ON THE INTERNET, NO ONE KNOWS YOUR STORY'S A DOG. Andrew Sullivan prefaces an alleged letter from a solider, linked from Hewitt, this way:

I can't "authenticate" it, and I hope Hewitt vetted it. (Hewitt is, alas, a pure partisan -- his own site's motto is about the destruction of Democrats, whoever they are -- but the email rings true to me.)

Sullivan doesn't know if it's real, the source has a grudge, but he's going with it anyway, and then commenting on it as if it were revealed truth. Advantage: Blogosphere! That'll show Ra^ther.

(Earlier, Sullivan had refused to even visit the Iraqi Body Count page -- which is extensively sourced -- because "its biases are so blatant and so hostile to the liberation.")

I'm sure the Bush people will forgive Sullivan his (probably temporary and certainly unconvincing) apostasy. Anyone who can torture reality like that is too valuable to lose. Besides, they can always trot him out as some sort of "diversity" figurine -- until such time as they don't have to worry about appearing diverse at all.

BIG STIFF ON LATE NIGHT. Only saw a bit of this, but Kerry looked looser than usually, by which I mean that the stick up his ass seems to have been broken in several places, allowing great flexibility of movement.

I will say that his explanation of "voted for before I voted against" makes sense. Wonder how I missed hearing it before? Hey, look over there -- inappropriate kerning!

TIGHT NOT TOUCHING. The CBS memo thing seems to have worked out adversely for Dan Rather et alia. I imagine this link will give a good view of the bloggers' chest-beating denouement for quite some time. Their enthusiasm is wilder now than at their last victory party over Trent Lott, because, as I observed at the time, most of them didn't so much care about Lott's racism as they did about the prospect of a scalp to call their own. But, while Lott lost some accoutrements of power, Rather seems to be keeping his job. So for the moment effigies will have to do.

The next phase of the operation seeks to establish a link between the memos, CBS, and the Kerry campaign via Joe Lockhart. But the notion that Democrats and Big Media are mobbed up is received wisdom among the bloggers and their constituents -- right up there with the sanctity of gun ownership and heterosexual marriage -- so it is hard to see what hearts and minds are left to be won in that regard.

There are other options. Representative Christopher Cox has called for a Congressional investigation of CBS. This is probably just an attempt at leverage against an ancient enemy, but you never know where wildfire will get to once the flames have been fanned.

Some who remember the various bullshit stories floated about Clinton in the last decade might wonder at the fuss. Technology is a marvel, friends. Not only can it extend power to an unprecedented degree; it can also make the powerful look like underdogs, if there is a purpose to be served by it.

AND BESIDES, IT'S ALL ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS! Guess I wasn't the only serious political journalist watching the Emmys. Brent Bozell clone Tim Graham announces that "giving Emmy awards to 'Angels in America' is transparently political and anti-religious." Boy, I don't know why the nets don't turn their Emmy beat over to the guys from Fox and Friends -- soapbox cranks on awards shows are a barrel of laffs!

Even laffier, not to mention taffier, are the linked ravings of the original Bozell on Angels in America: "Artistically," he bravely begins, "it's a sprawling mess... a parade of blasphemy and profanity, a concerto of conservative-bashing... It’s exactly what playwrights and actors love – self-consciously writerly, intellectually preening, over-emoting..." Oh, and "Theologically, it’s even worse." Just in case you thought theatre criticism was Bozell's only stock in trade.

Part of the problem with these guys on art, any art, is that they confuse John Simon's old Tonight Show appearances with Hazlitt and Dr. Johnson. They think dyspepsia and outrage are criticism. And they think ideology is an artistic standard. Maybe in the journalistic schoolyard they inhabit, that kind of slipshod work passes, but not 'round here, sir.

And they wonder why artists don't like them.

EMMYS. I spent most of Garry Shandling's monologue adjusting the color on my TV. It's amazing they found him a tux that fits so well, since he's been obviously been living on a sidewalk in L.A. for a couple of years. He's still pretty funny though.

