"OF THE 1%, BY THE 1%, FOR THE 1%"

A great article in Vanity Fair by Joseph E. Stiglitz that articulates simply and clearly what a lot of us have been thinking.

OBAMA'S LIBYA SPEECH

Got so busy yesterday I forgot to post my response to Obama's speech. I thought it wasn't his best in terms of presentation. Maybe the audience—especially the front row, of mostly old white men and a lot of them in uniform—caused him to seem at times a little more defensive than usual.

But in terms of content, no matter what you think of his Libya strategy you have to admit it was more honest than I remember any president ever being about any military action our country has taken part in, at least in my lifetime.

He answered his critics, was blunt about the folly of the Iraq invasion and the lack of a quick response where massacres could have been prevented in other places, but also blunt about how the U.S. can't prevent all the tyrannical oppression and violence against civilians that occurs in the world.

I'm one of those who believe a horrible massacre has been avoided by the actions taken by Obama with the support of NATO and the Arab League and mandated by the U.N. Now there's an obvious quandary about how much support to give to the rebels in light of Qaddafi's superior artillery. I'd like to see a ceasefire and negotiations because that could stop any further deaths and violence.

But it seems in the areas Qaddafi controls, the violence and repression and against many civilians continues, so the justification is there for more support for the rebels until they are able to get Qaddafi out either by force or his support diminishing to the point of inevitable defeat.

It's not an easy situation to resolve in any ideal way, but then, most tough situations in life aren't resolved easily. But given the realities—and a lot about the Obama administration that I don't agree with or wish they'd do more the way I'd like to see things go—Obama is still handling the challenges he's had to face since taking office with much more honesty and intelligence than most presidents in my lifetime, and in many cases any of them, and that goes for this "military action" as well.

K J DENHERT ON A JERSEY SATURDAY NIGHT

After I caught LIMITLESS the other night with a couple of friends, another friend called me from the restaurant/bar across the street from the old house my apartment's in to say I had to come over and catch the live music happening right then. So I did.

It was a singer/songwriter/guitar-playing woman I hadn't heard of before—KJ Denhert. She had several musicians backing her while she sang and switched between an amplified acoustic guitar and an electric one. The first musician I noticed was the keyboardist.

Unfortunately I didn't catch his name and it isn't on her website. But when he took a solo just after I entered, after initially thinking he wasn't doing much, he switched his keys to an electric organ sound and started grooving so hard I couldn't stand still.

He was playing riffs that combined the swingin'est aspects of Jimmy Smith, the blues-iest of B.B. and Albert King, the craziest of Ornette or the Ayler brothers and the minimalist-est of Terry Riley. He just tore the melody up and spit it out one little groovy bit at a time.

There was an unassuming looking horn man too, playing what looked to me like a soprano sax and pulling out beautiful improvisations that would have been good enough for any jazz combo I can think of, but I can't find his name on Denhert's website, nor the bass player's, unless I just didn't recognize them. But as I was digging his bass playing my friend leaned over and said, "The guy on bass is amazing," and he was.

Then the percussionist on the congas and other hand drums took a solo and like the keyboardist, turned it into a unique performance. Way in the back was a drummer on a regular jazz kit who was killing the whole thing with the backbeat, and who looked mysterious and equally as unique visually as the rest of the musicians, including KJ Denhert with her robust figure and flailing gray mop of hair poofed way out from the thickness of her natural Shirley Temple curls.

Denhert too put on a visually engaging performance as she grimaced and smiled and mugged on every note she pulled out of her guitars and voice. She did some original tunes and some covers. The band was so tight that their cover on Sting's "Message in a Bottle" turned into one of those once-in-a-lifetime, you-had-to-be-there musical moments.

It wasn't until after their encore when they were breaking their instruments down that someone pointed out to me the drummer, Ray Levier, had been kicking butt while playing without fingers! The victim of a horrible accident when he was eleven in which he suffered third degree burns all over his body and lost all his fingers, Levier's story is so inspirational that even if he sucked as a drummer you'd still want someone to make a movie of it. The fact that he happens to be a great drummer only makes you wonder the more why someone hasn't made that film already.

