Why I'm voting for Jill Stein and *not* for “the lesser evil” Hillary

“You just don't know how politics works!” I've read this particular phrase in print, and I had it yelled at me on at least one occasion by a Dem-besotted friend. While I would never claim that I have an intimate knowledge of the workings of American politics, like any adult, sentient being, I can smell the rancidness of our system from a mile away. The phrase “America's political system is broken” is one that is used quite often, and on “different sides of the aisle.” It's most certainly true, and this particular nightmarish presidential election, and the related amount of debate, argument, calumny, hatred, loathing, and downright bugfuck craziness has proved it in a big, big way.

Mort Sahl used to trot out the same joke each time a Presidential election was on. In the last line of the joke he'd merely substitute the names of that year's Democratic and Republic candidates. I've heard him do it a bunch of different ways (going back at least to the early Seventies, but he might've been doing it earlier than that). The way it appears online is this: "There were four million people in the American Colonies and we had Jefferson and Franklin. Now we have over 200 million and the two top guys are Clinton and Dole. What can you draw from this? Darwin was wrong!"

That's a solid joke, and it's actually, like all good pieces of political satire, entirely accurate. I saw Irish standup Dylan Moran a few weeks back and he gave us the European perspective on this election by saying it was perceived as “a competition between a man everybody hates and a woman nobody likes.”

So we get down to the problem that has arisen in the Liberal sphere of America, and a tiny bit of the Left. I distinguish the two because they are really very different. Liberals are, in theory, wonderful folk who have open minds about freedom of speech, freedom of expression, etc. They do draw lines in the sand, though, and they are the folks whom I have read and seen (and heard, from that friend) say that one who finds Liberal politics to be repellently submissive doesn't understand “how politics works!”

Left-wing folks, on the other hand, have more radical beliefs. Liberals are fully “serviced” (understand that verb as you may) by the Democratic party, while Left-wingers know that more often than not the Dems will sell you and your beliefs right down the river. Let Mr. Ochs provide the distinction.

So we come to the “if you're not voting for Hillary [Liberal savior], you're actually voting for Trump!!!” This is, of course, not the case, but fear has to be used as a wedge, when supporting a candidate means you have to, as one journalist put it, live in “a universe of pure ethical abstraction.” HRC is corporate-owned (but that's okay to her supporters), she's a big fan of invasion/occupations/war in all its forms (but that's okay), and she has clearly played loose and fast with the rules of government to, you know, benefit herself and her family financially. (She and Bill are quite the pair – him I'm not going into this piece, because that fucker was never, ever even Liberal, he was a Moderate at best and a complete shill for corporations, in-office and out).

A deep disagreement then, between the Liberals and the Left-wing people, who know that Hillary will in fact support all kinds of wars, let corporations keep running the country, and, as she has in her campaign, will work surreptitiously to get whatever she wants. As Hillary supporter Louis C.K. put it – quite oddly, in a rant intended to say he loves her and is voting for her – she is "two-faced" and "conniving," someone who it's impossible to believe hasn't gone to prison for what she's done (and that's his best argument for his "tough bitch mother" candidate of choice -- there's a big mixed message there from the old self-reliever).

Those who see her as the “only alternative to TRUMP!” (that name has taken on a seemingly magical aspect, even while the same people evoking it hate him and make fun of him) also accuse those of us who cannot bring ourselves to vote for her as being “privileged White snobs” who feel that they can waste their vote with a third party and thus put the gay community, African-Americans, Latinos, and underprivileged citizens of all races in jeopardy by “getting Trump elected!” (Everything said in this tone of voice needs an exclamation point.)

Let me be clear: I've voted a straight Dem ticket every time I've voted, with occasional variant-votes going to the American Family party and a few votes for the Greens. Thus, I've voted for feeble candidates, candidates who I fucking *knew* were not even really Liberal (again, Moderate at best) let alone truly on the Left side of the spectrum, and candidates who made it seem like they were boxers “taking a dive” to let the Repubs win (lookin' at you, Al Gore – you couldn't even try to win your home state?). I can't vote for a candidate who has flaunted her non-Left, corporate, bellicose beliefs. Ya gotta grow up some time, and this election is that time for me.

This has indeed been the single most acrimonious presidential election in recent memory. Trump is a populist candidate, which is an extremely funny thing to say, because he's a corrupt rich guy who says whatever he thinks people want to hear. He's a mogul who let his partners and colleagues take the hit every time a company floundered, he's a pretend tough guy, and yes, just an arrogant sexist, racist asshole.

So by liking Bernie Sanders and now Jill Stein, I am not in favor of Trump winning the election. I don't think voting third party has a chance of putting Trump in office, unless you live in the magic “swing states” (more on those below). If you are in a state that is going for Trump, they're going to do it whether or not a person of conscience votes for Jill Stein (Gary Johnson is beyond the pale, not to be discussed in same sentence as Stein).

