DEVIL-OPERS
McCartney wrote a decent little song a few years back that went, in part, "We live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us." I'm surmising he does not live a lot in L.A., where there is no such hope, except among the infantile, naive, and stupid. Darkness is all that surrounds here, despite sunshine that is no more relentless than Sarah Palin. The city is forever, at least in the last 30 or 40 years, intent on destroying all quality of life by greasing the way for sociopathic developers who care as much about aesthetics and density as Larry King cares about doing research before an interview. As far as LA is concerned with LL, it's R.I.P..

Consider the fact, alone, that Huge Heiffer just had to bail out the Hollywood Sign. Now, why a giant sign leftover from a real estate development in the '20's is a "beloved landmark" is another story (or maybe the story---L.A. enshrines developers!), but the fact that the shitty, I mean city, would not step in to save the goddamn thing is astounding. Yes, developers wanted to tear it down in order to rape and destroy more nice chaparral hillside in order to cash in with "exclusive homes." And L.A. did nothing. Just as it has done nothing to stop the destruction of landmarks and neighborhoods all over the city, in order that developers can profiteer by building hundreds of thousands of unnecessary apartments and condos---and, of course, further destroying the "quality of life" with insane density.

Then we have the proposal to---and Your Illuminator can barely bring himself to type this, it's soooo depressing---cover the Harbor Freeway, or portions of it downtown, with parks. What? What's wrong with that, you wonder? It will make things prettier? Sure, the way keeping your insane uncle in the cellar while you have elegant dinner parties upstairs is pretty. Imagine bottling up all that exhaust and pollution, so you have to drive through it every day. It's bad enough to have to breathe above ground here. Imagine all that exhaust and diesel particulate matter spilling out of tunnels and making such a nice atmosphere in all the parks above. Mommy, how come all the leaves are covered with black dust? That's not dust, honey, that's L.A. air! What really needs to be done, of course, is not to cover the Harbor Freeway with parks, but to replace the Harbor Freeway with parks. Right, replace it. Gasp, sputter, whaaaat did he say??? Get rid of a freeway? How will we get anywhere? Answer: you can stay home, or live closer to where you work, or take the subway or light rail, or ride a bike, or walk to work through a nice downtown park.

And then we come to Marina del Rey, or rather, we don't come to it. Not at least, without getting into near gridlock, which is locking more by the day. George Harrison wrote a song (well, seeing as we've quoted Paul above, why not?) called "The Devil's Been Busy," which goes, in part, "sometimes you're better off not knowing/ how much you've been had." Yes devil-opers are working overtime on destroying the Marina, a once rather sweet and negotiable place, and everybody's being had. There are plans to essentially raze all the old Marina apartment complexes and replace them with comparative high-rises. Never mind that one such project, last LL looked, remains empty because it uh. . .is sinking. Seems devil-opers um, miscalculated. The marshland landfill was not meant to support giant condo hives. Speaking of which, how 'bout them devil-opers turning a nondescript couple of streets off the Marina into an "arts district!" Sounds nice? Well, sure, except there are no "arts" there. Just massive ugly gray rectangular buildings full of starting-at-$500,000 condos meant to attract "cool" younger "professionals." Why, then, is it called an "arts district?" Because it sounds "cool." It's the art of the con.

And let's not even discuss Playa Vista. It's bad for the heart.

LL wonders, did you approve any of the development wiping out L.A.? Did I? Funny thing, we didn't! Who did? The government? Oh, there were a few votes here and there? Right, I remember. Campaigns entirely funded by devil-opers. With the "media" (that's you, L.A. Times) not raising the slightest objection.

Lights out, Los Angeles.

QUEEN JAN, APPROXIMATELY
As Quick Draw McGraw used to say, "Hold on thar!" Hm. Never thought Lamplighter would be quoting Quick Draw McGraw in a commentary, but referring to a cartoon character while writing about L.A. Councilwomanperson Jan Perry is wholly in order. Perry would be funny were she ink instead of flesh-and-blood, but the fact that she wants to be mayor is not funny at all.

Well, no funnier than Little Anthony Villaraigosa wanting to be mayor, anyhow.
 
Ms. Perry, of course, is known more popularly as "Queen Jan" since her quip about appointing herself "Queen of Los Angeles" while serving as acting mayor during one of Little Anthony's innumerable holidays abroad with his favorite TeeVee Newsbimbo. And by golly, the good old Rip Post wrote about the "Queen Jan" incident way back in ought-three! Why, Queen Jan actually sent an e-mail to The Rip Post then, which you can read in Rense's column, "Queen of Los Angeles." In fact, if you have the slightest notion of voting for this goofball, you'd damn well better read that column, and send it to friends. I mean, gasp, and double-gasp.

And let us not forget that Perry's former chief of staff, Daryl Sweeney, pleaded guilty to 15 federal charges related to a bribery scandal involving a lucrative trash-hauling contract.

So it was with some horror that LL read the Jewish Journal's puff-piece about Jammin' Jan's candidacy last week. But then, what could editor Rob Eshman do? Perry just blew into his office, apparently unannounced, to announce. Plus the black lady representing south-central and downtown is also Jewish, having converted 20 years ago, so there was an extra angle, see?

What plunged Your Illuminator into darkness, though, was not Perry's crassly obvious pitch to the Jewish community for donations, but the things Queen Jan ticked off as her accomplishments as councilpersonwoman from the Ninth District. Ready for this? Wrote Eshman:

Perry handed me a blue folder with a couple of Xeroxed sheets listing her accomplishments. Among them: two wetland parks in highly urbanized South LA, a new $15 million multi-use City Hall there, a giant Fresh ‘n Easy grocery store, the LA Live complex of housing and retail across from the Staples Center.

Wetlands parks? Hey, very nice. Hats off. (Though I would like to have seen her accomplish this where the real estate is a bit more in demand.) And as for a city hall in south Los Angeles (is that a separate city now?), well, any new building in that part of town is probably a good thing, though one drools at how that $15 million might have been spent on, say, schools. Or, yes, potholes! And. . .do L.A. city officials really need another building for themselves? Anywhere?

Now comes the funny wacky crazy cartoony part:

A "giant Fresh 'n' Easy grocery store" is an accomplishment? Call LL dim-bulbed, but we sorta kinda think that, you know, improving schools and paying teachers and fixing streets and fighting gangs and confiscating guns and inspiring community pride is the job of a councilwomanperson or councilmanperson. Isn't a grocery store a profitable private institution? How exactly is "Fresh 'n' Easy" helping to keep kids in school? Stopping gang violence? Well, okay, maybe His Brightness lives in an idealistic dream world. New business is new business, after all, but here's the real kicker, the punch-line, the coup de grace:

Queen Jan is claiming that "L.A. Live" is her accomplishment! Hell, there's reason to not only not vote for her, but to throw her out of office.

Even if you somehow buy into the knee-slappingly hilarious idea that Jammin' Jan singlehandedly built or funded or designed or created "L.A. Live," this is like taking credit for, oh, the invention of Twinkies. Only not that good. "L.A. Live" cost $2.5 billion, which is chump change to sponsors Anschutz Entertainment Group, Wachovia Corp, and MacFarlane Partners, but not to L.A. taxpayers---who also funded this gargantuan piece of downtown Ugly.

