The Swinger (1966)

The Swinger (1966) is a downright horrible film by many standards, but that does not keep it from being fun and worth a watch.

First of all it is everything the more popular Elvis Presley films of the same era and genre are not…The Swinger is goofy, fun, and even sexy in a chauvinistic, dated way that only works in a film like this.

Plus The Swinger — thank god — runs under my 90-minutes-or-less ideal length criteria for films.  At 80 minutes it is too short to be painful.  There is a lot of fluff, but very little filler in The Swinger and it deserves a star for that alone.  (All films, as you know, should be under 90 minutes, with rare exceptions.)

Perhaps the most surprising find in this film is Ann-Margret.  I like her in this film.  If you don’t expect too much from Ann-Margret she’s not a bad actress and here she perfectly accomplishes that kitschy kind of cute that worked for her.

In truth, The Swinger is simply about displaying Ann-Margret while cracking some eye-rolling jokes along the way.  There are, for example, dance scenes that make no sense whatsoever other than putting Ann-Margret on screen dancing in black tights (sans underwear) and tight sweaters.  Toss in the bad jokes and a predictable story line and there you have it.  The Swinger.

While there is no  “Rosebud” in this film, nothing close, I don’t understand why some people are genuinely offended by bad films like this.  It knows it’s place and it is what it is.  And for what it is, The Swinger is an excellent example of its genre.

Tomorrow…let’s talk politics.

Alice’s Restaurant

I don’t know much about Arlo Guthrie, 1960s counter culture, or folk music to satisfy intelligent commentary and discussion about those things, but that won’t stop me.

I am watching Alice’s Restaurant (1969).  Kind of.  The first time I watched this film I only ”kind of” watched it then, too.  I don’t know exactly what it is about the film that doesn’t click, but I feel like I am circling in and getting closer to whatever it is.

In a nutshell, Alice’s Restaurant feels like a parody.  I thought it might be naive or maybe idealistic, but the story is neither of those things.  Silly might be a better word, but the better word yet might be parody.

Based on real events, Alice’s Restaurant tells the story of Arlo Guthrie setting out to begin a career in a short period during the fall of 1965.

Alice’s Restaurant is a restaurant, called The Back Room, belonging to his friends Ray and Alice Brock.  Ray throws a big Thanksgiving dinner at the restaurant for all the “kids.”  After dinner Arlo offers to take the restaurant’s garbage to the dump and the dump is closed.  Arlo runs into trouble with the local police on trumped up charges when they dump the garbage anyway.

(By the way, I just learned that the real police sergeant who arrested Arlo, William Obanhein, plays himself in the film.  He’s actually pretty good…)

Somewhere in all of this we’re supposed to identify with Arlo, I suppose, and the juxtaposition of non-traditional and traditional values.

Arlo Guthrie

This is where I think the film slips into a bit of a parody.  Whether deliberate or not, it feels like we see this story through the lens of mainstream stereotypes.  Even Arlo appears to be a bit of a caricature.  There’s a self-conscious quality about his performance, I think, but as I said, I don’t know much about him or his era to judge that I am seeing something specific.

Perhaps the parody emanates from the stiff extras populating the film.  They create a distracting backdrop for the story.  I don’t get lost in the cinemagraphic magic of film.  Instead I feel like a man in an audience, very much aware that I am watching a movie.

Maybe the movie is just too damn long!  At 110 minutes it isn’t one of the big offenders, but nearly all movies should be limited to 90 minutes or less, and Alice’s Restaurant clearly belongs in the 90-minutes-or-less category.  The story would be tighter and more convincing.

Nevertheless there is plenty to enjoy in this film.  It is kind of hip in a clunky way.  It also captures some major 1960s era themes in a broad stroke, which is fun.  The humor is a little flat, but there are moments of light comedy…just be alert  Frankly, for a cliché, this is a decent film.  Watch it and see if you agree.

I learned a lot about the 1960s, too.  Men wore a lot of denim work shirts, people slept on mattresses without bed sheets, and the hairbrush had not yet been invented.  Oh…and gas was 33 cents a gallon.

Forgive me for this rambling, disjointed post.  Just scroll down through this blog and find something better to read.  And when you do, tell your friends and family to do the same.

Next time I think I’ll write about Truman Capote and his outstanding, makes-me-cry-everytime holiday stories.

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Thanksgiving Eve

The Family Car.

My friends tell me this is the biggest party night of the year, but then I’d expect that from them.  For my part, I feel as flat a Republican toupee and don’t see anything coming along to kick me out of the slump.

