Annual Christmas Music Collection, Part One

Here's another in the annual offerings of Christmas music. I know there are personal faves for this time of year -- but I always like to give other musicians their shot at earning a place in Tradition.

So I started this collection out with a longtime favorite (which is offered again at the end in a new version), and after some thought, I decided that Christmas 2008 has some bleak qualities. Too much talk of money or the lack of it and shopping or the lack of it. At the risk of providing a collection that might be called An Emo Christmas, here are some tunes you may or may not know and which may or may not add some sadness to your egg nog. (And besides, if T Rex can sing something bouncy for the holidays, it can't all be bad.)

Consider this part one of this year's musical montage -- yes, that means at least one or maybe two more collections will be posted on coming days.

Enjoy the music and the holidays -- and Merry Christmas everybody, no matter what.


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Camera Obscura: Goodbye Bettie Page; Best Film of '08; Nazi Zombies; New Terminator Trailer

Iconic sex symbol and famous Nashville native Bettie Page died yesterday at the age of 85. In the 1950s she was an underground sensation and by the 1980s she had become an American icon. She was hounded by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver in congressional hearings but something about the fame and infamy of her photos refused to go away.

An interview with her from 10 years ago has many details of her life and experiences and the odd days after her modeling career when bad things kept her constantly in trouble with authorities.

Why has her smile and her cheeky image been so popular?

Perhaps it was her seemingly joyous dismissal of the idea that nudity was immoral. Perhaps it is the enigmatic way she gazed at the camera, somewhat bold and somewhat carefree, nearly a parody of Hollywood glamour yet still a girl-next-door.

Her influence will last for many decades to come - she's even been the inspiration for George Lucas, who created a "Bettybot" for his epic movie series. Her official website has logged more than 600 million hits in the last five years, and items with her image are too numerous to mention.

Adios, Bettie. And thanks for that smile.

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Some months back I wrote about a friend of mine, Mike Abbott, whose work in the movie "Shotgun Stories" got rave reviews. Add one more - film critic Roger Ebert placed to movie on his list of the year's best and urged movie fans to seek "Shotgun Stories" out:

"You'll have to search for it, but worth it. In a "dead-ass town," three brothers find themselves in a feud with their four half-brothers. It's told like a revenge tragedy, but the hero doesn't believe the future is written by the past. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, it avoids the obvious and shows a deep understanding of the lives and minds of ordinary young people in a skirmish of the class war. The dialogue rings true, the camera is deeply observant. The film was the audience favorite at Ebertfest 2008."

Congrats, Mike!

The official movie website is here.

Oh and why not show off this pic he sent me of himself and another good friend who is currently working to create the entertainment you'll find at Disney's new theme park in Hong Kong:



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What would this movie column be without a mention of zombies??

The brand new Norwegian movie, "Dead Snow", looks like a popcorn bucket o' fun! Nazis and Beethoven arrive about 1:45 into the trailer ....



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Christian Bale moves from Batman to John Connor in the newest installment of The Terminator movie series. I've been watching the TV show "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" on FOX and like the show pretty well. Bale has signed on for two more Terminator movies -- we got us a big ol' franchise monster here.

Here's the preview trailer:



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Be sure and check out two fine ... or make that creaky old horror flicks from Britain tonight on Turner Classic Movies Underground. The show starts promptly at 2:15 a.m. with a double bill of "Beyond The Fog" (originally released as "Tower of Evil") followed by "House of Horror".

Be there or be square, Daddy-O.

In Which I Am Invaded

A rattling racket on the back porch jolted me away from the computer keyboard in the early hours of the morning.

"Dang cat," I thought. And yet when I turned and walked to the doorway to the back deck - nothing, no cat, no disrupted furniture, no sign of the wee feline.

Suddenly a wiry creature is flying at me and lands splayed across the screen door, claws clutch at the meshed pattern and I nearly faint from terror and adrenaline. Thankfully, I did not voice 'the girly scream'.

A squirrel hangs in mid-air clinging to the screen door, eyeing me with some amusement.

"Hey! What the heck -- HEY!"

Squirrel twitches it's bushy tail, and would surely have laughed had it the ability.

Instead it is all Fearlessness and Bravado. I pondered on opening the door to scare it away, then imagined the house invaded with a scampering hell-beast and wisely decided to do nothing. So we stared at each other for a few minutes. Finally he hurls himself into a roiling back-flip and begins a route outlining the dimensions of the deck by hopping from corner to corner via the posts on the deck railing.

A backyard rich in walnuts and other goodies is of no interest to this creature. I get the feeling he wants something specific. No idea what that might be --- some coffee maybe? A grilled cheese sandwich?

Muttering to myself, I go back to the computer and attempt to recollect my thoughts. About two minutes later, another house-jarring crash makes me jump out of my skin. Now he is hanging on the screen of the kitchen window, turning circles in a frenzy.

"WHAT?? What do you want from me?" I say, realizing instantly these are usually the last words of an imminent horror movie fatality.

He back and side flips over to the deck again.

For a moment, I ponder on offering him one of those pouches of catnip which sit in the cupboard. Could be interesting. Could make it far worse.

I start to ease the screen door open - maybe Timmy fell into the well and Lassie-squirrel here is trying hard to communicate the danger to me. (Timmy is at school and we do not have a well ... maybe a forest fire is approaching? Is Lassie-squirrel blinking a Morse code at me?)

Before I can do anything, the creature tornadoes across the deck and it's carpet of dead leaves, whirls up and back and sideways into the yard, does a bounce and is halfway up the walnut tree.

What the heck was that about?

