The Epicenter

• America needs you, Mark Twain by WALLACE BAINE If Mark Twain were around today, and if he had e-mail, I’d be cc-ing the poor man constantly. Back in his day, Twain was convinced that fools and gluttons were  among America’s most abundant domestic resources. And, nearly a century after his death, he’d probably be ruefully satisfied to learn that there remains a healthy population of Americans still giving pigs a bad name. For instance, I would certainly send Mr. Twain the clipping from a recent issue of Time magazine that claimed there is a growing market for high-end food products that includes a $145 bottle of balsamic vinegar, a $182 bottle of olive oil and a frosted glass bottle of drinking water encrusted with “Swarovski crystals” – whatever that is – that retails for $40. It’s called – and how I wish I were kidding – “Bling H2O.” I’d also have to forward another little head-shaker about the coming demolition of Yankee Stadium in New York. An auctioneer apparently familiar with the bottomless decadence of Homo Americanus is quoted as speculating that the old stadium’s fixtures are going to sell for kingly sums. A clubhouse urinal could go for $2,000, a bucket of outfield sod for $500 and a brick – a brick! – “would fetch at least $100.” It is tempting to take a swing at the greedheads on the other end of these absurd transactions, but who among us has the moral fiber, if given the opportunity, not to sell a brick and a bottle of water for $140 to some buffoon with more dollars than sense? And yet, the papers tell us, we’re heading into a recession, or already deep into it. Economic anxiety is as high as it’s been in the lifetime of most of us. The numbers, if you have the stomach to look at them, are shocking in terms of commodity prices, national debt, personal debt, stability of the dollar, workforce preparedness and other hell-in-a-handbasket indicators. So, what is ailing us here in the Land of Milk and Honey Butter Baked Snack Stix (from Pringles)? I’m no economist, but I’m not alone in thinking that American wealth is increasingly being propped up by a casino mentality, that the gold-rush fever that has characterized this economy since Twain’s day is fast becoming the rule instead of the exception. Am I imagining things, or are Americans plagued by the habits of trying to get something for nothing while at the same time paying extravagant prices for silly junk? Those two impulses may seem paradoxical, but they’re related. The economy is increasingly dependent on those who are only trying to get there ahead of the next fool down the line. If you pay $500 for a comic book or a baseball card, you look like an idiot to the seller, but a genius to the guy behind you willing to pay $2,000 for it a year later. Such is the mentality that reigned during the so-called subprime boom that has brought so many to ruin in the last two years. In the buy-low-sell-high game, someone’s always going to be at the end of the line, and everyone believes that someone will always be the other guy. Economics remains a cryptic science for most of us busy living our lives. But we all know generally how the goods-and-services economy works: we produce something of marketable value, get paid for it and in turn buy things of value at a fair price from others. It’s a nice little web of interdependency that provides a nice life for most of us, it works relatively well in the small town and on a global scale, and it’s increasingly becoming a game for suckers, at least from the point of view of Wall Street. In the unregulated wild-west environment of Wall Street, we are conducting an experiment to see if economics can work when you disregard the rules, when you separate risk from reward, when you create “financial instruments,” as the suits call them, that produce wealth not by building a better mouse trap, but by rolling craps in a casino where the fortunes are mind-blowing and where  the losses can be fobbed off on the inattentive, dimly aware American taxpayer. Unless you’re one of those high rollers, getting comped by the house, it represents a marriage between the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism. None of this would shock Mark Twain who witnessed the “Gilded Age” following the Civil War – and who in fact coined the term. But he would probably be puzzled about this new model of wealth, not industrialists exploiting workers and cornering commodity markets, but hedge fund managers moving around money with clicks on their computers, often sitting at their kitchen tables in their pajamas. Still, if old Samuel Langhorne Clemens of Hannibal, Mo. were around today, I might be able to convince him to go in half with me on one of those $40 bottles of drinking water. Sure, he’d look at me as if I’d gotten into the Fool Juice again. But, I’d said, let’s buy one to put into a time capsule that we can bequeath to a museum 100 years from now for future generations to gawk at with – we hope anyway – a what-were-they-thinking? sense of wonder. Can you, Mr. Twain, think of a better monument to this age of wretched excess than a crystal-encrusted bottle of Bling H2O? Yeah, me neither. Read more

