Meanwhile, in the National Culture

Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff sign with TNA - baltimoresun.com

I'm completely comfortable saying this is the biggest Pro Wrestling news since....I dunno. Please, please tell me that Mr. Hulkster will be reprising his "Hollywood Hogan"/heel persona?!?

I presumed myself to be "too old" to watch pro wrestling years back, when I found myself on the business end of family life, but these days, shit -- maybe we should all start watching professional wrestling? Is it really as scary as Bridezillas or that wedding reception show from NJ, or Sons of Anarchy*?

Ah, mebbe. Ah, mebbe not. I personally cannot imagine watching wrestling again because the sex-semiotics of the lady valets (and of the sexuality en general, and of the nationalist tropes, jeebus! ) make me feel implicated/interpellated into a very bad subject-position and a very worse politics of representation.
But rest assured there're no "value judgments" going on here (mebbe there should be?) If I'm doing the right thing by not-watching or by watching, it's doubtless for neutral (and/or "wrong") reasons.

Banks, insurance companies, and the GOP can die in a fucking fire

One day, earlier this year, our neighbors across the street - an older woman and her daughter who had a developmental disability - suddenly moved away. When we got back from our vacation this week, we saw that the house was for sale as a foreclosure. Tonight, we learned why.

The woman had lived in the house for over 30 years. She raised 4 children in her home. One of her daughters apparently developed a drug problem, and the woman took out a loan on the house to help pay for her rehabilitation. She took out another loan to pay for another child's heart surgery. The woman, who was retired, saw her retirement investments go south when the economy tanked last fall.

This woman did everything right by her family, but the banks wouldn't even think about cutting her a break. No insurance company would cover her daughters' medical needs. And the GOP would never think about helping her out of a bad situation with loan restructuring or providing adequate access to health care.

And people wonder why I hate - hate - these fuckers.

Another, way more telling town hall interview

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

quoth Krugman:

What I think is going on here, at least partly, is that the peddlers of anti-progressive lies are managing to convince a certain kind of American — white, socially conservative, etc. — that the hate-mongers are people like them; and, even more important, that progressives are Those People, people not like them.

Obama’s skin color makes this easy; but the Clintons faced the same kind of thing. Why? Well, the old line about Clinton being the first black president gets at something: even if Bill Clinton had a regular skin and name, he was obviously comfortable with people who didn’t, which made him one of Them.

And anti-intellectualism is also part of it.

In any case, it’s scary: you’ve got a good segment of the American population that is completely impervious to any kind of evidence, any rational argument. I mean, who collects statistics? People in black helicopters!

Chuck Grassley separates self, chain

from l'Huffpo:

One of the three Republican senators working on a bipartisan health care bill perpetuated a particularly outrageous untruth about the legislation on Wednesday. Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma." "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Let's.Take.This.Opportunity.To.Abandon.The."Bipartisanship."Bullshit.

prisonship/_OG_ material self-inventory of things/events/places/etc.

1. courtney's dissertation defense: a blogger and a unionist and a social constructivist, courtney kicked a shitload of ass today. felicitations, hero!
2. grace is enough exhibit, Valerie Davis Haug and David Siebert, at Ditch Projects: Probably the best 'party' I've had in some many months, notwithstanding all of the earth-shifting-ly sonorous, sound and incisive drawings/paintings happening all around me. David Siebert's series of painterly canvasses came on like Leroy Nieman having his way with somebody's beach house portrait of a salty sailor or drunk harbormaster -- but blown up, as mentioned, into a way more theatrical size. Valerie Davis Haug is a charming hostess and supportive interlocutor of mine, as well as a kinda Exorcist-y, kinda Flannery O'Connor-y horror/satire terrorist who works, among other things, with markers and shit.
   
3. neil halstead, live at le Doug Fir: ahem, I was drunk at this shit, and once again reminded that I needn't ever again labor after attaining any sort of acoustic/dour thing: this guy's got it covered, and I'm a plate of goddamn yams.
   
4. springfield, OR: thank you, Springfield, for reminding me to look between the grocer and the grocery outlet; the diner and the luncheonnette; the strip club and the strip club and the strip club. thank you for anonymity and a none-too-highbrow, totally-fine-with-me township where i can spend my time of elevator-shaft-induced exile.
   
5. babylon's burning by clinton heylin (pic above.) i'd've preferred to've put the cover of the book above, but the cover suffers from its association with this book's dreadful subtitle: 'from punk to grunge' seriously? this couldn't've been the decision of Heylin, awesome author of the awesomely subtitled, awesome From the Velvets to the Voidoids: A Pre-Punk History for a Post-Punk World. this book picks up in places where its absolutely crucial, aforementioned predecessor didn't go, like pre-1977 London, and pre-pre-1977 London. apparently I really need to hear some records by, say, Dr. Feelgood, Ian Dury, Radio Birdman, the Avengers, the Ruts, etc. Maybe some of you can help me with starting out on this stuff? On the US side, I've learned lots of LA punk and lesser-known NY action. 'Only halfway through and already I'd say that this, Velvets/Voidoids and Jon Savage's England's Dreaming are the "punk books" to be assigned before anybody should go near Greil Marcus or Azerrad. As Heylin acknowledges in the acknowledgements, this book was half-written out of a desire to usurp the place taken by several famous, rather opinionated and through-a-glass-darkly books about punk. He's a god for doing us this favor. Babylon's Burning - and the accompanying cd box set, I'm sure, which I'd love somebody to, y'know, buy for me - belongs in the "'bestuv genre" genre.
   