If a state is voting for Hillary, they're going to elect her. It's the ridiculous “swing states” that now rule American elections; in those states, people do indeed have to consider the horrible dilemma given to them by both parties: do we vote for the loose-cannon crazy rich guy (the loose cannon factor is what has made him attractive to many Americans) or the former Secretary of State, who has all these questionable activities she's been involved in?

What has been interesting is that, on social media, and pretty much any site that covers politics on the Net, the Hillary supporters haven't sent out a forthright, heartfelt message of support (there are a few of those, but man, do they look forced and scarily robotic). They instead work on the fear factor and try to yell those of us who would vote third-party into obeisance.

The stridency of the argument for Hillary (“what are you, crazy, you're voting Trump into office!!!”) is thus the strong suit of Hillary's campaign. This is a candidate who was the dullest, most robotic speaker at the Democratic convention. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Michelle and Barack Obama, old red-nosed, tremulous Bill her hubby – all are compelling speakers, but “the first woman President” receiving her premature coronation has none of that verbal dexterity or emotion. She's a career politician who couldn't run a populist campaign – mostly because her policies and political leanings are not populist in the slightest.

Another fun comment made by the angry (man, are they angry) Hillary supporters is the “so your guy [Bernie] lost, so you want the country to go down in flames?” approach. What is interesting here is not only that Bernie was beating Hillary in many of the polls, but that he and Elizabeth Warren – now both playing the roles of Hillary supporters – made the arguments against Hillary beautifully. They supplied those of us sentient, intelligent adults with all the ammunition we needed to realize that putting Hillary in the White House was encouraging the rape of the environment, warlike inclinations, and a free run for the corporations.

Now Bernie and Elizabeth argue that she is the *only* choice. That is because Trump is the evil one – an incredibly good boogie man (you know he loves this role – he was indeed a guest star at many WWE events and plays a heel like nobody's business, and Americans LOVE a good heel….). I don't hear actual support of Hillary in the voices of Warren and Sanders, I hear loathing (and fear) of Trump.

To add to the dubiousness of the Bernie situation, here was a guy who said he wouldn't bring up the e-mails. He played it honorably, but he also made a very Faustian bargain when he ran as a Democrat (and then continued to stay a Democrat for this campaign, while he's *still* a fucking Independent as a Senator in Vermont).

The single most amazing part of the Bernie situation is that the DNC, in the person of Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was maneuvering to undercut Bernie and coronate Queen Hillary. This is indeed where the stopped clock known as Donald J. Trump was right two times – the “rigged election” business and the fact that Hillary's campaign had the stain of Watergate on it.

HRC's good friend the DNC chairwoman and other advocates in her name were working against a fellow candidate whom supposedly she was going to beat handily anyway – so then why all the conspiring? Was it that she and her operatives, like Nixon (who had no threat posed to him by McGovern, check the record), were paranoid enough to want to “fix” primaries that she was going to win anyway? Or was it that Bernie was indeed beating her in many ways and her victory simply had to assured by the DNC?

If Hillary is indeed that tremendously popular among those on the Liberal/Left, how come any of this jiggering of the primaries had to be carried off? And with the lovely verifiably real e-mails – don't actually read their content, just keep endlessly discussing whether the Russkies supplied them – that show that they were willing to tarnish Bernie in any way they could. So much for his being gallant to HRC; she's already stabbed him in the back, then she has him come out and do speeches on her behalf.

What has been interesting is seeing the Hill-bots speculating on those “sick” individuals who support Trump and those evil souls who object to Hillary and will either not vote (something I don't advocate) or who want to vote for Stein or Johnson. HRC supporters are incapable of seeing that there has been a sense of galling entitlement to her campaign and her nomination. It truly has been an attempt to make the Presidency of the United States a football that goes back and forth between two dynasties – from Bush to Clinton to Bush to Clinton. That's distasteful on so many levels.

Those who have been paying attention, though, have noted that, yes, Trump could be very dangerous – we're also not sure what the hell he will do. He could be blocked by the Congress and Senate, he could realize he has to modify his insane beliefs, because all the Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, have had to follow a rule book to remain in office and get that heavily desired second term (a thing Obama initially said he'd be willing to sacrifice to get a more robust and useful version of Obama-care through – and then he dropped that idea, diluted his healthcare, and went for that second term – Go America! Number One!!!).

But, and this is the ultimate “but” that moved many of us toward Jill Stein (“who can't win – why would you vote for someone who can't win?”). We do, in fact, know how Hillary will behave, because we remember her policies as a NY State Senator (what a mock Bobby Kennedy move that was – never had lived in NY state in her life) and as the Secretary of State. She is a known commodity and she is a warmonger (very much of the cold warrior stripe – she seems to be aching for a war with Russia). Liberal HRC supporters feel that Trump will get the U.S. enmeshed in war, while Hillary already HAS.

