Mark McKinney, actor & Kid in the Hall

(R.I.P. Glenn Ford; you already know how much I love him from an earlier entry about "Gilda".)

Why single out Mark McKinney when you are an enthusiastic fan of all the work of the Kids in the Hall? Maybe because of guilt -- when their show was originally running on TV, I loved the show but overlooked McKinney. Kevin McDonald once did a monologue sketch about being "the Kid in the Hall you don't like", but for me, Mark was that Kid. I kind of loved Da-RREL, especially when he painted tumors into his mountain scene painting, but I hated the Chicken Lady, was indifferent to the Cops, and couldn't pinpoint what else he did. Oh, and he crushed heads. Everyone else had a distinct personality and voice, and Mark was just...everyone.

Exactly. It took all these years, and many reruns and concert movie viewings for me to realize that he is a fantastic actor. He blends into his characters so perfectly and fits into a scene so seamlessly that I never gave him enough credit for what he was doing. On watching the shows now, I am amazed by his deft characterizations and perfect timing. He must be a dream of a scene partner, and he's the kind of sketch performer I strive to be.

He also brings that Ugly Comedy asthetic that I appreciate so much, those characters (like the Chicken Lady and the Headcrusher) that make you cringe with pity and disgust. It's a kind of intellectual comedy that acknowledges that life isn't pretty but it sure is funny, and that is the comedy I've grown to love.

Plus, he does commentary on the DVD of "Same Guys, Different Dresses" (I think it's that one) with Scott Thompson, and they are absolutely hilarious together. Mark's muttered disgust with how fat he'd gotten, coupled with his sarcastic contempt for Scott's (self-admitted) vanity and self-absorbtion, is gut-bustingly funny. Again, not pretty sometimes, but very, very funny. He won me over forever when there was a backstage shot of him running in his dress and huge blonde wig, and he self-deprecatingly said on the commentary track, "Look, there goes the Russian skating judge!"

Mark McKinney, the Stealth KITH.

Forest Fire from the 405

I don't know what all that smoke is on the road up ahead, though. Maybe one of the many Smog Check dodgers in the city?

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

When I was seven, eight, and nine we lived in a neighborhood in Philly where my sister and I were friends with Iranian immigrants who had one daughter her age and one daughter my age. I have a pretty poor memory and can't recall a great deal about these years, but I clearly remember the anger the Iranian family felt about the Islamic Revolution and about being forced to leave their country. Add to that the 444-day Iran hostage crisis and the distrust and fear I know they faced from some of their new neighbors, and you can imagine what a great time they were having in their new home.

Persepolis is the memoir of a girl my age whose family stayed in Iran during this time. She's the other side of the coin of the girl I knew, and the truth is that they weren't very different. Satrapi's story makes it explicitly clear that a change in regime does not signal a sudden change in the opinions and desires of all of the people; it only appears this way when the new regime practices brutal repression of free speech and political dissent. She shows how complicated life under such a regime is, and how strong ties to your own country remain, no matter how much you come to disagree with its rulers and suffer under their control.

I read this book about a year ago and still think of it often due to its illustrations of the daily truth beneath the news stories that make it to CNN or the New York Times. It's an important reminder in this age of extreme political doubletalk, which is much more sophisticated than the Evil Empire dichotomy of the Reagan Years, but still crude enough to insist that citizens are being bombed and maimed for their own good. That, in fact, they rather asked for it.

Satrapi's tales of family members taken away, tortured killed for their dissent shows that our Western insistence on standing up to the "bad guys" isn't as simple as we make it. She shows how she personally subverted the repressive laws against women (e.g. wearing the veil), but how small and deadening and useless such actions can be. Ultimately, she decided to leave her family behind and move to France rather than live in an Islamic fundamentalist Iran.

Here's what Satrapi said on her publisher's website:

If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the basement of a country, not on the surface. That is why I wanted people in other countries to read Persepolis, to see that I grew up just like other children.

We haven't been paying any heed to "the basement of a country", not here in our own country (witness New Orleans), nor in Iraq, Lebanon, or Afganistan. Until we do that, we're just hyping hate and expecting brute force to solve problems.

So I say buy this book, read it, then hit President Bush over the head with it. Repeatedly. It's okay; only Tony Blair would feel the pain.

R.I.P. KZLA

I can't tell you how disconcerting it is to flip on the radio hoping to hear Big & Rich and hearing Beyonce instead. (They now must do a song together, just to make music fans go mad.)

