"Oh My God!"

Last night's Oscars had winners, losers, singing, dancing, and of course the much anticipated Best Supporting Actor award for Heath Ledger. You can read about it all over the internet, so there's no need to go into any detail on it--especially since I haven't seen most of the movies involved! (I have, however, been listening to the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack nonstop for roughly the last seven hours.)

I will say that I was a little disappointed at the lack of crowd reaction for Charlton Heston during the annual "Let's Honor the Dead Folks" segment. It might have been me, but I heard almost no applause when his name and face popped up onscreen. I understand that he spent the last twenty or so years of his life as a gun-toting reactionary crackpot, but c'mon people! This is the guy who told us that Soylent Green is made out of people. He kicked Stephen Boyd's ass in a chariot race, painted the Sistine Chapel, and tangled with post-apocalyptic albino mutants. He even appeared in Wayne's World 2, in the aptly named part of "Good Actor." If Heston's "Damn you all to hell!" monologue at the end of Planet of the Apes isn't worth applause, I don't know what is.

Charlton Heston was absolutely ridiculous--his performance style is bizarre and mostly laughable today, but it won him an Oscar for Ben-Hur. There is nothing more fun than screaming out a good Charlton Heston line or two among friends, old and new. It's a great ice-breaker! So lighten up a little, Hollywood. The man is dead, his guns and insane beliefs can no longer hurt you. Artists traditionally sympathize with craziness more than the average person on the street--we like people a little different, a little out there, a little beyond what society usually tolerates, because, well, we're all a little out there. And they don't come much more out there than ole' Chuck Heston. So why not show a little respect for the man whose chiseled good looks and preposterous line delivery gave us fifty years of great entertainment?

Alternative Valentine's Day Dates

It’s time for another Valentine’s Day. Since I no longer have to write valentines for every kid in the class (Note: If you underline your name when you sign one for a girl, it means you like her!), I thought I would mark the occasion by paying tribute to some women I would love to take out for Valentine’s Day. I’ve spent a lot of time with each of these ladies, and they’re all dear to me in their own way.

5. Harley Quinn

When Harley Quinn first appeared on Batman: The Animated Series in 1992, I was confused. I’d read plenty of Batman comics, and I couldn’t think of any instance where the Joker had a giggling female sidekick. There was Jerry Hall in the Tim Burton movie, of course, but this couldn’t be the same character. So I had no idea where Harley came from. By February of 1993, it didn’t matter. Harley had become as much a part of the Joker’s character for millions of kids as the maniacal laughter and green hair.

Poor Harley, forever trapped in a sole-dependent relationship she’s convinced is tragically co-dependent. To watch the Joker twist this naïve psychologist around his fingers in the 1999 episode "Mad Love" is one of the defining moments of the series. Harley is loyal to the end--if only she’d been corrupted, by say, an environmentalist, she might be out saving the whales with the same gusto she devotes to pillage and murder. She may be a high maintenance date, but if you win her over she’s yours forever. And ever.

4. Carmilla

Before Dracula, there was Carmilla, the original creepy Goth vampire hottie. She was the central villain in the 1872 short story of the same name, and she makes a great companion for Valentine’s Day. Okay, so she’s into girls. And she can apparently take the form of a cat, an old woman, a young woman, a middle aged woman, and some kind of blood sucking bird thing. But she doesn’t do that all of the time. In fact much of the time she can be downright polite. She’s lived a long time, so you know she’s well read and brings a lot of life experience to the table. You could do a lot worse.

Besides, since she only feeds on women, doesn’t that mean she’s safer to date than some kind of indiscriminate vampire like Salma Hayek in From Dusk Till Dawn? Case closed.

3. Samus Aran
In February 2003 I finally got the chance to play the original Metroid Prime, and I’m happy to say that on that Valentine’s Day Ms. Aran (she is a Ms., right?) was my date for nine consecutive hours of outer space adventure. She’s seen half the galaxy, fought thousands of monsters, saved countless star systems, and flies an awesome spaceship that hooks right into her impressive power suit. Plus she’s even got a maternal side, as evidenced when she protects a young Metroid hatchling from destruction and it adopts her as its mommy. Not even Leia Organa Solo boasts a resume like that.

All of Samus’ adventures are great, but the best of the bunch has got to be Super Metroid for the SNES. It’s one of the longest, most in depth, and impressive games made during that era, and a great way to spend some alone time with the lovely Samus. When a woman is flexible enough to roll into a sphere the size of a beach ball, you know there’s no position that’s off limits (not even that one you’ve always wanted to try but have been afraid to ask about.) She can twist herself into a ball, for God’s sake. There is nothing she can’t do.

