Dareland

POV: Killer

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sun, 22 Oct 2017 01:42:00 +0000

I started out at the LA Weekly as the guy who had to go to all the movies Michael Ventura didn't want to see. Of course this included every horror/splatter B movie made in the 80s. It was enough to drive you crazy, or at least to write something like this.

I was asked to come up with a Halloween piece for the upcoming Halloween issue. Some of my fondest memories are the reactions of editors to pieces I handed in that only bore the slightest resemblance to what was asked for. I'm quite sure Ginger Varney, the film editor at the time, was expecting some sort of celebration of horror films in theaters over the weekend, and not this, a monologue of a killer on the rampage through a mash-up every POV shot in every fucking horror film those bastards sent me to. Let THEM see what it was like to see these films day after day, week after week.

She said it not only wasn't what she asked for, she didn't have a clue what to do with it, so she wrote this intro and it became that week's film feature.

Very popular. Actually read out loud at public events. The only piece of mine republished a decade later in The Best of the LA Weekly.

Anyone got a camera. Hey, it's only one shot.

I steal a car. I stop in a burger joint, kill the owner, screw his wife on the counter, then stuff her head into the deep fryer. Some customers arrive and I take their orders. Then they take mine. I force them into the meat locker and blast them all with a shotgun.

I steal their car and cruise Sunset Boulevard looking for hitchhikers. Two teenage punks in front of the Whiskey. They think they've just seen Fear but I'm going to show them the real thing. I lower the window and offer them cocaine. They stick their head in the car. Bad move. I raise the electric window and both their heads fall on the seat.

Hmmm, I wonder who's at the Roxy? I go to the Rainbow Bar with a severed head in each hand. No one notices. It's Halloween. I order Bloody Marys for all. I roll a severed head onto the dance floor and knock over all but one dancer. Him, I knock out with a drink. A spare. Not bad. I pour rum over the other head and set it on fire. The Rainbow burns to the ground. No one notices.

I get back in my car and drive through Beverly Hills. I run over a sushi chef, a gorilla in a diver's helmet, and three Iranians before arriving at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. I go to the coffee shop and buy a paper. The headline reads, "The President's Brain is Missing!" It was stolen six month ago by terrorists, but till now no one noticed. A massive search is on, as the President would like to do some thinking tonight. Shelly Winters is sought for questioning.

I throw the paper away and go to the men's room. I wash my face. I turn around. A beautiful naked woman is walking towards me. We kiss. Her flesh melts from her bones. Her grisly skeleton chases me as the room fills with the smell of decay. The front door is locked. I pound and pound trying to get out but it's no use. I fall to the floor sobbing. I can hear the soggy footsteps getting closer and closer. Seconds pass. A minute. Five minutes. I'm safe. I get up, the door opens easily, and I'm about to step outside when a bony hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me back in.

I wheel around. It's Stanley Kubrick. He tells me he loved my screenplay. He wants to direct it. He shakes my hand and leaves, but not before mentioning that he also loved my review of Body Heat. I didn't review Body Heat. I realize he thinks I'm Michael Ventura.

I decide to kill Michael Ventura. I look up his name in the city directory but they don't list people named after counties. I go to a store. I buy a gun. I blow out the brains of the guy who sells me the gun. Serves him right.

The police arrest me and I go to the pen where I'm buggered and beaten. I escape in a rubber raft. I'm swept out to sea in a storm. I pass out.

I awaken on the shore of a tropical island. Something bites my leg. It's a toy poodle. Here come hundreds of them. They all get sucked under the sand by some hideous hidden beast. I'd better get out of here.

A string ladder drops from the sky. I climb aboard and get quickly carried aloft. I look up. A helicopter full of soldiers and machine guns. I look down. We're strafing Polynesian huts full of hula girls and tourists. I've got to find out who's in charge here. I climb the ladder. Darth Vader leans out and cuts off my hand. I plummet towards the ground.

I discover I can fly. I go to New York. I meet a girl. I fall in love. We have a deformed baby that looks like a turkey torso with eyes. After six months of trying to raise it as my own, I throw it in the oven one night. My wife tries to kill me. I chase her down the hallway. I throw her out a window. No one notices.

I walk to the bookshelf and remove Franny and Zooey. I take it with me to a special benefit concert for dead rock stars. In memory of Jim Morrison, they change the name of Fire Island to Light My Fire Island. There's a riot as the Who forget the words to "Moon Over Miami"; 27 teenagers are trampled to death.

I steal one of the bodies, dress it in my mother's clothes, prop it up at my dining room table, and force feed it chicken soup till it comes back to life. It can only speak in old Jackie Mason routines. It goes to the Improv and gets discovered by a TV exec who gives it its own show. I'm the only one who knows that the star of a major sitcom is actually a dead teenage girl. I try to blackmail the network. They laugh at me. They tell me they've been using nothing but dead teenage girls for years.

I decide that if they can get away with anything, so can I. I walk down the street strangling people. They arrest me. A judge sentences me to produce a TV special about how bad it is to strangle people. I go back to Hollywood and stab a few backs. No one notices.

I put on a mask so no one knows it's me. I kill baby-sitters. I've killed Jamie Lee Curtis 37 times but she keeps coming back for more. Once, I took off all her clothes, hung her from the ceiling, and attacked her with a blowtorch. I recorded her screams for later. I've stabbed her in the shoulder in the shower and in the trachea in a train. I save the blood and roll around in it.

I build giant monuments to my most grisly actions. I starve babies. Pluck them from the womb and scatter them about the room. No wire hangers, ever!

I leave a bowl of apples full of razor blades by my front door for trick or treaters. I put on a new mask and drive around suburbia with a chainsaw. I cautiously follow a group of children dressed as characters from Broadway musicals. I throw one into the bushes and try to rape her with the Uncola when the hills come alive with the sound of an earthquake. Los Angeles falls apart. Mulholland and Fountain now intersect. Everyone thinks it's my fault, not San Andreas. A crowd of tourists beats me to death. No one notices.

A runaway truck full of plate glass strikes a fire hydrant. One sheet flies off the back and becomes a stained glass window as it slices through my neck. A famous French chef picks up my head and takes it to Wolfgang Puck who cracks it open and serves it to Shelly Winters with a melon scoop.

I wake with a scream and find watermelon pits all over the bed. A beautiful nurse enters the room and tries to feed me hospital food, but I have a strange desire for kibble. She tells me I've been unconscious for months recovering from a poodle bite. I look out the window and notice the full moon. Little pink ribbons suddenly appear in my hair. With a horrible, bone-rattling crunch, my face transforms itself into a snout. I turn into a giant toy poodle. I terrorize the town. The National Guard arrives but they can't fire their weapons on me because I'm so darn cute.

I duck down a dark street and up a deserted alley. I join a gang of other poodles. We attack winos. I awaken naked in a zoo. My boss finds out and fires me but I don't care because I know what I am. I am the longest goddam tracking shot in the history of cinema.

I'm staring into the house through the living room window waiting for your parents to leave you alone. I enter through the back door, grab a knife from the kitchen, and follow you upstairs. I put on another mask. I stab you repeatedly till the walls are a Jackson Pollack of your blood. I walk outside still carrying the knife. I hear sirens. I scream.

I wake up and look around. I'm relieved to find that I'm still sitting in a theater watching the movie. Everyone around me is screaming too, so no one notices mine. I look back at the screen. I'm standing on someone's front lawn and laughing hysterically. I stare down at my hand. There's still fresh blood dripping from the knife in it.

What a funny movie. Soon they'll cut to another shot and everyone will get to see what the killer looks like. I'd really like to know. This Point of View shit is driving me crazy. Why is the director lingering so long on this dopey shot of me standing here looking at this knife in my hand? I hear police sirens. Good, maybe they can sort this out. There they are now.

Hey, guys, over here. What are you doing? This is just a movie, isn't it? I was just watching. I scream but I don't wake up. Nothing goes away.

No, of course I don't know what the killer looked like. It was all a POV shot. What do you mean I've got to come with you? Don't you understand? I had nothing to do with it. Where are they taking me? Why doesn't the director cut to another shot?

The audience gets up to leave. My seat is vacant. No one notices.

The End

What? You thought I made all this up? In order of appearance:

The Postman Always Rings Twice, My Bloody Valentine, The 6:00 News, Maniac, Motel Hell, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Heavy Metal, The Fan, Prom Night, The Jerk, Taxi Driver, Escape from Alcatraz, Blue Lagoon, Blood Beach, Apocalypse Now, The Empire Strikes Back, Superman, Endless Love, Eraserhead, Happy Birthday to Me, New Year's Evil, The 10:00 News, Don't Go In the House, Nice Dreams, Get High on Yourself, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Final Exam, Zombie, He Knows You're Alone, When the Screaming Stops, Blow Out, Psycho, Terror Train, Halloween II, Friday the 13th, Mommy Dearest, Earthquake, Scanners, The Omen, Night of the Living Dead, An American Werewolf in London, Altered States, Halloween.

A is for Elephant

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sat, 02 Jul 2016 16:17:00 +0000

[ILLUSTRATIONS IN BRACKETS]

A is for elephant and no one can blame me
For calling your attention to an elephant named Amy
      [Amy is a very cute young elephant who very clearly dreams of becoming a ballerina one day.]

B is for Barney who isn’t an elephant
  And has no opinion on anything relephant
      [Barney is a human who is so involved in his smart phone that he is completely oblivious to the traffic jam he is causing while crossing the street]

C is for Cantaloupe, and it’s time to cower
  If Amy can spy one around to devour
  [Heavily -armed Amy is prepared to defend her cantaloupe to the death]

D is for Dumbo, whom everyone knows
Is Elephant for “someone who wears stupid clothes”
[Elephants in an old-age home watch Dumbo on TV and make fun of it.]

E is for everyone who had the chance
  To go to the circus to see Amy dance
[It’s not just a dream. Amy has an actual gig in a circus where she is the main attraction. Viewers watch in awe as she does a plié.]

F is for font from which all letters grow.
This one is elephant, we thought you should know.

G is for Ghana where Barney is from
Which doesn’t explain how he turned out so dumb
[Barney sits on the nozzle of his rifle while spying a herd of elephants in the distance with a pair of binoculars. This picture explains how Barney shot his ass off.]

H is for herbivore, also for Hannibal
Neither of whom would be seen with a cannibal
[Both a hippie and Hannibal look with disdain at a cannibal who is cooking them in a pot.]

I is for Ivory, for which, so they say
96 elephants are killed every day
[A proud hunter displays his booty mounted on a wall.]

J is for John Merrick, the elephant man
Whose physical features were unrightly hated
He tried to sit up in bed one night
And ended up asphyxiated.
[John Merrick’s tombstone with his picture and this poem on it…]

Tis true my form is something odd.

But blaming me is blaming God;

Could I create myself anew,

I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could reach from pole to pole,

Or grasp the ocean with a span,

I would be measured by the soul,

The mind's the standard of the man.

K is for Kenya where elephants romp
And everyone loves their production of Stomp
[Giant chorus line of elephants dancing and beating on trashcan lids.]

L is for Leaky who had a suggestion
To shoot all the poachers without any question
[Picture of a poacher taking aim at an elephant while another elephant in
the bushes takes aim at him.]

M is for mammals who eat lots of Ramen
Our family is something that we’ve got in common
[Picture of mammals on the left consisting of nothing but men and elephants, with all non-mammals on the right.]

N is for nincompoop, of which Barney is one
Just look what he does for a barrel of fun
[Something fantastic is happening right in front of Barney while he is engrossed in his smart phone.]

P is for peanuts which elephants consume
After bales of hay if they’ve got any room
[A chart showing what elephants actually eat, dispelling the myth they love peanuts.]

Q is for Qatar and this much is true
They’ve only got one and it lives in a zoo
[A lonely elephant sits in a lonely zoo in a magnificent futuristic city in the middle of nowhere.]

R is for something that Barney must know
Respect for all creatures is the right way to go.
[Barney meditates and has an epiphany about the interconnections of all life on earth.]

S is for species both African and Asian
Though either will do for a special occasion.
[An African elephant is the first man and an Asian elephant is a bridesmaid at a fancy human wedding.]

T ‘s for proboscis, AKA trunk
Without which a drink could never be drunk
[A macho elephant on spring break is at a bar toasting with a human while their trunk is in another direction stealing beer from the tap.]

U is for is for Under as in under-cover
Where Barney’s pretending to be Amy’s lover
[Barney sneaks Amy out of the circus by pretending they’re both teenagers out on a date and they’re making out as they walk out the exit.]

V is for all who exist on the veldts
None of whom get just how strange Amy felt
[Amy has been set free for the first time in her life. She is actually in Africa surrounded by actual wild animals. She is the only one in a tutu.]

W is for elephants who do the Watusi
And for the bees who see much more than you see
[As seen through the eyes of a bee, Amy degrades herself by dancing in a box at the Whiskey A Go Go.]

X is for Xanax of every variety
None of which helps for poor Amy’s anxiety
[Amy’s totally stressed out, smoking a cigarette in a seedy motel, staring out the window at a neon sign.]

Z is for zoo where you’ll never see Amy
She opens on Broadway if someone’ll pay me
[Picture of Barney who is now Amy’s big Hollywood agent, on the phone in an office surrounded by posters of Amy.]

