Gay is the Old Black

Emmy bait.

One wonders if Michael Douglas would play the part of the homophobic father of Jonathan Allen, the 20 year-old from Tennessee who, after being thrown out of the house by his parents two years ago for being gay, wowed the judges on America’s Got Talent this past week. Or, better yet, if Steven Soderbergh would even choose to direct a movie about it. Or if Jerry Weintraub would ever decide to produce it. The way all three did with the continuously lauded and now award-winning HBO film about Liberace’s later years and prurient love life, Behind the Candelabra.

My guess: probably not. Most movie stars of Mr. Douglas’ generation dislike playing roles they deem too unsympathetic. And don’t use the example of Gordon Gekko in Wall Street. That film was made in and about the 1980s – a time when the general population actually agreed that “greed was good” and that ole Gordy was not so much a villain but a slightly tainted ideal many aspired to.

Of course, the majority of critics, audiences, and the cast and crew have not deemed the cable TV portrait of uber-gay Liberace unsympathetic either. That would require that the real-life tale of the entertainer and his former lover Scott Thorson had been truly told. The one about a 16-year old boy who was lured into the Las Vegas home of a fifty something mega-millionaire star with promises of wealth and family. The one where the star repeatedly had sex with the boy for several years before he turned 18 (as well as any number of years after) with full knowledge said star was breaking the law. The same one where, when the older man got bored with the boy and the boy started taking too many drugs, as many young boys do, found a replacement and tossed him onto the street as he had so many others before him that were of age, with a little bit of money and a couple of fur coats – all the while publicly denying to his dying day that they ever had that kind of relationship or that said entertainer was even gay.

Eyeroll

I’ve resisted writing anything but a few paragraphs about Behind the Candelabra up to this point because it seemed like the kind of film that would get some recognition for the circus stunt of Michael Douglas in sequins and a blonde-tressed Matt Damon screwing him from behind, and then disappear.

Such is not the case. The cable film just won best drama and best actor from the Broadcast Critics Association. It played to large and enthusiastic crowds at the Cannes Film Festival. And mostly straight audiences (and some gay) seem to have embraced it as bold and groundbreaking. Even those few writers who have dared to write critical pieces about the movie are often skewered, lacerated and told to get over themselves in the comments sections (even in respected places like Salon). Also, Behind the Candelabra is likely to get nominated and win a slew of Emmy Awards, and go down in the books as “the courageous film all of the studios passed on with that director and that cast (can you believe it!) because they were too afraid of the gay subject matter.” The latter is the meme that Mr. Soderbergh and Mr. Weintraub have been tirelessly and successfully peddling during the last six months.

Which is why, at this point, I’m weighing in.

Frankly – this film disgusts me. Not as much as the lies about the war in Iraq, gay bullying or the right wing trying to take away a woman’s rights to choose. That’s a different level of disgust – maybe more like infuriation. But disgust – yeah, that about covers this.

I’ve thought a lot about other words to use to describe my feelings – queasy, nauseated, annoyed or even…jealous? But finally, after much consternation, I decided that the perfect world is, indeed….

dis·gust A feeling of revulsion or profound disapproval aroused by something unpleasant or offensive.

It is worth noting it’s not the people attached to this film that signal disgust to me – I respect them all (professionally that is, I don’t know them personally). It’s the film itself and everything it tells us about where the industry is today vis-à-vis movies about gay people – or about most minorities – that makes me want to run to the toilet and be sick.

Someone tell that to the Emmys!

This is also not to say that the life of Liberace might not make an interesting movie. That story – the one about how a young Midwestern piano prodigy invented (and for years carried off) the flamboyantly effeminate (some would say homosexual) persona of a character named Liberace and became the world’s greatest entertainer while still managing to convince his mostly gay intolerant world of fans he was anything but homosexual, would indeed be fascinating and almost certainly would not have caused me to write any of this. And, even if it wasn’t particularly good, I doubt it would actually have made me feel disgusted.

Of course, we will never know for sure since that tale was far from the one HBO and this prestigious group of A-list film professionals chose to tell in 2013 – a time when gay marriage is not only favored by the majority of people in the US (and an overwhelming majority under 25) but where its difficult to read any daily print or online news source where a major story about something homosexual is not featured on the front page. I mean, even me – a middle aged guy who was “born that way”- sometimes gets gay fatigue.

Still, true change in the movies, and the world, is not solely about the amount of ink you get or the measure of RAM you occupy on someone’s computer or website. True change not only moves at a glacial pace but is often a one step forward, two steps back deal. And this is where Behind the Candelabra comes in. And me. And my disgust. The kind that I’m feeling right now as I compose this.

Writers are told all the time that their movies need a reason to be made. So are producers, directors, actors and studio executives. But since writers are, by definition, the inventors of the first tangible version of a project, perhaps it is best to start with us. As a writer one asks oneself: What is the reason for this story? Why make it? What compels it to be told? What would interest an audience? Why will anyone care? Why do I care?

I feel you Neil.

I teach my writing students to ask these questions early on because I don’t want them to waste their time working on anything they are not fully invested in. Even if it is the silliest, most exploitative story in the world, the author must find a way to imbue some kind of personal feelings of – well, something – into it. Because if it doesn’t mean much to us, how can we expect it to mean anything to you?