Imagine, folks, what $2.5 billion invested in citywide light rail, or public schools where the bathrooms don't work, or after-school programs for poor kids, might have done. Or, yes, business investment in south-central. Evidently, Jan didn't. Instead, she imagined a colossally, ridiculously, insanely unnecessary, definitively gratuitous complex of garish theaters, pretentious restaurants, and hyper-expensive hotels that have all the aesthetic appeal and dignity of a Vegas hooker on Sunday morning.

Vote for Jan! Turn downtown into the Vegas Strip! Think I'm kidding? It's Queenie who is also still pushing big-time for the absolutely stark-raving-drooling cuckoo $3 billion Grand Avenue Project. You remember that, yes? Dubai was bankrolling it until Dubai's bankroll went bust, but Perry is still banking on it. No unnecessary hyper-development is too unnecessary for the Queen of Los Angeles.

And let us remember, just for fun, that it was Acting Mayor Jan who begged money from L.A. taxpayers and, well, the. . .entire world. . .to cover the costs of security and traffic management incurred for the big Michael Jackson tribute at Staples Center! Begged. Really.

Cough. Is it just Lamplighter, or does anyone else think this woman is lighting without a candle, knuckling without a ball, meowing without a cat?

ADD QUEEN JAN:
Good old L.A. Weekly! The L.A. Times fiddles around with page sizes and news deadlines while L.A. burns, but the Weekly under editor Jill Stewart (ex-Times) continues providing the kind of reporting that this place so badly needs. And that is so condescendingly dismissed by all the rah-rah L.A.-is-great journalism wonk clique-elite that is forever blandly discussing the same old issues-that-never-change.

The Weekly, you see, is covering Queen Jan's latest screwball comedy: her astonishing continuing support of the $3 billion Grand Avenue Project at a time when the country is bankrupt, L.A. is nearly bankrupt, and the state of California is auctioning off everything except Schwarzenegger's cigar butts to raise money.

And let us wonder why it is not on page one of the L.A. Times every single day that Perry was the one who cut a deal with Dubai sheiks to build this thing---just before Dubai went financially due bye-bye. Any paper worth its ink should be campaigning to drive this ditz directly out of office. After all, what, you wonder, is an L.A. City Council member doing, making deals with Dubai? Doesn't Perry represent south-central as well as downtown? And aren't south-central's needs a bit more pressing than a $3 billion downtown development deal for elitist condo towers and "gourmet" restaurants designed by the "magic pencil" of Frank Gehry?

Oh, never mind. Just L.A. bidnis as usual. As was the latest meeting of the Grand Avenue Authority Board (whatever that is) to decide the fate of this  huge chunk of downtown public land between City Hall and the Music Center. But wait! Gee whiz---seems the public was not welcome! Here's Paul Teetor in the Weekly:

The reason for the lack of public participation in a development slated to rise on choice public land owned, collectively, by about 9.8 million people, is manifold: The meeting of the obscure but powerful Grand Avenue Authority board was its first in two months, and the authority gave the citizenry just 48 hours' notice, the bare minimum California law requires the board to provide. Unless your e-mail was on the digital list for notification, you wouldn't have heard about it. And the meeting was held, as usual, on a Monday morning, when working people cannot attend, in a building so difficult to access that unless you had $20 for parking — or a reserved "VIP" spot — it might be prohibitive to show up.

And Queen Jan, that wacky, fun-loving "Mayor of Downtown," as she's known, was the acting Grand Avenue Authority chairperson. Judging by her arrival, though, you'd think she was acting the part of Oprah. Teetor again:

Then at 10:14, a man in a dark suit with a cell phone glued to his ear solemnly announced: "She's in the parking lot." That generated a buzz from a gaggle of Los Angeles city and county officials, developers, support staff, bloggers and three members of the media. Everyone scurried to their seats, and veteran photographer Gary Leonard got ready to take pictures.

You know, the stretch from the Music Center down to City Hall is quite nice as it is, don't you think? Landscaped, sloping, peaceful, lovely. Grinders sure like it! Anybody want to tell Lamplighter why high-rise condos, glitzy-ritzy shopping center, multiplex movie theater and a "gourmet supermarket" is needed in this space? Have the denizens of nearby Skid Row suddenly developed taste in the finer things in life?

All you really have to know about the Grand Avenue Project is that one of the stated justifications for this atrocious thing is that designers publicly objected to the fact that you have to climb a few steps to get to the Music Center. Seriously. This, they said, makes the Center seem aloof, elitist. No, we're not kidding. The plan is to---and Tim Burton did not dream this up---raise Grand Avenue so people can walk directly into the Music Center grounds. Thus bringing the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Ahmanson Theater, and Mark Taper Forum down to street level, you see, with all attendant symbolism applying. (Including dumbing it down and making it less. . .grand.)

Gawd.

Hey, Jan, how about a downtown wetlands park instead?

You want a paper that keeps putting L.A. into pointed, blunt perspective? Read the Weekly.

CUT!
It's not often enough that Your Illuminator's filaments fill with radiance, and he beams, but this happened the other day when he read Michael Kinsley's piece in The Atlantic, "Cut This Story!" Kinsley astutely---well, it would be astute if it weren't so damned obvious---notes that one of the reasons newspapers have declined is that they forgot how to be punchy and concise. Never mind that this website has made the same point countless times through the years. The Rip Post is the tree that fell in the forest.

Kinsley's point cannot be overstated, though. Newspapers---even when they were doing superb investigative work---grew flabby and verbose. In the '70's and beyond, they became more like magazines or books than snap-crackle-pop daily fishwraps. Reporters long ago either forgot how to write tight ledes (remember "terse, tight, and telegraphic," ex-J-school students?) or just stupidly abandoned the form as an anachronism (fully enabled, aided, abetted by editors.) You look at the rags these days, and there are ledes that are literally 80, 90 words long---paragraphs as fat as the pre-stomach-stapled Al Roker. Five w's, anyone? Twenty five words?

The L.A. Times of the last 30 years is a wonderful example of ponderous, unfocused, self-serious ledes and interminable articles. The so-called "nut graf" phenomenon, of which the Times was a foremost "exponent," is possibly the dopiest and most crippling thing to ever happen to newswriting. You write your story as if you are writing The Great American Novel, and somewhere along the line---somewhere in the 250 inches of copy---you insert this mysterious "nut graf" that supposedly magically ties everything together. How silly. Yet editors dived into this septic tank by the thousands, and called it a swimming pool. Well, most of 'em are out of work now, and frankly, it serves most of 'em right.

It's the Internet, Kinsley avers, that makes the case. For all its slipshod crapola and irresponsible reporting, the 'Net is nothing if not short and to the point. And many news sites are very well organized, with easily apprehensible headlines and articles that cut to the chase. Michael Kinsley, Illuminator of the Week.

PARTY DOWN WITH KPCC
One of the most inane things---no, the most inane thing---Lamplighter
encountered in any media during the 2009 hollandaise season was KPCC's astoundingly informed, issues-saturated Patt Morrison interviewing some ditzy girl (woman, I guess) who was "party consultant," or an "entertainment engineer," or a "festival therapist," or some damn thing. I tried to find the show to link to it for you, folks, but I'll be hornswaggled if I can figure out the KPCC website.

Anyhow, Patt had the woman on the air by phone, and she punctuated silences with husky Patt chuckles here and there to make it sound all funsy and convivial, but the subject was handled with all the seriousness of how to capture Bin-Laden. I mean, Party Lady was twittering (old sense of the word) like a 12-year-old Northridge princess about "do's and don'ts" (or something) of "holiday office parties"---as if this was a discussion about the death penalty, or abortion.

