Category: Media

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The Sins We Know

“I couldn’t tell if that was you or the radio”. Keith Richards’ mom, shortly after he began learning the guitar.

I’m really not sure who said it first or if it was ever said first but it is no secret that a good strategy for a liar is to admit to the sins everyone already knows you committed, or which you don’t mind them knowing about, so that people will believe you when you deny everything else.

You need to remember this when you read “Life”, Keith Richard’s remarkable autobiography. He lavishly admits to everything– that we already know about him. Maybe he even throws in a few sins we’ve haven’t seen in the tabloids yet. He even admits to driving while stoned, risking his own and others’ lives. And he admits to being an asshole at times.

Well, what else is there?

Richards was an incorrigible drug user, of almost everything that was out there in the 1960’s and 70’s. He was arrested numerous times, occasionally prosecuted, but never served a prison term of any length whatsoever. I’m not sure he admits to why he didn’t serve a prison term. Well, yes, actually he does hint at the fact that he knew the right people. That he was privileged, because he was a rich, successful artist. One time, he called the owner of Dole Pineapples, whose daughter had taken a shine to him, to help evade a serious charge in Hawaii. Like magic, charges were dropped, and his stash was even returned, and everything was fine. If there is a problem with this, Richards doesn’t know it.

If he got into an argument with someone about whether he should be driving while stoned, he is always in the position of being able to say “fuck you, I don’t care what you think, if I feel like driving while I’m smashed, I will, and you can’t stop me.” Money is power– enormous power. What are the consequences to him if you don’t like him anymore because he might kill somebody on the road, or because he stole his son, Marlon’s, childhood away from him, or abandoned people, or introduced them to the drugs that later killed them? There’s nuance in everything and when you are Keith Richards, that’s all that matters– it’s enough. In the arc of that nuance, you can justify yourself.

That and the money.

 

Noted:

Keith takes more than a few shots at Mick Jagger. One gets the impression that he won’t mind, really, if Jagger takes a few shots of his own when his own inevitable biography appears. You get the feeling that Keith would think, fair enough.

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“No One Cares About These People”

Mr. Keane, in his Chronicle article, offered two major reasons the police lie so much. First, because they can. Police officers “know that in a swearing match between a drug defendant and a police officer, the judge always rules in favor of the officer.” At worst, the case will be dismissed, but the officer is free to continue business as usual. Second, criminal defendants are typically poor and uneducated, often belong to a racial minority, and often have a criminal record. “Police know that no one cares about these people,” Mr. Keane explained (NY Times, 2012-02-03)

And, I suspect, neither do you and I.

If you did, you would speak up, make your voice heard, vote for the progressive reformer, not the tough-on-crime conservative. But we don’t care about those people. Unless they are played by Morgan Freeman or Tim Robbins in a movie. Then we care a whole lot, because we really are good, decent people, and so is Morgan Freeman, and the fact that I just love him shows that I am not biased or bigoted. I judge people by what they actually do, not by which actor they look like.

And if the police lie in order to lock them up for a particular crime, it doesn’t really matter if they didn’t commit that particular crime: the important thing is that someone has been locked up for something.

Agencies receive cash rewards for arresting high numbers of people for drug offenses, no matter how minor the offenses or how weak the evidence. (NY Times, 2012-02-03)

How small a minority are we now, those who think “these people” do matter? That they have souls and feelings and inner lives? We’re not popular, that’s for sure. We are an affront to the overjoyed multitudes who love punishment because they really feel that that is the only way to keep people from taking our stuff or hurting us. This conversation takes place at one level and they either hurt us or we hurt them and if you help them you are hurting us.

My wife and I are watching “The Wire” right now. It’s a gritty, realistic police drama set in Baltimore. The police in “The Wire” cover all shades of humanity, from the obese thoughtless bureaucrat to the passionate honest street cop. The behavior of the cops on this show– and their physical appearance (as on “Hill Street Blues”, another of a handful of credible police dramas) strikes me as consonant with detailed news stories about crime and justice. Deals are struck. The really bad guys, with smarter lawyers, get the light sentences while the poor loyal schmuck who served them bears the brunt of the criminal justice system. And the police, in “The Wire”, lie. Sometimes for personal gain or to cover up incompetence or corruption. Sometimes in a well-meaning effort to put the bad guys behind bars.

