LOW RIDE PRIDE

Summer is here and it's time for an old school classic.

FOX HOST ON RACIAL PURITY

Brian Kilmeade is an ignorant assclown. Kilmeade, the host of Fox and Friends, laments the loss of racial purity in the American people because people aren't marrying their own ethnic group. Is he running for some Nazi journalism award? Clearly, Kilmeade hasn't read a book on race or ethnicity since the turn of the last century when ethnic stereotypes and racial quotas had the thinnest veneer of academic approval. Of course, that view was swept aside by modern science, but apparently nobody told Kilmeade.

Don't confuse him with the facts. He's got his job at Fox. What happened?

The conversation concerned recent scientific data that suggests people in long term marriages tend to experience less Alzheimer's Disease then those in short term marriages. An interesting notion that could provoke an intelligent repsonse. Not from Kilmeade. Never at a loss for ignorance, he leaps into nostalgia for the pure (master?) race.



"We keep marrying other species and other ethnics," he says. "The problem is the Swedes have pure genes. They marry other Swedes, that's the rule. Finns marry other Finns; they have a pure society. In America we marry everybody. We will marry Italians and Irish."

Reminds me of the latest Nixon tapes to be released, wherein the ex-president says abortion is generally wrong, but it's okay if it concerns a mixed race couple.

NEW BEATLES SONG

Call me an old geezer, but something new from the Beatles is a cause for celebration, innit? The new song, Now and Then, will delight Beatle people, but mystery shrouds the project like potsmoke on St. Mark's Place. Some call it a hoax.

Not so, says Paul McCartney, and he is anxious to release it.


According to MOG, "It was rumored that when Yoko gave Paul the demos of "Free As A Bird" and "Real Love" that were polished up later by Paul, George and Ringo for The Beatles Anthology sets in the mid-90's, she also gave Paul a third demo."

That demo was a Lennon composition called "Now and Then." After some work by the remaining bandmembers, here is the polished result.

What do you think? Is it real, or something to get hung about? Have a spot of tea and give it a listen:



Paul also wanted to release the unheard ‘Carnival of Light’, a 14-minute composition, but Harrison was against the plans.

HITLER FINDS OUT ABOUT PALIN RESIGNATION

A powerful film clip from "The Rise and Fall of the Republican Party."

PYNCHON IS BACK

a clip from a rare documentary on reclusive writer Thomas Pynchon

A screaming comes across the desk. It's happened before but there is nothing to compare to it now. The rumors circulating in weirdo literary cults are true: Pynchon is back. He has a new book. Voices echo the news and shoes clatter on cobblestones. Newsboys run, weaving through traffic, waving the extra edition, shouting, Extra! Extra! Read all about it! Publishers' Weekly confirms an August 16th release date for Inherent Vice:

"Part noir, part psychedelic romp, all Thomas Pynchon — private eye Doc Sportello comes, occasionally, out of a marijuana haze to watch the end of an era as free love slips away and paranoia creeps in with the L.A. fog."

Oh, come on. What's the big deal? Another sad sack shut-in burning the midnight oil? Dime a dozen, you say. You don't see his books at the airport with shiny, embossed covers, so how good could he be? I've never heard him chatting with Terri Gross on Fresh Air. He's never shot the bull with Conan, with Dave, with Jay, with Jon...

A rare shot of P, many years ago

Nope, he wouldn't do that. Pynchon writes well-regarded award-winning books nobody reads. OK, a few people read them, but mostly trainspotters and writers and drifters and edge dwellers; most civilians catch a whiff of all that sulfur and the sickening sweet smell of burning leaves and steer clear. Pynchon doesn't care. He's holed up somewhere in Tangier or Mexico City, a recluse, a shut in, a genius. This guy makes Salinger look like a social butterfly. Our old friend Amy Hungerford sheds some light on this man of mystery, but first here is the opening of Inherent Vice:

"She came along the alley and up the back steps the way she always used to. Doc hadn't seen her for over a year. Nobody had. Back then it was always sandals, bottom half a flower-print bikini, faded Country Joe & the Fish t-shirt. Tonight she was all in flatland gear, hair a lot shorter than he remembered, looking just like she swore she'd never look."



Professor Hungerford teaches The American Novel Since 1945 (ENGL 291) at Yale. She's whip smart and looking for trouble. Gotta love her. Here she places Thomas Pynchon firmly in the context of the political upheaval of the 1960s, and argues that Pynchon "is deeply invested in questions of meaning and emotional response." The Crying of Lot 49 is "a sincere call for connection, and a lament for loss, as much as it is an ironic, playful puzzle."

For more Pynchon, check this previous post.

SUMMER MOVIES!

