Dave Cullen: VERY Best Posts

Eric Harris' Journal Finally Released

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 00:25:19 GMT

The day finally arrive. The Jeffco sheriff finally released Eric's journal, and close to 1,000 other pages from Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and Eric's father, Wayne Harris.

There is an AP story here, which oddly focuses on some passages that were already public. (I guess they had not kept up to date):

http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/07/06/columbine.records.ap/index.html

The Rocky Mountain News has a story here:

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_4825673,00.html

You can read the full 1,000 pages here, in a pdf (it's 32 MB):

http://denver.rockymountainnews.com/pdf/900columbinedocs.pdf

I have been reading through it and there's a lot of interesting stuff in there--much of it I had seen, but some I had not. It pretty much follows along the lines I had been led to believe.

I don't want to say too much here, because I'm developing all these thoughts for my book, but it's fascinating to see how Eric can take nearly any assignment--or any little inspirational phrase in his day-timer--and make it about death and murder.

Eric's journal--which he referred to as The Book of God in the Basement Tapes, is on 84-99, with more diagrams and budgets immediately after.

His budgeting for his bomb-making is one of the things that really startled me the first time I saw it. I was just in disbelief that he was so cold and calculating about it. (Not that inventorying the # of targets in the commons each minute is not more horrifying. I guess that came out early and I was used to the idea. When I first saw the budget, I was just flipping through it and spotted that and realized what it was and just gaped.)

---

Unfortunately, it looks like The Basement Tapes may never be public--though the contents have been widely reported. The sheriff refused to release them, and the attorney for the Denver Post--which brought the lawsuit--said yesterday that they would not appeal. What a shame. Perhaps some future sheriff will release it.

---

FYI, the Rocky's archive of recent Columbine stories is here:

http://cfapp2.rockymountainnews.com/archives/sections/news/columbine/

My Nigga Moment

Mon, 09 Jan 2006 03:20:17 GMT

I've been loving this Boondocks TV series.

Makes me kinda squeamish sometimes, though. If this were written by a white guy, it would have been cancelled after one episode, and any TV executive involved in greenlighting it fired in disgrace.

But it's freaking funny.

And . . . how do you say this without sounding REALLY white . . . ? I'm understanding better.

Thought I understood the race stuff pretty well. Not well enough, apparently.

So I'm loving the show, for a whole lotta reasons. But the Nigga Moment episode--officially titled "Grandad's Fight"--that one was just too much. Grandad gets beaten up by a mean old blind man, and humilated for it. Everyone involved is black, including the narrator, who tells us and grandad about twenty times that it's just a nigga moment--where two niggas find themselves in a situation where they find themselves driven to act stupid, and it always ends badly.

Halfway through I literally felt like I was going to throw up. And all i could think was: I don't care how black the writer is, it's still freaking racist.

And I sure felt racist chuckling at it. And it was hard not to, it was funny. But good lord. Man, did I feel dirty.

I turned it off, but didn't delete it from the tivo.

Came back about a month later and decided to finish. More nigga nigga nigga, dumb niggas, stupid niggas, Goooooooood!

But finally, the episode climaxes with gramps and the blind guy in a rematch that ends horribly, followed by a mini riot among the crowd gathered to watch. Riley--the angry (eight year old?) grandson who set up the whole disgusting fight and took bets and charged admission and then instigated the riot to get the hell out of there when it went sour--stands back, looks at the mostly white crowd acting like idiots, and says, ruefully, "niggas!"

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Wow. Nicely done. Almost sounds heavy handed describing it now, but it sure lured me in. And enlightened me, too. And not just about white people, but about us, too. And the whole idea of niggas. Or one crucial nigga idea, at least.

This is the first show in ages that makes me feel like a nerdy white guy, and/or a white-guilt kinda guy. Discomforting, because I thought I was way past all that, but I guess that means I wasn't.

And it's funny as hell.

(FYI, It's on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Sunday at 11, I read at one point, but I have no idea. That's what your tivo is for.)

Watching Brokeback Mountain -- just about perfect

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 19:20:14 GMT

Watched Brokeback Mountain last night. Wow. Just about perfect.

Every bit as moving as the short story, and then some. They really fleshed out the characters, and I empathized with them more strongly. Enough that I'm not angry at Ennis anymore. I totally understand why he did it. How he thought he had to.

The problem with preconceptions is that it was hard not to sit there in the first half hour thinking, "Heath Ledger is doing fine, but 'a revelation'? Not quite getting that." (And there was plenty of quiet time to think.) But by the end I had forgotten all about that, and I was just in awe.

And Jake. Jake was just a joy to behold, every moment he was on screen. He really was. And that was his job--that was his character. And what a wonderful character to light up this movie. Would have been so much darker and flatter without him.

The women were great, too, and I'm so glad their characters were fleshed out. The book focuses on two lives ruined, but you get a powerful sense here of it tearing up all four. And to a lesser extent, hurting the daughters as well. Michelle Williams, in particular, is heartbreaking.

Oh, God, speaking of heartbreaking. My favorite scene in the book, hands down, was the reunion on the landing after four years--where they were so overcome with seeing each other, they grabbed each other and kissed passionately in broad daylight.

It was just as powerful on film, but topped by several others. I guess that says something extraordinary right there. The far-and-away best scene of one of the most beloved stories I have ever read, was bested about three times in the film. Would hardly have thought that possible.

The second night they get together out on Brokeback was . . . well, like nothing I've ever seen before, but only in the sense that I've never seen it with men. Picture one of the all-time great romantic moments on film, and then imagine it finally challenged by something just as beautiful, complex and tender with two men. Finally. First time ever ever ever I didn't have to imagine a stand-in for the woman up there.

It was just amazing. They had "gotten together" in a late-night drunken situation that Ennis was completely unable to deal with in the morning. Or the next evening. He tells Jake he's not queer, that it was a one-time thing and that's that. But he can't stick to it. When he comes into the tent, he's completely at war inside. Trying desperately not to do it, but his heart begging him to finally accept what it feels. It is so hard for him, his struggle is so palpable, and Jack is so perfect with him. God me balling again just remembering.

And their last climactic scene together and what comes after: that is just so intense, slammed me in the skull so hard so many ways one after the other after the other.

Just devastating.

And I'm not going to say a whole lot here, but I do believe Heath's finest moment comes when Ennis visits Jacks parents and gets some news from his mom. What he doesn't say. What he works so hard to hide. God. That poor, poor man. How can you possibly blame that guy?

---

So a strange thing happened to me after the film, while Ang Lee was interviewed onstage. (Streaming video and a news story on it here -- Thanks Mark. And FYI, Annie left early from the book signing, so I missed here. Didn't talk to her or Ang. Damn. But they sat across the aisle from us, and during the credits I got a chance to at least walk over and thank Larry and Diana for doing such an amazing job. They really fleshed this incredible story out.)

So the interview was great. To listen to him is to know you are in the presence of a true artist, whatever you think of this particular film. (Or The Hulk.) Late in the discussion, the Denver Post critic brought up they gay question a couple times, dealing with the gay issue, the gay this the gay that. It was oddly jarring for me. So weird to hear it called a gay film or a gay love story or gay anything. For the last two hours, I had just been lost in an exquisite love story.

I know, I know, I have scoffed right here about people saying it's not a gay film: What! It's two men in love having sex. That's called gay. The entire story revolves around the forbiddenness of their love--because it's gay--the whole tragedy is centered on the problem of the men being gay.

Yeah, I have said all that. And it's all true. In that sense, it is a gay film, in two distinct and crucial ways. But I'm now seeing the other point of view, too. It's also an aching love story between two people who just happen to be gay.

The other great romantic movie of the decade--Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--was also a gripping love story of two people fighting desperately both for and against their problematic love for each other. But it wasn't a film about a memory-erasing device was it? That was just the vehicle, the problem to present for these two people to fight madly for the love being ripped away from them.

Exactly the same thing here.

All I know is, that in spite of knowing full well for the two-plus hours that it was the revulsion of homosexuality that was driving these two tragic lovers apart, I truly forgot about it being a gay thing. The love story was just too intense. It didn't matter what was driving these two guys apart, it was just about the intensity of the love between these two guys.

So I was literally startled to hear her using the gay word while I was still basking in that afterglow. Maybe because the concept of "gay love" is offensive to some part of me that is sick of hearing it distinguished from "love." It's exactly the same. For two hours I had not been watching gay love, I had just been watching love.

It didn't feel like a gay film. It just felt like home.

---

Update:

You guys kept adding so many comments (thousands), that long after this post, we started a whole Brokeback Mountain Discussion Forum.

And for links to everything imaginable, see our Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Guide.