Noted

Yes, the police have a tough job. So do criminal lawyers, and farmers and miners and lumberjacks, and doctors and teachers, and those kids who pick through the trash heaps in India. Cry me a river. If you don’t want to be a cop because somebody thinks you should actually be required to obey the law, or control your temper, or risk your life to try to disarm a suicidal homeless man… then get out and do something else.

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Cheating

So why is it that Lance Armstrong is vilified for cheating at cycling but the news that Beyonce lip-synched at the inauguration provokes nothing more than a shrug?

Lance Armstrong used blood-doping and drugs to make it seem like he was a better cyclist than he really was. Beyonce used pre-recorded vocals to make her sound like a better singer than she really was
Lance Armstrong is probably not as good a cyclist as he looked. Beyonce is not as good a singer as she sounded. At least, not live. “Most people don’t care”. Okay, then let’s not keep a secret any more. Tell us before hand that you are not really going to sing. Tell us before-hand that you are going to dope. We’ll let you know if we want to watch.
Everybody does it. I just want a level playing field. You can’t expect me to sing and dance at the same time
Lance Armstrong not cheating is even more boring than Lance Armstrong cheating. He really doesn’t have any personality apart from his athleticism. A lot of elite athletes are like that. They have spent their entire lives consumed with refining their athletic skills. They don’t have a minute for politics or religion or literature or activism or charity. (The charities are almost always vanity projects handled by staff). That’s why the best commentators in sports are never the elite athletes (like Armstrong, or Gretzky, or Carl Crawford, or Lindsey Vonn, or Roberto Alomar, and so on). The journeyman players are always more interesting. Beyonce has never sung anything really interesting anyway. She is a diva, just as Lance Armstrong is a diva: it’s all about me. Look at me sing. Did you see it? Look at me! I’m a star.
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Music Industry Economics 101

Only about 1 in 10 signed bands make money for the record labels.

What does that mean? How can they possibly continue to operate with that astronomical failure rate?

It’s simple: they use a complex system of charges and counter-charges to bleed the successful bands of mo

ney to cover their losses with the unsuccessful bands.

Why is this allowed? Because artists are inherently random and disorganized and unconcerned about the legal implications of the agreements they sign with the record company.

And if you ever hear an artist say they are completely satisfied and happy with the deal they have signed you can be reasonably assured that they don’t understand it.

Not one bit of it.

See Tom Petty.

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The Mirth of Hollywood Money

(Paul Schrader says…)

In the case of Bringing Out the Dead, I was opposed to Nick Cage because the character I had written was about 27 years old and Nick can’t really, plausibly be less than 35 on the screen. I thought that this was really a young man’s thing going on here.

But it was a very tough story, in terms of Hollywood. Scorcese likes to take his time. He likes to spend money shooting. Last night they were doing a shot that I would do in a hour, and they were spending six hours on it.

That shows up on screen, but it costs money. So, a film that I could have made for 8-9 million dollars here in New York, they re spending 30-35 million. So financial justifications come into play, because you have to justify that 35 million dollars. Nick Cage, at the moment, gets around 20 million dollars a movie and he’s one of the highest paid actors at the moment. He s had a whole series of successes. But Nick read this and the idea of doing Schrader and Scorsese and a night in New York again – he agreed to do it for a million dollars.

That protected Marty. He knew that once he had Nick in his pocket for a million bucks, nobody would touch him. There wouldn’t be no studio interference, there wouldn’t be talk about changing the script, talk about having a different ending, or whatever.

So he opted to go with Nick, so that he could make the movie he wanted to make. If he went with an unknown, he would have had a lower budget or he would have had to make some script changes.

Paul Schrader, from an interview at Euroscreenwriters.

