Really, when you get down to it, I probably have no business even bothering. I mean, what can I say that probably hasn't been pointed out by one person or another ad nauseum for the the media blitz that surrounded Michael Jackson's death before he was even declared such a week ago? With news interviews, tabloid headlines, rumours around TMZ, and the blogosphere practically choking to death on the matter, what really is there for me to add?
Maybe that's fitting the situation around Michael Jackson's life and death in so many ways. If nothing else, when it came to the subject of Michael Jackson, it was a collection of ambivalent and contradictory sentiments, so my trepidation about even offering my thoughts...well, that fits the bill pretty fairly, doesn't it?
The reason you always wondered exactly how you should think of MJ is because he offered you so many complicated aspects to try to hash out. Jackson was nothing if not a complicated subject. It's probably why he was such a media magnet, especially for tabloid journalism. Because when someone collects such a mish-mash of feelings, you can spend page after page, minute by minute, trying to hash out just what you think you're supposed to think about the guy. His death proves the point.
You have Michael the tortured soul, Michael the icon, Michael the genius, Michael the weirdo eccentric, Michael the potential criminal. And you often have it all at once. From a cultural standpoint, he was impossible to ignore, even when he really wasn't doing anything. Michael the musician really hadn't been around for more than a decade, but his body of work really stands as one of the most monolithic in pop music and pop culture. His studio work, his live performances, his video collection; that stuph can't be overlooked. It's importance can't be overlooked. I wanted to twenty-odd years ago, being a staunch devotee to the importance of "real" music (which really meant something that skirted the pop zeitgeist more than Jackson ever would or could). But Jackson's work is really insurmountable. In retrospect, he really was the first truly world-wide pop phenomenon. Some could argue once about Elvis or the Beatles, but really, their saturation didn't extend beyond the Western world. Jackson on the other hand, pervaded the consciousness on a global scale. From Japan, China, Australia, Eastern Europe, Western Europe the Americas and Africa, probably even the middle east, there isn't anyone who didn't know who Michael Jackson was, or his body of work if even on a minimal scale.
Whether you liked his music all that much or not, probably each one hasn't lived through some moment where you found yourself humming the chorus to "Beat It". If you havn't, you've probably been living up in the mountains somewhere for the last thrity years (and you're definitely not reading this). I personally can't hear a song from Off the Wall without feeling seven years old again, and I mean that in a good way.
The fact that his unmitigated importance as an artist was so completely mitigated by his personal life makes remembering Michael Jackson all the more conflicting. He's not the first of that kind, but he may be the most extravagant example. As Jackson's professional career seemed to wane, his private peccadilloes took root in the mind more and more deeply, until you couldn't ignore the fact that this must be a bona fide whack-job.
How much of those eccentricities were legit or the result of just endless rumour mongering; that’s the real pain in the ass of the situation, isn’t it? We were always pretty sure his kids weren’t biologically his at all, but nobody would ever confirm. We always had our ideas about his finances in shambles, but it was always denied. Bubbles the chimp, the plastic surgery, the Elephant Man’s bones—this was and endless carnival.
No, I’m not forgetting the notions of child molestation. That’s a macguffin all its own, though. For years, I’ve vacillated on the topic of whether or not Michael Jackson was a pedophile. A lot of folx, upon hearing of Jackson’s demise filled cyberspace with either “oh, what a tragedy,” and “motherfucker didn’t die soon enuph!” Both have their place in our conscience, because, once again, we don’t (and probably won’t ever) really know the truth of that scenario. The fact of the matter is, a lot of what he did was the type of behaviour often seen in pedophiles. Filling his world and his activities with things to make children feel comfortable about and around you. The whole “drink some wine / don’t worry it’s Jesus Juice” thing was a really spooky example we took to offer possibility of sexual predation.
But the problem was, there was always a big “On the Other Hand” with the guy. A real pain in the ass one. What probably can’t be disputed is that Jackson had one seriously screwed up childhood, if it can be said he had much of a childhood at all. There isn’t a lot of denial on the subject that Michael’s father Joseph Jackson was an abusive son of a bitch. Enough of the Jackson children seem to be able to back up Michael’s allegations on that topic. That in itself can push you either way on the argument though. Childhood victims of abuse often turn around and become abusers. Some have argued that matter on the case of Jackson. But those who predate sexually have usually been the victim of such behaviour earlier in life. While Joe Jackson’s abusive activity hasn’t been argued with much, none have ever steered those allegations toward him being an abuser along sexual lines. His was more the haranguing, beating, strip you of your sense of self worth type of abuse.
What you see throughout Michael’s life, is in a sense a result of that kind of abuse. Micahel was a self-hater, always struggling with his self-image, his looks, his personality. He was insular and withdrawn, likely didn’t understand how and where the lines of childhood innocence and adulthood (always represented in his mind possibly as nothing short of monstrosity) were blurred or delineated. What it seems we had with Jackson was a grown man who wanted nothing more to retreat into an idealized framework of perpetual childhood. In some ways, he sought to construct a fantasy of childhood joy and innocence that he never really experienced or understood. That confusion only resulted in an even more confused and out of touch adulthood, perhaps incapable of genuine adult relationships. His solution: retreat even further. Insulate himself into the behaviour of a child even more. It was often given as a telling example the fact that Jackson named his home the Neverland Ranch, where Peter Pan and his Lost Boys never had to grow up.
Back in ’91, Jackson had befriended Macaulay Culkin, a child phenom in his own right. Looking back, it makes such perfect sense. Here was a kid who could probably really understand Michael. Both were thrust early in life into the cultural spotlight, both inherently robbed of their childhoods. Both had overbearing fathers responsible for robbing them of their innocence, if not robbing them of other things. Interesting to note, Culkin was one to step forward in later years to say he didn’t think Jackson was a pedophile (or at least, he never witnessed such behaviour during the time they had been friends).
It would also properly describe his apparent constant desire to defend children and children’s causes, in spite of the fact that so much of the world had so many misgivings about what his real motivations were.
In the end though, like so much…we just don’t know. We likely never will. The same could be the case of his death. His death from cardiac arrest at the age of 50 isn’t unheard of, especially if he had been struggling with health beforehand. Talk has been rampant that, in spite of his preparations for the 50 date string of performances in London, his health was a wreck. Much has been alleged about his addiction to pain killers: how pervasive had his addiction been, if it was something he still struggled with, etc.
The fact of the matter, again, is we don’t really know—at least for the time being. Even if he had largely overcome his addiction to prescription pain killers, the one thing I’ve learned over the years, especially from following the lives and deaths of numerous pro wrestlers, is that it can truly fuck your body up for years afterward. Heart conditions are not abnormal effects of years of such abuse, even if now in recovery.
So there it is, a conundrum of conflicting thoughts. The cynic in me tells me to just say “Well, glad that life is over with, since he hasn’t done anything creative in years, so at least the tabloid fodder can end.” The sentimental side of me says farewell to an icon that truly permeated the global mindset over the last thirty years, and that’s just a little bit like losing part of my own childhood, in a sense. The empathetic side mourns for a genuinely fucked up human being, who conquered the world in one sense, while all the while perhaps lived as a very vulnerable, self-loathing little boy, who just wanted to find love, but never really had a healthy sense of knowing how to find it.
But then, I may have no business even bringing it all up.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Oh, The Adventures of Adulthood
If you’re planning to take a trip to see Adventureland because you figure it’s another installment of Superbad or something, you’ll probably wind up scratching your head. This film is most definitely not teenage hi-jinks and sexual promiscuity in the beer-soaked warmth of the local amusement park. In fact, it’s (almost) anything but.
Jesse Eisenberg plays a young man, recently graduated from Oberlin College in 1987 with a fairly useless degree (Comparative Literature), whose plans for the great wide open involve the so-called “life-changing” sojourn to Europe, and grad school in NYC at Columbia, where he can begin his quest in journalism.
His real-life parents soon get in the way. Money isn’t quite as fluid as once was, and that means he’s going to have to skip Europe, and find summer work back home in Pittsburgh to try to pay for Columbia. His lack of previous employment, and his obvious shitty degree wind him up as a games counter carney at the local amusement park, Adventureland.
Like I said, if you think rampant silly hi-jinks are supposed to spring from this, that doesn’t really happen. Written and directed by Greg Mottola, this is a funny film, but it’s not a laugh-until-you-sweat film about nonsense (or even non-nonsense, really). Instead, it’s a considerably more substantive movie about the travails of waking up to the realities of grown-up life. There’s partying, cavorting, and jokes about such activity (because, yes, after you’ve lived through that shit some, there’s an absurd humour to that stuph), but it’s colored with the twenty-something awakening to the knowledge that they’ll be some consequences the next day (because after you‘ve lived some, there‘s that revelation too). And there’s promiscuity, yes, as well, but with all the hiccups, pain, confusion and emotional pitfalls that inevitably come with in the real-world of love and sex (and to be honest, with all the attempts to hook up going on in the film, not a lot actually winds up happening--but that‘s 1987 for ya, after all).
The movie is studded with an assortment of somewhat “Apatowian” array of burnouts, boneheads and weirdos (I still wish we could get our boy Martin Starr from his days in Freaks and Geeks some bigger and more important roles), along with so-called sex-pots, studs and heroes, but the intriguing thing is that none of the characters very neatly fall into their respective archetypes at all, and while some likeable folx wind up completely unsympathetic, there’s a definite hint in the script that the characters with more damage have more to offer to the rest of the cast. I don’t know if I can get behind that sentiment so thoroughly as its producers, but at least the film isn’t offering a two-dimensional portrait of these people.
And that may be the film’s great strength; the fact that it’s one of the most genuine and honest portrayals of young adulthood that I’ve come across in a while, both in its wanton desire to pursue excess, and in its confused and embittered realization to what’s really in store for us as adulthood creeps up. The last film to be so gratuitously honest about the subject was probably Waiting (and while that film had plenty of flaws, and is generally regarded as just lo-brow smuggling of tasteless humour into as many scenes as it can, it is actually an astonishingly realistic portrayal of life inside the food service industry, and the people who populate said landscape). You won’t fine yourself falling all over yourself with Adventureland, but if you’ve lived past its characters age, you smile and nod knowingly, and if you’re hitting that age, you’ll have something to think about…at least until the next pot cookie hits your plate.
If you’re planning to take a trip to see Adventureland because you figure it’s another installment of Superbad or something, you’ll probably wind up scratching your head. This film is most definitely not teenage hi-jinks and sexual promiscuity in the beer-soaked warmth of the local amusement park. In fact, it’s (almost) anything but.
Jesse Eisenberg plays a young man, recently graduated from Oberlin College in 1987 with a fairly useless degree (Comparative Literature), whose plans for the great wide open involve the so-called “life-changing” sojourn to Europe, and grad school in NYC at Columbia, where he can begin his quest in journalism.
His real-life parents soon get in the way. Money isn’t quite as fluid as once was, and that means he’s going to have to skip Europe, and find summer work back home in Pittsburgh to try to pay for Columbia. His lack of previous employment, and his obvious shitty degree wind him up as a games counter carney at the local amusement park, Adventureland.
Like I said, if you think rampant silly hi-jinks are supposed to spring from this, that doesn’t really happen. Written and directed by Greg Mottola, this is a funny film, but it’s not a laugh-until-you-sweat film about nonsense (or even non-nonsense, really). Instead, it’s a considerably more substantive movie about the travails of waking up to the realities of grown-up life. There’s partying, cavorting, and jokes about such activity (because, yes, after you’ve lived through that shit some, there’s an absurd humour to that stuph), but it’s colored with the twenty-something awakening to the knowledge that they’ll be some consequences the next day (because after you‘ve lived some, there‘s that revelation too). And there’s promiscuity, yes, as well, but with all the hiccups, pain, confusion and emotional pitfalls that inevitably come with in the real-world of love and sex (and to be honest, with all the attempts to hook up going on in the film, not a lot actually winds up happening--but that‘s 1987 for ya, after all).
The movie is studded with an assortment of somewhat “Apatowian” array of burnouts, boneheads and weirdos (I still wish we could get our boy Martin Starr from his days in Freaks and Geeks some bigger and more important roles), along with so-called sex-pots, studs and heroes, but the intriguing thing is that none of the characters very neatly fall into their respective archetypes at all, and while some likeable folx wind up completely unsympathetic, there’s a definite hint in the script that the characters with more damage have more to offer to the rest of the cast. I don’t know if I can get behind that sentiment so thoroughly as its producers, but at least the film isn’t offering a two-dimensional portrait of these people.
And that may be the film’s great strength; the fact that it’s one of the most genuine and honest portrayals of young adulthood that I’ve come across in a while, both in its wanton desire to pursue excess, and in its confused and embittered realization to what’s really in store for us as adulthood creeps up. The last film to be so gratuitously honest about the subject was probably Waiting (and while that film had plenty of flaws, and is generally regarded as just lo-brow smuggling of tasteless humour into as many scenes as it can, it is actually an astonishingly realistic portrayal of life inside the food service industry, and the people who populate said landscape). You won’t fine yourself falling all over yourself with Adventureland, but if you’ve lived past its characters age, you smile and nod knowingly, and if you’re hitting that age, you’ll have something to think about…at least until the next pot cookie hits your plate.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
The Honourable Mentions
As some of you who have read the Endies before may already know, every year we feel compelled to list a certain number of what we call “Honourable Mentions” for those people, places and things meriting recognition, even if they didn’t necessarily win, or even fit into a certain given category. Below is are esteemed list of what we feel deserves credit for the year 2008.
Lombardo’s Restaurant on Hertel Ave. in Buffalo is probably the best restaurant we visited in the last year. It’s a low-key, very Tuscan-style Italian restaurant (imho), with really, really good food. To quote The Godfather, “Try the veal, it’s the best in the city.” While it’s considered political-correct-de rigeur to naysay veal consumption, one bite of my dinner here, and the first words that came out of my mouth was “We need to kill more baby cows.” The prices are a bit expensive, but you get it all in the food, and then some. Highly recommended, otherwise, I would be bothering to put it on this list.
Since it didn’t fall under the strictures of the my selection rules to obtain the prize for “Page Turner of the Year” (it wasn’t procured, started and finished within 2008, as the rules dictate), I wasn’t able to select The Kings of New York, by __ , otherwise, it would have been a very strong contender. A non-fiction account of a Brooklyn chess team, filled with street savvy minority students who spend as much time hustling at cards and on-line poker as they do hustling and competing at chess (and a whole lot of prodigal Russian immigrants to boot), the book chronicles their year as they approach the national level high school championships. Along the way, __ covers the passion, turmoil and obsession of the “Game of Kings”, to say nothing of the life of New York High School students and teachers who gamely attempt to navigate the game the same as they do life.
In movies, everyone went ga ga over The Dark Knight. I can’t say that I blame them. Even though it didn’t ultimately get my pick for Movie of the Year, this is yet another example of a film building on it franchise, rather than trying to eek money from its shadow. As I mentioned in my main Endies piece, a lot of folx made note of the swan song performance of Heath Ledger (and let’s be honest--it is really fuckin’ good, after all). The fact of the matter is, as long as Chris Nolan and Christian Bale want to keep making Batman movies, this franchise will likely be a-okay for a while.
On the television front, I have to spend one more year showing love to the soon-departing ER. Granted, many have assumed (mostly correctly) that the show has jumped the shark years ago, but for a show who’s best days have past, this is still a surprisingly fantastic show. It wraps up a few weeks from now, after a rather lengthy stint on the air (I was still in college when this show got started--that’s like a lifetime ago!). I’m happy to have gotten a few run-ins resurrecting our fabled ER Drinking Game in the process this year, even if my long-running drinking character Abbie left the show early this season.
Speaking of drinking, let’s cover our favourite spirits and beverages for 2008. As you know, cocktails and drinks is a favourite subject (and pastime) of mine. I especially like giving a work out of the ol’ stainless steel shaker when I can. So first up, let’s give it up for True Daiquiris. By “True” we mean NOT the absurd blender cranked fruity flavored nonsense that most people think of. A True Daiquiri involves little more than rum, simple syrup and lots and lots of lime juice. It’s potent, to be sure, but a serious contender to get your drink in hot weather.