Picking on Michele Bachmann isn’t much fun anymore.  Don’t really want to do that.  And we don’t have little Tim Pawlenty to kick around anymore.  Frankly, they all kind kick themselves around rather nicely without much help.  And that’s just boring.

Maybe I am suffering a Walker Percyean malaise.  (How would you credit a quality characteristic to Walker Percy?  Or whatever I mean…)  But it isn’t quite the classic malaise, in the Walker Percy sense, I don’t think.  In fact I think I got it…I identified the feeling…I feel like a kid left in the car while mom goes shopping for a new dress.  Just sitting playing spaceship in an old Ford Torino station wagon and that’s starting to get dull…that sort of feeling.

Yes, by the way, mom’s did that to kids, especially their own kids.

Leaving kids in the car was just fine back in the day and we didn’t end up on the 6:00 news weeping for forgiveness.  Cars were like big play pens, especially so when parked.  Despite our pleading, mom frequently left us in the car…even in the summer!  If we asked nicely mom would leave the keys, too, so we could play with the radio and windshield wipers.  We even turned a car on once or twice until we did that to a car with a manual transmission.

But fear not, this was a time when car windows rolled down and the world was safe.  We even made friends with other kids left behind by their mothers in other cars from time to time.

Golly, being left behind in a car doesn’t really sound all that bad right now, does it?

Instead I’ll suck it up and go out on “the biggest party night of the year” and do my best to be charming on over-priced beer.  I’m sure sometime around midnight I will find my stride and not want to come home, but shoot…that’s six hours from now.

The only sane thing to do is take a nap and dream about being left behind in a car.  With the keys.

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We Don’t Need Super Committees, We Need Action

Image via Wikipedia

The inevitable failure of the so-called Super Committee charged with devising a plan to reduce our federal deficit is not surprising.  Political pranks should fail anyway.  But more to the point, we don’t need dysfunctional committees, we need action.  Is it really any big loss that this committee failed produce results?

In the first hundred days of Franklin Roosevelt‘s administration the United States enacted the kind of legislation it would pay for us to look at again today.  Of course the New Deal had problems — perhaps it wasn’t progressive enough, favored some industry over others, tolerated some monopolies and cartels, and so on — but it shows that we can get things done when they need to get done for the sake of our overall good will.

So why not support the NRA?  No, not that NRA.  I mean something like the National Recovery Act!  Or maybe the WPA.  Even Milton Friedman admitted that FDRs recovery policies helped.  Why not today?  If nothing else, all those 30s-era administrations had great logos and posters promoting them.  We could use a little color again.

A stronger economy is what we need.  Not cuts.  Unless, of course, you are willing to cut tax cuts.  It is important to point out that the Bush tax cuts add up to about $1.5 trillion so far, and if they are allowed to continue, they will cost much, much more.  The Super Committee was charged with covering a $1.2 trillion deficit over 10 years.

All these cuts have failed to deliver the promised economic prosperity.  As a point of fact, we are experiencing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and steadily moving in the wrong direction.  So why sustain them?  What did we expect of a Super Committee?

The reason these things won’t happen is simple.  The power is no longer with the people.  It is instead trapped in a very limited economic and political oligarchy which is largely unharmed by America’s decline.  Keep in mind that the few times we have passed legislation to save the economy, the money mostly served the wealthy elite, bailing them out.  Among other problems, the GOP is using the economic crisis to impose a conservative social agenda on America.  Therefore there is no reason to expect cooperation or action from today’s conservative leaders.

Ask conservatives to help students, homeowners, or the unemployed and you encounter only rejection.  Republicans become the Can’t Do party.  This is why asking them to join a committee impaneled to find solutions is fruitless.

The sad irony here is the support enjoyed by today’s GOP.  Good, hard-working people seem to think today’s especially regressive conservatism serves their best interests.  People are being duped by a bastardized rhetoric that espouses the virtues of self-reliance and independence which really only distracts them from their ideological servitude to ideas that undercut our nation’s strength and values.

If people truly were independent and self-reliant, they would take responsibility to be informed and active.  Instead too many of us hand over their personal authority to people and ideas they do not understand.

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Super Losers

Super Losers.

It is no surprise that the congressional “Super Committee” did not propose a plan for reducing our national deficit.  And it is time to stop pretending this is a bi-partisan problem.  It isn’t.  The GOP is to blame.  Period.

