DEBATABLE: PRESIDENTIAL FIGHT I - 2008

The first presidential debate for 2008 occurred this past Thursday. If it were a boxing match, I'd say there were no big blows, no knockdowns, no knockouts. It was won on a judges' decision. Fight one went to Obama on points.

Behind in the polls and bruised by the country's staggering economy, McCain needed a big victory. He didn't get it.

The debate featured a classic clash of styles. McCain is the slugger, the guy who throws hard all the time and likes to fight inside. Obama is what they call a "scientific boxer," a guy who jabs and moves.

The boxer took the early rounds. Obama was much stronger in his take on the economy and the current Wall Street woes. He focused on the plight of the average American, which is more important, and much stronger in its appeal to the electorate. McCain relied on the old "free market/deregulation" arguments. Those arguments fell flat.

McCain had better success in the middle and late rounds when he could go on the offensive about foreign policy (the topic of the debate). However, he was overly aggressive with his "Obama doesn't understand" comments, and it cost him. The boxer Obama was able to dance and parry his blows. While McCain landed a few good ones, they weren't enough to win him the rounds he needed.

All Obama needed to do in this debate was stay on his feet. Anything other than a knockout and he was likely to win. He did that. He showed that he could "look" presidential and that he could hold his own. The judges in the electorate favored that.

So the first "fight" goes to Obama. Two more to go.

And let's not forget Palin vs. Biden. That one should be fun.

GOOD-BYE SHEA

It may not have the history and prestige of its elder brother in the Bronx, but Shea Stadium in Queens is still a special place. The Mets as a franchise represent the scrappy overlooked guy who never gives up and always has hope. "Ya Gotta Believe!" That was the slogan for which they were known.

They started out as laughingstocks in 1962 and produced a World Series championship miracle in 1969. Fans fell in love with them. Even when they fell short in 1973, people still had hope. That hope was rewarded when they rose like a powerful phoenix in 1986 and produced a baseball juggernaut for the ages. They came back again in 2000 to take part in the World Series of my heart: The New York Yankees vs. The New York Mets. My two favorite teams. They fell short to their elder brethren, but they played hard and they played proud.

Shea Stadium gave us special memories in New York. Not everyone thought it was pretty, but we New Yorkers saw it as beautiful.

And it was ours.

We'll miss you, Shea Stadium. Here's to new, glorious memories in the 21st century for the Mets in their new home.

ACTIONS AND WORDS

This is a pivotal moment in American history. We will look back at this time, this year, this decade, as one which decided the fate of the soul of our country. It is a time to write and a time to act. I have found that it is often easier to reach people through drama than through essay. People more passively receive the former than actively seek the latter.

Writing essays and writing drama are completely different arts. The essay requires that one tell the reader, prove to the reader, the particular point of view. Drama is about showing through both word and action. Hammering viewers over the head with a theme serves only to alienate them. The viewer must be wooed subtly. The essay reader must be overpowered.

If minds are to be opened, hearts reached and souls touched, we must use both words and actions in all their forms. That which we create can be a weapon of transcendence.

YANKEE STADIUM

The Yankees played their final game in Yankee Stadium last night. They won 7-3 over the Orioles. There were reminiscences. There were cheers. The good guys prevailed in their last night in their legendary home.

The grand cathedral of baseball will be gone. They greatest and most famous franchise in professional baseball will be moving to a new home. History will not disappear. It never disappears. It will be linked to a new stadium and a new future. There will be more days of greatness in a sparkling new baseball palace. Many more.

I remember going to "old" Yankee Stadium as a boy. This was the original structure, before it was remade and reopened in 1976. All I remember is how high up I felt. It seemed as if I had sat within clouds and looked down at the diamond in a steep angle.

The "new" Yankee Stadium will always be vivid for me. The victories, the championships, the loudest and funniest fans. Watching baseball there was always a party. Watching baseball there was sacred.

Each year I made my pilgrimage. Each year I planned my homage to the diamond deity, the god of the summer grass. The Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan. The "4" train into the Bronx. A procession of metal chariots that clicky-clacked their way up towards Olympus. My body, a fleshy carriage carrying my soul. I would see the Stadium rise up in the distance gleaming in blue and white, glowing iridescent in the summer dusk. The memories would rush through me. The seasons of hope, passion, triumph and joy. I could hear the thoughts of others around me, thoughts like mine, thoughts of memories past and victories future.

