“In my country you’re seeing a horror show. You’re seeing a retrenchment in terms of family income, you’re seeing the abandonment of basic services, such as public education, functional public education. You’re seeing the underclass hunted through an alleged war on dangerous drugs that is in fact merely a war on the poor and has turned us into the most incarcerative state in the history of mankind, in terms of the sheer numbers of people we’ve put in American prisons and the percentage of Americans we put into prisons. No other country on the face of the Earth jails people at the number and rate that we are. We have become something other than what we claim for the American dream and all because of our inability to basically share, to even contemplate, a socialist impulse.

Socialism is a dirty word in my country. I have to give that disclaimer at the beginning of every speech, ‘Oh by the way I’m not a Marxist you know.’ I lived through the 20th century. I don’t believe that a state-run economy can be as viable as market capitalism in producing mass wealth. I don’t. I’m utterly committed to the idea that capitalism has to be the way we generate mass wealth in the coming century. That argument’s over. But the idea that it’s not going to be married to a social compact, that how you distribute the benefits of capitalism isn’t going to include everyone in the society to a reasonable extent, that’s astonishing to me.

And so capitalism is about to seize defeat from the jaws of victory all by its own hand. That’s the astonishing end of this story, unless we reverse course. Unless we take into consideration, if not the remedies of Marx then the diagnosis, because he saw what would happen if capital triumphed unequivocally, if it got everything it wanted. And one of the things that capital would want unequivocally and for certain is the diminishment of labor. They would want labor to be diminished because labor’s a cost. And if labor is diminished, let’s translate that: in human terms, it means human beings are worth less.

From this moment forward unless we reverse course, the average human being is worth less on planet Earth. Unless we take stock of the fact that maybe socialism and the socialist impulse has to be addressed again; it has to be married as it was married in the 1930s, the 1940s and even into the 1950s, to the engine that is capitalism. Mistaking capitalism for a blueprint as to how to build a society strikes me as a really dangerous idea in a bad way. Capitalism is a remarkable engine again for producing wealth. It’s a great tool to have in your toolbox if you’re trying to build a society and have that society advance. You wouldn’t want to go forward at this point without it. But it’s not a blueprint for how to build the just society. There are other metrics besides
that quarterly profit report.

The idea that the market will solve such things as environmental concerns, as our racial divides, as our class distinctions, our problems with educating and incorporating one generation of workers into the economy after the other when that economy is changing; the idea that the market is going to heed all of the human concerns and still maximize profit is juvenile. It’s a juvenile notion and it’s still being argued in my country passionately and we’re going down the tubes. And it terrifies me because I’m astonished at how comfortable we are in absolving ourselves of what is basically a moral choice. Are we all in this together or are we all not?

If you watched the debacle that was, and is, the fight over something as basic as public health policy in my country over the last couple of years, imagine the ineffectiveness that Americans are going to offer the world when it comes to something really complicated like global warming. We can’t even get healthcare for our citizens on a basic level. And the argument comes down to: ‘Goddamn this socialist president. Does he think I’m going to pay to keep other people healthy? It’s socialism, motherfucker.’

What do you think group health insurance is? You know you ask these guys, ‘Do you have group health insurance where you …?’ ‘Oh yeah, I get …’ you know, ‘my law firm …’ So when you get sick you’re able to afford the treatment. The treatment comes because you have enough people in your law firm so you’re able to get health insurance enough for them to stay healthy. So the actuarial tables work and all of you, when you do get sick, are able to have the resources there to get better because you’re relying on the idea of the group. Yeah. And they nod their heads, and you go ‘Brother, that’s socialism.
You know it is.’

And you know when you say, ‘OK, we’re going to do what we’re doing for your law firm but we’re going to do it for 300 million Americans and we’re going to make it affordable for everybody that way. And yes, it means that you’re going to be paying for the other guys in the society, the same way you pay for the other guys in the law firm,’ their eyes glaze. You know they don’t want to hear it. It’s too much. Too much to contemplate the idea that the whole country might be actually connected. I’m astonished that at this late date I’m standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don’t mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don’t embrace some other values for human endeavor.”