We’d also give our props to Bombay Saffire Martinis (yes, I’m one of the 1% of the entire human population who can drink a gin martini), Kentucky Bourbon (particularly Maker’s Mark), and Flying Bison beers. The Bison is a local brewery, run by former Loughran’s bartender Timmy Herzog, and while we love giving props to folx we’ve known, it goes without saying that the Bison produces excellent beer. Let me stress that: excellent…beer.
One of the places you can get that excellent beer is at the Snyder Bar and Grill. Formerly The First Place, the establishment we once referred to as our “auxiliary offices” here at Dreaming Life, TFP owner Glen Schunk decided to turn over the reigns to bartender Mary Beth Saraceno last spring, and, following some minor makeovers on the place and the menu, the Bar and Grill was born. We’re mostly happy with the changes--minus the change in French fries, mind you--and we’re glad that business is still cranking in spite of our obvious economic travails.
Other establishments we’d like to mention are Starbuck’s on Main St. in Williamsville, and Spot Coffee on Delaware. Spot is particularly excellent for people watching on Saturdays with my girlfriend. In spite of the fact that Starbuck’s is a confounded nationally saturated chain, the Williamsville one is still the place I can get some serious reading done (to say nothing of homework -- I’m writing this very paragraph there this moment). If you live in the South Buffalo area, I’d also recommend the Caz Coffee Cafe on Abbott Road. It’s mellow and friendly, and the staff are seriously good peeps.
In Radio programming, we need to give thumbs up to The Break Room on Rochester’s WCMF mornings. Legendary radio personality Brother Wease left the station behind in early ‘08 over contract disputes, with the rest of his on-air team left behind to try to make a go of it. Not surprising to me (since I remember how well this cast did with Wease out of commission a few years ago undergoing cancer treatment), what became The Break Room (following a number of name changes) never really missed a beat. Timely, funny, snaky and still often thoughtful, I make a point to subscribe to the show on iTunes (since it’s a gamble trying to get the station from here in B’lo).
Likewise, 2008 saw the departure of Washington DC station WJFK’s Don and Mike Show, with veteran mainstay Don Geronimo opting to retire this year. In its wake, his partner Mike O’Meara kept the rest of the radio show’s crew, brought back former producer Beth Ann McBride, and got The Mike O’Meara Show rolling. While I sometimes miss Don’s pissy “I’ve seen enuph of this shit” personality, Mike’s show still carries all of its predecessor’s charm and much of it’s biting humour. As long as Robb and Buzz stay on board, I don’t think this show will fail.
Now for some really quirky miscellany. This year, in my ever-cavorting quest for better and more comfortable grooming techniques, I took a new direction with my shaving regime. Now (most of the time) gone are expensive newfangled razor blades with vibrating doo-dads or quadruple action shaving surfaces. What’s old is new again, and for my money, with some practice, you will get a superior and ultimately comfortable shave with one blade safety razors, and adequate tub-soap and shaving brush. So, our final honorable mentions go out to Merkur Safety Razors and blades (my advice fellow groomers is, while inexpensive, do NOT go cheap on the quality of razor blades you buy), and Taylor of Old Bond Street shaving soaps (my particular choice is lavender, to give you that true Victorian feel and smell). One final advice, never--NEVER go cheap with your shaving brush and get the crappy boar’s bristle. What you find at the drugstore will usually not suffice!
Lombardo’s Restaurant on Hertel Ave. in Buffalo is probably the best restaurant we visited in the last year. It’s a low-key, very Tuscan-style Italian restaurant (imho), with really, really good food. To quote The Godfather, “Try the veal, it’s the best in the city.” While it’s considered political-correct-de rigeur to naysay veal consumption, one bite of my dinner here, and the first words that came out of my mouth was “We need to kill more baby cows.” The prices are a bit expensive, but you get it all in the food, and then some. Highly recommended, otherwise, I would be bothering to put it on this list.
Since it didn’t fall under the strictures of the my selection rules to obtain the prize for “Page Turner of the Year” (it wasn’t procured, started and finished within 2008, as the rules dictate), I wasn’t able to select The Kings of New York, by __ , otherwise, it would have been a very strong contender. A non-fiction account of a Brooklyn chess team, filled with street savvy minority students who spend as much time hustling at cards and on-line poker as they do hustling and competing at chess (and a whole lot of prodigal Russian immigrants to boot), the book chronicles their year as they approach the national level high school championships. Along the way, __ covers the passion, turmoil and obsession of the “Game of Kings”, to say nothing of the life of New York High School students and teachers who gamely attempt to navigate the game the same as they do life.
In movies, everyone went ga ga over The Dark Knight. I can’t say that I blame them. Even though it didn’t ultimately get my pick for Movie of the Year, this is yet another example of a film building on it franchise, rather than trying to eek money from its shadow. As I mentioned in my main Endies piece, a lot of folx made note of the swan song performance of Heath Ledger (and let’s be honest--it is really fuckin’ good, after all). The fact of the matter is, as long as Chris Nolan and Christian Bale want to keep making Batman movies, this franchise will likely be a-okay for a while.
On the television front, I have to spend one more year showing love to the soon-departing ER. Granted, many have assumed (mostly correctly) that the show has jumped the shark years ago, but for a show who’s best days have past, this is still a surprisingly fantastic show. It wraps up a few weeks from now, after a rather lengthy stint on the air (I was still in college when this show got started--that’s like a lifetime ago!). I’m happy to have gotten a few run-ins resurrecting our fabled ER Drinking Game in the process this year, even if my long-running drinking character Abbie left the show early this season.
Speaking of drinking, let’s cover our favourite spirits and beverages for 2008. As you know, cocktails and drinks is a favourite subject (and pastime) of mine. I especially like giving a work out of the ol’ stainless steel shaker when I can. So first up, let’s give it up for True Daiquiris. By “True” we mean NOT the absurd blender cranked fruity flavored nonsense that most people think of. A True Daiquiri involves little more than rum, simple syrup and lots and lots of lime juice. It’s potent, to be sure, but a serious contender to get your drink in hot weather.
We’d also give our props to Bombay Saffire Martinis (yes, I’m one of the 1% of the entire human population who can drink a gin martini), Kentucky Bourbon (particularly Maker’s Mark), and Flying Bison beers. The Bison is a local brewery, run by former Loughran’s bartender Timmy Herzog, and while we love giving props to folx we’ve known, it goes without saying that the Bison produces excellent beer. Let me stress that: excellent…beer.
One of the places you can get that excellent beer is at the Snyder Bar and Grill. Formerly The First Place, the establishment we once referred to as our “auxiliary offices” here at Dreaming Life, TFP owner Glen Schunk decided to turn over the reigns to bartender Mary Beth Saraceno last spring, and, following some minor makeovers on the place and the menu, the Bar and Grill was born. We’re mostly happy with the changes--minus the change in French fries, mind you--and we’re glad that business is still cranking in spite of our obvious economic travails.
Other establishments we’d like to mention are Starbuck’s on Main St. in Williamsville, and Spot Coffee on Delaware. Spot is particularly excellent for people watching on Saturdays with my girlfriend. In spite of the fact that Starbuck’s is a confounded nationally saturated chain, the Williamsville one is still the place I can get some serious reading done (to say nothing of homework -- I’m writing this very paragraph there this moment). If you live in the South Buffalo area, I’d also recommend the Caz Coffee Cafe on Abbott Road. It’s mellow and friendly, and the staff are seriously good peeps.
In Radio programming, we need to give thumbs up to The Break Room on Rochester’s WCMF mornings. Legendary radio personality Brother Wease left the station behind in early ‘08 over contract disputes, with the rest of his on-air team left behind to try to make a go of it. Not surprising to me (since I remember how well this cast did with Wease out of commission a few years ago undergoing cancer treatment), what became The Break Room (following a number of name changes) never really missed a beat. Timely, funny, snaky and still often thoughtful, I make a point to subscribe to the show on iTunes (since it’s a gamble trying to get the station from here in B’lo).
Likewise, 2008 saw the departure of Washington DC station WJFK’s Don and Mike Show, with veteran mainstay Don Geronimo opting to retire this year. In its wake, his partner Mike O’Meara kept the rest of the radio show’s crew, brought back former producer Beth Ann McBride, and got The Mike O’Meara Show rolling. While I sometimes miss Don’s pissy “I’ve seen enuph of this shit” personality, Mike’s show still carries all of its predecessor’s charm and much of it’s biting humour. As long as Robb and Buzz stay on board, I don’t think this show will fail.
Now for some really quirky miscellany. This year, in my ever-cavorting quest for better and more comfortable grooming techniques, I took a new direction with my shaving regime. Now (most of the time) gone are expensive newfangled razor blades with vibrating doo-dads or quadruple action shaving surfaces. What’s old is new again, and for my money, with some practice, you will get a superior and ultimately comfortable shave with one blade safety razors, and adequate tub-soap and shaving brush. So, our final honorable mentions go out to Merkur Safety Razors and blades (my advice fellow groomers is, while inexpensive, do NOT go cheap on the quality of razor blades you buy), and Taylor of Old Bond Street shaving soaps (my particular choice is lavender, to give you that true Victorian feel and smell). One final advice, never--NEVER go cheap with your shaving brush and get the crappy boar’s bristle. What you find at the drugstore will usually not suffice!
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The 2008 End of the Year Awards...
Yes, it's been a while since I posted the End of the Year Awards, or the "Endies" as we grew to call them around here, but then it's been quite awhile since I've posted anything at all. I'm not going to bother to come up with excuses, since, as the proverb goes, like assholes, everyone's got one, and all of 'em pretty much stink.
Be that as it may, it's been one year most people are content to get the hell out of the way, if only to step into another potential grinding wheel that will be 2009. Sure, like any other year, 2008 had its ups--at least we got a new president--but mostly downs for the average American, at least (hell, if you were a republican, the new president probably wasn't even an up, but if you were a republican, you were a lot busier deluding yourself about the state of affairs to begin with, if you ask me). As far as pop culture goes, it was pretty much a grab-bag typical of other years: a decent amount of cool things (actually a pretty good year for movies), a decent amount of un-cool things (like Guns 'n' Roses finally releasing Chinese Democracy and absolutely no one giving a shit (or maybe that's actually a cool thing). So let's gather up the round table of this year's winners and "losers" in the grand game of pop culture, and let's see who grabs our selections for this year's "Endies" awards, shall we?.
Movie of the Year
We are thrilled to give this year's film selection to Juno, while not by any means a perfect movie, still a damn great one, with very believable performances by all (especially Jason Bateman's even though his role is smaller), and absurdly clever writing. Yes, a lot of people got down on aspects that made the notions of teenage pregnancy and adoption seem light-hearted, and some of those criticisms are legit--since the film made it seem a bit too much like "everything comes out okay in the wash" . But even tackling this theme in any way comedic is difficult enough. Too often merely bringing up teenage pregnancy automatically hearkens to overwrought melodrama the likes of which only the Lifetime Network is willing to handle (brecch), so kudos to Diablo Cody for even realizing the fact that, among all the crap that ensues in that maelstrom of emotional and physical awfulness there is a lot of shit that can be laughed at. And Junois, without a doubt, a very fucking funny film. I'm also glad the Academy Awards showed a little bit o' ball-sackage enuph to give Cody the nod for Best Original Screenplay (normally, they'll be content to show their "daring" by nominating you, then go back to playing it safe and pick some overly ornate thing that takes place in Europe or something to try to prove how sophisticated they are--holocaust movies are perennial favourites, of course).
Best Actor in a Film
A lot of people are going to pulling for Heath Ledger in this year's Awards season, and damned if I'd argue that much about it, even though I don't think he'll win too many, since it's not likely that the hoighty-toighty side of the awards-givers will want to credit a younger actor who checked out in somewhat seedier circumstances, much less give too much credit for a somewhat cartoony role in a comic-book genre movie. I say to hell with all that, he deserves the credit.
But he's still not my pick this year. For reasons involving how Ichoose to arrange the rules concerning Endies selections, this year's winner is Daniel Day-Lewis for his role in There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis, of course, won last year's Oscars and wouldn't be in the running for this year's awards in the mainstream, but that's not the same way we select things here on "Dreaming Life" (we didn't catch the movie until the new year, so it's eligible for us in as an '08 pick).
But let's talk about yet another titanic role for Daniel Day-Lewis, who doesn't work often, but seems only capable of picking the most meaty roles when he finally does come out from under his rock. He won an Endie for his previous role in Scorsese's The Gangs of New York and this year's work is definitely along the same lines, a little bit over-the-top, but in that grandiose Orson Welles-like fashion that still muther-fucking triumphs, dammit. Indeed, this is likely to prove at least one of, if not the Citizen Kane-performances of the 21st century. His character is at once wholly understandable, while thoroughly dastardly. He's a truly horrible human being, yet you still wind up siding with him agains the smarmy, chicanerous fakery of the bible thumpers in the film who he subsequently knuckles under to, and ultimately triumphs over (in his own sick way). And anyone who has seen the movie will never forget (and oft repeat the line) "I drink your milkshake!"
Best Actress in a Film
Again, a nod to Juno for Ellen Page's role in the titular role. She's got smart-ass adorability, knee-hugging vulnerability, the necessary mix of too smart for her own good, and too dumb for her own good (or at least, ultimately much more emotionally needy than she would care to realize or admit) for a teenage character to be in this much of a pickle and still be completely sympathetic. A lot of what works about the character is, of course, the result of the script, but Page's work with the role is top-notch, and its wonderful to know Page potentially has years to only get better. We can only hope she keeps picking roles as good as this one, so she doesn't crawl up the shitty-movie-gutter-pipe that so many younger actors can wind up in (see Ben Affleck).
Record of the Year
Admittedly, there seem to be fewer and fewer records that I deem worthy to acquire in the last few years. A lot of that is probably a combination of my increasing age, and the still-volatile change that's undergoing the music industry as a whole. As an older adult, I must, by necessity, concede my place as a main consumer and understander of popular music to a younger and more devoted audience. That is the natural progression of things. Pop music, as a whole, does not devote its energies to reaching someone of my demographic, so it becomes my responsibility as a listener to scope out other places to get my gradually graying ya-yas out. The flip side of the matter is that the music worl in general has gotten ever-more-fragmented, loosely (dis)organized, and all the more difficult on which to get a read on. I don't know if musicians at all truly release "albums" or "records" per se with any kind of thought of it as a complete product, or if we'll see the inevitable development of musicians releasing "single" solely in the on-line format, or what. What we know is, no musician really carries with them any sort of a zeitgeist, at least not the way musicians are currently reaching audiences. And for that matter, I don't know how much audiences truly invest in music or musicians anymore. To most younger audiences, it's simply one more option in an entertainment vista which must give an ADD sufferer fits of both ecstasy and aggravation.
In short (too late) music is possibly simultaneously too easy to acquire, and too difficult to get any sort of a read on. It's somehow become both too obscure and too disposable. Too fragmented, and too transparent. Does anybody follow what I'm trying to get at with this point? Ha Ha.
Still, I do have a pick for Record of the Year (finally). My pick is the Soundtrack to the Motion Picture Film Once. And I'll tell you, look around for more of Glen Hansard's work in both the Frames and the Swell Season. The writing is, well, it's probably a bit more skewed towards a slightly more mature audience, sure, but it's very thoughtful, very melodic, very emotional...hell, it's just good. At times, it's just plain heart-rending (especially if you've seen the film the music accompanies, but even if you haven't...) and if nothing else, still very original.
Breakthrough of the Year
I gotta say, I think every other year, I've given this award to musicians, but this year, I asked myself "Why the hell should this award be strictly for musicians." So, similar to how I've broken that barrier with other awards recipients in previous years, I've broken that wall down with this one in selecting Russell Brand for his absolutely hysterically over-the-top role as Aldous Snow, the blissfully oblivious-to-the-point-of-enlightened rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. To be frank, he's hardly even acting. If you've witnessed Russell Brand outside of this role, he's pretty much that manically out-there and funny. That can be a danger to a career, obviously, since people can get sick of your antics real fast if it becomes no more than a one-trick pony (see Jack Black). But a more fitting actor for a more fitting role in a more fitting movie I haven't seen in a while.