Making The News Makes News

Layoffs and downgrades at newspapers around the country may well leave large and small communities without their daily papers. While I've earned my living for decades in the news biz, I am also part of the reason they are in dire times. I seldom touch a paper or a magazine, since 90% of what I am seeking is already available online.

I don't have to pay to read their product - though I do pay for the access to the Web. Most papers have dropped any fees to receive their info online, but one wonders if they may start charging out of sheer fiscal necessity.

The Chicago Tribune media giant has declared bankruptcy, but is it really due to falling readership and advertising? Is it the mismanaged programs of owner Sam Zell?

Marty Kaplan says yes:

"Zell only put up $315 million of his own money to buy the Times' owner, Tribune Co. The rest -- $8.2 billion -- was highly leveraged debt; the deal, which nearly tripled Tribune's debt load, turned on a fancy maneuver creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan executed behind the backs of Tribune's actual employees. The sorry result: a debt service of $1 billion a year.

Even if advertising were not dropping, even if subscriptions were not falling, Zell would have had no chance to cover his monthly nut without the waves of cutbacks he ordered, which have devastated Times morale and decimated its content. And even with those cutbacks, the bankruptcy is now proof of how misbegotten his strategy was in the first place.

The economic meltdown the nation is now living through offers plenty of evidence of how the American people are at the mercy of casino gamblers posing as capitalism's finest. The billionaires who got us into this mess turn out to be not heroic entrepreneurs contributing to the country's prosperity, but unaccountable buccaneers who could care less about jobs and communities. Sam Zell's megalomania isn't unique; it's just our misfortune that Los Angeles' civic life has to bear the consequences of his financial swagger."

Kaplan adds that what is being lost is not being replaced online, no matter how it is organized:

"Blogs and Web sites are swell, but they're silos, not connective tissue. Local television news believes that thoughtful coverage of local politics and public affairs is ratings poison. Community and special-interest and alternative papers perform a crucial service, but size matters; a million people sharing the same information every day makes a deeper impact than 10 readerships of a 100,000 once a week, no matter how ecumenical the content. Budgets matter, too: investigative journalism takes time and dough that smaller outlets, and local public television, don't have. The Times may be an imperfect mirror of what Los Angeles is, but without it, it's hard to know where the region goes to see itself whole, or even why people will think that's an effort worth making.

"Sam Zell didn't cause the crisis in modern journalism, but he did turn a superb and profitable institution into a basket case. The people who work there, and the people who read it, deserve way better."

Kaplan takes on a related issue too in another column - should reporters be allowed to provide opinion on the news stories they cover?

"Straight news puts the defensive blather from top executives of Moody's and Standard & Poor's on the same footing as testimony about conflict-of-interest by former officials of those firms at the hearings. Each piece of damning evidence is juxtaposed with a flack's denial. Each incriminating e-mail demonstrating the corruption of the ratings process is laid against the executives' contrary assurances of integrity and high standards. Straight news is stenography: these guys say "day"; these other guys say "night." It's up to you, dear reader, to decide whom to believe.

"The trouble with this conception of journalism is that it inherently tilts the playing field in favor of liars, who are expert at gaming this system. It muzzles reporters, forbidding them from crying foul, and requiring them to treat deception with the same respect they give to truth. It equates fairness with evenhandedness, as though journalism were incompatible with judgment. "Straight news" isn't neutral. It's neutered - devoid of assessment, divorced from accountability, floating in a netherworld of pseudo-scientific objectivity that serves no one except the rascals it legitimizes."

I agree that just providing opposing views is NOT the way news should be written or presented. Views of the players in a news story demand to be tempered with the facts of how the actions of the players affect the public.

In other words, as Kaplan says, the reporter's job is to out the rascals and not legitimize them.

Pooped For Christmas

Those wacky Catalonians!

Since the 17th century, they have added a wee statue to their Nativity scenes during Christmas of folks taking a poop. Yeah. You stay classy, Catalonia.

In more recent years, the "caganer" has changed from depicting peasants to celebrities. And when city officials in Barcelona tried to ban the wee poopers from the city's official Nativity scene in 2006, a huge protest followed, so they added one in.

Of course, this year, the most popular figure caught "in medias res" is President-elect Obama. Perhaps it is a sign of admiration. (Or yet another sign that his presidency will be ... challenged ... at every turn. It is no easy job. See my previous post.)

And I thought the best joke about the Catalonian region came from Chevy Chase.

Saying Goodbye to President Bush

"I would hope that when it's all said and done, people say, 'This is a guy who showed up to solve problems,' " Bush said at the forum. "And when you have somebody say there's a pandemic that you can help, and you do nothing about it, then you have frankly disgraced the office."

--- President George W. Bush, Dec. 2008 (via the WP)

Taking the long view of the "legacy promotion tour" underway by the current administration, the historical view, so to speak, President Bush says or rather wistfully considers and then discards the long view:

"I don't spend a lot of time really worrying about short-term history. I guess I don't worry about long-term history, either, since I'm not going to be around to read it."

Now you too can add your last words, and write a Goodbye Letter to President Bush at this website.

I considered several things to say, but here is the best comment I can offer: "Don't speak. Just go."

SEE ALSO:
Sam Venable's column in the Knoxville News Sentinel - "Lax government oversight on virtually all fronts is Bush's laughingstock legacy.

Lobbying Against Auto Bailout?

Sen. Bob Corker, along with outgoing Congressman David Davis and incoming Congressman Phil Roe, are not happy with a proposal to "bailout" the nation's automakers.

Maybe they have good reason -- the question on my mind is how many companies in the state of non-U.S. auto and auto parts manufacturers are lobbying these good folks from Tennessee to reject such a program?

