Friday, May 31, 2013

WE'RE ALL MENTAL NOW

Critics are crazy over it.
All you book-lovers will be happy to hear that the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has just hit the market. Every nutty action known to Man is listed, along with -- and this is important -- those covered by insurance. So anybody trying to scam the system has to shell out 140 bucks ($123.49 on Amazon) to find out which symptoms to fake.

The cool thing now is you no longer have to go to the trouble of pretending you're infested with parasites (Ekbom's syndrome), appearing to have involuntary repetitive body movements (tardive dyskinesia) or displaying a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention-seeking (histrionic personality disorder, which fortunately comes to me quite naturally). 


Forget about insurance -- I'm not
sure a forklift could pick this up.
Nope, one of the new mental disorders is caffeine withdrawal. And you thought you were just grumpy! Now when you blow up at your boss, instead of getting fired you can put it down to a diagnosed case of julius recessus (that's Latin, so it sounds more medical). If this is covered by Cigna, then it appears that all you need is a doctor's prescription for a lifetime of free Trenta Cafe Verona at Starbucks. Those disgusting-looking Raspberry Swirl Pound Cakes, however, will not be picked up by your carrier. Of course, you easily avoid withdrawal in the first place by not quitting coffee in the first place.

Other new mental illnesses include hoarding and extreme temper tantrums. My mother had an excellent cure for my hoarding habit. She simply threw out my collections of Three Stooges trading cards, Mad magazines and those little Untouchables comic books that were handed out free at the shoe store. (Florsheim and gangsters -- they just go together.) As for tantrums, well, she just threatened to "throttle" me. These treatments are all pretty easy to figure out, but by doing so, we deprive both the psychiatric industry and reality-show producers of new, money-making clients. 

My wife and daughter would say I suffer from yet another of the new diagnoses, binge eating. Not only do I eat everything on my plate, I scarf down whatever they leave on theirs, often whether they're finished or not. If you've tried my many wonderful meals, however, you would know that's not crazy, it's perfectly understandable. Last December we hosted an exchange student from Japan who was so taken by the hamburger I made for her, she took a picture of it. I'm sure I ate what was left. I hope she was finished.

Warning to all future fathers:
this is the kind to buy.

Since these quacks are scrounging the bottom of the barrel when it comes to mental problems, I'd like to throw in a couple more for the DSM's sixth edition. Just from what I've witnessed, my first choice would be Pre-Natal Hysteria. My wife had the usual cravings while pregnant, but God help me if I didn't fulfill her dietary wishes to the last calorie. I'm thinking of the time I brought home milk chocolate Dove Bars instead of dark chocolate as she requested. You've heard that old saw about hell's fury and a woman scorned? Try a pregnant woman scorned of her cocoa solids. Let me tell you, I never made that mistake again. I like living too much.


Wouldn't you just love to see her
get flattened by a dump truck?


Then there's iPhonia. That's a condition unique to idiots who walk the crowded streets of New York with their heads down, reading the texts on their smartphones, oblivious to those around them. It's a curious mixture of angst (stemming from the fear of waiting 10 seconds to read their vital communiques), ego (not acknowledging that their are over 1,600,000 other people on this island) and stupidity (reasons self-evident). They're like blind drivers going the wrong way against traffic -- everyone around them has to compensate for the dolts causing all the trouble. And if the sidewalk's so crowded that  you wind up bumping into them, it's Pre-Natal Hysteria times 10. Because, you know, it's your fault for not making way for them.

And this is just the beginning. After all, we live in world that includes blood-thirsty terrorists, power-mad dictators and two TV series devoted to celebrity high-diving. Hell, I live in a city where, as of this week, 19% of the population would elect Anthony Weiner as its Mayor. Earth is one big mental disorder. The only logical reaction is to start smoking marijuana. But if The Man takes away your stash, you're going to suffer marijuana withdrawal -- which is one of the new mental disorders in DSM. 

As for the concept of "Mayor Weiner" -- that's a disorder in itself.

                                                        ****************

Thursday, May 30, 2013

OFFICIAL WHITE HOUSE TRANSCRIPT


 
For Immediate Release  
May 30, 2013                                                              

  
                    REMARKS TO THE PRESS BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA 
                                         REGARDING  DRONE STRIKE POLICY
                                                                    

                                                     South Lawn

8:46 A.M. EDT 

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good afternoon, thank you for coming. After my remarks, I'll take one or two of your questions.

