lies. The lies are just as death-dealing when they come from the lips of a well-prepped hockey mom. The final factor heading towards November is how many people will close their eyes and pretend that the lies are not lies.
Denial is an aphrodisiac. The Republican party has led a powerful political movement (get government out of the business of helping people and let the rich people party out of bounds!), that has carried us since the Reagan Revolution. It's a rear-guard movement based on the myth of who we want to pretend to be.
I do think Bush/Cheney have run out the string. The only true believers left are the type of people who cry when the dictator dies. I just hope those dead-enders don't out-number the rest of us.
Death by algorithm. An algorithm sitting on a computer somewhere in New York can instantly trigger a meltdown in Moscow and London. And then the human beings who designed the system scratch their over-loaded noggins and dither in the houses of debate.
We were worried about the avian flu, we were worried about a wayward meteor, we were worried about a planet without ice, and now we've been mugged by the SHADOW BANKING SYSTEM! Beware the Shadow Banker!
Too Big. Too Fast. Too Complex.
Our success is killing us. It's an old story. Happened to the Dolls first...
I've sometimes thought that life (specifically my life) is like a novel.
I've read lots and lots of novels.
When I was much younger, life seemed sort of like a Charles Dickens novel. Lots of colorful characters, multiple plot-lines, little surprises along the way. Nice neat ending.
Later it seemed more like a Kurt Vonnegut novel. Time travel, circular time, sequences out of sequence. No clear cut ending.
Which then morphed into Philip K. Dick land. Unreliable narrator. Reality as fog. Bizarre happenings. Time slips. Paranoia. Justified Paranoia.
And now I'm convinced that there's a room somewhere, a room with 100 monkeys on acid and they are madly typing away on old Remington typewriters. Our lives are the resulting output (the rambling, shambling chatterings) of 100 candy-colored, acid freaked-out, monkeys.
I got onto this line of thinking from something Bruce Springsteen said in a documentary. He was talking about writing and recording his great album "Born to Run." He said that the songs were mainly about two things:
1. What happens when your dreams come true?
2. What happens when they don't?
And there is something about that album that makes you think of the times you've connected, and the times you've missed connecting. And it's kind of great and kind of sad too.
And actually there is just one answer to both questions: You make new dreams!
I know I live in a bubble, there isn't a Wal-Mart anywhere near me, but in my daily sojourns I must report that the NATIVES ARE RESTLESS. Confidence is vanishing and has as much value as one of those sub-prime mortgages, or one of those wacky credit default swaps.
What happens when no one believes? In anything?
I guess that's when the new game begins. Once upon a time...
UPDATE: Our political landscape has entered the Woody Allen "Bananas" phase. From today forward our new language will be Swedish, and everyone must wear their underwear on the outside. Check out this interview. This woman gives "clueless" a bad name. Scary Funny.
UPDATE NO. 2: Ok. This is freaking ridiculous. Pity. Finally, you have to pity the poor woman. There's that "deer in the headlight" thing going on. Everyone knows what it's like to try to bluff your way through something you have no clue about. But jeez, she's right, Alaska is right next to Russia! So what's the problem?! Holy shit!
The Lovely Carla and I collaborated on a video. It's gonna be part of our performance piece premiering at the Ravenswood Art Walk in a couple weeks. It's kind of slow and stately. Not as slow as Andy Warhol's famous 8 hour Empire State film, but still in this jump-cut, over-saturated media world this is a little contrary.
The Lovely Carla provided the inspiration and embodies the whole thing. I wrote and tracked the music (my grand opus!?), and pointed the video camera. Thanks to the sun and the beach and the flock of seagulls for all their assistance.
It's too long for YouTube, so I posted it at our MySpace site. If you have some time, and patience, give it a try.
There's text that goes along with the visuals. This will be the background for some foreground antics from both of us - live in real time. The main refrain: "Everyone knows, there's a thorn with every rose."