Some people don’t believe me when I tell them that I believe that the only reason Leonardo DiCaprio– the worst “name” actor of his generation– got a certain role in a “big” film like “The Revenant” was because his name, attached to a project, brings in millions of dollars of investment from the movie studios. Do I seriously think the movie studios would hire a bad actor for a good part in a movie by a great director because they want to ensure a return on their investment?

Well, when you put it that way.

Leonardo DiCaprio is not popular and famous because of his great acting ability.  He does something that always looks like acting but never actually is.  He grunts and moans and moves his mouth but he reveals nothing about the character he is playing that couldn’t be derived from a comic book drawing of him.  He certainly doesn’t reveal character the way Christian Bale, or Robert Duvall or Joaquin Phoenix or Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett does.  He is popular because he projects the kind of anesthetized de-sexualized appeal of gay men that adolescent girls adore and don’t feel threatened by.  He and Andrew McCarthy and Johnny Depp and Elijah Wood and Tobey McGuire are better actors,  I suppose, probably, than the cast of “The Brady Bunch”, but they really aren’t in  the same league as the others I named.  Watch DiCaprio with the alluring Kate Winslet in “Titanic” and ask yourself this: if I was Kate Winslet in this scene would I be worried about what Jack Dawson might do to me?

It’s a giggle.  He’s completely harmless.

All right– a certain segment of the population says, “no, I wouldn’t be worried, because I would want Jack Dawson to make love to me”.  But that is because the entire scenario, a rich, cultivated, young British woman, offering, in 1910, to pose naked for a strange little American boy, in an exclusive cabin, in the first class section of a ocean liner, is preposterous.  I’m not saying you couldn’t make it work– a real writer absolutely could– but James Cameron doesn’t have even remotely the skill required to do it.   Unless you accept the rest of awful cartoonish melodrama of Cameron’s “Titanic” as worthy of seriousness.

But DiCaprio is immensely popular with a large segment of the movie ticket buying audience.  He is so popular that his presence in virtually any professional production guarantee’s tens of millions of dollars in revenue.  Thus DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover, as Howard Hughes, as Hugh Glass.  That’s why people refer to his character in the movie not as J. Edgar Hoover or Howard Hughes or Hugh Glass but as Leonardo.  Did you see when Leonardo fought with the bear?  Did you see when drew the portrait of the naked girl?  Did you see when he invented that big airplane?   Did you see when he nearly drowned?

And thus, Scorcese.

It is so common a practice, to give a prime role to celebrity actor rather than someone with real talent in order to lock in a big budget, that I look for it at the beginning of every big, serious Hollywood production, and even some independent films, even when the director is someone like Terence Davies, whose work I generally adore. We just watched his “House of Mirth”. Even with Gillian Anderson and Eric Stoltz in lead roles, it’s a gorgeous film, beautifully directed and scored; it’s thoughtful, delicate, subtle. And it has Laura Linney, a terrific actress, in the part of Bertha Dorset.

I really had no expectations about Gillian Anderson in the lead role. I thought, you never know– someone famous for her work on a slightly interesting but formulaic TV drama might turn out to be a good actress. Might. But she didn’t, and while it looks like she’s giving it everything she’s got and it looks like Terence Davies does wonders with what he’s given, she ends up reminding me of Lucy Ricardo.  And then you watch Laura Linney  for a few minutes and wonder why the hell she wasn’t playing Lily, and why Gillian Anderson was even in the movie. And the answer is obvious: Gillian Anderson was a huge star at the time the film was made (2000); she was a celebrity. She brought the money for an expensive movie.

She was at least serviceable in “House of Mirth” and the movie survived her shortcomings. Not so with Leonardo DiCaprio in “J. Edgar” or, ridiculously, “Aviator”. How far can Hollywood push the idea of using a celebrity to play parts for which they do not seem remotely suited? DiCaprio as J. Edgar Hoover?  Are you fucking kidding me?  As Howard Hughes?  Are you nuts?  Why not Churchill? Why not Jesus?

