nashville

it's a robert altman film so you know its going to be frenetic. you know it's gonna be all artsy, that you will be able to tell the actors have been given a certain license to ad lib, to imagine their characters and portray them as they honestly think they would exist, with an outline for a script and probably a few drunken cast dinners to work out major plot lines.

but what is fascinating is to see it for the first time in 2009 after having been a child in the '70s and having been raised by working class people who wouldn't know anything of robert altman. people of only the best hearts, who delved into fundamentalism for a prolonged period of time, people who sold beer and cleaned houses, followed sport, refrained from strong drink, and perceived themselves as wholesome and family-oriented.

not people who went to college or read books, (books not of a biblical nature, that is.) not people who were affected by art much. good people who did not necessarily love travel but who did go to israel all the same. (who needs paris, london or tokyo?)

you watch robert altman's work and you forget ideas like 'who influenced who,' and instead appreciate the idea of a through line in time demonstrated by a class of people who are drawn to art and who live in such a way they rely on art to guide their lives, sensing a depth in their selves. they are the bohemians, the readers, the philosophers, the social, sentient, vibrant pushers of thought through the core of the masses. they are love, collective and incarnate. suddenly altman's peers are picasso and van gogh, beethoven and bach, lennon and bono, godard and von trier.

instead of one vision of, (in this case,) nashville, you get dozens of visions, portrayed by thoughtful actors. altman's genius is in his utter void of ego. he is the contributor, as socialist, communist or democratic as you can imagine. ned beatty brings his vision to his nashville agent and husband of the star country singer. shelly duvall gets to be the ditzy, california, flower child she imagines. lily tomlin probably created her character from whole cloths of lives she encountered one time or another, (the gospel singer slash bored, repressed wife.) tomlin is a revelation in playing tension still.

still, altman wrote what script there must have been. he put the characters in the situations he believed would bring out statements and ideas representative of his world view, (if nothing else.) in this way you can see altman acts as any artist in wanting to affect you. the art is layered but the ultimate object is the complexity of man.

nashville is about nashville. forget the '70s. it's about people as they are in real life, in this case they live in nashville and love country music. (and almost all of them sing.) the country music scene, for its part, can be seen as a sort of simple, stunted lifestyle, but then you see the complexity of individuals kind of break through. you see characters who spend huge segments of life avoiding their own depth, choosing the shallowest waters only to be confronted suddenly by the unavoidable fact that human capacity for conflict and joy and pain is nearly boundless or at least unimaginable.

there are articles about nashville that critique the film in the context of social relevance. they suggest meanings altogether plausible and worth considering. my comments are intended to be abstract. you can see that history is a treasure trove of thinkers as artists and artists as thinkers. in our age i can move from era to era in search of the altman's all to my own edification. in film alone there are several generations of artists and films to explore.

some would argue this era, altman and his contemporaries, is by virtue of nashville somehow the best of any age or better than a given age. that is not likely true. rather nashville is likely the most important or best film of that time depending on how you prefer to think of it. what makes it more is perceiving it from the perspective of one who stands in awe of his own access to the brilliance of my species. i am the common man and yet i benefit from this great art perhaps more than him who is capable of appreciating it more, or appreciating more of it.

the imaginarium of dr parnassus

will this movie ever come out? maybe terry gilliam is awaiting some sort of strange organic buzz, which will propel this movie to box office glory.

capitalism: a love story

capitalism does not need to be defended or denigrated. it is an economic system from which our economic system borrows many ideas or qualities. we also have elements of socialism in our economy.

however, the unsavory parts of capitalism have become the hallmarks of modern corporatism and michael moore touches on just a few, key aspects of what is wrong with our economic choices as a society in order to educate the masses and point out some basic truths. he does it with the same sense of humor we have seen in all of the moore films.

capitalism: a love story, makes some main points...

relaxed economic regulations allowed the advent of credit default swaps, which made a few wealthy at the expense of the masses. when toxic loan assets began to show their real colors, some major players went down but goldman sachs was the government's preferred player and recipient of its largess.

the movie also makes a few subtler points such as when america's hero, sully sullenberger, (he of landing a jet airliner in the hudson river,) testifies to congress on how much his pension and pay have been cut in recent years. the point is the united states is like a school yard bully who has been rendered obsolete by apathy. there is nothing the world needs us for anymore. we do not manufacture anything. we merely have the ability to destroy on an unprecedented scale and so we are feared, perhaps. we are tolerated. our sole export of late has been the rubic's cube style financial instruments, (credit default swaps,) that robbed the american people's retirement accounts. beyond that the world would like to de-value our dollar and watch us whither up and shrink away.