On a related note, to quote the Observer website, “She and her family run a foundation that aggressively solicited donations from corporations, wealthy individuals and foreign governments that have interests before the government, and in some cases Clinton, as secretary of state, took actions that can only be seen as quid pro quo for big donors. These facts alone should disqualify her from political life and make her the legitimate target of criminal investigations.”

And, as has been pointed out by many souls who remember George Carlin's warning, she's coming for your social security. Read this article to see what that's about.

So is it better to go for the scheming man who's an unknown commodity or the scheming woman who *is* a known commodity? I say neither – there has to be a way to protest again how truly, undeniably insane American politics has become. There is so much calculation in Hillary's supposed “move toward the Left” caused by Bernie – that will be done as soon as she's elected, and the much-touted use of Bernie as the Senate budget chair? It will either never happen (since the Dems might not win the Senate) or he will get the slot and be so hamstrung and impotent that nothing will be accomplished.

Stein, on the other hand, may have a small popular base (voting for her will help the Greens in their future efforts) but she actually has laudable stances that she believes in, including an opposition toward “an electoral system that tells you to vote against what you're afraid of and not for what you believe.” What has been amusing is that many Bernie supporters have folded in, in a docile fashion, under the Hillary tent because Bernie says so (see this article about that), whereas Stein hold many of the same positions he had (the all-important single-payer health – the single most important issue in the U.S., creating new jobs legitimately, excusing college debt).

It has been the creepiest thing in the world to have former Bernie supporters lecturing people who want to vote third-party and telling them “it's important not to throw your vote away.” There's a rather striking discord between the oft-repeated notion that “every American must vote – it's your civic duty! Vote for whomever you want!” and the Hill-bot warning “Don't throw your vote away!”

In closing, I want to just run through very briefly the four things I think that make our electoral system truly nightmarish (one might say “rigged,” but I don't want readers thinking I actually do support Trump – although that stopped-clock thing is so very valid).

The first is the existence in the Democratic parties of the “super-PACs.” These reinforce coronations like Hillary's. As long as these exist, the Democratic party is indeed corrupt as hell.

The second is the extremely amazing fact that a small handful of the 50 states decide each and every national election. The “swing state” phenomenon – in which people are so noncommittal they decide at the last fucking moment who they're going to vote for – indicates a completely non-Democratic process in action. This country ain't even a Republic if a handful of states choose the President each time out.

The third is the beloved electoral college. The Bush/Gore election proved that someone can win the popular vote, but then lose because of the electoral college and…

The fourth institution that is ridiculous to its very core is the Supreme Court. The archaic and utterly wretched fact that the individuals picked for the Supreme Court remain so for life is possibly the seminal problem in American political life – since so often people vote for Republican or Democrat Presidents because there will be empty seats among the almost evenly split collection of robed senior citizens (even though it's been seen that Republicans have put in Liberal justices and Democratic Presidents have installed Conservatives).

No one should hold their job for life. I love seniors a lot, but no matter how smart they are, they can be cranky and fall asleep a lot – like the beloved Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose opinions I like but she's too damned old to be making such important, country-altering decisions, as are her conservative counterparts. Lenny Bruce noted about Eisenhower who, for that time, was a very old President: “Do you want to take a chance on a man over 55 when Mutual of Omaha won't?” The same applies to the judges who decide our most important legal cases – move 'em on when they've been there too long or are over retirement age!

As long as the four institutions above remain in place, American politics is indeed fucked beyond belief. I find it very important to support someone who is espousing ideas that appeal to our better nature, particularly when I think about the four-headed nightmare I elaborated above.

Now… go vote for whomever ya like!

*****

My choice:

Thanks to Kathy K and Danny Hellman for spotlighting some of the articles linked to above. Democracy Now has offered the best coverage of Jill Stein's campaign. Lionel has offered the most detailed accounts of Hillary's conflicts of interest and policy history. 

UPDATE, post-mortem, 11/12/16: I was, of course, totally wrong about Hillary winning (and being able to steal the election). Those of us who went for third-party candidates have gotten grief from angry Hill-bots about putting Trump in office, while the clear reason that Trump won – besides the fact that he better tapped into the outrage that fuels Americans to vote in America, and that Hillary was a terrible candidate – was the fact that a staggering 43% of eligible voters didn't cast their vote on election day.

It would be nice if the Democratic party takes this as a very dire wake-up call and does turn to Progressive politics again. If that doesn't happen – I have grave doubts it will – then truly Progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders need to run on a third-party ticket, and a clear alternative to conservative platforms will exist. This election was a nightmare for so many people because BOTH candidates were so unlikeable. That clearly inspired a sizable amount of the 43 percent to stay home. 

The one way in which I am very glad I went through my little list of how American politics is broken is of course the singling out of the Electoral College. I understand why it exists technically, but anytime you have a process wherein the popular vote is ignored, that's a problem, a big, *big* problem. But since it benefits the Repubs (as it did in 2000) and they are totally in power now, it is doubtful it will be overturned or even challenged.