(For a complete edited transcript of Simon’s impromptu remarks, visit The Guardian‘s website.)

Click through for full-size gallery.

Continue reading →

At some point during the opening third of Bob Dylan’s autobiography, Chronicles, he describes Greenwich Village during the winter of 1961 as follows: “T.S. Eliot wrote a poem once where there were people walking to a fro, and everybody taking the opposite direction was appearing to be running away.” This is the Greenwich Village that Joel and Ethan Coen seem consumed with, a perennially cold and unforgiving stretch of Babylon where self-interests rule the roost. In true Coen fashion, Inside Llewyn Davis nails it, separating myth from reality. All the early folk scene staples are accounted for – The Gaslight and Gerde’s, Cafe Wha?, The Kettle of Fish, Bob Dylan and The Clancys, Albert Grossman, Dave Van Ronk … an entire movement tuning its pitch inside the confines of some club. Basement cabarets represent the sole means of communication throughout Llewyn Davis, outlets which provide a voice for the voiceless, a soapbox for the soul. Otherwise, the entire landscape feels barren, a bleak and guileless palette void of virtue or compassion. Llewyn Davis isn’t Joel and Ethan Coen’s finest moment, and it really doesn’t need to be. It’s entertainment enough watching the two of them thread the needle, this time chronicling the foibles of yet another hapless cat, just trying to make his way back home.

(Inside LLewyn Davis opens in limited release today, with a national release scheduled for next Friday.) Continue reading →

“How far we all come. How far we all come away from ourselves. So far, so much between, you can never go home again. You can go home, it’s good to go home, but you never really get all the way home again in your life. And what’s it all for? All I tried to be, all I ever wanted and went away for, what’s it all for?

Just one way, you do get back home. You have a boy or a girl of your own and now and then you remember, and you know how they feel, and it’s almost the same as if you were your own self again, as young as you could remember.

And God knows he was lucky, so many ways, and God knows he was thankful. Everything was good and better than he could have hoped for, better than he ever deserved; only whatever it was and however good it was, it wasn’t what you once had been, and had lost, and could never have again, and once in a while, once in a long time, you remembered, and knew how far you were away, and it hit you hard enough, that little while it lasted, to break your heart.”

There are two primary rules when it comes to making a suspense thriller centered around a suitcase full of money: 1) include a handful of twists that the audience won’t see coming, and 2) for Christ’s sake, please maintain a certain level of awareness. Swerve manages to do both, and it allows for a good bit of fun in between. Craig Lahiff’s screenplay is taut, and tight, and it’s trying very hard to land somewhere between a Tarantino movie and something early Coen. The only problem being Swerve‘s not nearly nuanced enough to make a run at Tarantino, and it’s not nearly ambiguous enough to rival either Coen.

Despite that, Swerve‘s a worthwhile movie. It’s got sex and violence, and a ton of overt references to everything from There Will Be Blood to Jaws. But in the end it all circles back to The Treasure of The Sierra Madre, which was – of course – a morality play, one that hinged upon the notion that money is the root of all evil. To its credit, Swerve maintains the feel of something relevant, which explains why a lot of great storytellers keep tapping Traven‘s well – a tiny wrinkle here, a little plot twist there, and you’ve got yourself a marketable concept.

PS Jason Clarke is pretty fucking awesome in this movie, much like he was in Zero Dark Thirty and The Great Gatsby (Clarke’s work on Swerve was apparently completed long before the release of either). There’s something irresistible about the stunning combination of power and compassion behind those stark blue emerald eyes.

(Swerve opens in limited release this Friday, December 6th.)

Continue reading →

Meghan and I ate dinner at my apartment on that evening – bowtie pasta with Italian bread, beer and coolers on the side. I had moved back into the same one bedroom I’d been living in the previous offseason, accommodations which represented a significant step up, pre-furnished as they came with matching beds and a pull-out sofa. There was an oven in the kitchen, a brand-new shower in the bathroom. There was an entertainment center in the living room and cut-pile carpets in the bedroom. And yet, there were some downsides, to be sure – a minor gas leak, a front-door latch that never caught.