ultimately, like many moore films, capitalism is a modern mish-mash montage of images and stories that contribute to the overall idea. that idea is legion, too. that idea is: capitalism is not a good word and socialism is not a bad word, the invisible hand of the market belongs to alan greenspan, franklin roosevelt had a great deal more work to accomplish when he met his untimely end, and our leaders are not elected...they are bought.

ttj & pj

i decided to take terra to see pearl jam because i just thought it would be so cool to see them with her. so, on wednesday, october 7th, 2009, at the gibson amphitheatre, four days short of turning five-years-old, terra tresina james went to see pearl jam with her father.

my earliest memories are from when i was four-and-a-half-years-old and they are the same earliest memories i had when i was eight-years-old, which makes them seem somehow more significantly significant. it seems there are moments i recall vividly from my life and they are those moments of unadulterated joy or some kind of trauma. my single earliest memory is from when i was discovered and sent home from kindergarten for being four. my grandpa had thought i could pass for five and get a jump on my education, (or else it was the cheapest babysitting option.)

i thought taking terra to pearl jam would be one of those memorable moments and the thought of terra at 12-years-old telling me her earliest memory was of the night we went to pearl jam is at once compelling and sublime. and this is how the idea of taking terra to see eddie vedder, mike mccready, jeff ament, stone gossard and matt cameron, came about.

since the day i bought the tickets faith and i have been telling terra about the show. we told her the story of how she had one day deliriously asked to hear "heady betty," while being put into her carseat for a long drive and how we knew she was about to fall asleep. she had been fighting it. but she implored us to hear heady betty and we looked it each other completely at a loss-who was this heady betty? terra whined as i put in some cd that was not the sought after mr. betty. and within a half-mile of where we started, terra knocked out. the next day faith and i were back in the truck and i decided to throw on the soundtrack of 'into the wild,' by eddie vedder. faith looked at me and said, "heady betty is eddie vedder."

"heady betty is eddie vedder," i thought?"

"heady betty is eddie vedder," i yelped out loud. oh damn, this cracked me up.

anyway, terra loved 'big hard sun,' the most. usually when she wanted to hear it she would say "big hard sun." but just the day before she had said "heady betty," instead, and so eddie vedder became heady betty in our house.

add to these reasons the fact that i adore pearl jam, that of all artists perhaps eddie vedder, because he is from southern california and seems to speak in a language i understand, and you see i have a few good reasons for taking terra to see pearl jam.

on the way i over in the truck i told terra everything that would be happening in our evening. i explained the drive, the parking, the walk through universal city walk, how many people would be there, how loud it would be, ben harper and pearl jam. i wanted her to be devoid of fear and she was. she had pink ear plugs for the evening.

we say "wide-eyed," because we have seen little, five-year-old girls walking universal city walk amidst 40-foot neon signs and video billboards showing live ac/dc footage, or something similar.

terra could not have been more cute. she was so brave.

during the show eddie vedder made a few comments of a political nature, which is one of those things i appreciate about him. he talked about a documentary film he had seen that morning called 'the cove.' he said it was about the hunting of dolphins and that he had been anxious to get to the show that evening because he had watched people at their worst and by way of complimenting the band's fan base he said, here he would feel among the best of humans, (or, something to that effect, anyway.)

as terra and i found our door to the theater, we saw a dad and a daughter near terra's age sitting on a cushioned bench in the lobby. they looked at us and we looked at them oddly, as if peeking through a portal at our doppelgangers from a couple years hence. (the dad looked a couple years older than me and the girl was probably seven.) i nodded and feigned an imperceptible smile. terra and the girl locked gazes, which showed signs of kinship and curiosity, and we scooted past and into the theater to watch a few songs by ben harper and relentless seven.

later, after a break to pick up some water and licorice, we passed the same dad and daughter again and this time terra waved and the other little girl waved right back and smiled wide. (later terra told her mom the girl was a little bit bigger than her.)

as we sat chomping on licorice i told terra how loud and exciting things were about to become and i reminded her of the few pearl jam songs she actually knows a bit. david was at the show and visited us between acts. i think terra was even more comfortable having seen david's familiar face.

pearl jam came out rocking then pulled it back a bit for a few less aggressive songs. their ninth song of the evening was evenflow, (truly a hard rocker.) of all songs, this was the one that drove terra to sleep. i held her in my arms the entire show, switching her from side to side many times, and during evenflow her head slowly fell forward into my cheek.

the first time it happened she looked up at me and said, "is it time to go home?"

the second time she fell harder and i had to pull her up higher on my hip and she looked at me with heavy eyes and said, "can we go home now?"

it kind of broke my heart that i did not immediately say yes. she was, after all, so tired. instead i told her we would go soon but asked her to hang in there for just a couple more songs. she said okay then she wrapped her arms around my neck and put her head on my shoulder and checked out. i stood for a couple of songs then i sat and just held terra and enjoyed the music.

during this time they played a favorite song of mine; wishlist. it is a sweet and tender song of longing.

