One thing we don't have in common

Several you who (I think) read this pretty regularly have something in common with each other that you don't have in common with me, and that is a once or present obsession--not the right word I grant you--with the Beatles.

Intellectually I recognize that the Beatles are worthy of such admiration in a way that, say, Black Oak Arkansas is not (to amuse myself I'm going to pretend for the next few minutes that Tom of Romantoes is the world's biggest Black Oak Arkansas fan ... I wasn't baiting him with the Heaneywulf reference ... THIS is baiting!).

So do you want to know why I'm glad I didn't play the Beatles to death on my little phonograph as a young man? Quite simply, it's because now I can listen to Revolver in a way that I can't a lot of the music I grew up with. It's not that I'm tired of Tangled Up in Blue ... but I can't listen to it. Not casually.

(That reminds me of when I was morose at a party many years ago, reeling from back to back divorce and breakup (!), and the hostess decided to put on some music she knew I liked to cheer me up: her only Dylan album, Tangled Up in Blue. To cheer me up! It cracked me up. What a sweet, nice person. I could never be that nice. I'm pretty sure I was the only person who left that party happier than when he arrived.)

So, Revolver. If I'd been listening to it all my life, would I be sitting here shaking my head, not quite believing how good it is? I don't know ... maybe. But I'm afraid I wouldn't quite hear it when I was hearing it; rather I'd be hearing my halfassed memory of it.

Here's a cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows" (be patient, it's in there at about 3:55) from my first Dead show (yeah, I was a Johnny Come Lately ... but late's better than never, and it might be better than early).

	Grateful Dead - Baba O'Riley > Tomorrow Never Knows
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

What hath Godke Roethke?

Yesterday I caught part of a piece on public radio about Theodore Roethke, which included him reading his poem "The Waking." Go ahead and check it out; I'll wait.

A few things: first of all, the villanelle seems to me an inherently annoying poetic form, in spite of the fact that there are some good ones, or at least popular ones.

Secondly: I've always pronounced his name "Rethke." The woman who does the story seems to be saying "Ruthke." The secretary of the Friends of Theodore Roethke seems to be saying "Rothke." Hmm. Go figure. Then again, Roethlisberger is "Roth," not "reth." To his credit, "Ted" Roethke seems never to have thrown an interception, so I'm switching to Roth in the hopes that Big Ben will learn from the poet. Sports logic, ladies and gentlemen. Twirl them Terrible (tearable?) towels!

Thirdly: Isn't it interesting how we think that hearing the poet read his/her own work will help us understand it better but in fact almost always has the opposite effect? Don't believe me? Check out Eliot reading The Waste Land sometime ... it's like he doesn't even understand the words he's saying. By the way--can you guess from his accent what part of England Eliot is from? F---ing MISSOURI. You're already one of the best two or three 20th century poets in the language ... do you have to be poser?

(I knew a guy slightly in Charleston who spent ONE SUMMER in the UK as an ADULT and came back with an accent which he supposedly could not shake. So sad.) But I digress.

Fourthly: Many years ago I took a graduate course in Modern Poetry that was not great, and it was a long time before I started appreciating modern poetry. Poems like "The Waking" just made me laugh incredulously. I wrote a short paper on a different poem of Roethke's that received the lowest grade I've ever gotten on a paper at any point in my education: a B. And that was a grad school B, ladies and gentlemen ... so, it was like a D. I think my interpretation was a little on the ... earnest side, but the professor's refutation of it was phrased in the strange language of denial, as if I had touched a weird nerve. But then, he had just turned forty and decided to start writing poetry instead of writing about it. He probably wouldn't have enjoyed my Freudian reading of Hop on Pop either. That professor was my previous nemesis, but he bought me lunch once, so that was the end of that.

Fifthly: I now appreciate a lot of modern poetry and have taught several Modern Poetry courses. I am a veritable MoMofo. But I don't like Roethke more than I used to, I have to confess. Some of his poems are okay, but some just don't work for me. Maybe I'm too lazy to read them carefully ... too slothke for Roethke.

Three Days of the Condor

In honor of the memory of Sydney Pollack, who died yesterday, I'm going to do something I don't do all that often, which is recommend a film that was made in the 1970s: Three Days of the Condor. If that film doesn't make you nostalgic for the Cold War, nothing will.

Hell, if the current political situation doesn't make you nostalgic for the Cold War, I don't know what to tell you.

Three Days of the Condor is on Turner Classic Movies on Weds, 5/28, 1:30 a.m. eastern. Check your local listings. For you youngsters, that's tonight.

Pollack also directed Redford in the first film I saw in a theater that was not explicitly a children's film: Jeremiah Johnson. I remember that my parents took me to it in the evening after I spent the day in the snowy woods on a Cub Scout winter outing.

After that day and that film, I felt like quite the eight year old mountain man, I'm sure.

Don't miss this

Tom wrote a lengthy and thoughtful comment in response to my inane and superficial post which is here. For the record, I just think that sentence is perfect, and the Heaney translation, being Irish, is clearly superior to all others.

+5 for discussing the film Beowulf without mentioning naked fake Angelina Jolie.

-20 for mentioning naked Anthony Hopkins.

My job is basically by contract friendless, so it's great to be engaging in conversation--be it one-sided, pretend, or otherwise--with the likes of him, and Mike, and--in the local vernacular--all o' yez.

The savior of the Democratic Party

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what the Democrats need to do between now and November to bring the party back together. The choice of vice president is clearly key, and I think I've come up with a solution that will work for either candidate who eventually wins the nomination. In a word, me.

I know this sounds like the kind of semi-ironic hubris you've come to expect from me, but hear me out. Let's take a short look at what I have to offer.

