Saturday, October 4, 2003

Recommended Buying

I don't usually recommend books I haven't read yet unless they're (a) by one of my favorite writers or (b) by one of my closest friends. Alan Brennert's new novel, Moloka'i, qualifies on both counts. Alan is a superb author of books, screenplays and plays and a helluva good guy, so I can't imagine not enjoying this effort, which I will read as soon as I get the chance to do so. Publishers Weekly describes it as, and I quote: "Compellingly original...poignant...Brennert's compassion makes Rachel a memorable character, and his smooth storytelling vividly brings 20th century Hawaii to life...a touching, lovely account of a woman's journey as she rises above the limitations of a devastating illness."

If that sounds good, you can order a copy from Amazon by clicking here or, if you're on the West Coast (extending as far west as Oahu), rush to one of Alan's bookstore signings. The whole list of them is available here. Or just go to any book shop and tell them you want the one that looks like Don Ho's undershorts.

• Posted at 8:41 PM · LINK

Animal Act Activism

I'm on a number of mailing lists for Las Vegas news and others for magicians. In the last hour, I received a Vegas News bulletin that said it "doesn't look good" for Roy Horn, who was mauled by a tiger last night, and a Magic News bulletin that says he'll pull through. Naturally, we hope the latter is the case.

But I have a feeling that either way, this incident is going to have impact, above and beyond the question of whether half of "Siegfried and Roy" survives. For some time now, there's been a growing movement against performing animals. The fact that they don't have any is a major selling point for the Cirque du Soleil shows, and activists have not been unsuccessful in arguing that such acts are cruel to the animals and dangerous to humans. Now, they have a powerful debate point to emphasize the latter: Roy was as qualified as anyone alive in the handling of "big cats," more qualified than many. If he couldn't control that tiger, then the danger is probably greater than previously imagined...and not just to the trainer but to the audience, as well. Groups like P.E.T.A. have gone after circuses, especially the Ringling Brothers-Barnum & Bailey operation, which is also involved in the Siegfried and Roy show in Vegas. It will be interesting to see how the animal rights groups use this new, tragic development. It will also be interesting to see how the circuses deflect (and probably try to head off) criticism.

For myself: I am utterly conflicted on the subject. I love animals, as evidenced by the vast legions of them I feed in My Backyard. But I eat meat and direct my charitable donations towards groups that help human beings, not wildlife. I've stopped buying leather (but still have it all over my home and car) because I decided synthetic fabrics were just as good for my purposes. I once did a TV series that booked a lot of animal acts and my observation was that the animals were generally treated pretty well.

So I honestly don't know what to think. I can see both sides of the issue. And I have a feeling we're all about to hear a lot more from both sides.

• Posted at 5:52 PM · LINK

Images

Something bothers me about this whole "Arnold the Groper" story and it's something that I guess bothers me about politicking in general these days. In most elections, we hear a lot about the "character" issue, meaning what kind of man is this person seeking the job? Is he honest, courageous, etc.? A lot of the vitriol against Clintons and Bushes has to do not with what they've done so much as what kind of human beings they supposedly are.

I would agree that a person's strength of character is important but I also don't think any of us have enough information to truly judge the character of most famous people. This is especially true of public figures who employ whole crews of public relations experts. One of the things that always bugged me about Clinton-bashing was when people who'd had little or no direct contact with Bill or Hillary would take a few third and fourth-hand nuggets of gossip and then purport to explain and analyze the intimate details of their marriage. They always reminded me of a line from one of my college professors who often said to a student who offered some theory, "You don't have sufficient information to formulate a worthwhile opinion."

During elections, we sometimes hear talk of a candidate "defining" his opponent. They said George Bush (the first one) did a good job of "defining" Michael Dukakis. What this concept suggests to me is that one candidate is able to formulate an unappealing caricature of his opponent and to get the public to accept it as accurate. Last presidential election, the Bush side was able to convince a lot of people that Al Gore's plans for Social Security and Defense were irrelevant; the problem was the man himself. He said goofy, untrustworthy things about inventing the Internet and having inspired the book, Love Story, and you don't want to vote for a guy like that. The Gore forces meanwhile tried to sell America on the notion that George W. was a drunken fratboy. Neither side was completely unsuccessful but they should have been. Those portraits were drastic oversimplifications of complex human beings, and they were formulated by taking a couple of anecdotes of questionable accuracy and then spinning them for additional impact.

I've worked with some pretty famous people and it always amazes me, first of all, to see people who know them less well than I do (or not at all) feel qualified to "judge" them in a manner I would never have attempted. It's not so much that the outsider's view is right or wrong but that it's based on almost nothing. Paul McCartney has spoken of his "pizza friends." These are people, he says, who once delivered a pizza to the Beatles, were in their presence for under sixty seconds, then went out and gave long interviews about what he, John, George and Ringo were really like, based on the observations of that minute. When I hear pundits speak about what kind of man Bill Clinton is...or Bush or Arnold or any of them...I often feel like I'm hearing from "pizza friends." We buy these accounts, especially if they conform to pre-existing prejudices, because we don't like to admit that we really don't know. And also, they're handy to bash or boost the people we want to bash or boost.

