HinesSight

What Survivor, the TV show, says about the election

We're fervent fans of CBS' Survivor. Haven't missed an episode, ever. Not once in sixteen seasons. We put so much time into the show, I like to discern Big Truths in the machinations that go on between the contestants.

I'm not a Clinton supporter, but the Fans versus Favorites contest on a Micronesian island that concluded last night was a good omen for her.

First, the women ruled. Everyone in the final four was female. The girls were way more devious than the guys.

That's why this is called a "reality" show. Cirie talked about how her mother said that women might not be able to beat men physically (pointing to her biceps), but they could always beat them here (pointing to her brain).

It was painful to watch the last episodes. Trusting male after trusting male fell into the webs of trickery these Black Widows spun out of sweet talk and false promises.

Hopefully neither the voters nor the superdelegates will do the same. You never know, though.

Take the case of Erik, a nice guy who got wound around the finger of Natalie. She was billed as a "personal trainer." Her bio says that she also is a bartender. Yeah, I can believe it. She knows how to handle men, with or without a drink in their hand.

Erik strains and sweats to win immunity. He's on the chopping block to be voted off the island, being the odd man out with the four women.

I was excited when he won the immunity necklace. Now the females would have to eat one of their own at tribal council.

But the women hatch a scheme to make Erik feel that unless he gives the immunity necklace to Natalie, they won't trust him – so he'll be voted off eventually anyway.

Natalie is reluctant to even try this line out on Erik. "Who would believe that?" she asks her conspiring sisters. "Give it a try, Natalie," they urge her. "Use your feminine wiles."

Dear god, it was painful for me, as a man, to watch Erik cross his fingers (dude, nobody does this anymore, especially not 22 year olds) after handing over the necklace in an astonishing display of naiveté.

Which, in short order, resulted in him having his torch snuffed on a 4-1 vote. So much for trust. Everyone watching could see it coming but Erik.

Barack, pay attention. Don't believe what Hillary's camp is telling you, no matter how good it sounds. If you take her on as your vice-president, make sure she's on a short leash (ignore how sexist that sounds).

The crowning touch of reality came when Parvati beat out Amanda in the final tribal council and won the million dollars. Laurel and I both cried out "No!" when the 5-3 vote was announced.

Amanda, the beauty queen, was cool, calm, and collected. A schemer, sure. But basically straightforward. Parvati was a shameless flirt, coming on to guys and girls alike (one comment on the Survivor message board opined, "Natalie voted for Parvati because she wants to sleep with her").

So who comes out on top? The woman who will say or do anything to win, forming and breaking alliances with anyone and everyone if it helps her get what she wants.

I can reluctantly accept Parvati winning Survivor. But equally schemy Hillary winning the Democratic nomination… nightmare.

That'd be too much reality.

Heisenberg, Copenhagen, and unanswerable questions

I knew I was going to like the play, "Copenhagen," when one of the first lines said that some questions are unanswerable.

That appealed to my churchless soul. As did Salem Repertory Theatre's reading of the play. For a mere five bucks each Laurel and I got to see "Copenhagen" performed last night.

OK, read.

But when a play has so much dialogue, and so little action, seemingly it doesn't make much difference whether the actors are sitting on stools with binders in their hands, reading, or sitting around on a stage reciting memorized lines.

"Copenhagen" is about a 1941 meeting in (take a guess) Copenhagen between two noted physicists: Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.

Pleasingly, because I'm into this stuff, there's much mention of quantum physics in the play. In the 1920's Bohr and Heisenberg were central players in the development of quantum mechanics, one of the greatest scientific developments of our time.

Or any time.

The crux of "Copenhagen" is whether Heisenberg, a German, was working to develop an atomic bomb for Hitler.

Reflecting the uncertainty principle of quantum physics that goes by his name, we're never sure what Heisenberg's motivations are or what he really was up to before and after his meeting with Bohr – a long time friend and colleague.

After the reading the actors hung around to chat with the small audience (there was minimal publicity of the reading, unfortunately).

My comment was that I appreciated SRT's boldness in presenting a play in Salem that offered up questions rather than answers.

Too many people in this too-conservative town like entertainment that follows a typical arc of (1) problem introduction, (2) deepening of the dilemma, and (3) pleasing resolution. Such as, a dissimilar man and woman meet, their differences cause difficulties, they work it out and get married!

Boring. Yet emotionally satisfying.

With "Copenhagen," I told the actors, I started off not knowing what was going on and I ended up not knowing what was going on. Nice. Just like life.

The ending of the play leaves the impression that Heisenberg did his best to stall Hitler's development of an atomic bomb, via both conscious and unconscious motivations. Hence, he's a good guy.

However, one of the actors said that recently released correspondence from the Niels Bohr Archive leaves a different impression. Indeed, a 2002 article from New Scientist says that the uncertainty about Heisenberg's bomb making has ended.

Newly released documents show unequivocally that the renowned German physicist Werner Heisenberg was building an atomic bomb for the Nazis during World War II. The revelations, in letters and notes made public on Wednesday by the Niels Bohr Archive in Denmark lays to rest a controversy that spanned 60 years.

The unsent letters, written to Heisenberg by Bohr after the war, reveal that during a visit to Copenhagen in 1941, Heisenberg confessed to his former mentor that he was working on a bomb. Furthermore, Heisenberg told Bohr he was confident of success.

However, Wikipedia's take on "Copenhagen" is sympathetic to Heisenberg, interpreting the correspondence in a more favorable light. Some uncertainty continues to reign.

Proving (in my own mind, at least, where it counts) that synchronicity also is a fundamental principle of the universe, this morning I ran across a terrific Country Public Broadcasting System music video that mentions both Heisenberg and Bohr – along with lots of beer, pickup trucks, and physics.

Enjoy. But be warned, it's scientifical.

“In Treatment” captures the soul of psychotherapy

Just what we needed – another engaging TV series that'll add to our backlog of unwatched DVR recordings. But we're hooked on HBO's "In Treatment."

My wife is a retired psychotherapist. So not surprisingly, Laurel finds watching Gabriel Byrne fascinating. He plays Paul Weston, a psychotherapist who acts like a traditional psychiatrist because he's so non-directive (he also seems semi-depressed).

But Weston must be something else, since he has plenty of time for his patients and doesn't whip out a prescription pad. So far, at least; we've only watched five of the forty-five episodes.

After my first viewing of "In Treatment" I thought it might be boring to spend 30 minutes listening to people talk about their problems. I've found that it isn't, something Laurel already knew, since she spent quite a few years doing just that – for real.