Salon included me in their classics

Sun, 13 Nov 2005 04:38:35 GMT

This is kind of cool. Salon is celebrating its tenth and anniversary and every day the past week they have been highlighting their top stories from a single year.

I did most of my work for them in 1999 and 2000, and two of my stories made the list each year. The lists for 1999 & 2000.

From 1999, they picked two of my Columbine stories:

”I smell like the presence of Satan”
Is Littleton's evangelical subculture a solution to the youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine killings, or a reflection of it?
By Dave Cullen

Inside the Columbine High investigation
Everything you know about the Littleton killings is wrong. But the truth may be scarier than the myths.
By Dave Cullen

And in 2000 they featured, this two-part series on one of the last bastions of blatant discrimination toward gays in America. (I hate to call it a "gays in the military" story, even though it technically is, because that has phrase has like the mind-numbingly tired politico piece I specifically wanted to avoid):

Don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t fall in love, Part I of II
A rare peek inside the lives of gay military officers, a world filled with staggering sacrifice, loneliness and glass ceilings.
By Dave Cullen

A heartbreaking decision, Part II
Gay officers must choose between personal happiness and the careers they've spent years building.
By Dave Cullen

The launch of my love affair (with Brokeback Mountain)

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 23:23:19 GMT

As anxiously as I've watched the Brokeback film project develop, undevelop and redevelop over the years, I had never actually read the story. I guess because I missed it when it first came out, and then I wanted to see it as a film first.

(Book-first rarely works out well. By design/length books are nearly always far deeper and more complex, and the film never lives up. But I can appreciate a great film, and then go read the book for added/different levels of complexity. Almost always better that way. And I really never expected it to take this long.)

But then, on a Sunday almost exactly two months ago, something happened to change all that. Oddly enough, it started with Katrina, and my self-imposed exile for my book project.

So I'm finally, belatedly going to share how the story bowled me over when I read two months ago, why I got obsessive about it, and also my one big problem with the story. (Which I've since mellowed on.)

This is exactly how I experienced it that day (almost; a few small edits). an email to a couple straight friends composed late at night, September 4, 2005:

something odd happened today. a few things, starting with the hurricane, but ending with annie proulx.

and i wanted to get some opinions on it, especially from straight people, so i'm sending this to a few of my favorite literary friends, who whoops, i still have not thanked for all the help and insight getting started with faulkner last month. (who is now seriously threatening nabokov as my most idolized writer, merely on the basis of "As I Lay Dying," which amazed me more with every passing page, and which gave me several crucial insights about my own book, including the fundamental organizing principle. but that's not what i came here to talk about.

i was feeling kind of guilty about the hurricane. i hardly paid attention all week. brought to a head something i'm really struggling with now, this immersion/estrangement thing. i get so involved in politics and events, so worked up that i don't get any work done. so i've had a few stern talks with myself about turning all that off for awhile and being with my own project. letting the world spin around its axis without me for awhile. but then i leave for four days, and bam! the gulf coast is a hell on earth and i've ignored them and feel guilty. (because i could have made it all better if i had just paid attention? hahaha. guess not. and yet ...)

so i heard these vague rumblings late in the week that n.o. had not in fact dodged the missile, and then i heard from my friend ile down there, who told a blood-curdling story that apparent the rest of you had all been following all week, and i've been frantically trying to catch up in the few days since. so i needed something today to pull it all together for me, so i went to the new york times of all places, because frank rich is there, and his column did exactly what i needed it to, and then . . .

of course my eyes couldn't dart past the tiny little film section of the front page without taking a peek, and what were the chances i would not be absorbed by the headline: "Cowboys in Love . . . With Each Other"?

for reasons i couldn't entirely remember, i have kept myself from reading Brokeback Mountain for at least five years, saving it for the variously rumored film projects. (is that pathetic? a writer who deems the book less worthy than the film? but in this case--when we're talking about mass cultural impact, heath ledger and jake gyllenhaal trump annie proulx by a country mile.)

so i knew the times piece was going to give away too much, and i needed to avoid it, but i couldn't make myself. and when ang lee described himself crying at the ending--MINOR SPOILER ALERT; MORE AHEAD--of the two shirts hung side by side--well, five years out the window, i drove right to borders and came home with a copy.

(of course that was just the last straw. long painful spring and summer with my family over the gay stuff. a weird second coming out phase nobody ever told me was coming. they were all so accepting at first--or were they? on the surface yes, and do they want to, yes. but still, the idea of their brother actually making out with a guy . . . gives them the shivers. and they communicate it in so many subtle ways they're not even aware of, and i wasn't either until it all came to a head this past month, with a sad little coda last night at my parents' 50th wedding anniversary dinner. so let's just say i was primed.)

during the drive, i remembered why i originally put off reading it, before even the first rumors of a movie. annie proulx. i had to read Postcards during grad school and it bored the crap out of me. never finished it. don't know whether it was her or me not ready for her, but she left me with a very bad taste, and i was sure she was not up to the task of the kind of first great popular gay love story.

well, she was. really, really amazing. broke my heart, as intended. with a few glaring flaws here and there, but who cares?

i was really curious how it read to straight people, though. how much of it was great storytelling, and how much was it ripping me up over my own life slipping away without getting this damn love thing down?

and then annie surprised me at the end. she was definitely too heavy-handed with the tire-iron idea throughout, but the ending (hmmmm. i guess i'm assuming you've read it. i always assume i'm the last literate person on earth to get to any of the really good stuff), i was shocked at how off it felt. if ang lee had remembered correctly, that would have been an amazing ending, with the shirts hanging there together. but then there's a break, and then two paragraphs in a very different tone, with ennis having nightmares about his lover getting bludgeoned to death with the tire iron.

it took me just about a minute to figure out why that felt so wrong. then i realized it: only a straight person (or a sympathetic lesbian?) would write that ending. she thinks she NEEDS the tire iron to make this a tragic story. or perhaps that she really wanted to boldly address the worst horror of gay life: death at the hands of a tire iron. amazing. she had ALREADY addressed the worst horror of gay life, and she didn't even realize it. at least for homos today. (or in 1997.) i don't know one single gayguy worrying about the tire iron. and nearly every gayguy i know is struggling with his love life. even now that we can couple up, we have no idea how to do it. we're so freaking damaged by the time we make it out, and we have no women in our relationships to do most of the relationship work and . . . and we're just a mess.

but even in the time she set the story--or for thousands of years before--i do believe 99.9% of the homos in the world were successfully avoiding the tire iron. it's what they GAVE UP to avoid it, that's been the tragedy of gay life. her story completely nails it. THAT is the tragedy here.

and most of her instincts were dead on. brilliant to set her story over a 20-year period vaulting right past stonewall. these guys COULD have escaped their prison, and one of them wanted to, but ennis never had the guts to do it. he lives to tell the tale, but he's the most tragic figure here. she doesn't seem to grasp that. she thinks her dead character is the tragic one, but he gave it his best shot and failed; it's her other guy who did himself in.

part of her clearly seems to know that--she wrote the freaking story that screams it. but she didn't seem to fully grasp it. she feels the need to impose this other, physical tragedy, as if the other one wasn't enough.

that's what i found kind of offensive when i got to the end, even before i could grasp what was angering me. that that wasn't enough. i don't think most straight people get that, do they? that you can take all the tire irons out of the picture, you can take the work discrimination out of the picture, we can stop fearing for our lives for our jobs, for any of that stuff, but if we still can't find the love we crave . . . that's a tragedy too.

and that's ACTUAL one most of us are living with, by the way. (or at least a handy excuse for goofballs like me who just can't manage to bag a man. heeheehee.)

but it was still a wonderful story.

how odd that we needed someone other than a gayguy to write it for us. i'm sure hundreds, thousands, endless number of gay love stories have been written by gayguys for gayguys--wasn't leaves of grass a big sloppy gay lovefest? another classic i've never gotten close to--but we needed an outsider to yank it out of the romance genre, and make it palatable. we needed annie proulx and ang lee and heath ledger and jake gyllenhaal. god, i pray the movie is so wonderful straight people are forced to hear about it all through the oscar race and some of them actually go out to see it. or perhaps just the idea or the ad-campaign images of those two will be enough to get some people over the shudders of the idea of two guys kissing.

but i'm really glad i read the story. definitely opened up something inside of me. if only we had any of the quirky, oddball, intellectual gayboy hotties i'm looking for out here in the hinterlands. heheehe. maybe once i finally get my ass out to ny next year i'll find that boy. i hear tell they grow a lot of them out there.

---

Note: I have since eased up about the tire iron. I still think my point is correct, and that she doesn't seem to (get? trust?) how tragic the story already is. But so what. I'd actually forgotten all about it. (Seriously.) The strong stuff stuck with me, the flaws faded away. I still adore that story. Tugs at my heart every time I think about it.