It is merely a shell that has some influence over the spoils of the economy. The real power rests in the hands of corporations and criminal/guerrilla groups that vie with each other for control of sectors of wealth production. For the individual living within this state, life goes on, but it is debased in a myriad of ways.
And Wall Street's Men of Power and Influence put a gun to our collective head and tell us if we don't give them lots and lots of money, right now, they will MELTDOWN, I SWEAR!
I've been bouncing around the blogosphere this morning and it's all abuzz with the big 700 billion dollar bailout plan floated by the same people who basically stood by and watched Wall Street bankrupt America. This is certainly not my area of expertise. Check out this narrative from an insider if you are interested.
If you want to talk Telecasters and Stratocasters I have lots of informed commentary, but when guys like Paul Krugmen and Atrios tell me this deal stinks to high heaven I kind of give them the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe I simplify? That is my stock in trade...
The Big Money Boyz having been making oodles of money with money for years. The old fashioned way of making money, by doing work, providing real services, manufacturing goods, etc. was oh so old world.
The greed and corruption was a self-supporting vicious circle floating on a shit-pile of toxic waste (bad debt). The whole house of cards started collapsing, and the amounts of money at risk world wide turns out to be multiples of staggering.
This is the kind of thing (Black Swan) that could change our lives for a long, long time. And now, people in high places, are asking for the power and the money to make it all right. The same greedy bastards now tell us we must trust them to fix it.
And as John Robb reminds us, most of us were left out of the decision loop. The average American didn't reap the benefits, (Robb: "From 1974 onwards, the rewards of productivity growth (economic expansion) went exclusively to the capital markets and not into income growth for individuals. This was likely done, although the mechanism is unclear, under the assumption that the discipline of capital markets produced better investment decisions than individuals.") but will pay the piper.
Iraq, Katrina, Bailout. There does seem to be a pattern here.
I've been engaged with some real sleaze-buckets. The dregs of the dregs. Real bad actors. Who knows maybe they are just a figment of my imagination?!
And they make me laugh, and make me stronger. And whatever they were trying to accomplish, I say "Hah! What fools! And thanks for showing me the way!"
Sometimes it is amazing and awe-inducing to see the depths of degradation a human being will gladly sink to. So very instructive. It is evident in the larger context and in the smaller context too. And then, well, we live in the context of no context.
Anyway, an interesting subject kind of came up in this context. Who is it that actually writes this blog? Is it dumps? is it sunny? Is it the one called "which one is dumps?" Are these words the result of the existential battle between two mythological characters: dumps and sunny?
Is it all the doing of the nameless flesh and blood apparition that fuels up on coffee and types into the void?
Is this "I" that "I" refer to just a fictive construction? Is every "I" a lie? Is this all just a fruitless branch of Epistemology or just pissing in the wind?
How many sunnyjimmy's can dance on the head of a pin? And once you get them all up there, is there any room for dumps?
I imagine the ideal blogger. "I" am not that blogger. I mean I'm not even sure I exist. Although I do believe God exists and he is the ideal blogger. But I imagine being him, and just like those Arthur Murray dance lessons, I tentatively try to follow the steps.
I'm feeling happily apocalyptic this morn. Not sure why. I mean if it all comes crashing down around our ears, my bag of bones is just a vulnerable as the next poor joker's...
Still...this feeling of sunny euphoria is real. Maybe it's the coffee??
The myths we live with, the happy figments of our imaginations, sometimes run up against hard realities. That's when things get interesting. Party time!?
So, can we park "free market capitalism" and "trickle down economics" in the eternal dustbin of history?
As always, John Robb at Global Guerillas has a mind-opening take on what's happening to our global economic system. He and James Howard Kuntsler are two of our most perceptive observers - with highly polished axes to grind.
How about this from Robb:
"Would we have been better off if the benefits of massive productivity growth over the last three decades had been shared with hundreds of millions of Americans? Of course. In fact, it is hard to see any other way, other than an open decision making process, which would be able to deal with the growing complexity of the modern world -- from globalization to technological change to growing instability.