Since I don't have cable and just watch the same few things over and over again (mostly test patterns, infomercials, and that episode of "Seinfeld" with Molly Shannon), I can't possibly judge what's going on here. I see they're sticking skits in between awards. I don't know about that. We'll see if the tabloid coverage tomorrow includes big pictures of the skits.

UPDATE. I kind of like the skits. It's you're going to be derivative, derive from quality. Speaking of "The Larry Sanders Show," it was nice to see Jeffrey Tambor up there. I really believe Hank Kingsley was one of the greatest comedy characters since Tartuffe -- an immediately recognizable type and completely unique and idiosyncratic at the same time.

Hey, is that Jon Stewart theme really "I Feel So Good" by Richard Thompson?

UPDATE 2. Elaine Stritch has the music people scared. Well, who wouldn't be? There goes the big flourish -- they have a trap door, I assume.

UPDATE 3. I think the Democrats should have nominated Jon Stewart. And while we're on the subject, I should be writing for his show. I make lots of jokes about politics. Perhaps I'll send them some of my humorous meditations on Professor Glenn Reynolds and Roger L. Simon, with a letter of introduction from Kevin Drum. Pure comedy gold!

UPDATE 4. I've got to see that Sopranos show sometime. I hear it's pretty good.

UPDATE 5. I can't wait for the tearful farewell episodes of "World According to Jim" and "CSI Miami."

UPDATE 6. Well, I guess Mary-Louise Parker and her dress will be in the papers tomorrow. That's a good combination: serious Broadway actress and vertical cleavage.

So, is the deal with The Forgotten that Julianne Moore is really dead, or that everyone else is dead, or that everyone including Julianne Moore is dead, or that we are all the dream of a sleeping giant?

I don't mean to brag and it's certainly nothing to brag about, but I figured out The Sixth Sense when Bruce Willis first met the kid. After that it was very funny. I kept expecting Willis to say to people, "Oh, so you won't talk, eh?" and "Givin' me the old silent treatment, are ya?"

Boy, I'd hate to be George Lopez' otolaryngologist.

UPDATE 7. Oh, now, that isn't fair -- Tony Kushner wrote that play already. What do they do when a Shakespeare play wins a writing award? Get Larry Gelbart come out and say how sad it is Bill couldn't be here because he would have been thrilled?

UPDATE 8. I don't know anything about reality shows. My Mom likes all of them, so I guess I have to go with the one with the midget, if only as a sort of cryptic tribute to Michael Dunn's great Dr. Loveless on The Wild, Wild West. I will say that the whole show should be presented by ordinary people who don't know what's going on. Or maybe it should be presented, like the craft awards on the Oscars and the Best Musical Program awards tonight, at ceremonies held earlier in San Luis Obispo, and mercilessly excerpted. Then they could run a whole bunch more more Kmart commercials, and Shandling could do improv with people in the first five rows.

UPDATE 9. I'm sure Pacino was great as Roy Cohn (one day I'll see if he was as good as Ron Liebman) but he's a terrible award-winner. He needs some writers, but hell, so does Kerry, what are you gonna do? I'm amazed what a robot Mike Nichols has turned into. Mike Nichols of Nichols and May! I guess that comes from being a one-man major entertainment institution for ninety years; after a while that tan seeps right down into your soul.

UPDATE 10. It's nice that they're talking about Danny Thomas, and so sad that he isn't around today to come out here with a big cigar and say, "Everything on television today is sex! They got 'Sex in the City,' sex in the country, sex in the bathroom, the living room, everywhere except in the bedroom, where it belongs! With two beds! You think Desi and Lucy woulda been funnier if they were sleeping the same bed? They'd both be lucky to wake up alive, lemme tell ya! And don't get me started on that rap music..."

If the cops were doing their jobs the Raveonettes would be in jail for that Jesus & Mary Chain ripoff.

UPDATE 11. Now, it's too bad that Patricia Heaton didn't win because I really had a premonition that this would be the year she just flipped out and started screaming about abortion and what a bunch of murderers everyone in the audience was. Plus, Sarah Jessica Parker isn't that good.