I’ve watched Behind the Candelabra twice and have been looking for meaning, or even relevance, to today’s audiences. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

The story of a May-December relationship told from a gay perspective could be fair diversion, one supposes. But that would seem only fair (and not exploitative) if we had a bunch of films about other, less prurient (and more successful) same sex relationships to compare it to – which we don’t.
The emotional journey of a relationship can sometimes be enough to override a lack of story. In essence, the ride you get having a front row seat to the ups and downs of human interaction between two people over a period of time can substitute for a paucity of plot points. There are some emotions here – for instance, shock and sadness that an older person could actually convince a younger person to have extensive plastic surgery to remake their face to that of their “mentor.” But certainly not ever sadness or shock that this relationship will end badly – or interest in how it does – which knocks out most of the tension throughout the film and causes the last hour (and more) to be deadly dull.
A sharp contrast to this knee-nudge heard ’round the world.
Maybe it’s the spectacle?? Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere. The sequins, the clothes, the excess of a hidden lifestyle and time period in show business that no longer exists is lots of fun. And those gays – who better than them to do this up in style! (Though note: there is not a single gay person in the principal above-the-line talent or crew).
Another attraction could be the over-the-top characters themselves, who are at the very least entertaining in a very broad, stereotypical manner compared to what else was going on in the world at that time. The homosexuals have always done this well since time began and it makes audiences quite comfortable to view them this way, thank you very much. And certainly, why make any movie that is not at least fun!!??
Juicy parts for actors who can be cast against type. The old Hollywood joke: Every time a straight man puts on a dress they give him an Oscar? Well, not anymore. (Note: Even James Franco’s Marilyn Monroe drag as Oscar host fell flat a few years ago). So, you have to find new ways for them to do it. How about a happy recipient of anal sex who dies tragically that can’t be X-rated? It’s Oscar/Emmy bait for Michael Douglas. (He even gets to have AIDS, but we can downplay that ‘cause the real life Liberace did!). Plus, what about an enjoyment of Speedos, suntans and Las Vegas? It’s the flip side of Ocean’s 11 for Matt Damon and he’ll jump at that! What actor wouldn’t want to play younger than they are, get fat and then skinny and then fat and skinny again as they age, become addicted to drugs and then recover? No one, that’s who.

Yeah, I’m exhausted too.

But please, please, please, please – do not tell me this movie is groundbreaking or even something different. And if you’re a high-powered A-lister, don’t keep spreading your tales of woe about how the heads of movie studios are ruining the business by not taking chances on this kind of film. They might be ruining the business by not taking chances but NOT taking a chance on this film was exactly the right choice. It has no relevance to 2013. It had relevance in 1983, and in 1993 – at the height of the AIDS epidemic – when it might have meant something other than an easy way to make some money, get some attention and garner a few awards for “courage.”

The people who made it should know better. And might benefit from watching Jonathan Allen tell another all too familiar, yet far more commercially relevant and compelling story for today. This story was indeed shown last week not on the big screen or on cable television but on, of all things, network reality TV – America’s Got Talent, to be exact.

It is indeed the golden age of television. In some circles, at least.

06.09.13

by notesfromachair

The Great Chair-dini

In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court famously overturned a lower court decision in Ohio that deemed the 1958 Louis Malle film Les Amants (The Lovers) pornographic and therefore unfit to be shown in a Cleveland movie house. The theatre manager at the time had been fined $2500 (which I’m hoping was returned because with minimal investment it would probably mean at least $250,000 to his heirs today) for enabling the very lucky patrons of the Heights Arts Theatre to see this movie which, incidentally, starred Jeanne Moreau and had already received a special jury prize from the Venice Film Festival, among other accolades.

Then: pornography, Now: Tame enough for ABC Family

However, what makes that tidbit of entertainment history noteworthy isn’t the fact that one group of American judges half a century ago found a French film to be too dirty for public consumption while another group thought it to be – well –entertaining – but the words used by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart to explain why Les Amants wasn’t hard-core pornography.

I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description,” wrote Justice Stewart. “…But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

We’ve come a long, or perhaps even short way in 50 years, but the fact remains: Creative work has always been impossible to rate and categorize on any objective scale because by its very nature it is subjective and therefore defies grade-ability I find this particularly infuriating as a teacher in the arts since I am often required to measure the success of a particular piece of work – a fact that is really an opinion, which means that it is essentially unknowable as a fact.

Plus — what is success anyway? Selling it for a lot of money? Great reviews from the outside world? Jealousy from your peers masquerading as audible gasps of awe? Or perhaps just simply an “A” from me?

Definitely how an “A” feels

It depends on how hard-core your tastes, you, and your rating system is.

But after decades as a critic, writer and teacher -and once I get past the required basic skills of whatever art I’m rating, judging and debating – all of the very best work I experience share one thing — magic.

Ahhh, moan and groan all you want and call me Ishmael. You all know what I mean. Maybe you call it something else but it’s that feeling you get when…(ahhhh, where are you Stefon?)…. Okay, I know it when I see it.

For those who don’t – definition, please:

Magic – 1. The use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces.

a. the ART of producing illusions as entertainment by the use of sleight of hand, deceptive devices, etc.

When people criticize some piece of entertainment that they see or read as being phony I always laugh to myself (and sometimes even out loud or to their faces) because:

Of course, it’s phony! That’s what makes it art – and entertainment. It’s made up! The trick is – to make it not SEEM phony.

I think worrying about being phony is out the window...

I think “phony” is out the window…

The entertainment industry has often been accused of being chock full of charlatans. This is another amusing observation since who else would specialize in the art of phoniness that doesn’t seem false and the practice of making things up that more often than not appear to be real, if not con men or women? I do wish I had known this in my twenties and thirties since it would have made my early years in the business a helluva lot easier. But nevertheless I finally do get it now and I am passing it on to those of you who don’t know or haven’t admitted it yet and want to save decades of therapy bills.

Or, to put it another way:

You need to be a master magician in order to be a great artist or great entertainer. A purveyor of the phony executed in the sincerest way possible.

You will finish your script.. You will finish your script

How do you recognize magic and the master magicians responsible for it? The answer is easy – you know it when you. …(yes, I’m going there again)………….see it.

Some phoniness is skill and some of it is simply inherent talent so it’s easy to get confused. For example, I just returned from New York where I saw Nathan Lane and Bette Midler each prove how a handful of artists are simply born that way and why it’s foolish for the rest of us to try and catch up or even figure them out.