Anyway, it was a busier than usual evening for me, and a very satisfying one. I'm just sorry I don't have the names of all the musicians that played that night. If anyone else does, please leave a comment so they can get their just recognition on this humble blog (not me humble—though I try to be, probably to your surprise—but humble as in not the biggest blog in the universe).

Here's one of the songs KJ Denhert played that night, and tight as it is (listen all the way to the end to get the full effect of the groove they get going in it), it's nothing compared to the live performance of it the other night that rocked and swung and built to a peak way beyond what occurs in this
video (that does look like Ray Levier on drums though):



And here's her more recent cover of "Help:"

LIMITLESS

It's a fun ride, an entertaining escape, and though it's gotten some lukewarm reviews because of plot problems, it's still puts the usual special effects to much better use than a lot of other recent movies.

Bradley Cooper pretty much is the movie. There's other good performances, including one by DiNiro and another by Abbie Cornish (who I found less appealing in LIMITLESS than I did in BRIGHT STAR which she was the bright star of). But Bradley Cooper proves he can carry a movie, and does.

I suggest you see it on the big screen just to get the full effect of the special effects, some of which I hadn't seen before and except for some overkill about midway through are used well and mostly in support of the story, unlike too many recent movies that use similar effects seemingly more to show them off than to serve any plot you can follow in a way that's worth the effort (like INTRUSION).

Some plot points in LIMITLESS raise questions that either aren't answered or are answered so ambiguously they just raise more questions. Some critics have found this a sign of director Neil Burger's and/or screenwriter Leslie Dixon's not doing their job well.  But in retrospect I think a case could be made that it was their intention, for as much as this is an action caper slash thriller slash mildly sci fi movie meant to entertain more than enlighten, there's a few threads of subtext in it that may not be as intellectually satisfying as a movie about a character becoming super smart should be, but they still engaged me.

I left the theater smiling and feeling pretty satisfied.

MORE RR (RIGHTWING REPUBLICAN) HYPOCRISY

I was reading an article in the Arts section of the NY Times recently about a new movie starring Paul Giamatti with a story set in a Jersey high school wrestling scene. The article mentioned in passing that the movie wasn't shot in the actual Jersey town the filmmaker grew up in but on Long Island instead because of "tax incentives."

As I've written here before, for some reason the Republican governor of my state, NJ, eliminated the tax breaks that were in place when he was elected for movie and TV productions shooting in Jersey, so they've all moved to New York, where the previous and present Democratic governors had and have tax incentives for production companies to work there.

That's why "Law & Order SVU" which had been shooting the show in Jersey left the state, and others too, and ones that had been thinking about coming here don't anymore. What's with that? These productions employ plenty of local workers as well as contribute greatly to the local economies with everything from catering to rentals of all kinds etc.

It's like Christie turning down that tunnel that was going to relieve train traffic between New York and New Jersey after work had already begun and hundreds of millions had already been spent on it and even though most of the cost was being covered by the federal government and other resources.  If the governor was really into saving the state money and balancing the budget you'd think he'd want TV and movie productions bringing money into the state and a tunnel that would make commuting to the city more efficient and less polluting and less costly than the highway building and widening projects he plans on doing that won't employ anywhere near as many workers as the tunnel would and will increase pollution and not benefit anyone much except oil corporations.

Obviously what Christie and his fellow recently elected Republican governors are about is not saving money for states and their taxpayers, but saving and making more money for their corporate masters and those whose wealth is dependent on corporate welfare.

Christie has given $637 million in tax cuts to the wealthiest in Jersey since his election while cutting all kinds of stuff that benefits the rest of us in the state. Same old RR tricks, give more to the rich and then make the rest of us pay for it.

Here's John Stewart's most recent take on this subject (I couldn't isolate the bit, so the link takes you to the whole show—it's the first segment but the best part comes over seven minutes in, if you can stick with it, it's worth it).

LANFORD WILSON R.I.P.

I just heard that Lanford Wilson passed last night [Here's the NY Times obit, what follows is not an obituary but my personal response to his passing]. He was a playwright known for the three plays in his Talley trilogy—including the Pulitzer-Prize-winning "Talley's Folly" and the critically acclaimed third one "The Fifth of July"—and even more for "Hot l Baltimore" and "Burn This."

