Laramie: Ten Years Later. [source]

Last night’s performance of Laramie: Ten Years Later here in Austin was at the Zach Theatre, and the proceeds went to OutYouth, an organization which I’ve mentioned previously and which I care a great deal about. As a long-time OutYouth volunteer, I’m incredibly grateful to the cast and crew who volunteered their time, and to all the folks who came.

I went to see Laramie: Ten Years Later last night. It was heart wrenching, both for me as a person, and for the me who is a professional historian. The past is effaced so readily. One episode of 20/20 full of garbage, and half the country believes that one of the most famous hate crimes of the recent past was no such thing. Believes instead that it was a drug deal gone bad. Nevermind that one of the killers is in jail saying — still — that he dislikes homosexuals, spewing hate about Matthew Shepherd, telling people the deceased was some pedophile (a rumor started then discredited). Nevermind that the more repentant of the two men convicted maintains it was absolutely about the man being gay. Nevermind the trial, recorded, documented, transcribed. The police records. The retired detectives and the retired sheriff who maintain they heard those men say those things. They know better. We know better.

Incidents like the one in Laramie are horrible, but they are lessons. We cannot let them go unlearned. The lesson is that bigotry is alive and well. The people of Laramie are no worse than the rest of us, and if there is danger in Laramie, Wyoming or Burkburnett, Texas for certain kinds of people, it is because certain kinds of people are not valued as they should be, and they are at risk not only in those places we might call outposts, but in our whole country.

People need some measure of safety. And I’m not talking touchy feely group therapy safety, I’m talking the assurance that when you walk across the grocery store parking lot, you will not be attacked for who you are. This is perhaps the least we can offer each other. I see acts of courage and bravery from people around me every day of my life. I will not believe that acts of brutality are inevitable. I will not believe that we cannot continue to build a society that is more just, that is kinder, that is braver, that is stronger. We are still learning. We have to be.

American Studies, the discipline in which I am most firmly grounded, often becomes a critique of the United States — and it should be, as there is much improvement, always, to be made in any institution. However, I think it’s important to remember the value of the project. The notion that everyone deserves a fair shake, that “all men are created equal” is a profound notion, and it, like many of the ideas right there at the beginning of this grand experiment, is a principle I personally value immensely. If nothing else, the salience of these ideas demonstrate to me the strength of the project. The United States may be a work in progress, but it’s a grand project. Many of us disagree about key issues, and I’m grateful for that even when it frustrates me. But I refuse to be cynical about the people around me. I do not believe the people of this or any country are cruel or stupid. We may not have it right yet, and we may never, but I believe that we can continue to work for that more perfect union. It is not destiny or fate. It is a project, and it is an immense one. Incidents like the one in Laramie should not serve as a condemnation of anyone, but instead a reminder that democracy requires vigilance.

Last night’s performance — which took place in dozens of theaters across the country and around the globe — is based on a similarly ambitious project undertaken by the WPA. The Federal Theatre Project created jobs and theater, and at one point staged 22 simultaneous performances of It Can’t Happen Here. The work of the Tectonic Theater Project and the work of the Federal Theater Project both have in them a faith in the power of the arts to effect change and to form national consciousness. Although the Matthew Shepherd Act has yet to be signed into law, no one can dispute the impact of Shepherd’s death, the subsequent media coverage, the tireless work of his parents, and, of course, the now years of performances of The Laramie Project.

While the conclusion of last night’s production is ambivalent — some change has occurred, but perhaps not enough — I hope that the production is not a conclusion, but instead another call to action for all of us. Cultural change isn’t magic. It’s not the course of history or the tide of fate. It’s the work of a whole bunch of regular people.

Film still from Ready? OK! [source]

I have been a volunteer at OutYouth (a non-profit providing services to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning and ally youth in the central Texas area) for quite some time. One of the things I have done as a volunteer is work on film programming for the drop-in center. In seeking out films that address GLBTQ politics and issues, it became very obvious how few films short of the PG-13 or even R rating there are that feature queer characters.

I think it’s a real shame that younger folks and their families rarely if ever have the opportunity to see films in the theater that address GLBTQ politics and issues. I’ve worked with the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival and OutYouth to have a screening of Ready? OK!. A full description of the film is below.