(Oh my god! I just discovered that they have actually cast DiCaprio as the lead in a remake of “The Great Gatsby”. Wow.)

Renee Zellweger as Brigit Jones? Can she even do the accent? Can she even handle a role that is as light as a feather in a film that consists mostly of gas?

Tom Hanks as anything? (Although, he is at least improving as an actor, as evidenced in “Cloud Atlas”.)  We all love Tom Hanks– I want him to be my neighbor.  But he cannot act.  Ringo is a better drummer than Hanks is an actor.

This is the Hollywood disease. Actors are chattel: an investment, a product to be promoted and placed where-ever opportune, and exploited for as long as possible, even when you have to have a 70-year-old romancing a 20-year-old.

Well, that’s not entirely unrealistic: I just a picture of 82-year-old Robert De Niro holding his 18-month-old daughter.

God forbid you should have to go through the expense of introducing a new actor, promoting him, getting him onto the talk shows and into the gossip columns, getting his picture out there, his story, his rugged perpetual 5:00 shadow. It’s an investment, like fork-lifts and aprons and saucers and pig-iron.

As for real acting: it’s something best left to young, independent directors to uncover, in young, unknown actors.   Watch the film “Winter’s Bone” with Jennifer Lawrence before she was famous.

Watch her now.

It’s sad.

 

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PBS’ Soundstage

When I was in college back in the 1970’s, the only decent music program on TV was Soundstage (earlier known as “Made in Chicago”), which presented relatively current, relatively serious artists like Harry Chapin, Arlo Guthrie, Gordon Lightfoot, and Emmy-Lou Harris, in a one-hour format, no commercial breaks, no light shows, no lip-synching.

Okay– so they also presented– geez!– Burt Bacharach and the Bee Gees. It absolutely blows my mind that the same minds that would put together a program like this for Emmy-Lou Harris would think it was a great idea to give the Bee Gees an hour of rapt attention. The Bee Gees were worse than mediocre. They were aggressively mediocre. Their mediocrity pounded you on the face and stuck it’s waxy fingers into your ears and wobbled your head from side-to-side to scream at you that there is not a single interesting thing musically or intellectually in any of this noise you are hearing.

But then again, in 1976 Lightfoot appeared on Hee-Haw to lip-synch “Sundown”.

Anyway, two or three of my favorite shows are on PBS: the News Hour which is about the only television news program that I watch without getting nauseous nowadays (I know I’m mean but even Peter Mansbridge looks and sounds like a pharmaceutical salesman– think about it– doesn’t he always seem about to ask, “and how often should the patient take this dosage, Mary?”) and “Frontline” (documentaries) and “Inside Washington”. And “Nova” can be pretty cool thought it can also get annoyingly breathless at times. And cheesy.

But mostly, when they need money, they present John Sebastian presenting endlessly recycled clips of “Do You Believe in Magic” or the Mamas and the Papas singing “California Dreaming” on Hullabaloo, in bathtubs, or Peter, Paul, and Mary doing their farewell concert to end all farewell concerts at Carnegie Hall. Over and over and over again. And over and over and over again. And over and over and over and over again. I don’t think they have done pledge week once in the last 20 years without showing Peter, Paul & Mary singing “Lemon Tree” or Pete Seeger doing “Turn, Turn, Turn” and John Sebastian strumming his autoharp and creeping me out with that harmless, aimless expression, grinning and looking folksy and trying to make you believe that the 1960’s was a happy place of delightful experimentation and joyful frolics in psychedelic meadows of unicorns and marshmallows.

When it’s not John Sebastian and the 1960’s, it’s Victor Borge, Perry Como, or Harry Belafonte. Who runs this network?

It doesn’t make sense to me. The average age of the PBS viewer must surely be sliding ever closer to the grave– they will, sooner or later, require younger viewers to survive the next round of Republican attacks. To attract younger viewers, they have to start bringing in musical artists like Leslie Feist, Arcade Fire, Royal Wood, Bon Ivor, Conor Orbest, Wilco, please, anybody from the last ten or fifteen years!

