A word regarding KONY 2012.

Dear people I know,

I’m not going to debate about this anymore. I’m sick of the whole thing, but since right up to this morning it’s still warranted argument and accusing me of not caring about geopolitical crises (really? do you know me?), I’ll say this one thing and then shut up. However, don't even try to accuse me of lacking compassion. If your understanding of the world is so limited as to include only "not caring" or "supporting a terrible, destructive plan," then the problem is yours, not mine.

Now, if you're still with me...

I want to get one very basic point off my chest regarding this Kony 2012 business: at the very least, those of you supporting this crusade need to admit to yourselves and the world that you are advocating for war. I know that's not how you choose to think of it, and it’s certainly not how the Invisible Children organization wants to characterize itself, but saying, “We just wanna get this guy to the Hague” is nonsense on a level so absurd that it embarrasses me that I feel the need to explain this. There is no nonviolent way to depose and capture a warlord. Unless that video was so touching that Joseph Kony’s going to just turn himself in, there needs to be military action; and when your team’s knights in shining armor go in to end child suffering, guess who will be manning the front lines of defense? That’s right: child soldiers.

Maybe that doesn’t bother you. Maybe you’re saying to yourself that unfortunately a few lives need to be sacrificed to save the thousands more. Cracking eggs to make omelets, and all that. Except that there aren’t thousands suffering under Joseph Kony; there are hundreds at most (and not all children). You see, that high number from the video was an estimate of the total number of victims over several decades. So if we’re talking about the present situation, Joseph Kony is less like Hitler than, say, a more violent and enduring Warren Jeffs; and the main resemblance he currently bears to Osama bin Laden is that he’s been chased out of his home nation and is hiding out in the Democratic Republic of Congo, dying, surrounded by what’s left of his supporters.

That’s right, he’s not in Uganda. So you’re not just advocating for war, you’re supporting a movement that proposes to get behind the Ugandan government’s incursion (with US military aid and direction) into another country altogether. All to catch one guy. That’s a government, by the way, that’s guilty of its own human rights abuses (surprise!). And believe me, there are plenty of people who will be happy to cooperate so they can fill the power vacuum left open by this one guy whom a bunch of formerly apolitical facebookers are suddenly convinced is such an important representative of a worldwide problem that we should all train our focus strictly on him because some American traveler made a very specific promise a few years ago.

So I’m glad you’ve been made aware that this is a problem, and Invisible Children is to be commended for bringing this to your attention, but it's a mistake to commend the Kony 2012 campaign past that very first step. If you think that this one guy is the problem, and that the answer to that problem is to uncritically go along with a plan hatched up by a few Americans living out some White Man’s Burden fantasy in league with the Ugandan government, and to ignore the objections of better established aid organizations and the Ugandan people themselves, then Kony 2012 has already done plenty of harm in its own right.

There are better ways of helping Kony’s victims, and once they’ve been addressed, I hope you don’t need sleek videos and rubber bracelets to raise awareness about the plight of “invisible children”—paramilitary or not—in the DRC, Liberia, Chad, Sudan, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Burma, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, India, Chechnya, Haiti, Colombia, El Salvador, and so on down the long list of places and people who won’t be affected one bit by this sudden enthusiasm for myopic international heroics. This is a much bigger and far more complex problem than can be conveyed in a half hour-long video; its solutions must be worked out by the people directly impacted rather than externally by European and American crusaders; and we should consider that the incredibly sudden explosion of this particular “solution” after a decade of this charity's operation comes suspiciously close on the heels of the discovery of oil in Uganda (plus a recent push to loosen up restrictions on extracting foreign chemicals, including cobalt, found in the Congo).

And once all these questions have been carefully examined, you will still have barely scratched the surface. As you develop this new awareness of a horrible problem, it's important to also remain aware of the fact that there are many, many forms of aid that hurt more than they help. 

There are better charities than Invisible Children and their Kony 2012 campaign, ones that assist afflicted people without limiting their self-determination, and base their actions on reasoned considerations of facts on the ground rather than emotional reaction to exploitative media campaigns. Below are some links, in case you’re really interested in helping. 

The Kony 2012 Alternative

Some Alternatives to Kony 2012 for All You Haters

Amnesty International - Kony Campaign: From Awareness to Action

Doctors Without Borders 


Acholi Street: "Stop #Kony2012" by Angelo Opi-Aiya Izama

"African voices respond to hyper-popular Kony 2012 viral campaign" - Boing Boing

Kony 2012: How not to change the world - CNN

"Solving War Crimes With Wristbands: The Arrogance of Kony 2012" - The Atlantic

"The Soft Bigotry of Kony 2012" - The Atlantic

"Why We Should Take Heart From the Backlash Against Kony 2012" - The Atlantic

Keep your head up.

