Movie Reviews-Beneath the Darkness, Drive, Phantom Punch, Death to Smoochy

Beneath The Darkness

"And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids!!"
If you recognize and are amused by this quote then Beneath the Darkness might be tolerable for you. If you know where it comes from and don't find it funny at all then you should probably skip this film. If you never heard that before then this film will be new to you but I still can't recommend it without reservation.
Dennis Quaid plays a small town widower Texas mortician and former football hero named Ely, who in the opening scene jogs up to a neighbor walking his dog, boasts about his biceps and then produces a gun and tells the neighbor he's had this coming for a very long time. Ely takes the neighbor for a ride in his van. A one way ride that is.
Well at least the dog gets away. I wouldn't have liked it if the dog had gotten killed too. Dogs are cool. Neighbors? I can take them or leave them. Some neighbors I'd miss. Others???

I'd have to think about that for a while. 

Fast forward to the local high school in which a troubled teen, (is there any other kind?) Travis (Tony Oller) is not doing well academically.  He believes he had a paranormal experience when his sister died. So it makes PERFECT sense that he works as a cemetery groundskeeper for the just this side of manic Ely. Travis argues with his Mom about his faulty schoolwork and lackadaisical attitude. He hangs out with three other teens, one of whom is a girl, Abby (Aimee Teagarden) whom Travis would also like to take on a ride, but presumably a different kind than that which Ely gave to his neighbor. Abby however, appears to be more interested in another member of of the foursome, the quarterback of the football team. The names are REALLY not important. There's Travis, the quarterback, Abby, and Travis' best friend, who is apparently a wide receiver.

Foolishly, Travis admits his belief in the supernatural to his friends. Quarterback mocks him. To keep the peace Abby and Wide Receiver Guy point out that there are rumors of paranormal activity at Ely's house. The group agrees to go ghost hunting there though Quarterback reserves the right to mock Travis if nothing happens. Well something does happen. The group breaks into Ely's home and sees something that should not be. But Ely surprises them and chases them off. Well, Ely chases them all off except Wide Receiver Guy, who he kills in such a way that it looks like an accident. The film's balance is as you might suspect a series of chess moves between Ely and the remaining trio as they try to reveal his secret and stay out of jail. This may appeal to you. I dunno. I felt it it was extremely derivative of a certain 70's cartoon show.
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Drive

I wasn't expecting too much from this movie. I thought it was just going to be another take on Fast and Furious or Faster. I was wrong. Gloriously, totally and indubitably wrong. Drive is actually a modern film noir but in color. It's a throwback to a movie making style last seen in the seventies, in which directors are fine with just letting things play out at their own pace. Not everything is explained.
If Drive has one moral it would be "A man's gotta have a code". The hero of the movie is unnamed. Let's call him Driver (Ryan Gosling). Driver doesn't talk much. He lets his actions speak for him. Driver works in a garage owned by the garrulous Shannon (Bryan Cranston). Driver also works as a Hollywood stunt car driver, a racer and as a getaway driver for armed robbers.  Driver appears to be at peace with himself and the world.
Driver meets a pretty young woman Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her son when they have car trouble. As it turns out they are neighbors and Driver starts spending time with Irene. Again this moves slowly and naturally. They DON'T have sex.

Shannon is looking for the big score so he arranges for Driver to be backed in his racing by the mobsters Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Pearlman in a very menacing role). Bernie and Nino have loyalty to each other and that's the extent of their milk of human kindness. Unfortunately for Driver's future plans for Irene, her convict husband Standard (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison and is about as happy as you might expect he would be to find another man trying to shake his peach tree. He not so subtly warns Driver off. Driver complies. But not soon after Standard is badly beaten and must ask for Driver's help. This sets off a chain of events that cause all of Driver's carefully separated worlds to start to collapse together.


The lighting, attitude, acting and action of this movie are just superb. Top notch stuff. I wish there were more movies done like this. You really enjoy the quiet parts and the frantic parts of this movie. It uses dynamics in its pacing and storyline. This could have won an Oscar. Well maybe that's stretching it a bit but it's not just a drive-fast shoot-em-up movie. Gosling does a really good job here. Camera work excites without leaving you queasy. Albert Brooks and Ron Pearlman play off each other nicely as the gentleman gangster and unreconstructed thug, respectively. Check this one out. It's easily the best of today's group. No competition. Look for Christina Hendricks in a small role.
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Phantom Punch

I hadn't seen anything by Robert Townsend in a very long time so I decided to check this out. This movie purports to tell the true story of Charles "Sonny" Liston, one time thug and mob heavy, one time heavyweight champion of the world, who lost two controversial fights to Muhammad Ali and later died in very suspicious circumstances. The film title refers to the widespread belief that Liston, at the behest of his mob backers, took a dive in the second fight.


