The Fly Audio Commentary

debate and bait

Most often we don't have to choose a side because we are one, determined by our own immediate self interest and that of our family, friends, peers and alies. But when it comes to abstraction or objectivity or discussion of larger topics in our attempt to think outside the box of our own bias, there may seem to be no escaping this idea of the team and competition. Debate as a sport in school for example imposes the somewhat artificial choices in a debate match and participants who may praise the process as developming and refining their thought process are perhaps over-organizing. It is actually human organic approximation of mechanican thinking. Ones and zeros. On or off. As entertaining as it may be and as useful as it may be as an exercise it is dangerous and most issues debated this way are ill served. Certainly truth and the process of maintaining its complexity are compromised.

We understand that a crime of passion is something to be less damnable than a premeditated one. We know that someone with a great record keeping mindset and the earliest IBM punch card technology contributed to the Shoah or Holocaust and that if the worst choices are made at the top then those below in the chain of command can become little more than switches "only following orders" and united by fear of stepping out of lock-step or goose-step formation. We know that when people commit suicide they are rarely raving in overtly noticable depression and that they have settled into a calm or even a comfort zone because logic has given them a choice to aim for and a plan, a rational and simple end. Perhaps the repercussions toward others haven't been factored in, unless they have read Final Exit and accounted for who is most likely to find the body and so on. When terrorists are brainwashed it is not because of pixie dust from religious meditation but because of a targeted and logical programming of arguments that strip away the complexity of the individual and leave only what seems like a plan and a path to a closure that feels like the end of an equation.

The trouble is that it is an end-defined choice or a goal-defined method of thinking and it contaminates or aborts the search for truth. It speeds forward instead of letting tendrals of new information and forgotten information slow down progress of the team or the objective or the act. The part of the rapist's mind that allows him to steal or procure a drug like roofies and then place it into a woman's drink and then transport her patiently to a private place perhaps careful that others don't say goodnight to them or get a good look at her behaviour -- this is not a person so full of passion he is out of control. This is the mechanical mind kicking in and running the show, for all the joy the presumed act(s) of consumation will give him which have more to do with access, knowledge and access or power over someone. All consistent with the gamesmanship of logic or debate. In this case debate against the conscience or natural social instinct of trust or intimacy. When Prime Minister Stephen Harper allocated funding for G-8 and G-20 in excess of a billion dollars, and much of it for security, it was with reasonable and logical expectation of the results. Vandalism was anticipated, as was disrption or blocking of resources such as a Soup Kitchen for the homeless and economic hardship to small businesses in Toronto. When Police Chief Bill Blair failed to issue a mandate of putting citizens first and simply letting the fences for example keep the people clear of the visiting dignitaries, logic was available to him and he used it. He allowed chaos to rule and he let rule inspire chaos. A pay duty police constable or a security guard has to go out of his or her way to stop and interrogate people about why they are walking in the city core. The prospect of terrorists striking from the ground and amid a crowd was unlikely. Infiltration of the demonstrators by plain clothes police was logical, and yet the Black Bloc still did their thing. Documentary footage of interrogations and personal confrontation with citizens are especially damning because a gathering that was organic and human was contaminated by the formality of robotic, logical and goal-oriented personnelle. The psyche of the G-20 pressence was pushed and over-managed by the super-ego.

All of which are basic principles most people imagined when they saw the money being lavished on G-20. This was not so that the heads of state could see what Toronto is like. What they could see of it under G-20 wasn't an image the city wants to sell anyway, even if they could get close to it. Harper must have wanted to reinforce his message of "I can do whatever I like and prioritize however I want, and no matter what you know about me and my policies my machine will continue to run." The smooth running of the machine continues. Just as it did back when there was a glimmer of hope and talk of a Coalition between Liberals and NDP with the blessing of the Bloc finally ousting the Harper Conservatives. His neck was exposed and our dear Michelle Jean whose job was mostly window dressing through 99 percent of Canada's history has a chance to give Canada back to Canadians and circumvent the catch we are now in and she blew it. Now we still stand with a Conservative encumbant and a split of any votes against him and his party. With his detractors devided, logic lets him sail through without doing anything extrordinary. Suppose Canada had been labeled as "cheap" for not showing off any fake lake or over-the-top security bills and they had merely rented a boat and held the G-20 in Toronto Harbour and a few decoys where there was no reliable shot vantage point for an assasin, as opposed to the convention center which had several viable options. The enforcement of G-20 last minute legislation was more about putting on a show of force and putting people down. Investigating people at the top and holding them accountable in a concrete way would help undo some of that. But the machines are in charge.

