Multiple Personality

I was catching up on some Simpsons episodes, and I have a new favorite line:

Y’know, for a bartender/bookie, you’re awfully judgmental.

The Simpsons, for some reason, is still very funny.

First there was Vlad the Impaler. Is the world ready for Vlad the Screenwriter?

It’s such an L.A. story: Boy writes movie-script comedy, Boy attemts to challenge “Sex in the City” just in the period of deep laughter, Boy destroys all previous stereotypes of Mac-Daddies.

It sounds like Dimitri the Lover is diversifying.

Utah has gotta lotta ’splainin’ to do. We won’t even go into how much they and their Mormony types from out of California have been bankrolling the Deny-Gay-People-Their-Rights Amendment (to the Constitution!). But let’s talk about a certain Salt Lake City movie multiplex, and its owner Larry Miller (not the comedian Larry Miller…this one is clearly filled with much more creamy Mormony goodness).

His movie theaters — which previously banned Brokeback Mountain because its cowpokes were doing the wrong kind of poking (I was gonna mention homo-on-the-range joke, but I opted for, um, subtlety) — are now refusing to show the new Kevin Smith movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. What I LOVE about the article by Jonathan Crow in which I learned about this is what the chain’s spokesman was asked: Why do you have problems with this film when you don’t have problems showing Saw V (which features beheadings and explicit self-mutilation)? The spokesdrone had no comment.

But I’m delighted that the conversation turns to this angle. There is no doubt in my feverish little mind that the violence of our torture porn is climactically more injurious to the minds and souls of our villagers than the sex of our make-believe sex romps…or even the sex of our hardcore shenanigans. But our more vociferous and judgmental religious sects are comfortable with violence; they’ve been perpetrating one form or another upon themselves and others since they figured out it got them stronger toeholds (and fuller coffers) than coming from that lovey-Jesusy angle.

As I said, however, I’m happy as a little girl that the sex-versus-violence comparison is being raised in polite (or, at least, journalistic) society. I could just kill those people who condone all that violence.

Gabriel over at Modern Fabulousity has written an eloquent and beautiful post about same-sex marriage, and voting No on Prop 8 (even though he’s a New Yorker for whom it’s not even applicable). I urge you to click on the linkiness under “eloquent and beautiful” in the previous sentence at your earliest convenience. In the meantime, here’s a passage from what he wrote:

You can decide for yourself whether my marriage has any meaning for you or not, and how you feel about it morally…that’s your right, as an American. . . . You can imagine that my love isn’t the same as yours, that my faith is different from yours, that the houses of religion should bolt the door when they see me coming. You can judge me and my husband, and you can hate us the way homosexuals have been hated for a thousand years. (For that’s all this debate is about, in the end…how much you hate us.) [. . .]

But what you CANNOT continue to do is deny the LEGAL protections that every American deserves. Especially if you believe that America should be the land of the free, that all men are created equal, that we all have a right (protected in the Constitution) to pursue happiness. You want to deny me morally, fine. You cannot deny me legally any more. Period.

Writitude is an occasional list of writing for which I am grateful.

3. Mad Men. Not exactly metaphysical/spiritual, except for the way it melts time and finds a deeper truth. It is said that those who do not learn from the past are destined to repeat it. This show not only reexamines the past — the post-Eisenhower, beginning-of-the-end years — with the clear lens of the present, it reexamines the present via a bracingly unembellished understanding of the past. If we can take the blinders off about how non-Leave it to Beaver our past was, then perhaps we can heal our present, with all its unchecked baggage.

2. Life on Mars. Another show that transports us back to a previous decade, with a contemporary perspective. But the twist here is that our hero — mysteriously thrown back to 1973 from his “real” home in 2008 — may actually be imagining the whole thing while he lies in a modern-day coma. Or perhaps 2008 was the illusion and he’s awakened to his reality in the time of wide collars. Or maybe it’s all an illusion and reality lies somewhere else altogether. Where else is network television pondering such things?

1. Eli Stone. At the risk of sounding grand, the world is a better place because this show is on the air. While nobody was paying attention, a series was green-lit — and renewed for a second season! — that unabashedly examines the Divine. But not the Falwellian version; rather, the kind that is inexplicable, and juicy, and life-changing, and joyous/daunting. And while the topic is raised zealously, it is laden more with thought-provoking irreverence than stultifying reverence. Who better to have been thunderstruck with visions than a corporate lawyer? And how better to portray our collective struggle to embrace Spirit while maneuvering the Earthbound than to watch a sheepish ersatz-messiah allow himself to be guided through — and perhaps beyond — the bureaucratic and patriarchal legal system.

Hi. As some of you know, I write a newspaper column called “Media Shmedia.” Writer’s Digest has an annual writing competition, and they determined it wasn’t shit. Woo to the hoo.

Here is the column in question, if you’re curious.

The droll and diminutive humorist has written an article about Presidential elections for that normallly overblown magazine that I normally don’t like because it’s normally so pretentious. But back to David Sedaris, my favorite part is his metaphorical evaluation of the choice between these two candidates:

To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The flight attendant comes down the aisle with her food cart and, eventually, parks it beside my seat. “Can I interest you in the chicken?” she asks. “Or would you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broken glass in it?”

Writitude is an occasional gratitude list of resonant writing, sometimes found in unexpected places. Like TV.

1. Mad Men (AMC), because it’s both subtle and stylish in its uncomfortable insights.

2. The Ex List (CBS), because it’s adorable, and benefits from careful listening.

3. Chuck (NBC), because it’s extra adorable, along with being super-spy-ish.

4. Life on Mars (ABC), because it’s deep and sly at the same time. And they used Sweet’s “Little Willie” during an action sequence.

5. Eli Stone (ABC), because it’s not afraid of the inexplicable, and has lines like, “You’re one of those people for whom ‘normal’ is a failure of potential.”

I watched this miniseries, The Starter Wife, which I liked, and it ended with this quote, which I loved:

You will travel through the valley of rejection,
You will reside in the land of morning mists…
And you will find your home,
Though it will not be where you left it.

No offense to the writer of The Starter Wife, or anything, but this feels like it’s “from” something, and I’m not accomplishing anything in the Googling. Can anybody verify the name of who wrote this?

As if I didn’t feel dirty enough just having done my first recap of that inferior dancing show, my blog is apparently now overrun with Republican sex addicts.

My visitor counter allows me to see the path that readers took to get to this site. Apparently, Yahoo has listed me as a source for viewing b*ikini photos of S*arah P*alin. (The reason I’m asterisking things is because I don’t want to provide even more grist for the Google mill.)

So today I am somewhat inundated with people who have arrived looking for small-swimsuited Evil-Governor hypocritical soccer pitbulls. With lipstick.

If you saw the entry in which I posted that photo, you’d know it was an ironic gesture. (And no, I’m not linking back to it. Stop that.)

Normally, I’d optimistically hope that all visitors — coming here for whatever reason — might check out a few pages and decide they like it here. But I’m profoundly doubtful that those longing for gun-totin’, Alaskan-Mama cleavage are going to be fascinated by the real tone of this site. Sigh.