LFAQs. MUSEUM OF INTOLERANCE, ETC.

PHOTO OF THE DAY/FULFILLMENT OF PROMISORY NOTE OF THE DAY:

LFAQs of the DAY:

- Which was invoked more often, the name "Ronald Reagan" at the recent Republican presidential debate or the Fifth Amendment at the Iran-Contra hearings?

-Which is fastest: The rate at which Republican candidates are running away from Bush, the rate at which Gore ran away from Clinton, the rate at which advertisers are running away from Barry Bonds or the rate at which America is running away from its poor?

-If the drug cocaine changed its name to something else, would the energy drink named "Cocaine" still be forced to change its name?

-Has there ever been a hate crime committed in front of the Museum of Tolerance?

-Do they tolerate not paying at the Museum of Tolerance?

-Are the Utah Jazz just donning the light pigment to cynically exploit the recently reported foul-calling bias of NBA officials?

-What will Gen Y geriatric care be like? Circa 2060, will there be, say, short attention span adult diapers--with cool built in pockets for iPods and Sony Playstation Controls?

PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

I think some people have idiosyncratic temporal orientations. For some, the future is more real than the past or present. It is what one lives towards; the infinitely forgiving and malleable space into which one perpetually escapes the imperfection of the present and the mortality of the past. For others, there is a fundamental orientation towards the anterior. They are forever one experience behind themselves. Governed by the pull of the past, they experience a lifelong sense of swimming against the current--of always moving the wrong way in time. For these people, things become more perfect, more cherished, more real as they are freed from their direct involvement with them; as they are gathered into the sheltering distance of their having been.

INTROSPECTIVE OBSERVATION OF THE DAY:

When reading accounts of the abuses and failing of the Bush administration, I have noticed an inverse correlation between the articulate-ness of the indictment and the inarticulateness of my response. Indeed, when i read some well-crafted piece by Hendrick Hertzberg, Frank Rich (or even this week's New Yorker opening Comment by George Packer on the Bush Administration's culture of unaccountability), I am often reduced to random expletives, staccato glottal stops, unbridled ululations and Tourettic outbursts of "I HATE BUSH!!!"

A maddening insult to our dignity and intelligence as a people. That is the lasting legacy of this administration.

Argggg....

But on the upside--it has helped generate some excellent critical commentary by people able to forge fine steely sentences out of the smithy of their rage. (The folks named above and six or seven other people.). And has allowed me to discover a whole new range of primal gutteral utterances.

DANGLING PHRASE OF THE DAY:

More homogenous than a Republican Convention.

RANT OF THE DAY: (C'mon, it's been a while.)

I quote from Frank Rich:

"By my rough, conservative calculations--feel free to add--there have been corruption, incompetence and contracting or cronyism scandals in these cabinet departments: Defense, Education, Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development. I am not counting State--whose deputy secretary, a champion of abstinence-based international AIDS finding, resigned last month in a prostitution scandal, or the General Services Administration, now being investigated for possibly steering federal favors to republican Congressional candidates in 2006. Or the Office of Management and Budgent whose chief procurement officer was sentenced to prison in the Abramoff fallout. I will, however, toss in a figure that reveals the sheer depth of the overall malfeasance: No fewer than 4 inspectors general, the official watchdogs charged with investigating improprieties in each department, are themselves under investigation simultaneously--an all-time record."

This, it will be recalled is from the candidate who ran on the premise of restoring honor and accountability to the White House after it had been grievously sullied and dishonored by Clinton.

In a word. Argggg.

In 2004, I conceived an ad that I wanted to shoot for Moveon.org in their attempt to get Bush-Cheney out of office.

Visually, we would simply see one long slow shot of a satellite camera zooming into it's local target--a la Google Maps. We would open high over the continental U.S. and then slowly zoom into the central Eastern seaboard, slowly focusing on Washington D.C.

The accompanying voiceover would read something to the effect of (I can't seem to find the script):

VO: There is a secret cell that is determined to do America harm. Day and night--its members are working tirelessly, relentlessly and single-mindedly-to weaken our insitutions, destroy our cherished values and undermine our way of life. They are driven by extreme belief and are not succeptible to reason or negotiation. Our most sophisticated surveillance techniques are powerless to track their activities...but we do know where their secret meetings are held.

At this point we arrive at what we recognize to be the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue aka The White House.

VO: Keep our homeland safe. Get the Bush-Cheney cabal out of The White House.