If this even remotely interests you, please come. Not only is this an opportunity to come see a fun movie and eat brunch at the Downtown Alamo, it’s also an opportunity to support two fantastic non-profit organizations that do a great deal of work in and around Austin. The screening is this Saturday, August 2 at 1 p.m. Tickets are $10 general admission or $5 for AGLIFF members. Children 6 and up are welcome with parents or other grownups (I have a note about age appropriateness for kiddos down near the bottom — feel free to ask me any questions you might have about this). Tickets can be purchased in advance at the Alamo site, where you can also watch the film’s trailer.

SYNPOSIS:

Andrea is a single mother in Normal Heights. Her son Joshua is a smart, happy and enthusiastic ten-year-old, but she worries that he’s on the wrong track. With each summons to the Mother Superior’s office at Joshua’s private school, Andrea searches for answers to a nagging problem: How can she convince him that aspiring to be on the cheerleading squad, relishing the art of the French braid and calling Maria von Trapp his most influential role model is just not what little boys do?

In this quirky take on the modern family, one woman must strip away all her preconceptions to seek a kind of peace with herself and her son. Some hard advice from her gay next-door neighbor Charlie helps Andrea turn her focus in the right direction: inward. Embracing Joshua’s individuality rather than fearing it might be the only answer, but can she do it?

A note on age appropriateness:

Like most independent films, Ready? OK! is unrated. We hope that this will not deter you from bringing younger family members and friends to the screening.

Ready? OK! provides an excellent opportunity to discuss gender, sexuality, and family relationships with younger family members, and provides a sadly too-rare opportunity for families to see a film that addresses issues of gender and sexuality in the theater. The film contains some brief rough language, an instance of junior-high bullying based on gender performance, and a brief reference to drug use.

Based on these factors, we recommend Ready? Ok! for ages 10 and up. This is not a definitive evaluation of the film’s contents, and we are happy to provide more specific information if you are uncertain whether or not the film is appropriate for a child in your life.

Beth Ditto for Evans. [source]

As I know a number of stateside women did last night, I stayed up a bit late waiting for Beth Ditto for Evans to launch. The line has created quite a stir around the fatosphere. Ditto’s designs are some of the first plus-size clothes to be trotted out as part of a celebrity brand by an actual fat celebrity (Jessica Simpson jeans, briefly available at American retailer Avenue, made just about zero sense, and plus-size supermodel Emme’s brand was just plain pedestrian). The collection for Evans is full of nods to late ’80s/early ’90s style, which is pretty true to form for Ditto, who appears in the advertisements for the line, including the one above.

What becomes of the line will be interesting, and I suspect that the powers that be in the retail world will be watching closely to see how quickly the clothes are snapped up. There’s been increasing clamor for more stylish clothing for plus-size women, and the Beth Ditto collection is a strong step in that direction. While I could do without the cat t-shirt (couldn’t we all?), most of the pieces hit a good mid-point between Ditto’s over-the-top outrageous personal style and plain wearable.

Charlotte Cooper of Obesity Timebomb bought a skirt from the line this morning, and refers to the launch of Beth Ditto for Evans as “a queer fat cultural moment.” Her post on the shopping experience is informative, but I would particularly draw attention to the final paragraph:

I share Cooper’s ambivalence, and, like her, ultimately found it too hard to resist the seduction of a chance to buy actual clothes designed by an actual fat woman who’s actually ok with how she looks. Beth Ditto is an outrageous activist for fat women, and in a world filled with role models like Kirstie “I was Disgusting!” Alley and Oprah “How did I let this happen again?” Winfrey, we need as many Dittos as we can get. We need to reframe health as something less appearance based, and we need to reframe fashion as something that could conceivably fit onto an average female body.

If you’re interested in these kinds of issues, I recommend some of the following:

• Gabi writes about fat fashion at Young, Fat, and Fabulous. [link]
• Fatshionista’s LiveJournal community is full of fat fashion across the spectrum. [link]
• For more on body image, check out Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose. [link]
• And, for fascinating writing about the way the medical field and media distort health and nutrition studies related to fat, try Junkfood Science. [link]

Edit to add: Fat Girls Like Nice Clothes Too! has an excellent picture post covering most of the items in the collection. [link]

Michael Jackson in his famous red jacket. [source]

Like people aroudn the world, I just finished watching the public memorial service for Michael Jackson. The range of people involved in what I can’t help but describe as “the production” really drove home just how widely and deeply Jackson’s death is being felt. The family and friends who organized the event managed to create an event that felt intimate and personal while still providing an occasion for public catharsis, the latter being necessary not only to placate die-hard fans in mourning, but also to allow for the kind of public reflection that certain deaths require.

