Moonlighting

When I started classes at University of Maryland, College Park, in fall 1986, I noticed a remarkable thing.  For the first time since January 1979, I was finally able to see new TV shows as they aired.  Since moving to Paris way back then, all I could see were summer re-runs or long-stale shows – “Mork and Mindy” or the AFN TV shows, with the big exception of the 1984 Olympics in L.A., which were obviously live.  One of the shows I did watch on my small TV in Hagerstown Hall, or the large TV in the common area of my 7^th floor dorm hall, was “Moonlighting”.  I can’t say I caught every episode or watched it diligently (I still can’t remember what night of the week it was on) but it was one of the few shows I did watch.

 Now, thanks to the marvel of DVDs, I finished watching all five seasons of the show, from start to finish.  It originally ran from 1985 to 1989, covering the second half of the 1980s.  This was Bruce Willis’ major beginning in show business, although “Die Hard” (the first movie) was done before the series ended.

 Premise.  Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is a retired model who wakes up one day to discover that her accountant embezzled practically all of her money and fled to South America.  Instead of being able to live off her accumulated wealth, she now has to work for a living – again.  She’s too old to work as a model, but her lawyer lets her know about one business she owns, a detective agency, which is nothing more than a passive loss generator to shield her investment income from tax liability.  The agency had hired a full staff of lazy bums whose job it is to siphon money and pretend to work.  Now she has to actually earn an income from this place, which she renamed “Blue Moon”.

 The guy running this is David Addison (Bruce Willis).  Given that his erstwhile task was pretending to work, Maddie’s initial impression of him is negative, and his ne’er-do-well attitude simply confirms her suspicion that he’s an irresponsible loser.  “Love at First Hate” rears its ugly head once again:  eventually his charm gets under her skin.  He’s actually not a bad private detective (Willis himself had worked as one in real life prior to this acting role) and together they solve a whole bunch of colorful mysteries while bickering non-stop.  They’re not particularly memorable, and even the “private eye plot twists” are common enough to be recognized fairly soon and often.  

 The real meat of the show is the chemistry and mutual antagonism between David and Maddie.  It’s very much Apollo (reason and logic – Maddie) vs. Dionysus (love and random chance – David).  But the clashing and inconsistent personalities, even disagreeing on which cases to accept, manage to complement each other when it comes time to actually solve cases.  The humor is also irreverent; Willis and Shepherd sometimes talk to the audience, and a few times the camera actually pans out to the set.

 They’re assisted by Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) the shy receptionist who answers the phone with an overlong rhyme, and (introduced in later seasons, winding up as a romantic partner to Agnes) Bert Viola (Curtis Armstrong, probably best known as “Booger” from the “Revenge of the Nerds” trilogy).  These two assume greater importance in season 4, when Maddie runs off to Chicago to see her parents because she’s pregnant and has no clue what to do about it.

 By season 5 the show had “jumped the shark” and run out of steam.  After having chosen David over Sam (Mark Harmon) then married Walter Bishop – and getting a rapid annulment of their Vegas marriage – Maddie STILL can’t make up her mind about David, who then has a brief affair with Maddie’s cousin (Virginia Masden).  This is also despite Maddie’s immense jealousy of Terri (Brooke Adams), a single pregnant mother who David assists in her pregnancy while Maddie is hiding in Chicago.  Rhett and Scarlett married, Han and Leia marry, but these two?  NO!  Enough already, pull the plug:  which they did.

 Notable episodes.  My favorite was the “Taming of the Shrew” adaptation.  I’d cite the “Honeymooners” homage, except that I’m not a big “Honeymooners” fan.  Another was the precursor to “Look Who’s Talking” (the movie in which Willis acts as the voice of a baby), sure enough Willis plays the baby in Maddie’s womb.  Though since the baby was Sam’s....

 I’d invite anyone with a nostalgia for ‘80s TV to watch, as not only were the shows fun and entertaining (if a little frustrating towards the end when David and Maddie STILL don’t hook up conclusively) but you can recognize a fair amount of other actors and actresses and even some cameos.  

Hurricanes

I just got back from NYC/New Jersey, which is still suffering the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy.  Power, gas, and Internet porn are all severely restricted.  Fortunately the DC area looks to have escaped any significant damage, and the gas stations are running normal.

 I think of Texas, Louisiana, and Florida as the main targets of hurricanes.  Come to think of it, when it comes to natural disasters, the US gets almost all of them.  Volcanos?  Yep, Mt. St.Helen’s in Washington State.  Earthquakes?  California.  Tornados?  The Midwest.  Floods?  The Mississippi flooded back in the 90’s.  Blizzards?  Mainly the East Coast, plus Chicago and Buffalo.  About the only one we don’t get are tsunamis.  Brazil, on the other hand, gets none of these (least of all blizzards!). 