Regardless, at $240 a month, 212 East Magnolia felt like home.

My mother had given me a 4-ft plastic Christmas tree which I had assembled in the living room, twinkling chasers racing garland round the whole. My ground-floor apartment ran warm, and the atmosphere was such that weekend nights meant Meghan and I nestling close beneath a blanket, vegging out along the couch.

That evening Meghan and I were off to West Cape May, where we were scheduled to watch Meghan’s younger sister beat a drum in the holiday parade. We headed out just after dinner, Frank Sinatra crooning “The Christmas Waltz” as we zigzagged west toward the bay. At one point it occurred to me that given the occasional beach house was brightly lit up for the holidays, an aerial view of Five Mile Island might unfurl much like a mirror, collapsing inward on itself until black ocean met night sky.

“My God,” I said to Meghan, as we merged onto Park Boulevard, “it is absolutely beautiful out here tonight.”

“Mmmmmmm,” Meghan responded. She was blowing fits of smoke out through a crack in the window.

“So listen,” I said, “I’ve been giving this some thought, and I’ve decided I might like to stay here throughout the winter.”

“Throughout the … like the entire winter?” Meghan said.

“That’s right … like straight on through until next season.”

“What about school?” Meghan persisted.

“What about school?” I countered. “My grades are shit, my interest level is nil, and re-enrolling might mean me moving back into my parents’ house.”

“But that’s your …”

“Not to mention re-enrollment would necessitate me cutting off my benefits. And for what? A 2-hr commute both ways? One that begins and ends with a 1-mile walk during the dead of winter?”

“I understand there are certain sacrifices that need to be considered,” Meghan said. “But things are different now. You’ve got your license. Maybe you can get a part-time job once you get up there, put a down payment on a nice little used car or something.”

“Oh, right,” I said, shuffling right to face the window. “So now you’ve got me moving back into my parents’ house, taking on a full-time course load, working 20-25 hours a week, and giving up my unemployment. All in the hopes that at some point, somehow, I might be able to afford some kind of jalopy.”

“Jesus,” Meghan whispered. She flicked her cigarette out the window.

“Let’s not forget about the additional cost of insurance, and gas, and expenses, and wear and tear,” I continued. “And then, there’s the fact that that semester – a semester I have absolutely no interest in, mind you – lasts a little over four months. Four months! You expect me to knock all this other shit out over the course of four months?”

“Well, no, not necessarily,” Meghan said, “but…”

“And when exactly would I find the time to come down here and visit you?” I wondered. “I mean, those same four months last winter nearly killed us – three buses and two train rides every weekend, sleeping in your mother’s guest bedroom? Is it really such a sin I’d rather spend those same four months with you?”

“Of course not,” Meghan said. “But it’s also important that your rationale for doing so is wholly focused on what makes good sense for you, not me … or even us, for that matter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I glowered.

“It just means that if things between you and I are meant work out, they will,” Meghan said. “The more you try to force them by sacrificing things that are actually important, the more you risk a certain level of resentment later on.”

“Funny,” I said. “I was always taught that self-sacrifice and compromise represented the very cornerstones of any relationship.”

“Self-sacrifice and compromise represent the very cornerstones of any marriage,” Meghan said. “For now, the two of us need to focus on achieving all the little things that’ll help us get to where we might want to be someday. I mean, let’s say – just for the sake of argument – you decided that going back to school wasn’t really the ideal thing for you. What exactly do you think you might want to do with yourself instead?”

We were entering the Middle Thorofare, a bleak and barren stretch of Ocean Drive where the road began to open.

“Did you just ask me what I thought that I was doing with my life?”

“I just asked you how you plan on making a decent living,” Meghan said. “Believe it or not, Bob, certain people do tend to inquire about such things from time to time.”

“Since when do I need to convince anyone of what it is I think I’m doing with my life?” I said.

“It provides people with a sense of security,” Meghan responded. “It, like, lets people know there isn’t any risk of you falling victim to revolving debt.”