This should have been a better movie than it was. It starred Ving Rhames as Sonny Liston. Although I can't immediately think of someone who could have theoretically better captured Liston's aura of menace and forboding, the harsh fact is that Rhames was a few years too old for this role. His acting was the best in the film but it wasn't enough. Phantom Punch is apparently low budget. The camera work is okay but the sets and lighting, with a few exceptions don't really hold up. I understand that a film about Liston does not want to focus on Ali. But given that Ali was known as "The Mouth From The South" for his nonstop chatter, mastery of the dozens and general ability to get under the skin of opponents, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have the actor playing Ali be virtually silent.


The fights definitely don't convince the viewer as to authenticity. I mean they REALLY don't. Nick Turtorro plays Caesar Novak, Liston's direct mob handler. David Proval is the local mob boss. Stacey Dash plays Sonny's wife Geraldine, while Bridgette Wilson-Sampras is Caesar's girlfriend Farah. This movie suggests that Liston's demise was as much for personal (and classic) reasons related to Farah as it was for business ones. Generally this had a very made for TV/direct to DVD feel to it. There were some accurate depictions of incidents in Liston's life and of the open and casual racism of police officers and sportswriters. The film did have a strong sense of sadness and wasted talent which it could have investigated further. Phantom Punch made me want to learn more about Liston but it wasn't that entertaining (Dash and Sampras-Wilson in tight/revealing clothing aside)






Death to Smoochy

Okay just upfront, I liked this film a LOT.  It was however a complete box office disaster. I think the mixture of kids' shows, cynicism and mobsters was a bit too much for most people.

It is an adult comedy that centers around kids' shows. There is a tension here between TV producers and performers who are presumably trying to inculcate good, selfless behavior in children while at the same time fighting for ratings, raiding other shows for talent and generally behaving in all sorts of selfish, if not criminal ways.

One performer who has become thoroughly disillusioned by the whole sordid business is Rainbow Randolph (Robin Williams) the current popular host of a top ranked children's show.
Randolph is about this close to telling everyone where they can go and has long since lost any sense of happiness at entertaining children. He is only concerned about making sure his checks clear. When Randolph is busted in an FBI bribery sting operation, the self-serving station president Stokes (Jon Stewart) doesn't want to know him any more. The show's hard driving head producer Nora Wells (Catherine Keener) drops him.
The producers want a soft sap who won't make any waves and they think they've found what they need in Sheldon Mopes (Edward Norton) an earnestly submissive and irritatingly pleasant and optimistic young man who performs as Smoochy the Rhino. Mopes was playing to literally captive audiences in methadone clinics. This didn't bother him. Mopes is the kind of man who, if someone throws something heavy at his head, will reluctantly duck and then calmly ask if the assailant wants to talk about her feelings. There are reasons for his demeanor though.

However as rapidly becomes apparent, Mopes actually believes in helping kids first and foremost. Mopes believes in organic foods and is anti-sugar. He gets extremely agitated at any suggestion of commercialism or endorsement activities. At first this is merely mildly annoying to Wells and Mopes' agent Burke Bennett (Danny  Devito). But as Mopes holds his ground, showing previously unknown backbone, Bennett and Wells start to run afoul of the larger crime charities, including one presided over by Merv Green (Harvey Fierstein). They are decidedly NOT happy about having their income stream limited by Mopes and put pressure on Bennett to get him to play ball. Or else.


Meanwhile the disgraced, impoverished and increasingly insane Rainbow Randolph is shocked to see that the show's ratings are better with Smoochy. He convinces himself that he must get rid of Smoochy, by disgrace and scandal if possible, or by good old fashioned murder if necessary. Williams carries this movie. I loved his over the top performance here. I am really confused as to why this film didn't do better but everyone has different needs for humor I guess. It's fair to say that Keener and Norton don't light up the screen together but again, Williams' performance more than makes up for that in my view. 
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The Urban Beat: Patricia Stephens Due

A problem with the "great man" view of history is that it not only elides the fact that there were also "great women" but more importantly it overlooks that fact that social movements are indeed just that. They are made up of numerous people (men and women) who made contributions, both big and small. Many of these people don't get into the history books but were it not for their collective actions, the man or woman in the media spotlight wouldn't have the ability to make the changes they did.

One such woman who just passed away who may have not gotten the recognition from us all while she was here was one Patricia Stephens Due, a leading civil rights activist, author and mother of author Tananarive Due and mother-in-law of author Steve Barnes.
Read more about her incredible life here.

Patricia Stephens Due, whose belief that, as she put it, “ordinary people can do extraordinary things” propelled her to leadership in the civil rights movement — but at a price, including 49 days in a stark Florida jail — died on Tuesday in Smyrna, Ga. She was 72.

