The Collegian Court

There's really nothing I like better than to wander into a restaurant with good food and a perfect atmosphere.

This feels so "Stuff White People Like" to say, but yeah, there is something really great about authenticity, or at least the ILLUSION of authenticity. About going somewhere that feels untouched by time-- not like you're stepping back in time, but as if you are stepping OUT of time. And time passes differently. You are so entranced with the music, the lights, the wallpaper, and the speed that your decrepit old waitress moves, that you can't tell if it's been an hour or ten minutes since you ordered.

Well, I went someplace like that yesterday. It's a Polish restaurant in Chicopee, MA called the Collegian Court. My friends who'd been there before said it was necessary to go, so 7 people piled into a Buick, drove to Chicopee and tried to find this restaurant. It was a grey, wet day and the brick buildings and empty streets of Chicopee seemed so sad. There were a few men zooming down the street on scooter wheelchairs, a couple of kids walking alone, and a group of younger men in suits standing awkwardly outside of a church. It took us a really long time of driving in circles to find the restaurant, but when we did, it was so worth it.

We walked inside into a dark bar/lounge area. I think there was an elderly couple sitting there. Past that was the empty dining room, where two old waitresses squabbled over where we could sit. The first thing I heard anyone say was "that table is reserved for the funeral!" The other waitress led us to a circular table and said "she's confused. Isn't this perfect? Seven chairs, seven people. Isn't this a good table?"

My friend Jennifer, always ready to converse with seemingly odd people replied, "yes! I really like how it's a circle." That seemed to satisfy the waitress and she went away.

The funeral party arrived and sat at the far end of the dining room from us.

As if the situation wasn't Lynchian enough, Bobby Vinton was playing over the speakers. "Mr. Lonely" and "Blue Velvet." The old waitress came back to give us coffee. It was painful to watch her move around the table so slowly. "I'm not a waitress," she told us.

Our waitress, it turned out, was an extremely frazzled young woman who kept forgetting what we'd ordered and almost overcharged us to an absurd extent.

The food was excellent, but like I said, I have no idea how long we waited for it. Bobby Vinton was replaced by traditional Polish music. They never refilled our coffee or gave us more water. It didn't really matter. It was a cool place. Even the funeral party seemed to be having a pretty good time. Only thing is that I kept hearing the voice of a child, but couldn't spot one in the restaurant, which didn't make much sense because the only people there were my party and the funeral party.

I got a loaf of pumpkin bread to go. We got back into the car and left. As we drove away from the Collegian Court, I wondered if I'd ever be able to go back. If I'd be able to make it back to Chicopee and find my way to that street corner. I wondered if it would still be there and I left the sad town of Chicopee for Northampton and realized why I hate it here.

Northampton must have looked just like Chicopee once, another New England town full of laid-off factory workers, before those fucks pumped so much money into it and created this monstrous pseudo-utopian post-hippie, socially liberal, Asian fusion loving, organic food buying, hemp wearing bubble of bourgeois denial. How many laid-off factory workers do you think found jobs at the vegan restaurant, the fair-trade cafe, at the Buddha statue peddling Orientalisms 'R Us, at the vintage clothing stores or cheap "ethnic" chachki gift shops?

Northampton is just as sad as Chicopee, but even moreso, because here they pretend there's nothing wrong. And restaurants like the Collegian Court can't exist here, because they're so old and depressing. Because the waitstaff can barely move. Because the service is awful.

And where are the old people here? Not the ones protesting the war, but the REAL old people. The sad old people. The ones who go to early bird specials and stare at eachother. I miss them.

So I guess that's all there is to say. I hope to find more pockets of pure weird beauty in Western Mass. Chicopee gave me hope. Northampton still disgusts me. Maybe it will change my mind.

why yes, in fact, we CAN

The first memory I have of an election is of going to a Bob Dole rally in 1996 with my friend Dita and her family.

I asked my dad one day in the car what the difference was between a democrat and a republican. He explained that democrats cared about poor people, while republicans cared about rich people getting richer. I have since realized that it's a bit more complicated than that, but I was seven years old and I don't blame him for trying to simplify things for me.