6. current persona-conflagration of lex dexter/pattyjoe/crazy jimmy/Rick: = cosmo from chinese bookie, ric flair, todd barry, elliot gould qua marlowe. (as quoted on twtr: "my heroes aren't actually 1970s movie-sleuths...but they're the best exemplars I've got to turn to for this kind of 'living.'")
7. gabba-on-the-go: gabba takes hardcorefornerds into the TUMBLR pile!
8. recent media appearances: a) Permanant Campaign, live on voicemail... hey, write in the comments if you happen to've gotten one of last Saturday's special song-messages! this last Sat., brown beard and i spent an r-rated, still-drunk afternoon phoning out cover classics all over the USA. it's a good thing i don't have gabba's phone number, or somebody'd've gotten a completely incoherent cover of "Washer" and overlaid with Southern-accented belching. Setlist, as I remember, included: "Remedy," "Tumbling Dice," "Head Over Heels," "Theme for an Italian Restaurant,".... what else?!?b) [pictured above, from l-r: 'PC' John Hodgman, funnyman Paul F. Tompkins, songstress Aimee Mann and Pharmacist Ted Leo, workin' it at the Best Show telethon...] two Tuesdays ago I pledged to TBSOWFMU, and had my name ("Patrick from Eugene, Oregon") read over 'dem WFMU airwaves. tom Scharpling thanked me personally, and even responded to my silly request to have the godlike Jon Glaser bring the character of 'Google' back to the airwaves. if somehow at this point you still don't get where I'm going with the worship of the TBSOWFMU, maybe you should just check out this perfect Stereogum tribute to the show, replete with a story about the self-same episode during which i made my all-important media appearance. seeing how i literally trembled while listening to the podcast of the show some two days after my call, i do not imagining ever having the courage to call in to the show, and thus will have to consider supporting it through monetary means.
   
9. twtr: seriousy, you should follow me on twitter. i don't care if you don't wanna "tweet" yrself - fuck, why would'ja? but, seriously? do you like what Lex writes, maybe? but, shucks, maybe you think I get a little 'flabby,' here and there? well guess what, tigerlilies? that's because my true chosen form may in fact be that of twitter's 140chamax milieu. seriously, just sign up and read my twtr. pick some weird pseudonym, email me, and then you'll be able to watch lex fall down a really short flight of stairs. don't worry, i really won't tell anybody that you're doing it; instead i'll just compel you to read kyle, wobs, dave3544, ted leo, hodgman and, of course, scharpling's threads. (seriously: i'm not going to hassle you to read my - wait for it - impending, actually-existing, hardbound zine when it drops. i'm just asking you to do this one thing with me.)
   

Other people's lives

I like it when people tell me that losing their wallet and having to replace their i.d. and credit cards is the "biggest ordeal I've dealt with in my life." It confirms my faith in cosmic balance.

Also, I was walking home the other day and there was a young woman walking behind me talking on the phone with a friend. I deduced that they were talking about what the friend might give up for Lent. The woman walking behind me suggested a couple of things and then she said "Oh! I know, you could give up pickles," slight pause, then "Well, it's supposed to be hard."

The Prophet Speaks

Look, that's all it is in life: you just find yourself a way to have a grand old time.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle and 70s Crime Films As Such

{Statement of Dexter, Lips. Recorded After the Rains and Before the Lorry.}

as I may or mayn't've mentioned already, George V. Higgins' NOVEL "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" is one of my five fave crime novels, ever! Higgins' dialogue is bleeping awesome, and deserves mention alongside Hemingway/Carver when it comes to pulling off a weird, oafish, shrewd, "less is more" brand of emotionalism, if not melodrama, if not sentimentality.... all the while telling a fascinating, pretty macabre and hilarious story.

anyway, THE FILM is something else entirely. a slow, dry crime thriller made in the 1970s. in other words, this is among the filmic stuff i worship (or at least watch) THE MOST. sometimes these films are so obsessed with their pursuit of "documentary realism" that they end up in weirdly formalist, weirdly mannerist cul de sacs that'd make Hitchcock yawn, then blush. honestly, i won't rest until my nightly dreams resemble these oddly operatic, gun-deal-in-supermarket-parking-lot treatments. won't you come along on this expedition with me?

also, we should acknowledge the willingness of the "New Hollywood" establishment at Paramount, etc., to allow filmmakers to, like, practically rub dirt on to their film stock and generally use the camera to get in the way of the storytelling that we'd come to expect from these genre films...that's meaningful to me. the movies are all so slow, dry, technical and clumsy at certain times, we really have to teach ourselves anew how to live in 'em every damned time we see 'em. in a dramatic sense, however, the films DID provide a lot of space for character-based, partially improvised acting performances. but, maybe my passion is simpler than all this and i'm really just a hand-held camera fetishist? we'll never know until you watch these movies and talk to me about 'em, so organize some grievances and play the tapes!

in the slooooow dry 70s crime genre, you'll also do well to encounter Straight Time, The Seven-UPs. Chinatown (boom!), The French Connection and my personal favorite of the moment, The Long Goodbye.

on the artier wing, we got The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, Mean Streets, etc..

on the "Hard PG Comedy" side, you NEED redford + george segal in THE HOT ROCK, which's directed by Peter Yates of Eddie Coyle (see trailer) and BULLIT. (Incidentally, Peter Yates' commentary track is featured on the fancy new Criterion Collection DVD version of EDDIE COYLE.

there're plenty of places to go, really. you just need to buy yourself a brown leather waistcoat and begin this journey.