 Back in 1988, when I was taking summer classes at the University of Maryland, we had a huge storm.  It knocked over trees and knocked out the power in College Park, although UMCP itself did not lose power.  As nasty as it was, suitemate Jeff, from Houston, Texas, claimed, “this was nothing compared to a hurricane.”

 I recall a weather channel documentary about “storm chasers”, these high-flying bombers which fly above the hurricanes and down into the eye.  The eye is truly bizarre, a round area of complete calm inside the swirling maelstrom of nature’s violence. 

 Although several hurricanes have come by the East Coast a few times, I’ve never been directly in the path of one, nor have I suffered any property damage, injuries, or losses of loved ones due to these storms.  I count myself lucky in that respect. 

 Katrina was the worst recent hurricane.  New Orleans is still trying to recover from it.  Galveston, Texas, was hit in 1900 and never recovered.  Sandy swiped by NYC and headed northwest, then circled up northeast, up around NYC, almost dancing around the Big Apple like one of those Mexican hat dances, Sandy swishing her skirt up left and right as she circled the Empire State Sombrero.  I see almost NO coverage of the hurricane’s impact on Philadelphia, which arguably was directly targeted by the hurricane – outside of Philly news coverage, which obviously focuses on that city.  But on Wednesday, the only NJ Transit buses running were in Camden!  Go figure.  NYC was hurt worse from the glancing blow of Sandy than Philly was head-on.  The PA death toll is 1/3 the NJ/NY toll.  I’m getting the big impression here that “national news coverage” pays too much attention to NYC and ignores everyone outside the NYC metro area as inconsequential.  World Series coverage dropped dramatically once the Yankees were knocked out.   Who won?  Oh, the San Francisco Giants.  Again.  (Yawn).

 Inevitably it’s impossible to completely protect ourselves from hurricanes, but New York’s recent problems suggest that a lot more can be done – and should be done - to reduce the effects.  Look at how little damage earthquakes do these days to L.A., now that they’ve re-engineered their buildings.  An earthquake hits L.A. and the death toll is negligible relative to the strength of the quake itself.  Over in Iran or Armenia a similar sized quake kills thousands of people.  Someone needs to study the weak, choke points here and address them.  Clearly Hurricane Sandy will not be the last one we’ll face.

 Finally, I couldn’t resist posting that pic of Nana Gouvea, the Brazilian model who tastelessly posed in front of pictures of hurricane damage, inspiring a spoof picture of her in front of another disaster, Ned Stark’s imminent decapitation in “Game of Thrones”.  Enjoy.

Grunge Revisited

Alice In Chains’ debut album Facelift came out in 1990; Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, Pearl Jam’s Ten, and Nirvana’s Nevermind all came out in 1991.  So it’s been over 20 years since grunge hit the US.  How are things today?

 Well, first off, I should backtrack and talk about two other bands.  The first is Mother Love Bone, the second is Temple of the Dog.

 My knowledge and understanding of grunge music was immensely improved by watching “Twenty”, which is Pearl Jam’s recent documentary (now that they’ve been around for 20 years).  If grunge music has a Syd Barrett, a whimsical, charismatic, inspired singer whose life was cut short by drugs, it’s Andrew Wood, the singer for Mother Love Bone.  Their only album, Apple, was released shortly after his death from a heroin overdose in 1990.  Chris Cornell talked about his death, saying that grunge’s “loss of innocence” wasn’t Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, it was Andrew Wood’s death in 1990.  After Woods died, the band broke up, but Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament recruited a surfer from California (Eddie Vedder) to form a new band….Pearl Jam.   Now that I’ve listened to Apple, I can say that it’s (A) decent music worth listening to in its own right, and (B) not similar enough to Pearl Jam that anyone should listen to it expecting to hear an early version of that band.  

 Shortly after Wood died, Chris Cornell put together a band to make a tribute album to Wood called Temple of the Dog.  They released one album.  I recall “Hunger Strike” playing nonstop on the radio, the video – featuring Eddie Vedder (the only song he’s on) – also playing incessantly.  The rest of the album is sung by Cornell and has a slight funk-soul groove to it (very Glenn Hughes), similar to Mother Love Bone and aside from Cornell’s distinctive vocals, not very similar to Soundgarden.

 Pearl Jam.  Of the big 4, only this band has remained together continuously.  Singer Eddie Vedder neither overdosed on heroin (Layne Staley), shot himself (Kurt Cobain), nor did he disband the group (Chris Cornell). 

