Sunday, November 28, 2004

Whazzup With Wingnuts?   Remember Kyle Williams, WorldNetDaily's prepubescent, home-schooled, far-right, evangelical know-it-all? We haven't talked about him for a while, because he started to sound sensible, urging readers to worry more about fixing their own lives rather than trying to reform society by outlawing breasts, and claiming that spiritual salvation can't be found with either the Democrats or the Republicans, nor even with the "fringe religious right."  Yes, he seemed to be leaving the wingnut camp, whether WorldNetDaily was aware of it or not. Anyway, he turned 16 last week, and has begun to reevaluate his path, starting by not writing his WND column.  Off for a few weeks I'm going to be taking off from my WND column for a couple weeks. I'm in the midst of evaluating the direction of my writing and my life. My ideology hasn't changed too much, but it has matured. Thus, as I observe my past and evaluate my future, I recognize my shallowness. I forgive my past because of immaturity, but I must take the time to change my future. [...] For me, being politically conservative and spiritually Christian, I'm very much at risk of coming across as a prideful, self-righteous jerk. I apologize if I've conveyed such an image to thousands of people even in my short time. Way to go, Kyle!  And this concern about his image came just in time too, as evidenced by this reader comment: You're on the path to replacing Rush Limbaugh. Your services will be greatly needed over the next four years in helping to ensure that Hillary Clinton is NOT elected anything higher than New York City trash colector. I feel that you have been chosen for the very purpose of using your gifts to play a major part in the 2008 Republican victory. Being perceived as the Second Coming of Rush Limbaugh should be enough to scare any sensible person into reevaluating his life.  Anyway, we applaud young Kyle for not continuing the kiddy wingnut shtick just because that got him attention and WorldNetDaily book deals.  And if this vacation from the columns came because WND cancelled his column when they realized he wasn't providing the kiddy wingnut shtick they were paying him for, we still congratulate him. We would buy him that U2 CD from his birthday wish list except that we don't think that kids should be listening to that Satanic rock and/or roll music.   And we want to thank Doug Giles, for providing an example to our young people of what happens when you let your loony shtick run away with you.  Yes, Doug appears to have completely lost it, and entered the realm of self parody with this week's column, "Dirty Harry Goes to Church". Really, I don't think I can make it any more funny than what Doug did.  But I'll try (albeit not very hard). Picture it. Hesitantly, Harry gets out of his ride, straightens his Ray Bans, adjusts his jacket and begins the testosterone death march to the front door of the “sanctuary.” Ascending the steps toward the entrance of the church, fourteen women and one man greet Harry.  The male greeter he’s forced to interface with is the kind of guy you wouldn’t want to have as your young son’s babysitter.  I’m talking a Mango meets Dom De Luise amalgam.  Yes, let's picture it.  I picture Harry (in Doug's movie, "Dirty Harry 6: the ClashPoint") getting really annoyed at the way the church was destroying his testosterone, whipping out his trusty Magnum, and mowing down the women for those Precious Moments posters ("one shows Christ holding a bunny rabbit, and the other one shows Christ skipping while carrying a lamb").   And then he would turn to the male greeter and quip, "You might be asking yourself, did he fire fourteen shots or fifteen?  You also have to ask this, do you feel lucky?  Well, do you, fruit?"  The guy wouldn't feel lucky, but Harry would shoot him anyway, just because he reminded Harry of Richard Simmons, Harry's arch nemesis. But back to Doug's public version of his fantasy: Finally it is go time.  The service is begins. Harry strides into the mauve and cream sanctuary, taking his seat amidst a crowd that is made up of 80% women, 1% masculine men and 19% quasi-males. Then Harry approaches Doug, the 1% masculine male, and says, "Let's forget these losers and go to my place and admire each other's weapons.  It will be our own private worship service."  Harry can’t take it anymore.  Another massacre ensues.  