Blake Called. He Wants The Steak Knives Back1
Republican
In what must be the silliest reason for becoming a wingnut since Roger “Scenes From a Mall” Simon played the 9/11-changed-everything card, David Mamet says that he recently stopped being a “brain dead liberal” once he finally realized that Ted Sorenson wrote Profiles in Courage, or something like that:
I found … that an impartial review revealed that the faults of this president—whom I, a good liberal, considered a monster—were little different from those of a president whom I revered.
Bush got us into Iraq, JFK into Vietnam. Bush stole the election in Florida; Kennedy stole his in Chicago. Bush outed a CIA agent; Kennedy left hundreds of them to die in the surf at the Bay of Pigs. Bush lied about his military service; Kennedy accepted a Pulitzer Prize for a book written by Ted Sorenson. Bush was in bed with the Saudis, Kennedy with the Mafia. Oh.
“Oh” indeed. This is a put-on, right? An elaborate joke perpetrated by Mamet in the voice of one of his characters, except without all the “fucks” and stuff, right? Sadly, no.
A quick history review for Mamet is in order. Eisenhower arguably started the Vietnam debacle by sending Diem to Vietnam and funding and training his armies there. The first U.S. ground troops were sent there by LBJ. Kennedy won the Kennedy-Nixon election by a margin wider than the number of electoral votes from Illinois. There is no evidence that any CIA agents were among the Cuban exile force that invaded Cuba, much less “hundreds” of them. Sorenson always said that Kennedy had significant input on the book. (Bonus question: tell me, David, if I reveal to you that Brent Bozell wrote The Conscience of a Conservative for Barry Goldwater, will you become a liberal again?) And if Kennedy was in bed with the Mafia, what on earth was Bobby Kennedy doing going after all those mob members?
At best Mamet’s claim to no longer be a “brain dead” liberal would appear to be only half true.
1Cf.
Since 9/11, I too am outraged by peanut subsidies and teh Clenis of Mass Destruction.
Isn’t he about 6 years late for the Yousta Bee fad?
This mints the flux of his brain:
“Aha,” you will say, and you are right. I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher)
Farewell to all that David. Moron.
Quelle maroon. He takes the intellectual version of climbing over the mountain instead of going around — he’s all like “GWB blows but also JFK blows ergo I become right-wing tool” instead of the much less taxing “GWB blows and JFK blows ergo I stays put.”
also JFK blows ergot
What?
Sorry, I need more coffee.
…instead of the much less taxing “GWB blows and JFK blows ergo I stays put.”
Maybe that’s it – if everyone blows, go with who gives you the biggest tax cut. By that standard GWB is much less taxing.
Not to mention all the *good* Kennedy actually did. What good has W done? Really. I can’t think of anything.
We’ll be forced to suffer through these shallow “epiphanies” by whacked out narcissists every couple of years or so.
Good Lord. Was there ever a time when these people tried not to dribble the drool of teh stoopid on their bibs? This is like a “cured” gay man saying he stopped being a “brain dead homo” when he learned the world was flat.
Also, I like the practical side of his strawmen: Liberals believe in utopia and unicorns, Conservatives are much more cynical and realistic, ergo and viola!
He can do as he pleases, of course, but that neat little dance is pretty shocking in its obtuseness.
Bonus points: the scads of righties who wrote in the Voice comment section still get bent out of shape about the accusation Bush stole Florida.
Teh stoopid. It. BURNS.
Now I need a brain wash to get Mammy’s history mashup out of my mind. He ig’nant!
the scads of righties who wrote in the Voice comment section still get bent out of shape about the accusation Bush stole Florida.
Nothing pisses ’em off more than FACTS. It’s like sunlight to a vampire. IT BURNS.
I know that I, personally, quit being a brain-dead liberal was when I saw that episode of The Brady Bunch, where Bobby got locked in the basement and couldn’t get out…. It was very traumatic, so much so that I immediately had to reassess my entire foundation of my being. I could see that my entire way of thinking had been based on a lie.
Wait. Maybe it was when episode of Family Affair, when Jody got locked in the basement….
Shorter David Mamet:
I used to be stupid, now I am merely boring.
Kennedy has his brain blown out. Bush’s brain had been blown out before he got the job.
“Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.”
Shorter David Mamet:
I used to be stupid, now I am merely boring.
Alternatively:
I got mine, you can fuck off now.
And by the way, converting to conservatism in 2008? His timing sucks worse than Dennis Miller’s. Conservatism is a dead letter after November.
I read it differently. The basic gist is that Mamet is moving into the “are we not all brothers can we get along” camp, which is another form of “brain dead” and might be just a waystation to the Republican camp, but he’s not there yet.
Might want to re-read the part where he talks about the branches of government actually checking each other. If only we could get our dear Senate Majority Leader to lookit that, might just light a flash in his flashpan.
This article wasn’t a big surprise having read sone of his other non-fiction stuff, but I think that Mamet stole that line about Sowell supposedly being our greatest contemporary philosopher from Paul Johnson. Of course, Sowell basically dishes up warmed-over Friedmanism with a hearty side of minority-bashing. Mmmmm, wingnut good.
I dunno – I get the sense that ol’ “Curtain Up – Fuck You – Curtain Down” Mamet is trying to get in on that Christopher Hitchens/provocateur gravy train …
Kennedy was an imperialist pig. What I don’t get is why Mamet wouldn’t draw the logical conclusion and decide to oppose both the Republican and Democratic parties — instead he becomes a Republican? WTF?
He seems to claim that what he always thought were bad things done by Bush are no longer bad, b/c “Kennedy did it, too”. That’s really extraordinarily stupid. Paradoxical, even (shouldn’t he go back and become a Democrat again b/c Bush is great, hence so was Kennedy?).
His essays are always exercises in epatering the bourgeoisie as he imagines them to be. Innit enough to make your own chairs, keep guns in the house, and forbid your kids from watching tv? That’s “colorful.” Do you have to adopt the “political philosophy” of a troglodyte, too?
The Bush Apologists book club will be BIG soon. Mamet sounds like he is just building some street cred.
I began reading not only the economics of Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher)…
[brain pops out of skull, flips, lands neatly back inside]
Whoa.
Zeppo,
No, it would have been that episode of Family Ties, when unserious liberals Mallory and Skippy got locked in the basement. They dressed in chipmunk costumes to stay warm and, if I’m not mistaken, were eventually rescued by Alex Keaton, uber-conservative.
He was persuaded by Thomas Sowell and Paul Johnson. Paul fucking Johnson!
Ah well, we’ll always have House of Games.
I can’t wait for the chorus of conservatives who predictably shout “shut up and sing!” when any liberal entertainer voices an opinion about politics praising the “new and improved” Mr. Mamet. ‘Cause it’s apparently totally okay for actors/singers/writers who agree with them to talk about politics, but everyone else is supposed to keep their mouth shut.
