I Can't Deny the Fact That You Hate Me ... You Hate Me

[The subject heading is a reference to Sally Field's exclamation after winning her 87th best actress award for A Place in the Heart (1984) -- which is strange because I don't think she's even been in that many films, or that there's been that many Academy Awards ceremonies.]

Last night's Academy Awards just reaffirms the fact that Martin Scorsese will never win a best picture award or a best director award for one of his films. It just won't happen. Think about it: the Oscars have a history of giving awards to undeserving people for past awarding blunders--William Holden's award for Stalag 17 (1951) was an apology for not giving him the award for his performance in Sunset Blvd. (1950); Denzel Washington's award for that poor, over-the-top copy drama Training Day (2002) was an apology for giving the award to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman (1992) the year he should have won for his magnificent performance in Malcolm X; another example might be Russell Crowe winning the award for Gladiator (2000) when it was really his performance in The Insider (1999) that he was being awarded for.

Now, Scorsese's best days are long behind him. Though Gangs of New York (2002) and The Aviator (2004) were excellent movies (The Paper Cat doth disagree with me on yonder opinion), there are about 7 other Scorsese films that could have or should have, in good conscience, been selected as best picture or best director: Mean Streets (1973), Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More (1974), the incomparable Taxi Driver (1976), Raging Bull (1980), the underrated, comedic variant of Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy (1982), After Hours (1985), and his greatest achievement in film, GoodFellas (1990). Today, Scorsese can't even get sympathy votes for his films, even though they were generally better than the competition. (I mean, the fact that Million Dollar Baby won completely mistifies me--The Aviator and Sideways were superior films.) And, to add insult to injury, a "boxing movie" (which is really a [spoiler alert!] euthenasia film with boxing in it) won the awards for best picture and best director (Million Dollar Baby and Clint Eastwood, respectively) while Raging Bull (also, a film about a man's self-destruction under the guise of a "boxing film") was snubbed back in 1981 by Robert Redford's great-but-not-great-enough-to-be-a-masterpiece Ordinary People. I mean, who, today, talks about Ordinary People? The only time that film comes up in conversation is when I feel like putting down the film American Beauty in my more cynical moments (which is good, but similar content matter is handled much more intelligently and subtly in Redford's movie). Moral: Scorsese will win a lifetime achievement award.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hitchcock and Kubrick never won best director (I think Hitchcock won best picture with Rebecca). In other words, I just blathered on about nothing for two lengthy paragraphs. I apologize. I'm sure The Paper Cat will rub this post in my face to show y'all out there how "un-elitist" I am--how my pseudo-intellectualism is really just a front for my shy, boyish populism. In the meantime, I'm getting very worked up about how the time machine I got for $8 at Lucy's Thrift in DuPont Circle has rewritten all my "love letter" songs into "stalker email" songs. WTF? This will be addressed in the next post.

Just another miserable bastard

Holly, I think we all know who your name refers to: the girl who sings with Jack White on that one White Stripes song! What puzzles me is how that makes you a MAN of wealth and taste. Ahh, so many things are just beyond me. But I'm sure that you--cultured and sophisticated as you are--know that my name is a metonym, because I am a masturbation aid.

I'm so sorry that I haven't the time to respond to your questions in depth. I've just been so busy. I came into the sum of $50, from a patron, and I of course had to buy myself a new wardrobe with it. Things were a bit hectic at the vintage store. The whole experience was draining. I did find a sweater with a big "A" on it though.

Your questions, right!

1) I usually play "It's a Small World After All" beforehand. That way there are no surprises. It's funny but there is usually no afterwards.

2) Duke Ellington said, "The drum is a woman." Is that because you beat them? I've never known for sure. To play it safe here, I'll go with Hawthorne over Williams too.

3) I only listen to 8-tracks and vinyl. What's a bonus track? I only know that my Robert Goulet In Person (1963) album doesn't have any.

If they had computers and e-mail and all that fifty years ago, then my life would be simpler. Don't you think Holly?

--The Paper Cat, Feb 25 2005 Minneapolis

... I'm a Man of Wealth and Taste

Please allow myself to introduce ... myself. For the purposes of this blogumentary, I will be known as Holly Go-Heavily, which is a reference to something -- I forget. Titled, for the time being, Possible Elitists High on Coffee and Cloves, myself, along with The Paper Cat, will wow y'all with our amazingly perceptible remarks on various modes of artistic expression (particularly music, film and literature). We will also deploy our razor-sharp wit to desecrate certain overgrown redwoods of popular culture, which desparately need to be cut down.

Now, my partner in crime, the mysterious Paper Cat--who, I suppose, because of his name, doesn't like water at all!--might disagree with me on how we will approach this blog. That will be part of the fun. Friction is necessary for the expansion and improvement of cultural expression, to paraphrase that cruelest mouth of poetry, T.S. Eliot.

Aside from giving silenced masterpieces, such as Richard Wright's novel The Outsider (1953), their due, we will also entertain some of the more serious questions around certain types of artistic and lived expression. These questions include, but are not limited to, the following topics: What is the best music to listen to during sex?; Who was the greater symbolist/cymbalist?: Nathaniel Hawthorne or Tony Williams?; Are hidden tracks on CDs a nice bonus or a lousy waste of time? I will now show you how I would answer some of these serious, deep, metaphysical questions:

1). Anything with a beat is good enough for sex. Also, volume is important. You need to listen to something that is loud enough to drown out the embarrassing sounds of love-making from your roommates, your neighbors, your children, etc. (That is, of course, unless you want others to hear you in the throes of ecstasy!) With this in mind, there are at least two songs I hear that demand to be turned up loud: Motorhead's "Ace of Spades" (1980) and Funkadelic's "Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock" (1978). Unfortunately, the combined time of these two songs is roughly ten minutes. So, if you consummate quickly, these are the songs for you. But, if you take longer, like, say, that Tantric, buzz-cutted, vagina-master Sting (who, incidentally, I share the same birthday with!), you might want to try making love to Herbert van Karajan's interpretations of Beethoven's Nine Symphonies (1963, currently available in a five-disc box-set). Now if you're having a three-way, follow Kubrick's lead from the film version of A Clockwork Orange (1972) and play "The William Tell Overture." I can only take his word on this, because even two-way sex is an amazing fantasy for me (--too much information--).

2). Hawthorne. But if you listen to Tony Williams' composition "Black Comedy" as recorded for Miles Davis' Miles in the Sky (1968) album, then Williams' drumming just might give Hawthorne a run for his money.

3). I haven't really thought this one through yet.

That is just a small taste of the dazzling wit that will be provided on this blog. Through our observations, we hope to change the world or something.

--Holly Go-Heavily, Feb 25 2005 Washington DC