I will miss the old place.

Understand, though, I look forward to the new. Greatness is born only from challenge. There is no challenge that the New York Yankees cannot meet.

Here's to a new New York Yankee century in the 21st Century of Our Lord. Here's to new championships, new memories, grand stories that I will pass on to my children and my children's children.

Here's to the New York Yankees and Yankee Stadium.

FOR CRISTO: THE TAO OF A COSMIC SAILOR

We move forward, my son. Always forward. We live in the Eternal Now, ephemeral and everlasting. We do not mourn the past in a veil of tears or blind ourselves in false reverie. We discover the history of futures that we hope to be and sing songs to it with words that reveal themselves behind the second hand of the clock and notes that that are born each moment.

There is only The Now and The Now renews itself endlessly in a single stream forward, like an arrow unencumbered by the friction of gravity launched from the mast of a ship. We set forth upon The Ocean of Time and Space and the Cartesian grid of waves are the canvass of our creation and adventure. You are always here, I am always here, upon the deck of our souls, the stars above and within to guide us across the universe.

FATIMA

"O, my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those who are most in need of Thy mercy."

I offer this for all souls that seek love, hope and faith.

OF GEHRIG AND JETER

Lou Gehrig. Derek Jeter. Yankee pride.

Gehrig and Jeter are monuments to what makes the New York Yankees a special franchise, a legendary franchise. They represent an unbroken chain of baseball greatness that stretches across a full century.

Gehrig, the first Yankee captain, led his team to the start of its history of greatness in the 1920s and 30s. He was a native New Yorker, a product of the immigrant streets of the early 20th Century. He played hard, played the game right, never showy, but always great. We all know his story-- 2,130 consecutive games played, triple crown winner, most career grand slams. All cut short by the disease which killed him, ALS, shortly before his 38th birthday. During his time with the Yankees, they won six World Series. The great New York mayor, Fiorello La Guardia called him, "The greatest prototype of good sportsmanship and citizenship."

I never got to see him play. I wish I had.

I have had the privilege of watching Jeter play. Derek Jeter is a throwback to the kind of ballplayer that Gehrig was. He plays hard and plays to win. He's there for his teammates and he never shows up his opponents. He's a nine-time All-Star, a World Series MVP, and All-Star Game MVP, second on the Yankees all-time hits list (and closing in on 3,000 hits), and a four-time World Series winner. He's at his best in October, when the pressure is on and championships are on the line. He holds the record for most postseason hits and runs scored, batting .314 in his postseason career.

Yesterday, he passed Lou Gehrig for most career hits in Yankee Stadium. It was fitting that it happened in the year that they're closing the Big Ballpark in the Bronx, the baseball shrine. Would that the two always remained linked, reminders of the past, present and future greatness of the New York Yankees.

CULT OF PERSONALITY and GUERILLA RADIO

Living Colour. "Cult of Personality." Listen:




Rage Against the Machine. "Guerilla Radio." Hear:



Political vigilance is all. Never stop being vigilant. Never.

PERSONAL STATEMENT: THE CITIZEN AND THE REPUBLIC

There is a sickness in the body politic.

This will not be an examination, but rather a personal statement. This statement is for those who can only be called “Obamaniacs,” crazed and excessive supporters of Barack Obama. I know some of these people personally. (I would also apply this statement to the “Palintologists,” those similarly extreme supporters of Sarah Palin, but I don’t personally know any. Any excessive attachment to a public figure—any public figure—is unhealthy.)

I worship none but God. I deify no man or woman. My loyalty is to my republic, the United States of America, not to any party or person. I will not now, nor ever, bow before the madness of your attachment to a candidate. I will not restrain my criticisms, witticisms or judgments because they offend your semi-religious devotion to some famous woman or man.

I distrust mass movements, especially those of the political variety, and I distrust charmers. The former is quite often an outgrowth of the application of the gifts of the latter. Mass political movements are always a result of general desperation on the part of the public due to their fears and their sufferings. The fact that those fears and sufferings are legitimate do not in any way absolve the psychological compulsions on the part of people to attach themselves to slogans, banners or men. The bulwark of any republic is its citizenry. It is the citizenry, and not their leaders, who safeguard the political tenets upon which every republic stands. When the citizenry abdicate their duty to challenge and question those in power, or those who seek power, the republic is lost.