Blood and guts get all over those prints of "fat baby angels" who "look like they have a good buzz going from their mommy’s milk, laced as it is with Diet Coke and Xanax."  The mauve-and-cream color scheme is now mauve and crimson.  Harry and Doug both like it a lot better this way. After decompressing for several minutes and firing up a Montecristo #2 in the parking lot, Harry begins to process this little experience.  He does the math and comes to this conclusion: if I convert to this sort of Christianity, then I must sacrifice not only my sins but my God-given innate masculine traits with which Jehovah naturally and rightly equipped me.  No thanks. Apparently Harry wandered into one of those groups which took too literally Christ's words in Matthew 19:12: “There be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Fortunately for Harry, in this dicey post-9/11 environment, in this incessant in-our-face coarsening of popular culture, he’s actually in luck.  In reaction to Islamic terrorists’ attack on our nation, as well as sick secularists’ continued cultural attack on traditional American values, a robust Christianity has appeared on the horizon.  This renewed and vigorous faith is effectively eradicating the fu-fu funk of effeminized Christianity and has begun the process of re-establishing the much-needed masculine bent to the pulpit and the pew. Fortunately for the rest of us, Harry hates people who write stuff like "fu-fu funk," and he uses that last round on Doug.  My ClashPoint is this: if your pastor is calling for a return of "the Dirty Harry-like prophet, patriarch, warrior and wild man," then I think it's time to alert whatever board oversees the church that said pastor seems to be preaching something that bears no resemblance to Christianity, and to alert the pastor's psychiatrist that the pastor seems to have had the psychotic break we've all been fearing.   Update:  Jesus' General also paid a visit to Doug's Very Manly Church, and finds it not at all fu-fu.  4:43:49 AM     comment [] trackback []   Sunday Cinema   "Chick Flicks Vs. Flicks," Part 2 As we said last time, Exhaustive study of Hollywood output demonstrates that both men and women enjoy watching people die. In the average Man’s Movie–or what we might call the "Ick" Flick, due to its profusion of airborne viscera--lots of people die in a lot of interesting ways. In the average Chick Flick, only one person dies, but she does it slowly and exquisitely.   Now it's time for that exquisite death, as we turn to the quintessential chick flick, Beaches.   Be prepared to bawl your eyes out.     Beaches (1988) Directed by Garry Marshall Written by Mary Agnes Donoghue; Novel by Iris Rainer Dart Bette Midler is rehearsing for her big concert at the Hollywood Bowl when she gets a message (possibly concerning Rice-A-Roni) that causes her to abandon the gig and head out to San Francisco. As she drives and cries, she flashes back thirty or forty years (depending on how old we are supposed to believe Bette Midler is). Voila, we’re at Atlantic City, and Bette is TV’s Blossom. Back then she was a foul-mouthed, histrionic, show-business brat--and a much more interesting performer. She’s smoking under the boardwalk when she meets a lost little rich wuss named Hillary. Blossom forces Hillary to watch her bump ‘n grind version of "Glory of Love." Hillary likes Blossom’s singing. Blossom likes it that Hillary likes her singing. So, the two girls become friends for life. They are the best of pen pals until they’re 21, when Hillary turns into Barbara Hershey and comes to New York to escape her sheltered life. Bette Midler (now herself again) invites Barbara to share her artistically squalid apartment, and it’s a festival of sisterhood as the two women dye their hair together, sing Christmas carols, do each other’s laundry, and synchronize their menstrual cycles. They each have careers. Barbara is a noblesse oblige lawyer. Bette dresses up like a killer rabbit from "Night of the Lepus" and delivers singing telegrams to John Heard, director of an experimental theater company. (The experiments are along the lines of saving Hitler’s brain, only they’re more bizarre and have less redeeming social value). Bette falls in love with him, but he only has eyes only for Barb (actually, his character seems kinda light in the loafers, but the movie claims he’s smitten by Barbara). While Bette stars in John’s musical about evil mimes, Barbara sleeps with him (which seems fair, in that both activities are painful and embarrassing for all concerned). But