Oddly enough, I don't remember the actual 1996 election, just the elephant shaped fireworks at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda and my father's clarification of the two party system.

The only presidential elections, before tonight, that I had ever really experienced were those of 2000, at the beginning of my political consciousness, and 2004, when that consciousness had developed. I watched my young hopes crushed by the same dumbass twice in a row. I guess that's just what I thought presidential elections were and would always be: disappointing and sometimes crooked.

This presidential election, I was determined not to make the same mistake. I voted for my main man Representative Kucinich in the primary and refused to take a side in the Clinton v. Obama debacle. I even managed not to hear Obama speak until he accepted the nomination at the DNC. It took considerable effort, especially considering that my parents have been supporting him since he announced he was running. By the end of the primaries, I knew I was going to vote for him, but I didn't want to get emotionally involved.

Well, I heard that DNC speech and bawled. He had me there. The man can speak, what can I say?

Tonight I do not regret my emotional involvement. I wasn't the only one looking for a reminder of what the American ideal is.

At 11 PM Eastern Standard Time, just as my dad predicted would happen, Barack Hussein Obama was announced the president elect of the United States of America.

It was, as we have heard so many times, a historic moment for African Americans and all marginalized ethnic groups, a historic moment for persons of multi-ethnic backgrounds.

I don't need to say that electing Barack Obama does not mean that we have finally overcome racism. I think that's pretty obvious.

Tonight's victors are the world's idealists. We who see that things are really really fucked, but nonetheless have hope.

Thank you Mr. President-Elect. Thank you for helping us have that hope.

For the first time in my life, lying in my dorm room bed wrapped up in a sheet and listening to Chuck Berry, my love for my country makes perfect sense.

When holidays fuck you in the face

Maybe it's just a part of growing up, but I don't enjoy holidays as much as I used to.

When did birthdays start to suck?

When did Christmas become so unbelievably depressing?

When did Halloween turn into "let's do what we do every weekend except we're in costume and we'll get even MORE fucked up"?

Maybe all of those childhood memories build up impossible expectations. Maybe I think that if I do the holiday just right, I'll be able to go back somehow to that idealized time that never was. That feeling of autumn excitement when it's actually becoming fall and you need to start wearing a jacket, that strange, wonderful feeling of being publicly in costume, the anxiety on the way to school that maybe you messed up somehow and it's not really Halloween, and then the relief when you see the other kids in their monster masks and angel wings. Trick or treating or handing out candy while watching scary movies. Even in high school I had a lot of fun on Halloween. Sure there'd be substance abuse, but there would also be movies. The spirit was still there.

This Halloween was a disaster. My plans for a horrorfest went to shit because I couldn't connect the projector to my computer and no PCs would recognize my external harddrive. There were no movies, only drunk girls in costumes dancing on my beloved, now deceased, glasses.

November 1st and July 8th were always my least favorite days of the year. The day after Halloween and the day after my birthday. Now they've become a day when I can breathe. Phew, a whole year until I have to deal with that ordeal again.

Next up is Thanksgiving. Good thing I never liked that holiday.

Still, I have hope. I have a whole year until the next Halloween. Maybe I'll get it right this time...

"Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?"

I watched Ed Wood last night. Every time I see that movie, I get so moved and inspired.

It always makes me feel nostalgic. I remember renting it from Movies and More-- I must have been about 9. Movies and More was a video store around the corner from my house when I was growing up. When they went out of business, I bought their copy on VHS.

Pretty soon, a new video store opened up in the same strip mall: the Beverly Hills Videocentre. That place was really great-- a tiny store on the second floor packed from top to bottom with movies. When I was 12 and 13, that place was my safe haven. I doubt I would have survived puberty without it. The guys who worked there, Rick and Lon, were amazing. Somehow, they didn't mind the fact that an annoying pre-teen girl was always hanging around, eating their free cookies and demanding conversation and recommendations. Those guys made me the person I am today. They showed me Repo Man, True Stories, Forbidden Zone, (the original) Bedazzled, Female Trouble (who gives that to a 12 year old girl? No matter, I am eternally grateful) and so many more. Lon showed me some really bizarre movies from the 80's, like Liquid Sky and Starstruck. Rick told me about Belle & Sebastian and "El Presidente," which is still my favorite Thom Yorke song.