• Talking about feminine beauty is dangerous business by WALLACE BAINE There are now so many subjects that are taboo at dinner parties and family reunions, someone needs to come up with a kind of running tally – maybe something like www.dontgothere.com. We have the Big Three, of course – sex, politics, religion – augmented by a whole raft of secondary no-no subjects – money, death, immigration, evolution,  illness, race, terrorism, Britney Spears. In some progressively minded households in places like Santa Cruz, however, those taboos are often fearlessly violated in the name of “dialogue.” But, even in these settings, there are always other landmines to avoid. To take one example, beauty. Not the beauty of a Keats poem, or an engagement ring, or a Beethoven sonata, or the drive to Big Sur. The taboo is feminine beauty. I only bring this up because starring in separate films currently in theaters are two young actresses of such beauty that they’ll give you new understanding of how Helen of Troy could have started a 10-year war. They are French, doe-eyed Audrey Tautou of “Amelie” fame, currently starring in the romantic comedy “Priceless,” and British-born Thandie Newton, the female lead in the comedy “Run Fatboy Run.” Rank them? No, that would be tacky. But, from my own idiosyncratic, blinkered straight-male perspective, Tautou and Newton belong in the same room as the regal Gwyneth Paltrow, the sparkling Amy Adams and the arresting Rashida Jones (watch season three of “The Office” on DVD) as Hollywood’s most bewitching faces. I admit to being hesitant to reveal such a thing in polite company, not only to women I know, but to other men as well. That’s because the subject of feminine beauty is fraught with a lot of painful stuff that those of us born with testes can barely understand. Most women these days have to deal with the tyranny of beauty, no matter where they might fall on the good-looks continuum. Beauty has morphed into a multi-billion-dollar industry that preys on the insecurities of women for the sake of obscene profits, recklessly poking around in arenas of deep emotional significance for women, like body image, weight, age, race and general sexual attractiveness. And millions of women rightfully resent those kind of manipulations. Also, let’s be honest, beauty is the coin of the realm in America. Maybe one day we’ll wake up in a culture where women are judged more by smarts, ambition, boldness and decency than by a pretty face. But that day is still far down the line. What does it say about this culture that some of its wealthiest women are supermodels? To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr., women are still waiting to be judged by the content of their character, not by the color (and softness, tone and general fabulousness) of their skin. Yeah, the same dynamic applies to men, but much less dramatically. Fellas, it just ain’t a level playing field in the good-looks game. Don’t believe it? Go ahead and name a male counterpart to Gisele Bundchen. We’ll wait. So, that’s the cultural baggage attached to blatantly announcing at a dinner party that you think Audrey Tautou is spell-binding. And I’m just talking about pure aesthetic beauty as distinct from general sexual allure, which adds vast new complications to the conversation. But there’s more to it than that. Men are judged – mostly by women, but by other men too – on their tastes in women. I’ve done it myself. Several years ago, a good friend and a man I respect a great deal admitted to a magnetic attraction to tabloid cover girl Anna Nicole Smith. I didn’t show it then, but I was deeply appalled. It was akin to admitting an obsession with marshmallows or professional wrestling. I changed the subject before he brought up Pamela Anderson or Mariah Carey, which would have led me to reassess my friendship with this guy. It’s been a game among men for a long time. In my father’s generation, the question was Sophia Loren or Ann-Margaret? Growing up, baby boomers played the Ginger-or-Mary-Ann game. At one time, I imagine the Greeks knocked around the conversation starter, “Yo, dudes, so who’s hotter, Demeter or Aphrodite?” That’s still a compelling question because there remains a mystery at the center of every beauty debate. Sure, I can recognize that Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman are beautiful, but only in a clinical, mathematical