It is not enough to challenge those whose beliefs differ from yours; you must also challenge the motivations and intentions of your allies in the nation as well.

I know to be brief because in our hectic age, no one wishes to read a lengthy essay, so I’ll make a few personal points to those of you for whom this is intended:

1. I agree and support most of the political stances of Senator Obama. However, I challenge the nature of his motivations and the veracity of his and his supporters’ assertions of his political purity. He is far from pure, as are we all, and I will not ever hesitate to criticize him.

2. The criticisms that I level at Obama zealots are the same criticisms that I level at the zealots of George W. Bush. You are twins from different mothers. I will spare no one.

3. Many of you say that you are not “zealots.” You simply “like the man” and believe that he’s “inspirational.” My definition of a political zealot is thus: When you respond to any criticism of your candidate with anger, when you can admit no wrong of your candidate, or can admit to no wrong without accusing someone or something else, when you strain friendships and relationships because of your attachment to such a personae, you are a zealot. Look closely in the mirror. You might not like what you see.

4. Further, if your friendship cannot withstand my criticism of someone that you do not even know, nor are ever likely to know, then you are no true friend.

5. If you doubt that this type of Obama zealotry is extensive, if you wish to call it an aberration, I invite you to peruse this blog:

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/

Read it with an open mind. The blog was not created by a zealot, but rather by one who wished to expose such zealotry. The examples on the blog are not isolated, but rather indicative of what’s going on in the country at large.


Thus ends my personal statement. There is a sickness in the body politic. May God grant us the grace to heal it before it is too late for our grand republic.


“He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
-- Thomas Paine

SHADOW SOULS: OBAMA AND PALIN

Play this song as you read this article. It will be the soundtrack for your journey.



“Just as we tend to assume that the world is as we see it, we naively suppose that people are as we imagine them to be. In this latter case, unfortunately, there is no scientific test that would prove the discrepancy between perception and reality. Although the possibility of gross deception is infinitely greater here than in our perception of the physical world, we still go on naively projecting our own psychology into our fellow human beings. In this way everyone creates for himself a series of more or less imaginary relationships based essentially on projection.”

-- Carl Jung


THE SHADOW SOULS


The psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of something he called the “Shadow Aspect.” It’s an unconscious aspect of the self that we repress and then project onto someone else as a criticism of their differences from us. Usually it is some dark aspect of humanity and we use it to justify our hatred of another person or group. In a sense, it’s like a photographic negative of who we are, something that we despise, but that is actually a part of our being. Our mirror opposite.

Jung felt that when we repress this dark aspect of ourselves it manifests itself in the world at large, coming to life, so to speak, in the form of some enemy or rival.

I couldn’t help but be struck by this notion in noting the response of many “progressives” to the candidacy of Sarah Palin. For months I watched people indulge in cult-like devotion to Senator Barack Obama. This was not a devotion to his policies, particularly given that those policies were not terribly different from those of his democratic rivals. It was a devotion to some image or concept of what Obama represents.

Many people are justifiably angry about the last eight years of the “W” administration. These people feel we’ve lost our way both politically and morally. I wholly agree with such criticism.

However, many critics go much further. They see the behavior of the conservatives in America as a dark and dangerous “other” that needs to be vanquished. They see conservatives as ideologues who will accept any activity from their leader as long as he’s their leader and follows an right-wing ideological framework.

Yet, in many ways, this is a mirror reflection of their own behavior, their own blind hero-worship and ideological devotion, but rather from the left rather than the right.

To fight off their own demons and to hopefully slay their enemy, they have projected an image onto someone that seems to know what they want and what they have been looking for. He is someone who is “handsome,” “charming,” and “charismatic.” He is Senator Barack Obama.

At times when people speak of Obama, it sounds as if they’re talking about a lover of theirs or even a messiah. Though many perceive of him that way, they are loathe to admit it (certainly not to themselves).

Some, however, are willing to be open:

“Barack Obama is inspiring us like a desert lover, a Washington Valentino… We're talking about it; we're getting involved, we're tuning in and turning out in numbers we haven't seen in ages. My musician friends and I are writing songs to inspire people and couples all over America are making love again and shouting "yes we can" as they climax!”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lili-haydn/why-obama-is-like-a-deser_b_89285.html

Okay. Now, if you’re at a point in your life where you shout political slogans during sex, there’s something deeply wrong with you. You don’t need a political leader, you need a psychologist. Still, this is far from the only example hat Obama is a representational image rather than a flesh-and-blood candidate of issues and policies.