At 13, Patricia Stephens challenged Jim Crow orthodoxy by trying to use the “whites only” window at a Dairy Queen. As a college student, she led demonstrations to integrate lunch counters, theaters and swimming pools and was repeatedly arrested.

As a young mother, she pushed two children in a stroller while campaigning for the rights of poor people. As a veteran of integration and voting rights battles, she went on to fight for economic rights, once obstructing a garbage truck in support of striking workers. As an elder stateswoman of the movement, she wrote a memoir to honor “unsung foot soldiers.”

She fought beside John D. Due Jr., a civil rights lawyer, whom she married in 1963. For their honeymoon, they rode the Freedom Train to Washington to hear the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. give his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Mrs. Due paid a price for this devotion. She wore large, dark glasses day and night because her eyes were damaged when a hissing tear gas canister hit her in the face...

I thank Mrs. Due and all the men and women of generations before and after her that kept up the good fight, even when things looked their bleakest.

QUESTIONS
1) Had you heard of Patricia Stephens Due before?
2) Are we collectively doing a good job of capturing the stories of the older civil rights generation and giving them the respect they deserve? 

Mitt Romney converts dead people

Do you know what happens when you die? Well Mitt Romney does. He's going to baptise you into Mormonism. Since you're dead you won't be able to object. And another soul is saved from the fires of hell. Praise the Lord!!! Someone should tell the Jehovah's Witnesses of this approach. It just saves a LOT of time and hurt feelings. Think about it. Rather than go door to door and have people pretend they're not home, slam the door in your face, set their dogs on you or openly mock your "kooky" beliefs, you just wait until AFTER they're dead and convert them anyway. No muss. No fuss. And no expenses for Watchtower pamphlets. All in all it's the perfect approach for the more introverted missionary, or perhaps a missionary who's just tired of trying to outrun the local Rottweiler.


Who could object to such a swell setup? I mean it's a win-win for everyone right? The church gets "converts" and you don't have to explain to the pious young person standing on your porch that no you aren't interested in coming to a Bible reading,  no you aren't giving him any money and no you don't want any literature. 

Well as it turns out there are quite a few people who object to this practice. One of them happens to be Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner and activist. And I think I would object as well. I mean imagine that you are minding your own business and then find out that Mormons are claiming that your deceased relatives converted to Mormonism and are presumably off ruling their own planets in Mormon heaven. Or consider that you're getting up there in age and discover that the Mormons have already calculated the likely time of your demise and are preparing to posthumously convert you to their faith. Wiesel wasn't pleased.

Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor who has devoted his life to combating intolerance, says Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney"should speak to his own church and say they should stop" performing posthumous proxy baptisms on Jews.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner spoke to The Huffington Post Tuesday soon after HuffPost reported that according to a formerly-Mormon researcher, Helen Radkey, some members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had submitted Wiesel's name to a restricted genealogy website as "ready" for posthumous proxy baptism. Radkey found that the name of Wiesel had been submitted to the database for the deceased, from which a separate process for proxy baptism could be initiated. Radkey also said that the names of Wiesel's deceased father and maternal grandfather had been submitted to the site. 

A spokesman for the Mormon Church claimed that the names were simply entered into the database, and none were submitted for baptism, which he described as a separate process. The entry of a living person, he said, was a mistake, and he provided no explanation for the submission of Wiesel's father and maternal grandfather. By Monday the records for the names of Wiesel and his family had been changed to "not available," according to Radkey.

SOURCE

Ouch. Now far be it from me to question anyone's faith. I don't really care what you believe so much as how you behave. But at the very best it's sort of rude and at the worst downright arrogant and kind of creepy to run around claiming you've converted dead people. It's remarkable thoughtless and insensitive to their beliefs and more importantly to the beliefs and feelings of their living relatives. It's a sort of rewriting of history. I knew about this practice but I'm a little surprised that the Mormons are still doing it. Seems like that they would have gotten the message that their missionary outreach needs to be restricted to those who can still say yes or no: that is the living.

But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. After all back in 2007 When asked by Newsweek if he has done baptisms for the dead -- in which Mormons find the names of dead people of all faiths and baptize them, as an LDS spokesperson says, to "open the door" to the highest heaven-- he looked slightly startled and answered, "I have in my life, but I haven't recently". SOURCE

O-KAY. So perhaps the biggest question of the 21st century will not be whether or not America was ready to elect a black man with an African name to the White House but rather if America was ready to send a self-admitted necromancer to the White House. Maybe we'd better vote for Mitt while we have the chance. Otherwise he's just going to wait until we're dead and then claim we voted for him anyway. Yikes. He could be the first President seriously to go after the critical dead demographic. Kennedy made some overtures in 1960 but Romney could really win this under recognized voting bloc.