It goes practically without saying that Michael Jackson’s death is very sad — almost all deaths are. However, his death is also very significant. In addition to being an occasion of deep personal loss for his family, friends, and colleagues, and for a global community of fans, Michael Jackson’s death is also one of the occasions that I think most brilliantly illuminates the political, cultural, and historical value of pop culture and the people who produce it. Michael Jackson mattered, and he will continue to matter for decades. The body of work that Michael Jackson has left behind is more than a body of great pop tunes — although it is certainly that as well. Rather, Jackson leaves in his wake significant changes in American and global popular cultured.

It was Michael Jackson’s work that forced the integration of MTV. And, while MTV now have been relegated to cultural irrelevancy, the significance of the channel in the early 1980s is difficult to dispute. The whiteness of MTV had significant implications for the sales and popularity of individual songs and of artists. It was both a hitmaker and a starmaker. Jackson’s “Billie Jean” took MTV by storm — a hit so big it simply couldn’t be ignored. [source] The video and the rest of the videos produced for Thriller helped make MTV not a national sensation, but a global brand. The relationship was mutually beneficial, and Jackson attained a level of global superstardom afforded to very few.

Jackson launched trends in music, in fashion, in film, and in television. He shaped the entire aesthetic of a nation for a number of years, and contributed directly to the globalization of popular culture. To be dismissive of Michael Jackson is to be dismissive of mass culture in the most vulgar way imaginable. To try to make sense of American culture without acknowledging the significance of Jackson would be ridiculous. As his death passes into tabloid farce, perhaps there will be attempts to do that. That would be a shame, though, and I hope as we move from grieving in the present to writing the history in the future, the records will accept Jackson as a significant player in the development of popular culture.

More immediately, I hope the public outpouring of grief can serve as some comfort to his family. As controversial as Jackson remains, even in death, there can be no doubt that he was deeply beloved.

And, on a less somber note, a round up of links:

• Scorpeze has an excellent post about the musical and artistic significance of Thriller.* [link]
• Erin Bradley has a roundup of Craigslist posts referencing Michael Jackson. [link]
• Qool DJ Marv’s “Minding Michael: Part One” mix* [link]
• Guardian’s liveblogging of the memorial [link]
• Gawker’s live coverage (including some great images) [link]
• “The Persecution of Michael Jackson” by Ishmael Reed [link]

*Via Jay Smooth.

I’ve been plugging away on my department’s upcoming graduate student conference with. The banner above is the one I designed for the web site, which is the first web site I have ever designed.

The graduate student conference put on by the Department of American Studies at UT is the first conference I ever presented at. The 2009 conference will be the third time I have worked on the event in an organizational capacity. Although the conference is academic in nature, we have had a variety of types of work appear at the conference, ranging from documentary films to creative writing projects. If you or someone you know might be interested in the conference, please pass along the site. The conference will be September 24-25, and the full CFP is available right here.

International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum kick-off in Ottumwa, IA. [source]

I’ve been rather absent from the web because I was preparing for and then executing a research trip — the first of what I suspect will be a fair number related to my dissertation work. This particular bunch of travels took me to Chicago and to Ottumwa, IA.

In Chicago, I was dredging through a few volumes of RePlay at the public library (the only place outside the Library of Congress that has any back issues), and in Ottumwa, I was conducting the first round of oral history interviews I plan to complete. Folks in Ottumwa were incredibly helpful, and I wound up being able to cram seven interviews into two days — all scheduled in about a week. So, in addition to feeling incredibly grateful to everyone in Ottumwa who took the time to talk to me or otherwise help me out, I’m really excited about the work I’m doing.

The reason I went to Ottumwa is that it was the home of the infamous Twin Galaxies Arcade and scoreboard and a number of people who were involved in Twin Galaxies are still in the area. I interviewed Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day, former Twin Galaxies players, current chamber of commerce executive director Terry McNitt, and former Ottumwa mayor Jerry Parker, who was the mayor who declared Twin Galaxies the video game capital of the world back when. I owe the whole community a debt of gratitude.