I bet this has happened to you. You're sitting around with some friends, chit-chatting about this and that. Safe topics. Politics. Weather. Sports. Family.

The evening wears on. People have an extra glass of wine. The mood loosens up. Finally someone blurts out, "Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I've got to get this off my chest. I need to tell someone."

Ooh! Some covers coming off a psyche's façade! Every head turns toward the revealer. Expectant. All ears. Raw honesty is about to supplant polite superficiality.

That's what I find fascinating about "In Treatment" – the ever-changing balance between telling it like it is, and how it isn't. Weston's patients struggle to find that balance. So does Weston himself, whose professional life and marriage have their own sore spots.

After each episode Laurel enjoys critiquing Weston's psychotherapeutic technique. He strikes her as overly passive, doing a lot more listening than talking.

These days insurance companies don't let therapists get away with lengthy non-directive counseling. You're supposed to get the problem dealt with in a few sessions, while Weston apparently has been seeing some of his patients for a long time.

But all in all "In Treatment" reflects the flavor of psychotherapy pretty well. If it didn't, Laurel would be saying much more often, "That's not real!" (one of her favorite critiques of TV shows or movies, whereas I enjoy a healthy dose of illusion in my escapism).

On the message board of one of my blogs someone recently posted Zen Sarcasm. One item says:

Everyone seems normal until you get to know them.

Absolutely. "In Treatment" reminds us that we're all abnormally normal. Meaning, normally we cover up our weirdness, hang-ups, bizarre beliefs, relationship craziness, and other manifestations of our humanity.

Psychotherapy is one place it's OK to let all that hang out. Along with closing time at a bar when you've had way too much to drink. Or in other altered states of consciousness.

Reviews of "In Treatment" have been generally favorable. I'm surprised by the cranky minority who say that the show will make your head hurt, or is painfully boring.

Not to my wife and me. It's fascinating to look into other people's minds when the covers are off, even when their psyches are scripted.

Colbert and Stuart are better without writers

After four days of seeing how Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart fared without writers after returning to the airwaves, I can issue my review:

The Colbert Show and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (now called A Daily Show) are more entertaining without the writers.

So even though my progressive sympathies are with those on strike, my TV watching sympathies say, "Stay away; let Colbert and Stuart keep on doing their own thing."

I've always enjoyed The Colbert Show more than The Daily Show, because Stephen Colbert is more of a natural improvisational comedian. His interviews are terrific, filled with witty spontaneities.

But now The Daily Show is almost equally pleasurable for me to watch without the irritating, and often infantile, sketches featuring other members of Stewart's fake news team.

This week the only time I reached for the fast forward button on my DVR was when John Oliver returned for a sketch about global climate change. Dreadful.

Colbert and Stewart clearly are capable of coming up with their own material – which I assume is what they're doing (some are suspicious about this).

If I were their writers, I'd be nervous after watching this week's "unwritten" shows.

Now that Colbert and Stuart are free, or forced, to make the content of their shows more purely reflect their own sensibilities, we're seeing that these guys can carry their own comedic water.

And that it's actually better tasting than what the writers had been pumping out for them.

(Some other opinions about the return of The Colbert Report and The Daily Show are here, here, and here.)

Writer's strike gives us funny videos, at least

My wife and I already are tired of watching re-runs of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Pretty soon we'll be reduced to desperate measures, like watching programming with actual educational value, such as the many nature and science shows stored up on our digital video recorder that we've been ignoring in favor of Comedy Central.

There's a few bright spots to the writer's strike, though. This YouTube video, "Not The Daily Show, With Some Writer," is terrific entertainment. Persuasive too.

Stick it to those corporate bastards, writers!

This other YouTube offering, apparently from The Colbert Show writers, isn't as funny. A good effort though.

Makes you realize the obvious: that Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert couldn't work their satirical magic without the support of a whole lot of unseen and unsung writers. Hopefully they'll get their due as a result of the strike.

Survivor China: Ashley is for real (except her breasts)

After watching the first episode of Survivor China tonight, I have my favorite contestant: Ashley.

Contrary to what my wife would have you believe, my admiration for Ashley has nothing to do with the size of her breasts. Well, maybe just a little. OK, maybe a lot.

Still, I need to defend my bosom friend (oops, bad choice of words) from vicious rumors that were being spread in our home this evening by – not big surprise, since our dog doesn't watch much TV – my wife again.

Almost every time Ashley appeared on camera with the "professional wrestler" identifier next to her name, Laurel would say, "Yeah, right. I bet she wrestles in mud when she's not dancing around a pole."

Laurel also questioned the authenticity of her breasts, which I studied with considerable non-clinical attention along with the CBS cameramen – since several shots focused first on Ashley's chest, then panned up to her face, the second most interesting part of her body.

I'm inclined to concede to my wife that she could be right about her doubts concerning this side (or rather, front) of Ashley. However, I just pointed out to Laurel that a quick Google Images search revealed convincing proof of Ashley's wrestling prowess.

Look at that hold. I'm not sure what you'd call it, but it certainly looks like an authentic wrestling technique. As does her grimace. And the short skirt.

Confirming Ashley's athletic credentials, the Survivor web site says that:

A former gymnast, she competed in Miss Hawaiian Tropic pageants and was crowned Miss Hawaiian Tropic USA in 2002 and Miss Hawaiian Tropic Canada in 2005. She currently works as a model and a professional wrestler with the WWE. She came to the WWE as a contestant in the 2005 RAW Diva Search. After beating out seven other finalists, she received a one-year contract with the World Wrestling Entertainment.

Hah! Former gymnast! Take that, Laurel.

My girl Ashley clearly is as real a professional wrestler as they come, for whatever that's worth. I confirmed that she was indeed winner of the 2005 RAW Diva Search, beating out such stiff competition as Alexis ("a veteran of music videos"), Cameron ("a former Miller Lite girl"), and Elisabeth ("a former Baywatch Babe Search winner").

So I hope this puts to rest any carping about Ashley's professional wrestler status. If not, the next episode should convince any remaining doubters, as I caught a glimpse in the preview of Ashley throwing down another girl.

OK, it was in some mud. But it rains a lot in China.

Hott4Hill(ary) hotter than Obama girl?

Who has the hottest music video featuring an ardent – and attractive – female admirer, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?

This is the sort of political debate that should be going on right now. It's too early to decide on a Democratic candidate. But it's the perfect time to pay close attention to the positions of Taryn Southern, who's hot for Hillary, and Amber Lee, the Obama girl.