With much foreboding and consternation, she warned listeners that with Youtube and iPhones, you'd better be darn circumspect in your celebrative demeanor! Of course, she didn't say "circumspect," and probably would think the word refers to a particular religious ritual involving the penis. But this was just the general tone, not the gist. One major point that Party Lady was making---and that Morrison was intent on pursuing---involved (get this) what is okay to talk about at holiday parties.

That's correct, folks---you are now supposed to worry in advance about what sort of conversation to make at parties. Can you say. . .insane? I mean, let's just worry about worrying! Correct Your Illuminator if he is wrong, but aren't parties for something that used to be known as fun? Relaxing? Shooting the breeze? Well.

But the part that caused me to hit the button on the car radio and declaim in fashion and content not generally approved for Christmas, Chanukah, New Year, was this: Party Lady referred to holiday celebrations that might be happening at your "church, synagogue, or mosque." Yes, mosque.

Mosque? I'm sorry, but to the best of LL's knowledge, which admittedly has enormous holes, Muslims do not celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, or wait for Santy to come down the chimney with a new BMW. Do they? Am I mistaken here? Are mosques filled with burka-coated women singing "Here Comes Santa Claus" or "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing?" Is Osama in some nice guano-reeking cave in Pakistan having a little eggnog and kissing one of his wives under the mistletoe?

Mosque? Patt missed this. Or maybe she didn't, and just let it go. After all, the PC in KPPC stands for nothing if not Political Correctness. It is PC central on the air there, at all times. So here, Party Lady had liberally expanded the already PC holiday phrase, "church or synagogue" to be even more inclusive---adding "mosque." Yessir, can't have even the slightest hint that we do not love our Muslim brothers and sisters, right? Uh. . .wonder if Party Lady knows any Muslims. Come to think of it, LL doesn't know any Muslims. Kind of hard to speak to women whose heads are covered with cloth, and who frequently do not seem to speak English. . .

But the point here is that if Party Lady does know some Muslims, then apparently she knows Muslims who are having "holiday parties" in honor of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Baby Jesus, right? Or was she just indulging in more mindless political correctness of the ilk that makes it objectionable to say anything other than "Happy Holidays" during the CHRISTMAS season. Think LL is being extreme? Then explain this:

How do you account for a choir singing what must have been titled, "The Night Before Holidays," seeing as the last little bit that LL heard on the radio was "Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good night?"

Please forgive us, Party Lady, if this is not the sort of conversational fare that you deem appropriate for holiday parties.

THANKS, BUT NO THANKS
Yesterday Your Illuminator was suffused with darkness of spirit after spending a full hour on the phone to India---the apparent home of all American enterprises---trying to determine why Verizon is refusing to send some of my e-mail, marking them as "spam." The pinhead on the phone (who gave her name as "Mary" or something), was following the little prescribed program of checking my settings, etc., and doing essentially everything that did not need to be done. Addressing the actual problem was as important as a non-celebrity is to Larry King. Your Indefatibable Brightness made many, many speeches. The first (repeated about five times) went something like this: “No. I do not need you to check my settings. I do not need to follow your little formula checklist. There is nothing wrong with my computer. There is nothing wrong with Outlook Express. There is nothing wrong with my settings. There is something wrong with VERIZON. Verizon. Verizon, Verizon, Verizon. VERIZON has decided that some of my outgoing e-mails are spam. Some are, and some aren't. The problem comes and goes. I have never spammed anyone anywhere anytime ever. Period. End of story. Didn’t happen. I want to know why VERIZON is doing this. I wrote to the “spamfaq” section of VERIZON and received zero help. Nothing. Nada. No response. So what you need to find out is why VERIZON is doing this to me."

Naturally, her response was to try and check all the things that do not need checking. We went back and forth like this for quite a while. 

My concluding speech, after an hour in which the problem was utterly ignored and LL was told such things as, “If you still feel there is a problem. . .” and "If your opinion is that this has not solved your problem. . ." was this:

"Listen: I hope you go home tonight and think about your job. I know you won’t, because you are trained to ignore people like me. But I want you to go home and think about your job. Think about how you are trained to do things that have NOTHING to do with solving problems or helping people. NOTHING. You are trained like a monkey to do simple things that have NOTHING to do with efficiency. NOTHING. Your job is ridiculous. Your job is useless. You are living a lie. You are wasting people’s time. That’s actually what you do for a living. You waste people’s time. You steal their lives. This is what you have agreed to do with your life in exchange for a little bit of money. I realize you live in India, and things are tough there, but what will Krishna and Shiva think of you? Your job is false, your profession is false, much of your daily life is false. You have not solved my problem. This is not my "opinion"---this is fact. I hope you go home tonight and think about these things. And think about how you stole an hour of my life, and increased my being upset exponentially. And did nothing---NOTHING---to help me or solve my problem.”

Of course, she repeated her speech, ‘If you still feel there is a problem," but this time added these magic words:

"I will transfer you to our expert help department, but they will have to charge you for their work.”

No, I am not thankful for this on today, Thanksgiving Day. I am thankful for my health, what there is of it, and the friendships of good people, and kitty-cats and dewdrops, and the all-too-rare justice done to a vile person, but I am not thankful to corporations, or Verizon, or outsourcing, or India.

ABOUT DUDAMEL. . .
Someone asked Your Illuminator, "Is Dudamel as good as they say he is?" and here is my response: "Well, yes, he is as good as they say, but I would qualify that. He is unquestionably brilliant. When he conducts, you get the distinct idea that he knows exactly what is going on with every single instrument at all times, and is also intent on controlling what is happening with every single instrument at all times. This has prompted seasoned musicians in the New York Philharmonic to remark that he “overconducts,” a situation that they suggest will pass with time. Maybe, maybe not. I saw Dudamel conduct the Berlioz “Symphonie Fantastique,” which I never expected to hold my attention again. Well, he made it a joyride. It was great fun to hear, start to finish. The word I would use is “terpsichoric.” Did the music have anything beyond that? Beyond it being realized with utmost color and zest? No, but maybe that piece requires nothing more. . .

"Now, I also heard him conduct the Mahler 1, 2nd movement, on Youtube---after Rich Caparella on KUSC raved about how unusual his approach to that movement was, when he conducted with the L.A. Phil a couple weeks ago. Well, Rich was right that it was unusual, but I part company with his assertion that 'Ah, this is the way it's supposed to sound!' You probably know this movement. It’s a 'Landler,' a type of dance popular in the 18th century, and not much more. No great 'profundity' in it, certainly not in the sense of other Mahler. It's more or less a scherzo equivalent in this symphony. Lyrical, charming. The range of interpretation of this movement generally is measurable mostly by tempo. But Dudamel radically changed things, as Caparella said. He threw in strange rubato at the beginning, making it hurky-jerky, and then slowed things down again at improbable moments---and also sought to (I would say) turn moments of quiet second-theme exposition into things that suggested darkness and mystery. Now all this sounds pretty good, right? The up side is that it does make the music fresh, and interesting. The down side is that this movement in particular doesn’t need such intensity of approach. This points to what I think is the guy’s flaw, which is also the thing touted as his strength: the “passion.” He seems to regard everything he conducts as an opportunity to wring every bit of extroverted expression conceivable from it, even when this is not appropriate. I think this is a sort of one-note interpretive approach. He reminds me of writers who use too many italics, adjectives, and adverbs. So yes, Dudamel is a brilliant conductor, technically, and you are guaranteed an interesting listen when he conducts, but I think it does not come from the head so much as the gut. And that is a limitation." Here is a comparison of that Mahler 1st 2nd movement, as conducted by Dudamel and by Rafael Kubelik:

Kubelik (conventional interpretation, conductor serves the music):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVYZluRnFwM 

Dudamel (radical reinterpretation, conductor interferes with the music):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlyWBHmNAeM&feature=related

ABOUT DAVE. . .
As far as Lamplighter is aware, Dave Letterman is not President of the United States, or even honorary mayor of Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. As far as Lamplighter is aware, Dave Letterman has broken no laws. As far as Lamplighter is aware, Dave Letterman seems to enjoy the company of women. Shocking, isn't it, that men and women in the workplace fornicate with one another? Stunning, isn't it, that bosses sleep with women who work for them---or should we say, women sleep with their bosses? For all the coverage that LL has watched features oodles of morally outraged women with deeply knitted brows talking about "there are laws against this sort of thing" and "inappropriate behavior in the workplace" and "favoritism toward employees." And Your Illiminator has yet to hear one commentator refer to the fact that women routinely use sex to hustle men in power. Um. . .by the way, laws against what sort of thing? Against sex? Well, there probably should be, as that would improve the quality of life on this planet, but that has yet to happen in this society. Guess we can leave that area, and the banning of music, to the Taliban. You know, perhaps Dave has busted a hymen or two, but as far as we know, he has not been accused of breaking any laws. The implication that repressed Midwest Lutheran Dave used his power to somehow induce women to bed down with him causes LL to roar with laughter rivaling the nights when Dave interviewed Brother Theodore. Look. When you spend much of your life in an office workplace, this tends to restrict your dating pool. Ask anyone who has worked in a newsroom. Bigger dens of iniquity do not come readily to mind. Dave broke the old unwritten workplace rule (plug your ears, kiddies), "Don't put your meat where you get your bread." Hell, it was convenient. And some of those assistants of his were rather fetching, weren't they? So did Dave "reward" them by putting them on the air? Nah. He's not the type. He put them on the air, we'll bet our Larry "Bud" Melman Late Night coffee mugs, because he liked them, and thought they would be funny. And what kind of a boss pays the law school bills for one of his paramours? One who is being hustled? Maybe. Or one who is just a. . .nice guy. If that term stretches the imagination, then how about. . .a generous person. What is most astonishing about this whole stupid thing is that the media are focusing almost exclusively on Dave, and not the fact that he is the victim of an attempted $2 million blackmail! Which has, in its revelation, done much to tarnish Dave's reputation. The creepo lawyer for the creepo alleged extortionist, infamously revealed as CBS News "48 Hours Mystery" producer Joe Halderman, is talking about how there is "another side" to this story, and how despositing the (fake) check he extorted is not against the law(!), and how he fully intends to reveal more facts about Letterman's affairs. Um. . .another side to extorting a public figure for two million bucks? LL doesn't think so. And revealing more about Letterman's dalliances is strictly slander at this point, no matter the legal justification for bringing them up. The worst thing that Dave will be found guilty of here, probably, is a little frolicking behind his wife's back. Dumb? Wrong? Sure. Illegal? Unusual? Oh, yeah, illegal and unusual as an ethical, decent lawyer.

NEW DRESS ON PALIN
For those lantern-lighters who are ever in the dark about economics. . .For those who find Ky Risdall's "Marketplace" on NPR a smug, slick, cool recitation of nonsense. . .Here's a little clear explication of the seemingly inexplicable. . .

Keep hearing all that jabber about how the "Recession is over," and "we're in recovery," etc., yet you can't reconcile it against tales of job loss and housing market drops? Yeah, Lamplighter, too. Well, here is lantern-lighter Dave to the rescue:

"It would be natural to see a slowing of the drop in economic activity, because now they're measuring the downturn against an already slowing economy from the year before. According to the economic institute that monitors recessions, this recession began in December 2007--that is, starting in Dec. '07, the economic numbers on output, spending, etc. started downward and unemployement started upward.

"So at this point, when we compare the economy today to a year ago, we're comparing it to an economy that had already been in decline for eight months. Obviously, the decline is going to be slower against that standard than say the figures for February '09, which are being measured against an economy that had only been in recession for two months."

But. .but. . .Dave, why doesn't Ky Risdall report this?

"They don't talk about this," said Dave.

And the future?

"We could easily continue to slide at a 1% rate, and still be sliding, or we could see the economy flatline at some low level, and stay there for months or a year or several years. We could even see a slow rise in economic activity, but from that low baseline. Technically, if economic activity measures started to improve, even by a fraction of a percent annually adjusted, they could say 'The recession has ended!' but it would be hell for most people."

In other words, it's all a lot of skewing of numbers to make things look good. Like a new dress on Sarah Palin. It's still Sarah Palin underneath.

BLACK AND WHITE
The arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Gates by Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley could not be more black and white. Or should Your Glowing Truthiness say, could not be less black and white? Our old pal, the heroically principled and inimitably straight-shooting (pardon the expression) writer, Dave Lindorff, says this was an abuse of power. He's right, but not in ascribing blame to Crowley, which he does. This was an abuse of power, yes---by the African-American Professor Gates, who immediately began hysterically and belligerently shouting about racism at Crowley. Nope, no racism, folks, except on Gates's part. If you happen to live on the moon and don't know, a neighbor saw Gates prying open his own jammed door with help from a limo driver. Cops were notified. Hey, if Lamplighter saw two guys of any description prying open any door, he would call the cops, too, and the cops would have every cause to respond with the strong suspicion of finding an ongoing crime. But never mind about that in race-deranged America, 2009---this must have been "racial profiling!" Had the two men not been black, no one would ever have called the police, right? Nonsense. The only profile in question here is that of a jackass, in the form of Gates.

Yes, some cops certainly abuse the hell out of their power, as Lindorff suggests. But let us remember lesson 1 of Dealing With Cops 101. You NEVER get uncooperative or hostile with police officers. It's a very, very poor idea. They have power, guns, and aren't always in the best of moods. Any idiot should know this, let alone a Harvard prof (!). But Prof got high and mighty and began snarling about racism, right out of the box. This is part of the legacy of political correctness, Affirmative Action, and media/pop culture/university curriculum "teaching" that the United States is the most fiendishly racist and sexist country in the history of the planet, if not beyond. Gasp. Double gasp. It has created an atmosphere of suspicion---no, assumption---of racism on the part of any white authority figure. As Your Illuminator has said ad-ad nauseum, the USA, for all its acknowledged (and incessantly repeated in media) history of discrimination and segregation, has no corner on racism. What's more, this country has done more than any in history to redress the evils of racial and gender persecution, through legislation (largely written and enacted by white people.)

LL despises Gates'  childish reactionary hatred. Crowley repeatedly advised him to calm down, yet Prof not only persisted in belligerence and insult, but made the incredible mistake of PURSUING the sergeant as he was trying to leave. Dealing With Cops 101, Lesson 2: never chase a cop! No, you just don't do that. Hey, Prof, next time this happens to you, trying saying these magic words: "Officer, this is my home. My door was stuck. I had to force it open. Here is my ID. Whatever you need me to do, I will cooperate." Had Prof done this, there would have been no trouble. The second cop on the scene was black, for gawdsake, and backed up his sergeant "100 percent." Crowley was totally within his rights to have at least cuffed and detained Gates. Taking him to jail on a disorderly charge was also completely legal, although possibly punitive. But under the circumstances, even that was justified, in my view. You don't yell at and chase a cop.

