#I think that's the same for Rubenstein actually

[kjzx]

I've been made aware that in one of the recent promo materials/interviews/whatever Sergey Goroshko refers to Bird with feminine pronouns for like three whole minutes which isn't anything new (the gender of the word Bird is feminine so a lot of people use that without really thinking about gender) but it's still pretty fun cause I've been HCing Bird as a woman for a bit now

Not spoilers but slightly related to the movie

Someone joked about Sergey shipping Seroptitsa/GrayBird/whatever but not wanting to ship slash so he approached Bird like that, and that's funny but if I'm being super serious I do think it's one of the cases where the person just goes with the grammatical gender of the word, though obviously I should watch the interview before confidently claiming anything

[thorraborinn]

hello there! today i came across a claim that sort of baffled me. someone said that they believed the historical norse heathens viewed their own myths literally. i was under the impression that the vast majority of sources we have are christian sources, so it seems pretty hard to back that up. is there any actual basis for this claim? thanks in advance for your time!

Sorry for the delay, I've been real busy lately and haven't been home much. Even after making you wait I'm still going to give a copout answer.

I think the most basic actual answer is that it's doubtful that someone has a strong basis to make that claim, and the same would probably go for someone claiming they didn't take things literally. I think we just don't know, and most likely, it was mixed-up bits of both literal and non-literal belief, and which parts were literal and which parts weren't varied from person to person. We have no reason so suppose that there was any compulsion to believe things in any particular way.

About Christians being the interlocutors of a lot of mythology, this is really a whole separate question. On one hand there's the question of whether they took their myths literally, and on the other is entirely different question about whether or not we can know what those myths were. Source criticism in Norse mythology is a pretty complicated topic but the academic consensus is definitely that there are things we can know for sure about Norse myth, and a lot more that we can make arguments for. For instance the myth of Thor fishing for Miðgarðsormr is attested many times, not only by Snorri but by pagan skálds and in art. Myths of the Pagan North by Christopher Abram is a good work about source criticism in Norse mythology.

Though this raises another point, because the myth of Thor fishing is not always the same. Just like how we have a myth of Thor's hammer being made by dwarves, and a reference to a different myth where it came out of the sea. Most likely, medieval Norse people were encountering contradictory information in different performances of myth all the time. So while that leaves room for at least some literal belief, it couldn't be a rigid, all-encompassing systematic treatment of all myth as literal. We have good reason to believe they changed myths on purpose and that it wasn't just memory errors.

I know you're really asking whether this one person has any grounds for their statement, and I've already answered that I don't think they do. But this is an interesting thought so I'm going to keep poking at it. I'm not sure that I'm really prepared to discuss this properly, but my feeling is that this is somehow the wrong question. I don't know how to explain this with reference to myth, so I'm going to make a digression, and hope that you get the vibe of what I'm getting at by analogy. Edward Burnett Tylor (1832–1917) described animism in terms of beliefs, "belief in spiritual beings," i.e. a belief that everything (or at least many things) has a soul or spirit. But this is entirely contradicted by later anthropology. Here's an except from Pantheologies by Mary Jane Rubenstein, p. 93:

their animacy is not a matter of belief but rather of relation; to affirm that this tree, that river, or the-bear-looking-at-me is a person is to affirm its capacity to interact with me—and mine with it. As Tim Ingold phrases the matter, “we are dealing here not with a way of believing about the world, but with a condition of living in it.”

In other words, "belief" doesn't even really play into it, whether or not you "believe" in the bear staring you down is nonsensical, and if you can be in relation with a tree then the same goes for that relationality; "believing" in it is totally irrelevant or at least secondary. Myths are of course very different and we can't do a direct comparison here, but I have a feeling that the discussion of literal versus nonliteral would be just as secondary to whatever kind of value the myths had.

One last thing I want to point out is that they obviously had the capacity to interpret things through allegory and metaphor because they did that frequently. This is most obvious in dream interpretations in the sagas. Those dreams usually convey true, prophetic information, but it has to be interpreted by wise people who are skilled at symbolic interpretation. I they ever did this with myths, I'm not aware of any trace they left of that, but we can at least be sure that there was nothing about the medieval Norse mind that confined it to literalism.

For multiple reasons this is not an actual answer but it's basically obligatory to mention that some sagas, especially legendary or chivalric sagas, were referred to in Old Norse as lygisögur, literally 'lie-sagas' (though not pejoratively and probably best translated just as 'fictional sagas'). We know this mostly because Sverrir Sigurðsson was a big fan of lygisögur. But this comes from way too late a date to be useful for your question.

[selfieignite]

2017.11.08

AV Club Interview with one of the Selfie writers, Brian Rubenstein. He is currently a writer and co-executive producer for Abbott Elementary.

Some excerpts: 

On Eliza and Henry’s relationship and how Selfie was supposed to be 26 episodes for the first season:

As Eliza and Henry got closer, the show sped up the usual will-they/won’t-they cycle to take advantage of the spark between the two leads. “We had a lot of questions, especially early on, about how we were going to play that,” Rubenstein remembers. “The will-they/won’t-they, it’s hard to come up with a unique take. We wanted to get it out there a little bit sooner. It’s a very delicate dance you have to do, and we tried to make it work the best we can. I know we had a plan for what the next 13 [episodes] was going to be for their story, but I can’t for the life of me think of it right now!” 

Selfie was planned as an office comedy:

Selfie not only had Eliza and Henry’s relationship as the heart of the show, but a supporting cast that played an increasingly larger role as the first season wore on. “In [Kapnek’s] mind, it would transform into an office comedy,” Rubenstein said. “It wasn’t going to be Henry giving Eliza a life lesson every week. Because we had these great actors, we had a lot to work with.” For example, David Harewood as Sam Saperstein, Eliza and Henry’s benevolent, but uncomfortably emotionally open, boss. “When I went to the table read for the pilot, I just knew David Harewood from Homeland,” Rubenstein said. “And he just blew the room out, he was so funny.”

Chemistry on set:

In a scene that ran just before the cancellation announcement—during the Rubenstein-penned sixth episode, “Never Block Cookies”—Eliza goes over to Henry’s house and confronts him. They wind up having an intimate moment where he grabs her around the waist, leading to an almost-kiss that’s one of the most smoldering moments in sitcom history. Rubenstein remembers that moment in particular: “Emily came down and was sort of orchestrating how that whole thing would go. Just the chemistry between those two was really cool to watch; it felt that way on set.”

On the cancellation:

Rubenstein called the experience “the most depressed I’ve ever been over a show. We were absolutely crushed. I’ve been on several shows that got canceled, but this was the most depressing atmosphere. We were all so close and knew we were doing something cool with the show; we were so bummed out over the missed opportunity, not getting to do more.”

“We got some not-that-great reviews, and people were down on the title or whatever,” Rubenstein said. “And then boom, it got canceled, and people were like, ‘Wait wait wait! The show’s really good actually,’ and it’s like, ‘Oh, no! It’s too late!’ We did feel that outpouring when it got canceled, and we were like, ‘Dammit, where was this earlier?’ [Laughs.] So it was awesome to see, but it was also bittersweet because the show was gone.” 

“You need time to figure out the show, and come together and fully realize what it is,” Rubenstein said. “It’s very rare that a comedy is just roaring out of the gate. You need to give things time to find the voice. I can’t speak to the business side of things recovering or ratings growing or whatever that is, but it does suck that we are on such a short leash—and we all do feel it, but at the same time there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“That’s what we couldn’t understand,” stresses Rubenstein. “You have John Cho and Karen here. If anyone came in and pitched you these two, you would greenlight it immediately. And you have them now. So let’s let this play out a little. But unfortunately, that didn’t cross their minds.”

[pastelwitchling]

Hot Takes Part I. Intimacy.

I’m working on The Wolf King right now, but I’m craving cake, so instead of getting up to make one, I will talk a little bit about intimacy between queer couples on some of my favorite shows, and the difference between having and not having it. I’m going to be referencing Roswell New Mexico, Shadowhunters, 911 Lone Star, and this new Thai show that I love, KinnPorsche, and the difference between the couples in all four of these, for anyone interested.

This is meant to be a kind of study of things I’ve noticed, so grab some tea and cookies, and settle in.

Intimacy between the main characters, to me, makes or breaks the couple. If I can’t buy that you two would touch off screen, I don’t buy your touch on screen. Let me explain.

There’s a certain naturalness I’ve noticed that comes with playing a couple on screen. On one of vlamburn’s latest IG livestreams, Vlamis said that somebody had asked him if that sigh he made after kissing Alex in 3x08, or if Alex putting his head on Guerin’s shoulder, was in the script, and he said you couldn’t fake typical human reactions like that. Michael and Alex are in love, the kiss had been a long one in the making, and when it came, those little reactions that we still gif, are just what people deeply in love would do, without even needing to think about it.

I wouldn’t even be surprised if that moment in 4x02, where Michael put his hands on top of Alex’s as he was showing him the pendants he’d made, hadn’t been in the script either. But it was a no-brainer for them to touch each other like that, because, as my friend pointed out, they inhabit their characters, they don’t just play their characters.

I think back to couples like Tarlos, who also have these intimate moments through simple acts. Carlos’s thumb brushing the skin under T.K.’s shirt when he was in the hospital, the way they touch each other or lean into each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if none of those little mannerisms were in the script, because they inhabit their characters. I’m not even talking about the big things they did that weren’t in the script, like the police station scene. I’m talking about the small moments that we all notice and that really emphasize their closeness. They behave like two people in love who, in the back of their minds, are always turning towards each other.

When I first saw Alex kissing Michael’s chest in 1x02, my first thought was, Is Tyler Blackburn queer? When Ronen Rubenstein came out as bisexual, I was literally Phoebe in FRIENDS with the That is brand new information! meme. Hell, the fandom always asks Vlamis if he’s bi because of how close he gets to Tyler, how naturally he touches him on screen. Now, I’m not a fan of people determining other people’s sexualities, I feel like that’s wrong and entitled to do, especially when fans get so upset at somebody denying it, like it was true at any point in time and they just don’t want to admit it (what’s up with that?), but when the actors can fool me so that should they actually be queer, I’m not surprised? That’s real intimacy right there, and it is what makes the couple so beloved and timeless for me. It’s what makes their relationship so easy to write about and talk about and inspire my own storytelling.

Now. I compared that to something like Shadowhunters where, Gods help me, I don’t see that intimacy with Malec. Hear me out, hear me out. No one could’ve played Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane better than Matt and Harry. No one compares, I’m shocked those two don’t have Emmys for the performances they gave. But as a couple, they don’t have that same intimacy that malex, tarlos, or any of the couple on kp have. There’s a particular scene that I always think back to when I think of the stiffness between them, and it’s right after they first sleep together. Magnus has his fist on the blanket, and Alec’s fist is curled on Magnus’s back. There’s no playfulness, no tilting their heads towards each other, they’re just lying there completely still. And I get it, the first time, the morning after’s going to be a little strained for Malec, but every time after they sleep together, they don’t touch each other. There’s no casual brushing someone’s jaw, or tracing patterns on their back or arm, there’s no brief kisses, nuzzling anything. Nothing. Every time.

And I noticed it briefly when I was watching Shadowhunters, but not nearly as much as I did when I compared them to malex, who are always in some way leaning towards each other or touching when they don’t need to be. It always felt to me like Malec is going to kiss because the script says so. If the script doesn’t tell Magnus to brush back Alec’s bangs with his fingers, or doesn’t tell Alec to lean into Magnus or lean against him when he’s standing behind him, then they just won’t do it. I get Alec is a soldier and all, but after declaring his love for Magnus and clearly showing us that he feels a comfort with Magnus that he doesn’t feel with anybody else, you’d think there’d be some light touching sometimes. Granted, there are moments when they seem a little intimate, but they’re always so brief that I can clearly remember stiffer, awkward moments more than I can those rare close ones.

Then we get to kp which I highly recommend (just remember to skip the intro for the first four episodes so you’re not spoiled on the big twist at the end of episode four), and the show that got me realizing all of this. The intimacy in this show is breathtaking. I’ve seen Thai shows, I know what it looks like when you put together two people who are clearly just following the script, and it’s always, always beyond awkward. These couples are good at what they do. None of those extra little touches and fingers brushing were in the script, I’m so sure, and it all flows so phenomenally well. I’m usually disinterested in certain couples or characters in a show, I’m waiting for somebody’s scene to finish, but I was invested in every relationship here. I could tell you which one was my favorite, but they’re my favorite by a hair, that’s how good all the couples are.

I’m not saying the actors playing these couples have to be queer in real life, because if you try to tell me that anybody would’ve loved Alex/Tyler the way Vlamis does, I’ll know your judgement can’t be trusted. And I’ve seen queer actors play straight characters with more intimacy than any actual straight actor ever could (case in point, Anthony in Bridgerton). Being queer doesn’t even mean you get the intimacy right then either. It’s all about inhabiting the characters instead of performing them, and when I’m yanked out of a moment because I can tell that the actors only touched because the script said so, then that’s not intimacy, that’s not a couple that inspires me or lasts very long in my mind. We’re able to forgive so much of the crap that rnm puts us through because we know those malex moments are everything. Their love always outweighs the bad stuff, and we keep coming back to see them because those love stories are always worth it.

Just something I’ve noticed.

[rafaelsilvasource]

Rafael Silva is feeling grateful. The 26-year-old Brazilian-born actor just finished his second season as gay police officer Carlos Reyes on the hit Fox drama 9-1-1: Lone Star. But he’s not just grateful for being part of a successful show that also just got renewed for a third season. He’s also grateful for fans, especially fans of Tarlos, the on-screen relationship between him and T.K. Strand, the paramedic played by Ronen Rubinstein.

So, after an explosive episode that featured Carlos losing his house to an arsonist — he was distracted, having one of the steamiest makeout scenes in recent memory, — and a finale that puts the future of the firehouse up in the air, Silva is riding high and looking forward to the future.

“It's been extremely flattering, to say the least,” Silva tells Out laughing when asked about the feverent fan reaction to his steamy make out session. For the actor, some of his favorite moments are when the couple have intimate moments through conversation. Still, he realizes the importance of physical intimacy for viewers, and always is excited to shoot them.

Silva says he loves “the way that the audience gravitated towards the physicality of this love… We want to see them love each other, because a part of us also identifies with the characters, right? So we want to feel that part being fulfilled, being loved.”