way, the same way I can recognize beauty in Brad Pitt or George Clooney. None of those gorgeous people carry the voodoo to quicken my pulse. Which is why it’s easier for men these days to say who does not float their boat rather than who does. Women, it seems to me, are much more free to talk about their idle celebrity crushes than men are (and, for gay men and lesbians, the taboo is stronger still). Straight women can chat in mixed company all day long about Dr. McDreamy on “Grey’s Anatomy” with only the minimum of eye-rolling. But a guy who brings up Heidi Klum in that same conversation? He’d do better bringing up the details of his gall-bladder surgery. So here we are, boys. Bring up the fact that you find Audrey Tautou beautiful and someone (could be another man as much as a woman) is going to think, “Hmm. Well, she looks like a puppy, so he must be into dominating weak, submissive women” or “OK, she’s 20 years younger than he is, so he must be some sicko who follows cheerleaders home from school.” And that’s the contradiction in being a guy today. Yes, I find Audrey Tautou absolutely ravishing, yet I’m aghast when I find my 13-year-old daughter watching “America’s Top Model,” a show I find repulsive. See what I mean? Next time I’m at that dinner party, I’d rather bring up politics. It’s just easier that way. Read more

• Does eloquence really matter? Today marks the 40th anniversary of an American tragedy, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But it’s also the anniversary of a transcendent moment in American political history, probably the closest a political speech has ever come to honest, raw and pure human-to-human communication. The moment is etched even deeper in the American soul because the speaker  himself was murdered just two months later in much the same manner as Dr. King. It was Robert F. Kennedy, who was running for president at the time. On a chilly night in Indianapolis, Kennedy was scheduled to deliver an ordinary stump speech at a rally of supporters. But he learned of King’s death shortly before he was to speak and, in an era when news didn’t travel nearly as fast as it does today, he decided to break the news himself to his mostly black audience, though his aides and the police urged him to cancel. Kennedy threw out the script that night and, in a voice of anguish, delivered a few remarks that are chilling even today in their simple, hushed eloquence. He quoted the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus from the play “Agamemnon.” He evoked the pain of his own family loss in an effort to empathize with his black audience, saying of his slain brother JFK, “he was killed by a white man.” And he said this, “What we need in the United States is not division, … but love and wisdom and compassion toward one another.” Love. The L Word. Followed by the words “toward one another.” In a political speech. If it weren’t on YouTube, I’m not sure I’d believe it myself. The emergence of Barack Obama, particularly in regards to his much-praised address on race last month, has brought on comparisons to RFK. But it also should raise a fundamental question about this dodgy business of democracy, and Americans’ tendency to fall in love with a candidate every four years: Is a talent at speechmaking really that important when it comes to choosing a leader? Does eloquence matter? Here’s where I might take a shot at the incumbent and his famously slippery relationship with the English language, but at this point, those jokes have already been made, haven’t they? Still, supporters of the Decider might argue that eloquence is overrated, maybe even irrelevant in choosing a president. They might say you’re hiring a person to do a specific job, and that job doesn’t require a working knowledge of a thesaurus. They might say voting for a president because he or she gives a good speech is like hiring a plumber because he can do a hand stand, or choosing an accountant on the basis of her fabulous choice of lipstick. Besides, they might add, pretty talk is the domain of the con man and the salesman, and we can do without the snake oil, thanks all the same. Yet, electing a president isn’t that simple because in a country founded on the high-minded ideals of the Enlightenment, the essence of the national spirit is written in both prose and poetry. It’s an impossible job, really, because we demand one individual who can be both steel and velvet, warrior and wise man, CEO and seer. I suppose we have Abraham Lincoln to thank for creating the Superpresident ideal. Lincoln – who, like King, was slain in April – was our greatest president because he followed a string of dithering mediocrities in the job, was handed a king-hell mess – the Civil War essentially began the day Lincoln was inaugurated – faced a broken nation which generally saw him as a backwoods doofus, and somehow delivered exactly what he said he was going to deliver: unity out of division, while ending slavery along the way. And on top of all that – on top of saving a country that was determined to destroy itself – Lincoln gave us some of the most stirring words ever written about our identity as a people – “the better angels of our nature,” “with malice toward none,” “a new birth of freedom,” “government of the people, for the people, by the people shall not perish from the earth.” Would Lincoln have still been our greatest president if he possessed the poetic imagination of, say, Gerald Ford? Maybe. But the point is that Lincoln pulled off the impossible because he was sustained by the faith of the ideals he expressed so memorably. Those weren’t just pretty words to Lincoln; they were what kept him upright when everything was falling around him. Today, no politician would dare to speak in such lofty language. No one could, as Bobby Kennedy did, extemporaneously quote a poet of ancient Greece. Anyone who tried would be sneered at as a snob. Even Obama’s rhetorical gifts aren’t of that nature. Today, politicians talk in hot-button slogans, not only written by others, but focus-grouped and market-tested for maximum effectiveness. We are cattle and our leaders are the ones holding the pokers. Obama has even been publicly mocked by Hillary Clinton for his elevated language. No one really knows whether Obama is the next Lincoln, or the next Jimmy Carter. But he seems to recognize what so many other politicians forget – that there is poetry in politics and music in leadership, and that greatness is a realm open only to those able to resonate with both. Read more

• I am Boring Guy, hear me roar “Why aren’t you writing your column anymore?” In the past three months or so, it’s a question I’ve heard once or twice – or 4,607 times . I’m both delighted and dismayed by the question – delighted because it means someone is paying attention to what I have to say, which at least puts me one up on Ralph Nader, but dismayed because I never have a ready answer. I only address the question here and now, because I’m regularly faced with an assumption that the Sentinel has somehow silenced me, or taken away my columnist license, or sent me away to some Maoist-style re-education camp to turn me into a servile drone eager to carry water for the big bad corporate media. None of that is even metaphorically true. I still have my columnist license and no one at the Sentinel has done or said anything to me that would suggest that they’re not completely comfortable with my column – though they did balk when I asked if our new building in Scotts Valley could be named after me. The disruptions that have taken place at the Sentinel over the last several months form only a part of the reason I stopped writing a regular column in this paper. The other part – the larger part – was a growing sense of confusion about what it means to be a newspaper columnist these days, a desire to find new ground to plow in a landscape that has been picked clean by bloggers, YouTube pundits and other bloviators of the realm. It used to be that writing a column was a position of privilege. But now the columnist has to find some useful role in a world where it’s all too easy to get your commentary needs over at IHateHillary.com. The marketplace of ideas is suddenly very crowded, and we columnists can’t serve the same old soup while those around us are handing out free samples of fresh meat. This kind of navel gazing goes against every impulse I have as a writer. I’d rather be called dumb, funny-smelling and a dead ringer for James Carville than be called self-absorbed. But sometimes, a little self-assessment is called for in this life. So, it’s behold the bizarre belly button. Another reason to consult the old career road map? The next column I write in these pages will be my 500th, and if you find it depressing that I’m actually counting, I’m way ahead of you down that road. To this point, my strategy as a columnist has been to treat arts and entertainment as a beat, not unlike sports. So I’ve spent years deconstructing music, movies and television, and enjoying the hell out of all of it. But something happens when you drift into middle age. Pop culture gradually morphs into a language you can’t speak anymore. I started noticing my own slide into alienation when reality TV became the reigning programming ethic of the day and self-aggrandizing lowlifes like Donald Trump and P.P. Diddley – or whatever he calls himself now – became lifestyle brand names. When I began to sense that the dominant tone of American culture was being set by professional wrestling, gossip magazines and porn, I suddenly