Can this be error be corrected? Probably not. Most Americans have fallen deeply into debt (mirrored by the US government) in an attempt to maintain lifestyles (or an illusion of progress). They don't have the financial resources for any meaningful decision making power left and worse, there isn't any recognition that a concentration of decision making was even a problem in the first place. In fact, given that most of the last 30 years of American economic investment is now vapor, it's hard to imagine us avoiding economic catastrophe."
And for some reason, (which I can't explain*), I think of this song..."take a load for free...and put the load right on me."
*Actually now that I think of it, I can explain why I picked this song. "Too Much of Something," made me think of Dylan's Basement Tapes song, "Too Much of Nothing," which he recorded in clouds of Mary Jane smoke in that famous Pink house with the Band.
I googled "Too Much of Nothing" on YouTube and came up with Peter, Paul and Mary. I just couldn't pull the trigger on that, so I searched "the Band" and picked one of their all-time best songs in this live performance from 1969. So there.
"I would like to suggest that, beginning now, today, you start to Visualize Victory. Every second you spend matching to the victory you’d like to Become, is precious time spent NOT matching to cynicism, defeat, war, hatred, suspicion, pain, depression. Imagine life as you’d like to live it. Be ready to change your own attitudes, yourself. Change of any kind always begins with the spirit, it begins within." - K.C.
Well, I guess these are the Financial Wizards who make money disappear!
I finally get the whole Wall Street thing. Don't know why I didn't get it earlier. I mean, I spent a lot of time at the race track betting on the ponies.
These guys in their shiny suits, pulling down their big time bucks were just a bunch of big-time bettors laying big money on the sure thing.
Never understood that strategy - all the bettors flocking to the window putting their money on the horse everyone else was putting their money on. I've seen way too many 2/5, 3/5, 4/5 and even money horses get caught in the stretch!
Another vanity project.
And when the Bankers start acting like high-rolling crack addicts hasn't the whole capitalism schtick kind of jumped the shark? And tell me again, why do those money guys get to walk away with big fat checks when the bets come in, and all those little guys in the heartland have to reach in their pockets to bail them out when the bets go up in smoke?
I'm recovering from one of those glorious r&r nights. Stayed up late playing music at the Red Line Tap. WWSP lives!
Here it's raining. Three straight days of driving rain. Is it time to start building an Ark?
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Wes Anderson and his superb use of r&r songs in his movies. Here's one of my all time favorites. The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away," in "Rushmore," a movie about two friends in love with the same woman. There is the friendship, betrayal and then reconciliation. Here's the battle.
How many rock songs are about forgiveness?
And here's the Who doing the complete opus. One of their great performances.
I have to credit the Lovely Carla for this scenario. I just added a little color...
Wouldn't it be cool if there was a hurricane that would chase George W. Bush around everywhere he went? It would be his constant shadow. Chase him all over tarnation! It would always remind him and us, what a complete wreck he has made of everything around him.
Sort of like King Midas with a twist. In this case, everything "W" touches turns to a stinking pile of shit. And maybe the voices of the dead, those that suffered for one man's vanity, the civilians (men, women, children), the soldiers from all nations, would swirl around in that big old wind, and haunt the man until his last dying breath.
But of course, maybe he wouldn't even notice. Yeah, probably not. His fate is to be him. I wouldn't want to wish that on anyone, even my worst enemy. Ok, maybe my worst enemy.
I love when I'm on the road, and music finds me. I sometimes feel like I'm in a Martin Scorsese (especially his early stuff) or Wes Anderson (pretty much every movie he's made) movie. Those two guys are the absolute masters of finding rock songs and marrying them to striking images. Those are the movie moments that totally imprint on my brain matter - bring some kind of transcendence.