And let's do the reverse-race test! Hmm. . .yes, you are right! If the prof had been white, the story would have stayed local, would have been a source of amusement, and the prevailing public opinion about it would have been that the prof behaved like an idiot.

What is really sick here is that this is a huge story, on all front pages, and endless fodder for nattering on CNN, Fox, etc. What is really sick here is that Prof has not apologized to the country for making a mountain out of a molehill, further inflaming racial enmity (already a cancer in this country), and dragging (his friend) the goddamn president into this thing. Obama could be seriously, seriously damaged by having stupidly called this cop "stupid." This could actually help defeat him in the next election, and calls into question his judgement, and the credibility on race relations he established during the campaign with that brilliant speech on the subject. So Prof was 100 percent wrong in this. There was NO racism, except on his part, and no excessive force or prosecution. Remember: a rotten cop would have beaten the hell out of Prof and who-knows-what-else. Stay tuned as the USA continues to slit its wrists over race relations, or lack of same. . .

MENOR VILLARAIGOSA
Late in the summer of Michael Jackson and Walter Cronkite, LL is nothing short of astonished. No, nothing short of stricken mute, drooling, incontinent---not by the Parade of Famous Demises, but by "Mayor" Villaraigosa and his white newsbimbo beeyatch, Lu Parker. Villaraigosa is such a repulsive, oleaginous puff of nothingness that Your Illuminator marvels at how seemingly intelligent people ever voted his glinting teeth into city hall. Let alone how Downtown News city editor Jon Regardie is suddenly buying the Mayor's (let's call him the Menor from now own) new buckle-down, knuckle-down act. (City Editor, thy name is player!) This, of course, proves that intelligence is kind of like Ketchup. There's a hell of a lot of it around, but it's hard to get out of the bottle. (Huh?) Recall how the celebrated liberal writer, Harold Myerson, practically ejaculated in print about how Little Anthony was the second coming of (get this) Bobby Kennedy? (Gasp.) Yes, really! He did! You know, these lefties need a good dose of cynicism, or maybe piles---but, of course, they reject cynicism as "mean-spirited," etc. The operative reality is that cynicism (disappointed idealism) is the realm of the non-player, and most people who seek to wield influence are nothing but players who buy into conventional, diseased stasis reality. Oh, they have their little poses and opinions that are passed off as principle and conviction, but trust LL: it's all calculated to keep them in the influence game. Guys like Myerson and Regardie are complicit with Villaraigosa for the woes of this sorryass city. We are moved to return yet again to the axiom of the departed seer and all-around paragon of insight, R. Turo Lorenzo, who famously observed, "Anyone who runs for office should automatically be disqualified because of desire to seek public office."

Villaraigosa is a wimpy, priapic, aging teenager (and four-time bar exam failure) who long ago figured out how to con and gladhand, and that the Affirmative Action Yellow Brick Road was there to trip merrily down (he headed the ethnic separatist group, MECHA, at UCLA.) Somewhere along the way, he affected a totally bogus touch of "street cred" (read: brutishness) by getting "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his shoulder. Oooooo. I'm scared! But of course, the hell that The Imperious Little Anthony raises has mostly been with his poor abandoned wife and children, that chicana newsbimbo he schtupped and dumped (or was it the other way around?), and of course, this tragically ruined city. Yes, ruined. How else to describe a big roaring layout of density, profiteering development, and congestion that comprehensive light rail would not relieve if Santa Claus brought it overnight? The problems of the city have long been as plain as the hose in Little Anthony's slacks, but never you mind about that. He spent his four years of service to L.A. by angling for the Goober-natorial race, recently dropping out after being outfoxed by the other philandering mayor of our state, Gavin Newsom. And, of course, the Menor has been having a grand old time photo-opping his way through his job, and taking nice vacations in Africa with Lulubelle. (Don't let it be said he does not support journalism.) "The people?" Hell, they don't care, and who can blame them? The big broad-stroke problems of L.A. have been sitting on the place like bad-day smog for 50 or 60 years, and nothing changes. Turns out that LAPD Chief Bill Bratton, who recently said the city is as safe now as it was in the 1950's, well, Wild Bill was just funning. Seems the LAPD stats were as cooked as the books of good old Enron. Then there is a little matter involving LAPD anti-gang efforts that appears to have been headed by a. . .gang member! (Wonder if he had "Born to Raise Hell" tattooed on his arm.) And Wild Bill has the gall to call post-Laker rioters "knuckleheads." So once again, Your Illuminator is left to sit behind his computer, laughing, shaking his graying head, and wondering why the hell he isn't laying on a beach in Maui with some Classic Marijuana (yes, there is such a thing---the good old weak '60's stuff), a bronze maiden or two, and fresh coconut parfaits. Oh, that's right, being a disappointed idealist doesn't pay. The players control the purse strings, see. As for Menor Villaraigosa, who rode to office on the latino vote, LL remembers talking to a latino citizen before the election who said he was voting for "Antonio" because "he's from my neighborhood." Yessir, it's La Vida Loca, all right, here in the city of fallen angels. His Honor? Har! Honor Blackman has more honor than the Menor. (Honor Blackman for mayor!) Of course, keep watching former Daily News of Los Angeles editor Ron Kaye, whose Ron Kaye's L.A. movement is trying hard to become. . .a movement. Kaye is a player, no doubt about it, but his ideas about what's wrong with L.A. are on target. The fact that he never punctuates or capitalizes e-mail should put him right at home in city hall.

UNFULPHILLED
So Lamplighter applied for a job recently. Really. I know, I know, you hear
Maynard G. Krebs yelling "Work!" in horror, in your mind's ear---at least, if you are over 50, you do. Your Illuminator applied for a publicist job with the L.A. Philharmonic. Why? LL knows a hell of a lot about classical music, and has attended concerts at the Phil since 1969. What's more, LL has written countless reviews and features concerning the orchestra, from his high school paper through college and later two major L.A. newspapers. Why, His Brightness was even L.A. Phil official rep at high school and college! What's more, contrary to what one might conclude from reading this column, LL has a long background in public relations, and at one point founded, organized, promoted, and hosted a titanically successful weekly opera presentation at a large West L.A. restaurant. What's more, Lamps organized and hosted the only tribute to Mario Lanza in Los Angeles history---a three-night concert/film/lecture extravaganza that sold out two shows per night---at which Lanza's family and friends were present. With all this and a heavy background in music writing (including awards), LL figured on getting a callback. Until, that is, he spoke to a local music critic crony, to tip him off about the job opening. "Crony," said LL, "I'll bet I have no chance. They're probably looking for blacks, latinos, women, and gays only, as is the politically correct case with the marketplace---especially in the arts---today." Said Crony: "Right now they have a British woman running the department, with three young females (two of them black, the other a very sweet, 38-ish girl from Long Island with a pop background) in the office." Long way, I told Crony, from the days when music critics were recruited---yes, recruited---by the L.A. Phil to join the publicity department. Well. To make a long story a little longer, LL received a form-letter rejection from the "Department of Human Resources" a few days later, along with the suggestion that he check the Phil website to see what other jobs might be of interest. Your Illuminator wrote back. Two words: "Custodial work?" You see, everything is demographics and political correctness. The Phil mentality is that if they have young, demographically cool employees---their backgrounds in music are secondary, or simply irrelevant---this will help the orchestra to attract these segments of the potential audience. The crushing irony, of course, is that while banal and "cool" advertising and promotion ("Phil your world!") with testosterone-dripping photos of new conductor Gustavo Dudamel might indeed manage to snag a few young, demographically cool audience members, these people will show up largely because going to Disney Hall and seeing a young Latino conductor is "cool," not because they have any understanding of, or interest in, the music. Such people will certainly never become blue-hairs. Translation: they will not be long term audience members or financial supporters of the orchestra. The Phil has essentially turned its back on and taken for granted the segment of the audience that is, and has always been, its biggest base of support.

