Charlie Sheen has taught us something after all:

Charisma is a lot easier to manufacture on film than it is on stage.

[EW, image via BBC News]

something about chickens and roosts

One wishes this was surprising. As it becomes clear that the wave of democratic movements sweeping the Middle East was little more than a narrow window of opportunity, it's equally clear that leaders in the West might be more than a little relieved:

The son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has alleged that his country helped finance Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007 presidential election campaign. "We funded it and we have all the details and are ready to reveal everything," Saif al-Islam said.

This makes the Economist's chronicle of European leaders' moral equivalency make all the more sense:

IMAGINE your awkward neighbours across the street. You befriended them, drew them into the neighbourhood-watch scheme and even made some nice trades. All of a sudden they are exposed as criminals, or maybe brutes with women enslaved in their basements. Would you feel guilt about your friendship? Remorse about having ignored the telltale signs? Or would you feign outrage, like Captain Renault’s in “Casablanca”: “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Such are the emotions that Europe’s leaders feel as their friends across the Mediterranean are toppled by long-suffering subjects. True Europe has had little choice in its neighbours. Good relations were a necessity of life, particularly for countries with oil and gas, or those that guarded against terrorists and illegal migrants. Yet some European actions now seem craven indeed. Remember Gordon Brown’s dissimulation about the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for life in Scotland for his role in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing? Or the sight of Silvio Berlusconi kissing the hand of Muammar Qaddafi? In the grab for a share of Libya’s oil wealth, many others have been stained. Libyan petrodollars, moreover, have found their way into companies and institutions across Europe, from the Juventus football team to the London School of Economics.

Understandable, if still shamefully craven. And no wonder Sarko has been so eager to lead this operation -- beyond just trying to purge the nasty taste of Tunisia's collaborationism -- he's trying to clear his election debt!  [BBC, Economist]

Where is Equity?

As Keith Olbermann notes on FOK News Channel, when AFTRA -- "not the most belligerent nor plugged in of outfits" -- is stirred up, you know you've gone too far.

Welp, I've found someone yet milder, Mr. O.

In the Wisconsin conflagration, we have heard from every corner of the union movement in terms of news releases and messages to membership. I haven't heard much from my union, Actors' Equity, but I was able to dredge this up from their website, in the form of an open letter/monologue/diary entry from President Nick Wyman:

I can understand why Governor Walker and thousands of employers around the country would like to get rid of unions. They usually make employees more costly by negotiating salaries and benefits employees wouldn't be able to achieve on their own. They mandate work rules that not infrequently add to the costs of doing business. They limit flexibility by insisting on a say in or approval of changes in working conditions. We unions can be a pain in the butt.

Forgive me, however, if I shed no more than crocodile tears for the poor, put-upon employer. Unions exist to redress what is historically and consistently an imbalance of power between those who hire and those who do the work. We have moved beyond the most egregious abuses of the late 1800's - dehumanizing sweatshops with their if-you-don't-come-in-Sunday,-don't-come-in-Monday attitude - but the constant pressure to improve the bottom line leads to coal mining companies ignoring safety protocols and school districts putting sixty students in a class. The cards are still stacked in favor of management, and that disparity will only get worse as a result of the "Citizens United" ruling giving corporations the ability to give unlimited funds to candidates. Unions are the best and nearly the only

zzzzzzzzzzzz...hmm? Wuzzat?

Are you kidding me? We have the occupation by citizens of a public space for weeks on end, half a state legislature flees across state lines, phone stings where elected officials admit to totalitarian shenanigans, physical altercations between protesters and right-wing media, and the best my union president can do is come kind of mealy-mouthed history essay.

I have more vociferous debates WITH fellow union members ABOUT Equity. A clear existential crisis has galvanized the entire labor movement, and my union parks this shit on their homepage -- without even a red TAKE ACTION label, because, hey who cares about Wisconsin?

