Oswald the Lucky Rabbit

Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (also known as Oswald the Rabbit or Oswald Rabbit) is an anthropomorphic cartoon rabbit created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks for Universal Pictures. He starred in several animated short films released from 1927 to 1938. Walt Disney Studio produced a total of 27 animated Oswald one-reelers. After Universal removed Disney Studio from the Oswald series, Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks created Mickey Mouse as an obvious substitute.

What fascism means to me

1968. I went to Sarasota Junior High School, which was basically The Lord of the Flies with lockers. I'm a scrawny, brainy, nerdy, big-mouth, 7th-grade weirdo. Walking down the halls. Look over at the bike rack. A beefy 8th-grader is fucking with my bike, trying to kick the lock off.

I'm pissed. So pissed, I forget the other his size and weight advantage. Just blindly run up to him.

"Hey! Stop trying to steal my bike!"

Gut punch. Then he slaps me down to the ground, and sticks his foot on my face. Pins me. Says calmly ...

"I wasn't trying to steal your bike."

"I saw you!"

I writhe, but I can't get up.

"No, you didn't. You're lying."

He pushed his foot harder. Tennis shoe. Dirty. Stinks.

"Stop lying."

"You were ..."

"Admit you're lying."

"No! You! I saw ..."

He ground his fucking dirty foot in my face.
"I'm ..."

"Tell the truth."

"Stop!"

He pressed down. Dirt, stink, weight.

"Say, 'I'm a liar. I'm a shitty little liar.'"

"No."

Harder. About to snap my jaw.

"Say, 'I'm a liar. I'm a shitty little liar.'"

"I'm a liar. I'm a shitty little liar."

He smiled and let me go.

That's what fascism means to me.

Joker, Smoker, Midnight Toker

This is a movie about a damaged person's descent into the abyss. It shares DNA with Notes from Underground and A Clockwork Orange.

Joker makes A Clockwork Orange look like Singing in the Rain.

The screenplay ripped-off owes a huge debt to Alan Moore’s The Killing Joke. It also bends a knee to Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver. This Joker is pretty much Travis Bickel in clown makeup.

That’s ironic. White, black, it's doesn't matter. (At least in Todd Phillips' fictional universe.) He bends over backwards to make sure it doesn't matter.

(To be fair, the original Joker was the ultimate white guy.)

Christopher Nolan’s movie got it right. His Joker was a nihilistic motherf**ker. His backstory kept changing. “Wanna know how I got these scars?” Whatever he told you was bullshit. There’s no rational explanation for the Joker — and that's the best explanation.

Paul McCartney wrote a song about a roller coaster. The title of the song was "Helter Skelter." Charlie Manson took it as a coded message to start a race war. Which just goes to show there's no accounting for crazy people. 

Aside from that one big flaw, there are also several minor flaws. 

• Bruce Wayne’s dad is a pudgy guy in his early 50s. Batman’s dad should look like Batman’s dad, goddamnit.

• Phllips’ Joker isn’t funny. Damaged or not, he should be funny — even if only in his own mind. I'd put in a hallucinatory scene where he was metaphorically killing the audience at the Pogo — then quickly flash to the reality where he bombed.

• The Joker character should fight to be normal. And fight to be funny. I'd put in a scene where he's reading a how-to book on stand-up comedy. "The secret of stand-up comedy? RELATING TO THE AUDIENCE. They have to care about you, and you have to care about them! Love works—hate works too! Either way, you gotta make a connection!"

• The film sets you up to feel sorry for the Joker. I don’t want to feel sorry for the Joker. But f**k my feelings — it's dishonest. Society's what drove him crazy, I tells ya. Society is the real Joker. 

• The Joker’s loser persona is bad psychology.

Yes, mass murderers and serial killers are often losers. But many come off like kings who’ve been cheated of their thrones. They’re charismatic, often handsome. Look at Charlie Manson. Look at Ted Bundy. These cats don’t have a self-image problem. They think they’re better than everybody else. The world doesn’t see it that way. That gives them a license to kill.

• Phillips' Joker never decides to be the Joker. He never takes a conscious step into the dark side. 

I’m prejudiced in favor of free will. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we’re all meat robots. I can’t ignore the possibility.

• There's no fall from grace. (The movie tries to cheat this storypoint with blahblah about being off his meds and finding out he was adopted. It's a cheat.) This Joker is all Hyde and no Jekyll. The portrayal echoes Stephen King's criticism of Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. The character starts out crazy. There's no place to go. 

Dick Tales

More to it than that. PKD had a mystical experience in which the metaphysical source code unfolded. His "Exegesis" of that epiphany ran X typewritten pages.