It’s not that there is not a great deal of skill in Mr. Lane’s evocation of a closeted gay actor in 1930’s NY vaudeville in The Nance or Ms. Midler’s portrayal of Hollywood superagent Sue Mengers in the one-woman show I’ll Eat You Last. Certainly, each understands the craft of stage acting and the ins and outs of what you have to do as a performer to interpret a text and create/evoke a character. But you simply can’t teach, learn or acquire what either of them does live eight shows a week, month after month. That kind of talent – the ability to turn from comedy to drama and back again on a dime while eliciting audience tears, guffaws and something even more of a rarity these days – intense silence – simply by playing pretend right before our eyes is simply – a gift. I’m the biggest showbiz groupie there is and have been watching each of them do this onstage in countless shows over the last 30 years and I can tell you only this – try as you might you will NEVER figure either of them out. Nor, do you want to.

A whole lotta talent for one picture

For the rest of us mere mortals, there is still hope because even the duo of Midler & Lane have stumbled in mediums other than the live stage (Isn’t She Great, anyone?)

So, simplistic though it may be, think of this as a starter kit that will set you on the road to being your own creative magician. Because anyone who has been in the game and achieved some measure of success in more than just a few minutes can tell you that absent any kind of real talent at all, there are still several basics tricks of the trade that can move you up a notch or two on the playing board. (And believe me, it is a game).

1. Deliver or exceed on the premise:

Now You See Me is a film now out in theatres that is all about magic – literally. The premise: A group of magicians perform a major series of heists masquerading as magic tricks against corporate America while eluding elite law enforcement officials. The requirement: Really, really cool slreight of hand/mind you can’t figure out, snappy dialogue, adrenalin-filled twists and turns, and one or two major plot surprises. So who cares that the third act is not as great as the first one and a half or that 75% of the major critics in the country panned it? Certainly not me and the rest of the audience, that’s who. $50 million plus in 12 days and 75% positive crowd reviews on Rotten Tomatoes tells us the filmmakers knew exactly the kind of movie they were making and gave it to us — in spades. And to push the metaphor even more uncomfortably, that’s not a card trick, just good playing

2. Don’t bore me:

Don’t bore Nina!

Nikki Finke was just another smart, prickly journalist covering the entertainment industry who more than seven years ago decided to start her own website, www.deadline.com by combining great reporting skills with an over-the-top, take no prisoners style that suffocated traditional journalism (and occasionally its standards of objectivity). But she was never, ever, ever – not even once – boring. Today, Ms. Finke has pretty much single-handedly redefined daily coverage of show business, made millions selling her site to a larger conglomerate (Penske Media) and in the process might have poison penned herself out of the pinnacle position at the top of the very mountain she built.

From vulture.com. All hail Queen Nikki??

Still, as Ms. Finke herself very well might respond – So what?!!! Or – If you weren’t such a lousy reporter you’d know the real story. Or – I don’t have the time to waste on the many moments of stupidity you managed to create in your just one paragraph of text.

Though she sometimes crosses the line into petty personal vendetta, Nikki’s reportage almost consistently scoops her competitors and is seldom wrong. There’s an innate creativity to what she does that, as a former entertainment reporter, I can testify is extremely difficult to achieve in the field. She’s mean, she’s an original and she doesn’t make you yawn – which seems to be the right combination for success these days whether you want to admit it or not. Her philosophy is probably best summed up by the instructions she gives readers who choose to post in her ever-popular comments section:

…Don’t go off topic, don’t impersonate anyone, don’t get your facts wrong, and don’t bore me.

3. Be original:

Icon

It’s hard to imagine that Susan Sontag, social critic, thinker and novelist who has often been hailed as one of the great intellectuals this country has ever produced, grew up in the 1940s in the San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles (Sherman Oaks, to be exact) writing, while still in her teens, lines like these:

Childhood: a terrible waste of time.

All of us would be misguided to try and be Sontag. But what she herself recognized early on was that she needed to pursue what she wanted to the nth degree and ignore those who wished she would stay quiet, or at least enjoy life a little bit more. For her this meant devouring piles and piles of classical literature at any early age – from Balzac to Dostoyevsky to Pushkin; having affairs with both women and men in the sexually repressive 1950s and beyond; and recognizing all along that she, as well as everyone else, is nothing more than a creation of their own desires and actions.

As the famous writing teacher Brenda Ueland once wrote, Everyone is original and has something to say. But few of us stay in touch with the idea that it is feverishly acting out our very originality that will bring us happiness and allow us to succeed (though perhaps not in the way we were taught – which is another type of original thinking in itself).

Check out the new theatre piece in NY I regrettably didn’t get to catch based on Ms. Sontag’s journals, called Sontag Reborn. Or, better yet, read some of Sontag’s essays or books and tell me you still think magic is limited to pulling rabbits out of hats or sawing your girlfriend or boyfriend in half. Besides, the latter’s been done to death anyway, both literally and figuratively.

4. Be Bold:

Sometimes an infographic says it all.

I write those two words at least once a month here. That’s because I remind myself of this almost daily. It’s great to be original, interesting and to deliver on a promising premise. But unless you have the courage to put yourself fully out there as you create, sell and then recreate and sell some more, you probably won’t get where you want to be.

There’s a revival of a musical in NY at the moment called Pippin. In it, the great comic actress Andrea Martin, who got her start on the classic Canadian TV series SCTV (for younger people – she was the Kristin Wiig of her time), has one extended show-stopping number called No Time At All where she gives her grandson uplifting advice about life and on the vagaries of growing old. Now, knowing the song and hearing that Ms. Martin was going to be playing the grandmother I thought – Okay, so Andrea Martin makes me laugh, even if she is a little young for the part, but she’ll still be fun. Then I went on to The Google and discovered Ms. Martin is actually 66 years old, the exact age the part was written for. And she’s doing this role on Broadway, swinging from a trapeze (Spoiler Alert: Live. Really.)

