No Iran For Me

I'm so bummed! I just cancelled my Cristmas plans. I was planning on spending the holidays in the Middle East but I just read on the Drudge Report that there are no gays in Iran. So I'm not going now. I would feel weird being the only one in the whole country. So, I guess I'll just stay home, this year.

"In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country. We don't have that like in your country. ... In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have this."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Arlington in Oceanside

This is how I spent my Memorial Day in Oceanside, California.

Shut Up and Sing

Shut up and Sing focuses on the controversy surrounding a comment the Dixie Chicks made about George W. Bush. The "controversy" is much ado about nothing but I found the documentary fascinating because I find all documentaries fascinating (even bad ones) and I find the Dixie Chicks fascinating. I'm fascinated by their ordinariness. I love insane pop stars as much as anyone but from a distance, please. Could you imagine having dinner with Madonna or Michael Jackson or Ozzy Osbourne? No thank you! But watching Shut Up and Sing felt like hanging out with a cool neighbor or listening to a friendly waitress who just also happens to be a famous pop star involved in a global controversy.

Lately, I find myself attracted to the simple concepts in country music. I've always loved white trash stuff; county fairs, truck stops, trailer parks, Wal-Mart. These days, my life has never been simpler, in fact I'm obsessed with seeing how simple it can get and the Dixie Chicks remind me to keep it simple. I'm sort of obsessed with their hit song, Cowboy Take Me Away. In fact, I'm listening to it right now; it's a beautiful song. So watch Shut Up and Sing! I know I'm rambling, but that's what us Cowboys do, we ramble.

Click here to listen to Cowboy Take Me Away

I've provided the lyrics so you can sing along.

I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly

I wanna sleep on the hard ground
In the comfort of your arms
On a pillow of bluebonnets
In a blanket made of stars

Oh it sounds good to me I said

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you

I wanna walk and not run
I wanna skip and not fall
I wanna look at the horizon
And not see a building standing tall

I wanna be the only one
For miles and miles
Except for maybe you
And your simple smile

Oh it sounds good to me
Yes it sounds so good to me

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you

I said I wanna touch the earth
I wanna break it in my hands
I wanna grow something wild and unruly
Oh it sounds so good to me

Cowboy take me away
Fly this girl as high as you can
Into the wild blue
Set me free oh I pray
Closer to heaven above and
Closer to you closer to you
Closer to you
Cowboy take me away.
Closer to you

Scott Rudin, I LOVE you!

While a Broadway show is in previews it's supposed to be hands-off from reviewers but the New York Times has a section that allows readers to write their own reviews. The brilliant Scott Rudin, who is unhappy about this, has decided to run quotes from the reader reviews in ads for his new show, The Year of Magical Thinking. He puts the quote out there with the tag line New York Times Online. Fucking brilliant, Mr. Rudin!!! The Times feels this is unethical and have asked him to stop running the ads. Rudin responds by telling them they can't have it both ways. And I agree, it's not right to for The NY Times to allow a show to be reviewed on their own website and then get upset when that review is quoted elsewhere. An amusing exchange of letters, which the NY Post printed today, is a thought-provoking debate about ethics, advertising, theater, and the word "review."

Check it out by clicking here.

I'm reprinting the article below. Hopefully, I won't get sued.

April 20, 2007 -- WAR has broken out between Broadway producer Scott Rudin and the New York Times. At issue is the advertising campaign for Rudin's show "The Year of Magical Thinking," starring Vanessa Redgrave.
While the play was still in previews, the Times, on its Web site, encouraged readers to "write a review." Rudin didn't think that was fair. So on March 30, the day the show opened, he turned the tables on the paper, quoting, in ads in the Times and the Post, a reader who said: "An evening of magical theater. Get yourself a ticket to the Booth Theatre." Rudin attributed the quote to "The New York Times Online." That's when the battle began.