Ottumwa has been in the news as of late because of the efforts of folks in Ottumwa to build an International Video Game Hall of Fame and Museum. [story] It was definitely worthwhile to be in Ottumwa in the midst of renewed interest in the city’s claim as a key point in the development of video gaming, and I will be following the hall of fame efforts with great interest. If you’re interested in the hall of fame campaign, I recommend joining the Facebook group. And, if you’re interested in a short video of me talking about my research, there’s one right here from KTVO 3.

Queen bees go head-to-head in Bring It On: All or Nothing. [source]

As is often the case when I find myself any place where cable is readily available. I stayed up entirely too late last night watching television, sucked into a movie I would have never deliberately viewed. Last night, the film in question was Bring It On: All or Nothing, the third installation in the Bring It On franchise. As is the case with most teen films, the plot here is fairly straightforward. In All or Nothing, preppy, perky, pink-clad Britney Allen (Hayden Panettiere) moves to a less than affluent neighborhood and high school when her father is faced with a paycut and office relocation. Forced to give up her position as the cheerleading captain at Pacific Vista, she finds herself an outcast in the meaner hallways of Crenshaw Heights. She tries out for the cheerleading squad and enters into a battle of the queen bees with Crenshaw cheerleading captain Camille (Solange Knowles).

Now, there is little exceptional here plot wise, but the racial politics of the film are interesting. In some instances, stereotypes play out without commentary, but at other points the characterizations slip easily into satire. The wealthier students at Pacific Vista are nearly uniformly white and blonde with one Asian-American cheerleader. The campus is filled with lovely seating areas and sushi carts. An hour away at Crenshaw, the student body is almost entirely African-American and Latino/Latina, and the cafeteria food looks markedly unappealing. However, when Britney finds the sole table of white students in the cafeteria and sits down, relieved, the white students, too, reject her, leaving the table immediately. In another scene, Britney’s Pacific Vista quarterback boyfriend hassles her new classmate and cheerleading squadmate Jesse (Gus Carr), who is delivering pizza to Britney’s house, saying, among other things, “Your job sucks.” These scenes and others make clear that the more salient cultural clash is one not of race, but of socioeconomic class.

While race remains a key topic throughout the film, it comes up most frequently in reference to Britney’s whiteness, and when Winnie (Marcy Rylan), who has replaced Britney as captain at Pacific Vista, launches into a racist tirade, the other wealthy teens uniformly reject her. One of the most interesting moments in the film is a confrontation between Britney and Winnie in front of the competition that has mobilized the entire plot. When Britney defends her new squadmates, all of whom are African-American or Latina/Latino, Winnie calls her “white trash.” The insult galvanizes Britney and leads Camille to re-accept Britney onto the squad (she had previously been kicked off). The interpellation of Britney as “white trash” fully aligns her with her non-white peers, and the insult in the context of the film is read doubly as both racist and classist, with the class insult carrying more weight, as Britney’s whiteness has been discussed throughout the film by her Crenshaw classmates.

The deployment of the term “white trash” in All or Nothing is interesting to me because it requires audience members to have a relatively sophisticated understanding of the intertwining of race and class. “White trash” as insult hinges on the racist assumption that whites exhibiting specific behaviors assumed to be characteristic of non-whites deserve to be called out — the implication being, of course, that all non-whites are inherently “trash.” This address of race and class politics in a film about cheerleading, an athletic pursuit that persists in the American imagination as a bastion of small-town wholesomeness (read: whiteness) is compelling, and suggests the complex negotiations and discussions that so often happen in seemingly facile genre films.

Marilyn Monroe and her world-renowned mole. [source]

I made it through my visit to the junior high more or less unscathed. The principal did begin to ask me to remove my facial piercing (I have had a monroe for the past 3 years) lest I violate the dress code, but I said I would have to go back to the piercing studio to have it re-set. He then let it slide on grounds that I would only be there for the first hour of classes. I almost offered to put a Band-Aid on it, only because a Band-Aid on my face would be so much more distracting than a diamond stud.

I have never been a big fan of junior high and high school dress codes. When I was younger, this was because the dress code prevented me from dying my hair pink, but now that I am older it is largely because of the way that they work to reinforce standards of beauty and gender and various other things that make me squirm. I have yet to read through one of these codes that isn’t based on deeply entrenched idea of gender-appropriate dressing, and I think that often the codes help train students to be judgmental weasels about things ranging from facial piercings to short skirts. Dress codes enforce a limited level of sameness while simultaneously working to stigmatize rejections of sameness. The most commonly enforced aspect of dress codes seems to be the rules governing the lengths of shorts and skirts, and those particular rules further police girls’ sexuality and provide ammo for teenagers eager to label female classmates as sluts.

