Seth Kupchick's Blog: Bet on the Beaten, page 12
November 25, 2014
The worst review of "The Big Chill" ever
In the "Big Chill" the friends from the Sixties come together, because their alienated outsider friend has committed suicide, and we (the audience) are supposed to think that he's exceptional, and somehow a stand out from the group, that is basically selling out at a lightning pace, except for William Hurt, the emasculated Vietnam Vet, that was the suicide's best friend. Gen X has taken the archetype of Alex and blown him up larger than life, so that we're a generation of Alex's, or in the words of the Stones song played at his funeral, 'You can't always get what you want,' especially when you're endlessly dreaming of the Summer of Love that never comes. I read an essay recently on "Slate" about the Gen X mid-life crisis, and that our generation suffered from a sort of 'agoraphobia,' meaning we were scared to leave the house, and in my case this is true, so it was strange to read that I wasn't alone and am part of a generation of homebody's that have no idea how to enact social change. In "The Big Chill," they thought they enacted plenty of social change when they were young, and could network for the rest of their lives, having done their duty in the Sixties, but Gen X never had this feeling, even though we longed for it, hoping to find a 'scene' somewhere in Europe or New York, but never really finding it, though they say it existed in Seattle for a year or two, but these cultural high water marks are always transitory, and Williamsburg is yesterday's trash.
"The Big Chill" had it good to lament a guy that just couldn't fit in, because he still believed in Abbie Hoffman, the true Sixties guy. We're a generation of these kinds of people since they taught us in school, fueled by the ideals of their time, and it's often said that we are the most educated generation in the Nation's history, so why do we seem so dumb, or are we just geniuses for not wanting to leave the house, like Salinger after he wrote "Cather in the Rye," just too brilliant for the world. I have a feeling both are a little true, like every thought I have, unable to see a black and white world anymore, and missing Fifties TV. Alex was the foreshadowing of our generation and what makes the "Big Chill" such a great movie, aside from the script and cast; it tells the story of two generations without meaning to, falling into the great unconscious accident of all art. The asexual William Hurt becomes a homebody at the end without any ambition except that he understands art and realizes you have to let a "B" movie just sort of wash over you, and not judge it, a great Gen X trick.
In the "Big Chill" all the actors gather to remember Alex, as the embodiment of their dreams, and the movie becomes about the living more than the dead, since they can talk, and Alex is almost forgotten as the raison d'etre for the event, save some meandering reminiscences, and instead the story becomes about making life and moving on, since almost everyone has sex at the end, and Kevin Kline impregnates that actress with the cross eyes, that never was in much, save "Smooth Talk" a movie I posted on FB the other day with Laura Dern and Treat Williams, in two unforgettable performances, one great (Dern), and one bad (Williams). Alex's suicide is a spiritual death for everyone in "The Big Chill" forcing them to either confront Alex or not, and most choose not, except for Glen Close that has the most emotionally heart rending scene of the movie when she breaks down crying in the shower at the beginning, and then gives up her husband to have sex with another woman, and completely forsakes child bearing, in an almost exaggerated selfless ritual, but she's the saddest amongst the living, except for William Hurt that is a eunuch, so that the sexually alive are able to forget their martyr and move on into Wall St. and adulthood.
The delusion I had as a Gen X'er after seeing the "Big Chill" is that anyone would remember my small sad generation, but maybe I thought they never would, since the first story I ever wrote for a creative writing class in high school, was about a bunch of middle aged men, duking it out, kind of like in "The Men's Club" starring Roy Scheider, Craig Wasson, Frank Langella, and more. Yes, it was weird that a seventeen year old boy would be obsessing on a mid life crisis, but it may also be an indication of how much the Bommers just sort of swamped of us when we were coming of age, even though I don't think their parents did this to them, because they had numbers, or as Jim Morrison sang, "5 to 1, 1 to 5, no one here gets out alive!!!" I always thought the world appreciated that Gen X was a rare specimen, but I'm starting to think I'm wrong, and that we'll always exist on the fringe, not understood by the boomers. We're an isolated agoraphobic generation like a domesticated cat, but the Y'ers have assimilated our latent irony and used it as a weapon, so that we may be remembered through another generation, and maybe this is the way it always goes, except the Boomers that remembered themselves.
"The Big Chill" had it good to lament a guy that just couldn't fit in, because he still believed in Abbie Hoffman, the true Sixties guy. We're a generation of these kinds of people since they taught us in school, fueled by the ideals of their time, and it's often said that we are the most educated generation in the Nation's history, so why do we seem so dumb, or are we just geniuses for not wanting to leave the house, like Salinger after he wrote "Cather in the Rye," just too brilliant for the world. I have a feeling both are a little true, like every thought I have, unable to see a black and white world anymore, and missing Fifties TV. Alex was the foreshadowing of our generation and what makes the "Big Chill" such a great movie, aside from the script and cast; it tells the story of two generations without meaning to, falling into the great unconscious accident of all art. The asexual William Hurt becomes a homebody at the end without any ambition except that he understands art and realizes you have to let a "B" movie just sort of wash over you, and not judge it, a great Gen X trick.
In the "Big Chill" all the actors gather to remember Alex, as the embodiment of their dreams, and the movie becomes about the living more than the dead, since they can talk, and Alex is almost forgotten as the raison d'etre for the event, save some meandering reminiscences, and instead the story becomes about making life and moving on, since almost everyone has sex at the end, and Kevin Kline impregnates that actress with the cross eyes, that never was in much, save "Smooth Talk" a movie I posted on FB the other day with Laura Dern and Treat Williams, in two unforgettable performances, one great (Dern), and one bad (Williams). Alex's suicide is a spiritual death for everyone in "The Big Chill" forcing them to either confront Alex or not, and most choose not, except for Glen Close that has the most emotionally heart rending scene of the movie when she breaks down crying in the shower at the beginning, and then gives up her husband to have sex with another woman, and completely forsakes child bearing, in an almost exaggerated selfless ritual, but she's the saddest amongst the living, except for William Hurt that is a eunuch, so that the sexually alive are able to forget their martyr and move on into Wall St. and adulthood.
The delusion I had as a Gen X'er after seeing the "Big Chill" is that anyone would remember my small sad generation, but maybe I thought they never would, since the first story I ever wrote for a creative writing class in high school, was about a bunch of middle aged men, duking it out, kind of like in "The Men's Club" starring Roy Scheider, Craig Wasson, Frank Langella, and more. Yes, it was weird that a seventeen year old boy would be obsessing on a mid life crisis, but it may also be an indication of how much the Bommers just sort of swamped of us when we were coming of age, even though I don't think their parents did this to them, because they had numbers, or as Jim Morrison sang, "5 to 1, 1 to 5, no one here gets out alive!!!" I always thought the world appreciated that Gen X was a rare specimen, but I'm starting to think I'm wrong, and that we'll always exist on the fringe, not understood by the boomers. We're an isolated agoraphobic generation like a domesticated cat, but the Y'ers have assimilated our latent irony and used it as a weapon, so that we may be remembered through another generation, and maybe this is the way it always goes, except the Boomers that remembered themselves.
November 5, 2014
Election '88
For some reason, last night's Midterm elections, made me remember the Presidential election of 1988, when I was twenty, and would probably never be more of a political idealist. Admittedly, I was a big fan of politics growing up, an oddity for a kid, and one of the things that made me stand out, aside from my big red curly hair. Without going too much into my day to day thoughts about who I wanted to win, and who I didn't, I was pretty convinced that America would have another J.F.K., or someone that approximated his youthful vigor, and the hope he gave to the Country, not to mention me, being part of the Country. I know it's hard to see this now, from a political historical perspective, and I don't think it is much talked about in the news, though I'm pretty sure there is a big book out now about the Gary Hart campaign of '88, that ended in flames, but there was a time in the Eighties before Reagan had been officially knighted, that he was seen as an aberration, or a reaction against the Sixties. This line of thinking assumed that the negative fall out of Reagan's Presidency, the tax cuts for the rich, in the guise of trickle down economics, not to mention his hawkishness, and polarization of the world into a 'good vs. bad' scenario, pitting the Commies vs. the Capitalists, could be undone, since he was only President for eight years, and that his brand of conservatism was a lapse on a part of the electorate that would never happen again; nothing Constitutional had solidified, not to mention we hadn't had a 'baby boomer' President yet, that was transformed by the Kennedy's. I was a Reagan fan at first, but that didn't last long and by the time of his reelection campaign against Walter Mondale, in 1984, the year Orwell predicted a takeover by 'Big Brother,' I wanted him to lose very badly, and I was only 16 years old, but still wasn't put off, or stunned, that he won by so much, thinking Mondale an appendage of Carter, and just out of touch with his times, not to mention he had those big dark circles under his eyes that just made him look tired and worn out.
I know that people are fond of talking about where they were when Kennedy was assassinated, or the men landing on the Moon, or 9-11, but in my historical political memory, I remember where I was when I heard that 'tabloid journalism' had taken over the political scene, and Gary Hart was caught with a young woman named Donna Rice, on a sailboat, all but sinking his campaign. It's not that I was the biggest Gary Hart fan in the world, but he had my Mother's maiden name, and more than that he was the heir apparent to the Kennedy ideal, or at least that's how he was portrayed in the press, before the Democratic Party turned into a bunch of Rockefeller Republicans, officially sanctioned under a D.C. group called the D.L.C., or the 'Democratic Leadership Council,' that believed in a Republican conservatism on economic issues, such as tax cuts for the rich, deregulating laws hampering business, and freeing up Wall St., while at the same time being 'liberal' on social issues, like school prayer, equal rights, etc; the D.L.C. was the Clinton handbook,, and what I like to think of as the 'third way,' neither Democratic or Republican, but a mixture of both, and an attempt to save the Party from the crazy liberal wing that nominated McGovern in '72, or stuck to old F.D.R. era hacks like Mondale in '84, that just couldn't win a National Election, with a shifting demographic.