Anyway, in the jimmydumps/sunnyjimmy movie that I'm in, I was on the road yesterday, making the long city trek from my humble abode to my brother's rehearsal space in Wicker Park. A long excursion through the cityscape. Always a trip. I found myself in a hipster joint on Milwaukee in the middle of hipster heaven. A place called Earwax. Which might not sound all that appealing, but really is.
On the music box they were playing Bob Dylan's "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." This is one of those unlikely Dylan masterpieces, I doubt whether he ever did it live. Wonder what those session cats in Nashville back in 1966 thought when Dylan pulled out reams of lyrics? Anyway, it's sort of a long, ploddy song, that takes flight. And the obscure and mysterious lyrics just send me to another realm. Love it.
With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace, And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace, And your basement clothes and your hollow face, Who among them can think he could outguess you? With your silhouette when the sunlight dims Into your eyes where the moonlight swims, And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns, Who among them would try to impress you? Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands, Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes, My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums, Should I leave them by your gate, Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?
And the little hipster boys and girls in Earwax, with their cool tattoos, and nose rings, and skinny pants and cool cat smiles, what did they think of me, the old beat dude with the guitar slung over my shoulder, with this big shit-eating grin coming over my face as the the organ swells and the shimmering guitars washed over over me. And the girl at the counter had a Mona Lisa smile too.
I kind of felt like I sprouted wings and floated to other lands. And it was all alright. Yes, it was...
It's been obvious for a long time, if you put people in government who don't believe in government, you get government that basically works as a feeding trough for big corporations. Welcome to your modern Republican government.
And if the people who are supposed to oversee industry, let's say the people who give out contracts to the oil and gas industry, are from the oil and gas industry, don't you set up a pretty obvious conflict?
It turns out some of our fine government employees ( over at the Interior Department) really were in the bed of Big Oil. And they were partying like they were roadies for Motley Crue or something. Jeez, kind of gives sex and drugs and rock and roll a bad name.
Hey, sorry, if you eat meat, I understand. I used to eat meat too. I must confess, I was a meat-eater.
I was brought up in a family where it was steak and potatoes, and burgers and brats and bologna, and fried chicken. Not a day went by without eating meat. Since we were Catholics, we also, for a time, had fish on Fridays. Not exactly sure why. Something to do with Jesus getting hung up on a Friday, and well, that meant we should eat fish. Go figure.
I've been a vegetarian for a long time now. I mean, I was, then I wasn't, and now I am again. It's not that hard to do. And there are a million reasons why it's a good idea. Save the planet, save your arteries, avoid all that death in the meat industry.
It seems we are running out of fish. And our beef industry creates these bloated, unhealthy animals (shooting them up with massive doses of antibiotics) that live really sucky lives, and then we kill them, and eat them and their overall suckiness is passed onto us.
We start to resemble the things we eat. Check out your local hospital sometime to see how good that's working out.
Al Gore's buddy tells us that if the meat-eaters, just one day a week went native, I mean, vegetarian, we could cut down on Global Warming by a whole lot. We cut down all those beautiful rain-forests for the fast food industry. That really sucks!
I don't know, as Madonna once said, "Papa Don't Preach." We hate to hear that guy on the street corner telling us we're going to hell. Do what you want. But you know, there's a world of vegetables just waiting for you. And they don't squeal when you chop them up.
UPDATE: And if you like Tomatoes, check out Melissa's site for all the many ways you can make a Tomato sing!
Embroidering on this thought, Baldwin imagined an actor who signs up for the quick money of a sitcom pilot quite confident that the show will never be commissioned: “The agent’s saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s the biggest piece of shit in the history of show business.’ Cut to six years later: you’re in your dressing room, you’re in season five, and on the wall are posters of you from the New York Shakespeare Festival—these achingly beautiful posters on the wall. By that point, you’re making a hundred and seventy-five thousand a week, you’ve got a house in East Hampton, you’re getting laid constantly, you’ve got closets of beautiful Italian suits, and you’ve got three cars in the garage and you’re paying alimony to your ex-wife who’s living down in Florida. And you’re doing the same jokes, again and again and again.”