Both Rep. Davis and Rep. Roe offer views based more on anecdotes than economic policy:

Rep. Davis: "I do think we need to do something to help the automobile industry, but I think they need to help themselves first. One of the things they could do is move those jobs to the South where it is more labor- friendly and a good work ethic here in Tennessee and across the South. They could build a car cheaper, and it would put them in a better footing in the world market."

Rep. Roe: "I’m about stimulated out,” said Roe, Johnson City’s mayor. “Sooner or later you’ve got to swallow the poison pill and get off this credit card ride we’re on and start paying our bills. I look at my grandchildren, and I’m thinking ‘What we’re doing is mortgaging their future so we can maintain the standard of living we have right now.’ “I understand we have car manufacturing and car dealers here. I’m not insensitive to that, but sooner or later you’ve got to build a car that somebody wants to sell at a price they’ll buy it for."

Meanwhile, Senator Corker says any loans must be intensely detailed and moderated:

"These are the same types of conditions a bankruptcy judge might require to ensure that these companies become viable and sustainable into the future, and if they will agree to these terms then we have something to talk about. The process I have suggested would allow them to avoid the problems and stigma that accompany a formal bankruptcy, while forcing them to do the things they need to do to be successful companies."

All these comments seem aimed at protecting foreign car-makers in Tennessee than they are concern for the national economy as a whole. What might be best for them is not likely to be the same as what is best for the Big Three car-makers.

Adding to the current confusion over what to do -- the constantly repeated myth of how much workers are paid in the U.S. to make cars. It is not $70 an hour, it's more like $24 per hour.

There is an enormous balancing act for economic growth in the U.S. and on the global scale. I can't see a robust response which eyes the future and the present coming from Washington. It's more like watching those old stage acts where a dozen plates are spinning away on the tops of little poles in defiance of the laws of gravity. Sooner or later, the act has to end. Does it end with a crash or a flourish of accomplishment?

R.I.P. Uncle Forry - Thanks For Everything

It is no exaggeration to say that Forrest J Ackerman made my life better. He also made it possible for so many science fiction, horror and fantasy stories and movies and television to be created, and for today's online world of fans of all those genres exist thanks to him.

Ackerman passed away Thursday at the age of 92 and there will be many remembrances and salutes and some sadness for weeks to come. He was the First Fan, the man who created the very worlds of Fandom. The Uber Fan Boy. His life's work, his home, his influence stretches across decades. There was simply no one like him - he was more than just a fan, he knew everyone from Lon Chaney and Bela Lugosi to Stephen King and Steven Spielberg, from Ed Wood and Ray Harryhausen to Rick Baker and George Lucas.

He made a welcome and hearty home for the odd folks like me who are fascinated with tales of the fantastic and the mysteries of monsters. He wasn't just a name - he was Uncle Forry to me (and many others around the world.)

Says Stephen King:

"When you think of the size of the business, the dollar amount, that has sprung up out of fantasy, the people who made everything from ‘Star Wars’ to ‘Jaws,’ ” Mr. King said, “well, Forry was a part of their growing up. The first time I met Steven Spielberg, we didn’t talk about movies. We talked about monsters and Forry Ackerman."

I was about 9 or 10 years old the first time I saw a copy of Ackerman's magazine "Famous Monsters of Filmland", and I bought every issue thereafter I could find. The magazine didn't print Fan Mail, it printed Fang Mail. Living in Los Angeles, he called it Horrorwood, Karloffornia. His humor and his deep admiration for all things fantastic made him an astonishing collector and curator and turned his home, the Ackermansion, into the biggest and most celebrated museum of the fantasy and horror genres ever.

He housed items from the silent film "Metropolis" to Spock's pointy ears, and tens of thousands of books and magazines long since out of print.


He earned the prestigious Hugo Award for Number One Fan in 1953, long before he began to publish Famous Monsters of Filmland in 1958. The magazine celebrated the movies of Dracula and Frankenstein, and anything science fiction (he is credited with coining the abbreviation "sci-fi"). Not only was his magazine the only guide to fantastic films, it showed me how to create the make-up and effects used.

As I was growing up in a small town in middle Tennessee, there was no one who liked this stuff as much as I did - except for Uncle Forry. He let me know my curiosity and fascination was part of a huge world. My room soon became a place for Aurora models of The Creature From the Black Lagoon, life-sized posters of Karloff's Frankenstein, models of rocketships and creatures from the stars, and even today I proudly own movie posters and action figures of all kinds.

He also was literary agent for hundreds of now-famous writers, selling the first Ray Bradbury story in 1938, and was, as he called it, "illiterary agent" for director Ed Wood. He was a prolific writer of the fantastic as well and has appeared in over 200 movies.

And his home, which sadly he was forced to sell, along with over many hundreds of thousands of items he had collected from the movies in order to pay escalating medical bills earlier in this decade, that home was always open to visitors. For years and years, he would open his doors on Saturdays and give any and all comers a personal tour. Here is Forry being interviewed in his home:




And here is one fellow fan's video of a trip to the Ackermansion:




Another interview with Uncle Forry includes another comment from Stephen King which I love: "Forry was the first; he was best and he is the best. He stood up for a generation of kids who realised that if it was junk, it was magic junk."

Thanks Unc, for all you did and for your endless enthusiasm. You will always be the best that ever was.

SEE ALSO:
Remembrances from fans and celebrities at
Ain't It Cool News.
A Flickr photo set.
His movie credits.

Camera Obscura: Jazz Movies and Other Ultra-Cool Picks

I continue to emphasize a wee corner of cable TV called TCM Underground and tonight (well, it starts at 2 a.m.) they provide another great selection, starting with the seldom seen "All Night Long", an early 1960s ultra-cool jazz version of Shakespeare's Othello.