Yvette Encarnacion, a lawyer for the Times, demanded Rudin pull the ads. Rudin fired off a response to her that, in turn, led to an exchange of letters between Rudin and Craig R. Whitney, an assistant managing editor in charge of "ethics and standards" at the paper.
(Boy, that place is top-heavy with administrators; no wonder its stock price is down.)
I obtained copies of their correspondence from a third party, who thought I might have some fun with it.

And so today I present excerpts from "Love Letters," starring Scott Rudin and Craig R. Whitney. Enjoy!

From Rudin's April 3 letter to Encarnacion:
I am at a loss to understand why you are questioning the sourcing of these quotes, since they are, in fact, directly taken from the New York Times Web site, and credited thus.

The Times obviously feels these reviews have substantive credibility - otherwise, clearly they wouldn't appear on the New York Times' Web site . . . despite the fact they come from a random selection of faceless amateurs whose only qualification to review a play is that they bought a ticket and have access to a computer.

By the way, you called . . . to ask us to stop quoting your Web site . . . in the New York Post. Are you not aware that this same quote actually ran last Friday in the Times? Is there any other possible conclusion at which to arrive other than the inevitable one: that even the people who work at the Times don't actually read it?

On April 4, Whitney replied:
We think that when you attribute a quote to "The New York Times Online" . . . readers are entitled to trust that the appraisal came from someone actually employed by the New York Times - not from a letter from a reader. The New York Times Online did not describe your play as "An evening of magical theater." A reader, not vouched for in any way by the New York Times, said that.

By the same principle - a principle we would call "honesty" - we have no objection to your ad quoting the New York Times saying "Vanessa Redgrave is arguably the greatest living actress of the English-speaking theater." A Times critic said that. Surely you see the distinction. Lots of things that are published in the Times . . . do not reflect the judgment of anyone at the paper. That is, not everything in the New York Times is of the New York Times.

And we have called the attention of our advertising department to the lapse that led to the publication of the reader quote without proper attribution in the ABC ads last Friday.

That, as you say, "lots of things are published in the Times that do not reflect the judgment of anyone at the paper" is radiantly clear to all of us who read it. . . .You refer to these online reviews as "letters from a reader." They are not letters from any reader. They are reviews. You - the paper - label them reviews. There is something deeply corrupt about the Times' professed offense at our using these reviews to sell a production of a play. If you continue to run them, you can expect to continue to see them in our advertising. In fact, if you look at today's ABC listings in the New York Times, you will see the quote running once again, despite whatever instructions you gave to the advertising department.

On April 12, Whitney wrote:
I repeat, it is not only wrong but dishonest for you, in advertisements like the one that slipped through in the ABCs again yesterday, to quote from readers' reviews as "The New York Times Online." . . . We intend to continue to resist your attempts to mislabel them as ours in the New York Times. I will try to respond as quickly as possible to the pre-opening issue you raise. . . .

Later that afternoon, Rudin sent, by hand, the following:
When the Times stops running Readers' Reviews on its Web site, I'll stop using them in advertising. You can look forward to seeing them anywhere and everywhere until then. If the paper desires to engage with me in a First Amendment dispute, be my guest.

Yesterday, Rudin wrote to Whitney one last time:
You wrote me promising a response regarding the use about which we have been corresponding. To date, I have heard nothing from you. While it's nice to receive lectures about ethics from the paper that brought us Judy Miller, Jayson Blair and the Duke lacrosse team, it's not really what I was looking for. I'm still waiting for that response.

I am, too, Mr. Whitney. And when you get around to writing it, will you cc me, please? Let's keep the debate going!
________________

The Chippendales 8 Go Free!!!

A short report about the 8 Chippendale dancers arrested in Lubbock, Texas for "gyrating and thrusting pelvises in a manner meant to cause "sexual gratification." Oh Lord! Will this country ever grow up????

Time for Typos

I've gotten flack from a few friends about my typos on this blog. They beg me to use spellcheck but for some reason spellchecking in blogger screws up my formatting. For a while, I was working with an editor on my early blogs and although he was amazing and always available I just wasn't comfortable with the formality of it.