Did Arnold grope those women? Probably. Is he therefore the slimy, arrogant pig that some are making him out to be? I dunno. There may be a lot more to him (and those incidents) than we know or than we're ever going to know. As I mentioned earlier, to the extent I'd be concerned about someone who did that, it wouldn't be because of his attitude towards women, per se, but because of his attitude toward general decency when no force can make him behave. Ultimately though, I don't think it would be fair to presume that's true of Schwarzenegger and to not vote for him because of that. Instead, I'm not voting for him because I have no reason to think he's any more qualified than any randomly-selected person off the street, and also because it bugs me a little that someone would try to treat the governorship as an entry-level position into politics.

I think that's a valid reason. It's at least a reason based on something I know for certain. I don't buy the claims of his supporters that he has true leadership capabilities and the ability to get things done. Those claims are the public relations constructs. They come from the same kinds of p.r. campaigns that told us O.J. Simpson was a great role model, John Wayne was a war hero, Rock Hudson was a ladies' man, etc. Sometimes, the public image is true, at least to some extent but often, it isn't or it's woefully incomplete. I think in the long run, we all might be better off to assume we don't know for sure and to pick our officials based wholly on what they've actually, inarguably done and what they say they want to do. And if they haven't done anything or won't say what they want to do, don't pick them at all. Which is the main reason I'm not voting for Schwarzenegger.

• Posted at 1:53 PM · LINK

William Steig, R.I.P.

William Steig was a prolific author of children's books and he drew wonderful cartoons for magazines, most notably The New Yorker, for 70+ years. But the obits (like this one) will probably all focus on the fact that he wrote and drew the book, Shrek, which was freely adapted into the hit movie of the same name. If you'd like to know more about the other work he did, you might want to visit his website.

• Posted at 1:49 AM · LINK

Joyous Pogo Day!

Fifty-five years ago today, the world of comic strips changed for the better. The event was the quiet debut of a new one in the pages of The New York Star, a short-lived Manhattan newspaper. The strip was about a mild-mannered little possum with a striped shirt and a penchant for saying clever, incisive things. The possum and the strip were both named Pogo, the creation of one Walt Kelly, a former artist for Disney Studios who had turned to drawing Dell comic books. Some of those comics had featured a kid named Bumbazine who was squeezed out of his own strip by the boisterous Albert the Alligator. Poetically, Albert got a taste of his own medicine: The possum, a supporting player, assumed the star role and Albert was demoted to comedy relief.

The comic books were wonderful but Kelly was destined for a wider, older audience. While also working as the Star's Art Director and Political Cartoonist, he took the opportunity to star his swamp critters in a daily strip. It was a historic moment for the funny pages but the world took little notice: No one was buying the Star, and four months later, it was both forgotten and gone. Pogo, however, would not be either. Kelly hooked up with what was then called the Hall Syndicate and soon, his creation was available coast-to-coast. Acceptance came slowly and even some people who got it never really got it. But by the end of the fifties, the Okefenokee denizens were appearing in nearly 600 newspapers and a few dozen best-selling paperbacks, forever ensconced as one of the all-time great comics. People who loved Pogo really love Pogo...and still love Pogo. And will always love Pogo. Happy birthday.

• Posted at 12:45 AM · LINK

Shows You're Glad You Didn't See

A few days ago, I wrote about a show in Vegas that made the audience extremely uncomfortable. What could be worse than that one? I dunno...how about watching Roy (of Siegfried and Roy) getting ripped to shreds by a tiger?

What an awful experience that must have been for the audience. I mean, it goes without saying it was horrible for Roy, and we can all hope it isn't as bad as the early news reports make it out to be. It was also obviously a shock to everyone backstage. But I find myself thinking about the poor people who paid $110.50 for what had to be a traumatic, ghastly experience. News stories say the paramedics were called at 8:20. The show starts at 7:30 so the accident must have occurred about halfway into the proceedings. The show is full of wild animals coming darn close to the audience and several "fakes," meaning places where they make it look like something's gone wrong when it hasn't. When I saw it many years ago, there was one point where a befuddled lady was brought out of the audience and walked dangerously close to several lions and tigers. She was a plant, meaning she was an actress on the show's payroll, but I don't think everyone realized that. Whatever, the audience last night (probably 30-50% children) had to have gone through great emotional whiplash, first thinking that Roy was being mauled by the tiger, then realizing it had to be a trick...then really realizing it wasn't. And at some point, a lot of those people had to have thought, "My God...if they couldn't prevent that tiger from attacking one of the stars, maybe they couldn't prevent it from attacking someone in the first row." A lot of Vegas vacationers are probably not sleeping well at the moment.

• Posted at 12:28 AM · LINK