The '88 election existed at a unique time in American politics where the D.L.C. had yet to be a force, and Gary Hart seemed like an environmentally conscious Coloradan, with a real idealistic bend, reminiscent of the Sixties, not to mention Reagan wasn't running for reelection after serving his two terms, and George Bush senior, that I'll refer to as 'Pappy,' had almost no charisma, as proven four years later against Bill Clinton, Mr. Charisma, and seemed beatable. Personally, I wasn't following any of this too closely, being more interested in music and partying with my friends in college, or at L.A., but I had a vested interest in the election, because I had learned about 'global warming,' and was very concerned about it. I didn't know this at the time but I saw Naomi Klein speak recently and she cited '88 as the first year that 'global warming,' or what we now call, 'climate change,' though I'd call 'the environmental holocaust,' had just become an issue in the public consciousness, and some friends had told me about it at college, one rainy night, and horrified me.
I was eating in a college cafeteria when I heard that Gary Hart was taken down and it was much worse news to me than last night's election, because he was the only viable candidate the Democrats had to offer; sure, the dirty politics of taking down an opponent with lurid sex scandal stories may have been as old as the mountains, but American journalism just hadn't gone there much in the 20th century, and it may have been one of the reasons we had such strong leadership, even if our leaders personal lives were full of moral foibles, that destroyed their families, but mixing the political and the personal was out of bounds for the most part. It didn't surprise me that it was a Democratic candidate being taken down because I'd learned all about Nixon's dirty tricksters, and you never heard that about Carter, though politics is always dirty, and it's just a matter of degree.
I'm not sure I thought the Democrats were doomed in '88 but it didn't look good, kind of like losing the star quarterback before the season even begins. I went canvassing door to door for Cal Pirg to save the environment in the summer of '88, and I'll never forget an older woman living alone telling me that she didn't have to support my cause because she was voting for Bush, and he was the 'environmental' President; I wanted to scream at her and ask how deregulating businesses that were poisoning the earth, sky, and water, was somehow promoting the environment, but I just said, 'really?' "Really," she said, and shut the door on me, and on one level she was right, because in the Presidential election of '88, 'Pappy' did co-opt the 'environmental' issue from the Democrats, proving how good they were at running campaigns, or how bad the Democrats had become, and the media just promulgated the lie, meaning all a politician had to do was say they were for something, and it made it so, regardless of the truth that could be revealed through voting records, and public policy statements. It was a horrifying moment for me because I became painfully aware that Americans actually believed that the Republican Party was the environmentalist Party, and this was so backwards that Orwell's '84 may have actually happened in '88.
Pappy went onto win the election in a landslide that may not have felt as glorious and all sweeping as Reagan's electoral victories, but was plenty jarring to me. I'd just moved to San Francisco and watched the returns roll in sitting at a bar in the Tenderloin, and just sort of knew the political thought that Reagan was an aberration had been vanquished and that his policies weren't so much about him, as a trend in the Country, or that's what Tom Brokaw said in his authoritative sort of Nebraskan Cornhusker voice. The great liberal dream of a new Kennedy Presidency, symbolized by Gary Hart, just wasn't going to happen in my lifetime, and I soon stopped canvassing for the environment, and just kind of gave up on politics for good, or at least until the W. years, about twenty years later, but even then it was a forlorn hope that democratic socialism was going to sway the Country, as much as it was an attempt to stop W., a madman.
I also watched some of the '88 returns at a bar in North Beach with an Italian family that had invited me in after seeing me at the window tallying the early results, like a guy in the '50's watching TV through a storefront window. I was wearing a suede fringe jacket like Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy," with crazy long red curly hair, and taught them about the electoral college, as the red states and blue states started popping up like flowers on the screen, but the election was over before the evening commute (they always were, until Bush vs Gore). I loved their excitement for the American political process, and how they were treating me like family, but a new age of dirty politics was starting that probably resembled mob rule, more than anything they'd read about in a book, dreaming of freedom. They probably could've taught me something about politics, but I was on home turf.
I know that people are fond of talking about where they were when Kennedy was assassinated, or the men landing on the Moon, or 9-11, but in my historical political memory, I remember where I was when I heard that 'tabloid journalism' had taken over the political scene, and Gary Hart was caught with a young woman named Donna Rice, on a sailboat, all but sinking his campaign. It's not that I was the biggest Gary Hart fan in the world, but he had my Mother's maiden name, and more than that he was the heir apparent to the Kennedy ideal, or at least that's how he was portrayed in the press, before the Democratic Party turned into a bunch of Rockefeller Republicans, officially sanctioned under a D.C. group called the D.L.C., or the 'Democratic Leadership Council,' that believed in a Republican conservatism on economic issues, such as tax cuts for the rich, deregulating laws hampering business, and freeing up Wall St., while at the same time being 'liberal' on social issues, like school prayer, equal rights, etc; the D.L.C. was the Clinton handbook,, and what I like to think of as the 'third way,' neither Democratic or Republican, but a mixture of both, and an attempt to save the Party from the crazy liberal wing that nominated McGovern in '72, or stuck to old F.D.R. era hacks like Mondale in '84, that just couldn't win a National Election, with a shifting demographic.
The '88 election existed at a unique time in American politics where the D.L.C. had yet to be a force, and Gary Hart seemed like an environmentally conscious Coloradan, with a real idealistic bend, reminiscent of the Sixties, not to mention Reagan wasn't running for reelection after serving his two terms, and George Bush senior, that I'll refer to as 'Pappy,' had almost no charisma, as proven four years later against Bill Clinton, Mr. Charisma, and seemed beatable. Personally, I wasn't following any of this too closely, being more interested in music and partying with my friends in college, or at L.A., but I had a vested interest in the election, because I had learned about 'global warming,' and was very concerned about it. I didn't know this at the time but I saw Naomi Klein speak recently and she cited '88 as the first year that 'global warming,' or what we now call, 'climate change,' though I'd call 'the environmental holocaust,' had just become an issue in the public consciousness, and some friends had told me about it at college, one rainy night, and horrified me.
I was eating in a college cafeteria when I heard that Gary Hart was taken down and it was much worse news to me than last night's election, because he was the only viable candidate the Democrats had to offer; sure, the dirty politics of taking down an opponent with lurid sex scandal stories may have been as old as the mountains, but American journalism just hadn't gone there much in the 20th century, and it may have been one of the reasons we had such strong leadership, even if our leaders personal lives were full of moral foibles, that destroyed their families, but mixing the political and the personal was out of bounds for the most part. It didn't surprise me that it was a Democratic candidate being taken down because I'd learned all about Nixon's dirty tricksters, and you never heard that about Carter, though politics is always dirty, and it's just a matter of degree.
I'm not sure I thought the Democrats were doomed in '88 but it didn't look good, kind of like losing the star quarterback before the season even begins. I went canvassing door to door for Cal Pirg to save the environment in the summer of '88, and I'll never forget an older woman living alone telling me that she didn't have to support my cause because she was voting for Bush, and he was the 'environmental' President; I wanted to scream at her and ask how deregulating businesses that were poisoning the earth, sky, and water, was somehow promoting the environment, but I just said, 'really?' "Really," she said, and shut the door on me, and on one level she was right, because in the Presidential election of '88, 'Pappy' did co-opt the 'environmental' issue from the Democrats, proving how good they were at running campaigns, or how bad the Democrats had become, and the media just promulgated the lie, meaning all a politician had to do was say they were for something, and it made it so, regardless of the truth that could be revealed through voting records, and public policy statements. It was a horrifying moment for me because I became painfully aware that Americans actually believed that the Republican Party was the environmentalist Party, and this was so backwards that Orwell's '84 may have actually happened in '88.
Pappy went onto win the election in a landslide that may not have felt as glorious and all sweeping as Reagan's electoral victories, but was plenty jarring to me. I'd just moved to San Francisco and watched the returns roll in sitting at a bar in the Tenderloin, and just sort of knew the political thought that Reagan was an aberration had been vanquished and that his policies weren't so much about him, as a trend in the Country, or that's what Tom Brokaw said in his authoritative sort of Nebraskan Cornhusker voice. The great liberal dream of a new Kennedy Presidency, symbolized by Gary Hart, just wasn't going to happen in my lifetime, and I soon stopped canvassing for the environment, and just kind of gave up on politics for good, or at least until the W. years, about twenty years later, but even then it was a forlorn hope that democratic socialism was going to sway the Country, as much as it was an attempt to stop W., a madman.
I also watched some of the '88 returns at a bar in North Beach with an Italian family that had invited me in after seeing me at the window tallying the early results, like a guy in the '50's watching TV through a storefront window. I was wearing a suede fringe jacket like Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy," with crazy long red curly hair, and taught them about the electoral college, as the red states and blue states started popping up like flowers on the screen, but the election was over before the evening commute (they always were, until Bush vs Gore). I loved their excitement for the American political process, and how they were treating me like family, but a new age of dirty politics was starting that probably resembled mob rule, more than anything they'd read about in a book, dreaming of freedom. They probably could've taught me something about politics, but I was on home turf.
October 25, 2014
15th street video is gone
I've just finished writing a book, the last video store has closed, and it really feels like the end of an era, the end of an age, the end of a beginning. I feel like a hypocrite caring that the video store closed, that sold only DVD's, and Blue Ray, because I basically stopped going there years ago, when I realized I could get FREE DVD's from the library, but that wasn't the reason they went out of business, and I know that, I'm not that stupid... it was Netflix and the internet, and every technological device conspiring to take over culture and stop people from meeting.