QUESTIONS

1) Is Wiesel right to be upset? Would you care if this happened to your deceased loved ones?

2) Is this a fair area of discussion or should the media have stayed out of it?

3) Will stories like this have any impact on the primary nomination (or general election should Romney be the nominee)

Jason Whitlock Racially Insults Jeremy Lin

If you don't keep up with the NBA you might have missed this year's current feel good story. The Knicks, in a fit of desperation after injuries, absences and players that weren't quite working out, turned to the end of the bench and started playing Jeremy Lin, a journeyman guard that was about THIS close from being bounced from the league altogether.


However Lin so far has not only shown that he belongs in the NBA, he's shown that he's someone other teams need to plan for and worry about. The undrafted Harvard grad is playing with (and outplaying) people like Kobe Bryant. Time will tell if he can keep up this pace but right now he's handling his business.

Of course anytime someone is successful there will shortly be along someone who feels it's their duty to bring them back down to earth. Enter one Mr. Jason Whitlock, previously best known for making insulting comments about Serena Williams' looks, physique and work ethic.
Mr. Whitlock felt it necessary to go to twitter to drop this knowledge on the world immediately after Lin scored 38 points in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers.

Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.

Oh that's a laugher that is. Yup. I wonder how many times Lin has heard that stereotype before.

This brings up a few things which really amaze me.

Unless he's been living under a rock, Whitlock just saw another black male celebrity journalist post something stupid on twitter and get chin checked hard. Now, regardless of whether you thought it was right or not that Roland Martin got the reaction he received, it seems that you would have taken notice and adjusted your public utterances accordingly. I mean really, Whitlock, how hard is this? Don't make insulting references to people's gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality in public and ESPECIALLY don't do it over twitter. Because unless you happen to be a new Facebook multi-millionaire/billionaire and thus just don't care, chances are you're putting your job at risk.

Of course Whitlock made a half-hearted apology :

I then gave in to another part of my personality — my immature, sophomoric, comedic nature. It's been with me since birth, a gift from my mother and honed as a child listening to my godmother's Richard Pryor albums. I still want to be a standup comedian.
The couple-inches-of-pain tweet overshadowed my sincere celebration of Lin’s performance and the irony that the stereotype applies to pot-bellied, overweight male sports writers, too. As the Asian American Journalist Association pointed out, I debased a feel-good sports moment. For that, I’m truly sorry.

SOURCE
Who knows what's in Whitlock's heart. But this should show us a few things.
Black people are not by definition more sensitive to other people's issues.
Black people have ingested stereotypes just like anyone else. The "good" ones we like. The "bad" ones we reject.
It is quite possible for some Black people to be threatened by non-black excellence in traditionally Black dominated sports the same some whites are in the reverse (remember Fuzzy Zoeller's comments about Tiger Woods??)  I think Whitlock should be fired, primarily for stupidity. But I'm interested to hear your take.

QUESTIONS
1) Should Whitlock be suspended or fired for his comments?
2) Are you impressed with his apology?
3) Are stereotypes ever ok to joke about in public?

Music Reviews-Otis Redding, ZZ Top, The Velvetones

Otis Redding

That's how strong my love is

I generally reject the idea that anyone was the best at anything when it comes to art or music. For me, art is about communication and transcendence. If someone can draw you into their world and show you something that you like that's really all that matters. I don't have the interest or the talent to say anyone is the best. There are however some artists who do tempt me to say that they are the best and Otis Redding is one of them. If someone wrote that "Otis Redding is the best soul singer that ever existed" could anyone disagree with that? I mean if you're not Al Green, David Ruffin, Wilson Pickett or Marvin Gaye, could you?  And if you mention D'Angelo or Mayer Hawthorne I'm going to throw something heavy at your head. Seriously. You should duck.

Unfortunately Redding's life was tragically cut short in a 1967 airplane crash that also killed most of the Bar-Kays. So we never got to hear everything that he was capable of doing.  He was really just getting started. I don't listen to a lot of modern R&B. One reason I don't, besides a generalized distaste for pseudo-disco, excessive melisma, synths and drum machines, is that I just haven't heard many modern male singers that have the kind of power and control that was exemplified by classic soul singers and most particularly Otis Redding. He was nicknamed "The Big O". (He stood 6-4 though judging by how some women carried on at his concerts there may have been other reasons for that sobriquet)

Otis Redding was actually discovered when he was working as a a roadie for Johnny Jenkins. After a session he stuck around the studio to sing and directed Steve Cropper to play the piano. The song was These Arms of Mine. Various musicians were impressed, joined in and the rest as they say is history. You couldn't write a better Hollywood story than that. The funny thing is that Redding started out singing gospel and for a while was a Little Richard wannabe, even touring with Little Richard's band. Go figure.