You decide. At first I was drawn to Taryn, but after watching Amber I realized that she has her own, um, assets.

Survivor Fiji’s sleazy Dreamz lets down inner-city blacks

Time to take a pass on political correctness. Dreamz, a twenty something who sleazed his way to the final three on "Survivor Fiji," epitomizes much of what's wrong—from this blogger's 58 year-old rural Oregon white guy perspective—with black inner-city culture.

Dreamz, whose real name is Andria "Dre" Herd, loved to talk about the tough times he had growing up in the projects. OK. That's no excuse for being an irritating, lying, egotistical jerk.

Lots of people have difficult childhoods. I did, for sure. I wasn't homeless, like Dreamz was for a while, but I grew up in a broken home without much money and had to deal with an alcoholic mother.

I got through it. Dreamz is still using his past as raw meat for his Pity Patties, which he served to other contestants on almost every episode.

Last night was the finale of Survivor Fiji. My favorite contestant, Yau-Man, won the traditional challenge where a new car goes to the winner. It was a mucho-macho Ford truck that supposedly was worth $60,000. Didn't exactly look like the slight, cerebral Yau-Man's sort of drive.

Dreamz really wanted to win the challenge. He let everyone know that he was the only one who didn't already own a car. He pleaded for the other contestants to give him the car if someone else won it.

Yau-Man didn't go that far. But he offered Dreamz a deal: he'd give him the truck if Dreamz would agree to give Yau-Man the immunity necklace—if Dreamz was one of the final four survivors and earned immunity in the final challenge.

Dreamz was thrilled. He gladly accepted the offer. He promised Yau-Man that immunity would be his, if Dreamz got to the final four and won the immunity challenge.

Then he reneged. Dreamz did indeed get to the final four. And he did beat out Yau-Man on a hanging-by-your-hands test of endurance.

But when it came time for him to decide whether to keep the immunity necklace or to keep his promise, Dreamz took the greedy, sleazy, self-centered path. He told the host, Jeff Probst, "I'm holding on to the necklace."

This was after he'd said that he was looking forward to keeping his promise, so his son could see how a man acts honorably and keeps his word.

When I heard that, I was moved. I thought, "This is going to be cool—a black guy is going to show that you can overcome a rough childhood in the projects and come out with some strong moral fiber." Dreamz is a cheerleading coach. I was ready to cheer him on when he handed Yau-Man the immunity necklace, even though this likely meant he was going to be voted off the island.

What a letdown. All that got handed off (to viewers) was a confusing mess of rationalizations about how "this is just a game and lying is how it's played."

I'm with the vast majority of last night's viewers who were disappointed that Dreamz didn't keep his promise. Here's the deal, Dre, my conscience-impaired young man.

It's one thing to lie, connive, and deceive in an attempt to win the million dollar "Sole Survivor" prize. That's part of an effort to get money that isn't in anyone else's pocket yet.

It's a whole other thing when Yau-Man has won a $60,000 truck that actually belongs to him. That isn't a potential prize; it's a real prize. Dreamz promised that if he won the final-four immunity challenge, he'd give Yau-Man the necklace in exchange for the truck.

A real truck. An expensive truck. A lot different from the usual sorts of deals that are brokered, and broken, all the time on "Survivor" as alliances form and fall apart.

Dreamz tried to argue that how he played the game of Survivor doesn't bear any resemblance to how he acts in "real" life. That's bullshit. Yes, Survivor is a game. So is life. Many other contestants have chosen honor and honesty over deceptiveness and lies.

Dreamz didn't. He even lacked the minimal self-awareness to recognize that after he broke his word to Yau-Man there wasn't any chance, not a shred, that he'd end up winning the million dollar prize. Dreamz was toast in the jury's eyes the moment the immunity necklace remained around his neck.

So he ended up a big loser. He lost his honor. He lost the respect of millions of viewers. Maybe including his son. What did he gain? Nothing. He would have had his beloved Ford truck whether or not he kept his promise. The eventual winner, Earl, got all nine votes from the jury—the first unanimous winner in Survivor history.

That's because Dreamz and the other finalist, Cassandra, were utterly undeserving of being the Sole Survivor. Even Earl was, compared to Yau-Man, who definitely would have won if Dreamz hadn't played his sleaze card.

What bothers me the most, as I said at the beginning of this post, is how Dreamz solidified stereotypes about young, athletic, uneducated, underprivileged inner-city black men. Lots of people think that all they care about is hip-hop, partying, hanging out, looking good, and talking trash.

Dreamz did nothing to burst the bubble of that stereotype. He got to the final three of Survivor via a simple strategy: go along with the crowd when it was convenient; break your word and lie whenever things got a little tough.

Far from being the street-hardened guy who learned life's lessons by looking into dumpsters for his next meal, Dreamz came across as a frightened self-absorbed punk who's clueless about what it takes to be a man rather than a boy.

One of the jury members, Boo, ripped Dreamz a new one when he said that while Dreamz claims to be a Christian, he doesn't have the faintest idea what this entails. I don't usually like to see displays of religiosity on Survivor. But Boo was right on with this one.

Some other bloggers' takes on the final episode are here, here, and here. Dreamz comes off looking like a liar, cheat, and poor contestant. Which he most surely was.

West Point dean condemns “24” torture scenes

Even though I'm a progressive, I love "24." Torture away, Jack, I'll say to myself as my man, counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer, shoots a bad guy in the knee and screams Talk!

But now I'm looking at the show in a new light. The dean of West Point says that "24" isn't just entertainment. It's taken as real by our soldiers around the world. And that's hurting the American military.

In a fascinating The New Yorker article, "Whatever it takes, Jane Mayer writes:

This past November, U.S. Army Brigadier General Patrick Finnegan, the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, flew to Southern California to meet with the creative team behind "24." Finnegan, who was accompanied by three of the most experienced military and F.B.I. interrogators in the country, arrived on the set as the crew was filming. At first, Finnegan—wearing an immaculate Army uniform, his chest covered in ribbons and medals—aroused confusion: he was taken for an actor and was asked by someone what time his "call" was.

In fact, Finnegan and the others had come to voice their concern that the show's central political premise—that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country's security—was having a toxic effect. In their view, the show promoted unethical and illegal behavior and had adversely affected the training and performance of real American soldiers. "I'd like them to stop," Finnegan said of the show's producers. "They should do a show where torture backfires."

You can listen to Mayer discuss her article, while watching "24" clips, courtesy of a The New Yorker online extra, "Making them talk."