I rented Glen or Glenda and Plan 9 From Outer Space from them, and was so confused that Plan 9 is considered to be the classic. I remember my conversation with Rick about it. He said that I liked Glen or Glenda better because it was something that Wood really cared about, no matter how shitty the movie happened to be. He was absolutely right. Good and bad are completely subjective. Quality doesn't really matter to me-- for me to enjoy art, there just needs to be passion behind it. There is no worse crime than mediocrity.

They went out of business five years ago-- I'd made real friends by then and didn't depend on them for company anymore. It was still devastating. I cried and hugged them, which probably made them kind of uncomfortable. I wonder if they know how much they did for me. I wonder if they know how much it meant for me to have a place to go where people were nice to me and listened to what I had to say. I wonder what they're doing now. I wonder if they remember me.

I still dream about it sometimes. That they got their space back and are moving back in, even though I'm on the other side of the country now. In my dreams, they never recognize me.

What was I supposed to be writing about? Ed Wood, right. Bad movies made with passion. I wonder why I like them so much. Maybe because I find them reassuring. They soothe me in a way.

I guess it's because they remind me that greatness can be achieved on so many different levels, and that gives me hope.

Die Bergkatze/The Wildcat (1921)

Pola Negri being seriously badass in Ernst Lubitsch's 1921 comedy The Wildcat.

Last night I saw The Wildcat (the German title is Die Bergkatze, literally "The Mountain Cat"), and I finally understood what the big deal was about Pola Negri.

I went home, checked IMDB, and said about Negri the same thing I'd said years ago about Garbo after first seeing Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939), "I can't believe she didn't do more comedies!"

As is often the case with the movies which really get me fired up, the plot of The Wildcat is nothing to write home about. Vain playboy lieutenant gets robbed in the mountains by a band of thieves, but his life is spared by the uncouth lady-thief. She falls for him, he falls for her, but he's engaged to someone else, blah blah blah, the ending reinforces class segregation.

Whatever.

The sets are ABSURD. Giant white curlicues in the interior of a military mountain fortress...why not? There's also an insane dream sequence with a band of-- you know, I'm not going to ruin it. You need to see it to believe it.

The cast of brigands and soldiers are adorably hapless, and the sequence introducing the male lead...well, let's just say it's a great example of the use of crowds in silent film.

It's a romp, an impecably made romp.

But what The Wildcat is REALLY about is Pola Negri. She is brilliant. From the moment she bursts out of her tent and (literally) starts whipping her ne'er do well band of thieves into shape, we are on her side and we want to know her story. Unglamorous, uncouth and unfeminine (as far as beautiful female movie stars go, anyways) in her rags and leopard pelt, toting a giant pistol (see above) and a big knife, Negri manages to be so funny, so sexy, so charming, so adorable, and somehow so believable in this picture that it's impossible not to fall in love with her.

I really need to see more of Lubitsch's work. But from the two movies I've seen, I really like him. I like his style, I like his sense of humor, and most of all I like what he gets out of his actors. I understand why Veronica Lake's character from Sullivan's Travels is so keen to work with him.

I'm going to resist describing the movie at any length, because I think it's great and that everyone should see it, and I don't want to take away from that experience. The Kino DVD (part of the Lubitsch in Berlin series) is the film's first American release. Rent it, buy it, whatever, it's marvellous.

The "H" Word

"My reading of the threat from Iran is that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it is an existential threat to the State of Israel and to other countries in the region because the other countries in the region will feel compelling requirement to acquire nuclear weapons as well.

Now we cannot allow a second Holocaust."

Putting aside my image of an Israeli existential crisis ("What eez zee eemportance ov all ov zees faighteeng anywayz? Eet eez meanengless!"), I have a problem with this statement.