But as some fans pointed out, it wasn’t just about the physical scenes in the penultimate episode. It was also a huge moment of emotional growth for the characters. “I think Carlos is someone who takes small things very seriously sometimes," Silva says. "So what does it mean that the house burned down while living together with T.K.? He thinks ‘Is this it?’ But we see that in that moment, it's like, ‘No. This made us strong. This is exactly where we're supposed to be. It tested us, and guess what? We didn't fail the test. We're right here.’” The episode featured moving scenes, featuring the characters getting real about how they felt about one another for the first time.

It's all made so much easier because Rubenstein couldn't be a better on-screen partner for Silva. “I think the chemistry also happens off camera too,” he says. “I mean, Ronen and I, we're friends and we hang out together. So there is that relationship, which facilitates the on-screen relationship. It's just easier when that takes place, when you're sharing the screen with someone that it feels like he's got your back.”

Silva knows that same-sex relationships, especially ones featuring a Latino, don't often get this kind of screentime on most major network shows, and he's grateful that he gets to be such a big part of a show that’s pushing representation forward to such a large audience.

“I walked into this just trying to do a good job, as I think anyone really does in any job that they do,” Silva says, “but it wasn't until I actually started receiving messages via Instagram or Twitter saying, ‘Hey, I'm from Texas. Hey, I'm a first responder. I'm not out yet,'" he says. And those messages mean the world to him.

"I had this Latina mom, reaching out to me saying, ‘Hey, our girls are so happy to see someone that represents them,'" he continues. "For me, I can just say, ‘it's just a job, it's a role that I'm doing, yada, yada, yada,’ but for people looking outside in, Carlos looks differently and it can affect people on a rather personal level, in so many different ways.”

Now that the show has been renewed, he's excited to get to bring even more of that to the series, and to dive in even deeper to the relationship between Carlos and T.K.

“I have my own literal dreams and my own storylines that take place,” he teases. “I want to see if Carlos has siblings. I think he does. Hopefully he does.”

Mostly though, he’s excited to see Carlos’ and TK’s relationship grow. After surviving everything from their pasts, and then making it through things like a volcano and an arsonist attack in this latest season, he thinks the characters are ready to start healing.

“I think this is a moment of coming together for T.K. and Carlos," he says. "T.K.'s coming from a place where he's, he's been in a very serious relationship before, so he’s still taking back those layers. He's still going through that. And Carlos is allowing himself to be more open with T.K. and with himself.”

He says he definitely wants to see more emotionally vulnerable moments between the two, “but also more moments in the bed, that would be fun to see," he smiles.

“I think intimacy doesn't just happen with the hug or with the conversation,” he continues. “Sometimes intimacy can happen without words, and sometimes words are not necessary at all.” We couldn’t agree more.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Teen Witch

Controversial opinion: stories about witches are the best stories. Just look at WandaVision - bitches ate that UP because it’s about WITCHES, which means it’s ultimately about loss and trauma and female (literal) empowerment in the face of those tragedies (and I mean there’s some complicated stuff in there about inflicting trauma upon others, even accidentally, and that’s kind of a witch thing too). And Sabrina is all well and good and everything, but what if you want your witch story to be a little less Dark Arts and a little more candy-coated? Have I got the film for you! Wes requested Teen Witch as part of his quest to expand my cheesy 80s cult classic knowledge, and boy did this one deliver. How 80s-tastic are we talking? Well...

The basic story is this: Louise (Robyn Lively) is a typical teen girl who occupies the nerd level of the high school hierarchy. You know the type - soft-spoken, nerdy best friend, has a crush on the cutest guy in school (Dan Gauthier), made fun of in gym class by all the cheerleaders. One day she crashes her bike in front of a psychic’s home/place of business and goes inside to use the phone, but gets her palm read first. The psychic, named Madame Serena, (Zelda Rubenstein, playing, I’m assuming, herself) tells her she will soon come into some witchy powers on her 16th birthday. When Louise’s birthday rolls around, you guessed it - witching aplenty. She gets the popularity, she gets the cute guy, she ditches her nerdy friend; it’s basically The Princess Diaries without Queen Julie Andrews. But then, y’know, she learns a valuable lesson about the high price of popularity and how important it is to be true to yourse--wait, no she doesn’t, she takes off her magic necklace and smooches with the boy she likes at the school dance and that’s how it ends.

Some thoughts:

This slow motion credit sequence is incredible. See, we just don’t have this anymore, where the movie starts and you have no fucking idea what’s going on. The 80s really knew how to draw an audience in. Is this a dream? Is this a music video? No one knows! That’s why it’s exciting!

Why are tv and movies so obsessed with a completely made-up depiction of what takes place outside a high school’s entrance before the first bell? Apparently there’s a busker festival going on at this high school every day - there’s guys doing BMX tricks, an all white rap group, I think I saw some jugglers.

I’ve actually taught in both middle and high school, so I know this English teacher (Shelley Berman) wouldn’t be fired for being such a shitty teacher, but he should be. 

Is this like...a musical? First there was the terrible rapping, now there are cheerleaders doing “the new cheer” which is literally a song just saying “I...LIKE...BOYS!” and there’s a dance routine on top of lockers - there’s a lot of towel choreography. It feels like a musical in the sense that it’s nonsensical, but I don’t actually think it IS a musical. Genre-defying!

It’s kinda creepy that Louise is watching an extended montage of Brad (Gauthier) working out shirtless from the shadows but like...same, girl. Damn, Brad.

Aw, at least Brad is reasonably nice. Louise, show some backbone! You shouldn’t have been too proud to let him drive you home after he ran you off the road on your bike accidentally!

I am just mystified by the market for roles that were appropriate for Zelda Rubenstein in the 80s. What is this niche? Which came first, Zelda Rubenstein, or these characters? 

I am also mystified by this gremliny little brother (Joshua John Miller) who seems to be obsessed with eating cake and never washing his hair. He’s like a goblin trapped in a diminutive nonbinary body made of pizza and spite. [ETA: I now feel a little bad for finding him so repellent in this, as the actor wrote one of my favorite meta horror movies, The Final Girls, in 2015. So at least he grew up and made something cool of himself.]

OMFG did Brad just hit the soda machine for her like the fucking Fonz? 

There is (temporarily) a Very Good Dog who is not harmed in any way.

In what universe does Louise see what her date, David (Jared Chandler), is wearing and be like “he’s such a geek” when she looks like an extra from Leave it to Beaver. 

The DJ just said “OK guys, grab your wallets, it’s a slow song.” What...does that even mean? Is he implying that slow dances are expensive? Ooh or even more nefarious, that there’s a rampant pickpocketing problem during slow dances?

Did Louise...just imply that the number of light years away a star is dictates how soon a wish you make on that star would come true? Listen. I’m no astrophysicist. But I have read enough Neil Degrasse Tyson tweets to know that that’s not how any of this works. 

OK I take back what I said, David is a fucking CREEP. Drag his ass, Louise. However, I think she may have straight up murdered him by making him disappear. David is never seen or heard from again in this film. 

Obsessed with the dad’s sweaters both because they are ridiculous and because he is the lesser Darren from the original Bewitched. 

It feels weird that Louise’s revenge involves forcing Mr. Weaver to take his clothes off in front of the class.Who wants that? Like I get that it’s humiliating for him, but really, you’re only punishing yourself here Louise. 

There is a rap-off that is meant to convey electric sexual tension between two nerdy ass white kids. 

I don’t know what it was like at your school, but I can tell you for sure that at my high school no one ever applauded when the most popular girl in school walked into the classroom like she’s Kramer making an entrance on Seinfeld.

Why is Brad taking her to an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere? And why is she wearing heels?

Oh god she took the heels off and now she’s barefoot in this decrepit house, that’s so much worse! TETANUS EXISTS LOUISE.

Wait are they going to fuck in the abandoned house? Brad has a girlfriend! You brought heels, but did you bring condoms?? I guess she has bigger concerns than tetanus now. Also I feel so bad for these actors, they are both DRIPPING sweat. That must have been a miserable shoot.

I’ve said this before, but the 80s were such an incredible time for himbo fashion. Crop tops, those tank tops with the giant holes for the arms, teeny little basketball shorts. In the 90s all we had were JNCOs and weirdly “urbanized” Looney Tunes characters on baggy t-shirts. Gen X has no idea how good they had it re: male fashion. 

I’m genuinely obsessed with the idea that popularity means the school just has banners all over that say “LOUISE” and she gets like, cards and fan mail that say “Louise U R the best.” This feels like if you ask a kindergartner what being popular means.

Madame Serena just said “the real magic is believing in yourself” which is exactly what Louise’s dad said like 15 minutes ago, but I guess he wasn’t a 3-foot-tall witch so no one paid attention when he said it. 

Y’know for an 80s prom outfit, Louise’s dress is pretty cute. 

I cannot stress enough that Brad’s girlfriend is at this dance while he and Louise are kissing! Does no one care? Were high school attitudes toward monogamy just way more flexible in the 80s? 

Did I Cry? Shyeah, right. 

This is such an odd, mostly charming, but wildly perplexing little movie. There was no antagonist or real conflict here, at all. Louise barely struggles with any sort of tension or remorse about having her powers and what it means for her life, she just kind of decides at the end that she’s over it, and she still gets the guy and no actual negative consequences from bending the entire school to her will for the past few months. I mean, in The Craft, when people use magic for their own gains, other people fucking DIE. I was definitely entertained, but a lot of it was due to me saying, “What? How? What?” loudly at the screen. I can see how this has gained a cult following in much the same way that other oddball 80s fare like Better Off Dead or Girls Just Wanna Have Fun did. Watch it once, then watch it again while you get drunk with your friends (in a post-Covid world, obviously) and you’ll probably have a pretty great time. 

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

[watchtheworldargue]

egg magazine, april 1990. interview with Michael Hutchence

transcription below :)

Michael Hutchence on Lower Broadway

By Hal Rubenstein \ Photography by Steven Meisel

Globe-hopping is hell on a wardrobe and hard on the feet. Sometimes you have to get out of the limo to spend your money.

Michael Hutchence rarely comes to New York without luggage monogrammed INXS or Max Q, so one would think that on a visit without portfolio, the last thing he'd want to do is add on more baggage. But given a free day, a book of tickets, and our offer to go anywhere to do anything, Hutchence got into the limo with an agenda we could hardly call a new sensation. What kept us from sulking was that he hadn't left the devil outside.

Michael: You think we can load this car up with Yamamoto, Comme des Garcons, and Armani by 6?

Hal: Driver, step on it. Down to Grand and make a left.

[The car turns onto Union Square West.]

Isn't there a club on the corner here?

The Underground.

That's the one that keeps surviving regardless of how many people get shot there. How many are they up to?

No one's quite sure.

Where are we now? I don't recognise this.

This strip of lower Broadway didn't exist last time you were here. Now it's like a mall-less town's Main Street.

And Tower Records is City Hall. Not bad. It's wild to see this much activity because people around the world now talk about New York in terms of decay, how New York is such a rude place, and we keep telling them, No, New Yorkers are quite friendly, we like it there. New Yorkers are just very honest. They don't have time to bullshit. I like New York because people are linked to each other. L.A. Is fun, but segregated. Here there is a metro, and a different philosophy of getting around so there's rich upon poor upon rich. The only thing I don't remember is how many homeless are asleep on Park Avenue and everywhere else. Or is it my imagination?

No, it's real. How come you choose to live in Hong Kong instead of Australia?

For about three years, I thought it didn't matter where I lived. But I kept passing through it again. I grew up there, from when I was four until twelve. My dad still lives there. It has great energy, like New York. And it's ten hours closer to the world than Australia is. If you travel a lot, it adds up.

[We enter the Yohji Yamamoto store.]

So austere. Do they go wild if you hand back anything wrinkled? Those clothes over there are good acid-house colors. Has acid house caught on here?

Not like in England.

That's 'cause New York has bad radio. Are these dogs always here? They must sleep in the shoes. Ooh, look at these here. Not very me, but very Star Trek. $500 for a T-shirt. I see. I'll buy six. No, twelve. Now, here is something very stagy. Ultraflouncy. I like that, but the general consensus might kill my career.

Is what you wear onstage the same as you wear off?

I sort of smush them all together. My favorite piece of clothing is a leather jacket I had made for me that says “Hutch” in chain mail on the back.

Did Michael Schmidt make it for you?

Yeah – how'd you know? He's great. He sort of looks like a beautiful snake. He loves all the Hollywood stuff, but he's so sincere when he talks about it. Almost makes me like it. Is there somewhere funkier we can go, like Yankel's House of Pile? I saw that on the way down.

If you want old clothes, we should go to Cheap Jack's.

[We head back up to Broadway and 13th Street. Several young ladies on the corner stare at Hutchence as he enters Cheap Jack's.]

Do you enjoy recognition?

Depends on where I am.

Like when you're out on your own. Shopping, for instance.

Shopping, yeah, 'cause I get discounts. And there is a definite bonus to recognition when I'm onstage.

It makes the night go faster. But I'm not an institution yet. Sometimes I think about how hard it must be for someone like Bob Hope to go for a stroll. I don't really get hassled. I can stand in the middle of a street in London, or even New York, and usually nothing happens. I don't think I have that distinctive of a face. I got recognized in Tangier once, going by in a taxi, very fast … from a distance … in a fog … during monsoon season. Just kidding. It's odd how once you are conscious of being watched, you stop being so self-conscious because you realize there's nothing you can do about it. Of course, nobody in Hong Kong gives a shit who I am.

Aren't people there freaking about the city's eventual realignment with China?

Thousands are leaving a year, but they're the ones who can afford to leave, to give Australia half a million to let them in, though a lot more are going to Vancouver or New Zealand instead because they've heard, and it's fairly true, about Australia's racism.

It's actually more like unconscious racism. There's a naivete to it that you might call charming if it wasn't so sick. See, most foreigners don't realize – because we refuse to believe it ourselves – that Australia is southern Asia. Australia is linked to England in everyone's minds.

Yet most Australians don't have the faintest idea why the Japanese tried to invade us during the Second World War, and can't understand why they might not have wanted any foreigners on the biggest island in the Asian paradise. If we had lost, my home would be covered in rice paddies by now. Australia would have been Japan's Great Plains, their grain barrel.