Maybe girls shouldn’t be wearing short shorts to class, but, maybe boys should learn how to not freak out any time they can see an extra inch of thigh. Frankly, I think the latter issue is more troubling, as it’s anchored in a set of cultural beliefs about boys and men not being able to control themselves, and women having to serve as the foundation for the sexual morality of an entire society.

The titular characters of Heathers. [source]

As I tend to do a few times a year, I am driving northbound to my hometown this evening to visit my family. On this particular sojourn, I am also speaking to the junior high smartypants English class about Being A Writer.

To say I hated junior high would be a gross understatement. The mean girls of my grade weren’t named Heather — I’m a hair too young for that. No, the mean girls in my grade came in flurries of Melissas and Jennifers and Amandas and Tiffanies. The comedy Mean Girls was based on the book Queen Bees and Wannabees — it might as well be a documentary. The intense loathing with which I reflect on that part of my life has such raw power as to blot out entire years. I probably remember more about what it felt like to be 7 than what it felt like to be 12. I consider this a profound blessing. I disliked high school less, but only degrees so. When I graduated, I hightailed it to college hardly daring to look back, lest I be transformed into a pillar of salt, a high school English teacher,* or some other form that might slow my escape.

I carried a fear of teenagers with me into college. Hiking across campus as an undergraduate, late to class or work or both, I was sidelined by a cluster of teenaged girls yelling after me. I was, momentarily, petrified, but when I turned to look at them, they said only that they liked my hair — of course they did, it was dyed a bright otherworldly pink. While I have spent the past two years volunteering at OutYouth, an Austin-based organization that provides services to GLBTQ youth ages 12 to 19, it took years for me to realize that, now that I am an adult, junior high and high school students are likely not going to be mean to me for no good reason out in public.

And, so, now that I am old enough not to feel skittish around anyone too young to drink, I am going back to junior high to talk about writing. I have wanted to be a writer since I was a child, and while I certainly have pursued other interests here and there, I’ve written continuously in some professional capacity since I was 18. I haven’t loved all the writing work I have done, and some of my own pieces make me wish I could scrape my name off of them like a price tag, but all of the work has helped me figure out what work suits me best and what it takes to cobble together the kind of clip file I can feel good about. That is probably some portion of what I will tell the class tomorrow. I will also tell them that being a decent interviewer requires being a decent person, and that no one is going to discover you, you have to hustle work for yourself.

The decent person thing, though, I think is the real rub. Or, at least it is for me.

*High school education is a great career for people with the correct constitution. I am not one of these people. I am disorganized, impatient, and curse like a sailor.

Flow Conference 2008 sticker I designed.

For the past four years, I have been affiliated with Flow first as a student editor for two years, and more recently as a senior editor. In that time, I’ve served on the editorial board of the journal and also helped coordinate the first and second Flow Conferences, in addition to penning two columns on issues related to video gaming — “The Right to Play: Youth, Video Gaming, and the Law” and “Gaming for the Gal on the Go: Advertising the Nintendo DS” — and helping curate the list of the Top 10 Video Games of 2008.

Working with Flow has meant an opportunity not only to develop as a scholar, editor, and writer, but also to continue to produce scholarship that has in it some of the same impulses that sustain me as a freelance writer producing work for more popular press outlets. Flow manages to do something very few academic publications can — it publishes timely scholarship, which allows the journal to respond efficiently to media issues and events in a way that few print journals can.

For those of you who already know Flow, I can only hope you share my affection for the project, and for those of you who don’t, whether you are scholars or civilian media hounds, I hope you will take some time to check in on it here and there. The issues that Flow takes on including television, transmedia events, social media, and video gaming should hit home for a lot of you.

I love Meatloaf. Not ironically, not in some higher than way, for real. I really love Meatloaf. Why? His voice is amazing, every single one of his albums is a marvel of high-end production values, and his videos are off the charts excellent. See that video above? Do you see how much stuff happens in it? There are explosions, and motorcycles, and Indiana Jones style artifacts, and a hot babe in some flowy dress.

Pretty much every Meatloaf song is an epic. The sweeping narratives and stirring choruses that characterize his whole catalog suggest the world’s best rock opera ever. My favorite song is probably “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” but “I’d Lie For You” is still pretty rad.