McCain said the H-word. He didn't say it in reference to any sort of genocide or ethnic cleansing. He didn't say it in reference to any sort of systematic killing. Unless it was a blunder in speech and what he MEANT to say was a second HIROSHIMA (another important H-word), his invocation of the systematic killing of Jews, Roma, communists, the mentally and/or physically disabled and homosexuals was completely uncalled for.

First of all, if Iran obtained nuclear weapons, would they nuke Israel? Probably not. Israel is estimated to have somewhere between 60 and 80 nuclear weapons, enough to, and I'm not sure if these are the correct technical terms, seriously fuck up a lot of shit in a very big way. Israel's buddy the United States has over 5,000 nuclear warheads. That's a lot of destructive power. If Iran decided to nuke Israel, it would be suicide. Also, you know what's in Israel? A bunch of really really important Muslim holy sites. It just doesn't make sense.

Now, if Iran obtained nuclear weapons and nuked Israel, would that constitute a "second Holocaust"? Well, a holocaust is technically a big fire, so yes, it would constitute a holocaust (small "h"), but it certainly wouldn't be the second. What made the Holocaust the Holocaust is that it wasn't really warfare. It was a redefinition of citizenship and humanity. They attacked enemies who lived among them, in Germany and in every country they conquered.

There's a big difference.

So why the hell would McCain say "second Holocaust"? Because he's talking about Israel. Israel is not a race of people. It is a nation. It has a government and a flag and some land. It has citizens, not all of whom are one faith or race. Israel does not equal the Jews. The Jews do not equal Israel.

It's a cheap shot. An irrelevant cheap shot. An emotionally manipulative irrelevant cheap shot. Is that really how he's trying to court the Jewish vote? By a swift knee to our tear ducts' testicles?

No blows below the belt, Senator McCain. Shifty fuck. I wonder if Icke thinks he's a lizard...

British Comedy

One of the great parts of being raised by the ex-hippie, intellectual, liberal bourgeoisie is the presence of British comedy in childhood.

Some kids watched Looney Tunes, I watched Monty Python's Flying Circus. The great thing about Python is that it's funny when you're a little kid, and keeps getting funnier as you get older. Take the philosophers football match, for instance, when I was younger, I thought it was funny that guys in suits and togas were playing sport. Now that I've read some of their works, it's still funny that guys in suits and togas are playing sport, but now I get the actual joke.

Absolutely Fabulous, Father Ted...now I know that most English tv sucks, just like tv everywhere, but those exports are brilliant. This past summer I discovered the Mighty Boosh, which is also marvellous.

Recently, I thought I found a new favorite, when I saw this video:

Hilarious, no? And done in that lovely, dry English way where you're not sure if they're serious or if they're kidding.

Upon doing more research on this man, David Icke, that thin line between comedic genius and batshittery blurred. Apparently, Icke is serious. He's a well known conspiracy theorist who believes that:

1. the world is run by a secret shadowy elite called the Illuminati
2. the Illuminati is actually made up of a race of reptilian humanoid shape-shifters from the Draco Galaxy who engage in Satanic rituals of human sacrifice (including the ritual murder and vampirism of blonde haired, blue eyed children)
3. notable members of the Draconians include: the Windsor family, the Bush family, Hilary Clinton and Kris Kristofferson

among other things...

Ha! What a nutter! A harmless old fool, screaming and yelling about a bunch of nonsense for our amusement. Or is he?

There has been a great deal of controversy over Icke, not because he's taking the old Illuminati conspiracy and injecting it with the plot of V, but rather because his conspiracy is tinged with anti-semitism.

To quote the short documentary The Secret Rulers of the World: David Icke, the Lizards and the Jews, "When David Icke says 'lizards,' does he mean lizards or does he mean Jews?"

