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Profiles in Karma: I Want You Back

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Regardless of what fate befalls my beloved Cleveland Cavaliers (and they've been embarrassing since the panic trade that brought them a done player for a dumb player), I'm going to be watching a lot of playoff basketball this spring. It's what I do. I also might buy my first firearm just to feel that steel stuffed snug in my crotch. Motherfuckers be stressin', I might need to be pressin'. Know what I'm sayin', Francis Bacon?

All that aside, I wouldn't be blogging if there weren't an urgent matter at hand, so here goes: I've been watching basketball all day, and I'm pretty sure Verizon has taken that commercial out of circulation? You know... that commercial. Oh, fine...

"Not Brad."

Meanwhile, they've got the version with that doughy nerd running in heavy rotation. Look, if Chevrolet can ride Seger's "Like a Rock" for a fucking decade, you can at the very least favor us with that ad for the rest of the playoffs. You've got lightning in a fuckable .40 oz. bottle of Schlitz with that sucker. I've toppled furniture and stepped on my cat rushing back into the room just to catch it (even though I could calmly walk back in and run it back on the DVR). I haven't been this obsessed with a piece of advertising since "The Case of the Missing Case" (almost as baffling as the Million Dollar Mystery). Another seventy or eighty viewings, and I might've actually switched over from Sprint.

So please... bring it back. At least give me a chance to DVR it in High Def. I ache.

Profiles in Karma: Mamet Surrenders

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EDT

David Mamet's "unexpected" right-wing conversion has elicited some fairly entertaining rebukes and laments, but it's all a load of bullshit grandstanding. The only shock is that Mamet didn't own up to it sooner. He was a misanthrope when he made his first big splash with Sexual Perversity in Chicago (which many of you know as About Last Night..., about as botched a stage-to-screen adaptation as Richard Attenborough's A Chorus Line), and he hasn't softened on people too much in the interim (there's warmth in The Winslow Boy, but it's all Rattigan's).

That Mamet will no longer pop up at Ariana Huffington's house for Democratic Party fund-raisers is of no consequence to me; my only concern is that this splashy declaration might drain Mamet of his wit. Consider this summary of his latest work:

"At the same time, I was writing my play about a president, corrupt, venal, cunning, and vengeful (as I assume all of them are), and two turkeys. And I gave this fictional president a speechwriter who, in his view, is a 'brain-dead liberal,' much like my earlier self; and in the course of the play, they have to work it out. And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process. As I believe I am trying to do, and in which I believe I may be succeeding..."

He goes on to quote cite former newsman William Allen White's devastating "and yet" assessment of liberalism before wrapping up his sprawling essay with a tidy, unearned bow of a final paragraph (in terms of theme, the piece is as precisely reasoned as Oleanna - which was, at least, intentionally muddled). But, again, I don't care that the left has lost Mamet to the faux-pragmatists of the right (really, it's only fair; their combined IQ took quite the tumble when Bill Buckley called it a day); it's the fact that, in stating his newfound allegiance, he's succumbed to earnestness. "And they eventually do come to a human understanding of the political process?" What hot horseshit is that, David? Though I expect this "understanding" to be (typically) disomfitting, that doesn't change the fact that such a clean summary is antithetical to the harsh Mamet-ian worldview;

And there's the trouble with modern conservatism: once you've decided that self-interest is preferable to practical selflessness after you've cashed those million dollar paychecks, life gets too simple. You may believe that you're honoring the get-ahead will of the common man, but you're really losing touch with him. Then you get comfortable, settled, content. And when a writer gets to be any of those things, they're no longer useful.

The best thing about Mamet's first-phase conservatism is that it troubled his consciousness; his characters vigorously and vulgarly pursued their bliss at the expense of all those around them. And those with anything resembling an ethical code took it in the shorts. For Mamet, this was grist for vicious satire; the "understanding" was both a punch line and a punch in the gut.

Now, it'll be what? A bemused shrug? A clasp of calloused hands? A clink of Lite Beer bottles? Mamet's Village Voice essay reveals a man exorcised of conflict, and this is a dangerous thing. Those opposing ideas of which F. Scott Fitzgerald spoke have been silenced; though Mamet may have purchased a spiritual equanimity, it seems very likely that he has sacrificed his ability to function as a first-rate dramatist. I hope I'm wrong.

A final, spectacularly unrelated thought: the German title for A Force of One ist...

Profiles In Karma: Bring Me the Bad Judgment of Briana Evigan

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

Before I compose an ill-advised, trouser-tearing mash note to the twenty-one-year-old offspring of B.J. McKay, I'd like to acknowledge the blogging retirement of Mark Lisanti, whose trenchant wit made Defamer a daily must-read. Lisanti's prolificacy was impressive enough; short of slapping at the keyboard indiscriminately (aka "The Updike Method"), several thousand words a day is a tall order - especially when advertising dollars are on the line. Get off your game, and it's over. Be on your game too much, and your audience might grow tired of your shtick. It's no longer a daily racket; you've got to be an all-day sucker for this shit. And you've got to be good all the time 'cuz there's always another, younger, hungrier competitor out there looking to steal your audience and, possibly, appropriate your voice.