Midnight Cowboy - Liner notes for the Criterion Laserdisc

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 15:30:00 +0000

     In the spring of 1969, the age of Aquarius was dawning every night on Broadway where Hair and Oh Calcutta, two iconoclastic off-Broadway shows, were mysteriously knocking out real Broadway audiences. Those cruising for a new experience in film were likely to enter the strange underground world of I am Curious, Yellow, or Monterey Pop, or Che! When Midnight Cowboy opened in May, the United States was inexplicably ready to identify with two low-life street hustlers who haven't a clue, and it became an immediate sensation. It was a seedy tale of subsistence in the streets that defied all conventional wisdom that "art" pictures were supposed to be doomed to cult status. Despite it's X-rating (later changed to an R), it not only attracted a wide audience, but won the Academy Award that year for Best Picture.
     It has aged exceptionally well, and it answers two questions no one was asking: Is it possible to do an accurate study in alienation and loneliness that's funny? (Yes.) Can supposedly "in" New York jokes travel to the provinces? (Yes, though this was the first to prove the depths of the rest of America's fascination with the big apple.)
     Look at the scene where Ratso and Joe are almost hit by a cab while crossing the street, and it's almost impossible to imagine why the original audiences went bonkers just because Hoffman hits the hood of the cab and blurts "I'm walking here!" By now we're used to street realism, and the incident seems ordinary, but then it was a revelation, a miniscule detail of city life that no one before had ever captured on film. And it's just one of thousands of similar very specific occurrences that add up to one of the most painfully realistic and humorous portraits of a city every conceived.
     This clearly wasn't an easy picture to put together. Though Hoffman was riding on the success of The Graduate the previous year, Schlesinger was recovering from the relative failure of Far From the Madding Crowd, and the book Midnight Cowboy by James Leo Herlihy was decidedly downbeat, and had been turned down by every major studio in 1965, including United Artists, who eventually gave it a go in 1968.
     Maybe it took an outsider like the British born director John Schlesinger to notice all the precisely deranged details of New York life, like a man (corpse?) mysteriously lying on the sidewalk outside Tiffanys. It would have seemed commonplace to a New York native. Schlesinger admits his previous films, like Billy Liar and his documentaries for the BBC, were "never about heroes but about cowards, not successes but failures." This one is his most bonafide artistic tour-de-force, where his style is all-encompassing. Despite the seemingly depressing subject matter, he maintains a constant sense of irony and sarcasm; it's never maudlin despite the melodrama, and there are more flashbacks in the first ten minutes than in every movie made in the 80s.
     It opens with the sound of Cowboys while we're looking at the blank screen of the Big Tex drive-in. Joe Buck (John Voight) shows up to his last day of work in his cowboy duds, but his fellow workers say "What's with the getup?" We know that even in Texas he wasn't a real cowboy. He gets on a bus to New York City, armed with a new wardrobe and a poster of Paul Newman, to fulfill a dream that will turn into a nightmare beyond his tiny imagination. He's the most pathetic Candide imaginable.
     Right off, black & white and color footage intermingle as Joe's memories and fantasies take over his mind. It's a literary technique that Schlesinger utilizes to take total advantage of all the vast possibilities of cinema. There are very dramatic uses of silence, jump cuts from day to night, and stylish montages, ripe with meaning, that resonate throughout the picture.
     Once in New York, Joe inadvertently teams up with an unlikely character named Ricco Rizzo, whom everyone calls Ratso, but we know as Dustin Hoffman. Ratso lives in a condemned building of dreams that Joe eventually decides to call home for the winter. Ratso's fantasies involve going to Florida and simply being called by his correct name. Joe's fantasies involve proving his studliness. Together, they not only never wallow in their misery, they learn to love each other.
     Hoffman imbues Ratso with a humor and depth of humanity that's a wonder to behold. There is absolutely nothing attractive about this character, yet we like him. Mass audiences in 1969 had seen him for the first time in The Graduate, where he played Benjamin, your basic nebbish. Hoffman had complained that he didn't want to be "the Andy Hardy of the 60s," and he couldn't have picked a follow-up part that was farther from what anyone expected. Imagine Tom Cruise picking Quasimodo as a follow-up to Risky Business. Hoffman's performance in Midnight Cowboy was much more impressive in comparison to his previous role. Hoffman suddenly wasn't just a cute star, he was a serious actor who could do anything.
     In contrast, Voight was an unknown, who gave a performance of such realism that people couldn't tell it was a performance. One critic even complimented Schlesinger on his skill in finding a cowboy who could act. Schlesinger would then have to explain that Voight was actually an actor who wasn't even from Texas, and that he learned his accent by taping interviews with real Texans.
     Once production began, they had to arrange their shooting schedule around Hoffman's matinee performances in Murray Schisgal's Jimmy Shine. The pace was intense. At one point in shooting, Hoffman coughed with so much energy that he actually threw up on the set. "Wow," said Voight, "How am I going to upstage that?" Luckily, they left that bit of realism out of the picture, so he didn't have to worry.
     When it opened on May 26, 1969, at the New York Coronet Theater, there was a widespread media blitz. It followed a special release pattern that has since become standard, playing New York months before anywhere else and letting word of mouth spread throughout the country. It worked. In Midnight Cowboy's first two days it broke the Coronet's record, which was set the year before by The Graduate.
     The film was not without its detractors. Schlesinger was criticized for his lack of self-discipline, many complained about the convoluted editing, and one critical grump referred to the director as John Sledgehammer, but even that didn't stop people from going. The film was a spectacular commercial and critical success, with Time Magazine calling it an "act of rare skill and rarer generosity" and critic Mick Billington describing it as a "Black mosaic of the mod scene." It got a rare positive notice from the author of the book, and even the New York Daily News, which Ratso uses as underwear in Midnight Cowboy, gave Hoffman a good review.
     Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for best actor, causing one of the most massive split votes in Academy history. They were both beat out by the Duke in True Grit. Nevertheless, the image of Joe Buck and Ratso huddled in a doorway was so indelibly stamped on everyone's mind, that two obscure exploitation films of Hoffman and Voight, Madigan's Millions and Fearless Frank, were immediately re-packaged as a double bill featuring that Midnight Cowboy couple together again.
     Midnight Cowboy is a triumph of style and substance. If you tire of the realism, you can get into the pure technique. If you've had enough of artistic flash, you can focus on the utterly unpredictable plot. Though the style puts it squarely in the '60s, just look at Times Square or Hollywood Blvd. today and you'll realize that nothing has changed. The film could take place right now without a single modification. For some people, it's always midnight.

ON THE 35th ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF LOWELL GEORGE (6/29/1979) costarring Van Dyke Parks and Harry Nilsson

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 19:30:00 +0000

Almost certainly in no one’s mind but my own, there is an alternative universe in which Harry Nilsson’s last album, Flash Harry, had a song on it by Michael Dare, catapulting me into a new career path as songwriter deluxe because what on earth could be fucking cooler than Harry Nilsson covering one of your songs. I would have been on a very short list of songwriters including Fred Neil, Randy Newman, and John Lennon. Once again, you’re going to have to trust me on this one, and once again, it’s a pathetic tale of how I coulda been a contender. I’m as sick of them as you are, and yet when people ask me Mr. Dare, you were born in Beverly Hills, how did you end up in subsidized housing in Seattle, one of the answers that invariably pops to mind is Well, Lowell George could have lived at least an hour longer. And by the time you’re done reading this, that last sentence will make perfect sense.

Before I became a journalist in the 1980s, I spent the 1970s doing nothing but theater, sometimes acting, sometimes as a musician, and sometimes as a composer. One day Alice Cooper hired me to score a musical called Ward 22 that took place in an insane asylum. I was given a complete libretto, wrote a score, and the production reached the point where they asked me who I’d like as an arranger. The first name that popped out of my head was Van Dyke Parks, my hero at the time. Go get ‘em, they said, and that I did.

It turned out Van Dyke Parks lived around the corner from me in West Hollywood. I played him the songs, he said yes, and we started hangin’. So what if the play didn’t happen. Nothing in Hollywood ever happens unless it magically does.

We remained pals. We hung out backstage with Steve Martin and the Blues Brothers. I was the photographer at his wedding.

Tony Martin Jr., Van Dyke Parks, Sally Parks, Harry Nilsson, Jack Nicholson, plus two ladies and a bishop.

One day I played him a chorus for a song I’d written called Small Favors. He liked it. A couple days later, he brought by Martin Kibbee, Lowell George’s songwriting partner on Rock ‘n’ Roll Doctor and Dixie Chicken, both Little Feat classics. He asked me to play him the chorus. Martin went into a corner with a pad of paper and 10 minutes later, magically, had two verses that worked perfectly. We had a song that ended up in the queue of songs for Little Feat to potentially cover.

Then Van Dyke advocated for me in the most amazing possible way. He had produced Randy Newman and Ry Cooder’s first albums, both of which tanked, presumably because neither could sing very well. Van Dyke introduced Randy Newman to Harry Nilsson, who could sing VERY well. The result was Nilsson Sings Newman, one of the greatest albums ever.

On June 29, 1979, 35 years ago today, Van Dyke decided to do something similar for me. He showed up unannounced and said “I’m on my way to do some recording with Harry Nilsson. Wanna come?”

My brain exploded. Harry Nilsson never did a concert. Not one. Ever. He appeared on some TV shows and made some movies himself, all of which you can see in the excellent documentary Who is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin' About Him?), but as far as seeing him at the Troubadour, unless you were there the night he was thrown out with John Lennon (I was.), impossible. He did not perform in public. The only way to actually see him sing in person was to be there in the recording studio with him. A dream was about to come true.

On the way over, Van Dyke just said to play it cool, we were there to work with him, and if the timing was right, he would ask me to play a few songs for him.

I’m pretty sure it was Wally Heider Studios but I may be wrong. A small studio, a piano and guitar but mainly a mike. Today was for vocals. Harry was recording his version of Let’s All Look on the Bright Side of Life from Monty Python’s Life of Brian when we stepped into the control room. He finished, took off his headphones, and switched rooms. Van Dyke introduced us, I pulled out a joint, and we sat back to listen to playback.

We had just started talking when the phone rang and Van Dyke answered it. His face went pale. Lowell George was dead. I had never met him but that didn’t make me any less depressed than Harry and Van Dyke. Harry pulled out a bottle of cognac and we started drinking. They told their Lowell George stories but I had no stories to share other than my love of his talent.

I can only explain it like this. Let’s say you had been there with Paul McCartney the instant he found out John Lennon was shot. It would not have been the time to say Hey man, listen to THIS.

The timing was not right and it would never be right. To the best of my knowledge, that was Harry Nilsson’s last recording session, and the album, Flash Harry, wasn’t even issued in the United States until 2013, years after his death. He just fucking gave up.

Years later, I was covering some Science Fiction Award show for the LA Weekly, got bored, went outside to smoke a joint, and found myself alone on the roof of the Hollywood Palace with Harry Nilsson. I asked him what he was doing there. Turned out he produced the show. Why? Why not? I asked if I could take his picture. He said no. We had a nice talk but I didn’t sing him any songs and I’m pretty sure he didn’t remember me from the recording session. I wasn’t going to bring up the last time I saw him.

Can you blame my psychiatrist for diagnosing me with delusions of grandeur when I mention there could have been an album called Nilsson Sings Dare? How many people ever got close to a shot at such a thing? Nobody, so I guess I should be grateful for having the memory, for knowing that Van Dyke believed in me, but still, it’s like a brain worm, considering how fucked up my life turned out to be, there was a moment when that dream was in my grasp. If only Lowell George had died at least an hour later.

Here are some of the songs I might have played for Harry, performed 35 years later on pianos in public parks in Seattle.

Have a Happy Childhood

Molecules

The Pick of the Litter

Cannabis Rising

New Facebook Problem

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 16:00:00 +0000

I click on SHARE on ANY posting. This comes up

I don't want to post to my own timeline, I want to post to a page I manage.

The first in the list shows up, along with a NEW choice, "Posting as," which has pre-chosen the first in the list.

I scroll down to choose the page I DO want to post to.

When I choose it, the "Posting as" remains the page that was on top of the list.


I try to change it but it doesn't allow me to choose anything else, including myself.

Which means I CAN'T POST to my own page.

The Worst Movie Ever Made (The Turkish Wizard of Oz)

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 22:44:00 +0000

Yes, it's just what it says it is, a Turkish remake of The Wizard of Oz. How bad could it be? The Turkish Wizard of Oz answers the age old question "Whatever happened to all that hash the Turks took away from Billy Hayes in Midnight Express?" They used it to make this movie, and you'll need some to watch it. Let's just say that at some point it's sure to remind you of Apocalypse Now as you shave your head and fall to the floor going "The horror. The horror."

You may think you've seen bad. You may think Plan 9 from Outer Space was as incompetent as it gets. Your horizons are about to be expanded. Ed Wood Jr. is Orson Welles next to whoever made this. As with Citizen Kane, it's impossible to separate The Turkish Wizard of Oz from the story behind the making of The Turkish Wizard of Oz. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way they lost the original press kit explaining the origin of the film, so we'll never know, but I can guess it went something like this...