L.A.'s esteemed country music station KZLA is no more as of last week; it was unceremoniously replaced with an urban dance music station. (I know you think urban = black, but it also means Gwen Stefani and JLo, so maybe I really mean hip hop-esque? Rap-friendly?) The afternoon DJ showed up for work and was told partway into his shift that he was going to be out of a job as of the end of it. What kind of nasty bullshit is that? Why does corporate radio suck so hard?

This means no more Peter Tilden, one of my favorite morning radio guys. He has a good sense of humor, an unmistakable Philadelphia accent, and the ability to be nice without being a sycophant. You might know him from his scenes (especially his hilarious deleted ones) in "The Aristocrats", where he's sitting outside a cafe with Jason Alexander.

L.A. is a huge country market, and now it has no country station. A city that ignores country music is a city dangerously out of touch with mainstream America. Yes, the country scene can be frighteningly small-minded and Jesus-centric, but it is also the voice of many of your countrymen. I liked to listen to KZLA to keep up with my fellow Americans, to feed my love-hate relationship with Toby Keith, to hear those amazing, big female voices, and to puzzle over the inexplicably catchy bizarre minor key harmonizing of marketing geniuses Big & Rich.

Without KZLA, how are we going to recognize the people and songs in car commercials? HOW?!

Somebody bring country back to L.A. terrestrial radio, quick!

"Assisted Living" (2003), written and directed by Elliot Greenebaum

A low-budget movie filmed in a nursing home using the actual residents as extras and co-stars, about a women with Alzheimer's and the pothead nursing assistant she befriends. Wow, sounds like a fun night at the movies, huh? Mortality on parade! You're dying as we speak! Being old sucks, sons living in Australia and refusing to take your calls suck more!

This movie should've been bad, and after reading about it in some indie film magazines when it was screened here in L.A., I was convinced it would be. Too precious, trying to hard to be relevant, so damn Indie Indie Indie it makes your teeth hurt. Not entertaining, and so cheap it probably looks like a junior high video project. I rented it just to see how bad it was.

Boy, was I wrong. This is a helluva movie, unique and funny and touching without being sentimental. It's a ballsy piece of filmmaking because it focuses on the ugly in life -- not the pretty/ugly, like glamorized gorgeous limp heroine addict teenagers, and not cool/ugly, like underworld mobster killers, and not ugly/beautiful, like Shrek and Steve Buscemi. Plain Ugly, like life smells sometimes, it's tedious and weird and other people are difficult and argumentative and your reward is that you get to die, possibly alone and forgotten.

This movie got to me in the following ways:

1. Unique storytelling -- the video interviews with the nursing home staff at the beginning blur the line between fact and fiction, actors and people who are just like the people they are portraying in the sense that aging and aging parents affect everyone sooner or later.

The fact that Greenebaum filmed in actual nursing homes not only makes for a great (gimmicky) production note story; in this case, it also adds a shocking level of reality to the fictional story, reminding you that you can't get comfortable in the narrative world. You are forced to consider the real world at every turn, and that makes this movie awesome.

2. Beautiful cinematography -- some dude named Marcel Cabrera shot this with a great eye for color and light. The lame thing to do would've been to shoot it flat and sad, but he didn't. He and Greenebaum showed the stunningly dream-like aspect of life that smacks you in the face every once in a while, like in the beautiful golden and creamy white tones of the nursing home hallways and the emerald green of its grounds. When they focus on the hands of the elderly residents, they force you to see these bits as part of a continuum. Accept the hands as you'd accept the trees outside. Don't be afraid to stare, because it's just the way it is here on earth. Damn, this is sounding too much like that plastic bag reverie shit from "American Beauty", but ugh, that is what I mean after all.

3. The leads. Movies are about faces, right, I mean Norma Desmond told us so. Maggie Riley and Michael Bonsignore have wonderful faces, calmly expressive and thoughtful. Their acting is absolutely natural and of the moment. Great acting isn't about showing off; it's about inhabiting the character, and that's what they did.