Republicans are beholden to special interests, not tax paying Americans.  Anti-Americans like Grover Norquist have hijacked our government and call the shots.  There is no comparison on the Democrat side.  None.

For decades this country has not had a spending problem, it has had a funding problem.  As taxes have been cut, our public services have been gutted.  The results have been disastrous.

More and more people are either in poverty or dangerously close to it, as many as 100 million or more.  Real wages for most Americans are flat or in decline.  Meaningful economic growth increasingly happens overseas, leaving Americans with fewer prospects for the future.  Still conservatives tell us that we need to continue to do more with less even as they support policies that give more to people who have the most.

On almost every measure, America is in decline.  Yet Republicans want us to believe that the policies they support — the very same policies that have ruined so much — are the solution to the very problems those policies create.

If we are going to square our nation’s bottom line, we need a balanced and intelligent approach.  This includes taxes.  We need to invest in our future, not cut it.  Republicans haven’t any interest whatsoever in a balanced solution.  They want everything their way.  You cannot negotiate with this kind of ignorance.

The solution is in the future and as it looks like it needs to be Repbulican-free.

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Living in Post-Democratic America: Tip 2

Image via Wikipedia

While conservatives don’t literally up is down and down is up — not quite — they essentially do the same when they describe the world.  In a post-democratic America, this could be a real problem, however.  If the oligarchs gain more control, it is only a matter of time until your kids will be watching episodes of The Flintstones in history class.

It is important, therefore, to prepare.  Already access to libraries is greatly reduced through tax cuts and irresponsible austerity measures.  Schools the same.  We don’t need no education anyhow, right?  Wrong.

A poorly informed populace is exactly what conservatives need, however.  It is doing a fine job getting them in power and forwarding their regressive social agenda.  So if we’re going to make the next dark age a short one, information will be key.

So do what I do and … while it might sound quaint and old fashioned … buy an old school encyclopedia!  Oh imagine the fun you’ll have with the kids when you tell them about the last ice age which happened thousands of years before the Earth even existed.  Baffle them with tales about the origins of the universe, physics, and philosophy.  Maybe even suggest than fossil fuels are a finite resource.  They might look at you strangely, but they’re kids…they’re going to do that anyway.

You might also start downloading and saving important papers and articles to your computer and put them on an external hard drive of some sort.  This isn’t a sure thing, however, because technology changes and you have to be sure the computers of tomorrow will be able to access your trove of facts.  Really important things, keep a hard copy of those.

You might keep a copy of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for example because if people like Rand Paul get elected  that could come in handy.  Imagine the amazement your kids will express when you tell them there was a time when government actually defended the rights of ALL people, regardless of race, class, or income.  They might doubt you, but you’ll be prepared with documentary proof.

All this information can get cumbersome — that’s why we supported libraries once upon a time — so you might need to organize friends and family to be responsible for certain subjects of knowledge.  We all have an uncle who’s a Civil War buff, for example, right?  Ask him to be the keeper of history.  You could even trick him into doing so if necessary.  Just keep giving him valuable “gifts” in the form of books.  You’ll help him, you help yourself, and you might help pull us out of the dark ages of post-democratic America.

Now I hope as much as any other intelligent and informed American that these tips will never be necessary, but we dangerously close.  So the most important tip I always have for better and smarter Americans is get out and vote next November.  Make sure good and strong people are in office and we shouldn’t need to stash old newspapers under the mattress.

 

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Who Is Alicia Keys?

“Who is Alicia Keys?”

I had no idea.  The name sounded familiar, but I wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation and was trying to get caught up.  Alicia Keys?  Alicia Keys?  Maybe she worked at the bar or perhaps she was a neighbor.  I couldn’t remember.  So I asked:

“Who is Alicia Keys?”

Ok, so now I know Alicia Keys is a singer of some talent in a genre I must not know well.  She also appeared on The Cosby Show as a child.  Great stuff.  Can we move on?

No, apparently not.  It seems to be a matter of great significance that you know your pop icons.  (Is she a pop icon?)  I was asked, “How do you not know who Alicia Keys is?”  I’m going to answer that question now.

There are a number of facts and situations that likely explain my insulation from Alicia Keys.  First, and maybe most simply, the radio on my 98 Ford Explorer picks up only one channel and even then only intermittently.  That, by the way, is Minnesota Public Radio.  (Probably doesn’t surprise the familiar reader of this blog, but…no, really…maybe that’s why I am smart politically.)

But then there’s the second reason which I think is more important:

Alicia Keys. I think.