Charles Mingus, Dave Brubeck and other jazz legends are captured in performance in this film, which stars a pre-"Prisoner" Patrick McGoohan as a drummer who schemes to break up one of the couples attending an all night swinging and groovy party of hep-cats and dope heads. And all thru the night, incredible performances get laid down, like this one from Brubeck:



God bless Turner Classic Movies for airing films like this.

The second half of their Underground double feature is "The Knack and How To Get It," a Richard Lester film from the mid-1960s which was rather scandalous in it's day with all the talk of how to have sex with as many women as possible. Today, it seems rather tame, but has many of the stylistic touches Lester was soon famous for - jump cuts and camera tricks and more. But there is more nostalgia than scandal here. All in all, it makes the swinging 60s sort of boring and boorish.

But do not miss "All Night Long" - it's a fascinating peek at a time when folks at a 'wild party' wore suits and tuxedos and drank martinis without fru-fru additions of apple or chocolate flavor. They would smack you just for asking for such a thing.

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I also continue to be impressed with all things found at Cinebeats. This week she offers a Vampire Film Alphabet. Here's just a sample:

M. Martin (George Romero; 1977)
N. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (Werner Herzog; 1979)
O. Omega Man, The (Boris Sagal; 1971)
P. Planet of the Vampires (Mario Bava; 1965)

And her collection of movie posters on Flickr is a true thing of beauty and it makes me burn with envy. There is no better blog of 60s and 70s cinema.

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REMAKES, AND MORE REMAKES

News this week that efforts are underway for more remakes, from the old Errol Flynn action movie "Captain Blood", a prequel to "Planet of the Apes" called "Caesar", but will not include any talking apes .... whaaa?

And the creator of the Babylon 5 TV series says producers are ready to bankroll his "re-imagining" of "Forbidden Planet":

"To that end, he's researching astrophysics, A.I., and planetary geology to create a scientifically accurate Krell backstory -- none of which will be stylishly retro. "At the time it was made it was cutting edge ...People that went to see that film saw things they had never seen before. What we have to do now is have this one be as innovative now as the original was then."


Newscoma pointed me to another remake on the way, this one of John Carpenter's sci-fi satire of alien invasion called "They Live". The original is a perfect little movie -- made during the waning days of the Reagan era, Roddy Piper plays an out-of-work fellow who finds himself struggling for survival among a group of homeless folks and stumbles onto efforts to unmask a vast conspiracy of aliens who have taken over the planet.

This group, he learns, is devising ways to short-circuit the mind-numbing technology the aliens are employing and Piper soon sees the world as it really is, as this clip shows:



And it has one of my favorite movie lines, when Piper confronts the aliens with a shotgun and says "I'm here to chew bubblegum and kick ass and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Conflicting Claims In Cherries Internet Cafe Collapse

There are many conflicting claims in a mini-flurry of press reports yesterday regarding the collapse of the Cherries Internet Cafe, and sadly the press reports aren't digging into those conflicts or into the simple fact that employees have not been paid for work done months ago. Meanwhile, CIC's owner/operator has darted away to start another business leaving those workers and other contractors empty handed.

It may just be me, but if my company collapsed, I think I would like to think I'd have the decency to be accountable for it, and not blame those who gave financial support to the business. Now it looks like a long round of court battles are ahead, which does not help out those who are owed for work long since completed and will instead cost them earnings. (A DISCLAIMER: I know several folks who worked with CIC in a wide range of capacities, but we have seldom talked about the problems. I am really perplexed by these press clippings and the conflicts they include.)

Also, while those folks and others are locked into legal battles and are advised by attorneys not to speak publicly about the issues involved, the owner of Cherries decides to head to the press and lay out some blame and dodge the problems of not paying employees or vendors.

The Metro Pulse had a report in which it is claimed Cherries For Life's Ingrid Gee has started a new business called Blue Dress TV, but in reports in the Knoxville News Sentinel she says she was hired by them to run the business. Which is it?

And the thought of starting up another biz while former employees go empty-handed ... well, that's just lousy treatment, in my opinion.

Also, the KNS report originally stated that Ingrid started BlueDress and was updated to reflect that an "undisclosed management group" has hired her to run the company. But no such change has been noted with Metro Pulse.

More conflicts in that KNS report:

" ... Gee said she agreed to walk away from the company with about $155,000 worth of debt."
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"She said at least $70,000 is owed to creditors and that part of the agreement she signed required the management group to pay all creditors."

KNS reporter Carly Harrington, in a third report yesterday, presents more oddities from Gee. Emails Harrington received from Gee were offered to prove how other investors in the business failed to do their jobs, but they just make no sense. These aren't documents which detail the specifics of the business operation.

This email (which noted concerns on how accounts are or are not being handled) has the last few lines blocked out by a note from Gee. That line includes the telling question "Who is setting up the books?"

In this email (again, offered as proof of the 'business structure') Gee asks "Do we have any investors" and that funds are already depleted for the business (dated September 6th).

This email is a copy of a Code of Ethics for the best way to do business ... but again, no documents which detail the actual responsibilities of investors or Gee. Odd. What are these meant to actually prove? Why did the reports not dig into these issues?

Seems to me if I had investors or co-owners who failed to deliver on their responsibilities, then I would provide the press with more that some emails of me asking some folks for more money. Why not provide the documents which detail the structure or documents of refusals/failures to do said jobs? If I were offered what I considered a forced buyout, then I again would provide some documents to back up the claims.

So now the public is watching a "he said-she said" battle. And contractors and employees are forced into court to obtain earnings for work already supplied.

I hope the press digs deeper, and offer some hard facts on what has really been happening.