“Oh, OK,” I nodded. “I see. So now we’re working under the assumption that the best way to avoid revolving debt is by taking on several thousand dollars’ worth of student loans?”

“It’s a means to an …”

“What people?” I interjected.

“Huh?” Meghan said.

“A second ago you said it provides people with an ongoing sense of security,” I said. “Who exactly are we talking about?”

“I don’t know, Bob,” Meghan exploded. “People. Goddamn fucking peop …”

“It sounds to me like you do know.”

“Oh it does?” Meghan responded. She was smirking at the windshield, performing cartwheels with her brow.

“Yes, it does.”

“OK,” Meghan conceded. “How about my father, for starters?”

“Your father?”

“That’s right,” Meghan said. “Every now and again my father just so happens to ask.”

“This is your dad we’re talking about?” I said. “The same guy who spent his early 20s sleeping out on public benches while he hitchhiked his way across Europe?”

“My father served in a fucking war before he took his first trip to Europe,” Meghan bristled. “You don’t think he has a right to ensure his daughter avoids making a lot of the same mistakes that he made?”

“Oh, that’s rich,” I nodded. “So now I’m a mistake.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“So what exactly is it that your father needs to know?”

“I suppose he just wants to know whether you have some real sense of ambition,” Meghan said. “Y’know, that you’re not one of these guys who spends his entire life just marking time. He really likes you, Bob. He sees certain aspects of himself in you. But he also takes a vested interest in ensuring that I’m cared for.”

“Has there ever been a moment when I haven’t taken care of you?”

“There’s never been a moment when I’ve needed you to! I mean, Jesus, Bob, you’re barely in any position to take accountability for yourself. No offense, but you’re 21, you’ve got no job, no car, no health insurance, no assets, and no discernible interest in pursuing any of the above. And while that may be well and good for now, have you ever considered that I might want something more out of my life? That I might want something more than simply scraping to get by, living month-to-month inside of some ghetto apartment?”

We drove through a toll plaza. Meghan turned the radio up. I turned the radio down. We made a right onto Route 109.

“I do have some money set aside,” I said.

“Uh-huh,” Meghan responded.

“Not, like, a lot of money, but enough that I’m not really living paycheck to paycheck anymore.”

“That’s good,” Meghan said.

“I figure if I keep putting a little money away every month, then I’ll have enough saved when it comes time to take our trip.”

Silence.

“What?” I wondered.

“I didn’t say anything.”

We swung wide around a jughandle, veering left onto Old Seashore Road. We were overshooting Cape May Proper at this point, avoiding an ongoing string of traffic. But we were also missing out on Cape May’s ambiance, on farmer lots and B&Bs, on boughs of holly strung from poles, on velvet sashes and red bows, on tree-fresh pine and tiny hamlets, storefront windows damp with fog.

“Have you given any thought to how much money you might want to bring?” I asked.

“Not really, no,” Meghan said.

“I’m just trying to get a gauge, y’know … just trying to make sure the two of us are on the same page as far as that’s concerned.”

“Right,” Meghan said. Her eyes were steady-fixed upon the road.

“So how much do you think?” I said.

“How much what?” Meghan said.

“How much money do you think we’ll need?”

“I really don’t want to get into this,” Meghan pouted.

“Get into what?” I said.

“This,” Meghan said.

“I thought this trip was something the two of us were looking forward to,” I said.

“It is. It’s just …”

“It’s just what?” I said.

“I just don’t know if it’s really all that feasible,” Meghan said. “That’s all.”

“Whoa,” I said. “What it are you referring to?”

“The trip,” Meghan said. “I’ve just been talking it over with my dad the past few weeks, and he kind of thinks it might be best for you and I to put the thing on hold.”

“Put the thing on hold?” I said. “Put the thing on hold? Put the thing on hold until when?”

“I don’t know,” Meghan said. “Until a point when it actually makes good sense for us to go.”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Weren’t you the one who originally had to talk me into this? Weren’t you the one who said – and I quote – ‘Believe me when I tell you we might never have this chance again’?”