But I first met him around 1982 at a performance of Richard III that starred William Hurt and Lindsay Crouse and got a lot of attention because the male actors, for a change, were semi-naked (basically they wore loincloths which for some reason a lot of women, and men for that matter, wanted to see the young up and coming William Hurt in—I wasn't one of them since I had already seen Hurt in a play about Lord Byron and thought he was a pretty self-conscious and mannered actor, and in this Richard III he was even worse [he got better in movies, many of which I liked], mumbling his lines to himself and spending a lot of time in the fetal position either so that the audience could get a better look at the naked part of his buttocks or because he was embarrassed or on drugs or anything else you could surmise, but Wilson and I agreed that the actual best performance in the play was Richard Cox's, an actor a lot of people thought was heading for movie stardom though unfortunately for audiences that didn't happen.)

Wilson and I hit it off immediately. He was—at least in my few encounters with him—an incredibly approachable, accessible, even self-effacing to some extent, and very nice man.

But the play of his I have a personal connection with and loved the most is "Balm in Gilead." I moved to L.A. shortly after I first met Wilson at that Shakespeare play and within months was cast in the L.A. premiere of "Gilead" (over fifteen years after the New York premiere at La Mama!).

It was a wonderful play to be a part of, with a huge cast all of whom became good friends and all of whom had interesting and varied careers and later lives. But mostly it was wonderful because of Wilson's terrific dialogue for the late night misfits that occupied the cafe the play was set in, and which I played "John, the counterman" in and so was on stage for most of the play and had interchanges with a lot of the other characters.

I haven't acted in too many plays. It was never my dream or ambition to be a theater actor. I was always drawn to movies and found the experience of watching plays live almost unbearable sometimes. I either identify so strongly with the characters I squirm in embarrassment for them or want to shout out encouragement or sympathy, or I feel like I have to jump out of my seat with the worry for them. Kind of childish, or child-like if interpreted in a better light, but my plight.

I also feel embarrassed for performers who do things like Hurt did in that production of Richard III, at least the night I saw it, and that makes me uncomfortable in my seat as well. Though I have had some amazingly satisfying and enlightening and entertaining experiences watching live plays over the years as well.

But movies were always my main love when it came to being a member of an audience and appreciating the art of acting. I know the theater is more rigorous a test for pure acting without the benefit of retakes and editing, and I have seen some great stage acting. But the obvious artifice of live theater often gets in the way for me. (But I do love to read plays and have a big lists of plays that I consider lifelong favorites and playwrights who I admire greatly, including Wilson, though not all his plays work as well for me as others.)

Anyway, long explanations for my saying that except for plays and theater performances that were based on my own writing, or of which my writing was a part, the only play I ever acted in professionally was Lanford Wilson's "Balm In Gilead" and it was a life changing experience in more ways than I care to tell outside my memoirs.

So Lanford Wilson will not only be missed by me because of his unique talent as a playwright, and as someone I spoke with a few times and enjoyed the company of, but as someone who created a work of art that personally changed my life when I became a part of it.

And as my old friend the late Hubert "Cubby" Selby said in an interview I did with him a few years after my experience in "Balm In Gilead," "A work of art must change your life, otherwise it's not a success for you."

[The cast of the L.A. staging of "Balm in Gilead"—that's me in the white shirt and apron on one knee in the front row—click to enlarge, as always.]

[PS: On my computer when you click on the photo to enlarge it, it gives you an option to enlarge it even more so that you have to scan it from left to right and bottom to top to see everyone, and if you do, you'll see some faces you saw and still see on TV and in movies in the decades after this shot was taken.]

TAYLOR [PPS TO LAST TWO POSTS]

She's already been buried but the New York Times obituary only came out today. Worth the wait though as it's a pretty thorough summary of her life and career, for an obit.

(I know, you ask, what is this obsession with Elizabeth Taylor. Well, I haven't the faintest idea. Maybe it's part of that whole post-brain-surgery shifting of my mental patterns, or maybe it's just my lament for a passing era that foreshadows the passing of my own generation soon enough.)