A CARE package with a motion picture camera was accidentally dropped out of a cargo plane somewhere in Turkey. It fell in a town fountain where it was retrieved by the village idiot who decided to use it to make a movie. The only movie he had ever seen was The Wizard of Oz ten years earlier, so he decided to do a remake despite the fact he barely remembered it and that the camera didn't come with instructions. He badly exposed the film while loading the camera, causing a red streak along the right side of the picture that we're not supposed to notice. There was no sound equipment, so he just shot anyway, later adding dialogue and songs from his scratchy record collection of old showtunes and roller rink organ music, making this the first film badly dubbed from Turkish INTO Turkish.

There are no subtitles, making this the ideal film to talk through and make fun of. Since you can't understand what they're saying anyway, at some point you're sure to discover your fast forward button, though you'll inevitably have to stop and rewind to examine something that just doesn't make any sense no matter what language it's in. If you watch it with your kids, as I did, you can play a great game of "What the hell is going on?" while the film speeds ahead. You'll also get the unique opportunity to hear your kid say "Dad, if I have to watch this one more minute, I'm going to shoot myself."

It does indeed bare SOME relation to the original film, even though both Kansas and Oz mysteriously look exactly like Turkey. There's a little girl from a farm, a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodsman, and a Cowardly Lion. And other than the fact that it's not yellow, not made out of brick, or even, strictly speaking, a road, it's EXACTLY like the yellow brick road, and they dance down it. The Munchkins and the Good Witch of the West have been mysteriously replaced by seven dwarves/midgets/children dressed like a marching band from The Music Man. They appear and disappear at will while laughing hysterically at absolutely nothing.

Remember the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where they finally see the castle and one of them says "It's only a model?" They stole it from this, only no one says "It's only a model" when they finally see Oz. Irony is not a word in the Turkish dictionary.

Some of it bares no relation to the original film in any way whatsoever. The scene with the cavemen is clearly there for no other reason than they had the opportunity to shoot in some cool looking caves, relieving us from the monotony of the endless scenes of the hapless four dancing through colorless meadows to bad Turkish music.

In the original, the trees throw apples at the gang. One wonders what Freud would make of the scene in this one where a tree actually attacks Dorothy, only to have his limbs chopped off by the Tin Woodsman. And the lack of subtitles will have you wondering for the rest of your life exactly what it was that the Scarecrow was saying when Dorothy was sewing his butt together. My favorite scene? The one where Dorothy throws water on the witch and she doesn't so much melt as use the water to wipe off her make-up.

The best thing about The Turkish Wizard of Oz is that it allows you to play a fun trick on your grandparents. Invite them over for dinner, spike their drinks with acid, take them to the living room, tell them you're all going to watch The Wizard of Oz, then put this on and pretend nothing's wrong.

The Chicken Coops of Madison County

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 14:12:00 +0000

This treatment for an episode of "Steven Spielberg presents Animaniacs" was purchased by Warner Brothers Animation but the show was cancelled before it was produced.

INT. LAWYERS OFFICE
Carolyn and Michael, a brother and sister in their 20s, sit at a large table. They are listening intently to a pompous lawyer.

POMPOUS LAWYER
...and to my darling two children, I leave the contents of my safety deposit box.

Carolyn and Michael try to look casual as the lawyer brings out the box, then they both grab at it and pull it open. Michael reaches in and removes several pictures of their mom standing in front of a chicken coop, plus a book called “The Chicken Coops of Madison County.” The music swells. They open it up. A letter falls out. Carolyn opens the letter and starts reading.

MICHAEL
What is that?

CAROLYN
It’s from mom.

MICHAEL
Well read it.

CAROLYN
“I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this, but by contract, I must. I have kept it inside for too long. Once in a lifetime, you find something so rare, so tender, so juicy that it changes your life forever. It started when daddy took you to the fair, leaving me alone for four days.”

CROSS FADE TO:

EXT. FARMHOUSE
Francesca is a statuesque farmer’s wife standing on the porch watching her family drive away. The wind blows through her dress. The music swells. The clouds part as golden celestial light falls on a beaten old truck pulling up the driveway. The truck stops and Boo gets out, though he is so heavily backlit you can’t tell it’s him.

FRANCESCA (V.O.)
The first day...he showed up. He told me he was lost, that he was looking for a chicken coop, one of those old wooden covered coops that made Madison County so famous. There was something about him, maybe his smile. I could tell he wasn’t from Madison. I asked his name.

CHICKEN BOO
Buck Buck BcGaw...

FRANCESCA
Buck BcGaw? That’s an interesting name.

Boo points to the side of his truck, which has his logo painted on - “Buck BcGaw - Professional Photographer.”

FRANCESCA (V.O.)
He was on assignment from Frequent Fryer Magazine and he needed a guide. He caught me in his spell. I was so transfixed that for one moment, I forgot to do my Italian accent.

INT. TRUCK
Boo drives while Francesca points the way.

EXT. BARNYARD
They arrive at a dilapidated old chicken coop. Boo takes Francesca’s picture in front of it.

INT. LAWYER’S OFFICE
Michael and Carolyn look at the picture. She puts down the letter. Michael picks up the book and starts reading.

MICHAEL
She reminded me of ancient times and distant music. Her dress was as florid as my squirrelly prose.

LOVE MONTAGE as Michael and Carolyn alternate reading.

Finally...

FRANCESCA
He felt feathery, oh so feathery. I know you think I’m an adulteress but it’s not true. I’m more of a poultress. He was my first fling, my flirt with foul, and I don’t regret a thing. Now that I am dead, I can finally tell you the truth. I know it will have a profound effect upon your lives.

The wind blows. The music swells. We leave her crying on the porch.

SLOW CROSS FADE TO:

INT. LAWYER’S OFFICE
Michael and Carolyn are cracking up laughing. Michael puts down the book.

MICHAEL
Hoo boy, mom. What a card.

CAROLYN
She always did have a weird sense of humor.

MICHAEL
That was the worst thing I’ve ever read.

CAROLYN
What should we do with it?

MICHAEL
I’ve got an idea.

CUT TO:

EXT. COVERED BRIDGE
Michael and Carolyn set fire to the one and only copy of “The Chicken Coops of Madison County” by Buck BcGaw. The violins swell as the ashes scatter into the wind. The world is spared.

MICHAEL
I’m hungry.

CAROLYN
What do you feel like?

MICHAEL
How about Popeye’s?

CAROLYN
Great...

FADE OUT:

One Boo Over the Cuckoo's Nest

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:58:00 +0000

This treatment for an episode of "Steven Spielberg presents Animaniacs" was purchased by Warner Brothers Animation but the show was cancelled before it was produced.

EXT. ACME INSANE ASYLUM - DAY
An ambulance screeches up. Two MEN IN WHITE COATS remove CHICKEN BOO, who is in a straight jacket.

INT. ACME INSANE ASYLUM - DAY

The MEN IN WHITE COATS take CHICKEN BOO to the front desk where there is a NURSE and a DOCTOR.

NURSE
Can I help you?

MAN IN WHITE COAT
Yeah. We want you to admit this guy.

NURSE
What’s wrong with him?

MAN IN WHITE COAT
He thinks he’s a giant chicken.

The NURSE looks at the doctor, who shrugs his shoulders. She looks back at the MEN IN WHITE COATS.

NURSE
But he IS a giant chicken.

The MEN IN WHITE COATS look at each other. They look at the DOCTOR, who nods.

They quickly take the straight jacket off CHICKEN BOO and put it on the NURSE. They drag her down the hall.

NURSE (CONT’D)
What are you doing? Stop. There’s nothing wrong with me. He is a chicken, I tell you. HE IS A CHICKEN.....

CHICKEN BOO and the DOCTOR are left alone. BOO looks at the DOCTOR, who shrugs. BOO clucks and walks out the door.

THE END

An American Warner in London

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:42:00 +0000

This treatment for an episode of "Steven Spielberg presents Animaniacs" was purchased by Warner Brothers Animation but the show was cancelled before it was produced.

“RULE BRITTANIA” PLAYS OVER A GLORIOUS MONTAGE OF MODERN LONDON.

Two very proper British Gentlemen are sitting at a bus stop.

GENT #1
Glorious, day, glorious.

GENT #2
Quite, quite.

A bus pulls up. The Warners disembark. They are all wearing Hawaiian shirts, shorts, and backpacks - looking like typical American tourists.

GENT #1
Look, how cute.

GENT #2
Yes, quite cute.

YAKKO
What a dump. Let’s get out of here.

He tries to get back in the bus but WAKKO stops him.

WAKKO
Oh no you don’t. We’re spending a week in London and we’re going to find me Aunt Gladys.

They ask the gentlemen for directions. The gentlemen tell them where to go.

The Warners are creeping down a dark dripping alley.

YAKKO
A-a-a-h I don’t think this is Picadilly Circus.

WAKKO
Where are the animals?

There’s a forlorn Ho-o-o-o-o-wl.

YAKKO
That’s one, but I don’t think it was an elephant.

Dot peeks behind a trashcan.

DOT
Look, it’s a little baby poodle. It’s cold. Poor thing.

She reaches out but the little puffy furball nips her on the hand and runs away.

DOT
Owwwww!!!! It hurts. I need a bandaid.

A door suddenly opens. There’s raucus laughter from inside. The Warners enter.

INT. COZY ENGLISH PUB

There are mugs of broth, darts, and general gaiety that stops as soon as the Warners enter.

WAKKO
Hello mates.

Silence. The Warners look around and notice strange things about the bar. There’s a pentagon on the wall made out of milkbones. Everyone is staring at them in silence, even the dogs playing poker in a picture on the wall. There are candles surrounding a doggy bowl full of garlic.

DOT
Excuse me, but has anybody got a bandaid? I was just bitten by a poodle.

EXT. DARK ALLEY

The pub door swings open and the Warners come flying out.

They hear another howl. They start running. Suddenly, they’re on a busy street. A woman struts by walking her poodle.

DOT
Look, how cute.

The poodle gives her a knowing glance.

They find Wakkos’ Aunt Gladys, who lets them in, fixes Dot’s wound, and tucks them into bed for the night. They each get their own rooms.

Midnight. A full moon peeks out from the clouds.

Dot is asleep. She gives a short yap and wakes up. She looks at her hands, which are turning into paws. Her snout grows longer. Little puffs of fur appear at her shoulders, elbows, and knees. She turns pink. Little bows appear in her hair. She looks in the mirror. She has turned into the most horribly cute poodle on earth. She leaps out the window and yaps.

INT. HOSPITAL

Doctor Hirsch is talking to a patient.

DOCTOR
I’m afraid I have bad news. You have what we call adorabilitis, which gives you an intense allergic reaction to cuteness. You can lead a normal life as long as you never come in contact with anything adorable. If you do, well, there’s no telling what will happen.

The doctor leaves. The patient looks out the window and sees a giant pink poodle peeking in. The patient shrieks and falls back in the bed.

CLOSE-UP: NEWSPAPERS

The headlines read “PATIENT DIES IN FREAK POODLE ATTACK,” “MONSTER MUTT TERRORIZES TOWN,” and “PRINCE CHARLES DENIES ROMANCE WITH POODLE.”

Dot wakes up in a dog pound. She can’t convince them that she’s not a dog and they refuse to set her free.

Wakko and Yakko search for their sister. They go back to the pub where they hear the horrifying tale of the curse of the werepoodle. Only one thing can break the curse, but I don’t know what it is. They continue their search for Dot.

That night at the pound, the full moon shines through the window. The other dogs back off in disbelief as Dot goes through her transformation. She breaks open the bars and sets everyone free.

Dot terrorizes the town again through unbearable acts of cuteness. Wakko and Yakko catch up with her. Silver bullets don’t work. Garlic doesn’t work. Nothing works except the plot contrivance I haven’t come up with yet.

Wakko, Yakko, and Dot are waiting at the bus stop with the same two gents. Dot slaps her arm.

DOT
O-o-o-o-w!

YAKKO
What’s wrong?

DOT
A mosquito bit me.

Everybody runs away in terror.

FADE OUT:

REPUBLICANS WORST NIGHTMARE: Man buys lobster with food stamps.

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sun, 07 Jul 2013 21:06:00 +0000

"It was on sale," said Michael Dare. "I mean look at this sign..."

"If my local Red Apple goes to all the trouble of having this sale once a year," Dare continued, "I can certainly go to all the trouble of buying one for the sole purpose of being John Boehner's worst nightmare."

"There was only one left when I got there. It's like the world was telling me that as long as I was going to steal from the rich, I may as well do it in style." Mr. Dare also stated that he considered spending his cash allotment on a crack whore but decided instead to spend it on rent, storage, a bus pass, and toilet paper. "Maybe next month," said Mr. Dare, "now where's the butter section?"

My Childhood

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 20:58:00 +0000

I'm the product of a government experiment called the public school system.

I suppose you should know this about me. It explains a lot. I've never told anyone because it's so ridiculous you'll assume I'm making it up. That's the price of satire - no one believes you when you're telling the truth.