I've never met one Australian who knows that. We have it so easy in Australia. It's very easy to live there. Tougher than it was before, but that's because five years ago it was ridiculous. I used to live in a three-story, five-bedroom house. It cost me $20 a week.

Did you make that much playing music?

Nah, but so what, we were all on the dole. Everyone went on it. That's one of the reasons you have so many bands in Australia. It's cheap to live and collect, so all the bands go on it. You wouldn't even have to go pick up your employment check; they'd mail it to you or transfer it to your account. Ready cash. I guess because there is such an anti-authoritarian vibe in Australia that people are quite happy to accept government checks. “Aw, screw 'em” - that's the attitude. Lots of people accept four and five checks or even have jobs. It's very lax. That's why we're stuck with the tall-poppy syndrome.

Translation?

Don't be successful, don't rise above your mates, or you'll get chopped. It's weird. It's the don't-leave-the-pub way of life. I think people in America are generally happy for someone's good fortune; they know how to let themselves go. In Australia, they go, “Good, mate,” and don't ask a single question. There are no celebrations for a job well done. I'm still shocked at how Americans cheer you on when they like you. I know you don't fancy it anymore, but I like phrases like “dress for success.”

And that's why you're shopping here?

I love hideous ties. Girls love 'em. Dunno why. Its like red socks. Are the playing Richard Hell? I haven't heard this song in 20 years. God, you must hear better music in clothing stores than you do anywhere else in New York. All these baseball jackets are so cheap. You know what they pay for these in Australia? I should buy the whole lot, take them back. I'd never have to tour again. I could get 150 to 200 bucks just for the ratty ones. I think this is the first clothing store I've been in that wasn't playing videos.

Are videos big in Australia?

We've actually been involved in music video a whole lot longer than in America. Because we are so far away, the only way we've had to understand all this music flying around the world is through video. Since the '50s, even when it was only 10 minutes a week, Aussie tv has been showing music videos.

And we don't censor the way you guys do. The “Way of the World” single is a very serious song, but MTV is quite shy of the video, you should note – I say this diplomatically. They censor here for all the wrong reasons. Like it's okay to stare at Cher's crotch for four minutes, but it's hard to say something truthful about the state of the world.

Could it be because with a group that's become as wildly successful as INXS has, it's inevitable that favorable reaction always turns?

I don't think INXS has reached that point yet. Give us four more years. We've only recently become hip in England. At the beginning, they hated our guts.

Why?

'Cause we are Australians writing pop music, why else? They don't make much in England, apart from nice jumpers and Jaguars, and one of the few things they can claim some turf on is pop music. So, they're not happy when someone else does it. It's a standard trait of island people; they're very territorial.

But you guys are island people too.

Yeah, but we got a bigger island. Now, if we can just get rid of some competition from the expatriate colonies.

Isn't it enough already with this rivalry between Australia and England? L.A. And New York have settled their feud.

England still treats Australia like we're descendants of convicts. Well, I guess we are, aren't we? We're trying to get rid of them, but unfortunately, they're coming back with money and buying up half the country. Don't you resent the Japanese buying Rockefeller Center?

I resent the Rockefellers more.

[Having tried on everything and bought nothing, Hutchence decides against old clothes. We head down to If boutique.]

Armand Basi. Nice stuff. That Claude Montana is fabulous, but God, this stuff is expensive. We don't know anyone here for a discount, do we? My father used to design clothes for a shop in Hong Kong called Dynasty. Glitzy evening wear for too much money. One year, when we did our first tour, we bough ta lot of Sprouse, real colorful stuff, and we spent a fortune, especially when you consider it's disposable fashion. All it had to do was last a month. All the buttons fell off, it shrunk, seams opened up. We would have been more upset, but it made us homesick for the mother country. Disposable fashion is very English. The nice thing about it when it comes from there, however, is that even though the stuff falls apart, it's cheap.

Ah, I like this. Very sexy, very smart. Basi, right? I found the best underwear. I think it's called Nikos. Someone gave it to me last night. Well, that's a plug. No names, please. These pants might go with the Basi shirt. [Like Navy pants, they have over a dozen buttons instead of a fly.] Not good clubwear. Certainly not quick enough to please me.

Your choice of underwear would have to be very discreet.

And always clean. Maybe these pants come with a catheter. Should I ask the shopgirl? [He raises his arm to call her and, wincing, puts it down.]

Just realized a colostomy bag wouldn't hurt?

No. I think I have a cracked rib, from too much fun the other night at Inflation, this super club in Melbourne. Melbourne has some of the best clubs in the world. Great people. Amazing clubs. Sydney has nothing. Boring as hell. Nice place if you're a surfer. Really pretty, like L.A. But very corrupt, Sydney. Everyone is always paying everyone off. That's why you can't afford to do a club there. It's like, in order to get a club license, all the other nightclub owners have to agree to your having a license. And four people control the voting on that. Melbourne now has a club called Razor that is so exciting. It used to an automobile club, especially popular during the '50s, where people used to talk about their cars, you know, with photos of Mini-Minors making hairpin turns around corners. Like a racing club, I guess, except for slower cars. Razor gets the best people.

[He picks up a pair of huge, get-lost-in-the-rain-forest-and-survive black shoes and delights.]

Many people have shoe fetishes. I guess it's around the world actually, not just with Imelda. I think people are probably just jealous of her because they secretly wanted so many pair. But these are big, like size big. Are Americans getting larger feet, or do they just want more room? I always notice shoes when I'm here.

There's almost like a $100 tax on shoes in Australia. Like a pair that will cost you $50 here will cost you almost $200 in Australia. A pair of Levi's cost $100. I never buy furniture in Australia, either, and I have an obsession with furniture the way Americans love shoes. It's a shame I don't have an obsession with homes, too, since I have no place to put all the furniture. I have it stored all over the world.

Let me get the Basi shirt, and then I want to buy records. I would get them later, but I just remembered I have a friend coming in tonight for only one night. He and his father are trying to get down to Nicaragua. They're helping Ortega keep the Contras back. Good luck. What's so weird about their going is that these guys are publishing magnates in England. Entrepreneurs. They should be serious Thatcherites, but they just hate Thatcher. Real lefties.

If everyone is so vocal of their dislike of her, how come she's so strong?

The British love her because they love to be miserable; they love to complain. Thatcher's become irrepressible. She's finally showing signs of faltering, except she's winning by default, because no one wants to put Kinnock in, either. It's like your Dan Quayle. What an alternative.

Are Australians political?

It's compulsory to vote, if you want to call that political. Frankly, nobody particularly gives a fuck. That doesn't mean Australians are not aware people. I think they know more about what's going on in the rest of the world than the average American, but that's because they have to compensate for being in the middle of nowhere. They're more concerned about international politics, about the environment. Every time the Americans come into Sydney harbor with their nuclear ships and submarines, there's always 5,000 people telling them to fuck off.

But the hell with domestic politics?

Do you know anything about our system? It's built on a bickering sort of war. The front page is always about politicos throwing shit at each other, spending more time insulting each other than governing.

Mind you, they are really very good at it. It's a fine Australian tradition of political insult. Listening to parliament is hilarious - “Shut up, you bastard!” - and that's our prime minister, Bob Hawke. He's in the Guinness Book of World Records for having drunk a yard of beer in record time. He is actually a brilliant leader, a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, and he has done a bloody good job, considering the apathy he's up against. What he should be real pleased about its restoring pride in being Australian, particularly after all that nonsense when the governor general dismissed Prime Minister Whitlam in 1975.

How was that possible without the consent of the Australian parliament?

We're still a colony. I think a lot of us were cynical after that. They felt like puppets. Probably had something to do with the CIA. The good old CIA. I'm in their files, I found out. That they should waste their time on me. I'm listed as subversive, for my lyrics to “Guns in the Sky” and because I once threw condoms out to the audience in Northern Australia.

How is that subversive?

The more north you get in Australia, the more it is like the South in America. The man who ran Queensland, one of the biggest states in Australia, was this guy, Joh Peterson, who was in power for over 20 years. Peterson was this sort of South African leftover who arrived in Australia, and he made things illegal, like sex education, abortion, condoms to minors – you couldn't have the vending machines in clubs. [You can now.] Well, I slandered him, and so I got taken to court, where he was thrown out of office from the corruption uncovered during the proceedings.

Did that make you a hero down there?

Say what, mate? This is Australia, remember. Our heroes are bushrangers, outlaws, and sporting stars. If you're an athlete, you can get away with anything.

[Hutchence purchases the Basi shirts, and then we head to Tower Records at the corner. A street person approaches us.]

is this the official mugging committee?

Street person: “Ooh, ooh, here they come in their limo, straight from Saks Fifth Avenue. Board of directors, how you doing, moneys, you big-time decision makers. Uh-oh, who's you? You must be a rock man. Stand aside for the rock man.”

They always pick on me.

“I want to give you something, man. Some humility. But there's only enough for one.”

I don't care for some, but humility is something we can spread around.

“Hey man, this is for seriously. You will love this humility. No side effects, no speed. Say yes, and I can be back in an hour.”

[We go through the revolving door and right to the rock section; within three minutes, Max Q is playing on the system.]

That's good, somebody knows it's out.

[Hutchence buys albums by Ciccone Youth, Camper Van Beethoven, Soul II Soul, Grace Jones, Shakespear's Sister, Jesus and Mary Chain, and Suicidal Tendencies. As he is paying for them, he spots a postcard stand that features a picture of him.]

Holy shit. When did they take this thing? What a bizarre likeness. I hardly know this guy. This is not an approved photo. [He gets the attention of a young lady behind the counter.] Excuse me, please, this is not an approved photo. It's a pirate. Do you know where you get these from?

Salesgirl: “No idea.”

Can you find out?

“Why, do you want to buy a lot of them?”

See, I told you no one recognizes me.

[We walk outside and the street person comes up to him again.]

Street person: “I know who you are.”

Who am I?

“You are someone who's gonna give me a lot of money.”

How much you want?

“Just give me one of those bills, thank you. Now I'm officially your biggest fan. Just tell me what you want to buy.”

I must be dressed for success.

[woodshorenews]

RYAN: This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime, we take a look at the town of Woodshore, Washington, home to one of the nicest resorts in the country. 

SHANE: Oh, yay, something pleasant for once. 

RYAN: Let me finish–– home to one of the nicest resorts in the country, however, behind the Pacific ocean views, lies a grizzly and surprisingly recent series of murders that have left police stumped.

SHANE: Annnnd there it is.

RYAN: ... Let's get into it.

RYAN: Located off the coast of Washington, Woodshore is a small city home to about 30,000 people. It’s about a two-hour drive from Seattle. Known for its legendary resort that comprises most of the city and its employment, most people would describe the town as idyllic and quiet.  However, murky secrets lurk below.

RYAN: On February 4th of this year, Elias Peabody was last seen outside of the Rail Yard Tap, a local bar. For two whole weeks, the police department said nothing about his disappearance, other than there were no leads. But on the morning of February 19th, local newspapers reported that his body had been found, believed to be killed on the 17th. There were no details on the suspect, and no witnesses came forward. No one knows what happened to Mr. Peabody in the two weeks that he went missing.

RYAN: Another thing worth noting about this time is that on the morning of February 9th, local law enforcement found the remains of a mutilated deer carcass on the trail. And while this may sound unrelated at first, it is worth noting that February 8th, the night before, was a full moon. This has led some local residents to believe that it might be–

SHANE: No, no, no, no. Don’t do that. Don’t go looping your other shit into this.

RYAN: Do what? All I’m saying is that there was conveniently a mutilated animal carcass found. By the reports of it, it sounded pretty uh... pretty grotesque.

SHANE: No. That’s just – you know, the circle of life. Animals being animals.

RYAN: Listen, I’m not saying it was a werewolf.

SHANE: Yes, because werewolves aren’t real.

RYAN: I don’t even believe in werewolves! I’m just saying that’s what happened. And you know, uh, most serial killers, they tend to start off with hurting animals.

SHANE: But he already kidnapped the guy.

RYAN: That’s true. It’s just something to make note of. Let’s keep going.

RYAN: Just over a month later, on the morning of March 13th, a jogger found the body of a woman in these same woods. While the jogger initially thought they might be alive, paramedics declared her dead on the scene. According to the polite report, she appeared to have been pulled off the path and dragged, postmortem, before the suspect covered the body with various brush from the area. She was identified by a family member as 31 year old Nora Wentworth, a local elementary school teacher. The coroner’s report determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation and blunt force trauma to the skull. She was dead for thirty-six hours before she was found in the food. Nora was never reported missing, possibly due to the fact that schools happened to be on spring break that week.

RYAN: Well, I’ll give you that one. I don’t think a– uh, a second grader killed her.

SHANE: Also, hold on. She’d been dead thirty-six hours and the jogger who found her thought that she was still alive? What about decomposition?

RYAN: I don’t know, I mean, I didn’t talk to them. They probably didn’t get that close.

SHANE: What about the smell?

RYAN: Maybe they thought it was nature.

SHANE: Nature? No, no. You know what? The jogger did it. Case closed.

RYAN: That’s not how it works, dude. I mean, c’mon. Resort town. These people are probably you know, just going about their business, la di da, not thinking too much about any of it. They probably assumed there was no way they were finding another dead body in Woodshore.

SHANE: But there’d already been one murder!

RYAN: Yeah, well, nowhere’s perfect. I don’t know, dude, but I think if it was the jogger, they’d have found out by now. Finding the body always makes you a prime suspect.

SHANE: Uh-huh. Sure. What are the police doing, anyway? Sitting back, eating some donuts like those small town cops do, hoping there’s not a third?

RYAN: Well, they’re probably hoping that, yeah. That brings me to my next point.

RYAN: The day after the 2nd murder, the head detective on the case, Detective Hannah Zhang, suggested a town curfew and that people not be alone after day. Mayor Combs agreed to this, and the recommendation was published in the newspaper, along with information about the murder. However, after the case, Detective Zhang declined to make any kind of public comment about the case or how it was proceeding.

RYAN:  What’s also interesting about this is that, after the first case, the police department reacted similarly. And, more noteworthy, after the animal attack–

SHANE: Not this shit again.

RYAN: Yes. After the animal attack, they sent out advice about how to go in the woods without upsetting wildlife. Isn’t it interesting how they have the same level of response about both events? I mean – now multiple people being murdered, compared to an animal. 