The one and only amusing thing about Trump winning thus far (when he's in office it's a *very* different story, I know that) is seeing the look of misery on his face and on the faces of his family. You can see that he loved rabble-rousing, he loved the crowds and the adulation, but he did NOT really want this job (he likes the roll of spoiler, and how can you be the spoiler when you won the game?). He has the uncomfortable look of a little boy who's been ordered to get dressed up and go to a party thrown by his parents. He looks ill at ease, out of his depth, and discomforted by the thought that this is all going to get much worse….

Gifts my father gave me

My father and I, a million years ago,
in Carl Schurz Park.

I’ve spent a lot of my life thus far writing and talking about my favorite movies and other pop-culture phenomena. My first great influence (besides my mother, who got me interested in modern art and movie musicals — and yes, I am a straight man who loves musicals) was my father, who died last Monday. In one of our last conversations in the hospital I was able to thank him for introducing me to great b&w and foreign movies as a kid, so I can think of no better way to celebrate his life than to assemble a little list of the things he got me hooked on, which became some of the cornerstones of the Funhouse TV series.

Sure, there were things my dad loved that I never got interested in: the American Civil War, WWII (both the military strategy and them crazy Nazis), British mystery series. There are also things I am deeply obsessed with that he didn’t have the slightest interest in, naturally — and things like team sports that we disliked in tandem. But the sheer amount of things he exposed me to as a young child, things that just blew my tiny mind, are worth mentioning because… well, I miss him already (he had not been well for several weeks before his death) and I couldn’t thank him for everything, so this blog entry will serve as a sort of an addendum, a cosmic thank-you note.

Firstly, the comics. My dad was a devotee from the Thirties through the Fifties, and was one of those many seniors who had a story about how his mother threw all his comics away (in his case while he was in the Navy — my grandmother considered them “dust-gatherers”). He later took me to the Phil Seuling NYC comic cons (where we got autographs — free autographs! — from Kirby and Steranko) and would often do the old-comic-fan thing of noting that “I had that comic!” when he saw something hanging up on display for sale for several hundred (or thousand) bucks.

Of course, I don’t think he kept his stash “bagged and boarded,” so they probably would’ve disintegrated over the years; one of my most vivid collector-memories is us receiving a package of Fifties-era Will Eisner comics that literally did disintegrate on us as we opened and attempted to read them.

So, first on the list is the work of Jack Kirby. My father worshiped Kirby — he had taken drawing classes at the Phoenix School of Design and appreciated the Old Masters (and modern abstract artists), but he was never ashamed of reading comics. He raised me to respect the fertile imagination and endlessly vibrant work of “the King” of comics. As many parents do, he decided to buy and read me comics as a way of getting back into them himself. Among the first I have memories of are the reprints of Kirby’s Sixties output  — the seminal Marvel stuff. Dr. Strange, a Steve Ditko masterwork, became my own personal favorite, but I shared my Dad’s enthusiasm for all of the Kirby creations.

I was really young when the D.C. “Fourth World” titles from Kirby were released (and failed, and are, as with all great pop artifacts, now looked upon as touchstones for so much that came after). Kirby’s psychedelic explosions, his use of photos in his comics, his amazing futurism (mixed with a heavy regard for ancient mythology and modern urban living) was mind-blowing and — what’s best for a kid — the colors were sensational (to this day I can’t even look at b&w reprints of Kirby or Ditko’s color work).

My dad’s steeping me in these wildly imaginative comic books ruined me for the current generation of Marvel (and D.C.) movies. There is so much vivid color in those comics that is not duplicated in the current blockbuster feature films (for both the conventional characters and even in something like The Watchmen — a reverent adaptation, but where was the brightness of the colors from the comic?) that we wound up disappointed whenever the films came out. The last film I saw with him in a theater was the first Avengers feature, which we enjoyed (mostly for the Loki character) but both thought was less than meets the eye, and nowhere near the wildly imaginative work of Jack Kirby.

Still on the topic of comics, my father did have a love for noir comics, which brought him to the work of Steranko in the Sixties. He got me interested in that surprisingly small handful of Steranko’s SHIELD comics and, through the comic book history books he bought for us to read (mainly Jules Feiffer’s The Great Comic Book Heroes — the original version with the full reprints in it — and Steranko’s own, unfinished History of Comics), he introduced me to the noir world of the master, Will Eisner.

He enjoyed buying all kinds of heroic comics as a kid, but I think he spoke the most about the experience of getting the Eisner comic inserts in the Parkchester Press that contained the Spirit, Lady Luck, and other Eisner creations. As a kid, I thought the Spirit was surprisingly non-heroic and kinda silly (I still marvel at how many times Eisner depicted him getting his ass kicked by villains), but I grew to love the character. 

