Dennis Perrin's Blog, page 7

Nazional Pastimes

Sports gazers are bitching again about the BCS. As expected, LSU will play Alabama for college football's national championship. That Alabama already lost to LSU this season and didn't win its conference made no difference.

The Crimson Tide is a bankable brand. A known commodity. Oklahoma State, which has an identical record as Alabama and did win its conference, had no shot. Even if OSU had gone undefeated, there would be numerous voters who'd still pick Alabama over the Cowboys.

In a season marred by the Penn State rape scandal, SEC favoritism is the least of college football's worries. It seemed odd that Penn State kept playing after its franchise coach was fired, its school president forced to resign. But too much money would be lost, so the harshest penalty has been to banish the 9-3 Nittany Lions to the TicketCity Bowl in Dallas.

Come next season, maybe fans will believe that it was all a bad dream, an aberration, and we can get back to pouring money into corporate sports as the Constitution provides.

I was never crazy about college football. But at least the BCS is open about its avarice, the building of super conferences an honest expression of current power arrangements. The punch line -- that it's all about student athletes -- ceased being funny ages ago. It's still trotted out, but few bother to notice much less react.

Pro football is losing me as well. Cynics may point to the Jets' subpar season as the cause, but this is a long time coming. Ultra-violence is part of it, though for years this didn't bother me much. You can't enjoy the NFL without brain-rattling hits.

Mostly it's the nationalist/militarist tie-ins. The assumption that NFL fans naturally support imperial war and the pomp that sells it. This has grown worse every year, culminating in a Nuremberg rally called the Super Bowl.

The punch line -- that it's all about supporting the troops -- ceased being funny ages ago. It's still trotted out, but millions continue to love and applaud it.

The Occupy movement has clearly softened me. A generation that rejects violence in favor of justice fucks with one's football jones. That is, unless the Jets somehow make it to Nuremberg Indy. One more rally before renouncing the Reich, or Madonna at halftime if the game's a rout.

No Higher Calling

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Seeking support from the gun lobby, Mitt Romney performs a ventriloquist act with Bucky the Elk whose tag line "Blow me away!" has become a campaign favorite.


In a rare moment of public honesty, Rick Perry assumes the position he takes when raising money from corporate donors.


Perry tries to prove he's a better American than Romney by placing his hand higher over his heart.


Who's the black private businessman that's a sex machine to all the chicks? CAIN! You're damn right.


Michele Bachmann demonstrates how she would cut federal spending by pretending to eat a Subway tuna melt.


Newt Gingrich regales followers by showing the sleight of hand he used when fleecing his constituents.

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You see this cat Cain is a bad mother -- SHUT YOUR MOUTH! But I'm talkin' about Cain!


Citing his experience as Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman says that the Chinese will never overtake America because they are shorter than us.


Huntsman hopes to win over religious conservatives by telling Michele Bachmann that he too could see the Second Coming of Christ.


He's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his women. HERMAN CAIN!


Addressing concerns that he might be anti-Israel, Ron Paul shows his love of Jewish culture with a tribute to comedian Jackie Mason.


Not to be outdone, Vice President Biden and Israeli president Shimon Peres celebrated their alliance by performing "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler On The Roof.


Speaking to reporters about a possible second term, President Obama showed how he plans to deal with foreign leaders who get in his way.

It's A Hell Of A Town

The following is made possible by Fox Labs International. Makers of Mean Green, the world's first environmentally-safe pepper spray. Incinerates human eyes without harming the planet. Finally, organic fascism in an aerosol can!

These kids have energy. Positive energy. Unpretentious. Guileless.

It's in their eyes and postures. In the way they communicate. Earnest but not silly. After spending back-to-back days in Zuccotti Park, I see why elites are hysterical. A generation no one noticed is peacefully pushing back. And based on my time in NYC and DC, these kids aren't stopping any time soon.

The violent vibe comes from the cops. They surround the park, batons in hand, pepper spray ready, one order away from again clamping down. Many of these cops are NFL big. One wonders what enhancements they use to bulk up. Their expressions are hostile. To enter the park, you must walk past a line of them as they closely peruse you. And these are just the uniformed cops. Who knows how many plainclothes are milling about.

