Swords and Sandals

My cultural cravings, much like my moods, change according to the seasons.  Every year, right around this time, I like to read a work of medieval history and watch sword and sandal epics.  Perhaps it's because years and years ago I was not all that interested in modern history, and obsessed with the ancient and medieval worlds.

In terms of medieval history I tend to read things that are contemporary and on the scholarly side.  In terms of sword and sandal epics, I go to the classics, since the recent entries in the genre (Alexander, 300, Hercules Reborn, Pompeii, etc.) are pretty lame.  Many of the older movies aren't really all that good, but their sheer pagaentry and majesty is something to behold.  They make an excellent escape during this trying time of year, when the sun doesn't shine and the cold winds blow.  There is something about massive sets and casts of thousands that deeply appeals to me.  However, when the ancient world is rendered via CGI and green screen, I feel like I'm just watching an elaborate cartoon.

Here's a list of some sword and sandal epics to pop in this time of year, all of which can be enjoyed on multiple levels.

Ben Hur

Charlton Heston's acting was never more muscular.  Others may not care for it, but it is one of my great guilty pleasures to see Heston sweat as he delivers his lines with such over the top physicality.  Although the message of the film is rather heavy handed, the action sequences, such as the naval battle and chariot race, are absolutely amazing.

Cleopatra

This was a famously troubled production, the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release.  It is an insane four hours long, and chock full of ridiculous historical inaccuracies.  In fact, on the eve of my final in one of my college Roman history classes, I sat down and watched it with two of my friends as a study session.  We spent the whole time comparing to the real events and pointing out the problems.  We all aced the test.  (My favorite part of this movie might be cranky-voiced Rex Harrison as a surly Caesar.)

Spartacus

This might be the least Stanley Kubrick film that Stanley Kubrick ever made.  Evidently he was brought in to replace the original director at the behest of Kirk Douglas.  The fundamental story of slaves rising up for their freedom is very powerful, as is the famous "I am Spartacus."  It also gets extra points for Laurence Olivier's racy "snails and oysters" come on, the presence of the underrated Woody Strode, and Tony Curtis' New Yawk accent in the ancient world.

The Robe

Just started rewatching this one, which I first saw eons ago as a kid.  Victor Mature can really rock a toga, and nobody can play a sneering Roman better than Richard Burton.  Like Spartacus, it also stars Jean Simmons, a great actress from this period who seems to have been too much forgotten.

Life of Brian

I know you'll say this doesn't count, but I include it since it is such a great parody of the whole sword and sandal genre, among other things.  The beginning, when the three wise men show up at the wrong manger, does a good job of throwing cold water on the reverent airs of old school biblical epics.

Torture Report Time Machine

Based on what happened at Abu Ghraib, as well as the definitions of "extraordinary rendition" used by the Bush administration, I expected this week's torture report to be harrowing.  It ended up being even worse than I imagined, a catalog of crimes that ought to bring lasting shame on this country.  There has been outrage, but I wonder of its limits.  President Obama has been mum, and Secretary of State Kerry had tried to prevent its release.  Most Congressional Republicans opposed its release full stop, and Fox News has claimed its release was meant to distract from Obamacare.

 

Why haven't tales of people tortured due to mistaken identity moved the nation's conscience?  Why is there only limited disgust at rectal feeding and sleep deprivation techniques of the kind used by Stalin's secret police?  Why is there no outcry to have the criminals responsible for these enormities clapped in irons and made to bow to justice?  You could argue that torture, like practically everything else, has been turned into a partisan issue.  Perhaps, but that does not explain why the outrage is only limited to the left of center, and the large, soft American middle appears to be almost completely unmoved.  No, there is so little outrage because this is what most Americans secretly wanted to happen.

Let's take a trip back in time, shall we?  We live in a world where everything is forgotten, where all goes down the memory hole almost as soon as it is brought into existence.  I have made it one of my personal missions to remind people of the reality of American life in the period of hysteria that lasted roughly between 9/11 and the summer of 2005.  The 9/11 attacks provoked a kind of fearsome bloodlust in the American public, only abetted by the Bush/Cheney regime's desire to funnel that hate towards military action.  Muslim Americans were physically assaulted, and their mosques attacked.  Sikh men were murdered for the crime of wearing a turban.  In 2003, most Americans believed that Saddam Hussein had a hand in the 9/11 attacks.  They didn't just believe it because of propaganda, they believed it because they wanted revenge, and any group of Arab Muslims would do for that purpose.