For some he is a “Lightworker”:

“Many spiritually advanced people I know… identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.”
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2008/06/06/notes060608.DTL?

For still others, he is “God-like”:

“I’m taking a special look at Barack Obama because he’s a lot closer to a Jesus-type than the other candidates, by quite a bit. What if God decided to incarnate as men preaching “hope and change.” And what if we didn’t recognize them, because we are so dull, and let them slip away, not availing ourselves of the opportunity to be led by God!”
http://www.jg-tc.com/articles/2008/03/31/opinion/letters/doc47f0586a2ff1b441328510.txt

And, finally, yet for many, he is “The One”:

“`I do believe I do today we have the answer to Miss Pittman's question – it's a question that the entire nation is asking – is he the one?’ Winfrey said. `South Carolina – I do believe he's the one.’
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7281.html

This is only a very small sample of these types of things that have been written and said about him. The above quotes and articles are not anomalies.

To be sure, Obama has been skilled at manipulating these sorts of feelings. Those who argue that he has no complicity in these projections are dead wrong:

"We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

“Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that… this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

Beautiful words, though no less calculated.

With such hunger on the part of voters and such skilled and mellifluous speeches on the part of Obama, he became something larger than a politician in the eyes of many of his supporters.

Barack Obama is a brilliant man and a brilliant politician, but I think any sane person knows (I hope) that he is not a God-like Lightworker, a desert lover or “The One.” However, the fact that he has engendered these types of responses is reflective of, I think, the subconscious of those who feel (and write) these things.

It reflects a need on the part of his followers to find someone to lead them out of the wilderness. It reflects their need to vanquish the demons of the last eight years. It is also indicative of an angry mass consciousness which has created a Manichean narrative which requires characters of evil to parallel it’s characters of good.

If you have a hero, if you have “The One,” then you must have a villain— “The Other.” Initially, that villain was Senator Hillary Clinton. She became characterized as something of a cross between “the other woman” and Medusa.

She was excoriated as all that is wrong with politics from “triangulating” political strategy to deranged narcissism. She was pilloried with every historical prejudice towards dangerous women. She was likened to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. It was said that her campaign was racist and cynical. It was written that she didn’t concede properly and that she didn’t properly “embrace” him at the Democratic Convention.

Again, if you doubt the extent of this characterization, please see:

http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/02/hillary-sexism-watch.html

In short, she was the dark and dangerous female “other” who threatened the ascendancy of “The One.” As Joseph Campbell wrote in The Hero With A Thousand Faces:

“The testings of the hero, which were preliminary to his ultimate experience and deed, were symbolical of those crises of realization by means of which his consciousness came to be amplified and made capable of enduring the full possession of the mother-destroyer.”

Well, The One prevailed. But then something happened. The Shadow had not been destroyed, only sublimated. The extremes of idolization and the depths of misogyny which combined to lead Obama to victory produced its mirror image in a new rival— Governor Sarah Palin.

Who is this woman? Who is this cipher from the Alaskan tundra? She is Obama’s mirror. She is Obama’s Shadow Self. She is the very embodiment of those superficial aspects which make Obama popular, while at the same time representing the opposite of the that for which he stands politically and the very demons which his supports hungered for him to slay.

The Cult of Obama engendered the Shadow of Palin.

Let’s be clear. I do not believe that Palin possesses the intellectual depth of Obama. (In contrast to Hillary Clinton, who is brilliant in her own right.) What she possesses are telegenic, biographical and ideological attributes for the right similar to those which excited the left about Obama.

The similarities are striking.

Her youth is the counterpoint to Obama’s. She’s 44. He’s 47.

She’s a former beauty queen and TV sports reporter. Obama is routinely complimented on his movie star good looks.

She is a former high school basketball star who led her team to the state championship while playing with a stress fracture. Obama played on a high school basketball team that won the state championship and was known for his tenacious playing style.

Palin had been governor of Alaska for less than two years before being nominated as the Republican vice presidential candidate. Obama had been in the Senate barely two years before he began his candidacy for president.