I was born a rich kid, Beverly Hills, north of Santa Monica Blvd., big house, tennis court, Cadillac in the driveway, all needs met. One neighbor had an Oscar I played with (I.A.L. Diamond, for writing The Apartment), another had a lavish vomitorium for those really GOOD parties with endless courses of too much food. I'd go to a friend's house after school only to discover they actually had their own house behind their parent's house. When my dad died, we started a gradual descent, moving to a smaller house, then a smaller house, then to an apartment in the slums of Beverly Hills below Santa Monica Blvd., all to keep me in what was supposed to be the best school system in the world.

None of this stopped me from being a holy terror in class. I was thrown out of the fifth grade at Beverly Vista Elementary in BH, sent to military school as a "disciplinary problem," sent back to the sixth grade at Horace Mann Elementary in BH, thrown out, sent to another military school where I advanced to the rank of corporal, sent back to the seventh grade at El Rodeo Elementary in BH, and finally declared "emotionally disturbed" and thrown out of the entire Beverly Hills Unified School System.

How did this happen? In 1960 or thereabouts, when I was 8, the Beverly Hills Unified School District decided to be the very first to give every single one of their students one of them fancy new standardized IQ tests in order to scientifically analyze the entire student body. They wouldn't tell me the number but I got fourth highest in the entire district, across all schools, ages and grades. All the other students with high IQs were the top straight A students except me. I had Cs and Ds and Fs so I became a case study. How could someone as bright as me be doing so poorly academically? They plucked me out of elementary school and sent me to UCLA Psychiatric Institute where I was tested and observed for weeks, test after test, observation after observation, drawing, piling blocks, answering endless questions. They had to figure me out because if the problem wasn't me, it would have to be them.

I was actually surprised I did so well on the IQ test because I had such difficulty answering certain questions, particularly the ones showing a list of words saying "which one doesn't belong." The list would be something like...

a) banana

b) potato

c) petunia

d) candle

One might think the obvious answer was d) since it's the only one that isn't a form of vegetation, but I'd be able to come up with a rational reason why every single word didn't belong. Each word has an "a" but banana is the only one with three. Potato is the only word with an "o." Petunia is the only word that isn't six letters. I'd sit there not trying to figure out which was the right answer, they all were right, but trying to figure out which right answer the jerks who came up with the test were expecting.

The same problem crept into my studies. Teachers didn't know how to handle me. I figured if they had the right to test me, I had the right to test them. I noticed they used a template for grading tests. I'd reorganize my answers so they couldn't use it. For my answer to question 1, I'd write "see answer #6," where the correct answer would be found. I got Fs on tests where I got every answer right, just not in the expected order. I used this technique from the first grade, elementary school arithmetic, if the question was "What's 3 + 8," I'd answer "5 + 6." Correct, but not the answer they were looking for. When did Columbus discover America? 320 years before the War of 1812.

It never occurred to anyone that the reason I was acting like this was because I was bored out of my skull. Anything to pass the time. I managed to learn absolutely everything they were teaching, just as reliably as their finest students. I just wasn't mirroring it back to them properly, thus, Cs and Ds and Fs.

Teachers were warned about me before I ever met them. They kept their eye on me from the first day so I couldn't get away with anything. I was the first to be blamed if anything happened, and half my time was spent exiled to the hallway for insubordination.

When I got my first history book, I drew a little B-52 bomber in the lower left margin of the first page, along with a little city on the far right. On the next page, I drew the bomber a little bit to the right, closer to the city, continuing on each page until eventually, if you flipped through the book, the bomber would fly across the page till it dropped a big one on the city, causing a mushroom cloud to go up the right margin.

When my teacher saw this, were they impressed by the fact a seven-year-old had seemingly invented animation? Animation wasn't the day's lesson. Did they simply ask me to erase it? Did they encourage my creativity by handing me a pad of blank paper and asking me to use it for my animations instead of the textbook? Nope, they suspended me for defacing school property.

How do you get thrown out of the 5th grade? I was bored with what they were having me read. One day during a PE period where I was excused for some medical problem, I had nothing to do, so I started reading a paperback I saw in a metal rack in the playground, Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, the first book I ever read so it was the best book I'd ever read, way better than Dick and Jane. I couldn't stop reading so I took it with me to class. Nobody had ever explained that those particular books had to be checked out. I left school on my bike and got chased by two bigger kids who threw me to the ground, searched my backpack, found the book, and dragged me back to the school office for stealing school property.

Upon finding a fifth grader caught trying to read a tenth grade book, did they advance me to another grade? Nope, it was the final straw, they threw me out of the whole system.

Despite this particular moment of idiocy, it turned out the BH school system really was better then the rest, which caused a very strange problem. They'd get rid of me, I'd end up in a school in the LA system that was teaching what I'd learned the year before, I'd get straight As, they'd say to Beverly Hills "what's the matter with you, this is a fine student," BH would take me back, I'd be a year behind, learn everything but fail, they'd throw me out, send me to another LA school where they were teaching everything I'd just learned, I'd get straight As again, and end up right back in BH.

Finally I found myself at Beverly High for four years, class of '69, WAY before Beverly Hills 90210, with a theater department headed by the magnificent John Ingle, and a separate parking lot just for students, full of much better cars than those in the faculty lot. I took swim lessons in the "swim gym," the pool under the slide-away basketball court made famous in the film It's a Wonderful Life. Hung with Patricia Cummings - daughter of Bob (You don't know who Bob Cummings is?), Cathie Amsterdam - daughter of Morry (C'mon, Morry Amsterdam, from The Dick Van Dyke Show. Who's Dick Van Dyke? Jesus!), and Phil Ritz, son of Harry of the Ritz Brothers (they replaced The Three Stooges in Blazing Stewardesses when Moe died before filming, but you knew that).

When Ella Fitzgerald moved to Beverly Hills, her son Ray Brown Jr. became the very first person of color many of us had ever met and we went out of our way to treat him as an equal. I directed him in the school production of Marty.

One day I was called to the office where Dr. Morgenstern, an official with the school system, now the school psychologist, told me he'd read my file and wanted to talk. He told me I was still one of the smartest students in the system, that they were proud to have someone so brilliant at the school. He sincerely apologized for the way I had been treated so far. He couldn't understand why they didn't realize the problem wasn't me, it was their inability to cope with anybody challenging the status quo. Dr. Morgenstern followed my career as a journalist and wrote me decades later with pride at how I had turned out.

Though I went through the ceremony with my classmates, I was given a blank sheet of paper instead of a diploma. I never actually graduated BHHS because I was lacking 2 grade points. I learned absolutely everything they were teaching without having to bother with crap like homework, which I never handed in, or daily quizzes, which I inevitably failed. I aced my finals, proving all the other stuff was unnecessary, but not to one teacher who flunked me anyway. I'd already been accepted to LACC so who cared.

Time went on. It was a gradual descent from uptrodden to downtrodden, from all needs met to most needs met to some needs met to few needs met to no needs met, from Paris Hilton to Motel 6, from hobnobbing with the got-alls to scrounging with the rest, but the gravity of life can tend to run downhill.

I always intended to move back to Beverly Hills to see how my own kids would fare in the same system that had such problems with me, but that ship has either sailed or never docked. Now my kids are the products of completely different bad school systems. Dr. Morgenstern's apology was nice but I really hope they learned their lesson and they're not still creating people so fucked up.

Maybe telling me my IQ wasn't such a hot idea, but how else could they explain what they were doing? I never bragged about it and fifty years later, this is first time I've ever mentioned it. It was too traumatic for me to consider it a plus. I can't think of any circumstances in my childhood where knowing I was supposed to be so smart did me any good. On the contrary, the guys watching me with clipboards only instilled the belief there was something wrong with me, a belief I apparently still hold to this day.

Thanks for reading this. Now I don't have to pay for a therapist.

"The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it."

- Wendell Berry -

Letters about My Childhood from Issue 
#216 of Disinfotainment Today

Amazing story.  

- Jeff Crook 

My Childhood is a fabulous read. 
Life is a trip. Thanks. Do more of this. 

- Frank Cavestani

If you were a stand-up, I'd stand in the back 
and watch you.  

- Larry Hankin 

Mr. Dare, 

    I don't know what are your plans for an 
autobiography, if you have written the full scale of it or intend to promote 
your writings as such, but I was completely captivated. Surely, this is the 
premise of a memorable screenplay, at the very least.

    One of life's insults that perplexes me most is how 
truly brilliant minds of creative genius so often seem to be perpetually at odds 
with realizing their full potential and the ability to lay claim to greatness, 
primarily in the form of significant recognition and cold hard 
cash.

    I, for one, would pay the price of a hardcover to 
read it - a new hardcover from one of those expensive hotel book shops with 
organic bagels and espresso served in porcelain demi tasse. In other words, 
surely the story of your life would sell well. 

    I have been in that position a few times at school, 
seen the kid who is obviously gifted on a level far beyond his peers and 
instructors, stuck in the corner, struggling with the strictures of 
cookie-cutter education, doodling ideas that speak of talents the rest of us can 
only marvel. And I have seen what just a few words of encouragement and 
understanding can do to help them see that those years coming of age are such a 
small part of the great expanse of destiny. It staggers the imagination what 
those kids could accomplish if only more of their educators had the wisdom and 
resources to cultivate their abilities.

    Thank you for sharing your personal struggles. Few 
biographies, in my opinion, prove more interesting than a life lived in full 
pursuit of breaking free from the status quo.

- Kristen Twedt

Michael, 

This is a wonderful piece you've written and should be a 
chapter in a book of your life. You don't need a therapist, you just need to 
continue to believe in how smart you are, how well you write, and how someday, 
someone is going to realize this and do something for you. 

- Larry Grobel

Spotlight on Tony Scott - Billion Dollar Director

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Critic's Take on Action Auteur

from Daily Variety, Aug. 6, 1996

by Michael Dare

It’s hard not to see it as one of the most public displays of sibling rivalry in all of show biz. Ridley and Tony, one a master of the cerebral, one a master of the visceral, both absolute masters of the technical. As children, they must have played games together, gotten in scrapes, challenged each other, and done arts and crafts. The competition between them was inevitable. One makes films that are artsy, one makes films that are crafty.

Despite their equal technical proficiency, the overall philosophy of their films couldn’t be more different: Ridley’s nihilistic and pessimistic outlook is in direct contrast to Tony’s exuberant optimism. Tony couldn’t make a film in which the two main characters end up flying off a cliff any more than Ridley could make a film in which the two main characters end up cavorting on a beach with their baby. One fights for happy endings, the other for sad. Ridley fought hard to prevent “Bladerunner” from being released with an ending that had even the slightest glimmer of hope. He lost, but the film’s cult following enabled him to eventually release a director’s cut with a much more depressing denouncement. Tony fought hard to prevent “True Romance” from being release with an incredibly depressing ending penned by Quentin Tarantino. He won, and the film’s ultra-happy fantasy ending helped elevate the film to cult status.

By the time Tony Scott made his first film, “The Hunger,” (1983) his older brother Ridley had already established himself with “The Duellists” (1977), “Alien” (1979), and “Bladerunner” (1982). Deciding to become a film director with such an older brother is like deciding to become an architect with Frank Lloyd Wright as an older brother. Quite a challenge for anyone to live up to.

“The Hunger” doesn’t seem to fit into Tony’s filmography at all. Watching it is less like watching a movie and more like flipping through a movie. With equal amounts of vampires, lesbians, rock music, and more hip sunglasses than Melrose Ave. on Saturday, it’s as though MTV and Vogue Magazine conspired to remake “Dracula” as soft core porn. Starring Catherine Deneuve, Susan Sarandon, and David Bowie, if your memory of the film consists of more images than plot, your memory is serving you well. “Hollywood hated ‘The Hunger,’” said Scott at the time. “They said it was arty and indulgent, which it was. After that, I couldn’t get arrested. It took me two years to get another movie.”

Luckily, Simpson and Bruckheimer saw his commercial reel and hired him to direct “Top Gun,” which erased all memories of his premiere experimentation in storytelling. Anybody who can’t follow the plot of “Top Gun” is brain dead. A cocky Navy pilot (Tom Cruise) gets sent to a special school to learn dogfighting. After a torrid affair with his flight instructor (Kelly McGillis), he gets to prove himself in a final confrontation with the Russians. Though the plot is standard, the action is superlative. Time Magazine called it “Shamelessly entertaining,” and even Roger Ebert had to admit that “The remarkable achievement in ‘Top Gun’ is that it presents seven or eight aerial encounters that are so well choreographed that we can actually follow them.” The film was an enormous hit, which must have felt good for several reasons. Big brother had just bombed with “Legend,” another seeming sure thing starring Tom Cruise.

Scott continued his lucrative collaboration with Simpson/Bruckheimer with “Beverly Hills Cop II” (1987), another ode to momentum with wall-to-wall action sequences. Though not as funny as the original, it was an enormous commercial success, establishing Scott as one of Hollywood’s premiere action directors.

“Revenge” (1990) starts out as a female fantasy. What woman married to Anthony Quinn wouldn’t consider having an affair with Kevin Costner? Not Madeleine Stowe, who jumps at the chance. Then the film switches sides as Quinn moves in on the lovers, giving the movie it’s well deserved title. With his now trademark stylish photography, an amazing performance by Quinn, and virtually no action sequences, “Revenge” got good reviews but did no business. It was, however, Quentin Tarantino’s favorite film of Scott’s, inciting him later to recommend Scott as a director for his script of “True Romance.”

