Disinfotainment

I have been very upset for the past few days, since I heard news of the death of Lux Interior, frontman for The Cramps. This always happens when I hear of the death of one of the Punk idols of my youth. But this one struck me particularly hard.

There seems to be a wall that the old Punks hit, right about my age. They all hit it and go splat. When I read their obituaries, the first thing I look for is their age. I don’t know if I’m looking for confirmation that I outlived them, or afraid that I will go splat soon myself. But Lux was older than me, he was 62. For a moment, I felt a wave of relief, soon to be replaced by total panic. I did a mental calculation, 62 minus my age equals X, holy shit, I only have X years left to do something as totally fucking awesome as Lux did. That would be almost impossible. I am doomed.

And then I immediately thought of his wife, Poison Ivy. I never really cared that much about Lux, but I have always had an intense crush on Ivy. She was the real reason I loved The Cramps, there isn’t a hotter woman guitarist out there. And she was way out there. I spent years copying and practicing her guitar licks, nobody influenced the way I play more than she did, and today I sound pretty much like Ivy would if she was as untalented as I am. When I heard the news, I immediately thought, what is she going to do without Lux? The Cramps are dead now. How will she go on without her husband? Oh wait, maybe this is my shot! I know I could make her happy! I told a dear friend about my tormented thoughts of hitting on Ivy during her time of mourning, and she replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “Oh Charles, you’re always looking on the bright side!”

Lux’s death struck me especially hard because The Cramps were the first real live Punk gig I ever saw. It was so long ago it is hard to remember precisely when, but as far as I can recall, it was December 31, 1979, at The Strand Ballroom in Chicago. It was billed as “The New Year’s Eve of the Century.” And it totally was. The Cramps were at the peak of their early days, having just released their first full album. So when I heard about the Chicago gig, my brother and I planned a junket to see the concert. So he and I, and a few of our friends from Iowa City drove up.

We must have been a pathetic sight to the native Chicago punks, a group of hayseeds from Iowa who were out of our league. But we didn’t care, we enjoyed the hell out of it. We grabbed a table right up front, established our base camp, then danced and drank and [redacted] all night. We bought bottle after bottle of champagne so cheap it wasn’t even real champagne, just sparkling wine. Plastic corks were flying everywhere, I distinctly remember shooting one cork all the way across the room, bouncing it right off Ivy’s guitar. She didn’t even flinch. I used to boast about that, until one Cramps fan told me, “You asshole, Ivy said she hated people who did stuff like that at gigs.” So now I live with a terrible regret over what I have done. I don’t know what I was thinking, maybe I was trying to get her attention. I feel like I must make amends. So Ivy, if you ever read this, I apologize sincerely, and I will do whatever it takes to assuage my feelings of guilt. I will clean your 7 inch stilletto heels with my tongue and polish your latex catsuit to a lustrous shine, whatever it takes.

Well anyway, since I heard of Lux’s demise, I have been in a state of agitation. I plug in my electric guitar, turn on Cramps tunes and play along for hours. My fingers are callused and bloody, my ears are ringing constantly, and I still don’t feel any better. I barely feel alive. I feel like the gig is over, it’s closing time. The room lights are on, exposing the club to a harsh glare. The roadies are tearing down the equipment and packing up the guitars. I’m in the mosh pit all alone, with nobody left to bash into and bounce around. The ranks of the Punks are thinning. Almost nobody who matters is left, and nobody cares but me.

I usually create a painting for a New Year’s greeting, but this year I just never got around to it. I guess I’ll do a Year of the Ox painting in 2021. I tried to find some time to do a little painting, but now it’s getting to be too late. I considered whether it was too late, when I read a column by Miss Manners . Someone missed sending xmas cards, they tried to cover by buying New Year’s cards, but didn’t send them by Jan 1. So just when is it too late to send a New Year’s card? Miss Manners replied:

When your friends start remembering to date their checks with the correct year or are busy addressing Valentines, whichever comes first.

Well at least this gives me an excuse to use my favorite Dave Letterman joke. It must be one of his favorites too, since he uses it every year.

2009 is the Year of the Ox. Darn it, I keep writing Year of the Rat on my checks!