Disgraceful.

more about Clarence

Sharing because, clearly, we hate our readers:

Congratulations to Lillian McEwen, that woman who was finally able to overcome years of terrible embarrassment about having sex with Clarence Thomas to write a book about it. D.C. Unmasked & Undressed is the title of this newly released memoir, because the people who write tell-all memoirs are weirdly terrible at this part of marketing. Obviously this book should be entitled What Clarence Thomas’ Dick Looks Like and How He Uses It, as that’s the only reason why anyone would buy it.

Want to know exactly how he uses it? Read on.

[Wonkette]

some words about you kids and my lawn

(Actually, no, it's about the adults behind the shows aimed at kids.)

What's less surprising about the MTV Skins controversy is that anyone expects anything but the worst bottom-feeding instincts from the same network that has brought...well, basically scan the entire TV Schedule on any given day and find the most offensive item that fits your spectrum of outrage. Even without manufactured controversy, it's all blandly awful.

But expected. As David Carr notes,

objectifying teenage pathology, along with teenage bodies, is a complicated business — and the business that MTV is in.

So why are we outraged that flesh peddlers are fulfilling their job description?

PS: Dear Knicker-Twisting Parent Groups -- Please don't call works of entertainment 'dangerous', especially works that I would otherwise like to criticize. It puts me in the unenviable position of having to defend crap, or take your side on something.

would you let this man near *your* children?

Carl Paladino's delayed repudiation of his weekend gay-bashing is being rightfully dismissed as too little, too late. But that doesn't mean it still can't be picked apart for its lack of logic, cowardice, and inanity. "I am Carl Paladino," the statement (probably not written by Carl Paladino) opens, "a father, a husband, a builder and a business owner."

Why stop there? You are also a Republican, septuagenarian, Virgo, homo sapien -- actually, I can see where this would get problematic. Let's leave it at "business owner." He goes on to write that this whole incident began when "Yesterday I was handed a script."

That is leadership, people.

We could go on to outline our disdain for the my-best-friends-are-gay gambit later in the statement, the brain-melting attempt to place himself alongside President Obama on the same side of, well, anything in the Year of the Tea Party, and the fact that within hours, an aide had maintained the Paladino campaign's pace of one-gaffe-per-day by calling the Attorney General "oily".

We've noted, more than once, our disgust with Accidental Governor Patterson. But maybe the bigger problem isn't the politicians, but the office itself. Maybe it only attracts the venal and mildly insane.

Or maybe just the possibility of attaining the office turns you crazy and hateful.

short memories

I grew up hearing tales of great-grandparents who, having lived through the Great Depression, behaved in anachronistically austere behavior that during my parents' childhoods (the full-bellied Fifties) and my adolescence (the swinging Nineties) seemed bizarre -- scraping the wrapping paper on sticks of butter, etc -- but it seems the memory cycle has tightened considerably.

A case in point: why would anyone, anyone, who has lived through the past three years give this quote to a newspaper reporter:

“We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,” said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.

Yup. "Experts" are saying that -- with unemployment at 10% and the economy turning towards a double-dip recession -- the problem with housing prices is that the government is simply doing too much.

Having just survived a failed attempt to be a homeowner myself, these articles fill me with terror; if, as it seems many argue, the Obama Administration has run out of tools in its toolbox to prop up house prices, that doesn't necessarily mean that some laissez-faire hegemony returns by default, does it? We've been here before. But, oops, I guess that was too long ago to remember in the internet age:

As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash.

Guys. Seriously. You're not even changing the terminology?

While I support (most of) President Obama's policies, it has become clear that he has continued many of President Bush's initiatives in everything but name -- especially the conduct of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the human rights abuses perpetuated in our name in extra-legal detention centers around the world. But while he has abandoned the eye-rolling terminology of George W. Bush's ownership society, the Obama Administration's efforts to prevent mortgage defaults at all costs is the same desperate attempt to prop up unsustainable levels of consumption.