UPDATE 12. Conan is so funny. Not so funny is Kelsey Grammer. It's weird that the new Bob Hope is an actor obviously perfectly suited to play a blowhard, so much so that I'm sorry I didn't see his Macbeth -- it must have been hilarious.

These dead-people things are so weird. First of all, there are the lulls (who is that guy? He's Jack Elam, you stupid fuck, he was in Once Upon a Time in the West). Then there's the added weirdness of film people in the TV necrotribute. It seems almost presumptuous -- like the Fat People of America doing a tribute for Peter Ustinov and Brando. (Glad they showed a clip from "Roots: The Next Generation" though.) And the people who died latest get the biggest claps. In heaven right now, Tony Randall is doing a little victory dance around Alastair Cooke.

UPDATE 13. James Spader kinda walked into TV like a CEO who'd been squeezed out and decided, fuck it, I'll go run a little shop on the boardwalk like I don't give a shit because I don't. And the little shop is a major success.

UPDATE 14. I used to wonder if the absent nominees get to choose the pictures that are shown when their names are called. Emma Thompson convinces me that they do not. Meryl Streep was very charming. Mike Nichols' grin is getting creepier, like a Bond villain's: yes, yes, everythink is going accordink to plan...

UPDATE 15. It must suck to work on a mini-series for thousands of hours and then have "Angels in America" come out the same year. Goldfinger delivers a suitably downbeat valedictory.

Hey, now we're moving. "Arrested Development" lets Opie claim a much-deserved Emmy to go with his are-you-joking Oscar.

UPDATE 16. Thank God, we're almost done. Hey, everybody love-a "The Sopranos"! David Chase is a much more manicured type than I expected. But what do I know about real writers? Thank you and good night!

THE JOE ROGAN ADMINISTRATION. Here's a good, concise pdf from the Century Foundation, about rising personal debt in the U.S.A. (That TPM ad wasn't wasted, guys.) It is very clearly written, and peppered with astute and depressing observations like these:

Households are spending more of their incomes than ever on servicing their debts. The debt burden indicator constructed by the Federal Reserve, which measures how large a proportion of families’ incomes goes toward paying off debts, reached a new high recently... Low-income families have become especially vulnerable -- 27 percent of households in the lowest income group now report spending a staggering 40 percent of take-home earnings on debt payments.

Debt burdens are at record levels because families have been stretched to the limit in recent years. With more income going to housing and other rising expenses related to medical care, education, vehicles, child care, and so forth, families are relying on credit as a way to meet everyday needs. Remarkably, a family with two earners today actually has less discretionary income, after fixed costs like medical insurance and mortgage payments are accounted for, than did a family with only one breadwinner in the 1970s. [emphasis added]

This is one of those things that anyone who is over the age of 40, and who either lives in or has access to middle-class society, knows by both observation and instinct. Anyone who's trying to keep what was once a typical American life going, especially with kids and a house, knows that the slope's getting steeper.

But when you have pixie-dust salesmen like Larry Kudlow -- who thinks the President will landslide into a second term on the strength of the economy -- telling you that everything is going great, you might feel like a big loser if your own struggle isn't getting as exponentially easier as the economic experts tell you it should be.

So maybe a guy keeps his mouth shut about it, even to pollsters. For in the Fear Factory America has largely become, it hurts to admit defeat, or even a little weakness, because it is the same thing as loserhood, and in the modern imagination there is no greater crime than losing. So maybe he stays "positive," that is, works longer hours, or eats more bugs, just to stay even (and quietly accepts another five grand in debt to keep the house painted and the kids innoculated and the strain from showing too overtly); then, with the next jump in the price of staple goods, or the next disappointing raise, he steps up and does it again...

I wonder if the job has been done so well on him that he'll still feel that way in the voting booth.