I haven't had time to contribute as much as I'd like, and I'd ideally like to be posting something everyday. But in keeping with a theme running through my May 19 and May 27 posts, it's worth noting that Tupac Shakur would be forty years old were he alive today.

Tupac! Would be forty!

Time does fly, doesn't it?

I can't help but wonder what the cultural and even political landscape would be like had he survived the stupidity that got him killed. Maybe had he lived the world wouldn't have learned its lesson, so it was inevitable that he had to be sacrificed, Jesus-like, for the rest of us to grow up. I personally hate the everything-happens-for-a-reason, let's-reduce-a-person's-death-to-our-own-life-lesson approach, but I suppose it's one way to make sense of senselessness.

It's hard not to dreamily guess at what a Tupac would have to say about these times in which we live. The man was so full of contradictions. For every Hit 'em Up there was a Keep Ya Head Up. For every spittle-hurling vitriolic battle interview a thoughtful expression of compassion and complexity.

I guess those of a mind to believe that there's a point to all this say things like "Everything happens for a reason" to avoid joining the rest of us who can do nothing but shake our heads and sigh.

Fuck the world indeed.

Gil Scott-Heron. April 1, 1949 - May 27, 2011.

Gil Scott-Heron died today. I don't know yet what was the cause of death, but that's another truth-teller in the grave too soon. At sixty-two years of age, forty-one years after the release of Small Talk at 125th and Lenox and forty after the groundbreaking Pieces of a Man, his words are still all too relevant and--as a nation in general--we have yet to listen. The Godfather of Rap, an unflinchingly prophetic critic of national entropy and persistent injustice, tragicomic to the bitter end. Listen to Gil Scott-Heron. I mean, listen to Gil Scott-Heron. May he rest in peace.

(p)review.

So it's not new--it's from 2006, to be exact--but as I just saw it I have to recommend Byron Hurt's short documentary about hyper-masculinity in hip-hop, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes (links to the entire film online).

Highlights include Jadakiss's annoyingly stubborn but shrewdly pragmatic defense of all that the film examines, Fat Joe's candid and somewhat touching self-critique, some incisive commentary from Michael Eric Dyson and Chuck D., and an interview in which--when challenged--a bunch of aspiring rappers pull a complete about-face from talking about killing and raping to reveal tragically repressed social consciousness.

I hope to post some blogs on related matters soon--a reading of Nas lyrics, some words on de-facto segregation and urban decay, polemics against the right's assault on Planned Parenthood, passive aggressive neighbors--but of course that will all depend on how this quarter pans out.

So...stay tuned?

For now I just wanted to post something on here before the weekend's end.

Two fun facts.

#1
"There are only two things more beautiful than a gun: a Swiss watch or a woman from anywhere. Ever had a good...Swiss watch?"

- Cherry Valance (John Ireland), Red River, 1948

Seeing these sexy dudes size up each other's guns made the Duke feel all funny inside.

#2

At the start of filming for the 1948 Howard Hawks film Red River (which I reluctantly watched and thoroughly enjoyed thanks to the great Roberto), there was concern that John Wayne and Montgomery Clift would not get along due to their matching outspokenness on opposite sides of the political spectrum. They agreed to steer clear of politics on set, but Wayne and Walter Brennan both made it a point to avoid Clift off-camera because he was a known homosexual. Shit really hit the fan when a rumor made it to the Duke that Monty was having an affair with John Ireland, at which point the Santa Ana Airport's namesake actually lobbied to have his costar fired.

So I can be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting that John Wayne made some (some!) really good films, but I maintain that the guy was a complete jerk-off. 

Thank you, Public Enemy.

Small world.

Over a year ago (July 28, 2007) I found myself in an enviable position: having joined a friend on a cross-country drive from Brooklyn to Oakland, I was given the opportunity to take in both days of the Rock the Bells hip-hop festival from onstage in Randall's Island, NY. During Wu-Tang Clan's first day set, I clicked the following photo:


I realize it's a terrible shot, but it was taken merely as a souvenir of where I stood during an incredible show. There were quite a few people onstage at the time, several of whom appeared to be professional photographers and individuals with press passes. I was rather shocked just to be there, and didn't exactly jostle for position when it came to taking pictures. A few days ago, during some random clicking that stemmed from a search for who knows what, I came across the Flickr album of a photographer who apparently stood a few feet to my left and captured a much better shot of the same moment:

photo credit: "Undisputed Wes"

I don't have anything terribly interesting to say about this. I just got a kick out of it.

