Cultural Learnings of America
Your honor, it was the beer talking. Not me. It’s a lame excuse coming from Mel Gibson when he’s caught being himself (a sexist, anti-Semite yob), but even lamer when coming from drunken frat boys being drunken frat boys, on camera no less! The unnamed frat boys in question were the ignominious stars of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
I don’t need to tell you that Borat is the brainchild of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, a fake TV journalist from a former Soviet republic who baits Americans to say outrageous things (that they likely believe) with his seeming innocence. On his TV show, he famously got a bar room full of country-western fans to sing along with a song called “Throw the Jew Down the Well.”
The movie is savagely funny. It has a fair amount of poop jokes and Jackass-style gross-out humor, but it also has a keen eye for mocking the elite and the powerful, and the racism and sexism of ordinary Americans. While everyone is baited, some of our fellow citizens pass their tests with flying colors, such as the driving instructor who responds to Borat’s “traditional” two kisses on the cheek with a grumbly, “Well, I’m not used to that, but that’s fine.” But most take Borat’s bait and reveal the ugliest tendencies of Americans. A crowd of rodeo fans applaud Borat’s speech, in which he wishes that Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi man, woman and child; a gun store clerk responds to Borart’s query of the best way to protect against Jews with the instant recommendation of a very large handgun.
Unlike these other victims of the fake foreign journalist, the frat boys in question – who are so embarrassed by the spectacle they made that they are suing the filmmakers to have their appearance removed from the film – needed no prodding at all. As soon as Borat hitchhiked his way onto their RV, they were extolling the virtues of slavery, the innate inferiority of women and how tough it is to be a white man these days where no one gives you any breaks.
I saw the new Borat movie on opening night with a raucous Times Square crowd, and the scene with the frat boys was the only part of the movie that hushed the crowd. It wasn’t funny. It was scary and depressing. These morons are the future of America. They’re probably future Congressmen.
Writing in the Nation, Richard Goldstein accuses Borat of double standards, of couching bigotry in humor in order to get away with the bigotry that Borat himself employs. Goldstein either did not see the movie, or did not get it. It is significant that the only black people (other than Alan Keyes, who deserves mockery) who appear in the movie are in on the joke, and help satirize genteel white racism. Everyone is not fair game, just the rich, the powerful and the intolerant.
Catching Up With Old Friends
I’ve discovered how old men are born. We get time demanding jobs, go to professional school, are subsumed by the demands of life. Our backs ache, our paychecks go to pay off the mortgage. We stop going to three concerts a week and buying a couple of new records every Tuesday. When we do buy a new record or go to a concert, it’s to catch up with an old friend, who’s, arguably (and you’d be arguing with us, comrade!) long past their prime. They don’t make rock-n-roll records like they used to. They never did.
I’m spending this evening with two old friends. Morrissey’s solo career turns off many. The solo careers of famous lead singer-songwriters (like Lou Reed and Paul Westerberg) are a fascinating part of the overall narrative of their lives. In Morrissey’s case, musically, this means pursuing his unique brand of classical rock which would have buried Johnny Marr’s guitars in violins and singing children, and, lyrically, a more literal exploration of his personal demons.
My friend and carpool comrade, Alan Amalgamated, insists that Morrissey’s lyrics have always been explicitly queer, while I believe that they were meant to be more ambiguous. A trusted former girlfriend once explained “Hand In Glove” as being a snide satire of self-absorbed lovers engaging in wretched PDA’s. Perhaps I put too much stock in her Masters degree in Literature, but it’s easy to hear sarcasm in a line like “And everything depends upon how near you stand to me.” Amalgamated finds a sense of daring and apprehension in the act of two men walking hand-in-hand, risking a bashing.
In any event, there’s less ambiguity now that Morrissey has dropped the pronouns. He just wants to see the boy happy. Is that too much to ask? That freedom, apparently, makes him so happy that the Moz is no longer wishing for a nuclear war to destroy him and the seaside town in which he resides. Instead, he’ll gladly sacrifice Pittsburgh for the chance to see the future when all’s well.