Completely off topic, but I thought you all might enjoy the fact that there is a double a ballclub in Kansas called the Wichita Wingnuts.
I am sure that Gavin et. al. might make delightful use of the team logo.
bargal20, yeah, that’s it! It was the chipmunk outfits that did it…..
What I don’t get is why Mamet wouldn’t draw the logical conclusion and decide to oppose both the Republican and Democratic parties — instead he becomes a Republican?
It’s a two party system!
Nevermind that bit, Mamet with a straight face claims that income levels in this country have remained equivalent, that there are rich and poor, but that people move in and out of them, with little regard to tax policy and/or political affiliation of Congress or the President.
Conveniently ignoring the ten million new poverty stricken since Bush-001 or the alarming increase in holdings of the wealthiest one percent of this nation in that same period.
But sure…he’s a libertarian…
He’s a searing playwright.
And a fucking terrible essayist. So earnest. Bleh.
He had a great take when someone asked him what his college was like:
“You mean Sex Camp?”
I can’t wait for the chorus of conservatives who predictably shout “shut up and sing!” when any liberal entertainer voices an opinion about politics praising the “new and improved” Mr. Mamet.
They won’t, JK. He’s not particularly kind to Republicans, either.
Off-topic: Adm. Fallon just “retired”…
“You see this watch? This watch has more brains than the whole conservative movement!”
I think he simply looked at the dearth of wingnut talent in the film department and realized that if he switched teams he could be their king.
Although, he’s always been pretty outspoken about defending Israel at all costs, so this isn’t too surprising.
Didn’t the problem begin with the reverence for JFK? Was he worthy of reverence? I’ve never thought so. It makes me cringe when people treat him as a saint.
Ok, so Mr Mamet has decided he is no longer a liberal because he used to think that people were basically good at heart, and now he decides people can be like “swine.” WTF???? I have been a liberal for years, and I have never, ever doubted that people can be like “swine.” (No offense to any actual pigs reading the blog.) People are wonderful, creative, generous, loving. At the same time, people are nasty, dull, greedy, and spiteful. It’s that wonderful, spicy cocktail called “he uman condition.” We can be any number of things at any given times. That is why we have things called “laws.” Liberals insist on things like more coroporate accountability, assistance for people in need, and equality for all because there are people out there who want to drink other people’s milkshakes, keep people down, and keep people inequal. If people were good all the time, and always did the right thing by their fellow humans, then we wouldn’t need laws.
Who am I kidding? Mamet probably just got cut off in traffic by a gay/black/latino person and is trying to vent. Or, he has decided there is a lucrative market in being a right-wing asshat and wants to cash in while the cashing is good.
Great minds think alike.
Customer Reviews
I meant “the human condition,” not “he uman condition.” Although I think with a little fruit garnish, the he uman condition would be a pretty nifty cocktail.
You know, interestingly enough, I look at the Bay of Pigs attempted coup against Cuba as a pathetic case of not only illegal and imperial intervention but as a miserable and disgusting failure, yet in no way did this convince me that the right wingers who fetishized it and pushed it on the very willing JFK were right and that therefore I should be Republican.
I mean, god, if you look at the people who hated JFK forever for not giving “air support” to the pathetic, unsupported, beleaguered set of idiots who thought to cause Cubans to “rise up”, it’s not the liberals — who mainly recognize that at the time, a war with the Soviets would probably not have been a good idea.
The people who forever blamed JFK for somehow failing to make magic ponies appear around the Bay of Pigs freaks were lunatic right wing militants, guys who saw communist subversion under every bed, and of course the ultra-revanchist nutbag Cuban exile right.
But, yeah, other than that, it’s a real strongly convincing argument to support the Republicans, right?
If any of Mamet’s points were pertinent, you’d think he would at least admit that Kennedy had the decency to get shot before he permanently damaged the country. Maybe if Bush had had that kind of decency, Mamet’s “logic” would make more sense.
The reverence that people now show for JFK probably stems from a few things that stick in people’s minds.
– He was good looking.
– Cuban Missle Crisis
– “Camelot”
– Marilyn Monroe
– Assasinated/Zapruder film
Or, he has decided there is a lucrative market in being a right-wing asshat and wants to cash in while the cashing is good.
BUY!! BUY!! BUY!!!
Not only did JFK not need Illinois to win, but the Republicans downstate were as busy stuffing ballot boxes as the Dems in Chicago. Illinois was usually carried by whichever party could turn out the most graveyard votes. JFK stole Illinois fair and square.
Amazingly, Mamet seems to have suffered from an extremely long adolescence. He now says that he realizes there are shades of gray in people and events. How such a gifted dramatist with themes that are often so chillingly amoral could admit to this is beyond me.
Mamet always was overrated. I can’t forget this one line from “Glengarry Glen Ross” (which got left out of the movie version): One of the salesmen bitches that his leads are “nothing but Patels” (i.e., South Asians) and adds: “Their women. They look like they just got fucked by a dead cat.”
That line manages to be deeply offensive while not making the slightest bit of sense. It takes a true asshole to pull that off.
So Alex Blaldwin’s charachter was the real hero of “Glengarry Glenross.”
“I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as “a brain-dead liberal,” and to NPR as “National Palestinian Radio.””
Yes, charming. Add in David’s posh New York digs close to his “conservative” rabbi’s synagogue, and you can pretty much connect the dots that lead to his amazing epiphany. How long before Mamet will be guest posting his terse prose at Atlas Chugs?
get the sense that ol’ “Curtain Up – Fuck You – Curtain Down” Mamet is trying to get in on that Christopher Hitchens/provocateur gravy train …
Yeah, that’s how I read it as well. It didn’t seem very convincing–it didn’t even seem like Mamet himself was particularly convinced, but more in the process of trying to convince himself.
The comments are kinda funny in that wingnut blog boilerplate sort of way.
I’m not familiar with Mamet as a playwright, but is it possible that he’s being sarcastic here? I mean, surely he didn’t seriously call Sowell the greatest philosopher etc.
I mean, he couldn’t have, right?
Right?
You mean Hitch somehow left some gravy unconsumed for others?
That was among the best deserved “Sadly, No”‘s I’ve ever read.
Ever.
Clif, ya done good.
It takes him five pages to say “can’t we all get along?”* His essays must be the repository for all the excess verbiage trimmed from his terse dialogue.
* Except you, Palestinians, Mamet’s got his eye on you.
He writes like people talk! (Provided those people are in asylums.)
[The military] is … made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world.
You can’t have a wingnut conversion without the new found love for the military. This love is strongest in those that would never dream of joining or have excuses why they can’t join (be that pilonidal cysts or more urgent priorities). Mamet himself, a strapping 20 year old at the height of the Vietnam war, got a student deferment. I don’t blame him for avoiding the service (I would have tried too), but I wish he’d quit projecting on those that do serve.