Redding had a natural baritone voice that was quite well suited for countrified soul ballads of aching and loneliness. This dovetailed perfectly the needs of Stax Records and evidently quite a few sixties era music fans. Redding was also the hardest of the hard soul singers. He gave everything he had in every performance. The amount of energy he expended was truly frightening.  Some people then and now thought that Redding was guilty of "over-souling". Well maybe. He was after all a performer. But my take is that compared to his contemporaries and certainly compared to what passes for R&B today Redding was an essentially honest performer.



Otis Redding and The Bar-Kays

Redding wasn't just a passive recipient of whatever songs the record company deemed appropriate but was an active songwriter, producer, arranger, musician and bandleader. Although he playfully joked that "that little girl stole my song", he was the writer of Respect, which Aretha Franklin took to number 1 in 1967. Redding grew up singing gospel and was primarily influenced by Little Richard and Sam Cooke. The list of singers, songwriters and musicians he influenced is too long to start. Redding's death and MLK's murder a short time later would bring an end to the first incarnation of Stax records.

It's sad that Redding didn't live to do more. All we have is five short years of some of the most beautiful soul music that was ever created. Redding did tearjerking ballads, updated blues, dance music and even some of the funk that was starting to emerge. He had been to England and had his ears open to some of the new sounds coming from there. Who knows what he would have done in the seventies and beyond. But that's life. As Jimi Hendrix said,  "The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye." 

These Arms of Mine  Try a Little Tenderness  I love you more than words can say

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag  I've been loving you too long (Live at Monterey)
Pain in My Heart  Hard to Handle  Tramp (with Carla Thomas)   That's how strong my love is
For Your Precious Love  Shake  Sitting on The Dock of The Bay

ZZ TOP                                                                               

We bad. We Nationwide!!!

ZZ Top is a blues-rock trio that started in 1969. It's comprised of Billy Gibbons (guitar/vocals), Dusty Hill (bass/vocals) and Frank Beard (drums). The group has been through stylistic and sonic changes but has always kept at least one foot planted firmly in the blues. ZZ Top is just as well known today for copious facial hair, redneck shtick and cowboys from outer space stage attire as they are known for their music but this is a con. Gibbons is an extremely skilled blues-rock guitarist (listen to Sure got cold after the rain fell or the otherworldly gospel slide on I want to drive you home). His vocals, however, are best described as an acquired taste. Gibbons combines a deep and very thick Texas twang of mid century white American provenance (his natural speaking voice) with archaic black southern slang or other accents he picked up. This occasionally can come across as aural blackface.

The author Charles Shaar Murray once called ZZ Top the perfect band for "people who were crazy about blues but weren't crazy about black people playing them".  It's true ZZ Top has been far more financially successful than any black blues artist. But with few exceptions ZZ Top was diligent about giving proper (i.e. paid) credit to those who influenced them or whose music they covered. Gibbons always proudly speaks of being influenced by such musicians as BB King (who inspired the band's name), John Lee Hooker, Ike Turner, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins, Bo Diddley, Buck Owens, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Jones and many others. Famously, Gibbons opened for Hendrix, who showed him a few licks and said that Gibbons would go far.

ZZ Top did not begin their career with cover tunes. Their first album consisted of technically original but dreadfully dull derivative boogie rock numbers lacking any rhythmic bounce. Their second album was better. It was their third album, Tres Hombres, which made them commercially viable and revealed that Hendrix was correct when he predicted Gibbons would be the next big thing. The standout song from Tres Hombres was La Grange (which was heavily influenced by both John Lee Hooker's Boogie Children and Slim Harpo's Shake Your Hips ) and told the story -one of many by Gibbons- of a trip to a house of ill repute. La Grange featured two guitar solos-the second of which was crammed full of pinch harmonics -those squealing noises that Gibbons used better than any guitarist not named Roy Buchanan or Eddie Van Halen.

The eighties saw ZZ Top reach new levels of fame/prosperity, when, inspired by such non-blues performers as Prince, Devo and Depeche Mode they released the Eliminator album. Eliminator featured drum machines, sequencers and synthesizers. It was dance music- ZZ Top style. It probably didn't impress people who had grown up listening to James Brown or P-Funk but it was a huge pop hit. Eliminator made ZZ Top MTV icons although their older blues/rock crowd initially didn't like it. Post-Eliminator the band repeated the synth sound to diminishing returns until the nineties. They started doing frequent "back to basics" albums that never quite recaptured the urgency of their early seventies sound. Unfortunately they also began recording much louder.


