KRAMER'S CRACK-UP, BOA'S "ONE", GOOGLE EARTH, THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR AND THE RISE OF THE RIVETTINGLY UNCOMFORTABLE SITUATION.

CULTURAL COMMENTARY OF THE DAY: THE MICHAEL RICHARDS AFFAIR.

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch?v=U3RjiVcIlhY (racist outburst)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3l-gRHjUNk (apology on letterman)

OK, I assume you've all seen Michael "Kramer" Richards' crazy racist diatribe after being heckled at a stand-up comedy show. And you've probably seen his public apology via satellite on the David Letterman show. (If you haven't seen them, the links are above). I want to focus on one striking phrase in his highly awkward apology--the apparently absurd and certainly paradoxical claim "that the worst part about this is I'm not a racist." Now, the cynic in me just wants to say that hey. in this society no one is a racist. Mel Gibson was just drunk. The frat boys in "Borat" were misled and set-up. They really love Jewish people. It's always just the alcohol talking. It's always the Jim Beam not the David Duke. But, if I consider the claim to be something more than mere bad faith denial, and think about it sympathetcically--here's what I come up with (and this is in no way meant to exculpate Richards for his odious actions)

When people feel wronged or otherwise assaulted, their instant impulse is to get even--to lash out and attack the offending person or persons as quickly and as viciously as they can. In this primally enraged, vengeful state, we all have an unerring instinct for saying precisely the ugliest, most piercingly hurtful thing possible. Words are our weapons and we all know how to reach into the collective cultural quiver of nasty epithets and pull out the verbal arrow most likely to lodge itself most deeply in our target's psyche. Hence, if you feel deeply wronged by a woman of unsvelte proportions and want instant revenge, you might upgrade the standard "Fuck you" to "Fuck you, you fat fucking bitch." --not necessarily because you have any deep feeling of antipathy towards fleshy women, but because you know that these are the words that -in this culture and climate-are most likely to inflict maximal pain. In fact, it is arguable that you could yourself be a man who actually prefers full figured women and still choose to call the offending individual "fat" because of the known psychic power of that term. Similarly, if you're wronged by a follicularly challenged sextagenarian, you might choose to forgeo the generic "Fuck you." for the more stinging "Fuck you , you old bald fuck."--again, even if you have no basic antipathy towards the senior or the hairless populations. You simply recognize that these are percived areas of vulnerability and so you attack them in the spirit of revenge. And right beside "fat" and "old" and "ugly" and "bald" and "smelly" and "stupid" in the quiver of poison-tipped verbal arrows lie the racial epithets "kike", "wap", "guinea", "chink", "towelhead", gook" and, yes, "nigger."

Again none of this is intended to exculpate Richards for an ugly, hateful act. But it's merely to take seriously his avowed mystification that these words could come out of him despite his lifelong sense of himself as someone who is not a racist. Of course, the relationship between passive and active ageism, sexism and racism is complex and not innocent. (Indeed, arguably even the knowledge that certain words have that kind of power to harm renders us all complicit in the racism, sexism, ageism and anatomism (?) that they reflect.) We are all--to some extent--racists, sexists, age-ists and anatomists. But most primally we are all --in certain moments and certain situations-- hate-ists. And as hate-ists we will make use of any available verbal weapon (racist, sexist, age-sit, fat-ist, etc.) to express our acute --and usually very transient--state of hatred.

That said, we obviously have the choice --and indeed the responsibility--not to avail ourself of these weapons.

AFTERTHOUGHT OF THE DAY:

Actually, you know what? There is no way in hell I would ever launch into the kind of N-word laced tirade that Richards did--no matter how wronged and hateful I felt. I might might might --if provoked to the point of rage--reference their race in some fashion, like "You people have no fucking manners" or "You black asshole" but there's no way I'd go with a stuccato fire of N-words and lynching references. Nah, forget everything I said. He's a fucking racist. End of story.

I suddenly feel like the Nicole Kidman character at the end of Dogville.

QUESTION OF THE DAY:

Is Richards getting off more easily than Mel Gibson did? And-- if so-- does it have anything to do with the relative power of Jews and African-Americans in this society?

To be clear, I'm not sure that he is getting off more easily--but I figured I'd try to provoke some conversation about the topic--as I know how you guys like to fill up the comments board below with all kinds of interesting stuff. :)

RIVETTING SPECTACLE OF THE DAY

Perhaps you've seen this on youtube. A performance by two Bank of America employees at the annual Bank of America Corporate Meeting of U2's spiritual anthem "One" --with lyrics rewritten to reflect the grandeur and glory of their merger with MBNA. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tyS3GreG0g) What might have passed for a mildly palatable spoof if performed in a lighthearted, self-disparaging manner, was turned into an excruciatingly rivetting spectacle by the fact that the performers sang the fiducuary parody of the song with soaring full throated sincerity and soulfulness. "One bank, one card, one name that's known all over the world...One bank working every day, to bring higher standards. Feel it sister and brother...oh yeah..." It is almost indescribable. Here are two guys who are obviously soulful, frustrated musicians of some modest but real talent--men who gave up their dream of bringing the sky to tears and women to orgasm with their anthemic crooning--blindly and humorlessly pouring their heart and soul into the spiritual vessel of a new credit card. Listen and squirm as they sing, eyes closed in the transports of melodic rapture, "It's one card, and you get to share it...oh yeah..." It's a singular car wreck of hope, dreams, cynicism, capitalism and song--sort of like the crooner who sings the tributes to the Wing Man in those beer ads, but without any of the irony or comedic intent. It's like either the performers are once-lyrical souls truly brainwashed into the cult of the corporate life or they are just completely blind to the lyrics and see this as just their one chance to share their musical gift with the world. They are hoping to be discovered by some A&R guy in the corporate crowd. Or at least get a gig at a bar mitzvah. In truth, they seem completely blind to the lyrics. In their mind's ear, they seem to think that they're singing the actual devotional U2 song. In any event it's a mind-blowing mishap of tragic-comically misdirected spirituality.

