The Very Inconvenient Truths About How We Fucked Up In Iraq

.

.

I was watching the news the other day — MSNBC, CNN, it doesn’t matter — when I saw a video clip that was almost surreal. The Prez was jogging with two double amputees. Apparently, they were Iraq War veterans who had been outfitted with the latest in prosthetics, proving that they can run with the best of them. Now, while it’s great that technology in that area has progressed to the point that people can function regardless of disabilities, it’s distasteful as hell that Bush would use the jog as another photo op and a plug for his latest half-assed assurance that veterans will be afforded the very best in medical care. It caused me to flashback to the first of May 2003, when Bush, resplendent in fighter pilot gear, stood astride an aircraft carrier and proclaimed that the Coalition had emerged victorious in the Iraqi War.

.

Over four years later, over 4000 American soldiers have died in Iraq, and more than 20,000 have been wounded. Some estimates put the Iraqi civilian death toll at well over 600,000. Clearly, in the summer of 2003, the battle to secure Iraq was just beginning.

.

No End in Sight is a film that coldly details the crucial missteps by the Bush administration in the days following the fall of Baghdad. First-time director Charles Ferguson’s film cannot be described as a left wing diatribe — there are no Michael Moore-style bombastics here. Rather, this is a film that raises emotional temperature by virtue of its objective approach. Ferguson, a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, with a solid background in political science, steers away from obvious ideology, allowing the chronology of events to speak for themselves.

.

Putting those events into perspective are a number of administration officials, including former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, General Jay Garner (who was initially in charge of the Iraqi occupation) and Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was in charge of Baghdad in 2003. Many of the people interviewed were on the ground in Iraq, and those who weren’t, were directly involved in the planning stages of Iraqi reconstruction. The most impassioned of the interviewees is Col. Paul Hughes, former officer of strategic policy in Iraq. He pulls no punches as he recounts how his efforts, and those of other advisors, were trivialized, and in many cases outright ignored, by administration officials at home.

.

No End in Sight takes no position on our justifications for going to war with Iraq. It does look at how we fucked up the aftermath by allowing career politicians with no military experience to oversee the rebuilding of the country. As a result, we were left with insufficient troop levels to maintain the unsteady peace. Donald Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration labored under the fallacious premise that the Coalition forces would be greeted as liberators. As a result, they paid scant attention to the realities of what was happening on the ground, and essentially turned a deaf ear to military officials working there. In effect, there was no plan to rebuild Iraq. Consequently, the military, with no police authority, did nothing to stop the widespread looting following the fall of Baghdad. That early looting also included robbing weapons caches of the Hussein regime.That was only the beginning.

.

Under the auspices of Paul Bremer, the Iraqi military was dismantled, and all Ba’athists were purged from the government. This left thousands of highly trained professional and military personnel unemployed and disgruntled. That move was largely instrumental in the origins of the current insurgency. By 2006, Americans were hardly seen as liberators, but rather as an occupying force.

.

This film doesn’t delve into the current troop surge, or any of the current debates surrounding the war. It doesn’t need to. It graphically illustrates how we got into this mess. From the outset, the Bush administration mishandled the reconstruction of Iraq with recklessness, arrogance, and incompetence. The beauty of No End in Sight is the way in which it deftly pursues that history relentlessly, but with chilling objectivity.

.

No End in Sight won the Special Jury prize for Best Documentary at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Expect it to be in the running for an Oscar this year. It is, without doubt, the most relevant documentary about the Iraq War thus far. No End in Sight is now playing in select theatres in New York and Washington, DC, and will be playing across the country later in August. A DVD release is tentatively scheduled for 30 October.

Two Spheres of Rock

.

.

Books about rock music, and especially about the sordid histories of rock musicians, tend to leave me cold. Books, no matter how hard they try, can’t capture the primal urgency of the music. Recently, I’ve come across a couple of books, however, that make me think that perhaps I’ve been reading the wrong books. That being said, I still suggest you crank up the respective music described to achieve maximum impact.

Part graphic novel, part biography, part shooting script and part fanzine tribute, Gorillaz: Rise of the Ogre is a lavish book detailing the origins of the world’s first virtual rock band. Depending on your point of view, Gorillaz are either the animated creation of Damon Albarn of the band Blur and Tank Girl illustrator Jamie Hewlett, or an actual band from the backstreets of cyberspace. Rise of the Ogre makes a convincing case for the latter theory.