Ken Vandermark is a saxophone player who lives in Chicago. He recently wrote about Ornette Coleman who visited our fine city as part of Jazz Fest.
Here is Vandermark on Coleman and Democracy:
"Ornette has been able to craft an extremely interactive framework in which to work. As with a Democratic society, this demands that the individual be responsible enough to be fully informed and inquisitive in order to completely participate in the dialogue and decision-making process that's involved."
Still as Ray Nitsche the great Green Bay Packers middle linebacker once said...no wait, now that I think of it, it wasn't Ray Nitsche, it was that slightly over-wrought dude, Friedrich Nietzsche "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger."
I remember seeing that quote at the beginning of John Milius "Conan the Barbarian," and hell, if it all worked for Arnold the Terminator, I guess it can work for us too. So let's thank all those idiots for reminding us of what we aren't and don't want to be. I guess we can even thank Bush/Cheney for waking up a lot of people.
And now that I'm at it, I'd like to thank all of my enemies, real and imaginary, who have shown me the way. It's good to find some kind of clarity. The lies keep piling up, but really they are poor weapons. We can vaporize them with the light. And they make us stronger. Yeah, that's right! Except when they kill us, and then, well, then we're dead, and at that point, another journey awaits us. I guess.
"The Party That Wrecked America. It's official now: John McCain and Sarah Palin are up in the latest polls now that the conventions are over. I view this as a positive development. It will give the Obama-Biden campaign incentive to get serious. It would have been a disaster for Obama-Biden to come out of this past week ahead. It might have prompted them to kick back and be complacent.McCain-Palin have nowhere to go now but down, and I will tell you exactly how this will happen. They can run away from President Bush, but they can't run away from the Republican Party.
The Republicans will be regarded from now on as "the party that wrecked America." Over the weeks ahead, as carnage in the economy and the financial markets ramps up, it will become increasingly clear. It is important that this meme be spread through the internet. I urge all commentators who read this blog to adopt and spread the idea that the Republicans are "the party that wrecked America." It will work because it is the truth. Use it freely. Don't bother attributing it to me. Just spread the word. Get the meme going."
I haven't really written much about Sigur Ros. But ever since I discovered them back in 2000 or so, I have listened to them probably more than any other band I can think of.
They are strange outfit from Iceland - they use glockenspiels, tympanis, gongs, with lyrics sung in a made up language. They create hauntingly beautiful music. I cannot get on an airplane without my Walkmen and a couple Sigur Ros discs. If I want to go into a deep mediation, sometimes I cheat and play their music. It helps propel me to other worlds.
Lands of beauty and grandeur.
Their music is cinematic. I like to construct my own movies. My films are filled with color - vast landscapes - beyond the human touch.
Still they also have some beautiful videos that they have created too. Here is one of my favorites. Still takes my breath away. And that's a good thing.
On the other hand, it's better to live in the reality instead of the myth, or maybe somehow enlarge our experience to make the reality encompass the myth. I mean, the myth of RFK is one thing, and I do carry that with me, but at the same time, if you read history, Bobby Kennedy was also a ruthless little prick too. Although he was a ruthless, little, liberal prick, and we probably need more like him.
There are politicians who did, and do, the hard slogging. Those are the people I respect. I'm idealistic, but pragmatic too. For every noble lost cause, give me the small wins, the hard-won compromises. These are what make Democracy work. People like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Russ Feingold, Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden, Hilary Clinton. I don't like everything they do. They are part of an elite, but at the same time, they are in the trenches, working in a very divided environment, in a very divided country.
All is not OK in the good, old USA. The American Empire is another dying myth.
I think Barack Obama represents both the myth and the reality. When I hear him speak, I hear the best of what I imagine we could be as a country, a people. The dream dies hard. I can invest him with all my idealistic fervor, but at the same time, I think he's a slogger too. He'll roll up his sleeves and try to make things work better. At least I think so. Maybe I'm reading a lot into the guy, probably am, but hey that's how I'm wired.