“Ringleader of the Tormenters” zips by with nary a clunker. Most songs are up-tempo, vaguely majestic with the usual pithy zingers. Even the repeated use of the children singers feels right.
Robert Zimmerman has a new record, too. Can three records released four and five years apart properly be considered a trilogy? “Modern Times” feels vastly less important than “Time Out of Mind,” which is to its credit. With his crack touring band behind him, Dylan seems determined to just have a good time.
He’s been thinking about Alicia Keys, which shows he is even more of an old man than me. I haven’t thought about Alicia Keys for at least two years. But I certainly feel that lyric, “This woman so crazy, I swear I ain’t gonna touch another one for years.” The spare ten songs stretch out comfortably over an hour etched on modified petroleum product. I’m sure there’s some deeper meaning to it all, but an old-fashioned record from an old-timer is a good time for me.
I’m almost encouraged enough to buy the new Paul Westerberg children’s movie soundtrack. That ‘un makes me nervous.
2006 Endorsements: Bring Back the Greens
Election time is around the corner, and I’m sure you’re dying to read my endorsements. This election, in truth, offers a rare opportunity to alter the political landscape for a progressive change.
No, I’m not talking about the increasing likelihood of a Democratic sweep in New York. That is a foregone conclusion since the Republican party has collapsed under the weight of Pataki’s bland presidential ambitions and the national GOP’s right-wing extremism. The Republicans have put up scarecrows against the Spitzer and Clinton steamrollers, and are poised to lose members of their Congressional delegation and perhaps even control of the state Senate, ushering in what could become a generation of Democratic dominance in New York State. Don’t get too excited. Spitzer and the Democrats will govern from the center, and much of the tax-cutting, welfare-slashing, tuition-hiking agenda that Pataki carried out over three terms is now accepted as status quo.
What potential change this election provides is the opportunity to reshuffle ballot lines – an opportunity that only comes up every four years and only in the gubernatorial election. Any party that garners 50,001 votes for Governor remains on the ballot for the next four years. Aside from the big two, there are three other parties seeking to retain their ballot lines and four more looking to gain a new line. Only two of these are of interest. One is the Working Families Party, the progressive fusion party that has disappointed for eight years. When the WFP was founded, many of its early activists invoked the hallowed name of the American Labor Party, which for a few decades around the Depression was a progressive force in New York state politics. That party helped elect scores of Socialists, Communists and Laborites to office, while cross-endorsing the “good” Democrats and punishing Democrats who were too friendly with business and Jim Crow by running spoiler candidates against them and splitting the vote.
For the past eight years, the WFP has only endorsed Democrats, and not just the good ones. There can be no clearer case of a Democrat who votes against the interest of working people in New York than Hillary Clinton and yet the WFP is endorsing her for a second time! I got an e-mail from Pete Seeger the other day that a vote for the war-monger Clinton is actually a vote to bring the troops home. Only a longtime fellow traveller of the CP could embrace such confounding wisdom. If the WFP won’t withdraw support from Hillary, then it is clear that they will never oppose bad Democrats with their own independent candidates, and all the WFP is is a tool to deliver progressive and union votes to the Democratic machine.
I remain a registered voter in the Working Families party, holding out hope for a rank and file rebellion. Under New York’s slow as molasses system, only a registered voter of a given ballot line can petition or contest a party primary, and a change in enrollment must be made before the previous election day. For example, if Jonathan Tasini had decided to run his insurgent campaign against Hillary Clinton within the Working Families party, I could have collected petitions among fellow WFP registrants to force a primary – one that Tasini could have won, giving Hillary a public rebuke and continuing the anti-war campaign into the general election. But, Tasini would have had to have changed his party enrollment to WFP before last year’s mayoral election. And, thus, I remain registered in the WFP in case somebody decides to try to force a primary next year. But I won’t be voting for Eilliot Spitzer on the Working Families ballot line, and neither should you.
