I heart Jean Gabin

For the girls, the gayz and all sorts of unrequited everywhere.

Yes, JJJ, thank you.

French, rumpled, a tad difficult perhaps.

But, we would like to think, worth it.

Boys Gone Wild, Volume 3

“…his smug overwrought self-righteousness became beyond unbearable. The endless rants, pompously stating the obvious, loving the sound of his own words to such a degree that the entire spectacle made me feel as if I’d caught some pathetic wanker en flagrante delicto.”

And guess what? That is actually a quote from another post below, about another boy whose descent into narcissistic frenzy had driven me to similar loathing.

So what in the hell is this new template? Boys gone suddenly crazy when given spotlight and adulation. Is it directly related to the new news cycle, endlessly looping, providing seemingly infinite platform for the infinitely inane?

Or does it have to do with our nonstop adulation of celebrity, stupidity and “reality,” urging everyone towards that glittering, climactic moment in the spotlight?

Probably all that and more. The simple narcissism of some who, sooner or later, start believing their reviews, their fans, their book jacket blurbs. Goodness, they think, I truly am the best of the best, the infallible one, the Second Coming of whatever came before, whether the First be Emiliano, Edward R. or Jesus himself.

I have the feeling that in the Reverend’s case he won’t end up fading offstage or being forced to fake a bit of humility as the previous two did. I imagine Robert Johnson [BET founder, billionaire and huge Billary surrogate who famously once referenced Obama’s hanging around the hood doing, you know, what those who hang there do] already trying to rustle up a gig for him. Pitching it as Dr. Phil meets Dancing With the Stars meets Tyra.

a very special gift

Thank you, Mr. Robeson. And thank you, "V."

The audacity of smokes redux

There was something about
the Obama pic below.

And it's not just the smokes.

Black and white, of course.

Almost oblivious to the camera.

As if they had more than enough going on in their own lives and minds.

Not distant, exactly, but serious, engrossed and engaged, but elsewhere.

No glitz, few props, except for Belmondo who was, after all, just playing at it.

And exceedingly comfortable in their own skins.

A very distant time and place.

Love at first sight

Totally my bad. Today. Again.

Yes, totes my bad is my new mantra, and that is clearly not a good thing.

The insane, inane political brouhaha over the weekend has finally forced me to switch off the cable news networks [where telly is generally parked, for background noise, such a depressing admission, but a fact forced on me by current socioeconomic circumstances] and turn to other, ever so slightly less inane, noise.

I’m afraid the bastards, hacks and whores who make up mainstream media, in their usual collusion with their political cohorts, have finally orchestrated an endgame scenario of intolerable fiction, stupidity and unbearably endless loops. At least for me.

I hate them for it, it has me consumed and, god knows, I have to stop thinking about it. And, thanks to Robert Reich, I can! He said it, now I don’t have to, and, to make it all the more seamless, he even uses the same template!!

So be it, and now I can move on to other, less soul-stealing subjects.

The audacity of smokes

Counterpoint.

The Max Factor Blues

I think one of the major reasons the Clintons are running such a disastrous campaign is their thoroughly ingrained belief that American politics, non-parliamentary and divisive, is, by nature, a zero-sum game. The fundamental assumption that you’re either with us or against us is just as basic to the Clinton mindset as it was to Bush. One can only “win” by destroying one’s opposition since they are irrelevant and expendable anyway, both in the campaign and in governance.

The mere thought that there might be some sort of paradigm shift, of whatever duration, is too horrible for Clinton to conjure. The fact that Obama’s campaign and supporters seem to be already operating within that new paradigm could be why her own campaign has been so supremely off kilter and reactive. She simply doesn’t get it. It is impossible for her, and that entire wing of the Democratic party, to imagine a system without entrenched elites, $15 million dollar “speaking” fees, poll-driven positions and thuggery.

I would like to think that this is in some way generational and, therefore, inevitable. Her trajectory – from cowgirl-clad Goldwater supporter to Bill Clinton wife and regent – is typical of that sort of woman of that particular time. Some of them believed they had to cultivate a public persona of sweetness and light, overachievement and perfection. But they also believed, viscerally, that it was very much a man’s world, so, in her case, she hitched her wagon to one, all the while plotting her own place in that world.