I have other interests.

I have my strange fascination with the British TV Series All Creatures Great and Small, for example.  I like taking walks, especially in bad weather.  I read a fair amount and much of what I read was written before Keys was born and I don’t recall a story about her in the New York Review of Books, although someone can prove me wrong on that.  The bars and restaurants I go to tend not to be R&B hangouts.  When I nap I dream of foreign adventures or hockey games I never played.  And so on.  There are many, many reasons why Alicia Keys has not made an impression.

But this also has me concerned.  Maybe I am guilty of not being as well-informed as I think I am.  Perhaps I should not just skim the Arts & Entertainment section of the New York Times but also read every page and column of that section.  Maybe I should subscribe to Vibe…or is it VIBE?  I don’t know.  What else am I missing?

What do I miss if I don’t go see films like Bridesmaids, Breaking Dawn, or Hangover II?  Or reality shows…I’ve never seen more than a minute or two of any, and that was more than enough.

Should I really care if Kim Kardashian and that local guy — Humphries, I think — split up?  Maybe I should have watched the wedding after all.

A friend shared a photo of a bobcat she shot — which rather disappointed me, actually — but perhaps I should get out and kill a majestic and rare animal from time to time.

Maybe I should dabble in Republicanism!

The bottom line, and I have to admit it, I don’t know who Alicia Keys is because I don’t care.  There.  Maybe someday.  (I refused to watch Twin Peaks on its first run — too trendy for me at the time – but I found it years later and enjoyed it very much.  Less trendy.)  She needs a more thoughtful, more substantive blog anyway.

By the way, I heard Alicia Keys is pregnant.  Is that true?

Using My Computer To Get Organized: An Overwhelming Proposition.

My head hurts.

I am trying to find a simple, easy way to use all the promise my computer offers to get me and information I use or want to save organized.  And I have to say, it is a mess.

I have sampled several services — Catch Notes, Astrid, Google Tasks, Microsoft Outlook, HTC Sync, Read Later, Diigo, Photobucket, Panoramio – and I don’t know up from down.

Some of these programs work together and some are (I think) different names for the same thing.  Some of these programs are “social” (i.e., sharing) platforms, some are not.  What does that mean?  Who shares and who doesn’t?  I am utterly confused.

And if a program called Awesome Screenshot Capture and Annotate warns before installing that it can access all files on my computer, should I be concerned?  What — exactly — does that mean?

And why does my Dell Webcam process start running automatically when I turn on my computer?  Am I being spied on?  (I note this when I go to Task Master to see if I can kill processes and speed up my computer, which I can’t…)

I am beginning to feel like Andy Rooney (may he rest in peace) with all of my confusion, rapid-fire questions, and doubt.  Does becoming a curmudgeon make one more or less charming?

And don’t even think of looking for help online.  That’s where the headache started.  Everyone and everything is the best and yet I feel like I am only getting half the story.  Is Diigo really the best bookmarking and annotating research tool on the web?  I thought Google was the best at everything.  Sometimes things sync, so to speak, most of the time they don’t.  I simply feel dumb and it hurts.

So do I just throw caution to the wind and risk that the world my stumble upon my photo collection of kittens hugging teddy bears or my galleries of Gothic girl porn?  Do I care if anyone reads my exaggerated journal entries?  Do I even want to be organized and info-packed in the first place?

I want my computer to make my life less, not more, complicated and this is my message in a bottle.  Anyone picking it up?

 

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Living in Post-Democratic America: Tip 1

Still Time for One More

With an election looming in a little less than a year and the oligarchs aligning their horde of doting minions the chance exists that the situation in American will get even worst, perhaps a new Dark Age.  So I have been making notes while thinking about surviving the situation.  I’ve decided to share a tip from time to time.

This blog has become a bit of a food and fashion blog so I think it is appropriate that my first tip relates to food.  Eating, after all, is very important and we have to do it in good times and bad.  So what happens if times get really bad?  Suppose the GOP gains complete control of government?  Well…think of three year olds gaining control of a jumbo jet…we’re in trouble.

And I think even your simple sandwich is in trouble if we elect a Republican president and congress.

I enjoy ham and cheese sandwiches, turkey and cheese, too.  In fact I think I’ll have one shortly and treat myself to an early lunch.  Sandwich time is the perfect time to sit back and reflect.  You know, what if…?

And I start thinking, “What if Republicans and the special interests that control them lead this country into further ruin?”