Her biography as an Alaskan outdoorswoman and mother of five have captivated her Republican base. Obama’s biography as the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white woman from Kansas transfixed his supporters.

She is a hard right-wing ideologue. Obama is seen as a champion of liberal/progressive causes.

And let us not forget, she is a “she.” As a woman, she represents that for which so many of Obama’s supporters (both male and female) have reacted to so strangely and stridently— the female interloper in a political world dominated by men.

What is most tragic to me about the Palin ascendancy is that it exposes that aspect of the “Obama Nation” for which I have been critical— It’s cult-like nature. So crazed and invested in destruction, demonizing and idolization have many of his supporters been that, to me, in some strange and cosmic way, they sowed the seeds of a true progressive’s potential undoing.

In this year when there is the real and tantalizing possibility that a progressive agenda led by Obama will take hold of the White House, it would be a crime if the extreme nature of many of his supporters turns out to be the political and cosmic undoing of much-needed change in the political agenda.

The Cult of Obama. The Shadow of Palin.

Let us not be shocked that the one has engendered the other.

THOUGHTS ON THE DARK KNIGHT

If Hitler had made superhero movies, the Dark Knight is what they would’ve looked like. A veritable orgy of misogyny, racism and random violence, this disjointed and psychotic cinematic creation is a window into the conflicted subconscious of the American mind.

The movie begins promisingly with an excellent heist sequence in which we are introduced to the Joker. The heist is tightly written and edited, with each step to its conclusion played out masterfully. Our introduction to the Joker is powerful and startling. Heath Ledger clearly channeled some inner demons to create this version of the famous supervillain. While Cesar Romero’s joker was a kook and Jack Nicholson’s Joker was a sinister jester, Ledger’s joker is a deranged sociopath—and barely funny at all. Watching Ledger we see the heart of anarchical sadism. And this is the first glimpse into The Dark Knight’s window of the American subconscious.

The portrayal of the Joker as a villain is reflective of our American sense of what constitutes the height of criminal danger at any given moment. In the 1960’s Romero’s joker was a gangster-prankster. He knocked off banks and pulled a few corny gags. He was the incarnation of the nation’s hippies, poking fun at American culture and challenging some of it’s tenets. To the modern eye, it’s an almost quaint notion of simple danger to the social order.

Nicholson’s Joker was very much the product of the 1980s. He was Ivan Boesky, slick and cool, dark in humor and looking for the big score. He didn’t represent a threat to the social order so much as a financial “player” who felt it was his right to break all the rules if it meant he could get all the toys and stand atop that order.

Ledger’s Joker is a beast of another color. His danger is chaos, anarchy, total destruction. He’s not looking to challenge the social order so much as he’s looking to obliterate it. He is after destruction for destruction’s sake. He’s the kind of man that would kill you just to see the look on your face when you die. This is a terrorist in the definitive sense; there is no ideology behind his terror, only terror itself.

And what of the Batman? Well, he’s certainly no straight-laced parody of a do-gooder played completely for laughs as he was in the 1960s TV series. He isn’t the ironic, quirky Michael Keaton Batman. This Batman is a humorless vigilante, a rich guy with a weird fetish for bodysuits and bad guys.

The Dark Knight is essentially a series of action sequences interspersed with supposedly deep dialogue which more or less tells us what we should think the movie is about. The plot involves Batman trying to stop an Asian crime boss, Lau, battle The Joker, and resolve a love triangle among District Attorney Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes (the apparent female love interest) and Bruce Wayne, who is, of course, Batman’s alter-ego. As if that’s not enough, Harvey Dent becomes yet another supervillian, Two-faced.

The movies seems to actually be three films in one and none of them are satisfactory. These story cycles render The Dark Knight far too long in run time. Over and over, I kept hoping it would end just so I could use the restroom.

The story of the Asian villain completely disappeared at one point only two reappear out of thin air, very briefly towards the end. The “love triangle” is hardly engrossing (especially since it hardly seemed believable). Only the story of The Joker is the least bit interesting and only because Heath Ledger is so demonic as to be disturbing.

An actual discussion of the plot or the plot points is completely pointless since what is supposedly a plot is really an excuse to get the viewer to more scenes of trucks crashing or buildings exploding or Batman fighting people in the strange spasmodic way he fights in the movie.

No, more fascinating frankly is that for which the plot is used as a vehicle: Fascist notions of (false) manliness and it’s role in the state.