There are a lot of Lisanti pretenders out there (some of them are now writing for the site he founded), but none have duplicated his bemused contempt for the gossip game. Lisanti wrote for those of us who knew better, but read Page Six and Rush & Molloy anyway (while letting that gift subscription to The Wall Street Journal go to waste). That's why I didn't chime in on the furor surrounding that Heath Ledger videotape: I would've been a hypocrite to rail against Entertainment Tonight's lack of discretion. You can't click around the gossip sites (even on occasion) and demand selectivity as to whose trash gets sifted through. If you stoke the furnace, everyone's subject to immolation.

But feeding the beast was great, guilty fun with Lisanti. Whether blowing the lid off the Fannings' girl scout cookie racket, obsessing on the antics of the "Grauman's Chinese Theater Justice League", or terrorizing readers with Brian Grazer's headshot, Lisanti covered the ignominious gossip beat with an ingratiating irreverence, an... "I-can't-believe-I'm-getting-paid-to-write-this-shit" elan. And all the while, you wondered when the burden of triviality would drive him to finer pursuits.

That day arrived last Friday. Mark Lisanti has bid farewell to Defamer. We shook the pillars of heaven, dude (regardless of Wiki-revisionism and Josh Friedman's claims to the contrary). Thanks for making my blog a shortlived sensation. Now hurry up and be brilliant for more than several hundred words at a time several times a day! You'll only be missed if you squander your big, stupid talent.

Oh, right. Briana Evigan. If you're looking for an out-of-shape, thirty-four-year-old internet writer to shack up with for a month (sorry, but I can't put up with anyone's shit for longer than that), do hit me up.

Profiles in Karma: Things That Are Not Structurally Sound

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

1) The Renault "Le Car".

2) The argument for Intelligent Design.

3) The Fucking Chair.

Credit, and hatred, to A.J. Daulerio for bringing to my attention the existence of number three.

And if you need me to warn you that a link listed as "The Fucking Chair" ain't even close to being safe for work, I really hope you've clicked on it by now.

Profiles in Karma: Michael Cimino Should've Directed 'Footloose'

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST

From Scott Von Doviak's "Vanishing Act" column at Nerve.com:

"For instance, did you know that at one time, Cimino was actually hired to direct Footloose? Personally, I would like to see documentary footage of the meeting at which this decision was reached. I’d much rather see that than ever again sit through Desperate Hours or Year of the Dragon, two Cimino films that actually were made. (Quoth Footloose producer Craig Zadan: 'Cimino wanted to make a darker movie. We wanted to make an entertainment.' And Kenny Loggins rejoiced.)"

To begin with, thank you for reminding me of this, Mr. Von Doviak.

Secondly, Year of the Dragon is awesome and clinically proven to cure piles. Side effect: it makes you hate Asian people. ("But his name is Stanley White! It's a metaphor!!!")

Finally, I doubt Kenny Loggins rejoiced, as he was famous for holding Thunderbolt and Lightfoot theme parties at his Laurel Canyon home well into the late 80s (when he grew despondent over the tepid critical reception that greeted the butchered 1987 theatrical cut of The Sicilian). You're just making him hurt all over again.

Profiles in Karma: The High Cost of Living Piously

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

Remember Clean Flix, the Utah-based video rental business that drew a good bit of media attention by offering sanitized (and unauthorized) edits of films featuring "objectionable" content? Well, the studios - and their persistent threats of highly justified lawsuits - finally drove the company out of business last December. Good riddance, right? Thankfully, the story does not end there.

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, the morally upstanding proprietor of Clean Flix, Daniel D. Thompson, was arrested this week for allegedly breaking off an Andrew Jackson in exchange for back-to-back hummers from a pair of fourteen-year-old girls eager to "earn money to move out of their homes". Putting aside the staggering amount of johnson you'd have to gargle to make rent anywhere at those rates (and let's face it: girls this savvy ain't tryin' to blow their way to Provo)... okay, I can't put that aside. That's a piddling $10 apiece! How much of that is getting kicked back to their sixteen-year-old pimp? We're not talking agent/manager percentages here! Their per-john take-home is, at best, $6 (and whatever tip they pocketed). Given the effort and heightened need for discretion (prohibitive age of consent rules out the duck-and-fuck ease of working the corner), there's no way they're sucking off a livable wage. Buried in the margins of this story's religious hypocrisy is a pull-yourself-up-by-the-fishnets tragedy. Where's Joseph Mitchell when you need him?

And then there's Thompson's transgression, which is so utterly passé in comparison. A religious nut felled by his unquenchable thirst for strange quim? I've seen that movie. It's called The North Avenue Irregulars. And Cloris Leachman's pretty good in it.

Of course Clean Flix was a front for pornographic filmmaking; you flipped that card when you christened your business "Clean Flix", asshole. I'm just disappointed that they only found a keg of beer and painkillers on the premises; only an amateur shoots porn without a Hyundai full of coke at their disposal.

It's Not That 'The New Yorker' Named Lil' Wayne 'Rapper of the Year'...

no@spam.com (Jeremy Smith) — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST

... it's that they did it in August. The Source had higher standards than this. Even when they were giving shit like Stillmatic five mics. I prayed that John Updike would never live to see days such as these. This kind of frivolity would've cheesed Harry Angstrom.