Concerts of Doom

Antisemitism, right-wing cabals, depression about the future, the death of the universe... I think it's time for something frivolous.

What is the most embarrassing concert you've ever attended? For guidance, here's my top four:

4. Kansas, at the Muskegon Summer Celebration, where they rounded up acts that should have retired long ago. They were overweight, they wore spandex, and they played "Dust in the Wind." At least they were still having a good time. The lead singer climbed a stack of amplifiers and ran around in the audience.

3. Starship, featuring Mickey Thomas. Yeah, that means without Grace Slick. Just Mickey Thomas, singing those memorable 80s songs like "We Built This City" and "No Way Out," and taking a crack at the classics. His rendition of "White Rabbit" was particularly cringe-inducing. This concert was also part of the Muskegon Summer Celebration.

2. 38 Special. And REO Speedwagon. And Survivor. They apparently opened every season at Val-du-Lakes, a small outdoor venue near Ludington, MI. I think they were all wearing wigs. I'm sure about the lead singer of REO Speedwagon. This was my first concert, so don't give me a hard time about it.

1. Feel free to give me a hard time about this one. Warrant, Slaughter, and Vince Neil, also at Val-du-Lakes. This one is hard to talk about. I still liked Warrant, you see, even though I knew in my heart that they weren't any good. I had to sit through Slaughter, which was painful. Then Warrant came on, and Jani Lane proceeded to get so drunk that they didn't finish any songs. He would just change his mind halfway through and start in on another one. We didn't stick around for Vince Neil. I'm sure we didn't miss much.

Universe Not Dying

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dark_energy_040220.html

This Space.com article explains how astronomers think that the universe is not in fact in danger of being ripped apart anytime soon. Whew. I was worried. The esteemed doctors at the Space Telescope Science Institute predict that everyone's favorite universe has about 30 billion years left. Since it's only 13.7 billion years old now, it's akin to a 25-year-old human being—and we don't worry much about 25-year-old humans being ripped apart by their own internal forces, although they may feel like it sometimes.

The article explains some interesting things about the universe that I didn't understand when I was being paid to edit astronomy articles: dark energy, dark matter, and cosmological constants. Reports from the White House tell us that President Bush has instructed the CIA and FBI to investigate this "dark energy," which he suspects may have ties to Al Qaeda. "We must be vigilant in our efforts to protect our universe of the worst energy in the world," Bush said.

Christians vs. Jews

This isn't so much a Deep Question as it is something that I've been wondering about for a long time. I'm too lazy to look into it, so I thought I'd let my learned colleagues fill me in. This is prompted by the flap surrounding Mel Gibson's upcoming film The Passion of the Christ, which is destined to be the highest-grossing film whose dialog is entirely in dead or mostly dead languages.

The question: why would Christians be angry at Jews about the whole death of Christ thing? If God sent Jesus down to die for all our sins, why would anybody be angry at Jews for helping him out? It's not like he was going to trip on a chicken and hit his head on a sharp stone for all our sins. Martyrdom requires action by groups of people. If it was all God's plan, then that plan included the supposed pressure from Jews to put Jesus to death. Christians should thank them for moving the process along. Right?

This may sound naive and satirical. It's a little of both, but I am genuinely curious, but not curious enough to figure it out for myself. Happy commenting. Shane, you go first.

Closed-Captioning Provided by Right Wing Cabal

Last October, a right-wing cabal—er, an advisory board—advised the Department of Education to limit their free closed-captioning of television shows. On the cut list were 200 shows that will no longer be captioned for free by the DOE's Technology and Media Services for Individuals with Disabilities program. In many markets, these shows will still have captioning, because the grant program was mostly used by affiliates in markets that couldn't find corporate sponsorship of captioning. However, this incident provides a good example of how the Bush administration works.

Program guidelines say that shows wanting captioning should be "educational, news, or informational." You may have noticed that these guidelines have been mostly ignored. Jerry Springer, anyone? However, in this recent purge, initiated by a cabal of "five unnamed individuals," those guidelines were ignored. Almost all sports porgramming has been axed, as well as such standbys as Bewitched, Pokemon, an unnamed series of AMC documentaries, an unnamed series of five classic films on BET, I Dream of Jeannie, Jimmy Neutron, Sanford and Son, and the wonderful documentary Visions of Light. Documentaries aren't educational or informational? That's news to me. And no classic films that BET can round up are good enough for the DOE? Hmm. Approved shows are listed too. (See the whole list here.) You'll notice that there's no rhyme or reason to the lists: shows on the banned list are very similar to shows on the OK list.

Basically, it looks like a conservative group of parents, similar to the nipple-counters at the MPAA, were asked for their advice, which consisted of captioning the things they approve of politically, and their list was made law. Documentaries on gays in Hollywood, Hollywood and the Holocaust, and black cinema are out. Independent films are out. Popular television shows are out.