I realize there's been a lot of controversy regarding U.S. policy on drone strikes against American citizens. Let me be clear, I do not take these strikes lightly, nor do I want to want to minimize the collateral damage that may come with them. Still, we have to realize there are Americans actively working against our best interests. These folks need to be dealt with, even on our own territory and when our safety and security are not necessarily at stake, because some people are just asking for it. After consulting with the Pentagon, I've drawn up a list of potential targets.

First, we've got our sites on drivers who turn on their blinker even though they're not going to make a turn. This is one of the most annoying things you can do on our roads outside of driving 55 in the fast lane. Don't you fools hear that "dink-dink-dink" sound the blinker makes? We see your blinker going and we're afraid to change lanes because you might sideswipe us. Let me be clear to all guilty drivers: if you don't turn off the blinker, we'll make sure your next exit will be your last.

Something I remember from living in New York were people who liked to sing while walking down the street. Now I'm not talking about when you just hum to yourself on a sunny day. No, these knuckleheads sing out loud like they're at Carnegie Hall, like we've paid to hear them. Sometimes they sing opera. Really, just burst into Rigoletto or something. And they'll do it in the middle of the night, waking up the neighborhood. Well, I'm here to warn all you budding Pavarottis, if you want to sing, that's what the shower is for. You step outside your door thinking the whole world's American Idol, you're getting voted off permanently.

Something I've heard many complaints about are grocery store cash registers that don't recognize the barcode. So the cashier calls for the manager or tells the kid who bags the groceries to go to the shelf and find out what the price is. And you know they never have all the checkout lanes open, so the line just keeps getting longer while you wait for the price. Now let me be clear: I don't do the shopping, but I know people who do, and they are sick of it. This is the 21st-century, people! We've computer chips running the space station, but a scanner can't read a code for a six-pack of Yuengling? That's crazy. It's a waste of time and our precious resources. You store managers better start fixing the cash registers now or you're going to ring up a permanent "No Sale."

And speaking of food, I don't know if you've noticed, but my friend Chris Christie has been shedding the pounds lately. Michelle likes that. And when mom's happy, everybody's happy. So let me be clear: anyone on the Atlantic City boardwalk gives my man Chris a slice with everything, you're getting sliced. 

Some more folks we're putting on warning are those on the next jury deciding the penalty of Jodi Arias. After that nightmare of a trial, you're telling me the first one couldn't come up with a punishment? And the new jury is going to have to hear all the evidence again? Let me be clear: I'm sure I speak on behalf of all Americans when I say, we have had it with this happy horseshit.  This time, just throw her in the can or fry her, one or the other, we don't care. Just make a goddamn decision, or else that's going to be the last jury notice you ever get.

Thank you. I'll take your questions.

REPORTER: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Jim Rosen, Fox News. Do you plan any drone strikes on report--

SUDDEN EXPLOSION WHERE REPORTER WAS SITTING.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's all for today, thanks again for coming.

END
8:55 A.M.

                                                    *******************

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

MOVIE OF THE DAY: "SCARED TO DEATH" (1947)



My first viewing of Scared to Death circa 1987 proved to be a three-evening ordeal, having fallen asleep roughly every 20 minutes of its 67-minute running time. It might as well have been called Bored to Death.


Recently I gave it another shot. And again, I kept getting the 20-minute itch. The first time, I got up to slice a grapefruit. Twenty minutes later, I prepared a salad. So I suppose the second time 'round was something of a success in that I stayed awake and ate healthy foods.

Scared to Death has a certain cachet among Bela Lugosi aficionados, being his only lead role in a color production. Hardcore fans hold it in high regard for its allegedly surreal atmosphere --  surreal apparently meaning "sounds like they're making it up as go along." (Best line in the movie: the coroner looks at the corpse on the gurney and asks, "Is this the body?" Please let this not be the guy who has to cut me open.)