I've always been obsessed by reading notices on businesses that have gone under, and the one at 15th street video was surprisingly honest, not promising to reopen, or redesign, even when I knew they wouldn't, but admitting the market had knocked them out beneath the knees, and there was no coming back, but the loss wasn't so much to the store, and the people that ran it, some of who had worked there for over '14' years, as the flyer made clear, but to the community. I couldn't help but 'feel' they were right, even if my thinking mind simply feared for their survival, but the employee's weren't even as great as the idea of a store, that would be the buzz for 'culture' in the community, since books became obsolete sometime in my childhood, and movies had taken over. To be honest, I couldn't believe the store had survived for as long as it had, since the great age of video stores had already ended, lasting for about twenty years, but I thought the community loved the store so much that it would keep going, since no one wanted to see it close, and assumed the State would co-opt it as a relic of culture, like they did to Scarecrow Video, with one of the greatest collections in the Country, but 15th Street Video, in the old Fire station, just wasn't important enough, to warrant such attention, and the employees just couldn't keep it going.
It's weird to say because my life as a movie and TV fan will go on without 15th Street Video, and yet it's presence as a hub of culture was just kind of undeniable, and you could figure out what was cool or not, by going in there on a Saturday night, and seeing if it was sold out, and what was coming in, and what you had to put on hold. There was a real sense of excitement in there, that just doesn't exist on the internet, and it's almost like I've lost a friend that I'd talk to about my favorite movies, even though I never really had a good relationship with anyone that worked there, except for one guy that I'd met when he'd quit, but that was a connection. He was also my last really good friend that kept telling me I should watch "Get Carter," with Michael Caine, from the early Seventies, and though I didn't like it much I miss my friend a lot, and it was his birthday a few days ago. He had piercing blue eyes, and I always thought he'd be a great actor, summing up the angst of our times. Now all the great undiscovered directors and actors that worked in video stores are gone, and it's society's loss.
Unfortunately, the limb is dead, and must be severed, and it's time for humanity to move on, and kiss the video stores goodbye, and the DVD's too, that I've yet to give up, for a completely non tangible existence, based on intellectual trade. We're really entering a new age where the marketplace is redefined not by that which we see, but what we don't, and we are going to become ever more reliant on our intuition, so that the sensitive among us will survive, and the clueless, that need a clerk to help them, will die, and that would include me, half the time! We're moving to a servant free society, where we are the servants, and the landowners have their own, so that there are servants upon servants, doing the work of mankind, with the artists left behind as usual. We only live in relation to each other, and that would include the stores where we buy our life's needs, where we think we're working, trying to figure out where we fit in, in such a complex world, and what we're known for isn't necessarily what we are, though the two dance, and so do the video store and the consumer, intertwined in a deadly dance of obsolescence, as all media becomes digitized, so that nothing and everything is forgotten. I just won't be the same without knowing that Portlandia was sold out, or eavesdropping on that conversation between the clerks about their favorite bad movie, and thinking my taste was better, my favorite bad movie better, but that didn't matter. They had cared enough to devote their life to 'bad art' and this was impressive, because so few do that, and yet many dream of it, and that's why the baby boomer generation created art school.
The bad art capital of the world is gone, across the street from the coffee shop, where the clerks would loaf, and I'm lesser for it, with less and less speaking for the truly awful, that they'd watch all day on their shift, on a TV above the counter, that I'd lose myself in, and never will again. I still remember when two for one Tuesday's were a real deal, before Netflix, or the library. I wish all the old employee's there a good life, in the mish-mash of American society, where time flies by, and everyone tries to capture it, because time is money, but not in the video store, where nothing existed, save movies.
I've always been obsessed by reading notices on businesses that have gone under, and the one at 15th street video was surprisingly honest, not promising to reopen, or redesign, even when I knew they wouldn't, but admitting the market had knocked them out beneath the knees, and there was no coming back, but the loss wasn't so much to the store, and the people that ran it, some of who had worked there for over '14' years, as the flyer made clear, but to the community. I couldn't help but 'feel' they were right, even if my thinking mind simply feared for their survival, but the employee's weren't even as great as the idea of a store, that would be the buzz for 'culture' in the community, since books became obsolete sometime in my childhood, and movies had taken over. To be honest, I couldn't believe the store had survived for as long as it had, since the great age of video stores had already ended, lasting for about twenty years, but I thought the community loved the store so much that it would keep going, since no one wanted to see it close, and assumed the State would co-opt it as a relic of culture, like they did to Scarecrow Video, with one of the greatest collections in the Country, but 15th Street Video, in the old Fire station, just wasn't important enough, to warrant such attention, and the employees just couldn't keep it going.
It's weird to say because my life as a movie and TV fan will go on without 15th Street Video, and yet it's presence as a hub of culture was just kind of undeniable, and you could figure out what was cool or not, by going in there on a Saturday night, and seeing if it was sold out, and what was coming in, and what you had to put on hold. There was a real sense of excitement in there, that just doesn't exist on the internet, and it's almost like I've lost a friend that I'd talk to about my favorite movies, even though I never really had a good relationship with anyone that worked there, except for one guy that I'd met when he'd quit, but that was a connection. He was also my last really good friend that kept telling me I should watch "Get Carter," with Michael Caine, from the early Seventies, and though I didn't like it much I miss my friend a lot, and it was his birthday a few days ago. He had piercing blue eyes, and I always thought he'd be a great actor, summing up the angst of our times. Now all the great undiscovered directors and actors that worked in video stores are gone, and it's society's loss.
Unfortunately, the limb is dead, and must be severed, and it's time for humanity to move on, and kiss the video stores goodbye, and the DVD's too, that I've yet to give up, for a completely non tangible existence, based on intellectual trade. We're really entering a new age where the marketplace is redefined not by that which we see, but what we don't, and we are going to become ever more reliant on our intuition, so that the sensitive among us will survive, and the clueless, that need a clerk to help them, will die, and that would include me, half the time! We're moving to a servant free society, where we are the servants, and the landowners have their own, so that there are servants upon servants, doing the work of mankind, with the artists left behind as usual. We only live in relation to each other, and that would include the stores where we buy our life's needs, where we think we're working, trying to figure out where we fit in, in such a complex world, and what we're known for isn't necessarily what we are, though the two dance, and so do the video store and the consumer, intertwined in a deadly dance of obsolescence, as all media becomes digitized, so that nothing and everything is forgotten. I just won't be the same without knowing that Portlandia was sold out, or eavesdropping on that conversation between the clerks about their favorite bad movie, and thinking my taste was better, my favorite bad movie better, but that didn't matter. They had cared enough to devote their life to 'bad art' and this was impressive, because so few do that, and yet many dream of it, and that's why the baby boomer generation created art school.
The bad art capital of the world is gone, across the street from the coffee shop, where the clerks would loaf, and I'm lesser for it, with less and less speaking for the truly awful, that they'd watch all day on their shift, on a TV above the counter, that I'd lose myself in, and never will again. I still remember when two for one Tuesday's were a real deal, before Netflix, or the library. I wish all the old employee's there a good life, in the mish-mash of American society, where time flies by, and everyone tries to capture it, because time is money, but not in the video store, where nothing existed, save movies.
September 25, 2014
In Something with Lana Del Rey
I'm listening to Roy Orbison right now in a coffee shop and am reminded of listening to him in college when I was desperately in love with someone that didn't love me back, and would sit in the dark listening to 'Running Scared,' or other great pop symphonic classics, that sort of defined an era, and a sound. Lana Del Rey is our new Roy Orbison, except that she's much prettier, and a Gen Y'er, but one that has scourged the past, inhabiting a twilight place, where lots of great art sits, acknowledging the past, looking to the future, and intimating the present. I first became aware of Lana Del Rey in 2013 when I heard "Summertime Sadness" on the radio over and over, and just sort of fell in love with it, in spite of myself, like I did a lot of pop music, but there was something special about it, not the least of which was her name, that sounded completely unreal, and yet encompassed a panoramic landscape of the past and present, that sounded eternal. Sure, 'Lana Del Rey' was kitschy but I had no idea what to make of the singer, or where she came from, but 'Lorde' had the same feeling for me, just someone out of the blue, with a name that evoked an image far greater than any person could handle, or live up to. I probably listened to 'Summertime Sadness' at least a hundred times before I thought to check her album 'Born to Die' out of the library (along with Taylor Swift's "Red," Miley Cyrus's "Bangerz," and Lorde's "Pure Heroine,"). I was incredulous at how good Lana Del Rey really was, or what a lightning rod she had become, lacking the pure talent of, say, Lorde, that is just kind of classic right off the bat, but I'd heard more of Lorde's songs on the radio, and came to my conclusions about her pretty quickly, but Lana was a rougher ride. I was ready to think 'Summertime Sadness' was a one-off, but it's anything but, and this was an incredible revelation to me, and one I've been playing out all summer, but now summer is over, and I can offer my criticism.
Art is an endlessly fathomless conversation but I've come to the conclusion that those songs (or movies, or books) that resonate with me the most are the ones that stay in my head, and just don't leave, whether I want them to or not, and this is hard to tell on a first impression. It's also the reason why I like listening to 'Movin' 92.5' when they have a good mix, because you hear the same songs over and over, and can really lose yourself in them, deciding which ones you really like, and which are just kind of shit. 'Summertime Sadness' was in the latter category, but more than that it was just sort of inescapably sad in a way that very few songs on 'Movin' are, and yet it was as popular as any, and this just kind of blew me away, not to mention the truth of the song, that seemed somehow lambent, and hard to define, unlike, say, Adele's 'Someone Like You,' a great sad song, but somehow more predictable, or a sentiment you've heard before. 'Summertime Sadness' redefined nature, not an easy thing to do.