Wishlist
Artist: Pearl Jam
Composer: Vedder
I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off I wish I was a sacrifice, but somehow still lived on I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on The Christmas tree, I wish I was the star that went on top I wish I was the evidence, I wish I was the grounds For 50 million hands upraised and open toward the sky
I wish I was a sailor with someone who waited for me I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good I wish I was the full moon shining off your Camaro's hood
I wish I was an alien at home behind the sun I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on I wish I was the verb 'to trust' and never let you down
I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up I wish...I wish...

terra fell asleep during the ninth song and we walked out of the theater during the 18th song, (spin the black circle.) the setlist from the evening revealed they walked off stage after the very next song, (porch,) then returned for two encores.

i sent david a text message right when i got home and just said i hoped ben harper did not come back out and join the band onstage for 'indifference.' i have seen this occur on a dvd i have of pearl jam at madison square garden and it is an especially nice rendition of a deep and heartfelt song. david did not comment. the next day he told me he did not have the heart to tell me that was exactly how they ended their show.

i carried terra out of the theater, back through the long walkway to the front gate, down the city walk where i had to move her off my my injured shoulder and on to the other shoulder at which point she woke briefly and looked around at desolation in neon then quickly went back to snoozing, into the parking structure to the far side where i had parked. i laid her in her car seat and buckled her in, ecstatic at how completely fulfilling life can be in moments.

i worked so hard for this evening. as opposed to relaxing to the max at entertainment such as this by having beers and tweaking my state of mind a little bit, i watched over my daughter. i had the best upper body workout i have had in years as i held terra for literally hours in my arms. carrying her the quarter mile or so from seats to truck was a trial but when i buckled her into her place there at the end, i felt like a champ. i was infused and invigorated by the energy of pearl jam's rock and roll and because of terra i felt connected and humble. the work only colored the reward more glorious.

chomsky

chomsky is perhaps the top intellectual, the greatest philosopher and the best human being in the last 30-40 years to walk the planet. seriously. the praise this man deserves is truly at that level.

unless a man has been utterly disciplined in his life, never indulging in the unimportant sideshows of life, the hobbies and curiosities and entertainments of so many among the masses, he is incapable of reasoning on the level of chomsky. it is nothing to be ashamed of. still, chomsky's voice, as leveller of the masses, is unmistakable and true. he is the linguist of our age, a linguist in a time when language exploded.

i am not ashamed of having heroes. this is typical, solemn human behavior. chomsky is the only voice in the michaelsphere to have never, ever lied or told a half-truth. i have never found flaw with his reasoning, (not a surprise but an impressive fact all the same.)

chomsky's voice is as close as i get to trusting implicitly. it is my value to trust little-i am into verifying. it is with this idea in mind that i direct you, (to click on the header above that says, "chomsky,") to chomsky's comments on the financial crisis.

chomsky is so dense in his meaning when he writes, it can be difficult to follow him. still, if you read this article you can see how wrong-headed the prevailing thought is on our current financial crisis as well as several other related issues. check it out.

bars

it is interesting and inevitable how my little brother and i recall things differently sometimes. he remembers his burning curiosity about the life of a mother we spent precious little time with growing up.

i felt what he remembers, but different. i too have been obsessed with prison my entire life and have even thought my crimes of irresponsibility in my 20's were spurred primarily by a subconscious desire to know a little piece of my mother's life. three-and-a-half days later, getting out of la county in the middle of the night, i was finally clear that i could not go back. i felt the crazy creep eerily close to me in there. there were moments when i was screaming on the inside at the thought of being locked up, of having my freedom arrested, of my own gentle soul being treated as if i was a danger to society. it shaped me. that experience carved a deep groove in my psyche, colored over my values like whitewash, and formed, (in some part,) this person who needs to read and know and feel the alternative, the counter-culture, all things contrary.

i had been to jail a few times. i got a dui when i was 22-years-old and spent the night in san bernardino's county jail. that was an adventure but i was drunk and young and it was over in 8-10 hours. i was arrested a couple of other times for not paying tickets, typically car registration tickets, and failing to appear on the tickets. i was poor, trying to go to school to improve my situation and offended at all the money society demanded of me in taxes such as car registration. so i acted foolishly and rebelled in such a way i was essentially demanding more pain for myself.