Update:

You guys kept adding so many comments (thousands), that long after this post, we started a whole Brokeback Mountain Discussion Forum.

And for links to everything imaginable, see our Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Guide.

my brother owes me . . . a dollar?

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 04:25:25 GMT

i had given up on this a long time ago.

but it feels good, finally. really good.

i just watched the white sox win their first pennant in my lifetime. had just missed the last one: came in 59, two years before my birth.

i used to listen to the games every night in in the bottom bunk with my tiny transistor radio. with the volume turned all the way down to the edge of the off click, with it laid right up against my ear on the pillow, so i could just make out Harry Carrey calling the balls and strikes, but my mom, when she stepped right into our bedroom doorway--which she did every night to see if we were asleep--could not hear a sound from five feet away. and i would close my eyes and feign sleep, praying for a lull in the action till she passed.

(i have never been able to fake anything. took every ounce of concentration i had to paste on that blank sleep expression and try to control my breathing. a long fly ball to left and i would have been so busted.)

nearly every night, nearly 162 games, for years and years. partly cause my older brother was a cubs fan and he beat me up every afternoon--and that's easy to say now, but "joke" about it, but it was fists slamming into my skull and belly over and over and over again every single day of my life, so i knew i had to come home to get abused every day as soon as school was over, like it wasn't horrible enough there already, it was at least a predictable bruising when i came home; it was brutal and i hated him, god how i hated him, that cruel bastard--so i not only hoped and prayed for every hit, every run every win for the sox, i hoped and prayed for the cubs to lose so that my team would beat his team, it was the one hope i had of beating that horrible evil guy who was beating the crap out of me every day to make it to the playoffs before his team and show him that we and they were better than him.

(the last paragraph i wrote while drunk in an email to my little sister a few weeks ago--cleaned it up a little tonight. i'm not angry now, but clearly it simmers just below. i didn't realize i was still angry for years and years until it suddenly came to a head in a bitter encounter this summer as i realized that the pattern had lived on through adulthood. and he didn't really get it when i told him, so it didn't go away. )

bucky dent before he went to the yankees was my favorite. partly cause he was really hot, too, and i couldn't quite grasp that, but i told myself it was cause he was a shortstop really good in the field and a good hitter who always seemed to have more potential than he realized, and jorge orta and a brief ron santo, and of course harry carrey before he turned traitor and went to the cubs, god, i never forgave him for that.

but they let me down just too many times, and i was losing interest in pro sports anyway, especially once i realized i didn't have to pretend to follow it to be a real man, so i finally let it go. but i will never forget the feeling.

and i was so happy for them tonight. and in a weird little way, even though i had nothing to do with it, for me.

and i emailed my brother the second it was over to demand my money.

hahaha. i have no idea what we bet--a dollar? seemed like a lot at the time. i think that's when we got five cents a week allowance, so that was nearly half a year's income.

whoever's team won the pennant first won.

who would have expected it to go on this long? they had the longest and second-longest streaks without one in baseball.

but not tonight.

and it feels good.

and i'm going to get to work on figuring out how to forgive my brother.

Last refuge of the modern scoundrel

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 02:08:15 GMT

If you've been watching Survivor this season, particularly this past Thursday, you probably came to the conclusion that Blake Towsley is kind of a dick. If you missed him on The Early Show the next morning, you have no idea.

On Thursday, you had the footage of him babbling incessantly about his infinite superiority--about his high school state sports championship, about his girlfriend's size double-D breasts, about his wild drunken debauchery--and you had the outcome of the episode: his three original tribemates, who had everything to gain by sticking together, may well have written themselves out of contention just to get a human being so vile out of their vicinity.

That was nothing.

Friday morning, after months away from the game to get over his astonishment and anger over being disliked, and mere seconds after thumping his chest for having played the game so honorably, he chose the most spineless method possible to slander his former adversary Brian with what he surely regards as the ultimate insult.

Brian badmouthed him in Guatemala, and apparently engineered his ouster. Blake got his revenge Friday by "accusing" Brian of being gay--by pretending to "defend" him.

Judge for yourself. I transcribed his full screed, no edits or omissions of any kind (though I didn't bother with a few quick echoes of his comments from Harry Smith, spoken at the same time as Blake, in the midst of it):

"The thing that I wanted to come away with more than a million dollars was my honor and my integrity, and I did that. The one thing that was kind of--everybody in the, everybody on the cast and everybody thought that that Brian was gay. And made it a big issue, and a big hot topic and I was, you know, he was adamant about defending himself on that and never once did I speak a bad word about Brian. They had me in interviews and they're like, He's not gay, but everybody thought he was. Brian and myself were the only two the exceptions to the rule. So I'd tried be a good guy for everybody. I think I got out right before it got ugly."

Yeah. Until now.

It's bad enough to out someone on national television. To "accuse" someone who claims not to be on--especially by pretending to defend him--yow. How low can you get?

It's no insult to me, but I'm quite sure it is in Blake's world. Still the most damaging epithet you can slap a guy with in many circles. It's disgusting to do that to Brian, and more disgusting to gay people to use the "charge" as an insult.

Blake mentioned watching the show every Thursday night, and knew damn well the producers had chosen not to air any of those "allegations." So he knew it had probably never crossed the minds of most straight people in the country, and how easy to point it out for them. And if they did already suspect, he was all to eager to provide the compelling evidence that everyone there--other than Mr. Integrity, of course--thought it was true.

Playing the gay card. I keep forgetting we're not past that.

And Harry Smith, of course, said nothing about the slimy slam.

Trey Parker is adorable!

Tue, 27 Sep 2005 18:43:49 GMT

Just freaking adorable.

(OK, one quickie daytime post. This just lit me up. Gotta get it out.)

My apologies for starting with that somewhat shallow and immature sentiment instead of something serious, but after 20 minutes with these guys, and all the hilarious, enlightening and above all inspiring things they had to say, the honest truth is, that is the one irresistible thought bouncing round my brain right now.

God. These two are a freaking riot.

Oh. Context. They were on Charlie Rose last night. Sort of a mindfuck right there, Charlie & The South Park Boys, which they commented on, of course: now we've won and Emmy, we've done charlie rose, how do you stay punk after that? heeheehee.

(Of course it makes sense as well, Charlie loves to have influential people from any realm of culture, though he does tend to lag nearly as far behind as Time magazine, and it has taken him nine years to get these pop culture titans. But still. The contrast is quite amusing. Also amusing that Charlie pointed out he had been a character on both South Park and The Simpsons.)

Hennyway, just watching while I had a bite. Usually use Charlie as radio, but these two were just too delightful to look away. Even as talking heads, they're fun to watch.

And delightful is not a word I'm too comfortable using out loud too often, but sometimes a slightly uncomfortable word just fits.

They are so giddy! That's the best part of watching them: not even the way they crack me up--though they do--but the way they crack themselves up. They talk about how the show is such a grind, not fun at all--hmmmm, sort of like writing, much of the time--but unintended inspiration here is, their LIVES are so much fun. Not by design, I'm sure, they just enjoy the hell out of existence.

That or they just popped a couple amyl nitrate capsules before they went on.

And not just laughter, their faces are just so damn expressive, particularly Trey. (And how did I overlook how handsome he was before? Great. Why does it always have to be the straight one. At least I think he's straight.)

I had to pause the Tivo right now to grab my laptop and type this on the couch, because Charlie has just asked Trey if he's a libertarian, and after a quick duck and Charlie's insistence, Trey is literally biting his lower lip trying to bring himself to -- presumably, I'm in freeze-frame anticipating his answer -- admit it.

OK, unfroze. In his best Newhart stutter, "It's, it's possible."

Heeheehee.

Just too freaking adorable for words.

---

OK, I really wanted to end on that note. But then . . .

Charlie--and here's why we love him--plays along wonderfully for most of the exchange, but doesn't let him duck, and at the end, asks Matt Stone, incredulously the exact question running through every audience member's mind, but that nobody else in the business but he and Oprah and maybe Katie Couric would actually spit out: "Why is he embarrassed by this?"

Matt laughs, Trey says, "I'm not embarrassed at all, it's just a difficult question."

Charlie is still more incredulous. "Why is it difficult!"

"Because it's it's . . .

"It's like saying are you . . .?"

Charlie loses the balls to finish that one.

First awkward pause of the interview. Finally, from Trey:

"It's like are you gay? It's like . . . a little."

He explodes with laughter. His face totally contorted in laughter.

{Editor's note: Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!! He's joking I'm sure--almost sure--but yea anyway for the tiny little idea of opening. Wait, he's not through yet:}

Raising his arms, palms up, like his eyebrows, "On a Friday night, maybe." Suddenly quiet, faux serious. "No chick around . . . sure."