YOU'VE GOT YOUR GOOD THINGS, AND I'VE GOT MINE. John J. Miller avails that popular rightwing dream-object, the cabby who confirms your prejudices:

My driver was Bosnian... Toward the end of the ride, he mentioned that he thinks Republicans are much more polite than Democrats. "Someone can be in the car with me for three minutes, and I'll know their party just from how they behave," he said... my driver turned around (we were at a red light) and lit up: "Ken Starr is the nicest man in Washington."

This contrasts strongly with the opinion of the cabbie with whom I rode last night, who told me that, during the recent Convention here, GOP delegates would routinely greet him with "To my hotel, nigger," urinate on themselves and the upholstery, and then run off without paying what they owed; whenever Rashawn (for that was my cabbie's name) shouted for a cop to apprehend the farebeaters, the delegates would merely wave their credentials in the officer's face and skip merrily away, singing the Horst Wessel Song.

Ken Starr, he noted, was particularly bad: "Fucker tried to shoot me in my own cab," said Rashawn. "But he was so fucked up on junk he couldn't draw a bead on me from the back seat, so he shot the chick that was suckin' his dick instead."

His Democratic fares, on the other hand, always offer to rub his shoulders as he drives, and tip him with summer houses in Amagansett.

Rashawn also tells me that this "little girl" is actually a 35-year-old midget who works for the RNC. "She's always blubbering about something or other," observes Rashawn. "I bet she ripped up her own sign just to get attention. A few lines of coke ought to shut her up. Back when she was dancing at the Baby Doll, she always had a frosted-donut mustache, if you know what I mean."

My cabby is no more believable than Miller's, but he's far, far more interesting.

SPEAKING OF FRAUDS. Daniel Henninger goes to Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley:

At the seniors center in Allentown, I met a fellow who said he'd lived all his life in New York City, when one day his wife said she wanted to move out west. They made it 30 miles into Pennsylvania, stopped and stayed. He's a Bush man, supports the war and the way Mr. Bush has handled it.

Standing next to him was a fellow named Francisco Figueroa. Mr. Figueroa was wearing a red U.S. Marine Corps cap pinned with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. A big-city journalist too familiar with stereotypes blurted: "Guess we know where you stand." Mr. Figueroa said, "What do you mean?"

Mr. Figueroa got his medals in Vietnam, where he did advance scouting on village conditions, one of which was My Lai. He's been shot at, a lot. He is voting for John Kerry. Why? Because John Kerry was over there, in the middle of it. The other guy never was....

Then Henninger sees some flags, a Marshmallow Peeps factory, and a car race. "Lasting impression," decides Henninger, "The Bush voters sounded solid. The Kerry votes came over as soft; everyone seems aware of the flip-flop label. Timid prediction: The Lehigh Valley goes Bush."

I understand Gallup uses similar methods.

INSTAFRAUD.

You've never seen me sing the praises of George W. Bush the way that, say, Andrew Sullivan was doing at one point.

The Ole Perfesser is never less convincing than on those occasions when he rambles at length between quick link/heh jobs, and his latest cracker-barrel blather is perhaps the worst in his whole ignoble history. The comparison to the crimson-prosed Sullivan is telling; no one seems more grandiloquent than Sully in the throes of passion, whereas the Perfesser's schtick has ever been a pomo pretense of loftiness.

I don't need to link evidence -- go to his archive and look at any one or two pages: The guy's a straight-up Bush operative. Just the other day he blew the doors off his erstwhile pretense of support for gay marriage just to preserve style points for his beloved Bush. How long before he goes that way on drug law reform? About as long as it takes for the next wave of draconian legislation to spew forth from a reenergized Republican Congress. Then the Prof will tell us, as he did with the gay thing, how everyone should just stop fussing and wait for a "generational" shift to save us.

Maybe this conservatarian dodge baffles the unformed minds in his classroom, but why do some adults fall for it? Call Roger L. Simon's disease: a disassociative condition occuring in formerly cool guys when they look in the mirror one day and see Dick Armey staring back at them.