The first pages were stunning — the splash-pages where Eisner basically drew on the cinematic language of both the German Expressionist silents and the then-flourishing crime films that were later (in the Fifties) labelled “noir” by the French critics.

Years later I was able to return the favor and turn my dad on to Frank Miller (whose debt to Steranko and Eisner was constantly in the forefront, and much-acknowledged) and the comic book genius of Alan Moore. (I also got him to read the Vertigo titles by Neil Gaiman and Garth Ennis.) Of course, his talk about how much he loved Laura, Gilda, and The Big Heat led to my own teenage and 20-something deep obsession with all things noir. Even when he and I were out of my touch, I kept moving in the directions he had led me (and, as I often do with fascinations I’m introduced to by others, I dive in headfirst and want to see everything associated with the artists).

Robert Ryan in The Set-Up.

 As for Hollywood stars, he had had a teenage fascination with the stars of the above-mentioned films — he had crushes on Rita Hayworth and Gene Tierney, and wanted to be like Dana Andrews and Glenn Ford. (No John Wayne for him.) His noir leanings were evident when he also went off on speeches about the under-appreciation of Edmond O’Brien and Robert Ryan. He also introduced me to the icon of icons in the Sixties and early Seventies, Bogie. Rita was sexier, though:

Speaking of that period of nostalgia (which is best illustrated in Harry Hurwitz’s The Projectionist, which I got the privilege of showing my dad — he loved everything associated with that film, but had never gone to see it in a theater for some reason), he also fostered my interest in Karloff, Lugosi, Price, and the Hammer Horrors. One of the touchstones of my childhood was Famous Monsters of Filmland (and its short-lived competitor The Monster Times). This was a regular purchase that was acquired where comic books were sold.

At times my father realized this stuff was potentially terrifying (I never admitted it, but I had insane nightmares after seeing an R-rated double bill with him of Tales from the Crypt and The House That Dripped Blood), so he would remove pages or — this horrifies me as a diehard collector — “X” out with magic marker any offending pics of really odd, scary-ass creatures. (Thankfully, this was done on an infrequent basis.)

That period of nostalgia had other icons, and my dad was also instrumental in me winding up becoming a Marxist, “of the Groucho sort” (as a French radical once put it). b&w comedies still aired regularly on television when I was young, and thus I became utterly fixated on the Marx Brothers’ Paramount films and the first two MGM titles. My father also introduced me to Laurel and Hardy , whom I love (the Three Stooges I found on my own, on daytime TV), but the Marxes were especially amazing to me as a child.

Harpo is often spoken of as an id in human form, but Groucho and Chico were as well. Their humor was not only smart, literate, bizarre, and rambunctious, it was also fast (the best cartoon equivalent being Looney Tunes). Groucho became a personal hero to me as a kid, but I was mesmerized by the uninhibited humor of all three Marxes throughout my early years.

I have a dark sense of humor that was more than likely inspired by seeing Dr. Strangelove as a kid. My father had taste for grim, black comedy (now called “dark” to be p.c.). He was also fascinated by comedians who did different voices (a product of his growing up in the radio era) so Peter Sellers was one of his big faves in the Sixties and early Seventies (yes, he also introduced me to the wonders of the Milligan, chief Goon and bottle washer).

Enjoying Strangelove naturally led to my fixation on all the black humorists of the Sixties as a kid in late grammar school (my friends and I were “precocious” when it came to reading matter): Kurt Vonnegut led to Joseph Heller, which led to Bruce Jay Friedman and Terry Southern.

The love of British humor (which I have taken in one direction with Stewart Lee, and my dad took in another with Rowan Atkinson) continued with my dad sharing Python and Fawlty Towers with me. As regards British TV, though, I have to focus on the first two series he introduced me to that were completely mind-warping, The Avengers and Patrick McGoohan's blissfully brilliant The Prisoner.

Although it's an incredibly “Sixties” show (especially its final episode), The Prisoner still stands as a TV landmark. A spy saga that indicted “the System” in general; a rebellious hero who faced a nameless, dangerous bureaucracy; a series that defied the rules of series TV by not explaining its key mysteries. It remains a prime example of what television can do when the creators don't talk down to their audience and don't feel the need to extend their creation beyond a handful of episodes (McGoohan was forced to extend it to 17 episodes; he initially planned only seven).

Another cornerstone of my fascinations has always been radio — the medium that is now is dominated by awfully cramped playlists and conservative talk (and that one topic no one in my family has cared about, team sports). My dad was a product of the “radio days,” having grown up in the Thirties and Forties. His personal faves were The Shadow and I Love a Mystery, but he also had a passion for Inner Sanctum and comedy shows (Benny, Burns & Allen, etc). He even liked soap operas as a kid (he had fond memories of staying home sick and hearing things like Portia Faces Life), but could never stand Lum and Abner or Vic and Sade (now considered the greatest comedy of old-time radio; my father begged to differ). 