.

It’s not even a matter of suspending disbelief. All one need do is allow the premise that cyberspace is another dimension of reality with which we’re only recently communicating, due to our tinkering with computers. If we accept that idea, then the entire Gorillaz phenomenon takes on an entirely new complexion. Through their music, we get glimpses of the slightly different plane in which they dwell. And since they do exist in a reality that’s a tiny bit out of synch with our limited perceptions, we see them almost as cartoon characters, and hear their music as something comfortingly familiar, yet ominously alien. It may sound far-fetched at first, but consider this: cartoon characters don’t produce debut albums that skyrocket to #1 in record time, as Gorillaz did in 2001 (about the time the Internet changed the face of communication.) Coincidence?—I don’t think so.

Rise of the Ogre traces the origins of Gorillaz, beginning with the birth of bassist/mastermind Murdoc Niccals, and following him through his formative years of low-paying jobs and failed bands. It chronicles his fateful first encounters with Stuart Pot, who would become known as 2D, the band’s singer and sometime keyboardist. Guitarist Noodle had herself shipped FedEx from Japan to join the band, after answering an ad in NME. She was voted one of Teen People’s “25 Hottest Stars Under 25” in 2006 - no small feat for a “cartoon” character. Drummer Russell Hobbs, a native of Brooklyn, New York, was a veteran of street wars when he joined Gorillaz, and has been known on more than one occasion to serve as the group’s unofficial protector.

.

The book can’t be dismissed as a promotional tool for another self-serving rock group. Rise of the Ogre pulls no punches as it chronicles the numerous rises, falls and resurrections of Gorillaz, all brilliantly illustrated with archival “photos” that show the band at their best - and worst. Interviews with such notables as Neneh Cherry, Dennis Hopper and Ike Turner add a dimension of credibility to the proceedings.

.

While Rise of the Ogre may be best taken with several grains of salt, it is no more audacious than Strange Brew: Eric Clapton & the British Blues Invasion 1965-1970. In order to fully appreciate this 350 page tome, you have to first accept its core premise that British Blues can be traced to Eric Clapton’s stint with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. That’s certainly debatable, but author Christopher Hjort is undaunted in his pursuit of that thesis. What results is an exhaustive, and often exhausting chronology of British Blues as it played out on a daily basis between 1965-1970.

.

Eric Clapton, as the title would suggest, is the central player here, but he is by no means the only character. It begins with Clapton leaving the Yardbirds at the age of 20, and joining Mayall’s struggling Bluesbreakers, wherein he became the darling of the burgeoning blues scene. But it goes beyond Clapton as catalyst, and illustrates the parallels between his career and those of Peter Green (who would co-found Fleetwood Mac) and Mick Taylor (who would go on to transform the sound of the Rolling Stones). Other parallel careers spring from there, as the degrees of separation narrow to include the early days of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page.

Strange Brew utilizes every newspaper clipping, every magazine notice, every handbill, in fact, any and everything it can pull out of the hat to give a sense of urgency to the British blues boom. It succeeds largely because it literally takes those five years and breaks them down to a daily chronology. That’s also its shortcoming.

.

It’s not a book to read cover-to-cover, unless you’re obsessive-compulsive, or a rabid rock historian. There’s a lot of information here, and finding analogies between Jethro Tull and the Bluesbreakers is certainly admirable, but the wealth of info can become tiresome. On the other hand, Strange Brew is a great book to merely pick up and open to any given page. Either way, you’ll know more than you ever thought you wanted to know about the British Blues Invasion.

.

It gets down to this: Rock and roll is a sentient being, constantly evolving and living with its own heartbeat. Its histories are woven of legend, and cannot be tied to a singular version of reality. Whether we’re detailing the history of British blues, as in Strange Brew, or whether we’re glimpsing into an alternate universe, as with Rise of the Ogre, is largely irrelevant. What’s important is that the music is so integral to our self-image that we feel compelled to archive it.

.
And that's where the reality really sets in forever.

Gossip Fodder in Steve McQueen's Ashes

.

.