I am never not astounded that Lawrence Welk is actually still shown on TV, on Sunday, PBS.  Really?  Seriously?  Who is running this network?

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Mrs. President

“She has very much got his back,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s longtime strategist, in an interview. “When she thinks things have been mishandled or when things are off the track,” he continued, “she’ll raise it, because she’s hugely invested in him and has a sense of how hard he’s working, and wants to make sure everybody is doing their work properly.” NY Times 2012-01-06

There’s a lot of euphemism in there– she’s “invested” in him. She wants to make sure everybody is doing their work “properly”. She might think things have been “mishandled”.

Without a doubt, Michelle Obama is a smart lady. She might even be very smart about politics, but we’ll never know because it’s not likely she’ll ever run for office and be elected by voters to have authority and do things. No.

She reminds me of Hillary Clinton, another very smart lady, who didn’t actually run for any office until 2000 (when she ran for the Senate in New York), but wielded considerable influence, especially on the Clinton’s failed health care proposals… You could say that their husband’s “appointed” them to a kind of “position”.

The part that concerns me is this: it appears Obama’s advisors would sometimes meet with him and discuss possible strategies and goals and policies and reach some kind of decision and then Obama would go home that night and have dinner and read stories to his kids and go to bed and the next day, he would announce that he had changed his mind.

It was obvious to his aides and advisors that Michelle had spoken.

A lot of people will read about it in People Magazine– and look at the flattering photography to go with it’s article on the first lady– and think, this is wonderful. What a wonderful lady. She’s so… so… invested.

Personally, I find it appalling. Here’s the reason why: Michelle didn’t attend the meeting and raise her issues and debate them and deal with opposing ideas and contrary facts like everyone else. She gets to have her say one-on-one with the President, a circumstance any other aide or advisor would kill for. No one to contradict your view of things. No one to point out something you missed. No one to raise facts and information that do not support your view. Just you and the most powerful man in North America.

If I was one of those aides and I had participated in a meeting in which we made our case for a certain policy or strategy and heard all sides of it and then found out, the next day, that Michelle Obama had changed the President’s mind, I would move to Chicago and run for mayor– that’s what I’d do. Especially if I was good at my job. Especially. But also if I was bad at my job. If I was more concerned with political success– getting re-elected–than with policy objectives.

The story is that the Obamas accepted the idea that they might not be re-elected in 2012. Initially.

Now, if I sucked at my job, I would just spend a lot of time sucking up to the First Lady.

The inconvenient truth here is that Michelle might have been right about some issues– she felt that the aides were too concerned with the political side of things– but we are also hearing about this through a filter. Yes, exclusive access to Michelle Obama, for a book. “The Obamas” by Jodi Kantor.

Michelle Obama considered not moving to the White House immediately at Inauguration, so the children could finish their school year in Chicago and take more time to adjust to life under the bubble– just like Mrs. Santos in West Wing!

They always tell you that that sort of thing is just not possible, that the Secret Service would have to shut down the whole block and search every neighbor entering or re-entering the neighborhood and that she wouldn’t be able to walk the dog anymore and blah, blah, blah.

They would have you believe that sophisticated Al Qaeda agents would spring from the sky in black ninja suits, smash through the windows, and snatch the first family and hold them hostage until America turned over a nuclear bomb so they could solve the Israel problem for once and for all.

This attitude towards security is what creates the hysteria around certain public people in the first place. Check other countries and you will find that few of them engage in this kind of psychotic delusion about the importance of politicians or celebrities. It’s not the product of the public’s attitude towards famous people: it’s the product of famous people doing everything they can to convince people they they are so unbelievably different from you and I that they must be treated as gods.

Even as Mrs. Obama dazzled Americans with her warmth, glamour and hospitality early in the presidency, she was also deeply frustrated and insecure about her place in the White House. NY Times

The New York Times announces to the world that Mrs. Obama — not Ms., of course– Mrs. Obama “dazzled” Americans. Well, sure they were: the New York Times told them to be dazzled and they were.