I later dismissed the idea as being too gratuitously provocative and readily dismissible (and hence perhaps being politically counterproductive) but now I'm not so sure. In fact, without being glib (and not to seriously compare the threats of so called Islamo-Fascism with the threat posed by the abuses and malfeasance of this administration), a good case can be made that the Bush administration has done far more to weaken America (and its moral and political standing around the world) over the last 8 years than Al Qaeda has. In fact, it is arguable that the Bush-Cheney government has done more to further the interests of so-called Islamo-fascism than Al Qaeda itself has. They have certainly been Al Qaeda's most effective recruiting agents.

Again, this is not to be glib about the serious and grave threats posed by Islamic extremists. It is merely to point out the almost unimaginably perfect way this administration has played into their hands.

This, in turn. brings to mind another anti Bush-Cheney ad I'd come up with in 2004 and never pursued. One which shows footage of Osama and El-Zawihri talking. We zoom in on Osama smiling that hatefully faux beatific smile and see that he is wearing a political pin (which would be rotoscoped into the scene) that says "Re-Elect Bush-Cheney."

Again, I dismissed the idea for the same reasons I dismissed the other one. But, again, in restrospect, there can be no individual on the planet who feels better about the Bush legacy than Osama Bin Laden.

CONVENIENT UNTRUTH OF THE DAY:

"Cheney: Iraq is still dangerous." Exactly the same truth value and logical structure as saying that a person mistakenly held at guantanamo bay is No Longer an enemy combatant. Iraq is not still dangerous to us. It never was dangerous to America. Just as the prisioner is not no longer an enemy combatant. He never was an enemy combatant. Cheney is still an arrogant small minded dunderhead.

LYRIC OF THE DAY:

"If you live a lie you die a liar. "

-Catatonia

SOBERING THESIS OF THE DAY:

Wherever there are folk songs, there are also ethnic cleansings.

INTERESTING (AND NOT ENTIRELY UNTRUE) CLAIM:

Half of 8 is 3.

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY:

Met someone whose middle name was G. She claims that her parents wanted to memorialize a dead relative by giving her a name with the same first letter as the deceased's first name, but they didn't like him enough to bother to think of an actual name. Too much work and effort. That would've been too good for him. So they just gave her the initial instead.

STORY OF THE DAY:

Study links oral sex and throat cancer

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/05/study_links_ora.html

Yet another great argument for marriage.

How funny would it be if the Christian right actually seizes upon this as an argument for holy (headless) matrimony, much as they championed March of the Penguins for its apparent (and, it turns out specious) support for the universality of monogamy in nature.

CURIOUS PLEASURES OF THE DAY:

Hearing John Ashberry making groaning and screaming sounds as the live narrator of Guy Maddin's silent film "Brand Upon the Brain." Also hearing him deliver such campily scripted lines as "Dead or Alive, it was back to work for Father!" and "What's a suicide attempt without a wedding?!?!"

Watching the cool, counter-intuitive ways the live Foley artists created the sounds of rushing water, paint being slathered onto a wall with a brush, kids feet scampering up a stairway etc.

POST-EVENT REFLECTION OF THE DAY:

Not sure which I am alienated by more: Commercial movies or arty films.

CINEMATIC REVIEW OF THE DAY:

I'll look back on it fondly when I don't have to be bored by actually sitting through it.

LIST OF THE DAY:

Good Movies with Animal Names in their Titles:

Rabbit Proof Fence
Elephant
Where the Green Ants Dream
The Day of the Locusts
Day of the Jackal
June Bug
Bird man of Alcatraz
Bird
Grizzly Man
Buffalo 66?

TEDDY VEGAS INTERACTIVE APPEAL OF THE DAY:

Please add to the above list.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DAY:

Feeling the fundamental wrongness of my life but trying to embrace the fundamental rightness of being alive. Trying to separate the contingent particulars from the ontological universal.

UNFORTUNATELY NAMED PRODUCT OF THE DAY:

Renuzit

Sounds like miracle grow for acne. Renew Zit.

ALLEGORICALLY RICH ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:

While shooting a commercial on the grounds of the Pasadena Art Center, we saw a coyote appear--hungry and alone and presumably displaced by the wild fires near The Griffith Observatory. As he wandered at the outskirts of the shoot, I was torn between empathy for his plight and a sense of concern for the trained puppies we were using for the commercial. And then I had the following epiphany:

The commercial was the cute puppy fetching things for the customer--metaphorically.
But the truth was the stalking coyote wanting to eat the cute puppy--literally.

IDEA OF THE DAY:

The Museum of Tolerance. Seems like a good, well-intentioned idea. The attempt to educate and elevate consciousness--in the assumption that the darkness within the human animal can be tamed and altered through enlightenment. But here's another approach:

The Museum of Intolerance!