For some reason, PJ never really did it for me.  I have Ten, which I purchased long ago (probably a free CD from Columbia House) and Live on Ten Legs, their most recent live album.  Classic Rock magazine reviewed a recent show and proclaimed Pearl Jam the successor to the Grateful Dead as America’s premier jam band.  ???  No way, no how, nowhere close.  Phish are clearly that band.  About the only similarity between Pearl Jam and the Dead is that PJ share the Dead’s policy of playing a different set each night.  But Pearl Jam do not actually JAM (!!!).  The live versions of songs are only slightly longer than the studio versions, and they do not go off into 10-15 minute improvisations.  They are NOT a jam band.  I like a few songs (“Alive”, “Evenflow” and “Black”, all from Ten) but this band is just too boring for my liking.   Hardly surprisingly, I have never seen them live, and Live on Ten Legs has not convinced me to see them now.

 Nirvana.  Only recently did I finally get, and listen to, Nevermind.  I was never a Nirvana fan and never saw them in concert.  Now having listened to all of Nevermind – the Deluxe edition with b-sides and unreleased material – I can say I’m still not a Nirvana fan.  Whereas Soundgarden and Alice in Chains – the two grunge bands I really do like – seem to take Black Sabbath as a foundation, Nirvana are more punk oriented and appear to take the Ramones as their basis.  The “deep cuts” from Nevermind, the non-single tracks, might as well be Green Day songs.  As far as I’m concerned, “Smells Like the Teen Spirit” has to remain Nirvana’s defining song, just as “Smoke on the Water” is for Deep Purple and “Stairway to Heaven” is for Led Zeppelin.  Whoever picked the singles from that album had a good ear, as they are all much better than the “deep cuts”.  My favorite is “In Bloom”, and among the non-singles, “Curmudgeon” has a nice Hawkwind (!) feel to it, and “Something in the Way” buried itself in my head and wouldn’t leave. 

            With Kurt Cobain’s suicide in April 1994, Nirvana went out of business.  Dave Grohl has kept the Foo Fighters going since then.  Heresy it may be, but I prefer to Foo Fighters to Nirvana – but not enough to see them in concert either.

 Soundgarden have reunited, and have a new album coming out in November, King Animal.  I missed the reunion tour, but did see them back in 1994 on the Superunknown tour.   Oddly, this band formed way back in 1984, and released their first album, Ultramega OK, in 1988 – two years before Apple.   I prefer the second album, Louder Than Love, to Badmotorfinger (album #3) which was the “breakout” album when grunge came to national attention. Arguably, Superunknown is their best album, which I won’t dispute.  The fifth album, Down on the Upside, was inevitably going to disappoint after its predecessor, and they broke up soon thereafter.  Only now have they reunited (not at Cinnabon).   I did not pay any attention to Audioslave, Chris Cornell’s band with Tom Morello of Rage Against The Machine, nor to any of Cornell’s solo material. 

 Alice In Chains are also back together, with a new singer, William DuVall, who looks nothing at all like Layne Staley, but sounds exactly like him.  I recently saw them on their Black Gives Way to Blue tour (with the Deftones and Mastodon opening) – I got up way up front near the stage, at the Patriot Center.  On stage, DuVall has a kind of James Brown thing going, but less of a blatant homage or ripoff than Bruno Mars.  Prior to that, the last times I had seen AIC was back in 1991 – both times as an opening act:  Clash of the Titans (Anthrax, Megadeth and Slayer), and Van Halen’s F.U.C.K. tour.  At both of those shows I was way up in the bleachers and could barely see the band.  I mentioned earlier, and I’ll mention again: as far as I’m concerned ALL of AIC’s albums are excellent, as was Staley’s side project band Mad Season.

 Crossover.  The bands have shared some members, e.g. Jason Everman & Matt Cameron.  Both were in Soundgarden AND Pearl Jam.  Everman was also in Mind Funk, on their fantastic (!!!) album Dropped.  Mike McCready is in Pearl Jam, and was in both Temple of the Dog and Mad Season.    

The Gay Brain

I remarked earlier about homosexuals, and have come up with a theory on this.  I believe that gays have the cross-gender brain. 

 Anyone with any appreciable experience with the opposite sex knows that men and women think differently.  This is not cultural, but physiological.  In the womb, when our bodies form either penis & testicles or clitoris and ovaries, subtle changes are also taking place in our brains.  We end up with a male brain or a female brain. 

 Men tend to think in linear terms:  A therefore B therefore C, or 1 >> 2 >> 3.  Women think in non-linear terms:  A therefore 2 therefore Tuesday therefore purple.  What a man thinks follows from A is B; what a woman thinks follows from A is 2.  This is why men and women have so much trouble dealing with each other.  “Why doesn’t he know that M goes to cabbage?” cries a woman, whereas her husband says, “M goes to N, it’s logical…why can’t she figure that out?”