One reason I'm posting this today is to get your feedback -- what do you make of these reports? Do the claims make sense? Doesn't the press need to double-check claims made prior to printing/publishing stories?

One more item of note - a November 12th post from Harrington on the closing of Cherries from Gee:

"Ingrid Gee, who founded the cafe that opened in September, said she decided to sell in order to "put it into the hands of somebody who could develop its full potential."

"I like to be in the development of new ideas and concepts. It was a pleasure to start and found the cafe. Now, I'm off to bigger and better things. It was nice to work with all the people who helped make it happen," Gee said."

Nice? Is being "nice" a substitute for paying employees? So many conflicting comments - which ones are true?

SEE ALSO: KnoxViews

Pop Culture Victim Number 3,042

Let's move the Topic-Meter waaay over here for a moment, into the twilight land where worldwide fame intersects with the ordinary. There is a person here, somewhat dazed looking - or worse - someone wounded to a point where longevity is a real question.

The someone in this weird land is Britney Spears - who turned 27 today. I'm no fan of her music. It's catchy pop stuff, over-produced manufacturing via the Music Industry, which needs such acts as hers for basic bread-and-butter earnings. Still, I can observe - and you can too - how her 'career' and her private life have taken on that quality of a ticking time bomb which usually plays out on the E! network in specials about how some celebrity went from fame and fortune to despair and death on a rocket ride of thrills and chills.

I tried to watch the 'documentary' which aired on MTV Sunday, "Britney: For The Record", but it became very clear in just a few minutes that the poor woman is the Mayor of that twilight land, that she hates it, that the 1000-yard stare on her face bodes ill omens.

Is she zonked out on something which used to get her high and now keeps her unhappy? Other than her own life and career, that is. No one in the media or the MTV special is asking that question, even though the media hovers about her every move and has since she was a child. Few if any can survive living in such glaring darkness.

TV writer for the L.A. Times Mary McNamara cites some of the sad qualities of her distorted days and nights:

"Far more revealing than her "for the record" words is the glimpse the film provides into the strange, insular world of the pop star. The hours spent in makeup, in wardrobe, in meetings, in weird places that aren't really places -- hotel rooms, greenrooms, sound stages. There are several scenes shot from the interior of a black SUV (Memo to celebrities: The paparazzi are on to the whole black SUV thing), including a harrowing incident in which she literally cannot safely get out of the car. But that space, in which about six people can fit comfortably, is an unnervingly accurate symbol for how confined she is, or at least how confined she believes she is.

"I wish I wasn't famous," she says at one point with a wistfulness that seems sincere, "so I could feel part of people."
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"The trap Spears finds herself in may have more to do with a lack of imagination than the paparazzi -- at one point, she laments that the cameras have taken away her cool-girl cred, that she can't be a party girl anymore, which makes her kind of boring. "There's no excitement, there's no passion, there's no nothing. It's just like 'Groundhog Day' every day, you know? So I'm really bored," she says. During another moment of high emotion, she drives herself practically to tears arguing with her entourage that not only doesn't she always get to do what she wants, she never gets to do what she wants.

Here is Britney Spears, apparently on the road to a tremendous comeback, young and pretty, talented and rich, who can not only get a documentary made just so she can make herself seem less crazy to her audience but can also provide the commercial sponsorship herself ("Britney: For the Record" is brought to you by Spears' fragrances Curiosity and Fantasy, which means even the commercials are vehicles for her career).

And yet she has to make an effort to "stay positive every day" because life can "be so cruel."

But for me, there is a clear picture in that documentary of a person who is so close to the edge, you can see the abyss reflected in her eyes. She stares at the camera and tells the crew there are too many cameras in her life. Is it all part of the act, or is it that despair never recognizes itself?

I hope I'm very wrong, that she endures for many, many years.

But given the Music Industry's constant need for acts to feed on and then discard like plastic wrap around a Twinkie, their long history of pouring gasoline on performers who are in full burn out mode in hopes of earning a few more dollars, the best future for Spears is to take her earnings and flee from those who want to live in her wake.

Maybe she should read those reports issued annually about how some performer who has died is still earning millions and billions for others who have turned tragedy into profit.

If you happen to see the MTV documentary, I think you'll have to agree I'm right - that they have not just filmed a train wreck, but are keeping the camera focused on someone the wreck has just about killed and is watching them gasp for air.

Conservatives Target Imaginary Foes

I've heard claims for many weeks now on Conservative media outlets that they are facing extinction from Democrats in Congress and the Obama administration. But that's just not true. It has been voters who have turned them out and told them "thanks but no thanks" for their bridges to nowhere.

Following their defeats in congressional races in 2006 and the presidency in 2008, they have decided to dodge the facts of their failures and now are pointing to imaginary foes as they whip up a sound and fury over nothing at all.

"Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, and other friends have spent the past year screaming about the horrors of Barack Obama. And, while it's true that they talked ad nauseam about socialism and the Weathermen and Jeremiah Wright, careful listeners would have noticed a recurring theme of anxiety: that Obama was going to use the newly acquired levers of government to destroy them. Specifically, conservative paranoia over the possible reinstatement of the "fairness doctrine," a defunct policy requiring that broadcasters allow opposing points of view to be heard over the airwaves, has reached a fevered pitch. In September, George Will was warning his readers that, "[u]nless McCain is president, the government will reinstate the ... 'fairness doctrine.'" In October, The Wall Street Journal's editorial page chimed in, predicting that under the spooky-sounding "liberal supermajority," the fairness doctrine was "likely to be reimposed," with the goal being "to shut down talk radio and other voices of political opposition." And, two weeks before the election, the New York Post blasted: "Dems Get Set to Muzzle the Right."