HA FUCKING HA. Jonah Goldberg has Marion Barry laffs, resuscitating one of his old gags about how Barry's base is well-stocked with felons. If one didn't know Goldberg's history, one might be surprised that he thought it worthy of repetition.

YOU GOTTA FIGHT TO STAY INDEPENDENT/I GOT MY PRIDE AND I'M GONNA DEFEND IT. Another Ramone done gone, this time Johnny, age 55, of prostate cancer in Los Angeles. In End of the Century, he was asked why he hadn't reached out to his old partner Joey when he was on his way out in 2001. He said that he wouldn't have wanted the shoe on the other foot: somebody he wasn't speaking to calling him up when he was dying to say how sorry he was. Knowing what we know about Johnny, the quintessential hardass, that's understandable.

Look who was with him at the end:

Along with his wife, Linda Cummings, Johnny Ramone was surrounded at his death by friends Eddie and Jill Vedder, Rob and Sherrie Zombie and others. Other friends who gathered at his Los Angeles home included Lisa Marie Presley, Pete Yorn, Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire.

Vincent Gallo and Talia Shire! I have no doubt they were really his friends, but the combination is still funny -- like Allan Arkush and Stephen King, y'know. Like a Ramones song.

R.I.P., tough guy. Thanks for putting a damper on all those wanking solos.

DEAF FOREVER. At National Review Online, it's John J. Miller's turn to grab the crayon and write about culture. I gave him Dude points at least for choosing Iron Maiden's Powerslave as a topic, till I came to this part:

The second song is one of Iron Maiden's most familiar: "Two Minutes to Midnight." It's an anti-nuke tune whose politics aren't exactly to my liking. Although the lyrics admit that "blood is freedom's stain," they also suggest that during the Cold War, both sides were deluded. The title is a reference to the Doomsday Clock, whose main purpose is to serve as a propaganda tool of the Left. None of this means that the boys in Iron Maiden are Commie symps -— they aren't -— but a piece of me always has wished this song had been about Dunkirk or something...

I want it understood that, when I bemoan writing about the arts by conservative factota such as Miller, it's not because I believe their conservatism makes any difference, but because they invariably believe it does. Does any normal person think, "I like Whit Stillman, but I wish he had overtly praised labor unions in The Last Days of Disco," or, "I like Evelyn Waugh, but I wish he were more sensitive in matters of race and gender in Black Mischief"?

That's like saying, "I like turkey, but I wish it were pork."

These people are always bitching about how terrible it is that there are so many lefties in the arts (please, nobody tell them that musical comedy is riddled with homosexuals!), and when you read crap like Miller's it really seems as if their answer would be to nationalize culture and institute their own values by fiat and force, so that the orgasmic climax Ravel's Bolero would be interrupted by an abstinence lecture, Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath would wonder aloud whether it weren't selfish of him to resist dynamic capitalism just so's he and his family could have something to eat, etc.

It worked with journalism, after all. Why shouldn't it work with heavy metal?

GEE. THANKS. Vartan Gregorian, who was on the jury of the WTC Memorial Competition, uses that event as a springboard for a panegyric to New York City at OpinionJournal. It is hard to know why it is there, for while OJ's national politics are well-known, its journalistic politics are less comprehensible, at least to me. Gregorian was once President of the New York Public Library and seems like a decent, intelligent fellow. The Bushies like him, too, but nobody's wrong about everything.

Gregorian's comments, however, are less interesting than the OJ readers' responses to them. Some are gracious ("May New York City continue to reflect the glowing lamp of Lady Liberty"); others take a more combative tone. A couple of New Yorkers complain about the WTC plan Gregorian helped to affect. Russell Seitz of Cambridge, MA tweaks the former nabob of NYPL for closure of the Library's smoking rooms, which Seitz feels amounts "to a denial of public accommodation for the life of the mind."

A few, though, are really spooky-weird in a way that will be familiar to any who have heard conservatives discuss the City for any length of time. From Pensacola, FL, Joseph Revell takes a Falwellian tack:

One hopes that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob doesn't notice the "proud, self-confident city that cannot be bowed" headline that leads off this fine article. If He reads just the headline and skips the article He might decide New Yorkers need to be taught a lesson in humility. "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem"--and of New York City! We do, out here in the hinterland. New York City is our city too!