2. That Elf on the Cover of the Original Everquest
It was tough to decide between this lovely lady and the night elf on the original World of Warcraft cover (look at those eyes!). If not for Everquest, though, Warcraft would still be a real-time strategy series, and millions of nerds would have been forced to turn elsewhere for entertainment. This magical elf was a trailblazer in the world of MMORPGs. Sex had been used to sell games before, sure, but never was there a product more deliciously tailored towards teenage boys. Earlier games in the genre had been hazier. The cover of Ultima Online, for example, had a wonderful painting of a massive medieval battle with dragons, wizards, knights, and princesses. And that’s enticing, sure.

But Everquest was different. Right there on the box was a promise: Spend hours upon hours leveling up in this game, and maybe, somehow, you might encounter a woman who looked like the elf in some capacity, either in real life or in the game. You weren’t a loser, because there was a beautiful woman right there on the box!

Though she would appear on the cover of almost every EQ expansion, we know so little about this woman. Beyond A) She’s a high-elf, and B)She’s hot, this woman’s life is a blank canvass, waiting for you to pay Sony $19.95 a month of your parent’s money to apply the paint.

1. Emily Bronte
Now here is a woman who could use a Valentine’s Day date. If Carmilla is the original Goth, then Emily gave birth to Emo. It doesn’t take many pages of Wuthering Heights to get the impression that its author had been burned in the past. For Emily there was no “happily ever after,” no all conquering love. Romance was a painful pulling apart of yourself that left you broken, scared, and alone in the desolate British countryside. She’s not quite as famous as big sister Charlotte or as beloved as fellow Brit Jane Austen, and that's just the way she likes it. I imagine she prefers to spend her time home alone writing poetry while blasting Nine Inch Nails on her headphones to the stuffy London scene.

Sure, she would reject the idea of a date at first. She’d be one of those people who would go on and on about how Valentine’s Day is an evil creation of the greeting card companies and that men shouldn’t wait for a special day to show women they love them. But once she was out of the house, she would have fun. There is a fine distinction between passion and pain, and no one could walk that line like Ms. Bronte.

Just be sure to call her the day after. Otherwise she’ll probably start to cut herself.

Abe Lincoln at 200

And now for the long awaited final installment of my two part series on famous people who were born in 1809 and turn 200 this year:

I’m sure there will be lots of articles and TV features about Abraham Lincoln today, and I don’t have too much to add to the supposedly 14,000 books that have already been written about the man. I’m sure we’re due for another few hundred books during this bicentennial year. If you want to learn anything about Lincoln, from any angle, there are plenty of books to find out anything you need. (This one, for example, PROVES he was gay. You’ll find plenty of others that prove he wasn’t.)

Essentially, we still live in Lincoln’s America. To travel back to the era of Washington of Jefferson would be a gigantic culture shock, but in Lincoln’s time the fundamentals of modern America were already taking root. With the exception of Alaska and Hawaii, the country had reached its present size. Railroads connected the major cities of the north, which were exploding in population. Partisan newspapers and political discussion flooded every street corner. The country was massively divided down economic, social, and sectional lines. If we haven’t quite hit that level of division today, we’re not far from it.

What Lincoln did was, effectively, to take the idea of America created by the founders, and, by the nightmare of Civil War, force it into a living, breathing nation. It was a painful process, but for good or ill we live in a country that was formed by Lincoln’s presidency.

It goes without saying in such an iconoclastic era that the man wasn’t perfect. Who is? He was a human being, after all. It took him a long time to come around to the idea of freeing the slaves, and he held on to the idea of sending them back to Africa for a long time. He threw people in jail without trial, treating much of MD as occupied territory. He spent a long time agonizing over and analyzing every decision, and while this would later do him credit, in the early stages of his presidency it left the North unprepared for the devastating war to come.

My own personal favorite book about Lincoln is the aptly named Lincoln, by Gore Vidal, actually a work of historical fiction. It actually predates the widely read Team of Rivals by twenty years and deals with similar themes, following the major members of Lincoln’s cabinet as well as the man himself. Vidal paints him as a flawed being, frustrated, embarrassed by his wife, oftentimes struggling to manage the course of the war, but one that is all the more heroic for his flaws. This is not the perfect Lincoln we learn about in elementary school—the real Lincoln was probably altogether greater, for he was a regular human being who rose to extraordinary challenges and did exceptional things.

First of all, he brought about a fifty year reign of bearded politicians. From 1860 until the trend was shamefully broken by Woodrow Wilson on his election in 1912, every single president except William McKinley had some form of facial hair, oftentimes ridiculous facial hair. Behold the glory that was Chester A. Arthur! Any country that elects someone with sideburns like that to the highest office is something I want to be a part of.