Which begs the question -- which bothered me the entire time I was failing spectacularly to purchase property -- if home ownership is the hallmark of stability that everyone seems to think it is, why would messing around with tax credits of $6,000 to $8,000 (a fraction of a home's purchase price) create such earthquakes? Could it be that it's a concept based on a fallacy? Like the ownership society? Like capitalism?

(Seriously, just read Naomi Klein.)

commercialism

You might have noticed a new advertisement (disguised as a widget) over to the right there.

Our friends at the Planet Connections Festivity -- where our production of War Crimes premieres this June! Buy your tickets now! -- are currently in the running for a Pepsi Refresh Grant through the Pepsi Refresh Project.

You get 10 votes per day to vote for your favorite submitted idea, and at the end of the month, the top 10 ideas with the most votes in each funding level will get the funding they requested. If PCF obtains this funding, they'll be able to "green the festivity" (green is a verb now) and make the festivity as a whole a fantastic, eco-friendly experience.

And the puppy wont have to die.

Do what's right, America. Do what's right.

the madness of race and bloodlines, continued

This is one of those moments where the will to power conflicts with the will for ideological (or racial) purity. From a few weeks back on my old obsession, the British National Party:

BNP leader Nick Griffin has agreed to ask his party to amend its constitution so it does not discriminate on grounds of race or religion, a court heard.

The UK's equalities watchdog had argued the BNP broke the Race Relations Act by restricting members to "indigenous Caucasian" people.

The court heard Mr Griffin had agreed to use "all reasonable endeavours" to revise its constitution.

Nick Griffin is in a tough spot -- his party has a shot as mainstream respectability not seen in Western Europe (at least since Le Pen's National Front showing in France in 2002) as much a result of the Tories moving towards the right (since Blair's New Labour stole most of the Conservative economic program). In the bright glare of public review, Griffin tries to turn ethnic chauvinism into a coherent political program, a weight it simply cannot bear.

Just as segregationists the the American South only work ideologically when they're on the losing side -- protectors of a bygone era -- the BNP only works if they're being ignored by most of society. You can blame problems that trouble every major civilization (crime, unemployment, poverty) on immigration and "the other" only as long as you're not called upon to provide policy solutions. Blaming the foreigner doesn't come close to framing the issue.

Speaking of which -- we can't wait for Lou Dobbs' first policy paper. And his Hispanic media spokesman.

Latest Film Work (Part I), 10/31 and 11/1

Missed me as the Devil in Timor Mortis this past February? You're in luck -- I play a devilish character again in Jessica McVea's THE PROCEDURE, screening as part of the SINISTER SIX MUST BE DESTROYED film series on October 31 and November 1. It's on, y'all. Details below.

****************

SINISTER SIX MUST BE DESTROYED is the fourth and final installment in the annual horror anthology film series, THE SINISTER SIX, created and curated by Bryan Enk of Third Lows Productions. In celebration of the final year of the series, SINISTER SIX MUST BE DESTROYED pulls out all the stops as a "double-feature" horror anthology film, featuring TWELVE short horror films by TWELVE directors! Come celebrate Halloween with The Sinister Six... times two!

Saturday, October 31, 2009 at 8:15PM
Sunday, November 1, 2009 at 5:15PM

Millennium Film Workshop
66 E. 4th St.
New York, NY 10003
$10
Running Time: Approx. 2 hours

WARNING: Films contain strong horror violence and gore, disturbing images, graphic sexual content, nudity and strong language.


SINISTER SIX MUST BE DESTROYED includes:

THE LANGUAGE OF THE ANIMALS | Aaron Baker
When Egyptologists Max and Lily reunite to uncover the secrets of the ancient Book of Thoth, it could lead to ultimate power. Or possibly death.

MONDAY | Danny Bowes
A young woman is pursued by a vicious killer... from inside her own mind.