Bette shouts, "So much for your feminist principles!" and demands that Gloria Steinham revoke Barbara’s NOW membership on account of hussiness. Barbara explains that she couldn’t help herself, since John Heard was "the most attractive man I’ve met in my life." It appears she really did live a sheltered existence. The two women make up. Bette becomes a Broadway star. (It seems surprisingly easy—one day she just is one. I don’t know why more people don’t do it). Barbara become a socialite and marries a jerk. Bette counters by marrying John. Barbara is bitchy, the two women brawl in Bloomingdale’s, and the friendship is over! (But the movie isn’t—there are still approximately fifty more spats and reconciliations to go, plus a human sacrifice.) Bette’s career goes down in flames when she punches a director who says she has a fat ass. Barb seeks her out and apologizes for that time when she made fun of Bette’s singing and acting--she explains that she was just jealous because she can’t yodel. (I’m sure that’s what Bette believes motivates all of her critics.) Bette’s still mad until Barb confesses that her husband left her and she’s pregnant. So, with Barbara’s life officially worse than Bette’s, Bette forgives her and the two have a baby-prep montage. Bette continues to be a self-centered diva, while Barb continues to be an uptight WASP. They fight. They make up. Several years pass. Bette is a Broadway star again (as demonstrated by doormen congratulating her on her Tony wins). Barb is a noble lawyer again (as demonstrated by other lawyers chiding her for high morals). Everything is going great when Barb starts having trouble coping with drinking fountains . . . Yes, she has a fatal disease. After Barb tells Bette about her condition, Bette volunteers to accompany her to the beach for her last summer (she figures that the beach might be the best place for Barbara, what with her formerly being a Seagull). Bette and Barb’s daughter don’t get along, because they’re both bossy, self-involved drama queens, and they’re both six. But Bette teaches the kid how to be a showgirl, and the two bond, leaving Barbara feeling left out and unloved. Barb tries to get back at them by looking pale and sickly, but they don’t notice. So, she escalates her aggressive dying by refusing to speak, move, or bathe. She and Bette have another fight, which causes Barbara to snap out of it (the moping, I mean--not the dying), and they braid each other’s hair, play cards, and do other girly stuff for the rest of the summer. Bette even agrees to not sue Barbara for failing to die as scheduled, and goes back to being Bette Midler, Super Star. She is preparing for her Hollywood Bowl concert when Barbara finally starts to get somewhere with the dying (this is where we came in). When Bette gets to the hospital, Barbara tells her that she wants to expire at the beach in order to make the whole movie so gosh-darned poignant that nobody will be able to stand it. So, Bette sings "Wind Beneath My Wings," we see some lovely sunset ‘n surf images from a K-Tel commercial, and Barbara finally bites the sand. After the funeral, Bette learns that Barb wanted her to raise her daughter. Bette tells the girl that she doesn’t know what kind of a mother she’d be, but she can teach her to smoke, cuss, and sing in bath houses. So, the kid agrees to go with Bette, at least until Child Protective Services wises up and puts her into foster care. There’s a final flashback of the 11-year-old girls vowing eternal friendship while Bette sings about aerodynamics again. And we are left to ponder the message of the film: that although we may fight with our friends, although they may steal our men, belittle us, let us down, and try to sabotage us, eventually they die, which makes it all worth while. ********** So, what do these conflicting movie preferences say about the differences between men and women? Primarily that both sexes seek vicarious experience in order to deal with physical and psychological stress. Men want to see New York obliterated by meteors in "Armageddon," in order to satiate an atavistic blood lust; while women want to see Barbara Hershey die in "Beaches" so that they can have a good cry and eliminate free radicals, and because she deserves it for getting those puffy collagen lip implants that make her look like duck-billed platypus going into anaphylactic shock. 3:29:26 AM     comment [] trackback []

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