Lots of laughs all around. And then a more serious explanation. And yet another thing I have in common with them. Ahhhhhh. Too bad it's just the odd Friday night.

But who knows, maybe Matt will drag him to check out our latest gaybar, won't be many chicks around there. And it just happens to be a Friday night spot. Hmmmmm.

Bigger hmmm. I seem to have just blogged through the rest of my lunch break. Can't even watch the rest of the interview. (But something to look forward to at 4 p.m. snack.)

Nice to have something to be proud of from Colorado. Eager to get back to writing to be the next thing.

NOTICE: See you on the weekends

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 17:17:40 GMT

Hey. You might have noticed I'm rarely here during the week these days.

Yes, by design. Trying to keep my focus entirely on my book during the week. Hence the big one-day bursts on Saturdays and Sundays. So look for me then. (Or on Mondays when you get back to trolling the web at the office, while your boss is away. heeheehee.)

OK, better try that bigger:

LOOK FOR ME MOSTLY ON THE WEEKENDS UNTIL THIS BOOK IS DONE!

Occasionally I may stop by in an evening, if I've had a great day and deserve an indulgence, or maybe once in awhile for a quickie. (Like just now. I figured since I was here to let you know this, I could pound out a quick reaction to the Housewives.)

But hopefully you'll see a lot of self-control.

See you Saturday.

Faulkner rules!

Sun, 25 Sep 2005 17:52:31 GMT

That title feels a bit silly to me now, but I could imagine no other heading when I first envisioned this post two months ago, so I couldn't forgive myself if I committed it now.

Sorry for the delay. So busy.

But I did what Oprah told me this summer, and picked up my beautiful little boxed set of three Faulkners.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in with suggestions on the order to approach them. I decided Oprah's handlers prolly knew what they were doing by leading me into As I Lay Dying out of written sequence, and plunged in there.

Wow.

For about 60 pages, I was annoyed and perplexed. This shit was really confusing, and to what end? Not an insight anywhere in sight, a group of--I'm sorry, but illiterate southern prairiebillies from half a century ago with no original thoughts on their existence, and absolutely no connection whatsoever to my life.

That was embarrassing to admit. Sorry about the bigoted part. Didn't like feeling those things about "dumb southerners," wasn't ready to admit it at the time, but yes, those thoughts were in there, despite having lived a good chunk of my life in the south and finding just as many intelligent people there as I have in the north, east and west (all of which I have lived in.)

Then, somewhere around page 60 I started to get the hang of how to read him--chiefly, that when it suddenly made no sense, that was OK; don't get so damn frazzled that you have to know everything every moment; just read on, and all will be revealed in time, and luckily almost always within a few pages. That ability--and my new-found willingness--to just ride out the confusion and uncertainty actually started to feel exhilarating.

So he stopped being such a royal pain in the ass relatively quickly, but I was still wondering what the payoff was supposed to be.

The exact moment, I don't remember. Really dawned on me gradually. And I'm not even going to try to recount it here. But these people had SO much to enlighten me with. They were uneducated, and a few of them were freaking stupid to boot, but most of them . . . man.

I was just overwhelmed by the insights these people had buried inside them. And the way Faulkner told his story. And the way the story kept twisting and twisting and twisting again. Not the plot, the . . . hmmmmm. Words are failing me. The revelations? Of both style and content, I guess, they way they were woven so intricately and perfectly together.

Every ten pages or so I just gasped, and though, Wow, this alone makes this book extraordinary. And then ten pages later . . .

Faulkner rules!

Cause we're not sure how

Mon, 25 Jul 2005 18:09:05 GMT

we're tryin'
we're hopin'
we're hurtin'
we're lovin'
we're cryin'
we're callin'
'cause we're not sure how
this goes

The real test of how deeply a scene moves me is how long it lingers on my Tivo. I don't know what I think I'm going to do with it. How many times can you watch the same scene.

Enough, I guess. Six or eight times so far on this one, I guess. Even more than that final OC Hallelujah sequence. Because it's not quite that powerful. Yeah, the deeper it hits, the harder to watch. I have really steal myself for that one.

This one feels more comforting. Although when I do watch it, it tends to tear me up.

It's from that mortician show, Six Feet Under. About three weeks ago. When the mom's sort-of friend dies and all the old hippie ladies gather and the cranky old mom actually smokes pot with them. And then they slowly mumble their way into and then erupt with Calling All Angels.

(Hmmmmm. Angels? Hallelujah? OK, don't go looking for a pattern just yet. Except perhaps desperate characters looking in the direction desperate people are sometimes wont to look.)

Like all great filmed song sequences, it feels written especially for the scene at hand, until the cutaways start, and you think, God, no, it was written for those.

And this show has no shortage of broken, hurting, tragic, borderline pathetic characters trying to fumble their way through a preplexing existence to cut away to.

Which makes me feel a lot better about the show, suddenly.

Becasue this planet sure has no shortage of broken, hurting, tragic, borderline pathetic characters trying to fumble their way through a preplexing existence to cut away to.

Hmmmm. This prolly wouldn't be the best time to dump on this show. Let's just say it has disappointed me a bit. Since I moved up from indigent status and splurged on an HBO subscription, and actually started Tivoing the show.

I had caught scattered episodes from previous seasons, and the last handful from the end of last season, but this is the first season I've been able to watch in sequence.

Not sure what all the fuss is about. I kind of like it. I love a lot of things about it. But I can't say I love it.

Has it faded? Am I tuning into the waning years? Or the years never intended to stand on their own, firmly rooting in the developments of the previous several seaons?

I have this weird anticipation/annoyance reaction to a new episode approaching. Part of me can't wait to see the next development, but an equal half is eager to see something else.

Because not that much does usually develop, and 90% of what does is a real downer. Sad material I'm fine with, but these people can just be so whiny! Especially Nate. I just want to slap that guy.

(That guy, especially. He's the only one I'm not sure I actually buy. He's not just whining all the time, he's kind of perplexing. Almost arbitrary in his actions, except they have the one thing in common that they are always certain to undo him.)

But it definitely has its moments.

At least twice an episode I find myself smiling hard, the kind that just keeps radiating long after the show has ended.

And then the Calling All Angels sequence. God. I could watch an entire season of a show just for one gift like that.

It's a kd lang song, by the way. Couldn't even remember where I knew it from, until I googled. Ahhhhhhhhhh. The Until The End of the World soundtrack. (Quite the soundtrack.) Sung by Jane Siberry.

Another taste:

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don't leave me alone
calling all angels
calling all angels
we're cryin' and we're hurtin'
and we're not sure why...

We're not sure how. And we're not sure why.

Hmmmm. Obviously, she's been peeking in on my life.

Wednesday Update:

Nice piece on the show, and specifically Nate, and his possible heart attack/stroke, today from Salon's brilliant Heather Havrilesky.

She nicely capsulizes much of what bugs me about the sortof central character:

Nate has always been an ingrate. What's brilliant about him, as a character, is that he embodies the very worst of the so-called sensitive, liberal, enlightened, privileged white world. He has a cushy job, a smart, beautiful wife, a reasonably sane family, and an adorable daughter who never babbles on tediously like most toddlers. So what does Nate do? He goes crawling off to screw a relative stranger and tricks himself into believing that his infidelity is a piece of some greater search for meaning.

In other words, Nate embodies all of our selfish urges and all of our pathetic rationalizations for indulging those urges. He's a big, sad child who finds it impossible to connect with those who actually matter to him, who are in his life, who care, and instead goes running after wholesome-seeming strangers whose complicated needs aren't apparent to him yet.

Glad I'm not a penguin

Sat, 23 Jul 2005 05:58:17 GMT

"I couldn't help thinking how easy we have it," my friend said on the way out.

I think I've got it hard enough, actually, but those emperor penguins. Man.

Doesn't quite seem the most sensible approach to life, exactly, though it seems to be working for them.

Just saw March of the Penguins. Amazing. Even better than I thought. And I thought it would be pretty good. The buzz has sure been relentless. (93% rating on rottentomatoes.)

Smart move to lead with the sex scene. Not quite the opening, but in the first ten minutes. Who knew how erotic these creatures were. How sensual. Long slow caresses along each others' cheeks, and necks, right up to the edge of her long, curving beak.

They cut away too quickly, though. Far less sex than you'd see on a national geographic tv special. But it was so tender, so intimate--despite happening right out in the open in front of every other adult emperor penguin in the world--I suspect the filmmakers realized their audience would relate to it in a far more personal way than barnyard animals or "wild beasts" going at it, and dropping the camera angle a few feet would have been interpretted as pornography.

Which gives you a sense just how powerful this movie could be in its stronger moments. (And how much more powerful it could have been with a gutsier filmmaker, unafraid to pull back at moments like these. I guess they were more interested in keeping their G rating than the greatness of their art.)