But this worldview saturates Dick's writing. The fake half-world of Ubik. Jory, feeding on souls with the grinding teeth of a sheep. The entropic kipple of his original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" The fakes, simulacra, knockoffs, masks and cheap copies running through EVERY novel like the details of a massive Ponzi scheme. 

Gnosticism is the ultimate conspiracy theory. We're living in a fake reality. It's not the "Maya" of Hinduism. This ain't no illusion—it's a deliberate deception. A con. The store where you milk the rubes. The sheep pen where you convinve the trusting little bleaters you're the "Good Shepherd" until the day comes when you cut their throats, chop them to bits, roast and eat them, with a little mint jelly.

This isn't the Borges airless NeoPlatonism. Dick's devils sink their teeth in you. We're living in a hell realm. Cannibalism is the rule. Or its polite disguise: exploitation.

But a good screenwriter is never a passive conduit.

Decartes said reality can't be a dream. 


Because God (by definition) is good and he wouldn't f*** with us, QED. Gnosticism says "The entity you call 'God' is a pretender. He isn't good. And he's definitely f***ing with us."

Decartes said reality can't be a dream. 


Because God (by definition) is good and he wouldn't f*** with us, QED. Gnosticism says "The entity you call 'God' is a pretender. He isn't good. And he's definitely f***ing with us."

Finnegans Fall

After discussing the, er, erection of Finnegan's undeniably phallic Tower of Babel-esque skyscraper in the dawn of protohistory, the narrator explains why Finnegan fell --

Heed! Heed ! It may half been a missfired brick, as some say, or it mought have been due to a collupsus of his back promises, as others looked at it. (There extand by now one thousand and one stories, all told, of the same). But so sore did abe ite ivvy’s holired abbles, (what with the wallhall’s horrors of rollsrights, carhacks, stonengens, kisstvanes, tramtrees, fargobawlers, autokinotons, hippohobbilies, streetfleets, tournintaxes, megaphoggs, circuses and wardsmoats and basilikerks and aeropagods and the hoyse and the jollybrool and the peeler in the coat and the mecklenburk bitch bite at his ear and the merlinburrow burrocks and his fore old porecourts, the bore the more, and his blightblack workingstacks at twelvepins a dozen and the noobibusses sleighding along Safetyfirst Street and the derryjellybies snooping around Tell-No-Tailors’ Corner and the fumes and the hopes and the strupithump of his ville’s indigenous romekeepers, homesweepers, domecreepers, thurum and thurum in fancymud murumd and all the uproor from all the aufroofs, a roof for may and a reef for hugh butt under his bridge suits tony) wan warning Phill filt tippling full. His howd feeled heavy, his hoddit did shake. (There was a wall of course in erection) Dimb! He stottered from the latter. Damb! he was dud. Dumb! Mastabatoom, mastabadtomm, when a mon merries his lute is all long. For whole the world to see.

It's a vision of dense complexity. City life, and its multitudinous technology was just too much for the poor guy.

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Cruise Control

INT, CREEPY PENTHOUSE APARTMENT.
Walls of glass reveal the grid of light and ambiguity of LA at night. An apartment very much like the Comedian's apartment in "The Watchmen." But, you  know, different.

The Bald Guy watches the Academy Awards credits roll on a wall-mounted flat screen TV. Then raises a remote -- and kills the TV.

A smug look of satisfaction distorts his generic face.

This cell phone rings. He whips it out.

David! (listens) Oh definitely. The SPs will never come back from this. Every PTS in town will think twice. Hollywood is ours now! If Elron was alive he'd ... (listens) I feel the same way, David.  (beat) You know I do. Nighty-night.

The Bald Guy ends the call, puts cell phone in his pocket.

He smiles, stands up, and begins dancing ...

And we see he's really ...

Ohmygod he's really ....

Agghhhhhhhh!

Matt Damon

Damon: (whirling around) F** you and your f**ing candy. (grabs candy, randomly throws it) That Oscar's mine, you f*** p***! I said I'd f***ing take it and I'm taking it! Any of you motherf**ing a**holes has a problem with that, you tell me to my f***ing face.


Sitting in the chair to Damon's left, Casey Afleck mumbles something.

Damon: Man, I have no idea what you should just said.

Marlee Maitlin supplies her input from the chair to Damon's right.

Matlin: (speaking and signing) He says you can take the Oscar and shove it up ...

Damon: My ass. That's wicked funny, Casey.

Casey: (mumbles something) 

Tray Parker: (OS -- mentally challenged voice) Matt Damon.

Damon: Not funny, Parker. Wasn't the first time.

Tray Parker: (OS) Matt Damon.