For all of its symbolic power, Zuccotti Park is the tip of a potential national upheaval. Kids across the country are Occupying. As we saw at UC Davis, they're putting their bodies on the line, learning to defend themselves without violence.

You have to be truly cynical to doubt the courage of kids willing to be pepper sprayed at pointblank range by a uniformed thug. To mock a collective strategy that put cops on their heels without a single rock thrown.

Something good is happening. It's too early for specifics, but a general definition is taking shape. Again, age and experience warn me against optimism. But I do want them to win something. To inject their determination into the larger culture. We sure as fuck can use it.

Meantime, New York's finest march in lockstep. NYC cops have always been a law unto themselves. But since 9/11 they've added many new toys and tactics to their Robo arsenal.

The city feels increasingly authoritarian. Preventing terror is the official excuse. Yet the monsters paraded are usually drips. The latest threat touted, Jose Pimentel, supposedly an Al-Qaeda sympathizer and would-be bomb maker, is meant to make New Yorkers thank Michael Bloomberg and Raymond Kelly for saving their lives.

For a captured terrorist mastermind, Pimentel's resume is pretty thin. Kelly concedes that Pimentel is a "lone wolf," which mutes the intended effect. Even the Feds had no interest in him. But the issue isn't self-defense -- it's systemic reinforcement.

In order to justify police state methods and laws, we have to see those deemed dangerous. Pimentel's rumpled appearance, brown skin, and unemployed status will scare those willing to be scared. But given the police apparatus that Pimentel was allegedly going to attack, his "threat" was at best negligible.

As ridiculous as Pimentel seems, his image feeds something darker. Rudy Giuliani gave Manhattan to the rich. Bloomberg is solidifying that control while expanding into other boroughs.

Protecting the city's One Percent is a well-stocked army of blue. Their stop-and-frisk policies, stopping non-white people on the street and searching them with no evidence or warrant, has become commonplace. That the vast majority are found to be innocent means little. Making people afraid is the goal. Reminding them who owns the city.

Sunday morning, I spent an hour in Penn Station for my train back to DC. It had been ages since I was last there, and the changes were alarming. Cops in flack jackets with detection dogs, stopping people at random, searching their luggage and pockets while the dogs sniffed at the edges.

A video celebrating this practice continually played in the waiting area. Over and over we were told to submit, obey and not talk unless spoken to. This was for our "protection." Any "suspicious" behavior would lead to arrest.

According to the NYPD, there have been 14 terror threats to the city since 9/11. A generous baker's dozen over a decade. How serious any of it was is open to speculation, but those aren't IRA-hitting-London numbers.

I'm sure that someone somewhere wants desperately to blow up something in NYC. Yet the cops aren't uprooting complex networks. If they were, we'd never hear the end of it (and their budgets would boom). This explains why suspects like Pimentel are made to be bigger than they are. And I'm guessing he wasn't arrested while waiting to board Amtrak's Northeast Regional.

The revealing thing is, Jose Pimentel doesn't frighten city elites. The non-violent kids in Zuccotti Park do. All that firepower aimed at young people linking arms, chanting, discussing, singing, looking to remake their world. So, who is it we must really fear?

Lucky Jim

Few memoirs make me wistful about my life, but James Wolcott's did. I wasn't sure I could love NYC more than I do, but Jim deepened my affection.

Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York is an exploding time capsule, a torrent of images that can overwhelm you, even if you get the countless references. It's also an elegy to a lost literate time, when words could cut through rock and reshape landscapes.

It helps to have your story bracketed by Norman Mailer and Pauline Kael. Mailer put young Jim in a position to realize his potential. Kael gave Jim guided tours as his talent took form.

Kael figures most prominently in Lucking Out. The bohemian film critic who crashed the New Yorker had a serious effect on Jim. Kael not only inspired his criticism, she showed him the professional ropes, grooming Jim for the career he has since enjoyed.