Most military servicemembers, once their illusions of protecting Mom and apple pie are shattered (usually around the first couple of days of boot camp), risk their lives to protect the men and women in their unit and to get the ordered task done. They don’t spend much time thinking about the comfort and safety of pretentious playwrights back home.
Why is it, exactly, that Mammet’s brain-dead scribble gets lit up here, while Paglia’s collected drool-spatters get ignored, month after month?
Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.
Really? Public roads, clean drinking water, childhood immunization programs, public education for basic literacy, federally-subsidized student loans, child-labor laws, workplace safety laws, the Consumer Safety Product Commission, FDA, medicare, social security, NASA, public fire departments, public police forces, the Small Business Administration, and the national parks system have all failed to produce “much beyond sorrow”?
Are you fucking kidding me?
David who?
Haven’t read Mamet, & not that interested either.
Also missed “Glengarry Glen Ross” with no sense of psychic trauma.
Smells like someone desperately needs some attention while they watch their previous career tank. That’s an awful lot of provocative bullshit to cram into one little paragraph – let me guess: this guy’s referred to as an INTELLECTUAL (pause to open jar of Gravol).
As has been said above, this is about as sharp as suddenly crying “Oh noes! FDR & Churchill bombed those cities with REAL BOMBS! WTF?!?” & thus began cheerleading for Hitler – in the spring of 1945.
I presume the inevitable “O’Reilly-ExtraLite” op-eds displaying the depths of his subsequent “wisdom” will be treated accordingly.
edit: that list is waaay to short for my liking. If Mammet is “hard-pressed” to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow, there are some first and second-generation Jews who would like a word with him out back about some business in Germany around the middle of last century.
Along with every African-American who can trace their American lineage to before 1865.
Fucker.
Oh, wait, “…those things which affect me and in those things I observe…”
So since government doesn’t immediately, instantly benefit him or those he allows himself to see (his friends, versus, say, his cleaning lady) government obviously benefits no one, anywhere.
Fucker.
Completely off topic, but I thought you all might enjoy the fact that there is a double a ballclub in Kansas called the Wichita Wingnuts.
They’re not double A. They’re an independent team in the American Association. The double A team that used to be in Wichita (the Wranglers) is now located in Northwest Arkansas.
Haven’t read Mamet, & not that interested either.
Also missed “Glengarry Glen Ross” with no sense of psychic trauma.
He’s good, but the lack of contractions – can not for can’t in all circumstances – gets pretty grating. I don’t think he’s got the ear for speech that people credit him with.
Poor Mamet, I feel his existential angst. The liberal world hasn’t measured up to his high standards. So he’s gonna show us all and join the wingnuts. Boo who, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I’m sure he’ll find truth and universal truth in the company of Horowitz and Hannity et al…..
What I don’t get is why Mamet wouldn’t draw the logical conclusion and decide to oppose both the Republican and Democratic parties — instead he becomes a Republican? WTF?
It’s like the old expression says, “Always choose the greater of two evils.”
Shit. Wait a second…
Ever since 9/11, my anal cyst has been acting up too much for me to volunteer for duty in the real military, but I patrol the boundaries of my property with an Airsoft M1 Battle Rifle™, looking for homoislamists.
but the lack of contractions – can not for can’t in all circumstances – gets pretty grating.
Like “y’all”, or “very goo”?
So he’s gonna show us all and join the wingnuts.
That should start “So he is going to”.
“I’m sure he’ll find truth and universal truth in the company of Horowitz and Hannity et al…..”
Horowitz, yes–the prime exemplar of taking your unexamined penchant for absolutism and just switching the polarity on it. Once fervently anti-establishment, now just-as-fervently (and blindly, stupidly, etc.) anti-left.
The question for Mamet is, “Who told you to idolize JFK in the first place, chief?”
(Although Glengarry is great, as is the script to The Untouchables.)
Most military servicemembers, once their illusions of protecting Mom and apple pie are shattered (usually around the first couple of days of boot camp), risk their lives to protect the men and women in their unit and to get the ordered task done. They don’t spend much time thinking about the comfort and safety of pretentious playwrights back home.
As an Army veteran, I can attest to the veracity of this statement. I certainly wasn’t thinking about David Mamet’s personal safety and well-being while I was crawling through the mud in boot camp. Mostly, I was asking myself what the hell I was thinking when I volunteered.
I don’t think the political beliefs David Mamet has come to are that different from the ones John Cole always had. He still despises Bush as much as he ever did.
In the setting of a play, people have a common goal and an incentive to work it out. In the setting of society, people have different goals and different positions of power from which they approach the different goals. Government is a way of articulating the different goals when it works properly.
(Although Glengarry is great, as is the script to The Untouchables.)
But nothing can beat his work on “The Lion King”.
Nail LaBute sucks too.
Also, David Mamet has presumably not disowned JFK for starting civil and voting rights legislation which has increased the stock of justice in society BECAUSE it allowed people to participate in the public sphere where people work things out.
(Although Glengarry is great, as is the script to The Untouchables.)
I never saw the Untouchables, and can’t figure out why Glengarry is great. I could barely sit through ten minutes of it. Is there some kind of payoff, or is it just guys being assholes the whole way through?
Say, wait a minute. Correct me if I’m wrong, but JFK has been dead like 44 years? Reckon Mamet knows that? I mean, a pretty big deal was made out of it at the time, but he might’ve missed it.
“Kennedy did it, too, so boo on liberals.” Sheesh. But to be honest, the Sowell crack makes me think he’s fucking around. No way in hell, man, not even if you’ve never read any actual philosophy would you think Sowell was doing anything but cheering on the Powers That Be for maybe a little table scraps.
Frankly, I’m surprised that David Mamet wasn’t already a rightwing nutcase. I’ve only seen the movies of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Untouchables” but both of them seemed pretty right-wing to me. Lots of fetishization of violence and power, while the good guys (always guys) are represented by creaky glurge. I don’t think he ever was really a liberal, except when it was time to get his own ass out of the Vietnam draft.
Whatever. He and Thon=mas Sowell can collaborate on “Bush: The Fucking Greatest Motherfucking President Who Ever Fucked a Dead Islamofascist.”
That should start “So he is going to”
Being raised by liberal wild dogs in east Kentucky, that’s the bestest I can do. Mr. Fancy Pants Ny playwright. LOL
[The military] is … made up of those men and women who actually risk their lives to protect the rest of us from a very hostile world.
There is nothing like pouring a country’s wealth into military spending, to create the sense of the world as a hostile unstable scary place. Much in the same way that building every-larger prisons to incarcerate an every-larger percentage of the population is a good way to encourage the sense that the streets are unsafe.
Here’s an experiment: Go to various parts of the world and ask the locals what they think of “Our brave boys [/girls] in uniform”. Now loath though I am* to draw sweeping generalisations, I suspect that in the UK (say), the locals will assume that you’re talking not about the military, but about the police force.