Jesus Freaks vs. Typical Garden Variety Freaks, or, The Joys of Late Capitalism.

Saturday night checked out the Orange County Fair and, while standing in line, saw a woman that went to my high school. She was a few years older than me, although I think she had a brother my age. If memory serves me correctly, she used to dance at a "gentleman's club." She's stunningly attractive.

It's difficult to overstate how crazy the fair is, with its deep-fried everything (avocadoes, Twinkies, Snickers, Oreos, broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, battered potatoes, etc.), its enormous livestock (worth the $1, believe it or not--they're really big), and its orgy of gaudy lighting in every rusted corner. I love it. The highlight for me is always seeing people make their way through crowds wielding outlandish prizes. One guy had a five-foot tall blue plaid Scooby Doo doll, another deftly balanced two mountain bikes while giving directions to his kids, who led the way excitedly. Both men had the same look on their faces, a sheepish mix of accomplishment and practical dilemma: does a giant stuffed dog fit in the car?

Sunday was still more interesting: the Chariot Festival of Venice Beach, which celebrates Lord Krishna's return to Vrindaban. Having grown up a couple of blocks from the stretch known as "Little India," I can't say that I've ever felt like my life has any lacunae in need of being filled by experiencing Hindu festivals, but this one definitely looked like something new: basically, two flatbed trucks are decked out lavishly in colorful, florid patterns and adorned with statues, pictures, etc. Then a ceremony is held around the floats, and an entire festival--food vendors, ethnic performances and the like--takes place in the general vicinity.

Had I thought more about the thing, I may have factored in the location. I'm glad I didn't, as the surprise provided for half the fun of the experience.

Upon arriving, the people we met told us right away that the Indian food served at the festival was terrible and we'd better get something to eat at another place. So I had a gyro. It wasn't very good, but not terrible. Then we proceeded to the site of the festival, which was literally only what I've described: two decorated flatbed trucks (I should note, they were very well-decorated), a stage where a group of young girls performed a very impressive traditional dance, and lots of shops selling everything from authentic Indian fare to New Age-y trinkets to Bob Marley t-shirts. For the first twenty minutes I saw many Hare Krishnas, countless women in saris, but not one person of Indian descent. It was essentially a gathering of old hippies and Phish-heads.

We did finally run across a contingent of “real” Indians, all gathered together sitting on a little knoll, apparently as bemused by the spectacle as we were. In front of them, somewhere in between Govinda’s International Imports and the Hawaiian Shaved Ice stand, a tall Caucasian man painted blue calmly explained Vishnu’s virtues to an apparent skeptic. Back near the boardwalk, stationed in front of another float under the watchful eye of the police, three men held signs high in the air condemning us all to hell for defying God and Jesus, while their associate yelled through a bullhorn that “You should be eating cows, not worshipping them!” While I was clicking a photo of him, he picked on a Hare Krishna adherent standing next to me and bellowed, “Does grass have a soul?” Then without letting the guy answer, continued, “The tents you’ve erected today are sitting on grass! You’re hurting the grass, you hypocrites!” As we left the scene I could hear him work up to a fever pitch and yell, “God hates you all and will send you all to hell, because you’re a nation of homo lovers. That’s right! You’re all nothing but a bunch of homo lovers!” This was met with uproarious laughter and even some applause from the crowd.

We proceeded down the boardwalk to find a spot on the beach. A guy in a turban with a visor pulled over it rode rollerblades and played the electric guitar. Aspiring rappers attempted to sell their CDs to passersby. Booths along the way sold a rendition of Shepard Fairey’s iconic Obama poster that substituted the Rasta color scheme for the red, white and blue. Caricature artists, tattooists, calligraphers, blown glass, tongue whistles, fortune tellers, body builders, well-trained pit bulls, the "Venice Beach Freak Show."

Following some time spent soaking up UV rays on the sand, and after two or three beers at a nearby bar, we headed back through it all one more time on the way out. Close to the scene of the festival, an Indian family—mother, father, one child, one set of grandparents—sat bewildered on a bench in front of a head shop watching people shop for bongs as a woman stood out front distributing cards and yelling, “Medical marijuana, upstairs! Come see the doctor!” In the spot where we had all been condemned to hell’s eternal flames, three men still stood with signs, but they had no vociferous spokesman and their signs read “SURFING! SKATES! BIKES!” and “SUNGLASSES! $5!”