With “Days of Thunder,” Scott returned to a formula he knew well, the Tom Cruise action flick. Set in the world of stock-car racing, it follows the archetype of “Top Gun” almost exactly. Unjustly maligned at the time for it’s budget and very public behind-the-scenes bickering, it has actually aged quite well. The races are top-notch, and the dialogue by Robert Towne full of surprises.

“The Last Boy Scout” follows the Bruce Willis archetype as strongly as “Days of Thunder” follows the Tom Cruise archetype. Willis is a down and out private detective who teams with Damon Wayons to stop a plot to legalize gambling that somehow involves blowing up a football stadium. Scott integrates the laughs in a much surer way than he did with BHC2, with Taylor Negron as a particular standout among a large crew of villains.

Scott totally hit his stride with “True Romance” (1993). In his quest to perfectly integrate plot and action, it turns out that all he really needed was a script by Quentin Tarantino. Scott took Tarantino’s backwards and sideways script, straightened it out, and gave it a miraculously happy ending that Elvis would have loved.

It’s also the one that got him in the most trouble. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole accused the film, and others, of crossing the line “not just of taste, but of human dignity and decency,” and of threatening to “undermine our character as a nation.” All this because Tony Scott changed the ending. Perhaps if he had gone with Tarantino’s ending, where the hero dies a horrible death, the film wouldn’t have been excoriated as another one of Hollywood’s “nightmares of depravity.”

“True Romance” is in many ways his most satisfying film, due in no small part to the brilliance of Quentin Tarantino’s first script, especially in the treatment of the minor characters. As Tarantino explains, “Clarence and Alabama keep running into all these people, and when they do, the movie becomes the story of the people they meet. When they’re with Clarence’s father, I treat him as though the whole movie is going to be about him. When Vincezo Coccotti, the gangster that Christopher Walken plays, comes in, the whole movie could be about him. The same thing with Drexl, the Gary Oldman characters. But particularly the father. You just figure he’s going to play a central role. Then I rub Dennis Hopper out.”

Next was “Crimson Tide,” (1995) the best submarine movie that Tom Clancy didn’t write. Rolling Stone called it a “powerhouse action thriller acted to hell and back by Denzel Washington as St. Cmdr. Ron Hunter and Gene Hackman as Capt. Frank Ramsey.” It’s an intense, claustrophobic, and very serious version of “Dr. Strangelove” underwater, a monument to testosterone.

Seeing his work as a whole, it’s not just his expertise at action that draws in the male crowds, but his fascinating penchant for creating miraculous fantasy babes. What student pilot hasn’t daydreamed that his flight instructor will not only look like Kelly McGillis, but will actually fall for him? What survivor of a car wreck doesn’t have the fantasy that his doctor will not only look like Nicole Kidman, but will actually fall for him, giving him “a thorough physical examination?” And breathes there a clerk in a comic book store who hasn’t fantasized about meeting a whore with a heart of gold at a kung-fu film who not only looks like Patricia Arquette, but falls for him? As adolescent as these fantasies might seem, the purity of their nonsense cuts right to the male heart, if not a lower organ.

RIP Tony Scott

Seattle Hempfest 2012 Press Release

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 19:50:00 +0000

SEATTLE –

Is it time to retire marijuana prohibition? The world’s largest cannabis policy retirement party thinks so. Seattle Hempfest 2012 expects many tens of thousands to attend its 21st annual event, and as America’s largest marijuana law reform event Hempfest invites everyone to join in the celebration to end cannabis prohibition Aug. 17-19 at Myrtle Edwards Park.

The 2012 “protestival” features hundreds of booths and six stages of music and speakers dotting the mile plus expanse at Myrtle Edwards and Centennial Parks, on the beautiful Puget Sound. With the Washington state decriminalization Initiative 502 on this November’s ballot, there will be much discussion about the merits and mechanics of regional cannabis reform on all of Hempfest’s stages.

Scheduled speakers include Steve DeAngelo, executive director, Harborside Health Center; Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Washington State Senate; Roger Goodman, Washington State Representative; Jill Stein, Green Party presidential nominee; Alison Holcomb, campaign director for I-502 New Approach Washington; and Rick Steves, travel show host and New Approach Washington Sponsor for I-502.

The Seattle Hempfest is an all-volunteer effort and is free to attend; donations are encouraged. Attendees are urged to ride public transportation to the event. First held in 1991 as a “humble gathering of stoners,” it has grown to become a premier Northwest summer attraction, adding to Seattle’s notoriety as a marijuana-friendly city. The public is encouraged to cut the long lines by using Amgen Helix Pedestrian Bridge located at the intersection of Elliot Ave W and W Prospect Street.

WHAT – The Seattle Hempfest XXI, America’s largest “protestival”

WHEN – Noon – 8 p.m., Friday, Aug. 17, and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 18 & 19

WHERE – Myrtle Edwards Park - Pier 70 on the downtown Seattle waterfront

Contact: Vivian McPeak (206) 295-7258 cell or (206) 364-4367 office

E-mail: media@hempfest.org

The Top 20 Logical Fallacies

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sat, 11 Aug 2012 00:08:00 +0000

What is a logical fallacy?

All arguments have the same basic structure: A therefore B. They begin with one or more premises (A), which is a fact or assumption upon which the argument is based. They then apply a logical principle (therefore) to arrive at a conclusion (B). An example of a logical principle is that of equivalence. For example, if you begin with the premises that A=B and B=C, you can apply the logical principle of equivalence to conclude that A=C. A logical fallacy is a false or incorrect logical principle. An argument that is based upon a logical fallacy is therefore not valid. It is important to note that if the logic of an argument is valid then the conclusion must also be valid, which means that if the premises are all true then the conclusion must also be true. Valid logic applied to one or more false premises, however, leads to an invalid argument. Also, if an argument is not valid, the conclusion may, by chance, still be true.

Top 20 Logical Fallacies (in alphabetical order)

Ad hominem: An ad hominem argument is any that attempts to counter another's claims or conclusions by attacking the person, rather than addressing the argument itself. True believers will often commit this fallacy by countering the arguments of skeptics by stating that skeptics are closed minded. Skeptics, on the other hand, may fall into the trap of dismissing the claims of UFO believers, for example, by stating that people who believe in UFO's are crazy or stupid.

Ad ignorantum: The argument from ignorance basically states that a specific belief is true because we don't know that it isn't true. Defenders of extrasensory perception, for example, will often overemphasize how much we do not know about the human brain. UFO proponents will often argue that an object sighted in the sky is unknown, and therefore it is an alien spacecraft.

Argument from authority: Stating that a claim is true because a person or group of perceived authority says it is true. Often this argument is implied by emphasizing the many years of experience, or the formal degrees held by the individual making a specific claim. It is reasonable to give more credence to the claims of those with the proper background, education, and credentials, or to be suspicious of the claims of someone making authoritative statements in an area for which they cannot demonstrate expertise. But the truth of a claim should ultimately rest on logic and evidence, not the authority of the person promoting it.

Argument from final Consequences: Such arguments (also called teleological) are based on a reversal of cause and effect, because they argue that something is caused by the ultimate effect that it has, or purpose that it serves. For example: God must exist, because otherwise life would have no meaning.

Argument from Personal Incredulity: I cannot explain or understand this, therefore it cannot be true. Creationists are fond of arguing that they cannot imagine the complexity of life resulting from blind evolution, but that does not mean life did not evolve.

Confusing association with causation: This is similar to the post-hoc fallacy in that it assumes cause and effect for two variables simply cause they are correlated, although the relationship here is not strictly that of one variable following the other in time. This fallacy is often used to give a statistical correlation a causal interpretation. For example, during the 1990s both religious attendance and illegal drug use have been on the rise. It would be a fallacy to conclude that therefore, religious attendance causes illegal drug use. It is also possible that drug use leads to an increase in religious attendance, or that both drug use and religious attendance are increased by a third variable, such as an increase in societal unrest. It is also possible that both variables are independent of one another, and it is mere coincidence that they are both increasing at the same time. A corollary to this is the invocation of this logical fallacy to argue that an association does not represent causation, rather it is more accurate to say that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, but it can. Also, multiple independent correlations can point reliably to a causation, and is a reasonable line of argument.

Confusing currently unexplained with unexplainable: Because we do not currently have an adequate explanation for a phenomenon does not mean that it is forever unexplainable, or that it therefore defies the laws of nature or requires a paranormal explanation. An example of this is the "God of the Gaps" strategy of creationists that whatever we cannot currently explain is unexplainable and was therefore an act of god.

False Continuum: The idea that because there is no definitive demarcation line between two extremes, that the distinction between the extremes is not real or meaningful: There is a fuzzy line between cults and religion, therefore they are really the same thing.

False Dichotomy: Arbitrarily reducing a set of many possibilities to only two. For example, evolution is not possible, therefore we must have been created (assumes these are the only two possibilities). This fallacy can also be used to oversimplify a continuum of variation to two black and white choices. For example, science and pseudo-science are not two discrete entities, but rather the methods and claims of all those who attempt to explain reality fall along a continuum from one extreme to the other.

Inconsistency: Applying criteria or rules to one belief, claim, argument, or position but not to others. For example, some consumer advocates argue that we need stronger regulation of prescription drugs to ensure their safety and effectiveness, but at the same time argue that medicinal herbs should be sold with no regulation for either safety or effectiveness.

The Moving Goalpost: A method of denial arbitrarily moving the criteria for "proof" or acceptance out of range of whatever evidence currently exists.

Non-Sequitur: In Latin this term translates to "doesn't follow." This refers to an argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises. In other words, a logical connection is implied where none exists.

Post-hoc ergo propter hoc: This fallacy follows the basic format of: A preceded B, therefore A caused B, and therefore assumes cause and effect for two events just because they are temporally related (the Latin translates to "after this, therefore because of this").

Reductio ad absurdum: These arguments assume that if an argument is valid, it necessarily means that the most extreme example of that argument must also be valid. A UFO enthusiast once argued that if I am skeptical about the existence of alien visitors, I must also be skeptical of the existence of the Great Wall of China, since I have not personally seen either. He therefore tried to take my skepticism to an absurd extreme in order to invalidate any skepticism.

Slippery Slope: This logical fallacy is the argument that a position is not consistent or tenable because accepting the position means that the extreme of the position must also be accepted. But moderate positions do not necessarily lead down the slippery slope to the extreme.

Straw Man: Arguing against a position which you create specifically to be easy to argue against, rather than the position actually held by those who oppose your point of view.

Special pleading, or ad-hoc reasoning: This is a subtle fallacy which is often difficult to recognize. In essence, it is the arbitrary introduction of new elements into an argument in order to fix them so that they appear valid. A good example of this is the ad-hoc dismissal of negative test results. For example, one might point out that ESP has never been demonstrated under adequate test conditions, therefore ESP is not a genuine phenomenon. Defenders of ESP have attempted to counter this argument by introducing the arbitrary premise that ESP does not work in the presence of skeptics. This fallacy is often taken to ridiculous extremes, and more and more bizarre ad hoc elements are added to explain experimental failures or logical inconsistencies.

Tautology: A tautology is an argument that utilizes circular reasoning, which means that the conclusion is also its own premise. The structure of such arguments is A=B therefore A=B, although the premise and conclusion might be formulated differently so it is not immediately apparent as such. For example, saying that therapeutic touch works because it manipulates the life force is a tautology because the definition of therapeutic touch is the alleged manipulation (without touching) of the life force.

Tu quoque: Literally, you too. This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. "My evidence may be invalid, but so is yours."

Unstated Major Premise: This fallacy occurs when one makes an argument which assumes a premise which is not explicitly stated. For example, arguing that we should label food products with their cholesterol content because Americans have high cholesterol assumes that: 1) cholesterol in food causes high serum cholesterol; 2) labeling will reduce consumption of cholesterol; and 3) that having a high serum cholesterol is unhealthy. This fallacy is also sometimes called begging the question.

- The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe -

Michael Dare's One-Liners #1-12

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 00:28:00 +0000

A Mardi-Gras Fable

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:18:00 +0000

The ancient patriarch gathered his children to his deathbed and explained their inheritances to them.

"To you Bernard, the studious, I leave my money, all of it, to do with what you want. To you, Heimlich, the adventurer, I leave my land, in hopes you will finally make a proper home. And to you, Paco, I leave my most treasured possession, my luck."

"Your luck?" said Paco.

The patriarch pulled out a cheap plastic piece of junk jewelry and handed it to him. Paco said, "Hey pops, this is nothing but a cheap plastic piece of junk jewelry."

"Appearances are deceiving," said the patriarch. "Listen up."

"I owe everything to that amulet, my wealth and my health," he continued. "Without it, none of you would be getting anything. I used to be in great shape but had nothing. Yeah, I know, it's hard to believe, but in my twenties I didn't eat meat and I actually fasted for several weeks every January in order to clean out my system. Then I started eating meat, made a great fortune, and turned into the decrepit mess I am today. I blame Mississippi."

Why I'm Not a Vegetarian

I stuck out my thumb and got a ride right away, out of Memphis, across the border into Mississippi. The driver looked in his rearview mirror and said "You got any pot on you?"