“I suppose I just got caught up in the moment,” Meghan said.

“Are you telling me this thing is officially off?”

“Well, no, not completely,” Meghan said. “I mean, we can still take a road trip down to Florida if you like.”

“Florida?” I said.

“Absolutely,” Meghan said. “You know you’re always talking about how you’ve never been to Universal.”

“I’ve never been to Okinawa. But that doesn’t mean that we should ditch our plans and set a course for South Japan.”

“This wasn’t by design,” Meghan said.

“Oh, no, of course not,” I shot back. “I mean, when it comes to me, everybody needs to know what the fuck it is I’m up to 40 goddamn years in advance. But when it comes to you, you can simply shift gears on the fly.”

“That’s not the way it happe …”

“Y’know, it must be nice,” I said, “being able to sit around the table with your father, deciding what makes good sense for you and I.”

The blocks were passing quickly now, thinning out just short of Cape May Point. Meghan found a desolate street, and eased the gearshift into park.

“Look, I just need you to understand,” Meghan explained, “things are a little intense for me right now. I think it’s finally sinking in just how expensive living on my own is going to be.”

“You’re going to college on a scholarship,” I said. An empty challenge; stillborn words.

“So what?” Meghan said. “There’s still room and board and food and books, not to mention day-to-day. I don’t mean to sound rude, I swear to god I don’t, but you live at home when you’re attending classes. For all the shit you give your parents, you’re basically bilking off of them for four months out of the year.”

“Not this year,” I assured her.

I unbuckled my seat belt. I let it slip through my fingers.

Meghan leaned forward, then settled back. She fixed her hands at 10 and 2.

“It wasn’t always gonna be this way,” she whispered. “I wasn’t always gonna be that little girl who you met while you were working on the boardwalk.”

Silence. The click and ping of cooling plugs.

“It’s not so bad,” I murmured, “the two of us maintaining some small aspect of who we were.”

Meghan emerged from the car. I followed her along East Perry Street. There were spectators eveywhere. Meghan spotted her father and one of her sisters, both of whom were waving from across the street.

“I think I’m gonna go grab a soda,” I told Meghan. “You want anything?”

“Just hurry up,” Meghan told me. “It sounds like this whole thing is about to start.”

Day 715

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB)

©Copyright Bob Hill

This is what New York City’s Penn Station looked like at 3 o’clock this morning.
Travel late, if you must travel at all.

Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna would rather not be known for many of the primary reasons we all know her. Those reasons – almost all of which have been played up, then played out, by the media – include: originally coining the phrase “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” getting punched by Courtney Love, being married to a Beastie Boy, and lending vocals (albeit briefly) to a Green Day song. Punk Singer Director Sini Anderson does a fairly decent job of skimming over a lot of those issues, opting instead to maintain a stricter focus on Hanna’s groundbreaking work as a feminist, activist, and politically-motivated provocateur. The result is an entertaining – if not entirely one-sided – portrait of Kathleen Hanna as artist. Certain claims may cause the average viewer to roll her eyes (most notably Tammy Rae Carland’s assertion that “we [all] would’ve starved, culturally” had it not been for Kathleen Hanna), but those claims are counterbalanced by a handful of much more grounded insights. Among the interviewees: (Sleater-Kinney’s) Corin Tucker/Carrie Brownstein, Allison Wolfe, Adam Horovitz, and, of course, Kathleen Hanna, herself. Is The Punk Singer low-budget? You bet your sweet ass The Punk Singer‘s low-budget. In fact, Sini Anderson’s documentary is so low-budget she actually had to initiate a Kickstarter campaign in order to see it through to post-production. Nonetheless, that’s part of The Punk Singer‘s charm, if not the very nature of punk rock itself. Bottom line: If you’re a casual fan of good music, you’ll more than likely enjoy The Punk Singer despite a general lack of revelation; if you’re a Riot Grrrl from way, way back, you’ll more than likely fall in love.