One gets the feeling Revell wants to claim New York as "our city, too" in exactly the same way abusive parents assert dominion over their children. L. Gregory of Georgetown, TX, is less threatening, but equally condescending:

New York is indeed a magical place, but it sometimes forgets its true roots are in the heart of America. One of the main reasons for its remarkable survival of 9/11 was the strength it drew from all the citizens in every corner of America. The terrorists didn't just attack New York, they attacked all of us. We all contributed to its recovery, one way or another, and New York needs to remember it didn't stand alone that day...

Hold it right there, Tex. Y'all "contributed to its recovery" how? By sliding back a small chunk of the money we daily pour into the Federal coffers? By talking a good game while cutting funding to our police and firefighters and anti-terrorism efforts? If we "forget" our "true roots in the heart of America," it may be that you have made the memory unpleasant to us.

A lot of people think New Yorkers are arrogant and standoffish. The above examples may help explain why we seem so.

SHOW UP AT SHEA. Went this evening to a Met twi-night double against the Braves, arriving in the seventh inning of game one. Attendance seemed much lower than the reported 21,476 (Shea can hold 55,601); the patrons were gathered in clusters all around the ballpark, responding only weakly to all but the most spectacular events (e.g., the firing of Pepsi T-shirts into the stands). The couple behind me did their own feeble "Let's Go Mets" hand-clap at odd intervals, as if by force of habit; in front of me a couple encouraged their three young children in coordinated cheers, which they delivered with shrill glee, unmindful of the lack of spirit amongst the grown-ups in their section. Some drunk young men were occasionally inspired to bellow ("YUH DON'T BELONG IN THE BIG LEAGUES!"); many serenaded Chipper Jones with his less all-American Christian name; all booed Jae Seo lustily in game two. He seo sucked. He let in five runs and walked the Braves' pitcher. He intentionally walked "Lar-ry" Jones and then gave up a two-run double. All this despite the frenzied thunderstick encouragement of a bunch of Koreans gathered behind a "KING OF THE MOUND" banner in the right field mezzanine.

They've lost 11 of their last 13 games. You live with the Mets long enough and you get used to it. You may complain; the ticket buys you the privilege. (In the Post, a lovely photo recently appeared of two upper deck fans, one with a bag over his head, the other holding triumphantly aloft a sign that read, YA GOTTA BELIEVE -- WE STINK!) In the last days of such seasons, Shea is a desolate and miserable place. We still show up at Shea, though, because this is our team. There are worse qualities than loyalty, and ineptitude isn't one of them. Yankee fans flash their rings; Mets fans regard the fabled '69, '73, and '86 seasons almost as defeated races regard sacred myths, as bulwarks against despair, something to keep our souls alive from September swoon to glorious April, when again anything will be possible. We're kind of Irish. We gather in this grim council flat of a ballpark, with its hideous neon ornaments and aluminum siding and concrete ramps bounded by piano wire, and despite the bloodshed unfolding before us dream that Cuchulain and Michael Collins may someday hoof the mound.

Can't anyone here play this game? Wait'll next year! Ya gotta believe.

POMO POLITICS. The Ole Perfesser lays out for his acolytes the latest conservatarian dodge on gay marriage, comprising hundreds of poorly-chosen words reducible to, "I don't really give a shit, so why should you?"

There are many thrills and chills along the way (including approving quotation of a reader who blames the failure of the gay marriage movement to -- get this -- Roe v. Wade), but the fascinatingly deformed heart of the argument is: gay marriage is the wave of the future (a "generational thing"), but the Republicans are going to run everything forever and you better be nice to them if you ever want any of these rights you've been bellyaching about, generation landslide or not:

...attacking Bush on gay marriage may solidify the Democratic base, but it probably costs swing voters, at least in the short term. Second, that sort of thing can only serve to alienate Republicans, even those who are supportive, or at least not opposed to, gay marriage. [who they? -- RE] Given that right now it seems likely that we'll see a Republican Congress, and probably a Republican White House, in the coming years, that's probably poor planning, at least if you want actual change and not just an interest-group rallying cry...