The other side loves to push the fear. To pretend we are that old American Empire. If only they could put those gay-loving, tree-hugging, want to fix everything Liberals in a cold cell somewhere. The fear dies hard too. Maybe dies last.
Martin Luther King was gunned down in Memphis, but Nelson Mandela emerged from a jail cell to the run a country. Democracy is an amazing thing too sometimes. And sometimes the good guys win. As Ray Davies put it, "every dog has his day," and maybe sometimes if we're lucky we can kind of string a bunch of those days together...
UPDATE: This one is for The Lovely Carla and Clairvoyant Kris. Yes, one more time for the Underdog. I'm working on blowing this picture, I promise...
I'm a political junkie. Kind of woke up in years of rage, crushed dreams, and bullets. My political heroes seemed to always crash and burn. As a kid I can remember JFK's funeral. Remember Oswald and Ruby. Wasn't sure what happened, or why, but knew that it was really bad and sad.
Later I was much more aware of RFK - his double-barreled crusade to help the poor and end the war in Vietnam were my touchstones. When he died in a hail of bullets it was like a family member had passed. I can still hear my mother's scream of horror and pain, as we heard on the car radio that Bobby had been killed - she was driving me to school the morning after the California primary. I can hear Robert's voice today, and the tears will well in my eyes. I have always been a political "idealist" which really sets me up for disappointment.
I learned a lot about politics from writers like Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson, Mike Royko. I grew up with Richard (Boss) Daley. I've always been amazed at how the way I see the world is not reflected in other's eyes.
Probably the most influential political personality that helped form my political psyche is Richard Nixon. He was the nemesis, the arch-enemy, the prime example that told me I didn't know anything about politics. Nixon was elected President twice. The second time in a landslide against a really good man, George McGovern.
Rick Perlstein reminds us that really we do live in NIXONLAND. It's a land of culture war, division, resentment. The successful politicians in this land do not bring people together, instead, they conquer and divide. It has worked for years and years. Clinton was an exception, but the man had to pretend he was something he wasn't much of the time. And it kind of caught up to him.
Maybe it will work again. The lies are coming fast and furious. I hope not. It's seems it is always easier to sell cynicism and division as opposed to hope and solidarity. When you buy "hope" you have to invest more of your self in the enterprise. When I think "Republican" I see torture, corruption, lies, deceit, government spying, illegal wars, economic debacle, arrogance, stupidity. I can't imagine someone voting for that party knowing what we know. 8 years of Bush has pretty much discredited everything the Republican party stands for.
But then again I didn't think Nixon, Reagan, Bush I or Bush II could be elected President. Sometimes, I think I know this country - I mean I do know this country, but usually I choose to live in another land.
UPDATE: By the way, this is really good. This is why Obama's first major decision, to pick Joe Biden as his running mate, was an excellent one.
It's a classic old song. One of the seminal r&r tunes. Chuck Berry duck walks! Keith Richards has been playing those Chuck Berry licks for years and years. It's the theme song of John McCain's campaign. It was written a long time ago - 1958. And I guess it really is appropriate for an old man trying to put an old potion in a new bottle.
Who is he trying to fool?
His mother told him someday you would be a man, And you would be the leader of a big old band. Many people coming from miles around To hear you play your music when the sun go down Maybe someday your name will be in lights "Saying Johnny B. Goode tonight!"
Maybe the guy who can lie with a straight face, the guy who can re-write history, the guy with no conscience, has the immediate advantage, but I do believe that the lies will finally fizzle and die in the light of day. Yes, I do!
I recommend this version of that same old song - Chuck B. never played with his teeth!
Torture. There was this show on TV last night. On a bunch of channels simultaneously. I was morbidly fascinated - drawn to the spectacle, kind of like a car wreck, I guess.
I could only take it in small doses, I flipped from Clint Eastwood playing Dirty Harry, running around San Francisco kicking the shit out of crazed, bandana-wearing hippies, and this other thing.