Yes, how about starting an institution devoted to bias, biggotry, prejudice and small-mindedness in all their manifold manifestations and in all their collective glory? One that actively celebrates a different racist position each week with an excess of enthusiasm and that, in its contradictory inassimilable totality, exposes the absurd inanity and emptiness of racist sentiment and thinking.

Can't you just see it: One week a KKK masked ball, the next, a "kill the whitey" black power hoopic humiliation. One week an anti-Semitic book-burning and accompanying virtual pogrom, the next an intellectual humiliation of the Cossacks in a game of Jeopardy? Festivals of anti-Latino sentiment followed by festivals of anti-Asian sentiment followed by festivals of Anti-Muslim sentiment followed by unbridled celebrations of Anti-European animus. Oh the bounty! Oh the abundance! The schedule of exhibits and events would simply write itself!

It's be one part Borat, one part Stephon Colbert and one part David Duke.

Yes the Museum of Intolerance would do more to expose and mitigate racism than the Museum of Tolerance--because it would appeal to more than our sense of guilt and sense of shame. It would appeal to our sense of humor and our sense of reason.

LAMENTS OF THE DAY:

a) If only the reward for a job well done were the opportunity never to have to do it again.

b) Oh for a plane flight unsullied by the exchange and handling of cash.

IN FLIGHT EXPERIENCE/IDEA OF THE DAY:

The deathless world of the TV sitcom. Especially as it plays soundlessly during a flight. Don't know why, but I suddenly have the urge to see some parallel entertainment history play out before my eyes. To look up and see, say, some 25 year old Tom Cruise or 30 year old Bobby DeNiro on the little screen in a role they never played on a sit com that was never written or shot.

MOTTO OF THE DAY (BASED ON A RECENT EXPERIENCE SHOOTING A COMMERCIAL):

You don't hire a boy to do a man's job. You don't hire a puppy to do a dog's job.

NEOLOGISM OF THE DAY:

Idiocracy.

SUGGESTION OF THE DAY:

Putting a poster over your bed that say, "Even hall of Famers fail 70% of the time." It's sure help reduce performance anxiety for guys prone to that sort of thing.

RANDOM QUOTE OF THE DAY:

There were three decent things to come out of the 80s...and she was not one of them.

PROPOSED BAND NAME OF THE DAY:

Happy Chernobyl.

PEEVE OF THE DAY:

With swinging glass doors, a huge pop-up drain positioned right beneath the shower nozzle and a generally malevolent feng shui, the bathroom at the fancy hotel where I stayed was a steel, marble and glass death trap.

PHENOMENON OF THE DAY:

The rivetting un-masculine-ness of Ira Glass's voice. (It's like he's had the testosterone drained out of him--by some excess of empathy and humanistic concern.)

TWO GOOD UNATTRIBUTED QUOTES FROM THE PRINT MEDIA:

In the NYT, Mia Farrow is described as "amusingly fluttery."

And in the L.A. Times or the NYT sports section...or maybe even online somewhere, I read:

"If Bary Bonds put an S on his shirt, the second word you'd think of was Superman."

TELEVISION EXPERIENCE OF THE DAY:

Amazed by "Are you smarter than a Fifth Grader? for a) The celebration of stupidity...(although I'm getting used to that in this culture) but b) Child exploitation. They are profiting off the intellectual labor of kids?!

How sad is THAT!

FOUND NAPKIN SCRIBBLING OF THE DAY: All that remains of my trip to Indiannapolis:

Talking about Black Hawk Down and genocide with my Somalian cabbie--as we pass by the recombinant American roadside logos.

And noticing that Northwest Airliine (on which we flew) had rebranded itself NWA. NWA, baby. Straight outta Laguardia.

SONG THAT'S BEEN IN MY HEAD ALL DAY:

"Betcha Bolly Golly Wow." My brother reminded me that that was the song that was playing when our parents told us that they were getting divorced.

POSSIBLE BOOK TITLE OF THE DAY:

Ephemera and Eternity.

OBSERVATION OF THE DAY NUMBER WHATEVER:

I played hookey today. And, although I awakened late, I experienced the blessed dignity of a self-determined, productively engaged afternoon. There is something about going about one's business in an uninterrupted, un-pestered fashion, that makes the arc of day more primally reflect the arc of life--and makes the waning of the light a truly emotional experience.

It's a beautiful day. Time to go out and enjoy it. (Besides, my carpal tunnel is acting up.)

DAY OF THE DAY:

Today.

RANDOM SINGLE SENTENCE PORTRAIT OF THE DAY:

Some speak truth to power; he spoke lies to powerlessness.

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Posted on 5/14/2007 ( Permanent Link )
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