If the vast majority of Americans were willing to smite Iraq with the hard hand of war, inevitably leading the the deaths of thousands of innocents, they hardly had any qualms about shoving food up the rectums of suspected terrorists.  They were the bad guys, after all, right?  Didn't torture work when Jack Bauer used it on 24?  You don't really want to risk letting the bad guys strike again, do you?  And so the CIA, at the behest of the highest authorities in the land, tortured and tortured and tortured.  There was a momentary shock after the revelations of Abu Ghraib, but voters returned Bush and Cheney to the White House nonetheless.  

It would be easy to limit the responsibility for the crime to Cheney/Bush, their henchmen, and the everyday jingoists who bayed for Muslim blood in the aftermath of 9/11.  However, they were enabled by a scared public willing to turn the other way while unspeakable cruelties were committed in their name.  While whistleblowers like Edward Snowden fear prosecution, those responsible for systematic torture walk free, not prosecuted by president Barack Obama.  And last of all, progressives like myself have been much too tolerant of the president's unwillingness to prosecute CIA men who probably earned promotions from their heinous acts.

I repeat: the revelations of the torture report should bring lasting shame on this country.  Perhaps more shamefully, our people have been shameless in ignoring it.  If there is any righteousness in this universe we will face a terrible reckoning.

Giuliani, De Blasio, And Why Elections Matter

For someone who blogs, I took my sweet time joining Twitter.  Once I realized that some things I wrote were being discussed there, I decided to jump in, and have stayed in because it is usually the best way for me to keep up on the public discourses left out of the mainstream media.  It's also been good for connecting with what's going on in the world of the activist Left, something I had lost track with after leaving academia.

This has also been a little frustrating because of some of the tropes people I actually like have been engaging in recently.  I would often see protest movements denounced as ineffective, and elections as meaningless.  While I understand the limits of what peaceful protest can do (as someone who protested the coming war in Iraq in 2003), I also know what they can truly accomplish (as someone who engaged in protests and walkouts that led to a teaching assistant union.)  The attacks on protests seemed to be a kind of knee-jerk anti-liberalism just as annoying as that emanating from conservative circles.  Since the major protests have started in the wake of the Garner and Brown travesties, I have not been hearing much about their usefulness from those Lefty quarters, and with good reason.

The same goes for Left critiques of electoral politics.  Don't get me wrong, I barely have any love for the Democrats, and I think the two parties have a lot in common when it comes to complicity in maintaing inequality.  However, I have never been so invested in Leftist ideology to claim that elections somehow don't matter.  If you need proof that elections really do matter, and that there are real, fundamental differences between Republicans and Democrats, take the case of the mayor of New York.  Bill de Blasio has fought to end the stop and frisk practice and in the wake of the Garner ruling has been openly sympathetic with protestors.  One gets the sense that he will fight to bring some real change out of this.

 Compare this to the recent, noxious pronunciations of Rudy Giuliani, who has essentially blamed the death of Garner and other black men at the hands of the police on the canards of black "dysfunction" and "black on black crime."  Lest we forget, Guiliani was twice elected mayor of New York City.  It is easy to imagine the reaction to the Garner case and ensuing protests if he were mayor today.  The NYPD would be out in full military regalia, batons cracking, tear gas launching, and pepper spray blasting in the faces of protestors.  Imagine too if someone like Ed Koch, who played a role in vilifying the innocent Central Park Five and exploiting white racial fears, were mayor again.  Based on Mayor Bloomberg's constant defense of stop and frisk and police aggression, we certainly know how he would respond to the situation.  Just ask the Occupy protestors.