In NZ they’ll assume that you mean the parking-meter inspectors; in Germany, the park litter collectors.
* Also “methinks”. And “betimes”.
Sam, it’s assholes all the way down. It’s a Seinfeld episode with no jokes whatsoever.
Sam, it’s assholes all the way down. It’s a Seinfeld episode with no jokes whatsoever.
Thanks for the warning, RB.
I never much liked Seinfeld, either. It completely ruined slap bass for me.
Thomas Sowell is the biggest naked-emperor we’ve got. I’ve never read a thing of his that didn’t seem like overly simplistic ad hoc whining. Guy writes an entire book about how liberals only care about cosmic justice, or whatever, and never gets around to actually defning what he’s talking about. Sound familiar? He’s the original Goldberg. And that’s just the books- his columns, as sampled here, are just terrible. We should move kidney sales off the black market? We should train helicopter snipers to end high-speed car chases? A military coup in the US would be a good thing? He’s paid to churn out this ridiculousness, rather than being on the same relevant plane as that Time Cube guy?
And yet high-profile conservatives treat him like he’s the second coming of Adam Smith.
I never much liked Seinfeld, either. It completely ruined slap bass for me.
What, that was the first place you heard slap bass, then?
And yes, Yousta Bees are as relevant as The Strokes these days.
Haven’t read Mamet, & not that interested either.
Your loss.
I don’t think he’s got the ear for speech that people credit him with.
People credit him with having a great ear for speech and not a great style of speech? Two different things. I don’t think many people really think Mamet is writing the way people talk. I think those of us who admire his style are struck by the flow, meaning and clipped profanity of the language.
Frankly, I’m surprised that David Mamet wasn’t already a rightwing nutcase. I’ve only seen the movies of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Untouchables” but both of them seemed pretty right-wing to me.
Glengarry Glen Ross was not exactly a “how-to” manual on the American Dream. I thought it was practically Marxist. The Untouchables was an entertainment with memorable lines — and even if you think the script is right wing, the director was Brian DePalma, he’s left of left and loudly proud of it. His State and Main was 10 times funnier than The Player, Ronin was very good, Wag the Dog was very funny, House of Games was singular — and those are just his movies. American Buffalo was a shockingly good play (and an utter waste on film).
Good crackers people. Mamet’s a great writer. And the more I think about it, the more I think it’s a thought exercise and a joke — his writing does NOT in any way seem anything but understandingly and contemptuously cynical of human nature. And he’s always given glory to heroic men, questioned their loyalties and shown the wreckage they leave in their wake.
I came across Mamet’s article by chance earlier today. It was such a soggy lump of rambling gibberish that I couldn’t tell whether or not it was intended as a parody.
No shit. By this point, it’s like shackling yourself to a rotting corpse.
I don’t agree. I thought some of his stuff was excellent, but de gustibus non est disputandum, y’all.
People credit him with having a great ear for speech and not a great style of speech? Two different things.
Yes they do, and yes, two different things. I spent a lot of time around theatre academics and read the work and the criticism. I think he’s terrific generally but the speech clangs to me.
Also that Seinfeld slap-bass was pretty clearly a keyboard…
He’s a searing playwright.
“Glenngary Glenn Ross” was pretty awesome. So was “American Buffalo”.
I’ve seen a little of his more recent stuff and it was pretty disappointing. Especially that spy movie he did about 3 or 4 years ago– what a piece of warmed-over crap.
It’s really wierd how his gift for dialogue totally deserted him in that flick. Instead of really true-to-life sounding speech, speech which sounds like what people actually say- you know, what made him so famous in the first place? Instead of that, everyone sounds like the cast of a James Bond film trying to convince themselves, and us, that they are for real this time.
his gift for dialogue
!!!!!!!
OK, one more.
In Israel the political class is widely acknowledged to be a joke. Would Mamet think that a more minimal state that at least gave less power to these folks give Israelis enough reason to believe in the State of Israel that it would survive?
Righteous Bubba on ‘Glengarry Glen Ross’:
Gee whiz, why would you say such a mean thing about all those nice people? In particular, Alec Baldwin’s character was a real warm-hearted Mister Rogers kind of a guy.
Yeah, that Seinfeld thing is a keyboard. Jonathan Wolff is the culprit.
So please don’t let the show define slap bass for you. You’d be better off with this guy.
his gift for dialogue
Yes, seriously… you don’t think “American Buffalo” has well-written dialogue, for instance?
Writin’ dialog. Mamet writes dialog, but in a specific way to advance a particular sensability, a tone more than anything else. It helps create a kinetic sense, one of pressure and intensity. And it works very well. It’s not supposed to sound like your family.
For real dialog, albeit highly localized, you gotta go with Elmore Leonard or George V. Higgins. “The Friends of Eddy Coyle” is an amazing book told almost exclusively in dialog. The rhythm and flow is spectacular. “Swag”, “52 Pickup” and “City Primeval” are fantastic examples of Leonard’s ear for dialog, and clever wordplay. They are a joy…
mikey
I don’t think Mamet’s people speak the way people do, although what is said is very interesting.
It’s not supposed to sound like your family.
OK, yeah. Maybe ‘true to life’ is the wrong word. It has a tone and a feel and an intensity as you said.
Swag is a good recommendation.
Swag is a good recommendation.
Sorry?
Oh, I see. I’ll check it out.
Thomas Sowell is the biggest naked-emperor we’ve got. I’ve never read a thing of his that didn’t seem like overly simplistic ad hoc whining. Guy writes an entire book about how liberals only care about cosmic justice, or whatever, and never gets around to actually defning what he’s talking about. Sound familiar? He’s the original Goldberg. And that’s just the books- his columns, as sampled here, are just terrible. We should move kidney sales off the black market? We should train helicopter snipers to end high-speed car chases? A military coup in the US would be a good thing? He’s paid to churn out this ridiculousness, rather than being on the same relevant plane as that Time Cube guy?
And yet high-profile conservatives treat him like he’s the second coming of Adam Smith.
That’s because he’s every right-wing whack job’s Black Friend.
What, that was the first place you heard slap bass, then?
I was joking about the slap bass – didn’t come off so well, sorry.
But I didn’t realize it was a keyboard. I have untrained ears.
Eisenhower also was responsible for the bay of pigs, not Kennedy. Maybe 2 CIA agents died, and the were pilots, flying unsanctioned missions, which they insisted on flying outside of the planning. Why does everyone get this wrong? Thanks to mammet i now cringe every time val kilmer says “baby.” thanks, douche.
Elmore Leonard can really write good dummies, which for some reason I get off on. I have this theory that it’s hard for smart people to write convincing idiots and therefore it’s a great achievement when it’s successfully done, but I have no idea if I have the smarts to meaningfully test this.
A conundrum.
I must understand.