felt there was no room left for me on the bus. It’s a painful thing for someone in my position to admit that he’s getting too old and square for pop culture. I love Stephen Colbert, Green Day and Harold & Kumar, but those icons represent the borderlands of my hipness, the lands beyond of which I am a stranger. But here’s the funny thing. Of all those 500 columns, I almost always got the biggest response from readers from those columns I wrote about my own life, taking my 13-year-old daughter to her first rock show, or my other daughter’s abiding love of pet rats. Those columns have been the rarity in my body of work, because I’ve convinced myself that I’m a pretty boring guy. In fact, I regularly enter boring-guy competitions; placed fourth at the state finals last year. And yet, even if I were the hippest guy in the room – and, unless I find myself stuck in an elevator with Larry King and John McCain, that won’t be happening much anymore – there’s still this: here in 2008, pop culture is increasingly irrelevant to how we live our lives. Today, we live in an apocalyptic culture where we at least have the freedom to choose what we believe will spell our doom, Al  Gore on one side, “Left Behind” on the other. The economy is a soap bubble floating ever closer to the ground. You can make a compelling case that both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are hurtling toward their extinction. And Americans are getting fatter and sicker, moving deeper into denial about their fate. So, as a writer, it’s clear to me that the world needs less pop-culture analysis and more perspective on how to stay sane in a freaked-out world, to help us keep our heads when everyone around seems to be losing theirs. That’s my mission from now on, to meet panic and paranoia with humor and wisdom, though in truth, I possess much more of the former than I do of the latter. Let’s try that approach, you and I, dear reader, for the next 500 columns. Then, heck, we can always try something different.   Read more

• The hole in the landscape How weird is it to drive Highway 1, southbound and not seeing that great old edifice, the screen at the Skyview Drive-In? Sadder than the abandoned Sentinel building downtown? I think so … The Santa Cruz Blues Festival is set to announce its line-up and the names are big we here. Not Elvis. Not Chuck Berry. Not B.B. King, but impressive nonetheless. We’ll break the news the minute it’s released … Eddie Vedder, sold out. Jackson Browne, very close. Lewis Black, going fast. Don’t dawdle … Guitarist and long-time local music-store clerk Rick Williams has passed away. Rick was most recently a manager at More Music in Santa Cruz. Dale Ockerman, ex of the Doobies and the impressario of the Musicscool, said that Rick was one of the good ones. He’ll be missed … Seen Oprah magazine this month? Those earrings Oprah is wearing are the work of Santa Cruz artist Vanessa Montie. Tres cool, no? Read more

• ‘Planet Cruz’ takes a break If you can get out to see the popular variety/comedy show ‘Planet Cruz’ on April 4 at Kuumbwa, do it, because host Richard Stockton says the show will take a few months off to come back bigger and stronger in September … Saw the great Rick Walker, certainly one of the greatest creative minds in this county, on Pacific Avenue recently. Rick’s preparing for a tour of Europe as one of the world’s leading players in the looping community. If you’re a creative person and any time feel burnt out, call Rick. He’ll get your batteries charged again just by chatting … Lovely event last Thursday honoring the publication of the memoir of Morton Marcus, titled “Striking Through the Masks.” Full house, even the state’s poet laureate (and good friend of Marcus) Al Young got lost … Christa Martin, the arts writer at Good Times, will be the star of a new indie film that will be part of this year’s Santa Cruz Film Festival … Moment of silence for Rick Williams, long-time guitar player who worked in several music stores in Santa Cruz County for years. He had just begun work as a manager at More Music in Santa Cruz when he was felled by a stroke. “Rick was a great guy,” said Dale Ockerman, White Album keyboardist and former Doobie Brother. Read more