GAD. ZOOKS.
Your Illuminator steps out into the sticky California summer sunshine, and can only find darkness. It's probably brain chemistry, but still. . .Take the other day, when LL was headed down the 405 to poor little old bankrupt, raggedy Gardena for lunch. Traffic designed by the Marquis de Sade? Sure. A given. Dumb beasts in 3,000-lb. machines playing obliviously with your life, and theirs. These were not the problems. Rather, what was dimming LL's bulb was what was to be found on the radio. Gad. Zooks. Consider: NPR was interviewing some Persian guy about "heavy metal" music in Iran. I kid not. The NPR interviewer was speaking as if this was a subject of enormous weight and consequence to all humankind. One of his statements was something like this: "An Iranian in an Iron Maiden T-shirt. I guess that says it all." Help! Yes, that does say it all, really, though not in the way he intended. It "says it all" concerning the worldwide rush to embrace ugliness, narcissism, self-indulgence, anger, aggression, disdain, and most other ignoble qualities. And the guest, oh my, the guest. . .was saying that "Heavy metal has bloomed like a flower in the desert." I don't know about you, folks, but there is very little similarity between this so-called music and anything as delicate and gorgeous as a flower. It's like comparing Rush Limbaugh with a ruby. Again: Gad. Zooks. Then they played some of the Iranian "heavy metal" that so many Iranians were allegedly embracing for reasons of what the guest described as "catharsis." It made Led Zeppelin sound quaint. There was just a wash of the ugliest, ugliest, ugliest grinding guitar and dumbshit bass and drums---no discernible pattern here---and emanating from the middle of it all, a voice so deep, so distorted, so grotesque, so frightening, as to almost make one believe in De Debbil. This is not music. This is anger and hatred as noise. I weep for humanity! So I switched the station, and was promptly relieved to hear some jazz piano fronting a combo. For a good twenty seconds, it was refreshing, uplifting, and then I noticed that the pianist was slipping in all manner of hipster-jazzbo-insider-weirdo chords in his comping. Ugly chords. Not as ugly as Iranian heavy metal, but not pleasing, and definitely at odds with the melodic line in the right hand. That is, unless you are a hipster-jazzbo-insider who speaks Chord, which I am not. And once again I was reminded of why I dislike so much jazz. It is insider music for insiders---at least a lot of it has become this way. When I finally realized that I was listening to a mutant version of Gershwin's "Summertime," that was all she wrote. I don't care for a lot of Gershwin. It's a white man's version of black music, and hokey at that. I've never understood why it is so widely embraced, and I find "Summertime" to be particularly humorous in its depiction of de lazy, care-free neeeegro lifestyle. Gad. Zooks. So I switched to the classical station, KUSC, and as usual, was hit with the same goddamn lobotomy music they play almost all the time: innocuous baroque or romantic melodies. The dumbing down of symphonic literature to Muzak for ratings. Just sickening. So I played the old "once around the dial" game, despite the fact that there is such a dearth of personality and variety to be found on radio since demographics weeded these things out in exchange for pandering to lowest common denominator response. I paused momentarily on KLOS, because the woman's voice was pleasant, and listened to this DJ talking about a new Doors documentary. She mentioned that KLOS's Jim Ladd could be heard on radio in the documentary, along with KLOS, and that this was "so cool." I wanted to scream. Cool is the Hitler and Stalin and Mao of our time. Just bless something with the word, "cool," it loses all meaning other than a kind of anesthetizing glaze. Hey, I just painted my truck red. Cool! Did you know that people self-asphyxiate for erotic fulfillment? I saw it on the Internet. Cool! I mean, why the hell was it "cool" that Jim Ladd and KLOS were mentioned in this documentary? That is simple self-promotion of the crassest and most undisguised kind, but add the word, "cool," and hey---it's fine. Cool is the ugliest four-letter word in English. It reduces everything into exactly one thing. I switched the station until I found some people speaking Mandarin on some AM station, and left it there.

FOODIE HELL
Lamplighter noticed this sign of the times. . .Not far from Lamplighter Paradise, there is a little restaurant on a busy boulevard. When it opened, it was a high-end Japanese joint, heavy on style and atmosphere. Millions were spent on the dark, elegant interior decore alone. That lasted a few months, before it was sold and repackaged as a high-end tapas bar. Same dark, elegant interior, same off-the-scale prices. Same no customers. That lasted a few months, before it was sold and reopened as a. . .bar. Right, just a bar. With a big banner now plastered over the tres chic exterior, proclaiming "FREE HOT DOGS!" Your Illuminator likes hot dogs---well, veggie "Smart Dogs"---and loves the fact that "foodies" (read: spoiled gluttons) are apparently staying home.

 JIM BELLOWS
The ttitle of his autobiography was "The Last Editor," and I believe this to have been the case. Jim Bellows was 86. My guess is that he had no complaints about anything. He had a nearly mythical life, and did incalculable good for journalism and journalists. He was one of the rare people who had the remarkable knack of getting the best out of everyone. I carry a card in my wallet from Bellows, and will until it wears out. It reads: "Begin at once, and do the best you can."

Bellows Remembered, by Mary Anne Dolan
The Old Smoking Workplace
Tom Wolfe on Jim Bellows
Tony Castro on Bellows, Hollywood, the Her-Ex
Bellows obit by Elaine Woo.
The Last Editor.
Making Funny.
New York Times obit.
Jim Lehrer Hour interview.

WHY NEWSPAPERS ARE DYING. . .

Your Illuminator had a little exchange recently with an old friend and veteran journalist---a guy who has reported and edited for a lot of papers during the last 40 years. Call him lantern lighter Boss.

I mentioned to Boss how crackpot corporate buffoons who call themselves editors and publishers are still--still---talking about charging to visit their newspaper websites! As was mentioned on this site some weeks go, the only thing for papers to do is to pull entirely off the web. This will ensure what they used to have: exclusivity. (And the NYT media columnist agreed, by the way.) Papers should go heavily local, adopt a populist anti-power-elite tone and agenda---"raise hell," as the late Jim Bellows would say---advocate on behalf of the underdog, dog the mayor and city council, bark at overdevelopment, density, gangs, traffic. They should add huge consumer-complaint sections, helping to bring back their reputations as places that people could turn to for help.

Anyhow, in response to the news that idiot editors are still yapping about charging to visit their paper's website, Boss had this to say:

"I know. It shows how desperate these guys are that they'll come up with something like that. It will be interesting when the scholars write the newspaper's obituary. There were a lot of things they could have done. Like:

_ Shelved the outdated delivery model that put the papers in the hands of winos, drug addicts, social deviants and tons of other people who just didn't give a shit if it got there or not.

_ Stopped pandering to corporate stockholders who demanded insanely high returns every quarter and said we're going to have to invest in the new technology.