SHANE: I mean, listen, you said this was a resort town. Chances are, they just don’t want to talk about it so that they can avoid putting a dent in their reputation. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. That’s just how small towns are.

RYAN: That’s not just how small towns are. That’s shady!

SHANE: It’s not that shady. C’mon, it’s the popo.

RYAN: That’s a terrible excuse. But, unfortunately for this small town, the lack of answers coming from the police department ultimately ended up with more harm.

RYAN: On April 2nd, only two months ago, Woodshore officers responded to a distress call. Upon arrival, the officers found a young adult who was barely responsive and suffering from extensive wounds to the skull and abdomen. Defensive wounds were also visible, according to paramedics. The phone that was used to make the call was later found at the scene. the young adult was declared dead on arrival at the Woodshore hospital and identified by family members as Orion Rubinstein, a twenty-two year old college student, who had last been seen only hours prior in the family’s suite at the resort. 

RYAN: Do you want this guy to murder you?

SHANE: I’d like him to try, yes. I think that would make some great footage. Besides, we obviously wouldn’t be filming this episode if he killed me. I’d be doing viral on Twitter. And you uh, you’d probably be... sobbing and trying to contact my ghost.

RYAN: Yeah, I think I would try to contact your ghost.

SHANE: And you would fail. Because ghosts aren’t real.

RYAN: Not true, but I digress. Obviously, we did get a chance to go to Woodshore in the beginning of May, and neither one of us was murdered. But could we have conceivably crossed paths with a murderer? Definitely. Now would be a good time for that montage...

RYAN: It is a beautiful town.

SHANE: Lovely town. Absolutely lovely.

RYAN: Unfortunately, we haven’t quite covered everything sketchy that’s happened in Woodshore in the last year.

SHANE: Wait, really? 

RYAN: Really. And uh... you’re really going to hate this one.

SHANE: Oh boy.

RYAN: On the morning of April 22nd, three weeks after the murder of Orion Rubenstein, the most grisly murder yet occurred. The evidence is both shocking yet underwhelming in what it reveals – there were no significant fingerprints or DNA evidence to be found. While authorities have not released this information publicly, an informant from inside the department has revealed that the victim’s cause of death was a wound to the neck and significant blood loss. The wound in question was two distinct punctures, and while the victim was drained of half of his body’s blood, only a few drops were found at the scene. 

The victim was the notorious Augustus Gallagher, a forty-one year old loan shark. He had a history of settling lawsuits for fraud and embezzlement, and has been connected to some of Woodshore’s more unsavory characters, including potentially a drug ring. While this connection has never been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, it raises some serious questions about Mr. Gallagher… and the motives of the Washington Night Stalker.

SHANE: The Washington Night Stalker. Every good serial killer needs a name.

RYAN: So you’re not going to comment on the fact that the victim had two puncture wounds in his neck and was drained of blood? All you care about is the name?

SHANE: Yeah, I mean, it’s a cool name.

RYAN: Uh-huh.

SHANE: And vampires obviously aren’t real.

RYAN: See, I agree with you there. I don’t think they’re real. But, it’s interesting that between Gallagher’s murder, and the whole full moon thing, there’s a little... a little drop of vampires and werewolves in this town.

SHANE: But it doesn’t mean anything because none of that crap is real.

RYAN: Right, right.

SHANE: Well, this is a weird feeling. Four murders this year and the police have got, what? Nothing?

RYAN: Nada.

SHANE: Wow.

RYAN: Yeah. In this case, the police has said so little about the actual case and suspects surrounding it, just that they apparently have significant leads. But, nothing’s actually come from any of this. With four murders under its belt, and maybe something a little more savory going on inside of Woodshore, this resort-style town might not be as idyllic as it appears on the surface.

But for now, this case will remain... Unsolved.

[rachelkaser]

Stay Golden Sunday: It’s A Miserable Life

An attempt to save a neighborhood tree somehow results in the death of the Girls’ most misanthropic neighbor. The Girls decide to pay for her funeral.

Picture It...

The Girls all meet up in the living room to compare numbers -- they’re trying to get the residents of Richmond Street to sign a petition to save a 200-year-old oak tree, which the city wants to cut down to widen the street. Rose is upset because she tried and failed to get the signature of Mrs. Claxton, their misanthropic neighbor on whose property the tree is growing. Despite the Girls agreeing that Mrs. Claxton’s just a terrible human being, Rose is convinced there’s some good in everyone, telling a St. Olaf story to make her point. She’s going to be extra nice to Mrs. Claxton to get her signature.

SOPHIA: *as the Girls run into the kitchen* Boy, that was a close call. BLANCHE: If I have to listen to one more story about the colorful people from St. Olaf, I think I’ll explode. ROSE: *coming in* Ernest T. Minky was St. Olaf’s librarian... BLANCHE: Kaboom.

Blanche, Dorothy, and Sophia arrive at the courthouse to block the proposal and discuss their options. Sophia wants to bribe the commissioners, which Dorothy and Blanche shoot down. Blanche, however, did sleep with two of them (but, to borrow a line from a later episode, she probably would have anyway). Rose appears and proudly announces that, through persistent application of delicious Danishes, she managed to extract a promise from Mrs. Claxton to save the tree.

Mrs. Claxton arrives at that moment and the Girls attempt to be friendly. Mrs. Claxton quickly proves her reputation is entirely deserved when she tells Blanche she’s taking blackmail pictures of her bedroom activities, which she can see through binoculars, and makes a snide comment about Dorothy’s comparatively inactive bedroom. She quickly goes back on her word to Rose, and says she only said she’d help to get the Danish. She even says straight to Rose’s face that she hates her assumption that she just needed to be shown some kindness to change her mind.

In the courtroom, the Girls attempt to present their petition to save the tree, only for Mrs. Claxton to shout them down, being as nasty to them as possible. Rose finally snaps and lets loose on Mrs. Claxton, who has the audacity to look shocked at Rose’s shouting. She says she’s done indulging Mrs. Claxton and tells her to sit still while the rest of the neighbors have their say, finishing with, “And if you don’t like it, just drop dead.” When she walks away, Mrs. Claxton promptly collapses to the ground, and Sophia confirms that the old woman apparently took Rose at her word.

Two days later, Rose is moping in the kitchen, convinced her shouting at Mrs. Claxton was what killed her. Dorothy tries to comfort her, saying that the woman was 83 and just had a heart attack. Blanche also attempts to comfort her, saying she should just have a cry at the funeral. Rose says there won’t be a funeral, which neither Blanche nor Dorothy are too broken up about, given how awful she was. Blanche tells a story about faking her death as a teenager just to see how many people showed up at her funeral.

SOPHIA: What’s everybody talking about? DOROTHY: Ma, I can honestly say I have no idea. ROSE: We started out talking about Mrs. Claxton’s funeral. DOROTHY: Yeah, but somewhere along the way we segued into Blanche: The Miniseries.

Sophia comes in and asks when Mrs. Claxton’s funeral is going to be, and they’re surprised she wants to go. She says it doesn’t matter how horrible Mrs. Claxton was -- going to the funeral shows regard for human life. When they point out that Mrs. Claxton had no friends or relatives and so won’t have a funeral, Sophia says they should pay for it for the same reason. They all agree to go in on the funeral.

At the Forever Peaceful funeral home, the Girls confer with Mr. Pfeiffer (the “P” is not silent) about the funeral arrangement -- he initially thinks they’re planning ahead for “mother” (meaning Sophia). He tries to give them the hard sell on the most expensive casket in the house, but they balk at the $6,000 price tag. They finally settle on an inexpensive pine box for Mrs. Claxton. They decide on a Friday night funeral based on the TV schedule and leave.

ROSE: *about Blanche* You’ll have to excuse her. Funeral homes make her a little nervous. MR. PFEIFFER: Golly, they used to make me nervous too. At a traditional funeral home, all they want to talk about is caskets, burials, dead people. Here at Forever Peaceful we’ve gotten rid of all that morbid death stuff. SOPHIA: What are you running here, a sushi bar?

Friday night, the girls are sitting in the pews at the otherwise empty funeral. Rose is surprised that no one else came, but just as they’re about to leave, a woman shows up who claims the deceased was a dear friend. She gives a heartfelt eulogy about the virtues of the dead woman, and the Girls are tearing up, until the woman says the name “Celia Rubenstein.” She’s at the wrong funeral, and kicks the casket when she finds out whose funeral it really is. Rose runs out in tears, and Mr. Pfeiffer walks in with a golden urn and reveals Mrs. Claxton was cremated by mistake. Now the Girls have to take her home.

Later, Blanche is convinced that Mrs. Claxton’s ghost is haunting the house -- it was actually Sophia. Rose comes home and reveals that she found a place to put Mrs. Claxton’s ashes: She spread them at the base of the old oak tree and told the committee they can’t disturb the old woman’s final resting place, so it looks like they won’t cut the tree down. They go out to gaze at the oak tree.

SOPHIA: What are you all looking at? DOROTHY: That beautiful, old oak tree, Ma. ROSE: Mrs. Claxton’s spirit’s part of that tree now, Sophia. SOPHIA: That’s really lovely. *looks at the base of the tree* And it’s touching how that Great Dane is paying its respects.

“Hey P-Feiffer, how would you like a punch in your P-Face?”

Rose headlines this excellent, memorable episode about the value of life, which has some of the best scenes in the series. It may not have a B-plot to speak of, but it doesn’t really need one when all the Girls play such a balanced role in the episode. I really can’t overstate how good everyone is in this episode, from Sophia’s outward apathy masking internal softness, to Blanche’s funeral home jitters, to Dorothy’s struggle with the name P-Feiffer. The brief appearance of the excellent Nan Martin at Freida Claxton is the cherry on top.

This marks the second time Rose has been in close proximity to someone who’s died and blamed herself for it (the first being Al from “In a Bed of Roses”). This time it’s funnier because we see the character die onscreen -- that doesn’t sound like it should be funnier, but it is. Nan Martin’s two-scene performance makes Mrs. Claxton’s death funny if only because she’s just the worst, and Martin’s clearly having a blast playing her.

DOROTHY: *about Sophia’s bribery attempts* And don’t tell us that’s how you got things done in Sicily. SOPHIA: That’s not how we got things done in Sicily. Bribing people with money is how we got things done in New York. In Sicily, you cut off a horse’s head and put it somebody’s bed. BLANCHE: Sophia, you’re making that up. SOPHIA: Like hell. Our garbage commissioner, Fredo Lombardi, went on strike once. He woke up the next morning sharing a pillow with National Velvet. At 7 a.m. he was out cleaning the street with his tongue.

The other Girls aren’t wrong when they describe Mrs. Claxton in horrible terms, and Rose’s insistence that there must be some good in her is thoroughly punctured, not just in the courtroom but during her empty funeral. As funny as it is to see the Claxton clashes, poor Rose gets a big knock on her positive worldview, which adds a hint of sadness to the episode, even if she does improve by the end of the episode after she spreads the ashes.

There’s even one serious moment where Mrs. Claxton tells Rose that she hates that Rose assumed that just because she lived alone, that she must want “company and a few kind words.” This tendency of Rose to try and insert her sunny demeanor into the lives of people who neither like it or want it will come back to bite her later. As nasty as Mrs. Claxton is, she’s not wrong that Rose assuming she must be a lonely, misunderstood person is kind of patronizing.

ROSE: Oh Sophia, I think you’re a wonderful person. It’s a lovely idea to share Mrs. Claxton’s funeral expenses equally. SOPHIA: Equally? I figure your share should be about half. After all, you’re the one who killed her.

The question of whether Mrs. Claxton’s life was pointless because she didn’t have anyone who cared about her is a bit of a thorny one, and definitely not something I think Mrs. Claxton herself would have cared about. But the episode makes it clear that it’s not a philosophical or moral question -- it’s only important in the episode because it’s important to soft-hearted Rose. And even though the use of her ashes to protect the oak tree they were originally trying to save is a little trite, I do think it works because at least one of the Girls -- Sophia -- isn’t taking the whole thing very seriously.

The tree is also a nice plot point. We’ve seen the Girls describe their charitable endeavors before, most notably in “Flu Attack.” Here we see them actually doing their charity work, in this case saving a 200-year-old tree. All four of the Girls are part of the endeavor, even though Blanche can only get men to sign up for the petition one at a time the old-fashioned way, and Sophia put the names of a few dead people on the petition.

To harp on my favorite topic, the episode is very fairly balanced, with each of the four Girls having almost equal screentime. Sophia’s role as the person who badmouths Mrs. Claxton the most and yet encourages the others to pay for the funeral because she feels bad for her.  Remember what I said weeks ago about how the show gives the least active member of the cast a big monologue in the middle of the episode to keep it even? In this case it’s Blanche with her long, ridiculous monologue about how she faked her death at age 15 because she wasn’t crowned Miss Magnolia Blossom. This time Dorothy even lampshades it by saying she has no idea how they got to that topic.

The comedy really culminates during the funeral scene, when an unnamed mourner shows up and speaks about the deceased in glowing terms, speaking about her anonymous charitable work and giving the Girls the brief impression that Mrs. Claxton was secretly the greatest person. Then she discovers that she’s in the wrong funeral, and when she discovers that the funeral is for Freida Claxton, delivers a kick to the casket in the ultimate wordless indicator of exactly how bad of a person Mrs. Claxton was.

I feel like Forever Peaceful is really lucky the Girls didn’t actually like Mrs. Claxton, because cremating someone who was supposed to be buried is a lawsuit waiting to happen (not that I’m a lawyer, but still). Also, I know they had to do it for story/comedy reasons, but I’m not sure why they gave the ashes to the Girls. Presumably they’ve already paid for the casket and the plot in which Mrs. Claxton was to be interred -- why not just pop the urn in the casket and bury it that way? 

But I have no regrets about its inclusion, because the scene where the Girls confer with Mr. P-Feiffer about the funeral arrangements is one of the funniest scenes in the whole series. Everything from the strangeness of the name to the Girls rejecting his hard sell to the decision not to have the funeral on Thursday because it conflicts with the Cosby Show is just solid comedy gold.

DOROTHY: Thank you, Rose. That was a wonderful story. ROSE: I’m only half-done. SOPHIA: I passed a kidney stone once that was less painful than this.