You can’t really define “cool” with words — attempting to do so just isn’t ... cool. But we all know cool when we encounter it. Jack Nicholson is cool. So were Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra. Mustangs are cool — or at least, they used to be. Steve McQueen proved how cool a Mustang can be in 1968 when he starred alongside one in Bullitt. Car chases were redefined, and Dodge Chargers never completely recovered. But I can tell you this: had Steve McQueen been behind the wheel of a Charger, rather than the Mustang, automotive design might look much different today.

.

Now, that’s cool. And Steve McQueen defined it with just a look or a phrase. Even now, nearly 27 years after his death, he still does. Throughout his too-short career, he was an enigma whose on-screen persona rarely strayed far from the actual man, even though he was often at odds with himself, and those around him, as a result. Perhaps because he was so guarded, nobody’s ever produced a truly definitive biography about him.

.

Unfortunately, Steve McQueen: an American Rebel does little to change that. Loosely based on Marshall Tirell’s 1993 book, Richard Martin’s documentary chronicles McQueen’s life fairly accurately, but rarely delves beyond the superficial. In fact, it more often than not comes across as a personal reminiscence by Martin, who introduces the film by emphasizing that he and McQueen were “drinking buddies” back in the day. The day in question was the late 1950s, when they were hustling work in New York City. That would have made a good introduction had Martin used that as a basis for his credibility for making the documentary. The problem is, he doesn’t let the good old days go. Instead, he threads his own life into some sort of parallel of McQueen’s.

.

To be honest, I’d never heard of Richard Martin before viewing this documentary. Truth is, he’s had a less than illustrious career in the film industry. Yet, he persists in peppering the film with trivia about himself, letting us know that while McQueen was making such and such film, he was abroad, scouting locations or securing funds for some since-forgotten movie. It’s as if he’s screaming “I coulda been a contender!”

.

Martin’s personal insecurities aside, An American Rebel is entertaining in a fluffy kind of way. We already knew that McQueen was a Hollywood bad boy, but this film only skims the underlying motivations behind the persona. His father deserted him and his alcoholic mother when he was a baby, he had run-ins with the law as a kid, he always had problems with authority — all of that’s common knowledge to any fan. It would have been nice to see something beyond the Hollywood hype about him — interviews with people who knew him, footage other than movie clips — anything that would have shed light on Steve McQueen the man.

.

There are some tidbits scattered among all this. For instance, McQueen turned down a role in the original Ocean’s 11 when Hedda Hopper advised him, “Do you want to be a movie star, or a Frank Sinatra flunky?” A prior engagement saved him from being a victim when Charlie Manson’s guys went on their murder rampage, an incident that prompted him to carry a loaded handgun at all times thereafter.

.

Steve McQueen: an American Rebel is full of interesting anecdotes about the man and his career. Sadly, the film lacks a cohesive focus, so all of the information is scatter-gunned about the landscape of the documentary. For those of us who grew up with the man who starred in Bullitt, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Sand Pebbles, and Nevada Smith, among others, it’s not going to offer many new insights. But as a primer for a generation who may only vaguely know of Steve McQueen, it's a good introduction to what cool means.

Armageddon in Black and White

.

.

The one thing that looms large in our collective consciousness is the prospect of Armageddon. Some twisted nerve in our psyches has a need to dwell on the unthinkable, and it’s probably because we just have to know how it all ends. Fail Safe takes that premise to one terrifyingly possible conclusion.

.

The premise, originally presented in the 1962 novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, hinges not on troop movements but on the fallibility of our engineering arrogance. Sidney Lumet’s 1964 Playhouse 90 adaptation of Fail Safe remains a classic drama of cold war tensions. Like Dr. Strangelove (also released in 1964), Fail Safe postulated mutually assured destruction as the result not of war, but of diplomatic wranglings and mechanical failures. A computer malfunction prompts a U.S. bomber squadron to think they have orders to attack Moscow with nuclear weapons. Because of precautionary procedures, the order is irreversible. The crew’s training preempts them from accepting radio transmissions, as they would most likely be Russian decoys. As the planes race resolutely to accomplish their mission, it’s left to diplomacy to ward off global catastrophe.

.

The 2000 version of Fail Safe is no less powerful than its earlier incarnations. Executive produced by George Clooney, it aired live and in black and white on CBS 9 April 2000. Even with Walter Cronkite noting in his introduction that it was the first attempt by CBS in 39 years to telecast a drama live, this is hardly an exercise in nostalgia. Granted, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and we like to believe that we’ve put the possibility of mutually assured destruction behind us. As this teleplay eloquently illustrates, however, the spectre of global holocaust still looms before us, regardless of how the players and the tactics have changed.