 The male brain is physiologically oriented to respond sexually to exposed breasts and vagina – the female anatomy.  The female brain is physiologically oriented to respond sexually to broad shoulders, strong arms, and even the penis.  Switch brains and you wind up with a man attracted to other men, or a woman attracted to other women.  However, there is at least one study that shows that straight women respond not merely to straight sex porn, but also gay porn.  Among men, only gay men respond to gay porn. 

 The gay man has a man’s body and a woman’s brain.  The lesbian has a woman’s body and a man’s brain.  This is why straight women LOVE to have gay male friends.  A man who thinks like a woman!  Brilliant!  And he won’t be offended if she doesn’t make a pass at him!  Even better.  Of course, this makes gay men a poor source of information on how straight men actually think.  What it’s like to pee standing up?  Ok, he can handle that.  What a straight man looks for in a woman?  Eh, not so much.  It’s funny, though – I don’t see straight men seeking advice on women from lesbians.  

 Note, it’s NOT genes.  Identical twins have a slightly higher chance of both being gay, but not much higher, and it’s not 100%.  On the other hand, if it’s due to hardwiring in the brain, it’s still fixed from birth and not something that can be changed with hormones, behavior therapy, or Elaine Benes.  To fix it you’d need an actual brain transplant (ideally trading with a lesbian). 

 As for bisexuals….  I can’t really say how they fit into my theory, which would be all-on or all-off (heterosexual or homosexual).  My own experience with the GLBS community is practically nil – “Modern Family” and not real gay friends.  Therefore, what I say in this regard may come off as uninformed.  These are just my own subjective impressions.

            I noted earlier that bisexuality among women is rarer than porn would have us believe.  “Bisexuals” seem less to be people truly ambivalent and neutral in their preferences, than either homosexuals occasionally engaging in straight sex for various reasons, or heterosexuals doing likewise, again for certain specific reasons.

Reasons such as:  suitable partners of the desired gender are not available (e.g. prison); or economic incentive (porn stars) or duress (heroin junkies).  

            In men, my impression is that bisexuals are really gay pretending to be bisexual because of some latent social, cultural (or possibly even physiological) confusion about their orientation.  These are homosexuals who occasionally dally in opposite-sex fun, but who mostly stick with their own team.  I’d call these “promiscuously bisexual.”

            Contrast this with what I call the “expediently bisexual”, (mostly) men who only engage in homosexual behavior when females are unavailable but are exclusively heterosexual when they do have access to women, the most common example being prison inmates.  Are they gays pretending to be straight in regular society?  Or just straight men with extremely low standards?   My guess is…the latter, with the promiscuously bisexual being homosexuals with low standards.  For all I know, maybe both groups contain individuals best described as “confused.”  But since I’m not bisexual – of either type – I may have to defer to true bisexuals on if and how their behavior fits into my “gay brain” theory.  I know my brain is straight.

Islam Revisited

Quite some time ago I posted a blog, “Boom-Boom for Boom-Boom”, in which I argued that the Muslim suicide bombers were actually simply selfish:  killing innocents so they could go to Heaven and get their 72 virgins.   Recently I read a book called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades, by Robert Spencer.  Like most of these “PIG” books, it takes a fairly strong viewpoint which is 180 degrees opposite what the Blue State people would have us believe, although it explains quite conveniently why some Muslims behave the way they do in much of the Middle East.

 First question, though.  If there is a God, surely there must be a Devil.  We’ll call him Satan.  From Abraham all the way up to John the Baptist, and then Jesus, God had sent a series of prophets down to Earth to tell us what He wanted us to do.  The biggie was Moses and his 10^th Commandments. 

 Where are Satan’s prophets?  Why didn’t he send anyone?  And does he, or did he, have a son (or daughter) to send down to us?  How would we know?  Would Satan’s prophet admit being from Satan?  Or would he claim to be from God?

 The reason this question comes up is because of the nature of the Koran, of Islam, and of Muhammed.  I was stunned to read Dante’s Inferno and see that Dante put Muhammed in Hell, as a fraud.  Presumably what he meant was that Muhammed claimed to be from God and led millions of people astray, away from God’s path.

C. S. Lewis, in The Last Battle (as the title indicates, it’s the last book in the Lion, Witch & Wardrobe series) suggests that the “God” of the Muslims, Tash, i.e. Allah, is really Satan.

For his part, Spencer brings up a number of important points, although he falls well short of Lewis’ conclusion.