What sparked me to get the record was that Lana said that 'she wished she was dead,' or something like that, and I was just kind of stunned that a pop star of her caliber, had the balls to say this, and appreciated her for it, being kind of down myself, and knew the feeling. I started google searching her and realized her real name was 'Lizzy Grant,' and then learned she studied metaphysics, had a father that worked at Grey advertising (I did too!), and was a drunk in high school, all things that intrigued me. I learned they pulled the plug on her on Saturday Night Live, because she gave the shakiest performance in the history of the show, a notable achievement, considering how many forgettable performances they've had, and she won me over. Part of the criticism against Lana was that she was a fake, just a talentless counterfeit Indie wax figure, that had 'Daddy' pull all the strings, and whether this was true or not, I quickly realized that she was anything but 'talentless,' but rather a voice of her generation, much like Lena Dunham, but without any of the humor. Then I read that 'feminists' hated her, and Lana endeared herself to me even more, because there was nothing in her music that seemed counter feminist to me at all, except that she alluded to a time in the not too distant past, when Noirs and Fifties melodramas were all the rage, before feminism had really surfaced, and was just bubbling under the surface. Lana Del Rey was an artist not a politician and I started to think that the arguments against her had more to do with Grad School students trying to gain points by writing a controversial essay.
I'd guess that Lizzy Grant will spend the rest of her life conforming to the image of 'Lana Del Rey' and that's no easy task because she's taken on thirty years of film history in her look, and style. She's the new 'torch singer femme fatale' of a generation, and that's no easy thing to be, but her talent will carry her, if she doesn't destroy herself. Today, I read that Lana considered quitting the music business after 'Born To Die,' because she had said everything that she wanted to say, and my heart kind of sank when she said this, because I've felt the same thing, and it's a terrible feeling for an artist, or a person, but especially an artist, since a person can turn to family, or friends, but an artist only had art to save them, and once they were saved, there was nowhere to go but to God. Maybe that's why so many great writers turned to God, booze, or both, because in lieu of artistic inspiration there wasn't a whole lot of reason to live; to write a song like 'Video Games,' or 'Blue Jeans,' it's easy to see why Lana had just sort of felt she did what she was supposed to do, but thankfully she has persevered and made 'Ultraviolence,' a memorably haunting album, that sort of defies criticism, like all art. It's impressionistically huge, and I'm sure will sit in my mind forever, like paintings and poetry, that stand the test of time.
Art is an endlessly fathomless conversation but I've come to the conclusion that those songs (or movies, or books) that resonate with me the most are the ones that stay in my head, and just don't leave, whether I want them to or not, and this is hard to tell on a first impression. It's also the reason why I like listening to 'Movin' 92.5' when they have a good mix, because you hear the same songs over and over, and can really lose yourself in them, deciding which ones you really like, and which are just kind of shit. 'Summertime Sadness' was in the latter category, but more than that it was just sort of inescapably sad in a way that very few songs on 'Movin' are, and yet it was as popular as any, and this just kind of blew me away, not to mention the truth of the song, that seemed somehow lambent, and hard to define, unlike, say, Adele's 'Someone Like You,' a great sad song, but somehow more predictable, or a sentiment you've heard before. 'Summertime Sadness' redefined nature, not an easy thing to do.
What sparked me to get the record was that Lana said that 'she wished she was dead,' or something like that, and I was just kind of stunned that a pop star of her caliber, had the balls to say this, and appreciated her for it, being kind of down myself, and knew the feeling. I started google searching her and realized her real name was 'Lizzy Grant,' and then learned she studied metaphysics, had a father that worked at Grey advertising (I did too!), and was a drunk in high school, all things that intrigued me. I learned they pulled the plug on her on Saturday Night Live, because she gave the shakiest performance in the history of the show, a notable achievement, considering how many forgettable performances they've had, and she won me over. Part of the criticism against Lana was that she was a fake, just a talentless counterfeit Indie wax figure, that had 'Daddy' pull all the strings, and whether this was true or not, I quickly realized that she was anything but 'talentless,' but rather a voice of her generation, much like Lena Dunham, but without any of the humor. Then I read that 'feminists' hated her, and Lana endeared herself to me even more, because there was nothing in her music that seemed counter feminist to me at all, except that she alluded to a time in the not too distant past, when Noirs and Fifties melodramas were all the rage, before feminism had really surfaced, and was just bubbling under the surface. Lana Del Rey was an artist not a politician and I started to think that the arguments against her had more to do with Grad School students trying to gain points by writing a controversial essay.
I'd guess that Lizzy Grant will spend the rest of her life conforming to the image of 'Lana Del Rey' and that's no easy task because she's taken on thirty years of film history in her look, and style. She's the new 'torch singer femme fatale' of a generation, and that's no easy thing to be, but her talent will carry her, if she doesn't destroy herself. Today, I read that Lana considered quitting the music business after 'Born To Die,' because she had said everything that she wanted to say, and my heart kind of sank when she said this, because I've felt the same thing, and it's a terrible feeling for an artist, or a person, but especially an artist, since a person can turn to family, or friends, but an artist only had art to save them, and once they were saved, there was nowhere to go but to God. Maybe that's why so many great writers turned to God, booze, or both, because in lieu of artistic inspiration there wasn't a whole lot of reason to live; to write a song like 'Video Games,' or 'Blue Jeans,' it's easy to see why Lana had just sort of felt she did what she was supposed to do, but thankfully she has persevered and made 'Ultraviolence,' a memorably haunting album, that sort of defies criticism, like all art. It's impressionistically huge, and I'm sure will sit in my mind forever, like paintings and poetry, that stand the test of time.
September 23, 2014
The new family drama; "August: Osage County"
This is a heavyweight movie that deserves to be written about, but it's hard to know where to begin, especially since I just saw it last night, and am still reeling from it. To say it's a family drama, is probably the understatement of all time, because it's 'The' family drama of our times, and indeed that's how I was introduced to it, when I almost saw it a year or two before it was made into a feature film, and I'd love to see the play, but since I haven't consider this a movie review. I know a good amount about American Theater in the 20th century, or at least have an idea of its pillars (O'Neill, Williams, Inge, Albee, etc.), and realize that there was a time when great drama was being pumped out every generation, but as Simon and Garfunkel warned in the Sixties, 'is the theater really dead,' and for my generation I'd say the answer was definitely yes. There really were no new plays that were changing the face of theater when I was growing up, and I was forced to look backwards for that. Well, I'd agree that "August: Osage County," has actually moved theater forward a little bit, not by doing something radically new like Edward Albee in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," but by elaborating on Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey into Night," for a whole new generation, acknowleding that a family's dysfunction may be no different now than it was for O'Neill in the Forties, but that the dynamics not to mention the drugs have really changed.
The critics hated this movie, or so I read, and in some ways that's not really surprising because it would be hard to imagine how an audience that craves comic book action movies could get into it in the least, a generation denied of theater. "August: Osage County," is almost entirely dialogue driven, and the scenes that aren't, show a kind of flat Oklahoma that leaves so little to the imagination, it hearkens to an America that most people are trying to forget exists by moving to the cities, nor is it a romanticization of Oklahoma in the least, but rather a harsh diatribe against the depression the landscape must've fostered in this family, or so I was lead to believe, watching the film, though I know that meanness exists everywhere, but that wasn't the artistic impression. I'm sure the movie was too long, but maybe more problematically, there was none of the traditional build-up to character that defined most plays, or almost none at all, save a brief monologue from the drunken father of this clan, that kills himself in the next scene (off screen). The drama is focused on a family meeting for a funeral, kind of like the "Big Chill" brought together a group of friends, but this is no "Big Chill," a classic dramedy, because there is no comedy in this at all, never even feigning at lightnenss, though there is some dry humor, but it's acidic, stringent, and harsh. "August: Osage County" is just a knock out punch, and it comes out swinging, so that at the twenty or thirty minute mark the audience has already seen so much insanity from these people, that it's hard to believe, and for a moment I sided with the critics; I saw a structural flaw and thought that all but invalidated the movie, and had no idea how it wasn't going to run out of gas, but then I settled into it, and it was endlessly compelling, and didn't run out of gas in the least; if anything, I wanted more at the end, but there was really nowhere else to go, a tacit truth the movie acknowledged. I'm not sure how the script got through this flaw, but I came to the conclusion that the only way to do a 'family drama' circa 2014, was to make it so over the edge that it was almost unbelievable.
The family itself has been ripped from the roots in America, and the quaint misgivings of O'Neill in "Long Day's Journey into Night" (I bet no one has ever written that before!), seem like child's play compared to this film, but how couldn't they be? O'Neill was writing at a time when America was on the rise, both culturally and economically, with the two always walking hand in hand, but divorce was relatively uncommon in his era, where families stayed together, trying to form a bond; also the matriarch's morphine addiction in "Journey" just doesn't hold a candle to the pharmaceutical dispensary many addicts have become in contemporary America, and that the matriarch was in "August," new drugs for a new era. O'Neill's "Journey" was speaking to the family of dysfunction of his time, in very personal terms and an almost emotionally blinding fashion, but that's just what "August" does for this generation, and it had to be more over the top. The idea of 'family dysfunction' had become commonplace in America, I still remember a sign outside of an old coffee shop in Santa Cruz that catered to the locals called 'Pete's Family Restaurant,' and they changed it to 'Pete's Dysfunctional Family Restaurant' and it was a conservative establishment.
The baby boomers started as the acid generation and ended as the divorce generation making dysfunction a fad that started in the Nineties so that saying anything bad about your family has almost become a cliche by now, with so many children suffering from divorce, and grunge being long gone (music lyrically driven by divorce). I'm not sure when this change happened but I think it was one of my generation's great challenges to own up to the pain we felt from our parents fractured marriages, and I have a feeling even for those Gen X'ers that didn't go through this, the family was still fractured in a way that it just wasn't for previous generations, if only because divorce was more possible than ever, and the children felt the strain. Perhaps as a rebellion against us, the hipsters hate talking about their 'rough childhoods' because there's no nobility in it anymore, and it is seen as a weakness.