_ When they finally did put those web sites up, actually updated them during key traffic periods and been ready when a big story broke.I read a story on a study that on Sept. 11, after everybody saw the planes hit the towers on TV, they immediately went to their computers to read more about it. The result, the candy-assed newspaper sites all crashed. Or if they didn't people quickly noticed that they were being run like a print newspaper and wouldn't be updated for another 12 hours.

_ Hadn't been so arrogant after beating back challenges from radio and TV, which never really could compete directly with them anyway, that they thought this silly little toy called the Internet certainly couldn't hurt them.

_ Those and about a hundred other fuck-ups.

"There were no visionaries."

DYING NEWSPAPERS, PART TWO:
Lamplighter had further discussion with Boss, beginning with "Billionaire Eli Broad" (as he is usually identified) and his remarks about how he might be interested in buying the remains of the L.A. Times even though, as he said, "I am not sure it can be a national paper, or have the same aspirations it once had."

Broad is chirping without a bird. The last thing the L.A. Times should do is try to be a "national newspaper!" Them daze is gone with the breaking wind. What a howl. Nobody seems to get it. Nobody seems to grasp that newspapers need to get tough, get irreverent, get gritty, get funny, and cover the hell out of their home towns. Start over. Expect huge circulation drops, and build from there. Here is what Boss had to say:

"Yeah, I saw Broad's statement too. That seemed so silly because all that national newspaper nonsense amounted to was the Times trying to prove it was just as good as The New York Times. It's like they don't realize that that game is over and now they're simply in a struggle to survive.

"That's exactly right, too, when you say newspapers have to become a friend of the community. When they had a monopoly they could get away with being rude, indignant and full of themselves. But those days are over.

"And no one in journalism has really addressed that issue yet: That in recent years hardly anyone in the community really liked the newspaper anymore.

"The local businesses hated it because the ad reps were rude and gouged them because they knew they could tell them to take it or leave it because there was no other vehicle in town for them to advertise in that got that kind of exposure.

And of course everyone hated the reporters and editors because, as a general rule, most reporters and editors are rude, mean, petty bastards who no one really likes anyway.

"And they didn't like the delivery people because they were just lazy jackoffs who didn't care if the paper got there or not, who drove on the wrong side of the street to deliver it and who, if you complained, might toss it on your roof just to show you they could.

"Then you'd read the paper and there would be no sense of humor or humanity, nothing to endear you to it.

"So now that the paper is in desperate shape most people, I think, don't really care. They figure they've got the Internet and Facebook and twitter and all that other stuff, so who the hell needs it. They will discover they were wrong once it's gone, I think, but their misunderstanding now is natural. As Sean Penn said, he realizes how hard he is to like. Newspapers are the same, they just don't realize how hard they are to like.

"When I was in Chicago I read an interview in a local magazine with Ron Rappaport who once was an L.A. Times sportswriter and then a Chicago Tribune sports columnist before going into writing books. Some big shot columnist had just been fired by the Tribune. Not Mike Downey but someone else.. Rappaport said that even though the guy was good nobody would care because nobody in town, or at the paper, liked him. He said Mike Royko may have been a curmudgeon but if you approached him in a bar he'd sit down and have a beer with you, and that was one reason everybody liked him. Newspapers lost almost all the Mike Roykos years ago.

"I remember back at college, one of my professors used to go on about how newspapers being taken over by big corporations would ultimately be a terrible thing. I never quite got it at the time but it became obvious after a few years in the business. As the prof said, you may have loved or hated guys like Hearst and Pulitzer but those were their newspapers and they were going to run them as they saw fit.

"When the corporations took over, the publishers kowtowed to the shareholders who demanded 10, 15, even 20 percent returns on their investment when people in any other industry were happy to get 5 to 10 percent. They just saw the thing as a cash cow and the publishers were too stupid, or cowardly, to tell them anything different. So they went along for the ride as the corporations finally ran those cash cows into the ground.

"Instead of visionaries, you got guys in fancy suits with expensive haircuts and corporate jets and country club memberships who either had no clue what they were doing or were too frightened of giving up the good life to say anything. Or maybe it was a little bit of both."

Now you know why LL calls him "Boss."

MIKE MARTH
I didn't know Mike Marth well, and I hadn't seen him since the 1970's when I heard he died at 72. Marth was a sort of San Fernando Valley beat/hippie-ish poet who somehow snagged a day-job at the Valley News and Green Sheet in the 60's, editing what they then pathetically called the "Teen Page." This was the paper's sort of wretched concession to rock 'n' roll and pop culture coverage in those days. I met Mike in 1974, sometime after I started work there as a copyboy. He was the amiable, shaggy-black-haired features editor, but I think he had a sort of independent contract that gave him a degree of autonomy. Which is perhaps why he was able to begin a Sunday tabloid section at the paper called "Inside The News," and it couldn't have been more at odds with the sensibilities of the Republican publisher and button-down managing editor (who were both liberal-minded enough to allow it, nonetheless.) Marth must have intended Inside to be a sort of literary/commentary/investigative magazine, and the idea of such a thing being found in the pages of the provincial Valley News was no weirder than finding sushi on a Denny's menu. I tried to write a few pieces for it, though I certainly had nothing very mature or weighty to offer. Yet Mike always encouraged me, and I recall one incident in which he responded to criticism over a piece I had written by declaring, rather pointedly, "At least he THINKS!" I took that as encouragement, and you see some of the results on this website, for better or worse. Mike long ago moved to the Midwest, and was still writing poetry, last I heard. He always struck me as a good guy with a generous heart. Thanks for the push, Mike. Sorry I never got to tell you while you were here.---RR.


GRAN TORINO
Of course, "Milk" is the PC movie of the moment. Sean Penn is undoubtedly as good as everyone says he is in portraying San Francisco Supervisor/gay community leader Harvey Milk, murdered by a looney colleague (no need to print his name here.) And there is even a sex scene to enable gays to accuse repulsed heterosexuals of "homophobia!" Oh, yeah, and everyone is also raving about the Nixon/Frost flick, but Lamplighter remembers the actual horrific murder of Milk and the actual horrific near-murder of the country by Nixon. . .so why would he want to see these things again as fiction?

The movie to see, in the not-so-humble critical opinion of LL, is "Gran Torino." Yes, Eastwood hams it up every now and then in a sort of aged "Dirty Harry" way, but Your Illuminator loved every second of it. Yet this is no law-and-order/kill-the-bad-guys romp. It's not only powerfully acted, skillfully directed, operatically moving---it's an important movie. It is one of the few films in recent memory to portray gangs as what they are: a blight that cannot be corrected through social work. ("American Me," which earned Edward James Olmos a death sentence from the Mexican Mafia, comes to mind as another.) True, a lot of kids who get into gangs would probably like to get out at some point. The miraculous Homeboy Industries in downtown L.A. is the obvious proof of that. But gangs are tribalized criminals and the slaves of organized crime, and on the whole, social rehabilitation of these people is a liberal's pipe dream, nothing more. Eastwood knows it, "Gran Torino" writer Nick Schenk probably knows it, and the movie makes it clear.

Folks, we have too long lived in a bizarro world where gang "lifestyle" has been celebrated, exalted by media. Rappers, hiphoppers, homeboys have had near dominance in popular culture in terms of fashion, film iconography, and so-called music for twenty or thirty years. From Snoop Dog on down, these figures are emblematic of nothing but debauchery, violence, banality, mysogeny, brutality, narcissism, threat, guns. It's about time that a movie came along and condemned this vile crap in no uncertain terms.