ANYWAY...

I enjoyed this typo on the NY Times website (front page). It refers to Time Inc. laying people off so they can "focus on on the web"...the world wide web of TYPOS!


By the way, the proper spelling of website is Web site. But that just looks ridiculous. In my opinion, website should be one word and it should all be lower case. But what the fuck do I know?

If He Did It? IF???? LOL

Free speech means Rupert Murdoch has the right NOT to publish a book by OJ, I understand that.

And free speech means OJ can confess with or without permission from Rupert Murdoch.

And OJ Simpson is a horrible, horrible piece of shit.

BUT

I don't like seeing programs and books cancelled because someone might be offended.

What's your propaganda limit?

I recently attended a Mormon movie with my dad. It was a hard film to swallow. The hero Joseph Smith was perfect, his followers were perfect and all who opposed him were evil. The movie was propaganda. Expensive propaganda. And did I mention it was super boring?

It was a squandered opportunity to make a serious movie about Joseph Smith and the early Mormon experience. Religious persecution is a complicated and important topic and the Mormon trek across America was an epic journey filled with interesting conflicts but this movie (by Mormons about Mormons for Mormons) was so just so damn simple.

Why are religious people afraid of having their movements and leaders seen as complicated? Joseph Smith was loved and hated both from outsiders and people inside his church. Why? Show it. Most people who lead large groups of people are manipulative, ambitious, demanding assholes. They have to be to accomplish anything.

Who was Joseph Smith? I have no idea and yet I sat thru a 90 minute movie about his life.

I recently watched 30 minutes of Triumph of the Will, the propaganda film by Leni Riefenstahl about Nazi Germany. It was frightening for the first 20 minutes and then I just lost interest.

I've often felt uncomfortable at the gay pride parade and now I know why. It, too, is a form of propaganda. And watching the gays smile as the parade goes by feels akin to watching the Mormons smiling at the Joseph Smith movie. I always smile when I see an individual hanging a flag outside their house whether it's Red White and Blue or rainbow. I'm inspired by individual acts of self-expression and pride. But mass-flag-waving makes me nervous whether those flags are American, rainbow or swaztikas. Every time I go to a gay pride parade I get bored after about 30 minutes.

I guess 30 minutes is my tolerance level for propaganda, whether it's gay, Mormon or Nazi.

A Poem From Brother Larsen

My very interesting brother sent me this poem and photo (below) via e-mail. The photo is taken from photos on my blog. I didn't even notice the Jackass tattoo til 5 hours later. Very funny. It's interesting when my friends tell me that blogging is a waste of time. I tell them that one thing that comes from blogging is that I learn things about my brother (Jay) and my friend, Carolyn that I wouldn't otherwise have known. How many people really communicate with their brother every other day? Blogging has brought us closer together and yet my non-blogging friends argue that blogging is a waste of a time. Fuck those bitter motherfuckers! LOL My one friend recently told me that you can't take anything on a blog seriously. He feels that because blogs have typos they are not credible sources of information. This statement is so ignorant I can't even fathom it.

My argument goes like this. If Chicken Little writes on his blog that the sky is falling and the sky REALLY is falling but he misspells the word "faling" does it mean the sky is not falling??? And if Jason Blair writes the next day in the NY Times that the sky is NOT falling but he spells "falling" correctly does it mean the sky is NOT falling? See I just want to know whether or not the sky is falling. I don't care where I read it or who writes it whether it's Jay Larsen, chicken Little or the NY Times.
________________




The Readers Digest version of your blog
For no reason at all
Attached as a JPEG
Because it takes a long time
To understand nothing

Love Ya.
Jay Larsen

Jays Poetry Blog
Jays Political Blog

NYC Cam Phone: Garbage

Models are so glamorous! I'm running these pics in honor of the great episode last night of Project Runway. Have a nice Thursday!