"August:Osage County," was about a boomer marriage that hung together by the skin of its teeth, but not without severe damage to the family. These big generational ideas were not addressed in the story, since they really had no place amongst family members, but I couldn't help but think the playwright, Tracy Letts, knew what he was doing, and wasn't merely making a play of his life, but one that alluded to the history of theater, and our times. This was clearly the work of someone that had studied the theater, and perhaps by putting these characters in the backwoods of Oklahoma and making them more classic, was able to tell a generational story that stretched all the way through America. Regardless of place, or political affiliation, every town was changed by the times we lived in, even if they were largely forgotten, in the scope of historical time, but historical time and artistic time needn't be the same, since we all learned from each other. The family was going through the same tragedy of wealth and dissolution that was so common for the boomers.
The critics hated this movie, or so I read, and in some ways that's not really surprising because it would be hard to imagine how an audience that craves comic book action movies could get into it in the least, a generation denied of theater. "August: Osage County," is almost entirely dialogue driven, and the scenes that aren't, show a kind of flat Oklahoma that leaves so little to the imagination, it hearkens to an America that most people are trying to forget exists by moving to the cities, nor is it a romanticization of Oklahoma in the least, but rather a harsh diatribe against the depression the landscape must've fostered in this family, or so I was lead to believe, watching the film, though I know that meanness exists everywhere, but that wasn't the artistic impression. I'm sure the movie was too long, but maybe more problematically, there was none of the traditional build-up to character that defined most plays, or almost none at all, save a brief monologue from the drunken father of this clan, that kills himself in the next scene (off screen). The drama is focused on a family meeting for a funeral, kind of like the "Big Chill" brought together a group of friends, but this is no "Big Chill," a classic dramedy, because there is no comedy in this at all, never even feigning at lightnenss, though there is some dry humor, but it's acidic, stringent, and harsh. "August: Osage County" is just a knock out punch, and it comes out swinging, so that at the twenty or thirty minute mark the audience has already seen so much insanity from these people, that it's hard to believe, and for a moment I sided with the critics; I saw a structural flaw and thought that all but invalidated the movie, and had no idea how it wasn't going to run out of gas, but then I settled into it, and it was endlessly compelling, and didn't run out of gas in the least; if anything, I wanted more at the end, but there was really nowhere else to go, a tacit truth the movie acknowledged. I'm not sure how the script got through this flaw, but I came to the conclusion that the only way to do a 'family drama' circa 2014, was to make it so over the edge that it was almost unbelievable.
The family itself has been ripped from the roots in America, and the quaint misgivings of O'Neill in "Long Day's Journey into Night" (I bet no one has ever written that before!), seem like child's play compared to this film, but how couldn't they be? O'Neill was writing at a time when America was on the rise, both culturally and economically, with the two always walking hand in hand, but divorce was relatively uncommon in his era, where families stayed together, trying to form a bond; also the matriarch's morphine addiction in "Journey" just doesn't hold a candle to the pharmaceutical dispensary many addicts have become in contemporary America, and that the matriarch was in "August," new drugs for a new era. O'Neill's "Journey" was speaking to the family of dysfunction of his time, in very personal terms and an almost emotionally blinding fashion, but that's just what "August" does for this generation, and it had to be more over the top. The idea of 'family dysfunction' had become commonplace in America, I still remember a sign outside of an old coffee shop in Santa Cruz that catered to the locals called 'Pete's Family Restaurant,' and they changed it to 'Pete's Dysfunctional Family Restaurant' and it was a conservative establishment.
The baby boomers started as the acid generation and ended as the divorce generation making dysfunction a fad that started in the Nineties so that saying anything bad about your family has almost become a cliche by now, with so many children suffering from divorce, and grunge being long gone (music lyrically driven by divorce). I'm not sure when this change happened but I think it was one of my generation's great challenges to own up to the pain we felt from our parents fractured marriages, and I have a feeling even for those Gen X'ers that didn't go through this, the family was still fractured in a way that it just wasn't for previous generations, if only because divorce was more possible than ever, and the children felt the strain. Perhaps as a rebellion against us, the hipsters hate talking about their 'rough childhoods' because there's no nobility in it anymore, and it is seen as a weakness.
"August:Osage County," was about a boomer marriage that hung together by the skin of its teeth, but not without severe damage to the family. These big generational ideas were not addressed in the story, since they really had no place amongst family members, but I couldn't help but think the playwright, Tracy Letts, knew what he was doing, and wasn't merely making a play of his life, but one that alluded to the history of theater, and our times. This was clearly the work of someone that had studied the theater, and perhaps by putting these characters in the backwoods of Oklahoma and making them more classic, was able to tell a generational story that stretched all the way through America. Regardless of place, or political affiliation, every town was changed by the times we lived in, even if they were largely forgotten, in the scope of historical time, but historical time and artistic time needn't be the same, since we all learned from each other. The family was going through the same tragedy of wealth and dissolution that was so common for the boomers.
September 20, 2014
The M's 3rd and final act.
I really finally felt out of my depth as a baseball analyst tonight, and that's not easy for me to say, since I've loved the game for most of my life, but that's how the M's have made me feel. I've written all year about how you have to think about the season in very Saturnine terms and how it plays out over a classic three act structure, and predicted the Mariners to be exciting throughout the year, even though many of my cohorts were down on them. It could be that I just have a sort of knee jerk reaction to defend the underdog, and after 13 playoff-less years it's about time, but it's more than that. The city really hasn't given much of a fuck about these guys all year, although the middle age Gen X'ers like me want to think that the M's are the same guys as the late Nineties, but that was another era, and nothing remains of it, not even the manager. These are new guys and I like that about them, but I really thought they ran out of gas last week, and yet I may be realizing that I've just been so out of 3rd act baseball, that I forgot what it felt like, but I'm remembering. The truth is there's only a week but there's 8 games, and more than likely the M's will lose a few of them, but so will their nearest competitor, and it's a cluster-fuck, too deep for anyone to make sense of, since the Royals and the Tigers are competing for the pennant of their division, and a wild card spot simultaneously, but ignore this for a moment, just to suspend disbelief. I really thought the M's were just going to cave a week ago and play %.500 baseball, which just wouldn't cut it, but I might've been wrong; likewise, I was thinking their competitors (the A's, Royals, and Tigers (?)), were just going to be better, and this may have been wrong too. I'm sorry but I forgot the great drama of a third act, perhaps the weakness in my own art, since all three acts have a purpose, even if the second act kind of defines the success of the season, but the 3rd act leaves us with a memory; to barely make it to the 3rd act for a baseball team, makes for a mediocre season, but to make it to the third act, and then fold, is a tragedy, but not a mediocrity, just something more frustrating. This is where the Mariners are at, and I forgot how frustrating and exciting it is for a sports fan, and people really lose themselves in this, more than music, they really take winning and losing seriously, for baseball is a metaphor of life, the national pastime, where we reflect on our days, through a game, that is both long and short like life.
The M's are only a 1/2 game out from a wildcard spot, and they could still make it, with a little luck, both for them, and against their opponents, but all of the teams in contention could say that. They bounced back the last couple of days, from a real malaise, that I was wondering if they were going to come out of, so now it's anyone's wild card; not quite a pennant, but almost as good, in the millennial parlance. I should probably just shut up until the season ends, because tonight's 10-5 win against the Astros in Minute Maid park was just too much, like a love that refuses to die.
The M's are only a 1/2 game out from a wildcard spot, and they could still make it, with a little luck, both for them, and against their opponents, but all of the teams in contention could say that. They bounced back the last couple of days, from a real malaise, that I was wondering if they were going to come out of, so now it's anyone's wild card; not quite a pennant, but almost as good, in the millennial parlance. I should probably just shut up until the season ends, because tonight's 10-5 win against the Astros in Minute Maid park was just too much, like a love that refuses to die.
September 16, 2014
Mariners obituary
I've been holding off on writing this, but I see no reason not to right now, since I think the season is pretty much over, and there's really not much the Mariners can do to change it. I'm really glad I'm not an announcer, or a manager, or someone that has to go out and put a good face on the M's right now, because I'm afraid their race has been run, but it was a good race, full of much more excitement than I dreamed possible in April, so I'm happy for that, and thank the Mariners for a good year, but not a great one. I'd probably be more optimistic about the whole thing if I thought another good year awaited the M's next season, but I'm not sure that's true, and even if it was who'd care? They are going down right now and it's just painful to watch, like watching someone you love dying, and there's nothing you can do about it. They had a really good year, and I heard one writer call them 'unpredictable' and that's true. Trust me, I hope that this obituary is premature, and the M's bounce back, because there is still time, but very little, and every loss hurts. Tonight's debacle in Anaheim felt strangely predictable, because I'd say the M's fell out of the race for the wild card on Saturday Night, when they lost a game with a sold out crowd, a game that they had to win, for spiritual reasons. They almost foreshadowed the loss by calling it "Nite Court," a fly by night promotion, that failed, kind of like the game did, so let's talk about 'Nite Court,' before we go into anything else.