Just his accomplishments in facial hair would probably be enough to put Lincoln in our top tier of presidents, but he went far beyond that. He stuck to the ideas that the country was founded on even as they were put to their most grueling test. Beaten down by reports of thousands upon thousands of deaths, he refused to compromise his beliefs that slavery should not be extended, that all men are indeed created equal, and that The United States was just that: North and South, East and West, one indivisible nation, and not a collection of independent fiefdoms.

“As a nation,” he once wrote to his friend Joshua Speed in 1855, “we begin by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, without the base alloy of hypocrisy.” Lincoln gave all he had to make sure America didn’t slip into any kind of despotism. His Presidency was devoted to seeing that the country live up to its best ideals, no matter the cost. It is a lesson that is absolutely relevant for us today.

Finally, and most importantly, a man who was born in a society where a great number of people thought African-Americans were property was responsible for freeing four million slaves. You can bash him all you want for any number of minor things, but there is no getting around that fact. Obviously the 13th Amendment was not a miraculous spirit that brought racial equality and acceptance to the country. But Lincoln showed that we don’t have to say one thing and mean another. It’s a long road, but it’s one we as a country have been walking down, in fits and starts, ever since.

This is probably my favorite picture of Abraham Lincoln (supposedly it was one of his, too):


It was taken in 1860 as entered the Presidential campaign, just before he grew the beard and became a myth. Here is the tough western lawyer, the teller of backwoods stories and down-to-earth jokes, the rail-splitter, the politician and husband and father.

(This kind of thing makes me very exited for the supposed Steven Spielberg Lincoln movie staring Liam Neeson that has been pushed back and pushed back. It promises to show a humanized Lincoln. An accurate and well done biopic could be fantastic; I hope it ends up getting made before too long.)

Pictures like this help us to remember that there was a human being behind Abraham Lincoln. In her book Team of Rivals (page 151), Doris Kearns Goodwin relates a story where Lincoln and some fellow lawyers, including one Henry Whitney, were having a discussion about George Washington:

“The question for debate was whether the first president was perfect, or whether, being human, he was fallible. According to Whitney, Lincoln thought there was merit in retaining the notion of a Washington without blemish that they had all been taught as children. ‘It makes human nature better to believe that one human being was perfect,’ Lincoln argued, ‘that human perfection is possible.’”

It would have probably amused Lincoln to know that one day he would be talked about in the same way. I have to disagree slightly with Old Abe on this point. Lincoln was unequivocally a hero, someone who will likely be remembered long after this country has ceased to exist. He wasn’t a person without faults, but someone who achieved something close to perfection despite numerous roadblocks, both within and without. To remember his faults makes his accomplishments that much more meaningful. Human perfection might not be possible, but every so often people like Abraham Lincoln come along to show us the way to get just a little bit closer.

We Are All Skeksis; We Are All Mystics

There was a trend towards high-concept fantasy films in the 1980s. If you ask me, they’re all great. The Dark Crystal, though, might just be the greatest of all. Every single project Jim Henson touched, from The Muppet Movie to The Storyteller, was overflowing with love and passion and craft. I can think of few artists today who infuse everything they work on with that kind of joy and magic. The man was a genius, and when I was a kid, just seeing his name in the credits of a movie let me know I was in the best possible hands.

But no matter how much I loved Jim Henson, it was a long time before I could bring myself to watch The Dark Crystal. Let’s face it: It looked scary. This was back in the early days of VHS, when the only information I could get on a movie was the cover art at the local video store. The Dark Crystal VHS was in one of those large, plastic snap cases, the kind Disney movies came in. It must have been the theory that these giant cases were somehow more kid friendly because of their size, despite the fact that they didn’t fit with your other VHS tapes on the shelf. What’s more the plastic was often poorly sanded off, and you could literally (and quite easily) cut yourself on the case. But kids were tough back then.

The effect of the oversized packaging was that The Dark Crystal stood out at the video store. The shelves were still taller than I was in those days, so the tapes on the higher shelves literally towered above me. The Dark Crystal was one of these, and it made the already terrifying image of the looming Skesie practically unbearable. I would have nightmares just thinking about the cover, so it was a long, long time before I finally gathered up the courage to watch the thing.

Actually, I’d be lying to say I got up the courage. I finally watched it at a friend’s house during a sleepover, and in the world of grade school boys, admitting that you are scared of something is simply not an option. Despite my fears, the film held a kind of fascination for me that I couldn’t avoid. Terrified as I was, I wanted to see it. It had worked its way up to near legendary status in my mind, and I had to see what was behind the cover.