Her best role (in my opinion)

I think of my Mom, who sadly died at that age, and then I think of what the age of 66 evokes and sounds like to most of us and I wonder (sometimes even out loud when no one is in the room) – am I really being bold? And why aren’t I?

And then I consider – just how much bolder can I get? What’s in my way? What’s stopping me?

And then, when I get the nerve – I look in the mirror (Cause I’m vain). With the lights on (Usually to find my glasses). In the morning (Well, my version of it, which is often not before 8) Right when I wake up. (Okay, sometimes 9).

It’s not always a pretty sight but this image does start my day out with one very bold action (You’re just gonna have to trust me on this one).

…With that out of the way, the other 23 and a half hours usually gets relatively easier.

06.04.13

by notesfromachair

Love it AND Hate it

You can hate something you love or love something you hate. For instance, in my twenties I used to periodically LOVE watching televangelists Jim and Tammy Baker crazy talk their version of God and morality to the masses while simultaneously HATING them and every misguided piece of religious bile that spewed out of their hypocritical mouths. What does this say about me? That I’ll sink lower than the approval ratings of Congress (and then some) for a laugh AND I will even do it gaily at my own expense.

Truth be told, I fully support the right of pretty much any nut job who manages a way onto the airwaves to have their say just as I vehemently advocate for the right to hurl poison pen insults from the peanut gallery directly at them and their nether regions if I so choose. Of course, sometimes a handful of those wackos and media whores of the moment are mentally ill and, in that case, all bets are off. Which particularly pains me since Kathleen Taylor, a renowned Oxford University researcher and author specializing in neuroscience, predicted last week during a talk on the brain that we might soon see a proven link between religious fundamentalism and mental illness.

Yes, I’m looking at you, Lonesome Rhodes

This all brings me to my favorite TV reality judge (and overexposed rock star) Adam Levine (Note: Yes, I love Adam even as I sometimes hate tire of him). Fearing the two best singers he mentored all season as a coach on NBC’s #1-rated show The Voice would indeed be voted off the program by the masses (nee viewers) who had the time and thought to phone in and be counted in the final vote tally, America’s #1 Jewish front man (that’s Adam, not me) decided to tell the truth and utter these four words:

“I Hate This Country.”

Uh, oh.

If we were all brutally honest, we would all admit that in times of stress or perceived injustice we all have said or thought something similar or far worse:

For example:

“I HATE YOU, _____________________”

Mom

Dad

Sibling

Spouse (Fill in the name)

Lover (Fill in the name of your choice after they cheated on you)

Friend (Fill in the name of your choice after they cheated on you with your lover or spouse or both)

This, of course, does not mean that we really HATE any of those treasured people in our lives aside from in that moment in time (well, maybe we cut the friend.. right?). Just as it doesn’t mean that Adam Levine hates the good ole red, white and blue any more than his fellow judge, country and western star Blake Shelton, loves it.

Let’s have them duke it out!

I happen to know this is true because in the last two or three decades I have said I hate this country publicly, oh, at least a dozen times (though not on NBC because they haven’t booked me yet). More than half of those times were in the eighties and nineties during the Reagan/AIDS era. A few more came after George W. Bush got elected and re-elected. Another couple had to do with young people being bullied and a few more – well, I forget.

Like any opinionated fella in 2013, Mr. Levine instantly took to Twitter and defended himself with humor – brushing off his remarks as an impromptu joke. But hundreds (thousands?) tweeted back to him and NBC that he was un-American (one twit even suggesting Navy Seal Team 6 be sent after him) and should be fired. Then some fair and balanced wags at Fox weighed in with similar thoughts, prompting Mr. Levine to issue still yet another statement: “I obviously love my country very much and my comments were made purely out of frustration.”

This last mea culpa is sort of like the kind you give to your parents, friends and lovers — but without the accompanying tears, back patting or make-up sex.

As for me and my anti-American words, there will be no apology. Formal or otherwise. The last time I checked the only thing you can really be put in jail for saying in the United States is Fire! in a crowded movie theatre or any sort of perceived threat against the President.

You can also add choosing “List It” to my list of crimes. #AlwaysLoveHillary

Or, perhaps, if I had my way, singing Merle Haggard’s reactionary, right wing country classic from 1969, Okie From Muskogee, on network television – which was what happened on Monday night’s edition of The Voice.

Don’t remember the lyrics? Well, here are the first four lines:

We don’t smoke marijuana in Muskogee

We don’t take our trips on LSD

We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street;

We like livin’ right, and bein’ free….

Yet Adam Levine, who has been often said to smoke a joint or two , could this week only beam and nod in approval at that Muskogie moment. Maybe it was because he liked the song or, more likely, maybe it was because he was afraid not to like the song. I have no idea. But then again, for a $10 million plus paycheck for each Voice cycle I too might even be silenced by the possibility of a red state America backlash getting in the way of my retirement fund.

For the record, there are many, many things about this country I do love. New York City, the Pacific Ocean, the view from my upstairs window, kitchen supply stores, driving with the top down in my car with the heat on in 55-65 degree weather, and the right to write anything I damn please without having some idiot redcoat (or any other color coat) comin’ a knockin’ at my door and dragging me to a cyber-age Siberian prison never to be heard from again.

But that doesn’t mean that at one point or another I don’t also dislike, or even hate all of the above. I spent some time on vacation last week in 90-degree/900% humidity New York that in that moment made me despise the city and everything about it even as I still loved (as I always have) its Broadway shows and hot pretzels.

These pretzels are making me thirsty!

I also hated my convertible car last year when the battery died twice in a month, one in the middle of busy intersection. Just as I positively loathe the Pacific Ocean on windy summer days like today when I can’t figure out whether my sinuses or the brush in the Inland Empire burn with greater intensity.