George Carlin, 1937-2008.

When I was fifteen years old, I volunteered at a public access television station in Artesia that catered mostly to the city’s Portuguese community. The most popular show (which still runs to this day) was a three hour-long Portuguese language program hosted by a middle-aged blind man with a seductive baritone voice and a bottomless store of mother-in-law jokes. One day Manuel Ivo, sitting bolt upright with his shade-covered gaze fixed just above my head as always, told me that his neighbor was moving out and had given him a stack of records that he didn’t want to store. “I don’t want them either,” he told me. “Come over and see if there’s anything you’d like.” Long story short: there was plenty that I liked. This vinyl collection ranged from the absurd (“Nilsson Schmillson” and the soundtrack to that appallingly bad Sergeant Pepper’s movie with the Bee Gees) to the eyebrow-raising (a Danish release of Jimi Hendrix’s greatest hits) to the downright exciting (original pressings of Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” and Led Zeppelin’s “II”). Among the exciting was George Carlin’s “Class Clown” EP. I knew who Carlin was, of course, but I can't say I really knew who he was, why he mattered. All I really knew was that the cover of this album had a picture of the old guy from "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" on it, but he was young. He wore blue jeans and a tight-fitting blue denim jacket with no shirt on underneath, and he sat on a stool with his back turned to a chalkboard. He faced the non-existent classroom with his eyes wide open, middle finger bent to look as if he'd shoved it knuckle-deep into his right nostril.

George Carlin was the perfect anti-hero for a mindset that I don’t think I’ve ever really outgrown: he was the dunce who could outwit his entire class, the erudite underachiever, the intelligent stoner with a "fuck you" always on reserve and bubbling just beneath the surface. I loved George Carlin before hearing so much as a word from that album, but of course the record (which includes the notorious "Seven Words" bit) fully delivered on its sleeve's promise and—angry little shit that I was—I instantly became a devotee of St. George's Church. I don't know if I can say that I absolutely "got it" back then, but I don't think that my angsty teenage understanding of Carlin's humor was so far from getting at the crux of his impressive career.

So, what was to be gotten? Why did George Carlin matter? He was certainly a titan of comedy and a cultural force to be reckoned with, but it isn’t so simple to define what it was that he actually did beyond making us laugh (not to downplay the importance of laughter). The institutions that he habitually punctured remain intact, the injustices and absurdities that he so acutely pointed out have not become less prevalent—so what did George Carlin do? In a popular landscape where everybody has something to say (didn’t Pink write a song about Dubya?), why did Carlin stand out as someone to whom we should all be listening?

George Carlin was an eiron to all the bluster and puffed-up stupidity of an unjust, wasteful and shallow society. He was a trickster character, subverting norms and violating taboos at every turn, whose only concrete agenda was exactly that: to violate every absurd rule that he could, thus chipping away at the ridiculous system that propped up such oppression. Carlin filled the role of ironic sidekick that Kierkegaard assigns to John the Baptist in The Concept of Irony: not the positive force of the Messiah establishing a new world order, but the negative force of one who picks apart the established order from the inside by demanding that it deliver on the promise of its own ideals.

John the Baptist—the disheveled, belligerent, insane prophet—is not the revolutionary hero per se, but lays the groundwork for revolution by rejecting that which is established and accepted as given: “For just like the law, irony is a demand, an enormous demand, because it rejects reality and demands ideality.” (CI 213) Kierkegaard makes this observation in a comparison of John the Baptist with Socrates, in which he notes that—as Robert Perkins writes—both the Pharisees and the sophists failed to grasp “the discrepancy between the phenomenon and the essence and…the seriousness of this discrepancy.” (CI 376) I can’t think of a better way to describe Carlin’s importance as a commentator on American society. The phenomena of American life do not live up to—and in fact all too often shamelessly contradict—the essence of its ideals. The honest, just observer cannot then merely beg for change within the everyday operations of that system, but rather must demand that the system recognize itself as undeniably corrupt—and if the system will not recognize itself as such, it must be dismantled from within. This dismantling must be gradual, and must be propagated through a changing of the minds that operate daily within the very machine that oppresses them. Irony is, like John the Baptist, a presence that wags its finger at a broken world and demands that it fix itself:

Irony is a disciplinarian feared only by those who do not know it but loved by those who do. Anyone who does not understand irony at all…lacks what momentarily is indispensable for personal life; he lacks the bath of regeneration and rejuvenation, irony’s baptism of purification that rescues the soul from having its life in finitude even though it is living energetically and robustly in it. (CI 326)