Molly Lamont's most realistic
moment in the movie.
It certainly has a strange framing device, being narrated by the corpse of a woman named Laura Van Ee. (The writers were probably weren't paid enough to come up with a longer surname.) We see in flashbacks that Laura was unhappily married to Roland Van Ee, with whom they share a house along with his father Dr. Joseph Van Ee, their maid Lilybeth and their dumb-as-a-sack-of-pliers security guard Bill Raymond.  

Laura believes Roland and Joseph are trying to drive her crazy, while Lilybeth spends most of her waking hours fending off Bill's amorous advances. It never occurs to anybody that they could leave at any time; instead, they all stick around to drive each other crazy. Psychiatrists have a word for this: Family.

"Hands up! Or the little guy bites you on the
ankle!"
Soon this happy home has a couple of visitors, Prof. Leonide and his dwarf sidekick Indigo. Leonide used to be patient there when the house was a mental hospital run by Dr. Van Ee, who is also his cousin. (Remember what I said about "family"?) About five minutes after their arrival, strange things start happening. A green mask appears in the windows. A decapitated head arrives in the mail for Laura. (FedEx doesn't accept body parts.) Someone knocks out Dr. Van Ee in the middle of a phone call to the police. And no one, least of all the private dick, considers even questioning Leonide and the dwarf. (Suggestion to all aspiring musicians: Leonide & The Dwarf would make a great name for a band.)

"Hey, lady, mind if I insult you, too?"

As if there weren't enough people in this madhouse, cynical reporter Terry Lee and his fiance Jane Cornell drop by to check things out. That's the way things are in this town: call a cop, you get a reporter and his girlfriend instead. The next 20 minutes are taken up by Terry insulting his fiance and the security guard. (One of the great losses in movies is the concept of low-wattage women who put up with their emotionally abusive boyfriends.) 

For no other reason that the running time is approaching its end, Laura is hypnotized by a voice from God knows where. During her trance, we learn that a few years earlier Laura sold out her husband Rene to the Nazis when they were living in Paris. Rene, thought to have been executed, has instead returned to successfully (drum-roll, please) scare her to death. That he does it while disguised a woman is scary in itself.

Let me know if this prop ever comes up
at auction.


As you've probably gathered, if you're looking for any kind of sense in
Scared to Death, you're watching the wrong movie. Laura claims to be held captive by Roland and Joseph yet refuses to consider a divorce. Terry is engaged to Jane even while openly contemptuous of her. Indigo is deaf yet is briefly seen "overhearing" a conversation. Laura's from-beyond narration "remembers" incidents that didn't happen to her. That narration device is so abrupt and arbitrary -- we return to her corpse several times while the same spooky "Ooh-OOH-ooh" accompanies her voice -- that it seems less an artistic choice and more of a way to cover for scenes that were lost in the editing room. 

 

I defy anyone to come up with a plausible
explanation of what's going on here.


Then there's the look of the movie. The sets (both of them) are like something out of a dream. Not that this was necessarily a deliberate choice on the part of the art director. No, it's the movie having been shot in glorious Cinecolor (Cinecolor being to Technicolor what Blue Bonnet Margarine is to French farmhouse butter). The not-quite true to life flesh tones make the cast look like a Madame Tussaud's exhibit come to life, while the mysterious floating green mask looks blue. Blue and brown, in fact, are Scared to Death's primary color scheme. I'm sure one of the Cahiers du Cinema snobs could read something into that, but don't believe him. Anything that interesting in Scared to Death is strictly accidental. 


Had Hal Roach decided to branch out into genres other than comedy, Scared to Death would have been one of his dandy 45-minute Streamliners. Instead, its running time is padded out to over an hour by dreadful comic relief in the form of Nat Pendleton as the detective, who gets more screentime than the nominal leads Bela Lugosi (as Leonide) and George Zucco (as Dr. Joseph Van Ee).


Usually a welcome presence in B-movies, Pendleton here is merely aggravating, whether making a play for Lilybeth or trying to figure out basic grammar. That his character is an ex-cop trying to work his way back into his old job in the homicide division is a prospect more frightening than anything else in the movie.