It’s a Wonderful Life is an eternal fixture on the Christmas TV schedule. But this year, something interesting happened. Since the collapse of the housing bubble, some people have called for a re-evaluation of the story. The conflict between the hated banker Mr. Potter and the kindly George Bailey and his Building and Loan cry out for a comparison to modern times. One columnist called the protagonist, George Bailey, a purveyor of sub-prime housing loans and asserted Mr. Potter was a model of fiscal restraint. This reversal of the traditional moral of the story is interesting, but is not the whole story.

I became interested in this subject after reading an article in the New York Times entitled Wonderful? Sorry George, It’s a Pitiful, Dreadful Life! The author, Wendell Jamieson, gets to some of the core issues in the movie, he says, “after repeated viewings, that the film turns upside down and inside out..” and I agree. The constant repetition of this film, year after year on TV, has made the saccharine sentiments almost opaque, leaving us with little ability to rationally interpret the events in the film. Mr. Jamieson makes a strong case for his reevaluation, he asserts that Bedford Falls is a boring, miserable town with a stultifying middle-class moralism, thrown into high relief by its transformation into the alternate universe of Pottersville and its raucous, exciting night life. But alas, Mr. Jamieson stops just short of asking why this is so.

Many of Frank Capra’s movies are almost manifestos of an American form of Socialism, for example, Meet John Doe and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The basic theme is always the same, a simple, powerless man confronts the rich and powerful man, and defeats him with the backing of the masses. But these complex political themes do not translate well into a personal story like It’s a Wonderful Life, that story is perhaps unintentionally too detailed, giving insights that Capra probably did not intend.

In this year’s viewing, I noticed one detail I thought was particularly revealing. During the bank run on the Bailey Building and Loan, George Bailey begs people to withdraw only what they need for a week. Several people in a row withdraw $20, then a woman asks for only $17.50. Bailey kisses her and praises her restraint. Later, when they close, they have a balance of $2, the staff dances around the room as they place the $2 in the safe, they have survived the bank panic. We are obviously meant to believe that the woman’s restraint, her borrowing $2.50 less than others, has singlehandedly saved the business. But I thought it was more revealing how Bailey fawns over the two dollar bills, calling them “mama dollar and papa dollar” and worships them as if they were the most precious thing in the world. And to George Bailey, they are. Those two dollars keeps the Building and Loan afloat, and George Bailey enslaved in the job he hates.

But these are mere peripheral events around the central conflict between Mr. Potter and George Bailey. I would even describe their relationship as co-dependent. George despises his life, his whole existence is a reaction to Potter. He makes horrible choices for his own life, because he envies Potter’s power. Only one thing gives Potter the power that Bailey desires: money. Bailey worships money.

The final conflict over the missing $8000 is the centerpiece of the film, but it deserves close scrutiny under this new microscope. Bailey even begs Potter to cover the loss, Potter shows how powerful he is, by calling for his arrest and disgrace in the press. This triggers Bailey’s meltdown, he finally recognizes his abject lack of power, the power only money can bring.

Pottersville, however, is alternate universe where Bailey has no money, and money is no object. Pottersville represents everything Bailey desires: freedom. Everyone has everything they desire: liquor, sex, and loads of excitement. Bailey even goes into a bar, gets a drink, then realizes he has no money to pay for it. No problem, he gets tossed out the front door into the snow, he even seems to enjoy his little humiliation. But Pottersville is a figment of Bailey’s imagination, a symptom of Bailey’s psychotic episode. Obviously freedom is beyond any mere mortal’s grasp (even with the aid of an angel).

The film’s denouement, where the townspeople bring small sums of money to cover the missing $8000, deserves a total reevaluation. Little by little, all the money piles up into a mountain of crumpled currency, right in front of Bailey. These are contributions from poor people who can’t really afford to part with it. Then a telegram arrives from a wealthy industrialist (and college boyfriend of Mrs. Bailey) offering a $12,000 line of credit. The contributions of the masses have instantly been rendered useless, Bailey could give it all back and rely only on the line of credit. I think the individual donors should be outraged. But instead, they hail Bailey as “the richest man in town.”