And, since the playing field was crafted and populated by men, these women still believe that they have to play by the same old rules, much in the same way some women of a certain age cling to the same makeup, hair and fashion choices of their youth. In Clinton’s case, it’s still liquid eyeliner, orange lipstick and atrocious asexual St. John’s suits instead of, oh, probably Jonathon Logan jumpers from her salad days.

Once they entered the political [and business as well] arena, they clung to the old school ground rules , playing hardball as well as, or better than, the boys. So we have sweetness and light on the one hand, ruthless expediency on the other. And that, of course, is where her endlessly vaunted “35 years of experience” lie: learning, honing and practicing the Machiavellian arts of politics as usual. Thus that schizophrenic shape-shifting which only serves to strengthen the public perception of Clintonian duplicity.

I actually do know a few women just like her [and her cabal of Ferraro clone supporters]. Women who have no sense of their own core, who have been playing what they thought were the necessary [and sufficient] games all their lives only to end up enraged, embittered and confused. They have been so much immersed in whoring themselves out for a few crumbs of power and patronage they never noticed that the playing field, political as well as fashion, had shifted.

Sometimes, I’ve decided, a bitch really is just a bitch.

Blood Ties

There are so many reasons I’ve never wanted to write about this. Or even think about it, although I do, almost every day.

I suppose for some it’s like having a serious, probably life-threatening disease. The healthy survivor’s instinct to not be defined by his illness, rather to set it in its rightful place, just one more piece of his psychological and physical baggage. Total bullshit of course, except in the sense of forcing one to get the hell off the couch and on with one’s life.

The blood wasn’t just on the water by then – 40 years ago today - it was everywhere. In the air, raining death. Splattered across every piece of paper legislation, speech, report, note to whatever front. Eyes bloodshot from weed, rage, pain, death, and so much more to come.

For me, as for many, it began on that ellipse listening to those words, the deep comfort of being surrounded by a quarter of a million decent people of like heart. I was very young, carrying a sign, as we did, mine about equal housing, a sign that was almost as tall as I was. An overwhelming sense of having found, and come, home.

In my own family I was already discomfiting outsider. Too uppity [precisely] with my words and objections and inappropriate observations. But I was also middle child, perfect in every other way. Perfect sibling, perfect student, trying to balance the rejection engendered by my “views” with approval for my “successes.”

The five year arc that ended 40 years ago today was, for many, more than just defining moment. It forged, defined, bloodied and, two months later, destroyed much of the best of the best of us. Minds, hearts and bodies.

A personal arc written in acronyms, SCLC, SNCC, SDS [the latter short-lived, as full of shit as stupidity, and so very much like what passes for the left now]. And, even within, the polarities of turf and power had already begun tearing the possibilities of hope apart. Newer sensibilities, not afraid to use the rhetoric and tools of the enemy, taunted the “idealistic” agendas of those old school acronyms.

Soon a sense of chaos and unraveling took hold. But then, suddenly, a tying up of sorts. An incipient recognition that the blood spilled and spilling on foreign shores and urban streets was of a piece. Collateral, and often designed, damage from the wider war that was being waged by common enemy. The language changed with this recognition and, with this recognition and these words, more blood.

Read those words from April 4, 1967, one year, yes, to the very day before that day and you can understand how the stilling of that voice was necessary requisite for the 40 years that followed.

But there it still is, a silent cancer that still festers and grows, extending its parasitic reach within. The friend who once manned barricades now wittily dismissing the fallen in Iraq as being, after all, just the children of Nascar dads. The other friend who once posed fetchingly in red heels atop a tank in Nicaragua during the war, now supporting Hillary and screeching angrily, just like her candidate, at anyone who asks her why. Those whose despair has ossified into creed or academia or corporate boardrooms or soundbites.

There are a few of us left who fear the arc might be repeating itself, the cycle of despair, voice, wisdom, strength, blood, despair, surrender masked as irony. But the only irony I can find is that this time the ones with the bullets, billy clubs and napalm are those who, crippled by the pain that has consumed them, traversed that arc and are now unable to bear the sight of others daring to walk it, or the very few of us daring to walk it again.