Also, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the first instance of a St. Olaf story being acknowledged as such. Rose has told scattered stories of the other residents of her hometown in Minnesota before, but this is the first time the other Girls give such a strong, disgusted reaction to it, even running out of the room in an attempt to escape hearing about the life of Ernest T. Minky. This is the reaction they’ll generally have to the stories of St. Olaf throughout the rest of the series, and it’s hilarious every time.

Episode rating: 🍰🍰🍰🍰🍰 (five cheesecake slices out of five)

Favorite part of the episode:

[junker-town]

Dorktown: The god-awful drive that changed NFL history

Now that the new episode of Dorktown has dropped, Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein to discuss Mark Sanchez, dynasties, and whether or not Jon is stupid.

Thanks to everyone who watched our latest episode of Dorktown! This one was a little different than any other Dorktown episode we’ve ever made: rather than simply telling a story, we made an argument that has proven to be a little controversial: that one disastrous drive in 2011 changed the course of a franchise and, in turn, NFL history.

Below, Alex and I chatted about some odds and ends surrounding the episode. Hope you enjoy. And hey, if you haven’t already, remember to subscribe to Secret Base on YouTube.

Jon: This video stars the Jets in the years before and after 2010, and I gotta say, I found this team really endearing at the time. Darrelle Revis was incredible to watch, Rex Ryan was prone to popping off and saying whatever, and Mark Sanchez was a guy I found myself pulling for. I really wanted him to be able to put it all together, but his numbers with the Jets indicate he, uh, didn’t.

I find it pretty difficult to evaluate quarterback talent. Part of that is because I’m just bad at it, but part of it is that I feel like it’s so context-dependent and the sample is so small. So I guess my question for you is, do you think a world could exist in which Sanchez emerged as a good quarterback? Do you think maybe he was in a sub-optimal system, and that he would have thrived on a different team? Or do you think we saw the best Mark Sanchez we were ever gonna see?

Alex: I think Mark Sanchez was certainly in a sub-optimal offensive ecosystem that was coordinated by Brian Schottenheimer and that didn’t necessarily have an abundance of threatening downfield targets.

However, to me the biggest problem with Sanchez is that even playing behind a strong offensive line led by stalwarts D’Brickashaw Ferguson and Nick Mangold, he just couldn’t function once he got hit.

He could look great in practice or throwing against air, but when the bullets were flying and he got clobbered a couple times, he’d get way too easily rattled. That’s why someone like Eli Manning was able to carve out a 16-year career and a couple Super Bowl MVPs despite hardly having the same kind of talent as top-end quarterbacks such as his brother.

The man could get smacked in the mouth time after time after time and he’d get up every time. It never affected his subsequent plays. Sanchez would get knocked to the ground and then his passes would practically sail to the Hudson River. It is impossible to succeed as an NFL quarterback if you can’t shake off hits, so I really don’t think Sanchez would’ve lived up to his draft status regardless of which team selected him.

Jon: Ouch, man. It’s sort of fascinating to consider how we perceive this kind of stuff. Like, ask your average football fan what they think of Mark Sanchez, and odds are they’ll tell you that on the field he was a baby idiot loser. Whereas in reality, he was perhaps in the 99.94th percentile of toughest human beings instead of the 99.994th. Do percentiles go to 100 or stop at 99? Don’t care, I’m sticking with it.

Speaking of baby idiot losers, I think that’s what I might be after my declaration in the video that the Chiefs are a possible dynasty in the making. Gettin’ a little bit of shit for that one, which I think is fair. “What is a dynasty?” is up there with “what is a sport?” on the list of most tedious sports debates, but since I brought it up, I’ve kind of doomed myself to having this argument. If you had to peg what constitutes a dynasty, what would you consider the requisite qualities? Multiple Super Bowl wins? One Super Bowl win with a couple more appearances peppered in? If the ‘90s Bills had won one of their four Super Bowls, you think they’d qualify as a dynasty?

Alex: But is Joe Flacco elite? Those Bills squads would be tough to classify as a dynasty even had they hit their last-second field goal in Super Bowl XXV just because, while they did win their conference each of the next three years, they were so thoroughly out-classed in each of those ensuing Super Bowls. The AFC during that time was basically like the NBA’s Eastern Conference for about a half-decade following Mike Jordan’s middle retirement. You only get so much credit for winning that conference.

I would loosely consider any team that wins multiple titles in a window of time that’s less than twice that in years to be a dynasty. For example, winning two titles in three or fewer years, three in five or fewer years, etc. But there can also be hard-to-quantify exceptions; I don’t know if I’d consider those late-90s Broncos a dynasty after back-to-back titles and then their precipitous 1999 decline, but it’s certainly debatable.

A team that only wins one title but puts up a hell of a fight in an adjacent run or two to the championship round — such as the mid-90s Braves (1995 title, outscored Yankees by eight runs in 1996 World Series) or mid-00s Pistons (2004 title, one flubbed rotation from a likely repeat) — might warrant that dynastic title. Especially when acknowledging fortunes can change, it doesn’t seem ridiculous to look at the Chiefs’ body of work from 2018-20, combine that with the fact that their best player is 25 years old and under team control until the sun burns out, and extrapolate to say a dynasty is a possible end result. Defensible remark!

Jon: Right! I do think these Chiefs need one more Super Bowl win before we can call them a dynasty. Admittedly, it was dangerous of me to even suppose something like that. Things change so, so quickly. I mean, this could very easily be another Seahawks situation: they win a Super Bowl, then lose another, and it feels like they’ll inevitably be back. But even though their superstar quarterback has stayed healthy and actually improved over the years, while they’re often a tough out, they haven’t been back in any of the years since. That could just as easily end up being the Chiefs’ story.

Now, I said something else in this episode that’s understandably being scrutinized. I concluded that if the Chiefs waited until the offseason to fire Todd Haley, they probably would have made an outside hire to replace him. I could be wrong about that. Romeo Crennel was well-liked within the organization and it’s possible they would have simply promoted him. Still ... I gotta think that shocking Packers upset was the thing that sealed it for him, and if he hadn’t coached that game they would’ve looked outside the organization. And if they did, that guy would be far more likely to have a multi-year leash. So, Alex, would you care to settle this once and for all? If you disagree, you’ll be betraying your friend. If you agree, you will then by default become the person everyone is mad at instead of me. Anyway, have fun!

Alex: I’ve seen it too much first-hand with my Niners. Mike Singletary as interim coach parlayed pulling down his pants and turning around Vernon Davis’ career into getting the full-time gig. A couple years later when he was fired with one game left in 2010, Jim Tomsula took over and presided over a destruction of the Cardinals. He didn’t immediately turn that into becoming the permanent coach as the 49ers won the Jim Harbaugh sweepstakes, but that was a huge reason why he eventually got the job once CEO Jed York fired Harbaugh. Teams love overreacting to one thing an interim coach does. Although to be fair, we all know the one surefire way to get a promotion is by dropping your pants in the middle of the workplace.

That game had to have played a key role in Clark Hunt’s calculus to give Crennel the job. I’ll take the heat, Jon. No problem. Everyone can tweet their rage at me until the cows come home.

[Editor’s note: Alex does not have a Twitter account.]

[khalilhumam]

Meet Matt Collin, David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Global Economy and Development

Register at https://mignation.com The Only Social Network for Migrants. #Immigration, #Migration, #Mignation ---

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Meet Matt Collin, David M. Rubenstein Fellow in Global Economy and Development

By Tylena Patton-Bullock

I’m Matt Collin, I’m a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at Brookings. Q: Where did you grow up? I was born in the United Kingdom, but when I was only a few months old my parents moved to the small town of Conway, South Carolina, so I grew up in Conway. But, because my mother’s side of family is from the UK, we were going back and forth quite a lot. That is why I somehow come out of the whole thing not sounding quite like I’m from Conway or from the UK at the same time. So, I spent my first 20 years in South Carolina, growing up and going to undergrad at Clemson. Q: What inspired you to become a scholar? When I look back and think about why I became a scholar it’s very difficult to pin down that precise moment. And these things tend to be a lot more random than we often like to think about them. To give you one example of the year when I decided to do a Ph.D., I applied to do a Ph.D., but I was so uncertain about the whole thing that I applied to go film school. I didn’t get into film school, and I got a full ride to go do a Ph.D. in economics. So sometimes it feels like chance pushes you in a different direction. But I think there’s two things that nudged me toward being a scholar that works on issues of international development. The first are my parents. As I said, I grew up in Conway, where my dad taught international politics and my mom was a nurse practitioner caring for mainly poor patients from the community. From dad, I got the sense that there’s a wider world outside of Clemson. At the time, I was studying mathematics because I liked to work on problems that had a solution. But most of the things that I’ve worked on didn’t really have much applicability to the rest of the world. Dad would pull me into his own workplace saying things like “could you explain the United Nations Development Program’s population tables to me? Could you explain the Gini index to me?” (which is a popular measure of inequality). Through that I began to become interested in issues of the outside world, particularly those related to poverty. And when I got to college, I started to study economics and so I realized that there was a way to use the math-y side of my brain and start applying it to real world issues. [related]The second kind of formative moment was when, after grad school in development economics, I went to work as a civil servant in the Ministry of Finance in Malawi, in southern Africa. This is a program that’s run by a think tank called the Overseas Development Institute that sends young economists off to work in developing countries as civil servants. I was there for two years and working for the Malawian government really gave me both a sense for how governments in these places can function and how they can sometimes dysfunction. But also, Malawi was a very aid-dependent country at the time. In many ways, we were beholden to international donors, which were providing a lot of the national budget. And it began to open my eyes about the fact that for a lot of these countries, while their own decisions about policy make a huge difference for their ability to fight poverty, a lot of those decisions were made outside of their own borders. And that began to clue me into other issues, like climate change, migration, trade policy—things that affect developing countries—but are sometimes outside of their control. So, with that experience in mind, that began to become more of a focus in my own work after I received my Ph.D. and started working in a think tank space. Q: What do you think is the most important issue we are facing today? If I’m being honest the most important issue we’re facing today is probably climate change, which makes it awkward that I don’t work at all on climate change. For me, it’s always been a question of finding ways to reduce poverty and inequality. Despite the fact that we’ve made a lot of progress in reducing poverty over the last 30, 40 years, the bar is very rightly going to be moved up in terms of what level of poverty we care about. I see climate change as probably being one of the bigger threats to reducing poverty in the future. But I don’t think that there’s one thing that we should always be focused on. I think climate change and migration are two of the biggest levers through which we have to worry about poverty in the future. In my case, I worry a lot about how we get the rules of an international economic system right in order to make it easier for poorer countries to pull themselves out of poverty. So, I think it’s less about there being one particular thing we should all be focused on and instead different fronts that we need to be fighting. Q: What are you working on right now? During my time here at Brookings I am largely focused on thinking about where people stash money that they’re trying to hide from tax authorities or from their own governments. There’s a broad umbrella of research around something called “illicit financial flows.” This is a big bucket of stuff that includes money laundering, cross-border tax evasion, proceeds of drugs, as well as terrorist financing. So, my work kind of focuses on two things. We’re trying to make it harder for people to keep money in the Cayman Islands or to move the proceeds of corruption without being detected. So, one is trying to determine if the institutions and policies we’re putting in place to try and reduce illicit financial flows are making a difference. Just recently a story broke about Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the former president of Angola. Documents have been leaked that show that she had a massive network of offshore companies used possibly to launder money that she made off of her connections to the Angolan government. These companies were running in largely rich countries with very strong anti-laundering institutions. So, trying to get a sense of if these policies are actually effective is a large part of what I try to do. It’s a difficult thing because, unfortunately, money launderers don’t respond to the surveys that we send out. So, you’re trying to measure something that, by its very nature, wants to stay hidden. Some of the work that I do with my co-authors is to look at recent leaks of information and try to see when we have a leak of data that involves a big money laundering scheme, like the one that happened with the dos Santos case. We also assess if the people running that scheme seem to be reacting to new policies coming into place in different jurisdictions. So, if the Cayman Islands started sharing more information with the United Kingdom, do we see money laundering operations linked to the UK move out of the Cayman Islands for fear of being detected? That’s one part of it, figuring out whether-or-not these policies are effective. The second part is trying to better understand what some of the costs of these policies might be. If regulators tighten the screws on banks and ask them to work harder to make sure that they’re not facilitating the movement of dirty money, banks often very rationally try and do this in the least costly way possible. Sometimes they’re going to make a choice to continue doing business with clients that are going to make them a lot of money and to do less business with clients who are not going to make them a lot of money. This often means that clients from poorer countries, ones that don’t often have huge revenue implications for banks, may be more at risk of being de-banked because of rising costs. With a couple of co-authors from the UK, we’re working on updating a study that looks at the changes in payment flows going to developing countries when they are put on a high-risk list by regulators vis-à-vis money laundering and terrorist financing. And we’re finding significant effects, and so it’s less about saying that these policies shouldn’t be put in place and more about just accounting for what actual costs are. Q: If you could recommend any book for our listeners, what would it be? One of the books I enjoyed the most over the last decade or so was Jason Stearns’ Dancing in the Glory of Monsters. It’s a very readable account of the first and second Congolese wars which took place in the late ’90s up until the beginning of the 2000s. And it does a very good job at mapping out not only elements that led to those wars, but also all the different players that are involved, not just the Congolese, but the Rwandans and Ugandans, and other neighbors of Congo. The reason why I like to recommend this book to people right now in my profession and those that work in development is there seems to be a little bit of an implicit agreement that there is a trade-off in some countries between progress in the sphere of development—some improving people’s welfare, increasing life expectancy, improving education—and in their rights. There are a number of countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa—Ethiopia maybe until most recently, but also especially Rwanda—where they’ve been making great strides in improving people’s well-being. But these same administrators, these same governments, are curbing the right to free speech, the right to participate in a normal democracy. I think most people have made the calculation that it’s a trade-off, at least for now, that’s worth making. But they’re often making that calculation just with respect to those countries. What Stearns’ book reveals is Rwanda was hugely implicated in the start and duration of both the first and second Congolese wars, wars that led to the deaths of millions and millions of people. Rwanda had a very good reason to be involved: it was reeling from a very recent genocide and they wanted to make sure it never happened again. But even as late as 2012, Rwanda was implicated in a lot of violence that was happening just across its borders. So, I think when people do the accounting to say we’re okay with development and progress, we’re okay with these costs in terms of freedoms, they also need to be including the costs that are being incurred by people in the DRC just across the border. And I think the book is a nice illustration of that.