I stop chewing and swallow hard…

More and more Americans already live in poverty or on the edge of it.  Getting by is getting tough.  Republicans have no interest in turning that around.  It’s likely they don’t possess the education or sophistication to understand even their own best interests, not to mention national interests.  Many simply are stupid.  But we already know this.  We also know that ineptitude is not the best path to solutions.

We may not have food riots…there’s always the illusion of nutrition in poor countries like ours with all of our cheap junk food…but we might have fewer choices.  So I started thinking about threats to my humble sandwich and came up with some great ideas.

Instead of ham and cheese twice a week, for example, what if I had a ham sandwich one day and then a cheese sandwich the next day?  I might still get my quality deli ham and cheese, but make it last double-time!  Of course I would consume the same amount of bread, but that’s the lesser of the expenses.  Is this a great idea or what?

You try it.

Ok, let’s say peanut butter and jelly.  Yes, one day a peanut butter sandwich and the next a jelly sandwich!  I never liked peanut butter and jelly together as a kid anyway and my mother had this crazy idea that all bread, even sandwich bread for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches had to be buttered first.  So I have come a long way since then.  No butter on my sandwich bread and I eat peanut butter AND jelly together.  But I could go back to peanut butter one day and jelly the next all in the interest of surviving post-democratic America.

Your kids will catch on, too; hell, they won’t have a choice.  You might make it fun for the kids anyway.  Suppose you’re really strapped and even bread is running thin.  I have a great idea:  “Pizza” squares.

A “pizza” square essentially is an open-faced sandwich.

“What’s for lunch, mom?”

“Oh, Johnny and Sue, we’re having fun pizza squares!”

Imagine the excitement.  Just keep things positive and exciting as you describe and serve slices of toasted bread spread with either peanut butter or jelly.  This way you save bread and peanut butter and jelly.  Cool, huh?

We might not eat as much as we used to eat, but hey…we’re getting fat anyway.  If you can keep your kid out of the school lunch room and the strip mall fast food joints, you might save him from diabetes and that’s a good thing.  Let’s not forget, the new American way is less for more after all.  And with our declining health care system and its rising costs, who can afford to be sick anyway?  Remember, as those visionaries in the Republican Party tell us, we have to cut, cut, cut our way to greatness.  Might as well cut the calories, too.

So there you have Living in Post-Democratic America:  Tip 1.  I should make it clear that while I am using title case rules to capitalize the title of this post, you can think of our decline as both post-Democratic and post-democratic.  The latter is the more frightening and most dangerous.  Watch out…really…and if you’re not going to watch out, then keep your head down.

Hopefully most of us won’t just keep our head down.

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Making Us Proud to Be Americans

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Republicans have a way of making Americans look…well, stupid.  You know I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, show me an informed and intelligent Republican and I’ll show you a liar.  It is difficult to see it any other way.  Facts and reality mean nothing to them.  Experts are ignored.  Seriously, I mean who has time for people like scientists and economists, right?

Two quick points then I have to go and lose money in a poker game.

First, the quality of leadership in the GOP clearly is in decline.  Even Republicans have a tough time supporting this round of  GOP presidential candidates.  Republicans are beholden to myth and superstition.  They answer to a political dogma that is illogical as much as it is against decades of progress in this country.  You might call them the real anti-Americans.

But second — and more importantly — these knuckleheads are supported by millions of American citizens living with the consequences of their political backwardness.  This is called cognitive dissonance, a fancy way to say stupidity.  Voting against your own best interest doesn’t seem all that wise, does it?

Take Herman Cain, for example.  He supports a tax plan that will raise taxes on almost everyone who is likely to vote for him if he is given the chance to stand as the GOP candidate for president.  The irony here exists at several levels.  Crazy contradictions in rhetoric and action.  Republicans claim to oppose tax increases, but even as Cain promises to raise taxes he remains popular.  He’s a tax and cut Republican.

And that anti-expert, anti-intellctual streak that runs through the Republican horde is likely serving Cain well, too.  Today, for example, Cain incorrectly suggested that the Taliban is in Libya and threatening to take over governing there.  Never mind the mistake.  Who cares?  Republicans do this all the time.  It’s almost a perverse form of due dilligence among conservatives to find a story and get it wrong.

I don’t know…the story about Cain’s misunderstanding of Libya really rubs me the wrong way today.  It is an enough is enough situation.  As a Democrat, I’m almost offended that the opposition has become so misguided and careless.  Where are the responsible grown ups over there?  Stop putting clowns on the stage and start taking things seriously.