|link| Posted 5:16 PM by Brian Linse

Super Tuesday (sigh) Again

It's going to be an easy but painful day at the polls for me this Tuesday. "No" on all ballot props (the easy part), and a vote for either Clinton or Obama (the painful part).

I had been hoping to sail through with a primary vote for Edwards. Silly me. I forgot for a moment that I am a Democrat, and that by definition we are required to put up candidates with little chance of winning the White House. Mondale, Dukakis, Bill Clinton (that's right, without Ross Perot the Big Dog would have lost, too), AL Gore (who managed to lose it even though he won it), and, sweet baby jesus, fucking John Kerry.

So here we go again. After the most disastrous presidency of the modern age, after Iraq, Katrina, and all of the horrors of Bush's Imperial Presidency, we Dems have narrowed it down to Clinton and Obama. Well of course we have.

Joe Donnelly goes into it in a piece in the LA Weekly, though he leaves out the part about how expecting millions of voters outside of New York, LA, and Chicago to vote for a woman or a black man for president might just be a bit too optimistic, even for the dawn of the 21st century.

I guess I'll have to find a way to feel good about the fact that we have made enough progress as a nation to even have a woman and a black man in the running. I'd be happier if they were a different woman and black man, but it is pretty awesome in and of itself.

What will not be pretty awesome is four years of President McCain. I'm really hoping I am wrong about this one...

|link| Posted 6:44 PM by Brian Linse

John Cole, D-West Virginia

Please give a warm welcome to the newest little Democrat in the Blogosphere, Mr. John Cole.

John's been turning tables over and breaking shit in the Republican tent for awhile now. Here's hoping his manners haven't improved and he will do the same in our tent - jeebus knows we need to redecorate.

|link| Posted 11:24 AM by Brian Linse

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

Here's the US theatrical trailer for my new film:


The film opens in NY on October 26th, and will be in theaters nationwide within three weeks.

UPDATE: Opening in LA, Chicago, Hartford & New Haven, NY Metro, Philly, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington DC this weekend, November 2. For Theaters check here.

|link| Posted 3:54 PM by Brian Linse

Josef Zawinul & Jaco Pastorius

I was out of the country last week when news of the death of Joe Zawinul was announced. Zawinul passed away on September 11th in his home town in Austria, but he was an American Jazz musician of the highest order. If you are not a jazz fan you may not know the name, but unless you are unable to hear, you've heard the music; through his significant influence on the use of keyboard synthesizers, or through his breakthrough "hits" with Cannonball Adderley and Weather Report, Joe Zawinul was one of the most important musicians and composers of his time.

NPR has a nice piece on Joe with some worthy linkage, and here is the Zawinul website.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Zawinul many years ago, and attended a few of his famous New Year's Eve parties in Malibu. He kicked my ass at Ping Pong, smoked a cigar with me once, and was persuaded to drop a few memorable stories about his amazing musical career. He was, as anyone who ever met him will tell you, a force of nature. He adored his gorgeous wife, Maxine, and his three sons, Erich, Ivan, and Tony, and was, in spite of his irrepressible Alpha Male personality, a kind and generous soul.

One of Zawinul's most important musical associations was with the great bassist and composer, Jaco Pastorius. Jaco joined Weather Report in 1976 and helped propel the band to a level of popularity rarely attained by jazz musicians. The seminal jazz "fusion" recording, Birdland, from 1977's Heavy Weather, featured Jaco's bass as a lead melody instrument, and provided Zawinul with that rarest of jazz achievements - a hit record.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Jaco's death. NPR is on it once again with a great piece, and a link to this You Tube vid of Jaco from September 28, 1978, about a month before I first saw him live in concert in Boston with Weather Report.

Weather Report, at the close of the 70's, was one of those things - like seeing Hendrix in concert, or watching Bobby Orr play hockey live - that if you never had the luck of seeing it in person you can never really grasp the impact that it had. The prime lineup was Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, Jaco, and drummer Peter Erskine. It is just generally accepted within jazz circles that that was the "baddest" band to ever take the stage, and having seen it I can say that I don't ever expect to experience anything like it again.

The Jaco Pastorius website has a nice page up with remembrances from some notable musicians. My favorite comes from Erskine:

And now Jaco Pastorius and Joe Zawinul, the 2 baddest cats in the universe, are reunited.

Here's hoping that the Universe works that way. In case it does, I won't say "rest in peace" to Joe, because if he and Jaco are together again there's gonna be trouble.

|link| Posted 5:47 PM by Brian Linse

Duh.

Today's *shocking* news of president Bush's commutation of the Libby sentence is having the predictable effect - sort of. The one thing that does surprise is that in the first instant poll that I've found (via Josh Marshall) only 21% support the decision. That means that even if we look at the basement numbers on Bush's approval, some 7% or so of the real dead-enders are not even with the president on this one.