[the-master-cylinder]

Russell was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Constance (née Lerner) and Richard Lion Russell, a stock analyst. Three of her four grandparents were Jewish. Her maternal grandfather was journalist and educator Max Lerner. Russell wanted to be an actress since the age of eight and started acting in school plays. She appeared in a Pepsi commercial that was taped locally while in high school. After graduating from Mission Bay High School in 1981, she moved to Los Angeles and began taking acting classes before landing her first role. She did a masters program in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica and is a certified hypnotist and life coach, also from the University of Santa Monica.

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The day after graduating high school, with limited commercial and modeling experience. Russell set out for Los Angeles with a UCLA-bound girlfriend. She located a roommate, actress Diane Brody, via the campus bulletin board. Brody helped Russell line up acting classes and waitressing jobs. Accompanying an acting classmate to an audition, Russell walked away with representation. She was subsequently cast in an unapologetic PORKY’S clone titled Private School (1983)

Private School (1983) Chris from a girls’ boarding school loves Jim from a nearby boys’ boarding school. Jordan also wants Jim and plays dirty. Jim and 2 friends visit the girls’ school posing as girls.

Russell played Jordan Leigh-Jensen, “a spoiled rich girl willing to do anything to get her way.” As her romantic rival, the top-billed Phoebe Cates waged war for the affections of Matthew Modine. Critics excoriated the film’s leering sexism, but Russell’s recollections are pleasant. “It was like walking on air,” she recalled. “Phoebe Cates was my idol at the time, and she was so nice to me. We grew very close, and she was fun to work with.”

Phobe Cates, in fact, coached the novice actress who was nervous about her nude scene: “Phoebe said, ‘Oh, this is nothing-in Paradise (1982) I had nude scenes. To make matters more stressful, old acquaintances showed up on the day Russell was shooting her topless “Lady Godiva” scene. “I hadn’t seen these people in years,” laughed Russell. “They turned up on the set, outdoors in the middle of nowhere. The director made them leave. It was hysterical. I learned that day not to take it all too seriously.”

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She insists that reviews, citing herself as the film’s sole asset, caused no friction with leading lady Cates. Phoebe is very secure with herself, stated Russell “She should be. Look at her now! We didn’t pay any attention to critics.”

Offers promptly rolled in. One of the networks offered Russell a spot on any series she wanted Numerous agents called, Playboy asked her to pose for a pictorial on struggling actresses in Hollywood. Although she does not regret turning down Playboy, Russell admits that she, and her management, did not make the best choice of opportunities. Though she auditioned for smaller parts in higher profile filmy, she inevitably landed leads in B-movies.

Out of Control (1985) Teens (Martin Hewitt, Betsy Russell, Sherilyn Fenn) crash-land on an island, find vodka, play strip spin-the-bottle and run into drug smugglers

In Out of Control (1985), Martin Hewitt and Russell were cast as a prom king and queen who invite six of their classmates on a “grad night” chartered flight. The plane crashes and the kids acclimate themselves to survival on a deserted island. Most critics panned the film, but the Los Angeles Times and L.A. Weekly gave it good reviews.

“We filmed in Yugoslavia,” explained Russell. “It was fun. There were a lot of us around the same age… Martin Hewitt, Sherilyn Fenn. Russell remembered that Fenn, who debuted in the film, “was the youngest of us all and very sweet. We both liked Martin. I liked him for about two minutes the first day, and she ended up breaking his heart. The producer, Fred Weintraub, said, ‘Sherilyn is going to be huge-she’s going to break a lot of hearts. He was right. She’s worked very hard and she deserves her success.”

Russell played the title role in her third film, Tomboy (1985), Her character, Tommy Boyd, was a curvaceous auto mechanic with car racing ambitions. The movie was dogged by controversy: despite it’s claims of feminist affirmation, TOMBOY was peppered with the usual B-quota of sex and nudity.

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 Tomboy (1985)  A strong-willed female stock car driver challenges her chauvinistic crush to a race to win his respect- and get him into bed.

“It turned out all right, said Russell. “Actually, that movie surprised me. I’ve heard a lot of people really loved that movie. At first, I thought it was going to be kind of dumb but I’ve gotten great response. I saw it about a year ago and thought it wasn’t so bad.”

Avenging Angel (1985) was more of a challenge for Russell. The film served as a sequel to 1983’s ANGEL, about a high school student’s double life as a hooker. “That was a rough experience, because I didn’t understand the character,” recalled Russell. “I felt kind of unsure I was still very young and this had all come very fast, and I hadn’t really studied that much. I didn’t totally relate to the character. Angel wasn’t an everyday girl. It was something new to me, and I didn’t have time to do any research.”

Avenging Angel (1985) Molly, former prostitute, has managed to leave her street life with help from Lt. Andrews. She studies law and leads a normal life. When Andrews is killed by a brutal gang, she returns to the streets as Angel to find his killers.

Although ANGEL had been released only two years previously, the sequel’s storyline picks up five years after the conclusion of its predecessor, Producer Keith Rubenstein and director Robert Vincent O’Neil felt that Donna Wilkes, who played the title role as the first ANGEL, wasn’t credible as a college graduate. The sequel’s investors, however, insisted that Wilkes reprise her familiar role. But it was Wilkes, pricing herself out of the market, who finally broke the stalemate. Cast as a streetwise heroine, Russell drew unflattering reviews from critics.

“Queen of Schlock Wants to Abdicate,” announced the Los Angeles Herald Examiner. After AVENGING ANGEL, it appeared Russell was fed up with her movie career. “I’ve done four B movies and now I’m just gonna stop,” she told a reporter. “I’ve paid my dues, and four is enough.” Russell also related that a meaty role in PRIVATE SCHOOL blinded her to its exploitation elements. She was critical of her involvement in B-films, and pledged to stop making them.

During the next two years, Russell turned to television, performing guest stints on T.J. HOOKER MURDER, SHE WROTE, FAMILY TIES, and THE A-TEAM, “I had down time, she noted. “I didn’t really want to do more nudity. I didn’t want to do B-movies and be taking my clothes off.” A lack of good scripts also prompted Russell to decelerate her movie output.

Cheerleader Camp (1988) A group of cheerleaders become the targets of an unknown killer at a remote summer camp.

Russell wasn’t obligated to disrobe in her next film, Cheerleader Camp (1988) which was initially promoted as BLOODY POM POMS. The plot: cheerleaders, including centerfolds Teri Weigel and Rebecca Ferratti, are sliced and diced while attending a wilderness retreat. The slasher epic hardly adhered to Russell’s speculations about a future in A-movies. “CHEERLEADER CAMP came along, and I liked the character, the actress explained. “She was kind of cute. She was getting driven crazy, and I could keep all my clothes on because the Playmates around me took all their clothes off. It was fun, too, working in Sequoia National Forest. I’ve always made friends with every film I’ve done.”

Following the film, she renewed a past friendship with actor Vince Van Patten. “I met him at the Playboy mansion when I first moved to L.A., Russell recounted. “We dated a few times, and then I never heard from him again. He was involved with the tennis circuit. We both really liked each other, but at the time he wasn’t right. I broke up with my boyfriend five years ago, ran into Vince at the Hard Rock Cafe and the rest is history. The timing was perfect.”

Trapper County War (1989) Two city boys (Estes, Blake) get in trouble with a backwoods North Carolina family (Swayze, Armstrong, Hunky, and Evans) when they try to help an abused step-daughter (Russell). Bo Hopkins and Ernie Hudson are the good locals who attempt to help the boys.

Russell’s last turn as a teenage ingenue was Trapper County War (1989), an updated, sanitized version of DELIVERANCE. Playing the 17-year-old adopted daughter of a backwoods family, Russell served as the city slicker’s love interest.

In Delta Heat (1992), a film noir thriller shot two years ago in New Orleans, Russell was cast as a deceased drug kingpin’s daughter. Academy Entertainment recently released the film on video. “New Line wanted it.” smiled Russell, but the investors had already made a deal with Academy. I think it should have come out in theatres. It’s pretty good.”

Delta Heat (1992) An L.A. cop investigates the death of his partner in the swamps of Louisiana. Enlisting the help of an ex-cop who lost his hand to an alligator many years before.

In Amore! (1993), “It’s Jack Scalia and Kathy Ireland and me, but you wouldn’t know it because of my billing,” laughed Russell. “I’m definitely in the movie. In fact, it’s only me and Scalia in the first half of the movie, and we get divorced and Kathy Ireland comes in. It was my first real comedy.” As the film started to roll, Russell had something else in production. I was three months pregnant at start time, and kept getting bigger!,” she revealed. “I finished the movie when I was four and a half months, and the filmmakers never knew I was pregnant.”

Her husband, who has retired from tennis, is producing a movie adapted from his own script. Rewritten by Dan Jenkins (Semi-Tough), The Break (1995)is a family affair for the Van Pattens. “It’s my first small part in a really good movie,” beams Russell “It’s like ROCKY or BULL DURHAM with tennis. Vince plays the veteran coach, with this rookie kid that he has to coach for the summer. I play the love interest to the kid. I’m the older woman.” She laughs, reflecting upon her ten-year development from PRIVATE SCHOOL starlet to more mature character actress.

When addressed with questions regarding nudity, Russell replied, “If BASIC INSTINCT came my way. I’m sure I wouldn’t have turned it down. It depends on who’s in the movie, what kind of part it is, what the movie’s about. But, you know, I’m not getting those types of offers or scripts anymore, so I’m not worried about it.

“I hope to do good work, to do entertaining, enjoyable projects,” Russell continued. Then, with a glimmer in her eye not at all reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger, she smiled and vowed, “I’ll be back…”

Interview with Betsy Russell

What is the difference between the filmmakers you were working with in your early career versus the filmmakers of today? Betsy Russell: That’s an interesting question because I was just reading a little blurb online about a director on a movie I did called ‘Out of Control’ [1985, directed by Allan Holzman], and he went on to do award winning things, documentaries and other films. The directors I work with now are amazing, talented and insightful, but I’ve also worked with directors before who have gone on to do incredible things. For example, the dialogue coach from Private School [Jerry Zaks] went on to a Broadway career. All the people I worked with were fine. I don’t like to compare one to the other, they are all different.

When you made “Private School” back in the early 1980s, the videotape revolution had just begun. What do you think of how your images from that film proliferated from VHS to DVD to the internet? What do you think of the ability to download virtually anything from the internet, including those pictures of your younger days? Betsy Russell: When I said I would do the topless scene, because it wasn’t in the original script for Private School. I remember thinking I’m 19 years old, my body is great and for the rest of my life I’m going to have something on film that the people will say, ‘yeah, she’s topless but that is my Mom, that was my Grandmother, that was my Great-Grandmother’s first film.’

I remember thinking this is kind of cool, why not? Just to have it out there now in the ‘anything goes’ era, with Playmates becoming TV stars and the like, I am proud of it, I’m proud of my body and I’m proud of the sort of free feeling that my character had in that movie, not inhibited whatsoever. It’s more of a European-type feeling, that the body can be a beautiful thing. There is reason to hide it.

You were beautiful then, you are beautiful now, nothing to worry about. Do you remember the name of the famous horse on which you rode to 1980s movie glory? Betsy Russell: No, because he almost killed me. I didn’t know how to ride very well and I got on it just to get to know the horse. We didn’t have a very big budget so that the stunt guys had gotten some kind of wild horse. The minute I got on the horse it took off with me. Of course, everybody was at lunch except for the stunt guys, the horse wranglers and me. I thought I was going to die, because it started to run out of the stable area. Somebody finally stopped it. So I don’t remember the name, but it ended up being a quiet, passive horse after that incident.

You were fairly busy in the 1980s with your career. Was there anything that you auditioned for or didn’t do that you think might have led to a different career track? Betsy Russell: Yeah, I was a favorite of a casting director name Wally Nicita, and she eventually became a producer. She was a big fan of mine after Private School, and there was a film coming up called ‘Silverado.’ I was shooting ‘Avenging Angel at the time and I had an audition. It was a night shoot, I was very tired and I didn’t really understand the ins and outs of the business, I relied more on my manager to take care of that, and he was learning to as we went along.

So they called for me at the audition for Silverado, and I didn’t pay attention to who had been cast in it. I just looked at it as an ensemble piece, and the other movie I was auditioning for was a ski movie, in which I would star. I just said let’s go for the bigger part. As luck would have it, the audition was in the same building as Wally Nicita’s office, and she kept saying how much the directors and producers of Silverado would love to see me. I told her no, I was here for the other audition. She looked at me like I was the stupidest person on the planet, and never contacted me for anything again. Everything happens for a reason. I always believe my career would have been different had I done that part. I can’t say if it would have been better or worse. I’ve had a good run.

Tomboy had your character as a mechanic. How did this occupation change your character from a typical character? Betsy Russell: It defined her. I was playing a girl who loves auto mechanics. My oldest sister was a mechanic growing up. She did all the lube jobs on the car – she was that type of person. It wasn’t far out for me to imagine myself as that type of character. That’s what she did. She was a tomboy who liked riding motorcycles and playing basketball.

What are your thoughts on the trailer for Tomboy showing you as a strong female, but then cutting to you in the shower? Betsy Russell: I’ve never really paid attention to that. I don’t know that I’ve seen it. I guess strong females still have to take showers. They still like to feel sexy, so I don’t think there’s one thing that should stop someone from feeling sexy and showing their body if that’s what they choose to do. I don’t think it makes any difference in the world.

Tomboy is arguably feminist. Was this a draw for you? Betsy Russell: Yes, I like playing strong characters. I thought it would be fun. I was probably twenty-one years old, so the idea of playing this type of character was great. I didn’t think that hard about it. I said, “Ok, this is another role, this is what she does, and I’m going to get into it.” I started working with the assistant basketball coach at UCLA, trying to learn a little bit of basketball. At that point in my life I wasn’t thinking that long or hard about which role to take. I did have a couple of offers with Tomboy; I had another offer for another movie. I picked this one. I’m sure that was a draw for me.

What do you think makes it a feminist role? Betsy Russell: She has a career that isn’t the norm for women. Usually women rely on men to do all the mechanical things. It’s kind of unusual for a woman to be a mechanic. I think it’s silly to be unusual, but I guess it is.