His love and respect for her is evident and touching. In lesser hands, these memories might become maudlin. But Jim finds the right balance. At times he and Kael resemble a two-reel comedy team, a broken city serving as their Hal Roach lot. They trade wisecracks while walking into the horizon, engulfed by graffiti and sirens.

It's tempting, in this glass tower age, to romanticize Seventies New York. Yet Jim shows it wasn't all glorious grunge. The city was dirty, mean, cheap. Teen hookers on the West Side; bat-wielding gay bashers; Times Square's porn squalor before Disney's invasion. As crass as modern Manhattan has become, I know few denizens who'd return to the days when you literally ran for your life.

But it was in the danger zones where new forms flourished. From the broken glass and wasted lives of the Bowery emerged a music scene rivaled only by Forties be-bop (and later Eighties hip hop). Jim was on the ground floor, watching it cook.

Much has been written about CBGB's and the birth of punk. Documentaries share identical soundbites. The vinyl is worn. Jim injects fresh juice into the mix. His early embrace of Patti Smith remains a point of pride. His analysis of Television reminds us of how eclectic CBGB's truly was.

Ramones, Talking Heads, Dead Boys, and The Cramps also appear, with the B-52s making a cameo. Each band possessed a singular voice and style, born of necessity and lack of pressing commercialism. Outside, NYC was wild. Indoors, CBGB's matched its mood.

Jim's relative temperance kept his mind clear to record the proceedings. He's the anti-Lester Bangs, whom Jim not only knew, but once shared a love interest. Bangs' chemical appetite fueled his appreciations, which are fun to read, but are often bogged down by emotional overkill.

Jim surveyed the same terrain with a more forensic eye. Bangs may have moved at the speed of punk, yet it's Jim who precisely captured the moment. He evokes the smell, the sweat, the frenzied desire to create that defined CBGB's. It makes you hope that somewhere a bunch of weirdo kids are creating scenes of their own. In the corners. Far from the florescent glare.

Two chief emotions hit me while reading Lucking Out. One, Jim's open love of language. I first read him in the Village Voice. His book reviews for Esquire in the early-80s showed me what words can do. Sentences from his Vanity Fair column remain with me.

Lucking Out is the culmination of these various periods. Everything Jim has is laid out in this book. At least it seems that way. If he has additional stories, deeper memories, then I trust he's resting up for another round. As full as Lucking Out is, you sense that there's so much more he's not sharing. But that's the memoirist's privilege. We're at his retro mercy.

Lucking Out also stoked memories of my early NYC days. I was in junior high/high school when Jim roamed deserted streets. To me, New York was That Girl and The Odd Couple. Taxi Driver silenced those laugh tracks. Woody Allen forced me to improve my vocabulary. SNL inspired me to write urban comedy.

When I told my family I was moving to New York, they were stunned, convinced I'd be mugged and dead within a month. Had they seen the first building and neighborhood I lived in, their fears would've been justified.

Jim's memories of pre-gentrified Manhattan pretty much match my own. New York was still dangerous in 1982. There were neighborhoods you simply didn't walk through. Central Park after dark was for thrill seekers and lunatics. The subway looked as it did in films like The Warriors and Fame. But the alternative scene was more or less gone.

There was Ann Magnuson's Club 57, where I first performed in the city. There was Danceteria and the Pyramid Club. But the original bloom faded to hard core punk and early techno noise. Reagan era values spread, creating what became known as yuppies. I dated one. Weirdly enough, that was my initial scene. I fell into a crowd of rich white kids devoted to money and cocaine. I didn't stay long, but I saw where the city and country were headed.

Perhaps it was inevitable. How long would the rich allow their borough to rot and collapse? Especially when all that cheap housing could yield mega-real estate profits. At least there was a time when their indifference allowed for beautiful mutations.

James Wolcott cut his teeth among the mutants. Lucky him.

America's Game

The Penn State rape scandal is mind blowing. In a culture of noise, idiocy, and violence, this might be somewhat muted, especially for younger people. But don't let that fog your eyes -- the Penn State story is big and bad. Very bad.