I can understand the argument that Icke is an anti-semite. First of all, the Illuminati are supposed to include media moguls and bankers-- Jews. Additionally, he has made some references to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Second of all, the Draconian "Satanic rituals" are creepily similar to the old accusations of Jewish Blood Libel (see the cult of William of Norwich for a good example). Finally, there is supposed to be some sort of a connection between reptiles and Jews in the iconography of anti-semitism.

I don't think I have to say that one doesn't necessarily have to be an anti-semite to use anti-semitic imagery or tactics in getting your point across. For example, was F. W. Murnau an anti-semite? Heavens no! Is his film Nosferatu tinged with anti-semitic imagery? Absolutely. Why? Because it's a horror film, and the shit that people made up to make the Jews seem scarier is effective in scaring people. Also, anti-semitism reinforces their horrific nature. And of course, there is something to be said for the idea that making a vampire who comes into town buying land and infecting everyone with the plague Jewish looking could definitely enhance his creep-factor for an angry, empoverished, Weimar-era audience.

Well then, let's take a look at Icke's audience. People into conspiracy theories are usually white, Protestant, male, paranoid and religious. Why do they think something is wrong in the world? Because things aren't going well for them. We're talking working-class people whose jobs have been taken away. Who took the jobs away? Someone evil and priviledged.

Every culture has it. The heavily religious Christians have Satan and his minions. Old hippies and anyone else who's smoked/drugged themselves into paranoia has The Man. America has Muslim countries. Muslim countries have America. The Jews have, well, actually, we're so paranoid that we think EVERYONE is out to get us: Christians, Muslims, Neo-Nazis (are actually out to get us), blacks, Asians, Scientologists, the French, the English, the Spanish, the Italians, the Palestinians, Indians, Canadians, Eskimos, Samoans, Hawaiians, Germans, Swedes, Philipinos, Southerners, Midwesterners, hicks, Atheists, and even other Jews.

There is something to be said for the Illuminati/New World Order kind of thinking. No, I'm not saying that the world is run by a table of shadowy elites. But things they use as proof are valid criticisms of the system. In a democracy such as the United States of America, is it right that all of our presidents have been rich, white, male Protestants (except for Kennedy, who was a rich, white, male Catholic)? Is it right that policy in Washington gets decided in order to benefit these rich fucks and their friends? No. The elite conspiracy isn't shadowy, and it's not really a conspiracy, it's a result of capitalism gone awry.

While I respect David Icke for trying to shake people out of their complacency, this sort of conspiracy theory isn't the way to do it. Superadvanced, evil lizard aliens have been running the world for thousands of years can scare people, it can make people think, and heaven knows it can sell a shitload of books, but when you get down to it, it doesn't leave any room for progress or action. If the world is really run by these lizards or Jews or Masons or whatever, then there's nothing anyone can do to make things better. Icke claims to open eyes, but once people's eyes are "open," what can they do? They can pray to protect themselves and their families from reptilian attack, they can perpetuate Icke's ideology and help him sell more books, they can set out on their own "opening" more eyes, or they can say "well, that explains things," and go back to their humdrum complacent lives.

The same kinds of people are elected president every election, not because of a conspiracy of bankers or lizards who decide it is so, but because the people who have the means and encouragement to run for office are generally white, Protestant males! And that's not a conspiracy, it's a complicated problem that needs to be addressed.

But before I go, I would like to address my initial question: is David Icke a comedian, a heretic, a prophet, a nutjob or just an opportunist? I'm not sure. I don't know if he's serious about this, or if he's just doing it to make a pretty penny. I don't even know if he's doing good, by shaking people (or "sheeple," as he would say) out of complacent acceptance of the way the world works, or if he's doing harm, by providing an answer that, like the religions he so criticizes, comforts people just because it is an answer, while taking away any hope for change.

David Icke can say as much as he wants about whatever he wants. I only hope that he uses his wide audience and reptile story (which could easily be used by skeptics as a very good metaphor) as a catalyst for progress. We may not agree on the reasons, but Icke and I agree that the world's distribution of power needs some rethinking. Comedian, opportunist, or prophet, I am somehow glad that this man is out there. Optimist that I am, I somehow feel as though he will, at the very least, get people thinking.