"You can trust me. I enunciate clearly."
Not that Scared to Death is a total washout. Bela Lugosi and George Zucco are both in their usual fine form. Zucco in particular appears to be taking these shenanigans quite seriously; you have to wonder if a better-than-average actor like him got stuck mainly in B-movies for most of his career simply because he enjoyed them. He's the cinematic brother of Lionel Atwill -- suave, well-spoken, adept at playing heroes or villains, seemingly sophisticated yet appearing mainly in films where a strong breeze could bring down the set.

Lugosi waits until she's knocked out
before putting up his dukes.


And speaking of actors stuck in B's, there's Bela. For reasons unexplained, Lugosi is dressed like a Southern Colonel in mourning. Maybe it's what all the Hungarian professors in 1947 were wearing. As his fans can expect, Lugosi brings usual panache to the silly proceedings. You can't help appreciate that no matter how substandard the script he was given, Bela always played it like it was a collaboration of Shakespeare, Ibsen and Chekhov. People make fun of him -- I've been known to do it, alas -- but the guy was a pro, giving 100% when lesser actors would have just walked through it and cashed their check.


 

Do you know how difficult it is to light
a scene like this?


It must be noted that Lugosi and Angelo Rossitto (as Indigo) -- 6'1" and 2'11" respectively -- definitely make a striking pair. Rossitto's character really has nothing to do other than scurry around, kick people in the shins and hide behind furniture. He's there just because he's a dwarf, looking a good 12 inches shorter than his actual height. Aside from Indigo, Rossitto's other credited roles include Dwarf in Pool Hall, Mute Dwarf, Dwarf Devil and, in a welcome change, Impaled Pygmy.  And talk about an interesting career -- Rossitto's the only actor to have appeared in Freaks and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Respect must be paid.

No doubt, there is much in Scared to Death that is slightly off, occasionally in a good way. Nineteen forty-seven being an uneventful year for the horror genre, between the Frankenstein/Dracula/ Wolfman era and the radioactive insects of the 1950s, perhaps its creators were trying to go down a slightly different path. The genuinely startling appearance of the head in a package certainly provides a hint of what was to come in later years. Yet the very presence of Bela Lugosi and George Zucco provides an anchor to a time that had already vanished. Scared to Death might be considered both a curtain call of one genre and a peek into the future of "shock" movies like Psycho and its brethren. If only it didn't drive me out of my chair or consciousness every 20 minutes.



                                                                           *************

Monday, May 20, 2013

YOURS, MINE AND OURS

Mika works on her patented sneer
while Joe feels the effects of the
caffeine in his Venti Frappucino.
If you're a regular viewer of Morning Joe, you can count on certain things, like Joe Scarborough name-checking bands from his youth, or Mika Brzezinski endlessly plugging her latest book, Obsessed. (What she really seems obsessed about is making sure the cover is on every bumper going into commercials.) These are part and parcel of the Morning Joe shtick, the news version of running gags used by comedians long gone. To separate them from the program would be like New York without the bike-riding delivery guys ignoring all accepted rules of the road. Not only are they impossible to avoid, the experience just wouldn't be the same without them.
    She's got the whole world's kids
    in her hands.
    But then there are the self-righteous MSNBC promos telling us that what's good for Lawrence O'Donnell is good for America. When those appear, I tend to flip to the CBS morning news to see if Charlie Rose is still alive. This morning, though, I was too busy handling an especially hot cup of coffee to pick up the remote, and thus got to see MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry admonish me about how I'm under the mistaken belief that my daughter belongs to me when, in reality, she's owned by the community.
    Now you tell me! For the last 17 years, my wife and I have been shelling out good money caring and feeding our child when we could have been hitting up the neighbors. Man, where was this chick in 1996 when my wife gave birth? We could've saved ourselves a bundle, not to mention catching up on our sleep during the early years. 'Scuse me, neighbor, can you take the kid tonight? Just walk her around for a couple of hours when she she does her usual 2:00AM wake-up routine. That usually works.

    Now that Daughter is rounding third base in her high school years, we're facing the dilemma of choosing the college we can afford or the one she really wants to attend. And unless we hit the lottery (that 13 bucks I won a couple of weeks ago won't do much, tuition-wise), I think we know which will triumph. So I guess it's time for me to go knocking on the community doors asking for a contribution to The Ol' Fish-Eye College Fund. And when they ask me what the hell I think I'm doing, I'll just tell them, "Melissa sent me."