Trick question. I had a couple joints hidden away where they'd never be found, inside a thermos I always kept filled with hot coffee. You'd have to pour out the coffee to find it. Did he want to get high? Was he a nark? Seemed a funny way to bust people, picking up hitchhikers and taking them to another state. All I could say was "Why?"

"I'm being followed by some undercover cops who've been after me for ages. They see a strange person in my car and I just know they're going to stop me. We're about to get searched."

I confessed that I had something rolled, but that it would be damn hard to find.

"Okay, listen, I'm going to let you out of the car at the next stop, then continue on and hope they don't stop me."

The next stop turned out to be a burger joint in the middle of nowhere. He dropped me in the parking lot with my suitcase, sleeping bag, and guitar. Before I could stick my thumb back out, a dark gray sedan pulled into the opposite end of the parking lot, and I could see that the passenger was actually looking at me through binoculars.

They were cops. He wasn't lying. I had to look normal. I had apparently asked to be dropped off, otherwise why was I here. It was nothing but a burger joint. Nothing else for miles. I could just sit there like an idiot, or I could do what it looked like I was expected to do. I went inside and ordered a burger. I sat in the window and ate it slowly while reading a book, keeping my eye on the guy in the sedan who still had his eyes on me. Only when I had finished and wiped my mouth with a napkin did they take off. I had eaten meat for the first time in years, and it saved me from being rousted by Mississippi cops.

I waited another half hour, then went back to the road and stuck out my thumb. The first car that came along was the sedan. They pulled over and questioned me. Yeah, I was on my way to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. No, I didn't know anyone in Mississippi.

Then they asked the same question. "You got any pot on you?"

No way I was going to give them the same answer. "Why?" wouldn't have been the proper response. I pulled out my greatest acting ability, channeled Lee Strasberg, and said "Man, I'd have to be an idiot to hitchhike through Mississippi with pot on me." I didn't look like an idiot. I had actually been reading. A book.

"You're damn right, son," said the cop. "Tell you what, we can't let you keep hitchhiking here. You got enough money for a motel room?"

I did. They took me to a nearby motel where I checked in and spent the night. The next morning I stuck out my thumb again. Got to New Orleans the next day without any more problems.

"My favorite animal is steak." - Fran Lebowitz -

The Build-Up

One reason for getting to New Orleans early is that the parades start at least a week before Fat Tuesday. There's one or two, then five a day, then ten, building to the final day of non-stop neighborhood mini-parades leading to Canal Street where they merge into one giant parade.

I stayed in the house of a district attorney I'll call Paul but whose real name must remain secret for obvious reasons. Every Mardi Gras his front door would stay open and a giant bowl of ganja would sit on his living room table surrounded by rolling papers. It was non-stop party for two weeks. He knew the pastures to invade on cold winter mornings when there had been an overnight rain. We'd head across Lake Ponchartrain, sneak into a farm, and mosey around the cows looking for patties with mushrooms growing out of them. Bruise them a little and if they turned purple, you knew they were the kind. Just the right spice for homemade pizza.

People in New Orleans waited all year for one big blowout, and the city was full of used clothing stores where you would pick this year's costume. Only a lazy bastard would wear what he wore last year. I loaded up on strange clothes for the big day. Don't forget the fancy umbrella, useless for the rain but perfect for dancing down the middle of the street.

I checked out all the places I'd heard about, the Audubon Zoo (where they all asked for you) and the Vieux Carre, home of the world's best balconies. The streetcar line to Desire was changed to a bus line in 1948 so I was reduced to taking a bus named Desire.

I wallowed in all things Cajun, especially the music. Zydeco was something new that grabbed my legs and forced me to dance. I'd heard Dr. John but not the early stuff, Kon kon, the kiddy kon kon, Walk on Gilded Splinters, the dark authentic voodoo Dr. John. Bought a ticket to see him on Mardi Gras day. I'd been into Little Feat but now it was The Meters (now The Neville Brothers) all the way. Saw them live with The Wild Tchoupitoulas, authentic Indians who only come out on Fat Tuesday, whose one and only album I must insist you buy immediately.

The Wild Tchoupitoulas, Mardi Gras, mid '70s

I had already mastered Scott Joplin, and I actually had the nerve to play the Maple Leaf Rag on the piano at the Maple Leaf Bar to a crowd of drunks who have hopefully forgotten. I had always considered him the heart of American musical culture when Van Dyke Parks told me about the man who influenced Joplin, the man ragtime actually came from, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the very first American composer (other than Benjamin Franklin), born in 1829 to a Creole Indian mother and Jewish German sailor father. Gottschalk mastered the piano early, moved to France to study with Liszt, came back and toured the south doing solo piano concerts for union soldiers during the Civil War. Why Hollywood hasn't made a movie about him I'll never know, but allow me to mention that his Souvenir de Puerto Rico, full of African/Caribbean influence, is my favorite piece of piano music of all time, and if you want to know where it all came from, you better give it a listen. (MP3)

Fat Tuesday

Okay, we all know that Ash Wednesday is the day we stop sinning and repent our evil ways. Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras day, is the day before Ash Wednesday, when all good Christians invite the world to join them in committing all the sins that will be forbidden to them the next day. The world's shortest list is the one of all the sins that aren't committed on Mardi Gras day. This is what all Mardi Gras around the world have in common.

But there's a back story that makes the one in New Orleans unique, and you need to hear it in order to understand why the cheap piece of crap plastic jewelry pictured below is one of my proudest possessions. This is the history as I understand it. The annual Mardi Gras in New Orleans is much more than a chance to blow off steam before lent.

Like most major metropolitan areas, New Orleans was divided between rich and poor. The city is shaped like a U, the outer edges being the rich parts, the Vieux Carre and the Garden District, with the ghetto in the middle, literally blocks away. You can stand on Canal Street and stare at the grandest southern mansions ever built, then walk one block east and find yourself in the deepest poverty. I was sincerely warned by my friend the district attorney that I'd be taking my life in my hands if I wandered too far from civilization. According to him, the entire inner city was populated by blacks too stupid to leave, and who resented my existence.

Centuries ago, the rich people in town took it upon themselves to ride their horses through the ghetto once a year and throw coins and jewelry to the poor who would gather by the side of the road. This was their version of charity.

The poor would line the streets in hopes of receiving a token of mercy, and they quickly learned a lesson. The goal in attending one of these "parades" of benevolent rich people was to GET THE ATTENTION of the riders with the moolah. If you were a rich person riding your fancy horse through the rabble, whom would you throw a coin to, people just standing there going "me me me," or someone dressed like a peacock holding a giant basket with a bullseye painted on it? Something as simple as flashing your tits was enough of an attention grabber to get the guy on the horse to make a donation to your cause. The first patrician to throw a coin at a flamboyant reveler holding a homemade target was responsible for the tradition of observers showing up at Mardi Gras parades looking as outlandish as possible.

Unlike other parades, such as the Rose Parade and other local patriotic affairs, the Mardi Gras represents a give-and-take. Though the booty has been reduced from real jewels and coins and coconuts to plastic imitations, nobody goes to a Mardi Gras parade just to watch - the object is to get something to prove you were there. Each Krewe minted it's own individual coins, the Krewe of Bacchus, the Krewe of Comus, the Krewe of Craw, one Krewe for each parade. Showing up anywhere else on earth covered in cheap plastic jewelry would be considered pretty goddam embarrassing, but not in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, where a neck covered in hideous purple and gold novelty crap was a badge of honor showing how many parades you attended.

The parades in New Orleans aren't something you park yourself on the sidewalk to watch, you go there dressed as outrageously as possible so that someone on the float will throw something at you. Chances are you won't catch it so...

RULE #1: If it hits the ground, do not, under any circumstances, simply pick it up. That's a surefire recipe for getting your hand trampled by a boot. If it's on the ground and you want it, stomp on it, then retrieve it from under your shoe.

If you dream of someday riding on a Mardi Gras float, keep dreaming. Mardi Gras Krewes like Bacchus are as closed as Skull and Bones. Each parade leads to a private party where they change into tuxedos and evening gowns. You are very much not invited. Every year they announce someone who gets to be the honorary king of the festival, and even though they're usually B-level Hollywood celebrities, I'm always jealous because being made honorary king of the festival is just about the only goddam way that a non-insider can actually get to ride on a float.

Once the Mardi Gras transformed from a mini-act of charity to a full-fledged, world-renowned festival, the black community put together their own parade, not a snotty group of whites who deigned to travel through the ghetto once a year, but a genuine celebration of everything non-white, a parade not INTO the ghetto but FROM the ghetto. The marching bands would play real music, not that John Philip Sousa crap. There would be flambeauxs and dancers who actually had rhythm. The map of the parade route would NOT be printed in the paper. It would start in the ghetto and the leader of the parade, with his giant marching stick, would decide at each intersection what direction to go in. There was no way of knowing where to find them. It was the Zulu Parade, reputed to be the best parade on earth, by blacks for blacks, and if you were white and wanted to see it, you'd just have march into the ghetto on Mardi Gras day and try to find it.

I had a girlfriend who lived with her parents. One day her father took me to his office and showed me his pride and joy, shelf after shelf of binders holding his Mardi Gras coin collection. They were arranged by year and covered decades. He pulled down a book and showed me the mint condition coins, one from each parade, like any fine coin collection, each page with plastic so you could see both sides of every coin. Every year he attended as many parades as possible, then swapped with other collectors to complete the collection. I spent an hour going through them. Many were incredibly beautiful, and some of the older ones were actual coins, not just plastic.

He had Zulu coins, which he said were the rarest. He had to trade for them with other collectors. He had never actually found the Zulu Parade himself.

Amulets and coins from other parades may have been fun collectors items, but they weren't gris-gris, imbued with mystical voodoo power like the amulets from Zulu. White people wearing a Zulu amulet during the Mardi Gras were gazed upon with awe. Man, I had just hitchhiked through Mississippi with a bag of dope, actually got stopped by the cops, and didn't get caught. Weren't no paranoid delusions of potentially getting beaten to a bloody pulp going to stop me from seeing the goddam Zulu Parade.

Mardi Gras morning I got up, gobbled some mushrooms, watched a bit of the local parade, then marched into mid-city in search of Zulu.

The rumors were right. I was the only white person for block after block. I searched for an hour then heard a sound down a narrow street that could only be a marching band. I ran down the block and there it was, the Zulu Parade, hundreds crowding the sidewalk as it went by, first a marching band playing a soul tune, not just marching, dancing up a storm, surrounded by flambeaux, flaming torches that whirled and flew, everyone dancing, drinking, me too, it remains the best parade I've ever seen.

Those on the floats were throwing gris-gris but none reached me. Then there was a glitch down the road and the parade stopped with a float right in front of me. People on floats would point at the person they were aiming at, then throw at them till they caught it. The crowd was reaching up, crying "ME! ME" as the coins and beads flew through the air to the outstretched hands. Finally, as the glitch stretched into minutes, the crowd was sated and I was the only one going "ME! ME!" I was the only white face in the crowd. No one would throw me a coin. Ten minutes went by and I knew it was futile.

Then I noticed a phenomenon. People would run up to a float and hand the riders something, a six-pack of beer, anything, just a gift, and they'd be rewarded with a handful of stuff. I had my Polaroid camera. I figured if I was in the parade, I'd like a nice Polaroid of me on the float. I took a shot, waited for it to develop, then pushed my way through the crowd to the still stationary float.

I pointed to one of the masked riders and waved the photo at him. He leaned down, grabbed it, and his jaw dropped. It was just what he wanted. He pointed at ME, emphatically, clutched a handful of beads and coins and threw them. So many black hands appeared between me and the float that I didn't get a single one. The guy on the float saw what happened and pointed to me again. He became as determined as I was to get myself a coin, but before he could throw a second time, the glitch got fixed and the parade took off. I ran down the center of the street, he kept throwing, and I kept missing as the crowd gathered around me. Finally I grabbed ahold of the float and hung on for dear life, dragged down the street, refusing to let go until I got my due.

The rider saw what was happening, leaned over the edge of the float, and actually placed one right in my hands. We saluted each other, I let go of the float, and the parade continued down the street.

I looked around. I was in the center of Canal Street, surrounded by barricades with thousands of people pushing towards me, precisely where I didn't belong. The police grabbed me and threw me out of the street, over a barricade and into a crowd where I was almost crushed to death, but I didn't care. I got what I came for.

And here it is, the symbol of my psychedelic youth, a white boy in blackland, drunk, stoned, flying high, an endless celebration. Amazing I still have it.

I headed to Dr. John, whose concert ended as he opened the stage doors on both sides and let the passing parade through one and out the other, then invited us to join in. Nobody left that theater through the lobby. We all jumped on stage and paraded out into the street with the doctor.

"That's some story," said Paco.

"Yep," said the patriarch.

"So Bernard gets all the money?" said Paco.

"Yep," said the patriarch.

"And Heimlich gets all the land? said Paco.

"Yep," said the patriarch.

"And all I get is this Zulu amulet?" said Paco.

"Yep," said the patriarch, who promptly kicked a bucket that was conveniently placed at the foot of the bed.