We're not just dealing with a twisted pedophile here. We see how deeply corporate sports corrupts those who profit from it. Penn State's program, under coaching legend Joe Paterno, was supposedly one of college football's jewels. They did things the Right Way. Paterno provided steady, inspired leadership. "Success With Honor" was their motto. Beneath it all, the raping of boys was allowed.

I've read some tortured defenses of Paterno on various sports sites, saying that he fulfilled his legal requirement by reporting to his superiors. But reporting what? Sexual misconduct of some kind in Penn State's sports facilities. Maybe Paterno didn't know how horrible it was. Maybe his source, Mike McQueary, current assistant coach, then a graduate assistant, didn't make it graphic enough for him. But something serious happened. Yet nothing was done.

If you receive information about sexual assault, regardless of how it's presented, and you're in a unique position of authority, does filing a simple report cover it? Paterno obviously thought so. His job was to win national championships, not police the showers for felonies. But if Joe Paterno wanted action taken, he'd doubtless get it. Again, it came down to, Not My Department, Not My Problem.

That it took the university to fire Paterno further proves his cluelessness. Saying that he'd retire at the end of this season was arrogance based on privilege. Think about it: in the midst of the biggest scandal in college sports, based on the rape of children, Paterno thought the next step was to prepare for Nebraska's defense. You can use his age, 84, as an excuse; but if Paterno's that out of it, then he shouldn't be coaching in the first place.

Of course, Paterno's not the only one culpable. McQueary did nothing. Athletic director Tim Curley and a vice president Gary Schultz did nothing. Former Paterno assistant Jerry Sandusky apparently did something, as he is now charged with molesting eight boys over 15 years. Sandusky claims he's innocent. He'll have his day in court. But what must truly shock Sandusky is how Penn State's football apparatus failed to protect him for life. It's like you don't know who your friends are anymore.

Money is the only reason why Penn State football isn't shelved until further notice. How can those kids be allowed to play with this hanging over their helmets? The Penn State uniform is tarnished. And not in a traditional sense. Recruiting scandals are one thing. Paying players under the table is now expected. Covering for a serial rapist is new rancid ground.

Clearly, I picked the wrong time to write American Fan.

Soon

Hey. Been in Michigan with my son. About to return to my new home in DC. Will be back soon with delicate takes on our beautiful society. Until then, here's a head's up on my next gig, courtesy of Barry Crimmins. More on this later. Aloha.

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Walls Stripped Bare

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Sitting in carved out ruins. I once lived among them. Ages ago. Drank, laughed, fucked, fought here. Busted my back, broke my fingers here. Saw children grow. Watched love leave.

How many lives have we lost? Sense memory points to a few, but most go missing. Dead moments emerge in scent and taste. Crumble. Fade.

The present is merciless. It has all the advantages. Knows every pressure point. Fighting it is foolish. You wear yourself out, then it smashes your face. Another moment you'll eventually forget.

I wonder if I really knew her. Photos offer no justice. I look as lost as time. She looked better. Smiled more easily. I couldn't relax. I doubt she could either, but she hid it better. Sometimes I went by her photos instead of her touch. Softer focus. Longer fuse.

There were fights. Real go-rounds. I learned from my parents and related adults. Back when people hit each other without getting arrested. Back when screaming and cursing were expected.

She didn't have my training and it showed. An area where I felt in control. But she developed some moves. Used them well. She was the only woman other than my mother to punch me. A warm sting. Like old times.

I knew her as well as I could. Ghosts surrounded her. Fear choked me off. It's remarkable how well we got along when we did. Yet storms always loomed. A question of time before the next downpour.

No matter how awful it got, I desired her. The crazier, the hotter. There were other feelings, sure. But the arousal I found in punishment remains strongest.

Now it's gone. Empty shelves that once held my books. Another man's shirt on a chair. Different food in the fridge. An overall energy shift.

The neighborhood is as boring and provincial as ever. That I won't miss. Photos cover the rest. When the kids were young. Before the gray grew in. When the life we shared was all we knew. Smiles among the flames.

(Image by Kumi Yamashita)

Freedom Fire Zones

Oakland's finest flipped with brutal flair. To be expected. The Occupy movement tests our owners' patience. Occupiers not only dig in for a long haul, awareness and desires expanding, they're making the political system look bad.