    And as long as the kid is still legally in my care -- excuse me, our care, neighbors! -- I've got a laundry list of things I could use some help with. Like, well, the laundry. Dirty clothes from three people can literally pile up pretty quickly. Frankly, it's a drag going out in public to reach our laundry room two doors down in our co-op when our hamper starts vomiting up dirty clothes. If anyone can give a hand, I'd surely be grateful. Just shake out my wife's blouses before putting them in the dryer.

    Then there's making sure Daughter comes home on time when she's been out for the evening with her friends. Usually, she arrives within ten minutes of the appointed hour, so we don't have much to complain about. But there was that night when she still hadn't arrived almost 90 minutes after her 12:30 ETA and she wasn't picking up her calls. I did what any father would've done -- gotten dressed and went outside. Don't ask me why; it just seemed to be a good idea at the time. And it was, because there was my darling daughter making out with some guy taller than me just a few feet from our front door. It would have been nice if someone from my community had been the one to wake the neighbors with screaming instead of me. My voice is still sore.

    Oh, and let's not forget Daughter's hygiene. Not that there's anything wrong with it -- in fact, it's too good. For when she makes her evening announcement, "I'm going to take a shower," my wife and I have learned to rush in there (separately) to do whatever it is we have to do, chop-chop. Because we know that's the last chance we're going to have before bedtime. If anyone in the Yorkville district of the Upper East Side could free up their bathroom for a couple of hours without notice, you'd be doing us a solid.

    And while we're on the subject of bathrooms -- and, frankly, there's no delicate way of putting this -- I've got two females here, and they go through toilet paper like the Kennedys do liquor. Buddy, can you spare a roll? 


    There are more parental duties I could list, but you get the drift. I'd ask Melissa Harris-Perry to help out but she and her family live in New Orleans. However, she commutes to New York for her weekend show, so maybe I can catch her then. Practice your screaming-in-public-in-the-middle-of-the night technique, Melissa, and you've got the job. Just bring your own toilet paper.

                                                         *************

    Friday, May 17, 2013

    MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE TWONKY" (1951)


    Remembered by only the buffest of old-time radio buffs, Arch Oboler was one of the medium's most famous writer/directors. His most popular series, Lights Out!, presented atmospheric horror, while Arch Oboler's Plays was fantasy with a social conscience.  Oboler's style -- which might be described as heightened reality, the way regular people would talk if they had a good writer giving them pointers -- and the programs themselves were  undoubtedly a prime influence on Rod Serling's Twilight Zone many years later.

    Oboler made the occasional foray into movies during this time (including the previously-discussed Gangway for Tomorrow) bouncing back and forth from film noir to anti-fascist dramas. In 1951, perhaps intrigued by the then-burgeoning television industry, he wrote and directed The Twonky, a low-budget sci-fi picture that over 60 years later remains a fascinating misfire.

    The Twonky tells the story Professor Kerry West dealing with the new television that his wife has given him. Without even being plugged in, the TV starts quite literally taking over West's life. Giving the concept of "portable TV" a rather ominous twist, it even follows him around the house to keep an eye on what he's up to. Cops, colleagues and varsity football players who try to destroy the cathode-ray monster are knocked unconscious, only to awaken in a hypnotic trance babbling, "I have no complaints... I have no complaints... I have no complaints" like your average couch potato parked in front of a 50-inch 3D HDTV with his pretzels and Pabst.

    That The Twonky is an allegory of the power of the television is as obvious as the nose on the face of Hans Conried, who plays Prof. West. But its real accomplishment is predicting both the 21st-century nanny state and the dumbing down of America with eerie accuracy.

    For it's not enough that the TV insists on doing everything for West -- it does what it believes best for him, like replacing classical music with military marches or helping him play solitaire. By way of explanation, the talking TV identifies itself (in the typical take-me-to-your-leader patois) as a representative of the Bureau of Entertainment, which sounds like something straight out of 1984 -- or 2013.

    Having taken charge of West's leisure time, the TV eventually prevents him from thinking for himself, going so far as to change his class lecture topic from "Individualism as the Basis of Great Art" to "Passion Through History."  And when its tyrannical behavior eventually drives West to drink, the TV zaps him back to sobriety. "I may be wrong," West screams in retaliation, "but it's my kind of wrong. It's my God-given right to be wrong!" That notion probably seems shocking to anyone growing up these days. In fact, if The Twonky were a new release, the TV would destroy West's cigarette rather than lighting it as it does here. 