The point is – no one should ever take at face value anything that is said, or even read, in this world. There is a context, an underside, a nuance, or even an accompanying explanation to everything you hear, see or read. You are not obligated to seek it out but none of us can rightly deny that it doesn’t exist. I mean, even I know in my heart of hearts that there is something good about mashed potatoes and peas despite the fact that the sight of them together on my dinner plate inevitably makes me gag.

Which brings me to the newest food craze sweeping New York – the Cronut.

Behold.. THE CRONUT.

A combination croissant and doughnut, these very sweet somethings are the invention of French pastry chef Dominique Ansel and are THE new must have for anyone who is anyone in the city (Note: the previous sentence could easily be read by my beloved Stefon). People wait online in front of Mr. Ansel’s Soho bakery each morning starting at approximately 5am (he opens at 8) to get one of the precious 200 or so Cronuts he bakes each day. You can buy up to six of them in a day (they are sold to you in a gold box if you do so), you can’t reserve them ahead of time (Anderson Cooper tried and was refused while Hugh Jackman was rumored to have waited in line) and there are Craig’s List professional shoppers who you can hire to stand in line and deliver your Cronuts personally to you if you pony up $30-$40 per pastry for the pleasure.

Given all of the this, is it any wonder that I decided ahead of time that I LOVE and had to have my very own Cronut on my recent NYC trip? Well, that is until I saw a photo of one close-up and realized it had a weird gooey cream oozing out of its center which immediately made me nauseous. Like really sort of sick. Cause I’m more of a chocolate cake kind of guy. Always was. Which in turn leads me to admit that I HATE Cronuts and the elitist idea of them. At least for now. Or until I taste one. At that point, it can go either way.

05.24.13

by notesfromachair

The Long Weekend

While the Chair spends his Memorial Day weekend on the Cape (well, first spending all 12 hours of his Friday driving from NY to the Cape, in the dark, dank rain…), wrap yourself in a beach blanket of nostalgia with Stefon’s tips for summer in the city.

05.19.13

by notesfromachair

MILLENNIALS: A Love Story

My students, usually aged 20-23, are, as a group – smart, motivated and kind of terrific. So I’m sick of the media, as well as others, picking on them. The selfish millennials. The Me, Me, Me Generation. The narcissists who live off their parents as long as they can, don’t want to do hard work, strive for fame rather than creative or intellectual achievement, and are far more concerned with how many friends or followers they have on social media than the people who like or even love them in real life.

As Bill Clinton said about Barack Obama during Mr. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign against Hillary Clinton: “GIVE. ME. A BREAK. This whole thing is the greatest fairy tale I’ve ever seen…”

Though I don’t have Bubba creds, as a screenwriter, journalist, teacher and human being I can tell you that cleverly made up stories, like both clichés and really good lies, ALWAYS have a grain or two of truth. As does all great fiction. So it’s not wholly untrue that the insults cast about against young people today have zero reality to them. But it also doesn’t mean that, on the whole, they are correct.

We all know it’s true

Or to put it another way: just because the new mocha and carrot cake cupcakes from that great bakery in your neighborhood taste lousy doesn’t take away from the fact that their classic vanilla and chocolate ones, which far outnumber the former anyway, aren’t still fantastic and wouldn’t win you first place on Cupcake Wars. Given the choice, most people go in for basic flavors (which, for my money, are always better), yet they are never featured upfront as the specials of the day.

A non-Jon Hamm drool worthy pic

And no, I don’t think I’m pushing the metaphor.

I just finished reading 26 screenplays in 12 days, notes and all, from these young people and I can tell you what’s on their minds -–forbidden love, dysfunctional parents and families, escape from their troubled or mundane worlds to a mythical or alternate one in the past or future, society’s vacant value system and lack of responsibility to future generations, and the general existential tragedy of life as seen through a broadly comedic or intensely overdramatic lens or mindset.

Yes – all the things that bothered the Generation Xers, the Baby Boomers and I suspect each new coming-of-age group back through the decades and centuries of time remain intact. Sure, the packaging might be different because we’ve gone from carrier pigeon, to Pony Express, to snail mail, to email, to texting, and to Twitter. But the actual themes, passages and journeys in existence remain constant.

I know how difficult it is to write even a bad script since I have done it many more times than I care to remember. So I can also tell you that while some (or even many) of these young people write their screenplays in between periods of YouTube gazing, web surfing or gchatting, their sentiments are equally sincere, if sometimes over or understated – just as all of my peer group’s are were. Perhaps that’s why they are being over-categorized and subtlety dissed, just like we were – but with an even nastier streak.

Eyeroll

Time Magazine hurling insults at The Me Me Me Generation in its recent cover story harkens back to 1967 when the magazine, during in its heyday, voted its annual Man of the Year award to the 25 and Under. The difference is, 45+ years ago Time went out of its way to profile and categorize all types of people in this new generation in various POVs and color shades of the rainbow. Last week, however, the only famous millennial it quoted in its entire cover story was Kim Kardashian.

Said Kim:

“They (millennials) like that I share a lot of myself and that I’ve always been honest about the way I live my life.” (“Ha!” – The Chair) “They want relationships with businesses and celebrities. Gen X was kept at arm’s length from businesses and celebrity.”

Well…okay.

When I asked 25 of my students several years ago about Kim and their peer group’s fascination for her they simultaneously laughed in my face and groaned. It wasn’t at all what Kim did or didn’t do that made her interesting, they agreed, but “how ridiculous she is” and “how much some people make a fuss about her.” In other words, it was the postmodern version of a Kim Kardashian existence that intrigued them, not the now about-to-be new Mom herself or the vast Kardashian empire ($80 million and climbing) that she, her sisters and her own mother created by not being particularly good at anything but being famous.