And that is the explicit, yet unnoticed message of the film. Now George Bailey is Mr. Potter. Or at least, for a moment, Bailey’s misery is relieved by the thought that he has the power that only unlimited riches can bring.

Ultimately, I think this is a despicable message. The film conflates the personal tragedies of a miserable life with the bondage of debt. It equates success with riches, and both Bailey and Potter get their riches off the poor who cannot afford to part with it. Worst of all, Capra’s ham-handed sentimental ending defeats his whole purpose of depicting a socialist utopian victory; the masses are once again put in their place by the wealthy industrialist and his unlimited credit. It’s a miserable film.

What a disaster, I have accidentally destroyed some of my precious FiestaWare dishes! I was carefully washing them by hand, when a stack of drying dishes started to slide. I grabbed them to stop the slide when two dishes hit together and exploded. That is $120 of collectible FiestaWare, smashed to pieces!





The worst part is the little 5 1/2 inch bowl, it’s one of the rarest colors, Medium Green, so it’s worth $80, according to the latest Fiesta Price Guide. The Chartreuse Dessert Bowl is only worth $40, but it is one of my favorite colors. I had two matching Chartreuse bowls in mint condition, they’re my favorite bowls since they’re just the right size for almost any place setting. But now I only have one. And I have fewer Dessert Bowls than anything else in my collection. Dammit.

I inherited my FiestaWare collection from my Mother. I used to take my Mom around to estate sales and antique shops, we spent years accumulating a massive collection, and I became a big fan of Fiesta myself. She gave each of my 6 siblings a huge set of Fiesta. She left me her personal collection in her will, all her best pieces she could not bear to part with. I helped her find most of these pieces, so I figure it’s just as much my collection as hers.

My Mom kept all her Fiesta in a big display case, but she also used them as everyday dishes. She always said, “What’s the use of having such lovely dishes if you never USE them?” No doubt the wear and tear reduced the value of the pieces as collectables. But that’s what’s nice about Fiesta, it’s collectable, but most of the pieces are not so expensive that you feel bad when you break one. Usually.

I remember one day when I broke one of my Mom’s favorite Medium Green Dessert Bowls. I microwaved something in the bowl (Fiesta is microwave-safe) but something in the food developed a hot spot. I heard a large BANG from the microwave and the bowl was split in half. My Mom looked like she was going to faint, but she said not to worry, that’s the risk you take when using Fiesta as everyday dishes, sometimes you break one. I only found out years later, when I looked in the Fiesta Price Guide, that dish was worth $800! No wonder it was one of her favorites.

Fortunately, my accident isn’t quite as bad as it seems. The Chartreuse bowl is a total loss, but the Medium Green bowl was actually worthless. It had a huge crack in it, destroying its value, but the damage wasn’t visible when the dishes were on display. This was a clever strategy my Mom used, I only discovered it when I acquired the collection and did a full inventory. I found several pieces like that, I call them “fillers,” you put them on display, stacked in with the good dishes. Her fillers are rare and expensive pieces with major hidden flaws, she must have paid almost nothing for them. But the fillers make it look like you have a huge collection of Fiesta in all the best, most expensive colors. I should really just toss them out, they’re worthless, but I like my Mom’s clever little strategy.

But it seems this strategy has backfired. When I grabbed the sliding dishes, I barely touched the cracked bowl when it split apart, and the energy of the split transferred to the Dessert Bowl underneath. Sometimes this happens with ceramics, the interior stresses store a lot of energy, when it finally lets go, it can spray shards and crack other dishes. I think maybe I will remove these dangerous dishes from my collection. Oh well.

I am a huge fan of Miss Manners. She expresses the spirit of etiquette so eloquently, compressing books of arcane rules into simple ideas. Today she nailed it again, expressing a core idea of etiquette:

It is not uncommon for rude people to act offended when their rudeness is not tolerated. Miss Manners assures you that this does not make it rude to refuse to tolerate rudeness, as long as this is not done with retaliatory rudeness.

I went to the store yesterday and bought a loaf of bread. Today I opened it to make a sandwich. This is the best slice in the loaf.





I lost my Griffin Headphone Adapter a couple of weeks ago. Without it, I can’t listen to music on my iPhone through my car stereo. I looked everywhere for it. Today I found it sitting in my driveway.