Those official tears shed for Arab demonstrators now seem cynical. Well, to those who took it seriously. Double standards are an American constant. Endorsed by God. Consecrated by the Founders.

Whichever Oakland cop shot Scott Olsen in the head with a "police projectile" didn't help matters. A 24-year-old Marine vet who served two tours in Iraq joined Occupy and got a fractured skull and swollen brain for his trouble.

Olsen lies in critical condition, courtesy of an American police officer, not an Iraqi insurgent. Bad PR for the One Percent. Not that they can't move past it. If you can beautify Pat Tillman's demise, Olsen should be a cinch. To the degree that anyone of any importance cares.

Our owners and their mouthpieces clearly want Occupy to wither and die ASAP. Fun's fun, but this democracy crap is getting dragged out. Some liberal scribes profess admiration for Occupy, explaining the kids to their peers. Yet hostility is the reigning reaction.

What happens should Occupy continue as Obama is renominated? Do the Democrats make a last-ditch effort to corral them? Or does Obama go Hubert Humphrey, lecturing protesters about civility, manners, and duty? That Obama is running as a war incumbent offers a clue, but events are in serious flux. His handlers may prove inventive, though I doubt it. Power is its own campaign pitch.

At least Humphrey had New Deal ties, regardless of his pro-war stance. Obama has zero connection to social justice. His expansion of police state surveillance puts Nixon to shame. His reliance on drone assaults and targeted assassination makes George W. Bush resemble the frat boy caricature that long nourished liberal detractors.

Still, most liberals I hear and read pledge some kind of allegiance to Obama. Many don't see the disjunction of sympathizing with Occupy while touting Obama for reelection. Obama relied on the One Percent the first time around. He's even deeper with that crowd now. The picture is plain. The rest is projection and partisan interpretation.

Some Obama supporters I've spoken to have dropped all pretense about HOPE and CHANGE. Their New Obama is an Alpha Leader, a skilled assassin, a savage mule. Don't fuck with Barack! The dissolution of progressive fantasies about Obama has been steady and in places swift. His true face revealed. Loyalists are left with either denial or embracement. This accounts for their hostile, defensive tone.

It also means that, like former lib fave John McCain, Mitt Romney will be painted as a Tea Party fascist forcing women to have unwanted babies, when not lynching Black people on weekends. That Mitt and Barack are corporatists serving the same interests confuses those who require more dramatic scenarios.

Not since the Gore/Bush -- Cheney/Lieberman "debates" has a possible pairing epitomized our fixed system. I used to think it was an elite way of saying Fuck You. But again, this assumes that elites give a shit about how we view their world.

Scott Olsen's injury shows whose interests he served in Iraq. I'm sure he once considered it a patriotic duty, a form of Homeland defense. His joining Iraq Veterans Against the War denotes a change in perspective. His joining the Occupy movement demonstrates engagement with genuine democratic forces.

Keith Shannon, a fellow Iraq vet, said, "Scott was marching with the 99% because he felt corporations and banks had too much control over our government, and that they weren't being held accountable for their role in the economic downturn, which caused so many people to lose their jobs and their homes."

When you march with the 99%, you've tipped your hand. You are, as Chomsky once noted, the domestic enemy. Tear gas, rubber bullets, truncheons, and sonic cannons (field tested on Iraqis) are your citizen badges.

The One Percent are in it for the duration. Matching their tenacity without succumbing to their brutality remains an ongoing, vital test.

A Creeping Wreck

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There are times when a political commentator gig seems worse than useless. This is one.

Take Qaddafi. His execution stokes typical American manias, most prominently self-righteousness and revisionism. Resisting the main torrent is exhausting and distracting enough. Making counterarguments in the face of flying bullshit requires patience and strength, two qualities largely absent in our discourse.

I couldn't do it -- well, I could, but man, what a waste of energy.

Perhaps it's a younger person's game. I enjoyed tweaking blowhards back in the day. It was fun. The confused expressions I'd receive made me laugh. Calling John McLaughlin a loud shill to his face, on his show, into his cameras remains a satisfying moment. McLaughlin stumbled over his text for a beat. I don't think anyone had spoken to him like that. He froze me out for the rest of the show, snubbed me afterward and never invited me back. Like I gave a shit.