Fare Thee Well...
The award dedicated to a figure who will no longer be sharing their work with us, at least for the indefinite future. For a long time, I gave this one to musicians all the time also, then I hit a streak of people who died--a bit morbid even I was finding it, I admit as well. This year, we're breaking the mould yet again, and giving the award to Ric Flair, the greatest professional wrestler of all time, who this year gave his farewell performance at WrestleMania against Shawn Michaels, while being inducted into the WWE's Wrestling Hall of Fame the same weekend.
I admit, this is purely a dorky guy's selection, but anyone who spent any time watching any wrestling over the last thirty years knows who Ric Flair, the high-stylin', profilin', jet-flyin', kiss-stealin', wheelin' dealin' greatest performer in the sport today is. While his latter years weren't quite up to the snuff of his prime (hey, the guy was in his fifties, give him a break), nobody could ignore that not once did he give less than 100 % at every opportunity. And in his prime, he was one of the most infuriating, dramatic and simultaneously likeable and hateable in ring performer. To say that his promo work outside of matches is still the gold standard even today (the guy can work a microphone like no one else, which is why I still think you may seem him return in a managerial capacity someday). So, sadly, we must turn the line of girls away; Space Mountain is now closed, even if they all want to take a ride.
Glad to See 'em Go...
I've softened up a little over the years, and usually struggled to pick an artist or performer I'm actually glad won't be staining our memories any more with their presence. Usually, my selections for this one turn out wrong down the long run (see Britney Spears, who, like a bad rash, keeps showing up over and over again).
This year I have no shame, and no regrets for selecting O.J. Simpson. As a Buffalonian, we once worshipped this sacrilege (some idiots in this town manage to continue with the "O.J. is Innocent" rap). I'm glad, even if his past sins were somehow pardoned, he's not getting away with his more recent ones. If he comes out of prison alive, he'll be a broken-down old piece of shit with barely a few years left to live out his misery. I'm glad, you murdering, misogynistic waste of a meat-puppet. You say you're sorry all you want. You're right: sorry meaning said, not contrite. If there is a hell, I'll be going there too, but I promise you'll be at the far wing where the hardcore scumbags go, and I hope I get to watch you rot there.
TV's Must Watch Show
I have to say, while the old-school networks have gotten more and more diluted with shitty reality TV and really, really bad over-worked game shows that were invented back in the '60s, television viewing as whole has probably gotten better, as long as you keep looking around. This year, I'm giving the pick to HBO's Entourage which took things in a little bit of a different direction for its fourth season. Instead of making sure movie-star Vincent Chase and friends kept coming out of their quandaries all rosy and smiley-faced, instead he suffered through legit bouts of career failure, decimated self-confidence, existential burnout, what have you. He even skulked back home to Queens for a quick respite to try to make some sense out of himself. And while the characters are often critiqued for being too broad and meat-headed (especially Kevin Dillon's Johnny Drama), we have to remember how much A to B has to be crossed within a 26 minute episode, so give the guys a break after all. I for one couldn't make it through one episode this year without one good, noisy laugh-out-loud moment; and that's normally the space I save for watching The Office.
Best Live Performance of the Year
I gotta admit, the older I get, the fewer shows I make it out to, and I blame it on an assortment of things (but work and general laziness are probably the prime factors). Used to be a time there wasn't almost a week that went by I wasn't going to see someone play. But that lifestyle is saved for the twenty-somethings after all, and I am no twenty-something anymore. It also should not be neglected to mention that a lot of bigger shows no longer grace the shores of Buffalo anymore, so one has to do more picking and choosing of club shows and outdoor events to try to make up for the fact that HSBC Arena or Darien Lake Performing Arts Pavillion stand empty a whole lot more often.
I still did see a somewhat respectable number of shows for a man my age, and so the winner for this year's award goes to Ron Hawkins for his July 5th Performance at Gateway Park in North Tonawanda, NY.
Yes, don't I give this guy props almost every year? Aren't I getting just a little redundant. So, maybe guilty as charged there. But, while his activity has waned over the years, and he really only does a few shows a year, they are almost always some of the best shit you'll experience. Ron also doesn't settle for any one kind of show anymore. Sometimes he'll go mellow and acoustic, playing by himself, sometimes he'll break out the "rock band" format with Mark Hansen on drums and Dylan Parker on bass. And, sometimes, like this show, he'll also add other dimensions, with other musicians sitting in, whether it be cello, saxophone, violin, et al.
Suffice to say, Hawkins' catalogue is varied and extensive enuph to get away with this, and always quite successfully. It also doesn't hurt that in these parts, you've got enuph goobers like me, who've waded worshipfully through his career over two decades now (brrrr) who know the songs well-enuph to make most shows a rather spirited sing-along.
Mein Gott, I need a life.
Page Turner of the Year
I realize a theme is surfacing somewhat this year, with my pick of Brian Fritz's Between the Ropes, a book about the history of pro-wrestling's evolution through the '90s and into this decade. But what more can I admit. The past year or so, I've been big into the history of sports entertainment, even stretching all the way back to wrestling's post-war development of the National Wrestling Alliance that pretty much made modern wrestling what it is today.
Fritz, who is the main host of a lively, informative two hour weekly show on Florida's ESPN radio, focuses on the transformative past 15 years, which metamorphosed the wrestling world from a huge, glittery, cartoon-fest '80s era, to an equally huge, gritty, obscenity-fest '90s era, and its aftermath. Current sports-entertainment has been on a downward slump for a while, mostly the result of many companies now swallowed up into one megalithic World Wretling Entertainment; the departure of most of the previous era's mega-huge superstars, and, not the least, the rising dominance of Mixed Martial Arts hogging the pay-per-view buck of audiences (it should be noted, on Fritz's radio show itself, almost half the airtime is now devoted to UFC and other MMA topics, instead of actual sports entertainment- style "wrasslin'").
While I wish Fritz had spent more focus on what's gone awry for the industry (and better what remedies could be possible), the fact of the matter is, both fans and promoters aren't altogether certain of all the intangibles causing this effect. Be that as it may, I still had a hell of a time regaling the heydays of ECW, WCW, and the modern attempts by TNA to generate a legitimate rival to Vince McMahon's media empire.
Artist of the Year
She's the main brain, and the main face of NBC's sorely overlooked 30 Rock and she somewhat accidentally resurrected Saturday Night Live from cultural irrelevance for a couple of months (even if it was only for the first ten minutes of each week, and she wasn't even an official cast member anymore). Yes, we're giving the Artist of the Year award to Tina Fey this time, you betcha. What probably cinched this pick for me was her unadulterated admission that there was no way she could keep up the Palin impression if the McCain ticket actually won the Presidential / VP election. Nothing shows comedic smarts better than realizing a horse actually can get kicked after its dead, and just how funny that isn't.
But I'd also point out that Fey's creative direction of 30 Rock is miles better than any of the stuph she did when she actually was a cast member (and head writer) of SNL. And while lots of people seems to talk about this little show that could, the ratings prove not a lot of people are actually watching. My advice is, do it. DVR it, whatever. While it's not quite as "smart" as The Office, let's be realistic and remember that show isn't really quite as "smart" as too many hipsters try to make it out to be (but it is still pretty great). The other key factor is, 30 Rock isn't really trying to be as "smart" to begin with, but instead (successfully) goes for the oddball middle-brow vibe. And yes, Fey is not the single-handed force behind what makes the show so great, since Alec Baldwin (probably the greatest all-time repeast guest on SNL) is the guy most responsible for the show's hilarity.
Nonetheless, Fey is still the main brain behined the operation, and deserves the accolades for getting Baldwin to play Frack to her Frick.
Now, if we could only get her work in film to be close to this good, we'd get a chance to pick her for this award a little more often.
That's it for the Main Awards this Year. I'll be posting the "Honourable Mentions" in the future--right after I find my notes to them again...blargh.
Be that as it may, it's been one year most people are content to get the hell out of the way, if only to step into another potential grinding wheel that will be 2009. Sure, like any other year, 2008 had its ups--at least we got a new president--but mostly downs for the average American, at least (hell, if you were a republican, the new president probably wasn't even an up, but if you were a republican, you were a lot busier deluding yourself about the state of affairs to begin with, if you ask me). As far as pop culture goes, it was pretty much a grab-bag typical of other years: a decent amount of cool things (actually a pretty good year for movies), a decent amount of un-cool things (like Guns 'n' Roses finally releasing Chinese Democracy and absolutely no one giving a shit (or maybe that's actually a cool thing). So let's gather up the round table of this year's winners and "losers" in the grand game of pop culture, and let's see who grabs our selections for this year's "Endies" awards, shall we?.
Movie of the Year
We are thrilled to give this year's film selection to Juno, while not by any means a perfect movie, still a damn great one, with very believable performances by all (especially Jason Bateman's even though his role is smaller), and absurdly clever writing. Yes, a lot of people got down on aspects that made the notions of teenage pregnancy and adoption seem light-hearted, and some of those criticisms are legit--since the film made it seem a bit too much like "everything comes out okay in the wash" . But even tackling this theme in any way comedic is difficult enough. Too often merely bringing up teenage pregnancy automatically hearkens to overwrought melodrama the likes of which only the Lifetime Network is willing to handle (brecch), so kudos to Diablo Cody for even realizing the fact that, among all the crap that ensues in that maelstrom of emotional and physical awfulness there is a lot of shit that can be laughed at. And Junois, without a doubt, a very fucking funny film. I'm also glad the Academy Awards showed a little bit o' ball-sackage enuph to give Cody the nod for Best Original Screenplay (normally, they'll be content to show their "daring" by nominating you, then go back to playing it safe and pick some overly ornate thing that takes place in Europe or something to try to prove how sophisticated they are--holocaust movies are perennial favourites, of course).
Best Actor in a Film
A lot of people are going to pulling for Heath Ledger in this year's Awards season, and damned if I'd argue that much about it, even though I don't think he'll win too many, since it's not likely that the hoighty-toighty side of the awards-givers will want to credit a younger actor who checked out in somewhat seedier circumstances, much less give too much credit for a somewhat cartoony role in a comic-book genre movie. I say to hell with all that, he deserves the credit.
But he's still not my pick this year. For reasons involving how Ichoose to arrange the rules concerning Endies selections, this year's winner is Daniel Day-Lewis for his role in There Will Be Blood. Day-Lewis, of course, won last year's Oscars and wouldn't be in the running for this year's awards in the mainstream, but that's not the same way we select things here on "Dreaming Life" (we didn't catch the movie until the new year, so it's eligible for us in as an '08 pick).
But let's talk about yet another titanic role for Daniel Day-Lewis, who doesn't work often, but seems only capable of picking the most meaty roles when he finally does come out from under his rock. He won an Endie for his previous role in Scorsese's The Gangs of New York and this year's work is definitely along the same lines, a little bit over-the-top, but in that grandiose Orson Welles-like fashion that still muther-fucking triumphs, dammit. Indeed, this is likely to prove at least one of, if not the Citizen Kane-performances of the 21st century. His character is at once wholly understandable, while thoroughly dastardly. He's a truly horrible human being, yet you still wind up siding with him agains the smarmy, chicanerous fakery of the bible thumpers in the film who he subsequently knuckles under to, and ultimately triumphs over (in his own sick way). And anyone who has seen the movie will never forget (and oft repeat the line) "I drink your milkshake!"
Best Actress in a Film
Again, a nod to Juno for Ellen Page's role in the titular role. She's got smart-ass adorability, knee-hugging vulnerability, the necessary mix of too smart for her own good, and too dumb for her own good (or at least, ultimately much more emotionally needy than she would care to realize or admit) for a teenage character to be in this much of a pickle and still be completely sympathetic. A lot of what works about the character is, of course, the result of the script, but Page's work with the role is top-notch, and its wonderful to know Page potentially has years to only get better. We can only hope she keeps picking roles as good as this one, so she doesn't crawl up the shitty-movie-gutter-pipe that so many younger actors can wind up in (see Ben Affleck).
Record of the Year
Admittedly, there seem to be fewer and fewer records that I deem worthy to acquire in the last few years. A lot of that is probably a combination of my increasing age, and the still-volatile change that's undergoing the music industry as a whole. As an older adult, I must, by necessity, concede my place as a main consumer and understander of popular music to a younger and more devoted audience. That is the natural progression of things. Pop music, as a whole, does not devote its energies to reaching someone of my demographic, so it becomes my responsibility as a listener to scope out other places to get my gradually graying ya-yas out. The flip side of the matter is that the music worl in general has gotten ever-more-fragmented, loosely (dis)organized, and all the more difficult on which to get a read on. I don't know if musicians at all truly release "albums" or "records" per se with any kind of thought of it as a complete product, or if we'll see the inevitable development of musicians releasing "single" solely in the on-line format, or what. What we know is, no musician really carries with them any sort of a zeitgeist, at least not the way musicians are currently reaching audiences. And for that matter, I don't know how much audiences truly invest in music or musicians anymore. To most younger audiences, it's simply one more option in an entertainment vista which must give an ADD sufferer fits of both ecstasy and aggravation.
In short (too late) music is possibly simultaneously too easy to acquire, and too difficult to get any sort of a read on. It's somehow become both too obscure and too disposable. Too fragmented, and too transparent. Does anybody follow what I'm trying to get at with this point? Ha Ha.
Still, I do have a pick for Record of the Year (finally). My pick is the Soundtrack to the Motion Picture Film Once. And I'll tell you, look around for more of Glen Hansard's work in both the Frames and the Swell Season. The writing is, well, it's probably a bit more skewed towards a slightly more mature audience, sure, but it's very thoughtful, very melodic, very emotional...hell, it's just good. At times, it's just plain heart-rending (especially if you've seen the film the music accompanies, but even if you haven't...) and if nothing else, still very original.
Breakthrough of the Year
I gotta say, I think every other year, I've given this award to musicians, but this year, I asked myself "Why the hell should this award be strictly for musicians." So, similar to how I've broken that barrier with other awards recipients in previous years, I've broken that wall down with this one in selecting Russell Brand for his absolutely hysterically over-the-top role as Aldous Snow, the blissfully oblivious-to-the-point-of-enlightened rock star in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. To be frank, he's hardly even acting. If you've witnessed Russell Brand outside of this role, he's pretty much that manically out-there and funny. That can be a danger to a career, obviously, since people can get sick of your antics real fast if it becomes no more than a one-trick pony (see Jack Black). But a more fitting actor for a more fitting role in a more fitting movie I haven't seen in a while.
Fare Thee Well...
The award dedicated to a figure who will no longer be sharing their work with us, at least for the indefinite future. For a long time, I gave this one to musicians all the time also, then I hit a streak of people who died--a bit morbid even I was finding it, I admit as well. This year, we're breaking the mould yet again, and giving the award to Ric Flair, the greatest professional wrestler of all time, who this year gave his farewell performance at WrestleMania against Shawn Michaels, while being inducted into the WWE's Wrestling Hall of Fame the same weekend.
I admit, this is purely a dorky guy's selection, but anyone who spent any time watching any wrestling over the last thirty years knows who Ric Flair, the high-stylin', profilin', jet-flyin', kiss-stealin', wheelin' dealin' greatest performer in the sport today is. While his latter years weren't quite up to the snuff of his prime (hey, the guy was in his fifties, give him a break), nobody could ignore that not once did he give less than 100 % at every opportunity. And in his prime, he was one of the most infuriating, dramatic and simultaneously likeable and hateable in ring performer. To say that his promo work outside of matches is still the gold standard even today (the guy can work a microphone like no one else, which is why I still think you may seem him return in a managerial capacity someday). So, sadly, we must turn the line of girls away; Space Mountain is now closed, even if they all want to take a ride.
Glad to See 'em Go...