    "Twonky," by the way, is simply a slang dreamed up by one of West's colleagues, Coach Trout, for something inexplicable. Trout eventually comes to the conclusion that the TV is a robot from the future that fell through a time portal. Having landed in 1951 Los Angeles, the robot took the form of something that would help it blend in. The robot, he believes, was constructed to regulate every thought according to the dictates of the superstate -- a rather heavy idea for a movie many people probably blew off as being one step above a kiddie matinee.

    A television wandering around the house sounds a little stupid -- OK, very stupid -- but it's pretty creepy here, despite (or because) of the rather humble special effects. That's not some Pixar creation walking into the kitchen or up the stairs; it's a real -- make that phony real -- Admiral TV.

    Some years later, a Twilight Zone episode worthy of a horror movie featured a similar concept concerning a gambling addict and a slot machine. But here, the scare factor is undercut by a bassoon & flute-heavy score reminding us It's only a joke, folks. Someone more tech-savvy than me should post a remix The Twonky with Bernard Herrmann's music from Citizen Kane and Vertigo. It could be the stuff of nightmares. 

    But even that wouldn't do anything to improve the dialogue or direction. Oboler made the unfortunate decision of wrapping The Twonky's spooky package with a whimsical ribbon, undercutting whatever message he might have tried to get across. Whimsy was the bete-noir of Oboler's unofficial protege Rod Serling as well, as demonstrated by the atrocious Twilight Zone episodes starring Carol Burnett and Buster Keaton respectively. (You haven't lived 'til you've heard a laugh track on The Twilight Zone. Nor do you want to.)


    The Twonky's cast does what it can with the material provided. Hans Conried's name is often preceded by "the great" for a reason. A solid character in movies, radio and TV for six decades. Endless voice-over work in cartoons. A face and delivery you recognize immediately. Known mostly for comedic roles, Conried could have made his Prof. West  a compelling dramatic part had he been allowed. As it is, his reaction to the crushing of his independence is still quite moving at times. His plaintive cry, "Why is it when a man tells the truth, he's accused of drinking?", could have been just a comedic line in other hands. When delivered by Conried, it becomes the apotheosis of the sane human in a world gone mad. Yes, this is the great Hans Conried.

    No one else in The Twonky comes with 100 TV antennae of Conried, although Billy Lynn, as Trout, is certainly something. It's difficult to say if he was the most subversively subtle character actor of his time or the brother-in-law of the casting director (he has only a handful of credited roles). What's not up for debate is that Lynn has the worst teeth in movie history outside of Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera.  

    The Twonky went unreleased for two years after its 1951 production. It could very well be due to its overall shabbiness.  Much of the audio sounds like it's emanating from a cave, thanks to the indoor-location shooting. The static direction and cinematography is what you would have found on syndicated sitcoms of the time. What is definite is that The Twonky's promotion was piggybacked onto Arch Oboler's Bwana Devil, the movie that started the original 3D craze in 1952.

    As anyone who's seen Carnival of Souls or The Honeymoon Killers can attest, a movie's low budget can actually create a genuinely disconcerting ambiance. No, what ultimately works against The Twonky is, ironically, what its evil TV is a proponent of: not trusting people to think for themselves. Had Oboler gone the dramatic fantasy route of his great radio plays, The Twonky could have been one of the most interesting, unnerving low-budget sci-fi movies of the '50s. The taglines on the poster promise much and, occasionally, glimpses of greatness are seen. By the end, though, the film pulls its punches, settling for comedy rather than the serious, even prophetic ideas it lays out. But what can you expect from a movie called The Twonky anyway? 

    It wouldn't surprise me if a seven year-old Steven Spielberg saw The Twonky at his local movie house one Saturday afternoon. In 1971, his first feature, the made-for-TV movie Duel, was about a monstrous truck... that seems to have a life of its own. There isn't one second of humor in its running time. So successful was Duel, Universal Pictures released it theatrically in Europe. Let this be a lesson to moviemakers everywhere: When inanimate things come to life, it's scary.

