Clowns and Nazis: The Mechanics of Epic Fails

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Wednesday September 24, 2014 · 2:19 PM PDT

2014/09/24 · 14:19

"Failure is simply the non-presence of success. But a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions." - Orlando Bloom

Odds are, you will never see 1972’s The Day the Clown Cried.

The film starred Jerry Lewis, who also directed, and was based on a script by Joan O’Brien and Charles Denton which had been kicking around for about a decade prior. By all accounts, the production was fraught with legal and financial troubles. The film was eventually finished by Lewis paying production costs out of his own pocket, with everyone involved almost immediately exploding in a flurry of accusations and lawsuits. Despite Lewis’ claims at the time - that it would be screened at Cannes before a US release - it has been securely locked away for over 50 years now.

It’s no secret why – the film is terrible. I don’t mean just badly acted, or poorly directed. I mean existentially terrible. The plot revolves around a has-been circus clown (played by Lewis) in 1930’s Germany who is sent to a prison camp for mocking Hitler and later entertains Jewish children, ultimately accompanying them to Auschwitz.

Jerry Lewis. Nazi death camps. Any questions?

Lewis hung onto a rough cut, Europa Studios kept the film negative, and various clips and rough copies have popped up, or been rumored to have popped up, over the years. But it will never, ever, be released, per Lewis and everyone who’s ever had legal control over it. Even for a movie industry that is never shy about putting out gigantic bombs and vanity projects (Battlefield Earth, Gigli, et al), this is something special - a true epic fail.

And that fascinates me.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Tuesday September 09, 2014 · 10:08 AM PDT

2014/09/09 · 10:08

“If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods, / Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless / Against them while they stand so.” - Maxwell Anderson

Once upon a time, my home state had a one-drop rule.

A single documented black ancestor – “one drop” of black blood – defined you as non-white. The actual color of your skin was irrelevant. Whether or not a comb would pass freely through your hair (another test, used later to sort people into races) didn’t matter. If a single great-grandfather or great-grandmother was black, so were you.

There is a moment in the musical Show Boat, when a white man and his mixed-race wife are confronted by a sheriff out to charge the husband with miscegenation. The man pricks his wife’s finger, swallows a few drops of her blood, and evades arrest because he is no longer “white”, and thus their marriage is no longer a crime.

I always thought that was a sweet story – something beautiful in the midst of horror, a blossom on a battlefield. But as I think of it, and think of the Civil Rights struggle of our time, it reminds me of something important – the critics are right: gay marriages are not equal.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Thursday September 04, 2014 · 7:15 AM PDT

2014/09/04 · 07:15

“It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money.” - W. C. Fields

Sometimes I think about cashing in.

When you look at Tea Party rallies, Republican conventions, the various campaign events around the country, you see a lot of merchandise. T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers . . . maybe down to koozies and keychains, for all I know. Conservative blogs, radio shows and certain subscription-based TV channels pimp even more Conservaswag.

The Right Wing is an echo chamber, after all, and echo chambers thrive on message reinforcement. If you can slap a short, snappy quote that confirms their bias on something – anything – chances are they’ll buy it. And in the age of mail order and internet sales, they don’t necessarily know who they’re buying it from (note how many of their pro-American tchotchkes are actually Made In China).

So . . . why not me?

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Tuesday September 02, 2014 · 3:07 PM PDT

2014/09/02 · 15:07

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." - John Lennon

We have this concept we call “reality”. It’s a bit of a mushy idea.

Is a rock real? Of course it is, we say. It physically exists. You can touch it. You can trip over it. You can break things with it. What about a Mooglesnoot (the purple-footed ones, not the crested howlers)? Well, no, those aren’t real. They’re only in my imagination (and now yours).

Is an idea real? Is an emotion? Is a memory? We do use that phrase a lot in that context – your “real” opinion, your “real” feelings. They’re no more physical than the Mooglesnoot, and what existence they have is in the same place. So why is one real, and the other not?

Like I said, it’s a mushy idea.

Charles Forte, the great chronicler of weird, often talked about the vague and uncertain line between real and not-real, or accepted and not-accepted. There is nothing that is purely true, he would say, and nothing that is purely fiction – there is only truth-fiction. And maybe he was onto something there. Maybe “real” is something of a popularity contest, a decision we make - often by consensus - of what’s acceptable and what’s not, what’s credible and what’s implausible.

Let’s talk about some of those judgments, and how we make them. And let’s start with this: Are you sure that rock is real?

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Saturday August 30, 2014 · 10:18 AM PDT

2014/08/30 · 10:18

"Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty." - Norman Douglas

I think about random stuff. Sometimes I wake up in the morning, and my mind wanders through a train of Eighties’ children shows, or the inventions of Nicola Tesla, or the evolution of fruit trees, or the different types of buskers. Sometimes, something particular sets it off – a commercial on the radio, or some casual reference in conversation. Other times it seems to just happen, with no conscious kickoff point.