1.   For all this talk of the Crusades, what apologists for angry Muslims leave out is that the Muslims invaded Christian Europe centuries before the Crusades, expressly to conquer and convert – or kill – the Christians.  I recall back in Paris we learned about Charles Martel, the French warrior who defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732 and sent them reeling back into Spain.  Moreover, the Crusades were a reaction to Muslims restricting access of Christians to Jerusalem and ambushing pilgrim caravans.  If US current foreign policy is a resurgence of the medieval Crusades, why do we form alliances with Muslim countries - including Saudi Arabia, which has implemented much of the Sharia in its own law?  Why didn’t we ban Islam from Iraq after defeating Saddam Hussein or from Afghanistan after defeating the Taliban?  Why is Turkey in NATO?   The simple answer is that the Crusades are a useful rallying cry to elicit anger among Muslims against the Western, Christian countries, but it has absolutely nothing to do with current US or NATO foreign policy towards the Middle East. 

 2.  The earlier portions of Koran which are more tolerant and lenient date from when Muhammed was in Mecca, which at that time was pagan and very unsympathetic to his views.  The later, more violent sections – which Muslim clerics consistently agree supersede the earlier sections – date from when Muhammed was in Medina, where he found a more cooperative crowd.  Whereas the Bible is the opposite: the Old Testament is the heavy-duty, violent part – e.g. Sodom & Gomorrah blasted out of existence, flood eradicates all but Noah and his family on the Ark, David leads armies against Philistines – and the New Testament gives us mellow, laid-back, tolerant Jesus.  Jesus was cool (“Peace be with you.”), Muhammed was extremely violent and intolerant (“join us or DIE!”).   Not only was Jesus a pacifist, if you read Ben-Hur (the 1959 movie doesn’t talk about this) you’ll understand that many of his followers hoped that Jesus would raise an army and throw the Romans out.  They were disappointed when he preached peace and allowed himself to be crucified.  He died for our sins.  Contrast that with Muhammed, who was essentially a warlord and general – a very successful one.  Granted, there are, and have been, bloodthirsty Christians invoking Jesus’ name to justify their atrocities, and there are peaceful, tolerant Muslims.  Even Dante recognized “virtuous pagans.”  But Jesus preached peace and love, Muhammed preached war and death.

 3.   According to the Koran, Muslims are not to make friends with “infidels” (nonbelievers), they can lie and kill them with impunity, and only three “fates” are open to unbelievers:  convert, pay tribute, or die.  We go from Jesus, who was extremely tolerant and pacifist, to “kill the nonbelievers.”  Practically everything in the Koran carries the death penalty, and anything goes so long as it advances the cause of Islam. 

            Spencer’s point is that the craziest, nastiest, most murderous behavior we see from Muslims in the world today is not an aberration but actually condoned and encouraged by the Koran and the Hadith (adjunct interpretations).  Suicide bombers are not defying, corrupting or perverting Islam, rather they are following its instructions, whereas the peaceful Muslims here at home are ignoring their marching orders from Muhammed and are not “true Muslims.”  But the world is full of Catholics (myself included) who don’t exactly obey all the Pope’s commands.  Most Americans claim to believe in God, but only a fraction of them actually go to church or actively follow any specific denomination.  The irony of Muslims pushing for Sharia in non-Muslim countries (e.g. Western Europe) is that you can probably find a very substantial number of Iranians – devout Shi’ite Muslims, no less - who would rather see an end to the theocracy in their country.  Again, Turkey gives us the example of a Muslim democracy which, while far from perfect, is also far from Iran (at least in nature, if not geographically). 

 4.  This recent video which caused the fuss in the Middle East and Libya – which I haven’t seen, by the way – supposedly accuses Muhammed of being a pedophile.  Yet it’s common knowledge that he married his favorite wife, Aisha, when she was 6, and consummated the marriage (i.e. took her virginity) at age 9.   To call the Koran misogynist would be a massive understatement.  Even Aisha herself complained that Muslim women have a rough time.

 5.  Then there’s this business of “Heaven”.  Muhammed describes it as a pleasure palace of unbelievable wealth and beauty, and of course the 72 virgins.  This sounds awesome, fantastic!  In fact, it sounds a little TOO awesome and fantastic.  “Kill all these people.  And when you die, you have unbelievable sex, we’re talking GROUP SEX.  Orgies for eternity.”  All these instructions, mind you, supposedly coming from the same God who sent His only son down to Earth to die for our sins.   

 6.  Again, Muhammed was essentially a warlord who conquered the Arabian peninsula in his lifetime (570-632 AD).  His “revelations” from Allah were mostly self-serving and arguably calculated to attract followers to his military cause.  At the time, Christian doctrine was that “Islam” was merely a sham designed to justify Muhammed’s military campaign.  Looking at it objectively, that appears to be pretty much right on the money.  Certainly if you’re an atheist you would be more inclined to believe this as well.