We can at least thank them for this brilliant parody

There have been individuals of every generation well known for well, not very much. Consider the classic line towards the end of the movie musical Gypsy, based on the memoirs of renowned performer stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, when her press agent tries to get her to lighten up in front of the lens of a photographer, who is about to shoot her naked in a bubble bath for a huge spread in Life Magazine: “Smile Gyps, show us your talent!” To which Gypsy throws back her shoulders and shoves out her breasts.*

The difference is, of course, Gypsy Rose Lee was never held up as representative of her entire generation.

This all reminds me of what it was like when I was a reporter for Variety (1977-1983, I was 5 years-old at the time, obviously) and every year they’d put out an anniversary issue where they would ask us to do trend stories. I hated those stories. Because they always involved generalizations about a group of people or professionals or ideas that were conveniently being grouped together so we could reduce them to a catchy sociological phenomenon or cultural stereotype. I think it was the year of the woman at least 3 times during that period and perhaps oh, I don’t know, 15 times since. There has also been the emergence of the gays and gay power or – as it used to be called back in the day – the PINK mafia. In the 60s it was Black power. Before that it was the rise of the immigrants. Now, it’s the rise of illegal immigrants (the least offensive term), or, to put it more kindly – the emergence of The Dreamers.

Something like that…

It’s all sort of the same thing when you get down to it because it’s the story of our country, if not the world. A group emerges onto the scene that somehow seems to threaten the status quo, who in turn fears it will (and perhaps is) beginning to lose its power.

But writing from the other side of the generation gap it’s easy to see this simple fact:

Everything, after a time, makes way for the new, whether that thing likes it or not.

I’m around the new a lot and generally like what they’re about. I talk to them. I even hang with them occasionally. It could be that I like them because I’ve taken the time to know them and not categorize them. I also understand the unvarnished truth – that they’re not here so much to take over but continue with us on the journey – and then steer the ship when, inevitably, we no longer can.

(* The line (and all the lines) from “Gypsy” were written by the very brilliant playwright/screenwriter Arthur Laurents. Lest anyone think movie characters think up what they say themselves)

05.13.13

by notesfromachair

Excess

How much is too much? That is the question many are asking about Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. But before we get into that, it’s worth considering when you move past the point of saturation and graduate to excess? In show business we call this going over-the-top. In film studies, we simply call it melodrama. Unless, of course, we’re being hip and oh so au courant – then we call it postmodern.

I, for one, don’t apologize for loving excess if it is truly excessive. For instance, one of my favorite TV shows, American Horror Story, reeks and swims in oceans of excess (and this news just adds to it!). However, one of the problems with my least favorite and now finally put out of its misery defunct TV series, Smash, was that it somehow refused to be in on the joke it was perpetuating and yo-yoed on various dramatic diets instead of just indulging as the glutton that it was always meant to be, given it’s body type.

Or – as an ex once years ago commented to me about an older star who refused to embrace where he now was in life…

When you’re dead, lie down.

(Granted, that’s a little harsh but so was the ex, which is part of the reason why I refer to him as such today).

As for excess, we’ve had plenty to choose from lately. Yet as much as I love to indulge it seems like there should be some guidelines, or at least simple common sense do’s and don’ts.

Susan Sontag once wrote in her perhaps most famous essay, Notes On Camp,

“The ultimate camp statement is: it’s good because it’s awful.”

I agree because, I mean, I know enough than to try to say Ms. Sontag is wrong about much of anything. Though I would add an addendum to her observation: Awful is good but some things never make it to that plateau because they are just plain bad. And bad is just bad to the bone.

As in everything, this boils down to personal taste. And one’s lack thereof. Now, some excesses to consider:

Saturday Night Live

I don’t know about this…

Doing a brief parody of accused child kidnapper, rapist, young girl torturer Ariel Castro seated at their mock version of the Benghazi hearings this week – TOO SOON??? You’d think. Yet somehow they had to sneak it into their opening skit Mother’s Day weekend.

You can’t parody a tragedy that just happened, especially when the tragedy would be in itself a parody if it weren’t so horribly sad. It’s not camp. It’s not postmodern. And it certainly isn’t melodramatic. What it is, is just plain wrong.

The Chair’s Mother’s Day

I could probably work on my tablescapes…

I had 16 family members over and enough food for 32 (because ya never know). My menu: homemade turkey chili for a crowd, hot dogs, sausages (veg and real), rice, guacamole & chips, heirloom tomato salad with lettuce and celery, cheeses, grilled breads, six different kinds of fruit, and homemade chocolate cake. People also brought: large cold shrimps on ice, bruschetta, Lawry’s spare ribs, Lawry’s yorkshire pudding, homemade quiche Loraine, homemade strawberry buttercream cake, two dozen black and white cookies, 24 home made lemon bars, larger containers of chocolate, coffee crunch and crème gelato, and flowers. Lots and lots of flowers. Too much? No – we’re simply Jewish.

Time Magazine

In an effort to not seem as irrelevant as it has indeed become, Time’s current cover features a young woman lounging with her Smartphone in hand and the headline:

THE ME ME ME GENERATION. Millennials are lazy, entitled narcissists who still live with their parents.

Wow. Just…wow. Tabloid anyone?

Of course, there is the rejoinder underneath all that type that the editors obviously think is their get out of jail free card: Why they’ll save us all.

This sort of reminds me of the old journalism joke that went around one of the first newsrooms I worked at. A reporter decides to get revenge on a powerful person he doesn’t like and asks the person: I hear you beat your wife, care to comment? The person, let’s call him Joe Smith, replies: “I never did such a thing. That’s not true!” The reporter takes notes, goes back and writes a story which reads: “Joe Smith denied beating his wife today amid accusations that he did indeed…”

Point being, you don’t get to plant an unflattering provocative photo with two thirds of an insult inserted underneath it, knowing full well that you are doing so, and then claim a mantle of respectability by adding a line at the bottom that perhaps disclaims everything you just said and did. It’s sort of like the school bully who slams into you into the locker in junior high and then sheepishly says, “Oh, sorry, did that hurt? I didn’t mean it.”