Paco put on the Zulu amulet and headed to an audition he had that afternoon for a small part in a Fox sitcom about a white middle-class family who take in a pair of New Orleans flood refugees who turn out to be non-stop Mardi-Gras party animals. Hilarity ensued. The producers weren't very happy with his line reading, but just as he was leaving the sound stage, the casting director, who was from New Orleans, noticed the Zulu amulet around Paco's neck.

"Where did you get that?" asked the casting director.

Paco told him the whole story, ended up the star of the sitcom, and next year was made honorary King of the Mardi Gras.

Book-It's Prairie Nocturne is a knock out

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 21:49:00 +0000

Reviewed by Michael Dare

"A story wants to be told a certain way, or it is merely the alphabet badly recited. At the right time the words borrow us, so to speak, and then out can come the unsuspected sides of things with the force like that of music.”
- Ivan Doig

The dialogue is rarely the best part of a novel. In-between the quotes, the novelist is telling you what one of their characters is saying, but outside the quotes is the author stripped bare and entirely dependent upon their particular use of language. If a character says something the reader disagrees with, they could end up hating the character, but if the TEXT says something the reader disagrees with, they could end up hating the author.

All novelists provide perspective, good ones a perspective unique to themselves, and great ones a perspective simultaneously unique and universal. Ivan Doig is one of the great ones, and I can say that despite the fact I've never read a single word he's written, because I have seen Book-It Repertory's new production of Prairie Nocturne.

I don't know how I missed him but strangely enough, I'm glad I did, because what better way to get turned on to an author than through a Book-It production. If you close your eyes, it's like a book on tape - a bunch of actors are reading a book to you - and if it's a good book, you'll keep listening. Open your eyes and there they are, in costume, on a stage, still reading to you, but going in and out of character as the book demands, sometimes doing accents and pantomime, surrounded by state of the art stagecraft, where the slightest change of set and lighting moves you instantaneously from a mountain cabin to a riverboat going down a canyon to a limousine going down the street, they give you just enough to picture it in your mind's eye, but never too much to distract from the language of the storytelling.

This time, director Laura Ferri and adaptor Elena Hartwell invite us back to the 20s in Montana to investigate the relationship between Susan, a music instructor, and the two men who love her, Monty, a singing student, and Wesley, a cattle tycoon who brought Monty to her in the first place. The triangle is complicated by the fact Wesley's married (to a wife we never meet), and Monty is black, the Klu Klux Klan is on the rampage, and he's and a mama's boy. Luckily, his mama filled him with a spirit of gospel that blessed him with a voice and repertory for the ages, taking him from the backwoods of Montana all the way to Carnegie Hall. (Monty has a real-life counterpart, Taylor Gordon, who actually did go from Montana to Carnegie Hall in the 20's. Doig says "I tape-recorded his memories of those times not long before he died, familyless, in 1971, and his papers and other Harlem Renaissance archival holdings are rich with detail," details he uses to fill the book with authenticity.)

Myra Platt, as Susan, is more talented than anyone has a right to be. She not only blazes through some excellent Chopin, she co-wrote the original music to Ivan Doig's lyrics with Theresa Holmes. Despite the flashiness of the other characters, when you start wondering who this is really about, it all comes down to her, and we become as much her pupils as Monty.

Shawn Belyea does the best he can with the thankless role of Wesley, the good natured gentleman whose relationship with Susan was in the past, and who doesn't get to do much but be a man and relive the love of his life without ever reconsumating it, but Geoffery Simmons get a real star turn as Monty. With Denzel's good looks and sensitivity, plus a magnificent singing voice, watching his rise from rodeo clown (really!) to tuxedoed solo artist is totally engrossing.

Special props to Faith Russell as Angeline, Monty's mom, who not only gets one spectacular solo number in a church at the end of act one, but has one of my favorite moments of the evening, a moment I'm always looking for in a Book-It production, a moment uniquely theirs.

In the book, every time Monty sings, he's infused with the spirit of his mother, so at his first singing lesson, when he first opens up and reveals the strength of his vocal cords, she's stage left singing with him, backing him up, giving him the encouragement he needs. Obviously she doesn't do that in the book. In the movie, they might have done something schmaltzy, like in the Lion King, have his dead mother appear in the clouds to sing with him, but here, it's a subtle touch, a translation of the spirit of the book as well as the actual words. Only Book-it could have pulled it off.

February 7 - March 4, 2012

Previews: February 7, 8, 9
Opening Night: Friday, February 10

Center House Theatre, Seattle Center

Evening shows begin at 7:30pm

Matineés begin at 2:00pm

Buy Tickets Online or through the box office: 206.216.0833.

All the words that will make the government look at you

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 18:04:00 +0000

Waihopai, INFOSEC, Information Security, Information Warfare, IW, IS, Privacy, Information Terrorism, Terrorism Defensive Information, Defense Information Warfare, Offensive Information, Offensive Information Warfare, National Information Infrastructure, InfoSec, Reno, Compsec, Computer Terrorism, Firewalls, Secure Internet Connections, ISS, Passwords, DefCon V, Hackers, Encryption, Espionage, USDOJ, NSA, CIA, S/Key, SSL, FBI, Secert Service, USSS, Defcon, Military, White House, Undercover, NCCS, Mayfly, PGP, PEM, RSA, Perl-RSA, MSNBC, bet, AOL, AOL TOS, CIS, CBOT, AIMSX, STARLAN, 3B2, BITNET, COSMOS, DATTA, E911, FCIC, HTCIA, IACIS, UT/RUS, JANET, JICC, ReMOB, LEETAC, UTU, VNET, BRLO, BZ, CANSLO, CBNRC, CIDA, JAVA, Active X, Compsec 97, LLC, DERA, Mavricks, Meta-hackers, ^?, Steve Case, Tools, Telex, Military Intelligence, Scully, Flame, Infowar, Bubba, Freeh, Archives, Sundevil, jack, Investigation, ISACA, NCSA, spook words, Verisign, Secure, ASIO, Lebed, ICE, NRO, Lexis-Nexis, NSCT, SCIF, FLiR, Lacrosse, Flashbangs, HRT, DIA, USCOI, CID, BOP, FINCEN, FLETC, NIJ, ACC, AFSPC, BMDO, NAVWAN, NRL, RL, NAVWCWPNS, NSWC, USAFA, AHPCRC, ARPA, LABLINK, USACIL, USCG, NRC, ~, CDC, DOE, FMS, HPCC, NTIS, SEL, USCODE, CISE, SIRC, CIM, ISN, DJC, SGC, UNCPCJ, CFC, DREO, CDA, DRA, SHAPE, SACLANT, BECCA, DCJFTF, HALO, HAHO, FKS, 868, GCHQ, DITSA, SORT, AMEMB, NSG, HIC, EDI, SAS, SBS, UDT, GOE, DOE, GEO, Masuda, Forte, AT, GIGN, Exon Shell, CQB, CONUS, CTU, RCMP, GRU, SASR, GSG-9, 22nd SAS, GEOS, EADA, BBE, STEP, Echelon, Dictionary, MD2, MD4, MDA, MYK, 747,777, 767, MI5, 737, MI6, 757, Kh-11, Shayet-13, SADMS, Spetznaz, Recce, 707, CIO, NOCS, Halcon, Duress, RAID, Psyops, grom, D-11, SERT, VIP, ARC, S.E.T. Team, MP5k, DREC, DEVGRP, DF, DSD, FDM, GRU, LRTS, SIGDEV, NACSI, PSAC, PTT, RFI, SIGDASYS, TDM. SUKLO, SUSLO, TELINT, TEXTA. ELF, LF, MF, VHF, UHF, SHF, SASP, WANK, Colonel, domestic disruption, smuggle, 15kg, nitrate, Pretoria, M-14, enigma, Bletchley Park, Clandestine, nkvd, argus, afsatcom, CQB, NVD, Counter Terrorism Security, Rapid Reaction, Corporate Security, Police, sniper, PPS, ASIS, ASLET, TSCM, Security Consulting, High Security, Security Evaluation, Electronic Surveillance, MI-17, Counterterrorism, spies, eavesdropping, debugging, interception, COCOT, rhost, rhosts, SETA, Amherst, Broadside, Capricorn, Gamma, Gorizont, Guppy, Ionosphere, Mole, Keyhole, Kilderkin, Artichoke, Badger, Cornflower, Daisy, Egret, Iris, Hollyhock, Jasmine, Juile, Vinnell, B.D.M.,Sphinx, Stephanie, Reflection, Spoke, Talent, Trump, FX, FXR, IMF, POCSAG, Covert Video, Intiso, r00t, lock picking, Beyond Hope, csystems, passwd, 2600 Magazine, Competitor, EO, Chan, Alouette,executive, Event Security, Mace, Cap-Stun, stakeout, ninja, ASIS, ISA, EOD, Oscor, Merlin, NTT, SL-1, Rolm, TIE, Tie-fighter, PBX, SLI, NTT, MSCJ, MIT, 69, RIT, Time, MSEE, Cable & Wireless, CSE, Embassy, ETA, Porno, Fax, finks, Fax encryption, white noise, pink noise, CRA, M.P.R.I., top secret, Mossberg, 50BMG, Macintosh Security, Macintosh Internet Security, Macintosh Firewalls, Unix Security, VIP Protection, SIG, sweep, Medco, TRD, TDR, sweeping, TELINT, Audiotel, Harvard, 1080H, SWS, Asset, Satellite imagery, force, Cypherpunks, Coderpunks, TRW, remailers, replay, redheads, RX-7, explicit, FLAME, Pornstars, AVN, Playboy, Anonymous, Sex, chaining, codes, Nuclear, 20, subversives, SLIP, toad, fish, data havens, unix, c, a, b, d, the, Elvis, quiche, DES, 1*, NATIA, NATOA, sneakers, counterintelligence, industrial espionage, PI, TSCI, industrial intelligence, H.N.P., Juiliett Class Submarine, Locks, loch, Ingram Mac-10, sigvoice, ssa, E.O.D., SEMTEX, penrep, racal, OTP, OSS, Blowpipe, CCS, GSA, Kilo Class, squib, primacord, RSP, Becker, Nerd, fangs, Austin, Comirex, GPMG, Speakeasy, humint, GEODSS, SORO, M5, ANC, zone, SBI, DSS, S.A.I.C., Minox, Keyhole, SAR, Rand Corporation, Wackenhutt, EO, Wackendude, mol, Hillal, GGL, CTU, botox, Virii, CCC, Blacklisted 411, Internet Underground, XS4ALL, Retinal Fetish, Fetish, Yobie, CTP, CATO, Phon-e, Chicago Posse, l0ck, spook keywords, PLA, TDYC, W3, CUD, CdC, Weekly World News, Zen, World Domination, Dead, GRU, M72750, Salsa, 7, Blowfish, Gorelick, Glock, Ft. Meade, press-release, Indigo, wire transfer, e-cash, Bubba the Love Sponge, Digicash, zip, SWAT, Ortega, PPP, crypto-anarchy, AT&T, SGI, SUN, MCI, Blacknet, Middleman, KLM, Blackbird, plutonium, Texas, jihad, SDI, Uzi, Fort Meade, supercomputer, bullion, 3, Blackmednet, Propaganda, ABC, Satellite phones, Planet-1, cryptoanalysis, nuclear, FBI, Panama, fissionable, Sears Tower, NORAD, Delta Force, SEAL, virtual, Dolch, secure shell, screws, Black-Ops, Area51, SABC, basement, data-haven, black-bag, TEMPSET, Goodwin, rebels, ID, MD5, IDEA, garbage, market, beef, Stego, unclassified, utopia, orthodox, Alica, SHA, Global, gorilla, Bob, Pseudonyms, MITM, Gray Data, VLSI, mega, Leitrim, Yakima, Sugar Grove, Cowboy, Gist, 8182, Gatt, Platform, 1911, Geraldton, UKUSA, veggie, 3848, Morwenstow, Consul, Oratory, Pine Gap, Menwith, Mantis, DSD, BVD, 1984, Flintlock, cybercash, government, hate, speedbump, illuminati, president, freedom, cocaine, $, Roswell, ESN, COS, E.T., credit card, b9, fraud, assasinate, virus, anarchy, rogue, mailbomb, 888, Chelsea, 1997, Whitewater, MOD, York, plutonium, William Gates, clone, BATF, SGDN, Nike, Atlas, Delta, TWA, Kiwi, PGP 2.6.2., PGP 5.0i, PGP 5.1, siliconpimp, Lynch, 414, Face, Pixar, IRIDF, eternity server, Skytel, Yukon, Templeton, LUK, Cohiba, Soros, Standford, niche, 51, H&K, USP, ^, sardine, bank, EUB, USP, PCS, NRO, Red Cell, Glock 26, snuffle, Patel, package, ISI, INR, INS, IRS, GRU, RUOP, GSS, NSP, SRI, Ronco, Armani, BOSS, Chobetsu, FBIS, BND, SISDE, FSB, BfV, IB, froglegs, JITEM, SADF, advise, TUSA, HoHoCon, SISMI, FIS, MSW, Spyderco, UOP, SSCI, NIMA, MOIS, SVR, SIN, advisors, SAP, OAU, PFS, Aladdin, chameleon man, Hutsul, CESID, Bess, rail gun, Peering, 17, 312, NB, CBM, CTP, Sardine, SBIRS, SGDN, ADIU, DEADBEEF, IDP, IDF, Halibut, SONANGOL, Flu, &, Loin, PGP 5.53, EG&G, AIEWS, AMW, WORM, MP5K-SD, 1071, WINGS, cdi, DynCorp, UXO, Ti, THAAD, package, chosen, PRIME, SURVIAC,UFO.