You know, to hear government, law enforcement, and media talk about gangs, you'd think this was a problem along the severity of rain, or traffic congestion. "The gangs," "gangbanging," "the gang problem" has become as much a cliche as a TeeVee Weathermannequin's "offshore flow." Does anything ever change? Haven't you been reading and hearing about gang murders most of your life?What is ever really done to combat it? Answer: nada. It is accepted, like potholes and Mayor Villaraigosa's crass philandering.

In watching "Gran Torino," LL was reminded again that Bush's "War on Terror" could not have been more misdirected. The cities and suburbs of this country are infected, infested with terrorists---in the form of gangs. Think of the countless billions of dollars wasted on fighting the nearly mythical "Al-Qaeda," on creating the Department of Homeland Security (which has taken the bold anti-terrorist step of making you take you shoes off when you fly)---and think of what that money might have done to countermand gangs.

Oh, how to do it? Money is forever thrown at fighting "gang activity," you say? True. Money, but not sanity. The only way to stop gangs is to take a cue from Bush, as revolting a notion as that is, and declare war. The National Guard should never have been sent to Iraq, it should have been dispatched to American cities. Neighborhoods from Pacoima to South-Central Los Angeles should simply be occupied by the Guard until gangs are eradicated. All gang members should be arrested on sight and "indefinitely detained," civil rights be damned. What rights do people have when they adopt a life of thuggery? As for the Mexican Mafia, which operates gangs all over the western hemisphere---right from inside U.S. prisons!---well, how insane is that?

Of course, these things have no chance of ever occuring here in the land of the free and home of the brave, so not to worry, Tom Hayden. Government and law enforcement are afraid to take on this problem in any serious way, and who can blame them? There are probably more assault weapons in the hands of punks in L.A. then in the hands of soliders in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then,  Uncle Sam is ultimately to blame, what with Byzantine involvement in drugs and guns via the CIA, and the corporate infestation of government which erased any illusion of community responsibility on the part of most elected officials long ago. And let us not forget the cheapening of all human experience by demographic calculation (greed as a science), engendering apathy and entertainment-addiction (read: complacency, haplessness.) It's all part of the same decay, the same devolution. And yes, it is true that rebuilding the education infrastructure is the only real shot this society will ever have at ever recovering any semblance of health. But the fact remains that gang members are savages. Tribal savages whose ethos of death and brutality does not belong in a civilized society. And "Gran Torino," thank Clint, makes this clear.

CARNIVAL OF LIGHT
Of course it should be released. What’s the controversy? George Harrison didn’t care for it? Well, back in the ‘60’s, John Lennon pronounced George’s songs “daft,” and sometimes did not play on them. Yet they were released. Harrison’s “Electronic Sound” album is every bit as experimental as “Carnival of Light,” and nowhere near as interesting.

Eh? You don't know what Lamplighter is ranting about? You're reading about this first, courtesy of Your Illuminator? How appropriate. Well, here's the dope: a Beatles recording whipped up for a psychedelic show in London in 1967 still languishes unheard---unless Paul McCartney manages to persuade the other three parties representing "The Beatles:" Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Olivia Harrison to release it. Paulie has allowed in recent interviews that he wants te bizarro avant-garde hoot, "Carnival of Light," to see the day.

Amazingly enough, this has promptly become a matter of controversy, debate. Newspaper columnists are weighing in, left and right. The UK Guardian said recently that releasing the thing would damage The Beatles' legacy.

You know, I don't think an H-bomb could damage The Beatles' legacy.

Releasing that earlier version of “Huckleberry Finn” found in an attic a few years ago sure destroyed Mark Twain’s reputation, didn’t it? Releasing the “Devil’s Trill” prelude of Chopin---a short, fairly insane, dissonant outburst probably written during a high fever---has forever tarnished all the works of Chopin, right?

The sad thing about “Carnival of Light” (lovely title!) is that it has become so legendary, and now such a. . .cause. It was just a goof. A chaotic free-form improv to illustrate a light show, done in madcap spirit. In short: it was fun.

And it is also sad that McCartney is using it to once again trumpet how he was the first Beatle to take an interest in the avant garde, not John. Yawn. So what. It’s not so unusual to take an interest in avant garde music. Millions have done it. Yoko beat Paul to that punch, and John Cage beat Yoko, and Varese beat them all. Who’s on first! For McCartney to endlessly drop Stockhausen’s name as a means of touting his artistic sophistication is just embarrassing. The world is well aware of the varied musical abilities and achievements of Sir Paul.

If “Carnival of Light” is released, it will, of course, fetch massive publicity and rivers of serious reviews---which is too bad, considering it is not a serious piece of music (no matter how Paul colors it.) It should have been a no-brainer to put the thing out with no great fanfare long ago, perhaps on some special Beatles occasion, as a lark.

Yet it is true that the track does have historical interest outside of it being a Beatles work from the sixties, as it really was a sort of precursor to Lennon’s “Revolution # 9” sound collage, to the extent that bits of “Light” show up in “Num-bah Ni-eeen.” (How ironic, then, that McCartney was luke-warm to “Rev. 9” when Lennon enthusiastically played it for him during the “white album” sessions.)

Yes, “Light” should be released, but not strictly as a piece of music. Better to issue it according to its original purpose, which was to illustrate another work. In other words, McCartney and “The Beatles” should commission someone to produce an animated film as free form as the music to accompany the release. “Fantasia” it, in other words, a la the film’s abstract opening sequence, set to Bach’s “Tocatta and Fugue” in D-minor.

But the chances are that Yoko, who can't stand McCartney's incessant self-promotion campaign, and Olivia, being true to George's taste (he opposed releasing it on "The Beatles Anthology," will keep "Carnival of Light" in the dark for now.

IRAN FROM THE TRUTH
Your Illuminator is flickering nervous over all the new talk about an Obama strike against Iran. That person reputed to be so careful, restrained, pragmatic would possibly be plotting to "de-nuke" Iran makes you wonder if maybe they know for a fact that Iran plans to use the damn Bomb. LL put this question to lantern-lighter Og Oggilby, who wrote back:

"Yep, gotta remember that these mullah types HATE America. They believe that the West is an abomination in the eyes of Allah and it is meritorious to attack us. And when they see us killing Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., it confirms their fear that the Great Satan is bent on destroying Islam. It was the presence of U.S. troops on Saudi soil that drove Osama bin Laden over the edge.

"That said, Bush and the war profiteers have looked upon the war on terror as a gigantic profit opportunity, wasting vast sums of money and taking or ruining vast numbers of lives. Of course, the inequities and repression in many Muslim countries make them prime breeding grounds for terrorists. We've done nothing but make matters worse. We are seen as an evil presence. And our alliance with the faux nation of Israel remains a constant outrage.

"We could have used that Iraq war money for diplomacy, education, social and economic development and won friends throughout the region by taking an approach of justice and compassion. Instead we are the leading source of death and destruction. America is the beast that stalks the world, leaving financial and ecological ruination in its path. But that's what America is all about. Greed, profit and power. At least that's what it has become.

"Maybe that nice Mr. Obama will change that to some slight degree. I doubt it. Biden let slip what the script will be:

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/20/biden-obama-tested-world-months-administration/

"The mullahs, the militant Israelis, the U.S. war party, none of them will change their stripes. We're gonna ride this baby into oblivion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcW_Ygs6hm0

"Fun, huh?"