We can vent on Twitter and Facebook and feel as if we are in control. And maybe that will make some small dent. People want to throw mythology and the Bible out the window these days because they are not logical. But some of that non-logic is helpful in abstracting what we can't quite articulate with what is at hand in reality. The Tower of Babel is still something that we try to make. We try to make it with logic and Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins and the Atheist Bus but it's just a mechanical argument. It isn't liberating to me personally to believe there is no God; I'm not going to age any slower or have better luck dating. Nobody cares if the fat guy at the party declairs himself a hedonist; it would only scare the girls off more. We have failed to contact God or reach him with our flimsy tower of technology or logic and have only found ourselves cursed. Our voices are now speaking many different languages and putting up an obstacle to our ability to built another tower. Even an earnest attempt at this goal, for altruistic reasons, will be seen as arrogance. I don't remember how many people died falling from the Tower of Babel or whether its builders gave up simply because they couldn't understand each other.

I don't understand the idea that it is immature to imagine the world other than the way it is. But I'm told that is the judgement. I don't know that God should he forced to show his face or even that such a Supreme Being would require acknowledgement in order to exist. I exist without much acknowledgement at work, for example. The Tower of Babel is also the steeple on many churches, many of which are being sold off and "de-sanctified" including one I went to as a child and a teen. Whichever church has the bigger ding-dong ringing from its clock, I suppose wins the debate about which hairstyle will doom you to Hell. Many times in my life as a Roman Catholic I have said "Amen" as a Minister of the Eucharist has offered "The Body of Christ." I was in my twenties, long after being Confirmed Catholic at 13, before being corrected that what we believe is that the wafer does transform into the body of Jesus and the wine transforms into the blood. While it's interesting to have someone tell me with authority what I believe, having worked in that Parish as a Sacristan and having drank unblessed wine stock with my friends and eaten unblessed wafers like chips (until tiring of their blandness) I find they taste the same before and after the blessing. And I wondered why for a while we were getting whole wheet brown wafers when after the blessing they were going to be Jesus anyway. To be a strict Catholic, and to say I won't eat the body of Christ as long as he manifests and tells me I am not worthy. . .is to use the same logic as the atheist in demanding he show his face. Then our own logic says that since he hasn't spoken up I must be worthy to consume the body of my God. And then we eat Him. We are Diavores. No just Omnivores, but Diavores. And how can you argue with us? We eat the Supreme Being sometimes twice on Sundays. We haven't figured out why a Priest can bless holy water and sprinkle it onto a posessed person to get a reaction but not simply bless the water that makes up a high percentage of the posessed person's body. Wouldn't blessed blood already kick the shit out of a demon? But that's being too logical. Or if a person - maybe a priest (one who hasn't renedered his blessings worthless by doing something evil) - says grace before every meal and that blessed food and drink is generating all the cells of his body, how can a vampire bite him? That logic may be too ambitious and arrogant for me. Because who am I to argue with vampires? Maybe they know something I don't.

Most of the things we debate about are bullshit or become bullshit on either side eventually when stretched to apply too globally. A person might be pro-choice because they don't believe the law should bother focusing on arresting both the doctor performing the abortion and the pregnant woman paying him to do it. Far too may of us know people we don't want to see arrested, whether we wish they had gone full term or not. But how can a person say pro-choice and freedom are their guides when it comes to insisting a doctor in a remote or underserved area must make time to perform abortions against his or her will? At what point can a person say "Keep that mission statement for your free Toronto tabloid with hooker ads at the back" ? Maybe it's not such a big deal to say that in a town where there is no huge demand for abortion maybe somebody's got to take that long bus ride or go full term. For an urban person, that attitude sounds cold and humorless and outragously conservative. But that is also an over simplification and a compartmentalization and a branding of teams and logos and objectives. You can dislike that comment or argument and then get up in arms and blast the writer with something snarky. But it's a feeling, about as solid as a logo for a sports team or a beer you feel loyalty to. It is not loyalty to a town or a group of free-agents who may or may not play a full season wearing those colors. It is like Mel Brooks said as the 2000 Year Old Man, (singing a fight song) "Let them all go to hell, except cave 76!" Your empathy is with yourself, and anything that isn't celebrating you and your like is the other. Mel also said, "Tragedy is I cut my finger; Comedy is that YOU fall into an open sewer and die."