I've softened up a little over the years, and usually struggled to pick an artist or performer I'm actually glad won't be staining our memories any more with their presence. Usually, my selections for this one turn out wrong down the long run (see Britney Spears, who, like a bad rash, keeps showing up over and over again).
This year I have no shame, and no regrets for selecting O.J. Simpson. As a Buffalonian, we once worshipped this sacrilege (some idiots in this town manage to continue with the "O.J. is Innocent" rap). I'm glad, even if his past sins were somehow pardoned, he's not getting away with his more recent ones. If he comes out of prison alive, he'll be a broken-down old piece of shit with barely a few years left to live out his misery. I'm glad, you murdering, misogynistic waste of a meat-puppet. You say you're sorry all you want. You're right: sorry meaning said, not contrite. If there is a hell, I'll be going there too, but I promise you'll be at the far wing where the hardcore scumbags go, and I hope I get to watch you rot there.
TV's Must Watch Show
I have to say, while the old-school networks have gotten more and more diluted with shitty reality TV and really, really bad over-worked game shows that were invented back in the '60s, television viewing as whole has probably gotten better, as long as you keep looking around. This year, I'm giving the pick to HBO's Entourage which took things in a little bit of a different direction for its fourth season. Instead of making sure movie-star Vincent Chase and friends kept coming out of their quandaries all rosy and smiley-faced, instead he suffered through legit bouts of career failure, decimated self-confidence, existential burnout, what have you. He even skulked back home to Queens for a quick respite to try to make some sense out of himself. And while the characters are often critiqued for being too broad and meat-headed (especially Kevin Dillon's Johnny Drama), we have to remember how much A to B has to be crossed within a 26 minute episode, so give the guys a break after all. I for one couldn't make it through one episode this year without one good, noisy laugh-out-loud moment; and that's normally the space I save for watching The Office.
Best Live Performance of the Year
I gotta admit, the older I get, the fewer shows I make it out to, and I blame it on an assortment of things (but work and general laziness are probably the prime factors). Used to be a time there wasn't almost a week that went by I wasn't going to see someone play. But that lifestyle is saved for the twenty-somethings after all, and I am no twenty-something anymore. It also should not be neglected to mention that a lot of bigger shows no longer grace the shores of Buffalo anymore, so one has to do more picking and choosing of club shows and outdoor events to try to make up for the fact that HSBC Arena or Darien Lake Performing Arts Pavillion stand empty a whole lot more often.
I still did see a somewhat respectable number of shows for a man my age, and so the winner for this year's award goes to Ron Hawkins for his July 5th Performance at Gateway Park in North Tonawanda, NY.
Yes, don't I give this guy props almost every year? Aren't I getting just a little redundant. So, maybe guilty as charged there. But, while his activity has waned over the years, and he really only does a few shows a year, they are almost always some of the best shit you'll experience. Ron also doesn't settle for any one kind of show anymore. Sometimes he'll go mellow and acoustic, playing by himself, sometimes he'll break out the "rock band" format with Mark Hansen on drums and Dylan Parker on bass. And, sometimes, like this show, he'll also add other dimensions, with other musicians sitting in, whether it be cello, saxophone, violin, et al.
Suffice to say, Hawkins' catalogue is varied and extensive enuph to get away with this, and always quite successfully. It also doesn't hurt that in these parts, you've got enuph goobers like me, who've waded worshipfully through his career over two decades now (brrrr) who know the songs well-enuph to make most shows a rather spirited sing-along.
Mein Gott, I need a life.
Page Turner of the Year
I realize a theme is surfacing somewhat this year, with my pick of Brian Fritz's Between the Ropes, a book about the history of pro-wrestling's evolution through the '90s and into this decade. But what more can I admit. The past year or so, I've been big into the history of sports entertainment, even stretching all the way back to wrestling's post-war development of the National Wrestling Alliance that pretty much made modern wrestling what it is today.
Fritz, who is the main host of a lively, informative two hour weekly show on Florida's ESPN radio, focuses on the transformative past 15 years, which metamorphosed the wrestling world from a huge, glittery, cartoon-fest '80s era, to an equally huge, gritty, obscenity-fest '90s era, and its aftermath. Current sports-entertainment has been on a downward slump for a while, mostly the result of many companies now swallowed up into one megalithic World Wretling Entertainment; the departure of most of the previous era's mega-huge superstars, and, not the least, the rising dominance of Mixed Martial Arts hogging the pay-per-view buck of audiences (it should be noted, on Fritz's radio show itself, almost half the airtime is now devoted to UFC and other MMA topics, instead of actual sports entertainment- style "wrasslin'").
While I wish Fritz had spent more focus on what's gone awry for the industry (and better what remedies could be possible), the fact of the matter is, both fans and promoters aren't altogether certain of all the intangibles causing this effect. Be that as it may, I still had a hell of a time regaling the heydays of ECW, WCW, and the modern attempts by TNA to generate a legitimate rival to Vince McMahon's media empire.
Artist of the Year
She's the main brain, and the main face of NBC's sorely overlooked 30 Rock and she somewhat accidentally resurrected Saturday Night Live from cultural irrelevance for a couple of months (even if it was only for the first ten minutes of each week, and she wasn't even an official cast member anymore). Yes, we're giving the Artist of the Year award to Tina Fey this time, you betcha. What probably cinched this pick for me was her unadulterated admission that there was no way she could keep up the Palin impression if the McCain ticket actually won the Presidential / VP election. Nothing shows comedic smarts better than realizing a horse actually can get kicked after its dead, and just how funny that isn't.
But I'd also point out that Fey's creative direction of 30 Rock is miles better than any of the stuph she did when she actually was a cast member (and head writer) of SNL. And while lots of people seems to talk about this little show that could, the ratings prove not a lot of people are actually watching. My advice is, do it. DVR it, whatever. While it's not quite as "smart" as The Office, let's be realistic and remember that show isn't really quite as "smart" as too many hipsters try to make it out to be (but it is still pretty great). The other key factor is, 30 Rock isn't really trying to be as "smart" to begin with, but instead (successfully) goes for the oddball middle-brow vibe. And yes, Fey is not the single-handed force behind what makes the show so great, since Alec Baldwin (probably the greatest all-time repeast guest on SNL) is the guy most responsible for the show's hilarity.
Nonetheless, Fey is still the main brain behined the operation, and deserves the accolades for getting Baldwin to play Frack to her Frick.
Now, if we could only get her work in film to be close to this good, we'd get a chance to pick her for this award a little more often.
That's it for the Main Awards this Year. I'll be posting the "Honourable Mentions" in the future--right after I find my notes to them again...blargh.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Class is in Session: “Being the Professor” or “How to create lessons out of Bosch, the Guilloutine, and Serpent and the Rainbow”
Okay, so here’s how my life tends to work. Somebody comes across something, whether it be a rumour about someone famous, or some odd piece of news trivia, or just some plain old trivia trivia. Some past event in history which heretofore has never been deemed all that important comes up as a topic, and whoever has done the running into invariably turns to ME, with a question. The reasons for this are varied, but it’s mostly because I’m just a big know-it-all about pretty much everything, even when it’s not asked for.
How to spell Hieronymous?
A recent case in point involves the fact that a few nights ago, I remarked with timely aplomb (mostly because I was wasted, and my verbal filters are pretty much non-existent when I’m wasted, thereby resulting in legitimate timely aplomb—as long as I’m not SO wasted the words get garbled in my mouth) that a situation was analogous to some “hellish chaos that you’d find in a Hieronymous Bosch painting.” Now, I’m the only one in my clique who took art, let alone took any art history (if they went to school, most of them are English or Communications majors), so I then had to go on finding books to my also equally wasted counterparts, showing them exactly what the hellish chaos of a Hieronymous Bosch painting looks like. Sadly, I only had one book with a few halfway decent pictures available of Bosch’s alchemically influenced “Garden of Earthly Delights” and even in that one, the plate was way too friggin’ small. This painting is an enclosing triptych, after all (the outside painting being a rather uncharacteristically placid spherical—also alchemically influenced—depiction of the world which some scholars think of as Bosch’s treatment of the post-apocalyptic “New Jerusalem” when all the fuck-heads on the INSIDE of the triptych will be purged from the universe) and it is god-awful huge—god-awful in every sense of the word. My pansy-assed little five by three inch plate barely picked up all the muckety-muck going on in the thing.
So I showed everyone the details that could be seen, one roommate remarking that, yes, my comparison of Bosch’s work to some of your worse acid-trips might not be all that off the mark, but he really took more stock in the idea that all the glass ovoid structures (actually influenced from alchemical “eggs,” which were similar to the beakers and flasks that we all used in chemistry class way back when) looked like really good designs for bongs. I was busy pointing out how there isn’t a decent human being ever portrayed in all of Bosch’s work, and all I get out of my students was “dude, sweet bongs!” Oh, well. Suddenly my other roommate asks: “How the fuck do you spell Hieronymous?” That’s my life.
It’s All in the Cut
An even better case happened a few years ago, and this is one of those examples of people having sick fascinations, and turning to someone who actually takes record of sick fascinations. One day at work, I strolled into the Senior Portraits department (I worked at a photo finishing company back then) and was faced immediately with: “Greg, how long does a severed head last after decapitation?” I think somebody was talking about The Exorcist III. That would make sense, if you recall the Gemini Killer talking about how “when I get one that’s gawking, I hold it up, and show ‘em its body!”
It didn’t matter how they got to the question, the point was, I got asked that question, because…well, I’m somehow supposed to know about these things.
Without pause I replied: “Usually between 13 and 18 seconds.” How did I know? Well, students, lets look into the accounts of witnesses to the numerous executions via guilloutine during the bloody French Revolution. Numerous severed heads were inspected for blinking, facial contortions, mouth movements etc. There is one account by a French physician and scientist who watched one victim carefully and tested for legitimate responsiveness:
“Addressing the reflex issue, one Dr. Beaurieux observed the execution of murderer in 1905, told in 'History of the Guillotine' by Alister Kershaw. First he saw in the head spasmodic movements of eyes and lips for 5-6 seconds. Then the face relaxed, the lids half closed, "exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to observe every day in the exercise of our profession.
"It was then that I called in a strong sharp voice: 'Languille!'" The lids lifted, and Languille's 'undeniably living eyes' fixed on the doctor, after which they closed again. Moments later he called out again, fetching another look by Languille. But a third call went unheeded.
"I have just recounted to you... what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted 25-30 seconds."
Twenty five to thirty seconds is a little longer than normal. And more than likely, as oxygen is deprived of the brain, combined with the shock-trauma, the brain shuts down more often after ten seconds. Still, what’s important to note was this particular severed head seems to have been responding to his name being called to him. Not exactly full sentience, since dogs and cats respond to their name, but that does denote higher neural functions still operating. And I understand now why a lot of the time they just put the head in a basket. Shit like a severed head gaping at you, and displaying genuine awareness would keep me awake at night I can tell you.
Yes, Drugs Can Even Make the Dead Walk
In one of those odd coincidences, someone at work watched the film The Serpent and the Rainbow probably the same night, or at least the same week that I had recently caught it. Actually, when you stop and consider, figuring everyone in this area subscribes to the same cable system, and if enough people like me subscribe to enough premium channels, it’s inevitable you’re going to catch the same flippin’ film in one week. Invariably, once again, said person was asking me—because I’m supposed to know everything—just how much of this “Based on a True Story” is actually one.
Some of you may have not bothered to pay attention, and then it’s not impossible some of you are just plain not old enough to remember (god knows I was in high school, so figuring out what was going on in grammar school—as some of you may actually be—is beyond this old man’s mathematic and cultural skills) when this movie originally came out. Anyway, the gist of the movie is “American guy visits voodoo culture in Haiti, searching for a chemical cause behind the whole zombie lore and phenomenon, hoping that, perhaps, if there is a chemical cause, pharmaceutical science can use it for anesthetic purposes in Western medicine, mm’kay?”
So, how much of the movie is true? Well, the basis of it is in line with the real-life adventures and misadventures of author / anthropologist / ethno-botanist Wade Davis (although the characters’ names are changed in the film—why not sure), who did indeed travel to Haiti while in his graduate studies, searching for a botanical cause behind what in lore is called zombism.
Besides that, it pretty much goes into fiction mode most of the time.
Some of the events in the movie are sort of on track with the real deal, as evident in Davis’ book upon which director Wes Craven based the film. But let’s face it, a lot of dramatic license was taken, and not just with the friggin’ participants’ names.
To get to the heart of the matter, as explained by Davis, he was sort of hired on to head to Haiti, because he was an anthropological traveler, whose studies and teachers had some previous experience in both somewhat “primitive” cultures, and the things they grow and grow around them, and how they are used.
Initially, Davis and his associates, before heading to Haiti, thought that the exotic plant and flower known often here in the Western hemisphere as datura, would be the culprit for causing a near-death, semi-conscious state, that perpetrators could used on victims, convincing them they were “dead,” then raising them out of their coffins as “zombis” (as Davis chose to spell it for his texts), for use as virtual slave labour, often in Haiti’s overworked sugar fields.
Sound far-fetched? That’s kind of what Davis thought, too, until informed of a well-documented individual named Clairvius Narcisse, who personally could report being poisoned of some sort, and was raised from the “dead” as a zombi slave. He’s so well, documented that I’ve found this guy turned up in other of my weird books aside from Davis’. I’ve even seen his name brought up in television documentaries on the whole subject of “zombies”. The guy was a certifiable case of someone thought to have died, who returned some fifteen years after his supposed death, claiming to have been enslaved as a zombi. That aint no fuckin’ joke.
As it turns out, datura wasn’t the flower extract that Davis had hoped would be the cause of these zombi phenomena, but the practice—to Davis and other experts, at least—appeared to be legit. Instead, Davis turned up a ritual and more importantly a drug, derived from the puffer fish toxin (a substance noted for it lethal qualities) which had the effect desired.
Davis’ book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, is not only about his search for this substance—whose effectiveness and sheer reality is still debated some twenty-plus years later (a lot of scientists want to write off anything with kooky, psuedo-supernatural ties to it completely off the track, especially if it turns up an idea like primitive cultures having pharmacological knowledge that defies their chemical backgrounds). More importantly, Davis focused on the voudon (what we normally call “voodoo”) culture from whence the zombi ritual sprung, its spiritual insights, its social backdrop, and how it was often used as a modicum of social control in a country whose government is often more lawless than any criminal element that might inhabit the island.
The movie veers off of a lot of this. Why? Well, basically because it was directed by Wes Craven, and Wes Craven had to make a Wes Craven movie ultimately. In other words, he decided this story needed to be depicted as a horror film, and said horror film ultimately falls prey to all the supernatural stereotypes that Davis’ book was attempting to dispel.
Really, the book probably shouldn’t have even been made into a movie, whether it be attempted as a horror flick or not. It’s really more of a “bookish” type of adventure. It’s not an action-packed whoop ‘em up type of an affair, and in spite of its more esoteric and somewhat creepy plot-triggers and subject matter, it’s not something most people would pay entrance and mange popcorn to.
Oh, but as Joe Bog Briggs once pointed out, you do get a couple of boobie shots in the film. Just figured I’d throw that out there for the popcorn manging crowd.
How to spell Hieronymous?
A recent case in point involves the fact that a few nights ago, I remarked with timely aplomb (mostly because I was wasted, and my verbal filters are pretty much non-existent when I’m wasted, thereby resulting in legitimate timely aplomb—as long as I’m not SO wasted the words get garbled in my mouth) that a situation was analogous to some “hellish chaos that you’d find in a Hieronymous Bosch painting.” Now, I’m the only one in my clique who took art, let alone took any art history (if they went to school, most of them are English or Communications majors), so I then had to go on finding books to my also equally wasted counterparts, showing them exactly what the hellish chaos of a Hieronymous Bosch painting looks like. Sadly, I only had one book with a few halfway decent pictures available of Bosch’s alchemically influenced “Garden of Earthly Delights” and even in that one, the plate was way too friggin’ small. This painting is an enclosing triptych, after all (the outside painting being a rather uncharacteristically placid spherical—also alchemically influenced—depiction of the world which some scholars think of as Bosch’s treatment of the post-apocalyptic “New Jerusalem” when all the fuck-heads on the INSIDE of the triptych will be purged from the universe) and it is god-awful huge—god-awful in every sense of the word. My pansy-assed little five by three inch plate barely picked up all the muckety-muck going on in the thing.