.

Played as a live performance, Fail Safe has a sense of immediacy that a theatrical film would be hard pressed to replicate. Working within the parameters of what is essentially a stage play, the mostly male cast deliver performances that inexorably draw the viewer into the tensions the characters face. Richard Dreyfuss as the President and Harvey Keitel as the battle hardened but war weary General Black are particularly noteworthy in their pivotal roles. Sam Elliot and Brian Dennehy are also impressive as the gung ho congressman and the cocky desktop general who see their sense of wonder unravel as the East and West careen deeper into the nuclear nightmare. George Clooney, as the supremely dedicated pilot Col. Grady, in whose hands the fate of the civilized world rests, turns in a brilliantly understated performance.

.

Fail Safe is much more than a daring experiment in live television, though. The fact that the actors were working without a net, as it were, heightens the tension of the telecast in that the format didn’t allow for second takes. Stephen Frears, better known as a film director whose credits include The Grifters and The Queen, proves his prowess in the live medium here, despite a couple of insignificant glitches. But the real power of Fail Safe is in its ability to convey the very real threat of humankind’s inability to harness the forces it unleashes. In that regard, it’s as timeless as the story of Prometheus. It warns us that in our hands, the world will end not in a roar, but in a sadly whining whimper.

My Wayward Ways of the Past Week

.

.

Wow! It really does appear I've been remiss in posting-- another bored blogging casualty who gave up the cyberghost. Actually, I've been busy. Most of my activities over the past week are relatively inconsequential, unless you consider flooding of Biblical proportions important. I have to tell you, though--it's not as bad as the news networks would have you believe. A good camera angle can make anything look disastrous, especially when placed next to a raging creek.

But I've kept busy. I'm doing a weekly column for Blogcritics you might want to check out. It's all about the weekly new DVD releases. You know I wouldn't steer you wrong.

Just thought I'd let you know. I worry that much about you losing sleep.

An Unwritten Future And a Past Not Forgotten

.

.

Truth to tell, I only recently realized how a brief encounter with Joe Strummer over 25 years ago completely reshaped my approach to writing. It was 1981, and the Clash were lined up to be the cover story for the inaugural issue of my magazine, Pulse: Tomorrow’s Trends Today. Their concert at the now defunct, but still lamented Bronco Bowl was nothing short of phenomenal, my photographer had gotten some great shots, and all that was left to do was the backstage interview with Joe Strummer.I wasn’t a stranger to rock journalism, and I’d certainly done more than a few interviews at this point. But Strummer, for whatever reason, was utterly uncooperative. Maybe he was tired, perhaps he was taking his fresh Mohawk too seriously, or it could have been he knew punk was over and he wanted to ride it out on one last wave of bravado. It doesn’t matter.

.
But the interview was going nowhere. No matter what I asked him, he’d just say, “You tell me.” Finally, after several minutes of that, he looked at me and snarled, “You yanks don’t know anything about rock and roll.” I was flabbergasted and enraged. “Excuse me,” I blurted, “We invented rock and roll. You Brits are just borrowing it.”There was a moment of tension as backstage jaws dropped, waiting for the next volley. Strummer just grinned, took a swig of beer, shook my hand and walked away. To make a long story short, I still got my story, the Clash were still my cover feature and l learned a valuable lesson about journalism, especially rock journalism. And that was never, ever be intimidated by your subject. Had it not been for Joe Strummer, I might have gone through life blissfully unaware of the importance of stripping away masks in the course of an interview.

.

With Strummer, that was easier said than done. Joe Strummer wore a lot of masks, and it’s only now, nearly five years after his untimely death, that we’re beginning to understand the real man behind them. The Future is Unwritten, the soundtrack from Julian Temple’s Strummer biopic of the same name, offers a bit of insight into the man. From 1999-2002, he hosted his own radio program on the BBC World Service, where he had free reign over the music he played. This album takes that radio format, couples it with interview snippets and rare tracks, and ultimately offers a snapshot of the dying days of the 20th century.“Joe, we’re going to have your name on the screen,” a disembodied voice asks as the album opens. “Is there anything you’d like us to write under it—Mescalaro, Clash, anything. .?”