Throughout the film, Batman is faced with situations where he must take unlawful use of force to defend the citizens of Gotham city. The situations are set up so that we, supposedly, see that Batman has no choice to take power into his own hands to stop the forces of evil, much like a dictator or excessive president would to stop threats to the state. We’re meant to see that sometimes a powerful man must bend the rules of law to preserve the rules of law. I would argue that the very bending of them destroys them rather than preserves them.

Any republic that uses extremism in defense of liberty is a republic in name only. A nation is only as strong as its citizenry and legislation. When we allow strong men to unilaterally decide what is best for us, we become no better than those we are fighting. When Batman is “forced” in The Dark Knight to eavesdrop on the cell phones of all citizens (even though he relinquishes that power), the filmmakers are telling us that, sometimes, the “strong hand” of the state is good for us.

How fascist and how false.

Even more galling is how the film treats race and gender within the context of the story. Women and people of color serve as foils to show us how powerful and masculine the male leads are. (All I could think of after watching The Dark Knight was the old Saturday Night Live skit, Miles Copperthwiate, which features the character of Captain Ned, commander of the ship The Raging Queen.



Above ship, Captain Ned liked to make macho pronouncements about how he ran “a man’s ship,” and how they did “manly things” on it. At night, below deck, he preferred to spend his time attempting to “comfort” the small boy, Miles.)



What we get is racism and sexism used as some sort of bizarre signifier of manliness.

I’ve tried to think of the last time I saw a film where the leading lady got blown to pieces by a bomb. Let me see.. um… Oh. Never.

The destruction of Rachel Dawes is an apt metaphor for the essence of the gender outlook of this would-be oeuvre. The film establishes Dawes as the contemporary stock character of the "Independent Woman," yet though we are supposed to view her as having some internal power, she's little more than window dressing for Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent. Yet even that aspect doesn't work as her character is written with so little to make her interesting or charismatic, that it's hard to figure out what these guys see in her. (Which I think is what the filmmakers wanted, since it's clear that we're really supposed to be focusing on the boys.) This is no fault of Maggie Gyllenhaal, the actress who plays Dawes. She's shown herself to be a fine actress in many films, but even her talents could not overcome this thankless role.

And what does she (as her character) get for her efforts? Blown apart by a bomb. "Good-bye `Uppity Woman,'" say our creators.

Then there's Detective Anna Ramirez, played by Monique Curnen, our lone woman of color in the movie. She's established as a sort of a butch lady cop, another female interloper in a man’s world. And what do our filmmakers tell us about the nature of this butch woman of color? What are we to think of this lone representative of a large segment of our population? Well, we find out that she’s not just a bossy butch lady cop—she’s also corrupt! Yes, our butch little Anna isn't just a mannish woman intruding in a Captain Ned manly world, she's also a crooked intruder. I guess this is supposed to what happens when you let a “skirt” in men's spaces. Anna, in our lovely story, is partially responsible for the death of Harvey Dent's love, Rachel Dawes. Yeah, let those women kill each other.

And what does Anna get for her intrusion? She gets decked by Harvey Dent (as the supervillain Two-face). That's right. A guy decks a woman in a mainstream movie and the script is written in a way that we're supposed to cheer it. You go, boys!

Finally, we have the throwaway arm candy women (or, clearly from the filmmaker's point of view, “bimbos”). There is the blonde Russian ballerina who spouts vapid analyses, and later is mocked by Alfred the Butler when she wants him to put suntan lotion on her back. (Now I think the world of Michael Caine as an actor, and he's excellent as Alfred, but only in The Dark Knight could you be expected to believe that a 70-year-old man wouldn't want to rub suntan lotion on a beautiful young woman's back.) We also get treated to a lovely exchange between mob boss Maroni (played by Eric Roberts) where he tells his lucky lady to shut up (for the viewers’ laughs, of course).

Pretty girls are to be seen and not heard-- or in The Dark Knight world, preferably not seen at all.

And what of our "little minority friends"?

Look, when your film’s main crime boss is, Lau, an Asian man, and he’s shown to be inscrutable, duplicitous and craven, I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re playing on hateful stereotypes. In an age when Asian nations are on the rise as world powers in every aspect of global, dusting off racial stereotypes from the 1930s seem more than a little retro. Not only does the character of Lau get the “Charlie Chan” award for the Most Ridiculous Asian Stereotype, he even gets to be humiliated by being dragged by his feet from his office and essentially hogtied to a plane by the caped crusader.