So I showed everyone the details that could be seen, one roommate remarking that, yes, my comparison of Bosch’s work to some of your worse acid-trips might not be all that off the mark, but he really took more stock in the idea that all the glass ovoid structures (actually influenced from alchemical “eggs,” which were similar to the beakers and flasks that we all used in chemistry class way back when) looked like really good designs for bongs. I was busy pointing out how there isn’t a decent human being ever portrayed in all of Bosch’s work, and all I get out of my students was “dude, sweet bongs!” Oh, well. Suddenly my other roommate asks: “How the fuck do you spell Hieronymous?” That’s my life.
It’s All in the Cut
An even better case happened a few years ago, and this is one of those examples of people having sick fascinations, and turning to someone who actually takes record of sick fascinations. One day at work, I strolled into the Senior Portraits department (I worked at a photo finishing company back then) and was faced immediately with: “Greg, how long does a severed head last after decapitation?” I think somebody was talking about The Exorcist III. That would make sense, if you recall the Gemini Killer talking about how “when I get one that’s gawking, I hold it up, and show ‘em its body!”
It didn’t matter how they got to the question, the point was, I got asked that question, because…well, I’m somehow supposed to know about these things.
Without pause I replied: “Usually between 13 and 18 seconds.” How did I know? Well, students, lets look into the accounts of witnesses to the numerous executions via guilloutine during the bloody French Revolution. Numerous severed heads were inspected for blinking, facial contortions, mouth movements etc. There is one account by a French physician and scientist who watched one victim carefully and tested for legitimate responsiveness:
“Addressing the reflex issue, one Dr. Beaurieux observed the execution of murderer in 1905, told in 'History of the Guillotine' by Alister Kershaw. First he saw in the head spasmodic movements of eyes and lips for 5-6 seconds. Then the face relaxed, the lids half closed, "exactly as in the dying whom we have occasion to observe every day in the exercise of our profession.
"It was then that I called in a strong sharp voice: 'Languille!'" The lids lifted, and Languille's 'undeniably living eyes' fixed on the doctor, after which they closed again. Moments later he called out again, fetching another look by Languille. But a third call went unheeded.
"I have just recounted to you... what I was able to observe. The whole thing had lasted 25-30 seconds."
Twenty five to thirty seconds is a little longer than normal. And more than likely, as oxygen is deprived of the brain, combined with the shock-trauma, the brain shuts down more often after ten seconds. Still, what’s important to note was this particular severed head seems to have been responding to his name being called to him. Not exactly full sentience, since dogs and cats respond to their name, but that does denote higher neural functions still operating. And I understand now why a lot of the time they just put the head in a basket. Shit like a severed head gaping at you, and displaying genuine awareness would keep me awake at night I can tell you.
Yes, Drugs Can Even Make the Dead Walk
In one of those odd coincidences, someone at work watched the film The Serpent and the Rainbow probably the same night, or at least the same week that I had recently caught it. Actually, when you stop and consider, figuring everyone in this area subscribes to the same cable system, and if enough people like me subscribe to enough premium channels, it’s inevitable you’re going to catch the same flippin’ film in one week. Invariably, once again, said person was asking me—because I’m supposed to know everything—just how much of this “Based on a True Story” is actually one.
Some of you may have not bothered to pay attention, and then it’s not impossible some of you are just plain not old enough to remember (god knows I was in high school, so figuring out what was going on in grammar school—as some of you may actually be—is beyond this old man’s mathematic and cultural skills) when this movie originally came out. Anyway, the gist of the movie is “American guy visits voodoo culture in Haiti, searching for a chemical cause behind the whole zombie lore and phenomenon, hoping that, perhaps, if there is a chemical cause, pharmaceutical science can use it for anesthetic purposes in Western medicine, mm’kay?”
So, how much of the movie is true? Well, the basis of it is in line with the real-life adventures and misadventures of author / anthropologist / ethno-botanist Wade Davis (although the characters’ names are changed in the film—why not sure), who did indeed travel to Haiti while in his graduate studies, searching for a botanical cause behind what in lore is called zombism.
Besides that, it pretty much goes into fiction mode most of the time.
Some of the events in the movie are sort of on track with the real deal, as evident in Davis’ book upon which director Wes Craven based the film. But let’s face it, a lot of dramatic license was taken, and not just with the friggin’ participants’ names.
To get to the heart of the matter, as explained by Davis, he was sort of hired on to head to Haiti, because he was an anthropological traveler, whose studies and teachers had some previous experience in both somewhat “primitive” cultures, and the things they grow and grow around them, and how they are used.
Initially, Davis and his associates, before heading to Haiti, thought that the exotic plant and flower known often here in the Western hemisphere as datura, would be the culprit for causing a near-death, semi-conscious state, that perpetrators could used on victims, convincing them they were “dead,” then raising them out of their coffins as “zombis” (as Davis chose to spell it for his texts), for use as virtual slave labour, often in Haiti’s overworked sugar fields.
Sound far-fetched? That’s kind of what Davis thought, too, until informed of a well-documented individual named Clairvius Narcisse, who personally could report being poisoned of some sort, and was raised from the “dead” as a zombi slave. He’s so well, documented that I’ve found this guy turned up in other of my weird books aside from Davis’. I’ve even seen his name brought up in television documentaries on the whole subject of “zombies”. The guy was a certifiable case of someone thought to have died, who returned some fifteen years after his supposed death, claiming to have been enslaved as a zombi. That aint no fuckin’ joke.
As it turns out, datura wasn’t the flower extract that Davis had hoped would be the cause of these zombi phenomena, but the practice—to Davis and other experts, at least—appeared to be legit. Instead, Davis turned up a ritual and more importantly a drug, derived from the puffer fish toxin (a substance noted for it lethal qualities) which had the effect desired.
Davis’ book, The Serpent and the Rainbow, is not only about his search for this substance—whose effectiveness and sheer reality is still debated some twenty-plus years later (a lot of scientists want to write off anything with kooky, psuedo-supernatural ties to it completely off the track, especially if it turns up an idea like primitive cultures having pharmacological knowledge that defies their chemical backgrounds). More importantly, Davis focused on the voudon (what we normally call “voodoo”) culture from whence the zombi ritual sprung, its spiritual insights, its social backdrop, and how it was often used as a modicum of social control in a country whose government is often more lawless than any criminal element that might inhabit the island.
The movie veers off of a lot of this. Why? Well, basically because it was directed by Wes Craven, and Wes Craven had to make a Wes Craven movie ultimately. In other words, he decided this story needed to be depicted as a horror film, and said horror film ultimately falls prey to all the supernatural stereotypes that Davis’ book was attempting to dispel.
Really, the book probably shouldn’t have even been made into a movie, whether it be attempted as a horror flick or not. It’s really more of a “bookish” type of adventure. It’s not an action-packed whoop ‘em up type of an affair, and in spite of its more esoteric and somewhat creepy plot-triggers and subject matter, it’s not something most people would pay entrance and mange popcorn to.
Oh, but as Joe Bog Briggs once pointed out, you do get a couple of boobie shots in the film. Just figured I’d throw that out there for the popcorn manging crowd.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
"I Have Wasted My Hours..."
Legend has it that those were the dying words of Leonardo da Vinci, master artist, inventor, founding father of human anatomy, and all-around weirdo.
Everyone all over their shit with a certain movie and book involving his name should take his words to heart, 'cos I think they're deep in the middle of a similar exchange. In other words, all y'all, on BOTH sides of the "Da Vinci Code" fence, get over yourselves and go back to living your lives, because you are wasting your fucking hours!
A couple of years ago, novelist Dan Brown came out with a hum-drum little novel that bandied about a few hum-drum ideas from the esoteric side of religious history, and all of a sudden, a bunch of people who normally have never given second thought to anything their faith ever taught them, spontaneously blew their load over the book. Remarkably, the Christian Faithful kept an uncharacteristically low profile on the matter. While the Idiot Winds of mainstream media went ga-ga over the crux of the "Code's" ultimate mystery ("Jesus was married! He had kids! His descendants live today!!!") and whether or not it could be true, churches and evangelical groups remained amazingly staid. They would hold seminars and debates and the occasional lectures, all the while making sure to emphasize their position that their lord and saviour never, EVER had sex (because that would just be too human, and haven't you gotten the idea by now that most dyed-in-the-wool Christians hate the idea that Jesus Christ was a human being, not in any typical way--if someone were to bring up the fact that Jesus probably had to drop a duker once or twice a day, just like everyone else, the Jesus Freaks would either argue that he was never tainted by the original sin of defacation, or, if he did, his doo-doo smelled like honeysuckle), but there were no book burnings, or world-wide rabble rousing protests. It seems they exhausted themselves by boycotting The Last Temptation of Christ and Kevin Smith's ultimately harmless Dogma ("God can't be a woman!! Least of all Alanis Morrisette!")
This week though, the movie came out, and boy-o, now the shit has hit the fan. I'm supposing that the Christians figured they wouldn't make a big stink over the book, since so few actually read anything (unless it's time to proof-text the Bible for reasons it's okay to bash homos!). Now that the illiterati have a movie--with Tom Hanks!--to have the info poured into their brains, now it's time for the Church to get nervous.
The movie just came out today, thus far with mixed reviews. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm figured I'll probably end up going, mostly because everyone, knowing where my interests go, keep expecting me to, and asking if I have (I put up with a lot of that with Brokeback Mountain, and I have no idea what my peeps think about me in those regards).
I've said this in other places, but I for one think Dan Brown's story should have actually benefitted from it transfer to cinema. The Da Vinci Code is a book made for movies. The chapters are short, the language is spare and shrift (mostly because I think Dan Brown is an enormously pedestrian author, and I'm being generous there), and the plot points hit fast. Basically, the whole thing is a murder mystery wrapped up in a puzzle, with a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo as the frying pan on which this instant pancake is cooked upon.
For the record: I didn't think The Da Vinci Code was a very good book. In fact, my two word review has been thus--"Cute and trashy." I didn't even bother reading the thing until this year, because I've read pretty much every other book on the subject that Brown's novel bases its ideas on. What the fuck does someone like me need a formulaically based mystery puzzle fiction story to unveil a bunch of information I already know about--and then some? To add to my disparagement, I think Brown is a hack. It's not just his plots, which pretty much amount to, "Take controversial historical ideas with religious implication, combine with plot point techniques swiped from standard community course novel-writing class, and voila, sell to forty million easily gulled members of the public who probably zoned out through their shoddily instructed Sunday school classes". It's really his style, which he really doesn't have any to mention. His prose is clumsy, his characters as one-dimensional as a geometric line, his storytelling only marginally better than a Harlequin Romance novel--or maybe not even as good; it's been a while since I paged through one of those looking for a reasonably steamy sex chapter. Just to prove that I'm not a literary snob, I've gotten my entertainment nut off of reading the likes of Tom Clancy and Stephen King, neither one exactly Pulitzer material. But they can tell stories, even if their prose isn't at the level of someone like Jonathon Franzen or Michael Chabon.
I think Brown's novel did so well because it was the literary equivalent of a McDonald's value-meal. It was cheap, it was fast, and for a few minutes you were into the idea of consuming it. Then the stomach ache and the McGurgles roll in afterward, and you realize maybe that much starch and fat wasn't so great an idea. Plus, a lot of people genuinely found all this shit in The Da Vinci Code to be ground-breaking stuph.
Truth be told, most of this shit has been kicking around almost as long as Christianity itself. It doesn't mean it's historically true, mind you, it's just been ideas kicked around for a long time. In southern France, there has long been a religious idea known as the Cult of the Black Madonna. Literally, hundreds of churches and shrines focus on icons in black of a Madonna figure. Thing is, the Madonna being revered wasn't the Virgin Mary, but Mary Magdalene.
The idea that Magdalene was Jesus' paramour, or wife, or even mother of his children stems back to gnostic texts, as is mentioned in Brown's novel. The caveat is always how much stock to take in the non-canonical texts. Mind you, I stress not to take much stock in the actual canonical gospels, let alone the ones that existed outside of what was considered "orthodox". In my not so un-educated opinion, all the gospels and texts pertaining to the life of Jesus are, by sheer necessity, a case of good legend-building. Taking a few things that were accepted as legit events in his life, and working their message around them, with a lot of creative license. The gospels were selling an idea, many of those ideas never even brought up by Christ, or even by others during his life. They attempt to make sense of a life that, at the first look, turned out to be a failure.
But enough about that. We're talking about Jesus getting it on with Mary Magdalene. It's often stated bluntly by the supporters of this so-called "heretical" theory that no self-respecting Jewish man would have lived to Jesus' age without getting himself married, and making himself some kids, even if he was a holy man, or a would-be messiah. I'm here to explain to all of you that this is a very limited and ultimately incorrect few of first century Judaism.
Yes, it's true, the mainstream contingent of Jewish Palestinians regarded marriage and progeny as a virtual social and religious duty. Your name, your legacy, your covenant with God, was often considered contingent on your ability to squeeze out future members of Jewish culture. Irish Catholics would understand this sentiment quite well. Jesus was a pretty observant Jew, even though how liberal or conservative he interpreted said observation is often debated. However, the Essenic movement in the 1st century is just one example that marriage and children were the only path in being a proper Jew. The Essenes were largely ascetic, never married, likely remained celibate their entire lives. While the settlement of Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea represent their "capital"--a sort of "Second Jerusalem" (or "New Jerusalem" to the most apocalypictally minded), Josephus remarks that Essenes, and so-called "Para-Essenic" movements were scattered across Judea. Many lived in the cities and towns, and so the ultra-ascetic, ultra-radical monks of Qum'ran may be seen as the fully devoted.
John the Baptist was probably an Essene, or former Essene, or some kind of para-Essene. As a result, since Jesus was a former disciple (read your scriptures carefully, all arrows point to Jesus starting out as a follower) of John's chances are, his ideas, at least at the beginning of his ministry, were likely para-Essene. That means he probably was celibate, or at the very least became celibate when he became a disciple of John.
His ideas may have changed as his ministry progressed. One reasonable theologian remarked, "If there was evidence to finally show that Jesus got married, my first guess would be that his wife was Mary Magdalene."
Magdalene is a figure shrouded in a lot of misconception. Many schooled by the Catholics often think of her and the unnamed harlot who Christ spares from stoning as one and the same. It aint the case. All that's ever mentioned about Magdalene in the gospels is that she was once inhabited by "seven devils" that Jesus had cast out of her. She also was one to forego her more "womanly" duties (i.e. her sister Martha is busy cooking and cleaning, while Mary ignores these activities in favor of sitting in on Christ's teachings). Beyond that, you're not going to get much of her until the resurrection depictions.
Apocryphal texts dig a little deeper, and some of them paint the picture of a woman much more active in the goings-on of Jesus' ministry, one whom, perhaps was granted special insight. Unfortunately, there is little to support these ideas. There is even less to really glean a romantic relationship out of all of it. Just a few lines here and there, usually ones rather broadly extrapolated. So, in the end, Dan Brown's characters plumbing the depth of the "greatest cover-up in human history" is rather overblown.
But the fact of the matter is, these are old ideas, ones that scholars have debated here and there, but still usually swept to the fringes of the historical debate. The reasons aren't quite due to "cover-up" but the fact that, too often, there are too many scholars who pay too much credence to the established "orthodox" ideas to suitably debate them.
For the record, I still side with the likelihood that Jesus was a celibate, and had no progeny, mostly because the evidence that we do have still makes sense that way. But I wouldn't necessarily rule out other possibilities. The fact that the church won't ever delve into the debate however is one, certain, undeniable fact. Christianity hasn't changed its theology in any significant way in 500 years. Point blank. The only sectarian developments of import have been in "fringe" groups such as the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses (and take it in mind that the Mormons are one of the fastest growing movements in the world right now, so using the term "fringe" may soon be a misnomer).