Gibbons may not be the world's best songwriter but frequently he writes a really good blues/rock song. The group couldn't have written songs like Woke up with Wood if they didn't have a (often ironic) sense of humor. ZZ Top never takes itself too seriously and neither should you. Enjoy and Get it On sounds like something Muddy Waters would have written only faster while Cheap Sunglasses is a fun piece which shows Dusty Hill was listening to funk. Avalon Hideaway combines George Jones-type vocals with inventive drumming. Sharp Dressed Man imagines Elmore James meets techno.

Enjoy and Get it On   Sharp Dressed Man  Legs  Avalon Hideaway
Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell   Cheap Sunglasses  Blue Jean Blues
I want to Drive You Home  Waiting on a Bus/Jesus just left Chicago
I Thank You (cover of Sam and Dave song)   I Thank You (Original Sam and Dave version) I'm Bad I'm Nationwide

The Velvetones

I think many people can relate to the lyrics of Glory of Love. The beautiful thing about well written songs is that they can touch something in everyone if you listen. The Velvetones didn't write this song but I think their version is the definitive one. The rap that they did in the middle of the song is bittersweet and funny at the same time. My brother described it as a love letter as written by Sam Kinison. I don't know much about this group or have any of their 45's or albums (if they did any). But I do have several doo-wop collections that feature this song. It was also on the Casino film soundtrack. Melody of Love is also a sweet little number that is bluesy and very positive. Again, who can't relate to Melody of Love?  It's just a truly beautiful song. I thought with Valentine's Day approaching it would be a nice way to end this post with two songs that speak to the emotions that love brings.
Glory of Love    Melody of Love

Super Bowl Commercial: Republican Racism or Fair Criticism?

There is a honest way to criticize the role that China plays today in our world-its devotion to mercantilism, its general refusal to protect US intellectual property rights, its contribution to climate change, its currency manipulation, its reliance on cheap labor and repressive central government. However Michigan Republican senatorial candidate (and former congressman) Pete Hoekstra decided not to make any of those thoughtful arguments in his campaign ad attacking Michigan Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. No, Hoekstra went for the more visceral approach.

And so far Hoesktra is holding firm in defending the ad. Hoekstra is not exactly known for being union-friendly but Michigan is a state which has not had much benefit from "globalization". Whether it be foreign students in Michigan universities, foreign car sales threatening the health of the Big Three, or US companies packing up and moving their entire operation overseas, globalization and outsourcing are epithets around here. Still, Hoekstra HAD to know that such an ad would bring commentary and disgust, which may well be what he wanted. He is claiming that his detractors are the ones bringing race into the discussion, not him. I think this is kind of like repeating the children's ditty about Chinese and Coca-Cola and being surprised and offended that anyone is actually, well , offended. The other issue in the background is that once these sorts of feelings get aroused and exploited, who knows where they can end up.

King said it's too early in the campaign to know what kind of impact the ad  will have politically. It depends, she said, on whether he can neutralize the fallout and how the opposition uses it.
There was one immediate effect. Washtenaw County Commissioner Alicia Ping on Monday was so offended by the ad she donated money to Hoekstra opponent Clark Durant's campaign."For him not to know that this is unacceptable, either he doesn't care or he doesn't get it," said the Saline Republican, who is Chinese-American.

On Monday, Hoekstra stood by the $144,000 statewide ad buy, blaming the "left" for bringing up racial concerns to divert the conversation from the real issue he was pushing of Democratic incumbent Sen. Debbie Stabenow's spending record.
"We're stereotyping here the American left who's more than willing to spend, spend, spend," Hoekstra told a group of supportive voters in Birmingham on Monday morning. "This is why they're angry. They're not angry about stereotyping the Chinese. They don't care."
Hoekstra said he wanted to be "bold" and "daring" and he urged supporters to explain to friends that it's his opponent who is "politically incorrect."  "Debbie is spending your money, and your kids' and your grandkids' money. That's politically incorrect," he said. 

Nick De Leeuw, a Michigan GOP consultant, scolded Hoekstra's spot on Facebook: "Racism and xenophobia aren't any way to get things done." TV host Lou Dobbs said on Fox News that Hoekstra is "doing a terrific job" at defining results of public policy choices.

SOURCE

QUESTIONS
1) Do you find this offensive? If not, why?
2) Is China's economic relationship with the US a fair topic to discuss?
3) How would you re-work this ad if you were a consultant?

Book Reviews-The Heroes, Johannes Cabal, Running on Race, Angry Moon

The Heroes
Joe Abercrombie has taken a buzz saw to the normal heroic fantasy conventions. Abercrombie is a DEEPLY cynical writer who is quite interested in hypocrisy and evil. Few characters are good and those that try to be usually end up worse off. He maxed this out in his last book, Best Served Cold, and it was a bit too much. Too ugly.

He thankfully backs off slightly from his trademark cynicism in The Heroes, which is set in the same universe as his previous works. The Heroes is about a three day battle between the forces of the North (think 11th century Vikings, Scots and Celts) and the Union (think 16th century England/France/Holy Roman Empire) at a hill known as, what else, The Heroes.