Summer is here, and that means dumb movies. Don't get me wrong, I love dumb movies. Nothing beats pushing aside the velvet drapes and settling into a broken chair with a barrel of soda and a 55 gallon drum of popcorn and opening a vein. Especially in the summertime. Winter is when the Oscar contenders parade before our eyes, the tepid period pieces, overwrought dramas, and literary adaptations, but summer screens are jammed with silly fun, chase scenes, crime, super heroes, bad sequels, cartoons, sci-fi epics, lightweight love stories, and giant toys. Not every movie can be "The Bicycle Thief," right?

"These few dollars you lose here today are going to buy you stories to tell your children and great-grandchildren. This could be one of the big moments in your life; don't make it your last!" -John Dillinger

My money's on this guy. Dillinger was a bank robber who said a few clever things and got riddled with bullets outside the Biograph theater. Hope I didn't spoil it for you. Read a book, for godsakes. Anyway, Johnny Depp is playing him in a new movie, and unlike Dillinger, Depp can do no wrong. In the box office, anyway. Dillinger's story has been made into several movies. Here's one of them. I could make some easy comments about crime movies and how they provide a catharsis for the viewer, but in the end enforce the social code. After providing vicarious thrills, the scofflaw dies in the last reel and order is restored.


Crime movies are essentially morality tales, and conservative in nature. In the old days these values were enforced by the Hays movie code, a set of industry guidelines controlling what went on the screen. A crook or a hussy MUST get punished; crime could NOT pay. Period. And there were detailed rules that had to be followed or the film couldn't be released. It wasn't until Bonnie and Clyde came out in the sixties that the crooks got away with it...no, actually they got riddled with bullets in the last reel, but they seemed to have some fun as endearing anti-heroes who wore their costumes well.

Bonnie and Clyde, 1967

They were glamorous and you rooted for them, and this caused quite a stir at the time. Their punishment wasn't swift and antiseptic but brutal and sadistic, the camera lingering on their bodies as they were shot in slow motion. Director Arthur Penn clearly sided with the outlaws, and the lawmen were portrayed as uptight authority figures, stingy obsessed jerks, reflecting the time the film was released in 1967.

The real Bonnie and Clyde weren't nearly as sexy, as you can see from this photograph. They look like, well, crooks. They had some style, sure, but they weren't exactly Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. I wonder what tack the new Dillinger flick takes. What kind of crook do we deserve?

Johnny Depp as Dillinger, 2009

IL PALIO

Today is Il Palio, the rough and tumble bareback horse race circling the Piazza del Campo in beautiful, medieval Siena. In the race, ten horses and riders, selected from the seventeen contrade (neighborhoods), circle the Campo three times. The race lasts 90 seconds. Ironically, with its unfurled silk banners and medieval garb, and of course its incomparable setting, a piazza that hasn't changed since the Black Death, the race exists beyond time, a chunk of the Middle Ages catapulted into the present day.

To watch the race (and to hear a chilly English academic dissect it in dry sociological terms) watch this film clip.



After a chance encounter in Siena, we're rooting for the snails this year. To see why, and to watch another hair-raising race, read my previous post about the Palio here.

Latebreaking news: We just learned the Tartuca (tortoise) contrada won today's race. Good job, turtles!

WILCO RIDES AGAIN

Wilco, and the amazing suits


You Are My Face

Wilco showed up on Conan decked out in old Nashville style, looking like they had hijacked the Burrito Brothers' tour bus and stolen their Nudie suits...but where was Gram Parsons' peyote-and-pills ensemble? Don't tell me, probably behind glass somewhere. Weep not, for Gram, that grievous angel still watches over drunks and country bands smiling and peeing from a great height.

Gram Parson's cosmic cowboy duds behind glass

Gram did everything to excess and serves as a warning to all about overdoing the booze and the dope, but he sure wore a snazzy suit. Check it out. Handcrafted by Nudie himself, the tailor to all the great country stars from Elvis on up, but unlike the suit Nudie made for Porter Wagner this one carries marijuana leaves, pills, and peyote buttons. Gram never met a drug he didn't like, and now he's dead. End of lesson. The story goes Gram turned Keith Richards on to open E tuning and country music, and Richards turned Gram on to heroin. Not a fair trade.

Jeff Tweedy in a very cool suit. Is that Hello, Kitty?

Wilco carries that old time Americana spirit, and this is gentle late night whiskey drinking music. Ever since Uncle Tupelo, the prototypical alt.country band, broke into pieces, we followed Jeff Tweedy into Wilcoville. They can play straight country, or bring out some weird dissonant music that's as edgy as any dissonant electro, sometimes in the same song. They have a new album called, creatively enough, "Wilco, the Album." Go get it today. And if you see Jeff, could you tell him to hook me up with a suit?


One Wing, a new song