But the sex scene was not about the sex. It was about the affection. And the intimacy. Just like great human sex.

And it profoundly challenges one of our basic notions of how we love each other. I can't imagine any human watching this without being struck by the intensity of the intimacy between each penguin pair. With another pair two feet to the right, another two feet to the left, to the front, to the back, pairs surrounding them for acres and acres, literally every adult of their species in the entire world.

Somewhere along the line, we got so caught up in our privacy, that we pretty much equate intimacy with it. Privacy doesn't always produce intimacy, but intimacy requires privacy. That's our 21st century American equation.

But you look at these exquisite penguins and it's clear that we've imposed that. Replace each one with a person--which at this point in this film, I assume 95% of the audience is already doing--and suddenly intimcay takes on a completely different character. The privacy only matters if you let it.

Each pair is so completely locked on to each other, the world around them doesn't seem to exist. If somebody else is watching, that's their business. I'm not letting that stand in the way of my exchange of affection with my little penguin mate.

And then we move on the product of this amazing love.

The egg. Oh my God, what they go through to protect that egg. I'm not going to spoil it for you, but you will not believe what they go endure. Mother and father. Equally, but separately.

And when we see one crack. God. Didn't quite bring me to tears--more like stunned horror--but when the mother cried. If that doesn't break your heart you're not human. Or penguin.

Mainly, I was astounded by how fragile their survival is. Every single emperor penguin on the planet is born in the same spot near the south pole. Every single one returns to that spot year after year to mate. What if something happened to that spot?

What if it does? When, not if. God knows we can't keep our mits off anything.

How could it possibly have gone on like this for (hundreds of thousands?) of years?

And not just the spot itself--it seems like they're incredibly vulnerable bunching the entire population together like that. What if a ferocious storm wipes out the entire colony? Or they get cut down in the march back and can't make it to the sea in time in the annual race against starvation? All the males or all the females wiped out.

I'm sure it's happened. Many times, I presume. I guess that's what all the youngsters in the ocean are for. The ones too young to make the march. When the entire adult colony--or one entire gender from it--is wiped out, it must be up to them to gradually repopulate.

Wow.

And imagine the mating fights the next year, after all the adults of one gender have been wiped out, save the young batch making their first trek.

Which leads me to wonder what the next documentary on this species will be like. God knows where we are right now in one of those cycles.

In this film, the females are the ones fighting for their men at mating time, because there are slightly more of them. Are there? Or maybe there just have been since we've been studying them. How long could that have been? Maybe we're still in a recovery cycle since that last male wipeout.

I have a feeling we're just starting to understand them.

But what we know already . . .

It was glorious.

Fear

Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:21:53 GMT

Watching Brian Wilson on Charlie Rose.

Took me years to get how this guy was a genius--just sounded like bubblegum pop to my eight-year-old ears--but I'm totally getting it now. The appearance 40 years later of the phantom album Smile finally bumped me over the top.

I didn't even buy the disk--as usual, I was just kind of afraid to. Afraid of being let down, of course. How could it ever live up to the 40 years of awe?

But I just heard enough of it played on the radio, with enough articulate commentary, that--as with most classics--I discovered how so many of the little things I take for granted now in pop music didn't exist until Brian Wilson invented them.

Oh.

And now here he is with Charlie, describing it as "a wonderful, jovial, happy teenage symphony to God. It's a three-movement rock opera. It's got heroes and villians . . ."

Wow. What have I been waiting for? Who cares if it's not perfection?

What do I think held it back for 40 years? God.

Brian can't quite admit it when Charlie asks him that question. He says the world wasn't ready for it. But Charlie is stepping lightly, painfully aware that he's dealing with a man who's been in and out of mental institutions for years, on very shaky mental ground. So he accepts the answer greaciously and moves on. For awhile.

We all know Charlie's problem of answering his own question, but he can also be extremely adept. He waits for the right moment. He sifts through a long, interesting passage of Brian explaining how driven he was to be a perfectionist. And then Brian explains that he has a sandox next to his piano in the living room, because it takes him back to the beach. "It takes away fear. It takes fear out of me when I sit in the sandbox. It takes the fear out of me. All the fear."

"Fear has always been there," Charlie says.

"Always."

"Fear of failure," Brian continues. He enumerates a long list, and Charlier returns to fear of failure, then asks:

"Is it fair to say that you didn't release this for so long, not because you waited for the world to catch up, because you feared that it would not be--"

"Yes. I feared that it wouldn't go over with people. That it would bomb out, no one would like it. That I'd get bad reviews. People would say, 'No, I don't like that album! I don't like it at all!' Those are some of my fears."

Yow. That is so heartbreaking to listen to. Forty freaking years. One of the great musical masterpieces of our age. All because of fear. Because he knew it was his masterpiece and he needed it to be perfect and he was terrified that was a level he couldn't quite achieve.

Like listening to a tape recording of my own shrink sessions. God, at least he waited till he was creating masterpieces. Heeheehee. I know I'm a long way from there, still, but I want every piece to be exquisite, as perfect as I know how to create right now, and I can still never measure up to that. Shuts me down something awful.

No, I'm not talking about my book, thank God. I've been working on this side project for a little while now, a magazine piece, and it had me bottled up for ages. Wanted so badly to get it all right, and it was so hard to sort it all out and feel secure that I was capturing this guy, that I was being fair to him--fair about his achievements and his flaws--and that I was making the prose truly sing. God. So much. So scary. But only because I let it.

And then I sit here this afternoon watching Brian Wilson, and good God, this is what it comes to when you let the fear assume control.

Could I ask for a more vivid cautionary tale, right there on my TV screen?

Luckily, he was able to salvage some of it before he died. But all those other masterpieces he had inside him, all those decades of potential sanity and happiness. I don't want to lose all those. Time to get a handle on this fear thing.

Halleluljah

Fri, 27 May 2005 18:59:34 GMT

They're rerunning The OC this year.

Hmmmmmm. The title may appear like a response to that first line. Not exactly. I have often gushed that wantonly, but I wouldn't cheapen that word that way at this moment.

They started with the finale of the first season, which I missed due to a Tivo glitch that still had me smarting. Wow. Ryan leaves at the end. Had me all blubbery several times, but I had no idea. The doorbell rang, he turned to go, and . . . the most beautiful guitar notes began. So familiar, but I couldn't place them. Until Jeff Buckley started to sing:

I've heard there was a secret chord
that David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Man. And that's just the first verse.

One of my all-time favorites, and I have only the vaguest conception why. Some of its power I'm aware of, but something else moves it me, moves very powerfully, that I can't come close to grasping. (In a way that only Leonard Cohen songs ever seem to. Hmmmmm. I wonder if Josh named the lead characters after Leonard.)

For the next three and a half minutes--the last of the season--Josh Schwartz told his story entirely in pictures; while three more amazing verses of that song ripped my heart out. And I don't mean he pieced together some cheesy montage. I mean he told a story in pictures. It had a plot, powerful characters, harsh choices, moral dilemmas, and more grief than I could bear.

All playing out over a soaring melody and bitter, brutal, yet strangely joyful and glorious lyric which at once echoed, commented upon, and stood apart from the picture show.

Man. Anybody who thinks this show is just cheap, silly, bubblegum filler has no idea what art is.

The other six verses:

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

You say I took the Name in vain
I don't even know the Name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Baby I've been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
But love is not some victory march
It's a cold and broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

There was a time when you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
But I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Now maybe there's a God above
But all I ever learned from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
It's not a complaint that you hear tonight
It's not someone who's seen the light
It's a cold and lonely Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I learned to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come here to fool you
And even though it went all wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Halleluljah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah

I hope it comes across on the page. You've got to really sing out those hallelujahs, like you were in church, like you did when you were six years old, when you still believed with a purity and intensity that the world hadn't clouded, and with an innocence beyond the words, when your heart pounded in your chest at the mere intensity of the musical emotion. (Your early childhood may vary, but perhaps you've met a little boy like me. Surely.)

Just makes me want to sit down here and create something beautiful. Hard to compete with, but inspires me to try.

Especially since, of all the things that song is about, not the biggest thing, but definitely on the list, it's a song about writing. About creation, for sure, exaltation at the joy of Creation, and the humble attempt to echo it vocally. That's what any hallelujah is, right? And this one in particular can't you feel it bubbling up inside him as he writes it? Hallelujah.

He opens with the musical creation idea with the secret chord, but naturally it's the part about birthing the text that speaks to me. There's a blaze of light in every word? Yeah. Only a writer would say that. Or put another way, how could anyone feel that and not write?

Hmmmmm. What a stupid thing to say. Because they can't, I guess. How many thousands of times have I thought that about music? And not an ounce of talent to produce it. So I guess only a writer or reader would say that.