This passage—especially the phrase “feared only by those who do not know it”—brings to mind Jon Stewart’s infamous appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” the interview that allegedly led to the show’s cancellation and resulted in the station’s refusal to renew pundit Tucker Carlson’s contract. Throughout this interview—a YouTube favorite—a progression is visible in the faces and demeanor of hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala. At first, they’re apparently thrilled to have Stewart on. This changes rather quickly when it becomes clear that the comedian does not intend to put on a comedy routine, but rather to censure them about their show “h-h-hurting America.” He berates the shallowness of their coverage, the cynicism of their approach, the worthlessness of their discourse, and the “Crossfire” audience applauds his every statement.

Bewildered, Carlson tells Stewart that he’s not funny. “No, but I’ll go back to being funny tomorrow," Stewart answers, “and your show will still blow.” Laughter, applause. Later, in response to demands that he be funny and not sententious, Stewart sneers at Carlson and mutters, “No. I’m not going to be your monkey.” They trade insults back and forth until even the “liberal” Begala can hardly conceal his disdain behind that creepy grin that’s been painted on since Bill Clinton ran for president. What strikes one while watching this is how desperately lost Carlson and Begala are—they just don’t get it. One gets the sense that their staff handed out tickets outside the studio and deliberately sought out Stewart’s fans, wanting to fill the seats but oblivious to the fact that Stewart’s whole shtick is skewering the very type of show he’s about to be on. To them Stewart is just a “liberal,” like all the other castrated liberals and conservatives they’re used to having, he’s supposed to show up and voice his disapproval of the Bush administration, tell a couple of jokes, side with Begala against Carlson, shake hands, good day. When Stewart doesn’t follow the script, vertigo hits and nobody knows where they are anymore.

Jon Stewart was invited to “Crossfire” for the same reason that big name politicians scramble to get on his show: they hope some of his credibility will rub off on them. And for the most part, it’s rather obvious that they can’t stand how much credibility he has. You can see this in the “Crossfire” incident, when towards the end there’s a hint of hateful frustration in the way Carlson addresses Stewart, who refuses to let up even for a second. For a person whose life has been dedicated to powerful brown-nosing in order to get the hottest scoop, Stewart’s legitimacy as a commentator is the worst kind of usurpation—but that’s precisely why he has that legitimacy in the first place. Americans are perfectly aware of the fact that we’re being lied to daily, hourly, constantly—to the extent that being an insider is no longer a sign of journalistic credibility but rather evidence of the most abject collusion. And since those giving us the story can’t be trusted, and those with access to information continue to distort it, we can only trust those who pick it apart and denounce its corruption.

That is how irony works negatively, and it’s why Stewart’s “fake news” and Colbert’s “truthiness” have eclipsed so much (to be clear, though, not all) “legitimate” political analysis. That negativity is what people like Tucker Carlson seem to struggle to understand: who the hell is this guy, and what exactly does he do? Why is he so important? Of course, when these questions are put to Stewart, the answers are, respectively, “Nobody. Nothing. I’m not.” But a man as well-read as Jon Stewart, as admiring of Twain and Swift, knows exactly who he is, what he does, why he matters—denying his power is simply what makes him effective. It's negation all around.

The sort of romantic irony of a satirist like Stewart is that the strength of his punch comes largely from his charade of weakness. Aware of his own limitations, he loses no opportunity to remind interviewers that he is only a comedian and his is only a comedy show, that nothing he says matters, that his own interviews are notoriously soft-hitting, etc. And with each denial, the aura of respectability strengthens, the immunity of the jester is reinforced, John the Baptist converts another sinner while the Pharisees and Romans alike scratch their heads, unaware of their own impending oblivion.

It is precisely because the satirist denies his own importance that he matters. Should even the sharpest ironist ever proclaim his own positive revolutionary potential, he would instantly become subject to the same scrutiny as his targets. Thrust into an arena with beasts, the adept penman would find himself desperately wanting a sword. But so long as he stands outside and gently harangues the spectators, drawing them in with laughter only to expand their minds with truth, the subversive eiron might slowly set in motion the downfall of the whole corrupted coliseum.

We’ve lost one of those with the death of George Carlin, but we’ve also gained several of them through the influence of his life’s work. One can only hope that, in this age of sound bites and embedded reportage, American discourse does not forget the importance of listening to the ferocious humor of those angry jesters, bitter eirons, mischievous tricksters and insane prophets.