• Drinking water from a fire hose I’ve been repeating myself lately. I’ve said to one, two, three, maybe more people that covering the Santa Cruz cultural scene is like drinking water from a fire hose. Cute metaphor, probably someone else’s. But it’s time to retire that one. So, I’m up for hearing new candidates. Let’s see, uh, … trying to be a catcher to 15 pitchers, trying to keep your car dry in a rain storm? Yeah, lame, I know. Whatever. The bottom line is that this town is sick with cultural events and I have to stop complaining about it. It’s a privileged position to be in, and we’re all privileged to be here. This weekend, if you’ve got a mind to, you can check in on the Rollergirls debut bout over at the Civic, the Bucky Fuller one-man show at the Rio on Friday, a great 1940s big-band revue, and a nice Sunday afternoon out on the Wharf with live jazz. Plus, tons more. Also, no more whining about what to write in this blog. Why do newspaper writers need blogs? Don’t I leave everything in my stories? From now on, we’ll use this space to just keep a pulse of Santa Cruz culture. No more drinking from the fire hose. I’m going to play in it now. Read more

• A Saturday of mad activity An ordinary Saturday in the middle of February, the rainy season. The tourists aren’t around, the beach scene is dead and there’s no holiday to celebrate. And still, Santa Cruz County is ridiculously busy with cultural events. Feb. 23 provides a pretty good argument that Santa Cruz is an amazing vortex of community cultural events. The weather is likely to be pretty bad tomorrow, so no one can blame you if you wanted to stay home at all with your fireplace and your DVD players. But if you want to get out, let’s just outline what you could do. In the morning, you could go over to the Nickelodeon in downtown Santa Cruz to take in a free movie discussion with four local critics about the upcoming Academy Awards. Then, it’s over to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for the annual Clam Chowder Cook-Off, where tasting begins at about 1 p.m. Then, at 3 p.m., a group of supporters of Barack Obama are gathering to sing an original song that will be made into a video and posted on YouTube. After dinner, you have a cornucopia of stuff to choose from: At the Rio Theatre, you can catch a re-enactment of traditional, pre-contact Hawaiian music, dance and chant at “Kahekili: Original Hula Drama.” At the Attic, downtown, you catch the beloved local blues diva Sista Monica delivering songs from her latest album “You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down.” Tireless local theater director Ben Jammin debuts his latest stage show, Jules Feiffer’s “Hold Me” at the Aptos Academy. Choreographer and dancer Cid Pearlman who just moved to town presents works by three modern choreographers at the 418 Project. Former Wall of Voodoo front man Stan Ridgway celebrates the 25th anniversary of that band’s landmark album “Call of the West” at the Don Quixote’s in Felton. Fishbone plays the Catalyst. Pisces Moon Productions presents its final weekend of “Dead Man Walking” at Cabrillo College. And Moe’s Alley has not one, but two concerts: an early show featuring the great Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, and a late show featuring the B-Side Players. And this is just another Saturday on the calendar. We are living among riches. Read more

• Who are the Creatives? Santa Cruz is not like the rest of the world. I’ve been saying that for years and I still believe it to be true. And a big reason for that disparity, why comic Richard Stockton is referring to this as “Planet Cruz,” is the number of creative people who live here. If you’ve spent a lot of your life in Santa Cruz and don’t get to travel much to other parts of the country, you may be surprised to learn that most people lead quiet, middle-of-the-road lives, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. But Santa Cruz, for whatever reason, tends to attract people who find a way to do something artistic (if you can handle such a pretentious word), even if it means working a day job that is not designed to be creative. Some make a living at it, a few a very nice living. But most people do it because they feel they have to. But look around you and you’ll find that that guy over there — he’s a closet sculptor — the woman beside him — she’s runs a small film festival. Your neighbor get gigs as a singer/songwriter on the weekends. Your kid’s teacher is a part-time novelist. Your dentist is a jazz singer. We’re hoping to tap into those veins by highlighting the people in Santa Cruz County who just do what they do with little hope for huge pop culture success or even affirmation in a series will be calling The Creatives. This week, we’ll profile the actor Daria Troxell, a mom of pre-schoolers and former “math geek” now consumed by the fever to do theater. Next week, we’ll visit with Michelle Chappel, a long-time psychology professor at UC Santa Cruz, following her dream to be a pop singer. We’d love to hear about others in the community are following their own creative urges in the arts, or otherwise. Any ideas, drop me a line at wbaine@santacruzsentinel.com. Ask your neighbor about his/her secret passion, or your kid’s teacher, or your dentist. Read more

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