In the same vein, what role does feminism play in Avenging Angel? Betsy Russell: I barely remember that movie, but I know Angel carries a gun. She’s a tough chick. I saw that movie maybe one time. I don’t remember it well, but I had a lot of fun doing it.

There were a couple of stronger roles you did early on. Did you find yourself drawn to the stronger roles? Betsy Russell: Typically the leads in movies are stronger women. Nobody wants to watch a wimp for two hours. I played more of a leading lady than the sidekick. I don’t think I’ve ever played the sidekick. If given the chance, I would have. I did what I thought was good.

How did you get your role in Avenging Angel? Betsy Russell: I auditioned first, but then the director fought for me. The producer wanted the girl from the first movie. The director said he wouldn’t do the movie without me. That was nice.

Do you remember having a favorite line from Avenging Angel? Betsy Russell: No, but a lot of people tell me their favorite line from it, and I don’t remember anything.

What were your thoughts on Cheerleader Camp (1988) and Camp Fear (1991) and how have these thoughts evolved over time? Betsy Russell: Camp Fear was somebody called me and said, “Would you and your husband, Vince, like to do this little movie? You’re going to make a lot of money for three weeks shoot, and it’s going to go right to video.” I said, “Great, I want to make a lot of money. If nobody sees it, I guess it doesn’t matter. It’ll be fun to work with my husband.” We did it. Who knew that YouTube would happen. I’ve never seen the movie, so I have no idea. I’m sure I was terrible in it. It would be hard to be anything but terrible in it. I’ve always seen bits and pieces on YouTube. My voice is really high in it. We had fun. My brother-in-law is in that movie. I remember the actor playing the Indian could never remember his lines; we laughed so hard we almost fell off a cliff. That guy who played the Indian asked Vince to be his best man at his wedding. We barely knew him so that was funny. That happened back when they would say, “No one’s ever going to see it.” You’d do it. As an actor, if you’re not working, you want to just work. It doesn’t matter all of the time if it’s best project if you haven’t worked in a while. You have to put some money in the bank. That’s why I did that. Cheerleader Camp, I hadn’t offered this role called Bloody Pom Pom’s at the time. I remember thinking, “Oh my gosh, I don’t have to take any clothes off.” At that time, coming from Private School, Tomboy, and Out of Control (1985), I was tired of taking my clothes off. I wore those big nightgowns, and I just wanted to be taken seriously. That’s why I did that movie. I had a lot of fun filming it. As for Cheerleader Camp, we didn’t know we were making kind of a farce. Honestly, it was a little bit funny, but I took my character very seriously. We were rewriting scenes on the set five minutes before.

What are your views on nudity in film? Betsy Russell: I don’t have any negative views on it at all. In my twenties, I would say, “If it’s intrinsic to the character then I think it’s great.” I learned that word, intrinsic, just to say that. I really don’t have any problem with it. If it’s just thrown in there because it’s a low-budget movie and they’re trying to sell it, it’s really obvious. It takes you out, which isn’t always great. Sometimes it’s just right for what’s going on. It’s great that the actor or actress isn’t embarrassed to show it. If it looks good then it’s great. If it’s a person who looks terrible I would rather they keep their clothes on. If it’s important to the role and that type of film then it’s fine.

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Femme Fatales v02n02 0038 Bad Ass Women of Cinema: A Collection of Interviews Chris Watson hollywoodchicago

Betsy Russell: 80’s B Film Princess Russell was born in San Diego, California, the daughter of Constance (née Lerner) and Richard Lion Russell, a stock analyst.

[bethevenyc]

Broadway Musical 'War Paint' Honors Women Rivals Behind $400 Billion Cosmetics Industry

Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole, as Helena Rubenstein and Elizabeth Arden, in “War Paint.” (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Stories of rivalries between women are always in hot demand, and this season delivers a notable flurry — with buzzy TV miseries Feud: Bette and Joan, under-the-radar film Catfight, and the musical War Paint, now in previews on Broadway.

And it’s perhaps the musical that offers the most complex face-off, with two of musical theater’s biggest stars — Patti LuPone and Christine Ebersole — portraying the lives and lifelong competition between two of the cosmetics industry’s most impactful pioneers: Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubinstein.

Still, says LuPone, who plays Rubinstein, “The one thing about our show is that we don’t stress the rivalry or the hatred.” Instead, she tells Yahoo Beauty, “You see the development of these two women. It could so easily turn into something very campy, and that’s what [the audience is] really looking for — that camp, bitchy fight. Which is not our show at all.”

Christine Ebersole as Elizabeth Arden in “War Paint.” (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Legend has it that Rubinstein and Arden never met — even though they lived blocks from each other in New York City — but LuPone likes to think they “avoided each other and didn’t hate one another, but were in fact stoked, creatively, by each other.” She adds, “I think they had sideways glances toward one another, appreciated what the other one did, and did their best to best it. I also think these two women were so similar, had they actually met and discussed they would’ve been friends… because their ideology was the same.”

That ideology was one of two entrepreneurs, both “outsiders” in different ways, using brilliant innovation and overcoming humble roots — not to mention serious misogyny — to eventually define beauty standards for the first half of the 20th century. Their ideas kicked off what would become today’s estimated $300 billion global cosmetics industry.

Arden (whose brand was recently purchased by Revlon in an $870 million deal) opened her first salon on NYC’s Fifth Avenue in 1910 and became a suffragette, fusing powerful beauty looks (including red lipstick) with her passion for activism; she also had an ahead-of-her-time holistic approach, warning women to stay out of the sun.

Patti LuPone as Helena Rubenstein in “War Paint.” (Photo: Joan Marcus)

Rubinstein, meanwhile, was born in Poland and started her career in 1902 by distributing beauty cream in Australia — where a stage play exploring her life, Madame Rubenstein, coincidentally opens in Sydney in May. From there she opened her own salon and began to manufacture cosmetics, soon expanding to Paris and New York. (Today L’Oreal owns the Helena Rubenstein brand, and its products are not sold in the U.S.)

Elizabeth Arden in the 1930s. (Photo: Getty Images)

“Something I didn’t know when I started this project was how they fit into the scheme of American business,” Michael Korie, lyricist for War Paint, tells Yahoo Beauty. “Everyone knows that Henry Ford invented the assembly line, Thomas Edison patented the light bulb. But when you think about it, we don’t really know who founded the cosmetics industry, which is a multi-billion worldwide industry, as big as the other two.”

But with the industry came a new quandary for women: Was makeup providing a new outlet for creative expression, or just the latest sexist shackle? It’s a question that War Paint spends time exploring, explains director Michael Greif.

Products from each woman’s brand are still sold today. (Photo: Helena Rubenstein/Elizabeth Arden)

“A lot of the musical deals with whether these extraordinary pioneers of the industry liberated many generations of women — or in some ways actually held them back,” Greif tells Yahoo Beauty. “What is the double-edged sword of the responsibility of having to look a certain way every day?”

Greif continues, “I think what’s wonderful, thematically, in terms of how cosmetics work in the musical, is that cosmetics serve both as a kind of armor, [which] embolden and strengthen people… and also often a mask, allowing people to transform and change and reinvent themselves.”

Helena Rubinstein in 1934. (Photo: Lipnitzki/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

Of course, women deal with that same duality in everyday life — something that War Paint composer Scott Frankel reflects on with Yahoo Beauty. Regarding Arden’s and Rubinstein’s legacies, he says, they are complicated, “in terms of how they gave women an opportunity to feel better about themselves with this product — but then also hooked them, and made them participate in this ‘you always have to have the latest cream, the latest potion, the latest lipstick.’”

It was largely this tension that compelled Doug Wright, War Paint’s librettist, to work on the show. “I think there are so many rich metaphors in the idea of beauty: There’s how women perceive themselves, how women want to be perceived, [and] all of the societal expectations that we place upon women in the culture,” he tells Yahoo Beauty. “So while it’s ostensibly a show about these two remarkable women, in the same breath it’s about a larger phenomenon of beauty and what it means in the world.”

Arden and Rubenstein, Wright adds, embodied these metaphors. “[They] shattered every glass ceiling, and yet some would argue that they built their fortunes on women’s self-esteem by creating unrealistic ideals of beauty — and suggesting that women had to routinely match them,” he says. “So they’re both magnificently accomplished, and flawed, in fascinating ways. And that’s what makes great dramatic characters.”

Read more from Yahoo Beauty + Style:

Dramatic Rivalry of Early Beauty Titans Gets Brought to Life Onstage in ‘War Paint’

7 Things Millennials Need to Know About the Women Behind the TV Series ‘Feud: Bette and Joan’

27 of Our Favorite Beauty Products From Brands Created by Women

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day. For Twitter updates, follow @YahooStyle and @YahooBeauty.

[jerryadler-blog]

President Oprah? President Zuckerberg? The rich and famous seem to be asking: Why not me?

Once upon a time in America, being a rich celebrity was considered its own reward. A whole television franchise was devoted to their fabulous lifestyles, houses and airplanes. No one suspected that anything was lacking in the lives of tech billionaires, Hollywood moguls or famous talk-show hosts.

Then came Donald Trump, and suddenly the wealthiest .01 percent was confronted with a new standard of personal achievement to be measured against. Increasingly they are being asked, often but not exclusively by themselves: “Are you running for president?”

The latest household name to be mentioned in the same sentence as “2020” is the inescapable Oprah, who if elected would be the first woman president, the first one-name president, and in many ways the natural heir to President Trump: a household name steeped in tabloid culture, prone to eschewing fact-checking in the cause of a higher, or more marketable, truth. She could, for instance, expand Trump’s crackdown on crimes by undocumented aliens to include alien abductions.

To be fair, it’s not clear that Oprah is seriously, or even casually, considering running for president; the speculation stems from an interview with David Rubenstein on Bloomberg Television that was recorded in December but just aired Wednesday. Rubenstein asked: “Have you ever thought that given the popularity you have, we haven’t broken the glass ceiling yet for women, that you could actually run for president and be elected?” Oprah seemed nonplussed by the question, admitting that “I never considered the question, even the possibility… I just thought, I don’t have the experience, I don’t know enough… now I’m thinking: Oh!” — an answer that could be merely equivocal, or a subtle plug for O, the name of her magazine.

Disney’s Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger holds a news conference at Shanghai Disney Resort as part of the three-day Grand Opening events in Shanghai, China in 2016. (Photo: Aly Song/Reuters)

Another name from the media world getting some attention this week is Robert Iger, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, whose “Hollywood friends” are said to be “nudging” him toward a race, according to the Hollywood Reporter. As recently as last June, the Los Angeles Times ran an article asserting that “Disney’s new theme park in Shanghai may be the capstone to CEO Robert Iger’s career.” But he may have his eye on scaling greater heights than Splash Mountain. Iger, according to the Hollywood Reporter, has consulted with publisher and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg (a billionaire who has flirted with a presidential run himself) about the practicalities of making the transition from media heavyweight to political novice. Although not as rich as Trump (or Oprah), Iger was paid a reported $44.9 million in 2015

Investor and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban arrives prior to the start of the third U.S. presidential debate at the Thomas & Mack Center on October 19, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

One billionaire known to be at least toying with the idea is Dallas Mavericks owner and “Shark Tank” host Mark Cuban, who has had a years-long off-and-on Twitter feud with Trump and, according to the New York Post, is the potential rival the president most fears. Undaunted by Trump’s taunts about his golf game, his looks, and his intelligence, Cuban gave a not-quite-Shermanesque reply (“we will see”) to a question from Business Insider about a possible future run. Trump beat two Cuban-Americans — Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz — in the Republican primary last year, but Mark Cuban, who was born in Pittsburgh, is actually Jewish. A recent poll showed him almost neck-and-neck with Trump, despite his relative obscurity. “I think Cuban is pretty competitive given his comparatively low level of name recognition at this point,” Tom Jensen, the director of Public Policy Polling, told the outlet.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz speaks at the coffee company’s annual shareholders meeting in Seattle in 2016. (Photo: Ted S. Warren/AP)

If none of those make a run, perhaps there’s an opening for Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks. Schultz raised the possibility of running for president — an idea that presumably came as a surprise to most Americans — while at the same time renouncing the ambition in a 2015 op-ed in the New York Times that didn’t exactly set a high bar for modesty: “Despite the encouragement of others, I have no intention of entering the presidential fray. I’m not done serving at Starbucks. Although we have built an iconic brand while providing even part-time employees with access to health care, free college education and stock options, there is more we can do as a public company to demonstrate responsible leadership.” Schultz is stepping down as CEO this spring, although remaining with the company as executive chairman. As the Times reported, “At an all-hands employee meeting at the company’s headquarters on Thursday, Mr. Schultz was greeted with tears and a standing ovation. ‘For me, perhaps there are other things that are part of my destiny,’ he told them.

If America is ready for a president in a hoodie, then Mark Zuckerberg may be ready to heed the call to serve, considering that he will turn 35 — the age requirement for president — a full year and a half before the 2020 elections. Zuckerberg, the billionaire co-founder and chairman of Facebook, is embarking on a 50-state “listening tour” this year, and authorized an SEC filing that would allow him to retain control of the company even if he were “serving in a government position or office.” And Zuckerberg, who was raised Jewish but long identified as an atheist, wrote on Facebook recently that “now I believe religion is very important.” (He didn’t specify which religion, but said he was celebrating Christmas with his family.)

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at the F8 Facebook Developer Conference in San Francisco in 2016. (Photo: Eric Risberg/AP)

The events have caught the eye of political professionals, including the sharp-eyed observers of The Hill: “Donald Trump’s victory changed the narrative in American politics,” said Texas-based Republican digital campaign strategist Vincent Harris. “We’ve seen a complete blending of entertainment and politics in America, and a potential Zuckerberg candidacy would play very well into what the public has come to desire.” Not only that, but he would have access — at least until he actually became an active candidate — to an incomparable trove of real-time information on what the public wants, thinks and talks about. And given Silicon Valley’s stake in immigration reform, which Zuckerberg helped formalize as a founder of the advocacy group FWD.us, his platform isn’t just about awkward encounters with college acquaintances anymore.