If there's anything more mind-blowing than this spectacle, it's the idea that evidently David Cross attempted to do a parody of it. How one can possibly attempt a parody of something that so fully includes and transcends its own parody is a mystery to me. But I suppose had I not seen the way Colbert and Stewart have treated the Bush administration, I would have said the same thing about their efforts.

THEME OF THE DAY (AND PERHAPS THE ERA): RIVETTINGLY UNCOMFORTABLE SITUATIONS.

From the Stephen Colbert roast of Bush to the astonishing "One Bank" U2 tribute (where you didn't know whether to laugh or cry or scream) to the seat-squirmingly compelling Borat cultural exposes (where you want to laugh, cry AND scream) to Michael Richards' horribly awkward apology on the Letterman show (where the audience--conditioned to see him as a funny guy--laughed inappropriately throughout) --it seems that the rivettingly uncomfortable situation is truly in the zeitgeist. It's the cultural phenomenon du jour.

I think to some extent we owe the apparent proliferation of said moments to Youtube. In other words, there are probably not any more such moments than there were before, but they are more widely recorded and disseminated via this ungoverned populist new medium.

ACT OF GRATITUDE OF THE DAY: THINGS TO BE THANKFUL FOR: (Please add to this list in progress.)

George Allen for having called that guy Macaca.

The Montana guy Burns for falling asleep at a meeting.

Youtube --for making both embarrassments ubiquitous and for arguably having almost as decisive an influence on the Democrats gaining control of the Senate in 2008 as the Supreme Court had in allowing Republicans to gain control of the White House (ok, to steal the White House) in 2000.

Stephen Colbert-Jon Stewart-Bill Maher.

The New York Review of Books.

The New Yorker.

Keith Olberman--for channeling the spirit of Edwin R.Murrow.

Bush's Faith Based rejection of modern science and the oil lobby in general for granting us an uncommonly mild autumn via Global Warming.

Wednesday night hoops.

Gas at under $2.50/gallon.

Friendship.

Language.

The earth and sky.

Autumn.

Acts, events or other phenomena that suggest or invite commentary.

Bands from Montreal.

Hops and Barley.

Lots of other stuff I can't think of right now.

DEFINITIONS OF THE DAY:

Scumbucket: A guy who walks right by a nice homeless guy in the bitter cold and acts like he doesn't hear his plea for help.

Kinder Gentler Scumbucket: A guy who stops for him and gives him some money, but when the homeless guy tries to engage him in meaningful conversation, says "Sorry buddy, it's too cold to talk right now."

POLITICAL STORY OF THE DAY #1:

Hey did you hear the one about the candidate who told the botched joke?

John Kerry assured reporters that his "botched joke" fiasco wouldn't stop him from running for President in 2008. And why should it? The botched face and the botched personality haven’t stopped him. Or should I say the stony face and the wooden personality.

OK, so that was a botched joke too. But I’m not gonna let it stop me either.

POLITICAL STORY OF THE DAY #2:

According to this week's New Yorker, the Democratic victory in Congress will in all likelihood have no affect on the War in Iraq. Bush and Cheney intend to make empty gestures towards bipartisanship and cynical expressions of political humility, while simply and resolutely staying the course in Mess-o-potamia, So, I'd like to retract one of the two" Woo-Hoos" I emitted upon news of the Democratic victory in the Senate.

TIME WASTER OF THE DAY:

Have you guys seen this amazing upgrade of Google Earth? The already dazzling global imaging function (essentially a seamless tiling together of all kinds of satellite surveillance shots) which allowed you to zoom from outer space to about 50 feet above the house you grew up in has now been upgraded to include precise digital models of every building in every major city--and to allow you to travel aerially from any place on earth to any other place on earth--with a view to which the phrase "bird's eye" completely fails to do justice. It is totally mindblowing. For example, I went straight from looking down on the house I grew up in to the Paris neighborhood in which I briefly lived to a completely detailed aerial tour of the Grand Canyon. With all of this 360 degree navigational control, it is arguable that you can get a more intensve, rich experience of the Grand Canyon from your desk that you can by actually visiting it. The virtual experience is once again threatening to eclipse the real…much as with internet porn.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY:

I originally though that, with the addition of its detailed modelling of buildings, Google Earth had become a perfect tool for terrorists who want to attack us. But now I’m starting to think that it renders the terrorists redundant by achieving their main goal for them: namely, the undermining of the U.S. Economy. Indeed, what--beside perhaps fantasy hoops--could do more to reduce workplace productivity than this amazingly addictive online experience?!?!?

CANCELLATION OF THE DAY:

OJ Simpson's "If I Did It, This is How It Happened." has now been cancelled both as a book and a TV special. So now I guess it's "If I Did It, This Is How I Would Have Confessed Without Confessing"--with the hypothetical confession becoming itself purely hypothetical. Ah, the doubly hypothetical quasi-confession. Only in America. My Country Tis of Thee. Sweet land of Spincerity…to thee I sing.

IRAQ GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:

While it was the deadliest month on record in Iraq since the beginning of the war, there is no evidence that it was the deadliest month in human history--and any rumors to that effect are clearly liberal "cut and run" propaganda.

SIGN OFF OF THE DAY:

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Posted on 11/23/2006 ( Permanent Link )
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