Holy throwback, Batman!

But they didn’t stop there. What would a contemporary action movie be without it’s obligatory tortured dichotomous view of the contemporary black man? There are the "good ones"-- you know, the kind who aren't too threatening, are always deferential, and with an easy smile and a full laugh. Then there are the bad ones-- youthful, physically imposing, unwilling to tip their cap. Well, they are here for your Jim Crow days viewing pleasure.

We have the always brilliant Morgan Freeman cast as Lucius Fox. This gifted actor seems to have been cast in what seems to be a reprisal of his role in Driving Miss Daisy, only this time it's Driving Mr. Wayne. Now to be honest, his character is not all that bad. He's smart, elegant, honorable. It's just that this character is the typical white-haired (or sometimes bald-headed-- but always old) "Magical Negro" who exists to help redeem mainstream the hero. And he's almost always contrasted to the "dangerous" black man. (Probably so they can dismiss any arguments of racism. “Hey, what do you mean? We have a good black guy in our movie!”)

That dangerous black man in this film is the character of Gambol, played by Michael Jai White. He's got muscles on top of muscles. He brutish. He snarls. He's arrogant. He needs a comeuppance! And boy does he get one. He and his two black bodyguards, get beaten down and then thrown on all fours and made to fight for their lives at the feet of The Joker.

Yes, it’s a manly ship that Captain Batman runs in Gotham!

Finally, let me just say something here: I don’t want to hear any sort of malarkey from the ant-p.c., sexist, xenophobic apologists who will say that none of these things actually mean what I say they do. People who write for a living don’t just throw things on the page for the heck of it. They use character and scene structure to make a point.

Now, sure, sure, I know you'll say, "Hey, it's just a coincidence that in the Dark Knight all strong women get killed, all beautiful women get mocked, all men of color are humiliated or shown as lackeys! Come on! Stop reading into things!"

Well, let me say this to you:

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it must be…

The Dark Knight!

I don’t care how many billions of dollars this film makes. It’s a pile of fascist shite and belongs on a cinematic dung heap.

Put that in your fanboy pipe and smoke it.

9/11

I woke up in the desert yesterday and my thoughts were to the place I call my homeland, the city of my birth, the land of skyscrapers, the town that never sleeps. The pain is still there, seven years on. The loss still affects me, affects my dreams, my soul. There's no need to go into the politics of it. That battle is still being fought, will be fought, for time to come. This is personal.

The lives that were lost. The lives that were changed forever. Yet we not only persevere, we triumph. We build a new age with the spirit of those who are gone, but still with us. My fellow New Yorkers, strong, proud, indomitable. If you don't know about my hometown, then let me tell you something: We can take a punch-- and we know how to hit back.

Everyday we wore our skyline like a diadem. Those jewels were stolen from us. They can never be replaced. They were heirlooms, precious family inheritances. But we will wear our jewels beautifully again. We will shine brighter than anyone could ever imagine.

I write this for my family, for my mother and father, brothers and sisters, in-laws, nieces and nephews. You are my heart and soul. Your spirit flows through my veins. Each day, all these years long, you are with me in the desert. When I see the city of my birth, I see you. And I love you. And I love New York.

I always will.

ACTING SHAKESPEARE

Approaching Shakespeare, to my mind, is like approaching sacred text: one must be humble, yet unafraid. Humility comes from recognizing that Shakespeare is majestic and sublime, both in form of his poetry and prose and in the dramatic content of his stories. This totality of artistry is unmatched anywhere in world drama. I say this not because these beliefs are conventional wisdom (which is always conventional, but rarely wise, nor because it earns one “culture points,” rather I say it for the best reason that one can make any statement: it is true.

Humble, yet unafraid. Humility and aggression. These are the attributes that the Shakespearean actor/actress must have. He or she must approach the text with reverence for its power and majesty, but with a willingness to be bold in interpretation and performance. The Shakesperean actor is like a piece of glass crafted to reflect the light and power of the sun in its own particular way. It is the sun’s light which illumes it, but it is the glass which gives the reflection of that light it’s own distinctive play.