It's possible to package gay marriage as a move toward traditional values and away from 1970s style hedonism (not that there's anything wrong with that). But again, you have to make the case, not call names, if you want to win people over.

Offensive as the politics of Reynolds and his crew are, it's this postmodern approach to issues that's most disturbing. You want gay marriage? Wait for it; it'll turn up, eventually, if it was meant to be. And don't get on my case if I support its professed opponents, because that's just name-calling.

Actually post-modern is probably the wrong word for it. Reynolds' POV was popular in his neck of the woods 150 years ago, when it was applied to the manumission of slaves.

ALTERNATE EXPLANATIONS FOR NORTH KOREA'S NON-NUCLEAR MUSHROOM CLOUD:

• Smoke from barbecue of 100,000 chickens, held in honor of Dear Leader.
  
• Even Dear Leader's farts are impressive, observable from outer space!
  
• Exhaust from Jajus backed up on Dear Leader Expressway during massive Dear Leader Day holiday weekend traffic jam.
  
• Slave labor camp smoke-break, synchronized nationwide -- a testament to Dear Leader's organizational skills.
  
• Massive cloud-sculpture representing nuclear explosion is gift to Dear Leader from the thriving downtown Pyongyang arts community.

If none of these pan out, it was nice knowing you guys.

PINHEAD. Finally saw the Ramones doc, End of the Century. It isn't so much artful as artifactual. It owes a lot to the "oral biography" form George Plimpton invented with Edie (and bears more than a historical resemblance to the punk chronicle Please Kill Me). This technique absents the filmmakers from the responsibility of a POV; they just dump a lot of clips, interviews, and supers on the table, and leave us to savor whichever juicy bits we prefer.

There are a lot of juicy bits, though, and even the fellow among us who was more or less unacquainted with the band enjoyed it. Of course, if you love the Ramones, the juice is more bittersweet.

I already knew a lot of their history, and I knew something, too, about punk aesthetics and the rigors of rock life. But the movie added details that made that -- all of that -- a bit clearer to me.

For example, I'd heard Johnny was the taskmaster of the band, but I didn't realize how completely he was devoted to his Will to Power: how everything about his life -- from the musical discipline to his own personal behavior -- was given over to a maniacal vision of domination. (I thought they were kidding with the Nuremberg theatrics of their big shows, but now I'm not so sure -- at least in his case.) And I came to believe something I'd always known by instinct: that a band pretty much needs an asshole who's always cracking heads and barking out the master plan; otherwise, as Johnny put it, "everybody just flounders around."

It also seems that Johnny's genius (I really think that's the word) at directing his bandmates' gifts and energies into a beautiful rock machine was also a personal catastrophe for everyone involved. Legs McNeil says in the film that Joey had to become a rock star because the poor, gawky, pathologically introverted guy "would have stood out anyway." Maybe. And maybe Dee Dee was better off playing bass than sniffing Carbona and boosting cars. (He might have OD'd sooner, too.) But our gain -- their magnificent albums and shows -- sure looks like their loss in the movie.

If you've been in a band for more than a little while (five years was my longest sentence) you know what the wear and tear can be like. If you're not completely empty-headed (and a lot of people do get through on that; we are talking about musicians, after all), interpersonal relationships tend to devolve into Eugene O'Neill territory very quickly. After a few years of working in an office with a guy, you will probably have learned almost nothing real about him. But if you tour a couple of times with the same guy, you will know more about him than his mother does. Factor in the painful sensitivity of creative people, and drugs and alcohol, and women, and financial hassles, and you get the House of Atreus plus hearing loss.