 Now, I do not believe that Muslims around the world honestly believe that they are praying to Satan, the Lord of Darkness, five times a day.  Nor do I believe that they consider Muhammed a prophet of evil, much less a simple fraudulent warlord.  Moreover, the more radical and bloodthirsty elements of Islam seem to register only with the poorest, most hopeless Muslims, in the poorest, most hopeless Muslim countries.  I don’t see rich Arab sheikhs blowing themselves up.  Likewise, with the 800 lb gorilla exception of the 19 9/11 hijackers, we don’t see Muslims in the US blowing themselves up.  The Onion ran a piece about an Al Qaeda cell in the US which was postponing its jihad until after its free Netflix subscription ran out, or the season of “Heroes” ended, as they’d just bought a new plasma screen TV (FARS seems to have missed that one).  Ahmed in the US with a wife and kids and a decent job doesn’t seem particularly inclined to strap explosives to himself and blow up a bunch of infidels; he’s more inclined to enjoy the good life in the US and otherwise remain a devout Muslim, praying to Mecca, eating Halal food, and going to the mosque on Friday.   But Ahmed in Gaza, a 16 year old boy too shy to talk to girls and with no job prospects, is probably more inclined to listen to the local madrasa cleric and trade a life of poverty and involuntary celibacy for an afterlife of untold riches and nonstop orgies. 

 To finish off with C.S. Lewis again, in The Last Battle, Aslan told the children that while Tash may be Satan, the situation is a bit more complex than that.  “Good works done in the name of Tash are in fact done in my name, and evil works done in my name are in fact done for Tash.”  He recognized that many of the Calormenes (his fantasy equivalent of the Muslims) were in fact virtuous, whereas some Narnians (Europeans) were evil and sinful.   Viewed that way, we could consider Muslims who mind their own business and live peaceful, decent lives just as favorably as we do fellow Christians who behave the same way, regardless of what some angry imam in Iran – chastising such Muslims as backsliders, non-devout, complacent, corrupt, etc. for interacting favorably with non-Muslims and abandoning the cause of advancing Islam and jihad – may bark and bray about from Tehran or wherever else he might be.  

Judge Dredd

Recently I had the pleasure to see the new film, “Dredd”, a second attempt to put the famous (?) British cartoon character Judge Dredd onto the big screen.  The prior attempt from 1995 was fairly disappointing.  This time around they got it right.

 2000 AD Comic.  Despite taking place in the USA in the 22^nd century, the cartoon is British.  It began in 1977.  One thing I learned living overseas is that British comic books follow a different format than American ones.  The Americans (DC, Marvel) tend to focus on a specific character or team (X-Men, Avengers) throughout the entire issue.  The British ones seem to offer a variety of different comics in the same book. 

            An Irish friend of mine back in 6^th grade turned me on to Beano, which included – among others – “Dennis the Menace”.  This DtM was completely different than the US variety by Hank Ketcham (both of which started in 1951, by the way).  The British kid had black hair, a striped sweater, and was malicious and mean-spirited, whereas the American was simply a boy being a boy, much to Mr. Wilson’s annoyance but far from being a nasty brat. 

            2000 AD was darker, more adult, closer to “Heavy Metal” though without the provocative cheesecake.  Its top cartoon was Judge Dredd, but this was by no means the only one.  My buddy Myles really liked Strontium Dog, but I really didn’t enjoy any of Dredd’s competitors in 2000 AD.

 Judge Dredd.   By the 22^nd century, urban sprawl on the east coast of the US has reached the point where the entire coast, from Florida to Maine, as far west as the Appalachians (not quite the Mississippi) has become one giant, continuous city, Mega City One.  There is a west coast version, and the vast distance between them is a nuclear wasteland, the Cursed Earth, home to mutants and outcasts.  Much of MC1 is “blocks”, huge apartment buildings with schools, hospitals, malls, and over 70k to 100k people each.  The blocks are so self-sufficient that many citizens can live their entire lives without ever leaving their blocks.  They also develop an intense loyalty to their block, which was exploited by the Sov (USSR) judges in a series called “Block Mania.” 

            Mega City One is patrolled by a force of judges.  These are highly trained and heavily armed police officers who have authority not merely to arrest, but also to try suspects on the spot and sentence them, possibly execute them if appropriate.  As ominous as this sounds, the judges’ policy is to arrest suspects whenever possible, and “summary executions” per se are rare, more like simple deaths in combat; the survivors are brought back to “iso-cubes” (incarceration) or banished to the Cursed Earth.  With the notable exception of Judge Cal, the judges rarely abuse their immense discretion and authority and consistently remain conscientiously devoted to enforcing the law, none more than Judge Dredd himself.