Well, what can you do? John Edwards gets a $400 haircut and it causes a sensation! Wait– the New York Times makes it sound like people are idiots for making a big deal about a $400 haircut. Maybe they are. Then again, maybe Edwards should have gotten a $35 haircut like most other women do. Maybe he should have announced beforehand that because he was now a contender, he would have to spend a ridiculous amount of money on haircuts. And shrug.

I don’t mean anything here to suggest that Hillary Clinton was not incredibly qualified for whatever government positions or non-positions she has ever held. Check her out in Wikipedia. I doubt that a more qualified woman ever ran for president.

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The Pernicious Influence of Joseph Campbell’s Mythological Insights on Hollywood

Firstly, let’s get one thing clear: it’s the influence that is pernicious– not Joseph Campbell, the author.

Campbell argued that all stories are essentially variations of the same basic archetype, the hero sets out on a journey, undergoes some arduous trials, is challenged and almost fails, encounters a mentor or inspiration, re-engages the challenge, succeeds, and lives happily ever after, or dies like Jesus Christ.

All right– I’m playing with that a bit.

Which is not to say that I am particularly dazzled by Campbell’s work. Some people write about him as if no one before him had ever written thoughtfully about the essential elements of tragedy. In fact, the Greeks did, long before Campbell came along, and Shakespeare himself seemed to have the formula down pat.

No, no– my problem is that I don’t like the concept of a “hero”, and even if I did like it, I don’t believe that there is any real-life correspondence to the idea– it’s all fantasy. It’s all usually male fantasy. It’s all sometimes a bit fascist, as in “300”.

It would be more interesting– but far less popular– to identify the delusions the general public demands from hero-worshipping tales.  Firstly, that all other characters must defer to the hero; secondly, that his acts of violence are palatable because it is established that his enemies are unworthy or have sex.  Thirdly, that people worship heroes even though the actions of the “heroes” in real life highlight the deficiencies in the rest of us.

Think about a mother who neglectfully allows her baby in a stroller to roll into the street.  The “hero” sees the baby and rescues it and returns it to the mother.  In the Campbell story, the mother is eternally grateful and worships the hero for his timely act.  In real life, the hero’s action is a rebuke to the mother for her carelessness, something she will not want to highlight or be reminded of.

Real life is far more complex than Campbell’s mythic delusions.

And “Star Wars” is a crappy “B” movie that accidentally became the object of millions of people’s fetishistic enjoyment.  They are happy they get it.  Unlike “A Space Odyssey” and “Blade Runner”, it is immediately comprehensible, and just as immediately ridiculous.

More on “The Hero With a Thousand Faces”.

 

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Jane and Henry

THAT said, in the 10 years I took to write her biography, I observed many Janes. I saw the Jane with the agenda; the girlish, self-effacing Jane when she’s with men; the armchair shrink Jane who spouts advice about sex and love and exercise as if by rote whenever she’s on TV; the ruthless, hard-as-nails Jane in business and self-promotion; the generous Jane with friends in need; the loving grandmother-matriarch Jane; the celebrity Jane who in May walked down the red carpet at Cannes in a glittery white gown and left all the young starlets in her dust. Patricia Bosworth, in the NY Times, September 25, 2011.

What is this? I mind it. All the young starlets “in her dust”? You mean, she can be smart and shrewd and giving and all that and, oh, just for the fun of it, let’s march down that red carpet at the age of 70 and prove that I am still more desirable than, say, Greta Gerwig, or Anne Hathaway, or Jessica Alba.

Poof! It’s not dust, Patricia, it’s dried up embalming fluid.

Is that what it takes to get access to Fonda, and to her friends and professional colleagues? To make sure that she understands that your biography will include lines like “and left all the young starlets in her dust”? After the Viet Nam War and Roger Vadim and Tom Hayden and “Klute” and Ted Turner– that’s ultimately what always really mattered, isn’t it?

To leave “all the young starlets in her dust”?