that last time i got picked up by a cop who said he pulled me over because he saw a girl in my car who seemed to be climbing over a seat. from the substation i went to la county in the evening time and spent the next three days there. i had a couple of moments in there, low moments, when i was melting like anti-matter and raging like a warlord.

in one moment i sat in my bed alone in the middle of the day with the noise of warehoused prisoners wiling away their day all around me and i reflected. i felt sad at my plight, contemplated my guilt and considered if the punishment was reasonable . there i was incarcerated. riding to the jail on the bus i made conversation and gave opinions to people who were engaged in bartering shoes for marijuana. the guy who gave up his shoes for the ganja knew he would be staying a while and considered the ganj far more valuable than the shoes. the guy giving up the pot in favor of sneakers had been arrested without his shoes on, (strange he had pot on him though that got past the cops,) and wanted some footwear. the guy who obtained the pot then made a deal with someone else to share a smoke with him once inside if he could get it in. at that point several people in the vicinity feigned normal as this guy, handcuffed to his bench mate on the bus, worked a tiny baggie of herb into his rectum.

my thoughts? besides wanting to smoke a bowl of that poopy pot to take me away from this hellish place, i thought of how in a matter of moments i had taken one giant, de-evolutionary bound, backwards in time. living squarely in the age of the big-brained man, (i had often thought in those days that this was the world of the big-brained man, which is to say success was there for smart people to take,) i had transported backwards by at least a few centuries to a time when the big man ruled. success was there for the big, or brawny or burly or strong, man to take. there among prisoners, among many tough and hardened men, i was so profoundly saddened by this development. (i will avoid a lengthy divergence here but i watched the maysles brothers documentary, grey gardens, last night, about big and little edie bouvier beale, and it would be easy to contrast and compare my jail experience and feelings about the crude and base nature of man with the ease with which this refined and wealthy mother daughter combo digressed.)

anyways, i was saddened like no emotion i ever knew. this was not a particularly selfish sadness. it was much more than that. it was the sadness of understanding my species in a way i might have been better off not knowing. it was the sadness of having childish notions about my society drop away like cookie crumbs, like simple ideas and un-scrutinized beliefs, disappearing and leaving only the corrosive, exposed pain of knowledge behind. it was men going backwards, going base, forming hierarchies with meanness and ruthlessness and all things criminal as the valued personal traits which created and asserted power on the inside. on the inside... on the inside... fuck. that was a dark moment that day and i remember it to this day, which is so much brighter and colored by my children and my wife and some acquired wisdom. i was twirling a long thread of my won hair in my fingers that day, just sitting there, having the blackest thoughts and i remember those moments passing as i sat there in such a way i can feel that feeling, a little fraction of it anyway, on demand to this day.

in the other moment i called home and my buddy, his wife and my girlfriend were all gathered awaiting my call and i found myself on the phone unable to talk and darla recognized what was happening, the reason for my silence. she must have felt the stone in my throat that kept me silent l'est i burst out crying like a newborn baby so discomfited by this unfamiliar world i had arrived in. by the time my girlfriend at the time got on the phone i had turned toward a wall so no one could see my face and tears, silent tears, poured down my face. i made no noise. i could not speak. mireille spoke to me and assured me everything would be okay soon and she had spoken to my boss at work and all the rest. i was worried about that everyday stuff too, and i was worried about my own safety. no one gave me a hard time in jail or challenged me in any

physical way but i saw others challenged. i saw one fight that involved a guy laying on the ground getting kicked in the head and some amount of blood hitting the concrete. but i minded my business and made conversation in the tiny 'white' sections of the various rooms i was housed in. on that phone though, not talking, trying to remain unseen, i couldn't have felt worse and perhaps never have.

my brother, for his part, has experienced so much more than me, spending a large chunk of his life behind bars. the last time we visited my mother in prison i was 17 and he was 12. we flew to goodyear, arizona, and spent a couple of days in the visiting room of a women's federal prison. perhaps at that age he was more curious. perhaps. obviously we were both affected by all we saw and endured.

nowadays i am fond of telling friends i am attracted to justice. when i see justice, real justice, my heart leaps. so much about the criminal justice system is a joke, is so not about real justice, i can't help but be cynical about the establishment and our systems.

as for my brother, our paths are like rolling, curving lines, often parallel, sometimes criss-crossing. we are in ways products of the criminal justice system. we are both fiercely of the people.