I'm a big fan (I think), and bought a ticket for the game against Oakland a couple of weeks in advance, when I read that it was 'Salute to Latin American Baseball Nite.' The Mariners do have a number of great Latin American players (Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano, Fernando Rodney (ugh!), Kendry Morales, and Endy Chavez (maybe more)), but they come across as a very white team, and that may be the audience. I grew up in the Seventies in L.A., and my idea of baseball was 'Dodger Stadium,' and I remember an awful lot of 'Latin Americans' were going to the game, maybe as many as white people, and that it was almost a Mexican event, and maybe why my parents weren't that into it, preferring the nouveau riche sports like basketball and hockey. But I liked baseball, and was surprised how white the audience was up here, or as a great friend of mine once said about Seattle, from the perspective of a New Orleansian, a city where over %70 of the people were black; "Thinking about Seattle you have to take into account the honky factor." There's not much funk in the stands here, but I try to bring it with a certain recklessness as a commentator, that my girlfriend finds amusing, and that I think may be the best of me, but it's hidden most of the time.
Essentially, the PR men hijacked a 'salute to Latin American Beisbol night,' with 'Nite Court,' to celebrate the most important series for the M's in 13 years, and things were looking good because they won the first game of a three game stand, though not convincingly. I liked that they were giving T-Shirts out to the first 35,000 fans, but I was dubious they were really going to have 35,000 shirts, and who was going to hold them to it, because it was a freebie. Driving pizzas for money and listening on the radio, I thought that the idea was to 'black out' the stadium, meaning 35,000 black shirts, would black out the stadium, and create an optical effect, but the 'non' color black was a strange choice, and a play on the 'King's Court,' that is Felix's special section, where everyone dresses in bright yellow shirts, and waves 'K' cards, making quite a display, considering they go up three rows, to the very top of the bleachers. Well, on 'Nite Court' the 'King's Court' section of the park, decided to go with the 'Nite Court' vision, and not dress in yellow; this made no sense to me because I thought if 35,000 people were in black, and the Felix section was in bright yellow, that it would be a great contrast, almost like the Steelers, though a 'Midnight Blue' would've been a much better color to choose from, since it could be found in the Mariner's suits, and then the colors would be complementing each other, referencing the old school Mariners look with a sort of royal blue and bright yellow, and a Neptunean Trident. The 'King's Court' crowd ditched their yellow shirts and went for the black (maybe because of the A's yellow), but the black just didn't overwhelm the stadium in a 'Nite Court' kind of way, and what was up with the 'Nite Court' allusion anyway, a vaguely remembered show from the Eighties, that was a hit in its day, but pretty much forgotten, in favor of far bigger hits like "Cheers," that at least alluded to baseball with Sam Malone, the ex-Red Sox pitcher, turned sober bartender. As Jenny said, "whose going to remember Nite Court?" and she was right. The one time I heard Rick Rizzs (what spelling!) go nostalgic on it, not even his cohorts in the booth cared.
The shirts were horribly ugly and though I wanted one very badly when I was anxiously rushing to the park, I couldn't give a fuck when they ran out, with big empty boxes everywhere. I was twenty minutes early and I'm convinced that the Mariners organization didn't pump-out 35,000 shirts in the least, and some PR guy in the front office knowing it was the biggest series in over a decade was determined to get 35,000 people at SAFECO with a phony promotion, because I can guarantee you not even close to half the people had a shirt, if that. It was a hoax just like the Mariners, and the promotion cursed them, I'm sure. The Mariners can't come back from losing the biggest game in 13 years like cowards, and yet that's how they seemed, just cowards, with a manager making bad decisions. I hate to say all of this because they have given me a lot of entertainment this year, much more than I imagined, and I really believed in them, but they do have a pattern that makes them a big step away from being a great team - they go into hitting slumps, that last about two weeks; in the neverending season there is time to make up for this, but even the neverending season ends (like life), and you have to be on a winning streak at the end, to make a dent in the playoffs, and the Mariner's seem to be on the opposite course, like they always are this time of year, except when they are mathematically eliminated from playoff competition, then they come alive!
I'm sorry for being down on the Mariner's but this seems so predictable I didn't want to think it was going to happen. I really wasn't expecting them to go to the world series, but I thought that they could enter the wild card game a contender, and vying for a series win, but that's not these M's. These guys are down right now, and really look tired to me. I'm not sure if it's being talked about or not but even Felix looked tired on Friday night, even though he only let in 2 runs after 7 innings, but he was tagged pretty hard a bunch of times, and gave up a homer. He was alright, but not great by any stretch of the imagination, and it made me wonder if the Mariners just weren't ready to go this far, and in a way you couldn't blame them if that was the case, since they haven't been in contention for so long. My first thought was that Felix wasn't in good enough physical conditioning, but Jenny thought he looked good, so then I just started to wonder if the M's just weren't ready to get this far, because like the article dubbed them 'the unpredictable M's.' I took a lot of shit for liking this team early on, and they made it to the 3rd act in September, so I have no hard feelings if things don't work out, but losing in the 3rd act of the season, doesn't make losing any easier, and that's what Saturday night felt like, a real 'pivotal' game, like predicted, but pivotal in the wrong direction, and the season is ending, not with a thud but a whimper. I fear this season won't be remembered like fans were hoping it would when I saw the 'Revive '95' banner in the stands, but this isn't '95 by a long shot, because these guys are tired.
I know there's time for the M's to prove me wrong, but very little, and the window is closing fast. They have to play the Angels six times in two weeks, and they're the best team in baseball, beating the Mariners 8-1 tonight, with Iwakuma hitting some kind of wall in the stretch run, and I fear the same tomorrow, whoever is pitching. The M's are down, and I'm afraid for the count, but they've gone the distance, and that's all we could ask from them this year, so I'm not sad.
I'm a big fan (I think), and bought a ticket for the game against Oakland a couple of weeks in advance, when I read that it was 'Salute to Latin American Baseball Nite.' The Mariners do have a number of great Latin American players (Felix Hernandez, Robinson Cano, Fernando Rodney (ugh!), Kendry Morales, and Endy Chavez (maybe more)), but they come across as a very white team, and that may be the audience. I grew up in the Seventies in L.A., and my idea of baseball was 'Dodger Stadium,' and I remember an awful lot of 'Latin Americans' were going to the game, maybe as many as white people, and that it was almost a Mexican event, and maybe why my parents weren't that into it, preferring the nouveau riche sports like basketball and hockey. But I liked baseball, and was surprised how white the audience was up here, or as a great friend of mine once said about Seattle, from the perspective of a New Orleansian, a city where over %70 of the people were black; "Thinking about Seattle you have to take into account the honky factor." There's not much funk in the stands here, but I try to bring it with a certain recklessness as a commentator, that my girlfriend finds amusing, and that I think may be the best of me, but it's hidden most of the time.
Essentially, the PR men hijacked a 'salute to Latin American Beisbol night,' with 'Nite Court,' to celebrate the most important series for the M's in 13 years, and things were looking good because they won the first game of a three game stand, though not convincingly. I liked that they were giving T-Shirts out to the first 35,000 fans, but I was dubious they were really going to have 35,000 shirts, and who was going to hold them to it, because it was a freebie. Driving pizzas for money and listening on the radio, I thought that the idea was to 'black out' the stadium, meaning 35,000 black shirts, would black out the stadium, and create an optical effect, but the 'non' color black was a strange choice, and a play on the 'King's Court,' that is Felix's special section, where everyone dresses in bright yellow shirts, and waves 'K' cards, making quite a display, considering they go up three rows, to the very top of the bleachers. Well, on 'Nite Court' the 'King's Court' section of the park, decided to go with the 'Nite Court' vision, and not dress in yellow; this made no sense to me because I thought if 35,000 people were in black, and the Felix section was in bright yellow, that it would be a great contrast, almost like the Steelers, though a 'Midnight Blue' would've been a much better color to choose from, since it could be found in the Mariner's suits, and then the colors would be complementing each other, referencing the old school Mariners look with a sort of royal blue and bright yellow, and a Neptunean Trident. The 'King's Court' crowd ditched their yellow shirts and went for the black (maybe because of the A's yellow), but the black just didn't overwhelm the stadium in a 'Nite Court' kind of way, and what was up with the 'Nite Court' allusion anyway, a vaguely remembered show from the Eighties, that was a hit in its day, but pretty much forgotten, in favor of far bigger hits like "Cheers," that at least alluded to baseball with Sam Malone, the ex-Red Sox pitcher, turned sober bartender. As Jenny said, "whose going to remember Nite Court?" and she was right. The one time I heard Rick Rizzs (what spelling!) go nostalgic on it, not even his cohorts in the booth cared.
The shirts were horribly ugly and though I wanted one very badly when I was anxiously rushing to the park, I couldn't give a fuck when they ran out, with big empty boxes everywhere. I was twenty minutes early and I'm convinced that the Mariners organization didn't pump-out 35,000 shirts in the least, and some PR guy in the front office knowing it was the biggest series in over a decade was determined to get 35,000 people at SAFECO with a phony promotion, because I can guarantee you not even close to half the people had a shirt, if that. It was a hoax just like the Mariners, and the promotion cursed them, I'm sure. The Mariners can't come back from losing the biggest game in 13 years like cowards, and yet that's how they seemed, just cowards, with a manager making bad decisions. I hate to say all of this because they have given me a lot of entertainment this year, much more than I imagined, and I really believed in them, but they do have a pattern that makes them a big step away from being a great team - they go into hitting slumps, that last about two weeks; in the neverending season there is time to make up for this, but even the neverending season ends (like life), and you have to be on a winning streak at the end, to make a dent in the playoffs, and the Mariner's seem to be on the opposite course, like they always are this time of year, except when they are mathematically eliminated from playoff competition, then they come alive!