First of all, I was relieved that the movie wasn’t that scary. Sure, crazy giant bird creatures yelled and swung giant swords around, but thanks to the Muppet performers even these creatures, particularly the Chamberlain, had a kind of cloying sympathy—they were still frightening, but I could watch them without going into shock. Every scene brought with it some kind of new creature or set to gawk at, and the fact that I had almost no idea what was going on didn’t hurt a bit. I was in another world.

I’ve watched the movie dozens of times since then, and I’ll admit to still not being totally sure what’s going on much of the time. And that’s just fine. The story follows Jen, a Gelfling (like an elf but with a G and an –ing) on his quest to restore a broken shard of the Dark Crystal. Jen has been raised by a group of peace loving troll like creatures called the Mystics, but when his master dies in a very Yoda-like fashion, he is forced out on his own to undertake his quest. Along the way he is helped by Aughra, likely the ugliest Muppet ever constructed, and Kira, a female Gelfling. In their way stand the fiendish Skeksis, aristocratic bird-type creatures who currently own the crystal, and use its power to turn peaceful, human-like creatures called podlings into mindless slaves. That’s the long and short of it—it goes deeper than that, but it’s all very run of the mill, uber-geek D&D fantasy type stuff, which is great in its own right. But it’s not what makes the movie memorable.

This is considered to be the only movie made entirely with puppets (though conceptual designer and super nerd Brian Froud points out on the DVD commentary that plenty of people in costumes and other tricks were also used to create the effects.) Whatever the extent of the movie being “all puppets” there’s no question that from beginning to end The Dark Crystal is a movie that was lovingly and painstakingly crafted from scratch. There was no CGI to help the production out, and very few effects that weren’t done in camera. Everything you see when you watch the movie was really there, and the attention to detail is just staggering.

One of my favorite scenes is a moment when the Skeksis sit down together to an elaborate meal. It’s an impressive scene, but when you stop to think that every piece of food, every single Skeksie, and their dour castle itself, was painstakingly handcrafted by a talented artist, the sheer scope of the movie comes into full focus. To bring a single Skeksie to life took a team of unbelievably talented artists and puppeteers, and there’s never a moment when it seems like you’re watching a puppet show. The creatures eat, talk, burp, and show all the signs of life. They’re real in a way that CGI still hasn’t touched (though I’m confident that someday it will), and it’s all thanks to the tireless efforts of Jim Henson and his crew.

Movies like this were expensive and difficult to make, but I have to think that we would have seen more of them had Jim Henson lived. Like his equally impressive Storyteller series, The Dark Crystal proved that the man was a serious artist with almost unlimited talent and potential. He wasn’t afraid to respect the fantasy genre, with all its glorious geekiness and fairy tale nonsense. Unlike Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, which approached the high fantasy elements of Tolkien with something like scorn and favored as realistic a world as possible, Jim Henson embraced the magic and whimsy (and darkness) inherent in so many fairy tales and fables. He rightly believed that these stories spoke to the deepest parts of us, and were and would continue to be relevant for as long as people told stories.

Just like The Wicker Man, there has been endless talk of a potential sequel to The Dark Crystal. Supposedly such a thing has long been in development, but there doesn’t seem to be signs of anything really happening in the immediate future. It’s kind of a shame—for the time being this kind of genuine fantasy seems to have died with Jim Henson. Filmmakers are a crazy breed though, and it won’t be forever before someone comes along with enough courage to attempt this kind of movie again. Guillermo del Toro has already shown tons of promise in this area, and I'm eagerly awaiting his take on The Hobbit. In the meantime, there are plenty of DVD releases of Labyrinth, The Storyteller, and above all The Dark Crystal to keep fantasy nerds entertained for years to come.

"Bring on Sha-Na-Na!"

Like the Oscars, I’m not sure how relevant the Grammys ever were, but I have to congratulate Robert Plant on winning a bunch last night, especially after the general disrespect the music industry showed Led Zeppelin during their heyday. Though his album with Alison Krauss came out well over a year ago, it’s quite good as far as mellow country-tinged albums go. Great to listen to while writing or just sitting around the house.

I’ve been a little bummed out about the direction of the music industry lately. It may just be that I’m getting older. Let’s face it—most music these days is geared towards the 14-18 crowd. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but over the years it’s led to music becoming more disposable. Today Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake are old pros, and though they’re both talented I can’t see them standing the test of time. My generation never had a Beatles, a Led Zeppelin, a Guns N’ Roses—even Pearl Jam and Nirvana were a little before our time. While we can still enjoy the old music, there hasn’t been a seminal event in music for decades, and the old styles are becoming more and more tired.

