The Hard Sell

During a 1945 Duke Ellington radio broadcast included on The Treasury Shows, Vol. 3, the announcer provides this astonishingly aggressive sales pitch:

And now, ladies and gentlemen, let's talk about waste for a moment or two. The Duke's music is much too good to waste. You know that. Anything good is too precious to be wasted. And important things like courage and lives certainly must not be wasted. Still, you in your safe homes can be guilty of wasting American lives.
Ask yourself: Isn't it true that if a man loses his life or a limb because he didn't have that extra bullet that would have killed the Jap who got him, it's somebody's fault that that bullet wasn't there?
[pause]
You've got to admit that.
Now, who can we pin that on? On you perhaps?
Because every piece of equipment in this war starts on its way to the fighting fronts from the United States Treasury. If the Treasury doesn't have the money, someone doesn't get that extra bullet. If the Treasury doesn't have the money, perhaps someone didn't buy that extra war bond. Perhaps that someone is you.

I Am Not Bruce Conner (for B.C.)

1934-2008

Manohla Dargis:

For better and sometimes worse, scores of other filmmakers in both the avant-garde and the commercial mainstream have been influenced by Mr. Conner’s shocking juxtapositions and propulsive, rhythmically sophisticated montage. MTV should have paid him royalties.

Bruce Jenkins, from 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story, Part II:

It would be Conner's singular contribution [to cinema] to remove the viewer from the Brakhagean paradigm -- from a close encounter, that is, with the personal vision of the filmmaker -- and from Hollywood's third-person, omniscient fictions as well. The result would be a completely novel viewing experience that might best be termed "second-person film," continually addressing itself to the experience of "you," the film viewer, through an active reworking of the already coded and manipulated cultural material of the movies. Highly constructed and meticulously crafted from cheap cast-offs, peripheral forms, and eccentric images of his own devising, Conner's work would challenge the very legibility of the medium in any of its contemporary manifestations. Through a break with realism and a defiant insistence on liberating the materiality of film, he would deliver cinema from the protocols of both conventional and experimental practice. No mere formalist, however, Conner deployed his uniquely radical practice, like the Cubists before him, in the service of understanding the cultural and social significance of his materials -- specifically, by unmasking the ways in which meanings are constructed and conveyed in the culture. It was, indeed, an explosion in a film factory.

Happy Days Are Here Again

Earlier this year, in a letter boosting John McCain's conservative bona fides, Bob Dole pointed out "that McCain’s voting record — as measured by support for the president — mirrored that of the ultra-conservative former [now dead!] U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.)." Since McCain seems to be having trouble finding the right people to run his campaign, I nominate Bob Dole.

Back to the happy occasion: I propose the July 4th holiday be changed from one celebrating the Declaration of Independence to one celebrating Helms's death.
We don't have enough holidays celebrating the deaths of major assholes.

Remember this:

On Aug. 3 [1993] Senator Moseley-Braun was in a Senate elevator with two other senators. Senator Helms entered the elevator, saw Senator Moseley-Braun and began to sing, "I wish I was in the land of cotton." Senator Helms then turned to Senator Orrin Hatch, one of the other senators present, and said: "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing 'Dixie' until she cries."

Now, I know it may be un-ladylike, but wouldn't you love to see Carol Moseley-Braun squat over Helms's casket and take a big ol' dump while singing "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"?

Good riddance, motherfucker.

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,

'Til earth and heaven ring,

Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise

High as the listening skies,

Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,

Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;

Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,

Let us march on 'til victory is won.

UPDATE: Perhaps Helms fell dead after someone showed him this:

Barack Obama's promise to make a play for North Carolina -- a state that has consistently voted Republican since 1980 -- might just have some potential to really pay off, a new poll from Rasmussen suggests.

The numbers: McCain 45%, Obama 43%, within the ±4% margin of error. This is consistent with other recent polls that have shown McCain with only a small lead here.