No matter how much we may try to come up with gimmicks and twists in modern drama, the basic meat on the bones of what makes us fascinated or interested in a story revolves around basic drives and hunger-- lust, power, love, revenge. Perhaps that does not always sit well in a p.c. age, but conflict is the soul of drama. Shakespeare was a master at plotting, structure and storytelling. This is what gives his plays such relevance centuries after they were written. Yet he his also a master at characterization and use of language. As actors and writers, we do well to remember this. It is not simply the internal life of the character that is important, but how that character uses language and how we use that language as actors. Language. Rhythm. Meter. Poetry. Sacred texts derive their relevancy from their truths, but they derive their potency from their poetry. This is why there is almost a sacred power to Shakespeare's work and why we must approach it humbly.

The arc of Henry V’s life in Shakespeare’s dramas is a perfect example. We see Henry in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2 , and in Henry V the full spectrum of a man's growth from boyhood to manly power. This growth is conveyed to us not only in story, but in language as well. The young Henry, or Hal, in the Henry IV plays is a profligate, a partier, who likes to spend his time drinking in taverns with his friend Falstaff. In the young Hal’s carousing with Falstaff, we are drawn into the excitement of youthful wildness and playfulness. When Hal ascends to the throne as Henry V, he becomes a different man. He disowns Falstaff and focuses on the expansion of power through the conquest of the French. We see a mature and serious Henry V leading his men in battle. Just listening to the language of Henry’s speeches in Henry V gives one the sense of a man who has embraced his destiny as a king and understands the importance of being a leader of men:

Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'

It closes with:

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

The language serves the content of this call to arms. It is simple, direct. It is plainspoken language for a plainspoken King and soldier.

By the end of the story cycle, we find Henry V wooing Katherine, the French princess. He has reached the ripeness of his life, an arc from wastrel to warrior to lover. Yet, keeping with the content and style that serves form, Henry woos Kate with the plain words of a soldier:

Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my
eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation;
only downright oaths, which I never use till urged,
nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a
fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth
sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love
of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy
cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst
love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee
that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the
Lord, no; yet I love thee too. And while thou
livest, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and
uncoined constancy; for he perforce must do thee
right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other
places: for these fellows of infinite tongue, that
can rhyme themselves into ladies' favours, they do
always reason themselves out again. What! a
speaker is but a prater; a rhyme is but a ballad. A
good leg will fall; a straight back will stoop; a
black beard will turn white; a curled pate will grow
bald; a fair face will wither; a full eye will wax
hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the
moon; or, rather, the sun, and not the moon; for it
shines bright and never changes, but keeps his
course truly.

Contrast this with the florid and passionate words of a boy, Romeo, in Romeo and Juliet, as he woos Juliet:

But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid are far more fair than she.

These are the words of a boy newly awakened to the stirrings of the heart and the flesh. They are the more florid words. Indeed, if we look at the structure of Henry V’s speech and compare it with Romeo’s, what jumps out at us is that Henry V speaks in prose to his love, while Romeo speaks in verse. One is plainspoken, almost martial; the other, poetry.

In both instances above, the language is magical, and it is Shakespeare’s ability to play with words through both imagery and/or the rhythm of meter that give it this magic. One could spend years going through speeches in Hamlet or Julius Caesar and always find something both new and wondrous in them.

Since I tend to go on at length on topics in my blog, and sense the sun is about to break forth here in Syren Sea, I’ll end this brief excursion for further discussion of it at another time. However, I will leave you with what I think is an incredible example of Shakespearean acting from a performance by the great Orson Welles, an actor who revered the works of the Great Bard (Shakespeare).

Here is his interpretation of Othello:

FATIMA

Prayer of Fatima:
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those who have most need of your mercy.


I offer this for all whose hearts are filled with the need for faith, hope and love.

CRISTO

It’s been one year in the eyes of a prophet, but one thousand losses in the soul of the seeker. My son is here yet gone and it pains me in even as I take shots of that analgesic called “faith.” What can I write about you? You still speak to me in whispers and dreams. Some may think it’s foolish that I still live of you, but souls, our children, come to us in different forms sometimes. Feline you were and are, but my child no less. You are not gone. You will never be gone. You are always with me. I do not mourn you thus, since you are here and will return anew in a different form at a different time. I celebrate you, Cristo, child of my heart.

Come, let us talk awhile and laugh.