And then there are the last lines from the fifth and seventh verses:

And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.

Obviously that's primarily about the intensity of the love affair. (And God, what a way to express it!) But somehow, as a writer, and maybe I'm just projecting here--so what if I'm projecting, isn't that's what art is for, to draw from and project back upon?--I can't help but hear him exuding an equal joy at his ability to express it. A second little hallelujah for capturing the first one so profoundly.

And the last line. With nothing on my tongue but Halleluljah. That whole last verse. Man. Standing before God to be judged, and the god specifically of his particular art, asking for final judgement on the work he has just created. And nothing on his lips but exaltation at the idea. Or is it nothing on his lips but the name of his own song?

Ahhhhhhh. Exaltation at your own work. Someday I'll be that proud of what I've done.

---

And if you find bits of it as baffling as I do, great discussion of it here. (Also the place I cribbed the lyrics. Thanks.) Just a bunch of people trying to make sense of it all. Doing a pretty good job of it. At least one person is. The opening entry kind of made me gape, not in a good way, but hey, he was trying, and he got the discussion going. Luckily I chanced into page 5 of the discussion, and a person named Shamanka really helped me unravell some of it, here.

And quotes from Leonard about it over the years here. One slightly surprising one which really made me smile:

"It's a rather joyous song . I like very much the last verse. I remember singin' it to Bob Dylan after his last concert in Paris. The morning after, I was having coffee with him and we traded lyrics . Dylan * especially liked this last verse "And even though it all went wrong , I stand before the Lord of song With nothing on my lips but Hallelujah"

Leonard COHEN (interview,Paroles et Musiques,1985)

Saddest Survivor moment ever

Mon, 16 May 2005 04:34:40 GMT

A man too needy enough to be amazed at the idea of owning his own his car gave up a million dollar tonight because lost faith in his own sense of self worth.

(I do believe Ian would have won that challenge, could have booted Tom in good faith and creamed Katie in the finals.)

Ian. Ian Ian Ian.

They would have forgiven you, buddy. It is just a game. You were supposed to play off everyone against each other.

Tom was just angry for a day or two because you almost played him--or considered the possibility of playing him. And Katie played you far more than you ever thought about playing her.

I respect you so much for caring what other people think of you, for wanting desperately to do the right thing and to win their respect.

But with out getting too Oprah on you, dude, the only one whose respect that ultimately matters is your own. You've got nothing to be ashamed of. In your heart, you know that. By now, months later, I'm sure you already know it--though I predict tonight on the reunion, you'll say you're glad you made the decision. Of course you will. (I'm 80 minutes into the show, by the way. The minute I saw Ian booted I had to come to the PC to write this.)

The sad part, the first really tragic thing I've seen on the show this season, is watching someone I like so very much sacrifice something so important to him--the success you would have beamed about your entire life, and the million dollars that would have changed it--because he can't take ownership of his own self-respect, has to look to others to prove he's good enough.

You just purchased your self-respect for one million dollars. Or tried to. But the joke's on you, obviously, because it's not in their possession to grant you.

Painful.

Now here's the part that makes me really curious. How many regular readers are shaking their heads right now wondering if I know why I find it so intensely painful? Sometimes you guys know this stuff about me before I do. But not this time.

That's me out there. That mess with my family this week? Same thing. Most of my struggles with my writing? Same. Friendship problems, boyfriend problems, usually the same damn thing.

I know when I'm right, when I'm satisfied I've tried hard enough, authentically enough, and done the right thing. But I can't sleep nights without everyone else in my life telling me it's good enough.

And I mean everyone, or damn near it. Pitiful, really. Ninety percent of the crowd can be right behind me, but I literally toss and turn in bed at night whining myself away from sleep over that last ten percent.

I have known that for quite awhile. Sometimes I put a little effort into changing it, although of all the challenges I've faced in my life, that one feels about the hardest to get my arms around. Jarring to watch someone else play out the same hand, though. In such striking terms, in such a concentrated situation, with so much at stake, and let's face it, so little to gain. This isn't his girlfriend on the line, or his children, or the family he grew up with, or his best friend since college. These are people he first met a month ago. On a game show where his entire purpose there as well as theirs was to act this way. Could a brilliant novelist devise a situation more preposterous for a character to put his self-respect out for bid?

I'm trying to burn this scenario into my brain so I'll have it there to chuckle at when I find myself making a fruitless plea half that ridiculous.

Survivor as cautionary tale.

Have I mentioned how I adore this show?

So ashamed

Tue, 10 May 2005 18:08:25 GMT

So much of my happiness has revolved around music. And my insights. Shaped my whole attitude on life. I could hardly claim to be an expert, but easily qualify as aficionado.

So how do I explain the world beginning with Buddy Holly?

I have a problem, I realize, which my agent would probably strangle me for admitting here (she counsels me occasionally about what reviewers will someday use against me). Hard for me to appreciate certain kinds of art that don't resonate with my own time.

Strange. I was going to just say "art," but even as I wrote it, I realized I tend to flip that around with painting. Most of what I like was done 1860-1940. And books, I tend also to favor those written a bit farther back than my contemporaries. (Haven't gotten around to gushing about The Sheltering Sky, yet. Still kind of shaken by it.)

But movies. That's where I've noticed it most acutely. I've seen plenty of classics--thanks mostly to film classed in college--and I appreciate them, but almost never do I feel them. They just feel like a different reality to me. Maybe I'm trapped in a realist aesthetic or something, I don't know, I just can't get sucked in the way I do with, say:

Wild at Heart, Moulin Rouge, Trust, Eternal Sunshine, Hope & Glory, My Own Private Idaho, The Grifters, Heathers, Harold & Maude, 35 Up, Streetcar (OK, there's one), Manny & Lo, Life of Brian, Sammy & Rosey Get Laid, The Big Sleep (two) , Crouching Tiger, Apartment Zero . . .

Music, that's the other problem child. My most beloved of all the arts, the one that's fed me most deeply, and it's not just that I dislike everything pre Buddy Holly, I don't even know what exists there. Of course I'm aware of Beethoven, Motzart and the various "classics" I also struggle to appreciate. And then this great big hole until Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard suddenly materialize out of nowhere and spawn Elvis.

I'm aware of a few intermediaries, few of which I have ever liked: various bluesmen, and jazzmen, Sinatra, Crosby, Judy Garland, though I'm finally starting to appreciate her. Hmmmm. OK, I guess I'm aware of Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, people in that vein, and appreciate them, though I've never spent much time with them.

I'm not completely clueless, but it's a fairly muddy haze. Suddenly, the minute blues and country fuse, I tried to know everything.

I was aware of The Carter Family. I kinda knew the history, in very sparse terms, and a few of the hits. I had this vague recollection of Kasey Kasum saying they were the first country act ever to make the charts, and of course, I knew and loved June--(one of the first entries when I relaunched this blog in 2003 was titled June Carter Cash is still dead)--and Carlene dragged me in slightly deeper.

But only the way you would be vaguely aware of a good friends' grandparents, seeing them as the old codgers they shriveled into shortly before their deaths.

But man. Just watching this American Experience on them, and I feel like I'm in musical kindergarten. How could I have come so far, known so little about where all this came from? Listening to Maybelle invent some of the guitar techniques I take for granted--that my life would have been so empty and miserable without . . . God. I feel like such a dick.

Not sure where to head from here. Flea markets to find old vinyl 78s? Maybe some record company has made it easy on me with a boxed set.

The singing is still a little tough to relate to sometimes, but it's a start.

All feels so daunting, though. I'm 43. And only in kindergarten? Don't know if I have the stamina to live out a whole nother grammar school and high school again.

---

Update:

So far, I've been to the site on this show, and found lots of great stuff, including four original recordings you can listen to online (apparently).

I didn't mention, but I'm only 15 minutes into the show, and already amazed. And having to "watch" with no pic, cause of a local affiliate snafu, but still enraptured.

Here's a summary of the documentary, from the film description page of the website:

Their music lifted the nation's spirits during the darkest days of the Depression. Their lyrics captured the joys and tragedies of everyday life: loves won and lost, dreams attained and shattered, separations and reunions. Their original sound, first heard 75 years ago in a makeshift recording studio in Bristol, Tennessee, continues to resonate throughout America.

This hour-long documentary by Emmy Award-winning producer Kathy Conkwright explores the lives of A.P., Sara and Maybelle Carter, starting with their childhood in Poor Valley, Virginia, and following their story through the early 1940s, when they stopped playing and recording together. The film features rarely seen family photographs, memorabilia, and archival footage that chronicles the life and music of this famous and influential trio. Robert Duvall narrates.