(The Punk Singer opens at New York City’s IFC Center and Brooklyn’s Nitehawk Cinema on Friday, November 29th. It will be available via Video OnDemand.)  Continue reading →

When it comes to Vietnam there are so many different angles to consider – the jungles, the tracers, the ever-present war at home, Nixon and Ellsberg, the hippies and Kent State, and on and on and on and on. Perhaps the greatest tragedy – at least in terms of retrospective – may be that Hollywood eventually got its hands on Vietnam … Hollywood and big-name publishers, that is. Mass media turned Vietnam into a cautionary tale, focusing its attention on make-believe heroes and their make-believe ethics, wide panoramics fueled by napalm.

That’s where the Associated Press’s Vietnam: The Real War makes a very bold departure. The majority of photos in this exhibit do nothing to glorify what was – by all accounts – one of the most polarizing periods in modern American history. There’s death and dismemberment and enough killing-field carnage that you can actually feel your heart going numb. These are the same historic photos that originally brought the war back home – the public execution of a civilian, naked children in the street, a Vietnamese father begging his own military for first-aid. The Real War presents it all without apology, and more than anything else, it drives home the ongoing tragedy of man’s inhumanity toward fellow man. Well, that and the ugly, crimson travesty of war … a thrust that never seems to end.

(Vietnam: The Real War runs through November 30th @ Steven Kasher Gallery, Free, 521 West 23rd Street.)

Five More For The Offing: 

• Cats & Girls – Paintings & Provocations by Balthus @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art (Free with suggested donation, through 1/12, 5th Avenue @ 82nd Street)
• American Modern featuring various artists @ The Museum of Modern Art ($25, through 1/26, 11 West 53rd Street)
• Beyond Love by Robert Indiana @ The Whitney Museum ($20 general admission, through 1/5, 945 Madison Ave @ 75th Street)
• Self-Portrait by Vivian Maier @ Howard Greenberg Gallery (Free, through 12/14, 41 East 57th Street, Suite 1406)
• Ten Years by Zoe Strauss @ The International Center of Photography ($14 general admission, through 1/19, 1133 Avenue of the Americas @ 43rd Street)
  

“It’s full of cliches, really. First of all, you have to do it. You can’t talk about it, you actually have to just sit down and do it. And that’s very, very difficult. You have to do it, and you have to do it again, you have to do it again, you have to do it again, and then rewrite it again. That’s tough. Even people who go to Ivy League colleges – I didn’t go to an Ivy League college – but we’re all used to cramming and getting that paper done the night before. And it doesn’t work that way. It can, but not really. Either you have a voice or you don’t. And I think there are a lot of people around who don’t have a particular voice, so it’s very generic what they write. I don’t know how you develop a voice, or maintain a voice. And, y’know, you could say, ‘Well, just believe in what you’re doing. It comes from your heart.’ OK. But what if you’re not talented? That’s not gonna work out that well. So that’s just kind of an empty cliche. I mean, yeah, you definitely have to believe in what you’re doing in your heart, but that’s not gonna make it happen. So much of it is luck. I am really lucky. I don’t know why it happened. I don’t know why The Sopranos was a big deal. I got lucky. Although maybe actually acknowledging that is a help – that a lot of it is luck, and it’s not you, that maybe you’re not even responsible for all this, what you did, all your great stuff, or all your bad stuff. I don’t want to be too philosophical about it, but, y’know, sometimes as a writer you really do feel once in a while like, ‘Something’s coming through me onto this page. I don’t know where or from whom, but I don’t think I’m in control of it.’ That happens once in a while. That’s when it really feels good. Also, you can’t let people talk you out of stuff. You just can’t listen to them. They don’t know what they’re talking about, and even if they do, so do you, and you just can’t listen to them. That’s for sure. You have to be prepared to get fired. You have to be prepared to say, ‘Y’know what? If you kick me off this show I don’t give a flying fuck. I’m God. In fact, maybe I’ll leave tomorrow.’ You have to be thinking that way all the time. Otherwise, as Catherine O’Hara’s character said in Beetlejuice, ‘People, whether they’re living or dead, will walk all over you.’ And that’s true.”