We need a sure thing, not a morality play

I definitely worry about the 2008 presidential race, especially with the virtual certainty the new prez will make several U.S. Supreme Court nominations. Frankly, I'm worried about Hillary getting the nomination -- not because I don't think she would not make a good president, or that a woman should not gain the lofty office. No, I truly think that she cannot win. Consider the following from today's "War Room" on Salon, which sums up what I have been feeling in my bones these days:

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Hillary and the e-word

From the "Tell Us Again Why This Isn't a Problem" Department, a new national Mason-Dixon Poll finds 52 percent of Americans saying they wouldn't even consider voting for Hillary Clinton for president.

"Hillary's carrying a lot of baggage," explains Mason-Dixon's Larry Harris. "She's the only one that has a majority who say they can't vote for her."

While the poll does have a four-point margin of error, the "would you even think about it" numbers for Clinton are starkly different than they are for most of the other major candidates or near-candidates. More than 60 percent of the poll's respondents said they'd think about voting for Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson or Michael Bloomberg; 60 percent said they'd consider voting for Barack Obama; 59 percent said they'd consider voting for John Edwards; 58 percent said they'd think about John McCain; 57 percent said they'd consider Joe Biden, the same percentage that said they'd consider Bill Richardson; 56 percent said they'd consider Mike Huckabee; and 54 percent said they'd consider Mitt Romney. By contrast, only 48 percent said they'd consider voting for Clinton.

More bad news for Team Hillary: At 39 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable, Clinton is the only candidate or near-candidate to have a net-unfavorable rating in the poll.

-- Tim Grieve

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The situation reminds me of when I was a kid and we would choose up teams for sandlot baseball, muddy football, hoops, or whatever. Because I was a good athlete and a leader, I would usually get to be one of the captains and inevitably my schoolyard rival would be the other captain. Even then, I had an empathy streak, and I'd see some kids who were not that "jocky" just dying for approval but not believing that they would ever get picked until last, so once in a while I would pick them ahead of guys who were good jocks just to see their faces light up and to make me feel better about myself. But guess what? The result wasn't "Hoosiers" or "Remember the Titans" or "Rudy." Even though the less-gifted guys would try like hell and play their asses off, we'd still lose.

Dang it, I want the Dems to nominate somebody who can win! I'm not sure who that is, but I'm almost positive it isn't Senator Clinton.

~ Tom

I'm a sucker for Big Love

One of the great rewards in life is taking some time to take a risk to try something that you think you are not going to enjoy.

Example: "Big Love" on HBO. When the series premiered, I read about it and thought, "Mormons, polygamy, Utah", wha? But because it was an HBO creation (Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood) and because of reviews from reviewers I trusted I started from episode 1 and have not missed one since.

I won't even try to explain how great this series is, but suffice it to say, it is character-driven, with a kick-ass plot. For you insiders, Jeanne Tripplehorn (Barbara) is so damn sexy that I can see why Bill Paxton (Bill) sneaked away to "have an affair with his own wife" last season. I absolutely love every character on this show, even the ones you love to hate (Roman, played with creepy effectiveness by the great Harry Dean Stanton) to the ones that constantly exasperate you (Nicolette, played so-so well by Chloë Sevigny), to the ones that just make you want to take them home with you (Margene, played by the little heart-breaker Ginnifer Goodwin).

After the season-ending episode last year where the family is outed when Barbara is about to receive the "Mother of the Year" award at the Governor's mansion, I really wondered how they were going to get further mileage out of the series concept. Not to worry. The first two episodes of the new season just riveted me, and were even better than last year as the writers obviously begin to truly inhabit the souls of their charges.

Another example of my " take a risk to try something that you think you are not going to enjoy" was Showtime's "Queer as Folk," which I consider one of THE best TV series ever made. I'm not gay, but I got so involved with all the characters and the wonderful writing that it didn't make any difference to me. Also, the series-ending episode was probably the best "ender" I've ever seen, with the "ender" of Six Feet Under" running a close second. Sorry Chase, but the "cut to black" ending, while interesting doesn't come close to Brian standing in the ruins of Babylon while the "beat goes on in his head" or Claire, driving into the future with Sia's great song "Breathe Me" played in its entirety.

Well, it's time to sign off and dream about Jeanne Tripplehorn.

~ Tom

John Burke pulls your coat to "Ace in the Hole"

My friend John Burke is one of those guys whose quirky knowledge never ceases to amaze me. He doesn't have a blog, but he has a list of friends he emails with great tidbits or links to really cool stuff. I'm privileged to be on that list. A couple of weeks ago, he sent out the following, which I have cut and pasted below. I remember seeing this movie on TV years ago and feeling the cynicism of which John speaks. I'd really like to see it again, uncut, restored and without the commercials.

John's link below indicates that the release will not be until early July, and Netflix does not have it in their listings yet.

Hi--

"Ace in the Hole" was also released under the title "The Big Carnival" but was known around Hollywood as "Ass in the Crack," because it was widely believed that Wilder had destroyed his career by making such a cynical movie, particularly in the second year of the Korean War. All the characters are repellent--either grasping and manipulative, or just suckers; US popular culture is depicted as an unbroken sea of commercial kitsch, and when the male lead (Kirk Douglas) asks the female lead (Jan Sterling) why she isn't going to church on Sunday morning, she says "Kneeling bags my nylons." Needless to say I love this movie and am thrilled to see that those wonderful people at Criterion are releasing it in a spiffy new DVD transfer, with commentary 'n stuff, within the next few weeks. Put it on your Netflix queue or buy one to keep at

http://tinyurl.com/yt6k7j

Still here....

Hi everybody:

Was working on a big project last week and was out of town for a 3-day weekend motorcycle trip up north. I'll be posting more often for the next couple of weeks. Hang in there with me.

Tom

30 from Jack

Here's something that made me think a lot and then smile. I found it using "Stumble Upon" -- "Stumbling" has become one of my favorite pastimes.

Fellow writers were always asking Kerouac how he did what he did. So Kerouac set down 30 essentials in something he called “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.” These tips may or may not make sense to you, but that’s Kerouac, man:

---

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

Nexus

Two things:

1. My obsession with with this insane Iraq war. I read oodles about it in the press and online in blogs and e-zines. I have read Cobra II, Fiasco, The One Percent Solution, Nemesis, and other books.

2. My obsession with really fine writing. I taught writing and legal writing for over 25 years and am constantly lamenting the fact that no one understands when to use "which" and when to use "that" [restrictive and non-restrictive clauses?], or when to use the objective vs. subjective case, e.g. "he writes better then me [eek]."

Hence, I was blown away by this article from Salon, which is actually the commencement address that Mark Danner wrote and delivered to Department of Rhetoric at Zellerbach Hall, University of California at Berkeley, on May 10, 2007. The writing is masterful yet exquisite (I had to look up the word "synecdoche") and the content is one of the best summaries of the Iraq fiasco that I've ever read. It's a bit long, but take the time to check it out. Leave a comment with your thoughts.

A perfect nexus of two of my obsessions.

~ tom

Scary as hell, but not surprising

I heard about this quote on the radio, and tracked it down. It's from an article by Georgie Anne Geyer of the Dallas morning news:

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."

The entire article is very good also, and you can read it here.

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked

But by all reports, President Bush is more convinced than ever of his righteousness.

Friends of his from Texas were shocked recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."z

recently to find him nearly wild-eyed, thumping himself on the chest three times while he repeated "I am the president!" He also made it clear he was setting Iraq up so his successor could not get out of "our country's destiny."