4. The phone calls.

5. The dog.

6. The plot. The movie wouldn't work without a driving plot. Mrs Pearlman wants what she wants and goes after it right to the end. Todd keeps trying to avoid responsibility, and has to actively work to do so. Stunned numbness is a popular movie characterization these days (hello, “Garden State”), but this movie shows how it should be done. It isn't about staring just off camera and blinking slowly and wearing funny clothing; it's about how that state of mind manifests itself in the character's relationships with other people. Moment-to-moment, what choices do they make to avoid connecting with other people? Todd makes a lot of choices with a lot of consequences. Small, tiny, tiny consequences in the scheme of an infinitely large world, but all the more important and resonate for being so. Because we're all just ants on the anthill.

7. The phone calls. Seriously.

Whatever, just watch it. It's hard to talk about this movie without sounding pretentious or like I'm pitying old people or something gank like that. It moved me, that's all, it woke me up in a way. Watch it.

Unicorns and Prostitute Games

Sounds like the dreams of a dirty little girl, doesn't it?

Oops, I'm watching one of those Comedy Central Roasts on TV, and it gets in your brain and makes you see everything as a dirty joke. TV is bad!...which is so very, very good.

Look, I recently finished a book about the Medicis and Renaissance Florence, and it casually mentioned that one of them (oh, come on -- you try keeping the Cosimos and Francesco's straight after a while) acquired treasures from somewhere or other, and among the medallions and statues was a unicorn horn. And the book just went on without comment.

Why would a non-fiction -- which supposedly = FACT -- book mention a unicorn horn without explaining what the fuck that's supposed to mean? Do you think Christopher Hibbert (author of the book in question) thinks there really were unicorns back then, so he didn't bat an eye at that? Maybe next he'll write a book about Queen Victoria that blandly mentions the fairies in her garden.

I looked it up -- "unicorn horns" were indeed a prized artifact among the rich and stupid in the 1500s and 1600s. Apparently they were actually made of ivory, and they were actually from narwahls, a marine BEAST that is not a beautiful phallic horse. Or they were...something else. The internet didn't tell me much more than Hibbert did.

Hey, John Stossel -- get a load of this junk science! I can't wait until he does his 20/20 Renaissance Special: "Lorenzo the Magnificent? He seems barely fabulous to me. Give me a break!"

And there was another book I read last year that claimed that citywide fairs in Florence of the time featured "prostitute games". Again, with no explanation of what that's supposed to mean, because why write a book that clears anything up? If you have to ask, you shouldn't be reading a book about it.

Maybe the prostitutes jousted on minotaurs.

Moral: do not read books. Watch filthy roasts instead. Cock!

Hairdo -- for those days when you just want bangs

So I put my hair in a ponytail on the top of my head, then pulled down the ends to make bangs, then took a picture. I think it looks HOT! Blonde ANDROGYNY, which goes great with my GIANT HANDS!

Look, it's August and it's slow and this is how I stay mentally sharp.

B&B Photos: History comes alive!

Walter and I put ourselves in the pictures hanging on the walls of our B&B in Woods Hole (Cape Cod, MA). Don't you feel transported back in time?

Walter insists the child in the dress photo is a boy, but I'm not so sure. Whatever, Walter -- you just wanted to wear my skirt, to "accurately represent the print".

"She Blinded Me With Science", by Thomas Dolby

Thomas Dolby sounds like a fake name, like if you were getting into movies and called yourself Frank Kino or you were taking up painting and were suddenly Cal Utrecht.

Oh...according to Wikipedia, it is a fake name. Ha! That makes me like this song even more.

I hate the '80s and generally think little to nothing good came out of it. Awful music, bad books, suspect mores, terrible fashion, Iran-contra, Robert Downey Jr AND Bret Easton Ellis. It was a celebration of assholishness that seemed to endlessly ask the question, "What can I get away with?" and answer it with, "Everything."

This song ought to fit right in with the synth pop that continues to haunt my nightmares -- I mean, holy Mary, even the great Steve Miller somehow morphed his white boy blues into the mushy meaninglessness of "Abracadabra" (pure genius to rhyme it with "grab ya", though, no? No.). The '80s were cruel.

But I can listen to this song endlessly because it's full of little treats and unexpected turns: little pops and funky jumps down the scale stairs and Dolby's vocal barks and playful, actorly line readings, and the undeniably authentic yearning of his growling lament "she's poetry in motion". The lyrics tell the story with perfect economy and charm. It's synth-funk; or hiptronic?

Plus I like that Dolby is a dedicated electro-geek and is still at it, performing behind banks of keyboards. He made this song out of love, and it shows.