"Through this film, I wanted to chronicle the amazing contributions the Carter Family made to American music," says Conkwright. "Their songs and style remain the most copied in American folk and country music, and have influenced artists across all genres." Artists Marty Stuart, Gillian Welch, Rodney Crowell, Ralph Stanley and Joan Baez appear in the film, together with A.P. and Sara Carter's children Janette and Joe (who died in March 2005) and granddaughter Rita Forrester.

Sara, her husband A.P., and sister-in-law Maybelle lived the poverty and heartbreak of the poor rural Americans they sang of. Through music, they brought a dignity and understanding to an often-misunderstood culture. Carter Family songs like Wildwood Flower, Will the Circle Be Unbroken and Worried Man Blues laid the foundations for country, folk and bluegrass music.

A transcript will be available here after the show finishes airing around the country. That's really nice. Don't think I'll ever let go of that. The story is as heartbreaking as the music. It starts out in Poor Valley--seriously--where they can barely get by during the Roaring Twenties. You can only imagine what that place was like once the depression hit.

But it's the personal story, particularly A.P. and Sara. It opens with the family about to appear on the cover of Life magazine, stardom beyond their wildest dreams, but the whole thing is crumbling, A.P. and Sara are secretly divorced . . . As tragic as the songs they've been singing.

God, I just want to immerse myself in this story indefinitely. I wonder if anyone has written up a first-rate bio on these people. Guess I'll be getting back to you on that soon.

Elvis vs. Reality (TV)

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 18:20:32 GMT

No, not talking about some ratings war. Not even talking about that Elvis. The good one, not the dead one.

Heeheehee. I actually like both elvi, but I never fail to snicker at the expression, and since Mr. Costello is so clearly the good-er of them, it sort of fits anyway.

Hennyway.

Elvis. Alison, specifically. (Thanks to several readers for the spelling correction.) One of his first songs and still one of his finest. Just belting out of my lungs out of nowhere over breakfast this morning. (Man, what's with me and breakfast today?) Must have been trigged by the Loving somebody title of my last post, but my memory really gets strong a couple lines later, with the tragic chorus:

Allison
I know this world is killing you,
Oh, Allison
My aim is true
My aim is true
My aim is true.**

That's a chorus that really demands to be belted, but then I had to quiet down with one of the verses:

Well I see you've got a husband now
Did he leave your pretty fingers lying in the wedding cake
You used to hold him right in your hands
Ah, but he took, all that he could take*

God, how I loved that part. Careful girl--or guy--he's only going to take so much.

But is he/she? Twenty-odd years now I have lived with that truism in my head, but I'm not sure I've seen it. So many old married couples together one or both of them still taking it on the chin. My parents for example. (I'll decline to comment here on who's taking, who's given. Luckily they never read anything I write, unless published in a reputable journal.)

Immediately, the reality shows sprung to mind. A little of Survivor, but particularly the Amazing Race. We have seen the most gruesome couplings, many of whom are not yet locked into the commitment, and who not only have the experience to warn them away, but a tape of the experience.

Who the hell gets that lucky? To see it documented in cold, hard videotape. He/she treats me like total crap. And/or he brings out the absolute worst in me. We're horrible together. We'd like to announce our engagement.

That's how these bitter mismatches all seem to end up.

Is it a perverse demographic? Perhaps the egomania inherent in so many people drawn to engage in reality shows and even more prevalent in those actually cast, carries with it the related gene of blindness to ones own strengths and weaknesses.

Plausible.

But the main value in reality shows has never been in proving phenomena, but illustrating it. The sample size is far to small, and the subject pool too distorted to prove anything. But the power to illustrate--I have found that to be quite extraordinary.

The data on couples taking it on the chin is all around us. But we quickly grow oblivious to the pervasive, like the oxygen we're sucking in this very moment. Elvis Costello wrote a song so powerful he convinced me to shut my eyes to the obvious for 20 years.

No. Most people don't reach their breaking point. Alison has been married to that poor sap my entire adult life.

Thanks, Amazing Race. I never would have seen it without you.

---

* There seems to be some disagreement on that last lyric line. The two sites I checked out had it differently, and both different than my ear tells me. So I went with mine. Alternates:

- But did you give more than he could take

- I bet he took all that he could take

The latter sounds a lot more likely--contestant #1 alleges three times the number of syllables actually pronounced by Elvis prior to the first 'he'--and #2's site came up first on google.)

---

**My Aim Is True.

Oh, to ever write a line that good, a title that great. Can't really ever hear that song without a long wistful reflection on the title. His very first, his very best.

(Which has always struck me more than slightly sad, too. Still my favorite Elvis album, far and away his best title, the opening line of the whole thing is one of my all-time favorites by anybody . . . Peaked a little freaking soon.)

(The line is, "I used to be disgusted /now I try to be amused." Save me, that one. Plus I get to snicker over the followup: "But since their wings have got rusted / You know the angels want to wear my red shoes." -- Thanks to Catastrophile for the heads-up on my lyric screw-up.)

Allison gets the song title, but that line captures the album title. Will I ever hear a line so sweet and so viscious at the same time? I could swear there was a third meaning, but at the moment, I can only find two: how earnest his intentions are, and how precise the aim of his gun. Man. Kind of gives me the shivers.

(Hey, sort of the theme of the bible, too, isn't it? Man, I've got God on the brain this morning. But isn't that the big tension of that book: the angry, spiteful God always threatening to smite you at any moment, and the kind, loving earnest God, whose intentions are always true?)

I know this world is killing you.

Loving somebody

Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:38:29 GMT

Ever have doubts? Big, horrible, momentary flashes of doubt about the entire direction of your life?

Like, say, God actually not being cool with you loving guys, smiting you down the minute you die for it?

Perhaps I should keep these to myself, but . . .

I don't have them often. I'm pretty comfy that He'd be pissed as hell at me if I contorted myself into some abomination completely alien to how He made me.

But those little moments.

At the strangest times.

I was merrily making my breakfast just now, kind of all giddy cause my writing is finally kicking into high gear on this magazine story, plus I woke up and spilled out three pages in bed for the memoir that I'm still years away from reworking, but there it was, the answer to so much of the ending.

And I was doing a little happy dance, so I gazed up for a second and thanked God for all the great gifts I had been given, feeling slightly guilty again that I haven't done that in awhile, seem to have lost my way on how to pray again, but grateful that the feeling just struck me for a mini conversation and I went with it, and for some reason I was struck with an unexpected thought, and of course it popped right out my mouth, cause I was born without an editor: "God, I hope you exist." (No pun intended on the first word.) "I think so. Hopefully." He usually does, for me. Sometimes He slips away for awhile, but usually.

Then right on its heals, "Hope it's OK, me loving men." Man, where the hell did that come from? That's when the smite feeling zipped up my spine, though it failed to translate into words and hence steered clear of my mouth.

Very calm feeling immediately after, though. "At least I'm loving somebody."

Yup. Pretty damn sure that's what He wants. (Pun intended that time.)

I'm sure the doubts have been lingering in my air because of the story I've been working on off and on for months now. Evangelical Christians are the subject. Hard not to feel a little of it rub off on you after while. (Quite a bright lot, actually, and sincere, good-willed people I've been dealing with.) At least needle some of your assumptions. Which is a good thing, really. I need more of that. But that particular one can get a little unsettling.

Never have I felt more right about it, though, than the moment right after. If there is a god up there somewhere who made me, He and I are both pretty damn clear on how he made me, after all the decades I spent fighting it. And I'm pretty sure He put me down here to love somebody, along with all the exploring and writing He expects out of me. To help me with it, in fact, to share in it. And we both know He didn't make me capable of loving a woman that way. What a pathetic buffoon I would be to curl up in some corner and let my heart wither up and my life with it just because some jerks down here insist they've got the whole freaking thing figured out for us: me, Him, The Plan--they know everything, including what's in my heart, including how He speaks to me as well as them. Right.

So happy to be past all those silly years chasing after the mirage of love with all those women. (And sorry, ladies, for leading you on with something that could never work out anyway.) I feel better than ever this morning, actually. Nice to have the shudder of doubt bubble up to the surface and get answered.

This was a good one. Sometimes I'm not so lucky.

I Would Love to be White

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 05:16:37 GMT

Luckily, I already am. God, am I white. That's after weeks of struggle in the tanning salon in that shot to the left. But Margaret Cho is not, and I just stumbled upon a mildly heart-breaking post on her blog by that title. Opens like this:

I would love to be white. Not forever, but perhaps a weekend. Don't you ever get sick of being a minority?

God. That's how I feel like being gay sometimes.

Like after writing the last part of that last piece. Just a break sometimes. Not have to worry about it. Just be normal, like everybody else.