     
                                                           
                                                              ***********


     

    Tuesday, May 14, 2013

    WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP: SCANDAL EDITION

    As scandals continue to swirl around the Obama administration, Republicans are increasingly optimistic for what the 2016 presidential election holds for them.

    "It's like a gift from the president," said GOP spokesman Brad Lanes. "First stonewalling on Benghazi. Then the IRS targeting conservative groups. And now the Justice Department scooping up reporters' phone records like a Dyson Upright. We're confident that even with all this misconduct, we're sure to screw up our chances in 2016."

    In a wide-ranging interview with reporters, Lanes said, "Look what happened in 2012. There was a pretty good chance that, with the right guy, we could've squeaked out a victory over Obama. Fortunately, we had about a dozen whackos at the debates just waiting to bring our party down in flames. Of course, Jon Huntsman almost ruined it by presenting a sane, intellectually sound point of view that runs counter to what we stand for. He was actually catching on with independents and even some disillusioned Democrats before we threw him under the bus." Lanes shook his head in disbelief. "The last thing we need is to broaden our popularity."

    "No, we need to keep certain people happy," he continued. "The Tea Party crowd, for instance. Whenever those crackpots march around like it's 1776 or something, we scare away a few more undecideds. Or the illiterates who think Obama's a socialist Muslim even when he's partying with Wall Street fatcats. The morons who'd vote for Donald Trump just because he's rich and on TV. Without them, we just might have a chance of looking semi-sane and, y'know, like winners. And that's not acceptable," Lanes added emphatically.

    Asked if radio show host/conspiracy theorist Alex Jones plays a part in the Republicans' attempt to appear further out of the mainstream, Lanes gave a thumbs-up. "Every time I hear Alex's lunatic ravings, I get a tingle up my leg," he chuckled. "The minute I heard about the Boston bombings, I thought, 'I can't wait to see how Alex spins this as an FBI false flag op.' And it took him all of, what, 20 minutes? Loved when he yelled at Piers Morgan's about 9/11 being an inside job and the CIA handing out murder/suicide pills so they could take our guns away. You can't buy that kind of notoriety the GOP thrives on." When reminded that Jones considers himself a libertarian rather than a Republican, Lanes shrugged. "Libertarian, shibertarian. He's a Republican. He just doesn't know it."

    "Think about it," Lanes said between sips of a 64-ounce Diet Coke. "Who's the most popular so-called 'Republican' in America now? Chris Christie. Seventy-eight per-cent approval rating. Governor in an overwhelmingly Democrat state. Outsiders think, 'Whoa, that's pretty good.'" Lanes shook his head. "No way. A Republican -- a real Republican -- wants to alienate the majority of the voters. And that includes non-whites, women and anyone who has even the slightest grasp of reality. Well, we're not going to let that happen."

    The only dark cloud on the horizon, Lanes admitted, was "this phone tapping business with the reporters. Up 'til now, the press was in the tank for Obama. But now that he's going after them, suddenly he's a bad guy. Even Mika  Brzezinski is angry at him -- and she's been wanting to have his baby for the last six years. That's a real problem. We've gotten a lot of mileage out of sayling 'lamestream media' and that Rachel Maddow looks like a man, and we'd hate to lose that advantage now. When we feel victimized, we know who we are."

    So does this mean the GOP will be forced to change tactics? "In the long run, I don't think so. As long as there are cynical bigmouths like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and the NRA ginning up the base, I'd say we've got a better than even chance of being seen as the party of halfwits for another generation or so. And if Chris Christie decides to run in '16" -- and here, Lanes held up his smartphone -- "I've got Newt on speed dial."

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    Sunday, May 12, 2013

    MOVIE OF THE DAY: "THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH" (1916)

    All a man needs is his pipe and hypodermic needle.
    The 3-reel comedy The Mystery of the Leaping Fish is the kind of movie that the word "bizarre" was created for.  Critically-reviled in its day and all but disowned by its star, Douglas Fairbanks, the short was rediscovered by a more welcoming audience during the early days of home video. Not so much for its quality, mind you, but its quantity. Like, in kilos. For this is the birth of drug humor in motion pictures.