And really the two narratives kind of coalesced. There was some grand narrative of fact and fiction and more fiction un-spooling before my naive, in the bubble, un-believing, Liberal Eyes.
Somehow George Romero was controlling the vertical and horizontal. Think - Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Tales from the Darkside, Land of the Dead, Diary of the Dead, Creepshow, etc.
Desiccated living corpses, brain-dead zombies stalked the air-waves, zombies with strange names like: Guliani, Thompson, Romney. And following them was the Stepford-like, self-proclaimed, "hot chick." She looked and sounded alive. But in a strangely clueless, 1950's sitcom sort of way.
What a strange show. And the mantra, it was unbelievable, kind sent a shocking chill of incomprehension coursing through my entire Liberal Body, the mantra rose from the teeming masses, the true believers (who are those people?), I almost can't repeat the mantra, but I must, yes, it was spooky, other-worldly, beyond the living and the dead - "DRILL BABY DRILL, DRILL BABY DRILL..."
Yes, the universe is expanding. And the star-gazers tell us that the expansion is accelerating. Can you feel it? Is the universe coming apart at the seams? Is that why everything seems just little more dire, a little more wack?
And is Brooklyn expanding too? And do we really have to do our homework?
I mean if it's McCain/Palin in November where do the Lovely Carla and I (and the birds - refugees!) flee to?
I mean, let's go the whole hog! How about Ted Nugent/ Sarah Palin? Evangelical Dream Ticket??
UPDATE: If Sarah Palin wants to wear bikinis, tote high-powered rifles, thump bibles, deny evolution and bury her head in the sand on climate change (she doesn't think humans have anything to do with it), that's fine by me. I mean, hell, you go girl!
She certainly looks better in a bikini than Cheney or Biden would look in a Speedo (Oh dear god, please banish the vision!), so I guess on the beach-wear front, mark one for the GOP.
What this all really confirms for me is that John McCain is freaking off his rocker! Yikes! Maybe all this will be good for additional laughs (Jon Stewart never had it so good). Hope the joke is not on us.
So, as they say, first time TRAGEDY (BUSH/CHENEY) second time FARCE (MCCAIN/PALIN). Any bets on whether Palin bails before November 4?What is Britney up to these days?
We are way behind the times on the Dark Knight. Finally saw it yesterday. A hot day in Chicago, nothing like slipping into a cool theater on an early evening outing. Yes, it's maximum entertainment. Lots of visceral stuff - explosions, glass breaking, massive body blows, fast-paced editing, major Hollywood movie-making at it's thrill ride best.
Maybe because it has been so over-hyped, it all seemed a little hollow? And Batman seems to swallow actors and render them invisible - Keaton, Clooney, Bale. Or maybe because this is so much the type of movie I usually avoid, that all the classic elements of the genre are oh so familiar. Just done so much better. I remember that we saw Batman Begins. I can't recall one moment from that one. I wonder how quickly this one will fade away? Most movies that I really love have some indelible scenes, usually accompanied by a musical counterpoint. Not here, the memorable sounds - breaking glass!
I do think I will remember Michael Caine playing a butler. And Gary Oldman (Sid and Nancy) as a Police Commissioner. Morgan Freeman is always great. It was good to see Eric Roberts working. And of course, Heath Ledger. He gets to play an elemental force - Chaos with a Smile. Great role, superb job. What a final impression. Ledger goes out in style. Although, it's weird he was just left dangling out the window! Still all said and done I pretty much agree with everything Who Got the Gravy says about Ledger's performance.
The Lovely Carla thought Heath was channeling Beetlejuice. I wracked my brain as the movie unfolded, who does this guy sound like? This morning I Googled - "Heath Ledger sounds like Al Franken" and found out I wasn't the only one. Now I've got my fingers crossed that this will somehow, improbably help Al in his run for U.S. Senator from Minnesota. We need another Joker in the Senate. I'm sure of it!