Damon: Parker. I swear to f*** Christ you say that one more time I'll f*** kill you.

Tray Parker: (OS ) Matt Damon.

Damon: Motherf***!

He leaps over chair.

Pathetic apology

Sorry about the FBI warning label, but I have to put it in. It's legally stipulated under Article 29 and the force majeur doctrine, though we all know saying it's "legal" won't save our collective ass if this goes sideways. Obviously, don't discuss this hot mess outside the need-to-know cell-structure. Don't tell your husband, wife, kids, friends, dog, or talk to yourself in the mirror. Playing dumb is the smart thing to do. And being smart is probably dumb. Something tells me Hamlet had a file on Claudius just like this. We all know what happened to him. I think we all know what we have to do, but analysis is so much easier. I know I'm being kinda wordy, but I hate the drive home at night. A mere 17 miles from Langleuy to Silver Springs, but I never think I'll get there. OK, I'll shut up now. Just read this shit.

Warning

THIS MATERIAL DESIGNATED SECURITY LEVEL ULTRA. UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS WILL RESULT IN SEVERE PENALTIES. EYES ONLY. DO NOT PRINT, COPY OR UPLOAD. AVAILABLE CIA STANDALONE SERVER ONLY. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON THE INTERNET, OR ANY OTHER DIGITAL DEVICE OR IN PRINTED FORM, ACCESS IS UNAUTHORIZED. DESTROY DOCUMENT OR DEVICE AND REPORT TO CIA STATION CHIEF IMMEDIATELY.

Heaven or Someplace Like It

The show gives us glimpses of the afterlife, the interlife, the region between, or whatever the hell they call it.

"Heaven" doesn't resemble those Sunday School picture book illustrations. No golden streets, pearly gates, or angelic choirs hanging around on clouds and playing their harps. 

In her interludes between death and rebirth, Prairie pops into a three dimensional X-Y-Z grid of light . This cordinate system divides the blackness of space. Tiny galaxies drift by at infinitesimal scale. (and furiously accelerated time scale too. A second = a million years, or thereabouts.) The galaxies float through Prairie and her Sprit guide. Which implies this is place is no place. It's more of a user interface. An inter dimensional operating system,.

Did the angels build this place or do they just work here? Who are they working for?

If there's somebody upstairs, they aren't mentioned.

This isn't so much a spiritual realm as a physical realm in higher dimensions. More like the wormhole timey-wimey subway system in Doctor Who, and It only looks like religion, folks. But it's really science. Quantum physics and the something universe theory.

Destry Rides Again

The small town of Bottleneck is under the control of Kent (Brian Donlevy), a power-hungry boss who gets control over the local cattle ranchers by winning a rigged game of cards. When the local sheriff questions the legitimacy of the game, Kent has him killed and names the town drunk, Dimsdale (Charles Winninger), as sheriff. What Kent doesn't know is that Dimsdale knows legendary lawman Tom Destry, who in turns sends his daring son Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart) to Bottleneck to save the day.

Although Destry wasn't black, Mel Brooks lifted a shitload of elements for "Blazing Saddles." 

Whale's Tale

On a surface level, Moby Dick is about obsession. Referring to Melville's bigass novel, just to be clear. "Jaws" is basically "Moby Dick" with a shark substituting for a whale. Quint was dumped in the Pacific with the sailors of the Indianapolis. Most of his mates became shark food; Quint survived, and waged a vendetta against sharks -- the "Jaws" terrorizing Amity, specifically. Jaws ate him. Moby Dick ate Ahab's leg. Ahab launched a vendetta against the great white whale. With the exception of Ishmael, the crew wound up dead; Ahab wound up harpooned to the whale.
On a deeper level, it's a mad little allegory about the Calvinistic clockwork universe. God is the mad watchmaker; if it's God will that a whale eats your leg, you should deal with it. It's entirely possible there's no watchmaker behind the mad machine. You should deal with that, too. Revenge against God and/or the universe is just plain stupid.
The whale is other. Inhuman. Like the sentient ocean in Solaris, it can't be analyzed. It's also bigger than you are. You lost a leg? Too bad. You will not beat up the universe. You will not beat up God. Don't try.
This is second hand knowledge, English major lore. I've read a seriously condensed edition with Kool illustration. I've seen boththe John Huston movie and the Mister Magoo adaptation. I've even read Ray Bradbury's script for the John Houston movie. Cool script. I've never actually read the original, unedited novel.

Ron Howard. Wow. What a wasted opportunity.