I can't believe that this issue didn't get any press at all. I only learned about it yesterday, when Travis (thanks!) told me about it on the train. I couldn't find any news articles on it; I had to settle for opinion pieces and advocacy groups. Here are a few, for your reading pleasure: Palm Beach Post, Carlisle Sentinel, National Association for the Deaf.

Secret advisory panels dictating policy. No notice given to the public. Arbitrary and nonsensical rulings. This is getting to be a pattern.

Finishing My Degree

For those of you who don't know already, I am finishing my MA in History this semester. I started back in 1998, and I sort of dropped out—that's too strong a phrase. I stopped going in 2001 when I moved to Chicago. I have a pretty decent excuse: I thought I was finished at the end of that summer. Turns out that a series of misunderstandings, mostly my fault, meant that I was not in fact done. This semester, I figured it was about time for me to finish. I mean, it's just one class. How hard could that be?

Pretty goddamned hard. I'm finding it nearly impossible to get back into the grad student work ethic that got me through when I was a full-time student. You have to read a certain way, at a certain pace, to get through as much secondary material as you need to get through. I'm having a really hard time doing it.

In fact, I've been hiding from it. Instead of reading about movie censorship (my general topic), I watch movies obsessively. Way back in 2000, I started my movie review site because I was watching movies obsessively in an attempt to keep from thinking about my complete lack of direction. Here I am, three years later, with the same problem. When I think of sitting down with a book for some hard-core skimming, I panic. I find myself frantically looking for something, anything else to do. Like write an entry for my blog about my troubles.

I'll get it done though. I just need to find a focus. It will mean going to the library and slaving over a microfilm reader for hours on end, but I will find my topic. I have to—they already cashed my tuition check.

Valentine's Day

On Saturday, February 14, my girlfriend and I spent the afternoon together. We went shopping, where I watched her buy shoes and a backpack. We came back to my apartment, where she worked on her syllabus and I read. We went out to dinner at Alice & Friends', one of our favorite restaurants. We went to Evanston to see The Dreamers, a sort of romantic movie that was pretty ok. We went back to her apartment and went to bed.

This was no different than any other Saturday, except that she wasn't working. Neither of us really care about Valentine's Day. We both think it's crass and commercial (we discussed it last year). I have no problem with people who choose to celebrate it. I think it's cute when people get all swoony. For some people who might have really busy schedules, it's a special day to drop everything and be romantic.

What I hate is getting shit from people who do celebrate it. I have gotten a hard time from four people so far. They imply that there's something wrong with me or my relationship because I don't celebrate it. They argue that it's romantic. I don't think it's any more romantic than doing something spontaneous—less so, in my opinion. They say Christmas is just as crass and commercial. It certainly is, but if someone doesn't want to celebrate Christmas because it is crass and commercial, I won't give them shit about it. Same goes for birthdays. If you don't want to celebrate them, don't. If you love Valentine's Day for whatever reason, by all means go out and celebrate it. Please don't give me a hard time if I don't.

Godawful Depressing

On the Beach by Nevil Shute

This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

It's sometime in the 1960s in Australia. Civilization in the northern hemisphere has been wiped out by a nuclear war. The characters are going about their lives, waiting for the day when clouds of radioactive dust will come and kill everyone. This is the most godawful depressing book I've ever read.

It's not the saddest book; that would be A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. I think "sad" means terrible things happening to a few people. "Depressing," in this case, means a crushing weight of sadness, so much so that it is numbing. The characters plan for a future they all know won't come, because it's either that, madness, or suicide. In a way, they're all mad, since they willfully pretend that they'll see the flowers they planted open next spring, they'll see their children grow up, they'll sit in the sun together years from now. In the face of the extinction of humanity, they go on picnics, buy their first gas-powered lawn mowers, and debate whether to open the trout fishing season two weeks early, since the regular opening time falls after the clouds of death are supposed to arrive. My god, I need to read something empty-headed and fun now.

Dollar Bill Will Be the Death of Us

http://www.suntimes.com/output/mariotti/cst-spt-jay10.html

In this Chicago Sun-Times article, Jay Mariotti talks about the sad state of hockey in Chicago. The Blackhawks are one of the most pitiful teams in the NHL, which I knew. I did not know that they were one of the most pitiful teams in professional sports. ESPN The Magazine ranked the Hawks dead last out of 121 teams. They finished bottom three in six of eight categories: affordability, championships, ownership, stadium experience, fan relations, and players. Such consistency is an achievement of sorts. Dollar Bill Wirtz, the team's owner, won't broadcast local games on television, out of a mistaken belief that this will make people want to go to the game. And now he's gearing up to lead the owners in the upcoming labor dispute. It's like he settled on a strategy designed to drive fans away.

Despite this, I still go to games. I can get a ticket for $8, which is a lot better than the average price of $50 (I wonder how they figure that? Average seat sold, or average seat available?). I try to go when there are good teams in town, because the Hawks are capable of at least making an effort against good teams. I love an underdog, and according to everything I have read, the Hawks are the biggest underdogs of them all: even their owner is against them.