She points out that on one episode Jack Bauer declines medical help for a gunshot victim until the person tells where a bomb is. This reportedly is the same technique that was actually used on an Al Qaeda suspect who'd been shot in the groin.

In these fearful days, a lot of citizens say "So what?" If torture saves lives by getting terrorists to reveal their "ticking clock" plans, what's the problem?

Well, this is the problem: torture makes us less safe, in part because it rarely works. A former Army interrogator in the war in Iraq, Tony Lagouranis, accompanied Finnegan on his visit to Hollywood. Mayer writes:

"In Iraq, I never saw pain produce intelligence," Lagouranis told me. "I worked with someone who used waterboarding"—an interrogation method involving the repeated near-drowning of a suspect. "I used severe hypothermia, dogs, and sleep deprivation. I saw suspects after soldiers had gone into their homes and broken their bones, or made them sit on a Humvee's hot exhaust pipes until they got third-degree burns. Nothing happened." Some people, he said, "gave confessions. But they just told us what we already knew. It never opened up a stream of new information." If anything, he said, "physical pain can strengthen the resolve to clam up."

I won't stop watching "24." Got to see how Jack deals with his dad, and whether the President escapes an upcoming assassination attempt.

But I hope the show's right-wing co-creator and executive producer, Joel Surnow, listens to Gen. Finnegan and his interrogation experts. They know that operational details hardly ever are revealed under torture. It's better to establish rapport with a subject instead of water-boarding him.

Plus, on "24" you almost always know that the person being tortured is part of a nefarious plot. After all, a scene or two before you saw them working on a suitcase nuclear bomb.

Real life is a lot different. A man can be whisked up by U.S. agents, sent off to Syria to be tortured for 10 months, and then released as an innocent with not even a "Sorry, we made a mistake."

That's bad enough for the image of the United States. All the "24" DVDs floating around the globe makes things worse.

Mayer says, "We can talk all we want about the Geneva Convention. Yet what the world sees is Jack Bauer. And Jack Bauer is torture."

“24” and Jack Bauer more progressive now

What a difference a year makes. On both the national political scene and the hit Fox television series “24,” a progressive-friendly outlook is kicking the neocon ass.

Now it’s a lot easier for me to admit my love affair with Jack Bauer (in the finest tough guy heterosexual fashion, naturally).

Exactly twelve months ago I felt the need to explain how a compassionate progressive such as myself could be so attracted to a counter-terrorism agent whose interrogation techniques—breaking bones, electric shock, bullet in the knee—wouldn’t pass muster with the ACLU (to put it mildly).

But as James Poniewozik pointed out in his TIME essay, “The Evolution of Jack Bauer,” my man has changed. Along with “24.”

Jack is showing his vulnerable side this season. A few years in a Chinese prison will do that to you, understandably. He’s been seen sobbing into a cell phone, “Tell the president I’m sorry. I can’t do this any more.”

We’re with you, Jack. Most of the American public can’t do this any more either: support the president. Or his Iraq war policies. Or just about anything else the incompetent-in-chief is in favor of.

Jack Bauer knows how to adapt to changing circumstances. He’s grounded in reality, not ideology. That’s why George Bush is no Jack Bauer. They do have in common a fondness for torture, but Jack does it for the right reasons.

Poniewozik accurately captures how “24” is no longer (and, really, has never been) a conservative show.

24’s ideology—Jack Bauerism, if you will—is not so much in between left and right as it is outside them, impatient with A.C.L.U. niceties and Bushian moral absolutes. This season, Bauer allies with Hamri al-Assad, a (putatively) reformed terrorist leader, to stop an attack.

He thus displays a better grasp of realpolitik than has the Bush Administration, which resisted the Iraq Study Group’s recommendation to work with Iran and Syria. A fellow agent asks Bauer if it matters that al-Assad has murdered hundreds of people.

“I don’t know what means anything anymore,” he answers. “The playing field has changed.”

…That may be the biggest lesson of 24 in the Iraq era: don’t stubbornly hang on to your preconceptions when the facts on the ground change. Undoubtedly, Bauer will continue to give liberals and libertarians conniptions before his latest day is over.

But if conservatives and neocons think 24 is working for them, they don’t know Jack.

Sacha Baron Cohen’s hilarious Golden Globe acceptance speech

Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, Ali G, and Bruno, is a comedic genius. As evidence, I submit this video of his acceptance speech after he won a Golden Globe award for best actor in a motion picture musical or comedy.

Sure, Cohen almost certainly gave some advance thought to what he was going to say. But he’s speaking spontaneously here, only glancing at the piece of paper he brought up with him when he gets to his “formal” thank you remarks.

The scene he’s talking about, the nude wrestling encounter between Borat and his rotund Kazakstan comrade, is the most gut-splitting bit of movie-making I’ve ever seen. It even had my normally restrained wife laughing out loud in the movie theatre.

Here’s Cohen’s Golden Globe appearance: [Note: the YouTube video I originally linked was removed at the request of Dick Clark Productions. This is ridiculous. Broadcast over the public airwaves, the producer of the Golden Globes should be happy to get more air time. Here's another version. If this gets deleted also, search on YouTube for another video. Hopefully copyright holders will get the message that they can't censor the public airwaves.]

Must love dogs (and hate Reagan)

We forced ourselves to watch Must Love Dogs all the way through last night. If we’d paid for this two-paws-downer I would have felt cheated, but HBO brought this puppy into our television for nothing (extra).

The movie’s Internet dating scenes reminded me of how Laurel and I met, so this aspect of an otherwise forgettable flick kept my eyes open. Back in the ancient days of 1989, online personal ads didn’t exist like they do now. We hooked up the old-fashioned print way, as related in “Thank you, Willamette Week personals.”

Diane Lane and John Cusack first get together in a dog park. Laurel and I met in a Mexican restaurant. She brought her dog in the car, though.

After a pleasant dinner, at which I wore my carefully chosen wildest, coolest, most fashionable newly-single-guy shirt (which Laurel later told me looked disturbingly conservative), I walked her out to the Isuzu Trooper where Tasha, the German Shepherd, was ensconced.

Laurel’s person-to-person ad said that she was seeking a “tallish, slim, sensitive, spiritually aware, educated intelligent male who values nature, dogs, in depth communication, and who also seeks a mate to share the mysteries and pleasures of life.”

I felt good about meeting her criteria (she hadn’t mentioned “stylish dresser”), apart from the values dogs bit. I’d already told Laurel that while cats rather than dogs had been my chosen pet during adulthood, I’d grown up with standard poodles and Skye terriers.

