A liberal dose of laughs

Michael Moore (winning the 03 Oscar for best documentary) says he almost did not deliver his anti-GWB political message during last year's ceremonies: too nervous, too much wanting to, as he puts it "just thank them, blow them a kiss and walk off the stage." (quote from today's Cap Times) Instead, as I recall, he got booed off the stage and everyone talked of how inappropriate he had been.

Is it wrong to use the Oscar stage for plugging away at a "Message"? Well now, I almost said 'no' and then I thought of the pleasure of watching Charlton Heston speak his bit. I take it back. All (especially the Charlton Heston part) = highly inappropriate.

Moore says that even if you don't agree with him, at least he tries to be funny in his messages. In truth, he claims, there are many more funny liberals than funny conservatives. This is a good point. Has anyone ever successfully made you keel over with laughter with their bashing of a social welfare program? "I know an old lady, she lived in HUD housing, she had so many children she didn't know what to do, so she had some more children and stayed out of work, and sent them to watch the big-screen TV and charged it to YOU!" Not funny. Not even remotely. In fact, anger-inducing, mud-slinging, cowardly and mean-spirited, but not funny.

On the other hand, try this:

Cheney gets a call from his "boss", W.
"I've got a problem," says W.
"What's the matter?" asks Cheney.
"Well, you told me to keep busy in the Oval Office, so, I got a jigsaw puzzle, but it's too hard. None of the pieces fit together and I can't find any edges."
"What's it a picture of?" asks Cheney.
"A big rooster," replies W.
"All right," sighs Cheney, "I'll come over and have a look."
So he leaves his office and heads over to the Oval Office. W points at the jigsaw on his desk.
Cheney looks at the desk and then turns to W and says, "For crying out loud, Georgie - put the corn flakes back in the box.

Or this:

One night, George W. Bush is awakened by George Washington's ghost in the White House. Bush asks: "George, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?"
"Set an honest and honorable example, just as I did," Washington advises.

The next night, the ghost of Thomas Jefferson moves through the dark bedroom. "Tom," W asks, "what is the best thing I could do to help the country?"
"Cut taxes and reduce the size of government," Jefferson advises.

Bush isn't sleeping well the next night, and sees another figure moving in the shadows. It's Abraham Lincoln's ghost. "Abe, what is the best thing I could do to help the country?" Bush asks. Abe answers: "Go see a play."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha, ohhhh, I can't stop myself, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha (the two real jokes are courtesy of www.jokesnjokes.net).

Dean’s at the Majestic, I’m at home

I went to hear Nader, I listend to Gore, I got an eyeful of Clinton as he stood in front of the Capitol, right there where they sell cheese curds during the summer Farmer’s Market, Clinton the candidate, me listening (or, as I recall, waiting for hours so that I could sort of hear what I could otherwise read lucidly in the paper), taking it all in, watching history being made.

But Dean at the Majestic, tonight at 7? I’ll pass. I was in the Majestic a number of years ago when one still made the effort to search for parking downtown just to catch a run of an indie or a foreign film. I saw it close down as a theater, watched it wither into a ghost of a movie house, once so popular and funky and avant garde, now just an ikon from the past, struggling to reinvent itself (I hear it will open as a dance club later this month?).

Kind of makes you wonder—why DID they pick the Majestic to spotlight Dean? It can’t be a good omen.

Apocalypse charm

Newsweek (to Sofia Coppola): You’ve said that some of your happiest memories are of being a kid on the set of “Apocalypse Now.” That sounds a little weird.

Coppola: I had a great time. I had no idea there were problems. I was riding in the helicopters, and I had the costume department making stuff for my dolls.

[nc: maybe we should reevaluate the efficacy of “bring your daughters to work” day]

Potato, potahhhto, spaghetti, spaghettini..

Potato and orange growers, bread-makers, pasta producers, rice growers -- all are worried about the shifting tide of consumer preferences away from carbs (see NYT today). One frustrated spokesperson for the orange juice industry stated: “no one has EVER gotten fat from drinking too much orange juice.” He could be right, though the issue now is no longer what caused obesity, but how we should go about getting rid of all that accumulated blubber.

It’s interesting to go back to the land of dumplings and gnocchi and spaghettini and see what they’re saying about obesity and carbs. There appears to be an organization in Italy called the “Italian Society of Obesity.” I’m not sure if their goal is to eradicate it or support it, but it is presided over by Professor O.Bosello, a name that just looks fat.

In their newsletter, they talk about how Italy has one of the lowest rates of obesity in Europe (so maybe this group was formed to combat thinness…this sounds incomprehensible to us, I know, what with dried pork rind being an acceptable snack to buy at a gas station, but we have to have enough imagination to contemplate the possibility of an industrialized nation worrying about people not being plump enough). Moreover, though they acknowledge that some studies go so far as to claim that 14% of Italians are overweight, others claim that the figure is closer to 6 – 7% and FALLING.

Are we bored enough yet with the carb thing to switch our attention back to the “Mediterranean Diet?”

Betcha By Golly Wow

While listening to the debate on Public TV following the announcement of the primary results, I remembered a favorite song by the Stylistics. Sometimes a phrase out of a song from 30 years back will click with what is happening and you find yourself humming the accompanying tune until someone tells you to cut it out because it’s annoying.

The discussion was getting quite good – Congressman Clyburn was spectacular on the Edwards phenomenon [why isn’t Clyburn a contender?], and Senator Biden was positively beaming, because Kerry-Edwards were flickering a light at the end of this tunnel (this is what prompted the song lyrics). You could hear him thinking “don’t lose it, whatever you do, don’t lose it, we’ll all unite behind you, you’ve never seen the Democrats so willing to unite [this is true].” Biden worried only that Kerry would snap up the nomination too soon, leaving the Republicans with plenty of time to turn their multi-million dollar fireworks against him. Somebody remarked how interesting it was that Dean paved the way and legitimized a front-line GWB attack, without which this race would not have picked up its brilliant momentum, and having served that role, Dean is now expendable.

Throughout, I was (unbeknownst to me) humming what turned out to be “Betcha By Golly Wow, you’re the one that I’ve been waiting for forever..” (it had different associations back in the 70s) and so eventually I looked up the Stylistics to see what they’re up to. Did you know that you could actually hire the Stylistics these days for your own personal event? I don’t know if people now would appreciate the subtlety of song lyrics like “Betcha By Golly Wow,” but, oh could these guys sing!