No matter. The Millenials will be laughing, texting, blogging (though not exclusively) and running the world long after Time Magazine’s print edition is gone. Which, checking my own Smartphone, could be any minute.

Behind the Candleabra

Sparkle motion

Billed by some as the story of the tempestuous 6 year relationship between Liberace and his much younger lover Scott Thorson – played by Michael Douglas and Matt Damon respectively. But as you watch, a question arises, among oh so many things in this HBO Film – WHY????????????????

Yes, I saw it. It is VERY accurate to the times, especially that 1977-1983 gay old time in Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Las Vegas. How do I know? Because — I was there.

However, of all the involving, multi-layered, fascinating stories of that period, especially in the entertainment world and elsewhere, one can’t help with finally coming up with yet one more question — WHY????????????????

I suppose part of it is the excess of the sequins, the feathers, the bejeweled pianos and an inside seat to, yes…what’s the behind all those candlebras on Lee’s pianos.

But let’s face it – the big curiosity is:

Do Michael and Matt really….do IT?

The Answer: Yes, more than you want to see. (And more than you want to know).

I actually saw the real Liberace (onstage, not in person) and he was not only a hoot but a helluva piano player. And faaabulously excessive. But only part of his life was filmed here – the very last part – and it appears to be for all the wrong reasons. It’s old lechy, gay guy as oddity. A perverse uh…love story? Well, sort of. Except the real, most interesting story was the man’s entire life and how he got that way. Not just the creepy, lechy part Mr. Douglas and Mr. Damon (both quite good in their roles, especially Mr. Damon) will publicly blitz across cable television in two weeks for all the world to see with the help of A-list director Steven Soderbergh and A-list screenwriter Richard LaGravenese.

Watching their candleabra burn is sort of like being invited to a dinner party at Wolfgang Puck’s house and choosing only to eat the dessert. Tasty but lots of empty calories because you didn’t indulge in the whole meal when you know you should have.

And speaking of whole meals – there is The Great Gatsby of film excess, Baz Luhrmann and his new 3-D film. But for this I am this week only handing you over to my editor and partner in crime on notesfromachair – Holly Van Buren. Holly will from time to time be weighing in on all things pop culture because a. she is half my age and way, way hipper than I am. b. She saw it this weekend and I didn’t and c. there will be some new and exciting additions to notesfromachair in the coming months, most notably a monthly feature I like to call:

HOLLY’S CORNER (take it away, Holly —)

Many thanks to the chair for letting me take a seat this week (certainly not the last of my terrible puns, be warned). Never was there a more appropriate topic to discuss Baz Luhrmann’s most recent flick than that of excess. I, for one, agree with the Chair on the idea that excess is only good when it’s above and beyond anything you would expect… and I can’t argue that Luhrmann’s version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famously-read-in-high-school novel didn’t heed that call (and then add some), but like the characters ponder in the story itself re: Gatsby’s lavish, over the top affairs, “what’s it all for”?

I think I’ll need that drink

I decided to see the film in 3D because, frankly, I was curious. Typically I opt to see 3D films in standard 2D, partly because I wear glasses and having to wear multiple pairs of glasses at once makes me feel like a Kentucky Derby jockey, but also because I find that it completely takes me out of the story. Too much is focused on the effects, and little on the affect (trademark pending on that gem). I thought I’d give it a try on old Gatsby because at its very core it is indeed a tale of excess and I was hoping (praying) that the symbolism would quite literally jump out at me. Unfortunately, this was not the case.

Instead, I found myself watching The Great Green Screen, a tale of 1920s New York City by way of Narnia. So separated from their surroundings, the characters might as well have been on Pandora, romping around with James Cameron’s Na’vi tribe. And yes, you could argue that the version of the 1920s created in the film is pure fantasy (complete with arguably one of the best (and anachronistic) hip hop/pop soundtracks I’ve heard in years), thus making my Avatar correlation totally legit. But lest we forget the key difference here: NYC IS A REAL PLACE! A real, breathing, heavily photographed and documented metropolis. Give me the glimmer, the glamour and the art deco to the hilt, but don’t give me some cheap green screen facsimile that injects absolutely zero atmosphere or emotional connection to the characters. If Baz wanted my head spinning after one of Gatsby’s great parties, a job well done – but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. If I was in the mood for a visual hangover, I’d much rather watch Don Draper drink his new turtleneck-clad business partner under the table.

Shameless Jon Hamm photo? I’ll drink to that!

Excess and indulgence might seem like equal partners, but unfortunately, this film may have overdosed on both, leaving me with the same feeling as when I eat an entire sleeve of Mallomars – queasy and full of regret. Perhaps what they say is true, the novel is simply unfilmable… but let’s revisit that when the next version comes out in 2034.

05.05.13

by notesfromachair

Intolerance

Does one bad apple spoil the lot?

Two college freshman who belong to a Jewish fraternity at a liberal school in upstate New York awoke one morning this past week to find a Nazi swastika and the accompanying words Heil Hitler dripping down their front door in bloody red-colored paint. This jarred me for many reasons (e.g. I’m Jewish, liberal and intensely hate hate-speech, though the latter could be considered hypocritical), the least obvious of which is that it happened on the home campus of the school I, the afore-mentioned Jewish liberal, work for.

As the parent of a recently murdered child in Connecticut just told the world in the halls of Congress, we live in an it can’t happen to me era until it does happen – directly to you. Now granted, the Hitler/swastika incident is nothing akin to the heroic parents of the massacred first graders in Sandy Hook, CT who valiantly lobbied Capitol Hill to no avail for sensible gun control last month, mere weeks after viewing the bloodied dismembered corpses of their young elementary school-aged offspring at the hands of a gun-toting crazy person. But like any threat of violence from an evil outside force – actual, virtual or anywhere in between – it does give one pause.

Plus, it provokes thoughts like:

Huh?…OH MY GOD! Seriously? NO!! You’re kidding, right? In this day and age? I’d like to get my hands on the mo-fo who… etc, etc.