The Shadow is pretty much the old-time radio show that draws newcomers in, since the one super-power that Lamont Cranston possessed — “the ability to cloud men's minds” so he became “invisible” to them — was ideal for an audio medium. The show remained on the air for a long time and still has a very strong following among those who love old-time radio.

Now we come to the movies. I suffer from cinemaddiction — not for mainstream product, but for the old, the foreign, the independent, and the work of the great auteurs and the showcases for the great screen performers. At a very young age (somewhere in the early grammar school period) I first saw Citizen Kane, because my dad sat me down and watched it with me, thereby sparking my interest in, and passion for, great cinema.

He followed this a short time later by telling me I *had* to see this French movie, Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast. That one was (like The Prisoner) a mind-fuck for my young noggin. He sat with me watching it when it aired on Channel 13 (our local PBS channel) one evening. It was (and will always be) mesmerizing. The chandeliers held by arms, the characters gliding along, the gorgeously composed fantasy elements, as well as Jean Marais' awesome lion make-up (everyone knows the Beast is a much more charming and interesting character than Marais' prince).

The films he would tell me about that he had seen on his own (I was way too young to go to these rated-R movies) were political thrillers by this guy named Costa-Gavras. When I interviewed C-G some years back, in conjunction with the opening of his film Amen, I did something I haven’t done on any other interview, thankfully — I had a false first take and had to start over as I re-phrased my first question.

The reason? I was flashing back to hearing about his films from my dad, and also the fact that my father had interested me in the script of State of Siege (which came out as a pop paperback — ah, the Seventies). I had no idea what it was about (although Yves Montand looked very cool in shades), but understood it all later on. The music from Z was a particular favorite of my father’s. We, in fact, had the album by guitarist John Williams, in which he performed a bravura performance of the piece:

Returning to comedy, I have to note that another film I heard about long before I saw it was The Producers. I now have the whole thing memorized, but still enjoy watching it every so often. My dad loved Jewish comedy, and Nazi humor — thus, the fixation on Sellers, who declared The Producers his favorite movie on more than one occasion, including his liner notes for the LP, which I bought to help remember the lines, not knowing it also included the cheesy go-go music (“Ulla, go to work!”).

My father and I could talk for endless amounts of time about character actors and comedy supporting characters. His preference for comedy was decidedly Jewish (although he grew up a Catholic and left the faith early on, as I did). Thus, he found this scene from Little Murders endlessly funny (as of course it is). The movie both made me laugh and really did creep me out as a kid: I thought that I, or  someone I loved, would get shot through a window. And of course the film’s message about urban violence and the American sense of delusion (and love of firearms) never, ever ages….

He also turned me on to a bunch of humorists who have sadly been mostly forgotten, or identified with only one thing they wrote. In the latter category is the great Max Shulman (whom I wrote about at some length here; he is of course best known as the creator of Dobie Gillis). Shulman’s work was wonderful to read as a kid — since a good deal of his output was written from the point of view of an innocent, who even a kid would realize is insanely naïve. Some of the basic elements of his work were time-bound to the era in which he was writing (the late Forties and Fifties), but the comic situations he crafted were timeless.

On a more somber note, one of the people my dad was a major fan of was John Cassavetes. He would tell me much about the TV series Johnny Staccato, which he had loved (and which offered John’s first directorial efforts after Shadows). He also raved about Husbands. I finally saw the film as a teen (I delved deeply into middle-age crisis movies as a teen, which was rather odd by the time I became a middle-aged person — although I did know what to rewatch….).

As the Seventies wore on, he wasn’t seeing many movies in theaters, except for the items that he and I saw together (Planet of the Apes pictures, James Bond outings, Bruce Lee vehicles, etc). One of the films he *loved* on TV that I thought seemed fun but didn’t seem to have a plot or any coherence at all was Mean Streets. My father recognized the characters from the Sicilian part of his family (he grew up in the Bronx and was often brought to Arthur Avenue, the “Little Italy” of upper NYC); to me the film just seemed a jumble of good scenes and funny performances with no plot.

When I began seeing films in repertory theaters, I realized that the Mean Streets I had seen was — much like my other teenage faves, Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver — absolutely destroyed for television. “Strong language,” violence, and any kind of sexual content were removed, and so the film seemed to be about nothing at all. The film I saw in theaters was indeed a masterwork, one that Scorsese created variations on for years to come (Goodfellas, Casino, etc).

I end up back where I started, with nostalgia for the Thirties. When my father lost his mobility and needed a walker to get around, he stopped seeing movies in theaters. I kept trying to convince him that they make accommodations for handicapped folks (I know that’s not the politically correct term, but my dad was not a young gent by this point). He still refused, and so we watched movies on his VCR that I had on SP speed (he didn’t want me to wire up a DVD player, more stubborness), ones we both could enjoy that I hadn’t seen in a while.

