Post Racial Pipe Dream

Arrested development -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
After reviewing the entire brouhaha of Harvard professor Henry Gates (a black man and highly regarded expert on race relations in America) I have to say that I was amazed. He was arrested “breaking in” to his own home when the front door became stuck. He was arrested by a white Cambridge police officer, Sergeant James Crowley for disorderly conduct. It seems that the men’s encounter at the front door escalated into a heated verbal dispute when Gates assumed that the questioning was racially based. Crowley asked for Gates’ ID and Gates replied, “Why, because I’m black?”

From here things degenerated into name-calling and challenges -- “What’s your name and badge number young man? ”. Not only did Crowley not comply with the request, he brought Gates in for a disorderly conduct arrest (charges since dropped since the story went global). The story was simmering down until Obama’s health care news conference late last week. The news conference went well and Obama was about to leave the stage. A reporter asked a highly combustible question about the Henry Gates affair. Obama responded that he thought the Cambridge police had responded “rather stupidly” and the whole issue reignited with supernova strength. American police groups demanded an apology while Gates himself mulled over a lawsuit.

Here’s what blogSpotter makes of it… Both men seriously overreacted. When Henry Gates was asked for I.D., his first reaction should have been as a citizen not as a black man. (I know, easier said than done). “I’m sorry you were called out for this. That was me and a cab driver unsticking my door. Here‘s my license with my address”. Gates eventually did produce the license but not before scorching verbal invectives against the young white man. Men being men, the testosterone plays a factor (on both sides of this equation). Police are supposed to roll with a certain amount of verbal taunting but apparently Crowley couldn’t roll with it.

This is where I think Obama was right. When it was obvious that Gates, a slight older man who walks with a cane, was the resident of the house that should have been the end of it. Either of these men could have defused the situation with a measure of politesse and common sense. I, an Anglo man, recently set off my home alarm. I was listening to my iPod on high volume when I walked in and neglected to notice I’d triggered the security alarm (and accompanying high pitch beeps). My alarm service summoned the police and they were there in 5 minutes. I yanked the door open and nearly gave the investigating policeman a heart attack -- he thought maybe I was Freddy Kruger with my aggressive (but friendly) door answering. I was nice and assured him I was the owner -- most burglars wouldn’t open a front door or dawdle for a conversation.

Would the Gates arrest have happened if any other color combination was involved? Probably not. Obama decided to put the controversy to rest by speaking to both men. It should be noted he did not apologize to Crowley -- none was required. Instead, Obama described the incident as a “teachable moment” and invited both men to commiserate together with him at the White House. Some people have prematurely described America as “post racial” (even before Obama was elected). America is still a racial stewpot and sometimes it reaches the boiling point. When that happens, we need to set it back to simmer and make sure the seasonings are agreeable.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Illuminating Cinema

Commencing a Rigid Search -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Let me preface this blog, as I did recently, by saying that I’m behind on my blog-writing. My stepfather passed away from a very aggressive brain cancer last month, so we had to deal with funeral details and all the sadness of that. Now I’m dealing with associated ‘family issues’ of relatives who’ve presumed to move in (already) with my recently bereaved Mother. Family is such fun. But enough of my personal travails… on with the blog!

EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED

Jonathan Foer is the extremely gifted, young novelist who penned the novel, Everything is Illuminated. He took a creative writing class from Joyce Carol Oates, who told Jonathan that he has the gift of energy. That he does, because the 2006 movie based on his novel is full of comic charm and energy. Illuminated is a fictional story, loosely based on the novelist himself -- the title character has the same name, Jonathan, and is played to obsessive-compulsive, deadpan perfection by Elijah Wood. Jonathan is a young Jewish American writer on a quest in the Ukraine -- a quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather from Nazi annihilation in WWII. He hires the elderly, anti-Semitic Ukrainian Alex and his young adult grandson, also named Alex to take him to the village Trachimbrod where the atrocities took place. The younger Alex serves as the English translator, hilariously so -- with his fractured and misapplied idioms.

They travel through the scenic countryside in a tiny blue East German Trabant station wagon. They’re accompanied by the boarder collie (and “seeing eye bitch”) Sammy Davis Junior. The elder Alex is a Sammy Davis Junior fan and the young Alex is a break dancing, womanizing Michael Jackson fan. (He is frequently “carnal” with the ladies). The young Alex reminds me a little bit of the “Wild and Crazy Guys” done by Steve Martin and Dan Ackroyd on SNL, albeit with more color and dimension than the SNL actors.

The movie takes a sad, weird, quizzical change in tone when they finally reach Trachinbrod. The village is now simply a farmhouse surrounded by sunflowers -- it was essentially wiped out by the Nazis. The elderly woman living in the house is the last survivor and conveys some vital information (and corrections) to Jonathan’s understanding of things… His grandfather was never rescued, he’d already debarked to America. (Spoiler Alert) … The elder Alex recognizes the old woman as one who saw him crawl out of a pile of dead bodies. He is in truth a Jew (in denial of his Judaism) who was only wounded and then feigned death. He lived out his remaining life pretending to be Christian, long after the war.

The movie has a shocking (and not quite logical) ending where the elder Alex commits suicide by slitting his wrists in a bathtub. Apparently he has too much internal strife over his denial of his birth identity. Illuminated also uses extreme literary license to have such a coincidence -- that the man Jonathan hires as his driver happens to be complicit in what happened those many years ago in that remote village of 1,000 people. Movies frequently have such plot gimmicks, although if you’re willing to play along you might get a good cinematic payload. Everything is Illuminated is one of those movies -- the Ukrainian (actually Czech) countryside, the music and cinematography, and the gentle cultural interplay between genial Alex and uptight Jonathan make for an enriching experience.