The Sunday movie trilogy: Blondie & Martin & Lewis & Andy Hardy & Francis & Abbott & Costello

When I was a young lass, we lived in an apartment in Roxborough, Philadelphia, where I shared a room with my sister. We were permitted to have a TV in the room, THANK GOD, because otherwise, how would I have curled up on my bed on Sunday mornings and soaked in the Sunday movie trilogy of:

1. A Blondie movie, the series (about 10,000 sequels long, I think?) starring the perfectly cast Penny Singleton and Arthur Lake.
OR
An Andy Hardy movie, starring Mickey Rooney.

2. A Martin & Lewis movie (my all-time favorite is "Artists & Models")

3. An Abbott & Costello movie
OR
A Francis the Talking Mule movie, starring, uh, Francis (though I hear they dubbed his voice) and Donald O'Connor.

Perfect Sundays, all. I have a ridiculous affection for the actors in these movies, and a love for Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin that even Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin can't ruin. Donald O'Connor may be famous for "Singing in the Rain", but to me he was the better steadfast friend to a mule. (Francis was wise, though, and brave. He went to war, for god's sake.)

This is art, yes, but it's art that aims low and hits the mark. It's an uncomplicated, unquestioning kind of art that asserts a profound pull on a child: this is what adults are like, and they are just like you. They make mistakes. They are silly. They are confused about what to do, and they need each other's help. They are fun and they are funny. If idiots like this can figure out life, you can, too.

Maybe some or all of these actors (and writers and directors) were disappointed that their career highlights came in popular B-movies beloved of eight year olds. I hope not. We can feast on profundity and tragedy, but this kind of comedy is sustenance.

"Six Pack" (1982)

You heard me: SIX PACK. Starring Kenny Rogers.

This movie is a cable favorite, so other people must enjoy its charms as much as I do. Who can resist a movie starring old country beardo himself as a race car driver who gets mixed up with a passel of orphans who just want to stay together out of foster care and get themselves a home. Oh, and who steal auto parts to fund their child outlaw lives; how fortunate that they run into Kenny, who needs an expert crew to help him jump start (get it?) his racing career! Maybe Kenny is finally ready to settle down, perhaps with former girlfriend Erin Grey? Can you guess how it ends? (hint: in a bloodbath!)

My young self was irrestibly drawn to this movie for the following reasons:

1. Erin Grey, of TV's "Silver Spoons", a big favorite of mine at the time, and the reason I still love Jason Bateman. A very safely pretty person who looks nothing like a honky tonk waitress, but whatever.

2. Kenny. Perfect father/Santa figure. Love his voice. Good actor, too. Also contributed a great pop country lite theme song.*

2. Anthony Michael Hall. He plays the mechanical genuis among the kids, one year before appearing in NATIONAL LAMPOON'S VACATION, which was followed by SIXTEEN CANDLES and THE BREAKFAST CLUB. To my mind the greatest teenage actor of all time, equally effortlessly adept at drama and comedy and at playing the straight man or the goofy lead. I adored him when I was growing up.

3. Diane Lane as the oldest sibling forced to take on the role of parent even as she was struggling to grow up herself. Sob! Perfect casting, perfect acting.

4. Those Other Kids. They were all well-cast and appealing without demanding that you find them cute and charming. They just were who they were.

5. Terry Kiser as the evil race car driving antagonist. Come on -- it's Bernie from WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S! Give me a break; that's a treat right there.

6. It deals with real emotional issues in an honest manner. It's sweet without being saccharine. It's about a big family of kids, which fascinates me since I'm from a small family. It's got a bearded partiarch character who chooses the kids, very compelling to the child of a single mom.

I've probably seen this movie ten times, and I'm happy to report that I saw it on cable recently and loved it all over again. It makes me feel good about life, and I'd be mighty pleased if someone said that about something I was a part of.

*Though I can't image what would qualify as pop country heavy. Ummm.. that Chris Issac song with the black-and-white video and the models? I don't know.

Portraits of the Reverand Ebenezer Devotion and his wife Martha, Boston Museum of Fine Arts

"Ebenezer Devotion" is one of the finest and most quintessentially early-American names I've ever heard.

This folk art portrait perfectly captures what I think Americans think of themselves at their best. This is the upstanding yet staid, cartoonish yet dignified, goofy yet approachable American male with the outstanding name.

Martha's pretty cool, too, but she would've benefited from a Puritan supername like "Hebzibah".