Christianity wants it that way. To alter their course of "reasoning" to them means pulling up the anchor of their certainty. To open the door to alternate possibilities means giving up on their so-called claim to an "absolute truth." Heaven forbid that truth ever be considered in a state of evolving discovery, since to many Christians the mere word "evolution" is a blasphemy (just ask the Pennsylvania department of Education).
So when someone popularizes a different interpretation, it seems to be a knee-jerk (or perhaps goose-stepping) reaction by Christian organizations to condemn such actions, even when they haven't learned a thing about them. "Let's boycott The Last Temptation of Christ because it posits the idea that maybe Jesus had a desire to get out of the situation he found himself in at his death," (a rather reasonable desire if you ask me, but die-hard Christians rarely take to anything reasonable). "Let's burn Dan Brown's books!" Because lighting shit on fire doesn't remind anyone with any sense of history about the countless human bodies used as cord-wood during the Inquisition.
A threat to the required stasis that promulgates the further abuses of organized religion is the ultimate threat in the church's eye. Any question of its certainty wrankles the masses who don't feel comfortable when someone comes up with a potentially different paradigm of understanding. If the church had its way, we'd still believe the sun revolved around the earth, and missionaries dashing the infants of American aboriginal pagans upon rocks would still be a "moral" activity (look it up, it's fucked up).
In other words, an institution based upon the teachings of a man hell-bent on dismantling the dominance culture that took advantage of everyday people, has, throughout history, only become yet another dominance culture, taking advantage of everyday people.
I guess one should be grateful that any sort of alternative idea gains popularity among the mass culture. Sadly, taking Brown's novel as a history lesson is a far cry from becoming genuinely informed on the subject, and anyone who does is only making a straw man of themselves, automatically proving how little they really knew to begin with.
In other words, all this Da Vinci Code nonsense is pure trashy entertainment, and nothing more. Both sides have taken things too seriously, and I think both sides need to open their minds to some true, serious learning before they open their yaps. In the meanwhile, Tom Hanks will be busy running from the French authorities on the silver screen, the whole while trying to decipher the meaning of "So Dark the Con of Man."
Oh, and by the way, that "Cryptex" thing? Completely doesn't work.
(Vinegar doesn't dissolve parchment).
Everyone all over their shit with a certain movie and book involving his name should take his words to heart, 'cos I think they're deep in the middle of a similar exchange. In other words, all y'all, on BOTH sides of the "Da Vinci Code" fence, get over yourselves and go back to living your lives, because you are wasting your fucking hours!
A couple of years ago, novelist Dan Brown came out with a hum-drum little novel that bandied about a few hum-drum ideas from the esoteric side of religious history, and all of a sudden, a bunch of people who normally have never given second thought to anything their faith ever taught them, spontaneously blew their load over the book. Remarkably, the Christian Faithful kept an uncharacteristically low profile on the matter. While the Idiot Winds of mainstream media went ga-ga over the crux of the "Code's" ultimate mystery ("Jesus was married! He had kids! His descendants live today!!!") and whether or not it could be true, churches and evangelical groups remained amazingly staid. They would hold seminars and debates and the occasional lectures, all the while making sure to emphasize their position that their lord and saviour never, EVER had sex (because that would just be too human, and haven't you gotten the idea by now that most dyed-in-the-wool Christians hate the idea that Jesus Christ was a human being, not in any typical way--if someone were to bring up the fact that Jesus probably had to drop a duker once or twice a day, just like everyone else, the Jesus Freaks would either argue that he was never tainted by the original sin of defacation, or, if he did, his doo-doo smelled like honeysuckle), but there were no book burnings, or world-wide rabble rousing protests. It seems they exhausted themselves by boycotting The Last Temptation of Christ and Kevin Smith's ultimately harmless Dogma ("God can't be a woman!! Least of all Alanis Morrisette!")
This week though, the movie came out, and boy-o, now the shit has hit the fan. I'm supposing that the Christians figured they wouldn't make a big stink over the book, since so few actually read anything (unless it's time to proof-text the Bible for reasons it's okay to bash homos!). Now that the illiterati have a movie--with Tom Hanks!--to have the info poured into their brains, now it's time for the Church to get nervous.
The movie just came out today, thus far with mixed reviews. I haven't seen it yet, but I'm figured I'll probably end up going, mostly because everyone, knowing where my interests go, keep expecting me to, and asking if I have (I put up with a lot of that with Brokeback Mountain, and I have no idea what my peeps think about me in those regards).
I've said this in other places, but I for one think Dan Brown's story should have actually benefitted from it transfer to cinema. The Da Vinci Code is a book made for movies. The chapters are short, the language is spare and shrift (mostly because I think Dan Brown is an enormously pedestrian author, and I'm being generous there), and the plot points hit fast. Basically, the whole thing is a murder mystery wrapped up in a puzzle, with a lot of religious mumbo-jumbo as the frying pan on which this instant pancake is cooked upon.
For the record: I didn't think The Da Vinci Code was a very good book. In fact, my two word review has been thus--"Cute and trashy." I didn't even bother reading the thing until this year, because I've read pretty much every other book on the subject that Brown's novel bases its ideas on. What the fuck does someone like me need a formulaically based mystery puzzle fiction story to unveil a bunch of information I already know about--and then some? To add to my disparagement, I think Brown is a hack. It's not just his plots, which pretty much amount to, "Take controversial historical ideas with religious implication, combine with plot point techniques swiped from standard community course novel-writing class, and voila, sell to forty million easily gulled members of the public who probably zoned out through their shoddily instructed Sunday school classes". It's really his style, which he really doesn't have any to mention. His prose is clumsy, his characters as one-dimensional as a geometric line, his storytelling only marginally better than a Harlequin Romance novel--or maybe not even as good; it's been a while since I paged through one of those looking for a reasonably steamy sex chapter. Just to prove that I'm not a literary snob, I've gotten my entertainment nut off of reading the likes of Tom Clancy and Stephen King, neither one exactly Pulitzer material. But they can tell stories, even if their prose isn't at the level of someone like Jonathon Franzen or Michael Chabon.
I think Brown's novel did so well because it was the literary equivalent of a McDonald's value-meal. It was cheap, it was fast, and for a few minutes you were into the idea of consuming it. Then the stomach ache and the McGurgles roll in afterward, and you realize maybe that much starch and fat wasn't so great an idea. Plus, a lot of people genuinely found all this shit in The Da Vinci Code to be ground-breaking stuph.
Truth be told, most of this shit has been kicking around almost as long as Christianity itself. It doesn't mean it's historically true, mind you, it's just been ideas kicked around for a long time. In southern France, there has long been a religious idea known as the Cult of the Black Madonna. Literally, hundreds of churches and shrines focus on icons in black of a Madonna figure. Thing is, the Madonna being revered wasn't the Virgin Mary, but Mary Magdalene.
The idea that Magdalene was Jesus' paramour, or wife, or even mother of his children stems back to gnostic texts, as is mentioned in Brown's novel. The caveat is always how much stock to take in the non-canonical texts. Mind you, I stress not to take much stock in the actual canonical gospels, let alone the ones that existed outside of what was considered "orthodox". In my not so un-educated opinion, all the gospels and texts pertaining to the life of Jesus are, by sheer necessity, a case of good legend-building. Taking a few things that were accepted as legit events in his life, and working their message around them, with a lot of creative license. The gospels were selling an idea, many of those ideas never even brought up by Christ, or even by others during his life. They attempt to make sense of a life that, at the first look, turned out to be a failure.
But enough about that. We're talking about Jesus getting it on with Mary Magdalene. It's often stated bluntly by the supporters of this so-called "heretical" theory that no self-respecting Jewish man would have lived to Jesus' age without getting himself married, and making himself some kids, even if he was a holy man, or a would-be messiah. I'm here to explain to all of you that this is a very limited and ultimately incorrect few of first century Judaism.
Yes, it's true, the mainstream contingent of Jewish Palestinians regarded marriage and progeny as a virtual social and religious duty. Your name, your legacy, your covenant with God, was often considered contingent on your ability to squeeze out future members of Jewish culture. Irish Catholics would understand this sentiment quite well. Jesus was a pretty observant Jew, even though how liberal or conservative he interpreted said observation is often debated. However, the Essenic movement in the 1st century is just one example that marriage and children were the only path in being a proper Jew. The Essenes were largely ascetic, never married, likely remained celibate their entire lives. While the settlement of Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea represent their "capital"--a sort of "Second Jerusalem" (or "New Jerusalem" to the most apocalypictally minded), Josephus remarks that Essenes, and so-called "Para-Essenic" movements were scattered across Judea. Many lived in the cities and towns, and so the ultra-ascetic, ultra-radical monks of Qum'ran may be seen as the fully devoted.
John the Baptist was probably an Essene, or former Essene, or some kind of para-Essene. As a result, since Jesus was a former disciple (read your scriptures carefully, all arrows point to Jesus starting out as a follower) of John's chances are, his ideas, at least at the beginning of his ministry, were likely para-Essene. That means he probably was celibate, or at the very least became celibate when he became a disciple of John.
His ideas may have changed as his ministry progressed. One reasonable theologian remarked, "If there was evidence to finally show that Jesus got married, my first guess would be that his wife was Mary Magdalene."
Magdalene is a figure shrouded in a lot of misconception. Many schooled by the Catholics often think of her and the unnamed harlot who Christ spares from stoning as one and the same. It aint the case. All that's ever mentioned about Magdalene in the gospels is that she was once inhabited by "seven devils" that Jesus had cast out of her. She also was one to forego her more "womanly" duties (i.e. her sister Martha is busy cooking and cleaning, while Mary ignores these activities in favor of sitting in on Christ's teachings). Beyond that, you're not going to get much of her until the resurrection depictions.
Apocryphal texts dig a little deeper, and some of them paint the picture of a woman much more active in the goings-on of Jesus' ministry, one whom, perhaps was granted special insight. Unfortunately, there is little to support these ideas. There is even less to really glean a romantic relationship out of all of it. Just a few lines here and there, usually ones rather broadly extrapolated. So, in the end, Dan Brown's characters plumbing the depth of the "greatest cover-up in human history" is rather overblown.
But the fact of the matter is, these are old ideas, ones that scholars have debated here and there, but still usually swept to the fringes of the historical debate. The reasons aren't quite due to "cover-up" but the fact that, too often, there are too many scholars who pay too much credence to the established "orthodox" ideas to suitably debate them.
For the record, I still side with the likelihood that Jesus was a celibate, and had no progeny, mostly because the evidence that we do have still makes sense that way. But I wouldn't necessarily rule out other possibilities. The fact that the church won't ever delve into the debate however is one, certain, undeniable fact. Christianity hasn't changed its theology in any significant way in 500 years. Point blank. The only sectarian developments of import have been in "fringe" groups such as the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses (and take it in mind that the Mormons are one of the fastest growing movements in the world right now, so using the term "fringe" may soon be a misnomer).
Christianity wants it that way. To alter their course of "reasoning" to them means pulling up the anchor of their certainty. To open the door to alternate possibilities means giving up on their so-called claim to an "absolute truth." Heaven forbid that truth ever be considered in a state of evolving discovery, since to many Christians the mere word "evolution" is a blasphemy (just ask the Pennsylvania department of Education).
So when someone popularizes a different interpretation, it seems to be a knee-jerk (or perhaps goose-stepping) reaction by Christian organizations to condemn such actions, even when they haven't learned a thing about them. "Let's boycott The Last Temptation of Christ because it posits the idea that maybe Jesus had a desire to get out of the situation he found himself in at his death," (a rather reasonable desire if you ask me, but die-hard Christians rarely take to anything reasonable). "Let's burn Dan Brown's books!" Because lighting shit on fire doesn't remind anyone with any sense of history about the countless human bodies used as cord-wood during the Inquisition.
A threat to the required stasis that promulgates the further abuses of organized religion is the ultimate threat in the church's eye. Any question of its certainty wrankles the masses who don't feel comfortable when someone comes up with a potentially different paradigm of understanding. If the church had its way, we'd still believe the sun revolved around the earth, and missionaries dashing the infants of American aboriginal pagans upon rocks would still be a "moral" activity (look it up, it's fucked up).
In other words, an institution based upon the teachings of a man hell-bent on dismantling the dominance culture that took advantage of everyday people, has, throughout history, only become yet another dominance culture, taking advantage of everyday people.
I guess one should be grateful that any sort of alternative idea gains popularity among the mass culture. Sadly, taking Brown's novel as a history lesson is a far cry from becoming genuinely informed on the subject, and anyone who does is only making a straw man of themselves, automatically proving how little they really knew to begin with.
In other words, all this Da Vinci Code nonsense is pure trashy entertainment, and nothing more. Both sides have taken things too seriously, and I think both sides need to open their minds to some true, serious learning before they open their yaps. In the meanwhile, Tom Hanks will be busy running from the French authorities on the silver screen, the whole while trying to decipher the meaning of "So Dark the Con of Man."
Oh, and by the way, that "Cryptex" thing? Completely doesn't work.
(Vinegar doesn't dissolve parchment).
Monday, May 01, 2006
This Dreaming Life...
Originally written in the fall of 2005, this piece explains where the name of the site originated from. In case anyone was ever really curious!
This will be a quick one today. It's saturday afternoon, and while it's not a Hangover Weekend at all, I was still out almost the whole night--once again, trying to fool my body and the world that I can still live some rudimentary example of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle or something....sigh....sad.
And yes, there is another side of me that says "Why are you explaining the title of your new column on your SECOND issue, and not your first?" Well, it's my column, I make the rules, and I break the rules as I deem fit anyway.
"Dreaming Life" is one of those slightly abstract phrases that kinda ran threw my head a few months back, where the words just sound right when they get said or something. You have to understand, while I might devote my energies as a "sort-of" writer now in life, ten years back, I devoted most of my literate energies towards being a singer / lyricist, with emphasis on the lyricist, and so when in you're in the craft, you spend a lot of time thinking about how words SOUND together. "Dreaming Life" happens to be one of those phrases that I will turn around and around, enjoying the sound of it first, THEN deciding what exactly the fuck it's supposed to mean.
The first thing that struck me was its depiction of the vague interpretations of life's reality (in that whole existentialist / Aristotelian / Immanuel Kant "what is reality" type of way I suppose). How is it we determine what is our "Waking Life" and what is our "Dreaming Life". Which one would we rather be in. It's like that line in David Cronenbeg's The Fly : "I was a Fly, who dreamed he was a man...but the dream is over. And now the Fly has awakened." Or Kafka's short story about the guy who wakes up one day and realizes he's a cockroach.
Yeah, I know, these are the things that run through my mind while I'm busy making sure 144 units of weight loss capsules are being shipped to Wal-mart on time at work. It's that dualism that I have to live in order to avoid snapping usually.
And that's another aspect to the phrase "Dreaming Life". More accurately put, it's one of those ideas about "Dreaming OF Life", or how we interpret what our life is in our minds "supposed" to be about. Most of our lives are so profoundly ordinary, that its ordinariness becomes extraordinary. Most of the time, I can break my days down to a list of five or six major facts, and they don't even deviate in order: Woke up, got ready for work, went to work, worked late, came home, wasted time (i.e. watched tv, read e-mail, played "Age of Empires" for three straight hours), went to bed.
Rinse and repeat.
So, as Neil Peart wrote in "Losing It": "Most of us just dream about / The things we'd like to be". Or, to borrow another of his quotes: "It's understood / By every single person / Who'd be elsewhere if they could..."
Most lives are lived with inebriating regularity, only punctuated by moments of true real excitement or uniqueness, and most often, when those moments of genuine difference arise, we don't even like dealing with them. The highlights that exist outside of the normal framework of everyday life initially take on the form of a problem. "I was on my way to work, and I got into a car accident." "At work today, I got repeatedly kicked in the balls by corporate up in Toronto who can't ever get their shit together." "So this fracas breaks out in the bar, and I get blindsided in the back of the head by this beer bottle, even though I didn't have anything to do with it."