I could sense, though, that being taken out to meet Tasha was a test of sorts. Indeed, there’s nothing like an attractive woman opening up the hatch of her SUV and revealing a scary-looking purebred German Shepherd, whom you’re expected to make instant friends with, to focus your male-mating-mind attention.

I’d enjoyed Laurel’s company. I wanted to see her again. So I figured improving my chances for a second date was worth risking a finger or two. I gingerly extended my hand into the automotive lair. Tasha licked it. I relaxed. I wasn’t home free on Laurel’s “values dogs” prospective mate check-off list, but at least I was in the ballpark.

Not batting very aggressively, however. Having been out of the dating game for eighteen years, I pretty much froze after the dog greeting was over. It was Laurel who said, “The Salem Art Fair is next weekend. Want to go?” “Sure,” I said, happy that I’d been asked out on a second date.

A ways down our relationship road, Laurel told me that she was surprised to hear herself bringing up the Art Fair. For that entailed a significant commitment of time with a guy she’d only known for an hour. Usually long-time single Laurel liked second (and first) dates to be easily escapable.

So she must have been wary when we walked across Bush Park, heading for the fair. We were talking about politics. I said something about being an independent now, after a stint as a registered Democrat. I also must have mentioned that I didn’t always vote a straight Democratic ticket.

Because what I do distinctly remember is Laurel stopping in her tracks, looking me in the eyes, and asking, “You didn’t vote for Reagan, did you? Tell me you didn’t.”

Oops. I couldn’t remember. But the fact that I possibly voted for Reagan, which I had to admit, was reason enough to bring the date to a screeching halt. We sat on top of a picnic table and hashed out my extremely disturbing revelation.

I wished that I’d changed the subject from politics and told Laurel something more acceptable from my past. Like, I’d killed a guy with a knife in a bar fight. Or been convicted of disseminating child pornography. Anything would have been more forgivable than voting for Ronald Reagan.

I can’t recall how I talked my out of this potential relationship-buster. I must have assured Laurel that my voting insanity was a one time thing, and now I was back on the right (meaning, left) side of the political street.

We got married a mere seven months later. I proved to Laurel’s satisfaction that I both loved dogs and hated Reagan. She forgave me for a brief flirtation with a Republican. Love isn’t blind, but sometimes its eyelids need to be lowered when an indiscretion is evident.

Male geishas on the rise in Japan

Could it be my karma to become a male geisha? Signs point to it.

Sunday Laurel and I finished watching Memoirs of a Geisha. Then the next day my Tai Chi instructor, Warren, who’d just returned from several weeks in Japan, talked after class about the clubs where women are served (in various ways) by male hosts.

Warren thought I’d make a great geisha. I agree. There’s the language barrier thing, but Berlitz could get me over that. And I could learn how to say, “Yes, yes, you’re so right” in a flash. Along with, “Another drink, beautiful woman?”

That should cover a lot of the male geisha bases.

I’ve been married for thirty-four years (sequentially to two wives) so doing whatever a woman wants comes naturally to me. Might as well start getting paid for it. A Guardian story says, “Male escort clubs are big business, satisfying the newfound freedom of Japanese women - at a price.”

I read that a good male host can make £50,000 a month, which translates into almost $100,000. Not too shabby. And reportedly the hosts at one upscale club range in age from 20 to 68. I’ve got at least a decade of male geisha’ing in me.

Interestingly, at first almost all Japanese geishas were men. According to Wikipedia:

Male geisha (sometimes known as hōkan, more commonly known as taikomochi) gradually began to decline, and by 1800 female geisha (originally known as onna geisha, literally "woman geisha") outnumbered them by three to one, and the term "geisha" came to be understood as referring to skilled female entertainers, as it does today.

Carolyn Seawright’s essay, “Taikomochi or Houkan, the Male Counterpart to the Geisha,” casts more light on male geishas past and present. Through it I found the web site of Shozo Arai, who currently practices as a taikomochi.

Arai was 56 back in 2002, when this photo was taken for a story in the Japan Times. I’ve got more hair than he does, so I’m reassured that my bald spot isn’t a disqualification to become a male geisha.

I’ll keep on with my training. Which for now is marriage.

Almost every night I sit on the floor at the foot of the recliner where my client/wife is enthroned while we watch TV. Her feet wiggle demandingly. I bow to her needs. I take her socks off. I squeeze and massage her feet.

If I stop, she says “More!” I accede. If feet squeezing is part of what it takes to be a male geisha, I’ve got that down. Laurel sometimes says, “I wish we had a foot-massage slave.” I don’t know why she says that.

She’s got one. Brian-san.

How to watch the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, if you missed it

I had a sinking feeling last night when my Dish network recording of the Boise State-Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl ended with three minutes to go in regulation. Like an idiot, I’d forgotten to extend the “stop” time past the scheduled game end.

That feeling only got worse. On the evening news I saw some highlights of what I’d missed. And heard the KATU sports gal rave about what a great game it was.

Then, this morning I got the newspaper. “Overtime thriller,” “wild finish,” and “one of the most dramatic finishes in BCS history” leapt out at me from the AP Fiesta Bowl story.

Just to drive myself even deeper into despair, I got on the Internet and read an Instant Analysis of the game.

Decades from now, the first BCS bowl game ever broadcast by the FOX television network will likely remain the best. In the immediate aftermath of a breathtaking event, only one thing can be said: the 2007 Fiesta Bowl could be the greatest game in college football's 138-year history.

Great. And I missed the crucial moments of it.

The good news is that partial videos of the game are available online now. Fox Sports has highlights of every quarter, including overtime. Wanting more, I went through the trouble of signing up for iTunes (yeah, I’m one of the last people in the country who doesn’t own an Ipod).

But after finding and purchasing a complete iTunes video of the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, I belatedly realized that (1) only the pre-game player interviews are available for download now and (2) even those were going to suck up a good share of my satellite Internet bandwidth for the month.

So I’m going to wait for a 20-minute short cut of every Fiesta Bowl play to become available. It’s worth $1.99 to me to be able to say that I saw all the plays of the greatest game in college history (though I’m sure this claim is open to debate).

There’s also YouTube, naturally. In 2:33 you can see highlights of the final moments of the fourth quarter and the astounding overtime. Or just click below. Enjoy.

Even if you saw the game, the sleight of hand by Broncos quarterback Jared Zabransky (a Hermiston, Oregon native) on the Statue of Liberty play that won for Boise State is worth watching over and over.

Are you insane, CBS Sun Bowl producer?