Why did so many of you subject yourselves to Glengarry Glen Ross?
Here’s Leonard’s take on it RB.
After reading that back in 2001, I wondered why anyone would actually spend money to go to grad school to learn to write creative fiction. It’s by far the best writing tips I’ve ever seen.
So since government doesn’t immediately, instantly benefit him or those he allows himself to see (his friends, versus, say, his cleaning lady) government obviously benefits no one, anywhere.
RBob, you have just distilled all libertarian philosophy into one shining, or at least dimly phosphorescing-as-it-decays, sentence. Although Mamet is showing his age (a bad thing, in his worldview) when he talks about JFK — Glibertarians are religiously opposed to noticing any real-world events more than a decade past, possibly because the ideal Glibertarian is age 24. Because as of today Mamet can afford to buy his own security, re-sculpt his own environment, pay for his own kids’ education, and rent whichever philosophers will tell him that his is the best of all possible worlds… so all that “History” stuff? Who cares!
Zeppo, when you list the Zeitgeist of JFK, you forgot the “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country” speech. If people remember one thing about John F, it’s that line — which is, of course, garlic to the Republican/Libertarian vampires. If they remember two more things, it’ll be the Peace Corps (again, very not-libertarian), and that JFK announced America would put a man on the moon in ten years, which actually happened, even if JFK wasn’t alive to witness it. But the concept of Big Guvmint actually setting a past-the-next-election goal and committing millions of dollars and tens of thousands of people to successfully achieving that goal is *not* something that inspires the New Robber Barons like David Mamet — unlike, say, Enron’s plans to “fvck grandma, fvk her right.. “ by stealing billions from individuals to engorge, however briefly, the Big Swinging Dicks of the Enron sales corps.
The GOP is beating us in gathering over the hill narcissists! That’s a demographic that represents .0000034% of all American voters!
While small, it is considered Hillary’s base and must be maintained in the Democratic territory!
And the better, First page goes first link.
As for Why Glengarry Glen Ross? It’s the logical extension of Death of a Salesman. It’s a savage portrait of capitalism, what it does to people, how it corrodes their souls — and how the nicest ones who partake in it are delusional losers.
May as well ask “Why write at all?”
Jay B – thanks for the precis of Glengarry Glen Ross. With that in mind I might have an easier time watching it.
I think it’s tough to watch more than once Sam. It’s pretty grim, if brilliant.
That said, I think that Mamet’s work, overall, is miles ahead of LaBute’s (someone brought him up above). Mamet, while often unsparing of his characters, doesn’t seem to hate them with the ferocity of LaBute. Mamet is curdled (at least in his fiction — this Voice essay is so mushy and contradictory of his work it’s making me bleed inside) toward the human condition, but he still believes in dramatic reveal and sometimes even a form of redemption. LaBute is just relentlessly contemptuous with none of the verbal flair or dark, if recognizable, humanity of Mamet.
In my opinion, of course.
STRONGLY second Mikey’s recommendation re: George V. Higgins. A Midwestern bookseller who considered himself world-weary once complained to me “Who talks like these people (in Rat On Fire)?” “Every arsehole I grew up among in the Bronx,” I replied…
Also, Style Versus Substance: Boston, Kevin White & the Politics of Illusion is one of the best primers on modern American politics available, and (therefore) hilariously funny when it’s not deeply sad. It’s essentially the same story as was covered in “Common Ground”, but from a sufficiently non-naive point of view that neither the author nor his readers are compelled to go blow their own brains out afterwards.
Glengarry Glen Ross
Worth watching and Jack Lemmon is terrific. And thanks Jay.
I guess part of my enjoyment of GGR is having had to work in a few sales environments in which some of those rules applied and some guys really were kind of like that.
So, Mamet’s gonna do the screenplay for Liberal Fascism?
SamFromUtah,
Well, don’t worry, I was being a smartass, anyway. The insinuation being that the first time one hears someone playing slap bass, one is generally tired of hearing it already. If, of course, one has any taste whatsoever, and the guy playing the slap bass isn’t, you know, someone like Bootsy Collins or Larry Graham.
Even then, just a modicum. Slap bass is like slide guitar. There’s some for whom it’s a sublime tool. The rest of us sound like friggin’ idiots when we do it.
Come on Anne,
Lukas didn’t kill himself for another 12 years after Common Ground.
And if you can’t laugh at Lukas’ title for his Nixon book : Nightmare: The Underside of the Nixon Years (there was an upside to the Nixon Years?), then well, may Allah have mercy on your soul!
But thanks for the tip on Higgins. Jack Beatty’s book on James Michael Curley (The Rascal King) is also brilliant.
How very depressing. I expected David Mamet to have a fucking brain.
The essential belief of liberalism is not that people are good but that “life”, “the universe”, “the natural order”, etc will not provide just outcomes to people without occasional government intervention.
Mamet buys into the same “argument from governmental incompetency” that says “Sure, people need help when things go wrong, but the government sucks, man so instead people should just get over shit and stop expecting help.”
Government exists because it performs functions that simply cannot be performed by private individuals, institutions, corporations, charity groups or the invisible Hand of God. Whether or not it is ever 100% efficient at these tasks is irrelevent to the moral argument that says that the tasks themselves need to be done.
Conservativim’s fallacious “Can’t do it right so shouldn’t do it at all” counter is both logically and morally bankrupt.
Indeed there was. The fucker resigned.
Agreed. Another colorful jerk it was a pleasure to read about.
Conservativim’s fallacious “Can’t do it right so shouldn’t do it at all” counter is both logically and morally bankrupt.
Very nice summation, Andre.
The insinuation being that the first time one hears someone playing slap bass, one is generally tired of hearing it already.
Ever see the footage of the Red Hot Chili Peppers recording “Give It Away” with Rick Rubin? Rubin has to get Flea to concentrate and just play the fucking bass line instead of noodling around like the typical slap player.
Indeed there was. The fucker resigned.
And then pardoned. Every silver lining had it’s cloud.
Ever see the footage of the Red Hot Chili Peppers recording “Give It Away” with Rick Rubin? Rubin has to get Flea to concentrate and just play the fucking bass line instead of noodling around like the typical slap player.
That’s Flea’s recurrent problem. He consistently plays too many notes and hence does not allow for the silence necessary for good funk. A different genre, but BB King’s advice obtains: the important is to know when not to play.
The noodling is also a jazz head thing, at least in Flea’s case.
The noodling is also a jazz head thing, at least in Flea’s case.
Flea aside, I don’t know how much that holds true anymore. Maybe older bass players, but most of the young guys I’ve known (and I’m counting 30 and under nowadays as “young”) who get into that fiddly snap-and-pop wanking seem to be more interested in making a lot of goofy noises as quickly as possible. I mean, even when you get off into a jazz haze, you still make pretense to hanging with an overall vibe. The post-Flea snappers are just wanky little dudes show you how fast they can fret the notes.