The things in life that break up the monotony are usually not that good! Every now and then, you might get one of those bones like "I talked with Vince, and we're going to open for Ron Hawkins on the 29th!" in your lifetime, or "I met this woman who is the first genuinely interesting person I've met in about a year and a half." But most of the time those events get followed up by grisly details that only end up as more fucking issues as well...i.e. "Vince only wants to pay us thirty dollars for the set," or "It also turns out that really interesting girl is on meds for bipolar disorder." You get the idea.
So it's the "Dream of Life" that we still surround ourselves with. We have a tendency to get by imagining what we think our lives could be, or ought to be. Invariably the "Dream of Life" leads to things like existential angst or the more pedestrian mid-life crisis. That whole problem of climbing a ladder only to discover once at the top that you're up against the wrong wall.
Albert Camus once wrote: "I'll tell you a secret about judgement day, my friend. It happens every day."
I used to keep that tacked up on my refrigerator. But the sad fact of the matter is, if we were to stop and judge our lives on a day to day basis, the gross and unforgiving normalcy would leave us feeling very guilty. And even those who live out what we would consider our "Dream Life" find themselves in a litany of regularity all their own (want a hint? Even rock stars live a pretty hum-drum life most of the time. If you ever followed a musician around on tour, you would see their day broken into a routine itinerary that anyone living a "normal" life would identify with--they just live on a bus for 260 days a year). Again, as Neil Peart once wrote (and I've got to stop quoting him in this piece): "Well, you get up, and you go to work." He has found that to be true from the days when he was schlepping tacky souvenirs on Piccadilly Circus all the way to now, when he's making records, writing books, and going on tour with millions in his accounts.
In effect, we are all busy "Dreaming Life" in the verb form, trying to distinguish what that's supposed to be, or what that really is, in its noun form.
Talk Hard,
The Professor
This will be a quick one today. It's saturday afternoon, and while it's not a Hangover Weekend at all, I was still out almost the whole night--once again, trying to fool my body and the world that I can still live some rudimentary example of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle or something....sigh....sad.
And yes, there is another side of me that says "Why are you explaining the title of your new column on your SECOND issue, and not your first?" Well, it's my column, I make the rules, and I break the rules as I deem fit anyway.
"Dreaming Life" is one of those slightly abstract phrases that kinda ran threw my head a few months back, where the words just sound right when they get said or something. You have to understand, while I might devote my energies as a "sort-of" writer now in life, ten years back, I devoted most of my literate energies towards being a singer / lyricist, with emphasis on the lyricist, and so when in you're in the craft, you spend a lot of time thinking about how words SOUND together. "Dreaming Life" happens to be one of those phrases that I will turn around and around, enjoying the sound of it first, THEN deciding what exactly the fuck it's supposed to mean.
The first thing that struck me was its depiction of the vague interpretations of life's reality (in that whole existentialist / Aristotelian / Immanuel Kant "what is reality" type of way I suppose). How is it we determine what is our "Waking Life" and what is our "Dreaming Life". Which one would we rather be in. It's like that line in David Cronenbeg's The Fly : "I was a Fly, who dreamed he was a man...but the dream is over. And now the Fly has awakened." Or Kafka's short story about the guy who wakes up one day and realizes he's a cockroach.
Yeah, I know, these are the things that run through my mind while I'm busy making sure 144 units of weight loss capsules are being shipped to Wal-mart on time at work. It's that dualism that I have to live in order to avoid snapping usually.
And that's another aspect to the phrase "Dreaming Life". More accurately put, it's one of those ideas about "Dreaming OF Life", or how we interpret what our life is in our minds "supposed" to be about. Most of our lives are so profoundly ordinary, that its ordinariness becomes extraordinary. Most of the time, I can break my days down to a list of five or six major facts, and they don't even deviate in order: Woke up, got ready for work, went to work, worked late, came home, wasted time (i.e. watched tv, read e-mail, played "Age of Empires" for three straight hours), went to bed.
Rinse and repeat.
So, as Neil Peart wrote in "Losing It": "Most of us just dream about / The things we'd like to be". Or, to borrow another of his quotes: "It's understood / By every single person / Who'd be elsewhere if they could..."
Most lives are lived with inebriating regularity, only punctuated by moments of true real excitement or uniqueness, and most often, when those moments of genuine difference arise, we don't even like dealing with them. The highlights that exist outside of the normal framework of everyday life initially take on the form of a problem. "I was on my way to work, and I got into a car accident." "At work today, I got repeatedly kicked in the balls by corporate up in Toronto who can't ever get their shit together." "So this fracas breaks out in the bar, and I get blindsided in the back of the head by this beer bottle, even though I didn't have anything to do with it."
The things in life that break up the monotony are usually not that good! Every now and then, you might get one of those bones like "I talked with Vince, and we're going to open for Ron Hawkins on the 29th!" in your lifetime, or "I met this woman who is the first genuinely interesting person I've met in about a year and a half." But most of the time those events get followed up by grisly details that only end up as more fucking issues as well...i.e. "Vince only wants to pay us thirty dollars for the set," or "It also turns out that really interesting girl is on meds for bipolar disorder." You get the idea.
So it's the "Dream of Life" that we still surround ourselves with. We have a tendency to get by imagining what we think our lives could be, or ought to be. Invariably the "Dream of Life" leads to things like existential angst or the more pedestrian mid-life crisis. That whole problem of climbing a ladder only to discover once at the top that you're up against the wrong wall.
Albert Camus once wrote: "I'll tell you a secret about judgement day, my friend. It happens every day."
I used to keep that tacked up on my refrigerator. But the sad fact of the matter is, if we were to stop and judge our lives on a day to day basis, the gross and unforgiving normalcy would leave us feeling very guilty. And even those who live out what we would consider our "Dream Life" find themselves in a litany of regularity all their own (want a hint? Even rock stars live a pretty hum-drum life most of the time. If you ever followed a musician around on tour, you would see their day broken into a routine itinerary that anyone living a "normal" life would identify with--they just live on a bus for 260 days a year). Again, as Neil Peart once wrote (and I've got to stop quoting him in this piece): "Well, you get up, and you go to work." He has found that to be true from the days when he was schlepping tacky souvenirs on Piccadilly Circus all the way to now, when he's making records, writing books, and going on tour with millions in his accounts.
In effect, we are all busy "Dreaming Life" in the verb form, trying to distinguish what that's supposed to be, or what that really is, in its noun form.
Talk Hard,
The Professor
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Class is in Session: Judas, Jesus and Superstar Status
(This post originally was posted a while back at MySpace at http://blog.myspace.com/nevrsilentworld. I chose to post it up here as recent news headlines have resurfaced the debate on the existence and veracity of the Gospel of Judas. The debate, I imagine, will continue for a few more centuries; as long as there are people tenacious enough about their faith to decide the things that fall outside of that box are guilty of heresy)
It came out just like this: "Judas Iscariot would be the greatest interview ever."
And it's true. Argue what you will about whether he was a real guy or not (hardcore biblical literalists aside, the jury is still out among a lot of scholars), the bottom line is, there was someone who probably helped turn the guy now known as Jesus Christ in, and no matter what his real name was, we could call him Judas nowadays.
It's a troubling name, one of those that you figure no one will ever name their kids again, just like no one is likely to ever name their kid Adolph. This, in spite of the fact that in his own time, Judas was, like Jesus's real name (Jesus is a translation from the Hebrew / Aramaic name Yeshu, a sort of nickname for Yehoshua, or Joshua) a very popular one. Both names were ones given by rather proudly nationalistic parentage--it'd be like naming your kids after George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or in the case of Judas, like just plain naming your kid America. So if there is one thing to say about both Jesus and Judas, they had rather patriotic moms and dads. And that takes a lot o' balls when you're an occupied land. It's like naming your kid Freedom if you lived in 1984's Oceania. Unfortunately, now you hear the name Judas, and the only word that resonates is the word "traitor." That may be unfair, if you ask me.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, and maybe off-track, as usual. The point is, the person we've come to know as Judas Iscariot may well be the single most intriguing, enigmatic, stupefying, stunning figure in all of western history. There's so little we know, and so much we assume about this character, this scapegoat, this pariah of religious history.
This topic got started in my "Personal Classroom" when someone commented on the recent runaway growth of my beard (the topic of a future Dreaming Life column if I go as far up my own ass as I'm planning to write these days). Usually, I'll make a comment that I'm going for the whole Cuban Revolutionary look (and when I wear certain hats, I really do look like one of Che Guevara's associates). One night at the bar, I simply responded that I was planning to audition for the role of Judas for this spring's production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The only problem is, I wasn't a looming potent black man, like Carl Anderson, and that's really what people want in the JCS version of Judas. Somewhere along the lines that week, I made it a point that, as a writer, Judas was the man any journalist worth his/her salt would die to get their tape recorder in front of.
It's like holding a seminar with Satan, basically. People would just love to hear his side of the story. And let's be honest, the one thing none of the gospels, or any of the historians of that time (the few that even cared that much about the budding Christian movement) paid any attention to, was Judas' side of the story.
It's easy to just say "So and so was the bad guy in this story, and he did something really bad...." But living in the 21st century, it's not enuph for me to simply dub a guy the bad guy, label him as the villain, and then get on with the story. Even villains and so-called evildoers have motivations, as obscure as they may be to everyone else but themselves. Trust me, the motivations they'd give you wouldn't be "because I'm the bad guy." John Wilkes Boothe thought he'd be praised as a national hero for his assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was utterly amazed when it didn't pan out that way.
We don't live in a one-dimensional world, and possibly the the biggest problem with the gospels is that, at best, even its protagonist has only two dimensions. The hardest part of believers and non-believers alike when grappling with the mythos and / or history of the Christ is wrapping their brains around a god-figure who was also fundamentally supposed to be human. For Christ's sake (sorry about the pun) one gospel writer (the one we call "John" now) couldn't even fucking portray him in anything remotely human fashioned. Like Robert Powell's portrayal of the Saviour, you can't even imagine John's rendition of JC blinking on camera (I can't imagine the amount of Visine Powell needed to pull that off in Jesus of Nazareth).
And then there was Judas. In the gospels, he's given barely a few lines worth of mentioning. That's rough press for a guy who, according to said texts, is single-handedly responsible for turning his boss, partner, saviour and pal over to the authorities, all for a really dismal price (we'll get into that later). Why so little about the guy? Were the authors and early believers so glum on the fact that one of Jesus' own gang sold him out that they didn't even want to bring him up? You'd think someone would have wanted to figure out what the hell happened.
Trying to find historical perspective in what is first and foremost a spiritual tome is always asking for way too much. Instead, like the best literary characters, we have to take what we're given, and make our own interpretations. And the fact of the matter is, there is an assortment of apocryphal and non-canonical texts, but therein lies as much madness as the gospels themselves (some apocryphal works depict Roman governor Pontius Pilate as an eventual Christian convert, and that's just plain laughable).
So Judas is a puzzle. One of the greatest literary and historical ciphers in the world, which means authors, artists, poets and scribes would have a lot of latitude to work their own ideas out.
Sadly, with Judas, that really isn't the fact. Dante chose to put him in the lowest, final circle of hell, among the other traitors of humanity. Not exactly sparkling company, and still not asking to get the guy's side of the story. Taylor Caldwell did finally publish I, Judas, a sort of Gospel or Testament According to the Traitor in 1977. I haven't read it (yet), so I can't give a lesson on it.
The first time I ever came across any means of coming to grips with understanding what Judas was thinking was the riveting Carl Anderson portrayal in Norman Jewison's film version of Jesus Christ Superstar, based on the concept album and subsequent stage production written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In his opening performance, "Heaven on Their Minds" a disenchanted Judas is left wondering how the hell things got so out of hand, how his friend and fellow social revolutionary could have taken things so far. And it's quickly understood that, in JCS, Judas is as much the protagonist of the story as the title character, if not, perhaps more. This is one of the few times we're given anything at all about his side of the story.
In the annals of Jesus Christ Superstar, Carl Anderson is as immortal as Jesus Christ himself. No one of my generation can think of the character of Judas, and NOT think of Carl Anderson (hence the fixation on the looming potent black man I mentioned earlier). It didn't hurt that the man played the character on stage more than anyone else in the history of the production. He played the role all the way up until his death in 2004, at that point, not just a looming potent black man, but one dreaded out more than fucking Bob Marley, looking even scarier, conflicted, and, well, potent in that social upstart kind of way. Fucking R.I.P. Carl. As angry, tortured and ill-tempered as Carl's Judas was, all accounts of Carl the man were exactly the opposite. That's art, after all.
Carl's rendition was of a man who felt that the hype of his colleague had become dangerous, that the program they once started had lost sight of itself. Basically, that he had to turn his buddy in to keep things from getting out of control, and save everyone's neck. Following Jesus' arrest, he comes to an even more damning realization. He would save no one. His actions would lead only to his death, that he would forever be painted a traitor, a sellout (even though he protested all along how he didn't "want your blood money"). Judas would be damned for all time.
Granted, this was all extrapolated from Tim Rice's 'book', in JSC's own late-sixties, hippie-laden ways--some of which doesn't quite stand the test of time (does anyone really want to watch apostles sing "What's the buzz? / Tell me what's a-happenin'?" in this day and age). But it was also a sign of the times that Judas be personified as a powerful, articulate, tempestuous, impatient African American. How fucking perfect an allegory is that? With Carl came all the imagery of the civil rights and Black Panther movement, the Watts riots, and urban social uprising. Was there not symbolic balance that Judas, like so many African American leaders, would do everything in his power to do what he felt was right, but still wind up villified by it? After all said and done, the white man's Jesus always bleeds truer.
But it was about time somebody finally gave Judas his due, right? Nobody had ever given Judas a reason to do what he did before, right?
Truth is, author Nikos Kazantzakis had them by about ten years, when he wrote the incredibly controversial book, The Last Temptation of Christ. Kazantzakis was a man of deep faith, even if how he envisioned his faith was in a manner that would get him excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox church. Most of you would recognize the title because of Martin Scorsese's equally, if not more controversial 1988 film based on the book. In both book and film, the apostle Judas Iscariot is not the darting, dwarfish coward that tradition and the Apocryphal works had a tendency to depict him as. Instead, he is a bull of a man, huge in stature and fortitude. He's a dagger weilding zealot (this isn't that outlandish--a few scholars have asserted that the name "Iscariot" was a derivation of sicarii, a faction among latter first century jewish zealots known for illegally carrying daggers), who is originally assigned by his colleagues to kill Jesus (because Jesus, who begins as a carpenter who builds crosses for the Romans, is the real traitor). In time, he decides to follow Jesus on a messianic campaign.
Kazantzakis' Jesus was troublingly human; one full of self-doubt, fear, and, yes, temptation. His awakening to status as saviour is one that comes in incremental steps, ones that don't always make sense at the time, and God's revelations are ones that Jesus often tries his best to deny. At first, his friend Judas refuses to accept the idea that God wants Jesus to die as a means of being the messiah (it wouldn't make sense to any first century zealot, of course).
Here, however, we have a complete turnabout of the whole Judas as traitor depiction. In Kazantzakis' work, it is requested of him. It is the recognition that Judas is the only apostle with the required strength of conviction, the only one with the courage to commit an action which will forever change the course of events; to make a decision that will, in effect damn him in the eyes of the world, for eternity.
This is an incredibly moving juxtaposition, and it's one I subscribe to. If any of you have talked with me personally, or read some of my previous works (ones before I started Dreaming Life here), you'd know I adhere fervently to the Devil's Advocate party, with a certain type of caveat.
Judaeo-Christian faith has always posited the fundamental belief that God performs his work through his action upon history. That's pretty much what the entire Old Testament is about, it's a portrayal of a culture's history through the lens that God works his miracle and his purpose through that narrative.