The films we ended up watching were almost all W.C. Fields vehicles. My dad loved Fields above all others (well, Mel Brooks, Groucho, and Carlin were high up there as well). He had had me watch his films whenever they appeared on TV when I was but a wee nipper (the kind Bill Fields would’ve kicked in the ass). I thus have always had a major soft spot for the ultimate comic curmudgeon.

My dad in fact appeared several years ago on an episode of the Funhouse TV series to talk with me about his love of Fields, and the Thirties moviegoing experience in general. I shot it to air in June, the month of his and my birthdays, and (naturally enough, given Fields’ emphasis on dysfunctional family humor) Fathers Day. In that show my dad defended Bill F. against charges that he loathed children (it supposedly was an act, but then again I’m sure his alcohol intake used to determine how he felt about people he encountered; one of his salutations for his close friend Eddie Cantor was “Christ-killer”).

Fields does come from an era when un-p.c. humor was not just tolerated it was encouraged, and yet (like Groucho) he seemed to exalt the con man who could take down the rich, arrogant bastards in society. As a put-upon husband and dad he had no equal, and he definitely spawned Ralph Kramden, Archie Bunker, and Al Bundy (and, methinks, the “Battling Bickersons” on radio); John Cleese has gone on the record saying that Fields was one of the key inspirations for Basil Fawlty.

My dad shared all of these items with me, and I had the pleasure later in life to share many things with him. We spoke on the phone on an average of once a day, sometimes more depending on whether one of us had a trivial item to impart about some individual whose work we loved or hated in common (this included a lot of celebrity deaths, but also some celebrity birthdays).

He was sick and in pain for three months before his death last week. The calls that we normally shared were replaced with calls from the hospital, updating me on his condition, and lifeless calls to and from him in which he didn’t want to talk at all. I had one final amazing in-person conversation with him three days before he died, where he was “opened up” for chat by a friendly nurse, and we were able to talk about the past (his relatives, our attending the Seuling comic cons) and the present (the usual silly trivia we shared). I made him laugh when I told him about something Joey Reynolds had done on YouTube, and we talked about the new Shatner book about Nimoy (my dad was a massive “classic Trek” fan).

That was the last time we spoke like that. The next two days he was in terrible shape, and on the following morning he was gone. I miss him incredibly — most especially the long, sprawling phone calls.

“No spoilers!!!”: the infantilized audience and un-cinematic cinema

[Note: This piece was written in early January, but it wound up taking a back seat to my ongoing tribute to David Bowie. I herewith present it because I remain stunned by the sheer terror some people have for “spoilers.”]

When I first started getting seriously into film, my film teacher (who said many wise things) reacted to my asking him if it was "okay" to tell him about the plot of a movie he hadn't seen by saying, "it shouldn't matter if you know the end of the movie... it's how the director gets there that counts." I've heard his voice in my head for the past two decades each time I've seen/read/heard the Internet-spawned phrase "no spoilers!" Cautions about spoilers now even appear in essays in Criterion Collection booklets, where one *should* be able to safely assume the reader knows the end of the film they've paid for and are now reading an essay about — or do people read critical essays in DVD sets before they watch the classic films on the discs these days?

The fear that reading/hearing “spoilers” will ultimately ruin one’s experience of a film, TV show, or book (you rarely hear people complaining about books these days — more’s the pity) is, I believe intimately connected with the “trigger warning” idea that exists today. There always have been people who felt compelled to discuss plot details with people who haven’t seen the work, and there have always been people who wanted to exist in a bubble of innocence before they watched or read something.

Today, though, because of technology, the spoiler-shy individual can go around social media pleading with acquaintances not to “blow” a plot twist. Recently there was even talk of a filter that would block out any Web content that mentioned any item a person didn’t want “spoiled.”

There is an incredibly childlike aspect to the issue of spoilers. It’s as if the person avoiding them is a kid, not wanting to know that Santa and the Easter Bunny aren’t real. The more the person protests against spoilers, the more I have to wonder — is it really going to make that much difference in your life if you find out a plot twist, even a “major” one? (Almost invariably this twist involves the “surprising” death of a character.)

I spent three years editing a reference work (The Motion Picture Guide Annual) that provided the full plots of the movies reviewed; the esteemed British magazines The Monthly Film Bulletin and now Sight and Sound have provided full write-ups on movies that include the finales of the films discussed. It's a practice that serious movie buffs can deal with — the one genre I'd make an exception for would be whodunit murder mysteries, which are pretty much entirely predicated on their conclusion, so if you know the finale in those instances you have lost some of the goofy charm of the genre (I'd throw "twist" items like Homicidal and The Crying Game in there). With most of the filmmakers I deeply love, though, you can't ruin their films by telling me the end. A Godard film is like a poem — whoever had a poem ruined by knowing the last line?