1. Facial hair. As a bearded person, I can never tell a bald-faced lie. It is true that bearded folk (notice how PC I'm being ... not excluding any bearded or hirsute person from this sweeping generalization) are considered to be less trustworthy than the barefaced masses. But this was not always the case. The tyranny of the NWA (Non-Whiskered American) must come to an end. What better way than to make me VP?

2. Boring committee meetings. Let's face it, being VP is a drag. You have to deal with the senate all the time ... meeting after meeting. Folks, I know how to stay awake during boring committee meetings! I have a very vivid imagination and can amuse myself endlessly with a pencil and a few paper clips.

3. Ticket-balancing. We've been hearing a lot lately about how voters in West Virginia and elsewhere don't like Obama because he's black. Well, I'm white. I could also balance a Clinton ticket, being male. I realize that being a white male in American politics isn't exactly a novelty, but I think I feel exactly the right amount of non-debilitating guilt and anxiety about it. I actually have at least two friends in West Virginia, not counting Charlie and Mare of Tandoori Chicken fame ... so Why Not Me?

4. I'm an assister. As an Assistant Something, I could adapt easily to being a Vice Something. Lots of people these candidates are considering have been in charge of stuff--governors and whatnot. I have not, so it will not be a (further) blow to my ego to play second fiddle. Folks, the sign on my desk says, "The Buck Stops Across the Hall." My motto is "I'll have to ask."

5. No current conflict of interest. I'm not on any boards, and I don't have a whole lot of investment income outside of my retirement. I'm not in oil or organized crime. I am a special-interest tabula rasa ... or tabula bruna?

6. Washington outsider. We've got three senators in the running for president right now. I, on the other hand, have only been to Washington once, and that was only for the afternoon. I don't even like cities, so it's likely that even after two terms as VP, I'll still be a Washington outsider.

The problem with cities is that everything you might touch, a LOT of other people have probably touched. And people don't wash their hands. And every time you suck in a couple of lungfuls of air, that's air somebody else just breathed. You might as well be making out with these people. Eww.

7. Modest expectations. The salary for VP is currently a little over 200k per annum. Fine with me!

Hmm, now that I think about it, reason #6 has me thinking ... wouldn't it be a great unifying strategy for our fractured nation if McCain would also make me his running mate? (Number 8 bonus quality: I don't have the crazy eyes). What a great stabilizing influence that would be! No matter what uncertainties our great nation faces as we head toward November, there would be at least one sure thing. Nobody loses! Cornville, here I come!

This will burst your bone-locks

Look: I'm not going to debate Beowulf translations with you, because either you know a hell of a lot more about it than I do, or you absolutely don't give a crap. I see myself as being in the sweet spot between those two extremes. Perhaps a lot closer to one extreme than the other, now that I think about it.

But: isn't this an absolutely awesome sentence (from the Seamus Heaney translation):

In off the moors, down through the mist-bands
God-cursed Grendel came greedily loping.

I ask you.

Awhoooooooooooo

A while back the SciFi channel ran several episodes of a show called Wolf Lake. I Tivoed it, read about it and learned that in typical SciFi fashion they were running some but not all of the episodes. I've since, ahem, "run across" a total of eight or nine episodes of the show and am in the process of watching them now. Seems like nine is all there are.

So far, it's not bad. I'd say "I can't believe they'd cancel this show," but honestly, I can. It's trying very hard to be Twin Peaks, with the setting, the quirky weirdness of some of the locals, the uncomfortable hotness of some of the teenybopper characters. (As always, the links are safe.)

And we all know how commercially successful Twin Peaks was, and how bravely the network went to bat for it.

And don't even get me started on Firefly ... just go rent it and watch it if you haven't. This show wasn't even worth a season? On Friday nights? TV gods: you're not going to get a ton of people watching TV on Friday night anyhow, so why not reserve that night--that one night out of seven--TWO OR THREE HOURS OF THAT ONE NIGHT OUT OF SEVEN--for something that's just halfway decent, that has some quality or creativity to it--or at least the appearance of aspiration to quality or creativity? Just for us losers who aren't out doing whatever it is the cool kids do on Friday nights?

Now I'm being disingenuous. I am one of the cool kids, but I'm cool enough to Tivo my Friday night shows. Fridays are D&D nights!

Okay, that was me being really dishonest. I only WISH Fridays were D&D nights. Nobody will play with me.

So, back to SciFi. If, like me, you were one of the cool kids who read a lot of science fiction back in the 70s and 80s, you probably know that the cognoscenti (translation: I know I smell bad) all turned their noses up at the term SciFi ... the accepted abbreviation was SF. If you said "Sci Fi" at a science fiction convention, you'd probably be ridiculed ... and being ridiculed by people at a science fiction convention is probably pretty demeaning. So when the decided to start up a SciFi channel, I was surprised. I was agog. I was agog, Gog, and Magog, to be honest with you. But okay. By and large they've lived up to my expectations.

So back to Wolf Lake. I can't say it's the best thing Lou Diamond Phillips ever did, because that was the criminally underrated film The Big Hit. But he's okay in it, even if his absurdly fit torso only accentuates the relative smallness of his head. Also great is the ubiquitous Bruce McGill, who had a small but memorable role in a Babylon 5 episode and has done a thousand other things. In Wolf Lake he's the paterfamilias, the big dog if you will. He definitely does not suffer from smallness of the head syndrome.

So what, ultimately, is the point of all this? It's this: TV sucks. Why does it suck? It sucks because it DOESN'T HAVE TO SUCK but still does. The good shows, few as they are, only remind us of how much the rest of it sucks, and how it just doesn't have to suck. Thank you, David Lynch, Joss Whedon, and J. Michael Straczynski!