Dear CBS, when you broke into the last 6:20 of the first half of the Oregon State-Missouri Sun Bowl game a little while ago, I was worried that World War III had broken out.

After all, it’d have to be something really important to warrant broadcasting a CBS News Special Report in the middle of an exciting live football game. I was reassured when I saw that you were merely informing us that the six day funeral of Gerald Ford had gotten under way.

Are you insane? I found the photos of black limousines interesting for about two seconds, after which I wanted the damn Sun Bowl back. I can catch up on the funeral sometime during the next six days, thank you. Or, not.

But those six minutes of the last half…they’re gone forever. When the game returned, it was halftime. The brief highlights you showed of what I, and everyone else in the country, missed revealed that some interesting plays transpired.

A lot more interesting than slowly moving black limousines. May I suggest that whoever came up with this crazy idea of a Special Report on a six day funeral in the midst of a bowl game be demoted to CBS janitor.

Though even that may be a more responsible position than he or she deserves.

Sincerely,
Brian, one of many frustrated football fans

“Take the Lead” and Tango Zen

If I’m going to be reincarnated, coming back as Antonio Banderas would be entirely acceptable. As Roger Ebert says at the end of his “Take the Lead” review, Banderas oozes cool and charisma, just like he does in all of his movies that I’ve seen.

“Desperado” remains one of my peak cinematic experiences, notwithstanding Ebert’s tepid review. However, I have to admit that my memories are as much of Salma Hayek as of my man Antonio.

Last night Laurel and I finished watching “Take the Lead,” a predictable yet inspiring story of how ballroom dance changes the lives of inner city kids. Banderas is a dance instructor who brings the tango, waltz, and fox trot into a basement high school detention hall.

By the time he’s done (gosh, what a surprise!), the once-resistant students have become ardent dance aficionados, able to go head to head with snooty white kids at a fancy competition. They meld their street hip hop moves with traditional styles, loosening up even the staid judges.

Banderas is as much an etiquette teacher as a dance instructor. Waiting in the high school office to talk to the principal, he stands up whenever a woman walks by and opens the door for her, thereby melting the hearts of female office staff.

This reminded me of the time I was in the Portland condo of a sixty-ish couple who I had worked with before but didn’t know very well socially. I was sitting in the living room with the husband, waiting for his wife to get dressed. We were chatting away, then he suddenly stopped talking and leaped to his feet.

At first I had no idea what was going on. Then, I did. Good god, I realized, he actually rises whenever his wife walks into the room. At least when company is around. I felt like an etiquette clod. For a while after that I made a point of opening car doors and such for Laurel. But I blow hot and cold when it comes to traditional courtesies.

Maybe “Take the Lead” will re-inspire me. I liked how Banderas explained why men have to learn how to take the lead in dance, and why women have to learn how to trust them. As in dance, so in life. Respect between the sexes on the hardwood floor transfers over into respect on the street. And the living room.

Yesterday I got an email message from Chan Park, the author of “Tango Zen” (who presents a koan on his web site, how can you dance tango without legs?). I ordered the book directly from Chan a while back, and he’d asked how I liked it.

I told him about my glimpse of Tango Zen. I’d welcome a more expansive view. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend one of Chan’s workshops someday. In one of his emails, Chan shared his philosophy.

TangoZen is about learning to appreciate traditional tango through disciplines of Zen, which is synonymous to simplicity and clarity of body and mind. For decades dancers have discovered that learning to enjoy dancing requires not only physical but also mental disciplines.

TangoZen is to advocate and promote the traditional tango with aid of the Zen, which teaches us to devote 100% of our physical and mental attention to what we are doing Here Now.

…Goal of the TangoZen courses is to help the students appreciate the tradition tango by experiencing total concentration on dancing while dancing Tango. To accomplish the goal, the students in the TangoZen courses are guided to practice a number of exercises, which are fundamental and closely linked to tango dance movements.

The exercises are adopted from martial arts such as Tai Chi and Chi Kung, and meditation techniques such as yoga.

Sounds good. Right up my alley.

Laurel and I hope to continue learning Tango through a five-week class being offered by the RJ Dance Studio in Salem next month. Only a few couples have signed up so far, so I want to plug the class in the hopes that some other locals will get the Tango bug.

Watch “Take the Lead” and you’ll see some hot Tango that might infect you. When I phoned the RJ Dance Studio today to put our names down I mentioned the movie. “That’s basically American Tango,” I was told, “not Argentine Tango. We teach American in our class.”

Cool. We’ve been learning Argentine, but I’m way open to looking more like Antonio Banderas. And I already have a blonde partner. Throw in some Zen, and I’ll be ready to hit the dance floor.

Legless, of course.

Searching for meaning in “The Big Lebowski”

Right in Hollywood Video it was clear that “The Big Lebowski” must have some special message for me. I’d gone in looking for the movie yesterday, having heard that it was a cult favorite. Filled with profound meaning of some sort.

I headed for the Drama area. Found the “Bs.” Saw a Big this and a Big that. But there was an empty spot on the shelf where a Big Lebowski would fit alphabetically. I stared at the void for a few seconds.

Then heard an employee say, “Can I help you find something?” “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t know if I’m in the right section, but I’m looking for The Big Lebowski.”

“Here you are.” He, I swear to God, was holding the DVD in his right hand. “I was just about to put it back. Somehow it got in the wrong place.”

Far out. Now I was convinced that this movie had something deep to say to me. Obviously we were meant for each other. A feeling confirmed when the hip young guy at the checkout counter approved of my selection: “Great flick. Good choice.”

Well, Laurel and I watched it last night. I’m still waiting for The Big Lebowski hit of enlightenment to strike. Maybe it will be a delayed reaction. Or I need to see it twice to grok a deeper meaning, like Todd Alcott did.

The first time I saw this movie, I didn't like it much. For a comedy it wasn't funny enough, for a mystery it wasn't satisfying. There was too much weirdness, not enough punch, couldn't figure out what any of it meant. The cowboy, the dream sequences, the dotty peripheral characters, it just didn't gel for me.

Nor for me. But one of those who commented on Alcott’s thoughtful review said that he’d seen it twice in theatres and six times on video. The third time through he realized what is going on.

Myself, I’m not sure what that is. However, I’m not about to disagree with Alcott’s final words (especially since he’s got an extra viewing on me).

This movie, for me, went from being pale and unpersuasive to standing as the Coen's densest, most intricate, most interesting and, in a way, most profound movie.

Okay. Could be. It’s definitely the most profound movie ever made about a dude named “Dude.” Over on YouTube you can watch The Dude’s Version of The Big Lebowski. In 2:12 it’s possible to absorb the dudeosity of this 90 minute movie. The strange thing is, it almost makes as much sense.