I think it’s part of the overall damage video games did to my generation. I shudder to think of the horrors stuff like Guitar Hero and that Rock Band game will unless onto the rock & roll collective unconciousness 10-15 years down the line.
Even with the cloud, the silver lining was well worth it. The political collapse of Nixon and his minions was one of the few times in my life I’ve seen the truly powerful pay a real price for their misdeeds. Witnessing that saved me from terminal cynicism.
I shudder to think of the horrors stuff like Guitar Hero and that Rock Band game will unless onto the rock & roll collective unconciousness 10-15 years down the line.
Reckon so, m’man. That they called Boston and Journey “corporate rock” will look positively quaint when viewed against the redundant, recycled homogeneous crap that the computer is teaching these kids is rock n roll…
mikey
And then sometimes I says to myself, “Christ, why don’t you sound like a grumpy old man just once in a while.” Them that enjoy playing and/or listening to fiddly snap bass, give it hell. I’m thoroughly enjoying playing bass guitar in a country band, so what the hell do I know. Besides root-five, that is.
I was referring to the too many notes thing—virtuosity over groove—and not so much the slap thing. I prefer my slap used sparingly. For example, from that first You Tube video I linked, I think the first thing they do is much funkier than the second.
Boy, a rich old white guy has discovered he’s actually conservative. What won’t they think of next.
Also, you guys are aware that at least half the songs in Guitar Hero and Rock Band are dust-cakey old “classic rock” numbers, right? The very first song on GHIII is fucking “Slow Ride”, for crissakes.
I shudder to think of the horrors stuff like Guitar Hero and that Rock Band game will unless onto the rock & roll collective unconciousness 10-15 years down the line.
I’m curious to see what the effect of that is too. My guess is that Guitar Hero is mostly just giving the kids who were only ever air-guitarists something to do, and won’t harm the real musicians much.
As a former video game geek, I thought that Guitar Hero’s landing the air-guitar market was brilliant. I didn’t expect it to succeed because it’s very unusual for a game that needs a special controller to do very well – at least until Dance Dance Revolution wandered along.
The game is pretty fun for those of us who aren’t musically talented, too. Playing it certainly doesn’t make me think I’m a real guitarist, but it sounds like there are some people who are deluded that way. Search youtube for Guitar Hero and it’s a bit cringeworthy.
Also, you guys are aware that at least half the songs in Guitar Hero and Rock Band are dust-cakey old “classic rock” numbers, right?
Well, yes, but it’s played by a computer, and analog is warmer.
Leonard Pierce,
Ya know, there are various interesting facts of the music business that cast the somewhat surprising longevity of classic rock nuggets like “Slow Ride” or Ram Jam’s “Black Betty” or “American Woman” or “Barracuda” or whatever. My brother’s got a degree in this bullshit, and he says it has something to do with the such-and-such royalties to so many of those tunes belong to the corporations rather than the artists, and more often than not these days, one big ol’ corporation owns this video game company and that group of such-and-such royalties, so….
My brother could explain it all better, but the gist of it is that “Slow Ride” is just cheaper to use even moreso than a Green Day song. In other words, yes, they are that fucking greedy. It’s the little things that count.
Me, I just wonder what future generations are gonna think when, after the Apocalypse, excavating the ruins of the once-mighty kingdom of A-Mur-Ika and find enough copies of Black Oak Arkansas’ first album, remastered even, for every man, woman and child on the planet and then see “Jim Dandy” used to in a soup commercial. The mind boggles. Or mine does, anyway.
It’s not a jazz thing, it’s a shitty musician thing.
can anyone guess as to the real motivation for this man becoming a repub? and while you’re at it can you explain Dennis Miller as well?
this stuff just blows my mind, they can’t possibly be this way. There must be an unspoken, unheard of premise that these people have become convinced of but refuse address in public forums. it makes no sense otherwise.
The Air Guitar World Championships will be held August 20-22, 20008, in Oulu, Finland. The dates for the 2008 U.S. Air Guitar Championships have yet to be set.
It appears the city of Ojai, California, used to have a ban on playing air guitar in its parks.
Come on Anne, Lukas didn’t kill himself for another 12 years after Common Ground.
And it’s morally wrong to joke about other people’s despair, I know, especially when they’re well-intentioned people trying to make the world a marginally better place. But if reading Common Ground doesn’t make you want to slit your wrists, you weren’t paying attention, because it’s about a whole bunch of mostly very nice, good-hearted people working very very hard and ending up… not in a good place. And I vaguely remember Lukas’ wife, after his death, saying that all the unhappiness he forced himself to research for Common Ground had a permanent effect on him, or at least that’s when the people who loved him first noticed that Lukas was spiralling downwards, although it was exposure to the Idaho copper kleptocracy that actually killed him.
George V. Higgins’ Watergate book was called The Friends of Richard Nixon. Higgins was at the time most known for his best-selling novel about a small-time Irish thug who comes to grief as a result of his companions’ indefatiguable small-mindedness, greed, and stupidity — The Friends of Eddy Coyle. While Higgins’ reporting on Watergate was quite as “serious” as Lukas’, it was that steady leaven of black Irish humor which keeps his books relevant.
SamFromUtah,
Yeah, I got no beef with them that play it and the goobers who take it far more seriously than they should, well, it wouldn’t be the first time someone was moved by music and, yet, nevertheless manage to totally miss the fucking point. The vast bulk of punk rock, for instance. Hell, it beats the guys who think being kick-ass at World Of Warcraft gives them gravitas when it comes to suggestions of nuking Mecca.
A musician friend (and fellow bass player) has told me it’s totally counter-intuitive to actually playing guitar, and thus, no fun for him and I trust his opinion. I haven’t played any of these games, mind, I’ve just watched ’em being played. Back Thanksgiving, I saw a bunch of folks play GHIII with the image projected onto an overhead screen. This was just after a friend gave me some mushrooms. Scared the living hell out of me.
The Air Guitar World Championships…
Good grief. I had no idea there was such a thing. I’ll be charitable and consider it a form of dance.
There must be an unspoken, unheard of premise that these people have become convinced of but refuse address in public forums. it makes no sense otherwise.
Yep. “I got mine, Jack, bugger the rest of you.” Not exactly dignified, which is why its proponents (St. Ronnie, the too-recently-late Lord William of Buckley) prefer not to phrase it so bluntly in print or in front of the hoi polloi.
Democracy and other unfashionable philosophies of that ilk have much better taglines (see “Ask not what your country can do for you… “) but taglines don’t pay for BMWs and Upper East Side co-ops.
…it’s totally counter-intuitive to actually playing guitar, and thus, no fun for him and I trust his opinion.
I could see that. At best, it’d be like trying to touch-type on a keyboard with a different layout (and a lot fewer keys). The other big difference is that the number and frequency of things you have to do with your fingers is a lot lower – i.e., one button press and “strum bar” click will trigger an entire phrase, even at the harder levels.