I am in love with Keith Olbermann. Between the above and the rant I posted earlier in which he berated anti-gay marriage activists for being bigots, I just want to give him a big hug.
YouTube will probably pull the clip, so watch it while you can.

So, the sound quality isn’t so great, but the premise is provacative, but handled well — he avoids suggesting that being gay is bad, just that sticks to griping about how frustrating to have his family make assumptions about his sexuality while lampooning stereotypes of gay teens. I have volunteered at OutYouth, an Austin-based nonprofit that provides services to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, and questioning youth for over two years, and I’ve seen a lot of the youth I work with get super frustrated about the stereotypes. I maintain that there’s billions of ways to be queer, just like there are billions of ways to be straight, but, I’m not sure how that helps you deal with a family of well-meaning folks who are convinced you’re running a little light in the loafers.

On a separate note, Republic of Barbecue got a little shout out from Levi Asher of LitKicks. Yay! I contributed to LitKicks for a long time through high school and college. I’ve fallen off since starting graduate school, but I still value what was one of my very first homes on the internet, and I try to keep in touch with Levi when I can. The site is recommended reading if you’re interested in literature.

“Crop: 1997-98″ by Roxy Paine. [source]

When I was young, my grandmother on my father’s side lived in Seymour, Texas, where she maintained a garden that occupied her entire backyard and produced everything from apricots to okra to poppies. From the poppies, she harvested seed, which she used to make huge batches of Czech kolaches from a family recipe which has been lost to my generation, as she cooked by touch and had much smaller hands than those of us American-born city dwellers in her bloodline. Like most folks my age who grew up here in the U.S., I was exposed to more than a little of Nancy Reagan’s bizarre, inarticulate “Just say no!” campaign — a campaign which resulted in such farcical situations as me playing, at age 7, a drug dealer in a musical about saying no to drugs. And, so, one day in my grandmother’s garden, I asked my mother if those vivacious red flowers sprouting in grandmother’s garden were, you know, illegal. Although my mother assured me they were not the kind of poppies one goes making drugs out of, in retrospect it seems quite possible they were.

Someone I follow on Twitter recently posted this old Michael Pollan piece about gardening, poppies, and the war on drugs, and I have to suspect. (Note: This piece is old enough that Pollan is nowhere near as smug as I normally think of him being, and I’m therefore comfortable recommending it.) The flowers in my grandmother’s yard most likely came from some envelope or other somewhere labeled “breadseed poppies,” and as Pollan discovered, breadseed poppies are the same flowers that produce opium and its derivatives. The DEA never kicked my grandmother’s door down, so the answer remains uncertain, but like I said, I have my suspicions.

When I lived in Houston, I saw an exhibit by the artist Roxy Paine, which included a piece like the piece above — a brilliant field of poppies meticulously replicated in synthetic materials. I’ve heard the piece interpreted as commentary on addiction, or of how something sinister lurks inside a beautiful plant. Maybe that’s true. But, to me, it and some of the other pieces in the series pose an explicit question of the wisdom of trying to regulate so many things that grown of their own accord. As the tension has ratcheted up in the war on drugs, the laws have become increasingly specific and easy to violate. The knowledgeable growing of opium poppies, it seems, is viewed as not too far removed from the knowledgeable set up of a meth lab. If the DEA comes kicking down your door, and finds a bumper crop of hallucinogenic mushrooms out behind the garden shed, how do you persuade the powers that be that you didn’t know what they were, or that they were there? Who, exactly, would believe you?

And, as to that second-grade play, it is titled Pinocchio, Don’t Smoke That Cigarette and appears to still be in circulation. It features not only a whole bevy of songs that, in true 1980s fashion, equate all drugs from alcohol to heroin, but a song about how awful candy is called “Empty Calories.” There is, apparently, no sense of moderation or even basic pleasure in the world of the titular character, Pinocchio Jones — whether you’re shooting smack or sucking on a hard candy, you’re pretty much screwed.

E.T. for the Atari 2600.

I recently snagged a working Atari 2600 on eBay, but could not for the life of me get it to play nice with my old TV/VCR combo. I tried these very helpful directions, but apparently I was overthinking it — my TV is just old enough that these directions don’t actually apply. My friend Andrew finally sorted it out using the enormous pile of cables, cords, and transformers I’d accumulated in my several failed attempts (as an aside, I’m sure this is exactly why RadioShack is still in business).