.

“I’d like you to write ‘punk rock warlord,” he replies, “with ‘warlord’ being one word.” And from there, he launches into an a cappella rendition of “White Riot.” It’s a worthy nod to the meaning of punk, stripped of everything but rage. It’s only fitting that “White Riot” is followed by Rashid Taha’s Arabic update of “Rock the Casbah.” Not one of the Clash’s best songs, it nonetheless illustrates how keenly aware the band was of global politics. It was a work of satire, made all the more poignant when sung in Arabic and presented as a mixtape.

.

The Future Is Unwritten isn’t about rehashing the Clash, though. It’s more of a musical memoir that details Strummer’s influences and loves, and the impact they had on the evolution of the Clash and his later projects. Some of those influences are obvious. MC5’s 1968 recording of “Kick out the Jams” is a seminal proto punk piece that laid the groundwork for the entire punk movement. But the Clash, particularly Strummer. were never content to merely ride the punk wave. Early on, they strayed from the constraints of punk, and redefined it as a genre. As their frontman, Strummer led the band into areas that, at the time, prompted some hardcore punks to accuse the band of selling out.

.

Nothing, in fact, could have been further from the truth. By embracing unlikely idioms and incorporating them into the Clash sound, Strummer exemplified the punk dictum of “the first rule is there are no rules.” Strummer’s work with his pre-Clash band the 101ers had already shown his predisposition to roots rock, as illustrated here with their 1976 recording of “Keys to Your Heart.” Strummer acknowledges a debt to Elvis Presley as he introduces the Kings “Crawfish,” and exhibits a profound understanding of American message music as he spins Tim Hardin’s “Black Sheep Boy.”

.

What makes The Future Is Unwritten a beautiful album is the way in which it segues from one genre to another, intertwining the Clash, Strummer’s later music ventures and the influences that permeated his music and shaped his path. Woody Guthrie, Nina Simone, U-Roy and Bob Dylan all resided in Strummer’s thoughts. The 25 tracks on this album, punctuated by comments from Strummer, offer a glimpse into the way the man’s mind worked.

.

Joe Strummer was a complex man, and he could often be infuriating. I think he rather enjoyed being perceived as an enigma. But upon listening to this album, it’s apparent that Strummer was a sum much greater than the parts he shared with us. This album shines a much needed sliver of light on his unforgettable legacy.

About East Texas and the Big Beat

.

.

If you really want to understand the concept of spacetime, take a left at I20 or I30 out of Dallas. Within minutes, the Gotham City architecture of the vaguely ominous-sounding Metroplex fades into its ozone driven mist, given over to hillier farmland and actual trees. It’s a sparse landscape, dotted here and there with roadside fruit stands, southern cafes, old school gas stations and the occasional Dairy Queen. It’s a pocket of Texas that lies between Dallas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and it’s a world unto itself.

.

I think of Dallas as where the west begins — at least the urban west of the 21st century. It’s just the way people born in East Texas think, and with good reason. East Texas is the last bastion of the old south, albeit an odd hybrid of southern charm and outlaw mentality. East Texas is a microcosmic society that’s pretty much set in its ways, and doesn’t welcome change with open arms. It may seem quaint and picturesque, but beneath that veneer, it’s repressive. Big city ways are looked at with a wary eye, at best. Dallas represents a two-edged sword — it’s an Oz of magic and release, or a cesspool of corruption.Environments like that unwittingly breed a rebellious creativity. Don Henley and Tommy Lee Jones both come from East Texas. In fact, it’s given birth to artists, filmmakers, musicians, and writers too numerous to mention here. And here’s why: restless minds in East Texas have to, by necessity, create their own versions of New York, London and Los Angeles. There aren’t a lot of venues in Grand Saline or Sulphur Springs, or even Tyler that cater to cosmopolitan tastes. It’s simply not a priority there. As a result, a lot of creative projects that have their roots in East Texas take on a voice that couldn’t have come from anywhere else.

.

