Saturday, October 10, 2009

Recent String of Events (in no particular order...)



Someone decapitated long-dead, frozen, baseball great Ted Williams. And then used his head as a soccer ball. Ladies and gentleman: The future of cryogenic freezing! Where your frozen cadaver can be mutilated for sport!




NASA fired a missile at the moon. And nothing happened. Yet. I don't think we're going to know much about this one for a while. Like maybe after you and I and all of our children are gone.



I stubbed my foot on the couch and broke my toe. Not only did I break my toe, I tore the joint. And now I'm wearing a boot (and it's really not as bad as I thought it would be).



Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize this morning and I almost feel sorry for him. He's trapped in between the almost completely unrealistic positive and negative expectations that people have of him. I can't imagine this is easy for him (not that it's supposed to be). And now the Europeans just piled a Nobel on top of everything else. That just might have been one of the most unwanted Nobel Peace Prize's in history. (But...I think he might deserve it, after all.)



I read The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. I know you don't need me to tell you this but...it's a pretty good book. Not bad. Nope. Not at all. Not one tiny bit. The part about the machine-tractors replacing man on God's green field? That's not shit you ever forget. That's Biblical.





There was (what I like to call) the Free-Speech Five-Step:

1) Serena Williams lost her cool (and the match) in the semi-finals to (eventual champion)Kim Clijsters at the recent U.S. Open when she verbally abused a short, fat Asian line judge. No one talked about this as a racial "incident" but I think Serena thought it was (at least at first) and before she knew it she was over the edge.



2) Kanye West steals the microphone from what's-her-face at the MTV music awards while she's accepting an award. Awesome. Even the fact that what he did is stupid isn't interesting. But that fact is. Subsequently, Barack Obama is heard, off-the-record, calling Kanye a "jackass" for what amounted to a really excellent, unintended, social mores moment from a sitting president who is (socially) far cooler than the rapper. Think about that. That kind of moment doesn't happen too often.


3) Joe Wilson's hateful shout of "You lie!" to the president was disgusting. That's one of the most blatently shameful things I've seen in this country in a long time. I believe it was an assassination attempt. I think it means, "Back the fuck up, BITCH!X!X! or next time I won't just be throwing words." Hateful stuff. Make no mistake. Also: look at the faces of the two men next to Wilson. Do you trust those guys? They want to see Obama go down in flames - literally.


4) Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame acceptance speech was stunning. Flat out. I thought it was awesome. Painful and gross and weird and embarrassing...but awesome. It was just so honest. How many living legends (that's what he is) just come right out and say what they've been thinking throughout the years in one extended public speech? I think there's something kind of remarkable about it. He was like: "This is what I did to you people. And now I'm telling you about it." I bet he loved it. Probably felt like a fifty point game to him. There are millions of Michael Jordans but only one Michael Jordan. Here's the first part of the speech:




5) And Muammar al-Gaddafi's lengthy speech at the U.N. (By the way, has anyone's name ever been spelled so many different ways?) Behold, the King of Africa:


You can tell it's going to be a long morning by the way he sifts through his papers in the opening. I have to say: I watched about 45 minutes of this thing, and I didn't mind it so much. I find the disposition of contemporary dictators entirely compelling. For instance, I thought Saddam Hussein came off as completely brave and border-line heroic the way he faced down his masked executioners - he had far more composure than, I think, most Liberal Democratic leaders would. Imagine what Gaddafi would be like if he was ever put on trial at the Hague! He'd make Milosevich's pathetic, irrational, child-like defense look like a Supreme Court hearing.



Conan O' Brian fell down and hit his head.

David Letterman executed a flawless public apology by calling "sex" sex and came out even stonger.

I administered a stool test to myself and almost threw-up. (No photograph.)


I watched The Wizard of Oz twice. It's as good as The Grapes of Wrath. They're both primal contemporary American myths. It's genuinely creepy when the Witch writes Surrender in black swirling smoke lines in the sky. Also: So this is where David Lynch got so many of his ideas!



Roman Polanski was re-arrested for child rape and various high-end Hollywood
celebrities immediately made complete asses of themselves. Justice may be imperfect, justice may be fickle - say whatever you want to say about it - but don't try to say this guy is somehow above the law because of his artistic genius. That's so gross it's obscene. (I think Bitter Moon was one of the best movies of the nineties and Chinatown is an official classic but I still think he should serve his time.) Also: if you still think he's being treated unfairly read the Grand Jury Testimony for the explicit details of how he drugged and raped a child. Best of luck defending him after that. (Also: I just realized, in '70s, Polanski, looks like Rob Blagojevich.)


And last but not least: All hail William T. Vollmann! Ladies and gentleman, we have a real artist in our presence. Remember when that Nobel Judge said a few years ago that an American writer would never win now because American writers are so self-centered,
disinterested, etc? He's obviously not paying attention. I read Riding Towards Everywhere (a road adventure/national memoir), then Poor People (part repudiation of James Agee's And Now Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, part moral examination of the concepts of wealth and poverty (but I mean, really, aren't they inseparable?) I'm currently reading through IMPERIAL. It's a huge, mad, slow book but it's totally worth it. The end of part one when he imagines what IMPERIAL would be like if written by Flaubert or Steinbeck or an American border guard is absurdly hilarious. What other contemporary American writer even comes close to this guy's imagination/output/scholarly attention to detail? Give him the Nobel!

1 comment:

Tom Degan said...

The moon - that nocturnal inspiration to poets and lovers for centuries - was viciously attacked yesterday morning at 7:31 EST by Muslim terrorist Barack HUSSEIN Obama and his co-conspirators within THE GOVERNMENT.

A clear message has been sent by this radical jihadist to good and decent people everywhere. There is no room for misinterpretation: if they can target the moon - THE MOON! - in such a ghastly and unprovoked matter, it proves - conclusively - that Main Street is not safe. All of us are vulnerable to their insidious wickedness and villainy. Our children must be protected from the radical, hideous agenda of this man and his vile administration. Mark my words, my fellow Americans - today the moon, tomorrow Anytown, USA. OH, THE HUMANITY!

Where will it all end? What sinister plans does he have in store for Christendom? Don't say you weren't warned, America! Don't you dare say you weren't given ample notice of this Kenyan-born extremist's evil intentions for us. I can see it now: Death Panels! Communist Medicine! An abortion clinic in every public school! Generations of innocent American schoolchildren forced to memorize entire paragraphs of the autobiography of Malcolm X! I have seen the future, my friends. It is bleak. Very very bleak.

But seriously folks....

http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com

Tom Degan
Goshen, NY