The other day, for no particular reason, my brain took a right turn into social experiments. I rifled through memories of the different “What would you do” set-ups I’d seen - actors simulating racist encounters or domestic violence or a dozen other uncomfortable scenarios, just to see how (or if) onlookers will react. I thought about all the different studies I’d seen or read about, and what they revealed about us. And this line of thinking, inevitably, led me to the granddaddy of social experiments.

Milgram.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Thursday August 14, 2014 · 11:55 AM PDT

2014/08/14 · 11:55

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Another police shooting. They just keep coming.

Twenty-five year old Ezell Ford was shot by Los Angeles police during an “investigative stop” in South L.A. on Monday. Relatives on the scene say Ford was cooperating, and was actually lying on the ground when he was shot. This just after the controversial shooting in Ferguson, Missouri of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who witnesses say had his hands in the air at the time - and may have had his back to the officer. The second shooting happened while I was deciding what I wanted to write about the first one, and in the time since the second one, the case of the first one has gotten worse.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Tuesday August 12, 2014 · 1:28 PM PDT

2014/08/12 · 13:28

“It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.” - Benjamin Franklin

For most of our history, every human being was occupied with the work of keeping that human being - and his clan/family – alive. We grew food, hunted food, sewed clothing, made tools. Each group could be independent – by necessity, was independent, either providing for itself everything it needed, or trying to get by without.

Then came the skilled crafts – woodworking, smithing, glazing . . . Each of these took focus, so we started specializing. This one was a blacksmith, that one a baker, that one a farmer. We all did different things, but we each had something the others needed, so we all bartered. If we were lucky and smart, our clan had one of everything, or nearly so, and our group was still self-sufficient. We had full-employment, because there was only one way to be fired from the job of “staying alive”, and we stopped counting you after that.

And then everything changed, and it might be soon to bite us all in the ass.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Tuesday July 01, 2014 · 4:59 AM PDT

2014/07/01 · 04:59

I spent all day yesterday thinking about the SCOTUS decision allowing Hobby Lobby to dodge the mandate for contraception coverage under Obamacare, due to the supposed religious objections of the Green family. Rather than argue with people on message boards and FB posts today, I decided to hold my fire, chew it over, and lay out an outline of my thoughts on the case and the ruling, and why it’s so wrong. I'm not a Constitutional lawyer, or any other kind, so take it for what it is.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Friday February 14, 2014 · 12:09 PM PST

2014/02/14 · 12:09

There are days, living in this state, when the old wounds and worries of past racism seem to never heal, days when it seems as if bigotry is as indestructible, as resilient, as Japanese knotweed. There are days when you can’t turn around without seeing some member of the new generation of the fearful, stupid and hateful pour their own measure of poison into that ancient well. There are days when the system seems too tilted in the old, well-worn grooves of privilege and bias to ever stand balanced again.

I do not want this to be one of those days.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Friday January 10, 2014 · 4:54 AM PST

2014/01/10 · 04:54

Governor Christie,

I was one of the people listening to the live-stream of your press conference yesterday, and the explanation you gave for this debacle and your role in it left me with one word reverberating in my mind:

Bullshit.

You're lying. There are holes in your story, Governor. Let's talk about a few of them.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Thursday January 09, 2014 · 7:09 AM PST

2014/01/09 · 07:09

There are spectacularly bad days in politics - days when circumstances - often ones you created yourself - conspire to pants you publicly in front of your constituents, the media and anyone else who's paying attention.

For Chris Christie, it's one of those days.

The release of emails showing clear, irrefutable evidence of the involvement of Christie's inner circle in the closure of two lanes of the George Washington Bridge - creating a months-long headache for Fort Lee and it's not-Christie-supporting mayor - has confirmed pretty much everyone's worst instincts of Christie and New Jersey politics.

He's not making it better by his reaction.

Read on . . .

Jaxpagan

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Friday December 20, 2013 · 3:12 AM PST

2013/12/20 · 03:12

Aside from actually catching occasional snippets, I've never watched Duck Dynasty, despite being from that state, and that part of the state, and that town (Monroe, La). Or maybe because of that - I grew up with people like them, and I saw this "flip-side" of the folksy humor a long time ago. Kinda done with it.

But after Phil Robertson spewed all over his GQ interview, my Facebook page (which carries an amazing diverse array of people, at least for the moment) came alive with posts on one side or the other, and I thought I had to respond to it all.

So I posted a note with the text below the orange squiggle. No idea how much my friends list may shrink. C'est la vie.

Read on . . .

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Clowns and Nazis: The Mechanics of Epic Fails

They're Right - Gay Marriages Are Not Equal

Cashin' In, or "Souls are Overrated"

Define "Real" - A is A

Milgram - Obedience vs Humanity

Occupiers - How Cops Became Dangerous

Your Services Are No Longer Required - The Coming "Great Idleness"

The Hobby Lobby Decision - My Thoughts and Reaction

Waiting in Florida - The Dunn Case

With All Due Respect, Governor, You’re A Lying Sack of Crap

Christie's Bridge-Gate Reaction Spells Trouble

My Facebook Note Re: Phil Robertson