The game above, E.T., is among those that came in the lot. E.T. (the game) is frequently referred to as the worst game ever made. It was designed in 6 weeks in 1982, and its abject commercial failure likely contributed to the video game industry crash the subsequent year. I haven’t played E.T. yet, but I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually. The industry crash of 1983 is ostensibly the terminal historical point for my dissertation project. While the exact dates of the video game arcade’s “golden age” are debatable, it’s rare to see anyone make an argument about the period extending past the crash. It’s a terminal point that’s hard to dispute.

The above video was shot on University of Texas. One of the big problems with the University of Texas campus is that everyone is completely jaded about wacky things happening on campus. If you watch the video, you’ll notice that faced with a large, inexplicable song-and-dance number, the average UT student is completely underwhelmed and just continues walking to class. At the end, the performers barely have an audience. The whole shebang was coordinated by Doug Mellard and Chuck Watkins. Mellard’s brother Jason actually defended his dissertation in my department (American Studies) 2 days ago.

Regardless, it’s the last week of classes with finals kicking off next week. Last year, I had to take my qualifying exams right around now, so the end of the semester was incredibly stressful despite no longer being in coursework. This year, all I have to do is grade some tests next week. I’d much rather be on that side of the red pen — or, in reality, regular pencil.

I love Marianne Faithful. A lot. I love her voice. I love how well she’s aged. And, most of all, I love her attitude — she manages to seem somehow world-weary and cynical but basically happy.

When I spoke at Rice in March, I was speaking mostly about the changes in notions of dropping out, running from 1960s commune living or biker movie bliss to Gen X McJobs. The students, for the most part, seemed a little horrified. I asked them what they wanted out of their lives, and as an assembled group, they arrived generally at money and power. Those have never been the things I wanted, and so I always feel a little sad when I hear those as primary goals, partially because I think they’re the sort of things you can never have enough of and are therefore inherently unsatisfying as goals. I want to be successful, sure, and happy, but I want those things on terms where I get to have an interesting life and time to think and learn and explore.

The connection between these two things is the song above. “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” was written by Shel Silverstein and recorded first by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show (other favorites of mine), but it was Faithfull’s ravaged voice that made the song. For me, “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan” is a record of what not to do. Don’t live your life such that you wake up at 37 and realize you’ll never have the life you dreamed of. And, I suppose, I’d advise that even if what you dream of is money and power. I’m thinking about this because this morning, I woke up to the first day of 27. And, while I don’t usually write much personal here, I just want to note that I hope in another 10 years I wake up in an equally good mood, regardless of whether I’m wealthy or powerful, and I hope that I still feel like there are all sorts of possibilities coming up — even riding through Paris in a sports car with the warm wind in my hair.

Despite being featured in the self congratulating baby boomer epic that is the Big Chill, “A Whiter Shade of Pale” is one of my favorite all-time songs. The film on this particular copy of it is from the original 16mm, and has some intense 1960s-ness going for it.

Dr. Fredric Wertham warned of the dangers of comics for young minds. [source]

Be advised that it is Free Comic Book Day, and you should therefore go to your local comic store and pick up something — for free. While the assortment varies by store, and not every comic book store is on board, there are all kinds of fun titles available, including a bunch of stuff that is totally appropriate for innocent young minds (well, at least in my opinion — Dr. Fredric Wertham might disagree).

The image above is Wertham’s pioneering book about the ill effects comics had on young minds. The publication led to a Congressional hearing and ultimately to the Comics Code. Like the MPAA and RIAA ratings that most folks are familiar with, the comics ratings were and remain and industry-driven ratings system. At the pinnacle of its strength, the Comics Code served as a de facto censor, and censorship is certainly an accusation that could be lobbed at the RIAA and MPAA ratings systems. The MPAA ratings, in particular, display an anti-gay bias which is socially and politically problematic.

All gloomy history of industrial media censorship aside, though: free comic books. Go get one.

Last Friday, I wound up at a large gay bar in San Antonio for a friend’s birthday. I heard “Womanizer” not once, not twice, but three times in the two hours we were there. Britney Spears seems to be making major inroads as a gay icon, and I hope she sticks with it. Starlets fade, but divas are forever. Just look at Cher. I think “Womanizer” is a perfect club anthem — a repetitive chorus, a good hook, and it’s compulsively danceable. Carry on, Ms. Spears.