If you’ve got a bit more time (two seconds) and a broadband connection, check out the “Fuck” Edit of The Big Lewbowskie (sic). For 2:14 you will bathe in the aural warmth of the movie’s other favorite word.

I can already tell that this is a flick that grows on you. I didn’t find it all that enjoyable to watch, yet more scenes have stuck in my mind than is the case with most movies I see. For some reason I still hear Walter (John Goodman) telling his buddy Donny (Steve Buscemi), “Shut the fuck up, Donny.”

Probably because Walter said that a lot. Like he harkened back to his Vietnam days a lot. Walter lives a lot in the past. That helps explain why, no matter what he tries to do, he screws it up. Appealingly.

The “hero” (extremely loosely put) of the movie is The Dude, Jeff Bridges. Stoned, slackerly dressed, dark glassed, he lives in the moment. The Dude is more in touch with what’s going on than Walter, but that doesn’t help him cope with a parade of lower-case dudes who aim to bust up his apartment (and him).

I was rooting for the Nihilists to have better lines. But judging from this compilation of The Big Lebowski quotes, their command of the English language was pretty basic (of course, they had German accents). Sample:

I fucks you in the ass, I fucks you in the ass, I fucks you, I fucks you, I fucks you, I fucks...

This Nihilism had more content, though.

We believe in nothing, Lebowski. Nothing. And tomorrow we come back and we cut off your chonson.

My take on the meaning of the movie is just that: nothing. Nothing really matters, so nothing really can go wrong. My interpretation is along the lines of how a Spirituality & Practice review summed up The Dude’s outlook on life.

Once the Dude gets involved in a kidnapping case, his life swirls in chaos. But he is unperturbed by it all. Like a good Taoist, the Dude realizes that freedom is understanding we are not in control and never will be. By taking it easy, the Dude abides and becomes a spiritual teacher of crazy wisdom.

As Walter said, after Donny asked “Are these the Nazis, Walter?”

No, Donny, these men are nihilists. There's nothing to be afraid of.

I like! Laurel is carded buying tickets for “Borat”

Life imitating Borat, even before we saw the movie this afternoon. We dash up to the ticket booth, late for the 5:10 pm showing. “Two, please,” I tell the girl behind the glass.

She looks at me. Sees a grizzled mostly gray guy. She looks at Laurel. Sees a long-haired blonde. “ID, please.”

“What?” Laurel is incredulous.

“ID. I need to see your ID. This is an R-rated movie.”

I started laughing. “Oh, man, thank you. This’ll make my wife’s day. Maybe even the month. She’s over 18, believe me.”

“Okay, but I still need to see an ID.” She wasn’t kidding.

Cool. I was on a date with a teenager. Or at least a gal who looked enough like a teenager, at dusk, after running through the rain, to warrant handing over her driver’s license.

I demanded that the girl look at mine too. Born in 1948. I passed by a mere forty years. Laurel is about the same vintage. But clearly much better preserved. I’m the first to admit that.

“Borat” the movie is a lot like our mini-Borat moment at the ticket booth (except funnier). It’s basically a series of vignettes featuring a make-believe journalist from Kazakhstan encountering real-life Americans.

You keep saying to yourself, “No, this can’t be happening!” Yet it is. And it’s almost always hilarious. Laurel isn’t a big laugh-out-loud movie goer. But I heard her giggling like, well, a teenager through Borat’s nude wrestling scene with his portly Kazakhstan traveling companion. That alone was worth the price of admission.

For several years we’ve been big fans of Sacha Baron Cohen, a.k.a. Borat, Ali G, Bruno and other comedic personas. Way back in July 2004 I was on the leading edge of the current Borat craze with my “Da Ali G, for real!” post.

As I said back then, not many people in this country must watch HBO’s Da Ali G show. For Cohen has no problem fooling his unwitting foils. I’ve read that Cohen’s assistants rush those who appear on camera through the signing of release forms.

Indeed, it’s hard to believe that some of the poor souls who embarrass themselves in “Borat” were willing cinematic collaborators. Some scenes obviously were staged while most others seemed spontaneous.

A climactic scene involving Pamela Anderson had Laurel and me wondering: staged or spontaneous? This blogger believes that Anderson was oblivious to Cohen’s true self. However, he follows up that conclusion with a report of a 2005 encounter between Anderson and Cohen during her dog’s wedding.

Wouldn’t Anderson have recognized Cohen at the book signing shown in “Borat” if she’d previously been tackled by him on a Malibu beach? Of course, maybe the book signing occurred before the dog wedding. I’m inclined to agree with this reviewer that Pamela was in on the joke.

Fact and fiction blur in the marvelously creative mind of Sacha Baron Cohen. Why else would the actual Kazakhstan ambassador to the United Kingdom be so offended by Borat’s humor?

“Little Miss Sunshine,” a tribute to dysfunction

A VW bus that has to be pushed or rolled to start it. A family comprised of wildly disparate members, including a heroin-snorting grandpa, a platitude-spouting motivational speaker father, and a Nietzsche-obsessed son who hasn’t said a word for nine months.

What’s not to like about “Little Miss Sunshine”? We saw the movie last Friday, thanks to Salem Cinema’s decision to bring it back for another run. It’s a feel-good tribute to eccentric dysfunction, something I know more than a little about.

Automotively, I felt right at home watching the family of Olive, an aspiring seven year-old beauty queen, coax their VW from New Mexico to California so she could enter the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.

In 1968 I became the owner of my mother’s ’57 VW Bug when she got a ’67 model. I loved it. And I hated it. VW’s of that era were equally (1) marvels of German engineering and (2) pieces of crap.

That’s what made them so interesting. You never knew whether Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde was going to appear when you turned the key. I remember the day my VW got me safely through a nasty Sierra snowstorm. I also recall driving along scraping ice from the windshield. On the inside.

There were a lot of positive qualities to my ’57 Bug. The heater wasn’t one of them.

So it was an enjoyable flashback to watch the VW in “Little Miss Sunshine” drive the family crazy with little quirks like a horn that wouldn’t shut off and a broken clutch that required the push-starting routine.

When my VW’s engine compartment caught fire on a San Jose street in the late ’60s it didn’t surprise me at all. I just pulled over, grabbed a fire extinguisher, and called it another day in the life of a Volkswagen owner.