So watching Dee Dee gabble was very entertaining, and Joey's presence is always sweet, and it was a pleasure to hear inside dope from Tommy and Marky and all the affiliates, but Jesus Christ, I half-think it would have been worth losing Rocket to Russia if these guys could have become sheet-metal workers and obtained houses in Queens and maybe 401Ks and raised dull children and gotten together at holiday picnics and laughed about the dreams they'd once had of forming a great band. And Rocket to Russia is one of my favorite things on earth.

Because they all seemed fucking miserable. The moment when Johnny is asked if he cared when Joey died and he stammers behind huge violet shades, "Maybe, because of some weakness in myself… Maybe, because he was part of the Ramones, and the Ramones was something I loved… if someone threw something at him, I would go after the guy…" is about as depressing as it gets.

That doesn't mean I can’t enjoy their music any more. I, too, am a pinhead. I pissed away all my chances at normalcy and it is far, far too late to get them back, and the bushels of words and music I pour into the resulting hole have their charms, but they don't come close to filling it. Nonetheless, I still have enough soul left to wish better than that for others.

OH SHUT UP PROFESSOR."Powerline notes that the Kerry campaign is playing the Creedence Clearwater song Fortunate Son, as a subtle dig at George W. Bush's National Guard service... It's a great song. But, of course, the song was written by John Fogerty, who served stateside in the Reserves... Does the Kerry Campaign think that John Fogerty betrayed his country by not serving in Vietnam?"

See, that Kerry is such a flip-flopper he plays music by guys who didn't go to Vietnam.

When they ran out of rocks to throw, they threw pebbles, and when they ran out of pebbles they threw dirt, and when they ran out of dirt -- well, they'll never run out of dirt.

I JUST THOUGHT THIS NEEDED A LITTLE WIDER DISSEMINATION:



Used without permission, but I think Atrios will understand. Attaturk, a newly-established typewriter expert, has more.

Can't tell where this claim that embarrassing Bush documents are forgeries will end up, but it sure is interesting how fast it got into print via the Old New Media network (John Podhoretz -- yeah, that figures), and how the story has now changed from (unsubstantiated) These are obvious forgeries if you know how to look at 'em to (substantiated) Hey, Ma, we're in the papers!

As Attaturk also pointed out, "Amazing how the Freepers are able to get this Forgery Spin into the Media in less than 24 hours, yet it took them 3 Fucking Weeks to beat down the Swift Boat Smearers with a boatload of written documentation contradicting them."

Capitalization aside, I get where he's coming from. Forget the old saw that ends with "...before Truth gets its boots on." I suspect Truth is still in bed, or in its grave, as liars run rampant, screaming and ringing hand-bells as hard as they can.

PERSPECTIVE. I see someone's doing something about the Sudan:

A draft resolution introduced by the United States to step up pressure on Sudan over the crisis in Darfur met strong opposition at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday.

The 15-nation council was divided over the US proposal, with Pakistan, Algeria and Russia voicing objections to it and European Union countries such as Britain and Germany throwing weight behind it, council diplomats said.

One could expect that sort of opposition from our soulful-eyed sometimes-ally Russia and our erstwhile buttboys in Pakistan (they get a lot of oil from Pakistan), but support from Germany! Who'd-a thunk it? Aren't they our enemies again? I mean they backed our invasion of Afghanistan, but didn't their lack of cooperation in Iraq put them into what the great minds among us call the Axis of Weasels?

And whither their partner-in-crime France? "Chile, Benin, Romania, France and Spain made positive comments," reports Reuters. "However they said France also questioned the need for sanctions threats at this time." Close, but no Chardonnay. Never fear, another round of funny nicknames will bring them around.

For those who joined us late, the United Nations is a deliberative body prone to the same sort of Byzantine political reversals as the U.S. Congress, where members of the famously pecunious Republican Party regularly vote to balloon our deficits.

In such situations, if you don't you work with the members, they don't work with you.

If this is unimportant, why are we even in the U.N.? Swing votes? Or do we really not take this genocide very seriously? (Hint: our lead dog in the operation is the long-invisible Colin Powell.)

Bonus question: Can we afford an invasion?