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"Responses from the offices of most of the Democrats who have been pegged as fairness-doctrine proponents--Schumer, Dick Durbin, Dianne Feinstein, and others--have ranged from a firm denial that the issue is a priority at all to disbelief at finding themselves at the center of a manufactured controversy. "Somebody plucked this out of the clear blue sky," says the press secretary for New Mexico Senator Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who was questioned about the issue by a conservative radio-show host a few weeks ago. "This is a completely made- up issue." Senator Durbin's press secretary says that Durbin has "no plans, no language, no nothing. He was asked in a hallway last year, he gave his personal view"--that the American people were served well under the doctrine--"and it's all been blown out of proportion." In fact, as recently as last year, the House voted by an overwhelming three-to-one margin to temporarily prohibit the FCC from imposing the dead policy; 113 Democrats voted to support the move.

Meanwhile, the president-elect himself has said in no uncertain terms that he does "not support reimposing the fairness doctrine on broadcasters." Republican paranoia is nothing more than that.

"Democrats may scratch their heads over why this has lately become a right-wing obsession, but the paranoia is not without precedent. The prospect of being in the opposition often brings out the worst in conservatives--paranoia and self-pity. Plus, when the conservative coalition seems threatened, there's no better way to unify the party than scaring up liberal bogeymen."

In a constant and predictable way, the politics of Conservatives depend on identifying Evil Conspiracies, and they ignore the daily realities of actual problems the nation faces.

And they wonder why voters have rejected them??

Shopocalypse Now!

Economic turmoil whirls about the planet these days, and the best part of such dire times is that it offers a chance, for those who seek better days, to examine and hopefully improve the way we live.

So in the wake of news about how you did or did not shop on Black Friday and the rising and falling world economy, here's some information I've found which can, at least, challenge your way of thinking. That's the first step in identifying the habits and ideas which may lead to problems with worldwide impact of both positive and negative results.

A bonus can be found here too - since we are into the Christmas season, perhaps the info provided will lead you to experience a holiday that has meaning beyond the moment. Some readers will repulsed by the following, some may be inspired. My goal is simple - to encourage you to consider that now is the best time to Think about the way we live and work.

Your first video, then, is a short take on Consumerism:



The second video is from Reverend Billy and The Church of Stop Shopping, who uses satire and public performance to jolt you from assumption and into thought. A new documentary about the Reverend and his Crusade, "What Would Jesus Buy?", is now in theaters. The trailer for the movie is here.

Amy Goodman talked this weekend with the good Reverend -



Part 2 is here and Part 3 here.

I have many friends who work for big corporations and who work very hard to provide for themselves and their family. And they are surely not bad people. Providing for our needs has never been simple, but too often we pay dearly for our choices. Here's a Q and A with Reverend Billy which you'll want to read. As he says:

"The key fundamentalist church in this country is not the church of Jimmy Swaggart, the key fundamentalist church is the church of spacey consumption, the fundamentalist church of transnational chain stores, transnational product life, the media and the rest of it. That's what really leaves us with a very set kind of set of behaviors and set of gestures and set of language -- meaning, language meaning -- and it's all done in the name of freedom and democracy, but that's just an advertising campaign."

Finally for your consideration, an artist named Chris Jordan created a project with some astonishing imagery as he photographs what we waste and what we use, from plastic bottles to paper to cell phones. Check out the results here.

Camera Obscura: Batman Dead?; Swedish Vampire Children; 4th Futurama Movie News

I do take much pleasure in writing about movies -- as this holiday-shortened week offers numerous Camera Obscura posts on this humble and lovable blog. Let's get rolling.

Batman is dead. Well, really Bruce Wayne is dead.

Or is he? Killed off in the comic book format this month by writer Grant Morrison, the fanboys all wonder if Bruce is indeed gone or just hiding out after he has learned his father is not dead after all.

Speaking of comic books, the upcoming movie version of the 80's cult hit "The Watchmen" truly looks promising. Also just released, heaps of action figures based on the characters from the comic (which are really characters based on old comic book characters) are ready for you. Dr. Manhattan is impressive, but discriminating fans all want the one for Rorschach.


Best Action Figure of 2008, however, goes to the brand new Barbie version of Tippi Hedren in "The Birds". Yes, all children love their Hitchcock action figures ... and if no one is making an all-Hitchcock-action-figure collection then they really should - Norman Bates is sort of obvious here, but me, I'd like the two action sets for "North By Northwest", which should be the Crop Duster and Field Playset and the Mount Rushmore Action Scene. (HT to Cinebeats for the news.)

A close second place Best Action Figure of '08 must go to the one of li'l backwards-spider-walking-down-the-stairs Regan from "The Exorcist".

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Last weekend movie audiences were all in a frenzy for "Twilight", but a new vampire movie which has been raking in awards at festivals around the world is the upcoming Swedish-made vampire film called "Let The Right One In". The movie is getting amazingly strong reviews.

Like "Twilight", this tale is based on a best-selling novel and is a sort of love story, but mostly a rather poetic look at kids who are trapped in a world where safety seems to be a luxury. The lead character is 12-year-old Oskar, a frequent victim of bullies young and old. But one day a little girl named Eli moves into his neighborhood, and they become fast friends. She too is a 12-year-old ... except she has been 12 for some 200 years and she is a vampire. And she really, really gets angry if you try to hurt Oskar.



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And since it is the gift-giving time of year and I've mentioned the dolls -- whoops!! action figures -- above, here is one more for the movie fan in your life -- a cookie jar design from the "Alien" movie series. Details here.



And finally, the 4th and final "Futurama" movie gets a release date and a title.