I’m horribly un-mechanical. But with the aid of that marvelous book, “How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive,” I learned how to crawl under my successor VW (a Karmann Ghia) with a screwdriver and get it running again when, for some forgotten reason, it decided that it didn’t want to start. Which was frequent, as I recall.

Still, I remember those cars with much more fondness than the blandly reliable Japanese models that, when I became a family man, I eventually turned to. A dash of dysfunction adds spice. Too much of it gives you psychic indigestion. But too little leaves a hunger for the wild side.

Growing up, I took for granted that the abnormal was normal. For that, I’m now grateful to my dysfunctional nuclear and extended family. We had alcoholism, divorce (lots of it), affairs, scandals.

I don’t know if the “cocktail hour” is still common. It was in my family during my pre-teen years. As the youngest in the room, usually, during family gatherings my job would be to hand out the drinks. Then I’d perch in a corner, sip a coke, and listen to the gossip.

I accepted all the dysfunction as part of usual family life, not having any other basis for comparison. My uncle played the bagpipes. And, polo. (Not at the same time, though, so far as I know). I thought that was normal too. Now I honor him for his eccentricity, and am sorry that I gave up so soon on the starter bagpipes that he sent me.

When I became a teenager I went through my own existential despair phase. I wasn’t into Nietszche, unlike Little Miss Sunshine’s Dwayne. But the weirder side of Bob Dylan (was there any other side to him in the ‘60s?) touched my dark soul. Also, Henry Miller, who wrote in “Tropic of Capricorn”:

But if you would laugh when others laugh and weep when they weep you must be prepared to die as they die and live as they live. That means to be right and to get the worst of it at the same time. It means to be dead while you are alive and alive only when you are dead. In this company the world always wears a normal aspect, even under the most abnormal conditions. Nothing is right or wrong but thinking makes it so.

I included this quote in a letter that I wrote to my high school girlfriend, Mary. She and her family were wonderfully functional. They helped keep me on as even a keel as I could manage during some extra-dysfunctional adolescent years. For that I’m also grateful.

However, I still resonate with Henry Miller. You’ve got to laugh and weep on your own terms, not anyone else’s. That’s what made “Little Miss Sunshine” so appealing to me. The members of this family march to their own dysfunctional drummers.

And by the time you get to the closing credits, they seem like the most engagingly normal people you’ll ever meet.

Airplane liquid explosives threat was overblown

Terrorism is no joke. But how the British and American governments have been responding to it often is.

That’s why it was fitting I learned about the mostly phony binary explosives threat, which was supposed to be able to bring down an airplane with a tube of toothpaste and a bottle of water, in Funny Times, which reprinted Ted Rall’s expose of the overblown Homeland Security alert that kept our flying mouths dry until TSA relaxed the rules recently.

Which was the right thing to do, since there never was much reason to be concerned that terrorists would be able to mix some liquids or gels together and bingo!, fashion a powerful bomb.

For The Register reports in “Mass murder in the skies: was the plot feasible?” how unlikely it is that anyone would be able to concoct a brew capable of bringing down a plane from liquid carry-on items. Preparation of TATP, triacetone triperoxide, the jihadist’s explosive of choice, takes some serious work.

Rall says:

"First," wrote The Register, "you've got to get adequately concentrated hydrogen peroxide. This is hard to come by, so a large quantity of the three per cent solution sold in pharmacies might have to be concentrated by boiling off the water...Take your hydrogen peroxide, acetone, and sulfuric acid, measure them very carefully, and put them into drink bottles for convenient smuggling onto a plane.

It's all right to mix the peroxide and acetone in one container, so long as it remains cool. Don't forget to bring several frozen gel-packs (preferably in a Styrofoam chiller deceptively marked "perishable foods"), a thermometer, a large beaker, a stirring rod, and a medicine dropper. You're going to need them.

"It's best to fly first class and order champagne. The bucket full of ice water, which the airline ought to supply, might possibly be adequate...Once the plane is over the ocean, very discreetly bring all of your gear into the toilet. You might need to make several trips to avoid drawing attention.

Once your kit is in place, put a beaker containing the peroxide/acetone mixture into the ice water bath (champagne bucket), and start adding the acid, drop by drop, while stirring constantly. Watch the reaction temperature carefully. The mixture will heat, and if it gets too hot, you'll end up with a weak explosive. In fact, if it gets really hot, you'll get a premature explosion possibly sufficient to kill you, but probably no one else.

"After a few hours--assuming, by some miracle, that the fumes haven't overcome you or alerted passengers or the flight crew to your activities--you'll have a quantity of TATP with which to carry out your mission. Now all you need to do is dry it for an hour or two."

The conclusion is clear: "Certainly, if we can imagine a group of jihadists smuggling the necessary chemicals and equipment on board, and cooking up TATP in the lavatory, then we've passed from the realm of action blockbusters to that of situation comedy."

Yes, these days it’s difficult to separate Bush administration policies from satire. Such is Maureen Dowd’s point in a biting New York Times column about how similar George Bush is to comedian Ali G’s hilarious alter ego, Borat. (See continuation of this post).

Here’s a clip of the new Borat movie. Watch it. It’s a reminder that when Bush and company make you want to cry, a better response is to laugh at their antics. We’ve got a comical president, so why not smile some at his expense? At the same time, of course, working like crazy to elect replacements for his Republican minions this November.

Stephen Colbert should put Jon Stewart on notice

Why? Obvious to anyone who watched the Emmys. I cringed each time The Daily Show beat out The Colbert Report for an award. That’s why The Daily Show needs to go On Notice.

Now, I realize it isn’t Stewart’s fault that his protégé has surpassed him in wit, intelligence, and entertainment value. Still, those Emmys that The Daily Show carted back to New York need to be cloned and shared with Colbert.

Just because the Emmy voters chose Barry Manilow (!!!) over The Colbert Report (how can these two even be uttered in the same breath?), doesn’t mean that this offense against television watching humanity has to stand unchallenged.

In one of the few genuinely entertaining moments during the Emmy Awards show, Colbert asked Stewart, “Could I hold some of yours?” Stewart said, “No.” That’s the truth, not truthiness. Here’s proof.

Inexcusable, Jon Stewart. So you’re on notice—in my Stephen Colbert-loving mind, at least. I already much prefer The Colbert Report to The Daily Show. Keep this up, Stewart, and you’ll be dead to me.

One evening Jon Stewart interviewed quasi-comedian Martin Short (boring) and Stephen Colbert’s guest was Janna Levin, a scientist (provocative). He asked her if being a theoretical physicist was like studying unicorn husbandry.

That line is worth an Emmy, for sure. Next year, Stephen.