Fair to Midland, billed as a Dallas band, but actually hailing from Sulphur Springs, succinctly illustrates that point. Even the band’s name is a take on what passes as a pun in East Texas. It goes something like this: First guy: “How ya doin?” Second guy: “Fair to middlin’, clear to Odessa.” Get it?—middlin’, Midland... you had to be there, I guess. Oddly enough, East Texas is not known as a comedy hotbed. Over the years, though, it’s been the unlikely breeding ground for a lot of equally unlikely music. With Fables from a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times is True, Fair to Midland poise themselves to carry that unlikely tradition to a new generation.

.

In the past, East Texas has spawned peculiar strains of psychedelica (13th Floor Elevators), blues guitar (Bugs Henderson), punk (Mouse and the Traps) and jazz-based honky tonk (way too many to even try to name), all with an indelible signature that’s all but invisible to anybody who hasn’t lived there. With this release, Fair to Midland attempt to crossbreed the arty aspirations of prog rock with the baser instincts of thrash metal. It’s a valiant effort to be sure, but it often suffers from overcompensation.It’s understandable to an extent — Fables from a Mayfly is the band’s major label debut, one of the first from the newly formed Serjical Strike label, itself a wing of the recently coined Universal Republic imprint. Serjikal Strike is helmed by Serj Tankian, lead singer of System of a Down, and as such, is a niche label of sorts. FTM fit into that niche, and apparently were hurriedly groomed to deliver some “product.” The band had already released work on their own that wasn’t too shabby, most of it on their independently released inter.funda.stifle. That provided enough material for half of Fables from a Mayfly. Major labels operating the way they do, those tracks had to be redone to lend the release an air of originality. David Botrill, who had worked with Peter Gabriel and Tool, was brought in to produce and generally polish the older tunes. They added five new tunes to flesh out the album, and succeeded in getting out their product.

.

That’s where the problem with Fables from a Mayfly lies. There’s not that much unique or even original about FTM—they rarely stray far from the metal blueprints laid out in the late nineties. They’re taking their cues from the likes of Queensryche and System of a Down, particularly on the title track. Some of this can be attributed to Botrill’s slick, heavy-handed production, grounded more in the American Idol mindset of manufacturing a sensation than enhancing the artist’s raw material. Still, once the layers of slick production are stripped away, hints of the band’s potential peek through the veneer.

.

Bands from East Texas have always melded a number of styles into their music, and FTM is no exception. I always attributed that to the rural roots, and the fact that you learned what you like pretty much on your own. In the case of FTM, their love of melody and art rock lyrics is juxtaposed with goth and hardcore metal. It’s jarring at times, and leaves you with the distinct feeling they’re still trying to figure out what it is exactly they’re trying to accomplish. They’ll figure it out, assuming they’re not swallowed by a hit-hungry machine. In the meantime, Fables from a Mayfly is one of those albums that we can hopefully look back on with fondness as to how it all began.

Reality Beyond the Pale

.

With the lines between fiction and reality becoming increasingly blurred — what with the preponderance of “reality shows” and newspeak accounts of everything from the war in Iraq to Midwestern flash floods — it’s almost easy to accept the premise of a documentary about a burglar presented in real time. Street Thief (premiering tonight on A&E, 10PM EST) takes brief pains to bill itself as a “filmed record” rather than a documentary, chronicling the crimes of an actual burglar. But the intent remains the same.

.

Once we accept the premise that Kaspar Carr, perhaps Chicago’s greatest and most elusive burglar, is allowing a couple of documentary filmmakers to accompany and film him as he commits his audacious heists, Street Thief becomes a compelling, if disturbing work of cinema verite told with a noir slant. Whether we believe director Malik Bader’s claims that he’s intimately familiar with the tricks of the trade the film depicts is largely inconsequential. It unfolds in such a matter of fact way that we’re drawn into the world of Kaspar Carr and his meticulous planning of each job he does. He’s utterly amoral, viewing each hit with a businessman’s eye.

.
We watch, fascinated, as he details the planning that goes into each heist. It’s by no means glamorous work—he digs through dumpsters for receipts; taps phone lines; surveys his target for months; and generally takes whatever measures necessary in the planning stages before he goes through with the burglary. They’re not glamorous heists, either—usually mom and pop grocery counters, strip clubs, and even a Cinemark movieplex. Carr finds his mark anywhere he knows there will be a great deal of cash when he strikes.

.