    Every person in Hollywood today is wondering,
    How do I get my hands on that can?




    You think Cheech & Chong took a lighthearted approach to drugs? 
    They're like the Moscow Art Theater compared to Douglas Fairbanks, who, as detective Coke Ennyday, shoots up regularly as Jay Carney obfuscates. No other movie makes mainlining such a source of zany comedy. Ennyday's regular reaction to shooting up cocaine is to giggle like a madman, swing his arms wildly and dance a jittery two-step. Put him at the elbow of Liza Minnelli and he would've fit right in at Studio 54. 

    Ennyday, sporting a phony mustache which he turns upside down or removes depending on his mood, is hired by the Secret Service to investigate an unnamed "gentleman" living the good life without any visible means of support. If that's a crime, somebody call the cops on Anthony Weiner.

    And it's even better on toast with jam!
    Ennyday discovers his prey has been smuggling opium inside the Leaping Fish floatation devices rented at the beach. Always up for a new thrill, Ennyday decides to taste the opium, which appears to have the consistency of vintage Nutella. And instead of knocking him out as opium is wont to do, it sends him into a frenzy that lasts for the rest of the movie. Was nobody concerned with realism while making this movie?!

    Ennyday's sweetheart, whose job is inflating the Leaping Fish, is kidnapped by the smuggler and his Asian henchman. Tracing them to a Chinatown laundry, the detective subdues the smuggler with a hit of cocaine, which sends him literally flying to the ceiling. The cops arrive. Ennyday saves his sweetheart. Fade out.

    But wait! In the positively meta epilogue, we see Douglas Fairbanks (as himself) in the office of a movie producer, to whom he has just read the script for The Mystery of the Leaping Fish. The producer advises him to stick to acting. This was the last time anybody said no to a movie star. 

    Subtlety matched only by Kim Kardashian.
    You'll notice that nowhere in the preceding paragraphs did you find the word "funny." For The Mystery of the Leaping Fish doesn't evoke laughter as much as it does open-mouthed disbelief. It's not just the drug gags that make you shake your head. Ennyday's front door is set up with a closed-circuit camera connected to his television -- in 1916. He travels in an ostentatious check-print auto (to match his clothes) with his butler perched on the backseat blowing a horn. Cops literally drive around in circles at the climax. The whole movie seems to be an elaborate private joke concocted by Fairbanks and his pals over a few drinks. When you consider that the scriptwriter was Tod Browning -- who went on to direct Freaks -- it all starts to make sense. 

    Fairbanks' career was ascending at the time, so just why he thought playing a cocaine addict in a drug comedy was a good move is a mystery greater than that of the Leaping Fish. Perhaps this was one of those "personal" projects he had to "get out of his system" before going back to, you know, good movies.

    If I have my way, this will soon be a common sight
    at Coney Island.
    By the way, the Leaping Fish were a real craze in Los Angeles at the time, and ripe for reintroduction for swimmers today. (Memo to self: check on patent expiration date.) Ennyday makes them float faster, of course, by injecting them with cocaine, but I seriously doubt that would work in real life.

    As with many movies shot on location at the time, The Mystery of the Leaping Fish provides a fascinating look at how provincial a city Los Angeles was decades before freeways and the post-war population boom transformed it into a sprawling mass of houses and traffic. The brief exterior shot of L.A.'s Chinatown shows an area as dusty and unpaved as in the days of Jesse James. What was once simply just another comedy is today an artifact of a time and place that no longer exist.

    Some modern day viewers consider The Mystery of the Leaping Fish one of the most hilarious pictures they've ever seen. I've watched it a few times over the years and have laughed at two things: 
    1. Ennyday's telescope doubles as a hat. 
    2. Ennyday's sweetheart is identified only as The Little Fish Blower. 
    It's coke time.
    Neither of these are necessarily worthy of Oscar Wilde or even Olivia Wilde, but with a movie like this, you have to get your fun where you find it. Not that The Mystery of the Leaping Fish isn't worth a half hour of your time. But maybe it works best if you have a clock similar to the kind Coke Ennyday uses, only one that reminds you when it's time to laugh.

    Meta postscript: Alma Rubens, who plays the smuggler's girlfriend, died in 1931 as a result of heroin addiction.  


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