The spoiler phenomenon applies entirely to the storytelling aspect of cinema. With TV, that winds up being the central aspect of a program — since the fervent cries that “modern dramatic TV is the new cinema!” and “…is better than literature!” are both incredibly wrong. Cinema and literature are about content *and* form, whereas 98% of television, including the hands-down best-written and acted shows of the last 20 years, pay no attention to form, they are simply concerned with storytelling. Many viewers in turn confuse superb production design with a program being “cinematic.”

These shows are in fact exceptionally good TV, not cinema or literature — is it not enough for something to be exceptionally good TV? (I’ve always felt that the cinema/lit references indicate that the speaker doesn’t feel television deserves admittance into the Pantheon of important media.) Truly radical and superior television would encompass the few shows that toyed with the medium itself (Ernie Kovacs’ video comedy, The Prisoner, Dennis Potter’s teleplays). Although you will rarely hear those who holler “no spoilers!!!” being disturbed by knowing ahead of time that a program will be playing with their senses.

So what occasioned this meditation on the “don’t tell me ANYTHING — you’ll ruin it for me!” panic-culture that proliferates on the Net? Why, the fervor (now past —but it will recur) over the latest Star Wars blockbuster, of course. My reaction to the SW series is apathy bordering on narcolepsy. I saw the first as a kid and enjoyed it, to a point (the point where I still preferred Star Trek and knew that Lucas was playing with characters and situations from Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers).

The deeply beloved second film I saw in a theater and thought was okay. I saw most of the third movie on TV and have never gone near the prequels (an extraordinary act of indulgence by the formerly talented gent who gave us THX-1138 and American Graffiti, and then never, EVER felt the need to make another non-benign film for adults).

So I had zero interest in The Force Awakens but knew that it would be overhyped to the max, and it was. The “no spoilers!!!” fever pitch fascinated me, though. Consider this: the one (and only?) *really* big revelation in the initial trilogy was one that was hoary and hackneyed by Dickens’ time. (“I’m your father! Oh, and by the way, the only important female character in this thing — she’s your sister!!!”)

What exactly could a “spoiler” be in the context of that kind of pedestrian, unimaginative (and downright irritating) mindset? Would someone important die? (Given the advanced of age of half-asleep action hero Harrison Ford, that’s not an unlikely scenario.) Would someone be revealed to be someone else’s aunt? Would one of the cutesy robots or Muppets or hairy sidekicks attempt a dry hump on another? Would the ghost of a talented sci-fi writer materialize to kill off the whole wretched series? Would one of the kids dressed in their cosplay finery puke up his popcorn in your local multiplex? Whatever happens, it surely won’t be original or innovative, or anything other than a sly move dreamt up to resurrect this moribund series of kiddie fantasies, of which so many adults have fond adolescent memories.

I hope that no one reading this blog entry had their experience of the SW movie ruined by an Internet reviewer, commenter, or troll who gave away the super-secret plot twist that I’m sure was super-fantastic. If that happened to you, may I suggest one of two things:

1.) Seriously consider avoiding further disappointments and life-ruining traumas by starting to attend (in a theater) films made by true artists. I guarantee that you will NOT be able to predict what’s going to happen next in a film by Godard, Greenaway, Maddin, Lynch, Herzog, Von Trier, or Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

2.) Aim to only watch the genres that the abovementioned Werner H. — who likes to make anti-arthouse cinema proclamations, even though his own work fits snugly into that category — has earmarked as “ ‘essential’ films: kung fu, Fred Astaire, porno. Movie movies, so to speak.” (Further thoughts from Werrner: “I love this kind of cinema. It does not have the falseness and phoniness of films that try so hard to pass on a heavy idea to the audience or have the fake emotions of Hollywood films.” Herzog on Herzog, p. 138). In this way you’ll never have your life ruined by finding out a spoiler.

Has Werner Herzog seen many Russ Meyer movies?
(The two sit here on a panel at a film festival.)

The genres that Herzog cites (I’m going to assume he means musicals in general when mentioning Astaire) won’t disturb you by acknowledging the medium you’re watching, or offering any stylization that calls attention to itself (unless you’re watching a Dennis Potter-derived musical, a Jackie Chan action vehicle [with repetitive Eisensteinian edits used for Jackie’s stunt scenes, to show he’s really doing the stunt], or a stylishly deranged “Rinse Dream” porn movie). No one will be able to spoil the plot for you, and you’ll have a lot of fun in the meantime.

To put it plainly, life is too short to be terrified that you’re going to find out that some ridiculously lame, poorly sketched character in a half-baked space opera is gonna kick off (or be brought back, or turn out to be someone’s son/father/uncle/pet ferret). Sit back, calm down, and enjoy some truly entertaining formulaic entertainment. Disney, J.J. Abrams, and other corporate forces behind the SW franchise will do just fine without your 15–20 bucks.