That's the best example of tribalism and debate in general that I can recall.
And I had to write this long mess.

Random 15 flicks that stick (to me) I suppose

Thanks to Derek and Adam for suggesting people try to come up with lists of 15 films that stick to us. Here’s the list I came up with off the top of my head, at first from glancing at my DVD shelf and a few pictures on my wall. No particular order.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – saw it with my Mom a week before it opened at the Capitol in North Bay as a double bill with the Ringo Starr / Shelly Long opus “Caveman.” I must have been 13 so I should have known the plot would not take Harrison Ford into space but it did not. I remember reacting to a rope in the background as if it was another snake behind Indy. I remember some talking scenes that bored me, and yet I now can recite them word for word.

The Empire Strikes Back – saw this with my Dad while visiting Windsor. Whatever the plan was we had to get to a theater. I remember the first time noticing (I think the place was called the Center Theater) a sound system that made it seem like a TIE fighter was flying from behind us and past us, and I remember remarking that Yoda sounded like Grover from Sesame Street. Back home in North Bay I ended up seeing this movie in a theater more than any other. The sounds and music are part of the score of those formative years, and so I have no objectivity about it. I varied my experience by deliberately choosing different seats each time.

Back to the Future – I saw this at age 17, the age Marty McFly was supposed to be. I hadn’t read anything about screenplays yet but I knew this one had an apparent script that was as perfect as they get. The set-ups and pay-offs were fun even if you could see something coming up seventh avenue. And the movie overall is something I can watch the way that a native supposedly might have climbed to the top of a mountain to look at the horizon and get “focused” that way to clear his vision. But because it is entertaining it is taken for granted. The next year I completed my first 100-page-plus screenplay and have written at least once since each year. So I’m not sure if I should be thankful or hateful of this movie.

American Graffiti – There was a time I watched this at the end of every summer and saw different things in it each time. And unlike Star Wars it isn’t as much a dance of cuts and images that we can watch over and over, but what there is of that aspect is mixed with subject matter sure to trip a person up on the way to school. It is now sold with More American Graffiti which shouldn’t be watched immediately after the first film but it is worth watching in its own right. This is the template teen movie, not Animal House, though I’m not sure kids who have seen American Pie will respond to Graffiti. Maybe.
I’ve been told they will find it too slow, but I think it would play. I think kids today are aware JFK was assassinated and that the Vietnam War happened in the 1960’s.

History of the World Part I – I was chastised recently by one of my sisters for letting her sons watch this, even though they put it on themselves and I think it was her copy. The dialog from this film has peppered dinner table conversation in my family for years, and now generations. If my nephew says, “Move that miserable piece of shit” he’s not being rude. And I credit this film for all of my education about the Spanish Inquisition.

The Passion of the Christ – I expected this to be about as involving as being dragged to mass. But a story that was like going through the motions all these years came to life and was chilling. Zealots really should have been forbidden to bring small kids to this. It’s not a prayer meeting. But I was most struck by the fact that subtitles were not really necessary. The performances convey everything they have to and the specific words are a bonus. It is not a movie to see over and over, but it sticks. It didn’t fill me with hate either. A thief says something hateful and gets his eyes plucked by a crow and you feel kind of bad for the guy. I did feel some hate engaging the detractors and combating a lot of disinformation. But I got over it.

Schindler’s List – Ten years passed between the first and second time I saw this movie, mainly because it was another “experience” and because I remembered it as being more traumatic than it was. The film has a lot of balance and is often misrepresented. Spielberg knows he doesn’t have to focus on every death or bog down in a recitation of statistics. He could have made Night and Fog with his eyes closed, but the director of that film could not have made this.