Kasper Carr, as portrayed by director Bader, is as complex as any person we know in our everyday lives. When he’s working, he’s completely focused on the job at hand. But during his “off” hours, he’s just a regular guy. He is even seen barbequeing steaks for his documentarian followers, politely asking them if they’re hungry before he pulls through a fast food drive-thru.

.
Throughout, he exudes a public persona that offers no hints as to how he makes his living. Much like the starry-eyed filmmakers who fall deeper into his world, we find ourselves wanting to hang out with Kaspar Carr, while every fiber of our being tells us he represents all that we loathe.Street Thief is a confounding film at best, and therein lays its power. How much of it is based on reality is debatable, which was Bader’s intent. When it opened to much acclaim at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006, reactions ranged from praise for its gritty realism, to outrage for its toying with the viewer. The fact that it can elicit that kind of reaction is in itself a testament to its power.

.
Ultimately, it makes us look at our voyeuristic fascination with the outlaw in a way that’s rarely explored in film. In so doing, it forces us to take a look at where we’re going as a society. That alone makes it worth a view.

The Revolution Will Be Webcast

.

.

Revolutions ferment for a while before they reach fruition. They’re seldom taken seriously at first, seen as they are by the powers that be as the rantings of malcontents and crackpots. It’s only when they build a groundswell of support that they’re taken seriously.

What I’m going to call the Media Revolution has been quietly brewing for years now, quietly infiltrating the once hallowed domains of the print, music and film industries. It’s only recently that the Old Guard of media have taken notice and have seriously begun to draw up their countermeasures. At one extreme of the spectrum is the music industry, particularly the RIAA, who insist on fighting tooth and nail against digital delivery of music. It’s a battle they will inevitably lose, bent as they are on anything less than a stranglehold on artists and consumers alike. At the other end is the print media, who have all but conceded the death of paper, and are increasingly making their product available online only. Economically (and environmentally, it makes sense, given that publications live or die by advertising dollars.

Somewhere between the contempt of the dying music industry and the outright concession of the print media lies a quiet alliance between the traditional and the digital. It’s a revolution within the revolution, and it may well herald the future of entertainment. The film industry, and the television industry in particular, recognize the simple fact that the Media Revolution has begun in earnest. And rather than wage futile warfare against an irresistible force, TV networks and studios have embraced the revolution with open arms—to an extent.

Television is the youngest of the old media, so it should come as no surprise that it’s allying itself more readily with upstarts carving niches for themselves via the internet, and through small independent films. Archer House, a short by writer/director Dina Gachman, is a prime example of the latter. It sounds like the perfect setup for the latest teen horror film: eighteen year old Sam Archer, an aspiring investigative journalist, goes undercover to unearth the secrets of an upscale college sorority. She soon finds herself embroiled in a strangely alluring world of teacups and sisterhood from which there is no escape. Fortunately, Gachman’s short film veers away from such clichés, opting instead to tell a story about weighing the need to rebel against the desire to conform. It’s a wonderfully nuanced story, tightly told in just over fifteen minutes, that’s never preachy or maudlin. After airing at the AFI Film Festival in Dallas earlier this year, Archer House caught the attention of Slamdance Media Group, and as a result, is being pitched to NBC as a possible series.

This would have been unheard of in the old Hollywood system of catch 22’s (To sell a script, you need an agent. To acquire an agent, you need to sell a script.), but those were the days before the emergence of cable, and certainly the days before the Internet made it economically feasible for anybody with talent to circumvent the established rules. A case in point is the web-only comedy series Something to Be Desired, now wrapping its fourth season totally unencumbered by any traditional studio trappings. Sort of a cross between Friends and WKRP in Cincinnati (but updated for the 21st century), STBD follows a group of deejays and their various friends at the fictitious WANT FM in Pittsburgh, PA, chronicling the vignettes of their personal lives. Shot in mini-DV with a local cast and crew, STBD is guerilla broadcasting at its best. What the people involved in this ongoing series have done is step outside the recognized norms, and created a comedy series that is often on a par with network offerings in terms of character development and storytelling. And even though the typical episode is only ten minutes long, producer Justin Kownacki manages to integrate local indie sounds into the episodes, if only as incidental music.