Marais: Street Art

Street art by Konny Steding

Street Art. Visual artists everywhere lack for galleries. When artists in Paris have that problem, they say "No problem," and put their stuff out on the street -- creating a changing exhibition space out of mailboxes, lampposts and any other surface they can find. Yes, I know, artists everywhere do that, but not to the sheer density as they do in Paris. The walls are thick with multilayered expression: cryptic stickers proclaiming "J'Existe," mocking distortions of street signage, sad-eyed women crying bloody tears. That dolorous image is ubiquitous in Le Marais -- high-speed brushwork on huge paper posters signed Konny. Who the heck is Konny? Well, in an unlikely chain of events, I wind up talking to Konny and Jacques Halbert (our mutual neo-Dadaist friend) at an iron-wrought table in a French pizza place. (I'd admired her art; suddenly I'm talking to the actual artist. What are the odds?) So I grill her. You've got a fluid style, but the proportions are perfect. How do you do it? A pencil under-sketch? Some kind of grid? Or is this all just brilliant freehand? Not willing to spill her secret, Konny pretends not to understand the question.

St. Michael or Michel

I wish I had taken his photo. We were sitting having an apertif at some nondescript cafe in a residential hood of Montmarte. Champagne for me; Heineken for him. Watching the world go by, which was mostly parents taking their kids home from school. Young lovers met and kissed over a glass and lit up cigarettes, a few ancients muttered in street as they bent to check that glittering object, hoping for a lost centime. We looked up to see a man standing in front of us. (He told us, eventually, he was 83 and had just come back from the doc who was checking on his new hip.) He started talking and everything from his mouth was gold, was silver, was pure. As happens during this magical time in Paris--before le repas and after the chaos of the day (around 7 p.m.), we spent some time with une verre and a conversation (in broken French on our side) that led far into fields we could wander for a long time still. He was born in the Caribbean but moved to Paris in his young 20s. He was a musician--and eventually a sought-after music teacher. Taught and played with some of jazz's greats. During the conversation, I noted that, well, he seemed happy. Happy from a deep inside place--despite old age and the hip, which made him obviously lame. I asked him where that happiness came from and this is what he said: "Happiness takes practice--like exercise. It's not just exercising the smile. It has to come from deep inside--from the bones, the sinew, the deep heart of who you are. It can be hard work!" And he laughed in that deep Caribbean way. As he left, we asked his name. "Michel," he said. And then he was off. Michel? Was he an ange? We had several visitations like this with, of all things, mostly older men--each who reached out to us offering words of wisdom and, almost, warning: Be happy!

The Republic Fucks Up

A more accurate subtitle. But far less commercial.

Mechano Man

Specifically, the mechano man crouched in the bowels of the search engine like the chess-playing dwarf inside the Mechanical Turk. The dwarf inside the machine! Or, in this case, the metaphoric, mechanical, chess-playing dwarf inside the massive, distributed, fuzzy-logic, pattern recognition system.

This mountain of a book is the result?

Why kill your audience?

A question posed by the late comedian Bill Hicks in response to the accusation that Judas Priest had layered its albums with subliminal messages driving its fans to commit suicide. To quote:

“You hear about these two kids, big fans of that band Judas Priest? They listened to the band then killed themselves....wow...two less gas station attendants in the world. What? I don't mean to be cruel but I don't think we lost a cure for cancer here. Trust me, there'll be no delay in the shuttle program because of this. But again, nobody asked the question that I wanted asking at the trial. There are these subliminal messages, backwards messages on the album, OK? Here’s the question that did not get asked in this retarded case: What performer wants their audience dead? What are these guys in the band doing?”

Hicks shifts to working class British accent.

“You know, dude, I'm fucking sick of this. I am fucking sick of it. I'm sick of the touring. I'm sick of making 400,000 dollars a fucking night. I'm sick of the free drugs, the free booze, the groupies blowing me to fucking dawn every night, I'm in a rut and I want out.”

“We got all those concerts coming up, man.”

“I know, it sucks. Unless... Ian, Nigel, come here. I just had a fucking idea, man. What if, Ian ... Let's just say, what if....now open your mind real wide now. What if we kill the fucking audience? Could I go back to my day job? I could sell shoes again!”

James Orin Incandenza

James Orin Incandenza hovers in the novel's background like the ghost of Hamlet's father. At one point, he seems to become a literal ghost. 

While still corporeal, he put out an oeuvre of avant-garde films (or cartridges). As Wallace describes his obscure legacy ...

"...even the bastards in the avant-garde journels were complaining that even in his commercially entertaining stuff Incandenza’s fatal Achilles’ heel was plot, that Incandenza’s efforts had no sort of engaging plot, no movement that sucked you in and drew you along."

A description that obviously and equally applies to David Foster Wallace's stuff.