Copland - Once of those times it was nice to see Stallone get his voice back again. But I mostly remember DeNiro as an internal affairs cop being told don’t shit where you eat and replying, “I do. I live in a house. I eat there and I shit there.”

Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic – This was done before her TV show and it bombed but I looked for it after seeing a clip on youtube. I watched this over and over, just let it play because it was like the first time I heard Steve Martin’s tape or Eddie Murphy Delirious. The idea that someone can say outlandish things in just the right way that it re-frames reality, tragedy and stupidity while seeming effortless and cheeky.

Innerspace – What sticks with me is this one very visual “reveal” shot that introduces a new element to the story and characters. I won’t say what it is and it may even have fallen out of favor with today’s audiences. But this movie also has a great energy and zaniness I can’t explain though I often think about it. Weak title but a great flick. If gleefully includes the trappings of a bad b-movie and yet it’s quite good.

The Green Mile – the supernatural sibling of Shawshank, I think people may fuse the two but I think most often this movie is dismissed even though its dark aspects are uncompromised. I remember reading the serial novel while I lived in a crappy apartment and I was very concerned about the fate of Mr. Jingles while at the same time celebrating the death of a real mouse that had eaten some poison I had put out. Ultimately though this film and Dancer in the Dark should be compulsory viewing before any discussion of capital punishment.

The Phantom Menace – Notice that I don’t use the full title. I could call it the Phantom Premise. I remember the high point of wandering past The Paramount on what was opening night for that theater (later Scotia Bank Theater) and the film itself, and the latest leap in ticket prices. I went just to look at the lines. I was going to wait for my birthday to see the film. I remarked to one of the nerds in line, “They should have a way of scanning each of us to see who is the bigger Star Wars fan and just give that person a free ticket.” At that moment – I shit you not – an usher came out and asked who was here alone. I put up my hand, I was given a free ticket, and I was directed inside. I got an aisle seat and felt like God was looking out for me and everyone felt euphoria when “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. . .” hit the screen. Then something seemed a bit off part of the way in and when Jar Jar dove into the water and we follow him to the Gungan City all I could think of was George Lucas’ old quote before he turned to the dark side, “The fatal mistake that some science fiction or fantasy filmmakers make is that they want to show off the work that they’ve generated on sets and they spend film time on it.” That and a more recent quote that Jar Jar was supposed to be like Steppin Fetchit and it was now glaringly clear why that actor is not remembered like Charlie Chaplin.
I spent a few years in geek hell compulsively re-writing this movie, literally, and no good came of it. But it stuck with me, like a flashback of suffering molestation.

John Carpenter’s The Thing – This I saw on VHS in the dawn of home video at a time where 13 and 14 year olds and younger habitually rented almost exclusively R-rated movies at the local convenience store. As painful as it was to watch people cut their fingers so their blood could be tested the most traumatic stuff involves seeing dogs rip apart. When this happened it signaled to me my friend Claude that this filmmaker Carpenter “doesn’t give a shit” which is not to mean that he is indifferent about his craft but that the usual boundaries of good taste will not apply and there is no telling how disturbing the movie will get.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind – My mom took me to see this before I had heard of it, maybe to make up for the fact that I wasn’t allowed to see Star Wars for the first year of its release because the Canadian term for PG was “Adult Entertainment” or something back then. Not even Adult Accompaniment either, which would be our PG-13. So instead of being exposed to R2-D2 I got to see the floor grating unscrew and stove burners glow on their own and the little kid pulled by unseen aliens out the doggie door and ripped from his mother’s hands. Luckily my attention span was (and is) bad enough that by the end of the movie when we all love the nice hand-signals of the big fetus-looking aliens I had forgotten about all the trauma they put people through conducting their abductions.

Night Shift – One of my favourite movies. An unknown (to me) Michael Keaton instantly being a star that I looked forward to seeing in other movies. Even the name star Henry Winkler is cast against type and nothing at all like Fonzie. I eventually saw Risky Business which has a similar normal-guy-becomes-pimp storyline, but I saw that once on video and had no interest in seeing it again though I didn’t dislike it. Night Shift though had something strange going on. Despite its raunchy premise it was very clearly about values and respect.