Not that I feel abnormal that much of the time, but that's because I did exactly what I swore I never would when I started facing up to my urges in my 30s. I gradually surrounded myself almost exclusively with gay people or gay-friendly. Probably too many of the former, too few of the latter. Because I don't want to get up every morning and deal with, it's just easier just to be normal, most of the time.

But then I venture into that other world, or I write stories for all the straight people, or consider the content of my blog and how I don't want it to be too gay, do I, or I'll scare off all the straight people, even though God knows I lost that battle a million years ago.

Here was my favorite part of Margaret's piece, the end of the last paragraph:

I have posed this question to other minority artists, and get stumped by answers like "No, not ever have I ever wanted to be white." And I just don't buy it. Why would you not want things to be easier?

Me neither. I just don't buy it.

I'm perfectly happy being gay most of the time, something I never thought I would be comfortable with. But even though I don't notice it most of the time, it is a freaking load to carry around with me everywhere, and it should would be refreshing just to set it down every now and again.

Just for a weekend.

Enjoying Slate more for the fat pills

Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:12:52 GMT

Though Slate is known mainly as a political mag, and almost equally now for culture, I consistently find some of my widest smiles generated by their informational pieces: specifically the Explainer feature, occasionally Medical Examiner, and doubtless a few other incarnations where I've been oblivious to the labels.

Not because they are better than the culture/politics pieces, which are usually quite good and sometimes quite extraordinary. (*One little disclaimer below, but first a quick note on my favorite political piece of the year--in any magazine:

The Pope Didn't End Communism--which not only convinced me of its thesis against all odds, but provided an alternative so powerful it actually shifted my worldview. The best piece written during the entire popewatch, because it went so far beyond anything related to mere popes. And delivered it through a story so gripping and so personal I expect to be retelling it into my 80s.

Yes, Slate can do that stuff exceptionally well. But so does the Times Magazine, so does Salon, and in a different vein so do Harpers and The Atlantic. But none of those add in the unexpected little pleasures of the Explainer and its variations. Slate seems to have that field all to itself. And I never would have expected it, but I perk up every time I see the little entries for them. Truly puts a lot of smiles on my face.

Odd how nobody has thought to steal it yet.

All to itself within the confines of my little world, anyway. I'm sure that if I subscribed to Discover and JAMA, this stuff would all seem redundant and exceptionally shallow. But I don't, and why the hell would I want to? I did enjoy Discover for two or three months back in my 20s, but I quickly discovered I didn't have nearly the time nor energy nor justification in my life for that many plump servings of science.

Slate's Explainer stuff provides just the right dosage, often with just-in-time delivery: like an assortment of interesting aspects of how to select a pope last month--personal favorite: Is the Conclave held in Latin?--or last year, How Do You Pronounce "Abu Ghraib"? (Though the last one just drove me nuts, because no full-time journalist on the planet seemed to have stumbled upon it, or bothered to investigate independently.)

During Big News! interludes they shuck the timeliness, focus on enticing peculiarities.This week included: Does the FBI Have Your Fingerprints?, Who Counts the World's Icebergs?, How Much For That Monkey?

Hennyway. My point? Great piece posted late-late last night called, Someday, There Will Be a Fat Pill. (What the hell are they doing posting stories at 1:32 a.m. PT, by the way? And since they're not really based out of Redmond anymore, it most likely really went up at 4:32 a.m. ET. Yikes.)

So the fat-pill piece. Really interesting read. Incredibly broad, complex subject, whittled down expertly, delivered clearly yet concisely. And a damn good page-scroller, assuming you're into that sort of thing.

---

* But my conscience tugs. (Once a Catholic . . .) It seems a bit disingenuous to heap such praise onto Slate's wonderful culture work--which is actually rivaling Salon these days, sometimes even surpassing it--without finally unloading about the lone perplexing exception. What's with the idiotic and sophomoric TV critic they seem to have plucked out of some high school newspaper? And I don't mean sophomoric in a good way. Don't think South Park; picture Summer from The OC reviewing The Valley. That would be season-one Summer, before Mr. Schwartz wizened her up several notches, to make her a plausible, pleasurable, legitimate foil for Seth.

But they do make up for her with the always trenchant and perceptive David Edelstein on fillums.

Speaking of Seths, how can I get out of here without praising my other perpetual fave, the always delightful (TV) ad report card, where Seth Stevenson rips open the latest abominations and unexpected surprise in the most pervasive art form of our time. (Sorry, but they are. Shitty, but still pervasive.)

For me, Seth provokes the same underlying response as The Daily Show: ahhhhhhhh.

Just when I'm sure my soul is about to explode from the latest outrage, Jon or Seth or Stephen Colbert step up to the mic with a little smirk and reassure me I'm still not the one going crazy. No, nobody is actually swallowing this crap. Well, a few people maybe, but the elated audience response persuades me there are a hell of a lot more gaggers out there than just Jon, Stephen, Seth and me.

Thanks.

The Middle Ages were so much fun the first time

Tue, 19 Apr 2005 17:52:52 GMT

Hey, why not repeat them?

Continuity . . . collaborator . . . ultraconservative . . .

These are the phrases being repeated most fervently about our new Pope Benedict.

Guess we'll have to take comfort in the press' storied ability to get nearly all prognostication wrong.

Small comfort, in this case. Hard to picture John Paul's right hand man steering the ship in a completely different direction, but who knows. Popes are among the last remaining absolutist monarchs--maybe Ben was just wily enough to know how to keep his right-hand position intact.

Scary, though. Scariest phrases so far. From the just-posted NYT story on the election results:

One of the closest collaborators of John Paul II, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger has been the Church's doctrinal watchdog since 1981.

And from their wonderful Sunday piece focused on him--correctly pegging him as the prohibitive favorite:

"Ratzinger represents continuity - he was the right-hand man of the pope," said Giuseppe De Carli, head of Italian public television's Vatican bureau . . .

And of course, "ultraconservative" is being used all over the place--this on a spectrum where that defines banishment of women from the priesthood as mainstream. Ultraconservative compared to that? Whoa.

Hard not to wonder just how hopelessly out of touch that old college of men could be. The last thing this fading church still muddling around in the Middle Ages needed was continuity with the man who spent the past few decades trying to drag them back there.

It feels like a very sad day for this poor suffering chuch, but who knows. Human organizations tend to behave a lot like humans. And we know that humans in crisis tend to wallow around in denial until . . . until they hit rock bottom. This poor church may have to really find itseld on the rocks before they can break out of this downward spiral.

As long as John Paul refused to ordain bishops--much less cardinals--who were not as hopelessly out of touch as he was, a continuation of the slide was probably self-fullfilling and inevitable.

But eventually, when it gets bad enough, one man among them may percieve the folly of their ways and send the ship screaming around in the opposite direction.

Who knows. Maybe this is that very man. Maybe he's been holding his fears about the course they've been on close to his vest.

Probably not. But maybe he'll be wise enough to let a little light in and promote wise men even if they don't share his views. Or maybe one or two will sneak in without him realizing it--or see the light once their inside the college. One way or another, they'll find their way eventually. I hope. Would be nice to see it in my lifetime, though.

---

On a lighter note, via Gawker, traffic seems to have crushed the Ratzinger Fan Club.

(You clicked, didn't you. Just trying to make it worse?)

(And if you're not enjoying Gawker regularly, you're really missing out. Guess I should add them permanently to the blogroll. Duh. OK, next time I update.)

---

Another quick thought. Sorry to sound insensitive, but since church leaders often speak about it openly . . .

At least they picked a really old guy. Check out the Times' graphic running for more than a week highlighting the 15 top contenders. Ratzinger is the oldest of the entire lot.

So . . . sorry again, but they generally do this by intention -- they picked someone they expect to be dead soon. Relatively soon. Or in the more polite lingo, they coalesced around what they hoped would be a shorter, interim papacy. You say tomato . . .

The downside, of course, is another incredibly old man as chronologically remote as possible from the demands of the modern world. When are these people going to start grasping concepts like term limits and mandatory retirment ages?

Oh, bother. More modern concepts.

They'll assume their ususal dodge: God willed it this way.

Really? Just because God let humans discover ways to live that long, He never commanded that popes keep pontificating that long.

(Seriously. Do these people not feel guilt about all these obvious dodges? Aren't they supposed to be famous for the whole guilt thing?)

Is it ever going to dawn on these guys that life has changed a bit since St. Peter? And when they fail to keep up, it's their own throats they're slitting?

Let's review: A fading church getting clobbered by modernity, oblivious to the dangers because it's run by a group of ancients trapped in a system guaranteeing control by ancients precisely because of the changes imposed on it by modernity. (If that last link isn't clear, it would be modern medicine, driving up the average age of pope and cardinal by several decades within a century or two.)

You can't manufacture irony that intense.