While Archer House and STBD might appear to run parallel to the conventional mindset of Hollywood, they actually represent a shift in the thinking of mainstream TV. It’s not so much a matter of innovation among the studios—it’s more about a survival instinct. Cable programming from HBO and Showtime, among others, had already shorn ratings from the Big Three, and upstart networks like FOX proved that the old ways of doing business were no longer viable. Once broadband Internet became commonplace, and sites like YouTube sprang up, coupled with the explosion of HiDef TV’s popularity, it was obvious that change was in the air.

Unlike their counterparts in the record industry, the TV networks have embraced that change, if only superficially. They’re by no means surrendering to copyright piracy, nor should they. They are, however, utilizing the Internet to their advantage, rather than blindly approaching it as a barbarian horde at the gates. NBC, for instance, is aggressively pursuing the Internet as a means to springboard new programming possibilities with their DotComedy.com, as well as a means of effectively hyping existing programs like Heroes, with its online comic book serial. CBS offers exclusive online programming with Innertube, featuring impromptu mini-concerts, along with behind-the scenes looks at series. ABC does this also, as well updating series constantly for viewing anytime. Traveler has taken on a cult status online as a result, despite lackluster ratings in its conventional timeslot. FOX, for whatever reasons, is the only network not to offer anytime viewing for any of its series, opting instead to present promo clips of selected shows.

Intentionally or not, the networks are altering the way we view television as a medium. In the larger scope, they’re taking baby steps, but they are at least exhibiting a willingness to explore the evolving face of our cultural landscape. Other forms of traditional media would be well advised to follow television’s lead. The age of convergence is here, and it’s not about to retreat. The revolution is being webcast, and we’re only now getting a glimpse of the future of media.

Viva la revolucion!

The World According to Tom Hayden

.

.

No matter how pundits on either side of the political fence debate or deny it, the fact remains that our planet has seen better days. The politicos frame it according to their own agendas, but even the most delusional among them—left, right or centrist—know in their heart of hearts that we’ve been cheating on nature for too many years. After turning a blind eye to our dalliances with our own egos all this time, nature is ready to kick us to the curb.

.
We’ve reached a point globally wherein it’s screamingly obvious that humankind has to take some responsibility for the climatic upheavals that are occurring all over the globe. We can no longer shrug it all off as natural weather cycles that happen once or twice a millennium. In fact, it’s impossible at this juncture to even say what’s “natural.” The imprint we’ve left on this planet has indelibly altered our environment.
.
In his book The Lost Gospel of the Earth, Tom Hayden makes a compelling case for linking spiritual tenets to environmental activism. In his view, much of our environmental crisis can be traced back to our lack of regard for the most fundamentally spiritual aspects of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Native American traditions and our disconnect with our ancestral roots. According to Hayden, we can break down our relationship to the Earth into three distinct philosophies. We can see ourselves as “Lords of the Universe,” and conclude we have a divine right to dominate and subdue our surroundings, since humans were placed here to hold dominion over all else on the planet. In the second scenario, humans are the “Stewards of Nature,” a gentler, but no less utilitarian approach to the environment, in which nature is molded to the ingenuity of man for multiple benefits, taking care not to destroy the environs in the process. Finally, the third way of thinking espouses a “Kinship with Nature.” In that line of thought, we recognize that we coexist with all life on the planet, and that we share a common bond with the creative process of Earth, and thus are codependent with all life here.
.
While he sometimes sees contemporary religious doctrines and their adherence to mankind as holding dominion over the planet, Hayden doesn’t indict any sect as responsible for our environmental woes. Rather, he looks at how ancient texts have been corrupted through by political expedience. He makes an eloquent argument for a return to ancient spiritual philosophies as one tool on which to build a cohesive, logical plan for preserving Life As We Know It.
.
It would be a simple matter to dismiss Hayden’s views as leftwing rhetoric, were it not for the exhaustive research he’s done on the subject. True, the neoconservatives here are pilloried as puppets for corporate interests, but the interests in China and India are held equally culpable. Hayden’s main interest here is a worldwide awakening of our spiritual bonds with Earth as an evolving organism. While some of his arguments may be flawed, his passion for the environment cannot be denied.
.
Given the state of our planet in 2007, Hayden’s book is a worthwhile read. In fact, it may—maybe, just maybe—give us pause to consider what we’ve wrought in our 250 some odd years as a nation obsessed with more is better. As Hayden closes his manifesto: ”No state is greater than the state of nature. The nature of the state must reflect the state of nature, not the other way around.”