If we're going to follow that line of thinking, we should be realizing that the "Bad Guys" -- guys like Satan and Judas, are given the most awesomely difficult jobs in the cosmos. They perform God's work by being the asshole. Now imagine if, like I do, they had an idea of that from the start. If you take the story of the Fall from Genesis and more importantly from many of the Apocryphal texts, Satan probably knew what he was in store for the moment God created man, and demanded that the angels bow before them. Among most texts, it is Lucifer's pride that befalls him and many of the other angels; that the rebellion is borne out of a former servant deciding he would no longer be a servant. What if Lucifer was performing the ultimate act of loyalty? "I'm rebelling against you to prove many points, one of which is how much I love you, God. You've forced me to become the essence of everything wrong with your creation, and through an act of rebellion, I'm going to obey. Even though I don't like it. Because it is what must be done." How difficult a proposition is that? Aren't we being a little hard on the old bastard?
Kazantzakis does the same thing with Judas. The ultimate act of love is through his betrayal. He doesn't agree with it, he doesn't like it, but he obeys, because he has faith that his friend understands something he cannot. That God demands this. That it must be done.
Tradition holds that Judas was paid for his betrayal with thirty pieces of silver. This is an exhorbitantly low price for the price of the head of a seditionist (which Jesus would have been in both the eyes of the Roman occupiers, and the quisling Saduccean faction who would have regarded Jesus as a threat to their peacemaking tactics). The thirty pieces isn't likely a real price, it's one of those great literary symbols. Certain scholars (and one of the gospels, in fact) have asserted that thirty pieces of silver is about enuph to procure you a very cheap plot of land--a potter's grave. In effect, what the gospel authors may have been saying was that Judas sold out his rabbi, and all it bought him was his death. And eternal ignominy.
Tradition also has it that Judas committed suicide. Mark says he hangs himself, Luke that he flung himself off a cliff (actually some regard the gospel as portraying it as more of an accident), or both (it's often depicted that he hung himself, then the olive tree on which he dangled broke and he was cast into the ravine--it's also depicted that, when he was dashed upon the rocks below, he was disemboweled, and all of these have varying symbolic importance if you do a lot of research on spiritual metaphor in mythology). Some fringe elements even assert that all this hanging from trees and casting into ravines is a roundabout way of saying that Judas himself was also crucified that day (now THAT would be the ultimate betrayal!), since most often, if the Romans bothered to pull you off the cross at all, they flung you down into the trash pit (it's one of those factoids that's given a lot of trouble to the whole "Jesus died and was buried and on the third day rose again" thing, since it's possible he never even came off the cross).
But let's get down to the biggest point of it all. In keeping with the musical that started this whole diatribe, let's call it Superstar Status. Sometimes people can do awful things, and be awarded celebrity for it. One could argue that's the case with Judas Iscariot. He's famous for being infamous. He's a celebrity for being an asshole. On the other hand, maybe he did all the right things, all the things he had to, and his only reward was said infamy, while his buddy Jesus was awarded all the Superstar status. Judas just may have been given the hardest job of all, next to Jesus'. Yes, Jesus obviously had to bite the big one on the cross, but if the believers are right, he would have known he was coming back three days later. If you know you're not really going to stay dead, just how hard is it to face your death? Then look at Judas. What if he knew all along he was going to do the unpopular thing, the world's hardest fucking job, and his only reward would be that he'd wind up "damned for all time"? That God / Jesus had chosen him for this one awful thing, and he knew it...and he did it anyway? And all he would get for it was death?
If a journalist got to ask him that question, man, that would be the fucking cover of Time Magazine.
It came out just like this: "Judas Iscariot would be the greatest interview ever."
And it's true. Argue what you will about whether he was a real guy or not (hardcore biblical literalists aside, the jury is still out among a lot of scholars), the bottom line is, there was someone who probably helped turn the guy now known as Jesus Christ in, and no matter what his real name was, we could call him Judas nowadays.
It's a troubling name, one of those that you figure no one will ever name their kids again, just like no one is likely to ever name their kid Adolph. This, in spite of the fact that in his own time, Judas was, like Jesus's real name (Jesus is a translation from the Hebrew / Aramaic name Yeshu, a sort of nickname for Yehoshua, or Joshua) a very popular one. Both names were ones given by rather proudly nationalistic parentage--it'd be like naming your kids after George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or in the case of Judas, like just plain naming your kid America. So if there is one thing to say about both Jesus and Judas, they had rather patriotic moms and dads. And that takes a lot o' balls when you're an occupied land. It's like naming your kid Freedom if you lived in 1984's Oceania. Unfortunately, now you hear the name Judas, and the only word that resonates is the word "traitor." That may be unfair, if you ask me.
But I'm getting a little ahead of myself, and maybe off-track, as usual. The point is, the person we've come to know as Judas Iscariot may well be the single most intriguing, enigmatic, stupefying, stunning figure in all of western history. There's so little we know, and so much we assume about this character, this scapegoat, this pariah of religious history.
This topic got started in my "Personal Classroom" when someone commented on the recent runaway growth of my beard (the topic of a future Dreaming Life column if I go as far up my own ass as I'm planning to write these days). Usually, I'll make a comment that I'm going for the whole Cuban Revolutionary look (and when I wear certain hats, I really do look like one of Che Guevara's associates). One night at the bar, I simply responded that I was planning to audition for the role of Judas for this spring's production of Jesus Christ Superstar. The only problem is, I wasn't a looming potent black man, like Carl Anderson, and that's really what people want in the JCS version of Judas. Somewhere along the lines that week, I made it a point that, as a writer, Judas was the man any journalist worth his/her salt would die to get their tape recorder in front of.
It's like holding a seminar with Satan, basically. People would just love to hear his side of the story. And let's be honest, the one thing none of the gospels, or any of the historians of that time (the few that even cared that much about the budding Christian movement) paid any attention to, was Judas' side of the story.
It's easy to just say "So and so was the bad guy in this story, and he did something really bad...." But living in the 21st century, it's not enuph for me to simply dub a guy the bad guy, label him as the villain, and then get on with the story. Even villains and so-called evildoers have motivations, as obscure as they may be to everyone else but themselves. Trust me, the motivations they'd give you wouldn't be "because I'm the bad guy." John Wilkes Boothe thought he'd be praised as a national hero for his assassination of Abraham Lincoln. He was utterly amazed when it didn't pan out that way.
We don't live in a one-dimensional world, and possibly the the biggest problem with the gospels is that, at best, even its protagonist has only two dimensions. The hardest part of believers and non-believers alike when grappling with the mythos and / or history of the Christ is wrapping their brains around a god-figure who was also fundamentally supposed to be human. For Christ's sake (sorry about the pun) one gospel writer (the one we call "John" now) couldn't even fucking portray him in anything remotely human fashioned. Like Robert Powell's portrayal of the Saviour, you can't even imagine John's rendition of JC blinking on camera (I can't imagine the amount of Visine Powell needed to pull that off in Jesus of Nazareth).
And then there was Judas. In the gospels, he's given barely a few lines worth of mentioning. That's rough press for a guy who, according to said texts, is single-handedly responsible for turning his boss, partner, saviour and pal over to the authorities, all for a really dismal price (we'll get into that later). Why so little about the guy? Were the authors and early believers so glum on the fact that one of Jesus' own gang sold him out that they didn't even want to bring him up? You'd think someone would have wanted to figure out what the hell happened.
Trying to find historical perspective in what is first and foremost a spiritual tome is always asking for way too much. Instead, like the best literary characters, we have to take what we're given, and make our own interpretations. And the fact of the matter is, there is an assortment of apocryphal and non-canonical texts, but therein lies as much madness as the gospels themselves (some apocryphal works depict Roman governor Pontius Pilate as an eventual Christian convert, and that's just plain laughable).
So Judas is a puzzle. One of the greatest literary and historical ciphers in the world, which means authors, artists, poets and scribes would have a lot of latitude to work their own ideas out.
Sadly, with Judas, that really isn't the fact. Dante chose to put him in the lowest, final circle of hell, among the other traitors of humanity. Not exactly sparkling company, and still not asking to get the guy's side of the story. Taylor Caldwell did finally publish I, Judas, a sort of Gospel or Testament According to the Traitor in 1977. I haven't read it (yet), so I can't give a lesson on it.
The first time I ever came across any means of coming to grips with understanding what Judas was thinking was the riveting Carl Anderson portrayal in Norman Jewison's film version of Jesus Christ Superstar, based on the concept album and subsequent stage production written by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In his opening performance, "Heaven on Their Minds" a disenchanted Judas is left wondering how the hell things got so out of hand, how his friend and fellow social revolutionary could have taken things so far. And it's quickly understood that, in JCS, Judas is as much the protagonist of the story as the title character, if not, perhaps more. This is one of the few times we're given anything at all about his side of the story.
In the annals of Jesus Christ Superstar, Carl Anderson is as immortal as Jesus Christ himself. No one of my generation can think of the character of Judas, and NOT think of Carl Anderson (hence the fixation on the looming potent black man I mentioned earlier). It didn't hurt that the man played the character on stage more than anyone else in the history of the production. He played the role all the way up until his death in 2004, at that point, not just a looming potent black man, but one dreaded out more than fucking Bob Marley, looking even scarier, conflicted, and, well, potent in that social upstart kind of way. Fucking R.I.P. Carl. As angry, tortured and ill-tempered as Carl's Judas was, all accounts of Carl the man were exactly the opposite. That's art, after all.
Carl's rendition was of a man who felt that the hype of his colleague had become dangerous, that the program they once started had lost sight of itself. Basically, that he had to turn his buddy in to keep things from getting out of control, and save everyone's neck. Following Jesus' arrest, he comes to an even more damning realization. He would save no one. His actions would lead only to his death, that he would forever be painted a traitor, a sellout (even though he protested all along how he didn't "want your blood money"). Judas would be damned for all time.
Granted, this was all extrapolated from Tim Rice's 'book', in JSC's own late-sixties, hippie-laden ways--some of which doesn't quite stand the test of time (does anyone really want to watch apostles sing "What's the buzz? / Tell me what's a-happenin'?" in this day and age). But it was also a sign of the times that Judas be personified as a powerful, articulate, tempestuous, impatient African American. How fucking perfect an allegory is that? With Carl came all the imagery of the civil rights and Black Panther movement, the Watts riots, and urban social uprising. Was there not symbolic balance that Judas, like so many African American leaders, would do everything in his power to do what he felt was right, but still wind up villified by it? After all said and done, the white man's Jesus always bleeds truer.
But it was about time somebody finally gave Judas his due, right? Nobody had ever given Judas a reason to do what he did before, right?
Truth is, author Nikos Kazantzakis had them by about ten years, when he wrote the incredibly controversial book, The Last Temptation of Christ. Kazantzakis was a man of deep faith, even if how he envisioned his faith was in a manner that would get him excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox church. Most of you would recognize the title because of Martin Scorsese's equally, if not more controversial 1988 film based on the book. In both book and film, the apostle Judas Iscariot is not the darting, dwarfish coward that tradition and the Apocryphal works had a tendency to depict him as. Instead, he is a bull of a man, huge in stature and fortitude. He's a dagger weilding zealot (this isn't that outlandish--a few scholars have asserted that the name "Iscariot" was a derivation of sicarii, a faction among latter first century jewish zealots known for illegally carrying daggers), who is originally assigned by his colleagues to kill Jesus (because Jesus, who begins as a carpenter who builds crosses for the Romans, is the real traitor). In time, he decides to follow Jesus on a messianic campaign.
Kazantzakis' Jesus was troublingly human; one full of self-doubt, fear, and, yes, temptation. His awakening to status as saviour is one that comes in incremental steps, ones that don't always make sense at the time, and God's revelations are ones that Jesus often tries his best to deny. At first, his friend Judas refuses to accept the idea that God wants Jesus to die as a means of being the messiah (it wouldn't make sense to any first century zealot, of course).
Here, however, we have a complete turnabout of the whole Judas as traitor depiction. In Kazantzakis' work, it is requested of him. It is the recognition that Judas is the only apostle with the required strength of conviction, the only one with the courage to commit an action which will forever change the course of events; to make a decision that will, in effect damn him in the eyes of the world, for eternity.
This is an incredibly moving juxtaposition, and it's one I subscribe to. If any of you have talked with me personally, or read some of my previous works (ones before I started Dreaming Life here), you'd know I adhere fervently to the Devil's Advocate party, with a certain type of caveat.
Judaeo-Christian faith has always posited the fundamental belief that God performs his work through his action upon history. That's pretty much what the entire Old Testament is about, it's a portrayal of a culture's history through the lens that God works his miracle and his purpose through that narrative.
If we're going to follow that line of thinking, we should be realizing that the "Bad Guys" -- guys like Satan and Judas, are given the most awesomely difficult jobs in the cosmos. They perform God's work by being the asshole. Now imagine if, like I do, they had an idea of that from the start. If you take the story of the Fall from Genesis and more importantly from many of the Apocryphal texts, Satan probably knew what he was in store for the moment God created man, and demanded that the angels bow before them. Among most texts, it is Lucifer's pride that befalls him and many of the other angels; that the rebellion is borne out of a former servant deciding he would no longer be a servant. What if Lucifer was performing the ultimate act of loyalty? "I'm rebelling against you to prove many points, one of which is how much I love you, God. You've forced me to become the essence of everything wrong with your creation, and through an act of rebellion, I'm going to obey. Even though I don't like it. Because it is what must be done." How difficult a proposition is that? Aren't we being a little hard on the old bastard?
Kazantzakis does the same thing with Judas. The ultimate act of love is through his betrayal. He doesn't agree with it, he doesn't like it, but he obeys, because he has faith that his friend understands something he cannot. That God demands this. That it must be done.
Tradition holds that Judas was paid for his betrayal with thirty pieces of silver. This is an exhorbitantly low price for the price of the head of a seditionist (which Jesus would have been in both the eyes of the Roman occupiers, and the quisling Saduccean faction who would have regarded Jesus as a threat to their peacemaking tactics). The thirty pieces isn't likely a real price, it's one of those great literary symbols. Certain scholars (and one of the gospels, in fact) have asserted that thirty pieces of silver is about enuph to procure you a very cheap plot of land--a potter's grave. In effect, what the gospel authors may have been saying was that Judas sold out his rabbi, and all it bought him was his death. And eternal ignominy.
Tradition also has it that Judas committed suicide. Mark says he hangs himself, Luke that he flung himself off a cliff (actually some regard the gospel as portraying it as more of an accident), or both (it's often depicted that he hung himself, then the olive tree on which he dangled broke and he was cast into the ravine--it's also depicted that, when he was dashed upon the rocks below, he was disemboweled, and all of these have varying symbolic importance if you do a lot of research on spiritual metaphor in mythology). Some fringe elements even assert that all this hanging from trees and casting into ravines is a roundabout way of saying that Judas himself was also crucified that day (now THAT would be the ultimate betrayal!), since most often, if the Romans bothered to pull you off the cross at all, they flung you down into the trash pit (it's one of those factoids that's given a lot of trouble to the whole "Jesus died and was buried and on the third day rose again" thing, since it's possible he never even came off the cross).
But let's get down to the biggest point of it all. In keeping with the musical that started this whole diatribe, let's call it Superstar Status. Sometimes people can do awful things, and be awarded celebrity for it. One could argue that's the case with Judas Iscariot. He's famous for being infamous. He's a celebrity for being an asshole. On the other hand, maybe he did all the right things, all the things he had to, and his only reward was said infamy, while his buddy Jesus was awarded all the Superstar status. Judas just may have been given the hardest job of all, next to Jesus'. Yes, Jesus obviously had to bite the big one on the cross, but if the believers are right, he would have known he was coming back three days later. If you know you're not really going to stay dead, just how hard is it to face your death? Then look at Judas. What if he knew all along he was going to do the unpopular thing, the world's hardest fucking job, and his only reward would be that he'd wind up "damned for all time"? That God / Jesus had chosen him for this one awful thing, and he knew it...and he did it anyway? And all he would get for it was death?
If a journalist got to ask him that question, man, that would be the fucking cover of Time Magazine.
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