            Dredd himself is not even the chief judge – a position he consistently declines, as he prefers to remain “on the street” – but merely the most feared and respected.  He’s tough but fair, completely incorruptible (and there are corrupt judges) and as hard on his fellow judges as he is on perps (perpetrators, i.e. crooks).  Similar to Beetle Bailey, he never takes off his helmet – even at home – and we never see his upper face or his eyes.  He has no GF (or BF), no wife, no friends, no social life, no home life, no hobbies or interests. Dredd is essentially “on duty” 24/7 and doesn’t really have an “off switch”. That’s part of his charm.   

            His weapon – as that of all judges - is a multi-purpose blaster, the Lawgiver, which fires bullets, high explosives, or incendiaries, and is coded to his fingerprints.  As Jay discovers in “Dredd”, bad things happen to a perp foolish enough to try to use a judge’s blaster himself.  Dredd also has a beefed up combat bike, the Law Master, with cannons, which can drive itself if necessary.

 Baddies.  Most of the time he faces small-time crooks, who he dispatches without much difficulty.  Because robots have taken most of the jobs in Mega City One, ordinary citizens are unemployed and bored, and typically turn to crime simply by default.  Of all of Judge Dredd’s opponents, the most devious and dangerous were Judge Caligula (essentially based on the real Emperor Caligula) and Judge Death, an otherworldly judge who “judgessss” Mega City One’s entire living population as guilty of the crime of life.  I’m glad to hear that if the 2012 film succeeds in developing second sequel, that story line of the third film is tentatively planned to include Judge Death and his fellow Dark Judges.  Don't get your hopes up, though: Karl Urban says that as yet (2020), there are no plans for a follow-up.  Damn.

 Dredd as Fascist.  There is some issue or question as to whether Dredd is a fascist, or could be considered a fascist.  Dredd himself has no apparent politics and simply enforces the law.  Mega City One is not run by the judges themselves, as most cities it has a popularly elected mayor.  In fact, the whole Judge Caligula story could be interpreted as a strong counterindication, because when Cal takes over and turns the city into a dictatorship, Dredd and the other mainstream judges wind up in a guerilla war fighting Cal (and his Klegg hound mercenary enforcers) from the sewers.  Of course, what really puts the judges over the top is Cal’s plan to literally execute everyone in the city (!!!).  But it’s clear that even before that the judges had a problem with Cal’s administration.  The judges are conscientious about enforcing the law, not making it, but at some point they feel an obligation to make sure the law they’re enforcing is valid and legitimate, and Dredd is no different in this respect.

            It is clear that when enforcing the law, Dredd has almost no pity, sympathy, or compassion.  He can be fairly heartless and cruel about doing his job.  But to call such a law enforcement officer fascist, per se, goes a bit too far. 

 There have been two major attempts to bring Dredd to the big screen.

 1995 film with Sylvester Stallone as “Judge Dredd”.   I can’t say this one sucks.  Someone knew of the comics, because Rico Dredd (Armand Assante), the Angel Gang, and Fergie (Rob Schneider) were actual characters in the comic.  “Disappointing” is probably a more accurate description.  The biggest problem is that Stallone, as Dredd, took off his helmet.  A big no-no.  The people who made this didn’t bother trying hard enough to remain faithful, and despite the authentic elements of the story, it looked more like an unofficial but de-facto sequel to “Demolition Man” (1993).  The film had a $90 million budget, and while it recouped its investment worldwide eventually, it tanked in the US.

 2012 film with Karl Urban as Judge “Dredd”.  Fortunately someone took another stab at this, and this time around the results are far more worthwhile.  Original Dredd creator John Wagner, who (hardly surprisingly) didn’t like the 1995 film, seems to like this version.   Karl Urban was excellent as Eomer in “Lord of the Rings”, suitably dark and cynical as the young Dr. Bones in the Star Trek prequel, Bruce Willis’ CIA nemesis Cooper in “RED”, the Russian assassin in “The Bourne Supremacy”, and here he keeps the helmet on for the entire film and pretty much spits out his lines.  He makes Clint Eastwood sound like Richard Simmons. 

            Dredd and Psi-Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) investigate a murder in the Peach Tree block tower.  It turns out they’ve stumbled upon a major drug gang.  The ruthless leader is a former prostitute, “Ma-Ma” (Lena Headey, probably better known as Cersei Lannister, the evil queen in “Game of Thrones” – scarcely recognizable here) who has not only effectively taken over the entire block tower, but also controls the city’s drug market for “Slo Mo”, a crystal meth-type drug which slows everything down considerably (excellent special effects).  Too bad “Heisenberg” and Jesse are absent.  Dredd and Anderson capture one of the killers, but Ma-Ma puts the building on lock-down and traps them inside.  Who is trapped in with who, however – Dredd then takes on Ma-Ma’s gang army virtually single-handedly.  Several teams of baddies, a brutal salvo from no less than 3 Gatling cannon, and a quartet of corrupt judges, all fail to dispatch Mega City One’s top bad-ass judge.               Ultraviolent?  You bet.  Sink your teeth into this and enjoy.  JUDGE DREDD has finally left the pages of “2000 AD” and conquered our movie screens. 