The fact that de Blasio is mayor today, and that these men aren't, is truly important and significant.  It's a sign that progressives need to put resources into the local and and municipal level, where a small amount of resources can go a long way, and can certainly help reign in our out of control police departments.  Elections matter, elections have consequences, and elections have to bring change, it's just that the right people have to be elected.  If more women and men of de Blasio's stripe get voted into public office, I see a lot of good that can happen, and a lot that will be ignored or shut down if they don't.

Track of the Week: Small Faces "Itchycoo Park"

This week brought the sad news of the deaths of Bobby Keys and Ian McLagan two of my favorite rock musicians.  (Next week's track of the week will be from Keys.)  McLagan is often thought of as a Rolling Stones session musician, but true rock scholars know him for his work in the Small Faces and the Faces, two of my favorite bands of all time.  A lot of groups in the psychedelic era incorporated the organ, but few had someone with McLagan's creative touch.

There are many of songs where I could point to his genius, but I'll highlight "Itchycoo Park" because his organ is the driving force of the song.  It's a typically psychedelic tune about consuming drugs on a sunny day and going down to the park to enjoy the beauties of nature with a little chemical enhancement.  The jaunty tone is well established by McLagan's colorful organ from the first bars of the song.  There are no pyrotechnics here or virtuosic touches, and that very restraint helps sustain the desired tone of the song.  The Small Faces and Faces were great bands because they were actually bands, with each member contributing a great deal without overshadowing the others.  By all accounts of people I know who knew McLagan, he was a good guy who will very much be missed.  RIP

Good Artists Making Terrible Christmas Music

This time of year brings with it the unbearable onset of awful holiday music blaring just about everywhere.  While there might be different performers and versions of songs, it's always the same twenty or so songs I keep hearing, over and over and over again.  Three years ago I made a list of Christmas music I actually like, and through the magic of Spotify have managed to find great country, R&B, and jazz takes on the form that can wash the taste of the crap out of my mouth.  Of course, that's not what they're playing when I stop into the Walgreen's for diapers. What amazes me is that there are often great musical artists who become the worst hacks when it comes to Christmas music.  Here's a randomly organized list of the worst offenders.

Beach Boys, "Little Saint Nick"
This may very well be the worst offender on the list.  Unlike other Beach Boys music it sounds completely joyless, as if someone had them in the studio at gun point.  The lyrics are beneath stupid, I think I lose brain cells every time I hear it.  On top of it all, Mike Love's adenoidal yelp never sounded more grating.

Bruce Springsteen, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town"
I really think the Boss is capable is giving us a great Christmas song, and not of the traditional variety.  I would love to hear an acoustic weeper on the lines of the Nebraska album about a laid off worker trying to not to let on to his children how he is selling plasma to buy them presents.  Instead we get this lame take on an annoying Christmas chestnut, one that my friend (and Springsteen superfan) Debbie has called "Saint Bruce's one sin."

Paul McCartney, "Wonderful Christmastime"
Good Lord is this an annoying song.  The synthesizers are so bloody awful that they are almost (and I mean almost) transcendent in their wretchedness.  What really makes it rotten is that Macca knows how to write a catchy hook, so this song will get in my head for hours.  I honestly wonder if it was originally written to be used by the CIA in its torture chambers but rejected for humanitarian reasons.

Band Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas"
"Do They Know It's Christmas" has got to be the most patronizing, ignorant Christmas tune ever written.  Do they know it's Christmas in Ethiopia?  Well considering that Christians were there well before they were ever in England, yes.  A lot of artists I like had a hand in this mess.

Chuck Berry, "Run Run Rudolph"
Berry is really phoning it in on this one.  He goes through the motion without even a hint of passion, which makes me think this song wasn't his idea.  I would hope not.

Classic Music Video: Van Halen "Panama"

My heart is heavy today and I can't think of anything original to say about the manifest injustice in the Eric Garner case.  I'd prefer to distract myself with a perennial topic on this blog that gives me amusement: 1980s music videos.

This week The Onion put out a hilarious article entitled "CIA Admits Role in 1985 Coup to Overthrow David Lee Roth."  It works both as a parody of the CIA's chicanery and half-hearted attempts to explain it away, as well as a funny commentary on the sorry nature of Van Halen's music after Roth left.  After reading it I popped on "Panama" on my iPhone, and suddenly images from the video started jumping through my mind's eye.  Obviously it had made an impact on me.