This could all just be due to the fact that I’m out of touch. Apparently Chris Brown got into some kind of trouble that prevented him from attending the awards last night, and to be honest with you I’m not 100% sure who that is. People come and go now without my noticing. As Grandpa Simpson once said, “I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me.” There’s a good chance I’m already far down that road. Have I become the kind of joyless old man who screams out “Bring on Sha-na-na!” at Woodstock? I hope not.

But I don’t think I’m mistaking in the lack of passion in the industry today. Musicians tend to hop in and go with the flow, and individual expression falls by the wayside. During the entire 8 years of the Bush administration, there was a deafening silence in anti-war songs or any serious statements from mainstream musicians (with few notable exceptions), and it’s strange that something as liberating as music has become, in an odd way, so conservative.

Yet there’s no way to give up on music. Arthur Machen once called it “the perfect art,” and I couldn’t agree more. As writers, “We are forced to devise incidents and circumstances and plots, to ‘make up a story;’ we translate a hill into a tale, conceive lovers to explain a brook, turn the perfect into the imperfect.” Musicians, on the other hand, have the power to speak directly to an emotion, without covering it up in the mechanisms of plot. For a writer to express a broken heart, for example, she has to create characters and a story and work her way to the emotion indirectly; a musician can strum the right notes and we instantly feel what they feel. Bruce Springsteen’s song, “The Wrestler,” conveys everything in three minutes that the movie spends two hours and millions of dollars showing us.

But we might just be experiencing a lull right now. There are great musicians out there, great songs are still being written. The whole world moves at a faster and faster pace, and it’s easy for great music to get buried as the industry moves on to someone else. This kid gives me a lot of hope, and he might just be on to something.

As Eric Cartman once so eloquently put it, “Real guitars are for old people.”

What Happened, Zeppelin? You Used To Be Cool

There’s been a lot of talk on and off lately about a Zeppelin reunion tour, reuniting some of the members of the band. In a lot of ways this might seem like a good idea. After all, Zeppelin rules, right? Maybe not.
For many years, Presence was the only Led Zeppelin album I had never heard. I always knew it was out there, but I had plenty of quality Zeppelin to listen to without the need to branch out. I guess it’s my fault—I let the thing take on a kind of mythical quality. So when I finally bought the album I was expecting a lot. And what I got was Presence.

Now there’s a lot of history behind the album’s creation: It was recorded in 18 days, Plant had just been in a car crash, Page was struggling with heroin addiction, blah, blah, blah. True as that may be, the album just isn’t very good, and listening to it was a disappointment of epic proportions. At its best, Zeppelin is a barely coherent mix of late 60’s hard rock, stolen blues riffs, bizarre pagan mythology, British folk music, and forty minute solos. Presence is more like generic rock music, with all of the over-indulgence and none of the craftsmanship. It's like the worst of Foreigner.

“Achilles Last Stand,” remains one of Zeppelin’s greatest tracks, and if you think of Presence as that song plus seven bonus tracks, maybe it's worthwhile. There is no finer example of the raw power and awesomeness of Led Zeppelin than the relentless drums of John Bonham on “Achilles.” Plant’s voice is haunting, and the song has a driving, gentle sadness to it despite the hard edge. It’s an underrated, somewhat unknown Zeppelin track, mostly popular among hardcore Zeppelin fans, and its worth about a million listens. (Which is still a somewhat low number for a Zeppelin song; indeed, most Zeppelin albums are worth at least five trillion listens, according to top Zeppelin scientists.)

Presence eliminates itself from the debate of “greatest Zeppelin album” almost as quickly as the even more regrettable Coda. Perhaps someday I will try to make a list of the best Zeppelin albums, but it’s hard to make decent comparisons out of what’s left. Without hyperbole, I can confidently state that Led Zeppelin is one of the greatest achievements in the history of mankind, and slight mistakes such as Presence will be forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

And now the point: What won’t be forgotten is if Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones attempt to run around the country touring as Led Zeppelin without Robert Plant. I understand the need to cash in on success as much as the next guy, but Zeppelin, like The Beatles, is one of the few great bands who quit while the iron was (relatively) hot, never subjecting their legacy to the spectacle of increasingly elderly men trying to run around the stage like they did when they were 23.

If Plant were on board, then yes, I’d be rushing to buy tickets, whether it tarnished their image or not. But with any other singer, it’s just a bunch of old men. Zeppelin fans can forgive Presence, they can forgive Coda, and most of us have come to terms with “The Crunge.” But let’s leave them in the 70s where they belong. Otherwise Presence won’t be the biggest thing to worry about.