Camera Obscura: Beyonce as Etta James In 'Cadillac Records'

Just a quick mention here on the movie-filled Friday post (more movie news throughout the day because like you I am sorta busy today).

Recently hailed as one of the richest entertainers working today, singer Beyonce Knowles takes a big leap to play the legendary Etta James in the upcoming December release "Cadillac Records", which charts the real story of Chess Records in Chicago in the late 1950s and through the 1960s. The movie also has Mos Def as Chuck Berry, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Adrien Brody as Leonard Chess.

Here's the trailer for the movie:



An extended clip from the movie with Etta/Beyonce in the recording studio. Chess had many of the great musicians of the day - from Benny Goodman to Chuck Berry. The movie is sure to be a somewhat formula Hollywood take on music and fame and corrupt business and morally dubious artists. Longtime TV director Darnell Martin wrote and directed this feature.

And let's be honest -- the blues-rich voice of Etta is not the silky style of Beyonce, but who else would bring in the crowds to the movie theaters?

Come back thru the day, I've got some more movie news you do not want to miss.

Thanksgiving In Space and On Earth

Times are a bit lean here at the Compound this fall, but not so lean to not be thankful as required by the upcoming National Holiday. I do my best to comply with such National policy.

If you live in the United States, you have much to be thankful for which the rest of the human folk on this planet still yearn to grasp for even a moment. Not to say that folks inside this nation live on unicorns and rainbows on the Eternal Happy Good Time Happy Show. Real suffering, real pain, is never as distant as we might imagine. But for the most part, just being an American puts us in a luxuriant lifestyle.

I do try and remind myself daily of how well off I am -- a tasty, hot cup of coffee in the morning, or at any time I wish to have it, is a fine and wonderful thing. An oddity of life is that sometimes not having that good cup of coffee can make me thankful for the times when I do have it. And really, I'm hardly into the massive list of good things in my life - I'm talking a beverage here. Still, for centuries past, humans had to travel half the world and back just to get one. So I try and remember that. Makes that coffee taste mighty fine.

It is easy indeed to consider our lives to be mired in hellish discontent. The trappings of our world bellow at each of us to Be or Do or Change or Act or Buy or Sell or Own or Dispose of thousands upon thousands of Somethings. And all those urges to fiddle around with our Life's Personal Settings are actually a good sign, something which shows us that we can perceive we are Here and we might do better if we were There.

Here is a small but significant item for which I am thankful on this pre-holiday day: I am glad I am not waiting for the Urine Recycler Machine to start working properly. It's the folks floating above the planet on the International Space Station waiting for that.

While I marvel still at the ISS and the efforts of human space travel, I would hate to have to be told things like:

"An attempt by astronauts to repair a new water recycler designed to convert urine into drinkable water met with mixed results Sunday aboard the International Space Station.

"A separate sweat and wastewater processor has been working more or less as expected."

When it comes to my urine and waste processing turning into drinking water, "working more or less as expected" is really not so good. Even if I heard "Hey! It works great!" I would still eye that serving of drinking water with some concern.

They also have to maintain and ensure the operations of a $250 million dollar life support system. I have to maintain my own (as do you) but it does not cost that much. (Costs may rise quickly as the current recession continues into 2009.)

Here is my hope and plan for this Thanksgiving Day 2008 - to travel safely so I can share a good meal with some of my family and friends. I truly wish each of you could experience some of that shared goodness too.

Scandal as Media Growth Industry

"Scandal is our growth industry. ... scandals metastasize, ramify, self-replicate, clogging the cable news shows and the blogosphere and the bookstores. The titillating story that never ends, the pundit gabfest that never ceases, the gift that never stops giving ..."

That's from Mark Danner's Sunday essay in the NY Review of Books. He rips the tattered mythology of the Relentless, Idealistic Journalist and the Political Idealist as he tries to instead stitch together the various parts and players which make up (in his mind) The Monster among us.

"However tenaciously the mythmakers of our society—and especially journalists, who are after all the stars of this idealized drama—cling to this happy scenario, recent history has not been kind to it. For it rests on an image of journalists and journalism that has become, to put it charitably, outdated. Journalists as the self-abnegating seekers after truth, defenders of society's conscience: had this happy description ever been true, even during Watergate, it now bears little resemblance to the scandal-mongering world of cable news shows and gabfests, for which scandal, the gaudier the better, provides the vast and complicated narratives that are the lifeblood of the twenty-four-hour news cycles. As the first Persian Gulf War begot CNN so did Monica Lewinsky's pouty lips beget Fox News."

Full essay here.

I don't think I can buy into the idea that Scandal has devolved into Commercial Product due to failures in reporting or news, or their need to earn money, or loss of some guiding abilities. The public domain has always held Scandal in high regard - as both diverting entertainment and morality play. Bread and circuses have often kept Power safe. So said the 2nd century writer Juvenal in his "Satire X":

"Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; or the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions -- everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."

Perhaps the 'growth industry' arises most from the Jabbering Fear Fest on talk radio, from ex-felon G. Gordon Liddy to Rush Limbaugh to Michell Malkin. Manufacturing "outrage" is far more valuable than scandal, since outrage can exist with no evidence or cause other than a simple visceral dislike.

Camera Obscura: "Twilight" Heat and Other Hot Vampire Tales

There are several great things about the movie "Twilight" opening to massive, adoring crowds this weekend. It's making vamp tales hot again and I love vamp tales; it is based on already best-selling books which kids are snarfing down like Hot-Pockets and anything that gets someone hot for reading is a fine thing; and it also is bringing more attention to HBO's excellent vamp series, "True Blood", also based on a series of novels, and which has it's series finale on Sunday night.