In a lot of ways, the song and video are Van Halen's apotheosis.  It came after "Jump," their big #1 smash, but did not contain that song's synthesizered bows to the Top 40.  In "Jump" Diamond Dave showed a little vulnerability, "standing next to the record machine" not sure if he could get the girl.  On the other hand, "Panama" is just flat out rock action, with some absolutely kickin' Eddie Van Halen guitar driving the whole thing along.  If I had to choose just one song to define DLR-era Van Halen, this would be it.

The video is just one big goofy-faced victory lap.  It starts with a biplane soaring in the sky, then suddenly we see Roth flying across the stage on wires, making swimming motions with a boom box on his shoulders, like some kind of 1980s archangel.  The band jumps off of stage risers, mugs for the camera, and does high kicks in slow motion.  There are some surreal shots interspersed, like Eddie blowing smoke rings in a white tux and Alex lip syncing beneath a leg clothed with some seriously ornate 80s black nylons.  The most memorable, and most inexplicable, is Diamond Dave sliding down a pole wearing some kind of rhinestone-encrusted stripper overcoat, then proceeding to shake his butt and show off his prodigious chest hair.  Later on he waves around one of those long ribbons used by rhythmic gymnasts, something that confused my childhood notions of masculinity.  So as not to confuse the band's fans too much, there's soon a shot of Alex chugging a beer while flying on wires across the stage.  The message of the whole thing seems to be "Damn, it's fun to be in Van Halen."

The video's silly and stupid but at least Roth never took himself too seriously, the bane of so many 80s rock stars.  Under Sammy Hagar Van Halen things got so out of hand that they put out the world's most self-serious video of all time, for "Right Now" in the early 90s.  Forget that sentimental crap, give me a fey Diamond Dave doing his transcendant clown schtick behind a monstrous riff any day of the week instead.

Nixonland

I'm borrowing the title of this post from Rick Perlstein's stellar political history of America from 1965 to 1972.  He began his book about Nixon's rise to power with the 1965 unrest in Watts, and how the reaction to it helped get the likes of Ronald Reagan elected governor of California.  Perlstein deftly pointed out how Nixon used the social divisions of the 1960s, and especially white fears about newly emboldened blacks, to gain and consolidate power.  That original insight of Nixon's has been used by conservatives ever since, from Reagan's talk of "welfare queens" to the War on Drugs to George HW Bush's Willie Horton ad to Fox News' obsession with the New Black Panther Party.

Nixon's calls for "law and order" in the wake of sixties protest set the stage for a now forty-five year escalation of police force and power.  (His associating his opponents with disorder and chaos was most flagrantly expressed in his 1968 campaign's "Convention" ad.)  This escalation has led to America incarcerating its people at a higher level than any other nation in the world and police forces that have been placed above the law.  If you ask me, this is part and parcel of the neoliberal project.  Supply-side economics inevitably means misery for the poor and working class, and to prevent unrest in those quarters, its members have been thrown in jail.  Prisons are then privatized, leading to yet another boon for the wealthy.

The protests related to Ferguson are crucially important for a lot of reasons.  Ultimately, I feel that they are a true challenge to the aforementioned forty-five year counterrevolution, one whose violence has fallen hardest on African Americans.  In response to the protests, the Silent Majority has reared its ugly head yet again.  Since the Clinton era, Democrats have been trying to out-police the Republicans, hoping never again to be accused of being soft on crime.   The broad white middle class population has thus accepted the logic of the counterrevolution, regardless of political party.  Now that the four decade counterrevolution is being challenged, and policing seriously questioned on a national level, they are lashing out.  Just take a look at the anger provoked by the St. Louis Rams when they dared to quietly and peacefully acknowledge the Ferguson protests when they took the field this Sunday.

We are truly at a crossroads.  This country could finally break the spell of that old sorcerer Richard Nixon and repudiate our draconian, unjust, cruel, and racist justice system.  Or it could double down and stay on the same course.  We're still living in Nixonland, but I can only hope not for much longer, even though it looks like the Silent Majority is still alive and kicking.