Rocky Horror Picture Show

I suppose it’s appropriate to follow up the last blog, RennFair, which concerned a mass of strange people dressed extravagantly odd, with this one – about at least one cross-dresser. Last weekend I went into Manhattan and saw this again for the second time, the first being back at College Park, Maryland, during college.  Both shows were at midnight.

 Movie.  Essentially it’s a musical movie for which the audience tends to participate rather extravagantly. 

Plot: a couple, Brad and Janet (Barry Bostwick and Susan Sarandon) find themselves seeking assistance at a dark and stormy castle when their car breaks down.  The castle is inhabited by a variety of freaks, the leader of whom is a mad scientist, Dr. Frank-n-Furter (hereinafter, “FnF”), played by Tim Curry…as a transvestite. “Transsexual” seems inapplicable as he seems 100% male; “bisexual” sounds more appropriate, but escapes the colorful alliteration. 

            They do a dance called the “Time Warp”; FnF seduces not only Janet but also Brad; Eddie (Meat Loaf) breaks in on a motorcycle and FnF kills him; FnF brings a handsome monster to life (Rocky) who ends up hooking up with Janet, much to FnF’s anger and jealousy; Eddie’s uncle, Dr. Scott, a wheelchair-bound scientist (not quite mad) arrives; FnF turns everyone into a statue with a “Medusa” ray; all of them come back to life in lingerie; and finally Riff-Raff and his sister/GF Magenta reveal they are actually aliens, and after defeating FnF and evicting everyone, take the castle into space back to their home planet, leaving Brad, Janet, and Dr Scott alive amidst the ruins.  The movie is interrupted several times by narration by Charles Grey, who we recognize as Blofeld from several James Bond films.  There is actually very little nudity, mostly Rocky’s beefcake and some modest cheesecake from Janet.  The music sounds like Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell album, poppy and not particularly memorable.

 Audience Participation.  The film did so-so on its original theatrical release in 1975, and was brought back for midnight movie showings in 1976, starting at the Waverly Theater in New York City; it’s still there, now called the IFC Center down on 3^rd St. & 6^th Ave. in Greenwich Village, but nowadays RHPS is based at the Clearview’s Chelsea on West 23^rd Street.  Several different people claim credit for starting this “shout at the movie” business.  The most common elements are:

1.         Audience members dress up as movie characters (Brad, Janet, FnF, Riff-Raff, Magenta, Columbia, Eddie, Dr. Scott, Rocky) and pretend to follow along.   At the NYC show, every character was represented, but FnF was done by a woman (!).  The degree to which these people succeed at emulating the cast seems variable at best.  At NYC I’d give “FnF” an A for effort (despite being a ringer – a woman portraying a male transvestite..tres “Victor Victoria”!), with “Dr. Scott” being close to dead-on.  “Riff-Raff” was not bald (another audience member had the right wig), “Columbia” and “Magenta” were OK, “Rocky” was so-so, and “Brad” was so geeky that he made Barry Bostwick look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.  The “Janet” was actually hotter than Susan Sarandon. 

2.         The audience throws rice at the wedding at the beginning

3.         The audience covers their heads with newspapers as Brad and Janet approach the castle in the rain

4.         The audience shouts “Slut” when Janet first appears and “Asshole” at Brad

5.         Anyone there for the first time is emphatically denounced as a “virgin”

6.         Toilet paper is thrown as Dr. Scott enters the lab

7.         Cards are thrown when FnF sings “cards for sorrow, cards for pain”.

 Remarkably, I found that the College Park crowd was far more in tune with these standard elements than the NYC crowd, but the NYC crowd had more complete coverage of the “cast”.  The CP crowd was more conventional in the callbacks, whereas the NYC crowd was pretty much just shouting nonstop, the same three jerks who wouldn’t SHUT UP.  In other words, the NYC crowd felt that since it was NYC, whatever they did was “Rocky Horror”, vs. the College Park crowd felt like faithfully following a tradition someone else had established. 

 Even earlier than College Park, I saw the movie “Fame” on a school trip to Italy.  There’s a scene in the movie where the characters go to RHPS and essentially “let down their hair.”  Sure enough, I recognized many of the College Park audience from the “introvert dorm” (Hagerstown Hall).  Likewise, the NYC crowd was somewhat charming (acting out characters) and downright annoying (ad-libbed callbacks from those three jerks).     

 To borrow from Dave, “have I mentioned how much I hate these people…?”