Who started the war is not important. That both sides are being manipulated by shadowy callous wizards isn't important. What is important is Abercrombie's meditations on the nature of violence, the randomness of war, his examinations of what it means to be a good man, and his questions about whether people can really change. Some folks try to change while others think it's too late or are trapped by their personas. You can't exactly start preaching mercy and nonviolence if you're King of the North and known for burning enemies alive. 


Abercombie keeps the reader enthralled from the accidental beginning of the battle in which Northmen on opposite sides use familial connections and professional courtesy to avoid bloodshed to the battle's end in which a few weary survivors wonder if all the carnage was worth anything. Some of this reads like a Vietnam or Korea war journal. In one particularly majestic passage Abercrombie splits the POV between 6 different soldiers as they fight and die in turn. Usually though the story is told from the multiple POV's of a disgraced Union leader who wants to reclaim his good name by killing as many Northmen as he can, the ambitious woman he loves (she's married to someone else), a low level veteran soldier who is more interested in surviving than fighting and on the Northern side: a callow recruit who can't wait to make a name for himself, the previous Northern King's cowardly son who wants his father's throne back and a few Named Men.

The Named Men are all warriors who have done battlefield deeds of particular valor, total stupidity or incredible wickedness. Thus they have won the right to a nickname that commemorates their deeds or their actual nature. Some are true to their word, others can't be trusted one bit but most share a dedication to violence that is noticeable even by the standards of the casually brutal North. 


These men (and one woman) are the hardest of the hard and lead at least a dozen followers into battle. For example, the Named Woman is known as Wonderful, because as a young girl she led village resistance to marauders and personally killed four of them. The leader of the arriving relief force said it was wonderful strange that a woman would do such a thing. Others are known as Shivers (he was also in Best Served Cold), Straight Edge Craw (known as the last honest man in the North), Cracknut Whirrun (who fights without armor because as he proudly boasts "Armour is part of a state of mind in which you admit the possibility of being hit."), Stranger-Come-Knocking and several other ominous or seemingly farcical names.


After a particularly horrific day one person asks the wizard on their side why he doesn't use magic to bring the battle to a conclusion. The wizard contemptuously responds that magic is the art of making something act against its nature but that there is nothing more natural than men killing each other so why should he bother to lift a finger. 
Keeping the POV to a minimum helped with pacing. The Heroes had the requisite amount of action and gore but a surprising bit of pathos and even humor. As always Abercormbie has a few surprises in store. He looks behind the tropes he uses so well to say some interesting things about human nature. It's almost All Quiet on the Western Front for the fantasy crowd.


Johannes Cabal The Necromancer
by Jonathan Howard

This book is a mashup of Faust, Wicked and Something Wicked This Way Comes. 

Johannes Cabal has long ago sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for sorcerous power but discovers that the lack of a soul is interfering with his ghastly experiments. So he travels to Hell in order to retrieve his soul from Satan, who not unsurprisingly, takes the viewpoint that a deal is a deal.

"Now, as I've already said I can't start giving souls back willy-nilly or else I'll never hear the end of it. There'd be a queue from here to Tartarus of ne'er-do-wells whinging and whining and wringing their hands and I get enough of that at the best of times..."

Nevertheless, since the Devil is nothing else if not a gambler, He agrees to return Cabal's soul to him if Cabal can, within one year entice another hundred people to sell their souls to the Devil. In order to assist with this the Devil gives him an enchanted carnival with which to entrap foolish people.

Of course both the Devil and Cabal have some secret interests and things hidden up their sleeve which they "forgot" to tell each other about. Cabal is assisted by his older brother, Horst, whom Johannes accidentally turned into a vampire in another experiment gone wrong.  To say the least, Horst is not exactly happy with this turn of events. He is even less pleased to have been locked in a cemetery by Johannes, who claims to have been looking for a cure. Sibling resentments between a vampire and necromancer can be dangerous, if not for the brothers then for those around them. The book has a sort of steampunk feel to it.  Based on their names, Horst and Johannes seem to be German but it's difficult to say exactly when or where the action takes place. It doesn't matter a whole lot once you get into it. The book is written in a very sardonic tone, not unlike that of Terry Pratchett or Simon Green but a little darker. It's occasionally humorous but rarely hilarious. Cabal is a self-centered, egotistical, immensely practical man who doesn't suffer fools lightly. Cabal doesn't seemingly have a conscience. It was probably long gone before he lost his soul. Cabal's choices may rub the reader the wrong way. They certainly offend his brother.

