never mind

You know that "John from Cincinnati" post below? After last week's episode, I have concluded that -- How can I put this delicately? -- I was wrong. Last week's episode was the kind of train wreck that doesn't happen to shows that are on the verge of becoming magical.

Yes, I will watch again tonight. But based on last week's episode, the show has moved from fascinating mess with a chance for greatness to potentially irredeemable disaster.

(As always, I reserve the right to pull a Gale Sayers and cut back against the grain again.)

(James Wolcott is on-point with some of his criticism of the show here and here. Though I still maintain that the opening credits are pure genius.)

An Oath to the President

via Andrew Sullivan

You got to pick the notes you really mean

From the New York Times Book Review essay by Haruki Murakami, "Jazz Messenger":

One of my all-time favorite jazz pianists is Thelonious Monk. Once, when someone asked him how he managed to get a certain special sound out of the piano, Monk pointed to the keyboard and said: “It can’t be any new note. When you look at the keyboard, all the notes are there already. But if you mean a note enough, it will sound different. You got to pick the notes you really mean!”

Hey Butchie. The less you have to say now, the less you have to take back.

"John from Cincinnati" is an odd piece of art. It would be an odd play in an experimental space in Southeast DC. It would be an odd book from Coover or Barth. It would be one of those exhibits at the Guggenheim or the Hirshhorn that couples sit in front of for a few minutes, shrug their shoulders, and then wander down to the gift shop to by a Calder mobile.


The fact that it is on HBO, and is the putative replacement for "The Sopranos," is breathtaking. This was a network that cancelled David Milch's "Deadwood" -- the brilliant, profane, heart-stopping Western with a small but rabid fan base -- and decided to let him run with a show about, well, let's see:

• surfing
• levitating
• God
• Ed O'Neill, the "Married with Children" Dad, taking instructions from a pet bird

• half the characters actors from "Deadwood" in supporting roles in a Southern California noir
• Rebecca De Mornay as a grandmother (I agree with James Wolcott that De Mornay is about the same age as her "Risky Business" paramour Tom Cruise, and if Cruise were in this show, he would never agree to be cast as the grandfather (I am not on-board with the rest of Wolcott's thoughts about "John from Cincinnati," but, as always, he is fun to read on the arts and politics even when I do not come to the same conclusions)
• coming back from the dead
• Luke Perry ("90210" in the house)
  
• the great LUIS GUZMAN, for about three minutes an episode. From PA Anderson and Steven Soderbergh to David Milch -- well played, Mr. Guzman.
  
• Willie Garson, Stanford from "Sex & the City," for a few minutes an episode
• Mexican wrestling
• illegal immigration
• drug addiction
• Vietnam vets with post-traumatic stress disorders
• oh, and a guy who might be an alien, or an apparition, or Jesus, or a charlatan

I can't even tell if the show is any good right now, though I suspect that it is turning into something magical. I haven't looked, but I can't imagine that many are watching. But it has David Milch's crazy genius at work, and for me, that's enough. He is working out his obsessions on a weekly series. It's part Tom Stoppard, part Thomas Pynchon, part James Joyce, and part the crazy guy who wanders up 19th Street NW on weekdays yelling angrily at the people lined up in 95-degree heat at the passport office who are waiting in vain for government documents allowing them to travel.

I'm not telling you to watch it. I don't want to have to defend how much I am enjoying it. But I'm going to hint that it is one hell of a fascinating mashup.

It's not tv. It's "John from Cincinnati."

(Oh, I will tell you to watch the opening credits. The Clash's great Joe Strummer sings "Johnny Appleseed" with his band The Mescaleros over the washed-out California images.)

There's Always Money in the Banana Stand

I like this parody clip more than many parts of "Knocked Up." Anything with George Michael (Michael Cera, of "Arrested Development" fame) slays me. For future discussion: When did directors start filming parody scenes during the filming of the movie? My guess is that this started happening when directors realized that they could throw bonus materials on DVDs.

(For those that haven't seen the movie, Cera is in another Judd Apatow movie and just filmed this scene as if he had been hired for the lead role in "Knocked Up." There is a similar scene with Seth Rogan as the lead in the actual movie.)



For people who enjoy this kind of thing, see also James Franco of "Superman" and "Freaks and Geeks" doing a similar "fake take":



(I love that I write these posts as if thousands of people are reading.)

I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal.

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." -- Bertrand Russell, via Julian Sanchez

See also Fred Kaplan ("The fact is, Giuliani has no idea what he's talking about."), Kevin Drum ("Hmmm. That reminds me of somebody. But who? Push? Tush? Schmush? Something like that....."), and the Dunning-Kruger Effect ("The Dunning-Kruger effect is the phenomenon whereby people who have little knowledge systematically think that they know more than others who have much more knowledge.").