What’s the article really about? About how really amazing Patricia Bosworth is, really just as mysterious and alluring and deep and beautiful, as Jane Fonda, with whom she is ever so close. Because, after all, she and Jane share a deep, dark, secret, one that is so profound that all of your friends would want to know, if only they could be trusted to not spoil it.

What was on Henry Fonda’s mind the night he performed in “Mr. Roberts” after his wife slit her own throat? Jane thought he just didn’t know how to deal with grief. But it’s all a puzzle to Jane. Why didn’t she feel grief? Why didn’t she cry? Rather than acknowledge that much of what passes for grief nowadays is more like grief theatre anyways, she thinks there must have been something wrong with her, that she was trying too hard to please daddy.

Let’s all wonder about it.

The beautiful, dewy photo of Ms. Fonda on the book’s front cover is a miracle of photography, fitness and plastic surgery, probably all three. NY Times, Janet Maslin, 2011-08-18

 

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Wienergate

Unemployment. The War in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq. Global warming. Thousands killed in Syria. The government collapsing in Yemen. Spain and Portugal going broke. Japan. Cancer. AIDS.

The Anthony Wiener story is intended to amuse the illiterate, the sheep, and the frigid-hysterics while the government and big corporations continue to ensure the gradual impoverishment of the middle and lower classes and continuation of disastrous foreign policies over there.

I am hugely disappointed in Jon Stewart. The story was funny for five minutes, not 105. And it wasn’t funny because a foolish young politician made stupid decisions. The very, very funny part of the story is Wolf Blitzer with a straight face pretending to be a journalist. At least he got that right.

I was baffled, at first, by the amount of time Stewart was giving this story. Wasn’t he doing exactly what he frequently ridicules other media organizations of doing? Tunnel vision. Flogging a trivial, inane issue to death?

Mystery solved: Stewart is very touchy about some critics who claimed he low-balled the issue on the first day because of his personal friendship with Anthony Wiener– not, they believed, because he was rational. Those critics successfully manipulated Jon Stewart and made him look like a fool as, on the very next Daily Show, he desperately tried to muster the hysterics to prove that he really, really can’t be tricked out like some CNN tart. He made the story the centerpiece of three consecutive Daily shows, long after it stopped being funny.

But then, that’s about all you get on the news these days, including the CBC up here in Canada. When it’s not falling over itself to drool over the royal wedding.

At the end of the June 8th “Daily Show”, Stewart played a clip of a reporter listing five or six important stories she had intended to cover and then announcing that she would not be covering those stories because there were new developments in the Anthony Weiner story.

My wife and I could never could figure out if the reporter was being sarcastic or serious. It is so had to tell nowadays. But it was utterly shameless of Stewart to play it because he was doing the same thing or worse.

If you were to be honest with yourself for a moment… if you woke up one day and heard that Anthony Wiener, who is married, had flirted with several other women online, would you really believe that this was an important story that needed to be on the front page of every newspaper and online news website in the country?

But you believe it now, don’t you? Because it was on the front page of every newspaper, top of the news on every broadcast, all over the web. You believe that no story would be given such prominence by so many different news organizations and media entities if it wasn’t really and truly important.

Or do you think for yourself?

No matter how many news organizations cover it, nor how many gallons of ink are spilled on it, or how many photographs or videos or web pages, or self-serious pundits using euphemisms, no matter, no matter, no matter, the Anthony Weiner scandal is trivial and irrelevant and unimportant.

The real story now is just how bad is the entertainment-news industry in the U.S.? And the next real story is, is this really what Americans want– because they do tune in– or is something they are having shoved down their throats? The Anthony Wiener story might well begin to seem important to some people because coverage of it is ubiquitous.

This story will die soon enough. Unlike Sarah Palin’s enduring idiotic appeal to every numbskulled dissident survivalist in the U.S.– something that appears to be trivial but isn’t (we’re talking about the intellectual ability of a potential candidate for the highest office in the land)– this never was a real story, there never was a real impact, and not even Fox News can make a whole turd out this fart.

No crime was involved. No political issues were involved. It’s none of anybody’s damn business.