I don’t know any real guitarists who’ve tried playing it. Maybe none of them do.
Hell, it beats the guys who think being kick-ass at World Of Warcraft gives them gravitas when it comes to suggestions of nuking Mecca.
Ha! I couldn’t agree more. I’m all for harmless fun, but we must keep our sense of reality versus fiction intact.
Becoming a conservative in 2008– after they’ve spent the last 8+ years hell bent on proving to the world that everything they claim to stand for is a lie- is fucking insane, like signing up with the Italian Fascists in 1946 or something. At least Miller could possibly blame it on his chickenshit reaction to Sep. 11.
Well, if synchronised swimming is an Olympic sport…
The Air Guitar World Championships… Good grief. I had no idea there was such a thing. I’ll be charitable and consider it a form of dance.
It’s held in Finland. Finnish humor is at the intersection of Scandinavian humor and Russian humor. Like akvavit, it is best left to hardened professionals and the suicidal.
Air Guitar Nation.
Haven’t seen it yet.
…Like akvavit, it is best left to hardened professionals and the suicidal.
With a bit of luck, I’ll get to spend a bit of time in Finland in the fall. I’ll need to learn a few phrases, but it sounds like I’d better stay away from the jokes.
But I’ll definitely practice my air-guitar.
As a playwright who has over the years found some joy in the weirdly stylized dialogue and hollowed-out souls of Mamet’s characters, may I simply paraphrase from my favorite of his scripts?
Fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet.
What?
Fucking Mamet.
Full Disclosure. The last video game I played was Duke Nukem. And I had to get the cheat code for god mode to do the last half dozen levels. It’s just not something I’m good at. I can’t ever remember what all the controls do. Hell, a rifle has a safety, a selector and a trigger. I can keep up with that.
I don’t know how Guitar Hero works, or what the attraction might be, but I am certain it’s having an impact on how young people express a musical creativity that for millennia has required them to pick up an instrument and write a song. Culturally, we cannot help but be poorer for it…
mikey
2006 and 2007 Air Guitar World Champion Ochi “Dainoji” Yosuke.
A musician friend (and fellow bass player) has told me it’s totally counter-intuitive to actually playing guitar, and thus, no fun for him and I trust his opinion.
That’s my experience.
Also note that Guitar Hero doesn’t use the real songs in a lot of cases: they hire soundalikes to remake ’em.
And getting right back on topic, the 15th-place finisher at the 2007 competition was Tim “Glen Airy Glen Rocks” Evans from Canada.
Culturally, we cannot help but be poorer for it…
I’m not so sure, mikey. You may be right, or it may inspire more kids to pick up instruments for real once they have a music-related hands-on experience. We’ll see where it goes.
Make that the 18th-place finisher.
Shit like that can bother me too. When it does, I just remind myself that there is absolutely no reason to expect people to act reasonable or sane.
Fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet, fucking Mamet.
What?
Fucking Mamet.
I would dearly like to see the mime version of GGR. Or perhaps a performance with a deaf interpreter on the side of the stage, translating it into Sign.
I don’t know how Guitar Hero works, or what the attraction might be, but I am certain it’s having an impact on how young people express a musical creativity that for millennia has required them to pick up an instrument and write a song. Culturally, we cannot help but be poorer for it…
More music and more creative power is now available to everybody on the planet than ever before. This is good.
The fact that I have more music-making horsepower at my fingertips than the Beatles could ever have dreamed of is somewhat depressing however.
“Everybody on the planet” is overstating the case somewhat. I’d for sure count me and people I know.
My favorite Finnish lunatic is The Mattoid. He does this crazy throat singing thing and seems to be obsessed with the words “happy” and “party” and “suicide”. At a Portland show last year it was very entertaining watching a table of emo kids shift uncomfortably as he was repeatedly screaming “is everybody ready to suck some cock?” before his encore “We Are The Cocksuckers”.
A musician friend (and fellow bass player) has told me it’s totally counter-intuitive to actually playing guitar, and thus, no fun for him
What, is it maybe an evil plot by some closeted musician to train young people so that they will be simply unable to play real guitars?
I love the GH series, for one simple reason.
Where the hell else are the kids gonna pick up the Dead Kennedys? They don’t listen to us old farts caterwaul about music, with our ‘analog’ and our hatred of the drum machine.
Then again, I come fairly unique: Got Count Basie, Daft Punk, AND Tom T. Hall on my iPod. I can still picture mikey as the main character in ‘Salute to a Switchblade’, too.
I suppose that the possibility exists that my assumptions are simplistic and false. I suppose further that the tools that are available virtually for free will result in creations we could never begin to imagine. I suppose I could think this through, and at least consider the possibility that there are things unimagined, and unimaginable, and we should wait and see what develops out of this.
Sure. Yeah. I could do that. It’s a fuckin option.
Of course I could just chase all of you off my goddam lawn and go back to my corncob pipe.
I think that’s the right answer….
mikey
I suppose further that the tools that are available virtually for free will result in creations we could never begin to imagine.
Sooner or later, my array of Staedler Marsmagno technical pens is going to turn me into a decent writer.
That’s right, Smut. This computer is going to turn me into a genius someday, I swear…
Maybe that’s true for Mamet; I don’t really know much about him as a person. From what I’ve read about Dennis Miller, he’s never had much in the way of political beliefs of any sort, and his conversion to the right was presumably a cynical – and ultimately unsuccessful – attempt to restart a stalled career by appealing to a new audience. Others may convert to the right out of fear and a hunger for authority, out of delusions about what the right really represents, out of personal squabbles with lefty friends, and so on. Different people, different motives.
One thing that fascinates me is how many rightwing converts feel a need to publish an article explaining their decision, as Mamet has done. To me, right-wing conversion pieces are so consistent that they almost represent a distinct genre of political writing. I’ve read many of them, written in many different styles, but I don’t recall ever reading one that struck me as honest. These pieces are invariably stuffed full of unconvincing rationalizations, sloppy self-justifications, and bullshit accusations of left-wing perfidiousness, often mixed with off-topic meanderings. The overall impression is almost always that of a person who feels compelled to confess something they’re ashamed of.
Creepy stuff.
three chords and an attitude, right mikey?
That’ll take you to a very nice place, Billy…
mikey
Never trust anyone who offers to “take you to a very nice place”!
Really?
Dammit.
That’s all I’ve ever been looking for…
mikey
These pieces are invariably stuffed full of unconvincing rationalizations, sloppy self-justifications, and bullshit accusations of left-wing perfidiousness, often mixed with off-topic meanderings. The overall impression is almost always that of a person who feels compelled to confess something they’re ashamed of.
Interesting Snorghagen.
Sooner or later, my array of Staedler Marsmagno technical pens is going to turn me into a decent writer.