I'm sorry for being down on the Mariner's but this seems so predictable I didn't want to think it was going to happen. I really wasn't expecting them to go to the world series, but I thought that they could enter the wild card game a contender, and vying for a series win, but that's not these M's. These guys are down right now, and really look tired to me. I'm not sure if it's being talked about or not but even Felix looked tired on Friday night, even though he only let in 2 runs after 7 innings, but he was tagged pretty hard a bunch of times, and gave up a homer. He was alright, but not great by any stretch of the imagination, and it made me wonder if the Mariners just weren't ready to go this far, and in a way you couldn't blame them if that was the case, since they haven't been in contention for so long. My first thought was that Felix wasn't in good enough physical conditioning, but Jenny thought he looked good, so then I just started to wonder if the M's just weren't ready to get this far, because like the article dubbed them 'the unpredictable M's.' I took a lot of shit for liking this team early on, and they made it to the 3rd act in September, so I have no hard feelings if things don't work out, but losing in the 3rd act of the season, doesn't make losing any easier, and that's what Saturday night felt like, a real 'pivotal' game, like predicted, but pivotal in the wrong direction, and the season is ending, not with a thud but a whimper. I fear this season won't be remembered like fans were hoping it would when I saw the 'Revive '95' banner in the stands, but this isn't '95 by a long shot, because these guys are tired.
I know there's time for the M's to prove me wrong, but very little, and the window is closing fast. They have to play the Angels six times in two weeks, and they're the best team in baseball, beating the Mariners 8-1 tonight, with Iwakuma hitting some kind of wall in the stretch run, and I fear the same tomorrow, whoever is pitching. The M's are down, and I'm afraid for the count, but they've gone the distance, and that's all we could ask from them this year, so I'm not sad.
September 13, 2014
Blogging for Art
I just wanted to thank everyone for hanging out and reading this blog, because this has been a big experiment for me. I'm thankful for everyone that has taken the time to actually consider a word I've written, and I'm sorry for all the typos, run-on sentences, etc., but more than that, I'm sorry if I bored you, or didn't live up to the time you took to see if I had something to say. I've tried to stay on topic, thinking of things that my peer group and those younger than me might like, but I'm not always sure I've done a good job. The blog is an attempt for me to just kind of write everyday, and this isn't as easy as it sounds if you're not working on a novel or a story, but every writer has to do it. It has been a treat and a pleasure to imagine an audience, because I've been writing in obscurity for so long, I forgot that such a thing as an audience could exist, but I'm sure this was my fault. It is fun to blame society, but I'll take the blame on this one. I didn't want an audience for the longest time but I see that was its own kind of audience, and I've changed my beliefs. I'd like to write more about movies, politics, art, sports, and astrology, but my own fiction writing has taken over. It is nothing more than a thinly veiled autobiography, rearranged like a composer would a piece of music, so memories become composites of other memories, and the weight of a piece is how well I'm able to re-imagine my life, keeping the details intact. I did a lot of 'bags' not too long ago, and the thing I learned from Seaside Johnny, aside from how to construct supermarket bags like a canvas, was that the key to art was to do it everyday, or to get swept up into it like a storm. This has to be done if you're going to do anything meaningful, otherwise it truly is a hobby, and you are what John Lennon called, "A Day Tripper." This blog is my sketchpad, but I hope to do a masterpiece from time to time, or to at least provoke my creativity as well as yours.
September 8, 2014
My judgement on Joan Rivers
Joan Rivers just died, and we should honor the dead, because we're all going to die, sent off to an unknown future, but I can't help but think she's really gotten away with something here, and what's worse is that she'd admit it, but in her death we can't think bad thoughts, only good ones. To be honest, I have no hard feelings towards Joan Rivers, having never known her, and used to like it when she sat in for 'Johnny' and thought she was pretty funny. Josh Mills of FB lore was right to say that her lead-line, 'Can we talk?' was equal to Rodney Dangerfield's, "I don't get no respect," and for anyone to do anything memorable on this earth that brought people closer together is a miracle, and Joan Rivers made this clear, but Joan Rivers was a bitch. It's weird that I, or anyone, remembers her fondly. She advanced women comedians but at a high price, because she was simultaneously every bad stereotype of what it was to be a woman - catty, bitchy, and superficial - and what's worse is I think she'd admit this, and just sort of chose to revel in it, rather than change her behavior, though I didn't know her in the least. I'm not saying to piss on her grave, or to hope she's in Hell, because I don't think humans have much of a say in that anyway, and this is a soothing thought since I've often felt guilty for judging people. I'm not the ultimate judge, but Joan Rivers was everything that Marlo Thomas taught me not to be, and in this way I guess she was a rebel, but in the same way that a conservative politician is that bucks the liberal trends of the day, in favor of the more base nature of being human - a desire for wealth, fame, and power at any cost, and celebrating these ideals in an almost Ayn Rand like way. Does that make Joan Rivers a tyrant? No, because she didn't lead a Country or put anyone to death, though I'm sure she hurt a million peoples feelings without thinking twice about it, and just sort of capitalized on her bitch personae.
I have guilt saying these things because I grew up in Hollywood and have a celebrity gossip hound in me too, not to mention a Mother that was very much like a Joan Rivers of the art world, without the humor, or fame, but she exuded a similar power. To hate anyone is sort of like spitting in your face, so it's easier to love Joan Rivers and remember her for being funny, back in the Seventies, when she looked like a real person, before taking on that strange deformed mask of a face, crafted by years of plastic surgery, exposing her inner self. She was a first wave feminist and in that way dovetailed into "Free to be You and Me," but she was no Marlo Thomas. Like Hillary Clinton, who is 14 years older than Joan, she did it by being a bitch, and I find this a troubling strain in the womens rights movement. I'm not a woman and I do realize that it takes busting some balls to break into a world that say's you are a second class citizen, but when I think of Joan Rivers, I can't help but think she became worse than her oppressors, but got excused for it because she's a woman, and this pisses me off. I'm sorry but there's no good that comes out of being a gossip hound, because words do hurt.
I read about Joan Rivers's funeral that she implicitly gave directions for, and no offense but that alone reeks of a 'control freak.' She said she didn't want a rabbi 'babbling on for hours,' or something like that, and wanted to be remembered in the same way that she remembered others, with "a big showbiz affair." I guess this is fine, but couldn't she have had that for the wake, or the get-together after the funeral, and be remembered before God in a way that didn't compromise everyone that wanted to eulogize her by partaking in a moment of infamy before God; I read that the mourners looked to the Rabbi for approbation before they spoke because they felt odd 'gossip hounding' in a place of worship. It's one thing to be Godless but it's another to ask those that loved you, or cared about you, to take the same oath; it's almost like saying 'if you love me, then I'm going to bring you down with me, into a Godless state, so it's up to you,' but this just isn't fair for a funeral. Humans are very sensitive about the dead and we do our best to always speak well of them, unless they are an enemy of the State, like Hitler, so in essence she was asking her family and friends, to forsake an immutable spiritual truth, and essentially perjure themselves in front of God. To be honest, I'm really surprised the rabbi acceded to Ms. Joan's wishes, but that might say more about the state of American Judaism, circa 2014, than anything else.
I have guilt saying these things because I grew up in Hollywood and have a celebrity gossip hound in me too, not to mention a Mother that was very much like a Joan Rivers of the art world, without the humor, or fame, but she exuded a similar power. To hate anyone is sort of like spitting in your face, so it's easier to love Joan Rivers and remember her for being funny, back in the Seventies, when she looked like a real person, before taking on that strange deformed mask of a face, crafted by years of plastic surgery, exposing her inner self. She was a first wave feminist and in that way dovetailed into "Free to be You and Me," but she was no Marlo Thomas. Like Hillary Clinton, who is 14 years older than Joan, she did it by being a bitch, and I find this a troubling strain in the womens rights movement. I'm not a woman and I do realize that it takes busting some balls to break into a world that say's you are a second class citizen, but when I think of Joan Rivers, I can't help but think she became worse than her oppressors, but got excused for it because she's a woman, and this pisses me off. I'm sorry but there's no good that comes out of being a gossip hound, because words do hurt.
I read about Joan Rivers's funeral that she implicitly gave directions for, and no offense but that alone reeks of a 'control freak.' She said she didn't want a rabbi 'babbling on for hours,' or something like that, and wanted to be remembered in the same way that she remembered others, with "a big showbiz affair." I guess this is fine, but couldn't she have had that for the wake, or the get-together after the funeral, and be remembered before God in a way that didn't compromise everyone that wanted to eulogize her by partaking in a moment of infamy before God; I read that the mourners looked to the Rabbi for approbation before they spoke because they felt odd 'gossip hounding' in a place of worship. It's one thing to be Godless but it's another to ask those that loved you, or cared about you, to take the same oath; it's almost like saying 'if you love me, then I'm going to bring you down with me, into a Godless state, so it's up to you,' but this just isn't fair for a funeral. Humans are very sensitive about the dead and we do our best to always speak well of them, unless they are an enemy of the State, like Hitler, so in essence she was asking her family and friends, to forsake an immutable spiritual truth, and essentially perjure themselves in front of God. To be honest, I'm really surprised the rabbi acceded to Ms. Joan's wishes, but that might say more about the state of American Judaism, circa 2014, than anything else.
September 4, 2014
You are your ascendant
Modern astrologers are fond of saying he's a 'Sagittarius' if his Sun is in Sagittarius, or if her Sun is in Sagittarius, because it's a gender neutral equation. I do it too though I try to stop myself, and excuse others for knowing what they mean, but I've got to stop doing this because the problem is bigger than it seems. In the West, we practice Sun Sign astrology, and that means the Sun rules the chart over all else, the masculine planet of individuality. I'd argue we practice Sun Sign astrology for the same reason that we give the signs lengthy character description, that all but free themselves of planetary consideration, even if the character analysis may be rooted in the planetary rulerships of the signs; it all has to do with living in the age of enlightenment, or proceeding it, and giving the masses an identity that they were lacking in more traditional astrology. It's almost like astrology took the same tenets as Rousseau's "Social Contract" and dreamed of an educated body politic, making wise informed decisions for itself, believing that man had been subjugated by ignorance for too long, and was free to know himself. In astrology, like in history, the stress in Western culture became on the individual and you need only look outside with everyone wearing a personalized T-shirt to see that's true.