Or please add your own in the comments.

Jesus according to Buster

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 21:49:00 +0000

I worked on the original Los Angeles production of Jesus Christ, Superstar at the Universal Amphitheater in the early '70s, and say what you will about the film or of subsequent productions, this show was a knockout. It was before they put a roof over the amphitheater, so there was a magnificent view of the San Fernando Valley behind the stage. The director, Tom O'Horgan, made brilliant use of.this during the finale, in which high intensity lights and strobes flashed through smoke around the crucifixion, blending with the clear lights of the valley below. It was enough to make you a believer.

There was a revival of the show at the Universal Amphitheater just about five years ago with the original Jesus and Judas, Ted Neely and Carl Anderson, so I had to go, this time with my eight-year-old son Buster. I'm Jewish and Buster had never been to a church in his life. All he knew about Jesus was that he had something to do with Christmas.

He enjoyed the show enormously. It was not only his first live Broadway musical, it was his first contact with the story of Jesus Christ. The next day one of his friends asked Buster about Jesus Christ. Here's what he told them.

"Jesus was this cool guy who lived 2,000 years ago. He had long hair and wore a robe and he preached peace and love and stuff till he got a lot of followers who thought he was the messiah. Then one of his followers named Judas betrayed him to the Romans who nailed him to a cross and he died. Then I went backstage and met him and told him how good he was. I told him I really liked the part where they crucified him. Then I met Judas and told him how good he was, even better than Jesus. It was really cool because dad was friends with Jesus, and this wasn't some new Jesus, it was the original Jesus. Then dad and Jesus and Judas had a glass of wine together while I ran around the dressing room playing with Jesus's kids."

Merry Christmas from the Dares

"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face."

-Jack Handy -

Does being a liaison between Occupy Seattle and the Chief of Police make me a traitor?

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 20:04:00 +0000

I live at city hall. The first thing I do every morning is read the mayor's newspaper in his waiting room on the 7th floor. This morning, the lead story concerned the US Justice department ripping the Seattle Police department a new one for its use of excessive force. They were particularly hard on Chief of Police John Diaz who was actively defending his department.

Ever see a picture in a newspaper and look up to see that person standing in front of you? Chief Diaz came right out of the elevator and went in to a meeting with the Mayor.

Afterwards, they both emerged from McGinn's office and stood there talking in front of me. God knows what inspired me to butt my ugly head into a conversation between the Mayor and the Chief of Police, but I walked right up to introduce myself. I thanked Mayor McGinn for making our site at City Hall the most successful and long-lived in America. He said he was waiting for someone to notice that.

Diaz saw this happen, an open and trusting relationship between the mayor and an occupier, so I took advantage of the moment. I told Chief Diaz that I was from the Hempfest and used to working with the police to put on protest events. I offered myself as a liaison between himself and the movement, making it very clear that I was taking this action unilaterally, without approval from the general assembly, but I was deliberately disobeying the rule not to talk to police because we need a dialogue going. I was very clear I was speaking only for myself, not FOR the movement, but simply as a member OF the movement. He agreed and asked for my contact information.

I searched for a pen. He searched for a pen. Mayor McGinn told me to just give my information to his secretary and she would send it on.

Cool. When Chief Diaz got back to his office, there was an email waiting for him from the Mayor saying if he ever had any problems with the Occupy Movement, give Michael Dare a call. Hilarious. I'm not holding my breath.

In any case, Mayor McGinn was more than pleased to see such an exchange, and renewed his commitment to working with those in the movement willing to work with instead of against the system. He agreed to sit down later to discuss the future of the movement and how we can work together to further both of our goals.

Like it or not, Occupy Seattle now has a liaison with the Mayor's office and the Police Department.

I posted this information to an Occupy group and someone responded with this... "If you talk to a cop and he beats you then you are a hero. If you talk to a cop and both you and the cop are civil and even discuss your different opinions.... Well then you're just a snitch and a traitor! But good for you!"

Let me clarify what I believe a "liaison" does by inventing a fantasy situation.

Let's say we're gathered somewhere surrounded by police. We are quite rationally fearful of getting pepper-sprayed or worse, so we prepare for a clash.

The liaison walks up to the police and says "Hi guys, what's up? Why are you here? What are we doing wrong?"

The police say "It's the candle."

The liaison says "What?"

The police say "You can't have an open flame."

The liaison says "You've got to be kidding me. You're not here to suppress free speech?"

The police say "You can have as much free speech as you want. What you can't have is an open flame."

The liaison says "So if we blow out that candle, you'll go away?"

The police say "Yep."

The liaison walks back to the Occupy gathering and says "All they care about is the candle. Blow out the candle and the cops will go away."

The liaison is stared at in disbelief. Somebody takes it upon themselves to blow out the candle just to see what will happen. The cops go away.

Voila. Incident averted. A peaceful protest is allowed to continue because somebody talked to the police.

This is obviously over-simplified but you get the idea. Sometimes mis-communication is the only problem. The police don't know what we're doing so they are naturally fearful of entering the situation. Their entire training has to do with how to handle unstable situations. As for being a "snitch," sometimes, literally, all the police need to know is what we're doing.

Once again, let's say we're gathered in a park. The police are there prepared for anything because they don't know what we're going to do. Somebody goes up to them and says "We're marching from here to the Federal building for a short rally, then returning here."

The police have an INSTANT change of tactics. Knowing where we're going and what route we're taking, the police move in front of us to CLEAR THE ROUTE. Suddenly, they're working FOR us to make sure nobody gets hurt.

Okay, this tactic wouldn't have worked at the docks where we were clearly breaking the law, but there have been other situations where all we were doing was exhibiting free speech. In those situations, violence can have be completely averted by simply informing the police ahead of time where we're marching,

As a liaison, obviously I know a lot of things I'm not telling the police, like where marijuana grow rooms are situated in Seattle, or where Jimmy Hoffa is buried. (In one of the grow rooms.) But if I tell the police "We're going to be meeting here at this time and marching to there at that time," does that make me a police informant? Not any more than Vivian McPeak is a police informant when he tells the Seattle Police department that hundreds of thousands of people are going to be gathering in Myrtle Edwards Park in an open act of civil disobedience in protest against the War on Drugs.

Hempfest is the world's largest peaceful protest rally. In a city park. With the co-operation of the Mayor and Police. This is a city that lets Hempfest happen. This is a city that will let the Occupy movement happen. All you've got to do is talk to them.

George W. Bush joke of the day

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:14:00 +0000

First...

Sex with Animals Causes Penis Cancer

Men who put their penises in animals have a higher likelihood of penis cancer, a new study in the Journal of Sexual Medicinereports:

We think that the intense and long-term SWA [sex with animals] practice could produce micro-traumas in the human penile tissue. The genital mucus membranes of animals could have different characteristics from human genitalia, and the animals' secretions are probably different from human fluids. Perhaps animal tissues are less soft than ours, and non-human secretions would be toxic for us.

http://gawker.com/5859297/sex-with-animals-causes-penis-cancer

Then today...

Hopefully it's by fucking an elephant.

Thank you very much.

An Occupy Thanksgiving

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:44:00 +0000

I started the day, as always, at the Occupy Site at Fifth and James at City Hall

Normally, I"d head upstairs to the City Hall lobby and get something from Rick Farley at the City Grind, where they put up with me even when all I want is hot water, but it's Thanksgiving and City Hall is closed, as is the library.

So I head down the street to the entrance to the transit tunnel when I notice something happening in the park at Jefferson and Fourth...

A park with no name where the trees have mufflers...

And there are tents and people lined up...

And I wonder if I'm hallucinating. What is wrong with this picture?

Maybe this guy knows.

Nobody seems to notice that they are surrounded by the gayest trees I've ever seen, each with a Jewish mother, and ever since they came out of the closet, she won't stop knitting. You'll never guess, bubala, for Thanksgiving, I'm making you a muffler.

What is everyone lined up for? Amazing food prepared fresh in the park for absolutely anyone who gets in line. There's fresh bacon...

And ham and muffins and mashed potatoes...

And Shasta soda and smiles...

And all these people...

Who are now my heroes...

Have gathered in the park on a cold morning where the trees are normally warmer than the people...

And spread the warmth by feeding everyone, those with one leg...

And even those clothed in trash bags.

Yeah, this kid's my hero too, for passing out cookies, pears, and water.

Why is this guy my hero? Because he's passing out silverware out of the goodness of his heart.

These are my heroes too.

And I'm going to show you every one of these wonderful people who appeared out of nowhere to make fresh pancakes.

They didn't do it for fame or fortune.

They don't expect to be paid back.

They're doing it because they're decent...

And nowadays, simple decency is a valuable commodity.

And they're enjoying themselves while they do it...

Actually taking orders and giving out numbers so people can pick up their individualized breakfasts.

They went to all this trouble...

For these people...

And these who are usually ignored.

Not checking for ID or doing breathalyzer tests or making anyone listen to a sermon, even though they were from a church...

Feeding everyone with a mouth,

Creating a whole park full of happy people.

I was once walking around Santa Monica, CA, when I saw a bunch of people in an alley. I walked down to see what was going on and saw somebody had a truck full of food they were passing out, and it wasn't just street grub but fancy to-go dishes from expensive Beverly Hills restaurants. I moved in closer and saw it was Martin Sheen. There were no lights or cameras around. He wasn't doing it for publicity. He personally drove around to all his favorite restaurants at closing, picked up their leftovers, and distributed them to hungry people. He became my hero that day. Like these people. I wish there were more like them.

Seattle activists deliberately provoke mini-riot

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 21:37:00 +0000

Poster clearly stating the march starts at 6PM at Westlake Park

6 arrested and pepper spray deployed in Occupy Seattle protests

I was there at Seattle Central Community College at 3:30 when the march set out. A speaker at the campus specifically said they were headed towards Westlake Plaza to join a bigger crowd and march to protest Jamie Dimon's presence in Seattle from there. Westlake Plaza was plastered with posters about the march, which was to start from there at 6:00. By 5:00, the march still hadn't reached the people waiting in Westlake, even though it's an easy 20 minute walk. Why?

The marchers took off from the college campus south on Broadway towards Pike, where I believe everyone, me, the police, even the marchers themselves, expected to turn right towards Westlake Park. It was a march I'd taken many times before with the Hempfest, escorted by the police.

But then instead of turning right, the leader turned left, crossed the street, and turned left again, making a complete U-turn, now heading north on Broadway. I was wondering where the hell they were going, so were the police, and so were the marchers themselves.

It's like the march organizers didn't know that all you have to do is tell the police what route you're taking and they won't give a damn what your march is about, as a matter of public safety, they will escort you, block off intersections making it safe for you to pass, make sure no one gets hit by a car, and get ambulances there as fast as possible in case one of the marchers has a seizure (I saw this happen).

Either that or they were deliberately provoking the police because they thought the issue was us vs. the police instead of us vs. Chase Manhattan and the international cabal of bankers who rule the world.

The only reason the police weren't working with this march to make it a peaceful act of civil disobedience where no one got hurt is because the organizers saw a protester get shot out of a tree and said to themselves Good Idea, let's get shot out of trees ourselves. I blame them for the violence, which was unquestionably deliberately provoked.

You know what else would have worked? The entire crowd marching into the bank or hotel lobby and simply sitting down and saying nothing. Give the police a hundred people to peaceably cart away.

Follow Vivian McPeak's advice concerning dealing with the police when committing an act of civil disobedience. Don't act so surprised when they bust you. You know it's going to happen.

That's why you're there, so to suddenly go OMG, look what this police officer is doing to me is disingenuous to say the least. That's the plan.

Try this next time. Everyone go up to a cop and introduce yourself. "Hi, I'm Heidi, and you're about to arrest me. I just want you to know that I will not resist arrest, though I may go limp and you may have to carry me out. I understand you're just doing your job. It's nothing personal. Please don't mace me. I don't have any weapons."

They will appreciate it. They will still arrest you, but if you treat them with respect, they might end up respecting you too. You're both just doing your job. No reason to get nasty.

There are those accusing the "leaders" of this march of working undercover for the enemy to try to splinter the movement. I'm not saying it's true, but if it WERE true, they couldn't be doing a better job.

It's time to start a new work group called "Enemy Reduction," the idea being that the less enemies you have, the more chance you have of accomplishing absolutely anything. Every enemy we've got, let's make them our friend.

Occupy Seattle City Hall at Night

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 19:21:00 +0000

Paul McCartney to Convert to Judaism

noreply@blogger.com (michaeldare) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 19:17:00 +0000

Paul McCartney to Convert to Judaism

And to rewrite songs...

She Shlepped in through the bedroom window
Yenta Madonna
Within Jew and Without JewHey Jew! (don't make it bad)
Baby you can shmeer my bagel
Happiness is a Warm Knish
Can't buy me traif
Eleanor Rigbewitz
Schvitz together, right now, over me
It's been a hard matzo ball