I will be voting for the Green Party, and so should you. The Greens had a ballot line from 1998 until 2002, and in that time ran hundreds of candidates for federal, state and local office – garnering hundreds of thousands of votes on a platform of peace, environmentalism and economic justice. Remember that Mayor of New Paltz who initiated a political crisis by marrying same sex couples? Jason West was elected on the Green Party ballot line. We need more rabble rousing in our elections, as only the Green Party can currently deliver.
Vote for Malachy McCourt for Governor on the Green Party ballot line. Malachy is a semi-famous author who recruited to run for whatever name recognition he has (such celebrity-seeking is a frustrating tendency among certain segments of the Greens). Nevertheless, only a vote for McCourt can give the Greens a ballot line for the next four years.
Vote for Howie Hawkins for U.S. Senate on the Green Party line. Howie is a long-time environmental and trade union activist, and was working hard for election reform long before you ever heard about “hanging chads.” He’s campaigning for an immediate end to the war, money for renewable energy and universal health care.
Vote for the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Comptroller. The SWP is a laughable Trotsky-Castro cult by now, but it’s important to give a little love for the “S” word. Also, unfortunately, the Greens’ candidate, Julia Willebrand, is representative of the party’s worst sectarian trend that has held it back as a more welcoming party of the broader left.
Vote for Rachel Trechler for Attorney General on the Green Party line. At least she’s an attorney, while the SWP candidate is typically unqualified. If you must vote for Cuomo, do so on the WFP line.
In Queens, I recommend write-in votes for most of the remaining contests. The judges are, as usual, all endorsed by the Democrats and Republicans and running unopposed. Write in your favorite lawbreakers as a protest. In my Congressional district, Greg Meeks is running unopposed, significantly without the Working Families Party’s support. Write in your own name. Whoever you are, you could do a better job than him.
The Little League Thief Who Was Never a Leader
The recent charges against former president of the NYC Central Labor Council, Brian McLaughlin, are incredibly disappointing. While most of his alleged embezzlement is not connected to his role as head of the local labor federation, the shocking abuse of power as an elected Assemblyman and community leader is a real black eye for the movement. (I mean, we simply do not need to be represented by the cartoonish villainy of a man who would steal $95,000 from a little league.)
The tabloids, of course, are touting this as a story of a corrupt union boss, the president of the most powerful labor body in the city. The sad truth is that Brian McLaughlin was a weak leader, totally beholden to the building trades who pursued the lowest common denominator agenda that couldn’t unite the various union locals that make up the council to support each other’s strikes and contract fights, or even support the same candidates. This weakness was my greatest complaint about McLaughlin up until now, but I always thought that at least he was honest. But, now, it turns out he’s not even that, and I would be lying if this didn’t shake my faith – if only a little – in a movement that allows itself to be “led” by such men.
The leaders of the Central Labor Council are responsibly talking about more oversight of the body’s officials, which is good. It’s discouraging to read that the lesson drawn by Dennis Hughes, the president of the state federation, is that no labor leader should also hold elected political office. The argument that one “can’t serve two masters” has been made by right-wingers who have been targeting McLaughlin for years. Of course it’s bullshit that the same is never said of corporate lawyers and lobbyists who hold office. Labor leaders, as representatives of the people, should ideally be represented in the halls of Congress, the Assembly and City Hall…ideally as members of a real Labor Party.
Finally, the news that Ed Ott is likely to remain as McLaughlin’s successor is reason for some celebration. I’ve known and worked with Ed for years. He’s one of the sharpest minds in our little movement. What I’ve always appreciated about Ed is his ability, when presented with a dilemma, to lay out the correct stand that the Labor Council should take, the pragmatic position that the council could take and then the lowest common denominator position that the Council would take. My hope is that with Ed finally at the helm, the CLC might finally opt more often to take the idealistic stands, rather than the past of least resistance.