Naturally, as East Tennessee's Finest Film Critic, I told you back this summer how hot and fantastically popular both "Twilight" and "True Blood" would become after the huge frenzy for both were unveiled at the San Diego Comic Con. Trust me to always be On Point and Always Right. Especially when it comes to horror movies.

Now where was I?

If you wish to be hip, call the fans of "Twilight" Twihards. 'Cause that's what they are calling themselves (though I am fond of the term Twerds myself). I told Newscoma I was not going to see the movie this weekend, as being an old man in a theatre full of squeally girls could likely get me arrested or something. I'll wait a bit. What strikes me a bit odd about the movie plot is that the tempestuous love story between high school gal Bella (is her last name Lugosi?) and her new 107-year-old vamp teen boyfriend Edward is -- they don't give in to their carnal temptations. Abstinence is a kind of foreplay, and Abstinence is more easily sold if it's hot and once you give in to temptation, well, the heat... dissipates ... and then gets all hot again.

Let's face it America: Teens is tempted in today's modern now-a-go-go-world. But nothing, not even Capital S Sex, teases them like the chance to spend money - on books, t-shirts, movies, hand-held devices (!!), or anything they desire and angst about. Been that was for a while, actually. And it's good for the Economy.

Angst about Sex, Aging, Adulthood, Childhood, Love, Death and What It All Means can make any Teen say, like, OMG!


And such concerns have always been at the heart of the Vampire Lore. From the pre-Dracula days to the Movie-Age Vampire and the Anne Rice Vampire Romantics to the Buffy The Vamp Slayer days - the Big Issue is whether or not anyone can contain or control the raging storms of Life and Death. And is it more fun to finally give in to the steaming heat of passion or to enter a stage of Eternal Teasing, forever on the edge of Gratification?

(That's also a sort of Economic question, too ... or am I the only one who finds words like "Lay-Away" and "Interest Payment" slightly erotic? I am? Then never mind.)

Let's explore the Giving Into vs Holding Off Gratification a bit here. For instance, "True Blood", running now on HBO (and they are working on season 2 already, yay!!). Once I got hooked on the story in the first episode, I encountered many folks who said they would wait until the series comes out on DVD and watch them all in one, guilty, heady rush. But for me, I love a TV show which hooks me and then I have to wait before I get the next fix.

I start yearning for the next episode in the waning minutes of the one I'm watching, and I start pondering on what will happen next, what turns and events await. I know there is a massive trend to grab a couple of seasons of some TV show on DVD and watch them all at once, but what makes me happy is a show I have to wait for, which arrives is brief packages and is gone and I am back to waiting again. I have not read any of the 7 "True Blood" books, and I won't as long as the series is on. I don't want to know it all in one go, I like waiting for it. (Oh my that sounds kinky. And "True Blood" is pretty kinky, so just roll with the metaphors people, we are talking fiction here.)

While you can have much fun getting that TV show in one gulp, it is not the same as being part of the audience who has been captivated slowly over time and then all arriving together at that shared moment of the Series Finale.

If you are worried about all this Twihard Heat and the Teen Frenzy, relax. The young lovers don't give into temptation in the first movie, or book .... that may arrive later, so maybe they'll be older when It Happens.

Next up on the Vampire Hot Movie will be "Jennifer's Body", from "Juno" writer Diablo Cody. She says her teen girl tale, starring the "Transformers" hotty Megan Fox, is a sort of horror/vampire/sci-fi/comedy/cultural metaphor:

"I am directly influenced by girls I have known.Girls who treated life as a race, and if there was someone or something they wanted, they would stab you in the back. It's a movie about hunger. A lot of teenage girls are starving themselves and a lot of them are psychologically hungry, because they are so misunderstood."


Postscript: Any talk about Hot Vampires has to include the ever-popular Vampirella, so a link and a picture of this 1960s-era sex symbol.

Evil Doll Reported In East TN

A Mattel-made doll "praises Islam" and even hails Satan - according to some parents in East Tennessee.

The "Little Mommy Cuddle & Coo" doll is shown in a video from the Greeneville Sun uttering gibberish, which, to some ears, sounds like it is saying "Islam is the light." Creepy video link with a cameraman roaming the aisles of a Wal-Mart and making the dolls "talk" is right here. NOTE: My good friend Sande noted this morning the Sun had taken down their video and I wonder if they were threatened with a loss of Wal-Mart advertising? Maybe Satan stole the video!!! Anyway, there are about 20 videos, more every day, of the evil doll on YouTube - link here.

The story in the newspaper adds other parental fears and Mattel's response that the only scripted word on the doll's sound file is "mama" and that all else is just nonsensical syllables.

Maybe Mattel just recorded some audio from playing an old Led Zeppelin album backwards and loaded it into the doll. Or maybe they have a nefarious plot to destroy the world.

Tuition Increase Up 24% or More

A follow-up to yesterday's post on the ripoff hitting Tennessee colleges from the RIAA -- costing taxpayers millions in college funds and making the multi-billion dollar earnings of the RIAA go ever-higher.

Higher education costs, which have seen increases every year for most of the last ten years, is set to go even higher. Two scenarios are being offered:

"When the Tennessee Higher Education Commission meets today in anticipation of next week's budget hearing with Gov. Phil Bredesen, administrators will see models of university tuition increases for 2009-10 ranging from 10 percent with no state funding change to 24 percent with a 15 percent cut.

Community college tuition increases would range between 10 percent and 29 percent.

Those increases would bring schools level with the current year's budget, taking into account inflation and enrollment changes. They would not reflect any other cuts made by schools to offset state funding decreases.

The clue phone is ringing for the state legislature and the governor and no one is bothering to answer.