There were many others. Mostly on panels. I felt I had nothing to lose. I also thought I was telling the truth. As close as I could get, anyway. I was considered extreme, unserious, crazy, conspiratorial. Reactionaries sputtered when I trashed Reagan and Bush. Liberals shouted when I trashed the Clintons and even John McCain (who once was a liberal hero). None of it bothered me. It became a challenge. Nothing serious, but a form of exercise nonetheless.

I can't imagine doing it now. The information system is stacked against alternative views. You need to be either a masochist or egotist to engage it. And to what end? Average people don't watch political chat shows. The educated class is too indoctrinated to consider heretical arguments. Professional clowns are there to make noise and wave flags. Political lunacy is so mainstream that someone like me would sound like the real lunatic. Potentially fun, yes; but again, only if I were younger.

The Qaddafi death circus lacks the heat of Bin Laden's murder rave. But some sizzle exists. Tyrant though he was, Qaddafi was nothing like the global monster portrayed in popular fiction. It's comic how inflated his reputation became. The real story, where Qaddafi essentially danced to the neoliberal tune, serves no official interest.

Like so many before him, Qaddafi was an imperial speed bag. To be pummeled when needed. Qaddafi helped in his own demise. His personal flamboyance owed more to Siegfried and Roy than Mussolini. His violations of human rights were rewarded and played down until he had to be Hitler again. Then he was the worst ruler on the planet. Beyond civilized norms. A mad dog loose among peaceful nations. There's only one way that narrative ends. As we've seen.

A nagging concern must be, Who do we get to replace Qaddafi? Not in geopolitical terms, but as a propaganda savage. Syria's Assad seems like the next target, though that would be a tougher production.

Despite official hostility, Syria and Israel have sought to normalize relations. Overthrowing Assad's regime would lead to regional instability, something I doubt Israel desires. But who the fuck knows. Once crazy is released, it quickly morphs into something deadlier. Especially when it's continually fed.

Qaddafi's straitjacket doesn't quite fit Iran's Ahmadinejad, yet tailoring continues. The most recent effort, a Master Plan employing Mexican drug cartels to whack a Saudi ambassador, was inspired. I'm not sure who the target audience for that was, but its creators committed to the premise.

It was reminiscent of the Soviet MiG scare in Nicaragua. More closely, the fabled Libyan hit squads that roamed Washington, DC, somehow undetected, but armed and ready for action. (This was dramatized in the popular science film, Back To The Future.) When does Iran ditch its surrogates and sends its own hit squads stateside? I'm sure we'll be the first to know.

Rinse Cycle

Two dykes scream then kiss. A beautiful sight. Not as voyeurism, but as a healing example. Follow the dykes. We'll live better.

Younger women feel colder to me. Granted, they're not looking my way. If they were, I wouldn't look back. I've had enough freaks in my life. Still, they seem glazed. Stares, pouts, postures. Skin tight but false.

Perhaps it's dimensional. Some Nijinsky cubist barrier. Anonymity allows for perusal. But they're worlds away.

Women my age remind me of my age. Can't complain. We share the same tongue. Cultural baggage. Our separate wing of the madhouse.

I find many of them beautiful. They made the transition. Others are like me -- vain, insecure, overcompensating. I should like them but don't. We're mutual imposters.

Drinking dims the glare somewhat. You alight but most often crash. A dull thud. Boring as porn.

My ancestors hit it hard. As have I. Their legacy's in my gut. Our minds grilled over time.

I see them in darker corners. Blended shadow smiles. They are less daring in retrospect. Late laughter drinks pissed away.

I've entered their time. Quieter than I imagined, but comfortable enough. This will change. We don't exit mellowly. Wild eyes, kicks, punches at air. Tension explodes near the grave.

It has nothing to do with toughness. We simply grab what we can on the way out. One more touch. A final taste. Everything expended before nothing consumes us. An unspoken joke cutting clean.

There are worse fates. I've read about a few.