Running on Race

by Jeremy Mayer
As we approach another Presidential election we see the requisite dog whistles by both the incumbent and his would be challengers to bring out their base voters. This book looks back at the racial rhetoric and winks employed in presidential elections from 1960 to 2000. You could argue that not much has changed besides the names. Bottom line is that politicians need to go where the votes are. The much ballyhooed browning of the electorate is not happening as fast as some people would like or as others fear but it does reveal that the Republican national party doesn't feel it needs to or can appeal to black voters. This means that often Republican candidates must appeal to the fears of the party's Caucasian base-whether it's Gingrich talking about food stamps and entitlements, Santorum claiming he doesn't want to give black blah people other people's money, or Cain claiming that black people were brainwashed.

Mayer puts the tipping point of explicit unabashed Republican appeals to white racial fears roughly around the 1976 election. After that point in time Mayer argues that the black vote generally stopped mattering to Republicans. As a result of being freed from such moderation,  Republicans were free to ignore the black voter. This enabled some Republican candidates to make a more or less direct plea to whites through such seemingly neutral but racially charged words as "states rights", "neighborhood schools", "welfare queens/bucks", "food stamps", "law and order", "affirmative action", and other descriptions which fed into the idea that "the blacks" as Donald Trump might say, are an undifferentiated mass of lazy, hypersexed, violent, low income and low iq people who extort things that they don't deserve from good, decent, (white) folk. It's doubtful that most national Republicans really believed all of this but they DID want to win. And on the other hand when Republicans did attempt to make outreach to black voters their attempts were (unfairly?) dismissed as inauthentic or grandstanding, such as Reagan's visit to the South Bronx.

Of course this strategy worked pretty well all things considered for Republicans nationally even though the Northeast Republican declined and fell as a viable force within the party after the seventies (could Mitt Romney be leading a comeback?).

This strategy also had negative effects on the Democratic Party. Democrats sought to appeal to the new Black voters but had to walk a tightrope of declining support and outright derision from working class, blue collar whites who rightly or wrongly often saw the Democrats as being too close to black people. This need to regain a competitive footing among whites, especially blue collar whites who had often voted Democratic in alignment with their economic interest, led to the formation of the Democratic Leadership Council as well as a few calculated decisions by white Democratic politicians (Clinton) to distance themselves in the public eye from Black people or "Black" interests.

Mayer discusses all of this and more. He brings out how Presidential politics may make even a relatively honest man say things he may not believe or refuse to hear things he does believe in order to win an election. I think 1976 is too late as a tipping point but Mayer marshals an impressive amount of evidence to support his arguments.

Angry Moon
by Terrill Lankford

This is a short book that combines noir, a love story and the supernatural in a melange that shouldn't really work. Surprisingly though it does. Imagine The Godfather meets Apocalypse Now with just a dash of Wuthering Heights, The Big Sleep and some Hammer horror films thrown in. Although this sort of thing has become old hat now, back in the late nineties when this book was written it wasn't cliched yet. Anyway the story concerns a truly professional and deadly hitman known as Ry Caulder. Ry has a soft spot for women and children. He does not torture. He does not kill innocents. He does not mutilate or send messages. He just removes bad people from this world-quickly, painlessly and permanently. Caulder knows he's an evil man but in his environment he's (pun intended) a straight shooter. He has an unblemished reputation for reliability and honesty. You get what you pay for with Caulder. He's on time and thorough. Always. He is the best. He does not miss. 


His primary client is the LA Mafia family-which has mostly gone legitimate and underground. It seems however that there are a few loose ends which the Family needs Caulder to tie up. One of these "loose ends" is a man Caulder trained in the line of wetwork. Caulder doesn't like it but business is business and he does the job. Deciding that he's had enough, Caulder talks about retiring but the Family insists Caulder do one last job-that of his mentor, a legendary hitman known as Fredrickson, who was about the closest thing to a father that Caulder had. Fredrickson, always more brutal and savage than Caulder, has killed some people-including innocents-that the Family didn't want killed.  It looks like Fredrickson has hooked up with the Colombian cartels to make a move on Family interests. Now the Family wants Caulder to punch Fredrickson's ticket. 

Caulder doesn't want to do this but the Family makes him an offer he can't refuse. He does the job but is shocked to find Frederickson still alive the next day. He repeats this but gets the same results. And now Frederickson is coming after Caulder, the Family, and Caulder's sexy but naive next door neighbor, Stephanie, a single mother and would be actress, on whom the cold, ascetic and lonely Caulder has a serious crush. 


Although the supernatural elements are hinted at in the prologue they are very slowly revealed throughout the story in a most plausible manner. And if you've ever wondered what happened to Jimmy Hoffa, this book's theory is as good as any. Caulder can't understand why Frederickson won't stay dead and when he puts it together he doesn't want to believe it. I liked this book.  You might as well. It deftly balances the different aspects which I mentioned above.