If we take the CW position that Bush did this because he only still holds sway with the hard core, pipe-hittin' conservos, and that there was little political downside in the move, then it would seem that Bush has managed to fuck this Libby thing up as well as everything else he touches. Perhaps some of those 7% were miffed that it wasn't a full pardon? Well, we will all likely get to be *shocked* again at the end of his term when Bush follows orders from Cheney and makes it a full pardon. Bush's "legacy" is already so fucked that one more little hit from this Libby mess won't matter.

And besides, it should now be clear to everyone that Cheney is driving the boat anyway...

|link| Posted 4:50 PM by Brian Linse

Steve Gilliard

At the risk of this blog becoming an obit column, I must note the passing of blogger Steve Gilliard. See Jane Hamsher for a wonderful remembrance.

If you have the stomach for it you will be able to read some vile and hateful things in comments on other blogs. In my humble opinion, if you don't have time to police your comments you should turn them off. To not do so under a circumstance like this is, in effect, a cowardly endorsement. No links to any of these cretins, but I do offer a suggestion that they all go fuck themselves. They can even leave their Pajamas on if they want.

|link| Posted 6:34 PM by Brian Linse

Cathy

As many of you will already have heard, Cathy Seipp died today at 2:05 pm. Her funeral will be Friday at 10 am at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills.

Cathy was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer shortly after I first met her in 2002. She was in attendance at the first ever "Blog Bash" held at my house in January of that year, when there were about 25 -30 political blogs on the radar and Bill Quick had yet to dub the whole mess "the blogosphere". I first met Matt Welch, Emmanuelle, Oliver Willis, and many of the other LA proto-bloggers at that party, but Cathy was a writer whose work I had known for years so her presence was like having a celebrity in my house. She beguiled me that night, and has kept me in her spell ever since. No small feat that, considering that we almost always disagreed on politics.

She was the Conservo-babe of my heart, and I will miss her.

See our friend Amy Alkon's blog for a wonderful collection of links.

|link| Posted 1:50 PM by Brian Linse

Your Liberal Media

Jim Lehrer's NewsHour on PBS has finally been exposed for the rightwing tool that it is.

PBS' "NewsHour" tilts too heavily toward Republican white men in its sources and needs to do a better job promoting diverse points of view, a watchdog group said in a report issued on Tuesday.

PBS defends itself by observing that since Repubs are in power EVERYWHERE it is only natural that they would outnumber Dem/liberal voices on the newscast. That may account for a slight imbalance, but a 2-1 tilt? Homey don't think so. The job of ANY newscast is to provide balance regardless of the current power structure. Some might argue that the Newsies should, in fact, always lean the other way and question the veracity of anyone in power. Baby Jesus knows they certainly did while Clinton was in office.

I'd still pick Lehrer if I absolutely HAD to get my news from the TeeVee box, but this is a distressing trend. Perhaps it just creeped up on them over months of political pressure, but here's hoping that they swing it back to a more balanced broadcast.

|link| Posted 12:55 PM by Brian Linse

Bad News For Republican Pedophiles

There has been a lot of bad news for Republican pedophiles these last few days: the timing (elections around the corner), the truly cinematic irony of Foley having presented himself as a protector of innocent youth, the obvious coverup led by Fat Denny Hastert, the fundamental inability of the Right to deal with internal problems, etc. But perhaps the worst luck of all is that Ken Layne is now guest blogging at Wonkette.

I'm not even going to try to hide the glee that the combination of a Republican pedophile scandal and an actively blogging Ken Layne brings to me. Layne, (who until the excellent website, Sploid went bye-bye, was somewhat limited to writing the best headlines of all time) is a corrupt politician's worst nightmare. I've never been much of a Wonkette fan, but now the site goes onto the 'ol blogroll and will be my first read each day. If you like your Schadenfreude served cold don't miss a day of Layne.

|link| Posted 4:36 PM by Brian Linse

It's Alive!

Apologies to those of you who have been checking in here over the last few months. Though I was working on a film project in New York, I foolishly thought I'd have time to post to the old bloggy thing - occasionally. Not only was I unable to blog, but I was largely unable to even keep up on the news.

I was eventually reduced to getting my news from the daily USA Today that got plopped outside my hotel door each morning, and with which I had about thirty minutes in the car before I hit the office or the shooting location. Not exactly the depth of information I'd grown accustomed to after almost five years of blogging, but it was all I could manage.

It will be some time yet before I feel caught up enough to post on politics, but as it appears that things in the world are even more fucked up than before I'm sure there will be plenty to go on about.

I do, however, feel I can already offer one opinion:

Fuck Joe Lieberman, that sanctimonious, self-serving putz.