In Modern astrology, we are symbolized by the Sun, the planet about individuality, more than any of the other six, that have other significations. If we had Lunar Sign astrology, instead of Sun Sign astrology, we'd be all about the collective consciousness, and less focused on our individuality, or subsuming it for the greater whole, or figuring out how to free it. We'd be 'we' instead of 'I' and a less selfish society, although that's a negative way to look at it, because considering that every person has an individuality is a huge step in human consciousness, a giant leap. Sun Sign astrology is really about how to best express ourselves, given the signs that our planets are in, but... you are not a Leo if you're Sun is in Leo. The planets are all actors in the chart, working on behalf of the self, averse to the self, or opposing the self, but any way you look at it they are working for the ascendant, not the other way around. The ascendant works for no one, really, and just is, but I wrote about this in my 'Sun, Moon, and Ascendant, are one's all,' blog. The ascendant is the sign rising in the East on the horizon at your birth, the accidental you, that defies the time of year you were born, and relies on the time of the day. The ascendant sets up the horoscope for the planets,or the houses they occupy, but it doesn't necessarily change the sign of the planets (rarely does) because that is their essential nature, and why the Moderns say, 'He is a Virgo,' if his Sun is in Virgo, because it's an irrefutable fact of his individuality. But the planets are mere actors in the chart, or legislators, depending on your metaphor, working on behalf of you, and there is no doubt that they are doing business on behalf of the sign on the ascendant; the planets work for you, so who is you? The ascendant.
It's true that some people resemble themselves more than others, and this is a very slippery idea, that can really play out in a chart, but is hard to talk about. If you have planets in the 1st house, due to the time of your birth, those planets will resemble you, or act on behalf of you, more readily, because they are bodily conjoined to you. But if you have no planets in the ascendant, and lots of aversion to the 1st house, the planets may be bickering amongst themselves in the chart, but are having a hard time reaching you, and I'd imagine this would be someone that comes off as lost, but that doesn't stop the sign on the ascendant, and the planets ruling it, being you. It's you no matter what house your Sun is in, or the Moon, or Venus, or Mars, nor is the ascendant degree acting on any of the planets, but the planets are acting on it either opposing the ascendant, or trining it, or bodily conjoined it, etc., but the ascendant is never acting on a planet, because it's life and the moment of birth. The drama of the chart really goes on between the planets that behold each other, or witness each other, or scrutinize each other, or glance askew, but they are enacting their play all on the behalf of the sign on the ascendant, making it the most important point in the chart.
Isabel Hickey likened the ascendant to the view we see out the window, and I finally got the metaphor last night, by using another metaphor. Robert Schmidt likened the daytime and nitetime sect of the planets to political parties with the Solar Sect being the party about 'I' (The Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the Lunar Sect the party about 'We.' (The Moon, Venus, and Mars), with Mercury essentially apolitical and belonging to neither sect, but taking one depending on whether it rose before the Sun or after it, a shady player. In Hellenistic astrology the ruling party has to do with whether the Sun is above the horizon or below it when you were born, and if it's above the horizon the ruling party is the Solar Sect, and if it is below the horizon the ruling party is the Nocturnal Sect, but either way, the planets are legislators working on behalf of the self, or the Country; the ruler of the ascendant is the planet/legislator that most resembles the true character of the Country, assuming there aren't any planets in the first house. The ascendant would be akin to the national character and there is no question that Nation's mimic personality types, and become complex studies in themselves, just like an individual becomes for a fiction writer, sketching a character. A Country is simply a Lunar reflection of a person and maybe that's why Cancer, ruled by the Moon, the reflected light of the Sun (the individual), rules the first house in the Thema Mundi, the first chart in Greek astrology. Either way the ascendant is our character and everything works for it, not the other way around.
It's funny in a sort of ironic way that the Modern astrologers would make this mistake considering they threw out the Thema Mundi and replaced it with the 'natural chart' that has Aries rising, instead of Cancer. I'd theorize that part of the reason for this was to diminish the topical nature of the houses and instead make them akin to the personality types of the signs, so that astrology became an even deeper meditation on character, and less about fortune telling. In the 'natural chart,' Aries is associated with the 1st house and the keywords for Aries are 'I am,' so the key words for the first house are also 'I am,' using the reflexive property that if A=B, then B=A. Well, if you are a Libra rising then you'd naturally say, 'I am a Libra,' and if you are a Taurus rising, then you'd naturally say 'I am a Taurus,' etc., proving that even by Modern astrological principles you are the sign on the ascendant, not the essential sign of your Sun. I hope this hasn't been too anal or boring, but I think it's a hugely important point that some sloppy language obfuscates to no good end, save as a kind of shorthand, that I'd excuse if it didn't impede on the greater mystery of the ascendant, one of the keys of the horoscope.
In Modern astrology, we are symbolized by the Sun, the planet about individuality, more than any of the other six, that have other significations. If we had Lunar Sign astrology, instead of Sun Sign astrology, we'd be all about the collective consciousness, and less focused on our individuality, or subsuming it for the greater whole, or figuring out how to free it. We'd be 'we' instead of 'I' and a less selfish society, although that's a negative way to look at it, because considering that every person has an individuality is a huge step in human consciousness, a giant leap. Sun Sign astrology is really about how to best express ourselves, given the signs that our planets are in, but... you are not a Leo if you're Sun is in Leo. The planets are all actors in the chart, working on behalf of the self, averse to the self, or opposing the self, but any way you look at it they are working for the ascendant, not the other way around. The ascendant works for no one, really, and just is, but I wrote about this in my 'Sun, Moon, and Ascendant, are one's all,' blog. The ascendant is the sign rising in the East on the horizon at your birth, the accidental you, that defies the time of year you were born, and relies on the time of the day. The ascendant sets up the horoscope for the planets,or the houses they occupy, but it doesn't necessarily change the sign of the planets (rarely does) because that is their essential nature, and why the Moderns say, 'He is a Virgo,' if his Sun is in Virgo, because it's an irrefutable fact of his individuality. But the planets are mere actors in the chart, or legislators, depending on your metaphor, working on behalf of you, and there is no doubt that they are doing business on behalf of the sign on the ascendant; the planets work for you, so who is you? The ascendant.
It's true that some people resemble themselves more than others, and this is a very slippery idea, that can really play out in a chart, but is hard to talk about. If you have planets in the 1st house, due to the time of your birth, those planets will resemble you, or act on behalf of you, more readily, because they are bodily conjoined to you. But if you have no planets in the ascendant, and lots of aversion to the 1st house, the planets may be bickering amongst themselves in the chart, but are having a hard time reaching you, and I'd imagine this would be someone that comes off as lost, but that doesn't stop the sign on the ascendant, and the planets ruling it, being you. It's you no matter what house your Sun is in, or the Moon, or Venus, or Mars, nor is the ascendant degree acting on any of the planets, but the planets are acting on it either opposing the ascendant, or trining it, or bodily conjoined it, etc., but the ascendant is never acting on a planet, because it's life and the moment of birth. The drama of the chart really goes on between the planets that behold each other, or witness each other, or scrutinize each other, or glance askew, but they are enacting their play all on the behalf of the sign on the ascendant, making it the most important point in the chart.
Isabel Hickey likened the ascendant to the view we see out the window, and I finally got the metaphor last night, by using another metaphor. Robert Schmidt likened the daytime and nitetime sect of the planets to political parties with the Solar Sect being the party about 'I' (The Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn), and the Lunar Sect the party about 'We.' (The Moon, Venus, and Mars), with Mercury essentially apolitical and belonging to neither sect, but taking one depending on whether it rose before the Sun or after it, a shady player. In Hellenistic astrology the ruling party has to do with whether the Sun is above the horizon or below it when you were born, and if it's above the horizon the ruling party is the Solar Sect, and if it is below the horizon the ruling party is the Nocturnal Sect, but either way, the planets are legislators working on behalf of the self, or the Country; the ruler of the ascendant is the planet/legislator that most resembles the true character of the Country, assuming there aren't any planets in the first house. The ascendant would be akin to the national character and there is no question that Nation's mimic personality types, and become complex studies in themselves, just like an individual becomes for a fiction writer, sketching a character. A Country is simply a Lunar reflection of a person and maybe that's why Cancer, ruled by the Moon, the reflected light of the Sun (the individual), rules the first house in the Thema Mundi, the first chart in Greek astrology. Either way the ascendant is our character and everything works for it, not the other way around.
It's funny in a sort of ironic way that the Modern astrologers would make this mistake considering they threw out the Thema Mundi and replaced it with the 'natural chart' that has Aries rising, instead of Cancer. I'd theorize that part of the reason for this was to diminish the topical nature of the houses and instead make them akin to the personality types of the signs, so that astrology became an even deeper meditation on character, and less about fortune telling. In the 'natural chart,' Aries is associated with the 1st house and the keywords for Aries are 'I am,' so the key words for the first house are also 'I am,' using the reflexive property that if A=B, then B=A. Well, if you are a Libra rising then you'd naturally say, 'I am a Libra,' and if you are a Taurus rising, then you'd naturally say 'I am a Taurus,' etc., proving that even by Modern astrological principles you are the sign on the ascendant, not the essential sign of your Sun. I hope this hasn't been too anal or boring, but I think it's a hugely important point that some sloppy language obfuscates to no good end, save as a kind of shorthand, that I'd excuse if it didn't impede on the greater mystery of the ascendant, one of the keys of the horoscope.
Bet on the Beaten
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