HOUSE GUESTS | Rebecca Comtois
Four friends take advantage of a cousin's summer house. They better remember to lock the front door.

CONTACT | Jeremiah Kipp
If there is doubt, then there is no love - and Koreen tests her fear of love's deep scars.

ARACATTACK! | Douglas MacKrell
Ace exterminator Deuce Johnson has been hired to take care of a spider infestation at a residential laboratory, only to discover a deadly truth so terrifying, only screams can describe it! Presented in EMERGE-O-VISION!

THE PROCEDURE | Jessica McVea
When an innocent girl signs up for a clinical trial sponsored by the sinister Lucigenics Pharmaceuticals Corporation, can she escape the horrific effects that befall her fellow participants?

AVENUE A | Mateo Moreno
"Join us tonight as we take you inside the East Village bar that was the site of the grisly 'Avenue A Murders.' And for the first time, see the footage that was found there, documenting the entire event..."

LEVITICUS 26 | Roger Nasser
Leviticus Daniels was a good boy... until his mother Ruth showed him the path to Righteousness.

evermore | Patrick Shearer
How much is too much?

BLUEBERRY | Art Wallace
The director of "The Haunted Ghost" and "When Darkness Comes" returns with another tale of existential dread as a psychotic birthday party goes bad, very bad...

And some sinister surprises!

http://www.thirdlows.com/sinistersixmustbedestroyed/

truly magnificent racism

Dave Chappelle has the line about confronting racism that is of a gourmand's level; truly finger-kissing good -- at such a higher level that you can only find it truly delectable.

Now, as a multi-racial person, I usually have to cast my lot with other brown-skinned groups that roughly approximate my experience, even though it's like wearing a pair of shoes a couple sizes off: I can read deeply into African-American studies all I want, but after a few rhetorical paces I end up tripping over myself. Well, I can slip into something a bit more comfortable for the weekend. Finally -- oppression for my people!

A Justice of the Peace refuses to marry interracial couples in Louisiana because they create traumatized children. Oooh ooh ooh! Wait, let me get some popcorn before you start talking, time-traveler-from-the-fifties-Man:

[Keith] Bardwell [of Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana] who has worked in the role for 34 years, said that in his experience most interracial marriages did not last very long and estimated that he had refused applications to four couples in the past two-and-a-half years.

He said he had "piles and piles of black friends" but just did not believe in "mixing the races".

Okay, one demerit for the I have black friends gambit, (but he MORE than makes up for it later). And he does have a point: the divorce rate is roughly 50% -- so most marriages don't last that long.

But wait, I'm pretty convinced you're just a run-of-the-mill segregationist. What sets you apart?

"They come to my home, I marry them, they use my bathroom. I treat them just like everyone else," he said.

That's ... that's some good racism. [That's his trump card? Really?! It's kind of, well, sad. And gross. Mostly gross.]

But there you have it, America! Times have changed. Some of my best shitters are black.

I stand corrected. You, sir, are the paragon of equanimity. Apparently it matters not that what issues from the anuses of Negroes and Whites commingles in the septic tanks of Tangipahoa Parish (where is Faulkner when you need him?) -- but the wombs -- what about the wombs?

"There is a problem with both groups accepting a child from such a marriage," he said "I think those children suffer and I won't help put them through it."

Now I can't deny he's right about the lack of acceptance part. Buuuuuut...I'm not sure that a lack of a wedding ring works as an effective form of birth control there, champ. That couple'll probably end up with a mocha baby anyway. And as a a mocha bastard, I can tell you, it's SO MUCH BETTER being born out of wedlock AND being rejected by both racial camps. A sub-nation of illegitimate racial nonentities rise in gratitude.

What a turd. Why is he so obsessed with black people shitting, anyway? (The really beautiful thing, of course, is that this is being reported on the BBC's site. Not here in the states. Because there is no living in between the races, as far as Americans are concerned. Sigh...)