So did Trump’s unlikely success plant the seed of his own undoing, at the hands of an even more ambitious and famous, perhaps even richer, outsider candidate in 2020? The public will decide, but there’s an alternative view that the chaotic first few weeks of his presidency — if they set a pattern for the next four years — will make a strong case for a candidate whose resume includes more time in public office and less in front of a TV camera.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:

Trump’s address boasts of ‘new national pride’ sweeping nation

Bomb threats are scary and costly to Jewish centers

Rubio evicted from Senate office over noisy demonstrations

[edmorrish]

JFSP Production Notes 6.5

Firstly, thank you if you voted for JFSP in the comedy.co.uk awards; we’re delighted to have won the ‘Best Radio Sketch Show’ in such a strong field.

However, that award was for the last series (I assume; only one episode of this series went out last year). So here are some production notes for episode five of this as yet awardless sixth series…:

David Starkey

Nothing to note here, really, except that it’s quite unusual for us to do impressions. That’s probably best left to the specialists (Dead Ringers), because if you don’t get them right, you can’t even look like them as a back up. 

We’ve done Alan Bennett, Ian McKellan and Roger McGough as far as I can remember. Plus Churchill, Lady Astor, Dorothy Parker, Artur Rubenstein, JFK… 

Tufty 1 & 2

You’d be surprised at how many FX for barber shops don’t work very well - the chair, the swish of the thing that goes around your neck… even persistent snipping sounds odd. So we’ve put a few FX in here, but hopefully you get it from the context.

Also, note that the trailer for Logan sees Wolverine without his little tufty hair ears. Irritating. We should have broadcast it last series (we did record it).

The Tube

We lost quite a lot in the edit from the top of this, just to get to the central idea quicker. We didn’t put office atmos on it because that didn’t feel right - to pin down exactly where it was would detract from the absurdity, I think.

What’s He Like?

Apparently John’s worked with Benedict Cumberbatch, from off of Sherlock! Who knew? Listening back I think the dinner party atmos - where, when people find out you have worked with famous people, this sort of question tends to get asked - was a little too cutlery/crockery-y. Should have been more light music and burble. But this originally went later in the episode, but I moved it back because to me it feels like Tufty 1 & 2 are a 4-minute item, followed by another - so after two longish sketches, it really had to be something short. Ideally we wouldn’t have put this in the same episode as Tufty 2 - we have an informal rule about not putting too many meta-sketches in - but I think we get away with it.

But A Man

Simon sort of doing Gladiator here. I like the triumphal music that introduces it - it’s a good way to establish a mood rather than a specific location. (How would you aurally recreate the aftermath of a battle?)

Behind Closed Doors - Ferry

Ideally this would have gone out before the Bouncy Castle sketch two weeks ago, because this was the first one we recorded and therefore explained the premise better. We did try to swap the intros around in the edit, but it didn’t quite work. It came in quite long, but because of the anti-punchline, wouldn’t work as the last sketch to a show (we usually aim for something of a crescendo), so we placed it near the end. A few bits had to go to get it down to even this long, including a lorry-swapping club. The ballroom music was played in afterwards, more of a timing issue than anything else, but it didn’t seem to affect the audience in the room, who laughed on ‘beautiful’, right on cue. (When you add stuff afterwards, you usually time it to the audience laughs, because if it’s a funny FX people at home would wonder why the audience didn’t laugh at it earlier…)

King James

Another bit of meta at the end, but we’ve spaced them through the episode so, again, I think we get away with it. The music at the top we worried about for a while - does it sound Tudor/Stewart? But the one in the middle is a stock fanfare FX - exactly the same as in the Three Guards sketch in series one…

Truckers

Does this count as an impression? It’s clearly Noel Coward. Anyway, we’ve disrupted our usual method of runners here, because normally - say last week with Fire Brigade / House on Fire, or the week before with One Hit Wonder / Loose Canon, you would put your linked sketches at even intervals through the show to create a sort of balance and/or rhythm. But because the Ferry sketch was so long, it had to go in the second half of the show, meaning that the amount of space we could put between them was restricted. We did consider making the song actually part of the sketch - we float around, Under Milk Wood-style, so it would have made sense - but it felt overlong and, in itself, imbalanced. We’d have had to cut a section to stick it in, basically. So hopefully it feels like a lovely little extra treat, rather than going back to an idea you just heard…

Since You Ask Me - Fortune Teller

Obviously you need to hear the continuity announcement (which John wrote) for the joke to work. We thought about getting one of the cast to do it, but then thought, “The continuity announcers are right upstairs; would they be up for it?”. So Kathy Clugston very kindly came and pre-recorded a version for us, which we played to the studio audience, but cut on the show we delivered to Radio 4. But we also realised that this is going to go out as a CD/download - and the end will be really, really confusing. So we’ve given a version with Kathy on to the publishers - you’ll hear it if you buy the show.

Next week’s show is the best we’ve ever done, so stay tuned…

[philosophy-101]

Is god dead?

        Before Hume’s empiricism and the Scientific Revolution, people received truths from god or from their worldly superiors.  This can be the approximate marker after which society took the task of knowledge-seeking upon itself, less willing to receive doctrine from above.  In relation to god’s existence, it is fairly intelligible that this question cannot be answered empirically.  The only records of god existing on earth are mythological, purportedly occurring thousands of years ago.  Individual accounts of interaction with god do come up in history, as Luther’s theophany, for example, but as far as can be proven, these are only claims.  Judging whether god exists is not only unfeasible, but also unnecessary.  Put simply by Monica R. Miller, “though the question of god’s existence might matter to [believers]…[it] has little bearing on…the social circumstances…[people] encounter each day” (177).

       If deliberating god as a de facto object is extraneous, what relevance can be found in the question, “is god dead?”  The majority of modern theology says that god’s “death” (or god’s “life”) can be measured by the relationship between society and the idea of god.  In other words, it is possible and useful to assess how prevalent the god-idea is in culture, government, and other spheres.  Idea of god and “god-idea” are reminders to the reader that god, for the purpose of this essay, is “just another…way in which the social world is often discussed” (Miller 167), rather than an actual entity.  Additionally, Anthony Pinn states, “god has never been anything more than a symbol—an organizing framework for viewing and living life” (5).  These two contemporary theologians direct readers’ attention squarely toward the reflection of god-ideas in society, a shift made possible by years of radical ideas in the field.  Feuerbach proclaimed the beginning of the shift, that “the task of the modern era was the realization and humanization of God—the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology” (Principles 5).  Henceforth, in answering “is god dead?”, god is understood as an idea, and the question will be answered with respect to god’s pertinence in society.  

       To evaluate the extent to which god is dead in the modern period, we can look at the development of god’s absence from society, in intellectual, artistic, political, and other circles.  Bonhoeffer gives an apt chronology for the decline of god in philosophy.  He states that the demise began in 1624 when Lord Herbert proclaimed reason as the safest path to knowledge, over faith.  Montaigne and Bodin then created secular principles of morality, Machiavelli ideated the secular state, and even Descartes separated the world’s functioning from the hands of god (162).  Spinoza introduced pantheism, later adopted by Fichte and Hegel, which opposed the idea of rigidly singular religious worship.  Further along, Bonhoeffer adds that Cusa and Bruno’s ‘heretical’ idea of an infinite universe broke existing intellectual barriers concerning religion (163).  By this account, god’s presence in the intellectual domain has certainly atrophied over years and years. alongside the breakdown of tradition.  

       In the realm of art, there appears to remain a close relationship to god.  The relationship is especially evident in hip-hop culture of the United States.  Monica Miller notes that figures like Kanye West capitalize on “the prepackaged worth and value that society has already granted to particular words and ideas like ‘slave’ and ‘god’” (172).  The fact that Kanye’s album hailing Jesus reached number one on music charts proves that god is relevant to listeners of the world’s leading entertainment market.  Still, one article highlights that West failed to top the streams per song of his previous album, “Ye,” which focused on mental health issues like bi-polar disorder, rather than Jesus (Rolli).  This may indicate that the public relates more to concrete, human struggles like mental health than to an abstract concept like god. 

       God is also found in the politics of the USA, especially in the past few years.  The Republican Party is mostly Christian, a striking example seen in “Rick Perry’s belief that Trump was chosen by God,” a belief “shared by many in a fast-growing Christian movement,” according to Richard Flory, a sociologist at the University of Southern California (Flory).  Additionally, it was a shock to many when George Zimmerman claimed his killing of Trayvon Martin was God’s will, which is what “most good conservative Christians in America think right now” (Butler).  Both examples depict a nation of devout white Christians, which is not entirely untrue, considering Donald Trump was elected.  Black people make up around 15% of the US population, and James Cone would suggest that “the black community [too]…perceives its identity in terms of divine presence,” that should “kill the white God” (59).  God is present across multiple communities then, black, white, and also feminist: similarly to Cone’s rebranding of God, Mary Daly advocates for “Castrating ‘God’ [the father]” (19).  Independent to how how she defines god, she nevertheless makes the case that god is necessary for the feminist movement (28).  Lastly, despite being denounced in the bible, the LGBTQ community, represented by Marcella Althaus-Reid, likewise sought to find a reconciliation between god and sexual fluidity (46).  It could be argued that many of these theologies are not perpetuating god’s activity in society, as they are deconstructing traditional assumptions surrounding god.  On the contrary, irrespective of their purpose, these authors reveal the continued presence of god in the minds of people and communities.  Moreover, whether republicans or liberals make up the majority of people today, god still finds its way into news headlines and political discussion. 

       Though the god-idea may be less evident than it was two-hundred years ago in areas of academia, culture, and politics, its presence persists, suggesting that god is not dead, at least not by this measurement.

       Will god ever die?  Will society ever relinquish its reliance on god as a “need-fulfiller or problem-solver” (Hamilton 116), and beyond that, as an idea altogether?  It seems likely that humans will cease to consult god for answers or physical solutions.  The death of god movements are in closest agreement on this idea, concluding that god is no longer “with us,” in the sense previously believed.  With horrors like Auschwitz in our near past and daily news exhibiting terrorism and mistargeted drone strikes, an abandonment of the god-idea is impossible to avoid.  This helplessness is displayed in a character of Hochhuth’s, who proclaims, “for fifteen months…I’ve been sending people to God.  Do you think He’s made the slightest acknowledgement?” (140-141).  Despite all the death and suffering, god is silent and immotile.  We have been forced to accept that god is certainly useless in directly solving human problems.  

       The function that god previously served—finding meaning and solidarity within the human experience—is still needed, though we may come to define this endeavor in a way that does not rely on the idea of god at all.  There may be similarities between the function of our new conception and the function of god, but the differences will outweigh these similarities.  Take this quote from Feuerbach: “I openly confess that the workings of nature affect not only my surface…that the light of the sun illuminates not only my eyes but also my spirit and my heart” (Lectures 35-36).  The phenomenon described has likely been experienced by many, a markedly “spiritual” feeling given by nature or another stimulus, a joy of being human.  Though these feelings are likely to remain relatable for generations to come, the label of “spirit” may change as secularity increases.  Pinn likens labels like “god” to “intellectual machinery.”  Machinery does not die, it “lose[s] [its] function and [is] replaced” (6).  

       To answer the principal question, god is not dead as an idea in relation to society, and therefore, god is not dead.  Throughout the United States and the greater world, worship continues, god is talked about, and god is relevant.  Nietzsche stated god was dead in 1882, but his proclamation did not kill god.  Even so, it can be concluded that god is declining.  The more we become uncertain with this ever-changing world, the less consolation a god-idea provides.  It is the life’s work of countless theologians to make sense of a world without god, to redefine our central human search for meaning in secular terms.  

       God’s decline forces us to recognize that “we have constructed the conceptual arrangements of this world and we must alone bear the responsibility for this framing of life” (Pinn 6).  Though many might remain devout, those who have lost meaning in religion can often not find it again, and this group will only grow, elevating the importance of death of god theologians’ work.  Some theologians, like Rubenstein, have a grim view of the death of god, that it only heightens our awareness of impotence against nothingness (257).  I would suggest that a more fitting perspective is that the surest path toward solace in this turbulent period will be a focus on culture, human expression of innermost sentiments, as proposed by Tillich and others.  To understand that we are each subject to the same fundamental struggles is heartening, and arguably was the purpose “god” served all along.

Works Cited

Althaus-Reid, Marcella. The Queer God. Routledge, 2007, p. 46.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison. Edited by Eberhard Bethge. Translated by Reginald H Fuller, Macmillan, 1954, pp. 162-163.

Butler, Anthea. “The Zimmerman Acquittal: America's Racist God.” Religion Dispatches, Religion Dispatches, 16 July 2013, religiondispatches.org/the-zimmerman-acquittal-americas-racist-god/.

Cone, James H. A Black Theology of Liberation. Orbis Books, 1989, p. 59.

Daly, Mary F. Beyond God the Father: toward a Philosophy of Women's Liberation. Beacon Press, 1974, p. 19.

Feuerbach, Ludwig. Lectures on the Essence of Religion. Harper & Row, 1967, pp. 35-36.

Feuerbach, Ludwig, and Manfred H. Vogel. Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. Bobbs-Merrill, 1966, p. 5.

Flory, Richard, and Brad Christerson. “Rick Perry's Belief That Trump Was Chosen by God Is Shared by Many in a Fast-Growing Christian Movement.” USC Dornsife College News, University of Southern California, 2 Dec. 2019, dornsife.usc.edu/news/stories/3126/rick-perry-and-christian-movement-believes-trump-chosen-by-god/.

Hamilton, William H. “Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” Radical Theology and the Death of God, by Thomas J. J. Altizer and William H. Hamilton, Bobbs-Merrill, 1968, pp. 112–118.

Hochhuth, Rolf. “Auschwitz or the Question Asked of God.” The Theologian at Work: a Common Search for Understanding, by Arthur Roy Eckardt, Harper and Row, 1968, pp. 136–146.

Miller, Monica R. “God of the New Slaves or Slave to the Ideas of Religion and God?” The Cultural Impact of Kanye West, by Julius Bailey, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp. 167–179.

Pinn, Anthony B. The End of God-Talk: an African American Humanist Theology. Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 5-6.

Rolli, Bryan. “Kanye West's 'Jesus Is King' Soared To No. 1, But He Can't Afford Another Album Like It.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 4 Nov. 2019, www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrolli/2019/11/04/kanye-wests-jesus-is-king-soared-to-no-1-but-he-cant-afford-another-album-like-it/#3290780b2aec.

Rubenstein, Richard L. After Auschwitz: Radical Theology and Contemporary Judaism. Bobbs-Merrill, 1966, p. 257.