.. or every Lewis Black emotion possible

Not to mention tears, more violence, other expressions of grief, other unprintable arrays of threats and expletives, or any random combination of some, none or all of the above. In truth, any one of these and more are proper and expected responses, depending on the level of event or – on you.

Still, one wonders, what IS the proper response – or at least the most useful one? The rejoinder that will create the conversation that will cause this not to happen again? And if no such answer/response exists (as we know it doesn’t), then what should one do? Moreover, what will we all do when this kind of thing or some mutation of it, comes a-knocking at our back, front or side doors?

I find talking and full disclosure helps because you can’t fully deal with something while you’re simultaneously attempting to hide it. I learned this as a young Jewish boy being taught in Hebrew school about the Nazi persecution of the once too silent members of my tribe; as an intimidated (and miserable) New York teenager living in Tarzana, CA whose teachers and school mates ALL made fun of my urban (nee Jewish) NY accent; and as a devastatingly angry gay man in my thirties living in West Hollywood (of all places) whose neighbor across the street once shouted at me while I walked my sheepdog past his house: “Get out of here! I’ll bet you have AIDS and your dog probably does too!” (Note: Needless to say, the latter incident did not end well for either of us).

How I should have reacted (probably)

As for my school’s response to the anti Semitic “hate crime” – which we’ve been told technically can’t yet be called a hate crime at all because that definition is complicated – its first instinct was to privately investigate what occurred without letting on what happened to the entire school population. Safety alerts are the usual procedure after the average case of vandalization, though certainly this case was anything but average. In any event, that didn’t matter because word quickly leaked out through our campus newspaper. The Ithacan, which often makes me proud I have a master’s degree in journalism. When it quickly published a front page news story showing the doorway painted in Nazi-speak this, in turn, even more quickly provoked a massive and quite vocal school-wide outcry.

You can run…

The good news of our story is we’ve been told the perpetrator has been caught, the case is under review, and the two young Jewish men who were targeted now say they both feel safe and supported after this incident. The bad news is that this is a moment I guarantee neither will ever forget, just as I have never forgotten events like these that have happened to myself and people I know, and just as most anyone else who is a target from any sort of outside force of aggression or hate will never soon forget their own unfortunate taunts and traumas.

The real news is that this latest incident of intolerance – small compared to 9/11 and nationwide mass murders but quite large when pitted against those individuals who are not a member of an oft -persecuted minority group or have never themselves or through friends or family been the victims of a heinous crime – are here to stay.

These events have no simple cause and effects. They arise from a cumulative climate – a complicated set of issues that fester, bubble over and eventually explodes. This happens in people and among groups in societies when issues are ignored or not dealt with directly and it can eventually cause the destruction of said individuals and groups as well as everything around them.

These kinds of crimes against each other also often occur when a particular group of people (or a single person) is targeted out of ignorance or fear (or both) and are usually done in the name of a dogma, a movement, a religion or a country. Whether it’s a nation or a movement, or a particular way of thinking is immaterial. Absolutist thinking – or as we like to call it nowadays – fundamentalism – is the culprit. It doesn’t matter if we are Jewish, Christian, Muslim or Atheist. When one refuses to hear the other side people wake up to find blood on their walls – or their children murdered. Or, on a lesser scale, they are yelled at when they’re walking their dogs on the streets of Los Angeles.

MVP

Jason Collins, who just became the first gay NBA active player to come out of the closet, was spotlighted all over the news last week. This is natural for any public firsts in our society, but particularly in the case of a person who deviates from what is considered the norm in the macho world or sports.

Yet here is what Ben Shapiro, 33, well-known author of five books, editor of the conservative website breitbart.com, Harvard law school graduate, and Orthodox Jewish man (I guess that means we’re distantly related in the old country), found the need to tweet minutes after Mr. Collins announcement:

Are his tweets threatening? No. Hate speak? Well, I suppose not. But willfully ignorant? Most definitely. In 2011, the FBI reported that more than 20% of all hate crimes in the US were against gays and lesbians. That’s a 10% increase from the decade prior. Studies also indicate LGBT teens are bullied almost 3 times more than their straight counterparts and that LGBT kids are four times more likely to attempt suicide than straight kids. These figures, and the fact that Mr. Collins is thus far THE ONLY openly gay man who is an active player in one of the big 4 professional sports in the US, seems to empirically prove that his willingness to stand up and be honest about this part of his life is, given the circumstances, in some small or perhaps much larger measure, heroic.

Yet Benny (after all, we are relatives of some kind if you go back far enough) adamantly disagrees AND has taken to social media to deliver a few good blows to the Collins kisser while also inciting some free-floating anger. Not on the level of the Swastika, or with a gun – but with his intellect and his cleverness. It’s a free country, it’s not a crime, but this kind of petty snideness for no other reason other than provocation and ill will and purposeful misunderstanding as a means to adhere to some sort of intractable dogma (or worse yet, self-promotion), is a good part of where the rest of all this stuff starts.

Listen, different as we might seem on the surface, Benny and I do have a few things in common, as do the members of every family, whether we want to admit it or not. We’re both Jewish, we both graduated high school at 16, and at 33 we both have/had dark hair and an overly aggressive, opinionated attitude that can cut people to the quick using words. They’re not as powerful as a gun but when there is no other weapon around that is legal and you know how to use them – trust me, they’ll do. Quite well, in fact.

Until Ben/Benny and the rest of us grow up, really listen and give each other some breathing room, nothing will change. It’ll all continue with us acting out a kind of violence against each other. Some small, some in-between and some large. This will then perpetrate a cycle of small and large cumulative injuries that, when ignored and multiplied over years, and then decades, will continue to keep us in the vicious cycle of indignations, traumas, and violence we are all a part of today. That is, until some of us, or many more of us, decide to break it.

At the start, small steps work best.