Elijah Wood received top billing in this movie and he was very good. East European Eugene Hutz plays young Alex -- the jocular translator and tour guide. His compassion, humanity, energy and good spirits really carry the movie to its height. No matter the order of the billing, Everything is Illuminated is an excellent movie -- rent it now or see it on Apple TV’s summer selections like I did.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Bruno Sets Us Free

More famous than Hitler? -- Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

by blogSpotter
Last weekend, I decided to throw caution to the wind and go see Bruno -- the documentary-comedy featuring Sacha Baron Cohen in the title role. He plays an over-the-top, gay Austrian fashionista who seeks fortune and fame however he may come by it. To some extent, his character is a standing satire of superficial celebrity personae like Paris Hilton and her wag namesake Perez Hilton. Bruno is a pompous, preening self-absorbed drama queen seeking to inject his face wherever he can. The most biting satire is when this ridiculous person interacts with the denizens of Alabama and Arkansas. However silly Bruno might be, he has a right to existence and self-expression -- rights that the USMC, Exodus and Lebanese terrorists would just as soon revoke.

Cohen isn’t even gay in reality but is willing to submit himself to all the humiliations an openly gay man might experience in dealing with “heterodoxy”. I won’t do a tedious play-by-play of the whole movie, but will hit some of the highlights. Bruno entraps 2008 candidate Ron Paul for a faux interview. He puts the moves on Paul, who runs from the room in terror …”That man’s a queer!”. Bruno enlists in the Army, and reports for duty in a standard issue uniform accessorized with Dolce and Gabana. Two butch drill sergeants are no match for Bruno’s fashion sense. He joins on Exodus (gay conversion group) in Alabama only to tell the minister in charge that he has beautiful BJ lips.

Other encounters are with a karate instructor, a group of deer hunters, a straight dominatrix and straight swinger’s club. He also tries to broker peace in the Middle East (not kidding) and tries to get himself kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. Through all of this, he is met with gape-jawed outrage from the straight people with whom he interacts. In truth, some of the people figure he’s crazy and show the same type of apprehension you might have for an escapee from Belleview Hospital. I think the straight people end up looking just about as silly as Bruno in the end.

I’ve left out big chunks of plot and dialog but suffice it to say, the movie is an eyeful. It ends with Bruno in a cage fight where he and his opponent engage in a make-out session instead of a fight. The audience (a sea of Arkansas mullets and tank tops) roars in fury but can’t rush past the chain-link fenced stage. I myself envision a future world like the downtown San Francisco I saw a few years ago. People wear costumes all year long -- it doesn’t have to be Halloween. Bruno would almost be conservative by their standards. Our day will come … and Sacha Baron Cohen helps to make it so obvious how much better a place it is when overbleached drama queens lead us to love, not war and hatefulness.

© 2009 blogSpotter

Fallon by the Gallon

Fallon being Fallon -- Picture courtesy of NBC

by blogSpotter
Let me preface this by acknowledging I’m behind on my blogs. My wonderful stepdad succumbed to cancer July 3rd last week, and I’ve been in Round Rock helping deal with funeral details this week. John Latchford was a man who loved life and lived large. He will be missed by all of us; his comparatively quick, unexpected passing makes me realize how precious each day really is. That said, let’s proceed with a review of a surprisingly good show…

LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON

Let me say, when I saw that Jimmy Fallon was replacing Conan on NBC’s Late Night, I was perplexed. My only impression of Fallon was his stint on Saturday Night Live, where he played mostly dopy, juvenile, silly roles. He didn’t seem to have the gravitas or tenacity to be helming a 5-day-a-week talk show that involves a constant flow of comedy monologs, celebrity interviews and skits. In my mind, he didn’t seem to have enough material, substance or talent to come through on it. Mind you, I like him jut fine as a sketch comedian on SNL but could not see him in such a substantive role.

Now, I must confess that I couldn’t be more wrong. His monologs are halting and nerdy in their delivery but somehow deadly hilarious in their content. You don’t hear belly laughs or guffaws from the audience but more like a wave of gentle chuckles. The audience genuinely appreciates the jokes but the reaction is sometimes as low-key as the laid-back delivery. Fallon does a lot of celebrity impressions and he’s also very effective in the comedy sketches. They do a soap takeoff called “7th Floor West” which makes me laugh my a** off. His acting style varies between semi-serious or campy as the skit may require.

Fallon’s show has a lot of youthful (Gen X?) appeal … there are gratuitous sex ploys like “Lick it for $10” where audience members are paid $10 to lick something (inanimate but nevertheless suggestive like a mirror). They also do guest web surfing where each guest is furnished a Mac Book and they all surf to a particularly interesting web site. More that might appeal to the college crowd -- little-known iPhone apps. Fallon was actually a computer science major prior to his comedy career, so his technical savvy is impressive for a late night comedian.

What else might you come across on this fun night cap of a show? How about Obama facial expressions where the Prez is caught giving a sneer or an evil eye. There are also “conceptual” gags similar to what Conan did in the same time slot -- shared audience experiences where everyone eats an Atomic Sour ball at the same time. One of the best things he did recently was the Fallon Dance Contest where people could send in video clips of original, improvised dance routines (done to a jazzy “Fallon Dance” tune). The submissions were hilarious; the two winning high school boys got to come on the how and show Jimmy how it’s done.

Am I still perplexed about Jimmy Fallon? You bet …. I’m perplexed that I didn’t have adequate appreciation for his comedy acumen and interviewing ability. He has surprising historical and pop culture awareness for such a young man... Sometimes a new dog does new comedy tricks, and this old dog has to admit that Jimmy Fallon is funny as hell.

© 2009 blogSpotter