Hee hee
I do believe that, musically, the tools are better – or at least more diverse and accessible – these days but that it’s still going to take talent to make use of them. My highest musical accomplishment was to write a few MIDI songs on my computer and have them judged “not as bad as I expected” by an actual musician. But I was able to do that without being able to play a keyboard or guitar.
And I can’t even imagine the technology that would make people think I can sing.
The overall impression is almost always that of a person who feels compelled to confess something they’re ashamed of.
That’s true – I wonder if it’s some kind of ritual self-abasement required for being Let Into the Club.
And I can’t even imagine the technology that would make people think I can sing.
Say hello to the Pro Tools AutoTune–damn near every pop star does!
From the Antares Auto-Tune website: “Hailed by the music press as a “holy grail of recording,” Auto-Tune 4 corrects intonation problems in vocals or solo instruments in real time, without distortion or artifacts, while preserving all of the expressive nuance of the original performance, yadda yadda.”
Real time? Like they can use it in live performances? I’ll be dipped. I didn’t know they could do that.
OK, I’ll join mikey in telling these kids to get off my lawn – that’s just cheating.
Got a light for my corncob pipe, mikey?
Like they can use it in live performances? I’ll be dipped. I didn’t know they could do that.
Have you never watched Phantom of the Paradise?
“Three chords for the stadium stars, under their floodlit skies;
Seven for the jazzmen, in their basements, stoned;
Nine for the classicists, ’cause they can count that high;
One for the punk rockers, dribbling on their own…”
What happens at the Venn intersection of Tolkien and music geeks. Not my invention, I sware!
No, it seems like a personal need for these guys. Maybe it’s a side effect of abandoning beliefs that they’d held for years, if only vaguely. And I suspect that a lot of them unconciously recognize that they’re selling out.
Even Garage Band – free with a Mac – will auto-tune you.
sophronia: Frankly, I’m surprised that David Mamet wasn’t already a rightwing nutcase. I’ve only seen the movies of “Glengarry Glen Ross” and “The Untouchables” but both of them seemed pretty right-wing to me. Lots of fetishization of violence and power, while the good guys (always guys) are represented by creaky glurge. I don’t think he ever was really a liberal, except when it was time to get his own ass out of the Vietnam draft.
“Glengarry GR” is a great play, and was a great movie, but I think sophronia’s right. It may come across to some people as an attack on how capitalism warps people’s minds, but I couldn’t help but notice the pleasure Mamet seemed to take in writing Alec Baldwin’s part. The character is a nightmarish asshole … except that Mamet, without seeming to realize it, gives him a kind of twisted grandeur. It’s like he admires what a monster the man is.
I liked “State and Main” but I find it easier than some to separate the work (good) from the writer (now revealed as a jerk).
Guitar Hero isn’t going to prevent potential musicians from picking up a real instrument. Nobody who really has music in their soul is going to be satisfied playing an upgraded version of Simon to the tune of John the Fisherman for the thousandth time. As for those without music in their soul, GH will at least teach them some rhythm.
GH has a neat controller and a lot of good songs, but as a game overall it’s a bit lacking. There’s always one correct button to hit, and no room for improvisation. I suppose it’s an inevitable consequence of using licensed songs, but it’s still a rather shallow setup. If I want to pretend to play guitar on the TV, I’d rather pull out my dusty old copy of Umjammer Lammy for the PS1, which would award bonus points for deviating from the default button presses in a way that the game judged to be good. It was a lot of fun, especially on two-player. Of course, occasionally you’d bust out what sounds like a bitchin solo and the computer would dock you for it, though I’d still prefer that over just hearing your string snap or whatever horrible noise you get from GH.
Yes, I am a nerd, why do you ask?
What I also found sad was the conservative vitriol in the comments from Village Voice readers. A once proud newspaper….
I’d rather pull out my dusty old copy of Umjammer Lammy for the PS1…
I love that game. It’s one of the most psycho things I’ve ever seen, especially in video-game world. My wife found it so creepy she won’t let me play it when she’s home.
If you’ve ever watched Mamet’s t.v. show “The Unit,” you know this right-wing conversion isn’t anything new. Despite his pretense at occasionally (and softly) mocking Bush, the dude’s a drooling Bush-loving neocon who easily adopts the Bush administration’s slanderous tactics when it suits his purpose. I watched “The Unit” for awhile ’cause it’s also produced by the guy who does “The Shield” (a much better show) and “The Unit” has a good cast, but haven’t watched an episode since the one titled (I believe) “Old Home Week” that Mamet himself scripted where a plotline involved Iraq War protestors (the only one we’d ever seen in the show) all of whom screamed and shouted and threatened violence at U.S. soldiers. Then, one of our main characters in the show gets to go all righteous about how outrageous these protests are– without any kind of rebuttal or attempt to put actual Iraq War protests in context (you know, like the ones in the actual real world where the protestors don’t spit on and throw things at the troops). Talk about a stacked deck– it was the old “if you’re against the war, you hate the troops” slander, and Mamet didn’t even try to hide it. The episode might as well have been ghost-written by Karl Rove. What’s disappointing is not even so much Mamet’s politics, as just how unimaginative and kneejerk his attempt to deal with the feelings surrounding the Iraq War turned out to be. I mean, you’d think the guy who wrote some pretty remarkable plays could at least do better than simple-mindedly recycling Vietnam era propaganda.
Interesting J-Bob. Or look at ‘Oleanna’. He makes the feminist student into an evil, manipulative, damaging moron.
It’s not a jazz thing, it’s a shitty musician thing.
Certainly. I guess I should have been clearer in my language. The problem is not jazz versus funk. The problem is a certain musician who studied and played jazz trumpet and then switched over to funk bass. For its opposite and something that is in fact a Good Thing, see the foundational switch made by Pee Wee Ellis and Maceo Parker.
I’ve always thought Mamet’s name sounded like a curse:
God-mamet!
Thomas Sowell (our greatest contemporary philosopher)
No, see, as others have noted in this thread, there’s no way he can really mean that. No, Mamet is sucking us into a web of deception: a shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams, and con men. Nothing is as it seems.
Well, not that it really matters, since this probably won’t retroactively annihilate his good stuff.
The artist has to be independently evaluated from their work.
The fact that the artist is now, or has been, an asshole is completely irrelevant.
That’s like a conservative not appreciating Impressionism because most of the painters were French and screwed around.
I see the attraction of conservative conversion as a ploy to make one look cynical, worldly wise, and mature by declaring human beings are despicable and one is tired of caring about them.
There is more than enough evidence of human despicability around for them to point at.
But so what? It’s an immature position to allow cynicism to masquerade as maturity.
Cynicism is like nihilism or snobbery. It’s declaring that one is no longer going to believe in anything to avoid disillusionment.
It boils down to enshrining “cranky” as a philosophical stance.
Way to think, Mamet!